Chapter 9—Need of Genuine Religion in Our
Sabbath-Schools
Our Sabbath-schools are not what the Lord would have them to
be, for there is altogether too much dependence placed upon form and
machinery, while the life-giving power of God is not manifested for the
conversion of souls, for whom Christ died. This order of things must
be changed if our Sabbath-schools meet the purpose for which they
exist. We must have consecrated teachers, who love God supremely
and their neighbors as themselves. The Lord has made ample provision
that teachers may have increased ability from Sabbath to Sabbath, that
they may teach to some purpose, working as for time and eternity. We
need in our schools young men and women who have vital godliness,
not a cheap, superficial experience, but a deep inward piety that results
from learning daily in the school of Christ, that they may impart to
others the precious lessons which Christ has taught them.
Those who are satisfied with following a certain dry order, of going
through a round, will miss the mark, and fail of the work that should
be done by a Sabbath-school teacher; but if those who engage in this
important branch of God’s cause are Christians in the full sense of the
word, doing the work given them of God in His fear, working with
love for souls, for whom Christ died, they will be laborers together
with God. When superintendents and teachers give themselves without
reserve to God, they will not only resolve, but put their resolutions into
effect. As soon as the workers in Sabbath and day schools enter upon
their proper work, with a full realization of their dependence upon God,
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the grace of Christ will be supplied to unite with their human effort. It
is important that every worker should understand that conviction and
conversion of souls follow the co-operation of the human effort with
the divine power. Entire consecration of soul must be maintained as
much by the teachers and superintendents of our Sabbath-schools as
by the ministers in our pulpits, for all alike are engaged in the work of
bringing souls to Christ. Each in his place is to work, as did Christ,
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