1913 Wholesome Words - page 3

Ill

THE ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES OF A

SCHEME OF LESSONS FOR A SUNDAY SCHOOL.

Owing to the very short time we have the young people under our instruction in our Sunday Schools it  is [im-possible to teach them very much.  If a child remains with us for seven years, passing through all the classes, that is equal only to about three months’ instruction in a day school.  If a

scheme of lessons were Scriptural, and we adopted that scheme, it would have the advantage of enabling us to make the best possible use of the limited time we have with the children ; it would also prevent teachers going over the same ground again, as is most likely done in our present way of teaching, as the children move up into the older classes.  It would also do away with that irksomeness which comes from lack of variety, and would be calculated to promote interest in the children, affording opportunity for giving them a more complete grounding in the knowledge of the Scriptures than is now possible, and helping to prevent haziness of ideas in the teachers.

On the other hand it is to be feared that a scheme of lessons would not be altogether good ; if it prevented haziness it might tend to promote laziness, and hinder the exercise and develop-ment of the varied personal gifts that God has given us, which would be very undesirable.  We are not all alike, and it is practically impossible for us all to work in one groove.  It might also tend to hinder the operation of the Holy Spirit in connection with the salvation of souls.  While there is a general sameness, there is also an almost infinite variety in the means used by the Holy Spirit in arresting, arousing, and regenerating poor sinners.

The great aim before us in the work among the young is to get them saved and led on in the ways which be in Christ.

For use in obtaining this desirable result God has given us the whole of Old Testament Scriptures (2 Tim. iii. 15, 16), and to these He has graciously added the four Gospels, the Book of the Acts, the Epistles, and the Revelation.  God’s way of teaching is precept upon precept, line upon line, here a little and there a

little (Isa. xxviii. 9, 10), but the whole is needed to equip work-men so that they need not be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.

Solomon was a great preacher, and his way of teaching the