Before class
Someone in the group may own the 21-panel wall chart; if so, warn them that its panel 20 stops at 1878, so some of the 1881 details may be missing (p. 107). For yourself, read pp. 106–109, including the card on p. 108 that shows how the chart ends, piece by piece, and print Stretch 16 from the Big-Print Pack. Then set a King James Bible on the table and, if you have one, any later English Bible beside it.
Opening · 5 minutes
Start with their own lives: “If you drew a timeline of your own life today, where would it end?” Let two or three people answer, then say: “Right here, today. You couldn’t draw one inch further, because tomorrow hasn’t happened yet. Sebastian Adams had exactly the same problem. He drew six thousand years of history, reached his own day, and had to stop. Today we are going to find the spot where his pen stopped, and see what he chose to put right beside it.” Then point them to the right edge of the strip.
At the chart · 15 minutes
1A Bible at each end. Begin at the yellow book on the left of p. 106, “Holy Bible, Authorized Version, King James, 1607 to 1611.” Then have the class turn the book on its side and read pin 9 at the far right of p. 107: the Revised Version of the New Testament, published May 17th 1881, from a revision begun in England June 22nd 1870. Ask what stands between the two Bibles, and let them name what they see: kings, colonies, a revolution, a civil war. Hold up your two Bibles and leave the question open until the closing prayer.
2Puritans leave. Go down to the England stream and find James I’s box, pin 2. Read the three lines aloud: “Bible translated. Gunpowder plot. Puritans leave.” Ask where the Puritans went, and have someone follow the thin bars up to Massachusetts. Show the ruins of the stone church at Jamestown, pin 3. Then point to Newton under his tree, 1666, right above Charles II’s “Plague 1665. Great Fire 1666” (p. 107). Two stories in one year: that is Key 6 · Same column, same moment.
3Climb the staircase. Now the hardest corner. Read the Watch Out on p. 107 first: the long bars are colonies and states, not people, and the small number at the right end is the order in which each state joined. Follow one colony right to the green band marked Revolution, then Confederation, then column I, Washington (pin 5). Ask which key the shape suggests. Key 5 looks right, but the book warns that the states joined the Union and were not conquered. The true revolt sits above George III: “Am. Col. lost 83,” Key 4 · A stream that splits is a revolt.
4Where the pen stopped. Finish at the very end of the stream, pin 8, where the black line turns red, carries 1881 and stops. Just above, column XX, Garfield’s, has no end year (pin 7). Use the card on p. 108 to read the last details together: Colorado, the newest state, number 38 in 1876; Alaska, “Bo’t of Russ. 1867”; eleven territories still waiting; and Victoria’s box running off the edge with “God save the Queen.” Tell the class that this is the world as it stood on the day Adams stopped.
Talk it over · 15 minutes
Adams opens this stretch with the King James Bible and closes it with the Revised Version of 1881. Why do you think he chose to mark Bibles at both ends?
Listen for: Listen for the idea that, for Adams, Scripture frames history instead of sitting inside it. Psalm 119:89 helps if the class needs a push. Someone may remember that a minister drew this chart, and that is a fair point to make.
“He is the governor among the nations,” says the psalm. Look at the staircase of colonies, states and presidents. Where do you see that verse at work?
Listen for: There is no single right answer. Good answers notice that nations rise, join and change hands on this spread without any of them owning the story. If the class gets stuck, read the whole of Psalm 22:28 and ask whom the kingdom belongs to.
Adams gave most of his room to the nations he knew best. Read John’s vision of “all nations” and compare it with the space each nation gets on this spread.
Listen for: Let the class see the difference without scorn for Adams; the book says plainly that this is how a man in 1880s America saw the world (p. 108). Bring the talk back to whom God’s multitude includes in Revelation 7:9, and to how we see the world from where we sit.
To close
“One generation shall praise thy works to another, and shall declare thy mighty acts.”Psalm 145:4 · KJV
Let our generation, Lord, tell the next what you have done, as faithfully as those who handed your Word to us.
With younger children (6–10)
On the Big-Print strip, Newton under his tree is easy to spot; so is the red end of the stream of time. Count the presidents’ columns together, from I to XX, and let one child put a finger on the last one and tell you what is missing: it has no end year. Show them the open yellow Bible at the left and ask whose name is on it. Time allowing, let them color a strip of paper black with a short red end and write 1881 on it.