It will be a great assistance to you, in fixing upon the minds of the children the Ten Commandments, in reviewing them, and getting the children to talk about them and pray about them, if you set before them ten appropriate symbols. I should write or print the Ten Commandments very distinctly, either on two great sheets of paper, one for each table of the law, or on two tablets drawn upon the blackboard. Then, as you bring up, in the course of the meeting, each commandment, hang over it as it is written the appropriate symbol. A helpful exercise on the conclusion of this may be made by taking down these symbols, removing or hiding the writing, and asking the Juniors, as you take up each symbol, to tell what the commandment it represents is, and to repeat it.
Appropriate symbols would be the following: For the commandment regarding covetousness, a gold dollar, a purse, or a moneybag; adultery, a lily, symbolizing purity; the honoring of parents, a bit of evergreen, typifying long life; falsehood, a rule, symbolizing exactness and truth as a standard with which every statement must agree; murder, a gold chain, representing the gold chain of love that should bind all hearts together; Sabbath-keeping, the picture of an oak, or possibly a branch from an oak-tree, standing for the strength of body and soul that can come only from the Christian observance of a seventh day of rest; graven images, simply the word “God” printed in a circle from which radiate rays of light, explaining to the children how far short of the reality any image would come; the commandment against having other gods, the picture of a straight road with a bright golden sun at the end of it and rays shining from it, telling the children that this is the straight road that leads to heaven, and that the only way to reach that happy country is to look to God and the things of heaven alone, not turning to the right hand or the left to follow other gods; swearing, the picture of an ear, with some words about the offence that swearing is to the ear of man and of God alike; stealing, the picture of steps leading upward and God-ward, or possibly a set of steps made out of pasteboard, with a few words about the value of honesty in bringing about promotion in this world, and of how a departure from honesty leads one at once down into destruction.