given, for the most part, lacks breadth and substantiality. I have seen schools, for example, though they are certainly the exception, where some of the teachers, even in the middle and advanced classes, have limited their teaching to reading the chapter or chapters, and telling a few anecdotes; cases where there appears to have been the absence of all right ideas of what really constituted Sunday school teaching; and where the lessons for the Sunday have either never been previously looked at, or if looked at, have not been understood by the teacher.

In order that teachers may be prepared for their Sunday duties, it is not only necessary that they previously read the chapter which is to be the subject of the lesson, but that they should seriously and prayerfully study it, and with a view to understanding it, they should obtain all the aid they can from the many excellent works now published, admirably adapted to aid them in their benevolent labours. I know of no book more fitted to assist teachers in the study of the New, and some portions of the Old Testament, than the "Notes" of the Rev. A. Barnes. Teachers in more advanced classes should master such works as "Butler's Analogy," "Angus's Bible Hand-book," "Nichols's Help to Reading the Bible," and last, though not least in these days of hyper-scepticism, that excellent book, published by the Religious Tract Society, entitled "The Bible and Modern Thought," by the Rev. T. R. Birks.

Men and women are naturally social and gregarious. You may find here and there a man who, through wounded pride or affection, or influenced by superstition, lives the life of a recluse; but mankind will cluster and group, it is part of their nature, and a part too of which advantage should be taken.

Not only then ought there to be solitary students of the Divine Word and Works, but teachers should themselves be taught. Taught either by meeting together weekly or at convenient intervals, and selecting some of the best informed of their number to conduct preparatory classes; or where they have the advantage of a minister, requesting him, in conjunction with the best teachers, to conduct the class for the mutual benefit of all the teachers in the school.

In these efforts, as in all others, we must not expect perfection, there will be great defects even in a teachers' Bible-class. Our duty, however, is to make them as good as we can, and leave the rest to an infinitely wise and gracious Providence.

There is a charm about the very name of home. A well-managed home where father, mother, sisters and brothers, all work together in harmony and love, is the best earthly type of heaven; indeed, heaven itself is described as a home.

School should be made to the young as attractive as home, and the teachers should be to their flocks as fathers, mothers, sisters and brothers; there should be the greatest sympathy and reciprocity of feeling between teacher and scholar, and in order to this, teachers should be on the most friendly terms with scholars; they should not only see them in school, but they should aid them during the week in the work of secular instruction. I do not mean the secular instruction which has reference to the ordinary routine. of the day school, but secular instruction in the wondrous epistles written by the Divine fingers in the great book of nature itself. Depend upon it, we are not thrown into this world without any sympathy for the wonders which the Almighty has scattered broadcast about us: and the teacher whose knowledge of the laws and operations of nature is sufficiently extensive, will lose none of the affections of his pupils by taking them out with him or with her, occasionally, into the fields and woods, or by the sea-shore, and pointing out to them the divine handiwork which is manifest in the crust of the earth, in every blade of grass, in every trembling leaf, and in every living creature that roams over the face of the earth, or plunges in its oceans, lifting their minds from nature up to nature's God. This principle of teaching is applicable in all cases, but specially so in reference to our senior scholars. The great weakness in Sunday school tuition, is just where it ought to be most strong; and many of those who for years have been associated with the Sunday schools, leave precisely at the time which is most pregnant with promise of real usefulness.

Many, perhaps the majority of our scholars, leave school at an age when it is most desirable to retain them, and a frightful proportion of them fall into habits of idleness and vice; to which public houses, singing saloons, and other places of resort, open numerous temptations. Rely upon it, our culture cannot be too broad and our lessons too deeply graven in these days, when latitudinarianism is rampant on the one hand, and a narrow and rigid bigotry and dogmatic self-conceit on the other.

Enough, perhaps, has been said on the natural side of Sunday school teaching, viz., that side which has reference to the natural mode of acquiring and communicating knowledge.

We are, however, placed in relation to two worlds and two spheres of being, a natural and a spiritual. Both conditions of life, in our case, constantly impinge upon each other, and we are as intrinsically the creatures of spiritual as of natural influence. We should not, therefore, look to natural instrumentality only, but we should seek for the aid of the spiritual.

Mankind are more familiar with the natural than the spiritual, but it does not therefore follow that the spiritual is any less near, real, and potential than the natural. Familiarity and reality are not synonyms. There are many things with which it cannot be said the human mind is very familiar, which are, nevertheless, near, real, and universal. Gravitation is a real, invisible, omnipresent power, influencing every organised and unorganised material body; and yet, of a knowledge of such a law as gravitation, all those who lived a few years prior to the advent of the immortal Newton, were entirely ignorant. Now, the spiritual impinges on and influences the natural, and yet, only to a few do these things present themselves as absolute matters of fact.

The Bible, if we would only fully believe it, makes this branch of the subject perfectly clear; but a blind and conceited naturalism or materialism, has closed the general eye to the great fact.

We are in intimate relation with the spiritual world, and our prayers ought frequently to ascend for spiritual help. I don't mean prayers to those who have gone before, that would be an encouragement and submission to the follies and absurdities of Roman Catholicism; but earnest prayer to the Great Spiritual Father, who is ever ready through Christ to aid those who call upon him in sincerity and truth. Answers to prayers may not come precisely at the time we want them, nor in the form we expect. It may be that some of us, for wise purposes, may have to endure long years of dreary and isolated probation; but if we pray with honest earnest hearts, with a sincere desire to be right and to prove a blessing to others, sooner or later, in the Almighty's good time, the blessing will come. If we have not had quite so much success in Sunday school labour as we desire, let us remember that all these agencies are under the control of our Heavenly Father, and that by His ordination He will send blessings and success when they are most opportune.

The inferences we may draw from the foregoing remarks, and from the facts that are familiar to all those engaged in Sunday school teaching, are, that Sunday schools have accomplished much; that by increased industry, devotion, and reliance on the Divine blessing, they may accomplish yet more; and that, therefore, it is the duty of all who have the interests of Sunday schools at heart, to labour more earnestly and prayerfully for the accomplishment of the design for which they are now conducted.

THE "WORD" AT CLASS, AND THE "WAY" AT HOME.

THE words and ways of men, how different they are! How inconsistent, and how often absolutely opposed: men speak what they feel not-they advise what they practice not-and talk of what they live not. And to whom can we better apply these words, than to ourselves as teachers? Nor do I, after careful watching, think that the charge is false: it is an evil that has crept into most of our duties, and has effectually made weak the power of many a pulpit in our land. Many men might conclude their sermons by saying, แ Now do as I say, not as I do." And since we are conscious of it here, much more likely are we to meet with it in the class and in the school; and what is more, how many of us are aware of its existence it being to some a tearful knowledge, while to others one of little concern!

May we not liken ourselves to those of whom we sometimes hear, that can appear on certain days, and at certain seasons, decked with all that's fair, and arrayed in all that glistens, but who, when an admiring crowd has passed-and the ceremony is over-doff the jewels and the grandeur for the common-place attire? For we, on many a Sabbath morn have gone to teach, with heaven's fairest jewel in our hands, the sweetest words upon our lips, the loveliest smile playing o'er the countenance, the brightest glow upon our hearts: the children have admired, ay, loved and listened with rapt attention to the words of our mouth; but when the day has passed and the class dispersed, we lay aside the jewel-book, the heavenly harp is exchanged for the murmuring world; and the brightness of our religion fades with the sinking sun. And, seriously, do you not think that the children, seeing this, as they assuredly will, (they are often sharper in such things than we think them,) will soon be led to look upon fair speeches as mockery, and the teaching as delusion? Can they believe you, when, having told them the duty of the sanctuary, they see your vacant seat? Having told them to be loving, you grow to them unkind? Having bid them put aside the temper, you are heard on the morrow to indulge in needless angry words? Having bid them live in prayer, you, yourself, are seen at home to neglect it? Having bid them learn "the word," yours at home is scarcely touched? Having told them that life is earnest, to employ every moment as it flies, you are found at home, the sluggard or the idler? Can they, I ask, believe you? No; your words of advice will not be taken, your

counsel of good will not be heeded, your remarks on heaven will not be regarded, the child is too sensitive to reality; as we would be, were we advised to abstain by a drunkard, or counselled to give up amusement, by the reckless worldling.

Brothers and sisters, do we yearn to do good? Let our word at class be our way at home. Let us live at home what we live in the class. The religion that is fit to teach the child is the religion for us. Did not the Lord say, "Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven"? Yes: the religion of the child is the religion of the man; so if the child is to live it, we must live it too; if the child is to love, we must love too; if the child is to pray, we must pray too; to be gentle, we must be gentle too. Oh! teach not the thing you live not; advise not the thing you value not; or it loses all its charms, and its loveliness is hid. That which you do teach, let it be, every word of it, genuine, heart-felt and true; for then your life shall apply it, your life shall recommend it, and your children will say, "He's in earnest, he means it, he believes it, he feels it, he lives it at home, I will follow with him, come let us mark his words." So shall your labours be eminently blest, your words applied by your ways shall never be lost. The ripples of time shall not wear away, nor the waves of eternity ever obscure their impress.

CIRSO.

"MEN WHO HAVE RISEN."

Ar a social temperance gathering, George Lomax told the following story:-"Henry Hetherington published the Poor Man's Guardian, which struck the first practical blow at the obnoxious stamp duties. The vendors used to sell a straw and give a paper. One day there came to the rendezvous, at New Cross-street, a youth, one of a class known in those days as a 'big piecer.' He told them that two of the newsvendors had just been taken to the New Bailey, and added to this effect-'If I had something to start with, I would go out and sell them; for if they put me in prison they would have to keep me.' Lomax took round his hat, half-a-crown was raised; the lad was furnished with a supply of papers, went out, sold them, took care of the profits; and so on from little to more, by dint of industry, steadiness, and an aptitude for business, he achieved a position in society. That lad's name was Abel Heywood; and he is at the present moment the Mayor of Manchester."-Southport Visitor.