IMPORTANCE OF TRUTHFULNESS.

IN childhood, if ever, the bad passions must be weeded out, just as they begin to appear. The weeds are easily removed from a garden before they have taken deep root. And here, first of all, let every tendency to prevarication and lying be checked. Truthfulness is the foundation of character. Let the manfulness, moral dignity, and the imperative duty of always speaking the truth be inculcated, Let the meanness, the turpitude, and guilt of lying and prevarication be equally inculcated. Every sentiment

of honor, and the whole moral sense, should be arrayed against lying, under every form and degree. Speak the truth in all things, on all occasions, under the strongest temptations not to speak it; in the face of shame and suffering, speak it; speak it if ye die for it; for there is no gain or advantage to be put in the balance against speaking the truth. Thus ought we to teach our children from the earliest dawn of moral apprehension. These three things once gained, viz., the habit of implicit obedience, the habit of prayer, and undeviating truthfulness, and then the way is open for every gracious influence, and every form of holy nature. You have now drawn

your child from the circle of worldly snares and unholy powers, and brought him to the place where heavenly order reigns, where sacred altars are kindled, and where angels pay their visits.—British Mother's Journal.

PERSUASIVES TO PERSEVERANCE.

THE Jewish people anciently supposed the blessing of devout men upon their children had great effect upon their interest; hence mothers brought young children to Christ to lay his hands upon them and bless them. It has been our happy privilege to emulate these good matrons. Such motherly wisdom is worthy of our emulation, for it was characteristic of woman's modest piety, affectionate prudence, and surprising sagacity. Their well-timed measures were encouraged by divine approbation. Who then dare impede or cross the enterprising zeal of Sunday school teachers, or mock the humble measures of Ragged school philanthropists? We cannot disregard the repeated admonitions of Holy Writ which direct us to speak often and familiarly with the young to render them familiar with the whole word of God. Nothing gives us greater pleasure than to watch the opening curiosity of the infant mind, and to respond encouragingly to their many astonishing enquiries. Let them ask what they will, it is no plague but a pleasure to strive to give them satisfaction, and to gratify them with our society as childlike and simple as men can be with children.

The law repeatedly demanded children to be brought to Jehovah, and shall the Gospel shut them out from a gentle Saviour, that King Messiah who took them up in his arms and blessed them? See Exodus xii. 26, 27, 34; Deuteronomy xxxii. 45, 46, and xxxi. 12, 13; Joshua viii. 35; Exodus 1.9; Jonah iv. 11; Proverbs iv. 1, 10; Psalms xxxiv. 11. Children are invited to the Saviour by every means of persuasion and encouragement, and with the best promises of success. If youth with tender hearts cannot won, what can we expect to do with a stiff and hardened old age? As

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age increases, difficulties and cares increase, with pain and death; thus very few indeed reach a good old age. Need we then say any more to urge teachers to be faithful, and children to love the Saviour? Everything demands early and decided piety. Those who begin early are less liable to make shipwreck of a good profession, and will certainly have most enjoyment with Christ in this present life and greatest joy hereafter. Children are invited to Christ before the wealthy, the strong, the wise, and the talented, to become wise, mighty, wealthy, and glorious. Then deal quietly with the choicest of the jewels of the Saviour's crown. Draw them by love, train them with care, and lead them on into a well established faith in Jesus. This work is one that no soldier of the Saviour will treat slightly; if there be shame or scorn attending it, we may rejoice and glory in a share of that persecution which is blessed and sanctified by a divine head, that was crowned with thorns and buffeted for his good will to mankind. The Saviour is with us, angels may emulate us in such a good work if it were theirs to do, the Holy Spirit is with us, and our heavenly Father extends his special and peculiar care over us to render our labours fruitful. Then pray on, faint not, labour on, for great is your reward, if you run well to the end. Honesty and profession will serve the world, but we must serve the Saviour by loving little children, and by the exercise of this love if we are worn out in such a cause it will be the crown of our ending days; but if we rust out in idleness it will be our confusion in judgment. It will be better to shine in glory after a working life, than to shine like burnished brass only for a short season and then become a castaway for ever.—From Scenes of Village Labor," by George Perkins, late of the London City Mission. Published by Partridge and Co.

GRATEFUL TESTIMONY.

THE Sunday school was a place of much interest to me when a childa For when quite young I was taken there for the purpose of learning to read God's holy word; and by diligence, attention, and earnestness, I succeeded to some extent. And I shall never forget the gracious influences that I used to feel in my heart, when the teacher talked to me about my soul and the Saviour. This makes me think that it is the duty of every teacher, in every Sunday school, not merely to teach the children how to read, which is itself a great good, but how they may obtain eternal life. Youth is the most seasonable time to sow the seed of truth in the mind, for it is then open and free. There are not any of those prejudices, nor any of those cares of life to contend with, which so often hinder persons of riper years.

When I think of the great good that has resulted from Sunday school tuition in this country, my heart rejoices. Since the formation of the Sunday school system, there appears to have been a great change in our national character. Our conduct and our manners, as working men, are not so rude and vulgar, upon the whole, as they once were.

It was, indeed, a happy era in the history of England, when these schools first commenced. There are thousands of persons that would, in all probability, never have known how to read, if it had not been for these institu

tions; and I should have been one among that number. My father being very poor, he could not afford to send me to a day school, and as soon as I could work to earn sixpence, I was obliged to go. Wages since then have decreased, so that our position in that respect is yet worse. But these things are connected with this world, where much injustice and oppression often prevail. But the spiritual good we have obtained from these schools no man can deprive us of. Eternity alone will reveal all that. I doubt not there are thousands in yonder celestial region, praising God that they were ever taught in a Sunday school.

I am sorry to say that I did not give my heart to God when young-how much I regret it! I mixed with wicked boys, and my serious inclinations were repressed. When I became a man, I followed the multitude to do evil. I was very wicked before men and before God: but the impression of the Sunday school often made me feel uneasy. During the winter of 1856 Į went to hear a sermon, and the arrows of conviction pierced my heart. Conscience smote me, and I resolved to lead a new life. I asked my heavenly Father to wash my heart from its pollution in the blood of Christ; and while I was struggling at the throne of grace, I heard, as it were, a voice speak to my poor heart-how sweet it was, I can never forget it

"Thy debt is paid, thy soul is free,

And thou art justified."

When I was relieved of my load I joined the people of God, and became a teacher of the Sunday school, I now found that I was deficient of one thing, and that was, I did not know how to write. So I resolved to learn; and now I hope you will be able to read what I have written. Nay, I have tried to put together some pieces of poetry, a few of which you have seen. I am now resolved, by the grace of God, to put forth every exertion possible to improve myself, both in mind and spirit-perfecting holiness in the fear of the Lord. But I must not say more now, fearing I have trespassed too much already.-Baptist Reporter.

Leicester.

E. H.

AGREEABLE SURPRISE.

A TEACHER in one of the principal Sunday schools in Brooklyn, New York, was accosted in the rail-road cars by a person who, a few weeks previous, was an avowed infidel. With an eager grasp of the hand, he said, he hoped he was a changed man. My children attended your Sunday school," he continued, "and one of them was sick. The teacher came to see him several times, showed much kindness to him and brought us some assistance from the benevolent Society connected with the school. At length the child recovered, I was invited to attend at the church, and I went, and went again." The truth, by the will of God, took effect. The man was led to believe the gospel, and he with his family are regular attendants on public worship.

KNOW YOUR SCHOLARS.

[From the German.]

THE gardener and the husbandman can accomplish nothing without a knowledge of the soil; so, too, the teacher can effect nothing without a knowledge of his pupils. This knowledge is indispensably necessary to him for the moderation of his expectations, for the determining of his treatment, and for the confirming of his satisfaction. For the moderation of his expectations. For whence comes it that so many teachers expect and require from children of twelve or thirteen years of age all the earnestness of manhood, and vex themselves because a boy of this age does not recognise so fully and feel so deeply as they do, the importance of this or that branch of instruction? Such teachers know not the child, and know not what they ought to expect from him; they know not what to him is natural and what is unnatural. I am just as little pleased, I must confess, with a manlike child as I am with a childish man. Whence comes it that so many teachers have the. individual favourites? They know not such children aright, and perceive not the conceit which they thus foster in them, and thus convert their industry itself, I might almost say, into a vice. Whence comes it that so many teachers expect from all children an equal facility in committing to memory, in thinking, and in expressing their thoughts? Such teachers would have all mankind formed after one model, whereas God, in his infinite wisdom, endows men with faculties and capa cities almost infinitely varied. Whence comes it too, that many teachers inflict chastisement with extreme rigour upon the child, for faults which are, perhaps, rightly attributable to its parents, or to the situation in which it is placed? Is it not because they know not the child, and are ignorant that under the circumstances in which he was placed, it was almost impossible for him to act otherwise! O ye teachers! tyrannize not over these defenceless creatures by imposing upon them unnatural tasks! Only ask yourselves what you were at their age, and what you could then effect? Require not from this high spirited boy the same circumspection which you may expect from his more drowsy and differently constituted conpanion, nor the same quietness and demureness. Call nature to your aid in seeking to acquire a knowledge of your pupils individually, and attempt not to eradicate the talents implanted in them; for should you, you will thus undertake a labour in vain.

And what a multitude of faults in our treatment of children originate in our want of a propor knowledge of them! Thus it is we often mistake nascent wickedness for childish frolic, and know not, or forget, that "the child is the father of the man." Thus one is often inexorably rigorous, where a word or a hint would have perhaps effected more than severe punishments. One does, in the presence of the children, this or that, and thinks they will not observe it, imitate it, or misuse it. But the child, in this respect, is often sharper than seven wise men; and be it remembered, too, that the purer the paper is, so much the more indelibly does that remain which is inscribed upon it. Again, some would make everything as easy to the child as possible, as if any one power could thus become developed by exercising it but little; and as if an intense application of the

And you, my

powers were not the surest means of invigorating them. dear readers, if you are ignorant of children in general, and you own pupils in particular, do, with the very best intentions, commit every day a multitude of faults which your pupils in after life will probably severely pay for. You may attempt to dispense the secrets of the healing art, but if you know not the nature and the wants of your patient, you will do him more injury than good.

But perhaps you will ask me, How must we proceed to acquire this knowledge of our pupils? I am now addressing teachers, and for them I can scarcely do more than, pointing to their schools, say, He that has eyes to see let him see; and the point of view, too, in which the subject ought to be contemplated might be inferred from what has already been said. As a further, though partial answer to this question, we add a few suggestions:

Quicken your powers of observation and of penetration, by reading good books on the subject of educating children. It would be out of place here to point out at length those that have the greatest claim upon your attention, or the manner in which they may be most profitably perused.

Reflect the upon years of your own childhood. For myself, at least, many of the scenes of my early life so flit before me, and are so impressed upon my memory, that I cannot be mistaken respecting them. Consider, then, how you as children conducted yourselves towards your parents, your elders, and your playfellows. What were the inmost thoughts of your soul? You may calculate upon it with great probability that your children, upon the whole, think very much as you thought, and act very much as you acted, and the fuller and more perfectly you realize to yourselves the picture of your own childhood, so much the keener and fuller an insight will you have into the characters and dispositions of the children around you.

Observe your children how they conduct themselves when under your superintendence. During all the hours of instruction be all eye and ear. Without keeping any special book for the registration of conduct, you will soon know to which of those classes, which we have briefly pourtrayed, each child in the school belongs; who exhibits most quickness or dullness, most levity or steadiness, most facility in comprehending, or fidelity in retaining, &c. I say without keeping any special book, for I think the man who gives six or eight hours' instruction a-day, besides spending considerable time in preparing himself, ought to be burdened with as little extra writing as possible. Study also the train of your children's ideas; become as familiar as possible with the extent of their attainments and their dispositions, so that you may know what to expect from each, and what not to expect, as also what would be agreeable to each, and what would be disagreeable or unpleasant. Notice, especially, how each is affected by success and by failures in his school exercises, by praise and by censure, by reward and by punishment. If your eye is sharp (and will become so by exercise), each of your children will appear to you to possess a distinct and peculiar character; and seldom will his after-life contradict the opinion which you have thus formed of him, especially if you allow children to

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