no pastor can be permanently successful if not in sympathy with the young. he must be the pastor of the children, accessible and attractive to youth, and must give a cordial recognition and a kindly word as he meets them. as an aid in this, make a register of their names and a careful study of their faces, so as readily to recognize them; and carry with you cards with scripture mottoes or other little souvenirs of a pastor’s love and interest to leave with them. the most successful ministers of the present age are, as a rule, active sunday-school workers. of several eminent pastors it was written some years ago: “the venerable dr. tyng, as is well known, attributes his great success largely to his long-continued and unwearied personal attention to his sunday-school. he is never absent from his home school. rev. s. h. tyng, jr., uniformly conducts the closing exercises of his home school, and also the friday-evening meetings of the teachers of all his four schools, thus by indirection reaching the twelve hundred children who in turn are taught by these teachers. dr. howard crosby takes up the lesson on wednesday evening, and preaches regularly to the children on sunday afternoons. dr. richard newton, who has an almost world-wide reputation as a children’s preacher, takes up the sunday-school lesson at his weekly service, attends his teachers’ meeting, and preaches regularly to the children of the parish. dr. john hall goes each sunday morning into his home school and believing in ‘hand-shaking as a means of grace,’ takes each teacher and scholar cordially by the hand. he lectures each wednesday evening on the sunday-school lesson to a well-filled [p. 75] church, the audience having long since outgrown the lecture-room. he conducts in person a monthly review in his home school, questioning each class on the lessons of the preceding month. he presides at the monthly or bi-monthly sociable of the teachers of his four schools and conducts on saturday afternoon a ladies’ bible class which the lecture-room is too small comfortably to hold.” these are, indeed, rare men, but they show the wonderful power that pastors may wield by sympathy with the young, and by wisely-directed bible study among them. indeed, the preparation of a sunday-school sermon, by compelling simplicity of statement and aptness of illustration, is a valuable discipline for the preparation of ordinary services.
hints.—1. in public address or prayer let your appreciation of the sunday-school as a sphere of church work and religious power be always manifest. make it prominent among the subjects of prayer both in the pulpit and in the prayer-room. exhort and instruct the church respecting the necessity of securing for it cheerful, attractive rooms and an ample apparatus in music, library, papers, maps, etc. the interest and liberality of a congregation in this depend greatly on the interest manifested in the pulpit. 2. use careful effort to form the adult members of the congregation into bible classes, and thus connect them personally with the school. this can be done to a much larger extent than is supposed, and the results are of the highest value. it enlarges the biblical knowledge and enriches the experience of the adult part of the church. it brings to the school the moral support and influence of this class. it is a means of holding the young as they become men and women and preventing their abandonment of the school as having become too old for it. and it secures a permanent, living sympathy [p. 76] between the church and the school, thus avoiding that isolation of the school which, in many instances, makes it practically a separate interest outside of the church rather than within it. 3. the pastor should let his presence and personal influence be constantly felt in the school; but if he have two sermons on the lord’s day, he should neither superintend it nor, if possible to avoid, consent to take a class in it. it will exhaust him often before the second sermon, and in the end may destroy his nervous power. but he should be often present in the school, talk to it occasionally, and make the personal acquaintance of teachers and scholars, moving among them as a friend and helper. 4. the pastor should, if possible, meet the teachers weekly for instruction and counsel, carefully studying with them the lesson for the lord’s day. the teachers’ meeting will afford opportunity for the consideration, not of the lesson only, but also of all the interests of the school. as a preparation for this he should make himself familiar with the best methods of sunday-school work, that he may wisely inspire and direct improvement. or if it be thought that the helps for the study of the lesson given in papers accessible to the teachers are sufficient, the pastor’s instruction in the teachers’ meeting might take a wider range, embracing courses of lectures on the christian evidences, the introduction to the books of the bible, the scripture doctrines, sacred geography, and kindred subjects. in this case the sphere of the meeting might be enlarged, making it also a normal class, in which the more advanced scholars, as well as the teachers, might be prepared for the teacher’s work. 5. great care is to be exercised respecting the books introduced into the library; for, while much advance has been made in the style and adaptation of books for the young, there are many which are not merely [p. 77] trashy but are positively pernicious. the sunday-school library is an instrument of great power in forming the tastes, the opinions, and the habits of the people, and it is of the utmost moment that the books be pure in doctrine and healthful in moral and religious tone. 6. the sunday-school concert, in which the exercises are prepared chiefly by the school itself, will be of great value if wisely conducted; but care is needed to exclude exercises introduced for sensational effect which may not befit the lord’s day. indeed, it is all-important that the exercise should not be degraded into a mere exhibition, awakening on the part of teachers and scholars only a desire to produce a popular sensation and draw the crowd, and on the part of the people a desire to be amused. the devotional spirit should always be dominant. but in addition to such exercises, it will be profitable to preach a sermon statedly—once a month, or at least once in three months—expressly to the sunday-school, adapting the whole service to the young. it brings the pastor and school together publicly and directly and recognizes the relation of the pastor to it as its chief instructor and guide. but in the sermon, as in every sunday-school address, he should be careful that in attempting to be simple he does not become childish; the former is necessary to success, the latter is a common and fatal mistake.
finally, the hearty co-operation and sympathy, above suggested, of pastor and people with the school will ordinarily avert all difficulty on the question of the relation of the sunday-school to the church; for any school, whether home or mission, which finds itself thus enclosed within the living sympathies of the church will instinctively recognize its position as belonging to the church and under its watch-care and guidance. nor will the other evil, so widespread and unfortunate, of the non-attendance [p. 78] of the school on public worship be likely to be experienced; for the scholars, won by the pastor’s personal interest in them, will be attracted to him and to his ministrations in the pulpit.
