Part 1

Transcriber's Note:

Apparent typographical errors, and inconsistent hyphenation, have been corrected.

Small capitals have been replaced by full capitals. Words in italics are indicated by _underscores_, while spaced-out font has been closed up.

References to purely decorative illustrations have been removed.

Text in smaller font (mostly consisting of quotations) has been indented one space.

THE SABBATH-SCHOOL INDEX.

POINTING OUT

THE HISTORY AND PROGRESS OF SUNDAY-SCHOOLS, WITH APPROVED MODES OF INSTRUCTION, EXAMPLES IN ILLUSTRATIVE, PICTORIAL, AND OBJECT-TEACHING; ALSO THE USE OF THE BLACKBOARD, MANAGEMENT OF INFANT-CLASSES, TEACHERS' MEETINGS, CONVENTIONS, INSTITUTES, ETC., ETC., ETC.

BY R. G. PARDEE, A.M.

PHILADELPHIA: J. C. GARRIGUES & CO., 148 SOUTH FOURTH STREET, 1868.

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1868, by J. C. GARRIGUES & CO.,

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States, for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.

WESTCOTT & THOMSON, Stereotypers, PHILADELPHIA.

Jas. B. Rodgers, Pr. 52 & 54 N. 6th St.

PREFACE.

A few years ago the author prepared a little Manual entitled "The Sunday-School Worker Assisted," etc., which was so favorably received as to call for a large edition without any special advertising. What has seemed to be a most imperative call has again come up, from various sections of our land, and from many denominations of Christians, for a fuller and more complete work, illustrated with examples. If our pastors, superintendents or teachers, wished for specific details of all the departments of the Sabbath-school, they complained that they were compelled to purchase a dozen English and a dozen American works, and even then there were important topics of information still unreached. Besides, books written a quarter of a century ago will not fully meet the requirements of an intelligent Sabbath-school man at this day. The cause is making constant progress, and many real improvements have been made during the past few years which are worthy of special record and notice.

Never before has the Holy Bible been so exalted, so taught, so applied, and made so interesting as now. Never before were our best Sabbath-schools devoted to such pure, simple, child-like worship of God as now; and never before was the high and holy aim of _immediate conversion_ of the scholars to Christ, and then their thorough religious training, kept steadily in view, as it is in many Sunday-schools at the present time.

The Sabbath-school, as the true working-field of the Christian churches ("The Bible School," as Dr. Chalmers called it), is now the grand rallying cry of the faithful.

The aim and design of this work is to observe, collate, and condense, as far as possible, the _best_ thoughts, experience, and observation of Sabbath-school laborers and authors, not only in this country but also in Great Britain, and to combine these with the observation and experience of the writer during the last forty-five years. The author is greatly indebted particularly to the London Sunday-School Union publications, and to _The Sunday-School Times_ of Philadelphia, as well as to most of his fellow-laborers and writers in both countries. Gladly would he give credit in every instance, but their works have been so read and their thoughts gathered up, preserved, and noted for use during many years, and their views so assimilated with the author's and made his own, that he is now quite unable to trace them accurately to their right sources. They have become the property of all, and he has appropriated and adopted them into the line of his own thought in the one great work.

The best examples and the best new improvements are here given for the Sabbath-school artist to copy. No one man or school or country embodies them all. None, however, are mere theories. Everything here stated has been tried and proved.

The future progress of the Sabbath-school will be carefully watched, in order to add to or modify subsequent editions of this book, so that the Sabbath-school worker, with no other guide-board but this "Index," may be enabled, by divine grace, to enter the right path and to do a good Christian work in training up the children and youth of his generation.

THE AUTHOR.

NEW YORK, _February, 1868_.

CONTENTS.

I. THE SABBATH-SCHOOL 7

II. HISTORY AND PROGRESS 10

III. CONVENTIONS 23

IV. INSTITUTES 31

V. THE SUPERINTENDENT 39

VI. THE LIBRARY AND LIBRARIAN 53

VII. THE SECRETARY 59

VIII. THE TEACHER 61

IX. PREPARATION 63

X. THE TEACHER TEACHING 70

XI. ILLUSTRATIVE TEACHING 87

XII. PICTORIAL TEACHING 94

XIII. OBJECT-TEACHING 103

XIV. THE BLACKBOARD 112

XV. THE INFANT-SCHOOL 124

XVI. YOUNG MEN AND WOMEN'S BIBLE-CLASSES 145

XVII. THE ART OF SECURING ATTENTION 157

XVIII. THE ART OF QUESTIONING 163

XIX. THE TEACHERS' MEETING 174

XX. VISITING THE SCHOLARS 184

XXI. SYSTEMATIC DISTRICT CHRISTIAN VISITATION 188

XXII. NEW MISSION-SCHOOLS 192

XXIII. THE CONVERSION AND CULTURE OF CHILDREN.--_Children's Prayer-meetings, etc._ 200

XXIV. PREACHING TO CHILDREN 208

XXV. CHILDREN'S MEETINGS AND MONTHLY CONCERTS 212

XXVI. AUXILIARY ASSOCIATIONS.--_Temperance Societies.-- Missionary Associations_ 215

XXVII. SABBATH-SCHOOL MUSIC 221

XXVIII. MEANS AND MEASURES.--_Anniversaries.--Excursions and Exhibitions.--Premiums and Rewards.--Benevolent Contributions.--Catechisms.--Two Sessions.-- Constitution and By-Laws_ 224

XXIX. SABBATH-SCHOOL GUARDIANS.--_Parents.--Pastors.-- The Church.--The Community_ 230

XXX. MISSIONARY AGENCIES.--_Neighborhood Prayer Meetings.--Bible Readers.--Industrial Schools.-- Boys' Meetings_ 237

XXXI. THE QUESTION BOX.--_The Answer Box_ 240

XXXII. MISTAKES OF TEACHERS 248

XXXIII. HELPS FOR TEACHERS.--_The Teacher's Covenant_ 251

I.

THE SABBATH-SCHOOL.

It is a place where the churches of Christ meet with the children and youth for the worship and service of God. It is the Church of God caring for the children on the Sabbath day. Every song of praise, as well as every prayer and reading and study of the Word of God, together with every exhortation, address or sermon, should rise to a high and holy act of simple, life-like, child-like devotion. The place should be comfortable, attractive, light, airy and cheerful. It should be dry and well warmed. The walls may be covered with prints, hymns, and Scripture mottoes; or, as some of our wealthy congregations have done, they may be frescoed beautifully with illuminated texts or paintings representing Scripture scenes, to attract the children to the house of God--to their _Sabbath Home_. Especial care should be taken that the seats provided are adapted in size, height, and form, to all ages and sizes, from the wee ones in the infant classes up to the larger scholars and the members of the adult classes. The three-sides-of-an-octagon form of seat is found to answer well, and is much cheaper than the circular seats. Infant classes will need a room by themselves, and sometimes raised seats are to be preferred. A good blackboard and crayons, with good maps, should be furnished to every room, together with a well-selected library, both for teachers and scholars. Keep on file a few good Sunday-school papers and magazines. It would be well also to have a few reference Bibles and a Bible Dictionary. But the glory of the Sabbath-school is the open Bible, the living Teacher, the Church Militant and aggressive. Said De Witt Clinton: "The Sunday-school is one of the three great powers by which the moral world is to be moved." Says the Rev. Dr. Daggett: "The Sabbath-school is to do vastly more than all other agencies of the Church." Said John Angell James: "In a few years we shall look upon all the past progress of the Sunday-school but as the beginning, as a kind of first-fruits, an earnest of the future of this great institution of the Christian Church." Said the Rev. Dr. Campbell, of the _British Banner_, London: "With respect to countless multitudes, it is mainly the work of the Sunday-school teacher to carry out the command of our Lord to preach the gospel to every creature. The Sunday-school, for the _individual_, for the _family_, for the _Church_, for the _nation_, and for the _world_, is one of the principal mottoes to be inscribed on the banners of the faithful; and many well-meant but feeble agencies on which much religious activity is now _frittered_ away, will, we believe, at length be merged in this grand institution. The conviction is strong in our mind that the Sunday-school Union, as a great central source of light, life, and power, is on the threshhold of a glorious career of usefulness, and will speedily become, in the hands of the great Master, an agency for good to an extent beyond all present appreciation by the Christian Church."

II.

HISTORY AND PROGRESS.

The history of Sabbath-schools is nearly allied to the onward progress of the Church of God in the earth. In all ages, whenever pure religion has been revived, it would seem that especial attention has always been given to the early religious instruction and training of children and youth by the Church of God; and herein lies the grand SUNDAY-SCHOOL IDEA. Says a Scotch divine: "Vital religion, and the godly upbringing of the young, have ever gone hand in hand." The soul is diseased, and a Bible education is the only remedy. In that wonderful BOOK, which extends its record over the long period of four thousand years of this world's history, there is throughout a wonderful regard for children. Of the patriarch Abraham, nearly four thousand years ago, it is written: "For I know him, that he will command his children and his household after him, and they shall keep the way of the Lord." Gen. xviii. 19. With what wonderful power does the history of the childhood of Joseph, and Moses, and David, and Samuel, and Daniel, illustrate the value of the instruction and religious training of children.

When Moses, the great lawgiver of Israel, received the law amid the thunderings and lightnings and earthquakes of Mount Sinai, he called "ALL Israel" together (Deut. v. 1), and by divine direction his words were (Deut. vi. 6): "Hear, O _Israel_.... These words, which I command thee this day, shall be (1) in thine heart: and (2) thou shalt _teach_ them diligently unto thy children," etc., _i. e._, the _Church's_ children--not parents exclusive, but inclusive of course. "Israel," that was called upon by Moses, was the Church of God upon earth, and it is her express duty to the end of time to see that all her children shall be "taught of the Lord." It is true that parents are the divinely-appointed guardians and instructors of their children, and this obligation rests upon them; and yet they are, alas! too often incapable of the religious instruction of their own children or of any other, besides being often indifferent; and the Church of God, by her catechetical or Sabbath-school instruction, has always had, and probably will always have, to supply the lack of unfaithful parents. There is no agency which so supplies the lack of _mothers_ as a good Sabbath-school.

Thus we find in Deuteronomy, nearly four thousand years ago, the great Sabbath-school principle foreshadowed and embodied; and where, we may ask, can be found in all the Bible a more definite authorization or _divine appointment_ for any of the great denominational Christian Churches which now so bless our land than is here found for the Sabbath-school? It is ordained and blessed of God. The Sabbath-school is simply the Church of Christ putting forth its legitimate effort in its most inviting field of action. It is _the_ regular systematic working department of the Christian Church--not an outside auxiliary, but an inside,--the Church itself in action; and as such let it be carefully guarded and cherished. The same Divine lips which said "Go preach," said also and equally to his disciples, "Go _teach_." Says the Rev. J. H. Vincent: "There is just as much divine authority for the Sabbath-school as there is for the sanctuary--no more." Our Divine Lord and Master himself repeatedly astonished his own disciples by his particular notice of and care for little children, and with sore displeasure he rebuked his followers for hindering them from being brought to him.

It was not until nearly the close of the second century, or, according to Tertullian, in the year A.D. 180, that the Christian Church felt compelled, in order to check the defection of heathen converts, to set about the establishment of those celebrated catechumenical schools, of which Origen was one of the catechists, for the systematic religious instruction by the Church of Christ of the children and youth.

So useful and necessary, however, did this work prove itself to be, that very soon similar schools were universally established. They continued to flourish until near the close of the sixth century, when they declined and became obscured for ten long centuries in the gloom of the Dark Ages, with only an occasional prince, or pastor, or layman in the spirit of the Master, to teach the children the way of life.

In the sixteenth century, however, on the dawn of the Reformation, Martin Luther established his celebrated Sunday-schools at Wittemberg in the year 1527; and soon after John Knox inaugurated the Sunday-schools of Scotland, "with readers," as the history of Scotland informs us, in 1560; so that on the incoming of the Reformation the children were again "taught of the Lord." In the year 1580, Borromeo, the pious Archbishop of Milan, established a system of Sunday-schools throughout his large diocese in Lombardy.

In our own land our Pilgrim Fathers early entered upon the work; for Ellis, in his History of Roxbury, Massachusetts, says: "In 1674, 6th 11th month, is the first record of a Sabbath-school." The records of the Pilgrim Church in Plymouth, Massachusetts, inform us that a Sabbath-school was there organized as early as in 1680. Joseph Alleine, the author of the "Alarm to the Unconverted," opened a Sabbath-school in England in 1688, and many others might be mentioned in both countries in succession. But the first Sabbath-school of which we have any _authentic, definite, and detailed_ account, extending over a period of a quarter of a century, was that established by Ludwig Hacker in Ephratah, Lancaster county, Pennsylvania, as early as the year 1747. It was continued uninterruptedly during a period of more than thirty years, until the building was taken for a soldiers' hospital in the time of the Revolutionary War. It enjoyed precious seasons of revival, and had its children's meetings, and we are informed that many children were hopefully converted to God. We have before us a long letter from Dr. Fahnestock to the Rev. W. T. Brantley, D.D., of Philadelphia, written in 1835, detailing many interesting facts connected with the history of this Sabbath-school, drawn from living pupils and records.

Robert Raikes instituted not only, but _organized_, the SYSTEM of Sabbath-schools, and popularized them in England, in Gloucester, in February, 1781. All benevolence was single-handed until such men as Robert Raikes and William Wilberforce _organized_ it, and sent it forth systematized on its errand of love, mercy and salvation throughout the world. Before this, as we have seen, there were isolated occasional Sabbath-schools, but their influence was confined mainly to one city, one town, or one church, and expired with an individual. But Robert Raikes "founded Sabbath-schools for the Church universal." John Wesley preached and _organized_. George Whitefield preached, and did not organize. Robert Raikes _organized_ Sabbath-schools, but his predecessors did not do so. And we can in both cases see the important difference. Within the short space of four years from the period when Mr. Raikes established his first Sabbath-school in Gloucester, England, more than one-quarter of a million of children in England were enjoying the blessing of Sabbath-school instruction. All honor, then, to Robert Raikes!

To Bishop Ashbury appears to belong the honor of first introducing Robert Raikes's idea of Sabbath-schools into this country, in Virginia in 1786. How long the school was continued, or what was its influence in Virginia, we are unable to state.

The first "Sunday-school _Society_" was formed in London, September 7, 1785. This was on the system of paid teachers, but when the plan of voluntary, unpaid teachers had become established, this society gave place to the present "London Sunday-School Union," which was organized to meet this change on the 13th of July, 1803. Both of these societies were formed on the union plan, including the various denominations, the first including an equal number of Churchmen and Dissenters in its management.

The First-day or Sunday-School Society in Philadelphia was organized in 1791, and Bishop White was its first president.

We learn from a carefully prepared editorial in the first volume of the "Sunday-School Teacher's Magazine and Journal of Education," published in New York, 1823, that after a careful personal interview of the editor with the parties, he had been enabled to ascertain the precise time and the circumstances under which the first Sabbath-school was commenced in New York city. Mr. and Mrs. Divie Bethune had spent part of the years 1801 and 1802 in England, where they had observed the progress of Sunday-schools in Great Britain; and on their return, in connection with their pious mother, the late Mrs. Isabella Graham, they arranged their plans, and "in the autumn of 1803 these three Christian philanthropists opened the first Sunday-school in New York for religious and catechcetical purposes, at their own expense, at the house of Mrs. Leech, in Mott street." Mrs. Graham and Mr. and Mrs. Bethune then established two other Sabbath-schools in other parts of the city, and soon after one for the children in the alms-house in New York. It is to the same source, too, that _adult_ schools owe their commencement in this country, or at least in New York. Mrs. Graham, it is stated, opened the first adult school in Greenwich, in 1814, on the second Sabbath in June, only about two months before her death. We are thus particular to state these facts, for we are aware that a later date has been insisted upon for the inauguration of the first Sunday-school of New York.

Samuel Slater opened a school for his operatives in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, in 1797. The Broadway Baptist Sabbath-school, in Baltimore, was established in 1804, and it is said to be still in operation. Mrs. Amos Tappan (Miss Buckminster) opened a Sabbath-school in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, in 1803. We do not learn that the Churches and organized Christian bodies took hold of the Sabbath-school movement in this country, so as to _produce_ permanent and efficient _action_, until 1809, when we find an elaborate constitution and plan of action from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. In 1810 a Sabbath-school was organized in Beverly, Massachusetts, and in Boston in 1812. Soon after this there began to be a more general and awakened interest in the Churches in behalf of Sabbath-schools, and the years 1814, 1815, and 1816 were years of most triumphant progress, so that in 1817 Sunday-schools were organized in most of our flourishing churches and Christian communities throughout this country.

Early in 1816 the New York Sunday-School Union was established, and is the first and oldest Union in our land, having just celebrated its semi-centennial. The American Sunday-School Union was organized in 1824, to provide a juvenile Christian literature (and from whence our public school district libraries borrowed their first idea) and to plant a Sunday-school wherever there is a population.

Surely, if any work in our land needs to be hastened, it is that of the religious instruction of the neglected children and youth of this nation by means of Sabbath-schools. Not to mention the various modern denominational movements, the above we believe to be a correct history of the Sunday-school progress, and we suppose it to be sufficiently full for practical purposes in this work. We have ample materials on this subject to fill a large volume, but this may here suffice.

There are other questions, however, which ought to be here recorded in connection with the progress of the cause. In Great Britain the work is embarrassed from the fact that as a general rule only the children of the poor and middle classes attend their Sabbath-schools. In the early stages of the Sabbath-school movement in this country the same custom prevailed here, and it is certainly worthy of record by what means the change was effected.