or other in the home, or after the prayer meeting-in the street, or in the railway carriage-at market, or when out for a walk-somewhere or other, and somehow or other, that personal contact must be secured; and the feeling widely diffused that the preacher of the Sunday is also the trusted friend, the capable leader, the wise adviser, the true co-worker of the members of the church all the rest of the week; really living for Christ in a strongly sympathetic and beautifully helpful life for them. Even the professor, who cares for his pupils, gets a chat with them after his lecture, and will mostly require them to submit some of their work to his inspection. So the real preacher, whose passion is to save men, and to build them up in righteousness and true holiness, will never forget the great law given by Carlyle, that "souls grow more by contact with souls than aught else," and will act as one who believes that, that spiritual law applies nowhere more thoroughly than it does to his work. In getting rid, then, of old and ill-adapted methods, we must take care we do not lose the thing for which the methods were invented. A rusty tool is better than no tool at all; and a man may dig a garden better with an old spade than with his hands.

B. No doubt; but why use the rusty tool at all, when a finely polished one is to hand? Why should a man tie himself up in red tape -get a book, elaborately ruled, enter the names of father and mother, their ages, when they were married, when the fifteeen children were born, when they had the measles, and so forth, as if he were the family doctor? Visitation by the clock is always a hollow proceeding, and mostly useless, if not positively harmful. A man had better stay at home altogether than injure any spiritual life he may have, by gadding at express rate from house to house, offering up the same prayer as if he were a prayer-mill, and going through his work as though he were a machine. The less of the formal and the mechanical the better. Pastoral visitation, if done at all, should be as fresh and bracing as the visit of the warm sunshine on a November morning.

C. There is, as it seems to me, a prior question. Can it be done at all, as things-i.e., ministerial things are now? No one has a higher appreciation of the advantages of a wise and real shepherding of men than I have; and few men have made a more honest attempt to do it. I know that no process makes such willing and receptive hearers, or gives more point and appropriateness to sermons. The visit of the pastor in the week opens the ear of the heart on the Sunday. Receptivity reaches its maximum, and the possibilities of good-doing are numberless. "The house-going pastor makes the church-going people" is a proverb that is not without some truth. I have people about me now who were won years ago by a sympathetic visit in sickness. Bonds were created between me and many of my flock in times of distress, bereavement, and sorrow, that nothing can cut in twain. Some of my most useful sermons have been generated in the quickening atmosphere of pastoral work. Indeed I have often thought that if ministers would burn their "sketches and skeletons" of sermons, and study living men and women, their preaching would gain incredibly in point, practical directness, and general effectiveness. Contact with young men, in their struggles with the temptations of business, in their bravely fought battle for the right and the true, would give revelations of truth of

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surpassing interest, and put that tone into preaching which is one of the chief secrets of pulpit power.

But as George Macdonald says, in "Alec Forbes," "Contact with anything alters so much ones theories about it;" so the actual work of the ministry has modified very largely my theory of the strictly pastoral element in it. Its prodigious advantages I admit: but in nine cases out of ten it cannot be done. The real minister is the most overworked animal on the face of the earth. No man has such splendid opportunities of killing himself. He gives, often more than any one of his people, and sometimes more than any dozen of them. He works more hours than most men. He has more responsibility, more cares. Indeed if the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals were eager to do their duty, they would take up the case of ministers at once. From sheer necessity pastoral work is only partially done, and none lament it more than the pastors themselves.

What, then, is to be done? No doubt the pastor must still be THE PREACHER. He must put his whole self into his sermons: they must be permeated with his personality, his sympathy, his character, his head and his heart. By that means he must make it felt that he is their pastor, awake to their actual cares, sensitive to their sorrows, living in their world and not in his study, in every respect one of themselves. Some of the best pastoral work may be done from the pulpit by men whose deep solicitudes are for their people, for their growth in strength and beauty, in calmness and usefulness. Each sermon should be more than an exposition: even the wise application of eternal principles to the needs of the passing hour. The pastoral function of preaching is in danger of receiving too sparse a treatment just now. The last thing that would ever occur to you about some preachers is that they are pastors. You would no more think of taking a sorrow to them than of seeking communion with an iceberg. They have no heart; or what they have they successfully hide; and a man without a heart cannot be a pastor, though he visit till the day after doomsday.

D. One aspect of this subject ought not to be forgotten in this debate, and that is-How not to do it. It is quite as important to know what not to do, and what roads not to travel, as it is to have a clear path marked out for our going. If I were an old man I should suggest such rules as the following-(1.) Never visit just at meal times except by prior arrangement; and do not arrange to have your "legs under the mahogany" very often at dinner time. On no account accept all the invitations of that character you get. A pastor should not be a sponge. (2.) Do not "pile" up your visits on one family. It will be likely to breed mischief in many ways. (3.) Carefully avoid staying late at night. Your hosts will press you to stay. Do not believe them. Remember that even Christian society is not wholly free from hollowness and pretence, and that sincerity itself sometimes says some foolish things. (4.) Never diminish, by the smallest fraction, the profits of your men of business. Keep out of their way when they are at work, or you will be voted "unwelcome." They had better long for your visits than complain of their frequency and interference. (5.) Do not regulate your visits by your pleasure in paying them; but rather by the need of the persons visited, and by the good you can do. Some pastoral work is far from pleasant; but it should be done, notwithstand

ing. The poor, the weary, the troubled, the defeated, the struggling, should never be forgotten, nor should they be left to the last. The minister who visits only, or in excess, the well-to-do, the well-cultured, the most kindly, should not be surprised if he is regard as selfish. (6.) Never condescend to the disreputable work of distributing scandal. Better keep altogether out of the way of those who persistently distribute harmful gossip than share in such inglorious labour. The minister should always turn the best side of the vase to the front, and hide the cracks. I have been in the ministry a long time, and seen not a little mischief done by pastoral visitation. Tact, wisdom, and self-restraint, are as necessary as earnestness and sympathy, if this part of the preacher's work is to be well done.

E. I rise merely to ask a question: and, first, I should like to know whether it is wise for a non-abstaining minister to avoid taking wine, and everything of the sort, when he is visiting his people. Although I am not a total abstainer, yet I have always followed that rule, and, in my judgment, it is a matter of great importance.

F. I certainly should not do that. I don't believe in a man having one rule of conduct for his pastoral life, and another for his home life. Let him be honest, frank, and sincere, and do what he thinks to be right at home and away from home. Why should we have any acting a part? What we want to do is to keep the chief end of our work before us, and to make our life one in its purposes, and spirit, and acts.

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G. Undoubtedly but a man does not wear the same clothes in his study he does in the pulpit; he does not, if he be wise, talk on the same subjects, and in the same strain, before his children, as he does with his maturer friends. He "walks circumspectly;" walks in wisdom towards them that are without; accepts, as Paul did, the principle of expediency. I certainly should say that whilst it is best to avoid intoxicants altogether, yet the man who is not strong enough to do that is acting wisely and kindly in persistently refusing to make the wine-glass the companion of his pastoral work. It surely cannot be necessary. It may be dangerous. It can scarcely be said that it will be in the slightest degree useful.

H. This, then, is the conclusion of the whole matter. We must keep in view our work of saving men from sin, nourishing them in the life of godliness, in the grace and beauty of Christ Jesus. This is the aim of the ministry: "that we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus." Warning and teaching, visiting and writing, persuading and advising all our work, every part of our work, contemplates this result. In doing it, reality, sincerity, sympathy, kindliness, must rule. Mechanism must not be obtrusively heard and felt, however helpfully it may be employed. Love of Christly goodness in men, must be the dominating note. But as to the WAY in which this must be done each man must judge for himself. The rule that fits London does not apply at Misterton. The method that works well in busy Leeds may fail in torpid Rushall. The church with eighty members cannot be treated as one numbering eight hundred. Each man must do his work as seems best to himself in his place, cheered by the thought that as he is always in the Great Task-master's eye, so is he ever guided, sustained, and inspired by the Supreme Shepherd and Bishop of All Souls. JOHN CLIFFORD.

A Sunday School Teachers' Treat.

BY THE REV W. H. TETLEY, DERBY.

SUNDAY school treats are usually reserved for Sunday school scholars. They belong sometimes to the festal doings of Whitsuntide, or they may be associated with the recurrence of the Sunday school anniversary, or possibly with some other special season sacredly kept for the purpose; but they are always more or less a great occasion for the taught, and not for those who teach. To this, by no means unreasonable rule, a noteworthy exception has been recently furnished in the town of Derby, through the consideration and hospitality of the late Mayor, Mr. Bemrose. Prompted by a generous Christian impulse, he was moved to mark the close of his year of office by gathering round his board the Sunday school teachers and superintendents of the town; entertaining them in bounteous style at the tea table, and then entertaining them in hortatory fashion from the platform. Only two or three months ago the pages of this Magazine presented a brief and interesting sketch of his Worship; but it could hardly have been anticipated by its writer then that his allusion to the ex-Mayor's Sunday school sympathies would find so soon such a fresh and vivid illustration. Yet so it has been. The chief magistrate of Derby has taken his own point of departure from all the precedents of civic feasting; and for once, at any rate, municipal dignity has not hesitated to give its official recognition to a faithful band of men and women, who, as a class, are not often stimulated and encouraged in their important work by treats of this kind.

The sight presented by this treat was something novel. The spacious Drill Hall had been, by innumerable decorative touches, turned into a vast saloon, and what with lace curtains draped along the walls, and elegantly wrought banners unfurled from different coigns of vantage, the scene was most animated and attractive. Long tables, well spread with toothsome fare, stretched from one end of the hall to the other; another table, transversely placed, lay just below the orchestra, which, with its leafy line of ferns and shrubs, formed a very effective background for the life and movement lying before it; and when the hundreds of guests had taken their places, when the Mayoress had found her post at the head of the feast, when the rolling preludes of the organ had "trembled away into silence," and the resonant murmurs of joyous conversation were held in brief suspense, while rosette favoured stewards on every hand proclaimed all things ready-then up rose the Mayor announcing grace, which was grandly sung, and soon the lively clatter and pleasant excitement of the social meal were in full swing. What bright faces, and kindly looks, and cheerful words were there. Side by side sat Episcopalian and Nonconformist, Baptist and Wesleyan, Congregationalist and Primitive Methodist. They looked like a happy family of Sunday school workers; strangers and friends all mingling in goodly company together. Who can tell how many helpful hints were given, or how many profitable suggestions were exchanged. One incident of the tea-hour at least is worthy of record, and it may be an example of others of the same kind not overheard.

A little group of teachers from one school in the town were lamenting the faded aspect of their banner, and talking of a scheme mooted in teachers' meeting for buying a new one. A worthy friend close by, hearing the conversation, drew out his card, and though belonging to another denomination, and actively engaged in a large young women's class connected with another school, handed it to one of the teachers near to him, with the generous offer of a donation towards the cost of the new banner. Talk of good news from a far country-why if the banner itself had been at that very instant forthcoming, it could scarcely have been received with greater exuberance of grateful feeling. How much more blessed it is to give than to receive. What power there is in a pocket expression of sympathy to awaken endeavour and stir up the heart.

But at last the feast of tables was over, and the feast from the platform must begin. With as little confusion as possible the large assembly settled itself into form for hearing. The clergy and ministers of the town were called up from their scattered positions in the hall, and, mounting the orchestra, flanked the chair. Mounting still higher, tier above tier, were the young men and maidens of tuneful voice and musical sympathy, ready to lead in the service of song; and after the praises of our Saviour King had been shewn forth, and Mr. Crosbie had offered prayer, the Host addressed himself in vigorous and genial words to his crowd of guests. It was a good speech, well delivered, and it told. The Mayor's address alone would have sufficed to make the meeting a success. But his Worship had devised liberal things. He had pressed into his service Mr. Kelly, of Wesleyan fame, who delivered an admirable and telling address on "The Sunday school teachers' qualifications." He had secured the presence of Mr. Heald, of the Church Sunday School Institute, London, who, in a most vivacious and incisive address, unfolded his ideas on "The preparation and delivery of a lesson;" while he was still further supported by Sir Charles Reed, M.P., who gave an able review of Sunday school work in its past relations to popular education, and quite as judicious a forecast of its future in relation to the results of board school teaching.

What the general effect of this Sunday school teachers' treat may be can hardly as yet be ascertained. That it will impress the teachers who participated in it with the importance of being properly qualified for their work, that it will stimulate them to greater efficiency in their calling, and that it will lay upon them a deeper sense of responsibility in their relation to the rising generation around them, can scarcely be doubted; but it may be that even wider results will be won. This municipal recognition of the Sunday school is not without its value as a testimony to the place and power of Sunday schools amongst municipal institutions. They were originated as a philanthropic enterprise; they were adopted as church nurseries; they have grown and flourished through the sympathy and effort of our churches; and they have gained many enduring laurels in the church's spiritual work: but they are after all invaluable municipal institutions. They contribute indirectly to the maintenance of order and safety in our towns and cities, they give a special character to the public observance of the Sabbath, and secure its peaceful rest in some of the industrial centres of our land; they are a