HIINOIS HISTORICAL SURVEY
lUTNOlS HISTORICAL SURVEY
i
PROCEEDINGS
TWENTY-SECOND
ILLINOIS
HELD IN THE
FIRST CHURCH, GALESBURG,
li3f;ary
OF THE
UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS
^mtiimit tl^ucsha^ antt '^ctmcstt*ii|t plaij U^ 12 tmtx 1% 18.$ 0.
CHICAGO:
The Jxo. B. Jeffekt Publishing House,
159 & 161 Dearborn Street.
ISSO.
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Illinois $tate $.ili6alli f cfiool ^ssfltiation.
4
WILLIAM REYNOLDS, President.
Boston W. Smith, Alton; A. R. Kenner, Flora; C. W, Taylor, Paxton,
Vice-Presidents.
State Secretarj-r— H. S. Vail, Chicago. Treasurer— B. F. Jacobs, Chicago.
Statistical Secretary — C. ^I. Eames, Jacksonville.
EXEC UTI VE COMMIT TEE.
B. F. JACOBS, Chairman, Chicago.
M. C. HAZARD, Chicago. ALEX. G. TYXG, Peoria.
H. C. DeMOTTE, Bloomington. R. H. GRIFFITH, Rushville.
WILLIAM THORN, Olney. T. P. NISBETT, Alton.
DISTRICT PRESIDENTS.
C. M. Morton, Chicago.
J. D. Arms, Monmouth.
J. R. Mason, Bloomington.
F. D. Crane, Mount Sterling.
F. L. Thom-son, Salem.
C. W. Jerome, Carbondale.
DISTRICT SECRETARIES.
W. B. Lloyd, St. Charles.
A. P. Babcock, Galesburg.
A. Aron, Bloomington.
C. A. Catlin, Jacksonville.
W. C. Kenner, Flora.
S. T. Brush, Carbondale.
Klliitois ^taU ^. ^, ^n\)tn\m$,
Xo. President. Year.
I. Dixon Rev. W. AV. Hansha 1859
IL Bloomington *R. M. Guilford 1860
in. Alton E. C. Wilder 1861
IV. Chicago.. Rev. S. G. Lathrop 1862
A'. Jacksonville *lsaac Scarritt 1863
VI. Springfield A. G. Tvng 1864
Vll. Peoria Kev. W. G. Pierce 1865
VHI. Rockford P. G. Gillett 1866
IX. Decatur AVm. Revnolds 1867
X. Du Quoin B. F. Jacobs 1868
XI. Bloomington D. L. Moodv 1869
Xn. Quincv P. F. Gillett 1870
XIIL Galesburg *J. McKee Peeples 1871
XIV. Aurora C. R. Blackall 1872
XV. Springfield J. F. Culver 1873
XVL Champaign D. AV. AVhittle 1874
XA'IL Alton R. H. Griffith 1875
XVIIL Jack.sonvill6^ D. L. Moodv 1876
XIX. Peoria E. C. Hewett 1877
XX. Decatur Rev. F. L. Thom.son 1878
XXI. Bloomington C. M. Morton 1879
XXII. Galesburg ~ AVm. Reynolds 1880
Deceased.
XU
\v\\
CALL FOR THE CONVENTION,
To THE Sunday-School Workeks of Illinois:
The Twenty-second Annual Conyention of the Illinois State Sunday-
School Association will be held (D. V.) in the City of Galesburg, Tuesday,
Wednesday and Thursday, May 11th, 12th and 13th, 1880.
The sessions of the Convention will he held in the First Congregational
Church, beginning Tuesday, May 11th, at 10 o'clock a. m. Each County in
the State, except Cook, is entitled to ten delegates — the representation
from Cook being unlimited.
As far as possible, arrangements for reduced fares on the various rail-
roads will be made and announced at a future time, together with the
names of local committees, etc.
In issuing the call for this Convention, the Executive Committee beg to
remind the Sunday-school workers of the State of the historical significance
of this gathering. The year 1880, to the Sunday-school world, and to us in
particular, is a year of peculiar interest.
It is the semi-millennial anniversary of the translation of the Bible into
the English language. The publication of Wycklif 's Bible, in 1380, was an
event worthj^ of commemoration by us, upon whom the cumulative bless-
ings of five hundred years of Bible reading and Bible study have fallen.
It is the centennial anniversary of the establishment of Sunday-schools.
The school organized by Robert Raikes, in 1780, with two or three teachers
and a half hundred scholars, has grown into more than 100,000 schools,
with more than 1,000,000 teachers and more than 10,000,000 scholars.
It is the first year of the second series of International uniform lessons,
which were first proposed in our own State, then adopted by the National
Convention, and now used throughout a large portion of the Bible reading
world.
It is the twenty-first anniversary of the organization of our State Sun-
day-School Association, which has been honored of God in greatly extend-
ing the work in this commonwealth, and acknowledged by others as
furnishing an examjile worthy of imitation.
It is, therefore, proposed that this Convention be made a special x-e-union
of the workers in this State, and that the following subjects be brought
before us, viz.:
1— The consideration of JESUS CHRIST, OUR LORD, in His adorable
person as Creator, Lawgivei', Savior, Priest and King.
2 — His holy and blessed word, THE BIBLE, as our light, our guide, our
text-book, our weapon.
3— THE VINEYARD in which He has called us to labor— our Counties—
our Schools.
a9ii4'2l
8 Illinois State sl'^'DAY school, Coxvextiox.
enquiries were made as to wlio of the number present nine
years before would be at this anniversary meeting. The
occasion was one of great interest. The Association, so
widely known, had attained its majority. Twenty-one years
had passed since the little company of workers organized the
Association in the neighboring city of Dixon. That handfull
had increased to a great army, many of the workers present
at that first meeting were still actively employed in the State,
and the thorough organization and the efficient work had
become the subject of praise through the land.
At 9 o'clock the President, Mr. Charles M. Morton, of
Chicago, called the Convention to order, and after a few
words announced the first topic, "Praise and Prayer," to be
led by Mr. James McGranahan, the well-known singer, who
accompanies Major Whittle in his work. Mrs. McGranahan
presided at the organ. Mr. McGranahan announced the
hymn, " All Hail the Power of Jesus ]S"ame," in the singing
of which the congregation heartily joined. Mr. B. F. Jacobs
led in earnest prayer for an especial blessing on the Conven-
tion. Mr. McGranahan chose as a subject for a bible reading
and song service, Hebrews, iii.: 1, " Consider Him," reading a
number of selections from both the Old and Xew Testaments,
commenting in a beautiful and practical manner upon the
various Scriptures, at the close of which the Rev. A. R.
Thain, pastor of the First Church, led in prayer.
The President announced the next subject on the pro-
gramme, "Jesus, His Person and Work," led by Major
Whittle. Mr. Whittle asked Mr. McGranahan for the song,
" I am Trusting in the Lord," which was sung by him, and
Mr. C. C. Case and Mrs. McGranahan, and was listened to
with great interest. Mr. Whittle then led in prayer, and
then announced the Bible reading.
JESUS— HIS PERSON AND WORK.
BY MAJOR WUITTLE.
In John, iv.: 24, our Savior says, " God is a spirit, and they
that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth,"
and in John, i.: 18, He says, " No man hath seen God at any
ILLIXOIS STATE SUNDAY SCHOOL, COXVENTIOX. 9
time; the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the
Father, He hath declared Him."
What we want is to know the God of the Bible, not an
object of our own imagination ; not a God of our own con-
ception ; and in order to know the living God, we must know
the God revealed in the Scripture. God, revealed in Jesus
Christ, is the true God. And the manifestation of God is a
Spirit, in the person of His Son, Jesus Christ, and the work
of His Son in the redemption of man is the theme of the
sacred writings from Genesis to Revelation. To know God
as a Spirit, through Jesus Christ, is to have eternal life. As
our Savior says in John, xvii.: 3, " This is life eternal, that they
know Thee, the oul}' true God, and Jesus Christ, whom Thou
hast sent." jSTot thus to know God is to be without life, as
in the First Epistle of John, 3d chapter, 12th verse, " He
that hath not the Sou, hath not life."
jSTow, man's tendency has alwaj's been the tendency begot-
ten by sin to withdraw from contact with a personal God, and
to place between himself and God's idols, the phenomena of
nature, the forms of worship and the laws of science. Men
do not care to retain God in their knowledge, as it says in
Komans, i.; 28, " God in Christ." As in Second Corinthians,
v.: 19, " God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto
Himself."
Christ, as God. " He was in the form of God, and thought
it not robbery to be equal with God." John, xiv.; 9. "He
that hath seen Him hath seen the Father."
The holy, incarnate and eternal Son of God, as a divine
person, is the object of the Christian's faith, his worship, his
service and his hope. Very early in the history of the
Church the personality of Jesus was assailed by those who
entered the fold with profane and vain babblings, and oppo-
sitions of science, faiseh' so called, as in I. Timothy, vi.: 20.
Seeking to harmonize the divine revelation with the philoso-
phy of men by theories of an allegorical representation of a
spiritual Jesus, an allegorical life, an allegorical death, an
allegorical resurrection, and an allegorical coming again.
But most plainly and solemly do the Scriptures denounce
such views as distort the truth and dishonor the Lord Jesus.
So in I. John, iv.: 1-3, we find the Holy Spirit speaking,
" Believe not every spirit, but try the spirits, whether they
are of God, because many false prophets are gone out into the
world. And hereb}^ know ye the Spirit of God, every spirit
that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh (the
incarnate one, the personality) is of God, and every spirit
that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is
10 iLi.txois State Sunday School Convention.
not of God. And this is that spirit of anti-Christ whereof
ye have heard that it sliould come. And even now already
is it in the world."
In the 5th chapter of the same epistle, 20th verse, " We
know that the Son of God is come, and hath given ns an
understanding that we may know Him that is true, and we
are in Him that is true, even in His Son, Jesus Christ."
Thus we are warned not to be diverted from the worship
of and faith in a personal Jesus by systems of truth about
Jesus, or forms of velocity that would magnify themselves
and hide the person of Christ.
The mind of man is so constituted that to exercise faith
there must be present before the mind some object for faith
to grasp, a person in wliom the soul can trust. For this pur-
pose God, in his grace, is pleased to be made manifest in His
Son ; a personal Christ is put before us as the object of our
faith. It is not believing truth about Him, but believing in
Him, that gives eternal life, as in John iii.: 16, ''God so loved
the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever
believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life."
In the 36th verse, " He that believeth in the Son, the love of
God abideth in him. He that believeth in the Son hath ever-
lasting life." Paul's eye of faith was fixed ui)on the person
of Christ when he wrote, "I know whom I have believed,
and am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I have
committed unto Him against that day." II. Timothy, i.: 12.
Jesus is a person born of the Holy Ghost, worshipped
while in the manger. Jesus is a person fulfilling the law of
righteousness; subject to His parents and teaching in the
temple. Jesus is a person going about doing good, and heal-
ing all that were oppressed of the devil, forgiving sinners,
cleansing lepers, blessing children, raising the dead, comfort-
ing the mourning, feeding the hungry, preaching to the poor.
It is this Jesus tliat is the object ot our faith. It is Jesus as
a person, who on the cross, in His own body, bore our
sins; Jesus, as a person, who rose from the dead upon the
third day, was seen above forty days of His disciples, who
ate and drank with Him after He rose from the dead, speak-
ing to them of the things of the kingdom of God ; 'in whom
we believe. It is this Jesus, as a person, who ascended into
the Heavens; this Jesus, as a person, who sits upon the
throne of God, our advocate and Great High Priest, who is
the object of our worship. It is this same Jesus who was.
seen to go away into the Heavens, and who shall even so
come in like manner as He was seen to go away. Jesus, as a
person, who is the object of our faith. In Him we trust,
Illinois State Sunday School Convention. H
through Him we have life, to Him we pray, of Him we
speak, for Him we wait. Of the glory of His person the
word of God is filled. God, the Father, testifies of Him,
"This is my well beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased;
hear ye Him." Luke, ix.: 35. The Holy Ghost testifies that
God hath exalted Plim as a Prince and a Savior, and declares
Him to he the Son of God, as in Romans, i.: 4. Declared to
be the Son of God by the resurrection from the dead, by the
holy angels from Heaven that announced His coming long-
before He came, whose glory hovered over the cradle the
night of His birth, and who accompanied Him back to His
throne, and are represented as worshipping Him there. The
devils, when He was on earth, knew Him, and worshipped
Him, and called Him the Son of God, and fled in terror from
His presence, as in Mark, v.; 7. John, the Baptist, the
greatest born of woman, said, " I am not worthy to stoop
down and unloose His shoes," in Mark, i.: 7. "I saw and
bear record that this was the Son of God," as in .John, i.: 34.
Pilate, the Roman Governor, was troubled by His presence,
and said, " I find no fault in Him." Little children, moved
by the Spirit of God, sang His praises when He came into
Jerusalem, and when He left the earth and ascended on high,
the disciples worshipped Him. Stephen looked up and saw
Him upon the throne. Saul was blinded by the glory from
His presence when he saw Him on the road to Damascus.
And the testimony of the word of God is unequivocal that
God has given Him a name that is above every name, as in
Phillipians, ii.: 9-10, " Wherefore God has highly exalted
Him and given Him a name above every name, that at the
name of .Jesus every knee should bow and every tongue con-
fess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the oJory of God, the
Father."
Surely we have reason to bow in the deepest humility, and
the most profound adoration, before the exalted and divine
person of the glorified Jesus, as Lie is thus magnified before
us. And surely we cannot fail to be thus moved, as we con-
template, in connection with His person, the work He came
to accomplish as our Redeemer. Let us turn to the testi-
mony of God's word as to that work. Let us view it from
the standpoint of saved ones, those who have believed in
Him, and looked upon His divine work for us, as believers.
There are four aspects of this work that I will call your
attention to; Christ's work for us; His work in us; His work
through us; and, His work with us.
First — His work with us.
Galatians, i.: 3. — First, Lie redeemed us. "Christ has
12 Il^I.lXOIS STATE SUNDAY SCUOOI. COXVEXTIOX.
redeemed us trom the curse of the law, beinjj' made a curse
for us." He hath redeemed us; not that He is going to
redeem us. He redeemed us. He paid the price of redemp-
tion. And when He paid the price, it was His own precious
blood ; the price was accepted, and redemption is an accom-
plished fact, and we receive it by faitli, by believing in Him
as our Savior, and trusting in His word.
I saw^ recently in a paper that an Englishman was taken
prisoner by some bandits in crossing the mountains, and then
sent down and demanded S<JO,OUO in gold as the price of his
redemption. I have no doubt that while this man was away
in the mountains, that he may have sent very earnest appeals
to his friends; he may have besought them to help him. I
have no doubt that he may have had some sorrow on account
of his treatment by some of his friends, and. some sorrow as
to his past life. Eut his prayers, and his beseeching these
friends, could not redeem him ; his sorrow or his regret for
anything in the past could not redeem him; and any promises
that he might make for the future could not redeem him.
There was a price wdiich had to be paid. And I hear that
they sent a British man-of-war with the consul, and that he
took £60,000 with him, and with that £60,000 in gold this
consul went up the mountains, and placed it in the spot
appointed, and when they received the price the man was
redeemed ; they let him go free.
Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law ; not
our repentance for the past; not our promises for the future ;
not our prayers or our doings, but what He did — He hath
redeemed us from the curse of the law.
And then, second, He justifies us, as in Romans, iii.: 24.
We read here, "Being justified freely b}' His grace through
the redemption that is in Christ Jesus." To be justified is to
be declared just before God, to be as if I had never sinned ;
to have no charge against me from the law of God. If the
law of God had a single charge this morning against any one
of us, as believers, we would not be justified in the sight of
God, but we are told that the Gospel is that we are justified
freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ
by the payment of the debt, by the redemption that He has
wrought out for us. He took our place ; He answered for
our sins, and He answered for them all. If I owe a man
§1,000, as long as I owe him that §1,000 I am not justified in
his sight. I might pay him SoOO, but I would not be just in
his sight. Some one else might go to him and pay §000, but
I would not be just in his sight. Somebody might ])ay 8990,
but I would not be justified in the man's sight. If any one
iLLixois State Suxday School Coxventiox. ig
would go and say, " I will pay the principal and the interest,
to the very last farthing," and he should do it, I would be
justified before the man whom I owed.
Justified freel}' by God's grace through the redemption that
is in Jesus Christ. "Therefore, being justified by faith, we
have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ."
Third, He is made our righteousness before God, as in
II. Corinthians, v.: 18., who has reconciled us to himself by
Jesus Christ. He is our example, as in Romans, xv.: 3-7. He
is our advocate, as in Romans, viii.: 34.
His work for us. He has redeemed us, and we are justi-
fied by what He has done, and what He is. And this is out-
side of ourselves.
And, Second, His work in us.
The Spirit of God imparted, as in Galatians, iv,-. 6. "Be-
cause ye are sons; God hath sent forth the spirit of the Son
into your hearts, crying Abba, Father." And when you
believe in Christ; when you take Him at His word; when
you believe the gospel that He has redeemed you ; when you
let Him reign in your hearts, and trust in Him, you will have
the spirit of God imparted, crying Abba, Father.
Condemnation gone, as in Romans, viii.: 1. "There is
therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ
Jesus." How do you get in Christ? Why by trusting Him;
by accepting what He has done for you; by looking alone to
Him. When you believe the gospel that the condemnation
due to you as a sinner has been met by the death of Christ,
then the result is that the condemnation is gone. There is
no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus. If there
is a believer here this morning, if there is a professing Chris-
tian here this morning, and you bear about a sense of con-
demnation, it is because you have been keeping your eyes on
self, instead of keeping your eyes on Christ. And then you
have peace, as in Romans, v.; 1. "Being justified by faith
we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ."
Peace in us when we believe in the peace that has been made
for us.
And then, Third, we have His work through us. First,
glorifying God, as in John, xvii.: 18 — doing the work the
Lord has sent us to do. " As thou has sent us into the world,
even so have I also sent them into the world." In the 4th
verse,"' I have glorified Thee on the earth; I h^^e finished
the work which Thou gavest me to do." We are redeemed
and made partakers «f the spirit of God, that we may be in
this world as Christ was in the world, that God may work
through us to the glory of His own name. So in John, vii.:
14 iLLixois State Sunday School, Coxvextiox.
38-39, we read, "He that believeth on me, out of his belly
shall flow rivers of living water." And this He spake of the
spirit which they that believe on Him should receive after
the Holy Ghost ascended on high, because that Jesus was not
yet glorified. So His purpose is to work through every one
of His redeemed children, by tilling them with the Holy
Spirit, and tilling them so full of the Spirit of God that they
may be made a blessing to all about them. And His M'ork
through us as lights to the world, as in Philippians, ii.: 15,
where we have the testimony that we are to shine as lights in
the world. And He works through us as ambassadors, as in
n. Corinthians, v.: 20. He works through us to convince the
world of sin, as in Hebrew^s, xi.: 7. He works through us to
convince the world of righteousness, as in Romans, viii.: 4-7.
To convict the world of judgment. He has commanded us
to preach or testify that He was ordained of God to be the
judge of the living and the dead. And, if people are not
warned, it they are not convicted of sin, if they are not
being brought to know there is a living God, it is because
there is failure on our part. They do not feel their sins
because we do not live holy lives before them. They do not
feel their sins because we do not reprove their sins. When
the Son of God walked this earth, tilled with the Spirit of
God, He reproved men of sin. He lived a holy life before
them. Wherever Jesus Christ went, people were convicted
of sin. So God would work through us. He has redeemed
us, and He has given us of His Spirit that He may work
through us, even as He worked through His Son, Jesus Christ.
And, finally, Christ's work with us.
First, as the habitation of God through the Spirit, as in
Ephesians, ii.: 22. As a company of Christians we are to be,
as the Church of Jesus Christ on earth, the habitation of
God through the Spirit. And it looks forward to the time
when God is to be glorified in the manifest unity of His
Church on earth. It is not so now. That unity is broken
now. God is not glorified on this earth as it was the purpose
of the gospel He should be, as inhabiting a church of spiritual
members, as our Savior prayed that it might be.
And then, second, His work with us as joint heirs with
Christ, as in Romans, viii.: 17. We are made joint heirs with
Christ, heirs of God, and all the glory that is going to come
to Christ we are going to share it with Him. Joint heirs
with Him.
As a dying lawj-er in St. Louis said to the minister who
went to see him — and the lawyer was a Christian, and had
been* eminent as a lawyer, too, but was an humble child
Illinois State Sunday School Coxvextion. 15
of God, born of God and trusting the Savior — and he asked
the minister, says he : "Did you ever know enough about
law to know what it means to be a joint tenant?" The min-
ister told him no, that he knew more about the gospel than
he did about law, and didn't know what that meant. '■^ Well,"
says he, "I have been reading that verse in Romans, viii.: IT,
about our being joint heirs, and it has filled my soul this
morning, as I thought what it meant to be a joint tenant.
To be a tenant of anybody is to have an interest with them
in everything that is on the land ; that is, if you were joint
tenant with a man in a piece of land, you don't divide the
land in two, aod one take half aud the other half, but every
blade of grass, every tree, and everything upon the land is
shared, share and share alike; you are joint-tenants. And,*'
saj^s he, "we are called joint tenants with Jesus Christ, and
share with Him, share aud share alike, everything in glory
that Jesus is to take out, we are to partake with Him. We
are to share with Him."
Third, we shall be with Him in Glory, as in Galatians, iii,:
4, " We are to be manifest in glory when Christ, who is our
life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with Him in
glory." And, then.
Fourth, we shall share His throne with Him, as in Kevela-
tion, iii.; 21, " To him that overcometh will I grant to
sit with me in m}^ throne, even as I also overcame and am
set down with my Father in His throne."
Fifth, we are to share with Him the judging ot the world,
as in I. Corinthians, vi.: 2, " Do ye not know that the saints
shall judge the world?" We are to sit upon the throne
judging the world with Him, when He shall appear in His
glory to judge the earth.
Sixth, we are to sit at the royal supper of the Lamb, as in
Revelation, xix.: 7, where we read that wonderful chapter,
my brother and my sister, if you love the Lord Jesus, " Let
us be glad and rejoice and give lionor to Him, for the mar-
riage of the Lamb is come, and His wife hath made herself
ready. And to her was granted that she should be arrayed
in fine linen, clean and white, for the fine linen is the righte-
ousness of saints. And he saith unto me write, Blessed are
they which are called unto the marriage supper of the Lamb.
And he saith unto me, these are the true sayings of God."
We shall sit there and look into His face. And He says
that He is going to come Himself, and we shall sit at that
table, and we shall be filled with His glory, and shall share in
His love. And then,
Seventh, eternal peace ; His work with us, as in Revelation,
16 Illinois State Suxday School Convention.
xxii.: 3-5, "And there shall be no more curse, but the throne
of God and the Lamb shall be in it, and His servants shall
serve Him. And they shall see His face, and His name shall
be in their foreheads. And there shall be no night, and they
need no candle, neither light of the sun, for the Lord God
ffiveth them light, and they shall reign forever and ever."
\Ve shall see His face; the greatest glory, the greatest joy,
and the greatest consolation that the word of God can
describe to us is that we shall see His face.
If a man is away from his family, if he is away from those
that he loves and remembers, when he thinks of going home
again, it is not the ground, it is not the house, it is not the
things that may be in the house ; but there is some loving
wife, or loving mother, or loving child, and he thinks of see-
ing a face, and of the joy that would light up that face. So
it is with us. We shall see His face, and His name shall be
in our foreheads, '-and there shall be no ni^ht there, and they
need no candle, neither light of the sun, tor the Lord God
giveth them light, and they shall reign forever and ever."
So His work for us. He has redeemed us ; He works in
us ; He has made us know, by the indwelling Spirit, the living
God revealed in Christ. As a dyina: Scotchman said when
the}^ asked him if he was not afraid, '' Why, mon," said he,
" why should I fear ? I ken Jesus, and Jesus kens me." And
so with those born of God ; they ken Jesus, and Jesus kens
them. And then His work through us, to be consecrated to
Him, to be willing that He should use us, to be willing that
He should save us. That through us may be realized the
love of God. And then, by and by. His work with us. He
will not be in glory without us, as the old hymn says, " He
will not be in glory and leave us beliind." As General Sher-
man, when he met his army in Washington, and the day was
appointed when the army should march in review before the
President, and before the House of Congress, and before the
jS'ation in Washington, he telegraphed on to Ohio to Mrs.
Sherman and for the children to come on, that they might sit
upon the platform and share with him the joy of that hour,
as he should be honored in that triumphant procession. So,
by and by, the Savior will not want us to be left out, b«t
when the great procession sl>all march before the eternal
throne of God, and God shall be recognized, and God shall
be gloriiied, and honored, and made known to the Church of
Jesus Christ and His redeemed people, He will gather them
there to share His glory.
Illinois State Suxdat School, Convention. 17
At the close of the bible reading, Dr. Tliayer, of Peoria,
led in" prayer.
The time for organization having arrived, the Chairman
announced the following committees :
On Nominations — From the first district, E. H. Pitkin ; second district,
William Reynolds ; third district, J. R. Mason ; fourth district, G. W.
Scripps ; fifth district, W. C. Kenner ; sixth district, Mrs. C. W. Jerome.
On Street Meetings—^. A. Wilson, Springfield ; A. J. Nowlen, of Irving
Park ; Ira Reed, Chandlerville.
On the Executive Committee'' s Report — A. J. King, Peoria; A. R. Thain,
Galesburg ; E. S. Alhro, Chicago.
On motion, the Convention decided that all matters of
business must be referred to the Executive Committee, and
that all resolutions should be reported by the Business Com-
mittee.
After a song, a recess was taken, and the Convention
enjoyed a fellowship meeting, visiting and hand-shaking pre-
vailing all over the house.
The Convention was again called to order, and the hymn^
" Over There," was rendered by a choir of male voices, con-
sisting of Mr, James McGranalia*n ; C. C. Case, of Chicago ;
D. R. Leland of Chicago ; A. J. Nowlen, of Irving Park, and
R. S. Thain, of Oak Park.
The Report of the Executive Committee was next read by
the chairman, Mr. B, F. Jacobs, of Chicago, as follows;
To THE Illinois State Sunday-school Association.
Dear Brethren: The Executive Committee . submit here-
with their report for the year just closed. We congratulate
the Association on its twenty-first birthday anniversary, and
iray that it may receive more largely than ever, the fruitful
' lessing of Our Heavenly Father. The Association was born
in prayer, love rocked its cradle, enthusiasm characterized its
boyhood, earnest study and fervent zeal have marked its
youth, and faithfulness and devotion will write success upon
the manly work of coming years.
The blessings bestowed upon us by our gracious God,
should lead us in humble gratitude and in dependence upon
Him, to perform the work committed to our hands, in better
I
18 Illinois State Sunday School. Convention.
maimer than ever before. Truly, "the lines have fallen to us
in pleasant places, and we have a goodl}- heritage." Our vine-
yard is a land of corn and wine, of oil, olive and honey, and
the abundant harvests of the past year, and the shining prom-
ise for the present, should lead to greater activity and more
abundant contributions.
During the year past, we have not enjoyed a wide-spread
revival, yet in man}- places special tokens of God's favor have
been received, and many have been led to Christ. The Lord
has graciously spared the workers and blessed the efforts put
forth, and the seed sown has yielded large returns. At our
last Annual Convention it was decided to make an earnest
effort to hold a convention in every county, and to push the
work of township conventions and institutes as much as pos-
sible. This has been accomplished in part, and we are glad
to report that 102 County Conventions have been held during
the year. For the first time we report a convention held in every
county. In addition to these, we report 1,119 Township Con-
ventions held during the year, making a total of 1,*221 con-
ventions. The general features of the work as reported by
the district Presidents, are as follows : (For further particu-
lars see report of the statistical Secretary.)
THE FIRST DISTRICT.
The District Convention was held at Rockford, Novem-
ber 17th and 18th. It was largely attended, and deep interest
was manifested throughout. Seventeen county, and 158
township conventions have been held. Six banner counties
are reported, being a loss of two — Lake and Stephenson ; and
157 townships are reported organized (a loss of 32 township
organizations), being 54 per cent, of the whole number (a loss
of 9 per cent.). The statistics in this district also show a loss
in membership of 2,663; but the loss is believed to be in our
tables, for the reason that the figures previously given were
found incorrect. This is noticeable in the counties of Boone
and Cook. In Boone the loss is given as 16 schools and 1,418
membership. There has not been such a loss. The county
statistics were wrong last year, and the present figures are
those of the schools that have reported within a few weeks,*
and may possibly be too small.
The work done in Cook county has been more thorough
than ever before, and it is believed that a gain has been made,
while a loss of 2,560 in membership is reported. The same
facts are noticed in reference to Whiteside county, where the
best years work ever known has been done ; and we doubt
the reported loss in McHenry. The district needs the con-
Illinois State Suxdat School Coxvextiox. 19
stant work of a good Sundaj-scliool Missionary Superintend-
ent, and we hope one may be secured. Fourteen counties
have contributed to the State work.
THE SECOND DISTRICT.
The District Convention was held at Princeton, Novem-
ber 6 and 7. The report shows nine banner counties — a gain
of five ; and 199 townships organized — a gain of 17 ; being
64 per cent. — a gain of 5 per cent. Seventeen county, and
223 township conventions have been held during the year.
This is the banner district for fresh reports. Fifteen counties
have reported by their Secretaries. One of the non-reporting
counties — Stark — has been reorganized, and has recently held
the first convention for three years ; doubtless the report will
soon follow. This district also shows a falling ofi" in member-
ship, for the reasons already given. We cannot believe that
LaSalle county has lost 3,086, Mercer 1,403, and Peoria 1,824,
and the whole district 2,803, while it has gained in banner
counties, in townships organized, and in conventions held. It
must be, that too little efi:brt has been made to know the facts
and report them. And what shall we say of counties that
have neither gained or lost for a year. There are counties in
this district that need much work, and a faithful Superintend-
ent giving his entire time to this district for one year, would
bring an astonishing report to our next gathering. Twelve
counties have contributed to the State work.
THE THIRD DISTRICT.
The District Convention was held at Paxton, October 23
and 24, and was well attended.
A marked change is seen in the report of this district.
Twelve banner counties are reported, being a gain of ten, and
225 townships organized (a gain of 153), being 82 per cent, of
the whole, and a gain of 200 per cent., with an increase of 29
schools and 6,806 in membership, against a reported decrease
for the previous year of 2,925. If anything was needed to
prove the necessity for more accurate statistics, the reported
losses of the First, Second, and Fourth Districts, and the
gains of the Third, Fifth, and Sixth Districts would be suffi-
cient. And if we regret lack of work in the former, we must
commend the workers that have done so well, particularly in
the Third District. Seventeen county conventions have been
held (a gain of two), and 214 township conventions (a gain of
152). Having done so well in many things, it is to be regretted
that but ten counties have contributed to the State work.
20 li.i^iNois State Sunday School Convention.
THE FOURTH DISTRICT.
The Convention of the Fourth District was held at
Griggsville, October 21 and 22, and was a Uirgc and profitable
meeting. The district President's report has been printed,
and contains many valuable suggestions, and may be profita-
bly studied by all. Eleven banner counties are reported, a
gain of four, notwithstanding a loss of one — Adams — with 17
county and 270 township conventions, and 181 townships
organized, a gain of 52. The percentage of townships organ-
ized is nearly 70 — a gain of 16 per cent. A gain of 43
schools is given, with a loss of 760 in membership. This
may result from more correct figures from the counties re-
porting, but it is to be regretted that six counties have not
made fresh reports. The pains-taking work of the district
ofHcors is worthy of praise and emulation, and it cannot be
doubted that the highest results must be reached if such work
is continued. We especially commend the recommendation
of the President to make larger use of the county papers, to
keep the Sur; day- school work in the several counties before
the people. Ten counties have contributed to the State
work.
THE FIFTH DISTRICT.
The District Convention was held at Fairfield, October
28 and 20. Mr. C. M. Morton, who has attended all the
District Conventions, reports that in some points it was the
best of all. Eight banner counties are reported, a gain of
five, notwithstanding a loss of one — Gallatin; with 17
county and 81 township conventions; and 81 townships
organized — a gain of eigliteen. The percentage of townships
organized is 40 — a gain of 4 per cent. The good work done
in this district is evidenced by the reported increase of 44
schools, and 2,688 in membership. The district has met with
a severe loss, which is shared by the whole State, in the death
of our beloved brother, Mr. J. McKee Peeples, a former
President of the State association, and for a long time a
member of the State Executive Committee. His personal
work and liberal contributions, as well as his valuable experi-
ence, have been of great service to the cause of Christ in his
own count}^, his district, and the State. We pray that the
Lord will call others to fill the vacancies occasioned by his
death, and suggest that suitable resolutions be entered upon
our records, and copies be sent to his family. Thirteen coun-
ties have contributed to the State work.
Illinois State Suxday School Coxvextiox. 21
the sixth district.
The District Convention was held at Carbon dale, October
30 and 31. Seven banner counties are reported, a gain of
two; with 17 county and 181 township conventions, a gain
of 78 ; and with 140 townships organized, a gain of 37. The
percentage of townships organized is nearly QG — a gain of 16
per cent. — while the increase in the number of schools re-
ported is 101, and in membership, 5,000. The continued
advance made year after ^-ear in this district, is inspiring to
the workers in all parts of the State. Tlie devotion and
ability with which the work is prosecuted, promise at an
early day to make this district first of all in thorough organi-
zation. The report of the President is published in pamphlet
form, and the following extract will be read with satisfaction,
and we hope will lead others to go and do likewise:
"The conventions, without exception, were exceedingly interesting
and profitable. The organizations were strengthened, the workers encour-
aged and their numbers increased, and the discussioias and drills were a
source of profit. The leading men and women in the S. S. work, and the
pastors of the different congregations were present to encourage, aid and
cheer. New enthusiasm and inspiration, a better understanding of the
work and how to perform it, were some of the good results of these conven-
tions. A wonderful union of effort, and the sweet Spirit of the Good
Father pervaded ever}' meeting."
T welve counties have contributed to the State work.
From the report of the Statistical Secretary it will be
seen that the total number of banner counties is 53 — a gain
of 18 ; of townships organized, 981 — a gain of 213 — being
nearly 65 per cent, of the whole. The total number of schools
reported is 6,535 — a gain of 233 — with a total membership of
568,704 — a gain of 8,268. These figures are not wholly
correct, as in some counties the Catholic schools are reported,
and in some they are not. The same objection is made to
the reports of public schools, and the blanks should be
changed to give the facts. We repeat the suggestion that
the counties be requested to hold their conventions previous
to May 1st, in each convention year, that we may have time
to complete the reports before the meeting of the convention.
1,157 schools report teachers' meetings — a gain of 152. It
will be noticed that the gain is about the same as in the
number of township conventions, and is far below the needs
of the schools. We urge upon the convention the necessity
of JSTormal Classes in the words used by us at the Blooming-
ton Convention :
Your committee also desire to urge upon the members of this conven-
tion, and the county and township officers throughout the State, the
importance of organizing normal classes for the more thorough study of
22 Illinois State Suxday School Coxventiox.
the book we teach, and the best methods of teaching the book. Without
waiting for skilled teachers who have a wide reputation, let classes l)e
formed for mutual study and helj), and a regular course be taken up and
followed. These are days of doubt and conflict with the powers of evil and
mischief ; it is, therefore, the more necessary that we be wholly persuaded
as to the truth we teach, and that Ijy careful study we may show ourselves
approved of God, workmen that need not be ashamed. Knowing "That
ALL scrii)ture is given by inspiration of (iod, and is profitable for doctrine,
for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of
of God may be perfect, thoroughly finished unto all good works."
On the subject of Temperance, your committee rejoice
with you in the efforts being made to teach its importance to
the children and youth, as well as to rescue the perishing. No
one can be unmoved, if the fearful contrast is presented
between our numbers and those of the enemy. To think
that there are ten saloons for every Sunday-school ; more bar
tenders and clerks than Sunday-school teachers ; more drink-
ers than Sunday-school scholars ; and almost as many millions
of money spent for intoxicating drinks as thousands for
Sunday-school work, is appalling. Without indicating a
choice of methods by which this work shall be carried on, we
believe it to be the duty of all christian men and women to
be outspoken and earnest in their opposition to this gigantic
evil that so mightily opposes the Sunday-School and all other
forms of Christian work. We believe the officers and teach-
ers of our schools should make the subject prominent in their
teaching and addresses to the school, and not leave it alone
for a special service at greater intervals. We believe this
truth to be self-evident from the teaching of the word of God,
that a Christian should be a temperance man or woman, girl
or boy.
From the Treasurer's report, we learn that seventy
counties have contributed to the work the sum of $1,032.25.
We regret that a larger sum was not given, as your
Committee, believing in the liberality ot the counties,
made arrangements to push the work, and were obliged
to change their plans and curtail their expenditures. A
wrong view of the work must obtain in many counties,
and nearly all should double their contributions. In view of
the wants of the field, the Committee wish to employ at least
three men a part of the year. The work done by Bro. C. M.
Morton has been so valuable, and the need is so great, we
cannot doubt that this Convention will provide at least §2,o00
for the coming year. We should have one man in each dis-
trict— a battery of six guns — a fiying artillery, under com-
mand of a good captain. We suggest that beyond the con-
tributions of the Schools, we raise a special fund from indi-
viduals to do this special work for this year. The Sunday
iLLryois State Sitxday Schoox. Convention. 23
School Centenary deserves special attention. It will be your
pleasure to appoint delegates to the meeting in London,
England, and to make a report of your work. But we
suggest that some correspondence be opened with other States
for a Centennial Sunday-school Meeting, and a Semi-Millenial
Bible Meeting, to be held this year, at a suitable time and
place. Few centennial anniversaries are so worthy of cele-
bration. A IsTew York secular paper, of wide influence, says :
" In spite of its real and fancied imperfections, and aside from its
position as a feeder of churches, the Sunday-school has been of immense
service to humanity. In the majority of places where it has been estab-
lished its libraries have been the only sources of education beyond the
elementary branches taught in common schools ; it has been more effective
than any other influence in that superior order of mission work that con-
sists in placing neglected but impressible natures temporarily amid sur-
roundings pleasanter and better than those to which they are accustomed,
and it has imparted to many through its religious instructions, those moral
precepts that parents neglect to teach, and which churches in their services
have seemed to consider above the comprehension of children. Excepting
the home there is no other organization that can do more for the good of
children than the Sunday-school, and for this veiy reason the centennial
occasion should be improved by an earnest look ahead."
If we add to this the increased circulation and study of the
scriptures, the creation by means of the International Lessons
of what might be called a new literature ; the work done by
the Sunday-school Missionaries ; the higher training of
teachers, by means of i^ormal Classes and Institutes ; the
benefit that the work has been to those who have engaged in
it ; and, above all, the multitudes brought to Christ through
its influence, we may well keep the feast with joy.
This was followed by the reports of the Presidents of the
First and Second Districts :
REPORT OF W. B. JACOBS— FIRST DISTRICT.
Dear Brethren : In reporting the work done in the First
District, we are glad to sa}^ the promise of last year has been
made good, as far as the county organizations are concerned.
Every county has held a convention, and our district banner bears
seventeen stars. But we regret to add that but six of the
county banners are in the same condition, viz: Cook, Du
Page, Lee, Ogle, AYhiteside and Winnebago, "We mourn the
loss of Lake and Stephenson from the list of banner counties,
and hope to have them, with others, added to the column for
next year. The latter came but little short of a place, having
14 of the 18 townships organized. We therefore report 17
county and 158 township conventions held during the year.
24 Illinois State Sunday School Convention.
The statistics also sliow a loss in our Sunday-school member-
ship of 2,663, but we believe this is not the case. A loss is
reported in the counties of Boone (1,418), Cook (2,560),
Grundy (237), Kendall (54), McHenry (077), Stephenson (39),
and Whiteside (375). The gains are Carroll (377), Du Page
(700), Kane (140), Ogle (1,263), and Winnebago (517). In
Boone county the last report gave 30 schools, and a member-
ship of 2,800, while this year it gives but 14 schools, with a
total of 1,418. One or both of these reports must be incor-
rect. In Cook county the loss is in the figures returned by
the Catholic schools (they being included in the reports), and
it is probable that they were not exact in either case. The
work done in Cook during the past year has been more thor-
ough than ever before, and it is believed that a gain has been
made. The evidence is that in this county, while a very large
proportion of the inhabitants live in the city of Chicago, and
the foreign and non-church going part of the community
outnumber the others, that even there the members of Pro-
testant Sunday-schools equal the enrollment for the public
schools, and the total membership of Protestant and Catholic
Sunday-schools at least equal the enrollment for the public
schools and the Parochial schools. Similar facts are known
in Whiteside county, where the work of the past year has
surpassed all former efforts. We also doubt the reported loss
in McHenry county. These things should lead to greater
carefulness and painstaking in gathering statistics.
The eighth L)istrict Convention was held at Rockford,
November 17th and 18th. It was largely attended, and a
deep interest was manifest during all the sessions. It will be
noticed that the total Sunday-school membership in the
district is reported at 177,095, and the enrollment for the
public schools at 180,259. We believe a complete report
would fully sustain the percentage in Sunday-schools, and it
is worthy of notice that in this respect the First District
leads the others in the State.
Fourteen counties in this district have contributed to the
State work the total sum of 8669.50.
To the county officers the praise is due for the work that
has been done.
Yours, in Christian work,
W. B. Jacobs,
Pnsident.
Illinois State Suxday School Coxvextiox. 25
REPORT OF J. D. ARMS— SECOND DISTRICT.
Dear Brethren : It is with pleasure I am able to report
that the Second District has, during the past year, made
progress. It is the largest district in the State, numbering
310 townships. Conventions have been held in all the coun-
ties. Many of the programmes used were of a high order,
and the discussions entered into by the leading workers stim-
ulated us to higher attainments in the Christian life, a better
understanding of the word of God, and a religious enthusi-
asm for the salvation of the 3-ouug, our county officers to
become thoroughly acrj[uainted with their duties, organizing
townships and establishing new schools. The Conventions
were exceedingly interesting and profitable to all who
attended. The workers in nearly all the counties are to be
commended for their zeal, love and devotion to the Master's
work.
The Twentieth Annual Convention of Knox County was
held at Maquon, May 6th and 7th. It was not attended as
largely as some of the former Conventions. ^Ym. Reynolds,
of Peoria, and a number of the leading workers of the county
were present and took part. The meeting increased in inter-
est till the close, and all felt that it was good to be there.
Knox County has emploj-ed for a number of years a Sabbath-
school missionary, and his labors have been greatly blessed.
The number in the Sunday-schools exceeds that of the public
schools, and they report a gain of 12 schools, 450 in member-
ship, and 120 received into the church. All the townships
are organized, and it may be considered the banner county of
the Second District.
Bureau County held their Twenty-first Convention at
Maiden, June 3d and 4th. All the sessions of the Conven-
tion were well attended. Bros. White and Minty, of Kendall
County, and Arms, of Warren, were present. The workers
received new enthusiasm, and deterrfiined to bring the Sunday-
school work in the county to its former high standing.
Through the efibrts of the officers and workers, they report a
gain of 12 schools and 523 in membership ; 29 township con-
ventions and institutes were held, and 98 received into the
church. Bureau has the honor of being a banner county.
' The Convention of Putnam County was held at Hennepin,
August 14th and 15th. Bros. Reynolds, of Peoria County,
Revs. Norton and Richardson, of Bureau County, and others
from neighboring counties, were present, which added greatly
to the interest of the Convention. This is the smallest county
in the district — in fact, in the State. They report a loss of
26 Illinois State Sunday School. Convention.
1 school and 100 membership; have held 4 conventions ; 19
have been received into the church. The failure to organize
Granville township prevents them from being numbered
among the banner counties.
The Twenty-third Convention of Fulton County was held
at Lewistown. Xearly all the townships in the county were
represented, but the attendance was not large. The Carman
family furnished the music, and Revs, Morton, Griffith,
Arms, and friends from other counties, were present. The
meeting was interesting and prolitable. The officers and
executive committee have rendered efficient service since the
convention, and report a gain of 13 schools, 1,975 in member-
ship, 140 received into the church, and 27 conventions held.
Fulton has the honor of being a banner county.
The Fifteenth Convention of McDonough County met in
Bardolph, August 20th and 21st. All the sessions were well
attended, and the meeting grew in interest to the close.
Workers from most of the townships reported live and active
organizations. In this tield excellent and successful work has
been accomplished through its President, Alex. McLean, and
his co-laborers. Rev. T. W. Jones, W. P. Turner, of Fulton
County, and Rev. G. D. Kent and wife and Arms, of Warren
County, were present to help. The}^ report a gain of 8
schools, 216 in membership, 175 received into the church, and
32 conventions and institutes held, being nearly two conven-
tions held in each of the townships. This has been a banner
county for a number of years.
Tazewell County held its Fifteenth Annual Convention at
Delevan, August 20th, 21st and 22d. It was well attended
and the meeting interesting. Among the workers from
abroad were Bros. Reynolds and Blossom, of Peoria, Prof.
De Motte and wife and Prof. Ilewett, of Bloomington, who
rendered valuable aid. The county officers and their co-
laborers have done nobly. They report a gain of 6 schools,
'd<d6 membership, 102 added to the church, 10 townships
organized, and 11 conventions held. The number in the
Sunday-schools exceeds that of the public schools.
Woodford County held their Convention at Secor. They
were assisted .by Bro. Reynolds, and though not so generally
attended as some of the former conventions, the meeting was
interesting and protitable. They report a gain of 1 school,
38 additions to the church, and 5 townships out of the 17
organized held 4 conventions. We hope for a better report
from Woodford County the coming year.
Hancock County held their Thirteenth Convention at
Carthage, August 28th and 29th. It was not largely attended.
Illinois State Suxday Sciiooi. Coxvextiox. 27
Some of the workers have become discouraged. They were
assisted by Rev. M. C. Bowin, from McDonongh County, Rev.
D. M. Hill, and J. D. Arms and wife, from Warren. They
report a loss of 9 schools and 531 in membership ; 45 received
into the church ; held onl}' 1 convention. Last year Hancock
reported all the townships organized : this year they report
no townships organized. We hope this is a mistake ; but, if
it is true, it shows a great want of interest on the part of the
Sunday-school workers.
Mercer County held its Convention in Keithsburg, Septem-
ber 2d and 3d. The attendance was small, and the interest
in the work has abated. The}^ report a loss of 4 schools and
1,403 in membership ; 209 added to the church; no townships
organized. We hope for better things the coming year.
Marshall County held its Sixteenth Annual Convention at
Lacon, September 10th, 11th and 12th. It was well attended.
Both ministers and laymen took part in the discussions.
Bros. Reynolds and Mcllvaine, of Peoria County, and Rev.
Xesbit, of Woodford County, were present and rendered
efficient service. The President and Secretary and the mem-
bers of the committee have pushed forward the work, and
Marshall County is numbered among the banner counties.
They report a gain of 2 schools, 34 received into the church ;
all the townships (14) organized ; have held 21 conventions.
Henderson County held its Fourteenth Annual Convention
at Terre Haute, Sept. 18th and 19th. The attendance was not
large, but it proved to be an interesting and profitable meet-
ing. Rev. W . P. Turner, of Fulton County, and Rev. G. B.
Snedaker, of Hancock County, extended the greetings of
the Sunday-school teachers and workers of those counties,
and otherwise added to the interest of the convention. This
has been a banner county for several years. Its high standing
is greatly due to the untiring efforts of the present Secretary.
The report shows a gain of 197 in membership and 105
received into the church ; have held 23 conventions.
Warren County held its Sixteenth Convention at Kirkwood,
September 23d and 24th. Bro. A. P. Babcock and wife, of
Knox Count}', were present and rendered valuable assistance.
The convention was a success. They report a loss of 1 school
and 224 of its membership, but the members in the Sunday-
school exceeds that of the public schools ; 175 added to the
church; all the townships (16) organized; have held 20 con-
ventions. Warren County is numbered among the banner
counties.
La Salle County held its Fifteenth Sunday-school Conven-
tion at Tonica, September 25th and 26th, It was not largely
28 Illinois State Sunday School, Convextiox.
attended, but the meeting was interesting and profitable. La
Salle County is the largest county in the district, "and iu the
State, numbering 37 townships ; a difficult field to work,
owing to a large foreign population which have but little
regard for the Sabbath. The county was divided into seven
districts, and a president appointed for each district. The
oflicers, with others, have been untiring iu their eflforts to
advance the cause. They report a loss of 25 schools and 3,086
in membership, 218 uniting with the church ; 6 townships
organized ; 7 conventions held.
Henry County held its Fifteenth Annual Convention at
Orion, September 30th and October 1st. The convention was
not as well attended as some of the former meetings, but a
good work has been accomplished. The Secretary reports a
gain of 0 schools, li>7 in membership, 232 received into the
church, and all the townships organized. Henry County has
wheeled into line, and now is numbered among the banner
counties.
The Peoria County Convention was held at Princeville,
October 22d and 23d. It was not so well attended as some of
the former meetings. Peoria County roports a loss of 5
schools and 1.824: in membership ; but 214 have been received
into the churches ; all the townships organized ; 1(3 conven-
tions held. Peoria is among the banner counties.
Pock Island County held their Convention at Milan, Octo-
ber 30th and 31st. No report received.
Stark County held its Convention at Wj'oming, April 27th
and 28th. Bro. Reynolds was there. The meeting was not
l[^rgely attended, but we hope that Stark and Kock Island
Counties will come to the front the present year.
The Fifth Annual District Convention was held in Pnnce-
ton, is'ovember 6th and 7th. The officers of the district and
many others looked forward to this convention, hoping and
praying that it might result in awakening a new interest in
the Master's work throughout the district. In this we were
disappointed. An interesting programme was prepared, and
speakers were invited to take part in the convention. They
accepted, and when their names were called for. seven of the
number did not respond. Eight counties out of the seven-
teen composing this district were represented. President
Morton, E. Payson Porter and Miss Kimball, of Chicago,
were present and added very much to the interest of the con-
vention. There are now in the district 1,269 schools, with a'
membership of 104,903, a decrease during the past year of
3,86-1; townships organized, 199; conventions held, 228.
The number (2,019) that have united with the church is very
Illinois State Svxday School, Convention. 29
eiicoiira2:ing, and we have great reason to thank our Heavenly
Father for this manifestation of the Holy Spirit. We recom-
mend that the district be divided into three districts, with
three presidents and secretaries, and one who should have
the general supervision of the whole.
Your fellow-worker,
J. D. Arms,
Brest. Second Illinois S. S. Dist.
After prayer and benediction, the Convention adjourned at
the close of the first session. '
FIRST DAY-Affernoon Session.
The Convention was promptly called to order by the Presi-
dent.
Mr. C. C. Case, of Chicago, the co-worker of Mr. G. C.
Needham, of the Chicago Avenue Church, conducted a ser-
vice of song, with Mrs. McGranahan at the organ.
Mr. R. T. Thain, of Chicago, led in prayer, and the male
choir sung " Safe to Land." Mr. and Mrs. McGranahan suns:
the beautiful hymn, '' I will sing with my Redeemer," the
entire congregation, which by this time completely filled the
house, uniting in the chorus.
The chairman of the Committee on i^ominations reported
the officers of the Convention in part, as follows :
For President — William Eej'nolds, of Peoria.
Vice-Presidents — Boston W. iSmith, of Alton ; A. R. Kenner, of Flora ;
C. M. Taj'lor, of Paxton.
Fbr Statistical Secretary— C. M. Eames, of Jacksonville.
For State Secretary — H. S. Vail, of Chicago.
For Treasurer — B. F. Jacobs, of Chicago.
For Executive Committee— B. F. Jacobs, chairman ; First District, M. C.
Hazard, of Du Page county; Second District, A. G. Tyng, of Peoria; Third
District, H C. DeMotte, of McLean county ; Fourth District, R. H. Grif-
fith, of Schuyler county ; Fifth District, Rev. F. L. Thompson, of Marion
county ; Sixth District, T. P. Nisbett, of Madison count}-.
30 li.Lixois State Sunday School. Coxvextion.
The report of the committee was accepted, and the persons
nominated were elected by acclamation.
The President elect was escorted to the platform, and
received in a few eloquent words by the former President,
Mr. Morton, who presented him to the Convention, which he
addressed as follows :
PRElilDENT REYNOLDS' ACCEPTANCE OF THE
PRESIDENCY.
Mr. Reynolds. To-day I have been forcibly reminded of
the old adage, " Plottings, like chickens, always come home
to roost." About a year ago I did a little log-rolling — not
politically, but in a Sunday-school way. I was extremely
anxious that a certain gentlemen, who has been our president
during the past year, should till that office — Mr. C. M. Morton
— and I intruded myself, upon the committee, to work for
his election. And now it has come home to me with a year's
interest. Tliis morning I requested the President to put me
on the Nominating Committee. I had an intimation from a
member of the Executive Committee that there was an inten-
tion on the part of a few persons here to nominate me for the
office of President, and, while I felt that no higher honor
could be conferred upon any man, I thought that as I had
filled the office in days that are past, it was but due to others
so eminently fitted for the position. For the sole purpose of
defeating my nomination, I asked for and obtained a place on
the committee. But with all the powers I could exercise, all
the eloquence I could command, with earnest pleading, and
I think with strong arguments, I was defeated in my purpose,
and I now resign all that kind of warfare into the hands of
those who have been more successful than I have been upon
this occasion.
I accept this position, trusting the Lord "whom I serve"
has called me to it. I thank you for the honor conferred
upon me, and the confidence you have reposed in me. I
know that with God's help it will not be a hard task to pre-
side over a convention of men and women who, with hearts
all aglow with love to Christ, have come from the north, and
south, and east, and west of this Sabbath-school banner State,
to confer with God and with one another as to the future
interests of this o-lorious work.
lL,L,rN'Ois State Sunday School Coxvextiox. 31
The following resolution was unanimously adopted by a
rising vote :
Resolved, That we hereby extend our sincere thanks to Brother C. M.
Morton for his zeal, Christian courage and untiring skill in advancing the
cause of Sunday-schools in our State. We trust that God -will lead him to
still greater usefulness Jn years to come.
The President requested the audience to arise and unite in
singing the hymn, " Come Holy Spirit, Heavenly Dove,"' at
the close of which he invited the newly elected officers to
their seats on the platform.
The Rev. J. AV. T. Booth, on behalf of the citizens of
<3ralesburg, welcomed the Convention in a few well-chosen
and appropriate words,
[The address of Mr. Booth was expected until the last
moment, but was not received.]
In behalf of the Convention, the President responded as
follows :
ADDRESS BY THE PRESIDENT, IN RESPONSE
TO THE ADDRESS OF WELCOME.
Nine years ago the Illinois State Sabbath-school Conven-
tion met in this city for the first time. We have not forgot-
ten that delightful season spent together in yonder hall, ^e
" sat in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus," and felt as never
before " how good and how pleasant a thing it is for brethren
to dwell together in unity."' It was one of "the most inspiring-
conventions ever held in this State. We had for President
one of the noblest Christian men God ever gave to Illinois. A
few months since he finished his work and heard the Savior
say, " Well done, thou good and faithful servant, enter thou
into the joy of thy Lord." We loved him. and we shall miss
him here to-day. We shall miss him as we go forth to labor
-over this State. We will miss his counsel and his words of
faith and cheer ; his hearty response to aia in this work so
dear to his heart, and his faithful service at home and abroad.
We seemed to need him here, but God had need of him in
heaven.
All over this State God has blessed this Sabbath-school
work, and we come to-day to unite in thanksgiving to Him
32 Illinois State Sunday School Convention.
who hath " given the increase." We come, not as denomina-
tions, but as Christian workers standing npou the broad
ground of evangelical truth, a platform upon w^hich all
can stand who love the Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity
and in truth. "One Lord, one faith, one baptism."
We come for the first time to say that we have been
enabled to cover the entire State, and that our map for the
first time has not a single blot upon it — not one county that
has not held its convention — all organized. We come to tell
3'ou that the work in the past year lias been well done, but
we are not satisfied, nor shall we be until we can devise ways
and means to bring all the children of this great State under
the sound of the gospel, and "to know Christ, whom to
know aright is life eternal."
The prayer of those who organized this Sabbath-school work
in Illinois was that this State should be given to Jesus. A
great thing to ask, but tliey remembered that they were com-
ing to the "King of Kings and Lord of Lords," and we may
bring large petitions to Him.
We have with us to-day those whom God has honored as
He has honored but few ; and, as we listen to His message
from their lips, may the Spirit descend in pentecostal power,
baptizing every soul, and " endueing with power from on
high," so that when we leave this Convention we may be
"filled with the Spirit" and may be "workmen that needeth
not to be ashamed." May we leave an influence in these
homes whose kind hospitality we are now receiving, that will
be a blessing and that will enable them in future years to
thank God that this Twenty-first Annual Convention of the
Sabbath-school workers of Illinois was held in their midst.
Delegates, you have a work to do in these homes. Let your
influence be felt for Christ. Bishop Simpson, presiding over
a Methodist conference in one of our large cities, said to
them : " Brethren, if a convention of saloonkeepers was meet-
ing in this city the influence would be felt after it had closed.
It would be felt against morality, p,gainst religion, and against
virtue." A large baud of Christian ministers and laymen
are meeting here; let their influence be felt for morality, for
Christ and His religion, and for virtue. And I would echo
the words of this man of God to you to-day. God bless this
Convention, and may all its deliberations redound to His
honor and glory !
The report of the Third District was read by its President,
Mr. J. R. Mason, of Bloomington, as follows:
Illinois State Sunday School Convention. 33
REPORT OF J. R. MASON— THIRD DISTRICT.
Mr. President and Members of the Convention : It is with
great pleasure I report to-day the Third District. It has
improved so much during the past year — from 2 banner
counties we have grown to 12, all thoroughly organized — 12
out of 17 organized, and others may be. My experience in
trying to get answers to the 2,000 letters that I have written,
has often caused me to think of Luther's story of one of the
devil's anniversaries. His satanic majesty on his throne, with
his servants and followers around him, they began to report.
One said, " I have turned loose a cave of wild animals upon a
caravan of Christians, and their bones now whiten the sands
of the desert." " What of that?" said satan, "their souls
are saved," " I," said another, " turned the east wind upon a
ship loaded with missionaries bound for heathen lands, and
they are all drowned in midocean." "What of that?" said
the devil, "their souls were saved I" Another said, "For
ten years I have been trying to get one single Christian to
sleep, and at last I have succeeded, and left him so." Then
Satan shouted, and all the night stars of hell sang for joy.
And thus I feared, knowing how earnestly Satan's snares are
laid, that some Christian Sunday-school worker had been
rocked to sleep in Satan's cradle, and stolen poor Christian's
pen, 80 that my letters were unanswered, and consequently
our report is incomplete. May God grant that we all be
kept wide awake this, the centennial year, of Sunday-school
work. I will not stop to report my district in detail, simply
say every county has held a county convention this year. I
have had the pleasure of attending about half of them. I
have the pleasure of knowing that Champaign, Coles,
Douglas, Edgar, Shelby, Macon, DeWitt, Livingston, Ford,
Vermillion, Piatt and McLean are banner counties. I am
also assured, and do believe, that Clark, Cumberland, Iro-
quois, Kankakee and Moultrie will this year, with the first
named, come to the front, and 1880 will see us a thoroughly
organized district, holding a banner. We have not been very
charitable this year, to all of which my good brother Jacobs
will say amen. There is some excuse, however, sometimes
for not giving when money is scarce, but when our charity
storehouse is so closed and barred that we will not give infor-
mation— the writing of a letter — then we can safely dub such
an one stingy.
In the Third District we have worked for three objects,
viz; Increase of our church members from our schools;
increase of membership to our schools, and third, organiza-
34 lL.L,ixois State Suxday School, Convention.
tion, aud when I say we have increased in members about
seven thousand (7,000), and have increased in banner counties
ten (10), and have received from our schools through Jesus
into His church over 2,000 scholars, I can truly say we have
been blessed in our labors this year. God help us to double
our diligence the coming year, not only in the Third, but all
the districts of our broad prairie State, and bring into the
kingdom of our blessed Master more than 11,678 souls. Oh,
that the number may be more than doubled, is my prayer.
We held our District Convention at Paxton, and were
greatly blessed and encouraged. Our next District Conven-
tion will be held October 21 and 22, at Champaign — a mass
convention, and you are all invited to attend. I have thought
our State should be divided into smaller districts, say 17
districts, with 6 counties in each, and then arrange a chain of
District Conventions, so that our worthy President could
attend them all, and in that way meet all the workers in the
State. We ought to have a State Missionary like Brother
Morton. See the work accomplished by him in the Fifth
District this year. But, my dear friends, may God help us all
to be earnest missionaries this year, and every one work over
against his own house, for His name's sake.
Respectfully submitted,
J. R. Mason,
President.
The report of the Fourth District was read by the Presi-
dent, Mr. C. M. Fames, of Jacksonville, as follows .
REPORT OF C. M. E AMES— FOURTH DISTRICT.
Dear Brethren. In the brief space allowed for these
Reports I can onlv glance over the field of " The Starry
Fourth."
At Bloomington, where many of us met last May, the
Reports from this district brought it right to the front.
Every county once more organized, and eight of the seventeen
having every township organized, in fact as well as name.
From that time until the District Convention in October,
every energy of the District, and of many county officers has
been turned to rousino: the working force of the whole dis-
trict, and to secunng a thorough canvass of every township-
by means of township conventions. Chains of non-conflicting
meetings of this character have preceded or followed the
County Conventions, until the number of those held during
Illinois State Sunday School Convention.
35
the year exceeded that of any previous twelve months, in any
district in the State, since 1876.
COUNTY CONVENTIONS.
Largely, as a result of these smaller gatherings, the County
Conventions of the summer were spirited, practical and well
attended. The thanks of the President is due to county
officials for willingness to enter into the " chain" arrangement.
With only one exception was there a conflict of dates. The
plan has, in our judgment, worked so successfully that it
ought to be followed hereafter, and if so, will lead to benefits
which could not be realized in this experimental year. There
is no reason why all the counties should not enjoy all the
features which render successful any one convention. It was
our pleasure to attend in part, or fully twelve of the fifteen
county workers' assemblages of last summer. Man}' of them
will long be remembered. From each we returned profited
by some hint, plan or act of sympathy. The characteristic of
the series was the advanced line of thought and work dis-
cussed upon the programmes.
CAMPAIGN OF 1880.
At the Griggsville Convention a second chain of non-con-
flicting County Conventions was arranged for as follows.
iSTearly all dates have been accepted :
July 27-28.
July 29-30.
Aug. 3-4.
Aug. 5-6.
Aug. 10-11.
Aug. 12-13.
Aug. 17-18.
Aug. 19-20.
Aug. 24-25.
Macoupin County.
Christian County.
Logan County.
Brown County.
Morgan County.
Pike County.
Menard County.
Schuyler County.
Cass County.
Aug. 26-27.
Aug. 30.
Sept. 1.
Sept. 2-3.
Sept. 7-8.
Sept. 9-10.
Sept. 14-15.
Sept. 16-17.
Sept. 21-22.
Mason County.
Calhoun County.
Calhoun County.
Scott Count}'-,
Montgomery County.
Jersey County.
Sangamon County.
Adams County.
Greene County.
TOWNSHIP CONVENTIONS.
The latest report of County and Township Conventions in
this- district is as follows ;
Adams 1
Brown 18
Calhoun 1
Cass 51
Christian 9
Greene 25
Jersey 6
Logan 17
Mason 35
Brought forward 163
Menard 9
Montgomery 12
Morgan 18
Macoupin 1
Sangamon 37
Schuyler 18
Scott , 7
Pike 14
Carried forward 163
Total 279
36 Illinois State Sunday School Convention.
To which, undoubtedly, might be added a score or so, held
but not reported. The eight banner counties are now in-
creased to eleven — the greatest number ever reported.
FINANCIAL.
During the two years of the present management of dis-
trict affairs the President has received from
Adams county S ^ ^
Brown county ^^ ^^
Cass county 1^ ^0
Christian county '^> "0
Greene countv 1^ ^^
Schuvler county ^^ ^^
Scott' county ^ Oa
Logan county ^ ^^
Mason county ^0 00
Menard county • 10 00
Montgomery county ^ 00
Morgan county ^^ ^^
Pike county ..'. 1» 00
Collection 8 45
Total $128 45
Calhoun county §0 00
Macoupin county 0 00
Jersey county 0 00
Sangamon county 0 00
The expenditures during the two years have been as
follows :
District map ^'' 00
Expressage 2 60
Newspapers ^ *0
Printing 24 85
Convention speakers •J'j 1^
Postage "^1 ^^
Total *135 55
Leaving a balance due the President of $7.10, besides trav-
eling expenses to two State, two District and twenty County
Conventions. In addition to the above The District Chronicle
was published and circulated last fall at an expense of S90,- of
which less than one-half was met by individual and county
subscriptions and advertising receipts.
STATE DISTRICTS.
As far as I can learn the sentiments of the workers of the
district, the feeling is still, as heretofore expressed in these
Reports, that the State Districts are entirely too large.
Instead of six District Presidents, six District Secretaries and
Illinois State Sunday School Convention. 37
ten members of the Executive Committee, to care for six dis-
tricts, there might be seventeen districts of six counties each,
with one district officer or committeeman for each. This
plan would really decrease the number of officials, but make
their work more efficient through the diminishing of the size
•of their fields.
For Fourth District Statistics see Brother Porter's report,
which shows a net increase of schools of 43, and an apparent
loss of membership of 1492. This is not an actual falling off,
but due to the failure to receive Reports or to reliable statistics
in place of guess work.
Respectfully submitted,
C. M. Fames.
The report of the Fifth District was deferred on account of
the absence of the President, Mr. William Thorn, of Olney.
A telegram was received announcing that he would be pres-
ent on the morrow.
The report of the Sixth District was read by Mrs. C. W.
Jerome, of Carbondale, the wife of the President, as follows:
REPORT OF C. W. JEROME— SIXTH DISTRICT
Fellow Sabbath-School Workeks. I have the pleasure of
presenting the following brief report concerning the condition
of the work in the Sixth District ;
Our district, as you are aware, embraces the seventeen
south-western counties of the State. The year just closing
has been fraught with more than ordinary interest, and suc-
cess in the work. The cause with us has a most cheerful and
hopeful outlook.
During the past year county conventions have been duly
held in each of the counties. I have visited all the counties,
and have had the pleasure of assisting in conducting the con-
ventions. They have never been so generally attended before.
There are now in the district five banner counties, and 153
live township organizations.
The conventions, without exception, were interesting, and
a source of profit. The county organizations were strength-
ened, the workers encouraged, and their numbers increased,
and the discussions and drills were profitable. The leading-
men and women in the Sabbath-school work, and the pastors
of the different congregations were generally present to give
38 Illinois State Sunday School Coxventiox.
encouragement and counsel. Xew enthusiasm and inspira-
tion, a better understanding of the work and how to perform
it, were some of the good results of the conventions. A
wonderful union of efibrt and the sweet spirit of the good
Father pervaded every meeting.
There were reported in the district last year 868 schools,
Avith an average attendance of 52,020 olKcers, teachers and
scholars — a very considerable gain over the report of last
year. Although our figures are not as large as some of the
northern and more populous districts, yet we are pushing
forward the work with a commendable zeal and success. The
best of all is, we believe " the Lord is with us.''
The many faithful workers all over the district have labored
unceasingly, and their prayers, hearty co-operation and
counsel, have been a source of great joy, comfort and help,
to the president of the district.
For special information and detailed account of the work
in each county, for number and increase of schools, names of
officers, an account of each county convention, money con-
tributed and expended for district work, see printed report of
the president of the district, upon the table of the Statistical
Secretary of this Convention.
Our District Convention for the year just now closing, was
held at Carbondale, October 29-31. Sixteen out of the seven-
teen counties were represented. Intense interest was mani-
fested from the beginning to the close. OverfloAV meetings
were held to accommodate the crowds that thronged the
convention. We were favored with many noble workers
from outside of the district, and a host from our own counties
were with us to instruct, counsel and cheer.
The District Convention for 1880 will be held at Du (Juoin,
October 13-14-15. Brothers, sisters, of the Xorth, come and
help us in the Master's work in our Southern field !
The annual county conventions for 1880 have already been
arranged, and the appointments fixed by the county officers.
The conventions will be held during the months of June, July
and August. The campaign promises much, and it is hoped
that the workers upon this floor will not fail, when in their
respective fields of toil, to remember to ask God's benediction
upon the consecutive work in the Sixth District.
During the past year gracious revivals of religion have
occurred at various places in the district, and very many of
our Sabbath-school scholars have started heavenward. Addi-
tions to the various churches have also been numerous from
the Sunday-schools.
Illinois State Sunday School Convention. 39
Many of our noble workers, who, with loving hearts and
willing hands, were with us last year •' to do " for the Master,
will never again, this side the "golden gate," thrust the
sickle into the vineyard of the Lord, for "• they are not.'' The
great harvester has gathered them home ; their labor is done,
their toil ended, and " their works do follow them." Their
bodies slumber to-day in the chamber of clay, and their
spirits are sweetly resting with the dear Master.
We close this I'eport with the full assurance that the work
accomplished during the last year in the various counties in
the district, will not, in the end, be without an abundant
harvest of rich fruitage to the cause of the good Father.
Your Fellow- Worker,
C. W. Jerome,
President Sixth District.
At the request of the President, Maj. Whittle led in prayer,
giving thanks for the blessings of the past and invoking new
blessings for the 3'ear to come.
The Treasurer suggested that for a change a collection
should be taken, expressing the thought that it would rest the
congregation. This was responded to liberally, silver jingling
in all parts of the house. Mr. Jacobs suggested that notes
would make less noise. The amount contributed was $90.
At 3:4:5 o'clock the President introduced ^Ir. George 0.
jSTeedham, of Chicago, who addressed the Convention, on the
subject assigned him, "Jesus, the Great Teacher."
JESUS. THE GREAT TEACHER.
BY REV. G. C, NEEDHAM.
The subject assigned rae this afternoon is, " Jesus, the
Great Teacher,"
Our hearts and minds were directed this morning to the
work and the person of Jesus, and we come here this after-
noon, knowing that our convention will be a blessed one in
proportion as we keep Him before us.
The Lord Jesus wears a great many precious titles, and a
great many sweet names. Upon His head, we are told, shall
be many crowns, and many names are given to Him, and
amongst the many names which are given to our Lord, we
have this one specially given to Him, as the Teacher of His
40 iLLixois State Suxday School Convention.
people. This was one great object of His mission to the
world. If you trace out through the gospels why Jesus came
into the world, you will iind that He came to do a great many
things. He came to save His people from their sins. He
came to destroy the works of the devil. He came to seek
and to save that which was lost; but it is also distinctly
stated that Jesus came to declare the Father, as we have
it recorded in the first chapter of John, "No man hath
seen God at any time; the only begotten Sou, in the
bosom of the Father, He hath declared Him, He hath
made Him known." For this purpose He came into the
world, because the world was in darkness. The world, by
wisdom, knew not God. Therefore Jesus came that He
might teach men about God. " Never man spake like this
man." In the 17th chapter of John we are told, "I have
manifested thy name unto the men which thou gavest me."
The meaning of the word " manifest," or to uncover, is taken
from the idea of the rolling back of a veil. There was a
great veil between God and the world, between God and man.
They could not see through the veil, and Jesus came and
rolled that veil aside to give us a view of God. Such a view
as would bring life to us. "For this is life eternal, that they
may know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom
Thou hast sent." And it is only in Jesus Christ that we can
know the Father, and the knowledge of the Father in Jesus
Christ is to us life and salvation, and in no other way can man
be saved than coming to know Him as the revealer to us of
God's grace.
Now, teaching is simply communicating knowledge, and
we are told about this Great Teacher, that He knew all things.
The attributes of God belong to Him, as we read in Paul's
letters to the Corinthians, " Xo man knoweth the things of a
man except the spirit of a man that is in him ; so the things
of God knoweth no man but the spirit of God." And the
spirit of God is in Him, and He knows all things. Having
such perfect knowledge of all things. He is able to communi-
cate that knowledge. And, if we would be perfect teachers,
if we would follow His example in teaching, we must know
also. God has given His word that we might know; that we
might be equipped with all knowledge, and that we might be
furnished unto all good works.
There is a passage in the Old Testament which I will call
your attention to tor a moment. It illustrates three blessed
characteristics of our Lord's teaching. The 8th chapter of
Nehemiah, 8th verse. We are told in the previous chapters
of this book that Nehemiah repaired the wall of Jerusalem
Illinois State Suxday School Coxvextiox. 41
and restored the city to its former grandeur, and now. after
having restored the wall, the people are made glad, and they
meet together in the street, and we are told that Ezra opened
the law'of the Lord that he might teach the people out of the
law. The prophets and all the people gathered around him.
and we are told in the 8th verse, " So they read in the book of
the law of God distinctly, and gave the sense, and gave them
to understand the meaning.'" And the result of that kind of
preaching was that people had peace, and there was great
mirth because they had understood the words that were
•declared unto them. This is always the result when people
understand distinctly the teaching of God's word; it will
brino; them iov and s^ladness. Thev read in the book of the
law distinctly: then they gave them the sense, and gave them
to understand the meaning. I find that he read the word
■distinctly. He went into the synagogue and opened the
book and began to read. And, if you turn to the 15th chap-
ter of Matthew, you will find there, in the second verse, when
the men were gathered around Him, Jesus opened His mouth
and taught them. My dear friends, if there is any message
worthy of being spoken out clearly and distinctly, it is the
message of God. It is not to be hidden in a corner. "We are
to open our mouths in teaching. The great teacher Himself,
with the crowd around Him, opened His mouth and taught.
That is, He taught them distinctly. He enunciated every
word, and they knew what He meant. And. teachers, when
we come before our classes, we should see to it that we read
the word of God distinctly. TTe are told that they gave the
sense of the reading. Reading the word distinctly was not
fiuflicient. They had to expound it to the people. Xow, if
you will turn to the 24th chapter of Luke's Gospel. 27th
verse, you will find Jesus talking to the disciples: '-Begin-
ning at Moses and all the prophets. He expounded to them in
all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself:" that is. He
applied the Scriptures properly, showing how those prophe-
cies related to Himself. So, dear friends, we find it is a very
necessary qualification for a teacher not simply to read, but
to give the sense of the reading, because it is through exposi-
tion of God's word that souls are saved. If there be no
exposition, no proper avocation, how can the people be bene-
^fitted? He rightly applied Scripture, and caused them to
understand. And it is oulv thus that the world will be bene-
fitted.
If you will turn to the 19th chapter of Matthew, you will
find the Lord Jesus Himself making the people understand.
In that chapter we have a great many illustrations. There
42 Illinois Statk Sunday School Convention,
He taught them by parables. You remember that the first
thing after the Master gave a parable was to expound it, and
in that chapter He told them that the wayside hearers were
they who heard the word but did not understand it. That
the fowls came and picked it away, and Satan comes and
takes away that which was sown, lest they shall believe and
be saved. And they who were like seed dropped into good
ground were those who heard the word and understood it, and
studied God's word, and it went down into the ground and
germinated, and sprung up and bore fruit.
You remember when Phillip was reading the Scri]>tures on
his way down from Jerusalem, that he met the Ethiopian
who was reading the Scriptures, and he said to him : " Under-
standest thou Avhat thou readest?" And the man said, "How
can I except some one explain it to me?" And Phillip read
the Scriptures to him and gave him the meaning.
And when Jesus Christ came into the world, He came that
the people might know and understand the message which
He delivered to them.
I think that these .three qualificatfons should belong to
every teacher, because there is no class so small or so poor
but ought to demand our attention. "We ought to make them
understand, so that they cannot go away mystified; so that
they cannot go away feeling that the teacher is a wonderful
man, but they cannot follow him, cannot understand him. If
we take Mr. Spurgeon as an illustration, there they all under-
stand him. He uses the plainest language. The poorest
man in his congregation and the little children understand
that mighty preacher, and he thinks it worth his while to
break up the word of God and to give the pieces to those for
whom it is prepared. Thus the Lord Jesus, the Great Teacher,
taught distinctly and understandingly, and gave the sense of
His teaching, so people could understand Him.
Now, besides that, we find that the Lord Jesus was divinely
commissioned as a teacher. If you will go to the 4th chapter
of John, you will find when He went into the synagogue and
the book was handed to Him, He said, " The spirit of the
Lord is upon me. He hath annointed me to preach the
gospel to the poor." And people gathered around Him.
Dear friends, I want to say here that every man and every
woman who teaches ought to be conscious that they are
divinely sent, commissioned of the Lord to teach. Then,
again, you will find in the 3d chapter of John, 2d verse, that
Nicodemus recognized Jesus as a Teacher from God. "We
know that thou art a teacher from God, for no man can do
those things that thou dost except God be with him." He
Illinois State Sunday School Convextion. 43
was a teacher come from God. We are told in the 1st chapter
of John, 6th verse, about John, the Baptist, "There was a
man sent from God, whose name was John." I take it
that every teacher and every preacher, whether in the
mission school or in the home, or both, ought to be sure
of this, that they are sent of God ; that they are com-
missioned of God; that they are annointed of the Lord
to teach the world. It is only those who are qualified
to fill these responsible places as teachers of God's word.
And let lis understand that if they are thus ordained, thus
sent of God, it implies in the first place conversion. Every
teacher ought to be a converted person ; every teacher ought
to be a Christian. It is a sad thing that in many of our
Sunda^^-schools many unconverted teachers are allowed to be
placed before the children. Every teacher must be converted.
This is the first great qualification. And then, in addition to
this, we must be consecrated. Jesus was consecrated to His
work, annointed by the Holy Ghost for His mission, and it is
just as needful that we should be consecrated as teachers as it
is that those who enter the pulpit should be consecrated for
their work, for they have to deal with immortal souls. They
have to deal with those whom God has placed before them to
teach the words of life and the way of life. We must be in
communion with our Lord in order to have power. We must
be consecrated of Him in order to be successful in this work.
Now, if you will turn to the Tth chapter of Matthew, 29th
verse, vou will read there that Jesus taus^ht them as one hav-
ing authority, and not as the Scribes. Now, what was the
trouble with the teaching of the Scribes? Why, simply this
— they were ignorant of the Scriptures. They were always
teaching vain traditions. Traditions were more to them than
anything else. So we find our Lord rebuking them in the 22d
chapter of Matthew, " Ye do err, not knowing the Scrip-
tures." Now, Jesus came to teach the Scriptures, not tradi-
tion; therefore he taught them as one having authority and
knew what he was talking about. If you will turn to the
8th chapter of John, and 40th verse, you will find, "But now
ye seek to kill me, a man that hath told you the truth, which
I have heard of God." In the 4oth verse, " And because I
tell ye the truth, ye believe me not." He taught the truth ;
He was conscious that He was teaching the truth. The
Scribes were not conscious of that. They were teaching
tradition. Their teaching had no power over the people.
And thus, brethren, it will be with us. When we get the
truth in our hearts we can teach with authority ; we can
teach with assurance. We can imagine the Scribes saying.
44 liiLixois State Sunday School, C5oxvention.
" AVbence hath this man all this knowledge? This is a car-
penter's son. lie never graduated from any college. We
never heard of him as a scholarly man, or a professional man,
or a man of letters, lie is an ordinary man, a mechanic.
Whence, then, hath this man this learning?"
He taught the Old Testament continually ; His mind was
full of its teaching. But He had a storehouse of knowledge
which the Scribes did not possess. You will find that the
Lord taught the Old Testament Scriptures, teaching things
that He found in the Old Testament, and amplifying them.
I tell you, friends, if we want to teach with authority, we
must know the Scriptures. It is not enough for us on Satur-
day night to take our Sunday-school paper and read it over a
few times. It is not enough for us, Sunday morning, to take
our Sunday-school lesson and glance at it as we go along to
our children. Every teacher ought to begin the study of the
lesson Monday morning until Saturday night, until he gets
his mind and heart so full of the Scripture about that lesson
that he can talk all day of it. Then the scholars will begin
to respect him. They will say, " Whence hath this man this
learning ?" The Holy Spirit must send the blessed word, and
the word must be known before they can believe it, and the
word must be known before they can give it to others.
Therefore, every teacher should be like Ezra, should under-
stand the word and explain it to others, and that will be a
blessing, not only to his own soul, but a blessing to those to
whom that knowledge shall be communicated.
Xow, if you will turn to the 4th chapter, you will find that
Jesus taught not only with authority, but that He taught
by parables. He taught them many things by para-
bles. It is interesting for teachers to notice how our Master
taught through parables. It is very difficult to make a parable.
A gentleman once asked a minister, " Why don't you teach
the people by parables?" and the minister said to him, "You
are one of the smartest men in the land. I want you to write
a parable for me." And he went home, and in about a week
he came back and said to the minister, " I can't write a para-
ble, I have been trying very hard, but I can't do it." No
one can write such ])arables as are found in the Gospel ; there
is nothing grotesque in parables, nothing strained, nothing
unnatural. They take up natural things, and through them
the truth is conveyed. Though we may not be successful in
making parables, 3'et we may imitate the Lord according to
our measure by putting truth in the parable form. Putting
truth in the form of illustration, so that our boys and girls
will understand it. Jesus taught by parables, not by fables.
Il,li:n"Ois State Sunday School Convention. 45
What is tlie difference between a fable and a parable ? If yon
take np ^sop's fables and the parables of the Lord, yon will
find a very great contrast. A fable is always nnnatural ; it is
artificial ; bnt a parable is always true to life. ISTow, let ns
not bring fables to our children, while we have plenty of par-
ables. We have plenty of true thiugs to bring to the children,
■which will leach them in a proper wa^', and leave impressions
which will never be forgotten.
]^ow, if you will turn to the 6th chapter, you will find that
Jesus taught through pictures, not simply by parables,- He not
onl}' thundered at eargate with His parables for the ear, but
He entered eyegate with His pictures. He presented such
pictures to the people that they could understand the doctrine
which was designed to be taught. I am glad that our
Sunday-schools are carr^^ing out this idea of object lessons.
Of course there is danger of overdoing it. There is danger
of abusing the best of things. But a few blackboards, maps
and diagrams are very valuable for illustration, because chil-
dren cannot understand abstract truths; but you take a
picture and place it before the eye, and in a moment you
enter through e^^egate, and by parables, as I said before, you
enter through eargate. These are the two avenues to reach
the minds of the children. The Lord Jesus Christ taught by
pictures.
Another thing that we need is s^'mpathy. When Jesus
taught the people He was moved to compassion, because they
were as sheep not having any shepherd, and He began to
teach them many things. When He heard of the condition
of Jerusalem He was moved with compassion ; His great
heart throbbed with sympathy, and He began to teach them
many things. Before we go to our classes and our churches,
we must pray that the Lord will baptise us with a spirit of
sympathy, so we may speak kindly, speak words of sympathy,
so that the people will be constrained to listen to what w^e
have to say. Whenever men know that we are in sympathy
with them, and the children know that we sympathize with
them, they will respect us and they will listen to us.
Jesus not only taught w^ith sympathy, but He taught with
earnestness. He was an earnest teacher. If you will turn to
the 7th chapter of John's Gospel, 8th verse, you will find
there that it is mentioned that Jesus cried as he taught. It
was not the custom of the preacher in those daj^s to stand.
The custom was to sit down, for we are told again and again
that He sat down and tauglit the people. He stood and cried
in the earnestness of His soul. He taught with earnestness.
I tell you, dear friends, that is what we lack most of all.
46 lT.L,ixois State Sitndat School, Coxvention.
People call it enthusiasm. What we want is earnestness for
the work. Wo need it as teachers in the Sunday-school, and
as ministers in the church.
The next point is that lie taught with an object before
Him. If you will turn to the 8th chapter of John, 2I)th
verse, you will find the secret of our Lord's life, and it is a
very wonderful secret. It will help you to understand a great
many things about Him that may have seemed difficult. " For
I do always those things that please Him." "Wist ye not
that I must be about my father's business," It is a wotiderful
thing in life to have an object before us. God has sent us
into the world and put an object before us. When the world
was created. His object was His own glory. When He
redeemed man. His object was His own glory, and when men
are converted and filled with the Holy Ghost, His object is
that they shall always do those things that please Him. If
we do this, then it will be true of us, as it was with Jesus,
that the presence of God will always be with us.
May He then give us the spirit of sympathy, of earnest-
ness, of faith, of loyalty to the truth, that we ma}- be able to
teach as Jesus taught, then wc shall be successful, and then,
when He comes, He will crown us with His blessing.
The Rev. Mr. Tracey, of Lacon, led in prayer, and a song
was sung.
The Rev, I. X, Carman, of Champaign, read an essay on
the topic, " The Bible Anniversary," as follows;
THE BIBLE: THE OLDEST, THE GREATEST
THE BEST OF BOOKS.
In this Five Hundredth Year of the English Bible, all lovers
of God's word may well be called upon to give special thought
both to our open Bible and to the Bible that began, under
the sainted Wicklifte, to be thus opened.
Does any one challenge the Bible's title to being the oldest
of books? Let him challenge to his heart's content. He
will himself become liable to be rated with the disparagers of
Christopher Columbus and Robert Raikes. What matters it
that Norse sailors touched our eastern coast hundreds of years
before Genoa's bold voyager drew breath ? What boots it
that many an attempt was made at Sunday-school work long
ere Raikes began to pay a shilling a day for it? The start
IiiLiNOis State Sunday School Convention. 47
that lives is the start that counts. By this token, had it none
other, the Bible stands senior amid all the books of earth.
But it is literally oldest. Many years before the very earliest
date assigned to the Hindoo Vedas, Moses wrote, and Job ere
that.
And it is the Greatest Book ever read by man. Not merely
greater than all other volumes written hj man. It is the
greatest volume either read by man or written by God. That
grand folio, the face of earth and the face of heaven, longer
looked on, was never really read, till God gave the eternal ^-Vord
to man, the declarer of the Godhead and the revealer of the
relations of all things visible and invisible. But He is simply
the sum and centre of the book of Revelations, given to sup-
plement and interpret the book of nature.
The opening of the Western Continent faintly illustrates
this. For that event gave, through Columbus, a permanent
possession to man, of the true, full-orbed, idea of civilization,
as it grew up in this Western World. And now can we over-
look, as to that, a curious chronological coincidence. Some
1492 years subsequent to Christ's advent Columbus began the
opening of the Western Hemisphere. About the same num-
ber of years before the advent, or about the time Cadmus gave
letters to Greece, Moses began to write, and compile, the
opening books of the volume of divine revelation. What a
sweep of the dividers on the chart of earthly years ! Let the
naturalist call the book of nature, if he please, God's elder
and greater volume. We are super-naturalists ; for we know
that though heaven and earth pass away, God's word shall
never pass away. Jt has come to stay. And it has brought
man to the Rock of Ages. Thus it is also the best of books.
Not another ever told man his origin or his destiny. The
Buddhist's holy books pictured a high morality, but not so
high as that of the Decalogue and the Sermon on the Mount.
But no matter though thousands of writers had pictured
morals high as heaven. They would have left them unattain-
able as the stars. Only the Bible gives us the true Jacob's
Ladder. No book beside ever showed how man, alienated
from God, could be rehabilitated. None other revealed a real
cleansing from guilt. By none other were life and immor-
tality brought to light. Not another even showed how mortal
man could be just with God.
Well said the great Scotch novelist, with dying breath,
^' The book ? There is but one book." Peerless in its moral
and spiritual standards of living, it stands alone, amid all
■earth's teeming libraries, in helping man to the sole power
that can enable him to walk in the new and living way, with
48 lL,L,ixois State Sunday School. Convention.
spiritual discernment for spiritual things, with divine strength
against infernal foes.
No man knows God, the Infinite, till he knows himself, the
finite. Xo man knows God, the All-Holy, till he knows him-
self for an exceeding sinner, and Christ for an Almighty
Savior. It is in vain to wrangle with the caviler about the
Bible, nature and claims. Bid him read it. He cannot do
that, fairly and honestly, without arising from it convinced,
as " Evidences " and " Analogy " never could convince him,
that He loho made that book made the human soul. An honest
skeptic tried such a perusal. Part way on he stopped to ex-
claim, " Wife, if this book be true, wo are in danger T Fur-
ther on, " Wife, if this book be true, we are lost .'" But he
read it to the end, and then arose to exclaim, " Wife, this
book is true, and we may he saved T
^o man truly reads this book, the word of Christ, but he
finds the Christ of the word. A plain, uncultured man had so
found Him, and felt moved to preach Him to others. But he
must be examined by ministers, that he might be given cre-
dentials. " How would you prove Christ divine ?" said one.
The candidate hesitated. " What reason can you give for
believing in the divinity of Jesus?" was then the varied form
of the question. A tear glistened in the strong man's eye.
He sprang up. Down came his brawny fist on the table.
"How do I know Jesus is divine? Why, God bless you,
brethren, He saved my soul!'' That man had read his bible,
and simply knew it for the greatest and best of books. It is
exactly on this ground tliat we should now feel moved to
glance at the giving of it to men in sundry times and divers
manners, till the canon was complete, and then at the half-
millennium of its history as an open book to all English-
speaking peoples of the globe. Bear, then, a few dry
statistics :
From the combined testimony of what seems to be the best
authorities, we find that the different books of the Bible were
some 1617 years in writing, i. e., from about 1520 B. C, the
most probable date of the Book of Job, to about 97 of the
Christian Era, when the Apostle John, at Ephesus, gave us
his latest book, the gospel that so wonderfully supplements
the earlier and synoptical ones. It is specially noteworthy
that the very books of the Old Testament now received as
canonical are the precise ones named in the Jewish Talmud.
And as to the books properly belonging to the canons of the-
New Testament, there appears to be no good reason for the
idea held by many that this was in uncertainty until the
Council of Carthage, in 394. There are many evidences that
I ILLINOIS State Sunday School, Convention. 49
very soon after the deatli of the Apostle John, or by the
close of the First Century of our Era, there was substantial
agreement upon the New Testament, as we now have it. ]!^ot
that there were no attempts to foist other books upon the
churches as inspired. But every such attempt failed from
the obvious contrast between inspired and uninspired
writings. Then, as now, the internal evidence of a
divine communication was its strongest attestation. So,
also, we must conclude, the vote of the Council of Laodicia,
thirty years earlier than that of Carthage, was simply
f'.cclusive in its bearing, rather than /??clusive. Instead of
framing the canon, as some contend it did, which would be
absurd, in view of its being " only a small Provincial Synod,''
its vote was to indicate the Sacred Books, t<> be read as such,
within the bounds of its jurisdiction. " The canon had
already been substantially fixed for 300 years," or thereabouts,
as good authorities tell us. It was a simple defensive measure
against such attempts to add to the canon as were being
made. ITeither of the Councils, we are to infer, assumed to
impart authorit}^, but only to make such declaration as seemed
needful of what was already recognized, that the unwary
might not be imposed on by spurious scripture. In view of
the Bible's providential preservation and marvelous power, it is
rather astonishing that any person of ordinary intelligence in
other matters should ever have held it possible that the
Carthage Council was mighty enough to give the Scriptures
the place they hold on earth to-day. As even the French
skeptic, Rousseau, felt compelled to admit that the inventor of
the Kew Testament would be a more astonishing genius than
its hero, so he who would find the Bible's power to move
men imparted by some Council, instead of seeing the Council's
own power derived from the Bible, only shifts the difficulty
for his unbelief, and that to a heavy disadvantage.
"If weak thy faith, why choose the harder side?"
To this great company of students and lovers of God's
Word, no argument is needful in its defense. But it will
haply be of interest to recall briefly, what may be already
familiar to many, the chief facts in connection with Bible
translation and Bible diffusion.
The Old Testament was the first book, so far as we know,
that was ever translated out of one language into another.
About 450 years before Christ, the compilation of it had
been completed by Ezra. 163 years later, or 287 years B. C.
Ptolemy Philadelphus, King of Egypt, finding the Greek has
become the chief language of the many Jews in his dominions,
caused the Hebrew Bible to be translated into that tongue by
50 iLLixois State Suxdat School Coxvextiox.
seventy-two learned Jews, six chosen from each tribe ; from
which reason, or more probably from its indorsement by the
Sanhedrin, or great Jewish Council of Seventy, that version
became known by the name it has ever since borne, the JSep-
tuaqint. It has been a vast help in enabling- translators of the
Old Testament into other languages to get the true meaning
of the original. In this the Samaritan Pentateuch and Syriac
Old Testament have also aided.
Passing over into the Christian Era, we find that in the
Second Century, or rather about 170 years after the death of
Christ, the whole Bible had been translated into Latin, form-
ing what is known as the "Old Italic Version.'' By A. D.
200 the entire l^ible was extant in Greek, Syriac and Latin.
Then in the Fourth Centur}' followed versions in Ethiopic,
Gothic, Coptic and Persic. But there came a most signal
event in Bible translation. About the beginning of the Fifth
Century Jerome made that Latin version called the Vulgate,
and long known as the " authorized version.'" During that
century came the Armenian version, the Syro-Chaldaic in the
Sixth, the Arabic in the Seventh, the Georgian and Anglo-
Saxon in the Eighth, and, in the Kinth, at least a part of
the Bible in Sclavonic.
It seems, at first thought, not a little astonishing that the
Bible could have been given thus early in such a number of lan-
guages, without a far greater effect upon the world. The
reason, however, is not far to seek. Bible translation and
Bible diffusion are two things.
In our birds eye view of the earlier centuries possessing the
whole Bible, we have run into the dark ages, that fearful
millennium, from 500 to 1500, in which darkness covered the
earth, and gross darkness the people, because the Roman
Church, in its vast ascendency, had iPorbidden the reading of
the Bible by the masses. At a superficial glance it would
seem as though Paul's exultant battle cry, '• the word of God
is not bound," had received reversal. But it was a fire,
which, although made to smoulder long, could not be extin-
guished; it \y HA Jire fallen from God and could not he stamped
out by may}.
That noble man of learning and piety, John Wickliffe, was
raised up by Providence, in England, to fan the buried coals
to flame and be the precursor of the Reformation. Five cen-
turies have fled since he completed the first version of the
Bible in English. It was sought with great eagerness.
There are said to exist, even yet. as many as 150 copies of it
inthe United States. Soon came the invention of printing, and
Illinois State Suxday School Coxventiox. 51
then the Pope's efibrts to stay the spread of the Bible were as
vain as an attempt to chain the ocean waves.
All Christendom know the immortal story of tlie venting
of impotent papal spite, in the burning of Wickliffe's bones,
after having failed of a chance to burn the livivg Wicklifle.
Poesy has nobly sung of the ashes scattered on the stream,
the stream that sought the sea, and how thence, as broadly as
ocean currents roll, the Wickliffe idea, "the Bible for all,''
has run to every zone and clime. In these 500 years, "what
hath God wrought?"'
Another great way-mark was the production of a version
in Eno-lish after the language had gained substantial maturity.
err* o «r^ o j
Tyndale and Coverdale had done much toirard this in their
labors on the basis of Wickliff'e's translation. But it was
reserved for the early years of the Seventeenth Century, after
Luther had awakened Germany by his German Bible, and
France had gotten its popular version to see that great
work accomplished under the rojdX patronage of King James,
the issue of the received version in 1611.
As a living language is continually changing, there have
very naturally been, in over two and a half centuries, many re-
visions of the English scriptures undertaken. But so admira-
bly was the common version put into simple, yet chaste and
classic English, that hardly a ripple has been made by the
countless new translations that have been offered to the public.
They have served as helps; they have many of them found
places in the libraries of ministers and other Bible students,
but still the common version held its place.
Three great factors have arisen, however, as modifiers of
the mighty movements of 1380 and 1611. One of them was
that which sprang into permanent being 100 years ago, the
Sujiday-school movement, led by Robert Raikes. For a good
while it did not, however, effect the Bible question percepti-
bly, for it was not, at first, the JBible school, — it was rather an
alphabet school, but it was the sure germ, nevertheless, because
it was the Sunday-school.
It was reserved, rather, for the Bible movement to modify,
first, the Sunday-school movement. In 1804 was formed that
organization which has become so vast a benefaction to man-
kind, the "British and Foreign Bible Society,"' and a dozen
years later its noble compeer, the " American Bible Society."
These two great societies have published 154.000.000 of copies
of Bibles and Testaments! Through these and other organi-
zations, God's word has been given to men, already in four-
fifihs of all the languages of earth. Then, on and on, has sped a
popular acquaintance with the sacred scriptures. Rapidly,
02 Illinois Statk Sunday Sciiooi. Tonvkn riox.
men, women and cliiklren have come to possess move than a
mere smattering of Bible knowledge. It is now a good many
years since it ceased to be liazardous to question the entire
accuracy of the Received Version. By slow degrees the
average English mind was ripening for the reception of a
more perfectly translated English Bible. Tentative efforts in
translation promoted such sentiment ; commentaries helped
it on ; so did pulpit and Sunday-school.
But one more great popular movement had to become a
factor in the process. In 1873, after, God put it into the heart
of a man (who needs no naming here) to propose, to urge, to
fight, long and hard, for a common course of Bible lessons in
the Sunday-schools. It came to pass, that, in the memoriable
year of grace, 1873, the International Lei>sons began! Then
came a new era in the Sunday-school enterprise. For one
help in that blessed work that was attainable readily, before,
there speedily arose a thousand. What mighty forces of con-
vergent rays of light, not from Sunday-school publications
simply, not from those and the general religious ^press even, but
from even the sccidar press, what floods of radiance are
poured on the lesson I
Does not all this recede, vividly, a word of ancient scrip-
ture, "Many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be
increased." What John's mission was to Christ's, is the mis-
sion of the International Lessons to the coming faith of the
grand l^an-Anglecas version of the Bible. We trust that ere
the years of '• International" heralding have recorded up the
perfect number seven, even before this year, 1880, expires, we
shall be reading the new English-American New Testament,
and that soon thereafter, the whole Bible, in a translation thor-
oughly adapted to the needs of the present English speaking
peoples, will be put in process of such vast circulation as will
make all previous Bible diffusions small by contrast.
Now, recount a moment, with me, the ways of God with
man in giving thus the leaves of the Tree of Life for the
healing of the nations.
Among the many events and epochs we have hastily noted,
secen stand out like sky-piercing mountains among le?ser
peaks, viz :
1. From 1492 to 1470 B. C. The beginning of P>ible com-
pilation by Moses.
2. 450 B. C, the compilation of the complete Old Testament
by Ezra.
3. 287 B. C, the execution of the Septuagint under Ptol-
emy Philadelpheus ; the first Greek version.
Illinois State Siixday School Coxvektion. 53
4. 400 A. D., the preparation of tlie vidgate or " author-
ized" lati7i version, by Jerome.
5. A. D, 1380. First translation of the Bible into English
by Wycklifle.
6. A. D. 1611, completion of the ''• anthorized" English
version, under King James.
7. A. D. 1880, the Pan-Anglican revision.
Men and Brethren — Gaze on these seven grand way-marks,
thank God and take courage. And let them live forever in
our hearts, linked with memories of the seven blessed years
we have been granted of international sessions with which to
round up the first hundred years of the Sunday-school, and
the first jive hundred years of the English Bible ; for which
all glory be to the Triune God, world without end — Amen.
At the close of Mr. Carman's address. President Edwards,
of Princeton, pronounced a benediction, and the Convention
adjourned.
FIRST DAY— Evening Session.
The old First Church was packed for the evening meeting.
Mr. C. C. Case led the singing, and Messrs. C. M. Morton and
M. C. Hazard addressed the Convention as follows ;
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF SUNDAY-SCHOOLS.
BY M. C. HAZARD.
:!: t- :!: ;;; rt: * :(; * >}; H<
A hundred j-ears ago a little Sunday-school was planted in
the city of Gloucester. It didn't seem then as if that would
over amount to anything as a force in this world. Robert
Raikes, in going to a busy,' crowded part of the city, was
shocked to find the ragmuiiins of the street engaged in all
sorts of play and in things worse than play, and he started a
little school for them, and hired some good women, at the
rate of a shilling a Sunday, to teach them. It did n't seem
very remarkable, that beginning ; there were those that were
opposed to it. The clergjmien, especially, thought that it was
a desecration of the Sabbath ; it was working upon the Sab-
54 Illinois State Suxday School Coxvextiox.
batli. They seemed to think that it would be a great deal
better for those boys to learn to swear and gamble and steal
than to learn the golden rule ; that it would be better for
them to learn to tight than to learn the principles of the gos-
pel ; better for them to learn all sorts of mischief than to go
into anything that could be called a school; and I suppose
that they regarded it as work for them to learn, and
perhaps thought that because it was so easy to swear, and so
easy to tight, that it was a real rest and recreation for them
to do it on that day.
It made but little headway ; it received the reluctant ap-
probation of good people. There were those that tardily fol-
lowed the example that he set, but, notwithstanding, it made
its way. You know that there are some plants that, when
they are transplanted to another country, seem to grow bet-
ter than where they first took root; they seem then to iind
their home. Well, it seems to me that something of that
sort is true of the Sunday-school ; for, Avhen it came over to
this country it was adopted by the church and made a church
school rather than a mission school, as it was over there, and
our friends wlip believed in the Sunday-school there have had
continually to fight with the idea that the mission school is
good onl}' for the abandoned children of the streets.
In this country also it took on a little different form. Ro-
bert Raikes, in the schools that he first established, had those
who were gathered there taught the rudiments of learning
and the catechism. Over here they began somewhat in the
same way. The Bible was added as a text-book, and they
began after a while to memorize verses out of the Bible. I
remember men, who were old men when I was a boy, whose
conversation used to drop Scripture verses like honey from
the honeycomb, and they obtained their knowledge of Script-
ure from the verses that they memorized when they were boys.
I am not one of those that find fault with the memorizing of
Bible verses, and it seems to me that we are lacking in tiiis
one thing, that we do not in all of our schools press more
upon the teachers the duty of seeing that the children in their
classes memorize the verses in the lesson which we call the
memory verses. It would be a g^od thing if they did.
A good many efforts have been made in various ways for
the purpose of introducing some system. In 1825 there was
started what was called a limited plan of lessons in this coun-
try by the Sunday-school Union, which contemplated a five
years' course of forty lessons each. In 1826, I think it was,
that the American Sunday-school 3Iagazine of that date said
that it had been adopted in nearly all the schools. And in
Illinois State Sunday School Convention. 55
1826 Rev. Alfred Jiidson wrote the first qnestion-book. So
you see that in those early days there was a reaching out for
a better thing. I do n't know what became of that move-
ment, but it seems to have died out, and people went back
into chaos again so far as sj^stem was concerned in the study
of the Scriptures.
In 1832 there was a call for a National Sunday-school Con-
vention to be held in ISTew York, and the Hon. Theodore
Freylinghuysen was in the chair. They seem to have liked
that Convention, for the very next year they held one in
Philadelphia, Gerrit Smith being one of the Vice Presidents.
Then they went into a Rip Van Winkle sleep, and didn't
wake up again until 1859, when they held another Sunday-
school Convention in Philadelphia. After that there was an
interval of ten years, when another Convention was held at
Newark, New Jersey. That was one of the best conventions I
ever attended in my life. In 1869 things were working very
rapidly ; then, in 1872, the Convention at Indianapolis adopted
the International Lessons — the greatest blessing, it seems to
me, that has taken place in these modern times. For, by ^le
International Lessons has been created an enthusiasm such as
was never witnessed before in Bible study. It has opened
the sacred page and made it plain, because it has thrown upon
it all of the light of modern scholarship ; and above all
it has brought together the people and shown them that they
really were of one faith. Why, the other day I heard a
Methodist expressing himself to the effect that the eighth
chapter of Romans was peculiarly expressive of Methodist
doctrine ; and there are some Calvinists that I know of that
dwell with peculiar delight on those parts of the Scriptures
that speak specially of free will.
Well, now, it is a very proper thing for us in this centen-
nial year, and in this year of our majority in Sunday-school
work, that we should ask how it was that these International
Lessons came to be adopted at all. I want first to say that it
was the Lord's work ; it is His work, and it is marvelous in
our eyes ; and second, that the work from the beginning to
the end was the work of Illinois Sunday-school men. There
are three men especially to whom we owe the privilege of the
International system.
In 1860, John H. Vincent, an Illinois Sunday-school man,
a minister of the gospel, who had a brain of his own and
thoughts of his own, thinking far ahead of his time, began to
think of some sort of training class ; and in 1864, I think it
was, or a little before, he was trying to introduce Sunday-
school institutes. In 1865, near the close of the year, he
56 iLLixois State Sunday School. Coxventiox.
started in Chicago what is now tlie Xational Sunda^'-school
Teacher, but then was the Sunday School Quarterly. In that
quarterly he outlined a lesson course that was called " Two
Years With Jesus.''
Looking through those first lesson papers that appeared in
that quarterly, you find them pretty nearly the same as they
are to-day. For a beginning they were wonderfully perfect,
and there is not a lesson paper issued but what, in some
respects at least, copies the very first one that was issued.
That was the beginning. He was called to New York, and
again started another journal there, called the Bcrean Sunday-
School Journal. Another Illinois man took his place — the
Rev. Dr. Eggleston. Some of you remember that in 1872,
when the question of the adoption of the International sys-
tem came up at Indianapolis, he opposed it, and a great many
have done him injustice in looking upon that single act of his
life, while the fact is that he did a great deal, through the
Sunday-School Teacher, towards pushing this lesson system so
that it became adopted to a large extent all over the Union.
And now we have the third Sunday-school man to speak
of. I do n't think you know him — guess you never heard of
him. His name is B. F. Jacobs. He is a man that, when he
wants to say anything, says it. He is the Peter among the
Sunday-school apostles, and, whenever he believes that a
thing ought to be done and can be done, it is very diflUcult to
make him keep his seat and keep quiet. "When by his eflbrts
in 1871 a committee was appointed by the publishers of Sun-
day-School Lessons to select a series of lessons, a trial of the
uniform plan, and when they met together and declared that
the thing was impracticable, Jacobs took those men meta-
phorically by the throat and said, " You arc appointed, not to
declare that a thing is impracticable, but to no it;" and he
made them do it. And it was owing to that that we have
to-da}^ the International system. And I don't think that it is
at all improper, under the circumstances, and on this occasion,
to recognize the fact that to Illinois Sunday-school men
alone is due the fact that we have such a blessing throughout
the world.
Then, another thing in regard to two or three other Sun-
day-school men in Illinois. I remember when I was superin-
tendent of a little mission school up here by the depot, that
I heard of one or tw^o men in Chicago Avhom I desired par-
ticularly to see. I heard of their conducting some mission
schools there. I heard of their wonderful growth, of the
methods they emplo^^ed, and I was seized with a very great
desir& to know something of their methods and to see the
/
Illinois State Slxday School Coxvextiox. 57
men. I beard that tbey were men of great moral courage.
and men wlio were inclined to have their own way in spite
of all obstacles. And linally I was permitted to go up
there and see what they were doing. On the is'ortli Side J).
L. Moody was building up a mission school that numbered
something like ten or twelve hundred. On the West Side D.
"W. Whittle was also buildiug up a mission school, that num-
bered then some fifteen hundred. And coming back I had
caught their zeal and enthusiasm, and I went to work with a
good deal better spirit than I had ever done before.
And then there is another man I want to speak of. He
lived at Peoria, and his name was Reynolds. He was doing-
something of that kind down there, and I want to say to him
here in this public way what I have never said in a private
way — that I think one of the first impulses that I ever got in
the right direction was at a Sunday-school Convention where
he was, and / was not present. Other people came back and
told what they had heard and what they had seen, and it
moved me to redoubled energy in what I was doing. And.
brethren, we do not know, any one of us, what we are doing,
what influence we are exerting, nor to what extent that influ-
ence will reach, and we never can tell in time what we may
do in an humble way for the Lord Jesus Christ. Our friend
Keynolds, hearing of the work that was being done in Chi-
cago, had somewhat of a similar desire that I had to go up
and see what was going on, and did go up : and I have heard
it said that he went to a place on the Xorth Side in the even-
ing, where he found this same Mr. Moody holding a little
colored boy with one hand, and a Bible in the other, trying
to read b}' the light of a tallow candle, trying to read to him
about Christ, tryiug to keep him still while he read to him :
and there were a great many of the words that he had
to skip, and at last he laid the book aside, and said, "I can
tell it to you better than I can read.*' Mr. Reynolds found
that that man was doing a wonderful work ; and he said that
if he could do work he believed that he could ; and he went
back to his own work with a determination that. God helping
him, he would do more than ever he did before. And so,
from one to another, men have got inspiration and enthusiasm
in this work in Illinois, until they have come to love each
other as brothers.
The State Sunday-school Convention in Illinois has been a
very great power. It has done a remarkable amount of good.
By the programmes that you have you will see that the first
State Sunday-school Convention in Illinois was held in Dixon
in 1859. The first few meetiuffs were not meetino:s of re-
58 Illinois 8tate Sunday School Convextiox.
markable power. But in 1864 they met at Springfield,
One of those who was an actor in that Convention told me of
an incident that took place there. The workers came there
at rather an early hour in the morning, before the church was
opened ; and they found a windoAv loose, lifted it and got into
the church, and there by themselves held a little prayer-
meeting that God would bless that Convention. The pastor
of the church came while they were so engaged and opened
the door with his key, and was surprised to find that there
was a little audience inside, and he knelt down with the
brethren and engaged with them in their devotions, it being
just according to his heart. Well, now that convention was
wonderfully blessed. Xo convention since, I think, has been
of such wonderful power as that was. It is said the ten
thousand conversions were directly' traceable to that one meet-
ing.
In 1867, I think, it was at Decatur, that the enthusiasm
rose to a height such as that, within thirty minutes I believe
five thousand dollars was raised to carry on the work in the
State of Illinois. We were only twelve years old then ; we
are twenty-one now. We need money now more than then^
and being a little older and with increased enthusiasm, I hope
and I trust tliat when it comes to raising money in this con-
vention that we shall at least equal what we did when Ave
were twelve years old. The convention from that time for-
ward continued to grow. We went down in 1868 to Du
Quoin, a little place of 2,500 inhabitants. We went down
there three thousand strong, and for three days we more than
doubled the population of the place. The people were very
much put out — that is, they were put out of their houses, they
went into the barns and gave the delegates the houses to
sleep in. I overheard one man speaking to another during-
the course of that convention, and he said to him. "well,
Jim, how are 3'ou standing it?" "Well,'* said he, "just
so, so." "Well," says the other one, "I will tell you
what, these religiouses, they eat awful." After that it was
just about impossible to get another place. Kow, those
of you who have been regular attendants of the Illinois
State Sunday-school Convention will remember that we
tried time and again to get an invitation to Decatur.
Decatur fought shy of us. We pressed the invitation
with all the ardor of a lover, and still couldn't get any, and
at last one man got up in the convention and said, " don't-
come to Decatur next year, come year after next. The
Methodists this year have eaten up all our chickens," and our
Illinois State Suxday School Coxvextiox. 59
Brother Jacobs got up immediately and said : "We don't
want to eat two year old chickens I"'
In Qaine}^ in 1870, we came the nearest to having trouble
in the State Convention that we ever did. Those of you
who were there will recollect how our hearts trembled for a
time when the question was pat into the question box. "Have
we a Sunday-school ring in Illinois." Those of you who were
there will remember the profound gratitude we felt when the
crisis was passed. Well, I am glad to say we have had a
pretty strong Sunday-school ring, it has been made of a chain
of loving hearts, and I believe that the ring will grow
stronger and stronger, and that the people of the State of Illi-
nois will wear that ring as a bride wears her engagement
ring.
We have had a report to-day, from the Executive Com-
mittee, and I think it has cheered ever^'one. One hundred
and two counties in Illinois, and every one of them has held a
convention during the past year, and about an average of
eleven township conventions have been held in each county.
Well, now brethren and sisters, it may do very well for us to
hold a large mass convention such as this is, we may get a
great deal of instruction and a great deal of enthusiasm here,,
but unless that instruction and enthusiasm is carried down
into township work; unless it reaches the individual, then it
will altogether be lost. There is no use setting up in
the basement a very large engine, unless it is connected with
little wheels that do the weaving. And, therefore, one of the
things at which we must aim in our Sunday-school work in
Illinois, is to see that the w^ork is carried down into the town-
ships. In the county for which I am specially responsible,
the county of Du Page, we found that there was a very great
necessity for township work. Some of us pledged that we
would be responsible for the county ; that we would go through
it and canvass it as men canvass for a political election. In
one of the townships, I asked them how many people there
were in the township, and the answer was twelve hundred. I
asked them how many people there who were in the habit of
going to church and Sunday-school, and all told they didn't
count up more than two hundred and fifty. Only two hundred
and fifty people going to church and Sunday-school in a popu-
lation of twelve hundred ! Why, there is no need ot going to
China or any other place abroad for the purpose of finding
heathen ; we can find them right at home. In the next town-
ship I found about the same state of facts, and so all through-
out the county. And that county we had looked upon as being
one of the most forward in the Sunday-school work. Well,.
60 Il-MNOIS STATE SUNDAY SCHOOl, COXVEXTIOX,
in putting tlic facts before those who gathered in these little
township gatherings, they were encouraged to go on ; they
made pledges that they would see everj'- man, woman and
child in the township by a system of voluntary visitation,
committees being appointed for that purpose, and tbe visita-
tion went on until every man, woman, and child had an invi-
tation to come to church and to Sabbath-school, and the re-
sult was very marked. There were a great many people
found in that county who had letters from churches that they
churches to which they belonged. There were people that
came to Sunday-school and to church who hadn't shown their
faces inside of a cliurch and never presented, and those
people were sent to the for years. Well, now that sort
of work must go on until there shall be no one that has not
received sucli an invitation to be a Christian, to give his heart
to the Lord Jesus Christ, sucli as will take ofi" all responsi-
bility from his neighbors.
I sometime ago read of an incident in regard to Kapoleon
crossing the Alps, which stirred my heart very much at the
time. When that general with his army was crossing the Alps,
going in a zig-zag way up those mountains, there was a little
avalanche of snow that crossed the ])ath of the ami}' and swept
away a drummer boy, and he was carried about two hundred
feet below. The tirst intimation that the others had who
were going up the path that anybody liad been carried away
was given by the drum of the bo}'. By that they were uotiiied
that he Avas down below. There was the boy needing help,
but there was no one that had the authority to stop. The
privates could not stop until they had word from their officers.
There was no officer that felt that he could give the word un-
til some superior officer had told liim, and the word went on
from the lower officers to the higher until it came to Napoleon
himself But what was a drummer boy to Napoleon ! The
word was sent back to march on. Well, now as they went on
zig-zag up the Al]).s, they could hear where the boy was.
First, he sounded the reveille, and then one call after another,
and it was not until towards night that they heard the long
beat, the death roll. The boy had given up hope, and that
was his intimation that he no longer expected any aid. There
Avas not a man that was marching up those mountains but
would gladly have stopped and periled his own life to
rescue that boy. There were tears that were running down the
cheeks of men unused to weep, but they could not save him.
But, if the army of Jesus Christ had been climbing the heights
of heaven, when word had come to our commander that a boy
iiad been lost from the paths of virtue, and desh-ed to come
Illinois State Suxday School, Coxvextiox. qi
back again, no one would have moved a step forward until
that boy was rescued.
There are about us hundreds and thousands of voices
that are crying to us to bring them back, and the voice
comes to us, not simply to the officers; not simply to
those who are pastors of the churches ; not simply to
those who are well known in work; but to every private to
rescue every person within his reach, and if we ever expect
to do what we ought to do ; if we ever expect in this
world to reach every man, woman, and child, every church
member should be alive. You know that the command was
given us that we should go into all the world and preach the
Xjospel, to every creature. Not simply to build a fine church;
not simply to open a house of worship and let those come in
who are a mind to come, but to see to it that the invitations of
the Gospel are given, and we shall not have done our full
work until we obey the command of our Lord and Master^
and go out into the highways for the purpose of saving men.
THE WORKERS IN NEB LIFE.
ADDRESS BY CHARLES M. MORTON.
I was very much surprised this evening, to find a note
stating that I was expected to speak to this audience again.
I had earnestly hoped to have the pleasure of hearing with
you our beloved brother ^Moody, who is laid aside for the hour
by indisposition. An-d when the call came so suddenly and
so close to the time of service, I wondered what I would do,
and then remembered that a loving band of people was gath-
ered in Galesburg, and was persuaded that there was such a
brotkerly love that anybody could speak without danger.
With the blessing of God, I will occupy your time with a few
words concerning the Inner Life of the Christian Workman.
We live two lives in our Christian work; one is the outer
life that the world sees, and the other is the inner life, that
God sees, and is known only to Him and to ourselves. Our
inner life bears the same relation to the outer that the works
of a watch bear to its hands. If the watch does not keep
good time, the hands indicate the fact. We do not doctor the
hands, but go down into the inner works, and when we get
the inside right, then the hands mark the time correctly and
take good care of themselves.
There are many persons who are constantly deplorhig their
imperfect outer life ; there are manv Christians wlio would
<Q2 Ii-Lixois State Sunday School, Convextiox.
be at work in the Sabbath-schools if the\' did not feel that
they were such worthless people and all the while doing
wrong. If they can ever get themselves into good condition,
tJien they will undertake to do some Christian work.
It has been mj- difficulty to make my hands toork right, and
my feet wal/c right, and above all things to make my tongue
speak the best words at all times. I had been lopping oft" and
tying on for a long season, until my attention was drawn
particularly to this lirst chapter of Paul's second letter to
Timothy, and there found four or five things mentioned con-
cerning tlie inner life of the Christian. The lirst letter that
Paul wrote to Timothy has particular relation to the work
of the Church and the preaching of the Gospel. The second
letter has special reference to Timothy's personal behavior
and faith. In the first chapter we find the inner life spoken
of, and in the second that inner life is brought out in Work,
in Study, in Teaching, and in Spirit.
I want to mention four or five things here, praying that
God ma}' bless them to our good.
Paul says to Timothy : " M}' dearly beloved son, grace,
mercy and peace from God, the Father, and Christ Jesus, our
Lord. I thank God, whom 1 serve from my forefathers with
pure conscience."
The first two words that I would underline would be
Pure Conscience. The thing that Paul coupled together with
the mention of his service to God was a pure conscience. We
stop right here. When we enquire why it is that we have
taught so many Sabbath -school lessons, preached so many
sermons, and written so many articles, that do not seem to
have been blessed, we see at once tliat we liave not had a pure
conscience. Xow, the Apostle Paul, with all his talent, with
all his wonderful endowments and his great commission,
would never have thought of trying to serve God except with
a pure conscience. '^A tainted conscience," is the epitaph that
might be written over the grave of many good works, which
never bore truit. A tainted conscience is a conscience that is
impure.
Some one has said, a man must ask permission of his wife
to prosper, and we may say, a man must ask permission of his
conscience to be happy. If his conscience upbraids him
every day, he cannot be happy. It has pleased God to plant
in your breast and mine a monitor that is capable of making
us very unhappy, and when we know the relation of con-
science to tlie Christian life, we see clearly how it is
that we fail. An impure conscience gives the Christian
an unhappy mind, and an unhappy mind takes away his
iLiiixois State Sunday School, Convention. 63
appetite for the word of God and for pra3'er. Want
of prayer unfits him for doing any good. It is true he
may go on, like a windmill, beating the air, but he
has no reason to believe that God owns his services. Paul
says, " So fight I, not as one that beateth the air." Are Ave
fighting as those that simply beat the air ? Have we com-
munion with the Lord? Are we conscious day by day that
we are maintaining before Him a pure conscience? Are we
made aware at any time that our consciences are tainted ?
Tlien is the time to stop preaching, to stop teaching and run-
ning about to attend to the spiritual welfare of others, until
that conscience is taken to the Lord to be purged. We want
to remember, every day we live and every day we work, that
our outward life has very close connection with our heart-life.
Some one asked a man whose preaching he was converted
under, and he said, "I was not converted under anybody's
preaching. 1 ivas converted under my aunfs 'practidng." This
is exactly what we need more and more. We are doing
pretty good preaching, and pretty good teaching. Perhaps
there never was a more intelligent knowledge of the Word of
God among the workers in general than to-day. Let us have
the practice more in accord with the teaching and with the
preaching. Let us have the inner life in such condition as to
give a respectable outer life. If the Apostle Paul could not
serve God one day without a pure conscience, I am sure there
is not a Sunday-school teacher in the world that can do it.
Paul also saj^s in this letter to Timothy, " When I call to
remembrance the unfeigned faith that is in thee." I want to
ask you to draw your pencils under two more words — first,
'■'■fure consdence" and then '•^unfeigned faith." Faith that
there is no make believe about.
This is a day of imitations. Everything is being imitated.
It is a question whether we get genuine anything we buy,
whether for food or for wear. Gold, diamonds, no matter
what, the question is, am I getting the genuine thing? Paul
was anxious that Timothy should have a genuine article, and
that was faith, unfeigned ; faith that was pure from the hand
of God. And I notice here that he was not very anxious
about the quantity of the faith, but the quality. When the
right quality of faith is planted in the soul of a child of God,
the quantity will take care of itself.
I went out one day to buy a few articles connected with
housekeeping, and my wife said, "Don't try to get everything
there is, but get good what you do get." That was one of the
best things she has ever said to me. It is just so with arrang-
ing for our Christian life and work. The Lord does not
04 Illinois State Suxday School Coxventiox.
expect us to gatlier in everything at once. A man that has
just been born into the kingdom cannot stand in the shoes of
one that has been growing for twenty-five or thirty jears.
It is not hypocrisy that Paul was warning Timothy against.
He was not afraid that Timothy would be a hypocrite, as we
Understand the word, but he may have feared that Timothy
would be tempted to run ahead of his faith — that ho would
talk more than he would work, and that is the trouble with
many people. Why, to hear some folks speak and pray, you
would think that they could lift a mountain at any time,
without the slightest difficulty. The word of God says that
a man with a very small amount of genuine faith can do
mighty works. Hearing some Christians talk you would
imagine that the Lord and they were in partnership, and that
the Lord was the junior partner. Feigned faith — in other
words known as Cant — is a great stumbling-block to many
unconverted people, and we must be careful how we talk
about our work for Him and our faith in Him. Let us be
very careful tliat we do not profess to have more faith than is
planted in our hearts. Paul's anxiety for Timothy was that
he should have a beautifully rounded and consistent life — a
faith that should be a motive power for everything that he
should do and everything that he should say. And so I mark
it down as a second inward qualification.
Then we come to tliis phrase, " Wherefore, 1 put thee in
remembrance that thou stir up the gift of God which is in
thee." Paul was anxious that Timothy should stir up his
gift for service, that God had planted in his soul.
It is certain that every one is born into the world with a
capacity for doing some special work well. With some it is
preaching; with others, teaching or business; or, perhaps,
sawing wood; but every person is qualified by nature for
some place and work, where he cannot fail of success. And
it is the same in our spiritual work. Paul says, " Timothy,
stir up the gift of God that is in you.'' And these words,
"stir up," are equivalent to our word exercise. "-Timothy,
exercise the gift of God that is in you." How I do wish this
truth might be indelibly impressed on the mind of every
Christian in Illinois. Oh, that all would rise up to-night, in
the strength of our God, and use the gift that is in them, and
exercise it, until they become a mighty power for good.
There are many Christians who are ready to do some great
thing, if they could do it with a rush and whirl from the start.
Ask the men who have been successful in Christian work :
'' My friend, was it always so with you ? Did you always
carry things along at this rate V Were you always able to
Illinois State Suxday School Convention. 65
quote the Scripture so aptly and pray so fervently to God ?
AVere j'ou always as successful in making your sentences and
choosing your words as you are now?" and the answer would
invariably come, " Oh, no ; it has been the work and the toil
of years." He will tell you of the first time he ever spoke
in a prayer meeting ; how, on rising, the people all seemed
to be going around him, and his head was swimming, and the
perspiration was running down from the crown of his head
to the soles of his feet — ^how he trembled ; and some of the
people around him were tittering, and the folks said, when
they went home after meeting, " Well, I do hope that Mr. So-
and-so will wait a long time before he tries again to entertain
a prayer meeting." And then he resolved that he would
never, never, undertake such a thing again. Then, at the
next prayer meeting, the Holy Spirit laid it on his mind ta
testify, and finally he was ready to say, "I am ready to be a
fool, and to be counted an idiot every day I live, if it is the
will of God that I should testify of Him." Call any one of
the number of ministers in this house to-night, and ask him
to give us his experience of his first sermon, and all that, and
he would say, " I have wished a hundred times that the
mountains would fall on me, I have been so mortified and felt
my own insignificance so deeply."
Let that little germ that is planted in you work ; stir it up^
and it will grow ; if you do not stir it up, it will not grow,
and you will become a feeble dwarf, instead of a mighty
power for good. I have heard instructors talk as though
they thought that any Christian who was not a Sunday-school
teacher ought to be excommunicated ; that every one that
has spiritual life can be a Sabbath-school teacher. Well,
bitter experience has proved to us that this is not a fact.
There are many good Christian men and women who were
not foreordained to be Sabbath -school teachers. I have seen
too many fine classes run through the mill, to doubt that any
more.
Every one can do some work for the Lord better than any
one else can do it for him, and we ought to pray the prayer
that Paul prayed, "Lord, what wilt Thou have me to do?"
That short prayer is our prayer — "What wilt Thou have me
to do ; WHAT paths wilt Thou have my fee% to walk in ?"
When your feet and mine are walking in God's path we have
both peace and usefulness.
So Paul says in substance to Timothy, " Don't be discour-
aged if you seem to get along poorly sometimes, but stir up
the gift of God that is in you, and you will do an acceptable
work for Christ."
'^6 Illinois State Sunday School Coxvextiox.
Next, we notice briefly in the 8tli verse, " Be not thou
therefore ashamed of the testimony of our Lord nor of me,
His prisoner." It would read, ^^ Do not be ashamed of giving
Qcitness for Christ. Do not be ashamed of testifying for
Christ Although I am a prisoner of the Lord, do not be
ashamed of me." Here are two things. First, we Avant to be
careful that everywhere we go, we bear a testimony for our
Master. Second, we want to be able to look into tlie face of
•every one whom we may meet and give him a reason for the
hope that is planted in us. At the same time we must never
be ashamed of the children of God who are in trouble and
humiliation. I tell you, friends, that the quality of a suit of
clothes often makes a difference in the attention that even a
Christian man gives ; and the kind of house that a man lives
in often makes a deal of difference with his entertainment
when he goes to a Sunday-school Convention. A little plain
talk don't do any harm. It seems to me that one of the
truths that we need to get into our souls is that God is no
respecter of persons, except that He chooses the weakest to
do the most for Him. If Jesus Clirist was here, He would
pay more attention to the weakest child of God in Galesburg,
than to an}' other. He is our example. How many humble
Christians would be stronger and happier to-night if those
"who are above them in station, knowledge and experience,
'did not often seem to be ashamed of them. I pray God to
give me this love toward His humblest child ; to have the
warmest heart and the largest place in my home for the man
who seems to be insignificant and unknown. Paul laid it on
the mind of this boy, whom lie loved with all his soul, that
he should have a great place in his heart for those who were
prisoners of the Lord — for those who were the outcasts of
society and of the church. That is why our mission work is
so greatly blessed; that is why the Holy Spirit has been
poured out so wonderfull}' in our mission schools.
One more thing is mentioned of tlie inner life. •' For the
which cause I also suffer these things." Paul suffered for a
right cause — he never suffered from wrong doing — he suffered
ffor the Master. This is the only kind of sufferhig Christians
.ure called to endure. This is what we shall be able to rejoice
•ill. " Notwithstanding, I am not ashamed, for I know whom
I have believed, and am persuaded that He is able to keep
4hat which I have committed unto Him against that day."
We will now enumerate the inner qualifications mentioned.
IFirst, a pure conscience ; second, faith, unfeigned ; third,
■stirring up the gift of God that is within us: fourth, never
being ashamed of Jesus anywhere, and never being ashamed
liiiiiKOis State Sunday School Convention. 67
of the humblest of His disciples ; and, lastly, the calm, quiet
assurance of our salvation, in the da}' time and in the night
time; in joy and in sorrow; in prosperity and in adversity,
and in the dark valley of the 8hado\A^ of death ; a calm, quiet,
unwavering trust in the Lord, knowing that our souls are
safe in His keeping.
Suppose we had the time to meet the Christian members
of this congregation one by one, and ask something like this :
" Are you in your inmost soul satisfied and sure that you are
saved ? Are you without doubt ; are you without fear ; is it
a calm, quiet, untailing rest with you as you preach this
Gospel ; are you satisfied, as you go along, that you are rest-
ing on the great strong arm of Christ ?"
Every Sunday-school teacher who is in doubt of his own
salvation, and trying to direct others to the Savior, is in a
most pitiable condition. One of the strongest qualifications
for Christian work is the one mentioned in this verse. I was
a Christian three years, and all that time was in a sort of
intermittent state ; sometimes very happy and sometimes very
miserable ; now I had a fever, and then a chill ; sometimes
wild with joy, and again in the valley of tribulation. I was
•not a hcqjpy Christian. My room-mate, five or six years older
than myself, had been trained by a godl}- father and mother
and had been engaged in Christian work for ten or fifteen
3'ears. He believed in the Lord Jesus, as he did in his
parents. He seemed to have no more doubt that Heaven was
his home than that he was living on Indiana street.
One Sunday night I had been speaking to an audience of
sailors, on Illinois street — it had been hard Avork for me ; a
good many difiiculties to wrestle with ; many doubts and
fears. I had been trying to preach to them God's truth, and
although I did not fuUy believe it myself, I knew that it was
good for them to believe, if they only would, and I preached
as earnestly as possible, and went home about 11 o'clock. My
friend George was asleep, looking as happ}- as a king. He
was not worried about his work, although he had done much
more than I. I looked at his peaceful face and said to myself,
^' If I could be a Christian like that man, I would give any-
thing in the world." I was led to open the Bible to see
whether mine was the kind of experience that the Lord wanted
me to have, and I read, "For we know that if our earthly
house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building
of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the
Heavens." And then I remembered that the old saints always
knew; they never guessed at all ; Job didn't guess, he didn't
think, but he knew that his Redeemer lived. So I prayed,
68 Illinois State Sunday School Convention.
" Lord, help me to trust." I don't know how it was, but the
presence of the Lord was with rae that Sunday night. I
never before had such a sense of His forgiveness. I shouted,
" George, wake up !" Said he, " What is it ?" " The Lord is
here!" I remember the smile on his face when he said,
" Well, Charlie, I knew He would give you a great blessing
very soon." I have never doubted my salvation from that
time to this, although I remain the same unworthy being as
when the Savior came and saved me from my sins.
Some of us are gathered in this State Convention for the
last time. May the blessing of God be upon our hearts, and
may we be able to do greater works this year than we have
done in all the years of the past.
A second meeting was held in the Presbyterian Church.
It was well filled. The singing was conducted by Mr. and
Mrs. McGranahan, and addresses were made by Maj. Whittle
and Mr. G. C. Mcllvain, of Peoria.
iLLixois State Sitxdat School, Coxvextiox. 69
SECOND DAY— Morning Session.
The house was filled before the hour named on the pro-
gramme.
The Rev. John 0. Foster, of Downer's Grove, conducted a
service of song, after which Mr. C. C. Case took the platform
and led a praise service.
At 9 o'clock all the standing room in the house was occu-
pied, and so many were anxious to hear that persons climbed
to listen through the windows and at the rear.
Announcement was made that the Congregational Church
«vas open, and that a second service would be held there.
Mr. Moody then took the platform and announced the
following hymn, "i^one of Self and All of Thee." As the
singing progressed, Mr. Moody commented upon the hj-mn,
verse by verse, and asked the congregation to measure their
experience by it.
Dr. Schofield, of London, England, led in prayer, and after
a few moments of silent prayer, Mr. Moody led in prayer
also. He then announced his subject, " The Bible," and in
his earnest way and manner, spoke as follows ;
THE BIBLE.
D. L. MOODY.
I want to open the subject this morning by saying that we
have but one Bible. The impression among a great many
people, at the present time, is, that we have two Bibles — what
is called the Old Testament and the Kew. I am annoyed
sometimes to hear intelligent Christians say that they believe
in the contents of the New Testament, but don't believe in
the teachings of the Old. There is an impression abroad that
the Old Testament has passed out of date ; that it was good
for the antediluvians, good for the Mosaic dispensatien, but
that the New Testament has superseded it, and that it is good
for history only, and poor at that, in a good many points it is
not reliable ; that it is not authentic. Now I want to say that
70 Illinois State Sunday School. Convention.
the Old Testament and the New go together; that they are
one book. I believe that the reason that we have so few
Christians to-day whose characters are all ronnded out, and
who are strong in all points, is becanse they only study a few
portions of the Word of God. They study and read a great
deal a certain chapter, and a few verses they are familiar with,
and the rest of the Word of God is neglected, and that is the
reason they become so narrow, so bigoted and so stubborn.
They have got just a few passages of Scripture that they
always feed upon, and harp upon, and they become hobbyists,
and they will always ride their hobby, on all occasions. It
makes no difierence what the subject is; they have got their
hobby and they will bring it out. ^o matter what their
hobby is, they will ride it. If it is sanctification, they will
always be talking about sanctification ; if it is temperance,
then you will hear of temperance ; if it is consecration, then
you will hear of that. And so they will go on ; they will
always bring out just one truth. Now what we want is to
take the whole Word of God. All Scripture is given by in-
spiration, not part of it. When Paul wrote about the Scrip-
tures, be had reference to the Old Testament. " All Scrip-
ture," says Paul, "is given by inspiration of God. He
believed in the Old Testament. Now you will find by reading
the New Testament carefully, that our Lord quotes from
twenty-two books of the Old Testament. There arc thirty-
nine books in the Old Testament, and our Lord quotes from
twenty-two of them. In Matthew there are nearly one
hundred passages that refer to the Old Testament. Nineteen
books are quoted from in Matthew alone. Now these men
who tell us that they believe in the Gospels, but do not
believe in the Old Testament. Do not understand that the
Gospels are largely made up of quotations from the Old Tes-
tament. If you are going to cut oft' all that is quoted from
the Old Testament, you will cut out nearly the whole of it.
In Mark there are fifteen passages, from thirteen difterent
books. In Luke, twenty-five passages, from thirteen difterent
books. In John, eleven passages, from six difterent books.
There are one hundred and forty-four quotations, from eight
or nine chapters, in the New Testament.
Now there is another class of people who tell us that the
first five books of the Bible are not true ; they are not
authentic, and all that. Now you will find the Master quoting
from Deuteronomy perhaps as much as from any other book.
Deuteronomy and Isaiah seem to be His two favorite books
that He quotes from. In Matthew, eighteen times He refers
to Deuteronomy ; twenty times He refers to the prophecy of
Illinois State Suxdat School Coxvextiox. 7J
Isaiah. From the prophecy of Daniel there are fourteen
quotations. From the book of Exodus there are fourteen-
quotations. Our Master quotes from the Psalms sixteen
times. "When He had that conflict with Satan, He quoted
twice from Deuteronomy, and once from the Psalms. When
He wanted to overcome Satan, He said, ''It is written."
"What we want is to follow in the footsteps of our Master^
and when we are attacked by these infidel? and skeptics, we
must meet them with " Thus saith the Lord." That will
settle it. I tell you this one sentence, "Thus saith the Lord,*'
is worth more than all the traditions of the fathers. It is not
what the Church teaches to-day, nor what our fore-father&
taught, but what is the Word of God. That is what we-
want.
Very often I have heard men say, " You don't believe in
the flood, do you ?" " Yes, I believe in the flood." I was
going to .preach about Noah, one time, and a man came to
me and says, " Why, you are not going to preach on that old'
story of the flood?" "Yes." " Why, you don't believe that,
do you?" "Oh, yes." "Well," says he, "I thought we ha^
got beyond that. That is a fable." "Well," says I, "you
believe in the ISTew Testament, don't you?" Says he, " Yes^
I believe in the New Testament." " Well, in the New Testa-
ment the Lord says, 'As it was in the days of Noah, so shall
it be in the coming of the Son of Man.' The Son of God put
His seal to that very thing. If you throw out the flood, yon
throw out the whole book of Genesis."
Another man said, "You don't believe in the story of the-
destruction of Sodom, do you?" "Oh, yes. It says in the-
New Testament, ' As it was in the days of Lot, so shall it be
in the coming of the Son of Man.' And the Son of God has
put his seal to that very narrative." Another man said, "You'
don't believe in the story of Lot's wife, do you?" " Oh, yes.
I believe in that because the Master said, ' Eemember Lot's-
wife.' "
People cavil at the story of Jonah. It is very common to
cavil at it. They say, "You don't really believe, do you,
that Jonah was swallowed by a whale ?" " Yes." Some of
these scientific men will say that it is physically impossible;
that the mouth of the whale is only just large enough for a
man's fist, and that a whale could not swallow a man. Well,
the Scriptures say God prepared a fish to swallow Jonah.
Couldn't God prepare a fish to swallow a man, and couldn't
He prepare man to swallow a whale? They say that it ia
impossible that a whale could swallow a man, but is it impos-
sible to think that God, who created the heavens and the
72 Illinois State Sunday School. Convsxtion.
earth, could not create a fish to swallow a man, and preserve
his life in that whale, M}- friend, Dr. Mackay. who rode
across the ocean with me going to Europe, when he was here
a little over two years ago, he was where there were two
young men discussing about the Bible. One of them was one
of your small pliilosophers of the present day, and he said
that he had studied a great deal, and he considered himself a
man of some information, and said it was an utter impossi-
bility for an ass to speak, and that he didn't believe that the
ass spoke to Balaam ; he would not believe any such story as
that. The other man was trying to discuss with him, and
Dr. Mackay just spoke up and said to the little philosopher,
" If you will make the ass, I will make him speak. The idea
that God, who created the ass, can't make him speak." And
yet men tell us that these things are not true.
Now there is a class of people who tell us that they believe
everything that corresponds with reason, but they are going
to throw out everything that is supernatural. If you are
going to throw out everything that is supernatural, you have
got to throw out the whole Word of God. There is not any
portion of that AVord that is not supernatural. If you are
going to throw out of the book everything that has some-
thing in it that is supernatural, you throw out the whole
thing, because the man who wrote that book must have known
that he wrote a lie, if it didn't take place; and if he would
tell a lie about one thing, why isn't everything written a lie?
If I go into court and testify to a thing that isn't true, that
would break down all my testimony, and tliey would strike
out all of it. If I lie about one thing, I will testify falsely
about another. If you throw out the story of the Hood and
everything else in it that is supernatural, then you throw out
the whole book of Genesis.
Then we come to the book of Exodus. There we find with
the children of Israel a pillar of cloud by day, and a pillar of
fire by night. That is supernatural, and if you throw that
out you throw out the whole book of Exodus. You come
into the book of Leviticus, and all the other books of the
Bible, right through the book, and you will find that it is
made up of supernatural things, and if you throw out any of
them, you throw out the whole Bible.
Everything about Jesus Christ was supernatural. Five
hundred years before He was born, Gabriel came down into
Babylon, and said to Daniel that He was to be born. Gabriel
dropped down into a little town of Nazareth, and told Mary
that she was to be the mother of that child. You know that
many men cavil about her immaculate conception. These
Illinois State Suxday School Coxvextiox. 73
philosophers tell you that that can't be true. It is no more
wonderful than His whole life. There is not a thing about
Jesus Christ that is not wonderful. It is wonderful that
five hundred years before He was born, the news should come
that He should be born, and that He should be called Im-
manuel, God with us, and that He should be called the Prince
of Peace. His name was given from Heaven. '• His name
shall be called Jesus, and He shall save the people from their
«ins." That was supernatural. And after His birth, the wise
men coming from the East, that was supernatural. The
shepherds hearing the choir from Heaven and coming to pay
homage to that Child, that was supernatural. His coming
into the world, and the prophecy of his coming, were super-
natural. His baptism was supernatural ; His preaching was
supernatural ; His death was supernatural ; and His resur-
rection, His coming up out of Joseph's sepulchre, was super-
natural; His ascension into Heaven was supernatural; and
the carrying on of His work is supernatural. So if you
throw the supernatural out of the Xew Testament, you throw
out the whole book.
There are a great many people, some of them professing to
be Christians, who say that they are willing to believe what
corresponds with their reason, but they will throw out that
that don't coirespond with their reason. A great many men
will tell you that they don't believe what they can't reason
out, and because they can't reason out the whole Bible, from
back to back, they reject it. Now that, to me, is one of the
strongest proofs that the book is divine. If I could take that
book and read it as I can any other book, and understand it
as I do any other, instead of there being one Bible, there
would be 10,000. I am glad the book is^beyond my depth.
I am glad there is a book I can't fathom. I think this is one
of tho strongest evidences that the book is divine. If it is
not divine, how co'ild the men who wrote it write such a
book as that. Unlettered men, men without education ; some
of them herdsmen ; some of them shepherds ; some of them
fishermen of Galilee; some of them that never knew any-
thing of the schools. If they wrote such a book as that
without inspiration, without help from God, it is the greatest
miracle that the world has ever seen. I would like to see
some of these modern philosophers sit down and write a
•chapter like one that you will find in the book of John ; or
write something that will compare with any language you
will find in the gospels. I would like to see some person
write something that can be compared with the book of Rev-
elation, so sublime, so grand, so wonderful. If John, that
74 Illinois State Sunday School. Convention.
Galileean fisherman, was not inspired by God Almighty to
write that book, then it is the greatest miracle that the world
has seen.
Then people say, " IIow are you going to believe things
you don't understand?" Why, I am doing that constantly.
I don't understand astronomy. They tell me the sun is
95,000,000 of miles from the earth ; I believe it. I believe it,
but I don't know anything about it. They tell me that light
travels at the rate of 180,000 miles a second, and that it takes
500 years for light to reach this earth from some of the
planets, that's a big story, as much so as anything I ever
heard in my life, but astronomers tell me so, and I believe it.
I don't know anything about it, and I don't know how to find
out; thats a mystery to me. They tell me that the sun is
1,300,000 times larger than this world; I do not know any-
thing about it; they say so, and I suppose it is so. Its a
pretty big story, but then they say so, and they think I would
be an awful character if I doubted it. They say that there
have been 86,000,000 of other suns discovered, and 12,400,-
000,000 other planets discovered ; and they say that is only
just the fringe on the garments of the Almighty. I am lost
in amazement. They would consider me very skeptical if 1
didn't believe what they told me. Men condemn that book
because there are things in it beyond their depth. The
natural man cannot receive spiritual things, and the carnal
mind cannot understand the things of the spirit; but when
man is born of the spirit, then these things unfold themselves
to him. God gives His secrets to those that love Him, and
those who honor His Book. The 29th verse of the XXLX[.
chapter of Jeremiah says, " The secret things belong unto the
Lord, our God, but those things which aie revealed belong
unto us and our children forever, that we may do all the
words of the law."
People ask me, " What do you do with the things you don't
understand?" I don't do anything with them. "How do
you interpret them ?" I don't interpret them. I just believe
them, that is all I do with tliem. There was a time, when I
first became a Christian, that I thought I had to defend the
whole book, that I had to understand. But now Avhen I find
passages of scripture that I don't ucderstand, I just believe
them. This is the Eternal Word. What we want is, to
believe it. "The secret of the Lord is with them that fear
Him, and He will show them His covenant." He will show
them His covenant. Now Avhat we want is just to be walk-
ing with God, in daily communion with Him. Then there
will be no trouble with the book.
ILI.INOIS State Sunday School Coxvextion. 75
MAJOR WHITTLE.
Somebod}' has said that the great argument for the inspira-
tion of God's word is, that it inspires. I believe in the inspi-
ration of God's word, I can say from experience on that part
that I never had any comfort in the word of God until I be-
lieved it was inspired. I think all these theories about the
parts of the Bible being inspired, but that the words are not
inspired, are unprofitable. We are taught everywhere that
the word of God is inspired. That holy men spake as they
were moved by the Holy Ghost. I was recently reading in
" Dr. Livingstone in Africa" something upon that point, that
it is the word of God that inspired men. We look at that
man's life and see how he was inspired by the word of God
to go out as a missionary. He says in his diary that he had
the hope among other things that God might use him in go-
ing to Africa, so that he might find there in Central Africa
some memorial of a supposed visit of Moses to that country.
Some of the Jews thought that Moses, before he was forty
years old, went up into that country, and that he governed
the country, and that there were works that Moses built in
that countiy. Dr. Livingstone thought he might come across
some of these memorials and find something there that would
vindicate the sacred writings. Well, it probably is a mistake
about Moses having been there, at any rate Dr. Livingstone
never found any such memorial. But when we come to the
death of that man, we find him in Africa alone. He had
been away from his family seven years. He had refused to
go home when he might have gone ; he would not go until
his work was finished. In his diary he wrote : "I have read
the Bible here, four times through in the last two years while
in this country." He had been through that country and
carrying the word of God and telling the natives of the Lord
Jesus until his strength was exhausted. One night his attend-
ants left him alone in his hut. They came in at daybreak,
and they thought he was engaged in prayer, but he was not.
They went to him again after a while and he was still on his
knees by the side of his bed and seemingly engaged in prayer,
but when they came to him they found that he was dead.
The argument for the inspiration of the Bible is that it in-
spires. That man never found any memorials in stone to vin-
dicate the word of God, the life that he lived and the death
that he died. So dear brethren let it be with us. The argu-
ment of a life inspired by the Word of God. A godly man, a
godly woman, that is the argument that will carry the word
of God triumphantly through this life.
76 li^Lixois State Sunday School, Coxvextiox.
ALEX. G. TYNG.
There was an old carver in Scotland who went around with
hammer and chisel to deepen inscriptions. So I would like
to deepen somewhat the thoughts that have been uttered.
We have to take this word of God as a whole. The Old Test-
ament is a prophesy of the coming of the Son of God. The
four Gospels are but a history of the accomplishment of the
work, and the Acts of the Apostles are but an adaption of the
finished Avork, and this is the work in which we are engaged.
Last night as I stood and looked out of the window, I saw the
moon shining, and the moon as it shone there was but a
pledge of the absent sun, that it would come again. That
word of God is but a pledge of my absent Lord, who will
again arise. And that moon though it shone so beautifully,
was but a small crescent. It was, as it were, but a part of
God's word, yet how beautiful it was. If that moon in all its
fulness could have shone, how grand. So we want all that
word of God in all its fulness. Too many take that word and
look at it as we go into the woods. You find one of these
shell-bark hickory nuts, ydu have to break them and pick
through the rough covering just to pick out the little kernels.
The word of God is like a cocoanut from which chocolate is
made; the very shell itself is ground when making chocolate.
It is like the cocoanut, that wonderful fruit, the very fibre in
which the nut is grown is useful. The nut itself, as you pick
it in its native climate and open it, is filled with a most deli-
cious and refresliing drink. The very nut itself away from
its home gives a flavor to everything in which it is mixed and
used, just as the word of God flavors everything in our land
and in our country.
MR. FOSTER.
I think it is hardly in order at the present age, to write as
did the fathers, apologies for the Scriptures. I think that the
Scriptures are not on trial. I think that the time has come
when with boldness we may assert their truthfulness. I do
not think that the rock of Gibralta is on trial. I do not think
that it is time now for us to stop to defend any one of these
points. One of the strongest truths that I find in the word of
God is where the Lord says in Isaiah : " My word shall not
return unto me void.*' It will go on with power and strength,
increasing as an avalanche. It has wonderful force in it.
There is no end to this great reservoir. Riding in the cars, I
looked out of the window, and I saw something new to a
western man. I asked the gentleman what that was.
Illinois State Sunday school Convention. 77
"Why," says he, "that is a tide mill." Says I, "What is
that ?" " Well," says he, " When the tide comes in from the
broad Atlantic, it pushes these ^ates open. ISTow there, at this
time you see the tide is coming in and the gates are open."
It seemed to me wonderful. There was the broad Atlantic and
a mill pond. By and by, when the tide set back, of course
then the mill would stop. This great word of God is like the
Atlantic, and our hearts are like that bay or j^ond if you
please. If we open our hearts, this tide will come in all the
time with power. There is no end to the power of this gos-
pel. It is the source of strength, of knowledge, and holiness.
It will mould and transform us into the might and power and
wisdom of God.
WM. REYNOLDS.
Major Whittle has spoken of this word being inspired. I
think one of the evidences of its being genuine is, it is satis-
factory. It brings satisfaction to all those who accept it, and
who trust in and rest upon it. " I will keep him in perfect peace
whose mind is staid on Thee, because he ti'usteth in Thee."
In the direction of natural wants, I find that God has supplied
those wants in nature. I am hungry, and I can sit down to a
table and can eat until I am perfectly satisfied. I am thirsty,
and I can drink until I am perfectly satisfied. I am wear}^,
and I can lie down and find in sleep that which perfectly
refreshes me and satisfies me. Now God has made provisions
for the natural man. Has He made no provision for the
spiritual life? I find in me a spiritual nature, something
that is longing to be satisfied; something that will teach
me what I was made for ; something that will tell me what
my destiny is; something that will tell me what God
meant for me to do. And has God made me thus
and given me nothing to satisfy ? Men have lived to find
satisfaction in various things, but they have disastrously failed
until they came to the word of God, and there they find that
which will satisfy their immortal natures, and I say to-day,
that no men live who are entirely satisfied and entirely at
peace, except those who have come and accepted this book as
divine, and rested and trusted in it.
E. S. ALBRO.
I am delighted to be here this morning, and I can say to
you that the Bible is one of the sweetest and most precious
books in all this universe. Forty-eight years ago I went to
the first Sabbath-school, and I can give you the lines that I
78 Illinois State Sunday school, Coxvextiox,
first learned in the word of God. "In the beginning was the
word, and the word was God, the same was in the beginning
with God, All things were made by Ilim, and without Ilim
was not anything made that was made. There was a man
sent from God, whose name was John." I thank God that I
commenced witli the Bible, and lean tell you, beloved friends,
when the day of reckoning comes, I believe that the Lord
will give me credit for one thing, he will say to me: " Al-
bro, you have studied the JJible." When you take this word
and let it dwell richly in your hearts, speaking in psalms and
hymns and spiritual songs, it will help you to make melody
in your hearts to God. You Avill find it has inspiring power,
and it has riches above everything else. It tells of redemp-
tion, and it tells us of everything pertaining to the future as
well as the present. It tells us that the Lord Jesus Christ is
made of God unto us, redemption, righteousness, and sanctili-
cation. And wherein we fail in everj'^thing else, it tells us
that what the law could not do in that, it was weak through
the ileshj God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful
flesh condemned sin in the flesh, that the righteousness of the
law might be made manifest in us, who walk, not according
to the nesh, but according to the spirit. Take the Bible and
go back to Genesis, where Joseph was made known to his
bretheren. See how God disciplined him. He had on the
robe of royalty at flrst, but he had to take that ofl:' and go into
prison. After his prison life, when he came out and his
brothers met him, he fell on their necks and kissed them, and
told them : " I am Joseph, whom ye sold into Egypt. You
meant it for evil, but God meant it for good." And then
when you come and see Christ on the croes, and he tells you
he did it for you, it will bring us into tenderness and love for
him.
I was in Colorado last fall, and a lady told me that the
Governor had been visiting the prisoners in the penitentiary,
and up high in one of the rooms he discovered a beautiful
flower. Everything was so greatly in contrast with it that he
asked the question. "What is that up in the window?"
And the ofHccr told him that was a flower. He said, "there
is a young man in prison who is under a long sentence, and
he begged the privilege of having the flower in his window,
and he has had the flower in it all the time." The Governor
said: "I want to see that young man." And he went up and
said to him : " I noticed 3'ou have got a flower in your win-
dow. I want to know about it." And he said : " I am here
on a long sentence. My mother was an intense lover of flow-
ers, and I want to keep this flower here in memory of
Illinois State Sukday School, Convention. 79
my mother, how she loved me." That touched the Govern-
or's heart, and he said ; " I am going to shorten your sent-
ence three years." The Lord Jesus Christ looked upon me
with love, and when he saw the flower of repentance, how
his heart was moved. He said: "I will not cut short your
sentence two years, or three years, but I will altogether par-
don you." " Oh, how I love thy law. It is my meditation all
the day." God grant that we may have this love for the
Bihle, and that we may live by faith in him until we reach
eternal life.
MR. m'ilvain.
It seems to me the difference between the Bible and any
other book is this ; That it has innate light and others have
not. Take a seed of wheat, if you please, if you place it in
the ground it will germinate and grow. It has innate life in
itself. I^ow it seems to me that the word of God is like that
seed. It has in itself innate life, and will generate, and of no
other book in the world, can this be said. A single text of
God's word has in it innate power and life, that the spirit of
God will take up and bless to the salvation of men. Often-
times just a single verse or an isolated portion of the Bible,
floating, as it were, wild upon the winds, has been picked up
and has led a soul to Christ. The word of God has life, and
that is the difl:erence between the Bible and any other book.
MR. FOSS.
I think the Bible itself its own best defender. Some por-
tions of it have been before the world many thousands of
years, and the best minds of various ages have been brought
to bear to write it down, and speak it down, with very little
efl:ect on it. We sometimes are very poor defenders of the
Bible, but the Bible defends itself. The power of God is in
it. In one respect it illustrates the doctrine of evolution, oji*
Darwin's doctrine of the survival of the fittest. That doctrine
that in nature, the fittest survives — the strongest and the best.
In the great struggle of books for continued existence, the
Bible has shown its fitness to survive in an eminent degree.
Hundreds of books have been written with the idea of super-
ceding or putting down the Bible ; but they have died and
been buried by the thousands. But the Book of books lives
yet. Its power is greater to-day than it ever has been. It
must be very exasperating to these men to see what little
effect their attacks on the Bible have. Why, as well might
a flock of twittering wrens flap their wings against the sides
80 Illinois State Sunday School, Convextion.
of Mt. Washington and try to arrest the revolution of tlie
globe. The power of God is in it, and it is certain to stand.
bome of you have been in California. You have seen the
domes of Yosemite, those grand rocks that are lifted up into
the air. Sometimes the storm comes against them, one of
those California storms, and those rocks are bombarded by the
hailstones and by the tempest, but when the tempest passes
by, there they stand, a pillar of strength and sublimity lifted
up into the clear California heavens. To-day this word
stands, lifting itself — the domes of the Old and the New Test-
ament-— up into the light of God, and the attacks of men seem
to have as little effect upon it as the bombardment of the Cal-
ifornia hailstorm upon the domes of the Yosemite.
REV. JAMES HANEY.
What is this book to us? God's book; the words of our
Father, when He gave the Law to Moses. You know they
kept the Law for years and years in the tablets of stone upon
which they were written first. But that is all gone now ; no
man knows where it is. If we had those two tablets of stone
we would worship them as images, but we have God's word,
and our Father declares that it shall accomplish that Avher^-
unto He hath sent it. It matters not what men may say.
Our God said that it shall accomplish that whereunto He has
sent it. Why has He sent it — for what purpose? To bring
the world to himself. It is a light to light our feet, and a
lamp to light our pathway, and it shall guide us. And it will
remain. More and more hearts are believing and are loyal
to it to-day than there ever were before in the world's history.
True, I believe that more men are assailing it than ever
before, but Peter says: "The grass withereth and the flower
fadeth, and the glory of man passetJi away, but the Word of
God endureth forever." He says it as God told him to declare
if, and I believe it. Christ has declared that this word shall
not pass away, "not a jot or tittle of it" shall pass away
until all be accomplished. I am not afraid of their taking
any of it away. The world will never lose it. The gospel is
being preached to all men everywhere. Everybody is reading
the l^ible. God sends his gospel by the preached word, and
He sends the message of His love by His Avritten word, to all
men everywhere. The heavens and the earth shall pass away,
but Jesus says: "My word sUall not pass away — not a jot or
tittle of it shall pass until all be fulfilled."
Illinois State Suxday School, Convextiox. 81
c. m. morton.
There are a great many religions, but there is only one
Bible. I have been thinking how good it is that God never
made more than one Bible. We need not stumble over the
revealed word of God. There is one Savior held out to man,
and one Bible. Outside of the word of God there is no light,
absolutely no light, and this comes home to unconverted peo-
ple just as closely as it does to Christians. "We look up to the
stars at night and they tell us nothing of the hereafter. The
beasts of the field, the birds of the air, the philosophy of men,
and the arguments of the infidel tell us nothing about what
comes beyond the grave. We just know here in this life that
a little way further on there is a grave, and there is nothing
to speak with authority to tell us of the beyond — except the
blessed Bible. And this is exactly in accord with the voice
that God has placed in our hearts. Before I was a Christian,
before I read this Bible, I had no doubt of the life beyond. It
was written in my heart. I felt ^t. All sinners feel it, and
the Bible comes, and it is in perfect accord with that voice of
the Holy Ghost that is planted in us. And when we stand by
an open grave and hear the sadest sound that can be heard,
the rattling of clods on the coffin lid, the word of God comes
in and agrees with the voice that is in our hearts, and we are
comforted with the assurance that God sends.
The Psalmist says ; " Thy testimonies are wonderful, there-
fore doth my soul keep them. The entrance of thy word
giveth light, it giveth understanding to the simple. Deal with
thy servant according with thy mercy, and teach me thy stat-
utes. I am thy servant, give me understanding."
N^ow there is his plea. Give me understanding, because I
am thy servant. No one has a right to make that prayer but
a Christian. There are a great many unconverted people who
are trying to understand the word, but it is addressed to God's
servants. There are just two things that are revealed to an
unconverted mind. First, that he is a sinner, and, second, by
faith in Christ he is saved. Then when he accepts these two
cardinal points he can make this prayer, "I am thy servant,
give me understanding. Thou art my biding place. I hope
in thy word. Thy word is a lamp unto my feet and a light
unto my path. Oh, how I love thy law. It is my meditation
all the day." May the spirit of the Master be with us and
teach us how to meditate on his word. And may he open
this blessed truth to each one of our minds.
82 Illinois State Suxday School Coxvextiox.
MR. MOODY.
A colored man was told by an infidel that the Bible was not
true — that it was not a good book — it was full of lies and one-
thing and another. And he answered the infidel in this way:
" That book not true ! That book a bad book ! That book
is true. I was once a blasphemer. I was once a drunkard.
That book made me a good man. If that book had been a
bad book, it would not make a bad man a good man." I
think the darkey had the best of the argument. A bad book
can't make a bad man good.
What we want, it seems to me, is more love for the Master.
AVe must get acquinted with him, and we can't get acquainted
with him in any other way than by this book. There is hard-
ly a page in the whole Bible but that really is pointing to-
wards Christ, It is a book of one man really. There is
hardly a page in the Old Testament, but you can find Christ
in it, if you hunt for him. But we read the Bible sometimes
just to ease our conscience^, but when we take the book and
hunt for something, we will find it. And if we hunt for
Jesus Christ, we will find him. When you come to the word
3'ou must hunt for something, must look for something, not
just read it to ease your consciences. If we want to be with
Christ it is our privilege to be with him every day. "We can
find him right here in this blessed book.
After singing the hymn, " I shall be Satisfied," the Conven-
tion adjourned, and immediately reorganized into six District
Conventions, where the plans of work for the coming year
were thoroughly discussed, and as far as possible arrange-
ments were made for holding a chain of conventions in each
district.
SECOND DAY- Afternoon Session.
Although it was announced by placards on the building
that Mr. Moody would speak in another church, the house
was packed ere the hour for the meeting had arrived. After
a service of song Mr. G. W. Scripps, of Rushville, led in
prayer.
Illinois State Sl^xday School Coxvextiox. 83
The uomiuating committee finished their report, which
was unanimously adopted as follows ;
First District —Vresident, C. M. Morton, of Chicago; Secretary, W. B,
Lloyd, of St. Charles.
Second District— President, J. D. Arms, of Monmouth ; Secretary, A. P.
Babcock, of Galesburg.
Third District — President, J. R. Mason, of Bloomington ; Secretary, A.
Aron, of Bloomington.
Fourth District— President, F. D. Crane, of Mount Sterling ; Secretary,
C. A. Catlin, of Jacksonville.
Fifth District— T resident, Rev. F. L. Thomson, of Salem; Secretary, W.
C. Kenner, of Flora.
Sixth District -President, C. AV. Jerome, of Carbondale ; Secretary,
Samuel Brush, of Carbondale.
William Thorn, of Olney, Richland county, was elected to
take the place of the Rev. F. L. Thomson, on the Executive
Committee, the latter having been chosen president of the
Fifth District.
After a song, Mr. George C. [N'eedham, of Chicago, ad-
dressed the Convention on the subject assigned him, " The
Study of the Bible."
BIBLE READING.
BY G. C. XEEDHAM.
Let US turn to the 19th Psalm :
" The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament showeth his
handiwork. Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night showeth
knowledge. There is no speech nor language where their voice is not
heard. Their line has gone out through all the earth, and their words to
the end of the world. In them hath he set a tabernacle for the sun, which
is as a bridegroom coming out of his chamber and rejoiceth as a strong man
to run a race. His going forth is from the end of the Heaven, and his cir-
cuit unto the ends of it; and there is nothing hid from the heat thereof.
The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul. The testimony of the
Lord is sure, making wise the simple. The statutes of the Lord are right,
rejoicing the heart. The commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightning
the eyes. The fear of the Lord is clean, enduring forever. The judgments
of the Lord are true and righteous altogether. More to be desired are they
than gold, yea, than much fine gold ; sweeter also than honey fn the
honeycomb. Moreover by them is thy servant warned, and in keeping of
them there is great reward."
You will notice there are two books mentioned here in this
Psalm, one that is familiarly called the book of nature, the
other the book of revelation. In the open pages of the book
of nature we see God's existence, we see that God is. If we
84 Illinois state Sunday School, Convention.
had no other book than the book of nature, God would hold
us responsible. K 3'ou turn to the first chapter of Romans,
you will find Paul speaking there in that book ; and how
responsibility rests upon those who have the sacred pages of
this book open before them. In the 20th verse he says :
*' For the invisible things of him from the creation of the
world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that
are made, even his eternal power and godhead ; so that they
are without excuse." If we have nothing more of a revela-
tion from God, we are left without excuse, because the visible
things of creation, the things which are made, express the
invisible things. But, whilst the book of nature may impress
us with the existence of God, and make known to us" many
of His attributes — His wisdom. His power, His greatness — it
is not through the book of nature that we come to know Him
and to understand Him in all His perfection. His love. His
grace, His mercy, are not found from the book of nature.
Therefore we have in addition the book of revelation, which
makes known God to the soul and points out the way b}''
which we may approach Plim, come to know Him, and be
brought into recoiwiiliation and harmony with Him. So the
book of revelation deals with the great questions of sin and
salvation — how that God is just in punishing sin, and yet the
justifier of him that believeth in Jesus.
Now, this book of revelation is divided into two parts,
known by the familiar names of the Old Testaiiient and the
New Testament — not two Bibles — one Bible, one book.
These two parts of the Bible contain altogether 66 books or
writings — 39 in the Old Testament and 27 in the New. But
these two books are so closely woven together that they can-
not be separated ; they cannot be divorced. What God hath
joined together let no man put asunder. We have no less
than 603 references or allusions in the New Testament to the
Old Testament. We have no less than 255 references in the
New Testament to the Pentateuch alone, or the first five books
of Moses. I remember hearing a converted Jew, a rabbi,
make this remark. That the Old Testament contained the
Scriptures. W^hen we read of the Scriptures in the New Tes-
tament, reference is always made to the Old Testament. We
have in the Old Testament the Scriptures, the writings of the
revelation of God to man, and in the New Testament the
Holy Ghost explains and unfolds to us the truth of the Old
Testament. There were thirty different writers employed to
write this book — not thirty different authors, but thirty dif-
ferent writers. I think Adam Clark was writing his Com-
mentary about twenty-six years ; and other men have spent
iLiiiNOis State Sunday School, Convextiox. 85
more than a quarter of a century in writing some great book.
We find that God permitted fifteen hundred years to roll by
from the time when the book was commenced until it was
closed. In this book we have the thoughts and purposes of
God, and the .plans of God, revealing His love for man. It is
not a book of science. It is the revelation of the Lord Jesus
Christ.
I want you to help me for a moment. I think it will do
the delegates good to take part in this service. So, you who
have your Bibles, please take them and find the text as I call
it out, and then you may respond. I want to call your atten-
tention to a few Scriptures speaking of the authority of the
Bible and the testimony of the word regarding Jesus.
Mark, xii., 36 : " For David himself said by the Holy Ghost, the Lord
said to my Lord, sit thou on my right hand until I make thine enemies thy
footstool."
Now, notice the saying of the Lord Jesus there : " David
himself said by the Holy Ghost." Jesus is here quoting from
the 110th Psalm. No less than four times in the New Testa-
ment is that same reference made. David was the writer,
but he spake by the Holy Ghost, so that the Lord Jesus fixed
the authorship of the 110th Psalm.
11. Samuel, xxiii., 1, 2: "Now these be the last words of David:
David, the son of Jesse, said. And the man who was raised up on high, the
annointed of the God of Jacob- And the sweet Psalmist of Israel said,
The spirit of the Lord spake by me, and his word was in my tongue."
Not only the 110th Psalm, but all the Psalms which David
penned were the production of the mind of the Holy Spirit.
David said the spirit of the Lord spake by him, so that the
songs of David were indited and inspired by the Holy Spirit
of God.
I. Peter, i., 11 : " Searching what, or what manner of time the spirit of
Christ which was in them did signify when it testified beforehand the
sufferings of Christ, and the glory that should follow."
The spirit of Christ which was in them — which was in the
prophets, testified beforehand showing the things which
would come to pass. Some of them have come to pass ; some
of them have been literally fulfilled — those about the suffer-
ings,— and those prophesies which speak about the glory will
also be fulfilled, because they were uttered by the spirit of
Christ."
II. Peter, i., 21 : " For the prophecy came not in old time by the will
of man, but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy
Ghost."
Those men all spake as they were moved by the Holy
Ghost — not only David, but all the holy men, every writer of
86 iLLrxois State Sunday School, Convextiox.
the Old Testament books was moved by the Holy Ghost. So
we find, not only from what the Lord Jesus said, but from
what Peter and others have said, that the authorship of the
Bible is settled. The Holy Spirit indited, the Holy Spirit in-
spired, the Holy Spirit gave the thoughts, the Holy Spirit
gave the words, so that we have in the very words the mind
of God.
II. Timothy, iii., 16: "All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and
is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in right-
eousness."
All Scripture is given by inspiration of God — not only the
Psalms and the prophecy of Isaiah, but the writings of the
Chronicles, the book of JS'ehemiah, the book of Job, and all.
"All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable
for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in
righteousness." For what purpose? "That the man of God
may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works."
I want to call your attention to that verse where Paul Ba3'S,
"We speak not in words of man's wisdom, biit in the words
which the Holy Ghost teacheth." Xot simply in the thous^hts
which the Holy Ghost gives, but in the words which the lloly
Ghost teacheth. An argument for verbal insiDiration.
Now, if you will take your Bibles again, I want to call
your attention to the use and value of the Scripture. By
having a proper knowledge of the value and use of the
Scripture, we shall have an incentive to the study of Script-
ure. Because there is no use in asking a man to study his
Bible if he goes to it in a spirit of drudgery, if it is a task or
a duty. But when he comes to understand the value of the
Bible, what it is to himself, what it contains, and what it is,
then he will be impelled to study it with a relish.
John vi., 03: "It is the Spirit that quickeneth ; the flesli profiteth
nothing ; the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit and they are
The words of Jesus are spirit and life. It is His word
which quickens the dead. You will remember when Jesus
came to the grave of Lazarus He merely called to him : " Laz-
arus, come forth ! " and he came forth.
I. Peter, i., 23: "Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of in-
corruptible, by the word of God which liveth and abideth forever."
Not only is it a quickening word, but it is a regenerating
word — the word by which regeneration is brought to the soul.
James, i., 21 : " "Wherefore lay apart all filthiness and superfluity of
naughtiness, and receive with meekness the engrafted word which is able
to save your souls,"
iLLixois State Suxday school Coxvextiox. 87
The word of God is able to save the soul. Xow, I want
you to remember the case of Cornelius, who sent for Peter to
come to him that he might tell him words whereby he must
be saved. Peter went and told him about the Savior, and
Cornelius believed, so he was saved. So it is the word by
which the soul is saved.
John, xvii.. 17: "Sanctify them through thy truth. Thy word is
truth."
It is the word by which we are sanctified. The word of
the Lord is the word of sanctiiication for the believer.
I. Peter, ii., 1, 2: "AVherefore, laying aside all malice, and all guile, and
hypocrisies, and enyies, and all eyil-speakings, as new-born babes desire
the sincere milk of the word, that ye may grow thereby."
Milk gives growth. " That ye may grow thereby." You
must grow; 3'ou must not always remain babes.
Hebrews, y., 12-1-4: " For when for the time ye ought to be teachers,
ye have need that one teach you again which be the first principles of the
oracles of God, and are become such as haye need of milk and not of strong
meat. For eyery one that useth milk is unskillful in the word of righteous-
ness, for he is a babe. But strong meat belongeth to them thatare of full
age, eyen those who, by reason of use, haye their senses exercised to dis-
cern both good and evil."
You will see that the apostle says there is a time for us to
cease to be babes in the church. The word of God supplies
us not only with milk, but with meat. Meat makes men
strong and able to do hard work.
Acts, XX., 32 : "And now, brethren, I commend you to God and to the
word of his grace which is able to build you up and to give you an inherit-
ance among all them which are sanctified."
Here we have development of Christian character.
Psalms, xyii., 4: " Concerning the works of men by the word of thy
lips, I haye kept me from the paths of the destroyer."
The word of God is a shield. It shields us from the de-
stroyer; it shields us from sin.
Ephesians, vi., 17: "And take the helmet of salyation and the sword
of the Spirit, which is the word of God."
The word of God is not only a defensive word, but it is
offensive.
Jeremiah, xy., 16: " Thy words were found, and I did eat them, and
thy word was unto me the joy and rejoicing of mine heart. For I am called
by thy name, O Lord, God of hosts."
Psalms, cxix., 105: " Thy word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto
my path."
The word of God is the only light in the world to-day.
Take the word of God out of the world, and it would be in
darkness.
Luke, yiii,, 11: "Now the parable is this: The seed is the word of
God."
88 IL-Lixois State Sunday School, Coxvextiox.
Let us remember that we are sowing seed which will geim-
inate and spring up and bear fruit.
Jeremiah, xxiii., 29: "Is not my word like as afire, saith the Lord,
and like a hammer that breaketh the rock in pieces?"
Here we have both the power and the purity of the word,
signified by the fire and by the hammer.
Now, I must not detain you, but just remember that these
are only a few of the passages giving us an idea of the au-
thority and the value and the use of the regenerating power
of the word of God. It saves, it sanctifies, it gives growth,
it makes us strong, it develops Christian character, it gives
life, and joy, and peace.
At the close of the address Mr. John V. Farwell, of
Chicago, led the Convention in prayer.
Mr. B. F. Jacobs next addressed the Convention on " The
"Work in Prospect."
He illustrated the progress of the Bible work and the
Sunday-school work by three designs, the first being a tri-
angle, with the three dates, 1380, 1780, 1880 ; the second
being a square with the same dates, and the additional one of
1878 ; the third being a five pointed star, with the above
dates, and the additional one of 1859.
His address was as follows :
THE WORD AND THE WORK.
B. F. JACOBS.
Dear Brethren. — We meet to-day, under circumstances of
peculiar interest. I have hastily prepared three diagrams to
illustrate the three points most interesting to us. The first of
these is a triangle with three dates, viz :
I380.
These dates stand respectively for the year when "VVicklift'e
translated the Bible into the English language, — 1380. For
lL,L,rxois State Sunday School, Convention.
89
the year when Robert Raikes began his first Sunday-school, —
1780, and for this year, which is the semi-millenial anniver-
sary of the one, and the centennial anniversay of the other.
The second diagram is a square, with four dates :
You will notice, that to form the square from the triangle,
we have but to add the date 1873. And what could be more
appropriate than to add the first year of the series of Inter-
National lessons, the completion of which we have just wit-
nessed, and to celebrate the anniversary as we enter upon the
first year of the second series.
The third diagram is a star with five dates, viz :
I380.
The change from the square to the star, is but one point,
but that jpoint is one of special importance to us — it is organi-
zation. We celebrate our tv)enty-first birthday anniversary,
and step over the line where we are to put away childish
things and become men. The third diagram is specially sug-
gestive— it is the chosen symbol that adds lustre to our State,
district, county, and township maps, and marks the progress
of the march of our Sunday-school army.
What emotions arise in the mind as we repeat the figures,
1380 — 1880 ; and add the words, five hundred years of the En-
glish Bible I How the names of Bede, King Alfred, Wicklifie,
90 Illinois State Sunday School, Convention.
Tyudall, Coverdale, Cranmer, Calvin, Parker, and King
James, come up before iis, as we look at that book. Each of
them linked with it in indissoluble connection.
We may properly notice the seven eras of the Bible, from
its earliest known Avriting, to the last — and yet unfinished re-
vision. These are as follows, viz : 1. The Pentateuch, 1492
B. C. For a thousand years, this was the scriptures — begin-
ning with the tables, written by the finger of God, and ending
with the might}' work furnished by Moses. 2. The compila-
tion of the Old Testament writings by Ezra, about 450 B. C.
We can hardl}' estimate the value of his service, but it was
truly a great work. 3. The Septuagint, or translation from
the Hebrew to the Greek, by the seventy ; 2S7 B. C. This
poured the precious metal of the Scriptures into the fine and
incorruptible mould of the most beautiful language of earth,
the Greek. 4. The Vulgate — the translation of the Old and
Xew Testament from the scholarly Greek, to the more com-
mon Latin tongue, and thus began the work, that was by and
by, to give the book of God to the world. 5. The translation
of the Bible into the English language by John DeWickliffe,
in 1380. This it was that was ordained of God, to be the me-
dium of communicating His thoughts to the race, and to place
His word in the hands of all. 6. In this order we may men-
tion the great revision under King James in 1607. And last,
but not least, the present work of revision, which we hope
will be completed this year. When we look back at this
chain, which encircles a period of nearly thirty-four centuries,
we wonder at the lengtli of the links, some of which stretch
over a thousand years. Or, if to get a better idea, the seven
steps be compared to seven mountains, on the plain of Scrip-
ture history, some of the valle\^s are a thousand years wide,
and we wonder as we think of the slow progress of the word.
And this brings us to the second point of our triangle, the or-
ganization of the Sunday-school in 1780. If we are to speak
only of time, how small a fraction Ave have — one hundred
years of the nearly thirty-four hundred. But if we estimate
the results, how rapid the progress has been.
Within this century, all the mighty Evangelizing forces have
been at work. It was as if the Bible work had been confined
to one place, and suddenly a multitude of hands had been up-
lifted to carry it everywhere, and innumerable wings had been
given it to fly to the ends of the earth. Within this century —
in 1804, the British Bible Society was organized, and soon af-
ter, in 1816, the American Bible Society was formed. What
has been the result ? It is estimated, that in 1800, not more
than two millions, or at most, two and a half millions of Bi-
Illinois State Sunday School Convention. 91
bles and Testaments in print and in mannscript, were in the
world; and since then, these two' societies have published
154,000,000 copies of the Bible, or parts of the Bible. Com-
pared with this, what are all the editions of all opposing works
ever written or read? What a testimon}' to the divinity of
the book and its value to man. We could imagine tliese mil-
lions of Bibles in one vast pile or monument, reaching from
earth to heaven ; but of what value, unless circulated and
read? Just here, we look at the 10,000,000 and more of Sun-
day-school members, and see how quickly the twenty millions
of hands could remove the monument and set it up in twenty
or even a hundred millions of homes. But when there, it
must be studied and believed. How shall we best aid in se-
curing this? We turn to our second diagram and point to
the date of the International lesson system and exclaim :
"What hath God wrought?" That which was deemed im-
possible has been accomplished, and the Sunday-schools of the
world have been united in the study of the word. This is not
a fragmentary study; but systematic, orderly, and painstaking
study, book by book of the whole Bible. Thousands of stu-
dents, and millions of scholars, have examined, from many
standpoints, the various parts, and the book as a whole, and
have learned to prize and love it more than ever before. And
this thing has not been done in a corner. The symbol of this
age is a crucible, and the word of God shrinks not from the
testing process. " Search the Scriptures," was the word of
Jesus to the doctors of old, and search the Scriptures is the
word now. This study and searching has been publicly done.
A new literature has been created, and the leaves of this tree
are being scattered for the healing of the nations. We have
here given three terms of tlie proposition, and onl}- the fourth
remains to be supplied. It is thorough organization for our
work.
Do you ask what is included in the word organization ? I
reply, it is, first. International or National Organization — the
union of all our State and Territorial Associations, for the
carrying forward of the best plans. Second, it is the union
of all our counties in an eflbrt to reach every part of our
State. Third, it is the union of our townships in an eflbrt to
reach every school district in the State. Fourth, it is the
union of all our school districts in an eflbrt to reach every
family in our State. And, fifth, it is a united and personal
eflbrt to reach every individual, in every county, of every
State. To secure such results, there must be thorough organi-
zation, and persistent eflbrt. To maintain this work there
must be liberality and self-sacrifice. We know that among
92 Illinois State Sunday School Convention.
our men of wealth, there are some who could contribute an
amount sufficient to send the Bible to every family. We may
suppose eight millions of families in our own land, one-half
of which are supplied with the Word of God. If the numbers
of the destitute are less, the work is easier; but even at this
estimate a half million of dollars would send the Bible to every
destitute family in the United States, within a year: and
doubtless twenty-five thousand dollars would send a mission-
ary with a Bible to every home in Illinois. What a monu-
ment I One man in New York has just given seventy-five
thousand dollars to secure to us an Egyptian monolith, to be
set up in Central Park, as a historic link to bind us to the old
world; and can we not find men who will contribute enough
to build this Bible monument, that shall link us to the world
to come ? If one man cannot be found to give twenty-five
thousand dollars, can we not find twenty-five who will give
one thousand dollars each, or at least secure enough to carry
on our work until the whole State is thorouo:hly reached.
And in every county shall we not band together in the blessed
work, and make one mighty efi:brt in the year before us — if
the Lord tarries, and we are spared, that our next report may
show that this anniversary has not been held in vain.
At the conclusion of his address he read the Treasurer's
Report, as follows :
iLLixois State Sunday School, Convention.
93
THE TREASURERS REPORT.
1879-80.
Illinois State S. S. Association, in account with B. F. Jacobs, Treasurer:
Dr.
1879.
May ]
1880.
May
To expenses for the 21st Convention—
J. H. Vincent, D. D
Miss Luev J. Rider
Rev. J. M. Worral
Rev. John Peddie
EliCorwin...
Chas. M. Morton
I. M. Carman and family ,
Local Committee
Janitor
Telegrams, 7.5c.; J. W. Compton, $2.00..
Report of the Convention
" " " and postage.
F. M. Rockwell
6 C. M. Morton, salary and expenses
E. Payson Poi-ter, salary, St. Seci-etary
'* " aiteridini^ District Conventions.
" " International Association
" " expenses in part
Feb. 19
May fc
Feb. 12
April 6
May 13
Adams, Blackmer & Lyon, blanks
Blakely, Brown & Marsh, printing
James Gilbert, printing
B, F. Jacobs' account-
Postage
Electric pen printing
Telegi-ams ,
"W. B. J. 's expenses
Expense of self and Morton to Galesburg.
Balance to new account
$70 on
35 00
7 00
8 00
4 00
.5 00
3S .50
20 00
10 00
2 7.5
50 or>
11 24
7 to
STOO 00
.50 00
50 00
143 53
$75 66
2 80
$25 72
9 25
7 11
23 50
17 50
$263 49
723 98
543 53
78 46
38 75
50 50
83 08
1 01
Or.
1879.
May 16
By Christian C
" 16
" Effingham
« 17
" McLean
June 25
" Shelby
Aug. 9
" McHenrj-
" 22
" Brown
" 28
" Green
Sept. 3
" Morgan
•' 10
" Menard
" 11
" Grundv
" 13
" Tazewell
" 15
" Cass
" 24
" Crawford
Oct. 14
" Edwards
" 14
" Livingston
" 22
" Pike
Nov. 1
" Cook
Dec. b
" Clay
1880.
Feb. 2
" Winnebago
" 3
" Lee
3
" La Salle
" 4
" Fnlton
" 7
" Bureau
" 10
" Henrv
" 10
" Schuvler
" 11
" Clinton
" 12
" Putnam
C. W. Taylor
J. W. Compton
{ June 25 $4 60
J. C. Westervelt-^ Feb. 13 8 95
{ Mar. 29 6 45
F. D. Crane
J. M. Armstrong
C. M. Eames
Jas. "W. Prackelton
( Sept. 11.... $15 00
\ May n 10 00
B. R. Hieronymus
J.J. Bergen ». ...
P'd C. M. Morton
"William Curtis
Rev. W. H. Dorward
P'd E. P. Porter
Emmett C. Fisher
W. C. Keiiner
Chas. E. Sheldon
A. H. Merrifleld
A. M. Ebersoll
N. S. Wright
L. R. Morton
Wight, W. K
L. R. Caldwell
O. B, Nichols
P. K. Durley
Carried Forward.
$ 20 00
5 00
50 00
20 00
12 00
20 (10
15 00
25 00
10 00
25 CO
25 Of>
25 00
5 00
15 00
12 00
20 00
400 on
12 00
25 00
20 on
20 CO
25 0"
16 05
25 00
25 00
15 00
10 00
$897 05
94
II.LIXOIS STATE Sunday school, Coxventiox.
Or.
TREASURER'S REPORT.— CONTINUED.
IfSO.
Feb. 16
" 26
" 26
Mar. 2
2
" 3
5
" 11
By
" 31
April 6
9
•' 10
" 12
•' 16
" 16
" 16
« 17
" 27
" 28
" 29
30
4
7
7
10
11
11
II
12
12
12
12
12
12
12
12
n
May
Bond
Brought Forward
Gallatin County, Thos. s. Ridgway
Florence B. Holden j ^ar. IV . .$7 50 |
i $10 00 )
J. A. Viqiiesney \ 5 oo .
< At Con 2 00\
Geo. W. Sti'ode, Secretary
M. C. Hazard
S W. Johnson
J. B Turner
.James Sproul
E. .J. Ingersoll
J. M. Pierce
I Sl.> 00 sub'n. I
•■ \ 5 00 extra. \
May 8 ....$2 00
Mar. 13 ... 14 CO \
Milton John.son
J. R. Miller
Marion
Alexander
Du Pape
Kendall
Franklin
Randolph
.Jackson
Washington
Faj-ette
Carroll
Macon
St. Clair
Kane
Whiteside
J. N. McCord. . . .
Geo C. Mastin..
-nr T» T ^,.,1 J Mar. 26.... $15 00 >
W. B. Lojd J May 3 lOOOt
Wabash
Knox
Richland
Monroe
Perry
Pope
Ford
Jasper
Peoria
Boone
Pulaski
Hardin
Rock Island
Ogle
Jo Daviess
Iroquois
Adams
McDonougli
Sangamon
White
Lake
Hancock
Warren
Champaign
Edgar
Kankakee "
Madison " .
Collections at Galesburg
Piatt County, W. W. Eastman
Payson Trask
J. P. McNair
A. P. Babcock
Wm. Thorn
C. W. Jerome
W. S. D. Smith
W. H. Boicourt
O. H. Carr
D. J. Chamberlin..
D. Henyer.
J. G. Stevens
E. J. Ayres
J. A. Lowry
E. W. Spencer.. .
M. T. Ellinwood...
J. Barnes
E. I). Durnham
H. F. Humphrey..
.1. B. Hendrichson
E. A. Wilson
R. C. Willis
April 16 ..$10 00
Mar. 31.... 15 00
J. B. Strader.
J 1). Arms...
J. S. Sexton..
C. Link
^2.5 00
15 00
17 00
10 00
20 01
11 fO
10 00
25 00
10 00
10 00
20 00
16 00
25 00
10 00
25 00
25 00
2 00
2i 00
10 CO
3 15
6 50
6 45
15 CO
6 00
25 00
15 00
4 10
250
25 00
5 OO
20 00
15 OC
10 CO
25 OO
25 OO
10 OO
50 00
25 00
U5 00
20 OO
20 00
20 OO
40 OC
1.50 55
5 00
$897 05
! $1,782 80
RECAPITULATION BY DISTRICTS.
Eeceived from First District, 14 Counties.
Second
12
Third
10
Fourth
10
Fifth
13
Sixth
12
Total 70
Collections at Convention
$669 50
271 05
202 00
195 00
1.S5 95
158 75
,.• $1,632 25
I 150 .55
$1,782 80
We have examined the above account and the vouchers, and find it
correct.
WILLIAM THORN,
Galesburg, May 12, 1880. J. D. ARMS,
Committee.
iLiiixois State Suxday School Coxvextiox.
95
The counties were next called, in order, for subscriptions
for the ensuing year.
Responses were obtained as follows :
FIR>iT DISTRICT.
County. A'mt.
Boone..... - $20 00
Carroll 25 00
Cook 200 00
DuPage 30 00
Grunrlv 30 00
Kane..." 25 00
Kendall- 25 00
Lake 50 00
Lee 25 00
County. A'mt.
Ogle $25 00
Stephenson 25 00
Whiteside 25 #0
Winnebago 35 00
McHenrv 'asse.5sed; 20 00
DeKalb (assessed)- 20 00
Jo Da%-iess (assessed) 20 00
Will (assessed) 20 00
SECOXD DISTRICT.
County. A'mt.
Bureau..". $25 00
Fulton 25 00
Hen^^• 25 00
Knox - 25 00
LaSalle 50 00
McDonough 25 00
Mercer 20 00
Peoria 50 00
Putnam 10 00
County. A'mt.
Eock Island $25 00
Warren- 25 00
Woodford 20 OtD
Hancock (assessed) 25 00
Henderson (assessed) 20 00
Marshall (assessed) 20 00
Stark (assessed) 15 00
Tazewell (assessed) 25 00
TRIED DISTRICT.
County. A'mt.
Champaign $20 00
Edgar 15 00
Iroquois- 15 0<'J
Kankakee 25 00
Li%-ingston 25 00
McLean 50 00
Macon 25 00
Vermillion 20 00
County. A'mt.
Clark (assessed) - $10 00
Coles (a.ssessed).- 10 00
Cumberland (asses.sed^ 10 00
De Witt (assessed) 15 00
Douglas (assessed/- 15 00
Ford ' assessed 1 20 00
Moultrie ('assessed) 15 00
Piatt (assessed)..... 10 00
Shelby (assessed) 20 00
FOURTH DISTRICT.
County. A'mt.
Adams $25 00
Brown 25 00
Cass 20 00
Christian 20 00
Green 25 00
Logan 10 00
Menard - 10 00
Morgan - 30 00
Pike 25 00
County. A'mt.
Sangamon $25 00
Schuyler 25 OiD
Calhoun (assessed) - 15 00
Jersey ^asse-ssed' 20 00
Macoupin (assessed) 15 00
Mason (assessed) 15 00
Montgomery- .assessed) 15 00
Scott (assessed) 10 00
96 IL.L.INOIS STATE SUNDAY SCHOOL. CONVENTION.
FIFTH DISTRICT.
County. A'mt. County. A'mt.
Clav ?12 00 Effingham ^assessed) $lu 00
Favette 15 00 Hamilton (assessed) 10 00
Gallatin 25 00 Hardin (assessed) 10 00
Marion 25 00 Jasper (assessed) 10 00
Richland 10 00 Lawrence (assessed) 10 00
White 10 00 Pope (assessed) 10 00
Saline (assessed) ~ 10 00
Crawford (assessed) 10 00 Wabash (assessed) 10 00
Edwards (assessed) 15 Ou Wayne (assessed) 10 00
SIXTH DISTRICT.
County. A'mt. County. A'mt.
Bond $20 00 Frankhn (assessed) $26 00
Clinton 15 00 Jefferson (assessed) 10 00
Jackson 10 00 Johnson (assessed) 10 00
Madison 40 00 Massac (assessed) 10 00
Randolph 25 00 Monroe (assessed) 10 00
Union 10 00 Perrv (assessed) 10 00
Washington 10 00 St. Clair (assessed) 10 00
Williamson (assessed) 10 00
Alexander (assessed) 10 00 Pulaski (assessed) 10 00
After the pledges had been announced a collection was
taken, and the Treasurer made the announcement that the
indebtedness of the past year was canceled, and a small
amount was on hand with which to begin the new year.
The hymn, " Jesus, Lover of my Soul," was sung, the con-
gregation rising and joining heartily in the song, after which,
the Rev. John Hood, the Rev. I. N. Carman and Mr. Pitt,
each, led the Convention in prayer.
The house was filled — all the available room being occu-
pied and many standing. Yet others crowded in as Mr.
Moody came in from the other meeting, and took the plat-
form to speak on the topic, " The Worker in the Vineyard."
THE WORKER IN THE VINEYARD.
D. L. MOODY.
The subject that has been assigned me is " Work in the
Vineyard." I will just change it a little and say, " The Worker
in the Vineyard."
Now to be successful we have got to have great consecra-
tion. I would like to give two C's to ever3^ Sunday-school
teacher and have them printed in their hearts. Concentration
IT.LIXOIS State Suxdat School Coxvextiox. 97
and Consecration to the work. I believe that one reason that
so many fail, utterly fail, to accomplish anything, is because
they are trying to do too many things ; trying to do too much;
spreading over too much ground. If they would just concen-
trate upon some one thing, and do it well, do it thoroughly,
they would be successful. You take a minister that is on
twenty difi'erent committees in the town : that is running from
one committee to another, and he will make poor work of it.
But if he would concentrate upon some one thing, he might
be successful.
I don't believe any man or woman is fit to work for God, if
they do not see the importance of the work, if they consider
it small work, little work, and think that it is not very im-
portant whether it is done or not. They are sure to be un-
successful. I remember I noticed in an audience one Sunday
afternoon, a lady who had that morning told me she had a
Sunday-school class at that hour Sunday afternoon. And
when I went home I said to her: " I saw you in meeting
this afternoon. I thought you said that you had a Sunday-
school class at 0 o'clock." "VVell, she says : " I have, but they
are only five little boys, and I thought it wouldn't hurt any-
thing if I was not there to-day." Five little boys, are they
nothing ? Why you can't tell what they may come to. There
may be a Martin Luther among those five boys. That little
"tow-head" may be at the head of a reformation. There
may be a John Lesley among them. You can't tell.
God looks at things differently from what we do. "When
the poor woman put in two little mites, they thought it was a
small gift. If some rich man in Jerusalem had put in a thous-
and dollars, and there had been a reporter there, there would
have been a great heading in the papers next morning, perhaps
in the Jerusalem Herald, announcing the fact that a certain
rich man had put in a thousand dollars, and it would have
been telegraphed all round the country if they had had tele-
graphs in those days. But no one would have noticed the
poor woman, but the Master noticed her. He saw that she
put in more than all the rest, because she put in all she had.
And those two mites have been bearing interest for nearly
nineteen hundred 3'ears. It has been piling up all these years.
Ah ! It was ihe heart. It was little in the sight of men, but
it was great in the sight of God. because when she put those
two mites in, she put her heart in with them. It is heart-
service God wants. Xo man can preach who has no love.
A man may have great taith, so that he can move mountains,
but if he has no love, he is like sounding brass and a tinkling
cymbal. God looks at the heart. You verv often hear
98 Illinois State Suxday School Convextiox.
people say they think it is their duty to clo this ; it is
their duty to go to prayer meeting; it is their duty to go
to churcii and Sunday-school ; God doesn't want you to
serve Him because it is your duty. Supposing when I
went home to see my mother, down in the State of Massa-
chusetts, I would say to her: "Mother I thought it was
my duty to come to see you, and that it was my duty
to make you a present, and I have come to make you a visit
and to give you a present, so I have come and brought you a
book. Here it is." I think that my mother would say :
'• Well, my boy, you may keep that book if it is given out of
a sense of duty. If love don't prompt you to give it, I don't
w^ant it." God looks for love.
Another qualification that we need in order to bo success-
ful, is courage. You know that God never has used at any
time a discouraged man. You may search- all the passages
in the Bible, and you can't find any one instance where God
ever used a discouraged man. If a teacher or a superintend-
ent becomes discouraged in his work, he fails. God never
uses a discouraged man. If a teacher or a Sabbath -school
superintendent becomes discouraged, he had better get some
one else to take his place. Because, men must be full of
hopeful courage, and very courageous, if they succeed in the
Lord's work.
How was it on the day of Pentecost, when these men were
filled with the Spirit of God? Then they were bold. Look
at Peter. Why, before the Spirit of God came on him, he
was unfit for service. One little maid scared him nearly out
of his life, when she said to him " Thou art a Galileean ; thou
art one of these men." He said, "l!^o! lam not. I never
knew Him." And when another servant accused him of
being a Disciple, he denied it, and began to swear, and say,
" I never knew the man. I never saw Him." But when the
Spirit of God came upon him, on the day of Pentecost, he
was baptised with boldness and courage, and he stood up and
preached. He was full of courage, full of boldness. So, if
we are going to be successful, we have got to be full of
courage, be ready to speak for Christ, ready to talk for Him,
ready to act for Him.
When Elijah kept his eye upon God, he could stand before
Ahab and those eight hundred and fifty prophets of Baal. He
was one of the boldest of men. But when he got his eye oft'
from God, he lost courage. He fled into the wilderness and
went under a juniper tree, and there he began to pray, '-Lord
let me die, for I am no better than my fathers were," and then
God couldn't use him. God never used a man lying under a
iLLES'ois State Sttxday School, Coxvextiox. 99
juniper tree yet, nor never will. He will have to come np
from under the juniper tree before God can use him. When
a man gets down, and loses courage, then it is that God can't
use liim. So, if we are going to be servants in the vineyard,
let us be courageous, let us have courage.
The Lord tells Joshua four times in one chapter to be of
great courage. "Xo man shall be able to stand before you
all the days of your life." When he went out to walk around
the walls of Jericho, the very first thing there stood a man
with a drawn sword right in front of him. Joshua went
right up to him, and he spoke to him and said. '• Art thou for
us, or for our adversaries?" And the man said, "I am the
Lord of Hosts." The Lord just came down to try his
courage. If he had run off in fear, the walls of Jericho
would never have fallen. So it is all through life. You find
that the man that God uses is a man of courage ; a man of
boldness; and when the Spirit of God comes upon him he is
immediately baptised with boldness.
Well then, the next thing that we want is faith. They all
go together, lore, concecration. courage, and faith. You know
when the children of Israel came up to Kadesh-Barnea, they
took twelve spies and sent them over to see the land. Xow,
that was all wrong. Faith never sends out any spies. Moses
sent them out, but it was on account of the hardness of their
hearts that it was done. They might have gone over there
to Kadesh-Barnea and taken possession of the land, but they
must find out whether what (xod said was true, so they picked
out twelve spies and sent them. Faith never sends out any
spies. If God says, " Go ."' faith goes right through anything.
Faith says, " / loill have it!'' Fear says, "I must find out."
They were gone forty days, and when they came back every
one of them had to testify that what God had said was true.
It was a land fiowing with milk and honey. They never had
seen such beautiful fruit. They brought with them specimens
of it. But ten of them said, "But we saw giants there."
Oh. yes : they saw the sons of Anak there, and they said,
•' We are not able to go up and take the land." "■ Why," said
one of them, " they are so high ; I stood like a grasshopper
in his sight ; I had to look up like that to see him ; I never
felt so small in my life as I did when I saw that giant ; we are
not able to go up and take the land." Ten brought back
what we call a majority report, and two of them were in the
minority — Caleb and Joshua. They said, "If the Lord is
with us, we are able to take the land." These ten men got
their eyes off' from the Lord, and were looking at themselves.
Do you know that is what the Church is doing to-day ; they
100 Illinois State Sunday School Convention.
are lookinsi: at themselves. "We must look away from our-
selves to Christ. We must believe that God is able to save.
We must believe that there is not a man in the community
we live in, but that Christ came to save him. There is not a
man so far gone, but that the grace of God can reach him.
If we just have faith to believe that God will use us in the
salvation of others. I heard a man remark once that he
didn't believe there was a man in all the army of Israel but
that believed God could usB him to go out and meet Goliath^
but there was one man believed God would use him, aijd he
went out and slew the giant. David was the only man who
believed God would use him. Men say, " I believe God can
use us," but we must believe God will use us. Let us believe
God wants to use us. I believe that if we just expect and
have faith to believe that He can, and is willing, to use us.
and just go forward, we will have results right away. I
believe it is the privilege of every child of God to bring forth
fruit daily. I believe there needn't be a day pass over our
heads but that we can do somethins: for Christ, if we will.
The next thing is earnestness. The Master wants earnest
workers — those who are willing to take their Bibles and point
out the way of Life to those who are not Christians, atid if we
do it with the Spirit of Christ, if we do it with the heart, with
love for it, we will succeed. I believe that there is many a
child that is now wandering off from the Sunday-school, going
off riding and tishing and hunting on Sunday, because he has
been driven oat of the Sunday-school by the lukewarmncss of
the teacher. It don't take them long to find out whether it is
a mere profession — whether we have just taken a class be-
cause we went to spend a pleasant afternoon with some friends,,
or because we have been in the habit of attending school, or
whether we are really in earnest. They will soon know it.
And if we have no love for the work, if we have no love for
the Master, if we have no faith to believe that the Gospel is
the power of God unto salvation, we are not going to succeed.
What we want is faith and earnestness.
Then, there is another thing we want, and that is jpersever-
ence. In order to succeed in the Lord's work we have got to
keep right to work three hundred and sixty-five days in the
year. We have got to be at our post every Sunday ; if we are
not, why, we have to see that somebody else takes our place
when we are away. We ought to follow our scholars uv) when
they are away — send them letters and follow them in that way.
When children leave the classes, when they get to be sixteen
or seventeen or eighteen years old, often the trouble is that
they notice that the teacher is not really in earnest.
Illinois State Suxday School Coxvextiox. 101
I was very much interested at one time when I was down
in Cairo. I was going down the Mississippi River. The boat
stopped at Cairo one Sunday morning and was going to stay
there for two or three hours, and I thought I woukl get ofi
to see if could do a little good. I remembered twenty years
before, there was a little German boy left our Sunday-school,
who went down to Cairo. I just remembered his name. T
thought I would go and hunt him up. I went and found him,
and when he saw me, he looked at me just about half a min-
ute, and then he came running to me and threw his arms
round my neck, and hugged me and kissed me. It has been
a long time since I have been kissed in that way, and he says :
" My old Sunday-school friend." I found that the seed that
was sown back there twenty years ago, had sprung up and
borne fruit. I found that that young man had not forgotten
the few months that he had been in Sunday-school, and had
not forgotten what he had learned there. When he inquired
about the school and found that it was prospering, how his
face lit up. He seemed so interested to hear that the school
was still existing. I believe that if we could just have some
method of following up these scholars who leave our schools,
of finding out where they live, where they are going, and send
some one to look after them, that great good might be done.
A-nother thing that we want in order to be successful, is
sym-pathy for those that we are trying to reach. If we do not
sympathize with a man, we certainly cannot reach him.
There are a great many men, I believe, failing utterly in their
ministry and in their work for the Lord for the lack of sym-
pathy.
The first time I went away from home, it was only thirteen
miles, but I thought it was thirteen thousand miles. I had
never been so far away from home before. I was going to
spend the winter to attend school and do chores for my board.
AYell, I was very lonely, very homesick. I went to work for
an old man that didn't have any sympathy for boys. He
didn't care anj'thing about them, he just wanted the chores
done, that was all. My brother was trying to cheer me, to
keep me from getting homesick and running back. We were
walking and looking down the street, and says he : " There
comes a man who will give you a cent." '' How do you know
he will." "Why, because he gives every boy that comes to
town a cent." I thought he was the best looking man I ever
saw. He had such a benevolent face. I kept my eye right
on him. He came along, and I thought he was going by. I
believe if that man would have passed me it would have
broken my heart, it was so full : I could not have stood it any
102 Illinois State Suxday School Coxvextiox.
longer. But when lie came along up to us, he stopped and
looked at me and said: "Is this a new boy?" My brother
said: "Yes, he has juat come,*' and then lie put his hand on
my head and spoke to me very kindly, and told me I had a
Father in Heaven. I was a fatherless boy, and he touched
my heart when he told me about our Heavenly Father. Then
he took a brand new cent and put it in my hand. How that
little cent did sparkle in my eyes. J looked at it, and it looked
so bright and beautiful. I put it away in my pocket. I don't
know what has become of that cent, but I tell you I have
never forgotten the kind words of that old man. I feel the
pressure of that old man's hands upon me to-day. It has fol-
lowed me all these years. Those few kind words drew me
right to his own heart. I was in sympathy with the man be-
cause I felt he was in sympathy with me. If that man had
asked me to go to Sunday-school, I would have gone. If he
had asked me to go into his class, I would have gone. No
man could have taught me as that man could. He had won
my heart, he had taken it captive.
Sympathize with a man if you would do him good. There
is just one way to do it, and that is to put yourself in his
place. If I see a man taken otf to prison, I just put myself
right in his place, and say, '' Suppose I had had his father ;
suppose I had had his bringing up; suppose I had had the
same influences brought to bear upon me that that man had.
I might have been right in that man's place. When I put
myself in his place, and put myself into the surroundings
that he has had, I can then get into sympathy with him, and
do him good,
I used to have to go to a good many funerals, many of the
ministers being away in the summer ; very often they would
send for me, and sometimes I would attend three or four
funerals in a day. I got so I could go to a funeral without
thinking anything about it. I could see the mother weep,
and the father stand by the little coffin. I could just go
through all the ceremony, and not weep with them, or sym-
pathize with them. One day when I came home my wife
said that one of my little Sunday-school scholars had got
drowned, and the mother was very anxious I should go and
see her. I took my little girl, four years old, and went to the
home of that child. I found it was the home of a drunkard.
Her father was at that time beastly drunk. His wife was
sitting in a chair weeping. The body of the little girl was
lying on the table just as it was taken from the bottom of the
Chicago river. The water was dripping from her dress down
upon the floor. Then the mother told me her sad story. She
IiiLriNOis State Sunday School Convention. 103
said her husband didn't bring anything home ; he spent his
earnings in drink. She had to go out washing, and take in
washing, to support herself and the children. The little girl
had gone to the Chicago river to get some wood. She saw a
stick out in the water, and trying to get it she fell in and got
drowned. She says, " I havn't any money to buy a lot in the
cemetery, nor a coffin to bury my child, and I have sent to
you to ask you to do it." I took out m}^ note-book and put
down all that she wanted ; and I took the size of the coffin ;
then I made arrangements for the funeral, and told her I
would attend to it. I started out. When I got on the street
my little girl says, " Papa, did you feel bad for that mother ?
Suppose we were very, very poor, and my mother had to wash
for a living, and I had to go and gather sticks to make the
fire, and I should go down to the Chicago river, and I should
see a stick out in the river, and try to get it, and I should fall
in and drown, would you feel bad?" Well, that changed the
whole scene. I took the little girl in my arms and pressed
her to my heart, and as the tears dropped on to her cheeks,
I said to her, " It would break my heart if I were to lose
you." Then how I felt for that mother. How that question
searched me right down into my heart — "Do you feel bad for
that mother?" That little voice kept coming to me. "Papa,
did you feel bad for that mother?" I turned and went back
to the house and got the Bible, and I sat down by her to read.
I tried to pray with her — tried to comfort her, and I wept
with her. When the funeral came, instead of letting her go
to the cemetery alone — I thought before I couldn't go, my
time was too precious — but I got into the carriage with that
drunken father — he was so drunk that he could hardly get in
— I took my seat by his. side, and sat with that wife and those
four children, and went up to Graceland; and when we laid
the little girl in a stranger's grave in the Potter's Field, the
mother said to me, " It is very hard to bury my little girl
here amongst strangers." And I said to myself, " It would
be very hard if I had to bury my child here." I was in sym-
pathy with her. When I went back to my school the next
Sxinday, I told them of it, and said, "Now let us buy a Sun-
day-school lot, and when any of our little children die in the
church, we will have a lot to bury them in." Then we got
a lot that we could bury fifty children in.
Soon afterwards another mother came to me and says:
" Have you got a lot ? " I said " yes." She said : "My lit-
tle girl died this morning; can I bury her in that lot?" I
said " yes." She says : " Will you go to the grave and make
a few remarks?" I said I would. It was a beautiful day
104 iLLixois State Sitxday School, Coxvextiox.
when we went up there. When we went to put tlie little cof-
fin down into the ground I said to the mother: "What is
the name of your child ? " "Emma;" and that happened to
be the name of my only daughter. Do you think I couldn't
weep with that mother? I put my child into that cofiin ; I
laid my child down in that grave ; I put m3-sclf in her place ;
I sympathized with her. In a few days after, another mother
came and said : " My little boy died ; can I bury him in your
lot?" I said "yes." " Will you come to the funeral and make
a few remarks ? " I told her I would. When we went to lower
that little coffin down into the grave, I said to the mother:
"What is the name of your little boy?" She said "Willie." That
happened to be the name of my only boy. There were my
two children. Do you think I didn't get into sympathy with
those parents? Do you think that I didn't weep with them?
Do you think I didn't understand then what Christ meant
when he said: "We are to mourn with those who mourn,
and to sympathize with those who need sympathy." We are
to have the same spirit that our Master had. If you want to
get into sympathy with others, put yourself in their place, and
in that way you can sympathize with them and do them good.
Then we must have another thing, and that is enthusiasm.
We need not only sympathy, but we want enthusiasm, and I
tell you my friends, we have got to put some enthusiasm into
this Sunday-school work, just as men put it into their busi-
ness. The most successful business men in the world are en-
thusiastic, and what we need is more enthusiasm in this Sun-
day-school work. I never saw a man who did anything in
the world that was not enthusiastic. Paul was the most en-
thusiastic man that lived in his day. If you had gone into
Corinth or Ephesus, or some of those cities where he went
preaching, they would have told you he was an enthusiast.
lie made himself unpopular. If we are popular with the
world, we are unpopular with Heaven. Paul was a peculiar
man. God wants peculiar men to do his work. Paul says :
"I do one thing." He was a man with one idea, and that was
Christ. That is enough. People don't like men with one
idea. Some one has said a man with one idea is a terrible man.
Hear Paul as he says: "Five times received I forty stripes
save one." But that didn't seem to have any weight with
him. Ilis friends say: " What are you going to do? " He
answers : " This one thing I do. I press forward to the mark
for the prize of the high calling in Christ Jesus. I do but one-
thing." The Spirit of the Lord came upon him, and a few
stripes were not going to hinder him. We want a few men
like Paul. A man that is willing to go through fire and flood
iLrLixois State Suxdat School Coxvextiox. 105
for the Sou of God. Xow they are going to beat him the
third time, and his friends asked him : " What are joii going
to do ? They are going to beat you again. They are going
to scourge you. Hadn't you better go away and rest a few
months until this persecution ceases. What are you going to
do?" He says: ''I do but one thing. I press towards the
mark for the prize of the high calling in Christ Jesus. These
light afflictions, which are but for a moment, do not move me."
Take your stand by him again. They are going to scourge
and beat him again. His friends come and say to him :
^' Don't you think you had better be a little more conservative?
You have been too earnest. You have said too many bitter
things against these people — preaching too earnestly. Hadn't
you better cease your efforts for a little while? Hadn't you
better be more conservative ? Hadn't you better be more like
other men ? You are too peculiar." He says : " I do but
one thing. I press towards the mark for the prize of the high
calling that is in Christ Jesus." And so you go on all through
his life. They gave him thirty-nine stripes, put him in the
inner prison, and made his feet fast in the stocks. At mid-
night the prison shook, the door flew wide open, his chains
flew ofl", and in came the Phillipian Jailer and said : " What
must I do to be saved." And Paul preached to him the Gos-
pel of the Son of God. After he had preached eighteen years
without pay, they take him, give him thirty- nine stripes, and
put him into prison, but there was no complaint. Oh ! That
we might have some of the enthusiasm for Christ that Paul
had. Let us look at him again. He is in Rome, in prison, and
he is going to be beheaded. He writes to Timothy : "I have
kept the faith." Let us stand by the Bible, the whole of it
from back to back. Let us never give up one chapter or one
verse. Let us hide the whole of it in our hearts. Let us give
our lives rather than give up the word of God. " I have kept
the faith. Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown." That
is not the voice of a discouraged man or a despondent man,
but it has the right ring. " The time of my departure is at
hand." Why he is going to his reward that he has been look-
ing forward to. He is going to be crowned, and be present
with the Lord. The time is coming for him to be beheaded,
l>ut he is unmoved. He says : " I leave all these things be-
hind me ; I am pressing towards the mark ; I shall see the
King in his beauty ; I shall behold my Lord and Master ; I
shall see Him who has won my heart. They may take away
my head, but the Lord has my heart. My life is hid up yon-
der." He don't talk like a man who is disheartened. He
-comes to the place where he is to be beheaded. Xow his head
106 Illinois State Sunday School Convention.
is to be taken off. In those days they used to have the crimi-
nal bend his neck on a block, and an officer with one stroke
of the sharp sword would cut the head off. The officer comes
along with the sword, and with one stroke off goes that head.
If we had been there, and our eyes had been opened, we
might have seen Paul as he started on his way to Heaven.
Look at him as he rises. Look at him as he sweeps along
through the air. Look at him. LTp, up, np, higher, higher,
higher. Up, up, he goes towards the Eternal City. They see
him coming and the Angels open the pearly gates. We see
him as he goes up towards the Throne. Up, up, up, to the
very Throne of Heaven, and the Son of God rises from His
seat and says: "Well done, good and faithful servant. En-
ter thou into the joy of thy Lord."
That is Avhat we call enthusiasm. I wish we had ten thou-
sand of such men. Oh, that the spirit of Paul might come
upon us. That the Lord might baptise us with His Spirit,
that we might have power. The days are short, brothers ;
your hairs are turning gray. It may be that you will soon be
taken. Let us work while the day lasts. The night will
soon come. Let us pray God to give us souls, all the rest of
our days. Let us pray that He may make us wise in winning
souls to Him.
Mr. Moody's address occupied about an hour, many re-
maining standing during the 'time, the deepest attention
being paid to all he said, and many eyes were filled with
tears.
The Rev. James Haney led in prayer and the benediction
was pronounced by the Rev. I. N. Carman, and the Conven-
tion adjourned.
SECOND DAY- Evening Session.
An out-door meeting was held in the city park at half-
past six o'clock, which was largely attended, addressed by
E. A. Wilson, of Springfield, and others.
Three meetings were held in the evening, as follows :
Major Whittle and Mr. McGranahan conducted an inter-
esting service at the Presbyterian Church,
iLLixois State Sunday School, Convention. 107
A Gospel Temperance Meeting was held at the Opera
House, which was crowded. C. M. Morton presided, and
addresses were made by Messrs. Morton, Whitney, Taylor,
Albro, Farwell, Hallenbeck and Mrs. Hibbens,
The First Church was crowded, many occup3'ing the
windows.
The evening was given to Mr. Moody, who addressed the
multitude, his subject being the " Work of the Holy Spirit."
108 iLMxois State Sunday hciiool, Convention.
THIRD DAY-Morning Session.
The morning session was opened at 8 o'clock with a conse-
cration service led by Mr. Moody, and long before the hour
announced, the house was filled to overflowing. It was a
deeply interesting occasion, and the entire audience were
frequently moved to tears, and at the close of the service the
expressions of very many made manifest the interest that was
felt.
CONSECRATION.
D. L. MOODY.
It is very difficult for us to get hold of ourselves from the
very fact that we have been to work in the Lord's vineyard
working for others. Ministers and Sabbath-school teachers,
we have got so into the habit of thinking for others, and look-
ing after others, that we forget ourselves, and very often lean-
ness comes into our own souls before we are aware of it.
Often we are out of communion with God, and don't know it.
This morning let us see if we can call our thoughts in from the
world and from our work for others, and fix them right upon
ourselves. Let us just ask God to show us ourselves. We
have talking and listening about being filled with the Spirit.
I think before we know much more about God, we have got
to get well acquainted with ourselves; we have got to know
our needs; if we are hungry, we ought to know it; if we are
really thirsty for the Water of Life, we ought to know it. A
man isn'l really very thirsty if he don't know it, and if he
don't know that he is hungry, he isn't very hungry. I really
believe God wants to get very near to this convention and
give it a greater blessing than ever it has had yet. I believe
the blessing that we have received from God is nothing to
what he wants to do. I believe the blessing that he has given
us in days gone by are nothing to what God has to give
us, and if we do not get a blessing, it will be our own faults,
and not His.
Look at Mary. She was commended more than Martha,
because she took her place of receiving something. He says
it is more blessed to give than receive. We want to put God
in the place of a giver, and we take our place of receivers.
Illinois State Sunday School Convention. io9
We will honor our Master very much if we will do that. So
let us this morning take the place of Mar3^ Let us sit at the
feet of Jesus and learn of Him, and let Him talk to us this
morning. The Scripture I will call your attention to is,
Psalm cxxxix.: 23d and 24th verses:
" Search me, 0 God, and know my heart: try me and know
m}' thoughts: and see if there be any wicked way in me, and
lead me in the way Everlasting."
There is a great difference between God searching, and our
searching ourselves. I think the trouble is very often we are
searching ourselves with our little lighted candle. What we
want this morning is for God to search us, and have him bring
to our memory our own evil thoughts; everything that is in
our life that is contrary to God's holy will ; everything that is
hindering it from being done by us. There may be some se-
cret sin in our hearts, we do not know. If it is there, let us
ask God to search us. It ma}^ be self. I think one of the
bitterest enemies we have to contend with is self. Self comes
into our plans and into our thoughts. We are often looking
after our own reputation and our own -position. All this is
contrary to God's will, and if we are going to have power
with God, and power with man, we have got to surrender self.
Then it may be we may have hard feelings against some one.
It may be that others have done us an injury. If there are
such, we must forgive them. If I want God to forgive me
ten thousand sins, should I not be willing to forgive some
brother or sister one sin? If I expect God to forgive, I must
forgive. It may be that which is keeping back the blessing.
Let us ask God earnestly this morning to search our hearts
and know if there be any evil way in us. Let him show it to
us, that we may turn from it, so that we may have power with
God.
The question is very often asked me by Christian people,
" Why is it that my prayers are not answered ?" I found this
passage here some time ago, " Your iniquities have separated
between you and your God." I believe that to-day what is
hindering the work of God all through this country is sin.
We want to be holy. We want to be Christ-like. The eyes
of the world are upon us ; and if we are selhsh, if we are
ambitious, if we are self-seeking, we can't have power with
God nor man. It is one thing to preach humility; it is one
thing to preach unselfishness; but it is another thing to
practice it, and to live in its power. If Ave do not practice
these graces, if we do not live in the power of them, the
world will not believe us; they will not have confidence in
U8. My friends, let us ask ourselves, to-day, what is it that
110 Illinois State Sunday School, Conventiox.
is keeping back the great blessing from our hearts. As I read
this Bible, I iind eminent men and women who were not any
better than you or I. They were men of like passions as we
are. They had the same enemies to contend with that we
have. Take the case of Elijah : When he went off into the
wilderness and got under the juniper tree, he said, '"I am no
better than my fathers were." You see, self was at the
bottom. Elijah got to think he was somebody. He had been
doing some, wonderful things, and he began to look at himself
and away from God. Then it was that he got into trouble,
and said, ''Now I am no better than my fathers." Look at
Jonah. Because his reputation was suffering a little, he is
troubled. He. wants to save his reputation. Oh, how mean
and contemptable these thoughts are, when we come to see
them in ourselves. There are many Sunday-school teachers
who are willing to rule the whole school ; if they can't do
that they are dissatisfied. Many ministers are displeased
because they can't have their own way, and sometimes they
think the whole church is broken all to pieces, because they
can't have their .pet theories carried out. Self is at the
bottom. Christ was more anxious to teach His disciples
humility, and to teach them love, than He was to teach them
the wisdom of this world. The Disciples seemed to be look-
ing out for themselves. Self was coming up all the while,
altliough the Master taught them in honor to }>refer one
another ; and He taught them not to seek great things for
themselves ; He taught them that those who would be the
greatest should be the least, should be the humblest. It
seems as if the Discijiles who had followed Him three years
had not learned that lesson after all.
I will call your attention to the 9th Chapter of Mark, be-
ginning at the oOth verse : "And they departed thence and
passed through Galilee, and He would not that any man
should know it. For He taught His Disci j)les, and said unto
them, 'The Son of Man is delivered into the hands of men,
and they shall kill Him ; and after that He is killed He shall
rise the third day.' But they understood not that saying,
and were afraid to ask Him. And He came to Capernaum,
and being in the house, He asked them, 'What was it that
ye disputed among yourselves by the way?' But they held
their peace, for by the way they had disputed among them-
selves who should be the greatest." There was the same
spirit that we have to-day — who should be the greatest. Our
Sabbath-school cause is suffering from this same spirit of who'
shall be the greatest. Nearly every temperance movement in
this country has been wrecked by this spirit of who shall be
Illinois State Suxday School, Convention, m
the greatest. Nearly every reformation movement that has
been started in this country has been wrecked by this same
spirit of who shall be the greatest.
'• But they held their peace, tor by the way they had dis-
puted among themselves who should be the greatest." He
had been talking about Calvary. He had been talkiijg about
faith, and about his suflering, and while he was talking about
that, his disciples were discussing who should be the greatest.
"And he sat down and called the twelve and said unto
them : ' If any man desires to be first, the same shall be last
of all, and servant of all."' Well, that is different from what
men teach. What a struggle there is to day among politicians
for position. How different Jesus taught His disciples. He
that is greatest, let him be the least. He that is greatest in
the Kingdom of Heaven, is just merely nobody. Just emp-
tied of self. See John the Baptist. He said : " I am noth-
ing." When the deputation came down there in the wilder-
ness to see him, instead of taking praise to himself, he sent
back word that he was just a " voice crying in the wilderness.
I am nobody." They asked him: "Shall we say that you
are Elias ? Shall we say that you are Jeremiah, or that you
are a prophet? " And he said : " I am just a voice — a voice
crying in the wilderness. A voice to be heard and not to be
seen." John was literally nothing in his own sight, and the
moment he saw the Son of God he cried out: "Behold the
Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world. I must
decrease, He must increase." He preached down himself, and
preached up Christ. That is just what we need to do. The
world can go on very well without you and me, but it can't
get on without Christ. Therefore w^ want to preach Christ,
and not ourselves.
"And He took a child and set him in the midst of them.
And when He had taken him into His arms. He said unto
them, ' whosoever shall receive one of such children iu my
name, receiveth me, and whosoever receiveth me, receiveth
not me, but Him that sent me.'"' If you will just turn over
to the 10th chapter of Mark, you will find another strange
thing in the disciples. "And they were in the way going up
to Jerusalem; and Jesus went before them; and as they fol-
lowed, they were afraid. And He took again the twelve, and
began to tell them what things should happen unto Him, say-
ing; 'Behold, we go up to Jerusalem; and the Son of Man
shall be delivered unto the chief priests, and unto the scribes;
and they shall condemn Him to death, and shall deliver Him
to the Gentiles : And they shall mock Him, and they shall
scourge Him, and shall spit upon Him, and shall kill Him ; and
112 Illinois State Sunday School Convention.
the third day lie shall rise again,' And James and John, son?
of Zebedee, came unto Him saying: 'Master, we would that
thou shouldest do for us whatsoever we desire.' And he said
unto them, 'what would ye that I should do for you ?' They
said unto Him, ' grant unto us that we may sit, one on thy
right hand, and the other on thy left hand, in thy glory.'
But Jesus said unto them, ' Ye know not what ve ask : can ye
drink of the cup that I drink of? and be baptized with the
baptism that I am baptized with?' And they said unto Him,
'we can.' And Jesus said unto them, 'Ye shall indeed drink
of the cup that I drink of; and with the baptism that I am
baptized withal shall ye be baptized ; but to sit on my right
hand, and on my left hand, is not mine to give; but it shall
be given to them for whom it is prepared.' And when the
ten heard it, they began to be much displeased with James
and John. But Jesus called them to Him, and saith unto
them : ' Ye know that they which are accounted to rule over
the Gentiles, exercise lordship over them, and their great ones
exercise authority upon them ; but so shall it not be among
you. But whosoever will be great among you, shall be your
minister; and whosoever of you will be the chiefest, shall be
servant of all ; for even the Son of mati came not to be minis-
tered unto, but to minister and to give His life a ransom for
many.' "
Oh, that we could drink in this spirit this morning. How
quick God would fill us ; how quick He would give us the
power ; how quick He would use us in His kingdom. Well
do the Christians of this present day know how God is willing
to use them. Well do they know how God is anxious to use
them, but I tell you tire trouble is we are so full of pride, of
conceit, of self-seeking. We are so full of ambition, worldly
honor, and receiving honor from one another, that God can't
use us. We are not emptied of self. We are not emptied of
pride. We are not emptied of conceit. We are so full of the
world, and so full of these things, that God can't use us; for
when we are weak, then we are strong. When we are emp-
tied of all these things, then it is that the power of God
comes upon us. One drop of God's strength is worth all the
strength of the world. People talk about not having ability,
not having strength. Why, the fact is, we have got too much
ability, we are too wise in oar own conceit. We have got
too much strength. When we are weak, literally nothing,
then God takes us up ; then we see the work prosper ; because.
God never set a man to do a work for Him yet, that He didn't
qualify him to do it. God never set a man to do something
for Him, without He gave him the Spirit, and niade him able
Illinois State Sunday School Convention. l]3
to accomplish it. We are just seeking our own glory. We
are seeking for position. We are seeking to make ourselves
a name. We want to forget ourselves. I will venture to say
that the woman who came with the alabaster box didn't think
of herself; she was so occupied with the Master that she just
came right up towards Him, and broke the box, and the
fragrance of that ointment has been in the Church for nine-
teen hundred years. The Church has not yet lost the
fragrance of that box that was broken upon the Son of God.
When we begin to forget ourselves, don't you see how God
will bless us ?
If you will turn over here into the 22d Chapter of Luke
you will find another thing that will be very humiliating.
"But behold the hand of him that betrayeth me is with me
on the table. And, truly, the Son of man goeth as it was
determined ; but woe unto that man hj whom He is betrayed.
And they began to enquire among themselves which of them
it was that should do this thing. And there was also a strife
among them which of them should be accounted the greatest.""
Think of that ! Jesus Christ coming to the very shadow of
the cross ; Jesus Christ coming unto the ver}^ gall of bitter-
ness in Gethsemane; that very night Judas was to betray
Him for thirty pieces of silver ; that very night Peter was to-
deny Him ; and yet there was strife right there ; right by the-
last supper, when He instituted that blessed sacrament; there
was strife among them who should be accounted the greatest.
Do you know that spirit has been in the Churches all these
years? Do you know that thing is doing more to-day to
hinder the cause of Christ than any other one thing? Oh!'
that God may help us to get rid of self, of pride, of ambition,
of self-seeking, and of every thing that is contrary to the
Spirit of Christ.
"And He said unto them, 'the kings of the Gentiles exer-
cise lordship over them, and they that exercise authority upoii'
them are called benefactors. But ye shall not be so ; but he-
that is greatest among you, let him be as the younger, and he
that is chief as he that doth serve.' " Then He took off His
garment and prepared Himself, and took the position of a
servant, and took a basin of water, and He went around and
washed their feet, to teach them humility. The last act of
the Son of God, before He went into the Garden of Gethsem-
ane, was to stoop and Avash their feet. Let us ask God
to crush out this pride out of our hearts, that we may be
nothing.
114 iLLixois State Sunday School, Conventiox.
After a soug, Miss Lucy J. Rider, of McKendree College,
Lebanon, III., took the platform and addressed the Conven-
tion, her topic being " Words of Caution to Teachers."
DIFFICULTIES IN SUNDAY-SCHOOL TEACHING.
LUCY J. RIDER.
I am filled with regret, that the meeting this morning, the
first that I have been able to attend — must close. It is taking
a great step to pass from the themes of the meeting we have
been having, to the consideration of the petty difiiculties which
no Sunday-school teacher, in practical work, fails to meet.
But I remember that after the Mount Transfiguration comes
the work in the plains, and that while the glorified vision
passed, yet Jesus remained. "And they saw no man, save
Jesus only."
The courage and faith of the Sunday-school teacher is most
sorely tried by the little vexing questions which come up in
our work, and we need surely the help of God to teach us how
to meet these little things. Our great need comes to us, not
here in this convention, where we are borne above on the
wings of prayer and of faitli until we almost catch a glimpse
of the other world ; but when we get home to our classes of
perplexing boys and girls, who sometimes seem to take delight
in seeing how much they can do to torment us, and bring us
to confusion of face. So I have to speak to you a little while
this morning, as simply and as plainly as I can with reference to
some of the difficulties that I have met in my own experience in
the Sunday-school, and to suggest to you some methods of meet-
ing and overcoming these difficulties which have been brought to
my mind by my own experience, and by the hints of others. That
we have difficulties no one will deny, but that these difficulties
should ever be a cause of discouragement, let us all most earn-
estly, and always deny. The cost of worth has always been
labor effort. Everything that is of jv'orth in this world, — or
almost everything — is gained through effort, and it is only by
meeting and overcoming difficulties that we attain to the best
and highest things in our experience and in our work. Diffi-
culties should be a stimulant or a tonic. They should guard
us against carelessness and neglect in our work. The work
of our Master was put forth in the midst of, and in spite of
difficulties of which we can have no conception. And surely
the disciple is not above his Master, nor the servant above his
Lord. Our part is to expect difficulties, to look them squarely
in the face and see how we may best meet them and conquer
Illinois State Sunday School Convention. 115
them. And as strong as is our faith in the promises of God;
■so strong may be our assurance that we can conquer them ;
and that we shall have just the measure of success which the
Lord sees is best for us, and for the work which we are tr3'ing
to do.
Most of the difficulties which the teacher meets in his work
may be traced to one of two sources, and I have therefore
placed the difficulties that I shall speakof this morning, under
two general classes:
First, Difficulties connected with thepujnl; and,
Second, Difficulties v:hich rest ivith the teacher.
And in our sub-divisions under the first general division let
me place,
1. Irregular attendance.
Ever}' Sunday-school teacher knows what a tremendous dis-
advantage it is, if for any little excuse, or without the shadow
of an excuse, the pupil is absent half the time. Let me men-
tion as one corrective to be applied here, the example of the
teacher. You know the old saw, "• Example is better than pre-
cept.'" If my pupils are certain that I shall be at my post,
through hot weather or cold, in spite of rain or dust or " Sun-
day headaches," this knowledge can not fail to have great in-
fluence in bringing them there. A teacher can not expect his
class to do better than he does in this matter , but by the bless-
ing of God, he may expect them to do as Avell as he does. Not
at first, of course, but after the leaven has had time to work.
Present, always. Myself and all my class, genuine sickness
not detaining. Let this be our standard, and we can at least
attain to the first part of it.
Then, to co-operate with the force of your own example,
try personal request. Take the class some time when they are
all present, and make a formal request that they try i-egu-
larity of attendance, for a single month, and then do not fail
to make that month's work so much more interesting than
the work of any month of irregular attendance, that the
pupils will never be vvilling to go back to the old way. It
may be well, in presenting the matter, to ask for a vote of
the class. We all have a passion for parliamentary forms. If
"we are allowed the opportunity of holding up our hands, and
thus giving formal approval to a measure, it helps us, wonder-
fully, in our belief that the measure is a proper one. And
the children are just like us. Give them a chance to vote for
regularity of attendance, and it will help them to be regular
in attendance. Try it. Throw responsibility upon them. We
have no idea how much responsibility a child even can bear,
till we try for ourselves.
110 Illinois .statk !Suxday School Convextiox.
Of course every Sunday-school teacher has a class-book, iii
Avhich to keep a record of attendance, with other things.
Mark the attendance, and let the pupils Jaiow that j'ou are
marking. I would call the roll occasionally. At any rate, I
would have m}' pencil and book in hand, and in some way I
would notice the attendance of the pupils. And I would
notice absences too. And during this etfective piece of for-
mality, you can comment occasionally upon the fact that such
a person "has had no absent mark for a month, or for a
quarter, or a year !" All these little things have their weight.
My next thought is : covnect the lessons. Connect them in
such a wa}' that the loss of one shall be felt, like a lost link
from a golden chain. You might ask Susie or Johnnie to
prepare from Sunday to Sunday the connecting links — to be
given in writing or orally — and the one upon whom this work
is laid will not fail to be at his post.
In these, and other ways which a consecrated ingenuity —
pardon the expression — will suggest, awaken regret for every
absence. And this is the best way, after all ; Give them
good, every lesson, and they will not like to lose the good, by
staying away.
2. Inattention . "What teacher of live bo3"s and girls have
not met this difficulty? And it is fatal to all attempts in
Sunday-school work. VV"e can make no impressions upon the
minds of our pupils, if the minds are not there to be im-
pressed. It is an utter waste of time and strength to pour
out thoughts, though they be the most beautiful, upon deaf
ears, or a wandering, inattentive mind. Perfect attention,
every minute. How shall we obtain this?
First, let us take the very bed posUion before our classes.
The greatest mistakes are sometimes made just here. I have
seen a class of twelve distributed along one long pew in the
body of the church, and the teacher sitting at the extreme end,
attempting to keep the attention of the whole class! Some-
times the teachers not standing before the class is a disastrous
mistake. I was once asked to teach a class in the body of
the church, where nobody stood up, during Sunday-school, in
the whole room, not even the superintendent, except when
he couldn't help it. I soon found that I had from fifteen to
twenty-five young men and boys to teach, restless, talking,
swapping jack-knives — maybe you've had just such classes —
and I could not get along without standing up before that
class. I had to stand, even though it made me conspicuous.
The rest were all looking at me, of course, but they soon got
tired of it, and I had gained my. point. I could look into
their eyes. The control of the eye has a great deal to do
Illinois State Suxday School Convention. 117
with the attention of tlie pupil. !No good teacher will feel
€omfortable unless he can control every eye — look squarely
into the face of every pupil.
l!^ext, let me speak of determination. Yery rarely do men
accomplish anything in the world till they determine to do
something, and by the blessing of God, we can almost always
-do what we determine to do ; that which we feel we ought to
do. God never requires us to do that which he will not give
us strength to accomplish, and if any Sunday-school teacher
here has failed in the past, and is determined to get and keep
attention during the whole of the time next Sunday, hy thor-
ough preparation; by prayer ; by earnestness in efibrt; by the
blessing of God ; he can do it. Determination is half the
battle.
Another suggestion : try the effect of pencil, or blackboard,
or map, in gaining and retaining the attention of the class.
Were you ever pressed into teaching a strange Sunday-
school class of a dozen wiggling boys, on some occasion when
you had thought to have an easy time looking on, and so
were unprepared ?
I was once. O, that class ! I can see it yet — " a dozen
squirming eels, tied together in the middle." Well, I opened
to the" back part of my Bible — I had no paper, but I had not
backslidden so far as not to have my Bible with me — and I
borrowed a pencil from the nearest eel, and in sheer despera-
tion I began to mark. "What was I drawing?" I don't
know, but I know that the mere act of marking, drew those
boys' heads around me, as the honey of the flower draws the
bee.
Then again, I have some times given slips of paper to the
class, asking each member to write in a few words, what he
had learned during the class-hour. This would not be well
with all classes, but with some it is both delightful and profit-
able. Profitable tp the teacher, because the responses will mir-
ror back his teaching, and he may thus learn to teach well — and
to the pupil, because it will stimulate him to think and judge
for himself.
And this leads me to another thought: Give the pupil some-
thing to do — in ways mentioned above, if you teach adult classes,
and by simple methods if you teach little children. Let the
primary class teacher often make object lessons of the little
ones themselves. A boy, twelve years of age, will show about
how large Jesus was when he disputed with the doctors in the
Temple.
Then, too, many an inattentive and mischievous one has
been dignified into an attentive and good one by being asked
118 Illinois State Sunday School, Convention.
to do a bit of work — to print something on the board, or point
out a place on tlie map. Children, like larger people, enjoy
the work in vhich they "lend a hand." Some one tells of a
little girl who returned from a prayer meeting, with radiant
face, exclaiming, " O, Mamma! We had such a good meet-
ing! " The secret was, she^ herself, had spoken in the meeting.
She liad helped to make it good. Can't we try this principle
in our Sunday-school classes?
Use illustrations, in your teaching — the plainest and home-
liest you can find. "A crooked stick often knocks down the
most apples." Pick your illustrations out of your every day
life — or better, out of the every day life of the ])Upil. Take
tilings from the street, +he school — whatever the child is most
familiar with. You can find them, if you look for them.
Love is an alchemy that turns the commonest things of life
into gold for the Sunday-school.
i^ever use illustrations that you have to spend ten minutes
in explaining. As some one aptly says, " do not make the
hinge larger than the door."
This brings me to my next point — questioning, as a means
of keeping the attention of the child.
Questions, as fl?m<??«V?o?i, are invaluable; there is nothing
that will bring a head around as quickly as a question. Keep
on the line of the lesson if you can — and you ought to be
able to do this — but if you can't think of a question on the
lesson, ask one ofi' the lesson. Be appropriate if you can^
but keep attention, if you break every rule of rlietoric that
ever was written ! Let me say, as I pass, that by calling out
answers from the class, you may often overcome the ditfi-
dence, that is such a difficult thing to deal with in a large
class. You may sometimes cheat a person out of her self-
consciousness, and get her talkintf in spite of herself — an
allowable kind of cheating, tliis, Mr. President.
But the best way, after all, to keep the attention of the
class, is to give them good.
Suppose you in this audience were models of inattention,
every one whispering, talking, looking at books and papers,
and I was to stand liere and scatter golden pieces through
this crowd. If we give gold to our Sunday-school classes, we
shall have no trouble about attention.
The next difficulty I have noted is
3. A disposition to quarrel, on the part of the Sunday-schoo)
pupil.
But let me give you a word of caution, here, and that is, do
not check expression. Why, I have known some teachers,
not only in Sunday-school but in day school, who regardetl
Illinois State Stjxday school, Convention. 119
any expression of an opinion different from their own, as the
height of impudence, not to be tolerated for one moment,
j^ow, I believe in "opinionated" people — in people who have
an opinion of their own, and are not afraid to express it.
Don't confound the freest expression of opinion with a dispo-
sition to pick a quarrel. But if such a disposition unmis-
takably exists, the teacher may set the pupil an example of
politeness in the matter. It is better, sometimes, to yield an
unimportant point. Don't allow the class to spend the whole
time of the lesson discussing some little point of geography
or history.
Strike for vital points. I have found this rule an excellent
one, not only in my Suuda}^- school classes, but in discussions
I have sometimes fallen into, with persons who were — if such
a thing be possible — honestly skeptical. I remember how a
young man came to me once with a skeptical question that
grieved me greatly. At first, I answered him by telling him,
almost with tears, how sorry I felt that such thoughts should
find a lodgment in his mind at all. He looked at me curiously,
and said in reply, "Now, if I were a Christian, and you
should come to me asking, honestl}', for light on some obscure
point, it seems to me I should try and give you the help you
needed, instead of lamenting over the case."
Warned in this way, I tried to explain the questioned point.
But all in vain. He could not understand my figures, and
called my explanations mysterious and forced. I could not
make one who had no spiritual insight see things designed to
be spiritually perceived. I was finally driven to the plainest
point of present duty. " I think there is one point," said I
at last, " upon which we agree. You will acknowledge that
a man ought to do the best he can — should live up to every
bit of light he has, before he can claim more?" "Yes, cer-
tainly." "Are you, then, doing the best you can?" He
acknowledged he was not. " Perhaps this is the reason you
have no more light?" And the 3^oung man was silent.
Strike for vital points in your teaching. Men in battle do
not aim at each other's epaulets, or finger nails even. They
aim at the heart.
Sometimes, however, in spite of all you can do, some egotist
will insist on taking the lion's share of time in airing his
views, or in discussing some skeptical matter. Then the
teacher must gently but firmly take the matter into his
own hands. Say with decision, that you can not spend time
for further discussion. But whenever 3^ou are obliged to do
this, lest your motive be misconstructed, it is best to add the
kindest possible oft'er of private explanation. Say to the
120 iLLFN'ois State Sunday School, Coxvention.
questioner: " If you will come to me after school, or to my
house, to-morrow evening, I will try to explain it, to your
eatistaction/' I could mention the name of a celebrated man
— a name with which you arc familiar — who was driven into
temporary infidelity by an incident which occurred in his
Sunday-school class. On one occasion he asked his teacher,
a church officer, a question with reference to a certain diffi-
culty that presented itself to his mind ; but instead of
answering the question, the Sunday-school teacher turned
round and gave the questioner quite a lecture, before the
class, upon the wickedness of doubting the Bible, and the
total depravity of asking such a question ! The impression
received by our friend was that the n difficulty could not be
explained, and that the exhortation of his teacher was an
attempt to dodge the point; a very unfortunate idea as you
see. It is far better to give a little time, out of class, to the
discussion and settlement of difficulties.
4. Lack of -preparation, on the part of the pupil, a great
difficulty. How shall we secure preparation of the lesson at
home. In the very lowest and smallest — the infant classes
especially, where the children are gathered from parents who
are not students of the Bible, we can hardly expect them to
stud}' the lesson before hand. The most we can do in such
cases, is to send notes and lesson-leaves to their homes, trying
to secure the attention of mother or sister to this matter.
But with older pupils, first, let the teacher set an example. I
was on one of our railroads not long ago, and a newsboy, try-
ing with all his might to sell me a book, came and sat down
by my side. I was learning my Sunday-school lesson, and he
says: " I guess you are a Sunday-school teacher." I told him
*' I guessed I was;" and then he told me his experience in
Sunday-school. He was spending Sunday in a certain town,
not very long ago, and he thought he would drop into Sunday-
school — there was nothing else to do — and so he went in with
a lot of the " fellows." " The}' didn't any of them know any-
thing about the lesson," he said, " and the teacher didn't know
anything about it either!" I was grieved. Grieved for the
honor of the Sunday-school ; wounded in the house of its
friends, and grieved for a lost opportunity to sow good seed in
the heart of one who did not often put himself under good in-
fluences. No one can measure the opportunities for good lost
for lack of faithful prepartion on the part of the pupil, and as
an example alone, its influence is not light. You cannot ex-
pect your pupils will prepare for their work unless you hon-
estly, consciously, prepare for your part of the work of the
hour.
Illinois State Sunday School Convention. 121
Let me advise again, as to this difficulty, that the teacher
ask for preparatioru Ask it as a personal favor. Keep asking,
and talking, and agitating the matter — not for one month, or
two, but till you succeed. Expect it, and let the class know
you expect it.
But here is another point: teach the children how to study.
I think a great deal of the pupils carelessness in preparation
comes from the fact that the boys and girls take their question
books or lesson leaves home, and then don't know what to do
with them. They remain folded up in their coat pockets from
one weeks end to another. They don't know how to study.
Let the teacher meet this by taking a little time from the les-
son to mark out a plan of study for the next lesson. Give
them the old plan ; persons, places, dates, duties, doctrines,
difficulties, or show them how to utilize the lesson-cards.
When you have succeeded in getting them to study the lesson-
leaf, make it the stepping stone to the study of the Bible.
And, by the way, if you can succeed in getting them to learn
the lesson-leaf at home, after studying it — never bringing
anything but the Bible into class, you will have done a good
thing. As further inducement, lend them books from your
own libary. If they havn't any lesson-helps — those good
things if only they be kept in the right place — provide them,
out of your own purse if necessary. The giving may do good
in more ways than one. And when they all have them, be
sure they know how to use them.
And it is often well to assign work to members of the class,
from Sunday to Sunday. For instance, in the lesson of the
Marrige Feast, that is to come so soon, suppose you ask one
to look up the parallel passages, another to bring a written
list of the "-excuses" made, another still, to bring a list of all
the excuses he can think of that men make now-a-days for
not accepting the Gospel invitation. To plan ahead in this
way requires a little extra time and work, but it brings abund-
ant reward.
My last thought under this division of the subject is, give
the class frequentremi^nders. Give your boys and girls a cordial
recognition whenever you meet them. Let them see that you
remember them, and the lesson too. Greet them with a hearty
*' How do you do? and how is the study of the lesson getting
on? Have you got those excuses written out yet?" And
Johnnie will go away shaking his head and saying : " Well,
that teacher don't forget. I really must attend to this. I'll
look up that lesson this very day.'"^' And then I have found
a little note or small letter sent through the post office to be
of value, both in stimulating attendance, and the preparation
122 iLLixois State Sunday School Coxvextiox.
of the lesson. And, above all, never let the matter rest. I
had almost said, make the pupils uncomfortable if they don't
prepare the lessons, but do not make them so uncomfortable
as to drive them quite away. We must guard against any-
thing that would kee[» pupils away from the Sunday-school.
Better have tliem come unprepared, than not to come at all,
because the Bible is not like other books. There is vital
power in God's word. As Napoleon said ; " It is not a book^
it is a Living Thing."
Let me speak now for a little while about the
DIFFICULTIES RELATING TO THE TEACHER.
And under this head let me name,
1. The. wrovcj aim. The aim of the Sunday-scliool teacher
should be, first of all, if there is any necessity for it, to bring
the pupil to Christ, the quickest and the shortest way. IIow
my soul has been stirred as I have thought what a tleeting
thing human life is I A soul is in 3'our class to-day. You
may put your hand upon it. Where it will be to-morrow you
do not know. It may tiy infinitely beyond your reach. So
this should be your first and constant aim, until every one of
your pupils are Christians safe in the fold. But this is not all.
Another part of our work is to give those already ChristianSy
food to grow by — to nourish and train them for the Master's
work. What a strange thing it is, that a strengthless, non-
growing Christian is not an anomaly! I long for the time to
come when a strengthless, non-working Christian, who has
only enough of God's word to keep the breath of life in him,
shall be just as great an occasion of concern to the Christian
Church, as a puny child would be in a family — one who did
not grow, who never gained strength, who always remained a
helpless, sickly, starved creature. Let us never be satisfied
with anything else than to see our pu|»ils growitig in grace
and in the knowledge of the Lord, and putting forth all their
increasing strength in the Master's service.
And this brings me to my next thought: Give them a
chance to work. I believethis is a matter that we Sunday-school
teachers have not thought about as much as we ought. Let
us put the little children at work, and to direct work for God
too. It is so easy for little children to work, far easier
than for those who are brought into the fold late in life.
Teach them to talk for Jesus. Why not V A word from some
little child has led many a hard heart to the Savior. Why
not talk as familiarly about the things of the Kingdom, as
about the things of the world? Teach them to give. If little
children could be brought up to give rejfularly and systemat-
ILT.IXOI8 State Suxday School Coxvextiox. 123.
icly "as the Lord prospers them," the church treasuries of the
next generation would overflow. Interest them in missionary
eflbrt" Let them do something, if it is nothing more than to-
cut out pictures and send to children in some less favored
neighborhood.
2. The lack of careful jyreparatioi}, is another great obstacle
in the Sunday-school teachers' way. There would be much
less reason for complaint on this score, if we Sunday-school
teachers only understood and honestly believed in the value-
and the importance of Bible study. We all want to be " per-
fect," we all want to be "thoroughly furnished," we all want
food and strength. Listen: "And that from a child thou
hast know the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make thee
wise unto salvation." That is the kind of wisdom we want.
"Through faith which is in Christ Jesus." "All scripture is-
given by inspiration of God, and is profitable lor doctrine, for
reproof, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God
may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works."
After being tilled with the idea of the value of Bible study,
we can sum up the whole matter in one word, Study I Do it.
Give the time. Study your Sunday-school lesson as 3'ou used
to study your arithmetic lessons, and as a merchant pores over
his accounts. Put your mind to it.
Again, study the Bible. I know I am speaking in the pres-
ence of a great many who use lesson helpers. I do it myself.
I don't want to say one word against these helpers. But it
will be an abuse of them if we take them instead of the Bible.
Suuday-school teachers, and scholars, too, just as soon as we
can work them uy) to that point, ought to take the Bible lirst.
and the Bible most interpreting the Bible by the Bible. Let
the helpers come in Friday and Saturday, late in your study;,
take the Bible alone, lirst. Study systematically. Some peo-
ple lose half their lives for lack of system. Plan your work
and then do it.
Study the Bible early in the morning. Let it be the lirst
reading of the day. Then it does not get overlooked or
crowded out. It comes to be a kind of second nature. You
don't feel comfortable in taking up anything else, even if it
be a letter from your dearest friend, until you have had your
Bible reading in the morning.
3. Lack of plan, a habit of doing things just as we happen
to think of them. This is a serious obstacle in the way of
success. What a foolish thing it would be, if in this trip to
London, which some of us hope to take, we should start out
without any plan — not knowing exactly when we were going
to start, or what we were going to dc. or what it would cost,.
124 I ILLINOIS State Sunday School. Convention,
or anything about it. JSTo sensible person would do any such
thing. We sliould have a well-arranged plan of our trip, iu
order to make tlie most possible out of our time and money.
Let us make just as careful plans in our Sunday-school work
and in our christian life; for these two things are so blended
that they cannot be separated. We need apian of study. We
need a plan for teaching. We need to adapt the lesson, plan-
ning to give to each member of the class such portion of truth
as we think they need. This takes time and labor, but these
things i)ay. We need to plan for spiritual results. If we
make only spasmodic efforts now and then — perhajts when we
are warmed up with revival influences — for the salvation and
growth of our pupils, we shall be almost sure to fail. The
blessing of God rests upon constant, continued endeavor — not
on these spasmodic, irregular, unnatural efforts.
Tliere are other difficulties resting with the teacher, that I
might name, many of which teachers themselves are fully
conscious of. Lack of faith — lack of prayer — lack of conse-
cration. These matters have been alread}- fully disctissed,
but sufl'er a few words. Sometimes I hear the objection, "I
can't pray with faith, I can't work up a feeling, whenever
occasion offers." Does the objection sound ridiculous when
put into words? It is in the liearts of a great many of our
teachers, if not on their tongues.. God does require us to
have faith, but he does not require us to "work up" a feeling,
without foundation. He only requires us to belive the Truth.
Search out the truth. Find what grounds you have for
believing, as you pray and labor for3'Our Sunday-school class.
Hunt out what is written. Put yourself through a course of
Bible readings, on the Promises, and see if your faith does not
grow stronger. Try and understand God's willingness to
bless and to answer prayer — yea. His infinite anxiety to do
more for us than we ask or think. Do your share, toward
believing, base yourselves on what is written, tlien ask God to
do his part — ask Ilim to bestow upon us the wonderful "gift"
of faith, and He will surely do it. Then 4th, Lack of a Teacher
is another great difficulty and hindrance to the efficiency of
our Sunday-school working. We are not sent out to do this
work alone. One has said, "Lo, I am with you always."
Let the teacher recognize and depend upon the presence of
this great Helper.
We need help in studying. Shall I tell you why it was that
I enjoyed the study of Moral Science, as I enjoyed few other
studies in my whole course of study? We had a grand text-
book, but that was not all. We had for our President and
teacher the author of the text-book. There was no trouble about
Illinois State Suxday School Coxvextiox. 125
understanding that book, for its author was right in our
midst. We could ask him directly, what he meant by this
statement — to explain this knotty point, and he always made
everything as clear as noon-day. Xo wonder we enjoyed the
study. And it is just so with the wonderful Book of books.
Its Author is always with us, and is willing to explain His
own Book to us, and pour a flood of divine light upon its
pages. Fellow teachers, have you ever seen this glory on the
Sacred Page? Ask for it. AVait for it. You may see it.
Then we need a teacher not only to direct our study, but to
help us to teach. In the best methods of modern training, the
young and weak teacher is not thrown at first, alone in the
school-room, but an older and wiser teacher is present with
the novice, to direct and instruct and give courage and help
in an}' emergency. So it is in our work. We are all weak,
all unskillful, but we are never alone. One able to help is
with us in all our teaching, let us recognize His presence and
ask a measure of His calmness and strength for our work,
which is also His work.
Have I failed after all, to strike the great difficulty which
opposes you, dear fellow teacher? Well this Divine Instruc-
tor knows all about it, go to Him. Ask and you may have
His help just where you need it. In the little things as well
as in the greater. Listen: "If any of you lack wisdom, let
him ask of God — and it shall be given him." "Let us there-
fore come boldly unto the Throne of Grace, that we may
obtain mercy and find grace to help in every time of need."
At the close of this exercise so many wished to enter the
church that Mr. Moody consented to speak to them in
another place, which was soon filled.
The committee to whom was referred the Report of the
Executive Committee, reported as follows ;
Your Committee, to whom was referred the Report of the Executive
Committee, having considered the suggestions therein contained, respect-
fully recommend :
First, That the facts and figures of the Report be carefully studied, and
an earnest efi'ort be made to correct our mistakes.
Second, That the Executive Committee, the District Officers, and the
County and Township Officers, be urged to secure the organization of every
township in the State during the coming year, and that this Convention
appi'ove the plan of the Committee to raise 82,500, and to employ such
competent men as may be needed to carry forward the work.
126 Illinois state Suxuay School Coxvextion.
Third, That we appoint a f5uitable number of delegates to represent us
at the Raikes Centennial Meeting in London, June 20th to July 4th.
Fourth, That the Executive Committee be authorized to correspond
with other States in the Northwest, and to call a meeting to celebrate the
centennial anniversary of Sunday-schools and the semi-millennial anni-
versary of the translation of the Engligh Bible, and that said meeting be
held in Chicago, about October 1st, 1880.
Fifth, That the portion of the Executive Committee's Report referring
to temperance meets our hearty approval, and that we recommend a more
thorough presentation of this subject to the children of our Sunday-schools.
Respectfully submitted,
A. G. TvxG,
A. R. Thain,
Committee.
A memorial paper in memory of J. McKeePeeples, a
member of the Executive Committee, from the Fifth District,
and a former president of the association, was read, as
follows :
Whereas, It has i)leased our Heavenly Father to remove from us, by
death, our beloved brother and faithful co-laborer in the Sabbath-school
work, J. McKee Peeples,
Resolved, That, while we rejoice with him in his " abundant entrance"
into a glorious immortality, and know full well his yreat gain, that we
•express our keen sense of the loss we sustain in the death of this man of
God ; this exemplary christian ; this earnest, devoted, self-sacrificing Sabbath-
school ivorker, and faithful friend.
Resolved, That we will ever hold him in loving remembrance, fulfilling
the precious promisi' of our Lord, "The righteous shall be in everlasting
remembrance." "The memory of the just is blessed." That we will
emulate this shining example of our dear brother, and follow him, as he
followed Christ, praying that his mantel may fall upon one who shall take
up, and Ijravely carry forward t e work so dear to him, so dear to us, and
80 infinitely dear to God.
Resolved, That we tender to the family of the bereaved our heartfelt
sympathy, a^-suring them of our continual remembrance of them at a
throne of grace ; that the God of all comfort may abide with them, and be
unto them " as the shadow of a great Rock in a weary land."
Resolved, That these resolutions be spread upon the records of this Con-
vention, and a copy be sent to the family of the bereaved.
Appropriate words were spoken by President Reynolds,
Mr. 13. F. Jacobs and William Thorn.
IiiLixois State Sunday School Coxvextiox. 127
Mr. C. M. Morton led the Convention in prayer.
Mr. William Thorn, President of the Fifth District, re-
ported as follows :
REPORT OF WM. THORN— FIFTH DISTRICT.
Bro. President and Fellow Workers. In submitting a
brief report of Sunday-school work during the past year in
the Fifth District, I can truthfully say that ''the Lord has
been with us," and we have reason to believe the condition
of Sunday-school work in our district, as a whole, has never
been so hopeful and encouraging as at the present time.
And while it is true that very much remains to be done in
this district before it can take its place alongside of its more
promising sisters in the State, yet we are thankful that, dur-
ing the past year, much has been accomplished, and with the
blessing of God upon future efforts we are confident of a rich
harvest throughout. A chain of County Conventions was
arranged during the summer, and the helpful services of the
President of the State Association secured, in company with
one or more of the district officers, he attended nearly all the
County Conventions.
In behalf of the Fifth District, and in my own name, I take
this occasion, publicly, to return him our warmest thanks for
the timely and efficient help rendered us.
COUNTY CONVENTIONS.
In submitting an outline of the County work, I must,
necessarily be brief. The Report from Clay County shows a
gain of 31 schools and a gain in membership of 1,778. The
officers of this county have been diligent in the organization
of the work, and successful in gathering the children into the
schools. The Convention was fairly attended, and a growing
interest was manifested in the District and State work.
The Convention in Crawford County,though slimly attended,
brought together some earnest workers, and a live man was
chosen as President of the County Association, who, we
believe, will push forward the much needed work in this
County.
The report from Edwards County, shows their deep interest
in the work. The County is well officered, and the President
has faithfully visited the schools under his charge. The
County Convention was not largely attended, and we believe
this waning of interest in Convention work in this County is
largely due to the basket-dinner feature of the second day of
128 Illinois State Sunday School Convention.
their Convention. It is still the banner temperance County
of the District, not having a saloon in the County.
Although it has not been my privilege to meet the Sunday-
school workers of Effingham County, in their Cor/vention, 3'et
from information received, progress has been made in the
woi-k, and the prospect is encouraging. Their County Con-
vention was reported to have been the best ever held by them,
and I feel assured that the officers and the workers of this
County are dr)ing a good work for the Master.
Brother J. 2s". McCord reports the Sunday-school work in
Fayette County, in fair condition, and that the number of
'■'■ Erergreen'' Schools has increased. The prospect for a num-
ber of new schools, in the Count}', is good, and steps are now
being taken to effect an organization in the three unorganized
townships of the County. The Convention in this County
was fairly attended.
It was my sad duty, at our last State Convention, to report
the death of the Secretary of Jaspar County, and I now have
to report the death of their President, during the past year.
The loss of these brethren has been keenly felt, and the work
has suffered. However, their places have been filled by earn-
est workers, and we hope the County will soon again take its
place as a leading one in the District. The Convention was
not largely attended, but evinced considerable enthusiasm in
the work, and the reports from the townships show a growing
interest. Lawrence County held the banner convention of
the district, and the attendance and interest were very large.
A live interest was manifested in Sunday-school work. I
regret to state, that notwithstanding this interest, they report
the loss of twelve schools. I can only account for this de-
crease in the number of schools, on the ground, of this year's
report being more correct than those previously given. There
are many good, earnest workers in this county who are labor-
ing in the Lord's vineyard.
Richland County during the past year, has made a steady
progress. The President, Brother Wilson, has been untiring
in his visitations to schools of the county, and in consequence,
many more schools have become "■ Evergreen." The effort to
hold a County Convention in Olney, as has been the custom
hitherto, was a failure so far as attendance was concerned, but
the second effort to hold a convention in the count}' was more
successful.
"Wabash County, which for a number of years, has not been
identified with us in the District and State work, sent a dele-
gate the past year to our District Convention, who reported
that Township Conventions had been held in different parts
iLLrjifOis State Sunday School Convektion. 129
of the county, and that the Sunday-school work in the county
was in good condition. They have held an Annual Conven-
tion, and report no saloons in the county.
The report from Wayne County is not encouraging — no
work having been done previous to the time of holding their
County Convention, and consequently the Convention was a
failure. Brother Morton visited this county and secured the
election of new officers, and the Secretary writes hopefully of
the future.
I am unable to submit an itemized report of the following
counties, viz: Gallatin, Hamilton, Hardin, Pope, Saline, and
"White, in as much as by special arrangement with my co-
worker. Brother J. McKee Peeples, these counties were under
his special charge. However, through correspondence, and
in conversation with individuals, I have gathered the follow-
ing facts : Hardin County reports a gain of six schools, 576-
in membership, and is a " Banner County." In the words of
Brother Porter I can say: " Good for little Hardin." Ham-
ilton County has made progress in the work, and, although
we have no statistics at hand, we believe that the work in this
county has advanced materially during the past year. White
County has held two conventions during the year. The re-
ports show a net gain in the District of 37 schools and 1,605
in membership. For the contribution from the counties of
this District, and for a fuller report of statisticts, jou are re-
spectfully referred to the reports of the Treasurer, the Execu-
tive Committee, and the State Statistical Secretary.
The chain of County Conventions was followed by a District
Convention at Fairfield, which was well attended — ten counties,
being represented. The sessions of the Convention were
marked with deep spirituality, and we trust were profitable to
all. During the two da^'s of this Convention, some useful
measures were adopted looking toward a more thorough can-
vass and systematic work in the difterent counties of the Dis-
trict. A number of Sunday-school workers from other Districts,,
including the President of the State Association were' present,,
and contributed very much to its interest. We were particu-
larly edified in the stirring address of Miss Lucy J. Rider, of
Mclvendree College, on the important subject, "Success with
young people." We have much reason to be grateful to our
Heavenly Father for the rich blessings bestowed upon us.
Wm. Thorn,
President.-
130 Illinois State Sunday School, Convention.
THIRD DAY-Afternoon Session.
Long ere the time named on the programme for assem-
bling, the house was crowded. The mystery seemed to be
liow so many were stowed away ; it looked like an impossi-
bility, as the living stream poured out of the church in every
-direction, to tliink of getting them all in again.
At two o'clock Mrs. McGranahan took her position at the
organ, a place which she so faithfully tilled during the ses-
sions of the Convention.
Mr. McGranahan, whose thrilling voice had won many
admirers, and whose faithful services during the past week
had gained him a place in so many hearts in the city, an-
nounced the hymn, and led a delightful service of song.
The subject he presented was " The Music of the Bible."
. At the close of this service Mr. Jacobs requested Mr. Mc-
'Granahan to sing " Little Bessie's Song," with the chorus,
"Hallelujah, 'Tis Done." During the singing some mani-
fested their gratification by smiles, others by tears.
Mr. Moody, from the door, stated that there was another
audience outside, and asked for speakers to go to another
church and hold an extra session.
The hymn, " What a Friend We Have in Jesus," was sung,
and after prayer the President said that there was one on the
platform who did not need an introduction to this Conven-
tion ; one that has done much for the Sunday-school work in
this State; one who was an enthusiast in statistics, and one
who had succeeded in making this subject interesting.
In presenting Mr. E. Payson Porter to the Convention,
Mr. Heynolds stated that he had been elected the IsTational
Statistical Secretary, and expected soon to remove to Phila-
delphia. He commented upon the draft made in the ranks of
Illinois workers by various States, and reminded the Con-
vention that whenever a great need was felt Illinois was
Illinois State Suxday School Contention. 131
called upon. Yincent, Eggleston and Porter have gone, and
we have a host of great men coming on.
Mr. Porter stated that this was his Eleventh Annual
Report as Statistical Secretary, and addressed the Convention
as follows :
THE FIELD SURVEYED.
E. P. PORTER.
Dear Brethren. — In presenting my Eleventh Annual Re-
port, which is also my final one, I am happy to be able to pre-
sent the work in as good shape as it is at present. Organiza-
tion is the one thing needed in our own State, as well as in
others. It is pleasant to know that 102 County Conventions, and
over 1,100 Township Conventions have been held, and that 984
townships are reported " organized ; " but, even that leaves 536
townships unorganized ; over one third of the whole number,
and doubtless some of the townships reported as organized,
need to be worked up and made efficient. To do this work
requires patient, persistent work, and I hope the new Secre-
tary^— otir dear Brother Eames, will have the hearty and earn-
est support of every State and County officer. It has been
my desire to see a star on every township on our State map,
not so much that we ma}" see them shine there, as that the
work they represent may be thorough, and through that many
stars may shine in the Redeemers crown. Paper organization
is worthless in Illinois, every township should have a living
organization. Several counties show a larger enrollment in
the Sunday-schools than in the public schools; but why
should not every county show the same? Also, let us not
look upon the Sunday-school as an affair for children, but as
it is — a Bible-school for the people; and then, surely, the
number should exceed the public schools. Better work is
needed. We should have more normal classes; more teach-
ers' meetings; and more and better work in every depart-
ment. I am very thankful for the privilege I have enjoyed of
laboring with such a band of workers as God has given to
this State. I leave you with many regrets, because I hope
the Lord has called me to another field, that I may try
and help those who need it more than you do here. I hope
God will continue to bless you, and the future may be more
prosperous and blessed than the past.
The report has been printed, and I herewith submit it for
your consideration.
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II.I.IXOIS State Sunday School Convention. 135
The hymn, " We Praise Thee, 0 God, for the Son of Thy
Love," ^vas sung.
The committee announced the following names as dele-
gates to the Sunday-school Centennial to be held at London,
England, June 26th to July 3d :
B. F. Jacobs, M. C. Hazard, D. W. Whittle, E. Payson Porter, P. G.
Gillett, 0. M. Morton, W. B. Jacobs, W. T. Sharer, W. C. Kenner, G. A.
"Viquesney, Henry "Wakeford, J. M. Gibson, Rev. M. ^I. Parkhurst, Rev.
J. T. Burhoe, Rev. AY. F. Crafts and wife, James McGranahan and wife,
Joseph Bristow and wife, Miss Lucy J. Rider.
A collection was taken towards defraying the expenses of
Major D. W. Whittlft and Mr. E. P. Porter, amounting to
$294.19.
Mr. Moody came in, the hour having arrived for his ad-
dress, and stated that many could not get into the church,
and that he was informed some of the saloon-keepers wished
to hear him, and desired that he should go to the College
Park. This idea was favorably received, and at Mr. Moody's-
suggestion the multitude took up their line of march with a.
song.
A Sunday-school army, indeed, filed down the street to-
Knox College, where Mr. Mood}-, taking his stand on the
steps, preached a most effective sermon to an audience of not
less than 1,800 people.
At the same hour the First Congregational Church was
filled to listen to an address before primary teachers, by Miss
J. Rider.
Miss Rider's address was as follows :
ADDRESS TO PRIMARY CLASS TEACHERS.
LUCY J. RIDER.
You will all agree with me that our care of the little chil-
dren in our Sabbath-schools, and in our homes is an exceed-
ingly important matter. When we, as families, as churches,
and as a nation, realize that the key to the whole great prob-
lem of the future, is in the hands of our little children, we
shall have made a great advance in the matter of taking the-
world from the powers of darkness and bringing it to light..
136 Illinois State Sunday School Coxventiox.
You never knew a little child who could not be influenced for
the right, unless that little child had a terribly wrong start at
the beginning — was born with a perverted physical or moral
nature. You never knew a little, tender-hearted child, old
■enough to love its father and mother, who was not quick to
respond to appeals for God's love. I think God delights to
explain his mysteries of grace to the hearts of little children,
and we should recognize and act upon the fact, leading them
tenderly to the church of God. We have, in our homes and
in our Sunday-school classes of little children, the people who
in a few years are going to rule our Nation and constitute our
churches, and we can make the future what we will by taking
this plastic material and making out of it what we will.
It is sometimes said that impressions upon little children's
minds are so evanescent, they vanish so quickly, that it is
hardly worth while to make these impressions ; but I believe
this is a great mistake. I know that some of the impressions
of my early childhood are those which are most vividly re-
membered by me to-day, and I believe, have had a great deal
to do in shaping the character of my adult years.
If we could untangle the intricate maze of the influences
'that go to making character, I believe that in ever}- person we
might trace the impressions that were given in earliest child-
hood. I do. not know the age at which children begin to be
•impressed for good or for evil ; and I would not dare to try to
weigh the influence of a careless or impatient tone, or an un-
loving look upon a very little child. The most beautiful and
sacred of all earthly missions, is the life which is spent in the
great duty and the blessed privilege of trying to mould the
character and shape the destinies of little children. Such a
(Wonderful thing is a human soul, wrapped up in this little
helpless piece of clay ! Such possibilities for happiness or woe
even in this life ; and yet these souls encased in these little
■bodies are given to us, to mothers, to families, and to the
• churches; and when we think how completely under our in-
fluence they are, will you not bear me out in saying that the
primary class teachers' work is the most important work of
the Sunday-school 'after all ! You may labor six months, as a
friend of mine did, to redeem a drunkard, and after all, fail to
save him. If you devote that same six months' work to in-
stilling temperance principles into the hearts of little children,
your labor will not be in vain. While I would not discourage
any work with older persons, especially as I think of the un-.
told value of a single soul, and of the help from God that we
•may expect in the otherwise difticult work of reaching a soul
/hardened in eia, yet I would urge that we do not neglect our
IiiLixois State Suxday School. Convention. 137
little children. How my heart aches at the little neglected chil-
dren in the homes ! Let the Sunday-school and the church put
forth their kindly arms to gather in the neglected ones. It is
true indeed that the parents have most of the training of little
children, and though very often this training may be largely
supplemented by the Sunday-school, it is a great mistake
when father and mother think the Sunday-school can do it all.
The Sunday-school can do much, but to leave all direct relig-
ious training to the Sunday-school, or to the primary class
teacher, is a great mistake. Let ns guard ourselves and the
parents of our little ones against this with all might. The
Sunday-school is a poor substitute for the home. But still,
even in families where direct religious instruction is given, the
primary class teacher may do a great deal to stimulate and as-
sist the work, and where this blessed home instruction is want-
ing, her responsibilities are weightier still.
Now, methods of work with primary classes are not much
different from methods of work with any other class. The
primary class teacher has to get his or her basis of work from
the same Book. We need the same careful, thorough con-
sciencious Bible study, and added to this, special preparation
to adapt the lesson to the minds we have to deal with in a
primary class. Let no teacher of little children delude herself
with the idea that she needs only a superficial knowledge of the
lesson. We shall not teach well, and at the same time, we shall
starve our own souls if we cherish this delusion. Begin to
prepare just as early as you can, and study just as carefully and
thoroughly as you would for any other class.
There are minor points in which primary class teaching must
differ from other teaching — there must be more illustration ;
but let me say here, you must not drown your teaching with
illustrations. Illustrate to teach ; don't teach to illustrate.
Never tell a story for the sake of the story. Let there be
a kernel of truth. Very often it is only a kernel. Little chil-
dren are not able to take in very much, but let that much be
truth. If you can make it clearer; if you can fasten it more
surely on their minds by illustrations, use them by all means.
Only make them a means, not an end. The primary class
must be thoroughly organized. Now, here I believe is where
primary class teachers often have the greatest difficulty. The
rest of the school is thoroughly organized, no class numbering
more than ten or fifteen, many of them smaller still, and each
under the care of one teacher, while in the primary depart-
ment, there are from, fifty to two hundred little children un-
der the care of one person. Now, I do not want to dogma-
tize, bnt in my own experience, I have found it best to have
138 Illinois State Sunday School, Convention.
tlie infant department thoroughly organized — divided into lit-
tle classes. Do not the little ones require more careful teach-
ing and personal oversight than the older people? Do not
the lambs need more tender care than the sheep?
Then too, many ditticulties pertaining to the order of the
class, disappear the moment this system of sub-division is put
in force. I have known more than one room full of children,
in hopeless disorder, to be reformed in this way. The chil-
dren often don't mean to be disorderly, but their uneasiness
comes from their ver}' childishness. Children are not polite ;
if they are sleepy, they go to sleep ; it weary, they yawn and
tidget and whisper. Don't let us blame them and scold them,
but put them under better conditions — give them more per-
sonal care.
Sometimes, however, it is impossible to sub-divide ; there
isn't room enough, or class teachers can not be secured. In
that case, two or three efficient assistant superintendents or
assistant teachers are greatly needed, and I would compel —
no, I wont say compel, because we can't compel, in the Sun-
day-school— but I would insist upon it, that the}' be always on
hand. The care they can give the children is needed at every
session; breaking up a little cli(|ue in some cornor ; straight
ening this little one up. comforting another for a lost penny.
All these little things liave to be done with little children, and
efficient assistants are certainly of great value where you have
to get along without the class division to which I have refer-
red.
Primary classes are more dependent upon their surround-
ings than any other class. They ought to have the best room
in the whole church, the best pictures, and the pleasantest
surroundings generally. So much has been said about this
that I will not dwell particularly upon it. Neither is it nec-
essary to talk of low seats, flowers, and pure air. You all
know that the effect of these little things is so much greater
upon little children than upon older ones, and every earnest
teaclier will aid herself by helpful surroundings.
The blackboard is almost an essential in the primary class.
What little geography the children need, can be taught best
by an extemporaneous map which you draw before them. It
is not hard work to sketch an outline map, with the seacoast
here and a mountain here (illustrating). You can do this as
well as I; it only requires a little practice, and the children
seeing you draw it, will remember very much better than .if
the most beautiful map, hanging before them, was explained
to them.
Illinois State Sunday School Convention. 139
Then too, give comparative knowledge, that is, compare
things unknown with things known. For instance, in teach-
ing the size of Palestine. Man}^ children think it is as large
as the whole United States. Find out what they do think
about it, and then tell them how many times Palestine could
be cut out of the State of Illinois.
Now, with reference to attention. Suppose we had diffi-
culty in keeping the attention of the children to the k^ssoii of
next Sunday, about the guests who were invited and refnsed
to come. I am often greatly helped by printing little things
on the board. For instance, I might print the word " invited "
on the blackboard, and talk about that awhile, and afterward,
the word "excused," trj^ing to teach the children the folly of
the excuses that were given, and then last of all, " punished" —
very simple, as _you see, but effective, with the right kind, of
explanation. Then there are so many beautiful things which
can be drawn upon a board. Take a leaf, a maple leaf, aud
draw it on the board, or outline it in pencil before the class
meets, marking it over with chalk. In that waj^you may im-
press and illustrate some truth. For instance: " The grass
withereth, the flower fadeth, but the word of God shall stand
forever."
I might speak of many other little things, but the time fails
me. Any one with heart in their work, will readily devise
ways and means. But above all, dear friends, we must have
a willing spirit. There is'nt very much accomplished without
work in this world, work that takes time. We must go into
a thing with all our heart if we expect to make very much out
of it. Work out a plan of your own ; let it be your own; get
what aid you can from lesson helpers, but let the central idea
after all be your own. These helps for the Primary Class, and
its teachers, are well known to you all. It would be perhaps
wrong for me to mention any where all are so good. Here is
.the "Little Folks' Quarterly," by Mrs. Crafts, which most of
you are familiar with. And here is the " Primary Quarterly,"
by Mr. W. B. Jacobs — an excellent little book for the chil-
dren themselves, which I commend to every primary class
teacher here. Then there are other quarterly and monthly
papers. By sending to the publishers, you can get a large
assortment from which to select the best. Yet you had bet-
ter tr}' to get along without the best helps in the world, than
without your Bible, blessed book, suitable alike to young and
old.
[Miss Rider was obliged to close abrupth', in order to give
time for answering the many questions that had been handed
her, on topics connected with Primary Class work.]
140 iLLrxois State Sunday School, Coxventiox.
During the progress of the meeting in the College Park,
and in the First Congregational Church, tlie First Baptist
Church was tilled with children, who were addressed by Mr.
J. R. Mason, of Bloomington, and the Rev. Mr. Tliaver.
THIRD DAY- Evening Session.
The closing session was held in the First Church, and every
available place was occupied at an early hour.
A service of song was conducted by Mr. A. J. Nowlen, of
Irving Park.
The Rev. Dr. Post, of Peoria, and Dr. Schofield, of Lon-
don, England, led in prayer.
At the same hour the Presbyterian Church was filled, and
addresses were delivered by B. F. Jacobs, George C. Need-
ham and Major Whittle.
At the First Church the Chairman announced that Mr.
Moody had been called away, and they would, therefore,
have short addresses from a number of speakers.
He suggested as a topic for the meeting three questions :
" Why did you attend this Convention? What have^'you
received while here ? And what will you do ?
CLOSING ADDRESSES.
PRESIDENT REYNOLDS.
We have now arrived at the close of this Convention. We
had expected that Mr. Moody would close it b}' a sermon or
an address, but he received intelligence yesterday ot sickness
in his tamily which required him to leave immediately after
the meeting this afternoon, so he is not with us to-night. We
will therefore have short addresses. We feel like throwing
this meeting open to-night largely for those of you who have
not spoken here, to have an opportunity of expressing your-
selves. Now that we may have a good many short addresses,
we will have to limit them. I have no fear but what the time
will be taken up. Now brothers and sisters what did you
come here for? What have you received and what are you
Illinois State Sunday school, Coxvextiox. 141
going to do? That is the question. What did you come for?
What have you received? Let that be our text to-night.
Let us speak from our hearts. Now, after singing another
hj'mn we Avill listen to a few remarks from Brother Mason,
of McLean County, after which the meeting will be in your
hands, and you may dispose of the time as you see fit.
MR. MASON.
Our beloved President has just asked me to speak a few
words to you. I don't know why. I am not a public speaker;
I am just merely a Sunday-school boy, that is all. I am glad,
however, to bear witness for the Lord at all places and at all
times. When I first came to this Convention and went out
with a nominating committee, my brother Reynolds, our
president, thought I was very persistent when he saw that I
bound to have him for president, and he declined, but his
name came in and he was elected, and we have had a good
Convention. We have all been blessed. I find in this blessed
Bible a great deal to comfort me. As I have listened to all
that has been said in this Convention, I feel a good deal as
Paul did when he wrote to the Corinthians, 9th chapter, 24th
verse. "Know ye not that they which run in a race, run all,
but one receiveth the prize. So run that ye may obtain."
When we go to history and look to see how they prepared
themselves for the races in those days, and that only one out
of all those that ran received the prize, we can see what an
honor it was to the one that won the prize, and we are not
surprised at the preparation they made by stripping them-
selves of ever^'thing that would hinder them. I feel to-night,
my brethren, like stripping myself of self, of pride, of ambi-
tion— of everything except the ambition to aid the advance-
ment of the kingdom of our Lord. I feel like stripping
mj^self of everything, and going down to my field of labor,
determined to work only for the Lord Jesus.
We read in the scripture the words of the Master, where he
says: "Many shall be called but few chosen." And as we
look through our work we have seen that comparatively few
have come to Christ. I heard a minister, not long ago, in
speaking of the Kingdom of Christ. He compared it to an
apple tree: He said it was in full bloom in the spring of the
year — is just as full of blossoms as it could be, and then as
you proceed along a little while you will find that many of
the blossoms have fallen to the ground. Then you come
again after a while and you find that the tree is full of little
apples. It seems that there is such a great quantity of them
142 iLLixois State Sunday School, Coxvextiox.
tliat tlie tree will not be able to bear them. And then you
come again in a little while, and under that tree you will tind
the ground literally covered with these little apples, and it
seems as though they had all fallen oft', were lost and wasted,
but you go there again in the fall and you will tind the tree
loaded with luscious fruit, the tree loaded down so that the
limbs almost break.
Let us live and labor earnestly in this cause. As we go
down to our homes, let us remember the children of the State
of Illinois. I have in my Sunday-schools some nine hundred
children, but during this last year, only a tew have been
brought to Christ. So it is all over the State of Illinois. My
dear friends let us go homo to work for those dear children.
Let us labor earnestly for their soul's salvation ; that is the
object of all these meetings; that is what we come up here
for; that is what we gather in all these Conventions for — is to
prepare ourselves to do valiant service for the Lord Jesus.
He himself says: ''Let little children come unto me-" Let
us go home, dear friends, determined anew, annointed anew,
that we may do valient service for the Lord Jesus.
THE PRESIDENT.
I see Brother Griffith here from Rushville, one of our
staunch Sunday-school laborers.
MR. GRIFFITH.
Twenty-one years I I was thinking of the difterence in the
organization of this Convention of twenty-one years ago, and
now the men who were then the active men moving in this
work, are not here to-day. Some of them are gone to heaven.
Some of them are gone far oft". When I lirst commenced this
work in these Conventions, the President then, has gone to
his reward. Many of the active men tlien are not here, and
I have just thought how men change ; but the word of the
Lord abides forever, and the cause of God goes forward con-
tinually. When we met here nine years ago — you remember
it has been spoken of — that Brother Peeples was here as our
President. There are two others that have not been men-
tioned, and I have thought of them every day since I have
been in this beautiful city. The first time that I heard, or
that any of you here heard that beautiful hymn: "I am so
glad that our Father in Heaven telLs of his love in the book
he has given" — was in the opera house yonder, as it was
sung by that man of God, that sweet singer, with his sweet
voice, who went to heaven in a chariot of fire on a railroad
IiiLiisrois State Sunday School, Coxventiox. 143
coming through Ohio. And let us not forget them to-night.
But let us thank God that while they have gone, God has
raised up here in Illinois, other sweet singers who took up the
melody and the refrain where they left it oif.
Brethren, we have reason to rejoice that the word of God
goes on, that the cause of God goes forward. And one thing
that rejoices me to-day, as I feel that the years are creeping
on me, and as I see gray hairs coming among the locks of oth-
ers, is that the young men are stepping forward here and
taking up this work. Now I would like on this Twenty-first
Birthday, if we could raise that stone that Samuel set up,
Ebenezer. You remember that after he had gained that £Teat
victory over the Phillistines, he just raised a stone and called
it Ebenezer — hitherto hath the Lord helped us. And then I
find that as he rejoiced he was like Paul, forgetting the things
that were behind, and reaching forward to those that were be-
fore; he just went out, and, as it says in the record, he went
in a circuit and judged Israel all the days of his life. Now
brethren, as we go down from this mountain, having raised
our Ebenezer, I propose that we go through our townships
and we see that Illinois is taken for our Lord Jesus Christ,
and that we go forward all the days of our life.
THE PRESIDENT.
I am glad that Brother Griffiths put us in memory of P. P.
Bliss, and the fact that the first Illinois State Convention he
ever attended was in this city nine years ago. Brother Peeples,
who has gone to his reward, was the President of that
Convention, and Mr, Bliss was our chorister. I remember
now the first hymn that he sang at that Convention was here
in the Opera House. The first meeting that was ever held in
that house was the Convention. They had to make great
haste in order to have it finished, so that we could be accom-
modated there. I remember the very first hymn that he sang
in that building, the first notes of melody that ever went up,
that ever were heard in that hall was ; '' I am so glad that
my Father in Heaven " — and now suppose that we sing it.
DEACON ALBRO.
I am glad, my friends, for the privilege of meeting you in
this closing service to-night. Nine years ago it was my priv-
ilege to be in this city at the Sunday-school Convention, and
I have not been able to attend one since. The Convention at
that time gave me the privilege of forming an acquaintance
with Brother Peeples. He was the President, and I was
144 Illinois State Sunday School, Convention.
chosen to an office witli liini ; that introduced me, and I re-
member very well the words he said to me as we parted. I
told him I thanked God that I had been introduced and
formed an acquaintance with him, and he said : " Brother
Albro ! Oh ! tliat God might consecrate us for Sabbath-school
work." I never saw him again to speak to him after that
Convention.
But our Brother asked the question to-night: what did you
come here for? I came to get comfort. I have been mourn-
ing for the past two or three months; my heart has been sad
and sorrowful. Death came to our home; my son's wife, a
very lovely Christian woman, died, as it were, in a moment.
With scarcely any notice a great stroke came. I have been
studying the Bible, and trying to find out where comfort will
come. And I said: "I will leave my business; I will leave
everything and go to the State Convention." I am glad I did,
for tlie words that have been spoken here have lifted ray heart,
and I have been enabled to say : " God is the resurection and
the life ; he has power, and in him is ever3-thing that we
need." " Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be com-
forted." I thank God that I have been here, and for all the
sweet words that have been spoken.
And now what are you going to do, is one of the questions
that have been asked? I want to press forward for the mark
of the prize of the high calling in Christ Jesus. I want the
Holy Spirit to be with me in my Sabbath-school work all the
time. This precious Bible shall be the light of my pathway,
and I shall take it and bind it closely to my heart. I want
its sweet passages to till my soul with the words that Jesus
has spoken, and then with the spirit and the light in Christ
Jesus, I know that the future will be glorious.
I have been astonished since I came to this city this time to
see the growth of the trees. How strong and stalwart they
have become compared with what they were nine years ago.
So I want, beloved brethren of the Convention, that we shall
all be trees of the planting of the Lord, watered with the
dews of Heaven, under the iiower and culture of the Hol}^
Spirit, and we shall grow up, and we shall be like the cherry
tree, and the pine tree, and the box tree, to beautify the sanc-
tuary of God. Then we shall go out with joy and be filled
with peace, and the mountains and the hills will break forth
before us into singing, and the trees of the field shall clap
their hands.
I don't want to forget prayer. I want to give you a little
incident illustrating the power of prayer. Some years ago —
I presume brother Farwell will remember it — there was a
iLLixois State Suxday School Convention. 145
little girl very poor, in a portion of our city, whose father and
mother were ver}^ poor, and could not buy anything for the
holidays when they came around, couldn't get anything for
Christmas as they had been accustomed to, and the little girl
said to her mother: " I must have something for Christmas,
and I am going to write a letter to Santa Claus." So she
printed a letter to Santa Claus: "We are very poor. My
father wants a new coat; my mother wants a dress; littJe
Jake wants some shoes and a hat," and so on, and sent it to
the post office. A clerk discovered it and took it to the post-
master, who opened it in the presence of three or four others,
and saw what it Avas and read it. Well, it touched the hearts
of the men in a moment, and one of them took out twenty
dollars from his pocket, and said to the postmaster: " Wont
you please go around to that house and see what the necessi-
ties are." And he took a carriage and drove over there and
found that the little girl hadn't begun to tell the real want
and suffering that was there. And the result was that the
petition to Santa Claus brought out everything that they
needed — exceeding abundantly above all that was asked, for
it provided means for the whole of them. Well, don't you
believe that if men can be moved in that way, that we can
move Heaven through Jesus Christ ? I tell you that if we
write these letters, offer up these petitions, the blessings of
God will shower upon us. God give us this faith, through
Jesus Christ, our Lord.
THE PRESIDENT.
1 remember some years ago of traveling in a portion of this
State and stopping at a little countr}^ hotel in the southern
end of the State. After supper I picked up a little pamphlet,
not a very little one either. I opened it, and on looking at
the title, my eye fell on this passage : " Unless we educate
the heart as well as the intellect, we fail in our purpose." I
thought that was a grand doctrine. I turned over and looked
at it, and found it was the annual report of the superintend-
ent of pubhc instruction of the State of Illinois. That gen-
tleman is at the head of an educational institution in this city.
Galesburg should be proud of the institution, and proud of
such a president. I see the gentleman in the audience, and if
Dr. iSTewton Bateman will come forward here and give us a
few words, I am sure they will be very gratefully received.
DR. NEWTON BATEMAN.
I shall detain you, my friends, but a moment. I have been
very unexpectedly called upon, and prefer greatly to hear
10
146 iLLrixois State Sunday School, Coxvextion.
from brethren from abroad, and the single word tliai I shall
have to say, ray friends, will be in the line of the remark of
my Brother Reynolds, asking me to say a word. It is this :
Speaking as one whose whole life, almost, has been spent;
whose whole mature life has been spent, in one way or anoth-
er, in the educational work. I would say this, as the pro-
foundest conviction of my mind, as the deep and ever deepen-
ing feeling of my soul, that the grand object of education is
not to teach science alone, or philosopy alone, or language
alone, or the sciences, or all combined, but it is to form char-
acter. Christian character, and if I did not feel that j'onder in-
stitution recognizes that as its great object, I should not care
to continue my connection with it another day. " Christ and
the church" is the motto of Knox College. And I thank God
that the purposes of the good men, who in faith and prayer,
and with many tears, and with great earnestness, and with
consecration, laid the foundation of that school years ago,
many of whom have gone to their lest, but some of whom
still linger with us. I thank God, beloved friends, that the
holy purposes of those holy men are, as I believe, being car-
ried out. I thank God for the Christian influences that there
abound, for the unwontedly large number of Christian stu-
dents, preparing for usefulness, in that institution. I thank
God for this great Convention ; the sessions of which are to-
night drawing to a close. I thank God for this Convention
on many account*. It is but natural that I should feel the
deepest interest in it with respect to the young people, the
great number of young people there gathered. And it was
with pleasure, this morning, at the request of a large number
of students, of that institution, we dismissed all the exercises
in order to aftbrd our students an opportunity of attending
these meetings. I repeat, the man whose intellect alone is
educated, is but half educated. He is not half educated. The
heart is the fountain of character, and not the intellect. I
think it is with infinite peril that we educate the intellect
alone; peril to him who is so educated, or uneducated ; peril
to the church ; peril to the country ; peril to the dearest in-
terests of mankind. We believe and teach in that school, dear
bretheren, the truth as it is in Jesus Christ. We believe in
evolution, to use a phrase that is in everybody's mouth in
these times, — but it is the evolution of a grand Christian char-
acter, from the germ of love to Christ implanted in the heart
by the spirit and grace of God. But I must not, and will not,
occupy your time. I only want to express the profound feel-
ing I have of the blessing to this city of having your gather-
ing here this wee^c. I have but one regret personally, and
iLLixois State Sunday School, Convention. 147
that is that instead of being able to attend but a part of the
meetings, I could not attend them all. God bless you, be-
loved bretheren, workers in the cause so dear to all our hearts.
Just suffer another thought that comes into my mind be-
fore I sit down. There are some things in respect to w^hich
the great army of Christ look at truth in somewhat different
forms, but when it comes to the essential things that pertain
to valuation and eternal life, all the believers in Jesus around
the world see, eye to eye, heart beating to heart ; marching
shoulder to shoulder in the conquest of the world. Often we
feel discouraged. Often it seems as if the time were far dis-
tant, yet when Jesus should see of the travail of his soul, and
be satisfied ; but dear bretheren, think of that phrase : " Jesus
shall see of the travail of his soul and shall be satisfied." So
saith the spirit, and we have no right to be discouraged. I
believe that in the not distant future, there will be all over
this land, and all lands, a revolution in public sentiment that
will stagger the faith of even those whose faith in the speedy
coming of the Kingdom of Christ is the strongest. T^et us
listen to the words of the Master as he tells us : " Be not
afraid, only believe."
I thank you for the privilege of uttering this very vague
and unsatisfactory word, and would that I could have said
something that would have been more appropriate.
THE PRESIDENT.
There have been a number of requests sent me to call upon
certain individuals. I now throw the meeting open for any
to take part who desire. I have no doubt there are a number
liere who are desirous and would be glad to say a few words
before this meeting closes.
A DELEGATE.
When I look over the State and see what has been done, I
am led to say what wonderful things God hath wrought.
You ask what we come here for. What have we received,
and what are we going to do ? As far as I am concerned ; I
came here to get my soul tired with the love of Jesus, and I
have had my measure filled to overflowing. That is what I
came here for, and to listen to these words of truth, life, and
salvation. My heart has been filled full. My measure has
been running over, and I propose to go home, God helping
me, to lay myself more fully on the alter of God and work,
what few days I have for the benefit of those that are young,
and coming up to take our places, which they will soon till in
148 Illinois State Sunday School, Convention.
a few years, or a few days, it may be. God bless this Conven-
tion and the people of this town ; and that we may go home
to empty ourselves of self, and be filled with the Lord, Jesus
Christ, and humble ourselves at the foot of the cross.
ANOTHER DELEGATE.
I want to say, Mr. President, that I have attended a num-
ber of State Conventions that have been profitable to me as
an individual, as a worker for the Lord, and I want to say,
that of all the conventions of the kind that I have ever at-
tended, I have never had one so profitable to my soul as this
has been. I Avant to say that I realize to-day, as I have never
before, the power of God, the beauty of his word, and the effi-
ciency of his Spirit. I bless God for Moody's advice, and his
preaching, and for what I liave seen and realized in this city
among the people and the delegates to this Convention. I
have come here, as my brother says: " To have my soul fired
and consecrated." I believe God has done that. I go down
to my field of labor more determined to appreciate the power
of his word ; more resolved to depend wholly upon his Spirit,
than I have ever before ; and I pra}' god that I may go down
to my work and see the grand effects of the Gospel ; the grand
power of his word in the salvation of souls,
ANOTHER DELEGATE.
Dear friends, one week from to-day the eyes of this Nation
will be turned to Springfield. The great political party of this
State will meet there in convention, then perhaps to settle the
destiny of this country for years; and all the eyes of the Na-
tion will be turned toward that city. And next fall we are
going to have another convention in that city. I have not
rsien to make a speech, but to make a request. "We are
dead, over there. This is the first convention that I have at-
tended for four years. I have been dead myself, and I laid
off one day from my work to come to this Convention ; but I
couldn't satisfy myself with one day. I had to stay until its
close. I am going to work harder and make up for lost time.
I feel that God has blessed me, and I have made this resolve,
that from this time until we meet in our District Convention,
I shall labor with the Sabbath-school Convention in Spring-
field to work them up, and stir them up, so that there may go
out an infiuence from that city that shall bless the entire dis-
trict. We ask you to aid us by your prayers and sympathy-,
that from Springfield, which is the great political centre of
this State, there may go out a Christian infiuence which shall
lift these cursed politics of our land up from the depths into
iLIilNOIS STATE SUNDAY SCHOOL CONVENTION. 149
which they have fallen, which shall carry on this blessed tem-
jDerance work in our Sabbath-school. I want to say right
here, I have not heard much about that — about this temper-
ance work in our schools. I tell you, my dear friends, if our
children are saved, if they are saved from this curse which is
sweeping through our land, we have got to save them in the
Sabbath-school, if we save them at all. In a few years they
will slip away from us, and will be beyond our reach. But
we can reach them here; let us instill into their young hearts
true Christian principles of temperance, and then our State,
our JSTation, and our country will be saved,
ANOTHER DELEGATE.
Mr. Chairman, I also have a request to make of you brethereu.
I do not discover that there is any delegate from farther south
in the State than my mother and myself We are from next
to the lower tier of counties — Union County, just north of the
county in which Cairo is. It is Egypt — lower Egypt at that.
This Convention, and some of these dear bretheren, a few
years ago, took Egypt into their hearts, and they laid them-
selves out for it. They went down into that country when
there was no railroad to bear them. Brother Reynolds went
right through there and labored among the people, but I tell you
Egypt is dark yet, and I want you to remember them, and pray
for them. Remember there is a region there yet on which the
shadow of death rests, where the deepest darkness yet rests.
People have gone there from the north ; the}' have gone there
from Illinois, from Arkansas. People of New England ancestry,
with just such privileges as you have in Galesburg, but they
do not all bear light with them. Some of them have been
church members, but they forget their church privileges. One
of ni}' neighbors has forty acres of strawberries, and as we go
to our Sunday-school and our church, there is a line of wagons
a quarter of a mile long in two directions waiting to carry
their berries to the train. We send as many as seventeen car
loads of berries from there. The Sabbath is all trampled un-
der foot, perfectly obliterated. They say it is necessary to
pick berries on Sunday, because they are perishable. It only
takes two weeks, the}' say; they only have to work two Sun-
days ; then come the raspberries, two Sundays more ; then
come the early peaches — they are perishable. The eftect is
that every Sabbath through the year now, during fruit season,
the wagons roll into the depot to discharge their freight for
Chicago — every Sabbath. Well, since the old people take
Sunday to make money on, the young people think they can
take it for pleasure. They come there to Cobden, the place
150 Illinois State Sunday School. Convention,
where we live, to spend the Sabbath in pleasure. That is the
largest place — it is the key to tliat region. As they come from
the Ohio and the Mississippi, and pour into our streets, don't
you see that if we would make right impressions upon them,
they would bear them back to their homes in that dark re-
gion Christian influences. Don't you see what a chance we
have? And we ask that you will not forget us down in
Eg3'pt. Lift your hearts to God in prayer for the heathen
there ; for there are heathen there as certainly as there are in
China.
MR. JOUX V. FARWELL.
I feel as though I would be doing violence to my own feel-
ings if I did not acknowledge, before I left the city, the bene-
fit I have received from coming to this Convention. I have
been much more interested in conventions of Young Men's
Christian Associations than in Sabbath-school Conventions, as
I have only attended one or two conventions before this, from
the commencement of their organization up to the present
time. My remembrance of the first convention that I attend-
ed is in very great contrast with the one I see before me in
Galesburg. We had about twelve to fifteen delegates in
Bloomington to the Sunday-school State Convention of the
State of Illinois, twenty years ago. Now three of the largest
churches in Galesb»rg hardly suffice to hold the people that
come up to attend the Convention. I tell you it opens up be-
fore us the possibilities of Christian work, in such a manner,
that there is not a heart nor a soul in this house, but what
ought to be encouraged a hundred fold more than they ever
have been before, to go forward in this work. Our attention
has been brought to the connection between this work and
the Government of this great countr}'. The Sabbath-school
work beginning with the young and tender vine, instilling
into it the Gospel of the Son of God, has much to do with the
future history of this Government. So you and I have a great
work to do. Each one of us here in this audience to-night
has something to do to support the Government of this coun-
try, that one day, within the lives of some of these little chil-
dren here to-night, will have over two hundred millions of
people. There are some in this audience to-night who will
live to see the time when there will be two hundred millions
of people. Now, what have we to do with these on-coming
millions? Why, let us begin right at home, and let us coir-
vey the Gospel of the Son of God to every child's heart that
we possibly can reach, and let us do it in the fear of God, with
the hope that we shall be instrumental in his hands of build-
iLiiiNOis State Sunday School Convention. 151
ing np an influence that shall convey this Government beyond
the cavils of the politicians, and set it up upon a pinnacle
where the nations of the earth shall look upon it. And when
it will be — as it has been called — the asylum for the oppressed
of all nations. There is nothing that fires a man's heart so
much as to get it filled with the word of God. There is noth-
ing that gives us so much power to work for those that are
about us, and those that are dej^endent upon us, as to have
the soul filled with the Spirit of God, that we get in the study
of the word. And as Sunday-school teachers, we have the
very highest motive that can be possibly placed before any
one to labor in this work.
I remember in the beginning of Mr. Moody's work in Chi-
cago, that there were ver}- many wise men there, and some of
them are among the men in the city of Chicago that told him
in reference to this Sabbath-school work, that he could serve
God a good deal better by keeping still and keeping his mouth
shut, than he could by opening it ; that it was his place to
stay in his own little church and let this outside mission work
alone. Well, he has a singular habit — I wish we all had it
more — of asking God. And he asked God about it as well as
his minister, and as well as the deacons of the church to which
he belonged. And the answer from the Throne of God was
to go down among the saloons of Chicago and gather up these
neglected children and teach them the word of God. And he
found those among his friends in the city of Chicago who be-
lieved just as he did, and the school was started. Brother
Mood3-'s work began against the advice of some of the best
friends of the church of Christ in Chicago. Well, now, what
has God wrought? I just want to call your attention, as I
said in the beginning, to the possibilities of individual Christ-
ian effort. So let us, each one, go home from this Convention,
remembering that the conventions of Illinois began in the
brain of Brother Moody and Brother Jacobs, and perhaps two
or three others, and they have persistently kept up that work
from that time until this, and they have put forth every effort
that could possibly be brought to the front into the line of
Christian work, and they have multiplied these influences all
over this State, until we see what is before us here in Gales-
burg during this week of this Convention.
I thank God for every description of union eftbrt, Sunday-
schools and Young Men's Christian Associations, Bible Socie-
ties, Tract Societies, and every other organization that unites
the body of Christ into one grand army, with one commander
sending us each forth to do our duty, not for one little branch
of the army ; one little division ; one little company ; but for
152 iLLixois State Sunday School, Coxvextiox.
the whole grand army doing the work of Christ in this great
State of Illinois. And so let us remember, as we go out from
this place, that each one of us is responsible for the character
of the two hundred millions that within a hundred years will
be the citizens of this great country of ours ; each one of us is
responsible for the character of each of each one of those two
hundred millions, so far as our little iuliuence can be exerted;
so let us be tilled with ambition — that ambition that shall lift
us above sectarianism and everything that will hinder the
work of Christ in any department of labor in which we may
be engaged as (christians, and God will honor us in the work,
and God will bless us, and the day will come when our chil-
dren's children will thank God that the laborers in the Sun-
day-schools of the State of Illinois started these conventions
and kept them up, and encouraged the workers until this
whole State was filled with love for Christ, and love for his
cause. God help us as we go home from this Convention to
redouble our efforts, and make the horoscope of the future a
hundred fold brighter than I can possibly paint before you
here in my weak way.
THE PRESIDENT.
TVe have with us, this evening, a brother who is on his way
from the United States to China as a missionary. He is stop-
ping here with us to participate in and enjoy this Convention.
I feel it would do us good to hear a few words from him.
MR. SCOFIELD, M. D.
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, it has been with great
pleasure, and I trust profit, that I have attended this Conven-
tion. I have been very much struck, in attending these meet-
ings, to see how minor points have been left, as it were, on
one side, and our thoughts have been concentrated on the
grand central subjects which form the very kernel of all
Christian work. I mean on such subjects as Christ, his pow-
ers and work, — the word of God — how we can study it — how
we ought to study it — how precious it ought to become with
the Holy Spirit of God as the power and energizing iufiuence
for all Christian work.
You have heard that I am on my way to China. That is a
dark land. This is comparatively a laud of light. I suppose
in the State of Illinois, there are about three million and a
half of inhabitants. While the provinces of China are some-
thing like the State of Illinois in size, yet instead of three and
a half millions, they have twenty or thirty millions of inhabit-
ants. Some of the provinces of China are as populous almost
Illinois State Sunday School Convention. 153
as the whole of the United States. And the missionaries in
that country are in proportion to tlie inhabitants, about one,
to one or two millions. There are some provinces in China
larger by far than the State of Illinois in the west and south-
west of China where no protestant missionary at present re-
sides. There are provinces with twenty or thirty millions of
people where there is no one to tell them of that name which
is above every name — the name of Jesus. Dear brothers and
sisters in Christ, you know very well that the field is vast.
You may say there are many missionaries there already. But
what are they among so many? We may well ask the ques-
tion as the disciples asked of the Lord Jesus Christ when they
said : " There is a lad here that has five barley loaves and
two small fishes; but what are they among so many?" But
with them, the Lord Jesus w^as able to feed the hungry mul-
titude. He can employ these servants of his to carry his Gos-
pel throughout the length and breadth of the land, and I ask
your prayers, that he may enable me to preach that Gospel to
those who have never heard it; to those who have never
heard of Christ. I feel that it is one thing to speak to those
w"ho have often heard of the Gospel, who have received it and
are living it, but that it is another thing to speak to those who
have never heard the name of Jesus. Therefore, I ask your
prayers, that God may fill me with his Spirit ; that he may
enable me to speak to those Chinese ; that he may enable me
to carry his Gospel to that country. Dear bretheren, I there-
fore ask your prayers. I shall always look back w^ith the
greatest pleasure — I shall never in my life forget — through all
eternity, I think, I shall remember this Convention here in
Galesburg.
B. F. JACOBS.
Dear bretheren, I have some little feeling, like the man who
said, when he came up to the House of God, at an appointed
time and found that the sermon was over. "Well," said he,
^'it is all done, is it?" "No, no, man," said an old Scotch
woman, " it is all said, but the doing of it is for you." So
dear friends, we have had enough in the past few days to fill
us full. The question remains: what shall we do? What
shall we do for God? What shall we do for those who are
about us ? What shall we do for ourselves ? K I had time
to-night, and strength, I would repeat to you some words that
I tried to speak at the meeting in the other church. The four
words may be well taken as a motto for every Sunday-school
worker in the State of Illinois. The first word is Conviction.
Unless we have a deep, earnest conviction, we shall do very
154 Illinois State Sunday School. Convention.
little work. Enthusiasm will die out, unless underneath there
is an earnest purpose born of conviction. And if the convic-
tion of God has reached our souls, and if the conviction of
duty abides in our hearts, we shall find the work to our hands,
and we shall find the strength to do it. The second word is
Consecration. We have had that subject brought before us this
morning, and during this day, and I think, throughout the
Convention. How much there is implied in that word, conse-
cration. What does it mean for you and for me ? How much
is implied in it? I remember to have found on the first day
of January, in a book, words like these : " Who, among you,
is willing to consecrate himself this day unto the Lord?"
Dear friends, the words are easy enough to speak, but how
about the emptying out process that will bring such a result?
We mean by this word consecration, that thorough subjection
to God that will lead us to be anything, as well as nothing, in
his service. I take great satisfaction in meditating upon the
words of the Lord, where he speaks of the Apostle as being a
chosen vessel unto him. "-To bear my name among the Gen-
tiles." Brother can you be such a vessel, to bear his name?
Let us take this figure of a ship before us for a moment and
imagine that the ship is loaded for Clirist, and for perishing
man. That from bow to stern, ever}' portion of it is loaded
with the precious cargo, and that every wind, and every storm,
and every wave, and every ray of light is speeding it on the
way to do work for Christ. There is many a man that will
thank God after the storm, that he can even come into the
heavenly port as ships come into our harbor after a gale, with
the rigging and the masts carried away, blessing Go^ that he
he arrived there. " Some on boards, some on broken pieces oi
the ship," but if we only all get " safe to land." Sometimes
it is dififtcult to tell what kind of cargo a ship carries when
the hatches are battened down. But you know when they
come into port, and the hatches are opened; especially if they
are spice ships from the land of the East, it is easy to tell the
cargo by the perfumes and the aroma. When Brother Moody
was speaking of that woman pouring out her love with the
ointment from the alabaster box, and when the pouring of the
ointment was all too slow for the heat of her love, she broke
the box that she might empty the whole of it — all at once,
upon the feet of Christ, and upon his head ; I thought how
true it is as he impressed it upon us, that we need to be thus
broken that we may be emptied, and we need to be emptied
that we may be filled. And if we take the other figure of the
vessel and turn to that verse in Timothy where the Lord says :
'■' There are some vessels appointed to honor." He adds.
Illinois State Sunday School, Convextiox. 155
" that if we do the things that are therein prescribed, we shall
be vessels of honor." I believe that as it was in the days of
Gideon, so often it is now, that when the vessel is broken the
light shines out clearest and brightest and most beneficently.
The third in the list is Courage — conviction, consecration,
and courage. We need in our Sunday-school work, I think,
as much courage as a warrior, as much courage as business
men in planning their Work, and as much courage as men in
any service in life. It takes a great deal of courage to face
the boys and girls we have to meet in our school. It takes a
great deal of courage to carry a teacher through the discour-
aging circumstances that surround him; to teach a class of in-
attentive and listless children. We need that deep conviction
aud thorough consecration that will lead us continuall}" to re-
alize that Jesus Christ himself is with us, and that we are
there for him. I believe that we need to carry this to our
classes. The conviction that the Master is with us, that he
who redeemed us by his blood has called us by name, and
opened to us this specific work, at this specified time. How
would it afi[ect our teaching — how would it affect our talking —
with what wondrous .strength would we sit down before the
class that we felt that we were not able to manage. How it
would lead us to enquire into all the particulars of His will, and
into a particular knowledge of our classes.
We are sometimes discouraged by circumstances. I wish
to tell a little incident that opened my e^'es a few weeks ago
in my own school. I had two little children, a boy and girl,
who sat on the seat right in front of my desk. They were the
dirtiest children that ever came into my school, and when I
looked at them I saw that they were not only dirty in person,
but in other ways. I spoke to the little girl, and she turned
around to me and said: "I won't." I said: "Won't you
sit down there ? " " ISTo, I won't." I said : " Don't you mind
at home?" "No, I don't." "Well," said I: "Don't you
like to come here? " "No." I said: "I would like very
much to have you help me keep that little brother still." She
reached out one hand and gave him a box on the ear, and the
little fellow turned round, sp'uck back, and proposed to settle
it right on the spot. I looked at them again and said : " What
shall I do with these children? How shall I ever get along
with them?" One day I sat in my office, and a man came in
and was introduced, and I looked at him a few moments and
began to speak to him. I said ; " You have been up to the
mission?" Said he; "Yes." I said: "Are you a Christ-
ian?" "No." I said: " Why do you not accept Christ?"
Then he mentioned his reasons. He did not believe in the
156 iLLrN'Ois State Sunday School, Coxventiox.
Bible. I asked liim a few more questions. He said : " I
can't be a Christian." "Why not?" Said he: "There is
no man in the world that has a home like mine ; my wife is a
prostitute." I said : " God pity you ! God bless you, and
bless her!" "What?" said he.' I said: "God bless you,
and bless her I " " Have you any children ? " " Yes," said he:
" I have two ; I have not seen them in a long time. I have a
little boy and a little girl." Then he looked me in the eye,
and said : " They are in your Sunday-school." I said :
"God help me. Who are they?" And he told me their
names. And I went to my secretary and said; "Show me
what class they are in." And he turned and said : " They
are in lirother class." I asked him to show me the
little girl and boy. He said : " There they are ! " And there
were the two children who had troubled me. Well, do you
wonder, dear friends, why she spoke as she did ? I looked at
them for a moment, and I remembered a story of Mr. Gough's
that I heard when I was a boy. Some persons were traveling
one night in a sleeping car. It was fall. There was a child
crying that kept them awake, and one great man got nervous
and lidgety, and put his head out between the curtains and
said: "Where is the mother of that child?" And a voice
came back in reply : " In her coffiin in the baggage car."
And there was a heavy sound as a pair of great feet encased
in stockings struck the floor as he sprang from that berth, and
a pair of great arms went out, and he said : " My God ! give
me that baby, will you ? " And he took it up in his arms and
walked the floor, and hushed it down to rest. And I suppose
he said in. his heart: "God pity this child; I wish I could
comfort it."
And I looked at those children and said : " Lord Jesus, give
me those children ; let me take that boy and that little girl,
whose father is intemperate and a skeptic, and whose mother
is a prostitute. Lord let me hush them down and speak to
them of Thee, until the waves of passion go down ; let me
carry them through the night, and in the morning of the res-
urrection let me see them with Thee, Lord Jesus." And then
I said to myself: " Xow, you, §is a Sunday-school superin-
tendent, if you had the consecration, and the conviction, and
the courage you ought to have, you would have looked upon
them as Jesus looked upon them, and you would have carried
them without waiting to know all these things. Oh, you idler
in the Master's vineyard 1 "
Bretheren we need courage. We need holy courage. Oh,
for a little of the courage of Joshua! God walked with him.
The Lord came down and stood by Joshua one night, and that
Illinois State Sunday School Convention. 157
inio:hty general fell down on his face before him, and he said:
"What saveth my Lord unto his servant?" And Jesus told
him that it was His battle ; that the plan of the campaign had
all been marked out by the celestial engineers, and the batter-
ies were manned in Heaven that were to be brought against
the walls of Jericho. And then Jesus took him by the arm
and they walked around the walls time after time, and I can
imagine the other looking to see if there was any crack in the
walls, or if any breach had been made in them at any point.
Then, on the last day; on the seventh day; they marched
around, and sent up one mighty shout, and the walls came
tumbling down, and every man marched into the city. And
friends we need a little of that courage to do work for God ;
remembering that we may have the living presence of Him
who said : " I will be with you, all the days." I can imagine
many of you saying : " Pray for me ; I am here in this corner
of the county, and we don't know ot any one to aid us ; won't
you come down and help?" And I can see some of these
workers going from place to place, looking over the multitude
that care for none of these things, and wearied many times,
and I say from my heart : " Oh, God of Joshua, give them
the courage that they need to go on with this work ; remem-
bering that it is unto the Lord and not unto men." I think
of that hour when Jesus Christ will bring the workers that
have been faithful before him, and when he will bless them
with such blessings as they have never thought of here.
And then the last word is this, Contentrnerd. Conviction,
consecration, courage, contentment. This is a sweet word,
brother — contentment. If Christ has put you in your place
and given you your work, there is no spot in all the world be-
side, like that appointed by Jesus, where He Himself will come
to bless you. We shall learn this lesson by and by ; we shall
understand it after a while; that where Christ has put us, is
the place for every child of God. Let us be contented. Let
us be satisfied. You remember Mr. Moorhouse's story? When
he was a young Christian, he went to see an old believer who
was lying sick and going to die, and Moorhouse said to him :
•'Shall I read you the sweetest verse in the Bible?" And he
said : " Oh ! yes, read it to me." He turned over to the 14th
chapter of John, and read in the 2d verse: "In my Father's
house are many mansions : if it were not so, I would have told
you. I go to prepare a place for you." And the old man
looked up at him and said: "That is very sweet, but it is
not the sweetest verse in the Bible; just read the next verse."
And he read on : " And if I go and prepare a place for you,
I WILL COME AGAIN, and reccive you unto myself; that where I
158 ILI-.IXOIS State Sunday School Convextiox.
am, there ye may be also." " That is it, my boy," said he ;
" it is Himself thsitl^y ant." Brother it is Himself that we want.
It is Christ. It was the opening word of this Convention:
"Consider Him!" and let our Convention close with our eyes
fixed upon Ilim. Looking unto Jesus ; looking oft" from our
sins and discouragements; looking away from ourselves, our
failures, and our follies; let our eyes be fixed upon Ilim, un-
til we shall be transfigured; because He says: "We shall be
like Him, for we shall see Him as He is."
Lord God, Almighty ! bless the dear pastors in Galesburg ;
bless the dear bretheren who have taken us into their homes
and hearts, and bless the workers throughout our State and
the world; for Jesus Christ's sake, Amen.
Resolutions were adopted, thanking the various Churches
of Galesburg for the use of their buildings; the citizens for
their generous hospitality ; the press for their reports ; the
Railroads for reduction of rates; and the committees and
pages for their work.
After brief closing remarks b}' the President, and prayer,
the Convention adjourned.
Office of Statistical Secretary, "j
Jacksonville. III., \
June 11, 1880. J
Dear Sir and Brother. The State Association, at its last Annual
Meeting, in Galosburji, saw fit to elect the subscriber to the responsible,
arduous and usually thankless position of State Statistical Secretary. It
seems almo.st presumption for any one to attempt to fill the i)lace so long
and successfully occupied by our wortliv brother — now called to Interna-
tional S. S. Work — E. Payson Porter, but I have deci<le(l to accept the task
given me, believing that by the liearty co-operation of the County Secretaries,
I may become more than a mere figure-head of the Association.
Dear brother, will you not do your part in making my Annual Statistical
Report both correct and full? If each one of the County Secretaries will
see that the State Secretary gets his report in good shape and reliable, at
least a month before the Annual State Convention, there will be no
trouble, and "Old Illinois" will show the S. S. world what she is doing for
the precious cause.
But even at Galesburg, in this S. S. centennial year, there were tw^enfy-
five counties that did not send in new reports. Is your county marked
thusi*)? See reverse side of this sheet. I know that in some counties
there are many more difficulties than in others, but none of these are un-
surmountabie.
IL.X.INOIS State Sunday School, Convention. 159
AVith perseverance and postage enough, statistics can be secured. If
township or school officers cannot be heard I'rom, call on them or visit
the schools. It will do you good as well as them.
Don't accept guess work reports, but get the facts ! If death, removal or
inefficiency is the cause of difficulty, have a vacancy declared and filled by
the proper authorities, without waiting for the next Annual Convention.
But I have other points to write of. Will you please notify me, at your
earliest convenience, as to when and where you will hold your next
County Convention.
If already held for 1880 please give the date and place.
Again, will you not always notify me of all changes made in County
Sunday-school officers ?
Your Secretary would also invite your aid in keeping up a Sunday-
school Department in many secular newspapers of this State, by sending to
him notices, programmes, announcements and news items, which he will
arrange and send out to the papers that have expressed a desire for such
news.
Be sure that you have plenty of school blanks on hand to send out
before your County Convention. If you need any send to your District
Secretary lor them.
Permit me I0 say, that, if you are not the owner of one of Porter's
"Hand-Books," and also of one of the A. B. and L, Record Books, so that
your reports may correspond, you should get them at once.
Your acceptance of the office of County Secretary implied a promise on
your part that you were willing to work for the Sunday-school cause ; and,
so far as able, discharge the duties of that position.
Permit me also to suggest that the very first need of county officers
should be a list of the Sunday-schools in the county, with the names and
post office of the Superintendents. Until this is done, a County Associa-
tion must necessarily be all at sea. Every officer, therefore — President,
Secretary, Treasurer, Executive Committee, and man — should at once
unite in this work, and contribute his share of labor to secure such a list.
Changes will be made from season to season in Superintendents, but so
far as the schools themselves are concerned, such a list would be compara-
tively permanent. The necessity and importance of a complete list of this
kind cannot be over-estimated. But we know Secretaries who have
frightened themselves by the apisarent magnitude of the work, and so have
attempted nothing. The labor, required however, is more imaginary than
real. When undertaken systematically, it is both easy and pleasant.'
Take up the work by townships. You can easily get in each township,
and in different parts of the same township, the names and post office of a
few professing Christians. Write these by postal, simply asking for the
names of the Sunday-schools in their respective neighborhoods ; also
name and address of the Superintendents, enclosing an addressed postal
for their reply. This information they will ordinarily give willingly.
Don't bother them for statistics. In some cases the same school may be
mentioned twice, but no matter. Tabulate this list, and then enclose a
blank to each Superintendent for a detailed report of his school. Should
a Superintendent fail to reply upon your first inquiry, as many of them
will, send another, and another and another, until he finds you mean
business. Your persistence will surely triumi^h.
When the list is complete for every township — and this will form the
foundation for all your subsequent work — procure a book and make a
permanent record of them, for the use and encouragement, not only of those
who now labor, but for those who shall take up our work in the future.
See that your Convention is well advertised. People will not come unless
they know what is in store for them. The expense of a few hundred pro-
grammes, and the postage to get them into every school in the county,
should not be grudged. You cannot have enthusiastic meetings without
crowded houses.
160 iLLixois State Sunday School, Convention.
The design of the Convention is to reach, aid and instruct the masses —
of teachers. Therefore use every means to get them there. Have pro-
grammes pubUshed in every paper in the county. Also, secure editorial
notices if possible.
The most efficient distribution of programmes is through the township
vice-presidents, enough being sent to each one for him to supply each
Superintendent with one for each teacher.
Do not expect a programme to "draw" unless leaders of mental and
spiritual power are announced.
Remember that Conventions are for teachers and officers and not for pupils,
and have no "children's meeting" on the programme. Have on this
year's programme some topics in adv'ance of those on last year's, or a bad
condition of affairs will be indicated.
Whenever practicable, let the evening previous to your Convention be
devoted to Gospel Praise and Prayer Meeting, with addresses by some of
your most spiritually minded. It will have good effect upon the spirit of
your discussions and the attendance at your sessions. " Without Me ye
can do nothing."
If you want school reports in early, announce that they will be printed
on your Convention programmes. This will prove a spur, for all that come
to the Convention will want to see their school reported with the rest.
Request the reports to be sent in three weeks before the Convention, to
give time for printing and distribution.
After Convention the Secretary should lose no time in notifying the
vice-presidents elect of their election, instructing them as to their duties,
and insisting upon a pledge that they will act or tender their resignation
at once so tliat the Executive Committee may fill vacancies.
If, at the close of the Convention, the Statisticiil Report is still incom-
plete, the Secretary should prepare a list of those not returning his blanks
filled, and should send, or, still better, go after them before sending in his
condensed Annual Report to district or State officens.
See to it, Mr. Secretary, that a good, fair and full report of every meeting
gets into all vour county papers, regardless of politics, religion, or irre-
ligion of its editors.
Don't forget to send me your Convention date on enclosed postal, and
believe, Yours Truly,
C. M. Eames,
Statistical Secretary.
PROCEEDINGS
— or THE —
T^A^ENTY-THIRD
CILLINOISO
— HELD IN THE —
TABERNACLE, CENTRALIA,
Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, May 3, 4 & 5,
1881.
CHICAGO:
James Guilbert, Printer, 164 Clark Street.
1881.
pllinnb ^laU ^atktlj ^i\\\t!iol ^$$0mli0it.
President.
J. R. MASON, Bloomington.
Vice-Presidents.
O. R. BROUSE, Rockford; C. LINK, Paris; M. EASTERDAY, Cairo.
State Secretary — H. S. Vail, Chicago.
Statistical Secretary— C- M. Eames, Jacksonville.
Treasurer — B. F. Jacobs, Chicago.
Executive Committer.
B. F. JACOBS, Chairman, Chicago.
I M. C. HAZARD, Wheaton." A. G. TYNG, Peoria.
H. C. De MOTTE, Bloomington. R. H. GRIFFITH, Rushville.
THOMAS RIDGE WAY, Shawneelown. T. B. NISBETT, Alton.
• C. W. JEROME, Carbondale.
District Presidents.
I. I> W. Potter, Chicago.
1. Wm. Reynolds, Peoria.
3. C. Link, Paris.
4. C M. Eames, Jacksonville.
5. R. C. Willis, Enfield.
6. H. B. Douglas, Greenville.
District Secretaries.
W. B. Lloyd, St. Charles.
A. P. Babcock, Galesburg.
J. E. Saxton, Champaign.
R. G. HoBB.s, Petersburg.
W. C. Kenner, Flora.
F. P. Hopkins, Alton.
Illinois State Sunday School Conventions.
No.
Dixon
Bloomington
III. Alton
President. Year.
..Rev. W. W. Harsha 1859
.*R. M. Guilford i860
..*E. C. Wilder 1861
IV. Chicago Rev. S. G. Lathrop 1882
V. Jacksonville *Isaac Scarritt 1863
VI. Springfield A. G. Tjng 1864
VII. Peoria Rev. W. G. Pierce 1865
VIII. Rockford P. G. Gillett 1866
IX. Decatur Wm. Reynolds 1867
X. Du Quoin B. F.Jacobs 186S
XI. Biomington D. L. Moody 1869
XII. Quincv P. F. Gillet 1870
XIII. Galesburg *J. McKee Peeples 1871
XIV. Aurora C. R. Blackall 1872
XV. Springfield J. F. Culver 1873
XVI. Champaign. D. W. Whittle 1874
XVII. Alton R. H. Griffith 187s
XVIII. Jacksonville D. L. Moody 1876
XIX. Peoria E. C. Hewett 1877
XX. Decatur Rev. F. L. Thompson 1878
XXI. Bloomington CM. Morton 1879
XXII. Galesburg Wm. Reynolds 1880
XXIII. Centralia J. R. Mason 1881
* Deceased.
PROCEEDINGS
OF THE TWENTY-THIRD
Illinois State Sunday-School Convention.
First Day — Morning Session.
The 23d Annual Convention of the Illinois State Sunday School
Association met in the city of Centralia, on Tuesday morning, ]f/Iay
3d, 18S1. The preparation for the Convention included the building
of a spacious tabernacle, capable of seating 1500 people, that had been
erected by the contributions of the people of Centralia, Chicago, and
a few other places in the state. The building w^as handsomefy -decor-
ated w^ith evergreens, and with a fine display of blackboard illustra-
tions of the lessons for the first two quarters of the present year, en-
graved by the Providence Lithographing Company. A large motto
was stretched in front of the platform, near the ceiling, containing the
last message of the lamented Stephen Paxson to his fellow workers:
" Hold on to the work. Take firm hold and never let go."
A number of delegates arrived on the previous evening, and the early
morning trains brought many more. They were received in the midst
of a shower, and as the rain had fallen during the previous day, it was
thought best to hold the first session of the Convention in the Metho-
dist Episcopal Church, across the street from the tabernacle.
The opening service, at 9 o'clock, was one of thanksgiving and
prayer, and the meeting was led by Mr. C. Link, of Edgar county.
Prof. C. C. Case conducted the singing, and Mrs. Jerome, of Carbon-
dale, was at the organ. A large number were present to unite in the
opening hymn, and the meeting was one of earnest gratitude for the
past and prayer for God's blessing upon the Convention.
At 10 o'clock, Mr. G. C. Needham, evangelist, gave the following
Bible reading, from the topic, " A Call to Work."
BIBLE READING— "A CALL TO WORK."
BY G. C. NEEDHAiVI, EVANGELIST.
When the Lord's people come together, it should be with a spirit of
prayer — praying for the speaker, praying for all errors to be removed,
in order that we may receive the \YOi'd prayerfully,and may not listen out
4 Ii.i.iNois State Sunday School Convention.
of curiosity; that we may not listen through any other motive than
that souls he blessed. How hushed we should he when God speaks.
We speak to God in prayer, and He speaks to us out of His word.
Our subject this morning is one of great importance — A Call to Work.
I think it is very appropriate that such a subject should open our Con-
vention. We come together as workers, and I trust that all need to
be encouraged, need to be stimulated, need to be reminded of their
privileges, duties and rewards. Need to hear the Divine Master speak-
ing to every servant, so that he may go forth invigorated and re-
freshed.
In Matt. II :29, we find a "call to work." " Take my yoke upon
you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall
find rest unto your souls." Indeed, we need hardly take a text, for
there are so many passages in both the Old and New Testament
Scriptures ringing out this note, calling to us loudly to enter the vine-
yard. "Rest unto your souls!" Rest in work seems paradoxical, like
many other statements in God's word. The man most engaged in
God's work is the man of the most restful spirit. Rest, in abounding
activities. God speaks to the people in the previous verse, and calls
them to come unto Him and He would give them rest, salvation. In
the present verse God speaks to those who have found rest for their
conscience, and they found that only by taking His yoke upon them.
Notice the honor which the Lord Jesus confers upon His ser-
vants. " Take my yoke upon you." Not that He wished to get rid
of the yoke, but that we might be yoked with Him. What an honor
for you to be yoked with Him! It is a great thing to work for Christ
and under Christ. But it is a higher service to work with Christ. We
are workers with Him, embassadors for Christ. How can we take
this yoke upon us? Will it not be a poor yoking, for poor, halting
man to be yoked with the Master? Would there not be incomplete
work done because of it? Does not the Old Testament forbid the yok-
ing of the clean and the unclean? My dear friends, in this yoking
there is no inequality, for God lifts us up out of our unclean position
and makes us priests and kings with Him. As believers, take the
yoke upon you. The yoke is the symbol of service, and " take my
yoke upon you " is the Lord's call to work.
Matt. 21:28: "A certain man had two sons; and he came to the
first, and said, Son, go work to-day in my vineyard." It is to the Son
the Father speaks. We must become sons before we can become ser-
vants. And do your best, you cannot work yourself into the family.
God's order is, become a child. Become a son first, then God's proph-
ets and ambassadors, to teach and to preach to men. Let us under-
stand our destiny. God calls sons. If we are not a son we cannot
work. If we are not sons of God, it is like beating our knuckles
against a granite wall, trying to do His service. Son of God, work.
The command is very imperative. God does not ask the sinner to do
His work. He asks Him to be saved. When He asks us to work out
our salvation, he means the Christian. There is no such work for a
sinner. Believe! Then go forth and serve. Service presupposes a
healthy relationship. I believe he that understands this relationship
will be the most successful of all. We must first settle the question of
acceptance, and then we can direct all our energies, all our thoughts
Illinois State Sunday School Convention, 5
into the line of service. Not tliat we might be of service, but, being
saved by the cross, serve Him through hfe. '^ Take my yoke upon
you." They that have received Him are ah-eady brought into fellow-
ship with Him. Now, son of God, "work in my vineyard." It is
not enough to simply understand the relationship, and lack the power
that is furnished for the work.
We must go through the word of God from beginning to end, for
all Scripture is given by inspiration of God. Traveling through God's
word we meet with many beautiful oasis. Take for example:
I. Chron. 4:23: These were the potters, and those that dwelt
among plants and hedges; there they dwelt with the king for his
work," David had different sorts of workers : those who planted and
those who made hedges, and those who worked in the pottery. "There
they dwelt with the king for his work." The king's work is for them
that dwell with the king. Those that want to live with Christ after
the nature of this relationship must dwell with the king. Abiding
with the king, communing with the king, is essential to service. God's
people should be united. There are not too many sons in the world,
and we cannot afford to be separated much from each other, for that is
to be separated from the king. Those that were gathered in the cause
with David came out ready for work. But thei^e is danger of being
too much Avith one another and too little with Jesus Christ. Let us
seek to be dwelling with the king, and go out from that fellowship
with Him so that men will take knowledge of us that we have been
with Jesus. " There they dwelt with the king for his work."
Mark 14:6: " And Jesus said, Let her alone; why trouble ye her.
She hath wrought a good work on me."
Wrought a good work on Him. It is a great thing when the Lord
calls us to work " a good work." What a great thing to know that
our work is approved of the Lord ! Mary was blamed because "Some
had indignation within themselves, and said. Why was this waste of
the ointment made?" Mary sought to serve her Master by breaking
the box of ointment. But those who had the spirit of the creatui'e
complained. The Master said, "Let her alone; she hath wrought a
good work upon me." Mary worked with intelligence. We must
have knowledge with our zeal, in oi'der to direct our efforts. But how
do we know that Mary had received knowledge ? How do we know
that she was prepared for service? Luke, 10:39: " Mary sat at Jesus'
feet and heard his words." Christ loved Martha, and Martha loved
Christ, but he did not like to see her cumbered with serving. Martha
served Jesus, but on this occasion complained of Mary, and said to her
Lord, "Dost thou not care that my sister hath left me to serve alone?
bid her, therefore, that she help me."
The disciples had been three years with Jesus, but did not know of
the burial of Jesus to this day. But here is a woman who understands
all about it. " She hath done it for my burial," and it shall be told for
a memorial, in memory of Mary, and more lasting than a granite
statue. Fitting words,
I do not know how it has been with you, but I have wasted a great
deal of time in active work. By and by there will be a great bonfire,
and there will be burnt up wood, hay and stubble. Works done in
the energy of the flesh. Work done to be seen of men ; not done for
6 Illinois State Sunday School Convention.
the Master's account, and which cannot stand the test of the Master.
What a privilege, what a need it is, for Jesus the Lord to teach me
what he would have me do. He calls and directs as to the time and
place, He inspires and qualifies us to go and work for Him. And
what a privilege it will be for us, at the close of life, to lie down in
peace! What though the church, and my friends, and the people do
not understand me. I am satisfied if the Lord approves. By and by
our names will be read, and our reward given.
H Cor., 5:14: " For the love of Christ constraineth us; because we
thus judge, that if One died for all, then were all dead." We are
called to service. Our relationship starts with service, but we must
have a motive power. Something constraining us, impelling us on.
" The love of Christ " impelling me. So says Paul. There should be
one channel, and in this all our energies, all our intellect, must be di-
rected one certain way. " The love of Christ constraineth me." It
is possible to interest people and do a certain kind of work without
this love. We may be men of brilliant intellect, clear as an iceberg,
and just as cool. We need something that will be tangible, real, and
that will abide. The love of Christ, like the sunshine, giving warmth
as well as life. The love of Christ, filling the intellect, the mind, and
the purposes of the heart; so that every day we shall be like men on
fire. " doing what our hand findcth to do with our might."
One day a clergyman was walking hurriedly along the street, when
he heard a loud call. He was asked to come in for a moment to see a
daughter who was dying. The clergyman said, well, my poor child,
what can I do for you? " Oh, I have so little love for Jesus." Well,
said he, I cannot help you. I am going to see a poor dying man who
has no love for Jesus. He pretended to make for the door, when be
was called back. " Oh, do not leave me," said the girl. There was
a bowl of water sitting on the table, and, putting his finger into the
bowl of water and then taking it out again, he said: " What do you
see here?" " I see a little drop of water." " Well," said he, "is there
any more in that bowl?" "Yes, there must be." "Now, you said
you had a little love for Jesus. \Vhere did it come from? There must
be more there." " Oh, yes, sir," said the girl, and her heart began
swelling with emotion.
Paul meant by the "love of Christ" the assurance of His love to
man; it is this that impels us. When we are within that Divine heart
we are never growing feeble, we are never growing less; but the Holy
Ghost is constantly communicating love. \Ve must not be encouraged
by any love we have, but by the love w'ith which he has filled us.
John 4:35. When I stumbled upon this passage, I could not but
smile at this, that the Bible is new, yet old. It is like a kaleidoscope,
which at every slight turn gives a variety of new colors. We come to
this blessed old Bible, but how frequently the believer meets with old
things, yet not like things human, but Divine, precious, like God's
sunshine.
" He that reapeth, receiveth wages." Now, my dear friends, is not
this a sweet consideration? He sendeth no man at his own charges,
but gives wages. Now, during the harvest time, at the end of every
man's day's work, he gave a penny for wages. W hen we are going
here and there to work for our Lord and Master, He does not send us
Illinois State Sunday School Convention, 7
at our charges. When the Lord used Peter's boat He desired to pay
him for the use of it. So He said to him, " Let down your net:" and
they took a multitude of fishes. The Lord Jesus Christ is going to
give wages, yet we must not be anxious about the wages. To every
man his wages, to every man his reward.
I Cor., 3:7: " Neither is he that planteth anything, neither he that
watereth, but God that giveth the increase." We have wages in the
joy we have in our work. Now that a soul is converted; is not that
wages? I know a teaclier in one of our schools in Chicago who has
been very successful. Fifteen out of his class have joined the church,
and all were real vigorous conversions. O what wages we receive!
This is a reward for service. According to his own labor to every
man his reward, just as for those who work. For God the Master re-
wardeth us. Oh friends, the precious crown, the precious stars for our
diadem, if we work for Jesus! For He who was spat upon is exalted
by our ministry. I think it is the highest honor, to be used in gather-
ing precious souls. What an honor that we have the privilege of min-
istering for Jesus, the man of sorrows ! What a dignity is conferred
upon us. If we go into our Sunday Schools discouraged, let us re-
member William Burns. He had been years in China, and yet no one
was converted. A friend said to him, "Are 3'ou not discoui^aged?"
"No: I have not gone for the conversion of the Chinese; I have gone
for the glory of Christ." It is not in bringing lambs and sheep to the
flock that we glorify God. Angels are watching, and devils are watch-
ing, too. Our dalliance is commented upon, and in stillness heaven
is bending over us, to see if Christ is being honored. And sometimes
I think we can hear a hallelujah even before we have arrived in heav-
en. We are paid now, blessed be God, in the true currency of the
kingdom. Lo! the reward is, we shall see the King in His glory, and
gaze not only upon the crown but at his pierced hand.
Finally, " Brethren (I Cor., 15:5), be ye steadfast, unmovable, al-
ways abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as you know that
your labor is not in vain in the Loi*d." You remember John Wes-
ley's motto, " All at it, and always at it." Some have also heard of
Dr. Henry Morehouse, a dear brother. Think of him, at the age of
40, going home. Yet he put as much work in 20 years as some do in
60 years — preaching the word, helping encourage Sunday Schools and
Christian associations, going earnestly wherever he went. His plans
were to scatter the Bible, and in two years he sent out 16,500 Bibles
and Testaments, and 2,000,000 tracts. We will have a good time here,
but when we go to our different districts, then will come the trial. One
brother said he received at the Convention last year an imjjulse suffi-
cient to last three months. But what about the brethren who cannot
have the privilege of coming to the Convention? For such, knozv that
your labor is not in vain here. Therefore, let us be abounding in the
work of the Lord. In the name of the Master, cast all your energies
and ambitions into the Divine current of the vSpirit of God. Rejoice
ye that Christ may be magnified, and in Him abide. For, " to live is
Christ, and to die is gain." " Take my yoke upon you, and learn of
me, for I am meek and lowly of heart and ye shall find rest to your
souls." May God bless you, dear brethren.
Prayer by R. C. Willis closed the meeting in the M. E, Church.
Illinois State Sunday School Convention.
LY THE TABERoYACLE.
The audience during the Bible reading had completely filled the
church, and it was decided to adjourn to the tabernacle. The Con-
vention was called to order in the tabernacle by President Reynolds,
and the congregation united in singing the long metre doxology,
" Praise God from whom all blessings flow." The audience remained
standing and united in the Lord's prayer.
The President announced that the Convention wiis ready for busi-
ness, and on motion, the following Committee were appointed a per-
manent organization:
Mr. T. B. NiSBETT, of Alton; Mr. B. Y. George, of Cairo; Mr. C. M. Morton
of Chicago; Mr. C. Link, of Paris; Mr. Thomas Ridgeway, of Shawneetown.
After singing " All hail the power of Jesus' name," M. C. Kell in-
troduced Hon. S. L. Dwight, of Centralia, who delivered the follow-
ing address of welcome:
Mr. President and Members of the Convention. — It is my
privilege as well as pleasure to appear before you to-day in behalf of
the good people of this city; and I am commissioned to express to you
their high appreciation of the important interests you represent, and
their earnest sympathy in the work in which you are engaged.
Gladly do we come to greet so many earnest hearts, and to meet this
large gathering, coming as it does to promote the best interests of the
Sunday School cause throughout our state.
Every good citizen feels, or ought to feel, a lively interest in not only
commending, but in advocating and advancing whatever tends to pro-
mote the " greatest good to the greatest number."
The preservation of the valued institutions of our country depend
upon a strict adherence to the great truths that dictate a pure life, and
we must know and appreciate these if we would do our whole duty.
Let us understand the wants and demands of the age in which we
live, the high piivileges we may enjoy, and with the coming dawn of
each day there will unfold to us a constantly increasing comprehension
of life, its purposes, its attainments, and its ultimate realizations.
We live not for ourselves alone, but for the good of those around and
about us, for the establishment and advancement of that which tends
to elevate humanity and insure good order in society ; failing in this,
we not only do injustice to ourselves and violence to the promptings of
every honest impulse, but an absolute wrong and injury to the com-
munity in which we live, and to our fellow- men.
The broad plain of human action lies out before us. Eager throngs
await the growth and culture of grander ideas. The things of yester-
day must fail before the brightest realities of to-day. New thoughts
inspire to greater action. Hitherto unknown mysteries gradually un-
fold. Hope bids us to ascend to greater heights. And thus day by
day may we learn more and more of true mission of life.
No field of usefulness looms up in more sublime fertility — that is
Illinois State Sunday School Convention, 9
susceptible of so high an order of cultivation, or promises so fruitful
results, as the Sunday School. No other department of education ex-
cels this branch of culture in preparing the pure and innocent to safely
enter upon the varied scenes of after life; in guiding manhood through
the surging billows of adversity; and in leading old age gently and
lovingly through the mists of declining years. Gentle as the dews
from heaven, the sweet and lasting impressions of brighter hopes, and
the fondest anticipations of the life to come, fall upon all who will not
rudely turn away.
From an insignificartt beginning the present Sunday School system
has grown to be a structure of magnificent and wonderful proportions,
and is gradually reaching out into every part of the habitable world.
Its blessed influence permeates the very air we breathe, and is wafted
by the winds of heaven over the faces of the earth to gladden the
hearts of men.
It is a star in the moral, social, and religious firmament of the first
magnitude, that rises higher and grows brighter as the fleeting mo-
ments of time hasten us on to eternity.
Progress pervades all nature. The human -mind, never satisfied,
continually longs for larger attainments. This great pi-inciple has led
to the recent adoption of what is known and called an International
Series of Lessons. And to-day the same lessons are read and taughi,
the same thoughts suggested, and the same principles advanced, all
over this land, across the deep, and everywhere this inspired thought
has gained a foothold.
In this we see the elements of strength. By this means a union of
hearts, of thoughts, of sympathies, and of the great truths of Chris-
tianity, is being created and established that no power upon earth can
.break.
Though we may not know the people that dwell in the far off" dis-
tant lands, nor mingle with them, " ere we reach the shining river,"
yet bound together as we are, by this cord of sympathy, our mutual
interests will gradually bring all nations into kind and friendly rela-
tions with each other, and in a large degree regulate the differences
that now exist.
History records the rise and fall of empires, the decay of nations,
and the downfall of kingdoms, but the International Series in our Sun-
day Schools will lift the veil of prejudice and passion, liberalize the
hearts and actions of men, and place the theory of human government
upon a nobler, higher plane; and more than all, will preserve this fair
fabric our fathers bequeathed us, and save this home and refuge for the
oppressed and downtrodden of every land and clime from the bitter
experiences of the nations of the past.
May we not take high ground on this great question? For we must
learn to know and realize that the excellency to which the present
Sunday School system has attained, is doing, and will do, more towards
planting and establishing in the hearts of all men the real value and
grandeur of the American Republic.
It was my privilege a few years ago, as a silent listener, to attend
the great gathering of Sunday School workers at Chautauqua, and
there, under the leadership of that grand and noble Christian gentle-
man, Dr. Vincent, hear this great question of Sunday Schools dis-
lO Illinois State Sunday School Connention.
cussed in all its phases. Its influence upon the homes, the prosperity,
and all the various interests of the people. The plans most generally
adopted for the successful progress of the work ; the practical results
of the combined efforts of the Sunday School workers of any com-
munity— all showing and carrying conviction to the obsei-ying mind,
that the day is not far distant when the study of the Bible will take
such hold upon this great people that a part of every man's time will
be voluntarily set apart for the devout study of that law which alone
comes from God.
Let us hail with delight the dawn of that glad day. Let the hope
cheer our souls to continue diligently and earnestly in this great work
— in building up our Sunday Schools all over this land, and in reach-
ing the homes and hearts of all men with the nobler, sweeter influen-
ces of a better life. And when the ruler of the universe shall come
" to make up his jewels," then may we rejoice that we have not wil-
fully faltered in the earnest discharge of every duty, nor wantonly let
slip the golden moments as they glided by.
Mr. President — and your associates — permit me to say that your
mission is a superb one. You lead the van of a mighty army. Your
labors bring joy and gladness to thousands of homes. Your words of
counsel cause hosts to rally to your assistance, and nerves the Christian
workers all over the state to move forward with renewed activity and
greater diligence. You awaken the slumbering energies of the people
everywhere, and inspire them both by precept and example, to enter
this larger field of usefulness. You have done, and are doing, a noble
work in our state. Evidences of this are seen and felt on every hand.
Proud are we, that the great state of Illinois has so many noble,
generous, brave leaders to point the way, under Divine guidance, and
lead us on to more glorious triumphs.
We know that you will press on to still greater victories, and yet
larger achievements. And may we not hope, that in the near future,
such a halo of Christian brightness and beauty will light up our great
prairies, illuminate our cities, and adorn the homes far and near, as
shall make our state the model, and her people the champion Sunday
School workers of the nation and the world.
And now, as you come in your onward march, we welcome you —
yes, thrice welcome to our midst. We welcome you to our homes,
our community, our city, our churches and our hearts. We bid you a
cordial, a kind, and a hearty greeting.
Come with your sweet voices; come with your songs of praise; your
prayers to the God of heaven; come with all your generous, loving
influences, your wisdom in this great work, so freely given; and as re-
sult of your deliberations here upon the borders of Egypt, I am sure a
cheering, hopeful influence for great and lasting good will go out not
only in Southern Illinois, but throughout the entire state. Again I
bid you welcome.
President Reynolds responded to the address of welcome as follows:
In responding to this exceedingly kind address of welcome, which
has been delivered in our hearing, I feel an inability to reply, owing
to an imperfect state of voice. I took a severe cold, and it has settled
upon my throat and lungs so that I am almost incapacitated for speak-
Illinois State Sunday School Convention. ii
ing. But I cannot refrain from expressing my most sincere thanks for
the address of welcome. It needed no address of v^elcome to those
who come from abroad, from another section of the state. We knew
we would be heartily welcomed in Southern Illinois. And some of
us knew that this portion of the state would bring back recollections
of precious scenes and experiences which neither time nor eternity will
erase. Some can remember years ago when the first Convention was
held in Illinois. We remember 14 years ago, when our Slate Con-
vention was held in Decatur, and a brother from your portion of the
state arose and invited the Convention to meet in the city of Duquoin
in Egypt, the next year. Many doubted the expediency of entertain-
ing such a Convention, as there would be present no less than 2,000
delegates. It was thought wise to have a preliminary meeting to
know whether this man was not an enthusiast — to know whether he
was in earnest. A preliminary meeting was held for the purpose of
bringing the matter before the people of this section of the State. I
was delegated to attend that meeting. It was the first Sunday School
union of that character ever held in this portion of the State. It was
a grand, glorious meeting. All denominations came together, and for
unity, cordiality and sympathy, I think I have never seen a more pre-
cious or pleasant meeting. I went back and I'eported that there was
no trouble in holding a Convention in Southern Illinois. The city of
Duquoin threw open their doors and the hearts of her people, and in-
vited us. We came like an avalanche from the North, train load after
train load. When we landed at Odin, the bar-keeper, who had a very
prominent place at the door, jumped over the bar, he and his assistant,
ready to deal out liquor. Scores passed by and went into the dining
room. The bar-tender came out and said to me, "What kind of a
crowd, stranger, is this?" I replied, "What kind of a crowd do you
think it is?" He answered, " I never saw such a crowd before; no
one is dry." " No, stranger, you will not sell them any liquor, and if
we ever get to work among the people down here you will sell less of
it." "What?" "We are a Sunday School Association going to
meet in Duquoin."
We marched out, and we marched in, but I do not think there was
one who spent a dime at the bar. We came on down to Du-
quoin. There the people came pouring in, not only by railroads, but
the roads seemed to be covered with wagons. Talk about a place to
stop at! One gentleman with only a small house entertained 24 dele-
gates. Some of the rest of us slept in a hay mow. I have ever held
this occasion up as an emblem of hospitality second to none I ever
heard of. One thousand to fifteen hundred delegates were entertained.
The people from the country brought in their beds and spread them
out in a hall, and we covered the whole surface. There was another
hall where the women slept, and also another hall, with the tables
upon one side, through the middle, and upon the other side were loaded
every good thing to eat. I fell in love with Egypt then, and I said
if there is anything I can do, brethren, to help you down here, let me
know. I had scarcely got the words out of my mouth before a gen-
tleman arose and said: "We want you down here all summer." "But
I have to attend to my business. I can't come." " Leave your busi-
ness on Saturday and come down here on Sunday." " Yeb, but I
12 Illinois State Sunday School Coxventton.
have a mission church in Peoria, and I must preacii Sunday morning
and superintend the Sunday School and teach a Bible class." I will
tell you what you can do. You can leave Peoria on Monday morning
and hold a Convention here on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and
Friday, go home on Saturday, and come down next Monday morning."
For 13 weeks I fulfilled that programme. It was hot work, the ther-
mometer standing from 90 to 100, and the mosquitos were trouble-
some. But I never enjoyed myself more in my life, and I thought we
must spend another summer in the southern portion of the state. At
the close of that campaign, I said, if there is any work that I can do
for the Master and the cause of Christ, I am willing to do it. When
we began the campaign, this portion of the State had only two single
counties organized, or that had Conventions. When I was asked to
go, I said, who is over there that will take hold of the work and go
along with me? I want somebody to go and introduce me. Mr.
Hardin Wallace said there were two men over there living in Wash-
ington county, leaders in the Presbyterian Church. Just get them
waked up and you have got a host. Their names are J. McKee
Peeples and Thomas Ridgeway. I forgot the name of the last brother,
so I wrote to the first. At last I got an answer from him, asking me
what I wanted. I told him that I wanted to get a conference with
him. I told him that I did not want him to go to New York, but
that I wanted him to come to the Convention at Bloomington — that
is all I asked. He answered, I will be there, God willing. I remem-
ber that great Convention. We had a tabernacle built, and Mr.
Moody was present. A gentleman came to me at the close of the
morning session, and said, " My name is McKee Peeples. You have
requested that I should be present at this meeting." Yes, sir, very
much obliged." "What do you want me to do?" "I will be very
much obliged, Mr. McKee Peeples, if you will take a seat here every
day." " I will do it, sir." Sometimes he would take up a paper and
read, and then he would lay aside h is paper and listen. The second
day he did not bring his paper. The third day he took a second seat
from the front, Mr. Moody asked me who that man was sitting down
there. I said, " he is a man under my spiritual care. I want you to
watch him with great care and say anything you can to wake him up.
They need to be aroused where he lives, and I want him to get inter-
ested." He replied, I think that he is interested. The result was, at
the close of the session he came to me and said : " Reynolds, what can
be done for Southern Illinois?" You are a business man, Mr. Peeples,
and 1 am a business man. Let us go through the state and canvass it
for Christ." " We will do it," he answered, "comedown." We went
down there, and I shall never cease to thank God for the privilege I
had of laboring there with Peeples, Ridgeway, Hunter, and others.
Now after laboring in this portion of the State of Illinois, more dear
to me than ever, we come down among you, after a lapse of 13 years,
in the capacity of a Sunday School Convention. I trust we can get as
much good, that we can get revived and warmed up, that we can be a
blessing, as in days gone by. I hope and trust that we may be enabled
to leave here a feeling that our visit has not been in vain. We meet
together as brethren. We meet together on this grand platform of
Sunday School Work, and I know of no other organization in the
Illinois State Sunday School Convention, 13
State of Illinois where all denominations can come together, and where
all meet upon one platform ; the love of Christ and a desire to promote
his kingdom. For more than 20 years we have met together. All
know the history of these 20 years, and never in a single State or
County Convention has one word of discord occurred, nothing that
could not be indorsed, for " behold how these brethren love each other,"
May the Lord bless this Convention. May it be the most blessed one
we have ever had — the best for us, the best in the service of our
Lord, and for the advancement of His Kingdom.
After singing " Blest be the Tie," the nomir\^ting committee report-
ed as follows:
For President. — ^J. R. Mason, McLean Co,
Vice-Presidents. — O. R. Brouse, Winnebago Co.; C. Link, Edgar Co.; M.
Easterday, Alexander Co.
State Secretary.— H. S. Vail, Cook Co.
Statistical Secretary. — C. M. Eames, Morgan Co.
Treasurer. — B. F. Jacobs, Cook Co.
They were unanimously elected.
The following were nominated and elected as an Executive Com-
mittee :
B. F. Jacobs, chairman, Chicago; M. C. Hazard, Wheaton; H. C. De Motte,
Bloomington ; Thos. Ridgeway, Shawneetown; A. G. Tyng, Peoria; R. H.
Griffith, Rushville; T. P. Nesbitt, Alton; C W.Jerome, Carbondale.
Pres. Reynolds asked Messrs. Hunter and Morton to escort the
President elect to the chair. President Mason was introduced to the
convention thus:
Some men are born to greatness, others for greatness to be conferred
upon them, and others are honored because of their worth. I now
have the pleasure of introducing to you J. R. Mason, one of the
most devoted and untiring workers in the State of Illinois.
INAUGURAL ADDRESS,
My dear Brethren and Fellotv- Workers in the Sunday-School
Work: Truly I thank you for this expression of your confidence,
love, and esteem, in selecting and electing me as your president. Like
Paul I feel the least of all disciples, and as I come before you I ask
your loving charity, I ask your counsel and your earnest prayers,
that the Loid Jesus Christ, whom we serve, may have all the honor
and glory of this convention; that we may be baptized with the Holy
Ghost; and as we dedicate this beautiful tabernacle, oh may the Holy
Spirit come upon us as it did upon the disciples in that upper chamber.
During the past three years I have many times been called to the
platform to work for the Master; but, brethren, I have never before
had that deep sense of responsibility come upon me as at this time.
You have all read and some witnessed the honor of the inauguration
of President Garfield, when truly all the honors of the United States
were heaped upon him, and perhaps the greatest honor in the world.
But to be honored of God is by far more honorable. At Washington,
it is man's work, here it is God's and Christ's work. There it is for
14 Illinois State Sunday School Convention.
time; here it is for eternity. There it is an earthly kingdom; here it
is the kingdom of heaven. And so, my dear friends, as I stand before
you this morning, the evening of the 22d year, and the morning of the
23d as well, and take a view of the past, look back at the work done
by you and your brethren, I see how much has been done for God,
and see Illinois standing upon a pre-eminence second to none of the
States. I also see the products of many sons and Christian workers,
and of our beloved dead as well. You look at the motto before you;
it is that of our dear brother Paxson. He is gone. We look to our
Moody, to our Vincent, and to our noble Jacobs — God bless him —
who has been with us ft-om the very first. These are the products of
Illinois. I not only see organization, but I see men and women conse-
crated to God, and who have been honored in his work. As I take this
position to-day I feel honored, and also feel the responsibility that
comes upon me. We all must stand to-day and look forward to see
what can be done to perfect our organizations. Wa have 1520 town-
ships, and many unorganized. In each one there should be held a
township convention. And in these 102 counties, 102 county conven-
tions must be held, as well as a State convention. Greater responsibi-
lities rest upon us than ever before. May we maintain the honors
that rest upon the State of Illinois. May God help us in doing this
work. Not only are the organizations to be attended to, but we must
remember that the men and women who are to fill our places in the
next decade are children to-day. The boys and girls who are to fill
our places of responsibility, to-day are children. Ah, and the men
and women who are to fill drunkards' graves, places of crime, and
our penitentiaries, all these are to-day children. They may be mine;
they may be yotrs. May God help us! Your child, your scholar,
your neighbor's children, must fill one of these places, and upon us
rests the responsibility, under God, of deciding which of these places
they shall fill. As I look upon the work we have undertaken, I see
our inability. So, my dear friends, let us turn to the source of all
strength. Come with me this morning and ascend Calvary. Look
upon the rugged tree and see the dying Lord. As beloved disciples,
linger near Christ; come and kneel at the feet of Jesus. Then shall
we hear his loving voice. Go teach the children, "Lo, I am with you
alway unto the end of the world." Let us pray for that blessing, that
all our counsels and plans may be conducted by the Holy Spirit, and
so that we may go forth from this place prepared to do our work.
Again I thank you for the honor conferred upon me in making me
president. May God bless us.
The morning session closed with prayer by B. F. Jacobs. Bene-
diction by G. C. Needham.
Fir'st Day — Second Session.
President Mason called the Convention to order. The congrega-
tion at this time nearly filled the tabernacle. After a song of praise.
Rev. G. Frederick led the Convention in prayer.
The report of the Executive Committee was read by M. C. Haz-
ard, of Du Page, and was as follows :
Illinois State Sunday School Convention, ij^
EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE'S REPORT.
To the Illinois State Sunday School Association :
Dear Brethren: — In submitting our annual report, the Executive
Committee desire to express their satisfaction, that vv^e meet in this
central city of Southern Illinois. It is thirteen years since the Annual
Convention was held in Du Quoin, and the influence of that meeting
is yet felt in the State. The power of our Conventions may, in some
measure, be compared to the lessons taught in a Sunday School, or the
prayers offered for our children, they are a cumulative force, and new
results are constantly developing. This fact is but one of the many
reasons for thanksgiving, as we bow before the Lord our God, in grate-
ful acknowledgment of His divine blessing. His gracious hand has
led and sustained us in our work during the past year. His love has
constantly supplied a motive for our greatest effort. His spirit alone
has given power to the work performed, His presence will make this
Convention a success, and fill all our hearts with joy. We regret, that
we are not able to report a Convention held in every county since our
last meeting. Vigorous efforts have been made to secure this, but for
certain reasons we have failed in three counties. The unusually severe
winter has so interfered with the plans that several meetings have been
postponed, thus making the interval between their Conventions more
than a year, and excluding them from their list of counties whose Con-
ventions have been held since the meeting at Galesburg. This is true
of the counties of Will in the first district, of Christian in the fourth
district, and Pope in the fifth district. In Christian county, the failure
is due to local causes, that have been remedied, and no doubt all these
will be found in place the coming year. The reports from the dis-
tricts are as follows, viz:
The First District.
The District Convention was held at Dixon, November 9 and io«
It was well attended, and was in all respects the best ever held in this
district. Fifteen counties were represented. 16 county and 196 town
ship Conventions have been held — gain of 37 Conventions. 4 banner
counties are reported — a loss of two; and 176 townships are reported
organized — a gain of 19, being 60 per cent, of the whole number. The
statistics in this district give 1300 schools — a loss of 26; and a total
membership of 177,641, a gain of 546. The members reported added
to the Church are 946 less than last year. It will be noticed that the
figures from several counties are not given, and it is easy to see that
full reports would show a gain in the district. The work done in Cook
County has been more thorough and better than ever before. The
county has been canvassed in part, one brother having been employed
three months in the work, and another nearly four months, in addition
to the voluntary work of the officers and executive committee. In ad-
dition to the township organizations, the City of Chicago has been
subdivided into 21 districts, and these are being organized for house to
house visitation. A superintendent of the work has been employed,
and rooms will be opened, to which the brethren from the State are
invited, when in the city, and it is hoped that such correspondence may
%
i6 Illinois State Sunday School Convention.
be secured with the other counties, as will make this a centre for our
work in the stute. The example of the president of this county or-
ganization is commended as worthy of imitation. Resigning the charge
of a large Sunday School, he has given each Lord's day to the visita-
tion of other schools, and with results that leave no room for doubt as
to the wisdom of the plan. Where it does not seem best for a super-
intendent to resign his own charge, it cannot be doubted that such vis-
its once a month, at least, would entirely change the character of our
county work. New life would be infused into the schools, the work-
ers would be cheered, and where destitution existed new schools would
be organized. In the work in this county, frequent meetings are held
of the officers of a few schools grouped together, who spend the time
in a conversational manner, talk over the needs of the work and make
new plans for the future. Eleven counties have contributed to the
state work.
The Second District.
The District Convention was held at Bushnell, October 26 and 27.
It was fiirly attended by representatives from 9 counties. The report
shows 3 banner counties, a loss of 6; 17 county and 188 township con-
ventions— a loss of 52. 191 townships are reported organized, being
60 per cent, of the whole number — a loss of 9; schools, 1,255 — ^ ^*^^^
of 30; membership, 101,796 — a loss of 4,168. The additions to the
church show a loss of 792. From the statistics it appears that there
has been a loss in membership in a majority of the counties reported,
which fact should command earnest attention. Whether it is by
reason of incomplete returns or not, the loss appears, and in either
case it ought to be remedied. A great deal of earnest and faithful
work is done in this district, and a little more vigorous effort will
bring a full report from 17 banner counties. Nine counties have con-
tributed to the state work.
The Third District.
The District Convention was held at Champaign, October 21 and
22. The attendance was large, and the representation good, 13 coun-
ties responding to the call. The report shows, banner counties 4, a loss
of 8. Conventions held — 17 county and 151 township, a loss of 80.
Townships organized, 194, being 66 per cent, of the whole number,
a loss of 31. Schools, 1,214, ^ ^^^^ "^^ 34* Membership, 94,211, a loss
of 3,130. Addition to the church 1,175, ^ ^°^^ of 829. Nine counties
have contributed to the state work.
The Fourth District.
The Convention was held at Springfield, October 19 and 20, and
was a good Convention, though not as large or spiritual as some of the
previous ones. The report shows, banner counties 6, a loss of 5, Con-
ventions held, 16 county, and township 232, a loss of 65; townships or-
ganized 171, being 65 per cent, of the whole, a loss of 10; schools,
1,046, a loss of 51 ; membership, 78,788, loss 6,335; ''eceived into the
church, 953, loss 1,066. Twelve counties have contributed to the state
work.
Illinois State Sunday School Convention. 17
The Fifth District.
The District Convention was held at Enfield, October 11 and 13.
The convention was well attended and a good degree of interest was
manifested. The report shows, banner counties 5, a loss of 3; con-
ventions held, 16 county and 76 township, a loss of 23; townships or-
ganized, 78, being 43 per cent, of the whole, a loss of 3; schools, < 70,
a loss of 66; membership, 46,594, a loss of 2,091; received into the
church, 849, a loss of 639. Eleven counties have contributed to the
state work. This district, which last year suffered the loss of a mem-
ber of the executive committee, in the death of Bro. J. McKee Peeples,
has since suffered the loss of his successor, in the removal from the
state of Bro. Wm. P. Thorn, a most excellent worker, and also the
loss of their President, in the removal from that district of Rev. F. L.
Thompson. At the last district convention, Mr. R. C. Willis, of En-
field, was chosen to fill the vacancy, and has proved an efficient
officer. He has made an earnest effort to carry forward the work,
and your committee have thought it wise to render them all the aid in
their power. The results have been good. Fifteen new reports have
been received, and the conventions held during the past month have
been much blessed.
The Sixth District.
The District Convention was held at Du Quoin, October 14 and- 15.
The report shows, banner counties 4, a loss of 3 : conventions held,
county 17, township 136, a loss of 45; townships organized, 129, being
60 per cent, of the whole number, a loss of 11 ; schools, 837, a loss of
2; membership, 54,710, a gain of 214; received into the church, 563, a
loss of 317. Eight counties have contributed to the state work.
Twelve counties have sent new reports, and this district and the first,
show gains in some places. How these would be affected by full re-
turns is a matter of conjecture, but we fear it would be unsatisfactory .
Recapitulation.
The full report of the Statistical Secretary, which should be care-
fully studied, gives a total of Banner Counties 27, a loss of 26. But it
must be noticed that only those counties are counted that have held
Township Conventions in every township. Conventions held — county
99, township 937, total 1039, a loss of 182. Townships organized
979, being 61 per cent, of the whole, a loss of 5. Schools, 6,322, a
loss of 2 10. Membership, 553,730, a loss of 14,97). Received into
the Church, 7,080, a loss of 4,598. It is easy to see why and where
we have failed.
First. The work has slackened. 3 County and 179 Township
Conventions have not been held. Difficulties there have been, and
many, but we must try to surmount them, and not succumb to them.
Second. The work has not been well reported.
It will also be noticed that 80 counties have sent reports for the cur-
rent year. That 15 marked with a dagger have not reported for the
past year. That 7 marked with a double dagger have not reported
for two years. In addition it must be stated, that many of these reports
are made up in a hasty and careless manner, showing the greatest neg-
t8 Illinois Statu Sunday School Convention.
lect on the part of those that are intrusted with this responsible work.
Some counties, where the conventions have been held, and in a single
instance where every towhship convention has been held, have sent
reports with but two or three items, and with a word of explanation
that was in itself proof that no reasonable effort had been made on the
part of the Secretary. Very frequently these reports, which should
be sent immediately after the meeting of the County Association, are
delayed until the closing weeks, and evert days, of the year, and are
only obtained after repeated letters have been written, both by the Sta-
tistical Secretary and by the Chairman of the Executive Committee.
Notwithstanding those unfavorable features, the whole report may be
regarded as favorable. It has been a year of peculiar trial; political
conventions and meetings greatly interfered with the work during sum-
mer and fall, and the weather has greatly interfered with the plans of
both district, county and township officers. Conventions that would
have been held, have been postponed, or abandoned, and while there
have been showers of grace in different parts of the state, nothing like
a general or wide spread revival has prevailed. On the other hand,
enemies have been most active and persistent. Every conceivable at-
tack has been made, not only upon the adults, but upon the children
and youth, to break down all regard for the Lord's day, all reverence
for His word, and all interest in His work. These facts lead your
committee to urge their previous recommendation, that county and
township Conventions be held as early in the year as possible. That
faithful efforts be made to secure house to house visitation; that county
officers be held to a more faithful discharge of their obligations to their
fellow workers in other parts of the State ; that the suggestions of the
Statistical Secretary in reference to the Sunday School year, and the
uniformity of blanks, be adopted, and that a special effort be made dur-
ing the year to carry the work forward more vigorously than before.
In carrying out the last suggestion, your committee have earnestly de-
sired, for more than a year, to secure for the state work the services of
a lady, well known as being eminently qualified to perform the duties
required. We cannot hope to succeed with less of special effort than
we have had in the past. But if to the services of the brethren who
are able to render them, we can add the services of this lady worker,
we believe it will give fresh interest to the work in many of our coun-
ties. Arrangements can be made with the Cook County Association
to take a portion of her time in that county, or to exchange and give
us in the state work an equal amount of the services of the superin-
tendent of their county work. It will require an additional sum of six
to eight hundred dollars, which, we believe, the counties will willingly
contribute. We hope this will be specially productive of the estab-
lishment of more normal or training classes, as well as of better meth-
ods of teaching. We earnestly recommend that this plan be adopted.
The question of re-districting the state has oflen been before us, and
many arguments have been made on both sides. The question is one
of men, rather than the extent of the territory, and may possibly be
considered in the district meetings held during this session.
You have been advised of the centennial anniversary meetings of
Sunday Schools, held in London, Eng., during the past year. Several
delegates from our own state were present, and it is expected that at
Illinois State Sunday School Convention. 19
this meeting: you will hear a brief report from them. We hope that
the effect of this meeting will be specially stimulating to the Sunday
School in foreign lands, not only in the continent of Europe, but in the
far East, and in the Islands of the Sea.
While our own work has not advanced with the rapidity we could
have desired, it is truly comforting to note the rapid progress that has
been made in the missionary work abroad, in connection with this
work, which will also be brought before you. Sunday Schools have
become a great power for good. We have been specially requested
to present at this time a brief report of the work by the Foriegn Sun-
day School Association which was organized in the country. This
will be brought to your attention by one of the speakers, and is com-
mended to your prayerful co-operation.
The Third International Sunday School Convention for the United
States and British Provinces will meet D. V. June 22 and 24, in the
city of Toronto, Canada. We are entitled to 42 delegates, and they
should he appointed at this meeting.
It is again our painful duty to announce the death of two persons
prominently connected with the work in this State; first, Mr. E. C.
Wilder, the third President of the Association in 1861, and for several
years an earnest and faithful worker with us, has died during the past
year. After leaving our own state, he removed to New York, where
for a number of years he held the important office of President of the
New York City and County Association work, where he was enabled
to do much good. We recommend that suitable resolutions to his
memory be spread upon the records of our Association. Second,
Stephen Paxson, often called " The Father of Illinois Sunday Schools,"
so long identified with the work in this state, so widely known, not
only throughout our state, but throughout our country, so universally
beloved by all who have known him, and by many who have read of
the work God permitted him to do, fell asleep in Christ, at his home
in St. Louis, on Friday, April 22d, in the 73d year of his age. Your
committee will not attempt in this report to bring before you anything
concerning the life and services of our beloved brother, but at a late
hour have changed the programme to include in the exercises for Wed-
nesday evening a memorial service in memory of our beloved brother,
at which time suitable words may be spoken concerning him. Your
committee also recommend that a subscription be taken up by us as the
beginning of a fund to be raised by the Snnday Schools throughout
the land to purchase a suitable lot in the cemetery, and to erect a suit-
able monument to his memory in connection with his Sunday School
work, and that we invite all who are like-minded with us, in other
parts of the country, to contribute to this purpose.
We cannot close our report in a more earnest or suitable manner
than to repeat the last words of this beloved brother, "Hold fast unto
the end. Take hold of the Christian work and hold on."
Respectfully submitted,
B. F. Jacobs, Chairman.
On motion, the following were appointed a committee on the Execu-
tive Committee's report: O. R. Brouse, Winnebago County; G. W.
Trask, Green County; T. M. Eckley, Hamilton County.
The report of the Statistical Secretary was printed and distributed
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Illinois State Sunday School Convention. 23
REPORT OF DELEGATES TO THE CENTENNIAL.
ADDRESS OF W. C. KENNER.
W. C. Kenner, of Flora, reported as follows :
Mr. President^ and Dear Sunday School Workers:
I have reason to thank you for the honor conferred upon me by be-
ing made a delegate to the London Centennial. It is one of the pleas-
ures of my life that I was permitted to go to that great gathering, to
enjoy the feast of good things, and to return safely and stand before
you this afternoon. I thank you for this pleasure. I shall allude
briefly to the meetings that were held. Others are present, and they
may speak more at length in regard to what they saw and heard on
that occasion.
The first meeting was held in the rooms of the London Sunday
School Union, an organization for establishing Sunday Schools in all
parts of the world, especially in English colonies and on the continent
of Europe. At the first meeting, or reception, we were all welcomed
by Sir Charles Reed, President of the Association. He stated that at
the opening of the meeting there were 200 foreign delegates present,
representing 14 nationalities. It afforded me great pleasure to add to
the statistics of the world 7,500,000 children for the United States. Al-
though this was the centennial of Robert Raikes, they met to glorify
God and not Robert Raikes. Truly, the sentiment of the first meet-
ing was " What hath God wrought."
The next speaker was Mr. H. E. Wade. He said : We come to
bring you a greeting from Australia, 16,000 miles away. Our educa-
tion there is free and compulsory. It is also secular, hence we have
need of the Sunday school work that we are doing in our island.
The next was Pastor Truve, President of the Sunday School Un-
ion of Sweden. He said that the first school in Sweden was pro-
hibited by law and closed by the police, while now they have 100
schools and 150,000 scholars.
Dr. Prochnow said Sunday school work began in Portugal in 1864.
Mr. Woodruff said to him, " You must take this work." He re-
plied, " I am editor of 6 newspapers." Woodruff replied, " We
are looking for a busy man." Prochnow answered, " But I am also
a doctor, missionary and society instructor in the hospital." But he
did take it, and thank God that he did; for he was the spiritual lever
that brought about the work in that land.
Our next meeting was precisely at 12 o'clock, noon. In London
they seemed partial to that hour, because they have their dinner at 6
o'clock. This meeting was held in Guild Hall, and during business
hours they came together to talk about Sunday-schools. It was pre-
sided over by the Right Honorable Lord Mayor of London. It
seemed to us that he must be to London, what Queen Victoria is to
England. The Archbishop of Canterbury spoke, and let me speak
forth the words that he said on that occasion : " Let us be resolved
that the coming generation have the word of God in the family and
are trained in the gospel."
In the afternoon the first regular meeting met in Memorial Hall, a
i4 Illinois S-i-atk Sunday School Convention.
large and commodious building. But it did not appear that the con-
vention was for the people, but being invited by the Sunday School
Union was only for those delegates who were present. An interest-
ing paper was read on the Sunday school work in England, " What
it is and what we are Doing."
Dr. J. H. Vincent said the great powers were : " The International
Convention," " The American Sunday-School Union " and the union
of the various denominational Sunday-schools. In speaking of the
International Convention, he referred briefly to the history of the In-
ternational Sunday-School Union, and referred particularly to B. F.
Jacobs, as the one who had done more than any other man to bring
about the International Lesson System.
Mr. Wade, of Australia, reported 112,000 Sunday-school scholars
in Australia. Millard, of Canada, stated that their reports were com-
piled only every three years. ( Mr. Jacobs replied, " One of our
counties would just fit that.") He gave 399,000 in the Sunday-school
and hoped there would be a grand increase shown in the next report.
Mr. Granville, of New Zealand, stated that they had a branch of
the Sunday-school Union and that it was doing great good there, in
supplying Sunday-school literature and in various ways. He reported
16,000 in the schools. He said it might seem a small number, but it
was only a short time since they began, and it seemed a great harvest.
On Tuesday morning we had the most interesting part of the ses-
sion. It brought out the position and prospects of the Sunday-schools
on the continent. Mr. Woodruff of New York, was thanked for in-
troducing Sunday-schools into Germany. Next we heard a brief re-
port from feeble efforts to establish Sunday-schools in Austria. We
heard from Italy through Rev. A. Meille. There were Sunday
scho )ls in Milan, but not properly Sunday schools, for the Bible is not
taught in them. Meille had the pleasure of being the second evan-
gelist in Rome. After the Waldenses came into the city, one morn-
ing he was very much surprised on seeing a lady come to the church
at 10 o'clock. He said, '' Our church service is not until 11." "Oh,
I came to your Sunday school. I came to your Sunday school in
Florence and I supposed you had a Sunday-school in Rome," He
was now able to report 10,600 in the Sunday-school.
On Wednesday we went to the Crystal Palace. On that morning
we witnessed the various sports and games for the boys, but the dele-
gates were not invited to take part.
In the afternoon we had a concert by 5,000 voices, the grandest con-
cert ever given by Sunday school children. We also had an open air
concert of 30,000 voices.
On Thursday morning we listened to selected speakers on various
topics. At 12 o'clock we witnessed the unveiling of the statue to
Robert Raikes. The memorable statue was unveiled by the Earl of
Shaftesbury. The statue cost $60,000, and it was stated at the time
that we were $i,oOo in debt. John Wannamaker of Philadelphia,
raised the $1,000 in a few minutes.
I shoulil like 10 dwell moie at len,^th upon the pleasant time we
had. There are a great many other things I should like to refer to,
but I can only give you a brief synopsis of what I saw and heard at
the London Centennial.
Illinois State Sunday School ConventioiJ. 2'^
ADDRESS OF W. B. JACOBS.
It would be hard to tell in five minutes all that I heard and saw in
three weeks with eyes and ears both open. I can only speak of a few
things which most deeply impressed me. The first of these is, the
thoroughness and system which characterizes everything that is done
in England. Their great idea seems to be a solid foundation for future
work, and that this extends to religious organizations, the great Re-
ligious Tract Society, and the London Sunday School Union are
mighty witnesses.
I was the guest of Mr. Henry Hawkes, one of the secretaries of the
Sunday School Union, and nearly every night, during my stay, he
worked till a late hour making reports and corresponding with the
school secretaries in his district.
All their efforts are to accomplish the utmost good. They do not
make the mistake so common in America of having a Methodist
school on one corner and a Presbyterian school just across the way.
But new schools are organized in destitute localities, and their efforts
are not wasted in building up one school at the expense of another.
We often say our hands are full, that we are overworked ; but an
illustration may show that very few in our country, work as the Sun-
day School workers in London. Mr. Hawkes went to his school at
quarter before 9. School service lasted from 9 to 10:30. Then fol-
lowed a childrens' preaching service from 11 to 12. Another service
of school from 2:30 to 4 p. m., and another preaching service at 6:30
to 7:30 p. M. Often the Superintendent attended all these services,
besides the time spent in talking with teachers and scholars, so that he
had barely time to lunch at noon and return, and to dinner at 5 and
return to evening service. These are outside of the church services,
in buildings used especially for Mission Schools. This is by no means
a solitary case, but an illustration of what scores of Sunday-school
workers in London are doing every Sunday. English Sunday-schools
are behind us in many things, but in point of fidelity, duty and earn-
estness in redeeming the time, their workers will compare favorably
with our own country.
Centennial Sunday-school meetings were held all over England,
and also in Ireland and Wales, for this celebration was not confined to
London, it was a lighting of the fires of enthusiasm all over the land,
and there were great gatherings and mass conventions of people of
all classes in many cities and towns.
Rev. Drs. Hall and Vincent from our country were present, and
their time was used to the utmost. American speakers were in great
demand. I spoke in Yorkshire to those who were hungry to hear
how things were done in the United States. No speaker could say
more flattering things for true Sunday-school work in the United
States, than was heard every where in these meetings. In Sheffield,
a great city, I spoke to a large audience. The people, mayor of the
city, members of Parliament and business men of every class gath-
ered there. They are taking on American methods and have Sunday-
schools in connection with the church, and sit with their children
26 Illinois State Sunday School Connention,
studying the Bible together. Efforts are making to be abreast of us
in every good word and work.
The Archbishop of Canterbury said this for our encouragement.
Though he would hold the standard the highest, and thought we
should make every attainment possible in God's word ; yet he said :
" Fellow workers in the Sunday-school, I would give more for the
poorest teacher, the most ignorant teacher, whose heart is filled with
the love of Christ and the children, than I would for the wisest and
best teacher who lacks this love."
At Bradford, a city of 300,000 inhabitants, they filled a hall whose
capacity was 4,000. There was this peculiarity about those meetings
held in various parts of England, Ireland and Wales : that in this
centennial celebration the children had a great place. At Halifax the
attendance on childrens' day w^as estimated at 30,000. At Bradford,
it was estimated there were 100,000 present at the childrens' meeting
to celebrate the centennial. I speak this to show you, brethren, that
the interest is increasing there.
Pastor Paul Cook of Paris, and myself, were traveling companions.
He said to me : "You can get no idea of the work in France from
statistics. Let me illustrate the eagerness for instruction. When
many of the old Huguenot families returned to France they wanted
to organize a Sunday-school. But the boys are shepherds and had to
take their flocks out at six o'clock on Sunday as well as on other days,
and had to remain with them till dark. So they had to make choice of a
Sunday-school before they went out or after they came home. They
said, after we come in from our flocks we are weary and tired ; let us
have the Sunday-school before we go out. So the Sunday-school was
organized and meets every Sunday morning at 4 o'clock to study the
word of God. So, whether in France or America, if the Sunday-
school fails, it will not fail for want of the support of the children,
but because of its officers. If the children are lost it will be because
of the carelessness of teachers, lost for want of some one to look after
them and follow them up. And I sometimes fear that you and I will
have to answer in that great day, if the eager eyes, loving voices and
earnest desires of children to hear of Christ are not satisfied. May
we gather these children into the presence of the great Master, join-
ing our voices with them in ascribing honor and glory to Him that
loved us and gave Himself for us to redeem us to God by His own
precious blood.
THE WORK OF THE FOREIGN SUNDAY SCHOOL ASSO-
CIATION.
O. R. BROUSE, A. M.
O. R. Brouse, of Rockford, Winnebago county, read a paper on the
work of the Foreign Sunday School Association, as follows:
We do not come to present any very wonderful things accomplished
by this organization; for it is at the beginning of a new line of Sun-
day-school activity, the inception of a new movement seemingly capa-
ble of grand results. Therefore we will not despise the day of small
things, but first looking over the reasons for the existence of such an
Illinois State Sunday School Convention. 27
association, and its chances of producing good, we will next consider
what has been and is being done. First, then, as to why this associa-
tion exists.
The topic for this afternoon is, " A place for the Sunday-school."
There is a place for the Sunday-school. In our boyhood's school-
room there hung this motto: " A time and place for every thing; and
every thing in its proper time and place." If there be anything in the
Sunday-school of any value, let us find its proper place, and put it
there.
The Sunday-school is the present Bible school. Here almost alone
the people study God's word; and yet back to our knowledge of what
God teaches, and to our acceptance of His teachings, can be traced
every blessing of our better civilization. What makes England and
America the leading nations of the world but our knowledge of the
Bible? But the blessings of the Sunday school are confined mostly
to England and America. Hear this! France had in 18S0 less than
50,000 members of Sunday-schools, — less than the city of Chicago
alone; Protestant Germany, the home of Luther and Melancthon,
210,000; Holland, 103,000; Italy, 10,000; Spain, 3,000; Sweden, 165,-
000, and Switzerland, 81,000. Thus all Europe but 622,000, and the
entire world outside of Great Britain and America, has less than a
million souls in their Sunday-schools.
Of the ninety millions in our two nations, fourteen millions are in
the Sunday-schools; while of the 1.400 millions in other lands, less
than one million thus study God's word. Yet it is just as desirable for
them as for us.
Does any one ask what need there is of our carrying Sunday-schools
into Protestant lands, such as Germany ? Let us recall a moment the
condition in which England and the United States were a hundred
years ago, and inquire whether the existence of Sunday-schools here
has been justified by their results. Germany is in many respects in
the same condition as to the popular knowledge of the Word of God,
as were our ancestors before the time of Robert Raikes.
While the Bible is free, yet the people must be stimulated to study
it. This, and this alone, will keep the best of churches pure and
efficient. But while this is a great truth, as we have found it to be,
the old established churches do not perceive it, and even their best
ministers doubt the expediency of Bible schools. Take an instance:
A lady going into North Germany thought to begin Sunday-school
work, but the pastor, though himself a true believer, for three years
would not consent to have a school opened. At length consent was
given, and the lady began with thirty-five and soon had 250 scholars,
and almost a complement of teachers, when the pastor, returning home
from a visit, took charge of the teacher's preparatory meeting, divided
the school into four classes, with a new teacher for every Sunday, and
sent home all the children over twelve years, and constantly urged
upon the teachers that the school was wholly unnecessary. He soon
reduced the school to twenty; and when the lady began again inde-
pendently of him, he used his authority over the children, who must
be prepared by him for confirmation in the church, to withdraw them
from the school. We are glad to add that this faithful lady's third
effort, this time among the poor, ignorant, and hitherto unmanageable
28 Illinois State Sunday School Convention.
children is having success in the face of the opposition. Now, this
pastor is among the best, and yet his judgment is against the useful-
ness of the Bible school. It will take a generation to overcome the
opposition of the constituted church of God. Why, even after the
Crown of England had lent its aid to Robert Rail<es in furthering his
work, the primate of Canterbury held a council of his clergy to see
what could be done to check the dangerous innovation of Sunday-
schools.
If this be true of Protestant lands, the condition of Catholic coun-
tries is far worse. Here, to get the Word of God in its simplicity and
purity into the hands of the people at all, there must first be encount-
ered and defeated all the secret and political power of ever-vigilant
Rome. The priests claim that it is unsafe to allow men and women,
much less children, to read the Bible, unexplained by the authority
of the church; that while the Bible is the Word of God, the church
of Rome is the divinely inspired interpreter, and that it is more im-
portant to have the interpretation than the word itself In order to
hold intact a rotten and tottering system, fastened upon the truth as a
leech, the dogmas of men must be held to be more important than the
truth of God itself; for even their practices have no support in the
Word, and must fall when the truth becomes free. With us the pure,
unqualified word is first and supreme, and all things inconsistent there-
with must give way and be reconstructed in accordance therewith, but
it is not so in France, Italy, or Spain and the Catholic world.
Catholicism is in control of the vast millions who have heard of
Jesus, but still the far greater number of millions have never even
heard this charmed name. We have then utter heathenism, Buddh-
ism, Confucianism, Mahommedanism and Catholicism to contend
against in first and simply getting to the people what God himself has
spoken for them. But we will not be discouraged. The Bible, reach-
ing the children, and then through them the parents, is steadily doing
its work of salvation. This seems to be the efficient method even
with missionaries who have been sent primarily to preach to the
parents; their most effective means is the Bible school for the children.
We do not depreciate the work of our noble missionaries, nor speak
lightly of the proclamation of God's message to the dying millions
of men and women. God forbid! But we think we are fully sup-
ported by the experience of our missions in saying that the Bible
schools are doing the pioneer work among the heathen, preparing the
way for the church among them. It is for us to put the pure gospel
into the hands of these dying millions, and there is no other way so
promising as that of first teaching the children. This thoroughly
done, in a short generation all will know of Jesus' love; all will have
come into the kingdom as little children; and through the children
large numbers of the parents will be brought into the truth ere they
die. Give me the children and I will control the parents. The chil-
dren are impressible. Why spend our limited strength upon calloused
men and women and leave the children to become likewise hard to
reach ? To work to the best advantage with what means we have let
us teach the children God's pure word.
There is an efficient society already organized in this country to fur-
ther these ends. Albert Woodruff, of Brooklyn, N. Y., has been at
Illinois State Sunday School Convention. 2,9
work for sixteen years with his associates, developing and bringing
into practical work the Foreign Sunday-school Association.
" The object of this association is to establish, improve, and assist
Sunday or Bible-schools in foreign lands, seeking thereby to promote
the religious observance of the Sabbath, international and local inter-
course between Christians of all denominations, a scriptural faith, and
zealous work in making that faith more general and effective."
They have a president, treasurer, two recording and two correspond-
ing secretaries, eleven trustees to hold and invest the funds intrusted to
the association, and several committees of correspondence. One of
these, consisting of eight ladies, has charge of the Spanish work; an-
other of six, attends to the Italian work; one of seven, the German;
and another, consisting of eleven ladies, conduct the work in France,
Russia, China, Japan, and other countries. These committees meet
together once a week and thus they become thoroughly acquainted
with each foreign field and its workers. By the New Testament
method of letter-writing, these seek to push the kingdom of Christ
among men, keeping up constant communication with all their work-
ers, cheering and helping them.
They do not wholly support any teachers or schools, but stimulate
and assist by furnishing small sums of money with which to buy
papers, music, maps and books to aid in teaching the Bible to the
children. They print, or help to print, six children's papers in as many
languages. Also they have translated into several tongues and dis-
tributed several thousand copies of " Christie's Old Organ^'' a little
book of wonderful power and charm. They furnish some of their
European teachers with copies of the 6". 6". Times, the great Sunday-
school paper of America. The outlay last year was only $3,840,
wholly provided by contributions; yet they assisted about lOO schools,
besides publishing their six papers and one book.
The work is not yet large, but is opening a wide door. They can
now move on just as rapidly as they can secure the means, and the
channel they have opened for our contributions leads straight to the
sea of the universal dominion of Christ over human hearts.
Though not a missionary society, it is doing a large missionary
work. Though not a church, it is reinforcing all the churches. The
best good you can give a man is to stimulate him to help himself.
Bismarck and a friend were out snipe-hunting, when the friend fell
into a mud-hole and was sinking deeper in the quicksands with every
struggle. Being up to his armpits and helplessly sinking, he called
loudly to Bismarck to help him out. Bismarck said coolly, " My
friend, I cannot help you, good-bye! Yes, I can end your sufferings
now." And leveling his gun at his friend's head, he again said,
" Good-bye, old fellow ! I will tell your wife all about it. What mes-
sage shall I bear to her for you? Be quick before I shoot." But by
this time the maddened man had extricated himself.
Wm. Taylor, known many years ago as the California street-
preacher, is to-day carrying many missionaries to foreign lands; but he
does not support one of them. He says, " If you are willing to go
and trust God and the people you serve, for support, come! " He has
traveled farther, established more churches, and possibly had more
converts than the Apostle Paul, and he works upon Paul's plan. The
JO Illinois State Sunday School Convention.
laborer is worthy of his hire. The people served must help them-
selves. This is a somewhat different work from that of our mission
societies, but it is a rich field, and India, Africa, Peru, Chili, Brazil,
and various other posts all over the world show Wm. Taylor's success.
Now, the Foreign Sunday-school Association does its work in much
the same way, otherwise $3,840 could not do much for six newspapers
and one hundred Sunday-schools. They only help those who can be
induced to help themselves, and any Christian who will begin the
Sunday-school work in any foreign land can call upon this association
and receive the best of advice, the most perfect system of work, and
some material aid to supplement and energize the work of the natives
themselves. The denominational schools also receive help wherever
it is needed. They know no master but Christ, no limits save their
own power and means.
In many instances they correspond with the regular missionaries
of the churches, and through them project and foster the Bible-schools
which are the first object of their association; but for the most part
thev are aiding and encouraging individual Christians in isolated places
on the continent of Europe to set the Christian churches to work in
the most profitable, systematic study of the Word of God. We bid
them God speed, and lend them a helping hand.
A PLACE FOR THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL IN THE CHURCH.
ADDRESS OF KNOX P. TAYLOR.
I. Importance of Bible study by all.
II, Necessity for Christians to work.
III. The Support and Direction of the Sunday-School.
I. — The question to consider is the importance of Bible study by all
in the Sunday-school and in the church. We must first think what
the Bible proposes to do for those, and the condition of those we have
to work with. We learn from the precious word itself that sin entered
into the world, and death by sin. Now, from the Bible standpoint
we look upon the world dead ip tresspasses and sins. Then we have
the Master commanding us to go forth and teach all nations, teaching
them whatsoever I have commanded you. Then we have a double
incentive. " Go help our neighbor, dead in tresspasses and sins, know-
ing that He who had all power in heaven and on earth, said, " Go
Teach." Oh, what an honor to go and teach. But we must learn
of Him who was a teacher of teachers, a Master of all. Learn of
Him. Then we come to that precious word, and study it that we
may learn of Jesus. Sit at His feet studying the blessed word and
learning how to do this grand work.
Now, dear friends, we must look and see what this word proposes
to do. It is the power of God unto salvation. This word is the
sword of the Spirit; " Sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing
even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and
marrow, and is a disccrner of the thoughts and intents of the heart."
This word comes as a power to us. Begotten by this word, born
by this word of truth. Again, we have faith by this word. Faith
Illinois State Sunday School Convention. 31
comes by hearing, but how can we hear unless we have God's word
preached unto us. Hence the influence of the word upon our hearts
gives faith. Let us look at it, for " It is able to make us wise unto
salvation!" "All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is
profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in
righteousness; that the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly fur-
nished unto all good works." It is also to the Christian a lamp to his
feet, and a light to his path, bread, food, water, and refreshment.
The word of God is sweeter than honey, and the honey-comb. It is
all this! Thus considering the word of God, why not study it with
care. Besides, a necessity is laid upon all to study this word. I want
to direct attention to-day to this study. Do you think when you take
up the word and read four or five chapters, that that is studying?
Reading chapter after chapter, and book after book, and not centering'
the mind upon one thought, is not study. We should study the word
until it opens up in all its grandeur, making the soul leap for joy. We
need to study the word of God until it becomes a well of living water.
Studying it in that way we will accomplish a great deal for God.
What are some of the difficulties in the way of Sunday-school
work? [Here the speaker paused and obtained the following replies
from the audience,]
" The greatest difficulty is the want of complete consecration,"
(Hazard). Other replies, in brief, were as follows: " Lack of study;"
"Lack of zeal on the part of parents;" "Lack of a realization of the
importance of the work;" "Indifference on the part of teachers;"
" We do not aim high enough;" " Want of spirituality;" " Lack of
teachers' meetings;" " Lack T>f faith;" " Want of love in the cause;"
" Lack of prayers."
Now, dear friends, there is reason for these difficulties. But if there
are difficulties in the way, we want to remove them. Let a man go
deep into the truth and God will lift him up. We want to rise like
those children Mr. Jacobs spoke of, and be willing to go to Sunday-
school at six o'clock in the morning. That is what the word of God
will do for us. What will it do for the indifferent parents who need
more truth and more spirituality at home? We need the word of God
so that we may go before them, and lead our children on. The word
of God will give us this power. Then we want the word of God for
indifferent teachers. When we study in the true import of the word,
business will make way for study. Yes, it is a sweet comfort to reflect
upon the word of God. I remember a lady in a Sunday-school Con-
vention who said to me: How do you prepare your lesson? She said,
As soon as I get home from church I get the next Sunday-school les-
son and sit down with my Bible, pencil and paper. After I get down
deep into the word my prayer goes up to the Lord that He will reveal
the word unto me. In the hours of the night when I cannot sleep, I try
to get thoughts for the children. Talk about indifference ! The word
of God gained was almost consuming her. She took care of her home
and taught her own children as well as others. When the word of
truth goes down into the heart we can work at home as well as else-
where. Many, when they go out of their own city or home, can
work delightfully, but at home and around the family altar they can-
not. When we get our hearts full of the truth we can talk at home
32 Illinois State Sunday School Conventiok.
to our children, and need not be ashamed to tell Mary how she ought
to do, and dear little Johnny, what the word will do for him. In
traveling up and down the State in Sunday-school work, my heart
almost aches when I go into a Sunday-school and there is no interest.
The Superintendent having no interest or care for the Sunday-school
except during the hour of Sunday-school. The plea is, I have no
time. But did you not goto the political meetings last fall? You
could get away from business. You could go every night, stay till
twelve o'clock, and attend to business too. We want more consecra-
tion, and the truth will consecrate us.
We want to look at it from the other standpoint, " The necessity for
Christians to work."
II. — The Bible is not in our public schools, and these children who
are to take our places in State and church, are not taught the Bible in
the public schools. Then somebody else must take the place of
teacher. Where should it be taught if not in the public schools? We
are a religious people and yet do not pretend to teach the Bible in our
schools. There is a class of persons who stand fair in our churches,
and could receive a letter of commendation at any time. But what are
they doing at home for their children? What are you doing to have
them saved? You love those children and you are working day and
night to make them popular in society, but what are you doing for
their souls? Must somebody else attend to that? Y^ou will excuse me
for a few remarks on this point. I have gone over this country and
have been at conventions, and have asked what proportion of the min-
isters prepared and actually gave time to the children from the pulpit,
and who adapted the teaching to youth? One out of ten! In one
convention the brethren said, not more than one out of fourteen.
" Feed my lambs," said Christ, if you love me. Sometimes I have
had the answer, one out of twenty-five; but never more than one out
of ten, who had actually prepared themselves to do the work.
The public schools fail, the parents fail, the ministers fail, or, at
least, many of them to teach the word of God from the pulpit.
III. — Then there is a place for the Sunday-school. Yes, and the
preachers come with us, with loving hearts and hands, they come to
help and teach you. The preacher comes and sits there before the
class and begins to teach the children. This is elevating the pulpit
and it is doing a grander class of work. Y^ou do not believe it. The
Sunday-school work comes in to fill that great gap in the wall, " Feed
the Lambs." God can speak these grand words in such a way as to
lead hearts to Jesus. Thank God for the Sunday-school. This win-
ter I was in a grand revival, where a little boy eleven years of age
professed Christ. The house was crowded, and the minister said, I
will guarantee that there are fifty men saying that this boy is uncon-
scious of what he is doing. Fifty who are saying that he is not ready.
I will take that fifty and I will put them in a room with the boy and
let them question him, and he can put the blush upon their cheeks.
Thank God the Sunday-school is raising up these lambs. Three-
fourths of those who join the church come from the Sunday-school.
Therefore, to the work, we need this work. There are thirty-three
millions born into the world every year. Who is going to take charge
of these? Oh, de^ brethren, we want to go into the work more fully,
Illinois State Sunday School Convention. 33
Reeling, " as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord " in this
particular field of work. Concentrate your mind upon some especial
field of work, let it be that of superintendent, teacher, librarian; or
let it be work in the temperance society. Concentrate your mind upon
that. Study that subject and make yourself acquainted with it till you
become a power in the community. So many work a little here and
a little there, seeking a field of labor.
What do you say of the spirit of Catholicism ? We have got to
meet that at home. A few days ago a Presbyterian minister handed
me a tract with reference to what the Catholics' proposed to do with
our public schools. They are introducing their text books into our
own schools. You don't believe it! It is so, friends, and you will
wake up from that thought when the shackles are upon us. May
God give us an eye to look out for our children, the interests of our
nation, and our own future good, to-day, while it is called to-day, and
not put it off for a future time.
A PLACE FOR THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL IN THE FAMILY.
/. BY H. R. CLISSOLD.
In an address delivered some years ago by Henry Ward Beecher,
he made use of language something like this : " When Napoleon the
First had overrun Germany and reduced the nation to despair, then
it was that the king w^as wisely advised that the salvation of the
empire lay in a inore thorough education of the household. And
France, that ground Germany to powder, saw^ the change by which
she was brought back under German supremacy." The change was
wrought by the education of the household. Perhaps some such a
thought was in the heart of Napoleon himself when he made the sug-
gestion that France's greatest need was for mothers and for homes.
We have this question before us to-day : A place for the Sunday-
school in the Family. Our programmes for Sunday-school conven-
tions show a marked progress in the work, and the programme
topics themselves show progress. A few years ago this topic would
have been stated in the question form : Is there a place for the Sab-
bath-school in the family ? Now it is granted that there is a place,
and we have simply to state what that place is. When I was at work
in Clark county, I visited a church and talked with one of the fore-
most members of the church about the superintendent of the Sun-
day-school, teachers, and so on. I found that the superintendent did
not belong to the church, and that none of the teachers were profess-
ing christians. He told me that the superintendent was a grand Sun-
day-school worker, full of gas. Full of gas ! I think we have gone
a little beyond that point.
There is a place for the Sunday-school in the family. The help of
the Bible school is needed by the family, ist. for giving instruction to
those who have the training of children. Our brother, Taylor, al-
luded to this command of God. The statutes of the Lord are to be
taught to the children. " Thou shalt teach them, thy sons and thy
son's sons." The help of the Sunday-school is needed in the fam-
3
34 Illinois State Sunday School Convention.
ily that ])arents may tt-ach the children. " Thou shall teach these statutes
diligcjitly to thy chikiren." In Paul's letter to the Ephesians, ( Eph.
6:4.) we read, " Ye fathers, provoke not yoiu" children to wrath, but
bring them up in the nurture and admonition of Lord." " Train up
a child in the way he should go and wiicn he is old he will not de-
part from it." We find it constantly stated in the word of God, and
we cannot lay too much stress upon it, that it is an obligation laid
upon us to teach, whether the church teaches or not. There is a de-
sire to turn over to the church the responsibility laid upon us parents.
The obligation is laid upon me to teach as faithfully and earnestly as
if there were no church or Sunday-school in existence. Because
home has such a mighty influence for good or ill in the formative per-
ioil of a child's life, therefore the home needs the help of the Sun-
day-school, that those trained be fitly trained. How shall we teach
those statutes diligently unless we are instructed in them. When we
have provided for the study of the word, is it all that we can do ?
You know that it is not. Every one knows that in our Sunday-school
study of God's word, we are better prepared for the preaching service,
and we will learn out of God's word faster sitting before the minister,
because we have studied things and not simply heard from others.
The great Apostle writes to Timothy that, the scriptures are given by
inspiration, and are "profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction,
for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be per-
fect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works." Dear friends, is
there a good work, is there a better work, than this training of our
children at home in the word of God ? Under our present system of
Sunday-school work, we claim that we are better able to become
teachers of our own children. We can give direction to home study
by studying the lessons in the school. Thus parents have a place in
the Bible school so that they may be able to study with the children
at home.
The help of the Bible school is needed for the preparation of the
children for this home training. Our young people soon grow inde-
pendent of home restraints. They soon get free from the restraints of
father and mother. There is a tendency to independence which seems
to threaten us like a curse. I believe if we study this word, we will be
learning to maintain, " Honor thy father and thy mother that thy
days may be loyg in the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee."
We talk of these lightly, we repeat these lightly to them, and we
think little; but when we come to study the circumstances, it is
high time and of the utmost moment that these words be impressed
upon the young. In Paul's letters we read, " Children, obey your
parents, for this is well pleasing in the Lord." Obey, for this is right.
If we study the characters of obedient Isaac and rebellious Absalom
and impress them upon the children, we believe the boys and girls
will be more ready to come under the restraint of home, than without
the schools. We may well claim that the home needs the Bible
school so that the children may be trained to obey the commands of
father and mother.
The family needs the Bible school for elevation of its tone. The
tone of our homes is not what it ought to be. Some homes God has
blessed with wealth and art, and in very many of these homes there
Illinois State Sunday School Convention. 35
is nothing but a love for self. Self is set up and God and His great
kingdom is lost sight of. When we come to study God's word we
learn, as we do from Paul's letter to the Corinthians, the law of love.
From our Saviour's golden rule we learn that the love of God re-
quires a life of self denial, and it gives a higher tone to our lives than
centering them on self. If we can be brought into contact with them,
we will be lifted into a higher atmosphere. There is no caste in our
Sunday-school. Years ago the children of the better classes were not
found in our Sunday-school. In our country it is the great leveler,
there is no caste, here the children of the poor and rich sit side by
side studying the same word. Some of the classes are those to ^vhich
God has given wealth, and brought into contact with others they
minister to them. God has given to us thousands of degraded chil-
dren, whose homes are filled with misery, whose homes are a blight.
What can we do for them in our schools ? Ah, bring them by con-
tact to the knowledge of something better: to the life up yonder to
which every one may come. Then bring them into an acquaintance
with something which will enrich them in this life, better habits,
cleanliness, neatness. All these things are brcroght unto them by
contact with the people, and through the Bible schools their character
and tone are elevated.
I believe there is no gi"eater danger threatening the country than
Sabbath desecration. It is like the rushing waters that have lately
done so much damage. What would we do if our Sabbaths were
' gone ? Let us bring the children to the knowledge of the fact that
they are to " Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy." In
our Bible schools we have an opportunity to worship, and we can
train the scholars in obedience to law. A few^ years ago the com-
merce of this country was stopped by those who had no regard for
law. I believe if those persons who were the authors had been
trained in the Sunday-schools to regard law, that those scenes would
never have been enacted. In our Bible schools we learn to have re-
spect " for the powers that be." We learn reverence, obedience
and industry.
The help of the family is needed by our schools, as well, for sev-
eral reasons. For one, for the power of a godlv life in the home.
We read in Paul's letter to Timothy, " Take heed unto thyself and
unto the doctrine; continue in them, for in doing this thou shalt both
save thyself and them that hear thee." The power of a godly life in
the home can never be estimated. We see the illustration of scrip-
ture given in godly homes, it is the influence of truth in the concrete,
and has greater influence than the truth in the abstract. The helpful,
prayerful mother is a force in the religious world which cannot be
measured. How often we are told of the power of a mother to res-
cue her boy. I can tell you of a woman who died at something over
So. Among her children, grand children and great grand children,
are 140 souls in all. Every one is leading a consistent life, and the
work is due largely to the woman's influence in home. What a
power, and how much the teachers need it! I tell you, there is a
power growing out of truth by reflection, and so we need the influ-
ence of the home in order to help us in the school. You remember
the story of the person requesting membership in the church, and he
36 Ili-inois State Sunday School Convention.
was askcil under whose preaching he was converted, and he rephed,
" I don't think it was any bodvV j)roachini;;. It was my aunt's prac;tis-
ing." The seed we sow in the school we nee<l to water in the home.
Then God giveth the increase.
For another reason: We need the Iielj) of the family in the school
for a better knowledge oi" (he scholar, by the teacher. " Study to
show thyself apprclvcd of God, rightly dividing the word of truth."
There ib a portion of it adapter! to the need of the scholar. Who
knows the scholar better than the parent ? Cann«)t the parent help
the teacher in sncb a case? How little the teacher is lielped by father
or mother in their telling the points about the boy. Think how much
you can help the teachers by telling something about the child. You
may help them so that they may be able to lead him t«» the Lord
Jesus Christ. Help for the school is needed at home in the exercise
of authority. The teacher finds that the scholar is surroimded by
evil influence, finds that while he instructs for an hour on the Sabbath,
that the scholar is taking instruction out of bad books for all the rest
of the week. Thotauthority is needed at home to give assistance tt>
the teacher, it is needetl as a restraint there to keej) those bad in-
fluences down. The help of the family is needed by the school for
" the study of the lesson. The teacher's greatest difliculty is that he
finds that the scholars do not study the lessons in advance. They
come without any preparation but simj^ly to spend the time. Oh, if
the tamily would give this help to the teacher, how much greater op-
portunity Wf)uld be given for enforcing the truth. Here we have in
all our (juartcrlies, home readings. T am utterly surprised to fnul so
many families never paying any attention to those readings. If every
morning we would take the home reading i'ov family worship, with
the golden text, and a little comment l.iearing particularly upon the
lesson, don't yoti see what a light it would throw uj)on the w«)rd <W'
God iill the vveek, and by the time the scholar comes to the
class on Sunday morning, the knowleilge of the lesson is a basis for
Instruction, and helps the teacher amazingly. This «}>ught to he done
in every family, and at the iireside talk about the lesson. We can
talk about anything else but about Gotl's word. Why can't we in-
troduce the theme of the lesson and make it the theme in the even-
ing *? I have spent many hours in christian families and have found a
great deal of time lost in talking on any thing or on nothing at all.
Put the time into this and helj) the scholars with the lesson.
The helj) of the family is needed by the school for memorizing the
Scriptures. This you will find will help the teacher and preacher.
Those who know nothing of the word of God are not so easily instructed.
Any preacher will tell you that he would rather speak to a congrega-
tion steeped in the word of God, than to one that had never heard of
their responsibilities. We can help the teacher by teaching the chil-
dren to memorize the lessons. It is possible for every child, for every
man antl woman to do this. I have no hesitation in saving that every
lessor* can be memorized. It is being done now bv those who
salt! it could not be memorized. Brother Jacobs told me of a little
girl who could not read or write, who had memoiized 30 chapters of
God*s blessed word. Her jjarents repeated the verses to her and now
she is able to repeat the 20 cha])ters, including the sermon on the
J
Illinois State .Sunday Schoot. Convkntiox. 37
mount. Why not do this, and help the teachefs antl preachers of the
gospel. Any child can thus be brought to the fountain of christian
knowledge. We must bring the home and school together. We
must know that there is a place for the family in the school, and a
place for the school in the family. One thing suggests itself to me,
" The House to House Visitation." Weniust go after the scholars. I
hold in my hand a card. I take time to speak of it because it is the
most important thing we can do. This is the card of District No. 20,
in Chicago. It has upon it the name of all the chui'ches in that dis-
trict, and the hour of the different services is noted. It is an invita-
tion card, asking the people to come to the house of God. It is in-
tended that every family in that district shall be visited. They go and
visit and sjjeak to them and invite them if they have a chance to do
it, or they simply hand the invitation. Every home may be visited,
and it is hoped it will be visitqd. It is possible in the city of Cen-
tralia. It is possible in Bloomington. It is po.ssible in Springfield.
VVhy not here and in all communities. If it is possible for Illinois, it
is possible for the United States. It is possible for every family to be
visited and invited to the house of God.
There must be a co-operation between the schools and the families.
We must make our hours of service suit oui; own communitv. A
suitable hour in one community may not be suitable in another. 1
cannot help alluding to one who has been a thorn in iny side. He is
a deacon of the church. Though I have tried and tried to get him
into the Sunday-school, he has never come, because he has always
wanted his dinner just at 3. ( Why not bring it in his pocket? Jacobs.)
He wanted it hot. With a little care and a little foresight, we n^ight
avoiti all things of that kind and make the family service suit the ser-
vice of God. Then, there is another thing needed in this matter of
co-operation: Earnest prayer for the Sunday-school in the family.
Prayer for both in both. Let us not forget that God's blessing comes
to us in answer to prayer. What a sight it will be when the Bible-
lighted homes and the Bible schools, are thus linked together, as I
believe they ought to be. What a bund binding the nation together.
I believe that God has joined these two, and " what God hy,'^ joined,
let no man put asunder."
Tlie Doxology — " Praise God from whom all blessings flow," was
sung, and prayer was offered by Rev. J. 3. Thompson, of Cen-
ti'alia.
First Day — Third Session^,
The great Tabernacle was crowded, and many stood without to
listen.
A Song Service by the Carnaan Family occupied the first half
hour.
On motion, the following were appointed a committee on resolu-
tions :
C. M. Morton, H. C. DeMotte, Geo. Tonnycliff, Wm. B. Lloyr.
38 Illinois State Sunday School Convention.
THEME— HOW TO STUDY THE BIBLE.
BY REV. A. A. KENDRICK, D.D., MADISON COUNTY, PRESIDENT OF SHURTLEFF
CX3LLEGE.
It would be presumption, Mr, President ani dear friends, in this
presence and within the Hmit of time assigned me, to present a code
of practical rules by which it may be determined how we shall study
the Bible. Such a theme is practicably exhaustless. There are many
devout students of the word in this convention, who would, after I
had said all I was capable of saying, stand ready to add other sugges-
tions. I do not undertake the task. My sole object is to suggest how
to study the Bible, not by endeavoring to give any such system of
rules, but preferring rather to lay down certain principles, and if you
receive these principles, the rules will suggest themselves. What we
have to say upon this topic is suggestive, for to make a very natural
classification, two questions may be presented:
First, " What is the Bible?" and secondly, "What is it to study the
Bible?" Now, for the purposes to which I desire to put it, I shall
define tlie Bible as a composite book, in which there exists two elq-
ments, the divine element and the human element. As in the person
of the Lord Jesus Christ, there are to be discovered a mysterious and
perfect union of the divine and human, so in this word, this book
called the Bible; there are present, closely and perfectly united, two
elements, the divine and the human. The divine element consists of
perfect truth, it is that which constitutes revelation — makes it revela*
ticn. The human element is also infallible truth, and the book is
perfect infallible truth. The writers, though possessed of errors in
and of themselves, simply fallible men, in conduct and nature sinful,
although not possessed of a perfect moral nature, though liable to
errors in judgment, and mistakes in argument, nevertheless they were
so inter-penetrated with the divine element, that they were kept from
all error. These two elements combined, constitute the word of God
— the Bible — the book of revelation of which we speak. The origi-
nal scriptures are inspired and completely infallible, even if errors have
crept into the English translation.
There are one or two things I shall say about the Bible in this con-
nection. The first thing is, that it is an infallible book. It has been
said concerning the Bible, that it does not, as a book, differ in the
general character — in its composition — from an)' other revelation that
God has made of Himself. I have affirmed that it is infallible; I am
willing to affirm its infallibility, for God made it Himself. We shall
take hints of this belief in revelation, in the truths of nature. God is in
natural science, and the things of God are known by studying the
things which God has made. Nature contains truth, nature is reveal-
ing God, nature is an infallible Bible, just as any other. But in so far
as these truths are contained in the scriptures, the Bible, they are
superior in their character, in their scope, in their clearness, in their
purposes, to the truths revealed in nature. By so far, the Bible is a
better volume than all the rest. It contains clearer truth, more im-
portant truth, more useful truth. This is the truth we ought to study
Illinois State Sunday School Convention. 39
and that we ought to grasp. The method of revelation that you dis-
cover in nature, that you discover in mind, that you discover in the
whole imiverse — that method of revelation is the same as that in the
book. What I mean to say is this, the Bible does not contain sys-
tems of theology any more than the earth contains a system of geol-
ogy, or the heavens a system of astronomy, or the flowers a system
of botany. We do not find truths revealed in systems. If the Bible
were a system of theology, a formal treatese on christian ethics, or a
formula of statements concerning the constitution of man, I am afraid
it would prove a human constitution. Truth lies in the Bible as it
does in the universe, to be gathered up, systematized and arranged; a
subject for the study and consideration of man. And it is only in
such a guise that you ever discover it in the Bible. Let me indicate
what I mean. Look at the relation that exists between the Bible and
all other books. All other books are the consequences of human
thought. The Bible is necessarily antecedent to all human thought.
Other books show that men have thought. The Bible presents ma-
terials in order that they may think concerning truth.
What is it to study the Bible? I answer it is to apjoly to the Bible
those higher mental processes of which man is capable. Man of all
beings possesses the power of carrying on certain mental processes
which we call thought. To study the Bible is to apply to the word
of God these higher processes. For instance, I should say it is not
reading the Bible that constitutes the study of the Bible. By reading
the Bible, we understand a simple perception through the organ of
sight with just enough mental activity voted to the brain, to 7nind the
contents. Reading is looking at it in this simple way. Accordingly,
we find men saying that they were reading such and svich a thing, but
were thinking about something else. We may distinguish reading
and the work of studying — the work of thinking about it. The dis-
tinction is a clear one, an important one. A great many people by a
process of unconsciously absorbing by perfunctory reading passages
of scripture, come to think in some way that they are not true. Mere
formal reading is of no special value or significance; if thought is not
performed, we have accomplished little. Study does not consist in
speculation about the scriptures. Speculation is an operation of the
imagination, the exercise of that power of the soul to imagine. A
great many persons suppose this is study, and project their imagina-
tion into the scriptures. They will interpret the passages of scrip-
tures and tell us what the Bible may mean, what this may seem to
imply. Now, I afiirm that this is not studying the scriptures. What
we are to do is not to see what the scriptures niay mean but what
they do mean. Finding what interpretation is proper or possible
serves often as a connect mode of approach to the scriptures. But we
are not to find out what is 2:)Ossibly taught, but what is actually taught.
What are the processes we are to aj^ply in order to constitute a study
of the Bible? The true method of studying the scripture, is to apply
to it, strictly, the scientific method. Study by the careful scientific
processes. Any scientist will tell you that there must first be a careful
observation of facts. When we speak of the scientific processes, we
do not mean the processes that scientific men are capable of and no
others. There is no difference between the thinking of scientific men
40 Illinois State Sunday School Convention.
and the thinking of any other man. As processes of thought, there
is no difference, but we call it the scientific way of thinking. The
first thing a scientific man asks, the first thing a Bible student asks is:
What are the facts? Observation is the first thing of importance.
Now our scientific men have cultivated the observing faculty, anti
have learned to record their observations — these men have looked
with open eyes. This is precisely the need of to-day. The first
thing is to ascertain what the scriptures contain. This involves exe-
getical study of the scriptures, a careful mastery of the scriptures in
their relations, exposition, a carefully and complete mastery of the
contents, in order that we may know what it contains, the truth pre-
sented in it. The second step is to arrange these truths, to classify and
systematize the truths. Now in all this we are simply walking in the
steps of our scientific friends. We simply take what we discover,
and classify and arrange it. We love order; the human mind loves
order — finds its delight in order. When we find a flower we have
never seen before, and examine its buds and leaves, study and deter-
mine where it belongs, and give it a name, we really do not know
any more, when we are able to put it in a class, but we feel that wc
have reached some explanation. It is precisely this process which
men need to exercise every hour. It is natural for the mind to ar-
range ideas. All minds do it. It is the most natural thing in the
world. Accordingly, all men have a more or less distinctly affirmed
system of truth. Some more clear, some less, some more full, some
less full. Every man has a religious creed. Then the next and last
step in systematizing thought is, the process of analyzing. That is
to say, we first observe facts, and then we study the facts by them-
selves, and apply to them these three methods: First, we discover the
contents. Second, we arrange the contents. Third, we study them
one by one. Now, I have made these points because it seems to me
that these principles must underlie anv study of the scriptures in
which we engage. Anyone studying the scriptures will find delight
in it. He will see that in studying them, he has gathered their con-
tents, and has formed certain systematic conceptions, and certain con-
ceptions of the principles of ethics.
I was charmed with the Bible lesson this morning, by Brother
Needham, when the brother took that one topic and naturally ar-
rayed and systematized the thoughts presented. Then by a sort of re-
flect action he brings us to look upon the stibject — the whole in all its
parts. That is the work to which the mind has been called by virtue
of its original endowment.
This is the study of God's word, the work in which we are all
engaged.
They tell us in some parts of the West men are engaged in what is
called " pocket-mining." That is to say, they go along, and beneath
some of the hills — along at the foot of the hills they find dirt in which
there are traces of the presence of gold. With their skilled eye and
trained way, by careful study, they scan the soil, and at last, — by a
sort of intuition, but really the result of training, — in the crevices of
the rocks they find a pocket of gold. A little collection of gold out
of which tiie particles discovered had fallen away so as to suggest tiie
presence of this pocket of gold.
Ii-jU^NOis State Sunoa^" Schooi. Convrntion. 41
You will find these pockets of truth all through the Bible, These
suggestions of truth you will fin,d even in the genealogical tables. In
history, in prosy narrative, In beautiful poetry — scattered everywhere
with a lavish hand. The stu(;ly of the Bible employs the processes of
the mind with which God has endowed its. The .^tudy of the Script-
ures is the great work in which we are to engage. You will under-
stand that a study of this character will be very largely determined by
the purposes with which we study. The pi^ofessor of systematic
theology will study the Scripture*^ with reference to his system. An-
other person will study for the ethical, and will direct his study so as
to gather up these principles. Another will study for the Sunday-
school and he will gather up those ideas he desires to possess and pre-
sent to the children.
The Bible contains a great many sciences. Some it does not con-
tain. It contains the science of God and human ethics. It contains
the sciences that cover all the relations of man to his Maker, expressed
in multiplied terms. Here we study with reference to the science we
desire to secure — not exactly the toj^ic of study. We stu<ly a book
with reference to the science it contains. One professor will gather
for the science of geology, another for botany, another for th^ stience
of entomology, and some in the universe hold the matter for the pur-
pose of discovery, in their special science. Jn reference to oiu" scyence
we should study, and study in reference to the things we wish to
teach. Be it known unto you, oh frietids, that nit^n has never obtaineil
a mastery of the things of nature. Like children we are Ignorani
of the things surrounding us in nature. We are equally clitldien, ig-
norant of the things to be learned out of God's Word. No one life-
time can span all, and each should stijdy over against those things
important for him to know. Study the Bible in reference to those
things. In all these things it has been rather assumed that man as a
thinker — capable of these thought processes — is capable of exevcising
them to such an extent as, that with an infallible Bible in his hand, he
may come int© the possession of infallible truth. Alas, my friend,
the fallible element must be introduced. Man is not an infallible
thinker. Man is not clear, because his eyes ate blinded by sin. His
moral nature, his affections are perverted. Spiritual things are spirit-
ually discerned, and natin-al things ai^e naturally discerned. He can
not descern the things of the spirit taught in this same word.
How often we have been taught that He, by whom the holy men
spake and were moved-r-the author of this word — is likewise its inter-
preter. He who stood by the side of th^ writers of the Scriptures
and so guided and controlled them, so as to permit no error to enter
to enter the Scriptures — stands by the Christian ^s a guide int<i all
truth. Paramoinit to all other things let me give this: To study the
Bible aright you must have in answer to prayer, as He has promised,
the guidance and direction of the infallible author of the Bible — the
Holy Spirit.
42 Ii.T.iNQis State Sunday School Convention.
THE WORK OF THE HOLY SPHIIT.
ADDRESS OF G. C. NEEDHAM.
The suljjcct assigned me is the work of the Holy Spirit. I am
almost son y that the subject introduced has not been followed up be-
cause it isr one of great importance — Bible Study. Yet, the subject on
which I am to speak is not separate from Bible study. I have to ap-
proach a very large, subject ^jn sj^eaking of the work of the Holy
Spirit. It is difficult to know what aspect to present. I wish to pre-
sent two or three things that have come fresh to my own mind, re-
garding the Spirit of God. I like to speak of that which has come
as a blessing, which is fresh. It brings power.
John 14: 16. "I will pray the Father and He shall give you an-
other comforter, that He may abide with you forever."
I have sometimes been asked if there was any one passage in the
Scripture which presents the three persons of the Godhead. There
aremany passages where we find the three separate and distinct, and
yet one. No\y we have in this passage an argument for the j^erson-
ality of the Holy Ghost. The comforter is the same as the advocate.
An advocate is one whom we may call to help us, and therelbre com-
fort us. We have the Spirit interceding in us, Christ in Heaven car-
rying on His work of intercession, And so we find the two in har-
mony, yoked together, so to speak. What Jesus Christ is carrying out,
God's Spirit is carrying out to the same purpose.
John 14: 6. "Jesus saith, I am the way, and the truth, and the life:
no man cometh unto the Father but by me."
All truth is in Jesus. He is the personification of truth. All light
and all truth comes from the Son. All truth is in Him and from Him.
What is truth, said Pilate? when the truth stood before him.
John 14: 17. "The Spirit of truth."
The Holy Spirit is called the spirit of truth, proceeding from the
Father and testifying of Christ, the living truth. We practically and
really deny the Spirit. But we must have the spirit in order to know
spiritual things. We need the Holy Ghost as our guide to lead us
into all truth. We consider men strong who think for themselves.
I pity the man who thinks for himself. I want the Holy Spirit to
think for me. It is He that giveth me truth. The Spirit of God re-
veals it to us. Some of you occasionally read in the papers about a
new thing known as agnosticis7n. Some men are almost worshiped
because they do not know anything. If a man is an unbeliever he
may say I don't know.- I know, said Paul. I know, said John. Be
positive and definite in teaching. Be sure you have the word, the
spirit of truth, and then teach without hesitation the truth as it is.
The truth as it is in Jesus will drive out doubt.
John 14: 6. "I am the life." Rom. 8: 2. "The spirit of life in
Christ jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death."
There is no life out of Christ, any more than there is truth out
of Christ. All life is in Him and coming from Him. In Genesis we
find that the magicians were abashed and said, " This is the finger of
God." The spirit of life takes possession of those who believe in Him.
Illinois State Sunday School Convention. 43
There were two stages in Peter's life, and yet he is the same Peter.
On one occasion he said, I believe that " Thou art Christ the Son of
the living God." Christ answered him, " Flesh and blood hath not
revealed it unto the, but my Father which is in Heaven." Peter, on
the day of Pentecost, was abounding in love. If we have life in
Christ we have abundant life.
Luke 4: 8. " The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because He hath
annointed me to preach the gospel to the poor."
The Spirit of God came down upon the Lord Jesus Christ at his
baptism, and proved to man the Lord's divinity. The Father declared
upon whom ye see the spirit descending, the same is baptized with the
Holy Ghost. The Spirit of God has found a dwelling place, a rest-
ing place for the sole of his feet. He came down and abode upon
Christ. Like Noah's dove, it could find no holy spot on earth. But
when Jesus entered into his life ministry the Holy Ghost came and
abode upon him.
Acts 2 : 3. " When the Lord's people were gathered together as a
church, the Holy Ghost came in the symbol of fire and sat upon each
one of them. A resting place for the Spirit of God."
I Pet. 3: 14. " The spirit of glory and of God resteth upon you."
I Cor. 6: 19. " Know you not that your body is the temple of the
Holy Ghost ? "
Just as the tabernacle was filled with the shekinah light. Now,
Paul applies this to the church. Your body is the temple of the Holy
Ghost. You are "not your own. The Lord Jesus Christ said. The
Spirit of God hath anointed me. If the perfect teacher needfed it
surely we need some anointing. So, dear friends, the Spirit of God
is given to us also, and for the very same purpose.
II Cor. 1 : 21. "Now, he which stablisheth us with you in Christ,
and hath anointed us, is God."
The Lord Jesus Christ was anointed once. We are anointed
once. We are anointed sons. He was anointed a great high priest
to minister for the people. He was anointed king. We are
anointed subjects. He was anointed a prophet. We are anointed
ambassadors. Our anointing is for service. We need to be
anointed for service. We need the unction of the Holy Ghost for
every task. Oh, my friends, we need to have the anointing in order
that we may do the work with gladness of heart.
Psalms 45:7. " Thy God has anointed thee with the oil of gladness
above thy fellows."
The anointing came down silently upon the Lord Jesus, and abode
with him. Jesus was never alone. We have been quickened from
the tomb. We have the Spirit of God to be our companion. There-
fore we have the oil of gladness. Led by the Holy Spirit we cannot
go wrong, and being frequently anointed we are glad. Who can
work without gladness. Who can go into the Sunday-school in the
country and teach the boys and girls, and continue to do this without
having some well-spring of joy ? Joy! wonderful power in the Christ-
ian service. We are anointed for beauty. Moses' face shone when
he was in the mountain. We are to carry about with us the comeliness
of the Lord Jesus which he has put upon us.
I John 2 : 20. " You are anointed. • Ye have an unction from the
Holy One."
II Ii.r.isois State Sunday vSchoot. Convention.
J^kl vou ever meet :i man full of the Spirit of God, doubting? Did
vou ever hear of a skeptic without the vSpirit of Go<l, not doubting?
In closiii^-, dear brethren, this hasty little address, I want to call
yotu' attention to Eph. 4: 30. "Grieve not the Spirit of God." We
are often apt to misquote Scripture. This is sometimes quoted,
" Grieve not a\yay the Iloly Spirit." But the word away is not there.
The Holy Spirit loves a Holy Temple.
r Thcss. 5:19. " Quench not the Spirit," by despising prophecy.
The vSpirit of God is called the spirit of prophecy. The Bil)le tells
us of (he news, of to-morrow and the news of the millennial age, tiie
Spirit of God being the spirit of prophecy. Prophecy is God's re-
vealed word. Let us not engender one wrong thought concerning it.
Resist not the Spirit, I think applies to sinners. But I believe the
" f|uench not," " grieve not," applies especially to believers. If you
reject the personality of Jesus Christ, you resist the Holy Ghost.
You resist the Holy Ghost by unbelief. Fall into the currents of the
.Spirit and then you will be a living man, a man of power. The
Spirit of God resteth upon us, it is the witnessing Spirit. It witness-
ftli with our spirits. The Holy Ghost is called the "witness."
Jesus said: "He also shall witness of me."
After prayer by Mr. Hunter, of Shawneetown, and benediction by
Rev. 1. N. Caiman, convention adjourned.
Second Day — First Session,
" A Place for all in the Sunday School."
The first topic on the progranunc for this morning was "A Place
for Prayer," and this found expression in an excellent devotional
meeting led by Rev. Downs.
At the close of the prayer meeting the primary class workers met in
the M. E. Church, and were addressed by Miss Lucy J. Rider, of St.
Clair County, Mrs. George McFadden, of McLean County, and W.
B. Jacobs, of Cook County.
The convention was called to order by President Mason, and after
a song by the Carmen family, a congregational hymn led by Professor
Case, an address " On the Pastor's Place in Sunday-school," was
delivered by the Rev. B. Y. George, of Cairo, a.s follows:
THE PASTOR'S PLACE IN SUNDAY SCHOOL.
BY REV. B. \. GEORGE.
When I was a boy and beginning to study for the Gospel ministry,
an old niinister, a friend of mine, used to take great pleasure in talking
in reference to the ministry, and sometimes bantering me. I remem-
ber he used to talk against ou» modern invention — the Sunday-school,
Illinois State Sunday School Convention. 45
and he made two points agai^ist it. First, It embodied or fostered a
false idea in reference to our salvation, in that the Sabbath-schoo] was
the nurserj' of the church. His idea was,that children go into the
Sabbath-school to be taught right out of it into the church, as a matter
of course, just as we transplant trees.
Second, He objected that the Sabbath-scbool was merely a human
invention, and not a divinely ordained means of grace. We were
never commissioned, he said, to teach a Sunday-school class. Our
commission, I replied, made no mention of the pulpit. If I sit down
with that Sabbath-school class and take this word of the Lord, which
I am commissioned to preach, and preach the gospel, I am carrying
out that great commission. I might have told him about Paul being
connected with a great Bible school. But I had not been in so many
Sabbath-schools then, as I have since.
The Sunday-school is worthy of the highest powers of learning,
training and culture, both intellectual and spiritual, of every minister
of the gospel. This work gives him an oppoi'tunity of presenting the
gospel in an interesting form. It is a hand to hand encounter with
immortal souls. It gives him an opportunity to present the gOfspcl
with its adaptation to individual wants. He needs to be a pastor
of the flock indeed, and not simply in title. He should feel that he is
the shepherd of individual souls, and he must imitate that blcsse<l
Saviour who goes after the one lost sheep, and brings it home with
rejoicing. He must be like that Apostle who taught both in public
and from house to house, warning every man day and night with
tears. I imagine Paul could never have been so great a preacher, if
he had not also been a pastor, going from house to house, laboring
with tears, with individual souls. We should never lose sight of that
special commission, to ever}' individual soul. In the vSabbath-schdol
we come in contact with the individual. We come to apply the word
of God to the misconceptions and trials of the individual, and therein-
learn when we come into the pulpit how to preach, not to imaginary,
but to actual people. The minister must use the Sabbath-school as a
means of bringing himself into relation with the church. If he depends
upon family visitation he will find it very hard work. He will find it
very difficult to come in contact with all the various children of the
church, if he has only to seek them in their homes. He can see all in
the Sunday-school. He can find what all are thinking about, and
what kind of training all are having at home. He can use the Sun-
day-school with this view.
The minister must guard the Sunday-school against certain dangers.
It is his business to guard it, as he has a general oversight of all church
work. If anything is going wrong it is his business to correct it. Il
he finds error has crept in, it is his business to coiuiteract it. He nuist
see that his church is not a part of a dead machine. He must guiud
against the false, against dangerous truths, and soul destroying error.
How can he do this unless he becomes acquainted with all the teach-
ers, and knows what they are doing? The pastor should find a great
field of work in the teachers' meetings. He should be the leading
spirit if he does not take charge of the meeting. He should watcli all
the out-croppings and come to understand the teachers' conception of
divine truth, and the knowledge of the word of God. In a wor<l, to
46 Illinois State Sunday School Convention.
become experimentally acquainted with the teachers' meeting. He
must be careful that there is no skeptical teacher in the school, sowing
the seed of infidelity. If he is not in the teachers' meeting, then he
must have some substitute for it. lie must meet the teachers individ-
ually, and make it his personal business to see every one of them, and
see how they regard the work of God which they have in hand. See
that they have higher views, if they go through the work in a mechan-
ical and dead way. He must inspire them with the conception, that
the}^ are working for souls, and that they are to bring the children to
a knowledge of Christ. He must direct the aim in Sabbath-school
work, to leading souls to an experimental ac([uaintancc with Christ.
The ministers place is to see that all the teachers have that end in
view, and animate them with a right spirit in the work. Again, he
must specially guard against the severance of the school from the
church. It is the handmaid of the church. It is one form of the
church's work to train the young, so that they may take their place
in the church. The minister should see that the Sabbath-school does
not come to be a seperate organization wherein is done a work dis-
tinct from the pulpit and other agencies of the church. He must see
that the children do not regard the Sabbath-school as taking the place
of the church, so that they never feel that they are under obligations
to maintain the ordinances of God's house. The minister must be
identilied with the children. He is the leader of the church, and if he
is not directly interested in them, and manifests his personal interests
in these children, then he will lose them from the church, and from
attendance on his ministry. The Sabbath-school will thus become
perverted, and alienate them from the church they love. The minis-
ter should become identified with all the classes as far as he can.
Ordinarily he should teach a class himself, from which teachers can
be drawn. Whether he does that or not, he must find some way of
getting into contact with the school. Some ministers stand at the
door and shake hands with the children as they come in or go out.
Some visit one or two classes every Sabbath. If that can be done it
is a good thing to do. Some pastors have childrens' meetings in
• which they bring out expressions from all the difTerent classes, and so
learn what is going on in the minds of the children; and are thus able
to make applications to the spiritual necessity of the children. Some
pastors appoint times to meet separate classes, and meet the class with
the teacher, having some direct heart to heart work with the teacher
of the class. It is indispensable that the pastor should come into per-
sonal and spiritual intimacy with the children.
The last danger is the danger of substituting the Sabbath-school for
the family work. No one can counteract that danger like the pastor.
He may finil out by contact how the children are taught at home, and
then he will know how to preach to the parents, and how to labor
from house to house. In relation to the teachers and superintendent,
the pastor is an advisor. If there is any vital error he must correct it.
If there is any soul-ruining tendency he must oppose it with all his
might. But in the management and arrangement of the school he
must not assert his authority in a dictatorial manner. Let the
superintendent and teachers take the responsibility and do their part
of the work. In the spirit of kindness, the pastor must love and help
Illinois State Sunday School Convention. 47
all, by advice and by sympathy. Now let me say, the higher our con-
ceptions of the greatness and importance of the work, the more we
can accomplish. Work for the present and for the future. Lay the
foundation for coming time. May God bless the minister, the
superintendent, and the teachers with a baptism of the Holy Ghost,
which will fit us rightly to engage in the work. We must be directed
rightly in heart by Him who said, " Suffer little children to come linto
me, and forbid them not, for of such is the kingdom of heaven."
This was followed by an address on " The Superintendent's Place
in the Sunday-school," by T. M. Eckley, of Hamilton County, as
follows :
THE SUPERINTENDENT'S PLACE.
ADDRESS BY T. M. ECKLEY.
Christian Workers: A great deal of what Bro. George has
said, I might take up bodily and apjjropriate for the Superintendent.
It applies just as appropriately to the Superintendent as it does to the
pastor.
The first idea I wish to give expression to is, that no man has a
qualification so great, but what in some part of the • Sunday-school
work he can find a field sufficient for the development of every faculty.
He can use the pov\^er he possesses. I don't think a man ever gets
too great for a placS in the Sunday-school army. No matter how
great his intellect, how deep his learning or his piety ; no matter how
many talents, he can use them all. I heard a brother state, that to
fill the place of a Superintendent, requires all there is in a man. This
place about which I am talking is one which requires all there is in a
man. The term itself will locate the man, and describe and point out
his duties. He is to be a manager, an overseer, a manager with the
power of direction. We learn in daily experience that in organized
effort there is power. Concentrated energies bring increased capacity
for the accomplishment of good. The Superintendent must bring
together these influences for good and direct their management. Pie
must bring them into his hands and take means to distribute the work.
There are some communities in which after the opening song or
prayer the Superintendent has. no place in the Sunday-school. Not
long ago, in discussing who would be fitted for a superintendent, a lady
said: This man will make a superintendent, he can lead in prayer. It
seemed that the idea was that the Superintendent is one who can lead
in prayer and announce hymns. This seems strange to us, but that was
the idea presented to her. The opening services do little more than
introduce the Superintendent. If he feels his places he will be far
more than a figure-head. After the opening services his duties are
continued. He ought no more to quit at the signal for duty, than the
general ought to stop at the signal for war. The orphan class-^the
class whose teacher is absent — will look up to him as much as to say,
now what are you going to do with us. I confess it is a very serious
question what he will do. Then there is the stranger within the
gates, one who has just come to spend an hour in the Sunday-schobl,
and they look for a welcome. They ought not to look in vain.
48 Ili.inois State Sunday School Convention.
Then there is the unprepared teacher in the school — they are not all
dead yet. Sometimes in the course of the lesson the unprepared
teacher will be run ashore, and in his helplessnej^s will appeal to the
Superiiite+ident for aid. When tlic work of the school is almost
ended, the school will look tO the Su}-)erintendent for a brief review.
A presentation in a few words of the main thou;<hts of the lesson
that tiiey have been fetudyin^^ durintj the hour. Direction and super-
vision is not all the term means. The Superintendent must develop
;iiid direct the inflneuces and energies of the school, and to control
and direct these becoi»»cs, sometimes, a most important matter. A
military commander who takes a trained and disciplined army may
accomplish a great deal. But if he does nothing more than thi^t, he
ilisplays onl}- one side of the general. If he can do more, if he can
take a moii of raw recruits and teach their unpracticed hands to use
weapons, if he can teach them to employ their awkward limbs, if he
can inspire the timid with courage, if he repress those who are irre-
pressil>le, and mak<i a trained army, I sav that man is a general. The
Su])erinlenden( is require<l to do this double work. He must first
make the powers, develop, draw out, ovgani/c these instruments
which he is to handle; anti then he must direct and control them.
There arc- many who fail lo dray out, to organize, to develop those
forces placed in their hand. While overburdened they scarcely know
what lo do. There are other hamls that would willingly lift the
l>urdens from them, but they don't see the iielp. They fail to utilize,
and fail in an important part of duty. The Superintendent's place is
not, hovVe\'er, by any means confined to the school. The Superioi-
tendent's place is in the church. The body of Christ, to which he
belongs, should hAve no more elhcient workman, and the pastor no
more eHicient helper. It is the <lnly of the pastor ti) use his influence
and authoritN to bring th<i entire membership of the church to work
in the Sabbatli-school. It is the duty oi' the Superintendent to bring
the entire memiiership of the school into the church. We hear the
complaint, a great maliy times, that the children are drawn away from
the church by the Sabbath-scJiool, and seldom hear the preaching of
the gospel. Wherever that exists there is something wrong. It may
l)e in the Sal.>bath-school, it may be in the home, it may V>e in the pul-
pit. It is the place and duty of the Superintendent to see that the
wrong i» not in his bailiwick. The pastor and superintendent ought
to work in harmony with each other, their work literally dove-failed
into each other for bringing the Sunday-school into the church.
Again, the Superintendent's place is in the prayer meeting. He
■ 'light to be there for his own sake. If he feels the resjjonsibility of
iiis position he will welcome evefy opportunity for gaining strength
and encourageiMent. Where is abetter jjlace than with (jod and his
people. He should be there for the church's sake. It needs the aid
of his jjntyer and example. Above all, ht should then.* tor Christ's
sake. When Christ's people meet it never should be said, I was not
v^^ith them, when Jesus came.
The v'5upei*intendent's place is in tiie teacher.s' meeting, leading it or
aidine^it in the study of the lesson. He should not be absent any
more tlian the general should from the council of war. The teacher.*;'
meeting and his attendance upon it is necessary, in order that the
Illinois State Sunday School Convention. 49
wants of the class may be made known. His knowledge is unfolded
here for the teachers' benefit, and the teachers' for his benefit, that the
school may advance in perfect harmony, and that no conflicting views
may be taught in the same school. He should not be like the teacher
of a day-school who kept two classes in geography to accommodate
himself to the views of his patrons. In one class he taught that the
earth was flat; in the other, he taught that it was round. This is only
a supposed case of the actual teaching going on in the Sunday-school
of to-day. Teachers who never meet for consultation shoot out in
different directions and never hit anybody. The teachers should har-
monize their conflicting views. Again, his place is among those who
in their daily life exemplify the gospel they teach — the lessons they
study. No argument is so powerful for Christ as a consistent life for
Him. If we can, in daily life, live so that others will take knowledge
that we have been with Jesus, we can accomplish more for Christ and
God, though we speak with stammering lips, than we could by a long
life of brilliant activity, contradicted by a life of inconsistency.
Another place for the Superintendent is in the hearts of the children.
We are daily learning that like begets like, that love begets love.
The warm heart of childhood responds to love. Children answer
quickly to a word of kindness. There should be a place in our hearts
for the children, and a place in their hearts for us.
There is another place which the Superintendent must fill, that is a
place among those who diligently study God's word. There is no
one who does not feel the need of more wisdom, more knowledge,
more light. We must search the Scriptures if we would find the
choicest treasures. I could find in this audience those who are trying
to learn God's will, by studying His revelation, but I could not find
one servant of God who knows so much about it that he would admit
that he was more than a mere beginner. We are like children playing
upon the beach while the whole ocean of knowledge lies before us.
If this is the experience of those who have done the most study, who
have spent their whole lives in drinking at this fountain, how ought
the necessity of pra3'erful study be impressed upon the hearts of those
in the morning of life.
There is another place still, and that is at the feet of Jesus. We
cannot fill the place of Superintendent if we cannot occupy that, and
learn in humility and trustful confidence at his feet — and start fi'om
the feet of Jesus carrying the influences of His presence and power.
The men that are doing the most successful work in fighting the
moral battles of the world, are the men who live close to God.
Luther, in his busiest time, could not get along without hours of daily
prayer, drawing strength from that inexhaustible source. It was not
Luther, but God that shook the world. The men in our own time
who have done the most have been at God's feet. Bro. Peeples
learned that lesson of living close to God. Called away during the
exercise of singing, " Near the Cross," he said, after singing the first
stanza, let us not stop until we sing the next verse:
"Near the Cross! O, Lamb of God,
Bring its scenes before me."
The old servant has gone to {|^^Y??ii He was a power, because he
4
50 Illinois Statk Sunday School Convention.
lived close to God. What he accomplished, God only knows. When
a Superintendent discharges his duties, standing in' the place of the
church meeting, in the piayer meeting, in the teachers' meeting, when
he is living for Christ in the daily walk of life, and learning from day
to day from God's law; then he is concentrating his energy, gathering
up power, taking advanced strides, and making himself cajoable for
Christian work. If a man has managing tact and executive ability,
he might wait a life time for a better field of work than that of the
superintendency. No man is so great that he need to have fears that
he has some superfluous ability that will have to be laid aside.
An address on the " Chorister's Place in Sunday-School," was de-
livered by Professor H. C. DeMotte, of McLean County, as follows:
THE CHORISTER'S PLACE.
ADDRESS BY H. C. DE MOTTE.
My Fkllow Workers: — I am exceedingly sorry that Brother
McCullough, who was to speak on this topic is not here. I feel sorry
for my own sake, and especially for your sake. Just a short time ago
your Executive Committee said I must try and say something upon
this topic. I have had no time to arrange my thoughts in any special
order, and it reminds me of hunting in the West. I found this difli-
culty, I never knew how to load my gun. If I loaded it for a sage
hen I was sure to find a grizzly. If I loaded it for a grizzly I might
meet a sage hen. I soon learned to load up in short time. In Sun-
day-school work we must load up in short order. You all doubtless
think this an important t<}pic, and a great many things could be said
upon it. I don't know the design of the work, whether it is the qual-
ifications of the Chorister, the character of the work, the method of
the work, the importance of the work, or the particular phases of the
work that are to be considered. [Yes that is it exactly. — yacods.^ I
want to say that there is a vast dilforence between theory and practice.
I might map out a Chorister, and then look over the State and I could
not fintl such a man. I suppose it is well to have a good idea, as we
;ire told that wc must aim high, if we don't hit the mark. It is very
difficult, sometimes, to find the right man for Chorister. In my
opinion, he should not l)e an executive officer. He is not supposed to
do a great deal of planning. The Superintendent himself should have
the planning, not only of the general work of the school, but of every
lesson. He has a point to be made and everything in the hour sliould
bear upon that point. None know how mucii influence songs have
in driving home the truth. We don't know when the right kind of
a song is presented, and presented in the right way, how it is fastening
the truth. I think after all, a song has as much importance as an ex-
ercise, in Sunday-school. I remember an explanation of a song driven
liome to the heart, given by one of our brethren, who heard of it in a .
Young Men's Christian Association. This man said he was a cast-
away, a drunkard. Moody and Sankey were at that time holding a meet-
ing in Chicago. He and his companion were sitting at one of the
billiard tables in that citv. Avbrn liis (omn.inion said: Suppose we go
Illinois State Sunday School Cona'^ention. 51
to the Tabernacle and see what they are doing up there. The house
was full and they could not get in, yet he was so impressed that he
wanted to go; so he went again. He said he didn't like the looks of
things, he didn't like what Moody was saying. In every statement
there arose in his nature an opposition against it. After a while Bro-
ther Sanky began to sing " What Shall the Harvest Be." This man
had even changed his name, left his wife and beautiful little girl, and
meditated suicide. But he could not get away from the song. That
one 'Song reached him. We do not know when we are presenting
these truths, what an influence a song is going to have, if selected and
sung with reference to the lesson. The Chorister is a kind of sheriff
at court. The question sometimes comes up, in regard to the Choris-
ter: Shall he take new music? I never favor taking the hour of
Sunday-school for new music. The Chorister has some little work
outside. Have the school meet a little before or after, and not let the
practicing of new music become a part of the Sunday-school session.
There is a vast diffei-ence in the influence of a song while we are learn-
ing to sing it, and after we have learned to sing it. After we have
learned it, then it will take hold, give light, filter down into our
heai^ts and do us good. Work, Choristers, and carry out the object of
the Superintendent, in driving truths home to the hearts of those who
sing. ^
After the recess an address on " The Teacher's Place in the Sunday-
school," was delivered by the Rev. J. L . Waller, D. D., of White
County, as follows:
THE TEACHER'S PLACE.
ADDRESS BY REV. J. L. WALLER.
Listening to the remarks of my good Brother Echley, I felt that I
had vei-y little left of the speech I wanted to make. For I found if I
had a Superintendent so perfectly qualified and fitted for the post, a
good teacher would be a natural i-esult. After Brother George spoke
of the relation of the pastor to the Sunday-school, then followed that
of the Superintendent. As Brother Echley introduced the figure of
the army, I appropriated the secretary of war for the pastor, the
general for the Superintendent, and knowing nothing else for the
teacher, I make him a private soldier, who shall look the work right
in the face, and excute the plans which have been already laid. This
work of teaching may be represented by that of the private soldier the one
who bears the musket. After the council of war, after the plan is well
laid, the campaign marked out and the orders issued, the soldier puts
his musket upon his shoulder and marches out to execute the work.
So in the teachers' meeting, where they are gathered together for
orders, he comes directlv from contact with the people, and the best
laid schemes of mice and men " Gang aft aglee." No matter how
thoroughly the pastor may understand the work, nor how perfectly
the Superintendent may arrange, if the teacher fails in pressing the
plan upon each individual pupil in the class, the whole scheme is de-
feated, or at least largely defeated, snd the end is not reached. There
52 Illinois State Sunday School Convkntion.
should be on the part of the teacher, an earnest desire to be thoroughly
acquainted with the plan of the Superintendent. There should be the
utmost harmony and blending of souls, a unity of purpose, hand in
hand. While it belongs to the Superintendent to direct and control,
he should have confidence in the teacher, and the teacher should seek
to gain a place in the heart of the Superintendent. There must be
union here, close union, and confidence in the superior. During the
war when I fought under an inexperienced general, I always felt
shaky. When the general who wore the larger shoulder-straps was
experienced I felt safe. The teacher wants the ability of the soldier.
Coming in from the scout he makes his report to the general, and
upon these reports the general forms his plans, and hands them back
to the soldier to execute. From personal contact with the pupils
looking them in the face he understands their wants, the influence of
family training, or the lack of it. The teacher having a smaller field
must of necessity be better acquainted with it than the Superintendent
can be. He must come to the Superintendent with the class, and
with the wants and peculiarities connected with the class. Then there
should be a union of feeling. There are two objects which the Sun-
tlay-school has in view, to make christians, and to aid in building up
christians. For those two things there ought to be union of purpose,
blending together of souls, between the Superintendent and the
teacher. That teacher who would act independent of the Superintend-
ent, or would imagine that the Superintendent was usurping his
authority or dictating to him, certainly can never accomplish anything
in the Sunday-school. The teacher sliould cultivate as far as possible
respect for the Superintendent, showing him those attentions and pay-
ing that respect due to him. The teacher shoidd be governed by the
law of courtesy and kindness, tenderness and patience with the Sujjer-
intendcnt will increase the teacher's usefulness and power with the
. Superintendent, and in the school. The greatest difficulty in the way
i^C teachers, probably ])reachers, is, we think, that some one else is get-
ting more glory than we are. We want to get rid of that, and let
the glory of God and the salvation of souls fill our hearts. God
will take care of us if we look after His work. I think the teacher
being in harmony with the Superintendent, should seek to carry out
liis plans, by a thorough and complete consecration to the work.
We want to keep these two objects in view. There is too much of
our teaching that lacks an object. We go to Sunday-school because
we belong to the church. We would not be engaged in the .Sunday-
school if tlie pastor had not visited us, and lashed us until we were
ashamed not to take a class. We meet teachers engaged in this routine
manner teaching without an object in view. Some of the pupils are
cliristians, and some are not christians, yet the teacher talks to all
alike. They try to give some of the geography of the Bible, but their
geographical teaching is very imperfect. They try to give some of
the history of the text, but tlieir history is very imperfect. When the
teacher gets through I imagine there is not a pupil who would know
what the teacher knew, or what he intended to do. I doubt whether
the teacher knew what he intended to do.
With these two objects, the building up of christian character, the
leading of others to Christ,with the great watch-word "bringing souls
V Illinois State Sunday School Convention. 53
to Christ," couple another watch-word, "to keep souls to Chirst." It is
just as important for Sunday-school teachers to feed the lambs, as it
is to run out into the wilderness and catch strays.
If we want to come with a message to those two classes, we must
be acquainted with our pupils. There mnst be this directness in teach-
ing, this specific teaching. If I am given a class I assume to study the
character and wants of the individual members of my class. Some
teachers want to teach about twenty-five or thirty, but I do not, if I
can help it. I think it is more than a teacher can properly manage, I
would rather have six. Perhaps some men can manage twenty-five
or thirty and do it well. When I was in the army and tried to com-
mand more than a company, I found I was getting out into deep
water. When thei'e were moie than a hundred in the string the line
got in my way. So in Sunday-school, I think I would like to have
about six. I do not care whether they are wild or tame, I would not
be particular in choosing the class. I would visit each one of them
in their homes. I would not underate my object. I would want to
open the door to their hearts and make them love me. Until that is
done I could do but little. Histor}-^ and chronology, and all these
cannot bring to Christ until you get into the hearts. When you are
admitted, then take Christ in with you. Go where they live, cultivate
their acquaintance, showing that you are in earnest about their wel-
fare, and when you see just exactly the target, and come to fire at it,
you can take direct aim. We want more directing of the word of
God to these specific cases. Study the object of the young men. If
there is one who has thought of entering the pathway of drunkenness
and he is in my Sunday-school class, I will not inquire about him
offensively. I want to know his noble traits. When I come to the
lesson, I think of John Smith, and find something there that I can
make an application of to that individual in the class. Not so
much that we desire to teach all there is in the lesson. I used to try
— when the lesson papers were first published — to cover the whole
ground. The consequence was, that the Superintendent's bell rang
and I found I had taught nothing. Now I have learned to take
something that will fit some pupil in my class. I get something to
do that soul good. I have no time to run over the whole field. There
is something in God's word for every human being. I find in the
lesson something peculiarly adapted to the case in hand. So I have
this specific teaching, then doctrinal teaching. I know among many
of our Sunday-schools they do not teach doctrine. How do you teach
Christ without teaching doctrine? Well I must not teach doctrine or
I will offend somebody. I was pleased with Brother Echley's remark
in regard to the unity of teaching in the school. Hit somebody. The
teacher ought to study the doctrines. If there is anybody who cannot
stand the doctrine they will move out. Probably it is better to lose
one or two from the school, than to go on not teaching the doctrines
of the Bible. Do this in all kindness and in persuasion. I think the
teacher ought to be thoroughly drilled in the doctrines of the Bible,
and fitted for teaching doctrine. Infidelity is attacking the strong-
holds of faith in doctrines, and we need to fortify these children in the
doctrines.
In conclusion, let me impress this thought, it is the most important,
54 Illinois State Sunday School Convention.
and 1 think I can sum it up in a few words. Like the soldier in going
into battle, when we jj;o to the mjigazine to draw our ammunition be
sure to get something that will fit. In the magazine are all sizes.
Shell that will reach fourteen hundred yards, and some that will reach
two miles. Be sure that you don't load up with something that goes
beyond the class, and lights among the Jews and Gentiles. Get truth
for the class, build up the inner soul for Christ. Come from the closet
full of purpose, with your hearts and hands united with the pastor.
Go into the presence of your class and look them in the eyes, and give
them the truth. I think then we will have successful Sunday-school
teaching. Let me say, that the recommendations which Brother
Echley has given to the Superintendent to be present at the means of
grace in God's house, are equally applicable to the teacher in the Sun-
day-school.
The Carman family sang with great effect, " Now to Work, lopk
up," and then an address on " The Scholars' Place in Sunday School,"
was delivered by John Carman, (one of the Carman boys,) as follows:
THE SCHOLARS' PLACE.
ADDRESS OF JOHN CARMAN, (onc of the Carman boys.)
Mr. President and Friends: The only thing I can do is to
speak my thoughts, and let you arrange them to suit yourselves, if you
can get any arrangement out of them. The subject suggested to me
is, that there may be some such a thing as a scholar being out of place.
And I guess this is one of the times. Bro. Mason, you will have to
shoulder the responsibility this time. I wish to say, first, that the
scholars' place is in the Kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ. I may
say the scholars' place in general is the position of a learner. Then,
as a learner, I should say, he should be at the family altar, thinking
and asking questions concerning the daily reading which bears upon
the following Sunday-school lesson. Again, his place is at the preach-
ing service. His place is certainly in the Sunday-school class on time,
every Sunday in the year. Providence jDermitting. I may add, there
are scholars not in their places, but because they are kept away on
account of rain, or a little " I don't want to," or something of that
kind. A little compulsion is needed on the part of some one older
than the scholar. A scholar's place is on his knees at the bedside or
in the closet. The smaller scholars' — the little ones — place is in the
children's prayer-meeting. That is, where they can find a children's
prayer-meeting to attend; also, in the young peoples' prayer-meeting
of the church, no matter how old or young they are. The older
scholars, of course, in the young peoples' prayer-meeting. Then, the
place of the older scholars is in the Normal school, where these
scholars can be preparing themselves, making their best efforts, and
of the teachers' efforts made upon them, with reference to the respon-
sibilities of teaching, superintending, and the general Christian work
which t!iey will be called upon to take, whether they are prepared or
not. Then, in general, the place of the older scholars — granted they
Illinois State Sunday School Convention. 55
are Christians — is in the work, everywhere, and they should not be
ashamed to take it up. I feel, for myself, being in a student's Bible
class, that my place is in the school prayer-meeting, in the young peo-
ples' prayer-meeting, in the church service, in all the services. In the
Sunday-school Convention, when I can get there. In the work every
•where, where I can learn more about Christ, and about His work.
Where I can hear difficulties discussed, where I can find out how to
avoid the difficulties, of the positions of teacher, secretary, librarian
and chorister. So that when I am called upon to take them, I shall
not come without some knowledge of the thing. As Mr. Needham
said, we want Christ, the love of Christ to constrain us. But he also
said, we need knowledge. I want knowledge. I believe I liave
given myself to the work of Christ, and am willing to do it. I am
determined to find out how, if it is possible. I have before me a
plan whicli aims for a better development of these scholars in the
Bible classes. They are just of the age, if in the right position, to
make effi:)rts to unite themselves for the purposes of work.
An auxiliary to the church and Sunday-school Christian work in
general, is this Youths' Christian Association of Sunday-school schol-
ars. The thing has been tried and it is successful. If I can make
any suggestion, it is this: that there should be some union of these
scholars, and this is a good one. This is needed because all through
this Convention we have seen, that in order to teach them the way,
we must give thein some i^esponsibility. When Mr. Jacobs was
building a fire, on the morning of the Convention, he set the boys at
it. They went at it with a vim and energy, because they felt they
had some responsibility in the matter. I know it is just so with me.
When I can get these scholars to feel that they have got a heavy bur-
den of responsibility upon themselves, for preparing themselves for
work, they can make greater advancement. They can study these
things by themselves, and with the help of teacher, superintendent,
and their suggestions, they can be thoroughly prepared for the duties
of superintendent, secretary, and treasurer, and all the rest of these
positions.
We band together in colleges and we get at the place where the
trouble lies. When we get the youth of these scholars' bands in the
way of duty, there will not be such a great cry for efficient teachers.
Neither will Bro. Jacobs or the others have to bewail the fact of shift-
less secretaries, those who leave the work half done. The Youths'
Christian Association referred to has positions of teacher, secretary,
treasurer, superintendent, cor. secretary,, State seci^etary, and presi-
dent, corresponding to all these positions in Sunday-school Conven-
tions, and we are drilling ourselves in these. [Good! Jacobs.) We
inean to bring on secretaries and treasurei's. We could show you
to-day the reports of secretaries and committees. We are going to
try to get at the matter in the right way. We mean to know some-
thing about it, and have experience in it, so that it will not be an en-
tirely new thing. We have 400 of our little pamphlets that we want
to circulate in this Convention, discussing the union of our Sunday-
schools.
56 Illinois State Sunday School Convention.
THE TREASURER'S PLACE IN SUNDAY SCHOOL.
BY B. F. JACOBS.
Mr. Jacobs having jDeen pleasantly introduced by the President,
said:
I am glad to make your acquaintance, very glad indeed, and I hope
the pleasure is mutual. (Laughter.) Now leaving this mirthfulncss
and coming to the solemn subject under consideration, I will say that
there are a few things connected with a treasurer's position which are
exceedingly pleasant and interesting, and there are some things not so
pleasant. It is a great pleasure to correspond with the brethren
throughout the State. The first six or eight letters I write to each
individual (making six or eight hundred in all) I quite enjoy, but when
the number reaches a thousand, or the letters increase from eight to a
dozen to the same parties on the same subject, it becomes a little mo-
notonous, especially if there is no response.
You know when you undertake to carry on an animated conversa-
tion with some particular friend, you may come to a time when you
would like to hear something in reply. You even wait for a mono-
syllable in great suspeifse. So in reference to these letters, and not
always in vain. Sometimes they bring joy, sometimes on opening the
letters we find engraved pictures, and evidences of good workman-
ship in the writing, position, etc., of the letters. Frequently the
writers grasp financial problems, and sometimes statistical information
is furnished concerning the resources of the State. Occasionally
words of instruction and reproof are uttered. All of these show
either the interest or lack of interest that treasurers and other county
officers have in the work. It would, I think, be interesting this morn-
ing for us to know how many counties are represented in this Conven-
tion. Permit me to call the list and ask that all counties represented
by delegates on this floor respond, that we may know the result.
Mr. Jacobs proceeded to call the list of counties, which was as fol-
lows:
First District, seven counties represented; Second district, eight;
Third district, nine; Fourth district, seven; Fifth district, fifteen;
Sixth district, sixteen.
The Treasurer's report was read, showing that the unpaid debts
of the Association amounted to over $300.
Mr. Jacobs made the following statement:
First, We owe money. Second, We must pay it. Third, The
Association ought not to run in debt. Fourth, There are a good
many counties that have not paid their proportion. Fifth, Those of
us that are present must contribute individually to make up the defic-
iency.
A contribution was accordingly taken, pledges were made of $10
and $5 each until a large part of the debt was raised, when some one
callecl out in the audience, " Why not permit those of us to contribute
who cannot afford to pay $5? " Mr. Jacobs replied, " We will take
any sum, send up your dollars. This was answered by the brother
tossing a silver dollar to him on the platform, followed by many others,
Illinois State Sunday School Convention. 57
until quite a shower of money had rained on the table, and it was an-
nounced that a sufficient amount was collected to pay all the debts.
The long meter doxology was sung and the Convention adjourned
with a benediction.
Second Day — Second Session.
The Convention was called to order and a song service was con-
ducted by Prof. C. C. Case, after which Brother Casey sung a
solo, "Let us Gather up the Sunbeams." The Carman family
followed with a song, "Is it Well with your Soul To-day, Brother?"
After the reading of the scriptures and a prayer, Mr. O. R. Brouse,
of Winnebago County, Chairman of the Committee to whom was re-
ferred the reports of the Executive Committee and Statistical Secre-
tary, made the following report, viz. :
Report of O. R. Brouse, Chairman of the Committee, to whom
were referred the reports of the Executive Committee and Statistical
Secretary.
To the State Sunday School Cofivention i?i session iti Centralia^
Illinois^ May 4th^ 1881.
Your committee, to whom was referred the report of the Execu-
tive Committee and Statistical Secretary, for the past year respectfully
report :
We recommend the continuance of good county secretaries, and the
displacement of inefficient ones. When a man has proven himself
capable, there is reason, even at the expense of great sacrifice upon
his own part, that he should continue the work. This is the most
difficult place in our system to rightly fill, and our working brethren
— doubtless all of them busy men — should feel that this is the Master's
work, and in proportion to the cost of His work will be our reward.
The subject of uniform reports from all parts of the work is worthy
of special attention. To secure, this the inspiration must come from a
single source. We recommend that the International Convention at
Toronto, in June next, ordain a form of blank for (ist), the State Se-
cretary, (3d)', the County Secretaries, and (3d), the Individual School,
and that the .Secretary of this Convention send out to the County Se-
cretaries, at the earliest moment, the blanks for the report of the
county and for the individual school.
We also recommend that the County Secretary, or Executive Com-
mittee, see to it that every school in the county be visited.
The visitor ought to inform the Superintendent beforehand, as to
the questions to be asked, and request him to be fully ready to answer
all questions when the visit is made.
This plan of visitation will insure uniformity and completeness, if
followed out, and will entail no cost of time or ^money of moment.
There ought to be a definite time, or school year, for the purposes of
gathering and counting our statistics, and we recommend that the
58 Illinois State Sunday School Convention.
school year in this State be from March ist to March ist, and that it
be rigidly adhered to.
In order that the best effect of the Sunday-school Convention shall
be realized, and the summer work be done to the best advantage, we
recommend that the county and township conventions be held as early
as possible. The project of having a lady assist in the State work, in
holding conventions and instituting and stimulating the work in the
counties seems to be a good one. It is thought that the additional ex-
pense will not be great over our present method.
We recommend that the State Executive Committee be authorized
to so employ a lady helper, if they can see their way to do so without
involving this convention in debt or expense beyond its receipts.
We recommend that the question of re-districting the State ])e re-
ferred to the Executive Committee, and the various district meetings
to be held during this summer, and that they report the results of their
deliberations to the convention.
We recommend that 4,000 copies of a report of the proceedings of
this convention, not exceeding ninty-six pages be printed by the Exe-
cutive Committee, and distributed in the usual way.
We recommend that this convention appropriate twelve dollars for
the purpose of printing 3,000 copies of a revised edition of the Illinois
Sunday-school Chronicle, under the directions of the President and
State Secretary of this Convention.
We recommend that the Chair be instructed to appoint some suit-
able persons well acquainted with the persons, characters, and work
of Brothers E. C. Wilder and Stephen Paxson respectively, to pre-
pare a worthy memoir of each of these faithful co-workers, to be
printed with the proceedings of tiiis convention.
We recommend that a committee of three be appointed by the
Chair, to devise plans for securing the funds necessary to purchase a
lot and erect a suitable monument to the memory of that devoted
father of Illinois Sunday-schools, Stephen Paxson.
This is no time to retreat or be idle, the fields are white before us,
and the grand work opened up by the past years of noble effort, calls
for an advance all along the line. The political year 1880, involves
our work in seeming loss — we believe it is not a real loss in numbers
or interest. iSut in any event it is for us to take higher and better
ground this year.
We, therefore, recommend that the treasurer apportion to the coun-
ties such sums as will make an aggregate of $2,500, for carrying on
the State work for this year.
In conclusion we commend the faithful work of the Executive
Committee and the Statistical Secretary for the past year. Their work
has been harder than usual, and the results are not all that they — and
we — wished for. Yet looking at the difficulties in a political year,
and the work as compared with other States, we feel to thank God for
such noble self-sacrificing men, and recommend that the convention
extend to them our warmest sympathy, and liberal additional means
for the prosecution of their arduous work the coming year.
I (). R. Brouse.
t. m. echley.
Geo. G. Trask.
Illinois State Sunday School Convention. 59
The report was adopted.
An address was delivered by the Rev. R. Allyn, D.D,, President
of the Southern Normal University, Carbondale, Jackson County, on
the "Teachers' Work in the Sunday-school," as follows:
THE TEACHERS' WORK.
ADDRESS BY REV. R. ALLYN, D.D., JACKSON COUNTY.
(president southern normal university.)
Dear Brethren and Sisters : — The first thing I have to say is, that
the teachers' work is a religious work. We must keep that jn mind.
It is religious, not intellectual simply. Nothing of that sort as an end
and object. By religious, I mean to go back to the etymology of the
word. Religion is to bind back again. It is therefore the teacher's work
to bind the soul of the child back to God. It was bound to God ori-
ginally, Christ bound it to God by redemption. Now if the teacher
go at the work and bind that child to God, he does it largely by
teaching the word. He does it partly by training the child, but this
training must be done more by family teaching. To train is to make
do. Hence, we read " Train up a child in the way he should go, and
w^hen he is old he will not depart from it." If made to do it he will
not depart from it. The teacher's work is thus religious. He is to
get hold of the w^hole nature of the child, so as to bind that nature to
God — -bind it to the church. It is the work of the Sunday-school,
superintendent, pastor, and teacher, to bind the child to the church. I
think we are apt to make mistakes in the Sunday-school, and think
that it is simply to instruct — build a kind of foundation. This is right
in a proper sense, and to a proper extent. But w^e have higher work
to do than to instruct. Higher work than teaching. More radical
work than making them understand the word. It is to bind the
child's heart to God. This will include something of the original in-
fluence of the Holy Spirit, something of the redeeming power of
Christ. That child is astray, and it cannot be bound to God unless the
soul is renewed. The teacher who does not pi^epare by prayer, by
earnest study, and thought, and does not set his will on the determi-
nation to get the children converted to God, by the power of the
Holy Ghost, forgets what religion ought to do.
In the next place, I say the teacher's work is something more than
religious, in this sense spoken of. Now he is to go forward and lead
the child, teaching it how^ to act right. Having now a new nature
put into him by the grace of God, having a soul regenerated, now
that soul is to act. The teacher then becomes in some sense a
trainer, so as to lead the child to do. When you ask him to repeat a
verse you are training him in the habit of memorizing, in the habit of
accurate truthfulness in the statements he makes. You ask him to
express thought. You ask him to conceive of some thought and find
words that will come near measuring that thought correctly — express-
ing it. Thus you are training the child in truthful statement of
thoughts, and distinct utterance of thought conceived. Here comes in
6o Illinois State Sunday School Convention.
the power of action. I think we find — at least it has been my experi-
ence as a teacher for a long number of years — that young persons and
children need to be taught, and trained in this matter of making accu-
rate statements more than they are trained. Their comprehension of
truth depends upon clear conception and statement. I may say here,
that it is not the business of the child to absorb. You are not simply to
pour out your own thoughts, tell your own exposition of scripture
to the child thinking that he will absorb it. This would be like the
young lady's study of metaphysics. The incident happened just at
the time young ladies had been admitted to co-education. One young
lady in the senior class studying mental philosophy, said: Mental
philosophy is just splendid! Locke and Sir Wm. Hamilton arc splen-
did! I just absorb metaphysics at every pore! My classes don't get
it in that way. It don't go into the pores. You don't take food that
way. If you take food to nourish you, you get it Into some function
within you. There is no absorbing power through the skin to take
in food. Within it is absorbed by the lactels. If we .want to get
knowledge, we must make the mind act, after the mind has taken in
knowledge. As Bacon says. Some books are to be chewed, and some
to be digested. Good scholars do more than chew cuds of scripture,
they must digest them by an act of the mind within. The mind, men-
tal, moral and spiritual. Then the child's mind grows, grows in grace
and knowledge, grows in ftivor with God, is learning His word. The
Sunday-school is for the purpose of teaching children to act. It is a
part of the teacher's work to act religiously. First, getting bound to
God, then acting.
Another part of the teacher's work is to try and form habits in the
child. Actions one after another repeated make a kind of habit of
soul. Giyes the soul a set tendency in a particular direction. We
know the particular bad habit formed by a cigar. At first it is sicken-
ing, but smoking a little, for a minute, or two minutes, eyery day for
tor a week, the habit is formed and the smoker will tell you he cannot
quit. Bad habits are more easily formed than good ones. Now we
need to form good habits, and good acts repeated will form good
habits. The act of attending Sunday-school eyery single Sunday in
the year, will form the habit of Sunday-school going. The teacher
must manage to bring the scholars eyery Siniday. He must try to do
his part to bring them into the Sunday worship, attendance upon
preaching. When the habit is formed the child will be uneasy if he is
awav from the Sunday-school. If we determinately set our wills as
families to do this, as well as Sunday-school teachers, we will make
the scholars so uneasy that they will not stay away unless they are
sick. We are to try to form habits then, talk about training more
than intellectual teaching, trying to impress on the minds of the teach-
ers that they should train the child in the way in \yhich he should go.
The result of this will be (in the fourth place), character will be
formed in the children. Get character. What is a man worth unless
he has character. When we haye a hired seryant and she goes away
she wants us to give her a (karakter), character. She expects it, and
we are sometimes yery willing to do it. Sometimes it is yery good
and sometimes it is meant to be. What is character, and what is a
person worth without character? What are children sent to Sunday-
Illinois State Sunday School Convention. 6i
school for unless it is to form character. Sunday-school teachers,
heads of families, christian ministers, it is a part of your business to
make characters. In this world of probation God wants character
made, and he has sent the children into this world without a character,
like a blank sheet of paper, and He expects us to write the character.
What character shall it be? You begin religiously by taking that
child's nature and fashioning it to God and Christ. So that the child's
whole nature is singing " I am Clinging to the Cross." We put the
child's nature at the foot of the Cross, and fasten it there. Then we
begin to train it by religious devotion, and active spiritual work, and
make by means of these acts, habits. And^hese habits blossom into
noble pure characters. You work systematically, deliberately,
thoughtfully, and prayerfully, to make characters. When you get a
character for the child, then you may let him go. God and Christ
will take care of him. Whv, you may take a child brought up in
this way, with such a character, and send him up to Chicago, and he
will not go astray. He \vould not be getting up corners to cheat
people. You might send him to Congress, and he would be safe.
Put him where you will in this world or the next, he is a saved man.
Unless the Sunday-school teachers take hold of this work and make
characters for our boys and girls, what a nation we will have. Talk
about congressmen lacking back-bone. Give them character and tbev
will have something better than back-bone.
The last thing is that the teacher's work is to show itself in the life
and character. It is to show itself in a life of activity.
Summary. — Let us remember these five things. The teacher's ,
work is a religious work of binding the soul to God. Then he goes
on to teach the soul to I'epeat acts of religious devotion, till they form '\
rhabit. Then christian living, and obedience, that comes into noble I
character, exhibiting the life of Christ and showing itself in the world, \
u glorious, holy, self-sacrificing religious life, what we need and what /
the world needs. We can fill this world with holy lives of young and
old. Children are iust as fit subjects for holy lives as older persons.
We want to bring them where they can live holy, pure lives, and /
this is more largely the work of training than of teaching. After all we ^
bring ourselves back to this idea in the Sunday-school, family, and j
church w^ork, of training the children to do. This training is more
efficient than teaching.
An address was delivered on " Sunday School Teachers' Meetings,"
by Rev. G. W. Eichelberger, of Edwards County, as follows:
SUNDAY SCHOOL TEACHERS' MEETINGS.
BY REV. G. W. EICHELBERGER.
Hail to the man or woman who bears the name of teacher; and a//
hail to the teacher in the Sabbath-school. Every wise parent feels a
just appreciation of the position held by the teacher over his children.
Philip, King of Macedon, was in the habit of saying, that he did not
know whether he was more proud of having such a son as Alexander,
or such a man as Aristotle to teach him. The boy in after manhood,
62 Illinois State Sunday School Convention.
unfolded the man wlio taught him. No other calling is nobler than
that of the teacher; none ofler higher possibilities of doing good; and
none shows the embryonic manhood folded up within the youth so
correctly to others.
Confucius stands distinguished among the Chinese to-day for his
peerless authority as a teacher. Multitudes are ready to spring to
their feet at the mere mention of Thomas Arnold, because he could
so justly write teacher after his name. Among all the various titles
given to the divine Jesus, which one was more significant, which
fraught with more hope, than the one He so justly received. Rabbi,
Master, Teacher? At H^ feet sat Mary, in sweet docility; there sat
His wandering followers, whom He called disciples or leai-ners. Nor
did He chose to give them a grander commission than to go " teach
all nations."
On the mount He taught His disciples, when He had opened His
mouth. When away from the multitude, in the house, He taught
His disciples tlie meaning of the parable. In the Upper Chamber
the Holy Spirit taught the disciples wisdom from above. But we, too,
are teachers.
Indeed, the teacher's task is something more than mere pedagogue
drudgery; it is not only to develop the future bishop, bard or chancel-
lor, but above and beyond these to develop the man^ true to himself,
true to others, and true to his God.
But it is necessary that the " teacher should be taught," and in
speaking of the "teachers' meetings" for the Sabbath-schools, let me
begin with ,.
I. — The Prime Object of the Teachers' Meeting.
// is designed to make better teachers. Some one proudly
says: " Poets are born such, not made." All honor to their birthright.
But with equal credit, we believe that teachers are made such, not
born. They not only feel the eternal responsibility of their calling,
but they also strive to be the best teachers, best in imparting goodness
and inspiring with holy thoughts.
The day has passed when ]\)i%\.anybody can be a teacher in our Sab-
bath-schools. It requires something more than to merely head the
class, keep the children quiet, and keep a roll. Perhaps I am right in
believing that every teacher ought to labor and study, as though he
were fitting himself to be superintendent and an extensive worker
some day.
The Teachers' meeting is a place where the discouraged teacher
catches inspiration^ who afterward becomes an inspirer of his own
class. The boy or girl comes to the class as intensely discouraged as
the teacher comes to his or her class. It is not enough to studv the
lesson with fidelity; it is not enough to be able to give correct infor-
mation to the child, but his mind must be made to feel the thrill of
inspiration leaping with magnetic power from the teacher's soul, and
from his warm nature kindled in his choicest hours of study, and in
his keenest perceptions of truth.
The child's mind may naturally be dull as flint, and unaspiring, still
the inspiring teacher can kindle it into a blaze of \vorthy ambition
and noble purposes. Just what this teacher does for his class — will
the Teachers' meeting, rightly conducted, do for hirn. Like a fire-
Illinois Statk Sunday SfcHooL Convention. 63
brand thio-wn into a sleeping camp, this inspiration will awaken
young minds to vigilance and research. Pizaro, inspired with the
mission q|" discovering a w^estern fortune, or Cortez, with that of con-
quering Mexico, were not more earnest, than the leader of a teachers'
meeting should be when standing before a score of teachers.
The Teachers' meeting is a great aid in making Scriptorians and
Biblical Historians out of the teachers.
Some teachers, many of them, are as well versed in Scripture and
sacred history noiv^ as the major part of the ministers were fifty or
one hundred years ago. This is as it should be. The weekly conven-
tion of teachers will carry on further this, while the pastors who lead
the meetings will be compelled to march upon, and wade deeper, and
move faster, even than ever before.
II. — Secondary Object may be to form an executive coniinittec.
It is not only a favorable time, but a variation of the exercise for
the teachers to take up some feature in the Sabbath-school and dis-
cuss it informally. It will make each teacher take a deeper insight
into the work.
The question of "how to secure more new scholars,"niay be very
profitably sjDoken of, and valuable suggestions received from teachers,
who seem more indifferent than they really are. How and when to
hold anniversaries; what a^vards to offer the scholars, and similar
questions, may all be profitably handled in the Teachers' meeting.
Difficulties often arise, which seem apjDalling to a single member; but
when he is aware that it is common to others, he feels nerved through
symjDathy and prayer to meet them with untiring patience.
But there is still another aim, not to be ignored by the Teachers'
meeting. It is to be made a -place oj prayer in behalf of the scholars.
The conversion of the children is a subject of constant prayer.
Speaking on this point, Bishop Beveridge used to say, that " the con-
version of hundreds, in years to come, may depend upon the conver-
sion of that little boy." It is true in every Sabbath-school. Let
teachers bear this in mind at every weekly meeting, while prayer is
earnestly offered also in behalf of fellow-teachers. The religious
World is propelled to-day by pi^ayer and sincere godly piety — so must
the Sunday-school.
III. — But How TO Conduct the Teachers' Meeting is one of
the most difficult questions to answer, especially by one who does not
know.
Generally the Pastoi- or vSuperintendent should lead the meeting.
If it should be impracticable, then the same one should lead all the
time. It seems to me that the j^'istor is the one to lead the meeting.
At least do not change leaders often. This regular routine of leaders,
until all, or inost all, have led, is not successful. It seems to have the
same disastrous effect that changes pastors does upon the churches, or
changing teachers each winter does upon the public schools. He
must be a live man and a man of some ingenuitv.
With the same teacher, the meeting should always open and close
with PRAYER. Luther's motto was: " To pray well is to study well"
True, every word of it. No use to try to understand God's Word,
without light from above. John Hall, in speaking of beginning
everything in prayer, said once: " If we neglect prayer, everything
64 Illinois State Sum day School Convention.
goes wrong; but with prayer and pains, all gOes well with us."
But a Greater than Luther or Hall, has said, " If any man lack wis-
dom, let him ask of God who giveth."
Singing a verse or two at the opening antl closing is inspning; but
I have never found it profitable to sing in the middle of a lesson,
unless some fiery debate should spring up, which reall}' is out of order.
But, perhaps the hardest thing to remember in the teachers' meet-
ing is, that // is not a lecture room. The leader should be full of t[ucs-
tions, but not of talk.
Young teachers are apt to think that it is what they tell the class
that does the good. Old teachers find that it is what they succeed in
getting the class to tell them, that does the good. Scholars will not
remember well what the teaclier says, but they are sure to remember
what they say to the teacher. Hence, the province of the teacher is
not to lecture, but to bring out such answers from the class as con-
tain the truths taught in the lesson. Put the questions, so that they
must bring out the answers that will recite the lesson.
There are two ways to teach. One is to bring out the entire lesson
in truths, by the teaching of it. The other is, to have a great nimi-
ber of (juestions answered, but not such questions as develop thought.
Scholars, generally, are not frank to answer Sunday-school ques-
tions, because they are not put in every day simplicity and earnestness.
// would also be very ivisc to hold the Teachers'' Meeting in the
same place.
To change from place to place, in order to circulate to diflerent
houses of the teachers, does not seem the best plan. Most everything
in the world changes except mens habits. And the regular attend-
ance of some teachers may depend u})on the meetings being at the
same place.
It is beyond question a necessity to have maps on the wall; and not
only that, but to use them. This need was beautifully set forth in the
closing half year of 18S0, and will be in the six last months of 18S1.
Let me illustrate: " The call of Abram " found us at " Ur of Chal-
dees." Now, show evekv teacher where " Ur" was. Impress upon
their minds that is now a mission point of the American Board.
Now, show Abram's wanderings. Point to every stopping place.
For instance, take Hebron, his fourth stopping place. Show that
Hebron is now where the plains of Mamre were. Then near here
was the oak of Abraham. Point to it on the map, point to it in the
mind. Tell them that //ere Abram entertained the angels; here were
the vineyards of Eschol; here was the cave of Machpelah, in which
rest the immortal bones of Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebecca,
Jacob and Leah. Tell them that this was afterwards a great city of
Refuge. Here is where Zacharias and Elizabeth probably lived;
here is where John the Baptist was born. Show John's route to the
wilderness, and that it is only twenty-one miles from Jerusalem. It
is ea.sy to see the use, the great need of a map in our Teachers' meet-
ings. After a while you may have the whole map of God's children's-
homes, printed on every teacher's mind and breast.
I would also have a blackboard and have one teacher draw off for
the Primary classes, while the other teachers are reciting some object
lessons; let that portion of the teachers who can draw these in turn.
Illinois State Sunday School Convention. 65
Thus we have tried to show the object of the " Teachers'
Meeting," and how to hold them, glancing hastily at these.
IV. — I3ut -uohen to hold the meeting depends upon the time of other
meetings in the church. At any I'ate have the meeting in the latter
of the week. This gives time to study the lesson at home, first, as
best one can. Study it with the Bible only, first, then use all the help
they can command. I recommend' that all the helps be brought to
the Teachers' Meeting, for references and comparison. This is not
my ideal class, but since we are not likely to reach an ideal class, take
the next best.
It should meet at an hour most convenic?it for the business men.
Do we ever think how little there is done for the convenience of the
business men? If they can't leave at seven o'clock, have it at eight.
If they can't come then, and are willing to come at nine, have it at
nine. The four o'clock meetings in the afternoon may be found pref-
erable in a few places, but not often, it seems.
It does not seem to me best to have the class on Sabbath morning,
as many do. It employs them with too much labor; it does not give
them time to reflect on what others say respecting the lesson. It gives
little time for a deliberate body. Nor do I think it best to have the
meeting on Wednesday 7iight after -prayer-meetings it is sure to
hurry one or the other. Both should run as long as the leader sees
proper. This is destined a great school, this Teachers' Meeting.
The ancient Jews went into the temple to learn, whenever they felt
so disposed. It seems that this Teachers' Meeting, under the sponta-
neous growth from the lesson leaf is destined to become a place where
the devout worshipper will come to learn.
Miss Lucy J. Rider, of McKendree College, Lebanon, St. Clair
County, delivered an address on "Normal Methods," as follows:
NORMAL METHODS.
ADDRESS AND BLACKBOARD EXERCISE BY MISS LUCY J. RIDER, ST. CLAIR CO.
(of MCKENDREE COLLEGE.)
I am to speak to-day, friends, on Normal Methods. Perhaps the
greatest event of the last century, was in a political point of view the
American revolution. The nineteenth century is noticable, however,
as being the century of scientific discovery and invention, and the cen-
tury of temperance. With reference to instruction, training, and im-
proved methods of training, it is the century of Normal work. The
word Normal means by law. Nature works by law. God works in
nature by law. We find a real want met by Normal Schools. They
are doing a good work in preparing teachers to teach. Is not this
thing noticeable in this century. Is it not a fact that we are no longer
willing to trust the most delicate work of fashioning delicate material,
without training, without instruction, in the matter of instruction.
This matter of introducing normal methods, is becoming one of felt
necessity in our Sunday-school work. We are no longer willing, if it
can be helped, that an untrained and untaught teacher take the preci-
ous half hour of the lesson in mis-spent time, no matter how earnest,
5
66 Ii.i^iNois State Sunday School Convention.
and miss the good that might be done by a trained teacher. Many
teachers may say with discouragement and sinking heart, that we have
not the abihty nor time to attend even the Normal summer schools,
and so prepare ourselves to teach. There are many things to be said
to encourage such, — the busy housewife and the mechanic at the
work-bench. But men who are able to give their time to preparation
ought to give it. But in Sunday-school work there are influences that
go far to make up for a lack of training and wisdom.
It seems a great practical question that confronts us all; how can I
personally get hold of Normal methods and plans? I am convinced
of the necessity of the best teaching, but how am I going to learn?
not Tv/ia^ to teach, nor the nature of the soil, but how to ieac/i, how to
build up. There are many books, the reading of which will make us
familiar with methods, and the example of others may do much.
They may suggest some practical Normal methods.
In Normal Schools the first thing is, what to study. You will find
the great fundamental three R's. Arithmetic, reading, and writing.
These are the fundamental things taught in Normal Schools. I re-
member my own experience while a student. I was examined in
arithmetic as soon as I was in school. We had to start in arithmetic
back in fractions, and take up the subjects one by one under the eye
of a teacher of teachers, a trainer of teachers, in order that he might
be perfectly certain that the fundamental points were not omitted.
Fractions, then discount, and so on. Then came arithmetical ab-
stracts. I would about as soon make an arithmetic as an abstract, in
which the student wrote in her own words, how to teach, and how to
explain. If there was not a thorough knowledge of the subject, it
was sure to come out in the subject of abstracts. Before passing the
final examination, came again arithmetical reviews. The whole sub-
ject had to be gone over from the beginning, and taught by lecture,
with the book and without the book, so that the thorough student might
be grounded in arithmetic. If teachers of arithmetic, of dollars and cents,
are not permitted to go out without training, shall we dare to go before
our classes without the most thorough work in the great fundamental
thing to be taught. The Bible, the first term, the second term, the
third term, and the last term. We ought to keep the book before us,
and study it constantly. We want all other things, but they are inci-
dental, and not fundamental. We can't do the work unless we know
the subject of the Bible thoroughly. The Normal student ought to
teach arithmetic, and though he must study chemistry, Greek, Univer-
sal History, &c., he must take time to his arithmetic, if he would suc-
ceed. So the Sunday-school teacher who spends too much time on
chronology, etc., makes ruinous mistakes, which cannot fail to bear a
j)ractical negation of results. The practical arithmetic may not be of
use to the person studying it. It is not food and drink and culture to
him, he may never need it for his own personal use. Not a single ob-
jection of that kind can be brought against the Bible, for it is drink
and culture for the teachers, increasing their talents for the work.
Yes we must study arithmetic. It must be ground into us, for by
and by we are to teach and get our living by it. We are to get our
spiritual living out of the Bible, and is it not the height of foolishness
to say we cannot spend the time? You say, I always read a chapter
Illinois State Sunday School Convention. 67
or two a day. Is that Bible study? Is that the time you ought to
put on the Bible? How long does it take to read through one chap-
ter? The average is less than three minutes. You spend a half hour,
perhaps an hour or two hours a day, on the newspaper. I ask you ail
to take it home to your consciences. Am I spending all the time I
ought on the Bible ?
The student goes up there to the Normal School and works for
money. He thinks it is worth his while to spend his time on the
fundamentals. Friends, what are we working for? Not money, but
souls. See to it that we are as earnest in our preparation as the aver-
age Normal student is for the sake of money. I often think this mat-
ter is not pressed home to us. I never talk about it, but I talk to
myself. I need it too. Possibly we all need it.
The Normal worker must know not only the subject, but the nature
of the ground that is to receive the teaching. A farmer would be no
farmer if he did not know something experimentally about the nature
of the soil in which he was to put his seed. Any teacher of the young,
secular or otherwise, must know something of the nature of the
ground he tills, of child nature, of human nature. Education is a lead-
ing out — a developing. To my own mind, certain classifications have
a good deal of interesting value. Education comprises two distinct
lines of w^ork, instruction and knowledge; and training of the religious
nature and character. Now the teacher must know the ground if he
wants to work well, especially when the ends to be gained are dis-
tinctly moral or spiritual. We are too apt to think that religious
education rests with insti'uction. There is danger of its being so, and
we must work to counteract this influence, and give as much training
as possible. The teacher may object, and say, I do not know why it
is necessary to study mental philosophy, the will, the emotions, and
the intellect. I have thought sometimes that mistakes were made by
confusing the emotions with the will. Tears start at the relation of a
story, the emotions turn toward the right and toward God. But that
teacher would make a great mistake who thought the simple move-
ment of the emotions could in any vv^ay take the place of the will,
which sets the heart toward God. We, as teachers in the Sunday-
school, need to know something about human nature, because we
want to know the right time for the right thing. The memory is best
to the age of ten or fourteen, the reasoning powers after this age.
These are some hints to show us how necessary it is to understand
something: of the nature of the ground we have to teach. Books and
lectures w^ill help us in this matter, but w^e must not forget personal
associations. They will be personal idiosyncrasy. We can only con-
quer such cases by entering into the life of our own pupils. This is
especially necessary with little children. Let me urge upon
you to study the examples of successful w^orkers. Let me urge you,
above all, to make an especial study of the Great Teacher. We will
learn much if we study the teaching and personal conversation of our
Lord Jesus Christ. How beautifully he brought the subject of His
great mission before the woman at the well, and to the young man
seeking advice, without doing any violence to human nature, or the
laws of mind. This brings in the great question of personal responsi-
bility. Again and again we do not know what to say. Look up,
fk
Illinois State Sunday School Convention.
friends, look up, for the wisdom promised. A principal in Rutland,
Vermont, when he came to his wit's ends and could manage the
pupils no longer, he said then he used to pray. We must know when
to strike. Look up for guidance and expect it. The Normal
teacher, as I have before said, must know the object to be taught, and
must know the methods. The most important work is, what are
called the primary methods. I have a round dozen rules and sugges-
tions on this point. I would like to have the papers distributed.
[Here the ushers distributed 500 outline leaves, for the use of the audi-
ence during the Black-board Exercise.]
I. Subject — Bible.
"All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for
doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness;
that the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all
good works." — Paul.
II. Object — Mind.
" The faculties exist together — leaf, flower, fruit and seed — but each
has its best time for ripening." — Dr. Hart.
III. Methods — The Best.
'•Study to show thyself approved unto God, a workman that need-
eth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth." — Paul.
Study Simplicity. (Bible — Bunyan.)
I heard a woman say, not long ago, that she heard the best sermon
she had ever heard from the parable of the Prodigal Son. It was
preached by a German who was just learning the English language,
and who could not construct a long sentence. She said, he j'ust had
to get down to business. I caught that story in a minute. Counting
the words in the parable of the Prodigal Son, we find that only five
per cent, of them are from the Latin and Greek. There are but
seventeen per cent., that contain more than a syllable. The two
hardest words are riotous and compassion. John Bunyan's favorite
books were the Bible and Fox's Book of Martyrs. John Bunyan's
language is still terse and strong. It is the simple Anglo-Saxon.
Samuel Johnson, and even Milton with his rolling and beautiful
periods is being laid upon the shelf and not read. We make mistakes
in speaking in too figurative language. We must use, if possible, the
vocabulary of the child. We must enter into the child's nature, into
the child's surrounding. We must talk his language and use his words.
The illustrations come naturally from his surroundings.
2. Illuminate. (Caution.)
I never could understand why it was that the Monks used to spend
so much time in embellishing the capital letters, at the heads of the
chapters in the Bible, with red, purple, gold, and silver. But the idea
came to me that it was to attract attention, to make beautiful, to make
plain. Let the illustrations be drawn from the life of the child if pos-
sible. Child nature requires much explanation. Illuminate or illus-
trate. Illustrations are windows which let in the light. But don't
make it all windows. Some one hjis said, don't make the hinges larger
than the door. If I have a class of restless boys and girls, or am stand-
ing before a primary class, there is a strong temptation to tell story
A
P
J
o
J
S
.1
T
1
L
M
E
B
S
Illinois State Sunday School Convention. 69
after story. It is a great mistake to talk in this direction, and crowd
out the gospel Bible lesson. Use illustrations as a means rather than
an end.
3. Regard Connection. (Luke xv.)
Don't sacrifice the connection between different parts of the Bible
story. Jesus intended that we should study in orderly sequence, one after
another. Notice the parables in Luke. We should lose much if we
fail to take them in connection. " The piece of money lost." The
Lamb lost, neither to blame. What a truth we miss if we fail to go
on to the next lesson which teaches the sinners' part in this work.
I. Stupid or Foolish.
II. Unconscious.
III. Willful.
The First and Second is God's part of the work in salvation. The
Tl^rd is man's work.
4. Use all Avenues . . . . <
The Fourth point is, appeal to all the possible avenues. There are
five gateways to the mind, the five senses. The sense of sight, the
sense of hearing, the sense of taste, the sense of smell, and possibly the
sense of touch. The eye and the ear are remarkable instances. We may
be able to use feeling sometimes, and sometimes taste. But many of
us use only the ear. We get just double teaching power by using
the second avenue of the eye.
The names of the Apostles. A mnemonic help.
A . . Andrew
/' , . Phillip y..] ames, of J
0 y . .James, of Al
^. .Simon Peter y . .John
/^..Thomas y.. Judas
L . . Lebbeus M . . Matthew
e B . . Bartholomew
iS" . . Simon, the Can
You will notice by the insertion of a small " o " and " e " in the ini-
tials of the first list of name, that we have the word APoSTLeS.
The above was kindly suggested to me by Prof A. F. Townsend,
of Iowa, whom I see in the audience.
1 do not say that mnemonics are fit for children, they are not fit
for children. It would require as much effort on their part to remem-
ber the mnemonic sign, as the object itself I never could remember
a certion section of the minor Prophets until I mastered that feav*
ful word, liAzeh»zema.
70
Illinois State Sunday School Convention.
Miss Rider made use of the following diagram to show how
children rise and fall, from a line of innocence, beginning at infancy:
The straight line represents a line of innocence. The downward
line from A shows the downward course from infancy. The curved
line shows that it is the direction of a falling body. The upward line
from A shows the upward course from infancy. We have nothing
like the upward curved line any where in natural philosophy. The
dotted lines show how far apart are the courses of right and wrong,
at each decade, /. e. at the ages of lo, 20, 30, etc., ever and evermore
widely diverging.
5. Teach unknown by known. ( " Like. — ")
Get a common ground footing with the pupil. Stand upon his
ground, and take him with you as you go on to higher ground. Let
me illustrate by a sentence in grammar. " The boy said, 'I can't do it.' "
Now, this whole sentence may be too hard. What is the object?
One boy answers, " I can't do it," is the object. But his answer is re-
ceived with disapproving shakes of the head. Now, in order to lead
the class to see that the answer is right, you must go down to their
state of knowledge or ignorance and lead them up. (^.) The boy
said, « No." What is the object? {A.) No. (.^.) The boy said, " I
can't." What is the object? {A.) I can't. (.^). The boy said, " I
can't do it," what is the object? (^.) I can't do it.
Now, the class might have been lifted up by muscular power to see
that the object was, " I can't do it." But it is vastly better to lead
them up. They thus get development, true education, strength to
make a second ascent.
6. Teach abstract by concrete. (Objects — Ideas.)
How shall we know anything about God's love, if we do not know
something aljout'the love of mother or father, or some member of the
family? How are you to know anything about divine love if you
Illinois State Sunday School Convention. 71
do not know anything about human love? You can never get an
idea into the children if it is presented in the abstract form. The
child can comprehend the pennies. Don't make a mistake and expect
the child to grasp ideas without giving it something of the concrete
upon which to build.
7. Repeat. (With Variety.)
We all know the need of repetition. Is not God compelled to drill
into us by experience after experience all the Christian graces, trust,
faith, hope, love, and charity. God works by natural law. But we
must be careful to introduce variety, especially in these somewhat
drier matters. It is said, that Webster realized this point, and in his
speeches he returned again and again, hammering in the truth, but
never wearying, because he always presented the truth in a different
way. Teach the doctrines. We cannot spend too much time, espec-
ially if we spend our force wisely.
8. Seek active co-operation. " To sit as a passive bucket and be
pumped into, can, in the long run, be exhilarating to no creature." —
Carlyle.
The didactive method must have all the co-operation possible, so
that the pupil will co-operate with you in receiving and digesting the
material which you give. I prefer to use the conversational method,
by discerning questions, and by encouraging remark. Set young
people to work and they will find nuggets of gold in some way. If
we teach by the didactive method we must secure co-operation. As
Carlyle says : " To sit as a passive bucket and be pumped into, can, in
the long run, be exhilarating to no one."
9. Be practical. (Profit and loss.)
What good would arithmetic do a business man if he was not able
to take his pencil and work out the profit and loss accruing from a
certain business transaction. The Sunday-school teachers and pupils
need alike to be taught in such a way as to be able to bring the mat-
ter into the practical affairs of life. Teaching is a failure if it does
not have this direct tendency. " What shall it profit a man if he shall
gain the whole world and lose his own soul." Teach your Sunday-
school classes in such a way that they will go home and put to practi-
cal application the lessons taught.
10. Write abstracts. (Crystallize thought).
Write abstracts. Here is the infallible cure for aimless indigestible
teaching. The last half hour's study of the lesson should be given to
a digest. When your plans are to be formed, as to just how you will
begin, as to the points you will try to impress, just how you will work
up the matter, just how you will make it. But don't let the coat fit
so tight that you cannot shrug your shoulders in it.
11. Teach earnestly. (Weld at white heat.)
Teach earnestly. Elizabeth Barrett Browning's success lay in the
fact that she wrote with an earnest purpose. If you are in earnest,
teach earnestly. Wait, meditate, pray and beseech God that you may
be in earnest about this the only serious thing in the world, doing God's
work, saving souls. You may have a tremendous moral force which
comes from being in earnest. Wait before God until you feel the re-
sponsibility of the position, until you realize that immortal souls are
in your hand. That will make you earnest and give you a force
which always carrie* along the earnest teacher.
72 Illinois State Sunday School Convention.
12. Submit designs. (Matt, xxviii. 20.)
Matt xxviii. 20. Lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of
the world." The normal teacher preparing to teach is obliged during
his time of probation to make written designs of work, and submit to
the principal for his approval and correction. I lose because I do not
carry my designs to the Great Teacher. I will carry my designs to
the Great Teacher. I will go and be more faithful for God's guid-
ance, direction and blessing. The other day, walking through our
caf?ipus^ I saw a bird, or mass of matter rising. I asked myself what
makes the matter go up? Evidently life. A stone would never do
that. But the bird might be alive and not go up. But the air is the
matter from God which supports its life. If it was not for the air it
would not go up. Friends, there is a share for God to do. Let us
make an effort and try to rise, and we will find God's Spirit uplifting
us. As we strive to fly we will find ourselves able to go up like the
bird, because we are alive, because God helps us.
TREASURER'S REPORT.
Mr. B. F. Jacobs, Treasurer, submitted his report for the year as
follows :
Illinois State S. S. Association in account xvith B. F. yacobs, Treas.
1880.
May 13. By Balance on hand $1 01
14. " Woodford County, R. C. McCulloch $1460
" 14. " White " R.C.Willis 1000
" 14. " Bond " H. P. Douglas 2000
24. " Fayette " J. N. McCord iS 00
" 26. " Cass " Jno. J. Bergen 2000
June 8. " Bureau " J.P.Richardson 8 95
Aug. 9. " Brown " F. D. Crane 25 00
" 13. " Morgan " C. M. Fames 3000
" 14. " Pike " P.M.Parker 2500
" 20. " Wabash " W.P.Kingsbury 1000
" 20. " Massac " J.M.Stone 1000
" 23. " Schuyler " L. R. Caldwell 2500
" 24. " Menard " J. W. Frackelton 1000
Sept. I. " Livingston " C.H.Long 2500
" I. " Clinton " Samuel Burnside is 00
2. " Henry " W.H.Wight 2=; 00
" 3. " Calhoun " C. M. Fames 8 00
" 4. " Jackson " E. J. Ingersoll 1000
" 8. " Putnam " P. B. Durley 10 00
" 17. " Macoupin " M. L. Keplingcr 1000
" 23. " Vermillion " Chas. Tilton 2000
" 27. " Fdwards «' Mrs. Olive M. Smith 1500
" 28. " Rock Island " F.W.Spencer 2500
" 29. " La Salle " C.S.Jones 5000
Oct. 6. " Kendall " J. R. Bullard 24 00
" 9. " Alexander " George W. Strode 1000
" II. " Crawford " A. R. Short lo 00
" II. " Mason " G. W Fllsbcrry 1000
" lO. " Edgar " N. R. Yeargin.' 1500
" 21. " Douglas " J.R.Mason 1000
" 29. " Knox " George Davis, Jr 2500
*♦ 29. " Fulton " N.S.Wright 25 oq
Illinois State Sunday School Convention.
73
Nov.
Dec.
1881,
Jan'y 3.
4-
" 10.
" 14-
" 21.
24.
7-
15-
March 8.
" II.
" II.
Feb'y
April
May
9. By Stephenson county,
10. " DeKalb "
18. " Clay "
10. " Mercer "
15. " Moultrie "
17. " McLean "
17. " Macon "
17. " Whiteside "
18. " Winnebago "
21. " Hamilton "
30. " Carroll "
Montgomery
Washington
Green
Lee
Bureau
Lake
Randolph
Cook
Marion
Gallatin
Perry
Pulaski
Peoria
Tazewell
Williamson
Ford
Wayne
Saline
Adams
Shelby
Du Page
Kane
Union
3. " Madison
3. " Champaign
3. " Hancock
3. " Effingham
3. " Franklin
3. « St. Clair
3. " Sangamon
3. " Iroquois
3. " DeWitt "
3. " Collection at Centralia.
16.
17-
22.
26.
I.
13-
25-
27.
29.
3-
3-
— Rising, at Dixon.
L. H.Holt
W. C. Kenner
T. B. Mayo
G. N. Vaughn
P. Whitmer
Milton Johnson. . . . ,
Payson Trask
S. F. Wevburn, Jr..,
P. M. Ecitley
George C. Mastin . . ,
J. F. Gowdy
J. M. Pierce
John C. Woodford..
A. E. Slanter
J. P. Richardson. . .
E. S. Wells
James Hood.
Mr. Lindsey 200 00
W. H. Cunningham..
T. S. Ridgeway
J. B. Curlee , .
Mrs. K. A. H. Edson..
William Reynolds. . . .
B. R. Hieronvmus. . . .
J. P. Copeland
E. H. Carr
J. C. Youngken
J. W. Bradshaw
E. F. Humphrey
Judson Combs, Sec'y..
M. C. Hazard
W. B. Lloyd
W. B. Mead
T. P. Nisbett ,
J. E. Saxton
Rev. W. A. Miller...
Miss Hasbrook
J. R. Miller.
L R. Diller.
— Durham.
25
00
15
00
12
00
20
00
10
00
SO
00
2S
GO
25
GO
35
00
10
00
7
75
20
00
10
00
25
00
25
00
25
00
50
00
25
CO
200
00
10
00
25
GO
10
CO
3
55
50
00
2S
00
10
00
20
00
10
00
10
CO
ID
00
20
CO
30
00
2S
00
10
00
40
00
20
00
25
CO
6
CO
10
CO
10
00
25
00
15
00
15
00
2S4
92
$1,901 76
$1,902 77
May, 1881. To Expenses for 22nd Convention _. . . $220 70
" Services and Expenses attending Convention,
" C.M.Morton 4^685
" W.B.Jacobs 32820
" Rev. W. S. Post 125 00
" Expenses of Ex. Com. arranging for 23d Con. 17 oc
" C. M. Fames, State Sec'y, Salary & Expenses, 357 20
" Short hand Reporter. ..^ 10435
" Blanks and Printing 1*4 1 50
" Postage, Telegrams, Circulars, &c 104 19
" Interest on Loan 801
" Error in previous acc't inserting i Co. not paid 20 00
Balance on hand 9 77
$1,902 77
74
Illinois State Sunday School Convention.
Pledges were then called for to carry forward the work during the
coming year. By resolution of the Convention it was proposed to
secure the sum of $2,500. The counties present'were invited to make
pledges with the understanding that those not represented would be
assessed in fair proportion. The pledges and assessments are as fol-
lows, viz:
FIRST DISTRICT.
Boone $25 00
Carroll 25 00
Cook 300 00
De Kalb 25 00
Du Page 4000
Grundy 25 00
Jo Daviess 25 00
Kane 100 00
Kendall 30 00
Lake $50 00
Lee 30 00
Mc Henrv 30 00
Ogle. . . r 25 00
Stephenson 2500
Whiteside 40 cx)
Will 25 00
Winnebago 40 00
SECOND DISTRICT.
Bureau $25 00
Fulton 25 00
Hancock 30 00
Henderson 25 00
Henry 35 00
Knox 3000
La Salle 5000
McDonough 25 00
Marshall 25 00
Mercer §25 00
Peoria 50.00
Putnam 1500
Rock Island 25 00
Stark 2Q 00
Tazewell 25 00
Warren 25 00
Woodford 25 00
THIRD DISTRICT.
Champaign $25 00
Clark 20 00
Coles 2000
Cumberland 20 00
De Witt 20 00
Douglas 20 00
Edgar 2000
Ford 20 00
Iroquois 20 00
Kankakee $25 00
Livingston 25 oo
Mc Lean 50 00
Macon 25 00
Moultrie 25 00
Piatt 25 00
Shelby 25 cx)
Vermillion 25 00
FOURTH DISTRICT.
Adams I25 00
Brown 25 00
Calhoun 20 00
Cass 15 00
Christian 25 00
Greene 35 00
Jersey 20 00
Logan 20 00
Macoupin 20 00
Mason $25 00
Menard 20 00
Montgomery 25 00
Morgan 25 00
Pike 25 00
Sangamon 25 00
Schuyler 25 00
Scott 2000
FIFTH DISTRICT.
Clay $25 00
Crawford 25 00
Edwards 20 00
Effingham 20 00
Fayette 20 00
Gallatin 50 c»
Hamilton 20 co
Hardin 20 00
Jasper 20 c»
Lawrence $20 00
Marion 25 00
Pope 15 00
Richland 25 00
Saline 15 00
Wabash 20 co
Wayne • 20 co
White 50 00
Illinois State Sunday School Convention. 75
SIXTH DISTRICT.
Alexander $15 cx) Monroe $10 00
Bond 2000 Perry lo oo
Clinton 2000 Pulaski 1000
Franklin 10 00 Randolph 40 00
Jackson 1500 St. Clair 1500
Jefferson 1500 Union 1500
Johnson 1500 Washington 1000
Madison 4000 Williamson 1000
Massac 10 cxj
Benediction by Rev. M. M. Parkhurst, and Convention adjourned.
Second Day — Third Session.
The tabernacle was crowded at an early hour, and many persons
were standing on the outside listening through the doors and win-
dows.
The second meeting was held in the Methodist church, which was
also crowded. At this meeting the Carman family sang, and ad-
dresses were made by Mr. W. B. Jacobs and Mr. G. C. Needham.
The session in the tabernacle was opened with a song service, con-
ducted by Professor Case. The Carman family sang, " Like the Still
Quiet that Falls," and the baby of the family, little David Carman,
was lifted upon the president's desk, and sang, " I am a Youthful Pil-
grim."
Prayer was offered by Mr. C. Link, of Paris, and Prof. H. C. De
Motte, chairman of the committee, announced the names of the offi-
cers for the Sunday-school session, Thursday morning.
I. H. C. Royse, President of the Indiana State Sunday-school As-
sociation, was introduced and spoke a few words of cheer and greet-
ing, from Indiana, as follows, viz :
Christian Friends of Illinois: I cannot tell you how much
pleasure it affords to be in this Convention. First, it is a pleasure be-
cause I used to live in Illinois; and, second, because for three years I
tramped with Illinois soldiers. So I feel at home to be in an Illinois
State Convention. All recognize Illinois not only as the banner State,
but it is the pioneer State. It is a pleasure to be here and to learn of
you your methods and system of organization. Although Indiana
began work much later, and although we have failed to secure that
systematic organization, the thoroughness of organization that your
gallant workers have secured for you, yet we have our banner un-
furled, and we are doing what we can to hold up that banner for the
people, that every child may have the benefit of good Sunday-school
instruction, and we are looking forward to better work. Our State
Convention will meet in Evansville, which is a point quite near to
you, on the last day of May and on the ist and 2d of June, following.
>j6 Illinois State Sunday School Convention.
A cordial invitation is extended to this Convention to meet with us at
Evansville. We will be glad to see you, and we hope to have a good
Convention. Dear brother Reynolds will be with us, and some other
workers from this State.
Rev. M. M. Parkhurst, D.D., a delegate to the London Centennial,
was to have spoken on Tuesday afternoon, but was delayed and did
not reach the Convention in time. He was introduced, and spoke as
follows :
ADDRESS OF M. M. PARKHURST.
Of course I did not come into the room under a desire to speak.
But my engagements are such that^ cannot remain. I am engaged
to preach at Rockford to-morrow, and I must meet the engagement.
This is the only apology that I can make for standing in Bro, Need-
ham's place to-night.
The subject, I understand by the programme, is in reference to the
work I saw in Great Britain, or the great gathering in London la.st
year. I labor under a disadvantage, as I do not know what has been
said upon the subject. So I may say what I have to say without ref-
erence to that. The first impression was the magnitude of the Sun-
day-school work in the world. We are told that there are 12,000,000
of children and youth enrolled in the Sabbath-schools of the world.
Perhaps you can see 12,000,000 with the mind's eye, I cannot. I went
into the Convention and listened during the morning, for three hours,
to reports from England, Ireland, and Scotland. The United States
and the Canadas came next. The next day we had three hours re-
ports from Germany, France, and Holland. In the afternoon, from
Belgium, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Italy, and all the rest of the
world. After listening to twelve hours' solid reports I began to feel
that the Sunday-school was the biggest thing in the world, if we can
judge by reports. The magnitude and far-reaching work of to-day
overwhelms me. It was especially so when I went to Gloucester and
saw the beginning. I went into a little room seven feet square, in a
second story. There, in a back room I saw the people's Sunday-
school as an institution, which now exists as an organization. Some-
body holds that Sabbath-schools are older. They will tell you that in
the city of Milan, was organized a Sunday-school 300 years ago. So
the school has been running for 300 years and has never had a Bible
in it, it is never used, I don't call that a Sunday-school. There is no
preparation of the lesson, and no books. The pupils are trained on
the dogmas of the church and the catechism. There are places here
and there, one in Scotland, one in England, where people were taught
on the Sabbath the Word of God. But for a steady, progressive
work, for a perpetual work, I have yet to learn of a place before Glou-
cester which leads in the idea of uplifting children by bringing the
Gospel home to the hearts, and in which the persons received pay-
ment. Two pennies a Sabbath for attending, and twenty-five cents
for teaching. This Sunday-school began on the lowest possible imag-
inable plane, and taught by hired women. That man had an idea, he
had conviction of duty and dared to press it. He pressed it with the
agency of his newspaper, When a man has an idea of truth, a con*
Illinois State Sunday School Convention. 77
viction of truth, and a newspaper to press it, you have got to get out
of the way. People found that out when Garrison got hold of a
newspaper.
The changes that have been wrought upon the Sunday-school since
the time of Robert Raikes, are very fitly represented by the changes
which architecture itself has undergone. The cathedral, in a room of
which Raikes organized his Sunday-school, with its low ceiling, and
in appearance the nearest that a building could be made to a cave, has
now given place to a structure with strong massive ground work, ele-
gant finish, and every thing about it beautiful and attractive.
The Sunday-school work as carried forward in foreign countries is
accomplishing tremendous results. The Gospel is being carried home
to the hearts of youth by the hand of men and women saved by the
Gospel. This work is breaking down paganism. The Sunday-
school has been organized and two generations have been trained in
it. These two generations are moulding and shaping the influences of
the nation in this country. In the city of Centralia, if two business men
disagree, they do not go out into the street and fight. That would be
barbarism. But you call in your neighbors, a jury is constituted and
each agrees to abide by the decision of the referee. If either should
refuse and take the law into his own hands the public will interfere,
and lay their hands upon him, and declare that he must abide by the
decision. To-day, if some great question comes up between North
America and Britain, what do the people say ? They say to these
great nations, if you have a difficulty you must go and sit down before
persons appointed to hear the cause, and then you must submit to the
decision. If the governments at Washington and London should de-
clare war, the people of these two nations would say to their Govern-
ors, if you cannot settle that difficulty you had better resign. The
demagogue on the other shore cannot dog the people into war to grat-
ify his individual notions. We see here a feeling established. The
Sunday-school work is bringing the Gospel home to the hearts of the
children, has educated two grand Christian nations so that they can
' settle difficulties like Christian men.
Germany and France have 300,000 children in the Sunday-school.
The Sunday-school work is going on rapidly in France, and when the
Sunday-school work covers Germany and France as it covers America
and Britain, there will be no more war between these nations.
Nations will practice war no more, for that great peace society is
conquering the world with its principles of peace. The Sunday-
school work is the grandest work that has ever been undertaken by
the race. How the Sunday-school work brings us together and
breaks down the walls which have kept us so far apart that somehow
or other we could not possibly work hand to hand. By this work we
are bringing ourselves together so that to-day it is very difficult to tell
on which side of the hedge a man stands. This grand Sunday-school
work is unif3'ing the church of Christ so that we are seeing eye to
eye. The work thus going on is to my mind the grand glorious con-
summation of the Gospel of Christ. This work will continue and can-
not stop till it has conquered the world. The same lesson you study
is read in Japan, China, India, and in every nation in Europe.
Twelve millions of Sunday-school scholars are studying the same les-
78 Illinois State Sunday School Convention.
son. This is only a beginning, and is prophecying future success and
final conquest.
In conclusion it seems to me that we need to buckle on the armor.
We need to undertake the work with greater enthusiasm, with greater
earnestness.
Here the speaker touchingly referred to the sudden death of one of
his pupils.
These boys are so wayward, they forget so quickly. These girls
are so thoughtless. Under these circumstances the best workers get
discouraged and don't know hardly what to do. The little boy going
out riding with his father, was holding the lines, yet the father was
driving in such a way that the boy thought he was driving. Soon he
saw another team coming pell mell, and as the team drew near the
boy began to cry. But on looking down he saw his father holding
the reins, and he said: "Papa, I thought I was driving." So, if
things are going wi'ong, and we are becoming anxious, never begin to
worry, for we shall see, bye-and-bye, that it is not I, but that it is God
that is doing this work. Let us have power of faith to believe that
the work we are trying to accomplish is God's Work, and that He is
guiding and helping on that work. We have but to try to get the
meaning of God's Word and give it to the children, and trust to God.
He will take care of the work. If we sit down and study closely the
illustrations of Scripture they will get close home to the heart, and
we will be able to use them far more effectually. Much of the Bible
used to look to me like a myth, and I could not seem to get hold of it.
But when I come to see the illustrations of Scripture, the Bible be-
came so real, so natural, that its force and power was vastly increased.
Very much of the Scripture will bear close study. A great deal of
the Scripture we do not get for want of close study. Take the para-
ble of the sower, and study the history, and it will enrich every
teacher. Here we are passing through a field. In Syria they have
no carriage roads to-day, except the royal road. You go through the
fields. There is simply a pathway, no fence, you go single file. The
sowers of the seed pays no attention to the path, but sows right over
it; so you see the seeds fall upon the path. Those going through the
field when the grain is ripe can take hold of the heads of wheat.
Thus we are constantly seeing the Bible illustrated. The plow used
is onlv a pointed stick. Now, if a man takes hold of that and looks
around, this plow whips out of the ground. " He that putteth his
hand to the plow and lookcth back is not fit for the Kingdom of God."
There is not a word about the backslider there. It is calling our at-
tention to business. " They that seek me early shall find me." Some
take this as a promise only to children. It is nothing of the kind. It
means, to get up and go to work at four, instead of nine. The man
who seeks Me early and diligently shall find Me. I would say, that
we are to study the Bible for the truth and not take something passing
current in the community. We are to take it and study it, or we shall
lose the power and strength of the Word of God. " The Lord is my
shepherd, I shall not want." If I am allowed to change two words in
the Psalm, it becomes a beautiful poem. Instead of " dwell in the
house of the Lord forever," read, dwell on David's throne forever.
Then the whole poem itself is a beautiful experience of going out in
Illinois State Sunday School Convention. 79
morning and returning at night. Well, what about "through the
valley of the shadow of death." There is no death there, it is through
the " valley of shadows." I studied three weeks on that Psalm and
feasted on it so much, that the Word of God became sweeter than
honey and the honeycomb. In the Bible we have a mine of rich deep
study. We should study it more, so that it may have richness and
power when we take it and bring it home to the hearts of the chil-
dren. Then they will understand it, and feel it as they have not felt
it before.
Professor Case sang the solo, " Redeemed, redeemed, O, sing
the Joyful Theme," the large choir joining in the chorus. The •
subject for the evening, as stated by the President, was a memorial
service to Stephen Paxson. Mr. Morton, Chairman of the Commit-
tee to prepare resolutions, reported as follows:
One by one, our life work terminates, and we close the scenes of
this life. Every year some dear ones depart. Another during the
last year, one loved, and gone — Father Paxson. Your committee
who were appointed to prepare resolutions of respect, are now ready
to report.
To the Illinois State Sabbath-school Association : — Dear Breth-
ren:— The Special Committee appointed to draft resolutions express-
ive of our feelings, concerning the death of our departed brother,
Father Stephen Paxson, who died April 24th, at St. Louis, Mo., aged
73 years, respectfully report:
Whereas, Stephen Paxson, our beloved brother and fellow-soldier, has fought
the good fight, has finished his course, has kept the faith, and has gone to receive
the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the Righteous Judge, shall give him
at that day, and also to all them that love his appearing, and
Whereas, While living, liis presence in the midst of Sabbath-school workers
was a constant inspiration, and his example is worthy of our highest emulation.
Resolved, That we are fully sensible of the great loss the Sabbath-school cause
has sustained in the death of Father Paxson, and we will ever cherish the memory
of the departed hero, and bless the Father Almighty, for the gift of both the
worker and his work.
Resolved, That we deeply sympathize with his aged wife and family, and com-
mend them for consolation to God, whose grace and blessing rendered effective
the labors of him who has gone before.
Resolved, That in view of Father Paxton's eminent service in the field of organ-
ized Sabbath-school work, especially in our own State, we recommend the erec-
tion of a suitable monument, worthy of his memory.
Resolved, That we invite the .Sabbath-school workers of the United States, and
Canada, who would esteem it a privilege to join us in this labor of love, and token
of appreciation to a great and good man.
Chas. M. Morton.
H. C. DeMotte.
Wm. Reynolds.
The Committee request me to make a few remarks concerning these
resolutions. I assure you that there is no greater privilege, than to
say a few words to the memory of Father Paxson. It is reported
that at the funeral of Daniel Webster, when all were taking their last
look at his face, one old man came and looked, and said : " Daniel
Webster, the world will be lonely without you." I feel that I express
So Illinois State Sunday School Convention.
the feeling of christian hearts and christian Sabbath-school workers,
when I say, " Father Paxson, we are lonely without you to-night."
I would give anything to see that gray head at the front, and hear his
words of wisdom. I am right when I say, he was a manly man. The
grandest sight is a manly christian man. I have yet to hear anywhere
of any man who ever knew Father Paxson to do an unmanly thing.
If true to any thing, he was true to his christian manhood. I have
spent days in his home, and noted the influence of the old man in his
home, as well as in the great work done in different States. The rich
blessing of God rested upon every member of the family. Every soul
is rejoicing in the Lord Jesus Christ. Bless God, He has give him all
of them. Although the old man does not meet with us, there stands
his son who for years has been a minister of Christ, doing good in the
minister's service. All know that Father Paxson had a limited educa-
tion. He was 25 years old before he could read or write. He was not
talented, if we talk about him after the manner of men. But how
prominent are the characteristics that gave him success. The first
thing that attracted attention to Father Paxson was his hatred of
sham. The hypocrite did not have much comfort in his company. If
any one used a great deal of cant, it was sure to be followed by his
rebuke. Cant stood a poor chance in the presence of a man who wore
his heart on his sleeve, and you knew what it was all the time. Another
characteristic of his success was his loyalty to the Son of God. He
never worshiped the work. He always realized whom he was doing
it for. It is a thought worthy of attention. Only the One who gave
Himself for our salvation is worthy of our worship. His son William
told us to-day that when one of the boys asked him on his death-bed,
" Father how is it with you.?" — the old man looked up and said, "Ah,
my son, that question was settled long ago." As far as the East is
from the West, so far his sins were removed from him. There was
nothing but joy and peace in his heart. If ever any one won his love
he never lost it. That is the right kind of friendship. No matter
what the faults of his friends, he loved them and always stood by
them. Let this be a lesson to us, not only to be constant in our love
to Christ, but constant in our love to one another. Brethren and sis-
ters in the Lord, no matter what inconstancy, let us stand by one
another throughout all our christian acquaintance. Among other
points of excellence was his cojumon sense. It was a great part of his
stock in trade. He looked at every thing with common-sense eyes.
A student came to one of our colleges, and the President said to him,
" Young man, if you have come lacking learning we can help you,
but if you have come lacking common-sense we can do nothing for
you." It was not so with old Father Paxson. Common sense was
born in him. I never knew him to say a foolish thing. He truly
kept his stock of common sense good and strong.
Then his kindness! A lady going along the street of a city one
day, right ahead of her, saw a boy standing against a house putting
his bare cold feet under his pants. As she came, she put her hands
upon his head and said in a kind way, *'Are you not cold, my boy?"
" I was ma'm, until you spoke!" So many people were cold, so many
feople were sad and discouraged, until they heard the old man speak,
do not believe there is a man in Illinois who has helped more to
Illinois State Sunday School Convention. 8i
minister to and lift the loads off the hearts of Sabbath-school Superin-
tendents. Two or three times, I have felt cold, till I heard him speak.
His memory will be like a golden cord of love let down from the
throne of God, drawing us nearer and nearer to heaven.
Brother Knox Taylor, asked to read a few words from a Sunday-
school worker in Texas,who had just heard of Father Paxson's death.
He read the following: " I have just heard of the death of the old
veteran. I feel lonely."
The resolutions were seconded by Wm. Reynolds, of Peoria.
ADDRESS OF WM. REYNOLDS, OF PEORIA.
If it was any ordinary occasion I should not feel like inflicting any
remarks on this audience. But this occasion is no ordinary occasion,
and this man was no ordinary man. He was an extraordinary man. He
was a rare man. I remember well the first time I ever met him. It
was on the cars between Jacksonville and Springfield, while on the
way to attend a State Sunday-school Convention in that city. There
I made his acquaintance, and he made me promise to attend the
sessions of that convention. It was the first Sunday-school Conven-
tion that I ever attended. He visited Peoria after that. He said he
desired to have an interview with me. He spent the evening with me.
He was the first man that aroused me to a realization of what true life
was. Your aim and object he said is to obtain the things of this life.
I want you to realize that there are greater things than these. There
is a precious work which God wants you to do. I want a man who is
willing to leave his business and organize the State of Illinois for
Christ. I said, until the State of Illinois is organized I will do my
part. I am not the only one who labored with him. There are many
others who added to Father Paxson's joy and pleasure in this grand
work for Christ. I thank God to-night that I ever made the acquain-
tance of that noble Christian soldier. He was an extraordinary man.
He was 30 years old before he could read a word. All the education
he ever received was in the Sabbath-school. There he learned his
letters. There he learned to read and write, and there he learned the
way to Christ, and gave his heart to Jesus. His gratitude was so gi'eat
for what the Sunday-school had done for him, that he dedicated his
life to that mission. If ever a man could say, since the days of Paul,
this one thing I know, that man was Stephen Paxson. This State
owes to him, more than to any other man, its organization. He w^as
the first man that ever organized a County Convention in the State of
Illinois, and he never rested nor left the State till it was organized
from one end to another.
Look what that man has been able to accomplish. A man becom-
ing a christian in middle life. This man of wonderful natural abilities,
oiganized 1500 Sabbath-schools which enroll 71,000 children. Who
can tell the influence these Sabbath-schools have exerted in this land.
To-day, churches — scoi'es raised from these scliools — whose spires point
to heaven, would never have been, had it not been for Paxson. Thou-
sands have been brought to a saving knowledge of Christ, directly or
indirectly, by this one servant of the Living God, To-day men arc
6
82 Illinois State Sunday School Convention.
preaching the everlasting gospel, who owe their conversion to the in-
sfrunientality of this man. 1 was thinking to-day of the departure
from earth, thinking of the angels, imagining the great pearly gates
opening, the angels and arch-angels coming to receive him, and the
wSon of God taking him hy the hand, and saying, " Well done, good
and faithful servant." Think of him standing there among the re-
deemed, think of the Superintendents by scores, and hundreds of
bright boys saved by his instrumentality welcoming him, and tell me
whether his life was a success or failure. If he had devoted his talents
to the accumulation of wealth, what would it have been in the eyes of
God? A success or a failure?
His life was the grandest success ever achieved in this country.
That monument that we shall erect may stand for years, but his
monument will be in the hearts of those that to-day love him. My
friends, let us emulate his example. He was a consecrated man of
God. Let us consecrate ourselves to God. Follow him as he followed
our Saviour. May the Lord bless this man's life to every one of us,
I thank God, first, that I ever knew that man, next, that his influence
upon upon me brought comfort and peace to my heart. Thank God
that he gave to us Stephen Paxson. God bless us and help us, so that
when we die some man may stand over our graves, and thank God
that we ever lived.
At the close of Mr. Reynold's remarks the President said:
" I am sure we all think there is one person present who, as a re-
presentative of this association, should say a few words on this occasion.
I will ask Brother Jacobs to speak to the resolution."
Mr. Jacobs spoke as follows:
ADDRESS OF B. F. JACOBS.
We are not to leave this building until we add a word of testimony
and thanksgiving to God, in remembrance of this dear brother, whose
name has been brought before us at this time. There are three things
that should certainly be in every christain worker's heart. If I may
say it, three things that must characterize every christian worker, and
these things characterized our beloved Brother Stephen Paxson.
I. He must have a belief in the word of God. That word in its
fulness, that book from back to back.
II. He must believe and rest in the finished work of Christ our
Lord.
III. He must be possessed of the indwelling power of the Holy
Ghost.
That word Stephen Paxson believed. That Bible to him was the
revelation of God to man. I have often been with him and heard
liim read, and seen the rich joy show itself in his face as he feasted
upon it. He believed, and God counted it to him for righteousness.
Like Paul, he could say, "I know whom I have believed, and am
persuaded that He is able to keep that which I have committed unto
Him against that day." We are never tossed about with fears if once,
for time and eternity, we believe in the efficiency of the work of Him
who declared upon Calvary — " It is finished." It was once, and for
Illinois State Sunday School Convention. 83
all. The Spirit of God — the Holy Ghost, possessed that beloved
brother. And truly it was with him as recorded of Isaac, where we
learn that he dwelt at the well. We must go to the wells of the Bible
if we want refreshment, and let down our buckets and measures, and
draw up fresh, rich, copious draughts of comfort and life. Isaac dwelt
by the well Lahai-roi. Stephen Paxson dwelt in the presence of the
Living and Seeing One. How delightful to be guided by the eye of
God ! In the 32d Psalm we read, " Blessed is he whose transgression
is forgiven, and whose sin is covered, and from that thought the
Psalmist passes on and says, " I will instruct thee, and teach thee in
the way thou shalt go ; I will guide thee with mine eye." How much
better it is to be guided by the eye of God, than driven by whip and
spur. That eye marked out the path of Israel through the Red Sea.
That eye marked out a path through a desert without roads or guide-
posts. That eye sees through all things from the beginning to the
end of the world. It appears like a pillar of fire by night, and a pil-
lar of cloud by day. Oh, that the power of a sanctified life might be
written in golden letters over this platform, and over the doors of our
homes. The power that is needed, the power that is felt, is the power
of a life sanctified by the Holy Ghost, and consecrated to the service
of Jesus Christ our Master.
A gentleman told me the other day of an interesting religious visit
to the mission stations of Japan, China, Syria and Egypt. In Japan
he was introduced to a theological school, and invited to speak. He
asked for an interpreter. The reply was speak on. They will under-
stand you in English if you speak plainly and slowly. Then some of
the young men desired a personal interview, and told a little of their
history. A number of years ago a soldier, who had not been ruined
in war, was sent to Japan as a teacher, and given a class of young
men of that nation, on condition that he should not teach them any-
thing about the religion of Jesus Christ. He went on in the fulfill-
ment of his duties. After a while the students met and discussed the
matter of the religion of their teacher in an earnest manner, and pre-
pared a paper saying : " We do not know the religion of our teacher,
but whatever that religion is we want it. We do not know the God
of our teacher, but whoever He is we wish him for our God."
What a testimony was the silence of that young man! It is golden
and need not be broken by silver music. Twenty-five of this teach-
er's pupils became theological students, and began the study of the
gospel. And this brother was permitted to take twelve young men
by the hand, who were just about to receive their diplomas and go out
to preach the gospel.
Some men believe not in prayer; Stephen Paxson did. There are
communications going up to God. I believe in telephones. I do not
know where the wires go, but I put my lips to the tube, speak, and
wait for a response. In our city, concert tunes played in Milwaukee
were distinctly heard. Ah, friends, if our hearts are closely in com-
munion with God, and our ears are strained to catch the notes of song
the angels sing, we shall receive the answers we need. What shall
we say of Stephen Paxson's reward? It is not in language to portray
it. None but the heart of Christ himself can describe it. If the infi-
nite, omnipotent and All-loving God provides it, how shall the
8^ Illinois State Sunday School Convention.
finite measure and receive the inlinitc supply, while tabernacling in
the flesh? How the words of Christ, how the sweet music of Jesus'
voice will empty the memory of reproach and shame, as it will of
earthly honors, when we stand in the presence of the Lamb who was
slain. We need not fear in the glorious rewards that shall be given
to these gifted and greatly honored servants of Christ, that it will not
be abundant in measure in that day. Not only infinite love, but an
infinite measure of love.
A little while ago we had in our city a great procession. It
attracted men from all parts of the United States. It was a procession
in which it was said, that 30,000 men in uniform were to be in line.
It Was very wonderful, and lasted for a number of days. One Sunday
evening, before it took place, I was going to our mission, and at the
main crossing of the railway track there was passing a train of empty
sleepers going out. A little fellow stepped up and said, "Did you see
that train of empty cars going out? They are going out after Knights,
Sir? My cousin is a Knight, he is a Sir Knight." I smiled, and said,
very well. He asked me if I was a Knight^ and I answered. No. He
said, " I wish that I was one, Sir." I answered, why? He replied,
" It is a grand thing." Well, said I, what good does it do? " Well,
I would like to belong anyhow because it looks so pretty." I replieil,
I guess you are a little proud. He answered, " No, mother often
says we have to work too hard to be proud." I tell you, my
friends, there is a great deal of truth in that remark. Do you work?
" Yes, I am in the telegraph otBce, leaving home at half past six in
the morning, and I leave the office at six and get home at half past six
in the evening. I live over there on the corner of avenue and
Harrison street." Well, do you work hard? " Yes, Sir." Then let
me tell you something, tlie money spent in this procession would earn
enough to take care of the poor of our city to the end of time. Let
me ask you a question. Did you ever hear of our Lord Jesus Christ?
'* Yes, Sir." My boy, do you know that the Saviour died for us and
and that he is coming back again? "Yes, Sir." Did you ever read
about that glorious appearing, "When the Son of Man shall come in
his glory, and all the holy angels with Him?" The redeemeil
prophets, priests, and kings, all the church of the living God. All the
l)ovs and girls that have loved him. (All the babies that ever
died. There will never be a baby's little cry heard in that
world of woe. Every little one is with Jesus.) What a sight
it will be to see the King's nursery, when Jesus brings the
children all back. My boy, what do you think of that procession?
He said, "Why, Sir, I don't believe this procession will be a flea bite
compared with that." In that day those who have lived for Christ,
those who have been consecrated to him, those who have been single-
minded for Christ, will be assigned to posts of honor, and shall shine
like the brightness of stars for ever and ever. The little fellow looked
up, and said, " Well, Sir, I tell you I think I would rather be at the
tail end of Jesus' procession, than at the head of this one." Let every
one remember what Jesus has promised, that each one may say, I
would rather be anywhere with Jesus in glory, than to be anywhere
without Christ. May God greatly bless us, and keep us faithful to
the end, for His name's sake. "Amen, and Amen," came from all
parts of the bouse.
Illinois State Sunday School Convention. 85
After prayer, the choir leading, the whole congregation united in
singing, "Jesus, Lover of my Soul." The President introduced the
Rev. William Paxson, of Missouri, the son of Father Stephen Pax
son, who spoke as follows :
Mr. President and Friends: Words would fail to express my
feelings this evening, as I have listened to those warm, hearty eulo-
gies of one so near to me by the ties of blood. One who twenty-
seven years ago committed me to the work of gathering children into
the Sunday-school, by taking me into his buggy and making a Sun-
day-school missionary of me. I wish to express, as far as I can, my
tlianks, and those of all the family, to those dear friends for those
words. They are precious. His life was precious. His death was
precious to us. 1 have thought, as I looked over this audience this
evening, of the past and the present, and I expect, as young as I am,
that I am as old in the Sunday-school work as any one here, i
thought of the first remembrance I had of my father, then of the
second, and of the third. The first was when he came from a place
of amusement a godless man. The next was in the Sunday-school.
The next was organizing Sunday-schools on his own responsibility.
I remember the day when he came home from the postoffice witli a
letter in his hand. It was in the old days before postage had to be
prepaid. Dr. William Adams had heard of him and had sent to the
Sunday-school Union, representing the case, and had him commis-
sioned. He opened the letter and brought it to my oldest sister for
her to read it. His eyes opened wide when he was told it was a com-
mission to labor as a missionaiy and gather in the neglected and des-
titute children of the land. But, what about his business? What
about his stammering? He could not walk four blocks without stop-
ping to rest. What about all these defects? I tell you my dear
friends, in the coming glory, when we all stand before the tribunal of
God, I doubt whether there will be a brighter crown around the brow
of the old veteran, than of her who said before the da3's of railroads
and telegraphs. Go. It was her life example, with the teachings of
the Sunday-school that brought him to Christ. This was a mighty
unseen power through the long years of sin and suffering. The
Christian power of a holy woman standing by his side. She rjever
lifted up a protest. I want to bring out that thought.
I remember how Father went. I remember he said he would be
gone a month, one time. The month passed and we moved east of
the town of Winchester, and lived with a gentleman on the farm.
For ten days I went down to the gate and climbed on the gate-post
and looked down the road to see if Father was coming. Bye-and-bye
after the tenth day, he came home from his first missionary expedi-
tion. Then his absences were frequent. He went we knew not
where. He had no course marked out, but the Lord led him. It was
something to stand up for Sunday-schools in those times. But God
was with him. He planted nurseries of piety in Illinois, and then
across the Mississippi, and all over the State of Missouri. Churches
were organized here and there where he had founded Sunday-schools.
Here men were standing up and preaching Christ to others. An in-
dominable energy led him out in this great work. It was for thq
86 Illinois State Sunday School Convention.
Lord, " whose I am and whom I serve." It was saved first, and then
service. " Whose I am." Bought by the blood of the Lord Jesus,
redeemed and saved from among men, I serve Him. He never could
read without stammering. He would say, when asked to have prayers,
William, you read. Hut he never stammered when he come to talk
with his Master. He never stammered when he was pleading for
sinners. It was only when he was reading to others that he stam-
mered. I remember once he came into a country neighborhood
where they were harvesting. He said, friends, I am a Sunday-school
missionary, and I would like to know if you would like to have a
Sunday-school in this neighborhood. One of the men said, I don't
like Sunday-schools. Father replied: No. Nor the devil don*t
either.
It is reported that he organized 1,300 Sunday-schools, and one fact
I may tell, to the glory of God's grace, every time he attempted to
organize one he succeeded. He never failed. The evening he organ-
ized the Sunday-school in the neighborhood of the harvesters, the
man who said he didn't like Sunday-schools took him to one side and
said: Mr. , 1 misunderstood you to-day at the field. I thought
you said singing-school, and I don't like singing-schools.
I remember in passing through a neighborhood, we came to an old
house which leaned one way and the chimney another, the doors and
shutters were off the hinges, and I think you could throw your cap
through the cracks without touching. Here, Father said we would
organize a Sunday-school. What, in this house? All right, if you
think so. There was only one man in the neighborhood that had
ever belonged to church. We organized a Sunday-school and made
him Superintendent. On the evening of organization I remember the
boys of the neighborhood came and brought their guns and hounds.
They stacked their guns up outside of the house. The dogs got to
quarreling, and every time one was whipped he would bound into the
house. We had to station a couple of men at the door to keep the
dogs out. We went on in that way sowing beside all waters.
I have seen many beautiful death-beds, but none more beautiful
than that of Father's. When asked, Is it well with you? He looked
up in surprise, and answered : " My son, that was settled many years
ago."
The Sunday-school work in Illinois was his pride and glory. He
always used to stand up and tell the people how they held conven-
tions in Illinois. And he has sent to you these words : " Hold fast
unto the end. Take hold of the Christian work and hold on." No
wonder, at last, when the message came, that it was rest, rest, home,
sweet home.
We do not know what a heritage God has given us.
I represent 500,000 square miles in Missouri, Arkansas, and Texas,
and a million and a half of children. One State of 374,000 square
miles. It would make 210 Rhode Islands. If settled as densely as
Rhode Island it would support the whole population of the United
States; and there would be room for 7,000.000 more. If we planted
19,000 square miles of cotton, these 19,000 square miles will produce
as much cotton as the world used last year. Now, what a heritage? I
love to lift it up to you as God lifted it up to me. Contemplate that
Illinois State Sunday School Convention. 87
country settled for God, emigration pouring in upon its fertile prairies,
think of its being cultivated, and of its w^ealth being draw^n out of the
soil, and from beneath the soil. Think of its great destinies.
Think of the 70,000 Indians, and I blush to name the name of an
Indian, for we have never kept faith with them. Treaties have
always been broken by us. I should like to tell you of an Indian ex-
pedition I saw in Saint Louis. When iBro. Trumbull came home he
said, Bro. Paxson, I have been out to the Cheyennes on a missionary
expedition. One morning after the corn was laid by they went out
and lassoed their ponies, got a little jerked meat and bid their families
good bye, not to look in their faces for six long months. They
struck out across the treeless prairies. Wrapped in their blankets after
eating their frugal meal, they lay down, and God's stars looked down
upon them in pitying love. They thus journeyed on week after week.
The Cheyennes listened, but would not receive them. I said, are you
going any more? Yes. They know me now and I can do more the
next time. So they came back through that long trackless distance,
and all the long months they had heard nothing ffom home. There
is an apostolic missionary expedition telling the people they can be
Christians. We have Sundaj'^-schools out in the Choctaw country.
By the blessing of God we never intend to rest till the whole South-
western country, and the children in it, are won to Christ. So that
His name may be lifted up, honored and glorified.
After the doxology, and benediction by Rev. G. Frederick, the
Convention adjourned.
Third Day — First Session,
The convention opened with a Sunday-school session, for the study
of the lesson, "The Prodigal Son," Luke xv, 11-24. Rev. William
Tracy, of Lacon, was pastor, and B. F. Jacobs was superintendent.
The session was conducted as a school, with nine officers, twenty-one
teachers, three hundred and fifty scholars in the main room ; two offi-
cers, two teachers and sixty-two scholars in the primary department.
Total, officers, eleven; teachers, twenty-three; scholars, four hundred
and twelve; visitors, one hundred and twenty-five. The collection
was appropriated to to the Paxson Memorial Fund.
The convention then resolved itself into six district meetings, and
the following district officers were elected :
1st. District. I S; ^•,^°'^^^^^' President, - (Chicago.)
( W. B. Lloyd, Secretary, - (St. Charles.)
2d District -i ^^" Reynolds, President, - (Peoria.)
I A. P. Babcock, Secretary, - - (Galesburg.)
?d District i ^' ^^^^' President, - - - (Paris.)
^ ■ (J. E. Saxton, Secretary, - (Champaign.)
4.th District -I ^' ^' ^^^^^j President, - - (Jacksonville.)
^ ' ■ I Rev. R. G. Hobbs, Secretary,- - (Petersburg.)
.88 Illinois State Sunday School Convention.
«;th District \ ^' ^' ^^'^lis, President, - - (Enfield.)
-^ * * ( VV. C. Kenner, Secretary, - - (Flora.)
Cf] D' t ■ t / ^* ^' Douglas, President, - (Greenville.)
1. 19 n . I j^ p^ Hopkins, Secretary, - - (Alton.)
Delegates to the International Convention at Toronto were ap-
pointed.
The Committee appointed to examine Treasm-er's report and the
vouchers therefore, reported through the Chairman, D. Ilurd, of La-
Salle County, that the same had been found correct, and the report
was accepted.
TJtird Day — Second Session.
The session opened with a song service by the Carman family.
The Chairman of the Executive Committee submitted a proposition
to print the report of the convention, with the understanding that the
same should not be a verbatim report, but as full as possible in a
pamphlet of about ninty-six pages.
Subscriptions were taken from the various counties, amounting to
about 3,ooo copies, and the convention instructed the committee to
have 4,000 reports published.
On motion of Mr. B. F. Jacobs, Mr. C. W. Jerome, of Carbondale,
was added to the Executive Committee.
" Sunday-School Auxiliaries."
TOWNSHIP AND COUNTY WORK.
ADDRESS BY W. B. JACOBS.
What do we want of a county convention? Why do we have house
to house visitation.'' The aim of the Sunday-school work is not to
have a convention, for the sake of one. The Sunday-school is not
only for the family, nor is its object simply to get children to Sunday-
school. The aim is, that all may be brought to the knowledge and
love of Christ. Our aim is the conversion of sinners and the training
of christians.
"The children all for Jesus, every one, every one;
While a soul remains in sin, our work is but begun."
With that aim, we feel that we must work for the conversion of
children and parents. The second aim of the Sunday-school is to
impart knowledge. " They that know Thy name will put their trust
in Thee." " This is life eternal, that they might know Thee, the only
true God, and Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent." Knowledge is
essential to salvation. Knowledge is essential to faith. The teaching
of the word is essential. The declaration of the word reveals God.
There is, therefore, the necessity that we shall hear this word, for
Illinois State Sunday School Convention. 89
" How shall we hear without a preacher?" The knowledge revealed
in the word of God must be brought into contact with the person, by
preaching the word, or by instruction in the Sabbath-school. Our
first duty then, is to bring all the people where they may be influenced
by instruction in this word. The Sunday-school for all, and all in the
Sunday-school.
This shows the necessity of house to house visitation. The first
question before us is: How shall we get the children into the Sun-
day-school? The second question is, how shall we teach them so as
to secure the greatest results? The eternal life beyond, and the char-
acter here, which shall fit them for that eternal life. One object ad-
vanced by the township and county convention is that it gives co-opera-
tion. The next is, that it brings before us the great mass of people
and children. There are 80,000 without Sunday-school instruction in
the city of Chicago alone. How can we reach them ? We cannot
reach the 80,000 in a mass. The only why is to divide the work up.
We must divide the different parts of the State into districts, and go
at the thing in detail. Set about doing the work and be sure to
have the work done. In the city we take a section a mile square, and
to visit it we divide it into sub-districts, and let each church have a
part in the work. Difficulties arise here as in the general work. The
people want excuses not to go to church. When a Methodist family
is visited by a Presbyterian, many make the excuse: The Presbyter-
ians are proselyting. The same is true if a Presbyterian brother is
visited by a Methodist. These people who are so quick to take
offense do not love Christ. Now we unite together and go out, and
they see that the work is for Christ. The aim is, not to make men
Methodists, or Congregationalists, but to make them Christians. In
whatever place of worship they find the association which keeps the
heart nearest to Christ, they are invited to go there. When a family
says to us we are Methodists, we take the name and send it to the
pastor of the Methodist church. I don't think we make the statement
too strong, when we say these pastors of the different churches only
desire to forward Christ's kingdom. Hence, the Presbyterians ai^e
glad to see a Methodist pastor, and vice ve7'sa^ when they know he
only wants them to go to Sunday-school. And this one great obstacle
is removed, by sending the visitors out with this invitation.
Now, religious union in the work is just as important in township
and county conventions, as in these small districts. I think this is the
purpose we heard of in reference to a national report. Having one
line of thought, and that the best line of thought. When this State
Convention sends such a recommendation to the counties and town-
ships it has power. Not only the power of authority, but the power
of wisdom. The thought is, that we are all working together in unity
of purpose.
Departments are necessary. As in an army, so in the State work.
In the Sunday-school work, districts and divisions are parts of the
army. These townships are regiments, and these schools companies.
In this work we have something even higher than the State
organization. We have a grand international organization. It is im-
possible for a general of a grand army to know all the soldiers. But it is
possible for him to knov/ the names of department commanders. It is
90 Ii.LiNOis State Sunday School Convention.
possible for these district officers to know the names of the officers in
the county. It is possible for the Superintendents to know the name
of every officer and teacher. It is possible for the teachers to know
the names of every, child. So, step by step we get at the work in
detail. There need not be, there should not be a single child that is
not known to the workers for Christ.
When we come to speak of the district work, it is positively neces-
sary that the officers know the county officers. It is positively
necessary that some one of the district officers, or members of the Ex-
ecutive Committee of the district, know personally and tneet -per-
sonally the officers in every county in the district. As to writing
letters, some one has said very truthfully, something about like this:
If you want the work done go yourself and do it. If you want it half
done send somebody else. If you don't want it done at all send a
postal card.
But the county officers, in a greater sense, ought to know the
names of the township officers. In the army we used to have a bri-
gade inspector. The brigade inspector handled every gun. It
spoiled tlie looks of his buckskin gloves, and sometimes his clothes
too. He got very weary, but he was appointed that he might see that
every man was ready for duty when called. We will do our work
better when we know that we are not appointed for the sake of wear-
ing shoulder-straps. Our appointment means work, hard work. We
need to know that every man is ready for a call to duty. In this work
the warfare is upon us every day. " I need Thee every hour most
gracious Lord." We need to have the army kept ready for activity
every hour, and every day. We used to imagine that we could do the
work by correspondence or proxy.
Now, my dear friends, if the township officers neglect their duty,
the plan, after all, falls through. We must get down to the lowest
point. From the township work springs that great stream of Sunday-
school workers, that pours into the county and district conventions.
Without the township work our meetings are in vain. These township
officers must devise a plan, or else put into execution our plan for
house to house visitation. There seems to be a great deal of township
organization, for the sake of organization. Better never have a star
on the map, unless it is a working organization. We want to know
when we put a star on the map that it means a working organization.
Now, about carrying on the work. The less machinery that will ac-
complish the end the better. My mind is, that one good officer in a
township is all we want, one man to be responsible, and let him be a
Vice-President of the county. Every superintendent ought to be a
member of the township executive committee, and these superintend-
ents together with the Vice-President ought to constitute such Execu-
tive Committee, of which three or five might constitute a quorum-
Have quarterly meetings, and get all Sunday-school superintendents
together and talk about the work of visitation. For, brethren, it can
be carried on in the county just as well as in the city. Think of the
influence in a community, where three or four churches get this idea
of working together. These brethren should get together, and have
printed a simple card of the churches, pastor's names, hours of service,
etc., and invite the people to attend. You wi41 be able to carry this plan
Illinois State Sunday School Convention. 91
into the towns and precincts. Let the executive committee plan for
visitation, talk of the work, and see if there is a place where there
ought to be a new school, let them have the facts before them, and
when the Vice-President comes, present the facts, and decide how to
meet them, and arrange work for destitute localities. There are many
places where the minister only preaches once a month. Let gospel
meetings be held, and invite to the work every one interested in car-
rying on God's work.
Every home should be visited, every child invited to come to Sun-
day-school. We want every child in the church and every parent in
the Sunday-school.
The brethren ought to arrange for their annual meeting at the quar-
terly meeting, three months before the time for annual meeting. Let
the time and place be fixed, and notices sent to the county officers and all
pastors and superintendents in the township, and it is easy for them to
notify everybody. Have some such questions as these in the quar-
terly meeting: Has every one been invited? Can the work be better
done than it is? And it will be just as helpful to report failures as
successes. We learn by failures in this work. Bring them in then.
We do not want anybody to get up and boast. We do not want any
exhortation. The brethren should discuss and adopt well laid plans
for the work. I met a brother who said that they did not need a town-
ship meeting. I asked, are all the homes visited? Are all the parents
in the church? Are all the children in the Sunday-school? Why
No! Well, I said, my dear brother, had we not better get the Chris-
tians together? How can we do God's work without taking counsel
and getting very enthusiastic?
One caution, we do not want our meetings too long, one day and
evening is usually enough. I suggest that the evening session be
given to the addresses, the morning to business, and plans of work in
the township, and the afternoon to instruction. The ladies are willing,
but they are not usually interested in matters of business. As in this
convention, then, arrange to have the.business done in the morning
session, and gospel meetings in the evening. As far as it can be, let
all township workers consult about what ought to be done.
Now, in a county convention we want a president, secretary, and
executive committee of three. Let the time to have a county conven-
tion be discussed through the quarterly meetings, as to when and
where, and how we can accomplish the most good. If the county
convention is to be held in August. Commence in May, June, July,
and go into every township, and have it understood where and when
the county convention will meet, and announce it. We should talk
about the work undertaken in the county, and under the blessed influ-
ence of the Spirit of God stir up the people to greater interest. Go
from township to township, and when the county meetings have gath-
ered, they will pour in from all of them to the grand gathering.
Every county ought to have an outline map showing the different
townships, and the location of diflferent schools, and accompanied by a
brief record showing what has been done. Let the roll of townships
be called. How many schools? How many teachers and officers?
How many scholars? When were conventions held? Then statistics
as to whether there has been house to house visitation. What collec-
92 Illinois State Sunday School Convention.
tions have been taken for the State and county work? What are the
expenses of the schools? And most important of all, how many have
been brought into the church.
Three questions ought to be asked :
I. Is there house to house visitation?
II. Has there been collections for benevolent purposes?
III. Have there been additions to the church?
There can be an enthusiastic awakening to have the report compare
favorably with the best we have. Every township has good young
men and women coming on, who only need to have duty thrust upon
them to have it done thoroughly. Brethren, we need not be discour-
aged, we need not hang our harps upon the willows, God is with us.
God is able to take care of us.
Now to the question of making programmes. One of the greatest
iailures is in programmes. I have been surprised to sec what poor ex-
cuses for programmes can be issued by intelligent men. I feel that
the district officers ought to take the thing in hand, and send out-
lines of programmes. Bretheren in the work, you know the needs,
the questions of mightiest import. There are thousands of questions
more or less interesting. But there are a few questions of vital im-
portance. Men that know these questions ought to see them brought
before these conventions. Looking ahead, let preparation be made in
regard to entertainment, speakers, etc. Be there yourself.
District and county officers should sec that the work is carried on
for the best results, and the glory of God. While we have in this con-
vention the blessed experience of listening to the words of those who
are wise and earnest, don't let us be satisfied with the words of any
man or woman. Let us desire God and let our might and our coun-
sel be from Him. Many teachers go home with great enthusiasm,
but what do they do for Christ? Let each one say, 1 will
do the best I can. And go to work to do it, but don't be satis-
fied unless your best is the best. Do your best for God and let God
do liis best in you. Let God do his best in you, and through you, and
you will be surprised at the result. Brethren, the old flint-lock gun
may strike fire every time, but the needle-gun will fire fifty times
while the flint-lock does once. Brethren, we should get needle-guns.
The devil has not a flint-lock gun in his whole army. Brethren, let
us have the best guns we can get. Let each one say, I will do my
best, and I will let God do his best in me, and the work will be a
success.
SUNDAY SCHOOLS AND MISSIONS.
ADDRESS IIY REV. ISAAC BAILEY, OF WAUKEGAN.
Mil. President: — I know the friends present this hour are weary
and warm, and I am rather glad since the session must continue, that
I am called to speak. It is so much easier to speak than to listen, I
remember of hearing of an old minister who had preached enthusiasti-
cally for two hours, and some one said to him, " Were you not very
weary?" No. But it would have done you good to see how tired the
people were. He exchanged once with a neighboring minister, who
Illinois StXte Sunday School Convention. ^
told him that a good many of his congregation had fallen into the way
of falling to sleep. Well, I think I can get along with that, he replied.
After the opening exercises, the minister arose and announced his text,
but while he was getting ready he saw some brethren and sisters get-
ting into a comfortable sleep. He said, give me a fair chance, let me
get started and then you won't try to sleep. Now, we are to talk to-
day about
" Sunday Schools and Missions."
The word mission, means being sent out. Christ told his Apostles
that the gift of the Holy Spirit would be poured out, he said, "Tarry
at Jerusalem for a little while." I want you all to run out, but I don't
want you to go before I send you. Missions in the Sunday-schools,
means missions for the Sunday-schools. What are missions.'' Christ
gave the great commission " Go into all the world and preach the gos-
pel unto every creature." What do we mean by missions for Chris-
tians? We mean that when a man reads the gospel that he is to spread
it abroad like a herald. So we come to every converted man, woman
and child with the commission; go unto the world and win souls for
Christ.
When a publisher sells books only by subscription, he asks an agent
how much territory he wants, and if he desires a county, he v/ill give
him a county commission to sell his books. God has commissioned us
to go wherever we find an unconverted soul. Go there and labor till
we find it.
In one of the parables that has been brought befoi'e us, a woman
had lost a piece of silver. She lighted a candle and got down her
broom. Now she says, I'm going to sweep the floor till I find it. In
the parable of the lost sheep, the shepherd said, I will seek the lost
sheep till I find it. We are to go and find the lost. So we have a
foreign missionary society. An organization for carrying on the great
work. Now we have come to see if the Sunday-school has any inter-
est. What can the Sunday-school do? We know these things are
necessary. We want money, and we want men to send out into the
world to preach the gospel. We do not suppose that every man,
woman and child can leave home and go into foreign lands. We can-
not all go ourselves. But, it gives us a great pleasure to know, that
we can go with our influence and put the great gift there, and be re-
presented in every nation on the face of the earth. What a privilege
God has given us to distribute the influence of our work, all ov^er this
world. There is one way in which it can be done. Two young men
learned the shoemaker's trade. These two Christain young men, in
their earnestness and piety were thinking of the influence of the world
lying in wickedness. In answer to prayer, they thought they ought
to go into all the world and preach the gospel. But they had no
money, and they said, how can we go? They prayed again. One of
the young men then said, I tell you what we can do. You go
and preach the gosj^el and I will make shoes and supj^ort you in the
mission field. So one pegged away at the last, and one preached on
a foreign field. Now, friends, the Sunday-school wants to be a part-
ner in the great work of saving souls in this world. '
■ Another thing that the missions need. And that is prayer. For
94 Illinois State Sunday School Convention.
this great field of work, God wants us to pray. We do not know how
much good our prayers may do. We ought to have faith, that our
prayers would do the mission fields good. We ought to feel like the
old lady who had prayed for many years, but at last was kept at home.
The pastor called one day, and said: Well, mother, I suppose you
are just waiting till God calls you to go over the river into the rest of
glory? Oh, pastor! I am not waiting to go, you cannot spare me yet.
Why, mother! What can you do? You can not get along yet in this
community without my prayers. Every morning you go into the pul-
pit to preach, I ask God's blessing on your sermon, and my prayer.
God needs them both. Let us offer our prayers for the missionary
field. Our prayers can do something in saving souls the world over.
You ask how can the Sunday-school be interested in this work? 1
just refer you to that (Black-board Exercise, of Miss Rider). Those
twelve rules. You will see that each one applies to this work. Re-
member the concrete method. Spread the world before them. "What
a great thought! Until we are under one banner the influence of the
Sunday-school for Christ, is needed in the great work. When I read
that in the Hawaiian Islands, more were added to the church in one
day, than on the Day of Pentecost, I got a new idea. Friends, we will
never undertake a work nor never make it a success, until we have
great motives. Men working without a motive can do very little.
We must have a motive before we can be enthusiastic. Now, what
are the motives presented to the hearts of the Sunday-school workers?
I. Christ's commission to "Go into the world and preach the gos-
pel." Freely you have received, freely give. We have heard and
been blessed, and so it becomes us to go into the world and give a bless-
ing to others. It becomes us to tell others what a dear Saviour we
have found. That is our duty, and there could be no better motive.
II. Another incentive. When a soul is converted, the first language
in the mind is, to whom shall I bring Christ first. The thought is
there is some friend to be saved. We see just what is coming into the
heart. Just as soon as someone is saved, who else in the community to
be saved. The thought is, the great field, the world. What can I do to
save the world.? God has implanted in our hearts this incentive, to "Go
unto the world." This is the natural thing to do. This field, the world,
should be taken for Christ. We have our King, shall we not work for
Him? Shall we not work for our side in this great struggle in the
world. Why! our patriotism calls to efforts. It is for our side in
every battle in which the country has engaged. Our partisanship calls
for every effort of the party to which we belong. We belong to the
party of Christ, if you please, and every incentive of interest to
patrit)tism should be exercised here.
All this world for Christ! Not alone from a selfish standpoint, but
from the higher standpoint, of bringing to the world One who is
mighty to save. Bringing this world from out of the burdens of deg-
radation and death, into the light of life. This ought to make our
lives better, and bless the rest of the world with us. But another
thing. The world is to be conquered for Christ, and it is a great in-
heritance. I remember what our brother, Wm. Paxson, said about
the State of Texas. It gave me a new thought. Kings look over the
map of the world, and say, these nations for me. Napoleon cried:
Illinois State Sunday School Convention. 95
The world for Napoleon, only that he might be the monarch of the
world. A man of wealth looks all over the world, and says the
world for me and for money. For example, he looks over a tract of
land, and says all this territory for me, to produce wealth from. The
world is for Christ, a Christian inheritance to develop for our Lord
Jesus. It is our great inheritance.
Another thing is, it is a great capital. That in which we are to in-
vest. What can we invest in the great work.? The Lord gives us
the world for our stock in trade. It is that from which our returns
come. The material that we are to develop into wealth, that we may
lay up treasure in the kingdom of heaven. It will be wealth stored
away, put in the bank of heaven, where we shall find it when we cross
the dark river. Bye-and-bye we must go away and leave these things
here. When I was a small boy, I dreamed one night, that I stood
at the gate picking up pennies. It seemed as if there were a great
many, and I picked them up one after another. I seemed very happy
in this new found treasure, but all at once I came to, and realized that
it was only a dream. When I awoke the pennies were all gone.
Friends, this life is a dream. Sometimes we pick up pennies upon
the earth. But we are beginning to wake up to the fact, that we are
gathering pennies in a dream. What can we do in a dreain? When
I was a boy, I had a box in which I placed my pennies. I visited the
box every day. Now, my thought was, that when I got the pennies
into the box they were saved. When we put our pennies into the
Kingdom of Christ they are safe. As we cross the dark river, we
shall find them waiting for us over there.
These mission fields are a place, to go out and work for Christ. We
may think sometimes, that these people in heathen lands are hardly
worth developing. The foreign missionaries sometimes find them lit-
erally naked. We read of some missionaries who went to an island
and found the natives entirely naked. They supposed, at first, that
they were only naked so that they might swim the easier, as they
were in the act of bathing. What kind of material for us to store
away, for us to work on. As we look upon the world just as it is, is
seems like ore, which may have a large per cent, of precious treasure
in it. We do not know what is in the world. This is the ore from
which the precious metal comes. We want the Sunday-school to take
the ore and bring out the precious metal. When brought out it be-
longs to the Sunday-school which brings it out. Why ! My friends,
there is not one of us to-day who would be worthy of the work, if it
were not for the grace of God. That great Apostle said, " By the
grace of God I am what I am." Without that grace we are nothing.
The grace of God shines into these heathen souls, as into the souls of
other men and women.
Another motive. Christ shall see the travail of His soul and be
satisfied. Oh! what a motive is certain success for any enterprise. A
good brother, when he came to preach one day, read that verse which
tells, " So shall My word be that goeth out of My mouth; it shall not
return unto Me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and
it shall prosper in the thing whereto I have sent it." He said it
seemed to unfold to him a new thought. He said he had thought that
the verse must be a splendid consolation to God. And that God takes
96 Illinois State Sunday School Convention.
comfort in sending out the word to accomplish much. If we are con-
verted, God says this word shall not return unto Him void. When
we scatter these precious truths, that word shall not come back void,
but, marked with treasure for His name. Our faith, prayers, and
efforts, will be coupled with success, and, wherever the word goes,
the world over, it will win souls for Christ. The certainty of this
success is a great motive to work in foreign fields. Friends, Jesus is
giving us to know that success in such enterj^rises is possible. We
used to think, if what we did for Jesus did not come right back, that
all was lost. The world is beginning to plan larger efforts, and
longer time, and resting in such cheeriness as this: "Thou wilt keep
hhn in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on Thec\ because he
trusteth in Thee."
We are beginning to learn that our place is to work right along,
and be satisfied, if we have done what He has given us to do. Why,
I heard to-day, just a litle whille ago of a course of study, not for
babies, but for boys fifty years old. So we are planning for success in
this world no matter how long it lasts. God is planning for success
the world over. If we want a successful work, let us work for the
Sunday-school.
It was suggested, a little while ago, that we come here to find en-
thusiasm. To make some plans, some new resolves. But, after look-
ing about, and trying to plan for the work we begin to be discouraged,
so that we cannot do anything. Then we just fold our hands and give
up the work. Every one ought to take a purpose of life from the
highest mountain top over which he has passed. In Kathrina, Hol-
land is led by a guileless lamb to the summit of a cliff, and there looks
down upon the city, and river, and the commerce of the mighty world
spread out before him. When he stood there his boy-mind looked
upon the world, in its grandeur, and he took a great purpose for life.
Hs says:
" The mountains might had entered unto me;
And, from that fruitful hour, whatever scene
Nature revealed to me, she never caught
My spirit humbled by surprise."
Take your purpose of life from the highest mountain top which
you have ever climbed. Not long ago, a minister of Chicago, said,
" Imagination is not the faculty which tells lies." It is the only faculty
that tells the truth. We have but to open our eyes to see the beauti-
ful flower and perfect leaf. We are not putting into them anything
of imagination. We only see the beauty that God put there. The
best thing we can do is to look at it in the true light, and see the
beauty that God put there. When the disciples climbed the moun-
tain, how grand! Let us always stay here they said. Though they
went down to the vallev, Peter never forgot that vision of God. " We
saw the glory in the transfiguration." We must leave this convention
and go back to our homes, go through the valleys. But let us re- .
member what we saw of God on the mountain top. His glory is
more true than we liave seen here. Let us know it is true Whenevet
the clouds gather about our heads, and see His glory as when we
climbed the mountain. The glory of Christ crucified. Many of uS
have come from under the cloud, and see again the sunlight. Dur.
Illinois State Sunday School Convention. 97
ing the dark days of the reformation, they knew the dark days, but
they did not know the bright ones. The old Scotch covenanters all
around the Highlands and Lowlands knew the grand awful time, but
they did not know the valleys. You and I know the great work. Know
this, if you have ever seen God once, you have seen the glory of the
world spread out before you. Enthusiastically lift up you hearts and
hands. If you have seen Him once you know the truth. And the
truth remains, for God never lets a truth be lost to the world.
Remember what a good time we have had here, and the precious
resolves we have made here. The grand and glorious purposes, and
no cloud shall come between the brightness of this day, and the great
success which God will give us. Look beyond these clouds and feel
God's hand leading the way. Remember, when the true clouds gather
that the old prophet has told us, (Nahum, 1-3); "The clouds are the
dust of His feet." So when you see the clouds gathering, know that
it is the dust from the chariot wheels of the Almighty coming from
glory to the earth, that Christ bought with His blood. I thank God
that He has given us work, with Christ for the salvation of the world.
Let the Sunday-schools enthusiastically unite for the conversion of the
world to Christ, and not be satisfied with anything else but a larger
blessing. It is just as easy for God to give a large blessing, as a
small one. Let us have large purposes, and great faith for Christ's
sake.
TEMPERANCE IN SUNDAY SCHOOL.
Mr. A. G. Tyng, of Peoria, was to speak on the subject of " Tem-
perance," but was prevented from being present. He sent the follow-
ing resolution, which was read by M. C. Hazard:
Whereas, We are told in the Old Testament that " The Lord will
not spare him," and "All the curses that are written in this book shall
lie upon him who thinks to add drunkenness to thirst," and in the
New Testament, that no drunkard " Shall inherit the Kingdom of
God." And
Whereas, We are recommended " Look not thou upon the wine,
for wine is a mocker, at the last it biteth like a serpent and stingeth
like an adder." And
Whereas, If the use of liquor would cause " to offend," or lead
unto other sins, we are commanded as with " a right eye," or " a right
hand," to " cut it off and cast it from thee." And
Whereas, If in the use of intoxicating drinks, " this liberty
of yours becomes a stumbling block to them that are weak, and our
drinking should " make my iDrother to offend," it is our duty to say,
we will drink no liquor " while the world standeth, lest I make my
brother to offend." Therefore,
I St. Resolved^ That we should teach the children committed to our
care that drunkenness is a fearful sin in its nature, and in its conse-
quences to ourselves and others, and can only be surely avoided by
total abstinence from all that intoxicates,
2d. Resolved^ That the State convention recommend to all county
7
gS Illinois State Sunday School Convention.
and district conventions, to place on their programmes — the subject of
temperance in Sunday-schools.
3d. Resolved^ That we approve of the course of the International
Lesson Committee, in selecting each year two or more lessons, pre-
senting the sin and danger of intemperance, and our duty in reference
to it.
The resolutions were adopted without dissent.
THE AUXILIARY LESSON.
ADDRESS BY M. C. HAZARD.
As a preliminary, I want to say, that the topic assigned to me,"The
Auxiliary Lesson," is not an idea of mine own. It comes from the
fertile brain of Dr. J. H. Vincent. Of course I cannot be expected to
be so enthusiastic in praising another man's child, as one of my own.
When asked by the chairman to take up this topic, I said I would be
glad to do so as I wanted to look into it myself. I wrote to Vincent
and told him I was invited to speak upon the topic, and it would be
singular if I could not make one convert, that of myself. Since the
Convention has assembled I have been looking into the theme of the
supplementary lesson, and I like it better than I did. There are some
defects in the International Lessons that discerning eyes have seen.
What the International Series does not do.
(i.) It gives no instruction whatever, except incidentally, in regard
to the claims of the Bible as a divine book.
(2.) It gives no systematic instruction in regard to the construction
of the Bible or its contents. Nothing in regard to its facts, principles,
and laws.
(3.) No provision is made in the International Series for corhmit-
ting to memory those special parts of the Bible that ought to be pos-
sessed in exact language. Some history. Portions of the Psalms.
Blessed portions of the Bible like the 19, 51, 90, 100 and 150 Psalms,
the beatitudes, and so on, through large portions of the Bible, there is
no provision for getting them into the memories of the scholars. *
(4.) No effort is made, no possibility for the learning of formulas
of theological truth, such as are stated in the catechism of the church.
A great many feel this lack. It is really a splendid thing to give in
condensed and exact language, such principles as are in the catechism
of different churches. And if we are making any mistake, it is be-
cause we are not instructing the children sufficiently in regard to the
doctrines. Not long ago in this State, iu a large religious assembly,
there was an objection made to teaching doctrinal truths in the Sun-
day-school. Well, it happened to be laid upon me to make a reply.
I said that I had heard that Sidney Smith in the old times said, that
he very often had wished to take off his tlesh, and sit in his bones;
but that I had never heard of a man who wanted to takeoff his bones
and sit in his flesh. Doctrines are the backbone of faith. I do not
want to leave them out. That is a helpless jelly mass of humanity,
represented by a man without a backbone. It is always a simple
meaning man who declares, "I have no creed."
Illinois State Sunday School Convention. 99
(5.) The knowledge of the principal characteristics and events of
church history, general and denominational. We believe it a wise
thing to instruct scholars in these things that appertain to our own
denomination.
(6.) The commemoration of devotional literature of the church.
The grand old hymns want some provision made for committing them
to memory. Thus the hymns that were wi'itten by Watts, and Wes-
ley, have been prominent in putting the gospel truth into song.
(7') ^^ have nothing in that series that leads us to know anything
about the rise and progress of the distinct doctrines and usages of our
own denomination.
(8.) The lack in the International Series is that we have no instruc-
tion as an evangelical basis of all social and missionary work.
Now the Supplementary Scheme is for the purpose of remedying
these particular defects. It is not intended as a substitute, but is to
take only about ten minutes for the purpose of communicating knowl-
edge in these things. It is intended to give systematic instruction. I
notice in a great many Sunday-schools that we have no perspectives
in the Bible to discover between the fact that John is in the New Tes-
tament, and David in the Old Testament times, or to enable us to see
how far apart these two persons were. The object of the Suplement-
ary Scheme is to give systematic instruction in relation to Bible
history.
Now let us look at the course proposed. There are two points:
I. Biblical.
11. Ecclesiastical.
I. Biblical.
1. Consecutive Bible studies, in the International Series.
2. Lessons upon construction of the Bible.
3. Memorizing portions of the Scriptures.
4. Summaries of Bible history, geography, chronology, and
doctrine.
5. Evidences of divine origin of the Scriptures.
Under the second department :
II. Ecclesiastical.
1. Outlines of Church history.
2. " " Catechism.
3. " " Church economy.
4. " " Church work.
(9.) Now that is merely a suggestive course of study. How shall
it be graded? It is proposed to be graded in this way:
I. Primary Class — 2 years. (5 or 6 years of age.)
1. Studies in the International Series.
2. Certain Psalms, the beatitudes, the ten commandments, and
the hymns of the church.
3. Simple catechism about the Bible as a b.ook.
4. Simple outlines of geography and history.
5. Church Catechism.
lOO Illinois State Sunday School Convention.
II. Intermediate Grade — 2 years. (Pupils 7 or 8 years.)
1. Studies in the International Series.
2. Portions of Scripture to be committed.
3. Advanced outlines of Bible history, chronology, &c.
4. Study the Bible as a book of books.
5. The Church Catechism — shorter Catechism finished.
6. More hymns, selected portions of Scripture.
7. Simple lessons on temperance, missionary, and other Chris-
tian work.
III. Junior Class — 3 years. (Age 9 or 10 years.)
1. Studies in the International Series.
2. More vScripture committed.
3. Bible history and geography.
4. Catechism of the Church.
5. More hymns.
6. Outlines of Church history — general and denominational.
7. Studies in temperance and missionary work. Studies in
geography and history.
Now we come to the last grade, the senior. We have a boy from
13 to 15 this time, and we intend to keep him in for life.
IV. Senior Grade or Class — Life. (Age 12 to 50 and on.)
1. Studies in the International Series.
2. Special Bible classes for exegetical study.
3. Lectures and sermons on the fundamental doctrines.
4. A series of text books, reading and study. Text books up-
on the Bible and various books.
5. Prophecy, parables, miracles.
6. Normal classes.
Now instruction seems to be the great thing needed. The one great
objection is we have got no time for it. Have we ten minutes to spare?
"^I'hat depends upon how we conduct the Sunday-school. I know
superintendents who come into Sunday-school just about the time and
with no sort of order before hand. They come into the school and
then they happen to think of something to say to the librarian or
chorister. Having spent a little time in talking with him, they take a
book, and a little time is spent in finding a suitable hymn, something
that bears upon the lesson. Some ten or twelve minutes are frittered
away. Then he asks somebody to lead in prayer. May be some one
who makes a very lengthy prayer. As some one said on a similar
occasion: "Now inasmuch as so much time as been wasted, we will
go on with the lesson." Then there is the responsive exercise, and
by the time he comes to the lesson over forty-five minutes have passed
away. Then the lesson is taken up in the same slipshod way. Just as
the teacher gets to teaching along comes the libi arian. Then the seci'e-
tary makes some inquiry. Then the treasurer wants to take the col-,
lection. In this way the teacher does not get more than ten or fifteen
minutes. Then at the close of the school it is just the same way. It
takes more time to find a hymn. Some visitor is asked to make an
address. By the time it is all through there has been exhausted one
hour and three-quarters.
Illinois State Sunday School Convention. ioi
Go Into another school. First the organist plays a voluntary. Then
are sung a few special verses. All the songs are picked out before-
hand. There is not a particle of delay in finding a hymn. The re-
sponsive exercise lasts five minutes. Then a short prayer, exactly two
minutes. Then a song of two minutes. Then review, and then a
song of two minutes. Five or six minutes in all. Then the notices
are given, so that after school every one will not go away -with the
notice for the last impression. Then comes the alternate reading,
three minutes. Thirty to thirty-five minutes are given to the lesson.
After that there is another song of two minutes. Review of the les-
son, about eight minutes. We have in all one hour and a quarter.
This is a very different sort of a school. I think we can get ten min-
utes in that sort of a way. I don't believe we would have any trouble.
But the question is what will we get in ten minutes. In seven years
we would get fifty-six solid hours upon the construction of the Bible;
upon outlines of the church ; upon church history ; upon geography ;
upon all the matters spoken of. We would have time for five ques-
tions and five answers, in all i,68o. Committing two verses each day
we would have 668 verses. Now the information that would be
gained in that time. It would give the scholar in seven years a very
solid grasp of the Bible if we filled in the International lesson with
the Supplementary scheme. This particular door has been opened
and it shows what the leading scholars are introducing into these fields.
I think it is worthy of a trial.
The doxology was sung and the convention adjourned.
THE feUNDAY-SCHOOL LOVE FEAST.
The closing session of the Convention filled the Tabernacle and
the Methodist Church, while very many stood without looking and
listening. Resolutions were passed thanking the Raih'oads and press
for favors, and the good people of Centralia for their generous hospi-
tality, and the local committee for their faithful services in erecting
the Tabernacle and preparing for the Convention. The Cai'man fam-
ily sang a few more of their delightful songs; a number of delegates
from different parts of the state made brief addresses, and after a clos-
ing address by president Mason, the 23d Annual Convention ad-
journed to meet at the call of the Executive Committee.
SUNDAY SCHOOL TOWNSHIP ORGANIZATION
AND WORK.
BY H. S. VAIL.
It is conceded that thorough township organization is the founda-
tion of successful Sunday-school work. The importance of this work
cannot be over estimated, and the possibilities of doing practical and
permanent work for the Master are unlimited. It is a work broad
enough and of sufficient importance to occupy the entire leisure time
of at least one man — the President or Secretary of the township, and
that man should be the very best person in the township.
102 Illinois State Sunday School Convention.
If he accepts the office he should give it his best efforts, having un-
dertaken this as his Christian work, he should see that it is done
thoroughly and well. If he developes a talent for this work and takes
an interest in it, he should be re-elected every year, changing captains
during an advance movement leads to defeat.
There are 1,507 townships in Illinois, and there should be 1,507 en-
thusiastic men to lead on this work in the State. To report a Sunday-
school in every public school district in the State is our determined
object, or give a good sufficient reason why in certain districts it is
absolutely impossible to organize a Sunday-school.
In order that these schools may be started, the president should first
make a draft of the township, mark the bounderies of the public
school districts, locate the school houses, also the Sunday-schools. As
a rule, where there are enough children for a day-school there will be
enough to sustain a Sunday-school. The exception will be where the
population is exclusively a catholic or foreign element. If it is thor-
oughly tried, we are of the opinion that few districts will be found
without some protestant families, and such families would gladly give
one room for a Sunday-school service once a week, in order that the
Sabbath day may be marked with some appropriate service. If there
are several such families, permission may be had from the school di-
rectors for the use of the school-house. The necessary funds for
papers, books, and workers to start these new schools can be obtained
without difficulty from the moi'e favored sections of the township. If
the president has no conveyance with which to visit the distant parts
of the township, a request for such help at the township meeting or
at the church services will doubtless receive a favorable response.
The work of house to house visitation should also be thoroughly
inaugurated, commencing with the towns and villages. An outline
map should be made and the districts divided by a committee appointed
by the president, composed of one or more from eac h of the schools.
Each member of the committee should hold himself responsible for
the visitation, record and report of the section assigned to his school.
There should be no excuse for a failure to undertake and complete
this work at once, to follow up those who do not go to any school and
those who are irregular in their attendance and make them regular
attendants of some school. The president should compare the number
of the scholars in the Sunday-schools with those in the district schools,
and, if possible, by public-school districts, and thus ascertain where this
work is most needed. A thorough report should be made at the town-
ship convention of the number of families visited, number of children
and adults attending Sunday-schools, number not attending, and the
number induced to attend, and other facts that may be interesting.
The Sunday-schools of the township should be visited by the pres-
ident once a quarter at least. A word or two from a stranger or one
outside of the school will often do much good. By exercising caution
he may help a school out of the rut, introduce new and improved meth-
ods, secure a fresh enthusiasm in the work, a deeper consecration of
the officers and teachers, and a greater expectation of the early con-
version of the scholars. During these times the house to house visita-
tion may be inaugurated, teachers and help secured for the new and
needy schools, and a general interest aroused in the township work.
Illinois State Sunday School Convention. 103
A township convention should be held annually, and if possible,
quarterly, and in different schools successively. These conventions
should never occur without a month or six weeks preparation. The
president should make every effort to report a new school in some one
of the districts heretofore reported as not having in it a Sunday-school.
The Missionary committee should make a fresh canvass of their dis-
tricts in order to have something encouraging to report. Every one
of the Sunday-schools in the township should be visited by the presi-
dent just prior to the convention. A stirring announcement made of
the coming meeting. A pledge secured from the superintendent of
the school to be present and make a report of encouraging facts and
prospects in his school. The president should always utilize local tal-
ent first in arranging his programme. If there is a model adult, inter-
mediate or primary class teacher, a superintendent, secretary, librarian,
or chorister that excells in any desirable particular, he is the one who
should be called upon to explain hov/ difficulties have been overcome
and success attained. The preparation and delivery of such an address
will do the speaker as much good as his hearers. And all of this is
retained for further work in the township.
The secretary should secure fresh reports from all of the schools in
the township, make a condensed report of the same at the convention,
drawing attention to gain or loss in important features, and making a
comparison of the Sunday-school membership with that of the day
schools, if possible, by public school districts. The convention should
be held on some week day, arranging the programme for day and
evening, selecting the time when there is a full moon. Where it is
impossible to hold an all day township convention during the week,
Sabbath afternoon and evening might answer. A judicious distribu-
tion of hand-bills or programmes will pay well for the slight expense
incurred thereby.
During the summer a children's day or basket pic-nic should be held
for the entire township, provided there is a desirable place to hold such
an one. This should not be sectarian or confined to the Sunday-school
children, but every man woman and child in the township should be
invited, and the programme should include games and amusements for
the children, and athletic sports and contests for young and old. It
should be a general holiday. The stores and shops should be closed,
if possible, and the day given to pleasure and social enjoyment. Al-
though this is not strictly a Sunday-school measure its indirect influ-
ence over children not attending school would be greater than if it
were confined to the children of the Sunday-school, as they would
readily see that Simday-school men were heartily interested in giving
them a day of pleasure. A thorough development of this work may
seem a great undertaking, yet no one should shrink from it on that
accoiuit, if he has a heart for the work, as regular and persistent effort
will succeed, although it may require several years of hard labor.
The county presidents should present this* work to the township offi-
cers and receive their acceptance of the ofiice and pledge to push for-
ward the work or explain their inability to serve, and, in that event,
the county officers should fill the vacancies by appointing some other
persons who will undertake and develope the work. Luke x. 2;
John iv. 35.
104 Illinois State Sunday School Convention.
THE PAXSON MEMORIAL.
The following resolutions were passed unanimously at the State
Sunday-School Convention, held at Centralia:
Whereas, Stephen Paxson, our beloved brother and fellow-soldier, has fought
the good fight, has finished his course, has kept the faith, and has gone to receive
the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the Righteous Judge, shall give him
at that day, and also to all them that love his appearing, and
Whereas, While living, his presence in the midst of Sabbath-school workers
was a constant inspiration, and his example is worthy of our highest emulation.
Resolved, That we are fully sensible of the great loss the Sabbath-school cause
has sustained in the death of Father Paxson, and we will ever cherish the memory
of the departed hero, and bless the Father Almighty, for the gift of both the
worker and his work.
Resolved, That we deeply sympathize with his aged wife and family, and com-
mend them for consolation to God, whose grace and blessing rendered eflfective
the labors of him who has gone before.
Resolved, That in view of Father Paxton's eminent service in the field of organ-
ized Sabbath-school work, especially in our own State, we recommend the erec-
tion of a suitable monument, worthy of his memory.
Resolved, That we invite the Sabbath-school workers of the United States, and
Canada, who would esteem it a privilege to join us in this labor of love, and token
of appreciation to a great and good man.
To the Sunday-Schools in Illinois:
The Committee appointed under the foregoing resolution,
request a collection from every Sunday-School in the State, for this
purpose. They also solicit individual contributions, from tho.se who
knew and loved Father Paxson, or knew of his great work. Money
may be sent to the treasurer, Mr. B. F. Jacobs, 99 Washington Street,
Chicago.
Chas. M. Morton.
H. C. DeMotte.
Wm. Reynolds.
PROCEEDINGS
-OF THE —
T W ENT Y-FOURTH
ILLINOISO
— HELD IN THE-
PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, CHAMPAIGN,
Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, May 16, H k 18,
1882.
CHICAGO:
James Guilbert, Printer, 158 Clark Street.
1882.
THE CALL FOR THE CONVENTION.
To the Sunday School Workers of Illinois :
Dear Brethren: The 24th Annual Convention of the Illinois
State Sunday School Association will be held (D. V.) in the city of
Champaign, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, May 16, 17 and 18,
1S83.
The sessions of the convention will be held in the First Presby-
terian Church, begining Tuesday at 2 o'clock P. M.
Each county in the State, except Cook, is entitled to ten delegates.
These delegates are entitled to hospitality and the right to vote in the
convention. But all other Sunday School workers are entitled to
seats and are cordially invited; they will be entertained as far as the
committee are able to provide places, which will, probably, be suffic-
ient for all who desire to attend. All correspondence with reference
to entertainment should be addressed John L. Pierce, chairman.
Champaign, Illinois. The number of delegates from each county and
the names, as far as possible, should be forwarded before May 13.
Arrangements for reduced fare on the various j-ailroads will be
made, and duly announced. The chairman of the railroad commit-
tee is Mr. J. C. Brankey, Champaign, Ills.
The general topic proposed for the convention is
"The King and IIis Servants."
An outline will soon be prepared and the chairman of the executive
committee will be pleased to receive any suggestions you may make.
We expect the help of some of the best workers from other
States.
The pastors and superintendents, throughout the State, are re-
quested to present the convention and the Sunday School work in this
State, as a subject for frequent prayer, and we suggest that the second
Lord^s day of May be set apart as a day of prayer for this purpose,
that the presence and blessing of God may rest upon the convention
and follow its work.
For the executive committee, B. F. JACOBS, Chairman.
Chicago^ March joth^ 1882.
THE SLXTEENTH CONVENTION,
CHAMPAIGN, 1874.
The Sixteenth Annual Convention met in the Presbyterian Church
Champaign, May, 1874. The address of welcome was delivered
by the pastor of that Church, Rev. John S. Frame, who died soon after
the convention was held.
D. W. Whittle was j^residcnt; the singing was led by a quartette of
male voices from the First Baptist Church in Chicago, consisting of
George C. Stebbins, D. W. Baker, F. C. Clark, and Frank Dome.
The attendance was not as large as usual, but the convention was
one of great profit and power.
pllirtab ^Mt l^itiulag ^tliit^l ^^^udatiaif,
President.
O. R. BROUSE, Winnebago Co.
I "tce-Prcsidents.
REV. L. A. ABBOTT, Madisoii Co.; KNOX P. TAYLOR, McLean Co.;
REV. WILLIAM TRACY, Marshall Co.
Recording Secretary.— W. S. Vail, Lake Co.
Statistical Secretary. — C. M. Eames, Morgan Co.
Treasurer. — B. F. Jacob.s, Cook Co.
Executive Committee.
B. F. JACOBS, Chairman, Chicago.
D. W. POTTER, Chicago. T. P. NISBETT, Alton.
A. G. TYNG, Peoria. J. R. MASON, Bloomington.
R. H. GRIFFITH, Rushville. THOS. S. RIDGWAY, Shawneetown .
C. W. JEROME, Carbondale.
District Presidents. District Secretaries.
1. Rev. F. G Ensign, Chicago. W. B. Lloyd, St. Charles.
2. Rev. Wm Tracy, Lacon. Rev. A. C. Price, Lacon.
3. C. M. Taylor, Paxton. J. E. Saxton, Decatur.
4. C. M. Eames, Jacksonville. R. G. Hobbs, Petersburg.
5. R. C. Willis, Enfield. B. Dapenhroch, Salem.
6. H. B. Douglass, Greenfield. F. P. Hawkins, Alton.
No.
I.
II.
TIL
IV.
V.
VI.
VII.
VIII.
IX.
X.
XI.
XIL
XIIL
XIV.
XV.
XVI.
XVII.
XVIII.
XIX.
XX.
XXL
XXIL
XXIII.
XXIV.
'Deceased,
Illinois State Sunday School Convention.
President. Year.
Dixon Rev. W. W. Harsha 1859
Bloomington *R. M. (iuilford 1860
Alton *E. C. Wilder 1861
Chicago Rev. S. G. Lathrop 1S6"2
Jacksonville *Isaac Scarritt 1863
Springfield A. G. Tyng 1864
Peoria .' Rev. W. G. Pierce 1865
Rockford P. G, Gillett 1866
Decatur Wm. Reynolds 1867
Du Quoin B. F. Jacobs 1868
Bloomington D. L. Moody 1869
Quincy P. G. Gillett 1870
Galesburg *J. McKee Peeples 1871
Aurora C. R. Blaekall 1 872
Springfield J. F. Culver 1873
Champaign D. W. Whittle 1874
Alton R. H. Griflith 1875
Jacksonville D. L. Moody 1876
Peoria E. C. Hewett 1877
Decatur Rev. F. L. Thompson 1878
Bloomington C. M. Morton 1879
Galesburg Wm. Reynolds 1 880
Centralia J. R. Mason 1881
Champaign. ,, , 0. R. Brouse, , 1882
PROCEEDINGS
OF THE TWENTY-FOURTH
Illinois State Sunday-School Convention.
First Day.
The morning trains brought many workers, and nearly all the
members of the Executive Committee, and a meeting of this com-
mittee was held from lo to 12 A. M.
Mr. C. M. Eames, the statistical secretary, was busy arranging
upon the walls the International Map (U. S. and Dominion of Canada)
the State Map, maps of the ist, 3d, 4th and 6th districts, and the map
of Livingston County; while over the stand, suspended from the
organ, was a large chart, containing the summing up figures of the
statistical report. The effect of these maps and figures upon the con-
vention was marked.
A most noticable feature was the arrangements by. the local com-
mittees, and the attendance of a large number of business men, to care
for the business matters of the Convention, and a good number of
pages to wait upon the delegates. It may be said that this service was
performed in an admirable manner, and to the local committees is due
much of the success of this great meeting. Every train after the first
brought scores and hundreds, until nearly a thousand delegates had
reported.
The rich programme prepared by the Executive Committee, was
accepted as the earnest of a great feast, and a look of expectant satis-
faction was seen in every face, while the crowds of workers exchanged
greetings, and asked of each others welfare. Mr. F. H. Revel 1, and
the Western S. S. Publishing Co., both of Chicago, and Paxson, of
St. Louis, were arranging their stocks of bibles, books and papers in
the lecture room, which was used as a S. S. Museum.
First Session.
At two o'clock, President J. R. Mason took the chair, and Messrs B-
F. Jacobs, chairman, and William Reynolds, A. G. Tvng, R. H. Grif-
fith, H. C. DeMotte, Thos. Ridgway and T. P. Nisbett, members of
the E.Necwtive Committee occupied se^ts on the platform, Mr. C. C,
Illinois State Sunday School Convention. 5
Case the chorister, and Mr. D. R. Leland the organist, were at their
places, and a large congregation nearly filled the house.
President Mason arose and said: " Let us worship God, while we
arise and sing the grand old hymn — 'All hail the power of Jesus
name.' " As the great voice of the leader struck the note, the greater
volume of sound from hundreds of thankful hearts, rolled forth their
song of grateful praise. Rev. H. C. DeMotte read the scripture. In
reading he called attention to the fact, that all present might be classed
under one of the characters mentioned in the selection.
The President then led the convention in earnest prayer, for the
presence and blessing of God. He was followed in prayer by H. M.
Carr of Alton, and Knox P. Taylor of Bloomington, and the hymns,
" Nearer my God to Thee," and " He leadeth me," were sung follow-
ing the prayers.
In behalf of the Executive Committee, Wm. Reynolds, of Peoria,
presented the following outline programme, and moved that it be
made the order of exercises of the convention. The motion was
carried.
General Slbject: THE KING* AND HIS SERVANTS.
The Singing ittuier the direction of C. C. Case. The Carman Family present.
Tuesday Afternoon.
THE KINGS COMMAND.
"Occupy till I come."
2.00. A Bible Reading. A. G. Tyng.
THE KINGS BUSINESS.
3.00. Appointment of Committees.
Election of Officers.
Address of Welcome. Rev. J. G. Little.
THE SERVANTS' REPORTS.
4.00. Report of Executive Committee.
" Statistical Secretary.
" Delegates to Toronto.
" Special Committees.
Tuesday Evening.
THE KINGS PRAISE.
7.30. Song Service, led by C. C. Case.
THE KINGS AMBASSADORS.
8.00. Words of Greeting : • W. B. Stewart, of Iowa.
Wm. Levering, of Indiana.
Address. The Ambassador's Supreme Need.
Rev. J. A. WORDEN, Princeton, N. J.
Sup't S. S. Work Presbyterian Church. "
Address. The Bible and Personal Character.
Rev. P. S. Henson, D. D., Chicago.
Editor of the Baptist Teacher.
6 Illinois State Sunday School Convention.
Wednesday Morning.
THE KING'S PROMISES.
6.00. Crumbs of Comfort from His Table. Led by
THE KING'S ARMY.
S.30. Reviewed by Divisions. (The Convention -vill meet by Districts.)
THE COMING CAMPAIGN.
9.30. The County Conventions. J. R. Mason.
The Fall Institute. Miss Lucy J. Rider.
The International Work. Wm. Reynolds.
THE KING'S TPEASUP7:
10.30. Receipts and Disbursements. B. F. Jacobs.
The Roll of Honor.
Wednesday Afternoon.
Meeting in the Presbyterian Church.
THE KING'S BOOK.
2.00. A Bible Reading. .Subject: The .Songs of the Book. C. C. Case.
2.45. How to .Study the Book. \ At Home, and
/ In the Teacher's Meeting.
Rev. J. A. Worden.
3.30. How to Teach the Book. < By Personal Influence.
/ By Questions and Illustrations.
Rev. A. E. Dunning, Boston,
S. S. Sec'y Congregational Pub. Soc.
4.15. The Everyday College. Rev. J. H. Vincent, D. D.
Wedne.sday Afternoon.
Meeting in the Baptist Church.
THE KING'S FAVORITES.
>.oo. The Primary Class. Class Management. Miss Lucy J. Rider.
Lesson Teaching. W. B. Jacobs.
5.30. A Children's Meeting. Address. H. R. Clissold.
Wednesday Evening.
THE KING'S BANQUET.
7.30. The Joyful (Greeting in Song. Led by C. C. Case.
8.00. Address. The Teacher's- Spiritual Preparation. Rev. A. E. Dunning.
8.45. Address. Our Young Folks. Rev. J. H. Vincent, D. D.
Thursday Morning.
THE KIATi'S A UDIENCE CHAMBER.
6.00. Early Morning Prayer Meeting. Led by
Illinois State Sunday School Convention. 7
THE KINGS SERVICE.
9.00. The Servant Trained.
(a) In School and Class Management. Knox P. Taylor.
{J)) In Township and County Work. W. B. Jacobs.
(f) In Institutes and Assemblies. Rev. J. H. Vincent, D. D.
(d) In Winning Souls. C. M. Morton.
Thursday Afternoon.
"Go ye into all the world and preach the Gospel to every creature."
2.00. Open Conference led by D. W. Potter.
Revival Work in the S. S. Opened by Rev. W. J. Hooper.
3.00. Open Conference led by Wm. Reynolds.
Temperance Work in the Sunday School.
4.00. The Closing Reports.
Thursday Evening.
THE KING'S RETURN.
8.00. Address. Rev. J. H. Brookes, D. D., St. Louis.
THE SERVANTS REWARD.
8.30. Brief Addresses.
As first in the order of exercises, the president announced a Bible
reading on the subject:
" The King's Command."
Mr. Tynor said : When I examine the programme of this conven-
tion, so perfect and comprehensive, I am glad to have the honor of
first presenting it. I am glad to present to the Illinois S. S. Conven-
tion the opening subject, "Occupy till I Come," for they have proved
for years by their lives and work that they fully understand and live
this divine command. Occupy has two meanings: a peaceful and
quiet dwelling on any place, and second something that takes posses-
sion of me and becomes my occupation. Two classes of Christians:
the first, like Balaam, can say and feel, "How goodly are thy tents, O
Jacob, and thy tabernacles, O, Israel." Some with David " walk
about Zion," and their songs " Hold the fort for I am coming," and
thus occupy till the Lord comes. To the second, occupy means work.
The new version has " Trade ye." An old colored woman said some
Christians lived in the cellar of their houses, where it is dark and
gloomy; some in the parlor for ease and comfort; some in the bed-
room for sleep; but she lived upon the house-top where it was bright
and cheerful. These Christians go further and live in a workshop,
light streaming through the open windows and work ever to be done.
On Clark street, Chicago, I have often passed an auction store, and
the auctioneer always at work. A few mornings since I passed his
store as the clock struck nine, the time to commence. He commenced
" How mucli am I bid ?" etc., just as earnestly as if the store was
full, though there alone. Thus the text teaches us to " occupy."
The moon is left b}^ the sun to occupy till it comes, and ever to re-
flect the light of the absent sun. Thus the Christian reflects his ab-
8 Illinois State Sunday School Convention.
sent Lord till he comes. The moon never stops to say I am only
rocks, no atmosphere and no one can dwell on me. It shines on with
all its reflected brightness, when new or full or in the last quarter. It
is easy to shine as a new moon when some one is seeing us over our
right shoulder, may be cheered with the hope of good luck; easy to
shine when full. Hard to keep on shining and working when waning,
and many desire a new moon to produce some fancied change. Thus
the Lord taught his disciples to occupy by giving them new work.
We see in our late lessons — Mark vi: 31 — He said "Come ye apart
and rest," and then took them to a day's work at feeding the five
thousand — Mark 6:45. He constrained them to get into the ship,
and when they had expected an easy voyage across the lake, by con-
trary winds he kept them toiling all night, but near him, while he
prayed for them on the mount. When on the other side, v. 55, there
was more work to do.
In Isaiah, v. 2, we are taught, as Sunday School workers, how to
occupy: " My beloved hath a vinevard on a very fruitful hill, and he
fenced it and gathered out the stones thereof, and planted it with the
choicest vine, and built a tower in the midst of it, and also made a
wine press therein." Fenced it — protect our work by regular atten-
dance at church, etc. Gathered out the stones — remove all hinderan-
ces. Planted with the choicest vines — the programme of this con-
vention will teach how to plant. Build a tower — watch over our class
by visiting, etc. Made a wine press — look for and expect results.
(These different points were illustrated, but we have not room for the
illustrations.)
Compare with a vineyard thus kept, the work of a careless teacher.
Prov. xxiv 130, " I went by the field of the slothful and by the vineyard
of the man void of understanding." "And lo, it was all grown over
with thorns, and nettles had covered the face thereof, and the stone wall
thereof was broken down." In our work there will be discouragements.
Our Lord found his vineyard " brought forth wild grapes." Like
Him, we may go " down unto his garden to the beds of spices to feed
in the garden and to gather lilies." Like Ilim, we shall have to take
the bitter with the sweet and say " I have gathered my myrrh with
my spice; I have eaten my honey-comb with my honey."
Twice in God's word the cjucstion is asked, " What is your occupa-
tion ? " To Joseph's brethren how clear and beautiful their answer.
We and our fathers before us have been shepherds, and we desire so
to bring uj? our children, let us dwell in the land of Goshen. To
Jonah came the question, " What is thine occupation ? " How sad
his answer, that he had fled from the presence of the Lord and his
work at Ninevah because it was too hard for him.
To each of us comes the command " Occupy till I come," and the
question "what is thine occupation ?" Can we answer like Joseph's
brethren — we and our children after us through all our lives will be
Sunday School workers, and we desire to have the Sunday School
given to us as our land of Goshen, or like Jonah say, I once worked
for the Lord, but have fled from his work because the Sunday School
was a Ninevah to me, the work too hard. Let us ever dwell in
Goshen and find it " the best of the land."
The Hymn "Jesus lover of my soul "was sung.
Illinois State Sunday School Convention. 9
On motion a Committee to nominate officers for the Convention,
was appointed, viz: Thomas Ridgway, Gallatin Co.; W. B. Jacobs,
Cook Co.; Wm. Rejaiolds, Peoria Co.; Knox P. Taylor, McLean
Co.; R. C. Willis, White Co.; A. H. Clark, Greene Co., and Frank
Hopkins, Madison Co.
Also, a Committee to consider and report upon the Executive Com-
mittee's report, and upon the report of the Statistical Secretary, viz. :
C. M. Taylor, Livingston Co.; Rev. W. F. Woods, Will Co.; and
H. M. Carr, Madison Co.
The convention sang the hymn :
"I will sing of my Redeemer."
The Committee on nominations, reported in part as follow^s:
For President, O. R. Brouse, Winnebago Co.
For Vice Presidents, Rev. L. A. Abbott, Madison Co.; Knox P.
Taylor, McLean Co.; Rev. Wm. Tracy, Marshall Co.
Recording Secretary, H. S. Vail, Cook Co.
Treasurer, B. F.Jacobs, Cook Co.
The committee asked further time to report the other offices. On
motion the report was accepted, and the committee given further time.
The persons nominated wereunanimously and elected to the offices for
which they had been named.
A committee was appointed to escort the President elect to the plat-
form. He was received and welcomed by President Mason, in the
following words :
GREETING TO THE PRESIDENT ELECT.
My dear brother, I heartily congratulate you that you have
been chosen by this body to the highest honor it has to give,
and I may say to the highest honor in the world. I charge you
to remember as you accept these responsibilities, that half a million of
hearts are beating in sympathy with you, a million ears are open for
your words, and a million eyes are watching you. God bless you,
and help you in the performance of the duties we are now laying on
your shoulders. Turning to the convention, Mr. Mason said : Dear
friends and fellow-workers, I thank you earnestly for the kindness and
help you have extended to me during my term of office. I now have
the great pleasure of introducing to you brother O. R. Brouse, of
Rockford, your president elect.
President Bi'ouse was received with hearty applause and replied as
follows :
ADDRESS OF PRESIDENT BROUSE.
My dear brother, fellow workers and friends. The dele-
gates from Winnebago County are not insensible to the honor
conferred upon them in the elevation of one of their brethen to this
high position, and in their behalf, as well as in my own, I thank you.
We are all servants of the Great King, we are here to be about the
King's business, and in accordance with the great principle laid down
by the Prince Royal when he was upon the earth, namely, that he
who would be great among us, must be the servant of all, I shall try
to serve the will and purpose of the convention.
lo Illinois State Sunday- School Convention.
It is not our own work that we are here to do, and we have no
right to say we will, or we will not do this or that. We are here to
do what the Master appoints, to make the most possible of the talents
and the opportunities he gives. Conscious of our own inability, but
depending upon His strength, we take the responsibility of the posi-
tions to which we may be appointed.
The work before us is such that it can never be done by spasmodic
effort, it must be steady, patient, hard work. A child is not often
brought to the Savior the first Sabbath he is in our class, he must be
taught and led by easy steps, some are, perchance, slow to receive the
truth and we must, as it were, instil the truth into their minds by the
utmost diligence, and gradually giving line upon line, precept upon
precept, here a little and there a little. Only in this way can we suc-
ceed, we will then be patient, and ever true to our high calling.
This is the 24th Convention of the Sunda}- School Association of
Illinois. It is almost a quarter of a century, since the Christian people
of this state judged it necessary to meet in special session, to consult
as to the interests of this department of the Master's work. The work
has grown year by year, and yet, even now, how large a part of the
Lord's vineyard in our State is uncultivated. Think of your own
county, how many neglected children are in it? How many Sunday
schools with a name to live, while in real effective work of soul-sav-
ing, they are dead. Here then is our work, and though we have
labored a quarter of a centur}', shall we say it is done? To my mind
the work has only just begun ; the fields lie all around us, and they
are white to the harvest, let me urge upon you the duty of individual
effort, for after all the result rests here ; let each one gather a few
sheaves. I plead with you, don't try to throw your work upon this
convention, or upon the State or County officers, but faithfully bear
your part in the great harvest. Let me remind you, that if every man
and woman were to fully take up his or her work; if to-day, every
child was in the Sunday School, and if the .Sunday School was every-
where at its best, still our work would not be done; new generations
are coming on all the time. It will never be done as long as there is
a character to train for Christ. There will be always small vines
clinging to our feet, to be nurtured and trained for the Master ; dare
we neglect this work at any time? dare we for a year, or a fraction of
a year, let this work go?
The adversary is never idle. All about us are dens of evil, traps
for the little feet, and we must watch them and guide them into paths
of peace, God grant that we may be faithful in this work. And let
me remitid you, that if we are faithful, after a while there will be a
reward for us, when we go to our eternal home.
After a verse of song, the presitlent introduced the Rev. J. G. Lit-
tle, presiding elder of the Champaign district of the M". E. Church,
who delivered an address of welcome as follows:
WELCOME ADDRESS, REV. J. G. LITTLE.
Jfr. President, Friends and Fellow- Workers : I have been asked
to express to 3'ou a welcome. I did not at first conceive the pleasure
that I myself should feel in seeing you all, but to me personally it is a
matter of great satisfaction, to welcome this body to our city, we wel-
Illinois State Sunday School Convention. ii
come you to our flat country, our beautiful and high Champaign. We
will gladly show you our lions, the chief of which is the University,
we have there one mountain lion's skin stuffed, and other skins stuffed
too. We also have some snakes, which we have turned loose in our
streets ; our saloons are open again, we wish you to tread on our
snakes. But more than this we welcome you to the homes of
people, those who sympathize with you, and will work with you; you
will like them. " Birds of a feather flock together" they say, and we are
glad you have come to us, we welcome you to our altars, to our homes and
to our hearts. We mean more than is expressed in the word " welcome."
We are glad you are here, and the thought occurs to me, whom do
we welcome, and who are you anyway; we cannot tell you apart any
more. The Methodist stands up to pray, and the Presbyterian kneels
down ; you make us think of the low mud walls in China; in seed
time they are raised for convenience, but when the harvest time comes,
the harvest waves above the walls. And then the localities you re-
present: you are here from St. Louis, Cairo, and from the regions be-
tween, and from Chicago, the queen city of the north, and from the
most lowly positions in the Sunday School army, to the great standard
bearers, the leaders of the national brigades, for they are here, and
they are coming. You are a great army, and you have been march-
ing nearly twenty -five years, marching, working and fighting; you
are gathered here for a grand rally, to burnish your armor, you are
here for drill, and we are here to learn and be taught. If there is any
one here too wise to learn, I want to go and sit down by his side, and
keep him busy for once in his life, teaching, if not learning; and when
this review shall have past, you are to go back with new strength and
zeal, and new skill in methods, new fire for the work. There are
difficulties in our way, no doubt, and we will not shut our eyes to
them, but difficulties are nothing with God.
On a certain coast in France, there are rocky spurs shooting up from
great depths, some of them rising above the water, and others just be-
neath, making it very dangerous to mariners. Many a gallant ship
went down among them in the fierce storms that swept the coast.
The government sent engineers, one after another, to see if something
could be done, but they were in despair, till finally one resolute man
came back saying, we must undertake the impossible. Aided by the
fishermen of the coast, who knew the locality so well; this engineer's
workmen hovered around the spot, and the first summer they gained
a footing ; seven times he went on these spurs, and drilled in them fifteen
holes. The next summer they more than doubled their work, and lit-
tle by little a light-house arose, whose steady beams warned hundreds
from the treacherous rocks of death beneath. Brethren, alight-house
costs something, but it pays, it saves, and we can hope nothing better
for you and for ourselves, than that we may be light-houses for Christ,
warning and saving souls. God bless you, and may the influence of
this convention help you in your work of light-bearing. Again we
welcome you to our city, God bless the influence of this convention
upon the hearts of all.
RESPONSE OF REV. WILLIAM TRACY.
Rev. William Tracy of Lacon, responded to the address of Mr.
Little, in his own inimitable way, as follows:
12 Ii,i.iNOis State Sunday Sciiooi. Con\'ention.
Mr. r resident : Mr. Reynolds came down to me a few minutes
ago, and asked me to respond to this address of welcome in a few
words, -A few words, and 1 wondered why he asked me to reply to
this address. Then I remembered how he came over to brother Price,
by my side in the car, and said to him: " where are you now?" " At
Lacon," said my friend, "Ah! Lacon, God forsaken Lacon," replied
Reynolds. Well friends, I am from Lacon too, God forsaken Lacon,
where the people eat " Reynold's hams," and that must be the reason
why I am asked to reply to this address of welcome, respectable peo-
ple are surely welcome, but he wanted me from Lacon to feel wel-
come too, and 1 am glad that I am welcome. I thank you for your
words of welcome to all, and in reply I say you are welcome to us, to
all there is of us, make the most of us while you have us. We have
come here to bless and be blessed, we are here to give and to receive,
we are here to meet each other, and to meet the Lord. And now
having heard your welcome, we desire also to hear God's voice saying
to us, " Welcome my dear children and servants to my presence and
gifts." God grant that we may beliaptized afresh with his Holy Spirit,
and be filled with all the fullness of God.
The Convention then united in singing the hymn:
" We're marching to Zion."
Mr. D. W. Potter lead in prayer. The vice-presidents were in-
vited forward, and being introduced, took their seats on the platform.
The convention then sang:
" To tlie work, to the work."
The report of the Executive Committee which was printed, wasdis-
tributed throughout the house, in order that the members might fol-
low the reading, and note the special features. It was then read by
the chairman, Mr. B. F. Jacobs, and was as follows:
EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE'S REPORT.
To the Illinois State Sunday School Association:
Dear Brethren: — The Executive Committee submit herewith
their annual report. The Association has completed twenty-three
years of its history, and we desire to record our thankful appreciation
of the mercies and blessings we have received from our gracious God.
The year just closed has been one of blessing and of trial. For once the
harvest in our state has not been as abundant as usual, and in some
counties much loss has been sustained by reason of great rains, and
the overflow of our rivers. But compared with many sister states, we
have suffered little, and while the loss has fallen heavily on some
counties, the State, as a whole, ha^ enjoyed prosperity. From the
losses sustained, two lessons may be learned : First, that we should
lay up in the years of plenty a supply for the years of scarcity; second,
that as it is written, "a brother is born for adversity," the
more favored counties should be ready to help in bearing burdens
when others are in distress. It would more than compensate us
for these losses if we were able to report that the people of this com-
monwealth had been humbled before God and led to seek a larger
measure of spiritual blessing, and had made more diligent efforts to
prevent or overcome the mighty flood of evil which has swept over
Illinois State Sunday School Convention, 13
the land. But while we Joyfully report many precious revivals, we
mourn that they have not been general or widespread, and that our
work has been so hindered, and the progress so slow. The plans of
the committee contemplated more thorough and earnest work than
ever before.
Plans of the Committee.
In accordance with the instructions of the last convention, held at
Centralia, the committee entered into an engagement with Miss Lucy
J. Rider, and secured for the State her services during most of the
year which has just past. It was proposed that these services
should be in addition to those we had previously enjoyed through the
labors of different brethren who have engaged in the work. To as large
an extent as possible these plans have been carried out. To most now
present, it is not necessary to say that they have been very successful.
In order that w^e might have the services of Mr. W. B. Jacobs, during
that portion of the year when Conventions are most frequent, and
that we might be relieved of a portion of expense during that season
of the year when the services of Miss Rider would be in less demand
than any other, an exchange of work was arranged between the State,
and the Cook County Sunday School Association, whereby the State
secured the services of Mr. W. B. Jacobs for several months, especi-
ally, during August, September, and October, and Miss Rider's time
was employed by the Cook County Association during several
months, mostly December, January, February, and March. The
results have been mutually advantageous and satisfactory. These ser-
vices may be partially estimated from the following reports, viz: Miss
Rider has attended — District Conventions, <^; County Conventions,
27; Township meetings and institutes, 57; Normal school sessions,
12; Primary class meetings, 24. Other meetings for the study ot
the Bible and plans of work, 12. Total number of lessons taught,
and addresses delivered, 262. Of course it is not possible to
estimate the value of these services, but it is believed that
the results will be seen in better work done in the comities visited
than ever befoi'e. This has bfeen especially true in some counties
where a series of township institutes or conventions have been held,
and an earnest effort made to reach the entire county. From all parts
of the field, nothing but words of praise, and a desire for her re-engage-
ment have been received. In accordance with this arrangement, Mr. W.
B. Jacobs was permitted to be present at the conventions of all the
seventeen counties in the Fifth District, though, owing to peculiar cir-
cumstances, some of them had to be postponed, and held at other
times than those agreed upon, increasing the amount of travel and the
time consumed. In addition to this, he has also attended ten other
county conventions, (making twenty-seven it all,) and one District
Convention. The reports of these conventions will doubtless give a
good estimate of the value of this work. The president of the last
State Convention, Mr. J. R. Mason, has also been very earestly en-
gaged in the work, attendmg — County Conventions, and — District
Conventions, besides many meetings with Sunday School workers in
all parts of the State.
From the reports of the Sixth, Fifth and Fourth Districts it will be
seen that the presidents of these Districts, Mr. H. B. Douglas of the
14 Illinois State Sunday School Convention.
Sixth, R. C. Willis of the Fifth, and Mr. C. M. Eames of the
Fourth, have attended most of the County Conventions in their
districts, and that in the Sixth and Third Districts, which have
been subdivided, the presidents of the sub-districts have also at-
tended a number of County Conventions. The results of this work
will all be seen in the increased number of Conventions held, and
the more encouraging reports from the fields thus faithfully work-
ed. The total number of conventions held is as follows: Dis-
trict Conventions, 5; County Conventions, 107; (five of the coun-
ties having held 3 conventions each); Township Conventions 924.
The general features of the work as reported by the district presidents
are as follows: (For further particulars, see report of statistical sec-
retary).
The First District.
The convention was held at Aurora, November 29 and 30. It was
the best attended and most deeply interesting convention ever held in
this district, thirteen counties were represented. The reports show that
19 county and 161 township conventions have been held; 5 banner
counties are reported, being a gain of i ; and 21 1 townships are
reported organized, a gain of 25, being 72 per cent, of the whole
number. The statistics in this district give 1302 schools — being a
gain of 2; and a total membership of 183,764, a gain of 6123. In
several of the counties the work has been more thorough, and better
than ever before, particularly in Cook, Winnebago, and Kane; while
an increased interest, and better work is apparent in Lake, Steph-
enson, Ogle, and Lee. Several of the counties are greatly in need of
more thorough organization and better work. The result of the ex-
periment reported last year in Cook County, of employing a superin-
tendent, and making an earnest efibrt to reach the entire number of
schools in the city and county, has met with much success, and is
very encouraging. While the difliculties are formidable, and the dis-
couragements are many, the blessing of God has rested upon the work,
and there is great occasion for thanksgiving. 14 counties have con-
tributed $795 to the State work.
The Second District.
For some reason, it was not thought desirable to hold a District
Convention during the past year. Your executive committee do not
approve of the omission, and think it would have been better to have
had this gathering for the consideration of the district work.
The report shows 2 banner counties ; the same as last year; 17
county and 1S5 township conventions, a loss of 3; 15S town-
ships are reported organized, being 50 per cent, of the whole number,
a loss of 33; 1164 schools, a loss of 91; total membership , of
93816, a loss of 7980. From the statistics it appears that there has
been a loss in membership in a majority of the counties reported. In
several of the counties, particularly in La Salle, there has been an in-
creased interest in the work, and it is to be hoped that this great dis-
trict, composing many of the best counties in the State, will, during the
year to come, make a decided advance. 14 counties have contributed
to the State work $397,50.
Illinois State Sunday School Convention. 15
The Third District.
The District Convention was held at Danville, October 24, 35, and
26. The attendance and representation were both good ; 12 counties
being reported. The report shows 6 banner counties, a gain of 3;
195 conventions held; 18 county, and 177 township, a gain of 39;
townships organized 162, being 60 per cent, of the whole number, a
loss of 33; schools, 11S6, a loss of 28; membership, 91.645, a loss
of 3.560; 14 counties have contributed to the State work $326,87.
It can probably be said that this has been the best year for work in the
Third District for a long time. Not only is this seen in the figures
reported from some counties, but it is felt in manj' of the counties
where more thorough organization and better work has been attain-
ed. It is particularly true in the counties of Livingston, Kankakee,
and Vermillion, while McLean continues to hold its high place on
the list.
The Fourth District.
The convention was held at Jerseyville, October 37 and 28, and
was successful both in the numbers in attendance, and the spirit of the
convention. The report shows 7 banner counties, a gain of i ; 224
conventions held; 19 county, and 205 townships, a loss of 22; town-
ships organized 197, being 77 per cent, of the whole number, the same
as last year; schools, 1,037, ^ ^^^^ *^^ 9' "membership, 78,306, a loss
of 482; 14 counties have contributed to the State work $267.55.
While there has been an increase of interest in some of the counties,
there has been a decided fulling off in others. "The Starry Fourth"
though brighter than the year before, has not yet regained the bril-
liant place it formei-ly held. Doubtless the clouds that have temporarily
hidden its glory will disappear during the year to come, and its con-
stellations will shine forth as of old.
The Fifth District.
The convention was held at Albion, October 17, iS and 19. It
was well attended and a very deep interest was manifested from the
beginning to the close. This district has suffered more than any other
in the State during the year. The long continued drouth during the
summer deprived them of a large portion of their crops. In many
instances those who had long been in comfortable circumstances found
it difficult to get along under this trial; To a considerable extent, it
interfered with the progress of the work. In addition to this, the over-
flow of the rivers during the spring has added to the burdens that pre-
viously seemed too heavy to bear, and many workers have become
discouraged. Yet, in some respects, the brethren in that part of the
State deserve special commendation for their persistent efforts in carry-
ing forward the work, and especially for the splendid financial report
they have made during the year. While it might have been expected
that, under the circumstances, many of the counties would have de-
clined to pay their pledges and assessments, their report, as to contri-
butions, is superior to that of any other district in the State. The
report shows, banner counties, 6, a gain of i ; 129 conventions held, 17
county, and 112 township, a gain of 37; townships organized, 91, being
52 per cent, of the whole number, a gain of 13; schools, 684, a gain
i6 Illinois State Sunday School Convention.
of 14; membership, 45,782, a loss 812; 17 counties have contributed
to the State work $331.27.
The Sixth District.
The convention was held at Greenville, October 19, 20, and 21. It
was well attended, and was a very successful convention. The plan
of sub-dividing this district and committing a similar number of coun-
ties to the especial care of each one of three vice-presidents has worked
well, and with the earnest efforts of the president of the district, they
are able to make a good report. The report shows, banner counties,
6, a gain of 2; conventions held, 130; county, 17; township, 113; a
loss of 23; townships organized, 114, being 56 per cent, of the whole
number, a loss of 12. Schools, 759, a loss of 78; 14 counties have
contributed to the State work $199.00. This part of the State has also
suffered in like manner as the Fifth. The partial failure of the crop
has doubtless had its inlluence in many of the counties, and but for the
earnest and faithful efforts of the workers there, a serious loss would
have been reported. It is to be hoped that in these southern districts
the harvest may be abundant during the present year, and that a great
increase may result.
Recapitulation.
The full report of the statistical secretary sliould be carefully studied.
Total number of l:>anner counties, is 32, a gain of 8. (There were three
mistakes made in the report of banner counties last year.) It will be re-
membered that only those counties are "^aww^r" that have held Town-
ship Conventions in every tozvnship ; or for every township, in
case two townships are organized together. The total number of
conventions held, is: county, 107: township, 924 ; total 1031, a
loss of 47; townships organized 935, being 61 per cent, of the whole
number, a loss of 2; schools, 6,132, a loss of 188; membership,
549,78^, a loss of 3,945. Received into the Church, 10,402. It
will be noticed that 79 counties have reports for the current
year. Those that are marked with a dagger have not reported for
the past year. Those marked with a double dagger have not reported
for two years. We are also obliged to add that many of these reports
arc made up in a hasty and careless manner, showing great neglect on
the part of those entrusted with this responsible work. The losses
reported in conventions held, townships organized, and number
of schools and attendance, is doubtless due to this. We firmly believe,
that full reports would show gains over the true condition last year.
The importance of having more painstaking and burden bearing
Christians as county officers, in some counties is plainly seen. Fre-
quently, the reports have been delayed after the statistical secretary has
made repeated calls upon the officers of the County Association. The
failure in this respect is very noticeable if the report of the treasurer is
carefully studied. Many counties do not remit their contributions until
near the close of the year, and it frequently happens that after the
monev has been raised to pav the county subscription to the State work,
through the negligence of the treasurer it is allowed to remain in his
hands for months, while the State treasurer is paying interest for money
borrowed to carry on the work. No more important subject can be
brought before the County Conventions than the responsibility and
Illinois State Sunday School Convention. 17
obligation that rest upon the vai-ious officers to discharge their work
in a business Hke manner, that whatsoever they do, may be "done heart-
ily as unto the Lord, and not to man." In this connection your com-
mittee also recommend tliat more care be given to the preparation of
the programme for the County Conventions; that the work of arrang-
ing them be intrusted to patient men who vs- ill carefully compare them
with the programmes of other conventions, and seek to make these
conventions progressive from year to year, that their power and influ-
ence may be increased.
Your committee earnestiy recommend that their successors be in-
structed to engage Miss. Rider for another year, if her services can be
secured, and that in addition to this, greater eiforts than ever before
be put forth to more'thoroughly organize the State and increase the
power of the work. That as far as possible the Counties be recom-
mended to arrange chains of Conventions in each district, studying
the times and seasons of the Conventions in other Counties, that there
may be as little conflict as possible when they desire help from the
executive committee or State workers in their Conventions.
Normal Institute.
Your committee also report that they have under consideration a
plan for the establishment of a Normal Training School or Institute
under the auspices of the State Association, to be held sometime dur-
ing the coming fall and winter, in the City of Chicago, the sessions to
continue through four or six weeks, as they may be able to arrange.
The plan proposed is to secure a room at a mere nominal expense and
the services of such teachers and lecturers as can also be had gratuitous-
ly, or at the most, for their traveling expenses, where it is desirable to
invite those from a distance; thus making the tuition for the v^^hole
course merely nominal, only sufficient to defray the slight incidental
expenses connected with the Institute. It is believed that such a place
can be secured and suitable persons will consent to teach the classes.
The main features of the plan will be submitted at the appropiate time
by Miss. Lucy J, Rider. The experiment will depend upon the I'e-
sponse received. If the Convention approve, and if a sufficient num-
ber from different parts of the State can be found who will pledge
themselves to attend the course, the plan will be tried; if found satis-
factory, it may be continued.
The International Work.
During the year thirty-one delegates from our State were permitted
to attend the third International (eighth National) Sunday-school Con-
vention, held in the city of Toronto, Ont., on June 23, 33, and 24th
1881. The occasion was one of great pleasure and profit. Special re-
ports will be made by some of the delegates to this Convention. A
very great honor was conferred upon our State in the appoint-
ment of one of your number to the important place of Chairman of
the International Executive Committee. The subject that seemed to
make the deepest impression upon the Convention, and, perhaps, more
than any other, determined this action, was the desire for the more
thorough organization of all tlie States and Territories, and especially
for the vigorous prosecution of the work in destitute localities. Doubt-
i8 Illinois State Sunday School Convention.
less the selection of the chairman of the committee to carry out the
thought of the Convention was a compliment to the high place attained
by the State of Illinois in orgiinizaticn. In the providence of
God we have therefore become the standard bearer of the Sunday-
school army of the United States and British Provinces, an army
which numbers more than seven million of officers, teachers and schol-
ars, or more than one half of the Sunday-school hosts of the world.
If, as has often been claimed, a large degree of responsibility for the
evangelization of the world depends upon the Sunday-schools, it is
plain to see that America's share is more than one half of the whole.
This, if nothing else, ought to stimulate us to the very highest pos-
sible effort; and if, in addition to this, we remember that we are re-
ceiving an immense number of emigrants from all parts of the world,
that our States and Territories are rapidly filling up with thousands
who are, for the most part, wholly unacquainted with Sun<lay-schools
and are, very largely, without the knowledge of God, the responsibility
becomes very great. In seeking a plan for the prosecution of this Na-
tional and International work, the committee have decided to try to
organize the fifty-seven States, Territories and Provinces into eight
Districts after the plan of the District organizations in Illinois,
and as far as possible, to hold chains of special Conventions or
meetings in those districts where there is need for more thorough
organization, or for Sunday School Missionary Work. It will
readily be seen that to do this will require the voluntary services of a
number of men, and, possibl}^ the paid services of a few, and certainly
a sufficient amount of money to meet the traveling expenses of all. The
means at the disposal of the International Excutfve Committee is very
limited, if all the pledges are met. and for the present year it is doubt-
ful if there will be more than enough to pay the other expenses, aside
from these, and yet, without this work, there is very little that the
committee can do, and without some such effort as this the work can-
not be carried forward successfully.
During the past winter the first series of these district meetings was
held in the Southeast. They were attended, on behalf of the execu-
tive committee, by Mr. Porter, the secretary. Brother Revnolds of our
own State, Brother Fischer of Pennsylvania, Brother Kellogg of New
York, and the Chairman. It is not too much to say that they were
very successful. The expenses of all but the secretary were met by
the individuals themselves. Two other representatives of our own
State, Mr. W. B. Jacobs and ^M. C. Hazard, attended the Conven-
tions of Mississippi and Dakota. Their expenses were also met by
voluntary contributions, and the committee now hope to find a number
of gentlemen who will each contribute from twenty-five to one hun-
dred dollars per annum to maintain the work. It would be a great
pleasure to have this list well started in Illinois. At the Toronto
Convention, after a conference with the delegates from Illinois, Broth-
er Wm. Reynolds pledged the State for $300 jDcr annum, It is desir-
ed that this pledge be ratified, and we submit for your considera-
tion the proposition that for the next year, the amount be increased
from $300 to $300, to aid the committee in carrying forward their
plans.
Illinois State Sunday School Convention. 19
Temperance.
Your committee have watched with a great deal of interest the
progress of the efforts made in our own State and in other States in
the cause of Temperance. The question is one of the greatest impor-
tance and should engage the thoughtful, prayerful consideration of
every Christian worker. This gigantic evil is not only ruining thou-
sands of the children and 3'outh of our land, but it is using the enor-
mous wealth gained by plundering society to control the legislation of
the cities, states, and nation. Carefully and zealously avoiding all po-
litical considerations, it is certainly very desirable that the churches
and Sunday Schools of our State be thoroughly aroused on this sub-
ject, and your committee have arranged for an open conference to be
held on Thursday afternoon, conducted by Brother Wm. Reynolds,
of Peoria for the consideration of this question.
The Suppression of Vice. i
We further desire to call your attention to the terrible and mighty
evil of the circulation of immoral and vicious literature through
which the children and youth of the land are being corrupted.
"We suggest that in every community an organization be effected for
the suppression of vice among the children and youth, and that cor-
respondence be opened with the society in Chicago and in other cities,
that necessary information and co-operation may be received, that will
aid in bringing to justice the offenders against law and virtue.
Conclusion.
In conclusion, we remind you that eight years ago the Sixteenth
Annual Convention was held in this beautiful city. It was an occa-
sion of deep interest. The presence of a number of faithful brethren,
some of whoni have fallen asleep and others now engaged in the
w^ork in different parts of the land, and, above all, the rich blessing of
God, made that convention one of the most memorable gatherings in
our history. We earnestly pray that a similar blessing may rest upon
all the delibei'ations of this Convention; that God may guide all the
speakers and direct all the movements of the body and add his rich
blessing to all those gathered here from every city and town, in the
name of our Lord Jesus Christ.
For the executive committee. B. F. Jacobs, Chairman.
On motion of J. R. Mason, the report was submitted to the Com-
mittee appointed to examine. Mr. Jacobs remarked that some of the
brethren thought it would be a wise plan to incorporate the State As-
sociation. He did not express an opinion in regard to it, but left it
for the Convention to consider.
On motion of J. O. Foster, the following committee was appointed
to consider the subject and report to the Convention: Rev. J. O.
Foster, DeKalb Co.; A. G. Tyng, Peoria Co.; T. P. Nisbett, Madi-
son Co. The Convention then sang, " I will guide thee with mine
eye."
The report of the Statistical Secretary was now read, printed coj^ies
being distributed at the same time to the audience. It was as follows:
20 Illinois State Sunday School Convention.
ANNUAL REPORT OF THE STATE STATISTICAL
SECRETARY,
In printed form I have the pleasure of presenting to this Conven-
tion the tabuhited portion of my second Annual Report as State Statisti-
cian, and the thirteenth that has been prepared and presented to these
annual gatherings of the Sunday vSchool workers of the State ot Illi-
nois. What a mighty work it summarizes! More than half a mil-
lion in this State division of the great Sunday School host. That the
Statistical Report herewith submitted shows small reduction in both
schools and membership admits readily of explanation :
1. Many of the reports marked '81-3 are entirely new, taken in
the month of March, before the opening of those unfortunate schools
that are mud and snow-bound for four months of the year, although
the week day schools are in full operation.
2. Some previous reports have been estimated ones, and too high.
County officers write me that they never had as many schools or mem-
bers as appeared in our published reports.
3. Some county reports must be only partial. Winnebago shows
a loss of about 1,205, Fulton 3,894, Henry 2,757, Rock Island 2,820,
Edgar 3,976, Marion 1,308. From these six counties a falling off of
81 schools and over 18,000 in membership — about one-half the loss of
schools in the State and four times the net loss in the State in mem-
bership. Full reports from these counties alone would show a larger
Sunday School membership in Illinois than was ever reported.
The omissions of convention dates in the counties of Knox, Frank-
lin, Monroe and Union do not indicate "no convention," but simply
lack of information on my part at the time of writing this report.
Cook county, of course, shows the largest increase, 8,631, yet
strange to say only six more schools than last year. Thirty-four other
counties show increased membership, 33 report decreases, and the oth-
ers show no change.
The banner list for '81 is five larger than last year, viz 32, and the
counties so named have come up strictly to the high mark of a conven-
tion duri7ig the year in every totvnship^ -precinct or district. And
yet the total number of townships in the State is over 1,500, of which
only 935 are even reported as organized. Cannot this convention in-
fuse into the work in Illinois such a zealous spirit as shall this year
redeem these 600? The fault in nine cases out of ten, we believe, lies
in the election at county conventions of uninterested or incompetent
township officers — men that are not present and do not accept the
office, hence never act or report. A County Secretary cannot go to
every Sunday School for Aimual Reports,
The second district has the honor of furnishing the most new re-
ports (16) for this convention, the fourth of reporting the most town-
ship conventions and having the most banner counties, the first of hav-
ing made the greatest increase in membership, and the fifth, consider-
ing circumstances, the best financial report.
It is with the greatest satisfaction that we point to our convention
list: 1 State Convention, 5 District Conventions, 107 County Conven-
tions, 924 Township Conventions, 1037 altogether. Every county in
Illinois State Sunday School Convention. 3i
the State has held one or more. Last year there were three black
spots (unfilled places for stars) on our State map. Now not one.
And the campaign of 1S82 is opening- auspiciously. Conventions
and chairmen of conventions are already announced.
Secretaries or other county officers present will confer a favor and
save me some postage if they will notify me of the date and place
for their next Annual County Convention.
I must return my sincere thanks to the many County Secretaries,
who, notwithstanding the difficulties that have beset them, have aided
us in getting fresh statistics. Seventy-?iine new reports have been ob-
tained. If in their publication any clerical or typographical errors
have occurred, I hope to receive corrections while here, as the figures
are to be published again after revision. The report was held open
for correction until Monday noon of this week. Changes in county
officers should also be reported to me.
The task of collecting these statistics has been by no means a light
one, differing little from that of other years. The blanks were sent
out early in February and yet many even of the incomplete reports
had not "returned after many days," even 60 of them and a dozen or
more came in after the report was in the printers' hands. When Sec-
retaries write me that they can?wt get new reports from township or
Sunday School officers I can understand the case, but when they use
only the reports in their hands from the last convention I cannot un-
derstand why they need the third or fourth request before mailing
them. I have been engaged this year in making up a list of Illinois
Sabbath School workers and now have the names of more than 3,000
— a list quite valuable for reference and consultation. In last year's
report I took occasion to dwell upon the importance of retaining
County Statistical Secretaries as long as possible. My list this year
shows 46 nexv Secretaries. We have been 15 years vainly endeavor-
ing to get one complete State Report. In my judgment v/e never
shall succeed in this until we cease putting inexperienced men into the
Secretaryships.
There seems to me a defect in our Sunday School system of organ-
izing or records in that the township conventions are not reported
regularly to the County Secretary, and by him recorded, that he may
know at the close of the year how many have been held.
Additions and corrections to my report having been made since
printing my Statistical Report it Is slightly inaccurate. The totals re-
vised to this hour are as follows:
No. of Banner Counties 32
No. of new reports 79
No. of schools ... 6,132
No. of teachers and officers 64,316
No. of schools , 485,469
Total membership 549)785
Total number of Conventions i)037
Organized Townships 935
Additions to Churches from Sunday School 10,362
Amount contributed to State Sunday School Work $2,516.86
Respectfully submitted,
C. M. EAMES.
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Illinois Statb Sunday School Convention. 25
On motion the report of the Statistical Secretary was referred to
the Committe appointed to consider the report of the Executive Com-
mittee. The Convention then hstened to the reports of delegates to
the International S. S. Convention, held at Toronto, Ont., in June,
1S81.
REMARKS OF WILLIAM REYNOLDS.
Mr. Reynolds said: The Toronto Convention was the most re-
markable in some respects I have ever attended. It was held in a
beautiful and commodious building erected in honor of the visit of
the Princess to Toronto, and was worthy of the city and the occasion.
It was situated in the midst of a splendid park, and thus while we
were in the centre of the city, we w^ere removed from its noise and
dust. Everything possible was done to prepare for the Convention
and make it a success. The Convention was composed of delegates
from all parts of the United States and Canada. The South was
largely represented, the State of Georgia alone having more than
seventy representatives present, her delegation headed by Gov. Col-
quitt, President of the Second International Convention, held at At-
lanta. Almost every southern state was represented, and almost every
religious denominations, many prominent editors, the representatives
of nearly all the professions, with, of course, many Sunday School
leaders of the land. With this company we were privileged to sit for
three days, truly in heavenly places, knowing no sections or denomi-
nations, but all one in Christ.
Sometimes the sections would be mentioned by some enthusiastic
brother, but no offense was taken, for instance, when Kansas was
called the delegate began by saying, " I am from the state that pro-
duced John Brown." A mighty cheer went up, in which southern
delegates joined with others.
After a while Virginia reported, the delegate saying, " I am from
the State that produced Stonewall Jackson." Another great shout
answered from all parts of the hall. The Convention was welcomed
by the Mayor of the city, a Christian gentleman and a Sunday School
Superintendent, a great contrast to some of our Western Mayors, who
take such pleasure in giving welcome to assemblies of liquor dealers,
and other disreputable gatherings. Our Superintendent was Vice-
Chancellor Blake, a grand Christian gentleman, one of the foremost
men of Canada, a man who has lately resigned one of the highest
offices in Canada, that he may w^ith more freedom engage in the
Christian and temperance work. We were royally entertained one
afternoon by one of the welthiest gentlemen in Canada. His splendid
mansion and grounds were thrown open to the members of the Con-
vention, and a sumptuous repast was spread under the queen old trees
on the lawn. Here the members had a fine opportunity of meeting
each other in a social way and forming acquaintances which will be
lasting as time. Not one who was privileged to attend this remark-
able gathering will soon forget it or cease to feel the inspiration of such
a meeting with the foremost Sunday School men of this continent.
REMARKS OF R. C. WILLIS.
Mr. Willis said: I was fortunate enough to be present at the In-
ternational Convention in Toronto, and it was good to be there; but I
26 Illinois State Sunday School Convention.
fear I shall not be able to say much about it that will help you. Our
State was well represented and shared in the honors of the Conven-
tion. The Sunday School map of the United States and Canadas was
of course upon the wall. We had taken with us the map of our
own State, which we hung by its side. I heard there were maps of
some other States there, but after ours was put in place the others
were not hung, and while I exulted greatly in the position our own
State held, I could not help but feel a little misgiving with it all and
fear that if some of these, our neighbors, wlio imagined they could
run over into Illinois and pick up a live Sunday School in almost any
fence corner, if some of them, I say, should come over and try us,
sometimes we might dissappoint them. The stars glitter on our
map, but I cannot help feeling sometimes that they do not always shine
brightly in reality. There is a great responsil)ility upon us to keep
the good name of the State as well as carry on our work. But if I
were to bring you something of special value from the Convention,
aside from the great impulse that such a gathering always gives, and the
feeling of gratitude that we have when there, that God has permitted
us to work with so goodly a company of his children, in such a fruit-
ful part of the vineyard, I think a few words spoken at the Convention
may after all do you the most good. Among the golden words. Dr.
Vincent said one evening, " Live in the realm of the Gospel," and
those words remained with me. I repeat them to you, dear fellow-
workers, live in the realm of the Gospel. Don't get off the Gospel
ground or away from the Gospel fire. Let all our organizations
be inspired through and through with the life of Jesus Christ. With-
out it we shall be like the dry skeleton we sometimes see in our med-
ical museum, lifeless, dead. Consecrated men and women working
for the Lord, this must be our first thought. Consecrated work for
Christ, this will conquer all our difficulties and conquer the world.
REMARKS OF W. B. JACOBS.
Mr. Jacobs said: When I saw hundreds of earnest workers gath-
ered at the International Convention, and saw also the esteem with
which the Illinois workers are held, I also felt proud of our State and
our organization. But I felt humbled in remembering how much
darkness I knew of that still remained even in this favored State, and
I never before felt in my heart such a determination that the good
name of the State should be sustained. I came back from the Inter-
national and went into the work in the fifth district, trying there to
inspire the people with the same enthusiasm that inspired that vast
throng at Toronto. Enthusiasm for the name of Jesus Christ and
love for his work. I had an opportunity to put in practice at once
the resolve formed at the Toronto Convention.
It was indeed a great meeting, better in some respects then the
centenary gathering in London, the year before, which it was also my
pleasure to attend. It was indeed a great privilege to be at Toronto,
and yet, brethren, I must say that above all the meetings I ever at-
tended, the London Centenary, the assemblies of our own Church,
the conference of the M. E. Church, above them all in blessed influ-
ences of my own soul, stands our own Illinois State Sunday School
Convention. They have been the most helpful and blessed meetings
Illinois State Sunday School Convention. 27
I have ever attended, and v\diile I rejoiced in the privilege of being at
Toronto and at London, I rejoice exceedingly to-day in the privilege
of being here. May God bless all these meetings to our souls.
After announcements and singing the hymn, "Lord dismiss us with
th}'^ blessing," the Convention received the benediction and adjourned
till evening.
First Day — Evening Session.
The building was filled at an early hour. Prof H. C. DeMotte, of
Bloomington, led in prayer.
"THE KING'S PRAISE."
The Song .Service was conducted by
prof. c. c. case.
The notes of the instrument filled the room with a full and sweet
sound, and was supported by the entire congregation; the voices of
some hundreds participating! The first song was No. 242: "Oh!
what a Saviour! that He died for me!" This song was delivered in a
hearty manner, that was very enlivening; the instrumental part was
well sustained; chorus, joined in by the congregation, was very
impressive. " Rock of Ages " was next sung by the congregation.
The leader of the song service said: "I thank you for joining so
heartily in this song service!" All then sung the piece: "I Will Sing
of My Redeemer!" The execution of this song surpassed anything
that had preceded it, in the hearty enthusiasm with which it was
sung; and the instrumental part was, if possible, more delightful than
all, rendered so by the deep, pure tones of the instrument.
As every new stanza was struck by the multitude of voices, and
then quickly followed by the strong tones of the instrument, every
lover of music must have felt his soul thrill with delight. " Now^,
said Mr. Case, let us sing No. loi, the grandest old congregational
hymn ever written, and this is just the congregation to sing it." He
continued, "I am very much pleased with the way in which you are
singing to-night." The congregation then sung, "All Hail the Power
of Jesus' Name!" By this time the convention was so worked up
under the inspiration of song that the speakers were visibly affected;
the house at this time was crowded, the aisle filled with persons
standing. Mr. J. R. Mason led in prayer, and the congregation
joined in the hymn, " We Praise Thee, O God, for the Son of Thy
Love." Mr. Jacobs, chairman of the Executive Committee, an-
nounced that the different districts would meet in separate places in
the morning to consider the district work, and elect officers.
28 Illinois State Sunday School Convention,
"THE KING'S AMBASSADORS."
On the platform, with the President, was Mr. WiUiam Levering,
president of the Indiana State Sunday School Association, and Mr.
W. II. Stewart, president of the Iowa State Sunday School Associ-
ation. They were introduced to the convention, and spoke as
follows:
ADDRESS OF \V. B. STEWART.
Afr. Chairman and Brethren: — If I did not remember that we
are "Ambassadors for Christ," I would feel unequal to the task of
appearing before this congregation to-night. But this fact enables
me to come in confidence, especially when I remember the kind
words of greeting the brethren of Illinois have always had for their
co-workers in other States. The promises of the King that have
been read to us contain a very kind greeting, and so we come to you
with words of greeting from other States. We have a passport that
will admit us to the " feast of good things " prepared for those that
love the Lord Jesus Christ.
In the State of Illinois, with 65,000 Sabbath School teachers and
500,000 children under their instruction, it becomes a matter of great
importance to devise and discuss the best methods of Sunday School
instruction — to meet together and council how to do better work for
our King." In our own State the work is progressing, and the work-
ers are full of hope. We are to meet in a few days in our State Con-
vention. It will afford us great pleasure to see brethren from Illinois
at that time. I extend you a hearty invitation, and assure you a
royal welcome. \\'e are glad t ) join hands with Illinois and with our
brethren in other States, to march with you shoulder to shoulder in
this conflict, to co-operate with you in the advancement of the Re-
deemer's kingdom in the earth. My prayer is that we may all look
forward to the time when we shall stand in the King's presence and
hear him say,. " Inasmuch as ye did it unto the least of these, ye did
it unto Me." May we be impressed with the duties that devolve
upon us, may we so accomplish our work, so deliver our King's mess-
age, that we may forward the business that pertains to his kingdom.
(Hearty applause.)
ADDRESS OF WILLIAM LEVERING, OF INDIANA.
In the introductory remarks President Brouse referred to Mr. Lev-
ering at the old wheel-horse in the Sunday School cause in Indiana.
Mr. Levering said :
Mr. President atid Fellow- Workers: — It rather startled me while
the brother was saying so much about myself before this audience,
and I thought what have I done that he should talk in that way about
me. Now in Indiana I don't stand that way. Do you know they
keep the "old wheel-horse" down stairs out of signt? and if that
means me, brethren, why, I tell you, it kind of startles me to be
brought up stairs with all these " bright lights " where everything is
so beautiful, and if you can listen to these fine speeches and then not
Illinois State Sunday School Convention. 29
be startled to have yourself called out you are differently constituted
from what I am. (Laughter.)
This is the grandest convention I ever attended. This convention
is getting down into the roots of things. Brother Jacobs, brother
Reynolds, and the other bright lights of the State have got together,
and are teaching us how to hold Sunday School conventions. VVhen
I approached this building and saw the bright lights and heard the
sweet sounds, the singing and the music was so delightful that I al-
most wished to stay back out of sight and listen.
I have enjoyed everything more than my heart can express. The
Lord be praised for such conventions as you have in the State of Illi-
nois. In the kind of instruction we find here, we have the "wine of
spirit." You have less poor talking, mere lecturing, and efforts at
display in oratory, you look more to the qualities of the mind, the
pure emotions of the heart, and the power of the Spirit, through the
Word of Truth, than to any mere oratory.
You may have any amount of organization, you may have all these
things to start you with, and you may have the best of Sabbath-School
work, if you have not this spirit of love contained in the Word, it
will not convert souls. May God fill your hearts with the love and
spirit of the Truth.
May you be endowed to work with power from on High. The
supreme need of the King's ministers is spiritual influences, such as
you have had here to-day, in this convention. Knowledge with
earnestness is power. There is an energy that is beating the air.
Two elements qualify for this w^ork — divine knowledge, witii persis-
tent determined effort toward the accomplishing of God's purpose,
and the redemption of souls.
The Saviour had been traveling a long way! and was tired and
dusty! but he sat down by that well and taught the "Samaritan
woman just as faithfully as though he had been addressing a multi-
tude! taught her in a plain, simple manner the gospel of salvation.
All admire Moody and his earnestness of purpose in saving souls!
What is it that gives to him this earnestness of purpose? is it money?
Oh! brethren if you were as earnest in your desire to save souls as
this man, we would take "Illinois for Christ before one year!
Moody is as earnest as those men in "the grain market" are for
money! That is all that makes him peculiar! How do I know when
I have an equal (a true) line? By the rule!
We know we make mistakes by the rule, and we correct them by
the rule; so it is with christian experience. What do 1 mean by this;
organize secular schools to teach the methods of doing this work? or
adopt the methods of teaching common to the secular schools? No!
you may have all that and have no "Sabbath-School work" at all!
Without the living spirit of the Saviour you can do nothing, and
you can have nothing. Not Mr. R., or Mr. J., but Jesus is "The
Model Teacher!" What is it that strikes you about Jesus? Is it not
his humility? that he was God; thought it not robbery to be equal
with God; yet took upon himself the likeness of man? Oh Lord!
humble our haughty spirits; put away from us haughty things, and
substitute this spirit of humility that was in our Saviour, so holy.
Shall I dare to complain; to raise my voice when I am criticised;
30 Illinois State Sunday School Convention.
complained of ; so ofTended to have my work not paid attention to;
so concerned about my position. Jesus has all "power given unto
him in heaven and in earth!" "Ye are my witnesses!" Followers of
the Lord Jesus.
The Saviour did not care for big classes; he could talk to a class of
two; yes he had a class down at Sychar that consisted of only
one person! the woman that said to her neighbors afterward, "come,
see a man that told me all things that ever I did!"
We need this spirit of Christ in our work. We rejoice in the pro-
gress made in the great State of Illinois. We have felt its influence
in our own State. We have made some progress there. Our coun-
ties are marching forward, and one by one ai'e coming under line of
thorough organization. W^e bid you God-speed in your work and
join hands with you and our brethren from Iowa, and the other States,
in an earnest purpose to go forwai'd in the King's business.
I By error the report of Dr. Henson's address, and of Dr. Worden's address, on Tuesday
evening, was so imperfect as to be valueless. D. Henson kindly furnished an outline of his remarks,
which is here inserted: but it is regretted that the whole address is not at hand. The report after
Tuesday evening, of the exercises in the Presbyterian Church, is full and correct.]
THE BIBLE AND PERSONAL CHARACTER.
OUTLINE OF ADORE-SS BY REV. P. S. HEN.SON, n. I).
The speaker began by discriminating between reputatio?i and char-
acter— the one having reference to what a man is reported to be, and
the other to what he is. He declared his inability to agree with those
psychologists who maintain that the individual when he emerges into
existence is like a blank page or a block of marble — a bundle of pas-
sivities and possibilities. Very much depends upon the stuff that men
are made of, and all men are not made of just the same stuff. No two
natures are ever just alike. There are some that seem to clothe them-
selves spontaneously with beauty and with strength — natures so sur-
charge(i with fire that they will break forth, even though it be
through volcanic vents — that mould their circumstances instead of be-
ing moulded by them — the architects of their own fortunes and the
arbiters of their own destiny — resolute, masterly, magnificent na-
tures.
On the other hand there are those that have no fibre in their mus-
cle, no iron in their blood, no phosphorus in their brain. You can
make nothing of them because there is nothing in them. "Out of
nothing, nothing comes."
They remind one of the man who upon one occasion preached in
the presence of the great Robert Hall. He preached on the doctrine
of predestination, and undertook to expound the calvinistic view of
it — a view which Hall himself stedfastly held, but instead of expound-
ing it he only pounded it and hammered it and hatchctted it in a fash-
ion that was most exasperating to the great theologian, but that was
mightily enjoyed by an American frientl who sat by Hall's side. Go-
ing out of the house together the American asked his friend Hall
what he thought of his favorite dogma now in the light of the lumi-
nous discourse to which they had listened. "More persuaded of its
truth than ever" growled Robert Hall, — "it is perfectly clear that
that man was predestined from all eternity to be a fool, and is giving
Illinois State Sunday School Convention. 31
all diligence to make his calling and election sure." There is such a
thing as a natural genius, and there is such a thing as a natui'al fool,
and this must be taken into account in estimating character.
Another appalling fact confronts us, announce^ by revelation and
attested by universal observation and experience. Men are born with
depraved natures — conceived in sin and shapen in iniquity. There is
a sad and solemn sense in which,
"In Adam's fall
We sinned all."
It was not a man merely that fell in Eden, but man. Originally
man had a threefold nature — body, soul and spirit — a bodily nature
that linked him to the animal creation — a soul nature that gave him
rationality and made him a candidate for immortality — and a spiritual
nature, by virtue of which he was endowed with God — consciousness,
such as made divine communion a possibility and a privilege.
God had said with reference to the forbidden fruit, "In the day
thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die" — not be condemned to die —
not doomed to die nine hundred years afterward — but in that very day
thou shalt die.
And Adam died that day. The spirit — the highest part of him
went out of him, and he became spiritually dead. Before his nature
was a three storied structure, in the lower story of which there was
the abode of the animal life — in the second, the flash of intellectual
life, while in the third the spirit dwelt, and from that as from an ob-
servatory looked out toward heaven and communed with God.
Now the spirit was gone, and that third story was a death chamber,
originally man's nature was like a balloon — the animal part being
represented by the car — the intellectual by the silken envelope, while
the spirit was the etherial something that life lifted the whole mass
upward tow^ard the skies. Sin like a sword pierced the soul and let
the spirit out, and then the whole nature collapsed and fell, and be-
came earthly and sensual and devilish.
God made man upright — but in the exercise of his free agency he
fell.
And mark, God does not create men — he made man — he made Adam,
and Adam "begat a son in his own likeness." He transmitted his own
nature to his posterity, and that nature was and is depraved — and this
part is to be considered in the estimation of human character. Now.
be it ever borne in mind that God's plan /or this world is not the pro-
motion of human happiness, directly and immediately, but the recon-
struction of character which has been so sadly shattered by the fall.
The whole philosophy of this scheme of reconstruction is develojDcd
in a single profoundly significant Bible sentence in which it is declared
that "all scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable
for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteous-
ness, that the man of God may be perfect."
In which sublime utterance, if we study it closely, we shall discover
a most beautiful order of developement, and a most sublime and glo-
rious climax.
For, notice, to bring man up and out of the darkness and ruin of his
fallen condition, the first thing that he needs is — light. There are
departments of thought and activity where man may be safely and
32 Illinois State Sunday School Convention.
wisely left to the exercise of his own unaided natural faculties. God
does not give us in the Bible a revelation of the facts and laws of
Geology, or Astronomy or Natural Philosophy. These are matters
that man may attain unto for himself, and by the struggle to attain
shall not only evolve the sciences but a nobler manhood for himself.
What man can do, man must do. But when man breaks down, God
slips in, for man's extremity is God's opportunity.
At the grave of Lazarus Christ says, '"Roll ye away the stone,"
because there were men there that could do it, and they must. But
when the women came trembling to the sepulchre, asking, " Who
shall roll us away the stone?" they looked, and lo the stone was rolled
away.
Mere earthly sciences we may cipher out ourselves, but the science
of salvation is away beyond the farthest scope of any unassisted or
even angelic powers.
Our consciences are defiled and our judgments darkened — our spirit
lamp gone out, and so when we come to life's profoundest problems —
when we begin to ask. What am I? and whence am I? and whither
am I bound? And what is my danger, my destiny, my duty, and
what must I do to be saved? all the oracles of nature are dark and
dumb. If we are to have guidance, light, doctrine^ it must come from
above, and it does for the Scripture is "profitable for doctrine.''''
But we need not merely enlightenment, for human nature is not
merely in the dark, but destitute of feeling. It needs not only to see
the pointy but \ofcel the edge., and be cut to the heart. Thefirststep
towards wisdom is the realization of one's ignorance, and the first step
towards holiness is the realization of one's sinfulness.
We know indeed that it is the Holy Spirit who has come into the
world to convince the world of sin, but while the Spirit is evermore
the agent, the Word is evermore the instrument, for bv the law is the
knowledge of sin. And into this perfect mirror looking, man sees
his infinite turpitude as in the light of God's countenance, and begins
to abhor himself and repent in dust and ashes. No doubt that fervid
rhetoric and pathetic appeals have their proper use in the puljjit, but
if we would awaken men to a repentance that needeth not to be re-
pented of, we must cease to rely upon the words which man's wisdom
teacheth, and must ply men's consciences with the word of God.
There is no sword like that. It is profitable not only for doctrine.,
but for reproof. But it is not enough that the mind be enlightened
and the conscience stirred — the heart must be corrected, and radically
renewed, and the Scripture is profitable "for correction!'''
The Spirit is indeed the agent but the Word is God's chosen instru-
ment, and so the new man is "renewed in knoivledge., after the image
of him who created him."
Sometimes the great work is represented as a birth, and then it is
said that we are "born again not of corruptible seed, but of incorrup-
tible seed by the Word of GodP Sometimes it is represented horti--
culturally., and then we are said to " receive with meekness the en-
grafted ~.vord.'''' Sometimes it is represented optically., and then it is
said that " God who commanded the light to shine out of darkness
hath shined in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the
glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ." That face beams upon us
Illinois State Sunday School Convention. 33
from the pages of Gospel history, and beholding in that as in a mirror,
" the glory of the Lord, we are changed into the same image froin
glory to glory, even as by the spirit of the Lord."
It is true indeed that we are saved by faith, but mere belief, however
sincere, never wrought regeneration in a human soul. Faith is the
soul's receptivity closing in on the truth, and that truth thus embraced
is an incorruptible seed, that abideth forever. All the precious fruits
of righteousness, that shall afterward ripen for eternity, are but the
unfoldings of the germ that was implanted when the soul first laid
hold of the truth. And thus we are brought to the beginning — thus
are laid the foundations of distinctively Christian character.
But it is not enough that foundations be laid, there must be a super-
structure reared, and for this as well as for all that went before we
must still rely on the Word of God, which is profitable not only for
correction, but "for instruction (or building up) in righteousness." We
are only too apt to imagine that the great work is finished when a soul
is once introduced into the kingdom of God's grace, when in fact it is
but just begun. If left there it will lead a starveling life, and have
only a stunted and dwarfed development. God means us to grow in
grace and in the knowledge of the truth, and for this he has made
most abundant and beneficent provision in his Word. And so as new
born babes we desire the sincere milk of the word, that we may grow
thereby, or if dropping the human figure we represent character as
material structure then the Bible is the quarry out of which come the
materials that are wrought into the walls that shall survive even the
fires of the last conflagration — the solid masonry of the Holy Ghost.
Sometimes the Christian is represented as a living epistle — and not
without significance in the light of modern art and science.
Our ordinary paper is made of rags — rags raked from the very gut-
ters— all reeking with uttermost foulness when found, and these are
bleached, and pounded into pulp, and passed between hot ponderous
cylinders, until presently there appears the snowy pages, all ready for
the impress of the type freighted with the precious thought to be
thus transmitted, away down the ages.
Even such vile rags were we, all steeped in sin's pollution. God's
grace rescued us — Christ's blood bleached us — God's pounder pounded
us — we were passed through tribulations, hard and heavy, until the
life seemed almost crushed out of us, and we were prepared to receive
the impress of his truth — stamped upon our very being — wrought into
our very lives.
Thus are the Scriptures profitable, not only for doctrine, for re-
proof, and for correction, but for instruction in righteousness— and
thus only is the man of God made '•'•perfect — thoroughly furnished
unto all good works."
They tell us that in the matter of physical development and power
of endurance the human race is deteriorating. And doubtless there is
less of rugged strength than distinguished our forefathers. If so the
reasons are not far to seek, for they may be largely found in the artific-
iality of our habits, and especially in the daintiness of our diet. It
takes strong food to make strong men. They tell us too, that spirit-
ually, a like weakness is plainly discernable — that " There were
3
34 Illinois State Sunday School Convention.
giants in those days" the like of which are no more to be found on
earth.
For ourselves we have very little patience with these pessemistic
croakers, who are evermore insisting that the former days were better
than these days; they were not better — nor half so good. But there
is danger of our being smothered in sweets — of our being embarrassed,
overpowered with the very greatness of our privileges.
"Of making many books," said Solomon, a long while ago, "there
is no end" — but what would Solomon have said in a day like ours,
when the whole world is deluged with books, and still they come.
A very large proportion of these multitudinous books are called relig-
ious— and supposed to be — and yet with only the faintest possible
homtropathic flavor of religion in them, just a little salt sprinkled
in, as a moral, to save them from the bar of the religious censor, but
the great mass of it froth and foam, chaff and straw — "leather and
prunella" — "mere sound and fury signifying nothing" — and yet this
poor pabulum, spiced, seasoned, overwrought and yet labelled "Re-
ligious," is the sort of stuff on which a large proportion of modern
Christian people arc accustomed to live, but of which it is of the
Lord's mercy if they do not die.
But even were these emanations of the press a thousand fold more
solidly edifying than they are or are ever likely to be, they are not
for a moment to be accounted of in comparison with "God's thoughts."
And here in this old book are God's thoughts. He who should know
all other books in the world beside, and be ignorant of God's book,
would be a monumental ignoramus. But he who, though ignorant
of all other books in the world beside, should have mastered God's
book, would be educated in the highest, truest, grandest sense, and
would show a type of character adapted to awake the profoundest
admiration of both earth and heaven.
Let us, fellow workers, who have committed to our custody the
destiny of young immortals, realize how grand an instrument for
moulding destiny has been put into our hands in the infinitely precious
and powerful Word of God.
The convention closed with the benediction.
Second Day — First Session.
The convention met as Districts at 8. 30 o'clock. The ist, 2d, 4th
5th and 6th, in the Presbyterian Church, and the 3d in the Congrega-
tional Church. The affairs of the districts were thoroughly consi-
dered, and the officers elected for the ensuing year. [See list of
officers on first page.] The convention proper was called to order by
President Brouse at 9.15. Mr. William Levering of Indiana led the
convention in prayer, and they united in singing "Heavenly Father
bless me now." Rev. John O. Foster of De Kalb county led in the
reading of the Scriptures, the convention joining responsively. The
selection? were John x, and Isaiah xli. The hymn "Precious Prom.
Illinois State Sunday School Convention. 35
ise" was sung. In accordance with the wishes of Dr. Worden, the
order of exercises was changed, to permit him to address the conven-
tion as he was obhged to go away in the afternoon. He was intro-
duced by President Brouse, and spoke as follows:
ADDRESS OF REV. J. A. WORDEN.
JSIr. P resident^ Brethren and Sisters : — I have enjoyed this con-
vention. I have never seen a more complete fusion of Christian
hearts than I have here. I could I'ust as w^ell pray only for the Pres-
byterian Church as I could pray for one hand or one arm without praving
for the whole body. 'Unless I have the Spirit of the Lord, He will not
hear when I call upon Him. There was an old master down in Ken-
tucky— Brother Worrell will forgive me if I speak of it — well I have
his permission any way — who owned just one half of a slave by the
name of Pompev, and he was accustomed to pray for his household,
his wife, his two children and his half of Pompey. You can imagine
how that colored person would feel to be cut right in half in that
way. I should feel somewhat as he would if I should attempt to
pray or work simply for my own church. We are really one. The
Saviour says, not ye ought to be one, or ye will be one after awhile,
but '■''ye are oneP You cannot separate between me and my brother;
vou cannot divide us. We are made one in Christ Jesus.
At the Alliance in Philadelphia last year a typical event happened,
and you have seen the like of it, I suppose, at every convention. Dr.
Arthur Mitchell, then of Cleveland, formerly of Chicago, had made
a most admirable address upon Sabbath School work. When he
closed, two things happened: First, William E.Dodge arose from
the audience, came up to the platform and said, "Brethren, I believe
in the Sabbath School, but I am afraitl it is taking the place of the
preaching service of the church, and this I greatly regret." Then
Judge Strong of the Supreme Court of the United States arose, came
forward and said : "Brethren, I am afraid the Sunday School is tak-
ing the place of parental instruction. I am afraid the fathers and
mothers are not as careful in drilling the children as they should be."
I suppose there isn't a person here but what has attended a conven-
tion when that same thing has occurred. W^e are apt to have the
edge taken off our fine Sabbath School theories, unless we carefully
guard the true relation of the Sabbath School to the home. I never
intend to talk in a Sabbath School Convention unless I explicitly
state the subordination of the Sabbath School to the church, and dis-
tinctly affirm the subordination and inferiority of Sabbath Schools
to the home. When 3-ou put the Sabbath School just where it be-
longs, it is invincible, but if you get it out of its true relation it is not
invincible.
Now, what is the reason that fathers and mothers are making the
fact that their children go to the Sabbath School an hour and a half a
week an excuse for neglecting to teach them at home? One reason
is, there is a natural disinclination on the part of fathers and mothers
to talk to their children upon the subject of religion. And they want
to overcome that. I was in the house of a gentleman lately when he
was talking to a little girl four years of age. He was going on thjs
36 Illinois State Sunday School Convention.
principle — to induce that child to talk about religion in just the same
way as she would talk ahout flowers or any other beautiful subject,
in other words, he was inducing her to talk about it, to express her-
self on that subject, at the early age of four years. I think that
father was right. No father or mother ought to fail to have intimate,
friendly talks with their children on the subject of Jesus Christ and
his mission.
Another reason is our hurried life. The father gets up early in the
morning, is away all day until late in the evening, and has no time
to become acquainted with his family. A child once called upon his
leacher to speak to him on a certain subject, and the teacher said, "Why
that is a matter about which you should speak to your father." The
child answered, "Well, the fact is I am not very well acquainted with
the old gentleman." There are a great many men who are so busy
with other affairs that they have no time to devote to their own fami-
lies. Brethren and sisters, I am not going to do that. I did that in
the ministry. I neglected my own family. I was so busy in caring
for other homes that my own was neglected. Talk about ministers'
sons and daughters — that is the trouble. Their fathers are attending
to other people and working hard outside their own homes. I am
away from home two thirds of the time now, but am in constant cor-
respondence with my family and am teaching my daughter Latin.
She sends me her lessons by mail, and when I am at home I teach
her orally in Latin. I will teach my own children — I will do that:
I consider that my first duty. I will not allow anything on earth to
crowd me out of my obligations to my own children.
Another reason is that we are making the Sabbath School a sub-
stitute for home training, and just as we turn over to the secular teacher
the education of our children, in grammar, arithmetic and geography,
so we think we can turn over the religious education of our children
to the Sabbath School ; but it can't be done. If the Sabbath School
teacher were to teach the children every day in the week and every
hour in the day, that would not relieve any father or mother of the
responsibility and the obligation to obey the command: "And these
words which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart and
thou shalt teach them diligently to tJiy children." Nobody else can
do it for us. It cannot be done by proxy.
The Sabbath School is grand; it is glorious; and the possibilities
that are opening up before it are immense. We are just starting in
this Sabbath School work, just beginning it. The next hundred
years are going to see such mightiness in the Scripture, such power
in the Word, such thorough education in the Bible as the Word of
God, as were never seen before. The Sabbath School is a grand
place. But the first of all, and the divinest of all is the child's home.
God made it, God keeps it — thanks be to His name — the divinest of
God's institutions is the home.
Why, I was not older than that child in his father's arms when my
mother died, and she made me what I am; a Christian, I hope, and a
Christian minister. Although she died when I was seven and a half
years old she turned my face towards Christ and "towards the minis-
try. I don't believe it is every mother who can do that. I don't say
that every mother has a right to call her child a minister, but I be-
Illinois State Sunday School Convention. 37
lieve He put it into my mothei"'s heart to turn my face to the minis-
try and to call me to preach. And I would like to know whether
there is any better way to call a minister than that?
She being dead yet speaketh. Wherever I speak, that is my
mother speaking. I would like to know how that mother could ever
have done grander work in life than to do just what she did? I
would rather do what she called me todothan to be the most brilliant
orator that ever stood on the platform.
I tell you the hand that rocks the cradle' is the hand that moves the
world. One good mother is more to any boy or girl than fifty Sab-
bath School teachers, the best that ever lived. There is no such
treasure on earth as the mother's voice when the little boy or girl is
going to bed and they make their confession of the sins of the day,
and the still, sweet, small voice of that mother comes do\vn into that
soul and moulds it forever. Oh, mothers, if I were you, I should be
jealous of anybody coming between me and my boy before God. I
should want to be his minister, his priest, and teacher first of all. They
should not rob me of any of the joy, up there. When I stand there
I would want to be able to say "Lord, here am I, and the children
that thou hast given me."
The strongest hold upon human hearts is the influence of home;
the mightiest to hold up a young man with a strong physical nature,
going out and meeting temptation, and the mightiest to lift him up
when he is down, will be the old home and the old love, and the old
sweet voices.
I dreamed that I was by the grace of God permitted to stand on
the sea of glass mingled with fire. And while there, I thought at
one time, I would like to go down to visit the old world, that I would
like to go to Europe and Egypt and all of the places of interest there.
And I was sent down with an attendant, and I said, "I want to see
the Pyramids, those mighty monuments that have looked down for
sixt}' centuries on the land of the Nile. "Why," he says, "they are all
gone, all burned up, there isn't a stone left." Then I wanted to see
Babylon, and I wanted to see the mighty Empire of Rome, and he
told me that they were all gone. Then I wanted to see the modern
battle-fields of my own time, where the map of Europe was changed
in a single year, and was told that they were all burned. I was told
that the wealth of the world was gone; oratory, poesy, philosophy,
all were gone. Then I saw that the Paradise of Glory led only to
the grave and ashes.
I came back to Heaven, and I saw one seated on a Throne, and I
said, "who is this? "I didn't know that anybody sat on such a Throne.
And I was told that, that one, on earth, was a faithful Christian
mother. She was delicate in body; she had a large family; she had
an humble home, and she had a hard time; but she taught her chil-
dren the best she could about the Bible, she told them the Old Old
Story and she led them to Jesus. She did the best she could, she
thought she was not doing very much, she said "Oh, how little I have
done for Him, who did everything for me." That was on this side,
but on the other, look! They had heard of that woman up there;
they were longing, up there, for her; they had heard of her patience,
of her sufferings, her sorrow and her faithfulness. And when the
38 Illinois State Sunday School Convention.
message came that she was coming, they all gathered around the
Throne, and oh, such a welcome as they gave her, as they greeted
her in the everlasting hahitations. And the Savior came down from
his Throne and crowned her with the Crown, with the crown of a
loving, faithful Christian suffering mother, the highest crown of all,
and he said "Daughter, thou hast been faithful over a very few things,
1 will make thee a ruler over ten cities. Sister, these are the crowns
that you shall wear up yonder. There are last, here, that are going
to be first up there, and there are first here, that are going to be last
up there — in the "sweet by-and-by ! "
At the conclusion of the address the Carman family sang a song.
Miss Lucy J. Rider was introduced by the President and delivered
an address on the "Proposed Fall Institute," as follows:
THE FALL INSTITUTE.
ADDRESS OF MISS LUCY J- RIDKR.
I have a subject which pleases me greatly. One of the reasons why
I am so much pleased with it is because it is a subject which has never
before been presented to any convention. But the most that I shall
try to do this morning in the fifteen or twenty minutes I have to
speak, will be to answer the questions which will naturally arise in
your minds when you read on your programmes the subject of my
talk, — " The Fall Institute." Vou will inquire, first of all, what is
it? and I reply, that it is, or, is to be, with your approval and assist-
ance, a school. Those that have seen the report of the Executive
Committee will know something about it— a school lasting from four
to six weeks, for the instruction in various branches of the Sunday
vSchool workers, of the State of Illinois. It has to do, as you see, with
normal work.
We heard last niglit, and no one will more heartily agree with the
speaker than myself of the very much greater importance of life, than
organization — of the soul, than the body. IJut yet, while we are in
this state of existence, I beg to call your attention to the fact that we
have bodies, and that so far as popular belief goes, at least, we have no
wav of getting at the outside world or at each other, but through
the body. The soul is the man, the body is but his instrument, but
beneath the stars at least, an indispensable instrument. Without it
the soul is voiceless, powerless. Can we, then, afford to neglect those
tilings which pertain to the well-being of the bod}? So in Sunday
vSchool work, organization without life is nothing; but life produces
oro-anization — life works by means of organization. The spirit within
us reaches out to the world — reaches other souls through forms — by
means of methods.
While we are here on the earth, we stand as those whom the Lord
has placed between the seed, which is the word of God and the soil,
the minds of those whom we are to instruct. We are the instruments;
we must do the work. We are responsible before God for the way
in which we do this work, and we are responsible for the opportuni-
ties we make, and take, for doing the work in the best possible way.
Illinois State Sunday School Convention. 39
You ask me why talk of this plan now? why spring upon the con-
vention and the association, which, judging by the remarks of yester-
day, seems to be pretty well satisfied with its present condition and
its past work — why jDresent to this convention this plan which in-
volves so many complicated questions and so much hard work? The
one answer, and the sufficient answer, if it be true, is, the State is
ready for an advance movement. There are times when not to do
is the greatest criminalit}^ which one can commit. If a great army is
ready for an advance, and the commander does not give the word, no
one can estimate the disaster which may follow. We are one division
of the Lord's great army; and it had seemed to many of us, perhaps to
all who have been in those parts of the State where the work is w^ell
advanced — it has seemed to us that the State-is ready for this advance
movement, this great step, this new departure. So we bring this
plan before you this morning, and ask for your support, your sym-
pathy, your interest and your prayers; and we leave it with you to
act upon. .
One reason why we judge the State to be ready for this advance
work, is, that we are gradually coming to a knowledge of our ignor-
ance. It has been said many times, and it is very true, that a knowl-
edge of deficiency is the first step toward a supply. We feel our
ignorance, and we congratulate ourselves that we do. We take it, as
a sign of coming light.
The need of normal classes and of teachers' meetings is never de-
nied in word, and while we have sadly learned that there is sometimes
a difference between a cordial response in word and in action, the fact
that even in theory the whole State is crying out for more and better
normal work, gives weight to what we say. Then the avidity with
which Institute work is sought for in our conventions should teach us
the signs of the times. And, last of all, may I dare to mention in
this presence and this convention the uneasiness which is felt in some
sections of the country over the present condition of convention work
in some counties. I have more than once recognized the feeling that
if conventions are allowed to be the end, and are not made the stepj^ing
stone to something else, they are not sufficient. We need them, of
course; we realize the need of them, and we work for them, but we
do not want to make them an end. We want them still, but we want
something more — something higher.
Now, in response to this readiness which we think we have rec-
ognized in the State, we have conceived this plan for a school in the
City of Chicago sometime next fall. I have made an effort to ma-
terialize the idea, and Avill briefly present it to you. (Miss Rider now
referred to the black-board upon which was outlined the following) :
f f Genuineness.
O -;
Structure of the Book.
Contents of the Book.
Evidences of Christianity.
Inspiration.
Preservation.
Interpretation, etc., etc.
Church Histor3'. \ Art of Study.
Sunday School History.
Hebrew and Greek, (optional.)
Practical Methods.
<5 l_ (^ Home Help, etc., etc.
There are some things here which surely must commend them*
Planning the Lesson.
Questions.
Illustrations.
40 Illinois State Sunday School Convention.
selves to all. l?ut let me emphasize the fact that the outline is only
suggestive. It must be very imperfect. One reason why we pre-
sent it, is that you may help us about it, and I want to ask you, as one
who has the matter greatly at heart, that if any one of you has a great
thought or even a little thought in regard to it, won't you share your
thought with me, either here in the convention, or by letter after we
leave the convention.
In the first place, we have a course of lessons or lectures on the
Structure of the Book, and on the contents of the Book. We hope
to secure from our pulpits, for one or two hours during every day of
the session of the school, the most earnest and patient study of the
book that we can possibly command, under the very best leaders that
we can get. And let me say right here that we think \vc shall have
no difficulty in securing for the Institute the best instruction that the
country can afford, almost witliout expense. Judging by the exceed-
ingly gratifying response which has been made to our other requests
for assistance in normal work, we shall have the hearty co-operation
and assistance of the best men of Chicago, and we hope also to bring
to our aid some from outside. We hope they will give us their serv-
ices simply by paying their traveling expenses — at least the first year.
Then next. Evidences of Christianity. How few persons there are
who know the real strength of the Evidences of our Christianity that
are so strong and convincing as they are — fairly compelling into an
intellectual belief, iY honestly studied, whether the heart yields or not.
And how much this is needed for the equipment of teachers of young
people at the present time!
Then Church History. We know vaguely that the church has a
history, but how much do we know of that history? We train our
young collegians carefully in the exploits of mythological and im-
possible heroes — what do they know of the glorious words and deeds
of the church fathers? Christendom knows more to-day about the
history of the United States, or of England or of Rome, than it does
about the history of the Church of God. And if this is true about
Church History, how much more is it true about Sunday School
History? Mr. Dunning, from whom we are soon to hear, told me, a
little while ago, that a great part of the success which attended the
Christian church of the first six centuries resulted from the tact that
there was so much activity in Svniday .School work in those early
ages. They didn't call them Sunday Schools then, of course not.
They didn't speak English in those days; but they had the thing.
Is that a piece of news to you? It was to me. I want some means
by which the Sunday School teachers in the State of Illinois can get
at vSunday vSchool history.
Next are Practical Methods. We must have a method of study.
We do not know very much about studying the Bible. We do not
study it as we used to study the old multiplication table. We do not
know very much about that concentration of mind which is necessary,
in order to get at the thought of God as given to us in His word.
The Art of Study — Put it in that or in some way that will remind us
that some training is necessary to teach us how to study the word.
Now I have given you thus briefly this outline of our plan, and I
ask you to remember what I said at first, that it is merely suggestive
Illinois State Sunday School Convention. 41
and very imperfect. We present it to you and ask for your assistance,
as we must depend upon your support for this new movement in this
State.
Suffer a word of warning. There is one thing which will kill this
plan in the bud — Neglect. If we all go home and simply neglect it —
neglect to talk about it — neglect to find out who, from our Sunday
School, ought to go and will go — neglect to pray for it, and praying
to work for it — the whole thing will die. We cannot hold our Insti-
tute if you send us no pupils. And another deadly danger is Dis-
couragement. Such a strange thing that the Lord's people, yoked
together with Christ in service, should ever be discouraged! It isn't
as if we had to fight the battle. The Almighty fights for us, and the
impossible is child's play with Him. The Assyrians were terrible
discouragements to the besieged Israelites once in the old times, but
the Lord looked upon their host, and they "melted like snow!" And
so will our discouragements vanish if the Lord of Hosts once look
upon them. Listen for the Commander's voice, dear fellow-soldiers,
and if He says advance, let us go forward in the name of the Lord.
Rev. J. R. Mason addressed the convention on the subject of
*'County Conventions," as follows:
COUNTY CONVENTIONS.
ADDRESS OF MR. J. R. MASOX. ,
Mr. President., and my Friends : — I feel very much out of place
We have been on the top of the mountain, we have been having
grand times. We have had a trip to Heaven this morning and a ride
with an angel back to the world after it was all burnt up. I feel out
of place and would rather sit down where I was, and have these
brethren go on with this kind of talk,
I am very glad that the committee gave me the topic they did. It
is not a new one! I will venture to say that this question has been dis-
cussed in more than 100 counties in Illinois this year. Well, be that
as it may, you notice the topic — the coming Campaign. After we
have been told, by parties from abroad, how nicely we are organized and
what a brilliant light we are, with all these stars, we have naturally
got the idea that we are all right; and do not need any more cam-
paign; that everything is working perfectly. But my dear brethren,
during the past year, I have been over the State of Illinois very much,
and have visited different counties, over forty counties, and spoken in
eleven county conventions, and I have found out some of our deficien-
cies or faults, and I am very sorry to say that this morning I am going
to tell you your faults, consequently you wont like my talk at all. I
wish, if possible, to give some idea of what we ought to do in this
coming Campaign, that we may come up to the flag as a regiment.
As to the convention, what is it? Webster says, it is a coming to-
gether. I have attended some County Conventions which I do not
think would be strictly defined by the words "a coming together." I
remember distinctly of going to a district where there was an appoint-
ment for a County Convention. I had taken a very early train for
42 Illinois State Sunday School Convkntion.
the sake of hcinp^ there to fill my place on the pro<^iainme. I got ofl"
the train and met three or four men and inquired of them where the
County Convention was to he held, and they hadn't heard of such a
thing. I walked on and asked the same (juestion of others with the
same answer. Finally I changed my tactics and inquired where there
was a minister, and went to the minister's house and asked him where
the convention was to he held; hut he too said he didn't know there
was to be one. I started out in company with the minister, walked
down the street and pretty soon we met a coujde of gentlemen who
appeared to be teachers. They were there to attend the Countv Con-
vention, too. They didn't know where the convention was to be. But
we went to the church, opened it and commenced the County Con-
vention. I think there were not over five or six that were got to-
gether, at this first session of the County Convention. In the even-
ing, the minister having announced it to the people, they turned out,
and perhaps we had 75 at the evening session of that convention. But
numbers do not always do the best; that county to-day is a banner
county and the good work started from that very County Conven-
tion.
Who should go to the County Convention? Every Christian
worker in the county. The next question is, how shall we get them
there? I think we fail in advertising, and telling the people that
there is to l)e a County Convention. The programme should be ar-
ranged at least four weeks previous to the convention and sent to ev-
ery house in the county, especially to every house in the place where
the convention is to be held, to let the people know that there is to
be a convention; and if you can't give that information to them in
any other way, go yourself, deliver the message, and get them there.
Well, when they get there, who are the officers? We all know
these — with the exception of one that I am going to add, — the Super-
intendent, President, Vice-President, Secretary, Chairman of the Ex-
ecutive Committee and the County Superintendent. Now let us first
consider whom shall we elect as the president. I have noticed this;
that when one man is continued in the office year after year it dies.
Where one denomination has it year after year it soon becomes Meth-
odist, Presbyterian or Baptist. Change your president every year, and
pass it from one denomination to another selecting every time the very
best man for the place. A man — and we have them in all our counties
and in every district — whose heart is pure, and whose earnestness is
shown every day by his labor. It wont do to have a man who is unsound
at heart, taking charge of the county work. He must be one who is
sound in every particular. For instance, I once heard of a Catholic
priest who went into his pulpit one day to criticise the soundness of
other denominations; and he took with him a walnut and held it before
his congregation, saying, "The shell of this walnut is tasteless and use-
less. It represents Mr. Calvin's church. The skin of this walnut is
bitter and of no earthly use; this represents the Lutheran church.
Now my friends — " and he took out a hammer and cracked the nut —
"I will proceed to show you the Catholic Chinch." But lo and l)e-
hold, when he came to open that nut what was inside of it? Nothing
but a dried up, decilyed meat. Now I tell you we don't want such
a man as that for Countv President. We want a man whose charac-
Illinois State Sunday School Convention. 43
ter is all right, so that nobody can say to him, "You are unsound
yourself."
We sometimes have made great mistakes in regard to our county
secretaries. Get the right man and when you have got him, make no
change, but keep him right along. It takes at least three years to
learn the trade. Even Brother Jacobs here, couldn't make a good
secretary short of three years experience, and I would suggest that
he be instructed and required to attend every State convention, so that
when we come to the State convention all the secretaries will be on
hand. And I think that the president ought to come just as well as
the secretary. Now, then, when we get the secretaries in place, and
get them trained, retain them for all time, as long as they live. Let
it be a life job. And then we ought to pay these secretaries. I don't
believe in asking a person to do all this work for nothing, to write all
these letters and pay all this postage out of their own pockets. I
would suggest that the salary of the county secretary be one hundred
dollars; of the county superintendent at $300; postage and stationery
$30; printing $30; secretary's expenses to the State convention $20;
expenses in traveling to hold township conventions $50; district as-
sessment $10; State assessment $50; international assessment at least
$10. This paying our officers and workers is something we ought
to do.
A gentlemen traveling in a certain part of the countr}- asked how
much it would cost to raise a child in that neighborhood and was told
about $50, and he inquired how much the education of the child would
cost, and that was $10, and how much would it cost to send the child
to Sabbath School and they said about fifty cents. Then he put it in
this way. The body is worth $50; the mind $10 and the soul 50
cents. That is about the way we are doing business in tlie Sunday
School work; We have got all these organizations but we do not ac-
complish all that we should. Let us get ready for this work and do
it. We had better leave our children heirs of glory than heirs of
farms. Tlierefore we want consecration of our money and of our-
selves. Then we have got to have the right kind of man for superin-
tendent. I have put into this estimate $300 for such superintendent
who would visit from house to house through the entire county, and
what would be the result of such visitation?
When shall we hold this convention? My idea is that it should be
like a great bonfire; every one of us to be torches; and we put them
all together and get a blaze and be filled with the spirit of work and
of God.
We ought to go home and hold them just as soon as possible, hold
our county conventions, every one of us; and let the county conven-
tion spread out this fire over the entire county in the shape of town-
ship conventions. Then we will be ready in the fall for the Institute
which our sister told us about this morning.
Mr. B. F. Jacobs, Treasurer, submitted his report, at the conclusion
of which a collection was taken which is included in the followingf:
44
Illinois State Sunday School Convention.
TREASURER'S REPORT.
/>. F. Jacobs, Treasurer, tit account -with Illinois Stale S. S. Association.
iSSi.
May 4. Balance acc't, iSSo-Si .? 917
Received from JelVersoii County, acc't 1S80-81 10 00
" " McDonough "" " " 25 00
" " Marion " " " 2 50
" " Massac " " " 10 00
Total from " "
Receised from J. R. Mason, personal 15 00
" " Carman family, " 1000
Received from Boor.e County ... 15 fJO
" " Du Page " 2500
" " Kane " 2 15 cx) |
" " D.C.Scofield loboo^" '-S 00
" " Cook " 30000
" " Kendall " 3000
" " Lake " 5500
" " Lee " 2500
" " McIIenry *' 30 ck)
" " Ogle " 2500
" " Stephenson " 1500
" " Whiteside " 2500
" " Winnebago " 100 00
" " Grundy " 1000
" Will " 4 2Q
Total, ist District
Received from Bureau County 25 cxj
" " Fulton '' 25 00
" " Hancock " 30 00
" " Henry " 35 '»
" " Knox " 2500
" " La Salle " 5000
" " Marshall " 1750
" •" Mercer " 25 00
" " Peoria " 50 00
" " Putnam " 1 5 00
" " Rock Island " 2500
" " Warren " 25 00
•' " Woodford " 25 00
" " Tazewell " 25 00
Total, 2d District
Recei\ed from Champaign County 25 00
" " Cumberland " 610
" " DeWitt " 1500
" " Douglas " 2000
" " Edgar " 2000
" " Ford " 20 77
" " Irocjois " 2000
*' " Kankakee " 45 00
" " Livingston " 2000
" " McLean " 5000
" " Moultrie «' 1000
" " Piatt " 2500
" " Vermillion " 2500
" t " Macon " ., 2500
Total. 3d Distaict
S 56 67
25 00
84 20
397 50
326 87
1.590 24
Illinois State Sunday School Convention.
Received from Adams County.
" " Brown "
'• " Case " .
" " Christian "
" " Green "
" " Mason "
" " Menard "
" " Montgomery" .
" " Morgan "
" " Pike " .
" " Sangamon "
" " Schuyler " .
" Scott " ,
" " Jersey " .
Total, 4th District.
Received from Clay County,
" '• Crawford " .
" " Edwards "
" " Effingham "
" • " Fayette " .
" " Gallatin "
" " Hamilton " .
" " Jasper "
" " Lawrence "
" " Marion "
" " Pope "
" " Saline "
" " Wabash " .
" " Wavne "
White " .
" '' Hardin "
" " Richland " .
Total, 5th District.
Rec^eived from Alexander County.
' " Bond
" Clinton "
" Franklin "
" Jackson "
" "Madison "
♦' Massac "
Perry "
" Pulaski "
" Randolph "
St Clair
" Union "
" Washington "
" Williamson "
Total, 6th District
Collection at Champaign
4TION.
45
$1,590
M
20 00
25 CO
15 00
25 00
35 00
15 00
10 00
6 00
25 00
25 00
-5 00
32 50
5 00
4 05
267
55
12 00
20 00
20 00
10 00
16 GO
50 00
20 CO
10 00
20 00
-5 00
15 00
13 ^7
20 00
20 00
40 00
10 00
10 00
331
-7
15 00
20 00
20 00
10 00
15 00
50 00
10 00
12 00
10 00
3 00
15 50
13 50
10 00
5 00
209
00
SS
CO
Total Receipts 2,486 06
46 Illinois State Sunday School Convention.
Cr.
Paid Expenses of Centralia Convention —
" Carman Family
" C. C. Case
■' G. C. Needham
" Miss L. J. Rider
" Expenses of A. A. Kendrick, D. D
" " M. M. Parkhurst, D. D
" Cleaning M. E. Church
" Painting Paxon Motto
" Rihhon and badges
" Telegrams at Convention
Total
Paid A. B. & L. State blanks
Jas. Guilbert, Printing
Gallo]> Bros., "
Electric Pen Circulars
R. R. Certificates
Stationery, Jones A: Co
Discount and Interest
Express and duty on State Map, returned from London,
Freight on International Reports
Express on " " sent to Counties
Telegrams
Postage
Short-hand writer
Labor
International Convention
Balance of printing and express charges on 24th Report,
Expenses of Statistical Scc'y. Printing, Postage, Travel-
ing, etc
Salary. C. M. Fames, Sec'v
L. J. "Rider, acc't State Work
W. B. Jacobs,
C. M. Morton,."
M. C. Hazard, "
Total Expenditures..
Balance new account.
.§50 00
35 00
25 00
30 00
2 00
ID 00
10 GO
5 f »
2 50
I 60
171 10
7895
97 50
4 50
21 75
2 00
13 15
I 90
10 32
2 75
17 44
14 45
61 60
104 40
10 00
300 00
48 56
106 00
300 00
IOCS 85
34 55
25 00
25 00
2,285 67
2,4.56 77
29 29
$2,481 86
On motion, Albert Wade, Rev. E. P. Livingston and Van
Camp, v\'ere appointed a committee to examine the Treasurer's
account. They reported at a subsequent meeting that the same was
found to be correct and their signatures are aiuiexed thereto.
On motion, the convention adj'ourned.
Second Day — Second Session.
The convention on Wechiesday afternoon was divided into two sec-
tions; the main section filling every part of the Presbyterian Church.
The second section for the consideration of the Primary class work,
It,HNOis State Sunday School Convention. 47
was held in the Congregational church, and was addressed by Mr.
W. B. Jacobs and Miss Lucy J. Rider. The regular session in the
Presbyterian church met at 2 o'clock, Pres't Brouse in the chair. The
convention united in singing the hymn "Let the lower lights be burn-
ing." Pres't Brouse read the xlvi. Psalm. The Rev, C. M. Wilder
lead in prayer. The hymn "Beautiful words of Life," was then sung.
B, F. Jacobs^ chairman executive committee, brought before the
convention the work for the ensuing year, with an appeal for an in-
crease in the amount pledged by the counties to enable the" committee
to prosecute the work with greater energy. The responses were as
follows:
FIRST DISTKICT.
Cook County , $300 00
De Kalb " -1500
Du Page " 25 00
Kane " 10000
Kendall " 30 00
Lake " 50 00
Lee " 25 00
McHenry " 30 00
Ogle " 25 00
Stephenson " 25 00
Will " 25 00
Winnebago " 40 00
SECOND DISTRICT.
Bureau County 25 00
Fulton " 25 00
Hancock " 25 00
Henry " 35 00
Knox " 25 00
La Salle " 50 00
Marshall " 20 00
Peoria " 50 00
Putnam " 1500
Rock Island " 25 00
Tazewell " 25 00
Warren " 25 00
Woodford " 25 00
The third district reported through its president, C. M. Taylor, that they had
decided in district convention to pledge $500 from the third district. The state-
ment was received with applause, it being understood that every county in the
district was pledged.
THIRD DISTRICT, $500.
FOURTH DISTRICT.
Adams County 21; 00
Brown " 25 oo
Cass " . 1500
Christian " 25 00
Greene " 21; 00
Mason " ■. IS 00
Menard " 15 00
Montgomery" i ^ 00
Morgan " 25 00
Pike " 25 00
Sangamon " 2 1; 00
Schuyler " , . , , , 25 op
48
Illinois State Sunday School Convention.
FIFTH DISTRICT.
Clay County $ 15 00
Crawford " 20 00
P2d wards " 20 00
Eiringham '' 15 00
Favette " 25 00
Gallatin " 50 00
I lamilton " 20 00
Marion " 20 00
Saline " 1500
Wabash *' 20 00
Wayne " 20 00
White " 50 00
SIXTH DISTRICT.
Alexander County 1 5 00
Bond " 20 00
Clinton " 2000
Jackson " 10 00
Jefferson " 10 00
Madison " 60 00
Massac " 1000
Perry " 15 00
Pulaski " 10 00
St. Clair " 20 00
Union " 1000
Washington " 10 00
It was decided that the executive committee should assess the un-
pledged counties for their fair proportion of the work. The assess-
ment is as follows:
FIRST DISTRICT.
Boone County.. $15 00
Carroll " 1 5 00
Jo Dav less " 20 00
Whiteside " 2^00
(jrundy " '5 00
SECOND DISTRICT.
I lenderson County 1 .S 00
Mercer " 25 00
McDonough " 25 00
Stark " 15 00
FOURTH DISTRICT.
Calhoun County 15 00
Jersey " 1 5 00
Morgan County $15 00
Macoupin " 1 5 00
Scott " 1 5 00
FIFTH DISTRICT.
Hardin County 1 5 00
Jasper " 15 00
Lawrence " 15 00
Pope " 15 00
Richland " 1500
SIXTH DISTRICT.
Franklin County 10 00
Johnson " 1000
Monroe " 1000
Randolph " 1500
Williamson " 1000
Illinois State Sunday School Convention. 49
After a song of praise, the convention ■was addressed by William
Reynolds of Peoria, who delivered an address on the International
Sunday School Work.
THE INTERNATIONAL SUNDAY SCHOOL WORK.
ADDRESS BY WILLIAAI REYNOLDS.
In the few words which I spoke yesterday afternoon in regard to
the International Convention held last June in the City of Toronto,
there was one particular feature, and the most important part of the
convention, which I said nothing about; and that was the onward
progressive step which we took at that convention. A large number
of the delegates met in the City of Chicago as a stopping point, and
had two cars assigned to them by the Michigan Central road, which
were under their exclusive control from Chicago to Toronto. One of
these cars we set apart as a place of conference, and we met there for
praise, for prayer, and for conferring together in regard to the inter-
est of Evangelism in general; and in particular, in regard to the In-
ternational Convention. Among other things that we felt was needed
in this country, was a more thorough organization for the extension
of Sunday School work in our territories, in the South, and in all
the destitute portions of the land. The international conventions
heretofore have been grand and glorious. They have been an inspi-
ration to this entire land. We met together in them, from all parts
of the country, and we went home with hearts warmed toward God,
and a desire to do more in His service. There were delegates from
every State where there was an organization, but there Avas no organ-
ized effort to further the work, to advance it in sections of the country
where there Avere no organizations. So we felt it was necessary for
something of this kind to be brought before the convention.
In the organization of that international convention the chairman-
ship of the nominating committee was given to Illinois. We took
the whole in hand and organized the convention b}'' a representative
from each one of the States that was upon the floor. We not only
had the organization of the convention proper, but we organized it
for work during three years. At the other meetings there has been a
special committee appointed for the purpose of nominating an execu-
tive committee. We proposed to nominate this executive committee
also, and we did it, and we put upon that executive committee as
chairman, Mr. B. F.Jacobs,, of Illinois. We felt warranted in doing
it, because he was more thoroughly acquainted with the Illinois sys-
tem of oiganization than any other man, and he had prosecuted it in
this State so successfully, that we felt that it was the system that
should be adopted by the International Convention; and, moreover,
that he was the best man in the field for that position.
Now, the result of it is that the whole of the United States has
been districted. There i« the district of the South, the district of the
East, the district of the West, and the district of the North; just as
our State is districted. This Illinois system of organization is the
most complete system of religious organization that I- know of on
earth. There is not a political party in existence that is more
4
50 Illinois State Sunday School Convention.
thoroug'hly organized than these Sabbath School conventions are
organized. You know we now reach into every county in this
State, and into every township tlirough the township conventions;
and when this system is carried out according to its plan, there will
not be a Sunday School in the State of Illinois unknown to the ex-
ecutive officers of this association.
Several conventions have been held in the Southern States during
this last winter, and I was privileged to attend two of them — one in
Tennessee, and the other in Alabama. They never had a State
organization in Tennessee but they had it divided up into middle,
eastern and western Tennessee. We met representatives at the City
of Nashville, and there showed them our system of State organiza-
tion, and they adopted it. I believe they have held their State Con-
vention.
We then went to Alabama, and there met brethren from the difier-
ent portions of that State. I never attended a convention that gave
me more satisfaction than that one. We met there representative
men, not onl}' representative Sunday School men, not only repre-
sentative religious men, but many of the representative business men
and politicians in the State. I found that the Sunday School work
had taken a deep hold U2Don these people, and all that they wanted to
know was how to do it. This map (the International Sunday School
map) was displayed there. I tell you, my friends, that map has been
in many places. It has been to London. Lord Shaftesbury and
many other of the great dignataries, as well as all classes of Sunday
School people in the kingdom of Great Britain, have looked upon
that map. It has been a silent but most powerful agency for good.
It was a wdnderful thing in that Alabama Convention, as it hung
there, and as I explained what those stars meant, and what all those
little dots meant, I was glad to see the spirit that was evinced on that
occasion. Men from Alabama, and from other States, wanted to
know what could be done. One gentleman said to me, " Mr. Rey-
nolds, sir, I want to know how that work is done? How much
money did it cost to do it in the State of Illinois?" And that gentle-
man was one of the leading business men in the State. I said to him,
" Sir, I can't tell you how much money it cost, but I can tell you that
it took individual effort, and it took some of the brain, and nerve, and
work, and energy of the business men of the State of Illinois to ac-
complish it." Another gentleman arose and said, " Do I understand
you to say, sir, that business men left their business and did that
work?" "Yes," says I, "I want you to understand just that fact,
the business men of the vState have done it. They have personally
looked after the honor and glory of the Lord Jesus Christ in that
State. There are business men in the State of Illinois who believe
that they have been bought with a price, that they are not their own,
that they belong to another; and they have devoted time and energy
to that organization, and have answered the call to go forth and pub-
lish the gospel to all portions of the State. They have taken up this
work and carried it forward." A number of these gentlemen gathered
together at the close of the session and pledged themselves to do the
same work. . Business men — men of influence in the State, said,
^ We will do this same thing. We will make such a map for Ala-
Remember that not only is the eye of God upon you, but that the
eye of your country is upon you ; and that you have been in the hands
of God a means of doing a mighty work for Him just in this influ-
ence which has been thrown out by your labor.
Just look at the field we have got. Not only this whole Southern
country which is stretching out its arms to us, saying, " Come over
and help us," but our vast Western territories.
I never received a more hearty invitation, and never was more
kindly treated in every respect than by these Southern men; although
when I stood upon the platform I said, " My friends, I want to come
honestly before you now. I am a Northern man, was brought up in
a Northern State, There may be something said probably that I
should not say, and we may just as well come to an understanding at
once. I am one of the blackest abolitionists you ever saw in your
life. I come from an old abolitionist line. I was brought up to be-
lieve that slavery was a crime and a curse. When the war came on
we did our level best to whip you. I give you credit now, gentle-
men, for believing just the same thing of us. You believed you were
in God's cause, and you did the very best you could to thrash us; but
the result was that we were a little too strong for you, and we whip-
ped you." One brother arose and said, " We did the very best we
could to thrash the North, but we didn't do it. We acknowledge we
were whipped, but we are not going to bring up anything of that
kind against you. You did your best, and we did our best, and you
were successful, and we acknowledge it." So the whole thing was
settled then, we didn't have any trouble about it afterwards. They
brought up illustrations from scenes in the Southern army, and we
brought many illustrations from scenes in the Northern army. There
was the very best feeling between us. When men go down there
from the North for the purpose of doing them good, they will re-
ceive them as heartily and willingly, and listen to them and receive
instructions from them as eagerly as any class of people I ever knew.
Now let us turn our attention to the West. Do you realize, my
friends, that there are from one to two thousand foreigners landing
upon this continent every day ? Do you realize that from one to two
millions of foreigners will arrive upon the shores of America this
present year? They come from all lands and all nations; they are
swarming out into this Western country and occupying it; they are
bringing with them their own institutions with their old prejudices
and customs, and unless we do something with them they will be
doing something with us before very long. They have come here.
We are responsible to God for the education of these people, and we
must have a Sunday School in every school district of that Western
country. It can be done by the International Association, and they
intend to do it. They intend to work in these Western territories.
Through that organization we will say to these foreigners, " God
Illinois State Sunday School Convention.
Ip you, and we will try to help you! We must help one another."
;t us do what we can, my friends, in this great work which God
s given us, in the Southern States and Western territories. We
Hit to spread out these borders. And we not only want to increase
2 schools, but to make them more efficient. We want to conduct
2m to a higher plane. We want not only more teachers, but bet-
• teachers. This is what the International Association purposes to
, and it purposes to do it by organizing associations throughout
?se territories.
I am proud of the State of Illinois. I was traveling some time
0 on the cars, when two gentlemen in front of me were discussing
to which was the greater State — New York or Pennsylvania. I
tened to them awhile, and then thought I could settle the dispute
r them. Says I, "Gentlemen, excuse my interruption, but I just
mt to call your attention to the greatest State there is in this
nion." One of them turned around and said " What State is that?"
d I said "the State of Ilhnois." " What claim have you, sir, that
is the greatest State in the Union?" "Well, sir, in the first place,
caking of the products, we raise more wheat than any other State
the Union, and we raise more hogs than any other State in the
nion. And then, sir, we have given you the best president you
er had — Abraham Lincoln." (Applause.) " We gave you the
eatest general in the Union — U. S. Grant." (Applause.) " We
ve produced, sir, the greatest orator there is in this Union-
'e have produced, sir, the greatest Evangelist — D. L.
oody. We have got the greatest Sunday School Associ-
ion in this country. We have the greatest grain market there
in the Union, the greatest pork packing establishments,
d the greatest lumber market." One of them said " Hold
, stranger, we give it up." (Applause.) I am not through — I
:is going to add we can produce the best Sunday School men there
e in the Union, and when they want any of them they come out
Illinois. Here is Dr. Vincent, a representative — an Illinois pro-
ction.
Now this is brag, isn't it? But I tell you it is all true. I didn't
rend to say it; God knows we have got enough to do yet. There
an immense work before us in our own State, but at the same
ne we must take courage and go forward in the international work,
e want to organize these States throughout the whole length and
eadth of these lands; we want to commence before the population
ts there.
1 was out in Kansas last fall and met a great many of the best Sun-
y School workers there. I was introduced to one of them as from
joria. "Peoria!" says he, " that's the town where there is so much
lisky made," "Yes, they make more whisky there than any other
ace in the Union. They have got the largest distillery of any
ace in the world?" "All true, and we are sorry for it," I said, "but
ere is something else in Peoria. We have got more Sunday Schools
the square foot in Peoria than any other city in the State of
inois."
Now the people in Kansas, Dakota and the Western territories,
d in the Southern States, arc reaching out to us, and we must help i
Illinois State Sunday School Convention. 53
and encourage them in this great work. I've only mentioned some
of the demands made upon us. I might stand here and speak very
much longer were it necessary, but I am only giving you an outline.
We must prosecute this work until the whole field is covered from
Canada to Texas, and from the Atlantic to the Pacific.
At the conclusion of Mr. Reynold's address, the President intro-
duced Rev. A. E. Dunning, of the Congregational Sunday School
vSociety, who addressed the convention on
HOW TO TEACH THE KING'S BOOK.
BY REV. E. A. DUNNING.
M7\ Preside?it, brethren and friends: — When the glories of
Illinois were being recounted, I felt a little hesitation as an out-
sider, in appearing before you, but I was comforted by the
thought that there is one thing that the State of Illinois does
not bound. The motive that brought these men and women here to-
day is not limited to the State of Illinois; no rivers confine it, no
mountains are barriers to hold it. The love of the Book is larger
than this State, and larger than this land ; and when I speak of that
Book, we are in one Kingdom, and the children of one Father, and
we have one Brother, and we want to do His work with all our heart
and soul as one man, and that we are doing. The mightiest forces
that shape the character of society are in the King's Book. No one
in this assembly doubts that. It has dotted more than one State. The
map of all the world and the pages of all history are illustrated by
the men and the movements that it has set going. The great acts of
men and of nations are the acts which have been in obedience to, or
in conflict with, the truths of this Book. The teachings of this Book
are mighty power, to preserve liberty and good government and pu-
rify society, as well as to secure the everlasting blessedness of souls.
Now, I am to speak by the appointment of your committee, of two
ways in which we may teach the King's Book. And the first is by
personal influence. "If I were a Voice," we have just been listening
to — if we were not voices, where would the King's Book be? It is
God's will that his word shall always be taught by the living voice;
no printing press can ever be a substitute for that; no invention of
man can ever take the place of the living teacher of this Word. When
the thought of God came down to man, it was a communication from
a mind to a mind, and when He would complete his revelation, He
sent it down to us through a human mind. " The Word made flesh,
and dwelt among us." The Word must be incarnated before it could
be reincarnated and revitalized by the teacher's own life, that it may
be communicated with power. God could spread his word without
the printing press; He could spread it without the railway or the tel-
egraph; He does not need any of these things, but He has so arranged
His Kingdom of Grace that He could not do it without the living
voice. The teacher is a necessity. God's call to teach His word, is a
Divinely appointed necessity, and He wants us. We are wanted in
54
Illinois State Sunday School Convention.
the Kingdom of God; He could not get along without s»ch work as
we are doing, with all our imperfections and our deficiency.
Now, what kind of teachers does He want? Why, those who will
revitalize the word that he has given us, and make it flesh again, so
that it may again be communicated to man. That Word stands in its
august majesty as the voice of God ringing through the ages; and
men who have spoken against it, have wasted their voice on the
empty air, while He that sat in the Heavens laughed and had them in
derision. The able and w^isest men waste their voices when they speak
against it, but the feeblest men and women may communicate it with
power.
The thoughts that go into men's souls are the thoughts that come
out of men's souls — not those that come out of the lips merely — they
are the thoughts that come out of the soul, and therefore one qualifi-
cation that we need is that we shall have deeply experienced the truths
that we try to teach. Those who have so felt them that they can see
them, will so teach them as to move others with power. But while
we speak of bringing this work into a personality ourselves, it comes
to us through a person. It is not an abstract truth. It is not a sys-
tem of truth." And what we are to do is to make known a person
■\Vho we have learned through the revealed word, and that is the sum
and substance of it.
Now, no teacher is successful without a definite aim. The teacher
who only communicates the facts of the lesson, no matter how thor-
oughly, is not a successful teacher. He must be a seer in the old Bi-
ble sense, a see-er, in order to be successful in his work. That is,
he must have a vision of what will be the outcome of this toil, when
these lessons shall be wrought out in character, and when they shall
have asserted themselves in the man that is to be made, in social busi-
ness and public life. Here you see an artist drawing a picture; the
spectator looks on, and sees a color laid on here and an outline there,
but the artist would not be an artist if he did not see what none of the
spectators see. He sees in his mind the picture that he is beginning
to make, and that is the reason why he is successful — because he
knows what nobody else does. Now, the Sunday-School teacher has
that aim — to make men and women, good citizens. He carries that
in his mind, but he has something more than that. There is one text
in the Bible, that to my mind is the central text of the Sunday-School
teacher, that he should so hold up Christ that "we all, reflecting as a
mirror the glory of the Lord, may be changed into the same image
from glory to glory even as by the spirit of the Lord." When I want
to preach on Sunday-School subjects, this is the best text that I know
of. Now, there are just two things that we absolutely need to be
teachers of the word of power. The first is a vision of that person,
whom we are to reflect as a mirror, and such a vision of him as is
seen in the Gospels. John beheld the glory of the Son of God when
He was around among men just as you and I are. He said he was
made flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory. He had the
rare spiritual insight to see Him in his glory when he was still in the
flesh, before the light of the resurrection morning ever shone back on
his life. But I am afraid that there are many of us who think that when
Christ comes again, there will be a kind of dazzling display, a sort
Illinois State Sunday School Convention. 55
of pyrotechnics or 4th of July exhibition. That wlien He comes in
his glory, he is going to dazzle the eyes. That is not what the Bible
teaches. When Moses wanted to see the glory of God, what did God
do? He put him into the cleft of a rock, and said to Moses "I will
make all my goodness pass before you." And he taught him then
and there that glory is not what dazzles the eyes, but what affects the
soul; that the grandest exhibition of glory we shall ever see will be
a holy chai'acter. You will never see anj'thing with the eye that is
glorious like what the spiritual eye discloses, and we can have such a
vision of Christ as to see His glory as is revealed in the gospels.
What a wonderful year this is, when each lesson brings some spe-
cial trait of Christ's character before us; so that at the end of the
year, after studying the forty-eight lessons, we get a record of each
separate trait, that is revealed. We shall not see him as He is, but we
shall have a more perfect manifestation of the Divine character than
we have ever had before. And those who study the Bible in that
way, and breathe its personal influence, will have another vision of
Him, a vision such as John had when he beheld his glory, when he
stood on the Isle of Patmos, and His hair was white as snow; when
His feet were like burnished brass, and His eyes were a flaming fire;
when His countenance was as the sun shining in its strength, and His
voice was as the voice of many waters. Now, that is one of the two
things we are to get, to be teachers, — a vision of God as He is I'eveald
in Christ, The other thing is a vision of the possibilities of every
pupil whom we teach, of being changed into the glory of the Son of
God as He is revealed in the Gospels, and then into the glory of the
Son of God as that is revealed in the Apocalypse, My brethren, it
does not yet appear what we shall be, but we know that when He
shall appear, we shall be like him, for we shall see Him as He is.
Now, brethren, if I have made it plain that the Sunday School
teacher does not need a broad education, but a narrow one in one line,
why, of course, I want to add that the more people know the wider
their opportunities and the better their teaching. But many of us
have not had these grand opportunities. Let us then grasp this fact
— that he who has that vision of Christ, and that faith in the pos-
sibilities of his pupil, has a personal power that is commanding and
constant.
Perhaps I can make it a little plainer if I bring forward one or two
illustrations of those who have exercised this power. Arnold, of
Rugby, is considered perhaps the noblest example of the Christian
teacher that has existed in generations; and Thomas Hughes, in tes-
tifying to the fact of Arnold's influence over his character, gave this
testimony of the way he used the Word of God : " He taught us
boys that the only way to approach the greatest of all subjects, — the
question of the existence and nature of God, — was the way God
himself has pointed out in His Word, He used to teach us the faith
which rests on God made manifest through the flesh, and is revealed
to us in the New Testament. "With that rock under your feet," he
said, " you can approach all those great questions which are stirring
men's minds so tremendously in these times,"
Now that shows the plan of teaching of one of the most cultured
men of the times. He taught the boys that they must stand on the
56 Illinois State Sunday School Convention,
rock Christ Jesus. That is the reason why they love Ilim and why
lie had a jjersonality so sweet and so strong that multitudes who
never saw Him hold Ilim to-da}' in affectionate reverence.
I don't know of a more touching picture than that which Tom
Hughes gives of the same man, and I suppose it is a true one. He
says that when he was a man in middle life he was away fishing in
the woods, and he was lying on his back outside the tent when some
one came up and said, "Well, Tom, your old master is dead." And
Tom went around the woods in a dazed sort of way, then went into
the tent, and then without a word picked up his knapsack and was
gone. He went to the nearest station, took the first train for Rugby,
and arrived there in the middle of the night. He waked up the old
woman who kept the key and asked her to let him into the chajjel.
He went to the chancel, stood where his old master was buried, and
said, " Everything I am I owe to that man." The personal influence
of that man lived on. He was patient enough to believe that it takes
a lifetime to bring a great moral purpose to its culmination.
Now the other illustration shall be taken from just such walks of
life as may be familiar to some of us. Some years ago, in the City
of Brooklyn, there was a man without any education, except the
commonest, who had gathered a company of little boys into a Sun-
day School class, and as they grew older and began to have sharp-
ened minds they began to show that they knew more than he did.
He loved the class and didn't want to give it up, but he came to the
point where he must know a great deal more or else give it up.
He was a chair-mender by profession. One day his wife saw him
cleaning out a little room over the stairs, and she said, "What are
you doing with that?" He said, "I find that these boys are a little
too much for me, and I don't want to give them up, and I am going
to make this into a study." His wife hiughed heartily at the idea of
having such a thing as that in the house of a chair-mender, but he
persisted, " I want you to understand that this is my study, and it
must he respected in this house." So he got a little table and a desk
and brought them in there. Then he got a concordance, then a dic-
tionary, and little by little book after book was added. As the years
went by the little class grew. They began to be interested in the
new themes he suggested. Young men came in, until in time there
were two hundred in that Bible class, and they have raised as much
as $1,200 a year for charitable purposes out of that class. One sum-
mer vacation, a few years ago, he went down to a little town among
the hills, not far away, to spend a couple of weeks. They had al-
ready heard of his Bible class. When Sunday came they had no
minister, and the people asked him if he would not preach for them.
He was overwhelmed with astonishment. "Why," said he, " I never
did such a thing in my life! I just teach the Bible, that is all."
"Well," they said, "that is all we want; we are not so many as your
class. Come and teach us the Bible to-day." So he did. Then
they asked him to teach the Bible the next Sunday, and he taught
the next Sunday. Then he went back home. After a month or two
a committee came from that church, and said they had unanimously
voted to make him their pastor. Well, his face was a perfect excla-
mation point. He had never aspired to any such honor. He turned
Illinois State Sunday School Convention. 57
them right away, but after two or three months they came back to
him and said they couldn't persuade the people to have anybody
else. He was so touched with their confidence that he finally said,
" If you will let me consult with my pastor, and if he says it is best,
and if you will wait for me a year to get ready, and the Lord sends
me, I will come." When the year was up there was an examination
by the presbytery of this man and some students from Princeton
seminary, and he did a great deal better than any of the students.
He had thought out what he knew about the Word of God; it was
a living, personal life with him. When a man puts his life into the
Word, and puts the Word into his life, he cannot help being power-
ful in communicating that Word.
I think I could do much better in showing how to teach the Bible
if I had a normal class, and could show you by practical illustration.
The most that I shall try to do will be to give the few principles
upon which this work rests. There are three things, I think, that
we want in order to teach the Bible, and the first is, somewhat of a
general knowledge of the Bible. Do you know it takes more wis-
dom to ask a question than it does to answer one? Unless you have
underneath what you purpose to get out, a great deal that you hold
in reserve, you cannot teach very well.
Then, in the next place, you want Bible knowledge, and not
knowledge about the Bible. Not what other people have said about
it. We want the Bible itself before we want to find out what other
people think about it.
Then, in the next place, we want a special knowledge of the doc-
trines that are in the Bible. Every teacher ought to have a little out-
line of the great doctrines of the Bible, and repeat them often. It
is not difficult to do that. You can teach the children that the Old
Testament is divided into three parts. The first part tells how man
was created; the second part how he fell; and the third part is all
taken up with efforts to bring him to holiness; and that all these are
to bring him to Christ who came with the song of the angels.
Then you have the New Testament: — That Christ came to die for
man; that his sacrifice is saving power; that repentance is essential
to character, and that the promises of God open wide the golden
gates to those that receive them.
As to asking questions: I would so ask questions as to make my
class understand the words in the Bible. You would be astonished
to find how hazy a great many people's ideas are of the common
words of the Bible; like the little girl who was so sorry because wicked
people couldn't have any music at their funerals, for the Bible says
"there are no bans (bands) in their death" and like the teacher who
talked to the children about Cornelius, and said, "We don't know
very much about Cornelius, but one thing we know; he was a musi-
cal man, because he was a member of the Italian band. Don't you
see that a dictionary would keep a man from such blunders as that.
Then in the next place, ask questions that bring out the main facts
of the lesson. I have seen an excellent Normal class exercise in which
each question was to be answered in the words of the lesson and was
to give only one fact; that brings an analysis of the lesson.
Now if there was a blackboard here and I could draw, I would
58 Illinois State Sunday School Convention.
just draw a tree as an illustration that would represent those facts. I
would have the Central Truth, and that should be the trunk. And
then I would have personal application come out of the trunk, and
this should be the branches.
How vvonderful was the skill with which Christ taught. He did not
appeal to tradition. He said, "I am the truth." It was not a personal
friend who propounded these things to them, but it was the Everlast-
ing Truth personified, and they could not get away from it. And
when he had brought out their thoughts with these questions, and il-
luminated them with illustrations of every day life, he could smooth
the difficulties before them, and it was as the sky js reflected in the
smooth surface of a lake. So let us make the Word of God a lens,
through which the rays from the face of Christ may be reflected on
the faces of those whom we teach.
At the conclusion of Mr. Dunning's address, the congregation
united in singing the hymn, "It is well with my soul." The chair-
man of the executive committee announced that the Sunday School
Conventions of the States of Connecticut and Calilbrnia were in ses-
sion at this hour, and moved that a telegraph of greeting be sent,
which was adopted. The telegrams were as follows: " Our conven-
tion is a great success and enjoying a great blessing. We send you
our greeting. Ephesians iii. 14-21." The Carman fiimily sang the
song, "If I were a voice," and the convention listened to Rev. J. H.
Vincent, D. D., on the subject of "The Every-day College."
THE EVERY-DAY COLLEGE.
BY REV. J. H. VINCENT, D. D.
I suspect that my good friend Mr. Jacobs, to whose Godly ingenu-
ity we are indebted for the idea of this programme, wondered a little
how he could put into this department of his subject the topic which
I had suggested to him as one on which I desired to speak on this
occasion. The King's Book — What on earth has The King's Book
to do with the Every-day College, or the Every-day College with the
King's Book? Much every way. For the King who gave us his
book has also .written other books which are as much the books of the
King as the written book that has been by inspiration given to man,
for "the Heavens declare the glory ofGod,andthe firmament showeth
His handi-work. Day unto day uttcreth speech, and night unto night
showeth knowledge." Nature is a book of God. When you turn
the pages to study the star lessons above, or lift up the rocky pages
beneath your feet, everywhere, both above and below, you see the
wisdom and the goodness and the power of the God who gave also
this other and better book.
Human nature is a book of God! Much marred, indeed, by human
wrong, but, under the illuminating power of grace there come revela-
tions on the pages of the human heart and from human life, and some
out-shining of the divine character. Human history is a book of God,
for he who ruleth according to his own will and who changeth the
Illinois State Sunday School Convention. 59
times and the seasons, and who rules among the inhabitants of the
earth, has in human Iiistory revealed his wisdom. You cannot find a
portion of human history in which thei'e is not somewhere a revela-
tion of God, and all these books — science, nature, ait and philosophy
— all these are but revelations of his power and wisdom and goodness,
whose we are and whom we serve. And the King's Book was given
to us that we might understand the other book of the King, and that
we might read on its pages what we do not read on any other page
of any other book, namely, the grace of God. That is what the Bible
was given for in reality, that its last verse might be written. The first
verse of the Bible is a simple statement of the fact which science has
spent its energies in illustrating — "In the beginning, God." And the
last verse of the Bible is the verse which contains the quintessence of
all the history and of all the prophecy and of all the poetry and of all
the promises of the Book, " The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be
with you all." So that all the books are to be studied, and the Book
of books is to be prized most of all.
But the study of the other books will not interfere with the study
of the Book, for if God reveals his wisdom and power in nature, he
has also revealed his wisdom and power in the I'ecord, and if I study
the history and power of the one, I study the history and power of
the other. It does not interfere because men of culture have been men
of Christ. Most of the teachers in our colleges and universities are
Christian inen, and a majority of the professors to-day in the univer-
sities of Europe are Christian men. Between culture and. i-eligion
there is no hostility whatever. And the greatest power of the pres-
ent century is the Cross of Christ. For where the Book goes, other
books go. It required a great deal of learning to have preserved this
great Book and translated it and kept it in the world, and it requires
a great deal of learning to get into the deepest things that are in it.
And a knowledge of the largest things in nature and in the world will
not interfere with the deepest and gentlest and purest and most pro-
found piety.
Now these preliminar}^ thoughts you will hold in your mind for a
moment while I make a statement or two, and the first is this: That
we hold our pupils in Sunday-School just about one hour a week, or
at best, an hour and a half a week. How about the rest of the time?
How about Monday from six o'clock in the morning until ten o'clock
at night; and how about Tuesday from six in the morning until ten
or eleven at night? How about Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and
Saturday? Where are our pupils from eight o'clock Sunday mornino-
until two o'clock Sunday afternoon, and from half past three or four
o'clock Sunday afternoon until ten or eleven o'clock at night? What
business is it of ours? Much every way. It is well that we put into
the hour or hour and a half all manner of spiritual teaching that shall
affect the characters of our pupils there and thereafter, but it is very
important that as wise men we ask. How about all the hours a week,
and of all the other weeks and of all the years.
Then again in Sabbath School we should discuss but one subject,
and that is the religious subject. I have no interest in geology on
Sunday. I have no interest in chemistry in the Sunday School class.
I have no interest in questions of philology, except as they affect my
6o Illinois State Sunday School Convention.
text. I take very little interest in questions of geography in connec-
tion with the Sunday School lesson. The first object in teaching a
Sunday School lesson is to produce a spiritual impression on the spi-
ritual life of the pupils.
Our pupils come under other influences, and in contact with other
influences and other forces during the week-day hours. Look at some
of them for a moment: — Home. Where is the home of the scholar
and what is the influence of that home; what is the authority exer-
cised there; what is the example set there, and what is the atmosphere
of that home; do you know? O, no; I teach John religion, that is
my work. Look at society. What society does John go into outside
of your Sabbath School; what playfellows does he take to? What
girls does he mingle with? What is the society in which he moves?
Who are the people who influence him? What are the various prac-
tices and amusements of that society from Sunday night until next
Sunday morning? Don't you care? You say " O, I teach John re-
ligion." As a Sunday School teacher don't you care in what society
he moves? What is the literature that John reads during the week?
for one of the mightiest forces in society is literature.
I saw a young fellow in Grand Rapids, Michigan, last November
riding on his velocipede down the street. There were very few per-
sons out on that biting November day. He was sitting on his veloc-
cipede having one of these sensational papers folded and held on the
handle of the velocipede by his thumb, with his hands grasping the
handle, with his thumbs grasping the paper. He was reading. He
ran against a fence and stopped and sat on the velocipede and read.
How intensely interested that boy, twelve years of age, must have
been in the paper, when on such a biting day he sat on the velocipede
and read and read, forgetting the cold, until something arrested his
attention, perhaps a frost-bite, and then he started and ran along
slowly with his eyes resting upon the paper. Again he jammed up
against the fence, and had another session with his paper. I watched
him with great interest for some ten or fifteen minutes, while the love
of the thing he was reading overcame the discomfort produced by the
cold, and the delight occasioned by the velocipede to any average
boy, and I said, what a mighty factor indeed literature is.
But again there is a still mightier force in every life, and that is
this; the ultimate purpose of life, the ultimate aim that a boy has.
"Good morning, Tom, what are you going to be?" "Well, I am
going to be — I don't know what I am going to be. I am going to
be — I declare I don't know; what I am going to be; I declare I don't
know. I am working at a job around here and when I get through
with that I am going to wait for another job; that is v^^hat I am go-
ing to be. Well, now I may talk to Tom about religion on Sunday,
but unless he has some worthy aim in life, my religious teaching is
not worth much to him.
"John, you are educated? " " No, I aint no education; I aint none
of that kind. I aint none of your literary fellows. I am a carpenter
myself, and I am waiting for something to turn up." Now there is
no hope of John's becoming a Christian or anything else until he is
filled with the idea that he is to live in this world to gain power, men-
tal and spiritual, for with spiritual power is gain corresponding men-
Illinois State Sunday School Convention. 6i
tal power. As a man grows in grace he grows in the knowledge of
the Lord Jesus Christ. He grows in knowledge and in grace if he
makes his life worth anything to himself or to the world.
Now I wish every boy and every girl in all our Sunday-Schools
to acquire an education. When I can get my boys and girls and
young people in t4ie Sunday-School to acquire an education, I have
gone a long way towards controlling all these other forces — home,
society, literature, everj^thing. Did you ever think of that, that if I
could get the young people and the boys and girls whom I am trying
to teach God's word — if I can get them interested in acquiring a bet-
ter education with that Word as the centre, I have gone far towards
controlling all those other forces.
Do 3'ou know that most people in this country never get anv
education at all? Do you know that the majority of our boys and girls
get out of school before they are thirteen years of age? Do you
know there is a vast amount of discouragement among multitudes of
very respectable people, boys and girls, young men and women, and
old men and women, who come to your Sunday-School and who come
to your churches, who are discouraged because they haven't a good
education? Don't you know there are thousands of people who are
saying "What a fool 1 am that I left school. Why didn't I obtain
an education? " Don't you know there are multitudes of people who
regret more than they can tell the fact that they did not get a good
education to begin with?
If I had my way 1 would give every man and every woman a
thorough college education. The advantages of such an education
are immense. We go into a course of study, and go through it and
finish it, and there is great moral power in that, if nothing more. It
is a beautiful thing to see a boy marching straight through college,
term after term, year after year, and class after class, up, up, up, until
the crown is attained and the prizes are borne off, and he has all the
sweet memories and the prestige and the delights which come out of
college friendships and college life. Then comes mental discipline.
The mind, like the arm may be trained. Look at that blacksmith's
arm, how strong it is; that good right arm; how like a thinker's
brain, who thinks, and thinks, and thinks until he grasps and takes
out the innermost things of a subject and looks at them, turns them
over and analyzes them. There is something magnificent in the in-
tellectual discipline, that gives such vigor to the human mind. The
College promotes this. You know that the College curriculum is the
growth of ages; and when a boy goes through College or through
one of our Universities he goes through a course of reading and
study long ago devisetl by the brainiest and most scholarly men of the
times. When a boy goes through College he gets a general survey
of the fields of knowledge so that his horizon is a broad one and he
lives in a very large world. It is a blessed thing. I wish you could
all go to College.
I wish I could introduce you to the Chautauqua Literary and Scien-
tific Circle. I am not interested in the Chautauqua Literary and Sci-
entific Circle to the amount of one dollar. I have never made one
cent out of anything connected with the Chautauqua that I know
anything about and I never want toj what work I do in behalf of
62 Illinois State Sunday School Convention.
Chautauqua I do out of my heart; I delight in it because I believe in
the importance of controlling the forces that control the character.
The Chautauqua Literary and Scientiric Circle proposes to do this;
it gives a plan of reading, for four years, forty minutes a day for the
busiest people, in Science and History, in Literature, in Art. So that
John's mother and father may read on the same subjects that he stud-
ies about while he goes through College. At the end of four years
they receive a diploma; not in Latin, because our graduates couldn't
read that any more than some of the graduates of other Colleges; so
we put it in plain English which they can read. And that testifies to
the simple fact that A. having completed the four years course of
reading in the C. L. S. C. has been enrolled as a member of the so-
ciety of the Hall in the grove. That society has now upwards of
eight thousand members who completed the four years course. This
gives only a superficial view of the fields of knowledge; and that is
all the College student gets, except the mental discipline which he ac-
(juires, and which gives him a great advantage. Now, no College
man must suspect for a moment that I depreciate the College course,
for I do not and no one must suspect that I favor this as a substitute
for a College education, for I do not, but I do say that after comple-
ting the four years course in the C. L. S. C. there is no end to the
possibilities that follow.
On the diploma which is given to the graduates of the C. L. S. C.
is a picture of a pyramid. At the base of the pyramid are two of our
mottoes; one of them is this, " We study the words and works of
God," on the other side, " Let us keep our Heavenly Father in the
midst." Then at the apex of the pyramid is the motto, "Never be
discouraged." Then there are thirty spaces for special seals. Here is
Mrs. A., goes into a four year's course and gets her diploma testifying
that she has completed the course. Now she says: "I want to read
a little more geology," or history, or some other such study, and she
reads certain works on geology and adds a seal to her diploma. Then
she completes another course of reading in another study and adds
another seal, and so on, until many seals are added. Twenty years
after leaving home her son comes home to his mother's funeral. He
looks at the white face, the broad brow, the still hands that were so
busy in ministering to him, resting now over the still heart. He looks
into her room where on one side she has hung up his diploma and on
the other side hangs her diploma. It testifies that she has read the
re(iuircd course of reading in C. L. S. C. and there are ten seals added
to her diploma. He looks into the little book which described the
course, runs over the seals that record the reading, and he says, "Upon
my word that woman through these twentj- years has spent more time
in the specific work that has won for her that honor than I did in the
four years that won me that diploma." And from his inmost heart
■ there wells up gatitude to God for such a mother, who not only min-
istered to his wants but acquired culture that her home might be a
worthier place, and that she might be more to her educated son.
My friends, I would like you to think about this. I am not here to
advertise the Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle. It is a benev-
olent scheme out of which no one is making monc}'. A benevolent
scheme for the sake of utilizing and controlling these mighty social
Illinois State Sunday School Convention. 63
forces which, if we do not control, w^ill overrun us and sweep away
multitudes whom we Avish to hold in the interest of religious culture;
whom we wish to bring to a knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ;
that they may know Him who was in the beginning with God, who
made all things, without whom was nothing made that was made.
And so by science, and literature, and art, and religion, the young
people are built up in the most holy faith. I plead for the Everyday
College in connection with our Sunday-School work.
At the conclusion of Dr. Vincent's address, the hymn, "Are your
windows open toward Jerusalem," was sung, and the convention
adjourned.
Second Day — Evening Session.
The convention met at 7-30. The house was crowded to its utmost
capacity. An announcement was made, that an overflow meeting
would be held in the Congregational Church, and that Rev. Dr. Vin-
cent and Rev. A. E. Dunning would speak in both places so that
those who could not secure seats here would not lose the feast. The
Congregational Church was well filled.
The regular session of the convention was opened by singing the
hymns: "To the work, to the work;" "All hail the power of Jesus
name," and "There's a land that is fairer than day." The Carman
family sang with great effect, ''I shall be satisfied."
The Chairman of the Executive Committee read a telegrain of
greeting from the Connecticut State S. S. Convention in session at
Norwich. — "Philippians i. 9-11."
(Signed) James L. Howard, President.
Rev. Mr. Little read as the Scripture lesson — Psalm cl., and Rev.
F. A. Wilbur led in prayer. The president announced as the first
speaker of the evening. Rev. A. E. Dunning, whose address in the
afternoon was so much enjoyed. Mr. Dunning was greeted with
warm applause, and spoke on the Teachei-'s Spiritual Preparation.
THE TEACHER'S SPIRITUAL PREPARATION.
BY REV. A. E. DUNNING, D. D.
i\fr. President^ Brethren and Friends: — I am to speak to you
to-night upon a theme which pervades all profitab'e discussion of
Sunday-School work, as the atmosphere in this room; but sometimes
it is well for us to consider the teacher's spiritual preparation by itself,
to concentrate our thoughts upon it, and to adopt anew the methods
by which spiritual power is secured. We are not to spei\k to-night
64 Illinois State Sunday School Convention.
of new methods — there would be need of apology for speaking of
the old ones if it were not for the fact that we do not realize the spir-
itual results that we seek for. What I have to say will be a second
chapter of what I said this afternoon. I must first call your attention
again to one of those thoughts.
We are spiritualized by what the spiritual eye discerns. Every ray
of light that falls on man's spiritual nature comes from the Holy Ghost.
We must honor him, or we cannot be powerful teachers. Now what
docs he teach us? He testifies not of himself — Christ says, "He shall
testify of me." The perfect consummation of all things is the com-
plete revelation of Jesus Christ by the Holy Spirit; toward that the
world moves when it moves in the right direction at all. And toward
that we move it, whenever we reveal more clearly the Son of God
in public address or private conversation. It is a grand fact that when-
ever we reveal Christ more clearly we move the whole world on to-
wards its most perfect consummjition.
Now what means does the Holy Spirit use to reveal Christ to us
more clearl}-, that we may be spiritualized? In the first place he re-
veals Christ to us by means of the Scriptures. The God of creation
is revealed in nature; the invisible things of him from the creation of
the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are
made, but the God of grace is not revealed in nature. Not all the
sublimity of mountains, the grandeur of oceans, nor the majesty of
marching ages, have revealed to the profoundest student the God of
grace. No man knoweth the Father but the Son and he to whom
the Son shall reveal Him. Now Jesus is revealed only in his word,
and if He does not reveal to us the Father, we don't know anything
about the God of grace. But in His word we see Him. "He that
hath my commandments and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me."
How simple it is. If we have His word we shall love Him, and the
love of Him is spiritual power. Thus the measure of our power is
the measure of our love to Him. Then we shall treasure these words
of His and we shall have new visions of Him all the time. And how
can we see Him, week after week, as He heals the sick, as He raises
the dead, as He stills the sea, as He feeds the hungry, and as He has
compassion on the multitudes, and not have a constant kindling of
that love which gives out what is excellent and perfect. This is the
best year since the beginning of the world for men to see the Lord
Jesus Clirist. You remember that Robertson said that he thought
he was better acciuainted with Jesus than with any one else in the
world. He had seen Him. He had seen one trait and another, until
he was a living person; and he saw Him just as you and I see one
another.
There are not many people who study the Scriptures in these days,
who are not in Sunday-School. I am inclined to think that in the
last generation there were more people who were meditative, who did
not hurry so much, who had time to feed upon the Word of God.
We are so hurried and under such pressure of business that unless we
have a motive to study the Bible — either to teach or to recite it, — we
do not study it. Now, people read a chapter in the evening because
they have been taught to do so, perhaps, or read it at morning pray-
ers for the same reason, but I am convinced that as a rule they do not
Illinois State Sunday School Convention. 65
study the Bible unless they are Sunday-School teachers. This Sun-
day-School work is making people grow; it is bringing one glorious
class of men forward; that is the superintendents of Sunday-Schools.
They take their places next to the minister. One minister said to me
the other day, "You can just hear our superintendent grow." With
a family of children depending on them and looking up to them for
spiritual things, how can they help growing? Spiritual power comes
right out of the Word, and it comes from no other place.
Then the next means that the Holy Spirit uses to increase spiritual
preparation, is secret prayer. Now I do not mean by that, the ejacu-
lations that we put up as we go about our daily work, but I mean just
this: that I believe no one is a successful teacher unless every day he
has a time set apart for secret, unhurried communion with God.
I heard of a Baptist deacon in Chicago who had a little class, and
it grew and grew until they had to take down one partition after an-
other, and finally they told him he must stop or the Baptistry w^ould
spring a leak. By-and-bye, somebody said to him, " Well, Deacon,
what is the philosophy of your teaching? " "Philosophy, — what's that?
Oh, you mean how 1 do it? Well," said he, "I read over the lesson
on Sunday night; then I pray about it; then I read it over again
and pray some more about it; then I think about it; then I pray over
it, and by next Sunday I have got to teach that lesson or I shall die."
As soft iron comes in contact with a magnet and becomes itself a
power, so by our contact with the Redeemer of men we become spir-
itual instructors with power to draw other souls. We get the mean-
ing of Scripture by studying it. The Bible is a living Book to han-
dle. It is a living subject to study; it is a living power to use, and
if we have the Word of God in our hearts its words will flow from
our lives with the same power that they did when holy men of old
spake as they did when they were moved by the Holy Ghost. There
is a power in those who have been with God, that the most careless
feels. We must take all these lessons into the closet with us; we must
go from prayer to work, from fellowship with the Master to the Mas-
ter's business; from the closet to the class. Then we shall toil with
others in a way that they cannot resist.
Now I would suggest as a practical point, that we commit devo-
tional parts of Scripture to memory. When Matthew Arnold passed
from bounding health to his last sickness, he was repeating over and
over again those passages of Scripture with which his mind had been
filled while in health and at work.
Then again our spiritual power is deepened by dwelling on the
value of the souls we teach. It is well for us to sit down and medi-
tate on the awfulness of a soul's dying; what it means when God
says, "The soul that sinneth it shall die." It is a good thing for a
teacher to sit down once in awhile, and think of that until it gets
right into the fibre of his being — what is a soul's dying? And then
turn to the other side; think what it means for a soul to be saved —
what God meant when he said "He that believeth shall be saved."
My brethren, the architects of our great public buildings are full
of enthusiasm about their work; they spend day and night upon their
plans. There are multitudes of men who just give themselves to the
gathering of fortunes, and scholars are exploring for the discovery of
5
66 Illinois State Sunday School Convention.
plans that confirm their theories, and statesmen spend their Hves con-
sidering poHcies of government. But the only thing in all the world
that will abide forever, is just these souls whom you and I teach.
When the great public buildings have all crumbled away, they will
remain. When the most magnificent fortunes that were ever gathered
shall have disappeared, they w'ill abide. Wlxen the theories of schol-
ars and the plans of statesmen arc all forgotten, yea when the stars
of Heaven shall pass away, every one of these persons whom we are
teaching will remain. It is a very solemn thing to be engaged in this
work.
Now brethren, he who knows God through the study of His Word,
through communion with Him, who loves Him and who loves men
because they can be changed into the likeness of Him whom he loves
supremely, he is fit to teach others. The facts of history are address-
ed to the reason; they do not transform, they only inform. The facts
that transform are that Jesus Christ made an atonement for our sins,
and that repentance and faith towards God are essential to character.
And no man can take hold of these until he has brought his soul un-
der their influence by a surrender of himself to him who created
these truths.
You see that there is a preparation of the heart that must corres-
pond with the preparation of the head in every lesson, and I trust you
see that this answers the question that comes to us so often,
why there are so many people who can teach the facts of the
Bible correctly, but who bring forth so little results. A teacher's
knowledge of the gospel is not the whole Gospel. It is not a Gospel
for him, until it has been suffused into his own heart by the Holy
Spirit — until he has come to have the power of eternal things within
— that spiritual discernment that fits him to present the Gospel to
other souls. Now if this is so, whatever wastes this power brings on
us fearful loss, and we want to know what it is that wastes it? I
think that I have now touched the most important theme that can now
be spoken of in this convention.
When Jesus Christ first created His new Church, what did He do?
He didn't give it a creed, He didn't give it a written Word; He just
breathed on it. lie breathed on it and there arose a new enthusiasm,
a new inspiration; men could not resist the power of that Church
after that. That spiritual atmosphere in the vSunday-School is the
most important thing you can have; that which makes the children
and youth understand that there is something there, which is notto be
found in any other social life. If w^e can have that, we shall win the
children to Christ whatever obstacles there are in the way. Now
let me use a simple illustration. Suppose I lived in this neighbor-
hood with a family of children growing up, and I should want to
bring them into contact with spiritual life, and I put them into a Sun-
day-School, and when they came home I should find that their con-
versation was not flavored with the aroma of devotion to Christ.
And I should go to the School and find that the teachers attend meet-
ing perhaps every night in the week to study the lesson and discuss
the interests of the School, yet they go to the theatre perhaps and go
to the dance. Well, now I have known teachers spending their
strength in trying to prove that they could do both those things and
Illinois State Sunday School Convention. 67
do them well. Perhaps they can. But if my children come home
flavored with a worldly spirit and not the other, it is just as bad for
me as though they could not do both those things. Now there is a
safeguard against that influence which may hinder the progress of our
work, which is sometimes found in churches. But when there is a
family of children and youth whose parents do not ca?-e what spiritual
impressions are made on them, and when upon the church is rolled
the entire responsibility for those spiritual impressions at the most
susceptible periods of their lives, it becomes a very solemn question
whether we shall waste what we call this spiritual power in any way.
When the church is alive to its responsibilities, there is never any dis-
cussion as to what things are right and what things are wrong.
Those things that quicken spiritual life are instinctively discovered
and seized upon, and those things that deaden it are avoided.
IS[ow, brethren, if I have held out an ideal that seems too difficult
for any one, let me remind you that none of us have measured our
spiritual possibilities. A man owns a house out here and half an acre
of ground, but what does he know of the 4000 miles that he owns
underneath it? We know about the surface of our lives, but know
little of the depth of power that is possible to us. We may discover
possibilities that were unknown, and that the secret of successful work
is a very simple thing.
Dr. Tyng tells a story of one young girl in his school who began
to teach when she was only sixteen, and whose ministry was closed
when she was only twenty-five. He used to watch Sunday after Sun-
day, when every scholar she had seemed to think it was the sweetest
privilege of life to be taught by her. He knew of twenty-five persons
who had been won to Christ through her influence, and yet he said
she was not a woman of rare intellectual gifts or of any unusual
opportunities of education. But the secret of the whole lay in the fact
that she had a rare fidelity to Christ, and that made her a power
wherever she went. If we go home from this convention with but
one thought, let it be this: that the keynote of our work is to be
fidelity to Christ. As the keynote in music is sometimes heard in
major and sometimes in minor strains, at times appears to have been
forgotten, and then appears with great intensity, so let the keynote of
our memory of this meeting, and the keynote of our work in the year
that is before us, be more fidelity to Christ our Saviour. And while
we remember we are to gaze on him for our inspiration, let us never
forget that He himself gazes with love and approval on the teacher
who gathers the treasures of His word to transform the souls of those
entrusted to His care and training into His likeness.
At the conclusion of Mr. Dunning's address, the congregation sang,
"He leadeth me." Master David Carman- — the baby of the family —
recited the piece, " God wants the boys, God wants the girls," and
sang the song, "Jesus bids us shine." Both were much enjoyed and
heartily applauded. The convention then listened to an address from
Dr. Vincent on "Our Young Folks." As the "Chautauqua Chief"
arose, the immense audience arose to greet him with " the Chautaq-
68 Illinois State Sunday School Convention.
qua salute," the white handkerchiefs waiving in every part of the
house. He smilingly bowed his acknowledgments.
OUR YOUNG FOLKS.
J. H. VINCENT.
I am aware that the hour is late, that we are all very much fatigued,
that the evening is warm, and that it is a difficult thing at this hour
and under these circumstances to attempt a discussion in an elaborate
way of a subject as important as that which has been announced. An
effort of will on your part to give attention shall find a response of
will on my part to do all that I can to present in compact form some
practical thoughts on the subject, and to do it in as brief a manner as
possible.
The class of persons about whom I am to speak, are neither men
nor boys, neither women nor girls. They stand between the two
classes and are a distant class in themselves, a fact which we very
rarely acknowledge or appreciate. That period of "betweenity" as
some one has called, that period about which my father used to say
"he is a hobblede-hoy ; neither a man nor a boy." That period when
collars and cravats are more important than ideas, style a larger thing
than princijjle. And the time when a boy with the natural sponta-
neity and happiness of a boy begins to put himself under the bonds of
restraint befitting a man, and he can neither abandon the spontaneity
of the one or enter directly into the dignified ways of the other. The
period when a fellow pets his upper lip a great deal, and watches the
progress of things; when his mustache like the comet just announced
is a long time on its wav before it is visible to the naked eye. It is
this period of what I call the after-boy that I desire to discuss to-night.
And he is not alone; he is also with some other after-boy except when
they are both after the after-girls. And they together constitute a
class of society which we call our young people. We treat them
thoughtlessly as a general rule; we ridicule the ridiculous phases of
their character and deportment; we forget how awkward we once
were ourselves and what false views we had at the very time that
they now occupv, when we passed through the experiences through
which they are passing. It is a period of the greatest peril. Home
hold is relaxed — there is never any too much of this anyhow — some-
body has remarked that we have no less government now than we
used to have, only it has changed hands. And I know some families
where the government of the parents by the children is absolutely
perfect. Now when a young fellow comes to be sixteen, parental re-
straint if it be attempted, at once receives a prompt rebuflf, and when
a boy has not been well governed at two years of age he will not be
likely to be well governed at four, nor at eight, and a boy who is
not well governed at eight will not be likely to be well governed at
sixteen. My doctrine is that a child should be thoroughly gov-
erned from the time he is born up to the time he is of age;
that a boy eighteen years of age, in his father's house, owes alle-
giance to the authority in that house. When a boy says, "I am
going anyhow, whatever you say, I have made up my mind to
Illinois State Sunday School Convention. 69
it, I am going," father is impotent and mother powerless. When
a girl says, "Mother, there is no use your talking about it; the
other girls are going and I am going — you forget; you think I am a
girl; I tell you that I am not a girl; I am fourteen years and I intend
to go;" mother is impotent in the matter and Mary goes and James
goes. Sometimes parents do not exercise authority because they say
it would only make matters worse. Poor parents, poor youth. I
love to see a young fellow who stands up courteously to his father
saying "Father, if it is agreeable to you, I would like to do so and
so;" and the father's reply, "My son, I am very happy to say that
I think it is perfectly proper for you to do so." Or when the father
says, "My son, for reasons which I could give, but which I do not
now wish to disclose, I think it better that you should not." And the
boy says, "All right." I think parental government ought to produce
such results at eight years of age.
As home-hold relaxe's, the outside world is very fascinating. To
see a young fellow marching off with books under his arm — "I tell
you I am going to be a scholar; I am going to make my mark in this
world," — and a young girl with dreams of what she will be and how
she will attain intellectual culture and power, — is something beautiful
to look at. As they go on with their bright fresh brows and eyes
looking far out into the future and high hopes, God bless them all.
If we could only hold them and keep them in the right path. The
outside world is fascinating and home a little less attractive. The out-
side world is attractive and outside influence is powerful. What other
people say now begins to tell. John says so-and-so, Mr. so-and-so
says so, and the whole neighborhood says so. I think father is alto-
gether too particular — everybody says so — everybody says that it is
so foolish to be so particular about things, and I don't like it." And
the girl says to her mother, "Jennie said to me that you were very
foolish for not allowing me to do it, and I don't think it is right, and
you will prejudice me against all those good things, and I like to be
like other people, and I am going; and my brother Jim says he is go-
ing with me too, and he says he will stand by me even if father does
oppose it." And the poor woman goes off into her chamber and
says, "O my God thou knowest how I have suffered for these children
and prajed for them and loved them and did my best to hold them,
and now the outside world has a stronger grip than I have, and my
words are nothing. Father, give me wisdom and give me patience."
Poor woman, poor man. The outside world has stolen her children
away from her heart and away from her grasp. But that is not all ; the
church comes in. "The church is awful strict. Just hear these min-
isters. Hear them preach and talk and denounce. They believe in
hell; they believe in judgment and they believe that it is wicked to
smile, and they believe this and that." And then along comes some
great infidel who delivers a lecture and the boy hears it, and says, "I
half believe he has got the right on his side. I believe, — yes, I be-
lieve he is right." And the Satanic smile reflected from his majesty
on the face of that young boy, makes the hearts of angels ache.
That is not all. The church is sometimes indiscreet, bitter and se-
vere. The Methodists fight the Baptists and the Baptists give it back,
and the Presbyterians give it to both, and the Protestant Episcopal
yo Illinois State Sunday School Convention.
Church stands up in subHme indifference to the whole of them. And
then the father comes home to dinner from church on Sunday and
carves the roast beef and says, "Of all the small preachers in this
town I think the man that preached for us is the smallest." And he
carves the preacher and he carves the sermon and he carves the church,
and by the time the roast beef is gone the church is gone and every-
thing is gone, and the power to lay hold of and lift up the young
people is gone.
How shall we get a good, firm hold upon that distinct class of so-
ciety known as our young people? How shall we hold them to the
church and delight them in high and holy things and lift them up in
the interests of true culture? Well, I may remark, first of all, that
in this work we must respect our young people. I might say first
that the first ten or fifteen years of home training would settle that
question very largely in most cases — and without much severity.
You must not have much severity at any time, but more firmness;
few rules well carried out, and your authority never withdrawn ex-
cept in particular cases and for special reasons. A boy of sixteen was
told by his mother to report to her at half past three that afternoon.
He knew very well what that meant. He had been a little impatient
at the table, and from the time he was five years old when he was
impatient at the table he always went to bed at half past three o'clock
in the afternoon. After an interval of several years the impatience
again manifested itself at the dinner table, and his mother said to him,
"You will report to me at half past three, and he said, "Why,
Mamma, aint I just a little large — I don't think that — "she said, "You
will report to me at half past three o'clock." "Well," said he,
"Mamma," — "At half past three," she said. His father was present,
and he called the young man over to himself and said, "Young man
1 want to tell you something. This house has been conducted very
largely in your intei-est. You have had all the good things that your
father's and mother's influence and money could bring you. You
have not been much indulged but you have been allowed to have all
that vou should have. You have always been subject to authority,
and f want you to understand that what your mother says is a fact;
that vou are still under authority and while you live in this house you
will obey the laws of this house." That young gentleman called his
mother into the parlor and apologized for his misconduct. At half
past three o'clock he reported promptly. He said, "Mamma, here I
am; what do you wish?" She said, "My son, since you have apolo-
gized and since you have obeyed, you can go now and do what you
please." And since then I am informed by a very good authority
that that young gentleman has not once intimated that he has out-
grown the authority of that house. I say the way for us to do good
work for our young people as they grow up is to govern them from
the verv beginning and keep it up as they come into this medium or
middle stage.
And then treat them respectfully. A boy was asked how he liked
the preacher, and he said, "I don't like him at all; he calls me 'Bub.'"
When a young man begins to anticipate a mustache he doesn't like to
be called Bub. A young lady doesn't like to be called Sis. Coming
down town in the morning a business man meets a young fellow sev-
Illinois State Sunday School Convention. 71
enteen or eighten years old on his way to business. He says, " How
are you Jim," and passes on. The young fellow says, " He calls me
'Jim.' " He passes down further and here comes the president of the
bank who meets him, bows to him and says, " Good morning, Mr.
Smith." And the boy says, •' There is a gentleman." And young
Mr. Smith respects himself all the more and respects the banker and
respects society find thinks this universe is altogether a grander uni-
verse because he was called "Mr. Smith." And there is a great deal
in it. There is a way of treating a boy as though he were a knave
until you make him a knave. There is a way of treating a boy as
though he were a clown and you make him a clown. There is a way
of treating a boy as though he were a gentleman and you make him
a gentleman. Older people should remember the peculiarities of this
period and treat accordingly the young ladies and the young gentle-
men whom they meet in society.
Then there is another thing — the church must hold up her stand-
ards in all matters of deportment and society, for the sake of getting
and keeping her hold upon her young people. For example, we
never make anything by compromising principle for the sake of con-
ciliating young folks. Down in the bottom of his heart the boy
despises a church that will make any compromise for the sake of win-
ning him. The church with the highest standard is the one he re-
spects. When young people send for some Christian or Christian
minister to pray with them or give them counsel, they send to the
man and to the minister whose standards are highest. It is not the
minister who plays cards with them who is sent for, but the one who
repeatedly warned them against playing cards.
Now we come to the question of amusements, and I make this claim :
That in dealing with our young people in this inatter the church inust
hold up her standards so high that there can be no question whatever
on the part of the young people, as to whether they belong to the
church or to the world. Now amusem.ents which are recreative in
their character I do not object to, if the recreative element be the pre-
dominent element in them. But amusements — now, please notice the
distinction — amusements which tend downward, which tend to un-
favorable associations, amusements which have such a history and
reputation should be avoided by people who wish to avoid the appear-
ance of evil, and who wish to stand over on the side of caution; and
they can stand on the ground of caution without bitterness. There-
fore I taboo the dance as a Christian; that is I oppose to dance as a
Christian; I oppose the card table as a Christian; I oppose the theatre
as a Christian, and I oppose the wine glass as a Christian. You want
me to leave the wine glass out; I can't, why? because every argument
in favor of the dance and the card table and the theatre that I have
ever heard in this country, I have heard in England for the wine glass.
There is no conceivable argument in favor of the theatre which will
not lie in favor of the wine glass. I preached in a pulpit in Edinburgh
for the pastor whose name is Dr. Arnold, who was absent that day.
When I came down to take off my gown in the vestry, the beadle
who came to assist me in removing my gown said to me " What will
you have?" Said I, "Nothing." Said he, "Wont you have anything
at all?" I said, " Nothing at all. We American ministers never
72 Illinois State Sunday School Convention.
drink." Said he, "That is where you are departing from the truth."
And in private circles, in personal conversation, and from the platform
I have heard all the arguments that can be presented, and every argu-
ment that applies to one is applicable to all.
Hut I am told that we must make a distinction between a game of
cards and the card table; between a little dance and the ball-room ;
between a first-class play and the theatre. When ,1 talk about the
dance, I talk about the dance of society. Ladies tell me, "I wouldn't
think of having my daughter go to a public ball or a public dance — I
wouldn't think of such a thing." But a daughter of one of those
ladies learned to dance in company with twenty or thirty or forty
young people and older people, and her mother knew nothing about
it when the dancing master had two or three public receptions for the
demonstration of the advancement of his pupils, which her daughter
attended.
The wine glass, the theatre and the card table all stand in the same
relation. Now, if we could discriminate, it might be possible for us
to settle some questions, but I am not sure that we can. And I believe
that it is not always wise to discriminate in such cases, and that the
rule of caution is the better one to follow. I never touch the wine
glass; I never touch cards; I never go to the theatre, and I never
dance. I never did, and I will not allow my boy to do any one of
these four things. I would not say that a boy could not be a Chris-
tian and dance, but I do say that there is a line to be drawn between
selfish gratification and religious culture; between an eager pursuit of
worldly pleasure on one side and devotion to Christ on the other.
I regard the dance — this is only my opinion — I regard the dance, and
the theatre, and the card table, as badges of the world, and that they
historically and in fact belong to and float over the enemy's camp.
What would you say if I were to tell you that Mr. Moody and Dr.
John Hall engaged in a game of cards with George H. Stewart and
Bishop Simpson one evening for two hours, and didn't get to bed
before eleven o'clock? "Why," you would say, "that is not true, they
never did it ; they are not the kind of men to do that; they wouldn't
do such a thing." Why not? Because they make a high profession.
What do you mean by that? Because they are men of God in the
world. Well, what do you mean by that.'' When old Admiral Foote
was in the Eastern seas, he invited the Kingof Siam to dine with him
one day. At the table the Admiral pronounced a blessing, and the
King said, "Why, Admiral, that is the way missionaries do." "I too,
am a missionary." said the Admiral. What is not proper for D. L.
Moody, John Hall and Matthew Simpson to do, because it opposes a
religious idea, is not proper for the humblest Christian on the conti-
nent. Therefore I, as a Christian man in my humble sphere dare not
do what the highest dare not do, because of the general sentiment —
even if the sentiment be wrong — if the influence is bad I have got to
avoid every appearance of evil,
I was entertained by a very prominent man in the south for several
days. He had been a confederate general, and was then living in one
of the southern states. He was an eloquent man and an honest man,
and I loved him very much, not for what he did but for what he was.
If, when he had invited me to sit at his table he had flaunted a confed-
Illinois State Sunday School Convention. 73
erate flag in my face, I would not have sat down. I regard the con-
federate flag as the most impudent piece of bunting on God's earth.
It has a history; it has a record; it represents an idea; and as a loyal
American citizen I trample upon it. So I say of these things; if they
float over the camp of the world, we should have nothing to do with
them on the ground of public caution and public conscience. But
something sa3's, you can't stand well in society unless you compro-
mise. You will have to come down on that. God save me from
ever coming down!
I have proceeded on the theory that there is nothing essentially
wrong in these things; I don't know that there is, but I know what
John B, Gough tells me. He says, " Don't let your boy take wine."
But I say, what harm can there be? His grandfather took wine and
his father has taken it. He says, "For God's sake, don't!" What
shall I do? I take that as wise counsel from one who has had expe-
rience and made it a specialty.,
A young girl in New England went on to the stage. She ap-
peared one evening when a star actress was present with whom she
was acquainted. The woman looked at her and said, "What are 3'ou
doing here?" She said, "Oh, I am a member of the company," and
"is your father dead?" "O no, my father lives here." "Is your mother
dead?" "No, my mother is not dead. My father is very well off,
but I love the stage and intend to devote my life to it." The woman
said, "For God's sake, girl, leave it. Don't, don't, don't!"
You say your son married an actress; are you pleased with it?
your daughter marries an actor, — are you pleased with it.'' No. Why
not? Well, we all know w^hy not. As long as I live not one dollar
of my money shall support such an institution.
Into the house of a lady and gentleman come two young fellaws
from down town to spend the evening. They are invited there
because they have no home of their own and these young prople are
in the habit of inviting such young men to spend an hour or two at
their house frequently. After they chat a little while, the lady says,
"I have some beautiful photographs here that I have collected with
great care. Sojne of them are photographs of a cathedral in Europe.
They sit down and look over twenty magnificent photographs which
she explains to them. After spending an hour or two in this way,
on their way home one of the young fellows says, " Was'nt that
splendid? I am going to have a lot of those photographs; I am going,
to get a collection; what interesting things there are." And the next
morning I find them in a photographers establishment, starting a col-
lection of photographs.
Or perhaps an old deacon invites them to spend the evening at his
house. They sit down, and after awhile he says: "Mother, where
are the cards? Let us have a game of cards." One of the young
fellows says, "My mother, before I left home, made me promise that
I would not." But the old man induces him to play. They sit down
and play cards for two hours. One of them says, "I want to play
one more game," and they continue to play until a late hour. When
they go out, one of them says, "My mother told me when I looked
at that star always to remember her. I think she is very foolish about
that. I guess the old man is right. We have no society and nowhere
74 Illinois State Sunday School Convention.
to go. We will get a couple of other fellows and spend our evenings
playing cards."
My friends, depend upon it that the Roman Catholic Bishop in
England, and the most cultured lady and gentleman in America, are
right when almost universally they put their bans on these things.
Mrs. Sherman is right when she prohibits her daughters to dance or
when she refuses to dance herself The ladies of the most refined
society in America who say it is better to entertain company with
ideas and culture than to spend the time in the dance, at the card table
and the theatre, are right. Society is for the promulgation of culture
and not simply for amusement.
The last thought that I have to present on the subject is this: I be-
lieve that we ought to bring the social powers of the church to bear
on the young people. I do not believe very much in church sociables;
they may be very nice things, but I do not take much interest in them.
I believe there is too much trying to. mix up. You do not always
mix very well socially; you can't always associate with everybody
you meet in this world; associations in society must be voluntary.
Instead of trying to bring everybody together in the parlors of the
church, I think it better to select people, especially young people who
who have proved themselves worthy, and try to bring them in contact
with the tastes and culture and wealth of the church. In this way
the social power of the church will be brought to bear directly upon
our young people.
I will close this address with a picture. It is Sunday evening, a
moonlight night, a boy with heart-ache for to-morrow night he
leaves home. His old mother — how good she has been — has got a
place for him in New York in a big store, and he is going to be away
for a year at least. He says to his mother, "Mother, I am just going
to ask you one thing. I wish when I start to morrow night, you
would not — I wish you would not cry any; I wish you would just
be kind of pleasant, and think that I was going away just for a few days,
and then coming back; it would make me feel uncomfortable if you
should cry." The mother replies, "My dear boy, of course I will try,
but I ar>i sorry to loose you. I have tried to get a gdbd place for you
in New York, a place where the gentleman is a Christian, and I hope
he will take good care of you. I will try to be as brave as I can."
And he goes out into the moonlight, and says, "Why can't I go in the
daytime? Why must it be at night." The next night comes, and
he bids his mother good-bye, and she says "God bless you, my dear
boy; be true to your mother, be true to your father; be true to your
mother's God." He said, "I wmII try." And he took the train, and
after riding all night, arrived in New York next morning; he reported
at half past nine o'clock at the big establishment, and waits there until
the arrival of the merchant, who comes in and looks at him through
his gold-bowed spectacles, and says, "Who is this?" He answers "My
name is Tom," so and so. "I have a letter from you I think to
my mother." "Oh, yes, I have had some correspondence with her.
Your mother is very particular. I had some correspomlence with
her; she doesn't know I guess what the city is; these simple old peo-
ple in the country never do. You have come to a big establishment.
I had a great many applications from young men who want situations.
Illinois State Sunday School Convention. 75
It makes but little difference whether you stay or not. If you are
going to stay, I will tell you that there are three rules that everybody
in this establishment is expected to carry out: A time for everything,
and everything in its time; a place for everything, and everything in
its place, and mind your own business. If a fellow carries out these
three rules he gets along very well in this house, if he does not he is
sent off. I shall seldom see you myself. You will be under the
charge of Sanford, who will tell you what to do. Here, Sanford,
come and take this young fellow and set him to work, and keejD a
sharp eye on him ; these young fellows from the country need watch-
ing." And Tom goes to work, and he says to himself "She said he
was a Christian." "Well, Tom, he is a Christian, why of course he is;
why, Tom, that man gives $568 a year for his pew in church, he goes
to one of the most elegant churches on the avenue; that man gave
last year over nine hundred dollars for foreign missionary work; he
has three orphan children, that the missionaries have picked up in In-
dia, to whom he has given fancy names, and he pays their expenses
and educates them. He is a great missionary man. He is splendid
on foreign missions. And then he goes regularly to prayer- meeting
and goes to cominunion. I tell you, Tom, if there is a Christian man,
he is the one." Tom draws a long breath and says, "A Christian
man." All that week Tom works. No more words from the mer-
chant, only sharp words from Sanford. Sunday morning comes, and
he goes to church; the one nearest to the miserable house in which
he boards. He sits down on a back seat, and a man comes along and
says, "What are you doing here? You are in the wrong pew, sit over
here." In the afternoon he goes to Sunday-School in the same church
where he was in the morning. He sat down on a back seat again,
and when a young man came around with the papers, Tom reached
out his hand to take one, and the fellow drew back, and says, "We
don't give these to strangers. You are a green fellow." The lesson
that day was the "universialty of the gospel." Tom went home to his
room on the third or fourth floor, and sat down and wrote a letter to
his mother.
"My Dear Mother: — I reached New York, as I told you
by postal card, on Tuesday morning. I went to see the merchant.
He is a christian (and he drew six lines under that last v/ord). I work
every day; it has been very dull. I have thought a good many times,
and wished I could spend Sunday with you. This morning I went
to church. There was a sermon preached. This afternoon I went
to Sunday-School, and there was a regular lesson. And now I am
writing to you. I will try to carry out all your advice, and I will be
very glad to get home. Give my love to the dog. Tom."
Then there is another picture. I see Tom go into a store on Broad-
way. I see him introduced into the counting room of the merchant,
and he announces his name, Tom so and so. The old merchant
reaches out his hand and gives him a kindly grasp, and says "I am
glad to see you, my boy. I have been corresponding with your
mother about you for some time, and you have a mother to be proud
of. A boy with such a mother is welcome in this store. I had such
a mother myself long ago. She has been dead a great many years.
God bless her. Now, Tom, you have come to a big establishment.
76 Illinois State Sunday School Convention.
We cany on business here on business principles. VVe have three
rules, which every one is expected to obey: A time tor everything,
and everything in its time; A place for everything, and everything in
its place; and mind your own business. Now, I will introduce you
to Sanford, under whose charge you will be. He is a sharp fellow,
and sometimes a little short, but one of the biggest hearted fellows in
the world. He wouldn't say a word to hurt your feelings. You
musn't mind him if he should speak sharply to you at times. He
used to have a good mother himself, and wfien he hears about yours,
he will treat you kindly for her sake." Tom is introduced to San-
ford and goes to work, and he says to himself, "I tell you he is a
Christian." The next morning the merchant meets him and says
"Good morning, Tom; how does it go, all right? Keep at it, and
you will come out all right. Saturday morning comes and Tom is
called into the office to see the merchant, who says to him "Tom, to-
morrow is Sunday, and Sunday is the hardest day in the week for a
young fellow away from home. I want you to come to my house to-
morrow morning at 10 o'clock, go to church with my wife and my-
self, come back to dinner, then go to Sunday-School with me. And
I have inquired about your boarding place! I don't like it. It isn't a
comfortable place. There is an old gentleman and his wife who be-
long to our church, I am going to see them about getting you a
place in their house, where you will have a good home, and here is a
card, Tom, that will admit you to the Y. M. C. A., and to all the lec-
tures and entertaiments, and give you the privileges of the library.
You will find it a very good place to spend your evenings when you
want to read or study. You just take that and use it. And then I
will look for you to-morrow." Tom goes back and he says, "I tell
you he is a Christian." In the morning Tom gets up, dresses in his
best, and a simple looking fellow he is too dressed at his best, goes to
the house of his employer, goes to church and sits down in the pew
with that beautiful fine old gentleman and the charming old lady
whose motherly ways remind him of his own mother. He hears the
sermon — my, what nice people — what a nice church. The minister
preaches a gospel sermon on the Evidences of Christianity. While
he was speaking away, Tom sat with his arms folded and looked side-
ways at the old gentleman, and said down in his soul, "I tell you, old
fellow, here is one of the evidences." He went to dinner. He went
to Sunday- School, and was placed in the young men's bible class, and
he made up his mind that he would go to that church all the time.
What a precious little proselyte he was. Tom went home and sat
down and wrote:
"My Dear Mothek : — I arrived Tuesday morning and went to
work. I tell yt)u, mother, Mr. So-and-so is a Christian (and he un-
derscored that last word six times). I have had a good time. It is
Sunday evening. I went to church this morning with my employer
and his wife, and I took dinner with them. She is a very good
woman, so much like you. I went to Sunday School this afternoon.
I like it very much. I think I will go to that church and Sunday
School all the time. He has got me a nice boarding place, and he
gave me a card to the Y. M. C. A. I tell you, mother, I am having
Illinois State Sunday School Convention. 77
a good time. I think of you very often. I would like to see you.
Give my love to the dog. Tom."
At the close of Dr. Vincent's address the convention sang the dox-
ology, Rev. Mr. Ingalls, of Danville, pronounced the benediction,
and the convention adjourned.
Third Day — First Session.
[A meeting was held at S o'clock in the Congregational Church with Mr. Rey-
nolds in the chair, at which the subject of agitating the temperance question in
State politics was discussed. The meeting was well attended, but was, in no
sense, a session of the Convention, as erroneously stated in the papers.]
The convention met at 9 o'clock. The song " To the work, to the
work," was sung. Mr. H. R. Clissold read the scriptures, the selec-
tion being Philippians ii. Mr. J. R. Mason led the convention in
prayer. "He leadeth me," was sung, and the topic, "The Servant's
Trained," was taken up. Mr. Knox P. Taylor of Bloomington ad-
dressed the convention on "School and Class Management."
SCHOOL AND CLASS MANAGEMENT.
REV. KNOX P. TAYLOR.
Dear Friends: — We are called the King's servants. If we are the
King's servants we shall be willing to be trained, and willing too to
apply ourselves to the task of learning all about the King's commands,
though it may require us to go over and over the same things many
times. This we shall be willing to do if our hearts are in the King's
business. We are told that the King's business is urgent, that it de-
mands dispatch. It is well if you are trained servants, but whether
trained or not the message must be delivered. We must carry the
King's commands; we must labor to do His work.
In every Sunday School there is a work to do for the King. In
our Sunday School work of to-day we should remember that we have
multiplied advantages for disseminating religious truths, and that,
while this is so, a vast army of irreligious teachers have sprung up all
over the land who are industriously "sowing the tares." There is no
time to be lost, every energy should be aroused to carry the truths of
the gospel home to the hearts of the people before the seeds of error
become rooted there. The reception or rejection of its truths must
settle forever the fate of millions of human beings. Such responsi-
bility demands that we put forth our mightiest efforts. How shall we
be prepared to put forth our energies so as to make them accomplish
the mission we are sent upon, so as to secure the greatest benefit to
those whom we are called to teach?
We must first present the object of our teaching — present Clirist as
the first object lesson; and then we must discipline as well as instruct.
We must seek to make our pupils fit servants to carry the tidings of
78 Illinois State Sunday School Convention.
the gospel to others. Out from this convention let the King's servants
step forth equipped for work, in such power, that we shall gain the
grandest victory for the King that has been won for these many years.
In considering the question of Sabbath School management, the
first point is: what are some of the qualifications needed in a Super-
intendent? Some of us have been engaged in this work for years.
Who will give us some point? (Answers from the audience: )" To
know by experience what he teaches." " Consecration in the work."
"Patience." "Love for children." "Perseverance." "Love for Christ."
"Tact." "Dignity." "Good common-sense." "Industry." "Execu-
tive ability." " Stick-to-it-ive-ness." " Devotion." ( Speaker says,
" That's so.") "Ability to superintend himself" "Learn to control
himself." "Not fretting over every little friction that turns up, he will
not be affected by it." Another says, " Grip and gumption." Now,
is that enough? says the speaker. "He must keep order," says another.
How shall he do this? "I think by being orderly himself. If he can
command a perfect control over himself, he can command others."
Another says, "Keep the pupils always at work." Another, "He that
ruleth his own spirit, is better than he that taketh a city." (The re-
porter caught it "he that talketh to a Sabbath School." Supposed the
speaker referred to excessive speech-making to the Sabbath School.)
Another response, "Complete one course of reading at a time, and do
not pray too long." " Be sure you are right." " Get ready to do a
thing, then do it." "One thing at a time, and be sure you do it well."
"You want to know how to make short speeches." The speaker thus
supplied with "points," continued:
Get men that will have the ability to execute well your plans, and
see that they carry them out. When you have selected the man to
do the work, see to it that he does it^ get every man to do it. Moody's
success has been largely due to getting the right man to work in the
right place, and then setting them to work. Without this you cannot
succeed. I have discovered in Moody's method a new point, and I
think he was right. It was: To do the least work (that should be done
by others) that it was possible for him to do, and get others to work.
He felt the importance of this, that it was one great part of his own
work to get others to work. He realized and emphasized this in his
own practice.
I cannot impress too strongly the importance of cultivating this
personal power — to infuse life into others. It was the power that was
in Christ, our Master. He could move the inultitudes, and the most
of his instruction was confined to teaching his disciples how to move,
in turn, upon other multitudes with the power of the gospel.
We should set before us the highest standard of gospel work, and
then work up to it. We have Christ for our model. Let us work
towards the standard of works that he has left on record of himself.
Another suggestion, on that point, is brought out by the experience of
a little girl out in Colorado. She said she had a congregation of five
in her Sabbath School, but it was all broke up now. There wasn't
enough children in the place where she lived to have a Sabbath School
of children, so she got up one of her own. Her little Sunday School
consisted of a pet dog, a cat, one or two other pets, and a calf, she
said. "But I don't have that now," "Why don't you have that?"
Illinois State Sunday School Convention. 79
the speaker asked. "Why do you know that that calf got so big it
wouldn't come to my Sunday School?"
Another says: "Be present, at sometime during the session, with
every class of the school. Meet every scholar at the door, shake
hands with him." Your Superintendent should know how the teach-
ers are teaching, and what. Walk quietly around. Take a seat with
or near the teacher and class, but let there be no interruption. Let
the lesson go right t)n. Get into full sympathy with the teacher and
class. They must be one body. There is need of close supervision.
The teacher may be teaching infidelity, or consuming his time in tell-
ing Indian stories, unless you are around to see what he does teach.
If he is not the right man, why change him.
One says: "Educate him, develop him." Don't have long talks
about the v^reather, the crops, the chintz bug, etc., but short talks.
When you have a visitor, treat him with respect, but don't insist on
a speech from every casual visitor. Take care of the stranger or he
wont come back.
Wait outside a little while. Don't be in too great a hurry to run
away from the people.
Question. — But don't you believe that a superintendent can super-
intend too much? Can't he superintend a school to death? Yes, I
believe it. (He can.) Let the power be back. The superintendent
should have the sympathies of the school, but should not be made
too prominent. He ought to be able to infuse his own sympathies and
powers into the school, without their knowing that he was doing it.
The greatest powers lay back in reserve. It should be so with the
superintendent.
The programme should not be too rigidly follov\^ed out in the les-
son, but a programme of the general proceedings of the school, it is
well to follow out. It should be often changed.
Now as to the singing: Rememember to pitch the tunes so that
a common voice can sing them. Then let the whole school sing. A
good plan is to have the pieces selected on the black-board. By this
means no time is lost in turning to the pieces to be sung, and many
who would otherwise not have the place will be ready to sing with
the rest.
The point of success in keeping order, is to keep busy. When we
get through with one point, strike the next, and then the next. That
plan saves half of the time of the Superintendent, to be devoted to
business, that would otherwise be required in simply keeping order.
Another thing: Select, through the week, everything that needs to be
referred to during the lesson. Do not allow business to slack ; and
see that the songs are adapted to the lesson. Your Superintendent
should be able to give you the needful instruction to carry all these
points into practice. These are only suggestions, and a good Super-
intendent will not grow weary in his work, but will address himself
to his task, with energy, tact and skill.
Questions — Should classification be made according to age, sex, or
the literary ability of the pupil? How about age? If you had a pu-
pil of ten with sufficient ability, would you class him with those of
other years? Would you put infants with those of ten? The good
boys allln one class and the bad boys in another? You generally
8p Illinois State Sunday School Convention.
know the best boys and girls in community. Would you put them
all in one class? Or the believers in one class, and the unbelievers in
another?
The speaker said: "I think that your classification, whatever it be,
should be made so that the pupils would not know its design.
"Managing CliAss by Teachkr." — In summing up the quali-
ties that contribute to the make-up of the successfjil teacher, we find:
1st. Ability to secure attention. 2nd. Judicious visiting. 3rd. Earn-
estness. 4th. Thorough preparation, 5th. Adaptation of thought
to the lesson. 6th. Adaptation of the lesson to the class. 7th.
Love for the class.
There are many ways to entertain and instruct. We should love
the pupils, because Jesus says, "Feed my lambs." Love predomi-
nates in the character of the Christian. Read over the elementary
principles of what you teach. Review, review it, over and over, and
over again. It wont be monotonous when you have studied the les-
son so as to gain the clearest ideas of that which the lesson is designed
to teach. Friends, let's go over, and over, and over the topics to be
discussed, until we know how to teach; and the more you review
them, the more you will find that they loom up with importance.
Do not forget that you are saving souls for eternity.
A hymn was sung, and Mr. W. B.Jacobs addressed the convention
on the subject of "Training in Township and County W^ork."
THE SERVANTS TRAINED.
HY W. H. JACOBS.
There are two texts I would like to call your attention to, in con-
nection with the general topic which we had under discussion this
morning: "The servants trained." One in Mark x. 43-45: "But so
shall it not be among you; but whosoever shall be great among you
shall be your minister; and whosoever of you will be the chiefest
shall be servant of all. For even the .Son of man came not to be min-
istered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many."
The other, 2 Timothy iii, 17: "That the man of God may be perfect,
thoroughly furnished unto all good works."
First, a willingness to serve; and where there is a willingness to
serve, there is a willingness to be trained for the particular service
required of us. These texts suggest two books that are to be studied,
one is the living Christ, the other the life-giving word. They also
suggest two things that are necessary, that specially cpialify us to
teach the gospel: the first is the spirit of Christ; the second, the
wisdom of God. These things we must have in view if we would be
successful in our work; we must seek first the glory of God, and next,
the good of man. In this work two things are absolutelv needed —
consecrated time and consecrated money. Some must, of necessity,
give the time, and some, of necessity, give the money. Two more
things are required: Earnest faithful work, and unwavering faith
in God. ■ The hard work calls for a self-sacrificing and humb.le spirit,
a persistent consecrated spirit, doing all for God's glory; and faith in
Illinois State Sunday School Convention. Si
God is necessary because of the discouiagements we meet, and be-
cause of the misrepresentations we may have to encounter. Discour-
agements will come. We must be willing to w^ait for God's time to
give us our reward; counting ourselves His servants, and doing His
work in His way, with an eye single to His glory; willing to work
without reward from man; committing ourselves to "Him that judg-
eth righteously," not to the judgment of man, but into the hands of
God, to do the work, and leave the results and responsibility with
Him who is able to care for it.
I am persuaded that the greatest want in our Sunday-School work,
in the Schools, the Townships and in the Counties is the want of con-
secrated men. You remember that an ancient philosopher searched
the streets of Athens, at mid-day, with a lantern for a man. We also
must seek for men; men ready and willing to enter the field white for
the harvest; men who have the right idea and will work in the right
spirit; men who are willing to sacrifice time and money in the
work — sacrifice, if necessary, unto death (a voice in the audience "you
do not expect the last named sacrifice, do you? ") No, we do not have
to make such sacrifices as tliat, but we need the spirit that will enable
us to make that sacrifice, if it were needed. The gospel command
does not mean anything less to us than it did to the early disciples
when it was said: "The Son of man came not to be ministered unto,
but to minister, and to give His life a ransom for many." So we
should be ready to minister to those who want the gospel. We do
need more Christ-like men and w^omen who have this self-sacrificing
spirit. We need such a man in every township, in every county.
Do you know him, can you find him? If not, will you be that man?
It is written, "We shall be like Him." You say a present ap])lication
of that text would be egotistical. No, it would not. Egotism
is talking about ourselves. This we ought carefully to avoid.
Let us talk about Him; let us live like Him; let us be like
Him. You need not speak of yourself in the neighborhood.
The Chi-istian who has to be labeled, "This is a Chris-
tian," is not of much use. That man is not truly sanctified who
is obliged publicly to inform others that this is the case, and whose
life does not testify it day by day; but yve should be sanctified. God
says, "Be ye holy as I am holy;" that is, be a Christ-like man or
woman. Let others see it, and feel it, and know it, and Christ will get
the glory, even if you say nothing about it.
All our theories and thoughts and plans, gathered from the wisdom
of the past and from the eloquent men who have been on this plat-
form before me, will be useless if we do not put them into practice.
Some people are full of egotism; they can tell all about conducting a
school in the proper manner, but they never conduct a school; they
can tell who is the right person and describe the way to teach, but
they do not teach themselves. There is but one way to find out
whether we really know how to teach, and that is, patiently to under-
take to work out your own ideal of a teacher, and if vou are not like
him, educate, pray and work till you are like him. We do not have
much patience with those who tell us what they are, or what they can
do, and complain of others, who expect to rise by pushing others
down.
6
82 Illinois State Sunday School Convention.
The machinery, beautiful and grand as it is, is worthless without the
power that moves it, and the only jiower that will move it is the
power of Christ working through us, the power of a consecrated
spirit; the power of a holy life; the power of God manifested in us,
enabling us to glorify God, by finishing the work that He gave
us to do. You reply that we cannot get such servants as these. Why
not? Two things are very distasteful to the flesh, especially to Amer-
ican flesh. One is, to be a servant; the other, to confess that we need
any training at all. Self-confidence, while it is often a good thing in
certain directions, is sometimes the greatest hindrance to successful
Christian work. A willingness and an anxiety to learn of God or of
men, even of chiltlrcn; of the wisest and best and of the weakest; in-
deed, of any one, any where, is a qualification we need and must have
in our hearts. If we would be successful" workers, we must be wil-
ling and anxious to learn, and a desire to know will lead us to study,
to think, to pray and to work. For what purpose is this convention
held? Is it not to learn, and ought we not to be willing to learn?
Truly, the humble man when he knows his own weakness will pray
to God for light and strength. This he will always do before under-
taking any great work. It is for this that our conventions are held ;
not that we may have a good time; not that we may have a star
on the map; not that we may be a banner county. A true conven-
tion which is really a conference of Christians, is in itself a con-
fession of our need ftnd a profession of our desire to know
more and to do our work better. We recognize that "the
field is the world," and those who hear the command, "G o,
preach my gospel to every creature," must of necessity seek also to
learn how this command may be most faithfully obeyed.
The grand convention that was held in London, two years ago rec-
ognized it when reports were brought from the ends of the earth.
Our International Convention, at Toronto, recognized it as we pa-
tiently studied the wants of our own country, and listened to the re-
ports from foreign lands. We recognize it in our own State, County
and Township Conventions. Certainly, when we come together as
Christian workers we should look over every County and every
Township to see if there is a neighborhood unreached; if there is a
place where the seed has not been planted, where the gospel is not
preached; if there is a house unvisited, or a jjerson uninvited to Christ.
A conference of Christian men who realize the greatness of their re-
sponsibility should be willing to meet together to inquire what can be
done to carry out the Master's command, to preach the gh.d tidings
to every creatine.
We frecjuently are asked, "Is it possible that all can be saved?"
Let us inquire, why not? God said, "I am not willing that any should
perish." He must, therefore, be willing that all be saved. But
Christ says, "If I am lifted up I will draw all men unto me." Does
not this show the willingness of God and the all-sufliciency of Christ?
Does it not mean that every soul may be saved? We want
conventions in order to bring people together where they may report
the work of the present, and devise plans for the future. This is the
idea of this convention, to become better students of the Word,
better teachers of the Word, better examples of the Word; to do bet-
Illinois State Sunday School Convention. 83
ter work as superintendents, teachers and pastors, to be holy men and
women.
Particularly must we study the Word. This Bible is our text
book. We must know what is in this book if we are to teach it. It
contains the Word and will of God. But how little do we know and
love it. With many of us thoughtlessness is the trouble. The mind
that does not think enough will never kno\y enough, will never have
full-grown ideas; will never have much to present to a class of schol-
ars. I do not have much coniidence in mere machine work. In all
such teaching, what goes in at one car generally goes out at the other.
We must he thoroughly imbued with the subject which we are to
teach. The thing that has not become a part of ourselves is not
worth much to others. What a grand thing it would be if, in all our
Christian teaching and labor, we would recognize the claims of Christ
upon us for earnest hard work. You have heard of Father Paxton.
You know his life, you know his power. Like him the man or wo-
man that has this power will live and work. I am pursuaded that the
men and women of the city of Champaign, indeed of the State of
Illinois, that are now before me, are the men and women that will be
used in the Providence of God, to carry on this grand work and bring
it forward to a higher standard of efficiency. I do not believe that
you who sit here to-day v/ith such patience to hear, you who have
been listening so earnestly to what has been said; I do not believe
you are ur. willing to sit at the feet of Jesus Christ in a humble and
loving manner to learn how to do His work. I do believe you are in
earnest, and I am glad to see also the spirit of cheerfulness that pre-
vails in this convention. This Is not the solemn air of a funeral ser-
vice, but the earnest buoyant step of those who are marching for-
ward to work. We believe that we shall not only have a more per-
fect organization of State Sunday-School work, but that the banner,
which God has invited us to carry to the front, through our standard
bearers, shall be cheerfully, faithfully supported, the rank and file
keeping close to the flag as good soldiers for Jesus Christ. In the
name of our God let us set up our banners and keep them there,
bearing the inscription, "Go ye into all the world and teach all na-
tions." ^luch as we do at home for the Master, we cannot close our ears
and hearts to foreign lands. "To every creature" is the command.
There is not a territory in the United States that we are not responsi-
ble for, and until every vSunday-School has been visited and fortified,
yea, until every house has been visited for God, we will continue the
work. We must find out where the particular places are that this
light does not shine, and there we must carry the light.
(The speaker here made some extended remarks upon household
visitation, describing the manner of the same in modern times in a
humorous and pointed way, but condemned the practice of too much
formality in making gospel calls; stated the object of them to be the
bringing in of children to the Sunday-School and parents to the
church, and recommended moi"e earnestness on the part of Christian
people, and h-ss attention to frivolous matters.)
He also said: There are some obstacles in our way that should be
removed. St-lfishness and want of union interfere with success.
These stumbling blocks should be removed, must b^ removed before
84 Illinois State Sunday School Convention.
Christians, as a body, can make much advance. The church must
spend a few weeks in prayer and suppHcation for the influence of the
Holy Spirit, before they can begin to make an impression upon sin-
ners. There is a want of union and brotherly love, and this
want of union among professing Christians is, to-da}^, the greatest ob-
stacle in the way of the salvation of the world. Christ is too often
crucified afresh in the house of His friends. But in no depart-
ment of Christian work has there been so much cheerful union as in
the Sunday-School work. There is no other agency that has been
found to bring all Christian workers together like the Sunday-School.
In the war time, men stood up, at the call of their country, and
marched forth to battle with energy, devotion and patriotism. They
gloried in the sacrifice they made for their country's good and the
honor of the flag. Faithful hearts! they were inspired with a grand
idea. It was an inspiration that made them heroes, and it is so with
the Soldiers of the Cross. There is no inspiration so grand, so en-
nobling, so God-like as that we receive from the Holy Spirit, and
from the Word of God. "Neither pray I for these alone, but for
them also which shall believe on me through their word. That they
all may be one, as thou. Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they
also may be one in us; that the world may believe that thou hast sent
me.
We should review the past, report the condition of the present, and
look forward to the future. We must confess a desire to be better
teachers of the word; to be better superintendents and oflicers,to be holy
men and women. I never knew of a Christian dying of too much
encouragement; a Christian like other men, needs sympathy, and it
is well that we cheer one another on our way. But let us remember
that that sympathy and encouragement, which we most need, Jesus
Christ our Lord is willing to give.
(Mr. Jacobs answered a number of questions concerning the details
of township work and house to house visitation, and, at the rcfjuest of
many, the general ideas of the speaker and Miss Lucy J. Rider have
been embodied in the printed form that follows, and for general circu-
lation will be printed in tract form and may be obtained at cost on ap-
plication to Mr. Jacobs at Chicago.)
Some questions answered in reference to County and
Township Organizations for Sunday-School Work.
isi ^ticstion. — What is the object of Sunday-School Conventions?
Ans-wer. — i. — To ascertain the number and efliciency of the Sun-
day-Schools in a given territory.
We must know a need before we can meet it. Cases of incredible
destitution, not only of Sunday-Schools, but of all religious opportu-
nities, have been brought to light by the aid of the Sunday-School
Association, whose working meetings are called conventions.
2. — To consult together, and decide upon methods for reaching and
bringing under religious influence and teaching, all who are without
such teaching.
The Union .Sunday-School Association is really a Home Missionary
Society, which can do thorough, scrutinizing work as no other society
Illinois State Sunday School Convention. 85
can, because it is under the auspices of all evangelical denominations^
and unites all in the work of canvas and supply.
3. — ;To discuss plans of work and methods of teaching in the Sun-
day-Schools already organized.
"Iron sharpeneth iron; so a man sharpeneth the countenance of his
friend." — Prov. 2^ : 17.
"In the multitude of counsellors there is safety." — Prov. 11: 14.
4. — To arouse enthusiam and interest in Sunday-School work.
One particle of fire will explode a thousand grains of gun-powder,
if only it comes in contact with them. One earnest worker will in-
terest many others if only a point of contact is afforded. Enthusi-
asm— holy zeal — is contagious. Give it a chance to spread.
5. — To exemplify the essential unity of all Christians in the work
of saving souls.
This Sunday-School Association is the only organization where
Christians of all denominations meet regularly, to plan together for
systematic Christian effort to reach every family and individual in ev-
ery School District, Township and County of our State and Nation.
Jesus said, "It is not the will of your Father in heaven that one of
these little ones should perish" (Mat. 18: 14), and this is the motto of
our Sunday-School Association.
2d Question. — What is the "Sunday-School Association?"
Answer. — A company of men and women banded together for the
advancement of all Sunday-School interests — the establishment of new
schools wherever needed, and for securing the best possible work in
the schools already in existence.
The Association, whether State, County or Township, lives and
works the whole year round; though its public meetings, the Conven-
tions, are held only at regular seasons, and are necessarily brief.
jd ^ucslioti. — Is this Organization necessary?
Answer. — The thorough organization of political parties, and all
great movements, is sufficient answer. By organization workers are
found. By organization work is done.
We can succeed in no other way. There must be a plan of work,
and system in carrying it out; some one must be responsible and see
that it is done. Father Paxton said truly, "The key to success is hard
work, and it won't do itself." Some one must visit the schools.
Some one must call the workers together in counsel. Some one must
see that time and place of convention are fixed, programme pi^epared,
speakers secured, and everybody invited to attend. Some one must
ask for, write for and go after reports from schools.
No; this work "won't do itself," therefore we need Organization.
Remember, this County and Township Organization is not the or-
ganization of the separate Sunday-Schools, but the union of all Sun-
day-School workers for mutual help and united work. Therefoi'e
Counties and Townships where no such union exists are called "un-
organized," even while the thorough organization of many individual
schools is thankfully recognized.
4th ^?cestio}i. — How can such an Organization in Town or County
be aflected?
Answer. — Let any earnest man or woman invite those most inter-
ested in Sunday-School work to meet at some private house. Call
$6 Illinois State Sunday School Convention.
attention to the large number outside of all religious influence, and to
the small ««;«<^cr of conversions in our schools; and the nc.d that
something be done both for those without and those within. Get as
many earnest Christians as possible to sign
A CALL FOR A SUNDAY-SCHOOL CONVENTION.
Have it printed and sent to every one in the County or Township
who is at all interested, a full month before the time of meeting.
Ask the newspapers to print the call (and afterward the programme),
and the ministers to ainiounce it, and get everybody to talk about it.
Then have another informal meeting to arrange a good programme,
and two weeks after the call was sent out, send this also to every one
who you think will be interested.
A few things to be remembered.
1. — Be Prompt. The call should be sent out fully a month before
and the programme two weeks before the time fixed for the conven-
tion.
2. — Be Truthful. Do not put any speaker's name on the pro-
gramme unless he has promised to speak, and do not ask any op.e to
speak unless you think he will do the cause good.
■7.- — Be Liberal. Don't be afraid of spending a few cents or dollars
in printing and postage. Tt will pay. Give, and ask others to give.
Individuals and schools will be glad to aid, when they know what 3'ou
intend to do. Do not be afraid to ask for money.
j/// Question. — -How shall we organize our County?
■ Answer. — Elect for President a man who loves the Saviour, the
Work and the Children. He need not be a good talker; but should
be an earnest, determined, active, working Christian. He sliould pre-
side at all meetings of the Association; call meetings of the Exicutive
Committee; attend meetings in each township, if possible, and do all
in his power to advance the interests of the Sunday-School work
throughout the whole county.
A man (or woman) who loves the Sunday-School cause, and is able
and willing to work, should be chosen as Secretary and 7'reasurer
of the Association. His duties are: First, To keep the Records of
all meetings of the Association and of the Executive Commitlee. He
is the Sunday-School Historian of the county. Second^ 'Vo g.ither
reports of township meetings and statistics of all the schools in each
township in the county, and present these reports in proper form to
the Annual County Convention. He should send blanks for reports
to the township officers, and to each school in the county, three
months before the annual meeting, and if impossible to get these re-
ports by mail, he should see the township oflicers personal!)-, and
request them to visit each school and get the report zvhile there.
Thirds He should assist the President and Executive Committee in
their work, attend township conventions, and by correspondence and
'personal acquaintance keep everybody interested in Sunday- School
work.
An Executive Committee of three or five, according to size of tl.c
county, should be chosen, to work with the President and Secret.-iry
in organizing the townships, holding conventions, etc. If ]-)ossiblc,
have on this committee men from different denominations of Ch.ris-
Illinois State Sunday School Convention. 87
tians; but put no one on it unless he will work. This committee
should meet once in three months; divide the county into sub-districts,
each member taking charge of a number of townships; and each
should agree to hold and attend a convention in each township under
his charge. At these meetings plans should be perfected for pushing
forward the Sunday-School work in every way. Special meetings
provided where needed, and speakers secured to attend them. Three
months before the Annual County Meeting, work should be begun to
make it a success. Not only should the Secretary send blanks to every
school but every effort should be made by all the committee to get full
reports and to have proper delegates chosen to the Annual Conven-
tion.
6th Question. — How should the convention be conducted?
Anszver. — With two special objects in view. i. — To get all per-
sons, young and old, into Sunday-School.
2. — To secure better teaching for those who already attend.
For the ^rsl. Get reports from all townships of work done (have
report filled out as per blank enclosed). Make up your county report
from footings of the township reports, and put it on the blackboard.
This report should show: Number of schools in every township;
number kept open all the year; total number of officers and teachers;
total scholars; total membership; average attendance; number re-
ceived into church; number schools which hold teachers' meetings;
number who systematically visit their neighborhoods from house to
house; nuinber schools which take up regular missionary collections,
and amount given; number ^vhich contribute to State and county
work, and amount given. As report from each township is entered
on board, ask. Does any one know of any more schools in this town-
ship? Take time to correct reports, so that all can see just what has
been done. Then call attention to number not in Sunday-School;
small number of conversions; small amount of missionary contribu-
tions, etc. And try to have these matters so presented that every
teacher will go away determined to do better work the coming year.
A map of the county, showing the townships, with a gilt star on each
organized tovvnship, and a coloi'ed dot to show the location of each
Sunday-School, will add greatly to the interest of the convention.
But secofid, a considerable of the time should be given to Institute
work; to aid those who desire to be become better qualified as teach-
ers and workers.
yl/i Question. — How shall we make a programme?
Afiswer. — A County Convention may properly continue a day and
a half and two evenings. I suggest the following outline: Meet at
1 : 30 or 2 P. M. Spend first after 7ioon in talks about "The Book we
study." How to study it; how to teach it; with Bible readings and
talks that will show its life-giving and elevating joower. First even-
ing-^ same subject, or addresses on "Need of Better Teaching." "Who
ought to be in Sunday-School, and why." "How to secure better
observance of Sabbath," etc. JVext Morning, reports from officers
and townships; review of reports; plans for better work in townships
and schools; election of officers, etc. Second ayternootz^ class man-
agement; teachers' meetings; teachers' week-day work; superinten-
dent's work; primary class work, etc. Closing with Question Drawer,
88 Illinois State Sunday School Convention.
or Children's meeting. Second evenings address, "What result may
we expect this year in om" work, and on what conditions." Closing
remarks by officers elect, pastors and delegates.
Three questions ought to be constantly before us: i — What has
already been done? 2 — What remains undone? 3 — How can we do
this in the best way and shortest time?
8tli Question. — How should township work be done?
Answer. — The best man or woman in the township should be
Township President. Every Superintendent in the township should
be on the Township Executive Committee. This Committee should
meet once in three months. Each Superintendent report as to work
in his own school. The township should be divided into sub-districts,
for House to House I 'isiiation^ and each school that is willing to
work should have a district assigned it for visitation. This Commit-
should arrange for the Annual Township Convention, and consult with
County Executive Committee about it. The County .Sunday-School
Map should be taken to every Township Convention, and location of
schools corrected or verified as reports are received.
J^or l^ownship Progratnme I suggest the following: Meet at 10
A. M. for prayer and praise; at 10: 30 have Reports from Sc/iools^
especially as to effect of house to house visitation; enter reports of
each school on the blackboard as received. 1 1 : 30, reports reviewed.
After7ioon meet at i : 30, elect ']"'ownship Officers and appoint dele-
gates to the County Convention. Choose only the very best Chris-
tian ivorkcrs. From 2 to 4, discuss j^ractical methods of study, teach-
ing, etc. ; 4 P. M. Question Drawer or Children's Meeting. Even-
ing. Address to parents, church members or young people, as may
seem best. Close with words from officers and workers as to the
work of the coming year.
gth Question. — How should the finances be provided for?
Answer. — Each school should be requested to contribute to the
County Association according to its ability. Two cents per annum
for each member of the school is a fair proportion, though some
schools m:i)'be able and willing to do much more. The money should
be sent directly to the County Secretary or Treasurer, and he should
send the amount due the State Association to its Treasurer. Few
realize how much can be accomplished in raising money by energetic
and persistent letters written directly to the superintendents of the
schools. A county in Illinois increased its fund from two to sixty
dollars in a single year by this means. The amoimt paid to the State
Association should be about one cent for each member of the Sunday
Schools in the county. If all the schools do not contribute, a collec-
tion during the convention may be necessary. A finance connnittec
should be ajjpointed early in the sessions to audit the Treasurer's Re-
port, and see that funds are provided to pay necessary expenses of the
convention, including traveling expenses of speakers from outside the
county, and the county's proportion of money needed to carry on the
State work. JVo Toivnship Treasurer is needed. The amount
needed for Township work can easily be secured by a collection at
the annual meeting of the Township Association.
Have no conventions on Sunday if possible to avoid it.
The Township Presidents should be invited to attend meetings of
County Executive Committee.
Illinois State Sunday School Convention. 89
Each Township President should try to have his own school meet
at such an hour as will enable him to visit one other school each Sun-
day.
For fear of delay in getting Reports from Schools, the Township
President should visit each school within three months before the An-
nual County Meeting and get a report while there, sufficient to ena-
ble him to make out his Annual Township Report; and this Report
should be sent to the County Secretary two weeks before the County
Convention.
To all Sunday -School Workers^ Greeting : At the request of
many, who desire to have better work done by our County and
Township Sunday-School Associations, the above is submitted, in the
hope that our observation of the needs of this great work, and sug-
gestions as to the best way to meet these needs, may be of some ser-
vice to our fellow workers.
Yours in a blessed service, W. B. Jacobs,
Lucy J. Rider.
The Committee appointed to consider the report of the Executive
Committee reported through their chairman, the Rev. John O. Fos-
ter; calling the special attention of the convention to the report, and
requesting a careful study of the points submitted by the committee;
warmly recommending the work of the Executive Committee dur-
ing the year; indorsing the suggestion of the committee favoring the
re-engagement of Miss Lucy J. Rider for another year; recommend-
ing that the Normal Institute be held if the Executive Committee
think it can be successfully carried out; approving of the pledge made
on behalf of the State to the International work; recommending that
the increase in the amount pledged be made if, in the judgment of the
Executive Committee the funds of the State would warrant it, and
suggesting to the convention that the time and place of the next State
Convention be left to the committee.
On motion, the report of the committee was adopted.
The Committee appointed to consider the subject of incorporating
the State Association reported as follows:
"The necessity may arise for a legal organization, and should the
same occur, we recommend the existing Executive Committee be re-
quested to take such steps as may be for the best, but that for the pres-
ent, the whole subject may be deferred."
The report of the committee was adopted.
On motion of Mr. W. B. Jacobs, the convention requested the
County Treasurers to remit their contributions and pledges for the
State work to the Treasurer as early in the year as possible.
A motion of Mr. R. C. Griffith, that the Executive Committee be
instructed to have a convention in the northern part of the State, was
tabled, and the time and place left to the Executive Committee.
9^ Illinois State Sunday School Convention.
The Chairman of the Executive Committee read a telegram from
the Cahfornia State Sunday-School Convention, in session at Stock-
ton, as follows :
"Greeting — Ephesians i. 6, 7." A. S. Fiske, President.
" In loving remembrance of 1874." D. W. Whittle.
Also one from the State Secretary of California, as follows:
"God bless the working Secretaries." Hehhkut Folger.
Mr. W. H. Levering of Indiana, led the convention in prayer; and
the Carman family sang, "I'm coming nearer."
Mr. D. B. Allen, President of the Michigan State Sunday-School
Association was introduced, and in a few well chosen words, expressed
the fraternal greeting of the workers in Michigan. He referred in
the warmest terms to the work of the Chairman of the Illinois Exec-
utive Committee, and the influence he had exerted over the work in
other States, expressing his own obligation and thankfulness.
A resolution was sent to the table and read by the Secretary, thank-
ing God for our Chairman — brother B. F. Jacobs. The resolution
was seconded, and Mr. W. H. Levering begged leave to second it on
behalf of Indiana, and in a most hearty and earnest manner com-
mended the resolution. He was followed by Mr. W. B. Stewart on
behalf of Iowa, in similar terms, and he by Rev. Dr. Vincent, in be-
half of the country at large, and for himself.
The resolution was, put, and the convention rose to their feet; the
greatest enthusiasm prevailed, Mr. Jacobs bowing his acknowledge-
ments, but making no attempt to reply.
The Committee on nominations, reported the names of the State
Executive Committee and Statistical Secretary for the following year,
as follows:
B. F. JACOBS, Chairman, Chicago. A. C. TVNG, Peoria.
J. R. MASON, Rloominglon. K. H. (JRIFFITU, Rushville.
T. S. RIDGWAV, Shawneetown. T. P. NISBETT, Alton.
C. W. JEROME, Carbondale. D. W. POTTER, Chicago.
For Statistical Secretary. — C. M. Eamks, of Jacksonville.
The District officers were also reported, as follows:
Presidents. Secretariks.
1. Rev. F. G. Ensign, Chicago. W. B. Lloyd, St. Charles.
2. Rev. Wm. Tracy, Lacon. Rkv. A. C. Price, Lacon.
3. C. M. Taylor, Paxton. J. E. Saxton, Decatur.
4. C. M. Eamks, Jacksonville. R. G. Hobbs, Astoria.
5. R. C. Willis, Enfield. B. Dapendroch, Salem.
6. H. B. Douglas, Greenfield.* F. P. Hopkins, Alton.
After the singing, the convention listened to an address by the Rev.
Dr. Vincent on the subject of Institutes and Assemblies.
Illinois State Sunday School Convention. 9I
TRAINING IN INSTITUTES AND ASSEMBLIES.
ADDRESS BY REV. J. H. VINCENT, D. D.
The most important work that a minister can do for his Sunday
School, is in the training of teachers, that they may do their work
well. The Sunday-School of to-morrow depends upon the pupils of
to-day. The minister who having biblical knowledge and spiritual
impulse, decides to communicate the one and the other to the young
people who are to be the teachers of to-morrow, will find some way
in which to do it. I do not care what way that is, he may call his
method by whatever name he pleases, he may call it a senior class or
he may call it a teacher's institute, he may call it a normal class or
he may call it an assembly, I do not care how he organizes it or how
he denominates it, but he will in some way do the work. vSometimes
this work can be done by a minister in his own particular church, he
may have his Methodist Episcopal Normal Class, or Presbyterian
Normal Class, or Baptist Normal Class, whatever the character of his
church may be. Sometimes they may be united and hold a class
meeting once a month during the winter, or adopt any plan or method
which may be convenient for the study of the word, and for the study
of the methods of teaching. Sometimes a small assembly may be
held like that at Lake Bluff in Illinois, or Clear Lake in Iowa, or
Chautauqua in New York, or any one of the assemblies which have
been organized for the purpose of utilizing the disposition on the part
of people to come together to have a good time. People will find
some place for recreation during the summer. They go to Long
Branch, Cape May, Saratoga and other places where there is a con-
gregation of people bent on having a good time, and they are places,
usually, of great dissipation.
Now the Sunday-School assembly idea is to have people come to-
gether and recreate in rational ways and have a good time. Goto
bed at ten o'clock, get up at six or seven in the morning, eat heartily,
rest, hear good lectures, scientific lectures, literary lectures, religious
lectures, join in a devotional service, row on the lake, watch the fire-
works, listen to the music and have a good time six weeks. In the
interest of normal trainiug this assembly movement was started at
Chautauqua in 1874. I have not time now to describe the institution
to you. We began in the Northwestern Institute in Chicago, with a
regular course of training and study in the winter of 1S65-1866,
where we had a permanent Northwestern, Sunday-School Institute
with a regular course of lectures and study. This has been introduced
in many places since then. I do not care to the amovmt of one penny
where you do it or how you do it, or who does it, only so that we
have the teachings of to-day and the candidates for the teachers office
to-morrow prepared for their responsible w^ork. If I had my way in
the church or a community I would take a little text book, I do not
care what text book it is, it might be the Westminster Normal Series
or the Chautauqua Series of text book, I would not be particular
what course they took, but I would have the minister or the superin-
tendent bring together the teachers and cadidates for teachers office,
92 Illinois State Sunday School Convention.
provide them with text books and have them complete a thorough
systematic course of study. At tlie same time the study of the word
of God in a systematic analytical way is indispensible. And then a
downright good prayer meeting to follow a downright systematic
study of the scripture will tend to complete the work and send out a
living teacher to do effective work. I have always advocated culture
and study because the Bible makes truth the great thing, but I have
never, and so help me God, I will never overestimate the intellectual
forces in teaching to the neglect or depreciation in the slightest decree
of that mightier energy without which all culture is worse than van-
ity. "Except the Lord build the house they labor in vain that build
it. Except the Lord keepeth the city the watchman waketh but in
vain." "It is not by might nor by power, but by my spirit saith the
Lord of Hosts." But I want normal class work and I want system-
atic study, and then I want as the crowning, inspiring, omnipotent
force, the presence of Jesus Christ.
Have you ever thought of how this Bible was produced? It was
produced through the ages by the different acts in human history.
Through the centuries God watched, then the Book was written.
First, the deed, then the Book. When John's disciples came to Jesus
asking, "Art thou he that should come or look we for another," He
said nothing. There is a blind man. He touches his eyes and he sees.
There is a deaf man. He touches his ears and he hears. There is 9
leper who was cleansed. There is a man that was dead and is alive.
Then He reached out His hands to the multitude and spoke some words
to the people and then turned to His disciples and said. Tell John the
things that ye have seen and heard. He didn't send any word l)Ut
told them to tell the things that were done — the blind receive their
sight, the deaf hear, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the dead
are raised. And when they went back they had few words to tell,
but they had deeds to report. God wrought, and men under the di-
vine inspiration wrought, but the power was in the deed and in the
doer. God put His Truth into words to us that we mav translate
them out of words into actions again, and do again under the same di-
vine inspiration and impulse what God wrought. He wrought His
wonders and they were put into a book. We take the words out of
the book and by the spirit of the doer put them into action, and the
blind see, and the deaf hear, and the lame walk. This is the work
of the Sunday-School teacher to translate the words of Christ into
deeds so that their good works may glorify God. "So let your light
shine before men that they may see your" — profession? and glorify
your Father? The Master said, Let your light^ not frojession^ let
your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works
and glorify your Father. The Christian course is in the life and the
deed, not in words. Words are dead things. Words are blind things.
Words are deaf things. Words are impotent things. It is the power
of the living God through the word and the deed that tells in bring-
ing men to Christ again. And the Sunday-School teacher who is
trained is the teacher who does effective work.
And the end of our Sunday-School work which is the great law of
action and of spiritual power must not be lost sight of. Let me give
you a picture. I teach my class in Sunday-School. There are six
Illinois State Sunday School Convention. 93
boys. I interest them for thirty minutes. The superintendent says,
well, of all the classes in the school, your class is the most interesting."
The first fifteen minutes I show the class a new knife that I bought
in a foreign land, and the next fifteen minutes I tell them about
my trip across the AIjds. I have interested my pupils, but give me
no credit for interesting my pupils, for I have taught them nothing.
It is an easy thing to interest pupils. Or I take my six boys and give
them five facts. The superintendent calls for a repitition of the les-
son and my boys stand up and recite the five facts. The superinten-
dent says, "What a magnificent class. What a splendid class. Five
facts taught and all the boys know them. What a teacher." I meet
one of those boys during the w^eek and ask him about those five facts
that I gave him and he says, I have forgot, I have such a forgettery.
Meet another young fellow and ask him if he remembers them and
he says he has forgotten them. All of these boys come back next
Sunday and recite the five facts. Have kept them a whole week and
answered them back the next Sunday, but that is not teaching. One
fellow says to me, you know you told me five things, well, these five
things I told to my mother, and she said if that was true then another
thing must be true, that made six things, and that if this is true, then an-
other thing must be true, that made seven, and if this was so, then that
must be so, that made three more facts, and three facts and five facts
are eight, so I know eight facts. "But I have not taught him any-
thing. I have just begun to teach his mother. Another boy comes
back to me next Sunday and says, you know you told me of five facts,
I thought of all those five facts, and I said to myself, if these things
are true, then there is another thing that is true, and then there is an-
other thing, and** I thought out three things all by myself, so I have
eight facts, five yoi5 taught me and three I thought out myself."
Another boy says, "I was walking along the street the other day and
another boy came along and bothered me while I was thinking of
what you had told me and I just gave him a crack right between the
eyes, and I let him know he must not bother me when I was medita-
ting. I remembered those five things, and three things I thought of
myself, and I have them in my memory." Now, I am a very good
secular teacher, I gave five facts. The boy retained them in his mem-
ory and added three more. Three other ideas, so there are eight
ideas, but I have not taught as a Sunday-School teacher.
Another fellow comes back next Sunday and says to me, "I can't
remember the five things you told me, but there is one I remember,
you told me about asking the Lord to help me, I remember that.
Frank came around to me last Friday and gave me some of his sass
and I got mad at him and I doubled up my fists, and then I remem-
bered what you said and I just untwisted my fists and I asked the
Lord if he would help me, and I straightened myself up and says I,
well, this aint the way for you to talk to me, but I don't believe you
mean half as much as you say, and I went into the house. After
awhile mother said there was a boy wanted to speak to me out in the
front yard, and I went out and there was Frank all in a tremble, and
he says to me, "I feel kiner mean over vsrhat happened this afternoon.
I said too much and I felt so bad about it I thought I would come and
tell you about it. I think you was about right in that business, and
94 Illinois State Sunday School Convention.
after this I am j^oing to bet on you, I believe in your kind. I would
like to be a kind of a friend of yours and have you a kind of a friend
of mine. And I said to myself, I believe the teacher is right. I have
just been thinking and trying to remember the other four things you
told me about, but I can't remember them." Now I am a Sunday-
School teacher. That boy has forgotten four-fifths of what I told
him, but one thing I put into his mind, and into his intellect^ dropped
down into his conscience, and into his heart, and into his soul and
worked. That is Sunday-School teaching. It is so putting Christ
the center of truth and the source of true life. The root of the tree
and the fountain from which flow all living waters — it is so putting
Christ into the very heart and character of the pupil that the seed will
grow and bloom and bear fruit, and the life be made worthier and
and better because of it. And any normal class work or Sunday-
School Assembly work, or Institute work, or Sunday-School teacher's
work that does not result in character as a result of the truth is not
true Sunday-School work.
Now, my friends, in conclusion I want to thank you for the very
rare privilege I have had of meeting with you again as Illinois Sun-
day-School workers. I have a hankering for Illinois. I am looking
forward to the time when in this glorious field white unto the harvest
with the great city of Chicago here upon Lake Michigan — a city that
has a wider repution than any city of its age on the Planet — a city
that holds in its iron grasp gigantic possibilities which the wildest
dreamers have not yet begun to describe — in this city and in this
State, and in all this region round about, with the tide of emigration
pouring in from Europe — and the millions springing up all about you
in your homes — when this will be the center of the mighty conflict
that is to go on betvv'een the powers of light and the powers of dark-
ness, between righteousness and unrighteousness, between God and
Satan. And the Sunday-School workers of to-day k^iow on which
side they are to rally in all the great questions of reform, and espe-
cially in the temperance reform. And here in this assembly I am
glad to see so much enthusiasm in these the hearts of our brethren.
The hymn, "Blest be the sacred tie that binds," was sung and the
convention adjourned.
Third Day — Second Session.
The special subject for consideration in the afternoon was revival
work in the Sunday-School, Mr. D. W. Potter of Chicago, in the
chair. After the reading of the vScriptures and prayer, Mr. Potter in-
troduced the Rev. W.J. Hoo2:)er, who spoke as follows:
REVIVAL WORK IN THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL.
BY MR W. J. HOOPER.
The subject we have before us this afternoon is the most important
one that has been discussed before the convention. I am glad that
this is to be an oj^en discussion, and I hope that some thought that we
Illinois State Sunday School Convention. 95
can carry home with us will be developed in the mind of every one.
I remember, years ago, in the third story of a building in the city
where I lived, there were five or six boys who met together once or
twice every week who had been converted in the early days of whild-
hood under the influence of a revival in the Sunday-School ere
they belonged. I was one of that number, and yesterday as 1 walked
along the street I met another. During all these years we have
watched each other's course during life. It was not a great while
after that meeting was disbanded that'one of them was called to lie
down upon the couch of death, and as he reached out his emaciated
hand pointing upward, he said, "Mother, there is light beyond." An-
other one of them was called into the ministry, then another, and
still a third. The last of the number is engaged in a large mercan-
tile business in one of the cities of the South where he is a great
power in the church to which he belongs. These bo^s were all con-
verted in the Sunday-School and they stand to-day as monuments of
that grand and glorious institution.
If you will take the program of to-day and look it over, you will
find that every item of it points directly to this one thought, the re-
vival work in the Sunday-School. The whole program is like a
wheel. The spokes converging to this strong and beautiful center.
The conversion of the children and bringing them into the fold of the
Lord Jesus Christ. Yet, while this is true, as far as our program is
concerned, we are compelled to meet the fact that in our general
work we do not treat .this vital point, the conversion of the children,
with the importance that it deserves. And while I do not intend any
criticism upon any of our conventions, much less upon this one, I
would say this, that we as a body of men and women engaged in the
work of the Sabbath School treat the thought of the conversion of
"the children altogether too lightly. There has not been during this
convention very much importance given to it except in a general way.
Why is it that we have not come up here from our various fields of
labor, with our hearts all full of the grand thought that many chil-
dren have been converted since last we met together? Why is it, that
in these great conventions, the Baptist, Presbyterian, Methodist, and
all our denominations, do not come up with the grand report that the
children are being converted?
Ido not believe that there is any particular age at which a child
may be converted, sometimes it is said that a child cannot understand
the theory of conversion. I do not believe it. I have worked a great
deal with children, indeed have spent most of my life in that work,
and I have found that the one who seems to have the clearest concep-
tion of the purpose for which the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ was
shed, is the little child that comes to me in my Sabbath Shool or min-
isterial work. When T speak of Jesus Christ to an adult, there comes
a whole troop of objections, but when we speak of Him to a little
child, the child receives the thought, admits no doubt, and we plant
the truth firmly upon his heart and mind. So the great duty that de-
volves upon us to-day, is to lead the minds of these children to the
knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. I was converted when I was
twelve years of age, and I understood then just as much of the mer-
its of the blood of Jesus as I do now. And I believe what it was
96 Illinois State Sunday School Convention.
my privilege to enjoy at that time, is the privilege of every child in
this land.
Now if children can understand so much and so easily, and if we
are engaged in this grand work of developing all of the resources of
the .Sunday-School, why is it that we have so much theory and so
much machinery in our work and so little of spirituality. What we
want to get at in these days in the spiritual nature of all our children.
The majority of us are afraid of our children and speak very seldom
to them about religion. We are more intent upon developing the
geography, history and local matters that arise in the Sunday-School
lesson, than to bring the children down to the one great point — are
they sinners and wiW they be saved? After all is said and done, this
is the great question that we are to meet.
I believe that the time is coming when the revival of the day is go-
ing to be the revival in the Sabbath School, when the great work of
the revivalist, as well as the minister, will be to get these children
converted to the Lord Jesus Christ; and when there will be less of
that spirit of boasting at the close of the revival which leads us to
say, "And most of those who were converted were heads of families."
While engaged in this grand work, ministers as well as teachers
have a great many times been met with the thought, "What does a
child know about being converted? " or as a man said to me the other
day," I do not l)elieve in warping the mind of a child in religious
ideas," I tell you, my brethren nud sisters, that if we do not form in
the mind of the child and idea of Christ and of Christianity, the devil
will form other ideas there, as certain as that child lives. There is no
way that we can get around the fact that the mind of the child is go-
ing to be directed to some religious sentiment and some religious
thought, and if I do not direct the mind of my child toward Christ,
some one else will direct the mind of that child toward the devil.
Now the great responsibility of directing aright the minds of these
children, lies, first upon the parents, second upon the teacher, and
third upon the pastor. The parents cannot shift the responsibility of
this education of the child into the hands of the teacher, nor the
teacher into the hands of the pastor, nor the pastor into the hands of
any one. Every one of us has a responsibility to bear in regard to
the education of our children.
In the next place, while this vast work is lying out before us, God
is making the nation where we are living the field for this work.
You heard some one speak about the great number of immigrants
that are coming into our land. What is the purpose of God in the
coming of all of these immigrants? It is not merely because this
land of ours is a grand asylum for the nations, but because God is get-
ting ready for the time when a nation shall be born in a day. Are
we ready for this great work, thus coming to us as individuals, as pas-
tor, and as Sabbath-School workers.
I believe that the choice of the present years course of study was
directed by the hand of God. If you will examine it you will see .
that from the time of Christ's conception until his hands and his brow
were stained with blood, there is this one grand thought, the spirit-
uality and the divinity of the Lord Jesus Christ, developed in all of
the lessons. As was said last night, this is the grandest year of the
Illinois State Sunday School Convention. 97
whole world for the study of the gospel. It is not only the grand
thought of the whole world engaging in a certain hour in the study
of the same lesson, but it should be the whole world engaged for one
whole year upon searching out the spiritual teachings of the Lord
Jesus Christ, that it may be applied to the conversion of children.
Now I do not pretend to tell you how to get these children converted,
for I do not know any better than any one else. We all have our
different methods of bringing truth to the hearts of our children. But
there are two things in these lessons that we should all seek for,
namely: a clear conception of the teachings of the whole year, and a
clear conception of the teachings involved in each lesson. We need
to impress this one point, that Christ Jesus is a Savior; and when
that is developed, the other idea that Christ is my Savior; and repeat
the thought till every one in our class shall know Him as a personal
Saviour.
At the conclusion of the address of Mr. Hooper, a prayer was of-
fered and Mr. Potter spoke as follows:
ADDRESS BY D. W. POTTER.
We have had a good deal of bragging since we came here about
the broad State of Illinois and the work that is being done by the
Sunday-School workers in it. Let us look at it a moment. Total
membership 549,783; 6,133 Sunday-Schools. Added to the church
make 10,318. This has been the work of about 60,000 officers and
teachers. Less than two scholars in each school added to the church.
Think of it. There is something the matter, I believe in all the
methods we have been talking about, but I believe we have too many
methods and not enough hard work. I realize that all of these meth-
ods are designed to point directly to the cleansing blood, but in the
actual work of our Sunday-Schools, it seems to me that we go
around the bush too much. The one thing above all others that
you and I want to do as workers in the vineyard of the Lord, is to
have our Sunday-School scholars step over the line, on to the side of
Christ, and have a personal knowledge, now, of sins forgiven.
There is a brother upon the floor of this convention who has been
telling me a little of his experience. "I had been teaching in our
Sunday-Schools for a number of months," he said, "And by-and-by
there was a revival effort made among us during the meetings. I went
to the young ladies that were in my class and said to them, 'Will you
give your hearts to Christ?' They said, almost to my surprise, 'Yes,
we will.' And when I asked them why they had not done so before,
they said, 'Why you never asked us before.' You talked about Christ,
you told us a great many things about Him, but you never asked us to
accept Him then, as our Saviour.' "
It seems to me that this is what we want to do as workers in the
vineyard of the Lord — come right down to the work of compassing
the hearts of our scholars, and taking them to the Lord Jesus Christ.
I know the objections that are made by a great many people. They
say that children do not realize — that they do not understand this mat-
ter of the saving power of the Lord Jesus Christ. But if you will
7
qS Illinois State Sunday School Convention.
just go back to the time when you were from five to seven years of
age, and think of the impressions you received at that time, I think
you will change your mind. I believe that I had as thorough a con-
viction of sin when I was eight years old as I ever had in my life.
Do the children stand? I heard a pastor relate that twenty years
ago a lady describing a certain revival meeting, said, ''I heard some oi
the most foolish things in that revival meeting that I ever listened to
in my life. The hall was just filled with boys and girls from eight to
twelve years of age, and don't you think every time one of those
children said they were converted, the audience would sing the long
metre doxology, 'Praise God from whom all blessings flow.' And
don't you think, they sang that doxology thirty times that evening."
The minister who labored in that revival then gave his testimony:
"Twenty years after that time, I went back to that church to preach,
and I learned that the boys and girls over whom the thirty doxologies
were sung twenty years before, were the men and women upon whom
the burdens of the church were resting," They were standing. I
believe in childhood conversion. I was converted when I was a
child, and if I had not been converted then, perhaps I never would
have been. If our boys and girls are allowed to pass childhood and
youth without conversion, I belive their chances are very poor indeed.
Let us capture them for Christ before the evil days come, when Satan
shall lay hold upon them and make their souls impregnable to all our
efforts.
(After a general discussion of the subject by a number of delegates,
Mr. Potter continued his remarks as follows :)
I want you superintendents and Sunday- School workers to cove-
nant with me that as best you know how, you will bring those under
your influence to a now decision; not to-morrow, not next week, not
next year, but fioiv — that is what we want. We talk and talk about
salvation, but we never say, "Take it now." According to your faith
so shall it be done unto you." Do we believe God's words? "What-
soever ye shall ask the Father in my name, that will He give you."
And it means give you, to the last imconverted scholar in your Sun-
day-School, Superintendent; or the last unconverted scholar in your
class, Teacher. There is no doubt of it all. I know of one case, not
a thousand miles from this place, where a few years ago, this revival
work was kept up until every scholar was converted, Now I would
suggest this: That at least once a month and perhaps twice a month,
at least thirty minutes of the school session shall be set aside, and a
personal appeal made by the pastor or superintendent, or by some one
who has the salvation of souls on his heart, to the scholars of the
vSnnilay- School, urging them then and there to accept Christ. Then
you will see whether the work oi the teachers has amounted to any-
thing; and you will be surprised at the success you will have. If you
will invite the lambs of the flock they will come, and that right wil-
lingly. May God help us to do better revival work in our Sunday-
Schools.
At the conclusion of Mr. Potter's address, at Mr. Jacobs' sugges-
tion, lie asked those in the audience that were converted before the
Illinois .State Sunday School Convention. 99
age of twenty to rise. At least nine-tenths of the entire congrega-
tion rose to their feet. He then asked those that were converted be-
tween the ages of twenty and thirty to rise; nearly all of the remain-
ing one-tenth arose in response to this. He then asked those that
were converted after the age of forty to rise; thi'ee persons stood up.
The effect upon the audience was marked. Mr. B. F. Jacobs spoke
briefly on this subject.
He was followed by the Rev. J. H. Brooks, D. D., of St. Louis,
who most warmly and earnestly spoke to the teachers present on the
importance and necessity of revival work in the Sunday-School.
ADDRESS BY DR. BROOKS.
Brethren of the convention, I am exceedingly happy to have drop-
ped in among you while this topic was under discussion. I had seen
some notice in the St. Louis papers of what is called the success of the
convention in Champaign, but I am old enough to have learned not
to attach much importance to what is usually called success. ^
merely enthusiastic crowd does not constitute success; but the kind
of speech you have just heard from our brother does constitute suc-
cess. It is aimed directly at the one point that ought to be upon the
conscience and heart of every Sunday-School teacher, and that point
is earnest prayer and continuous labor for the immediate conversion
of the children. For many years I have been persuaded that as no
minister of the gospel ought ever to preach a sermon without having
in that sermon enough about the way of salvation to leave his hearers
inexcusable if they are not saved, precisely so, I honestly believe that
every Sunday-School teacher, no matter what the lesson, nor what
thft topic of the lesson is, ought to weave into it enough about the
person and the work of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the value of his
precious blood, to leave every scholar in that class without excuse if
Christ is rejected. Brethren, I cannot be too urgent in impressing
that point. I am sure that this convention will respond to the senti-
ment that there is no worthy object before the mind of the Sunday-
School teacher, unless this be the object, and if you could teach al-
ways with a deep sense of obligation to the Lord who has given you
a great commission, I am sure that more blessed results would follow.
There is not a superintendent or a pastor here to-day, who will not
concur with me in saying that he rejoices whenever he finds a teacher
of a Sunday-School coming to a pastor with a burdened heart, and
saying to him, "I am greatly concerned about the salvation of ni}-
scholars and thought I would come to you to-day and ask you to pra}'
with me for them." I have seen whole classes converted when the
teachers themselves have been aroused to some proper sense of the
great work which they are called to do ; namely, to exalt the name
of Jesus Christ, and to work for the salvation of souls. I am glad
that I heard the remarks that have been made here on this subject,
and hope that there will be a general response on the part of this con-
vention, and that you will all go back to your classes ^vith one burn-
ing desire, to press home upon the hearts of these children immedi-
loo Illinois State Sunday School Convention.
ately the great question of personal salvation. My brethren, do not
he satisfied until your children are saved, until you are able to say,
"Here, Lord, am I, and the children thou hast given me."
The Convention united in singing a hymn, and an open conference
w^as held on the subject of the temperance work in the Sunday-School,
with jSIr. William Reynolds, of Peoria, in the chair. Mr. Reynolds
spoke most earnestly on the subject of temperance, and the necessity
of bringing it frequently before the scliools, interesting teachers and
scholars in the work.
TEMPERANCE WORK IN SUNDAY-SCHOOL.
HY WM. REYNOLDS.
The aim and object of the Sunday-School is primarily the salvation
of souls. The next is their culture — building, strengthening, and de-
veloping. The subject that we are about to bring before you is one
of vast importance, but let me say a word on the one we have just
been dismissing. What is the reason we have no more conversions
than we have in this State? One reason is, I think, we are not work-
ing for it. We get, in this world, just about what we expect, and
what we work for. I know a man who always has the blues. It
would give you the blues to look at him. I believe it would discour-
age any man on earth to talk fifteen minutes with that man. He can
see more discouragements to the square inch than any other man I
ever met. What is the matter with him? He is looking for discour-
agements. I know another person who is bright and cheery. She
is always pleasant and sees beautiful things everywhere. What is the
matter with her? She is looking for those things. If every Sunday-
School teacher in the vSlate of Illinois would just work for one paprtic-
ular purpose; to bring his scholars to a saving knowledge of tne
Lord Jesus Christ, it would be accomplished. The power of God
to-day, is the same as it always has been. I once had a Sunday-
School class that I had taught for fifteen months without any visible
eflfcct at all. I became a little discouraged, but one day a man of God
came to my house and inspired me with a faith and a purpose that I
never had before. I went before that class, for the first time in my
life, with a specific aim and purpose, and every one of those young
ladies were converted within a very short time. There was no spe-
cial revival, no uncommon interest. I just work thc7i^ for the salva-
tion of those girls, having prepared myself by prayer before hand,
and going with faith in my heart that the work would be done. I
went there with a specific aim and it was accomplished. I have two
teachers in my Sunday- School who are the most successful that I
have ever had. It is only a question of time in regard to the con-
version of their entire class. They have brought one class after an-
other for years. Their success is that they are working for one spe-
cific purpose. They do not commence and talk all the time upon one
subject and ring the changes continually on it. They work intelli-
gently. The first look over the ground to get acquainted with the
material they have, then they sow their seed wisely. They do not
Illinois State Sunday School Convention. ioi
treat all alike. Just as I saw in California, some time ago, where
they were planting corn. They do it differently from what we do in
this State. They have there a different soil, and a different tempera-
ture, and they govern themselves accordingly. So it is with us. We
must look over the field and must work intelligently, relying upon
God who is true to his promises. We must work with a definite pur-
pose and sa)', "God helping me I am going to bring this class to
Christ." Don't wait a revival. Some people wait for a good revival
to come along and sweep over the whole school. Don't wait for this,
but work for the ijuincdiate conversion of your own class.
Now, as to the subject of temperance. There was a time when I
used to avoid this question in connection with the Sunday-School.
I used to object, and think it was not the proper place for it, but I
have changed my vie\vs on that point. I think temperance princi-
ples should be taught in our Sunday-Schools. In the city in which
I live, which I spoke of yesterday as being so celebrated for several
things, there are saloon keepers ^vhose business it is to bring in boys,
to draw them into the saloons. They have games there to entice the
boys. The boys were brought in there and allowed to play for noth-
ing for a while, then they would play for a cigar and after a while
for a glass of beer and then for something stronger. These saloon
keepers understand the fact that the crop of drunkards in the world
to-day is going to pass away in a short time, and they will want an-
other; and they are training the boys of to-day to become the drunk-
ards of the future. Suppose a man would walk through the streets,
and say to boys, "Boys who own these beautiful houses and these ele-
gant blocks of buildings? " "Our father's do." "When your fathers
are gone, twenty years from now, who will own these beautiful
blocks then, boys?" "We shall have them, sir." "Who are holding
your offices here in the city?" "Our fathers." "Twenty years from
now, who will be the office holders? " "We shall be," pointing to
the drunkards, you ask where will these men be twenty years from
now?" "They will be dead, sir." "Who will be drunkards then,
boys?" No response. You and I, my friends, know who they will
be.
Now then, what can we do in order to keep them from the grasp
of this demon, who is stalking through our land and laying his hands
on the boys to drag them down? What can we do in the Sabbath
School? This meeting is now open for discussion. We do not want
any theories about this matter, but what are some of the practical
ways by which we can reach it. What can we do? The meeting
now is in your hands and for the next forty minutes we would be
verv glad to hear superintendents, teachers, and pastors, upon the
practical solution of this question: What can we do to advance the
temperance interests through the medium of the Sabbath-School.
Not through the law which we have talked about in another place,
but through the medium of the Sabbath School.
ADDRESS BY B. F. JACOBS.
I don't think that ever in my life I was opposed to the introduction
of this subject into the Sunday-School or before the Sunday-School
Convention. The only thing I ever did oppose, was the bringing of
t02 Illinois State Sunday .School Convention.
some specific method or plan before the convention for a vote, because
we differ so widely. "While we all unite on the great platforni of
temperance, we differ as to methods to be adopted ; some adopt one
plan and some another. I hardly think there has been a convention
for years, but that tiie subject has been introduced in some way. It
has even been brought before the International Committee. There
was a petition with 3000 signatures laid upon the table of this Com-
mittee last, fall, asking us to select temperance lessons for the schools.
The Committee, with a single voice in the negative, decided that it
was not wise to do it, that the temperance question ought not to be
so presented, that it would be a departure from the plan adopted by
the committee, and not according to the instructions under which they
were appointed, to pick out specific portions of the word of God, out
of the ordinary course, and lay them down for specific study upon spe-
cific themes. I am sorry for the Sunday-School Superintendent, or
teacher, or minister who leaves a subject like temperance to be a spe-
cific theme once in so many months or in so many years. I do not
believe in a specific study of this subject. 1 believe in the gospel of
the Lord Jesus Christ. I believe in the regenerating power of the
Holy Ghost. I believe in the salvation of the soul and of the body
through the precious merits and power of the Lord Jesus Christ.
I have no more confidence in the pledge of a man or boy who does not
rely upon this power than I have in a piece of paper. I have studied the
subject, have prayed for it and worked for it. I do not ask my boys
and girls to sign pledges, but I do see to it that no month ever passes
when they are not taught about the power of Christ to save poor lost
meiL
Dr. Ilenson talked to us the other night about old fashioned con-
versions. If any of you want to see some old fashioned conversions,
I wish you would take the trouble to walk down on Van Buren
street where brother Potter and I and some others have been many
times during the past three years. Vou would find that the power of
God is the same now that it ever has been. I have seen them con-
verted by scores and by hundreds. I mean just what I say when I
say hundreds — nothing short of it. Nothing but men in that meet-
ing— a few Christian ladies sometimes come there — but for the most
part the entire congregation are men; three fourths of them men who
have been drunkards all their lives, brought there under the power
of the gospel. Some of them to-day are evangalists. Some of them
to-day are the best Sunday-School workers we have got. I believe
in the power of God to save and to do this work, but I do not believe
in any other power or any. other means. I believe in presenting tem-
perance to the scholars and impressing it upon them. I have no right
to meet my boys without doing it. No one ever knew me to falter
for a second on this subject. It is just simply a question of how, and
where, and when. I think it ought to be taught continually and
steadily. I think we ought to have a thorough understanding about
it. What a burning shame it is that a Christian man or woman
should hesitate, in such a matter. It is quite another thing whether
it may be done this way, that way or the other; it is quite another
thing whether I believe it best to do this thing, or that thing, or the
other to effect the work. But that some positive, persistent, patient,
tLLiNois State Sunday School Convention. 103
loving effort should be made, no one can believe more thoroughly
than I do or pray for more heartily.
Rev. Dr. Pierce of Champaign urged the importance of teaching
temperance as a part of Christian work, and not to make exceptional
specific issues. Further remarks were made and by Miss Lucy J.
Rider, Rev. Mr. Woods, of Will County, and others. The song,
"Yield not to temptation" was sung.
On behalf of the Executive Committee, Mr. B. F. Jacobs offered
the following:
Resolved^ That our thanks be given to the Local Committee for
their excellent and complete arrangements for the entertainment and
care of this convention; to the citizens of Champaign who have so
cheerfully received us into their homes and abundantly ministered to
our wants; to the pastors and officers of the churches who have opened
their houses of worship for our meetings; to the various Railroad
Companies who have reduced the rates of fare to delegates in attend-
ing the convention, and to the newspapers who have published the
report of the proceedings.
The resolution was unanimously adopted.
The Carman family sang, "What thou sowest will appear." The
doxology was sung, and after the benediction by Rev. Mr. Wil-
liams of Champaign, the convention adjourned.
Third Bay — Evening Session.
Every part of the building was filled at the hour for meeting. The
convention united in a Song and Praise service led by Prof. C. C.
Case. The hymns, "Jesus lover of my soul," "I am so happy in
Jesus," "The prize is set before us," and "Oh! what a Saviour that
He died for me," were sung with great heai-tiness.
Rev. Mr. Young, of Morris, read the Scriptures and offered prayer.
Mr. Robert Rue of Rockford, Illinois, read a paper upon the work
of the Foreign Sunday-School Association from Mr. Albert Wood-
ruff of New York.
At the conclusion of the paper Mr. Case sang a solo," The crown-
ing day is coming," the congregation joining in the chorus.
Dr. Brooks of St. Louis addressed the convention ou the subject of
the "King's return."
THE KING'S RETURN.
ADDRESS BY DR. BROOKS.
I think it is very appropriate in this interesting, and I am sure profi-
table convention, that we should turn a little while to night to the
subject of the return of the King. You remember the Lord Jesus
I04 Illinois State Sunday School Convention.
Christ in the 19th chaptei' of Luke, 12th verse, hkens himself to a
certain nobleman who went into a far country to receive for himself
a Kingdom and to return. The expositors of every denomination of
Christians, and of every school of interpretation agree that he refer-
red to iiis literal absence from the earth, and to his future coming.
Indeed the entire parable shows that this must have been the meaning
of our blessed Lord. The throng that attended him on his way to
Jerusalem did not see the dark shadow of the cross that fell upon his
path, and amazed by the splendor of the miracles which He had
wrought, and stirred by the volume of eloquence that fell from His
lips, they thought that the Kingdom of God should immediately appear.
Pie said, "A certain nobleman went into a far country to receive for
himself a Kingdom and to return." Then he strikes the keynote of
what I am satisfied has been the spirit of this convention; he strikes
the keynote of that service to which his people are called during the
whole interval of his absence from the earth when he says, "Occupy
till I come."
Now, brethren, I am not here to defend any peculiar view of the
advent of Jesus Christ. I am not here to argue whether it shall be
pre-millenial or past-millenial. I am not here to state any conception
of my own concerning the nature of his coming, whether it shall be
Heavenly and spiritual, or literal and earthly. I would not, if I could,
introduce one discordant note into the sweet harmony which I am told
has pervaded the councils of the brethren here, who are practical work-
ers in the Kingdom of Christ. If I did not know that this is an emi-
nently practical company, the members of which, I am sure, have
sought by the light of the sacred scripture that knowledge which will
cnal)le them to do more faithful service, I should not have accepted
tiie kind invitation of the committee to address you upon this topic.
I want simply to call your attention to the witnesses for this return
of the Lord, without saying one word as to the time of the return,
for I have no theory upon that subject. I want simply to look at the tes-
timony of the angels and the testimony of the Holy Ghost concerning
this vast practical topic. I will call your attention first to the fact that
Christ is a witness of His own return in the future. The first place
where He mentions it is in i6th of Matthew, the very chapter in
which He refers to the establishment of His Kingdom, in response to
Peter's humble confession, "Thou art the Christ the vSon of the living
Goil," by that remarkable statement, "Upon this rock will I build
my church and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it." It is
the very chapter in which He announces for the first time the need of
faithfully following him, and bearing the cross, and makes the solemn
announcement that if men are not willin'g to deny self and take up
their cross and follow him, they cannot be his disciples. And imme-
diately in that connection, he gives the first ringing note of triumph:
"For the son of man shall come in the glory of his Father, and of
the Holy Angels, and shall reward every man according to his works."
And from that time he reverts again and again to that subject, as for
example in Mark 8th chapter, 38th verse, where he says in words that
should reach the hearts of all this assembly. "Whosoever shall be
ashamed of me and of my words " and I ask you to notice the
emphasis on that — "Whosoever shall be ashamed of me and of my
Illinois State Sunday School Convention. 105
words, of him shall the son of man be ashamed when he cometh in
the glory of his Father with the Holy Angels."
Again he says to his disciples in the 12th chapter of Luke, 35th
and 36th verses, "Let your loins be girded about, and your lights
burning; and ye yourselves like unto men that wait for their Lord
when he will return from the wedding; that when he cometh, they
may open unto him," The Lord wants his disciples to be in the atti-
tude of obedient and faithful servants; not speculating it maybe about-
the time of his return, but with hand upon the hall door, and with
eye gleaming through the open casement out into the darkness of the
night to see if there is the gleam of the light that ushers his coming,
and to catch the first echo of his approaching footsteps. So He said
to the disciples just before his departure, "I am going away to prepare
a place for you, and when I go to j^repare a place for you, I will come
again, and receive you unto myself, that where I am, there you may
be also." John 14.
In the last chapter of John's Gospel, he said to Peter, "Follow me,"
and when that impulsive disciple noticing the one whom Jesus loved,
said, "What shall this man do?" the king replied, "If I will that he
tarry till I come, what is that to thee; follow thou me." Christ
would have his disciples keep his coming as a possible thing, before
them; as an object of hope before them; not specultating as to the
time of the return, but thinking of the fiict of the return.
We find him at the bar of the High Priest, who put him upon his
oath and said, "I adjure thee by the living God, that thou will tell us
plainly whether thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God," and
the answer was, "I am." Again he says, "Hereafter shall ye see the
Son of man, sitting on the right hand of power, and coming in the
clouds of Heaven." The last testimony he gave on the earth was
about his return, and when we come down to the last of the Bible, to
the apocalyptic vision of the beloved disciple on Patmos, we have His
own testimony again, "That which thou hast already, hold fast till I
come," and again, "Hold that fast which thou hast, till I come, that
no man take thy crown." Then when we come to the very closing
chapter, three successive times breaks upon the ear of the apostle,
to be transmitted by him to us, as a practical motive power to work,
"Behold I come quickly," and again, "Behold I come quickly," and
again, "Surely I come quickly." And that is the last of the Bible.
Then comes the apostolic benediction, "The grace of otu* Lord Jesus
Christ be with all the Saints."
Now, dear friends, an intelligent Sunday-School teacher will pause
before he sets up the common objection to all that range of testimony
from the Saviour by replying that eighteen hundred years have
elapsed and the Son has not yet come, therefore he will not return at
all. We count time by the daily movement of the earth upon its own
axis; but such is not the computation of time up ^^onder where a
thousand years are as one day. By this method of reckoning time,
there have not been two days yet since the Lord Jesus Christ ascended
on high; only day before yesterday. Therefore when he says, "Be-
hold I come quickly," let us remember that the words are spoken
from Chi'ist's estimate of time and not our poor estimate.
The next testimony which I propose to 'show you is that of the an-
lo6 Illinois SxAtfe Sunday School Convention.
gels. In Acts, 1st chajjter, nth verse, we are told that the Lord who
was risen from the dead, having appeared to the disciples on various
occasions for the space of forty days, at last ascended visibly from
them on the Mount of Olives. They saw him going up and up and
stood amazed and astonished, when two men in shining raiment stood
by them and said, "Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into
Heaven? This same Jesus which is taken up from you into Heaven
shall so come in like manner as ye have seen Him go into Heaven."
And they returned to Jerusalem from the Mount of Olives with great
joy. They were in the temple praising and blessing God continually.
Now, T put it to your hearts and consciences, what was the secret of
their joy? The promise of the angels never specified at all the day
of the return, but the fact of the return, of the blessed Saviour.
Thereafter we find that these two same shining ones, called angels
elsewhere, stood by the open sepulcher in Calvary, and said tb the
vveej)ing women, "Why seek ye the dead among the living? He is
not here, but is risen. Come, see the place where the Lord lay."
And if anyone would ask why the angels manifested so deep an inter-
est in the return of the King, just remember what he said about their
personal association with the august events of that return. Our
blessed Master tells us, "The harvest is the end of the world — or the
end of the ages, it ought to be — and the reapers are the angels." "The
son of man shall send forth his angels, and gather out of his Kingdom
all things that ofTend, and them which do iniquity." "So shall it be
at the end of the world; the angels shall come forth and sever the
wicked from the just, and there shall be wailing and gnashing of
teeth." Immediately after the tribulation of those days the sun shall
be darkened, the moon shall withdraw its shining, the stars shall fall
from Heaven, and the powers of Heaven shall be shaken. And then
shall appear the sign of the son of man in Heaven, and then shall all
the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the son of man com-
ing in the clouds of Heaven with power and great glory. And he
shall send forth his angels with a great sound of triumph, and they
shall gather his elect from the four winds from one end of Heaven to
the other."
At the conclusion of the address the Carman family sang, "Five
were foolish and five were Avise."
President Brouse made some closing remarks. The convention
sang a hymn, "When Jesus comes to reward His servants." Mr.
William Reynolds of Peoria offered prayer. The convention sang
the doxology and adjourned.
PROCEEDINGS
— OF THE —
TW^ENTY-FIFTH
OILLINOISO
-HELD IN THE
METHODIST CHURCH, STREATOR
Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, June 5, 6 and i,
1883.
CHICAGO:
James Guilbert, Printer, 15S Clark Street.
1S83.
mob ^tate ^undag ^^liool ^s^adation.
President.
REV. WM. TRACY, Granville.
V'ice- Presiden ts .
REV. WM. H. SHAW, Alton; B. DEPENBROCK, Salem;
REV. W. H. PARKER, Dixon.
Recording Secretary.— E. D. DURHAM, Onarga.
Statistical Secretary.— 'W . B. JACOBS, Chicago.
Treasurer.— B. F. JACOBS, Chicago.
Executive Conimiltcc.
B. F. JACOBS, Chairman, Chicago. .
M. C. HAZARD, Chicago. J. R. MASON, Bloomington.
A. G. TYNG, Peoria. THOS. S. RIDGEWAY, Shawneetown.
PHILIP G. GILLETT, Jacksonville. T. P. NESBITT, Alton.
District Presidents.
1. D. W. Potter, Chicago. ii. C. W. Frekman, Springfield-
2. O. R. Brouse, Rockford. 12. W. B. Rundle, Clinton.
3. D. A. Glenn, Ashton. 13. Frank Wilcox, Champaign.
4. H. T. Lay, Kewanee. 14. J. J. Brown, Vandalia.
5. D. iliRD, Marseilles. 15. B. Depenbrock, Salem.
6. J. L. Saxton, Gibson City. 16. J. B. Turner, Godfrey.
7. L. L. GuYER, Brimlield. 17. T. B. Blanchard, Taniaroa.
S. Tho.s. McCanahan, Monmouth. iS. R. C. Willis, Enfield.
9. R. H. Griffith, Rushville. 19. R. S. Marsh, Harrisburg.
10. E. D. Masters, Jacksonville. 20. M. Easteruay, Cairo.
ILLINOIS STATE S. S. CONVENTIONS,
No. President. Year
I. Dixon , Rev. W. W. Harsha 1S59
II. Bloomington *R. M. Guilford 1S60
III. Alton *E. C. Wilder 1S61
IV. Chicago Rev. S. G. Lathrop 1S62
V. Jacksonville *Isaac Scarritt 1S63
VI. Springfield A. G. Tyng 1S64
VII. Peoria Rev. W. G. Pierce 186^
VIII. Rockford P. G. Gillett 1866
IX. Decatur Wm. Reynolds. . . 1S67
X. Du Quoin B. F. Jacobs 1S6S
XI. Bloomington D. L. Moody 1869
XII. Quincy P. G. Gillett 1S70
XIII. Galesburg *J. McKee Peeples 1S71
XIV. Aurora C. R. Blackall 1S72
XV. Springfield J. F. Culver 1873
XVI. Champaign D. W. Whittle 1S74
XVII. Alton R. H. Griflith 187s
XVIII. Jacksonville D. L. Moody 1876
XIX. Peoria E. C. Hewett 1877
XX. Decatur Rev. F. L. Thompson 1S78
XXI. Bloomington C. M. Morton 1879
XXII. Galesburg Wm. Reynolds 1880
XXIII. Centralia J.R.Mason 1S81
XXIV. Champaign O. R. Brouse 18S2
XXV. Streator Rev. Wm. Tracy 1883
*Deceased.
TO THE SUNDAY SCHOOL WORKERS OF ILLINOIS.
DkAR HrKJ IIRKN :
The Twenty-Fifth Annual Convention of the Illinois
State Sunday-School Association, will be held (D. V.) in the City of Streator,
Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, June 5th, 6th and 7th, 1SS3. The sessions
of the Convention will be held in the Methodist Church, beginning Tuesday the
5th, at 2 r. M.
Each county in the State, except Cook, is entitled to ten delegates. These
delegates are entitled to hospitality, and the right to vote in the Convention.
But all Pastors and Sunday-School workers are entitled to seats, and are cor-
dially invited; they will be entertained as far as the Committee are able to pro-
vide places, which will, probably, be sufficient for all who desire to attend. All
correspondence with reference to entertainment, should be addressed to Mr.
Milton Hicks, Streator, Illinois. The number of delegates, and the names as far
as possible, should be forwarded before June 3rd. If delegates have not been ap-
pointed by the County Conventions, the Officers of the County Associations may
appoint suitable persons to represent them.
A plan will be submitted to re-district the State, and to push the work with
greater energy in view of the approaching International Convention in 1S84. A
full attendance is desired.
Arrangements for reduced fare on the various railroads will be made, and
duly announced. The Chairman of the Railroad Committee, is Hon. Ralph
Plumb, Streator, Illinois.
The general topic proposed for the Convention is
"THE SHEPHERD AND HIS FLOCK."
An outline will soon be prepared, and the Chairman of the Executive Committee
will be pleased to receive any suggestions vou may make.
The Pastors and Superintendents throughout the State, are requested to pre-
sent the Convention and the Sunday-School work in this State, as a subject for
frequent prayer, and we suggest that the first Sunday in yune, be set apart as a
day of prayer for this purpose, that the blessing of God may rest upon the Con-
vention.
The Officers of the State, District and County Associations, are requested to
have this call published in the various newspapers of the State, as frequently as
possible.
For the Executive Committee,
B. F. JACOBS, Chairman.
PROCEEDINGS
OF THE TWENTY-FIFTH
Illinois State Sunday-School Convention.
In accordance with arrangements made by the Chairman of the
Executive Committee, Mr. D. W. Potter and Mr. E. F. Miller, of
Chicago, conducted meetings in the Methodist Church on .Sunday
and Monday evening before the Convention. These meetings were
largely attended, were exceedingly profitable, and a deep interest was
manifested by many, who signified a desire to become Christians.
Delegates to the Convention who arrived Monday evening found the
meeting in pi'ogress, and the blessing foretold in these meetings rested
upon all the subsequent gatherings of the Convention.
First Day.
The first session of the Convention was appointed for ten o'clock,
but long before the hour fol- opening, delegates came flocking in on
every train from nearly all parts of the State. The maps, so essen-
tial to an intelligent understanding of the condition of the work in
the State, were hung upon the walls of the Methodist Church. These
included the International Map, the State Map, maps of the several
Districts, and exceedingly fine maps of Livingston County and
La Salle County. Statistical charts, representing the work in the six
Districts in large figures, were also placed in positions where all could
see them, producing a marked effect upon the Convention.
The Local Committee were all in attendance with complete arrange-
ments for receiving and caring for the guests, with a full corps of
pages to escort the delegates to their homes and to wait upon the
Convention. This service was performed to the satisfaction of all
who attended the Convention, and to this Committee much of
G Illinois State Sunday School Convention.
the success of the Convention is due. Every train arriving during
the first antl second davs brought delegates by scores, imtil more than
five hundred vv^ere provided for. The program had been widely
distributed throughout the State, and the delightful theme, "The
Shepherd and His flock," seemed to have prepared every one for the
enjoyment of the feast. In the l^asement of the church, F. H. Re-
vell of Chicago, and C. II. Whiting, representing the Presbyterian
Board, had arranged their stock of Bibles, books and papers for the
accommodations of the guests. Walden 8i Stowe, representing the
Methodist Book Concern of Chicago, sent down for the use of the
Convention three hundred copies of the new singing book, "Songs of
Redeeming Love." The Carman family, so well known and so
greatly beloved in the State, were on hand; and a new singer in the
person of Prof. E. O. Excell, accompanied the brethren from Chicago,
who assured the delegates that something rich was in store for them.
Morning Meeting.
At ten o'clock, the delegates were called to order for prayer <".nd
praise. The meeting was led by Mr. D. W. Potter, Prof E. F.
Miller, at the organ, and was a delightful service. The hour and a
half gave opportunity to hear from many workers from different parts
of the State and earnest petitions were offered for the blessing of God
to rest upon the Convention. At eleven o'clock the Executive Com-
mittee met in an adjoining room.
First Day — First Session.
At two o'clock, President O. R. Brouse of Rockford, took the
chair; and Vice-President K. P. Taylor of Bloomington, and Messrs
B. F. Jacob.s, Chairman; R. H. Griflith, D. W. Potter and j. R. Ma-
son, of the Executive Committee, occupied seats on the platform.
Mr. E. F. Miller presided at the organ, and a Sunday-School scholar.
Miss Ida Clarke from Chicago, stood at his side with a cornet. The
house was filled at the hour of opening. The President invited the
congregation to rise and unite in singing the hymn, "Praise God from
whom all blessings flow." The first song was a specimen and proph-
ecy of the delightful music that was enjoyed by the Convention to its
close. President Brouse read a selection from the Scripture, Deut. x:.
1-15, and led the assembly in prayer, after which the Convention sang
heartily, "All hail the power of Jesus' name."
The Executive Committee submitted the following program, which
was adopted by the Convention :
Illinois State Sunday School Convention.
7'OPIC: 7 HE SHEPHERD AND HIS FLOCK.
Tuesday, June 5th, A. M.
THE SHEPHERD'S CALL.
"He calleth his own sheep by name."
10.00. Meeting of early delegates for prayer and praise.
10.30. Meeting of Executive Committee.
Tuesday Afternoon.
UNDER SHEPHERDS FOR THE FLOCK.
"Take heed unto yourselves, and to all the flock."
J. 00. Organization.
Election of Officers.
Address of Welcome. Hon. Ralph Plumb.
THE FOLDS OF THE FLOCK.
"There shall be one fold and one shepherd."
Report of Executive Committee.
Report of Statistical Secretary.
Appointment of Committees.
THE SHEPHERD HIMSELF.
"Ye shepherds hear the word of the Lord."
Song- l)y Carman Family.
A Bible Reading. — The Sheplierd's Return.
Rev. W. H. Steadman, Mendota.
Tuesday Evening.
SflEEP HAVING NO SHEPHERD.
"I have compassion on the multitude."
7.00. Open Air Meeting. Led by D. W. Potter.
THE SHEPHERDS PRAISE.
7.45. Song Service. Led by Carman Family.
8.15. Address. — The Siiepherd a Protector. Rev. J. F. Stout, Bloomington.
9.00. Address. — The Fold of the Family. C. M. Morton, Chicago.
Wednesday Morning.
6.00. Earl}' Prayer Meeting. Led by D. Hurd, Marseilles.
UNDER SHEPHERDS IN COUNCIL.
"And ye my flock, are men, and 1 am your Goil."
8.30. Meeting by districts.
Redistricting the State.
10.00. Plans for 1SS3-4.
Address. Wm. Reynolds.
The Next International Convention.
Address. M. C. Hazard.
11.00. State Finances. — Treasurer's Report.
Wednesday Afternoon.
Ill the Baptist Cliurcli.
THE I^AMBS OF THE FLOCK.
3.00. Meeting for Primary Class Workers. Led by Miss Lucv J. Rider.
4.00. Children's Meeting.
8 Illinois State Sunday School Convention.
Wednesday Afternoon.
In tUe Methodist Chnrclt.
SEAIHIIING FOR THE FLOCK.
"I will both seek my sheep and search them out."
2.00. Song, Praise and Prayer.
2.1 s- Normal Classes and Institutes.
Address. Knox P. Taylor, Bloomington.
2.45. County and Township Conventions.
Opened bv Rkv. T. E. Spillman, Nokomis, followed by others.
3.41;. The Secretary and his work. C. H. Long, Pontiac.
4.15. The S. S and the Evangelization of the World.
Address. Rev. A. T. Pierson, D. D.
Wednesday Evening.
IN THE GREEN PASTURES.
"I will bring them out, and feed them."
7.00. Open Air Met-ting. Led by D. W. Potter.
7.4V Song Service by llie Carmans.
S 15. Greetings from ft-llow workers.
8.30. The Teacher and his great weapon, the Word. — Hov 10 l.rit'le and use it.
Address. Rev. A. T. Pierson, D. D., Indianapolis.
Thursday Morning.
6.00. Early Morning Prayer Meeting. Led In R. W. Hare.
FEEDING THE FLOCK.
"1 will set shepherds over them which shall feed them."
10.00. Training Young Converts. Rev. G. C. Adam.s, St. Louis
10.30. Youths' Christian Associations. W. B. Jacobs.
11.00. Report of Committees.
Unfinished business.
Our Silver Wedding — 1S84.
Thursday Afternoon.
lu the Baptist Church.
THE LAMBS OF THE FLOCK.
3.00. Meeting for Primary Class Workers. Led by Miss Lucy J. Rider.
4.00. Children's Meeting.
Thursday Afternoon.
In the Methodist Church.
TENDING THE FLOCK.
2.00. llovv to Conduct a Sunday School.
2.45. How to teach the Lesson. Rkv. A. H. Gillet, of M. E. S. S. Soc'ty.
KEEPING OUT THE WOLVES.
"The wolf catcheth them and scattercth the sheep."
4.00. Temperance Work in Sunday School. Miss Mary West.
Addresses.
Illinois IState Sunday School Convention. 9
Thursday Evening.
7.00. Open Air Meeting.
BT THE STILL WATERS.
7.45. Song Service. Led by W. H. Schureman.
8.15. Address. Rev. A. H. Gillet.
8.45. Address. Rev. B. Y. George, Cairo.
On motion of B. F. Jacobs, a Committee, consisting of one mem-
ber from each District was appointed to nominate officers for the Con-
vention. The follow^ing gentlemen were appointed : T.G.Stevens,
1st District; Moody, 2nd District; C. H. Long, 3rd District;
T. E. Spillman, 4th District; B. Depenbrock, 5th District, and J. B.
Turner of the 6th District.
President Brouse introduced Hon. Ralph Plumb, Mayor of Strea-
tor, who welcomed the Convention in an eloquent address. As this
was before the arrival of the shorthand reporter, we regret that it is
impossible to give the address.
President Brouse m.ade a brief response to this address of welcome,
and called upon William Reynolds of Peoria, to second his response.
Mr. Reynolds protested against "Sight Drafts" for speeches but made
an earnest and eloquent response to the address of welcome, thanking
the Mayor and citizens of Streator for the cordial manner in which
they had been received.
Mr. Miller sang a solo, "Bringing in the Sheaves," the Convention
joining heartily in the chorus; after which he sang with much feeling,
"When my work is done."
Rev. W. H. Steadman of Mendota, was introduced and gave a
most excellent Bible reading upon the topic, "The Shepherd's Re-
turn."
THE SHEPHERD'S RETURN.
BY REV. W. H. STEADMAN.
It is ever profitable to the new life to study the character of the
Lord Jesus as our Shepherd, in whatever aspect of that character we
may view him, — whether as the good Shepherd laying down his life
for the sheep, (John x. 11); or as the great Shepherd coming up out
of the grave, having in the greatness of his strength deprived death
of its deadly sting and grave of its victory, (Heb. xiii. 20); or as the
chief Shepherd, when surrounded by all his subordinate shepherds
who from love to his adorable person, through the grace of his spirit
have watched over and cared for the flock. He shall wreathe the brow
of each one with a diadem of glory, (i Peter v. 4).
It is our privilege for a few moments to call the attention of this
convention of under-shepherds to the return of our Lord, our Master,
our chief Shepherd. Let us seek to be guided in this work b}^ the
Lord as recorded in i Peter v. 4, "And when the chief Shepherd shall
appear, ye shall receive a crown of glory that fadeth not away."
10 Illinois State Sunday School Convention.
I. A PREDICTION, (i. e,, "The chief Shepherd shall appear").
What reason have we for believing that this will be?
(a) Because Christ jjromised to come back again, "And if I go and
prepare a j)lace for you, 1 will come again, and receive you unto my-
self; that where I am, there ye may be also," (John xiv. 3). Here
the Lord Jesus Christ has based the certainty of his return upon the
certainty of his ascension; if I go I come, as certainly as he has gone
so certainly will he return.
(b) God sent the angels to tell us that Christ would return, "And
while they looked steadfastly toward heaven, as he went up, behold,
two men stood by them in white apparel; which also said. Ye men of
Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven? This same Jesus,
which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner
as ye have seen him go into heaven." (Acts i. il.) Nothing can add
to the plainness and certainty of these words. It is this same Jesus who
shall come in like manner as ye have seen him go. The suffering did
not change him, the glory will not change him. He will come as he
went, "And he led them out as far as to Bethany and he lifted up
liis hands, and blessed them. And it came to pass, while he blessed
them, he was parted from them, and carried up into heaven." (Luke
xxiv. 50, 51). He blessed them as he went; He will bless them
when he returns.
(c) The Holy Spirit has prophesied and promised his return; "So
Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many; and unto them that
look for him shall he appear the second time, without sin, unto sal-
vation. For yet a little while, and he that shall come will come, and
will not tarry." (Heb. ix. 28; x. 37).
II. A Promise. He promises to give each of his under-shepherds a
great reward, and there are conditions upon which the bestowment of
this reward depends: "Be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee
a crown of life," (Rev. ii. 10); "If any man's work abide which he
hath built thereupon, he shall receive a reward," 1 Cor. iii. 14). What
then shall determine the glory of the under-shepherd's reward? 1st.
The condition of his flock. Paul so understood it, "For what is our
hope, or joy, or crown of rejoicing? Are not even ye in the presence
of our Lord Jesus Christ at his coming? For ye are our glory and
joy," (i Thess. ii. 19, 20). Christ expects his under-shepherds to
tend, feed and fold his flock, that they may be brought into his like-
ness. Let us see how the first shepherds went about to accomplish
this work: (a) See what young converts are taught to expect con-
cerning the Shepherd's return, "For they themselves show of us what
manner of entering in we had unto you, and how ve turned to God
from idols to serve the living and true God; And to wait for his Son
from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, even Jesus, which de-
livered us from the wrath to come," (i Thess. i. 9, 10). Evidently
Paul did not consider this question beyond the comprehension of his
flock, but, on the contrary, he taught it to babes and even to those
converts who had come out of the darkness of idolatry. {U) Conse-
cration and self control; "Let your moderation be known unto all
men. The Lord is at hand." (Phil. iv. 5). "And every man that
striveth for the mastery is temperate in all things. Now they do it to
obtain a corruptible crown; but we an incorruptible." (1 Cor. ix.
Illinois State Sunday School Convention. 11
25). (c) They presented the hope of Christ's return as a motive to
purity; "Beloved now are we the sons of God; and it doth not yet
aj^pear what we shall be; but we know that, when he shall appear,
we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is. And every man
that hath this hope in him purifieth himself, even as he is pure." (i
John iii. 3, 3). "To the end he may stablish your hearts unblamable
in holiness before God, even our Father, at the coming of our Lord
Jesus Christ with all his saints." (i Thess. iii. 13).
(d) It refined and purified their faithful hope. "That the trial of
your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perisheth,
though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honor
and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ; wherefore gird up the
loins of your mind, be sober, and hope to the end for the grace that
is to be brought unto you at the revelation of Jesus Christ." (1
Peter i. 7-13).
(e) It cultivated their patience: "Cast not away therefore your con-
fidence, which hath great recompence of reward; for ye have need of
patience, that after ye have done the will of God, ye might receive
the promise. For yet a little while, and he that shall come will come,
and will not tarry." (Heb. x. 35-37). "Be patient therefore brethren,
unto the coming of the Lord. Behold, the husbandman waiteth for
the precious fruit of the earth, and hath long patience for it, until he
receive the early and latter rain. Be ye also patient; stablish your
hearts; tor the coming of the Lord draweth nigh." (James v. 7, 8).
(/") It was a source of comfort: "For the Lord himself shall de-
scend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and
with the trump of God; and the dead in Christ shall rise first; then
we which are alive and remain, shall be caught up together with
them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air; and so shall we ever
be with the Lord. Wherefore comfort one another with these
words." (i Thess. iv. 16-1S).
And what does the chief Shepherd expect of us? "For the Son of
man is as a man taking a far journey, who left his house, and gave
authority to his servants, and to every man his work, and commanded
the porter to watch. Watch ye therefore; for ye know not when the
master of the house cometh, at even, or at midnight, or at the cock-
crowing, or in the morning; lest coming suddenly he find you sleep-
ing. And what I say unto you I say unto all, watch." (Mark xiii.
34-37. Read also Luke xii. 32-38.
We have given above the outline of Mr. Stedman's address. His
own remarks were delivered extemporary before the arrival of the
stenographer, and we regret it is not possible to reproduce the entire
address that so delighted and helped those who heard it.
The Carman family came upon the platform and were welcomed
with hearty applause. They sang the hymn fitting the Bible reading,
"When Jesus comes to reward His servants." W. B. Jacobs, Statis-
tical Secretary, reported the condition of the State as far as received.
The following is the report, corrected at and since the Convention:
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Illinois State Sunday School Convention. 15
B. F. Jacobs, Chairman, read the report of the Executive Com-
mittee, printed copies having been distributed through the congrega-
tion that the delegates might follow and note the suggestions:
EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE'S REPORT.
To the Illinois Sunday School Association :
Dear Brethren: — In submitting the annual report, the Exe-
cutive Committee desire to make afi'csh the record of God's goodness
and mercy to us as an association. As of old, it is recorded, that,
" When the cloud w^as taken up from over the tabernacle, they w^ent
onward in all their journeys, and in the place where the cloud abode,
there they pitched their tents." vSo, having journeyed for another year,
under the guidance of God, we have come, as we believe, by His
direction to pitch our tent for a time in this new city; and our prayer
is that on this day, "when the tabernacle is reared up," the cloud of
His presence may cover it by day, and the appearance of His glory
may rest upon it at night; and that it may be written of us, " At the
commandment of the Lord the children of Israel journeyed, and at
the commandment of the Lord they pitched their tents." We have
with us some " sons of Aaron," " with silver trumpets," both to gather
the assembly . and to sound the alarm; and let us all pray that the
trumpets may give " no uncertain sound," and that the tribes of the
Lord may be gathered, rested, fed, and sent forth to battle, assured of
victory. We gather to-day at Sinai to hear the law afresh; at Horeb
to drink again the water from the rock, and perhaps some of us at
Nebo, to take a last look at the windings of the desert journey nearly
ended, and get a fairer and brighter view of the promised land, soon
to be possessed. If in the past we recall our Marah's, we may also
remember the branch that sweetened them; and as we think of our
wanderings, and meditate upon the solemn truth, that disobedience
and neglect have kept us out of the blessing so long; let us also pray
that this year we come into the inheritance. If they are wise who
learn from the mistakes of the past, we have an opportunity to learn
wisdom.
As thoughtful men some things press upon us, as Christian workers
some things demand attention, and if this body perfect such plans,
and provide for their execution, as will con-ect our mistakes, it will
deserve a high place in the list of Illinois State S. S. conventions.
The Work Of The Year.
At our last convention it was decided to push our work more vigor-
ously, and the sum of $3,000 was to be raised. Relying upon the
pledges made, with what could reasonably be 'expected from others,
your committee undertook to perform the task assigned them, and
had the county and township officers done even as well as usual, the
result would have been much better. A thorough understanding with
most of the counties enabled us to send help to a large number. Miss
Lucy J- Rider has attended 5 District Conventions, 45 County
Conventions, 13 Township Conventions and Institutes, 41 Normal
Classes, and 15 Children's Meetings. A part of her time — as during
16 Illinois State Sunday School Convention,
the jjrevioiis year — was given to Cook County, and in exchange for
her services we have received a portion of the time of Mr. W. B.
Jacobs. He has attended 5 District Conventions, 27 County Con-
ventions, without charge to the State beyond traveling expences. In
addition we secured the services of C. M. Morton, who attended 6
County Conventions. In addition to this, the district presidents have
attended many conventions, and the members of the Executive Com-
mittee have attended many others.
Conventions Held.
The result of this work is seen in 5 Districts and 103 County Con-
ventions held during the year, but the failure of many counties to re-
port gives us a very small number of township conventions. There
is no reason to believe that there has been a severe loss, but
there is great reason to complain at the failure of the counties to
report. If the loss is actual, and not, as we suppose, merely owing
to carelessness, then it devolves upon us to gird ourselves afresh, and
regain the loss; but if it is not real, then we must discover and cor-
rect the mistakes that give so poor a report.
The Statisticai- Secretary.
Mr. C. M. Eames, our former secretary, continued his work until
November ist, when he resigned his office, to the regret of your com-
mittee. After consultation Mr. W. B. Jacobs was chosen to fill the
unexpired term, and his partial report is before you. It will surprise
and pain you to notice that but 76 reports have been received and
many of these within the last few days, making anything like a com-
plete report impossible, 26 counties have neglected this obligation, and
this after persistent efforts have been made to obtain the reports.
Not only so, but it is further evident that 24 of the counties that have
reported, are imperfect, and many of them noticably wrong. Let us
look at the report.
The First District.
This district reports 18 conventions and sends 16 reports; 1 county
— McHenry, has not reported. In 1 1 counties there is a reported
gain of 78 schools, and ^ counties report a loss of 36 schools. And
while 10 counties report a gain of schools, only 9 counties report a
gain in membership, and this is 13,949, while 5 counties only report a
loss of schools; {36) yet, 7 counties report a loss of membership 5,509;
15 counties report 13S township conventions; 2 counties make no sign;
13 counties report 4,031 additions to the church — as compared with
2,527 in 14 counties last year; and 4 counties report none. The same
unsatisfactory reports are given as to teachers meetings held, mission-
ary contributions etc. 17 counties have contributed $800.00 to the
State work. But 6 banner counties are reported from this district.
Cook, DuPage, Kane, Lake, Ogle, and Whiteside, and many of the
shining gems on the banners have suffered an eclipse.
The Second District.
The number of county conventions held is 17, but only 15 counties
have reported; of these 9 show a gain of 59 schools; 6 show a loss of
Illinois vState Sunday School Convention. 17
30 schools; 13 show a gain of 13,792 membership, and 4 show a loss
of 1,799; 10 counties report 148 township conventions; 13 counties
report 1,64^ additions to the church; 5 counties do not report; 7 report
none. 15 counties have contributed $470.00 to the state work. War-
ren county alone claims the banner and holds up the flag which 16
others are willing should be lowered before angels and men.
The Third District.
The number of conventions held has been iS and only 10 reports
have been received. The "Glorious Old Third," has not excelled in
the number of reports although the counties reporting make a good
exhibit; 7 counties report a gain of 70 schools, while only 6 counties
report a gain of 3,797 scholars; and 2 counties report a loss of 30
schools, while 3 counties report a loss of 3,357 scholars; 10 counties
report 3,007 admissions to the church, the rest none; 13 counties report
174 township conventions, as compared with SS in 8 counties last year;
15 counties have contributed $430.63 to the state work; several of the
counties have done better than ever before and are entitled to the
highest praise, others have fallen off. In banner counties the third
outranks and outshines all other districts; the glory seems to be leav-
ing the fourth and travelling eastward now, for eight stars differ
from six stars, in glory. The constellation consists of Champaign,
Ford, Iroquois, Livingston, McLean, Macon, Moultrie and Piatt.
The Fourth District.
The number of county conventions is 17, but only 14 counties send
reports, of these 6 report a gain of 34 schools, and to preserve the
equitibrium; 7 report loss of 68 schools. As this loss of schools is
too great they seek to recover, by 8 counties reporting a gain of 3,1^5
membership, while 6 struggle to keep the others down by reporting
a membership loss of 3,335; n counties report 1,015 'Additions to the
churches and 6 counties are marked o; 15 counties report 151 township
conventions, and the rest report none; 7 banners are yet retained in
the district, Adams, Brown, Jersey, Mason, Morgan, Pike and
Schuyler, forming the guard that has not surrendered to the allied
host of sloth, indifference and neglect; 15 counties contribute $385.00
to the State work.
The Fifth District.
The county conventions number 17; but only 11 counties send a
report; one portion of this district has suffered severely from storms
and floods, and is entitled to the sympathy and help of all the state.
It may excuse some, but it cannot be offered by all the counties; 7
counties report a gain of 47 schools and 3,S45 membership, while 4
counties report a loss of 33 schools and a loss of 379 membership. In
7 counties 77S have been added to the membership of the church; 1 1
counties report 109 township conventions; 6 counties claim the hon-
orable distinction of "banner counties," and the starry flag waves *
over Clay, Crawford. Edwards, Fayette, Hamilton and Lawrence;
14 counties have contributed VP305.18 to the slate work.
18 Illinois State Sunday School Convention.
The Sixth District.
The County Conventions number i6, and ii reports have been
received. Two counties report a gain of 6 schools, 9 counties report
a loss of 77 schools. Five counties report a gain of 1,420 member-
ship, and 6 counties a loss of 5,028. Nine counties report 638
added to the churches, the others make no report. Eleven counties
report lOi Township Conventions held, ho word from the others.
Five counties, Bond, Clinton, Johnson, Madison, and Massac have
kept in the front rank, and the others have fallen out; 9 counties
contributed $162.50 to the State work.
The Whole State.
As a whole we have the following strange and unintelligible
figures. Seventy-six counties make report, 26 no repoit; 41 counties
report a gain of 283 schools, and 46 counties report a gain in member-
ship of 38,658; 33 counties report a loss of 254 schools and 30 coun-
ties report a loss of 18,407 membership. 76 counties report 821
township conventions, a decrease of 133 fron> last year. Many coun-
ties report a loss of schools and a gain of membership; some a gain
of schools and a loss of membership. Beyond question, some better
plan must be tried to gather statistics. Your committee do not think
there has been a loss of schools or membership in the different coun-
ties. If to the report of last year we add the gains reported in 46
counties, and deduct the losses reported in 30 counties, we have a
total of 6,260 schools with a membership of 564,619, showing a total
gain of 28 schools and 20,251 in membership. But we believe the fol-
lowing estimate is quite low enough, based on what we know, viz:
the 41 counties reported gain, 284 schools, an average of 7 schools; and
46 counties, a gain of membership 43,658, an average of 153 for each
school. We think the remaining 61 counties have averaged a gain
of 3 schools, with an average membership of 75. This would give
the 102 counties a total average gain of 414 schools, or 456 schools;
with a total average membership of no each, or a gain of 50,295 in
membership. If this is correct our total footings will be 6,588 schools
with a membership of 630,000.
Recommendation.
In view of the facts or failures herein set forth, your committee
recommend the following:
First. That the State be redistricted, into 16 or 20 districts, as
may be found best, and in order that this may be done with as little
disturbance of former plans as possible; we suggest that the old
boundary lines be retained wherever it can be done, and that each of
the present districts be subdivided into districts of 4 or 6 counties each,
but that these be made independent of each other, as the six districts
are now. That the president of each district be required to attend the
Annual Convention in each county in his district, and that he also be
required to know that the report from each county is sent to the Sta-
*■ tistical Secretary, within one month, after the Annual County Con-
vention is held.
Second, That the Executive Committee be instructed to employ a
Illinois State Sunday School Convention. 19
Statistical Secretary, who will give the State his entire time for the
months of April, May, June, August, September and October, and at
least one-third of his time for the remaining months of the year.
That he be required to attend as many of the (bounty Conventions as
possible, under the direction of the Executive Committee.
Third. That, in view of the importance of the work, the counties
be requested to send their Secretary to the State Convention, even if
it is necessary for the county to defray his expenses, and that an hour
of the State Convention be set apart for a special meeting of county
officers to compare and perfect their work.
Fourth. In view of the twenty-fifth-(Silver- Wedding, )-Anniver-
sary, of our Association to occur next year, we accept the invitation to
hold the Convention in the city of Springfield, Tuesday, Wednesday,
and Thursday, May 17, 18, 19th, or June 3, 4, and 5. And, that a re-
canvass of the entire State be made, as far as j^ossible by volunteer
workers, that will be acceptable to the counties, and by such paid
help, as the Executive Committee can secure with the means at their
disposal. And that all the counties be earnestly requested to secure
the thorough organization of eveiy Township in the State, that in our
report to be made to the next International Convention to be held in
the city of Louisville, Ky., June 11, 13, 1SS4, we may present 103
Banner Counties. That we earnestly request all former officers
of the State, District, or County Associations, to buckle on the armor
afresh and help us this year. And that every one of them be specially
invited to be present with us at the next State Convention.
Fifth. That in view of the work to be done, the amount to be
raised for the work this year be $4,000, and that the counties be re-
quested to secure the amount of their pledges and assessments at the
County Convention, and send the same to the Treasurer of the State
within one week thereafter.
The announcements for the evening services were made, the congre-
gation united in singing, "I love to tell the Story," the Rev. J. F.
Stout of Bloomington, invoked the Divine blessing, and the first ses-
sion of the Convention closed.
First Day — Evening Session.
At seven o'clock an open-air meeting was held on the street, con-
ducted by Mr. D. W. Potter, at which several earnest addresses were
made. Hundreds were in attendance at the meeting and a deep inter-
est was manifested.
The church was crowded long before the hour of opening, and an
immense audience of at least eight hundred people filled Oriental
Hall, a few blocks distant. The meeting in the Hall was addressed
by William Reynolds, B. F. Jacobs and Mr. Potter. A large num-
ber requested prayers, and some are believed to have accepted Christ.
At the church a song service was conducted by the Carman family,
the subject being, "Our Hope." Mr. B. G. Roots, a patriarch in
20 Illinois .Statk Sunday School Convkntion.
State Sunday School work, from Perry Co., led in prayer. The
Carman family sang a paraphrase of ist John iii. 1-4, "Behold what
manner of love." Master Davy Carman sang a song, "I want to be
more like Jesus," and the whole family sang again, "I shall be satis-
fied when I awake in His likeness." The effect of these songs upon
the audience was marked ; many were moved to tears.
The Committee on nominations made a partial report as follows:
For President. — Rev. Willi.\m Tr.\cy, (jianville.
Vice-Presidents. — Rev. W. H. Shaw, Alton; B. Dkpknuruck, Salem; Rkv.
W. H. Parker, Dixon.
Recording Secretaries. — E. 1). Durham, Onarca; A. C. Baldwin, Vermill-
ionville.
The nominations were confirmed by the Convention.
The Committee escorted the President elect. Rev. William Tracy,
to the platform, and he was greeted by the retiring President, O. R.
Brouse, as follows:
Brother Tracy: — I am glad to transfer to you the honor and the
power belonging to the Presidency of the Illinois State Sunday
School Association. You have been the first assistant, first Vice-
President, this past year, and it is Civil Service reform now to make
you President. Not only so, but we have found you faithful in your
duties as Vice-President and we know the man we trust for the com-
ing year. You have our hearts and our love. May God bless you
in this position, and may you be a blessing to us.
President Tracy responded as follows:
Brother Brouse: — I thank you for the kind words you have
spoken, and the splendid condition in which you have handed over the
Society to me. *
Dear Friends, Fellow Workers and Fellow Laborers: I thank you
very heartily for the honor you have done me, the County to which
I belong and the District which I represent, in calling me to fill this
chair. It is an honor to be associated in any way with Sunday School
work. It is the highest that this country or any country, that this
State or any State can give, to be called to fill the Chair of the Illi-
nois Association. I regard it as an honor to be associated with the
men who have occupied this chair before me — men who have done
nobly for Sunday School work, whose names are as ointment poured
forth, from sea to sea, here and across the Atlantic. It is an honor to
be associated with the men who have accomplished the work that has
been done by this Association. It has a splendid history, and its his-
tory is a magnificent prophecy. It is yet in its youth. It is an honor
to be associated with a society having such a great name and such
great deeds in the past, and one that is to have a greater name and
greater deeds in the days that are to come.
But, dear friends, you will notice that no arrangement has been
made on the programme for a speech by the Chairman elect — out of
consideration for you and as a gentle hint to me — and therefore, al-
though I feel verv deeply the honor you have conferred on me, I am
reminded now of the responsibility. I am here not to talk to you
Illinois State Sunday School Convention. 21
but to serve you, and I feel assured that in this position I shall have
your sympathy and your help.
I have two difficulties; first, myself. I was at a County Conven-
tion during the past summer, and the question was asked, "How shall
a teacher keep his class in order?" and a little fellow in the Conven-
tion cried out, "Be orderly himself" I realize that this is my first
duty. The other difficulty that I have is Brother Jacobs; and I know
that in this I have the sympathy of every man that has occupied this
chair before me. You know that some one has said that a child has
a thousand nerves to wriggle with and not one to keep still with, and
that is just true of Brother Jacobs. But there is wonderful method
and wonderful might in his wriggling, and if I cannot keep him still
always, I know that you will bear with him and forgive me. I will
do the best I can.
I thank you, dear friends, very earnestly for what you have done
for me, and the e:Jtpression of my heart at this moment, as I believe
the expression of the hearts of all here, is just voiced in that hymn,
"Nearer, my God, to Thee, Nearer to Thee." Shall we unite in sing-
ing one verse of that hymn? and let it be a prayer, and God grant that
it shall be answered through all the sessions of this Convention.
The convention rose at the request of the President and sang one
verse, "Nearer my God to Thee."
Rev. J. F. Stout of Bloomington, addressed the Convention upon
the topic, "The Shepherd a Protector."
THE SHEPHERD A PROTECTOR.
ADDRESS BY REV. J. F. STOUT.
Mr. President: — The shepherd is an outgrowth of the need of
his flock. A flock of wohes needs no shepherd to care for it; at their
fangs a shepherd would fare poorly. A flock of sheep, helpless, de-
fenceless, easily stampeded hy fear, having neither claw nor fang for
attack or defence, must have a shepherd if they live where the wolves
are abroad. The great Shepherd is an outgrowth of the world's need.
There is no greater need that has been brought to the mind and heart
of the race than that of the race itself. Within us there is nothino-
that is good or true or beautiful in its perfection. It is said that
Robert Hall in one of his frenzies declared this: said he, "I saw Satan
striding down the street, the pavements sank under his mighty tread;
he was majesty in ruins — majesty in ruins." And that frenzy of that
grand old preacher is a look at the race; it is majesty in ruins — maj-
esty in ruins. Created in the image of God, filled with the highest
possibilities and endowed with the largest powers, — at the very begin-
ning of its course it was wrecked and its future was blackened bv its
awful sin. Within it there seemed to be no power to withstand temp-
tation. There is a tide in every human soul that sets towards sin,
there is a tide that sets towards righteousness; and yet the one that is
strongest is that which sets hell-ward, against which we strive in vain
to win our way. And we have more than enemies within, we have
foes without. There was no wall around the garden of Eden that
22 Illinois State Sunday School Convention.
could keep the Devil out; there has been no wall around the race
that could keep out the j^owers of darkness. From the time when
our first parents listened to the hiss and whisper of the serpent to the
present, he who cast the gauntlet at the feet of Jehovah, has been
seeking for the blood of the race; and what we call in this life human
destiny, is the outcome of the long struggle between the Shepherd
and the wolf — that Enemy of all souls, the Prince of the powers of
the air, the Prince of darkness. The wolf, seeking for the heart-blood
of the race from its very inception, has tried to work its ruin; the
Shepherd, from the time the morning stars sang together, has
1)een laying his plans for its salvation. The wolf, by all methods has
been seeking for blood; the shepherd, by all his kingly power has
been fighting off the wolf. The wolf, that he might get the heart of
the race, has first opposed his power against that of the shepherd, and
sought to overthrow Him, that the flock might be at his mercy; but
the Shepherd, by his kingly power, has numbered his days and pre-
pared his everlasting chains. The wolf is trying to blacken our lives,
to destroy our hope, to deprive us of all that is good and true and
beautiful and godly; the Shepherd is trying to build round about us
His wall of fire and to build us up in holy faith, that in spite of earth
and hell we shall see the gates open and enter into the City.
There is one side of the character of Christ that we have all no-
ticed with awe and reverence, the side that reveals His sufl'erings.
He who puts His foot on earth at Hethlehem amid the songs of an-
gelic choirs can but get the attention of the earth to which He comes.
We find that He endures afffiction and grief and sorrow; He puts
His warm heart up against the heart of the race and His eye moistens
with tears at the sight of human agony; His hand brings forth such
power that even Divinity seems to speak from His finger tips to open
blind eyes and cure the lepers that crouch at His feet. And when at
the crisis of all He bows and dies, He bows and dies under the weight
of the world's transgression. There is one look that is given us of
Christ in the prophecies and one that is given us in history; and in
the one that is given us in prophecy we stand first of all committed
to the side of Christ in His infinite tenderness and love as He revealetl
Himself and His fiather to this lost race. But we sometimes forget
the other side of that divine nature, when He came into the world to
be the Shepherd of the sheep, not only to lead them by green pas-
tures and by the side of still waters, but to get His kingly hands at
the throat of the wolf and throttle it, even while its fangs were on
the neck of the lamb. Isaiah says, chapter liii, "He is despised and
rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief; and
we hid as it were our faces from Him; He was despised and we es-
teemed Him not. Surely He hath borne our griefs and carried our
sorrows; yet we did esteem Him stricken, smitten of God, and afiiic-
ted. Hut He was wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised for
our ini(|uities; the chastisement of our peace was upon Him; and
with His stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray;
we have turned every one to his own way; and the Lord hath laid on
Him the iniciuity of us all." That is the attitude of the Shepherd to
His sheep; but turn over to chapter sixty-third, and see another pic-
ture: "Who is this that cometh from Edom, with dyed garments from
Illinois State Sunday School Convention. 23
Bozrah? this that is glorious in His apparel, travelling in the great-
ness of His strength? I that speak in righteousness, mighty to save.
Wherefore art thou red in thine apparel, and thy garments like him
that treadeth in the wine-fat? I have trodden the wine-press alone;
and of the people there was none with me; for I will tread them with
mine anger, and trample them in my fury; and their blood shall be
sprinkled upon my garments, and I will stain all my raiment. For
the day of vengeance is in mine heart, and the year of my redeemed
is come." That is the attitude of the Shepherd to the wolf. One
truth alone is but half; bring them together and you have the rounded
whole. One picture is the Shepherd who knows His own sheep by
name and lulls them to slumber by night to the sound of the lute.
The other is the shepherd that leaps to the front when the wolf
comes from his lair, to throttle him before he gets the blood of His
lambs. And this in my thought, is Christ's aim when He comes to
the work.
The historic way is like the prophetic; it has two sides. Some-
times we look upon Gethsemane and Pilate's judgment hall feeling
that there is little honor there; and for this I do not know but some-
times the pulpit is to blame. We see Christ in Gethsemane and in
Pilate's hall, and in our thought He cringes and cowers before the
mob. Brethren, He never did it. I have thought of the hour when
out in the blackness of darkness, that crowd came into the garden to
find Him — how He, speaking out from the shadow of the trees in an-
swer to the cry of the mob and at their request, said, "I am He."
There were such majesty and power quivering through the words
that, like some wave in ocean crested with foam, comes striking
against craggy rocks, and is hurled back oceanward again, so this
wave of human hate surged back from before the majestic King, and
the haters were impotent in the presence of the Shepherd, for they
had felt His power. And now He goes because He chooses. But
He has an end in view. He goes into the judgment hall, the assem-
bled mob is angry, cruel, menacing, blood-thirsty, murderous. Christ
receives all the indignities that cunning, fed by hate can possibly in-
vent, not like a cowering hound beneath his master's lash, or as if he
were afraid of anything that Pilate or the mob could do. Had He
not legions of angels at His command? They could do nothing ex-
cept He gave them the privilege. He takes it as a King. Evei'y
pressure of the crown of thorns, every stroke of the lash, every jeer
and gibe, every scorning remark goes to His heart, but His kingly
bearing makes that whole company feel that Jesus, the Man of Naz-
areth, is the King among those men. He holds up the honor of
Christianity. And I have sometimes thought (this by the way)
that if His followers, in the presence of those forces that would ruin
homes and destroy morality, that take our boys from their homes and
make them sots, would have a little more of the spirit of the Shep-
herd for throttling the wolf, we should have a little less of the rum
evil and corruption in politics than we have.
Christ, to save my soul, died it is true; but in dying He gets His
almighty hand upon the powers of darkness and puts in motion those
forces that shall utterly overthrow the kingdom of darkness and
bring up the towers of the City of God into splendor. But what is
24 Illinois State Sunday School Convention.
Christ's method of protecting His flock? He has His own way; it is
not yours nor mine. He says in that wonderful chapter in John in
which He is speaking to the people ahout Himself ami giving those
fearful denunciations of false shepherds, "the good Sheperd lays down
His life for the sheep." "1 lay down my life for the sheep." Christ's
method of protection by the salvation He has given, is by putting
Himself in the breach of danger and calling upon Himself the darts
of the enemy. You have all heard the story of the old Swiss patriot,
who when in front of the Austrian phalanx, seeing that the poor rude
forces could not pierce it or overthrow it, suddenly leaped from the
Swiss ranks upon the foe, caught all the spears within his reach and
turned them into his own heart, and thus made way for liberty. In
some such way as this — larger, as the question is larger than Swiss
freedom, and as Christ is larger than any human hero — Christ stood
in the very brunt of the bitter conflict with the powers of darkness
and pointed all spears to his own heart, that the world might be saved
and protected. There are some mysteries that cluster around the gos-
pel of the Son of God; there are some things that angels attempted
to look into and were not able; there are some things that humanity
has tried in vain to discover. Even in the old days the apostle said,
"The Jews require a sign and the Greeks seek after wisdom; but we
preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumbling block and unto the
Greeks foolishness." And to some still it is a "stumbling block," and
to others "foolishness," because we cannot look into the plans of om-
nipotence and see why He allows the eternal Son to put himself into
the breach of the world's danger to save it; and yet in some way,
this is God's wonderful method.
At the last Christ shows that He is the Son of God; the final
march is over, the nails have been driven, the cross is raised and the
world is looking on in amazement. Enemies are looking on and
lauo-hino- because they have compassed the death of the man of Naz-
areth; and friends who have been building up hopes upon his life,
find that their hearts have grown dark with despair. And there be-
tween heaven and earth, watched by enemies and friends.
He dies, the Friend of sinners dies,
Lo! Salem's daughters weep around!
A solemn darkness veils the skies;
A sudden trembling shakes the ground:
Come, saints, and drop a tear or two
On the dear bosom of your God :
He shed a thousand drops for you,
A thousand drops of richer blood.
Here's love and grief beyond degree;
The Lord of glory dies for man,
Hut, lo! what sudden joys I see!
Jesus, the dead, revives again!
The rising God forsakes the tomb;
The tomb in vain forbids his rise!
Cherubic legions guard him home,
And shout him welcome to the skies!
Break off your tears, ye saints, and tell
How high your great Deliverer reigns;
Sing how he spoil'd the hosts of hell.
And led the monster death in chains.
Illinois State Sunday School Convention. 25
Say, "Live forever, v^^ondrous King !
Born to redeem, and strong to save ! "
Then ask the monster, "Where's thy sting?"
And, "Where's thy victory, boasting grave?"
Somehow out of Calvary comes salvation. Somehow out of the
crisis hour of the great Shepherd's life there springs a panoplied army
that is sufficient for all the needs of the race. I cannot see its philos-
ophy, I cannot tell its might, but I see more than a pattern in Him
who dies on Calvary. I see a Savior taking the spears into his own
heart that I may live, that I may be protected, and that this world shall
not be the arena for the powers of darkness, but the home of re-
deemed manhood.
Another question occurs to me at this place, and that is. How is it
that the Shepherd in this marvellous way has, at the last, protected
His flock? There is one thing we notice, the world wants a wall of
fire round about it, through whose crevices no wolf shall creep, over
whose heights no vulture shall fly, between whose gates no enemy
shall come, and before whose towers no army shall lay siege. But
Christianity has asked nothing like this. God's aim is something
different. It is not to put a wall of fire around the race and save
struggle, it is to develop men; and so Christ when He died laid the
basis in His death for such a protection as shall be an honor to every
man who accepts it. It is a wall of fire, but it is built within. It
is the baptism of fire and the baptism of blood and the one who,
penitent, has bowed at the feet of Jesus of Nazareth, rises a man.
He is not asking for any wall behind which he can crouch; he is ask-
ing for a helmet, for greaves, a breast-plate and a sword; he is asking
that he may win his plumes and crowns and thrones in the world.
Then he wants an abiding Saviour, who shall walk by his side and
whisper words in his ear that shall ring above the rumble and grum-
ble and roar of battle — One whose might shall be so great that he
shall not be overcome. You have all heard of a certain battle in the
last war. called Bull Run. I have seen a great many soldiers in my
life — I was not old enough to be one myself — I have seen men who
were at Shiloh, at Lookout Mountain, in the Wilderness, and in the
Red River Expedition even, but I never saw a man who was at the
battle of Bull Run. I wonder why it is. I remember well the time
when those men with their nev\^ uniforms and their spick span new
guns started forth, and friends said, "We have an army that shall
wade through seas of blood, and every one of them is good for three
rebels." They marched out of Washington to the sound of drum and
fife, and every one went out from Washington to see how they were
going to lay out the rebels. They thought they were soldiers, they
had only begun. They had lessons to learn, and sometimes God does
not honor the soldier who, without His help, wants to push in the
front before his drill. Do you know what happened? When the
fire began behind that centre wall, that whole force of new soldiers,
who had marched out to the time of martial music, turned and stam-
peded like sheep and there is no animal in the world that is worse
than sheep to stampede except man. What was the trouble? They
hadn't learned '"battle." There was within them the making of sol-
diers. They had patriotism, they had honor, they had love, they had
2(» Illinois State Sunday School Convention.
homes, they had princijjle, and later, when we come to Gettysburg,
we find many of these same men drawn up in that mighty pitched
battle. They are not so beautiful as thev were before; their uniforms
are old and ragged, their faces bronzed by exposure, and they are
lean with long marches; but their eyes are bright, and their hearts
are warm; and when at the crisis of the battle that rebel yell swept
upon them with a tempest of steel that seemed to be a hurricane let
loose, singing death in every one of its guns, they stood like heroes.
And when tiie order was given, they were ready themselves to be an
avalanch of fire and steel, to win. The only trouble before was, they
had not learned war; they had not learned how to stand. Now that
is God's method for His soldiers. lie brings His men to the war uni-
formed, but He has not a soldier yet. He goes out into campaigns,
and the waves of battle surge upon Him. He hears the roar of can-
non and musketry, and is swept along in the tide of battle, hearing
the screaming of death on every side, and at the last he comes out of
the struggle a soldier. He is a veteran. And God's soldiers are to
come up out of great tribulation. Every one of them is protected in
himself by the incoming and indwelling of God, for he has become
"a partaker of the divine nature, having escaped the corruptions of
the world through lust." And such a protection is worthy of the
man of Nazareth, it is worthy of the throne of the omnipotent God;
and when in the years to come tlie good Shepherd shall soimd His
pipe and call in the sheep from all pastures, it will be found that in the
struggles, they have been changed, and they will come up, having re-
ceived a transfusion that makes them lions as well as lambs. Having
won in the conflict, they bow to receive their crowns.
Prof. E. O. Excell, a stranger to the Convention, was introduced as
a singer from Pennsylvania. He pleasantly replied that being a
stranger, he would sing his experience, and in the most wonderful
and delightful manner, sang the song, "He saved a poor sinner like
me." The effect upon the audience was wonderful, both the matter
of the song and the manner of the singer being well calculated to
stir their hearts.
The Convention had expected an address from Right Rev. Bishop
C. E. Chene}' of the Reformed Episcopal Church, Chicago, who was
detained at home by sickness, and Mr. C. M. Morton of Chicago,
addressed the Convention as follows:
ADDRESS OF CHARLES M. MORTON.
Mv Dear Friends: — It seems to me that the hymn that has just
been sung came in the proper place, — "He Saved a Poor Sinner like
me." He that lives well, need fear no evil, and those of us that live
well remember, every day, the pit out of which we were dug. We
remember that we need Jesus just as much, now, to preserve us, as
we did a few years ago, to save us. When they told me at the be-
ginning of this meeting, that I would be called upon to speak if
Bishop Cheney didn't come, and the Carman family sang, "Behold
Illinois State Sunday School Convention. '27
what Manner of Love," I said if the Bishop don't come, I will hang
my hat right on that peg — "Behold what manner of love the Father
hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God ! "
"Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear
what we shall be, but we know that when He shall appear, we shall
be like Him." I lemember once, when preaching in Brooklyn, I
went into my chapel and heard a voice and wondered who could be
talking there. I listened, and looked around in every corner, and at
last saw a young man sitting with his back toward me. I found him
bending over his Bible, and heard him say, '•''Behold^'' and then I rec-
ognized him as a young Swede who had come over to this country a
short time before. He was well educated in his own language and
trying to understand ours, and was studying this same passage ot
Scripture that was sung to us to-night, and trying to get the sense of
it. He said "^e/^c»/fl?," and then hesitated; then he said, "6"^^," and
then, "Zoo/^," and he had fully analyzed the blessed word. "Be-
hold"— "See," the manner of the love the Father has bestowed on us,
that we should be called the sons of God! Now, the great effort that
God is making with the world, and we want to realize it as Sunday
School teachers and ministers of the Gospel, is to get them to stop
and look at the manner of love that He hath bestowed upon us!
That is all there is to it, — to get the people to understand the won-
derful love that God hath bestowed upon them in Jesus Christ. So,
we find Paul saying, "God commendeth His love to us in that while
we were yet sinners,'Christ died for us."
When passing through one of those great dry goods stores in
Chicago, one day, I saw a number of well dressed ladies standing be-
fore a counter, and the shrewd salesman threw out piles of velvets
and satins, and laid them before those women with critical eyes, that
they should learn to love what he had to show them. And he shows
them off to the best advantage; the better the goods are, the better
the light he puts them in, because he has something he has no need
to be ashamed of. So it is with our Heavenly Father. We hear
Him calling upon us — Look at the manner of love that I have! That
manner of love means the quality of love. We know there are as many
qualities of love as there are qualities of cloth. What is the average
human friendship worth? About fifty cents, I think. I think an aver-
age human friendship can be severed in a dispute about fifty cents.
There is another kind that is worth a dollar, but when you come to
name your friends that will go five dollars on you, you find there
is but a small crowd; and the crowd that will go twenty dollars on
you, is a deal less; and what a wonderfully small crowd it is that
loves you one htindred dollars worth! And how few are there that
would spend their last dollar for you. I know an old man, he is my
father, who, I think, would give up his homestead for me, but I don't
know another man in the world that would do it, and so I know the
quality of father's love is better than that of all the "five dollar friends"
in the world! I appreciate it, but when we look at the quality of the
love of Jesus Christ, when we remember that when we were yet en-
emies to God, He laid down His life for us, without a pledge from
this dying world that one of us would ever put our trust in Him, then
28 Illinois vState Sunday School Convention.
well may the Apostle cry out, "Behold, what manner of love the
Father hath bestowed upon us!"
I think the great battle that we have to fight as Sunday School
teachers is to get the world to believe that God is not the kind of Be-
ing that they in their liearts tiiink Him to be. If any one had asked
me when I was twenty-one years old, what kind of a Being God was,
I would have said, "He is a Being full of hatred for me and all sin-
neis, anxious to bring me into punishment." I got that impression
from Christian people when I was young. I was brought up among
people who were thoroughly posted in regard to hell, and poorly
posted in regard to love — and that kind of people haven't all died out
yet. When I was a little boy, Sunday used to be a long day, and
Sunday afternoon especially used to be a long afternoon. One Sunday
afternoon, my father had lain down, and I thought that I would go
off to a neighboring pond and amuse myself. I got a piece of bark
and a stick, and began to sail the piece of bark around the pond. I
felt very happy and had got the bark about half way around the
pond, when I felt a hand upon my shoulder, and there was a good old
Presbyterian elder! He said, "Do you know that you are going to
hell just as fast as you can?" He looked down in my face, horrified
to see a little heathen like me, sailing a piece of bark on Sunday af-
ternoon. "Do you know that you are going to hell just as fast as you
can? " and then he went away, and I followed him with my eyes un-
til he was out of sight, and I went back home, filled with sadness — no
comfort in my bark or in anything else. And it is a mean thing to
take away a poor boy's pleasure in even a piece of bark on a Sunday
afternoon, if you don't give him something better in the place of it.
If that man had said, we have got a nice Sunday School up here, and
if you will come, we will make it pleasant for you. If you don't like
it you needn't come again, but just come this once^'' why I would
have trotted after him, like a little dog. As it was, he didn't give me
any idea of the Saviour, but he gave me an idea of hell. I never
wanted to go to hell and don't believe anybody else does. The great
thing is, that there is a Savior, and during the last winter, I think that
as many as ten men who have been living dissipated lives without
hope and without God, some of them not having been in church since
they were boys, miserable, wretched men, have said to me, "Oh, Mr.
Morton, if I had only known before what kind of a being God is!"
That is what we want to teach them — what kind of a being Jesus
Christ is! And if we do not have love, and brood over them as the
Master brooded over the city, we cannot convey the heavenly photo-
graph to the minds of the children or the minds of the grown peo-
ple. The quality of that love is what they want to understand — that,
alone, will change their lives.
A few years ago, I was in Ceder Rapids, talking with friend Gil-
more, and he said, "I want to tell you about our dog and cat." He
had a cat which had been a long time in his house, and which seemed
to feel that she was the head of the family. He at last got a big dog
and brought him home. The dog tried to make himself friendly with
the cat, but she wouldn't let him, and would only spit at him and
scratch him with her claws. Finally he gave it up. One day the
cat was lyingy enjoying herself, in the 9«n, when all at once a big yel-
Illinois State Sunday School Convention. 29
low dog came up and jumped over the gate, and just as he had nearly
reached her, the old house dog bounded off the porch, and his jaws
closed on the other dog's neck, and gave him one shake, that drove
him howling away. The old dog then marched back coolly to his
place on the porch and laid down. The cat got up from her place on
the grass and looked at hinj; walked toward the steps, sat down on
the first step from the bottom; looked at him again, and then got up
another step, and so, little by little, she worked herself up to the top
of the porch, but the old dog never moved; paid no attention to her —
and finally she went and laid down between his fore paws and put her
face close to his. And my friend said, '■'■that cat and dog have been
like David and yonathan ever sinceP All the cat needed was an
impression about that dog, and that dog's nature, that she had never
had before. She had always misjudged him, but just as soon as she
saw that he was a noble, true, faithful, loving old fellow, she gave
herself to him with all her heart. Now, let this story apply to the
love of our Heavenly Father for us! Just as soon as we really un-
derstand him — as soon as we acquaint ourselves and be at peace, there
is nothing in the body, or in the mind, or in the soul, that we would
not lay at his feet.
Now, dear fellow workers, we have come from our various kinds of
labor; we know about the care, and the discouragements; there is not a
heart here to-night but what has been greatly tried duiing the last year.
There is not one of us, from the President of the Convention down,
who has not come to this place to be greatly cheered, encouraged and
strengthened for another year's work. We.realize better than we ever
did before how much more of the precious old Bible we know than
we would have known if we had never studied for others; how much
more true, loving, tender Christian fellowship and peace we have that
we could never have had in this world, if we had not been brought
together in this blessed work! May every one of us feel that we are
brought very near together, in the tender love of Jesus Christ!
At the conclusion of Mr. Morton's address, the Carman family
sang the hymn, "Eternity," and Mr. Excell sang the song, "The
Model Church."
Announcements for the morning meetings were made, and the
first day's sessions of the Convention closed with a benediction by the
Rev. Wm. H. Penhallagan of Streator.
^^econd Day — First Ssssion.
A morning prayer-meeting was held in the church at six o'clock,
led by Mr. D. Hurd of La Salle Co. It was well attended and full
of spiritual interest. The presence and power of the Holy Spirit
were manifested.
At eight o'clock the Convention met by districts: The delegates
from the 2nd district occupied the Baptist Church; those from the 3rd
district occupied the Evangelical Church, and those from the 1st, 4th,
30 Illinois State Sunday School Convention.
5th and 6th districts met in the Methodist Church. The meetings
were largely attended, the work in the various districts thoroughly
discussed, and the recommendations of the Executive Committee con-
cerning the redistricting of the State, were duly considered, and in
some of the districts a plan was ailopted to provide more thoroughly
for the collection of money from the counties, in order that the Treas-
urer might he relieved of a part of his work.
The convention as a whole assembled at ten o'clock. Mr. Miller
antl Mr. Excell conducted a song service, using the books generously
loaned to the convention by the Methodist Book Concern of Chicago.
The services were delightful and much enjoyed. Rev. J. H. Shay of
Streator, led the congregation in prayer.
On motion, the reports of the Executive Committee and Statistical
Committee were referred to the following Committee: William
Reynolds, C. W. Freeman and J. L. Saxton.
A very pleasant feature of the Convention was the receipt of a
large boucjuet of beautiful flowers, fastened to a palmleaf fan, with
the compliments of the Sunday-School children of Albion, Edwards
Co., to which President Tracy made a very appropriate and beautiful
response. After stating that it had been received, the President said:
"A great many young people are greatly interested in the language
of flowers. Let me interpret for you this collection from the Sunday
School children of Albion. They say to me life, growth, beauty,
fragrance — the result of the combination of heavenly and earthly
influences — a beautiful symbol of Sunday-School work. That is not
all, that is not the most important; there is the fan, and the children
arc saying to you, ' Fan the flame of holy zeal in the Sunday-School
work.'"
The Committee appointed to consider the Executive Committee's
report submitted the following:
The committee to whom was referred the Rcpprt of the Executive
Committee, respectfully recommend that the State he divided into
twenty districts of about five counties each, with a President over each
district, who shall be accountable to the State Executive Committee
for reports, statistical and financial, of his district.
2(1. That we recommend that the matter of the employment of a
Statistical Secretary be referred to the State Executive Committee,
with power to act.
3d. That in view of the next Convention being our 25th Anniver-
sary, we recommend the acceptance of the invitation to hold that Con-
vention at the Capitol of our State, and that every effort be made to
have this Convention such a success as is worthy of the occasion.
We also recommend that strenuous efforts be made during the com-
ing year to secure the thorough organization of every county in the
State.
Illinois State Sunday School Convention. 31
4th. That we approve of suggestion that at least $4,000 be raised
by pledges and assessments for the prosecution of the work the com-
ing year.
Wm. Reynolds, i
C. W. Freeman, V Committee.
J, E. Saxton, )
The report was adopted.
The Committee, consisting of O. R. Brouse, C. H. Long and W.
B. Jacobs, appointed to gather the results of the several district meet-
ings upon the subject of redistricting the State, reported, recommend-
ing that the State be divided into twenty districts, as follows:
I. — Cook, Du Page, Grundy, Lake and Will counties. D. W. Potter, Chicago,
Pres.
2. — Boone, DeKalb, Kane, Kendall, McHenry and Winnebago counties. O. R.
Brouse, Rockford, Pres.
3. — Carroll, Jo Daviess, Lee, Ogle, Stephenson and Whiteside counties. D. A.
Glenn, Ashton, Pres.
4. — Henry, Knox, Mercer, Rock Island and Stark counties. H. T. Lay, Ke-
wanee, Pres.
5. — Bureau, La Salle, Marshall and Putnam counties. D. Hurd, Marseilles,
Pres.
6.— Ford, Iroquois, Kankakee, Livingston and McLean counties. J. L. Sax-
ton, Gibson City, Pres.
7. — Fulton, Peoria, Tazewell and Woodford counties. L. L. Guyer, Brimfield,
Pres.
8. — Hancock, Henderson, McDonough and Warren counties. Thos. McCana-
HAN, Monmouth, Pres.
9. — Adams, Brown, Cass, Pike and Schujler counties. R. H. Griffith, Rush-
ville, Pres.
10. — Calhoun, Greene, Jersey, Macoupin, Morgan and Scott counties. E. D.
Masters, Jacksonville, Pres.
II — Christian, Logan, Mason, Menard, Montgomery and Sangamon counties.
C. W. Freeman, Springfield, Pres.
12.— DeWitt, Macon, Moultrie, Piatt and Shelby counties. W. B Rundle,
Clinton, Pres.
13. — Champaign, Clark, Coles, Cumberland, Douglas, Edgar and Vermillion.
Frank Wilcox, Champaign, Pres.
14.— Crawford, Effingham, Fayette and Jasper counties. J. J. Brown, Vandalia,
Pres.
I :;. — Clay, Lawrence, Marion and l^ichland counties. B. Depenbrock, Salem,
Pres.
16. — Bond, Clinton, Madison, Monroe, St. Clair and Washington counties. J. B.
Turner, Godfrey, Pres.
17. — Franklin, Jackson, Jefferson, Perry, Randolph and Williamson counties.'
T. B. Blanch.\rd, Tamaroa, Pres.
18. — Edwards, Hamilton, Wabash, Wayne and White counties. R. C. Willis,
Enfield, Pres.
19.— Gallatin, Hardin Pope and Saline counties. R. S. Marsh, Harrisburg,
Pres.
20. — Alexander, Johnson, Massac, Pulaski and Union counties. M. Easterday,'
Cairo, Pres.
Mr. William Reynolds of Peoria, addressed the Convention on
plans of work for 1S83-4, as follows:
32 Illinois State Sunday School Convention.
PLANS FOR 1SS3-4.
ADDRESS BY WILLIAM REYNOLDS.
Mr. President and Friends: — The history of this Illinois State
Sunday School organization is a very remarkable one, next year being
our twenty-fifth aniversary, when we propose to hold extraordinary
exercises. It will be in place then for some one to give a detailed
history of this Convention from its commencement up to the present
time. I will only say thai it has been a prodigy ; no such religious
organization as this e\ er existed on this continent before, and I ilo not
think tliat there is any organization that has exceeded it in power,
efficiency and results.
I will pass rapidly over its early history which was quite remarkable.
Ai was commenced in a ver}' small way, with hardly any definite
plans by the founders of it, it had a peculiarly quiet time up to about
1S64, when it was taken in hand by a number of gentlemen, laymen,
and business men in this State, and the organization perfected upon a
business basis. The same kind of organization that was then in vogue
by the political parties of this and other States was adopted by the exe-
cutive committee. The State was districted, each one of the committee
was assigned a district, and they went to work to organize. In 1S65,
I think, some $2,^00 was raised for the purpose of putting men in
the field to organize the State. Two years after that, in 1S67, a report
was made of how that money had been expended, and it was
so gratifying that more than $5,000 was raised in thirty minutes at that
convention for the further prosecution of the work in the State The
work was so thoroughly pushed by this executive committee, who
traversed and worked over the entire State, that the result is seen in
the fact that Illinois is now known as the banner State. We can justly
take pride in this. God gave his grace to the workers in the State of
Illinois, so that she is what she is to-day. Our influence has extended
not only throughout our own State but it has given an impetus to other
States to copy after our methods. But have we reached the top of the
mount? Are we to stand still or go further? I think there are just as
bright and brilliant prospects for us in the future as we have ever had
in the past; we have not thoroughly cultivated our field yet. We
must, when our old forms of work have become effete, organize new
plans. There are defects in our State Organization. There is too much
, centralized power. I want to say here that the present chief executive
of this State in the Sunday School work, the chairman of the executive
committee, has too much to do; there is so much work laid upon him
that he has to neglect himself, his family, and his business. Now we
all acknowledge and know Mr. Jacobs qualifications of head and heart.
I do not know, if he should be removed, where we could find another
man to take his place. You may say God will raise a man up, but I
still say where will you find another man that will take the position,
and give the time and labor that he is giving to this work. We want
to distribute this thing; it is not necessary for any one man to be ob-
liged to do it all, and I believe in the distribution of all this work. If
it had not been for the wise work of this early committee that I have
spoken of; if they had kept going throughout the State every year,
Illinois State Sunday School Convention. 33
and told them in the different counties, "You may expect us back next
year," this County would not have developed the power it has. They
said you need not expect us back, we leave the matter with you and
upon you be the responsibility whether this organization increases in
power and efficiency or whether it dies out. And those men, feeling
the responsibility upon them, have made their influence mightily
felt in this State.
It seems to me that we have arrived at a point where we must have
a different kind of organization. Yesterday we had reports from only
75 counties, last year we had reports from 79, next year it may be 65
or 60. Now we must stop and see what is the matter; whether we
can devise any means by which we can get better reports and change
this state of affairs, so that instead of having 73 reported next year we
may have a hundred or the whole 102. I am glad to know that this
State is going to be redistricted, I have felt for some time that the dis-
tricts were to large, and another thing, that it is impossible to reach the
whole of the counties through these large districts. I have felt some-
times that we have had to many conventions. That we need a county
convention, no one will deny; that we need State conventions no one
will deny; but I believe these district conventions are superfluous. I
believe it requires too much of our time, and too much money to go
to these conventions. It is affecting the county conventions on the one
side, and the State conventions on the other. We want to get down
to the bottom of this thing, and I believe the foundation is right in the
townships. We want to get at the actual workers, and you reach
them when you bring a convention within four or five miles of their
homes. We want to make these township conventions more pow-
erful, and we must do that through the county conventions. We all
feel the influence of the State organization directly through the
county. We want neither Chairman of the ExecutiveCommittee nor
Statistical Secretary to go directly to the counties for his statistics and
for his finances. It seems to me that these should come through an-
other source. And I think that we should break up these district con-
ventions into smaller parts and have five or not to exceed six, counties
grouped together, adjacent to each other, and have one man at the
head of the district, and not have a statistical secretary to the district,
but let there be a President and let him be responsible to the Execu-
tive Committee. Let him be present at every convention and be respon-
sible to the State organization for the statistics and for the finances,
and then instead of having to deal with one hundred and two statisti-
cal secretaries and sending your letters and telegrams to them you
would have about sixteen to deal with, not to exceed twenty, and
when you get it concentrated to as small a thing as that it is compar-
itively easy. We could occasionally have a meeting of the sixteen or
twenty Presidents, brought together for the purpose of devising new
ways and methods. I would have this State dcvided up into three
grand districts — a Northern, a Central, and a Southern. It is a great
State, over four hundred miles long, and it requires a great deal of
money and time to come up here. And they must leave their fiirms
and their business, and it is no small matter. The Lord generally keeps
his people poor, and the result of it is that it is a heavy tax upon
them, and very likely the very men we want to bring to these con-
34 Illinois State Sunday School Convention.
ventions, are the very men that cannot afford to come. We have to
carry it up and down and in the centre from year to year, and it is
getting to be a burden to entertain this convention. Devide it up into
three districts, and have a convention each year in each one of these
districts. Have a convention ecjual to this in every respect, and they
will vie with each other, in order to have the very best kind of a con-
vention. They can hold them at the time they think proper; in one
part of the State one time would be better than in another part. Then
if the State Convention was held once in two years — I will not say
three years, that is perhaps a little to far apart — we could have rcpre-
sentati\e men from all over the State, and there are places that would
be willing to take us then, and I believe in that way we would advance
and further the interests throughout the State.
I know that this probably will be a new thought to many of you,
and it will require consideration. I do not propose that any action
shall be taken upon it to-day, and probably not at this convention, but
I give you these facts which I have been considering for some time in
regard to the working in this JState, that you may think them over, it
will be an experiment, but if it fails we can acknowledge it. I have
tried things in my school and if suitable embraced them, if not, threw
them out. We want to get our organization on a better bases than at
present, and then if God should call away any one or two men, there
would be others who could take up the work and carry it forwartl.
There are young men who are just rising in this Sunday School work ;
we should not wait 'till those who are now holding the banner aloft
fall, but bring these young men to the front and inaugurate them in
the work before we pass away. We will then have the gr.'.tification
of seeing their work, and they will have the wisdom and counsel of
those who have been in the work these years that are passing.
The Carman family sang, "Behold the harvest draweth nigh, and
what thou sowest must appear."
Mr. M. C. Hazard, for many years one of the olhcers and workers
in the State Association, having been absent for a year in Pennsylva-
nia, as one of the editors of '■'■The Su7iday- School Times,''' was pleas-
antly introducetl as the "Returned Prodigal," and having been wel-
comed with hearty applause, addressed the convention on "The Next
International Convention."
THE NEXT INTERNATIONAL CONVENTION.
ADDRESS BY M. C. HAZARD. *
Mr. Pkksident and Bkethren: — When was the first National
Convention held.'' I don't know but that is impossible to decide. I
don't know l)ut that which has been taken to be the first Sunday
School ever held, as described in the eighth chapter of Nehemiah,
was a National Sunday School Convention; for all the people attend-
ed, and it was very much like the Sunday School Conventions that
we have* to-day; for there were so many came to it that there was no
place in-doors that they could hold it. It occupied a whole half-day;
Illinois State Sunday School Convention. 35
and their topic was very much like the topic we have to-day, inasmuch
as the Bible was the theme. And after the convention was over the
people went home to make great mirth, because they had understood
the words of the law; and after our convention here you know we
go home very joyful. But to come down to modern times, when was
the first National Convention held? It was held October 3d, 1S82,
in the city of New York. The Board of the American Sunday
School Union made a recommendation that there should be a prelim-
inary meeting held at Philadelphia for the purpose of considering the
subject. At the preliminary meeting in Philadelphia there were
represented thirteen states and one Territory ; and two committees
were appointed, one for the purpose of addressing some circulars con-
taining interrogatories regarding the {^lans and methods of carrying
on a Sunday School. They prepared only seventy-eight interrogato-
ries. The second committee was appointed for the purpose of draw-
ing up plans showing how vSunday Schools could be established and
carried on. In accordance with the recommendation of this prelimi-
nary meeting, the first National Sunday School Convention was held
in New York in the Fall of 1S33. The President of that Convention
was the Hon. Theodore Frelinghuysen. There were represented
fourteen States and two Territories; and considering the fact that at
that time there were only about two hundred miles of railroad, you
can see that the first National Sunday School Convention drew toge-
ther rather a large assembly. I have looked over their themes of dis-
cussion, and thought it worth while to compare the past with the
present. One of the themes that was discussed was, whether it w:is
proper for a great benevolent society, (and that was a hit at the Am-
erican Sunday School Union), to restrain the circulation of Sunday
School books to be sold to Sunday Schools, by putting a copyright
upon them. Another thing that was discussed and lamented, was the
independence of the Sunday Schools — that it was an institution piac-
tically growing up by itself; and that is a thing that absolutely has
not passed away yet. Another subject of discussion was as to the
length of the Sunday School session. There were some Sunday
Schools at that day that held their sessions from four to six hours.
After a careful consideration of the subject, it was resolved that if any
Sunday School held a session for over two hours it was a subject for
advice. Then the matter of classification was taken up; the matter of
training scholars to be Sunday School teachers; and, what I thought
was a new suggestion with me a few years ago, in the columns of the
National Sunday -School Teacher^ the matter of Teacher's libraries
was taken up and recommended by this National Convention. Then
teachers' meetings, for both prayer and study, were recommended ;
and in order to bring the Church and Sunday School nearer together,
it was recommended that in the church a monthly prayer-meeting be
held for the Sunday School. Also frequent review lessons by the
Pastor and Superintendent were recommended, and children's services
where they should have sermons preached them or addresses m:ule
to them, met with the approval of the convention. And then, bistly,
the value of uniform lessons was dwelt upon. They had a uniform
system, and it wa.« said with great force and emphasis that something
like sixty thousand persons were studying the uniform system of that
36 Illinois State Sunday School Convention.
day. This convention was so enthusiastic that another convention
was recomniended to he held the succeeding year in Phihulelphia,
and in May, 183;^, the second convention was held, the Hon. Willard
Hall heinjj President. That convention recommended that the Fourth
of July he celehrateil l)v making a canvass of the entire country on
hehalf of the Sundav Schools. What they thought they could do on
the Fourth of July in the matter of canvassing for Suntlay Schools I
don't know, hut I presume they had some idea of going ahout with a
drum and fife. Then they recommended that in order to secure the
co-operation of parents, the ministers over the lanil should preach a
sermon in regard to the duty of parents. They also put the seal upon
private Simdav Schools held in private houses; there seemed to he an
idea that that work was jieculiarly favorahle, hecause, as they said,
there were a great many children that would not go to puhlic places
hut would go to a private house. After that Sunday School conven-
tion there was an interregnum. It was twenty-seven years hefore the
next Sunday School convention. They had exhausted their enthu-
siasm very soon. Hefore the next convention took place, State con-
ventions had been organized. In 1S55, Massachusetts held its first
Sunday School Convention; in 1S57, New York and Connecticut
followed; and in iS^S Illinois had its first convention. These conven-
tions had come to he somewhat of a power, and in i8yS the New
York State S. S. Convention took up the idea of holding once more
a National Convention. It was recommended that a National S, vS.
Convention should be called; and another was called, this time at
Philadelphia, Feb. 2, 1S59, being called to order by George II. Stuart.
At that convention addresses were made by such persons as Dr. Ste-
phen H. Tyng, Geo. H. Stewart, Alfred Cookman, Pai\lee and Hart;
and so thoroughly convinced were those assembled of the value of
such a convention, that another convention in 1861 was called, but
never met. Then came the great struggle, the war of 1861-65, antl
that took up all the thought and all the feeling of those who had been
engaged in Sunday School work, so that the National Convention was
entirely lost sight of.
The fourth convention met at Newark in 1869. There were repre-
sented twenty-eight States and one Territory, Canada, England,
Scotland and even Egypt. Those that were at that convention will
remember what a delightful time was had.
At that convention was brought up the idea of uniform lessons that
had been inaugurated at Chicago when the National S. S. l^cachcr
was first established. Brother Jacobs made an appeal in behalf of
uniform lessons; and after the convention adjourned the Executive
Committee took the matter in charge and recommended that a meet-
ing of all publishers should he held with regard to having a single
system of uniform series. I need not go into the history of that mat-
ter; it finally came before the National Sunday School Convention
held in Indianapolis in 1S73. The most notable thing in that con-
vention was the adoption of the international series of uniform lessons;
and the very thought was such that it could not be mentioned without
a spontaneous burst of applause: and finally, when it was adopted,
the convention rose to its feet as one man and sung the doxology;
and I believe if they could have had any idea of the results that were
Illinois State Sunday School Convention. 37
to follow they would have sung it two or three times over. It is a
grand thought of the drum beat of England going all around the
world, but it is grander to think of the hum of the study of the Sun-
day School following it until it also encircles the globe.
I remember four points that were made b}' our brother in the advo-
cacy of the international series: that it would be better for the scholars
— that there would be more enthusiasm in the study of the lesson.
Better for the teachers — that they would have better lesson helps.
Better for the jjarents — because going into the family would be all
the lesson periodicals and the lesson weeklies having an exposition of
the lesson — a prophecy that has been remarkably realized. Better
for the pastors, because they would speak with greater intelligence
to their congregations. And I may add, better for the lesson wri-
ters— that they would have better lessons. From that time to this
there has nothing remarkable occurred in the meetings of the Inter-
national Convention, but there has been one step forward contem-
plated.
Our Brother Reynolds said that Illinois occupies the foremost place
among "all the States of the Union; and the thing that we wish to do
now is to reproduce Illinois everywhere else and bring other States
up to the same great standard that we have reached. One of the
things, by the way, that Illinois has done that I think is to be com-
mended, is the work that it is doing in Chicago and the districts round
about.
What shall be done in our great cities? is a question well worthy
of consideration. You remember that when Elisha went down to
Jericho the people called his attention to the fact that the situation of
the city was pleasant but that the water was bitter; and he called for
a new cruise of salt and cast it in the spring and said, "Thus saith the
Lord, I have healed these waters; there shall not be from thence any
more death or barren land." And now into the cities we must cast
the cruise of the gospel or we shall be overwhelmed by the waters of
corruption; and I don't know any better way to do that than by
planting Sunda}^ Schools in the cities, I don't believe we half begin
to have a conception of the Sunday School movement.
At the International Convention in Toronto a new departure was
started. The idea is to take what is being done in Illinois and repro-
duce it everywhere. There are States that are not organized; and
there are denominations that are not doing good Sunday School
work. There it was proposed that under the lead of an Executive
Committee we should go forward and throughout the United States
hold District Sunday School Conventions, in which should be repre-
sented several States at a time, so that in those conventions men might
be instructed and enthused so that they might do better work ; and
thus the influence of the International Convention be full}' felt
throughout the whole of the United States and the Canadas.
You can see what remarkable work can be done through the Inter-
national Association in this way. I believe that if there were enough
money raised at the International Convention to pay a man of power
and influence, that he could go all over the United States doing more
good than almost any other man you can mention. There has been a
wonderful growth of unity, on account of our meeting together. At
:>S Illinois State Sunday School Convention.
Champaign, after three days we closed up with a meeting that was
like a love feast. One of the brethren, with whom I was staying, told
me that he had been thinking what sort of men he had been enter-
taining; they had not said anything about their denominations, but
tliey had said a great deal about Christ. Before that, he had rather
prided himself on being able to tell what denomination a man belonged
to, but this time he was puzzled; he could not tell. They were all,
as expressed by the President, simply sinners saved by grace and kept
by the power of the Holy Spirit. That is the kind of unity that has
been brought about by our Sunday School conventions. Feelings ot
friendship and fraternity are wonderfully aroused in such meetings,
antl I believe if we could hold such conventions all over the South
that fraternal feelings could be brought about more quickly than in any
other way. The men who have opposed each other on the field of
battle are ready to shake hands as soldiers of the Lord Jesus Christ.
At the next International Convention, to be held in Louisville, the
State of Illinois ought to be represented, and she ought to go in as
advocating this movement, and be a power; and she will be a power
as she has been everywhere. Let Illinois be thoroughly represented,
and let her go down there with the intention of making something
of this International Work.
Mr. Excell sang, by request, an amusing but not inappropriate
song, "Keep in the middle of the road."
The Treasurer, Mr. B. F.Jacobs, read his report, printed copies of
wliicii were distributed to the audience. During the reading of the
rej)ort, some additional contributions were made on behalf of coun-
ties and individuals, and a collection was taken up to provide for the
delicit. The following were appointed a committee to examine the
report and vouchers of the Treasurer: Wilson Hopkins, |. L. Hub-
bard and J. E. Saxon, The corrected report is as follows: ,
TREASURER'S REPORT.
B. F. yiicobs, Treamii'} , in accouul with Illinois State S. S. Association.
JDx.
tSUS. j
May iS. Balance lorwaided, account '8i & '82 $ 19 '9
Received from Boone County $ 15 00
" Carroll " 10 oo
" Cook " 40000
DeKall) " 2500
(iiundv " 1000
Kenilall " 3000
1-ake " 50 GO
Stepiienson '' ■ 25 00
WinnebaiifO " 55 00
Kane " -. 2500
Will •' 2000
Jo I^aviess " 25 00
Mc Henry " 15 00
Ogle " 2500
" Du Page " 2500
Lee " 2500
'* Whiteside " • 2000
17 Counties. Total, ist District 80000
Illinois State Sunday School Convention.
39
Received from Fulton County, 25 oo & 1000 § 35 00
" Hancock " 3000
" Henderson " 1500
" Henry " 35 00
" Knox " -500
" La Salle " 8000
" McDonough" 25 00
" Marshall " 2000
" Mercer " -5 00
" Peoria " 5000
" Putman " 1500
" Warren " 30 00 & 10 00 40 00
" Woodford " 20 00 & 5 00 2500
" Tazewell " 2500
" Bureau " 2500
15 Counties. Total, 2d District " 47000
Received- from Champaign County § 57 62
" Dewitt " 2000
" Edgar " 2000
" Ford " iS 00 & 12 00 30 00
" Iroquois " 4000
" Kankakee " 2300
" Livingston " 40 00 & 5 00 45 00
' ' McLean " 5000
" Macon " 2500
" Piatt " 2000
Shelby '« 25 co
" Vermillion " 3000
•• Moultrie " 10 co
" Douglas " 15 00 & 1000 25 00
" Clark " 1000
15 Counties. Total, 3d District 43062
Received from Brown County $ 25 00
" Calhoun " 2000
" Cass " 1 5 00
" Greene " 25 00
" Mason " 1 5 00
" Menard " 1000
" Montgomery " 1 5 00
" Morgan " 25 00
" Pike " 3500
" Sangamon " 25 00
" Schuyler " 25 00
" Scott " 1000
" Adams " 1000
" Logan " 1000
" Christian " 20 00
15 Counties. Total, 4th District 2S5 00
Received from Clay County $ iS 00
" Crawford " 1 5 00
" Edwards " 20 00
" Fayette " 21 43
" Gallatin " 5000
"• Hamilton " 17 25
" Jasper " 20 00
" Lawrence " 20 00
" Marion " 2500
40 Illinois State Sunday School Convention.
Received from Saline County 15 00
" Wabash " 20 cx3
" Wayne " 10 50
" White " 5000
" Richland " 3 00
14 Counties. Total, 5th District 305 iS
Received from Bond County $ 15 00
" Clinton " 15 or
" Jackson " 1 5 00
" Johnson " 6 00
" Madison " 60 00
" Randolph " 20 00
" Union " i 50
" Washington " 20 00
" Perry ' " 1000
9 Counties. Total, 6th District 16250
Total Receipts from 85 Counties $2,472 59
Received tVoni Iowa, Miss Rider's Expenses -5 00
Personal.
Received from Wm. Reynolds % 50 00
A. G. Tyng 10000
Miss Lucy J. Rider 100 00
1 1 . T. Lay 40 00
" James Cidton 10 00
" E.R.Durham 500
" J. R. Gorin 5 00
D. W Potter 500
Collection at Streator 100 22
" " 30 00
3'5 00
130 22
$2,942 81
Cr.
Paid Expenses 24th Convention.
Paid Rev. P. S. I lenson | 5 00
" Rev. J. A. Warden 25 00
" Rev. J. H. Vincent, D.D 7500
" Rev. A. C. Dunning 2500
" Rev. J. H IJrookes, D. D 10 oo
" C. C. Case 25 00
" J). R. Leland 7 50
" Carman Family 15 00
" Janitors 15 00
" Expenses Local Committee 11 10
" Telegrams, etc 8 80
" Express Charges, Maps, etc 3 25
" Printing Certificates 1 50
Paid State Secretary, C. M. Eames $1150 00
" " " " " " Printing, &c., &c 8660
" W.B.Jacobs 17500
" " Blanks, tVic 771c
" Other'Blanks ". ' 810
i?2i7 15
496 85
Illinois State Sunday School Convention,
41
2,225 76
$2,942 Si
Paid Miss L. J. Rider 1500 00
" C.M.Morton .... loS 01
" International work 300 00
" Stationery and Printing 6S 50
" Postage and Telegrams 92 32
" Short-hand Clerk 5^93
" Rent of Office 100 00
Balance new acc't
We have examined and compared with the vouchers and find them correct.
J. L. SAXTON, Gibson City. J
A. W. HOPKINS, Granville. \Comiitittee.
JESSE HUBBARD, Dwight. S
At the conclusion of the report, pledges were received to carry for-
ward the work the coming year. The amount asked for was 8|,ooo;
the pledges made by sixty counties amounted to over $3,000, and
the Treasurer was instructed to assess the other counties in their pro-
portion to make up the amount. The pledges and assessments are as
follows:
PLEDGED.
Boone $25 00
Cook See 00
Jo Daviess -5 00
Kendall 40 00
Lake 75 00
Lee 50 00
Ogle 50 00
Will 25 Ob
Winnebago 60 00
Bureau 25 00
Fulton 50 00
Henry 65 00
Hancock 50 00
Knox 50 00
La Salle 100 00
Marshall 30 00
Peoria 100 00
Putnam. 25 00
Warren 30 00
Woodford 35 <^'
Champaign 75 00
Clark 10 00
Cumberland -5 00
Douglas 30 00
Edgar 30 00
Ford 40 00
Iroquois 50 00
Livingston 75 00
McLean 75 00
Moultrie 20 00
Piatt -5 00
Shelby 35 cx^
Vermillion 40 00
ASSESSED.
Carroll $20 00
De Kalb 35 00
Du Page 35 00
Grundy 15 00
Kane 50 00
McHenry . 75 00
Stephenson 50 00
Whiteside -5 00
Henderson 25 00
McDonough 25 00
Mercer 25 00
Rock Island 35 00
Stark 20 00
Tiizewell 25 00
Coles 20 00
De Witt 25 on
Kankakee 30 on
Macon ^o 00
42
Illinois State Sunday School Convention.
Adams 50 oo
Brown 50 00
Christian 30 00
Green 40 00
Logan 25 00
Montgomery 25 00
Morgan 25 00
Pike 50 00
Sangamon 25 00
Schuyler 30 00
Clay ]
Crawford j
Edwards j
Effingham |
Fayette |
(lallatin |
(laniilton |
Hardin |
J asper )■ 430 00
Lawrence j
Marion |
Pope I
Richland |
Saline |
Wabash |
Wavne |
White J
Clinton 21; 00
Madison 60 cx3
Calhoun 25 00
Cass 2500
Jersey 1 5 00
Macoupin 25 00
Mason 25 00
Menard 1 5 00
Scott 20 00
Alexander 25 00
Bond 25 00
F>anklin 15 00
J ackson 1 5 00
Jefferson 15 00
Johnson . 10 00
Massac 15 00
Monroe 10 00
Perry 1 5 00
Pulaski 1 5 00
Randolph 2500
St Clair 25 00
l^nion 10 00
Washington 20 00
Williamson 10 00
Total 965 00
Pledges 3105 00
$4,070 00
$3,105 00
Announcement was made that the vState conventions of New York,
Ohio and Minnesota were in session and on motion a copy of the fol-
lowing telegram was sent to each State:
Our Convention greatly blessed, sends greeting in the name of the Lord.
Read Numbers Nine, fifteen and sixteen. Colossians One, ten to fourteen.
First Thessalonians Three, twelve and thirteen.
William Tracey, Pres.
B. F. Jacobs, Chairman Executive Com.
In due time answers were received from Ohio and Minnesota, as
follows:
Gallion, O., June 6, 1883.
To Pres't S. S. Convention:
Ohio returns loving greetings. Read second Thessalonians, third chapter,
verses one, two and three.
B. W. Chidlaw, Pres.
Rob't Cowden, ) ^,
W. F. Sherw.n, 1 <-o'""i'ttee.
Minneapolis, Minn.
Your message finds us assembled in the beautiful Westminster Church, to
hear Bishop Foss speak upon the Bible. A superb double rainbow in our sky
reminds us that we are under God's covenant care. We greet you in the dear
Master's name. Read first Thess. sixteen to twenty-four.
Henry Plant, Ch'n.
On motion the convention adjourned.
Illinois State Sunday School Convention. 43
Second Day — Second Session.
The convention assembled at two o'clock, President Tracy in the
chair. The hymn, "I will guide thee with mine eye," was sung.
Rev. — . — . Wasmuth read the Scripture lesson from Acts ii. 1-18,
with appropriate comments. The hymn, "Just as I am without one
plea," was sung, and the convention led in prayer by Mr. E. D. Dur-
ham. The house was filled to overflowing, and many finding it im-
possible to obtain standing room inside the building, an overflow meet-
ing was held in the Baptist Church which was soon filled. At this
meeting, the Carman family sang, and an address was delivered by
Rev. N, W. Devereau of Kankakee, and Rev. — . — . Shay of Strea-
tor; after which Miss Lucy J. Rider gave a talk on "Difiiculties."
In the Methodist Church Mr. K. P. Taylor of Bloomington, ad-
dressed the convention on "Normal Classes :\nd Institutes."
NORMAL CLASSES AND INSTITUTES.
ADDRESS BY KNOX P. TAYLOR.
Dear Friends: — We were greatly edified and pleased this morn-
ing with the work of organization presented, getting not only the
organization before us but the means by which it can be carried for-
ward. We praise God that there are men in our State who are
organizers, who are able to organize, to plan for the work, and who
know how to get money out of the people to carry it forward. There
is a great deal of machinery about this organization of the State, but
it is necessary to carry forward the work, as every one will see; and
the more thoroughly we are organized the better we can do our
work.
But organization in Sunday School work is not all ! That is an
important factor, we cannot work without it; but what is the founda-
tion of the Sunday School work? What are we aiming to do in this
grand work? Suppose every child in this State was now in the Sun-
day School as a loupil. That might be and yet it be a failure, a fail-
ure so far as accomplishing the design of Sunday School work.
What then must be done? We must not only have the pupils in the
school, but we must have men and women as teachers and oflficers of
the school who know how to do the work. One of the most diflicult
things in our Sunday School work, as I find in going over the coun-
try, is to hold the pupils. The question to be discussed, is not so
much how to get them into the school, but how to hold them, how
to interest them, so that they will remain there; how to impress truth
in their minds, so that they ma}^ be led to Jesus, and may become
strong men and women in Christ. This is the thought we have this
evening; how to prepare men and women for this work. First, we
ask, is there a need for the discussion of the question? Is there a
need for Normal Classes? Is there a demand in this State for
44 Illinois State Sunday School Convention.
institute work? It seems to me there is scarcely a school
represented here to-day but what if they look at home in their
individual schools, at their pupils, superintendents and officers,
they will find a demand for this work. There are teachers in
every school saying, "Oh, if I was only better prepared to do my
work!" How many young men and young women are standing
with noble hearts saying, "I would love to teach and would like to
do this work if I only knew how." The heart is willing but the
flesh is weak." "I want to do it but I don't know how; I wish some
one would come forward and show' me how to do it and simplify it
that I may go on in this grand work; I love it and want to do it for
Jesus' sake." You would be surprised to see the number who are
really anxious, but don't know how; they feel there is a need. You
would lie surprised to go into the counties where Miss Rider, or
brother \V. B. Jacobs, has been doing this institute work, how they
look forward to the time when they shall return and give them
further instructions in the methods, the "how-to-do-it." I speak
with some knowledge that these things are necessary. When I first
started out friends said to me, "You must do institute work." I
thought it was dry work, but they said, "You put in your time in tbat
way to a certain extent." And praise be to God, we have found per-
sons who have realized benefit from this work. Dear friends, there is
need of this work, there is a demand for it, and the people through
this country are craving it.
I was only last week in a County Convention where a brother who
was prepared at Chatauqua Lake, presented a talk of about thirty
minutes on Bible history and chronology, with a little Bible geogra-
phy along with it. And there were persons present who said, "We
want you to come down to our town and give us a talk." Some peo-
ple say the chronology of the Bible is not good for anything, but I
say it is. Even chronology will grow interesting; and Bible histor}',
interwoven with it, increases the interest. And when a man or a
woman comes filled with the love of God and presents this subject
the people receive it. It is laying the foundation and preparing them
for more useful work in the future.
Now, dear friends, the only course, if this is an important work as
we believe it to be, is to endeavor to benefit our State by it. We
don't depreciate the organized work of the State for one moment; it
is a grand work. When I stood in that International Convention at
Toronto, and saw the friends from Illinois hold up that grand map
and all eyes were fixed upon it, it was enough to make a man from
the great Prairie State feel proud. But the question comes, does this
work that is being done in the State, meet all the demands of the
case.
Should we not as Sunday .School workers, turn our attention more
to this normal drill work, more to the institute work? Is there not a
demand for it? I believe that we all feel the value of this work, and
I trust that as you go down from this convention to your homes vou
will feel that if you cannot organize a class you can organize your-
selves. Get yourselves in line, and when you begin to study and take
up the books prepared on this subject you will get so enthused that
you will enthuse scjme one else, and that one will take some one else
Illinois State Sunday School Convention. 45
in, and then another, and you will have a class in your own imme-
diate neighborhood. Get the workers of the town together. An-
other thought comes; suppose in your county work you should meet
with some man who has an interest in some dej^artment of this work,
or who has a turn for that, then go to that one and ask him to prepare
himself thoioughly in that department, for instance, Bible history,
chronology, or geography. Let some one give it special attention.
Then say to the one thus prepared, "Give us a talk of twenty or
thirty minutes; give us a talk upon this subject that you have studied
so carefully; and by this means you will enlist many in your county
work. Then when you come to your township meetings let those
representative men or women take up their special subject and present
it. I believe it is practical. I do not want to come befoie you with any
thing merely theoretical; we have got beyond that now; we must go
on and take hold of those things that will accomplish most for the
glory of God. Let us get at those things that will instill in our minds
truths that will lift us higher and make us purer and nobler in the
sight of God. By getting a few interested you will have your repre-
sentative men in the different departments of this normal drill, and
while the work may be comj^aratively limited, yet it will present to
to the minds of the people an idea of normal work, and instill in them
a love of this department. Then talk with friends in different parts
of the State. I understand there are parties who are disposed to hire
evangelists, or if 3'ou prefer the term, missionaries for the county
work. I heard a brother just before noon say that he believed in his
own county, they would employ a man to go out and spend his time
in drilling the schools. This man can present these facts so that he
can enthuse the people in these subjects and prepare them for more
efficient work. He will go to different parts of the townships, antl if
he should spend, say six months in a place it would soon be more
than a banner county. We have grown up to the idea of "banner,"
we must now get in advance of it. But friends, we want to come
more to the thought: "How can we get at this work more thor-
oughly"? We come to the question of the present condition of it;
whether it meets the demands. Now while this convention is a grand
success in this town in which it is working, yet does it meet the de-
mands of the case, as we come up from the various parts of the State
here! I remember some years ago when I commenced going to the
State Convention, I thought if I could only get into the work with
these Sunday School workers, I would get the Sunday School spirit
and enthusiasm in me, and do more efficient work. I did come and I
listened to every word I could hear; and I got so full I could hardly
wait for Sunday to come, and wished it could come about two or three
times a week; and I wanted just to let off some of that Sunday
School steam. I began to think what shall I do? I recollect that
grand convention up there, what shall I do? Well I don't know; it
was not that I was not enthused ; it was not because I did not want to
do anything, but it was because I did not know /lotv, any better than
I did before I went away ; was no better prepared for my work as a
superintendent or teacher. Not that I did not have more trust in
God — and that is a grand thought, to learn to trust Him in such con-
ventions as this, but when we come down to the machinery, I said,
46 Illinois State Sunday School Convention.
"I don't know much about it." No, I say it does not meet the de-
mand. With all due respect to the Association I say not. Then how
can we organize, how can we prepare ourselves as workers, how can
we institute some plan by which we can bring before the people this
work which is so necessary? Get the normal class drill and the in-
stitute work before the people. I will give you just a thought on
how 1 present my plan. I take canvas and I present the outline of
the difl'erent parts of the work on a large piece of canvas; take the
outlines of the Teachers' Meeting and present them there — "why
hold them," "when to hold them," and the various divisions of the
subject. And then 1 take the teacher, studying his lesson — how to
study it in its parts; I j)ut that on another chart. And then the su-
perintendent's work and ciualifications on another. When I go into
a place to show them about the institute I put them .up on a wall, and
say, "Now friends we are going to have a social chit-chat on this,"
and I go to work, taking the teacher perhaps, and talk awhde and
get them interested and begin to ask them (juestions as to what they
think of the ililferent features of the work and draw out all I can get
on the subject. And thus we are exchanging ideas and suggesting
new ideas and getting new ways; and thus every one in that room is
interested. VVe then pray God that the lesson may be sanctified to
the good of some teacher who is trying his l)est to benefit his scholars.
Then we take up, perhaps, geography and chronology by the aid of
charts or maps; and I know, friends, people are interested in this.
They say, weeks or months or perhaps years afterwards that it has
helped them, laying the foundations of Bible study that they had
not had before.
So, dear friends, we want workers that are engaged in this kind of
work. If you will take certain features of the work and get your
chart prepared and hang it up, you will be surprised at the number
that will take out their peticils to copy it down; and they will take it
home and present it there. "Through the eye," is a wonderful way
of teaching, and where anything is impressed not only through the
ear but through the eye, it will be lasting. I wish I had more time
to dwell upon this important work. Lay the foundation in the /loiv
to do the ivork^ and we will raise the standard of Sunday School
work. It is not only organization, but it is telling people how to do,
and when they understand that they take pleasure in it; they will be
more attentive in it, and thev will enlist others. They will not onlv
fill your schools, but they will hold the classes when they come. Try
it this coming year, friends, and when we meet at Springfield next
year we will bring up a grand report, not only that we are better or-
ganized, but that we have brought scores and scores of souls to
Christ by this teaching how to teach.
The Carman family sang the song, "If I were a Voice."
At the opening of the Convention are jiort was received, saying
that Prof. H. ('. De Motte of Bloomington, member of the Execu-
tive Committee, had met a severe accident and was dangerously in-
jured. The f 'hairman of the Executive Committee immediately tele-
graphed, asking for information and assuring him of the sympathy
Illinois State Sunday School Convention. 4:7
and prayer of the Convention. At this point an answer was received
signed by Mrs. De Motte, saying that the Professor was resting qui-
etly with hopes of recovery from his injuries, and thanking the Con-
vention for the interest so kindly manifested.
The Rev. T. E. Si^illman of Nokomis, addressed the Convention
on "County and Township Conventions," as follows:
[The Address will be found further on.]
The Convention united in singing the hymn, "I will sing of my
Redeemer."
C. H. Long, Pontiac, spoke of "The Secretary and his work."
THE SECRETARY AND HIS WORK.
ADDESS BY C. H. LONG.
Dear Friends: — I will not attempt to go elaborately into this
subject. I merely propose to tell you what one secretary does in one
county. Our motto for this afternoon is "Searching for the flock.
We are told, "Be thou diligent to know the state of thy flocks," and
in our work this becomes part of the work of the secretary. We must
have secretaries; we have them in all kinds of organizations; and in our
work, the secretary should be like one of those men who was chosen
to minister to the widows of the church — an honest man, of good re-
port, full of the Holy Ghost. If there is any place in which a man
needs this same Spirit it is as Secretary of a county. Unless a man
has this love in his heart he will become discouraged and give it up.
He must be patient. A man that can keep working all the time,
and if the reports do not come in just to suit him, still keep on trying.
He must be undaunted; no such thing as fail; when he starts out to do
a certain thing in a county, he must do it. It requires a great deal of
determination. You want a convention in a certain place. He has
arranged for it, perhaps, but he meets with a great many rebuffs, and
unless he has great determination the work may fail just there. He
must be persistent. A secretary cannot say, "I work two or three
weeks or a month to collect the statistics and rest the balance of the
year. "I heard a secretary say once, "There is nothing else to do 'till
next fall when we hold the Convention." A secretary must appreci-
ate his position ; he must know that the work depends upon what he
does, and that the county conventions depend upon his work.
If he does not find out where the destitute places are, how can a
convention be held? He must understand that it is an important posi-
tion and then he will work to make it important.
He must have a knowledge of the duties. You cannot make a
secretary in a county in a year. He cannot learn the duties in that time.
He is just learning his field, when he is removed from it. It would require
almost a life time to learn the duties of the position. I believe that
it is on this account that we have never had a complete report in this
State. As my experience has been, there is no other way for him but
to have something before his eves that he can see. For instance, you
see that map of the county of Livingston, as the secretary takes his
48 Illinois State Sunday School Convention.
map lie sees what schools are there, those clown in this township and
the next township aiul the next, until he has learned his whole field.
He knows as he looks at his map just what is there.
He must learn the names of the diflerent superintendents. lie
should have a list of all their names in order to get reports from them.
And he should know the superintendents personally. You say. it is
impt)ssil)le, hut I say it is not. In the county, of Livingston to-ilay I
know eighty of the superintenilents. And then we must get reports
fiom them. It is no easy matter to get a report from every school in
your county. There arediflerent plans for that; some have adopted this
plan: they have organizeil each township and then required each
township president to senil in a report of all the schools in the town-
ship to the county secretary. That may work first-rate in some
counties, hut in my experience it does not. You cannot find men who
will do this work. The county secretary must come into personal
contact with each secretary, and under this plan he cannot do it. In
our county I sent out blank reports with an envelope bearing ni}
name, with a retpiest to have them filled and forwarded immediately.
The first call brought in but a small proportation. I believe I had to
make six calls, but by persistent efforts nearly every school is reported.
We ilo not have any guess work about it. The secretary knows
when the conventions are held. If one has not had a convention he
can arrange for it. He must plan, so far as possible, to avoid conllict
between the diirerent conventions.
The secretary must have patience. Not only is it his work to col-
lect the reports, but as he meets the superintendents, he should give
them a won! of cheer; let them know that he is in sympathy with
them, and give them a few words of encouragement. If one of my
superintendents writes to me that they have a large school of 50 or 60
and not a single teacher left — all moved out of the county — and that
he is almost discouraged, I feel like praying for that brother and giv-
ing him a word of good cheer to go forward, for the Lord will bless
him.
Referring again to the subject of maps and to show you that it can
be done, I have arranged a chart here giving the name of the town-
ship, the number of schools in it, and the attendance. It is well then
to compare and say you have so many in the Sunday School, and so
many in the public school, and find out how your work compares
with theirs. There is one school in our county that has a third more
scholars than the public school. — ("Where is it?" "It is Owego,")
The population and the number received into the church should be
recorded; and that is one of the most diflicult things to get a report
of. Strange as it may seem, I have had men tell me that that report
did not belong to the superintendent; that it belonged to the pastor;
just as if it were not the superintendent's duty to know the results
of the Sunday School work. The county secretary would be helped
very much by having the Sunday School secretaries understand their
duties. Very few schools I find have a complete report of their
schools. You go to the secretary's book and you can get no definite
intelligible report of their work. The secretary of every school
ought to keep a record of everv one in that school, just as a day
school keeps a record of its pupils. Perhaps one out of fifty does it.
Illinois State Sunday School Convention. 49
The secretary's work is not done yet. It often falls to the secretary
and president of the executive committee to arrange for the conven-
tion; the secretary is sujDposed to be the writer and to draw the plan
of the program perhaps, and to see that the convention is worked up.
He must see that it is thoroughly advertised, unless some one else is
appointed for that work; it must be so advertised that every school in
the township knows of it, and to do that he must have his program
out and sent to every school a month ahead of time. Be sure that
your county convention is well advertised, and the same may be said
regaiding the township conventions; let evei'y body know about them.
If the secretary realizes the importance of his duties he has no easy
position; in these large counties it demands a great deal of time; but
we must remember that we are working for our Lord. One day I
was hurrying offto attend an institute that Brother Taylor was holding
in one of our townships, and my little girl was waiting to bid me good
bye, and she said "I want to go and see God too." Her idea of it was
that we went to the conventions to see God. Oh! if some of us could
always remeinber that when we go to conventions.
Brother Excell led in singing "To the work, to the work, we are
servants of God." The Convention called for a song and with won-
derful power he sang the song, "Jesus' blood has made me free; glory,
glory, glory."
Rev. A. T. Pierson, D. D., of Indianapolis, addressed the Conven-
tion on "The Sunday-School and the Evangelization of the World,"
as follows :
THE SUNDAY SCHOOL AND THE EVANGELIZATION
OF THE WORLD.
ADDRESS KY REV. A. T. PIERSOX, D. D.
Mv Dear Fellow Christians: — I feel very much like saying
at the veiy outset of this address, that it would not take quite so long
to evangelize the world if those who claim to believe in Jesus Christ
only knew their saved state, and could speak in confidence of such an
experience as that (referring to the piece just sung),
"Jesus' blood has made me free,
Glory, glory, glory."
I preached for fifteen years and didn't know that I was a saved
man; but blessed be God who showd me that His righteousness was
a great sphere and took me and all other poor sinners in, and showed
me that I was saved. I will never forget it.
My friends, I have been asked to speak to you this afternoon upon
the Evangelization of the World and the connection of the Sunday
School work with that great scheme. The first thing we ought to
understand is what evangelization is. It means nothing more or less
than preaching the gospel — bringing the gospel message into contact
with every soul throughout the breadth and length of the world; that
is evangelization. Now I want you to understand in the first place
50 Illinois State Sunday School Convention.
the great problem that confronts the church in these days. There are
some seven himdred millions of the human race that have never yet
heard the tidinji^s of the <^ospel ; have prol)ably never seen a copv of
the sacred scriptures, nor any part of this glorious liook ; have prob-
ably never heard the voice of a Christian missionary; are not gath-
ered into Christian communities, and, of course, not gathered into
Christian churches, to whom the tidings of salvation are yet to be an-
noimced. There arc perhaps in the world to-day some ten millions
of evangelical Christians. There are a great many more Christians
than that connected with churches but a great many of them proba-
bly have no personal acquaintance with Christ through the gospel; a
great many of them are connected with State churches;"are confirmed
at a certain age by the law of the Slate, and have no practical exper-
imental experience with the grace of God that would lead them to
be evangelists in any sense of the word. But there ar^ probably ten
millions of Christians in the world that may be called evangelical and
experimental Christians; and now the cjuestion is, how to bring these
ten millions of evangelical, experimental Christians into contact with
the seven hundred millions that know not Christ? and it is a grand
problem. I want you to appreciate the dithculties in the case. Of
course in the evangelization of the world this ten millions of evan-
gelical Christians must be brought into contact with the seven hun-
dred millions systematically and in such a manner as to bring the
seven hundred millions within the compass of Christian experience.
Now what is the church doing to-day? I will speak of one or two
denominations with whose operations I am somewhat familiar, and
you may from them judge what is being done by the others. The
average gain per year of the Presbyterians and the Congregational-
ists, I know from statistics, is between four and five converts for every
one hundred members. Now as in the coinse of a generation the
lives of a whole generation are sacrificed— that is three times in a cen-
tury the world is depopulated — we need to have three members a
year to make up for those that die for every one hundred members;
so that we are actually making this astonishing rate of progress, we
are gaining as a net gain per year for every one hundred members in
these chinxhes between one and two persons. How long will it take
for the ten millions of evangelical Christians to evangelize the seven
hundred millions at that rate? Now we seek the solution to this
great problem, and where shall we look for it? I confess that I am
getting so that I look for everything in the word of God. I find a
solution to everything in the Holy Scriptures. There is no thought
of man that is worth thinking, there is no plan of man that is worth
pursuing, that is not suggested here. Blessed be God for that. We
need not go further. Now if we examine we shall find that in the
closing words of Christ, as they are given in the last portions of the
accounts furnished by the evangelists, we have the Divine plan for
the evangelization of the world; and although these words are so
familiar, I venture to read them once more: Matt, xxviii. chap. iSth
verse. "And Jesus came and spake unto them saying, All power is
given unto me in heaven and in earth, go ye therefore and make dis-
ciples of all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father and of
the Son and of the Holy Ghost: teaching them to observe all things
Illinois State Sunday School Convkntion. 51
whatsoever I have commanded you : and Lo I am with you alway,even
unto the end of the world." Turn over to the last part of the Gos-
pel according to Mark xvi. chap. 15th verse, "And he said unto them,
Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel (evangelize) to every
creature. He that believeth and is baptised shall be saved, but he that
believeth not shall be damned. And these signs shall follow them
that believe; in my name shall they cast out devils; they shall sj^eak
with new tongues; they shall take up serpents, and if they drink any
deadly thing it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick
and they shall recover. So then after the Lord had spoken unto them
he was received up into heaven and sat on the right hand of God.
And they went forth and preached everywhere^ the Lord working
with them and confirming the word with signs following." In the
34th chapter of the Gospel according to Luke, 46th verse, we read:
"Thus it is written, and thus it behooved Christ to suffer, and to rise
from the dead the third day ; and that repentance and remission of
sins should be preached in his name among all nations,) beginning at ,
Jerusalem. And ye are witnesses of these things. And behold I send
the promise of my Father upon you: but tarry ye in the city of Jerusa-
lem until ye be endued with power from on high." Now in the 20th
chapter of the Gospel according to John, in the interview that our
Lord has with his disciples on the evening of his resurrection, he says,
"Peace be unto you." Here are three words; a word of peace first,
a word of commission second, and a word of power third; for no
man is fit to preach the Gospel until he has peace with God and the
peace of God, and that is why Christ said twice, "Peace be unto you."
First, it is peace with God, reconciled relation; and second it is peace
of God, from the witness of the Hoi}' Ghost in the experience of the
believer. And when you have got peace with God, and the peace of
God, then Christ says to you, "I send you as my Father sent me;"
and when he gives the commission he breathes on them the Holy
Ghost, and all we have to do is to open our mouths and breathe in
what he breathes out; just as simple as that. There you have a so-
lution of the problem. Look at the elements that it embraces; they
were to start from Jerusalem in a work of world-wide evangeli^jation.
Notice the universalitv of this commission, "Go ye into all the world
and preach the Gospel unto every creature." Notice in the second
place that this commission was addressed to all disciples, not simply
to the twelve apostles, but to the whole body of believers; for if you
examine these passages you will find that these words are not ad-
dresssed to the eleven alone. They were addressed to that same
gathering of which the apostle Paul tells us in the 15th chap, of
Corinthians. There were besides the eleven apostles the five hun-
dred brethern that believed on His precious name; and there He gave
the commission to all those disciples, "Go ye into all the world and
preach the Gospel unto every creature." This commission was uni-
versal as to territory and as to the persons who were to do the wit-
nessing. I beg you to observe that although in the Old Testament
you will find a line of demarcation between the priest and the com-
mon people, thank God there is not a trace of that in the New Tes-
tament. In the New Testament times every man and woman and
child who had found peace in believing had the right to preach the
52 Illinois State Sunday School Convkntion.
good tidings of God; and I tell you that any modern church, denom-
ination, or society, that puts a line of separation or division in this
great work between clergy and laity transgresses the simple democ-
racy of the new Scriptures. I want you to notice another feature
about this, and that is the promise, which was two fold'; in the first
place the grand general prt)mise, "Lo, lam with you alway, even unto
the end of the world;" and then this, "All power is given unto me
in heaven and in earth." My friends, the great lack in our Christian
work is the lack of power, not so much the lack of organization.
Here Christ says. He has all power in heaven and earth. There is
none that can stay His hand or resist Him, and here He says He will
be with us always unto the end of the world. He wants us to under-
stand that to human impotence He can yoke Divine Omnipotence.
Supernatural signs were to attest that God was with His people
and that the word they spoke was His word. I know that it is cus-
tomary to say in these times that supernatural signs were intended
only for the apostolic age; but permit me to say that if the evangel-
istic spirit of the apostolic age had continued down through succeed-
ing centuries it is ijuite possible that the supernatural signs would
have survived; and if the same (jualities should revive it is cpiite pos-
sible that the supernatural signs might reappear. Mark does not
close his testimony without adding this magnificent fragment, "They
went forth and preached everywhere, and the Lord worked with
them and confirmed the word with signs following." I want you to ob-
serve the historic course of things, for I will state to you frankly that
I have been a preacher and a teacher of the concurrent testimony of
the word of God and it is partly encouraging and partly discouraging.
We observe this that these disciples, without distinction of age, class, sect
or even sex, went forth and preached this Gospel evervwhere. In the
first place there came down this baptism of the Holy Ghost on the day
of Pentecost upon all of them, and, blessed be God, Mary the mother of
Jesus and the other women were there and the Holv Ghost came down
in tongues of fire and sat on the women just as much as on the men.
It was a baptism of all disciples, and they all became witnesses of Jesus
Christ. If you will accompany me in the course of the history that is
given in the Acts of the Apostles, you will see that it curiously covers
about the life-time of a generation, about thirty-three years, in order to
show us what can be done in the life-time of a generation if the Spirit of
the Lord onlv moves. You will see that the great body of disciples
made it their business to preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Now
turn to the eighth chapter of the Acts of the Apostles: "At that time
there was a great persecution against the church which was at Jeru-
salem; and they were all scattered abroad throughout the regions of
Juilea and Samaria, except the apostles. And devout men carried
Stephen to his burial, and made great lamentation over him. As for
Saul, he made havoc of the church, entering into eviery house, and,
haling men and women, committed them to prison. Therefore they
that were scattered abroad went everywhere preaching the word."'
I want you to notice two things: the body of believers was all scat-
tered abroad by persecution except the apostles. You notice that the
Holy Ghost is just as particular in his exceptions as He is in His gen-
eral statements; now why should it be stated that the apostles were
Illinois State Sunday School Convention. 53
kept at Jerusalem, but that we might not infer that tliese disciples
were even led by the apostles in preaching the word? Persecution
split the early Christian church and blew it up like a bomb shell; but
Peter was not even converted by that explosion and it became neces-
sary to give him a special lesson on the house top. If you turn over
to the nth chapter, what do you read in the 19th and following
verses? "Now they which were scattered abroad upon the persecu-
tion that arose about Stephen, traveled as far as Phenice and Cyprus
and Antioch, preaching the word to none but unto the Jews only.
And some of them were men of Cyprus and Cyrene, which when
they were come to Antioch spake unto the Grecians preaching the
Lord Jesus. And the hand of the Lord was with them and a great
riumber believed and turned unto the Lord." Please mark, what you
cannot see in the English, that you might see in the original, that the
w^ord that is here translated preaching means simply talking about.
It is the same as our word babble — the babble of little children.
They went about talking, in their simple manner talking about Jesus.
It was not an orderly discourse which might have been delivered by
the apostle Paul, but it shows that there was no line between the
apostles and the Christian workers as to the work to be done for
Christ. No man could be an apostle who had not seen the Lord
Jesus Christ; and hence^ with all respect for my brethren, there can-
not be any apostolic succession because there are not any at the pres-
ent time who have witnessed the Lord's resurrection. Notice a little
further also that even in the administration of sacraments there was
no line of division; mark that. In the Sth chapter of the Acts of the
Apostles we have an account of Philip goiiig down to Samaria to
preach Christ. Philip was ordained a deacon to relieve the ajDOstles
and the preachers of the Gospel, not as a preacher, not as an evange-
list, yet he was one of the most successful evangelists of the apostolic
times. Now when he had found the eunuch and the eunuch wanted
baptism this deacon, went down and baptised him, showing that there
was no separate line of demarcation even as to the administration of
the sacrament. I am not saying that the line is not a i^roper line be-
tween those who administer the word and the sacrament and those
who are the people in the churches; the line is in the interest of labor,
and it never was intended b}- God to be a mark of division or separa-
tion in the precious testifying to the Lord Jesus Christ.
In the 4th chapter of the Gospel according to John we find the
account of Christ and the woman of Samaria at the well. "And the
woman when she had found the Lord forgot her errand, left her
pitcher at the fountain, and went her way into the city, and summoned
the j^eople to see Christ." There is a woman preaching. She was
never ordained and yet she brought the whole city to Jesus; so that
there is no line of division yet even as to sex. Men and women who
know Christ and have found him precious have the right and the
privilege to testify to His grace and to testify to every creature as to
what that grace has done for them. That is Christ's method — Christ's
solution of the problem of evangelizing the world. Just so long as
this testimony was made to those vsdio were outside of the safety of
belief in Jesus the wonderful signs of Christ's presence continued with
the disciples; and I want to give you one reason why I think it was
54 Illinois State Sunday School Convention.
intended to continue with them always, even to the end of the world,
if their faith had been equal to the demand. In the 4th chapter of
the Acts of the Apostles we read how Peter and John, after being
threatened, went out from the council and went to their own com-
pany, and they lifted up their voices and said, "And now Lord, be-
hold their threatenings: and grant unto thy servants, that with all
boldness they may speak thy word, by stretching forth thine hand to
heal; and that sings and wonders may be done by the name of thy
holy child Jesus. And when they had prayed, the place was shaken
where they were assembled together; and they were all (illed with
the Holy Ghost, and they spake the word of God with boldness."
Observe the argument of this prayer— for sometimes prayer is the
grandest kind of argument addressed to the throne of heavenly grace.
I sometimes think it ought always to be an argument giving the prom-
ises and the conclusions that God cannot deny himself. That is the log-
ical prayer. "Stretch forth thine hand, hold firm thy word by signs
arid wonders done in the name of Jesus, and then thy servants shall
boldly speak thy word." There are many of us here, some in the
ministry, and let me ask you if you have never felt your need of bold-
ness? Don't we lose our earnestness in faith when we preach
the precious word of Jesus and no results follow? It seems as though
we were pouring water on the ground that it cannot be gathered up;
it accomplishes no good in enlightening the soul. Oh! that God
would stretch forth His hand to heal those servants that are trying to
teach and preach His gospel, that they might have boldness to preach
and testify the name of Jesus. I say that Jesus Christ placed no
more limitation on the promise than he did on the injunction. I don't
pretend to be a learned scholar, but as a plain man reading the scrip-
tures that is the impression I should have. "Go into all the world
and preach," and then does he say, "these signs shall follow you
through the first century?" Nothing of the kind. It is co-exten-
sive. I don't know what right we have to put limits on the promise.
It is not said that through the apostolic age these signs should follow
them that believed; "Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of
the world." What right has any one to say that such promises as
this were limited to any specific time? I do not believe one word of
it. I believe that is part of the practical infidelity that is pervading
our churches at this present day. I do not sa}- that these signs should
take the same form that they did in that day. What I want is a per-
petual supernaturalism in the church. If there were a dozen people
in this church to-day with boldness coming from contact in the closet
with God — knowing that there is a God by personal answers, those
twelve people could convert twelve thousand infidels. It is said in Isai-
ah, "Instead of the thorn shall come up the fir tree, and instead of the
brier shall come up the myrtle tree: and it shall be to the Lord for
a name, for an everlasting sign that shall not be cut ofl." There may
be some signs that were designed only to be temporary and transient
but there are some that were intended to be everlasting. By the
grace of God the most beautiful and fragrant plants that blossom in
the service of the Lord are the supernatural signs that shall never be
cut oflf. Would that God would multiply them in these days.
Now you have followed me onjy through the Acts of the Apostles.
Illinois State Sunday School Convention. 55
When came the decay of the evangehcal church, of evangeHstic ac-
tivity? After the church had survived those early persecutions a new
church sprang up and the gospel was carried in the first centurj^ to
the bounds of the Roman Empire and even to the heart of Germany.
After this had been done, and even the pagan writers began to be
afraid that the pagan idols were in danger, there began to grow up
in the church an aristocracy. The line began to be drawn between
those that preached and those that were simply children of God gath-
ered in the churches as the ordinary membership. By and by, Con-
stantine claimed to be converted and took the throne of the Cicsars;
and a great change took place in the church history. The order of
the cross became the way of the world and of glory. The church
and the State became wedded into a hierarchy. From that day evan-
gelistic effort declined. The missionary efforts of the second, third,
fourth, and fifth centuries absolutely did not carry the gospel any
further than the missionary efforts of the first century had. Upon the
decay of evangelical piety there began to be heresies in the church
and councils had to be called. Any church that ceases to be evangel-
istic will soon cease to be evangelical. Then followed the decline
and disappearance of supernatural signs. Now we pass through a
thousand years called the dark ages, and well may they be so called,
for the lamp of literature almost went out; the lamp of science burned
so low that it scarce gave light in the universal darkness, and even the
church itself nearly died. The candlestick of God was almost re-
moved out of its place. After the thousand years came the Lutheran
reformation. It restored the church evangelical doctrine, but it did
not restore the church evangelistic activity. It was still a hierarchy,
and aristocratic. In the iSth and 19th centuries there comes a revival
of evangelistic activity. The church begins to recognize the fact that
she owes a debt to the world and proposes to pay it. Now I want
you particularly to notice this, that although the evangelistic spirit
was revived in the latter part of the 18th century and the beginning
of the 19th it was not revived for the whole body of Christians.
They preferred doing it by proxy ; they did not feel that they should
proclaim the wonderful word of God. And so we have a great
Christian church represented in the entire world to-day by, perhaps,
three thousand missionaries. It is a serious business; and I want to
affirm here that the Christian church will never have a return to apos^
tolic signs of divine presence till she is done with this proxy work
and every Christian accepts the command, "Go ye into all the world
and preach the" gospel to every creature." You have but a little time
to serve this generation and the generation has but a little time to
be served by you; in thirty-three years you are gone and they are
gone — a generation has perished.
Now a word of encouragement after all this discouraging review.
The church is now waking up to the idea that she cannot do this
work of evangelization by proxy. There are two prominent signs of
this: first the modern Sunday School movement and Young Men's
Christian Associations. The Sunday School movement is the first
movement of the 18th century in the direction of making every man
and woman a witness for Jesus to those that have no Christ. There
is no proxy work here; there is no avoidance or evasion of the small
56 Illinois State Sunday School Convention.
respoiibibilities here. It is laid on every Christian man and Christian
woman to become a personal witness to Jesus, and begin with that
most promising field of labor, the mind and heart of impressionable
childhood. That is why these conventions em2:)hasizc the missionary
character of the Sunday School. We must make our Sunday Schools
the means of evangelizing the regions that are in darkness and in the
shadow of death right under the spires of our Christian churches in
our great cities. In our cities there are thousands that never go
to church anywhere on Sunday. In Chicago, Indianapolis, Brooklyn,
not to speak of other cities, taking the entire church accommodation,
if every seat were filled on the Lord's day one half of the entire pop-
ulation would find it impossible to get inside of the doors of any
Christian place of assembly. While we talk of the seven hundred
millions that are outside, what shall we say when half of our popu-
lation could not get into the churches if God should impel them to go
at one lime and not one third of us are in the habit of seeking them;
those that do not seek us we do not seek. (A voice of dissent at this
])oint coming from the audience, the speaker paused for a moment
and then continued as follows): There are less churches to-day in the
city of New York in proportion to the population than there were in
1801. I say that the Sunday School is the modern church rising, and
rousing us up to think of those who have no Christ, and especially in
our great cities, that all may be brought in contact with the church of
the living God. The Young Men's Christian Association I especially
thank God for, because it is the young men of our cities and larger
towns rising to assert the right, the duty and the privilege of con-
verted men to bear converted testimony; and I regard it as the most
colossal movement in the present age in the direction of what we call
lay evangelization. What is the matter that the people do not come
to the churches? I believe, my friends, there is no reason, whatever,
why what we call the masses should not be gathered into places of
public assembly, if two or three things were conserved or secured.
We want buildings adapted to the purpose; and we want ministers
in sympathy with the common people; and in the third place we
want an unworldly administration in the churches and a reform in the
membership. Give us those three conditions and you cannot keep the
people out of the churches. We may talk just as much as we please
about trying to reach the poor and the outcast; but a kid glove is a
non-conductor and a white cravat is sometimes another. We must
do just as Christ did, get down among the people. I have been a
pastor of Christian churches, preaching the gospel almost a quarter
of a century. I preached away up above the people's heads the most
elaborate sermons I could prepare, but the Lord did not give me
many souls. I saw such men as Moody and Whittle doing a great
work. They were not college educated; they did not pretend to
write great essays ;'»but God was giving to these men souls by thous-
ands; and I asked God to show me what was the trouble with me,
and He did. I came to the conclusion that I never had been a Chris-
tian man — that I had been preaching the gospel in an unconverted
spirit. In eighteen months God had given me more souls as the seals
of my jninistry Ihan in the eighteen years preceding; and I have
never preached a sermon since without feeling that God was with me,
ILLINOIS State Sunday School Convention. 57
and without feeling tlie trutli of that saying, "My word shall not re-
turn to me void." Even in the city of Chicago you could go around
to some of the most popular pulpits of that city and you might go
out not knowing from the sermon whether the minister were a fol-
lower of Confucius, Mahomet or Christ. There is an awfully serious
side to this question. The gospel is preached in hundreds of Chris-
tian pulpits in such a style that a poor penitent sinnei- could not find
the Savior. God's word will not return to Him void; it may appear
to you like wheat scattered on the bosom of a mighty river, but the
time will come when you will see that no seed has failed to be fruitful,
and the white harvest will wave for you, though sonie one else may
put in the sickle and gather it into the garner. I believe that you
never will get the common people into the churches where the pews
are rented or owned.
The idea of a man sa3Mng, "That belongs to mc; I have a proprie-
torship in it!" I believe the whole thing is unscriptural, and is one
of the abominable idols in the house of God that keeps the Holy
Ghost from filling the courts with the glory of the Shekinah. I be-
lieve that when the voluntary subscriptions of Christian people sup-
port the Christian ministry, when the whole church is thrown open
and the gospel preached in its simplicity down to the level of the
common man, in the modes of thought and speech and illustration,
just as the greatest preacher, the Lord Jesus Christ, you will find
these churches become pools of Bethesda — houses of healing when
the gospel is manifested, and a regiment of dragoons could not keep
the people out of the door. In London I heard Spurgeon. What
singing! It seemed as though it would lift the roof of the great tab-
ernacle with its mighty volume. Then Spurgeon gave an exposition
of the 4th chapter of Nehemiah, glorious in its simplicity; and then
he prayed, and oh such a prayer! It was not an eloquent address to
a London audience, but it was a grand address from a man to God.
And what shall 1 say of his grand sermon, keeping the attention of
the congregation for one hour and ten minutes. There was enough
gospel compressed into that one sermon to have been spread over the
whole world in sections and convert every man, woman and child in
it. In the afternoon I went to St. Paul's cathedral; I hope God will
forgive me, but I did. The surpliced boys sang like larks and there
was a sermon, but you could put five hundred such sermons into a
crucible, melt them down and take their essence and there would not
be five drops of gospel in the whole thing. It was a magnificent
essay, but there was no Christ crucified, there was nothing to call a
man's attention to his own sins and Christ as his Savior. The jDeople
were looking all around at the arches and the decorations; but there
was only a handful after all, so the sermon was not lost upon many.
That afternoon I said, "When will the Christian church understand
that the importation of secular attractions into the house of God
never will permanently draw and hold the common people; that only
as she gets the beauty of holiness in God's grace and the spirit of
God in those courts, will she have the power of God in drawing the
people together and holding them permanently and binding them to
Jesus Christ? I will give the rest of my life to the humble endeavor
to preach the power of the gospel that everybody can understand,
58 Illinois State Sunday School Convention.
containing the sum and substance of the grand teachings of Jesus;
to build up churches, to reach out and gather in those that are now
neglectful, and secure within the churches an unworldly living, an un-
worldly type of administration, so that not one single ungodly man
shall on our board, regulate and control the administration of the
house of God." Carry these subjects before the Lord in prayer and
consecrate yourselves to the great work of reaching the world with
the precious gospel of Jesus Christ.
(In explanation of his remarks concerning the services held in
Spurgeon's tabernacle and St. Paul's cathedral, Dr. Pierson stated
that he was referring simply to the difference between the two ser-
vices; not to the two places or two orders — merely the two services
on that afternoon. There has been a great deal of gospel preached
in St. Paul's, but on that particular afternoon there was none. If
there had been no gospel preached by Spurgeon he should have
asked God to forgive him for going there. He regarded the Episco-
pal Church in this country as, in some senses, leading in the work of
evangelization. All he attacked was a wrong spirit in any church.)
[The following address should have been inserted on page 47. J
COUNTY AND TOWNSHIP S. S. CONVENTIONS.
ADDRESS BY REV. T. E. SPILLMAN.
Before entering upon the discussion of Township and County Sab-
bath School Conventions particuhirly, let us notice the matter of
Sunday School Conventions in general, for a moment or two. They
incur an expense of time and means. Is there any outcome from them
which justifies this expenditure? If time and money are only given
us that we may enlarge our bank accounts, multiply orchards and
vineyards, drive fast horses in glittering coaches, and go shopping in
vanity fair, then I doubt the propriety of such a convention as this,
which requires time for its preparation, time for its sessions, cash down
for several hundred railroad tickets, and hundreds of dollars to work
its machinery. If there is nothing more for us to do than to
"Eat and drink, and sleep, and then,
Eat and drink and sleep again."
I doubt the exjDediency of such conventions.
•But if we are God's stewards, and the gold and the silver, and the
cattle upon a thousand hills are the Lord's; if every moment of time
is given us as a trust for which we must render an account; if there are
thousands of souls around us going down to the caverns of eternal
night; if Satan, as a roaring lion, is walking about seeking whom he
may destroy; if leagues and conclaves and conventions are being
held in the interest of the powers of darkness; if infidelity and in-
temperance, and a host of other hydra-headed evils, armed to the
teeth, are through large and thoroughly organized associations, wag-
ing war upon the kingdom of Christ, and, as with the poison of ad-
ders, ruining the youth of to-day, then the matter of expenditure in
councils of holy warfare must be looked at from other than a worldly
standpoint. We take it for granted that all these things will be con-
Illinois State Sunday School Convention. 59
ceded by Sunday School workers, and that thei-e is a general agree-
ment that it is the wisdom of the church to assemble at stated times
and places for a more thorough equipment against a strong and stra-
getic foe. But while our large conventions, such as State Conven-
tions, accomplish a noble work, there is a great work which they can-
not do. The masses of our Sunday School workers are not directly
reached by them. We do not expect the great army of Sunday
School teachers of the State of Illinois to get together in one con-
vention. Think of all the poor girls, and perhaps clerks in stores,
mechanics, and it may be, mothers with large families, who belong to
the army of Sunday School workers, whom we do not expect to meet
in such associations as these, and yet who need the help which the
convention offers. There are in the small towns and country loca-
tions, more, perhaps, who need help in their work, than in large cen-
ters where more privileges are enjoyed. If conventions are held in
every county during the year there will be many who can attend who
have not the means to go half way across a broad State, as much as
they would enjoy, and profit by, the exercises of a State Convention.
A goodly number of the most earnest workers of a county can
assemble at their county seat once or twice in the year, and do work
that will be felt for a twelve-month in more places in the county than
the one in which the convention was held. But even the County
Convention is not, perhaps, the most practical convention which is
held. A County Convention does not nearly reach, directly, all the
Sunday School workers which live within its bounds. We do not
say that there could not more attend them than usually do. But it
is the work of conventions to create an interest in the work of the
Sunday School. If the interest in any county was such as that all the
Sunday School workers in the county could be gathered together in
one convention, the need of the convention would in part be done
away. What a sight it would be if from fifty to seventy-five schools
in one county should each send up to its annual convention a dozen
teachers, with their superintendents and librarians and secretaries and
treasurers. Do you expect ever to behold the sight? I do not. Ex-
perience teaches me not to expect it. But I do believe that by Town-
ship Conventions, held so that every Sunday School worker is within
a few miles of a convention, nearly all can be brought directly under
its influence. But the object of these conventions is not simply to
reach those already enlisted in- Sunday School work. It is to reach
the masses of the people. There are multitudes of people who are
but little interested in Sunday School work and who need to be
aroused and instructed with regard to what is being done, how it is
being done and what remains to be done.
People may admit that the Sunday School is a good and a needed
agency and yet interest themselves very little in it. The ordinary
Sunday School work on the Sabbath day does not particularly attract
their attention. They send their children, it may be, but do not think
much more is required of them, or that they could be much useful them-
selves in the work, or much benefitted by it. Now this class of peo-
ple are not likely to go very far, nor be at very much expense to at-
tend a meeting held in the interests of the Sunday School cause, even if
its programme shows a good bill of fare. But if a meeting of a pop-
UU Illinois State Sunday School Con\ extion.
ular character is brouj^ht almost to tlieir doors, and those are to speak
in whom they have confiilence as persons of abihty and information,
many of tliem are apt to attend. Whole families can be brought in.
Children, parents antl grand-parents can be assembled in such a meet-
ing. The distance is short; the expense is little or nothing; the
meeting is out of the usual order of services and is likely to lend an
attraction because not as usual as the weekly service. A little kind
and persistent work is likely to bring into these Township Conven-
tions multitudes who do not attend any Sunday School, and perhaps
not regularly, any church. Now what an opportunity for an impres-
sion. Here are the rank and tile of the Sunday School teachers of
the community — of this particular township; here are the fathers and
the mothers; the aunts and the uncles; here are the large boys and
girls, it may be, who, to their shame, have left the school. Here,
perhaps, are men of means, the bone and sinew of the community in
a financial view. But they have never done much to help the cause
of the Sunday School work, because, j^erhaps, it has never been
brought before them in such a way as to show them their duty and
the great hopefulness of the work. Here are persons, perhaps, with
teaching ability who have never been engaged much in Sunday
School work because it was never presented to them as any thing
worthy of any great pains and effort. What an ojDportunity for some
experienced and earnest worker to press home now upon the heart
and conscience of these assembled men and women the importance
of snatching the youth from the grasp of the destroyer; to show
what a blessed work the Sunday School is doing in this direction; to
show how men and women of power and piety and learning are giv-
ing their time and their brains and their hearts, and actually their
money to advance the kingdom of Christ through the medium of the
Sunday School.
What an opportunity to, encourage and instruct those teachers who
have but poor facilities for the work to which they believe they have
been called, but for which they have such poor qualifications. What
a grand opportunity for those who have made the work a study, and
have become acquainted with successful measures of work, to bring
their knowledge to the workers who have had no such opportunities,
who are poor, who have but little time for study and but few books
from which to learn. Is not that a favored township which has one
or two or four such conventions every year, in which the richest Sun-
day School thought of the age, and the most successful measures of
teaching are brought forward and discussed? But now, suppose, in-
stead of one township, all the townships in the State had such con-
ventions. Suppose, throughout the whole State, on the same day,
there was such a convention in every township in the State; would
not that be an important day? Thousands, I suppose, of parents,
those who are seklom, if ever in a Sunday School; multitudes of
competent Christian people who do very little in any way for the
Sunday School, gathered that day to hear what might be said by
those whose names had appeared upon the posters and programmes
which had been so widely spread ; thousands of teachers wiio were
never in a State vSunday School Convention, seldom in a County
Convention, now nssembled for \vhatever might be seen and heard at
Illinois State vSundav School Convkntion. 61
this quarterly or annual meeting. Would not this be a great day for .
the Sunday School work of the State? Would it not give a wonder-
ful impetus to the cause? Would not new recruits be found for the
thin ranks of the teachers? Would not the Bible class open its eyes
the next Sabbath, and its pew doors, as recruits came in of parents
and grand-parents to study with them the word of God? Would not
the treasurer surprise the school by reporting five dollars in the col-
lection instead of two dollars and nine cents? Would not the super-
intendent begin to feel his responsibility afresh as he saw so much of
the church, assembled together in that department of Christian work
in which he was a standard bearer? Would not some of the larger
scholars, who had left the school, encouraged by such an example,
soon came back again to their places? Now, although we cannot
expect to have this sinmltajieoiis effort throughout the State, every
township met for work on the same day, can we not reasonably
expect just as good results as this concerted action would afford?
May we not reasonably expect every township in the State to have
at least one good, thorough convention during a twelve-month? But
does some one say, "We have had Township Conventions and they
do not amount to much; they do not arouse the people, nor to any
great extent, awaken the workers? Very possible. There is a great
difference between a convention and the convention. There may be
very poor conventions — conventions where not man}' convene, and
where some of those who do go rather as a matter of form, or duty,
than from any delight or profit they expect to derive.
There are probably a great many poor -speeches inflicted upon
Township Conventions, and to avoid this we make the following sug-
gestions: Let three or four contiguous townships arrange to get the
very best men they have, either in the ministry or out of it, to attend
the conventions of those three or four townships. Let the six, or
eight, or ten best workers in these three or four tow^nship each make
an especial preparation on an important and popular theme, and take
his especial preparation to each of these three or four Township Con-
ventions. Let it be well understood that such an one had prepared
himself to speak on such a topic. Another one, well known as a
good Sunda}' School worker has prepared himself upon another im-
portant topic, which is one of general interest. This would not tax
the workers very severel}', for each one would have but the one prep-
aration to make; and, knowing that he would be expected to deliver
it before three or four different conventions, and the most appreciative
people in these different localities, he would have a stimulous to pre-
pare something worthy of the occasions upon which he would be
called to use it. Among these preparations Jet there be some a little
out of the ordinary line of Sunday School work; the history of the
English Bible; the great events in the life of Christ; Christ as a
teacher; science and religion; or some other subject which would be
of popular interest, and vet widen and deepen the store of knowledge
from which the Sunday School teacher needs to draw. If this meas-
ure were adopted would not the Township Convention soon be
looked for to with interest? Would not teachers hail it as a treat, and
a source of "stocking up" for future work? Would not those who un-
dertook to make these thorough preparations put on their studying
62 Illinois vStatk vSunda^ School Convkntion.
caps and go to work for new and fresh Sunday School thouj^lit?
Would not more of them come to the State Conventions to get into
the influence of the larger meeting, and reap the advantages which it
would afford them for preparing for work at home? Would not they
carry hack with them hoth fire and thought which they would impart
to almost all the workers of their township? And would not these
State Conventions do far more good than even now they do, by
touching and warming more hearts that wovdd go home to touch and
warm other hearts?
Lift up and magnify the small conventions. There is where the
people are. This State Convention is a representative body. The
masses are not here. The fathers and mothers are not generally here.
The young men and ladies of the State are not generally here.
In fact, the teachers of the State are not generally here. We do not
expect them to be here. Let us divide the convention up and take it
home with us. Let us carry a match and a bundle of splinters from it
into every township in the State. Let us kindle Sunday School fires
so closely together over the State that they will make it a very fur-
nace for consuming sin and purifying the morals of young and old.
Do with this convention as the economical gardener does with his big
potatoes when seed potatoes are scarce, cutting them up into pieces
so small that there is but an "eye" in each piece. Cut this conven-
tion up in small fragments with but an eye or two in each, take them
home and set them out in the separate townships, and raise a Town-
ship Convention from every one of them. Do not slight the prepar-
ation, nor print the posters in small type and on small pieces of paper
because the meeting is only a Township Convention. Ihcrc is where
the people are to be met. Here we get near to the home, the hearth-
stone, the kitchen and the cradle. The Township Convention, taken
as a whole, will out number the State Convention audience perhaps a
hundred to one. Tou may see but a fraction of that audience, and
but a fraction of it may see you^ or hear your voice. But let that
fraction have your best preparation, the fruit of your best study. Let
those who cannot come to the larger gatherings have something at
home that will help them in their work. Consider what their needs
are. Think of poor girls, consciencious girls, girls that have to work
for a living, and who do not, perhaps, command their own time, try-
ing to lead to Christ those whom the church has committed to their
care. Give them that which will awaken their intellects, feed their
souls and guide them in their work. Can any one estimate the re-
sult of such a work done in every township of the State? Would
it not quicken the Sunday School pulse all over the State? Would
it not develop latent talent in Sunday School workers? Would it
not swell, if not double, the rank and file of the Sunday wSchool ?
Would it not bring parents together to study with their children, the
word of God on His hoi}- day? Would it not gather and retain those
who have, in their own esteem, out-grown the Sunday School and
left it to their juniors? Would it not swell the Sunday School purse,
and deliver many a poor superintendent from his perplexities when
the time came to renew subscriptions for the literature of the Sunday
School? Would it not, under God, result in precious ingatherings of
souls, recruits at the communion table, joy in the home over prodigals
Illinois State Sunday School Convention. 63
returning from their wanderings? Would there not be joy in the
presence of the angels of God over the children of the church being
brought into the fold of the great Shepherd? Would not the num-
ber be swelled who clothed in white robes around the throne of God,
strike glad harps of praise to Him to save them by His precious
blood?
Second Day — Evening Session.
At seven o'clock a large open air meeting was addressed by Mr.
D. W. Potter and others.
At eight o'clock Oriental Hall was filled. Mr. Potter made an
earnest address, and many requested prayers.
At the Baptist Church, addresses were made by William Reynolds
and M. C. Hazard. The Carman Family sang several sweet songs.
The Convention proper met in the Methodist Church, which was
crowded to listen to Dr. Pierson's sfreat address on the Bible.
THE TEACHER AND HIS GREAT WEAPON, THE
WORD.— HOW TO HANDLE AND USE IT.
ADDRESS BY REV. A. T. PIERSON, D. D.
Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen: — May I ask you
while I am speaking to-night to accompany me with your prayers,
that I may be able to speak in the power of the Holy Ghost. In
order to speak intelligently and intelligibly on this great subject I
shall have to ask your patient attention, as I endeavor to show you
some of the evidences that the Bible is the Book of God. For I hold
that the foundation of all power in using the Word and in teaching
it, is a conviction settled beyond doubt — beyond a question — that this
book is given to us from God. There is a subtle doctrine pervading
our churches to some extent in these days which concedes that the
Bible is an inspired book; but insists that everything good is inspired
of God. Milton's Paradise Lost, it is said, is an inspiration, Bacon's
Novum Organum is an inspiration, the Bible is an inspiration, the best
of all inspirations. But I want you to notice that this takes out of the
Bible this one element, its infallibility. Milton's Paradise Lost may
be inspired in a certain sense but it is not infallible. There is a great
deal of error in it as well as a great deal of truth, and I am sorry to
say that a great deal more of our modern theology is taken from
Milton's Paradise Lost than from the Bible. There are a great many
notions that obtain in the Christian church that are not gotten from
the Bible at all, but from fallible sources. Just here allow me to say
one word that I hope will not be offensive to any body. I do not
think we ought to be sensitive at all about our denominationalism, for
that is the fallible part about us. The truth that is revealed in the
Scriptures is infallible. The work of the Holy Ghost is infallible, but
all human institutions are fallible. We have none of us a monopoly
64 Illinois State Sunday School Convention.
of truth, or wisdom, or piety in our denominations; and I want to say
here that you can say anvthinji; about Presbyterianism you choose as
long as you leave the Bible and God unassaulted. I don't care what you
think about my denomination if vou don't think any worse about it
tlian I do. I think it is a bad plan for us to call ourselves Lutherans
or Calvinists or other names — "One Is your Master and all ye are breth-
ren." We are all fallible ir:en. There are a great many errors in all
the systems of men, but none in tiic precious Word of God. Let us
just cling to this infallible, inspired Word of Goil. Your power as a
teacher and a witness is paralyzed the moment that you doubt that
this is the book of God, supreme and infallible. Now if 1 can help
some of you, who perhaps have made no extensive studies in this mat-
ter, to an understanding of the grounds upon which we say that this
is so, I shall not be here in vain.
THE NAME BIIJLE.
The first thing we notice about this book is its name — the Bible.
That is not an inspired name, though it is an excellent one — the Bible.
That name was first given to this precious book by Clnysostom, a
very learned and accomplished preacher of the gospel, and a very
vigorous apologist of the Christian faith, and one of the greatest
preachers in Constantinople. The next thing we notice about this
book is its antiquity, and yet its accuracy. It is very wonderful.
Whatever modern criticism may say with regard to the possibilty that
we over-rate the antiquity of this precious Word, one thing is sure
that the Old Testament was in the hand of the Jews five hundred
years before Christ, and that, for all the purposes I have in view, is
just as good as though it was in their hands five thousand years before
Christ; for five hundred years would antedate all the modern discov-
eries of science. Yet we shall find it strangely accurate even on sci-
entific subjects. I can give you only an outline of a great argument
as to this historical accuracy. You know there is a man who goes
about the country talking about the mistakes of Moses; I should like
to show him a few of the mistakes that Moses did not make, and ask
for an explanation of them. If in speaking of moral and spiritual
truth the Bible had incidentally introduced some geographical and
astronomical error, it is possible that it might not have impared its
value as a guide in doctrine and in duty; but the simple fact is that
although the Bible was in the hands of the Jews five hundred years
before Christ, it is so wonderfully wrought and constructed that it is
impossible to-day to find a single scientific error inside of its pages.
I say that without any possible fear of successful contradiction. Of
course the Bible uses the language of popular appearances. It speaks
of the sun rising and setting, and we do the same, although we know
that the appearance of the sun rising and setting is caused by the
earth revolving on its axis. We know also, for instance, that the dew
is not distilled in the far depths of space, yet we speak of it as descend-
ing from heaven, though it is merely the condensation of the atmos-
phere, exactly the same as when the ice-pitcher in our dining-room
condenses the vapor that is in the air. This is the language of appear-
ances, ancf the Bible uses it, and if it did not, it would impair its value;
because if the Bible were to employ strictly accurate expressions in
Illinois State Sunday School Convention. 65
speaking of scientific discover}'^ it would turn the attention of men
from the great truths it was meant to unfold towards subjects for
which the world was not yet ready. The intention of the Almighty
is that the Bible shall not anticipate science, and yet shall not falsify
the facts of science. If it be possible from human language to em-
ploy terms or phrases which may hold in them a hidden meaning, as
the acorn holds the oak, that shall show the inner meaning and elicit
it, that seems to be the best thing that could be, and it is precisely the
fact. You know that there is in surgery a rubber bandage which is
of very great use when, for instance, a limb is much swollen. The
bandage will accommodate itself to the dimensions of the limb. Now
the Bible has an elastic phraseology in it which accommodates itself
to the narrowness of human ignorance and expands to the growing
dimensions of human knowledge. For example, the old scientists
say, and the new scientists join them, that Moses made a great mis-
take when he said " Let there be a firmament in the midst of the
waters," But when we come to examine the Hebrew word translated
" firmament " we find that it means " that which is spread out," "an
expanse." Nov/ if Moses had been Laplace or Knight Mitchell, he
could not have selected another word that would have expressed so
accurately the meaning he intended to convey. He selected just the
right word. Take one of Jeremiah's mistakes: he saj^s, the hosts of
the heavens cannot be numbered, even as the sands on the sea shore
cannot be measured. Now at the time Jeremiah wrote this, all the
stars knowai to exist were the visible stars of the northern hemisphere,
something like one thousand; perhaps on the clearest night you might
possibly count about three thousand; they can be counted. But Jere-
miah says that the hosts of the heavens can no more be numbered than
the sand upon the sea shore. That was a terrible mistake for an in-
spired prophet to make, you see. But when Galileo turned his first
telescope toward the heavens myriads of stars were discovered; and
when Ross turned his magnificent reflector four hundi^ed millions of
stars became visible in one-half of the celestial heavens! And it be-
came known that the milky way that floats its white banner across the
firmament is composed of stars so thickly set that, like warriors in a
procession, you can only catch a glance of light from the fire of their
helmets.
Look at the science of geology. It is quite a remarkable thing that
the order of creation is precisely the order of the six days of Moses,
rhe most modern system of geology shows six days of development,
and they correspond exactly to the six days of development given by
Moses: a chaotic mass of matter, cloud, indistinguishable; no light of
the sun yet in the heavens but a chemical light developing; every-
thing that was in the earth in the course of its unfolding; the firma-
ment separating the waters; continents rising out of the midst of the
waters; great vegetation appearing; and then the family of creation
developing from the lowest to the highest. Who taught Moses geol-
ogy? Look at the order of the family of creation. Comparative
anatomy has shown us within the last one hundred and fifty years
that the scientific order of species is exactly the order of Moses — fish,
reptiles, birds, mammals, man. Who taught Moses comparative
5
66 Illinois State Sunday School Convention.
anatomy '? Who taught him that the fish belongs below the reptile,
and the reptile below the bird?
Look in natural philosophy. We read that God makes the out-
goings of" the morning and the evening to rejoice — the Hebrew word
means " to sing;" and we arc told of the time " when the morning
stars sang together." Now modern discovery shows that light sings;
that light IS a form of motion; that when sound gets up to a certain
point in the octave it passes from sound to light; so that light sings.
There is not a star in the vast heavens above us that is not vocal, and
God's saints hear the music as, like a vast orchestra, they peal forth
the music of the spheres. We did not know what grand truths there
were in this prophetic expression; it took the knowledge of the nine-
teenth century to unfold and reveal them.
Look at the physiology of the Bible. Take, for instance, the pas-
sage, I 2th chapter of Ecclesiastes, "Or ever the silver cord be loosed
or the golden bowl be broken, or the pitcher be broken at the fountain,
or the wheel broken at the cistern." Here are four descriptions of the
way in which death may come to us. Now let us go into the dissect-
ing room and look at a human skull. It looks exactly like a bowl.
Examine closely and you find that the lungs are shaped like a pitcher,
and when you breathe you insjjire air into the pitcher and when you
expire air you pour it out of the pitcher. If you break the pitcher
life departs. You come to look into the vertebra:' and you find a sil-
ver cord — the spinal marrow. Sever it and you die. In the heart
what do you find? A wheel at the fountain; the old-fashioned fount-
ain wheel turned exactly like our wheel pumps in these days. They
draw up the water in one set of pipes and discharge it in another;
and exactly so is it with the blood entering and being discharged from
the heart. Who taught Solomon physiology? You could not from
the most advanced systems of physiology frame four phrases that
should more beautifully and poetically exj^ress these four facts. If my
golden bowl is broken or silver cord is loosed I die. Solomon knew
nothing about physiology as you and I do in these da}s but the Holy
Ghost did.
Take paleontology and archeology. God is refuting the scientists
by their own weapons. It was thought that the monuments of ancient
times would show that some of the Bible statements were not true;
and so the scientists went to work to refute the Bible accounts of an-
tiquity. For instance, in the ruins of Babylon it was stated that there
was a cylinder found of the date of the taking of the city and from
that cylider it appeared that not Belshazzar but Labietus was the king,
and that, instead of perishing, he escaped and afterwards became a
satrap under Cyrus and lived in peace. What are you going to do
with Daniel? Twenty years after, another cylinder was brought up
from the ruins that told us that though Labietus was king at the time
Belshazzar his son was a regent under him and occupied the throne,
and that when Cyrus took the city he took the throne. My fiiends, I
might go through a labored and lengthy argument on this subject but
I merely want to give you a few facts to show that they have not
convicted this book of a single scientific blunder, although it is not a
scientific book. I would like to see one single solid substantial fact
on which men are agreed in the scientific world that is irreconcilable
Illinois State Sunday Scjiool Convention. 67
with the Holy Scriptures. I have been studying natural science for
twenty yeai"s with a great deal of care, and I cannot, with my knowl-
edge, say that there is a single theory to-day, that changes an estab-
lished theory, that militates against the truth of the Bible.
We have now glanced at the argument from scientific accuracy ; let
us in the next place look at the argument from prophecy. We have
this Bible stretching over fifteen hundred years in the date of its com-
position. Now we find that these prophetic scriptures abound in
minute details in regard to coming events. A man may make a proph-
ecy and it may be fulfilled ; but the law of probability is this, if I make
a single prophecy the probability is as one-half of it being fulfilled;
hence the probability of its being so is half a chance. But the mo-
ment I add a second element to the prophecy I get one-fourth as the
fraction of the probability; the whole thing has a fourth of a chance;
and so on in the same ratio with every additional element. Now in
the prophecy concerning the destruction of Jerusalem there are twen-
ty-five details of particulars, and if you multiply to the twentieth
power you will find there were half a million chances against its ful-
fillment; yet in the destruction of Jerusalem every one of them was
fulfilled. Referring to the prophecies of Isaiah, chapters forty to
sixty-six, you will find that they are divided into three books of nine
chapters each. The first book of nine chapters ends with the phrase
"There is no peace, saith the Lord, unto the wicked." The third ends
with the same phraseology " for their worm shall not die." Those
references show the three books into which the prophecy is to be di-
vided. Now in the middle of the middle book there stands the grand
chapter, the fifty-third, setting forth the eleven statements of the doc-
trine of vicarious sacrifice. When Jesus came he fulfilled every antic-
ipation of this prophecy. You will not find in all sceptical literature
one single candid rationalistic discussion of the argument from proph-
ecy; and I will meet any infidel in the world on the subject of proph-
ecy and manifest to any candid audience that the argument never can
be answered except on the supernatural basis. It is perfectly wonder-
ful. Suppose brother Jacobs and I were wandering in Germany and
we came across a feudal castle and there find a secret closet in some
corner of the wall, perhaps a mode of egress in certain dangers, but
we cannot find a key to open it. We walk off and journey five hun-
dred or a thousand miles and come to the ruins of another castle and
there we find a key. It strikes us that there is a resemblance betvveen
that key and that door. And we journey back. We put the key in
the lock and the bolts are thrown back and it opens the door. What
is the conclusion? The conclusion is that the same man made the
key and made the lock, although they were separated by a thousand
miles. Prophecy is the lock and history is the key, separated by
fifteen hundred years often times; but you put the historic key into
the prophetic lock and all the bolts move back and the door opens
to the secrets of God. And yet you tell me the Bible is not inspired !
The fact is that infidelity proceeds out of the heart and is corrupt and
alien to God in nine cases out of ten.
In the third place, notice the wonderful unity of the Bible in its
diversity. Here are sixty books or more with thirty writers or more
scattered over a thousand or fifteen hundred years, and yet there is the
68 Illinois State Sunday School Convention.
most wonderful and absolute unity from Moses and Malachi and
Matthew to John's revelation. There is no conflict in this scripture,
but absolute harmony. Did you ever see Theodore Thomas manage
his great orchestra? He stands up and there arises one grand sym-
phony, one part playing perhaps for a few moments and then another
part joining until the whole orchestra engages in the harmony. Now
you know that every one of those musicians does not compose that
music as he goes along; you know that there must have been some
musician b^ck of them — that thev are simply instrumental performers
giving expression to some musical composer's genius. And when I
read Moses' grand words of the coming king, and then the strains of
the four evangelists like a grand quartette, and then burst at last into
John's choruses in which angels ;nid the redeemed join, I make up my
mind that these are merely the instrumental performers that are giv-
ing expression to the work of one grand Composer, the Almighty.
You know when Solomon's temple was built different parts of it
were constructed at different places. The builders worked according
to a plan; they were not the architects. There was a man who
planned the structure and saw it in all its details before a stone went
up, and all the builders did was to give expression to the ideas of the
architect. Now God framed the Bible in his own mind before a stone
was laid. Moses knew not what was coming but he laid the broad
foundations in the five books of the Pentateuch and then there came
the columns and arches of the intermediate books and at last John's
Revelation spanned the whole, liut God was the architect and those
that put in the stones and pillars "onlv carried out the idea of the Al-
mightv God. Suppose you take a joint off my finger or a finger
from my hand or a hand from mv body, I am maimed; it never can
be recovered. And the Bible is an organic unity; you cannot take a
joint or a finger from this Bible without maiming it. You say, "Cannot
you take away the book of Esther; why it has not the word of God
in it?" You Sundav-school teachers I beg you never to give such a
weapon as that into the hands of the enemy again. I can show you
that the book of Esther supplies a place in the body of scripture that
could not be supplied by any other book. It is to show the providence
of God in history. It shows in the first place that there is an unseen
power behind human affairs; in the second place, that ultimate awards
come to the good and the evil according to their deserts; in the third
place, that the prosperitv of the wicked is unstable and uncertain; in
the fourth place, that the good ultimately reach prosperity; in the fifth
place, that all through human action the most minute events are
woven by the Divine shuttle into the plan of his providence; and
finally, that there is no fatalism in his providence. Even the fact that
the name of God is not mentioned is an additional charm in this book*
because it is the hidden hand that you never see. Only the name of
God IS kept out, while the fact of God is put in. Every part of an
organism is necessary to its completeness; all the organs and functions
belong together; so every part of this precious Bible plays into the
other part for the completeness of the whole. You cannot under-
stand the Epistles to the Hebrews if you do not understand the book
of Leviticus; you cannot understand the Acts of the Apostles if you
do not understand both Ruth and Esther; for Ruth represents the
Illinois State Sunday School Convention. 69
Gentiles coming to the church and Esther the church coming to the
Gentiles. You cannot undei:stand the book of John if you do not
understand Jonah, for it shows us the necessity of Divine intervention
of mercy between the wrath of God and the apostate world; just as
the passover anticipates the Lord's supper and the Lord's supper in-
terprets the passover. And every portion of this book interprets some
other portion; and you cannot dismiss any portion of it without maim-
ing it and depriving it of its completeness. We find after we trace
the history of the Bible that we have been following the perimeter of
a golden ring; we start at the garden of Eden and we come in the
the last of Revelation to exactly the same place we left in Genesis.
And blessed be God the curse came in the first Paradise, but in the
last there shall be no more curse. So the Bible is rounded up and the
two ends are so welded that no points of junction can be detected.
Is there any other book like that in the world?
We next notice the combination of sublimity and simplicity exhib-
ited in this work. Such simplicity that the wayfaring man thov^h a
fool shall not err therein. It is perfectly plain, in large letter- , the
just shall live by faith. So there is nothing in the Bible that has not
a meaning, but all that pertains to duty is simple and within the range
of the apprehension. You say, "Are there no mysteries in the Scrip-
ture?" Certainly there are, and there could be no Bible without
mystery; there could be no word of God which was not beyond the
apprehension of man. The very fact that I do not understand my
watch proves that a man made it who knows more about it than I do;
and if I could understand everything in this Bible I would show in
that very fact that the Bible came from no higher source than the
human mind. There is nothing in the Koran that you cannot under-
stand, and there is no human book that you cannot inteipret to the
bottom and master it. In the Bible everything appertaining to the
line of duty, any one, even the child, can understand ; you neverthe-
less find there things that are too high for your understanding. This
proves that God has kept the seal of his omnipotence, eternity and
infinity, in His almighty hand. My friends, the mysteries of God
were intended to lead us into adoring wonder at the sublimity of the
Most High. All truth touches Heaven, but down here where it
touches earth is our level; and perhaps we can get a little higher up
and get a little broader range as we get nearer God and glorify God
for the mysteries of the Bible.
The moral sublimity of the Bible overwhelms me. There is not a
single particle of immorality taught in the scriptures. It is the win-
nowed wheat, as Joseph Cook says, and there is not a particle of
chaflf mixed with it. To be sure, there are examples of men who
committed wrong, but they are not held up for imitation. Abraham
and Noah and David committed dark sins; Peter was the foremost of
the apostles in organizing the churches, but he denied his Lord.
These examples are given us that we may emulate virtue and be
warned against vice, and to show us that we shall find the most noble
virtues oftentimes overshadowing the darkest defects. I should like
to go on and speak more fully of the moral power of the Bible, but
must pass on. I will add just one more word concerning this moral
power of the Bible. It is said that when Demosthenes was asked
70 Illinois State Sunday School Convention.
what was the great quality of an orator, he answered, "action"; the
second time he was asked the same . ([uestion, and again replied,
"action"; the question was repeated and once more the answer was
"action"; well, he did not say anything of the kind; what he did
answer was Kivt^ffi?, which does not mean " action" but "that which
moves." The great quality of an orator is to move. When people
heard Cicero, the silver-tongued orator, they said he was a delightful
orator; but when they heard Demosthenes speak they said, "Come
let us go and fight Philip." The Bible possesses the Kun^ai?,^ the
power to move, to mold, to transform. I studied geology for a few
years, but I did not find that it developed in me any moral or spiritual
life; and so with astronomy. There is a great deal of literature in
the market, but I tell you that that literature which is not centered in
the Bible, and is not permeated and saturated with the Spirit of God,
does not make men better. You find in the Bible the power to move,
the power to mold. Its power is cosmopolitan and universal. Fox
said of Grattan that you could not measuie his influence unless you
used parallels of latitude; and so I say you cannot measure the influ-
ence of the Bible without using parallels of latitude and longitude too.
It would take from the beginning of time through the countless cy-
cles of eternity, to measure the power of the Bible. Two-thirds of
our literature centre in the Bible; and if some wonderful miracle
should blot out every Bible under heaven you could find every verse
within the literature of the first three centuries. It permeates the
literature of the ages. When was it ever known that any other book
that was passing through a revised edition was telegraphed from New
York to Chicago that it might pass through the holy dailies of Chi-
cago. When was it ever known that the cable transmitted the
speeches of the greatest of politicians as it is now sending Spurgeon's
sermons?
I have called your attention to the antiquity and scientific accuracy
of the Bible; the wonderful unity that exists in the diversity; the
wonderful sublimity mingled with simplicity; and the wonderful
moral power of the Bible. And now I want to say a word about it
as a weapon. A weapon is something that we use for a definite pur-
pose. An implement in agriculture may be called a weapon; or
anything that is used in war to destroy. Now the Bible suggests to
us six figures: the fire, the hammer, the sword, the mirror, the lever,
and the seed. You could not add one to those and make them more
complete, and you could not take one away without making them less
complete. Let us turn to the passages in which these weapons are
referred to: Jeremiah 28: 29, " Is not my word like as a fire, saith the
Lord; and like a hammer that breaketh the rock in pieces?" the epis-
to the Hebrews, 4:12, "For the word of God is cjuick, and powerful,
and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing
asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a
discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart;" 2 Cor. 3: 18, "But
we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, .
are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the
Spirit of the Lord;" James 1 : 25, "But whoso looketh into the per-
fect law of liberty, and continueth therein, he being not a forgetful
hearer, but a doer of the word, this man shall be blessed in his deed;"
Illinois State Sunday School Convention. 71
Eph, 5: 26, "That he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing
of water by the word ;" which I think is a reference to the laver that
stood in the courts of Israel near the altar of burnt offering. The
seed is the word of God. See how admirably these are arranged
even as to their order. You need fire to burn away obstacles, to melt
that which otherwise you cannot subdue, and to burn up that which,
like underbrush, may hinder your progress. A hammer is to break
and split that which is too hard to be otherwise affected. The word
of God is put into your hands as a weapon — as a fire to burn away
obstacles, and get at human hearts; and as a hammer to break human
hearts when you get at them. Next it is a mirror. Every mirror
shows me what I am, but no mirror shows me what I can and ought
to be. In this mirror I see myself, and over against I see Christ
Jesus; and I learn that I can pass from sin to salvation— from the
man as I am in the first Adam, to the man as I am and shall be in the
second Adam. Then as to the sword: it is a two edged sword; one
edge of this weapon is the law, with its threatenings and terrors; the
other is love with its gracious invitations. You can cut with the law
only one way; you can cut with grace only one way; but when you
get the two edged sword with law on one side and grace on the other
you thrust the very soul. The same point penetrates and heals.
That is your weapon. Any man that believes in preaching the law
of God alone, or the love of God alone, will find it wanting in power.
Whet the edge of the law by the love and the edge of the love by
the law, and you will preach effectively and men will cry out, "What
shall 1 do?" I emphasize this because there is very little preaching
of the law in these days. It is a lawless age, and the righteousness
of God and the certainty of a future judgment are not presented as
they should be. Then there is the laver representing the word. The
same water that showed the priest the filth, washed it away; the
same word that shows me my sin becomes the means of sanctifying
me from the power of that sin. Now after you have the fire to burn
your way, and the hammer to break down opposition; after you have
the mirror to show men what manner of men they are, and to show
what Jesus Christ offers to make them; and by the sword with its
two edges, you have got to the inmost soul, what do you want to do?
Sow the seed. And the farther you get into the heart, and the deeper
you lodge the seed, the deeper root it will take and the richer harvest
it will yield. In these six figures you have a lesson which is far
greater than any lesson I could give you. Find out what the Bible
teaches and teach it.
There are six foundations that I hope none of you will ever fail to
build upon in Christ Jesus: the inspiration of the word of God, the
incarnation of the word of God in Christ, regeneration by the Holy
Ghost, justification by faith, the resurrection of the dead, and a future
state of rewards and punishments. I have not touched one single
denominational feature. All denominations believe this. We may
stand with our separate standards as the tribes stood each by itself
round about the ark of God, and the tabernacle is in the midst of us. I
want you to teach the Bible, and teach the foundation truths. Don't
stop to quarrel about the little things; they are of no importance; but
impress the six foundations of the word. Whenever a man gives up
72 Illinois State Sunday School Convention.
one of ihobc Ibundations he ultimately gives them all up. It was said
of a minister in Chicago that he was just like a snake, you could not
tell whether he was moving forward or backward because he wrig-
gled so. A man begins to wriggle as soon as he begins to doubt the
inspiration of the scrijjtures; doubts of the atonement and about the
divinity of Christ follow, and by and by he passes from supernatural-
ism to naturalism, which I am sorry to say is taught in hundreds of
pulpits in this land to-day, and they are called evangelical. The
people in the congregations do not discriminate enough to detect the
savor of naturalism in the pulpit. I know, my friends, that I may
never speak to you again, probably never shall, and I want to empha-
size these great things. You must learn to find the Lord Jesus Christ
in the Gospel, in the whole Bible, everywhere. In the British navy
there is a scarlet thread running through all the cordage. Every
piece of rope has this sign that it belongs to the royal navy. You
can take this precious Bible and you will find a scarlet cord running
through it — the precious blood of the atonement. Through all his-
tory you will find the Lord Jesus. You will find Him in the pass-
over, not because it merged in the Lord's Supper, but because it
represented the crucifixion of every lamb that was roasted for a pass-
over. And so everywhere through the Old Testament you will find
the New latent in the Old, as the Old is patent in the New — cut the
cordage where you will there is the scarlet thread; take the Bible
where you will there is Christ. And I tell you, you are not fit to use
the weapon of the scripture if you are not able to find Christ in all
parts of it. You can in this way correct the thousand false notions
concerning the Holy Scriptures. There are a great many wrong
concejjtions about faith; even Isaiah, away back three hundred years
before Jesus Christ, gave us the true conception of faith, said, " Look
unto me and be ye saved." We keep talking about faith until we
get the subject obscured. If I am going to give you something, what
what do you do? You look at the thing that I am oflfering; you do
not look at your hand. And when God hands out the crown of ever-
lasting life I must take it. I do not want to look at my hand. All
you have got to do is to look, that is all. All you have got to do is
to hear when God speaks; to taste when He offers His sweets.
Forgiveness is a matter of faith and not consciousness at all. I
simply believe what God has said, that is all. I can be conscious
of fellowship with God, of the operations of the Holy Ghost
within me, of the growing life of assimilation with God, but I
cannot be conscious of forgiveness because it does not belong to con-
sciousness. I know that I am forgiven — why? Because God says
so; because I have come to God as Christ commanded me to come,
anil I know he will not be false to His word; because I know that
Gotl cannot lie, and He has said thus and so. It may help hundreds
of people out of doubt and difiiculty to know that forgiveness depends
on faith. The eunuch went on his way rejoicing because he believed;
the jailor at midnight, believing on God, rejoiced; and any penitent
man will rejoice if he has faith, and if he has not faith he will not
rejoice. If you do not believe the word first you will never get the
sealing witness of the Spirit. Faith stands at the bottom of justifica-
tion and sanctification, and if you will take this Bible you can destroy
Illinois State Sunday School Convention. 73
all the notions that hinder inquirers from coming to Christ and hinder
believers from getting to a higher state of rapture and forgiveness.
The greatest need of any preacher, or of any teacher, is something
that I have been able only to refer to, the baptism of the Holy Ghost.
It is the one gift most lacking bv disciples; it is the, one gift most
necessary to bring the world to Christ. Above all things for which I
pray for myself and you is the power of the Holy Ghost to bring
souls to Jesus.
Third Day.
The early prayer-meeting, at six o'clock, was attended by about
one hundred persons, and a good interest was manifested.
First Session.
At eight o'clock, Brother Excell conducted the song service, after
which the session of the Convention opened with the hymn, "Gospel
Bells." ^liss Rider gave an outline of the lesson for next Sunday,
accompanied by suggestions on teaching, ^vhich was much enjoyed.
Rev. G. C. Adams, of St. Louis, was introduced b}- the President
with the following remarks:
One of the most important works that we have to do, is to train
those we must leave behind. It is the question of the hour. How can
we train young converts for effective work in Christ's church? I
believe that this has been the mistake of the church in the past, that
we have neglected this work. Brother Reynolds told me yesterday,
that the secret of our success in the church is the training of young
converts. Pastors all over the country are asking, "How can we best
train young converts for Christian work?" I rejoice that we are
going to have this subject brought before us now.
TRAINING YOUNG CONVERTS.
ADDRESS BV REV. G. C. ADAMS.
Fellow workers for Christ: — Our subject assumes that in this
age, this nineteenth century, young converts are to be trained. There
are churches all over the land — I have met them all over the State —
I have found them in every denomination — that treat yoimg converts
as stock men on the plains do their herds, brand them and turn them
loose; and at the end of the year get them together and look at the
brands and see how many of them have back-slid. This does not
belong to one denomination, it belongs to all; it is characteristic of a
great deal of our work for young Christians. The subject assumes
that we are going to train them; that we are going to make them of
some use in the church, that we are going to try to make them a
power for Christ.
74 Illinois State Sunday School Convention.
First. Of the necessity for this training. We do not deal with
anything else in this world as we deal with young Christians. The
young boy or girl gives his or her heart to Christ, and after a good deal
of fussing in the board of managers, perhaps is kept at arm's length
for some time to give him a chance to back-slide; and after he is taken
in, watched very suspiciously. They say, "look out for him; he is a
boy and likely to back-slide." 1 do not know why a boy is more likely
to back-slide than a man. But they turn right around immediately
afterward and take a man just out of the gutter, forty years of age,
and without discussion, take him in and praise God for his conversion.
And when he back-slides, they are astonished ; they cannot understand
it; that man had arrived at years of discretion; they expected the
boy to back-slide; he had not got years of discretion enough to be a
drunkard; he had got only far enough to say, "I love the Lord Jesus
Christ." When Satan cannot get around us in one way, he does in an-
other; and when he cannot prevent a revival he fills the good Chris-
tians with the idea that they cannot do anything with those boys and
girls. The Roman Catholic Church is sharper than we are. As I
gf^out of my church at any hour of the day or almost at any hour at
night, I meet a stream of boys and girls; they have them there at all
hours. It means that when one of those boys or girls is twenty years
of age, and I try to reach him, I cannot — he is a Catholic and you
cannot touch him. The young training, the influence on him in his
early days, is what fixes him for life and for eternity, and it is what
gives the priest the power over him. I glory in that thing in the
Catholic Church; we protestants may well look upon it as an exam-
ple for us.
Now when we purpose to take the boys and girls and train them,
the question arises, train them for what? A great many people an-
swer, train them for the church. You should get that idea out of
your heads. Stop this putting the church between you and Christ.
Use the church for what Jesus Christ meant it, the means by which
to get nearer to Him, not the end towards which everything is to
tend. We hear three people talk of the church where we find one
talk of Christ. A great many are devoted church members who are
nothing else. They are Christians of course, but their talk is always
their particular "ism." It is always the part^icular work in which they
are engaged. Let us put, not the church, but Christ first. We never
can, substantially and permanently build up a church organization on
denominationalism. When Christ goes out of it and does not use it,
where are you? You have wheels within wheels perhaps, but no
spirit in the wheels. These young people should be trained in and
through the church, so tliat they may become a power for Christ. A
large proportion of the churches have another thing in view also, and
they let it get in between them and the true knowledge of Christ; I
mean that somehow in our religious training, social privileges, men-
tal culture, and intellectual development are a great feature. If you
have the idea that you will lead the boy or girl into the church where
they will have the best social privileges in order that they may get
to Christ, the chances are very strong that those social privileges will
so engage the mind of the boy or girl, especially at that age when
they are most easily impressed, that you will loose that boy or girl
Illinois State Sunday School Convention. 75
for Christ. You may hold them in the church, but the one sole pur-
pose for which you want to train young people as Christians is for
Christ. Do not let anything get in between; do not let any specious
excuse make you turn off on any side track. There is only one way
to get nearer to Christ, and that is to fill the soul with such love for
Him that that is the absorbing passion. In the church that is the
warmest spiritually, where the Holy Spirit loves to dwell, is where
you find the boys and girls. 1 do not mean that where you find the
boys and girls in the church that is necessarily the case; but the boys
and girls like to go where it is warm. Keep the fire of love for
Christ in the hearts of the members of the church, and especially the
young members, and there is no fear but they will stay.
Now we are going to train these young converts; we are going to
train them for Christ; how are we to do it? By organization. There
is power in organization. You get three or four people appointed to
do a certain work and it is almost sure to be done. "This starting of
an organization is a little risky," says one; "I am a little afraid that
I shall not have time." If there is a new organization started in your
church and you have not your mind and heart on it, God help you,
that is all. Look into it and see what there is in it, and if it will ac-
complish anything for the cause of Christ, back it with all your
power. I am not afraid of organizations in my church so long as the
Holy Spirit is in them, and just as soon as the Holy Spirit goes out of
them I will kill them as quickly as I can. Who are your best mem-
bers spiritually, your best working members, a comfort and a solace
to the pastor? You begin with the deacons or the stewards or the
lay-preachers or the elders every time. The preacher will begin
with his officers every time. His efficient working church mem-
bers whom he begins to talk about are the officers of his church.
What makes them so? Because they are officers. When Artemus
Ward organized a brigade for the war he made them all officers.
And I believe in the chui'ch of Christ you ought to have every one
in some office. Organization is what brings out the best powers of
the members we have. Putting burdens on the shoulders of the
members of the church is what has developed our wheel-horses; and
the gi^eat trouble with some of our churches is that they are afraid
that the young horses will jump the traces, so they rely entirely upon
the old wheel-horses. It is by organization that we have brought
out the powers of different individuals in the church; it is by laying
burdens on the shoulders of the different members and consulting
and talking with them that we have sent soldiers into the Christian
ministry. We want to treat young converts just in that way. We
want to organize them for the work.
A little over a year ago a young lady, who is now in this room,
came to me with a letter to come iYito membership in my church. She
said that she should be there only three months but wanted her mem-
bership to begin. It is there yet, although she lives in Chicago; and
it stays there, and her influence is there; and I do not think there has
been a number in that church from the beginning that has left such
an influence as that one that was there only three months. God bless
her! The young people must be brought to work together. This
young lady organized in my church a meeting which has taken boys
76 Illinois State Sunday School Convention.
and girls and made of them the best church members I have. It is a
mighty power, moving forward in my church all the time. It has
become such a power as this: I say to the President of this Youth's
Christian Association, there is a young man that sat over there this
evening, who was intensely interested, and I think he wants to be a
Christian; will you hunt him up? "Yes"; that is all he says. Per-
haps before the next communion this young man walks in, flanked on
each side by one of the members of this Youth's Association. These
boys and girls do not give a tellow half a chance to backslide. One
young man, last winter, felt that something had hurt his feelings,
something was not right, and he dropped out — said he was not coming
any more. Well, we stood it for a month or so, and finally one even-
ing I was talking with some of the members of my Young People's
Association and I named this young man and told them that they
must bring him back. The next Sunday morning he marched up the
aisle. That is young people's work; that is what they are capable of.
There are boys, twelve years old, that have grown right up in that
Association in one year's time that my deacons say put them to shame
in the Wednesday evening prayer-meeting. They testify that they
have never seen such work as has come out of that Association.
I notice, that in some of the branches of the Y. C. A., there is a
little tendency to talk about associate membership. I cannot help
regarding associate membership as a weakness. The grand object of
this Youth's Christian Association is, that it allows no one in its mem-
bership except a Christian, and a memlier of the organized church;
and in addition, who will pledge himself to do whatever work is
demanded of him. See the power of that: Hunting up young peo-
ple, looking after the fallen, doing every branch of Christian work,
merely on a hint from the pastor. I do not think an associate mem-
bership is wise. If we had had an associate membership in our
organization last winter it would have swamped us completely. You
know in a great city, a great mania for social pleasures will sometimes
arise; and it brought a perfect epidemic for dancing. The best boys
I had went right into it. We could not see any way through it; but
we did what any shrewd pastor would, we picked out the right young
lady and sent her after one of the leaders and he came; and inside of
one hour after he made his confession, with tears plead with them to
come back. The whole thing stopped right oflf. You see the power
there is in the organization. The young people of a church go off
into those things like sheep over a fence; you must get after the lead-
er. The very ones who would have been the associate membership
if they have been connected with it, have been dancing to this day
and we cannot touch them. The members came back and are in their
places now.
Let me say to pastors and the elder members of the church, if there
is a Y. C. A. started in your church, keep out of it. There is noth-
ing that kills a Young Men's Christian Association so quickly as to
have old men in it. Just as quick as the old folks come into a young
people's meeting the young people go out of it, and you know it.
Young people go in bands like locusts; they like to be together as
young people. When there are young people together doing work
the older ones of course want to go in, but if they do the younger
Illinois State Sunday School Convention. 77
ones will leave. The pastor can be in such a hearty relation with
the leaders of the Y. C. A. that nothing of any consequence can hap-
pen in its organization which he will not know in an hour. You do
not always need to be in plain sight to steer; the pilot of a great ship
is never seen by the passengers. All the personal presence that I
have with my Y. C. A. is once in three or four months to run in and
say, God bless you, and perhaps point out some little defects, or some-
thing of that kind; and every week the leaders of the Association are
in my study asking my counsel. We pastors do not know the extra
work we are doing, because we have not the wit to put it on some one
else's shoulders. If a church has a membership of only ten, it can
be divided up into ten committees, and the pastor left free for the
great work of the church. Set the young people at some such work
as this; fill them with enthusiasm, and then stand by and watch how
they do it.
To conclude: In all this work, whatever form of organization you
take for your young converts, whatever method of training, the im-
portant thing is the one I have already emphasized — make Jesus
Christ all and in all. Do not let your Youth's Christian Association
sidetrack on to sociables, and all that. There is no enjoyment in this
world like leading souls to Christ. There is no work in the world
that so fills the young like working for souls. And friends, when
you have got a boy you have got a man; when you have got twenty
boys for Christ you have got twenty men ten years hence. You can
lead ten boys to Christ with the same amount of effort it will take to
lead one man of fifty, and hold the whole ten with one tenth the
trouble you would have with the old converted sinner. I urge you
to think on this thing; make it a matter of special prayer, and then
go into some of the work with your young people. Keep in hearty
sjnnpathy; make Chirst the main spring of the Avork ; make conver-
sions and spiritual work the grand aim of the whole, and God bless
you.
Mr. Adams was followed by Mr. W. B. Jacobs, on the subject of
Youth's Christian Associations:
YOUTHS' CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATIONS.
ADDRESS BY W. B. JACOBS.
Mr. President: — We have had two grand introductions to what
I wish to say to-day. Dr. Pierson said yesterday that every disciple
should be a worker for God. He told you that the Holy Spirit was
poured out on Mary and the other women, and that the men who
went to Antioch and organized that great church were just babblers
for Jesus — not preachers, not eloquent men, but men whose hearts
were so full of this new found love, this inspiring love for Jesus, that
they could not keep still, they just bubbled over and their words
reached other hearts; warmth gave warmth, life gave life, love
brought love, and that mighty work of grace went on in Antioch;
and Dr. Pierson also said that tlie command "go ye into all the world
and preach the gospel to every creature," was universal. It was from
78 Illinois State Sunday Schcx)l Convp:ntion.
God that all must work, that all may be reached: yet nine-tenths of
the professing Christians of to-day are not workers for God. There
are two opposing ideas of life; one is, and that is the business idea,
how much can I get out of it? and one is, and that is the Christian
idea, how much can T put into it? Nine-tenths of the church mem-
bers live with that worldly idea, "Plow much can I get out of the
church?"
Nine-tenths of our church members are thinking, "Can I have
heaven, can I have eternal life, can I escape hell, can I have good
society, peace of conscience, comfort and ease? I would like to be
as worldly as I can be and get to heaven. I would like to do just
as little Christian work as I can and get to heaven." And this is par-
ticularly true of the business men — the men of our churches; and
the boys follow the fathers and do not follow the mothers; the boys
say, let the mothers do it, and the girls the same, and it is becoming
true that the mothers are following: the fathers too.
One-tenth, possibly, of our Christian people are looking the facts in
the face, and they are saying with the love of Christ in their hearts,
"What can I put into this life; what can I do for God who has done
so much for me? " And to them no sacrifice is too great and no gift
too large for Him who made the greatest sacrifice and the great-
est gifts for us. I was down in the Southern part of this State when
an old minister said to me, "What we want is more Presbyterian
mothers." That was because his mother was a Presbyterian. He
said the mothers in our churches are not training their children. He
is a methodist minister. It illustrates one thing, that we are all reach-
ing out for some instrumentality that shall stem this tide that is
carrying our young people headlong to destruction; and desiring in
some way to rescue them for God. A revolution is needed. We
heard yesterday that after allowing for decrease by death in the church
the actual increase is but one or two per cent a year. Yes, a revolu-
tion is needed that the people may be trained for God. You Pres-
byterians and many others have read Dr. Herrick Johnson's grand
sermon in the General Assembly at Saratoga, and heard that great
cry going out of the heart of an earnest Christian for young men to
come forward and do God's work. See that grand old man going
back to Africa to preach the gospel because no one could be found
to take his place. And the Sunday School work, dear brethren, is
calling just as loudly. One half the counties of the State of Illinois
report no conversions during the last year. What does it mean?
We want to look at the solemn facts that are before us. If I were
to-day to announce an address on any topic you chose you would ask
me to talk on how to retain the older scholars, or how to interest the
young people. Fathers and mothers and teachers are mourning in
this audience for the young people under their charge. As I travel
over this State I hardly attend a convention but some mother or father
clasps my hand and says something like this: "Oh, Mr. Jacobs, I have
a boy — " and I know all the rest of that dark picture, — of a wan-
derer in some great city far from God. Mothers asking for their
boys and girls; it is a story that touches all our hearts and 1 do not
need to dwell upon it. Pastors and superintendents and parents find
plenty of room for mutual recrimination as things are going. Almost
Illinois State Sunday School Convention. 79
the last word in that old Book is the word " curse," and the only
way in which the curse of God shall be averted from our land,
from our cities, from our homes, from our hearts — the only way toavoid
it- — is tiie turning- of the fathers to the children and of the children to the
fathers by the mighty power of God's Holy Spirit working by some
agency to reach them. What have we been doing during- these
years? In the church to which I belong we used to have an active
young people's organization, but finding that out of one hundred
members seventy were scattered and no one knew where they were,
I went to the pastor about it and he said they could not maintain it;
they had run it into a social or literary entertainment; they had
thought that the young people must be amused and entertained and
they had been puzzling how to amuse and entertain them, and in the
meantime the young people said, if that is all there is we can amuse
and entertain ourselves, and they went about it; and out of that body
of young Christians there are not thirty in that church upon whqm
any one can lay his hand and say whether he is a Christian or
not. We worked on a wrong basis; they did not need any entertain-
ment or amusement. fDr. Adams said one of the most precious truths,
when he said that there is nothing that can give such pleasure to any
heart as winning souls for Christ. Two or three years ago I heard
of this Youth's Christian Association, that one of the grandest young
men I ever knew was pushing forward, and I was hardly persuaded
even to give him audience while he spoke of it; but I am now free to
declare before you that I believe this Christian Association will ap-
pear to be the grandest organization ever formed in the United States
for the salvation of young people. We do not begin to know the
possibility that lies just before us in this grand organization by young
people for young people and for Christ. As I have studied it, the
subject has grown upon me until it now fills my heart with precious
thoughts. We are passing away, brethren, and must have some one
to take our places, and this young people's organization will do it.
Twenty organizations of the kind now exist in Illinois, and they are
doing grand work for God, J may freely say this, the members of
this Youth's Christian Association that I have met have been
nearer to God than any equal number I have ever seen engaged in
Christ's service. I love to read their letters; I love to look into their
faces; I love to think of their influence, and to be where I can receive
a blessing from it.
Dr. Pierson told us of the Holy Spirit being poured out on Mary
and ihe other women, but I want to add, "the promise is unto you and
your children." What promise? the outpouring of the Holy Ghost —
"ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost." That greatest of all
promises is unto you and your children. I wish that we could realize
that God means what He says in His promise that this grand gift is
not only a possibility for us but for our children. I will give you
just one illustration: A year ago last winter I labored in one of the
churches in Chicago, and at the close of one of the meetings the pas-
tor said, "I want to tell you about that boy who has just been bap-
tized; his father was an infidel with IngersoU's books in his home;
his inother was a member of the church, but his father would not let
her take the boy to church or Sunday School, saying that the boy
80 Ii.MNOis State Sunday School Convention.
should go where he pleased. But the Lord led him to this Sunday
School. At the covenant meeting the people stayed and heard the
testimony of these young people, and that hoy gave his testimony and
experience and was received into the church. The pastor said, "At
two o'clock in the night I heard a knock at my door; I went down
and hefore opening the door asked who was there, and a hoys' voice
answered, "It is me, Fred; father wants you to come and tell him
about Jesus." "Your father?" "Yes. When I went home to-
night I just could not stand it and I waited till father came, and I
said, father, mother belongs to the church and I have been received
into the church, and I cannot stand it not to have you a Christian, and
1 have been talking with him and praying with him ever since, and
finally father said, go to your pastor and have him come and tell me
about Jesus." We do not begin to believe the faithfulness of the
promises of God.
One of the dearest Christian workers in this State has been prac-
tically opposed to Youth's Christian Associations, because some of
the pastors have been afraid that the organization will interfere in
some vvav or other with the work. That is just what will kill the
life out of the young Christians that you are gathering into your
churches. Do as Brother Adams has said, open your doors and your
hearts to them and let God work His mighty work of grace. This
organization is smiplc, straight-forward and practical, adapts itself to
any or all circumstances, and it may be organized in any town. Some
one has asked me if I would organize an Association in a town of
say two thousand; I would by all means organize in every church
where you can possibly get enough young people to commence it.
It furnishes your pastors the long sought for thing in the way of or-
ganization. It is a dawn of light — the consecration of young Chris-
tians' hearts to the service of the Christian's God. It means business —
practical work. But if there are not enough young Christians in one
church you can have a union organization. You can organize a
Young People's Association out of half a dozen boys and girls if they
are all Christians; but you cannot keep them at that number, it is one
of those things that has got the go of the gospel tn it, and there is
nothing on earth that can hold it down; it will reach from class to
class, it will reach from church to church, it will reach from town to
town, from State to State, from nation to luition, until the world is
filled with the grand enthusiasm of young Christians going out in
the name of Christ our Lord and carrying his gospel to every creature.
Two things should be before us: Get the organization started
right, and then give them a chance to work. Talk to me about the
teacher that cannot interest her boys, that cannot get a boy or a girl
interested in the lesson I If there is anything in the world that a boy
wants it is to know things. He wants to see everything that is going
on, how it came to be there and what they are going to do with it;
and he wants to know the same about these lessons; they want to
know and ihcy want to work. My little nephew comes over and I
say, Harry don't you want to do this? And he says, '-Yes sir ree,"'
and he goes home and says to his mamma. "I do like my uncle."
Why? Because I gave him something to do. This Youth's Chris-
tian Association proposes to furnish work for young people amongst
Illinois State Sunday School Convention. 81
young people, and it does it in the most practical, simple and system-
atic way. The objects are: First, the spiritual development of the
members; and second, the conversion of all unsaved withni the bounds
of the community in which they live. Can there be two grander
objects than these? The spiritual culture and development of the
young people in the church, and the saving of all unsaved youth
within the community — the object is grand enough, you will agree
with me. I think it is a return of apostolic times in the church in
the nineteenth century. 1 do not know of any grander conception
than that of these young workers meeting once a week to talk
over their Christian work and ask God's blessing upon it. Then
there is a gospel meeting once a week taken charge of by the young
people themselves. I am too old to belong to it but not too old to
rejoice in it. This organization takes part in all Christian work.
You will find the most active workers in your Sunday School are
members of the Youth's Christian Association. You will find them
in all church work. They can be depended upon to take part in your
23rayer-meetings. They propose to do all that is to be done that they
will be permitted to do, and help all they can. Their two mottoes
are, personal holiness and personal efforts for the reaching of others.
The article on qualifications from the constitution is as follows:
Art. V. — Membership. Sec. i. The qualifications for mem-
bership shall be: an exemplary Christian character; the evidence of
a sincere desire to work for Christ; a membership in good standing
in some evangelical church; time, and such consecration to the Mas-
ter's service as excludes all questionable amusements, and pledges a
giving up, if necessary, of unquestionable pleasures for the sake of the
work.
Sec. 2. Any young person reported by the membership committee
as possessing the full qualifications, shall become a member upon re-
ceiving the unanimous vote of the Association, signing the constitu-
tion and covenant, and paying the yearly fee of fifty cents.
The T. C. A. Covenant is as follows :
I am not my own! I am bought with a price! I am to glorify
God in my body and spirit which are His! I therefore solemnly
make covenant with God, and with all members of the Youth's
Christian Association.
1. I consecrate tny life to God. I will show this by an exemplary
Christian character; by earnest Christian work; by giving up all
questionable amusements, including dancing, card playing and theatre
going; and, if necessary, by giving up unquestionable pleasures for
the sake of the work.
2. I consecrate my time to God. I will show this by regular
attendance upon the meetings of my own church, and of the Y. C. A.;
by engaging earnestly in the work of the Sunday School; by faith-
fulness in secret prayer and Bible study, and by personal efTorts for
the salvation of others.
3. I consecrate my property to God. I will keep a strict account
with Him, and give Him week by week, or at longest year by year,
ten per cent of my entire income. I will give all it brings sacredly
6
82 Illinois State Sunday School Convention.
to God, and will pray Him so to direct my judgement that I may use
all I have in such a way as will most advance His work and the glory
of His name.
Could there be any grander thought than this; the Holy Ghost
given to young Christians? All at work for God in their own
churches, in their own classes, in their own communities. I beseech
you brethren give this young, living, Christ-like Association a glad
welcome in your Sunday Schools, in your churches, in y"ur towns.
When it knocks at the door open gladly and let it in, for I tell you it
is a guest from heaven that is seeking admission there. And when
the record of its work is made up and you and I stand before the
great King and see the rewards given and hear the words of com-
mendation, we will rejoice because of the help and encouragement
afforded these young Christians in their efforts, and we shall join
with them in a grand song of praise and thanks-giving to their Mas-
ter and Lord and to ours.
At the conclusion of Mr. Jacobs' address the following resolution
was unanimouly passed :
Resolved^ That the work of the Youth's Christian Association, is such as com-
mends it to this Association of Sunday School workers of the State of Illinois,
and has proved the practicability of such Association; therefore we heartily
endorse the Youth's Christian Association and we commend it to the Sunday
School and all other Christian workers of Illinois as an excellent means of train-
ing joung Christians and reaching the unsaved young people of our State.
FAXON MEMORIAL.
Mr. B. F.Jacobs called the attention of the convention to the ap-
pointment two years ago of himself as treasurer of a fund known as
the Faxon Memorial Fund. He had received $163.80 from diflferent
schools, and $8 additional had been contributed by this State and sent
to the treasurer at St. Louis. He wished to know whether that
money should be sent to St. Louis, or whether we want to do some-
thing more than $163 for the Faxon Memorial Fund.
Wm. Reynolds said, no man in the State of Illinois had done more
for the Sunday School work than Stephen Faxon. He labored here,
entered the work here, and died near here. We do not want to send
such a miserable pittance as $160 as the contribution of this conven-
tion for a man of this character. I hope every school will increase
this. I will give $50.
Rev. G. C. Adams said he was secretary of the fund from Missouri.
He was surprised how soon people can forget a noble man. A great
many who got up and talked so eloquently about raising this fund had
not given a cent. He was still at work upon it, but had not done so
much as had been done in Illinois. He hoped they would not let it
drop.
Illinois State Sunday School Convention. ^3
B. F.Jacobs said: I think if we are going to do anything at all we
should do something that shall be creditable; let us decide, that is all.
Brother Excell sang the favorite hymn, "Glory, glory, glory."
After which the whole congregation joined in singing, "Revive us
again."
The Committee on Nominations completed their report as follows:
For Treasurer — B. F. Jacobs, Chicago. '
For Executive Committee—^. F. Jacobs, Chairman ; M. C. Hazard, A. G. Tyng,
J. R. Mason, P. G. Gillett, T. S Ridgway and T. P. Nesbitt.
They recommended that the Executive Committee appoint Mr.
W. B.Jacobs, Statistical Secretary. The report was adopted and the
convention adjourned.
Third Day — Second Session.
At one o'clock, a meeting of County Secretaries was held in the
Baptist Church. At two o'clock, thcsession of the convention was
Qpened with the hymn, "I love to tell the story." Rev. N. C. Dev-
ereau of Kankakee, led in prayer. The topic, "How to conduct a
Sunday School was opened by E. D. Durham of Onarga, and con-
tinued as followed by others:
HOW TO CONDUCT A SUNDAY SCHOOL.
REMARKS BY E. D. DURHAM.
Friends, Bbethren and Sisters. — One would almost think tha
the only reason we come over to Streator on this occasion was to sit
down together and have a good time; for we are certainly having it,
and our entertainment, both physical and mental, has been such that
we must necessarily have a good time while together. Yet there
was something more than this that we came for. I see in your earn-
est faces that you came here with an object in view, and by your earn-
est attention to the words from this platform, I see that you are
trying to get something out of this convention that you ma}- take home
with you, that may benefit you in your work. We have had almost
all the workings of a Sunday School, almost all the different branches
of the Sunday School work, spoken of from this platform. The Su-
perintendents, officers, and teachers of the normal, Bible, and infant
classes have all been referred to; this is fittingly the place where we
gather up and arrange what has been taught us here and see how to
conduct a Sunday School, I suppose it would be impossible to have
any ironclad rules by which to conduct a school. There are circum-
stances concerning you as officers and you as teachers in your work,
different from those that concern others of us in our work. There
are circumstances that require different treatment; things coming
84 Illinois State Sunday School Convention.
up in your school every day that need a course of management
that mine would not, and in mine that yours would not. But I think
what we have learned here may be put in practice; may be modified
*so as to fit almost every case. It is for the benefit of teachers more
than anything else that this convention is being held; that we may
go up from this place to our schools feeling strong in God and know-
ing that thousands of brethren and sisters all over this State are sym-
pathizing with us and lifting hearts to God every day that we may
succeed in our work.
As to the method of conducting our school, I do not know that I
can say much that will be of value to you. In the first place we have
the teachers' meeting, and we settle on a line of thought that we will
teach in all the classes, trying to suit the classes. We teach the same
central truths every Sabbath. We begin our regular order of exer-
cises at half-past two, and spenil about ten minutes with opening exer-
cises followed by singing, and then we have prayer; next we read the les-
son, and then sing again. We then disperse into our different classes;
and on account of our previous work on the lesson we have the conscious-
ness that every class in that school is being taught about the same
thing. I do not see how a Sunday School can be run without active
teachers' meetings. After we have taught our lessons in the different
rooms, we come together at the tapping of the bell and have a short
review of the lesson, given by the Superintendent generally, but
sometimes by a teacher who has developed a special nptitude for it.
We close at half-past three, and then cement the work of the day
by holding a prayer-meeting. We invite all to remain, and our
prayer-meetings after the Sunday School are growing wonderful) v
interesting. The scholars are beginning to take part; they pray and
speak. We make it short. We ask God as one man that He will
seal what has been said to the salvation of those that have beent aught.
We are doing well; Jesus is with us and helping us, and names are
being added to the church and to God. The Master is from time to
time graciously giving us the fruit of our labors; and we come up to
this convention encouraged, and will go back more encouraged. May
we take the teachings from this convention and utilize them to the
salvation of souls.
C. F. SPOFFORD, OF WARREN.
Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen of the Conven-
tion.— In our Warren school we have our Sabbath School immed-
iately after church service, commencing at twelve o'clock and lasting
one hour. I will tell you our plan for conducting a school. I want
to find the best plan and adopt it, if it is better than the one we are
already using. We open promptly at twelve o'clock. While the
scholars are coming in — generally about ten minutes between the
closing of the church service and the opening of the Sunday School —
I call on the chorister and have singing while they are gathering.
I call the school to their feet when they come in and we have the
opening exercises, responsive reading, which is short. While we are
on our feet we sing, and then the pastor or the Superintendent lead<=
in prayer. Immediately after the prayer we call the school up and
Illinois State Sunday School Conventiox. 85
read the lesson of the day ; that over, we sing, the chorister presiding
at tiie organ. While they are singing the last verse the primary
class passes out; the rest of the school remain in that room. Nine-
teen classes remain. The opening exercise takes from tw^elve to fif-
teen minutes; a half hour is given to the study of the lesson; five
minutes before the time expires I tap the bell to warn the teachers
that it is time to take up their collection and prepare for closing up.
The chorister then goes to to the organ and announces a piece to sing,
and while they are singing it we have the collection taken up. The
librarians also distribute their library books during the singing of that
hymn. Then we always have a blackboard exercise, which is con-
ducted by the Superintendent, the pastor, or some of the teachers; and
let me say right here that I do not not believe in one person doing
that work every Sunday, it will become uninteresting and the pur-
pose for which it was inaugurated will be lost; if possible every
second Sunday we should have a change, to make it interesting.
Take no more than three minutes to impress the spiritual truths of
the lesson upon the school. The secretary's report is then given.
He reports the attendance of the scholars and teachers and the num-
ber absent. Then if we have any announcements to make they are
made; they sing the closing piece and go home. We give out reward
cards monthly to the intermediate and primary classes for their faithful-
ness. We have a banner which is given to the class which makes
the best average during the preceding month. The average is taken
on attendance and lessons. Each teacher has a register and gives
to the scholars credit for what they do;- the secretary takes that card
and makes up the record, and the banner is given to the class that has
the best record. The smaller classes generally get it. I find that this
works well in our school. It keeps up a better attendance; the schol-
ars feel that they must stand by their class and by thesr teacher, and I
think that this plan or some j^lan like it should be adopted in every
school.
H. B. ROACH, OF RUSHVILLE.
Mr. President. — My experience in superintending a Sabbath
School is not very great; this is my first year. I love to do it because
I love to work for my Master; and I love to help to bring others to
Jesus, and I think there is no better way than through the Sunday
School. Every Thursday night we haveour teachers' meeting, which
is led by our pastor usually, but we change the order of exercise. We
appoint one Thursday night teachers for the next Thursday night to
lead the meeting, or rather to give their way of teaching the lesson
for the first Sabbath following. We do this until we have gone
around through all the teachers, and then w^e will go back to the jDas-
tor and then make the round of the teachers again, in this w^ay we
bring out from each teacher the way in which they teach their classes.
Our object in our teachers' meeting is to bring one thought before the
teachers and let that particular thought be taught. Let that be the cen-
tre. On the Sabbath morning we meet at 9.15; commence singing
and sing until 9.30, Then the opening exercises of reading — each
member reading. This quarter we are reading, or rather reciting, the ten
commandments as our first lesson. After that we have prayer, either by
86 Illinois State Sunday School Convention.
myself or some one else. Then we have a song, and during the sing-
ing our infant class passes out. The infant class contains nearly fifty
members, out of a school of two hundred and twenty-five. I think
the infant class will average fortv. After that class has passed out we
read the lesson together, and then go directly to the study of the les-
son and spend half an hour in the classes. After the lesson the first
thing is the distributing books and making the collection, which take
about five minutes. We have then the report of the secretary — num-
ber present, officers present, teachers and scholars. Then we have a
short review of the lesson. This (|uarter I have been conducting the
review myself; next (|uarter we will allow some one else to do it.
We this a little better than to have a difTerent person conduct it every
Sabbath, because at the end of each cjuarter we want a general review
of the whole (juarter, and the person who has conducted the review les-
son during the whole time is better cpialified to manage the general
review. We close promptly with a short prayer. Our school is
growing.
.^ucstio7t. By one of the audience.
Where do you get your supply teachers in case a teacher is absent?
Mr. Roach. Our pastor has a large class of adults and I always go
to that class.
!^?4estion. Why let the infant class pass out during the singing?
Mr. Roach: So as to create as little disturbance as possible. During
the fifteen minutes while we are singing and reading, the infant class
is present; but they must pass out before we commence the regular
lesson, and we do this so as to have as little disturbance as possible.
Sluestion. What is the superintendent doing with himself while
the classes are going on?
Mr. Roach: I look around the church and see if there any boys out
there and if there are I bring them in and then look around the classes
and see that the classes are all paying attention to the teachers.
J. C. EHERSALL.
Mr. President. — We have only a small school. We meet in the
school house at two o'clock. We meet to try to do some good to each
other; they to help me and I to help them, if I can. First we sing, and
then we have a prayer, then recite the golden text and suggestions of
the lesson; then we have another song and then go to studying the
lesson. The several classes all meet in one room. I use the black
board every Sabbath, and ask help from those around me, and ask
them questions, and any one that will, I ask them to use the black-
board. We take about half an hour over the lesson, and at the end of
the school I ask a blessing, recite a text from Scripture and we are
dismissed.
Rev. A. Gillett, of the Sunday School Union of the M. E. Church,
addressed the Convention, the subject being, "How to Teach the
Lesson."
Illinois State Sunday School Convention. 87
HOW TO TEACH THE LESSON.
ADDRESS BY REV. A. H. GILLETT.
Mr. President and Friends of the Convention: — The
theme which has been assigned me this afternoon is one of the most
important themes before this Convention. The work of the teacher
is the work for which all the other work for the school is done. The
opening service must have reference entirely to the opportunity of the
teacher; the closing service must have, or ought to have, reference to
the work of impressing the truth which the teacher has diligently
taught during the lesson hour. I do not think we can weigh too
earnestly the sensible words that have been uttered here concerning
proper opening and closing services. I believe if there is one danger
in this age it is that we are liable to fall into ruts, to get into a formal
way of opening and closing our schools, so that the free intercourse
and outpouring of the Spirit of God upon the teachers and the pupils
of the school are prevented. There are many times when, at the
close of a lesson on some heart-searching subject, it would be more
than proper to set aside all the closing forms, and with a brief invoca-
tion and a word of song coming from the heart moving the minds
and consciences of the pupils, draw the school nearer to the foot of
the cross, and then immediately press upon every conscience present
the duty of immediate submission to the truth and immediate conse-
cration to Christ. I do not see why it should be necessary to send
our young people to a praver-meeting to get them to the altar. In
connection with the teaching of the school, while the teachers are all
aglow, while the pupils are all impressed, I do not see why the op-
portunity should not be given for ^lie free operation of God's spirit in
the minds and hearts of all the pupils.
Before taking up my topic, there are several preliminary thoughts
to which I wish to call vour attention. I have already spoken of a
proper introductory service. I think too often we fail to understand
what this means, and accept the printed forms of service as they are
recommended to us without sufficient thought as to their appropriate-
ness— as to whether they are directlv related to the work to be done
on that particular day, and whether they are so arranged as to arouse
the proper devotional spirit in the minds of the pupils and the proper
feeling of responsibilitv in the minds of the teachers. A great deal
can be done in this wav hv the Superintendent. Let him keep every
thing under his hand and m complete submission to the great purpose
of the school, and not allow it in anv way to run over the real work
of the school. The work of librarian, secretary, messenger and usher
must be entirely subordinate to the great purpose in view. Let the
superintendent shorten or lengthen the hymns if necessary ; it is often
well for him to select scripture passages so as to preserve the great
thoughts which the teachers have been trying to impress upon the
hearts of the pupils; and he might even arrange so that the prayers
should be after the same manner. Let him hold all these forces in
this way in his hand. This wise selection and judicious arrangement
is a matter that offers much room for the skill and ability of the su*
perintendent; so that we may rightly say to a candidiate for this office,
88 Illinois State Sunday School Conv^ention.
"You hjxve a large and responsible task before you; it is not a mere
matter of presiding and keeping order; it is a matter of selecting and
arranging truth so that it shall accomplish its mission in the minds
and hearts of the pupils. Secondly, there should be a clear concep-
tion on the part of the teachers f their own personal responsibility
to God for their work as teachers. They stand in relation to their
classes exactly the same as the pastor does to his church and congre-
gation; and 1 believe that teachers ought to come to their work on
the Sabbath day with something of the same humiliation, the same
sense of personal responsibility, that same tiinid trembling before the
truth and its awful responsibilities that the pastor feels when he stands
behind the desk on God's day to declare the unsearchable riches of
Christ's kingdom. In the next place there should be faith in the
truth — the whole system of biblical truth — faith in the Bible. Not a
mere acknowledgment of the general relations of Christianity, not a
mere concession that there can be nothing brought ag:iinst the Bible
or Christianity; there must be a hearty, genuine, complete acknowl-
edgment of the individual mind and conscience to the supremacy of
God's truth and (jod's church over all the other work to be done in
this world, I think that this is not sufficiently understood or appre-
ciated by the great body of Christian workers; we sometimes take up
our work in too light a spirit. 1 would not make teachers morose,
melancholy, or dyspeptic in their religion, but 1 would see to it that
with all cheerfulness and vivacity there should be at the sjime lime a
mighty grip of faith on the great doctrines of Christianity and the
great doctrines of the church. Every teacher should feel the full
responsibility and dignity of his position, as a Division Commander
sits upon his horse in time of battle, with every muscle and every
nerve strung to its utmost tension, ^eady to do the work the Lord has
called him to do and to do it well. In the 4th place, beyond all this
there should be dependence on the part of the teacher on the work of
the Holy Spirit. While the teacher should do all he can in the work
of preliminary preparation, every faculty of the mind well disciplined
and trained, and all sources of information within his reach mastered,
so that he is thoroughly acquainted with the history, geography, chro-
nology, and biograph}' of the lesson, and having a thorough knowl-
edge of the best methods of imparting this to his pupils — with all
this there should be the most thorough and complete dependence
upon God's Holy Spirit. When the Spirit comes to quicken and en-
lighten all these latent faculties and gives quickness and accuracy and
precision to the teachers touch and the teachers glance and all his
movements before his class, then there will be conversions from the
teachers' work. And no matter how skillful and precise may be the
mere educational work performed by the teacher, if this baptism be
wanting there will not be conversions.
"Teaching the Lesson," includes 1. A clear vision of the truths
that are to be taught in the lesson. With our modern lesson system
and abundance of helps, one of the dangers is that our minds may be-'
come loaded up with a vast amount of confused material. The very
abundance confuses us. We may collect a great quantity of historical
and biographical facts that would beautifully illustrate the points of a
lesson, but we hardly feel certain as to which should be brought be-
Illinois State Sunday School Convention. 89
fore our classes. We may be weighed down by their very abun-
dance. Now the first thing is for the teacher to have a clear vision
of the truth or truths that are to be taught in this Sunday's lesson.
A great deal of material must be kept in the background; a
great deal must be put out of sight entirely; and he must be con-
tent to take one, two or three truths as the pastor or superin-
tendent may direct and have these firmly held in mind. A long
side of the truth there must be a clear vision of the pupil as well;
not merely a general view of the class as a whole, but of the individ-
uals; and the minds of the individuals must be so present and so
clearly in the mind of the teacher that he shall make wise selections
of the truth for each individual case. There must also be a clear vis-
ion of what is to be sought through the truth in or on the pupil.
There should be in the work of every teacher a direct purpose in the
selection, arrangement, and presentation of the truth that must be
held in mind as well as the truth itself. Thus we have seen that the
teacher should have a clear vision of the truth; a clear vision of the
pupil as an individual; and a clear vision of the aim to be sought in
bringing the truth to the pupil.
2d. Correct approach. — A wise manner of getting at a lesson.
The, usual way is, "What was last Sunday's lesson? Have you all
got your lessons? As many as have got your lessons raise your
hands." There should be a careful selection of a way of approach
to the lesson; and about the first thing we ought to impress upon our
teachers as a mass is, that there is more than one way to introduce a
lesson — to fasten the attention of the class upon the truth of the lesson
in such a way that the teacher shall be heard during the entire lesson.
A teacher once began by saying to his class, "How many of you were
at the political meeting yesterday afternoon?" The worst boy in the
class raised his hand. The teacher expected that and he began to ask
this boy three or four questions about the meeting. It drew the atten-
tion of the class, and he was in this way able to lead them towards the
central thought of that day's lesson so that every one understood it.
At another time he would begin by remarking that walking along
the street he saw a runaway team, and describe it in a few words;
and from this circumstance, in which the boys were all interested, he
was sure of having the attention of every boy in the class. The
teacher then shrewdly, carefully and quickly drew the attention of
the pupils to the central thought of the lesson. Many ways of this
kind are open to the teacher. History is full of events, without sen-
sation, yet fascinating enough to command the immediate attention
of any class. The teaching of the lesson includes a connect approach;
and it is worth our study. Said a professor in a college, "Always be
careful about the first sentence in a public address, and of the last
words that fall from your lips." Care should be taken not to forget
about the words that are to come in between; but certainly it is an
important thing in a public speaker, and so with a teacher. The
skillful teacher will be careful about the first and last words. Aim
to give a clear statement of the truth in the lesson. I believe that
much of the scepticism of young people of this day grows out of the
fact that in our Sunday Schools there is a great deal of evasive and
ignorant statement of biblical truth. In every teacher's mind there
90 Illinois State Sunday School Convention.
should be clearly formulated and dcHned the proof that is to be stated
before the class; let him not have that evasive mind that hesitates
about accepting the whole truth, that waits a moment, and is embar-
rassed and trembles, and goes around or crawls under. A teacher
must be able clearly to state the truth. The statement of truth
should be made with skill. There are, of course, several different
ways of teaching; there is, for instance, the questioning method,
and there is the lecture method; but it is alwxiys well to depend to a
great extent upon skillfully formed questions to build up in the mind
of the pupil a cumulative grip upon the truth that is formulated upon
the teachers' lips. A teacher may so make a statement that it will be
at once admitted by every pupil, which would have been rejected but
for his skillful tactics in drawing out answers to his questions leading
up to it. Dr. Williamson, of Chicago, had a method of conducting
Teachers' Meetings, which was very valuable, I think. It was briefly
this: The teachers met at an appointed hour, and after a very brief
opening service the Bibles vvere opened to the lesson; no helps were
permitted in the room, except, perhaps, a dictionary or map. They
read the lesson responsively together to get the lesson text well in
mind, then the leader with a quick and accurate secretary by his side
read the first verse of the lesson and told them to ask him every
question they could think of concerning it. The secretary records
the questions in a book, carefully avoiding repetitions and duplicate
questions. They went through the entire lesson in that way, simply
looking for the interrogation points. They then turned the tables
about; the Secretary reads the first question under verse one, and the
leader asks the teachers the answer to that question. The leader is
thoroughly posted on the lesson beforehand, and takes care that no
erroneous answers are allowed to pass. In this way each teacher
has a course of training in framing and stating accurate questions.
In the next place, the teaching of the lesson includes apt illustra-
tion. I do not mean that all the illustrations that are given in the
Sunday School journals, or the lesson helps, or Foster's Cyclopaxlia
should be memorized and used; I mean simply that where the truth
needs more lightsome incident or fact shall be selected that shall carry
more light to it. The uses of illustrations should be to illuminate the
truth, to aid the memory, and to impress the truth; and if they can-
not do one or all of these three things, they should not be used at all.
A clear and accurate conception of the truth as it lies in the teachers'
mind, and in the heart of God, can often be conveyed bv the use of an
apt illustration. The truth lies a great many times in the mind like
the interior of a dark and gloomy room, and an illustration well sel-
ected and readily given is like the rays of the sun as they come
streaming into that room through the opened blinds. The pupil sees
at once its relation to the truth and heartily responds.
Then there should be Recapitulation. There can be no teaching
without it. We must repeat again and again. Lastly, there should
be a close personal application of the truth of the lesson to the indi-
viduals of the class, not by calling out directly each member of the
class by name during the class hour and seeking in this public way to
impress tlie truth, but by presenting the truth in such a general state-
ment that it cannot help going to the heart of each pupil present.
Illinois State Sunday School Convention. 91
You know how, sometimes, a minister will, in his sermon, make such
a general statement that almost every member of the congregation
thinks, "I wonder how that man knew all about me." Every teacher
should have, to some extent, that power of framing these general
statements and general appeals so that they shall include in the gen-
eral the personal and the specific. With this power there will come
the baptism of God's Holy Spirit resulting in the conversion of the
pupil and the up-building of his character unto Christian manhood.
The Foreign Sunday School work was presented by O. R, Brouse,
as follows :
FOREIGN SUNDAY SCHOOL WORK.
REMARKS BY O. R. BROUSE.
Mr. Albert Woodruff of Brooklyn N. Y. is the founder and Presi-
dent of the Foreign Sunday School Association, the object of which is
to carry the Sunday School idea into Foreign lands. I have a pack-
age of papers here that was sent on by Brother Woodruff with the
request that the attention of this convention should be called to his
work. Yesterday afternoon, when Dr. Pierson w^as speaking, it seem-
ed to me an opportune moment to tell you of this foreign Sunday
School work. I cannot make it more forcible perhaps than to
recall to your minds the thought that Dr. Pierson gave us, and tell
you that this association is formed exactly upon the basis that Dr.
Pierson spoke to us about. Brother Woodruff believes in reaching
the people, through the children, and by methods, adapted to children.
It is not a foreign missionary society; it is not denominational ; it is
not a money making scheme; it is simply putting into the hands of
the people in the different countries papers and lesson helps and in-
struction about how to conduct Sunday Schools, to enable them to
organize Sunday Schools, and thus reach the parents and bring them
to Christ. Mr. Brouse mentioned that he had circulai's giving infor-
mation about the work, and also exhibited specimen copies of Sunday
School papers printed in Japanese, Chinese, Spanish, German and
other foreign languages. Referred to the fact that since the organi-
zation of The Foreign Sunday School Association in Germany, they
have commenced organizing schools. In 1S67, they had 51 schools
gfter several year's labor. (Mr. Woodruff's method is to write to
some one who is interested in the evangelical work in the country, in
Germany for instance, through a German amanuensis, and interest
him in the work of Sunday Schools, so that the schools thus estab-
lished in Germany have been having their influence, for the 51 schools
of 1867 have grown to 253 in 1S82. If you can put on foot an agency
that will run more rapidly than that, God speed you.
REMARKS HV B. F. JACOBS.
We want more laborers in this harvest; and let us get ready to go
ourselves and have our children go. I thank God for this work. It
it amusing when we see what noise and confusion we make about a
little work, to see what mighty results have followed the quiet work
92 Illinois State Sunday School Convention.
of Mr. Woodruff. It ys tweiily-fuur years biuce he visited our con-
vention and spoke to us about our work — systematic benevolence.
I should Hke to make a suggestion as to how we can gradually
perfect, or at least improve, our plan for raising money for benevolent
purposes in the Sunday School. I suppose that you know that there
are very few schools that give one cent each Sunday for every mem-
ber in the school. An average would be two dollars a Sunday if you
have a school of two hundred members. There are many that do
not give more than half a cent, yet there are Mission schools that are
not as wealthy as yours, with not a rich member in the congregation,
that have run the average for a whole year up to five and even six
six cents a member. 'One of the most deeply interesting and popular
papers that was read at Toronto was on that subject; and we deter-
mined to adopt it in our school ; have a memorandum kept in each
class of how many give, not how much they give, but how many
every Sunday, and have the number recorded. One school in New
York has reached the point where four Sundays out of five there is
not one omission, not one who does not give something, from the
superintendent down to the least mite in the primary class. Now,
that in itself would quadruple, more than quadruple all the contribu-
tions that we give. It can be done with a little card. I wish to say-
that I will give, or find somebody to give, a reward of twenty-five
dollars, either in books or a banner, or anything else, to the school in
the State of Illinois which will make the best rejtort in this respect
to the State officers this year. A gentleman in the northern part of
the State, the Rev. Mr. Parkhurst, has made an offer that he will
give the writer of the best little tract on county and township work,
a premium often dollars, and I will add fifteen dollars more, making
a premium of twenty-five dollars. The tract shall be submitted to
the State Committee, and a gentleman has promised to print and
give the State Association twenty thousand copies of the tract for
distribution in Illinois. Let us have the tracts; you may send them
to me and I will have some of the brethren appoint a committee to
decide on them, and then let us have twenty thousand copies, in order
that we may have the people better educated on this subject.
Miss Mary West, of Galesburg, spOke on Temperance Work in
the Sunday School, as follows:
"KEEPING OUT THE WOLVES."
Temperance Work in the Sunday School.
ADDRESS BY MISS WEST.
"Keeping out the wolves." The wolf, intemperance, comes to us
in sheep's clothing. There has never yet been a great evil in any
Christian land, which did not try to hide behinil the Bible. We all
know how polvgamy and slavery and every other great organized
evil has attempted to prove its right to be, by the Bible, and intem-
perance is no exception to this rule. We bring this matter into a
Sunday School Convention because it comes to us as a part of Bible
teaching. All over the land we have at times to meet the assertion
Illinois State Sunday School Convention. i>3
that the Bible is not a temperance Book. Only last week as I was
talking Bible-temperance a lady, who stands as a Christian, said to
me, "1 would advise you not to say anything about the Bible in rela-
tion to temperance, for the Bible is against you." Seventeen thous-
and children in the schools of San Francisco, lately wrote temperance
essays, and every one of those pupils who referred to the matter
spoke as though the Bible encouraged moderate drinking. Is there
not something for the Sunday School to do here? In our Sunday
Schools is there no danger that our boys and girls are going down to
destruction because they do not know that the Bible is a temperance
Book? Have we as Sunday School teachers done our duty in that
respect? If we have not, and the wolves come and tear the flock,
will not God require their blood at our hands? It seems that God in
every age brings His people face to face with some great evil.
"Twenty years ago it was American slavery; for years and years slav-
ery was proved by the Bible to be a divine institution. We have not yet
learned to read our Bibles. The truth of God seems to me very
much like these flowers at my side — closed up in the bud, opening
out gradually a petal at a time until we have it all disclosed. We do
not see the truth until we are brought face to face with it; we all,
who have been working in this field, have found as we go to God
asking Him to give to us from that Bible that which shall be the
salvation of some soul which is going down to ruin, that God won-
derfully opens it up. And as I look down in this audience I see men
and women before me who have had years of experience — to whom
the Bible is to-day a different book than it was a few years ago, be-
cause the Holy Spirit has shed His light upon it. The attractions
and temptations of the dramshop are always before our young peo-
ple, and it seems to me that our first work should be to study this
Bible in the light of God's help that we may know what is His will
concerning this matter^ — this is our duty as teachers. If we anxiously
and prayerfully go to God and ask Him what is His will, we will
find it. As an example of how for years and years we go on reading
the Bible without understanding it, I may mention the use of wine at
the Lord's table. Supposing we wish to partake of Christ's blood
which was given for our lives, but object to taking intoxicating drink ;
you know we are continually met by the reply, "We must use wine,"
and they turn to Webster where it is said that wine is the fermented
juice of the grape, — "We must use wine, because Christ said so" — as
though Christ looking down through the centuries and seeing the fu-
ture, made such a vile mixture as our modern wine! The "Fruit of.
the vine," is what is said. Notice how at the time of the Passover,
everything producing ferment was vigorously excluded. It is a con-
tradiction to suppose that fermented wine was intended. The setting
of our pupils right on that one point would be a good year's work.
I have in mind now an instance told me by a pastor of a man who
had been addicted to drink; he reformed and united with the church,
where he took the sacrament; the cup revived his maddening appe-
tite for drink and he went out from that ordinance and down and
down until the delirium tremens ended his life. That was oYie of the
results of not teaching God's word aright. We should get our boys
and girls fixed in the fact that there are two distinct kinds of wine
94 Ii.KiNois State Sunday School Convkntion.
mentioned in the Bible, and that God never speaks approvin<:rly of
intoxicating wine. We often hear that if we wish to be strong we
must take strong drink; now when God wished to make the strongest
man physically that ever lived as a type of physical strength, He
took such pains to see that he should never touch intoxicating liquors,
that lie sent an angel down from heaven that even his mother should
not so much as eat grapes. When God wanted a strong man phys-
ically. He took pains that not only he but his mother should not
touch strong drink. When God wanted a Samuel to judge Israel,
He gave him just exactly the same kind of training; and thus we are
taught that mental strength and vigor comes through temperance.
And John the Baptist received the same training. Now God gave
those instances for us that we can come before our boys and girls and
say to them, "when God wishes to make the strongest and ftiost beauti-
ful types of physical or spiritual strength, it is through the strongest
kind of abstinance — prohibition, not "high license," prohibition out
and out. I have hardly begun upon the lessons that are taught upon
this subject in the Bible. Now, is this subject important enough for
us t<^ give a specific time in our Sunday Schools? Is it of sufficient
imj)ortance to bring before this Convention? I speak freely here, be-
cause nobody in this audience loves missions more than I do; out of
my own Sabbath School class have gone seven pupils into the work
of foreign missions. I believe as firmly as I believe anything in the
work of Christian missions, but I do not say that we need to bring
that in here, for it seems to me that it does not touch right home to
the vital interests of our children as the temperance question does.
Here is this terrible wolf; there is nothing else in this age which so
antagonizes the teachings of the Sunday School as this does, and
therefore I think this is the place where it should be brought in.
Temperance is a Christian virtue; it is enumerated as one of the
fruits of the Spirit; and I think the Sunday School is the place where
it should be inculcated. Common sense dictates that wherever there
is a sin by which our scholars are most in danger of being injured,
that is the sin which we should guard them against, and I do not be-
lieve that any of you hesitate in thinking that this one sin is just as
dangerous as any other sin that threatens our pupils. The Woman's
Christian Temperance Union has been for eight years, beseeching
the lesson committee to give it one lesson in twelve, but they have
not chosen to do so. It may be just as well, though of course we do
not think so. Let us, however, always be studying the Bible and
give the truth of this matter to our pupils just as we do any other.
I believe it pays us to give this subject a special time; once in three
months is an excellent plan. T do not urge it here, because our wise
brothers have decided against it; but if vou do not do that, let us see
in what other ways you can get at it. We have our Sunday School
concert in many of our churches; in some places every third concert
is given to this subject of temperance. Once in three months let us do
that in our Sundav-Schools; let us see that our children have temper-
ance reading in their Sundav School papers, that in the library they
have pifre temperance teaching; and let us see to this svstematicallv
and not hap-hazard. The proposition has come to us at head-tjuar-
ters, that the Children's Day, the 24th of June, be utilized in this
Illinois State Sunday School Convention. 95
manner, and a very fine temperance lesson has been prepared by Dr.
Herrick Johnson for that day. Every three months we have a spe-
cial lesson prepared ; they are issued in leaflets, and you can use them
as a guide in devoting that day to temperance. Let the children be
pledged, and have them understand that it is a promise made to God ;
that it is to be kept sacred; let the teachings of the school keep it
continually in their mind. We must not neglect this. Remember
that children grow; we pledge this set of children and do not remem-
ber that next year another set comes on. These are but a few of the
methods by which temperance work can be done among the children,
but if it is in your hearts you will employ every means in your power
to impress it upon the young. I wish to lay it upon the conscience
of every man and woman here, that you have to answer to God for
the souls entrusted to your care. This wolf is abroad seeking them,
let not your children be abroad without being fore-armed and fore-
warned.
REMARKS BY WM. REYNOLDS.
I hope the remarks concerning the pledging of the Sunday School
will be heeded. We are having a great battle now, but it is nothing
to what we will have. The future drunkards of this country are the
boys to-day; and how necessary it is for us to understand that and
use every means in our po^^er to keep the young people right. The
great impediment to the Gospel of God to-day is intemperance, and we
must comprehend this and fight it in every way possible. Now I be-
lieve the Gospel is a remedy for every sin in the world. To-day the
sin that we are to fear more than anything else is the sin of intemper-
ance. Every saloon that is in Chicago or Peoria, is an emissary of
hell, they are the roads to the pit. It is the most insidious and at-
tractive sin. Just as our young men and boys are drawn away to the
saloons our power commences loosening until at last we have no power
to control them. The corrupting power of liquor concentrates within
itself all other iniquities. It is the crying sin of this country; it is at
the bottom of three-fourths of the crime and sorrow that we have in
our country to-day. Let us use every effort within our power to
take this matter into our Sunday Schools, for it affects us more than
any other one sin. Let us use every possible way — do it by example,
by precept, do it by the word, do it continually.
William Reynolds, answered questions asked from the audience as
follows :
Question. What is the best time for holding a Sunday School —
forenoon or afternoon?
Answer. It depends upon circumstances. I prefer the afternoon.
I don't like it as an attachment to any other service. If you have it
at the close of a service the people are all worn out by a long or dry
sermon. Have it separately, and in the afternoon, if possible.
Q. Supposing part of the congiegation come five miles to church?
A. Let them start earlier on that account. They can come five
miles to sell their wheat.
Q. They have got to have some dinner.
A. All right, let them bring their dinner and horse-feed also.
yO Illinois State Sunday School Convention.
Q. (By Mr. Jacobs). Can you suggest to this Convention a first
class plan by which to know how much every person in the school
gives — how to secure the money in the best way?
A. I have a class book prepared in my school; the name of every
scholar is down under "contributions"; and the amount they give
every Sunday is placed there; the teacher reports at the end of each
month how much is given by her class, and who it is that gives it, if
I call for it. It is just as easily kept as the attendance.
Q. What about Teachers' Meetings?
A. I am a little weak on Teachers' Meetings. It is the hardest
thing in the world for me to keep them up, for this reason, that the
helps that we have now, get teachers to feel that they can prepare
themselves at home. I am perfectly sound on the theory, but weak
in the practice; am absent from home considerable and do not want
to ask my pastor.
Q. Ought the pastor ever to superintend?
A. No, he should not be called upon to do that work; he should
not be loaded down with that labor, because it is layman's work; but
under certain circumstances he has to do it.
Q. How are the teachers selected, and if an inefficient one is selec-
ted, how is he dismissed?
A. The pastor and officers of the church select the teachers. They
are educated; brought up from the Sunday School. I have 40 in my
school, and I think that 30 out of the 40 are being educated right up
step by step. Those teachers are subjected to an examination as far
as their faith, and the internal evidence of the Bible, and external too,
is concerned.
Q. Is it the place of a church to appoint teachers for the School?
A. Yes, I think so. I think the church has power over every
department of it.
Q. Don't you think it would be a good plan if they also had a
conference with the teachers?
A. Yes, we do in our school. In this training class of ours pupils
are fitted for teachers, and we are familiar with them, and we pass
upon them and invite them to a class. I think I have one of the
very best infant class teachers; she had her training under Miss Mary
Burdett, one of the best teachers I ever knew, and she learned the
art of teaching.
Q. Would it be a good idea to have some simple form of conse-
cration or ordination for teachers?
A. Yes, I believe it is a very high and great office, greater than to
be President of the United States, or anything else; I believe in sur-
rounding it with all proper dignity. Being inducted into otbce by
some small service of this kind would deepen their feeling of the high
calling that it is. The more I think of it the more I exalt that posi-
tion of being a teacher.
Q. What do you think of two or three parties being appointed a
reception Committee in a large school?
A. Yes, certainly ; I have that in my school. One stands at the
door and makes those welcome who come in, and tries to get them to
work. He is a big hearted man and when he shakes hands with
them makes them feel that they have got hold of something, or at
least, that he has. He does that school an immense amount of good.
Illinois State Sunday School Convention. 97
B. F. Jacobs, offered the following prizes:
1. A prize of twenty-five dollars, to the Sunday School that reports
to the next State Convention the best contributions for benevolent
purposes during the year, from June 17th, 18S3 to 1884. (Not includ-
ing money spent for the school.) The whole number of membership,
the number contributing every Sunday, and the amount given, to be
the basis of award.
2. A prize of twenty-five dollars, to the school of more than one
hundred scholars, that reports the best average of attendance and les*
sons for the entire year.
3. A prize banner, worth twenty-five dollars, to the county that
makes the best report to the next Convention. The basis to be: 1st.
Townships organized and Township Conventions held. 2d. Sys-
tematic visitation of the whole county. 3d. General average atten-
dance compared with total membership. 4th. The total Sunday
School membership, compared with the total population of the
county.
The following gentlemen were appointed a Committee to examine
the books and vouchers of the Treasurer: Wilson Hopkins, Jesse
Hubbard and J. L. Saxon.
After prayer by Rev. A. H. Gillett, the Convention adjourned.
Third Day — Evenhig Session. ,
B. F.Jacobs offered a resolution, thanking the citizens of Streator,
who had entertained the visitors so hospitably. The delegates had
been received in their hearts as well as in their homes; they had eaten
of the fat of the land, and he was sure none of them would carry away
an evil report.
Resolved: That the thanks of this Convention be extended, 1st.
To the citizens of Streator^ for their generous and abundant hospital-
ity, in entertaining the large number of delegates present at this Con-
vention. 2d. To the Local Committee who have so thoroughly and
so faithfully performed the work of preparing for, and providing for
the Convention, and to the Boys who have served as the pages for
the Convention. 3d. To the Methodist.^ Baptist^ and the Evangel-
ical Churches., for the use of their houses of worship. 4th. 7(? the
Press of this city for the full reports of the proceedings of the Con-
vention. 5th. To the various Railroads who have favored us by
reducing the fares. •
The Rev. J. Haney of Streator, said: "If you, the strangers and
delegates, who have come among us are satisfied, then we are grati-
fied, and if you are gratified then I assure you we are satisfied." Then
said, he should like to take the authority to put a motion, without any
formality, to the citizens of Streator: "All you wlio have entertained
these guests, and have been pleased with their coming, and would be
T
98 Illinois State Sunday School Convention.
delighted to see them come again, stand up." The motion was en-
thusiastically responded to.
Rev. Panhallegan of Streator, said : When the matter washroached
some months ago in regard to holding this Convention here, and it
was intimated to us that we would extend an invitation, that perhaps
it would he accepted, I thought of the high honor of having this no-
ble body meet among us, these noble men and women whose names
are known in all Christendom, and that we as disciples might sit and
learn at their feet; I thought it was too great a good, and I said, "No,
we cannot entertain such a Convention; we are not able to take care
of such a body." And I thought we were not worthy of such an
honor. But my Brother Haney, said the Methodist Conference was
entertained here five years ago when this city was but in its infancy;
and we thought that now when such a body with such a record would
come on such a mission, certainly we could open our hearts and homes
and churches and take this Convention ; and if we could not do as well
as Bloomington, or Champaign, or Centralia, or some of the other
cities, we would do the best we could, and we knew that you would
be satisfied with that. We are glad that we invited you, we thank
God for it. We are glad that you accepted the invitation and that
you came; we are glad that you came to our homes; that we have
been permitted to receive instruction at your feet; that we have been
permitted to look into your faces; that we are better men and women
than we were before; that our city is a better city; that our Sunday
School work is understood better than it was before, and that a spirit
of earnestness in Christian work is abroad in the hearts and in the homes
of Streator, more than ever before. You will leave behind you, I
assure you, a benediction and a blessing.
Before this assembly shall meet next year many a noble worker
shall have answered the roll-call of Heaven, but the influence of this
Convention, the aroma that has gone out can never lose its strength;
and in the years to come, as our city shall grow and develope, and as
Christian people shall go forth to build up Christian homes and
Christian churches, to do the works of Christ, then we shall be the
better and the stronger because of this meeting in our midst, and for
the instruction we have received from you.
Some one said that when the meeting was held at Champaign, a
few years ago, it could not be told whether a man was a Methodist,
a Presbyterian, or a Baptist; but a stranger thing has happened in our
family. Several came to my house, and I could not tell for the life
of me who were the preachers and who were the laymen. You
have came among us not as members of denominations. I am glad
to see the Methodist has put aside his twenty-five articles, the Episco-
palian has forgotten his prayer-book, and the Baptist has forgotten the
meanyig of the word "baptizo," and we have met as friends of the
Master, fellow workers in the vineyard of the Lord, all interested in
taking the rising generation by the hand and lifting them up so that
they may grow up strong men and women for the Lord Jesus Christ.
You have heard of the old man who caused the army to pass before
him just before he djed. They held him up, and as the old veterans
came by they waived their hands and said, "We have been brave,
we have been brave," and the old man looking out said, "Ah yes, you
Illinois State Sunday School Convention. 99
have been, but then Hke me you are going down the hill, and when
you are gone who will defend the country? " And then came by the
young men, strong, stalwart, manly, and they called out, "We are
brave, we are brave;" "Ah yes," said the old man, "there is hope I
see, our country is safe." But the thought comes to him that these
are following the others and will soon go down with them, and then
who is to come up and take their places? Then came the children;
and as they came by with light hearts and ringing voices and buoyant
step they said, "We will be brave, v/e will be brave, we will be brave,"
And the old man wept for joy and said, "Now I will die, for my coun-
try is safe." And so with some of you grand old veterans in this
work, you have grown old in the service of our Master, you will soon
pass away to the Lord; and here are younger men who are doing a
grand work for this country and God, and for humanity; but when
you have gone on to your reward here are boys and girls who are
being trained in the Sunday School. They are catching the spirit
and are coming up to the help of the Lord; and in this great Missis-
sippi Valley, where the battle for freedom and for Christ is to be
fought, here where the people are rushing from England and priest-
ridden Ireland and atheistic France, they can be led to the Bible and
the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ. Our children will be soldiers in
the great struggle which is to come, for it will come, and one feels
that he would love to see it — I would like to be in it, for the issue is
not uncertain. Victory is ever on the side of truth; God is on our
side, and truth is on our side, and truth is a plant perennial which
will bloom despite the winter's blast and the scorching rays of the
summer sun.
Now we thank you that you came among us. We rejoice in what
we have heard and what we have seen. Now carry away with you
the assurance that you have our hearts and our payers, that you have
won us. Will you not remember us as you go out to your homes,
we working here and you there? Remember that we are all strug-
gling in the same vineyard, seeking to glorify the same Master. By
and by may we meet around the same throne and vie with each other
in casting our ci'owns at the feet of the Lord Jesus Christ.
The President introduced the Rev. A. H. Gillett, of Michigan.
ARDRESS BY REV. A. H. GILLETT.
Mr. President: — I am not sure whether I am from Michigan or
not; in fact I have been trying pretty hard to find out the place I am
from, and to whom I belong. I was born in Michigan, and lived
there all my life until last October, when I moved to Ohio; and since
October, I have been li\^ing most of the time on railways, and spend-
ing a good deal of my time in the South. I was prese'nt the 5th of
last month, at the Georgia State Convention, and had the pleasure of
standing before an audience, nearly, if not quite as large as this, in
which there was nearly, if not quite as much enthusiasm, as in this;
and of hearing, what I was very glad to hear, the most cordial and
fraternal words of greeting, from that old State to all the States North
of Mason and Dixon's line. I received, as a representative of a
Northern State, one of the most hearty and genuine receptions I ever
lOo Ili.inois State Sunday Schooi. Convention.
received in my life; and llieretbie, as 1 know it would be perfectly
proper for me to do, knowing well the spirit of the Georgia State
Convention, I bring to the Illinois State Convention the greetings of
Georgia, as well as Michigan. And I know that Col. Cowden, of
Ohio, if I could get his ear, would delegate me to speak for Ohio.
Only a few days ago I was in Iowa, and knowing their hearts, 1 bid
you God-si^eed also, in the name of Iowa. Do you wonder that I
hardly know where I belong?
Your hearts have beeii stirred by so many eloquent appeals that
there seems hardly to be anything left to be said ; and, indeed, this
audience seems to night to be in a frame simply to enjoy the things
that may come rather than to listen to any formal address upon any
theme, however important it may be. But after all, I remember that
we, as workers, cannot afford to spend all our time in congratulations.
We can, as we pass each other just grasp each others hand with a
"God bless you," and push on. We can speak words of cheer in
these large gatherings and delight ourselves in good fellowship, but
the Lord requires also good solid earnest toil, during all the days of
the year; and if we expect to come back to this meeting next year to
report such an interest as we feel to-night, it will be possible to us
only in proportion as our souls are enlarged by giving and doing all
the days of this coming year. So I want to ask your attention to a
topic wliich may, perhaps, have been discussed in the Convention be-
fore, but the importance of which will justify any repetition: " "The
advantages of the Sunday School as an Evangelistic Agency." First
in the way of mission work. I wish 1 had tiie power of condensing
into five minutes what I can see as I look over the history of this
wonderful work, not only in its relation to the work of the churches,
but in relation to the great mission work all over the world. It is
not very long ago, when from the North of Scotland, there went
over to Fr ince a gentleman in quest of health. He was almost
broken down, but the sunny clim.ite of France restored him to health
and he began to look about the city of Paris, to see what he could do.
He came to Bellville, the centre of communistic influence in Paris
and in France. Once, down its streets, the cannon of the French Re-
public poured grape and canister into the ranks of the communists.
On all sides were gambling dens, saloons, and worse places of iniquity.
Mr. McAU, heard of Bellville; and a voice that he did not hear with
his natural ear encouraged him to attempt a work there. A friend
told him that he was foolish to entertain any such notion for a mo-
ment. But that still small voice that St. Paul and Peter heard, and
that has made the preachers of Christ strong and eloquent, and pow-
erful in all the ages, whispered to his conscience and would not let
him rest. So one day setting aside the advice of his friends he took
his wife with 'him and went down into the Bellville. They stopped
on a street corner and began to sing one of the songs of the Scotch
Kirk. As the song ceased, a stalwart young fellow stepped up and
said, "In what name do you come? Are you here in the name of the
church?" and Mr. McAll said, "I am not here in the name of the
church." "Are you a priest?" and the words fairly hissed through
the clenched teeth of the young man, as he remembered how for hun-
dreds of years the priesthood had ridden on the necks of the people.
Illinois State Sunday School Convention. loi
"I am here," said the preacher, "that I may bring bread to your hun-
gry, that I may clothe your naked, that I may turn your hopeless and
desponding hearts towards the Comforter; I am here to labor for your
interest." The young man's heart was touched and he offered his strong
arm to defend the missionary, should he be in danger. Mr. McAll
organized a school, then another, and then another, until to-night in
the Bellville there are 69 of Mr. McAll's Bible Missions. In rifteen
years the Bellville was redeemed from the powers of sin, and instead
of being the abode of outlawry, it has now become as respectable as
any other locality in Paris; and it is all due to the influence of this
simple Bible Mission School of Mr. McAll and his co-laborers. And
the influence has spread through the cities and towns of France until
something like one hundred and fifty of them are bringing their
friends by the score to the feet of the Lord. Napoleon Bonaparte
never reached an eminence of power, such as that occupied by that
earnest, faithful missionary of our Lord Jesus Christ. And so picture
after picture might be given from the history of other cities and other
countries, showing what marvellous deeds have been accomplished
through the flexible and easily adiipled machinery of the church, in New
York, between the Bowery and Broadway, there is a large brick
building, you can read over one door, "Hospital," and over another,
"Reading Room and Library;" a man will put into our hands a pa-
per and you read, "A voice from the old Brewery." There are those
who remember when the old Brewery was one of the most abandoned
places of New York City, and they will tell you of the work that
began under its shadow. They were determined to do what they
could to save the city from this awful curse. A Mission School grew
until it demanded larger quarters, and some one proposed to buy the
old Brewery. It was a den of infani}', saturated with crime, in which
the vicious and ignorant and degraded nested like rats and mice, in
dens and caves of the earth. A large meeting was called in one of
the large halls of New York, but as the meeting went on the hearts
of the people did not seem to be moved. John B. Gough sat oi^ the
platfcuin, and he was invited to speak. During the progress of the
meeting he learned from a small girl the story of her life; her home
had been in one of the rooms of the old Brewery, her mother a drunk-
ard and her father an outlaw and a vagabond; again and again she
had been kicked out into the streets by her brutal parents; again and
again had the room been stripped of its furniture in order to buy
drink; but one day the little girl had ventured into one of these mis-
sion meetings, and by and by through her importunity the mother's
heart was touched, and finally she was converted and she began to
sweep the rooms and bring back their former neatness; and finally
the father was converted. Gough told the story of this family, and
said that a few days before he had seen a crowd on the street and el-
bowed his way through and found a young woman dead drunk in the
gutter; suffering great indignity at the hands of the crowd. "V\ hat
is it worth," said Mr. Goug:h, "to save a girl like this from a fate like
that? " "One thousand dollars," cried some one, and then another,
and another, and another, and in a few minutes over $S,ooo were
raised to purchase that old Brewery.
I believe that right here in your own town of Streator, in forgotten
103 Illtnois State Sunday School Convention.
rooms, in lofts above or in cellars beneath, there are neglected chil-
dren, that will not come to your Sunday Schools, that could be trained
and fitted to enter the Sunday Schools, and in a single year a thous-
and children might be brought to Christ who could not be brought
by ordinary methods. If in all our cities the spirit of enthusiasm per-
vaded the people, until in every foigotten place th^re should be a
school of this kind, within a quarter of a century America might be
redeemed for God and the power of Satan almost broken in our
midst. Let us have individual labor in these lone and by-places, where
the work is simple, where there is no recognition from men, and
where only the Father in Heaven can see.
Now as to the value of the school in our regular work. It is neces-
sary, it seems, in the work of the Church now, very largely for us to
go on toiling month after month, and year after year, and then begin
a special series of meetings of evangelistic character to reap the fruit
of those eighteen months sowing. I am not quite sure that God re-
quires us to plant and weed and water and drill eighteen months before
we can reap anything at all. But I am sure that if every man and wom-
an and child who believes in Him should become a direct teacher of the
word and go from hearth to hearth, and from home to home, it would not
be long until the world would be brought to Christ. The pastor
of a Church has, say, twenty teachers in his school; he of course con-
ducts the regular preaching of the word, and no one ought ever to
undervalue that department of the Church; but after all, when we
have given all due allowance for that, there is another kind of work
the preacher ought to do. He ought to be able to lay his hands
on these twenty teachers in such a way as to awaken in their hearts
the same interest he himself feels, to kindle in them the same enthus-
iasm that makes him the strong laborer that he is. His work is not
done when he simply does what his own hands and his own voice can
accomplish; he should see that every one of these people is a lay
evangelist. What wonderful opportunities a teacher posesses.. Who
can come so close to the "hearts of the children as the one who sits be-
side them on the Lord's day and tells them of the wonderful things
the Lord has done for them? Who can teach their hearts as quickly
as the teacher? The teacher goes to her class of twelve or thirteen chil-
dren filled with enthusiasm in her heart, and as she follows out these
points day after day, and week after week, she may bring every one
of them as a jewel to place in the crown of her Master. In a school
in a city of 4,000 in Michigan the pastor was earnestly engaged in the
work. The superintendent was thoroughly in love with the Gospel
and its work, and sought by every possible means to secure the best
work for Christ in his school. Finally by the, removal of a family a
class of young ladies was left without a teacher. There were thirteen
of them from sixteen to eighteen years of age, and some of them be-
longed to the most wealthy and cultured families in the community,
and were a little addicted to frivolity, new dresses and that sort of thing.
They looked forward with a great deal of interest to the time when they
could enter society as its queens, and there was very little place in
their hearts for more serious subjects. What to do with this class of
girls, not one them converted, not one of them in the Church, this
superintendent did not know. Finally he bethought himself of a good
Illinois State Sunday School Convention. 103
woman who was always ready to do what she could in all the regular
work of the Church. Any duty however humble she performed
gladly. So he went to her; she said she could not teach; she had
had no educational advantages and was not fit to teach a class in the
Sunday School. He went to his pastor with the story and wanted
him to see that sister; and the pastor went to her and said "I think you
ought to take a class in the Sunday School; I think God will open to
you a way in which you can reach hearts that you cannot in any oth-
er way." Finally she consented; the superintendent pointed out the
class ; she looked at it, and tears came to her eyes ; she felt
comjDletely discouraged. She thought any other class but that one;
she was a working woman, her husband toiling for the bread they
both ate; how could she bring these giddy, thoughtless young girls
from the thoughts of their homes, and their society? But she began;
some of the girls laughed, and others turned their faces to avoid
laughing; and there was a general feeling among part of the class
that the Superintendent was trying to perpetrate a joke on them.
She was plainly dressed; ^o ornaments on her bonnet, she was too
poor for that. But by and by it began to be noticed that the class was
taking an unusual interest in the study of the lesson. Before, they
had always been restless, but now some way it seemed that the}-
were all ready when the lesson was opened to enter upon it thorough-
ly. After a while this lady got one of the girls to go to her home.
She overcame her own pride, and after a while invited them all, and
they all came, and in her plain, simple home, she so won their hei.rts
and so obtained control over their lives, that after that, she led them in
almost all their thinking and working, and in a few weeks five of that
class were received into the membership of the Church ; six weeks
had hardly gone by when four more were baptized at the altar, and
before four weeks more the last of the thirteen was brought to Christ,
all through the efforts of this faithful, diligent and humble soul work-
ing for the Lord Jesus Christ. May this point out to you what every
teacher may do by the grace of God- God grant that his blessings
may be poured out upon these scores of teachers as they go to their
homes. God grant that a thrill of saving power may go out through
Illinois, and that through this instumentality at the end of the year
the secretary shall report at the next covention hundreds and thous-
ands brought to Christ through the agency of the Sunday Schools in
the state of Illinois.
Rev. B. .Y. George of Cairo, was introduced, and spoke as follows:
ADDRESS BY REV. B. Y. GEORGE.
Mr. President and Friends: — I wish to talk to you first aboul
a short passage of Scripture. You know how Job in one place de-
sires that his words may be graven with an iron pen and lead in the
rock forever. That wish for an immortal record could be justified
only by his having something to record, which, in the first place, he
profoundly believed to be true, and which, in the second place, was
profoundly important to the world. We are not in doubt as to what
the inscription was that he wished to make: "I know that my Re-
IC54 Illinois State Sunday School Convention.
deemer liveth and that He shall stand at the latter day upon the
earth; and though after my skin, worms destroy this body yet in my
flesh shall I see God," It was the outshining of a faith that no cal-
amity could extinguish. It was the uprising, the rising heavenward
of a faith, which, though under the tempest of cruel human suspicions,
was beaten down like some strong sapling to the ground, yet in
some lull of the storm sprang upward and pointed to the sky and
waived its head, because its root was struck deep down into the soil of
God's promises and sure covenant of redeeming mercy. Now Job's
wish was not granted in the form in which he made it; but the words
of his faith have found an inscription, more valuable, more important,
infinitely more enduring in the pages of this word of God. They
have been by the wonderful magic of divine grace transferred and
inscribed upon the thoughts and hearts, religious experience, and char-
acter, and the spiritual and immortal life of millions of God's true
children. And as through these thousands of years they have not
lost any of their old freshness, or any of their old preciousness, or any
of their old power to invigorate or inspire, they will inscribe them-
selves in time to come upon many millions more; and this is the high-
est wish any man can have, for his best and noblest thoughts to have
such an inscription of them as this. Now I call your attention to the
fact that the Apostle Paul deliberately trusts to this kind of an in-
scription, and declares that he was engaged in the great work of this
latter kind, for in writing to the Corinthian Christians he says, "Ye
are our epistle written in our hearts, known and read of all men; for
as much as ye are manifestly declared to be the epistle of Christ min-
istered by us, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living
God; not in tables of stone, but in fleshly tables of the heart," or as
the revised version has it, " — In tables that are hearts of flesh." It
was a grand thing for any man to be able to sav that he had written
letters like that. But Paul does not exactly say that he had written
the letters: they were written by the Spirit of God; Paul was a min-
ister, the instrument used by the divine power and grace. The Holy
Spirit took posession of him as he turned himself over to that divine
guidance and made him the instrument through which the Almighty
wrote Plis own letters, and the Apostle says that these letters were
letters of indorsement, letters of commendation. They are the divine
indorsement of his work. They have been transcribed upon his
heart and he remembers them with aflfection and pride, that God has
thus certified to his apostolic ministry, I don't know how I can better
describe a work that you are engaged in than by saying that you are
striving to do what Paul did, as instruments in the hands of God,
turning yourselves over to Him to be used by Him, You are striv-
ing to write living epistles — epistles upon the thoughts, the effections,
the dispositions, the governing motives, the firm fixed ruling princi-
ples, the character, and the spiritual and immortal lives of human be-
ings— epistles that shall be known and read by all men, perhaps for
many years to come, and perhaps when you have gone home to your
reward — epistles that will not be consumed even by death itself.
They are living in the sense that they will never die — blessed and
glorious records, that cannot even be burned up with fire. When
the great wreck shall come that shall sweep away all other traces
Illinois State Sunday School Convention. 105
of earth, these living epistles will be preserved, that they may
be read on God's judgment day. God grant that they may be
to the glory and the praise of the work of the divine grace that
has been wrought by you here on earth. God grant they may
be so read that you may not be ashamed on that day. They will be
epistles that will shine out with greater clearness and splendour
through all the eternal ages. Now this is the work that we want to
do as Sabbath School teachers and workers. The nature of the work
defines the disposition we should bring to it. We want to write these
epistles of Christ. We want to write Christ, for that is what Paul
said to write. What we desire is to write the blessed likeness of the
Son of God on these living tables that God has given us as the mater-
ial for our inscriptions. And so when we are preparing for our work
we are to keep this steadily in view, "How can we best inscribe Christ
upon the thougts, upon the character, and upon the lives of those who
are committed to our instruction?" We are, therefore, in preparing
for our work, not to prepare as though we were going to teach his-
tory or rhetoric or geography, although we may teach the geography
and history of our lesson; we may teach the grammatical construction
of the sentences and their logical connection ; and we may call attention
to the beauties of the rhetoric. There are a thousand things that cen-
tre around the subject of the lesson that we ought to study thoroughly
and be prepared to teach if necessary. Whatever was important
enough for the Spirit of God to put there is important enough for our
classes to know if our time permits; and if we allow these things to
engross all our study, all our preparation, then I am afraid that we
may be charged with giving to our classes the letter which killeth
while we have left out the spirit which maketh life. Above all, let us
seek the Spirit, the engrafted word that is able to save all souls.
Therefore, in every lesson we must hunt for saving truth, and make
all these other matters of instruction centre around that truth. We
ought in every lesson to hunt for Christ, and we can find him in every
lesson; and we will so fill our souls with Christ and the great truths
concerning Him that when we come to our classes we can arrange
and subordinate these minor matters of geography, history, &c., and
present the living image of the Son of God as the great central point
in the picture that we hold up to our classes, and make Him the great
thing in that inscription which we make upon their minds, their mem-
ories and their hearts. When I say this I think of Paul. He could
be the minister used by God for writing these epistles, for he could
say: "For me to live is Christ; the life I now live I live by faith in
the Son of God." He determined to know nothing but the Son of
God and Him crucified; and when he comes to tell what he preached,
he says, that God had given him the unsearchable riches of Christ as
his subject. I have often thought of that expression he uses, "The
unsearchable riches of Christ." Shall we not try to be like Paul in
our conception of the riches of Christ that we are to bring to our pu-
pils? We know that after he had received this call to this great
work, he spent some three years studving, undoubtedly studying the
unsearchable riches of Christ. That theme was with him through all
the changes and journeyinsfs of his eventful hfe; it was with him to
give him courage and confidence as in danger of his life he was bur-
io6 Illinois State Sunday School Convention.
ried down on horseback by the soldiers froni Jerusalem to Caesarea. It
was with him when he lay in prison bound in affliction and irons; it
was then the theme of his meditation and the subject of his son*^; it
was with him as he closed his eyes in sleep and as he rose from his
resting place. Surely we may say that ifever a man studied any subject
Paul studied the rich grace of the Lord Jesus Christ. lie studied it from
every aspect; sometimes he would take his stand along side of Adam and
from that position would trace out among all the developments the bring-
bringing forth of God's great purpose of love and mercy, and trace the
stream of our salvation backward and upward to its source in the word
of God. And then he would take his stand by the cross of Christ and
see in that the central object, the pivot upon which turned the whole
history of God's moral government. Sometimes he would contem-
plate the beauties that present themselves like the glittering spray
of the ocean on the very surface of his subject. Again he would dive
into its profoundest mysteries. He would reason upon it, and set it
forth with all the power and pathos of a polished orator. Surely
we may say that if ever man studied any subject Paul studied the
riches of Christ. He studied the subject from its beginning to its end;
in its underlying principles and remotest applications, in all its parts
and subdivisions and ramifications; and when he comes to speak of it
he says simply — "The unsearchable riches of Christ."
If any of us ever get conceited about our knowledge of divine things;
if any of us think we have sounded all the depths and shoals of truth;
let us turn to this inspired Apostle, to this prince among all the preach-
ers of Christianity, and hear him after all his years of exploring through
the mystery of the Redeemer's grace, speaking simply of the unsearch-
able riches of CJirist. That subject to him, was always new ; it was never
exhausted. It had a perpetual charm, a power to inspire. It always
opened new beauties to his sight, it expanded before his enlarging
view and stretched away into infinity. If you and I can have
such conceptions of the infinite riches of Christ as Paul had; If we can
have our souls filled with the theme as his soul was, then we shall have
no trouble in talking with our classes, no trouble in interesting our
classes, and no perplexities as to how to bring home truths of the gos-
2>el to the hearts of our classes.
I want to conclude with just one thought; if we accomplish the
greatest earthly work ever given man to do, it w'ould be immeasura-
bly less important and less glorious than if we can write the image of
Christ on the living tablet of one human soul. When the great light-
house on the island Pharos that was to be one of the wonders of the
ancient world was built, King Ptolemy desired his name to come
down with it to posterity; so he ordered it to be inscribed upon the
everlasting rock. But the architect of it desired to have his own name
handed down to coming ages, so he inscribed it deep in the rock and
covered it over with morter. and in that he wrote the name of the
King. As the years rolled by that perishable mrterial fell out and
then when the nome of Ptolemy was no more seen the n:;me of the '
builder stood forth inscribed deep in the solid rock. Dear friend.^,
there will come a time when all traces of the greatest work that men
accomplish in material matters in this world will be like the name of
the king that crumbled and fell away. Let us write not even on the
Illinois State Sunday School Convention. 107
solid rock where this architect wrote his name; let us write on the
living tablets of human souls inscriptions that will stand forever.
The President said that there was a gentleman on the platform who
had done more than any other one man for the success of Sunday
School work, or at least organized Sunday School work in this State,
and lest they should go home without hearing his voice, he would
introduce brother B.F.Jacobs.
ADDRESS BY B. F. JACOBS.
I have been very deeply Interested in this convention. There have
been some things that moved my heart; among them was an address
on the book that I am somewhat interested in. There was a man by
the name of Pierson here, and he talked to us in a short address of
about ninety minutes about this book, and I said then to myself, as I
say now to you that I would be glad to buy that address, at any rea-
sonable price, that I might study it; and therefore I decided if it was
possible we would have the address printed, not only that address but
all the rest of the addresses, lest any one should think that we would
leave him out.
I call your attention once more to the thought that that book has
not lost its charm, its place or Its power; and this Is a delightful thing.
Very often we hear men say that the Bible has been upset again.
My friend Mr. Hastings of Boston says that the times when the Bi-
ble has been upset remind him of the man that was undertaking to tip
over a stone, and as it was a solid cube he found when he tipped it
over it was just as wide and just as thick as it was before. So it seems
to me with the Bible, they have only got another phase of it. It
makes me think of the Irishman who was building a wall in a marshy
place, and some one cautioned him lest his wall should tip over.
"Arrah," said he, "but I am going to build it four foot high and five
foot wide and when It tips over it will be a foot higher than it was
before, mind ye." It seems that that book has not lost Its power
when a convention like this can interest us day after day, and our faith
grows stronger and our purpose more determined, as the years go on,
and we find that the work does not weary us nor do we become dis-
couraged in It. It is a wonderful privilege to work for God at all.
I have seen these boys to-day, (referring to the pages) I have watched
them during this convention, and I have been looking back to my own
childhood and wishing that I had accepted Jesus Christ and started
then for the eternal city, and put my eye on Jesus as my Savior, and
tried to be like him on earth as well as like him In heaven. And be-
loved friends the harvest that we are going to reap will be harvest of
great surprises as well as exceeding joy. All the prophecies of the
Bible are like the lamps In the streets of a great city. You see the
shining rows far on beyond you, you cannot see all of the way itself
but these glittering lights show you where it is; and so with the pro-
phecies, they mark out the line on which the church of Christ is to
march on its grand progress. And as we reach them, we see unfolded
and revealed the beauties they were intented to give us light upon.
io8 Illinois State Sunday School Convention.
We are gathering in the sheaves and they shall be all made up for us
when we shall come to sit down in our Father's kingdom. A young
man that I love, was here last night and said to me, "Brother Jacobs,
there is a young man who told me to remember him to .you when I met
you ; he said you gave him the call to the ministry." I said I never heard
Ills name in my life. And my friend said, "Some years ago you were
at a meeting in Brooklyn one night, and the house was packed
full, and this little fellow did not have a seat; one of the pulpit seats
was vacant, and as the young man told me, "Mr. Jacobs said to me,
'•My son, come up and take that seat, probably God may have given
you a call to the ministry, or he may give it to you now, and he place-
ed his hand upon my head. From that moment I determined to preach
the unspeakable riches of Christ." And no doubt he is a shining
light. Think of it, that just a word, and a look, and a touch on the
head, of a boy, or a man, or a woman, for Jesus, may be owned and
blessed for God to give them an impetus that shall start them on the
road to glory. It makes me feel that we should be glad that we are
in the service of such a King. I wish to plead for the boys and the
girls in the streets of your own city,Streator, that know nothing about
Jesus Christ, and are not in your Sunday Schools. Two little fellows
blacked my boots this morning and I asked them if they went to any
Sunday School, and they said no. These boys are worth looking
after. In our tabernacle Suntlay School in Chicago there are two
hundred and twenty-five boot blacks and news-boys and they are as
well behaved as an}' people in tlie house, even if they do occasionally
squirt tobacco juice on the floor, and in that respect they are not very
much worse than many Christians and some preachers I have seen
behind their pulpits. Let us reach out and save them. Is ihere a man
who cannot be saved by the gospel of Jesus? Na}', my friends. The
almighty "go" of the gospel must come into the church of Christ.
There are two words in that gospel that ought to fill our hearts: one
is "come,"' come," "come." It is a chime of gospel bells, ringing like
the old sexton's bell when we were boys. lie would pull the rope,
and as it went over it would say "come, come, come to the house of
God." God has been ringingthe silver bell of the gospel throughout
the earth, and if there is one of you in this house to-night that never
has come to Jesus, my friend, come now; my brother, come now; you
young men there, come now; Jesus Christ will save you here, He
will save you now, He will bless vou here and bless you now;
you need not even arise from vour sents; only look up and accept of the
salvation that Jesus Christ died to bring, and He will save you. But
if you have got it, then the word is "Go, go, go and preach the gos-
pel to every creature," and when the church of Jesu? Christ begin to
go, sinners will begin to come to come. There never was an anxious
Christian on earth, but whnt there was an anxious sinner very near
him; never, never, never. There is a delusion about it, a snare some-
where. The world does not know us; they have not confidence in us,
they do not believe in the gospel, and they say "You talk well enough,
you preach to us well enough, but how is it in your office and on the
streets? Does your servant believe that you are a Christian? If not
there is something wrong about it. Does your wife belive you are a
Christian? Do you help to tend the baby?" What kind of a Christ-
Illinois State Sunday School Convention. 109
ian are you if you cannot: ' i'hal is vviiat the world says. Now have
you any Christian lawyers in Streator that you can stand up on the
corner and say, "Here he is, look at him?" Have you any merchants,
Christian men, that you can stand up and say, "Here he is, just add
• him up and see it there is anything to carry (Voices from the audience,
"Yes," ''yes.") I hope they will shine, and they will in the tirst cir-
cles around the throne. But I am pleading for those that have not
been reached for Jesus Christ. Did you ever hear ol Morrison the
missionary to the Chinese? There is that book; he translated .that
Bible for live hundred millions of people. That boy was a little tow-
head in a Sunday School in England, and more than that he was one
of the T. C's, — a tough case. The teacher got him in there, but he
did not like it very well and left. Sometime they say, "Well, let him
go." 1 noticed the remark on a teacher's card, "Left, "left." 1 said,
"then it is not right, is it?" 1 started off to find him; climbed, up a pair
of stairs down on one of the side streets, went in and there was a woman
to whoml said, "Where is the little boy? 1 am a teacher over at the Sun-
day School." And she said, "Oh Yes" and pointed to where the little
fellow lay with a handkerchief tied about his head. There was the little
boy, the great blue eyes looking up at me, a bushel of love in each
one, and he stretched forth his hand and said, "I am glad you have
come" — I am glad you have come. I asked him what was the mat-
ter and learned that he had fallen from a scaffold. 1 nourished him
up a little and went back and took that card and found that word
"left" and added, "by a careless teacher to die with a holein his head."
Now that Morrison boy left, and the teacher leit too. If your boys
are gone it is time you went — like Paul; he was bound to reach the
people, and went where they were, if they were not where he was.
This teacher went after the tow-head and found him. He said "I
wont come any more." Some teachers would say, "There is no
use; he is a hardened sinner; there is no hope." But this teacher re-
solved to see if a reward would have any affect upon the boy. You
know some scholars as well as teachers believe in rewards and some do
not. I think the reason some of the scholars do not believe in rewards is
because it generally comes down to this: "We will look in the 14th
chapter of Good Behavior and the 25th verse of Correct Lessons and
see where he stands." Well, this teacher bought the Morrison boy a
suit of clothes and he went into the school; but it was not long before
his clothes were gone, and he fell out of the school again. The teach-
er found out that she had got to have that boy. She went to liim and
told him to comeback, and she would buy him another suit. He came
back and she held him. Was there ever any money better invested
than in those two suits for that boy? Never. We can afford to work
for Christ. In our Tabernacle Sunday School in Chicago we have
not only those two hundred and twenty-five newsboys, but we have
behind them a regiment of men and women, and their boys. I told
them that I would ask the people that lived in the land of the flow-
ers to send them a whole carload of flowers that they might carry them
to the hospitals, and all the sick people, and just scatter the perfum
all around. W^e are surrounded by ten cent theatres, and more houses
of shame and saloons than would suffice to disgrace the whole of the
United States of America. Now let us bring into this sinful place the
no Illinois State Sunday School Convention.
innocent beauty and the fragrance of flowers; will you try it, boys
and girls? Just get them together and send them to me and I will
get the American Express to carry them for nothing and wc will scat-
ter them around like the sweetness and love of God.
Just one more word. I want to say, beloved friends, that as far as
our privilege is concerned, there are no honors on earth to be com-
pared with those that we have — the friendship and love of Christian
men and women; and I declare before you to-night that it makes me
ashamed of myself that I have lived no more like Jesus Christ, no
more patient and loving, when the men and women of Illinois give me
the hand of friendship and love. I thank you from the very depths of my
heart for all your love and kindness, and may God a thousand times
over, fill your own souls with that love and joy in His service that He
has given to me. This service grows brighter as the days go on.
Now may God Almighty make every one of us faithful and earnest
and true; and God bring every one of us into His presence where
there is fullness of joy, and at His right hand where there are pleas-
ures forevermore. Once more, I thank you, dear Brother President,
and all you that love God. Oh! brethren and friends. Heaven is only
a little way off, and if any one of you are not ready to step right in,
when called, come now. Lfet us pray.
Mr. Jacobs then led the convention in an earnest prayer; the peo-
ple from all parts of the house responding. Amen, amen.
In closing this convention, the President said, "I commenced this
meeting with a sense of honor; I close it with a sense of responsibility.
I trust that as we go down from this meeting we shall all go recog-
nizing the profound responsibility that rests upon us."
The hymn "Blest be the tie" was sung, followed by the Doxology
and the convention adjourned.
PROCEEDINGS
-OF THE —
TAATEHSTT"^- SIXlTIi
G^ ILLINOIS.^
%Mf Hnnhag Hr^ool OonbFnMon,
— HELD IN THE-
Hall of the House of Representatives,
C/rr OF SPRINGFIELD,
Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, May 13, 14 and 15,
1884.
CHICAGO;
James Guilbert, Printer, 140 Monroe Street.
1884.
plliH0i$ ^lati; ^nqtlag ^rli0ol ^s$0dati0n*
President.
T. P. NESBITT, Alton.
Vice-Presidents.
REV. W. W. HARSHA, D. D., Jacksonville. REV. G. R. VAN HORNE,
Rockford. REV. W. H. GARNER, McLeansboro.
Recording Secretary. — E. D. DURHAM, Onarga.
Statistical Secretary.— W . B. JACOBS, Ghicago.
Treasurer.— E. D. DURHAM, Onarga.
Executive Committeee.
B. F. JAGOBS, Ghairman, Ghicago.
G. M. MORTON, Ghicago. E. D. DURHAM, Onarga.
E. A. WILSON, Springfield. REV. WM. TRAGY, Granville.
J. R. MASON, Bloomington. R. G. WILLIS, Enfield.
G. W. JEROME, Garbondale.
. District Presidents.
1. D. W. Potter, Ghicago. ii. D. S. Frackelton, Petersburg.
2. O. R. Bkouse, Rockford. 12. W. B. Rundle, Glinton.
3. D. A. Glenn, Ashton. 13. Frank Wilcox, Ghampaign.
4. H. T. Lav, Kewanee. 14. J. J. Brown, Vandalia.
5. Thos. Okton, Lacon. 15. B. Depenbroc.k, Salem.
6. Aaron Riciiardson, Pontiac. 16. Joh.n G. Kerr, Nashville.
7. L. L. GuYER, Driinfield. 17. Tovvnsend Blanchard, Tamaroa.
8. Thos. McGlanaha.n, Monmouth. 18. R. G. Willi-s, Enfield.
9. R. H. Grifkith, Rushville. 19. R. S. Marsh, Harrisburg.
10. E. D. Masters, Jacksonville. 20. J. F. McGartney, Metropolis.
ILLINOIS STATE S. S. CONVENTIONS.
No. President. Year.
I. Di.xon Rev. W. W. Harsha 1859
II. Bloomington *R. M. Guilford i860
III. Alton *E. G. Wilder 1861
IV. Ghicago Rev. S. G. Lathrop 1862
V. Jacksonville *Isaac Scarritt 1863
VI. Springfield A. G. Tyng 1864
VII. Peoria Rev. W. G. Pieice 1865
VIII. Rockford P. G. Gillett 1666
IX. Decatur Win. Reynolds 1867
X. Du Quoin B. F. Jacobs 1868
XI. Bloomington D. L. Moody 1869
XII. Quincv P. G. Gillett 1S70
XIII. Galesburg ♦J. McKee Peeples 1871
XIV. Aurora G. R. Blackall 1872
XV. Springfield J. F. Gulver 1873
XVI. Champaign D. W. Whittle 1874
XVII. Alton R. H. Griffith i87.<;
XVITI. Jacksonville D.L.Moody 1876
XIX. Peoria E. G. Ilewett 1877
XX. Decatur Rev. F. L. Thompson 1878
XXI. Bloomington G. M. Morton 1879
XXII. Galesburg Wm. Reynolds 1880
XXIII. Centralia J. R. Mason 1S81
XX TV. Ghampaign O. R. Brous-e 1882
XXV. Streator." Rev. Wm. Tracv 1883
XXVI. Springfield T. P. Nesbitt..." 1884
♦Deceased.
lE^K^OGEiEinDiisrGs
OF THE TWENTY-SIXTH
Illinois State Sunday-School Conyention,
The Twenty-Sixth Convention of the Sunday-School Workers of
the State of Illinois met in the Hall of the House of Representatives,
in the city of Springfield, on Tuesday morning, May 13th, at nine
o'clock. The completion of twenty-five years of associated work
gave to this convention its title, "The Silver Anniversary," and to the
program its peculiar form and style. The city, the place of meet-
ing, and the time, united in making this meeting one of peculiar
interest. A preliminary meeting, held on Monday evening in the
Second Presbyterian Church, was addressed by President Tracey,
Rev. C. M. Morton, D. W. Potter and J. R. Mason. It was well
attended and gave promise of blessing on the morrow. The morning
of the convention was without clouds, as the tender grass springing
out of the earth by the clear shining after rain," and the beautiful city
had on her best robes to give us a smiling welcome. The magnifi-
cent capitol, seemed like "a city set on an hill," and to us as Mount
Zion, whither the tribes of the Lord go up, unto the testimony of
Israel, to give thanks unto the name of the Lord, and to pray for the
peace of Jerusalem. As we went up in little companies, some one
sang, " I'm climbing up Zion's hill," and the many greetings by the
way, made the upward journey very pleasant.
At the early hour of the first session, a large number gathered.
The praise and prayer service was led by Mr. D. W. Potter, and
Mr. E. O. Excell took Asaph's place and led in song. The opening
hymn,
"Praise God from whom all blessings flow."
was the joyful expression of many thankful hearts, and was followed
by a season of prayer, (all kneeling), Mr. B. F. Jacobs leading in tlie
thanksgiving and supplication for a fresh blessing, several others fol-
lowing. Mr. Potter's i-emarks called to remembrance the many
seasons of blessing enjoyed by the convention, and led to many tes-
timonies of God's tender mercies to the schools represented, and to
the delegates.
4 Illinois State Sunday School Convention.
At lo o'clock, president Tracey took the chair, and briefly addressed
the convention as follows:
My Dear Fellow Workers: I congratulate myself, and 1
congratulate you upon your presence here this morning. We are in
heavenly places with Christ Jesus. The privileges of being here —
the privilege of joining hand and heart in this work, is only partly
known and partly appreciated by us. I am quite sure that by and by,
when we look back on this scene and see something of the harvest
that followed our labors, we shall say one to another, "Brethren, we
did not know what we were doing; we did not know what we were
enjoying, when we were down there in the field together, sowing the
seed." As I listened to the testimony of the brethren here this morn-
ing, I could not help feeling this. Hundreds converted in our Sabbath
Schools during the past year. We little know what that means; we
little know what it is to have one soul saved. If I could see a soul
this morning as Christ sees it, as He did when He felt justified in
laying down His life for it, then I could understand better than I do,
what it is to have a hundred souls come to Christ. Somehow I can-
not help feeling that a soul coming to Christ in the Sabbath School,
in the midst of the spirit of Sabbath School work, is somewhat differ-
ent from souls coming to Christ under other circumstances and in
other places. There was an old Welsh preacher, who was full of
Welsh fire and had what they call the hwyl, and sometimes while he
was preaching he would become so impassioned that he would stop
and say, "My friends, you must pardon me, but I was converted in
the revival of Lfanyrtwd, and I have never got over it!" and I believe
that souls that are converted in the Sabbath Schools, in the midst of
the inspiration of Sabbath School work, do not get over it. They go
on, and they touch other souls, and thus become a mighty power in
the work of God. Once there w:is a sermon preached up in Scotland,
and a poor boy was converted by it; a sermon was preached in ano-
ther part of Scotland, and 1 15 souls were converted by it. A while after
some of the brethren were talking about these two meetings, and one
said, in such a meeting there was just one soul converted, in such ano-
ther meeting so great was the power of God that there were 125 souls
converted. Yes, but when that one soul was converted what did that
mean? It meant all the results of Robert Moflatt's life. And when
the 125 souls were converted, what did that mean? God only knows.
But we do know this, that in the conversion of that one soul there was
started the magnificent work that is felt in Africa to-day. I believe
that is the work we are doing in our Sunday Schools; and it is en-
couraging to hear these reports; it is an inspiration to us. But some-
how I feel that the most encouraging thing here this morning is, not
the reports of what we have done, but the condition of our hearts. I
cannot help feelin<j: that there is a wonderful hunger here this morning;
I cannot help feeling that there is a tremendous thirst here this morning;
We are trying to get at the Bread of Lite, we are trying to come to
the Water of Life. I feel this morning that my deepest, most earnest
prayer is, more of God and less of self, and I think that is the feeling
of all of us; and, dear frieiuls, just as long as we have that, we have a
magnificent future before us. Because our hunger is God satisfied.
Illinois State Sunday School Convention. 5
Yoii put the pitcher into the water and it fills, and so just as soon as
you bring the empty heart to Christ it fills. Oh, that we all may be
filled with the fullness of God during these meetings! Thus we shall
go forth from them as we have in the years that are gone, as giants,
refreshed, strong, because of our union with God, who is the fountain
of all strength.
B. F. JACOBS.
Brother President: — Twenty years ago when we met in this
city, as I may say, the first great convention held in this state, we
were welcomed to this city by a brother minister well known in the
state of Illinois; and I see our dear brother Hale has just come into
this convention, and I suggest that Brother Morton and Brother Pot-
ter escort him to the platform, and that he lead us in prayer. I think
it would be a privilege to all to see him.
The Executive Committee submitted the following program,
which was adopted by the convention :
Topic : THE ROYAL MARRIAGE.
Preliminary Meeting in Second Presbyterian Church. Monday Ev'g,
May 12 th. Rev. C. M. Morton will preside.
7.30 — What God has done. Address — ^J. R. Mason, Bloomington.
What God is doing. Address — H. R. Clissold, Chicago.
What God will do. Address — D. W. Potter, Chicago.
First Session. — Tuesday A. M.
"A certain king made a marriage for his son."
9.00 — Praise and Prater. Led by D. W. Potter.
THE KING HIMSELF.
10.00 — A Bible Reading. H. R. Clissold.
11.00 — Report of Executive Committee.
Appointment of Committees.
Second Session — Tuesday, P. M.
"There was a wedding, * * * and both Jesus was called and his disciples."
2.00 — Song Service. Led hy E. O. Excell.
Election of Officers.
Address of Welcome. E. A. Wilson, Springfield.
Response. Rev. T. E. Spillman, Nokomis.
THE HE A VENL T BRIDEGROOM.
"Behold the Bridegroom comelh, go ye out to meet Him."
3.00 — (i) His Person and Work. Rev. O. A. Williams, Galesbiirg.
(2) His Appearing and Kingdom. Miss E. Dryer, Chicago.
Third Session — Tuesday Evening.
"Then all those servants arose and trimmed their lamps."
7.45 — Song Service. Led by W. H. Schureman, Normal.
8.15 — The S. S. Work at Home. Address — Rev.F. C. Iglkhart, Bloomington.
8.45 — Address — Bishop C. E. Cheney, Chicago.
Second Day — Fourth Session — Wednesday Morning
"My beloved is mine, and I am His."
6.00 — Early Thanksgiving Meeting.
5 Illinois State Sunday School Convention.
THE BLESSED SERVICE.
"We have done as thou hast commanded, and yet there is room."
9.00 — Reports from the Districts.
Report of Statistical Secretary.
Report of the Treasurer.
THE WEDDING OFFRINGS.
"Every one whose heart stirred him up. and every one whom his spirit made willing, they
brought the Lord's offering to the work."
Fifth Session — Wednesday P. M.
THE BRIDE— THE LAMB'S WIFE.
"The marriage of the Lamb is come, and his bride hath made herself ready."
2.00 — Her Songs of Love.
"Sing unto the Lord a new song."
Her Betrothal and Attire. Address— Rev. C. A. Blanchard, Wheaton.
Her Service for the Children.
(i) At Home. Address— Rev. J. L. Waller, D. D., Enfield.
(2) In the Sunday-School. Address— Rev. W. G. Pierce, Champaign.
Sixth Session — Wednesday Evening.
"Whosoever ye shall find, bring to the marriage."
7.45 — The Wedding Chimes.
"He that hath the bride is the bridegroom."
8.15— The Bridegroom's Letters. Address— B. F.Jacobs.
8.45 — The Bride's Anointing. Address — Rev. A. C George, D. D-
Third Day. — Seventh Session.— Thursday A. M.
"The.wedding was furnished with guests.
6.00 — Early Guests' Meeting.
THE WORK FOR '84 AND 'Sj.
9.00 — The Next Convention.
The Messengers to Louisville. Wm. Reynolds, Peoria.
THE WEDDING INVITATION.
"Come, for all things are now ready."
(i) Who shall carry it.? Address — Rev. J. S. McCord, Onarga.
(2) Where shall they go.
Eighth Session. — Thursday P. M.
"Blessed are they which are called unto the marriage supper of the Lamb."
THE FEAST OF JOT.
"Let us be glad and rejoice."
2.00— (i) How shall we get the Children. Address— H. R. Clissold, Chicago.
(2) How shall we yet the Adults. Rev. W. H. Carner, McLeansboro.
(3) How shall we get the Outcast.
Ninth Session. — Thursday Evening.
"Alleluia, for the Lord God omnipotent reigneth."
7.45— Praise Service. Led by E. O. Excell.
THE OIL OF GLADNESS.
8.15 — Addresses.
Illinois State Sunday School Convention. 7
Afier prayer by Mr. Hale, a Bible Reading was given by Bro. H.
R. Clissold, of Chicago. Mr. Clissold said:
Brother Jacobs asked me a few minutes ago if I would give a read-
ing, and I have found this one, the outline of which was written in
my Bible, that seemed the most appropriate, considering the subject
we have in this convention, "The King." The thought I had in mind
was. The company of Jesus — the presence of Jesus. He desires us to
be in His company. Rev. iii. 20. (All the passages referred to by
Mr. Clissold were read aloud by some one in the audience.)
"Behold I stand at the door and knock; if any man hear my voice,
and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him and
he with me."
And this is not a mere temporary presence, but something that is
lasting. John xiv. 23.
"Jesus answered and said unto him. If a man love me, he will keep
my words; and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him,
and make our abode with him."
It is an abiding presence you see. You remember how He said to
His disciples, "Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the. end of the
world." In such a work as this in which we are engaged, we need
to know Christ for several reasons, and one is, that in teaching Christ
we must be thoroughly persuaded that He is what He claims to be.
We never can talk about Him, we never can present Him as we
should to the souls that need Him, until we ourselves are satisfied that
He is what He claims to be. Being in company with Jesus will give
us this persuasion. An illustration of this can be found in John i.
38-42.
"Then Jesus turned, and saw them following, and saith unto them,
What seek ye? They said unto him. Rabbi, (which is to say, being
interpreted, Master,) where dwellest thou? He saith unto them,
Come and see. They came and saw where he dwelt, and abode with
him that day; for it was about the tenth hour. One of the two which
heard John speak, and followed him, was Andrew, Simon Peter's
brother. He first findeth his own brother Simon, and saith unto him,
we have found the Messias, which is, being interpreted, the Christ.
And he brought him to Jesus."
"He brought him to Jesus." He never w^ould have gone out for
Peter if he had not come to the thorough persuasion that Jesus "was
the Messiah;" and so he went after his brother and said, we have
found the Messiah, that is called Jesus, and he brought him to Jesus;
and so we, must be persuaded. We have another persuasion in 2
Peter i. 16—18.
"For we have not followed cunningly devised fables, when we made
known unto you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but
were eye witnesses of his majesty. For he received from God the
Father, honor, and glory, when there came such a voice to him from
the excellent glory. This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well
pleased. And this voice which came from heaven we heard, when
we were with him in the holy mount."
Ah! That is it, being with Jesus in the holy mount. They had
that wondrous testimony from the lips of God himself. We need joy
8 Illinois State Sunday School Convention.
in order to do effective service; this joy comes from being in com-
pany with Christ: Mark ii. 18, 19.
"And the disciples of John and of the Pharisees used to fast: and
they come and say unto him, Why do the disciples of John and of the
Pharisees fast, but thy disciples fast not? And Jesus said unto them,
Can the children of the bridechamber fast, while the bridegroom is
with them? as long as they have the bridegroom with them, they
cannot fast."
Fasting is the sign of sorrow, but there is no reason for sorrow
when Jesus is present. When the bridegroom is present the children
of the bridechamber have joy. The absence of Jesus will make us
unsuccessful in the work we have to do, because we cannot be joyful
if he is away. We need to be in company with Jesus in order to know
him. This was recognized by Jesus in calling his disciples to him:
Mark iii. 14.
And he ordained twelve, that they should be with him, and that he
might send them forth to preach.
You see those two things so prominently set forth in that verse:
First, that they should be with him, and then that from their being
with him he should send them forth. This principle was recognized
by the apostles after Christ was gone, for when one of them by trans-
gression fell, they chose a successor from those who had been with
Jesus: Acts i. 21 — 22.
"Wherefore of these men which have companied with us all the
time that the Lord Jesus went in and out among us. Beginning from
the baptism of John, unto that same day that he was taken up from
us, must one be ordained to be a witness with us of his resurrection."
They could not think of anything else but to choose one out of the
company of those who had been with Jesus, to speak for him. I am
glad we have come to the question, must a man be a Christian in order
to be a Sunday School teacher? These that Jesus chose were with
Him before they were sent forth to preach, and every one recognized
that they could not present the word until they knew Him by being
constantly in His presence; and then being in His presence they re-
flected His image. Other people were able to recognize the Christ in
them after they had been with Him. Acts iv. 13.
"Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived
that they were unlearned and ignorant men, they marveled; and they
took knowledge of them, that they had been with Jesus."
Oh, if we live in Christ's company, there is not much trouble for
people to recognize the fact that we are Christians. They do not need
to see us at the Lord's Table; they do not need to hear us lifting our
voices in prayer, to know that we are Christians; but if we live in the
company of Christ we will show it continually, and we need not ad-
vertise it by speech. Some of you have seen the phosphorescent paint
that has lately been invented. It is put on diflferent articles, and in the
day time receives the light and in the night gives it out. It is used on
match safes; I have one, and remember the first time I saw it I was
surprised to see the gleam of light, until I had read the instructions to
expose it during the day and then it would give out the light in the
night time. One day I put it in a drawer and covered it up so that the
light could not reach it, and then at dark I took it out and hung it on
Illikois State Sunday School Convention. 9
the wall, but there was no gleam that night, not a ray came from it
because it had been shut away from the light. And I am sure if you
and I want to reflect Jesus we must keep our minds open to Him; we
must be always in His company if we want to show that we have been
with Him and have learned from Him.
In handling the Word of God we need to be in the company of
Chi-ist in order that we may understand this Word: Luke xxiv.
27—32.
"And beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded unto
them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself. And they
drew nigh unto the village, whither they went : and he made as though
he would have gone further. But they constrained him, saying, Abide
with us: for it is toward evening, and the day is far spent. And he
went in to tarry with them. And it come to pass, as he sat at meat
with them, he took bread, and blessed it, and brake, and gave to them.
And their eyes were opened, and they knew him; and he vanished out
of their sight. And they said one to another, did not our heart burn
within us, while he talked with us in the way, and while he opened to
us the scriptures."
Also verses 44 and 45: "And he said unto them. These are the
words which I spake unto you, while I was yet with you, that all
things must be fulfilled which were written in the law of Moses, and
in the prophets, and in the psalms, concerning me. Then opened he
their understanding, that they might understand the scriptures."
They had an understanding of the scriptures that they never had
before simply from being in company with Jesus, whom these scrip-
tures revealed; and if we shut ourselves away from him we never
can understand the book and of course we never can teach it. What
folly it is for men to talk about what this Book means when they
keep themselves away froui the Lord who has given it to us and who
is so clearly revealed herein.
And then, subject to temptations as we are, it is a refreshing feeling
that Jesus is with us in this, and knows our temptations. Heb. iv. 15.
"For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the
feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we
are, yet without sin."
We have trials. It is one of the gifts of Christ that we should suf-
fer, and there is comfort in the thought that in the suffering, Christ is
with us. Romans viii. 17.
"And if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with
Christ; If so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glori-
fied together." 1 Peter iv. 13. "But rejoice, inasmuch as ye are par-
takers of Christ's sufferings; that, when his glory shall be revealed,
ye may be glad also with exceeding joy." 2 Tim. ii. 12.
"If we suffer, we shall also reign with him: if we deny him, he
also will deny us."
How compassionate of the Father that He should link the glory with
the suffering. We see illustrations of this all the way through. Right
here you will remember the children of Babylon. When those three
stalwart followers of God refused to worship the idols, and were cast
into the fiery furnace, we may well believe that it was the Son, the
Angel of the Covenant, the Lord Jehovah himself, who was with his
lo Illinois State Sunday School Convention.
children, and the angel of his presence saved them. And afterwards,
when thrown into the lion's den, Daniel said, "O king, live forever.
My God hath sent his angel, and hath shut the lions' mouths, that
they have not hurt me." Do you not believe, my friends, that it was
the same Angel of the Covenant that went down with his suffering
child and shut the lions' mouths that they should not hurt him? And
so it will be always, in all our troubles, that the King will be with
us in our time of need.
On the other side, Jesus wants us with Him; not here only, but
yonder also: John xvii. 24.
"Father, I will that they also, whom thou hast given me, be with
me where I am; that they may behold my glory, which thou hast
given me: for thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world."
John xiv. 3: "And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come
again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may
be also." Of course that must be so. The place of the bride is with
the bridegroom. And not only are you to be with Him, it is better
than that, as we have in i John iii. 2.
"Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear
what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall
be like him; for we shall see him as he is."
It is enough for the disciple that he be as his Master, the servant
as his Loid. We can get no higher glory. Col. iii. 4.
"When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also ap-
pear with him in glory."
With Him here, with Him there, with Him in His coming, with
Him in all His future, i Thes. iv. 13-17.
"But I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning
them which are asleep, that ye sorrow not, even as others which have
no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so
them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him. For this
we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and
remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which
are asleep. For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a
shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God :
and the dead in Christ shall rise first: Then we which are alive and
remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet
the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord."
No wonder that Paul exclaims, as he does in his letter to the Philip-
pians, that he desires to depart and be with Christ, which is far bet-
ter, nevertheless it was expedient that he should remain.
God help us to live with Christ all the time, that we may represent
Him as we should!
At the conclusion of a song which was then sung, the President
said:
One of the things that we looked forward to with the most pleas-
ure in connection with this gathering was the meeting of the old
workers; and one of the greatest delights we shall have while here,
will be meeting with these men and hearing from them again and
again of the early days and the early successes of this work. And I
am very glad that we have with us this morning Dr. Harsha, of Jack-
Illinois State Sunday School Convention. ii
so,nville, who was the first president of this Association, at the meet-
ing held in Dixon. He is here with us, and it is a great joy to me to
introduce him. He really needs no introduction, and he will not lack
a hearty welcome from us. I have great pleasure in introducing the
Doctor to you.
As Dr. Harsha stepped forward the audience arose to welcome
him, and while standing, sang, "Blest be the tie."
ADDRESS BY DR. HARSHA.
Mr. President and Brethren of the Convention: — This is
as truly a surprise to myself as to you. I had no idea when I came
into this convention this morning that I should be called upon to ad-
dress you. I came in for the purpose of sitting here and hearing from
others — obtaining a little more love for the Master, through what
I might hear from you, of which I trust, I have a little in my
heart. And whilst I have been thinking of the past, and contrasting
it with the present, I see in the report of the Executive Committee,
notice made of the fact that a quarter of a century ago in the city of
Dixon, a few brethreA met and began the work which has been so
signally blessed of God, and which has exerted an influence through-
out the land. I have been looking over this convention to see whether
there were any here that I i-emember as attending that first conven-
tion in Dixon twenty-five years ago. I see Brother Jacobs; I do not
know whether Bro. Morton was there or not; Bro. Moody was there;
and a few of the brethren were there. I see in the list the names
of some who have " fallen asleep." I am glad the Executive
Committee used that word; it is a scriptural term. They do not say
they have died, but, they have "fallen asleep;" Bro. Guilford, Bro.
Wilder, Bro. Scarritt, Bro. McKee Phelps. I remember very dis-
tinctly Bro. Guilford's presence at that first meeting twenty-five vears
ago. Oh, what a little convention it was! A few men came together
simply to start this ball rolling which has continued to roll, continued
to gather influence and power until the present moment. That text
of scripture arises in my mind this morning, "Who hath despised the
day of small things?" In the estimation of the world, that was a
very insignificant meeting; a few enthusiasts on the subject of Sab-
bath Schools, they' might have called us; but what a wonderful work
was set agoing in our State! This organizing of the work has gone
on, blessing the rising generations in our land from that day^o the
present. Let us not despise the day of small things. In some of the
States in our Union it is still the day of small things in Sabbath
School work. In our State it has past that, and has got up to the
day of great things; and here we are, a large body, a large assembly
gathered together in this State house where the assemblies of the
people are held — a body that will be respected in the community, a
body of men that carry an influence with them and a power with
them, because the King is with them, Christ is with them, and they
are working for Him. I have noticed the fact that once in every two
years there assembles in this place a body of men, representatives of
the people. Let us contrast this convention for a moment with the
12 Illinois State Sunday School Convention.
representatives of our State, the political leaders, the members of the
political parties and political power in our State. They are legisla-
ting for the people; they strive to influence grown men; they are
working for power. What are we doing? We are striving to infl-
ence the minds and hearts of the children, who lie at the foundation
of society; we are endeavoring to bring them to the Lamb of God
who taketh away the sin of the world. In my mind there is no
comparison between the work done by the legislative assemblies in
this house, every two years and the work that is being done by the
teachers and Sabbath School workers coming up here, from all parts
of the State. When eternity reveals its secrets and its mysteries,
there will be no comparison to be made between the work of the rep-
resentatives of the people and those who represent the Sabbath
School interests, as they are here to-day.
I have not been called upon, sir, to speak to any special point as I
address you, but I see the topic before you this morning is the King
Himself. And the Bible reading we have had upon this topic, how
beautiful, how true, how rich! The King Himself! This is what has
brought us together. We are here to honor the King, to honor
Christ, to honor Him who gave Himself on Calvary for us. And
our work is to call the attention of the rising generation to the King
of Zion, to Jesus, who alone can take away the sin of the world. If
you were to visit the land of Egypt, and go to that great pyramid,
you would see lying half buried in the sand by the side of it that won-
derful piece of ancient sculpture known as the Sphinx. There it lies,
130 feet in length, 60 feet in height, with the head and breast of a
human being joined to the body of a beast. Scattered all over Egypt
you will see these Sphinxes. And there lies that great image, look-
ing out over the eastern sands of the desert. What it was made to
represent I know not; but to me, as it lies there with its great sad
stony eyes, it represents humanity without a Saviour, without a Di-
vine King, looking out over the barren sands of earth for comfort,
for joy, for peace. Oh, that the Sphinx of humanity could be made
to lift its eyes upward and come to see what we see to day, to feel
what we feel for those who have not Jesus. Our work is to bring the
children to Christ, that the rising generation may turn their eyes up-
ward and by faith behold the only Saviour of a lost world.
May God bless this convention. As I remember the past twenty-
five years, ''the day of small things," I thank God»for what I see here
to day.
Mr. B. F. Jacobs, Chairman, was then introduced to read the report
of the Executive Committee. Before commencing the report Mr.
Jacobs suggested that it would be a pleasant thing to know how many
there were present who were at the first convention held at Dixon
Three members of the convention responded. The number present
who had attended the convention held in Springfield 20 years ago was
12, and the same number who were present at the convention held in
Springfield 1 1 years ago. Quite a large number had never been to
any of the state conventions, and no one, who had attended them all.
Mr. Jacobs thought that no one else in the state had ever received
Illinois State Sunday School Convention. 13
such blessings as those who had been at these conventions. Those
who liad been present had been benefited the most. While reading,
Mr. Jacobs made some running comments, which are included in
brackets.
EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE'S REPORT.
To the Illinois Sunday School Association :
Dear Brethren: — Your Executive Committee submit herewith
their annual report and congratulate the Association on the comple-
tion of its twenty-fifth year.
A quarter of a century ago in the city of Dixon a few brethren met
together to begin the work that has been so signally blessed of God,
not only in the results which have been accomplished in our own
state, but also in the influence we have exerted throughout the land.
For the first five years the Association seemed to make but little pro-
gress. No doubt good was done and the foundations were being laid,
but the work that was begun in 1859 and i860 was interrupted during
the years 1S61-62 and '63 by the war that absorbed the energies of
the workers and took so many of our best men from their homes.
Twenty years ago the Association met in this city. An earnest desire
was in the hearts of some of the brethren that a greater work might
be accomplished, and with this desire they came to Springfield to the
5th convention. God heard the prayers and answered the desires of
these workers, and that convention has ever since been memorable.
Its sessions were marked by the presence and power of God, a gra-
cious revival was the immediate result of the gathering in this city,
and its influence was felt during the year throughout the state. The
following year at Peoria, and the next at Rockford, the reports
showed that the work had greatly increased in power and the con-
vention was well attended.
The 9th convention at Decatur, in the year 1867, was attended by
large numbers and characterized by the greatest enthusiasm. In re-
sponse to the propisition to raise money to canvass the entire state,
$5,000 was subscribed in a short time. The state was divided into
three districts and three brethren were employed to go from county
to county to organize the work.
The loth convention was held at Du Quoin, in the southern part of
the state. This little city found its population more than doubled by
the great multitude that could not be gathered into any ordinary
building, and an immense barn was fitted up for the convention.
Probably never before had the southern part of the state been so
roused by a religious gathering. The number was so large that ordi-
nary accommodations could not be found for the delegates, and twen-
ty-seven delegates occupied one room, sleeping on the floor, while
about sixty were fed in a hall, by the peoj^le from the country, who
brought in the provisions early in the morning to supply this impro-
vised hotel. The great conventions at Bloomington and Quincy,
were held in the succeeding years. At the last named place it was
decided that it would be impossible to provide for the number that
would attend mass Sunday School conventions in the state, and a
change was made that the conventions should be composed of dele-
gates duly appointed from the various counties. During those years
14 Illinois State Sunday School Convention.
the Executive Committee personally canvassed the entire state, visit-
ing every county, and the work of thorough county organization was
continued, and that of township organization inaugurated. It is dif-
ficult to specify the following conventions. It is enough to say that
they had been very successful and greatly blessed of God. For sev-
eral years the Association has maintained an organization in every
county and, at times, the township organizations have numbered more
than a thousand; more than 1200 county and township conventions
have been held during a single year.
During this time 32 brethren have lield the position of President
of the Association, three of them having served two terms each; of
these, four have fallen asleep; R. M. Gilford the 2d; Brother E. C.
Wilder the 3d; Brother Isaac Scarritt the 5th; Brother J. McKee
Peoples the 12th. Eighteen of the brethren yet remain, most of
them are earnestly engaged in other parts of the field. It will not be
thought invidious if we specially mention our beloved Brother D. L.
Moody and D. W. Whittle, evangelists owned of God, and known
and loved by all men.
In considering the influence this organization has exerted, it is well
to think how greatly it has developed and helped the men who have
given time and thought to the work. Under God, it has been instru-
mental in teaching and disciplining some of the best workers that the
world has ever known; not only these who have been referred to, but
many others, some whose names are perhaps forgotten, have caught
the fire here and have gone to other states and territories to carry for-
ward the work there, and are now numbered among the most valua-
ble workers in those fields. For several years Illinois has stood in
the front rank and, perhaps it is not too much to say that there is no
other territory of the same extent, no other population of the same
numbers, where the work is better done, or further advanced than in
our own state.
Looking back over the past, we are assured that the time and
money expended has been as good seed in good soil and has produced
thirty, sixty, and an hundredfold. Difficulties there have been, but
they have only proved the value of the work, and like Israel's trial in
the wilderness, they have revealed to us the love and power of God.
Many of our counties are still going forward and attaining a high-
er place than ever before, and with renewed effort it is believed that
greater results can be secui'ed in the future than we have yet known.
The Work of the Year.
At our last convention it was decided that an earnest effort should
be made to reach the whole state. The committee asked for the sum
of $4,000 to carry foward the work and pledges were obtained from
62 counties for $3,105, and the committee was authorized to assess the
remaining 40 counties for $965 more. Many of these pledges and
assessments have been met, in some instances the counties having con-
tril)uted more than the amount pledged or assessed; in other cases the
amount has fallen short. Relying upon the pledges and assessments
your committee undertook the work and made arrangements for a
thorough canvas of the state. As far as possible, the conventions
were arranged so that those engaged in attending them could visit
Illinois State Sunday School Convention. 15
the largest number of counties possible. Miss Lucy J. Rider has
attended 43 County Conventions, 28 Township Conventions and In-
stitues, 9 Normal Classes, and 36 Children's Meetings. Her work,
as in the past, has been of the greatest value to the state and is every-
where highly appreciated.
Mr. W. B. Jacobs has given nearly four months time to the state;
has attended 32 County Conventions, 10 Township Conventions, and
8 Sunday School Meetings. In addition, the services of the Rev. C.
M. Morton were secured for 6 conventions, and the Rev. J. B. Still-
son for 6 County Conventions.
LaSalle, having contributed $100 towards the state work at its
County Convention, volunteered to pay for the time of Brother D.
Hurd for one month, if the committee wished to use his services in
the state work. The offer was gladly accepted, and Brother Hurd
has visited Franklin and Monroe Counties where Conventions had
not been held, and succeeeded in having conventions called and held.
The Districts.
It will be remembered that last year the district organizations were
changed and the state was divided into 20 districts of from four to
six counties each; in consequence of this change. District Conven-
tions have not been held. The experiment has worked well, and we
believe, will prove beneficial to the state. The district officers, for
the most part, have been faithful in the discharge of their duties.
Many of them have attended conventions of all the counties in the
district and the result has been to develope more workers than under
the old plan.
Conventions Held.
The total number of County Conventions held during the year is
102, making one for every county in the state, but owing to circum-
stances beyond their control, two counties in the state, Hardin and
St. Clair, have not yet held their conventions. These will be held
before the International Convention meets at Louisville, so that we
will maintain our rank as a Banner State. The number of Town-
ship Conventions reported is 767, making the total number of con-
ventions 869.
[But it is not for us to fold our arms and say we have done very
well. I think we are conscious, and I think when we hear the reports
we shall be more conscious still, that the work is very deficient in Illi-
nois.]
Banner Counties.
The Banner Counties of the state as reported are as follows: Cook,
Kane, La Salle, Ford, Livingston, Schuyler, Marshall, Fulton, Han-
cock, Adams, Brown, Massac, Morgan, Macon, Sangamon, De Witt,
Moultrie, Clay, Saline, Piatt, Champaign, Vermillion, Fayette, Clin-
ton, Madison, Jefferson, Edwards, Clark. Several other counties
have made an earnest effort and have nearly reached the mark.
It is believed that with reasonable diligence the number might be
increased to fifty by the time of the International Convention. It
should be remembered that the standard in Illinois for Banner Coun-
i6 Illinois State Sunday School Convention.
ties is higher than the standard of any other state. With us, a
Banner County means, not only that every township shall be organ-
ized, hut that proof of its township organization shall be shown in
a township convention every year. Whatever standard may be
adopted by others, we cannot afford to lower the flag in our own state.
[Now brethren, we can do it, and let us do it before we carry the
old map down to Louisville. If there is a county that is almost and
not altogether a banner county let us have it fixed.]
The Statistical Secretary.
The report of the Statistical Secretary will be presented in detail.
The gathering of accurate statistics is the most difficult part of our
work, and the difficulty comes, in great measure, from the change of
officers in the counties. If the importance of retaining faithful County
Secretaries in office can be understood, many of these difficulties will
disappear. [Of course it is a difficult place, and a secretary often
wants to be changed, but we do need men to get used to it. It
takes about three years to get the hang of the schoolhouse.] Fre-
quently letters are sent without a response being received, and,
in many cases, at tfie close of the year, a new secretary writes: " I
am unable to send an accurate report." Some secretaries take the
position that they will only report the number of schools that
are reported to them, and, without taking pains to ascertain how
many schools there are in the county, they send forward as the
statistics of the county, the number they have received; and, in this
way, a county is made to gain or lose so much from year to year that
it discourages those who are trying to get at the facts. After the
most painstaking and persistent eflforts, new reports have been received
from eighty-two counties; the largest number reported for years; in
others old reports have been returned, and, in some cases, estimates
made. From these reports the following figures are taken : Total
number of schools in the State, 6,165; officers and teachers, 66,599;
scholars, 493,583, making the total reported membership 560,192.
From what is known, it is safe to say that these figures are probably
from 5 to 10 per cent, below the mark. In addition to this, it must be
remembered that none of the Catholic schools are given; probably
they would further increase the number 5 per cent. And the total
number of persons connected with the Sunday-Schools of the State
may be estimated at 650,000 — being about 20 per cent, of the entire
population. If, from this total population, we deduct the number of
persons too young and too old to attend school, and the number of
those confined in hospitals, refuges, asylums, and prisons, it is prob-
able that 25 per cent, of the population of the State able to attend are
connected with the Sunday-School. In this connection it is interesting
to know that the total number leported as connected with the Sunday-
Schools of the United States and Territories is over 8.000,000. If to
this 6 per cent, were added for those not reported, and 6 per cent, for
the Catholic Sunday Schools, it would give the total of about 9,000,-
000; and if from the total population of about 55,000,000, we deduct,
as before, those who cannot attend, it gives about 20 per cent., or 1-5
of the entire population of the Unitetl States and Territories as con-
Illinois State Sunday School Convention. 17
nected with the Sunday -School. These figures show us the impor-
tance of our work, and the necessity for the most thorough and
earnest effort possible to carry it forward. It demands far more
consideration, and much larger contributions of time and money, than
have ever been given.
[I was surprised to learn that the number reported from Great Bri-
tain was a little over six millions. I was really surprised to learn that.
To think that in Great Britain they have six inillions, whereas in the
United States we have only about eight. I could scarcely believe the
report made by Mr. Hartley of the Sunday School Union of London,
sent on for our International Convention. If it is so, I tell you, breth-
ren, we need to push on."
Just think of that multitude if nine millions in the United States.
If we could push the work you can see the possibilities there are.
Many men say, "Oh, well, we are covering the whole field with our
denominational organizations." That is an impossibility, it cannot be
done. There are only two organizations in this country that include
all the denominations or pretend to, and they are the Young Men's
Christian Association and the Sunday School Associations. Yet the
Young Men's Christian Association, much as I love it, and vast as its
influence has been, is principally a single class or section of the church
working for a single class of the community; and the Sunday School
is the only one where the whole church works for the whole jDCople
throughout the whole field." (A member of the convention) " Why
exclude the American Bible Society?"
Because the American Bible Society does not pretend to do it.
They never made any pretentions to do it. They are doing a great
work, I am not belittling it, God forbid! But I simply say that the
Sunday School is the only place where the whole church works to
reach the whole field; and it is the grandest view I know of; thank
God.]
The International Convention.
The Fourth International Sunday-School Convention of the
United States and British North American Provinces, is to be held
(D. V.) in the City of Louisville, June nth, i3th and 13th. The
arrangements for this Convention, nearly completed, promise that it
will be one of the largest and best ever held. The total number of
delegates and alternates invited is over l,Soo, and it is believed that
more than 1,000 of them will be present at the Convention, in
addition to large numbers of visitors and citizens of Louisville. This
Convention will consider the great work of Sunday-School organiza-
tion in all of the States, Territories and Provinces. Under the
providence of God, this State had much to do in shaping and direct-
ing this work; and if the work is to be carried forward, it will
doubtless have even more to do with it in the future. We are invited
to choose eighty-eight delegates and alternates to represent us in this
Convention; they should be chosen from all parts of the State, and
from the very best representatives that we have in all departments of
the work.
It would be most fitting and pleasant, if the entire delegation were
present at that Convention; and, in order that these delegates may
2
i8 Illinois State Sunday School Convention.
occupy the place that they are entitled to, as representing the State oi
Illinois, and that their suggestions may have proper weight and effect,
your committee recommend that they be authorized to pledge the
State of Illinois for not less than $500 per annum for the next three
years, towards carrying forward this work of the International
Association.
We also suggest that the Executive Committee be appointed at
this Convention to prepare suitable badges for our delegates, that may
be retained as souvenirs. Also that the Sunday-School map of the
State be revised and carried to this Convention.
Recommendations.
In view of the great work yet to be done in this State, and the im-
portance of pushing this work forward as rapidly as possible, your
committee recommend that the sum of $5,000 be raised for the work
this year; and, if possible, that the services of Miss Lucy J. Rider,
Mr. W. B. Jacobs and Mr. E. O. Excell, be secured for at least six
months each; and that a series of conventions be held in the most
prominent cities throughout the State, as rapidly as possible. At
these conventions, in addition to the Institute work, special efforts
should be made to gather the workers from the counties immediately
surrounding these various cities, and that special prayers be offered
that they may be characterized by a revival spirit, and that special
revival work be earnestly recommended to all the Sunday-Schools of
the State.
We also recommend that the next State Convention be held in the
southern part of the State, if an invitation is extended, and proper
provision made for it.
Respectfully submitted.
B. F. Jacobs, Chairman.
Chicago, May 12th, 4SS4.
Moved and seconded that the report be accepted and referred to a
committee of five to report upon it at a later time in the day.
Moved in amendment, that the committee consist of twenty instead
of five members.
The amendment was accepted and it was arranged that one member
of the committee should be chosen from each district, each district to
nominate its own member. The following were nominated and ap-
pointed members of the committee:
I Dist. D. W. Potter.
2
0. R. Brouse.
3
G. P. Perry.
4
H. T. Lay.
5
D. W. Hurd.
6
C. H. Long.
7
D. W. Bowman.
8
y. D. Arms.
9
R. H. Griffith.
10
Rev. D. S. Masters.
11 Dist. D. A. Williams.
12 " W. B. Rundell.
13 " Rev. C. Y. Peacock.
14 " J. J. Brown.
15 " W. B. Eagan.
16 " J. B. Turner.
17 « Nelson Holt.
18 " R. C. Willis.
19 " T. S. Ridgeway.
20 " E.J. Ayers.
Illinois State Sunday School Convention. 19
Moved and seconded that a nominating committee of five be apjjointed
by the Chair to nominate officers for the convention, with the excep-
tion of the Executive Committee. Carried.
The following were named by the Chair as Nominating Committee:
O. R. Brouse, C. M. Morton, J. D. Arms, A. C. Price, and E. D. Dur-
ham.
It was moved, seconded and carried that the districts be instructed
each to elect at its district meeting a member to serve on the committee
to nominate the excutive committee and report to the convention.
Benediction. Adjourned till 2 p. m.
First Day — Second Session.
Song service, 30 minutes, conducted by Prof. Excel). R-ev. Ham-
mond, of La Salle, led in prayer.
The committee on nominations of officers reported as follows:
President.
T. P. NESBITT, Alton.
Vice-Presidents.
REV. W. W. HARSHA, D. D., Jacksonville. REV. G. R. VAN HORNE,
Rockford. REV. W. H. GARNER, McLeansboro.
Recording Secretary. — E. D. DURHAM, Onarga.
Statistical Secretary. — W. B. JAGOBS, Ghicago.
Treasurer.— ¥.. D. DURHAM, Onarga.
Moved and seconded that report be adopted. Carried.
President Tracv requested Brothers Arms and Brouse to escort the
President elect to the platform.
President Trac)*: I am sure it will be a great relief and joy to you
to have me announce, and announce truthfully, that the president for
1884, is nominated and elected; and I have great pleasui-e in introduc-
ing to you Bro. Nesbitt, our President, Mr. Nesbitt spoke as follows:
Brothers and sisters in Christ, I want to thank you for the honor
you have placed upon me as your presiding officer for this year. With
this new call come new responsibilities. I remember twenty-three
years ago when this Sabbath School Convention met in the city of Al-
ton, and I, then a member of one of the mission schools, marched in
line, and it seemed to me to be one of the proudest days of my life.
The work that we are engaged in is the work of the Lord, and there-
fore we all love it and the more we do of it the moi^e we like it. If I
were alone I should shrink from it, but having such a faithful corps of
co-workers, I feel like doing all I can. We are here to-day to cele-
brate our 25th anniversary, and to rejeice for what the Lord hath done
for us. But let us remember the command to go forward; let us re-
member that the enemy is always on the watch to catch and ensnare
us, but that if the Lord is with us, we shall overcome all and come off
victorious,
20 Illinois State Sunday School Convention.
I now ask you to unite with mc in prayer, asking the Lord to help
me, to enahle me perform this new chity acceptably to Him.
O Lord, our Hea\enly Father, we meet here as Thy children, and
we come to Thee as our father. We come asking that Thou wilt help
us to bear all that Thou hast placed upon us. We remember that we
are the instruments in Thy hands to do Thy bidding, and we ask that
Thou wilt be very near us. We have come here to receive new
strength, and grant that our cup may be filled to overflowing; and
grant that we may go from this convention filled with the Spirit of
God, that we may do our work better and more earnestly than ever
before. Grant that all the work of this convention may be done in
accordance with Thv will and that it may receive Thy blessing, for
Christ's sake, Amen.
The Vice-Presidents of the convention having been seated at the
side of the president, Mr. E. A. Wilson, of Springfield, delivered an
ADDRESS OF WELCOME.
Mr. Wilson said:
Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen: — I am sorry to have
to stop the proceedings so long and agitate this assembly so much. I
was appointed to extend a welcome to you, which I do with a great
deal of pleasure. Having participated in conventions of this kind for
some years myself, 1 think there would have been a fitness that has
not been observed, if some other person had been chosen to do this
pleasant service. Hut, at the same time, I stand here to express to you
our sincere thanks for coming to our city to hold this convention. My
first experience in Sunday School work was at Decatur. Having been
but a very little time before the wf)rld as a Christian man, it was a new
atmosphere; but I formed friendships there that have been blessed to
me ever since and that I prize very highly. And so I say to those
who attend this convention for the first time, you will never regret
coming to these meetings and jiarticipating in these discussions. As I
look over the past few years I see a great many changes. We used
to discuss who was the superior in the Sunday School, the pastor or
the superintendent, and other unprofitable questions; but we have now
reached a dilferent standpoint, namely, the truth about Christ and the
truth about men, the fact that this precious Book tells what we need to
know as we carry the glad tidings of grace to our families. We have
reached a point where we inquire as to the best ways of reaching the
children. And the fact is, dear friends, just this, that to day the Sun-
day School people of this State, and of the United States, and of the
world are to all intents and purposes a people of one Hook. I remem-
ber 14 or i^ years ago visiting a Sunday School, and the superinten-
dent asked me to take charge of a class, and I suggested that I did not
know anything about the lesson. He said, "^That is all right, here is
the question-])ook.'' We have got past that jjoint; we now want to-
tell our children the truth about the grace of our Lord. We are liv-
ing in an age when the Sunday School is very much more important
than It was in the past. I congratulate you that you have come up to
consider about the King in His beauty. It is a blessed thought that
we have -such a King, with whom we can claim fellowship. I love to
Illinois State Sunday School Convention. 21
think that we are co-laborers with Him in carrying the blessed Gospel
of the Son of God to those that are without it, I tell you, my friends,
our work is a very important one, because it takes hold of the children.
When you look around and see the friends of Catholicism and see the
force there is in it, we ought to learn a lesson from them. How many
of our boys are straying away from us, or from our fireside? How
many of the children that were raised by Christian parents are away
from Christ.? It seems to me that it is time we ought to be up and
doing before the night cometh "•when no man can work." The Sun-
day School men and women are eminently men and women of one
book. Sunday School people must acknowledge the supremacy of the
eternal Word, and of the eternal God ; when we deviate from that
there is no force whatever in our efforts. I have no sympathy with
any man or woman who attempts to teach the Word of Life and does
not acknowledge the Word of God in eveiy controversy. We want the
Word of God, the Bible, God's Book, in the hands of the children, and
not the lesson leaves. I do not object to the lesson leaves, but we want
the Word. If my child learns that God sent His only begotten Son
into the world that whosoever believeth on Him should not perish but
have everlasting life, I want him to say that he got it from the Bible
and not from a sheet of paper. We want the Word.
I bid you welcome to Springfield, and to the hospitality that will be
extended to yoti, and to the hearts and homes of our citizens.
RESPONSE TO THE ADDRESS OF WELCOME.
The Rev. T. E. Spillman was requested to respond on behalf of the
Association to the address of welcome. He spoke as follows:
Christian friends, who live in Springfield, we are verj- glad to hear,
what we did not at all doubt, that we are welcome to the good things
of this city. We expected nothing — less of Springfield than a cordial
welcome and a hospitable entertainment. We did not expect to carry
away with us any other convictions of this place; and if the initiation
which this servant has had at the middle meal of the day is any sug-
gestion of what we are to have, we shall be well entertained, of which
we have no question whatever. We are glad that you invited us to
Springfield for this anniversary. I think the hearts of the people gen-
erally turned In this direction as a suitable place for us to hold this sil-
ver wedding, as^ It was called; rather this 25th anniversary of the
birth of our State Sunday School Association; and we have turned
our eyes this way for months, and oiu' prayers I believe have been go-
ing up through all the counties of this State that the Lord's blessing
might be on this convention when gathered here. And when we
arrived and understood to-day that we were to meet In this building
it seemed to me as if we were getting still nearer to the center of the
State. There appears to me something suitable and suggestive in
our coming into this place with the Doctors, (referring to the meeting
of the State Dental Association, which was being held at the same
time in the State House). Around these massive pillars there is an ap-
pearance of law, but I feel that hallowed gospel memories will linger
here where Christian songs are sung and reports of Christian work are
22 Illinois State Sunday School Convention.
made. I suppose this hall has echoed many times to the voice of
those who make laws for our land — that is what they say they do — we
send them up here in tenderness and love, and they say they do it, and
we suppose they do. But we who are workinc^ to make Christian
men and women in the sight of God, may well imagine, — as I did a
moment ago in connection with the suhject w^hich we have on this pro-
gram,— that this room might also be a kind of dressing-room for this
royal marriage, and we, a part of the Bride of Jesus Christ may be
putting on white robes, and fitting ourselves for the sanctifying grace
of God, when gatliered for the hist great day, when the resurrec-
tion trump shall wake the sleeping dead, and the Bride of the Lord
Jesus Christ shall come up, to be presented to the blessed Bride-
groom. Mav God grant that we shall be fitted in these Christian songs,
and service for more a successful work in His Vineyard. As soldiers
of the Cross, we are gathered here that our souls may be prepared
for a larger assembly than this, when life's battles have been fought,
and the scarworn soldiers shall come forth with all the rdeemed, to be
given Him as the reward of His toil. His suflferings, and His death.
May God grant that here our hearts shall be chastened, and our souls
better pi'epared, to sit down at the marriage supper of the Lamb.
The president introduced Rev. O. A. Williams, of Galesburg, who
addressed the convention as follows:
THE HEAVENLY BRIDEGROOM; HIS PERSON AND
WORK.
ADDRESS BY REV. O. A. WILLIAMS.
It was midnight, and there was a cry heard, behold the bridegroom
cometh, go ye out to meet him. The subject as announced is "His
Person and Work." Who is He? What has He done? These are
important and vital questions, especially if we bear any relation to the
Bridegroom. A bridegioom is a man who has been recentlv or is soon
to be married. This title is ascribed repeatedly to Jesus as the great
Head of the church. It derives its beauty, its grace, its force from that
most sacred and holy relation existing between husband and wife, of
whom God has said that they shall be one flesh. There is no relation
more perfect, none more complete than this. Let us for a few- mo-
ments this afternoon consider the rich meaning of this relation growing
out of this title given to the Bridegroom. When Jesus said to His
anxious, trembling disciples, "I am the good shepherd, fear not, little
flock," there was a pledge in those words of protection, of care, of
guidance, of support. When, as their master. He said, "follow me,"
there was implied in that command that He would communicate to
them His doctrine. His mind, and His will. When He said, as a king
to his subject, "To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me-
upon my throne, there was implied in that promise that His people
would share w'ith Him His honor. His power. His exaltation. But
here is a word, a title, and a relation growing out of it, that means all
of this and much more than this, and the question comes to us again,
Who is He ? When persons are about to form a life union it is neces-
Illinois State Sunday School Convention. 23
sary that they should know as much as possible about each other. It
often occurs that as acquaintance and knowledge increase respect and
confidence decrease, but it is not so with regard to the church, beloved.
The more w^e shall know of Him the more lovely antl the more beau-
tiful will He appear. What has been said concerning Him ? You re-
member what the Prophet Isaiah said of the Bridegroom, "Thy Maker
is thy husband; the Lord of Hosts is His name; the God of all the
earth shall He be called." You remember also some of the titles that
the same prophet gives to the Bridegroom : "His name shall be called
Wonderful — Counsellor, The Mighty God, The everlasting Father,
The Prince of Peace." Let us, my dear friends, have the right con-
ception of the glory of the Bridegroom of the ehurch. It seems as if
the great apostle of the Gentiles actually labored with language to
bring out the greatness, the honor, and the glory of the great Head of
the church. I love to read such passages as the ist of Ephesians, the
1st of Colossians and portions of Philippians that bring out this idea.
I will choose only one of these: when he speaks of Him as having
been set on the right hand of God in heavenly places, he says, "Far
above all principality, and power, and might, and dominion, and every
name that is named, not only in this world, but also in that which is to
come." Above every name in this XNorld and in that which is to come!
"And hath put all things under his feet, and gave him to be the head
over all things to the church. Which is his body, the fullness of him
that fiUeth all in all." Here is a thought not only as to the glory of
His presence, but also as to His exalted position. There is one subject
that has been in all our thoughts and has filled the papers for some
weeks past; and that is who shall be nominated for the chief position
in this mighty nation. Men are busy with their slates and computing
the probable chance for this man and the other one. Why ? Because
it is an honor for a man to occupy the chief place in this nation. This
city and this State were honored when the noble dead whose face looks
down upon us to-dav (pointing to the portrait of Abraham Lincoln)
occupied that position. I want you to know to-day, my dear friends,
that your beloved, the Bridegroom, is King — King of kings, and Lord
of Lords. He has been crowned Lord of all. Oh, that our hearts
might catch the spirit of those words, that we might here and now
"Crown Him Lord of all." His throne is an eternal throne. His king-
dom is an everlasting kingdom, and His dominion endureth throughout
all generations.
But, let us for a moment inquire into His personal qualities. We
have already learned of the glories of His person, of His exalted posi-
tion, but what about His personal qualities? Is He attractive? Is He
beautiful? We have our ideas of beauty; a lovely face is always ad-
mired; and in objects that we love we behold qualities of beauty, either
real or imaginary. But what has been said of our Beloved ? Read
the words of the wise man : "My beloved is white and ruddv, the chicf-
est among ten thousand. The one altogether lovely, in every respect
lovely, altogether lovely ! There has been no picture left for us, like
the pictures of these noble men on either side of us to-day, that we
might form a conception of the outward appearance of our Lord. We
do not know how He looked as He was here on earth moving among
men. We have seen pictures claiming to be of our Lord Jesus Christ,
but I prefer to picture Him in my own mind. Doubtless He was glo-
^4 Illinois State Sunday School Convention.
rioiis in His person; we may rest assured that as the perfect man and
the onlv perfect type of our race that the earth has ever known, He
was altof^etlier lovely in His hody, in His outward appearance. I have
no doubt about it. Have you not sometimes thou<j;ht within yourselves
that every look of His eye, that every expression of His face, that ev-
ery wave of His hand spoke of incomparable gentleness and of infinite
love? Alto<;cther lovely ! But we admire chiefly the beauty of His char-
acter, and what about His character? Men may have lovely faces, men
may ha\e noble bearin<(, but their character may not be pure and per-
fect. Altoji^ether lovely — perfect in his character. When He stood
before the Roman judge and His accusers testified against Him, the
Roman Governor said, "I can find no fault in Him, none whatever."
When the betrayer who had had every opportunity of knowing Him,
had been with Him from the beginning and knew Him through and
through — came to the high priests and threw the money down before
them, he said, "I have betrayed innocent blood; here is your money, I
have betrayed innocent blood." The centmion who watched the dying
agonies oi that Being who took your place and mine, glorified God,
and said, "Certainly this was a righteous man." When the great apos-
tle whom I have already quoted, years after this, wrote concerning His
character — and we know that he was unsurpassed in his estimate of
divine truth and divine character — he said He was pure, undefiled, "in
all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin." Here is therefore
a perfect man, a perfect character, a being, who is altogether lovely,
and "the chiefest among ten thousand."
But, again, the question may suggest itself to you, and the difficulty
arise in your mind that a being so glorious, so exalted in rank and posi-
tion, and so perfect in character is not suited to form an alliance with
man such as this term would imply. It is not in my province to speak
of the bride that he has chosen, but I want you to understand that He
is perfectly (jualified to enter into this relation, because He took our na-
ture upon Himself. Though God from all eternity. He was also a per-
fect man like ourselves — the same peculiarities of hunger and thirst and
weariness, seeking and expecting the kindness, the hospitality, the sym-
pathy and the love of His friends like one of us, and, therefore, per-
fectly fitted and qualified to enter into the relation which this beautiful
figure would suggest. Here another thought may occur to you: Sup-
posing that He is fitted to enter into this relation, that He is qualified
to be the bridegroom, so far as His nature is concerned; though a per-
fect man in every respect, and therefore able to enter into sympathies
with men — which is absolutely necessary in the relation of husband and
wife, for unless there is sympathy between them there cannot be a real
union — you say that the bride was not fitted, because of the moral con-
dition of man, depraved and corrupted by sin. This leads us to ask :
What has He done to make the bride ready and fitted for Him? What
has He done that the bride might be fitted for this union, that it may
be a perfect luiion between the great Head of the Church and His
Bride the Church itself. It will be necessary that I should confine my
thoughts very briefly to what He has done as suggested by this peculiar
relation: if I should begin to speak of all that Christ has done we
would be launched on a sea that is boundless and shoreless and bottom-
less. It will be necessary, therefore, to confine ourselves to this one
thought. What has He done to the church, especially, as a bridegroom ?
Illinois State Sunday School Convention. 25
I want to ask your attention to the i6th chapter of the Prophecies of
Ezekiel, in which this thought is brought out very beautifully. The
words were first spoken concerning Israel, but we know that the Jew-
ish church is a type of the Christian church in every respect, and these
things that it is said God has done for Israel are only the foreshadowing
of what God has done for the Christian church through His Son Jesus
Christ. And what did He do? Here it is, and all the human race may
find itself described in this figure. It is described as a helpless infant,
cast out into the field ; no eye to pity her, no hand outstretched to help,
to save, and God in the image of a human prince conies and passes by
and looks down on that helpless infant. Ah! there was mere}', there
was pity, there was love, for when He beheld her He pitted her, He
stood and looked at her; and we are told that when He beheld her it
was a time of love; and when He beheld her He entered into a covenant
with her, and said, "Thou art mine. ' Ah, niy dear hearers, I want
you to pause for a moment and think a little of the nature of that love.
With an everlasting love hath He loved thee, dear church, and with
loving kindness hath He drawn thee. I want you to understand that
that covenant was a covenant of peace; it was an etei'nal covenant. O,
thou struggling, sorrowing church, I want thee to understand to-day
that thy Husband will never break His marriage vows with thee, be-
cause it is an eternal covenant. But more than this, it is something
more than to pity her and look down upon her so tenderly. We are
told here that He took this little infant and wasned it and clothed it.
I see that the bride's raiment is to be specially referred to, and I will
ask to be pardoned if in reading a few verses I should run a little into
somebody else's subject: "I clothed thee also with broidered work, and
shod thee with badgers' skin, and I girded thee about with fine linen,
and I covered thee with silk. I decked thee also with ornaments, and
I put bracelets upon thy hands, and a chain on thy neck. Antl I put a
jewel on thy forehead, and earnings in thine ears, and a beautiful crown
upon thine head. Thus was thou decked with gold and silver; and thy
raiment was of fine linen, and silk, and broidered work."
Oh! my dear hearers, when we come to speak of what Christ has
done for the church I feel that we are standing on very sacred ground
when I realize how He washed us with His own blood, for the blood
of Jesus Christ, His dear Son cleanses from all sin, when I think of the
wedding garments that He has prepared, when I think of the robe that
He has provided for us as His bride, of the gold and the silver and the
silk threads in the robe of His righteousness which He has prepared
for us. He has provided for us a garment of righteousness that we
ma}' be found just and justified in Christ Jesus our Lord. Thus He
purified her, and clothed her with His own righteousness, liefitting the
1)ride for the alliance and union that He was ready to make with her,
so that there would be a fitness of nature, a fitness of spirit, a fitness of
character, as well as a fitness of love. But more than this, I should
like to call attention to other things that He has done. He has pre-
pared for the bride a home: "Father, I will that they also, whom thou
hast given me, be with me where I am ; that they ma}- behoUl ni}- glory,
which thou hast given me : for thou lovedst me before the foundation of
the world."
"In my Father's house are man}- mansions : if it were not so, I would
26 Illinois State Sunday School Convention,
have told you. I go to prepare a place for you, I will come again, and
receive you unto myself: that where I am, there ye may be also."
We can hardly conceive a condition more desolate than that of a man
who cannot think of a spot on this wide world and call it home :
Home, sweet home;
Be it ever so lowly
There's no place like home,
I know there is no place upon this earth like my home. There is no
place on this earth that gives me such an image of Heaven as my home.
Oh, the Word is so rich, and sweet, that it seems to express the most
precious sentiments of our hearts! My dear friends, I want you to
know that the Britlegroom has gone tt) prepare the place. Don't you
know how a loving husband does; how he studies the tastes and wants
of the bride by providing .her this and the other beautiful thing that
may fill her heart with gladness when she comes to her home? I want
you to know that every want of our nature will be fully satisfied there
at His right hand. We shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more;
no, never, for we shall be fully satisfied when we stand there in the
presence of the Bridegroom. Another thought: You know there is a
clause in the church of England's marriage ceremony that reads like
this: "With all my worldly goods I thee endow," so that the wife
shares with her husband his possessions. You know there is a natural
desire in the human heart for wealth, for possessions. I would like to
know if there is in this room a person who has never had a desire to
be rich. There are times when I think I would like to have a little
more. You know how it is with us ministers, we do not have too
much of this world's goods. I want you to know that the bridegroom
is the only begotton Son of God, the heir of all things; the earth is His,
and the fulness thereof; He is crowned Lord of all. "And if children,
then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ." All things are
yours — things present or things to come, or life or death, arc yours —
yours, my brother, yours, my sister; and ye are Christ's, and Christ is
God's. Is not this enough for us to know to-day? And I want to say
that He has come. "Behold the bridegroom cometh." I hear a voice
not far oflf in the distance, say "Behold, I come quickly." Oh, that
there might be the response in our hearts to-day, "Amen! Even so,
come Lord Jesus!" Let us be glad and rejoice and give honor to His
name, for the marriage of the Lamb is come, and His wife hath made
herself ready, and blessed are they who are called into the marriage
supper of the Lamb.
Mr. Excell sang a solo, "Abundantlv Able to Save."
The copy of Miss Dryer's Bible Reading was promised, but she
was unable to furnish it in time, and with regret we go to press
without it.
After Miss Dryer's address the convention adjourned.
Illinois State Sunday School Convention. 37
First Day — Third Session.
Mr. D. Huid, of La Salle County, led in prayer.
The committee to which was referred the report of the Executive
Committee presented a partial report as follows :
Your committee, to whom was referred the report of the Executive
Committee, respectfully recommend that the following resolutions be
adopted :
Resolved, ist. That the present division of the State into twenty
districts be continued with a president for each.
2nd. That each district elect three delegates to the International
(Convention at Louisville, June ii, I3 and 13, and that the Executive
Committee shall appoint 38 delegates and till all vacancies in the repre-
sentation of the State.
3rd. That the Illinois delegates be instructed to pledge $500 per
year to the International work for the next three 3'ears.
4th. That the sum of $5,000 be raised for the State work, and that
the Executive Committee be authorized to secure such help as in their
opinion is best.
D. W. Potter, Chicago, Chas. H. Long, Pontiac,
Chairman of Committee. Secretary of Committee.
The districts were requested to meet separately, and elect delegates
to Louisville.
The President then introduced Mr. E. K. Warren, State Secretary
of the Michigan S. S. Association, who spoke as follows:
ADDRESS BY MR. WARREN.
Mr. Chairman and Dear Friends: — We have often heard a
great deal about the Illinois conventions, and I came over to spy out
the land, and see if I could discover the secret of your success. I think
I have already one point. You have men here who know how to give
orders, and the rest of you seem to know exceedingly well how to obey
them. Therefore in compliance with this same rule I am ready to obey
orders which I have received, and speak to you to night. I think it is
a good plan for young men to start out by being read}- to speak in
meeting when we are asked to do so.
I wish I could bring you some good I'eports from Michigan, but I
do not think I can. Perhaps I can encourge you, by telling you that
occasionally we are blessed by a missionarj' visit from some Illinois
worker, and you can follow his trail wherever you go over our State if
he has been ahead of you. We have a great man}- counties in our State
that have good county organizations, but for some reason we are
not able to make the connecting link between the county and State or-
ganizations. We are nearly as old in the work as you are, but we fail
to get that response that you have here. I wish the Master would give
us this power of getting the workers. In one of the counties, there is
now being held a convention, the program of which, is perhaps, bet-
ter than the State Convention program we will have, and yet I do not
think there will be a delegate from that County Convention to the
28 Illinois State Sunday School Convention.
State Convention. Another thing: We pledj^e money sometimes and
fail to pay it; we made a pledge to the International Convention which
we are trying earnestly to pay. In one county, not long ago, a conven-
tion was heing held, when it appeared that we had failed to pay anything
of the $75 we had pledged, and one county paid $50. On another
occasion we were getting up a county convention, and we pushed the
arrangements so that, finally, the General Passenger Agent said :
"Please return delegates from such a place on account of the State
Convention." I felt heartily encouraged to think that we had been
able to make a general passenger agent think that a county convention
was equal to a State convention. My children are beginning to learn
that when my old brown valise comes out, there is a Siniday School
convention somewhere. Not long ago the conventions came pretty
thick, and one of them happened to be in our own county, and my
little boy said, "Papa, how often do they hold conventions in our coun-
ty?" And my little girl said, "Why! don't you know? we hold them
every month." I wish we did. There is one thing we are going to
try to do, we are going to get our State organization more thorough
Out of over 80 counties, I am sorry to say there are only a trifle over
30 organized; and out of a population of a little over a million and a
half, we have no right to say we have more than three hundred thou-
sand in the Sunday School — about 30 per cent. (Mr. Jacobs: "That
is very good)." As I came into your convention this morning I looked
over the faces of those who were here, and I noticed a great many el-
derly men and women, especially elderly men, and as I knew your
record to some extent it gave me pleasure to see the men who have
brought about this result, so that the influence of your Sunday School
Association is felt in every part of the globe where the English lan-
guage is spoken. In that early session, I saw very few young men,
but later in the day I was pleased to notice that the young men (turn-
ing to the President of the convention, a young man) are taking up the
work that is laid upon them, and, Mr. President, let me say to you that
you have taken up a work that is no small thing. Out of the 600,000
Sunday School scholars in Illinois, I dare say there are 3,000 in small
neighborhoods, where a class may have only three or foin- boys in it.
Strange as it may seem, it is hard to hold the boys. Sometimes we
think that if we have not a large class of those boys we are not doing
them justice; but I want to say that you must not neglect one of them.
Give them something to do. If you have not a library, get one. You
do not need a case made out of black walnut; just get a pine box, and
some good Christian will send you a lot of old books; and you can put
that boy in librarian, put him to work, and keep him there initil the
Lord softens his hcait, and he becomes the child of God, and he will
work there right along. It seems to me that there would be no difli-
culty in looking after all or.r union work, if every church would pay
the expenses of its own SaVibath School. Let the lunsery of the church
be supported by the ciiurch, and we, the chihhen of the church, will
see that the Sunday School work is pushed all over the land. Some-
times people think they are too busy to be teachers, or superintendents
in a school. Let me say, if you have a man or woman in your scho(il
that is not busy, there is something wrong somewhere. The other
morning at family worship my little girl was reading the last verse of
the 1st Epistle of John, "Little children, keep your hands from idols.
Illinois State Sunday School Convention. 29
Amen," and she rendered it, "Little children, keep your hands from
idle men." I leave you with this advice, keep your hands from idle
men.
The president introduced Rev. F. C. Iglehart, of Bloomington,
who w^as received with applause.
SABBATH SCHOOL WORK AT HOME.
ADDRESS BY REV. F. C. IGLEHART.
I see my theme has "work" in it. I now call attention to the last
word of phrase, "work." Epicarmus, has written truly in his classic
verse, "The gods for labor sell us all gooil things." We regret to own
it, and yet it must be true that man is naturally lazy, and if Pro\idence
had given hnn any encouragement to indolence, he would have been
utterly worthless, to himself, and to his Maker. If he had been treated
with as great indulgence as the lower animals that have their board,
clothing, lodging, lights, fuel and washing furnished without toil, he
would, perhaps have been comfortable in his laziness, but not much
above the lower tribes in Avisdom or achievement. If he could have
had as warm clothing as the sheep, and as good eating as the squirrel,
and as comfortable a house as the rabbit, with as little work on his part,
his successes and enjoyments would hardly have been greater than
theirs. Against this, indolence and the littleness, and ruin it would inev-
itably produce, God has set the whole machiner} of the world work-
ing, lie has hedged us up with harsh necessity, and compelled us to
work or starve, to work or freeze, to work or die. It would have been
as easy to have filled the cups of chaff, with soft flour, as with the flinty
grain; as easy to have hung loaves of bread on the corn stalks as the
raw ears. It would have been as easy to have woven our clothing, and
fitted it to our frames, as it was to weave the robes for the ox, or bear.
Houses could have been made to grow, as easily as trees, and cities, as
groves, and we could have slept away our probation, with no tax on
the nerve, no strain on the muscle, without sweat or groan or complaint.
The same law of labor obtains in the spiritual world. With a lieaven
full of angels to help, and God so strong on the earth, and virtue stron-
ger than vice, and truth superior to error, yet there are so many demons
in the path to contend with, and it is so hard to be good, it requires a
constant struggle to train our immortal soul for its destiny. It requires
struggle after struggle to save a single soul from sin and death. Why
has God treated us with this seeming harshness? Why has he thrust
us out into a fight against want in the temporal world, and a fight
agamst sin in the spiritual world.'' Experience and God's word make
the answer plyin. 'J'o make us men. and not machines; to make us
causes, and not effects, to inake us creators and not blanks, to make us
more like Himself, and less like the unthinking animals. To have
placed us in a condition of inilolence in the realm of matter, or of mind,
witliout work and intelligence to sustain and develop the creative fac-
ulty, would have been for us to have slept away an irresponsible man-
hood without plans or aims, above the instincts of the brute creation.
To have fed us to fatness, and fanned us with the breath of flower
gardens, and sent us in a chariot of ease into glory, might have given
3© Illinois State Sunday School Convention.
us the contentment of animals that sleep their lives away but would
have furnished us with no preparation for the enjoyment of things di-
vine— for the life that is to come. It is this struggle with want, and
sin which will never cease, and which only can supply the necessary
training and tuition needful to develope the truest manhood of man.
The curse, as many esteem it, that has driven us into the slavery of
toil, under the arrangement of a benign God, has become the very
blessing which elevates us to the sway of Kings. Is there a laboring
man here, who does not know what the word "work" means? Is
there a man from his store or office or place of employment, is there
a woman who has come up from her home cares, or housekeeping is
there a minister or Sunday School superintendent, a Sunday School
teacher, or worker that does not know what "work" means? Let the
motto of this convention, of every Sunday School, of every toiler, be,
for the year to come, "ti?or^." " Work^ for the night is coming^
God has made some spaces between men with his great hand, and no
human endeavor can reduce them. Many a meat ax will not take on
edge or polish no matter how much you may grind it. But the spaces
that mark most of the inequalties of life are either the result of indolence
or industry. Most of them can be closed up with hard work. So with
all human enterprises. Work will be the true measure of pros-
perity. The Romans thought it was dishonorable to work. That toil
was fit only for slaves. But to the north of them, there lived nations
that worshipped, "gods of energy," gods with hammers of energy in
their hands. And these nations with hammers of energy in their hands
came down and pounded lazy Rome to pieces. Ours is a God of en-
ergy. The "God man" whom we serve is the busiest being in the
universe, and his hohness is not sullied by working in wood, in iron or
stone. As worshipers of the God of energy, let us as officers, teach-
ers and scholars, enlist for a life of honest service in this grand Sunday
School army of the State of Illinois. Yes, it is more than 500,000
strong, and it has enlisted for the war. Let us march with the ham-
mer of His word in our hands, to smite the wrong and break in pieces
the bulwarks and strong holds of Satan — at the same time laying foun-
dations for the temple of our God.
My subject defines the kind of "work," — "Sunday School work." A
queer word to be used next to work, from the Greek iKoKt} "leisiu'e,"
and the Latin "schola" or "loitering place." It was a place where free
and easy conversation was indulged in by distinguished teachers, where
instruction was imparted to those who listened, and the teachers were
so well filled with their theme, and were so fluent of speech, that their
service Was regarded a recreation, rather than a labor, and, so the place
where they met was called "schola." \Vc would scarcely say that the
modern day school teachers spend their time in loafing or recreation,
for scarcely any class of society is really so overburdeiied with work.
While the school of to-day does not borrow the loafing feature of the
early school, it does borrow its work of instruction, not only by word
of mouth, as in early times, but also by text books. We are engaged
then in a work, school work, or the work of instructing the young.
The babe comes into this world the very symbol of helplessness; a
breathing lump of flesh. It can cry, and it can nurse, and that is
about all. And what it is to think, and what it is to do, and what it
to be, depend on what it is taught to think, or do or be. Helpless as
Illinois State Sunday School Convention. 31
it is, it is a bundle of magnificent possibilities. With the help of the
good or bad instruction it may receive, it may, by and by, measure
the stars and compass all human knowledge, or crawl the earth a
human fiend or monster. Instruction is a necessity of society and of
God's kingdom.
Notice now the first word of the phrase, ".Sunda}-," which qualifies
the school work in which we are engaged. The original meaning of
the word "Sunday" makes its connection with our theme as queer as
the connection of the original merning of "school" and "work" — the
sun's day. The sun was, no doubt, the first object of idol woiship.
When man fell from God he clung to the sun. Through all the
ages the sun has been a master deity. Men have been hopeful at its
dawn, strong in his noonday rays, and somber as he sank behind the
west. In Rome, he was quite a favorite, and a day was set apart for
his worship, ("Dies solis"). The early Christians took the name
Sunday and gave it to the Lord's day. It was with the understand-
ing that the day was for the worship of the ".Sun of Righteousness."
"But unto you that fear my name shall the sun of Righteousness
arise with healing in his wings." (Malachi iv. 3.) With thi-; inter-
pretation, there is nothing queer in the relation of the words, and the
right word qualifies the school work.
Froude, in his " Short Studies on Great Subjects," sends a cat, un-
happy with its inactivitv, on a pilgrimage to discover the secret of
happiness. The owl tells her ihat it is to meditate, and that he has
been spending a long time wondering whether the owl made the
egg, or the ^%% the owl, and the cat suggested that the egg from
which he came had fallen into goose's nest by mistake. On meeting
the fox the cat was asked to dine with him, which she did. She said,
I just met a rabbit in the way which I did not kill. The cubs com-
menced to laugh, and the old fox had to rebuke their bad manners.
The fox said that happiness consists in obtaining things by superior
ability; that he could not enjoy himself unless he were stealing a
goose from some farmer, and then complimented the cub ihat had stolen
the fine goose on which they had dined. The world is full of owls
who think that happiness is in meditating on deep questions — full of
foxes who take to themselves the property of others. All the other
creatures the cat met, the blackbird singing in the bush, the ox search-
ing for food, the rabbit living to feed her little ones, and the bee in the
flower making honey, all said to the cat, "Do your duty as we are
•doing ours and you will be happy." The happiness of an immortal
spirit consists in its doing its dutv. The development and destiny of
a spirit, consists in its doing its duty in its sphere, as perfectly as the
lower tribes do theirs. Our work consists in teaching the young to
do their duty to God, and to their fellow men. This is what makes
our work, Sunday School work, a work of mercy — a work of bless-
ing and a work of jo v.
We will notice the relation of the Sabbath .School work to home.
Every thing that lives has a home. Every flower that blooms, and
vine that climbs, every beast that crawls, and bird that flies, has some
particular soil or climate where it may derive its nourishment and
best develop its growth. The weeping willow lives by the water's
edge — the white lily in the vale, and the cedar, on the mountam top.
32 Illinois State Sunday School Convention,
Above the mountain, and beyond the clouds unseen ones dwell in
homes. Providence certainly has not been kinder to the plant than he
has to man, for he has given him a home with elements of life for susten-
ance and development. VVe see some in the audience who are gray.
The snow of winter is on their heads, but the flowers of a perpetual
spring-time are blooming in their liearts. You who have been thus
honored with a crown of glory before the time, are, while I am speak-
ing, calling up the home of your childhood. The wide gate fastened
with a wooden pin, the dusty lane with lazy herd, and acorn tree for
shelter, the picket fence about the garden, the rail fence around the
farm, the well filled barn, the lilac bush, the sweet brier, and the old
fashioned pinks appear just as they used to when a child. The well
where the thirsty harvesters used to drink and near which, in the
shade, they lounged an hour at noon for rest, the lazy dog asleep on
the porch, the fowls that came so easily together at the shaking of the
table clotli, all look as they did then. The faithful plow horse and
the familiar field, the noi>?e of the whetstone against the scythe, and
the rustle of the ripe grain as it fell, the blushing of the fruit as it was
gathered in the autumn time, all come to you as though they were
but vesterilay. You remember your chat about the table and the
merry group that gathered about the cheerful fire place, and you are
sad now, as you were when you followed yon loved one to the new
grave in this church yard, and you also are happy now as you were
then in the prospect of a re-union beyond the skies. The reason why
these scenes are freshest to you fathers and mothers in Israel is that
they sank deepest in your natures, and have had the greatest share in
the formation of your destiny.
There is a transmission of tremendous soul force, in home life. The
babe is only a few weeks old before the "wires are put up," and soul
communication begins. A smile is answered with a smile, and a cross
word with pouting and a cry. By an unalterable law of our being,
we become like what we imitate. The attempt to conform the life to
the will and character of God makes the character of the worshipper
like God. By this law, the child became like those it imitates. The
next time you look at a picture of yourself in the little mirror in the
centre of vour child's eye, look deeper down at a life size photograph
of yourself on the sensitive surface of its soul. You have not im-
pressed your physical features upon your child half so much as you
have printed your spiritual likeness in his character. A parent either
con>^ciouslv or unconsciousl v bv the authority possessed, and the exam-
ple set, wills a child, a long way upward toward paradise, or a long
way downward toward Gelieniia. Christian motherhood — home's
greatest ornament, is childhood's best environment. Her tender arms
are the shelter that angels wings would give, and her spirit sinks into
the child's heart with the omnipotence of love. Her tears of affec-
tion soften his spirit, and with the hand of faith she draws the arm of
the Everlasting about her, and him. Ceres, weary and disappointed
at her vain search for her daughter, Proserpina, renounced the so-
ciety of the gods, and came to the earth to live. Happening in the
city of Eleusis, she fell into the home Metaniva, who employed her
as a nurse for her son Demophoon. The nurse gave the babe nothing
to eat. Yet it grew miraculously. The secret was, she breathed in
Illinois State Sunday School Conveniiun. 33
the face of the child the breath of a god, as it lay in her arms. Moth-
ers! God has made you nurses, Ceres like, and there is a divinity
about your task. Breathe in the face of your child as it lies in your
arms the breath of a holy inspiration, and it will become immortal.
Some time ago I witnessed the death of one of the most brilliant
young men I ever met. He said, as he was dying," Come nearer
mother, your influence has saved me. Your prayers and instruction
have led me to the cross, and I shall be happy forever because you
have done your duty to me. Kiss me once more. Heaven will be
sweet, but it will be sweeter because you are to be theie." What a
tribute, infinitely more valuable to the lonely mother than houses or
lands or earthly condition. Mothers! you may have had a hard time
of it. Things may not have gone just as you would have desired.
You may have no house you can call your own. You may not occu-
py the position in life you think you are fitted for, but you are rich if
God has given you little ones, and you are honored above the mothers
of kings and queens, for to your culturing care have been entrusted
these who are called to occupy exalted positions at the high court of
the universe.
The object of the home is to save the children for Christ; the object
of the Sabbath School is the same. The relation then between the
two is most intimate. No parent should withhold from the Sabbath
vSchool work gratitude or assistance.
The relation of the Sabbath School to the chuach is most intimate.
The object of the church is to make Christians, the object of the
Sabbath School is the same. The time was when it was thought
that people had to become grown before they could experience Chris-
tianity, that they had to grow up to be bad before they could be good.
That time has gone by. The church, through the vSabbath School,
throws her arms around the children and claims them as the lambs of
the great Shepherd. A colony was so greedy gathering gold that it
neglected to plant seed till it was too late and perished with starva-
tion. Spring is the time to put in the gospel seed, and a neglect in
this particular, often leads to spiritual and everlasting sta/vation. In
Goethe's Faust, the devil got into the students room and when told to
leave he said he could not cross the wizard-foot in the doorway.
When told to go out of the window he said there was a law among
devils that forbade it, and so he remained. If Satan gets into the
child's heart, he will not step over the wizard-foot in the threshold,
nor will he fly out of the window, and it will take a terrible struggle
to eject him. We will place Christ in the heart, and put a cross in
the doorway and keep Satan out.
Every year of my ministry so far, I have had a revival service in
the Sabbath School, taking all or a part of the regular Sabbath
School hour, during the season of protracted meetings, inviting the
children to seek the Saviour, and to join the church. No arithmetic
can compute the value of these services to the individual, the school
and the church. Objection is often made, I never listen to it; the
voice of God in the matter is so loud and distinct. Pericles, in his
funeral address over some Athenian youths that perished, said, "The
loss that a country endures at the destruction of its young is the loss
that the year would suffer if spring time were to be blotted out."
3
34 Illinois State Sunday School Convention.
The loss that the church hears in a neglected and irreligious child-
hood, is the loss that blossoming spring time suffers, blighted by a
biting frost.
The Sunday School is related to the irreligious community. It
should put its face against the popular sins that so tempt the young.
Satan often attempts through a broken doorway in the Sunday School
what he could not do by an assault against the church. Workers in
the Sabbath .School should set their faces like flint against the sinful
amusements of the day. A boy had several patches on his pants.
The boys in the school yartl laughed at him. lie turned to them and
said, I have no father and cannot have fine clothes like the rest of
you, but my mother sewed those patches in after she had worked
hard all day over a wash tub, and I would not trade them off for any
pair of pants on the ground. The little hero loved his mother more
than he feared the scoffs of his playmates. We are to love the Sa-
viour more than we fear the criticisms of a heartless and Christless
world.
The Sabbath-School is related to the neglected districts of our com-
munities, especially in the cities. Caste calls the neglected, rejected
class, that are crowded by want and mislbrtune to the outskirts of a
city, " the drift wood," but religion knows no such a word. They
are the masses for whom Christ died. Let us not think we have met
our full obligation when we have built mission schools for them; let
us teach them the way to the fine churches, into our cultured homes,
and into our loving hearts.
I congratulate the members of this convention upon the flattering
condition of the work in this State. With the accumulated influence
of those who have wrought in the past, and the labors of those who
are in the field to-day, our State continues her place as the banner
State of the Union. Our broad prairies, under the smile of God and
the touch of human industry, are laden with rich harvests. The
prairies have had their intellectual and moral as well as agricultural
blossom. The magnificent structure in which we meet to-night, is
an architectural flower from the soil. It took soil just this rich to
produce a Lincoln, a Douglas, a Grant. Our colleges and magnificent
churches are the intellectual and religious fruit of such fields as ours.
These prairies have their beautiful blossom in the Sabbath School
system of the State.
Who is this that comes, gorgeous in her apparel, ravishing in her
beauty? It is the Lamb^ Bride, adorned with all the jewels of her
royal spouse. Closer and closer she comes on softest footstep, and
now she hovers in her benignity over childhood. She gives to it an
open Book as a piotection, with its Mount Sinai on one side and
Mount Calvarv on the other, with its pulpits and living preachers,
with its Sabbath Schools and loyal teachers, with its l)loo(ly cross and
starry crown. With one hand she leads her loving spouse, the
Saviour of the world, who puts his hands tenderly under childhood,
and lifts it up and carries it in his arms, and presses it to his heart,
and gives to the human the mould of the divine. With the other hand
she leads the Holy Ghost, who lays the uncovered heart of God on
the fresh heart of childhood, to inspire it with nil the power and joys
of an endless life.
Illinois State Sunday School Convkntion. 35
These annual gatherings remuid us that we are passing away,
Carlisle said to a visitor from this country, a little time before he died,
"We are all going, going, going." Everything is going, days, weeks,
months, seasons, years, friends; we ourselves are going and will soon
be gone. Under the orchard bloom, through the yellow wheat,
across autumnal woods, through the drifting snow — we are all going
to the tomb and will soon be gone. We are going to a place beyond
the tomb; higher than the whitened fences of the cemetery, higher
than the marble monuments that crumble at the touch of time;
higher than the pine trees that waste their sympathy in sighs and
tears; higher than the blue clouds, higher than the golden stars — we
shall fly to our home beyond the tomb.
A little girl only five years of age died in our city not very long
ago, with the most wonderful experience. She said, "My throat is
well. I am so happy, I don't care. Mamma, I will be your little
angel in heaven. Don't cry; I don't cry. I shall not wear these
clothes any more. I see angels." And she beckoned to them with
her little hand, and they came and took her.
"There is no lover's bower that is so sweet as the bower of the
tomb to a soul that Jesus has saved with His blood. The archway of
the tomb is festooned with cypress, but woven through the cypress
are the rose of Sharon and the lily of the valley. It is not the odor
of the charnel house we breathe, but the fragrance of the upper flower
gardens. We can scarcely see for the flutter of wings, we can scarcely
hear for the melody of the harpers, we can scarcely breathe for the
odor of the gardens, we can scarcely speak for the glory that fills the
soul."
"There is the place where my hopes are stayed.
My heart and m}' treasure are there;
Where verdure and blossoms never fade,
And fields are forever fair."
"That blissful place is my fatherland;
By faith its delights I explore.
Come favor my flight, angelic band,
And waft me in peace to that shore."
Bishop Cheney was introduced and spoke as follows:
ADDRESS BY BISHOP C. E. CHENEY, OF CHICAGO.
Mr. President and Friends of the CoNV^ENrioN : — When
nearly a week ago I planned a little visit to Springfield, I planned to
come here for absolute, entire and unmixed rest. I felt that tt) a busy
man like myself there was a certain right now and then to gain a little
rest for heart, for voice, for mind — it was my birthright. But as in the
old times there was a Jacob who cheated his brother out of his birth-
right, so there is a Jacobs in our time that deprives his brothers of
their rights!
There are some great changes that come to the human mind, as a
cyclone strikes some village on a prairie. They come with over-
whelming power, unlooked for, with a terrible and resistless suddeness.
It is one of the remarkable features of the changes that have characi
36 Illinois State Sunday School Convention.
terized the progress and the history of the church of God on this earth,
that those changes have come slowly, steadily, hy degrees, almost im-
perceptible in their movements. I think it shows the thoughtfulness
that underlies the whole system of Christianity, that these changes do
come ii> such a way that even when they have moulded the whole face
and character of the Christian church it has been done almost imper-
ceptibly. I believe that there bass been passing over the church of
Christ in the last one hundred years a most remarkable revolution, so
remarkable that it has altered tlie character, the spirit, and the temper
of the church of our Lord Jesus Christ; and yet that change has come
in such a way, so slowly, so ccjmpletely leavening the mass of the peo-
ple of God, in the way that the leaven works upon the meal, that we
have not seen it; we have not realized it, we have not felt or recognized
the steps of the progress by which it has attained its present develop-
ment.
As I said a moment ago, 1 did not expect to speak here at all, but as
I am to speak 1 wish to say a word about the revolution that has come
upon Christianity in the progress of our Sunday School work. I think
there has been a very remarkable change steadily growing for the past
one hundred years; and the most remarkable feature to my mind about
this revolution I speak of, and the way it has affected this nineteenth
centurv of ours, is in the fact, that the church of Christ is somehow
learning to come up to the position that our Lord Jesus Christ Himself
occupied among teachers, in regard to the place that a little chiUI
ought to have in the affections and regard of the people of God, In
my own city, sir, there stands on the shore of that majestic Michi-
gan, a tall shaft of monumental stone. The stranger from some other
place visiting Chicago years ago when that monument was yet un-
finished, might have wondered what was its purport, what was its
design; but when at last the figure of yonder great statesman of
Illinois, (pointing to the portrait of Douglass) was placed at its
very summit, when the figure of that statesman crowned the monu-
ment, then every man knew and recognized the purpose and aim
that monument had in view. Yet what is the crowning figure
at the very summit of that monument that was reared by the life,
the teaching, the character, and the work of our Lord Jesus Christ?
What is it that tells the purpose of His work.-* What is its
crowning, supreme figure? I go back to the Old Testament,
and I find Isaiah looking down the future and in prophetic vision
he beholds that millennial age, we heard so sweetly described
in the Bible reading this afternoon, when amidst the Harmony
of all creation, this reign shall be introduced upon this earth,
when Peace shall spread its angel wings over all mankind, when
wars shall cease, when even the very beasts that devour and tear each
other to-day, shall lie down in peace beside each other. When that
beautiful picture rises up before the vision of the prophet he adds —
what? A statesman, a warrior, a general, a philosopher shall lead
them? No, but a little child shall lead them. The supreme and
crowning figure of Christ's work and teaching on this earth is a little
child. Well, I follow down the centuries; the fullness of time has
come, and God sends forth His Son. Surely He might have come
in mature, majestic and magnificent manhood. The old legend of
Illinois State Sunday School Convention. 37
the heathen, you know, said that when Minerva was brought forth
into the universe she came from the brain of Jupiter, fully formed,
fully armed and ready for her work of wisdom. God might have
sent His Son into this world in that way ; but, no, He is born of wo-
man. He is cradled in a manger, He lies a helpless babe at Bethlehem.
Then He goes forth to His ministry, and the disciples, jealous of His
honor, drive back from His presence those Jewish mothers who bring
their little children to him, and He rebukes them, saying, "Of such
is the kingdom of Heaven." And when those disciples quarreled for
preeminence, when jealousy and strife broke out among them as to
which should be the greatest in the kingdom that He was to establish
on this earth. He said, "Except ye be converted and become as a lit-
tle child, ye shall in nowise enter the kingdom of Heaven." Then,
still further on, in pity to many a stricken, bleeding heart, adown
the long future of the earth, He beheld a rift made in the
clouds that conceal the eternal world, and He said, "In heaven their
angels do always behold the face of my Father which is in heaven."
That was the place to which the Lord Jesus Christ assigned a little
child. Well, go back 100 years in the history of the Protestant
Church; take up, if you will, some old volume of sermons of the
i8th century, and there you will find discourse after discourse ear-
nestly preaching the gospel. Sometimes, it is true, splitting hairs that
we care nothing about in this period of Protestantism and evangelical
religion, but every where you find the gospel is proclaimed even to a
little child. It is with the idea that, that child, in order to become a
child of God, must pass through the same agonies of conviction of
sin, the same overwhelming sense of guilt and condemnation before
God, that belongs to the hoary headed sinner that has spent half or
three-quarters or nine-tenths of his life in serving the world, the flesh
and the devil. When Jonathan Edwards found that under his fer-
vid preaching little children were desiring to confess the Saviour be-
fore men, he doubted whether it could be possible that their conver-
sion was a genuine thing. What is it that has worked such a change.?
How is it that the key-note in all our Sunday .Schools — yes, thank
God, in all our chui'ches, is to say to the little child, "Come to Jesus;
do not wait (as was said so well by my brother a little while ago)
until sin is inwrought and inwoven into the very fiber of the soul. Do
not wait for that; come, little child, come to-day to the Saviour. • He
stretches out His loving hands to welcome you to Him, and to His
blest salvation." How is it that we have created a new literature in
the world for the child? How is it that new songs, and new styles
of music have arisen in order that the gospel on the wings of song
may find its way into those young heart-;? Why is it that by illus-
tration, and by picture, and by object lessons, we are simplifying the
gospel, and bringing it down to the comprehension of the very
youngest? What is it that has done it? What is the cause and root
of this strange, yet quiet revolution that has been passing over the
face of the kingdom of God? When Robert Raikes gathered that
little band of four children in the city of Gloucester, and laid the
foundation of this Sunday School work; that was the beginning of
this revolution, that has gone on and on in the providence of God
until it has accomplished such results and lifted up the little child to
38 Illinois State Sunday School Convention.
the very place that the Lord Jesus Himself' assigned to it. That is
not all: 1 believe that the Sunday School has not only been revolu-
tionizing Christian sentiment and Christian feeling in regard to the
place that a little child should occupy in the estimation of the Church,
but 1 believe that the .Sunday School work is God's providential
agency, to meet the peculiar infidelity of the age in which you and I
are living. Did it ever occur to you that when our great Civil War
made this country two mighty camp?, two mighty hostile armies,
why it was that the first three years were years of disgrace and
shame and humiliation to the North? Here was the capital of the
country; here was largely its education, its enterprise, its intelligence,
and yet through all those years there came borne on the wings of ev-
ery southern breeze to our ears, tidings that humiliated us, and made
us bow down before our God crying for help? Why? God caused
the war to strike this country when it was* utterly unprepared. We
would not believe that it was coming; we did not look for it; we did
not expect it, and therefore we did not prepare for it. And so a hun-
dred years and more ago did infidelity strike Continental Europe.
When Voltaire was the idol of the French populace, when Frederic
the Great sat on the throne of Russia, a crowned and sceptered athe-
ist, then the triumph of infidelity was so complete that those two
great nations of Europe, from that time to this have stood like rocks
on the sea shore, separated by some great cataclysm from the main-
land, through which the sea surges and boils forever. Why? Be-
cause, 1 say, men were not prepared for the assaults of infidelity. But,
in our day, in this 19th century, in this year of grace, 1S84, we are
assailed by a more subtle infidelity by far. It is wiser, shrewder,
more eloquent, and more able leaders push on this work of the devil.
But, for a hundred years we have been preparing to meet the hosts
of this 19th century infidelity. For a hundred years we have been
training up the rising generation, the little children of our households.
More than that: to day in this country and in Europe a mighty army
of fourteen millions of Sunday School pupils are learning not only that
the Bible is the Word of God, not only that it is the inspired teaching
of the Holy Ghost, but learning that their only hope of Heaven lies
in the atoning blood of Jesus, the blood of our blessed Saviour, the
Lamb of God. I say when you are training fourteen millions of chil-
dren to believe that blessed truth, and week by week are drilling it
into their young minds so that it can never, never be ravelled out
from the fiber of their souls, you are preparing to meet the infidelity
of tbis age a host that all the eloquence, and all the skill, and all the
sceptical philosophy of the day, cannot begin to overthrow. I can
remember that when I was but a boy, in all public schools the Bible
was read whenever the school was opened, and prayer was ofTeied
for God's blessing. It was an almost universal custom throughout
the land in my boyhood; but when politics gained control of educa-
tion, and when, to gratify an imported infidelity, the Word of God
was- banished from our common schools, it seemed as though we were
playing right into the hands of the adversary. Did you ever think
what a remarkable providence it was that God just at that very time
brought forth His own way of meeting the enemy? Did you ever
think of the fact that just about the time the Bibles were being ban-
Illinois State Sunday School Convention. 39
ished so largely from the common schools of this land, the Interna-
tional Lesson System sprang into being; and when to-day fourteen
millions on this side of the Atlantic and on the other are at the same
time studying the same lesson of the Bible, when the greatest minds
of Evangelical Christendom, the greatest students, the greatest schol-
ars, the greatest preachers, the noblest and the most devoted men, are
giving their wisdom and their learning and their prayers to the eluci-
dation of that same lesson at the same time — did you ever think that
that was God's own way of lifting up a barrier when the floods of
infidelity came rolling in upon our land? It is a hard thing to put a
piece of cold iron before a man and demand that he shall beat it into
shape. You and I have a work to do not in pounding into shape the
cold iron of a generation that is just about to pass off the stage of
being; it is ours, thank God, to mould the plastic material that is
given us in the mind and heart of the little children of this land.
When I was a boy, a man came along to my native village and offered
to graft the old trees in my father's orchard. He sawed off some of
the old branches, and put in the scions for new fruit. I do not know
what it was that he grafted those branches with; it might have been
the deadly lipas tree for aught I know or aught I care, for before I
left my home every one of those trees had perished from old age
right down to the root; but the trees no higher than my head that I
helped my father to graft are living yet, bearing their fruit for the
refreshment of men. Ah, friends, you and I have not long to live,
some of us, and you and I — God forbid even the suggestion of the
possibility — might become infidels and atheists. You and I might
reject the Bible and Christ our blessed Master. What would it
amount to? It would be the loss of our own peace and joy on earth,
the loss of our own hope of Heaven beyond the grave, but that is all.
But when you and I graft with the scions of the truth of the ever-
lasting Gospel, the hearts of the children, we stand at the fountains
of the future, we hold the reins of the generations that are to come.
Blessed be God, we save for Him and for Christ the church of the
years that are before us.
40 Illinois State Sunday School Convention.
Second Day — First Session.
At the request of Mr. W. B. Jacobs, the Statistical Secretary, a
conference of the delegates was held to consider the Secretary's work
in the various counties and in the State. At the early hour of eight
o'clock a large number of delegates was present, and many participa-
ted in the conference, asking questions of the Statistical Secretary
and making informal reports and suggestions concerning the ivork.
W.B.Jacobs, called the attention of the convention to Form i,
school report. International Sunday School Blanks. The following
resolution was unanimously adopted in relation thereto:
Resolved, i. That we, the Illinois State Sunday School Associa-
tion recommend the adoption of the new Blank form of annual school
report reducing the number of questions to seventeen.
2. That we recommend that the question as to the number of ad-
ditions to the church from the Sunday School be retained on the
blank.
3. That the blank for Illinois the coming year ask for the names
of all ofticers and teachers of each school.
C. H. Long, of Pontiac, offered the following resolution which was
unanimously adopted:
Resolved, That the Roman Cotholic Sunday School should not be
included in the regular County Sunday School reports of this State,
but that a separate report be made of Roman Catholic Schools.
At ten o'clock a. m.. President Nesbitt took the Chair, and called
the convention to order. The arrivals of delegates on the early train
had considerably increased the number in attendance, and the large
hall was filled at the opening session.
Mr. Excell led in song. Rev. T. H. Perrin read a portion of Scrip-
ture, and D. W. Potter led in prayer.
The various persons reported for presidents of Districts, and dele-
gates to the International Convention at Louisville, are as follows:
1st Dist. D. W. Potter, Pres.
Rev. F. A. Hardin, Joliet. \
Rev. C. A. Blanchard, Wheaton. > Delegates.
E. B. Fletcher, Morris. )
F. S. Jewett, Mem. of Com. to nominate Ex. Com.
2d Dist. O. R. Brouse, Pres.
Henry W. Avery, Belvidere. )
Rev. J. O. Foster, Geneva. >■ Delegates.
Rev G. R. Van Home, Rockford. )
O. R. Brouse, Mem. of Com. to choose Ex. Com.
Illinois State Sunday School Convention. 41
3rd Dist. D. A. Glenn, Ashton, Pres.
D. A. Gleen, Ashton. )
Payson Trask, Fulton. > Delegates.
L. L. Seiver, Polo. )
Geo. P. Perry, Sterling, Mem. to nominate Ex. Com.
4th Dist. H. T. Lay, Kewanee, Pres.
H. T. Lay, Kewanee. )
Mi"s. A. E. Larkin, New Windsor. >• Delegates.
Rev. O. A. Williams, Galesburg. )
Edward Spencer, Mem. of Com. to choose Ex. Com.
5th Dist. T. Orton, Marshall, Pres.
Rev. W. Tracey, Granville, )
D. Hiird, La Salle. > Delegates.
H. H. Houston, Sparlarid. )
Rev. W. Tracey, Mem. of Com. to choose Ex. Com.
6th Dist. Aaron Richardson, Pontiac, Pres.
Aaron Richardson, Pontiac. ]
E. D. Durham, Onarga. v Delegates.
K. P. Taylor, Bloomington. )
C. H. Long, Mem. of Com. to nominate Ex, Com.
7th Dist. L. L. Guyer, Springfield, Pres.
Rev. B. W. Bowman, Astoria. )
Wm. Reynolds, Peoria. > Delegates.
J. T. Orr, Delavan, Tazewell Co. )
Rev, A. C. Kelly, Mem. of Com. to nominate Ex. Com.
8th Dist. T. S. McClanahan, Monmouth, Pres.
T. S. McClanahan, Mammouth. )
W. A. Hunter, Hancock. >■ Delegates.
N. S. Widney, Hancock. )
J. D. Arms, Monmouth, Mem. to nominate Ex. Com.
9th Dist. R. H. Griffith, Rushville, Pres.
R. W. Gardner, Adams Co. )
R. H. Griffith, Rushville. [ Delegates.
P. M. Parker, Pike Co. )
R. H. Griffith, Mem. of Com. to nominate Ex. Com.
loth Dist. S. D. Masters, Morgan Co., Pres.
S. D. Masters, Morgan Co. )
I. W. Springer, Jacksonville. >■ Delegates.
G. W. Trask, Whitehall, Greene Co. )
T. G. Clapp, Mem. of Com. to nominate Ex. Com.
nth Dist. D. S. Frackelton, Menard Co., Pres.
S. P. Mooney, Springfield, Sangamon Co. )
Rev. T. E. Spillman, Montgomery. >• Delegates.
Dr. A. F. Convers, Springfield. )
D. T. Frackelton, Menard, Mem. to nominate Ex, Com.
42 Illinois State Sunday School Convention.
i2tli Dist. W. B. Rundle, Clinton, Pies.
Miss S. B. Scott, Bement. )
Rev. J. W, Cram, Moweaqua. V Delegates,
W. B. Rundle, Clinton. )
W. M. Camp, Mem. of Com. to nominate Ex. Com.
13th Dist. Frank Wilcox, Champaign, Pres.
Leroy Wiley, Paris, Edgar Co. )
Col. Frank Wilcox, Champaign. >■ Delegates.
Rev. Job Ingram, Vermillion. )
C. Link, Paris, Edgar Co., Mem. Com, to nom. Ex. Com.
14th Dist. J.J. Brown, Pres.
J, W, Brown, Fayette Co,, Vandalia. )
C. E. Sanderson, Newton, Jasper Co, >• Delegates,
E, Caleahan, Robinson, Crawford »Co, )
J. N. McCord, Fayette Co., Mem. Com. to nom. Ex. Com.
15th Dist. B. Depenbrock, Salem, Pres.
Mrs. E. C. Parks, Flora.
James Coulton, Odin. ^ Delegates.
Rev. J. H. Morphis, Kinmundy.
B. Depenbrock, Salem, Mem. Com. to nominate Ex. Com.
16th Dist. Jno. C. Kerr, Nashville, Pres,
Jno. C. Kerr, Nashville, )
J. W. Stewart, Marissa, St. Clair Co. >■ Delegates.
T, H. Perrin, Alton, )
W, S. Baits, Bond Co., Mem. Com. to nominate Ex. Com.
17th Dist. T. Blanchard, Pres,
Mr. and Mrs, C. W, Jerome, Carbondale. I j^ .1 . . tf,^
T, Blanchard, Tamaroa. ( s' • •
E, N. Holt, Mem. Com. to nominate Ex. Com,
18th Dist, T, M, Eckley, Hamilton Co., Pres,
Geo, Michels, Edwards Co, )
E. F. Beall, Wabash Co, V Delegates,
J. N. Batson, Edwards Co, )
R. C. Willis, White Co,, Mem. Com. to nominate Ex.Com,
19th Dist. R, S. Marsh, Saline Co., Pres.
R. S. Marsh, Saline Co. )
M. Hunter, Gallatin Co. >■ Delegates.
Jas. A. Rose, Pope Co. )
J, F, Burks, Mem. Com. to nominate Ex, Com,
20th Dist, J. F. McCartney, Metropolis, Pres,
Owen Bruner, Metropolis, )
C. B. S, Pennybaker, Cairo, >■ Delegates.
Jas. Bartleson, Grand Chain, )
Mrs, M. Ayers, Mem, Com, to nominate Ex, Com.
Illinois State Sunday School Convention. 43
The Statistical Report was then read by Mr. W. B.Jacobs, Statis-
tical Secretary, as follows:
STATISTICAL SECRETARY'S REPORT.
Dear Brethren: — I submit herewith a tabulated exhibit of the
condition of the Sunday School work in our state, showing the
progress or retrogression made in each county, and giving a recapu-
lation by Districts. Seventy-three new reports have been received
out of 102 counties, and 9 others have instructed me to reprint their
last summers report, making 82 counties in all heard from. Had the
9 secretaries last mentioned sent a report of additions to church, ben-
evolent contributions, and conventions held, they might be credited
with having sent reports, but with these items blank we really have no
knowledge of the progress of Sunday School work in their counties
and they are accordingly marked with a star. It is worthy of notice
that every county in Districts i, 2, 6, 9, 15 and 16 have sent new re-
ports, while but one report each is lacking in Districts 4, 5, 10, 12 and
13. On the other hand many districts show a great falling off, and
from several but one county each has been reported.
In progressive work Cook County still heads the list with 42
Conventions and a gain of 34 Protestant Schools with an increase in
membership of 10,100. Fifty-nine Catholic Schools with a member-
ship of 21,000 are dropped from her report this year, but after deduct-
ing these our totals are nearly up to last years report.
La Salle County comes second on our list, and has well earned
the banner she now carries; having held 39 Conventions in her 38
townships and nearly doubled her Sunday School membership in the
past two years. The reported decrease from last year is not an actual
one, the Catholic Schools being reported last year and omitted this.
Rock Island County shows the second largest increase in mem-
bership, viz: 2,835, with 135 additions to the church.
Macon comes next, her gain in membership being 2,125, and she
reports 507 additions to the church. She still carries a banner.
Fulton shows a gain of 1,081 in membership and 95 additions to
the church and takes a place among the banner counties.
Champaign is pressing on "to the stars," showing a gain of 10
schools, 1,078 members, and 643 added to the church. Vermillion
claims a banner this year, with a gain of 18 schools, 541 members and
397 added to the church. Sangamon also comes to the front, and
after dropping 8 Catholic Schools still shows a gain of 7 schools,
1,597 in membership, and 542 added to the church. Kane, Ford,
Livingston, Brown, Schuyler, Morgan, Piatt, Fayette, Clay,
Clinton and Madison, still hold their places among the Banner
Counties, and Hancock, De Witt, Richland, Jefferson and
Saline are exalted to a place on our roll of honor, though several o
these have 2 or 3 conventions yet to hold to really entitle them to
the place.
Jo Davies^ Mercer^ Richland^ and Saline Counties are deserving
of special mention for their increase of Township Conventions dur-
ing the year.
44 Illinois State Sunday School Convention.
I greatly regret that Lake^ Whiteside^ Iroquois^ McLean, Warren,
Adams, Pike, Bond and some others have not maintained their former
high standard, and hope " later dispatches " may reach me at this con-
vention which will warrant my putting their names back on our
« Banner " list.
The total footings are as follows: 6193 schools, a loss of 44; with
a membership of 550,651, a net gain of 16,115.
You may observe that my report for 1SS3 shows a mempership of
564,619 and enquire if we have not lost ground during the past year.
My answer is, It has been the custom in many counties to report
Catholic Sunday Schools, and Cook County alone reported last year
59 Catholic schools, with a membership of over 21,000. But it has
been found impossible to get reliable reports from these schools and
as the International Secretary has requested that only Protestant
schools be reported hereafter, 1 have thought this as favorable a year
as any in which to drop the Catholic schools from our list. The only
counties which suffer by this action are Cook^ LaSalle and Sangamon,
and the gain in the Protestant schools in these counties almost equals
the entire number of Catholic schools and membership dropped from
our reports.
With great thankfulness to God, I call your attention to the fact
that, in the counties reported, there have been 13,795 additions to the
church from the S. S., an increase of 3,831 ; while the benevolent con-
tributions aggregate $37,306.26, an increase of 5,464.32.
Perhaps the most discouraging part of this report is that of Town-
ship Conventions, but 767 being reported, while we have 1,526 town-
ships in the State. But when it is remembered that the counties of
Ogle, Peoria, Woodford, Jersey, Mason, Crawford, Hamilton, White,
Bureau, and others, which last year reported i 50 conventions, have
sent no report this year, and that Lake, Adams, Macoupin, Shelby,
Douglas, Wabash, and others, reporting over 80 conventions last
year, say nothing about them this; it will be seen that, unless the
work has greatly fallen off in the counties mentioned, fully 1,000
township conventions have been held in the State during the year.
In conclusion, permit me to call your attention to the one great
hindrance in our work, viz.: the constant changing of County Sec-
retaries. It takes three years for a competent man to become an
etticient Secretary, and get acquainted with the S. S. workers of his
county; and very few Secretaries are allowed to remain in office long
enough to get acquainted with their work. I wish, therefore, to
emphasize again the oft-repeated sentiments of my predecessors:
When you get a good County Secretary keep him in for life.
W. B. Jacobs, Statistical Secretary.
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48 Illinois State Sunday School Convention.
Moved and seconded that the Statistical Report be accepted, with
permission to correct. Carried.
THE TREASURER'S REPORT.
The Treasurer, Mr. B. F. Jacobs, presented his report. He said: If
there is anything more chfhcult than collecting statistics it is collecting
money; if there is anything more difficult to get ready for a conven-
tion than the Statistical Report, it is the Treasurer's Report. Five
times I corrected this report and have it ready to be presented, and 1
have done it twice, since 8 o'clock this morning, and whether it is cor-
rect now is a ijuestion, and you will have to help me find out. The diffi-
culties, of course, are these: Sufficient attention is not given to the
prompt collection of money ; and it seems incredible, but it is true, that
when the money has been paid into the Treasury of the county it is
sometimes allowed to lie there four and six months. Again, delegates of
that county come to this convention and do not even bring the money !
I have taken their pledges this morning for over $300, and put down
as "paid" what they have agreed to send me when they get home. 1
want to call your attention to the difficulties ot the case. We arc
borrowing and paying interest all the time on from $500 to $800,
and most of it is lying in the hands of Treasurers who have not in-
terest enough in this work even to write a letter and send us the
money. I am not finding fault with those Treasurers, you know, I
am only telling you a few plain facts; and therefore corrections must
be made on the report as printed. Last year I trusted counties and
some individuals, and credited them with two or three hundred dol-
lars; and there is $So of that money I have never heard from yet. I
do not know whether I ever shall; I do not know what they have
done about the payment of that debt; I do not know whether they
consider it a debt or not. I am not finding fault, but only telling you
about it.
B. F. yiKobs, Treasurer, in account with Illinois State S. S. Association.
IDr.
To balance of former account $ 23 24
Received from Cook County |8oo 00
" Dupage ' ' 21 80
Grundy " 150°
Lake " SO 00
Will " 2500
Boone " 25 00
Kane " 5000
Kendall " 4000
" McHeniy " 2200
Winnebago " 7000
Lee " 41 CO
Ogle " 25 00
" Stphenson " 45 00
" Whiteside " 4000
" Henry " 45 00
Knox " 35 "O
1,349 So
Forward $i.373 "4
Illinois State Sunday School Convention. 49
Received from Jo Daviess County S 20 00
" Mercer " 25 00
» Rock Island " 2500
" Stark " 1000
" LaSalle " 10000
" Marshall " 30 00
" Putnam " 2230
" Ford " 50 00
" Iroquois " 5000
" Kankakee " 31 00
" Livingston '• 100 00
" McLean " 50 00
" Fulton " 32 00
" Peoria " 50 00
Woodford " ^850
" Hancock " 50 00
" McDonough " 2500
" Warren " 30 00
" Adams " 5000
" Brown " 35 00
" Pike " 50 "O
" Schuvler " 50 00
" Green " 3S 00
" Jersey " 5 0°
" Morgan " 5° 0°
Scott " S 00
" Christian " • 43 00
" Mason " 1000
" Montgomery " 31 00
" Sangamon " 2500
DeWitt " 2500
" Macon " 40 00
" Moultrie " 20 00
Piatt " 30 00
" Champaign " 75 00
" Clark " 1207
" Coles " 2000
" Douglas " 1500
" Edgar " 30 00
" Vermillion " 4000
Fayette " 2000
Clay " 3 00
Marion " 30 00
Richland " 30°
Bond " 1200
Clinton " 500
" Jasper " 2000
Jackson " 1500
" Edwards " 4000
" Hamilton " 2805
Wabash " 2500
Wavne " 25 00
White " 5000
" Gallatin " 2500
Saline " 2725
" Johnson " 1 60
" Massac " 2500
" Pulaski " 1500
" Union " 1300
" Randolph " 2500
" Tazewell "
St. Clair " 2=500
" Madison " 6500
4
50 Illinois State Sunday School Convention.
Received from Alexander County $ looo
" Monroe " 300
" Franklin " 665
" Perry " 1 1 00
«• Washington " 2000
" Menard " 1000
" Old sth District 2675
" S. S. Union, Cook & Will Go's 1000
'< W. C. T. U 2500
" Carman Family 25 c»
" E. O. Excell 2500
" H. T. Lay 2500
" James Culton 10 00
" C.M.Morton 1000
" Collection at Springfield 16352
PLEDGES NOT YET PAID.
Tazewell Co 37 50
Clay Co 20 00
2,309 69
57 50
Total 83.750 23
Cr.
Paid Expenses last Convention $ 236 44
'• Lucy J. Rider, Salary and Expenses 1 1363 39
" W. B. Jacobs, Convention Work 50000
" Statistical Secretary 225 00
" Blanks and Printing 10935
" C.M.Morton 117 12
" J. B. Stillson 12530
" E. O. Excell 9000
" Expenses Springfield 28 00
" Shorthand Clerk 10650
" Printing Bills 9810
•' Postage and Telegrams 38 21
" International Convention 300 00
*' Bal. of Reports of 25th Convention 18069
" Wm. Reynolds, loan of previous year 200 00
13,718 10
Balance new account $32 '3
The report of the Treasurer was referred to a committee consisting
of M. S. Parmelee, of Rockford ; F. P. Hopkins, of Alton, and J. B.
Hall, of Chatsworth. Their approval is annexed.
We have examined the report of the Treasurer as found above,
and compared the same with the vouchers, and find it correct.
Signed M. S. Parmelee,
Springfield, May 15, 1884.
F. P. Hopkins. f
Committee.
Mr. Jacobs then asked for pledges for the work for the year t6
come. The responses are given below.
Illinois State Sunday School Convention.
51
Dist.
—Cook,
$1,000 00
Du Page,
SO 00
Grundv,
25 00
Lake,
50 00
Will,
50 00
Dist.
— Boone,
25 00
De Kalb,
40 00
Kane,
i;o 00
Kendall,
40 00
Mc Henry,
30 00
Winnebago,
60 00
Dist.
— Carroll,
10 00
To Daviess,
25 00
Lee,
30 00
Ogle,
25 00
Stephenson,
50 00
Whiteside,
50 00
Dist.
— Henry,
50 00
Knox,
25 00
Mercer,
35 00
Rock Island,
25 00
Stark,
20 00
Dist.
— Marshall,
30 00
Putnam,
20 00
La Salle,
no 00
Dist.
—Ford
40 00
Iroquois,
50 00
Kankakee,
30 00
Livingston,
100 00
McLean,
75 00
Dist.
— Peoria,
50 00
Fulton,
50 00
Tazewell,
35 00
Dist.
— Hancock,
so 00
Henderson,
20 00
McDonough,
35 00
Warren,
SO 00
Dist.
— Adams,
30 00
Brown,
25 00
Pike,
50 00
Schuyler,
50 00
10
Dist.
— Green,
$40 00
Macoupin,
25 00
Morgan,
50 00
Christian,
30 00
n
Dist.
—Mason,
20 CO
Menard,
20 <K)
Montgomery,
30 WJ
Sangamon,
50 00
12
Dist
— DeWitt,
30 00
Macon,
SO 00
Piatt,
30 00
Shelby,
40 00
n
Dist.
— Champaign,
100 00
Clark,
25 00
Coles,
30 00
Cumberland,
25 00
Douglas,
25 CD
Edgar,
30 00
Vermillion,
25 00
14
Dist.
—Crawford,
15 00
Etfingham,
It; 00
Fayette,
25 00
Jasper,
20 00
IS
Dist.
— Clav
20 00
Marion,
30 00
16
Dist.
— Madison,
7=; 00
St. Clair,
30 (W
Washington,
20 00
17
Dist.
— Jackson,
10 00
Perry,
IS 00
Randolph,
25 00
18
Dist.
— Edwards,
2S 00
Wabash,
2S 00
White,
i;o 00
IQ
Dist.
—Gallatin,
25 CO
Saline,
30 00
20
Dist.
— Alexander,
20 00
Johnson,
10 00
Pulaski,
15 00
The Executive Committee were authorized to assess the counties
not pledged for their proportionate share; the assessments are as fol-
lows, viz.:
Bureau County $25
Woodford
Cass
Calhoun
jersev
Scott
Logan
Moultrie
Lawrence
Richland
Bond
,25 00
Clinton County
30 00
Monroe "
25 00
Franklin "
20 00
Jefferson "
20 00
Williamson "
20 00
Hamilton "
2S 00
Wayne "
2S 00
Hardin *'
20 00
Pope
IS 00
Massac "
25 00
Union "
f25 CO
10 00
15 00
15 00
15 00
30 00
2K, 00
1 5 00
I s 00
25 00
I S 00
Mr. B. F. Jacobs: — I wish to say just a word to you. I have
been Treasurer of the Association for a good many years and now
for the beloved brother who shall take my place as Treasurer I want
to ask yoi? tQ do a great kindness, I^et thjs matter of the finances be
^z Illinois State Sunday School Convkntion.
a matter of business with you. Give it careful, earnest, early atten-
tion, and do not ask him to carry a load that he may not be able to
bear. Brethren, it is not a difKcult thing to raise the money. We
talk about raising $5,000 in Illinois; how little it seems. Why there
are brethren that could afford to give the whole ^5,000; and there
are plenty of us who could possibly give more than we do. Let us
have this thing in our hearts. Personally, I wish to thank all the
brethren with whom I have corresponded during these months on
this matter of finances. Perhaps I have sometimes been urgent, and
you will forgive me if I have ever written anything that seemed sharp
or disagreeable to you. When I have not been able to advance the
money myself and did not have some brother like Brother Reynolds
or J?rother Morton to lend me the money I have felt the necessity of
being urgent in the matter. Let us remember the word, "Freely ye
have received, freely give."
The following telegram was received and read to the convention:
Syracuse, Neb., May 14, 1884.
B. F. Jacobs, S. S. Convention:
If you think fitting, please assure the convention of my lov-
ing remembrances. Read Philippians, iv. 19.
Lucy J. Rider.
To which the following answer was sent : "Your salutation received
and appreciated. Our hearts go out toward you in love. Read Phil,
iv. 23.
The following letter was received from James A. McGowan, State
Secretary of the Minnesota Sunday School Association :
OwATONNA, April i6th, 18S4.
Mr. W. B. Jacobs, Sec'y Illinois S. S. Assoc'ii.
Dear Brother: — Minnesota Sunday School Association sends
fraternal greetings to you and through you to the Illinois Sunday
School Association in convention assembled at Springfield, May 13-15.
We bid you God speed in the glorious work of bringing the youth
and children of Illinois to Jesus.
It is the growing conviction of intelligent men and women that
in order to save the world we must save the children. In the world's
civilization the Sabbath School has magnificent possibilities and re-
sponsibilities. This is a time of unsettling of the old and accepted
religious truths. An age of "destructive criticism." Our mission is
to counteract the tendencies of the age, maintain the sanctity of the
Sabbath, the existence of a personal God, the certainty of future and
eternal retribution and the one means of salvation through a crucified
Redeemer.
In the name of our Association and on behalf of over 1,500 schools
and 100,000 membership I again salute you. Read Phillippians i. 9,
10,11. Fraternally yours.
Signed, Jas. A. McGowan, State Sec'y.
P. S. — Please read to your convention and I'll be pleased to receive
a response to read before our convention in Stillwater, June 3-5. I
think such interchanges are pleasant and keep up the magnetic cur-
rent of love and fellowship. McG,
Illinois State Sunday School Convention. 53
The following was telegraphed in answer: *'Salutations received.
We appreciate verv highly- your kind wishes and reciprocate them
from our hearts. The good work goes on. See Eph. vi. 23, 24."
Rev. ^^^ W. Harsha offered the following resolution:
Resolved^ That in the judgment of this convention, superinten-
dents, teachers and all Sunday School workers should use their ut-
most endeavors to secure in their respective schfools the more general
emplovment of the whole Word of God in connection with all the
services of the schools, in order that question papers and teachers'
helps, valuable as the^' may be shall not supercede in the regard of
the children and youth of our land, the Divine AV^ord.
Gen. S. L. Brown, of Chicago, in support of the resolution, -said:
I am verv happj- indeed to find this resolution has been offered, al-
though I did "not know it was coming just at this time. I bring with
me from Chicago a letter addressed to this convention, written and
signed b>- a number of prominent pastors in our city. It reads:
Chicago, May 12, 1SS4.
To the P resident and Members of the Sabbath School Association
of the State of Illinois :
Dear Sir and Brethren: — We enciose a Circular Letter,
addressed to "Pastors, superintendents and friends of the Sabbath
School," desiring that it ma}- be presented before you for such recom-
mendations as the necessity of the case mav demand.
This letter was issjied by us in the firm conviction of the need of
some immediate action on the part of those who love the Bible, and
recognize it as the "Divinely appointedText Book."
We have sent copies of this circular to all the religious papers in
the United States and Canada for publication; it has been given by
this means the widest circulation.
We have since seen in man}- of these papers, editorial notices and
communications, which prove that the danger felt by us, is fully ap-
preciated bv Christian men in all parts of the country.
We invited a response to our letter; answers have come from ever}-
State and from Canada, expressing a most earnest desire to see all its
recommendations adopted, and promises of immediate and hearty co-
operation.
These editorial notices, communications and letters together with
the action already taken by many religious bodies, Sabbath School
Conventions, etc.. give our committee the assurance that the sugges-
tions of the circular letter meet with the acceptance of the Christian
public. It needs only the endorsement of the various Christian
organizations to make this effort succet>sful.
We would respectfully ask that 5-ou will pass some resolution em-
bod ving the question and recommendation of our circular letter, and
that vou will forward a copv of any resolution to our committee.
We remain, yours,
S. T. McPhersox, Pastor of the 2nd Presbyterian Church.
P. S. Henson, Pastor ist Baptist Church, Chicago.
54 Illinois State Sunday School Convention.
E. P. Goodwin, Pastor of ist Congregational Church.
Chas. Edward Cheney, Rector Christ Ref d Epis'l Church.
L. S. OsBOUNE, Rector Trinity P. E. Church.
R. M. Hartford, Pastor First M. E. Church, Chicago.
S. L. Brown, Superintendent Sunday School.
Please address replies to
S. L. Brown, Sec'y of Com,,
1915 Michigan Ave., Chicago.
The circular letter mentioned, reads as follows:
Chicago, April 3, 1884.
To the Presidetit and the Members of the Sabbath School Asso-
ciation of the State of Illinois :
Dear Sirs and Brothers: — As fellow-workers in the Gos-
pel and in the Sabbath School, we have become painfully impressed
with the prevalent disuse of the Bible as a Text Book. We rejoice
most heartily with all Christian people in the uniformity of Scripture
•instruction secured by the system of International Lessons and Leaf-
lets, and we appreciate the valuable service rendered by the great va-
riety of lesson leaves, class books, and other helps so generally em-
ployed; but we are constrained to feel that there is need of making
all these supplementary to the use of the Bible itself. We are led to
believe that large numbers of the scholars never use it in preparing or
reciting the lesson, and too often they have the teacher's example for
depending entirely on the helps, with no Bible at hand. How can
any such fragmentary method be any less injurious in a Sunday school
than to a secular school?
Such a method tends inevitably to keep God's word from the place
it should occupy as a text book which He has Himself provided. Such a
disuse of the sacred volume prevents the familiarity with it, which is
so desirable, and tends to a fragmentary and superficial method of
study by the exclusion of all reference to the context, and to parallel
passages, and in general leaves out of sight the divine order'and rela-
tions of scripture truths.
We feel assured that you will agree with us in the principle, for all
evangelical Christians make the Sunday-school, at least in theory, a
distinctively Bible school. Therefore, we venture nothing in request-
ing your sympathy and co-operation, with pen and voice, in an organ-
ized effort to put the Bible into the hands of every Sunday-school
teacher and scholar in our country, and to secure its constrcUt employ-
ment in studying the lessons both at home and in school.
Should not each scholar be persuaded, if possible, even at some sac-
rifice, to purchase a Bible for himself, or at any rate to own one?
Should not each teacher encourage its actual use among his schol-
ars by precept and by example?
Should not each school adopt for itself a rule enjoining the use of -
that blessed Book in all regular exercises?
Perhaps you have already secured to the Bible in your school the
the place thus suggested. If so, kindly give us the result. But, in
any case, we desire to know whether your experience has led you to
approve the change which we urge.
Illinois State Sunday School Convention. 55
In order to obtain definite returns from this letter, we recommend
that the first Sunday of October next be fixed as the date upon which
each Sunday School shall strenuously endeavor that every member be
possessed of a Bible of his own. That time is far enough in the future
to secure concert of action among the schools, to obtain the necessary
supplies of books, and to enable every scholar to earn or save money
enough for the purchase.
If this recommendation be approved, we suggest also that the first
Sunday of November next be observed by Sunday Schools as a day
of thanksgiving for the open Bible, and of prayer for the promised
blessing upon its use.
Please favor us with your reply in full at the earliest practicable
date, that we may be enabled to bring these recommendations before
all the Sunday schools in the country if our circular letter meets gen-
eral approbation. We remain, yours,
S. J. McPherson, Pastor of the 3nd Presbyterian Church.
Chas. Edward Cheney, Rector Christ Ref'd Epis'l Church.
P. S. Henson, Pastor ist Baptist Church, Chicago.
L. S. Osborne, Rector Trinity P. E. Church.
E. P. Goodwin, Pastor of ist Congregational Church.
R. M. Hatfield, Pastor First M. E, Church, Chicago.
S. L. Brown, Superintendent Sunday School.
Please address replies to
Gen. S. L. Brown,
1915 Michigan Ave., Chicago.
In circulating this letter I found out the strength of the Christian
press. I found that among the Christian newspapers of the United
States they report a circulation, added together, of 2,235,000 published
every week. This letter has had its place in each one of those news-
papers, and comments of different kinds have been made. I have
received many letters regarding this subject; here is one which comes
from California:
Dear Brother: — "Your letter and circular are at hand. This is
just on the line which I work and talk in all my conventions."
The speaker also read letters from John Wannamaker, Philadelphia,
and from the Southern Methodist Publishing House.
Bishop Cheney: — I was one of the signers of the original letter
which Gen. Brown has read ; and my interest in the question which he has
placed before this convention entirely antedates the preparation of that
letter. I do not know that I was ever more delighted with any move-
ment in my life than I was when Gen. Brown came to me and asked
if I would sign a letter of that kind. My whole heart was in it, and
my whole heart is in it to-day. I think no man in this country can be
more deeply interested in our lessons than I am. Year by year as those
lessons have become more widely known our interest in them has
grown. But for the last three years, at least, I have felt that the meth-
ods that were being employed in many of our Sunday Schools were
actually subversive of the very end for which the Sunday School was
56 Illinois State Sunday School Convention.
established. It seems to me that when we take a little portion of the
word and print it on a lesson help and jjive a certain line of exposition
of the particular part, affording no possible opportunity for using a ref-
erence Bible, we are striking a blow right at the root of the reverence
for .the Word of God, and that honor for Christ, as the Incarnate Word,
that we as Sunday School workers ought to feel and do feel. Conse-
quently I think that when we put a little portion of the Bible into the
hands of a scholar in the way we are doing Sunday after Sunday, it is
precisely as though we asked some artist to come here and copy yon-
der portrait, and then covering the portrait from his view except a few
square inches of the surface, tell him that he is expected by looking at
piece after piece of the canvas to produce an accurate copy of the pic-
ture. You are doing precisely that when you give a scholar a little
square inch of the Word of God — give him that and that alone. I do
not desire to take up the time of this convention. I hope we shall get
an absolutely unanimous vote upon the resolution.
The resolution was adopted.
Fifth Session — Wednesday P. M.
Prof. Excell led in singing "To the Work" and "We are Sailing o'er
the Sea," after which Gen, Brown read a passage of Scripture, and ;ill
joined in singing "Revive us Again."
Mr. John W. .Springer oflfered the following resolutions:
Resolved: That it is the sense of the delegates of the 26th Annual
State Sunday School Convention of Illinois, that all publishers of
Sunday School helps, lesson leaves, etc., be and are hereby requested
to discontinue all Sunday School lessons, as text^ from their various pub-
lications., on and after January 1st, 1885.
Resolved: That strenuous efforts be made in every Sunday School
in the State to secure, by the 1st Sabbath of October next, the possession
on the part of every scholar of a Bible of his own.
Also be it Resolved: That all the Sunday Schools in the State of
Illinois be requested to set apart the first Sunday in November, i884, as
a day of thanksgiving for the open Bilile, and of prayer for the promised
blessing upon its use.
Dr. Harsha: — I suppose no member of this convention has any
intention or desire or purpose to dispense with these helps which are so
kindly furnished us by the publishers. They are valuable in their place,
and we want to retain them. I think that when the sentiment goes
abroad from this assembly, and from the various similar assemblies in the
United States, that we have the Bible, and that we prefer to refer di-
rectly to the book itself for our texts, these publishers will all be very
glad to fall in line and furnish us their helps, simply printing at the head
of their lesson leaves the text for the day and possibly an outline of the
lesson, leaving us with the Bible to refer to — to open it in our classes,
and thus have every child in the Sunday School referring to the Bible.
I hope this resolution will prevail.
Illinois State Sunday School Convention, sy
W. B.Jacobs: — We have to deal with facts, not sentiment; we will
do all we can to manufacture sentiment. The fact is a great many Sun-
day Schools in the .State of Illinois cannot afford to furnish their schol-
ars with Bibles. If they did they would furnish them with a cheap
Bible without any references. A slip of paper with the text of the les-
son and the Bible references is the best thing unless we can have a refer-
ence Bible. Now, we must work by successive steps. We have come
to the pressure that is to be brought against publishers before we are
able to cany out fully this great desire of our hearts, and by our words
here to-day we will work an injury to the cause of God in Illinois that
cannot be measured. If I were able I would give ten thousand dollars
a year and put it into lesson helps in the schools of Illinois alone where,
they would be needed. No man can stand on any higher ground than
I as to the Bible, but I am dealing with these men enough to know that
we must take the facts that are before us, and I seriously doubt the
wisdom of this.
Hon. J. C. Sheldon: — I wish to emphasize what has been said by
Brother Jacobs. In my judgment the time has not come when we can
strike out from these lesson helps, the lesson of the day. These lessons
are given with printed references to other portions of the Bible that the
teacher and his scholars are to look up; and I believe you strike a fear-
ful blow at the help we are having in our Sabbath Schools.
Dr. Armstrong: — It is with reluctance that I undertake to express
an opinion on this subject, yet the conviction is so strong with me that I
cannot resist. I want to say that from a good deal of observation in
this State in different Sabbath Schools I am sorry my observation does
not coincide with Brother Jacobs'. I do not believe there is a Sunday
School in Illinois too poor to have a Bible in the hands of every child.
Look at our Bible Society, sir, tell them of a Sunday School that wants
zo or 50 or 100 Bibles and they will put them there. Every school can
have a Bible in the hands of every child. It is a mistake, brethren,
and our action along this line has not come a moment too soon. I love
the International Series; I believe in it; I see its grand work; but, sir,
its doing a mischief, an untold mischief, and the mischief is beginning
to re-act, and re-act steadily. We are in danger of putting away and
abandoning the International Series from many Sunday Schools. An
intelligent Sunday School man said to me a few minutes ago, "I am
ready to go away from the International series wow." The fact that
is embodied in these resolutions is a significant one for this body. I
hope these resolutions will be adopted, but I hope they will be adopted
solemnly, intelligently and with emphasis. I should go farther than
these resolutions go. I go into many a Sabbath School where there is
not a Bible to be found; why not? The Lesson Leaves I would ban-
ish from the school-room, except just the public exercises. I would not
have a lesson paper in the Sunday School. Use them, carry them
home, distribute them, but when you carry them to the school you
destroy your teacher. He goes there without an)- individuality or
liberty. He is leaning on crutches. Those resolutions go none too far.
Let us vote unanimously that we will not depend ujDon that little scpiare
leaf. Brother Jacobs is mistaken ; the Bible Society will put the Bible
in the hands of every child in this State.
Dr. Harsha: — Bro. Jacobs is mistaken in another point, I think;
58 Illinois State Sunday School Convention.
This resolution will not shut out references from the lesson leaves. They
will be published; it is not necessary to have the text in order to have
the I'eferences. Publishers are wise in these matters. If our schools
request that the text be not published, they will publish the explana-
tions of the lessons, and in connection with those explanations will
publish the references. It is a mistake that simply because the text is
not there the references may not be there.
(A vote was had upon the first resolution. It was declared lost.)
B. F. Jacobs: — I was not in at the beginning of this discusson,
but would like to say a word. It is said that the Bible that our fathers
and mothers had is good enough for us, but I wish to tell you there are
hundreds and thousands of children in our Sunday Schools whose fathers
and mothers never had a Bible, and never read a Bible; and the
churches of Illinois cannot get Bibles until differerent plans are adopted
for money. The American Bible Society cannot supply one-tenth part
of the Sunday Schools to-day; nor can any other Bible society that was
ever in existence. We could not get Bibles for our 400 newsboys in
Chicago from the Bible Society or any other society ; and the Bible
Society told me that there was but $10 that could be appropriated for
our Bibles. The churches better take up contributions for the Bible.
The Bible Society, or some society, printed the Acts of the Apostles;
it cost five cents, and as soon as it was announced in the noon meeting
they exhausted the entire edition in one week. We have considered
this matter in the International Lesson Committee, Our lessons are
selected from different portions of the Scripture. If anybody's society
in this world will take those separate Scriptures and print them and fur-
nish them for fi\e cents, it will do more for the Bible in these schools
than anything that ever was done. If you will put the resolution in
some shape that some publication society will print it for one year in
large, clear type, in muslin — if they will put up that little book, for us,
and }'ou will put the resolution in that shape, I believe you will start a
wave that will do a great deal of good in this country.
(The second and third resolutions were adopted.)
"THE BRIDE.— HER BETROTHAL AND ATTIRE."
ADDRESS BV REV. C. A. BLANCHARD.
Mr. Presidnt. There is an old proverb, familiar to you all, which
says that matches are made in heaven ; but the progress of divorce legis-
lation in the United States has of late thrown a little doubt upon it. I
believe it was Prof. Blakie, of Edinburg, who recently said that the
period of betrothal or courtship was the time of ecstatic adoration; that
marriage was a period of evangelical toleration ; and that tlie two to-
gether had a strong tendency towards the sanctification of those who
were exercised thereby. But, whether or not it be true that matches
are made in Heaven, or whether or not it be true that marriage is a
period of evangelical toleration, it is true that the betrothal of the King's
son to the King's daughter was arranged in Heaven, and that this mar-
riage, when it takes place, is not to be a period of evangelical toleration
but a long and happy honey-moon, if you please, continued throughout
Illinois State Sunday School Convention. 59
the ages of eternity. Turn for a moment to the 31st chapter of Jeremiah,
and read the third verse : "The Lord hath appeared of old unto me,
saying, Yea, I have loved thee with an everlasting love ; therereof with
loving kindness have I drawn thee."
Although the Jews are to-day but a scattered remnant among
the nations of the earth they will again be planted in their own land, with
their capital city built by the King of that nation, perhaps acting as a
sort of Vicegerent of God on the earth. But although those words
were spoken especially to the children of Israel, nothing is more famil-
iar to the student of the Bible than the fact that the prophecies that re-
late to the Jews cast their shadows in a large measure over the Chris-
tian Church. The Lord loved the Church from the beginning and He
loves the Church to the end. The betrothal of the Church to the Lord
Jesus Christ — the King's daughter to the King's son — is one of those
things which belongs to the everlasting word of God. Take for another
reference on this same matter the 34th verse of the 35th chapter of
Matthew, in which we read that the King shall say to those on His right
hand, "Come, }'e blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for
you from the foundation of the world." Not from a recent date, but
from the very foundation of the world! And you will remember that
other passage, which declares that Jesus Christ is the lamb slain from the
very foundation of the world; and as the sacrifice of the Lord Jesus
Christ is that which makes the Church a possibility, so I say again, and
dismiss this part of my theme, that the betrothal of the King's Son to
the King's daughter is not one of the late things among the counsels of
God, but that it goes way back to the beginning, when He sat on the
throne of the universe, in which suffering had not followed sin. In that
day the Lord decided that the Church should one day be married to His
own Son.
There is another thing which will suggest itself to you, that in this
case, as is common in the world among men, it is the husband that chooses
the bride, and not the bride that chooses the husband. Those of us who
are married would perhaps be willing to admit that we were assisted
somewhat in the asking of the momentous question that settled for weal
or woe the course of our lives ; but it is the husband that goes after the
bride. We find that this was the case here. The Lord says, "You did
not choose me, but I chose you;" and the church answers back, "We
love Him because He first loved us." There was an old lady in the city
of London who was once in a company when ceitain remarks were made
that were in the nature of criticisms upon the doctrine of foreordination.
This old ladv was a Calvanist, and as the conversation went on the ques-
tion of foreordination, some one said to her, "Do you suppose that God
chose you, or knew anything about you before you were ever born ?"
"Yes, sir," she said, "I'believe He did, and I am glad that He did, for
if He had not done it before, I don't think He would have seen anything
in me to choose." The Lord chooses us, not we Him. We ought occa-
sionally to pray that the Holy Spirit might reveal to us those foreheads
on which the name of the Lord Jesus Christ is one da}' fo be written.
Men choose their wives ordinarily by reason of some excellence per-
ceived or imagined in them. It is the fairness of the face or the beauty
of the form, or size of the bank account; but in the case of the Lord
Jesus Chi-ist and His bride which was betrothed to Himself, it is the
6o Illinois State Sunday School Convention.
dejection and the misery of the bride which causes the love of the bride-
groom to fall upon her. I ha\x* a friend in Pittsburg, a widow now. I
remember being there when her husband lay dying. She herself lay
on the bed by his side, and every now and then she would creep up
while he was passing through the dark valley and kiss him, and then
creep down to her own place, and shiver like a wounded bird writh-
ing in pain. Two years have passed since she was a widow ; she has
not since then accepted an invitation to leave her home. I sometimes
wonder how the heart's affection of that widow goes out to that silent
grave. That man was married to her when she was a girl of fifteen years
of age. She was left depenilent on the world, and he saw her and pitied
her and loved her and married her. And then I understood why it was
that her heart clung even to his dead body; and while these years pass,
and other wounds are forgotten her wound is still as fresh as on the day
when she first heard the thud of the clod on his coffin lid. The Lord, in
Ezeklel, describing the miseries of Israel, tells how she was one cast out
from her very birth, left a helpless, unpitied one, and he made her fair
and beautiful and married her to Himself. And if you will turn to the
63rd chapter of Isaiah you will learn that when the Lord saw men in
their misery He looked on the right hand and on the left, and when He
saw that there was no eye to pity, that there was no hand stretched out
to save. His eye pitied and His arm brought salvation. Dear friends,
we, who are part and parcel of the bride of the Lord Jesus Christ, need
to remember that He has chosen us and that we have not chosen Him;
and also that He has chosen us not because of perceived excellencies in us,
but because of oin* great need and His great love, and that for this reason
He has made us Ilis own. You remember the story of the seeking
out by David of Mephibosheth, the son of Jonathan, You will remem-
ber that David said, "Is there not any one left of the seed of Jonathan,
that I may show him kindness for his father's sake?" And by and by
they found a man who was lame on both his feet. He was hidden away;
he was not looking for David ; he did not want to see David; he did not
want David to see him; he was afraid that if David should find him
perhaps his blood relationship to the former king would cost him his life;
so he was well content to dwell in obscurity. But David sought him
out, and said, "I restore thee all that was thy father's and thou shalt sit
at my table continually." When God looked down to see if there was
any one to understand and seek after good, and saw that there was none
that did good, no, not one, and that in ourselves we had no power at all to lift
ourselves out of the horrible pit and the miry clay into which we had fallen,
then He loved us. Lame on both feet, defective in will, a thousand
weaknesses, infirmities and sins clustered in us as the result of our living,
and although He found us thus He made us His own. I remember of a
young man in the city of Chicago who was engaged to be married to a
young lady in that city. His approaching marriage had become well
known, and one day he met a young man who congratulated him.
He said, "I deserve to be congratulate(l, I have a fish on my hook that is
worth a hundred thousand dollars." IBut Christ chose us not because we
could bring Him anything, but because we needed Him.
When the marriage is to take place at the end of the betrothal, it is
customarv for the husband to go to the home of the bride for his
wife. You know that e\ en when a king has fallen in love with a pleasant
Illinois State Sl'ndav School Convention. 6i
maid he does not send for her, but he goes to the home which she occu-
pies, even though it should be a lowly habitation, and there takes her to
himself, and then taking her to his mansion recognizes her before the
assembled representatives of his kingdom as his wife. So, the Bible
clearlv teaches that the Lord, having betrothed the Church to Himself,
does not require the Church to go toHimforthemarriageceremony,butHe
comes to the residence of the Church for His bride. Of all the saints who are
dead, of all the saints who shall yet die, of all the saints who shall be
livino- when the Lord shall come, not one of them all shall meet the Lord
in Heaven, but the Lord shall meet them all on earth. We do not go to
Him, He conies to us. "Let not your heart be troubled ; ye l^elieve in
God, believe also in me. In Mv Father's house are many mansions ; if
it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you.
And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive
you unto mvself ; that where I am, there ye may be also." (From the
audience: "That is good enough for anybody.") We want ever\- now
and then to teach the children that when the battle of life grows severe,
that when the burdens of life grow heavy, that when the pathway of
life is tilled with briers and stones and thorns that cut the feet, that the
Lord will come one day and receive them to Himself. We have the
same thing taught in ist Thess. IV., you remember the Sabbath School
lesson which we had a short time ago, "For the Lord himself shall
descend from Heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and
with the trump of God ; and the dead in Christ shall rise first; Then
we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in
the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air ; and so shall we ever be with the
Lord." The Lord Jesus Christ comes to the world to take His bride
to Himself.
I want to call vour attention to another fact connected with this
betrothal, and that is that the marriage which is foreshadowed in this is
certain to take place. There are no tales which are sadder among men
than of brides promised who wait for lovers who do not come. As I
was walking through Memorial Hall this afternoon and saw those battle
flags some of them all shot to little ribbons, even the staffs splintered by
minnie balls, I thought of those tAvo hundred and sixr\- thousand men that
through those dark vears from '6i to "6^ girded on their swords or shoul-
dered their muskets and went to tight for God and home and native land.
I thought of those young men and wondered how many lovers there
were in Northern homes who scanned carefully the columns of everj-
paper which brought word from the seat of war ; and how many a time
the ball that shot down the man at the front shot down the woman in
the home. There are cases in which the men prove faithless, when the
bride, robed for the wedding night, waits and waits in vain for the bride-
groom that does not come ; and sometimes reason is lost, and the deceived
one continues to wear the bridal garments and to expect her lover even
within the asvlum walls, and everv now and then enquires of the jailer
whether her lover is yet come. But the Church of Christ will never
thus be disappointed. I remember one time being in the city of Scran-
ton, Penn. I had been lecturing in Corbondale in this state, and had gone
down to Scranton. I had had a miserable sort of time, for I had spoken
for three nights to a verv poor audience, and I had not only had a jX)or
♦ludience but the speech had been as poor as the audience. It reminds
62 Illinois State Sunday School Convention.
me of a story told of a certain minister who said, "I preached three hours,
and don't yon see how fresh I am, hut it would have done your soul
good to have seen how tired the people were." Well T had 4 or 5 hours
to spend in Scranton, and I went into the Younj^ Men's Christian Asso-
ciation rooms, and there I foinid a little tract framed and hung against
the wall. I stood and read it througii and tears came to my eyes, hut
joy to my heart, as I read it. I searched the hook stores in New York,
Chicago, and other places until at last I found that little poem.
"I am far frae my hame, an' I'm weary afterwhiles.
For the langed-for hame-brlnging an' my Father's welcome smiles;
I'll ne'er be fu' content, until mine een do see
The shining gates o' heav'n an' my ain countree.
The earth is fleck'd wi' flowers, mony tinted, fresh an' gay,
The birdies warble blithely, for my Father made them sae;
But these sights an' these soun's will as naething be to me.
When I hear the angels singing in my ain countree.
I've His gude word 'o promise that some gladsome day, the King
To His ain royal palace His banished hame will bring;
Wi' een an wi hearts running owre, we shall see
The King in His beauty, in our ain countree.
My sins hae been mony, an' my sorrows hae been sair,
But there they'll never vex me, nor be remembered mair;
His bluid has made me white, — His hand shall dry mine e'e.
When He brings me hame at last, to mine ain countree-
Sae little noo I ken, o' yon blessed bonnie place,
I ainly ken its hame, whaur we shall see His face;
It wad surely be enouch for ever mair to be
In the glor)- o' His presence in our ain countree.
Like a bairn to its mither, a wee birdie to its nest,
I wad fain be ganging noo, unto my Saviour's breast.
For He gathers in His bosom witless, worthless lambs like me.
An' carries them Himsel', to His ain countree.
He's faithfu' that hath promised. He'll surely come again.
He'll keep His tryst wi' me, at what hour I dinna ken;
But he bids me still to wait, an' ready aye to be.
To gang at ony moment to my ain countree.
.So I'm watching aye and singing o' my name as I wait.
For the soun'ing o' His footfa' this side the gowlden gate,
God gie His grace to ilk ane wha' listens noo to me.
That we a' may gang in gladness to our ain countree."
The point was this: He is faithful that has promised He will surely
come again; and yet there are men who .sav, "Where is the promi.se of
His coming?' or, "Since the fathers fell asleep all things ctmtinuc as they
were from the heginning of the creation." But, "God is not slack con-
cerning His promise, as some men count slackness, hut he is long-suffering
to usward, not willing that anv sh<nild perish, hut that all should come
to repentance." There is to he no disappointment. The Church is to
he mariied to the Lord Jesus Christ, and vou Christians, who are here
to-day, in one company with all the redeemed, of all ages, from all land^,
shall stand at the side of the Lord Jesus Christ, and He will not he
jishamed to recognize vou as His own. His chosen ones. One time I was
speaking in my prayer meeting from the text, "For hoth he that sancti-
fieth and they who are .sanctified are all of one ; for which cause He is
not ashamed to call them lirethren." And one of the memhcrs of my
congregation arose and said, "I think that it is very wonderful indeed that
Illinois State Sunday School Convention. 63
the Lord is not ashamed to call us his bretheren, when we are so many
times ashamed of Him." You know this figure of the bridegroom is
only one of the figures used to show the nearness, the intimacy, of the
relation between Christ and His people, — Christ is the vine and the
Church the branches; Christ is the husband and the Church the wife.
And these things only image and foreshadow that which is soon to be
the glorious and blessed reality, nay that which is already true, as God
sees things. The Heavenly Bridegroom over and over again represents
the Church as in the Song of Solomon, "Thou art all fair, my love;
there is no spot in thee." The Lord Jesus Christ, as He looks at His
Church to-day, does not see it as we see it. We see each other's imper-
fections ; my imperfections rub against yours, and your imperfections
against mine. We have need of charity and fervent love one to another
in order to carry on the work of Christ. The Lord says, ''Thou art all
fair, my love ; there is no spot in thee." Christ Jesus looks upon us,
not as we are, but as ^ve shall be when His blessed work, now com-
menced, is completed. You remember the story of that teacher who at
one time instructed the great Luther. It is said that he always took oflf
his hat and saluted his students when he came into the room. Someone
remarked this custom and asked him why he always treated his students
with so much respect, and he said, "among these students that sit before
me are the governors and marshals of my old age, and as I cannot pick
out those that will rise to distinction I salute them all." So, the Lord
looks upon us as a collection of men and women who are to be perfected
b}' His loving care and loving work, until we shall be transformed into
His likeness, when we shall be satisfied, because we shall see Him as He is.
The second topic, as to the attire of the bride, I will refer to for a
single moment. In the third chapter of Philippians you will find the
robe of the bride here on earth. It is in the words of Paul. He says,
you know — after describing the jovs which he had as a Jew, a Phar-
isee, and a persecutor of the church — "I count all things but loss for
the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom
I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung,
that I may win Christ. That I may know him, not having mine own
righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith
of Christ, the righteousness which is of God bv faith." There are two
ways, you know, of looking at the work which the Lord Jesus Christ
does for Christians. It is said by some that it does not make any difTer-
ence about salvation by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ; we should teach
salvation by works — should insist that men should do good works, and
in this way raise society. They remind me of the man who objected
to clouds; he said he would rather have one glassful of water on earth
than a whole acre of clouds in the sky. But, if you don't have the
clouds above, by and by you can't have any water here below. We
Christian people do a great deal of work that is thrown awav. We
tell a man he must not do this, or he must not do that, whereas what
we want to do is to get that man's heart into a loving communion with
the Lord Jesus Christ. Instead of having a little more of this or a lit-
tle more of that, he wants more of the love of God, and if he has that
all other things will follow. The righteousness of Christ is what men
need. Supposing a man owes a thousand dollars and has not a dollar
to pay it, He does not do anything towards getting the money, and
64 Illinois State Sunday School Convention.
you tell him he must be energetic, that there are hundreds of men who
have gained their fortune; and he takes your advice and gels together
$50,000 or $ioo,ocx), and he has just l)arely got it together when along
come a lot of men with attachments, judgments and such things, and
take every dollar of it. Well, you tell him to try, try again, and he
does try again but finally becomes broken-hearted. What does he want?
Why, a bankruptcy act. He wants something for the future. By the
])reaching of the grace we do not destroy the law, but establish the law-
make it possible for men to keep the law.
I do not know what clothing the bride is going to wear when she
gets to Heaven. We have not a great deal said about those matters;
but the Lord teaches a little ab(nit that. You find in the xix chapter of
Revelation, beginning with the 7th verse, the story of the marriage:
"Let lis be glad and rejoice, and give honor to him: for the marriage
of the Lamb is come, and his wife hath made herself ready. And to
her was granted that she should be arrayed in tine linen, clean and
white: for the fine linen is the righteousness of saints."
Dear friends, I do not know precisely what that means, but I take it
that it means something like this, that when the great company of Sun-
day School children that you are instructing comes up into Heaven, the
Lord Jesus Christ will clothe them all with something that is shining,
with something that is white, something that is beautiful, and will rec-
" ognize them as His bride and establish them on His throne in His king-
dom forever. There is one verse in the Song of Solomon which has
always been beautiful to me. It is in the sixth chapter and loth verse,
I think. The writer, with prophetic eye glancing out, seems to see a
fair and beautiful and wonderful one, and he says: "Who is she that
looketh forth as the morning, fair as the moon, clear as the sun, and ter-
rible as an army with banners? "
The Lord here is describing His church. It is the Bride, the F.amb's
Wife, that is fair like the moon, and clear like the sun, and terrible as
an army with banners. The Lord, Himself, imparting Himself to her,
so that she is but the image, the reflex of Himself. Vou know when
Jesus was transfigured on the mount, the disciples could not look at
Him, for His raiment was white and glistering, and I believe that this
will l)e the condition of all those who are gathered here when the work
of God is perfected, when Jesus has come from Heaven to receive us
to Himself, when we shall be changed in a moment of time and trans-
formeil into His own likeness.
One time Dr. Delamater say he was walking by a river in Florida.
On one side there was a dense wood, in which there were many wild
beasts, and on the other side the river. His little boy was with him;
it was II o'clock at night, the sky was filled with clouds, neither moon
nor stars were shining. The little boy was very timid, but he was
walking along without a thought of fear, and his father said, "Why,
my little son, are you not afraid to be here?" and the boy said, "No,
papa;" and he said, "Don't you know that soipe men killed a bear
there yesterday, and that there are alligators in the river ?" and the lit-
tle boy grasped more tightly the hand of the father and said, "Why, no,
papa, I am not afraid, you are with me, and you have your gun." This
world in which we are living is a world at enmity with God and Christ.
The children that you instruct in your Sabbath Schools are to walk
Illinois State Sunday School Convention. 65
through such paths as may bring them pain and anguish in the future
You do not know, but it is your blessed privilege to be able to say to
each one of those children that they are as dear to the Lord as the wife
to the husband, and that as they walk on this journey, as between that
wood and that river, they can look up through the mist and take hold of
the hand of the great Lord who lives aliove and loves us so well.
B. F. Jacobs offered the following i-esolution:
Whereas, the sin of Intemperance is in this day, the great hindrance
to the progress of Christ's kingdom in this- world, and whereas, not only
is the Sunday School the most efficient agency for raising up a genera-
tion whose God is the Lord, but among our Sunday School workers
are a host of women upon whose hearts the Holy Ghost has laid, in an
especial fnanner, this burden of souls.
Resolved, that this Convention endorses heartil}^ the work of the
Woman's Christian Temperance Union, and recommends that one or
more of the four extra Sundays of the year, be set apart for special les-
sons on the Christian duty of Temperance, remembering that, "for this
purpose the Son of God was manifested that He might destroy the
works of the devil."
The Committee on Nominations for the Executive Committee, made
the following recommendations:
The Committee on Nomination of State S. S. Executive Committee
met at 1.45 Wednesday, and R. H. Griffith was appointed Chairman,
and C. H. Long, Secretary.
Moved that we proceed to the election of six members of the Executive
Committee, one from each of the six districts of the old division.
Moved the following nominations:
1. CM. Morton, Chicago.
2. Rev. Wm. Tracy, Granville.
3. J. R. Mason, Bloomington.
4. E. A. Wilson, Springfield.
5. R. C. Willis, Enfield.
6. C. W. Jerome, Carbondale.
7. E. D. Durham, Onarga.
D. W. Potter, Treasurer.
B. F. Jacobs is unanimously elected Chairman, by vote of every
member of Committee.
R. H. Griffith, President Com.
C. H. Long, Secretary Com.
Carried.
THE CHURCH, THE HOME, THE. SUNDAY-SCHOOL.
BY REV. W G. PIERCE, D. D., OF CHAMPAIGN.
"Enlarge the place of thy tent, and let them stretch the curtains of thy
habitations: spare not, lengthen thy cords and strengthen thy stakes;
for thou shalt break forth on the right hand and on the left ; and thy
S
66 Illinois State Sunday School Convention.
seed shall inherit the Gentiles, and make the desolate eities to be inhab-
ited. Fear not, for thofi shalt not be ashamed; neither be thou eon-
founded; for thou shalt not be put to shame; for thou shalt forget the
shame of thy youth, and shalt not remember the reprt)ach of thy wid-
owhood any more. For thy Maker is thine husband, the Lord of hosts
is his name; and thy Redeemer the Holy One of Israel; the God of the
whole earth shall he be called."— Isaiah 54: 2->,.
"Come hither, I will show thee the bride, the Lamb's wife." — Rev.
21:9, /ast clause.
"Thus saith the Lord of Hosts; there shall yet old men and old women
dwell in the streets of Jerusalem, and every man with staff in his hand
for very age. And the streets of the city shall be full of boys and girls,
playing in the streets thereof." — Zech. 8:4, 5.
Here we have the ideal of the Kingdom of Heaven come. The re-
lation of the church to the Heavenly King is presented under the exal-
ted image of the Bride. There is to be gathered into this family of God
the nations. Our dim eyes do not see very clearly the glory and ten-
derness of this divine imagery. Hut the prophetic eye saw " the holy
city, New Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared
as a bride adorned for her husband."
We are not held to God by a cold line of fixed duties recjuiring sim-
ply mechanical obedience, but by a law of life — a living principle. This
is the secret ot the peace and of that divine passion that has possessed such
souls as Madam Guyon's, and compelled Paul to say, "the love of Christ
constraineth me." In this relation is given sure prophecy of the eternal
heart-rest that every soul needs. How the infinite one shall bring full
content to us, by what finite measures and finite beings perhaps does not
appear. Only once has God appeared in finite form, in the man Christ
Jesus to put away sin. But sure, we are, that this figure and the struc-
ture of oiu" needs foretoken this great content. But I have a practical
matter in hand to-day. i. The loftier the station, the more our duties.
The larger our endowments, the more our obligations. The very
good we get from any gifts we possess or stations we fill, depends on
how much service we render through them and in them. A king's
crown is no crown to him unless he serves as a king should. Wealth
is a curse, unless man serves with it. Mental culture must dispense
itself in service, or it will turn and brood over itself in morbid and name-
less ways. Our dearest relations only bless us as we serve through
them. The husband must tenderly serve if he would have his aflfection
remain fresh and his life watered with the dews of love. The wife
must serve if she would have her heart find large resting place and
peace. The mother must serve or not know the joy of a mother's
love, and that is why the mother's love stands a synonym of devotion
and symbol of affection — she serves so much. A child must serve or
he will miss the true child's kingdom — filial feeling. A citizen must
serve; man must serve his fellow, or miss the wealth and pathos of a
wide brotherhood. If you will show me the man who has gotten most
from man, to whom life has been richest, dearest, sweetest, whose heart-
beat has been truest to his own good, you will show me the man who
has served most, who has taken upon his heart and his hands as far as
he could, the world. The world has brought him a revenue, although
the world knew it not. He has gotten income from all hearts. Will
Illinois State Sunday School Convention. 67
this principle serve through all human and divine relations? It is the
economy of the kingdom of heaven. Christ served to the uttermost —
suffered in serving to the uttermost, hut He only stands as the com-
pletely successful one, that ever trod the earth and got a larger retuin
of love and trust and joy. The world is His, and He puts His claim to
it, on His service rendered, not on His mere sovereignty of power. The
great servant is the Divine King. The church, as the hride of Christ,
enters into this service. His purpose is her purpose, his love her love,
his denial her denial, his sacrifice her sacrifice. In proportion as she is
faithful, she walks hy his side in a queenly fashion — clothed in heautiful
garments, they are his gift, hut they are garments of moral beauty, — of
tenderness, of grace, of a heart as wide as human need. If a true bride,
her hand touches the clouded brow of sorrow and a brightness settles
on it. Her words speak comfort to sorrowing hearts, and the tears cease
from their bitterness; she puts the cup of cold water to thirsty lips; she
takes in her beautiful arms the dark, the unlovely and unloved, thedingv,
the imcouth, aye the vicious and the lost, and they are transfigured. .She
casts the snares of her divine v\'itching around the depraved, the rebel-
lious, those who have seemed to have made choice of evil as their God,
and they are rescued, convicted, humbled, subdued and restored, — so she
does, if true to Christ. She enters the dens of misery, the outcast's
dwellings — the homes of the ostracised and the fallen, her voice is as
the music of waters, and her footfall is as the step of an angel. A light
as from another world enters the risky place with her; and presently it
grows brighter and sweeter and purer there, and a soul is regenerated.
The place is transformed from darkness to light, from hate to love.
Ugliness gives place to beauty, discord to harmonv, a hell of sorrow to
a dawning heaven. Thus the bride of Christ walks the earth and
transfigures it. Faulty yet, feeble yet; not altogether fair yet; but
mighty changes have been wrought by her presence on earth, and a
wonderful transformation, since the Master called the fishermen of Gal-
ilee around Him and sent them out, saying, Go ye with this gospel to
every creature; ye are my witnesses. I want no other argument for
Christianity than its transforming and transfiguring power. But let
us specify :
I. But note what this Christianit}' has done for our homes. I need not
tell you that there is not, outside of Christendom, and never has been, any-
thing like these homes, which are its glory and strength. You may ran-
sack the world and history, in its brilliant periods, and you can find noth-
ing to compare with them. We go to the old classic centers still to study
forms of art, matchless in their line. We have no sweeter cadence
yet than Homer sings in the form and rythm of it. Phidias' chisel is the
despair of the modern artist, and the eloquence that swayed the people
as the wind sways the leaves, (from the rock Bema,) is almost a lost art.
The finished periods of Cicero have no rival to-da}-. Courage, mighty
generalship, lieroic adventure, firm grasp of political forces, stern, un-
movable justice, colossal undertakings, in the past, challenge and out-
measure us to-da\'. But from those highest points of ancient civilization
there shines no light, like the pure rays that radiate from homes of
Christendom, and nothing to compensate for it. The Christian moth-
er's soothing lullaby is a mightier force than Homer's epics. The world
has a meaning it never had until ;ifter Jesus blessed the home of Mar-
68 Illinois State Sunday School Convention.
tha and Mary and Lazarus with His presence. The light of the world
to-day shines brightest frf)m the hearthstone. The finest molding
power in this era does it work, not on platform, nor on change, but by
the fire-side, where Christ Spirit is. The most sacred altars the purest
incense burns, where the pagan household gods once sat. If any-
body should bind Christ to the heart, it is woman. How low before
the Master, O woman, and clasp the feet of Jesus, for He it was who
brake your bonds. You may well wash them with your tears. He
has emancipated you. If you don't know it, I beg of you to consult
the pages of history and see. He has broken the bondage of the cen-
turies, and said to woman, go free. The law of the family under Christ
is mutual help, mutual love — service, but no bondage. He is king; she
is queen who serves most, who uplifts, enlightens, blesses most, who
purifies most. I have seen some kings and ijueens of this sort on earth,
and most royal souls they were.
And the children, when this bride of Christ is enthroned, are no lon-
ger goods and chattels, but children of the Heavenly King, in charge
of the bride of Christ. They are to be taught service, that they too
may be princes unto God. A child is a holy charge — its care a divine
stewardship. Where the bride of Christ is ; something the world never
dreamed of before has happened, the law of heaven becomes the law
of earth. Strike out Christian families, blot out the unconscious Chris-
tianity that has found its way and carried its influence into families that
hardly call themselves Christian, and yet w'hose best good is just what
Christ has brought them — strike out these from society, and you have
destroyed its hope, and blotted out its light. You have left at the best
only paganism.
2. But Christianity is for the world. Christ found Himself in some
very lowly places, and among those not reckoned within the pale of
good society, and received sharp criticism for it. His answer was, the
Son of man come to seek and to save that which was lost. This has
been, and is the mission of the church, and only has it been true to the
Master when it has sought out those lost to society, the needy, the des-
titute— those shut out of the paths that lead up along the high places.
It has made some dreatlful mistakes — ceasing from this work to spend
its energy in definitions, and in making systems. Especially did it seem
to forget Christ's charge about the children. But a better day has dawned.
The church has heard the cry of the perishing innocents. It has at last
heard the cry of the world's orphans. The modern Sunday School, in
its original purpose, is the partial answer to it. We are beginning to
learn that the bride of Christ must adopt the spiritual orphanage of the
world. It is the response to the most plaintive cry of earth. I know
the Sunday School is teaching your children and mine. But they might
be taught at home. At all events thev should lie nurtured in the warm
glow of Christian homes. I know that the modern Sunday School has
stimulated much study of God's truth, that it has brought aged men
and women, and men of afTairs and mature women to set together and
search out God's ways and words to man. I know that it has done and
is doing much careful work in laying foundations of a safe life for our
young men and women. There is no more blessed light than a con-
gregation of old and young hushed into reverent thought and heart in
worship, or congregated in a Sunday School, — from the gray-haired
Illinois State Sunday School Convention. 69
spectacle class, down to the child who can just lisp, Our Father who art
in heaven. The hum of these mingling voices is as sweet music as T
hear. But after all that was not what the Sunday School was created
for, nor is that its best work. It began because the bride of Christ
heard the cry of the world's orphans and went after them to bring them
to her home.
England has lately been moved in her conscience by the story of out-
cast London, a London within London, and not of it. It is an almost
incredible story, but it has moved the heart or conscience or shame of
England, and an authorized commission is searching out this matter, and
the Prince of Wales asked to serve on the commission, and he is serv-
ing, the most royal thing he has ever done. It is the old story, how-
ever, that Mrs. Browning made our ears tingle with years ago, but
feebly heeded yet. Let me repeat a few stanzas to show you what I
mean by the cry of the world spiritual orphanage. She says:
"I am listening here in Rome.
Over Alps a voice is sweeping —
England 's cruel! Save us some
Of these victims in her keeping.
'Princes, parks, and merchant's homes,
Tents for soldiers, ships for seamen —
Ay! but ruins worse than Rome's
In your pauper men and women.
'Women leering through the gas,
(Just such bosoms used to nurse you,)
Men, turned wolves by famine — pass,
Those can speak themselves, and curse you.
'But these others — children small.
Spilt like blots about the city,
Quay and street and palace wall —
Take them up into your pity.
'Ragged children with bare feet
Whom the angels in white raiment
Know the names of, to repeat
When they come on you for payment.
"In the alleys, in the squares
Begging, lying little rebels;
In the noisy thoroughfares.
Struggling on with piteous trebles.
"Patient children — think what pain
Makes a young child patient — ponder!
Wronged too commonly to strain
After right, or wish or wonder.
"Wicked children, with peaked chins,
And old foreheads; there are many
With no pleasures except sins,
Gambling with a stolen penny.
".Sickly children, that whine low
To themselves and not their mothers,
From mere habit — never so
Hoping help or care from others.
JO Illinois State Sunday School Convention.
Eiif^land is at last listening to that cry of outcast London. It was there
I believe that Robert Raikes went out, after he understood Christ to
mean these, when he said, "he came to save the lost." And this original
idea still remains the most precious part of our Sunday-school work.
And I take it that Christianity has done a most royal work in the Sun-
day-school. It is a good thing to know of the thousands and hundreds
of thousands that have been brought in from that part of Christendom
that lies in Christendom, but is not of it — the outcast Christendom. The
bride of Christ has walked with a very queenly step as she goes down
through the thoroughfares and by-ways, and lanes, and up into the
attics, and down into cellars and gathered up these ragged children,
barefooted children — these children with old faces — these patient chil-
dren, into her arms, and told them that if man was cruel God was not —
has taught them that there was a mother-heart in the bride of Christ.
The great day shall show that in this work Christ has been best pleased
with his beloved, that for this he shall pronounce his clearest '•'•well
doneP
Hut this service is only begun — it is not the least of the blessing of
this work that we are teaching our own children the law of service —
that we are teaching them that in God's sight there is no distinction of
person, liut the distinction of tlie heart is not the least of the blessings
to our children, that the Sunday-school says to them, the truths of
God are for all; that the Sunday-school has just commenced its history,
that here the bride of Christ is gathering up the little ones and the lost
ones, and that she is to gather together the whole spiritual orphanage of
the world. The lesson of service and love are the best lessons we can teach
our own children. His service has just begun. Christianity has no
meaning unless it means all the world. Outcast London, outcast New
York, outcast America, outcast Europe, outcast Asia, and Africa, and
Australia and the Isles, these all, the mother-heart of the church yearns
over, or she is no true bride of Christ. And not yearns over simply, but
plans for, prays for, gives for, goes after, and teaches her own children
to seek — commissions them with a mother's commission. Go bring your
sick and sorrowful or neglected fellow children home. Your heavenly
father is tiieirs, your Sa\()ur is theirs.
O yes, a great service has this bride of Christ rendered the children.
But it is scarcely begun. The ear is open to the cry of the world.
There are wrongs to be redressed as well as rights conferred. The
church of Christ has got to let the light shine into their alleys, down
these thoroughfares, let the sweet air into these cellars and attics. Talk
of the new Jerusalem coming down to earth! It will revolutionize some
busi4iess oppressions, clear up and blot out a million dens of iniquity. It
has yet to purify, how many millions of homes. And the Sunday-school
oflers the best avenue to them — most of them. Here is a service to be
rendered, not yet computed. Tliere is a glory coming here on earth
beyond our dreams.
The bride of Christ is even now a stately beautiful figure. The
fragrance of a better land is shed abroad by her presence. Flowers fall
from her hand as she walks across the continents. But there shall yet
old men and old women dwell in the streets of Jerusalem, and every
man with staff in his hand for very age, and the streets of the city shall
be full of hoys and girls phu ing in the streets tin reof.
Illinois State Sunday School Convention. 71
And brethren — Jerusalem is to fill the whole earth as the waters fill
the sea. The bride, the lamb's wife, shall gather the whole orphanage
of the world into it. Her service shall rise to the great fulfilment of the
Lord's desire, when none need say, know ye the Lord? for all shall know
him.
Sixth Session — Wednesday Evening.
THE BRIDEGROOM'S LETTERS.
ADDRESS BY B. F. JACOBS.
Beloved Friends: — I assure you it is not so much against my will
as against my judgment that I am to occupy this place for a little while
to-night. I pray that I may never lack the desire to testify for the Lord
Jesus, particularly when that precious Book is the theme upon which I
am asked to speak. It is only because I am very weary, and I know
that I would not be able at any time to do justice to the subject, and I
am afraid that I shall not be able to interest you.
"The King's message." — Is there one? The first question that comes
to us is whether there is a King. The first question about the Bible
asked by the Adversary is, "Hath God spoken? " And the answer has
to be given by every heart and every mind for itself. In the 119th
Psalm at the S9th verse, it says, "Forever, O Lord, thy word is settled
in Heaven." There is one place where there is no doubt; there is one
place where the question is not even debated. It is settled in Heaven ;
and it is settled forever. There is one other place where the Woi'd of
God is settled ; where there is no opportunity for debate, no possible
doubt, and in that world also it is settled forever, that the Word of God
is true and must stand. The only jDlace for debate is here ; the only
possible chance for debate is in the minds of those who have not yet
received the truth, or accepted the message from the King. Now, we
may ask, in the first j^lace, is there a God? In the second place, has
He spoken? And, in the third place, can we understand what He has
said? If there is a God, certainly that God has i-evealed Himself in
some manner; if that I'evelation is made to us it must be possible for us
to understand what God has said. That there is a God, everything
around and above us declares, and every heart for itself bears witness
by its own intuitions and desires. That God has spoken, is a neces-
sity for God Himself, as well as for us who are here; and that we can
understand Him, God Himself has declared; and those who have at-
tempted to understand have found that they were able to know the
message that God has spoken. It has been given to us as an illustra-
tion that a traveller, journeying through eastern lands has found a piece
of exquisite sculpture. He prizes it as a relic, and wishes that he had
more of it. Travelling on he finds at another place a piece which ex-
actly matches that he already has in his possession, and shows the same
handiwork. The conclusion is obvious, it is one work of art. Now,
journeying through all the centuries, we find the fragments of this
Book. If we could walk over the path of the ages and pick up the
pieces of this Book, as God has enabled the men here, we find that we
ha\ e not onl}- a lot of fragments, but a magnificent chain forming an
72 Illinois State Sunday School Convention.
incontrovertible proof that one mind designed and executed the work,
and that one blessed tboui^ht — one blessed reality — is meant to l)e por-
trayed. You remember the old woman's Bible that some one looking
over found marked "T, & P." all through it; and she was asked what
that meant, and answered, "Those are the promises that I have tried
and proved, and, therefore, those promises are mine." You remember
that God declared to the Israelites, when they stood upon the borders
of that land into which they were about to enter according to His
promise, "Everyplace where your feet shall tread shall be yours; I
have given you the whole land, from the north to the south and from
the river to the sea, l)ut only so much of it is yours as you actually pos-
sess and on which bv faith in me you place your feet." But it never
was the land of possession, for they never exterminated their enemies
or drove them out of the fair land which God had given them. And
who of us has ever put God to the proof of the thirty-one thous-
and promises that fdl that book from the beginning to the end? Why,
it would be impossible for us within the limits of a discourse, or during
the time of a convention t(j take the 179 names, titles and similies that
are applied to the Lortl Jesus Christ and begin to understand the ful-
ness of meaning of all the words there are. It is said that it is not nec-
essary to put a microscope into the hands of a hungry man, or to have
a scientist stand beside him and tell him all the qualities that go to make
up the wheat that is made into the bread which he is to eat. Nay, he
finds himself satisfied when he himself has eaten; and who knows
what the Bread of Life is until he has fed upon Christ, not only as his
own personal Saviour, but his own guide and strength day by day. We
talk about bringing the water from the rock; the thirsty soul loves the
water from the rock; I remember hearing my brother tell how during
one ot the marches in Georgia the soldiers were weary and thirsty, and
were looking everywhere for water. As they were about to pitch
their tents for the night one of them climbed a rock, and coming down
with a cupful of water he said, "Captain, you ought to go yourself to
the spring," and going to the spring, and leaning over it, as some of us
did when we were boys, he slaked his thirst at the fountain-head itself,
and rejoiced in its fulness and its sweetness and its strength. So, breth-
ren, it is but a very little thing for us to carry the cup to the lips of
others, but we need ourselves to drink at the fountain, and to be contin-
ually drinking, to be continually refreshed, to have in our own souls a
fountain of living waters that is springing up into everlasting life. Now,
you know there is a vast difference between a fountain and what we
call a pool or a puddle of water. There is a vast difference between
dead water and living water. It is said Christ cleanses the church by
washing it with the water of the Word. And the question, " How
shall a young man cleanse his way?" is answered, "By taking heed
thereto according to thy Word." It is also said, "Ye are clean through
the word which I have spoken unto you." And in John vii. 37: "In
the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stoo<l and cried, saying.
If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink. He that believeth '
on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of
living water. (But this spake he of the Spirit, which they that believe
on him should receive: for the Holy Ghost was not yet given; because
that jesus was not yet gloritietl.")
Illinois State Sunday School Convention. 73
The spirit in that word makes it living water. Without the spirit in
the word the water is as a stagnant pool ; and there is no life, no re-
freshment, no power, and no help in the Book for any except those who
drink the truth in Jesus Christ Himself. Suppose we had time to
begin back and look through the whole line. We take up the book of
Genesis; why, for six thousand years the men that have studied it have
never been able to get through the book of Genesis. There are the
seed truths reaching through all dispensations on to the end ; and, there-
fore, it has been impossible for them to exhaust it, it has been impossible
for them to measure it. You have heard the story of the man who
said the Bible had been upset, and a man who heard the remark said,
"My fi'iend, the Bible is like a solid cube of granite, it is just as thick and
just as broad each way as the other way, and when they upset it they
only turn up another face of it that you can examine it for a time ;
but it is always just as heavy as it was before." (Applause). An
Irishman was once building a stone wall, and a friend passing by asked
him if he was not afraid that it would tip over. "Faith," said the
Irishman, "I am building that wall three fut high and four f ut thick,
and when they tip it over it will be a fut higher than it was before."
(Applause). Some men have attempted to tip over the Book, and be-
hold the result, in the convention that is gathered here, and in the
multitude that no man can number that is following to learn its truth.
(Applause). Some of you (this by way of parenthesis) have been to a
district school. I remember to have attended one of those institutions
of learning, and a man that taught in the school was a Connecticut man
— you may have heard of Connecticut — and he was a little fellow.
Well, one day a big bully that had been pushing us little fellows around
a good deal and had finally committed a depredation that was one step
too far, was invited by the little Connecticut teacher to walk up there
and take oft his coat ; and with great purpose of mind the little teacher
reached down the birch and proceeded, to the great satisfaction of the
little boys, to give him a most unmerciful flogging. If you will step out
to one of those book stands in the hall and ask for a book written by a
Catholic priest, in New York, you will find that the bully that has
braggadocioed his way through the world has been flogged by a little
school teacher until there is scarcely a shred of him left. It was one of
the finest things I ever read in my life. (From the audience: " What
is the name ot it?") It is "Notes by Lambeth." We were speaking
about the opening of this book, and this magnificent chapter that begins
— and it is well for us to begin at the beginning; when we study other
books we take them up item by item, as a beloved brother did last
night the subject that was given him. We say, what is the name of
that book? "But," you say, "you are not going to teach children the
names of the books of the Bible?" "Yes, certainly." "Why, all those
names?" "Certainly." Some men cannot even tell the names of all
their children. An old friend of this kind had a brother come to visit
him. On the day of his arrival the brother said "David, how many
children have you?" "Well," he said, " Charley, I — believe — there is
— e-l-even of them." The next morning they went out to look at
a great pen of pigs, and the visitor said, " How many pigs have you-
got?" And he said " sev'ty three." Where your treasure is, there
will your heart be also! (Great applause). We come to this first book,
74 Illinois State Sunday School Convention.
and we say, " What is the name of this hook?" "Why, Genesis."
" Genesis? what does that mean?" Well, you say, Genesis means the
beginning. The beginning of what ? Well, the bcgiiuiing of every-
thing. In that book is the beginning of heaven and earth, as far as we
are concerned and history records ; there is the beginning of the hmnan
race ; there is the beginning of the institution of marriage ; there is the
beginning of sin, and death by sin; there is the beginning of sacrifice ;
there is the beginning of the covenants that God made with man ; there
is the begiiming of nations and tongues ; there is the beginning of the
Hebrew race. Is tliat beginnings enough for that book? There is no
end, but there are the beginnings. Well, we look through that book a
little while and say, what is the great object of the book? It is to
teach men of the " I Am." Abraham is an illustration of all the men
who are asked to follow God on earth. God took an excellent cha-
racter and set him up before us, and men have looked at him for
thousands of years that we might understand one truth, namely. Faith.
You look at a magnificent range ot mountains, but one stands away up
above the others; you look among those men and find one man, and his
name is Abraham, the father of the multitude tliat no man can number,
who believed in God and His name, afraid of nothing but sinning against
God ; and he stands tiiere at once the picture and representative and
model of men who are willing t<j leave all that they may follow GcmI.
God hung him up. There is Abraham (pointintr to the portrait of
Abraham Lincoln, hanging on the wall) and men have looked at him
all over this world, and when they ask, what does patriotism, what
does liberty, what does honesty, mean? You say, there it is. They
say, what does a democratic Government mean, and you say, that is
what it means. We ask, what is taith?and God says, look at Abraham,
look at Moses. You have heard about the man who lectures on " The
mistakes of Moses." Our Bro. Hastings, of Boston, has said, " It
would do well to have a ])ook written on the mistakes that Moses did
not make." First, he made no mistake when he undertook to give a
code of laws to the world. Will some man stand up and criticise the
Ten Commandments; will some man undertake to show anything else
that is compara])le with them in all the history of all the race! Moses
did not make a mistake when, at the age of eighty, he started to become
a soldier, and at the head of an undisciplined army of three millions of
men, women and children, marclied them across a trackless desert and
landed them safe in the country, their enemies and foes to the contrary
notwithstanding. It remains for s(jme man that never beat a retreat
to criticise M(jses as a general." As an example of confidence and
trust in God, what an illustration, what a pictuie! God hung the
picture of Da\ id upon the wail. What for? That these boys might
know how to kill giants; and y<ju will ha^e to meet one, my son (speak-
ing to a boy near him).
There's many giants, ^reat and tall,
Stalking through the land.
That headlong to the earth would fall,
If met by David's band.
• He stands out there on the hill crowned with Israel's armies, and
the Philistines on the other side ; and the giant of Gath walking down
the valley with his shield bearer (I suppose he was the advertising
Illinois State Sunday School Convention. 75
agent to sell his photographs and tickets for the lecture) before him.
And as he marched down he said, " Choose ye out a man and let him
fight with me." And suddenly there appeared upon the scene a lad
that had come from a sheep fold, and he said " Who is this un-
circumcised Philistine, that he should defy the armies of the living
God?" And being brought before Saul, David, with a stroke of
almost divine wisdom, said, " The conflict is between the Philistine and
Jehovah," and David's place had become one of comparative safety
and ease, and he said " Thy servant will go and fight with this Phil-
istine." And Saul said, " Vou are not able to fight with him ;" and
then came out the story of the lion and the bear, which we never would
have heard except for the emergency. The young man said, " Thy
sei'vant slew both the lion and the bear ; and this uncircumcised Phil-
istine shall be as one of them, seeing he hath defied the armies of the
living God. The Lord that delivered me out of the paw of the lion,
and out ot the paw of the bear, he will deliver me out of the hand of
this Philistine."
And the whole company clapped their hands and said, let him go,
for he is the only man in the army that is not afraid. And they said,
you had better have this sword and this armor. But David said, I do
not know about this kingly armor, I do not think it would exactly fit
me. I do not know about all these scientific arguments, I do not think I
can safely wield them ; I do not know all about these flights of logic and
these magnificent illustrations that can be drawn out. What can you
do? You are reduced to an extremity. Thank God for the teacher
that is reduced to God's extremity. And he went down to the brook
and chose five smooth stones, and he put one of them in his sling, and as
he advanced down the valley towards the giant there is the whirr of a
stone, and there was a thud, as it sank into his head, and there was a
crash as the armor and the giant came down, and there was a shout of
victory, and there was a universal belief in the God of David. The
God of David! Brethren, beloved in Christ, you workers for Jesus,
you women who have a little class of boys or girls that are to meet
these giants, place your confidence in the God that has given us that
Book, and in the priceless truth it contains, and choose ye out for next
Sunday's battle five smooth stones from that Book, and in the power of
the Holy Ghost whirl that sling that God has given you, and expect to
see a dead giant, and a boy king, that has won the victory. But, be-
loved, we may not pause on these pictures. If we could look through
these scriptures one by one, we would find every one of them is as a
precious stone set in a royal necklace. There is nothing superfluous
and nothing wanting. We go out of the Old Testament with the
promise that the King is coming, and the songs of the angels in the last
prophecy in Malachi, join with the first songs in Matthew. We jour-
ney on with Jesus Christ, and how I \vish we had time to walk
through that magnificent room that Matthew has explored, the room
in this Palace Beautiful, that was named after Mark. This book is the
Palace Beautiful. We are the pilgrims that the Interpreter shows
through the palace. And as a jeweler, holding up his gems before the
gaze of the one he would attract, that he may win his confidence, so the
gospel is turning over the priceless jewel, Jesus Christ, that the light
from the throne of God may fall upon it at ever}' angle and be reflec-
76 Illinois State Sunday School Convention.
ted upon every heart, and that we may all be possessed with an un-
bounded desire to have Christ for ourselves, and wear Him forever.
You remember that there was one man that laid his head upon Jesus'
bosom, whose ear was so close to Jesus that he caui^ht the secrets of
the world beyond. We have the «i;ospel — that j^ospel of the Son of
God, that is called by the name of John. We have his epistles, the
letters to the sons of God. The one stands over against the other — the
gospel of the Son, and the gospel to the sons. You say who is going
to explain that? Why, the Holy Sjjirit. A man says, I don't believe
that. Well, what would } <ni think if I was walking along the streets
of Springfield and I picked up a letter on the street. A dingy letter,
addressed to a name tiiat I do not understand, and it tells of things that
I do not know anything about, and I say 1 don't believe it was ever
written to any one. 1 walk along and am met by a man who itsks if 1
found a letter, and 1 answer that I found something but I do not know
that anybody wrote it, 1 do not know the name on the envelope, and 1
did not see that it was addressed to any one. But he says, it is mine,
and you do not understand it because you do not know the writer or
the subject, and I do, and it is plain to me. So with God's letters, and
those who receive them. God can tell you more in five minutes about
Heaven than all the men that ever lived. He can tell you about the
way to get there, and you will understand it. When the telephone
was first introduced in our city, people went to McCormick Hall. You
have heard of the man who invented the first reaper, Cyrus H. Mc-
Cormick, who has laid down, at last, his honors and his riches^ and has
gone, I believe, to be with the King that he loved. They were in a
hall called after one of the McCormicks; and there was a lot of little
instruments fastened to wires, and they were told that there was to be
a concert. They looked around and asked where are the musical in-
struments, and some one said in Milwaukee, and they said, "We'll go
home, the music isn't going to be here, it is away off in Milwaukee."
The man said there is no trouble about that, wait until the magnetic
wires connect the instruments in Milwaukee with the instruments in
Chicago; and suddenly there burst upon them in that hall, old "Coro-
nation" "My Country, 'tis of Thee," "Hail Columbia, Happy Land,"
"Praise God from Whom all Jilessings Flow"; I tell this, and a man
says, there never was any such music; I don't believe it because I did
not hear it. Now, what is the secret? The instruments in Chicago
must be connected with the instruments in Milwaukee, and every in-
strument must be in perfect harmony. Somebody rings the bell at my
telephone, and I hold the instrument to my ear and have a conversation
with him over the wire, and some one in the office says, "He is not
talking to anybody, he is talking to himself." "Why? " "I don't see
anybody witii him." "You didn't have one end of the wire at your
ear, and that man's mouth at the other end ; if so, though the wire was
. a mile, or many miles long, he must speak into your ear." Did you
ever hear God speak? Did you evci' put )our ear to God's telephone?
Those wires are with every man, woman, boy and girl, and if the in-
struments were in perfect harmony with the instruments on high, the
songs of the angels would resound through this hall to-night, and we
would be filled with His presence. (Applause.)
Our business is to teach this Book. Can we do it? Yes, God is
Illinois State Sunday School Convention. 77
willing to take the weakest instrument in this hall and make it exceed-
ingly useful to Him and exceedingly blessed to others. There are
some here who can testify to what I am saying now. What about
that Book, The King's Letter to His bride? What about it.^ When
you begin to tallv about books, there never was but one book printed,
comparitively speaking. Think of all the most widely read books,
what are they, compared with the Bible? There have been printed of
that book one hundred and ninety millions of copies, either in part or
as a whole. Compared with that what are all the books besides, that
have been printed? Some families have a dozen, some families have
two or three, but suppose that every Bible ever printed was now in
existence, and that all were not only in existence, but distributed so that
each family had one copy so far as they would go; why, beloved friends,
it would not supply one half of the families of the earth with a copy.
There were never enough printed. The Church has to understand
that Bibles must be made like the leaves of the forests. Just count
them up in this audience. How many Bibles are there here? (About
half a dozen Bibles were held ujd in the audience.) No matter about
your theories. Well, you say they are all going to bring Bibles.
Have some man at the front door of the church next Sunday to count
them and see what a crowd there will be; it will make you think the
desolation is wonderful. This is an object-lesson that we never can
get out of the children's minds in the world; they do not believe that
we consider it of superlative importance. The point I make is, that
until we can put the Bible into people's hands we should not take
away the lesson papers or anything else that is good. I would not be
willing to tear down one single stone from any man's faith, until I
could get him something better. We want to teach the children the
" B's," found in our Ephesus' lesson
When the Best Book is Believed,
Then the Bad Books will be Burned.
You never can get them to burn the bad books until you get them
to believe that there is a better book, and jDut it into their hands. On
one occasion Mr. Moody entered the room where his little girl was,
and found her playing with his razor, which had been accidentally left
within her reach. The great strong man stopped; do you think he
ran and grasped that razor and jerked it out of her hands? Oh, no.
Moody has more sense than that. He looked around and saw a plate
of rosy apples and offered her one, and the little child dropped the
razor and grasped at the apple, and he quietly placed the dangerous
blade beyond her reach. He knew that he must attract her attention
and win her admiration and desire, and then place sonfiething better
in her hand. It is a lesson for Sunday School teachers and workers.
Once more, dear friends, let us remember that that Book of God is
worthy of our best thoughts, of our best efforts and of all our service,
and that He will bless us if we use it and believe it.
7^ Illinois State Sunday School Convention.
THE BRIDE'S ANOINTING.
ADDRESS HY REV. A. C. GEORGE, D.D., CHICAGO.
Mr. President: — First of nil, a question of privileg;c. Horace
Grcc'ly,thc inimitable 1 loiace, once delivered a course of lectines throu<^h
the West, and on his return to New York was asked hv George William
Curtis if he had had a successful tt)ur. Mr. Greely said that he had.
" Well, Mr. Greely," saitl Mr. Curtis, " what do you regard as success
in a lecture?" " Why," said Mr. Greely, " if more than half the audi-
ence stay in until I get through." Now, I want you to feel that you
are entirely at liberty to retire when you choose; however, I will give
you notice that if you go awav you will make a great mistake, because
I have something to say,
1 think that the commonest and rarest thing in this world is a little
child. There is nobody in this audience— there is nobody anywhere —
who has not some interest in a child. Why? The child is capable of
God; it is possible for him to come to the highest; and whether or not
he realizes (»od, reaches the highest and the grandest and the impor-
tant destiny. Somehow the child depends upon us, the living men and
women, ministers and teachers, parents and friends, guardians and
keepers of the child lite.
Now, I listened to Brother Jacobs with a great deal of interest — I
always do; but, of course, I do not agree with all that he said. The
Book, the Book, the Book — how much it is rung in our ears! Why,
a man saiil the otlier day," I sent mv boy to Sundav-school to learn the
way to Heaven, and they taught him the way to Palestine; they posted
him up in geography, as to how the children of Israel got up out of
Egypt into the Holy Land." A man mav know all about the Book,
about Abraham and Isaac, and all that grand procession, and that picture
that we saw to night, and be a first-rate theologian, Init have no light
in his soul, no spiritual light, no hope of immortalitv. Knowledge,
mere knowledge without the otVice of (jod's Holy Spirit, does not save
us. Now, I want you to luiderstand that when liro. Jacobs and these
men talk about the Book the\' mean that it is to be attended by the in-
fluence and the power of God's Holy Spirit — that this truth is the
sanctifying instrument which the Holy vSpirit will honor and employ
for the salvation of the souls of those who are thus instructed. I believe
what Cardinal Newman lately said in the Nineteenth Century, that the
doctrine of the infallibility of the Book rocpiires the doctrine of a7i iri-
JalUble interpreter. I stand on that platform. I would not believe in
the Book; no mere argument of geography, history, unity or philosophy
could persuade me of the truth of the marvelous miracles revealed in
the Book, if it was not for this complementary and corresponding
doctrine of the infallil>le interpreter. I do not, of course, believe that
the Pope is the infallible interpreter, but that we have an infallible in-
terpreter; and I hold that it is our great business to bring this infallible
interpreter into the mind and heart of every child, taught in every
family, in every Sunday-school — to burn it into the heart, so that it shall
remain there forever; that it is this living testimony, from the very heart
of God into the soul of the child, that makes him assured of the Book.
Christian men stand stronir in their confidence of the Book because
Illinois State Sunday School Convention. 79
they have proved it; they have taken its promises, made them their
own, rested upon them, demonstrated them. Emerson said a man
owned just as much of this universe as he was ahle to take in,
and some men have a ver\- small universe, they do not take in
a great deal. A man owns just as much of the inspired Word
of God as he is able to take in. Some men, it is said, have
abridged Bibles, a great deal has been left out, many li\ing truths
have dropped from their view. What does a man take in of the
Book? What is wrought into his soul? What hiis become
the fibre of his being? That which God has imprinted on his
heart by the power of the Holy Spirit. This is the bride anointed
from God out of Heaven, antl this truth of the unction of God's Holy
Spirit, of especial divine comniunicatiou from God to the heart, is the
living truth which confounds infidelity in every age. For here is some-
what, which is not in the crucible of the chemist, it is not in the specula-
tion of the philosopher, it is not the result of a mathematical problem.
The great Being, the God and Father who has given us the Book,
comes into the soul with his living testimony, even into the soul of the
child. But, a man said to me the other day when I was talking about
the conversion of children, " Oh, they can't understand it." Perhaps you
have heard something like that — They can't understand it, they can't
understand the sermons, a great manv things thev can't understand;
why, what can a child luiderstand about the wonderful, mvsterious
truths of God's work? I said, " What do you understand? what do
you know? what has been revealed to you? what do you understand
about the relation of the soul to God and the mysterious work of God's
Spirit?" This is not a matter of comprehension ; it is a matter of ex-
perience, a matter of feeling, a matter of assurance, a matter of peace,
joy, comfort, hope. The child is competent to receive the Kingdom
of God into his soul. But it is said that children are volatile and
changeable, and that if they have any experience they will not retain
it. But adults aie \ olatile iind changeable, and do not retain their ex-
periences and maintain their fidelity always to God's truth. Shall we
cease teaching and striving to bring them to the knowledge of this
great salvation? I give you my testimony, after many years close
observation, that children are as apt to be steadfast and persistent, who
have had a real experience, and are as apt to hold out and live their
religion as the average of adults when great revivals of religicjn have
gathered them into the church. Suppose they do not hold out, never-
theless, if for one transcendent moment a child shall have a vision of
God, a touch of God's Holy Spirit on his heart, an angel of mercy
whispering to him of Heaven and immortality — is that record ever to be
lost? Is there not a testimony from God remaining with him from that
time henceforth and forever? Dr. McCosh, in his great work on the
intuitions of the mind, tells of a poet who from his childhood had no
sense of smell, and when people talked tt) him of the fragrance of
flowers he could form no conception whatever as to what they meant.
But on one occasion, in a flower-garden, in the midst of the weight and
wealth of perfume, tiie sense awoke, and he revelled for an hour in the
delicious enjoyment of the fragrance of thousands of flowers. It was
only a transitorv experience; he had it no more from that time on; but
from that time on he knew what fragrance meant; he had learned the
8o Illinois State Sunday School Convention.
meaning of the word, he had the significance of the fact, and by no
possibility could he henceforth be persuaded to doubt that there was any
such thing as fragrance in the world. A child converted, actually led
to God and into the experience of God's Holy Spirit, though he may go
away into sin and wickedness and bad life, will never become an infidel.
You cannot make a skeptic out of him. He may try to be a skeptic, Init
he will not succeed; the consciousness of God is in him, and it remains
with him, God's testimony forever.
Now, if this unction from on high shall come upon the whole church
of God, how does it affect us as it relates to this great vSunday School
([uestion — the question underlying every other, of absolutely bringing
these children to salvation? How does it affect the ministers.^ What
influence will it have upon parents, that are to come into spiritual rela-
tionship with their children? The other day a little boy came into my
study on some errand, and I said to him, "Little fellow, are you a Chris-
tian?" and he said, "Yes sir, I am." Two or three weeks after his
mother said to me, ''Ralph got very much tried one day, and I think a
little out of temper, and he came to me and said, 'Mamma,' and I looked
up quick, for the tears were on his face, and as he tried to speak he
sobbed, broke down, and came and threw himself into my arms and
cried right out. I said, 'My boy, what is it? ' said he. The other day
Dr. George asked me if I was a Christian, and I said, 'Yes, I am,' and
I think it would have been belter if I had said, I am trying to be a
Christian." And the mother said to him, as she folded him in her
arms, 'My dear boy, I know precisely what that means; I know just
how you feel when you say you are trying to be a Christian; that is
where your mother has been a great many times, but you are a real
Christian, and if you have to try, why, then, I guess I am a Christian
and we will both try, won't we?" And as I heard the story I thought if I
was a painter I would like to put it upon canvas — the mother, with ra-
diant face, the child drinking in the living truth; and I would like to
inscribe it, ''The Communion of the Saints." What effect will this
annomting of the Holy Spirit have upon Sunday-school teachers? I
undertake to say that there are Sunday-schools run for the purpose of
swelling the number of scholars. I have heard teachers exult in the
fact that they had regularity and system, that the machinery was so
complete that it run like a watch. Jiut that was all there was of it;
you might just as well run a grist-mill; there is no salvation in that.
The Book is there, the Book is taught, but who is brought to God?
What do you see, as a matter of fact, in those schools? I3y and by a
boy gets into the " fool " age, his moustache gets into a very incipient
condition, and finally he drops out — and like :is not some girl goes with
him. The question is often asked how to keep these older children in
school. Get them converted! Give them the living Truth; give them
something besides machinery, besides order and system ; let them fintl
out on their knees before God what there is in the Book! Now, when
this baptism of God's Holy Spirit comes on the minds and heart of
teachers, they are not satisfied with anything else but the conversion of •
their children — not some time or other ; she does not comfort herself
by saying, "Cast thy bread upon the waters, and thou shalt find it after
many days." These young men must be saved, these boys must be
saved — saved right off, that is their only safety. I heard a superintend-
Illinois State Sunday School Convention. 8i
ent praying fervently for the older classes of the school, saying, "Blessed
God, suffer not these boys and girls to go astray from Thee even for a
little time." Ah, it is sometimes said, "You wait, they will sow their
wild oats, but they will come in after a while." But what scars on
them! How scarred by Satan's handiwork! I remember being in a
Sunday-school one day and seeing a teacher in tears, and she looked up
and said, "I feel dreadful" and I said, "My dear sister, what is the mat-
ter? " and she said, "The superintendent has taken Lillie out of my
class, and put her into the Bible Class." And I said, " I will see that
she is brought back." She said, that is not it, she ought to be in the
advanced class, but I have had her for three years and she is not con-
verted, her soul is not saved." That was the occasion of her distress.
I remember hearing Bishop Janes say at a great Sunday-school anni-
versary, that he had been converted to God as the result of the faithful
instruction of a humble Sunday-school teacher. I imagined I could
see that little pale-faced, piping boy in that class, giving so little
promise for the future, watched over, wept over, induced, led along
step bv step to find Jesus. He said on that occasion that his soul was
converted to God through the faithful labors of a humble Sunday-
school teacher; and then he added in a remark that I never heard sur-
passed in sublimitv, "And if the soul be immortal, that man's monu-
ment is eternal." What a work it is possible for a faithful Sunday-
school teacher to do, who is intent upon bringing his children to Christ
— burning the truth into their souls, and securing their great salvation.
It is said, after all, that a great many children are not really, absolutely
converted who are brought into the church. But very many are. I
have a few facts I want to give you. Indeed, I have come so strongly
to the opposite conviction that when in a revival or inquiry meeting T
find an adult sinner seeking God, I ask him if he has ever been con-
verted before, and if he says no, I ask him again, "Didn't you think so,
once? " And the answer is, "Yes, when I was very small, but I don't
really believe I just knew what I was about, but I did think I was con-
verted." And that is the secret of the man's being where he is now.
The living Truth is burned into his soul.
Mr. Chairman, is it in order for me to tell a little of my experience?
You know I am a Methodist, and we have experience meetings. My
dear mother died in the beautiful month of April, about a week after
my ninth birthday had passed, and that enables me to fix the date. I
say to-night that a year or a year and a half before that I had been a
genuine Christian; but I never thought of calling myself a Christian,
and nobody called me a Christian. My father was a good man, a class
leader for half a centiuy, and he never recognized my Christian char-
acter at that time, but he said I was a good boy because I was not
afraid to go into the dark. I was not not afraid of the dark, nor of the
devil, because I thought the Lord was with me. Well, a Methodist
preacher came along, and they had a class meeting; and he would ask
the men and women to stand up and tell what they knew about the
Lord, but when he came to me he didn't ask me to tell, but he patted
me on the head and said, "I hope you will be a good boy, and that
when you grow up to be a man you will be a Christian." And I be-
gan to think that nobody wanted me to be a Christian until I became a
man. But, in God's infinite mercy, just about the time I came to my
6
82 Illinois State Sunday School Convention.
majority, I was gloriously converted, in the good, old fashioned, Meth-
odist way, at the anxious bench, and I knew I was converted — I knew
I had it, and never doubted it since. I remember hearing of the man
who at a revival had been struggling some time, and some one said,
"You are converted, you have found peace, haven't you?" "No," he
answered," I have not got anything yet that I should miss if I lost it."
But I found something there that was i^eal, that was deep, that was
transforming, that was uplifting, that was glorious. But the first thing
I said to my fatlier when I got home was, that when I was a boy,
before my mother died, 1 had had the same peace in my heart, and he
looked at me in astonishment. And when, in the providence of God,
I came to be a minister, and was put on as a junior minister, the man
that was put in charge was the very man that used to hold those class
meetings, and he recognized me as being the son of his old class leader,
and he said he knew I used to be a good boy, and was glad I had been
converted; and I said, "I was a Christian then, just as good a Christian
as you were." And I was, but .my Christianity was not recognized.
Now, I say we ought to begin to look around in our households for
undiscovered Christians; we want to begin to look around in our Sun-
day-schools for undiscovered Christians. God's Holy vSpirit works
tenderly and powerfully (;n tlie hearts of these children, and they have
its evidence and its testimony from God, but we have not the simplicity
and discernment to enable us to discover then- real character and recog-
nize them as they are. 1 want to say that a majority of thf)se who are
brought into the church, who become leading and distinguished in the
church as the ministers and best lay workers in the church, are those
who are actuallv converted in childhood. Early conversions have
adorned the church from the first. Polycarp, at ninety, said "Eighty
and six years have I served Him." Dr. Doddridge, at thirteen lost his
father, "God is an immortal Father; my soul rejoiceth in Him." Hester
Ann Rogers had an experience of God at four to five years of age.
Bishop Hedding commenced secret prayer at four years of age, and
never left it ofi. Matthew Henry was converted at eleven; President
Jonathan Edwards at seven; Robert Hall at twelve; Isaac Watts at
nine. Mr. Wesley, in bis journals, rect)rds the signal conversion and
happy death of many little children. Dr. Spencer, :ui EInglish minister,
tells us that out of 235 hopeful converts in his church, 138 were under
twenty years of age, and only four had passed their fiftieth year. Of
126 preachers in the Northern New York Conference, only seventeen
had })<tssed their twentieth year when convcrtetl. Of seventy-six preach-
ers, present at a ministers' meeting in New York City, only seven were
"twenty-one and over" when brought to Christ. At a Sunday-school
meeting in Syracuse, N. Y., 106 had professed conversion, and of these
78 had been the subjects of saving grace when under twenty years of
of age.
Converted children and youth are entitled to recognition and a jjlace
in the church. Rev. Mr. Towsley, the " Children's Preacher," was
converted at ten years of age, and, on examination by the session, was
pronounced a Christian, but advised to wait till he was older before
connecting himself with the church. He waited, but went into sin, as
might have been anticipated, was reclaimed at sixteen, and devoted his
ministry to children. Rev. Elijah Hebard, a noted Methodist minister
Illinois State Sunday School Convention. 83
in Central New York, one of the most saintly men in this country, was
rejected from the church when twelve years of age. Rev. Dr. DuShiel,
for a number of years Secretary of the Missionary society of the Metho-
dist Episcopal Church, says that he went forward to the altar for recep-
tion on prohibition when a very little boy, that the minister took him by
the hand and welcomed him but that a groan came from the right-hand
Amen corner, and the words, "The dear little fellow, 1 hope he will
hold out." Children are entitled not only to training in religious knowl-
edge, but also to a consciousness of Christ's love, but to a recognized
place in Christ's Church. Men ask, "Will God convert little children.^"
That is not the right question. Will God convert these adults? Will
God convert those wicked men and women? That is the pertinent
inquiry. These children are nearest to the kingdom of God, nearest to
the heart of the blessed Jesus, and liave the narrowest step to take to
bring them consciously into the blessed kingdom. It is extremely diffi-
cult to bring a man of mature years and established habits, with a
worldly spirit fixed and settled in his worldly life, to Christ. Unless a
cyclone strike such a man, what can you hope for? All his thoughts,
feelings, habits, plans, modes, expectations, aspirations, ambitions in life
lead him away from Christ and not to Christ. How seldom is such a
man brought as a humble seeker for Jesus to the altar of God. I
despair of such men often, even amid the shadows of the final hour when
they call upon Christ. I remember the dying pawn-broker, in Paris,
whose wife sent for the Priest, and he came and held up the crucifix,
hoping that he might lift his dying thoughts to Jesus, to claim the great
Redeemer. But the dying man, thinking himself again behind his coun-
ter, said, with bated breath, "My dear fellow, I cannot give you much
of a loan on such an article as that," When the great Lord Palmerston
came to the final hour, and the clergyman read the words for the sick
and dying, he roused up to tell him to read it again, and a smile of satis-
faction crept over the face of the Minister, as he said, "Read the sixth
article again." It was the treaty with Belgium, he thought; the sixth
article had made the trouble. It occupied the mind of the dying man,
and while the appointed prayers were read over him, his mind was still
occupied with the great cares of State. Oh, what a duty we owe to
children! Let us not be satisfied, fathers, mothers, I entreat you, officers,
teachers of Sunday-schools, I beg of you in the name of the Lord Jesus
himself let us not be satisfied except we are instrumental in actually
bringing these children to Jesus Christ. Let us know that they are
Christians. One of the most satisfactory letters I ever received in my
life was from a man whose pastor I had been, who had buried his little
boy. He said, "I never expressed my gratitude for your preaching and
urging children to come to Christ. I remember well that day when
that little boy came down the long aisle of the church and knelt down
at the altar to receive the Communion, and when the child came home
I said, Charlie, how did it seem to you as you came up and took that
bread and wine? ' Oh,' snid the boy, ' it seemed to me that Jesus
Christ was there who had died for my sins.' From that hour we prayed
together and talked together. I think of him not only as my boy, but
as a fellow Christian gone a little before me to be the heir of all the
ages." Oh, my hearers, think of it! One hundred years ago not one
of all the fourteen hundred millions of people now on the face of the earth
84 Illinois State Sunday School Convention.
was in existence; one hundred years will pass, and not one of us out of
all these vast multitudes, will behold the sun, or breathe the air, or tread
the earth; but all our ideas, our impulses, our faith in God, our hope in
Heaven will live in those who are coming after us as they shall labor
in our Sunday-schools, in our congregations, and all through the land.
Let us see to it that we give them God the great thought of redemp-
tion, a living Christ, the witness of the power of the Holy Ghost,
that which will cheer them on to the ultimate triumph, the expectation
and assurance of immortality in the world beyond the grave in our
only Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.
Seventh Session — Thursday Morning.
The Convention met at 8.30 A. M., and resolved itself into twenty
parts, for the purpose of holding meetings of the delegates from each of
the districts of the State. They were assigned to different rooms in the
capitol and instructed to elect district presidents, and also to choose three
members from each district to represent the State at the International
Convention, to be held at Louisville, June 11, 12 and 13.
At half-past nine o'clock the President took the chair, and the con-
vention united in singing the hymn, "Nearer my God to Thee." Mr.
R. H. Griffith, of Rushville, read a portion of Scripture, and Rev. T.
M. Spilman, of Nokomis, led in the reading of a responsive song ser-
vice from the new book, "Echoes of Eden." Rev. Mr. Chadduck led
in prayer, asking for the special blessing of God to rest upon the dele-
gates, and to guide the convention in its closing day.
The question as to the time and place of the next Convention was
called up. Invitations were presented from Alton, Mattoon and Peoria.
After discussion, the Convention unanimously accepted the mvitation
tendered by the delegates from the city of Alton to hold the 27th an-
nual Convention on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, May 13, 14
and 15, 1885, in that city.
The Nominating Committee reported the names of W. B. Jacobs, of
Chicago, for Statistical Secretary, and that Mr. Potter declined the no-
mination, and they reported the name of Mr, E. D. Durham, of On-
arga, for Treasurer.
The Special Committee appointed to nominate the Executive Com-
mittee, reported the names as follows, saying that they had thoroughly
and patiently considered the request of Mr. B. F. Jacobs not to be
re-elected Chairman of the Executive Committee, but had unanimously
decided that the Convention ought to ask him to serve at least for
another year. (See page 2 for list.)
All the nominations were unanimously and enthusiastically approved.
Illinois State Sunday School Convention. 85
A resolution was offered by Mr. Wycoff, of Jo Daviess County,
against high license, as being in the interest of the liquor traffic; also a
resolution indorsing the Woman's Christian Temperance Union of the
State of Illinois, and favoring the temperance lesson in Sunday-school
on at least one of the quarterly Sundays of the year. Both referred to
the Executive Committee.
Mr. William Reynolds addressed the convention on the International
w^ork and the appointment of delegates to the Louisville Convention,
as follows:
THE MESSENGERS TO LOUISVILLE.
ADDRESS BY WILLIAM REYNOLDS.
Mr. President, Brethren of the Convention: — I am requested
to speak a little while about the Messengers to Louisville. I believe it is
the custom of the Methodist Church, when they ordain ministers to send
them out on their work, to call them up in front of the stand and have
some one appointed to give them a chai'ge in regard to their duties. I
do not know \vhether those who compiled this program expected that
kind of an ordination, or that kind of a charge, to be delivered to these
messengers who are going to Louisville as the representatives of this
State, or not. But I suppose that the delegation that goes to Louisville
representing this State will want to know something in regard to the
character of the Convention they are going to attend. This Interna-
tional Convention, you know, has been meeting triennially for the past
twelve years. The first one was held in the City of Newark — you
might say the fii'st National Convention, in 1869. It was the most re-
markable religious convocation that I ever attended, and I hardly expect
ever to attend another like it. It was an assembly of Christian workers
from all'parts of the nation. The South at that time was not liberally
represented, but still we had some grand men from the South, and some
were there from Canada, and all portions of the United States. We
had ability such as it will probably be a long time before we have again,
at any one meeting. Some were from New York, Philadelphia and
Baltimore; some of the most eminent divines from those cities were
present. We had Dr. vStephen H. Tyng, who might almost be called the
father of Sunday-schools in this nation. We had not only a feast, so
far as the speeches were concerned, but the social element there was
represented, and there were gathered together the distinguished and
eminent men, both ministers and laymen, from all the evangelical de-
nominations, probably, that were in the land ; and men who had never
met before, others of different denominations, upon a common ground.
Their souls were refreshed and their zeal rekindled at that Convention,
and they were anxious for another one, and said, "they must have an-
other one." It was decided then to hold a Convention every three years.
Three years later they met in the Cit}^ of Indianapolis; and there w^as
inaugurated the most advanced and most important step that had been
taken in the Sunday-school world up to that date — the adoption of the
International Series of Lessons. It had been agitated a little at the
first convention, but was thought by many to be a wild scheme and per-
86 Illinois State Sunday School Convention.
fectly impracticable; V)ut it was agitated until it assumed form at the
convention at Indianapolis, and was adopted almost unanimously. As
you know, it has extended to the entire world, and as I said, it is prob-
ably the most important step in the Sunday-school work that has been
inautjurated in Sunday-school history. Three years after that they met
at Baltimore, and three years later at Atlanta. There we got hold of
the South. Being on Southern soil, they came and identified themselves
with this Sunday-school work. Three years ago we met at Toronto,
and it was a wonderful convention. All parts of this country went,
almost, you might say, en masse. There was a delegation of seventy
from Georgia alone, headed by Governor Colquitt himself, as Chairman
of the delegation ; and it was in some respects even a more remarkable
convention than those that had preceded it.
Now, next month we are going to meet in the City of Louisville, and
most of the delegates are appoiiited from this convention to represent
the State of Illinois in that International convention. Illinois assumes
a peculiar position, my friends, a very peculiar position. The responsi-
bilities that rest upon the delegation from the State of Illinois will be
such as probably will rest upon no other delegation that will appear at
that convention. Illinois leads the Sundav-school host of this nation;
she is recognized as the banner Sundav-school State in this land. As I
stand here my mind goes back twenty veais to the first Sunday-school
Convention that I ever attended, which was in this City of Springfield.
Twenty years ago, the first of this month Mr. Moody and I were down
in southeastern Tennessee, where we witnessed scenes such as never will
be witnessed again in this land. There was being massed the armv
under Gen. vSherman, ready to start at a moment's notice on their march
towards the sea. Gen. Howard had written Mr. Moody and myself,
knowing that we were down in that part of the country, and asked us
to come up and hold religious services in his camp. When we got there
he took us by the hand and said, "Gentlemen, I am going to lead these
men on to death; I know that hundreds and thousands of them will
never return again to their homes, and I cannot take them on to death
without feeling that I am doing all I can to lead them on to eternal life.
I have sent for you to do all you can to point them to the Lamb of God
that taketh away the sin of the world." Well, we had been there two
weeks, and one day Mr. Moody said to me, "Reynolds, this war is soon
going to cease, the last struggle is coming now, it seems to me. What
are you going to do after this war is over.''" I said, "I am going back
to my business." "Well, what are you going to do for God?" I asked
him what he would propose, and he said to go into the Sunday-school
work, that it was the greatest work that God had given us — the making
of Illinois, a great glorious, grand Sunday-school State. I asked him
how.'' He told me about the Sunday-school convention that was to be
held at .Springfield. I never had been at a Sunday-school convention.
He told me when it was to be, and I met him there twenty years ago.
There, my friends, was the commencement of the svstem that has made
this State what it is. You are familiar with the history of this work ;
you know how we went on, with the enthusiasm that was injected into
this work, how business men took hold of it, how first they raised money
and put men into the field, but found that it was not done as it ought to be
done, until at last vou remember how that Executive Committee met
Illinois State Sunday School Convention. 87
and pledged each other that they would district the State and would
organize it themselves. As I look over that map and see those stars, I
know that every one of them means labor and work. I know that there
are men here who can point to it and say, " I was there," and as I look
at that map 1 see that there are only six or eight counties in which I
have not been myself. As I look hack over my life, there is no portion
that gives me more comfort than the time I have spent with others organ-
izing those counties — for Sunday-schools in Illinois. I was once looking
at a painting representing one of the famous battles of the great Napo-
leon, and I was thinking of the great genius of that man, and how if the
Spirit of God had been in his heart, he could have moved the world,
and as I stood there, I noticed an old cripple who was looking at the
same painting, and I spoke to him about the battle, and he said, "Yes,
Monsieur, the battle of Jenna." And I said, "Were you a follower of
Napoleon?" And he said, "I was one ot his soldiers." I said, "Were
you there," and he answered, "Yes, I was there ; that was my battery,
(pointing to one part of the field) there was where I fought," and the
fire kindled in that old man again, and his eyes sparkled as he gazed
upon that scene. So it is with Christian soldiers. We can stand and
look upon some of the scenes we have been in, and as we look over that
banner, thank God that we had any part in putting any of those stars
there. How the affairs of this life sink mto utter significance in com-
parison with the pleasure and joy of having done something for God.
When Arthur Tappan was on his dying bed, a friend said, "It must be
a great comfort to you, the great work you have done for God, the
number you have been instrumental in helping into the Christian min-
istry." And his eyes sparkled, and he said, "What I have done for God
shall last forever, what I have done for myself will perish;" and so it is
my friends. Now, then, I say to the delegates from the State of Illinois
that they will go to Louisville with a peculiar responsibility, because the
States throughout the length and breadth of this land are to-day adopt-
ing the methods of this .State. They say, " The work in Illinois has
been a success ; Illinois is a wonderful State." As I look at that paint-
ing there (pointing to the portrait of Abraham Lincoln), and think that
that man came not only from Illinois but from this city — the best Pres-
ident that ever was given to this country, a man whom time is exalting
higher and higher, and as the years roll by his character seems to loom
up even more grandly than at the time ot his death. When I think
how God has honored this state, not only politically but religiously, I
feel that there is a great responsibility resting upon every one of us, who
live in this state, and who are assuming the duties that God has placed
upon us. .You delegates will be called upon frequently there to answer
questions about, how you do this, and how that. "We know the results
of your labors, but how do you do it?" One of the most hopeful signs
of tlic times is this "How do you do it," that comes up from other states.
Two years ago I was at a convention in the South, and they occupied
most of the time asking me questions, and the theme was How do you
do this? How do you do that? And I said, " Gentlemen, there are
other, some other states in this Union besides Illinois ; there is work being
done in other states." And they said, "there is no state in which the
work is being done so efficiently as in Illinois," And I said, "Are you
willing to give your time? Are you willing to leave your business?
88 Illinois State Sunday School Convention.
Do you think that this work is more important than your temporal work?
If you do you can do as well as wc have in Illinois, for that map does
not represent money, it does not represent paid lahor, hut it represents
actual work hy the men who were at that time at the head of the Sun-
day School work of Illinois."
There is another thing: We want to he careful not to hrag too
much. (Laughter.) We don't want to assume an offensive attitude.
God cannot use men who are proud — proud of what they have, or have
done. Let us feel that it is God that has done it. Let us keep in the
background and give him the honor. We want to realize that while
we have a great deal to talk about, at the same time let us not do it in
an offensive way. Let us be careful about that ; for I know that God
can never use any man who is puffed up in his own righteousness or
filled with his own self-sufficiency. It has been God, doing this work,
entirely Him, and let us give Him the honor and glory.
In that convention there has been a new era; a new system has been
inaugurated ; it is the missionary spirit that was enthused into it at Toronto
three years ago. Before that, it was more of a meeting together, a hav-
ing, what might be termed, a " good time." But now there is a feeling
on the part of the workers from one end of this Union to the other that
they want to do something, that they want to perfect their own state or-
ganizations, that they want to spread abroad this work. Three years
ago as we went to Toronto they had a meeting on the cars, and we,
Western delegates, promised that we would do w'hat we could for the
purpose of enthusing a new spirit into that convention. And Mr. Jacobs
having had more experience, and knowing more than any one else about
the matter, was put into the Chairmanship. I think it is the spirit of
the West to continue this same course which was adopted. The hope
of this country to-day is the rising generation. The Powers of Dark-
ness that are assailing the church to-day are such, as it has never met in
any former time. Infidelity is coming, in an insidious form. It is not
only coming in such a way as to reach a certain class of so-called intel-
lectual men, but we have to-day one of the most eloquent men on this
continent as a representative of infidelity — and Illinois has given us him;
we can boast of what Illinois has done for Gcxl; Satan can boast of what
Illinois has done for him. While I have no right to say that the gentle-
man is insincere in wTiat he is doing, yet at the same time he is exerting
a powerful influence over people in this land. He is reaching a class of
people that probably no other man could reach. He is reaching the
mass of the people, not only on the platform* but by his publications on
our streets. The last time I w as in Chicago I saw a man peddling out
Col. Ingersoll's literature, put up in cheap form, within the reach of
everyone. I saw old men as well as boys going up and buying them.
They are found upon our cars. Thousands of these volumes are being
circulated and they are being read. Now, they are having their effect;
some they are probably converting to the extreme views of that gentle-
man— with others they are producing doubts and skepticism ; they are
crippling the activity of the church. They are producing injurious
effects in directions that probably some of us hardly realize. So I say
to-day the assaults of infidelity are more vigorous than ever before.
There are other powers at work: Intemperance is making her assaults
on the rising generation, :is probably never before. The saloon
Illinois State Sunday School Convention. 89
to-day is being handicapped in many respects, but it is making greater
efforts, and is more determined than ever before. I know what
I am talking about when I say that the saloons of this state and other
states, are more enticing than they probably ever have been before. You
ask Mr. Paxton of the Citizens' League of Chicago, and he will say
that the saloon keepers are determined, while they are shut off in many
ways, that the rising generation shall be patrons of their business.
Thank God for the women of this generation! If there ever was any
class of people more touched by this evil than any other, it is the mothers
and women of this land; and I thank God for that resolution which
was passed endorsing the women's Christian Association; and I hope
the next Lesson Committee will give them just what they ask for, that
is, that temperance shall be brought out more prominently in the Sunday
School Lessons. At the next International Convention, there is to be ap-
pointed a committee, who for the next seven years will select the Sunday
School Lessons of our whole International system. That is an exceed-
ingly important duty; and I look upon this convention that is to beheld
at Louisville as probably the most important International Convention
that has been held up to this time. If there is any exception it is the
one at which this International Lesson System was inaugurated.
Speaking again from the missionary standpoint, just see the enormous
immigration there is from other countries into this. Just see the thou-
sands coming. Who are these persons? Europeans, many of them
educated in avenues directly opposed to our system of government.
What is the influence of these men? Some of you probably do not
realize it as we of the large cities do. They ai"e making inroads upon
institutions that we consider dear to us. They are determined to break
down our. American Sabbath ; and when the American Sabbath is broken
down I tremble to think what will be the result upon the liberties of
this country; I tremble to think what will be the results upon the Christ-
ianity of this land. They say, " You have a right to do as you please, and
so have we." Never before in the history of Peoria has the Sabbath
been desecrated as it is being to-day, and that, by a class of persons who
have heretofore acquiesced in our views. But base-ball, our national
game, which has been forbidden on the Sabbath, is taking a new depar-
ture. At the last meeting of the North- Western League of the Base-
ball Association the question came up, " Shall we allow the League
Clubs to play ball on Sunday?" They had a law upon their books that
forbad any league games to be played on Sunday, or any member of the
Base-ball League even playing on Sunday. They were forbidden even
to play exhibition games. But the pressure came, largely from the
larger cities like Chicago, Milwaukee, and other places. The matter
was warmly discussed upon both sides, but Satan carried the day, and
that law was repealed; so that to-day the North- Western League allow
Base-ball to be played on Sunday. On Sundays in our city our base-
ball park is thrown open; and last Sunday there were 1500 persons,
most of them men and boys, gathered there to witness a base-ball game
played by these league clubs. Now, what effect has that? It is having
a most disastrous effect upon our Sunday schools. You know how en-
ticing this game is to boys, and many of the parents go or allow them
to go, and the results are such that I am afraid it will almost depopulate our
afternoon schools. It is a tremendous drain upon them. It is one of
90 Illinois State Sunday School Convention.
the most insidious ways Satan could attack them. They say, " Is'n't it
a good deal better than going to the saloons on Sunday, or going to the
park and drinking beer?" But, my friends, it is only the entering
wedge. The next thing will be the repeal of the Sunday Law, and
permission given to do anything on Sunday that is not criminal. How
can we neutralize that? We must do it largely in the Sabbath Schools.
We must put the right principles into the hearts of these children. The
hope of this land is the next generation. We will soon pass away; the
places that now know us will know us no more; but there will soon
come up another band, and they will be the boys and girls of to-day.
You and I have a great dut\- to perform. New states like Dakota and
Colorado are being filled up from Foreign lands; and one of the great
objects of this International A'ssociation will be to form plans by which
this work can be forwarded in these new states. Sometimes I look
over this state and think of the great army of Sunday-school workers
that was engaged here 15 or 20 years ago. There is no less enthusiasm
in the work now than there was then ; but as I look over this convention
and see so few of the old workers of 10 or 15 years ago, I think it is
not possible that they have died, it is not possible that they have grown
cold ; but when I go out West and attend one of their conventions I
see where our old Illinois workers are. In one convention in Colorado
I glanced over the room and saw almost as many familiar faces aK in a
convention in Illinois. I felt almost at home. And there I found they
had been engaged in this work. I went from Colorado into Nebraska,
and found the same thing — Illinois men who had gone out from here,
and with the fire kindletl in their hearts here, had spread it among the
canons and mountains of Colorado.
At this International Convention, ways and means will be devised for
carrying on this work. We are expecting a good deal of money, and
as Illinois is said to be the banner state she will not only be expected to
tell what is being done and how to do it, but she will be expected to
show her interest in another way; she will be expected to give. .She
will be expected to give $500 a year, and will be willing to do it.
I do not think there is any better way in which money can be expended
than in bringing the young to Christ. And I believe it is ten times
easier to bring a voung child to Christ than an old person.
We want your prayers at that Convention. We want the prayers of
the people here for it. I know of a minister that went to his meeting
one night rather discouraged, and got to talking about the interests of
that church, and some one said. " The thing that we need is revival ot
religion." And they commenced praying for it and talking about it,
and at the next meeting they had, there were three souls inquiring the
way of eternal life. The minister got up and said, " who has been work-
ing here? Who has been going out and laboring and trying to bring
in souls.''" No one responded. " VV^ell," said he, "some one has been
praying, then;" and he asked how many had been praying, and many
of the hands went up. So, mv friends, those of us who go down to
that convention, want to feel that we are supported by your prayers.
We thank God for the record of this State; we thank God for her
liberality ; and we want to feel that we have the prayers of all of you,
that we may have wisdom at that convention. I believe that it will be
one of the greatest meetings of Christian men and women that was
Illinois State Sunday School Convention. 91
ever held on this continent. The battle is at hand, the conflict is upon
us; I thank God for it, the quicker it comes the better. Where you
find a dead town commercially, you will find a dead town spiritually.
Look at Chicago; I do not think there is a more wicked place than
Chicago; theatres, and saloons, open on Sunday; it seem, as if wicked-
ness ran rife in that city. But I tell you, wicked as is Chicago, she is
doing more for God than any other city of her size in the nation. She
has more active Christian workers, wicked as she is. There you see
the activity of Satan opposed by the activity of God's servants, and the
conflict is strong and active. Let Satan do his worst; let him come on
with all his powers of darkness; let him come on as quickly as possible ;
we know in whom we trust; we know who it is that is commanding
these forces; we know who is at the helm. (Applause.)
At Austerlitz, Napoleon, with the Old Guard behind him, stood and
watched the conflict between Austria and the Eagles of France. He
stood there for hours watching and waiting. There was a most mag-
nificent body of troops behind him that had not entered the conflict,
intent observers of the fight below, and wondering why Napoleon had
not ordered them to take part. At last Napoleon saw that the time had
come. He cried out to that Old Guard, "Advance," and in a moment
the clash of the hoofs of 10,000 horses was rattling down the declivity
into the conflict. The troops of France received new encouragement,
and forward they advanced upon the combined armies of Europe. Their
enemies fell back, but under the leadership of their able general they
massed again and with one desperate effort charged upon the French
and drove them back. They thought the day was lost until Murat, look-
ing up through the smoke before them said, " Soldiers, behold your
Emperor!" And with one mighty shout of "Vive I'Empereur," they
rushed forward, pierced the Austrian center and carried to triumph the
eagles of France. So, my friends, it is with us in this conflict that we
" are engaged in to-day. Although the powers opposed to us may seem
greater than ours, yet still, looking up through the clouds we can see
our Saviour there; and we know that with him victory is sure, that he
has never met a Waterloo and never will ; and we know that the victory
will be ours. May God grant that we may ever fight under the leader-
ship of Him who has bought us with his blood. (Applause).
The Chairman of the Executive Committee reported to the conven-
tion the following resolution, presented by Mrs. A. G. Tyng, of Peoria:
Whereas, the sin of intemperance is in this day the great hindrance
to the progress of Christ's Kingdom in this world, and whereas not
only is the Sunday-school the most efficient agency for raising up a
generation whose God is the Lord, but among our Sunday-school
workers are a host of women upon whose hearts the Holy Ghost has
'laid in an especial manner this burden of souls.
Resolved^ that this Convention endorses heartily the work of the
Woman's Christian Temperance Union, and recommends that one or
more of the few extra Sundays of the year, be set apart for special les-
sons on the Christian duty of Temperance, remembering that "/or this
purpose the Son of God was manifested, that He might destroy the
works of the Devil."
92 Illinois State Sunday School Convention.
Which, on motion, was adopted.
The list of the nominations reported from the district meetings for
district Presidents and Delegates to the Louisville Convention were
reported to the convention and unanimously adopted. (See list on pp.
40, 41 and 42.)
The Chairman introduced Rev. J. S. McCord, of Onarga, who ad-
dresse<l the convention.
THE WEDDING INVITATION, WHO SHALL CARRY IT?
ADDRESS HY REV. J. S. MfCORn.
Mr. Chairman and Brethren: There are a few things in this
world that are changed by men's opinions; and yet I have wished a
great many times that one great lesson might be learned, not only by
the scientific world but by the people in the churches. I wish that
every where, all over this wide, wide world, people could realize the
fact that the majority of great things exist, no matter what men say or
think to the contrary. I thought as I heard Bro. Jacobs ask that question
last ni'^-ht, "Is there a King?" — That is one of the things that is not open
to discussion. And I thought further on, as he asked, "Has He a Son.'"' —
That is another thing that is not open to discussion. And, "Has that
Son chosen a bride?" — That is another thing that is not open to discus-
sion. "And is there to be a royal marriage?" — That is another thing
that is not open to discussion. And, "Have invitations been issued
that the guests may be brought in?" — That great, broad, glorious
word "Come" puts that beyond discussion. There they stand, the
King and His Son, His bride, the royal marriage, and that wonderful
invitation are fixed facts. There cannot be any doubt about any of
these points.
But now, to come down to a matter that may be discussed, and that
may be varied a little by human opinion. There area few things that
may be changed and moulded because somebody thought something;
there are facts, that stand :is facts to-day because some man expressed
an opinion; there are facts that will be facts through all eternity
because somebody had an opinion. Now, this matter which I have in
hand this morning is to a Christian, hardly a matter of opinion, and
yet it has been placed in that shape. If I had followed my own incli-
nation I would have liked to refer at some length to the answer that
God gave to that same question six thousand years ago; and He has
been answering it ever since — "Who shall carry it?" When I saw
that cjuestion written on paper, my mind reverted away back to that
book of Genesis, when God made it so plain to that couple that brought
ruin upon us that nobody could misunderstand. It has seemed to me
that that answer was put down in great characters, that the world
might never mistake them. — "The seed of the woman shall bruise the
serpent's head." It may be that it meant Jesus; it may be that it only
meant Christ to take up the rod and slay the enemy of the race; but I
love to write on the wall in connection with that great thought, "Co-
workers together with God" — not only Jesus Christ coming in the flesh,
Illinois State Sunday School Convention. 93
but the great army of men and women that are joined with him in this
work to bruise the serpent's head. I say God answered the question
first; but here, it is something a matter of opinion as to who is to carry
this message. I have, I tliink, three questions to ask and answer,
briefly by way of response to this question that has been put to me.
I suppose I am to forget what God said; I am to forget all that has
gone before, and bring it down to my understanding of the case, weigh
it from that stand-point, and say what I believe the character of the
messenger ought to be who starts out with this invitation.
This first question I have in mind is this: I want to know, before I
select my messenger that I am to send out, just how much of His heart
thf King has, in this invitation. I want to know^ just how I am to
represent it, if I am to be the messenger bearer. I want to know
whether the King wants a kind of competitive dinner, whether the
King simply means to make his feast a little better than another; I
want to know whether an apology will take the place of the guest's
presence — whether regrets will do. I say, first of all, give me a man
to carry this invitation who knows the heart of the King, and the
earnestness of the invitation. I believe that is the first great factor
that ought to enter into the heart of the carrier. There is a verse in
the Scriptures that, while I was a sinner, burned down into my soul,
and when I was at the altar that same verse was quoted to me more
than any other. It was this wonderful combination of words, "God
so loved the world that he gave this only begotten son, that whosoever
believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life." These are
the words — "God so loved the world." As the years have gone b}- since
then, that old verse has grown a great deal. It seems larger to me now
than it did. An old lady once sat by me in the train, and she began to tell
me how her family had gone. She began with the oldest boy ; when he
was a bright lad of 15 Nears he was taken away from her by the death-
angel. And when she came finally to the youngest, with quivering
lip she said, "He was the brightest of them all, and I gave him to my
country." And I thought of that old verse, "God so loved the world
that He gave His only begotten son." Brethren, it was not a barter.
It was not God exchanging some one for some one else, but it was
God so in earnest, that this world might be saved, that He gave His
only son. He says, "His only begotten''' — His only begotten. A lady
came aboard the train yesterday, a friend of mine, I saw her eyes
were wet with weeping, and asked her where she was going. She
answered to the next station, and I asked her if there was anything
the matter, and she told me that her brothers child had died ; and then the
poor lady broke down as she said, "It was their only child." And I
thought how eight years ago I learned the meaning of that phrase in
a way that I shall never forget, when we went home one day and there
was no little prattler; the only child had been taken away by death.
Ever since that time I stand before that verse of Scripture, and God
stands before it with me, and he says, "I am trying to make you un-
derstand, it is my only son I am giving to get you to attend, the feast.
I am in earnest about it." God bless you, I have heard men stand and
talk, I have seen them before Sunday-school classes, I have heard them
speak from the pulpit, and I could hardly restrain myself from walking
up before them and asking, "Do you know that God wants men to be
94
Illinois State Sunday School Convp:ntion.
saved?" I tell you there is a key that needs to be touched, and when a
man comes and says he wants to carry this message to the ends of the
earth, 1 want to ask him, from the very depths of my soul, "Do you
understand, my brother, that the King is in earnest about this matter?"
I would say, select a man that knows God means it. That is the
Hrst thing.
Another question is: How much docs it mean to the bidden guest?
How much does it mean to the man who is invited? I have just a word
or two to say about this. Every little while I meet a man who says, "1
know your religion is a good thing, but — " "Something or another." —
that is, equivalently — he says, "I know that that marriage supper is to
be a grand aflPiiir; I know that great men will be there; I know tl'uit
socially it is to be a great thing, but I don't think 1 have received any
invitation to be present, or if he did invite me, I didn't think it was
meant to be urgent." God help you to know when that invitatation
comes to you the next time that it is a great thing for you, and it is
an awful thing if you fail to accept. Now, I think if I was quali-
fying a man to go out and carry the message to the ends of the
earth — just leaving the thing here, without saying another word
about it — I would say: Get the man zvho knoivs what it means
to the person who receives the invitation. Do not send some-
body who is full of the idea that he can go or stay as he chooses, but
get some one who knows that the King was wroth when the guests
refused. I admire the Gospel of love as much as any man, but remem-
ber that we are arming the messengers here this morning, and if you
stand in the ranks, first ot all ask: Do you think God means it? And
do you think the bidden one needs it?
In the third place: Are there any difficulties in the way of deliv-
ering the message? You know there is a principle that is as solid as
the rock on which we stand, that as the workman so will the work be.
There is another one, frequently lost sight of, as the work would be
so must the workman be. If I want to stand before tbe cold marble
and see it almost blush, and hear it speak, 1 look for the man whose
ciiisel and mallet can talk, and I stand him before that piece of marble.
If I look out over the world and I want a city out thereto be levelled
as the plain, its great stone walls to crumble, and its citadels to melt, I
look for a soldier. If I want my soul touched and moved, I search for
the poet. But if over there is my boy, in danger of losing his life,
and I know that between myself and him are difficulties that cannot
be passed, when 1 look about to find the man who will rescue him or
take relief, then what do I want? Do I care for a painter? No. A
sculptor? No. Do I care for a soldier.' No. Do I care for any man
but one? No. — A man who is true to the death, who will stand by
his trust if it cost him his life. That is the man whose hand I strike
then. (Applause.) Well, there is room for just that kind of thought
here. Is there a Frenchman in this room this morning? 1 expect I
could mention a name that would add a hand's breadth to your stature.
You remember that campaign that proved to be the greatest disaster
that the world's armies ever saw; yon remember when Napoleon's
army went back from Russia, dropping soldiers all along the way, and
when the Niemann was reached only a few scattering men were to be
seen. When the leader of the last line came by as he drew near the
Illinois State Sunday School Convention. 95
guard, his face was begrimmed with blood and dust, and the guard
said, "In God's name, who are you?" And the old soldier lifted him-
self to his proud height, and said, "[ am Marshall Ney, the rear guard
of the Grand Army of France." Who would not lift his hat at the men.
tion of a name like that? And 1 think in following over this ground,
I can find greater names. In answering this last question I want to go
back to the great Pattern, the one who first chose messengers, and ask
Him. Do you know on whom He first placed His hand? Simon
Peter, who, although commanded to preach the name of Jesus no
more, would have died rather than disobey His Master. And when
that wonderful Paul was placed down in the dungeon, at last the cry
that shook the earth was this: "I have fought the good fight; I have
finished my course; I have kept the faith."
Now, the simple, homely fact that comes out of all this. Are you,
brother, sister, who have a Sunday-school class at home, in earnest
about it? Do you know what the invitation is? Will you, at any
risk, deliver it to vour class? If God has placed an invitation in your
hands to be delivered from the pulpit or the platform, will you do it?
If I am to answer the question, I will say: First, send a man who
believes God means it; second, send the one who realizes something
of the need of the bidden guest; and, in the third place, send that
person, man or woman, who by the grace of God will deliver that
invitation. (Applause).
Mr. W. B. Jacobs moved a resolution thanking the Hon. H, D.
Dement, for the use of the State House during the Convention. Car-
ried.
HOW SHALL WE GET THE CHILDREN.
ADDRESS BY H. R. CLISSOLD.
Mr. President: — I think myself happy that I am permitted to
attempt to answer this question this afternoon, and I shall count my-
self happier if my little talk may be regarded simply as an "Amen" —
certainly hearty, if not very strong — to the eloquent words that wei^e
uitered last night by our brother, Dr. George. 1 am sure it must have
pleased every one who is interested in children, and who is not? to
see the drift of the addresses that one heard at this Convention as one
after the other they have leaned in the same direction, while the top-
ics might not, on the face of them, have suggested this to me, they
naturally drifted to this greatest of all questions. How shall we get
the children?
I shall attempt to answer this question in two simple ways — make
two suggestions to it. First, arouse and deepen the conviction that
children have a place at the feast. I am very sure there is need of it,
or there would not have been, as there has been in this Convention,
the repeated words in this direction. There has been a host of little
children whose stature, or whose inches, or whose years, have kept
them from an easy sight of Jesus since He walked the earth, and we
know that this was not His will. I am very sure that the Lord, when
96 Illinois State Sunday School Convention.
He told the parable about the feast, did not have the children in His
mind, for when He speaks of the children and His Kingdom, He says,
"Suffer little children to come" — suffer, not compel. Thank God that
we have reached the day when attention is called to this, and there is
not so much forbidding as there has been in the days past. I am sure
that no one can consider the revival meetings which we have had in
different parts of our land without being drawn to this point, that
teachers and superintendents, parents and pastors, all need conviction,
deep and earnest conviction, on this subject, that little children have a
place at this feast of joy. We need conviction as to the possibility of
child conversion. Involuntarily — no matter what our theories may
be — involuntarily, the great mass of our Sunday-school teachers put
the date of the conversion of their scholars far along, and the mass of
parents involuntarily think in the same direction. A few spirits, upon
whom Christ has come in power, and who have the mind refreshed
in relation to this great need, seem to grasp the thought that little
children ?May come to the Saviour, may know Him, mav believe in
Him, may serve Him — but every where we are brought face to face
with this thought, that there is a denial, practicallv, of the possibility
of child conversion, and so the children are kept awav from the Lord.
How many infant class teachers are there in our Sunday-schools to-
day wlio expect that their scholars will be converted before they
leave their classes? Talk to the infant class teachers, as I have in this
State, and speak to them about this matter, and in almost every case
you will find that these primary class teachers look forward to another
teachers work as the time when these scholars shall be led to Christ.
They will prepare the way, they will give them the bent in the right
direction, but some other teacher will have the privilege of leading
these children directly to the Lord Jesus Christ. It is a lamentable fact,
but I believe it is a fact, that the great majority of our people put off
the date of the conversion of their scholars. We need conviction as
to the probability of child conversion, if you and I do our duty. I
say -'probability" emphatically, becatise I believe in the promises of
God. It has been said over and over again from this desk that it is
far easier for a child to come to a knowledge of Christ than it is for
one older in years. And if these promises are true, as we know they
are, and if we are true to the trust that is given us, these children
will be led to Christ, and will put their souls in His keeping, for all
the life here, and the life hereafter.
Then, I think we need conviction as to the necessity of child con-
version. There never was a time when such perils surrounded our
youth as to-day.
Children have been brought to Christ in other years, for all these
centuries past; here and there, there have been cases where children
have been led to the Lord Jesus Christ; but it does seem to me, that
never in the history of the Christian church, that there was a time
when such perils surrounded our boys and our girls, as surround them
to-day. Printing presses, as we have heard this morning, are turning
out literature that is vicious in its tendency. Our boys and girls are
early taught to read, — they will read — and this literature that is utterly
vicious constantly thrown on their notice is imperiling their souls as
never before in the history of childhood. I say that we need to-day
Illinois State Sunday School Convention. 97
to face the fact that it is in a necessity that children be brought to
Christ in their earliest years, to be saved from the perils that they
must meet in the days to come. I remember not more than two
years ago, I think, of meeting on the eastern side of the State in a
Convention, a dear brother whose name is much beloved in this State,
and is now laboring in another State. He was obliged to leave that
Convention before it was over, because his little boy about eight years
of age, was about to relate his experience to the church, and make
application for his membership. He wanted, of course, to be present
and hear his son's experience; I talked with him a little about it, I
knew that all his other children had long been members of the
church, and he told me that only one had reached the age of nine
years before making public confession of faith in Christ. And he
added that he and his wife had the deepest anxiety if one of their
children passed seven years of age without making such public de-
monstration. I said to myself, Would to God that every father and
every mother in this State could speak like that, that they felt the
greatest anxiety if their children passed the age of seven without
making public confession of faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Ah!
have we not constantly put it oft, and put it off", in spite of our theo-
ries that children may be converted?
We need a conviction also, that we have a responsibility in this
matter, not that somebody else is going to lead them to Christ, but
that the Lord has laid it upon me as a father, upon me as a teacher,
upon me as a pastor, no matter what others may do, that before God
I must put torth every effort it is possible to make to bring the child
within my influence to know the Lord Jesus Christ and to believe on
Him. It will not do, dear friends, for us to turn over to another that
which the Lord has laid upon us; there has been too much of it. I
believe that every teacher should have this feeling of responsibility.
I believe in a divine call to the teacher's place as I believe in a divine
call to the ministry; and if we come to our work with this feeling
that we are called, and that we must bring them to Christ, I believe
that God would bless us far more than he does in bringing our chil-
dren's souls to him.
We need to teach with positiveness: not only of this conviction as
to the probability, the possibility, and so on of child conversion, but
we should teach these great truths that God has given us with the
greatest positiveness. Let there not be any haziness about our teach-
ing. We must teach that this is God's word; that sin is here revealed
to be utterly hateful to God, that a child may sin, that child may be
pardoned, and that parents, teachers, pastors must work along this
line, or they will never be the means of bringing their children to the
Lord. There is not much needed in the way of knowledge for a
child to comprehend Jesus. I am sometimes astonished when talk-
ing with grown people to find the amount of theological knowledge
that they demand of children before admitting them to this feast of
joy. Dear friends, there will be plenty of things for a child to learn
after he comes to Christ. He need not understand the philosophy of
the plan of salvation, but salvation he can understand, and he can be
converted in the very earliest years. He needs to understand whfit
^S ILLINOIS State Sunday School Convention.
sin is, that it is a breaking of the law, and that it must be punished,
and that there is pardon. How it conies he need not know; all that
he needs to know is that pardon is promised through Christ, and if he
knows the meaning of a mother's forgiving kiss he can understand
the meaning of C'lirist's forgiving love. That early can he know the
meaning of God's great forgiveness. Can you tell me how old a
child must be to comprehend that? I do not think that one of you
would dare to fix it.
Then, in the second place, we must free the Sunday-school of the
dominance of the child idea. Let me repeat it, we must free the Sun-
day school of the tlominance of the child idea! Of course, after what
I have said about child conversion, you will not fail to see that 1 be-
lieve in the statement that has been made here over and over again, that
this is the greatest work for childhood. No man will go further than
I in the statement of that truth; but there is this that we must fear,
that the cliild idea of the Sunday-school has prevailed to an alarming
antl mischievous extent. The idea that the Sunday-school is the one
service for children- has crippled our work for the children in other
directions. Did you ever stop and think how prevalent that idea is,
how it permeates all our literature, how it comes into the current of
our thoughts? I do not wonder at it, but it is a fact, and we must
face it and get it out of the way. The very definition of the Sunday-
school publications for half a century have helped in that direction:
"The children's service;'' "Nursery of the church;" "The children's
church'' of all definitions most mischievous. The child idea has cov-
ered everything. Take up any Sunday-school work that was written
ten years ago and run all through it, and you find this idea: That the
Sunday-school is for the children, for the children exclusively, and al-
most in spite of the writer's own intention, limiting the work of Chris-
tian people in behalf of the children and Sunday-school. I say it is
a terrible and mischievous tiling; it has wrought untold trouble, and
is doing it to-day. vSo I want to suggest, that if we can free the Sun-
day-school from the dominance of this idea, we should have more
home effort in behalf of the little children. How many times you
have heard, as 1 have, old men and women deplore the lack of relig-
ious instruction in our modern homes. They recall the time when
fathers and mothers gathered their children around them and diligently
taught them the Word of God. How is it that this practice is almost
lost in our days? It is because of the idea that somehow God has
raised up this institution to take the place of home, instruction, and
that this is the one place where children are to be religiously instruc-
ted. There can be no cjuestion, at least in my mind, that the home is
one of God's ajjpointed places for the salvation of human souls. You
find Moses saying, "Teach them diligently to your children," speak-
ing of the VV^ord of God. You find Paul saying, "Bring them up in
the admonition and fear of the Lord," speaking of the children; and
we find Solomon linking these two together: "Train up a child in the
way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it?''
all three looking primarily to the home work of those to whom God
has given children. Education, merely, is not enough. The home
too often says, "We will look after the bodies of these children, we
will give them clothes and bread and butter, but the church must look
Illinois State vSunday School Convkntion. , 99
after their souls." So the public school has the care of the mind, and
the Sunday-school has the care of the soul, whilst the parents have
simply provided for the clothing and feeding of the children. I no-
ticed in one of our journals the other day that a diligent comparison
of the statistical records of France have shown an alarming increase
in crime in direct ratio to the intelligence, and I am inclined to think
that a comparison ot the records of American crime will correspond
exactly with that of France. vSimply education is not enough; there
must be with it the most positive teaching. Let me read you a few
verses in Judges. Here was a man to whom God had promised a
child. "Manoah entreated the Lord and said: O! Lord, let the man
of God which thou didst send, come again unto us and teach us what
we shall do unto the chikl which shall be born." Then a few verses
further on Manoah said, "Now, let thy words come to pass. How
shall we order the child, and what shall we do unto him?" They
went to the right source. "If any man lack wisdom, let him ask of
God." Is there a circumstance in this world in which a man or a
woman needs more wisdom than in providing for the child that is yet
to come, that is soon to be on our hands'? There is a wonderful
amount of good sense in the statement that some one has made in an-
swer to the question, "How shall we begin the religious training ot
our children?" The answer was. You must begin with their grand-
mothers. I have heard it somewhere said that the soldiers who, un-
der Alexander, conquered the world, were the soldiers that were born
in camp. The first songs they heard were songs of war; they drank
in war, with every breath, and so, born into such an atmosphere as
that, they went out and' conquered the world. And so we must see
that these influences that surround our homes, are heavenly influences,
and we need to pray as Manoah prayed, How shall we order the
child, what shall we do unto him? Teach us what we shall do unto
the child that shall be born. And then, we need to plan as well as to
pray. And if we have this conviction of the probability of the child's
conversion, I think we will watch that these influences are always in
the right direction. I remember when I first went to Chicago, I no-
ticed that all the old trees leaned in one direction. It made me very
curious; I went along, block after block, and all my examination led
to the same conclusion; I asked myself, what in the world could be
the meaning of it. I had not lived there long before I found that the
prevailing wind was from the south-west, and then it was easy to un-
derstand. In the early years in the history of the city, when the trees
were not sheltered from the winds; these live, supple willows yielded
to the prevailing currents, and they pointed in the direction that these
currents blew them. I thought that if we could only see that all the
currents that touched the child life in our homes were pointing hea-
venward, what a different generation we should have when you and I
are quiet in the grave. Then, we must do some purging as well as
planning — purging our homes of all that is hurtful in its tendency. I
wish to emphasize this. I believe that one of the greatest perils is
that we are so careless as to what we bring into our Christian homes.
We bring newspapers into our homes filled with the details of crime.
We read them for the politics or market reports, or to learn what is
doing in foreign lands, but here is column after column of what is do.
loo Illinois State Sunday School Convention.
ing in the world of crime. We are not interested in this; we are
disgusted with it, and we throw it aside as soon as our eye touches the
column. But do our boys and girls do so? The answer to that is
told in the annals of crime. The crime of this country is constantly
being traced to the literature that is being read by the young. Read-
ing the details of crime has a tendency to crime, and no matter how
valuable these papers may be in other respects, I say we owe it to
God and to our children that God has given us, that we purge our
homes of this literature tliat has such a tendency. And then we have
so called humorous literature. I tell you our children need no help,
in the direction of irreverence or disobedience. Wc need not bring
before them the picture of any more "bad boys," (Applause) I think
they will find enough of it in their own hearts without our sanction-
ing the introduction into our homes of such examples. We need to
preserve the confidence of children. I speak of parents, particularly,
although as teachers we should also endeavor to preserve the confi-
dence of our pupils. The brother last night spoke about the parent
coming into spiritual relations with the child. O how sad it is in so
many Christian homes there is no such relationship. The father and
the mother are members of the church; they are. indeed, intensely
anxious that they may be brought to Christ, but there is not this inti-
mate spiritual relation between the father and the child and the mother
and the child that there should be. I speak out of my own expe-
rience as a Sunday-school teacher and as a superintendent. Two in-
stances will illustrate what I mean: At one time I taught a class of
girls from ten to fourteen years of age, and in the Providence of God,
during a time of religious awakening, one of them was brought to
Christ. She came to me and said that she thought she ought to unite
with the church. I said I was very glad of it, indeed; and she wanted
to know what it was necessary for her to do in order to make a public
confession. I said I supposed she had spoken to her father and mother
about it, and she answered no. It seemed very strange, and I asked
her sister about it. She said, "I don't wonder at it; my father and
mother are the last people in the world that we would go to about
such a thing as that." A few years ago a child died whose parents
were both members of the church, and I went to see them and talked
with the mother about the child. I asked her how the child had
died, whether she seemed to be prepared to meet the Lord, whether
she was trusting in Christ; and she said she did not know. I didn't
know what to say for a moment. There was a child between ten and
twelve years of age whose mother did not know whether or not she
was a Christian. The mother seemed to think that she must make
some excuse for such an un])ardonable ignorance, and said that the
child was "so reserved." That was her excuse for letting her own
child die in her own arms, and she herself a professing Christian,
without knowing how the child was prepared to die! The teacher
of that child had not found her verv reserved, and I could tell the
mother that that child had died in Jesus Christ. I trust that none
here may ever find that to be their experience, I trust that no one
will evjer have to come in and tell me that my child died a Christian.
If von free the Sunday-school from the dominance of the child
idea, we will have more public effort, as well as more home effort in
Illinois State .Sunday School Convention. roi
this direction. We liave grown out of thinking of the Sunday-school
as a service for everybody. (Amen). And, growing out of this, the
other services of the cliurcli are also for all the people, chiklien as
well as grown people. God meant that the preaching services should
be attended by the children. "Teach the Gospel to every creature."
Children need the Gospel taught to them. Children's meetings of
different kinds are needed. Public effort is needed, as well as private
effort, on behalf of those children, that we may lead them to the Lord
Jesus Christ. I am glad of the interest that is being taken in chil-
dren's days. I wish we could have them very much oftener in the
year, a day given up to winning the children to Jesus. I have lately
received a great many letters from pastors and superintendents, ex-
pressing this sentiment, and emphasizing the thought that we must
put forth more effort for the children if we would do the work for
them that God means us to do. Unfortunately, the Sunday-school is
charged with keeping the children out of the preaching services. I
do not think it ought to be blamed for that. The Lesson Paper is
charged with turning the Bible out of the Sunday-school; I do not
think it ought to be charged with that. It is an abuse for the Sunday-
school to use it in that direction. It is an abuse of the Lesson Leaf if
it is used in such a way as to dislodge* the Bible; I would have no
more right to lay this absence of the children from church at the
door of the Sunday-school, than we have to lay the absence of the
Bible from our Sunday-schools upon the helps we are using. Now,
I believe if we will make an effort to free the Sunday-school from
this idea that the Sunday-school is the only service for children, and
that God will own and bless us all the time, we will secure greater
results. I know that our work is imperfect; we put forth strenuous
eflorts here and there, and lament that our success falls so far short of
that which others seem to enjoy. A master painter had a number of
pupils in his studio, teaching them to paint. Among them was a
bright boy, a true artist, who was very ambitious and was making
rapid progress. One day the master went away for a visit not telling
them how long he would be gone, and left the students to their tasks.
The thought came to that student of whom I have spoken that he
would paint a picture for the master; and day after day he painted
after his ideal, and as the evening shadows came on he looked at his
picture, dissatisfied and discouraged, and he would paint it out
and paint it over again, but was always unsatisfied because so far
from his ideal. One night the master unexpectedly returned, and
there on that easel he saw that picture, and he saw the conception.
He seized a brush, and with a few ([uick strokes finished the picture
and left it on the easel. The next morning as the student entered the
room his first glance was on the picture. He saw that it was trans-
formed, and his first cry was, "The master's come, the master's come."
He recognized the master's hand in the finished work. Ah, dear
friends, our King will suddenly come, and I think that sometime we
shall find our unfinished, unsatisfactory work, transformed into beauty
by the Master's touch. And then we shall be satisfied. (Applause.)
I02 Illinois State Sunday School Convention.
HOW SHALL WE GET THE ADULTS?
HOW SHALL WE GET THE OUTCAST?
J. W. STEWART.
I come from a county that I liclicve is the greatest beer-(hink-
in>^ county in the State. I am a little ashameil to confess it. It
is not Cook, but St. Chiir. But there is one thing I do rejoice
in, that there is one spot in that county that does not use the article;
and I rejoice to-day that I stand in the j)lace where the future laws of
our State shall he made. Hut there is one thing that is stronger than
law, and that is public sentiment. Law is not worth a straw imless
backed up by public sentiment. We see that in our own comity. In one
part of the county the laws are viobated and trampled under foot, while
in another part of the same county the laws are respected. We need
to create in our neighborhoods, a public sentiment against all the pre-
vailing vices of the day, and then we will have law and order. I was
sorry to hear the brother speak of a base-ball game being played in his
city on Sunday afternoon. What is the trouble there? It is a lack of
public sentiment against those tjiings. We would not have any base-
ball playiuii^ in our town, because the people there are opposed to it.
Fourteen years ago when we organized the first Mission Sunday-
Scliool, we were told that it was impossible to organize a Sunday-
school in that place, and \ et out of the eight hundred children in that
town we have six hundred in the Sunday-school. (Applause). If we
want to carry on a good work, whether it is the Sundav-school work,
the temperance work, or whatever it may be, we want public senti-
ment. I should like to add an amendment to that resolution that was
offered this forenoon, and refer to the use of tobacco. (A lady in the
audience, " That's it"). I believe if there is an obnoxious weed on the
face of the earth it is tobacco. If I was going to describe the worship
of the user of the weed, I would say, " Take a hog, stuff him with
tobacco, and burn him on the altar as a sacrifice to Satan. I once saw
a gang of convicts, six men and one woman, chained together, being
taken to the Chester penitentiary ; and every one of them was a user of
tobacco." I do not say it was tobacco that sent those j^ersons to the
penitentiary, but it was a very bad mark. I hope the time will
come when we will not only advocate temperance but common de-
cency also. (Applause).
WILLIAM REYNOLDS.
I want to tell a story as to how to reach the adults. When the con-
vention was held in 1867 in Decatur, they erected there a tabernacle,
large enough to seat two or three thousand peo})le. It was filled tluring
the sessions of that convention. A gentleman came into that city on
business, and seeing this tabernacle he asked what it meant. They
told him that it was a building erected for the entertainment of a"
Sumlay-school Convention. He never had seen such a thing, but at-
tracted \)y the sight he went there, and he remained until the close of
the convention. Near the close of the con\ ention he came to me and
said he wanted to know what he could do for his community. "I
Illinois State Sunday School Convention. 103
have heard thinj^s here," said he, " that I never dreamed of liefore. I
am a professing Christian, but Hve out in the country where there is
no church anywhere near." I asked him if they had a school house,
and he said yes. I asked if he coukl not get permission to hokl a
school there, but he thought he coukl not attempt that. I told him to
go home and give notice that he was going to have a meeting there of
a religious character, and ask the people to assemble at a certain time.
He said, " They will all come; half of them will come to know whether
I am crazy or not, and the other half to know what I mean. I took a
volume of Spurgeon's sermons and gave it to him to read to the audi-
ence he might be able to gather. In the course of fi\e or six months
he wrote down to say that he had read those sermons all through, and
wanted to know if there was another volume. I sent him another
volume, and wrote that b}' the time he had finished that he must begin
to speak himself. The result of it is to day that one of the most flour-
ishing churches is located at that place, and it is a standing example of
the perseverance of the saints. (Applause). That is the way that man
reached the adults in his neighborhood. Now let me tell you how the
outcasts may be reached. A gentleman going through a certain part of
this State saw a number of boys playing ball. He saw that there was
no means of grace within a great man}- blocks of that place — no Sun-
day-school nor anything else. He went and engaged a little room over
a beer-shop, and put some seats in it and commenced a Sunday-school
there. He asked some of his people to go down and help him, and at
the first meeting there were thirteen teachers and eleven scholars. He
went out on the street and gathered some boN's in there and started
that Sunday-school. \Miat is the result? To-da\- there is a church of
the living God grown out of it. It has between four hundred and fl\e
hundred members: it owns a property worth $45,000, and it is the
largest Protestant Church in the city in which it is situated. It is the
largest Presbyterian Church in Illinois, outside of Chicago. (B. F.
Jacobs: "And Reynolds is the man"). (Applause). I would not
have told it except as an illustration of how the outcasts can be reached ;
and some of the elders in that church were outcasts, and would have
been outcasts now if it had not been for that circumstance. Go for-
ward and put your faith in God, and I tell you He will show you
wonders.
B. F JACOBS.
I was once attending a meeting in the city of Peoria and stopping with
Brother Reynolds and Brother Tyng; and the\- asked me if I wanted
to go to a wedding. Bro. Reynolds said he would show me the new
Church. I went to the wedding. We went into a ver\- finely appointed
room, and thei-e was a fine congregation there, and the percentage of
young men and young women was very surprising. Presently up the
broad aisle a young man walked with his bride. They walked up in
front of the pastor and were married, and out from the side of the pul-
pit there stepped two gentlemen followed by fifteen or twenty young
people. The}' shook hands with this young man and his bride, and then
there followed a general greeting. 1 asked Bro. Reynolds, "Who is
this young man, and what has occasioned this wonderful exhibition?"
"Well," he said, "that young man was a German boy; his father was a
104 Illinois State Sunday vSchool Convention.
brewer, I think he said, or a saloon keeper, and the little fellow had
l>een brought into Sunday-school — the one of which he has told you.
But his father took him out of that school, and refused to let him go
there. A little time after that the father died, and the teacher of that
boy had not given him uj) when he left that school, but had followed
him and watched him and thought over him and prayed for him; and
when that father died the teacher went after the boy and got him
back to that vSunday-school. "And," he says, "Jacobs, that young man
who was married to-night, is one of the members and an elder in this
church; he is the superintendent of our Mission School, and one of the
leading clerks of the citv, and here are his employers and fellow clerks;
he is on his wa\ to be one of the leading men of our city. When we
get hold of one of those little "tow-head boys, we hardly know what
we are doing for them, or for the communitv in which we live. As
Moody once said, you may have among them a Wesley or a Whitfield.
(Applause.)
E. W. BARRETT.
The question under discussion is, "How shall we get the outcasts?"
I will tell vou what one Christian young woman did: In the commu-
nity in which she was cast there was one of those outcasts, an only son,
with a widowed mother, from the city of Philadelphia. He had got
ashamed of himself at home, ashamed of his conduct before his widowed
mother, and he went to Indianapolis where this yj)ung lady was, that
he might be from under his mother's eye. This Christian lady was a
Sabbath-school worker. She had come to know some of the circum-
stances of this young man, and she concluded that she would take him
to task or use some personal work to restore him to that widowed
mother. She had learned something of his circumstances, but he did not
know that she knew. One day she met him going down a lonely ave-
nue, partly intoxicated, just getting over a big spree, and he was whis-
tling or humming a Sunday-school song. He attemptetl to pass her
without recognition, but she said, "Hello, John, what does this mean?
I thought I heard you singing a Sunday-school song." He blushed to
the very tips of his ears at a young lady approaching him in that way,
and said yes, he was. "How comes it? Yesterday I saw you drunk;
the day before I saw you drunk; how dare you sing a Sundav-school
song?" The young man then related a part of the story of his life, a
portion of which she already knew. He said that whiskey had done it.
She talked to him and got him to promise that he would go to her Sun-
day-school the next tlay. He did, and continued to attend there for three
months and more, ancl not a Sunday was he absent from her class. Not
long after the young man returned to his mother in Philadelphia, and
that teacher learned that he had never tasted whiskey again, and had
not missed one Sunday from the Sabbath-school after his return. This
was the result of personal work. In order to get the outcasts, they
must be personally approached in this way. (Applause.)
Illinois State Sunday School Convention. 105
«
NEXT SUNDAY'S LESSON.
At the request of the convention, Mr. B. F.Jacobs led in the study
of tlie next Sunday's lesson.
A Delegate said he wanted to know better how they were going to
get the children into the .Sunday school, and the different plans.
Mr. Jacobs. — You tell what you think about it.
The Delegate. — I came here to find out. I have heard of hiring
them ; some say it is a good thing, but some of the teachers now ob-
ject to it. We must do something to bring the children in.
Mr. Jacobs. — You can assume that some would be in favor of giving
them presents, and some would object.
One or two questions about the Sunday school lesson: I am glad
to see that some of the friends are getting near together. It is a great
thing to get close together. If you want to have fire, rake the coals
up close together, and if you want to study the Word get close toge-
ther. Just remember that this is a teachers' meeting, and that you are
at perfect liberty to ask questions at any time; do not consider it an
interruption.
What do you consider the first qualification, or the first requisite
for a Sunday-school teachers' meeting?
A Delegate. — Attendance.
Mr. Jacobs. — Who ought to attend?
All the teachers and officers of the school, and others that are in-
terested.
Do you want those that are not interested.?
It depends upon circumstances. I do not want any one there who
is so interested in anything else as to be going on with that at the
same time.
Mr. Jacobs. — If we are going to study the lesson, either in the
teachers' meeting or at home, what is the first thing?
Delegates. — Preparation.
Mr. Jacobs. — What is the first thing in preparation?
Delegates. — Prayer.
Mr. Jacobs. — What is the next thing in preparation?
Delegates. — Stud3^
Mr. Jacobs. — If you are going to study, what is there that is very
important?
A Delegate. — Study the Word.
Mr. Jacobs. — It is very essential that we should have a Bible to
study, and it is equally so with the children. It is a great thing to
have a Bible that you know how to study. If you have a Bible that
is 3'our own, you know that you can study that better than any other.
We get a great many marks in them, and things that will catch our
eye. We want a good Bible.
What do you want next?
A Delegate. — A concordance.
Mr. Jacobs. — Next to a concordance what book do you think is the
best thing to have?
A Delegate. — A Bible dictionary.
Mr, Jacobs. — Well, next to a Bible dictionary?
io6 Illinois State Sunday School Convention.
A i)elegate. — An English dictionary.
Mr. Jacobs. — Next to a Bible and a concordance, Webster's dic-
tionary is the best book that any teacher can have. It is a good thing
to study the plain, honest English meaning of the words. We are study-
ing a lesson that is in the line of lessons; what relation, then, has the les-
son for next Sunday to the ones that have gone before it? There
ought to be some relation, and those who have studied these lessons
must have noticed that those who selected them have taken them ex-
actly in the order in which they were written. There are two or three
starting points to a lesson. I want to know tiic title of next Sunday's
lessoiL
Delegates. — The uproar at Ephesus.
Mr. facobs. — You don't make inuch of an uproar. Let everyone
in this house repeat that.
Audience. — The. uproar at Ephesus.
Mr. Jacobs. — Where was the ujjroar?
Delegates. — At Ephesus.
Mr. Jacobs. — What was there at Ephesus?
Delegates. — An uproar.
Mr. Jacobs. — Those are two things we have found out. What is
the Golden Text for next Sunday's lesson?
A Delegate. — " Whv do the heathen rage, and the people imagine
a vain thing?"
Mr. Jacobs. — We are going to get at a few very good points here,
how to study our lesson, when to study our lesson, where to study our
lesson, what we are to study in the lesson, how we are to help one
another study the lesson, in order that we may get our scholars to study
the lesson; for if I want to get my scholars to study the lesson, what
must 1 do myself?
Audience. — Study it yourself.
Mr. Jacobs. — Referring now to the (jolden Text, who is this that
is raging?
Audience. — The heathen.
Mr. [acobs. — What is it that the heathen are doing?
Audience. ^ — Raging.
Mr. Jacobs. — And what are the people doing?
Audience. — Imagining a vain thing.
Mr. Jacobs. — Imagining what?
Audience.— A vain thing.
Mr. Jacobs. — Who are imagining a vain thing?
Audience. — The people.
Mr. Jacobs. — IIow many of you know the Golden Text for the
previous six lessons, and the titles? Hold your hands right up. (Ap-
parently no response.) IIow can you expect your scholars to know
it if you do not know it? Now, what was the Golden Text title to
the first lesson in this quarter.
A Delegate. — Paul's third missionary journey,
Mr. Jacobs. — What was the Golden Text for that third missionary
journey?
A Delegate. — "And when Paul had laid his hands upon them, the
Holy Ghost came on them."
Illinois State Sunday School Convention. 107
Mr. Jacobs. — Will you please all repeat that Golden Text. (Au-
dience repeated it.)
Mr. Jacobs. — What was the title of the second lesson of this quarter?
A Delegate. — Paul at Ephesus.
Mr. Jacobs. — Where was Paul ?
Delegates. — At Ephesus.
Mr. Jacobs. — Who was at Ephesus. ''
Delegates. — Paul.
Mr. Jacobs. — What was the Golden Text of that lesson?
A Delegate.— "And many believed, and confessed, and showed their
deeds."
Mr. Jacobs. — What was the title of the third lesson of this quarter?
A Delegate. — Paul's preaching.
Mr. Jacobs. — Whose preaching?
Delegates. — Paul's.
Mr. Jacobs. — What did Paul do?
Delegates. — Preached.
Mr. Jacobs. — What is the Golden Text for that lesson?
A Delegate. — "We preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumb-
ling block, and unto the Greeks foolishness."
Mr. Jacobs. — What was the title of the fourth lesson of this quarter?
A Delegate. — Abstinence for the sake of others.
Mr. Jacobs. — What was it?
Delegates. — Abstinence.
Mr. Jacobs.^ — For w^hose sake?
Delegate. — For other's sake.
Mr. Jacobs. — What does abstinence mean?
A Delegate. — Giving up something for others.
Mr. Jacobs. — Who gave up the most for others?
Delegates. — Christ.
Mr. facobs. — What was the title to the fifth lesson of this quarter?
Delegate. — Christian love.
Mr. Jacobs.^— What kind of love?
Delegate. — Christian love.
Mr. Jacobs. — Then there is such a thing as Christian love, is there?
What is the Golden Text?
Delegate. — Love is the fulfilling of the law.
Mr. Jacobs. — Fulfilling means filling full; that is the Gospel mea-
sure. What was the title of the sixth lesson of this quarter?
Delegate. — Victory over death.
Mr. Jacobs. — Over what?
Delegate. — Death.
Mr. Jacobs. — The last eiiemy to be destroyed is death. ^'ictory
over death! It is time to shout; now, let us get that once more, that
Golden Text, " death is swallowed up in victory," we want to know it,
w^e want to believe it, we want to live under its power. What was
that Ciolden Text?
Delegate. — Death swallowed up in victory.
Mr. Jacobs, — What is it about death?
Delegate. — Swallowed up.
Mr. Jacobs. — Death has swallowed everything you know, but it is
at last swallowed up in victory.
io8 Illinois State Sunday School Convention.
What is the title to the next lesson?
Delegate. — The uproar at Ephesus.
Mr. Jacobs. — And what is the Golden Text?
Delegate. — Why do the heathen rage, and the people imagine a
vain thing?
Mr. Jacobs. — I want to say to vou that every one of our children can
learn all of those texts. My little girl, seven years old, is not a pre-
cocious child, but she can say every one of thein for an entire year. In
order that we may know anvthing about the lesson, we want to get
not onlv a review, but a preview, a looking before; we want to look
at that which is to come as far as we can. Where are we in our lesson
to-day?
Delegate. — At Ephesus.
Mr. Jacobs. — Where was that?
Delegate. — Asia Minor.
Mr. Jacobs. — What was the peculiar glorv of that citv?
Delegate. — The temple of Diana.
Mr. Jacol)s. — The temple of the Goddess Diana, and that goddess
was a wooden idol, of which thev had a magnificent representation in
silver, and the preaching of Paul aroused the silver-smiths. Did you
ever hear of any one else that was opposed to Christianitv on account
of his business? We need not go much farther to tind out what relation
this lesson at Ephesus iSoo 3'ears ago has to do with us and our boys
and our girls. Let us get the thing as near home as possible. What
was the cause of this trouble? Idols. What is the first command-
ment?
Delegates. — " Thou shalt have no other gods before me."
Mr. Jacobs. — Once more. Everyone that knows the first command-
ment. (Repeated by the audience).
Mr. Jacobs. — What is the second commandment r
Delegates. — "Thou shalt not make unto thee unto anv graven image,
or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above or that is in the earth
beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. Thou shalt not bow
down th)self to them, nor serve them ; for I the Lord they God am a
jealous God, visiting the inquity of the fathers upon the children unto
the third and fourth generation of them that hate me, and showing
mercy unto thousands of them that love me and keep my command-
ments."
Mr. Jacobs. — The hatretl goes to three or four generations, but the
love and the mercy go on for thousands and thousands of ages. The
second commandment was against what ?
Delegate.— Idols.
Mr. Jacobs. — The first says, " Thou shalt have no other gods before
me," but the second is entirely diflerent, " Thou shall not make unto
thee liny graven image." Paul brought Christ before them, and when
they thought it was going to allect their business, what was the re-
sult?
Delegate. — There was an uproar.
Mr. Jacobs. — Who was at the bottom of the uproar?
Delegate. — Demetrius.
Mr. Jacobs. — And what did the workmen lose?
Delegate. — Their time.
Illinois Statk Sunday School Convention. loy
Mr. Jacobs. — Who went and joined the mob?
Delegate. — -The whole city.
Mr. Jacobs. — And some of them cried what?
Delegate — One thing.
Mr. Jacobs. — And some cried what?
Delegate — Another.
Mr. Jacobs. — And most of them didn't know what? Wh}' they
were called together. And it is characteristic of almost all the oppo-
sition the Bible has e\cr had that the people that have led it have had
some personal ojDposition to it, and down below is the arch-enemy stir-
ring them all np.
How was this mob snbdncd?
Delegate— The town-clerk took hold of it.
Mr. Jacobs.— When he called them together what ilid he remind
them of? That he had never attacked their gods — their idbls. Whirt
else did he tell them? That if there was any difficulty there was a way
to settle it; that there were lawyers, plenty of them, and there was a
right way to settle a wrong thing.
Mr. Reynolds. — What time in the week do you prefer for a teachers'
meeting ?
Mr. Jacobs. — You must take the best time you san. We prefer Mon-
day night, but particular reasons will govern different places. It de-
pends upon what other meetings you have during the week.
Mr. Reynolds. — Would you have one person lead the teachers' meet-
ing all the time?
Mr. Jacobs. — I don't think I would if I could get good helpers, I would
occasionally have them lead.
A Delegate. — Do you approve of having children learn verses besides
the Golden Text?
Mr. Jacobs. — I do most decidedlv believe in having children learn all
the Scripture they can. ' In the first place we must see that our boys
and girls have Bibles; and I can tell you a little about the line the
brethren were on vesterda>'. We have provided a good supply of
Bibles. We sell tliem to the scholars at less than they can buy them
elsewhere. We give them the entire list of lessons and Golden Texts
for the year. In the next place we put down the scholarship of every
scholar, and check the entire school of 500 every Sunday, as to whether
they know the lesson, or whether they have half learned it, or not
learned it at all. We do not spend the time of the school in hearing
them recite verses ; we have not time for that, but we try to find out
whether thev know them by inquiring whether they have memorized
the verses. We have it studied out in the teachers' meetings how they
find out whether their scholars know it it or not. And every month
we report the scholarship of every class that is reported to the school;
it is reported bv the quarter and by the year ; and every tjuarter and
every year we report the names of those whose stamlard is above 75 per
cent, of the entire list.
A Delegate. — What do you mean by finding out whether a scholar
" has got his lesson"?
Mr. Jacobs. — I would ask, " Have you memorized these verses?"
And he would say, " I have." I would ask him a few more questions
perhaps and pass on, and then come back to him, taking his word thor-
no Illinois Statk Sunday School Convkntion.
oughly, but still testing him. Tiiere is dirticiilty in the way, hut it cer-
tainly can be overcome.
A Delegate. — Is it a good plan for the pastor to shake hands with
each scholar while the teacher is teaching the lesson?
Mr. Jacobs.— :-VVe would not allow him to doit. The teacher ought
not to he interrupted, any more than the pastor should be interrupted
during his sermon.
A I)elegate. — What is the length of your session?
Air. facobs. — Our session is one hoiu" and twentv-five minutes. VV'e
liegin at half-past nine o'clock in the morning; we sing three hymns,
sometimes four; we make a business of singing; we sing with all our
heaits, and try to do the best we can.
A Delegate. — How do you supply the jjlace of teachers who are ab-
sent?
. Mr. Jacobs. — We keep a list of supply teachers. We have those who
do not wish to teach constantly, or that we do not desire to have to
teach all the time, (ienerally we get along.
A Delegate. — Do you have instrumental as well as vocal music?
Mr. Jacobs. — Yes, we have a cabinet organ and a cornet; we have a
brother who plays the organ, and we have a man tiiat loves God leatl
the singing, and we all try to help him. We sing fifteen to twenty
minutes; it (lej)ends a little upon the hymns, we will say as a rule fifteen
minutes; then we read the lesson, and review rapidly the texts; it does
not take long. The doors are closed of course during the reatling of
the lesson and praver; then we let them come in, and we study that
lesson thirty minutes; then we strike a warning bell at half-past ten
o'clock; at twenty-five minutes of eleven we bring the school to order ;
during that interval of five minutes we collect the cards antl the enve-
lopes that hold the contributions and distribute the library books; some-
times we have to wait five minutes for the librarians to get around.
And then if I have some special word, I say rt, and if not we sing, and
dismiss the school at least five muuites before eleven, because at eleven
the service in the room adjoining begins.
A IX'legate. — Do you take the children to church?
Mr. Jacobs. — We take as many ot them as we can; and if they get
tired and want to go home we let them go home; they are always
specially invited to go and helj)ed to go.
A Delegate. ^ — What proportion of tiie members (jf the church attend
the Sunday-school?
Mr. Jacobs. — I cannot tell you; a good maiiv of the members attend
the school.
A Delegate. —What proportion of your school has joined the
church?
Mr. Jacobs. — I regret that during this last year the proportion was
much smaller than 1 wish it was. We are a new school — only two and
a half years old; we have grown rapidly, and last year in the report of
the church I tliiiik it was said that 35 members of the school had been
received into the church on profession of faith. This year about 45 I
think. I do not think we have done our best; I do not feel a bit
satisfied about it; I think we have been careless and indifTerent; although
we have* had some blessings, we have had nothing like a gracious re-
vival.
Illinois State Sunday School Convp:ntion, iii
A Delegate. — You have responsive reading?
Mr. Jacobs. — Yes, we have responsive reading and concert reading
both in the Sunday-school and in the church. We vary it; sometimes
and have all the boys read, and sometimes all the girls.
A Delegate. — What do you consider the best time for holding the
Sunday-school ?
Mr. Jacobs. — That has to depend \ery much upon circumstances; I
would not have it just before dinner; the average boy oi" girl gets
hungry, and they do not pav too close attention at any time.
Mr, E. D. Durham, of Onarga, wished to say a word on the subject
of procuring Bibles in the Sunday-school. He said that his experience
was that the church was willing to allow the officers of the Sunday-
school in too many instances to run the Sunday-school without very
much oversight. The best way he had found to attract the attention of
the church to his school was to make some bill for the church to pay.
He went in every once in a while with a Ijill of a hundred dollars and
asked them to pay it; they said " What in the world are you doing?
and he answered " just come in and see." The conse(}uence was that
thev had succeeded in creating quite an intercut in the Sunday-school.
He recommended those schools that had church organizations back of
them, and wanted Bibles on the first of next October, to buy them and
let the church pay for them. It would be a double blessing; they
would get the Bibles, and get the people interested in the work. (Ap-
plause).
Benediction by Rev. Mr. Clapp. Adjourned.
Last Bay — Evening Session.
Convention opened at 8 p. m. Song service conducted by Prof.
Excell. Rev. Mr. Link led in the reading of the Scripture, and Bro.
Carmichael led in prayer. "All Hail the Power of Jesus' Name,"
was sung.
The following resolutions were presented by the Executive Com-
mittee and unanimously adoj^ted by the Convention:
Resolved, That a vote of thanks is due, and hereby most heartily
tendered, to Hon. Henry D. Dement, Secretary of State — who under
the law, is the custodian of the State House and grounds — for his cour-
tesy in tendering to this Convention for its use, this beautiful Hall
fully prepared for our reception.
Resolved, That the thanks of this Convention be extended to
Capt. S. P. Mooney, who has had special charge of the arrangements
for the Convention in the State House; and also to the Janitor of this
building, and his assistants, for their very gentlemanly and thorough
attendance upon the wants of this Convention.
Resolved, That we, as citizens of the State of Illinois, and as mem-
bers of the State Sunday-school Association, are justly proud of the
112 Illinois State Sunday School Convention.
good name of our State, and heartily express our wish that the mag-
nificent capitol erected for our State be speedily completed in a man-
ner worthy of the Commonwealth of Illinois.
Resolved, That the thanks of the Convention be tendered to the
Press of this city for their attendance upon this Convention, and for
their very full and intelligent reports of its proceedings.
Also to the officers of the Sangamon County Sunday-school Asso-
ciation; to the Pastors and the churches of this city for their great
kindness; and the four boys who have served us as pages. And to
the citizens of this magnificent city for their abuiulant hospitality.
ADI>KKSS HY W. li. |A(H)HS.
Mr. President and Fellow Workers: — And the Lord called
Samuel again the third time. And he arose and went to Eli, and saiii.
Here am I; for thou didst call me. And Eli perceived that the Lord
had called the child. Three times the spirit of (iod called ; three times
the child Samuel had responded. Twice the old priest had turned in
his bed aiul said, '4 called not my son; lie down again." But at
last awakened bv the earnestness of the boy's voice, the priest aroused
himself and realized that God had calletl him.
One hundred years ago, brethren, the voice of (iod through Robert
Raikes, sounded the first note of invitation to the children of Englaiul
and through them to the children of America, and the children of the
world, to come into the Kingdom of God. Twenty-five years ago
again the voice called in the State of Illinois, and a few of the breth-
ren met in the city of Dixon, organized this grand State Sunday-
school Association, aroused the State to a realization of the fact that
the child was dear to the heart of (iod. But as it was of old, so it has
been in these years. The church of the living (tocI, like the old high
priest of Israel, through all these years has turned dreamily in its bed,
and has not known that the voice was calling the child to a place in
his church, and his kingdom, and his glory, liut 1 thank God that
in this year in which we live, at last the voice of the five hundred
thousand children of Illinois, ring out and ask what is wanted of them;
and the church has aroused itself from its slumbers, and like Eli of
old, is perceiving in this year of grace, 18S4, as never before, that it is
not the voice of Robert Raikes, that it is not the voice of a few men
that met at Dixon twenty-five years ago, but that it is the voice of
the living God that is callintrthe child to partake of His kingdom and
His glory. (Applause). We do well as we sit in the closing meet-
ing of this Convention, to realize that these children sitting in our
Sundav-schools, knocking at our doors, running around our streets,
looking in our faces, following our examples, are responding to the
voice of a mightier one than we; and you and I are the representa-
tives of this great King of whom we have been learning during this
Convention. You and I are to heed the voice, as God may give us
wisdom, grace, humility, and fidelity, to take the outstretched hands,
and lead the children into the kingdom of our God.
Thrte things about the children: First, they are to be wclcomcil
Illinois State vSunday School Convention: 1 13
to our Sunday-schools and churches, and provision is to be made to
heed their calls; the doors are to be opened as they knock. As I go
about the work in our great city and through the State, I realize that
the condition of affairs has wonderfully changed within these past few
years. Just a few years ago, we were not talking about the great efforts
that were needed to gather the children in, — the outcast children, the
unreached children, the unrecognized children — into our Sunday-schools
and into our churches. But, O brethren, there is a greater and sadder
problem than this, that we in a great city like Chicago have to meet. The
the church of the living God, not the child, needs to be aroused! I find
as I am visiting the schools of our city, and hear from other parts of
our vState, that as the doors of mission schools are opened, and the
doors of the .Sunday-schools are opened, the churches, are crowding
in. In many of the schools I have visited, it was not a question of
more children, but more room for the children. The children are
crowding in whenever the doors are opened; what we need is more
room and wide opened doors and loving hearts to welcome the chil-
dren into the kingtlom of our loving God. (Applause). As you
heard last night, it is time for us to awake; it is time for us to realize
the call of our God through the child, and stand up on this anniver-
sary, and go forward to the work before us, determined that no child
this year shall knock at the doors of any Sunday-school or church
without finding a Christian hand outstretched to him, and a loving
Christian voice, to tell him, of Him who loved the children, and died
for the children, and lives for the children, and has sent us to be his
angels of mercy and his ministers of love, to these little ones, for
wliom He is waiting to-day.
Some time ago I was at a convention in the southern part of the
State. I stopped with a beloved pastor of one of the churches, a man
of God, whom I hoped to meet here. I talked about his children; I
asked if they were members of the church. He said yes, all but the
little one, and he pointed to the little girl of ten or twelve years of
age who was sitting at my side and opposite him at the table. Why
is not she a member of the church? I asked, thinking perhaps the
child needed a word of instruction and invitation. " Oh," the father
said, *'she is too young." I turned to look, and I saw the child's head
was fallen down, and I thought perhaps she was ashamed because
she was unprepared. But in a moment I missed her, and when in a
short time she came back, I noticed that the tears had been in her
eyes. I did not then c[uite understand it; but at the children's meeting
in^the afternoon, as 1 was speaking to the children and then to the
parents, about letting the little ones into the kingdom and helping
them there, I asked those that did truly want to be Christ's that day
to put up their hands. Here sat the father and there the child, and I
saw the little hand raised timidly and then drawn down. I said. My
child, don't you want to be a Christian? And she looked across to
her fiither, and then I looked at the father, and then the little hand
went up, and then the strong man bowed himself and sobbed like a
child, realizing for the first time in his life that the little one was
much more ready to come than he was to welcome her, realizing for
the first time that the voice of God had called his child. And he took
her in his arms at the close of the meeting, and kissed away her tears,
8 .
II I Illinois State Sunday School Convention.
and said, "You shall come, my daughter." As Dr. George said last
night, and as has been well said, we who are converts in the line of
march and the line of battle, we who have the warmest and tenderest
hearts, need to realize that the children arc called of God, and that
tiiey are only waiting for some messenger, the teacher of their class
or the parent himself, even, to let them know that they are ready. I
rememl)er in a meeting in Chicago, two years ago, it was my privi-
lege to hear the pastor telling how a little boy 1 1 years of age had
asked to be admitted to his church, a Baptist church, and the clear
brethren of the church were hardly ready for the emergency, and they
told the boy he had better wait, and he went home to a bed of sickness,
and there he lay through the long days and nights moaning in jiain,
and at last, after two weeks, when they had given up any hope of his
recovery, he sent for his pastor. The pastor came, and the boy looked
up into his face, and, calling hispastor by name, said, "Jesus wMll know,
wont He?" " What do you mean, my boy?" "Jesus will know, wont
he, that I wanted to join the church and you wouldn't let me?" And
the pastor bowed his head, and the boy said, " Tt will be all right, wont
it, with Jesus?" "Oh, yes," said the pastor, "it is all right with Jesus,
He will know." " But oh," he said, "I went from that room and pray-
ed God that, that boy might be spared. I asked God not to let him go
to the throne of grace and say, '1 wanted to join the church of Christ
and they wouldn't let me.' And then the little sister, 9 years old, was
converted and offered for reception, and in the meeting they stood her
up on the front seat to tell her experience; and in that great crowded
meeting she stood with trembling lip, yet with the boldness of love,
and told the story of what Jesus had done for her, and how she trusted
Him and He had welcomed her. And when the (juestion was asked,
there was not a voice to say no, nor a dry eye in the house." l?rethren,
we need to realize that the Lord is calling the little ones — in your class
and mine, and in our homes. \\'hen mv little girl was 13 years old, I
asked her how long she had wanted to join the church, and she said,
"Why, papa, I always did;" and 1 believe she did. I cannot recall,
nor can my wife, when she stepped across the line the breadth of a h:iir
— when she did not seem to be walking toward Him.
Pastors, beloved of God, and used of God, I will venture to say that
there are children in our classes, that there are children in our pews, in
our churches, that Sunday after Sunday go out of the doors with dis-
couraged hearts, because some one has not invited them into-the King-
dom of (yod. Miss says she taught a music class for a series of
months, and she used to walk with them to their mothers after the
music lessons were over. And she tells how, afterwards, she was called
to the bedside of one that was dying, and, remembering that she had
never said anything to her about Christ, she hastened to ask the girl
to make her peace with her Saviour, and she said, "I have been serv-
ing Him 7 years, dear Miss Florence, but many a time I have walked
with you hoping that you, who spoke so many beautiful words in pub-
lic, would say something to me about the Saviour for whom my heart
was longing, but you never did." Oh, brethren, it is true of us as of
that dear woman; too often we are satisfied with speaking in jiublic,
talking in prayer-meeting, or asking the bles<;ing at the table; but you
cfo not give the personal invitation. Some of us hay? often said, "If
Illinois State Sunday School Convention. 115
I only knew what to say I would say it. I have not the gift of speak-
ing; I do not know how to invite any one into the Kingdom of God."
I wonder if it will surprise you if I say to you that this gracious God
has not only laid upon us the command, but He has put the very words
into our mouths — so plain fhat there is not a man or a woman or a
child that is not, by the living words of our gracious God, to be an em-
bassador of Christ to the very next soul they meet, or the one that is
sitting by your side. Do 3'ou ever think of it? " The spirit and the
bride say come" — the church, the bride is calling. That is what is
not there. — "And let him that heareth say, come." Not him that is
talented, not him that has this disposition or that disposition, — "Let
him that heareth say, come." Have you ever heard the word? Then
in the name of God you are equipped and authorized as an embassador
of God to carry the King's message. What a sweet message it is!
"Come!" Was Ihere ever sweeter word spoken on earth! I remem-
ber how my brother used to say, " Now, Will, I am going to the store,
and you chop that wood over there." Well, I would chop a while and
quit. But when he would say, Will, come, let us chop this wood, I
would take an axe and I would do my best not to let those little arms
tire out as long us I could swing the axe. When he said come I was
quite willing to work. So God has put the Gospel of His own living
Word into our lives. He does not say, "Let him that heareth pray
that somebody else will come." He does not say, "As you pass people
on the street you should say to yourself. Oh, if they would only come."
No, brethren, it is not think come, it is not xvish come, it is say come.
Could the English language be plainer, or the invitation sweeter, than
that which the loving heart of the Lord God gives us as He sends us
out on this message of mercy and grace.
When they come, what then? They are to be trained for God. "I
have no greater joy," said the apostle, "than to know that my children
walk in the truth." I do not like ever to follow any one with a word
of criticism on what is spoken, and I would not do it if I did not feel
in the name of God that it needs to be said, that we are not bowing
down to any fetich. It is His own, "I commend you to God and the
Word of His Grace, which has built 3'ou up and given you an inherit-
ance among them tliat are sanctified." I am not afraid of people think-
ing too much of the Bible. I remember when I was a young bo}', how
our teacher used to make us study the Word of God. Thank God
that He ever put it in his heart to do it! I remember when I have
recited 100 verses, 600 verses, 900 verses a week, storing my mind with
this wisdom, glory and wealth combined, which I would not give to-
day for all the wealth outside of that Book. Many and manv a time
I have knelt down studying those verses, Before I knew that I was a
child of God, and a ray of light came from above to show that it was
meant for me; and I have kissed it as I thanked God for the Word.
Did I worship the Word? No, I did not; I loved it because it brought
me the tidings of the Lord above. Some of you have been in the
army. Did vou ever have a letter froin your wife, after days of weary
fighting, after long delays of the mail, and then find the wife pouring
out the story of her love and anxiety and hope that you might come;
and your tears fell, and you placed that letter to your lips. Did you
worship the letter? No, you loved the wife, loved the message that
ii6 Illinois State Sunday School Convention.
told you that she was faithful, loving and true to the end. So, no man
can take away the love I have for this chart of my way, the assurance
of my hope in Heaven, and the joy of life day by day, as I go on this
pilgrim journey and fight this battle of faith. Bless God for the Bible,
that you and I can never be ashamed, before any Doctor of Divinity
that lives on the face of the earth, or any other man. (Applause.)
The children are not only to be trained for (iod, but they are to be
given to (iod. I talked on consecration at Cairo last summer at their
meeting, I thought I knew what consecration meant. I said to that
])eople, " Jf there is anything J have that I have not consecrated to
(>o(l, I want to lay it at His feet and say, Take it, O my Master; I have
nothing that I did not receive from Thee; every dollar that I own,
every talent that 1 ])Ossess, every aflection of my heart, every aspiratifni,
every eflort of my life, I give to Thee. My wife is Thine, my children
are Thine, my home is Thine. — l^ake all, O blessed Jesus, I am satis-
fied with Thee." That was the solemn purpose of my heart, but when
I came to the city and to my home, and the daughter of my love, the
bright star of our home, the joy of our hearts, the comfort and cheer
of the mother, the helping hand for the children, came and looked in-
to my eyes and said, "Papa, are you willing that 1 should go as a
missionary to Mexico?" "Oh," I said, "my God, so soon, so soon He
has taken me at my word!" I^ut I could not sav no; 1 remembered
what he had done for me; I remenbered how He had led me through
the years and blessed me and given me joy beyond measure for every
little sacrifice I had made, and I could only say, "Go, my chiUl, in
fesus' name and carry His (iospel." I sent her out from her home
with a benediction and a prayer to (iod; and so she has gone with
loving heart and tender spirit, and with humility of mind and conse-
cration of life, to carry the Gospel of the blessed God to the children
in Mexico, that sil in darkness and the shadow of death. (Applause).
Oh, could you read her letters; could you see how the joy of His pre-
sence has banished homesickness; how she looks out upon the poor,
miserable, wretched children, and longs for them in the love of Jesus
Christ — you would feel as I do, that you would rather she was there
than to be the wife of the proudest monarch in the world and sit upon
the throne with him. (Applause). Let us welcome them into our
hearts; let us train them tor (iod and give them to Him, and we
shall have the joy of His love in our own hearts, the joy of His service,
the assurance of his benediction and favor through life, and such a re-
union in the Kingdom of (iod as you and I have never known, (iod
help you, brethren, to go out from this convention with this purpose
of heart, that wherever you be, in the home or school, in business or
upon the street, wherever you be, you will realize that however un-
comely these children may look, (iod has called them out of the dark-
ness into the light, out of the Kingdom ar»d the power of Satan,
into the glorious liberty of the church of God. May God help
us in our conventions, in our schools, and our personal labor through
this year, to lead them in the shining way, that our Master mav have
great joy when we come and say, "Here am I and the children whom
Thou hast given me." (Applause.)
Illinois State Sunday School CoNVfeNtioN, 117
The Chairman said, "I have introduced one who went in and out
before me for 10 years as my pastor; one to whom I could always go
for good advice and wise counsel — Dr. C. S. Armstrong; (Applause).
ADDRESS BY DR. C. S. ARMSTRONG.
Mr. President: My own judgment and sense of propriety dic-
tated that having become a member of such a convention as this, — within
certain limits, — one should obey orders. Shall I tell this audience in a
word, how it happens in obedience to your orders? When yonder clock
had come up towards the hour of four this afternoon, I had taken my lug-
gage and was going to the train that should ha\c taken me to my work,
but the President of this convention arrested me at the elevator and said
"Stop," and in obedience to that command I did stop, and come before
this congregation a few moments to-night. But what shall I say? I
opened the program, and I found joy and gladness. I am not disposed
at this hour to ring the changes any further along that line. There is
much of joy and gladness when the workers come together for three
days of counsel, prayer and planning. What shall I say, sir, is to my
mind the heighth of joN? I have been younger than I am to-da\-. Going
through all the stages of my childhood, as I remember the changes that
have come to me, my life has been verv full of joy ; very little of shadow
has come into my life ; but of all the joys I ever knew, and of all the joys I
expect ever to understand this side of heaven, this is the chiefest, to be
permitted in the name of the Master to take the hand of a little child
and put it into the hand of Jesus. The joy of service, not the joy of a
sentiment merely, not the mere expressions of fraternity, which are very
precious when we come together, but the joy of service. In these da^s,
in these hours, as they have flown, I have heard many good things to
which my heart said amen ; none to which my soul more fully responded
than to the words spoken from this place last night, and echoed so
sweetly this night, the conversion of the children. Going back through
all the years of mv life, I cannot fix the time when I became a Chris-
tian. I remember when my mother's knee was the altar where I
offered up my daily sacrifices, and I expect to praise God in eternity that
I knew Him so early. I was away down in one of the southern coun-
ties, attending a meeting for prayer and praise, and some ^vere telling
their experience; and a little boy was sitting by his mother, and the
question was going around, "What have you to thank God for?" One
answered, and then another, and then another, and this little boy lifted
his eye to his mother and said, " For a praying mother." The little
bo\' knew what we appreciated too little, and what we think
of possibly too little. During your discussions this afternoon, when you
Avere asking how to save tlie outcast, there occurred to me a quotation
from the late Dr. Holland. The question was asked, how shall we be
rid of rascals, and he said, " Stop raising them." The church has got to
learn how to reach the outcasts Iw reaching the chiUlren; the time is
coming, and hastening; I thank God for all the testimony we have
heard here during these daj-s, and the testimony repeated so sweeth' to-
night, that the children, our little ones, are to come to Jesus. I often
think of a story, it was Spurgeon I think who told it, how he was visit-
ii8 Illinois State Sunday School Convention.
inj^ his jj^raiul mother, and there were many curious tiiiuj^s to see; he
ruma^^ed all about the place, and at last found a curiosity; it was a full
thrown apple inside of a bottle. He wondered how it came there, and
ransacked his brain, but could not solve it until he jjot out into the orchard
where he climbed into a tree and there he saw a bottle hanging tied to
a limb, and a little apple fastened so that it was growing inside of the
bottle. And then the mystery was solved; the apple w'as put into the
l>ottle when it was little; and how often have I thought when we have
struggled with an old man, whom Satan has had for twenty years, and
have cnileavored to lift him up to the knowledge of the truth, if you
and I want apples in bottles we must put them there when small. (Ap-
plause), The time is coming when teachers of primarv classes will
look and long for the conversion of the little ones, and when they arc
handed over to the higher course, it will be to put them into service and
train them. Looking into this room, I saw yonder a large map, and on
this side another, and I thought I would talk to the workers a little
al)out the work, the whole work of that silent map there (of the United
States). We have made our plans, we have prayed, we have talked of
theories and systems, we have reported on the work, and I thank God
for it all; but, brethren, there are some thoughts in my mind showing a
providential urgency in the work, the home work to-day. I would
like, with that map before me, and with the thoughts of which my soul
is full to-night, to talk to you about the home work, if time permitted.
For just a moment I will ask you to consider it under two aspects. My
home, when a child, was in New England, just at the foot of Lake
Champlain. There I began my Christian life; the conscious Christian
life. I do not know where it really began, but one lesson I learned
then and there, it was to love foreign missions. It is remarkable that I
should love foreign missions ;ts a little child. I would like to know if
there is a child here to-night that does not understand al^out this carry-
ing the light to them that are in darkness, where the light of the Gos-
pel has never shone. Is there a child that does not understand it? T
doubt if there is. I doubt, if to-day, I understand more fully than I did
then as a little child what it was to be without a Christ. Why do I
mention this? Because I want to say I love foreign missions to-day,
and because I see how the branches spread abroad. Yonder into
Africa, Japan, China, into all the earth, our foreign missionary work
has gone; yet workers gather here who love that work and pray for
that work, but what is the relation of our home work to the foreign
missionary work. It is to me very much as if God, when he planted
this land, many, many jx'ars ago with Gospel stock, vonder in the
Carolinas and Virginia, he planted it as a Gospel tree; it went down into
the soil. It threw up its trunk and spread abroad its branches. Here
is the trunk. What if dearth comes to the rootlets of this tree? What
if one rootlet dies, and then another, and then another? What then of
foreign missions? What are those rootlets? Every little church planted
any wdiere in Illinois or further west, away to the Pacific if you please
— it is faith, it is contributions of money, and vitality going up through,
the tree sent abroad. If death come to these rootlets, what then? Give
me a place to rest my fulcrum, and I will move the world, said the
ancient philosopher; so give me this fair land on which to rest that
word, and I will bring the whole earth within its influence. But let
Illinois State SuNbAV School Convention. ii0
me ask your attention to one particular point. The New England of
to-day is not the New England of our childhood. You go into one
of those New England mills and stop the first operative or owner,
and ask him any question you please, and you will find that the answer
comes with a foreign accent. Go into his home, and you will find the
pictiu'e of the Virgin Mary, and the whole story is told you. The mills
of New England are no longer carried on hy Yankee boys. Who is it
that cast the votes that determine the policies in this land.^ Ask the
man, who is it that manipulates the votes next week, and you will find
the same names that run your factories. But you may say that though
the mills may be in the hands of foreigners, and the large cities may be
run by the foreign'population, yet certainly the hills and mountains and
farms of New England are still as they once were. Not so. Except
with rare exceptions, the American population has been displaced by
Canadian Catholics and other foreigners. Put those facts together,
thinking man and woman, and twenty years hence w^hat will New Eng-
land be? New England has become home missionary ground again.
Sweep along that map and come to the south. We remember how the
Christian men and women living in the south were left in poverty, and
six millions of colored men, every one casting a vote, and is it any
wonder that God in his providence seems to be writing with letters of
fire the demands of the home work. I might sweep the whole map ;
I might show you Mormonism, with what strides it is advancing to-
day, having gone into Colorado, Wyoming and New Mexico, Twenty
years from now and what? will the land be under its influence? Go
into the mining camps, and what morality do you find there.? There
are many brave men, who have come from praying households, and
who have gone into the mountains and become the desperadoes of that
country. Now, 1 ask you, let the present state of things go on and in-
crease twenty years more, and what shall stand before it. Do you know
how many men and women we get from foreign countries every year?
It has been our boast and gloiy to joroclaim to the whole world, "Come."
How many are coming? Scai'cel}' less than a million every year. Who
are they? Thank God for noble men and women that come reading
this Book, but the great majority of them antagonize this Book. Right
here in Illinois and Indiana, you may see the story that it tells in the
women and gii-ls working in the fields. It tells of a race of people,
strong, stalwart people, strong physically, Init do they love that Book?
Oh, that we may have laid on our hearts the urgency of the work that
is on our hands to do. Think of New England, twenty years more,
and what then? Think of the South! Twenty years more and what
then.? Twenty years more of Mormonism, and what then? Think of
the mining regions of the mountains! Twenty years more and what
then.? Never in the history of the world was there a people on whom
greater responsibilities I'ested than the men and women who are in this
convention to-day, who have been doing the work in the past. Look at
Illinois on the map. She is in the great wheat district of the north-
west, a great railway center, and all the herding interests from the
southwest passing over this land. We are so situated that if there is
one place of more responsibility than another, this is the place. We
are living in a grand and awful time. Some of us wall lie down in the
grave before the crisis is past, but twenty years will determine whether
I20 Illinois State Sunday School Convention.
this land is to be i\ Christian land or go ])ack\vard. Young men, young
women, teachers, the work is in your hands, largely in your hands.
May Gotl give us the grace to meet it! (Applause).
AnOKRSS I5Y KNOX 1'. TAYI.OK.
Dkar Friends: As this audience was gathering at the door way
liro. Jacobs and the President laid violent hands on me, saying I must,
talk to-night. The cjuestion was, what must I talk to-night. Oh, thev
said, somebody will say something that will give you a line of thought;
the Lord will put it in \()ur mouth. So as I was listening, Hro. Jact^bs
gave me the catch word, that God is calling the children. Yes, and
the old people too. But does he not use instruments in calling these child-
ren and these old people? In that grand commission. He said to His
apostles " Go ye into all the world and preach the Gospel." And so
these children must be brought to Christ by preaching to them, by
teaching them the way, by holding up Christ as their way, their
righteousness, their sanctification and their redemption. Christ is the
way, and we must be instruments in his hands, leading children to
Christ. But the (juestion comes, who is it that must go? Who must bring
the children? It is you that sit before me t(j-night — that old manor
that old lady, be it father, mother, sister, aunt, any relation or neighbor,
you are the one to call the children and the old to Christ. It seems to
me but fitting that to-night as we are at the close of our convention,
having heard so many good things, and being about to go back to the
field of our labor, that the question should be asked, how shall we do
this? You are going home to this work; what shall be done? What-
soever your hand finds to do, do it with all yoiu" might. Stand in
your place, and work just where 3'ou have an opportunity. But, says
one, 1 cannot do much, I have so little ability, my talents are so limited."
That is the difficulty; because }ou cannot dt) a great deal you will not
do anything. If you could sing like that dear brother that sits at the
organ, you would sing all the time ; if you could talk like these great
men that were talking to-day you would talk, you would go out an<l
preach. But, dear friends, don't you know that it is the busiest ones,
those whose hearts and hands are constantly at work with secular
business, who arc the ones we are laying the most on. The difficulty
is not because you are busy, but because you need consecration to the
work. Then you could do it faithfully, then you could do it prayerfully
and persistently. But there is the lack — oh, there are so many without
any plan, without any aim, any purpose in this life. They are called
Christians, nominally so, but what are they doing for the Master? No
plan of work, no system; it is here a little, there a little, and thus it goes
on from day to day, with grand jjromises of what will be done in six
months from now. Then something grand will be done; it is always
in the future. Why not to-da\ ? Consecrate yourselves to God and
work just in the line to which he has called you, however sim])le the
work may be. We should select some special line of w'ork,and none
is so simjjle as not to recjtiire study in its performance. I remember an
illustration of this ; a man who lived in our city was called " Po])-corn
Hrovvn." His business was to sell pop-corn, and he ma\le it a life
tLLiNOis State Sunday School Convention. 13i
work; he did not divide his attention with candies, peanuts and. oranges,
he had put his mind on pop-corn, and he sold pop-corn and nothing
else. So he was called " Pop-corn" Brown. Now the difficulty is we
do not take that man's idea. We are not willing to settle our minds on
some special line of work, concentrate ourselves on that and do it faith-i
fully and honestly for the glory of God. We want to do too many
things. If you are superintendent, make that your life work; study it,
pray over it, and you will be a power in the community in which you
live. If you are a teacher in the Sunday-school, make that your life
work. If temperance work, then stand to that; if the missionary work,
put your whole soul into it; work faithfully. Oh, we need something
divine, positive and clear in our make-up, that will carry us forward to
the glory of God. It seems to me that this is especially the case with
the young, who are just starting out in life. They want some one to
come along and tell them to do this or do that, and by and by some one
else comes along, and sa3's to do it in some other way, and thev are like
putty men ; some one will come along and give them a squeeze, and
then another will give them another squeeze, and they remain just as
the last one leaves them. Let us wM)rk in our own line, and let others
talk as they may.
I went into one of the counties of this state, and one of the brethren
who lives there told me that a man who had been a great religious
worker among them had died ; and he told me how they loved that
man. And as I was around in that county I heard the name of that
man repeated over and over again as a noble man, and I tried to find
out why he had been so highly honored. I asked if he was very rich,
and they said, no, just ordinarily well supplied with this world's goods;
and I asked if he was a very talented man, and they said, no, not very ;
and I asked how was it that he was such a favorite with all classes, chil-
dren and all; and I learned that the secret was that he was consecrated
to God's work, and seemed to love everybody. Was anvone sick ? He
was willing to go and converse with him; was auNone dying? He was
ready to go and pray with him; was anyone dead ? He was willing to
go help bury him; was there any poor that needed visiting? There
he was ready to go', as his opportunity offered. His heart was in the
work, and I heard his name repeated again and again, with the warmest
eulogies passed upon him. I said I would rather have the monument
to that man than the most beautiful monument in any cemetery. Oh,
it was lifted high, and men in ages hereafter will call him blessed. He
was loved by the people, and they loved him because he was always
ready to exercise his powers wherever he had an opportunity'.
Now, dear friends, we are going to our respective fields. Whatever
you have in hand, that, you are to do, and you must prepare yoursches
in that particular line of work. You cannot do anything without close
application. We should not be too much confined to one line of work,
but study that and make yoiu'selves acquainted with it. Whatever the
line may be, ma}- God help us to select some special line of work, that
we may go home and be somebod}-, and not mere cyphers in society-.
The next question comes. What shall we work with? Here is the
instrument, the Word of God. With what we can learn our duty, our
relationship to our God and to each other. This blessed Word of God!
How it is adapted to every case! How it comes to every heart in every
122 Illinois State Sunday School Convention.
time of trouble and afHiction, in times of discourajjjement that ])lesse(l
Word comes to us as the power of God to lift us up and encourage us.
Not only that, i)ut when we think of the sufficiency of that Word as the
inspired peimjan has placed it, we learn that it is a power to everyone
that believeth, the Jew as well as the (ireek. We are told that all Scri])-
ture is given us b\- the inspiration of God: for truth, for correction in
righteousness, that the law of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished
unto every good work. What more clo we need than that Light of our
path. Then let us take the precious Word of God, study it closely, con-
stantlv, prayerfully ; study it with a desire to fill our own minds and
hearts, that we may go out and impress its truths upon others; that we
may take it as a lamp to our feet, day bv day, showing us how and where
to walk. God will sanctif v this truth to our good. And now, as we go
from this house, may God's rich blessings be upon us, that we may not
forget it. Ponder it over and over and over, that every one has a line
of work he may do for God's honor and God's glorv. (Applause).
REV. E. S. McMICHAKI,, OK SFRINGKIKLD.
Mr. Pkesident and Bkethken. — I am glad you came here, ami
sorrv that you must now go away. This has been the first Sunday
School Convention I ever attended in the State of Illinois. 1 have been
here three years, but have been very busy, and occupied m my own
field. I will tell you how little I know about your Sunday-school Con-
ventions: When I came here the first morning, I was just a little afraid
it might not be very interesting, and I brought a book along, so that if
it was not interesting I could have something to occupy my time. It
was a book which was very interesting to me ; it was written in a
peculiar style, by an excellent writer. But I only got about half a page,
1 think, read in that book. I have been interested and profited ; and so
I am sorry you are going. I do not know just how to express myself
in bidding you farewell, only that I am sorry that this is all over, and
that I cannot run down here every evening, or every afternoon, and
listen and learn, and be more encouraged in regartl to the work. In
my own experience in the work, I find that there are two words in which
1 center my idea in the work: One is a Person and the other is a Book,
and I am enthusiastic over just one Person and just one Book, and I
always expect to be. I need hardly tell you who that Person is. You
know there is one Person above all others — Jesus Christ. I Hnd in my
work among people of all classes, if I can get them to see Jesus as a liv-
ing real friend and vSaviour, something comes into their souls that is re-
sponsive and satisfying.
Before you go, let me bid you God speetl in your worU. I ho])e you
will carry enthusiasm out from this meeting; I hope you will carry wis-
dom away from this meeting into your work, and that you will say it
was good for us to be here. I am glad, I am sure, that you were here.
Let everyone ])e pointing to that one Person, the Lord Jesus Christ, and
He win bless the work you do in 11 is name.
W. li. JACOBS.
I wanted to say a word before you closed just following the line that
I touched upon, the (juestion of training the children for God. If you
Illinois State Sunday School Convention, 123
have not the State Report for last year, you had better get it. If you
have it, read, not what I said, but what a pastor said upon this subject
and the blessing that God has made it to his churcli in training his children
and young people for service in the Kingdom of God.
The President. — We go away from this convention feeling that
we have had a pleasant time; feeling that we have been brought ^ cry
near to the Lord, and yet I want to say to you now as you go from here,
pray that God will help you to do His work better than exev before.
Dear friends, if w^e would do this work, if we would do it well, let us
work on in the army of God, and we will at last reach that Home that
He has prepared for us.
In leaving you this night, I ask all to pray for the convention that
will be held in Alton a year from this time, and I give you all a heartv
invitation to meet with us then.
Closed with the benediction.
Note. — The footings given in report of Statistical Secretary, pages 43, 44, were
taken from reports received previous to Convention. The tabulated statement, pages
45, 46, 47, includes those since received, and presents the complete returns for the
year.
A WORD TO SUNDAY-SCHOOL WORKERS IN ILLINOIS.
At the Fourth International Sunday-School Convention, held in the City of Louis-
ville, Ky., June nth, 12th and 13th, 1884, the high place that Illinois holds as an
organized State was freely admitted. It will require patient, persistent and earnest
work to maintain our position.
The Report of the Louisville Convention will be ready Sept. 15th, containing the
full proceedings, reports, addresses, etc. The list of speakers includes the names of
J. H. Vincent, D. D. Rev. Bishop Chas. E. Cheney.
Warren Randolph, D. D. Rev. L. L. Wood.
Hon. S. H. Blake. Henrj^ Liebhart, D. D.
Pastor Paul Cooke, of France. Rev. A. E. Dunning.
Rev. B. H. Badley, of India. Rev. A. F. Schauffler.
J. A. Broadus, D. D. Rev. J. William Flinn.
J. C. McKee, D. D. Rev. Alexander McEwan.
M. B. Wharton, D. D. Rev. H. E. Becker.
Eli Corwin, D. D. Rev. J. E. Gilbert.
A. G. Haygood U. D. Rev. F. M. Green.
G. C. Lorimer, D. D. Rev. T. D. Adams.
President Bicknell. , Rev. A. N. Gilbert.
Rev. H. C. Woodruff. Rev. J. S. Murrow.
Rev. Bishop O. Clifton Penick. Rev. Frank Russell.
W. G. E. Cunnyngham, D. I). Rev. S. B. Barnitz.
W. H. Withrow, D. D. Rev. E. S. Chapman.
J. L. Hurlbut, D. D. Wm. Reynolds.
H. A. Gobin, D. D. B. F. Jacobs.
Rev. Dr. Jones, of Virginia. (See over.)
124
Illinois State Sunday School Convention.
M. C. Hazard.
Chas. F. Coffin.
W. H. Jacobs.
William Levering.
S. J. Clark, Jr.
Dr. Perkins, of Kentucky.
Mrs. M. G. Kennedy.
Miss Lucy J. Rider.
Frances Willard.
Mrs. Sallie Chapin.
The Primary Section contains the addresses of
Mr. Wm. D. Porter, of New York.
Mrs, M. G. Kennedy, of Pennsylvania.
Mrs. Mary C. Cutler, of New Hampshire.
Mrs. C. L. Harris (Hope Ledyard), Mrs. W. K. Crafts, and
Mrs. J. S. Ostrander, of New York.
Mrs. John A. Miller, of Kentucky.
Miss Lucy J. Rider, of Illinois.
The book will contain from 240 to 300 pages, and will be one of the best S. S.
books ever published. The price post paid by mail is 25 cents. Hy express, in
packages of 10 copies or more to one adilress, 20 cents. Address
H. F. JACOBS,
99 Wash INC I ON St., CHICA(iO.
PRESTON, KEAN & CO.
BARKERS,
AND DEALERS IN GOVERNMENT SECURITIES,
100 Washington Street, CHICAGO, ILL.
CO
i With Government, State, County, City and School 1 T^a
Si;PPLV INVESTORS -] With Prime R. R. Bonds, and 6 % Car Trust Cer- ■ g
( tilicates. 1 p«^
Also a high grade of Commercial Paper.
Government Land Warrants and .Scrip bought and sold.
Sunday School Librarj Books, [mmi FOR mm Schools,
THE BEST PLAN
KOK SKCI KING
THE BEST BOOKS
AT
THE BEST PRICES
will be made known toany inquirer on applicalion
you have any purchaHe in view, please allow
HN to give you some sii^^^estions of value.
F. H. KEVEI.L,
Emporium o Religious Literature
148 & 150 Madison St.. CHICAGO.
Mil's,
Jil.ArKHOAJlOS,
LKSSOS HELPS.
H y3i.\ JKtOhS,
ilOSI'KI. II r.WA'.S,
RE HA It It ('Alt Its,
Jtc, Xv.
F. H. KEVELL,
S. School £ Bible Warehouse,
148 & 150 Madison St.. CHICAGO.
PROCEEDINGS
TV/ENTY- SEVENTH
-§-* ILLINOIS *-4-
Mt ^nnhag ^r^ool ^^onfaFntion,
HELD IN. THE
flLTON, Illinois,
TUESDAY, WEDNESDAY & THURSDAY,
-^% MAY 12th, 13th aqd 14th, |—
1885.
Reported by HARRY F. LEE, Chicago.
CHICAGO:
James Guh^bert, Pkinter, 140 Monroe St.
18S5.
Kiii
11101$
1885-6,
'^liaol %
^$$0aaUon.
President,
JOHN BENHAM, Chicago.
Vice - Presidents^
T. M. ECKLEY, McLeansboro. L. A. ABBOTT, D. D., Alton.
REV. A. C. PRICE, Lacon.
Recordiiii^ Secretary — Y. W. FOSTER, Dundee.
Statistical Secretary— \N . B. JACOBS, Chicago.
Treasurer— S. A. KEAN, Chicago.
Executive Committee.
B. P\ JACOBS, Chairman, Chicago.
C. M. MORTON, Chicago.
H. T. LAY, Kewanee.
J. R. MASON, Bloutr.ington.
C. VV. lEROME, Carbondale.
WM. REYNOLDS, Peoria.
G. L. Vance, Joliet.
O. R. Brouse, Rockford.
H. T. Lay, Kewanee.
Tiro.s. Orton, Lacon.
J. J. Stitks, Pontiac.
Henry Phelps, Lewiston.
J. P. McClanaman, Alexis.
H. C. DeMotte, Quincy.
S. B. Masters, Jacksonville.
REV. VVM. TRACY, Granville.
E. D. DURHAM, Onarga.
R. C. WILLIS. Enfield.
T. H. PERRIN, Alton.
R. W. HARE, Chicago.
District Presidents.
11. W. II. Nichols, Tallulah.
12. W. B. RuNDLE, Clinton.
13. Frank Wii.cox, Champaign.
14. VV. H. Erne-st, Farma.
15. D. Deppenbrock, Salem.
i6. J. R. Miller, Ca.-o_vville.
17. T. Blanchard, Tamaroa.
i8. T. M. Eckley, McLeansboio.
19. J. F. Burks, Eldorado.
20. J. F. McCartney, Metropolis.
No.
I.
II.
III.
IV.
V.
VI.
VII.
VIII.
IX.
X.
XI.
XJI.
XIII.
XIV.
XV.
XVI.
XVII.
XVIII.
XIX
XX.
XXI.
XXII.
XXIII.
XXIV
XXV.
XXVI.
XXVII.
ILLINOIS STATE S. S. CONVENTIONS.
I'residciil.
Dixon Rev. W. W. Harsha
Bloomington *R. M. Guilford
Alton *E. C. Wilder
Chicago *Rev. S. G. Lathrop
Jacksonville *Ibaac Scarritt
Springfield A. G. Tyng
Peoria Rev. W. G. Pierce
Rockford P. G. Gillett
Decatur Wm. Reynolds
Du Quoin B. F. Jacobs
Bloomington D. L. Moody
Quincy .. P. G. Gillett
Galesburg *J. McKee Peeples
Aurora C. R. Blackall
Springfield J. F. Culver ....
Champaign D. W. Whittle
Alton R . H. Griffith
Jacksonville D. L Moody
Peoria .... E. C. Heweit
Decatur Rev. F. L. Thompson
Bloomington C. M. Morton
Galesburg Wm. Reynolds
Centralia J. R. Mason
Champaign O. R . Brouse
Streator Rev. Wm. Trncy
Springfield T. P. Nisbett..."
Alton John Benham
1 859
.i860
.1861
.1862
,1863
.1S64
. i86s
.1866
,1867
,1868
.1869
,1870
.1871
US72
■1873
.iS74
. 1S7.S
.1876
.1877
.1878
.1879
.1880
.18S1
.1SS2
.1883
.1S84
,1885
♦ Deceased.
PROGRAM
Topics: FINDING, FEEDING, FOLLOWING.
The Singing will be under the direction of E. O. Excell, of Chicago.
TUESDAY A. M.— FINDING.
"Seek and ye shall find."
goo — Meeting of Executive Committee.
9.00 — Seeking and Finding a Blessing.
Meeting for Prayer and Praise.
10.00 — Things worth Finding.
A Bible Reading.
11.00 — What we have Found.
Report of Executive Committee.
Appointment of Committees.
Led by Rev. J. B. Stillson.
Led by Rev. Wm. Tracy.
L. A. Abbott, D. D.
Rev. C. M. Morton, R. H. Griffith.
TUESDAY P. M.
2.00 — A Song Service.
Election of Officers.
Address of Welcome.
Responses.
3.00 — Finding our Fields.
The Weak Spots in our County and Township Work.
W. B. Jacobs, T. M. Eckley.
3.40 — Finding our Helpers.
How lo Secure Church Co-operation. Prof. A. J. McGlumphy.
How to Secure Home Co-operation. C. M. Eames.
4.20 — Finding our Material.
How to Secure and Train Teachers.
H. T. Lay, W. B. Rundle, Thos. Orton, G. W. Tra.sk, E. D. Durham.
MONDAY EVENING.
7.45 — A Service of Song.
What others have Found.
Reports from other Fields.
The Foreign S. S. Association. — A Paper.
The International Convention.
Finding Better Methods.
Finding our Way to the Heart.
Led by E. O. Excell.
Rev. Wm. Tracev.
Rev. C. M. Morton.
W. H. Adams, D. D.
WEDNESDAY A. M.— FINDING.
8.30 — Finding Time for Prayer.
Prayer and Praise Meeting,
goo— What our County Secretaries have Found.
Reports from Counties.
looo — What our State Secretary has Found.
Report by W. B. Jacobs.
,0.30 — What our State Treasurer has Found.
Report by E. D. Durham.
1 i.oo— Finding our Line of March for Next Year.
WEDNESDAY P. M.— FEEDING.
2.00— How TO F'eed the Lambs.
Preparing the Food.
Training tlie Helpers.
3.30 — How TO Feed the Sheep.
Tlie Shepherd's Preparation.
Sciiool and Chiss Work.
Trainint; Christian Children.
Mrs. H. C. DeMotte.
I.,ucY J. Rider.
Rev. J. A. Leavitt.
John Uknham.
Lucy J. Rider, Rev. Jno. Lewis.
WEDNESDAY EVENING.
7.45 — A Song Service. Led by W. H. Scmure.man.
Feeding upon Chri.st in the Word.
Address by Rev. J. II. Brookes, D. D.
THURSDAY A. M.— FEEDING.
9.00 — Bread fro.m Heaven.
Bible Reading.
10.00 — The Shepherds Fed.
The Teachers' Meeting.
Rev. C. E. Goss.
Subject: Tlie Lesson for next Sunday.
Led by B. F. Jacobs.
11.00 — Open Conference.
Our Work — How to Improve It.
Report of Committee on Executive Committee's Report.
THURSDAY P. M.— FOLLOWING.
2.30 — Following OUR Work.
Reviews.
Class Reports.
3.00 — Following our Scholars.
Home Visitation.
The Supplemental Lesson.
The Normal Class.
Temperance in Sunday Schools.
Rev. F. W. Foster.
B. F.Jacobs.
J.J. Stites.
O. A. Oliver.
Lucy J. Rider.
Lucia E. F. Kimball.
THURSDAY EVENING.
7.45 — A Song Service.
8.00 — Finding.
8.30 — Feei^ing.
9.00 — Following.
Led by E. O. Excell.
W. B.Jacobs.
J. L. Brown, D. D., Robt. Allyn, D. D.
Lucia E. F. Kimrai i..
!p:Ee.oGEEiDi:N'c::^s
OF THE TWENTY-SEVENTH
Illinois State Sunday-School Convention.
The Twenty-Seventh Convention of the Sunda}^- School Workers
of the State of Illinois met in the large and convenient City Hall of the
city of Alton, on Tuesday morning, May I3, 1SS5.
Almost a quarter of a century before, in 1861, the infant Association
held its Third Anual Convention in the same city. This meeting was
presided over by E. C, Wilder, who four years ago entered into rest.
And again, ten years ago, the Seventeenth Annual Convention of the
State Association was held in Alton. We do not know that any who
attended the first State Convention at Alton were present at the
Twenty-seventh, but many were present who had attended the Seven-
teenth, and hearts were warm with tender memories, and full of grate-
ful joy, as we looked back over the years of the histor}'^ of the Asso-
ciation, so crowned by the blessing of God. R. H. Griffith, of
Rushville, who presided over the Convention at Alton ten years ago,
was present at this, to aid us by his wise counsel.
A preliminary meeting was held in the Presbyterian church Monday
evening, presided over by Thos. B. Nisbett, of Alton, the President of
the last Annual State Convention. The first half hour was spent in a
service of song and prayer, led by E. O. Excell, who has been em-
ployed during the year by the Association. Re\ . Mr. Gordon read an
appropriate Scripture selection, prayer was offered, and Charles M.
Eames, of Jacksonville, Rev. J. B. Stillson, of Chicago, and Rev.
William Tracy, ex-President of the Association, made stirring
addresses. The thoughts expressed were all of a preparatory nature
to the Convention proper, directing the mind to the necessity of the
presence of the Holy Spirit to make the Meeting as profitable as its
predecessors. Fervent prayers were offered by Revs. Nichols and
Gilliam, and after dismissal, delegates were sent to the homes to which
they had been assigned.
t) Illinois State Sunday School Convkntiox.
First Day — Morning Session.
"Seeking and Finding a Blessing."
At nine o'clock the Convention met for prayer and praise, under
the leadership of Rev. J. B. Stillson.
The musical exercises were conducted by E. O, Excel!, of Chicago.
"Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing" was sung, after which several
short prayers were ollered by the members of the Convention, invok-
ing the presence of the Divine Spirit.
"Nearer My God to Thee" was sung, and Mr. Stillson read a num-
l)er of God's promises from the collection of thirty-one thousand which
he said that the Scriptures contained.
The singing of "Praise God from Whom all Blessings Flow"
closed the exercises of this devotional hour.
At ten o'clock President Nisbett took the chair and said:
Brothers and sisters in Christ, it gives me great pleasure to see you
before me this morning. Many of you will remember the remark
made by Bro. Jacobs in Springfield when you were asked by the Al-
ton delegates to hold the state Convention in our city. After the
invitation was accepted I told him wc were much obliged, and he then
turned and said that, "I hope we shall be as welcome at Alton, as you
are welcome to the Convention." I am sure you are welcome here,
and I know we are all together looking forward with anticipation to this
meeting. We have felt that it would be in vain imless the Lord was
with us, and unless His blessing was upon us. In the meeting last eve-
ning, we were told by the speakers that we should wait upon the Lord,
and that He would come and give us the blessing wc need — the blessing
we desire. And as I went from that meeting last night to my home,
and in thinking it over this morning, my eyes came ujjon these words,
in the 3nd chapter of Acts, and I want to read them to you: "And
when the day of Pentecost was fully come, they wei'e all with one
accord in one place." — Is that true of us? Ai^e we all waiting for a
blessing from God? If we are we shall have it. And shall we wait
until the last day of the Convention? No, I hope not, but let us seek
now% in the very opening of this gathering to have this blessing. —
"And suddenly there came a sound from Heaven as of a rushing,
mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting. And
tliere appeared unto them cloven tongues like as of fire, and it sat upon
each of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and
began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance.
And there were dwelling at Jerusalem Jews, devout men, out of every
nation under Heaven. Now when this was noised abroad, the mul-
titude came together, and were confounded, because that every man
heard them speak in his own language. And they were all amazed
antl marveled, saying one to another. Behold, are not all these that
speak Galileans?" May not a like experience be true of us? May
Illinois State Sunday School Convention. 7
we not have such an out-pouring of the blessing of God upon us that
this city shall resound with the praise of God, and then we go from
this Convention to our homes and our vSabbath Schools, blessing God
for what he has done for us here, and determined to work for him more
faithfully than ever in the past. If we have this blessing, God's own
presence with us, we shall work with a zeal that the Lord can bless.
The audience joined heartily in singmg "Revive Us Again."
Rev. A. C. Price, of Lacon, offered prayer:
Oh, God, we look up to Thee again, and ask Thee for Thine es-
pecial blessing to rest upon us. Thy servant has just read from Thy
word how that in accordance with Thy command the disciples of old
were gathered together in an upper room; and how they waited upon
Thee for Thee to fulfill Th}^ promise to them; and how the Holy
Spirit came upon them, and sat upon them like cloven tongues of fire.
We wait with one accord before Thee this morning for the baptism
of the Spirit, that it shall be with us in all the deliberations of this
Convention. Aid him who shall be chosen to preside over this Con-
vention to-day. Lord, direct our choice, direct him, and direct us in
our labors. Wilt Thou aid all that 'take a part in addressing us;
clothe them with power from on high, and give to us all that shall
hear receptive spirits and retentive memories. We desire to wait upon
Thee, and to renew our strength. Alay the words spoken here find a
sure place in our hearts, and may we carry from this Convention such
thoughts and suggestions as we have never carried with us from any
Convention before in all our history. We thank Thee for the priv-
ilege of meeting in this Convention. Lord, be with us throughout
this meeting, and in every part of it. Make this Convention a gra-
cious blessing to this city. VVilt Thou grant to be with us in the homes
where we stay for the time being, and make our visit to these families
a great blessing. May this city see that we are men and women of
God, walking and communing with Thee, and that we do indeed en-
joy peace and fellowship with Thee. Assist in these prayers, forgive
our sins, and save us at last, for Jesus sake. Amen.
The Convention sang heartily "Blessed be the Tie that Binds," and
listened to the Bible reading from Bro. Tracy :
THINGS WORTH FINDING.
REV. WILLIAM TRACY.
Dear Fellow- Workers: — I have no prepared Bible reading this
morning, but I know that we have a prepared audience here, and i take
courage. The subject that has been allotted to me is so wide, and
yet so practical and so near our hearts, that I am quite sure we can
spend the time very profitably and interestingly if we will only all of
us take part in it. I have selected a few passages which I want some
of the brethren to take, and when you repeat them ^vill you be good
enough to express whatever may be suggested to you b}'^ them. I will
give you the following passages: — Prov. viii. 35; Eccl. ix. 10; Eccl.
xi. 1 ; Mathew x. 39; John, i. 41 ; Heb. iv. 16.
Some years ago I was in Wales and visited a watering place called
Aberystwith. There was one shore to which a great many visitors
8 Illinois State Sunday School Convention.
went. It mattered not what time you went tlieie, morning, afternoon,
or evening, you always found a great many people on that shore.
There was another shore from which the scene and everything around
it seemed to be ecjually attractive, but it was deserted. Once in a
while you would find a lonely traveler there, but you might always
conclude that he was a stranger. What was the secret of it? On the
one shore there were precious stones, and on the other there were not.
The multitude always went where the precious stones were, and you
would see them there walking along, looking down, stooping over,
some on their knees, seeking these precious things. Well now. as
Sunday School workers, there is one shore that we are acquainted
with where we can always find precious things, and that is the word
of God. And we are going to look into the word of God this morn-
ing and see something about finding precious things. In Job, xxiii.
3, we have these words: "Oh, that I knew where 1 might find him?"
You remember the circumstances — very touching, almost tragic. The
old man despoiled of everything, his children dead, his property gone,
desolate, the very wife of his bosom an ill adviser. Some of the chil-
dren of God come and talk with him, and they try to enlighten antl
encourage him. And then there comes, you know, that young man
who listened to the old men as they talked together, and then he talks,
full of enthusiasm, and shows Job just what he needs; and Job listens
to him, and then the old man breaks out with this exclamation: "Oh,
that I knew where I might find him!" Dear friends, the first thing
that we want to find is God. Until we have found God we have
really found nothing. You don't know anything about this world
unless you have found God in it; you know very little about this
book unless you have felt the spirit of God in it; you know very lit-
tle about your own life unless you have felt the conscious presence of
God in your own soul. The first thing we want to find is God.
Now I want to ask your attention to another passage, Luke xi. 9:
"And I say unto you. Ask, and it shall be given you: seek, and ye
shall find."
What a splendid promise that is! Seek, and ye shall find. Why?
Because God is looking for us — looking more earnestly than we are
looking for him; and you know when a soul is looking for God, and
God is looking for that soul, it is not very long before they find each
other. And now, if we here this morning are looking for God, de-
pend upon this that God is looking for us. "Seek, and ye shall find."
Now shall we have the passage in Matthew xi. 28:
"Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will
give you rest."
The first thing that we find when we find Christ, is rest. It is said
that Dr. Livingstone, as he was traveling in a far distant country,
came upon the natives one day, and they said to him: "We are weary;
we want rest." When Christ came into this world he found peo-
ple weary. You remember he looked out one day and saw the mul-
titude, and he had compassion on them, for they were as sheep scat-
tered abroad having no shepherd. The individual soul is just in that
condition. When we come to Christ, the first thing that we want is
rest, and the soul that finds Christ finds rest.
Now, will you give us that passage in Matthew x. 39:
tLLiNois State Sunday School Convention. 9
"He that findeth his life sliall lose it; and he that loseth his life for
my sake shall find it."
When we come and find Christ, and find rest, there are just two
things that we do — we lose, and we find. We lose the old life, and
we find the new life; we lose the burden that was an agony, and we
find t-he yoke that is easy; we lose all the misery and disappointment
connected with the old life, and wc find the blessedness and the antici-
pation and the hopefulness and the joy connected with the new life.
Now shall we have the passages in Ecclesiastes; first, xi. i, then
ix. 10.
"Cast thy bread upon the waters, for thou shalt find it after many
days.'' "Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with all thy might;
for there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom in the
grave whither thou goest."
Taking these two passages, we have two things: First of all we
find work, and secondly we find the fruit of our work. Just as soon
as a man finds Christ he finds rest. In finding Christ and in finding
rest he finds a new life. The next thing is, this new life wants to
manifest itself, wants to exercise its power, wants to find its field ;
and we have not far to look for it. I think one of the beautiful things
in connection with the life of Christ, is that just as soon as he helped
anybody, that person looked around and saw someone else to help.
And just as soon as you find your work, and go into it, you begin to
find your fruit, immediate fruit, the joy of the work. It is a contin-
uous work, not only this minute but also after many days; and I be-
lieve there is nothing that can give us more sacred joy than finding
this very thing. Dear Sunday School workers, you have tested it,
you have found your work, you have done your work, and you have
found the fruit of your work. Let me give you a little incident in my
own experience. I went one day into one of Mr. Moody's meetings,
an after-meeting for men, where there were about a hundred and
fifty men present. The first person that I spoke to said: "You are
just the man I want to see." I said I was glad to see him, and he con-
tinued: "I heard you speak this morning, and I don't know what it
was — it don't seem to me it was anything you said — but there was
something about it that made me give my heart to Christ." I tell
you there is no joy that comes to the Christian heart like that joy of
finding the fruit of 3'our work in souls converted, consecrated to God,
and growing up into Christ.
Hebrews iv. 16: "Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne
of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of
need."
Find grace to help in time of need. When is man's deepest time
of need? You know, if you have been teaching a class week after
week, and year after year, and you have seen very little result; there
has been a consciousness in it of need of help, but it has not been the
greatest consciousness that you can know. If you have been teaching
a class, and at the close of the lesson some Sunday one of the scholars
comes and says: "Teacher, I want to come to Christ; I want to be a
Christian; I want to do something for Christ," in that moment you
are conscious of a need deeper, more imminent, than you have ever
felt before. If there has ever been a time when I have felt the need
lo Illinois State Sunday School Convention.
of the grace of God, it has been when I was in the midst of souls that
were trying to find God. Success shows a tcaclier his absolute need
of an abundant gift of divine grace; and we can find grace to help us
in time of need. I wish we, as Sunday School workers, could just
take that thought — grace fo help us. You and I have to do some-
thing. God is the great helper. The grace of God is the great help-
ing force. But it is not something that is to take our place; is is not
something that is to dismiss the powers that we have; it is not some-
thing that is to let the gift that God has given us lie useless; but it is
grace to "help" us — grace in the heart, and grace in the voice, and
grace in every thing that we do, to help us in time of need.
John, i. 41 : "He first findeth his own brother Simon, and saith
unto him, we have found the Messias."
He first findeth his own brother. He had found the Messias, and
then he found his brother, and what did he do? He simply told him
his own experience. The idea I want to bring out is this: Finding
opportunities to tell what God has done for us; finding hearts to
which we may impart the things that we ourselves have received from
God. Dear friends, I believe this is one of the things we want to find
more constantly — opportunities to tell individuals what God has done
for us, opportunities to reveal to individual souls the blessedness that
we ourselves enjoy as Christians, and as servants of the Lord Jesus
Christ. If you have never tried it, try it. Take aside your own
scholars and say: "John, I want to tell you what Chiist has done for
me; I want to tell you how God has blessed me; I want to tell you
what my own life has been since I put it in the hands of Christ." And
I tell you this: Whatever sermons you may hear from the pulpit,
whatever addresses you may hear from a platform, you will hear
nothing that will have in it more power than that simple testimony of
your simple trust in Christ, and of your experience of the life of Christ
in your own heart. I am confident that this is just the thing we need
to do in our Sunday School work, this finding individual souls and
saying to them, "we have found the Messias, who is the Christ." What
was the result of this simple testimony ? "He brought him to Jesus."
And I believe that in nine cases out of ten that will be the result.
Find the fitting time, the fitting place, the individual soul, and pour
into it the simple testimony of your own life in Christ. And if we
find these things, and continue in them, by and by there is another
thing that we shall find. We first of all find Christ at the cross, and
finding Christ we find rest, we find life, we find the work of life, we
find the most blessed fruit as the result of life's work, we find our
individual souls and bring them to Christ, and then, by and by, we
shall find Christ on His throne, and finding Him we shall also find the
joy of Christ, the glory of Christ, the perpetual presence and enjoy-
ment of Christ throughout all eternity.
The audience rose and sang, "Work, for the Night is Coming."
President Nisbett: Let us now have two or three short ad-
dresses on this subject of Things worth finding. Bro. Jacobs will you
lead oflf?
Illinois State Sunday School Convention. i i
W. B. Jacobs.
Mr. President: I have found a very precious text in the line of
the remarks made by Bro. Tracy. He said one of the reasons why we
found God if we sought for him was that God was looking for us.
" For the eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth."
God is looking for us that he may help us. That is the thought. We
sometimes think that we must cry and agonize in order to get a bless-
ing. Oh, no! As Bro. Tracy said, the Lord is seeking us, and he is
seeking us with this great thought, How can I help that child of mine?
How can I strengthen his hand? How can I bless him with a greater
blessing? " The eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole
earth, to show himself strong in the behalf of them whose heart is per-
fect toward him." Now, that does not mean a perfect heart, absolute-
ly faultless from sin, but a sincere heart, an honest heart, which says,
" Oh, my Lord, I want to do more for thee. I am ashamed of mj^
past, and want to be lifted up to thee, to be filled with thy fullness, to
be taught thy way, to be strengthened with thy might." And then
God says : " I am looking for thee, my^ child. These blessings I am
saving for thee. Draw near and be helped and coinforted." He looks
into our hearts and sees its needs, and then pours out his infinite love
and blessing. So may you, my brethren, go into whatsoever fields you
have found, whatever may be your need, whatever may be your dis-
couragements or weakness or helplessness, remembering that the eyes
of the Lord are searching you to assist you. The Lord is looking this
morning to see what it is we need, and that he may find an opportunity
to help us and pour out his blessing upon us. I thank God not only
that I have found this text, but that I have found the precious experience
of his truthfulness in my own heart.
Rev. T. M. Spillman.
Find out what we want. When we find what our needs are then
we find the supplies. One of the great difliculties in our work, I think
oftentimes, is that we do not really understand what our wants are. We
need to find out that there is no strength in us, that when we are weak
then we are strong — we need to find out our ignorance and then search
the Bible for knowledge, to find out our impotence and then seek God
for strength. We must find out our inability, and then we can go and
find the power, the wisdom, the omnipotence required to accomplish
the work which the feeblest of us it called upon to do. Find our wants
and then we will find our supplies.
Dr. L. a. Abbott.
E\'erything that God has given us in his word, and in his
work and in his sei'vice is worth finding, especially the souls
of the lost, the souls of the humble. You know that a great
many times we are anxious for certain souls, not for souls
just as we find them — souls of the lost, souls of the poor,
souls of those who are low and wretched and sinful — but we often ask
for some particular souls to be brought in, some that will be influential
in our congregation, some that will help our finances. So many times,
even when we pray for revivals, we pray with such and such ones in
12 Illinois State Sunday School Convention.
our thoughts, but we do not remember just naked souls. The great
thing to find is the soul, the soul of the child, and the soul of the hum-
ble child. Many years ago in Massachusetts, I was the pastor of a
church that was organized with one man and six or seven women. For
a long time that one man was the one brother in the church, and he
used to pray — oh, how much they used to pray! — that God would send
a gracious revival and build up that little liaptist church in Weymouth,
Mass, And the prayer was heard, a precious revival was granted, and
that one man became associated with scores of young men, and the
church was enlarged from twenty or thirty to a hundred and fifty or
a hundred and seventy. These new workers all came in — earnest,
bright and active young men and women. And then these old mem-
bers who had prayed for the revival began to chafe and fret, and say,
" Ah, we are nothing now; the work has been taken out of our hands;
these young men and women forget the old brothers and sisters of the
church, and now where are we?" vSo, the very thing they desired they
were not prepared for. They had not thought of souls as they should.
How many times we pray for souls, but when the poor and the lowl\
and the downcast come into our prayer meetings and into our Sabbath-
Schools our thoughts are more upon that man of noble family, that
woman of high social standing, people who have wealth and influ-
ence and power, who will relieve us of our financial burdens. Those
are the souls which we want to find; but, oh ! the thing, the thing
worth finding, and the great thing to be found in Alton, is just the
SOUL, wherever you find it, however lowly, however humble, however
downtrodden. We want the .Spirit of Him who went out and built
his church of the lost men and lost women. The great thing to find is
the human soul, to make him feel God's redeeming love, whatever class
or color or speech, however lowly. God has put into the world many
things, but the onp: thing is the lost soul of our brother.
Prok. a. J. McGi.UMrHV.
Such a convention as we have here this morning is worth finding.
On this floor doubtless are represented all the denominations of tliis
great State. vSuch a thing, Mr. Chairman, is worth finding. Here we
are togetlier to strike hands across denominational lines. Here we are,
not as Presbyterians, not as Methodists, not as Baptists, not as Congre-
gationalists — here we are as Christians; here we are as a band of
Christian workers. vSuch a thing it worth finding; and would to God,
Bro. Chairman, that we could have more of it, more of this hearty co-
operation in the great work of evangelizing the world. Would to God
that we had more of what we have to-day — a cementing of the heart of
the people into one grand phalanx for Jesus and for truth. That is the
most desirable thing, Bro. Chairman, that we can think of in this age
and century. It is the glorious thing that has dawned upon us— hearty
co-operation, a cementing together, the reducing of diflerenccs. We
are nearing the time when there will be a co-operation, when there will
be a sympathy, when there will be a unification that will have a won-
derful effect in moving forward the cause of our blessed Redeemer.
The great difficulty heretofore has been that we have lieen emphasizing
our differences; we have been searching night and day to find out our
differences. Another day has dawned upon us — and this meeting is a
Illinois State Sunday School Convention. 13
demonstration' — and we are now searching to reduce our differences;
we are endeavoi'ing to unify and solidify tlie forces of our Lord Jesus
Christ. I think this Convention, organized as it is under the auspices of
all denominations, is a thing most notable and well worth finding.
Rev. J. A. Scarritt.
I hesitate in speaking, fellow workers, only because there are so many
here from a distance that we have hoped to hear. There are doubtless
many more things worth finding than we have thought of. It is well
for us, after finding God and the blessed Savior in our particular
spheres, to find also the methods of the Master. The brother has just
mentioned pertinently that this work is co-operative, and so it is; but
not one of the denominations of the world is so interested as our
Heavenly Father, the God of all. Nor are we more directly connected
with each other or need co-operation with each other, more
than wl need to co-operate with our Heavenly Father. His meth-
ods are to be studied, and we are to learn his manner of opera-
ting through us and upon the souls that we seek to save. He has
methods just as clearly defined in Grace as in Nature. We should
study God's plan in dealing with different ages. In order to succeed
with the little ones in different communities, different methods are to be
studied and applied. Another thing, we need to pray and labor not
only to be workers and to manifest our zeal and to give exercise to our
tongue, but we want to be skillful, we want to be the best kind of
workers, we want to be the most skillful workers. In connection with
this there arises the idea: Why does God require us to find things that
we need? Why does he not give them to us without our seeking?
Simply for the reason that he knows it is best for us to have exercise, to
have activity, to employ our powers; not to have them inactive, but to
have our intellectual and moral muscles strong and skillful in his work
as well as in the other fields of activity. The Esquimaux train their
children to be skillful with the bow and arrow by putting up as a
mark a piece of blubber. They are told that if they hit it they can
have it to apply to their own uses. So God requires us to use the bow
and arrow — we are to employ ourselves that we may become skillful,
for it is just as true in Grace as in any other department of activity, that
"practice makes perfect." God has given us many exhibitions of his
method of working on the earth; one of them we have had mentioned
this morning, which is, that when a man finds Jesus he is then to look
for his brother.
Prayer was offered by Rev. C. M. Morton, and the Convention sang:
'' Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb?"
The members of the Executive Committee having been called to the
platform, Mr. B. F.Jacobs, chairman, read the following:
EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE'S REPORT.
Dear Brethren: — ^To-day we complete twenty-six years of historyi
The review is pleasant and profitable. The years have been filled with
blessings and our Annual Conventions have long been occasions of
rejoicing. Thoy ai-e like the feasts of Isvael, when the ransomed of
14 Illinois State Sunday School Convention.
the Lord returned to Zion with songs of grateful prais^. Once more
we climb the mount with Moses, and review the wilderness journey,
now nearly ended, and look beyond the river at the land of our inher-
itance. We go forward with Joshua, and gather the tribes once more,
to repeat the declaration, " Not one thing hath failed, of all the good
things which the Lord your God spake concerning you./ With Sam-
uel we set up our Ebenezer, saying, ''Hitherto hath the Lord helped
us." We unite our voices in the song of David, '"0, give thanks unto
the Lord for he is good, for his mercy endureth forever." We praise
Him with Isaiah, " Sing unto the Lord for he hath done excellent
things; this is known in all the earth."
Since the first meeting of this Association wonderful changes have
occurred, but none more wonderful than the growth and development
of Sunday Schools. Not only in our own country, but throughout
the world, this child has increased in stature and in wisdom.
At the meeting of the Fourth International Sunday School Conven-
tion held in June last, the report from the whole field shows that our
State has so far maintained its high position in Sunday School work.
While there are some of the older States that report a greater percent-
age of the population gathered into the Sunday School, yet in all
respects, we are second to none. This is not an occasion for boasting,
but for gratitude. Indeed, we cannot boast, while so much remains
undone. From the reports received by our Secretary it will be seen
that this has been a year of blessing. God has been pleased to honor
the efforts put forth, ami the precious seed of the Word has been
quickened by the Divine Spirit, and has brought forth plentifully.
We may well stop at this point and sing, " Praise God from whom all
blessings flow."
The Plans of the Committee.
At the last Convention it was decided to raise five thousand dollars
for the year, and your Committee began to work on this basis, follow-
ing the instructions of the Convention to send our Secretary Mr. W.
B. Jacobs, and Mr. E. 0. Excell, to as many County Conventions as
possible, and Miss Lucy J. Rider, to as many other Conventions as she
could attend. As it was, Mr. W. B. Jacobs has 'attended 49, and Mr.
Excell 39 Conventions. In addition they have held 33 Sunday School
meetings. Some of these meetings have been specially in the interests
of our general Sunday School work, but most of them have been of a
revival character in connection with Sunday Schools, and they have
been greatly blessed of God. Miss Rider was with us during a portion
of the year, and attended 20 County Conventions, but finding the con-
tinuous work too hard for her, she accepted a position offiered her by
Mr. Moody, as Normal Bible Teacher, in his schools at North field,
Mass., and left us in October. We have also had the services of Rev. J.
B. Stillson and Mr. D. Hurd for a few weeks. Their special work has
been in counties where it was difficult to hold Conventions, and they
have spent the time in visiting different places in the counties,
Illinois State Sunday School Convention. 15
holding meetings and arranging for the Conventions. Your Commit-
tee are anxious that more of this work should be done. There are at
least twenty-five counties in the State that ought to have a month of
Sunday School Missionary work during the coming year. We believe
that a renewed and increased effort should be made to extend the work
of systematic organization to every Township in the State. A few
years ago we had but few county organizations and township organiza-
tions were almost unknown, now we have an organization in every
county and in nearly two thirds of the townships. What a blessing
it would be to us, and what an impetus it would give to the work in
other States, if we could report every township in Illinois thoroughly
organized !
The withdrawal of Miss Rider from the field made some changes in
our plans necessary. The Executive Committee was called to meet at
Bloomington Oct. 18th, and the District Presidents were invited to
attend. The following named persons were present : C. W.Jerome,
J. R. Mason, C. M. Taylor, R. H. Griffith, Frank Wilcox, Rev. W.
A. Hunter, W. B. Rundell, C. M. Eames, Thos. Orton, E. D. Masters,
Aaron Richardson, W. B. Jacobs and B. F. Jacobs. The work in the
State was fully considered, and it was decided to engage the whole
time of our Secretary at a salary of two thousand dollars per annum,
and to enable him to spend as much of the time as possible in the field,
it was decided to employ Miss Carrie B. Reynolds as Assistant Secre-
tary, at a salary of four hundred dollars per annum. One thousand
dollars was appropriated to pay Mr. Excell for so much of his time as
needed in the State work. Mr. D. S. Frackelton, having declined the
Presidency of the Eleventh District, Mr. C. W. Freeman was elected
to that position.
Conventions and Banner Counties.
During the year Conventions have been held in every County in the
State. In many instances they have been the best ever held in the
Counties, and the standard is higher than ever before. Some Conven-
tions are not successful in all parts, but the reasons for this are easily
found. The Township Conventions already reported are 823, but the
number actually held will doubtless exceed 900. Some Counties do
not appreciate the value of Township Conventions, but where they are
well maintained, the growth and success of the work is sure.
The Banner Counties as reported now number 37, and are as fol-
lows : 1 District, Cook, Will ; 2 Dist., Kane, Winnebago ; 3 Dist.,
none; 4 Dist., Mercer; 5 Dist., La Salle; 6 Dist., Livingston, McLean,
Ford ; 7 Dist., none ; 8 Dist., Hancock ; 9 Dist., Brown, Cass,
Schuyler; 10 i )ist., Morgan, Green ; 11 Dist., Mason, Menard ; 12
Dist., Macon, Moultrie, Piatt; 13 Dist., Champaign, Coles, Cumber-
land, Vermillion ; 14 Dist., Fayette ; 15 Dist., Lawrence, Marion,
Richland, Chiy ; 16 Dist., none; 17 Dist., Jackson, Jefferson, Perry;
18 Dist., Edwards; 19 Dist., Saline; 20 Dist., Johnson, Pulaski,
Massac. The Fifteenth District, composed of the counties of Clay,
1 6 Illinois State Sundav Scjiool Convention.
Lawrence, Marion and Richland, heads the column, being the only
banner district in the state.
Some counties have fallen back, and others have gone forward.
Some that now occupy a front rank and wear their stars, were, a few
years ago, far behind those that now occupy a lower place, because
they have relaxed their eftbrts.
At this date seventy-nine counties have sent new reports. A few
partial reports have been received from other counties. As will appear
in the Statistical Secretary's Report, these new reports added to the old
reports of the twenty-three counties, give a total of 6,1-30 schools, show-
ing a decrease of 38 schools ; a total of officers and teachers of 67,706;
of scholars, 495,080; total, 563,686, giving an increase of 4,503.
It should be remembered that some of these reports show a decrease
because the reports of Catholic schools have been omitted. A few
years ago tliese schools were reported from a number of counties, in-
cluding Cook. Many of them were omitted last year, but some coun-
ties reported them last year that have omitted them tliis. While this
accounts in part for the decrease in some of the counties, it does not
explain or account for the reported decrease in others. It is certain
that our greatest difficulty is that we do not get accurate reports from
the counties, and we specially desire this Convention to consider and
report some plan wliercl)y this evil can be removed.
Conversions and Missions.
From the reports received it will be seen that over 18,000 have
been received into the churches during the past year from the Sunday
Schools. This lai'ge number certainly calls for a song of thanksgiving,
and a grateful acknowledgement to God for His blessing. There must
be many more that are not reported, as many of our county reports do
not include the results of the winter work.
Seventy-eight counties report contributions for Missions, $43,468.96.
This is a gratifying increase in the reports of some of the counties, but
it is far too small an amount. A careful examination of the Statistical
Secretary's Report will disclose the fact that in some counties they
have not yet fairly begun to contribute for missionary purposes, and it
must be true that in the counties making the largest contributions they
can be greatly increased. The Lord has opened the whole world for
missionary work, the call for laborers is very urgent, and the demand
for money very great. Every effort that can be put forth to train our
children and youth in systematic benevolence ought to be made. We
recommend that some action on this question be taken by this Con-
vention.
Better W^okk Needed.
The discouragements presented by the Statistical Secretary's Report
tell at a ' glance where earnest and patient work has been put forth,
and the county and township organizations vigorously maintained. It
goes without saying that any business left to run itself, runs down.
Illinois State Sunday School Convention. 17
Our Sunday School work is like the cultivation of the soil, no one
expects to reap the harvest simply because there was a harvest gath-
ered last year. There must be annual plowing, sowing and cultiva-
ting, if there is to be an annual harvest. Great eiforts are now being
put forth to reclaim the waste lands of this State, and to improve by
thorough drainage and better methods of cultivation, the farms that
have long been considered very valuable. In many of our counties,
the valuation of farms and personal property increases year by year,
and those best qualified to judge believe that our best farms can be
largely increased in value by more thorough cultivation. Why should
we not show alike increase in the Sunday School field? Will not
thorough work of preparation and cultivation ^aeld as large increase,
and show as great improvement, as the increase of the soil? The
Governor of Kansas, in a recent message, says that State, once consid-
ered barren and treeless, now contains over 2,000,000 fruit trees and
more than 200,000 acres of forest trees; and these were all planted by
the men of this generation ! It is not possible to measure the results
that a united effort to reach every family in this State, for Christ, would
produce. But a hundred years ago there was one superintendent with a
half dozen teachers and half a hundred scholars; now there are more than
two hundred thousand superintendents, two million officers and teachers,
and eighteen millions of scholars. This vine is of the Lord's planting;
it is the handful of corn in the earth upon the top of the mountain, and
the fruit therefore is shaking like Lebanon. In our own state we have
seen wonderful things. The iron gates of ignorance and the brazen
doors of prejudice have been broken down, Christian churches have
been united in this work for Jesus, and thousands of Christian men
and women have been trained and sent forth in the service of Christ.
A great thinker of our day has said, "The most effective International
Society of our time is the Sabbath School. The International Sabbath
School lessons are weaving nations into unity, and creating a spirit
which practically makes one body of all evangelical denominations.
Ten thousand thousand, in all nations and tongues, are sitting down
every Sabbath day to the same lesson, at the Cape of Good Hope, at
the edge of the Yellow Sea, and in the Sandwich Islands, in Germany,
France, Italy and on our own shores, all uniting to study the same
book."
Another great writer. Rev. J. L. Hulburt, D. D., said at the Inter-
national S. S. Convention : " I suppose you will agree that the greatest
step ever made in the history of the Sunday School was the introduc-
tion of the International Sunday School Lesson. It has lifted the
Sunday School into prominence; it has made it great. It has united
Christians of every name. As we come to study together the same
pages of the Word of God, our hearts arc warmed, and we begin to
realize that firmly as we hold our own particular things, those great
basal, fundamental principles that we hold in common are more im-
portant still. It has done a great deal to quicken and inspire Bible
study. I suppose that no movement has ever been inaugurated which
2
iS Illinois State Sunday School Convention.
has wrought such vast results in the way of Bible study as the intro-
duction of the International Sunday School Lesson. I wish I had
time to give a few illustrations of this. Some time ago I chanced to
be in a book-store in New York, where perhaps more theological and
Biblical works are sold than in any other place on this continent. I
asked for a certain commentary on a book of the Bible, and they told
me that although they had had a large stock, it was all sold out. I
asked for another commentary upon the same part of Scrij)ture, nnd
found that not one of them could be obtained. ' The fact is,' said the
proprietor, ' our entire stock upon that particular part of the Bible has
been exhausted, because they are just now studying that particular part
in the Sunday School.' That shows that there is not only an interest
in the le.-sons themselves, but in the general study of the Bible, through
the Sunday School Lessons."
But we must remember that this vast army of teachers is to be
taught this Book, and trained to teach others. Better teachers and
better methods of teaching are demanded, and those who are trying
to teach, must be gathered in teachers' meetings, in normal classes,
institutes, and conventions, and taught and trained. That this can be
done, will appear by the reports from some counties and schools. That
we may reach a higher and better standard avc cannot but admit^ and
once admitted, we must make the advance or confess our unwillingness
and unworthiness. Old methods that are good need not be laid aside.
As one has wisely said, "There are ruts and rails. The farmer who
always turns the same furrows will not have a crop, but the engineer
that runs his train oiT the rail, will reach the station of disaster."
We are living in an age which demands that every improvement that
is possible, shall be made. A great committee for years have worked
upon the revision of the Bible. The New Testament has been in our
liands for a short time, and is already indispensible to every Bible stu-
dent. Within a few days, on May 21st, the completed revised Old
Testament will be issued in Europe and in our own country. The com-
pletion of this work is so great an occasion for thanksgiving, that this
Convention may well recognize it by a suitable resolution.
Finance.
At the last convention pledges were obtained from 80 counties
amounting to ^8,850. The Executive Committee was authorized to
assess the counties not pledged for their proportionate share, and to
appeal for contributions for whatever sum was needed in addition. The
twenty-two counties were assessed for $45f), making the total pledged
and assessed, $4,305, at this writing, $4,090 has been collected. Sev-
eral counties have contributed more than the amount pledged, and in-
cluding these seventy-seven counties have paid in full. Eight counties
have paid part of their assessment, and seventeen counties have not
contributed to the Avork. Perhaps at no previous time of our history
have the pledges been paid more promptly and cheerfully than during
the past year. This is especially noticeable as the result of the work
Illinois State Sunday School Convention. 19
done by our Secretary and Brother Excell in connection with the
County Conventions. Not only was the amount pledged raised,
and sometime doubled, but in several instances increased amounts have
been collected on the spot to pay pledges of the counties for the com-
ing year, several counties making larger contributions than ever before.
This is an additional reason for believing that if additional workers
can be secured and sent into other counties all the funds needed for
their support will be cheerfully given.
It will bo seen, from the Treasurer's report, that the amount col-
lected is the largest ever given by the counties, and nearly equals the
sum pledged and assessed ; and in addition to this, the counties have
paid about four hundred dollars toAvards the traveling expenses of the
workers. The total expense of the work for the year has not exceeded
the limits voted b}^ the Convention, but we have expended more than
the amount received to this date. The committee has not asked for
contributions to the work, pi'eferring to wait until all the county
pledges are paid, and then to allow all the friends to contribute a mite
towards the amount needed to balance the Treasurer's account. It is
evident, from the action taken by several counties increasing their
pledges lor the coming year, that we need not fear for the future.
The International Convention.
The Fourth International S. S. Convention of the United States,
and the British American Provinces was held in the City of Louisville,
Ky., June 11-13, 1884. This was the largest gathering of representa-
tive Sunday School workers ever held in this country. Seventy-seven
delegates from the State of Illinois were present, and it is very gratify-
ing to know from the reports presented at this convention that in the
work of thorough organization, no state stands higher than our own.
But in the table giving the percentage of Sunday School attendance com-
pared Avith the total population, there are several states that outrank
our own; and, after allowing for all possible errors in the Reports, it
must be confessed that the position of Illinois ought to be higher. The
Sunday School statistics of all nations, as reported to the Convention
and estimated upon the best information obtainable, give a total of
about 200,000 schools, nearly 2,000,000 officers and teachers, and
about 16,000,000 scholars. As we know there are some fields not re-
ported, and there has been an increase during the past year, it is safe
to estimate the Sunday School Army of the Avorld at at least 20,000,000.
Of this host the Illinois Corps contains about 600,000. This is cer-
tainly a grand army — being about three per cent of the whole of the
Sunday School force of the world — but avc ought to have a larger num-
ber, and your Committee earnestly recommend that the work be pushed
with rencAved energy in every part of the field until Ave are able to re-
port at least 1,000,000 in our schools.
Asleep In Christ.
During the past year we have been called to mourn the loss of a
former President of this Association. The Rev. S. G. Lathrop, Pre-
20 Illinois State Sunday School Convention.
sident of the Fourth Convention, lield at Chicago in 1862, has fallen
asleep in Christ. Others, not so well known by many in this Conven-
tion, but earnestly engaged in the work in different parts of the state,
have also fallen asleep. But it will not be thought out of place to
mention specially the name of Mrs. B. G. Roots, of Tamaroa, who was
suddenly killed in an accident in Wi.sconsin, on her return from
a Touchers' Convention at Madison. The faithfulness of her hus-
band ;ind herself in our Avork, and their regular attendance at tlie
annual conventions of this association for many years, make it fitting
to mention her name in this connection. Your Committee suggest that
appropriate resolutions be adopted on the death of Brother Latbrop,
and also of Mrs. Roots, and spread upon. the records of the association.
We are adminished that if the Lord tarries, our time of service is
rapidly drawing to a close. Therefore what we have to do we should
do iieartily as unto the Lord, redeeming the time.
For the Committee,
B. F. JACOBS,
Chairmav.
At the close of the presentation of the report, Rev. J. W. Phillips led
the convention in an earnest prayer, thanking God for his manifest
blessing on the work of the year, and beseeching a continuance of his
favor in the coming years.
On motion of Rev. C. M. Morton the report was referred to a com-
mittee of five to be chosen by the Convention, that they might consider
it, and report it to the Convention for further action; and C. M. Eames,
Jacksonville, Thos. Orton, Lacon, A. J. McGlumphy, Lincoln, B.
Deppenbrock, Salem, and F. M. Sapp, Ottawa, were constituted that
committee.
The following Committee was appointed to nominate officers for the
ensuing year: — S. D. Masters, Jacksonville; R. H. Griffith, Rush-
ville; F. W. Foster, Dundee; T. M. Ecklev, McLeansboro, and
James Culton of Odin, Mr. Fuller, and Mr. Donahoe.
The Convention adjourned with the benediction, after singing "Praise
God from whom all blessings flow."
Fii'st Day— -Afternoon Session.
The afternoon session of the Convention was opened promptly at two
o'clock by a song service, conducted by Mr. Excell. President Nisbett
led the audience in a responsive service, and the foHowing songs were
sung: "lam listening," " The Half has never been Told," and " I
will Follow Thee."
Illinois State Sunday School Convention. 21
ed
Prayer was offered by E. D. Durham, of Onarga, and all join
singing, " The Morning Light is Breaking."
The Committee on Nominations reported the following nominations:
President — ^John Benham, of Chicago.
Vice-Presidents—^ . M. Ecklej, of McLeansboro, L. A. Abbott, D. D. of Al-
ton, Rev. A. C. Price, of Lacon.
Recording Secretary — Rev. F. W. Foster, of Kane.
Statistical Secretary — W.B.Jacobs, of Chicago.
Treasurer — S. A. Kean, of Chicago.
Executive Cotntnit tee — B. F. Jacobs, Chairman ; C. M. Morton, Chicago, J. R.
Mason, Bloomington, C. W. Jerome, Carbondale, Rev. Wm. Tracy, Gran-
ville, E. D. Durham, Onarga, R.C.Willis, Enfield, T. H. Perrin, Alton. H. T.
Lay, Kewanee, H. W. Hare, Chicago, Wm. Reynolds, Peoria.
On motion of J. W. Springer, of Jacksonville, the report was adopt-
ed, and the gentlemen named declared elected.
At the request of President Nisbett W. B. Jacobs and Mr. Nichols
escorted the President-elect to the chair.
President Nisbett: Brethren and sisters in the convention, I
take great pleasure in introducing to you your President for this year,
Bro. Benham.
President Benham: Ladies and Gentlemen, I feel deeply sensi-
ble of the honor it is to represent not only those who are gathered here,
but the 600,000 children scattered throughout the length and breadth of
the great State of Illinois. Later in the convention I trust I may have
something to say regarding the work of the coming year. I trust the
work of this convention will be such that its anticipations for the future
— that one million children shall be enrolled within our number — may
be realized, not next year nor the year after, but in the year 1SS5. (Ap-
plause.) If you and I take as our example, Christ, and as our motto, the
one you have spread on the other side of this room, " In Unity is
Strength," and go forward in the strength of that Redeemer trying to
give the gospel that he has given us to others, feeling that it has been
precious to us and desiring to take the saine gospel to some one else, then
indeed shall we bring in the million children, and all of them will be not
merely gathered within walls of stone or brick, but within the walls of
that spiritual temple which is better still. (Applause.)
ADDRESS OF WELCOME.
Dr. L. a. Abbott.
Mr. President, and Fellow- Workers in the Sunday School:
In behalf of the Churches, Sunday Schools and citizens of Al-
ton, I extend to you a hearty welcome. Welcome to this city, to our
homes, to all the cheer and comforts we can give you. We do I'ejoice
to see you, and think ourselves happy in having your presence and fel-
lowship. Great honor is conferred upon us by your presence, coming
as you do from such a precious past, with such rich experiences of divine
favor.
The sight of your countenances brightened by faith and glorified
22 Ilmnois State Sunday School Convention.
with hope, must animate us, quicken our spiritual fervor, and stimulate
to new endeavor.
Some of us Altonians have very high ideas, as you will at once per-
ceive when you climh our hills, and some of us have deep thoughts, as
you will he convinced, if you abide in our valleys.
The spirit of nature doubtless commenced or finished her work here.
It would appear that, either she had not learned to smooth a plain or
spread a prairie, or that she was weary of a work of such monotonv,
and here tossed about, in wild confusion these manifestations of her
handiwork.
Among such scenes as these the inspired hand of old recorded,
" Beautiful for situation is Mount Zion on the sides of the North."
" Thou enrichest it with the river of God which is full of water."
" And the little hills rejoice on every side."
Sure I am, that, if you visit some of our temples of praise, you will
never more wonder that, it is recorded of the Queen of Sheba, that,
when she saw among other wonders in Jerusalem, " Solomon's ascent
by which he went up to the house of the Lord, there was no more
spirit in her." We trust you will have many pleasant walks among
these diversified scenes, but — we pity your ankles.
This may be the occasion when some of you will come to fame,
here your names may be many times uttered, sounded far abroad, — but
by the town crier, for we greatly fear some of you will be lost.
And if you meet us, citizens of Alton, moving with down-cast eyes,
do not regard us as the most modest people you have ever met, or as
a people above all you have conversed with of earth-bound affections,
for we are simply taking heed to our steps. Welcome them to Alton,
the rough and the ready, to Alton the peculiar.
Welcome to Alton the historic. At the base of yonder hill the first
blood of our martyr was spilt. If we cannot, as at last year, point you
to the thoughtful portrait of Lincoln, or, bear you to his honored tomb,
we can speak of one Lovejoy. Near where you sit was heard the clank
of that printing press, which was the John the Baptist of the great proc-
lamation. Those waves of moral power which swept in tumultuous
force over the land, started from that font of type. Alton's jjcbble
cast from yonder bank into the river.
Welcorrre friends! those who have been another year doing the best
work in the world. The years since you were last here, have abounded
in activities. Many have turned the wilderness to the fruitful field.
Many have developed the mine, and brought out its glittering treas-
ures. Some have built the fastest ship, or the most powerful engine.
Some have invented the best armament for war or the most perfect ma-
chine for labor. Some have given strained attention to laws of social
order or institutions of government. Some have excelled all others in
fields of science and philosophy. The best human book may have been
written, and the best thought expressed, but you — fellow-workers — have
of all, wrought the best for man, and for man's best. You have .
wrought for the soul, the young soul. You have cast the best seed in
the world into the best soil in the world.
We have stood impressed as we have seen stone put upon stone,
brick laid upon brick, for the raising of structures, where legislators
should convene to frame laws, or courts sit to interpret them, or
Illinois State Sunday School Convention. 23
schools be gathered for the education of youth and the making of men,
but how poorly the work of Congress, the decisions of courts, or even
the mental training of youth, compares with your work with the Word
of God and souls. You have labored on the principle on which Christ's
mission was founded, you have pondered on the greatness of a human
soul, you have looked beyond the draperies of the rich, and through the
rags of the poor to those inner powers which are to be unfolded for-
ever.
When I was a boy living on the shores of the Atlantic, I used to
build my little ships and sail them in the little caves of the sea. Some-
times, when I had built and rigged them with care, I could not resist
the desire to give them up to the deep, to send them away out upon the
wide sea, to pursue an unknown voyage, and many a time have I
w^atched the small white sail rising and sinking and fading away. What
if my little ships could have grown to be great opics! Great palaces of
the sea like the Alaska, or City of Rome. Those little sails cut out with
my mother's scissors could have thickened to stand the hammerings of
the hurricane; that little hole scooped out with my knife or chisel
deepened to hold machinery that would beat the sea to foam and store
unmeasured wealth, such freight of life and hope. What if 1 could
have stood on the shore when I connnitted one to the deep and seen it
thus return! You have been and are launching such little ships for an
unknown vogage. For a brief time you have held them rocking and
quivering, and then they glided away, out of the primary i-oom, out of
the class, out of the Sunday School, and the white sail ot that soul fad-
ed from your view, lost in the distance or sunk behind the billows; but
/our ships are to grow to be great ones. Oh what voyages they are
to make! What cargoes of life and hope they are to bear. What
mighty forces are to be developed in them and propel them. Some-
times God permits you to see them thus enlarged here, and to wonder.
By and by, on eternal tides you will see them, still on the voyage to
which you committed them, still being enlarged, bearing eternal freight
for the eternal home. Such is your work. All other works shrivel be-
fore it. Welcome to consult here together how better to do it.
We have wrought hitherto too much in an indifferent or aimless
way. An eastern pilgrim once passing over a barren waste, threw
cai'elessly away in a moist place some seeds of the date .palm which he
was eating; years after, in that waste he found a beautiful grove loaded
with fruit and filled with song. If such returns as are here set before
us have followed, shall J sav, our indifferent growing of seed, oh what
may we look for when we address ourselves more earnestly, more
zealously, more prayerfullv to our work? Brethren we stand on a high-
er plain than ten years ago, when you then convened here. Yea,
this is the highest plane ever reached. The Sunday School tide never
stood so high as it does to-day, but it must go higher; to go higher we
must do better work. Ten thousand impressions may make a long col-
umn in figures, and give an inspiring count, but a few deep abiding
convictions will outnumber all. The quality, not the quantity, simply,
of our labors should come before our councils.
In the war with England there was a certain privateer named the
America, which was accounted the fastest craft upon the sea. On going
out of port on one of her voyages, it was quickly discovered that a
J4 Illinois State Sunday School Convention.
great change had come over her, that she had lost her speed. In vain
they spread the sail, braced the }ards, or altered her trim, her speed
was gone. At last it was discovered that some disloyal one had spiked
a plank to her stem post. That removed, her sailing power was in a mo-
ment regained. Our obstructions are not of a recent date, they have
long been with us. They have been joined to our work from the start.
They are the hindrances of man's fallen nature — pride, selfishness, indo-
lence, ignorance and fear. Oh that these obstructions could be one by
one removed, then what change would quickly fall upon our precious
enterprise.
Ten years ago when you were convened here as now, Mr. Corliss
was making or setting up that wonderful machine, which soon after
stood in the machinery hall at Philadelphia. There in that hall each
machine, whether small or large, near at hand or removed to the re-
motest corner, took all its power from that noiseless, but jDowerful Cor-
liss, and was in full action, or perfectly still, according as connection was
established by band or not. Christ says to us to-day as we convene,
speaks to us on our fields, " Without me ye can do nothing." If we
have not made connection with him, let us hasten to do so.
Once more I give you a cordial welcome to Alton.
President Benham: There is one of the physical characteristics
of Alton that has given some of us, especially those from the northern
part of the State, quite a refreshing, and that is your hills. We have
not seen one for so long we had almost forgotten there was such a thing.
After dinner a friend and myself climbed one of these hills and tl^ere
we found a church. We seated ourselves there for half an hour and
enjoyed the sunshine of this pleasant day, which was so refreshing that
it seemed to welcome us to this city. I shall now ask one of our offi-
cers present to speak for those that are gathered here in response to this
kind welcome that has been given to this association. Will Mr. C. M.
Morton convey the feelings of this Association to the citizens of Alton
by responding to this address of welcome.
RESPONSE TO ADDRESS OF WELCOME.
Rev. C M. Morton.
Mr. President and Dear Friends of Alton, the Citizens
Present and Aksent: It is a great honor to return an answer to
these pleasant words we have heard this afternoon ; but those ot us
who are veterans in the way of visiting in difTerent towns and cities,
traveling about from the north to the south and from the east to the
west of this State have become so entirely used to accepting welcomes
of this kind that we do it without the slightest difficulty. (Laughter.)
I was thinking while our dear brother was speaking, of our experi-
ence in our married life — mv dear wife and I, who are just finishing
twenty years — of the many, many times our front door has been thrown
open, and of the many weary looking delegates — sometimes represent-
ing one denomination, sometimes another — who have come filing in,
people whose names we did not know, and whose occupations we did
not know, but always looking hungry, always looking weary, we won-
dering what kind of people they were, and they wondering what kind
Illinois State Sunday School Convention. 25
of a dinner they were going to get. (Laughter.) We have received a
great many of those delegations. All of us visiting sti'angers here to-
day, know how to sympathize with Alton people in what they have
suffered during the last few weeks. But we also have to recall a great
deal of benefit from these visitors who have come to our house. Some of
the deai-est friends we have in the world have been made either in re-
ceiving or giving visits. We have never lost anything by their coming;
we have never gained any material thing except a tooth brush which an
old Baptist minister left at our house many years ago. (Laughter.) I
never could find his place of residence. (Laughter.) But the relation-
ships have been very sweet indeed, and very happy, and when we come
here to this convention I suppose there are two or three of us that
grasped each other's hands almost as earnestly as if we wei'e brotliers
and sisters in one family — we have met each other so many times, and
everything has gone so grandly and well since we entered into this
Sunday-school work. Now, 1 am undenominational. I have not
a denominational hair on my head that T know of; and that is one rea-
son why I have always loved this Sunday-school convention. My
Christian life began in it. I was once taken in charge by some of the
brethren and we had gone down and had quite a nice little gathering.
I had talked all the forenoon (laughter) and I was about tired out at
twelve o'clock when we adjourned; and an old lady, just as fat as she
could be, came down with her arms wide open and says, " Bro. Mor-
ton, aren't you a Methodist?"' I said no, 1 am sorry I am not a Metho-
dist, only a Christian." And she turned around and went up the aisle
as fast as she could and I have never seen her since. (Laughter.) My
undenominationalism that day came mighty near making me lose my
dinner. (Laughter.) I am glad to see you get a little enthusiastic.
Let us get full of it. Let us get full of this good air and full of these
good things, and full of real religious enthusiasm, let us go away more
alive and more awake to the needs of humanity than we have ever
been before. Some Christians remind me of an Irishman in New
Jersey that I once heard of He heard his mistress say that she liked
turtle soup, and he went out and found a turtle and killed it as he sup-
posed, and then brought it up and presented it to her. All at once the
old turtle began to show very decided signs of life; " Why," said she,
" I thought Pat, you said he was dead." " In faith, ma'am, he is, but
he isn't conscious of it." (Laughter.) Once in awhile we see that.
Once in awhile we hear a man preach, and we say, " He is dead, but
he isn't conscious of it." (Laughter.) Walking in his sleep; dead,
and not conscious of it! I think that one reason why we love this
State Association work so much, is that it has taken "all of the want of
vitality out of us, filled us with enthusiasm, taught us that one is our
Master, even Christ, and that all we are brethren. And so, unitedly
and earnestly, and lovingly we accept the welcome so freely given.
(Applause.)
The President: We have with us one who was president of the
association when the convention was held in this city ten years ago.
He evidently liked it then, V)ecause he has come back to-day. We
shall have pleasure in hearing a few words from Mr. R. H. GrifHth.
36
Ii.T.iNOis State Sunday Schooi, Convfvtiov.
Remarks by R. H. (jrikfith,
Mr. President: I remeinbcr \ery well the convention that we
held here ten years ago, and how honored I felt then, and how hon-
ored I feel to-day, in the fact that I v\ as the president of it; and how
warm a welcome we had. As I was sitting here I remembered a sen-
tence or two on the report of the executive committee, and recalled tlie
names of four or five of our old members who are not here to-dav.
Among them was Father Root, of Tamaroa, and his estimable wife.
I knew where one of them had gone, and I wondered whether the oth-
er had gone upward. I confess as I looked over this bodv and thought
of those old men and the other gray heads that were there ten years
ago, I rejoiced in the young men that had come to the front. I rejoiced
as I looked over this asseml)ly and saw so many young men going for-
ward in the work. I felt when thinking of our advancement, a little
of the vim that the brother spoke of. I remembered that a man of one
of the smallest of the tribes <jf Israel was taken as the president, and
now we have laid hold on Lake Michigan, and I rejoiced to see a young
man take the place that I then occupied. The words of the brother
about that first martyr touched me very much. There are things that
happen in our early childhood that make an impression upon us for
life, and one of them, with me, was the death of that martyr, Love-
joy. I was just old enough to hear of it. It echoed through the little
village where I lived, that on the banks of the Mississippi a man who
had tried to print what he believed was true, and to condemn a system
established in what was then the large half of our country, had been
killed, and his press destroyed, just because he was a lover of freedom.
From the time I heard those rumors, exaggerated with the ideas of
childhood, I have been a lover of freedom; and although I had
spent quite a large portion of my life in the Southern States, I came
home because I could not affiliate with slavery. I rejoice to-day that
over yonder on the other side of that river there are no more slave deal-
ers, no more slaves. A few days ago I was traveling in Louisiana, and
I had the privilege — it was a privilege — of traveling with a man who
had occupied a high position in the confederate army. VVe had a very
pleasant and harmonious talk togother, because he — as I found other
Southern people do — recognized and accepted the situation. But he
made this remark to me, which many of you have heard before : " I was
a union man; I stood against secession as long as I dared, but I went
finally with my State." I can scarcely describe to you my feeling as he
spoke those words — " I went with my State." This morning some one
spoke of the State of Illinois, of which we cannot speak too highly;
but, my friends, I rejoice that here in Alton, and in this State of Illi-
nois, and in these United States, it is uniler the flag of the Union we are
standing. And now in this Assembly this afternoon are we not in just
that situation? It is under the banner of the cross that we are gathered.
We came here to-day not as one denomination or another, but, as Bro.
Morton has so well said, as Christians. The other day I was in the
city of Nashville, and visited in the afternoon the largest colored school
in the Baptist Church, and enjoyed the services very much. As I came
out, a good colored man who sat behind me took me by the hand and
remarked that he supposed I was a stranger in the city. I said I was.
Illinois State Sunday School Convention. 27
" Well," he said, " I guess you are a good Baptist."' " Well, no;" I
said, not quite; I am a Presbyterian." And he said, " Well, that is
about as good." If we can shake each other's hands as Christian men
we may know we will have a glad welcome, and we will be glad to
join not only in these sweet songs with our brother Exccll, but in that
grand, more glorious song that we will sing in the world to come.
The audience joined in singing: " Blessed be the tie that binds,"
After which Mr. Excell sang •' The Model Church," a song which
was greatly enjoyed.
FINDING OUR FIELDS.
The weak Spots in our County and Township Work.
ADDRESS BY W. B. JACOBS.
Mr. President: — One advantage in being called upon unexpect-
edly is that there is not very much expected of you. Some of the
things I may say are old to me, and some of you have heard me s^Deak
of them before, but I cannot help recalling to your minds some of the
things which have made an impression on my mind as I have been
about in this work. I will read one verse to you, the 36th verse of the
15th chapter of Acts: "And some days after Paul said unto Barnabas:
Let us go again and visit our brethren in every city where we have
preached the word of the Lord, and see how they do." My thought
about the township and county and state Sunday School organization,
is that it is a great "go and see" society. (Applause.) The thought
is that every vice-president ought to go into every school in his town-
ship and see how they do, find where their weak spots are, and tell
them how they may be made strong; find out what their discourage-
ments are, and strengthen their hands and hearts in God. One of the
greatest privileges I have in Chicago, is to visit the different schools in
the city. Sunday night finds mc very weary, and I think, "tomorrow
I must take some rest," but when the morning sun arises, and the day
comes, the first thought as I turn my head upon my pillow is, "Thank
God for another opportunity to work for Him!" No thought of rest
then; no thought of excusing myself on account of my wearyness; no
thought of the work of the week before me, but another opportunity
to work for God. Brethren, these opportunities are fleeting, these
years are passing, and our God puts into the hands of each of us, as
Sunday School workers, a great privilege in placing under us souls
that we may aid for all eternity. It is a great privilege that He grants
to the oflScers of this association, that they may strengthen the heaits
of His disciples. I remember going into a Norwegian school one day.
The superintendent, with the words "Bro. Jacobs is come," started
down the aisle to meet me. As he put his gi'eat, strong hand in mine
I saw the'tears coursing down his checks, and he said: "Oh, we have
waited for you so long— we have waited for you so long!" He was
fighting a hand-to-liand contest with the hosts of sin. Single-handed
he was carrying on that work. Others were "so busy" they could not
assist him, and the strong man was weak as he thought of the difficul-
ties and discouraeements. He needed some one who lived near to
28 Illinois State Sunday School Convention.
God to take his hand and speak a word of comfort' to his heart. You
know I make no pretensions of talkinj^ when I ^o into a Sunday
School. Your president here is superintendent of one of the hir<je
schools in the city, and he knows that when I go into his school it is
not in the expectation of making an address. If the time is opportune,
and I have a message to them, I endeavor to convey it, but my plan is
to see how the work is being done, and then perhaps tell some other
school how the work is going on in diflerent places. One of the weak
spots — [ may say t/ic weak spot of our township organization, is this:
The want of conscientiousness on the part of the townshijD officer.
Some two or three years ago I met one of the district presidents in the
southern part of the state. He was a young Methodist minister, now
in Boston. Many a time that man has walked up and down the floor
of his room wringing his hands, exclaiming: "Oh, for men of con-
victions!" "Bro. Jacobs," he says, "I am praying God for men of con-
victions." The world is full of men who have no principle of action
governing their lives; no deep, settled conviction of duty; they take
these positions with no sense of the responsibility; they do not receive
them, as I believe they should, as from the hand of God. I believe the
township officer is just as truly called of God to his work, as any
minister of the gospel, set apart by men by the laying on of hands.
As I think of the privileges given in our work, I feel sure that it is
well worth the thought of every worker in the land. I say I think
this applies to all our work, from the lowest to the highest — there
should be a deeper appreciation of our responsibility. No, I will not
use that word, I am tired of that word "responsibility." The Sunday
School teacher says, "I wish I could stay at home and sleep today,
but the pastor says the responsibility rests upon me, and I suppose I
must meet it." The church member says, "They are pulling and tug-
ging at a fellow all the time, but I suppose I must bear it as one of
my responsibilities." There is a better word than that. Substitute
the word "opportunity" for the word "responsibility" and see how
different the meaning. The world is open for the gospel — a grand
opportunity! Sunday the teacher goes to his class — a grand opportu-
nity to teach immortal souls for God! The merchant resolves to
close his store and let the young men in his employ know that they
will never be kept from the house of God by him — another opportu-
nity! Oh, brethren, if you will just substitute the word "opportu-
nity" for "responsibility" I believe we shall have better work, and a
thousand fold more of it. The money will pour m, the Sunday School
will be filled, and the prayer-meeting, instead of being a dull place,
will be a joyful place where men lift up their voices in praise to God.
So, Sunday School workers and county officers, do not call it a re-
sponsibility; think of it as a glorious opportunity. Go with your
minister from township to township. Bro. Rundell, and Bro. Lay,
and Bro. Eckley and a score of others know what that kind of work is.
Do not hold back because you think you cannot make a speech; some
of the meetings that have fired my heart most, were those at which
the greatest amount of volunteer work was done. As I have gone
out to tell men what to do for God, and how to do it, my own heart
has burned. Oh, that the fire of God may fill our hearts, that men
may not only know that we are set on fire of God, but the flame is
Illinois State Sunday School Convention. 29
shedding a blight and shining hght and warmth for those around.
Come and see how they do it. You cannot afford to have these Con-
ventions held and you away. I know there are things that are impos-
sible, but God does not ask impossibilities. If you and I had been
asked to give up our son, would we not have said: "It is an impossi-
bility for me to give my son for these my enemies." But God counted
no cost too great for the love he had for the souls of dying men. "We
should not measure our work by the standard we usually do, but
rather measure our work by the tneasure of service that Christ
filled up for us. Then, filled with His spirit, going out in His name,
we shall help others to do better work. I thank God I am not per-
mitted to see the results of my work. I thank God that He has not
called me to bring all these young children to Him, but rather He has
called me to go from county to county, to stir up the hearts of others,
that they may be instrumental in bringing in the souls; that I may
sow the seed that they may reap the harvest; and that hereafter we
may rejoice together, and go on from county to county, from district
to district in the name of our blessed Master. The weak spots are too
often in ourselves. Let them be cured by the power of divine grace,
and by the warmth of divine love, and we shall be strong for the bat-
tle in the time of greatest need. I had a letter the other day from the
dear girl that has gone down to Mexico for the Master we love. It
was a birth-day letter. "Oh, papa," it said, "I would like to be home
to-day, but I am happy here! His grace is sufficient for me; His
strength is made perfect in my weakness!" Offer yourself in your
weakness, fellow workmen, that is all He asks. Illuminated, strength-
ened, uplifted by the divine might, we shall go forth winning victories
for the glory of His name, the salvation of souls and the gladness of
of our own hearts, for ever and ever.
THE WEAK SPOTS IN OUR COUNTY AND TOWN-
SHIP WORK.
ADDRESS BY T. M. ECKI.EY.
The weak spots. When a man calls in a physician to attend him in
his illness, before he can do him any good he must point out or de-
scribe the nature of his complaint; he must tell where the pain is,
what is the trouble, before the physician can prescribe a remedy.
Now, in our coming together for consultation, if we can find out what
is the trouble, then we may in some measure find a remedy for it; and
in the few minutes that I shall be before you I want to call attention
to some of the weak spots which I have noticed in our work. That
the work in which we are engaged is a great one is not now a de-
batable question; that it is one which deserves the consecrated energy of
our minds is not a debatable question. But how best to do the best
work in order to obtain the best results, is what we want to learn.
Now, the weak spots in our county organizations. I find sometimes
a weak spot in the selection of our county officers. I am not a de-
nominational man in any sense, and I believe that when we come
together in the organization of our county, we pay too much atten-
tion to denominations. We select one officer perhaps from this
30
Illinois State Sunday School Convention.
church, and another from that, and we move around from church to
church for fear of ofrcndin<( somebody; and the result is that very
often we get the man we do not want for an officer. The man who
will not do the work of a statistical secretary is the very man we se-
lect, and put in the office, because he belonj^s to the church that we
say ought to have it this year. That is one of the weak spots. (Ap-
plause.) It is right that we should pay proper attention to our church
organizations, but when we come to work in this, we want the best
effort for the Master, and we should consider that, rather than the
honor of any particular branch of this grand army to which we say
we all belong. If a general was massing his forces for a battle, he
would put his artillery or his cavalry under the leadership of the man
who was best fitted for the work to be done, whether his name was
Smith or Jones. In our war, when there was a piece of work that
General Sheridan could do best, Sheridan was sent to do it, and so
with Sherman and others. They were sent because they knew how
to do the work, and they were the men that would do it. If we have
a countv where there are two men in it that would make good county
officers, if one would make a good County President and the other a
good County Secretary, and thev both belong to the same church,
never mind — put them to work, if they will do it, and Christian people
of all denominations, whose hearts are in this work, who have the
right kind of spirit, and the right kind of consecration, will say amen.
There will be men who will grumble, but they will be the very men
who would not do the work, even if they had the chance, and who
would not help you do it. If we can get up to the standard where
we can sa\', "In the name of God, in His fear and for His glory we
will do this work," we shall have more of it accomplished.
Then there is another difficulty which is not altogether in the men
who are selected. Sometimes they are men who are willing to do
anything they can in this line, but (heir hands are full of work at
home. Besides the class to teach, their shoulders are bowed down
with work for their own homes that cannot be laid ofT. The trouble
is, tlie few men in the community who are willing to do the work
have more than they ought to do. It is not because there is alack of
Christian people, but because of the lack of this spirit of consecration.
There should be a projjer distribution of the work, the proper burdens
laid on different shoulders, and spread out so the}' may be easily borne.
Another weak spot in our work was referred to this morning when
the report of the Executive Committee was presented — the subject of
missions. How many of our schools throughout the state there are
that make no report whatever of missionary work. It is not because
the children are not willing to give anything in this direction, but be-
cause they have never had the opportunity of giving. The subject is
not presented to them. I ki;ow of schools, large ones, where the sub-
ject of missions is never presented from one year's end to another. It
is a mistake in our work. If we work in the proper spirit, inter-
est in missions will be developed in them, and in spreading this influ-
ence out among others, our own strength will be increased. Take it
as a burden on our own hearts, and then take it toothers, and we shall
strengthen and build up and develop ourselves, and strengthen
others also. Another weak spot that ought not to be, is the strict
Illinois State Sunday School Convention. 31
denominational spirit in which we sometimes work. I am in favor of
church work, but I am no denominationahst, and when we attempt to
shut ourselves up in our denominational shell we wither our powers
and dvvaif our usefulness. This tendency to close up our denomi-
national hands is a great fault; the spirit that prompts us to say, "we
can do our own work and all the Sunday School Convention work
that we are able to do; these inter-denominational gatherings are un-
necessary, and we have not time to attend to them." Strange that
we cannot see that when we reach out to help another we develop
our own power, and thus by coming together and developing this
spirit ot fellowship with others, we are building up ourselves. It
does not make a man any the less a Christian because he helps another
in his work, and if we can come up in the spirit of followers of the
Lord Jesus Christ, these denominational conventions will only help
on the inter-denominational work. There are many places where
there is no denomination strong enough to carry on the work, and
there Christian hearts and hands of diffirent denominations must join.
Then we can move forward in an unbroken phalanx, and we can take
not only this state, but this land for Christ. (Applause.)
The Convention joined in singing, "Bringing in the Sheaves," and
Prof. McGlumphy was introduced by the President.
FINDING OUR HELPERS.
How to Secure Church Co-Operation.
Prof. A. J. McGlumphy.
Mr, President: Late Saturday afternoon I received a telegram
from Bro. Jacobs, requesting me to be present with you this afternoon.
1 responded that I would. Providence permitting. In the midst of a
pressure of duties I have not had time to carefully prepare on this sub-
ject, but such an audience as this, and such a theme as "Church Co-
operation in the Sabbath -school work," ought to have inspiration in it.
We live in a wonderful age. It is said — we frequently hear it — that
history is constantly repeating itself. Let me tell you that this age is the
repetition of no past age. Co-operation has a meaning now that it nev-
er had in the ages past. Consolidation has a significance now that could
never be attached to it before. Indeed, we are just beginning to learn
the great potent principles that lead to the most rapid advancement of
mankind. The thought was born but yesterday. We are just begin-
ning to grasp the meaning of Jesus. \Ve are just beginning to see and
comprehend the significance of its wonderful teachings. Individual and
combined work — that is the thought we are just beginning to compre
hend; that is the idea that was born yesterday. The world, up to the
present century, has never comprehended the potency of individual and
combined effort. In the ages past we had the combined in a certain
sense, everything concentrating in one man. We had individual effort,
but it was indi\idual effort alone, isolated, standing by itself. We are
just beginning to knead them together; we are just beginning to realize
their resultant when combined; we are just beginning to learn that
there is such a thing as a resultant, and that these two are components
33 Illinois State Sunday School Convention.
of that resultant. In this respect, as I said, the age in which we live
stands alone, stands out like a pyramid upon the plains of time. Church
co-operation in our work — in this general work! What are we to un-
derstand hy " Church?" In the broadest sense of that word it means
everv man, woman and child on the face of the broad earth that has
given his heart to Jesus Christ, that has consecrated his life to the God
that made him; but in a narrower sense of the word it means a sum to-
tal of all the denominations in Christendom — The Church! That is
the sense in which wc will take it this afternoon — the sum total of all
the denominations in Christendom. These tlenominations have arisen
from time to time. The occasions for their origin have been various;
but I tell you, my brethren, I believe that these denominations have come
into existence in the Providence of God. I am adenominationalist. I
stand prepared to assert it anywhere. I believe in denominations.
They have had their existence in the ongoings of the Providence
of Almighty God. They have not been begotten of the Evil One. I
do not believe it. They are not children of the lower world — I do not
believe it. They are children of the Heavenly Kingdom. When
properly analyzed, there is nothing in them that is contrary to that
prayer offered by Jesus to the Father for the unity of the church. I
say that each denomination should have its own Sunday-school; its own
literature; its own Boards of Publication, and publish to the world what
it belie\ es. I am a Presbyterian; I would not be anything else; you could
not make anything else out of me. I do not care how you hew me and
slice me, I do not care how you manufacture me, I should come out in
the end a Presbyterian. And you are a Methodist, and you would not be
anything else, would you? Certainl}- not. I would not have any re-
spect for your manhood or womanhood if you would be anything else.
Some of you are Baptists, and you would not be anything else, would
you? As a matter of course, you would not, and I should not have
any respect for you if you would. I say that each church, each denom-
ination, should teach its own doctrines in its own Sunday-schools. 1
do not believe in this Idea that throws cold water — that snows, on de-
nominationalism. I do not like that kind of snowing. I do not be-
lieve that we should bring uj) the rising generation and make them Any-
thingarians. (Laughter.) I believe that is a word of my own coining.
I do not know whether you can find it in Webster or not, but it suits
my purpose. I do not believe in an age of Aiiythingarians. I will tell
you, my brother, I will tell you, my sister, that the men and the women
who are doing most for Jesus to-day belong to some denomination.
(Applause.) They are not these renegades of every country. That is
my experience. The men to be trusted, the men that are valued, the
men that are brave in the ranks, are the Presbyterians, or Methodists,
or Congregationalists, or belong to some other denomination. These
men and women that are so liberal as to bespread all over Christendom
as a general thing, are of the " spread eagle" kind, surely. They are
wonderful on this thing of scatteration — wonderful! 1 believe that
every denomination should have its own conventions. We should meet
together as Presbyterians, and as Baptists, and as Congregationalists,
and as Episcopalians. VVe should meet together and consult in regard
to our own interests. We should look after our own departments, our
own fields of labor, and every j^reacher should feel a personal respon-
Illinois State Sunday School Convention. 33
sibility for the children that belong to his own church, to gather into
that church all that he legitimately can. Notice that I use the word
" legitimately." That is the dut}- of every preacher, of every church
officer, of every church member. This is the way to make active
church Sunday Schools — for every one to feel that vast responsibility
that was spoken about a little while ago. Let the Methodists be wide
awake and look after their own interests. Let the Baptists be wide
awake, let the Presbyterians be wide awake, every man to his work,
every man applying himself to that which lies nearest him;
Now, if I should stop right here — and I hope my time will not run
out — if I were to stop right here, my story would only be half told.
Indeed, I will not be stopped here. I wouldn't be stopped here for
anything. Why, I should be ruined — just absolutely ruined if I should
be stopped right here. (Laughter.) I have said I was a denomination-
alist from center to circumference, and I am. But, see here, we live in
this age of which I spoke, this age when we have learned that there
is something wonderful, wonderful indeed, in co-oferation. Ah, yes,
this is an age of liberal thought; this is an age of liberal sentiment, and
I am glad I live in it. I pity the man that does not comprehend co-
operation. I pity the man who has not heart enough to take in the
grand sentiment of the age. He does not belong to this age at all. He
ought to be dead and buried— buried in the pyramids of Egypt along
with the Pharaohs. We live in a different age — an age when Pi'esby-
terians and Baptists and Methodists and Congregationalists are ready to
sti'ike hands across the lines of denominations. (Applause.) My dear
Methodist brother, here is my hand and here is my heart. My Con-
gregational brother and sister, here is my hand, I am a Presbyterian,
but lama Christian! (Amen.) And I value that more than I value
Presbyterianism. Ihonor the grand old name; it is the name to which
my father attached his destiny, and I can not but honor it; but above
all, high above all, infinitely above all, is the name of Jesus of Naz-
areth. Yes, sir, this is the place for us to get together. Here we can
gather from every quarter. Here we can learn what the Presbyterians
have done ; here we can learn what the Methodists have done ; here we
can catch the inspiration of our brothers; here we can be filled with in-
spiration and enthusiasm, and, as was remarked by the brother that just
closed, we need a consulting place for the combined forces of all the
churches, and that place is here. The whole world for Jesus. That
is it; and since Presbyterians can not take it all, let the Methodists come
in and help, and since the Methodists cannot take it all let the Baptists
come in and help. Yes, let us all come together and unite our forces
in taking the world for Jesus. That is it. We ought to have such
conventions as this. I said we ought to have church conventions. Cer-
tainly we ought, but we ought to have such conventions as this. It
warms the heart of any man to come in contact with his brothers of all
denominations. And I tell you, my brothers and sisters, these conven-
tions are prophetic of a grand future. Surely they are. We ought, as
denominations, to hunt our common ground. I said this moi-ning that
we had spent a great deal of time in hunting out our differences. I
think we ought to be very slow in emphasizing our differences. I am
no denominationalist in that sense of the word. No, sir, not a word
0% it, We ought to be earnest unci zealous in studyinj^ our difference?^
3
34 Illinois State Sunday School Convention.
that we may as far as possible reduce them; so that when we come
together we can most heartily, most cordially, strike hands across the
the denominational lines, and hail each other as brothers and sisters in
the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, if we do our work properly in our de-
nominations, this matter of inter-denominational work, Mr. President,
will move very easily. I tell you, my brethren, that the inter-denom-
inational work depends upon the denominational work, and if we do
our duty to the Sabbath School interest as denominations, we shall ac-
complish grand results in our inter-denominational intercourse. The
strength of the church, the strength of the church universal, will be
ill proportion to the unity of her various elements. United in heart,
she will be able to stand, to conquor, to triumph over all opposition.
Divided in heart, divided in love, she must perish. The church uni-
versal stands in great need, at the present day, of closer union and
greater concert of action in order to overcome her foes, who are
coming down upon her in masses, and endeavoring if possible to con-
summate her destruction. The vast hosts of infidelity and skepticism,
are hurling their missiles to-day as we are in convention, into the ranks
of the sacramental hosts. Let the church, then seek common ground!
Ill the name of Jesus, let her emphasize her common ground, let her
reduce her differences, and let her rally in one grand undivided pha-
lanx. It is said that the herds of vSwitzerland when attacked by
wolves join themselves into a solid batallion, and thus face the foe
on every side. Shall the church of Jesus Christ, my brother, my sis-
ter, be less prudent than the herds on the mountains of Switzerland?
No, no, never shall it be! The age is against it. Everything is against
it. Let us unite more closely in the name of Jesus, and though we
may move forward to the engagement in our different regiments, yet
high up in the clear sky, so that all the world can see it, we will have
but one standard — the standard of the Holy Cross, and emblazoned
on all our flags, in all our regiments, shall be written in letters of gold
that all the world can read: " One is our Master, even Christ, and we
are all brethren." That shall be our motto, and when we come to
that, oh, what glorious results will be accomplished! Let it be our
fervent prayer this afternoon, my dear brother and my dear sister, that
the church may marshall anew and enter afresh the deadly strife, and
all the champions of Jesus fight till the cry of victory shall sound from
every rank of the host; till from every continent, island, sea and ocean,
the shout shall go up " The kingdoms of this world have become the
kingdoms of our Lord and his Christ." And the high response shall
roll out from heaven as the voice of many thunderings, saying: "Hal-
lelujah, Hallelujah, the Lord God Omnipotent reigneth."
HOW TO SECURE HOME CO-OPERATION.
C. M. EAMES.
Dear Fuiends and Fellow Workers in the S. S.: — Sincerely
do I feel that I have been much honored by this invitation to address
this great convention containing and representing so much of ripe ex-
perience and consecrated labor in our Master's Vineyard.
The theme to which my name is appended upon the prograirj
Illinois State Sunday School Convention. 35
one of no slight importance, and some will say from the bottom of
their hearts no other is of paramount value. For how many Sab-
bath Schools have gone into untimely graves, how many promising
class fields are to-day hidden by crops of unsightly weeds because of
the lack of co-operation between Home and School, in the great and
glorious work of bringing souls to Christ and training them up in
Him.
Within a few weeks, hundreds and thousands of day schools will
be closing their doors for the summer vacation. There will be
white robes and bright flowers, speeches and essays, examination and
exhibition in 10,000 school rooms. Think you that the fond parents
of these hundreds of thousands of happy children are to be " conspicu-
ous for their absence " from these places and without interest in these
exercises. No indeed! The faithful teachers know the correspond-
ing heart beats in the multitude of homes represented in the school
rooms. Parents, brothers, sisters, uncles and aunts have been watch-
ing, with no feigned interest, the progress of the Climbers up Science
Hill. They have supplemented with song and story, with explana-
tion and drill, the teachings in the class and the study at the desk. They
have talked with the teachers and examined the monthly reports to
know just how the race for knowledge was being run. They have
counseled together over what was necessary to overcome faults, to in-
cite interest, to prevent evil associations and to remedy neglect. The
little feet have been mounting higher and higher towards the goal of
knowledge, with one hand clasped by the school teacher and the other
lovingly held by the home instructor.
Much more need, yes, much more vital necessity, is there for co-
operative teaching in religious knowledge since only one hour of one
day of the seven is given to the S. S. teacher, while the home has all the
opportunities of the other hours and days. The teacher can only sup-
plement the parents' lessons in this case, while in the other the heav-
iest burden is laid upon the school and only the supplementing upon
the home. When the two forces are combined in hearty, consecrated
co-operation, there will be produced the pow^er that will bring the
scholar to and bind him into the church structure. The poles and
wires and batteries have been prepared, iioiv the circuit is complete,
and the electric fluid of God's Love is flashing the work to glorious
completion. Or to change the flgure, the S. S. and the home — natural
allies in the struggle for victory over ignorance and sin — must charge
together upon the common foe, and God will give the victory.
The cobbler may not be able to paint the picture but he can show
the artist how to remedy the defects in the shoes that mar the fore-
ground. Of the lame and the blind neighbor, neither can say " I can
do without you." Each needs the ©thereto supply deficiencies.
The mother knows the child's nature much better than the teacher
and can aid beyond calculation, and the teacher should desire the pa-
rental help. It is essential for us to realize the need of home help be-
fore we can carefully consider how to find home helpers. Think,
fellow teachers, of the little time we have to learn child character.
Consider the formality, the good behaviour, the possible hypocrisy in
the class and how thoroughly the ice is broken in the family circle
and the true inwardness revealed. How many a useful hint the home
36 Illinois State Sunday School Convention.
can give you. Remember the ignorance, the privations, the want of
helps in the homes and reaUze how you can help there. The teacher's
strong left arm should indeed be around the boys and girls in the class,
but the stronger right arm should be reaching back to encircle the
homes where character is being made or unmade.
But now to my subject proper, " How to secure Home Co-opera-
tion."
If we realize our need of home help, if we really want these helpers,
we must be willing to ask for the aid — to seek the co-operation.
We can " find our helpers" in two ways:
■ By sending for them.
By going for them.
Both are good ways, both should be used. ^
Before further subdividing let me notice that:
THE HOME CAN CO-OPERATE WITH THE SABBATH SCHOOL:
1. By Sup-plying Scholars. I never knew a better co-operation
thim that of the Christian mother who sent husband and ten
children.
Parents should go ivith rather than send.
2. By Preparing Scholars.
A. Devoting an evening to study.
B. Providing and explaining helps.
C. Bible lights at family worship.
D. Golden texts at meal time.
E. Table talk about bible customs, geography, etc.
3. By making the Acquaintance of the Teacher.
A. Cordiality upon meeting.
B. Invitations to the house.
4. By Contributing.
A. Means for S. S. support.
B. Talents for S. S. plans.
C. Time for S. S. attendance.
5. By arranging sleeping and meal hours so as to prevent tardi-
ness or irregularity.
6. By magnifying the teacher's work in class and pointing out his
consistent life.
I have outlined these ways of co-operating as hints for suggestions
to home helpers when we ask for co-operation.
But again,
Ho-iv to secure Home Co-operation.
I. By sending.
I. As messengers. The School Children.
A. VVith invitations — not formal, but of a kind that please
and attract.
B. With reports — enthusiastic.
C. With recitations, songs.
D. With gospel truths that|soften and draw.
An excellent home help is the daily rej^etition around the family table
or at family worship, of the "Golden Text" for the coming Sabbath. All
the children, and parents, too, separately repeating the same, thus
mingling bodily and spiritual food, and fixing God's truths in the men^r
Illinois State Sunday School Convention. 37
As an illustration of how the Master uses the little messengers, even
the prattlers from the infant classes, you may all remember the story
of the infidel father who allowed his wee daughter to attend Sunday
School, but to show his own bold unbelief, printed and suspended
above his home desk the legend " GOD IS NOWHERE." The
bright eyes fresh from school caught sight of the motto and slow^ly
spelled out the words after this fashion: G-O-D God, IS is, N-O-W
now, H-E-R-E here. The reading was in the presence of the blas-
pheming father and proved a revelation. It was an arrow of convic-
tion and led the convicted one to go to the Sunday-school with his child
and finally led him into the Kingdom of Christ. Truly " a little
child shall lead them."
2. Messages. With parents and elders in mind.
A. Reports, as to deportment, attainments, etc.
B. Suggestions as to home study, helps, etc.
C. Lesson outlines.
A Sunday-school teacher who was in the habit of sending to the
homes of her scholars helpful hints for the study of the lesson, heard
of one such outline kept posted up during the week in the father's
place of business — a livery stable. Here it was constantly looked at
and studied, furnishing thought for the parental mind and food for
conversation at meal times at home.
D. Appeals for personal attendance.
E. Request for co-operation in plans to interest.
II. By going — to every ho?ne.
A. To look after the absentees, sick or truant.
B. Show sympathy in affliction,
C. To relieve distress and poverty and pain.
D. In a cheery, fraternal, social way.
E. In a gladsome, Bible reading, pastoral way.
F. To carry suggestions as to home help.
G. To carry invitations to school.
Said a pious father to his children, " God honors us by sending his
ministers to our house." With parents and teachers thus recognizing
each other's work and mutual aid, how can God but be the leader of
the allied armies of the Christian home and the Bible school. May he
help us in finding a host of home helpers. (Applause.)
Mr. B. F. Jacobs: — Mr. President, I think that this congrega-
tion ought to gather up this bundle of sticks a.nd take them home,
and see if they don't start the fire burning a little over Illinois. (Ap-
plause.)
FINDING OUR MATERIAL.
How to Secure and Train Teachers.
The President. — The program does not give the name of a speaker
under this head, and I will put in the name of B. F. Jacobs, than
whom none better can give us the information. (Applause.)
Mr. B. F. Jacobs. — I will occupy this place just by asking Bro. Lay
to tell us how he secures and trains his teachers. Bro. Lay, tell us.
Mr. H. T. Lay. — I am not so good at training as I am at being
trained.
3S Illinois State Sunday School Convention.
Mr. Jacobs. — Tell us how you were trained.
Mr. Lay. — I was'nt very well trained. I kind of jumped into it —
got into it the best way I could myself. We have not had much
training down in our country.
Mr. Jacobs. — How do you secure teachers in your school?
Mr. Lay. — The largest classes select their own teachers; for the
smaller classes the teachers are selected by the Superintendent of the
school.
Mr. Jacobs. — Suppose you select a teacher, and he does not accept,
how do you fill the vacancy?
Mr, Lay. — Selec someone who will accept it.
Mr. Jacobs. — Dotyou have a committee?
Mr. Lay. — No sir, the Superintendent does the selecting.
Mr. Jacobs. — Do you have any difficulty in finding enough teachers?
Mr. Lay. — Did you ever know of a school that did n't?
Mr. Jacobs. — You are in the witness-box now; don't interrupt the
learned counsel. (Laughter.) Now, Mr. Lay, have you any plan
for an emergency ? Suppose some Sunday you find there are three
or four teachers gone; what resources have you at your command?
Mr. Lay. — Well, we can usually get three or four from the larger
classes of the school.
Mr. Jacobs. — Then they are under training?
Mr. Lay. — We have no normal classes.
Mr. Jacobs. — Have you any plan of training?
Mr. Lay. — We have had teachers' meetings, but this last year we
have not had them.
Mr. Jacobs. — Do you recommend teachers' meetings to be given up?
Mr. Lay. — No, sir.
Mr. Jacobs. — The witness is excused. Mr. Rundell, how do you
secure and train teachers?
M. W. B. Rundell. — I do my best to find teachers The great
trouble is to find the right persons. I could now use a dozen or more.
Mr. Jacobs. — Have you got any planted that you expect to find
after a while?
Mr. Rundell. — Yes, I have.
Mr. Jacobs. — You have a nursery, have you?
Mr. Rundell. — I have the promise of some.
Mr. Jacobs. — Have you any normal classes?
Mr. Rundell. — No, sir, but we have the teachers' meeting, led by
the pastor. •
Mr. Jacobs. — Is it good?
Mr. Rundell. — Yes, sir.
Mr. Jacobs. — What do you do in it?
Mr. Rundell. — I don't say that we do just what we ought to do.
We meet together for the study of the lesson; but that is not my idea
of a teachers' meeting. I believe it should be a placevvhere we meet
together to converse and pray over the general interests of the Sunday
School. I believe the Superintendent ought to know each teacher
personally, and that each teacher ought to know each scholar person-
ally, and then when we go down as our Savior did we will secure
results.
Mr. Thomas Orton. — Bro. Jacobs, let me relate a little incident.
Illinois State Sunday School Convention. 39
One day there drove up to my little book store a country farm wagon
containing two young ladies. They came in and said they wanted
something to help start a Sunday School. They wanted to know if
I had testaments and singing-books and anything else that would help
start a Sunday School. They were Eastern girls, and said by way of
apology, that they had never been teachers or superintendents before.
One of the young ladies said: "It makes my heart ache, and makes
me homesick, on Sunday, when I have finished my work and have
nothing to do, to see the inen pitching quoits, the boys off fishing
and the girls around in slatternly dress and uncombed hair. We cannot
stand it, and we are going to start a Sunday School." I did what I could
to help them, and then they asked me about some of the troubles they
would have. They said they had never made a prayer in their lives. I
said I guessed they would have to begin with the Lord's prayer, and
teach the children to unite with them. After being provided with what
they wanted, they went away and started the school. They had hard
work, but the school grew and prospered. Its influence for good can
never be estimated.
Mr. Jacobs. — Mr. Trask, how do you get your teachers, and how
do you train them?
Mr. G. W. Trask. — We have Bible classes, in which we train and
raise up Sunday-school teachers. We have also a teachers' meeting
once a week.
Mr. Jacobs. — How do you try to train your young people to be
teachers.
Mr. Trask. — By showing them what they ought to teach ; by tell-
ing them the prominent points in the lesson, and the general out lines
of Bible teaching.
Mr. Jacobs. — The best methods of teaching?
Mr. Trask. — Yes, exactly. How to seek out and impress deep,
spiritual truth. So we have a number of first-class teachers.
Mr. E. D. Durham. — I think that circumstances govern this thing.
I have one of those peculiar schools in which I have more applicants
for places to teach than I have use for. We have a regular teacher's
meeting, and training school for teachers.
Mr. Jacobs. — How do you conduct your teachers' meeting?
Mr. Durham. — I take charge of the teacher's meeting. We use a
blackboard, and I begin by outlining the lesson on it, and then go
through it. I say. "There are a number of points in that lesson, let
us bring them out." We take so many verses at a time, that relate to
a certain subject, and then take the next lot of verses that relate to the
next subject, or take them verse by verse as the case may be. In this
way we bring out everything in the lesson that we can, and then I
say: "Look here, so-and-so, what do you think is the principal truth
taught in this lesson?" And she tells, and another one says, " My
idea is different." And we go right through and get everyone's idea,
and then we condense the ideas that virtually mean the same thing,
and finally select, never to exceed three points, that we are going to
bear down on in that lesson. We have a very fine Seminary in our
town, which makes us peculiarlv fortunate in securing teachers.
Mr. Jacobs. — How many teachei^s have you in your school?
Mr. Durham. — Seventeen to twenty.
4© Illinois State Sunday School Convention.
Mr. Jacobs. — How many of them attend teacher's meeting?
Mr. Durham. — Well, probably fourteen of the teachers; our teach-
ers' meeting runs from twenty to forty in attendance.
Mr. Jacobs. — How large are your classes?
Mr. Durham. — Larger than we wish they were; they are too large;
we have them from forty down to six or eight.
Mr. Jacobs. — Just exactly the right thing.
Mr. Durham. — I never would have a class with over eight in it,
Mr. Curry. — Is it a good plan for one man to lead the teachers'
meeting all the time?
Mr. Jacobs. — It is, if he is the best man you have.
Mr. Curry. — If we continue these same persons the year in and
the year out, nobody will develop so as to be able to take his place.
Mr. Jacobs. — Well, what do you do?
Mr. Curry. — We have a teachers' meeting — not a normal class —
and we meet after our prayer meeting on Wednesday, and we teach-
ers take it turn about. We don't let the Superintendent lead it any
oftener than anybody, excepting lazy teachers that don't take hold. I
am opposed to the Pastor leading the teachers' meeting, or the Super-
intendent leading it all the time.
Mr. Jacobs. — How many teachers have you in your school?
Mr. Curry. — Seventeen or eighteen.
Mr. Jacobs. — Do you know what the average attendance is?
Mr. Curry. — Sometimes it averages more than at others. (Laughter.)
President Benham. — They are trying a plan in New York by
which one man practically teaches the whole city, and also in Boston
it has been a great success. We have tried it in Chicago, and the at-
tendance every Saturday has been greater than on any previous one.
If you try to keep fifty men who can do such work on hand all the
time, you will fail.
Mr. Jacobs. — (To a member.) How do you secure your teachers?
The Delegate. — A few weeks ago Bro. Leavitt and I organized a
Sunday-school at Port Byron. The school began with sixty-three
scholars, and we divided it into classes and each took one. I went to
some of the older Christians and tried to ascertain who would make
good teachers, who were not engaged in the other Sunday-schools.
I found a lady who had had success as a Sunda3-school teacher form-
erly, and got her; then I found another lady, and a gentleman who
was in the habit of teaching in the public school — the principal, and a
Christian man — and I secured him, and we had every class filled up
the third Sunday. Then we arranged a teachers' meeting, and one
man led the meeting, not only dwelling on the lesson, but getting the
teachers' idea of how to teach a class of seven, a class of ten, a class of
fifteen; how to get the confidence of the child; how to get communi-
cation opened between the child and the teacher. What to say to
that girl of twelve or fifteen; how to get their confidence; how to in-
terest them, and how to get their hearts. The way to be successful
in getting their interest is to be so filled with the subject yourself that
it seems fairly to run over. It is unnecessary to tell the child how
much you love it, if your own heart is refreshed and filled with God's
loving spirit. The children will feel it and know it. The conse-
quence was, we succeeded in getting our school up to a hundred and
nine the fourth Sunday, and it is still growing.
Illinois State Sunday School Convention. 41
Another Delegate. — We could not run a denominational teachers'
meeting in our place, so the three or four denominations agreed
that they would meet together, and each denomination appoint a leader
for a month at a time. It worked like a charm. We spend twenty
minutes on the subject of the lesson, then the leader takes twenty
minutes for discussion of some matter, and then twenty minutes are
devoted to a general discussion. It has worked well all the time.
At the request of Mr. Durham a committee consisting of Messrs.
Deppenbrock, Hare and Baker, was appointed by the chair, to audit
the Treasurer's accounts for the year.
Prayer was offered by Mr. R. W. Hare, and the session closed with
the Doxology, and the benediction by Rev. A. C. Price.
First Day — Evening Session.
At the first evening session of the Convention, the large Hall was
full of a most intelligent and interested audience. Mr. Excell opened
the exercises by giving one of his admirable song-services in which the
large audience heartily joined, closing with the magnificent chorus,"All
Hail the Power of Jesus' Name."
The scripture lesson was then read by Rev. Thomas Gordon, of Al-
ton, from the first epistle to Timothy. After the reading Bro. Gordon
led the people in prayer, and all joined in singing: "Is my Name
written there?"
Pres. Benham introduced Dr. Adams, President of the Wesleyan
University, who was received with applause, and spoke as follows :
FINDING OUR WAY TO THE HEART.
REV. W. H. ADAMS, D. D.
"Finding the way to the heart !" "Finding the way to the heart !" It
any one on this earth knew how to find the way to the heart it was the
Lord Jesus Christ. He knew the heart; He made the heart; He redeem-
ed the heart. He fitted up that heart for himself, for the indwelling of
the Holy Ghost. He knew how to treat the heart, knew how to get to
the heart; He knows how to abide in the heart. When He came to
men He came first to the heart, and every direction, every road he
took, ended at the heart. The thing He came to do was to reform the
heart. He came into this world to take the polarities of our affection-
ate natures and cange them, turn them away from sin, away from Satan,
away from all that is unlovely, and to turn them to himself, and to
God. Everything He did was with reference to this. If He was
talking to mature persons, talking to men in business life, talking to
men, talking to women, talking to mothers, talking to His disciples,
42 Illinois State Sunday School Convention.
He was getting at the heart, and takhig the most direct way to the
heart. For a man is never reformed until the heart is reformed. A
boy or a girl is reformed at the same place that a man is. A boy is a
christian when the heart is made christian, and the girl is a christian
when the heart is made christian; and Christ taught us how to get to
the heart. When a tax gatherer was anxious to see Christ, and he
was a little man — and I have great sympathy for little men — he
climbed up into a tree. You know, tall men like Bro. Morton could
see, but he could not see. When Christ appeared He turned and
looked up and said to Zaccheus, "come down, to-day I must dine at
thy house." "Why," said Zacclieus, "I am a tax gatherer; I am a
publican; these people don't like me; I am collecting fines for the
Roman government, and they don't like me." But Christ calls him
down from the tree-top and says he is going to take dinner with him
that day. He went straight to Zaccheus and won his heart. There
was the woman at the well. She had not a very good reputation;
the Savior was tired out after a long day's journey; he was hungry;
the disciples had gone out to a village to get something to eat. He
opened up conversation with this woman, and after a little while He
opened her heart, and she went oft" to the city and said : "I have found
a man that told me all the things that ever I did." And all the peo-
ple came out to see Him. He went to the woman's heart! Went to
her heart! Every mother thinks her baby is the prettiest baby in the
world, and it was perfectly natural that mothers should press the Christ
with their children. The more sturdy of Christ's disciples said:
"Don't be troubling Christ with these children." They were like
some nervous preachers I have known, who think the children ought
to be kept in the Sunda}- School and then ground through in the
shortest possible way. The disciples said to keep them away; Christ
said to the mothers and to these disciples, "suffer the little children to
come unto me, and forbid them not, for of such is the Kingdom of
Heaven," and that beautiful speech won the heart of every mother
in Palestine that afternoon, down to Alton, here in Illinois. I
should pity the mother who read that story of Christ who did not feel
her heart drawn towards Him. I never see a little baby lying sweetly
in its coflin ready to be carried to the churchyard, that I do not think
that Christ said, "Suffer the little children to come unto me," then
took them in His arms, laid His hands upon them and blessetl them.
He was going to their hearts, to the hearts of mothers, to the hearts
of fathers, to the heart of childhood, to the heart of every mother down
the ages; and Christ has crept into the mother's heart for all time.
He knew how to find the mothe's heart. If they were in the midst
of suffering, if they were in the midst of weeping, the tears that found
their way down His cheek, found the way to their hearts. He was
full of sympathy, and found His way to their hearts. He loved them.
When the disciples came to him and said, "the people are hungry,
send them away to the village to buy bread," Christ said, "how many
loaves have you.-* How many fishes?" And He seated them on the
grass, blessed the loaves and fishes, and fed the multitude; and when
their hunger was satisfied He showed them His truth. I never read
that, since army days, that I do not think of two chaplains that we had
in our brigade. One of them was a dignified sort of chaplain. He
iLLmoiS State Sunday School Convention. 43
had a sword and a sash and all the accoutrements. He used to come
into the hospital where we were lying sick, and look at us with
a military air, and then march out, and we all felt like singing the
Doxology as he went. We had another chaplain belonging to the
same brigade. I have seen that chaplain going off in the morning
riding his horse, and before noon some sick soldier was riding the
horse and he was walking along on foot; and perhaps in the afternoon
another soldier would be riding the horse carrying a lot of muskets
and canteens, and the chaplain would have a lot more walking along
in the regiment singing "I am so glad that Jesus loves me." That
chaplain never came on the picket line so stormy and bleak a day with
tracts that we did not read them to the very advertisements. We read
them for the Christ-like hand that gave them. He was finding his
way to men's hearts. We find the way to inen's hearts, and boy's
hearts, through the sympathies, and by showing a willingness to let
somebody else enjoy more than we enjoy ourselves. Christ went
about seeking opportunities to do good. If any one had asked me
how Christ would do, I would have said: "Why, He will rent the
temple of course, and He will stand there every morning about two
hours and a half, and tell them what they ought to do; He would say
'there will be a meeting this afternoon at two o'clock, and I want you
to come.' " And then He would have another service in the night
and preach to them again. But Christ, like that chaplain, went about
among the people. Here is a man with a withered hand, and He said,
"Stretch forth thy hand," and He said a richer thing — "All thy sins be
forgiven thee." There they are opening a thatched root to behold
Him, and His words are: "Arise, take up thy bed, and go to thy house.
All thy sins are forgiven thee." He went to the man's heart through
the body, and then cleansed that heart and prepared it to love Him-
self. A little boy raps at my door in the winter time; it is bleak and
cold, and he is half clad and hungry, and he says to me, "Mister, I
would like to have something to eat." And I say to him, "my little
man, have you got a Bible?" He says to me, "No, sir, no, sir, I have
got no Bible, I am hungry." "Well," I sa}' to him, "my little man,
it is much better that you should have the Bible, and you should read
that Bible and learn the way to Christ, and save your soul, than for
you to eat breakfast." That is all true, but the boy does n't believe it.
He would feel like throwing the Bible in my face. But I say, "come
into the house, you should have your breakfast," and I give him a
good warm breakfast, and then I say, "here is a pair of shoes, a pair of
stockings and a coat," and I clothe him and then say to him, "my lit-
tle man, have you got a Testament?" And he says, "No." "Wouldn't
you like to have a Testament, and read it, and learn something about
God, and learn how Christ came into the world to save you?" And
he says: "Yes, yes." And I give him the Testament, and he takes it
and opens it and puts it in his bosom, in as snug a place as he can get, and
he reads it. Find the way to his heart through his body. We are won-
derfully linked together. If a man is in want or sufTering of any kind,
let us relieve him. When I was a boy and was asked what I was
going to be, I said: "A blacksmith." "Why?" "Well, Mr. Jones
is a blacksmith, and every time he comes over here he takes me up
on his knee and talks to me, and tells about the Bible and how much
44 Illinois State Sunday School Convention.
he thinks of me, and every time he meets me he says: 'How are you
to-day, WilHe?' " He won the heart, and I love that man to this day.
I remcmher the first school I went to, with a lazy teacher that sat in
the middle of a \og school house with a switch. I went two terms to
that man, and he' tried to lead me throu^^^h the mysteries of the alpha-
bet and Webster's jSpelling-book, and he utterly failed. The next
teacher was a lady that had a heart as big as a continent. I went in
shaking all over because this other teacher had exercised so much
muscle. I thought my alphabet would never lodge with me. But
this teacher asked me my name, and I said: "My name is Willie
Adams." "Do you know your alphabet?" "No, ma'm." "Now,"
she says, "we will take this spelling-book and learn the A B abs, and
we will go clear over to the grammer in the spelling-book, and we
will go through the first-reader this term." That was a new thought.
She put her hand on my head, and my heart felt as though it was beat-
ing a hole through my side, and as I went to my seat I felt more like a
man than I ever did before, and I thought, "we will learn these A B
C's now, and we will spell over to 'horse-back,' and we will do it this
term." And that boy did it that term! It was getting the boy's heart.
Christ worked with men on natural principles. He made the heart,
He knows what is in it; He knows what men are; He knows what the
home of the heart is, and that there is not enough in this world to sat-
isfy man unless the heart is won to God, and kept for Him. I don't
know when my heartjlias been so much touched as it was by this little
incident: I had some friends living in Chicago. They were very anx-
ious about their boys. They had not thought of purchasing any toys
for the little fellows — a wagon or a cat or a dog, or any thing of that
kind. They had entirely overlooked it. One day I noticed that the
boys were watching the only live thing in the room, a little fly, which
was walking on the ceiling without falling down. And they talked
about it. And by and by, when we sat down to the table to eat, and
there was a dish of honey there, the little fly, like all well regulated
flies, seated itself on the edge of the dish and helped itself. The little
boys began to talk about it, and were greatly pleased to see their little
pet getting its dinner. The mother, not observing the talk of the boys,
and how their hearts were aching for something to love — for God
made the heart to love the boftt things in the imiverse, and it begins to
love the flowers and things of earth, and then mounts up to God — The
mother, not observing, brushed the fly away. The little boys' faces
began to flush with pain, and the older one said, choking with emo-
tion, "Mama, I should think you could let that little fly have all the
honey it wants, it would n't eat very much," and he jumped down from
the table, with the tears running down his cheeks, and ran into the
other room. And I said: "God bless the boy with a heart like that."
That was the kind of heart Christ had, and Christ won His way to the
heart by sympathy and kindness and love; antl that is the way we
must do it. The teacher that does not recognize and enter into sym-
pathy with the child, will never find the heart, nor lead it to Christ.
If we wish to win the children, the young people, the old ones whose
heads are frosted, we must do it by loving them. Nothing but the
kindest sympthy, the most unquestioned self-sacrifice, will find the
heart and lead the heart to the Lord Jesus Christ. (Applause.)
Illinois State Sunday School Convention. 45
The Alton Male Quartette rendered most beautifully the song, " Let
the Savior in," and Pres, Benham then introduced Mr. Morton, of Chi-
cago, who spoke as follows :
FINDING BETTER METHODS.
REV. C. M. MORTON.
These two subjects mentioned on the program — Finding the Way to
the Heart, and Finding Better Methods — are twin brothers. They seem
to go together. I am always glad to hear our dear brother Adams
speak, because he puts in so much of the Scripture; and I, too, want to
give you one passage spoken of by Jesus Christ himself, giving us a little
light in finding methods. It is in the fourteenth chapter of Luke:
" Then said he unto him, a certain man made a great supper, and bade
many; and sent his servant at supper time to say unto them that were
bidden, Come, for all things are now ready. And they all with one
consent began to make excuse. The first said unto him, I have bought
a piece of ground, and I must needs go and see it; I pray thee have me
excused. And another said, I have bought five yoke of oxen, and I go
to prove them; I pray thee have me excused. And another said, I have
married a wife, and therefore I cannot come." Now, that is the kind
of folks you are alwa3's going to meet, so do not be discouraged at the
natural heart answering the invitations of God. " So that servant came
and showed his lord these things. Then the master of the house, be-
ing angr}^, said to his servant. Go out quickly into the streets and lanes
of the city, and bring in hither the poor, and the maimed, and the halt,
and the blind. And the servant said. Lord, it is done as thou hast com-
manded, and yet there is room." Heaven is a big place! "And the
lord said unto the servant. Go out into the highways and hedges, and
compel them to come in, that my house may be filled. For I say unto
you that none of those men which were bidden shall taste of my sup-
per."
Now, when this question of finding better methods came before me,
I said to myself that, after all, we have all got to find for oui'selves the
better methods by the help of the blessed Spirit; and what I may find
to-day tor one boy or girl will not answer to-morrow for another one.
We have all got to be led and guided by the same blessed Spirit, and
new methods that shall be blessed of God are what we are seeking for.
We notice that he simply told these servants to compel them to come
in; he did not tell them how they were to do it, but there was a great
deal involved in it. He simply gave them their instructions to go out
where the people were and compel them to come in. He did not
mean that they were to take them by the throat and bring them in, or
that they were to chain them hand and foot and bring them in, but they
were to persuade them to be willing to come in; and I suppose it would
have been an interesting sight to see those servants working in their
different ways to induce the people to come. There is one servant
finally gets a man persuaded to come, and he brings him in a magnifi-
cent carriage in gre;it style; another brings his, perhaps in a cart, and
perhaps another arm in arm, and another still, brings his in on a
46 Illinois State Sunday School Convention.
stretcher — using all his powers of persuasion and patience and love, and
never stopping until finally his friend is jicrsuaded to come to the feast.
But when they get them in to the feast they know they are all right,
they will stav there as long as they can, because it is the best place
they have ever found in the world. So the preachers and teachers are
to connjel souls hv every use of the power of love and kindness, as
my dear brother has said to-day, to come to the feet of the Lord Jesus
Christ.
I might speak of better methods of getting acquainted with these
people over whom the Lord has placed us. I know a great many min-
isters who would do better if they were better acquainted with their
people. So also teachers ought to be well acquainted with their schol-
ars in order to have the greatest influence over them.
Then there is finding methods of getting at the truth in such a way
as to present it to the class. Every good housewife knows it is one
thing to have the barrel of flour in the house and another thing to have
the loaf of bread. It is just so with the word of God and the lesson or
sermon; you must have it so prepared that it will taste good to the class,
and they will come again and taste and say " The Lord is Good."
We must find methods of presenting the truth after we have got it
out — better methods of presenting the lesson. There was once an old
Quaker preacher traveling through the West, and with him was a
young man. The old Quaker got the crowd, and the young man, al-
though he was smart and intelligent, did not have the influence that
the old man had, and he felt mortified over it, and finally said to the
old man, "I wish you would tell me why after having been to college
and being a better speaker than you, you get the larger crowd and
have the greater influence," " Well," said the old man, "I will tell
thee. When thee speaks to the people thee says, ' Friends, if you
don't stop doing wrong you will go to hell,' and when I speak to the
people I say, ' Friends, if thee don't go wrong thee won't go to hell.' "
I studied that a little while and I saw the force of it. It teaches
that if we wish to impress our speech upon others we should put
it in the sweetest and most tender manner. I believe that is the
method we want to find — the oldest and the youngest of us, in Chris-
tian work — how to present the truth tenderly to the people we love.
There are thousands of people around us, old people and young peo-
ple, that really believe there is nothing of interest in the Christian
church, or in Sunday .School. They really believe it, and if they
have an opinion that is candid and honest in that respect, we should
meet them fiiirly and squarely and prove to them that they are mis-
taken. It doesn't do any good to call them infidels or any other name.
The church has thrown stones enough of that kind and never brought
down any fruit,besides in many cases I amsatisfied the judgment of these
outsiders is correct. Many years ago, when I used to go to church
once or twice a year— I used to be ashamed if I didn't go at least that
often — the preacher used to stand up with a big pile of manuscript,
with his eyes down close to the page, and he read and read and read,
till it seemed to me impossible to get so much matter on one page, and
finally he would lay it down and repeat with the next page. He
never told a story, never used an illustration, but went on and on and
on, and I finally went to sleep, and when woke up the pile of papers
Illinois State Sunday School Convention. 47
seemed to be as big as it was before. Positively, he never said a word
that I remember; and he was a good man, living now, and I love
him. In the year 1S65, passing along the streets of Chicago with
three or four other young men that never went to church, we went
into a little brick chapel. We heard the music, and there was an old
man talking to the people, and he was telling about the prodigal son,
and showing how that the Lord Jesus Christ was just like that old
man whose heart yearned after the son. It was the first conception »
that that I ever had as to what Christ came into this world to do. It
was the first sermon that ever interested me a particle. Well, the
meeting closed, and the old man got me by the hand before I got out
of the door; he thought I was one of the members of the church. No
one had risen for prayer that night and the old man was greatly
grieved. He said, "My dear brother, why do you think these peo-
ple's hearts are so hard? I have never spoken at a place where they
stood out so long. Why do you think it is?" And my heart was
stirred thinking that that poor man had been obliged to speak so long
in that place without a conversion, and if anything that 1 could have
done would have converted any one of them I am sure I would have
gone out and done it. Brother Adams has just showed the feeling •
that I had that evening when that dear old man told me for the first
time in my life what the Lord Jesus Christ came into the world to do.
But now let us just notice that instruction, simply '"cow^^"/ //^<?w."
What were their methods? Very difTerent methods, very different,
but they did their work in their own way according to their own
judgment. I heard of a party of young men that went out from an
Eastern city trout fishing. They wore fine imiform, and had fancy
poles, every conceivable kind of bait, and every conceivable kind of
hook and everything else in the fishing line, and they went out fi.sh-
ing in the country. There they found an old man sitting, bare footed,
wearing an old checkered shirt antl blue over-alls fastened with one
suspender; he had a rough pole cut out of a sm;;ll tree, all full of
knots, and the old man was sitting (here serenely fishing. They came
up and got their lines all in, and in a few minutes the old man hauled
out a trout, and pretty soon the old man caught another, and the beau-
tiful poles were flashing in the sun but producing no results, and so it
went on until finally the old man gathered up something like twenty
fine fish, and these poor fellows put their poles in their cases and
turned their faces towards the depot to go home — and write a book to
tell the people how to catch trout. That is about the way a great deal
of religious work is done, I tell you, friends, that the people that win
souls are those that depend upon the Holy Ghost to help them. They
trust in the Lord Jesus Christ and give themselves prayerfully to His
direction. " Compel them to come in." This was the great thing to
be sought, to have these people come in, and that is what we want to
do with our children. We are after nothing but results. A man in
Chicago had a watch that cost about $35, and a friend of his had one that
cost $500, and they kept putting this expensive watch against the
cheap one, and the cheap one kept beating the other right along. One
day, when they had been comparing notes, and it was found that the
cheap watch had kept the best time, he said, "The truth of it is, my
watch ain't gooc4 for anything but to keep time." And I tell you I be-
48 Illinois State Sunday vSchool Convention.
lieve in just such watches as these. And I believe in sermons
that are not good for any thinj2: but to convert souls and build
them up in fi^ith. I believe in Sunday Schools that are not worth
a copper but to win boys and girls to Christ. And I believe the
great temptation with many ministers and superintendents and teachers
is to make something very bcautifid, a sermon that will be talked about
a sermon that will be asked for publication, and all that. But a sermon
ought to be like a cartridge, that is of no earthly account after it has
exploded. About the year 1S73 I was in Brooklyn, laboring with
Mr. Beecher's chinch, a grand good man of whom I could say much.
I had been there about two years and a man came down to me one
afternoon with a letter from Mr. Beechcr. It read something like this:
" This young man is a son of an old Indianapolis parishioner of mine,
come down here to begin studying for the ministry. I have had a long
talk with him this afternoon, and have sent him down to you, think-
ing that being nearer your own age you can understand him better. My
impression is that he is thinking more about preaching sermons than he
is of saving souls." And that hit me hard. I was engaged in the same
business. (Laughter.) I had been in that business several years. For
almost a year 1 had not been the means, to my positive knowledge, of
saving one soul, and God sent that arrow from Mr. Beecher's hand
to strike my heart. That night I got down on my knees and asked
God to help me never to try to preach another cunning sermon or to teach
another cunning Sunday School lesson, but only to go out and try to
persuade these young people to come in, that His house might be full.
We need a reasonable knowledge of the truth of God and just as much
of the love of Jesus Christ, and patience, and faith as we can get into
these poor hearts of ours. I believe we ought to have more patience
for people that are doing wrong, and that when we are expending our
righteous indignation towards poor sinners, God has no further use for
us. Down in Philadelphia, about the time I was living in Brooklyn,
there was an old Quaker by the name of William Savery, who kept a
tannery and employed about 75 or 100 men. He was very success-
ful, very rich. He had just received a certain kind of hides from
South America. They were very valuable hides and were piled up
inside the tan yard near the door. He thought one night, as he was
going out, that the pile looked smaller than it did. The next morning
he was sure there were not so many hides as there were the night be-
fore. He waited another day and nearly half of his hides were gone. He
sat down and began to study what he would do, and finally decided to
write an advertisement for the evening paper, and he wrote one. If
you or I had been writing it perhaps we would have said: "One hun-
dred dollars reward for the detection of the thief that took the hides out
of my tan yard this last week. — $100 reward for him, dead or alive."
(Laughter.) Mr, Savery didn't. He said, " If the persons that took
the hides out of my tan yard during the evenings of this last
week will call on me this evening, or to-morrow evening, he\villjiear
of something to his advantage." That very night about- 11 o'clock,
just as the old couple were about to retire to rest, they heard li faint
knock at the door. The old man opened the door, and there stood
one of the most contemptible characters in that ward, a man that was
l^nown and had be?n known for n long tijiie m ^ vagabpnd and a thief,
Illinois State Sunday School Convention. 49
There he stood, and right behind him hiy a little pile of hides. He
said, *' Mr. Savery, I have brought some of your hides back — I didn't
bring them all back. I saw that advertisement in the paper and it
made me ashamed of myself. T knew you were a good man, and that
was the reason I stole the things of you; because I thought if you
caught me you would not'punish me so hard as anybody else. My wife
is sick, and I am poor and have nothing to do, and I really felt as
though I must take something." The old man took him in and told
him to sit down, saying " I thought thee must be in trouble," called
his wife and said, " Can't thee get John something to eat?" And there
between eleven and twelve o'clock they got him something to eat, and
the result was that the next morning John went into the tannery to
work, and two years after that he was the most trusty man that Mr.
Savery had in his yard, and so continued until the old Quaker died.
That taught me a big lesson. Most of us would have lost the man
and the hides too, but the old man won the soul of the thief, and got his
hides all back; and I believe that is what our Saviour meant when he
said, " If any man take awa}' thy cloak give him thy coat also." Break
his heart with kindness. And so Paul says, "The love of Jesus Christ
constrains us."
But now as we turn to the events of another year, how grateful some
of us should be that we have found a field in which to labor, that w^e
have been permitted to do something. And we should remember how
uncertain is the year before us. But, oh fi'iends, this is the feeling of
m)^ heart, I want it to be the most loving and most tender and most
patient year we have ever had. The very best year. It seems,
as our dear bi'other said to-day, as though just now God was revealing
Himself as he never did before. And it is a comfort to think, as I go
on bearing my burdens, that there are more grand men and women
in the State of Illinois who are anxious to win souls and anxious to
honor God than there has been since this country was discovered. It
will not be very long before you and I are permitted to lay our poor
lives, with everything we have ever won for Christ at the feet of God.
M}- poor prayers will go up for you, and I trust the blessings of God
will be on the labors of all of us.
The audience joined in singing " I am listening," after which a solo
by Prof. Excell, " The Handwriting on the Wall," was listened to
with breathless interest.
After a song the President introduced Mr. Tracy, from Granville,
who spoke as follows:
THE INTERNATIONAL CONVENTION.
REV. WILLIAM TRACY.
We have been hearing to-night how to find the way to the heart
and how to find better methods in Sunday School work. I come to
tell you not how to do work in the future, but something about work
that has been done in the past — to try to give you some idea of the
great meeting that was held in Louisville. But just as I could give
you no idea of the song you have just heard sung by Bro. Excell, un-
2
50 Illinois State Sunday School Convention.
less you heard it yourselves, so I feel that I can give you no true and
full idea of the meeting at Louisville unless you yourselves were there.
All that I shall attempt to do is to tell you what impressed and in-
terested and inspired and helped me, hoping that you may also be
helped thereby. I was very much impressed by the place of meeting.
We crossed the river and camped near Mason and Dixon's Line. I
went back in mind and thought of those men carrying their arms and
standing in line, face to face, and then I listened to them in that Con-
vention, and they were singing, ''Blessed be the Tie that Binds Our
Hearts in Christian Love," and I thought to myself, "The cross of
Christ unites us in spite of all the past," and I saw the answer to
Christ's prayer that they all might be one "As thou Father, art in me
and I in Thee." We entered the room and the first thing that im-
pressed me was the Stars and Stripes, and the Union Jack folded to-
gether. My cradle was under the one, my grave will be under the
other. My father and my mother were living down in old Wales,
loyal to the Union Jack, my little children were up in Illinois, and I
prayed God that they might be loyal to the best interests of the
country o'er which floated the Stars and Stripes. (Applause.) I was
proud to see those flags there. The time is coming when the flags of
all nations will hang together in the great International work of our
Sabbath Schools. They ought to be there. I have seen those flags
in places where I wished they had not been. When I see them float-
ing over a saloon I feel ashamed and humbled, and I pray God that
the hearts of the Sunday School workers in this country may be so filled
with enthusiasm for God and for humanity that the time may soon come
when there will be no saloon for them to float over. (Applause, and
"Amen.") The next thing that impressed me was the multitude that
had gathered there. I thought to myself, "Here they are, they have
come from the North and the South and the East and the West; they
are men of business to whom time is money; they have come here at
great expense of time, money and energy; there is not a single office
here to give them; there is not a single post-office here that one of
them will have to take back. What has brought them here? There
are two things — the Cradle with the Child in it, the Cross with the
Crucified One upon it. Christ and the Child drew them together, so
that they might learn how to train up the child for Christ, and how
to glorify the Master. There were splendid men and women gathered
there, an audience almost as fine as this one. There were men there
whose names are household words. Dr. Vincent was there, who,
some one said, was too great to be made a bishop, because God had
already made him a king. There were men there from the North and
South, from the East and the West of this country; from Canada,
from France, from India, and they had all come together in order that
they might be better fitted to do the work in which you and I are en-
gaged. And the women were there. Mrs. Kennedy was there to tell
us how to win the child's heart; Mrs. Crafts was there, to instruct the
primary teachers in their work; Miss Willard was there, with her
royal heart to say something for God and Home and Native Land.
Miss Lucy Rider was there, to give them a great, beautiful address
such as she has been giving in Illinois in the past. The sweet singers
were there; Bro. Case was there, and Bro. Excell was there, and he
Illinois State Sunday School Convention. 51
sang better than I ever heard him before, but of course he has im-
proved a great deal since then and sings a great deal better to-night.
It impressed me, and I felt greater as a disciple of Christ when I
touched these people, and I realized, "Here is this great host, with
great intellects, with great hearts, with great faculties, consecrated to
Christ, and they have come here to the feet ot Jesus, and they are by
my side now and their prayer is my prayer, and their purpose is my
purpose," and I went away stronger than I went there.
Another thing impressed me very much: The Rev. Mr. Smith,
who was connected with the coloi-ed church, rose in the audience and
asked if we would receive money from an organization that was out-
side of ours; and he made a passionate, prophetic appeal for his own
people. He told us there w^ere five hundred young men in the pro-
paganda at Rome w^ho were being prepared to win and hold the col-
ored children of this country for the Catholic Church; and he called
upon Protestantism to lend a hand to the colored people in order that
they might win them first for Christ and for this country. His ap-
peal was intensely stirring and enthusiastic, and when he got through
a gentlemen over on one side of the room said: "Let 's give him the
grasp," and they joined hands across the hall, and then our good Bro.
Jacobs, in front, said: "Join across down here, and there you have the
sign of the cross." And they sang: "Praise God from whom all Bless-
ings flow." I said to myself, "We are standing in the ends of the days,
prophesy is being fulfilled; Europe is stretching forth her hands; Mis-
sionary history is being made. The time shall be when they shall
come from the East and from the West and from the North and from
the South, from every direction and of all colors, and shall sit down
with us in high places with Christ Jesus."
A great many other things impressed me during these meetings, but
I do not wish to delay you, and I will give just two or three of the
fundamental ideas and principles that were underlying the whole work.
I asked myself this question: "Upon what does this work rest? Is
it going to abide? Is it going to grow? Is it going to spread? Is
this the handful of corn upon the top of the mountain ? Will it ever
shake like Lebanon ?" And I thought I saw four pillai^s under this great
temple of Sunday School work, and upon the first was inscribed "God
in Christ." I tell you. Brethren, it was encouraging to be in that meet-
ing and hear our Master spoken of. I had been in some meetings in
the old country, and had heard the name of the Queen mentioned, and
I have seen the whole audience rise and sing "God save the Queen,"
and it moved my heart. I have been in audiences in this country
where I -have heard the name of our martyred Lincoln mentioned, and
I have seen how every heail swelled with enthusiasm and pride. I
was in that Convention when the name of the Nazarene was men-
tioned, and such a wonderful influence was in it that every heart was
touched. We are loyal, and w^e rejoice when w^e see other hearts that
are lo3^al to Him. Then the second pillar was, "Christ in the Word."
You have heard of the Scotchman who said, "Read to me." "Read
what?" they asked. "There is but one Book," was his answer. The
Sunday School workers of this country are saying, "Read to me, read
to the children." "What shall I read?'' There is but one Book, and
that is the Bible. And Christ is in it from the beginning to the end.
t2 Illinois State Sunday School Convention.
I tell you the fact is the Sunday School workers of this country, and
of other countries, believe in the Word of God, in the whole Word of
God, and in Christ as the central Person in the Word, and the incar-
nation of Christ, and the atonement by Christ, as the central thought in
the Word. I said to myself, "That pillar will stand; there is nothing
that can turn it over." And I looked a little further and saw on an-
other pillar, "The Word in the Life." Thank God for that pillar; it
is becoming more definite and more prominent, and we are beginning
to realize that without it the temple of this work will not be safe. A
gentleman said on this floor to-day, "I believe that a township Presi-
dent is just as much called of God as the minister in the pulpit." Thank
God for it! Do you say I am lowering myself as a minister of the
Gospel, when I admit that? Not at all; I am lifting up the whole
work. You may depend upon this, that the more fully individual
Christians realize their call by God for personal effort in his work, the
more exalted in their eyes will become the work of the regular min-
istrv and of the pastorate. I am not afraid that my dignity will be
injured because around about me in my church there are souls that are
tilled and inspired by the Holy Ghost. Not at all. Those are the
people that I want to work with; and so I rejoice that we are realizing
that we as Sunday School workers, as preachers of the Word, to be
most efficient, must have the Word in the intellect, the Word in
the conscience, the Word in the will, the Word in the imagination, the
Word in the heart, the Word in the whole life. One man said that a
certain individual always seemed to him like the man that had the Ten
Commandments on the brow, and not one of them broken. That is the
kind of effect we want to produce as we go into our Sunday-schools
and into the midst of our scholors. Our words become God's message;
our lessons become as the very word of God himself! There was another
pillar, "The Holy Ghost." We are honoring the Holy Ghost to-day
and He is honoring us, depend upon it. It has been a wonderful year.
Thousands of souls have been won for righteousness and the world to
come. We, as Sunday School workers, are believing in this perpetual
baptism, and I am looking for a richer baptism this year than ever
before; I am looking for a more manifest evidence, more manifest
proof, for work that cannot be explained by the intellect, that cannot be
explained by himian magnetism, that cannot be explained by simple
human agencies, but that must be explained by the presence and the
power of the Holy Ghost in our midst. Aud the time is coming when
we shall no more be able to explain our year's report without recogniz-
ing His presence, than the apostles w-ere able to explain the day of
Pentecost without that baptism from above. I believe the time' is com-
ing when that pillar is going to stand, and the temple itself js going to
stand, and you and I are part of it, and may God make us finished,
polished stones in this temple, and His name shall have the glory.
The Alton Male Quartette sang "Rejoice in the Lord," and the ses-
sion was closed with prayer by President Benham, and the Benediction.
Illinois State Sunday School Convention. 53
Second Day — Morning Session,
FINDING.
In accordance with the first subject of the Program, the merribei's
of the Convention met at eight o'clock Wednesday morning, "Find^
ing time for Prayer." W. B. Jacobs led this prayer and praise meet^
ing, and hearts were made strong and glad, waiting upon God.
At nine o'clock the Convention was divided for District meet-
ings, in order that District Presidents might be appointed. The
names of the gentlemen nominated, and subsequently elected to this
responsible position, may be found on page i of this Report. It was
found that there were sixty-eight counties represented in the Conven-
tion.
At ten o'clock, the Convention, as a whole, was called to order
by President Benham. All united in singing, "Loving Kindness," and
the Rev. Mr. Kline, of Belleville, read as the Scripture Lesson, the
34th Psalm and part of the 15th chapter of Luke. The audience then
joined with him in prayer.
President Benham introduced W. B. Jacobs, the Statistical Secre-
tary, who read his report as follows:
WHAT THE STATISTICAL SECRETARY HAS FOUND.
Dear Brethren : — The past year has been a very trying one to
all Christian workers, and specially so to those who seek, as we do, to
unite in one army all those who follow the standard of the Prince of
Peace. The political campaign of 1884 awakened an interest so intense
that, in many places, it seemed to absorb the entire attention of all classes
of people. The natural result to be expected, from such a state of
affairs, was less work in Sunday Schools, less conventions and insti-
tutes, no new schools organized, and many summer schools allowed to
sleep in the grave where they had been buried the previous winter.
But the saddest feature of that campaign was the bitter antagonism
aroused between Christians, as to the best means of accomplishing a
certain^ good, which, no doubt, all desired to accomplish. Christian
men became self constituted judges of the actions of otiier Ciiristian
men, and this resulted, as it ever must result, in harsh and cruel judg-
ments and often in unkind and un-Christlike words and actions, the
effect of which may not be entirely removed in months, or perhaps in
years.
But in the face of all this "strife of tongues" and neglect of the
Master's work, we still have many occasions to "thank God and
54 Illinois State Sunday School Conn'kntion.
take courage;" and to some of these things I wish now to direct your
attention.
1. TuE County Conventions of the past year have been the best,
as a whole, that I have ever attended in this State. They were largely
attended by earnest workers, even in the midst of the political cam-
paign, and from many counties I learn that the good effect of these
Conventions has been felt by the Christian workers through the entire
year. The presence of Brother Excell and his sweet Gospel singing
was a great help in the Conventions he attended, but many other coun-
ties which he could not reach have fully kept their place in the front
rank. Since the last State Convention, Miss Lucy J. Rider has
attended 20 County Conventions, Prof. Excell has attended 39
County Conventions and 24 other S. S. meetings, and I have attended
49 County Conventions and 33 other S. S. meetings. A Convention
has been held in every county in the State, and two counties have held
two Conventions each, making 104 in all.
2. The Finances. It is conceded that the interest people feel in
any work is usually shown by the amount of money they invest in it.
From this standpoint I wish you to observe the interest felt by some
of the counties in our State work, notably those counties where
Brother Excell has been permitted to labor with me. Comparing
the last two years, the counties named have increased their con-
tributions as follows : CoOK County, from ^800 to $1,000, and
1,000 for coming year: DuPage, from $30 to $50; Lake, from
$50 to $56, and $20 additional to help poorer counties pay traveling
expenses ; Will, from $25 to $50 ; McHenky, from $25 to $30 ;
Winnebago, from $70 to $100, and $100 for next year; Whiteside,
from $40 to $50, and $100 for coming year ; Henry, from $45 to $50,
and $100 for next year ; Mercer, from $25 to $35 ; Rock Island
paid her $25 pledge, added a special contribution of $29, and raised
$60 for next year ; Stark increased from $10 to $20 ; Kankakee,
from $31 to $45; McLean, from $50 to $75; Fulton, from $32 to
$50 ; Woodford, from $28 to $36 ; McDonough, from $25 to $35 .
Marion, from $30 to $50 ; Lawrence, from $20 to $30 ; Edwards
(the smallest county in the State), from $40 to $50, and raised $50
more for 1885-6; Perry, from $11 to $25, and $45 for next year;
Washington, from $20 to $50, and Jackson from $15 to $50. Every
county where I liave been, except three, gave to our State work, and
more than half of them increased their contributions ; the increase
ranging from 20 to 200 per cent. The largest per cent, of increase is
from Jackson, Washington and Whiteside Counties.
In addition to above, over 40 counties where Prof. Excell and
myself have gone, have paid our traveling expenses, and some have
given more than actual expenses, to help counties wliere the distance
traveled made our expenses very heavy. The amount received by me
on "expense" account is as follows: From McLean Countv, $20 ;
Ogle, $10; Stark, $15; Iroquois, $10 ; Livingstone, $5 ; Wabish,$5;
Edwards, $5; Wayne, $5; White, $5; Hamilton, $5; Perry, '
Illinois State Sunday School Convention. 55
Jackson, $iO ; Raudolpli, $10 ; Madison, ^6.30 ; Urown, f 5 ; Fulton,
$5; Peoria, $5 ; Lawrence, $3.35 ; Marion, $6 ; Sangamon, $5 ; St.
Clair, $14; Washington, $10: Pike, $10; Christian, $5; Mont-
gomerv, $5 ; Mercer, $10 ; Henry, $10 ; Whiteside, $10 ; Winne-
bago, $10; Ford. |15; Lake, $20; Pope, $25; Jersey, $16.10;
McHenry, $6.50; Tvankakee, $3.50: Will, $4.40; Grundy, $4;
Boone, $5; Rock Island, $10; DeKalb, $3.63.
I have also received, for expenses to S. S. Conferences and other
meetings, as follows: Jacksonville (two meetings), $35.35 ; Blooming-
ton, $24; Alton, $20.00 ; Braidwood, $5 ; Rockford, $11.98.
The total amount received by me for expense account is $444.11.
The amount expended is as follows :
For W. B. J. and E. 0. Excell $404 23
For J. B. Stillson's expenses 30 75
For D. Kurd's expenses 6 00
Total expenses $440 98
Balance paid to State Ti easurer $3 13
Nothing has been drawn by us from tlie State Treasury on expense
account, but I have paid, as shown above, a small balance to the State
Treasurer. I received $10 each from LaSalle and Scott Counties, on
account of Miss Rider's expenses, and paid same to our Treasurer.
3. My Statistical Report is presented herewith. It shows, as
compared with last year, 37 Banner counties ; a gain of 9. 82 new
reports ; the same as last year. 865 Township Conventions ; a gain
of 98. 6,148 Sunday Schools ; a loss of 17. The total membership is
564,331 ; a gain of 4,139. Received into church from Sunday School,
19,003, being 659 more than previous year. Missionary collections,
$46,584.36 ; a gain of $6,203.10, notwithstanding the business depres-
sion of the past year. 38 counties report an increase of Sunday
Schools, the largest gains being, in Cook County, 15; Clark, 13;
McLean, 9 ; Lawrence, 8 ; Woodford, 7 ; Richland, 7 ; Peoria, Liv-
ingstone, Moultrie and Jackson, 6 each. 23 counties report a decrease,
the greatest losses being, in Union County, 20 ; Adams, 18 ; Tazwell,
18; Hancock, 14; Franklin, 16; Henry, ' Ford, Pike, Mason and
Champaign Counties lose 10 schools each. 38 counties show an
increase in membership, the largest gains being, in Cook, 5,537;
Edgar, 2,330; Clark, 1,565; Vermillion, 1,254; Kane, 1,000; Rich-
land, 845 : Saline, 775 ; Jackson, 666 ; Logan, 660 ; Iroquois,
456; Piatt, 455; Grundy, 432; Gallatin, 414; Livingstone, 335,
and Whiteside, 327. In some counties this increase is a real
growth ; in others the facts have been developed by thorough work in
the townships, and by more conscientious bookkeeping by the County
Secretaries. And I desire at this point to record my deep conviction
that a truly conscientious Secretary will, l)y some means,
find out the location of every Sunday School in his county,
and what its condition is, before each annual meeting of the
8. S. Convention of his county. No Secretary should be willing to
print a false report of the condition of the Sunday School work in his
56 Illinois State Sunday School Convention.
county, and a report that sliows 20, 10, or even 5 less schools than
have been in actual existence during the year, is not an honest state-
ment of the facts.
Thirty-three counties report a loss of Sunday School membership, the
greatest decrease being, in Sangamon, 2,068 ; Adams, 1,770; Taz-
•vvell, 1,226 ; Will. 1,014 (this is owing to the dropping out of Catiiolic
Schools) ; Cumberland, 1,089 ; Alexander, 1,000 ; Champaign, 927 ;
Pike, 738; Henry, 687; St. Clair, 660; Schuyler, 608 ; Knox. 561.
In my opinion, most of the losses reported can be accounted for in one
of two ways : 1, Actual losses ; because the township work is not thor-
oughly done. 2, Apparent losses; because the Secretary's work is not
thoroughly done.
Eighty-one counties report 19,003 additions to the church from the
S. S. A full report would, no doubt, increase this number to 20,000.
Seventy-nine counties report missionary contributions, amounting to
$46,584.36.
One other item deserves a special notice :
4. The Recapitulation by Districts. The First District shows
a gain all along the line, and every county contributes to our State
work. The /Second gains but little, notwithstanding the good
work done in Winnebago and Kane, DeKalb falling far behind.
The Third gains three schools and also gains quite largely in mem-
bership. Whiteside is the bright star in this constellation. In
the Fourth we note with regret the falling oft" in Henry and Knox
Counties, But "little Stark" and Rock Island are moving forward, and
all except Knox increase their contributions to the State work. The
Seventh District shows a loss in every county, and the Sunday
School Avorkers need to "stir up the gift within them." From the
Eighth I have but one entirely new report, Jind that (Hancock
County), shows a loss of 14 schools. The Ninth shows the largest
loss of any district in the State, viz., 35 schools and 3,235 mem-
bers, the heavy decrease being in Adams, Pike and Schuyler Counties.
May the brethren there be anointed Avith poAver from on high, and gird
themselves anew for the Avork of the Lord! The Tenth reports a slight
loss, the only gain being in Green and Scott Counties. The EUventh
loses heavily, most of the decrease being in Sangamon County. Per-
haps the State Legislature is too heavy a burden for our brethren to
bear. May they soon be delivered ! In the Twelfth District, Piatt and
Moultrie Counties shoAV a good increase, but there seems to be danger
that the lethargy in other counties Avill more than overbalance the good
work done in these. The T'/uV^ee/uA is (geographically) the largest district
in the State, and shows the second largest increase, but the losses in
Champaign and Cumberland draAV heavily from the gains in Clarke,
Edgar and Vermillion. The Fourteenth shows a substantial gain in
Fayette and Crawford, but no report has come from either Effingham
or Jasper. The Fifteenth is the "Banner District of the State." It
shows the largest gain in schools and the lai-gest proportionate gain in
members. No county reports a loss, each sends a ncAV report, and
Illinois State Sunday School Convention.
M
each reports additions to the church and missionary contributions.
Every county in the district is a banner county. In the Seventeenth,
two counties report a gain of schools, and two, Jackson and Randolph,
gain in membership. The reports show a loss of 8 schools in the dis-
trict, but a gain of 441 members. From the Eighteenth I have but
three new reports. Edwards shows a loss of 369 members, and Wabash
a gain of 87. In the Nineteenth, Gallatin gains 4 schools and 414
members. Saline gains 3 schools and 775 members. Saline is a
banner county, and the earnest Avork done is bearing fruit. The
Twentieth has 3 banner counties, Johnson, Massac and Pulaski.
Alexander reports a loss of 1,000 members, and Union a loss of 20
schools. The total loss in this district is 17 schools and 613 in mem-
bership. The recapitulation by districts is as follows :
RECAPITULA.TION BY DISTRICTS.
II
<» o
o a
•A
Mkmbkrship.
FlNANCI\L.
ill
0 "S ? s
05 i ^C5
oi -3
^ So
, 2
1
5
4
2
659. 1811,709
112,964 124,673 4,897
86,427 3,809
21, 484 34
85
94
a
B
5
a
317' .5 3,730
26, 726^ .30. 456 947
18,489
1,036
2, .395 84
84
45
3
6
5
0
360, 3: 4,289
26, 486; .30, 775i 945
19,926
1,050
1,553 65
123
46
4
5
5
1
310 d .5! .3,368
24,7461 28, 114 d 1,074
18,7.33
980
3,01 5 82
85
53
5
4
4
1
254|d 21 2,918
430 rf 4I 4,714
19,3631 22,281 d 255
13,304
788
1, 392 60
79
44
6
5
5
3
29,5591 .34,2731 d 5
23,211
1,437
2,058 93
113
97
7
4
4
0
330 d 8 3,066
23,511; 26,577
d 2,219
19,313 1,.328
3, 234 94
81
25
8
4
a
1
281 d 14 2,801
20, 784
23,585
d 146
14, 677: 265
621 07
67
25
y
5
4
a
275;d35 3,048
22, 091
25. 139
d 3,235
15,808 1,073
1, 885 08
77
56
10
6
8
a
238!d 2 2.4.55
17, 463
19,918
30
13, .305 754
1, 643 31
79
43
11
6
6
a
337
dl6! 3,582
22, 678
26, 260
d 2.064
17,705 790
1,803 68
100
37
la
5
3
3
331
7i 3,264
22, 701 25, 965
817
17,850 467
665 91
67
49
18
7
6
a
496
19 5,051
.34, 609| 39, 660
3,036
26,523| 1,580
1,844 99
101
79
14
4
a
1
189
6] 1,830
11,644 13,474
587
9,657
91
364 85
50
14
15
4
4
4
242
l9l 2,478
13, 678 16, 156
1,637
10,961
774
582 32
46
49
16
t>
5
0
295
5; 2,116
21,842| 23,958
d 502
16, 921
328
503 00
86
9
17
6
4
3
287
d 8 2,327
16,948 19,275
431
23, 628 468
695 84
781 54
18
5
3
1
230
5' 2, 152
13, .3411 15 493
d 264
10,624! 399
680 54
46! 7
19
4
3
1
108
7, 683
6, 1261 6, 809
1,189
5, 128 266
48 24
43i 14
20
5
5
3
169 d 17; 1,538
1
9,952 ll,490Vi 613
7, 888 501
102 41
44 25
Total
103
82
37
6,148
li 17
67, 119
497.212
564,331
4,139
380,077
19,003
46, 584 36
1,524
865
In concluding this report, I wish to express my thanks to the Exec-
utive Committee for their action in granting me an Assistant Secretary.
I have found Miss C. B. Reynolds an assistant indeed, and I do not
see how I could have carried on my work without her efficient aid.
She has done all the clerical work of the office, verified and tabulated
reports, and has written over 2,000 personal letters about the work
in our State. It may be truly said of her: "She is faithful in that
which is least, and faithful in that which is greatest,"
Finally, my brethren, I ask you to join with me in thanksgiving to
our gracious God, who, despite all our failures and shortcomings, has
crowned our work with His richest blessing and made the past year -'a
year of the right hand of the Most High." And I urge every worker
to renewed diligence in the Master's service, that the coming year may
be long remembered as a year of salvation to our scholars, and of glo-
rious advancement for the kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ.
In His service your fellow worker,
W. B. Jacobs, Statistical Secretary.
CO
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Illinois State Sunday School Convention. 6i
On motion of R. H. Griffith the Report was received, having been
amended by short verbal reports from the brethren representing sev-
eral counties.
Prof. Excell sang "The Half Has Never Been Told," the audience
joining in the choru?, and the next exercise of the program was taken
up.
WHAT THE TREASURER HAS FOUND.
treasurer's report. — E. D. DURHAM.
Brethren and Sisters: — "What the Treasurer has Found."
The Treasurer has found some noble brethren and sisters. He has
found some that were the spirit of promptness, and some who were
rather careless. But on the whole the Treasurer feels that he has had
to deal with a grand lot of people, and he is satisfied. In order to give
you the particulars I will read you my report:
E. D. Durham, Treasurer, in account zvith Illinois State S. S. Association.
JDr.
DiST.
1. Received from Cook County $i,ooo oo
" Dupage " 50 oo
" Grundy " ' 15 00
" Lake " 56 30
" Will " 5000 $1,171 30
2. " Boone " 25 00
De Kalb "
" Kane " 5000
" Kendall " 4000
" McHenry " 3000
" Winnebago " 100 00 245 co
3. " Carroll " 1000
" Jo Daviess " 25 00
" Lee " 30 00
Ogle " ,. .. 25 00
" Stephenson " 50 00
" Whiteside " 50 00 190 00
4. " Henry " 60 00
" Knox " 2500
" Mercer " 3.S 00
" Rock Island " 54 00
" Stark " 2000 19400
5. " Bureau "
" LaSalle " .... loo 00
" Marshall " 3000
" Putnam " 1500 14500
6. " Ford " 50 00
" Iroquois " 63 50
" Kankakee " 4''. 00
" Livingston " 100 00
McLean " 7500 333 5°
7. " Fulton " 5000
" Peoria " 50 00
" Tazewell " 35 00
'f Woodford " 3600 171 00
62 Illinois State Sunday School Convention.
County, $ 50 CX3
20 CX3
DiST.
8.
Received
from Hancock (
' Henderson
" McDonough
" Warren
9-
" Adams
♦ Brown
' Cass
Pike
Schuyler
10.
" Calhoun
" Greene
' Jersey
' Macoupin
" Morgan
Scott
II.
Christian
Logan
' Mason
Menard
Montgomery
' Sangamon
12.
De Witt
Macon
' Moultrie
Piatt
Shelby
'3-
' Champaign
Clark
Coles
' Cumberland
' Douglas
Edgar
" Vermillion
'4-
" Crawford
' Effingham
Fayette
' Jasper
'5-
Clay
' Lawrence
Marion
• Richland
16.
Bond
Clinton
Madison
Monroe
St. Clair
' Washington
•7-
Franklin
' Jackson
Jefferson
" Perry
" Randolph
" Williamson
.20
bal. 1SS3 A: 18S4 JO
2S.OO
30
acc't i8S3A: 1884, 20
■30
.»3
35
00
25
00
40
00
35
00
15
CX)
.so
CO
50
00
45 00
25 00
!;o 00
ai-c't i'8S3&Vs84"iS.25 ^^ ^^
30
60
00
00
10
00
25
00
7
00
9 43
50
00
55
15
00
00
43
00
15
75
00
00
35
50
00
00
10
00
50
00
25
00
2 5
00
15
00
130 CX)
190 00
120 00
35 00
15 00
40 00
15 00
30 00
50 00
185 00
35 00
50 00
25 00
40 00
40 00
190 00
100 00
25 00
248 25
42 00
129 43
21S 00
125 00
Illinois State Sunday School Convention. 63
DiST.
18. Received from Edwards County
" Hamilton "
" Wabash "
" Wayne "
" White " 6000 18600
19. " Gallatin
" Hardin
50
26
00
GO
2.S
GO
25
60
00
GO
31
GO
15
00
13
00
20
00
ID
00
15
7
GO
85
" Pope "
" Saline " 1300 59 00
20. " Alexander " ..
" Johnson "
" Massac "
" Pulaski "
" Union " 7 85 52 85
— Counties — Total
From Old ist District ^ 67
Additional Pledges at the Convention,
FROM counties.
Cook
Warren
Iroquois
Scott
Massac
Logan
Tazewell
Sangamon
Saline
Clay
Christian
Whiteside
Grundy
Montsfomerv
From Individuals and Sunday-schools.
Collection
25 00
25 00
10 GO
ID 00
10 00
IG GO
S OG
5 00
5 00
5 00
5 00
5 OG
5 00
c, 00
130
nn
175 86
68 26
244
12
Note. — Of these pledges 8185.00 remains uncollected at the date of print-
ing this Report.
Total 4,714 12
Cr.
Paid Expenses 276 Conventions $ '95 85
Lucy J. Rider, attending Conventions 559 9^
J. B. Stillson, " " 27963
VV. . Jacobs, " " 1.5GG 00
E. O. Excell, " " 80G 00
Carrie B. Reynolds, Ass. Sec'y 4°° 00
International S. S. Ass'n 50G 00
Chairman Executive Committee for Short Hand Clerk. . $ 62 35
Postage and Telegrams .5° ^3
Printing and Stationery 52 00
Printing and Blanks — Sec'y 7^ 4°
Postage and Telegrams — Sec'y and Treas ....••• ^3 77
164 68
140 17
Bnlance of Report 26th Convention I73 S3
4,714 12
64 Illinois State Sunday School Convention'.
The Auditing Committee reported that they had examined the
vouchers of the Treasurer and found that he held full receipts as per
his report.
Mr. B. F. Jacobs: I think, Mr. President and Brethren of the
Convention, that we ouf^ht to lift up our hearts in gratitude to God that
after such a time of business depression as we had last year, this
Convention is able to report that they have received, without anv
special efforts, $4,441.30. That is the best collection we have ever
made in the State of Illinois. Our deficit is only $272.82. Let us
now, the first thing, raise this little balance, so that we may start the
new year clear.
Subscriptions from counties and individuals were then taken, cover-
ing the amount of the deficiency.
The audience rose and sang, under the leadership of Prof. Excell,
"Lead Me Forth, Oh, Gentle Jesus."
On motion of W. B. Rundle, the Treasurer's Report was accepted
and approved, and the President called for the report of the committee
appointed to examine and make a report upon the Report of the Ex-
ecutive Committee.
Mr. C. H. Eames, Chairman, responded as follows:
Mr. President and Memhers of the Convention: — Your
committee to consider the Annual Report of the State Executive Com-
mittee, having duly examined the same, would respectfully submit the
following report:
I. — VVe are rejoiced at the report of the Executive Committee,
showing that during the past year, notwithstanding the State has been
intensely agitated by a great political campaign, and that much excite-
ment has continued through the winter in our State Legislature, a
decided advance has been made in the Sunday School work of ihe
State. And wc appeal to the workers in every county to make special
efforts to secure more and better work, that we may be enabled at the
next convention to report twenty banner districts and one hundred and
two banner counties, and, as nearly as possible, a convention held in
every township in the State.
2. — We approve the action taken by the Executive Committee
in conference with several of the District Presidents, in the meeting
held at Bloomington, October 18th, in which it was decided to engage
the whole time of our Statistical Secretary, Mr. W. B. Jacobs, and the
employment of Miss Carrie B. Reynolds as Assistant Secretary; also
the action taken with reference to the employment of Bro. Excell.
And we recommend that the new committee be instructed to make
such arrangements for the coming year as the amounts pledged by this
Convention and their own best judgment shall indicate.
3. — That as far as the means contributed will permit, we recommend
the new Executive Committee to employ additional workers to attend
conventions, or for special missionary work in such counties as the
Committee may decide. But your Committee hopes that the county
organizations will in no wise allow this action to supercede the pioper
use of all obtainable home talent in Sunday-school work.
Illinois State Sunday School Convention. 65
4. — That in view of the necessity that exists for increased study and
better methods of teaching, we urge the importance of Teachers'
Meetings and Normal Classes upon all schools throughout the State,
and suggest the value of union meetings and Institutes in every county
in the State, for a comparison of methods, and the results obtained.
5. — That in view of the opening of new fields for missionary effort,
and the great call for laborers in all parts of the vineyard, we urge
upon all the schools of the State the importance of systematic benevo-
lence and increased contributions to this important part of the work.
6. — That we rejoice in the completion of the work of Bible revision,
and pray that the blessing of God may rest upon the new version of
the Scriptures, and that it may be found more and more helpful to all
who study it.
7. — That we recommend that the sum of $6,000 be raised for
the State work during the coming year, and that the Executive Com-
mittee be instructed to ask counties that are not pledged for their fair
pro rata share of the whole sum in comparison with the amount pledged
by the counties in this Convention, and that they be authorized to
solicit such contributions for the furtherance of the work as in their
judgment shall be found necessary.
8. — In view of the removal by death of some, who in their lives
were devoted to the Sabbath School work, and the interests of this
Association, we recommend the appointment by this Convention of a
Special Committee of three, to prepare suitable resolutions in their
memory.
C. M. Eames, Chairman.
F, M. Sapp, B. Depenbrock,
Thos. Orton, A.J. McGlumphy.
It was moved and seconded that the report be adopted.
Mr. B. F. Jacobs: Brethren: — I do not believe there is a State
Convention in the land where such a report could have been made,
entirely carrying out in the spirit the desires of the old Executive
Committee, or where such a sum of money for Sunday School work
could have been asked for, without provoking discussion and without
consuming time in its consideration. I do not know how you all feel
about it, but I feel as if God himself was in our work, taking charge
of it and carrying it forward to his glory. There is nothing so won-
derful as to see the whole Church of Jesus Christ united upon the
questions that are before us, and to see a great body of men and
women — all thinking for themselves upon this work, who oftentimes
do not know all the details of it, and wonder about it — men who are
oftentimes poor and working for salaries insufficient — cheerfully con-
tributing. I feel just now and here as if we ought to lift up our hearts
to God in thanksgiving and prayer for the year to come.
After a very earnest prayer by Bro. B. F. Jacobs, the report
was put to vote and adopted.
The jDledges of the various counties for the coming year were then
taken, the amount pledged being as follows:
66
Illinois State Sunday School Convention.
PLEDGES AND ESTIMATES FOR 1885-6.
PLEDGES.
Cook County $
Dupage
Lake
Will
Boone
Kane
Kendall
McHenry
Winnebago
Stephenson
Lee
Whiteside
Carroll
Ogle
Henry
Knox
Mercer
Rock Island
Stark
Bureau
La Salle
Marshall
Putnam
Ford
Iroquois
Kankakee
Livingston
McLean
Fulton
Peoria
Tazewell
Woodford
Hancock
Warren
Adams
Brown
Pike
Schuyler
Greene
Morgan
Scott
000
00
50
00
75
GO
50
GO
2.S
GO
50
GO
40
OG
40
00
100
GG
50
OG
50
OG
100
OG
30
GO
50
GO
100
GO
25
OG
40
00
60
GO
25
GO
40
GO
100
00
.30
00
20
GO
50
GO
50
GO
45
GC
100
00
100
GO
50
GO
50
GO
30
00
30
00
SO
GO
35
OG
50
GG
35
OG
50
00
so
00
40
OG
30
00
ID
GO
Christian $30 00
Logan 50 00
Mason 20 go
Menard 25 go
Montgomery 40 oo
Sangamon 50 oo
DeWitt 40 GO
Moultrie 25 go
Piatt 30 00
Champaign ico go
Clarke 35 go
Coles 25 00
Cumberland 25 oo
Douglas 30 OG
Edgar 30 oo
Verm illion 40 00
Crawford i o oo
Fayette 25 00
Clay lo 00
Lawrence 30 00
Marion 50 00
Richland 40 00
Madison 75 oo
St. Clair 30 00
Jackson 50 00
Perry 45 00
Randolph 35 00
Edwards 25 oo
Hamilton 25 00
Wabash 25 oo
White 50 00
Wayne 25 00
Gallatin 25 oo
Pope 1 5 00
Saline
Alexander
Johnson
Pulaski
Massac
25
00
20
OG
10
00
2G
OG
15
00
Total 4,280 GO
ESTIMATES.
Grundy $15 00
DeKalb 1 5 00
Jo Davies 15 go
Henderson lo oo
McDonough 35 00
Macoupin 15 00
Macon 50 00
Shelby 40 oo
Effingham 10 00
Jasper 2000
Washington 50 00
Bond 3000 Total 43000
The President appointed Rev. William Tracy, T. Blanchard and B.
F.Jacobs a Committee on Resolutions.
The session was closed with prayer by T. M. Eckles, and the ben-
ediction.
Cass $1500
Calhoun
Jersey
Clinton ! ,
Monroe
Franklin
Jefferson
Williamson
Hardin
Union
10
GO
15
00
15
GO
10
00
10
GO
10
00
15
00
10
00
15
00
Illinois State Sunday School Convention. 67
Second Day— Afternoon Session.
A very fine audience filled the large hall, on the afternoon of Wed-
nesday, at the hour for opening, and joined heartily in the Responsive
Song Service with which the exercises were opened. "Revive Us
Again" was sung, and also, "Are You Washed in the Blood?"
President Benham: — The addresses this afternoon will, be upon
the subject of "Feeding," and Mrs. H. C. DeMotte will tell us about
"Preparing the Food for the Lambs of the Flock." It has been my
privilege to listen to a number of ladies on just that line of work, and
I have always gone away feeling that I had heard the very best
instruction. No doubt we shall all feel like this as we listen to Mrs.
DeMotte.
PREPARING THE FOOD.
MRS. H. C. DEMOTTE.
The ti'ite saying of Emerson, "The best secret of success, is suc-
cess," is undoubtedl}' true, and quite as evident is it that the key-note
to successful teaching, is through preparation.
However much may depend upon tact and natural ability, very
much more depends upon thorough preparation. First, a preparation
of one's self to become a proper vehicle for God's truth, and. Second,
a special preparation of every lesson to be taught. Valuable as book
knowledge is, it is by no means all that teachers need.
His preparation must be going on in the w^orld, as well as over his
books. The evei'y-day incidents of life, if rightly observed, will fur-
nish valuable aid in the way of illustration and application of truths to
be taught. With an open eye and a loving heart he will be able, by
observation, to learn much of the nature of childhood, its wants, ten-
dencies and dangers, and will be constantly treasuring up events and
incidents which may be brought to bear upon the lesson to be taught.
All we really know, is what we have put to practical test.
In this department we must appeal largely to that sense by which
children gain most of their knowledge of the world; that is, the sense
of sight. "I thought I'd never get Willie home," said a mother, as
she drew the little fellow inside the door, and closed it with evident re-
lief. "He had to stop and examine everything he saw," and Willie is
only a fair specimen of the average juvenile in his talent for sight-see-
ing, and desire for investigating.
Every one who has had any experience in teaching knows that when
the child lacks interest and attention to verbal explanation, he has only
to place before him an object that he can see and handle, to secure
closest attention and untiring interest. Therefore, in the preparation
of a lesson, the simplest objects and events should be carefully studied.
A hair drawn from the head may serve as a text for a sermon on the
ever watchfulness of our Father, for if he numbers the hairs of our
heads, will he not care for the wants of the body, and provide for the
safety of the soul? A glass of pure water held before the class, may
68 Illinois State Sunday School Conv^ention.
help impress [the lesson on the water of life, so freely .flowing for all.
Truths thus taught cannot fail to he lasting. But in this style of teach-
ing the greatest care must he taken that the object or illustration does
not make more impression on the mind of the child, than the truth to
he taught. A little girl returned home from vSunda\- School where
there had been erected a monument of blocks, each block representing
some important Scripture truth, and a dove on the top representing the
Holy Spirit. She was full of enthusiasm as she described the monu-
ment, and exclaimed, ''O, Mother, it was beautiful, and when they got
through they put a hen on the top." The little girl had evidently mis-
apprehended the whole design of the representation. She saw only the
object without comprehending a single idea of the great truths to be
taught.
The subject matter, and how to impart it, having been carefully pre-
pared, the teacher should come before her class in an unaffected man-
ner, so full of the importance of the truth she has to teach and so anx-
ious to effectively impress it upon the minds of the children, that "it
bubbles from the moutli, si)arkles from the eye and influences every
movement: when heart speaks to heart, there need be no uneasiness
as to one's manner."
Simplicity of language should be cultivated. Use as few words as
possible and adapt them to the age and capacity of the class. "I did not
like the teacher to-day," said a little fellow to his Mama, on return-
ing from Sunday-school. "She don't talk like the folks do in rooms."
A lady once told me she heard a gentleman begin his talk to a primary
class by saying, "In the economy of the Sovereign of the universe,
there is a remarkable tendancy to recognize the impressible nature of
the first phases of our existence." You will readily see that the
speaker was far from talking as they do in rooms, and might as well
have been using Greek or Latin. Too often our children are left to
guess at the meaning of words, and thus fail to derive benefit from the
lesson. A dear little one whose love for sweet-meats was not always
fully gratified by careful Mama, was heard to say she would be glad
when she was in heaven, for then she could have all the preserves she
wanted, and when questioned as to how she knew there were any pre-
serves in heaven, she replied, "Teacher taught us that in the cate-
chism it says, 'Why should tlie saints love God?' Because he makes,
preserves and keeps them." Such teaching is of course worse than
useless, and yet such instances are not uncommon. No one order of
exercises will ever work successfully in a primary class. Variety
must be devised and introduced. Encourage questioning; very few
(juestions or answers are ever made that cannot be turned to good ad-
vantage by a skillful teacher. Do not try to teach too much. Select
one central truth, and then endeavor to send home to the heart that
one idea.
The child is a bundle of restless nerve and muscle, and he will
move no matter what the rules may be; therefore arrange to have
change of position as part of the lesson, the class rising or sitting as
directed by the hand of the teacher. By a little eflfort songs conbin-
ing motion with the words and music may be easily taught, and are
always enjoyed by the little ones.
While much more might be said on this subject did time permit,
IlliI^ois State Sunday ScHool Convention; 6g
we will only add : Seek for best methods, not to adopt but to adapt.
Present your lesson with simplicity, without affectation in word or
manner. Be earnest, be full of the Holy Spirit. Dr. Worden, in a
talk upon Sunday-schools, said, "If yonder organ was so wondrously
made that no matter who played upon it, never so wisely, yet it would
forever retain the tone of the first player, the characteristic of his hand
and heart and mind, how anxious, how concerned would you be that
the first player should be holy, Christ-like, tuneful. There are
thousands, hundreds of thousands of such organs in the persons of lit-
tle children; he who touches them first leaves his tone, his character,
his knowledge or ignorance of Christ."
It is a great thing to be a sculptor, and to chisel marble into beauti-
ful shapes and forms, but it is far greater to mold in the clay of a
child's character, and if, by the careful, prayerful touch of a teacher's
influence, the child is conformed to the image of God's Son, what
greater reward can we desire?
The audience sang "Oh, Could I Speak the Matchless Worth," and
the President introduced Miss Rider, who spoke as follows:
TRAINING THE HELPERS.
LUCY I. RIDER.
Allow me to treat of my subject under two topics; first, "The
Necessity of Training," and, second, "Some Methods of Training." It
would seem that after all these years of talk, we must all be convinced
of the necessity of training. It has been referred to so many times by
so many speakers that I take it as granted that we are convinced,
as no doubt we are, theoretically. But, mav I ask how it is that if we
are actually persuaded of the necessity of having trained workers in our
Sunda3^-schools there is so little training done? T am told that the num-
ber of teachers' meetings in this State is decreasing; that there are not
so many teachers' meetings held to-day in Chicago as there were ten
years ago, although there are many more Sunday-schools. Must we
confess to a want of harmony between theory and practice? Are we
practically convinced of the necessity of training? I am told that the
probable reason for the decrease of teachers' meetings is that helps have
been so multiplied and so perfected that the teachers feel no need of spe-
cial drill. To draw a parallel between the teachers in a Sunday School
a'nd the members of an army, it seems to me it would be just as reason-
able for a private in an army to take the printed book containing
thorough drill instructions — better than any drill-master could give- —
and imagine that he and his comrades by studying that book could learn
to march in unison, and handle their arms, and perform their various
other duties as a well-trained army should, as it would be for teachers
to imagine that they can do their work, and do it well, without special
drill in Teachers' Meetings and Normal Classes. Will you allow me
to ask how many of you are in teachers' meetings and Normal classes
— that is, how many regularly attend them? Will you please raise
your hands? Very good; a little more than one-tenth. But remem-
ber, we are the teachers in Illinois specially interested in Sunday School
yo Illinois State Sunday School Conven^tion.
work. I doubt whether the custom of the teachers all over the State can
be judged from this expression. How many of you are regularly in
any kind of a Normal class — or how many of you were last winter,
since winter is the better time for Normal class work ? (About ten dele-
gates responded.) Not so numerous. Well, now, do we not after all
need to be convinced of the necessity of teachers' meetings? I have
tried from the statistics which I could get, to estimate how many of the
teachers in this State are in teachers' meetings, and I believe I have
made a liberal estimate when I say, one in twenty. There is a teach-
ers' meeting for only one in ten of all our schools. Teachers' meetings
will live if two conditions only are met. First, that they are not turned out
doors as to the matter of time — that there is a time found for them during
the week. If you throw your baby out-doors in the winter it will freeze
to death. So if you find in your churches, room for the choir meeting,
room for the lecture, room for the social, room for everything and any-
thing but the teachers' meeting all the evenings in the week, the teachers'
meeting will die a natural death. The second condition is that there be
a good leader. It is not worth while to keep sending invitations to peo-
ple to come to dinner if you give them nothing to eat. If there is a good
table set at these meetings, people will go as naturally as we go to the
table when we are hungry. If there is material furnislied there which is
not furnished elsewhere, and which is necessary in order that all may
move in unity along one line, to secure one result, the teachers will attend
the meeting, and that in spite of bad roads, and mud and snow-storms.
We hear about all kinds of conventions — conventions of bill-posters and
pork-packers, of newspaper men and Methodist local preachers — and it
has occurred to me that it would be a grand thing to have in Illinois a
Convention of Sunday School Superintendents, or of leaders of teach-
ers' meetings — a week's convention of solid drill and comparison of
methods as to the work of teachers' meetings.
There is an inertia about people which keeps them from trynig
new suggestions. I suppose there is no one here but will hear some
suggestion that is new and that the judgment instinctively approves.
I wonder how many of us will go away and try these suggestions that
strike us so favorably. We hear about the black-board as a help. I
wonder in how many teachers' meetings the black-board is used? I
have the greatest respect for the black-board. I hardly feel at home
unless I have a black-board behind me and a piece of chalk in my
hand. I wonder how many of you are in the habit of seeing the
black-board used in your teachers' meeting? (A few hands were
raised.) There is a noticeable decrease of hands; I think there cannot
be over forty. I have been, for the past six months, teaching two or
three lessons a day every day except Saturday, and I have scarcely
given a lesson without the black-board. I have drawn very few pic-
tures, and the ones I have drawn I would be afraid to reproduce,
although I know you are very charitable. I have not had little child-
ren to instruct, but young ladies and gentlemen, and I have constantly
used the black-board for analysis and plan, and comparison, and I
believe it is the great exception when the black-board can well be
spared in the teachers' meeting. I want to give you two reasons why
an analysis, well worked out in the mind of the teacher as she goes
to her class, is of so much value; First, the different points of the
Illinois State Sunday School Convention. 71
analysis form Centers, around which questions can be gathered, thus
preventing the re-reading of the lesson and saving time; Second, it
enables the teacher to teach with a plan, and so manage her work.
"The house is not all cellar," as some one says. Many a lesson has
been in the condition that a house would be, if left when the cellar
was dug, for lack of time to finish it. Let me give you an analysis
that was given by one of the young ladies in Mr. Moody's school con-
cerning Paul the day after he was mobbed in Jerusalem. You re-
member the selection — Acts xxiii. i-ii. This analysis is not perfect;
I give it to you as the work of a young lady about seventeen or eigh-
teen years of age, who has had but very little experience. I had been
giving them, just before, a talk about the value of a similarity of form
in the heads of the analysis, and also, the value of alliteration, when
it is not carried too far. And this was the way she carried out my
suggestions:
PAUL'S PLAINNESS.
PAUL'S POLICY.
PAUL'S PROMISER.
Notice how the first word is in the possessive case every time, and
how the P's recur. Carried too far, perhaps, but she was in drill, and
I give it to you to show you what one can, with some little effort, do.
Here we have three heads around which to group our questions. If
we try to ask questions without a plan — without previously having
thought them out, we shall wander off and get on to some side-track,
but if we have our plan right before us we can group our questions
around these points, and be much less liable to wander off and get lost.
I think these topics are something like the threads that are dropped
into a saturated solution of sugar. Do you know how to make rock
candy? Saturate water with sugar and then drop in a thread, and
around this thread the candy crystalizes. All those P's on the black-
board are artificial, and so are these threads, but the sweetness gathers
around them. You can pick it up and carry it off, you can remember
it better, it will taste better The mind will grasp the sweetness of
the lesson and carry it away and retain it better if it is grouped around
divisions like that. You can carry a crystal better than a quart of
sweetened water, and it is sweeter too. I use the black-board more for
analysis and plans, than for anything else.
I wish to refer to another subject, and that is a Normal Bible De-
partment in connection with our denominational schools. Nothing of
this kind can be done in our State schools where religion is studiously
excluded; but we presume that many of the young people we are in-
terested in will attend a term, or a year, or five years, in one of our
denominational institutes or colleges. I cannot see why as long as we
have a special Normal department in these schools for secular teach-
ers, we should not have a special Bible Normal department in which
methods of training will be given to our youug people for the relig-
ious work that will surely come to them. You will remember that
some years ago in one of our Conventions, I spoke in reference to a
Bible Normal Training School. I can imagine how, if you re-
72 Illinois State Sunday School Convention.
member it at all, you may have thought that it was a fanciful notion of
my own. But this idea is not a fanciful one. It has actually been put to
the test. In Mr. Moody's schools, where I have been privileged to teach
for the past six months, besides the regular work in the Bible, which cov-
ers the whole ground of Bible history in four years, there is a voluntary
Normal Bible Class, and out of the two or three hundred students in the
two schools about one-third joined that class last January. It met twice a
week and the work required was not light. But the eagerness with
which the students took hold of it, considering the imperfect teaching,
for it was my first in that direction, was something most gratifying
and most surprising. Just that little experiment has settled the ques-
tion forever about a Christian training department in those two schools.
I can imagine how some persons might say: "But we certainly have
no room for such a department in our school." That was what thev
said at Northfield, but Mr. Moody, in a general way, told us what
he desired, and one earnest man, a business man by the way, Mr.
Marshall, the Treasurer, simply said: "We will make room for it,"
and we did. Thank God for one business man who uses his great in-
fluence to make room for Bible study! That's all we need. Where
there is a demand there will soon be a supply. And Miss Hall, our
Principal, in fullest sympathy with the work, said: "If any of these
young ladies will take this course instead of Astronomy, it shall count
the same." Now, I believe in Astronomy, but I believe in the Bible
too, and if one must be crowded out, let it be the former. Better miss
knowing just where all the stars in the heavens are — stars that may go
out into nothingness by and by — than to miss setting a new star in a
new Heaven where it will sparkle and shine eternally. So we made
room for it in Northfield, and I don't see why there should not be
room made for it in every denominational school in Illinois. We
studied not only the making of Analyses and arranging Bible Readings,
but how to manage Children's Meetings — not merelv theoretical, but
practical work. We had a Children's Meeting conducted by the
young ladies, and all the teacher did was to sit there and encourage
and direct them a little, and criticise them when they had finished.
And we had studies on the Books of the Bible, and studies on Bible
Characters, and Bible Geography and Topography. Let me show
you on this black-board now, an outline of a J^ible Study, which a
young missionary student from Turkey made. I give it exactly as
she wrote it. She was not allowed to use any book in her prepara-
tion except the Bible and a Concordance. She was given the simple
subject: "At the Feet of Jesus," and this is the way she treated it:
I. — Pleading at the feet of "Jesus.
1. To forgive sins.
2. To raise the dead.
3. To cast out evil spirits.
4. To heal the sick.
Of course when I criticised the lesson I told her that she had not ar-
ranged her sub-divisions so as to produce a climax. Moreover she
ought to have given a Bible reference for each one of them. Her
second head was:
W.—Leartting at the feet of Jesus.
And she gave Mary for an example. — Luke x. 39,
Illinois State Sunday School Convention. 73
[II. — Resting at the feet of yesus.
She had never heard anything of the kind given, and she had noth-
ing but the simple subject. She gave under this head the example of
the man from whom the devils were cast out: — Matt. 5: 15.
IV. — Coffiforted at the feet of Jesus. — Rev. i. 17.
This is, you see, the instance of John falling at the feet of Jesus as if
dead till Jesus put his hand on his head and said "Fear not."
We also taught the names of the Books of the Bible. Perhaps you
think that a childish thing. But how many of you can begin at the
beginning and go through all the Books of the Bible without any mis-
takes? Please raise your hands. Only thirty or forty ! Now I never
ask children, "How many of you will promise to do a thing?" for
children forget so easily. But I ask them if they will try to remem-
ber to do it. So let me ask you, "How many of you will 'try within
the next week to learn these Books of the Bible? (Many hands
raised.) At Northfield we also learned the dates of the Books of the
Bible — the time when they were written. How many of you know
which was written first, Job or Jeremiah? Raise your hands. I know
it is not quite fair to take you all like this? You all know, of course,
but "you can't quite think" on such short notice. Then we had some
work on Bible Geography, following in some measure the work
which is outlined by Dr. Vincent in his "Normal Course," the one fol-
lo\ved at Chatauqua. We wei^e especially interested in Asia Minor
and the countries around the Mediterranean, tracing Paul's voyage to
Cyprus and Crete and Melita, and quite to Rome. Then we learned
something of the time when the prophets wrote and the circumstances
under which they wrote. I like to think of Joel and Jonah as the first
of the prophets ; especially Joel, because in the second chapter occurs that
magnificent description of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, which a
few verses before had been symbolized by the outpouring of rain from
Heaven. And I like to group together the three writers of the cap-
tivity, Daniel, Ezekiel and Jeremiah, You remember how Jeremisih
was let down into a pit, because he prophesied of the Captivit}', and
drawn up by ropes under his arms; and you remember Daniel in the
strange city of Babylon; and Ezekiel's vision — the vision that he saw
by the river Chebar, of a magnificent temple, far grander and more
glorious than any ever built on earth. And then I like to remember
that Haggai and Zechariah lived \vhen the second Temple was being
built, and how they encouraged the builders, and when the old men
wept and mourned because of the lack of splendor of this temple, com-
pared with Solomon's, Haggai comforted them by telling them of the
glory that should come to this temple, which saw Jesus Christ in the
flesh. I like that little Book of Obadlah, prophesying the destruct-
ti.on and desolation of Idumea. I feel as if I were acquainted with
Obadiah in a different way than as if I did not understand when and
why he wrote. It would do us good to have some kind of an intro-
duction to these men, so we should feel a little better acquainted with
them. Then we had a study on the Book of Exodus. Exodus takes
up the history of Israel the first year of its existence as a nation. On
this we made the following Analysis. I will put it on the board.
Mrs. Stacy, of Iowa, gave me some of these points. You will see
that the Analysis is based on the location of the moving company:
74 Illinois State Sunday School CoNvteNfiON.
I. — Israel in Egypt.
I. Growing.
3. Oppressed.
3. Aventred.
4. Delivered.
II. — Israel on the March.
1. Gathered.
2. Saved — crossing the Red Sea.
3. Rejoicing — on the other side.
4. Murmuring — instead of praying because their water
happened to be a little bitter.
5. Fed — with water and bread.
6. Providing — in war.
7. Organized,
III. — Israel at Sinai.
I. Receiving.
What was the first thing Israel received at Sinai?
A Delegate — The Law.
Miss Rider — That is what 1 used to think, but before they received
the Law they were offered a covenant. God did not set the law down
on unwilling shoulders. "If ye will obey m}' voice indeed and keep
my covenant, then ye shall be a peculiar treasure unto me above all
people." It was not until that covenant was entered into, and they
were a willing people, that they received the law.
1. Receiving the law.
2. Backsliding— when Moses was gone too long on the
Mount and they made the Golden Calf.
I don't know what word to use for this unless I take the old fash-
ioned Methodist term — which unfortunately is not confined to the
Methodist church — backsliding.
3. Punished.
4. Revived.
How do we know they were revived? Because of the benevolence
we find in them. Because they built the ark. Because of the man-
ner that poor people contributed to build that tabernacle in order that
God might dwell among them.
6. Building the Tabernacle.
And I would like to mention here the thought, that some one
has noticed: As soon as the talu'inacle was built, God came in. This is
off on a tangent from my subject I know, but sometimes the tangent is so
exceedingly attractive that we cannot stay on the circle. You remem-
ber that not only this tent which God's people made for him to dwell
in, was immediately occupied by the Spirit of God as quick as it was
ready, but also the Temple, five hundred years later. As quick as it
was ready, tiie very priests were driven out by the glory of God that
came upon it. And then a thousand years later still, the other tem-
ples of the Holy Ghost after having waited ten days were, as quick as
they were ready, filled by the Spirit of God, manifesting itself by
the tongues of Are which lit on their heads, and were the last sym-
bols appearing in Bible history, so far as I know, marking the pres-
ence of Almighty God. The temple ritual was gone, because from
that moment was orsfanized the historical Christian Church. From
IxxiNois State Sunday School Convention. 75
that time forward Christ's people are the temple of the Holy Ghost.
I will only give you this as suggestive, and in outline. But if any of
you are puzzled as to what to study, I think you will be blessed in
taking up the Book of Exodus, or in taking up the character of Moses,
or Pharaoh. I don't know when I have been more blessed than when
I took up Pharaoh's character. I like to think of the kindness and
mercy of God in proclaiming his name to Pharaoh. I like to study
his character; how God came to him, and how he, true to human
nature, was defiant. "Who is this Jehovah that I should let the peo-
ple go?" And afterwards, a little broken in spirit, he says, "I will,"
but did not intend to do it at all. And afterwards how the plagues
came thicker and faster — but first God gave him signs; the plagues
did not fall without warning; how finally he was actually brought to his
knees, saying, "Sacrifice to }'Our God in the Land^'' — ^where he could
still keep his hand on them, you see. And then follows a wonderful
development of human nature. Old Jonathan Edwards pointed it out
first. "No," said Moses, "We must go away as Jehovah directed."
Then Pharaoh said, "Go, ye that are men. Leave your little ones be-
hind." He knew they'd come back fast enough, if their children
stayed behind. And next it was "Go, as you say, but leave your flocks
and herds behind." He didn't want their property consecrated — the
devil's last hold. But Moses said, "There must not a hoof be left be-
hind," and there was not a hoof left behind.
But I must not be tempted to dwell any longer on this. One of the
very last lessons we had before I came away was on Old Testament
types and symbols. We could not do much in this, but accomplished
something. The class thought of as many characters as they could in
Old Testament histoi'y who were types of Christ, and the teacher wrote
their names on the board. We tried to be very careful, limiting our-
selves somewhat to the characters spoken of inthe New Testament,
and I was astonished at the work some of those young ladies did. I
was astonished when time and time again those pupils surpassed
their teacher in analyzing and grasping points in the lesson.
But I must not linger on the work done at Northfield. It was in-
tensely interesting to me; first, because of what it was, and second be-
cause of the possibilities of work with the pupils of our schools, which
it demonstrated. Why should not such a Department as this for
Bible Normal Training be established in a hundred schools over all
our land? Surely this one earnest experiment proves that it ca« be
done, and now for the determined hearts to push the movement.
The time is ready for it — the fields are white — "Pray ye therefore the
Lord of the harvest that He would send forth laborers into His har-
vest."
The audience sang "Sailing o'er the Sea," and the President intro-
duced Mr. Leavitt, who spoke as follows, under the general head or
"How to feed the sheep."
76 Illinois State Sunday School Convention.
THE SHEPHERD'S PREPARATION.
RF.V. J. A. LEAVITT.
The shepherd's preparation consists of certain duties. The first duty
of the shepherd is to herd the sheep. Every shepherd should have a
fold, and it seems to me that no teacher is fully prepared to teach until
he has identified himself with some church, so that when converts mul-
tiply he can endeavor to gather them in. VVe have all heard of that
boy that taught his father a lesson. He was converted, but his father
thought he was too young to unite with the church, so the boy symbo-
lized his father's ideas by leaving one of his choice lambs out in the
cold until it should evince strength enough to live by itself. Now, it
is quite possible that, through the shepherds' neglect, there are lambs
not yet recognized, not yet gathered in, still out in the cold. It should
be our business to gather them in, as much as it is to keep the wolves
out. The second duty of the shepherd is to feed the sheep; therefore
he needs to prepare food for them. The farmers at this time of the
year are watching their meadows, to see them flourish. They are
sowing their seed, they are planting their corn, in order to provide food
in coming days for their cattle. In like manner we shepherds should
be busily sowing the seed, ready for reaping, that we may have the:
food lor the sheep. Our heads and our hearts are our barns. The time
is past when the teacher can, with impunity, go before his class without
having given careful attention to the lesson. \Ve remember a king who,
in the days of famine, went oft' in search of springs of water and green
pastures. Every shepherd should have knowledge of the green pas-
tures in which his sheep can lie, the still waters beside which they can
be refreshed, and the shadow of the rock in the weary land where they
can find rest from the noon-tide heat.
There is this peculiarity about our feeding of the sheep: We must
first feed ourselves. The farmer may feed his cattle while he is still
hungry, but if we are going to feed the sheep, we must first feed our-
selves; we must take the food; we must digest and assimilate it; it
must become part of our bone and our flesh. Not till then are we pre-
pared to feed the sheep. Until that time the food may be in our barn,
but it is like the crude flour in the barrel, and not like the fine loaf on
the table. Until then, while there may be bread enough and to spare
in our Father's house, both shepherd and sheep will perish with hun-
ger. There is a sense in which every teacher is a pastor, and there is
a sense in which every pastor is a pasture. The third duty of the shep-
herd is to defend the flock. Every flock to-day has a strong lion and
a cunning bear seeking to devour it, just as truly as David's; and happy
the flock that has but one, and happy the shepherd that is ready to de-
fend his flock. When the Great Shepherd went into the wilderness,
that roaring lion w^io goes about seeking whom he may devour,
confronted Him, and it became evident that the spiritual Shepherd has
a weapon far better than that wielded by David. If we would defend
our flocks we must thrust, as did Christ, with the sword of the Spirit.
Our lions, I am sorry for it, are not like the lions that Christian met in
the w^ay — chained. We need to be on the alert to defend our flocks.
Illinois State Sunday School Convention. 77
The fourth duty of the shepherd is to shear the sheep. I have no
expectation that any of you will deny this. It is self-evident. That is
largely what the sheep are for — to be sheared. (Laughter.) We have
some sheep that have not been sheared, and, as a rule, they are not very
good for the Church or the Sunday School to have. There is this
about it: The sheep may not think so, but it really adds to their com-
fort to be sheared. (Laughter.) Once in a while the shepherd may
clip a little too close, but that will heal over; nature is benevolent. And
we have various kinds of shears, so that no shepberd need be unpre-
pared. Some of our shepherds — not like Bro. Jacobs — are very much
afraid to exercise these weapons. Here ai'e the Sunda}' School shears —
he showed us how to use them; and then there are the church shears —
very good shears, ought to be used on some sheejD oftener than they
are ; and then there are the missionary shears, and various miscellaneous
shears. We do not always know when to look for these miscellaneous
shears. You ladies know how it is with your flowers; if you wish
them to blossom more and more vou pluck them; and it is a good deal
the same way with the sheep, if we want them to produce fleece after
fleece, we must shear them.
The fifth duty of the shepherd is to lead the flock. It is not every
one that can do this. Anybody can go behind the sheep, and holloa
and shout and beat the sheep, but not everybody can lead them. One
of the poets tells this story: A yeoman is trying to drive a flock of
sheep, and he goes behind them and waves his hands and shouts and
holloas, and beats, now one sheep and now another, to get them through
a certain gate. He kept it up, but every now and then a sheep would
break out on the right and all the rest would follow, and then they
would break out on the left, and he could not get them through the
gate. Just then a gentleman came along in his carnage, and seeing
the yeoman's predicament says to him, "My man, why don't you con-
ciliate them?" That was a new word to the man, and he began to
think, "conciliate? conciliate?" Just then a bright idea struck him,
and he thoug-ht he had got it, thought he knew what it meant, and he
jumper! into the flock and grabbed a good sized lamb and threw it
through the gate, and said, "I'll conciliate him!" Anyone can concili-
ate the sheep in that way, but that is not what is required. We are to
lead the sheep. "A stranger will they not follow, for they do not
know his voice." Anyone who has visited the Eastern countries has
seen the flocks all mixed together, and then its shepherds going in and
calling each sheep by name, and everyone following its own shepherd,
and no mistakes because they know^ the shepherd's voice. If we would
lead the sheep, we must have great hearts of love, so that we shall be
like the good and great Shepherd, and when one of the hundred
wanders away, we will be willing to leave the ninety and nine, and go
up the rough and rugged mountain, and, if need be, down into the
deep valley, and through the dark and cold rivers, to find the wander-
ing one; and when we have found him to put him on our shoulders
and bring him back, as someone has said, "Not to the fold, where some
of the sheep will point to him and say, 'See that dirty fleece — see how
you have torn your fleece,' but to his own home to manifest his love."
VVe want the shepherds great heart of love, so that we will carry the
lambs in our bosom; so that we will not be hirelings, but willing, if oc-
casion requires, to lay down our lives for the sheep. (Applause.)
78 Illinois State Sunday School Convention.
The Vice-President, Mr. T. M. Eckley, now took the chair, and in
a few pleasant words introduced to the Convention Mr. Benham, the
President, who spoke as follows: —
SCHOOL AND CLASS WORK.
JOHN BENHAM, ESQ.
The verv fact that no name is down on the program for this topic
is sufficient evidence of my truthfulness in stating that I was not ex-
pected to speak upon it, but I hope you will bear with me. First, in
reference to school and class work, of course it is understood in this
assembly that no one holding the position of Superintendent, or any
other office in the Sunday School, should be anything but a Christian,
filled with the love of the Lord Jesus Christ; hence you will pardon
me for not refering to that point again. I think the Superintendent
should be a man of promptness. Our Sunday School commences at
half past two o'clock in the afternoon. We judge it to be the duty
of the Superintendent of that school to be there at two o'clock, and he
is there at two o'clock. If you don't believe it just drop into Christ
Church Sunday School at any time at five minutes after two, and if
you don't find me there it is because I am sick in bed. I believe it is
the dutv of every Superintendent to be in his school half an hour before
the session. The children like a word from the Superintendent. They
like to know that he knows them and has a personal interest in them.
We give a little card to those who come early — not a prize, but a cer-
tificate that they are early. The little peojole want those cards, and
they treasure them up. We have a different one for each Sunday, so
that they can get a series of them, and those that have a complete
series may find that we have something else that they would like. The
Superintendent needs officers that will be there at two o'clock. He
does not need an Associate Superintendent or Secretary that comes at
half past two o'clock. He has not the least use for a Librarian that
comes at half past two o'clock. They are worthless trash. If you
have not officers that will come early it is because they have not the
least idea of the responsibilities or the privileges of their . positions.
You need an Associate Superintendent and a Secretary and a Librarian
who have in mind the fact that their duties are just as important, just
as necessary for the good of the school as are the duties of the Super-
intendent. I believe in having a lady for Secretary. I would have
two Secretaries. We have a gentlemen, who is always there, always
on time Sundays; and we have a lady, who is always there, always on
time Sundays and Mondays and Tuesdays and so on during the week.
The result is that she does a great deal during the week that cannot be
done, and ought not to be done, on Sunday. She does more or less
visiting and letter-writing and other work which aids us very much.
It is a good thing to have just the right kind of a lady for Secretary,
and if I could have it as I wished in every school, I would have a lady
who should be paid for her services, and she should devote her whole
time to the school. She should act as Secretary on the Sabbath, and
during the week, make visits and attend to various other duties, and on
at least three days in the week, at the close of the day school, she should
Illinois State Sunday School Convention. 79
be found in the library of the Sunday School. I would not have a
book handled during the Sunday session. I believe it is all wrong.
(Applause.) I want to say a word or two about the consecration of
evei-y officer. I know we sometimes think, "There is a young man;
he is not a Christian; he does not go to Sunday School; now, suppose
we ask him to take care of the library, and in that way get him in."
I think there vi^ould be just as much reason in taking some young man
and putting him in as Professor of a Seminary, saying, "That young
man doesn't go to school; he ought to go to school; we will put him
in as Professor of Greek; he doesn't know anything about Greek, but
we vi^ant to get him to go to school." (^Laughter.) It is all wrong to
put in young men to do the work of these officers, with the idea that
you are going to bring them into the fellowship of grace. The place
for these young men is in infant classes. You need in your officers
the best consecration you can get. For the library you want officers
so constituted that they will stop and consider, and not give a book cal-
culated for an eighty-year-old person to a child six years of age.
When you have a Secretary filled with the spirit of Christ, filled with
the idea that his or her work is just as much a work laid upon him by
God, as is that of the pastor, he will be earnest, and will do more good
for the Sunday School than any Superintendent is capable of doing.
Now, a word as to the Superintendent. The bell — I use it a little, but
r believe it would be a great deal better not to use it at all, than to use
it as much as some do. In our school we think a great deal of sing-
ing. I feel as Bro. Excell does, when he objects decidedly to sing-
ing when papers are being passed through the room, or when there is
whispering. ^Singing is praising God, and it is no more the thing to
carry on these other matters during the singing, than it would be
while we were lifting up our hearts in supplication to God in prayer.
So far as possible, songs should be chosen that bear directly on the les-
son. If you have a good book, you can generally find something that
will bear directly on the lesson for the tlay. I believe in breaking the
routine of the service; it should not be opened every Sabbath the same
way. It is a surprise-party for our school sometimes, when they come
in a little late, and find that the lesson has been read. Don't have it
always running along just like a clock. I believe in changing the
services, and I do it freqilentl}-. As to collections, our school used to
be one of those schools that did not give largely to benevolent or mis-
sionai-y work, for the reason that our church used to think that the
Sunday School ought to run itself. But the last year or two they
have been convinced, by evidence that has been furnished them, that,
as an investment, the vSunday School was a first class thing. We
showed them how children came to the school, and pretty soon the
fathers and mothers came, and some of the best members of our church
were brought in, in that way. One of our first vestrymen was brought
in, in that way. As a financial investment it pays the church over
and over every year. Since then, they have appropriated one thousand
dollars a year, $88.33 every month, to be paid to the Sunday School
Treasurer to run the Sunday School, and we give every dollar of our
Sunday School collections to some benevolent purpose. We used to
always have Christmas-trees, but four years ago, I think, we brought
it before the children, telling them how it was more blessed to give
8o Illinois State Sunday vSchool Convention,
than to receive, and we let the children vote what they would do, and
they voted to give awav all their money. We gave them no presents.
We had a little Christmas-tree, but no presents. We gave away that
vear $SOO, and last year $i,50fj. For two years in succession we have
sent out from sixty to seventy Christmas-dinners, made up of a turkey
and everything else to make a full diiuier. We had found out in ad-
vance the poor families, and on Christmas day those baskets were dis-
tributed among those families. Some of them were so poor that we
had to send the coal along to cook the dinner. And 1 believe the
children have never enjoyed anything so much as that. Now we have
modified it a little, and put our money into a fuel and medicine fund,
to give out to those who, from time to time, are needy. We find it is
a great thing to have a store on hand. Whien a poor woman is suffer-
ing for coal, it is a good thing to have the coal all ready. Now, a
word about the teachers. I am a teacher, or was imtil about
three years ago. I have been Superintendent for four or five vears.
When I was elected it was as a sort of substitute to fill a vacancy, and
I had on mv hands a class of young ladies. I felt I could not give
them up just then, and somehow it ran along like that, and the
young ladies that have not married have become Christians, (laughter)
and have connected themselves with our church, or some other church,
and now are teaching themselves, and my class is gone. So, although
[ am out of that work, I speak from the stand-point of a teacher. I
believe that the teacher should set the same personal example in these
matters of promptness, and so forth, as the Superintendent. The class
whose teacher is always ten or fifteen minutes ahead of time, is always
full, and always has some member coming to talk apout some special
work, some little deed of kindness, some poor family, or sick child, or
something of that kind that the class will become interested in taking
hold of. We have a few classes of that kind, and throughout Illinois
we might have a great many such classes. It is a grand lesson that
can be taught before the regular session of the school, about this ques-
tion of beneficence. It is a good thing for teachers themselves to set a
good example of silence. When the time comes for quiet, it should be
absolute. Whenever the person at the desk is entitled to ask attention,
it should be given by every person in the room. The teachers should
join in the singing; every voice should be heard. You cannot expect
your children to sing unless you sing. I believe in earnest prayer. In
our school we kneel. Of course that is a matter of taste, but if it is the
custom of the church to kneel, everybody should kneel — teacher or
visitor. Superintendent and Pastor, or whoever is there. A word about
the lessons: Little children should certainly memorize the lesson; I
mean children in the intermediate department, and there should be
no class in the Sunday School where verses are not memorized,
except the bible classes, and / would have it done there if pos-
sible. There is a class in New York State, of which the Rev.
Thomas K. Beecher is Superintendent. They have a Bible class at
which every teacher is expected to be present. They memorize the
lesson and recite it to each other. In that school every scholar is ex-
pected to memorize the entire lesson. The result is that that school is
better up in knowledge of the Bible than any other school I have ever
visited. I have been in John Wannamaker's, in Philadelphia, in some
Illinois State Sunday School Convention. Si
of the best Sunday Schools on the other side of the water, (although
they do not compare with ours here) but there is no place that I know
of where the Bible is so thoroughly bedded in the hearts of the child-
ren, as in that school. Notice, I do not detract from the great value of
getting the spiritaulized, crystallized truth, but years afterwai'ds the very
words of the Book will come back. They will never be forgotten if
learned while young. I believe in bringing out all these spiritual
truths, but I believe thoroughly in memorizing lessons. In our school
we endeavor to have either the Pastor or the Superintendent — usually
the Pastor, because our Pastor is one of those men that is always there
when he can be — at the close, give a ten minutes summary of the les-
son, or impress some specially prominent point. We make that a rule
in order that the children may go away with some special truth from
the lesson, the last thing in their minds. One officer of the school, I
omitted — the Pastor. He should be an officer of the Sunday School.
In our school he is the General Superintendent. He does not exercise
any of the functions of Superintendent in the way of an executive offi-
cer, but the Pastor and Superintendent walk hand-in-hand; and for
these last twenty years everything of interest to that school, those two
gentlemen have discussed together. Not a week passes that we have
less than five or six conferences, and I do not believe we ever meet
without having something to say about that Sunday School; and so it
should be in every Sunday School in Illinois. The Pastor and the
Superintendent should go hand-in-hand. (Applause.) They should
be intimate personally. I think the dearest earthly friend I have, out-
side of my own immediate family, is the Pastor of our church. (Ap-
plause.)
Mr. B. F. Jacobs. — Brethren, you must have some questions you
would like to ask right on this topic. If so, I will try to answer them.
A Delegate. — If I understand Bro. Benham rightly, he would have a
Superintendent in school always half an hour before the session begins.
Suppose we have a school that begins at 10.15, and that school is four
miles and a half east; the teacher gets home at half past one, and the
same afternoon he has another school at half past three, four miles west.
Which would be the best, to be there to begin on time, or to give up
one of the schools?
Mr. Jacobs. — Take a faster horse. (Laughter and applause.)
A Delegate, — Supposing the Superintendent has n't the material, the
officers and teachers, to help him.
Mr. Jacobs. — I would seek until I found. The minute a boy came
into that school I would say to him, "It is just four years, or eight years,
or ten years before you will be the Superintendent of this school." I
would take the contract to make Superintendents and officei's for that
school. I would raise them. (Applause.)
A Delegate. — Supposing the school is too poor, and could not give
$1,000 a year, as Mr. Benham's did, w^hat would you do?
Mr. Jacobs. — I would raise the money — plant somewhere. And
then I would go around where there was some chaff and straw, and
thresh it out. (Applause.) There are a great many ways of raising
money — more than one. It is a mistake to suppose that God lacks for
funds. There is a key to every man's heart, there is a way to every
man's purse; we want to find that way, and God will show us the way.
6
82 Illinois State Sunday School Convention.
A Delegate. — In general, who should take the lead at the teachers'
meeting?
Mr. Jacobs. — I think the vSuperintcndent.
President Benham. — And I think the Pastor, because our Pastor
does.
Mr. Jacobs. — Yes, they have a Pastor to that church, and I wish it
would cloud up and rain Bishops like that for forty days and forty
nights. (Laughter.) In some places it works well to have different
leaders. I think it is a capital thing to develop trained workers, but
if you have not a special leader, no one knows who is going to lead the
next lesson, and the thing does n't work.
A Delegate. — What would you do in the places, in some of our
worst counties, where you can't get the folks to come out to Sunday
School?
Mr. Jacobs. — I would give them something to eat, and I will guar-
antee they would come out. If you don't believe it, put out a free
lunch, and see whether you can't start a Sunday School, even in Hard
Scrabble. Where there is a will there is a way.
At the close of this exercise Miss Rider was again introduced. Be-
fore beginning her address she answered a few questions as follows:
A Delegate — "Miss Rider: I understand you to say that you do
not ask the questions that are on the lesson leaves?"
Miss Rider — "True, I greatly prefer not to use those ready-made
questions, even if they are much better than the ones I could origin-
ate."
The Delegate — "What is the use of these questions if w^e do not ask
them?"
Miss Rider — "As a guide to home study. I believe in lesson leaves
in their proper place, and that place is the home. Let them be carried
home, studied at home, and left at home. I do not believe the clos-
ing exercises should be printed on these lesson leaves, or that in any
the way pupils should be dependent upon them, during the exercises
of the Sunday School. This is our ideal, the Bible only in the hands
of the Sunday School teachers and scholars."
Mr. VV. B.Jacobs — "You do not refer to little children, who learn
printed answers to printed questions?"
Miss Rider — "I would not have the lesson leaves in the hands of
anybody. Even little children can be taught to bring and to love the
Bible, and if they begin to lean on lesson leaves when they are four
years old, they'll be likely to keep it up when they're forty. But, of
course, more or less catechetical instruction should be given."
Mr. B. F. Jacobs — "Would it not discourage those children who
have those leaves if they were not questioned at all upon them ?
Would it not be better to ask a few ol them, and then gradually pass
over and ask such questions as you choose?"
Miss Rider — "I think the gentleman has struck the one strong
reason for using the lesson leaves, — the only good reason I have
ever met. Children like to tell what they have learned, and they
ought to have the chance. But I think even this exigency can be met,
and we still adhere to our rule of "Bible only." Could not the teacher
look over the lesson leaf, and ask such among her own questions as
Illinois State Sunday School Convention. S3
V out the pupil's knowledge, and thi
:t that the children had studied that
speak a few moments on this next subject of
will draw out the pupil's knowledge, and thus show an appreciation
of the fact that the children had studied that leaf! But now let me
TRAINING CHRISTIAN CHILDREN.
MISS LUCY J. RIDER.
(Miss Rider gave this address in outline.)
Children are entitled in the way of Christian training to —
1. The helpful influences of a Christian home. God pity the chil-
dren that are struggling along the way to heaven if their fathers and
mothers are not going that way too.
2. All the privileges of the best kind of a Sunday-school.
3. Full membership in a Christian church. We are all theoret-
ically convinced of this, but perhaps not practically. The fold is for
the lambs as well as for the sheep. If any one is to be kept outside,
let it be the sheep; they will not be nearly so likely to starve or freeze
as the tender lambs.
4. Helpful Reading-. Either by parent or teacher, there should
be watchful care as to their reading. Children read more than we
imagine.
5. Opportunity for^ and direction in, actual Christian work. We
need both food and exercise for the development of our Christian
children into strong, mature, ready men and women. What can
they do in the way of work? Many things, if they are only directed.
I believe in tracts. Children can be very useful in the disti'ibution of
tracts. Singing for Jesus, at the bedside of the sick and poor. Car-
rying flowers or delicacies to the sick. Giving out of their plenty,
for the relief of poverty. Forming little sewing circles, as the chil-
dren in W. B.Jacobs' home have done, to sew for friendless children.
And all kinds of mission and missionary work. I think our children
ought to have opportunity for, and direction in, actual missionary
work.
6. Special training in Bible instruction, and in the managetnent
of meetings. All kinds of meetings, except, of course, the regular
church service. I would like to say just a word about children's prayer
meetings. It is an easy thing to get little children to pmy. I have
had people turn white when going into a meeting, by my saying, pri-
vately to them, "T want you to lead in prayer." That would not be
the case if children were taught to pray, taught to ask simply and
naturally for what they want. Set these little children at work; teach
them to pray; purify the stream by beginning at the fountain; and
thus beginning with our children wc shall have strong men and
women, a great host, in the work for the Master.
[Note. — Miss Rider was too modest to mention her book on the training of Christ-
ian children, but I heartily recommend teachers and parents to procure a copy. Pub-
lished by F. H. Revell, 148 Madison St., Chicago. Price 50 cents. B. F. J.]
The Rev. James Lewis, of Joliet, was called to the platform, and
spoke as follov^s:
84 Illinois State Sunday School Convention.
THE GOSPEL.
REV. JAMES LEWIS.
Miss Rider has asked you questions, and now I wish to ask you a
question or two. Of course Sunday Schools are organized and run for
the purpose of teachin<; the Gospel, now how many of you can tell me
what the Gospel is, and what the Gospel means?
Delegates. — "Good news!" "Glad tidings!"
Mr. Lewis. — Concerning what?
Delegates. — Christ. Salvation.
Mr. Lewis. — Paul says, "I am not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ,
for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth;
to the Jew first, and also to the Greek. For therein is the righteous-
ness of God revealed from faith to faith: As it is written. The just
shall live by faith." The Gospel is good news, and this same chapter
of Romans tells us it is the good news of God concerning His Son
Jesus Christ. Now, what about His Son, Jesus Christ? What is the
first thing?
A Delegate. — He is a Savior from sin.
Mr. Lewis. — But there are some particular points that we have in
the Gospel about Jesus Christ, that Peter and Paul went about telling
to men. What were they ?
Delegates. — Christ and Him crucified. The Resurrection.
Mr. Lewis. — Christ lived; Christ died for our sins, according to the
Scriptures; He was buried — then what?
Delegates. — He rose again.
Mr. Lewis. — Is that the whole Gospel?
A Delegate. — "He ascended into Heaven and sitteth on the right
hand of the Father, and liveth now to make intercession for us."
Mr. Lewis. — What do you say in reference to that story — that
Christ lived and died for our sins, according to Scripture, and rose
again?
A Delegate. — We should believe it.
Mr. Lewis. — The point is this: The Go^jel in its simplicity, as Dr.
Anderson has so well said, is not a command or a demand. It is not
proper to preach the Gospel as a requirement, to say that God requires
something. It is a proclamation; it is an offer. The time to require
was under the law, and that time has passed, for under that, man made
an absolute failure. I would difTer a little with Miss Rider, as to just
what the thing was that occurred at Sinai before the law was given.
I would rather be inclined to say that it was an offer of grace, full and
free. That was not a covenant. It was just an offer, and the same
offer that Paul was not ashamed of. VViiy did Paul have absolute con-
fidence? Because it was the jjowtr of God. He states it in Corin-
thians: "Christ, the wisdom of God and the power of God unto salva-
tion." That means clear through, right to the end. The Gospel does
that; that is the word that shall not return void, but shall accomplish
that which He please. There is danger, my friends, that we, as teach-
ers, lose confidence in the Gospel. Just the simple story of the Cross.
You may perhaps have heard of that missionary in Missouri, and his
Illinois State Sunday School Convention. S5
wonderful work. One of our ministers went down there to inquire
about it. He asked, "Is he a great preacher?" "No, he came among
us, and lived among us the life of a Christian man." "Does he take a
text?" "Yes, but it comes around about to this: How that men are
lost sinners without help, Christ came to seek and to save them which
were lost. He suffered for our sins, according to the Scriptures, died
and rose again, and he that believeth on Him hath everlasting life.
And he has gone around this township telling that story, till he has
got 'most every one to believe it." (Applause.) That is it; we want
to tell that story, that it is the power unto salvation unto every one that
believeth it — not that it goes diffusing itself all through the community.
It is salvation to the one that believeth, and that one alone. VVe must
rest on this Gospel, which is the power of God unto salvation; not
thinking that we need something else, but just telling that story in
every way; as clearly and strongly and forcibly as we can; illustrate it
in every way, never lose confidence in it, and it will win. In telling
this Gospel we need to forget ourselves, and that is the hardest thing.
Some of you have been soldiers. You remember when you came
near the enemy, and the shells began to fall around you, how you
wished yourself at home, or somewhere else away from that place; but
afterwai'ds when you entered the battle, all feeling of self was gone.
You ceased to think of yourselves at all. And if you are going to
accomplish any work for Christ, it must be in this way. Let me tell
you an incident illustrating this: After the battle of Chancellorsville,
Gen. Meade heard that he was likely to be placed under arrest. You
know atter a great defeat it was always thought some one must be used
as a scape-goat. Meade sent a staff officer to Washington to see about
it, and the man came back and told him that the talk in Washington
indicated that he would be placed under arrest. He asked for a few
hours leave of absence, and went up to Philadelphia and told his wife
about it, saving to her, "It seems that this country needs a sacrifice at this
time. I think I am ready to be offered up. I have come over here
that you and I may kneel down together and ask God to enable me to
make the sacrifice if necessary." He went back into Maryland, and
the second night after this, one of his old West Point classmates came
at twelve o'clock at night and knocked at his tent, and said, calling
him by name, "I want to come in." And he said, "You need not
come in, it is all right; you can have my sword; I understand it."
"But," he said, "I must come in." "Why no," he said, "you need not
come in; I am ready." "But," he said again, "I must have a light and
come in." Arid he came in, and brought with him an order from
Washington putting Gen. Meade in command of the army of the
PotoiTiac. And you know how this was followed by the battle of
Gettysburgh, which was the turning point in the War. Whether the
story as told is absolutely authentic or not, it illustrates this truth : If
we are going to deliver this Gospel with effect, we must offer ourselves
wholly upon the altar.
The congregation sang, heartily, "Work for the Night is Coming,"
and the session closed with prayer by B. Depenbrock, of Salem, and
with the Benediction.
86 iLLiNots State Sunday School Convention.
Second Day— Evening Session.
Some time before the hour announced for the Evening Service, the
Hall was densely packed with an eager and expectant audience. The
first exercise was a song-service, led by W. H. Schureman, the help-
ful singer whose voice is so often heard in the Sunday School Con-
ventions and Y. M. C. A. meetings of Illinois. This service was
much enjoyed. At its close the Rev. M. Chad wick, of Alton, led the
great audience in prayer, and the Convention sang, "Onward Chris-
tian Soldiers."
The Chairman announced the entirely unexpected and most trying
absence of Dr. Brookes, explaining that at such a short notice, no one
could be found to speak, and they had laid the burden upon Mr.
B. F.Jacobs, and introduced Mr. Jacobs, who spoke as follows:
FEEDING ON THE WORD.
B. F. JACOBS.
No one in this house can possibly be so disappointed as I am to-
night in the absence of Dr. Brookes. The Committee desired to give
this entire evening to the consideration of one topic: "Feeding upon
Christ in the Word." I had every assurance that Dr. Brookes would
be here, and when a gentleman late this afternoon suggested to me
the possibility of his absence, I said, "It is not possible unless some
accident has befallen him." Therefore no effort was made to supply
his place until we came into the room this evening. I will not at-
tempt, dear friends, to deliver an address, but I am willing to speak
to you concerning the Book that we try to study. Let me ask that
every one in this house that loves the Savior will pray that His bless-
ing will rest upon us to-night.
I suppose that every teacher in this house owns a Bible. I hope
that every teacher in this house has a good Bible. One man more
than any other man on earth has made this Bible precious to me. Mr.
Moorehouse gave me that Book. He brought it across the water.
He wrote my name in it on the other side of the Atlantic, and pre-
sented it to me after he had landed in America. After I had been a
member of the church of Jesus Christ, and even a Sunday School
Superintendent for many years, I began the study of the Bible. When
I was a lad it was my privilege to memorize the most of the first five
books of the New Testament, Matthew, Mark, Luke, John and Acts.
I had been accustomed, after I was married, to read the Bible, but
there were some years of my life that I paid no attention to the Book
at all. When I was eighteen years old my mother presented me with
a copy of the Bible. I laid it away, where many young men lay their
Bibles — in my trunk. I thought I would keep it safe; my mother
gave it to me. There came one night in my experience when I had
been "out late," and I had a desire not to go home that night. A feel-
Illinois State Sunday School Convention. 87
ing went through me that it was rather late to go home, and I went
to the store where I was accustomed to stay, and on a pile of leather in
one corner of the store, with a bundle under my head, I lay down to
sleep. I shall never forget that night. Some of the young men in
this house will understand what I say when you come up to that hour.
I had been like many boys in Alton and in St. Louis, and in Chicago
— thinking very little about Heaven or my soul, or the Savior, who
came down to die for me. I had come home that night from a
carousal, not drunk nor intoxicated, but enjoying myself with a com-
pany of young men; and as I laid my head down on that pillow
there came the awful thought to my mind, that I was on the
way to eternal death, and that the road would be a very short
one unless I turned around, I shall never forget the scalding
tears that ran down my cheeks, as I knelt down on the leather to
pray. The next day I thought about it, but the experience seemed
to pass away, and it was not until weeks and months afterwards that
one Sunday atternoon in the old store, the thoughts returned. I sat
whittling the arm of the chaii*. It was an old fashioned chair, and as
I sat whittling away, I began to think once more about eternity, and
what I had heard of Jesus Christ. I thought of what I had read
about the Savior. I thought of all the prayers that had been offered
for me, and how I had turned my back upon them. And as I whit-
tled away at the arm of the chair, I kept on thinking, "how long will
it take me to get to the end?" And I whittled away. "Why would
it not be better for me to accept Jesus Christ?" And I whittled
away. And I thought, boys, just what some of you think,. "Oh, the
Savior will not receive me now, I have been such a wicked, careless,
fellow he certainly will not receive me." And then I whittled away,
and I thought, "Why he came down from Heaven to save siimers,
why should'nt he save me?" And I fell down beside that old chair to
pray. I put my hands upon the arms, and they shook. If you have
never prayed, boys, you will know what I mean when I say that I
trembled when I began to pray, and I said to myself, "I have turned
away from Him so often, uiiU He forgive me?" But I said again,
"He certainly will forgive me, and if 1 don't go to Him I shall be
lost; I had better ask Him." So I began my Christian experience by
that old chan-, by that old stove; and close to the old ash box, close to
the old counter, I started out on my way to theEternal City.
There was a young lady that was a particular friend of mine. I
had spoken to her several times on some very peculiar matters, and
after awhile she seemed to be inclined to listen a little, especially if I got
near enough to her to let her understand what I meant. And I talk-
ed it over with her until I finally persuaded her that it would be a
good thing for us to start out in life together. So we started. I went
out with her to the home where she used to live, and one Sunday after-
noon, the old white-haired Presbyterian minister stood up and told us
take hold of each others hands, and he took hold of our hands, and
asked us some very plain questions, and then he said we were one.
We had supper, and after a little while the friends began to go away,
until about eight o'clock they were all gone; and there we sat alone.
Well, 1 was trying to think what I should say to her — that may seem
strange to you friends, but I will tell you the reason why it was so
H8 Illinois State Sunday School Convention.
difficult for me to talk. I thought of that old Bible that was down in
the corner of the trunk, and I thought of that night on the sole leather
and I thought of that afternoon down by the old stove, when I was
whittling the arm of that old chair, and I said to myself, "Now, if
we start on this journey without Christ we shall make a mistake" —
and you will make a mistake, young man, and you will make a mis-
take young woman, if you start out on the journey of life together
and do not invite Jesus Christ to your wedding. There was a mar-
riage in Cana of Galilee, and Jesus was called and his disciples, and He
wentto that wedding. And the thought had been in my mind that Jesus
Christ had been willing to attend my wedding, and that He would invite
me to His, and I wanted to speak to her about it. I had never said
anything to her about that afternoon, or the night on the sole leather.
Somehow I had never confessed Christ to anybody. I did not really
know whether I was a Christian or not, but finally I said to her,
"Little woman, we have started out on the journey, and it will be
very difficult to say whether it will be a long journey or a short
one, whether it will be full of sorrow or full of joy, but, "for better
or for worse," we have concluded to go together, and I want to ask
if you have any objections to my getting a little book that mother gave
me there and reading a few verses out of it?" She looked at me and
said: "No; I think you had better do so." I went and got the book.
You have no idea of the chapter I selected to read on the night of
our wedding. I knew very little about the Bible, I assure you. I
had spent seven years of my life clerking in a drug store. I knew the
importance of finding the things that were in those drawers and bot-
tles. My father had taught me how to read those Latin names, and T
had studied the Latin dictionary. But, dear friends, all this time
I had little thought of the Divine Physician, the great Chemist
of the Universe, the one that knows all about our bodies, and all
about our souls, that knows every nerve and muscle, and bone in our
bodies, and the hairs of our heads, that knows every want of our souls
for time and eternity, and has put into that Bible one hundred and
seventy-eight names and titles and similes of Jesus Christ, and every
one of the one hundred and seventy-eight stands for some want of the
soul or the body, for time or eternity, so that we may be sure we shall
be supplied, no matter what the condition or the emergency. I had
no idea that Jesus Christ had labeled every portion of the Bible into
subjects, and that if I had learned that book, as 1 had learned the
United States Dispensatory, I would know exactly what to give to
the soul that came to me in any time of trial. So that night as I sat
with my wife, I picked out some chapter at random, and then I look-
ed at her and said, "Let us pray." I have not the slightest concep-
tion of the prayer I uttered. 1 don't know whether it was long or
short, whether it was one minute or five minutes. I do not think it
was very long; I do not think I prayed very loud; I have an idea
that I did not disturb the people that were sleeping in the next room.
But there was one desire that ran through that prayer like an electric
current, that God would bless the young man and young woman just
starting out on the journey of life; and I can testify, to the iionor and
glory of God, antl for the comfort and joy of His people, that the sun
of Christ's righteousness and peace has shone on our house trom
Illinois State Sunday School Convention. 89
that day to this. (Applause.) And I testify to you, young man, that
Jesus Christ is willing to walk into your house ; He is willing to sit down
at your table, He is willing to be with you when you go with the wife
that you love and talk over the trials and sorrows that no one else can
possibly enter into; He is willing to be with you when your children
are born and when they die; He is willing to be with you in your
prosperity and adversity, and his grace is sufficient for you, no matter
what the circumstances may be. I bless Him to-night that I am able
to bear personal testimony to it, and to commend Christ to you boys
in the gallery, and you men and women that fill the seats in this hall
to night. But the years went on, and a certain young man began to
talk to me about studying the Book. He began to ask me a few
questions and tell me a few things. He said : "You know something
about other books, why don't you find out something about the Bible?"
Add I began to ask myself why it was that I had never learned, for
one thing, the names of those books; and I began to study the names.
It did not take a great while to learn them. I learned them as they
do in Normal classes now. You know when we are studying history
and grammar we cluster the events and places around some character,
and if to-night you boys and girls want to study these things. just
study them as you study anything else. Now, last Sunday we
had the lesson — In what book was the lesson last Sunday?
Delegates. — Phillipians.
Mr. Jacobs. — In whai chapter?
Delegates. — Second.
Mr. Jacobs. — What was the theme?
Delegates. — Christ our example.
In our house w^e have the lesson roll hanging up right behind the
dining table, and there is the golden text in large letters, and there is
a wonderful picture, a picture of Jesus Christ walking and a little boy
w^alking behind him trying to put his feet right into the footsteps of
Christ. Everyone could see that the substance of the whole lesson
is that we are to follow Christ. Then there is the golden text.
You say, "The golden texts are little bits of things." So they are. I
read a delightful thing the other night: It was of an old man and an
old woman who had celebrated their golden wedding. When they
were married they formed this habit: that every night when they bade
each other good-night each one would repeat a verse of Scripture.
For fifty years, 365 days in the year, they had closed their eyes and
pillowed their heads on one verse of the Bible. How many days does
that make? Three hundred and sixty-five multiplied by fifty makes
18,250 verses of Scripture that they have repeated to each other. Is
it a little thing to have 18,250 verses of the Word of God, and to pil-
low your heads upon them every night, and sleep under the shadow
of His wing who is to awake us in the morning of the resurrection in
His likeness? Ah! No, it is not a little thing. There are no little
things with God. It makes a great difference through which end of
the telescope you are looking. You are looking for a field of labor,
and you get the little end of the spy-glass to your eye, and you say,
"I wish I was in that county. Oh, my! my! Would n't I do it!"
(Laughter.) But when you look through the other end of that spy-
glass things look far off, and very small. And so it is with us all.
^ Illinois State Sunday School Convention.
We have men, the greatest men of our denomination anywhere, and
they get one of these telescopes, wrong end first, and begin to look at
the Sunday-school. "Oh, this union Sunday school work ! It doesn't
amount to anything. We want to take care of our own vineyard, there
is nothing like it!" (Laughter.) I thank God there isn't a great deal
of this spirit. A few more like that, and the state would n't produce
enough to feed a dozen people on, spiritually. But turn the thing the
other end to, and the little things become very large, and grow won-
derfullv before us. A little while ago I asked a class, "Boys, what is
this lesson about?" "The mind of Christ." Said I, "How are you
going to get the mind of Christ?" and they could not answer that, so
readily. We are often helped by an illustration and led to understand
the mind of a person by what they do. We learn by a picture, or by
an incident, and somttimes we are helped to apprehend Christ.
We had a hotel in Chicago called the Langham, and last winter
it caught fire and was burned. One woman with a little child
on her shoulders came down one of those long fire-escape ladders,
watched by the expectant crowd, until the firemen lifted her off in
safety; and the people shouted, "Hurrah! hurrah! Thank God she
is saved!" I asked a young man sitting opposite me in the class, "Do
you know that Christ died for you?" "I suppose He died for every-
body." "For whom did He die?" "Sinners." "Did He die for you?"
"I don't know." "Why don't you know?" "It was a long time
ago." "You don't know for whom he died."' "No." "Do you know
about the Langham Hotel fire?" "Yes." "Do you know that there
was a woman who came down that ladder on Monroe street?" "Yes,
I saw it." "With the little boy on her back?" "Yes," he said, "that
was a great thing." Said I, "When was the Langhum hotel built?"
"About ten years ago." "When was that ladder built?" "Ten years
ago." "For whom was that ladder built?" "For anyone that wanted
to be saved." "No, no, for whom was it built?" "Well, I suppose it
was built for that woman." "Yes," said I, "when was that little child
born?" "Five years ago, the papers say." "And when was that lad-
der built?" "Ten years ago." "And for whom was it built?" "That
baby that came down on its mother's shoulders." If, when that fire-
escape was put up there, they had stamped upon it the name of the
person it was built for, it would have borne the name of that woman,
who, fleeing from danger, found the escape, and placed her child in the
arms of her friends. (Applause.) Boys, if you ever learn the truth of
this one thought, that Jesus died for just the one that trusts him, you
are a saved soul, and will find ^-our way to heaven. God help some
of you to find it to-night! Well, 1 said, "Boys, you want to find the
mind of Christ." "Yes." "Did you ever see a picture of Gen. Grant?"
"Oh, yes," "Did vou see the pictures they have printed lately in Har-
pers' Weekly and Frank Leslie's?" "Yes." "How does he look?"
"He is an old sick man, doesn't look like a soldier." "Well," I said,
"Have you got the mind of Gen. Grant?" "I guess he is sick, and
thinking about dying." "There are other pictures of Grant. Did you
see them?" "Yes." "How does he look there?" "Oh, just taking
the sword from Lee." (Some say he didn't take it.) Said 1, "Did you
ever go down to the panorama of the battle of Gettysburg?" "Yes."
"When you were down there, you went out of the State of Illinois, and
Illinois State Sunday School Convention. 91
where did you go?" "To Gettysburg in Pennsylvania." "And you
were living in Chicago?" "Yes." "When were you in Gettysburg?"
"Twenty-two years ago the 2nd of July." "Oh, yes, you were in
Gettysburg, and what were you doing?" "Right in the middle of the
great battle." "Oh, yes, you have got the mind of that picture. You
have stepped into Pennsylvania long before you were born; and there
is Meade, and Slocum, and our dear Bro. Stillson. You were right
there, weren't you, boys?" "What is it that the mind does?" "Thinks,"
says a boy. "Then, if I get the mind of Christ I will get Christ's
thoughts?" "Yes." You know God says, "For my ways are not
your ways, and my thoughts are not your thoughts." If you had
God's thoughts to-day, you would start for Heaven to-night. ' Let
us take the next verse. Here are some pictures of Christ;
let us look at them for a few minutes. Here is a picture of Heaven
and earth, containing the form of one person who is honored in
Heaven, and will be on earth, when He comes back again. Let us
catch the picture: "Who, being in the form of God, thought it not
robbery to be equal with God.'' It was painted in Heaven. It is a
picture of Jesus Christ on the throne, equal with the Father; and a man
must have that picture in his mind if he wants to know Christ. The
next picture, is that baby in Bethlehem: "But made Himself of no rep-
utation, and took upon Him the form of a servant, and was made in
the likeness of men: And being found in fashion as a man. He humbled
Himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the Cross."
It is a very easy thing to repeat the one hundi"ed and thii'd Psalm, when
the psalmist says: "Bless the Lord, oh, my soul; and all that is within
me bless His holy name. Bless the Lord, oh, my soul, and forget not
all His benefits." God never expected us to remember them all, be-
cause He knew we could not, but He says to us. Do not to forget them
all — do remember some of them. So David picked out five of them and
put them in one grand constellation that shines, and scintillates, and
burns even yet. You may forget a great many things, but lemember
that He "Forgiveth all thine iniquities," and "Healeth all thy diseases.
Who redeemeth thy life from destruction." Remember that God is not
only eternal, but He is that redemption that goes before us, that the
ancients used to call, "The preventing Grace" — the Grace that goes
before. " Who crowneth thee with loving kindness and tender
mercies." Think of that! Crowned with God's loving kindness and
God's tender mercies, all twisted into a diadem and placed upon your
head. And then, knowing well that a crown would never satisfy the
soul, David adds: "He satisfieth thy mouth with good things." He
abundantly satisfies; He slakes the thirst of the thirst}'. I remember
once taking up the Concordance and noticing the number of wells:
That Isaac, the typical son, got his wife at a well; that Jacob, the
typical servant, got his wife at a well; that Moses, the typical pro-
phet, got his wife at a well ; and that Jesus Christ, the One that
has made all types to pass away — Christ, that servant, that son,
that prophet — got his bride at a well. Christ had humbled Himself,
and become obedient unto death! Ah, that is a picture to look at!
Just see the Savior yonder on that tree! And it goes on to say,
"Wherefore God also highly exalted Him." Follow it up, "And
giveth Him," as the Revision says, "The Name." What name? He
never had but one name. That peerless name is Jesus. Why? "He
92 Illinois State Sunday Schcx)l Convention.
shall save His people from their sins." The one peculiar glory of Jesus
is that He is the Savior. I love to think of Him as God; 1 love to
think of Him as man; I love to think of Him as a brother, and I love
to think of Him as a King in Heaven and on earth; but I best of all
love to think of Him as the Saviour that gave His life for sinners.
An angel gave Him His name, and God, snatching that name fron>
the Cross, placed it on the Throne, that it might be there forever
more. It is Jesus on earth, and Jesus in Heaven. Heaven has
changed. There is one there now that was never there before.
Jesus has gone back with a glory that Heaven never knew before.
The first man that ever went from earth to glory was the Lord Jesus
Christ. There is a man in Heaven now, one that wears our form, one
that partook of our nalure, one that hath been made like unto ourselves,
one that understands our temptations, one that has felt our sorrows,
one that has redeemed our souls, and one that is going to make us like
himself. Ah, what a picture it is ! Look another minute. See that
multitude there, and, "at the name of Jesus, every knee shall bow, and
every tongue shall confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of
God the Father." In the book of Revelation, the curtains are
drawn up, and we see all the angels, and all the saints, and all that
ever loved God on earth, and they are singing one song, casting their
crowns at his feet, "Unto Him that loved us and washed us from our
sins in His own blood, unto Him be glory and dominion forever,
and forever." Ah I They have crowns! The very beggars have crowns
now! They are not paupers any more. As Spurgeon says, they have
crowns of hereditary desent — they are sons of a king. They have crowns
by the nobility of their character. They have been made like unto
Himself, and therefore wear them, and they cast them down at His feet.
If we join that company there is something to be done here, there-
fore the Apostle says, in that lesson, " we will work out the sal-
vation that God has worked in." Have you any salvation to work
out ? No one will ever work out a salvation that is not in him. It
is very hard to get anything out of an empty bag. It is very hard to get
anything out of an empty heart. It is very hard to get pure water
out of an impure cistern. And, I say it reverantly, what can Christ
do without his church? "I am the vine and ye are the branches," and
it is always on the new sprouts of the vine that grapes are found.
Here is an immense battery, but that little wire is a necessity to it. It
is a channel of communication, but something else is needed, the elec-
tricity that charges it and makes it a source of power. And something
else is needed: There must be a point of contact. It is an absolute
necessity with cv^ery one of us who is to receive this power that Jesus
shall have some place to apply that power, in order that God may be
glorified and the result be obtained. If we are to receive more of
Christ we must be emptied of that which we have received to day, that
through us there will be a continuous stream flowing out for the glory
of God. If we are to try to teach that book to others, we must ourselves
receive the truth. God puts our work right close to us. God wants us
to take care of our vineyard, of our own heart, of our own lives, of our
own schools and classes, of our own churches, our own townships, our
own counties, our own state, our own land and our own world, and He
Illinois State Sunday School Convention. 93
will give us the grace and strength to do it if we ask Him, "Lord what
wilt Thou have me do." (Applause.)
A prayer was offered by the Rev. Mr. Taylor. The male quartette
sang a beautiful selection and the meeting was closed with the Doxolo-
gy, and the Benediction by Rev. J. B. Stillson.
An overflow meeting held in the Presbyterian Church was largely
attended. Addresses were made by Rev. William Tracy, Rev.
T. M. Spillman, and John Benham. The singing was led by Mr.
Excel).
Last Day — Morning Session.
"FEEDING."
The Morning Session of the last day of the Convention was opened
by singing "Before the Throne of Grace." A large number of dele-
gates and citizens were present, notwithstanding the early hour and
the strain of the long continued meetings.
Rev. Mr. Palmer, of Rushville, read the Scripture Lesson from the
fourth chapter of Philippians, and followed with an earnest pi^ayer.
"What a Friend we Have in Jesus?" was sung, and in the absence of
Mr. Goss, an absence, by the way, for which he was not at all respon-
sible, Miss Rider was asked to occupy the time set apart for the
next exercise.
BIBLE READING.
LUCY J. RIDER.
Having been called upon without a moment's preparation, as you see,
friends, I cannot take up the subject which is assigned to Mr. Goss.
But it has occurred to me in this emergency, that we might together
profitably spend this time, in a brief study on the Holy Spirit.
There is no subject about whicii I feel less certainty of knowledge
than this, yet I don't think there is any subject in the Bible that I have
studied more carefully. I shall attempt not to dogmatize, but simply to
direct your thoughts; not with a feeling of great confidence, but be-
cause my thoughts liave been quickened and stimulated by the mere act
of study, and I hope this hour of dwelling on the subject may awaken
some new thoughts also in your mind.
The instances given in the Acts, of the outpouring of the Holy
Spirit, are in my judgment given for oiu* special guidance and for our
practical help. I want to take up five instances, which I think are
specially marked, of the outpouring of the Ploly Spirit, which is usu-
ally designated by tlie word "baj^tize," but which is once and perhaps
more than once, designated by the word "filled." It is not possible al-
94 Illinois Statk Sunday vSchool Convention.
ways to make a distinction between the words "filled" and "baptize,"
— tho' doubtless it is sometimes. In the first chapter of Acts, fourth
verse, Jesus charg^ed them "not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait
for the Promise of the Father, which ye have heard of me. For John
truly baptized with water, but ye shall be baf>tized with the Holy
Ghost not many days hence." In the second chapter of Acts, which
gives the historical account of the fulfillment of this promise, the third
verse says: (I read from the Revised) "And there appeared unto them
cloven tongues like as of fire, and it sat upon each of them. And they
were ^//cfl? with the Holy Ghost, and began to speak with other
tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance." It is plain to me that
the words "baptize" and "filled" are sNiionymous in these two pass-
ages. I think there are some others, but we shall see, as we proceed.
It is surely of the utmost importance when studying such a sacred
and solemn subject to find out as accurately as possible, the true import
of the language used, and I shall give my cjuotations from the Revised
version, because I believe we have here the best translation — the one
which most faithfull}^ translates the words written by Luke. Now,
the five instances I have marked — there mav be others — are the case
at Pentecost, the case of the Samaritan, the case of Paul, the case of
Cornelius and his friends, and the case of the Ephesians. It seems to
me that these five are the typical instances — those given us for our
special, personal help. Now, I will notice as many as occur to me of
the Conditions which we find to have been complied with, before this
baptism of the Soirit was received. First of all take Pentecost.
Conversion — was the first condition. There can be no doubt, certainly,
in this case, that all who received the Baptism of the Spirit had pre-
viously been converted. Note this specially. The practical applica-
tion is: Am I converted? Well! But, being converted, have I re-
ceived the Baptism of the Holy Ghost? This may be quite a differ-
ent question. But let us notice another condition. They had also
The Word — Now when we say work "Word" we often mean the
Bible, and of course between the lids of the Bible we have recorded
"The Word." But that compan}' — tho' thev had not a printed and
bound volume of the New Testament — they might have had the writ-
ten roll of the Old — did have the Word of Promise from the Lord
Jesus Christ. They had the Word. In some other instances, like
that of the Ephesians and like that of Cornelius, it seems to be em-
phasized that the hearing of the Word was an essential condition to
the receiving of the Holy Ghost.
Prayer — was a condition. In this case it was united prayer. We
shall find that in some other cases it was not. Then they were —
Waiting — And of course they were
Believing — If they had not believed the promise of Christ, they
would not have been waiting. They might not have understood very
well what it was, but they believed in something. There was also
the condition
Obedience. — These sub-divisions of mine may not be entirely exclu-
sive of each other; one may run into another. For instance, they
were told to wait, and waiting was apart of the obedience. Moreover,
just so far as it was possible to get ready to the fullest extent, they
were getting ready to receive this baptism that had been promised rq^
Illinois State Sunday School Convention. 95
peatedly by John, and Jesus, and hundreds of years before, by the
prophets. Now, have 1 omitted any important condition?
In Luke i. 13, there is a summary of all these in the one condition
that the Lord Jesus Christ himself gave, of the reception of the Holy
Spirit: "If ye then being evil, know how to give good gifts unto
your children, how much more shall your Heavenl}- Father give the
Holy Spirit to them that ask Him?" Here Jesus makes the Holy
Spirit synonymous with all good gifts, and then gives the one condi-
tion, "to them that ask." That is the one condition our Lord gives
— Asking. Their disciples were asking. They had the Word,
which told them what to ask for. They were waiting, thev were be-
lieving, and there was the perfect obedience without which there can-
not be true asking ©f our Father for anything.
Then let us take up the next line of thought. What were the Re-
sults of the Baptism? In the second chapter of Acts, second verse,
we read: "And sudden! v there came a sound from Heaven as of a
rushing mighty wind, and it filled all the house where thev were sit-
ting." Notice, it was not the wind that filled all the house, it was the
sound. "And there appeared unto them cloven tongues like as of fire,
and it sat upon each of them. And they were all filled with the Holy
Ghost, and began to speak with other tongues as the Spirit gave them
utterance." And in the thirteenth verse, when the people inquired
what it meant," others said, "These men are full of new wine."
There must have been something in their actions which indicated re-
markable exhilaration. Perhaps the most noticeable result was
"Jov — Now, I am trying not to lead this study with any precon-
ceived theory of my own. Possibly joy may not be the most striking
result in every case, but I am simply talking about what did take place
at that time. There must have been great joy, great exhilaration.
Every one beginning to talk, and everv one with new light on his
face. I cannot think but that in that case, there was great excite-
ment and joy. Another noticeable thing was
One of the gifts — with a small g. — Dr. Peck, of Boston, makes a
distinction between "Gift" and "gifts," and says that they are represen-
ted in the Greek bv different words. He says that the "Gift" was the
gift of the Father and the Son — the Holy Spirit; that the "gifts" were
gifts of the Holy Spirit to us, and among them was the gift of speak-
ing with tongues, the gift of faith, the gift of teaching, the gift of gov-
ernment, and the wonderful gift of being a "help." — II Cor. xii. 4-11
-28. The disciples on the day of Pentecost, received possibly many,
certainlv one of the gift-!, speaking with tongues. And then another
result that followed was
Great -power in tvitnessing — Nov\% of course we shall think of
Acts i. 8: "Ye shall receive power after that the Holy Ghost is come
upon vou ; and ve sh:i]l be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem and
in all judea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth."
That verse is the key geograpqicallv, and the key logically of the
whole book of Acts. And thev did receive the power of witnessing
on that day of Pentecost. I do not think of any other result that is
clearly brought out here; do any of you? But with "Joy," we may
w^rite those blessed accompaniments. Peace, Rest, Comfort. You x^-
member in the ninth chapter of Acts, thirty-first verre, it says: "Then
96 Illinois State Sunday School Convention.
had the churches rest throughout all Judea and Galilee and Samaria,
and were edified; and walking in the fear of the Lord, and in the com-
fort of the Holv Ghost^ were multiplied." Of course if they walked in
the fear of the Lord you cannot think of anything else but multiplica-
tion. I wonder how it would be with us, if a man were to walk m
here and ask: "Are you walking in the fear of the Lord?" "Are you
walking in the comfort of the Holy Ghost?" Are we personally
walking in the comfort of the Holy Ghost? Now, I do not mean the
comfort of knowing that my peace is made with God, that Jesus Christ
died for my sins and that I am a child of God, but I mean, am I walk-
ing in the present comfort of that joy that streams from the throne of
God. I want that word, "comfort" to mean a great deal to us.
A Delegate. — Would you not put the great number of conversions
that occurred, under the head of results?
Miss Rider. — The reason I did not speak of that is, that I am rcfer-
ing to the subjective results to the disciples themselves — simply the per-
sonal results, without reference to the outside world. These conver-
tions are implied, under Power for witnessing.
The second marked case of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit we
find to be on the Samaritans, recorded in the 8th chapter. I passed by
the "filling," recorded in Acts iv. 31, because, in my opinion, that was
not the same thing as the Iniptism. Or more accurately it was the same
thing, but it was no longer a new thing, not something entirely difTerent
from anything that the Apostles had ever known before. It was not
a thing new in quality, which, in my judgment, the "baptism" of the
Holy Spirit always was, and always is.
Mr. B. F.Jacobs. — You think there was another baptism?
Miss Rider. — It was a new baptism as far as the Samaritans were
concerned, but it was the operation of the same Spirit, and it was of
the same kind as that which was received on the day of Pentecost. I
am not sure that I am correct in some of the conclusions to which I find
myself driven, almost in spite of myself. I want them probed and
tested in every way. I cannot help but think, as I study these cases,
that the "baptism" of the Spirit is something different in kind from
the Spirit's work in conviction and conversion, or even in his capacity
as a guide and teacher. If this be so, it is certainly most remarkable
that the distinction has not been brought out and definitely set before
us as an object to be sought for by our religious teachers. But is it not
true that Mr. Moody and at least some others teach this? Dr. A. P.
Gordon, of Bonton ; Dr. Andrew Bonar, if I understand them. Though,
perhaps, not exactly as it is before us this morning, in all its details.
If it were not for this support, I should most seriously distrust my con-
clusions, for when an unaided and not very deep student arrives at
startling results, he had better usually stop and see what the body of
the church thinks about it. However is it not true in our theology as
it is in science, that we cannot draw the sharp distinctions in detail, as
we once thought we could. The early scientists tried to make perfect
divisions in many things, but the later scientists find that they cannot
do this — that things run into each other. We do not always find the
sharp, clear lines of divisions and distinctions that we once thought
were there. So the offices of the blessed Spirit certainly over-lap, in a
sense, yet it seems to me three grand, fundamental ideas are there:
Illinois State Sunday School Convention. 97
Conviction, Conversion and this Baptism — each one work. And let me
suggest — notice that I say suggest, and I even suggest it very diffi-
dently— may not the fact that the term "baptism" is used for the over-
whelming influence of the Holy Spirit which the disciples experienced
on the day of Pentecost, indicate that the water of baptism is not only
a symbol, as we so often hear and say "An outward symbol of the in-
ward change" which takes place when we are regenerated — but also
the symbol of this baptism of the Holy Spirit, and that, as water bap-
tism is one act— one thing — so this baptism is one thing? That we.
may be refilled, and that we ought to live in the power of this baptism
of the Holy Spirit eveiy moment, is a most blessed truth. But it seems
to me that all subsequent experiences are like the first in quality.
Taking up this second case in the 8th chapter of Acts, you remem-
ber how Philip went up and preached to the Samaritans, and there
was a great revival, and there was the working of great miracles. By
the way, let us notice here that this baptism of the Holy Spirit which
came on the day of Pentecost, came to men who had previously had, to
a very great degree, the power of working miracles. So, although
this power continued and was no doubt increased, I don't think we
can say it was a necessary result of this baptism of the Holy Spirit, or
at least that it was not the one result for which the baptism was given.
We cannot say that that power of working miracles had not been
given before this baptism of the Holy Spirit, and we may say that
this baptism was not given in order that men might work miracles.
In this second case the story goes on to tell how the Samaritans, while
so greatly blessed, did not receive the gift of the Holy Spirit, and John
and Peter, hearing of the revival which was taking place up there,
went to their aid.
Mr. B. F.Jacobs. — I want to ask you if it says in the 8th chapter
of Acts that the Samaritans were baptised by the Holy Ghost — is
there any such word there?
Miss Rider. — No, there is not.
Mr. Jacobs. — From the interpretation that you have given of the
previous point, I want to know if you have a right to interpolate that
word in that place?
Miss Rider. — You were not in here, when I commenced to talk,
were you ?
Mr. Jacobs. — No.
Miss Rider. — I said that "filled" and "baptized" were sometimes
used synonymously, and I gave proof.
Mr. Jacobs. — If your theory is correct, and I don't say it is not cor-
rect, I am willing to admit that that word "baptism" shall be apjilied
to the day of Pentecost. You say baptism of water is one, baptism of
the Spirit one.
Miss Rider. — I did not say that. I only suggested whether it might
not be so.
Mr. Jacobs. — I merely say I think it is dangerous to draw these
sharp lines of distinction at these points, like those that the early scien-
tists drew, and say that the "baptism" took place in Samaria. My in-
terpretation of it would be, that the baptism occurred only on the day
of Pentecost, and the filling was to the uttermost parts of the earth.
But the question should be left to the theory or taste of each one of us.
7
98 Illinois State Sunday School Convention.
A Delegate. — Have you any objection to its being called re-baptism
of the Holy Spirit?
Miss Rider. — I tried to explain my view as to that, a little while ago.
If I am correct, it could not be a re-baptism in the sense of being some-
thing entirely new, as was the work of the Spirit on the day of Pen-
tecost.
Mr. Price. — When the result is referred to as completed, it is called
filling, and the act of receiving it is said to be baptism.
Miss Rider, — Let us turn to the case of Cornelius, in the i ith
chapter. Notice the 16th verse, where Peter is telling about it, "Then
remembered I the word of the Lord." He was evidently surprised by
the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, which seems to have taken place
before he expected it, "Tiien remembered I the word of the Lord, how
that He said, John indeed baptised with water, but ye shall be baptized
with the Holy Ghost. Forasmuch then as God gave them the like
gift as He did unto us" —
Mr. Jacobs. — The point is simply this: the giving of the gift was
one. Don't we say to every one, that God's gift is Jesus Christ? Has
He given Him twice? Is it not a continual acceptance by every be-
liever of the gift of Christ — the gift of the Holy Ghost once given?
Is it not a continual acceptance of that Gift that was once made, and
a continual filling by it? That is the point.
Miss Rider, — I don't see but what we exactly agree, Mr. Jacobs.
Now let us briefly take the case of these Samaritans. Look at the
conditions here. Compare them with those observed on the day of
Pentecost.
I." — Conversion.
2. — The Word. — This is specially marked. See verse 14. It seems
to me there are exceptions, as in the case of the old Catholics, who, no
doubt, did receive the baptism of the Holy Spirit even when they
could not know the Word. But we, who have access to the Woixl of
God, how can we hope to be baptized with the Spirit, if we neglect or
despise it?
3. — They were waiting, expecting.
4. — Obedience.
5 — Prayer.
6. — And — here is a condition which cannot be fulfilled now — the
presence and imposition of the hands of Apostles.
Those were the conditions. Now the results. We have no state-
ment here that they spoke with tongues, but we are safe in inferring
they did have some of the gifts. Joy and rest and peace at least. We
can fairly infer that because of the actions of Simon Magnus, who saw
the effects of the laying on of hands of the Apostles.
Now, the third case, which was the case of Paul : 9th chapter of
Acts, 17th verse. You remember the three days conflict in the case of
Paul. I believe that Paul was a converted man — when I say converted
I mean regenerated — he was a regenerated man as soon as he said
"Lord." As soon as he recognized Jesus as Lord, as soon as his whole
being was turned to Jesus Christ, he was a converted man. I cannot,
imagine how God could keep him waiting a moment before receiving
him. I believe he was a converted man then, if not before.
Another condition here was the presence and imposition of hands,
Illinois State Sunday School Convention. 99
but this time of a layman — if there is any difference. Pardon me if I
say that I know that there is a distinction of convenience, but the idea
of the Clergymen's being of a different Order ^ as in the Romish church,
seems to me to be fraught with the utmost danger. But to return. I
am so glad that in this case the Holy Spirit came, not by the hands of
an Apostle. Otherwise, I should be shut out, vou see.
Passing over the case of Cornelius and coming to that of the Ephe-
sians, in the moment I have left, turn to the 19th of Acts. It is a great
mystery to me, that little group down in Ephesus who never had heard
that the Holy Ghost was given. I don't understand it. For Paul
had been there a little while, and he left Acquilla and Priscilla, and
they certainly had got hold of Apollos, and they knew very well
whether the Holy Spirit was given or not. But apply the same test
as to Conditions. The baptism came to converted men; came to
waiting men; came to believing men; came when they had the Word
and knew what to expect; came to obedient men; came upon prayer-
ful men — Paul prayed for them, and no doubt they prayed for them-
selves; and in this case also, it came upon the Ephesians by the pres-
ence and imposition of hands of an Apostle. Peck says that the im-
position of the hands of an Apostle was an "Occasional primitive con-
dition."
Friends, the time set apart for this exercise has just expired, and I
stop right here. It is only the beginning of a study, but I trust it may
be blessed to us all.
On motion of Mr. B. F.Jacobs the following telegram was sent:
To the International Convention of the Y. M. C. A., Atlantn, Geor-
gia, The Illinois State Sunday School Convention sends Christian sal-
utation. Read Ephesians, 3rd. chapter, 14th to 3ist.
John Benham, President.
B. F. Jacobs, Chn. of Ex. Com.
The Convention sang, "He Leadeth Me."
THE TEACHER'S MEETING.
B. F. JACOBS.
There is nothing more solemn than the study of the word of God.
We can afford to wait when we are going to study the word of God.
We can do more in fifteen minutes when every thought is there, and
there is not an eye turned on anything else, than we can do in an hour
if we have other things to think about. The first suggestion I make
about a teachers' meeting is the same that I make about a Sunday
School when the Scripture is read. Let no one presume to move
around the room. Do not for one minute think that the Pastor, or
the Superintendent, or the Librarian, or the Secretary, or any
Teacher, has any right to cross the floor of the room when the word
of God is being read. If they are late let them stand at the door and
wait, or else let the whole school wait until thut Teacher or that Pas-
tor takes his seat. If it is necessary, invite the tardy one to take a
seat, in order that people may give their attention to the word of God
loo Illinois State Sunday School Convention.
and not look at him. I make the suj^^gestion as a general one, regard-
ing not only the Teachers' Meeting, but the reading of the lesson.
Do not think that prayer is any more important than the reading of
the Word of God. Remember those two things are very mnch
alike. When we pray we talk to God, and when we study the liable
God talks to us; and the question is whether we will make any more
noise and rustle around any more when God is speaking to us than
we do when we are speaking to Him — whether we will treat God
with any more disrespect than we would have people treat us. My
next suggestion is that we approach it in a spirit willing to be taught —
that we do not come prepossessed with an idea which we wish to bol-
ster up by the study of the Word of God. One way is to have God's
way bent around to ours, and the other way is to have our way sub-
mit to God's. And if there is anything that is needful to us at this
time it is submission to the will of God. If there is a stubborn man
in this country I think it is myself, and I think if I hail learned this
lesson of Christian contentment a little while ago it would have been
a very sweet thing for me, as I am sure it will be for all of you.
Now, let us get hold of this lesson if we can, for a few minutes.
First of all, just at this point, in our school we should have a supple-
mental lesson before we took up the regular lesson. What does the
word "supplemental" mean? Something added. The order is not
important. It may follow or precede; it is something added. A sup-
plement; it belongs to it or is connected with it in some way. There
are a few supplementary lessons that are very helpful and that you
can give in a few minutes. Our lesson is where? "Phillipians." In
what grand division of the Bible is that? "The New Testament."
The Bible is divided first of all into how many parts? "Two." Rep-
resenting what? "Old and New Testament." There is the Old Tes-
tament on your fingers (holding up one hand) and there is the New
Testament in the valleys. How many divisions are there in the Old
Testament? "Five." Here they are (touching his finger-tips). How
many in the New Testament? "Four." In the valleys; here they
are (between the fingers). Now, these five general divisions of the
Old Testament, which I put on the ends of the fingers of this hand,
are: "The Pentateuch, five books; historical, twelve books; poetical,
five books; greater prophets, five books; lesser prophets, twelve
books." Are we in that part of the book? "No." In which division
are we? "The New Testament." Divided into how many parts?
"Four." What is the first division? "Historical." How many books?
"Five." Yes, the Gospels, and Acts; the Second Division is the
"Pauline Epistles," fourteen books. The third division, the general
epistles, seven books. The fourth division? "Prophetical Revela-
tion, one book." Which division of the Bible are we in? "The
seventh." Which division of the New Testament? "The second."
In our school we take time at least to find out the number of our
book. Then there are certain portions of Scripture that every one
ought to memorize. Almost every one has memorized the 23rd
Psalm. Let us repeat the 23rd Psalm. The audience did so.
Now, our lesson is in the book called what? "Philipians." Give
the chapter and verses? "Philippiaiis 4: 4 to 13." And that book we
said was in the seventh division of the Bible. In our school in addi-
Illinois StAfE Sunday School Convention. loi
tion to our own Bibles, we have what we call the School Bibles.
They are famous for only one thing, and that is large print. Will
you allow a parenthesis? At the l;<st meeting of the Lesson Com-
mittee, being the first meeting of the new Lesson Committee, at Cin-
cinnati, I put in a claim in behalf of old people. You know I am just
beginning to need glasses. And I put in a claim in behalf of little
people that need some sort of help; and I put in a claim in behalf of
poor people that can't read very well whether they are young or old;
and I said to the men that have to do with the making of lesson helps,
"In the Lord's name, and in the name of the people, print the Scrip-
ture lesson in type plain enough for everybody to read." (Applause.)
Give us better print on the Scripture lesson, and if you can't get it all
on, omit the seventeenth clause of Rev. Dr. So-and-so's notes.
(Laughter and applause.) Well, we ask some brother what was the
page in the School Bible, and we would all turn to that place and
read this lesson. The title of it is what?
"Christian Contentment."
We would expect every boy in the school, except the one boy that
hadn't found his place, to answer that question. What kind of con-
tentment is it?
"Christian Contentment."
What does contentment mean? That is what we are going to find
out just now. What is the Golden Text? If you are going to know
the lesson, one thing is indispensable, and that is that you begin early
to get hold of it, and the time to learn the Golden Text for next Sun-
day is the minute you get home after school this Sunday. The Golden
Text means something, if you don't have any thing but that; and I
say, "Give us a Golden Text that when it is chewed up, and swallowed
down, and digested, will produce something in the little boy or girl
that doesn't know anything but the Golden Text." Let us get the
Golden Text. You will remember what I said to you before about
fifty years of Golden Texts' and the Golden Text wedding of the old
man and woman. What is the Golden Text of this lesson? Let us
have it, every one.
"The God of peace shall be with you."
The God of pjace shall be with you. That is worth knowing. If
we don't get any thing else, if we can get the God of peace with us,
brethren, we shall have something out of this lesson. Now, we be-
gin with the fourth verse of this chapter. The title of this lesson is
what?
"Christian Contentment?"
Christian Contentment. Then it seems as it somebody had an idea
thit a Christian ought to be contented. You know there are a great
many "cons" in the Bible; there is conversation, there is conviction,
and there is confession, and there is contentment.
And there is contention?
"There isn't much Christian contention."
Mr. Jacobs — There isn't any other kind of contentment than Chris-
tian contentment. The stock is exhausted in the other man's store —
sold out the last piece of goods to Mother Eve. (Laughter.)
What is the fir-,t thing in the first verse.'' "Rejoice."
I wonder if It would be possible for us to spell rejoice any shorter?
"Joy."
I03 Im,inois_ State Sunday School Convention.
And the difference between joy and re-joy is what? "Done over
again."
It keeps on joying all the time. There is another definition for
that. They say there are a great many kinds of joy; I doubt it very
much but they say so. This joy is like a peculiar kind of goods with
a particular kind of label on. You want to buy the right kind. None
genuine unless signed — by whom? "By the Lord."
That is the kind we want, because that joy — \vhat does He say
about it? — it dies away in a minute? "It abides."
That is a good word. It abides; it says. What is the next thing
we can find in this lesson? "We rejoice again."
We are going to keep it up all the time. With us always, conse-
quently it is abounding joy. There is soniething about that that is ex-
quisite in the i6th Fsalm. It says concerning that, "In Thy presence
is" — what? "Fullness of Joy."
There isn't much chance to get any more in the bottle, is there? It
is full. And another Psalm says, "Thou wilt make them to drink of
the river of thy pleasure." He says, "I will pour water upon him
that is"— what? "Thirsty."
Now you know how to get a drink; all you have to do is to be
thirsty. "Thou shalt make me to drink of the river of Thy pleasure."
I shall one day slake my thirst at the fountain where God supplies the
desires of His own soul, until I can hold no more. And I will begin
to drink of that streain down here, and 1 will keep on drinking as I
travel towards its source. Now, the abundance of Joy. If I may fill
up with Joy, there won't be much room for other things, will there?
Suppose, for instance, (drawing the outline of a heart on the black
board and dividing it into rooms) this is the house, and here is the par-
lor, and there is the bed-room, and there is the other bed-room, and
there is the library, and here is the dining-room, and here is the
kitchen; and now comes a knock at the door. "Who is there?" "I
am here." "Who are you?" "I am Miss Joy, I purpose to rent a
room in this house, and I want the best room in the house." Now
you don't move very much in the country. You don't know the fe-
licity of the First ot May, do you? There is one joy that you don't
have. (Laughter.) But when Joy moves in, Joy belongs to a family,
and they are all close behind the wagon, a whole load of them.
The next thing that comes is in the fifth verse, what is that?
"Moderation."
There is another knock, who is this? "Forbearance." And then
comes another, who are you? "I am gentleness." What does it say
in the sixth verse? "Be careful for nothing.''
Who occupies this room up here? Well, there is an old lady up
there by the name of Anxiety. Will you tell her to vacate the prem-
ises, if you please. I wish this room myself.
Who is the next visitor? "Thoughtfulness." And Miss Thought-
fulness walked into the house. Is it possible? We have got quite a
family haven't we? Joy, Gentleness, and Thoughtfulness. A gentleman
once had a dream. He dreamed that an angel appeared to him, and
introduced herself. "What is your name?" "My name is Benevo-
lence." ''Ah, glad to see you, Benevolence." And then he noticed
that there were more angels there. I don't know how it is that the
Illinois State Sunday School Convention. 103
angels that come are always in families, but they seem to be. And
there was one standing close by Benevolence, that he had not spoken
to, and he walked up and said, "What is your name?" "My name is
Gratitude." "Ah, Benevolence, will you permit me to introduce you
to Gratitude. It seems to me you ought to be acquainted with each
other." Friends, it is possible that we need to be introduced a little.
Miss Thankfulness, and Gentleness and Joy, you had better get ac-
quainted, you belong to one family.
What is the next one in that verse? "Peace."
It seems to me there has been something omitted here. What is
the last thing in the last clause? "Prayer."
That is the thing we do skip generally — "I have got to go down to
the store." "I have got to go to school." Well, you won't pray at
all then. There are some things in prayer; it has been spelled with
four letters, the name of a book of the Bible — A-C-T-S — Adoration,
Confession, Thanksgiving and Supplication^ — four elements in Prayer
that are worked out in one book of the Bible. What is the next one?
"Peace." Peace has come now. When Thankfulness came, something
went out; when Gentleness came, something went out; when Joyful-
ness moved in, something went out — now Peace comes in. Let us go
on and see if there is anything else here that we can find. There are
some special things here. VV^hat is in the eleventh verse? "Con-
tentment." Well, we will put this down here in the kitchen. If
there is any place in the world where we want contentment it is
in the kitchen. (Applause.) When the stove smokes, and the
bread won't bake, and the husband is storming around, if there is
a woman that has contentment it is a wonderful thing. (Applause.)
And if there is a man that is contented it is a more wonderful
thing. (Laughter and applause.) Ain't you ashamed of yourselves?
I am. I promised to love her, and here I am throwing myself
around the house and making myself disagreeable, and setting an
example of discontent to my children. (Applause.) Don't say
anything about it, but just go and prove to your wife that you are
ashamed.
What is in the 13th verse? "Strength." We will put prayer in
here. It is a great thing to have one room for prayer. Every
man or woman who has had power with God has had a place to
pray. A little boy on a ship said he had a closet, and they won-
dered where in a little ship the boy could find a closet. "Where
is your closet?" they said. "My closet is upon the cross-top," he an-
swered. He climbed away up, and there, above the waves, and out
of the reach of the seamens' tongues he communed with God. The
man or woman that wants to pray can find a place for prayer. I
was in a room praying, a little .while ago in my house, when I
heard the voice of my little daughter calling -'Papa," but I kept
right on, and pretty soon she walked in. My little girl knows
that the door is open to her even when I am praying. I know it
is an interruption, but it does no harm to be interrupted in that
way when you are praying. I wondered what she would do, and
went on with the prayer. I didn't hear a sound, and when I got
through and looked around, there she was over in the corner. She
said, "Papa, I didn't know that you were praying." And I thought it
104 Illinois State Sunday School CoNVENtiof?.
was a good time to tell her that just as she needed her father, I needed
God. That I was only a little child, and wanted help just as much as
she did, and that I wanted a Savior. She said "Papa, I want you to
help me now, but I didn't come up for anything only to have you fix
my roller skates." I said, "That is all right." And if I had nothing
but a roller skate to fix God would help me to do it. Why, some of
our clothes would fit a good deal better if we had God's help when
cutting them out, and would last a good deal longer when wearing
them.
Well, we all agree that one great thing we have found now is Joy.
If we are going to have only three things, no matter what we leave
out shall we have Joy ? "Yes, yes."
Do you all agree to that? "No, sir."
What is it you would rather have? "Strength."
Shall we take peace or prayer? "Prayer." "You can't get peace
without prayer."
Let us see what He told us to take. He says here — and we will
paraphrase that verse — "Be anxious for nothing." Be anxious for
nothing? Isn't there anything to be anxious for? Nothing. Be
prayerful for what? Everything. Pray over everything? Do
you do it? You need not tell me. Don't bow your heads. Answer
Him. You say He says so, do you do it? Let us find out. [ am go-
ing to talk to the boys about prayer, shall I tell them to pray for every-
thing? Be anxious for nothing, be prayerful for everything, be
thankful for — anything. Is that it? He says if you do those three
things — what does he say shall fill your hearts? "Peace."
What kind of peace? The joy in the heart and the peace of God —
what does it say in the revision? "The peace of God shall guard
your hearts. In the margin of one of the Bibles that I have it reads,
"The peace of God shall garrison your hearts." The figure is of a
fort into which the troops have been marched against the enemy. It is
a good deal easier to fight behind a barrier than in front of one. We
all know that. Everybody knows that in our army a shovel full of
earth was a good thing, and if there was time to throw up a dozen
shovel fulls it was a good deal better. It is a good thing to be inside a
fort. If I can get the right kind of troops in my heart I will be all
right, won't I. I think I will put down on the board —
Joy. Peace. Strength.
Opposite to them there must be something — what is opposite to Joy?
"Sorrow."
Opposite the Peace there is what? "Discord."
Any better word than Discord? "Misery."
Anything else] "Fear."
Anything else? "Discontent."
Opposite Strength there is what? "Weakness."
This Christian contentment, where does it come from? "It comes
from Christ."
Where does discontent come from? "Satan."
You go clear back to the history of Israel. They murmured; the
bite of the serpent was the cause of the discontent; and when I am
discontented I am very sure that Satan has put that into my heart, and
if I am contented I may be sure that God has put that into my heart.
The peace is from whom? "God."
Illinois State Sunday School Convention. 105
Prove it from the lesson, will you? "The peace of God and the
God of peace."
That is a beautiful line. I would railroad those lines in mv Bible,
drawing a line right across from one to the other.
If peace is there, what will go out? "Fear."'
What kind of fear will go out? "Fear of the evil one."
What kind of fear will go out? "All kinds."
And the reason I have fear is what? Think of the Scriptures on
that line. You can think of the sixth chapter of Matthew. What
other scripture can you think of on anxiety? "Perfect love casteth
out fear."
Get a picture of contentment. We are given one for instance, by
Mary and Martha. One was full of what? "Anxiet}."
And what, the other? "Full of peace."
Can you think of any other passage? "Let not \our hearts be
troubled."
And he gives a reason why — "Do you believe in God? Just as you
believe in God, believe in me."
Any other scripture? "What time I am afraid I will trust in Thee."
Now! will put that to a practical test. Last night I was so tired, and
worked up, and hot, and restless, and nervous, thinking to myself,
"What a goose you were that you didn't take Dr. Brookes' text and
talk to them more about finding Christ in the Bible." 1 said, "Lord
Jesus, I cannot help that now, but there is one thing I would like to
rind now, I would like to find Christ right in this bed. And what did
I \\^ant to find Christ for? I wanted to find rest; and what verse do
you think I called up? "He giveth his beloved sleep."
That is very good, hut that was not the one? "Casting all vour
care upon Him."
I was after rest, then? "Come unto me all ve that labor and are
heavy laden, and I will give you rest."
Yes. "If you will smooth vour hand over my brow, and let me go to
sleep, I will be verv thankful." And the Savior blessed me and I
went to sleep. There was one night — I was telling it at family wor-
ship this morning — \vhen my ^vife and I were going from Fall River
to Boston. We had a room with two berths. I had the upper berth,
and in the middle of the night there was a tremendous shock, and I
sprang out ot the berth and looked at my wife, and she was sitting up
gasping for breath and scarcely able to speak. Finally she said,
"What is it?" Said I, "I think we have struck a rock;" and just then there
was another crash came, and everything seemed to give way.
I put on my clothes as quick as I could, and said to my wife, "You
had better dress yourself, and I will go and see what the trouble is."
I got out into the xiall and there I met a negro woman, who weighed
about 175 or 200 pounds, walking along as serene as if she had been
out picking Mav flowers. I said, "What is it ?" She says, "What is
what, honey?" I looked at her a moment, the simple-minded soul, and
said, "Is the boat going to sink?" She said, "It isn't going to sink,
not as I knows on." "Have we struck something?" "We havn't
struck anything that I knows of." Just then there came another
crash, and I said, "What is that?" "Oh, dat's — dat's nothing but a
wave striking de boat. We's going around Point Judith." Do you
io6 Illinois State Sunday School Convention.
know that peculiar feeling you have at the pit of your stomach going
around Point Judith?
1 went hack to my wife, and said: "I don't believe there's much —
much — the matter;" and just then another wave struck us, ami there
was that old colored woman, just as calm as a clam. My wife said,
"I don't feel well." Said I,'-l don't." IJut then you know women are
always afraid; you know how they aftect you, and I think every wo-
man ought to strenghen her husband. (Laughter.) We tried to goto
sleep, but we could not. Finally I thought, "If Jesus were here I know
what He would do; lie would just say to this wind and these waves,
'Peace, be still,' and there would be a great calm." Thought I, "I
wonder if 1 had better pray to Him to stop the wind around point
Judiih? There is no use unless 1 believe. Do I believe Jesus will
put down the wind on this Long Island Sound?" And I thought of
that colored woman, and thought perhaps after all the storm was in
me, antl I said, "I can pray to Him to put the waves down in my heart,
and I believe I will: Lord Jesus, that colored woman is not afraid, but
we are, and if You will put the waves down in our minds You can let
the waves roll on Long Island Sound if You wish." Anil He just
spoke to us, "Peace, be still," and there was a great calm: and I
crawled up into the berth and went to sleep, and when I awoke the
sun was shining as though there had never been a storm, and I said,
"The God of peace will garrison your hearts; the peace of God will
o-arrison your hearts, and the God of peace will take the helm of the
little ship."
If I am going to have this joy and this peace — what kind of con-
tentment is it — wlio is going to have the joy?
A delegate — The Christian.
Who is going to have the strength?
Delegates — The Christian.
Boys, are you going to have it.'' Girls, are you going to have it?
These things are for Christians — are you going to have them? Do
you want them! If you take peace you have got to take Christ. If ycu
take the joy you have got to take the Lord in whom the joy is found.
If you get the strength you have got to have Christ. Boys, are you
going to take it? Giils, are you going to take it?
Suppose we sum up the lesson on the blackboard, calling it, the
swarm of bees in the hive of contentment.
[The Swarm of Be's were hived from the Convention, and written
on the board as the answers were given.]
First of all, I am to be joy-full. Spell it with two I's and put a
hyphen between the syllables. And then I am to be — what? Moder-
ate or gentle. And, in the third place I am to be — what?
A Delegate.— Thankful.
That is a great bee, I tell you — a thankful bee. And in the next
place I am to be what?
A Delegate. — Prayerful, t
That is a great bee, too. And then in the next place, what is that
great bee that buzzes so loud — the big bee in that long verse. I am
to look at that picture, and I am to be —
A Deiegate. — Thoughtful.
"Think of these things." What things .!* Think of pure things,
Illinois State Sunday School Convention. 107
think of right things, think of honest things, think of good things —
"Think of these things" — be thoughtful. And if you are thoughtful,
you will be contented, and you will be —
A Delegate. — Strong.
Yes, everybody wants to be strong. A little boy's mother noticed
him washing his hands three or four times a day, and asked him what
that was for. He said that the Bible said, "He that hath clean hands
shall grow stronger and stronger," and said he, "I want to get stronger
and I'll go over and thrash Jim Brown." (Laughter.)
These bees make the honey, which is simply God's word for sweet-
ness. As David says: "He will give me honey out of the rock,
and the sweetness of the honeycomb." — the honey of a Christian life.
(Applause.)
THE SWARM OF b's IN THE HIVE OF CONTENTMENT,
THAT MAKE THE HONEV OF A CHRISTIAN LIFE.
At the conclusion of Mr. Jacobs' address, a communication was read
from Mr. E. D. Durham, the Treasurer elect, in which he stated that
for imperative personal reasons, it was impossible for him to perform
the duties of Treasurer the coming year, which he therefore was com-
pelled to resign. His resignation was respectfully accepted, and Mr.
S. A. Kean, of Chicago, was nominated and elected to that office.
The nominating committee reported the following named gentle-
men, as nominated for the Executive Committee of 18S5-6: B. F.
Jacobs, chairman, Chicago; Rev. C. M. Morton, Chicago; H. T. Lay,
Kewanee; J. R. Mason, Bloomington; C. W. Jerome, Carbondale;
Rev. Wm. Tracy, Granville; E. D. Durham, Onarga; H. T. Perrin,
Alton.
io8 Illinois State Sunday School Convention.
They also recommended that the President and Treasurer be mem-
bers of that Committee, ex-officio.
The report of the committee was adopted, and the gentlemen
named elected. Upon motion, it was voted to add the names of R. W.
Hare, of Chicago, and Wm. Reynolds, of Peoria, to the Executive
Committee.
Mr. Griffith. — Mr. President: I desire to present a resolution, but
before I offer it, permit me to call to mind something thiit is known to
all the members cff this Convention; that in addition to the other great
things* the State of Illinois has given our Union — its greatest President,
and its greatest General — it has also given to it the International sys-
tem of lessons as it is now in vogue. And as the new Committee was
appointed last summer at Louisville, and as there have been very many
criticisms in the religious papers and by different individuals upon the
work of the International Lesson Committee, it seems to me that it would
be proper for the State of Illinois, in Convention assembled, to sanction
the work of this Committee so far. I theretore offer this as a resolu-
tion, to be spread upon the record of the Convention, if approved:
The second term of seven years each of the existence of our present
International System of Lessons, having drawn nearly to a close, and
the selection of a tliird course of lessons having been assigned by the
Louisville Convention to a third Committee, the Sunday School work-
ers of Illinois, assembled in their Twenty-seventh annual Convention,
deem this a fitting time to express their high appreciation of the serv-
ices of the previous Committees, and their sense of the great work they
have done for the Sunday Schools of our countrv, and of the world.
We desire especially to express our approbation of the selection of les-
sons alternately from the Old and the New Testaments. We believe
that "All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for
instruc ion in righteousness." We trust the same wise course will be
pursued in future, and th it our Sundav School teachers and scholars
will be trained in the entire word of God, so tiiat they may be able to
trace the scarlet thread running from Genesis to Revelation, and may
recognize the Messiah to come, as typified by the Historians, the
Psalmists, and the Prophets of the Old Scriptures, equally with
the Christ of the Gospels and the Epistles, that so the man of
God may be "a workman needing not to be ashamed," "thoroughly
furnished for every good word and work."
The resolution was carried by a rising vote.
After subscriptions had been taken for the printed report of the pres •
ent Convention, Mr. B. F.Jacobs moved that the Executive Commit-
tee be instructed to distribute the surplus reports among the counties
that cannot pay, as in their judgment may seem best. This resolution
was also carried.
On motion of \V, B. Jacobs, a Committee was appointed on
General Resolutions.
Illinois State Sunday School Convention. 109
This Committee was named by the President, and consisted ol
Messrs. Depenbrock, Foster and Eckley.
The session closed with the Doxolooy and the Benediction.
Third Day — Afternoon Session.
FOLLOWING.
Vice-President T. M. Eckley called the Convention to order, and
the exercises were opened by singing "Stand up for Jesus." The de-
votional exercises were led by Rev. jSIr. Tyson, of Jerseyville. The
Scripture lesson was from the thirty-fourth Psalm, after reading which
Bro. Tyson led the audience in an earnest prayer. All joined in the
song, "I am Listening." A few items of business were then taken up.
The President announced that invitations for the next Convention
were in order.
A cordial invitation was received from the Sabbath Schools of the
city of Danville, and was earnestly advocated by the delegates from
Vermillion county.
The following telegram was then read:
T'o B. F. Jacobs^care of State Sutida'^ School Convention: Rock-
ford sends greeting. Please invite State Convention here next year.
(Signed) S. F. Weybukn.
An invitation was also received from the City of Quincy.
The location of each place, and its advantages, was discussed. Mr.
B. F.Jacobs said, if the best interests of the whole state are studied,
the Convention would not go to the extremes North, South, East or
West. He traced an oblong on the map and said, the best plan would
be to have the Convention swing around a circle that would include
Peoria, Bloomington, Decatur, Centralia, Champaign, Jacksonville
and Springfield. That either of these cities could well afford to have
the Convention with them every six or seven years, and they had the
best Railroad connections and afforded the best facilities for delegates
from all parts of the state. He wished the next Convention held
where the whole state can be reached, and an effort made to have the
best Convention ever held in the state.
W. B. Jacobs moved that the invitation from Danville be accepted.
This motion was seconded.
Mr. Holyoke moved, as a substitute, to refer the whole ijuestion
to the Executive Committee, with power to act. This motion was
seconded and carried. The regular topic of the afternoon was then
taken up, and Mr. Foster told how to "Follow Our Work" by means
of
110 Illinois State Sunday School Convention.
REVIEWS.
KEV I. W. FOSTER.
Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen: In this question of
following our work, or reviewing our work, of course it goes without
saying, that a Sunday School teacher or a Sunday School superintend-
ent must thoroughly believe in a review of the work gone over. If
he does not believe in it, and believe that the review Sunday
should Irave as much work put upon it in preparing a program as anv
other Sabbath, or even more, he had better not attempt a review.
Now, the reasons for a review, quarterly to say the least, are not only
those simple and oft-repeated reasons that are given, that just as public
schools review their studies — the studies gone over in a month or quar-
ter, so the Sunday School should review — but there are other
reasons. If it is worth while for us to review arithmetic once a month,
grammar once a month, and go over it, and over it, is it not of para-
mount importance that these scholars that come before us only twelve
days in three months, who have studied a portion of the Bible perhaps
for the only time in a lifetime, shall have a review of that lesson most
thoroughly, conscientiously and carefully drilled into them? It seems
to me that we all agreed that it is important.
The question in regard to methods of reviewing work is a much
vexed question. I am very well aware that our Sunday School peri-
odicals provide review exergses. Some of the plans are like those
that I hold in my hand, that suggest instead of a review at the end of
the quarter, a new lesson — something else, a Song Service, a Mission-
ary Service, a Temperance Service — all very good, but utterly ignor-
ing the importance of reviewing the work that has been gone through
during the three months preceding. Now, for instance, we under-
stand that last quarter's lessons covered the journey of Paul from Troas
to Jeru.salem, and over to Cesarea. Practical suggestions, although
they might not be applicable to a school of five hundred, might apply-
to schools of one or two hundred scholars, and may be of value to
some of us who have schools of from one hundred and fifty to two
hundred scholars. I would suggest something like this: If there are
say ten classes in the school, I would have the different departments of
the quarter's work assigned a week or two before the quarterly re-
view, by the teachers and superintendents working together. By the
way, this co-operation is something of the utmost importance. I do
not see how the teachers' meeting can be omitted in the preparation
of the quarterly review. You can at least have one quarterly teach-
ers' meeting for the purpose of preparing the quarterly review, and if
the officers plan for this, and get the teachers together; they can ar-
range a very interesting quarterly review. Here is a plan that was
tried at the end of the last quarter in our own school — of course I
would not use the same plan right along. In the first place we as-
signed to different classes different portions of the lesson, not asking
every class to be prepared upon all the points of every lesson of the
past quauter. But we had a class that we called the geography class,
to which we assigned the preparation of the geography of the country
Illinois State Sunday School Convention. m
and places through which, and past which, Paul travelled, as contained
in the lessons of the first quarter; and we had them refer to the geo-
graphical and physical condition of those places, giving the character-
istics of the ancient cities, and of the modern cities so far as there are
modern cities. And then we had another class upon the political con-
ditions of the country at that time. And a third class particularly for
the purpose of preparing upon the cities that Paul visited. We had one
class to prepare upon the character of Paul's companions and those
whom he met, at the different cities. Another class upon the charac-
ter of Paul's foes and accusers. Another class upon Paul's defences,
as contained in the lesson. One class upon the perseverence of Paul,
because every lesson in. all of last quarter, referred in some marked de-
gree to the perservence, the determination, the heroism and the cour-
age of Paul, how he turned neither to the right hand nor to the left.
Then we had a class to write very short accounts of the special fea-
tures, the little points of interest or the special occurences in connection
with his travels. Another class to find the key, and the lock to put it
in, in each lesson, as far as possible in a single word — one word for the
key, and one word for the lock. This is for the black board. And
then we had another class to do the unlocking, bringing out the hid-
den, or perhaps as it often is, to reveal the plain and simple truth — a
single, precious truth. This also for the black-board. We assigned the
different teachers the work, and if the teachers could not attend to it
alone, thev were assisted with a -written scheme, and the work was as-
signed to all the class, the class being liable to be called upon by the
superintendent to answer any legitimate question in their department.
It was not a Sunday School class, it was a class in geography, a class
in biography, a class in history, and classes of this kind. And then we
had every member of tiie school learn the themes and the Golden Text
— every member. The smallest meinber of the inf;int class could give
us the themes and the Golden Text for last Sunday's lesson ; that was
specially assigned to them as their work.
A Delegate. — Please explain a little more fully about the keys.
Taking up, for instance, the third lesson of last quarter, Paul's fare-
well. When Paul bade those people at Miletus farewell, he did not
say it just for fun becau'^e he \vas going home, and that he was going
away of his own preference, but because he was called, and if he was
called he was going because of the One who called him; and if he wns
going because of the One who called him, he was following — he was
following some one. Well, he bade the people at Miletus farewell,
and in following the Master as is revealed in the first le.sson, he was
foll(>wing Him in his will. Now the Golden Text of that lesson is,
"Feed the church of God which He hath purchased with His own
blood." What is the hidden message? What is the fact back
of that lesson? What is the fact back of that Golden Text, hidden
away? It is the fact of the redemption. The redemption of whom?
The redemption of the whole world. Now, I might say there — I
don't say that I would on this hasty notice — that the lock is the world.
What is the word tiiat will unfasten that? You can take the word
blood, if you please, the blood of Christ; there is the thing that un-
locks the hearts of the world ; and after the hearts of the world are un-
locked, salvation is the result.
113 Illinois State Sunday School Convention.
Mr. B. F. Jacobs. — Suppose we take "purchase" as the lock, and
the "blood" for the key, and the Church as the door?
Mr. Foster. — I would try to j^^et one word for each lesson, and group
toofether the words of all the lessons so as to form a single sentence,
and have every word in that sentence, so far as possible, tell the story
of that Sun(l;iy-school lesson. For instance, there was Paul at Troas,
and Paul at Miletus, and Paul's farewell, and so on. I would arrange
it like this: Paul preaching repentance, following the will of God,
glorying in death, doing, standing, suffering conscientiously for Christ's
sake continually. Now, that seems like a long sentence, but when you
apply it to the lesson, and they review it once or twice, you will find
th.it every one of these words will suggest the lesson and the Golden
Text. "And upon the first day of the ueek, when the disciples were to-
gether to break bread, Paul preached to them." There is the preaching.
And at Miletus we find him preaching repentance. Of course it is preach-
ing and repentcnce in both places, but we ha\e got a wend. I do not
think, so far as my practical experience goes, that it is best to attempt
to prepare all schools upon the exact plan suggested in any of our
Quarterlies. It may apply to some schools. If I had nothing better
to do I would take one of the best prepared lessons for the quarterly re-
view I could find, and I would chop off all the branches to the trunk of
the tree, to the trunk of the Woid of God, and I would endeavor for
myself to draw out the truth, as the Holy Spirit might suggest to me;
and I believe if we do that we shall find something that we are pre-
pared to talk about. I know very well that these prepared reviews
sometimes have the appearance of something cut and dried, as though
we were going to rest upon our oars and have a nice time that Sabbath.
The result is, that the dryest times I have spent in the Sunday-school
have sometimes been those that ought to have been the most valuable.
I feel as though the work was not all done after we have brought into
the field of the Sabbath-school our patent sowing machines — I mean,
not sewing in the sense of s-e-w, but I mean those machines that scat-
ter the seed broadcast. After having brought our patent and well
regulated self-reapers and self-binders, and after having put into the
Sunday-schools our threshing machines, some of us think we must do
the sowing and reaping and threshing all in one day. But after hav-
mg done the sowing and reaping and threshing for three months, I
think it is worth while to go back and pick up what was left behind.
The Master, after that great free banquet to the thousands, directed
His disciples to take up what was left, and there was a great deal more
taken up after the meal than there was at the beginning. So we may
find by gathering up the lessons at the end of the quarter that there
were a great many more gems, more heads of wheat scattered than
there were when we began. (Applause.) I think of Ruth going
forth and gleaning, and I think of the stories that are sometimes told
ni our prayer meetings about gleaning. An old deacon in my church
said his parents used to offer an extra price for all the heads the boys
would pick up after the reapers had gone by. They used to follow
the reapers all day long, and at the end of the day they would find
tiiat they had a bushel or two of wheat, free from tares, and moreover
the heaviest wheat from all the field, because it had ripened and fallen
to the ground first. The very best wheat was that thus gathered
Illinois State Sunday School Convention. 113
up. (Applause.) It is the same way with reference to our reviewincr
the word of God in the Sunday-school — we shall find that the heaviest
heads, the heaviest truths, the most sparkling and richest truths, per-
haps, are those that come from the little seed that was dropped the
first Sunday of the quarter. It has ripened during the three months,
and we never would have found it if we had not searched for it in a re-
view lesson. (Applause.)
Mr. B. F. Jacohs asked for the number of delegates who had re-
views. The show of hands was said to be "good."
Mr. Jacobs. — How do you have it? Tell us in a word just how you
do it, so we may go home and do it too.
A Delegate. — Each teacher reviews. The teachers review in the
morning, and at night we have a general review.
Mr. Jacobs. — A concert review?
The Delegate. — Yes.
Mr. Jacobs. — And what do the scholars do?
The Delegate. — Take part in the review. We generally go over
the general text and topics, and have the scholars all take part in that
way.
Mr. Jacobs. — (Addressing another delegate.) How do you do in
your school?
The Delegate. — We never review twice in the same way.
Mr. Jacobs. — Will anybody tell us how they manage to review in
a primary department?
A Delegate. — We asked the little ones in our primary class of 1SS4
what they remembered, and they remembered the pictures.
Another Delegate. — There is a lady in our school, Mrs. J. E. Miller,
who seems to be very apt in making little things out of common paste-
board. She will carrv a great big ship there, and those little children will
look with open-mouthed wonder to see her rock that ship, as though it
were in a storm. She made a big heart, with a door opening into it, and
she said to them, "You see there is a door in front, and when the Lord
comes and knocks, it flies open." And then she got a couple of these
advertising fans in Chicago, and showed them to the little people, and
said, "This baby is laughing; it is doing as its mama wants it to do.
And this one is crying because it has been naughty, and disobeyed
mama." I have a little boy, and and he never gets tired talking about
the laughing baby and the crying baby. Her whole heart is with that
little class of Germans. There ne^'er had been a class there until five
years ago; they always thought it \vas impossible to do anything with
that class of children, in one of the "hard" counties of the state. If
that church is ever enlarged, and if a large crowd goes up from it to
the city beyond, I believe it is going to come from that little class, that
has been taught by this lady's thoughtfulness and love. (Applause.)
A motion was made by an enthusiastic brother, that "Mrs. Miller be
invited to come to the next State Convention and tell us how she does
it." The motion was put to vote and carried quite as enthusiastic-
ally by the Convention. After this pleasant little episode, Mr. Jacobs
gave some of his experience as a Superintendent, in arousing interest in
class work.
114
Illinois State Sunday School Convbntion.
CLASS REPORTS.
B. F. JACOBS.
I call your attention to the blank that has just been distributed (re-
ferring to printed copies in the delegates hands), of a report of the
Advanced Department of Immanuel Baptist Sunday School, Chicago:
ADVANCED DEPARTMENT.
Immanuel Baptist Sunday-School Chicago.
6
i
Grade of Class.
Number in Class.
On Roll of Honor.
Rank
100 on R. H.
Feb.
Mar.
April.
Feb.
Mar.
April.
Feb.
Mar.
April
Feb.
Mar.
April.
81.4
98
100
7
7
8
5
7
8
2
5
8
89.6
95
100
6
7
7
5
6
7
5
4
7
93-7
97-5
100
4
4
4
■4
4
4
3
3
4
1
31
71. 1
97
6
8
8
0
4
8
2
2
7
80.6
97-5
93-7
9
9
9
8
8
9
6
6
5
80.5
98.1
93-7
8
8
8
5
8
7
5
6
6
71
82.5
93
9
9
9
4
5
7
2
2
4
77.5
79.2
93
5
7
7
3
4
6
3
3
6
6q
86.6
92
14
14
14
6
ID
13
I
3
2
71
76.6
92
6
6
6
2
3
6
0
2
3
71.6
70.5
90.6
7
9
ID
4
4
8
I
2
5
68.7
82.7
88.6
10
II
13
7
9
II
2
6
6
72
79
88.3
7
10
10
3
7
8
I
3
4
82.8
91.5
87.5
9
10
10
6
9
ID
3
6
5
72.5
85.6
85
9
8
8
4
7
8
I
2
3
70
82
82.3
5
6
7
2
3
6
I
2
3
72
80
82
34
39
48
23
28
36
15
18
16
41.5
75-4
80.4
13
II
13
3
7
9
2
2
3
47
75
78-5
6
5
5
I
2
2
0
I
I
55.2
70
78.2
12
12
12
4
6
7
3
2
6
71
96.5
77
8
8
8
6
7
4
I
6
2
64
72
76.4
7
6
6
3
2
4
I
2
2
64
78.3
76.1
5
6
8
2
5
3
I
3
3
72.1
82.2
74.6
10
II
12
4
8
6
3
3
2
51
75
74
7
7
8
I
2
4
0
4
2
62.1
69.2
74
6 1 6
6
3
3
3
2
I
2
60
71.2
7t
8
II
10
4
3
5
I
2
2
27.2
33
70
13
10
16
0
0
6
0
0
2
49
49.6
70
4
8
7
I
2
4
I
0
I
46
62
67
6
6
6
I
2
4
I
0
0
60
62
67
6
6
6
2
2
3
53
68.7
66.1
7
7
9
I
4
3
I
I
I
61
68.3
64
7
6
8
3
2
5
I
2
2
56.5
52
62
40
5
5
8
5
2
2
2
I
I
TOT'AT F=;
No.
Classet.
Feb. 33
Mar. 34
Average G
rade.
No. in Classes.
On Roll of Honor
Grade 100 on
R. of H.
Feb.
Mar.
April.
Feb- Mar.JApr.
285 303 3331
Fct.
134
Mar. 'Apr.
Feb
.Mar.
105
■ 33
Apr.
125
20
A
^Pril 35
i* 64.6
1 76.8
80.7
185 236; 72
-
Month!
yGain...
.1 12.2
39
.1 18
1 30II
51I f
>i
Illinois State Sunday School Convention. 115
I also call attention to another paper, prepared by the Superintend-
ent of the First Baptist Sunday School in Chicago.
CTviccigo, 188
L. EVERINGHAM,
Siipt. First Saptist Church Sxiuday School.
In conforttiity to a resolution unanimously adopted by the Officers
and Teachers of the school^ I hand you my report for the mouth
ending with the last Sunday of. 188 .
I. Names of Scholars who have left I
during the month, and cause of "j
their leaving. (^
3. Number of visits made in the interests of the school during the month..
3. Number of letters written to members of your class during the month-
4. Is your class evenly graded
if not what transfers would
suggest ?
1 and I
you S
5. How many of your scholars attend public worship at Mw church?-
6. How many of your scholars are I
members of this church, and *j
what are their names? (^
7. How many of your scholars are i
professors of religion who are J
not members of this church, and j
what are their names? ^
8. Have you any scholars who are i
specially interested in their own '
salvation, and what are their j
namft<;? v
9. Have any of your scholars re- (
quested prayers during the '
month, and what are their J
names? ^
10. How many of your scholars have their own Bibles in the class? .
11. Give the names of scholars who -: -
have no Bibles of their own? I
12. Have you any discouraging cir- I
cumstances to contend with, and -\
if so what are they? (
13. Do you know of any suitable i
teachers who can be induced to '
enter the school? If so give j
names and addresses.
Please state any items of interest not included in the above questions on back of this sheet.
Teacher. Class JVo.
Mr. Everingham prepared this blank, which he distributes to his teach-
ers on the last Sunday of every month, and asks every teacher to fill
out and return to him as soon as possible. He takes a monthly report
from every teacher to the superintendent, then he makes a digest of
ii6 Illinois State Sunday Schcxjl Convention.
that report and gives back that digest to the school, without names, but
simply the gleaning of the report. And at the Covenant Meeting of
the church, held once a month, he reads those gleanings, those facts, to
the church. We have a Superintendents' Association inside of our
County Association. And this Association has meetings once a month
except in mid-summer. We meet at the different churches in the city
and discuss the things that are particularly helpful in the management
of schools. Mr. Everingham a few months ago brought to our notice
that class report. We have adopted it in our own school, and it has
been adopted in several others. If any of you care for one, send a
postal card to L. Everingham, Chicago, and you will get it. The
only thing that I think needs to be done is to adapt it to the latitude
and longitude of your own school, and occasionally to change it. Now,
for an illustration, it says: "Names of scholars who have left during
the month and the cause of their leaving." That is an important mat-
tei", and the school that is well cared for, will have those names re-
ported; it will know why the scholars have gone. Notice, also, that
a report is called for, of the number of visits made. When a careless
teacher sees reported the number of visits made during the month, he
will begin to run his hand through his hair and say: "I declare, I
haven't made a visit. I guess I'd better run around and see one or two
of the boys in my class." So he gets a taste of it, finds that it is a
good thing, and goes to see the rest of them. He reads: "Number
of letters written to your class during the month," and he sits down
and opens a correspondence with them. Every scholar in the school
ought to be registered. You ought to have the post office address and
the names of the parents of every scholar in the school. Then every
scholar in the school ought to be marked for their attendance and for
tardiness, or for their absence. They do that in the day schools, do
they not? Then we can do it in the Sunday School, can't we? Every
scholar in the school, young and old, ought to have an account kept
of the way they get their lessons — or don't get their lessons. Isn't
that fair? Isn't an account kept in the day schools as to the manner
the recitations are made?
A Delegate. — In all the good ones.
If a scholar is absent from a school something ought to be done; he
ought to be written to, ought to be visited. Every eflbrt made to reach
him. In the Primary Dep't of the school I am referring to, there are 276
scholars at this time, divided into twenty-nine classes. They are divided
into four grades. First, those that cannot read a letter of the alphabet.
There are twenty little fellows on chairs there, on one side, three vears
old, and twenty more on that side there, three years old, and they clon't
know their letters. Thirty-six out of the forty were present last Sim-
day. They are taught from the lips of the teacher. The second
grade is composed of those that can learn the Golden Text. The
third grade are those that can learn the Golden Text, and, as a rule,
drill on the lesson. The fourth are those that learn these, and in ad-
dition they memorize at least one verse of Scripture. When they en-
ter the Primary Department the name and address of the parent and
the age o^ the child are recorded. His birthday is noted, and every
boy and girl, when their birthday comes, receives by mail a letter and
a little card: "Dear Charlie— We remember that the 14th day of
Illinois State Sunday School Convention. 117
June is your birthday. I hope the Lord will bless you, and that we
will see you Sunday at the school." It is a little thing, don't cost more
than a cent or two, but Charlie never had a letter before in his life;
Mary never had a letter before in her life. A parent says: "We
moved about a mile away, and thought that we could not come any
more to the school, but we got a letter for the little people, a letter di-
rected to our little Mary saying: 'We missed you very much. We
hope you are not sick. If you are send us a postal card right away,
and if you are not, come and have your Golden Text. Here is your
cai'd that you could not get because you were not there. When we
found that anybody was so much interested in our children we thought
a mile was a little thing on the road to Heaven." Here in Alton I met
a bright-eyed little thing, with little blue flowers in her hat, and I said,
"Where do you live?" and she said, "Over by the railroad." "Do
you go to Sunday School?" "No." "Why?" Nobody never called
forme." "What is your name?" "Teresa Yeager." "Don't you
know of anybody to call for you?" "I don't know whether I can find
a girl to call for me or not." Let us just pray that somebody in Al-
ton will find that girl and get her to Sunday School. But to return
to the Report. Here are a few of the questions this Report asks:
How many of your scholars attend public worship'? Seven, regu-
larly.
How many visits have you made? One.
How many letters have you written? None; no occasion.
Is your class evenly graded 1 Yes.
Have you any transfers to suggest 1 No.
How many of your scholars are church members? Five.
Have you any difficulties ? None.
That is a very brief report. You can see the effect of it coming
upon a teacher. That plan worked so well I thought I would trv the
plan of reporting privately to every class the conditition of the school
from the Superintendent's platform. So, we decided upon the plan
that you have in yovu" hands. This system of checking is very simple.
The plan of Haney is substantially the same. (Mr. Jacobs then ex-
plained on the black-board the system of recording as illustrated in the
Immanuel Baptist Sunday School referred to.)
The point I make is this: It is possible to lift those classes. It is
possible to lift your best class; it is possible to lift your poorest class.
A Delegate. — Which one did you lift the most?
Mr. Jacobs. — A class of men and women.
The Delegate.— Is that a Bible class?
Mr. Jacobs. — Certainly. All our classes are Bible classes — don't
study any other book.
They have been lifted; they have been obliged to go up; they
could'nt stand the pressure. Now which do you suppose is the more
diflScult to get to study, boys or girls ?
Several Delegates. — Boys.
Mr. Jacobs. — I want to call your attention to the fact, that the first
class in this Report is girls; the next class below is boys, and the next
is boys; and out of the eight higiiest classes in the school, five of them
are boys. [Applause.J
A Delegate. — What are their ages?
n8 Illinois State Sunday School Convention.
Mr. Jacobs. — Well, of different ages. In one of those classes the
bovs are about fifteen, and in another they are twelve and thirteen,
and in another the boys are eleven or twelve. The second class here
on this Report are little rough fellows, but we have a teacher there
that went to his work with conscientiousness that I never saw excel-
led in my life. He has gathered that little class around him; he has
got every one of them a Bible; every boy is there every Sunday;
every boy has his lesson, and three of them have been converted. But
I don't intend to tell you instances connected with the school, I only
want to call your attention to the fact that it is worth while to try a
class report.
The audience sang: "Jesus, Lover of My Soul." At the close,
Mr. Excell sang, by request, the solo entitled, "He Saved a Poor Sin-
ner like Me."
The President then introduced Mr. Oliver, who spoke as follows:
THE SUPPLEMENTAL LESSON.
O. A. OLIVER.
When this subject was first suggested in our Sunday School I felt
my inefficiency very much, but we concluded to try, with the best
preparation possible. We got along admirably. The next Sunday
there were some of the wise men of the church and Sunday School
that had not learned the lesson, and they began to think, "Our young
Superintendent is putting himself up, and we want to see how smart he
is, and we will find out how well he is up on these books of the Bible."
By and by we had a Convention. The young people had done very
well; they had learned something of the history of the books, and of
their classification and order. And I said, "We will have in our town-
ship Convention, a short exercise on this, and you will please be pres-
ent." Sure enough, when the time came, in marched the class, and the
honor they did themselves then made it easy work for mc during the
rest of the year. Little by little we classified and arranged — the Be-
atitudes, the Apostles' creed, the Ten Commandments, and such
other things as we thought necessary, and at the end of the year we
reviewed them, gathering up, as the brother so well said, the well
ripened heads. You will meet with discouragements, and you will be
dissatisfied with your work; but as those who labor in the country, in
small schools, and those that are hard to manage, we must be content
with a little at a time. Bro. Jacobs has told us that men are as divinely
called to be Statistical Secretaries of the counties, as to preach the
Gospel; and I want to tell you that I know men in the country dis-
tricts, miles away from any preaching, who are as divinely called, who
feel the call to maintain their schools as much as any minister that ever
stood in the sacred desk. I hesitate to give any exhibition of supple-
mental lessons. We have had beautiful illustrations of them. But, as
has been defined, "supplemental is adding to." We must remember
that there is something else to teach our classes, other than these his-
Illinois State Sunday School Convention. 119
torical facts in regard to the book and its history. We can, as a sup-
plemental lesson, gather the central ti^uth, the thoughts of the lesson
clustered in our minds, and reviewing them before the school, leave an
impression the boys and girls will carry with them. And this thought
means something else: Besides this supplemental lesson, there is the
supplemental lesson of our lives. We must not forget this. I know
how it is in these country schools — and I am addressing myself more
particularly to those interested in them to-day — I know how it is; we
have teachers in our schools who work from Monday morning till Sat-
urday night; and in addition to this they have the work of the church;
and they f^nd it hard to do the best work in everything. But they can
by earnest effort so live and so show their interest in their scholars,
that their lives shall be a grand supplement to the lessons they have
learned from God's truth. (Applause.)
Miss Rider: — I have been asked to mention the helpful books that I
know of in normal class work. Let me caution you not to lean on
these books; do not use them in the place of your own earnest study
and effort; but they are good as helps.
1. The Westminister series of Normal Class Outline. They are
in the line of the Chautauqua text books.
2. The Normal Class Outlines of the Chautauqua course. These,
you know, are the "Mother of us all."
3. Teaching and Teacher: by Trumbull. An admirable book, as
we know from the name of its author.
4. This new and beautiful Bible Atlas, by Dr. Hurlbut. Admir-
able in every way. Especially adapted to — well, might say, to Normal
Class teachers, but it is especially adapted to any body who wants to
know more of the life of our Lord.
And those books by Grosser, an English authoi', thorough and help-
ful. I think I have learned from them, as much as from any thing of
the kind I have ever seen. And Fitch's books: Fitch on Memory,
and Fitch on Questions, and Fitch on Attention.
Let me also speak of this plan of an Assembly Normal Union, (cop-
ies were distributed thi^ough the audience) a plan for systemizing the
Normal work all over the country. Take a copy home with you, and
see if you do not get help from it in your Normal work.
I want to emphasize the desirability of doing more or less of this in-
stitute work, and doing it well too, and the value of Normal work,
especially in our county Conventions. (Applause.) Above all, in
those parts of the county where the work is well organized. Let us
give tlie country people the advantages of this blackboard work, tak-
ing just simple and practical subjects. Let every one of us take home
some of these ideas, and bring them into the school in a two or three
minute lesson. You remember Mr. Tracy's story of how they teach
boys to swim in the Naval Schools of England — just take them to the
edge of the boat and pitch them over, and after a little they swim.
Now just begin this Normal work. Make the effort and you will
gather wisdom and confidence as you go on.
The President in a few pleasant words introduced Miss Kimball,
the well known temperance worker, who addressed the Convention
as follows on this most important subject :
120 Illinois State Sunday School Convention.
TEMPERANCE IN SUNDAY SCHOOLS.
LUCIA E. F. KIMBALL.
My Friends: I always feel as I come to the end of a three day's
convention, that we have been crowded so full of good things that we
feel as though we couldn't hold them all. I am reminded of the min-
ister who preached an hour and a half, and when he went home his
wife said, "My dear, you must have been dreadful tired." "No," he
said, "Not very, but you ought to have seen the people." (Laughter.)
I am very glad to stand in this convention, where I have not been
privileged to be for quite a number of years, to speak upon this sub-
ject, which is so dear to many of you, and which is becoming dearer
every day. As I sat here and heard Mr. Jacobs tell about that little
girl out on the streets of Alton, not in the Sunday School because no-
body had called upon her, I thought, "Oh, dear friends, if you could
have been down among the slums of a city, and seen with the Wo-
men's Christian Temperance Union, the multitudes for whom nobody
ever called. If you had heard men say "Shut me up somewhere.
Send me away where I can't get this drink." If you had known of
men saying "Nobody ever told me about the drink. 1 didn't hear it
in the Sunday School. I didn't hear it in the pulpit. I never thought
it was going to conquer me. If I had heard those words, "At the last
it biteth like a serpent and stingeth like an adder," may be I wouldn't
have been bitten." I have frequently heard the question asked : Is
is safe to take the pledge and teach temperance in our Sunday Schools,
when the scholars are largely of the foreign population? It is said
that we talk about these wonderful things but that it is a great deal
easier to come here and talk about them than it is to go home and do
them. For the past few years it has been my privilege to labor in this
work. I know how often the teacher goes home perfectly disheart-
ened— not knowing what to do. I want to say in answer to this ques-
tion: First, it cannot be done carelessly. It takes patience; it takes
the fervor which only the Holy Spirit can give. And would not ad-
vise any Sunday School teacher who has not that Spirit that will ena-
ble her to go forth in love to teach this temperance in all patience and
perseverance, to attempt it.
Some one has said, "Opinions are of value, only as they hold facts
in solution." So I might stand here and say "It is my opinion, it is my
theory, that our foreign population can be reached in the Sunday-
School work," and that might be very well, but we want nothing un-
less there are facts back of it.. Now, I feel as if I were among my
friends, and you will pardon me if I tell you a little bit of history
from our own city. While in some respects it is a city of Satan's
kingdom, it is also a city of the kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ,
and we are doing in that City of Chicago a temperance work that
will tell some day. In answer to this question I will give you one or
two instances. In the very beginning of the work I had the Primary
class in a school which was said to be one of the worst Sunday Schools
in the city. The boys came there with pistols in their pockets. Po-
Illinois State Sunday School Convention. 121
Hceman came there to guard us. The scholars were almost all for-
eigners' children from saloons. I went to their homes, and oh, the
curses and vile language, and every form of ^vickedness with which I
found them surrounded. I made up my mind that I would make my
children grow up as temperance childi-en. I said to the superinten-
dent, "I want to take temperance into my Sunday School. I want to
take the pledge to that infant class. I believe in it." He was one of
our largest hearted men in Chicago, but he said, "You musn'tdo it, it
isn't safe; but afterward he said I could do as I pleased. I went away.
I had profound respect for his judgment, but a voice seemed contin-
ually repeating to me, "You should do your duty," and my duty ap-
peared plain to me. I talked to them. I don't believe in a careless or
promiscuous signing of the pledge. I believe one reason why there is
some feeling against it is that we have not a rational understanding of
what it is. So I talked to the children to make it very simple. Don't
bind the conscience too much. I said, "Go home and tell your parents"
— remember, they were to go into the German and Scandinavian
homes — "and tell your parents about it. Tell them what it means,
that j^ou are not going to drink — and if they want you to sign the
pledge bring your names on a slip of paper." The next Sunday
I went there with apprehension — I had not the faith I have now, be-
cause I was just feeling my way in the dark. There was not a vacant
seat in the class. I said, "How many of you told your parents what I
said? Raise your hands." Over a hundred little hands were lifted
with the white slips fluttering in them. I let some of the older ones
sign the pledge on their own responsibility. I got the children a little
medal to hang around the neck, but I wanted them to sign the pledge
for the sake of it, so I didn't tell them about the medal. A little Ger-
man boy came to me and said that the Sunday before his little brother
had signed the pledge, and he had been taken sick and died. He was
lying in his coffin and his mother wanted the medal to put around his
neck and be buried with him to show he had signed the pledge. That
was what a German mother thought of the pledge. For several
years I have not been in that school, but last year I came back to Chi-
cago, and I could see the fruit of the work. I went back there, and
found that some of those boys and girls who were in my infant class
were coming up to do the work of the school. They said, "We have
been waiting for you to come; we want to make this a temperance
school through and through." So we took the pledge; and organized
the school into a cold water army. One of those boys who used to be
in my infant class, comes up every day from his business and meets
with those children, and then goes back and works until eleven o'clock
at night, in order that he may help in this temperance work. The mis-
sion schools that have made a specialty of temperance have been won-
derfully blessed of God. A few years ago a little German boy came
to the teacher after school and said, "This afternoon I signed the
pledge. When I go home my father will send me for beer, and
what shall I do? That is one of the hardest questions we have to
answer. The teacher said, "Get it, but you know you must not
drink it." So the boy was sent out to the saloon Sunday. Dear
friends, do we remember that because of the saloon, our Sunday is
the saddest day of all the week for multitudes. Well, the little
122 Illinois State Sunday School Convention.
boy was sent for drink. It was set upon the tiible, just as we use
milk. The father olfered the boy some, and he wouldn't take it.
"Why don't you chink ?" "I have signed the pledge, and am not
going to drink any more." In anger the man said "Do you think
you are better than your father? You must drink your beer."
But as he looked into the boy's blue eye he saw something. I
can't tell you what it was, but there was something; the better nature
of the man saw something, and he took every mug to the door and
threw them out, saying "We will have no more beer in this house."
(Applause.) Then came the kingdom of God. That haj^pened in
the Tabernacle School right in the midst of the foreign population.
Last year the superintendent arranged to have a temperance festi-
val. The children had been singing temperance songs, and the pas-
tor, a German, spoke to them. He said, "Boys, you have been
singing about prohibition, what does it mean?" German voices,
Bohemian voices, Irish voices, Scandinavian voices answered: "It
means when we grow up that we are going to vote for prohibition."
And, my friends there is coming a temperance vote, even in our
wicked city of Chicago, that will tell on this great evil. (Applau.se.)
The Women's Christian Temperance Union has not found any place
in Chicago where it has not dared to go, nor any place where the
shadow of the Lord has not been over it. A temperance meeting was
advertised to be held in a church in a certain district, and the next morn-
ing that church from top to bottom was covered with the placards of
saloon keepers. They had been very industrious. They were not
going to have any temperance there. But the brave minister and the
brave superintendent said "It is the foreign population that needs tem-
perance, and we will go on in God's name. The next year I went
down there, and what do you suppose I saw.'' A new church that cost
eight thousand dollars. The church had doubled; the Sunday School
had doubled; two-thirds of the school had signed the pledge. The
pastor of the church had the Cold Water Army organized there.
There is no machinery about it. It is simply signing the pledge in the
Sunday School. There was a class of adult foreigners, twenty-seven
in all. I said, "Your wonderful growth has been largely on account
of your taking temperance into your school," and he said, "I have no
doubt of it. 1 have no doubt of it." Oh, dear friends, let us take that
wonderful prophecy in God's blessed book for the redemption of this
blessed land from the rum traffic. "The forces of the Gentiles shall
be brought unto you." God is bringing all these foreigners unto us to
make them a power for righteousness in this temperance work. They
are with us, and we must respect their prejudice and their education.
We must be very kind and very persuasive; but the welfare, the sal-
vation, of any people is much more worthy of our consideration than
their prejudices.
Aud while we are saving the foreign population we want to be sure
we are saving our own home schools. On the yth day of last Decem-
ber, all over this land we were studying a special temperance lesson,
and if I had never believed in a temperance lesson before, I should have
believed in it after learning how so many children wanted to sign the
pledge, because of that lesson that they couldn't all do it on one Sun-
day in Mr. Wannamaker's school — nine hundred signing the pledge.
Illinois State Sunday School Convention. 123
Now, does temperance interfere with religious work? Nay, verily.
The next Sunday following that temperance Sunday, in one school 90
rose for prayer. Dear friends, don't be afraid. If you teach religiously
this temperance work, don't be afraid it will interfere with anything,
I believe when we have the Sunday School of America for total ab-
stinence, we have the whole land for it, I believe it is the grandest
and most powerful organization in the land, and we want all the schol-
ars, officers, teachers and scholars, to pledge if they will. We believe
in having class pledges to be kept by the teacher in his class book.
We have the triple pledge, "Abstinence from alcoholic drinks, tobacco
and profanity," and we have also single pledges. Here is one verse I
should like to see written all over the land: "If any man defileth the
temple of God, him will God destroy ; for the temple of God is holy,
which temple ye are." That covers the whole ground of temperance
— 3^our bodv God's temple; alcohol a poison, the destroyer of body
and soul, defiling the temple of God that he has told us to keep pure.
We want the temperance work to be done inside the school. We have
little badges which we give to the soldiers of this Cold Water Arm}',
each one of them says, "Tremble, King Alcohol, we shall grow up."
Years ago in France a company of boys came together for drill, whose
motto was, "Tremble, tyrants, we shall grow up." People did not think
very much of them, but when they grew up they shook the Bourbon
throne to its centre. That is what the children of the land are saying
to-day, as they sing their temperance songs — "Tremble, King Alcohol,
we shall grow up, and we are going to deliver this land from the curse
of rum." There is need of this work in the Sunday School. Without
special investigation we would have but little idea of the numbers that
drink is leading out of the Sundav Schools into jails and prisons. Let
us not lull ourselves with the thought that there is no need of this work.
I believe that God has drecreed that this rum traffic should be banished
from the land. And that he will reach down his hand sometime,
somehow, and touch this evil just as he did slavery, and it will pass
away. Don't get tired, because vou can't do more. Many a member
af your classes may come up on the judgment day and say that the lit-
tle seed th.it was dropped when the hand was so weary has blossomed
and grown, and perhaps cast a lovely shadow all over the land. (Ap-
plause.)
Mr. H. T. Lav: — Mr. President, I move the adoption of the follow-
ing resolution: Resolved, that we fully appreciate the spirit ot the
work of the National Woman's Christian Temperance Union in its
general aspect, and as carried forward by its ten thousand local auxil-
iaries: especially the department which seeks to secure specific tem-
perance teaching for children in the various Sunday Schools of our
land.
The motion was seconded and carried.
The session closed with the singing of the doxology, and the bene-
diction bv Rev. A. C. Price.
124 Illinois State Sunday School Convention.
TJiird Day— Afternoon Session.
The last session of the Convention opened with a crowded house,
notwithstanding the fact that many of the delegates had left for their
homes. Rev. A. C Price occupied the chair. The audience sang
"Bringing in the Sheaves," and the Alton Quartette rendered very
beautifully one of their fine selections, "I am Watching for the Morn-
ing."
Rev. R. D. Russell, of La Salle County, led in praj^er.
REPORT OF COMMITTEE ON RESOLUTIONS.
Mr. Griffith, chairman of the Committee on Resolutions, offered the
following report, which was unanimously adopted :
Since our last Annual Convention, Providence has removed from
our State, by the hand of death, one of the pioneers of the State Sun-
day School Association of Illinois, Re\ . S. G. Lathrop, president of
the fourth Conventon held in Chicago in 1S62. For several years Bro.
Lathrop was one of the active, moving spirits of our State work, and
the value of his services in laying the foundation of our organization in
those early days can hardly be overestimated. It has been about
twenty years since he met with us in our Annual Conventions, but he
has been diligently engaged in the Master's work in other fields in the
vineyard of our Lord. With his hair whitened by the frosts of three
score and ten years, and his hands full of sheaves, he had been gather-
ing for the Master, he has been summoned to join "the general assem-
bly of the church of the first born, whose names are written in heaven."
We have missed, at this Convention, the presence of two venerable
Sunday School workers of Illinois, B. G. Roots, and his excellent wife,
of Tamaroa, whose presence has always been recognized at our annual
gatherings. Both attended our last convention; but since then Mrs.
Roots has been called higher, and we desire to-day, as a convention, to
extend our heart-felt sympathy to her aged husband in his loneliness,
and to rejoice in the testimony she left by a long life filled with
useful labors, that she was not unprepared for the summons that came
so suddenly to call her home.
During the sessions of this Convention the Angel of Death has come
very near us, and we have missed the presence of our brother T. P.
Nisbet, the president of the last State Convention, who left our meet-
ings to stand by the side of his beloved flxther as he was summoned
from a world of pain and a bed of wasting sickness to a world of joy
and a couch of rest in the bosom of the Savior he loved. One of his
last utterances was an expression of interest in this Convention. We
congratulate the son upon the example and teaching of such a father,
and we commend him with loving sympathy and Christian faith to
the Lord God who made the mantle of the old prophet a power in
Illinois State Sunday School Convention, 125
the hands of the young Elisha, as it fell from the chariot that bore him
to the skies.
Resolved, that this paper be spread upon the record of this Conven-
tion, and that copies be sent to the friends of those wrhose death has
called out this memorial of regard and expression of our sympathy.
Rev. F. W. Foster presented resolutions of thanks as follow^s:
Resolved^ That our hearty thanks are due and are hereby extended,
First — To the Railroads who have so kindly furnished us with re-
duced rates over their roads. Second — To the local, Chicago, and St.
Louis papers, for their full and friendly repoits of our meeting, and,
Third — 'J'o the citizens of Alton, for the large-hearted hospitality and
overflowing kindness that has made our sojourn here so delightful.
We joray the rich blessing of God to rest upon and abide with them.
Mr. B. F. Jacobs.-- -Mr. President: 1 don't like to leave here to-
night without some special mention of the boys that have stood at
the doors, and run errands, and walked w^ith soft footsteps, and smiled
lovingly up into my face and told me one and all that they were Chris-
tian bi)ys on their way to the Eternal City. I hope one of them will
some time stand here as Chairman of the Executive Committee, and
that another of them will be President of one of the State Conven-
tions. (Applause.)
This motion was carried, most heartily, and Mr. Excell sang:
"While the Years are Rolling On."
W. B. JACOBS
Mr. President: 1 will read one verse in the seventh chapter of
II Kings: "Then they said one to another, we do not well ; this day
is a day of good tidings, and we hold our peace. If we tarry till the
morning light, some mischief will come upon us. Now, therefore
come, that we may go and tell the King's household."
There was a famine in Israel. The people that had been led out of
Egypt by the pillar of cloud and fire, the people, that under God, had
gone through the Red Sea and the Wilderness, the people that for
hundreds of years had been under the special protection of God's pre-
cious loving hand, is now besieged in its own city, and starvingfor want
of bread. What a picture for us to think of to-night? In many places
in our own land and in our own State the church of the living God
has been driven from its outposts, and to-day is standing on the de-
fensive, while the hosts of infidelity and skepticism and intemperance
and every form of evil, are besieging us within our own gates, and
many of God's people are starving for want of bread. There was
bread enough and to spare just outside of that city. God, according
to his own word, had spread a table that would give a supply to every
one. So it is to-day; Christian men and women, these beseiged child-
ren of God, starving for want of good things which He has provided
for them — besieged by their enemies. If they would step out and meet
the enemy face to face, taking God at His word, they would find an
abundant supply for all their needs. But they don't know it, and there
were needed messengers to take to the children of God the tidings of
the supply that He has provided for them.
126 Illinois State Sunday School Convention.
There sat outside of the gate of Samaria four poor, wretched lep-
rous men, starving, banished outside the city because of their unclean-
ness and wretchedness, looking into each other faces and wondering if
they must die. God made use of those men, the last that we should
suppose that He would have chosen, to bring to His people the tid-
ings of the good things that He had provided for them. Their very
extremity, their very necessity, their very helplessness was the thing
that urged them to go and search for the food that God had provided
for them. But in that necessity, in that extremity, in that helplessness,
these men found that indeed God had spread a table for them in the
presence of their enemies. And then these men after feasting them-
selves, as you remember the story, upon the good things, spake the
the words that I have read. "We do not well; this day is a day of
good tidings, and we hold our peace; if we tarry till the morning light
some mischief will come upon us; now, therefore come let us go and
bring the tidings to the King's household." Dear Christian friends,
as we have sat here in this Convention during these few davs, it has
seemed to us that we have been like those men that went out from the
besieged City of Samaria, and found that oin* gracious Lord, according
to His word, had spread a table so o\ erflowing, so abundant, that our
minds have been more than supplied, and that as we come to separate
we cannot do better than to repeat the words of these men and say one
to another: "Come, let us carry the glad tidings to the king's house-
hold." Brethren, many of God's chosen people are besieged by doubt,
unbelief, l)y ignorance and fear, by the hosts without and the hosts
within, until they hardly know that God has spread a table of more
than thirty thousand precious promises, an abundant supply for all
their needs. And you and I have been chosen of God to come up
here to this feast of good things and discover what abundant store He
has provided. I suppose the first thought that fills the heart of every
consecrated child of God, of every one that has discovered the riches
of the things that God has provided for us in His word, and in His
service, is, "Can it be possible that this is for me?" Bro. Morton tells
a story of a woman who used to go into his Brooklyn Chapel, where
he used to preach the gospel, Sunday night after Sunday night, seem-
ingly indifferent, her face hardened with sin, and wrinkled with age,
and her heart as hard as the face looked. She seemed to be indifferent
to all that he said, until one night he preached from that wonderful
text: "The Son of God, who loved me, and who gave himself for
me." He said, after the congregation was dismissed and he had got
through speaking to the friends that had gathered about the platform,
that woman sat still upon her seat, and he went down to speak to her.
She looked like one dazed; he wondered if she was in her right mind.
But reaching out his hand and speaking a word to her, he arrested her
attention, and she looked up into his face. She said: "Mr. Morton,
do you mean to say that the Son of God loved me and gave himself
for me?" Yes, he said, yes, that is just what I mean to say. But,
she said, "You don't know anything about,' what I'am and what I
have been." Said he, "It doesn't make any difTerence, the Son of God
loves yop and gave himself for you." He talked to her a little
while, and after a little the light seemed to break in upon her heart,
and she cried out, "The Son of God, loved me and gave himself for
Illinois State Sunday School Convention. 127
me." Has not that thought ever come over you, Christian brother
and sister? Sometimes w^hen I have been permitted to study God's
word and to reaHze something ot the great feast of blessing and of love
and grace that was spread out for me, I have looked up and said "How^
can this be possible that this is for me?" And then thinking for a mo-
ment I have knelt again to say: "I don't understand it! I don't un-
derstand it — but I know it is so. Thank God! He loved me and gave
himself for me." Just as helpless, just as wretched, just as starving,
as those lepers were, were you and I when God first revealed to us
the measureless love of His heart, and spread out before our wonder-
ing eyes the glad feast of salvation. Dear friends, for what has God
done these great things for us.'' Why are v^^e privileged to enjoy such
a meeting as this? Why are we drawing nearer to him day by day,
learning more and more of his wondrous grace? There are households
of our King that are starving for this bread of God. There are
churches where it seems as if the whole membership, and even minis-
ters of the gospel, by name at least— Children of God — thinking more
of satisfying their souls with husks when in their father's house there
is bread enough and to spare. They have been hemmed in by these
iron gates of ignorance and fear. They have seen the enemy arise and
come upon them like a flood, and they have gone inside their intrench-
ments, and thev are looking each other in the face, and with quivering
lips asking, "Is everything going to pieces?" They hear the rampant
speeches of demagogues; they hear the roaring blasts of blasphemy;
they hear the shouts and jeers rising from the hosts of sin on every
side, and quaking with fear they wonder indeed if the Church of God
is not to be starved and buried out of sight altogether. It is your mis-
sion and mine, my brother, to go back to our towns, back to our
churches with the glad tidings of the gracious gospel of God, and tell
these, our faint-hearted brethren, of the abundant blessing that our
God has for us. Though many are like those hosts of Israel weeping
all night long at the story of giants, the sons of Anak, if there shall be
found in any community two men, or two women, like Joshua and
Caleb, at least, I tell you we may go back and strengthen the hearts
and encourage those who are discouraged, with the assurance that great
as our enemies may be, and high as the walls may be around us, that
we be well able to go up against them with only our God before us.
Here we have tested and found that our God is for us. Here we have
been sitting together and enjoying this feast of good things; and it is
our mission to go back to these churches and towns, and townships and
counties of ours, and stir the hearts of Christian workers everywhere by
recounting the wonderful things that God hath done for us, and the
more wonderful things he has promised us in his word. It seems to me,
dear brethren, that it ought to lead us to another step. If God had
done so much, shall He withhold His hand now? Shall the vision of
a million scholars in the Sunday Schools of Illinois he merely the vision
of our enthusiasm, and then be forgotten when we go back to the hard
work of everyday life? No, no, brethren. The things that our God
hath done are but a small measure of what he will do if only we put
our trust in him. We have a message of glad tidings, and we are to
carry it to God's children as though it were tidings of good things.
But I want to call your attention again to the fact that this supply was
1 28 Illinois State Sunday School Convention.
given just according to the word of God. Have you, who have had
Christian experience, wondered that it could be possible that God
should lift you to some such heights of joy? Have you thought
that perhaps He was doing some extraordinary thing? Why, my
brother. He has done nothing of the kind. It is his everyday way
of doing things. There are joys in the service of our God so
great, so blessed, that all the experience of the past shall be as noth-
ing to the experience and joy of the future, is we will go forward
in the work and service of our King. Sunday School teachers do
not forget this, that God has sent you and me the schools and the
classes that he has intrusted to our hands, with a message of the
most blessed and gracious things. I was very much pleased by
something that one of my dear children said not very long ago.
She came to me and said, "Papa, have you got any more copies of
that, "Kept for the Master's use.^" "Oh, yes, I have plenty of
them." She said, "I would like to get one for Fanny, and I
would like to get one for Nellie, — two of her schoolmates and dear
friends. "Oh," I said, "Alice, I don't think you had better give those
books to Fanny and Nellie. You know that "Kept for the Master's
Use" is a book for Christians, a book about consecration, and they are
not Christians, and they had better have something else." "No, Papa,
I think "Kept for the Master's Use" is the very book they need,
for if they start right out as consecrated Christians I think they will
get along a great deal better." Well, I think the child was right.
What these dear young people want to know is that the most
blessed things of God are for them. In manv of the conventions
that it has been my privilege to attend there have been those that came
to me and spoke to me as if perhaps such measure of bleesing as God
has given me were for somebody beside them — "Oh, that is for you,
Mr. Jacobs," or, "that is for Mr. Moody," or Miss Willard, or Miss
Rider, or somebody else, but not for me. No, no. The most gracious
experience of God's grace that any of the children of God have re-
ceived is for the lowliest of his children. Whv, sometimes we need
greater grace to stay in a low place, than we would in a high one. At
least, it seems so to us in our poor human weakness. But I have had
great comfort from this fact. Fellow Christians, God does not call you
to do my work, nor me to do yours. He does not call me to do Mr.
Moody's work, or Dr. Pierson's work, or the work of any other great
worker of the land. He has called me to do my work; he has called
you to do your work ; and I believe it makes no difference with God
what this work may be. The question is, am I doing it or not. I love
to think, and I do believe, that if my poor work shall be done just as
faithfully and just as conscientiously as my dear brother Moody's; and
if your work is so done, dear mothers with little children in your homes;
and if the teacher of a class of restless, careless boys that try his pa-
tience very much, does his humble, unpretentious work just as well as I
do mine, anil just as well as Mr. Moody does his— I love to think that
in the day of the King's morning you and I and he shall stand side by
side in the throng of those who have done what they cinild for God.
Now, that is our privilege, and it may well fill our hearts as we
go from here, to think that God is going with us down from this
mount of transfiguration. I thank God it has been my privilege to
Illinois State Sunday School Convention. 129
be in this convention. I thank God I am privileged to go from
county to county and meet you, fellow vsrorkers; and to-night I ask
you to join hands and hearts with these dear brethren around us,
and those that have gone before us, to make it the year of the
hardest work, of the most devoted service, of the most faithful, un-
complaining following of the dear Lord in whatever way He shall
lead, assured that \v^here He leads we shall be blessed indeed in doing
His will. My dear daughter, of whom you have all heard me speak,
when writing home after she reached Mexico, in our foreign mission
wotk, said : "I wish I knew whether I should go there, or there, or
there." And I wrote her and said: "My dear girl, remember this,
you will not have any difficulty about it at all. Just wait upon God
and jDut it in His hand, and say. Lord lead where Thou wilt and I
will follow Thee, and be sure of two things; if God has anything
for you to do, any place for you to fill. He has a way to get you
there, and He will do it. If he has any work for you to do, He
will not only get you in the place to do it, but He will fit and
qualify you for the performance of it." Oh, brethren, let us spend
no moments in fruitless worry about our future. Let us do the
work of to-day, wherever our God has put us, assuredly believing
that if He wants us in a higher place he will get us there, and if
He wants us in a lower place we had better be in a lower place
with Him than in a higher place without Him. And assured also
that when He gets ready to put us in that place we will find that
the best qualification for it is the faithful doing of the things He
has given us to do in the place in which He has called us to la-
bor. In your own class, in your own home, in your own neigh-
borhood, borrowing the likeness of Jesus Christ, living for Him,
following His steps, doing his work, you shall find the greatest joy,
and at last you shall understand how that the place that seemed so
humble and lowly was really the nearest place to the gate of glory.
(Applause.)
REV. BROWN, OF NASHVILLE, TENN.
I am gratified to have this opportunity of expressing my pleasure and
enjoyment in the days that have passed during this Convention. In
one sense I consider myself an old citizen of Illinois, having been a
citizen of this State for twelve years. Away back yonder in the early
days of the Sabbath School work in this State, I had some connection
with it. It was somewhat difficult then to get together such a conven-
tion as this, and to have such a demonstration of interest in the Sabbath
School as you have had on this occasion. Perhaps I can realize this
better than you who have been here all the time. Coming back after
these years of absence and meeting you again, I can realize the great
advance we have made, and the progress that has been achieved in this
important department of Christ's work ; and I wish to congratulate you,
Mr. President, and the members of this Convention, on the impress-
ions that have been made upon my mind in regard to the success of
your work, the prosperity that has attended you, and the great advan-
ces that you have made. I feel that you have everything to encourage
you to go onward in this work. Since those early days when the work
began in Illinois, it has spread throughout all our States; all our South'
130 Illinois State Sunday School Convention.
ern States are now with you in this work, and are coming up very
rapidly. Indeed, in some respects you will have to look out that you
don't lose your laurels, for they are marching on with determination.
The Christian sentiment of the people of the South is centralizing
around some of the great issues, and already are in advance, I fear, of
my old State, Illinois. I refer particularly to the temperance senti-
ment. I believe at this hour Tennessee is far in advance of Illinois on
the question of prohibition. Our last legislature passed a bill submit-
ting the subject to a vote of the people of Tennessee. (Applause.) So
that we are coming up, and the children of the South are joining you,
while they recognize you still as the banner State in Sabl)ath School
work.
I have this impression, if you will excuse me, in regard to your de-
liberations and the subjects you have discussed. It has been in my
mind when listening to your discussions that you are liable to overlook
the necessities and the means neccessary for the progress of the work
throughout the rural districts, where the greatest difKculties lie and
must be met. These large schools in your cities that have all the
money they need and can command all the influence and talent neces-
sary, have a comparatively easy task in the prosecution of this work.
These laborers scattered through the rural districts, with little money,
have not the means for carrying on the work that you have in larger
places. I simply refer to this as a suggestion that you can carry on in
your minds.
As I entered the hall, I was struck with the sentiment of the motto
on my left: "The Children of Illinois for Christ." My dear brethren
and friends, we must have the children of the world for Christ if we
have anything for Him. All that belongs to the future is to-day in
the children of the present. But here is the thought that meets me,
and the difficulty has been going through my mind ever since reading
the motto: We can never have the children without the older ones.
We must have the men and the women, or we shall never have the
children; and our work will be in vain without this. I believe now
as I stand before you and testify on this point, that the great difficulty
and the essential difficulty of the church at this time is a higher,
better light in those who are of mature years. We must have this
if we ever have the children. That boy smokes. Why? Simply
because he sees that man smoknig — perhaps his father, or perhaps his
older brother. That boy drinks, he visits the gambling place, the sa-
loon, because he sees the men he is aiming and patterning after going
there and engaging in those things. I tell you, so long as we have
saloons to which mature men go, we will have boys going in that line
also. And we may say the same of all the avenues of vice and crime
and dissipation. No, my Christian friends, the hope of the world and
the hope of the children is in the better life of mature Christians. The
life of the man is matured; and we must not mistake therefore, and I
hope this Convention and these Sabbath School workers will not be-
come so absorbed in the children of their classes as to forget the great
fact that the pai-ents and the aged and the mature must be also brought
to Christ and be lifted up to a higher and better life in Him.
I thank .you for this opportunity to speak a word in behalf of the
Master's name, and I want to encourage you in this great work.
Illinois State Sunday School Convention. 131
I assure you I rejoice in listening to what you have done and what
you are doing, and my wish is, God, prosper the work in this State,
and throughout all the land, until we shall have not only all the
children, but all the fathers and the mothers also, and the church shall
arise and shine to the glory of the risen Lord.
The Alton Quartette sang one of their choicest selections, after
which the last speakers of the evening were introduced.
Dr. Robert D. Allyn, of the Southern Normal University at
Carbondale, whose face and voice are not unfamiliar to the attendants
of the State Convention, spoke a few words in his usual felicitious and
helpful manner.
President Price then introduced Miss Lucia E. F. Kimball, who
answered the questions: Why should temperance be taught in the
Sunday School? Will not the teaching of temperance in Sunday
School keep some out of the school? Shall we insist on total abstin-
ence? What is the outlook of the temperance cause '? Prof. Excell
then gave the Convention a ringing temperance song, the great audi-
ence then rose and sang together, "Praise God from Whom All Bless-
ings Flow," and with a solemn benediction the State Sunday School
Convention of 1SS5 finally adjourned.
But the memory of those three lovely May days of Christian consul-
tation and communion will not soon pass away.
For all the work that has been done, for all the broader plans for
the future, for all the harmony and concord of this Convention, for all
noble-hearted Christian men and women whom God has given and
called to the Sunday School work, and for the signal and manifest
presence of God's Holy Spirit at these meetings, the God of all Grace
be praised. "Not unto us, O Lord, not unto us, but unto thy name
Give glory, for thy mercy and thy truth's sake."
Note. — The shorthand reporter was obliged to leave for the train, at the close of
Dr. Brown's address, and we are therefore unable to give the addresses of Dr. Ai.lyn
and Miss Kimball.
PROPOSED CONVENTION LIST, (PARTIAL,) 1885.
Dist. County. Place.
17. . . .Perry Pinkneyville
18. ..White Norris City
18. . . .Wabash Belmont
15.... Richland Olney
6 . . . . Mc Lean Bloomington
3. . . .Carroll Savanna June
3. . . .Ogle Stillman Valley
3 . . . . Lee Ashton
4 . . . . Stark . . Wyoming,
3 . . . . Stevenson Dakota
5 . . . . Bureau Princeton
6. . . .Livingston Chatsworth
.2. . . .Kendall Millbrook
Date
May 15,
16.
" 19.
20.
" 21,
22.
" 25,
26.
" 2S,
29.
June I.
2.
" 3.
4.
" 4,
5-
" 12,
13-
" 15.
16.
" 19.
20.
" 23,
24.
" 30,
July I.
132 Illinois State Sunday School Convention.
Convention List continued.
Dist. County. Place. Date.
19. . . .Pope Golconda July 7, S.
20.. ..Massac Metropolis :.. " 9,10.
20 Alexander Cairo " 13, 14.
20.. . .Johnson Vienna " 15, 16.
17. . . .Jackson Carbondale " 17, 18.
17.. . .Williamson Marion " 20,21.
17... Franklin Henton " 22,23
18... Hamilton Mc Leansboro " 24,25.
17... .Jefferson Belle Kive " 27, 28.
18.... Wayne Fairfield ... " 29,30.
12.. . .Moultrie Sullivan " 31, Aug.
8.. . .Mc Donough Aug. 3, 4.
8 Warren Monmouth " 5. 6.
8. .. .Henderson " 7,8.
8 Hancock Elvaston " 10, il.
13 Clark Martinsville " 11, 12.
9 Adams Clayton " 12, 13.
13.. . .Morgan Liter •' 12, 13.
10. , . Green Kane " 14,15.
10 Macoupin Medora " 17, 18.
II .. . .Menard Lebanon Church " 18, 19.
9.... Pike Perry " 20, 21.
10 ...Scott Winchester " 24, 25.
9. ...Cass Ashland " 25,2b.
II.... Mason Mason City " 26,27.
14. .. .Fayette F"arina Sept. i, 2-
13 ...Vermillion Hoopston " 1,2,3.
16. ...Bond Greenville " 3,4.
14. .. .Effingham Effingham " 5,6.
14.... Jasper West Liberty " 7,8.
13.. . .Douglas Areola " 7,8.
13.... Coles Ashmore " 9, 10.
13.. . .Cumberland Greenup " n, i-.
15 Marion luka " 14- '5-
15 Clay Flora " 16, 17.
13. . . .Champaign Homer " i 7, 18.
5.... La Salle Streator " 17, • 8.
15. . . .Lawrence Lawrenceville " 18, 19.
14. .. .Crawford Hutsonville " 21,22.
13. .. .Douglas Newman " 23,24.
13 Edgar Chrisman " 23.24.
12 Piatt Cerro Gordo " 25, 26.
12 De Witt Clinton " 28, 29.
18... .Edwards West .Salem " 30, Oct.
20 Union Anna Oct. 2, 3.
20 . Pulaski Olmsted " s, 6.
19 .. .Hardin Elizabethtown " 8, 9.
1 9.... Gallatin , Shawneetown " 12,13.
19 Saline.... Harrisburg , " 14,15.
16... .Washington Nashville " i'>, I7•
C7. . . .Randolph .Sparta " 19,20.
II Montgomery Litchfield " 21, 22.
1 1.... Christian Taylorvilie " 23,24.
11 ...Logan Lincoln " 26,27.
4 Knox Nov. 2, 3.
4... Mercer Millersburg " 4,5.
4 . . . . Henrv' Geneseo " 6, 7.
3. .. .Whiteside ' "9, 'O-
2 Winnebago Rockford " 11,12.
2 Boone Belvidere " 13, 14.
2 De Kalb Hinckley " 16,17.
2. ...Kane " 18,19.
I....DuPage " 20,21.
205 01/99 1%
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