(1 Chron. xv.) If we should be offended to see a ragged, filthy table-cloth spread over the communiontable, shall we encourage in an edifice raised for the worship of God, sounds which would not be tolerated in houses of cedar? I am not surprised when an unmusical pastor, who watches over the spiritual welfare of his flock, looks with a suspicious eye on a member of it who wishes to keep aloof unscientific helpers from her patiently-trained choir, nor that he thinks he discerns in her the spirit of the clerk who announced the performance of a new hymn in the following way: "Let us sing to the praise and glory of God, a hymn of my own composition!" But what can be well done, if every thing is to be omitted which foolish human nature might convert into food for pride?

I will conclude these observations by an extract from the last page of the "Manual of the Norwich Sol-fa System,' in which notice is taken of the danger to which a choir is exposed of singing to their own praise and glory.

A grand temptation to this evil will be removed, if psalmody be ever sufficiently cultivated, to render the execution of it easy and general. A congregation might then cease to be divided, as is too frequently the case, into performers and audience; and their mingled voices form one full ocean of harmony, representing the union and melody of heart which should characterize the assembly as members of one mystical body." **

A SUPERINTENDENT'S ADDRESS.

MY DEAR YOUNG FRIENDS,- For trespassing for a short space upon your time, I shall make no apology. Suffice it for me to say, that I have no other object in view than the promotion of your temporal and spiritual welfare.

A time was, and that not seventy years ago, when there was no Sunday-school in England. Children and young people, released from their usual employment, on

that day which God has commanded to be kept holy, usually spent it in riot and disorder, in cursing and taking their Creator's sacred name in vain, or in idle and licentious amusements. Thus trained, how could they escape the wrath of an offended God? thus trained, how miserable would have been your present positionhow awful your future prospects!

To rescue the young from this state of moral depravity and spiritual darkness was the object of the first promoters of Sunday-schools. To effect this object, it was necessary that the children should be carefully instructed in the truths of God's revealed will, as contained in the Bible, that their wandering footsteps should be guided to the house of prayer, and that they should be taught to reverence all the ordinances of our holy religion, God was pleased to bless these efforts, and to answer the prayers of his faithful servants with abundant success. Thousands have been plucked as brands from the burning thousands whose minds were enveloped in the gloom of moral darkness have been cheered and enlightened by the bright beams of Gospel truth; and thousands, through grace imparted by the instrumentality of our Sunday-schools, are now clinging to the cross of the Redeemer, and publishing, with grateful tongues, the goodness of the Lord.

:

But this, my young friends, has not been effected without great personal exertion and much individual deprivation of domestic comfort. Sunday after Sunday do your Teachers forsake their homes, and wend their way, through heat and storm, to meet you. Sabbath after Sabbath do they devote those talents, with which God has entrusted them, to the promotion of your peace on earth, and the securing of your happiness in eternity. They instruct you out of those Scriptures which God has given us as the only revelation of his will, what he is, and how you can and ought to serve him: they tell you of the uncertainty of life, and of the coming judg ment of the temptations to which you are exposed-of your sinfulness, ignorance, weakness, and insufficiency. They then point you to Jesus as the only Redeemer and your all-sufficient Saviour: they tell you how he died

for your sinslow he rose again for your justificationand how he ascended up into heaven to intercede for you at the right hand of God. They teach you to pray for the help and guidance of the Holy Spirit, by which you must perform your duty to God, to your neighbour, and to yourselves. Yea, they do more than this. They think of you when absent--they pray for you in secret they rejoice with those that do rejoice, and mourn, with godly sorrow, over those who wander from the fold of Christ.

Can you

And now, my dear young friends, let me ask you seriously, Does not this require something at your hands? Ought you not, at least, to love them? Ought you not to manifest your gratitude to them by your attention to their instructions-by striving to please them—and by a cheerful obedience to their orders? This is the only return they crave; and can you withhold it? reflect upon the pains they take to instruct you, and the solicitude they feel for your present and eternal happiness, and heedlessly, unfeelingly deprive them of their just reward? Will you, at the instigation of a false friend, or through the persuasion of an unworthy companion, render them evil for good-hatred for love? I hope better things, and am rejoiced to believe, that there are many among you who prize the instructions you re-' ceive, and are grateful for the advantages you enjoy. Go steadily forward, therefore, under the guidance of the Spirit of truth: be punctual and regular in your attendance at school-attentive to the instructions of your kind Teachers—and humble, but fervent in your addresses to the throne of grace in the house of Godand may the bands of Christian love and brotherly affection unite us as one holy family under one Head; so that, when we shall have passed the confines of time into the unknown regions of eternity, we may all meet at the right hand of Him who is the loving Teacher of all his children, and in obedience to whose command we feel constrained to feed his lambs.

Preston, March, 1849.

B.

IMPROVEMENT OF OPPORTUNITIES.

BE IN THE HABIT OF LEARNING SOMETHING FROM EVERY MAN WITH WHOM YOU MEET.

THE observance or neglect of this rule will make a wonderful difference in your character long before the time that you are forty years old. All act upon it, more or less, but few do it as a matter of habit and calculation. Most act upon it as a matter of interest, or of curiosity at the moment. The great difficulty is, we begin too late in life to make every thing contribute to increase our stock of practical information. Sir Walter Scott gives us to understand, that he never met with any man, let his calling be what it might, even the most stupid fellow that ever rubbed down a horse, from whom he could not, by a few moments' conversation, learn something which he did not before know, and which was valuable to him. This will account for the fact that he seemed to have a knowledge of every thing. It is quite as important to go through the world with the ears open, as with the eyes open. "When I was young," says Cecil, my mother had a servant, whose conduct I thought truly wise. A man was hired to brew, and this servant was to watch his method, in order to learn his art. In the course of the process, something was done which she did not understand. She asked him, and he abused her with very coarse epithets for her ignorance and stupidity. My mother asked her how she bore such abuse. "I would be called,' said she, ' worse names, a thousand times, for the sake of the information I got out of him." It is a false notion, that we ought to know nothing out of our particular line of study or profession. You will be none the less distinguished in your calling, for having obtained an item of practical knowledge from every man with whom you meet. And every man in his particular calling, knows things which you do not, and which are decidedly worth knowing.

I do not recommend you to try to learn every thing. Far from it. But while you have one great object in view, you can attend to other things which have a bearing on your object. If you were now sent on an express

object to a distant part of the country, while the great object before you would be, to do your errand well and expeditiously, ought you not, as you pass along, to use your eyes, and gaze upon the various scenes and objects which lie in your way? Ought you not to have your ears open, to pick up what information, anecdote, fact, every thing of the kind, you can, and thus return wiser? Would all this hinder you in the least? And would you not be fitting yourself, by every such acquisition, to be a more agreeable, intelligent, and useful man?-Todd's Student's Guide.

THREE PURPOSES.

EVERY LITTLE GIRL OR BOY SHOULD BRING THREE PURPOSES
IN THEIR MIND TO A SUNDAY-SCHOOL.

I FOUND in some sticks near a tree,
A sweet little nest built with care;
Where lay, as I peep'd in to see,
Three blue little eggs softly there.
How beautiful is such a sight!
To see in the downy, snug nest,
Such eggs, the poor mother's delight,
Who covers them warm with her breast.

But here in this nest, as I thought,

A picture of something I see,
Wherein too, if peeping, we ought
To find, like the eggs, one, two, three.

The bosom is that little nest;

Three purposes those eggs of blue,-
Resolves three in each little breast,
and to SEEK, and to DO.

TO PRAY,

The first is a purpose to PRAY;
The next is, the soul's good to SEEK;
The third, what you learn on this day,
To purpose to Do through the week.

These purposes teachers will watch,
And cherish with love and with care,
Like birds who their sweet eggs to hatch,
Themselves from no labour will spare.

D.