Sunday, 25 August 2013

A life in letters: The Keswick Connection



A short play for children which I was asked to write by the Rev John Butler, then General Secretary of Scripture Union in Scotland for a service held at St George’s Tron Church of Scotland in Glasgow in the spring of 1979 to mark the centenary of Scripture Union Bible Reading Notes. The Keswick Connection was produced by Naomi Lidwell.

It told the story of Annie W. Marston, a teenage Sunday School teacher in Keswick in the 1870s who, to encourage the 8-10 year-old girls in her class to read the Bible for themselves, began giving them weekly lists of Bible passages to read on their own each day. The week’s passages would be discussed in class the following Sunday.

Many children began asking for Annie’s lists of readings, and she persuaded the Children’s Special Service Mission (which had been established by Josiah Spiers in 1867) to publish annually from 1st April 1879 a ‘Children’s Scripture Union’ card listing daily Bible readings for children.

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