Keowee courier. [volume] (Pickens Court House, S.C.) 1849-current, 1890-10-02
nY.rMoMPsoN. sMIIrllH y JAYNEs.

ny J. i. SANDERS, ESQ.

ny J. i SANDERS, ESQ.
LADIES AND GENTIRMEN: Metho-
dism is historically connected with
both the initiation md progress e s
tihs modern Sunday School move.
ment. As early as 1859, thirteen
years before Mr.. Raikes had organ
lied his school in Gloucester, Eng
land, ca young Methodist, Hannah
Ball, established a Sunday School at
Wycombo, and was instrumental in
training many children in the knowl-
edgeof tho Holy Scriptures"
In51781 another Methodist woman,
afterward Mrs. Bradburn, the wife
of celebrated Wesleyan preacher,
was conversing with Robt. Raikes in
Gloucester OF the subject of cducat-
ing the young, when he pointed to
tho groups of neglected children in
tho street, and said, "What can we
do for themr She replied, "I4et
us teach them to read, and take
them to church." MI. Raikes was
pleased with the suggestion, and the
two shortly aftcrward led a company
of Sunday School scholars to church.
These children were poor and
neglected street waits, and at that
day such was the indifference of the
Christian community in Gloucester
to the moral and religious condition
of the lower classes, especially tho
children, that this benevolent act Of
these two Christian philanthropists
was met with public derision, and
Icy were laughed ut as impracticable
fanatics.
In,1784 Mr.. Raikes published an
account of his plan and work for tho
religious training of the neglected
children of his town, which immedi-
ately attracted the attention of MI.
Wesley, and he inserted Mr.. Raikes'
article in the Aqmiaian Magazine
for January, 1875, and exhorted his
people to adopt the new institution.
The Methodists, with their charac-
t~eristic zeal and enterprise, instantly
"began to instruct their neighbors'
children, and to 60 with them TO the
house of God on the Lords day"
The same year Mr.. Fletcher began
his work in Sunday Schools, and
continued a faithful teacher to the
day of his death. He had three
hundred children under instruction,
and was deeply interested in their
religious training.
Mr.. Wesley says in 1884: "I find
Sunday Schools springing up
wherever I 60; perhaps God may
have a deeper end therein than mon.
IRE aware of; who knows b. some
of these schools may be nurseries for
Christians {" =, i
Another Methodist, Rev. Row.
land Hill, organized Sunday Schools
in London in 1856.
In 1886 Bishop Asbury introduced
Sunday Schools in America, and
they have continued to be a marked
feature in American Mothodism to
this day.
In 1887 Mr.. Wesley wrote to one
of his preachers 81 am glad you
have taken in hand that blessed
work of setting up Sunday Schools.
It seems these will be one great
means of ~reviving religion through
out the nations. / wonder Satan
has not yet sent out some able cham
pion against them"
We have thus traced, as far as
is necessary for our present purpose,
tho historical connection of Metho-
dism with the institution of Sunday
Schools in England and America.
Under the impulse of its zeal Sun.
day Schools were almost universally
established in all the Wesleyan
Societies, and have since been car
ricd by the same active agency into
all the world, so that Methodist Sun
day Schools arc as universal as
Methodism. ~
A similar interest in tho estao.
lishment of these nurseries of the
church prevailed among all cvangel,-
cal denominations of Protestant
~Christendom, and in three years
after Mr.. Raikes published his account
of the schools at Gloucester, moro
than three hundred thousand chill
dren were receiving instruction from
thousands of teachera in different
parts of Europe and America.
But we will only particularize on
Che church and Sunday Schools and
their influence for the last fifty years
| Of orr life. Tho; frat ;nHuanno r