MORNING AND EVENING PRAYERS FOR A YOUNG SCHOLAR. (From Bishop Kenn.) MORNING PRAYER. GLORY be to thee, O Lord God, for all the blessings I daily receive from thee, and for thy particular preservation and refreshment of me this night past. O Lord, have mercy upon me, and forgive whatsoever thou hast seen amiss in me this night; and for the time to come, give me grace to fly all youthful lusts, and to remember thee, my Creator, in the days of my youth, Shower down thy graces and blessings on me, and on all my relations, [on my father and mother, on my brothers and sisters,] on all my friends, on my Teachers and my fellow-scholars, and give thy angels charge over us, to protect us all from sin and danger. Lord, bless me in my learning this day, that I may every day grow more fit for thy service; O pardon my failings and do more for me than I can ask or think, for the merits of Jesus, my Saviour, in whose holy words I sum up all my wants: Our Father, which art in heaven, &c. EVENING PRAYER. Glory be to thee, O Lord God, for all the blessings I daily receive from thee, and for thy particular preservation of me this day. O Lord, have mercy upon me, and forgive whatsoever thou hast seen amiss in me this day past; and for the time to come, give me grace to fly all youthful lusts, and to remember thee, my Creator, in the days of my youth. Lord, receive me and all my relations, and all that belong to this school, into thy gracious protection this night; and send me such seasonable rest, that I may rise the next morning more fit for thy service. Lord, hear my prayers, and pardon my failings, for the merit of my blessed Saviour, in whose holy words I sum up all my wants: Our Father, which art in heaven, &c. PUNCTUALITY AND REGULARITY (From the Scottish Sabbath-school Teacher's Magazine.) THAT punctuality and regularity of attendance on the part of the Teacher are essential to the welfare of a school, is, we think, evident to all who have had any experience in teaching; or who have allowed their minds to refer to the subject. It is almost superfluous, therefore, to attempt an elaborate proof of a truth so selfevident. It may serve, however, to increase our estimate of the importance of punctuality and regularity on the part of the Teacher, if we glance at some of the evils arising from a want of these two qualities. The great object of Sabbath-school teaching is the communication of religious knowledge, which, by the blessing of the Holy Spirit's agency, may savingly change the whole character of the child. But time is requisite to effect this. If the knowledge to be acquired is to be acquired consecutively, and if the good received this Sabbath is not to be effaced by his absence on the next, then there must be regular attendance on the part of the scholar; and if he is to receive not the partial, but the full amount of benefit from Sabbath-school instruction, he must be punctual. But irregularity and a want of punctuality in the Teacher frustrates the punctuality and regularity of the scholar. Children are characteristically imitative; and, from the depravity of our common nature, they are more ready to imitate our bad than our good qualities. The influence of example is more powerful with them than precept. And hence it almost invariably follows, that irregularity and a want of punctuality in the Teacher is imitated and reciprocated by the scholar. It follows almost with the certainty of a fixed law, that the irregular, unpunctual Teacher will have an irregular and unpunctual class. Let us attempt to draw a picture. The Sabbath, with all its golden opportunities of doing good, has come round-the children have assembled the incense of praise and prayer has ascended from their Sabbath-school altar to the God of heaven-and now Teacher and taught are actively employed in imparting or receiving those truths that make wise unto salvation. But there is one class unemployed and neglected. The Teacher is absent-he has been absent before-the children are anxiously expecting his arrival-their anxiety and expectation are fast merging into impatience and weariness, to be ultimately manifested in noise and disorder. The superintendent, whose eye has often turned to the door in the hope of seeing the Teacher crossing the threshold, has at length to annex his class to another, when a third, or, it may be, the half of the allotted time has gone-and gone for ever. Mark the same class on the following Sabbath. The Teacher is there-the class is there too-but in diminished numbers. True to the law, that "like produces like," some of them are treading in the footsteps of the Teacher; and it may be that this is again and again repeated, until a large and interesting class is reduced to a skeleton-or not improbably has, with the Teacher, wholly disappeared. Nor is this all. The evil is contagious. In all probability some other class suffers from the pernicious effects of this Teacher's irregularity—the children of his own class, who have naturally followed his example, have their companions in another class, it may be their younger brothers or sisters, whom they can the more readily influence to like irregularity with themselves; and thus the evil may be indefinitely extended. And if we follow the scholar in thought, (and such a case as we would depict is not purely imaginary, but too often finds its parallel in sad reality,) his repeated acts of irregularity are at length succeeded by his wholly absenting himself from the school-his religious impressions are gradually worn off-his respect for the Sabbath obliterated-his moral habits vitiated-and his whole character at length steeped in vice-so that to human sight he seems beyond the reach of reclaim. And then, to have to trace such a consequence up to our own example of irregularity, must be to inflict the severest compunctions of conscience-to fill the soul with the most harrowing remorse. Not only is the want of regularity and punctuality in the Teacher fatal to the punctuality and regularity of the scholar, but it is injurious to the order of a school. The communication of instruction is the work of the Teacher; but an indispensable auxiliary to his effecting this, is the preservation of order. Now, irregularity and unpunctuality in the Teacher are infallibly destructive of order. The Teacher should be in the school before the scholars, and stationed in his class from the time he enters: his friendly smile of recognition should greet and welcome each scholar as he takes his seat in the class, and under the immediate eye of his Teacher. Strong indeed will be his spirit of turbulence, or weak the Teacher's power to control, if he does not feel the steady gaze of his eye a check at least to any violent ebullition of disorder. But the calm, serene, and circumspect demeanour of the Teacher, (the almost constant accompaniment of the regular, punctual, and faithful discharge of duty,) will, in a short time, in most cases, find its reflection and counterpart in the quiet, orderly, and circumspect conduct of the children. But the want of punctuality and regularity in the Teacher would thwart and annul the most wisely conceived rules for the preservation of order. Observe the unpunctual Teacher. He has at length arrived at the school. He is ten or twenty minutes behind the appointed time of meeting. Perturbed, and conscious of his want of self-control, and reading a rebuke to his tardiness in every eye, he enters his class. But the class, grown weary of waiting his coming, are enjoying buoyantly and lustily the full liberty of speech and action-to the no small discomfort of the Teachers in the adjoining classes, whose attention has again and again been diverted from their own class in attempting to check their disorder. The Teacher is now seated in his class; but, in addition to the infliction of loss of time by his neglect of punctuality, the injury done to |