lain. But yet whatever you think, be well assured of this, that time alone can show the wisdom or folly of what has been done; that nothing has been done until after the most mature deliberation, and that your comfort and happiness have been most sedulously thought for. By gladly doing your duty, and obeying those who are set over you in the Lord, authority will never be seen, nor the stringency of the laws felt.

It is clear, from even this short view of your office, that your duties are onerous in the extreme, your responsibilities most fearful; and that without more than human aid you will never be enabled to discharge these duties faithfully. Particular duties require particular graces. Let me, therefore, beg of you most affectionately to weigh well the following suggestions, as to the manner in which you will be prepared to work out your daily duties. And

1. CHERISH A DEEP SPIRIT OF SINCERE AND UNFEIGNED HUMILITY. "This," as S. Chrysostom says, "is the foundation of all virtue.' It is the humble penitent that receives healing for his wounds; the humble Christian that is preserved holy and blameless in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation. For, be well assured, that God is always near to those who feel most deeply their own nothingA strong conviction of this must make men cleave closer unto God, and desire to draw from the fountains of His grace that strength which shall enable them to stand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand.

ness.

The blessedness of this grace, as it refers to your spiritual condition, will hereafter be laid before you. Its connection with the wellbeing of human society may be fitly introduced here. When men begin to think more highly of themselves than they ought, and to set themselves one above another, the consequence is sad indeed. Envy, hatred, malice, backbiting, evil speaking, and all uncharitableness, separate those who, as Christians, baptized in the one faith, should be kind and bound to each other by the strongest possible ties. Sympathy dies-distrust springs up. The indulgence of thoughts and feelings such as these among you would prove most lamentably prejudicial to the interests of those schools. Banish, therefore, all false notions of pride. Let Christian feeling, Christian love, Christian sympathy, rule all your hearts. Let self die, and let all your thoughts, time, and talents, be devoted to one great and grand object the reformation of the Pauper population. Let these children see how you love one another, that so they may learn from your example how sweet a thing it is for brethren to dwell together in unity. Be resolved to see no slight where none is intended, no injury where none is meant. As you value your peace, comfort, usefulness, strive to preserve a good understanding among yourselves, forbearing and forgiving one another in love, and the God of peace will give you His blessing.

2. EXERCISE MUCH FAITH AND PATIENCE.-Be not too sanguine

at first, lest disappointment, when it comes, should sting you the more keenly. No great work is ever accomplished in a short time, or without much labour. Time is necessary for perfection. More especially is this the case with education. Children must be led on gradually, step by step (as their minds can bear it), until they attain unto a knowledge of the truth. Their powers will be gradually developed, and to this development of powers your lessons must be adapted. There must be no forcing,-forced plants are not unfrequently the sickliest, and soonest die.

It may be, that some who are most promising at first, will eventually prove the greatest adepts in wickedness and vice. The solitude and wretchedness of heart you will then feel I can well imagine. I have felt it (and so have most Parish Priests) when I have seen young parishioners, whom I have tended with greatest care and anxious solicitude, fall from the paths of holiness and virtue, and give unbridled indulgence to their evil passions. But yet be not cast down. The Christian should never despair. The Almighty is his defence and shield; He is a present help in the time of trouble. Look not for immediate results. Cast your eyes forward into the future. Depend only upon God. Be content to sow the seed, though you should not gather in the harvest. Be content to labour constantly, incessantly, prayerfully, and leave the rest to Him, who employs the weakest instruments to achieve the most mighty results, and whose word will not return unto him void.

3. CULTIVATE THE HABIT OF DAILY SELF-EXAMINATION.-You would deem him a careless and negligent tradesman or merchant, who did not regularly examine his accounts, and see what losses he had sustained, or what profits he had made. Language would almost fail you when you wanted to express your sense of his great folly. But of how much greater folly are they guilty, who rarely, if ever, examine the state of their hearts. The interests involved are far higher and greater than anything of earth; and if men do not frequently, ay, daily examine themselves, they will in all probability be gone far in sin before they are conscious of it. Things seen affect us more than things that are unseen. And if we are careless, the cold blast of an evil world will soon deaden the flame of Divine love. The habits and customs of this world seize hold upon us sooner than we are aware. We imbibe its spirit, and are charmed by its vanity of vanities, when we imagine these things have lost their influence over us. Examine, therefore, your own selves; but not as he of whom we read, who spake unto his soul, merely to flatter himself into a state of deadly security. Let it be a searching, trying, careful examination. Pry into the hidden recesses of your inmost hearts, and see if there be any evil thing lurking therein. Test the words and works of every day-not by those of men, frail and impotent as yourselves, nor yet by a standard of your own choosing, but by the Word of God. See whether love hath waxed cold; whether you have kept your words and thoughts in check; whether you have dis

charged your duties as becometh those who labour as accountable unto God. Watch most carefully against those sins which the world calls trifling. For, be well assured, that nothing connected with the Christian life can be trifling or unimportant.

4. MEDITATE FREQUENTLY UPON GOD'S HOLY WORD.-A speculative religion will soon die. The meditative only will live and flourish. The word of God is the joy and delight of the faithful. They read it by day-they meditate on it by night. Study it, I beseech you, thoughtfully, humbly, prayerfully. Read it as a precious book of devotion, and not as is, alas! too common-for the purpose of proving some religious theory you may love. God's word is God speaking to man-and when God speaks, man must reverently listen, and gladly obey.

If you would be good and holy, if you would love God with all your hearts and souls, dwell much in holy meditation. Think on Death, Judgment, Heaven, Hell. Above all, meditate constantly upon the mystery of Godliness-God manifest in the flesh. Be the cross and passion of our blessed Saviour a dear subject of contemplation to you. The cross is the Christian's glory, and his boast. His hours of deepest humiliation were hours of most glorious triumph. Gethsemane and Calvary, though scenes of agony and suffering, were yet scenes of victory, such as never before was achieved. Death and hell were vanquished, and the powers of darkness overthrown. The more you think upon Him, who died on the cross, the more will you learn the awful character of sin, and the deep, ceaseless love of Him, who loved you unto death. The more time you pass in meditation on the sufferings of Him, who was none other than the only begotten Son of God, perfect God, and perfect man, the more clearly will divine light break in upon you; the more warmly will your hearts burn with love returning love: the more earnestly will you pray grace to lead a life-not of ease, and luxury, and self-pleasing, but of patient endurance and holy self-denial, and conformity to Christ's suffering; the more fully will you realize the thrilling import of the Apostle's words, when he says, "We are the children of God, heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ: if so be that we suffer together, that we may be also glorified together."

for

5. Lastly. BE ESSENTIALLY MEn and women oF PRAYER.—It is in answer to fervent, effectual prayer that Divine Grace will be given unto you, and the dew of Heaven descend upon your labours. Without this you will labour in vain, and spend your strength for nought. Self-examination can profit you nothing, unless you pray for grace to strengthen all your good resolves, and arm you against the attacks of the evil one. The reading of God's word will take none effect, unless you pray earnestly that its truths may be applied to your hearts. It is the prayerful Christian alone that is watchful, humble, self-denying, contemplative. To him alone will the secret of the Lord be revealed.

Here you will have a blessed opportunity, for which many pant in

vain. If you improve it not, it will prove a curse-privileges despised, opportunities neglected, will rise up in judgment against you. At early morn, and at eventide, will the bell summon you to prayer. Be thankful for this, and use it well. But yet let not this interfere with or shorten the time when the soul should hold intimate communion with God; when the closed door of your own room should shut out all thoughts of the jarring elements-the pride and vanity, the unquiet, and distresses, of the world without; and when the soul, bounding beyond the limits of this world, appears, as it were, before the throne of God himself. Sweet and precious are these moments. Rich and valuable beyond compare are the blessings which your prayers will insure. At morn you will receive strength for the discharge of your daily duties, and at eve will calm and quiet your troubled souls.

Pray always, when you are in school, in the playground-or whatever you are doing, ask God's blessing upon you, and everything you need shall be granted unto you. For know well: "If ever you would learn to converse with God, or to have your conversation in Heaven; if ever you would get a foretaste of the joys to come; if ever you would conquer the lusts of the flesh; if ever you would extinguish vain and evil thoughts; if ever you would arrive to a sound mind, and that inward spiritual worship of God, without which, Christ says, none can please Him; if ever you would have your souls become strong, lusty, and vigourous in the ways of God; this is the way, even this, praying without ceasing."*

And now I commend you and this institution to Almighty Godassuring you, that for you, for myself, and all connected with us, I shall not cease to pray in the words of the Collect, "O God, forasmuch as without Thee we are not able to please Thee; mercifully grant that Thy holy Spirit may in all things direct and rule our hearts; through Jesus Christ our Lord.-Amen."

ARTICLE X.

RELATIONS OF THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL.

BY THE REV. R. B. WESTBROOK, OF PHILADELPHIA.

THE Sunday-school sustains an important relation to the Home, the School, and the Church.

I. THE HOME. (1.) It was never intended that the Sunday-school should interfere with the domestic instruction, so clearly required in the Scriptures.

The family is a Divine institution, and no earthly power can ever excuse parents from the duties which it involves, in reference to the

* Horneck.

religious training of the young. The objection to the Sunday-school' that it assumes the moral and religious guardianship of parents, has been successfully answered by Dr. Chalmers; and numerous facts show most conclusively, that family religion has been greatly promoted by the Divine blessing upon Sabbath-schools.

(2.) Pious parents are greatly assisted in the religious training of their children, by the labours of the godly Sunday-school teacher. The lessons of the Sunday-school are carried to the home, and furnish occasion for the study of the Bible, and matter for religious inquiry and conversation; and hence, it is found that no persons are more in love with this blessed institution, than are those parents who are most diligent in the exercises of family religion. Where one parent has attempted to shift his responsibilities upon the Sunday-school teacher, it is safe to assume that a thousand have been quickened and encouraged in the good work of family instruction, and that ten thousand children, by the blessing of God, have received religious impressions in the Sabbath-school, which will result in making many Christian homes, when these little ones shall come to years of maturity.

(3.) That the Sunday-school sustains an important relation to the HOME, will appear in view of the lamentable fact, that so many parents are indisposed or incompetent to attend to the religious training of their children.

From the census report of 1850, it appears that the number of persons in the United States over 20 years of age, exclusive of the slave population, unable to read and write, was at that time more than one million, and that this number is rapidly increasing each decade, appears from authentic documents.

And then the fact must not be overlooked, that multitudes of parents never enter the sanctuary where the Gospel is preached.

In a careful investigation made in one of our New England States, in 53 towns and villages it was found that only about 28 per cent. of the population attended church, and in our most flourishing cities, in the Middle States, not more than one-fourth of the inhabitants habitually hear the Gospel preached, while only one in seven of the aggregate population of our country, are members of Protestant Churches. It has been published upon good authority, that less than one-third of the population of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, and Iowa, is under the direct influence of evangelical instruction. If this be so, what must be the state of things in our more new and less favoured States and Territories?

It is believed by those best qualified to judge, that not far from one-half of the people of these United States, habitually neglect the sanctuary, hear "another gospel," or are destitute of public religious instruction. In view of these things, but little is to be expected from multitudes of parents in the work of religious education. Read the following sketch from "real life,"-furnished by the pen of a City Pastor:-"Take the bright baby boy, who finds his home in a tenant