Those Juniors, Part 8: Which Comes First?

by Eric B. Hare

Last week: A teacher and instructor must take great pains to avoid the “specter of crude humor” in his pupils. Students are grouped into two categories, and within these two there are many variations. One must approach his class in a way that will reach and touch all students.

"Attention may be described as a concentration of consciousness upon any idea.” “Interest is the pleasure-pain tone that accompanies attention.”* These are typical definitions to be found in psychology books, but ordinary individuals are very little the wiser after reading such definitions, and continue to confuse attention with interest in both their thinking and their speaking. What is attention? What is interest? Here is an analogy which will make it plain and enable you to differentiate between these words always—

INTEREST : ATTENTION :: THIRST : DRINKING

The Beauty of Brokenness

I never realized brokenness could hold such beauty. That is, until I found Him there.

His feet were barely visible through my falling tears, but there they were. Quiet and still, yet horribly unwelcome. Couldn't He see what a mess I was in? Why didn't He just leave? Why would He possibly want to be with me? Why did He care enough to love me, the one who failed Him...again and again?

He didn't leave. In fact, He appeared quite content to stay there and wait. 

And wait He did.

Memory Texts for July 6–12

Key Thought for Lesson 2, "The Privilege of Prayer"
The solemn, earnest, active prayer of a person who is right with God has great power.

Memory Text:
“The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much” (James 5:16).

Project: Memory
“That He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might by His Spirit in the inner man” (Ephesians 3:16).

Those Juniors, Part 7: Natural Phenomena, Part 3

by Eric B. Hare

Crude Sense of Humor

Let us hope that the crude sense of humor seen in children is the seed of the sunshine of optimism in later life. Otherwise this sense (rather, nonsense) would seem to defy all attempts to be harnessed, and we would take note of it only in order to avoid it. For in the least-expected place, at the most inappropriate times, something tickles their fancy, and they giggle and laugh.

Limitless Promise

by an unknown Christian

Early one morning when I was a student at a Christian college, a fellow student burst into my room holding an open Bible. His face glowed with mingled joy and surprise. “Do you believe this?” he practically shouted. “Is it really true?”

“Believe what?” My friend was still a young convert to Christ. The Bible was a new book to him, and as a result he often made a discovery.