GOVERNOR-GENERAL’S TRIBUTE TO SUNDAY SCHOOLS.
4. 150th AWiNTVERS ARY CELEBRATIONS. LORD BLEDISLOE’S message. This year the English-speaking world is celebrating the 150th anniversary of the founding of the Sunday School movement by Robert Raikes, at Gloucester, in 1780. His Excellency the GovernorGeneral has sent the following message to Mr. A. H .Reed, of Dunedin, for 'publication throughout the Dominion:— Government House, Wellington, September 29, 1930. “Hailing as I do from Gloucestershire in England, where Robert Raikes the founder of Sunday schools was born, and laboured both for the humane treatment of prisoners and for the spiritual welfare of children, and being myself a profound believer in the efficacy of Sunday schools as a powerful instrument in building up a nation of robust God-fearing men and women and loyal devoted patriots, I desire, on the occasion of flu* 150th anniversary of Robert Raikes’s world-wide movement, to express to Sunday school teachers through this Dominion my cordial good wishes for the success of their beneficent and unselfish labours; and to their pupils the very earnest hope that the .joyful message which the good bo oik proclaims may inspire and ennoble all that they do in after Life. —Bledisloe, Governor-General.”
The 'Sunday school is one of the
onders of modern Christendom,
“A prophet hath no honour in his own country,” and sometimes we are apt to despise the little wayside Sunday school. But that litlle school, with its few teachers giving up their scanty leisure to a noble ideal, and its handful of children from the neighbouring homes, lias left its mark upon some of our most honoured citizens, and is linked up with a. great worldwide movement —the largest or-
ganisntion perhaps in the* Christin 11 world. (From ;i small' begin - riinas a. class of ragged children held in a Gloucester dame’s kitchen in 17*81), it has grown to a. membership of about thirty millions, with a network of schools spreading over the earth. The world's Sunday School Association, at its last triennial convention, held at Los Angeles in 1928, was attended by 7,000 delegates representing fifty nations.
The Sunday schools of the world are this year celebrating the 150th anniversary of their great movement, and are linking it up with the name of its honoured founder, Iloibert Bailees. It is difficult for the imagination to picture that state of the lower strata of society in the 18th century. Bailees, a Gloucester printer, and a humanitarian, spent his spare cash in relieving the unspeakable distress of the prisoners rotting in the debtors’ gaol. The children of these and other unfortunate sections of the community the streets at night and on Sunday, unkempt, uncared for, often with empty stomachs but their mouths (filled with profanity, a, horror for to-day and a menace for to-mor-row. Baikes turned his attention to these, and proved what kindness, patience, education could do for such neglected children. He lived to see the day when his plan of organising schools was extended throughout the country, and he may be said to have laid the foundation of free, compulsory education in England. In tile early days of the movement it was necessary to teach the rudiments of reading and writing, and the children as a rule attended for several hours on Sunday, both morning and evening. As time went on, the purely secular part of the teaching- ,became unnecessary, but of late years there has been a tendency to widen the scope of the work, and many schools now cater, by through-the-week activities, for the social, physical and mental ne.eds of the children, as well as carrying out the main objective, religious training.
Time was when, amongst a certain class of people, a reference to Sunday schools carried with it a certain element of contempt. This fas not yet quite died out, but it is becoming more rare, and is entirely undeserved. Many of the most uuted men in our own and "tiler countries are not ashamed to acknowledge their indebtedness to the Suudav school, and many of our best type of citizens are giving their leisure to its beneficent work.
Some years ago, during a big Welsh coal strike, with bitterness everywhere evident, and sedition iiniminent, Lloyd George expressed the opinion that but for the res-
training influence ol‘ the Sunday ifhoci], and the mark it had made on the life of the nation, ro.volution might have broken out. Though the Sunday schools are not tilling the churches, their influence permeates the community, and who shall say to what extent that influence is not responsible for tbe lack of encouragement given in the British Empire to Bolshevist propaganda. Tlio Sunday school deserves the respect and encouragement of all men of good-will, and. above is the message which is being broadcast through the Dominion, especially given for the occasion toy His Excellence the (b>-vernor-Getieral, Lord Bledisloe.
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Manawatu Herald, Volume LI, Issue 4514, 7 October 1930, Page 1
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806GOVERNOR-GENERAL’S TRIBUTE TO SUNDAY SCHOOLS. Manawatu Herald, Volume LI, Issue 4514, 7 October 1930, Page 1
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