Frankfort Pilgrim College - Pilgrim Yearbook (Frankfort, IN)

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Uhr filvwiw S f' Grades BRINGING THE CHILDREN TO CHRIST The time that otfers the best opportunity for leading the children to Christ is when they are yet members of the home ci1'cle and are still under parental discipline. For if we Train up a child in the way he should go, when he is old he will not depart from it. And more than that, the person that has learned the lesson of obedience at home finds it so much easier to adjust himself to the demands of life, and to keep his right relationship to God. There is no lesson so important and essential to success in life, and especially to a victorious t'hristian experience, as the lesson of obedience. ln II Timothy 3:2 we read that Men shall be lovers of themselves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents. unthankful and unholy. What a sad comment upon the p1'esent age! What an awful thing is disobedience! lt has made necessary the establishment. of every penal institu- tion in our land. Nearly every thief, gambler and drunkard in the world, no doubt, began their career of crime and sin by repeatedly disobeying their par- ents. or was so unfo1'tunate as to be deprived of wholesome home influences. Wliilt- the child is in the school room and on the play-ground there is another opportunity for leading him to Christ. Perhaps not always in a di- rect appeal but in the very atmosphere of the school life and by making every thing point in that direction. Psalms 3-1:11. Come, ye children, hearken unto me, I will teach you the fear of' the Lord. It means so much more than we can realize for a child to have a guarded Christian education, one that will hold his faith firm in the coming yea1's. You often hear parents say, I don't want my child to believe in evolution and the different isms of this day and time, but will continue to send him to a school whose whole curriculum ever tends to unbelief and skepticism. So quiet and unassuming is the teaching presented, that before you or the child are aware of it, the child finds that he can no longer believe what he once held dear about God, the Bible and what eternity holds in sto1'e for each one of us. And while we are thinking' of this let us also ponder over the thought that the teaching received in the formative years while in school so indelibly molds the 'future and character of the individual that even God himself cannot de- st1'oy it without destroying the individual. The wise thing to do if one cares for the education of his children, is to place them in a christian college where God is first and the president, an-il teachers really know Cod in Holiness of heart and have a love for the truth- a school where each class is opened with prayer, the Bible is taught in eve1'y class and the chapel services are g'iven over to the spiritual interest. of the students. Another God honored avenue of leading the young people to Christ is that of the services of religious worship. The induence of the Church and Sunday School is a great panacea for crime. VVe see this when we discover the seventy-five per cent of the boys who are arrested and brought into the various police courts weekly are those who do not attend Sunday School. A poor man hung some time ago for the crime of murder said, the first to his getting into crime was breaking the Sabbath. Suffer the little children to come unto me, entreats the Christ, and forbid them not. for of such is the kingdom of God. -68-' M M- Z

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- ' 55112 451221015 ft rf Grades WHY THE GRADES SHOULD BE TAUGHT IN HOLINESS SCHOOLS Every child comes into this world freighted with potentialities which must be drawn out, developed, and turned into the right channels if the child is to live a complete, holy, and useful life. And since the impressions made on the mind of the child early inlife are so lasting, it is of utmost importance that hc receive the best of training while young. So significant is the early impres- sionable age that some churches have said, Give me the child for the first sev- en years and the world may have him the rest of his life. Next to the home, the elementary school is the greatest factor in molding and determining the character of the future life of the young. It is within the walls of the school-room that the greater number of the years of the formative period is spent. In so many young lives today this training is the only training and moral instruction received, thus it is for this reason, and also for the fact that impressions once made can only with difficulty be unmade that the ele- mentary school should be of the best possible kind. And what institution is better fitted to offer such training than the holiness school? Under its super- vision the subjects studied and especially the study of science which has its foundation for higher scientific study laid in the grades should direet the child in scientific subjects accompaning it with the knowledge of a living God and our dependence upon Him. True science confirms rather than destroys a be- lief in a Creator and his personal Divine Revelation. However, not only because of its method of teaching should the child be trained in a holiness school, but also because of the need of good environment. In a school of spiritual influence, the ehild's mind so impression- able will be directed toward the pure and moral. How foolish it is for Christian parents to send their children to public schools where their minds are gripped by worldly desires and ambitions and then to expect them to still desire the things of God and to continue to aspire to godly ideals and spiritual accom- plishments. Woiilcl it not be much better if the parents would follow the injunction of the scriptures, 'Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart form it. If this were carried out it would eliminate many of the problems arising in the church and state. Some one has wisely said, In the widest sense of the word man is educat- ed either for good or for evil by everything he experiences from the cradle to the grave! In view of this great. truth, the child's surroundings should be carefully chosen so that he will be intiueneed as little as possible by evil. Children a1'e imitators and their elders are their examples. Since it is thc nature of a child in school to think of his teacher as one who does everything right and since he patterns after the teacher, it is a matter of no little con- sequence that he be under the instruction of a godly teacher, indued with divine wisdom, who can and will draw out the best and stimulate the good in his be- ing. For one to be truly prepared to hold the responsibility of shaping the character of an immortal soul, as a teacher does, one must be in touch with God and be directed by Him, who alone understands his creation. Only when under such instruction is the future of thc child safe. liet us not forget that it is not for time only but for eternity that we build in the training of a child. Shall we not then, remembering that the children of today will constitute the church of tomorrow, give them the best that under God we can? --Pearl Sims. GQ C52 N ii Q C7 :Li ECS GQ P nf' l EQ Q. it ,,,5'DCf' PWM' .sign vi -57-

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