RELIGIOUS EDUCATION

Otago Daily Times, Issue 21360, 13 June 1931, Page 5

RELIGIOUS EDUCATION

By Amplics. S.S. PROGRESS. The current issue of S.S. Progress has come to hand, and is, as usual, full of interesting and profitable reading. The important subject of Sabbath desecration and poor attendance at Sunday School is dealt with in a thought-provoking article entitled “Competing With the World,” by Ernest Hayes. Articles of special interest to superintendents and teachers of all grades are “ The Anniversary,” “ Those Bad Lads,” “ Scholar’s Expression Work,” and “ Preparing the Lesson.” Articles of special interest to workers among intermediate, junior, and primary scholars also find a place in this issue. Our copy comes frpm the publisher and editor, Mr A. H. Reed, who gives in his editorial a cheering message for teachers in this trying time through which they are passing. . .LIFT UP YOUR HEARTS. No one knows better than the average Sunday School teacher how difficult and ■trying is his work in these days. Labouring, perhaps, in an obscure and not very inspiring corner of the Sunday school field, you may feel tempted to feel that your work is fruitless. Your friends, who do not take life so seriously, may talk to you of the joys of week-ending, and local conditions may often suggest that jjour Sunday school is fading out of existence. Now, while it would be foolish to deny that there is not a great deal in the situation to-day that makes optimism difficult, yet a large view of things convinces one that there is a real vitality in the Sunday school movement. Looking below the surface, we see evidence that gives the lie to all this talk about decline and decrease! The truth is, that when we squarely face the situation, there is much to encourage us, and if only we can reequip ourselves to meet the new situation, success —not failure—will be our portion. ,So to every Sunday school worker 1 would say: Sursum corda, “Lift up your hearts.” Here and there it may be that we are losing ground, but on the whole we are holding our own, and some places are pressing forward. Let us face the difficulties of our job with stout hearts and dauntless faith, and yield no ground to the defeatist and the pessimist. Recently I met a depressed teacher who was having a bad time with two of his fellowdeacons who regarded the Suqday school as an old-fashioned and decrepit piece of work that was hardly wqrth serious attention. They were praticularly scornful when he argued that the Sunday school is the most important activity or church life. “You are trying to make the tail wag the dog,” they retorted. Now, we need not avoid a grave issue or dismiss n serious situation by a burst of levity, but I suspect that we often play into the hands of our opponents by taking their arguments jto seriously. Whatever may be said about the dog and its'tail, I recommend my depressed friend to point out that, after all, sometimes the ouly sign of , life about a dog is the wag of its tail! I would rather face a dog. that is wagging its tail , than one that is showing its teeth! . .

Get' rid\of any depression about your Sunday school work by taking comfort in the fact that things are not so bad as they seem. It may be easy for, critics or alarmists to work out the length of life that the Sunday school will enjoy, based on the membership figures of a few annual reports. We wish them joy in working but their , arithmetic. But in spiritual matters, surely, God has the last word to say. From the * day of the Crucifixion, when the Jewish rulers felt satisfied that a dangerous; heresy was safely destroyed, there have always been opponents of Christianity I who have regarded it as dying or decrepit. So with the Sunday school movement. From its inception there have bees,prophets who have talked glibly of its failure—but it has lived successfully through 150 years. Therefore, whatever is said against the Sunday school movement by critics or pessimists, there ia ground for saying to Sunday school teachers, . Sursum corda! —Ernest E. Hayes., CHEISTION EDUCATION IN THE FAMILY. ■ While many' parents give close attention to the Christian education of_ their little children, they seem to relax in the details iof their attention as the children grow older. There are two indispensable qualifications for parents in the Christian education of their children at home. These two qualifications are, a knowledge of the child and a knowledge of Jesus Christ as Saviour and Lord. Many of the developments of child life that disturb and surprise parents need, not do so. if the characteristics and interests of the individual child are brought into comparison with what are known to be the : general characteristics of normal children at any given age.' It will not do lo apply generalisation rigidly to onejs study and training of each child, but it does help the parent to see the child in the right perspective if certain general characteristics of children at certain ages are kept in mind._ The child from nine to .11 is likely to show marked physical development, keen interest in many subjects hitherto subordinate or lacking in his thinking, and a.disposition to ask questions about much that has been taken for granted before. This is pre-eminently the period of verbal and mechanical memory. At this time certain types of habits can be more easily formed than at a later period. It is the period when the dawning social instinct begins to show itself in new ways. It is the period of hero-worship. The newlyawakened interest gives the parents an opportunity to store the mind of the child with knowledge—knowledge that gives ground and background for the growth of religious belief and experience. The father or mother who will not or cannot answer aright) the child’s questions about the Christian faith and life is depriving the child of his spiritual food. The, child’s memory may now most easily bq stored with Biblical passages, the words and music of great hymns, which will play a part as long as he lives in determining his attitudes and ideals. Habits are plastic now. This is a God-given opportunity for training the child in the Christian way of life. The dawning social instinct may be turned to the account of religion if the home is made the centre of a happy social life in which the friends of the children are encouraged to join. The characteristic hero-worsbjp lays a great responsibility on the parents. If the wrong persons are commended and exalted in parental conversation at home, it is to be expected that unworthy “ heroes ” will have their unworthy influence on the children. Now is the time to let the heroes of the, faith, both the older days and of our own day, -loom large on the horizon of the child. Prom now on. through the middle teens, childhood emerges into youth. The physical changes which take place bring peculiarly strong temptations. The greatest need of boys and girls during this period is the sympathetic leadership of older persons. The acceptance of Jesus Christ as Savour and Lord and the influence of a Christian family life are the best safeguards against the peculiar perils which attend the startling changes which the body and mind are undergoing. Because all emotion tends, at this period, to pass immediately into action, it is particularly necessary that every care should be taken to;shield the boys and girls from temptation, and to surround them with only wholesome influences. Happy arc the fathers and mothers who, through the earlier years have established relationships of confidence and companionship with their children. Such relationships will now be put to the severest tests. Hut if V they are maintained they will furnish the groundwork for establishing an independence of moral judgment and of spiritual life in the character of the boy and the girl. Commands which in the earlier years would be unquestionably obeyed, must now be replaced by advice and counsel. Special sex instruction- should be given during this period. Free use should be made of religious biography in the reading of the boys and girls, and by means of pictures, music, conversation, and the whole atmosphere of the home, they should be brought into constant contact with the noblest Christian men and women. During the years of middle adolescence life is particularly open to calls of service, and not uncommonly to -earnest, even though somewhat confused, thoughts about life work. What a climax in this period is afforded to the influence of the Christian home. Christian decision is most likely to occur at the close of the last period or the beginning of this. Now is the time, too, when the claims of Christ upon the lives of those who believe in Him may be stressed. Now is the time when the' challenge and glory of giving one’s life in sacrificial service for others for Jesus’ sake make a powerful appeal. The biographies in the Bible, and

supremely, the life and example of Jesus, missionary biographies, the biographies of other men and women, should be easily accessible on the family reading table, and the boy s and girls should be tactfully encouraged to read them. They should also be brought as much as possible into direct contact with men and women who have given their lives to Christian service. But the father and mother who know their children are not thereby fully qualified to give them the religious education necessary. Many a family where refinement and decency and outward conformity to correct practice are habitual.has no true conception of religion in its plan of life, and knows nothing by experience of Christianity’s inward power. The first essentials of Christianity are faith in Jesus Christ as Saviour and Lord, and dedication to His service. To have this personal faith and to make this personal dedication is to know Jesus Christ. Believe and do as God teaches and wills, these are the foundations upon which the home religious education must rest. Unless parents know the ground of their faith, they cannot avoid a touch of uncertainty. What they do not know they cannot teach. But they can know all that God would have them teach to the children. He has given them to train in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. Are not parents chiefly responsible for seeing to it that the facts of their faith are rightly imparted to their children, and that the message, under the blessing of God, expresses itself in life?