The Duty of the Church in Relation to Sunday Schools [pp. 377-393]

Duty of the Church
dren will naturally result in its gradual extension to all grades
of the destitute, it will be sufficient to limit our attention to
this preliminary stage. And yet we must, in deference to
human sense and the weakest Christianity, spare an elaborate
argument to prove the value to individuals, to families,
churches, neighbourhoods, and society universally, of having children taught statedly the principles and practice of
religion from the Scriptures; watched over; and visited
with affection and interest, followed in sickness, misfortune,
and separation; by kind, prudent, and intelligent Christian
friends. The proposition is too self-evident to need an argument, and,,is one should think, the object of too much selfl-interest to require enforcement. These services in detail are
beyond the power of any minister, with whatever variety of
gifts he may be endowed, unless he superadd the faculty of
collecting all these classes of persons together in one place,
and instructing them with adaptedness to each case. To a
minister, a faithful association of Sunday School teachers is
the hundred eyes and hundred hands he is often disposed to
wish for, and no human agency is capable of yielding him
such efficient assistance. They supply the loss children have
long sustained in the services of the sanctuary, by imparting
a knowledge of the history and doctrines of the Bible in a
manner which their immature minds can comprehend. They
thus prepare a generation of hearers who are more likely to
attend to, and understand the discourses of the pulpit, in consequence of their novitiate in the schools, and give the best
security for becoming intelligent, stable, and useful members
of the Church.
If the institution be recognised in the rank of importance to
which we have assigned it, it is easily seen that the Church, as
a body, has a deep interest in it, and is called on to he vigilant
of its course. It must cease to be considered an adventitious
appendage to the house of worship. Teachers must be regarded
in another light than as amateurs of the science of school keeping, and must meet with some more cordial recognition than
the unmeaning complacency with which they are commonly
greeted as engaged in a harmless employment, for which
they have some whimsical predilection. The Sunday
School must be identified with the Church as positively
as any of the other external means of grace. It claims
the patronage and prayers of every Christian, and should
enlist their active interest in its support. In it is their
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