THE KING’S BUSINESS 369 colleges today is an atmosphere that denies the supernatural. There are evi dences, here and there throughout this scheme of lessons, of such a handling of the Bible as one would give to any other book. Such lesson titles, for ex ample, as “Gideon, the Man Whom Responsibility Made Great’’ (First Year Intermediate), “Abraham—The Challenge of an Ideal” (Second Year Senior), “The Development of Religious Ideas in Early Israel” (Second Year Senior), are hints of this; as is also the note on Lesson^ 17 to 22 of the First Year Intermediate, “David, the Man Who Showed Himself Friendly” ; “the aim is to show that David’s power to make and retain friends explains his career and his character.” This ignoring of God’s sovereign grace as the secret of David’s -career is not sufficiently offset by the close of the note, that David’s “intimate, constant, and child-like fellowship with God was the supreme friendship of his life, exalting and directing his actions.” And there is a certain inadequacy in some lesson topics, a failure to reveal the stupendous riches of the Scripture truth that is to be taught. An example of this is seen in the Third Year Senior topics for the study of the Epistle to the Galatians: “Paul’s Assertion of Independence,” “The Bondage of Tradi tion,” “The Christian Idea of Freedom.” The wording of these topics does not do justice to the great eternal spiritual truths of bondage to sin under the law versus the life of victory-by-freedom in Christ which this Epistle so glori ously brings out. What of the New Birth? Many would have been glad to see somewhere in these lessons, among the many statements of aim and purpose of the courses for the different years, a declaration of aim that the pupil shall come to recognize man’s lost condition as constituting our need of a Saviour. This is nowhere stated. It is stated that the lessons have the aim of bringing the pupil to the personal acceptance of Jesus as Saviour and Lord; and that is good. But a clear declaration of the universal need of the new birth would have given increased doctrinal strength to the series. This lack is accentuated by such expressions as the following: “The average age of thirteen calls for a new type of lessons which shall make their appeal to the new sense of selfhood and the new hunger for a satisfying personal ideal.” The emphasis seems to be chiefly “to deepen the impulse to do right,” rather than to show (not necessarily to the youngest children, but certainly somewhere during the series) the hopelessness of any one’s doing right except through the regenerating presence of the Holy Spirit made possible by the acceptance of Christ as Saviour. Facing Our Responsibility. These blessings and perils in the International Graded Lessons have been considered in this discussion entirely apart from the question whether any seventeen-year scheme is a wise or unwise one. The Sunday School Times believed that a much simpler plan would be better. It would welcome a thor ough test of some such three-grade course on a uniform Scripture basis as Dr. Amos R. Wells set forth in the Times of March 21. It would welcome some opportunity, through collateral Scripture work in the Home Readings or other wise, for more comprehensive Bible study. It hopes that the Chicago. Conven- Concluded on Page 418
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