SERMON BY REV. P. H. FOWLER, D. D.

The Value of its Sunday School to the Church with which it is connected.

A SERMON PREACHED OCTOBER 21, 1866, ON THE OCCASION OF THE FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY OF THE SUNDAY SCHOOL OF THE FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, UTICA.

EXODUS II: 9.

"AND PHARAOH'S DAUGHTER SAID UNTO HER, TAKE THIS CHILD AWAY, AND NURSE IT FOR ME, AND I WILL GIVE THEE THY WAGES.'

The Family, the Church and the State are divine organ. izations. The Lord not merely formed and introduced them through his Providence, but he ordained them by his Word and instituted them by his Agency.

They are not, however, the only legitimate organizations. They admit of tributaries and subordinates, for which we can plead no express divine command, and no direct divine interposition. Anything is valid that co-operates with them, and sometimes their accessories are so evolved by providential processes and so employed by the Spirit, that they have almost as manifestly a divine sanction, as if God explicitly appointed and immediately constructed them.

Is not this true of the Sunday School? Do not its origin and its career, its constitution and its objects, its workings and its results, indicate its virtual inauguration by God and its authorization by Him?

We shall follow out the inquiry in one line, if we consider the Sunday School as the auxiliary of the Church, and it will give more definiteness to the investigation, if we consider the value of its own Sunday School to the particular church with which it is connected.

The Lord commends youth to the care of his people, with the promise of a reward for faithfulness. He says to them,

แ

"Take the children and nurse them for me, and I will pay you your wages." There is a large recompense for the service. Romanism appreciates it, and spares no pains to obtain it-Protestantism loses by failing to compete here with her rival and foe; and every congregation foregoes advantage in proportion to its neglect of the young.

None of us claim the kind of authority for the Sunday School that may be asserted for the Church. It is not a divine organization. No verbal precept of God decreed it, and no direct action of God founded it. But it is so urgently needed, it came so naturally into being, it has proved so full of life, it is so co-operative with the Church and so identical with its intent, its benefits have been so extensive and genuine, and its capabilities for good are so immense, that we can not doubt that God meant that it should be established, and that he wishes it to be employed.

The relation of a Sunday School to the particular Church to which it belongs is that of a subsidiary. It is not an associate, but a servant. Precisely how far the authority over it shall be exercised, is discretionary with the church under which it is placed.

In some cases it extends to details. The appointment of superintendent and teachers is made by the officers of a church, and they take the entire management of the school.

There is no objection to this, where the practice of it has accustomed and reconciled all parties to it, though caution should be observed lest the zeal and efficiency of the teachers be impaired by curtailing their prerogatives and responsibilities.

In other cases the actual exercise of authority is almost entirely foreborne by church officers. The teachers choose their own superintendents and appoint all who are engaged in the schools, and make the regulations and arrangements for them.

There is no objection to this, provided it be understood that the power of control lies in the churches, and is only

delegated to the teachers, and provided also that the churches be not permitted to presume that they are exempt from all interest in the schools and from all obligations to them.

It is wrong in schools to question the authority of churches over them, and it is wrong in churches to neglect schools.

Sometimes jealousies arise and collisions occur, churches suspect schools of insubordination, and schools suspect churches of interference. Organizations so essentially harmonious and co-operative ought never to admit of discord and strife, and when these exist, they can seldom be ascribed to misapprehensions alone. The seat and source of them must lie in blameworthy dispositions; schools are refractory, or churches are imperious. My reverend fathers and brethren will permit me to say that it almost always creates an impression unfavorable to themselves, when they complain of the attitude of their Sunday Schools, and charge them with encroachments. The probability is that they have kept aloof from them. When ministers are identified with their Sunday Schools, these prove their best allies.

The object of Sunday Schools is religious instruction and training, and particularly the inculcation of the Scriptures with a view to the conversion, the sanctification and the usefulness of the scholars. Their great aim is to expound and enforce revealed truth.

Sunday School is the agency of

Next to the Ministry, its most consequence to a church. There can be no thrift without it, and usually the thrift of a church will tally with the attention bestowed on its Sunday School and with the success achieved in it.

Some may question this. They reason from the past. The churches of our fathers flourished, they argue, and yet they had no Sunday Schools.

But new circumstances demand new instrumentalities, and wisdom is shown in adapting instrumentalities to cir

cumstances. Merchants got rich in olden times, and in methods that would bankrupt merchants in these times. The changes in trade may not be real improvements, but they better suit the present state of business.

And so it is with sacred pursuits. Different periods demand different expedients. The truths indispensable in one age enter the retired list in another, and especially do the impressive aspects of truth and the effective commu nications of truth rapidly change. Preachers who once spoke with resistless force seem to lose their power, but the waning is not in them. The public mind has ceased to be sensitive to the themes on which they dwelt, and to the presentation of them in which they dealt.

And notice the precise operation of Sunday Schools. Observe the exact work they perform for the churches to which they are attached.

Christians need means for protection and edification, and it is no small part of the mission of churches to take care of their members.

The methods in which their function shall be performed, are quite numerous and various, and bear, some more and others less directly, on strictly spiritual interests.

Churches are not organizations for social enjoyment, and yet, with a view to that for which they are formed, they must consult the social principle. This is innate and mighty. Human beings crave companionship. It is a necessity of their nature.

Now, though Christians are not congregated for social intercourse, the intention of their association is promoted by it. Personally interested in each other by friendly communion, they labor together the more cordially and vigorously in church work.

The stockholders and directors of banks, railroads and other business companies, may limit their interviews to the consideration and advancement of their pecuniary interests. They may scarcely recognize each other apart from this

sphere; they never meet, perhaps, in a family circle, or in general society; and they never converse, perhaps, except about the investment they hold. They have no care for each other, and no sympathy and concert with each other, except in reference to the concern in which their funds. are combined. Money is the single and the sufficient bond to hold them together in their connection, and the adequate incentive to action.

But church members are congenial spirits. Their association is a fellowship. The attraction of affinity draws them together. They are brethren and sisters in Christ Jesus. They constitute a family, and something like domestic intercourse is imperative in their households.

In every congregation some sigh for society. They are strangers in the place perhaps, or their circumstances or dispositions have obstructed their forming acquaintanceships. They pine in solitude, or perhaps fret and complain. The isolation in which they live-the neglect they suffer, preys upon them, or angers them. Gradually they become weaned from the church, and at last hostile to it. It has wronged them, they think, and they owe it a grudge. Scarcely any circumstance afflicts a pastor more. learns the grief, or the indignation that is felt. It is told him in tears, it may be, or in wrath, and what can he do to compose the one or dry up the other?

He

The church probably is not worthy of blame, or its blameworthiness at most is that of inconsideration. It does not mean to shut out any of its members from social, more than from ecclesiastical communion; but through heedlessness, or the lack of opportunity to prevent it, it sometimes virtually does it.

All expedients that aim directly at the cure of the evil, invariably fail. The bringing of people together merely or primarily to promote intercourse between them, never succeeds. Church parlors soon cease to be church resorts, and church parties soon cease to be church gatherings. This is not the divine method for producing sociality in Christian congregations. Their members must meet under the