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Counsels on Sabbath School Work
Making the Lessons Practical
Let the teachers enter, heart and soul, into the subject matter of the
lesson. Let them lay plans to make a practical application of the lesson,
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and awaken an interest in the minds and hearts of the children under
their charge. Let the activities of the scholars find scope in solving the
problems of Bible truth. The teachers may give character to the work,
so that the exercises will not be dry and uninteresting.
Teachers do not make as earnest work as they should of the Sabbath
school exercises; they should come close to the hearts of the scholars,
by aptness, by sympathy, by patient and determined effort to interest
every scholar in regard to the salvation of the soul. These exercises
should become altogether what the Lord would have them,—seasons
of deep conviction of sin, of heart reformation. If the right work is
done, in a skillful, Christlike manner, souls will be convicted, and
the inquiry will be, “What shall I do to be saved?”—
Testimonies on
Sabbath-School Work, 12, 13
.
The Use of Helps
Some efforts have been made to interest children in the cause, but
not enough. Our Sabbath schools should be made more interesting.
The public schools have of late years greatly improved their methods
of teaching. Object lessons, pictures, and blackboards are used to
make difficult lessons clear to the youthful mind. Just so may present
truth be simplified and made intensely interesting to the active minds
of the children.
Parents who can be approached in no other way are frequently
reached through their children. Sabbath school teachers can instruct
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the children in the truth, and they will, in turn, take it into the home
circle. But few teachers seem to understand the importance of this
branch of the work. The modes of teaching which have been adopted
with such success in the public schools could be employed with similar
results in the Sabbath schools, and be the means of bringing children
to Jesus and educating them in Bible truth. This will do far more good
than religious excitement of an emotional character, that passes off as
rapidly as it comes.