James, J. A. Elizabeth Bales: A Pattern for Sunday School Teachers. New-York: American Tract Society, c. 1848. [12505]
Black cloth, blindstamped boards, bright gilt to spine, a little worming in the joints, 6 x 4 inches, tight. Frontispiece engraving of a scene from the book, 89 pages. Dampstain in the lower half of the pages throughout, quite light in the center but dark on the last 20 or so pages. Inscription in brown ink on the ffep: "Frances S. Morehouse from her Great Grandmother aged 84 years in May 26th 1848." The woman who gave this as a gift was born in 1764. Fair. Hardcover.
Copyright 1846, by R. S. Cook..."Right of publishing transferred to the American Tract Society" on copyright page.
"Never did a teacher enter more fully, or more delightfully, into the occupations of her important office, or more clearly understand and more steadily pursue its ultimate end. Her eye was fixed on the souls of the children; her heart longed for their salvation; and her efforts were unwearied to engage their affections for Christ. To teach them to read, though she was assiduous in this, was the lowest of her aims; her great object was to form their pious character. Not content with teaching them on the Sunday, she would meet them at other times for instruction, conversation, and prayer—nor were they reluctant to comply with her wishes, or to gather around her chair to listen to the effusions of her pious solicitude for their welfare. Yet, from her poverty, she had nothing else to give them but the love of a heart devoted to their welfare." - p. 13.
Elizabeth Bales was a young Englishwoman who devoted herself to Christian work among the poor. She died young in life and is in this book held up as an ideal young Christian woman. She became a member of James' congregation in 1822.
John Angell James (1785-1859), “an eminent Congregational minister.” James was an Englishman who entered the ministry when only seventeen years old. “In the course of years Angell James came to be considered the most important and influential public man in connection with his own denomination, and on account of his evangelical views of religion, he was also much esteemed both by the Low-Church party in the English Establishment, and by Dissenters generally in Scotland and America.” - M'Clintock & Strong.
