This post is for the benefit of Lynn "who works with children", recently decanted to Edinburgh, and who visits this blog and occasionally comments. During our visit to Cornwall Sheila and I visited Penlee House in Penzance and in the art gallery I was fascinated by this picture. It is of an early Sunday school trip, and is an important and early piece of social documentation of what became for many years a highlight of children's lives.
The painting is called "The Sunday School Treat", and the artist was W H Y Titcomb, one of the Newry school of Cornish artists who flourished in the late Victorian period. This painting shows how Sunday School treats were done on the Cornish coast and estuaries. Despite the unfashionable subject matter some of Titcomb's best paintings document religious themes such as Primtive Methodist prayer meetings, pastoral care of the dying, and the prayer and devotions of the Cornish fishermen. Incidentally Thomas Cook started his travel business by organising day trips on trains (with food included) for Sunday Schools and Temperance gatherings.
Now Lynn – with all the health and safety, risk assessment, child protection and other essential legislative safeguards, I don't suppose we're ever likely to see the likes of these outings again. Anyway – it's so idyllic I thought I'd share it to encourage you and and all those whose ministry and vocational gifts are poured into the high energy demands of working with children. I reckon Jesus probably put such ministry into the higher echelons of good long term Kingdom building.
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