Morning Star

SABBATH SCHOOLS.

RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION

OF

CHILDREN.

(From a discourse recently delivered in Cincinnati, by Rev. S. W. Lynd.)

Believing parents have daily access to their own children, but the children of others can be approached only occasionally, and at no time more conveniently than on the Lord's day. And whenever children are collected together on this day, to receive religious instruction, they constitute a Sunday-school. Here believing parents may mingle their own children with others, and exert a powerful influence upon the minds of the young.

Now if every believer is under solemn obligation, to the extent of his ability, to communicate the gospel to every rational creature to whom he can gain access, then he is equally bound to communicate it to every child, according to its ability, or every child is a rational creature of God.

He is not only under solemn obligation to do this, but to make it a distinct and prominent branch of Christian effort.

That God has made it a prominent part of his plan, is obvious from the consideration, that he has made the religious instruction of children a prominent occasion for the display of his power and his grace.

Of 100 persons baptized in the Sixth Street Baptist church of Cincinnati, 37 had either been teachers or scholars of the Sunday-schools connected with the church; at least 40 more had received early religious instruction to a considerable extent, and the remainder, with two or three exceptions had enjoyed the privilege of partial religious instruction in youth. Let revivals in religion be examined-let accounts of conversions be read-and it will be found that every case of a hardened sinner, who was brought up in ignorance of the Christian system, is recorded with peculiar emphasis, as a surprising instance of the grace and power of God. Let the examination be made on the length and breadth of our land, and it will be seen that the great body of Christians is made up of those who were religiously educated in youth.

We are solemnly bound, as Christians, to communicate the gospel-to every creature. And since God, in infinite wisdom, has made the religious instruction of children, a prominent occasion for the display of his power and grace, it is our duty to make it a distinct and prominent branch of Christian effort.

That God has made the religious instruction of children a prominent part of his plan, is obvious from another consideration ; that where it is made a distinct and prominent branch of Christian effort, he has succeeded it in numerous instances by immediate blessing.

This is satisfactorily proved in the history of Sabbath-schools. There God's plan is more faithfully carried out. It is made a prominent branch of effort. So ought parental instruction to be ; but generally it is exceedingly deficient. Either one of the parents is not pious, and thus counteracts the influence of the other, or the family discipline opposes the instruction; or both parents, if Christians themselves, are negligent in the performance of their duty. Rarely do parents make that faithful appeal to the consciences of their children that is made by devoted Sunday-school teachers.

Christians must learn the nature and extent of their responsibility, and the solemnity of the claim which God makes upon them to instruct children. Let them act on this point under the high command of a holy God, which requires them to communicate religious instruction to every child to whom they can gain access ; and the children generally of our villages and towns and cities will be brought under the influence of Sabbath-school instruction. No plan to bring the great mass of children into Sunday-schools will succeed that will not keep the children there. The plan that will keep them there, can get them there, and that plan is the persevering efforts of teachers from reverence to the authority of God. The command of God is to go out into the streets and lanes of the city, and constrain them to come in. Let believers act under this authority, and they have the plan that will bring in the great mass of children to Sunday-school instruction,-the plan that honors God-the plan that God will honor. This obligation is to be discharged by every believer-from a spirit of love to the Lord Jesus Christ.-Cross and Journal abridged.