II.
HISTORY AND PROGRESS.
THE history of Sabbath-schools is nearly allied to the onward progress of the Church of God in the earth. In all ages, whenever pure religion has been revived, it would seem that especial attention has always been given to the early religious instruction and training of children and youth by the Church of God; and herein lies the grand Sunday-school idea. Says a Scotch divine: "Vital religion, and the godly upbringing of the young, have ever gone hand in hand." The soul is diseased, and a Bible education is the only remedy. In that wonderful Book, which extends its record over the long period of four thousand years of this world's history, there is throughout a wonderful regard for children. Of the patriarch Abraham, nearly four thousand years ago, it is written: "For I know him, that he will command his children and his household after him, and they shall keep the way of the Lord." Gen. xviii. 19. With what wonderful power does the history of the childhood of Joseph, and Moses, and David, and Samuel, and Daniel, illustrate the value of the instruction and religious training of children.
When Moses, the great lawgiver of Israel, received the law amid the thunderings and lightnings and earthquakes of Mount Sinai, he called "All Israel" together (Deut. v. 1), and by divine direction his words were (Deut. vi. 6): "Hear, O Israel.... These words, which I command thee this day, shall be (1) in thine heart: and (2) thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children," etc., i. e., the Church's children—not parents exclusive, but inclusive of course. "Israel," that was called upon by Moses, was the Church of God upon earth, and it is her express duty to the end of time to see that all her children shall be "taught of the Lord." It is true that parents are the divinely-appointed guardians and instructors of their children, and this obligation rests upon them; and yet they are, alas! too often incapable of the religious instruction of their own children or of any other, besides being often indifferent; and the Church of God, by her catechetical or Sabbath-school instruction, has always had, and probably will always have, to supply the lack of unfaithful parents. There is no agency which so supplies the lack of mothers as a good Sabbath-school.
Thus we find in Deuteronomy, nearly four thousand years ago, the great Sabbath-school principle foreshadowed and embodied; and where, we may ask, can be found in all the Bible a more definite authorization or divine appointment for any of the great denominational Christian Churches which now so bless our land than is here found for the Sabbath-school? It is ordained and blessed of God. The Sabbath-school is simply the Church of Christ putting forth its legitimate effort in its most inviting field of action. It is the regular systematic working department of the Christian Church—not an outside auxiliary, but an inside,—the Church itself in action; and as such let it be carefully guarded and cherished. The same Divine lips which said "Go preach," said also and equally to his disciples, "Go teach." Says the Rev. J. H. Vincent: "There is just as much divine authority for the Sabbath-school as there is for the sanctuary—no more." Our Divine Lord and Master himself repeatedly astonished his own disciples by his particular notice of and care for little children, and with sore displeasure he rebuked his followers for hindering them from being brought to him.
It was not until nearly the close of the second century, or, according to Tertullian, in the year A.D. 180, that the Christian Church felt compelled, in order to check the defection of heathen converts, to set about the establishment of those celebrated catechumenical schools, of which Origen was one of the catechists, for the systematic religious instruction by the Church of Christ of the children and youth.
So useful and necessary, however, did this work prove itself to be, that very soon similar schools were universally established. They continued to flourish until near the close of the sixth century, when they declined and became obscured for ten long centuries in the gloom of the Dark Ages, with only an occasional prince, or pastor, or layman in the spirit of the Master, to teach the children the way of life.
In the sixteenth century, however, on the dawn of the Reformation, Martin Luther established his celebrated Sunday-schools at Wittemberg in the year 1527; and soon after John Knox inaugurated the Sunday-schools of Scotland, "with readers," as the history of Scotland informs us, in 1560; so that on the incoming of the Reformation the children were again "taught of the Lord." In the year 1580, Borromeo, the pious Archbishop of Milan, established a system of Sunday-schools throughout his large diocese in Lombardy.
In our own land our Pilgrim Fathers early entered upon the work; for Ellis, in his History of Roxbury, Massachusetts, says: "In 1674, 6th 11th month, is the first record of a Sabbath-school." The records of the Pilgrim Church in Plymouth, Massachusetts, inform us that a Sabbath-school was there organized as early as in 1680. Joseph Alleine, the author of the "Alarm to the Unconverted," opened a Sabbath-school in England in 1688, and many others might be mentioned in both countries in succession. But the first Sabbath-school of which we have any authentic, definite, and detailed account, extending over a period of a quarter of a century, was that established by Ludwig Hacker in Ephratah, Lancaster county, Pennsylvania, as early as the year 1747. It was continued uninterruptedly during a period of more than thirty years, until the building was taken for a soldiers' hospital in the time of the Revolutionary War. It enjoyed precious seasons of revival, and had its children's meetings, and we are informed that many children were hopefully converted to God. We have before us a long letter from Dr. Fahnestock to the Rev. W. T. Brantley, D.D., of Philadelphia, written in 1835, detailing many interesting facts connected with the history of this Sabbath-school, drawn from living pupils and records.