Memphis daily appeal. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1847-1886, 1882-02-15
Re,,x to"soft.uearted Heresx,

To the Editors OF the Appeal:
In an article of the above title published
in the APPEAL on last Sunday, the writer
gives the following reason for not being a
| Sunday-school teacher: 81 am a teacher by
profession, but | teach nothing that life, with
its rush and roar, will silence, that my own
| life has silenced or rejected; plant nothing
that the strong sun of developed reason will
wither up with its touch because it has no
roots" Now, it has been the experience of
thousands, the foundations of whose charac-
| tiers of integrity have been laid in the Sun
day-school, that instead OF finding all they
| learned there wither before the sun of devel-
! oping reason, their reason, in its highest and
| purest sense, has developed through the in
! iiuences OF the Sunday-school Reason is in
separable frem the faculty which indicates to
us right and wrong. The writer is right in
calling this ''the temple not built with
hands, where arise the unutterable inspira-
tions OF justice, mercy and love-" But in
stead OF these better instincts that form our
inner and better nature being desecrated
in the !Sunday-school, they are built
up and strengthened there, so as to be pro-
tected from the evil of a wicked world. As
God has appointed natural protectors to care
Tor the physical man in his infancy, so He
has appointed spiritual teachers to train the
infant soul. Does observation prove that
those who are left to grow up without any
spiritual training, entire liberty being given
to their inspirations of justice, mercy and
love- without any guidance or restraint
against the strong commencement of evil
that these grow to the perfection of manhood?
No. Both experience and the word OF God
prove the truth of the proverb, ''Train up q
child in the way he should go, and he shall
not depart from it," There is in the heart
of a child both good impulses and evil iucli-
nations, and the latter cannot be overcome
hrrt afr Ia Fha
is not done the sinful propensities must
eventually crowd out the better instincts.
Instead OF the writer fearing that some child
will reproach her with the words, ''She
taught me this and it was false
and worthless" beware lest the con-
denim Ition come upon her, when some
little soul hungeripg and thirsting for
a knowledge of right and wrong shall at last
reproach her with the words: Il was an hun
gered and We gave me no meat, was thirsty
and We gave me no drink" and the Master
say, "Insomuch as ye did it not to one of the
least of these, ye did it not to me-" True, it
is not right to feed child with "the strong
Bible food boiled down to insipidity," which
her teaching certainly would be, if she
leaned unto her own understanding in the
work, but il together with diligent and
conscientious study of the lesson she looked
TO Him Tor wisdom, who has said, '.1f any Of
you lack wisdom, ,et him ask of God that
giyeth to all men literally and upbraideth
not and it shall be given him." then her
teaching would not only be understood, but
interesting and profitable. Under such d.
rection she would teach nothing that coming
years will falsify. In the hours Of sorrow
that must overwhelm the heart at times,
what comfort will that boosted knowledge of
the English branches and Euclid be? What
but faith in the sure promises of God, that |
has grown up with the child and has been
strengthened with each succeeding year, can |
sustain in such times. There are times
OF such intense suffering when faith is such
a support to the mind that but for it reason
would be dethroned, and with it all that !
knowledge that the writer boasted would
stand unmoved amid the rush and roar of |
life would be withered as If it had no root. !
\ SUNDAY-SCEOOL TEACHER.
AEERnEES Eehrl1a 1850