The local historian G.R. Balleine was also a clergyman, and in the 1920s and 1930s, he penned number of books to help Sunday School Teachers. He’s a master of the pithy anecdote or illustration to bring something to life, and can be seen as an indirect precursor in some ways to later writers such as William Barclay.
I hope on successive Thursdays to transcribe and post chapters of this book.
These lessons also open a window into a clergyman writing in the 1920s and 1930s - what they believed, how they saw the world, sometimes through the lens of Empire, and showing the cultural assumptions of the day.
Some of those we have rightly set aside, but others can challenge us today.
These lessons also open a window into a clergyman writing in the 1920s and 1930s - what they believed, how they saw the world, sometimes through the lens of Empire, and showing the cultural assumptions of the day.
Some of those we have rightly set aside, but others can challenge us today.
[Warning: Balleine was writing in the 1920s and 1930s, and his views reflect the beliefs of many at that time. However, as a time capsule of the prevailing beliefs, this can be very useful for the historians of that period.]
Christianity in Action: 52 Lessons in Christian Ethics
By G.R. Balleine
Lesson 1: Four Things Necessary to a Good Life: (1) Revolt against Evil
PASSAGE TO BE READ: Exodus xiv. 5-28.
TEXT TO BE LEARNT “What fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? And what communion hath light with darkness? “(2 Cor. vi. 14.)
HYMNS: “We are soldiers of Christ " and " Do no sinful action."
COLLECTS for First Sunday in Advent and Third Sunday after Easter.
AIM: To stir up the class to real warfare against their besetting sins.
I. ON BEING GOOD.
(a) When the Princess Victoria was first told that she was to be Queen of England, she said solemnly, “Then I will be good." Hitherto she had been rather a wilful, troublesome little girl; but the thought of the great position that awaited her made her resolve to be good. I want you to feel that God has some great work waiting for each of you. I want you to feel it so strongly that you will make the same resolve, “I will be good."
(b) But there are many different ideas as to what “being good" means. Some things which we regard as good a heathen would regard as crazy, while we should consider horrible some things which he thought good. In our new course of lessons this year we are going to try to learn how to “be good" according to the teaching of the Christian Religion.
II. WANTED AN EXODUS.
(a) Let us begin with two Bible stories. Think of the Children of Israel in Egypt. Egypt was a land of plenty. The Nile is full of fish. Its banks swarm with wild fowl. Its soil is so fertile that there is “corn in Egypt" when there is famine elsewhere. The Israelites said later, “We remember the fish which we did eat in Egypt for nought, the cucumbers and the melons and the leeks and the onions and the garlic “(Num. xi. 5). But Egypt was a heathen land, where it was difficult to serve God properly. And Egypt was a land of slavery, where the people had to toil, building cities for a heathen king. Moses, one of their number, fled to the Wilderness, and there one night a vision came to him. A desert bush seemed to glow with light, and yet not to be burnt, and from the midst of the light a Voice told him that all his people might come out of Egypt, as he had done, and become a great nation, and settle in a land of their own, " a good land and a large, a land flowing with milk and honey " (Exod. iii. 8), and that he must go back and bring them out:
"I will send thee that thou mayest bring forth My people out of Egypt " (Exod. iii. 10). It was not an easy task. Pharaoh was determined not to let the people go. The Israelites themselves were not anxious to make the effort to escape. " They hearkened not unto Moses for anguish of spirit and for cruel bondage " (Exod. vi. 9). They said, " Let us alone, that we may serve the Egyptians " (Exod. xiv. 12). But he persevered. And all the wonderful history of the Jews dates from the Exodus (the word means the " Going out "), the moment when they threw down their tools, and marched right out of Egypt. Read Passage.
(b) A thousand years passed away. The Jews were again captives among the heathen,, this time in Babylon. Through their sins they had lost the land which God had given them. Again there came to them a Prophet. His words are pre-served for us at the end of the Book of Isaiah : " Depart ye, depart ye, go ye out from thence : touch no unclean thing ; go ye out of the midst of her " (Isa. li. 11). Many of the Jews had grown so comfortable that they would not leave Babylon. These were gradually absorbed among the heathen, and we hear no more of them. It was only a comparatively small company who obeyed, and turned their backs on the heathen city, and set out to rebuild Jerusalem. But they alone had a future. The Jewish race, as we know it today, is descended from them.
(c) Now think of the New Testament story. We find the disciples of Jesus organized in a little society, and the name that they gave to their society was the Church. The word Church means in Greek " those who have been called out." The early Christians felt that they had made an Exodus, that they had come out, and turned their backs on many things that other people were clinging to. They were those who had obeyed the call, " Go ye out from thence."
(d) Bunyan, in the Pilgrim's Progress, shows us what this means. He shows us a large number of pilgrims on their way to the Heavenly City. They have very different types of character and very different adventures. But in every case the first step in their journey is the same. They had to come out from the city in which they were living. Christian and his family, Faithful, and Mercy, and many of the other pilgrims came from the City of Destruction. Two of them (Honest and Mr. Fearing) came from the Town of Stupidity ; three from the Market Town of Lovegain ; one (Hopeful) from Vanity ; one from the Country of Conceit. They did not all come out of the same things ; but they all had to turn their backs on something before they could become pilgrims.
(e) And the first of our Baptismal Promises was that we " should renounce the devil and all his works, the pomps and vanity of this wicked world, and all the sinful lusts of the flesh."
(f) Henry Drummond was a splendid preacher to young men, and one of his favourite mottoes was Don't be an amphibian. An amphibian is a creature like a tadpole, that is half an animal and half a fish. He meant, " Don't be half and half, a sort of religious tadpole, half in one world and half in another. Be an out and out Christian. Turn your back on what is wrong and what is second rate, and step out boldly for better things."
III. THREE THINGS TO COME OUT OF.
(a) First of all, Christians promise to renounce bad deeds, " the works of the Devil." If we have got into the habit of doing something that we know to be wrong, we must turn our backs on it, and come out, as the Israelites came out of Egypt. " What is Repentance? " asked the teacher. " Being sorry for sin," said the child who did not think. But the thoughtful child corrected him : " No, being sorry enough for our sin to chuck it." He remembered his Catechism : "Repentance whereby we forsake sin."
(b) One Sunday evening after church in a country town you might have seen a prosperous grocer in his Sunday clothes—top-hat, frock-coat and all—rolling an enormous barrel down the street. He trundled it right out of the town to the edge of an old quarry, and sent it flying. It was marked P.D. That stood for Pepper Dust—a black tasteless dust, with which he had been accustomed to adulterate his pepper. That night in church he had made up his mind to be a Christian. Then he remembered the P.D. barrel. He rightly determined to get rid of it before he went to bed.
(c) The prophet Zechariah taught the necessity of renouncing wickedness by a curious picture (Zech. v. 5-11). He said that he saw a woman whose name was Wickedness. But in use among the Jews, a round wooden barrel holding about seven gallons. And the top of the ephah was sealed up with a heavy lead lid, so that she could not get out. And the barrel was given to two messengers who flew with wings like storks, that they might carry it to the land of Shinar, the desolate marsh lands on the banks of the Euphrates. Wickedness might perhaps find a home in a barbarous heathen district like that, but she could not be tolerated for a moment among the People of God.
(d) We promise, however, to renounce, not only all that is sinful, but also all that is silly and worthless and empty:" the pomps and vanity of this wicked world." In the Pilgrim's Progress Hopeful came, not out of the City of Destruction, but out of the Town of Vanity. There was a boy who could play the penny whistle to perfection. Everyone was charmed with his performance. But he used to sit on the top of his summer-house tootling away when he ought to have been doing his home work. He was bottom of his class. He was ruining his prospects in life. But one day his head master made him see his folly. He came home, broke his penny whistle, and began to devote his attention to things that did matter.
(e) We renounce bad deeds. We renounce trash. And we also promise to renounce bad desires—" the sinful lusts of the flesh." If our thoughts are always longing for bad things we cannot be good. We cannot help bad thoughts stealing into our heads sometimes. Even our Lord found bad ideas entering His mind at His Temptation. But when they come, we can bundle them out quickly. The Chinese say : " You can't keep bats from flying round your head, but you can keep them from building their nests in your hair."
(f) To-day's collect prays "that we may cast away the works of darkness." This is the first step towards a good life. Let all repeat text.
Christianity in Action: 52 Lessons in Christian Ethics
By G.R. Balleine
Lesson 1: Four Things Necessary to a Good Life: (1) Revolt against Evil
PASSAGE TO BE READ: Exodus xiv. 5-28.
TEXT TO BE LEARNT “What fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? And what communion hath light with darkness? “(2 Cor. vi. 14.)
HYMNS: “We are soldiers of Christ " and " Do no sinful action."
COLLECTS for First Sunday in Advent and Third Sunday after Easter.
AIM: To stir up the class to real warfare against their besetting sins.
I. ON BEING GOOD.
(a) When the Princess Victoria was first told that she was to be Queen of England, she said solemnly, “Then I will be good." Hitherto she had been rather a wilful, troublesome little girl; but the thought of the great position that awaited her made her resolve to be good. I want you to feel that God has some great work waiting for each of you. I want you to feel it so strongly that you will make the same resolve, “I will be good."
(b) But there are many different ideas as to what “being good" means. Some things which we regard as good a heathen would regard as crazy, while we should consider horrible some things which he thought good. In our new course of lessons this year we are going to try to learn how to “be good" according to the teaching of the Christian Religion.
II. WANTED AN EXODUS.
(a) Let us begin with two Bible stories. Think of the Children of Israel in Egypt. Egypt was a land of plenty. The Nile is full of fish. Its banks swarm with wild fowl. Its soil is so fertile that there is “corn in Egypt" when there is famine elsewhere. The Israelites said later, “We remember the fish which we did eat in Egypt for nought, the cucumbers and the melons and the leeks and the onions and the garlic “(Num. xi. 5). But Egypt was a heathen land, where it was difficult to serve God properly. And Egypt was a land of slavery, where the people had to toil, building cities for a heathen king. Moses, one of their number, fled to the Wilderness, and there one night a vision came to him. A desert bush seemed to glow with light, and yet not to be burnt, and from the midst of the light a Voice told him that all his people might come out of Egypt, as he had done, and become a great nation, and settle in a land of their own, " a good land and a large, a land flowing with milk and honey " (Exod. iii. 8), and that he must go back and bring them out:
"I will send thee that thou mayest bring forth My people out of Egypt " (Exod. iii. 10). It was not an easy task. Pharaoh was determined not to let the people go. The Israelites themselves were not anxious to make the effort to escape. " They hearkened not unto Moses for anguish of spirit and for cruel bondage " (Exod. vi. 9). They said, " Let us alone, that we may serve the Egyptians " (Exod. xiv. 12). But he persevered. And all the wonderful history of the Jews dates from the Exodus (the word means the " Going out "), the moment when they threw down their tools, and marched right out of Egypt. Read Passage.
(b) A thousand years passed away. The Jews were again captives among the heathen,, this time in Babylon. Through their sins they had lost the land which God had given them. Again there came to them a Prophet. His words are pre-served for us at the end of the Book of Isaiah : " Depart ye, depart ye, go ye out from thence : touch no unclean thing ; go ye out of the midst of her " (Isa. li. 11). Many of the Jews had grown so comfortable that they would not leave Babylon. These were gradually absorbed among the heathen, and we hear no more of them. It was only a comparatively small company who obeyed, and turned their backs on the heathen city, and set out to rebuild Jerusalem. But they alone had a future. The Jewish race, as we know it today, is descended from them.
(c) Now think of the New Testament story. We find the disciples of Jesus organized in a little society, and the name that they gave to their society was the Church. The word Church means in Greek " those who have been called out." The early Christians felt that they had made an Exodus, that they had come out, and turned their backs on many things that other people were clinging to. They were those who had obeyed the call, " Go ye out from thence."
(d) Bunyan, in the Pilgrim's Progress, shows us what this means. He shows us a large number of pilgrims on their way to the Heavenly City. They have very different types of character and very different adventures. But in every case the first step in their journey is the same. They had to come out from the city in which they were living. Christian and his family, Faithful, and Mercy, and many of the other pilgrims came from the City of Destruction. Two of them (Honest and Mr. Fearing) came from the Town of Stupidity ; three from the Market Town of Lovegain ; one (Hopeful) from Vanity ; one from the Country of Conceit. They did not all come out of the same things ; but they all had to turn their backs on something before they could become pilgrims.
(e) And the first of our Baptismal Promises was that we " should renounce the devil and all his works, the pomps and vanity of this wicked world, and all the sinful lusts of the flesh."
(f) Henry Drummond was a splendid preacher to young men, and one of his favourite mottoes was Don't be an amphibian. An amphibian is a creature like a tadpole, that is half an animal and half a fish. He meant, " Don't be half and half, a sort of religious tadpole, half in one world and half in another. Be an out and out Christian. Turn your back on what is wrong and what is second rate, and step out boldly for better things."
III. THREE THINGS TO COME OUT OF.
(a) First of all, Christians promise to renounce bad deeds, " the works of the Devil." If we have got into the habit of doing something that we know to be wrong, we must turn our backs on it, and come out, as the Israelites came out of Egypt. " What is Repentance? " asked the teacher. " Being sorry for sin," said the child who did not think. But the thoughtful child corrected him : " No, being sorry enough for our sin to chuck it." He remembered his Catechism : "Repentance whereby we forsake sin."
(b) One Sunday evening after church in a country town you might have seen a prosperous grocer in his Sunday clothes—top-hat, frock-coat and all—rolling an enormous barrel down the street. He trundled it right out of the town to the edge of an old quarry, and sent it flying. It was marked P.D. That stood for Pepper Dust—a black tasteless dust, with which he had been accustomed to adulterate his pepper. That night in church he had made up his mind to be a Christian. Then he remembered the P.D. barrel. He rightly determined to get rid of it before he went to bed.
(c) The prophet Zechariah taught the necessity of renouncing wickedness by a curious picture (Zech. v. 5-11). He said that he saw a woman whose name was Wickedness. But in use among the Jews, a round wooden barrel holding about seven gallons. And the top of the ephah was sealed up with a heavy lead lid, so that she could not get out. And the barrel was given to two messengers who flew with wings like storks, that they might carry it to the land of Shinar, the desolate marsh lands on the banks of the Euphrates. Wickedness might perhaps find a home in a barbarous heathen district like that, but she could not be tolerated for a moment among the People of God.
(d) We promise, however, to renounce, not only all that is sinful, but also all that is silly and worthless and empty:" the pomps and vanity of this wicked world." In the Pilgrim's Progress Hopeful came, not out of the City of Destruction, but out of the Town of Vanity. There was a boy who could play the penny whistle to perfection. Everyone was charmed with his performance. But he used to sit on the top of his summer-house tootling away when he ought to have been doing his home work. He was bottom of his class. He was ruining his prospects in life. But one day his head master made him see his folly. He came home, broke his penny whistle, and began to devote his attention to things that did matter.
(e) We renounce bad deeds. We renounce trash. And we also promise to renounce bad desires—" the sinful lusts of the flesh." If our thoughts are always longing for bad things we cannot be good. We cannot help bad thoughts stealing into our heads sometimes. Even our Lord found bad ideas entering His mind at His Temptation. But when they come, we can bundle them out quickly. The Chinese say : " You can't keep bats from flying round your head, but you can keep them from building their nests in your hair."
(f) To-day's collect prays "that we may cast away the works of darkness." This is the first step towards a good life. Let all repeat text.
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