A Childs Ramble Through the Bible
by Robert C. Falconer '05: Fleming H. Revell, New York.
A Child's Ramble Through the Bible is a 150-page volume containing thirty-nine sermons for children by Robert Crawford Falconer, the original and forceful minister of St. Paul's Congregational Church of Nutley, N. J., who from 1912 till 1917 was pastor of the Church of Christ at Dartmouth College. This is one more of the ever-swelling number of such volumes which are a result of the increasing practice in recent years of bringing the children into the church for a part of the morning service.
And these are not stories, not object lessons, but real sermons, in brief form and simple language. Mr. Falconer leads his readers on a very rapid ramble through the Old Testament, stopping here and there at random for a story or a text on which to build up his homily. About half of the sermons are based upon stories, such as those of Noah, the baby Moses, the fall of Jericho, Gideon, Samuel, etc., though in only one case, that of Esther, is the story regarded as being a sufficient sermon in itself. The other half are sermons on certain texts from such books as Job, the Psals and various prophets, which the author has selected and treated in an original, often unique, manner. While there is no unity in the volume except in the fact that the material is taken from the books in the order in which they appear in the Bible, and while there is no conception whatever of the meaning and purpose of the Old Testament as a whole, yet the treatment of the Biblical material is thoroughly modern and scientific, and at the same time constructive and helpful. The book is plainly the work of one who knows children well and loves them deeply.
It is easy to discover, in reading, faults in technique which would probably not be so apparent to a listener; for such sermons are made to be delivered and heard, not to be read. For example, the "moral" seems to. be too laboriously and obviously stressed in connection with the stories used; the pedagogues are telling us these days that the "moral" ought to be in the story, not appended to it. In some instances, the analogies seem almost too fanciful to be real to the children, as when they are urged, in the sermon on Noah's ark, to escape from the "floods" of "temper" or "lies" by taking refuge in the "ark" of God's presence and love; or when, in speaking of Hosea's figure of "a cake not turned," this question and answer are put to the children: "what will make minds and hearts that are only 'half-done' or 'half-baked,' to be wholly 'done' ? God! God turns the cake! It is He who faithfully uses the pancake turner." (A kitchen weapon of that sort is here used for illustration.) Abstract terms, —hate, fear, selfishness, etc.— appear rather more often than they do in the vocabulary of children, who deal invariably in the concrete. Occasionally objects are introduced which, like the pancake turner above, have a rather tenuous relation to the subject under treatment, a connection which children would see only with difficulty; another example is the stethoscope in sermon 21, the real subject of which is the "steady loyalty" and cheerful endeavor which characterize a "perfect heart."
But such criticisms are gratuitous. These sermons are original in conception and vigorous in treatment; without doubt technical faults found ample compensation in the natural force of Mr. Falconer's delivery. While sermons, either for children or for "grownups," can rarely be satisfactorily used by another in their original form, yet this volume will offer to many a preacher, hard put to it for material for his junior church talks, an abundance of inspiration and suggestion.
R. B. CHAMBERLIN.
A Dartmouth Book of Remembrance by Professor Edwin J. Bartlett 1872. The Webster Press, Hanover, N. H. 1922. Pp. 160.
A book, like a speech, of remembrance may exhibit several weaknesses. It may be prosy, dwelling too long on matters too little known generally to be interesting; it may be too personal, either with reference to the narrator or to those whom he describes, or, especially if it attempts humor, it may be faulty in form or style.
As would be expected, Professor Bartlett avoids all these difficulties. Most of his readers will be unable to test his statements out of their own experience, but those who can do so will accredit him as a reliable witness, and others will be interested from the. vividness of his pictures and the liveliness of his style, and if a humorous adjective, or a shining antithesis, sometimes has a heavier load to bear than to another's memory the facts seem to warrant, yet there is no distortion, and it is by such means that reminiscence acquires life for those of later birth.
In the eight chapters into which the book is divided college life naturally- holds a prominent place, having three chapters entirely to itself, and in the others, unless it be in the one on "The Burying Ground," being the thread, as it were, on which the details are strung. The college life of Professor Bartlett's day, as seen in his portrayal of it, does seem strange and narrow, but, as he says, it was earnest, and it is known by its fruits, in such men as he, men who stood in their lot, did their work and achieved results, and, as he also says, in fifty years from now the life of today may seem equally fantastic to the men of that time. Manners change like clothes, and in photographs of a preceding generation, either mental or physical, both manners and clothes seem strange and excite mirth, but perhaps the manners, if not the clothes, are best suited to work with existent means.
Professor Bartlett's doctrine is as good as his remembrance. Nothing could be better than his chapter on "College Discipline," its purpose and its methods. Freedom and law are partners in good government, but law precedes freedom and must be established before freedom can be genuine. This Professor Bartlett clearly implies, but, as he says in the chapter on "Res Angustae," times have changed and we have changed with them, and he is happy, as we all are, that the change has come in our time. His reasons for the change are very conclusive.
The concluding chapter on "Teaching School" links the whole with a phase of college life that is now past, a phase which a good many can vividly recall, but which is rapidly becoming a legend, thanks, among other things, to a better general system of public schools.
Those whose memory runs parallel with Professor Bartlett's will be glad to recall their early days with such a guide, and those of later time will thank him for information and entertainment.
J.K.L.
The June, 1922 issue of The Wave contains a story "Irony" by Gene Markey '18.
Macmillan & Co. have just published a reissue wiith a new preface by the author of "A Student's Life of Jesus," by Rev. George Holley Gilbert '78.
