The herald-advance. (Milbank, S.D.) 1890-1922, 1910-12-23

How many find the Sunday school
hour the sunny hour of the week?
And when they do come, what is there
to bring them back again the next
Sabbath. More than all this. what is
there IN the part OF the superintend-
ent, teacher, pastor, or in the man
ner of conducting the Sunday school
or the class study that would lead the
children to give themselves to Christ?
How often is a personal individual
word spoken to some hoy or girl
about this greatest of all matters. a
yearning heart to heart appeal to fol-
low Him who is the Way. the Truth,
the Life?
Questions. questions. Yet most of
them need but to be asked to find an
swer from our W cOgnlZance of the
facts. True, there are exceptions, oc-
casional, some notable. yet the more
noticeable from their infrequency. \
pretty card, a pictured story, a roll
of-honor badge. some special part or
present in approaching Christmas,
Childrens' Day. or Rally Day SER
vices-these are about all that we.
pastors and Sunday school workers
the machinery of the church-grind
out to make a child want to have a
personal interest in the church or the
Kingdom of God. To many a boy,
whose practical training of the past,
it is Tommy CO. and he goeth to
Sunday school: but Tommy's heart
and thoughts are out in the back lot
or pasture with thathall game. What
wonder, when his teacher says, ''Tom-
my. what is the Golden Text that he
pulls himself back from a vacant
stare that has been conscious of moth
ing within the four walls of the church
long enough to say II don't KNOW
and lapses again into vacancy or
mischief? Were it not for what God
had done in putting within the child
nature reverent awe for the unknown
God, and the great bulwark of child
character, faith and love for the true
and the noble and the heroic. and sup
piled the answer to these instructive
warnings in the stories Of men and
women of the Good Book. our efforts
would often fall flat indeed.
A hard arraignment, do you say,
of the church. which hasdone so much
for the child? Yet much that has
been done, has been indirectly,
through the influence of the Gospel
life and society in general. rather
than under the direct auspices of the
church. How many of the eighty per
cent of our church membership that
have come from the Sunday school
we're converted. brought to a decision.
in the Sunday school and as a definite
fruit of the Sunday school, and not
through special meetings or other in
huences? | fear the facts will not
bear very close scrutiny. 70 face
these conditions and consider what
they mean, is cause for deep humility.
We have not been doing Il duty.
When we see the great advance made
outside the church in methods of Sec
ular education, in books, papers,
songs, games, and such like, for chill
dren, in gymnasiums, playground
movements. and fresh air camps, and
in modern hospitals for physically
diseased and defective children and
Juvenile courts and juvenile legisla-
ton for the morally delinquent, sad
indeed is it that the church herself
seems SO slow to fall in line, as it
were following. afar Off, when she
should be the leader.
But what shall We do? Where are
the men and women that are trained
to carry on the work along these ad-
vanced lines? 1t is easy to criticise:
yet this is not written in the spirit of
criticism, but only that, seeing the de-
fects, and recognizing the needs, we
may set our selves to the divine task.
nay, the divine opportunity of put
ting ourselves in line with the general