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THE KING’S BUSINESS
the lesson that way from the platform. We have to hurry with our singing and read ing and turn the classes over to the teacher, before the scholars get restless and run all over us. You will not have any trouble and your scholars won’t run over you if you are a live wire. It is only a dead wire that gets trampled on. People respect a live wire. A live wire will attract a crowd at any time and in any place. Shaw that you have life in you, and you won’t have so much trouble holding the attention of those restless youngsters. , You say, we hurry through with the opening and closing exercises so that the teacher may have as much time as possible. We consider that this time can be most profitably spent in class session. Quite right. I agree with you, but have you ever stopped to think how much more authority the name of. Christ on the lips of the teacher would carry if His name is also heard frequently from the platform ? No one else can add color and weight to your teachers’ teachings as much as you can. Your endorsement of their instruc tion means volumes to your scholars and added power to your teachers. KNOW YOUR TEACHERS How I wish there were none but superin tendents here tonight! How I would just like to have a confidential chat with you about your teachers. Tell me, what do you know about them and their teaching? What kind of men and women are they? Would you like to have your son and daughter grow up to be'just like them in manners and temperament? Are they good examples for the children that call you father? Are they spiritually-minded?. Do they love Jesus Christ? Are they com petent to present Him as Saviour to boys and girls whose minds and hearts are open to receive any teaching? And have they teaching ability? We used to say, “Will you teach a class?” Now the question is, “Can you teach a class?” “Will you teach ?” has given way to, “Can you teach ?” Willingness and ability are both essential, but I would rather have one teacher who
can teach than half a dozen who are willing but who come unprepared, or who wait until Sunday morning to prepare the lesson. You are thinking about some of your teachers now. Ability is not so rare if we are willing to prepare. Oh, teacher, would that you might recog nize your opportunity! The pastor and superintendent must for the most part resort to long-range artillery, but you can charge in hand-to-hand encounter. The enemy will stay in their trenches until the last man is killed or starved under artillery fire, but let a row of bayonets appear over the top of his entrenchments; and every mothers’ son of them is struck dumb with fear, and flees for his life. TeacheV, it’s yours to use the bayonet, the Sword of the Spirit, in a hand-to-hand encounter in the class. You are at close quarters. It is yours to rout the enemy and rejoice in vic tory as he flees. It is yours in a very peculiar way to win the boys and girls for Christ. They say the hand that rocks the cradle rules the world, but I wonder if it is sacriligious to say that the teacher who leads the child to Christ rules, not the world, but the Kingdom of Heaven? CLASS POSSIBILITIES Who knows but you may have a Wesley, a Knox, a Calvin, a Pinney, a Whitiield, a Moody in your class? Do you realize that that boy in your class may be presi dent of the United States forty years from now? President Wilson was some Sun day School teacher’s scholar. There isn’t a doubt in my mind but his early Christian training has played its part in keeping this country out of war. Wouldn’t it be great to have President Scoville, say, invite you to be his guest in the White Hbuse during his inaugural exercises in 19S0 because you had been his Sunday School teacher back in Los Angeles from 1915 to 1925? But whether he invited you or not, wouldn’t your reward be suf ficient just to know that you had been used of God to lead him to Christ, and that because of your faithfulness, Sunday by Sunday, in presenting Christ to Sammy
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