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

-Duty of the Church
for the benefit of the children, is the requirement of a regular
recitation from the catechism of the denominations to which
they are attached. These examinations occur, commonly, at
intervals of several weeks, during which there is no pretence
of actual supervision by the official overseers. The formularies which are to be repeated by rote, mostly comprise a
system of theology arranged as a science, and composed in
technical phraseology. When these sententious definitions
are duly committed and rehearsed, the maternal offices of the
Church are discharged, and the nurslings are dismissed, with
perhaps some common-place advice, until the next recurrence
of the ceremony. Now, we have no hesitation in saying that
such exercises, unaccompanied by plain exposition calculated to enter the understandings of the young, and without
a faithful aim to reach their hearts, are not only without any
present profit, but are likely to engender an aversion from them
which may end in an invincible misesteem of this portion
of the standards. Under the most faithful and popular conducting, these brief examinations must be meagre and superficial, and in all respects inferior to the practical, constant,
and exclusive services of the Sunday school teacher. Formerly many children in our congregations had no opportunity
of access to religious influence, excepting such as the catechetical class might afford. Their parents, even the pious,
were often satisfied that they had met their obligations by requiring their preparation for their tasks; and if not pious,
they sent them as one of the acts of courtesy, which the moral
world deems fit to be occasionally shown to the institutions of
religion. For all these deficiencies the Sunday School should
be welcomed as a relief, and if not adopted as a substitute, yet
admitted as a better scheme, to the spirit and mode of which
the old one should be made to conform.
As a means of grace, too, which has been peculiarly blessed to the teachers who undertook the service before their own
conversion, it is of great moment that an anxious eye should
be kept upon this class of the congregation. To decide that
professors only should have charge of the schools, would discard a vast number of efficient teachers, and remove them
from an influence which has been so remarkably favoured.
Besides, a disposition that inclines persons to engage in a service of this nature, almost certainly implies the existence
of some degree of inclination to attend to the claims of religion, and in this state of mind they are most likely to be
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