Todd Scoles, senior associate pastor of the Northwest Chapel Grace Brethren Fellowship in Dublin, Ohio, recently unearthed this little factoid.
In 1870, the Pennsylvania Brethren Sunday School came up with a plan to encourage children to memorize verses. A red card was to be given for each verse memorized and a blue card when ten verses had been learned.
One eight-year-old boy in the James Creek congregation earned an impressive set of cards by reciting 145 verses on a single Sunday morning.
The boy later became the first Brethren to earn a Ph.D. and served as Governor of Pennsylvania from 1915-1919. That precocious little person who tests the patience of your elementary workers might become the next Martin Grove Brumbaugh. (Source: The Brethren Encyclopedia, 1983.)