1891 An Ideal Teacher - Article
 Charles Martin's home page

This did not scan well and at the moment is uncorrected, so it is better to read the image
Les Rowley

AN IDEAL TLACHER.

I vas horn in Islington, London, on 23rd December, 1827, and not having any startling personal incidents to narrate, I will with your permission sketch a short eulogy to my Sunday school teacher, John ROBERTS. It was my privilege for about eight years, when in my teens, to be a member of his class, in the Calthorpe-street Sunday school. He was an ideal Lord's day school teacher. :1 journeyman tailor, working long hours every clay (there was no half-holiday then), and he, after using every scrap of time during the weep, did not believe in shortening the Lord's day by lying idle in bed, but, though working late on Satur­day evening, rose at four o'clock the next morning to finish the lesson for his class. In the course of my pil­grimage I have met some hundreds of Sunday school teachers, but I have not met one whom I have con­sidered worthy to be placed in com­parison with him. His audience (class and visitors) frequently num­bered a hundred and fifty. He al­lowed nothing to interfere with his work, and during thirty-eight years he was absent from his post only seven times, and that was through illness. His power of arresting at­tention was most extraordinary. I longed for the return of the Lord's day, that I might hear him deduce lessons from some portion of the Holy Scriptures. Before he took this class he was a teacher in the Barbican schools of a class of younger boys. At this time the following conversation was overheard : A boy, not a member, said to another, " I say, Tom, I should not like to have.


Mr. Roberts for my teacher ; he makes you sit so jolly still and quiet." Tom, who was a member, replied, " Ah ! you should hear him explain the lesson. You wouldn't want making to sit still, I can tell you. You would be afraid to move for fear of losing a word."

During his last illness, when he saw that his work for Christ was done, and that the days of his pil­grimage were drawing rapidly to a close, he said " I asked the Lord for a hundred souls, and he gave them to me ; then 1 asked another hun­dred, and he granted me them also ; then I was ambitious of Gideon's number, and I doubt not the Lord has granted me that also, for I know of within a few of that number."

Of those who were members of John Roberts' bible class, some are now missionaries in foreign parts, others preachers of the gospel in Britain, America and the Colonies, others teachers of bible classes. Al­low me to mention two well-known names: J. W. KIRTON, author of " Buy your own cherries," etc., in a letter to his teacher said, " In an especial manner I return you my sincere thanks for all the benefits I have derived from your valuable efforts in connexion with the John­street Bible Class. To attempt to • enumerate them is impossible." HENRY VARLEY expresses words which represent my own feelings, " Truly the memory of those days is fresh as ever, and I, for one, can never tell how much I owe to the grace of God in the beloved friend, who though ` absent from the body is present with the Lord."' One other name permit me to mention,

ENJAMIN SLEW, who laboured amongst the lepers in the Barbadoes as a missionary of the cross for more than a quarter of a century, support-

ing,; himself bye ze'orhi;io 7cnit1a his own hands, as did {1re gr'at Apostle of the Gentiles, ministering to the bodily comfort and to the spiritual enlight­enment of those from whom almost all others turn away with loathing and disgust.

But you desire something respe6t­ing myself, a task I should prefer had been handed to another, but I submit.

I was baptized in John-st. chapel, Bedford Row, London, by the Hon. B. «'. Noel, on Friday evening, loth December, IS~o ; afterwards united with the John-st. church and taught in its Lord's day school. In 182 I emigrated to this Colony.; in 1857 came to Ballarat, and was one of the founders of the Baptist church in faille-st., but afterwards joined Bro. and Sister Divers, who were breaking bread with a~few ethers in their residence in Peel-street. In August, 1862, we numbered ten brethren and sisters, and organised a church. H. G. Pic`Ion was re­quested to acq as pastor, and 1, with Brethren Divers and Neish, as deacons. The Temperance Hall was engaged as a meeting place, and in October, 1363 I was appointed elder, as a colleague of H. G. Pic`Ion. Since then, with some intervals, in­cluding an absence of about twelve years from Ballarat, I have held this position, at one time with our late Bro. J. T. Macgowan, and at present with my highly esteemed colleague, C. Morris. And now as I approach the close of my pilgrimage, while I have found the truth of Eliphay's statement that " man is born unto trouble as the sparks fly upward," I still testify that goodness and mercy have followed me all my days and no good thing has been withheld from me. As days pass by, I am more than ever prepared to join Trench and sing

" Do thou repeat

To the first man thou mayest meet, In lane, highway, or open street, That he, and we, and all men move Under a canopy of love, As broad as the blue sky above.

And ere thou leave him, say thou this Yet one word more--They only miss . The winning of that perfeft bliss, Who will not count it true, that love­Blessing, not cursing-rules above.

Yes, I have learned that there is no discord in the Divine Being. He is love, and the love of the Father does not overlap the atonement of the Son, nor the influence of the Spirit; neither does the atonement of the Son cover a greater area than the love of the Father, in which it orig­inated, or the influence of the Holy Spirit in which it issued. Jesus Christ is the propitiation for our sins ; and not for ours only, but also for the whole world.

I3allarat, Feb., 1896. C. hIARTI\T.

If you have additions or corrections to this page, please contact us      Bones in the Belfry home page      Page last updated - 5 May 2014