own name and distinctive organization—as a class name and organization.

(3) This conception of the Sunday school makes possible a definite cooperation with home and public school. If we ask parents and school teachers to help us teach religious truths to our pupils, we get little response. But if we organize to do something of social value, they can and will cooperate. The Boy Scout plan works as well in the public school as in the Sunday school. The sewing-circle of girls who are making doll clothes for less fortunate children, may enlist the members of a sewing-class in school. The class that is interested in the problems of good citizenship and social betterment, deals with these same problems in the high school, and finds the same ideals presented. The class organization of the Sunday school is paralleled by the pupil self-government of the public school. As for fathers and mothers, they usually want to help all they can; but when we ask them to help us teach, they do not know what or how. Ask them to help the children do some concrete thing, and there is no hesitation or difficulty. Upon the social side of our work we can easily enough enlist the other social agencies of the child's life; the work of instruction we must do ourselves.

5. The organized adult class stands naturally at the head of such a federation of classes into a school of social service. Once the social conception of the Sunday school is fully realized, the specific problem of the adult class will disappear. If the Sunday school is an organization for work in the kingdom, those who have worked in it from childhood up will remain in its service. The adult class will differ from others only in that its interests are mature, its grasp of social problems and opportunities more broad, its temper more truly practical, its standards of efficiency more exacting, and democracy more essential in its work and organization. Let the particular form of organization be what it will-the men's brotherhood, the women's missionary society, the mothers' club, the young men's league each should itself become part of the Sunday school, or maintain an adult class in the Sunday school. None need surrender its independence of organization; it should be required simply to register its distinctive educational work as one of the elective courses of the advanced department.

The advantages of such a plan are manifold. We name only a few : (a) coordination of educational work and unity of practical effort within the church; (b) the practical service of the adult organizations will be more enlightened, since the educational motive remains; (c)

the children's practical service will acquire dignity in their eyes, because adults, too, are seen to share the same social motive and do work through the same institution; (d) there will be no evident time of graduation from the Sunday school.

6. The socialization of the Sunday school and the coordination of the Church's educational agencies are among the most important problems that we face to-day. This chapter has sought to interpret a movement that has only begun, and to indicate the direction in which the Sunday school will develop in the immediate future. Time may show that its interpretation is in certain details untrue, and some of its suggestions mistaken. There is need of experiment and wider perspective. But the principle will abide. The Sunday school of to-morrow will be social in aim and method.*

Two possible misconceptions must be guarded agairst: (1) The educational conception of the Sunday school, maintained throughout this book, remains true. Organization for service makes no less imperative the impartation of ideas and ideals. The Sunday school will remain a school, with the Bible its chief text-book. Rightly viewed, the social and educational conceptions are one. This we may learn from the public schools of to-day, with their new methods of instruction and discipline, their social atmosphere and aims. The essential characteristic of a school is not its rigidity of discipline or its imposition of tasks, but rather that it leads its pupils to learn. (2) The social conception of the Sunday school here set forth is far from the subjective and self-centered "social ideal" quoted at the beginning of this chapter. "The school itself, with its own esprit de corps," is not "the main thing." It does not exist simply to maintain itself, or to furnish a field for activities that will interest its members. On the contrary, its fundamental note is that of service. It seeks to foster within its pupils the objective mood. It strives to lead their thoughts beyond self or school to life's real social values and to the good they can do.

* The best literature on this subject is to be found in the issues of Religious Education for the past few years. This is the journal of the Religious Education Association, and should be in the library of every Sunday school.

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QUESTIONS

1. What evidences are there in our day of a new social consciousness?

2. Discuss the social aim of education and show how the public school is becoming socialized in atmosphere and method.

3. What is the social aim of religion?

4. Why should the work of the Sunday school be social in aim and method?

5. Why should the Sunday school provide for the social life and enjoyment of its pupils ?

6. How can the Sunday school maintain the social motive in its work of instruction?

7. What can the Sunday school do to develop high social ideas within its pupils?

8. What can the Sunday school do in the way of practical social service?

9. In what sense is the class the natural unit of social and religious life in the Sunday school?

10. How does this conception of the Sunday school provide for the coordination of the Church's educational agencies?

11. How does this conception of the Sunday school make possible definite cooperation with the home and the public school?

12. Discuss the place of the organized adult class in a socially organized Sunday school.

13. Does the social conception of the Sunday school make it any less a school? Give reasons for your answer.

14. How does the social conception of the Sunday school set forth in this chapter differ from the social ideal quoted at its beginning?

LESSON XX

THE SPIRITUAL GOAL

The final goal of our work is spiritual. No mere accretion of knowledge or outward molding of action can save the world or bring a single soul to fullness of life. "This is life eternal, that they should know Thee the only true God, and Him whom Thou didst send, even Jesus Christ." The true teacher is an evangelist. He is not content merely to teach about God. He strives to reach the “hidden man of the heart." He seeks to help his pupils to know God in personal relation and so to love and serve Him. He will not rest until in heart and will they have consecrated themselves to their Father.

I. The work of the teacher thus centers about the pupil's personal decision to accept the love of God as revealed in Jesus and to live as God's child. Before this decision, we seek to prepare the pupil in due time to make it; after the decision, we try to help him the more fully to carry it out.

(1) The natural time for decision is in adolescence. We have seen that most conversions take place between the ages of thirteen and twenty-one. And it is not strange that this should be so. The awakening of interest in religion and the decision to love and serve God are natural aspects of that general expansion of selfhood and subsequent concentration of life that are the outstanding characteristics of adolescence. We should not attempt to force decision before this natural awakening; but we should bend every energy to see that decision is made before it is past and life has begun to acquire its set.

(2) Not all decisions are of the same type. They vary with age, temperament and experience. If we limit the term conversion" to those decisions which involve a real turning about from a life that is now felt to be one of sin and failure, not nearly all adolescent decisions are conversions. Many children, brought up in godly homes and baptized in infancy, have never felt alienation from God and naturally choose to serve Him and to make public profession of their faith when they reach adolescence. Decisions at twelve and thirteen are usually of this type—the natural result of a normal religious nurture and of social suggestion. Those that come later, at sixteen or twenty, usually involve something of inward conflict. The character of this conflict varies with temperament and with the experiences that

have touched the life. Some are naturally more emotional than others. We make a great mistake if we attempt to force all decisions to conform to a single type, or to make a definite sort of spiritual “experience" a condition of church membership. The worth of a decision is to be measured, not by what lies behind it, but by what comes after; not by its own suddenness or emotional intensity, but by its practical results in the life. "By their fruits ye shall know them."

(3) Decision is in any case an act of will. It consists in the assumption of an attitude towards God and the choice of a way of living. It is to the willing side of the pupil's nature, therefore, that we must appeal. And it is his willingness to be and do that we must make the test of his fitness to make a public confession of faith and become a communicant member of the church. To this all doctrinal and experiential tests must be subordinate.

Experience follows action; and dogma follows experience. Historically, creeds and confessions are the expression rather than the cause of spiritual life among men. It is so with the individual. The comprehension of doctrines, the precise formulation of beliefs, the realizing sense of God's presence and love, cannot come first in the developing life. "If any man willeth to do His will, he shall know of the teaching." It is only by living with God that we come to know Him and to understand His truth. The important thing is to get your pupil started on the life.

(4) Decision of some sort is bound to be made in adolescence. The expanding life comes face to face with the issue. It will get set in one way or the other. It will include religion or let it alone. But to neglect God or to postpone the decision to serve Him is to reject Him. To refuse to decide is itself a decision—a decision against God.

2. Making ready for the decision. We cannot begin too soon to prepare the pupil to decide rightly when the issue presents itself. It is in early, middle and later childhood that the foundations of morality and religion are laid. We have already thought of the work of the teacher in these years.* By instruction, training and influence we will earnestly seek to implant true ideas about God and life, and to develop right habits and worthy attitudes. We will make ready for future decision, not by talking about it or by seeking to force it before the time, but by meeting wisely the particular interests and needs of each stage in the developing life. There are four great agencies of

See what was said on this subject in Lesson XI., Sections 4, 6, 7 and 8, and in Lesson XII., Section 6.