RELIGIOUS EDUCATION.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 21196, 29 November 1930, Page 5

RELIGIOUS EDUCATION.

By Aufuus.

A TRIBUTE TO ROBERT RAISES. America has added its tribute to Robert Raises, the founder of the modern Sunday • school movement. Through the foresight and enthusiasm of a prophet spirit it has had an important and permanent part in the memorials to Robert Raikes in Gloucester, which were dedicated at the beginning of October, to celebrate the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the founding of his Sunday school. The I memorials dedicated wore:—The memorial chapel in the St. Mary de Crypt Church, a bronze statue in the park, and the sixteenth century half-timbered house in - l i ved and worked, and which clf S tt ? slde ® s headquarters of the •B.b. Union of Gloucester. Dr Walter Scott Athearn, dean of the School of -Religious Education and Social Service ?L« Boat T University for 10 years, in ■■f 1926 conducted a party of some 60 American Sunday school workers to Gloucester mi visit the birthplace of the modern Sunday school. In the Church of St. Mary de Crypt he lectured on the hiatorical movements which originated there, wm. which have been of such immense significance to the world. They are, he said,- three. First, the Sunday school movement, which saved millions of English children from the curse of illiteracy, forced England to adopt a free elementary public school system and started the organised Sunday -school in America, a movement now encircling the globe. Second, he *told them, from this cnurch came George Whitefield, the great orator and flaming evangelist, who did so much to revive the church life in colonial America. Third, he continued his lectures in the church yard, where he pointed out the graves of the sturdy Puritan dissenting ancestors of the late Senator George _F. Hoar, of Massachusetts, who made effective m America the principles ‘ he inherited from th» m y • The address was published in Raikea’s G oucester Journal, and it, as a clipping, will be included in a Vellum Book of : Remembrance which will be preserved in caflpd rC «i™ 8 the church. Dr Athearn annnf«t UP “ tieS? ** Ani ! rlca:as Present to: a '-“““Jttee to raise funds to x urniah _a chapel in the church as a n f * bose were the ultimate 2.° ml® benevolent movements. The World Sunday School Assomanage the movement, but declined, it is generaUy be+ia 6 vf- 7 b l?i. tb ? local chucrh, being of slghs lgh Ch «roh party, wished to com Sll? me T? aI to Raikes. who, unlike the others, did not become a Dissenter, but worshipped in this .church to the end, Dr d A?hiT ed But dream of committee was realJ ,iP b *v ee 7 ear > end Robert Raikes, , 3 a “f the suggestion of " one of his years 6 adm i re «. after 150 years, has a chapel dedicated to his memory in the St. Mary de Crypt Church, from which have gone out streams of in- :: V mSZi :o srith“lrtu.?“,4"S r ; j THE PRICE OP HAPPINESS. ' ' i A talk TO BOYS‘AND GIRLS, i .. to buy what we get in this • T rofn musfc pay ? s we go- There’ is a com far more precious than any that is made of Smiles “j fe rs *, of Joy andsorrow, of victory last Jennv’ & pay coin, to the last penny. Not one of us escapes. We live proportion to the wisdom of our spending. If we pay toodeaSr we luccted 6 K r t - We fail; if - we pay .we succeed.. I am measuring auccesn hv withi^? 116 t*u ha ? Pine we store up withm us, not by tie amount we lay by ‘ Mefuf • ■ f bank account is very m of :Po account if we have ? d of ha P? inef » to back it. Riches, ; ErnessT’ out ha PPiness are but c s n make certain of being ,. appy? remembering that its price is love. By love I mean - the very, widest sanest,> deepest sort of love.. iFyou love people you them. A man cannot xr'”i lth love . and cheat his neigh--1 -yar- gai - n material thingsTy daW bnt the price he pays is’unhappy ? e fv Ama ? can rise to power by tramplwe K ar C^Jf n - OW ?.'- bafc he hav « to wear Ais crown m his own empty house, fOT there will be no friends to rejoice at his victory. -The loss of friendship L a !^ r .° tp pay for getting on in the Xl i 3 ea on f 18 snrraunded by friends. When smiles and kind words kre the fare - of everyday, one is likely to forget their Irl Ue f ' j en °? e w H ft alone, when smiles, are forced and words are formal, when there is no warmth m the’tones of those who greet us. llfe iamot worth its price. rt^ IS m nd f lB have little notion of this. They have barely scratched .the surface of life yet. Everything they need is given them. The friends of the family are their friends. The children with whom they play are their companions and ready to hand. Life is to them a / gilt. But all unconsciously they are'buying their .happiness day-by day. What % y P a y fo s the/ get. They get nothing without first haying paid the price.; When JJ ,d People shake their heads, and' say; .Dont dp that. It’s not_good for you, 1 this is what they mean. They have gone over mis road long'ago and know. /■ They are telling you that what you are buying may look like fun, but it is really a cup of: sorrow. Better think. Better buy something else with the coin of your spirit. . - Self-control is high priced. Self-denial is higher even than that. Service is costly: unselfishness comes very high. But the thing they buy i s without money and without price in the market of life. They ' purchase your spiritual content, your deep happiness. Who wants to live cheaply, let him; as for you, be wise. Lay up the sort of treasure that lasts always. Don’t be cheated in the market place. Get your money’s -worth of -happiness; nothing else is worth while. ART IN THE SUNDAY SCHOOL. In .our Sunday 'school on Christmas J-iay the programme included- carols and scripture, readings along with ah address by the minister, and led up to the unveil- ■“? of two pictures of Christ amidst the children. These .pictures are Welcome, for not only are they beautiful, but they give a touch of colour to a room which can scarcely be called attractive. UGLINESS. IS INTOLERABLE. "Why is it that we Nonconformists tolerate so much ugliness? Many of our chapels are little better than barns, and our schools, especially of the old type, are too often like the one described. Even people who height to wear beautiful things and to have them in their homes can be blind to unsightliness in the bouse God, Usually, however, those who are content to carry on God’s work amid such surroundings have lacked aesthetic train- -. .ing in youth. There should be at -least 'one masterpiece in every school, however small. How ' isplendid it would have been if on Christ;aias Day those children I addressed-had '2 « before them a copy of Burne-Jones’s ‘Star of Bethlehem," or of Rolle’s - Nativity.” A few pictures of that stamp . adorning the walls so that Sunday by Sun■day the children’s eyes might light upon : them could not fail to impress. Wo we , c seek to exalt labour in the thought of our youth, and to link it on to religion? What better means could we employ than .a copy of Millet's “Angelus,” Then there ■is Hunt's “ Light of the Wbrld," Leonardo da Vinci’s "Last Supper,” Hoffimann's “ Gcthsemane,” Raphael’s “ Transfiguration,” and “ Christ Weeping Over ■ Jerusalem,”* by William Hole. Most •..schools, if they tried, might each .year secure one of these, worthily reproduced and framed. Should a school be. too poor to do this, some 5 person of means might coine to its V aid. Then at the great church gatherings, the minister or some layman might unfold to the children the wealth of meaning each picture' enshrines. > Of all lovers of the beautiful, Christ stands supreme, and His followers do Him dishonour when they prefer mean things to the best God and the inspired imagination have created. By an increase of good pictures in our schools, we can initiate youth into the mystery of beauty. We can array their religious . ideas in- garments of delight. Thus will ■they find art to be one of the deepest channels along which the grace of God Continually flows.