Living must always go before teaching and must enforce it. Personal character is that which gives value and weight to our speech. We all know men who talk eloquently and say things, but whose words have little influence. The reason is that their life, as men see it, fails to give evidence of sincerity and earnestness. Then we know other men whose words are plain, perhaps who falter and stumble in speech, but whose lives are so true and so evidently Spirit filled, that their simplest sentences have weight and influence.
Other things are important. A teacher should be intelligent; inaccuracies of statement make marring and confusion in the minds of the pupils. He should not fail to be thoroughly familiar with the Scriptures which he is to expound, so that error in fact or in doctrine may never be taught by him. Wrong teaching in spiritual things may wreck a destiny. Aptness to teach is also an important qualification in one who undertakes to instruct others. There are many persons of large intelligence, whose knowledge of the subject concerning which they are to teach is full and accurate, but who lack the teaching faculty. A Bible teacher should be apt to teach.
Yet, while all these and other qualification are essential, that which after all counts for most in the teacher is the element of personal character. Nothing but heart can reach and impress heart. It is life alone that can quicken and nourish life. It is the man as he is that gives influence and force to what the teacher says and does. It was Arnold the man quite as much as Arnold the teacher who did such important service for English boys at Rugby. The same is true of everyone who does effective and enduring work in school and class. This is especially true in Sunday school teaching, where the lessons to be taught are moral and spiritual, having for their object the building up of character. The best teachers, measured by scientific standards, will fail altogether of real effectiveness if their teaching be not enforced and sustained by a good and worthy character.
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