THE KING’S BUSINESS 367 I*1 Notes on Open Letters for April 25 you make the unqualified statement that ‘the Graded Lessons as prepared have included features that are regrettable and harmful.’ If your statement had been that some people who have, had to do personally, with some of these Graded Lessons have regretted and considered harmful some things they found in them, and at other points have noted what seemed to them regrettable and harmful omissions from them, no one could fairly challenge your statement. No one, also, could fairly question your right to express your own editorial opinion as to the harmfulness and fegrettability of any features in the Lesson Committee’s lists. In this case, however, your statement, as it stands, appears to be a judgment which you utter on behalf of the whole Sunday-school-constituency, as if it were something that no sensible person would deny. Permit me, therefore, to challenge it flatly. Please name the features which you deem regrettable and harmful.” Mr. Trumbull’s answer is as follows: ,n rj Just Where Is the Peril? Because there are elements here that tend to minimize or ignore the unique and supreme character and authority of the Bible as the inspired Word of God; that tend to blur the line between the natural and the supernatural; that tend to place nature study on the same plane as Bible study in gaining a knowledge of God; and that tend to a lack of emphasis on certain vital doctrinal teaching of the Gospel of Christ. ' Extra^Bïblièal lessons have been freely inserted throughout this Graded -Series,—that is, lessons the material for which is drawn chiefly from other liter ature thân ithe Bible. In brie instance,—in the Sèfcond Year Intermediate,—a ■full six rrçontHs is devoted, tô thé study of “Later Christian Leaders,’’ including such characters as Luther,- Calvin, John Weslèy, the Earl of Shaftesbury, and Florence Nightingale ; and three months of the six are devoted to the study of a single modern missionary, Alexander Mackay: A note from the Lesson Committee’points out that thé material upon which these three :months? lessons are; based ¡is 'found in the well-known book, “Uganda’s Whité Man of Work,” the Committee having previously said; “It is intended that a more careful analysis of a single character shall prepare the pupil for; the nine-months’ study in the life of Christ which will immediately follow in the lessons for the Third Year Intermediate-” Just what effect will it; have upon fourteen-year-olds to bring in a book of this sort as, in a sense, parallel material to the Bible’s record of the life of our Lord Jesus, Christ? To be sure, Scrip,tu,re material is sug gested for each of-these- extra-Biblical lessons, -bu t,the- Scripture material is subordinate, and the extra-Biblical material is the main theme for study. As is well known, in response to a widespread protest the Lesson Commit- .tee in 1911 issued Biblical lessons to run parallel tagll the extra-Biblical lessons in the Graded Series, and “to make, suçh other minor (modifications as seemed to it desirable.” These Biblical lessons, do not replace the extra-Biblical lessons; they take; their place beside the extra-Biblical lessons in the lists, already issued.” The International;-Lesson ,:G9mh]ittee therefore stands before the .Sîuiiday-sçhool world committed rto offering the Sunday-school constituency material from other- sources than, the, Bible as its chief material for study in numerous Sunday-school sessions»- This-js regrettable and harmful. Is It Not à Bible Course? ■ has. been; done deliberately and intentionally, and with deep-seated conviction on the. part of those who favor it. , At the conference on the Inter- Hftft^nal Lessons held .in Philadelphia thi|’ spring, a prominent leader in the work of the Graded Lessons, said publicly,* and with intense earnestness : “We
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