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 .For circulation among Sunday School Teachers. 
 
 THE SUNDAY SCHOOL; 
 
 OR 
 
 A Story of Progress. 
 
 A Sermon preached on Sunday, October 10th, one 
 of the two days set apart for Universal 
 Prayer for Sunday Schools. 
 
 Rev. JOHN HECTOR, m. a. 
 
 Free Church of Scotland Mission, Calcutta. 
 
 CALCUTTA : 
 
 PRINTED AT THE “CALCUTTA ADVERTISER :I PRESS, 
 20 British Inbian Street. 
 
 1879. 
 

For circulation among Sunday School Teachers. 
 
 THE SUNDAY SCHOOL; 
 
 OR 
 
 A Story of Progress. 
 
 A Sermon, preached on Sunday, October 10th, one 
 of tbe two days set apart for Universal 
 Prayer for Sunday Schools. 
 
 BY 
 
 Rev. JOHN HECTOR, m. a., 
 
 Free Church of Scotland Mission, Calcutta. 
 
 CALCUTTA : 
 
 PRINTED AT THE “CALCUTTA ADVERTISER” PRESS, 
 20 British Indian Street. 
 
 1879. 
 
Note. — A friend of Sunday Schools having kindly offered to 
 print and publish this Sermon at his own expense, for circulation 
 among Sunday School Teachers in India, it is now sent forth with 
 the prayer that the Master may use it to encourage them in their 
 
 labour of love. 
 
THE SUN DA V SCHOOL ; 
 
 OR 
 
 A Story of Progress. 
 
 “ A little one shall become a thousand, and a small -one a strong nation ; 
 J the Lord will hasten it in his time.” — Isaiah lx, 22. 
 
 fj^HE Great springs from the Little. 
 
 So it is in Nature. There, for instance, is the mighty river, 
 -a highway of commerce, a resort for the ships of all nations, a 
 bulwark of the realm. Yet whence is if ? It springs from the 
 ■darksome womb of the rock, and is at its source small and in- 
 significant. Or there again is the oak forest, a symbol of strength 
 and endurance, calling to mind many a battle fought and won 
 in the wars of the elements and the wars of the na lions. But 
 that oak forest was once a handful of acorns, yea a single acorn. 
 
 So it is in Grace. Every great religious movement has had 
 to follow this law of gradual progress. As you contemplate it 
 in its greatness, and trace its history back to its origin, you are 
 sure to find a fulfilment of the words of the text : — “ A little one 
 shall become a thousand, and a small one a strong nation ; I 
 the Lord will hasten it in his time.” 
 
 To-day the Sunday School movement claims attention, and 
 it may be interesting and profitable to trace it as an illustration 
 of the law that the great springs from the little, 
 
2 
 
 I. Consider the growth in numbers — " a little one shall be- 
 come a thousand.” 
 
 Early one morning in the year 1780, a middle-aged gentle- 
 man, of some-what striking appearance, might have been seen 
 standing in an open space near the Severn in one of the lowest 
 parts of the city of Gloucester. He has gone there on business; 
 and meanwhile, having to wait the return of the person he 
 wishes to see, he is eagerly watching a group of children at play. 
 The sight evidently does not give him pleasure. There is a look 
 of sorrow on his thoughtful face. No wonder! The children 
 before him are wretchedly ragged and dirty, and in their play 
 they are noisy and boisterous, cursing and swearing, quarrelling 
 and fighting as the mood seizes them. Touched with the sad 
 sight, he turns away to make some enquiries as to the state 
 of the neighbourhood ; and before he leaves it, he has settled 
 what to do to help to check this youthful profligacy and 
 dissipation. 
 
 Such were the circumstances in which Robert Raikes felt 
 impelled to start his first four Sunday Schools. The initiatory 
 difficulties were very great. But Robert Raikes knows how to 
 face and overcome difficulties. He is already widely known for 
 enterprise and perseverance, as well as for benevolence and piety. 
 From the twenty-third year of his age, he has been sole proprietor 
 and editor of the Gloucester Journal, in the interests of which he 
 has fought successfully more than one battle for right and justice. 
 This, along with his steady consistent advocacy of every scheme 
 fitted to advance the good of his fellow-men, have secured for 
 his journal a position of no little influence in the community. 
 Raikes has been active too for many years in the cause of Jail 
 Reform. His own personal labours for the good, temporal and 
 eternal, of the prisoners in the two wretched jails of his native 
 city, have been unremitting, while they have served to impress 
 him with the close connexion between ignorance and crime, and 
 the need of rescuing the children, Here is a man then who 
 
3 
 
 will hold on, and cut his way through the difficulties of his new 
 enterprise. 
 
 And he did. His means and appliances were humble 
 enough. The teachers, paid at the rate of one shilling a day, 
 were four women who kept day-schools of the poorest class ; and 
 reading, repetition of the catechism, attendance at church, to 
 which the children were duly marched, filled up most of the 
 routine. Yet the change in the manners and morals of the 
 little raggamuffins was so great that it speedly drew attention 
 and led to the establishment of similar schools throughout the 
 city. Then Raikes, whose personal interest in the pupils and 
 their parents, as also in the teachers, was the secret of the 
 reformation produced, began to advocate the scheme through 
 the press, and good men and women in various parts of the 
 land caught at the idea. Adam Smith, the political economist, 
 and the poet Cowper, wrote in its favour. John Wesley, with mind 
 and heart ever open to whatever would advance the Redeemer’s 
 cause, threw himself into the movement. As early as 1784, he 
 writes : — “ I find these schools springing up wherever I go. 
 Perhaps God may have a deeper end therein than men are aware of. 
 Who knows but some of these schools may become nurseries of 
 Christians.” Royalty itself gave its patronage, and the king, 
 George III., remarked : — “ It is my wish that every poor child in 
 my kingdom should be taught to read the Bible.” 
 
 With such encouragements the work spread rapidly, and in 
 a sermon of the time, the position of the movement, four years 
 after its inau; uration, is thus described : — “ It is now a period of 
 four years since this institution was first set on foot, and this 
 grain of mustard-seed is now grown to such an incredible extent, 
 that under its shadows no fewer than 250,000 of our poor fellow 
 Christians are sheltered and protected. From this spark, excited 
 by the zeal and supported by the indefatigable exertions of a 
 worthy individual, such a flame of piety and charity has been 
 kindled as diffuses its brightness through our own and a neigh- 
 
4 
 
 boaring kingdom, and is even about to extend itself to our settle^ 
 ments in distant countries.” Among the distant countries, 
 America was the first to welcome the new movement, and in 1784 
 or thereabout, Francis Ashbury, “the patriarch of American 
 Methodism,” had begun those labours which have made the Sunday 
 schools of that country so popular and efficient. 
 
 Eaikes died in 1811 at the age of 75. He thus lived to see 
 the Sabbath School a power in England, Scotland, Ireland, and 
 other countries. Shortly before his death, Joseph Lancaster, the 
 benevolent Quaker, paid him a visit, anxious to enquire into the 
 history of the movement. “ Leaning on the arm of his visitor, ,r 
 writes one of Eaikes’ biographers, “ the old man led him through 
 the thoroughfares of Gloucester to the spot in the back 
 street where the first school was held. ‘ Pause here,’ said the old 
 man. Then uncovering his head, and closing his eyes, he stood 
 for a moment in silent prayer. Then turning towards his 
 friend, while the tears rolled down his cheeks, he said : — ‘ This is 
 the spot on which I stood when I saw the destitution of the 
 children and the desecration of the Sabbath by the inhabitants 
 of this city. As I asked, Can nothing be done ? a voice answered 
 Try ; I did try, and see what God has wrought ! I can never pass 
 by the spot where the word Try came so powerfully into my mind 
 without lifting up my hands aud my heart to Heaven in gratitude 
 to God for having put such a thought into my heart.’ ” 
 
 This was after the first 30 years of the Sabbath School 
 movement ; and if Eobert Eaikes might then, with reason, say 
 “ What hath God wrought 1” with how much greater reason may 
 we now say so ! We stand some 70 years further on in the 
 march of time, and decade after decade has seen the area of 
 influence ever widening and widening. Keeping out of view, for 
 a little, lands where the English language is spoken, look at the 
 persistent and successful efforts of the Sunday School Union, 
 whose call to universal prayer the Christian Church is respond- 
 ing to to-day, to introduce the movement on the Continent of 
 
5 
 
 Europe. These efforts were begun in 1864, and in France, 
 Switzerland, Germany, Austria, Holland, Sweden and Norway, 
 the work has taken root, and is growing with vigour. Germany 
 shows a total of 8325 teachers and 162,251 scholars, while 
 in Sweden the progress has been so rapid that within eight 
 years the number of scholars has mounted up from 10,000 
 to 50,000. As to English-speaking children, the International 
 Series of Lessons is said to be studied Sunday after Sunday by 
 no fewer than 5,000,000 or 6,000,000; and remembering that 
 Great Britain and the United States alone give 800,000 teachers 
 and 8,000,000 scholars, it cannot be very far, if at all, over 
 the mark to say that there are now, in all countries, 1,000,000 
 Sabbath School teachers and 10,000,000 Sabbath School Scholars. 
 Truly the “ little one has become a thousand,” 
 
 II. Consider the growth in strength, The text implies 
 more than mere growth in numbers. Side by side with that, 
 there is growth in strength, or internal vigour and efficiency. 
 The “ small one shall become a strong nation,” able to answer all 
 the ends of its existence. 
 
 In connection with the Sunday-School movement, two 
 distinct stages in this growth may be noted. 
 
 A few years after the movement was started, the question 
 of how to raise means to pay teachers was being discused at a 
 meeting of Wesleyan office-bearers. They could not see their 
 way at all, and it seemed likely that the establishment of a 
 School would have to be indefinitely postponed. At last one, 
 more zealous than his brethren, cried out, “ Let us do the work 
 ourselves.” This idea of gratuitous instruction had not occurred 
 to Raikes. The teachers employed in the Schools first opened 
 were, as has been already seen, paid, and the example was copied. 
 The Sunday School Society of England, started in 1785 under 
 high patronage, spent in payment of teachers, from the year 
 1786 to the year 1800, the sum of £4,000. At one time it 
 
6 
 
 seemed as if the movement would collapse under the burden of 
 the remuneration of teachers. But the idea of gratuitous 
 instruction, once fairly ventilated, gradually commended itself, 
 and it deserves to be mentioned as a landmark of progress that 
 in 1800, gratuitous instruction had become almost universal. 
 The one million teachers of the present day give themselves and 
 their services voluntarily as a contribution of love to Christ, 
 finding their highest reward in good done and good received, and 
 in the Master’s smile of approval. 
 
 j Another stage of growth in strength was reached when the 
 
 Sunday School became strictly a religious institution. In Scot- 
 land it was always so ; but in the schools of England, secular 
 instruction went on side by side with religious instruction for a 
 long time. Happily the necessity for this has gone by ; and 
 secular instruction can now be, and is relegated to the day-school 
 or the evening-school. Happily, therefore, in our day, no vexed 
 questions as to what is to be taught gather about the Sunday 
 School. Opinion on this point is at one ; and those interested in 
 the cause have only to bend their energies to the practical 
 question of how best to teach. The Sunday School gathers 
 week after week under the love inscribed banner of Him who 
 said, “ Suffer little children to come unto me, and forbid them 
 not, for of such is the kingdom of heaven and the aim of all 
 the instruction given, of every lesson and every address, is to 
 implant deep in the mind and heart of all the pupils, even the 
 very youngest, the conviction that Jesus loves them and longs 
 to have them love Him. How completely the Sunday School has 
 changed its character and become everywhere a strictly religious 
 institution, aiming to advance the spiritual interests of children, 
 is vividly brought to mind at a time like this when intercessory 
 prayer is going up from the Christian Church in all lands in res- 
 ponse to an appeal whose key-note is The Children for Christ. 
 
 The introduction of these two features, Voluntary Effort 
 and the exclusively Religious aim, gave, as might be expected, a 
 
7 
 
 new impulse to the whole movement. Friends in ever in- 
 creasing numbers rallied round it. Many of the most talented, 
 intelligent, and pious members of the Churches, offered their 
 services as teachers. Not a few began to make Sunday School 
 teaching “ the chosen work of their life^ devoting themselves to 
 it as a sacred science, worthy of all the patient thought and 
 loving labour they can expend on it.” Sunday School Unions 
 became the order of the day, and while schools multiplied in 
 number, no longer intended, as at first, for the poor and neglected 
 classes alone, there was also a vast multiplication of the 
 subsidiary means and appliances fitted for rendering the institu- 
 tion really strong aud effective. Suuday School Literature, for 
 in-tance, took a new start, and assumed a place of importance 
 all its own. The author of “ Evidences of Christianity in the 
 Ninteenth Century” has not failed to raise a telling argument on 
 this basis. “Christianity,” to quote part of his words, “has 
 originated a new form of literature wholly its own, a literature 
 not known under any form of mythology; not known under any 
 form of modern heathenism, not known to infidelity, not known 
 to philosophy ; and it has, at the same time, originated an institu- 
 tion most effective for applying that literature and for securing 
 its own influence over the young. I allude to the Sunday School, 
 and to the literature which has been originated by that institution. 
 The literature of the Sabbath School may not be, in respect to 
 quality, all that could be desired, but it may be doubted whether 
 there is any other department of literature that is exerting as 
 much influence on the destinies of mankind. That literature is 
 placed in the hands of the young before other influences are 
 brought to bear on them, to form their opinions, to make their 
 hearts pure, to teach them to believe the Bible, and to love and 
 serve God. Whatever else,” he emphatically adds, “ the world 
 may do in its progress, we may be certain that it will not be in 
 advance of this arrangement of Christianity* to diffuse and 
 perpetuate itself upon the earth.” 
 
8 
 
 III. The text reminds us that what has just been considered 
 rs the Lord’s doing. “ I the Lord will hasten it in its time.” 
 
 This is the significant ending of Isaiah’s grand sixtieth 
 chapter. The prophet turns away from the present and fixes his 
 eye upon the future. That future he sees lit up with glory. 
 The darkness is past : the true light shineth. Violence and 
 wasting, destruction and mourning, are no more : they have given 
 place to righteousness and peace, to praise and salvation, and 
 these blessings he sees scattered the world over, for the Gentiles 
 have come and yielded themselves up as willing captives to 
 Zion’s King. But who is to bring about so mighty a reforma- 
 tion ? 1 the Lord. “ I the Lord will hasten it in its time.” Not 
 you, 0 man. You are prone indeed to hasten, but your efforts 
 to hasten only hinder. Let it be yours quietly to w r ork as God 
 lays work to your hand, and quietly to wait. “ I the Lord will 
 hasten it in its time.” 
 
 This lesson of lessons Robert Raikes had learned. He was 
 a humble patient worker. When he resolved to try and open 
 one or two schools that he might, if possible, save a few wretched 
 children from a life of crime and misery, he had no thought of 
 inaugurating a grand movement and remitting his name to 
 distant posterity. Nothing of the sort. He was simply attempt- 
 ing to do a work God had laid to his hand, and his “ experiment,” 
 as he calls it, is described “as harmless and innocent, however 
 fruitless it might prove in its effects.” Indeed the Sunday School 
 idea itself was not new. There had been isolated efforts of the 
 kind before in other places and in other lands. But still it was 
 to Raikes, with his humble beginning, that the grace and the 
 honour were given to go on, and reveal to his nation and his age 
 that the Sunday School Institution supplied a real and pressing 
 need. Thus does God choose the foolish things of the world to 
 confound the wise, the weak things of the world to confound the 
 things which are mighty ; and base things of the world and 
 things which are despised does God choose, yea, and things which 
 
9 
 
 are not, to bring to nought things that are ; that no flesh should 
 
 — * ' \ 
 
 V 
 
 The Appear for universal prayer has not forgotten these. 
 
 “ The spiritual interests of children, who are at present outside 
 the Sunday School, also call for earnest pleadings with God, 
 that the youth of all lands may be speedily brought under the 
 benign influence of the Gospel of Christ.” This is the goal to 
 be reached, and not till it is reached will the Sabbath School 
 have fulfilled its mission, or the prophet’s glowing vision be an 
 accomplished fact. 
 
 “ Having therefore these promises,” let our Sunday School 
 teachers here in India be “ steadfast, unmoveable, always abound- 
 ing in the work of the Lord.” The importance of their work 
 on the spread of Christianity among the heathen, especially if it 
 goes on side by side with home-training and other influences, can- 
 not be over-estimated. It is theirs to turn the stream of many a 
 life at the very outset Godwards, and so make it an ever- deepening, 
 ever-broadening channel of blessing to the “poor and needy” of 
 
10 
 
 the land. Sunday Schools teachers know how true are Ruskin’s 
 words, when he says • 
 
 / 
 
 May all 
 
 interested in the Sunday School cause more and more succeed 
 in, preserving the heavenly colours undimmed, to beautify the 
 place of the sanctuary, and to make the city of the Lord an 
 eternal excellency, a joy of many generations !