WHEN seeking instruction in principles and methods of Sunday-school teaching, the names of many men might occur to us before we should think of Absalom. Yet David’s crafty son can perhaps give us a useful hint if we really want to win the hearts of the children to Christ. If you will read the first part of 2 Samuel 15 you will see what I mean.
The lesson that he gives us is none the worse because unconscious on his part: actions speak louder than words. Absalom, then, in dealing with the men who came to have audience with the king, showed interest in them; his ears were wide open. What if in his case the sympathy was only feigned; we may profit by the lesson none the less. He came down to their level, he took them by the hand, he kissed them. Then mark the result, the very object for which he was scheming, “So Absalom stole the hearts of the men of Israel.” We want to steal the hearts of the children, not for ourselves, as did Absalom, but for Christ their Saviour; and surely, with such an end in view, we should surpass even the cleverness of Absalom. For we deal with children, and children’s hearts are not hard to unlock—with the key of sympathy.
The story is an instructive one, and as pitiful as it is amusing, of the little boy who, in all the pride of owning a baby brother, came jubilantly to tell the news to his teacher in the preparatory class of a boys’ school, fully expecting her to be as delighted as he was himself. But he met with no sympathy, no happy smile and listening ear, only a chilling, “Go to your seat.” So different was this reception from the ways of his much-loved teacher in the kindergarten he had left; the little fellow could scarcely understand it. Almost bursting with mortification, and with feelings hurt beyond control, he blurted out as he turned away, “I won’t tell her again—if we have fifty babies.” Verb. sap.
A little fellow has a pair of new boots, perhaps. It is a great event to him; are you interested? Or, maybe, Dick told you last Sunday that mother was ill. “How is mother today?” Did you ask?
In blasting rock, a deep hole is first drilled; the dynamite cartridge is put down the hole, and fired by electric current. We want to get the holy scriptures, which are able to make wise unto salvation, lodged as dynamite in the children’s hearts. God will explode it. But the drill we must use is sympathy. God grant this to us, and teach us to use it for Christ and the children.
T.B.