A POST-CARD SERMON

OBJECTS: A Collection of Post-cards

If you wish to preach to the little folks and cause them to remember what you have said, try the post-card sermon.

When you announce the sermon for little eyes ask them to come to the front of the church and stand around the pulpit. Then hand to each child a pictorial post-card and make it the subject of your talk to them. Tell them the card now belongs to them, and they can take it home with them to keep. Preach about the picture on the card, calling their attention to every little detail. Drive home some truth as pictured on the card. Ask them to look intently at every point in the picture you are talking about.

This sermon should not be over seven minutes long. Children find it difficult to stand in one place for any length of time. If you seek to hold their attention too long, they will grow tired and their interest will slacken. You must be brief.

There are beautiful post-cards without number and the cost is very trifling. Use historical cards. Take, if you so desire, the card containing the "Liberty Bell," and preach upon the text of the Bell: "Proclaim liberty throughout the land." Describe the bell, give its history in a few words. The seasonal post-cards, Christmas, Spring, Winter, Thanksgiving, Hallowe'en, etc., give a new meaning to these days, and tell things the children should know about them.

Use beautiful post-cards. Select some beauty spot in your own country and explain what makes it beautiful and what makes its beauty worth while to us. Use post-cards that have a children's story connected with them, such as "The Lighthouse-keeper's Daughter, Grace Darling," "The Boy Lincoln and His Log-cabin Home," "George Washington and the Cherry Tree." These pictures are running over with simple truth.

Use curious post-cards, such as of the Natural Bridge in Virginia, cave pictures, the gold-fields of Alaska. Tell them of the Natural Bridge as the work of God, and of the other bridge God made, a Bridge from Calvary to heaven, the Bridge of the Cross.

Select foreign post-cards. This will enable you to tell missionary stories about the people who live in those lands. Pictures of idols will help you to cause the children to want to tell the heathen children the story of the true God.

Select religious post-cards. Reproductions of the great works of art can be secured. Di Vinci's "Last Supper" is a good one to select. You can tell about the face of Judas and that of Christ being taken from the same living model. The face of Judas was the disfigured face of Jesus which had become repulsive because of the presence of sin. This is what sin will do for a face.

Select picture-cards of Bethlehem, and tell the story of the town as it now is, and as it was in David's time, and in the time of Jesus. It would be but small trouble to make a course of eight short sermons or more, using post-cards.

Urge the children to put the cards thus received in a little book, and put under each card the date you preached the sermon. If any child who attends regularly is absent mail a card to them the next day, with a short lesson written on the card. Children always like the postman to bring them something by mail. If they are out of town, find their address and send it to them. If they "just did not come," say to them that some Sunday morning if they will call to see you, you will give them the card they missed. It will give you a chance for a pleasant word with them. It often goes a long way with little folks. On the last Sunday of the course bring your full line of cards you have used, and have a short review and ask some questions about each card. This is only another, but a new, way of preaching to the wonder eyes of the wonderful folks we call our children.