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Show THE CHURCH REVIEW. <br><br> Territorial S. S. Association, <br> Consecration, Cooperation, Enthusiasm. <br> "The only justification we can have in spending the money we do in churches when people are starving is that we may reach their hearts through their environments. It is possible to do so. Little children are most susceptible to harmony and should have full benefit of all that is grand and beautiful that the church offers. I can see a Sunday school room with cheerful grate, carpet, pictures, blooming plants. I had such a room once, but we called it the Kindergarten and used it all the week. Here I have one short hour in all the week, happy if the superintendent does not make it a short half hour. I have not time to sew mottoes, or make clay doves, or sand mountains unless I save time by doing so. Children have such vivid imaginations I do not need symbols. My work is not even to teach the commandments, the don'ts and shall nots of the Bible; not to teach Bible texts or Bible stories, but development; to soften the heart; to quicken the will; to elevate the whole being; to bring them back consciously to the Father from whom they can stray only because they do not fully know. I have so little time I must gain all I can from externals; there must be no loud tones, no light crowds, no clamor, but the utmost reverence, kindness, gentleness; if I have to take the pulpit to get it, or the organ loft. Sensationalism and sentimentalism are foes to spiritual development, like hypocrisy. I shall gain by making each lesson a part of a well studied whole, the unity must be perfect. I cannot wander from one field of the Bible to another. I must make each lesson go on from the last and help on the next. What is the central thought for the year's work? How was last month's work related to the whole? What has come back to me from the work I have done to show there has been growth? What necessarily comes next? What have I been leading up to all this time that culminates now? Today's lesson, about what does it revolve. How shall the opening hymn strike the key note and every prayer and song and story be so filled with this central thought that each helps the others and the lesson as a unit helps the child. Children do not look at things as we do. We examine slowly, and cautiously make up our mind. A child's attention is caught; he takes strongly a single impression and holds it for life. We see things by daylight, he turns the search light of his imagination upon it and has a strong, vivid impression of a small part; he may even see something else, but what he sees that he holds. We must be very careful what pictures we give or seem to give a child. The picture he received must be true in just relation to other things; not monstrous, not bloody, cruel or wicked. Children's comments on many Old Testament stories show they sympathize with those punished and may fear, but do not love God because he punishes the wicked. We must be exceedingly careful in our pictures, stories, hymns, to have no word mislead. It is a terrible thing to drive a child from God. <br> Get some little child to tell you Bible stories and see what impression has been made. The words of hymns should be said with expression and learned before they are sung. Children are not singing the words we think they are. Ask them for the words of common hymns. I heard a child singing so happily, I asked her to tell me the words; here they are: <br> There is a happy band, <br> For few I say; <br> Where saints and sinners stand, <br> Fight, fight away. <br> Remember the symbolism of childhood, its failure to notice differences, its seizing on a little too strongly. We of the Kindergarten find few hymns suited to us and have many of our own. The hymn must be absolutely one with the lesson; the lesson with last week's, and the whole year's course simple and strong united. We need a set of growing lessons for our little ones, dwelling on a few simple things. We can have no finer model than in the Parables; little simple short stories suggested by what they are thinking about; birds, flowers, fruit, seed, bread, the love of family, the homely every day affairs of life. The picture left is always of nourishing, strengthening and cherishing support. Even the talents show that anything is forgiven better than failure to comprehend the divine thought to trust. I think there is so much in the life of Christ for little children that I would only use that in the class of Kindergarten age; nor would I dwell long on his sufferings and death. It is never desirable to excite emotions that do not lead to action." <br><br> The oldest church in the United States is the church of San Miguel, at Santa Fe, N. M. It was erected 77 years before the landing of the Pilgrims on Plymouth Rock, 20 years before the founding of St. Augustine, Fla., and 53 years after the landing of Columbus. <br> It is estimated that there are 48,000 church edifices belonging to all branches of Methodism in the United States, having a total value of $168,000,000. Their total benevolences for the year 1893 amounted to $23,414,238; contributions to missions alone, exceeding $1,000,000. <br><br> |
