5. "The young may be better than the old."

The oldest man was not the best. Enoch was not nearly so old as
Methuselah.

David was preferred to his elder brothers. So was Joseph.
John was supposed to be the youngest of the twelve.

Jeroboam, Ahaz, and Amos had sons better than themselves.
How often Sunday scholars have led their fathers and mothers
to Christ.

6. "Submit to God's will."

David on the death of his child.

Job under all his afflictions.

Aaron when his two sons died.

Paul and the "thorn in his flesh."

Christ at Gethsemane.

Submit when sickness and pain come; when disappointment comes; when you lose what you love; when your good-name, your property, your friends are taken; when death comes.

Such are a few illustrations (drawn from God's Word and God's works) of these general statements. From these illustrations the teacher must select what is most suitable to his class.-Scottish Sabbath School Teachers' Magazine.

ORNAMENTS AS A PART OF DRESS.

As personal ornaments may be considered a part of dress, a few hints respecting them will not be unacceptable here. In the first place, all ornaments should be made of those materials of which they are supposed to consist; mosaic jewellery instead of gold, paste instead of diamond, and numerous other substitutions, are paltry artifices which no person of respectability or good taste would descend to. In most cases they fail to produce the effect intended; their very lavishness, taken in connection with the wearer's means, begets suspicion of their genuineness; and when they are detected, the exposure only causes discomfiture. In the second place, a profusion of ornaments, however valuable they may be, are not to be approved of. Such profuse indulgence appears like an endeavour to outshine everybody else, and so suggests the idea that more importance is attached to these decorations by the wearer than to any mental endowments which they may possess, or any personal advantages with which Nature may have gifted them. In the third place, ornaments should be appropriate to the dress, and appear designed to answer some useful purpose; a chain, for instance, when worn round the neck should support a watch or locket; and a brooch or other ornament should be placed in that part of the dress where it fulfils its intended uses. No article should be worn in a manner that would make it appear simply as an ornament. The only exceptions to this rule are rings and bracelets.-Dictionary of Daily Wants,

ATTAINMENTS OF LINGUISTS.

TAKING the very highest estimate which has been offered of their attainments, the list of those who have been reputed to possess more than ten languages is a very short one. Only four, Mithridates, Pico of Mirandola, Jonadab Alhanse, and Sir William Jones, are said in the loosest sense to have passed the limit of twenty. To the first two fame ascribes twentytwo, to the last two twenty-eight languages. Müller, Niebuhr, Fulgence, Fresnel, and, perhaps, Sir John Bowring, are usually set down as knowing twenty languages. For Elihu Burritt and Csoma de Körös, their admirers claim eighteen. Renaudot, the controversialist, is said to have known seventeen; Professor Lee, sixteen; and the attainments of the older linguists, as Arias Montanus, Martel Del Rio, the converted Rabbi Libettas Cominetus, the admirable Crichton, are said to have ranged from this down to ten or twelve-most of them the ordinary languages of learned and of polite society.-Life of Mezzofanti,

A SUNDAY SCHOLAR'S DEATH-BED.

THERE was a little fellow in my school, a scholar in a Testament-class, who attracted my attention by his regular and punctual attendance, his habits of order and quiet, and by his good behaviour generally. He was about twelve years of age, the son of a mechanic; a gentle pale-faced lad, with a grave simplicity of expression, rather heightened by wearing spectacles, which were necessary to help his near-sightedness. I found him, upon acquaintance, to be rather intelligent for his years, though he had received little or no education save what he had got in the Sunday school. He appeared to have had severe affliction in his younger days; and this, while enfeebling his body, had evidently quickened and refined his mind. I loved occasionally to have a pleasant chat with him; for he could talk very nicely, and seemed very grateful for any marks of kindness, and for advice. I found myself beginning to love him for the sweetness of his disposition, and the promise in him of many good qualities.

I had missed him from school for several weeks when his teacher called upon me to say that Emanuel B. was very ill, and that he had sent wishing to see me. He told his teacher that he remembered once my saying, while lecturing from the desk, that "I should be very glad to visit all sick scholars, if they would but let me know of their sickness;" and he hoped I would come. I was very sorry to hear this of him, and went almost immediately. I found him in a humble room, yet everything was clean and orderly about him; motherly tenderness had done all that could be done with scant means to make the little sufferer comfortable. After gently pressing his hand, I said, "Emanuel, I am very sorry to see you so unwell." "Yes," he said, quite cheerfully: "I am going to die."

"And what then?" I asked.

"O! I am going to heaven."

"I am glad to hear you say that; but tell me what makes you feel so confident of going to heaven?"

He then told me that two years ago, when he first came to school, he was a bad boy, and did not care much for learning, or being good; that sometimes he was enticed away to play truant; but he soon saw the evil of this, and was very uncomfortable when doing wrong, and resolved not to listen any more to those who badly advised him. Since that time he had attended his class every Sunday when well, and soon got to love the school and his teachers very much. He also began to like to read his Bible and HymnBook, and good books from the library. He was also drawn towards the Saviour, and loved to listen to His words and pray to Him, that he might be saved. He was quite happy at the thought of going to be with Jesus. When I told him, "I must now leave you." He said, "Will you please to read for me first? "

"What shall I read?"

"If you will open that drawer, sir, you will find a Bible."

I soon found it.

"Where shall I read, Emanuel?"

After a moment's thought: "I think I like St. John's Gospel best."

I read, and then commended him to the care of that good Shepherd who takes to His bosom the lambs of His flock.

On the two following days I visited him, and found him gradually sinking; he was fast going home. When I laid upon the table some little matters suited to an invalid, he looked at me with a smile of acknowledg ment, and said, "You are very kind, sir: I am much obliged to you." He still maintained his good hope, and was pleased when I talked to him of Christ and heaven.

When I quoted passages of Scripture I thought suited to his case, he would repeat them with me, and sometimes go on repeating from memory following verses. He had evidently read much and carefully of God's holy word; and while lying for long hours alone, its precious truths had cheered and consoled him. The Hymn-Book had also been a study with him, and a number of the hymns he was wont to repeat correctly and with feeling. I asked him what were his favourite hymns. He replied, that he liked a great many, but that he liked best these two, beginning,"Jesu, Lover of my soul,"

and,

"On Jordan's stormy bank I stand."

I thought that must be an earnest and matured piety which could find sympathy in the devout longings after Christ and heaven, such as these beautiful and affecting hymns express. His father, who sat in the room, said that Emanuel always brought home an account of the school-lecture and the lessons of the day, with the teacher's instructions thereon, and that they conversed about them every Sunday night.

I hoped that I might have paid at least one more visit to Emanuel, and been with him when he took the last step of the journey, and seen him safe in the promised land; but that night, while in deep repose,

"He glided, by a sweet transition,
Into everlasting joy."

-Wesleyan Sunday School Magazine.

SUPERINTENDEnt.

ORDER AND ATTENTION IN SUNDAY SCHOOLS.

By Mr. J. S. FEATHERSTONE, of St. Mary Cray, Kent.

"What means are best calculated to preserve order and attention in Sunday schools?"

I would first call attention to the necessity of some plan, or system of instruction; and will take for example the one published by the Parent Society, where we have lessons selected alternately from the Old and New Testaments, covering a space of three or four years for its completion; the subjects for the first and third Sundays of the month being the life and teaching of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ; the second and fourth Sundays, Old Testament history; and the fifth prophecy. Here we have a well selected system of reading, that the minds of our young charge may be stored with the whole truth of God's word, and see his dealing with the children of men from the beginning, proving Him to be the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever.

If you supply each child in the Scripture classes with a list of the Lessons, they will, with their parents, see, and perhaps their parents will say, "these teachers know what they are doing: they mean something, they have something to teach," and might add, "William or Mary you must listen to them." Here and there a child might say, "I must attend to my teacher, or I shall lose my lesson to-day." Such a plan, as a means, is the best I know to promote order and secure attention.

There should be also a proper division of time for these exercises, or the feeling produced by the introduction of a system will lose its first favorable impression in your school order. If the school duties commence at halfpast nine o'clock, the time should be strictly attended to. The superin

tendent and teachers should be in their places ready to receive their scholars, for "example is better than precept" in the establishment and preservation of order. The clock should rule both officers and teachers. A great deal depends upon punctuality; it will give them confidence in each other, and confirm the first impression of the scholars, "our teachers have something to teach us, they are in earnest too." This is the first principle of order.

When a teacher is conscious of having failed in punctuality, he is generally unhappy in his class. If repeated it soon becomes habitual, and the order and attention of his class is gone.

Teachers, if you would secure order and attention in your classes, you must yourselves be punctual.

The business of the school commences with marking the early attendance in the class books; then singing; introduce the lesson for the day; then earnest prayer to Almighty God for a blessing. This should not occupy more than fifteen to eighteen minutes. Next the repetition lessons, ten minutes. Sing a hymn bearing on the subject to be taught. The lesson follows. Order begets order, Attention generally follows. This plan requires suitable persons to carry it out. What should our superintendents be? Christians; earnest, zealous. Men of prayer; full of faith, punctual, vigilant, and affectionately firm; always acting in accordance

with the rules of the school. Teachers should be scrupulously exact in obeying any school regulation if they would have order and attention in their classes. Our prayer should ever be, "O Lord, make us fit for the work." Teachers should have the same qualifications as superintendents. If such are necessary for general order, they are also requisite for divisional or class order, for without order you cannot possess attention. This order and attention must be preserved. They must not flag. You have but a short time to teach the way to heaven, and you must give an account to the God of all the earth, whose servants you are. Then every subject for teaching should be well studied, and well understood, with a view to impress one great principle on the mind,-relying on God the Holy Spirit, whose it is to take of the things of Jesus, and shew them to us.

This order and attention require the right sort of teaching to preserve them. Permit me to illustrate what I mean by bringing before you the characteristics of three teachers.

Our first has taken for his lesson, say, Numbers 23rd, 24th; subject "Balaam's Predictions." It has been well studied. He sees a great deal in it. Meets his class. They read it through, rather hastily, and not very correctly. It would take too much time he thinks for the reader to be so exact. There is a general restlessness about the class. He tells how Balak sends for Balaam to curse the Children of Israel. How Balaam goes from place to place, builds altars, offers sacrifices, goes to meet God or pretends to do so, looks on Israel, and blesses them instead of cursing as Balak wanted. Our teachers find references in confirmation of the blessing, and reads them himself. Tells of Balaam's wish to die the death of the righteous. The time is gone. There is a great deal more to say. The class has been carelessly listening, some slyly playing.

They have not read a reference in confirmation, or even correctly read the facts. They are glad to be released.

Our friend has been like one pouring some precious fluid from a large jug into a small bottle. This is a preaching teacher. Teachers, if you would preserve order and attention don't preach, but teach. By preaching in your classes you may produce a partial impression on the mind, and soon efface it by a mistaken effort. Alas! such is like beating the air.

Our second teacher scarcely knows where and what the lesson is. The class mechanically read one by one their respective verses, with a sluggish and careless air, and not very perfectly, between their turns playing. The teacher looks vexed, can't keep order, feels no interest, and does not like to take the blame to himself. As Aaron, when he made the golden calf for Israel, excused himself to Moses, saying, "I put the golden trinkets into the fire, and there came out that calf;" so our teacher excuses himself by saying, "I try to keep order, but they won't mind."-This is a careless teacher.

Our third teacher is one who has studied and thoroughly arranged the lesson. Suppose it to be Luke x., the subject to be taught being "True Religion." This teacher's seat is occupied five minutes before the school duties commence, each scholar is welcomed with a smile and a kind word, the voice not being heard beyond the class. After the school is opened, the