WHAT PENNIES CAN DO!

This is the kind of article that was being circulated about the POWER of Sunday Schools - ed.
This was the annual report published secretary of the 1st Baptist Sunday School Missionary Society of Brooklyn, NY as copied from the Baptist paper named the Recorder November 17, 1847: 

"We are once more permitted by a kind and indulgent Providence, who rules over the destinies of all mankind, to assemble together to celebrate the birthday of a society which, under present auspices, bids fair to become a part of the great system of means by which Christian principles will be diffused throughout this far extended country.

We can by energy, exertion, and perseverance, accomplish much more than may, at first sight, seem possible.  If any of us should, ten years hence, traverse through the western country and hear the history of many of the churches there, we would find that many of them would trace their origin back to the receiving of a ten-dollar library for a Sabbath School from the 1st Baptist Sunday School Missionary Society, of Brooklyn.

The contribution of a single penny, however small it may appear at first sight, will, when placed with others, accumulate a flood that will cleanse the West, wash all Popery and false religion from among them, and make them an upright and Christian people, and examples that the Pope and priest-ridden churches would do well to follow.

We must exert all our energies to establish Sunday Schools among them, and have them supplied with teachers that are very calculated to inculcate in the youthful minds of their pupils the fundamental principles of morality and virtue; so that when their fathers have passed away from the arena of public life, they can fill their places with credit to themselves and with honor to the interests of their country and their religion.  When they come to assume this weighty responsibility, our prayers are, that the good principles contained in those volumes that we have been the humble instruments of sending them, may prove a talisman to guide and control them in the administration of the benign principles of civil and religious liberty.

It will be seen from the Treasurer's report, that we have collected $111.75, but $13.86 more than last year, while the expenditures exceed the previous year's $95.  At our last anniversary, there was a balance in the treasury of $85.85, while now we have but $25.56; showing clearly that our means will be wholly inadequate to meet those increasing demands unless our contributions materially exceed those of the past year.  Consequently, you will perceive that renewed perseverance and energy is called for on our part, to supply these urgent demands, and contribute freely and unreservedly to the accomplishment of such an important and benevolent object.

We have supplied them the last year with 30 libraries, compromising 3,000 volumes, or about 375,000 pages of useful and instructive matter.  Thus is the good cause progressing, which in all human probability is doing its destined work in the enlightenment and civilization of the thousands of destitute children who inhabit the great and growing west; and unless we renew our diligence and efforts, we shall fall short of meeting their demands, and our must sanguine and earnest expectations will have failed to be realized."

Elder Gilbert Beebe, editor of the Signs of the Times gave his comments on this article:

And this is what the Recorder, registers upon its journal of this nineteenth century, as the "Benevolence of Sunday Schools."  From the sound of the trumpet which gives notice of the almsgiving, we conclude that the pennies which jingle so charmingly in this enterprise, are the proceeds of a system of taxation upon, or voluntary of a system of taxation upon, or voluntary contribution by the children of the Sunday School, who are induced to deny themselves of the luxury of sugar candy, and toys, in order to swell the funds by which they are made to believe that the Great West is to be Christianized. This is a sort of double game at Benevolence.  The Sunday School Union is organized, for the benefit of the poor children, as a charitable institution; and the Sunday School Missionary Society is organized for the purpose of fleecing them of their pennies.  The thus adroitly collected from pauper children are placed, like the jewels which the Israelites borrowed from their Egyptian neighbors, into the hands of some priest who can make of them a calf on which they may be taught to rely for the salvation of the millions who inhabit the West.  These consecrated red cents, or to be more dignified traverser of the West, many churches will have arisen from a Ten Dollar Library purchased with the pennies contributed by the members of this same  1st Brooklyn S.S. Missionary Society!  Yes, "tracing their origin," not to the election of grace, the provisions of salvation given in Christ Jesus before the world begun, but "to the receiving of a Ten Dollar Library for a Sabbath School, from the 1st Baptist Sunday School Missionary Society of Brooklyn."

What a wonderful age we have fallen upon.  Why, if Job and David had lived at this time, and had known the saving and cleansing qualities of pennies, they would not have mentioned snow waters, miter, and much soap, pshaw!  what signifies washing with such inefficient things.  Rivers of Oil, and thousands of rams, have failed to produce the great salvation which is confidently talked of, as likely to result from "a single penny."  O, thou mighty penny, Noah, David, and Job, were not as potent as thou art reputed to be.  Had they all stood before the Lord, they could not have either son or daughter; but thou art expected to go forth in all the might of copper currency and outstrip the patron saint of Ireland, and not only exterminate the toads and snakes, but with them all the pollutions or heresy, and to make the wild men of the West, "an upright and Christian people."  How the Pope must tremble when he hears of the pennies of the Brooklyn Society.  Ah!  poor fellow, what will he do now?  And what lasting obligation will the inhabitants of those States away off in the dark regions of sundown be under the benevolent people of Brooklyn.  How vain are all their Colleges, and high schools, their ministry and churches; they are regarded as sitting in shades of sable darkness, delusion, and heresy; but a brighter day is about to dawn on them.  $111.75, all in shining red pennies, have been raised in Brooklyn, for their special benefit, and these all, with perhaps a percentage required for incidental expenses, to be laid out for the amelioration of their condition.