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nication a page or two in your instructive Miscellany . T . Extract from a Sermon , preached at the New-Meeting , Birmingham , Sept . 25 th , 1814 , for the benefit of the Sunday-School . I should be doing violence to my
own feelings on the present occasion ^ And great injustice to the teachers of this Sunday School , were I not to notice their generous services with some portion of that praise to wfiich they are so largely entitled . Actuated by motives of disinterested benevolence
they devote a valuable portion of their time , and the well-directed energy of their minds , to the instruction of these rising hopes of the future age . A few circumstances connected with the Boys' School have particularly caught my attention , because they form a peculiar and most admirable feature in
this institution , and I trust they will find their way into other similar cha « rides . Though most of you may be supposed already acquainted with all the plans and arrangements connected
with an institution in which you shew so active and liberal an interest , yet those to which 1 am alluding are so wisely framed and so eminently calculated to do good that they deserve to be particularly noticed .
Four Hundred and Sixty Boys are taught gratuitously by individuals who have themselves received their instruction in the school * These young men having experienced the benefits of the institution , and being desirous of securing its perpetuity , form a society for the purpose of bringing up a
succession of gratuitous teachers * This society was instituted in the year 17 $ 6 , and in addition to the object I have already stated , it forms a perpetual committee for the superintendence of a sick-fund , the members of which consist of the teachers and the boys
belonging to the school * The regulations for the management of tins part cf their plan , particularly their strict inquiry respecting the behaviour , improvement , and general conduct of the members ( the result of which is faithfully registered ) are highly conducive to the moral welfare of those who are
admitted . The existence indeed of the Sunday-school , at least upon its present liberal , efficient , and extensive
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672 Birmingham New * Meeting Charity ^ Schools .
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scale , appears to depend very much on this brotherly society , which has for the last eighteen years provided it . stmctors , under whose direction the number of boys has been increased from 50 or 60 to 460 , without any addition to the expense of teaching , and has been the means of attaching many respectable persons to this con . gregalion and to each other .
The following literal extract from the introduction to an address delivered on the occasion of their annual meeting , by one of the first pupils ad . m it ted into the institution , is an interesting document , illustrative of the spirit , tendency , and happy influence both of the Sunday school and of the brotherly society .
" I became a pupil in the Sunday School in the year 1791 . I believe I attended to the satisfaction of my teachers . I am sure I improved to my own . I never received instruction from any source except the Sunday school , tfae brotherly society , and individuals connected with that
institution ; yet I have been enabled to fill a situation of the first responsibility for sixteen years , to the satisfaction and advantage of my employer . I became a member of tins society at its commencement . I have found its members sincere and friendly . I have formed attachments among them that
I hope will end only with my life . I have found desirable companions who have gone hand in hand in improvement and amusement . I have proved that they are capable of true friendship , for they have stood by me in the hour of adversity with firmness ; and though I now possess advantages which many of them do not , they look up to
me without envy . Who can refraia from praising an institution which has been so advantageous ? Who can avoid placing confidence in persons so friendly ? Who would not give up a multiplicity of acquaintance for such society , or , who can refrain from expressing his gratitude that enjoys so many advantages ?"
I might enumerate many other instances to prove the efficiency of the Sundays-chool and of the brotherly society but 1 am compelled to forbear . Facts like these speak volumes a « d need no comment .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Nov. 2, 1814, page 672, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2446/page/12/
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