The Universalist. [volume] (Chicago [Ill.]) 1884-1897, 1886-11-13
sUNDAY-sCHo0L CATECHIsM.


Following is report to Ohio Universalist
Sunday School Convention in Columbus, by
Rev. @. E. Nash, chairman. The committee
was appointed one year ago.
Your committee, appointed to consider
the feasibility of providing catechism for
use in our Sunday schools, on a new and
improved plan, have attended to the duty
assigned them, and respectfully report:
The object sought in adding the proposed
catechism to the list of Sunday-school instru-
mentalities, is to secure more definite and
more uniform instruction in our schools,
with the view specially to spread and confirm
the Universalist faith. This object has ex-
panded under contemplation, and the means
for its accomplishment have SO multiplied in
our thought, that the word catechism seems
inadequate to suggest the detailed and
methodical course of instruction that seems
to us requisite to the most successful conduct
of our schools.
Your Committee feel that the end of Sun
day-scbool labors should be to make intelli-
gent Christian men and lUomen; by "intelli-
conceptions of the progress of religious
history, with the development of doctrines,
and especially the philosophical and scrip
tural basis of the tenets peculiar to us; and
by Christian we denote those qualities of
moral and spiritual life, which were best
exemplified in Jesus Christ our Lord, and
which vitality unite men to God, their
fr, khair
brother men, with the bonds of a isincere
sympathy and fellowship.
1t appears to us that these great ends, or
some portions of them, are in much danger
of being overlooked and sighted under the
present loose and unmethodical practices
now in vogue in our schools. The best pre-
ventive of this disorder, the best guarantee
of broad and uniform treatment of the
several phases of truth adapted to produce a
full-orbed Christian manhood, we think
would be to put into the hands of teachers
and scholars textbook, in which all these
essential matters should be brought stately
before each class and dealt with in a manner
at once simple aud comprehensive, SO that
every important religious topic, adapted to
gence, shall be several times considered in
the period usually consumed in the passage
of pupil from the infant class to the Bible
class. The lessons ON these topics being
severally brief enough for consideration, one
on each Sunday, besides being required in
the separate classes, should be reviewed by
the superintendent, or other competent per-
eon in fuu eassian of tho schooI And MONA
general reviews should from time to time be
held, thus fixing the salient features of Chris
tian teaching indelibly in the pupils mind
by the Scriptural method of cline upon line,
precept upon precept."
1t is not, however, our plan to set aside the
usual Scriptural study by the introduction of
these lessons; but rather that the time all Looted
to class work should be divided between the
two. And in order that the brief space thus
permitted for the textbook lessons may
serve any useful purpose, it is obvious that
the lessons must be prepared with great skill,
must be brief, pointed, concise, and capable
of delivering their principal contents in a
necessarily hasty survey. 1t seems to us
practicable to accomplish this, Or at least, to
make an approach toward it.
The field of study thus opened up to the
Sunday-school should be, in our Judgment,
inclusive of all those topics requisite to guard
our children from every error, in life and
doctrine, to which under prevailing circum-
stances they are exposed. To attempt a
partial enumeration of the subject thus
coming under notice.
There should be lessons calculated to set
forth the facts and teachings of the Bible.
Its history, its geography, its doctrines
should be indicated in a form that may be
committed to memory, together with some
exhibition of the underlying philosophy and
relations of these facts. In much less com
plete and logical way than we contemplate,
this branch comprehends about all that is
usually taught in our schools.
To guard against the floating suspicious of
skepticism, and in order that the Bible may
take its just rank in the child's estimation,
the subject of Christian evidences needs to be
impressively presented; and the historical,
critical, and philosophical grounds of our
essential Christian faith be shown to the
child's view.
Ahoro shoulu oe, lutther, d wen ulgested
statement of what constitutes Uniyersalism,
both in itself, and in comparison with other
competing or contradictory systems. There
should be no doubt left in the youths mind
as to the peculiar place we occupy among the
denominations, as to our broad negations
and grand affirmations.
Following this, as its foundation, there
- 80 A.
arguments in behalf of our peculiar views,
that is, of the philosophical and Scriptural
bases of UniveFsalism,-as subject 80 obvious
important that we would suppose it could