1. FIFTY QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS ON “PHILOSOPHY OF THE PLAN OF SALVATION”—FROM CHAPTER 15 TO THE END OF THE BOOK.—2. FIFTY QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS ON “HOW TO GET STRONG AND HOW TO STAY SO.”
By A. M. MARTIN, General Secretary C. L. S. C.
1. Q. What was the difference between the dispensation under the Old Testament and the one under the New? A. The first was a preparatory dispensation, its manifestations, for the most part, being seen and temporal; the second was a perfect system of truth, spiritual in its character and in the methods of its communication.
2. Q. What difference would there be in the methods adapted to move men’s nature under different dispensations? A. The same methods under all dispensations would be necessary, varied only to suit the advancement of the mind in knowledge, the difference existing in the habits and circumstances of men, and the character of the dispensation to be introduced.
3. Q. What would be an essential requisite under any dispensation, after the way for its introduction was prepared? A. Such manifestations of God to men as would produce love in the human heart for the object of worship and obedience.
4. Q. According to the constitution which God has given the soul, what must it feel before it can feel love for the giver of spiritual mercies? A. It must feel the want of spiritual mercies; and just in proportion as the soul feels its lost, guilty and dangerous condition, in the same proportion will it exercise love to the being who grants spiritual favor and salvation.
5. Q. What is the only possible way by which man could be made to hope for and appreciate spiritual mercies, and to love a spiritual deliverer? A. To produce a conviction in the soul itself of its evil condition, its danger as a spiritual being, and its inability, unaided, to satisfy the requirements of the spiritual law, or to escape its just and spiritual penalty.
6. Q. What does the degree of kindness and self-denial in a benefactor, temporal or spiritual, create? A. The degree of affection and gratitude that will be awakened for him.
7. Q. At the advent of Jesus how was the moral law generally applied by him? A. It was applied to the external conduct of men, not to the internal life. If there was conformity to the letter of the law in external manners, there was a fulfillment, in the eyes of the Jew and the Gentile, of the highest claims that God or man held upon the spirit.
8. Q. How did Jesus apply the divine law? A. He taught that all wrong thoughts and feelings were acts of transgression against God, and as such would be visited with the penalty of the divine law. Thus he made the law spiritual and its penalty spiritual.
9. Q. What does Jesus declare to be the consequence of these spiritual acts of transgression against God? A. Exclusion from the kingdom and presence of God, a penalty which involves either endless spiritual suffering, or destruction of the soul itself.
10. Q. What was then necessary in order that man’s affections might be fixed upon the proper object of love and obedience? A. That a spiritual God should, by self-denying kindness, manifest spiritual mercy to those who felt their spiritual wants, and thus draw to himself the love and worship of mankind.
11. Q. In order to the accomplishment of this end, without violating the moral constitution of the universe, what would be essentially necessary? A. That the holiness of God’s law should be maintained.
12. Q. What does Jesus uniformly speak of as being necessary previous to accepting him as a Savior? A. That the soul should feel the need of salvation.
13. Q. What is the testimony of the Scriptures as to God manifesting himself in self-denying kindness for mankind? A. The testimony of the Scriptures is that God did thus manifest himself in Christ as suffering and making self-denials for the spiritual good of men.
14. Q. What would be impossible for a human soul, exercising full faith in the testimony of the Scriptures as to his needs and his ransom by Christ, not to do? A. Not to love the Savior.
15. Q. Previous to the introduction of Christianity, in what efforts had all the resources of human wisdom been exhausted? A. To confer upon man true knowledge and true happiness.
16. Q. What are two insuperable difficulties which would forever hinder the restoration of mankind to truth and happiness from being accomplished by human means? A. First, human instruction, as such, has no power to bind the conscience; and, second, truth, whether sanctified by conscience or not, has no power to produce love in the heart.
17. Q. To what are the laws which govern physical nature analogous? A. To those which the Gospel introduces into the spiritual world.
18. Q. Men can not love God for what he truly is, unless they love him as manifested how? A. As manifested in the suffering and death of Christ Jesus.
19. Q. To deny the divine and meritorious character of the atonement is to shut out what from the soul? A. Both the evidence and the effect of God’s mercy.
20. Q. What is the influence of faith in Christ upon the moral disposition of the soul? A. It assimilates the moral feelings of man to God, and produces an aversion to sin.
21. Q. What is the influence of faith in Christ upon the moral sense, or conscience of believers? A. By faith in Jesus Christ the conscience is not only guided by a perfect rule, but it is likewise quickened and empowered by a perfect sense of obligation.
22. Q. What is the influence of faith in Christ upon the imagination? A. It controls and purifies the imagination of believers.
23. Q. What would a religion from heaven be designed ultimately to bless? A. The whole world.
24. Q. What does the best good of mankind as a family require? A. That they should be the instruments of disseminating this religion among themselves.
25. Q. What is the great principle by which the operation of spreading this religion would be carried on? A. The principle of self-denial, or denying ourselves the ease and pleasure of selfishness in order to perform acts of benevolence.
26. Q. How does the Gospel of Christ possess all the characteristics of a universal religion? A. It is adapted to human nature; not to any particular country or class of men, but to the nature of the race.
27. Q. In the instructions of Christ to regulate the conduct of men, how were their lives to be spent? A. In efforts to impart those blessings which they possessed to their brethren of the human family who possessed them not.
28. Q. In what did Christ teach the principle of self-denial? A. By his precepts, by his example, and especially by his identifying himself with those in need.
29. Q. What is faith in Jesus Christ therefore directly designed and adapted to do and to produce? A. To strengthen men’s benevolent affections, and to produce in believers that active desire and effort for the good of others which will necessarily produce a dissemination of the light and love of the Gospel throughout the whole habitable world.
30. Q. What are three of the most important means of grace? A. Prayer, praise and preaching.
31. Q. In order that men may receive the greatest benefit from prayer, what is essential? A. That there should be strong desire and importunity in prayer.
32. Q. In order to offer acceptable prayer, what should men possess? A. A spirit of faith and dependence upon Christ.
33. Q. What are two important means to impress the mind with religious truth? A. Music and poetry.
34. Q. Among the means which God appointed to disseminate his truth throughout the world, what holds a first and important place? A. The living preacher.
35. Q. What is the agency of God in carrying on the work of redemption and giving efficiency to its operations? A. The Holy Spirit.
36. Q. What is evidence to the world of the divine efficacy and power of the doctrines of the gospel system? A. Its effects in restoring the soul to moral health.
37. Q. The discussion of religious subjects for the past few years, both in Europe and America, has been mainly between what two classes? A. Between those who believe in the divine authority of the Christian religion as a rule of duty, and those who believe in the authority of conscience and reason as the highest guides of man.
38. Q. How does each class receive the Messiah and his teachings? A. One as of God, and the other as of man.
39. Q. In what light and as what means does one view consider a written revelation? A. In the light of the moral wants of man, and as adapted and necessary means in order to human development.
40. Q. What proposition is attempted to be proven in this connection? A. That a written revelation is a demand of man’s moral constitution, without which his moral culture is impossible.
41. Q. What is a first fact connected with this inquiry? A. Man is a cultivating and a cultivable being, and he is the only being created that possesses the double capability to receive and to impart culture.
42. Q. What are three endowments by which men are particularly distinguished from irrational beings? A. Written language, faith and conscience.
43. Q. What fact is fairly settled in reference to man aiding himself by a written language? A. That without aiding himself by a written language man can not ascend even to the first stages of civilization.
44. Q. In what way only can the character of God be known? A. Only by faith; and it is the character of God that is the element of moral culture.
45. Q. Upon what does the character of conscience in all religious duties depend? A. Upon faith.
46. Q. What is said of reason, faith and conscience without revealed truth? A. Without revealed truth reason has no data, faith is false, and conscience is corrupt.
47. Q. As there can be no moral culture with a false faith and a corrupt or dead conscience, what is a moral necessity in order to the culture of the human soul? A. Revelation of objective truth, rendered efficient by the perceived presence and authority of God.
48. Q. What is the conclusion reached as to how the moral culture of the soul must be accomplished? A. By a system of truth, revealed objectively in written language, by divine authority; and that the Christian Scriptures contain that system of truth.
49. Q. In view of the reasonings and facts presented by the author, to what conclusion is it his opinion unprejudiced readers should come? A. That the religion of the Bible is from God, and divinely adapted to produce the greatest present and eternal spiritual good of the human family.
50. Q. Of what does he consider the demonstration conclusive? A. That the Gospel is the only religion possible for man in order to perfect his nature and restore his lapsed powers to harmony and holiness.
1. Q. What proportion of men either erect or thoroughly well-built will be seen among those usually passing a given point on Broadway, in New York? A. Scarcely one in ten.
2. Q. What is said of the training ordinarily had by farmers, merchants, mechanics and laborers, who constitute a very great majority of Americans? A. No one of the four classes has ordinarily had any training at all aimed to make him equally strong all over.
3. Q. What is said of regular exercise among the great majority of the women of this country? A. No regular exercise is common among the great majority of the women of this country which makes them use both their hands alike, and is yet vigorous enough to add to the size and strength of their shoulders, chests and arms.
4. Q. What is the character of the popular sports and pastimes of boyhood and youth to supply the lack of inherited development? A. Good as these sports are, as far as they go, they are not in themselves vigorous enough, or well enough chosen to remedy the lack.
5. Q. What does a leading metropolitan journal say an inquirer will see by standing at the door of almost any public or private school or academy at the hour of dismissal? A. He will see a crowd of under-sized, listless, thin-faced children, with scarcely any promise of manhood to them.
6. Q. What is stated in reference to the play-grounds of our cities and towns? A. It is not a good sign, or one that bodes well for the future, to see them so much neglected; and many of our large cities are wretchedly off for play-grounds.
7. Q. What description is given of the physical appearance of the majority of the girls in any of our cities or towns, as seen passing to and from school? A. Instead of high chests, plump arms, comely figures, and a graceful and handsome mien, you constantly see flat chests, angular shoulders, often round and warped forward, with scrawny necks, pipe-stem arms, narrow backs, and a weak walk.
8. Q. What does a distinguished surgeon say as to the ability to endure protracted brain-work without ill result? A. It is not brain-work that kills, but brain-worry.
9. Q. What does our author state there ought to be in every girls’ school in our land, for pupils of every age? A. A system of physical culture which should first eradicate special weaknesses and defects, and then create and maintain the symmetry of the pupils, increasing their bodily vigor and strength up to maturity.
10. Q. What is the first thing most women should do in order to get health and strength and the bloom of perfect physical development? A. The first thing is to bring up the weaker muscles by special effort, calling them at once into vigorous action, and to restore to its proper position the shoulder, back, or chest which has been so long allowed to remain out of place.
11. Q. What is the next step after the symmetry is once secured? A. Then equal work for all the muscles, taken daily, and in such quantities as are found to suit best.
12. Q. In our Christian lands what do we find in regard to the fathers and mothers of the great men? A. We find that the great men have almost invariably had remarkable mothers, while their fathers were as often nothing unusual.
13. Q. What does our author say as to the means of getting a vigorous and healthy body kept toned up by rational, systematic, daily exercise, by every girl and woman? A. The means of getting it are so easily within the reach of all who are not already broken by disease, that it is never too late to begin, and that one hour a day, properly spent, is all that is needed to secure it.
14. Q. Had the lungs and also the muscles of the man had vigorous daily action to the extent that frequent trial had shown best suited to that man’s wants, of what is there very little doubt? A. That a large majority of the ailments would be removed, or rather would never have come at all.
15. Q. What is well nigh essential to attain success and length of service in any of the learned professions, including that of teaching? A. A vigorous body.
16. Q. To win lasting distinction in sedentary, in-door occupations which tax the brain and the nervous system, what does all professional biography teach? A. Extraordinary toughness of body must accompany extraordinary mental powers.
17. Q. What are all that people need for their daily in-door exercises? A. A few pieces of apparatus which are fortunately so simple and inexpensive as to be within the reach of most persons.
18. Q. What appliances can be readily fitted up for the home gymnasium? A. A horizontal bar, a pair of parallel bars, or their equivalent for certain purposes, a pair of pulling-weights, and a rowing-weight, to which may be added a pair of dumb-bells.
19. Q. What may be accomplished with these few bits of apparatus? A. Every muscle of the trunk, nearly all those of the legs, and all those of the arms, can, by a few exercises so simple that they can be learned at a single trying, be brought into active play.
20. Q. To what extent should these articles of the home gymnasium be used? A. Every member of the family, both old and young, should use them daily, enough to keep both the home gymnasium and its users in good working order.
21. Q. What is said of the shaping power of teachers with children in school? A. When children are with their teacher in school is almost the best time in their whole lives to shape them as the teacher chooses, not morally or mentally only, but physically as well.
22. Q. With what should prompt and vigorous steps be taken to acquaint every school teacher in this country? A. With such exercises as would quickly restore the misshapen, insure an erect carriage, encourage habits of full breathing, and strengthen the entire trunk and every limb.
23. Q. What did President Eliot of Harvard say a few years ago of a majority of those coming into that university? A. That they had undeveloped muscles, a bad carriage, and an impaired digestion, without skill in any out-of-door games, and unable to ride, row, swim or shoot.
24. Q. What do both the physician and experience tell us rest the tired brain? A. Nothing rests a tired brain like sensible physical exercise, except, of course, sleep.
25. Q. When exposure to out-of-door air is associated with a fair share of physical exertion, what does Dr. Mitchell say it is an immense safeguard against? A. The ills of anxiety and too much brain work.
26. Q. In a country like ours, where the masses are so intelligent, concerning what does our author consider the ignorance of the people as marvelous? A. As to what can be done to the body by a little systematic physical education.
27. Q. Of what do few people seem to be aware on this subject? A. That any limb, or any part of it, can be developed from a state of weakness and deficiency to one of fullness, strength, and beauty, and that equal attention to all the limbs, and to the body as well, will work like results throughout.
28. Q. What course of exercise with many has resulted in largely reducing superfluous flesh with fleshy people? A. Vigorous muscular exercise, taken daily and assiduously.
29. Q. What contributes to keeping some people thin? A. Most thin people do not keep still enough, do not take matters leisurely, and do not rest enough; while, if their work is muscular, they do too much daily in proportion to their strength.
30. Q. What is the character of the physical exercises the late William Cullen Bryant continued up to the last year of his life? A. Immediately after rising he began a series of exercises performed with dumb-bells, a pole, a horizontal bar, and a light chair swung around his head, continued for a full hour and sometimes longer.
31. Q. What does a former business associate of Mr. Bryant, who knew him intimately, say of his health? A. “During the forty years that I have known him, Mr. Bryant has never been ill—never been confined to his bed except on the occasion of his last accident. His health has always been good.”
32. Q. What two classes of men are there in our cities and larger towns that more than almost any others need daily and systematic bodily exercise in order to make them efficient for their duties, and something like what men in their line ought to be? A. The police and firemen.
33. Q. What are some of the ways of developing the muscles of the leg below the knee? A. Walking, and at the same time pressing hard with the toes and the soles; running on the soles and toes; hopping on one foot; jumping.
34. Q. What are some of the methods of developing the muscles of the front thigh? A. Holding one foot out, either in front or back, and then stooping down wholly on the other; jumping, fast walking and running.
35. Q. What exercise is especially recommended for strengthening the sides of the waist? A. Hopping straight ahead on one foot, and then on the other.
36. Q. What kind of a walk does a man usually have who is not strong in the abdominal muscles? A. A feeble walk.
37. Q. What is said of the development of men generally above the waist? A. It is not an uncommon thing, especially among Englishmen, to find a man of very strong legs and waist, yet with but an indifferent chest and shoulders, and positively poor arms.
38. Q. With the use of what can the muscles above the belt be nearly all thoroughly developed? A. With the use of dumb-bells.
39. Q. What is a simple method for improving the ordinary grip of the hand? A. Take a rubber ball in the hand, or a wad of any elastic material, even of paper, and repeatedly squeeze it.
40. Q. What will expand the chest? A. Anything which causes one to frequently fill his lungs to their utmost capacity, and then hold them full as long as he can.
41. Q. What practice of breathing is a great auxiliary to enlarging the lung room? A. The practice of drawing air slowly in at the nostrils until every air-cell of the lungs is absolutely full, holding it long, and then expelling it slowly.
42. Q. Beside light gymnastic exercises in school, what should a teacher insist upon with his pupils? A. He should insist upon the value of an erect position in school hours, whether the pupils be standing or sitting.
43. Q. What care should be taken in regard to school chairs? A. That they should have broad and comfortable seats, and that the pupil never sits on a half of the seat or on the edge of it, but far back on the whole of it.
44. Q. What weight of dumb-bells should be used in ordinary exercises with them by pupils? A. Dumb-bells of a pound each would be fit for pupils under ten years of age. For older pupils the same work with two pound bells will prove generally vigorous enough.
45. Q. What are some of the daily exercises recommended for girls and women? A. The use of dumb-bells, walking, riding, and, with girls, running.
46. Q. Beside these things, what ought a girl or woman to determine to do while sitting? A. To sit with the head and neck up, trunk erect, and with the shoulders low.
47. Q. How ought every man in this country whose life is in-door to divide his time? A. So that come what may he will make sure of his hour of out-of-doors in the late afternoon, when the day’s work is nearly or quite done.
48. Q. What two things ought consumptives to determine to do when sitting? A. To sit far back on the chair, and to sit at all times upright.
49. Q. To what does a great German anatomist attribute the principal cause of pulmonary diseases? A. To the breathing of foul air.
50. Q. What is it far from uncommon for delicate persons to do who take good care of the small stock of vigor they have? A. To outlive sturdier ones who are more prodigal and careless.
Season of 1884.
By Rev. J. L. HURLBUT, D.D., and R. S. HOLMES, A.M.
Upon a map of the world mark out a section between 42° and 27° north latitude, and 54° and 12° east longitude (Greenwich). This will include a rectangle having the Black Sea on the north; the Caspian and Persian Gulf on the east, the Sinaitic peninsula on the south, and Rome on the west; a section of 1050 miles north and south, by 2400 east and west; an area of 2,520,000 square miles, about two-thirds the size of the United States. Within these limits were transacted all the events of Bible history. This area should be considered in connection with two maps, overlapping each other in the center, those of the Old Testament, and the New Testament world.
I. The Old Testament world will embrace the lands between 54° and 31° east longitude, or from the Nile to the Persian Gulf; and between 42° and 27° north latitude, or from the Black Sea to the Red Sea.
1. Observe the location of the following Seas, and draw such portions of them as are included in the map. 1. The Caspian, in the northeast corner. 2. The Persian Gulf, southeast corner. 3. The Red Sea, on the south. 4. The Mediterranean Sea, on the west. 5. The Black Sea on the north. 6. The Dead Sea, due north of the eastern arm of the Red Sea.
2. Locate the following Mountain Ranges: 1. Mount Ararat, the nucleus of the mountain system, situated between the Caspian, Black, and Mediterranean. 2. The Caspian range, branching from Ararat eastward, and following the border of the Caspian Sea. 3. Mount Zagras, running from Ararat southeasterly, toward the Persian Gulf. 4. Mount Lebanon, from Ararat southwesterly, toward the Red Sea. (Anti-Lebanon, the mountains of Palestine, Mount Seir and Mount Sinai, are all parts of this great range.) 5. Mount Taurus, from Ararat westward, following the northern shore of the Mediterranean.
3. Next draw the important Rivers, nearly all following the line of the mountain ranges. 1. The Araxes, from eastward into the Caspian Sea. 2. The Tigris, called in the Bible Hiddekel, from Ararat, following the Zagras Mountain, into the Persian Gulf. 3. The Euphrates, from Ararat westward to Mount Taurus, then southward, following the course of Lebanon, then southeasterly through the great plain, until it unites with the Tigris. 4. The Orontes, between two parallel chains of the Lebanon range northward into the Mediterranean. 5. The Jordan, between the same chains of Lebanon southward into the Dead Sea. 6. The Nile, in Africa, northward into the Mediterranean.
4. This world has its great Natural Divisions, somewhat like those of the United States. 1. The eastern slope, from Mount Zagras eastward to the great desert. 2. The central plain, between Zagras and Lebanon. 3. The Mediterranean Slope, between Lebanon and the great sea.
5. These natural divisions suggest the arrangement of the Lands. 1. Locate the lands of the eastern slope; Armenia, Media, Persia. 2. The lands of the central plain, as follows: Between Mount Zagras and the river Tigris. Assyria and Elam; between the Tigris and Euphrates. Mesopotamia and Chaldea; the great desert. Arabia; between the desert and Lebanon, Syria. 3. The lands of the Mediterranean; Egypt, the wilderness, Palestine, Phœnicia, Asia Minor, though the last does not appear in Old Testament history.
6. Locate the following cities, and name the Bible events associated with them. 1. Eden, the original home of the human race, probably at the junction of the Tigris and Euphrates. 2. Babylon, the capital of Chaldea, on the Euphrates. 3. Shushan, or Suza, the capital of Persia, and the place of Esther’s deliverance. 4. Nineveh, on the Tigris, the capital of Assyria. 5. Haran, in Mesopotamia, a home of Abraham. 6. Damascus, the capital of Syria. 7. Jerusalem, in Palestine. 8. Tyre, in Phœnicia. 9. Memphis, on the Nile, in Egypt.
II. The New Testament World. This extends from Asia Minor to Italy, and from the Black Sea to Mount Sinai, between the same parallels as the last map, and from 12° to 42° east longitude; and represents the lands of the eastern Mediterranean.
1. Upon this map locate five Seas. The Mediterranean; Dead Sea; Black Sea; Ægean Sea (between Asia Minor and Europe); Adriatic Sea, between Greece and Italy.
2. Locate also five Islands. Cyprus, in the northeastern corner of the Mediterranean; Crete, south of the Ægean; Patmos, in the Ægean; Sicily, southwest of Italy, and Melita, now Malta, south of Sicily.
3. Arrange and bound the lands by their continents. 1. African lands. Egypt, Libya, and Africa proper. 2. Asiatic lands. Palestine, Phœnicia, Syria, Asia Minor. 3. European lands. Macedonia, Greece, Illyricum, Italy.
4. Locate definitely the provinces of Asia Minor, which may be arranged thus: Three on the north, bordering on the Black Sea. Pontus, Paphlagonia, Bithynia; three on the west, bordering on the Ægean Sea. Mysia, Lydia, Caria; three on the south, bordering on the Mediterranean; Lycia, Pamphylia, Cilicia; four in the interior; north, Galatia; east, Cappadocia; south, Pisidia; west, Phrygia; central, Lycaonia.
5. Notice the location of several important Cities. Alexandria, in Egypt; Jerusalem, in Palestine; Damascus and Antioch, in Syria; Tyre, in Phœnicia; Tarsus, in Cilicia; Ephesus, in Lydia; Philippi and Thessalonica, in Macedonia; Athens and Corinth, in Greece; and Rome, in Italy.
6. Notice with regard to the New Testament world. 1. There were many lands, yet but one government, the Roman Empire. 2. There were many tongues, yet one language everywhere spoken, the Greek. 3. There were many races, but one people found everywhere, the Jews. 4. There were many religions, yet no deep-seated belief, and consequently, everywhere a hunger for the Gospel.
I. Its Necessity.—The teacher’s purpose is the conversion and spiritual education of the scholar; a purpose too great to be compassed in the session of the Sunday-school. Consider the following facts:
1. The brief time which the Sunday-school affords; a half hour to the lesson; fifty-two half hours in a year; less than one school week of the secular school. What progress could be expected from a year’s study, in which the school time is only a week?
2. The difficult subjects of Sunday-school teaching; upon themes which are the loftiest contemplated by the human mind; worthy of the ablest intellects; yet to be simplified to the understanding of childhood and youth by the teacher.
3. The lack of preparation on the part of the pupil.—The teacher can not take for granted any study at home by the class, but must supplement their absolute neglect by his own increased diligence and skill.
4. The natural aversion of the scholar’s heart to the teacher’s efforts.—The pupil does not desire to be saved and to learn about salvation; all his unregenerate nature is hostile to the subject, and the teacher has dull hearts as well as unprepared minds to contend against.
5. The intervening time of a week between the sessions of the school is sufficient to efface even what impression is produced by the lesson.
With all these hindrances it is plain that the teacher who is to succeed, must supplement his Sunday with week-day work.
II. The next question is, What shall the week-day work of the teacher be? Our space forbids more than a mere outline.
1. A daily study by the teacher of teaching methods, in order to best employ the brief time at command for actual work. It is said Napoleon’s battles were fought in detail in his own mind before even the enemy were in sight, and his force, will and genius were sufficient to carry out the details. A study of the methods employed by the best secular teachers would furnish means for planning all the details of any Sunday half hour.
2. A daily study of the lesson itself.—The teacher’s preparation will occupy another lesson in this series; but when once that art has been learned, a part of the teacher’s week-day work should be to practice it daily.
3. A daily watching the methods of life of the class of society from which one’s pupils come.—If they are children or youth or adults, if from the lower, middle or higher walks of society, the teacher should know the influences which surround the life and the methods which govern it, in order to rightly fit the teaching to the life.
4. A sedulous scrutiny of the face of every child met in daily life.—Such care will prevent ever passing a scholar of the class without notice, and will reveal the workings of the child heart, and give an insight into child nature that will be of great value.
5. A careful listening to the conversation of children, and entering into conversation with them whenever practicable.
6. Earnestly seeking an interest in the things which are of interest to the pupil.—It will furnish a common ground of meeting in the class on Sunday. Community of interest will result.
7. Daily seeking contact with the pupil, either personal or by some means which will recall the teacher to the pupil’s mind.—If the teacher is daily present with the pupil there is hope that the teacher’s influence and teachings will be also.
8. Daily endeavoring by all means in the teacher’s power to render the pupil’s daily life pleasanter.
III. But how can all these things be accomplished?
1. By a regular attendance on the weekly teachers’ meeting. That is an essential part of a teacher’s week-day work.
2. By systematic visiting of pupils in their homes. This will insure an acquaintance which could in no other way be obtained.
3. By cultivating the reading habit in the pupil. How? By giving some good weekly paper or magazine which you have finished; by loaning good books; by interesting the family in such organizations as the Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle.
4. By inviting pupils to entertainments, to the teacher’s home in winter, and to the woods and fields in summer.
5. By establishing little class Normal classes, and teaching some of the many interesting things parallel to the general work of the Sunday-school.
This brief outline may serve as a nucleus for thought by the student, and may suggest a general plan, of which the details can be wrought out by the individual teacher.
I. The Necessity of Preparation.—All that was adduced in the last lesson to show the importance of the week-day work, might well be repeated as arguments for the preparation of the lesson.
1. It is necessary from the limitation of time.—The teacher must study his subject thoroughly, in order to employ to the utmost that precious half hour of the lesson.
2. It is necessary from the nature of the subjects.—No one should venture to instruct upon the all-important, the profound, the difficult themes of the Gospel, who has not given them special and intense thought.
3. It is necessary from the condition of the pupil.—Because the scholar is unprepared, careless, unthinking, the teacher must be alert, able, equipped. Any one can teach a genius, but it requires a genius to teach a dullard.
II. The general aims of preparation.—In the teacher’s study of the Scripture three aims should at all times be kept in view.
1. His first aim should be to interpret the meaning of the Word.—We should study, not to interject into the Scriptures our own views, or the doctrines of our school of thought, but to ascertain what God meant in the Book, to learn “the mind of the Spirit.”
2. His second aim should be to satisfy the needs of his own spiritual nature.—No man can feed others unless he has himself been fed. Let the teacher fill his own heart with the Word of life, and then he will be able to inspire his class with hunger for the truth.
3. His third aim should be to supply the needs of his class.—He is a teacher as well as a learner, and must ever study with the full knowledge of his scholar’s needs, seeking in the lesson for that which is especially fitted for them and can be adapted to them.
III. The Departments of Preparation.—(We condense here the outline of Dr. Vincent, in the “Chautauqua Normal Guide.”) There are five lines of investigation and preparation to be followed by the teacher; not necessarily in this order, but embodying these departments.
1. The Analysis of the Lesson-Text.—The teacher who seeks to know the contents of the lesson will find them under the following seven elements. 1. The time to which the lesson belongs, year, period, relation to last lesson, etc. 2. The places referred to in the lesson, or where its events occurred; their location, history, associations. 3. The persons, who they were; what is known of them; the characters displayed. 4. The facts or thoughts of the lesson; facts if historical; thoughts if ethical or doctrinal, as the Epistles. 5. The difficulties encountered in the explanation of the lesson, whether in its statements, or their relation to other parts of Scripture. 6. The doctrines or general principles taught. 7. The duties inculcated in the lesson or to be drawn from it.
2. The Collation of Parallel Passages.—Every text which will shed light upon a fact or a thought in the lesson should be searched. Spurgeon says: “The best commentary on a passage of Scripture is the spirit of God;” and that it reveals itself in the parallel passages.
3. The Exploration of the Lesson-Text, for its central topic; the underlying spiritual thought which runs through it and is to be presented from it.
4. The Adaptation of the Lesson to the Class.—This subject receives more full and suggestive treatment in Lesson vii. The teacher must prepare his lesson with the condition and characteristics of his pupils in his mind.
5. The Preparation of the Teaching Plan.—The teacher should know not only what he is to teach, but how he is to teach it; in what order of thought; with what opening sentences, illustrations, application, and closing utterances.
IV. Hints on Preparation.—1. Begin early in the week, as soon after the teaching of the last lesson as possible. 2. Read the lesson often; at least once each day, and thoughtfully. 3. Pray much over the lesson; for by communion with the Author of the Word we enter into knowledge of the Word. 4. Use all the helps accessible, in the line of commentaries, Bible dictionaries, etc. 5. Study independently, using the thoughts of others to quicken your own thought, and not in place of it. 6. Talk with others about the lesson, in the family, in the teachers’ meeting, and in social life. 7. Do not expect to use all your material. All the knowledge gained will add power to the teaching of that portion of the knowledge imparted.
The Art of Reading.—I used to believe a great deal more in opportunities and less in application than I do now. Time and health are needed, but with these there are always opportunities. Rich people have a fancy for spending money very uselessly on their culture because it seems to them more valuable when it has been costly; but the truth is, that by the blessing of good and cheap literature, intellectual light has become almost as accessible as daylight. I have a rich friend who travels more, and buys more costly things than I do, but he does not really learn more or advance farther in the twelvemonth. If my days are fully occupied, what has he to set against them? only other well occupied days, no more. If he is getting benefit at St. Petersburg he is missing the benefit I am getting round my house and in it. The sum of the year’s benefit seems to be surprisingly alike in both cases. So if you are reading a piece of thoroughly good literature, Baron Rothschild may possibly be as well occupied as you—he is certainly not better occupied. When I open a noble volume I say to myself, “now the only Crœsus that I envy is he who is reading a better book than this.”—Philip G. Hamerton.
Dress is fast becoming a science. Particularly is this true of the dress of women. The modern fashion magazine with its suggestions and plans, shows how nearly dress is a formulated science. All this is right and necessary. When used rightly there is no weapon in a woman’s hands more powerful than effective dressing. It makes even a plain woman attractive, and a fair one doubly so. It gives her a peculiar influence which every earnest, true-hearted woman should seek rather than avoid. To be effective, dress must be studied. But the thought which women give to dress leads them often to give it undue importance, to make it a paramount object rather than a means to influence. Most especially is this true among a large class of self-supporting women and wives of salaried men. The old charge of Polonius:
is often literally carried out by them, and in many cases this class dresses in a more costly style and with more taste than any other in the community. Nor is it mere outside show. They do not wear silk dresses and coarse boots, nor velvet mantles and no gloves. Their wardrobe is almost invariably complete and in taste. They are sensibly, neatly and richly dressed women. They have studied and mastered the science of dressing well. They live within their incomes, too; but in almost every case their salaries give them nothing but food and raiment. At the end of a year, beyond their wardrobes and the amount of rather questionable prestige which their good clothes have given them in a certain circle—rarely a circle which is superior to their own—they have nothing, and here lies the wrong. No matter how small an income may be it ought to be so used that it will do more. If for a year’s work we have simply the necessaries of life, we have achieved small success. But few people put their money where it yields substantial return; few devote a fair portion of their earnings to increase the value of their work or to multiply implements of work. We rarely find persons who devote a fair amount of their salaries to charities, but we do often find salaries of from six hundred to one thousand dollars yielding seal-skin sacks and velvet gowns. Are such garments consistent with the steady course of self-culture which every person should pursue, or with the tithe which every moralist, not to say Christian, should devote to the world of woe about us? Common sense tells us that we can not live like the wealthy unless we are wealthy.
It is among the salaried class particularly that this evil exists. Perhaps the cause springs from the way in which they earn their livelihood. Money comes to them regularly and surely; they see no reason why it should cease, and so give less attention to strict economy than the man whose success depends upon the care and thrift with which he lives. Their future promotion depends upon their faithfulness, not upon their economy, so that often a man of moderate salary keeps a more expensive establishment than a man of moderate wealth. In the latter case future business advancement depends upon the amount he can save to invest, in the former simply upon his sticking to his work. Salaried people too often live like school boys upon their annual allowance. Whatever the cause, there is a large class of people among us much inferior to what they might be, both in usefulness and ability, simply from the wholly selfish expenditures of their incomes.
One of the careless outcries of dissatisfied persons is that the “rich are growing richer and the poor poorer.” This is half true. The rich are growing richer—and so, too, are the poor. The wealth of the world has been enormously increased, and all classes have profited by it. Even paupers fare better at public expense than they did fifty years ago. Steam has multiplied the world’s wealth. The increase is most conspicuous in the bank accounts of the rich. But the poor live in better houses, have better food and clothing, and get a good many things once considered luxuries. Doubtless some who cry “the poor are growing poorer,” have an honest fear that the tendency of things is to crush down into bitter poverty all but the few rich. They see the growth of large fortunes, but they fail to see the greater growth of general wealth, nor do they stop to figure out the problem. For example: Suppose Vanderbilt has $150,000,000. Then suppose it divided among 50,000,000 of people. We should get just three dollars apiece! Suppose that the very rich of the country are equal in wealth to twenty Vanderbilts—a very large estimate. Then, their united wealth, if distributed, would give us only sixty dollars apiece! That is the most we could get out of dividing up the big piles of wealth. Any one sees that it would not pay to divide. The rich have not a great deal of our money in their pockets—if they have any. For, an honest inquiry will show that the general average of wealth, and of all that wealth brings to us, is higher by a much larger proportion than that sixty dollars apiece represents. The worst view we can possibly take of it is that we have paid sixty dollars apiece, out of a vast increase in wealth, to men who have managed great enterprises that have enriched us all. Perhaps these men have taken it all for nothing. Nobody believes it; but suppose they have. Then we have still obtained a great gain at small cost. We get, on the average, twice as much for our labor as people did fifty years ago. We live in more comfort than people used to do. We are not growing poorer. We raise here no question of monopolies. Our point now is that the poor are not growing poorer, but richer—that there is no such tendency at work in modern society as the one honestly feared by many—this piling up of all wealth in few hands. Steam is not an aristocrat, but a plain Republican who impartially helps us all when we help ourselves.
In a very few months we shall know the names of the presidential candidates, one of whom, in all probability, will be the next chief executive of the nation. The Republican National Convention has been called to meet in Chicago June 3, next. The calling of other conventions will soon follow. In a short time we shall have the candidates, and then will ensue a contest of which it is safe to predict that it will be close, exciting, and warmly fought. In contemplating the present political situation, we see it is little different from that of 1880. Less change has come in the quadrennium than might have been anticipated. The same two great parties confront each other, and their apparent relative strength is much the same as it was when last in the national arena they measured swords; it can hardly be said that there is greater likelihood of the success of either than there was four years ago. For years there has been no little talk about the old parties having done their work, and the time having come for them to die and new parties to succeed them; and yet, we enter the presidential campaign of 1884 with the two old parties in the field as influential as ever. Small progress, if any, has been made during the past four years in the work of bringing new parties to strength and prominence. The supersession of the parties which for so many years have been competitors for the reins of government is a thing of the future still, and seems a thing not of the near future. Of the new political organizations which from time to time have arisen, it is to be said that, generally, their strength is evidently waning rather than increasing. Some of them, in state elections, have held the balance of power and been important factors, but there is no probability that such will be the case in the approaching presidential contest. The influential parties of the past are the influential parties of the present. One of them is to win in November next, and both now appear with about the same chances of success as in 1880.
The fall elections of 1882 gave great confidence to the Democratic party. Their ticket in New York received 192,000 majority, in Pennsylvania 40,000, and in Massachusetts 14,000. They had some grounds certainly for the assurance that in the next presidential fight they would wrest from their opponents the power which had been theirs for more than a score of years. But the situation has taken on a decidedly changed aspect. From the state elections of October last, indeed, Democrats might still derive courage and hope. They carried Ohio, and showed much greater strength in Iowa than in former years; though, to be sure, causes for these results of a local and temporary character were not wanting. But the November elections served to render the prospects more dubious. In New York the Republicans elected their candidate for Secretary of State by 17,000 majority; in Pennsylvania their state ticket was carried by a majority of 16,000; and in Massachusetts Mr. Robinson was elected Governor over General Butler by a majority of 10,000. Virginia was carried by the Democrats; but this Democratic victory, it is well argued by a keen political writer, is to prove a real blessing to the Republicans by breaking the complications of their party with “Mahoneism” and repudiation. All things considered, then, neither party can be seen to have gained since the last presidential election, and to stand a better chance of success than four years ago. The “Solid South” is still solid. Not an electoral vote from the states once in rebellion will be given to the Republican candidates. Among many doubtful things, this at least is certain. The solid vote of the South is secure in the hands of the Democrats. In addition to this, they will need, to win, forty-five electoral votes from the North. If they are successful in securing these, the next incumbent of the presidential office will be a Democrat. The result of the approaching contest, since party issues of account are now notably wanting, must turn very much upon the character of the party candidates and the personal and official conduct of the representatives of the two parties at Washington in the intervening time. From what has been seen in New York, Pennsylvania, and other states, it is evident that there is a very large and growing body of voters in the land who will not be fettered to party, whether right or wrong. They claim the right to turn their backs upon their party when its action becomes offensive, and take an independent position. These “independents” hold the balance of power at the present time. They can give New York and Pennsylvania to either party; they can fix the result of the presidential election. If good behavior on the part of party leaders and the choice of unexceptionable candidates will secure their votes, it will certainly be good policy to make use of the measures.
There are found, even where we have the best civilization, some degraded classes who delight in cruel, bloody sports, in witnessing scenes most revolting to persons of humane feelings and better culture. But desperadoes, pugilists, and other fighting men, with those who have a fiendish satisfaction in the sufferings and blood of the dumb animals they torture, are counted alien from our Christian civilization. Their characters and their crimes are detested by all good citizens. But when deeds of cruelty and blood are not only endured and condoned, but raised to the dignity of national sports, it shows a state of society that can hardly be called civilized. Ancient Rome had her gladiatorial shows for the gratification of those eager to witness the bloody spectacle. The tournaments of chivalrous knights in the mediæval times, who slew each other as an exhibition of their strength and skill, were of the same character. In Spain and Portugal even to the present day bull fights are a national amusement, in which nearly all classes find pleasure. Our attention is just now called to this. A suggestive note from a gentleman of culture and refined sensibilities, says: “A king of Spain brought home a young wife, whose first duty was to give the signal for the beginning of a bull fight. The same monarch is visited by a German prince, in whose honor these brutalities are perpetrated on a more magnificent scale than usual.” And so it is. Alas for European civilization in the nineteenth century!
The preparation for these sports is extensive. The ring is of vast dimensions, in the center of which is a pit, or wide area, sunk in terraced granite, with galleries rising on all sides, sufficient to seat at least ten thousand people who usually crowd the place on Sabbath afternoon. The fighters and their assistants are trained to their business, and handle their weapons skillfully. Some are mounted on horses with long slender spears, used simply to torture and exasperate, but to inflict no deadly wound. The “killer” is a swordsman on foot, who baffles and confuses the bull, drawing his attention this way and that, playing his red cloak before his eyes, and watching his opportunity to plunge the sword to the hilt into the neck of the animal. They are well paid, and often amass large fortunes. But no verbal account of a bull tourney can present the rapid changes, the dangers and escapes, the skill, the picturesqueness, and the horror of the actual thing. The acts, brilliant or repulsive, occur in rapid succession, presenting only glimpses of dramatic, ghastly pictures, which fade out instantly to re-form in new phases. The poor, gaunt, dilapidated horses used are a cheap contribution to the occasion, and forced into position to be killed by the horns of the bull, as he, in turn, is doomed to die by the sword of the killer, with not the slightest chance to survive the bloody fray. A fierce, powerful bull has been known to kill five horses in ten minutes. The first rush against a horse is a sight horrible to witness. You hear the horns tearing the tough hide, crashing the ribs, dragging the entrails from the quivering body. When two or more of the poor animals are struggling on the earth in the ring, now reeking with blood, others, with bandaged eyes, and hideously gashed sides, are spurred and goaded on to a similar fate. A witness tells of seeing “a horse and rider lifted bodily on the horns, and so tossed that the horseman was flung from his saddle, hurtled over the bull, and landed solidly on his back, senseless.” The grooms bore him off white and rigid, but the eager spectators heeded him not. They were wildly cheering the bull’s strength and prowess. Occasionally a man is horribly mangled, killed in the ring, or maimed for life; so a surgeon attends in the ante-room, and (alas! the mockery,) a priest is at hand, with his holy wafer for the last sacrament in case of any accident to a good bull-fighting Catholic. Yet things so unutterably repulsive are witnessed with apparent delight by richly dressed Spanish gentlemen and ladies of the highest rank.
The performance, as at present maintained, is far below that of other days, when the nation had more vigor. The dumb animals are, by arrangements in the ring, put to a much greater disadvantage, and the necessity for great dexterity and courage no longer existing, the class of fighting men do not, in these respects, compare well with their predecessors.
Spain, once a powerful nation, having a class—not numerous—of highly cultivated citizens, and a literature by no means despicable, has fallen into a sad condition, neither respected nor feared as formerly. The brutal sports in which she delights could never be introduced or tolerated in really refined society, or by cultured people, but when retained as a relic of earlier barbarism they have an educating force, and nurture to still greater strength the evil passions that made them possible. Some things among us may have a dissipating, if not demoralizing, tendency, and should be abandoned. Our voice is not against all amusements. Innocent recreations are healthy. Our minds and bodies need them. Only let them be suitable, and of an elevating tendency.