Sunday-School Success: A Book of Practical Methods for Sunday-School Teachers and OfficersWells, Amos R. (Amos Russel)
Religion
Sunday-School Success: A Book of Practical Methods for Sunday-School Teachers and Officers
Wells, Amos R. (Amos Russel)
Sunday schools
Go on a tour of discovery, seeking for the noble metrical translations
of these psalms found in our hymn-books and religious anthologies. For
Psalm 19 read Addison's magnificent hymn, "The spacious firmament on
high"; for Psalm 103, H. F. Lyte's "Praise, my soul, the King of
heaven," or Isaac Watts' "My soul, repeat His praise"; for Psalm 72,
James Montgomery's "Hail to the Lord's Anointed, great David's greater
Son!" or Isaac Watts' "Jesus shall reign where'er the sun does his
successive journeys run"; for Psalm 84, H. F. Lyte's "Pleasant are
Thy courts above," or Isaac Watts' "Lord of the worlds above"; for
Psalm 23, Addison's "The Lord my pasture shall prepare," or others
more familiar; and for other psalms the same writers, with Wesley,
John Newton, Scott, and many more. Your scholars will be interested in
searching for these, and bringing them in.
Suppose we were studying an English hymn-book. What would we ask first
about each hymn? We would ask what sentiment it was capable of
inspiring. The same question is to be asked about these inspired
hymns; and throughout each of them we are to trace not so much a train
of thought as a train of feeling.
The psalms are subjective, and for that reason are particularly hard,
some of them, for children to appreciate. We must interpret them all
the more thoroughly by objective illustrations. Here the ordinary
problem is reversed. In our ordinary lessons the example from real
life is given, and from it the teacher must draw spiritual lessons.
Here the spiritual meditation is given, to be applied to real life.
Notwithstanding this, the psalms are eminently pictorial, and
especially adapted to illustration. See how many pictures are
suggested by the following words from the most famous of the psalms:
"shepherd," "want," "lie down," "green pastures," "leadeth," "still
waters," "guideth," "paths," "valley of the shadow," "rod and staff,"
"a table prepared," "enemies," "anointed," "cup runneth over." All
such pictures should be gathered, and used to make the lesson vivid to
the picture-loving little ones.
There is especial need in teaching the psalms to explain how the force
of imagery varies with varying conditions of climate and modes of
life; how much more, for instance, was meant to David than to us by
such symbols as "a rock," "shadow," "sun," "shield," "water-courses"!
Children are fond of metaphors, but they make comical blunders with
them, and deal, unless we are careful, all too literally with such
passages as "a table in the presence of mine enemies," "the wicked are
like the chaff," "the congregation of the righteous," "break them with
a rod of iron." If the teacher is in doubt just how far to carry these
metaphors, I know no better example of the wise and beautiful use of
them than Bunyan's "Pilgrim's Progress." The reading of that book will
make a capital preparation for the teaching of the psalms.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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