The Box (and Sunday School discipline)

A few years ago, my father gave me a wooden box designed to hold important papers. Originally, it belonged to my father’s great-grandfather, Duncan James McKenzie. It was passed down to my great-grandfather Daniel Kenneth McKenzie, then to my grandmother, who gave it to my father. I have written about my great grandmother before: Aunt Callie’s Place and about her death when I was seven.

The box contained some old prayer books and hymnals that go back into the early 19^th Century. Also in the box was my great-grandfather’s Book of Church Order from the 1940s.  My grandmother stored in the box a number of photos (see above). She also added several things relating to me including a copy of my graduation from seminary, an article of mine published in the Presbyterian Survey, and a bulletin from a time I preached at Culdee Presbyterian Church in January 1994. This is the church where I was baptized on Easter Sunday 1957 and where she was a member for ninety years. My grandmother joined the church at the unusual age of eight, and once told me about her conviction to join and meeting with the ministers and elders. 

I recently read through some of these prayer books as I looked for prayers to use for the 100^th Anniversary Service at Mayberry Presbyterian Church. In Prayers Suitable for Children and Sunday Schools published in Philadelphia by the American Sunday School Union in 1831, I came across a “Sabbath-school Prayer on dismissing a Scholar for Ill-Conduct.”

While this prayer won’t make it into the service this week, I found myself wondering if Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain) may have been the recipient of such a prayer. After all, Twain supposedly credited the Presbyterian Church for teaching him to “fear God and dread Sunday School.” And this prayer book was published just before Twain’s birth in 1835.

Here’s the prayer: 

Great and holy God, who art angry with the wicked every day, we should feel sorrow for the scholar whose evil conduct has caused his being turned out of this school. Thou knowest that he has been warned and reproved; that he has been often forgiven, and kindly entreated to cease to do evil and learn to do well, but all in vain. Thou hast said to them who desire to walk in Thy ways, “come out from among the wicked, and be ye separate.” It is right then that we should be separated from this wicked boy: but, O Lord, who art acquainted with all our ways, suffer us not proudly to think that we are righteous and may despise him. May we remember that “all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.” May we feel that we have no merits of our own to boast of, and must all suffer the everlasting punishment of the wicked, unless we are saved through the righteousness of Jesus Christ. O grant that we, and this disgraced boy, may repent of all our sins, and be forgiven. May his disgrace and punishment be the means of leading him, and us, to think with fear of the threatening in Thy word that “the wicked shall be turned into hell,” and all who forget God. This is a fearful sentence; but, O merciful Lord, there are gracious promises in Thy word, as well as awful threatenings. We read there, “Let the wicked forsake his ways, and the unrighteous man his thoughts, and let him return unto the Lord, and he will have mercy upon him, and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.” O, by thy grace, merciful Father, soften the heart of this obstinate boy into repentance. O help him to forsake his evil ways and turn unto Thee, and to do Thou, according to Thy promises, abundantly pardon him, for the sake of Jesus Christ, and grant that he may soon, with a changed heart, return like a stray sheep to this fold again. May we all be warned by his punishment, and fear to follow his example. Let us not repay the kindness of our teachers with disobedience and ingratitude. O forbid that we should be so thankless to Thee and to them, for Sabbath-school instruction, but may we receive it gratefully and attentively, and learning more and more of Thy holy word, take it for a guide in all our conduct. We would again plead with Thee, merciful Father, for him, and grant that he may be “one sinner that repenteth.” Over whom angels in heaven rejoice. Hear our prayer, and grant it, merciful God, for the sake of Jesus Christ, who came into the world to save penitent sinners. Amen. 

Boy, that’s a long paragraph! Italics (which is loss in making this a quote) was used for the male pronoun, which I supposed could alert the prayer to change to a female pronoun if the offender was a girl. Of course, that probably seldom happened! 

Thankfully, this disclaimer was attached to the prayer: 

“The dismission of a scholar from a Sunday-school, as a matter of discipline, is to be applied only in an extreme case. The danger of driving an ill-disposed child from the influence of the school is great; perseverance in kind and affectionate treatment may reclaim him.” 

Growing up, I remember the Sunday School Superintendent (does anyone use those titles today?) had a desk in the mechanical room of the church. Mr. Howard, a pharmacist in the church, was the superintendent. I was threatened to be sent to his office (like the principal’s office), but the only time I remember going there was to drop off the attendance roll and the class offerings. Maybe the threat was enough to keep me in line.