ONCE when I was a teacher in a large school, I had to reprove a pupil for inattention and disobedience. My words failing to produce an effect upon him, I was obliged to resort to punishment, and accordingly I told him to stand for a quarter of an hour in a corner of the school-room.
As he was going to the corner a boy came to me and requested that I would allow him to take the place of the lad who had offended. This request surprised me a good deal; however, I contented myself with observing that if I granted his request, he should pass the whole of the time in the corner, “and,” I added, “a quarter of an hour is very long when one must spend it in punishment.”
These words did not shake him. I then pointed out to him the disgrace which attaches to a child who undergoes punishment, telling him that to all visitors who might enter the school, he would appear a naughty boy. Nothing, however, changed his purpose, and I allowed him to take his companion’s place in the corner. When the quarter of an hour had expired, I released the little boy, and asked him if it was his companion who had induced him to take his place.
“No, sir,” he replied.
“Do you not think that he deserved to be punished?”
“Oh, he deserved it.”
“What then has led you to bear this punishment in his place?”
“Sir, it is because I love him.”
The other children had listened with deep attention to this conversation. I then called the disobedient boy, and raised the question if I ought not to punish hint, even though his friend had been punished.
In a moment there was almost a clamor of protestations. A multitude of voices cried out, “Oh, sir, that would not be right! that would not be right!”— “nor just!” added one.
“Why would it not be just?” replied I. “Has not your school-fellow disobeyed?”
“Yes, sir; but you have allowed Brown to be punished in his place; you should not therefore punish him.”
“Does what has just happened recall anything to your minds?” I said.
“That the Lord Jesus bore the punishment of our sins.”
“What would you call Brown, now?” “A substitute.”
“What is a substitute?”
“One who takes the place of another.” “Whose place has Jesus taken?” “That of sinners.”
“Brown told us that he wished to take his school-fellow’s place and be punished instead of him, because he loved him. Can you tell me why Jesus wished to die in the place of the sinner?”
“Because He loved us.”
“Tell me of a verse which proves that.”
“Exactly, and it would not have been just for me to put the naughty boy in the corner, after having punished Brown in his place.”
“We learn that God can never punish any sinner who believes in Jesus Christ as his Saviour; He will never do so, for the Bible says, that ‘God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.’”
ML 02/04/1906