l, a town, or a
city to unite in the preparation of their lessons. Chicago, New York,
Brooklyn, Boston, and many other places soon held study-classes of
Sunday School teachers, of all grades, of a thousand or more gathered on
a week-day to listen to the lectures of great instructors. The
Plainfield (N. J.) Railroad Class was not the only group of Sunday
School workers who spent their hour on the train passing to and from
business in studying together their Sunday School lesson.

[Illustration: Old Business Block and Post-Office]

Soon after Dr. Vincent assumed the charge of general Sunday School work,
having his office in New York, he took up his residence in
Plainfield, N. J., a suburban city which felt his influence and
responded to it for twenty years. Having led the way to one summit in
his ideals, he saw other mountain-heights beyond, and continually
pointed his followers upward. When he succeeded to the editorship of the
_Sunday School Journal_, the teachers' magazine of his church, he found
a circulation of about five thousand. With the Uniform Lesson, and his
inspiring editorials, it speedily rose to a hundred thousand, and a few
years later to two hundred thousand subscribers, while his lesson leaves
and quarterlies went into the millions. With voice--that wonderful,
awakening, thrilling voice--and with a pen on fire, he appealed
everywhere for a training that should fit Sunday School teachers for
their great work. He established in many places the Normal Class, and
marked out a course of instruction for its students. This was the step
which led directly to the _Chautauqua Assembly_, which indeed made some
such institution a necessity.

The Normal Class proposed a weekly meeting of Sunday School teachers or
of young people seeking preparation for teaching, a definite course of
study, examinations at regular stages, and a diploma to those who met
its standards. Dr. Vincent conceived the plan of bringing together a
large body of teacher-students, who should spend at least a fortnight in
daily study, morning and afternoon, and thus accomplish more work than
in six months of weekly meetings. He aimed also to have lectures on
inspiring themes, with a spice of entertainment to impart variety. While
this ideal was rising before him and shaping in his mind, he found a
kindred spirit, a genius in invention, and a practical, wise business
man whose name was destined to stand beside his own in equal honor
wherever and