This, of course, will take the pastor's time. Well, so let it be; it is time well spent. And what if the work is hard at times? It is first-place work and pays the most in the work of the kingdom.
Jesus said to Peter, "Feed my lambs," before he said, "Feed my sheep." He put first things first. Go thou and do likewise.
55
THE BLACK BAG
OBJECT: A Plain Black Bag
When I was a boy in my early teens I had a Sunday-school teacher who was surely fifty years ahead of her times.
She knew nothing of a teacher-training course or child psychology. She never talked in public on the Art of Teaching a Sunday School Class. She knew but very little of those well-chosen words which the public speaker commands. She knew nothing of the science of public instruction. But she did know boys and was a master of the self-learned art of interesting and instructing a class of early teen-age boys.
We boys noticed that often she would bring with her a black bag and would say to us, "Now boys, give me your attention, and after the lesson I will show you something I have brought with me to the class, and which I have in my little black bag."
This little idea showed her mastery over boys. She aroused their curiosity, and as curiosity is the mother of attention we all listened like regular fellows to what she had to say, and also kept a longing eye on the bag. We were all set to see what strange things she would draw from it when the lesson was over. She was a great teacher and always gave us boys a story form lesson, and it sank in to stay, and often memory brings back the truth she gave us and also the contents of the black bag. We can yet see pouring out of it wonderful truth as from a horn of plenty.