Sunday-School Success / A Book of Practical Methods for Sunday-School Teachers and Officers

by Amos R. Wells

For it is not easy to guide the devotions of these varied ages and characters. The words must be so simple that the youngest can understand them. The thoughts must be so noble as to furnish an uplift to the oldest. The expressions must be direct, as in the realized presence of Christ. The prayer must be brief, and bright, and deeply in earnest, sincere as a child.

To perform this task, therefore, no one should be invited merely for policy's sake, merely because he is a visiting clergyman, a church officer, or a good-hearted layman. Ask no one that does not know the glorious language of a child's prayer. Give notice beforehand, since this prayer, if any, should be thought over and prayed over. And if you fear the prayer will lack a certain quality, shrewdly incorporate its name in your invitation, asking for a brief prayer, or a simple prayer, or a prayer about few things.

I wonder that this exercise is so seldom fixed upon the children's attention and interest by their own vocal participation in it. Indeed, it is not always that the school is able to repeat the Lord's Prayer together with the freedom and force born of long custom. The school may easily be taught to chant the Lord's Prayer, and that may be made most genuine praying. There are many suitable short Bible prayers that children might learn to say together, such as "Let the words of my mouth, and the meditation of my heart, be acceptable in thy sight, O Lord, my strength and my redeemer." Indeed, there are many prayer psalms that could be learned entire, the concert repetition of which would greatly enrich the Sunday-school hour. If yours is a model school, every scholar has his Bible, and Scripture prayers, not committed to memory, may be read in concert. And, besides, what more impressive conclusion to the session than the "Mizpah benediction," in which all voices join, or, perhaps better, the beautiful benediction in Numbers 6:24-26, "The Lord bless thee, and keep thee," etc.?

Then there is the hymn-book. If it is a good one, it contains many beautiful prayer hymns. Let the scholars all bow their heads, and sing softly Miss Havergal's tender consecration hymn, or "Nearer, my God, to thee," and you will find all hearts indeed drawn nearer heaven. Occasionally let the school read together one of these same hymns, also with their heads bowed.

And, by the way,—though it deserves more than a "by the way,"—insist on the bowing of the head,—not that the attitude is important in itself, but the reverence that the attitude arouses is of the highest importance. Wait till all heads are bowed before you begin the prayer or permit another to begin it. The half-minute of quiet or semi-quiet needed to gain this end is not ill-bestowed. Moreover, I should strongly advise you to go one step farther, and once in a while have the entire school go down on their knees. This, the normal attitude of prayer, the children should be taught to assume in public, at least so often that it will not seem to them forced or unnatural.

Have you tried silent prayer? A blessed exercise it is, and one the children will love. Ask them to bend their heads or kneel, and then in perfect silence to pray for their teachers, or their pastor, or their dear ones at home, or some sick scholar. After a minute the superintendent will tenderly add a few closing sentences of vocal prayer.

And have you tried a chain prayer,—a prayer started by a leader, who will also close it, to which ten or twenty of the scholars contribute sentences of praise or petition? You will be astonished to see how many of the scholars will join in these prayers,—you will be astonished, that is, unless you are familiar with the training along this line so nobly accomplished in our modern young people's religious societies.

Still another way to obtain the scholars' careful heed to the prayer is to establish a form with which the superintendent will always begin his prayer, and which the entire school will repeat with him. The opening sentences of the Lord's Prayer may be used for such a purpose. Then, at the close of the prayer, after "for Jesus' sake," let all the scholars say "Amen."

An occasional Sunday-school prayer-meeting, held for ten minutes at the close of the lesson hour, will do much to inspire in the school a deeper spirit of worship; that is, if the scholars themselves take part, and not the teachers only. And these Sunday-school prayer-meetings are magnificent opportunities for drawing the net. Hold them in a small room, that nearness may warm the coals of devotion to a glow. Do not hold them too frequently to be burdensome. Keep them brief and earnest. Let the teachers work for them in their classes, and use them as tests for their teaching. Above all, expect conversions in them, and, if you are faithful and faith-filled, you will get them.

This use of the scholar in the devotions of the school should be extended to his home. The superintendent may ask the scholars to pray every day during the coming week for the school, or for their teacher, or for their next lesson, that it may bring some one nearer Christ. For several weeks there may stand in bold letters on the blackboard a list of things that should be prayed for at home. The teacher, of course, must enforce these recommendations. If he will courageously hold once in a while a little prayer-meeting with his scholars, in the class-room, about the class-table, or, best of all, at his own home or at one of theirs, he will thereby teach them as much Christianity as otherwise he might in a year.