The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1893-10-17
HOW TO RUN A SUNDAY SCHOOL.
Mr.. Il. f. Jacobs's Talk to Portland su
perintendents Last Evening.

i
perintendents Last Evening.
AT the Chestnut street Methodist
church last night under the auspices OF
the Portland Sunday School Superin-
tendents' Union, large audience OF
Sunday school workers was addressed by
Mr.. B. F Jacobs of Chicago. the president
of the Worlds Sunday School Convention
that was held at st. Louis last summer.
He was introduced as one of the foremost
| Sunday school workers in the world, and
long before his eloquent address was
| finished his hearers were aware that he
is one of the most eloquent religious
| speakers in the world and also that he is
representative of that same progressive
spirit that not only built Chicago and
the White City," but has started and
maintained a progress in religious work
/ in that section that is unrivalled in the
/ world.
Mr.. Jacobs said thatssthe last time he
| looked into the faces of Portland
audience was when in the presence of DR..
Clark he attended meeting here of the
first and only Up. S. G. E.. in the world
With such an example as this great work
| of DR.. Clark it seems as if the Sunday
schools of Maine ought to exceed in
achievement all others in the world.
If you had the privilege of selecting
four things. said he, addressing the
Sunday school teachers, could tell you
what they would be. If you could
choose your field of labor, you would
select the United States, for in no other
place are there less difficulties, and no.
| where else can a bright young man or
woman accomplish SO much for the
cause of Christ. The home field is the
| best in the world. In proportion as you
are successful at home are you usefal to
| the cause in the whole world
/ If you could choose your profession it
| would be that of a teacher. Why? Be-
cause it is the grandest of all professions
| Jesus who had all power and all wisdom,
| chose to be a teacher.
| If you could select whom to teach it
/ would be the children, because you
| wish to mould the character of some boy
or girl to carry on your work after you
are gone; and possibly the new edition
may be raised, improved and greatly en-
/ larged Found dynasty for yourself
Begin and transmit to future generations
| a noble work for the uplifting of men.
| If you could choose what book to
teach you would select the Holy Text
| Book, for the Bible is the one book, the
| Bible moulds character and that is para
mount, that is carried into the other
/ world
Now the whole Sunday school mem
| bership in this country and
| Canada is 10000 600 and there
are 2,300,OOo teachers. In 1850
| Robert Rex was hiring Sunday school
teachers for shilling day, / can re-
member when they taught the spelling
book in Sunday schools. Now honor all
| the ministers of this country. | love
them; honor them, yet believe that
| God SKINNED the church and poured the
in any nation was there or IS there
| 2, 800, 900 men and women superior to
those engaged in the Sunday school
| teaching in the United States.
Mr.. Jacobs spoke of the state conven-
| ton at Auburn and of his recent trip in
New Brunswick, and said that while in
the former place they raised $1,000 for
the work in Maine: in the little town of
! St. Stephen they raised $1,000. They told
him down in New Brunswick that
though America had beaten in the yacht
race, Old England and Canada meant to
keep ahead of us in Sunday school work,
and he replied You just see if you can.
! He told his intensely interested hearers,
with appropriate earnestness, of the
splendid work that is being done in Hill
| nois. how every one of the 102 counties
| has been oragnized for work; how from
| 12, 600 to 1000 of the Is, OBS townships in
/ the state have ANNUAL Sunday school con-
ventions, and how in some counties there
is not family that is not visited in the
interest of the good work.
He told Of the immense progress in
Chicago itself, how they are getting
hold Of the boys and girls there, how
SEQ of the public schools are now con-
nected with the Sunday school, how they
have teachers meetings, where the most
| successful in all branches of Sunday
school work tell the others how they do
| Fl. He told of the 900 Germans in
! the great city, the 100000 Poles and
Bohemians, the Frenchmen and Italians
without number, and how they must get
| hold of the children. Somebody must
/ and sweep the country from Portland to
| San Francisco. 1t is matter of self
protection.
He told of the poverty of the Sunday
schools as he had seen them in France
and of the efforts in progress here to help
| them. He told of the Sunday schools in
India and Japan. In short he covered
the whole field of the Sunday school
world He opened a window through
which his audience might look upon the
whole situation in all its gandeur, and
| nowhere was their attention more
admirably directed than towards the
great metropolis of the West and the
mighty State of Illinois. They manage
| Sunday schools there as they do every
| thing else, more Systematically, more
enterprisingly, more wholesomely than
anywhere else i'll the world. If you
doubt this then you were not at Chest
nut street last evening.
n