DEFINITE ILLUSTRATION. 97 You wish to illustrate, to enforce, and to make them remember this particular thought. You do it by telling a simple story, and tell it as minutely as possible, something in this way. "Children, you know that lions and tigers, and such wild creatures, live far off in the great woods. Men sometimes go after them, and when they find a young lion, or a young tiger, not much bigger than a cat, they catch them, and shut them up in a cage made of iron wire, and when they are grown up, they carry them round in carts to show them. Well, a number of years ago, a large red lion, with long hair on his neck, called the mane, and with bright fiery eyes, was brought along in a great iron cage to show. The cage was iron, so that he need not break out and kill people. It was taken out of the cart, and put in the middle of a great barn on the floor. A great many men and children went to see the lion. Some wanted to see him eat, some wanted to hear him roar, and some wanted to see him strike his sides with his long tail, and some wanted to see the man who kept him put his hand in his mouth. At last an old negro man came. He was a tall old man, with white, woolly hair, and he carried a great cane in his hand. When he came, he walked slowly, and softly, and came up and looked at the lion. After looking a moment, he began to cry. The tears ran down his large black face; and then he began to sing, and jump, and dance all round the barn! People thought he must be crazy. But after he had danced a while in this way, he began to cry again. Now what do you think made him feel so? any of you guess? I will tell you. Lions live in Africa, a place which is a great way off from us. There are plenty of woods there, and the lions live in them. This poor old negro was born in Africa; and when he was a young man, some wicked people came and caught him, and brought him away from his home and his friends, and sold him as a slave. He had never gone back; never seen any of his friends. He had not seen a lion since he came from Africa; and now, when he came to see one, it made him think of his home; his home where he used to see lions when a boy! It made him think of his boyhood, and called up his parents and friends to his mind, and it seemed to carry him back to his own home of childhood. These thoughts made him jump and cry and act so! Do you not now see, children, how that what you do, and say, and learn now, while you are children, will be remembered as long as you live? This is what makes me so anxious to teach you good things. Now I want you all to remember this story of the lion, and the old grey-headed negro; and remember, too, why I told it to you: to show you that what we learn when we are children. will be remembered when we are old people, if we should live as long. Don't forget it." Can 98 TEACHERS MLATING FOR IMPROVEMENT. I may be thought to be tediously minute; but those for whom I write will not be unwilling that I illustrate my thoughts by examples, when I am urging them to do the same to their classes. Almost any simple story will answer your purpose, always supposing it to be true. 6. The teacher must provide himself with some helps to aid him in preparing to teach. Most schools use questions of some kind or other, and in the present state of sabbath school teaching, I have no doubt that this is wise. But this of itself cannot make a good teacher. He should have a bible with references, which he should feel is to be the great interpreter, in connexion with a concordance, so far as obtaining a knowledge of the bible is concerned. In addition to this, he will find other helps, such as maps, diagrams, Geographies, Natural History, Antiquities of the Bible, and the like, of great use. Were I to select a commentary, I should decidedly place HENRY first on the list. For obtaining interesting and rich views of the Scriptures, I think it decidedly the best in the English language. No man can read it daily, without becoming wiser and better. To the teacher, it is almost invaluable. I recollect when I first commenced the ministry, and was teaching a bible class, I rode on horseback, through deep mud, eight miles, to get Henry long enough to examine one single chapter, and thought myself abundantly compensated for time and trouble. For a single book, I know of nothing so useful to the teacher as "The Encyclopædia of Religious Knowledge," a book of nearly thirteen hundred pages, and as a whole, of great and permanent value. It contains what would cost ten times its own price, if the separate books, containing all its information, were to be purchased. Let me beg of the teacher to read some, even if it be but little, every day. No man can live, and forget as much as every man must, and keep up with the times, without reading and filling up the mind. We love a modest man. We love confidence in such ren. The reason is, that they are usually modest in consequence of reading, comparing their views with others, and obtaining knowledge which is the result of experience; while a man who does not read, is in danger of throwing out halfformed notions, crude opinions, and theories which are based upon a false philosophy. A man who does not read, can have no confidence in himself any longer than he is associated with minds similar to his own. Besides all this, a mind that is not improved by reading will soon have used up all it possesses; and when the man finds that his stock is completely exhausted, he is in danger of retiring in discontent, and mourning over the stupidity and degeneracy of the times. The reading of which I am speaking, has direct reference to the lessons to be taught. That reading is always the most valuable which has an immediate end directly in view. PRAYER INDISPENSABLE. 99 7. The teachers' meeting should be punctually attended and made useful in preparing to teach. 66 66 any Since a kind Providence has placed me in the ministry, there has been no part of my congregation in which I have taken a deeper interest than the sabbath school. If I have in any measure been useful to it, and God has been pleased to bless it abundantly in converting its members, it has been principally through the teachers. Our method has been this. We had a long room fitted up, and a table in the shape of a T, capable of holding fifty teachers. At the head of this table I have been accustomed to meet my teachers once every week. The superintendent always sat at my right hand. On this table were laid reference-bibles, maps, dietionaries, &c., as each one chose to bring, always having a good map of Palestine present. I have then requested the teacher nearest to me to read a verse of the lesson; asked him questions, and talked with him about it, just as if in a parlour. If he could not readily answer the question, I say, can any of the teachers answer this question ?" Any one answers, who pleases. Or if he gives an answer not quite satisfactory, or not quite full enough, I ask, “Has any teacher a different opinion?" or, Would teacher add any thing to this answer?" Sometimes these questions lead us into long and deeply interesting conversations; for after I have put the questions relating to each verse, all have permission to question me. And at the end of the lesson, I ask, "Has any teacher any question to ask, which has not been satisfactorily answered?" I have met hundreds of teachers in these meetings, have never seen a meeting which was not deeply interesting, have never seen any thing occur which was painful, disrespectful, or otherwise than pleasant. I can truly say, that some of the brightest hours of my life have been spent with teachers in the teachers' meeting. I have never seen any disagreement among themselves. Each one should come to these meetings endeavouring to bring a teachable, kind spirit; to bring his share of intellectual food which is to make up the feast, and to feel that he is doing all that he can to make the meeting profitable and interesting. A lesson talked over in this way will be taught with great pleasure and profit. I have sometimes been delighted with the illustrations which they have brought in; and sometimes have felt that I was aiding them when they ask, "How, Sir, would you illustrate this and that truth contained in this lesson, to a child of six years old ?" The minister and the teachers who have been unacquainted with the pleasures of these meetings, are ignorant of what will always cheer, encourage, enlighten, and warm the heart. 8. Prayer is indispensable to him who would acquire knowledge in order to be a teacher. 100 PRAYER INDISPENSABLE. Were the question to be asked how you could make even fine linen whiter, the answer undoubtedly would be, wash it in pure water; and the purer the water, the whiter would be the linen. So if you would have the mind clear, and pure, there is nothing like washing it in the pure waters of life. It needs daily and constant washing, too, for sin daily defiles it. Nothing will purify the mind like bringing it into contact with God in prayer; nothing will render it clear like this, nothing will enlarge and strengthen it like this. It is the testimony of all such men as Payson, that they succeeded in obtaining knowledge vastly more rapidly, in consequence of communing with God in prayer. There is another thought which should not be left out of mind. The Scriptures were given by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. He is their author. In order, then, to understand them aright, you must go to the same Spirit for light and teaching. He can guide into all truth, and make you wise to lead others to salvation. Your own comfort as a Christian must droop and die, your hopes become faint and darkened, your faith weak and unproductive, and your love to the souls of men will wax cold indeed, unless you keep your heart warm at the throne of grace. I do entreat my reader never to attempt to get a lesson, never to go to the teachers' meeting, never to go to your class, unless you have first earnestly sought the blessing of God upon your soul in secret prayer. All meetings of teachers should be opened and closed with prayer. All attempts to do good must be founded on prayer. Were I to say what I deem the greatest deficiency among teachers, among Christians, among all who are engaged in building up the kingdom of Jesus Christ, I should say, the want of an habitual spirit of prayer. The mouth that speaks in God's name in the pulpit, the hand that holds the per which writes for the good of others, the lips that pour instruction. into the mind of the child; all, all need to be daily sanctified by prayer. This would shield us in the hour of temptation; this would sustain us when the horizon looks dark and gloomy; this would strengthen us when the heart feels ignorant and desponding, and this would give us the arm of Omnipotence for our aid, the wisdom of the infinite One for our light, and the sweet communion of the blessed Spirit to aid, guide, and reward us. The seed sown in the freshness of the morning, and that which is scattered in the dews of evening, would alike take root, and bring forth fruit, thirty ixty, and an hundred fold. COMMUNICATING RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION 101 CHAPTER VII. Communicating Religions Instruction. No one can feel the responsibility of making the first, the deepest impressions on an immortal spirit, on the subject of religion, without great anxiety. It is difficult to know when we are in the right way; still more difficult to know that we do as well as we are able. The few hints which, in this chapter, I propose to throw out in regard to the best method of communicating religious instruction, will be, I fear, as far from being satisfactory to the reader as they are to myself: that they will be more unsatisfactory I have no fear. Do not begin the work of teaching with a radical mistake; viz. that it requires very uncommon talents to teach children. There are many most valuable men both in our churches and in the ministry, who never make any attempts at tea...ing children because they think they have no faculty for it; that this is a gift of nature which has been denied them, and therefore they can never exercise it. So far is this from being the case, that I believe it to be no more the gift of nature than the talent to express your thoughts to adults. By attention and practice you can communicate your thoughts to old or middle-aged people; and by practice you can just as well communicate them to children. And yet how often do we hear the thought expressed, that it requires" a peculiar talent" to teach children! What a dearth of teachers in most of our sabbath schools, because the impression is so general that but few have this "peculiar talent!" How many, too, would at once leave their classes, and retire from the field, could their places possibly be filled, because they have not this talent! And how many just drag along, year after year, in the school, not expecting, not trying to do much, because they have not this "peculiar talent!" We find some men, by peculiar circumstances, becoming painters, musicians and artists. The taste that made them so is thought to be a peculiar gift of nature. Sometimes we call it hereditary, as for example, when the child of a musician is taught music, and hears music only from his cradle, and grows up fond of music, we call it an hereditary taste; whereas, had this child as early and as assiduously been taught the use of the pencil he might have had an hereditary taste for painting. Till within a short time it was supposed that none could be taught to sing except a few gifted ones who were highly favoured by nature. It is now found that by taking children carly, as great a proportion can be taught music as can be taught to speak |