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solemn event. You will not think this a trifling matter then, in whatever light you may regard it now. I have been sent for by many a man and woman upon the bed of death, to speak with them upon their soul's salvation, who in health and strength scoffed at the Bible.

I have never refused to attend to these applications. But they have often been very painful scenes. It is a fearful thing to have to learn the first principles of the gospel when its strongest consolations are most wanted. The repentance of a death-bed is often very questionable. Alarm is frequently mistaken for penitence. Life is the time to serve the Lord. The Bible knows nothing of delay in these all-important matters. Its language is, "Seek ye the Lord while he may be found, call ye upon him while he is near."(Isaiah 55th, 6th.) "To-day if ye will hear voice, harden not your hearts." -(Psalm 95th, 7th and 8th.) "Behold now is the accepted time; behold now is the day of salvation."-(2nd Corinthians, 6th, 2nd.) Commending these things to your serious consideration ;—

I remain,

Your affectionate well-wisher,

WILLIAM SPENCER,

Minister of COWBRIDGE CHAPEL.

REMEMBER THE LITTLE ONES.

"MOTHER, I wish Mr. C would preach here all the time. I don't like to have Mr. P

come."

"Not like Mr. P—, my son? I thought every body liked him. He is an excellent man. Why do you dislike him?"

“Why, mother, when he preached here last, he stayed here all the time from Saturday to Monday, and I was just as still as I could be, and he did not speak to me or look at me once; and Mr. C always puts his hand on my head when he comes, and says, 'How does Charley do to-day?' just as though he loved me.”

I have a choice rose bush in my garden, presented by a dear friend. This year it had but few buds, and my little ones could only have one rose each. "I will save mine," said little Carrie," "and carry it to my teacher. Do you think she ever saw such a beautiful tea-rose?"

Day after day she watched her little bud, till it was half opened, and then it was plucked in the early morning, all fresh and dewy, and placed in water ready for school-time.

When she returned from school a cloud rested upon her usually sunny face; and upon inquiring its cause, she cried as though her little heart would break." You know my beautiful rose. Well, I suppose the teacher didn't want it. She had a whole vase full of flowers, but none of them half so sweet as that; and when I carried it to her, she just laid it on her desk, and didn't look at it once, and said, Take your seat, Carrie !'"

How easy to have said, "Thank you, Carrie," and smiled upon the child, and filled her little heart with grateful love instead of grief.-REMEMBER THE LITTLE ONES.-American Messenger.

HOW TO ILLUSTRATE A SUBJECT.

ILLUSTRATIONS are most valuable to a teacher, because they assist him in every step of his work: they aid him in gaining the attention of his scholars, in reaching their understandings and influencing their hearts. It is not intended to speak at present, either of how they ought to be used, or how they frequently are abused; we only seek to show how illustrations for any subject may be most easily discovered.

The first essential to the suitable illustration of any truth or duty is a clear idea of what is to be illustrated.

The want of this is the real hinderance which prevents many an instructor from illustrating his subject. It is not sufficient that the words in which the truth lies couched are familiar to the eye and ear; the idea must be clearly and fully mastered; it must be seen by the mind in all its fulness and in all its parts. Illustrations consist in pointing out things which are "like" the subject to be illustrated: how impossible is it to find these similitudes when we are ignorant, or have but a dim perception of the original! "There is a gentleman in the gallery of the lecture-room yonder, very like my brother-in-law," said a friend to me the other evening, "try to point him out." "It is impossible," I exclaimed, "you forget I never saw your brother-in-law!" It is just as impossible to illustrate a subject, without having a clear idea of what it is.

We are sorry

And how is this distinct comprehension to be attained? we cannot suggest any easier or more expeditious way than by the oldfashioned and almost disused method called "thinking." May we recommend it to our fellow-teachers and to ourselves! When once this step is taken, and we have vividly before us the subject of our teaching, it is strange, often, how easily likenesses will start into our minds.

The second step useful to find illustrations, is to throw your subject into its most general form. Having examined your subject, you must next generalize it by losing sight of its individuality, seize the general principles involved in it. Thus, taking lesson 151 in the Union's series as an example, The facts to be applied are briefly:

1. God calls Samuel.

2. Samuel does not know God's voice. 3. Samuel most willingly offers service to Eli.

Now, the general forms of these facts

seem to be something like these: 1. God speaks to all men.

2. Men do not know God's voice.
3. The young ought willingly to
obey.

4. Samuel reverently listens to God. 4. Men ought reverently to listen to

5. God honours him above Eli.

6. Eli submits to God's judgment.

God.

5. The young may be better than the old.

6. Submit to God's will.

It is not difficult to throw these, or such facts, into the general form; and these examples show distinctly what is intended by the rule. The next step is a more difficult one. It may be thus expressed: collect from God's word, or God's works, all the illustrations of each general statement, and out of these select the most suitable.

Now, evidently, this depends upon two mental qualifications of the teacher: the amount of knowledge from which illustrations are to be sought, and the power of recalling such thoughts to memory.

Some individuals are undoubtedly naturally endowed with faculties which make such operations easier to them than to others, but all have some ability in this direction, and each one can augment his ability.

To explain this rule by recurring to the examples already employed :—

1. "God speaks to all men."

In their consciences, and by His works. His word states this, and furnishes examples.

"God left not himself without a witness."

"For the invisible things of Him from the 'creation of the world are clearly seen," &c. Rom. i. 20.

"God also in sundry times, &c, Heb. i. 1,2.

God speaking to Adam in the garden, to Abraham, to Jacob, to
Moses, to Elijah.

Through Christ to the Jews.

Through the Bible to us. To "that is right," or "this is

every child when conscience says, .wrong."

It is so obvious, it is unnecessary to show how God through his works speaks to us of his power, gentleness, long-suffering, and wisdom.

2. "Man does not know God's voice."

Samuel did not know it here.

Paul did not know Christ's voice.

The Jews did not know God's voice when he spoke through Christ to them.

How few who read the Bible know it to be God's voice.

How few know that the whisper of conscience is the voice of God.

3. "The young ought willingly to obey."

Such is God's law everywhere. He teaches the lamb to follow the
ewe; the lion's cub to follow the lioness; the chicken to run at
the call of the hen. Their safety lies in obedience.

The danger of disobedience. Eli's sons, David's sons, Rehoboam,
Lot's son's-in-law and their wives.

4. "Men ought reverently to listen to God."

All God's creatures listen, except devils and men.

God called "the light," and it was.

Fish-Jonah; Peter.

Birds-Noah's dove; Elijah's raven.

Beasts-Balaam's ass; the lion that slew the prophet; the lions that slew not Daniel.

Commanded the raging sea. Spoke to disease and death; they listened and obeyed.

Israel listened only when God spoke in thunder and storm. Pharaoh only when the plagues were on him.

5. "The young may be better than the old."

The oldest man was not the best. Enoch was not nearly so old as
Methuselah.

David was preferred to his elder brothers. So was Joseph.
John was supposed to be the youngest of the twelve.

Jeroboam, Ahaz, and Amos had sons better than themselves.

How often Sunday scholars have led their fathers and mothers to Christ.

6. "Submit to God's will."

David on the death of his child.

Job under all his afflictions.

Aaron when his two sons died.
Paul and the "thorn in his flesh."

Christ at Gethsemane.

Submit when sickness and pain come; when disappointment comes; when you lose what you love; when your good-name, your property, your friends are taken; when death comes.

Such are a few illustrations (drawn from God's Word and God's works) of these general statements. From these illustrations the teacher must select what is most suitable to his class.-Scottish Sabbath School Teachers' Magazine.

ORNAMENTS AS A PART OF DRESS.

As personal ornaments may be considered a part of dress, a few hints respecting them will not be unacceptable here. In the first place, all ornaments should be made of those materials of which they are supposed to consist; mosaic jewellery instead of gold, paste instead of diamond, and numerous other substitutions, are paltry artifices which no person of respectability or good taste would descend to. In most cases they fail to produce the effect intended; their very lavishness, taken in connection with the wearer's means, begets suspicion of their genuineness; and when they are detected, the exposure only causes discomfiture. In the second place, a profusion of ornaments, however valuable they may be, are not to be approved of. Such profuse indulgence appears like an endeavour to outshine everybody else, and so suggests the idea that more importance is attached to these decorations by the wearer than to any mental endowments which they may possess, or any personal advantages with which Nature may have gifted them. In the third place, ornaments should be appropriate to the dress, and appear designed to answer some useful purpose; a chain, for instance, when worn round the neck should support a watch or locket; and a brooch or other ornament should be placed in that part of the dress where it fulfils its intended uses. No article should be worn in a manner that would make it appear simply as an ornament. The only exceptions to this rule are rings and bracelets.-Dictionary of Daily Wants,

ATTAINMENTS OF LINGUISTS.

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TAKING the very highest estimate which has been offered of their attainments, the list of those who have been reputed to possess more than ten languages is a very short one. Only four, Mithridates, Pico of Mirandola, Jonadab Alhanse, and Sir William Jones, are said in the loosest sense to have passed the limit of twenty. To the first two fame ascribes twentytwo, to the last two twenty-eight languages. Müller, Niebuhr, Fulgence, Fresnel, and, perhaps, Sir John Bowring, are usually set down as knowing twenty languages. For Elihu Burritt and Csoma de Körös, their admirers claim eighteen. Renaudot, the controversialist, is said to have known seventeen; Professor Lee, sixteen; and the attainments of the older linguists, as Arias Montanus, Martel Del Rio, the converted Rabbi Libettas Cominetus, the admirable Crichton, are said to have ranged from this down to ten or twelve-most of them the ordinary languages of learned and of polite society.-Life of Mezzofanti.

A SUNDAY SCHOLAR'S DEATH-BED.

THERE was a little fellow in my school, a scholar in a Testament-class, who attracted my attention by his regular and punctual attendance, his habits of order and quiet, and by his good behaviour generally. He was about twelve years of age, the son of a mechanic; a gentle pale-faced lad, with a grave simplicity of expression, rather heightened by wearing spectacles, which were necessary to help his near-sightedness. I found him, upon acquaintance, to be rather intelligent for his years, though he had received little or no education save what he had got in the Sunday school. He appeared to have had severe affliction in his younger days; and this, while enfeebling his body, had evidently quickened and refined his mind. I loved occasionally to have a pleasant chat with him; for he could talk very nicely, and seemed very grateful for any marks of kindness, and for advice. I found myself beginning to love him for the sweetness of his disposition, and the promise in him of many good qualities.

I had missed him from school for several weeks when his teacher called upon me to say that Emanuel B. was very ill, and that he had sent wishing to see me. He told his teacher that he remembered once my saying, while lecturing from the desk, that " 1 should be very glad to visit all sick scholars, if they would but let me know of their sickness; " and he hoped I would come. I was very sorry to hear this of him, and went almost immediately. I found him in a humble room, yet everything was clean and orderly about him; motherly tenderness had done all that could be done with scant means to make the little sufferer comfortable. After gently pressing his hand, I said, "Emanuel, I am very sorry to see you so unwell." "Yes," he said, quite cheerfully: "I am going to die."

"And what then?" I asked.

"O! I am going to heaven."

"I am glad to hear you say that; but tell me what makes you feel so confident of going to heaven?"

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