promoted in this way; and there is no surer pioneer of religion, among the uncultivated, than philanthropy. Its whole range is opened to the person who is willing to be the friend of the Sunday scholar's family, and an entire neighbourhood may be blessed for the sake of the youngest of its inhabitants.

The office of teacher or any other agent in the Sunday school is an unquestioned passport to any household, poor or rich, and the latter rank of the congregation, as well as the former whether in or out of it, are accessible to such visiters. Sensible parents, and well meaning people generally, will not deem such attentions intrusive. The persuasion that the welfare of their own offspring is an object of a stranger's solicitude, will soften many a rugged disposition, and open the heart to unwonted emotions. And in spiritual humanity it will be difficult to decide which is the stronger claimant for Christian compassion, the child of the poor or rich.

Energetic action is one of the best means of promoting healthful personal piety. It is the indolent professor who is most liable to despondency, and to a disrelish of spiritual duties. The prescription of the apostle springs from the principles of nature, as well as religion, that if Christians expect to be otherwise than barren and unfruitful in the knowledge of their Lord,' they must add 'energy' to their faith." In the words of an eminent philosophical and evangelical observer of the times, "there is, manifestly, something which requires to be balanced or adjusted, and kept in equipoise, between the principle of faith, and the principle of action. The one has a tendency to exclude the other, or to overpower it. But Christian excellence consists in the preservation of this balance; and the preservation of it, we must add, greatly depends upon the circumstances of the times. Now, perhaps, for a season, faith and energy are both strongly stimulated; and the highest style of Christian heroism is reached. Again, the inducement of action being slackened, faith is deprived of the invigoration it had received from the contest with the antagonist principle; it triumphs, or rather seems to triumph, for a moment; but presently becomes extravagant, then imbecile; and at length, utterly inert. need not be surprised to find that faith, though heaven-born, can neither live nor be productive alone. Excellence of all kinds, physical, intellectual, and spiritual, is the product, not of the simple operation of some one principle; but of the op

We

pugnant forces of two or more powers, which have a natural fitness to counteract each other."*

We think this remark pertinent to our argument, as furnishing the highest motive next to the immediate desire of glorifying God, that can be presented to stimulate the zeal of the disciple, and as another incentive to the Church to seize with eagerness any new mode that is offered of elevating the standard of piety.

Collectively, the Church is bound to provide for this department upon an adequate scale. The necessary accommodations and facilities should be furnished by it; and the care of these details should not be superadded to the duties of the teachers, any more than the financial concerns of the congregation should be laid upon the minister. The time ought long since to have arrived when every house of worship should have a separate building for its Sunday Schools, admitting of the necessary subdivision of pupils, in distinct apartments, with a chapel for at least occasional services for the children exclusively. A small fund would furnish an amount of moral and religious reading sufficient to benefit many hundreds of families at once. Over these circles of subordinate agency, the minister and other ecclesiastical officers should maintain a kind superintendence. They should consider it part of their pastoral and official duty to inspect their operations; to be familiar with the process and nature of the instructions afforded. The maintenance of purity and orthodoxy requires that they should not be ignorant of the character, capacity, and views of those who have the almost exclusive care of a large portion of their rising charge. The schools constitute, literally, the nurseries of the Church: from them are continually presented applicants for union with it, and their character will soon determine that of the whole body. The official guardians of the young, no more than parents, should feel that this part of their charge is alienated to the teachers. Parental fidelity is important to maintain the influence of the teacher, and the spiritual officers are bound to extend their episcopacy over persons holding such responsible stations as the directors of the minds of the young.

In most churches at this day, (we again remind our readers that our observations are general, and refer to the Christian community at large,) the only ecclesiastical provision made

'Saturday Evening,' Art. xii.

for the benefit of the children, is the requirement of a regular recitation from the catechism of the denominations to which they are attached. These examinations occur, commonly, at intervals of several weeks, during which there is no pretence of actual supervision by the official overseers. The formularies which are to be repeated by rote, mostly comprise a system of theology arranged as a science, and composed in technical phraseology. When these sententious definitions are duly committed and rehearsed, the maternal offices of the Church are discharged, and the nurslings are dismissed, with perhaps some common-place advice, until the next recurrence of the ceremony. Now, we have no hesitation in saying that such exercises, unaccompanied by plain exposition calculated to enter the understandings of the young, and without a faithful aim to reach their hearts, are not only without any present profit, but are likely to engender an aversion from them which may end in an invincible misesteem of this portion of the standards. Under the most faithful and popular conducting, these brief examinations must be meagre and superficial, and in all respects inferior to the practical, constant, and exclusive services of the Sunday school teacher. Formerly many children in our congregations had no opportunity of access to religious influence, excepting such as the catechetical class might afford. Their parents, even the pious, were often satisfied that they had met their obligations by requiring their preparation for their tasks; and if not pious, they sent them as one of the acts of courtesy, which the moral world deems fit to be occasionally shown to the institutions of religion. For all these deficiencies the Sunday School should be welcomed as a relief, and if not adopted as a substitute, yet admitted as a better scheme, to the spirit and mode of which the old one should be made to conform.

As a means of grace, too, which has been peculiarly blessed to the teachers who undertook the service before their own conversion, it is of great moment that an anxious eye should be kept upon this class of the congregation. To decide that professors only should have charge of the schools, would discard a vast number of efficient teachers, and remove them from an influence which has been so remarkably favoured. Besides, a disposition that inclines persons to engage in a service of this nature, almost certainly implies the existence of some degree of inclination to attend to the claims of religion, and in this state of mind they are most likely to be

faithful to their charge, and to be led to set an example of submission to Christ. But it is, undoubtedly, prudent that these individuals should not be unknown, and that they should be the objects of special watchfulness and spiritual anxiety.

The ministry have not yet exhibited the intimate and active connexion with this department of their charge that is expected from them. The general system owes much to their approbation and encouragement, but they have not begun to consider it is a prominent part of their pastoral duty to take care of their schools. Would they be content to have several hundreds of their congregation taken from their immediate control, and taught by thirty or forty individuals, of whom they know little more than that they are communicants in good standing? And is it lawful for them to be indifferent to, or ignorant of, the nature of the course of teaching which is applied weekly in the training of the most important portion of their people? How deeply must those principles be fixed which a zealous teacher plants in the mind of a young scholar! The circumstances of this education are infinitely more favourable for the success of his efforts than those of a pastor can ever be. Each of these ministers has a congregation of but eight or ten, whose attention is necessarily concentrated on him; he has the facility of direct personal appeal to each one, and this for a length of time equal to that employed by the minister in the public services; he is able to visit them every week, to follow and direct them in all their pursuits, and confirms his official authority by the affection which his kindness and interest have excited. Under such care his mind is formed, and the impressions can hardly be counteracted. The sermon from the pulpit is not adapted to his capacity; and even should he comprehend it, and hear the doctrines of the school-room controverted, he would be apt to satisfy himself in the conclusion, that his teacher was the oracle after all. The pulpit-minister is to him a comparative stranger; he is the man in black whom he holds in mysterious awe; he does not know him as a private friend, an affectionate adviser; and he always associates him with the desk and the rites of the sanctuary, as a personage who is not to be thought of in any other connexion. Thus the mind is preoccupied, and thus it will grow up and strengthen, and take its character from the inflection the teacher has given it, whatever that character be. If there be a variance with the opinions of the minister, there must be a

contest with the prejudices thus instilled that will make a change of views at least difficult and perplexing. But it is more probable that it will result in dissatisfaction, or confusion, if not in an entire theological revolution in the character of the Church. For such an issue the ministry should be held in a great degree responsible, if they have thus permitted a whole generation to go through a course of indoctrination from year to year, without inquiry or interference on their part.

It will certainly be admitted that such an issue is possible, where there is no pastoral supervision, and that the Church may thus be said to be in the hands of Sunday school teachers. Let the constituted guardians of its peace and purity, then, see that they are not cherishing an infant Hercules for its own subversion. The surest way of guarding against all such possible evils is, that the teachers should feel that they are recognized as co-pastors, and that they are held by some responsibility to the Church of Christ. A minister may, by the indifference he manifests to the state of his schools, the formality of his visits to them, and the avoidance of all intercourse or pastoral duty with the teachers as such, so effectually repel them as to be considered to have refused their control. Left in this way to their own course, discouraged from going to their natural adviser, they are compelled to be their own guides, and to go on in their labours unnoticed and forgotten, excepting perhaps, to be classed in an occasional paragraph of prayer with the ancient covenant people,' Ethiopia, and other expletory topics.

An inversion of this would, of course, insure an auxiliary in his functions whose efficiency will tend more to lighten his burthen, and promote his success, than many clerical colleagues. By devoting a regular service to the instruction. and advice of teachers; by mingling so much with the business of the school as to have his connexion with it felt, without involving him in the peculiar duties of the teachers; by combining it as an integral portion of the general interests of the Church; by keeping parents in a right estimation of its privileges, and their corresponding duties; by connecting it in prayer, and preaching, and pastoral visitation with the most prominent means of promoting religion; by all such methods. as he employs in impelling his people to duty, he may and should elevate in their consideration the system of youthful religious education. The ministry is the proper source of