practice of addressing their questions or remarks more to one portion of their class than to others. This may arise partly from the best and readiest scholars being seated in the same place; and when it is considered what a trial of patience it is to have to wait long for an answer, and perhaps not get one after all, it is not to be wondered at if the teacher instinctively turns to that quarter where he is least likely to be kept waiting, or to meet with disappointment; for the practice may arise from one of those spontaneous habits for which there is scarce accounting, when in speaking one will turn his body oftener to one side, or to one particular point, than to another. But, arise from what it may, the practice is not to be commended; for if those who should be personally dealt with as scholars, are treated as if they were merely auditors or spectators, it is scarcely to be thought they will continue long to be personally interested in the business or duties of the class; and where a personal interest ceases to be felt, attention is sure to flag. By all means, therefore, a teacher should make it his endeavour to divide himself as much as possible among his scholars, and to distribute as nearly as he can, an equal share of his attention to each. He will do well to circulate a ceaseless round of questions all along the class, not, however, in so fixed a succession that a scholar may be counting when it will come to his turn to be next interrogated. Let him strive to catch every eye that is in his class as often as he can, so that the impression on each scholar shall be, that the teacher's eye is always on him, and yet never off his neighbours. Thus only will the whole class be kept on the alert, and both master and scholars be a mutual stimulant to each other in their work. 3. Act as much as possible on a system of prevention in maintaining discipline in your class. It is quite possible, with a little contrivance, to watch your scholars without making them feel they are watched; and this we hold to be the best surveillance of any. For, while we would strongly urge upon the teacher to keep a watchful eye, in order to prevent any trifling or mischief by anticipating it, yet let him guard against making his scholars feel that they are suspected by him; for this is painful to one that is innocent, and with those who are badly disposed, it may often suggest what they might not have been thinking of, or may provoke them to carry out an only half-formed intention. When an offence has been committed publicly, do not shrink from publicly rebuking the offender. But, however much you may maintain discipline by administering a just punishment, your authority so far suffers from the bare fact that under your very eye an offence has been committed. And, therefore, we hold it to be not only more agreeable, but also more conservative of authority, if, without any one knowing of it save yourself, and perhaps the intending culprit, (whose conscience will catch at a stray hint,) you succeed in pre-detecting (if we may use the word,) his design, and without exposure disconcert it. It is by no means the best method of prevention to deal too freely in premonitory warnings, to be for ever telling your scholars not to do this or that. It were a much surer method if, with few words, and as few instances of actual exposure as possible, you could work an impression upon the minds of your scholars that you never could for a moment imagine that an impropriety would be attempted in your presence, and on the Sabbath-day. Such an impression, if it is not too much trusted in by the teacher, (for children will forget themselves at times,) will go a great way to maintain decorum and secure attention, on that principle of prevention which, according to the old proverb, we still hold to be better than cure. Above all, let the teacher keep his scholars with their hands full of work; for activity, after all, is the most profitable, and therefore the best, preventive discipline. 4. Strive to unite your class, and to make it realize its own unity. There will be diversities of disposition, of age, and of parts, but a fellow-feeling might knit the whole together as members in one body. So much, in our idea, should a class be one, that if any of its number were detected in a fault, the whole would in a manner feel themselves to be disgraced. There perhaps is too little of a domestic aspect in our Sabbath-schools. We could wish to have our classes seated around their respective teachers, as if in very truth they had not come abroad from their family hearths, but were each a fireside circle, round its presiding parent, to draw instruction from his lips. It would be a fine blending of the social with the domestic, were this realized. Our space will not permit of it, else it were easy to shew how much in this way the instructor's work would be facilitated; besides what it is when his class is distinguished into about as many parts, and party interests, as there are scholars in it; when, in consequence, there can be very little in common, and when there cannot be that working "with a will, and together," which, whether you are propelling-the mind in its own proper element, or a boat upon the waters-is alike indispensable. MASTERY OVER THE MIND. (From Dr. Abercrombie's " Culture and Discipline of the Mind.") AMONG the phenomena presented by human character, none will strike you as more remarkable than the various objects which men propose to themselves in life. In all, a certain vision of happiness seems to float over the scene; but how various are the courses by which the phantom is pursued; and how many enter upon the pursuit without proposing to themselves any definite course at all! They never seem distinctly to put to themselves the question, in what the imagined enjoyment consists, and what are the elements by which it is constituted. One expects to find it in wealth—another in power-a third in rank-a fourth in fame-while not a few are found to seek it in a mere round of excitement, perishing with the hour which gave it birth. Thus a large proportion of mankind pass through life, pursuing an imagined good which too often eludes their grasp-or which, even after it has been attained, is found incapable of giving satisfaction. They live upon the opinions of other men, and are thus left at the mercy of a thousand external circumstances, by which the good they had so long pursued is blasted in the enjoyment. They enter upon life, without forming any definite conception of what the great business of life ought to be; and when they perceive that it is drawing to a close, they look back with astonishment to find that it has passed over them like a dream-that they cannot say for what purpose they have lived-or perhaps are compelled to acknowledge that they have lived in vain. But life presents another aspect, when we view it as a scene of moral discipline; when we look not at its pains and its pleasures, but its high duties and its solemn responsibilities; and at the discipline of the heart, from which springs a true and solid happiness which external circumstances cannot destroy. All, then, is defined and clear. The object is definite, and the way to it is marked as by a light from heaven. Each step that is gained is felt to be a real and solid acquirement; and each imparts a sense of moral health, which strengthens every principle within for further progress. I know that I carry your best feelings along with me, when I thus call your attention to that course of life, which alone is adapted to its real and solemn importance, which alone is worthy of those powers of our intellectual and moral nature, with which we have been endowed by Him who formed us. In the culture of these is involved not only a duty and a responsibility, but a source of the purest and the most refined enjoyment. For there is a power which is calculated to carry a man through life, without being the sport and the victim of every change that flits across the scene. This power resides in a sound moral discipline, and a well-regulated mind. The foundation of all mental discipline, in the words of an eminent writer,* consists in the "power of mastering the mind." It is in having the intellectual processes under due regulation and control; and being thus able to direct them, upon sound and steady principles, to the acquisition of useful knowledge, and the discovery of truth. Here we are, in the first place, reminded of that remarkable power which we possess over the succssion of our thoughts. We can direct the thoughts to any * M. Degerando. subject we please, and can keep them directed to it with steady and continuous attention. In the due culture of this power consists a point in mental discipline, of primary and essential importance. By the neglect of such culture, the mind is allowed to run to waste amid the trifles of the passing hour, or is left the sport of waking dreams and vain delusions, entirely unworthy of its high destiny. There is not a greater source of difference between one man and another, than in the manner in which they exercise this power over the succession of the thoughts, and in the subjects to which these are habitually directed. It is a mental exercise which lies at the foundation of the whole moral condition. He who, in early life, seriously enters upon it, under a sense of its supreme importance; who trains himself to habits of close and connected thinking, and exerts a strict control over the subjects to which his thoughts are habitually directed,-leading them to such as are really worthy of his regard, and banishing all such as are of a frivolous, impure, or degraded character,-this is he who is pursuing the highest of all earthly acquirements, the culture of the understanding, and the discipline of the heart. This due regulation, and stern control of the processes of the mind, is, indeed, the foundation of all that is high and excellent in the formation of character. He who does not earnestly exercise it, but who allows his mind to wander, as it may be led by its own incidental images or casual associations, or by the influence of external things to which he is continually exposed, endangers his highest interests both as an intellectual and a moral being. "Keep thy heart with all diligence," says the sacred writer, "for out of it are the issues of life.' Now, it cannot be too anxiously borne in mind, that this great attainment is, in a remarkable degree, under the influence of habit. Each step that we take in the prosecution of it will facilitate our farther progressand every day that passes over us, without making it the object of earnest attention, the acquirement becomes the more difficult and the more uncertain-and a period at length arrives, when no power exists in the mind, capable of correcting the disorder which habit has fixed |