Christian Education

Whatsoever is not Christian, is not becoming to Christians. A Christian education is the only education that can possibly be becoming to Christians. In Christian education the Book of Christianity must be preeminent. The Bible is the Book of Christianity.

The purpose of Christian education is to build up Christians. Nothing that is not Christian can ever properly be brought into the education of a Christian, any more than can anything that is not Christian be properly brought into any other phase of the life of the Christian. Therefore, the Book of Christianity, - the Bible, - must be the standard of Christian education; it must be the test of everything that enters into the education of a Christian; and it must supply all that is needed in the education of the Christian. And this contemplates education in the highest, broadest, and best sense - the all-round, practical development of the individual, mentally, physically, and morally.

It has been, and it is, too much supposed that Christianity has to do only with a sort of spiritualized existence, apart from the real occupations and practical things of life. This will never do. Christianity belongs in the deepest sense as a vital working force, in all that ever rightly can go to make up the sum of human life upon the earth. And Christian education is true to its name and profession only when it demonstrates this all-pervading power of Christianity as a vital element in all that can properly enter into the course of human life.

It can not be denied that the life of Christ is the demonstration of Christianity. He is the model Man: the Pattern of what every man must be to be a perfect Christian. And it is certain that Christ in human flesh demonstrating the Christian life on earth, put Himself in vital connection with every true relationship of human life upon this earth. He came into the world an infant; He grew up from infancy to manhood, as people in this world do; He met all that human beings in this world meet as they grow up; He met all the vicissitudes and experiences of human life, precisely, as to the fact, as all people meet them; for "in all things it behooved Him to be made like unto His brethren." He was "in all points tempted like as we are;" and He worked as a carpenter with Joseph, until the day of His showing unto Israel in the active work of His preaching, healing, ministry. And He was just as much the Saviour of the world when He was sawing boards and making benches and tables, as He was when He was preaching the sermon on the mount. And this demonstrates that Christianity just as truly and as vitally enters into the mechanical or other affairs of every-day life as it does into the preaching of the divinest sermon that was ever delivered.