The Ultimate OBJECT of Teaching
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The OBJECT which Sunday School Teachers should ever keep in view as the ultimate end of all their labors.
To the success of any exertions whatever, it is necessary that the object to which they are to be directed, should be distinctly understood. Any confusion on this point, will be attended with a fluctuation of design, and an imbecility of endeavor, but ill calculated to ensure success.
There is just ground of apprehension, that many who are engaged in the work of Sunday School instruction, are but imperfectly acquainted with its ultimate end.
It is to be feared concerning some, that in giving their assistance to this cause, nothing further enters into their view, than communicating to the children an ability to read and write. In the estimation of such people, these sabbath institutions seem to rank no higher than the ordinary schools, where the offspring of the poor receive the elements of the most common education. Provided therefore they can assist their pupils to read with tolerable facility, and especially if they can teach him to write, they attain the highest object of their desires, or expectations. How will such teachers be surprised, when I inform them that the top-stone of their hopes is but the foundation of their duties; and that the highest elevation of their purposes, is but the very beginning of the ascent, which leads to the summit of the institution.
I admit that where no higher aim than this is taken, though very far below the proper mark, much benefit is likely to accrue to the children themselves, to their immediate connections, and to society at large. Where no effort to form the character, and nothing more in fact is done, than simply to communicate the art of reading, a vast advantage is conferred upon the children of the poor. It is the testimony of inspiration "that for the soul to be without knowledge is not good," and the whole history of man confirms the truth of the remark. The very first rudiments of knowledge, independently of any systematic attempt to improve the character, must have certainly a moral tendency. In the very lowest elements of education, the soul experiences an elevation, and however it may be precipitated back again by the violence of its depravity, begins to ascend from the regions of sense. Ignorance debases and degrades the mind. It not only enslaves the intellect, but dims the eye by which the human conscience traces the natural distinction between right and wrong. "On the contrary," says Mr. Hall, "knowledge expands the mind, exalts the faculties, refines the taste for pleasure, and in relation to moral good, by multiplying the mental resources, it has a tendency to elevate the character, and in some measure to correct, and subdue the taste for gross sensuality." From hence it is obvious, that the very least and lowest end which, as Sunday School teachers, you can propose to yourselves in your labors, is fraught with benefits to the interests of the poor. I wish however to remind you, that simply to teach the art of reading, is the least and lowest end you can contemplate.
Others, as the ultimate object of their efforts, connect with the rudiments of knowledge, considerable attention to habits of order, industry, and morality. They are most laudably anxious to form the character of the children, so as that they may rise into life an industrious, orderly, and sober race. This is of vast importance, and subordinate only to what I shall afterwards propose as the ultimate end of all your endeavors. Much of the peace, comfort, and safety of the community depend upon the character, and the habits of the poor. If society be compared to the human frame, they are the feet and the hands, and how much do the ease and welfare of the whole body depend upon the healthy state of the extremities. To tame the ferocity of their unsubdued passions; to repress the excessive crudeness of their manners; to chasten the disgusting and demoralizing obscenity of their language; to subdue the stubborn rebellion of their wills; to render them honest, obedient, courteous, industrious, submissive, and orderly—should be an object of great desire with all who are engaged in the work of Sunday School instruction. It should be your ceaseless effort to reform the vices, to heal the disorders, and exalt the whole character of the lower classes of society, by training up their offspring in "whatever things are true; whatever things are honest; whatever things are just; whatever things are pure; whatever things are lovely; whatever things are of good report." Then, to use the beautiful imagery of the prophet, "instead of the thorn, shall come up the fir tree, and instead of the briar, shall come up the myrtle tree."
Pleasing and important as such an object really is; delightful as it is to produce in the bosom of a poor man a taste for reading, together with a habit of thinking; and thus teach him to find entertainment at home, without being tempted to repair to the ale-house; delightful as it is to bring him into communion with the world of reason, and help him, by the joys of intellect, to soften the rigors of corporeal toil; delightful as it is to teach him to respect himself, and secure the respect of others, by industrious, frugal, and peaceful habits; to assist him to become the instructor of his own domestic circle, and thus to raise him in their estimation; in short, delightful as it is, to strip poverty of its terrors, and render it at least respectable by clothing it with moral worth—this of itself, and alone, is far below the ultimate object of your exertions. Higher even than this you must look for the summit of your hopes. A man may be all that I have represented; he may be industrious, orderly, moral, and useful in his habits, and still after all be destitute of "that faith and holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord."
Addressing you as believers in all that revelation teaches concerning the nature, condition, and destiny of man, I must point your attention to an object which stands on higher ground than any we have yet contemplated. It is for you to consider, that everyone of the children, which are every Sabbath beneath your care, carries in his bosom, a SOUL as valuable and as durable as that which the Creator has lodged in your own bosom. Neither poverty, ignorance, nor vice, can sever the tie which binds man to immortality. Every human body is the residence of an immortal spirit, and however diminutive by childhood, or dark by ignorance, or base by poverty, or filthy by vice the hovel might appear, a deathless inhabitant will be found within. Every child that passes the threshold of your school on a Sunday morning, carries to your care, and confides to your ability, a SOUL, compared with whose worth the sun is a bauble; and with whose existence time itself is but as the twinkling of an eye.
And as these poor children partake in common with you in the dignity of immortality, so do they also in the degradation and ruin of the fall. The common taint of human depravity has polluted their hearts, as well as yours. They, like you, in consequence of sin, are under the curse, and stand equally exposed to everlasting misery. To them however the gracious scheme of redeeming mercy extends its blessings, and indeed by the express provisions of the gospel charter they stand first among the objects to whom salvation is to be presented; "for the poor have the gospel preached to them." Denied neither the privileges of immortality, nor the opportunity of eternal happiness, so neither are they exempt from the obligations of religion. Without the duties required in your own case, in order to eternal life, they will never possess it. Faith, repentance, and holiness; or in other words, regeneration, justification, and sanctification, are as indispensable in their case, as in yours. Their danger of losing all the rich blessings of salvation, unless great exertions be made to instruct and interest their minds, is imminent, and obvious. Dwelling in those walks of life where sin, in its most naked and polluted form, spreads destruction around—corrupted by their neighbors—nursed and nurtured in vice, in many cases by the examples of their parents—in manufacturing districts, inhaling the moral contamination with which the atmosphere of almost every workshop is laden; how rapid is the growth of original corruption; how luxuriant the harvest of actual transgressions which springs from it—how little likely, without extraordinary efforts, are these unhappy youths, to enter "the narrow path that leads to eternal life."
Such are the children which flock every Sabbath to the schools where you are carrying on the business of instruction. Look round upon the crowd of little immortals, by whom you are constantly encircled every week; view them in the light, which the rays of inspired truth diffuse over their circumstances; follow them in imagination not only into the ranks of society, to act their humbler part in the great drama of human life; but follow there down into that valley, gloomy with the shadows of death, and from which they must come forth, "those who have done well, to everlasting life; but those who have done evil, to everlasting shame and contempt," and while you see them plunging into the bottomless pit, or soaring away to the celestial city, say, what should be the ultimate object of a Sunday School teacher's exertion?
You are now quite prepared to assent to my opinion on this subject, when I thus state it. The ultimate object of a Sunday School teacher should be in humble dependence upon divine grace, to impart that religious knowledge; to produce those religious impressions; and to form those religious habits, in the minds of the children, which shall be crowned with the SALVATION OF THEIR IMMORTAL SOULS. Or, in other words, to be instrumental in producing that conviction of sin; that repentance towards God; that faith in the Lord Jesus Christ; that habitual subjection in heart and life to the authority of the scriptures, which constitute at once the form and power of GENUINE GODLINESS.
Here then you see your object, and you perceive that it includes every other in itself. To aim at anything lower than this, as your last, and largest purpose; to be content with only some general improvement of character, when you are encouraged to hope for an entire renovation of the heart—or merely with the formation of moral habits, when such as are truly pious may be expected, is to conduct the objects of your benevolence with decency down into the grave, without attempting to provide them with the means of a glorious resurrection out of it. To train them up in the way of sincere and undefiled religion, is an object of such immense importance, that compared with this, an ability to read and write, or even all the elegant refinements of life, have not the weight of a feather in their destiny. And the truth must be told, that wherever a religious education is neglected, the mere tendency of knowledge to the production of moral good, is, in most cases, very lamentably and successfully counteracted, by the dreadful power of human depravity.
Sunday Schools, to be contemplated in their true light, should be viewed as nurseries for the church of God; as bearing an intimate connection with the unseen world—and as ultimately intended to people the realms of glory with "the spirits of just men made perfect." To judge of their value by any lower estimate; to view them merely as adapted to the perishing interests of mortality, is to cast the institution into the balances of atheism; to weigh them upon the sepulcher; and to pronounce upon their value, without throwing eternity into the scale.
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