Public ledger. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1865-1893, 1871-11-24
SUNDAY snHnnL rRAsH.

We do not know what sort Of litera-
ture is used in our Sunday schools, nor
what is the character of the music, if
they have any. We trust that both are
good, but il the former resembles that
which is common in the North, Sunday
schools cannot end too soon. impress
sions made upon the minds os youth are
forever. A Northern paper, in allusion
to this subject, says, and we think justly,
that when we remember that the i'm
pressible mind of millions of children
are more or less toned and warped by
the crude music and pernicious books,
which are imposed upon themin Sunday
schools, this subject becomes one of ex-
ceeding Importance. Imagine the aabby
souls and vulgar imaginations which
children must have who are brought up
on such Sunday slop as this;
"Oboys be strong in Jesus,
To toll for him is gain;
And Jesus wrought with Joseph.
With chisel. saw and plane.
20 maidensl live for Jesus,
Who was a maiden's son;
Be patient, pure and gentle.
And perfect grace begun
This hymn was recently sung to
tune correspondingly detestable, by a
choir of thousand Sunday-school chill
dren, at the Brooklyn Rink, on an occa-
sion when only music of higher char
acter and of greater excellence and use
fulness than is usually taught in Sab
bath-schools was to be given. On the
same occasion hymn containing thes e
stanzas was sung, as another higher
character specimen;
I'VE tread in the might of the Lord Of Hos IS
And we fear not man or devil;
Fer our Captain himself guards we'll our
coasts,
To defend his church from evil.
"And the choir of angels with song awaits
Our march to the golden Zion;
For our Captain has broken the brazen
Andburst the bars Of IRON"
These samples do not exhaust the tri-
umphs of the inventive genius of the
Sunday-school muse, as witness the fol-
lowing comfort for cripples:
1.-THE poor cripple has a chance for glory,
As COED a chance as you or l;
Christ will listen to his story,
lie will hear the cripple's cry.
"He always pities poverty,
And scorns not those wb have to beg
4 His grace for every woe is sufficient =,
One can go to heaven with wooden leg.
This is ip deed cor .soling, but we are
afraid it il not orthodox. Paul says that
flesh an q blood cannot inherit the king
dom CT heaven. How then can wooden
subs titute for flesh and blood inherit it
W suspect that before the author OF the
fabove hymn can make his calling and
election sure" he will have to show thai
one can go to heaven with wooden
head. Too many of our Sunday-school
> books are as insane, sapless, and silly as
the above specimens of Sunday-school
> HYMNS. Those who write them know
nothing about boys and girls, nor human
life. They assume that there are only
two classes of children extant-the
execrably sanctimonious and the
> unqualifedly wicked. Their good
+, girls are always too sweet to be
: wholesome, and their good boys are usu'
ally so mean, sneaking, hypocritical and
; detestabIe that one of them could not
survive half an hour in a playground
, filed with real boys. BE would be and
ought to be inexorably put to death.
The wicked boy of Sunday-school litera-
ture is as great caricature as the good
boy. He goes on for years committing
all manner of atrocious crimes, and
then, in the last page, he is suddenly
converted, and goes straight to heaven
for doing something which no decent
boy would be guilty of doing. 1t is time
Sunday-school libraries were purged oil
such viIlainous stuff.