In preaching to boys the minister will appeal frankly to manly and heroic qualities.  He will advance no dark premise of their natural estrangement from God, but will postulate for all a sonship which is at once a divine challenge to the best that is in them and the guaranty that the best is the normal and the God-intended life.  They must qualify for a great campaign under the greatest soul that ever lived.  They engage to stand with Him against sin in self and in all the world about, and in proportion as they take on His mission will they realize the necessity of high personal standards and of that help which God gives to all who are dedicated to the realization of the Kingdom.

The normal boy will not deliberately choose to sponge upon the world.  He intends to do the fair thing and to amount to something.  He dreams of making his life an actual contribution to the welfare and glory of humanity.  When it is put before him rightly he will scorn a selfish misappropriation of his life, and will enter the crusade for the city that hath foundations whose builder and maker is God.  Happy is the minister who has boys that bring their chums to see him for the purpose of enlistment.  Happy is the minister whose hand often clasps the outstretched hand of the boy pledging himself to the greatest of all projects—­the Kingdom of God in the earth; to the greatest of all companies—­the company of those who in all time have had part in that task; and to the greatest of all captains—­Jesus of Nazareth.

CHAPTER IX

THE CHURCH BOYS’ CLUB[10]

Those who know the boy best can hardly be persuaded that the Sunday school can be made to satisfy his intense demand for action.  Yet action is an important factor in religious education.  Commendable efforts are being made to introduce more of handicraft and artistic expression into the work of the Sunday-school class; but from the boy’s point of view, the making of maps, illuminated texts, and temple models does not fully meet his desire for doing.  The character of the Sunday school, its place of meeting, and the proper observance of the day preclude the more noisy, varied, and spontaneous activities which may be made to carry moral and religious value.

Another agency is needed in the church that can be more venturesome and free than the Sunday school, an agency that can act on the parallel of the boy’s natural interests and adapt its methods to his unfolding life in terms of action.  The Sunday school can stick to its task of elucidating the history and theory of religion; but the boys’ club is a better place for securing the expression of religious principles and so confirming them in character.  When the Sunday school shall have reached its highest point of efficiency it will still have failed to cover the most vital element in the moral and religious training of the boy simply because it will still be a Sunday school and, presumably, a Bible school.  That is, it will have not only the benefits but also the limitations of the sacred day and of the book method of instruction.  The boy needs something more than “a society for sitting still.”