Rensselaer Union, Volume 5, Number 24, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 6 March 1873 — Sunday School Literature. [ARTICLE]

Sunday School Literature.

A religions friend dropped into our office last Saturday morning Mid left a bundle of tracts and Sunday school paper* for ns To Lead during our leasiife hours on the Sabbath day. It is not commendable for any person, whether he be an active professor of religion or a passive spectator of the warfare her tween tiie battalion* of the Lord and the host,s of Armageddon, to ke'iu> to him6elf all the good things he receives, bht lip should share them with his neighbors; therefore we publish tiie following extracts for the benefit ot those, who like ourselves can not, or do not, attend Sabbath schools constantly. A copy of the. Picture Lesion. Paper has the following beautiful, touching, simple admonition: "Come Johnny, wake up! It’s time to get out of bed. Tiie sun is shining brightly, and your little dog Spot lias been barking for you for the last half hour.* He scratched at your room door, and would have come in if mamma had not driven him awa>\” Now our opinion of a boy that wouldn’t get up for such an*xhortation is fluff he is real mean and ought to be spanked with a supple peach switch. The same little paper tells this anecdote in good earuest: - Sulkey Sissy Lee, —— Is it true? O can it be? Such a girl as you to cry! Silly Sissy .Lee, O fie! That’s nearly as good as the doggerel editor of the Francesvillc Local Topic furnishes lus' patrons, hilt \ve Imvamit heard that the Topic has much of a Sabbath school circulation. Ip the Sttndgy School Advocate for January 25th, the following wonderful story in the editorial column ’* related for a fact: We read the other day an interesting incident in tiie life of Stilling, which is a good illustration of tins text. .. Stilling was a celebrated German writer who died over fifty years agp. In early life lie was very poor, lie wished to study medicine, but knew not* where to go, nor hat! he money to take him anywhere. But, young as lie was he had a firm faith in God. He reasoned thus: “God begins nothing without terminating it gloriously. He alone lias ordered my present circumstances, and every tiling regarding me lie will bring about in his own way.” His friends were as poor as himself, and they wdudered where lie won id get the money.lieneeded for cation. Alter raising all he could for his long journey to Strasburg’, where lie was to spend the winter, lie started on iiis way, but when life readied Frankfort, which was three days’ r'de from Strasburg, Jfcfeliad only one dollar left. He laid nothing, bqt lie prayed mlieh. While walking tiie streets he met a merchant belonging to bis native place, who said: “Stilling, what brought you here?” “I am going to Strasburg to study medicine.” “Where do you get your money to study with?” “I* have a rich Father in heaven,.” “How much money have you on lmmi'”’ “One dollar," said Stilling. “So!” said the merchant. “Well, I’m one of jour Father’s stewards,” and he handed him thirty-three dollars. lie liad not been long,in Strasburg, when his thirty-four dollars were reduced to one. One morning his room mate said to him, “Stilling, I believe you did not bring much money with you,” and gave him thirty dollars ill gold. - In- a few-months after this he had no money to juty his college dues.— Thejeeturer’s fee must be paid by six o’clock on Thursday evening or lie would be obliged to leave college.— Five o’clock came, and still lie bad no money. Then, while he was in great grief, and praying to God for help, a gentleman came in and gave him forty dollars in gold, It may be possible that in Germany merchants and other men of means run around scattering gold among indigent students—we don’tknow, having never been in Germany —but in America Stilling’s faith woldn’t meetcurrentexpenscs. It is said that sojne poor but ambitious young men have oven been obliged to saw wood, teacli school and perform other labors in order to procure money for this worthy purpose. Notwithstanding the inference conveyed by this little story we should not advise young people to depend jupon such precarious means lor obtaining a subsistance, or an education either, as the voluntary donations of any German capitalists that have yet emigrated to the United States. If you need money “Go west, young jrian, ajid grow up with the country.” Work and earn it. In the issue of the same Advocate for February 22d, is a pictorial illustration of a-baby sucking one of its shoes, followed by this ex.planalion: , 1

This baby philosopher has "discovered the way “to make both ends meet”—a thing philosophers don't ali ways accomplish in this world. fc>ee j how haby has solved the problem.— j He takes the shoe off aud puts it in ! his mouth, and looks out of the picI ture at you. as much ps to sav, "This I is one..way to make both ends meet.” Cunning baby! To be sure there may not be much harm growing -out of this kind of literature, except perhaps from suchjmprobable yarns as that told about Dr. SloHing. and of course there is much that is good published in these tracts and Sunday school papers. Still like secular sheets, they are not free from |

hnman infirmities and weakpoiuttj, because the ftjen and women who write for them have the failing* of humanity, notwithstanding their claims to ipectal Inspiration. „„It. would not lie right to condemn Sabbath school instruction nor to deny that Sabbath schools may be made the means whereby good morals, high civilization and all the virtues that make good citizens are inculcated upon the .tender minds of cliydren, but there are thinking people—eoncieneious men and wo,men —all over this enlightened land, who view with sorrow the frequent perversions of this holy institution, by silly bigots and narrow minded sectarians. Sabbath school from the fact of its coming directly in contact with tender, plastic, unformed minds, ought to be pure, earnest, and, above all else, strictly truthful, has of Iffle years become so shallow, so silly, so trashy, and so mixed up with that which is very improbable if not downright falsg, that it is a b'y-word and a reproach. In this opinion worldly people are not alone, but it is shared by many religious people. To illustrate this we add a quotation from an article in Rev. ' Henry Ward Beecher’s paper the Christian Union.' A story called “Roverty Peter,” by R. W. Raymond, was read during Christmas week to the children of the three Sataday school* connected with Plymouth Church, Brooklyn, which relates how a poor, friendless, aimless, ragged boy in New Y’ork was set to thinking, and to doing those things which make good children and good men After getting the little fellow awakened and changing his character Trom one of absolute worthlessness to that of a child delighting in good deeds and kind actions, the narrator does, not let him say a precocious thing or two-and spread ins angeljc 'wings lor glory, but he gr#i£s up ami becomes a good, respected and influential man. We want to hasten to tiie point made by Mf.'Raymond and taught to Plymouth Church Sabbath, school children and shall not follow tiie gradually unfolding details of his interesting story, bat abruptly introduce the passage illustrating out position: And so it came to pass that after some years there was a wedding. * * * * * * And who was tiie lovely bejng, all dressed in muslin, who stood on that occasion by Peter’s side? If I was t° put this question now, and ask each of you girls who knew the .answer to hold up her hand, all your hands—that is to say, half your hands or one hand apiece—would go up at once and I hear a sweet chorus, ‘lt was the little girl whose life he had saved.’ Oh, j T ou dear, creatures, how penetrating you are!. Only it wasn’t that little glrlatall, butanother gjri. You see you forget this isn’t a Sunday-school book story, or a novel, but an ordinary piece of real life. There is the point to the whole-; thing; it “isn’t a Sunday school book story, but an ordinary piece of real life!” And thus it would seem that not alone the election of United States Senators, Credit Mobilier transactions, and Book Concern operations need the services of investigating committees, but also that more ior less good might possibly accrue to even- the Sabbath school literature oi our day if it was thoroughly overhauled and repaired by a board of tom-, petent, earnest, religious men and women. S— «4»»> Our noble M. C., Hon. Jasper Packard, thinks that the country can’t afford to do without his services for less than SB,OOO per annum; at least, so lie voted. — Laporte Argus. We notice that Billy Williams and Jasper Packard, Indiana M. C.’sywho have probably concluded they will not go to Congress any more, ’ voted for a preliminary resolution iij Congress, looking to an increase of tiie salary of Congressmen to SB,OOO per annum, The passage of such a jaw would give them each SB,OOO for the past .two j-ears’ services They had not better run tlieir arms into tiie treasury that deep for past services, unless they, too, are itching lor Mobilier fame. — Lagrange Standard.

Jean Ingelow, in a letter to Lucy Stone, iays she lias not found time to give the subject of woman’s rights such an amount of study as to make it wise to utter her thoughts. Other things, she says, appear to be given her to do, and she takes them up to the --exclusion of what lies beyond.— But she takes "a keen interest”’ in one problem which Alnerican women have to work out, viz: How domestic work is to be combined with high culture. She sa»: "So long as household work is-thought degrading (aiid nowhere is tills soTtauehihecaseas in America), there never can lie anything like universal education; there must always be some who work all their lives, because others- will not work at ail. It is one of the great things that you Ameridans, 1 believe, are raised up for, to teach the world how this is to be done; but the teachers can .never be those who are poor, they must be those who are not obliged to work at all. How to make clear-starching and ironing graceful aud pretty occupations (and such they were thought by our great great grandmothers), how to keep a house clean, aud to assist, even in a kitchen, without the least sense of being lowered, or the slightest personal deterioration, might surely be managed if women gave their mind to it."—Chriitlow Untom.

The new Methodist Episcopal church building at Wolcott is to be dedicated next Sabbath, March 9th. Governor Hendricks signed the new temperance law last Thursday, "Time H went into operation. One firm at Laporte harvests 50,000 cords of ice this season—enough to load a fleet of fifty large sail ships. ' _ Up at Plymouth when a youngster calls to see his girl and she “is not at home” to him, he gallantly smashes in the windows and things. Old Dr. Fitch, of Logansport, is reported to be of the opinion that the disease known as cerebro spinal meningitis is erysipelas in-its most aggravated form. The Warsaw IrJdiavian says that the late cold snap froze some of the quail that sportsmen had been feeding in coops all winter to tarn out again in the spring. The Ligonier Banner contains an advertisement of a saloonatic to sell out his present stock of whiskey at SI per gallon less than cost. That’s how he feels about the pe* law,The First National Bank of Michigan City was organized last week, with a paid up capital of $50,000. H. 11. Walker is President, Wm. Shoeneman, Vice President, and Walter Vail, Cashier. The Louisville, New Albany & Chicago railroad company “has bought one hundred and forty miles of new iron, which will be laid down as soon as the weather becomes favorable. The company has also arranged to have the old rails rerolled. , . A inanufacturing company is in process of organization lor the purpose ot developing the water power of Norway, White county. About $30,000 capital has already been subscribed, and they propose commencing operations during the summer by building a large grist mill. Packard’s new district ought to be able to get rid Of him at the next convention. That vote to increase his salary to $8,00<» n year proves him to be a corrupt man. and justifies all that Kis enemies ever said against him. He is another of your “Christian statesmen” who lias flaunted his piety in our faces and made merchandise of religion about long enough.— Rochester Union Spy. That this is a land of plenty and the present a year of prosperity, there are more evidences than one. We have never seen town cows ahtl liorsSs in better condition at this season. ‘They have wintered handsomely, and their sleek sides speak volumes in praise of the generous farmers out or whose wagons they purloin the hay that forms the principal share of their keeping. Farmers should always remeifiber to bring along a wagon-box full of good hay interspersed with an occasional ear of corn, when they come to town. A little forethought and liberality in this direction saves the owners of town cows and horses considerable expense,— Roduster Union Spy. . .