knowledge to which teachers look. If their views of truth are to be clarified, established, and made consistent, it is the province of the ministry to do it. To qualify them properly for their station, something more than the proficiency of cate chumens is necessary. Some intellectual discipline is required to prepare them for a systematic study of truth; and they need habits of regular thought and judgment. These may or may not have been parts of their education, but they should be applied to religious investigations with skilfulness. The minds of the children, too, will claim their study, if they hope to mould them, and prepare them for substantial exercise. Children should be guided in the art of thinking, as well as supplied with subjects of thinking; and that scholar will, through the grace of God, be the most intelligent, stable, and useful Christian, whose mind was disciplined whilst his soul was subdued. There is now also great need of biblical knowledge of all kinds amongst teachers. They should be well furnished with the variety of information necessary for the exposition of the Scriptures: yet out of the clerical order how few have taken any pains to study their chronology, geography, antiquities, and evidences? They need too, no small imbuing in polemic theology to meet the inquiries and remarks which are constantly presented by intelligent scholars. Every instance of doubt or ignorance on a doctrinal, casuistical, or historical question, makes an impression of incompetency very prejudicial to the influence of the person thus found at fault. Children assume that one who undertakes to teach, virtually professes to know, and they are quick at detecting deficiencies. Yet their speculations are usually within a compass that something less than a Doctor of theology can satisfy; and a wise minister can easily prepare his teachers for such emergencies. This whole duty, of biblical instruction, however, pertains directly to the ordinary functions of a minister, and he would do well to keep all his congregation qualified to explain the literature of the Bible, as well as intelligently and scripturally to give a reason of the spiritual hope they profess to indulge.

Without some uniform plan of study on these topics, there may be a very unfortunate diversity of explanations in the same school. Each may have a doctrine, a revelation, an interpretation,' of his own, if the results of longer study are not furnished by the minister and adopted by his agents. Besides, his course of reading enables him to gather all acVOL. IV. No. III.-3 C

cessible information, and he may communicate it with more ease and advantage than it could be derived by the consultation of original sources of knowledge. It is the best expedient a minister could adopt of refreshing his memory with his early theological and biblical studies, to give his teachers, if not his whole congregation, an introduction to the learning connected with a full understanding of the Bible. He may, at least, be always ready to refer the studious to authentic sources of instruction, and furnish every facility to enable them to make their own acquisitions.

An intimacy with the school also commends itself to a minister as creating a new tie between him and his people. It connects him with the teachers and learners, in a manner which greatly strengthens the affection and promotes the influence of their mutual relation. The indication of an active interest on his part in their plans, has a natural tendency to persuade them of his earnestness in the service of the Redeemer. His countenance and assistance encourage them in their labours, and an assurance of his sympathy relieves them amidst many trials of faith and patience. The members of the classes are more deeply impressed with the importance of their privileges, when they see their clergyman putting a high estimate upon them. The same remark may be applied to the Church at large, and children will be likely to undervalue the institution when they see Christians, both minister and people, keeping aloof from them, or viewing them occasionally, as they do a curious exhibition. No set rules are desirable to regulate the manner in which the proper interest should be manifested. We know that there are some ceremonious assemblings of the schools in presence of the congregation; that a church-member sometimes accidentally strays into the school-room; and sometimes a regular delegation makes a perfunctory progress through the apartments. Even these cold recognitions are better than total neglect; but let Christians determine the value of the institution as a means of glorifying God; let them pray for it with the energy that a conviction of its true nature would inspire; and then shall they find appropriate methods of efficient patronage: then shall be seen more enduring and extensive results than the amplest pecuniary endowment can buy. The minister must guide the faith and charity of his people into this channel. His mere declamatory sanction will avail little; but let him be seen as an active member of the organization; let not

only his prayers and sermons, but his whole pastorship, testify that the Sunday School is, in his estimation, a concern of the Church, and the Church will be led to their duty. Parents will not be brought in any other way so strongly to realize their obligations, and to feel the magnitude of the results dependent on the manner in which their children are instructed.

But besides the duty of carrying it into immediate effect, there is much required of the Church in perfecting the system itself. For the former services, we need the heart and hand; in this, the efforts of the Christian mind are most particularly required. The whole scheme of religious education needs improvement. The minds of children have never been sufficiently studied, so as to facilitate the adaptation of a system of teaching to the moral and intellectual diversity which characterizes the juvenile mind. Christian philosophers are needed to trace the principles of reason from the most plastic stage of their germination through all their development. Men are needed to take advantage of the results of such observation, to suggest the proper modes of applying instruction to the respective cases. This would open the whole science of efficient teaching. Sound minds are wanted to prepare books on these principles for the use of children, fitted not only to their comprehension, but to their reason, judgment, and conscience. The importance of the agency of the Sunday School library can hardly be spoken of in extravagant terms. It is enough to say, that an opportunity is offered by it of supplying the daily reading of the six hundred thousand pupils connected with the schools in this country, and of every family to which these pupils are attached. It is not, therefore, sufficient to furnish books of innocent amusement to keep improper publications out of their hands. There should be books for their study; elementary works in all the departments of useful learning and information, books that should invite the exercise of thought, and lead to a standard of correct moral judgment. A large field for this kind. of labour is still open in the science of biblical elucidation. The histories and characters of the Bible are themes which might well attract the attention of pious authors. There is no way so effectual of recommending the revealed word as by showing its excellencies and beauties distinctively, in the separate condensation of its endless topics of usefulness. Children are in this manner more sensibly impressed with the reality and force of the incidents and morals of the Bible, than

by being confined to the text of our version. Every illustration of its geography, civil and natural history, and antiquities, is a cause of attraction to the volume itself; and no class of publications is so favourite with ingenuous children as those devoted to its simplification and elucidation. There is scarcely any species of useful literature which may not be accommodated to the taste and capacity of children and youth, and, at the same time, be profitable to a very large class of adults. The whole range of moral biography, especially, should be reduced to this service; for, on no minds is example more potent in its impressions. How vast would be the moral effect of bringing up children to read all history with reference to the providence of God! If Christian historians have so long confined their ambition to the bare chronicling of facts, and seen no other than their political and philosophical connexions, it is time that our children should be taught to read on better principles.

The next generation of teachers will be principally composed of the present scholars; and this fact increases their claim for adequate preparation at our hands. Such have been the deficiencies or trammels of the early religious nurture of most of us, that we go to the duty of teaching comparatively awkward. Our scholars, on the contrary, will have the advantage of teaching to children what they have learned as children; and when this is effected, the success of the system will be increased in a manifold degree. To us, however, it falls to be the pioneers, and on our age it is incumbent to furnish the ablest agents for a new era in the enterprise. These are offices for the pious and intelligent in the Church. The late accessions to it from the ranks of intellectual men is unprecedented, and we would earnestly direct their faculties to a work which is not unworthy of their powers. There are men of this class who could give a more decisive impulse to the cause of Christianity, by bending their minds to the promotion of religious education by such means as we have designated, than by entering the ministry, or devoting their time to oral teaching in Sunday Schools. The employment of a few leisure hours might result in modifying the reading of multitudes of the three millions of children in the nation. Can a brighter and more enduring laurel be held up than would be accorded to success in this field? Can the men, advanced in life, and full of honours, who have at last yielded to the claims of God, better redeem the scores of years they

have lost, than by concentrating their force upon a measure which may place the interests of religion many years in advance of its ordinary progression? There are also many other persons in the Church who could readily contribute to this cause. The ministry, and men of talent in other professions, would consult their own religious improvement, and be acting an important part in the moral enterprise of the day by making their intellectual resources contribute to the advancement of Christian education. Female talent is peculiarly fitted for this service; and at this day a fairer opportunity is afforded them of obeying the apostle's exhortation to be xaλodidaoxanes, "teachers of good things," than they have enjoyed since he intimated it to Titus.

In the view of the present condition of this cause, there is, surely, reason to fear that its pretensions have been overlooked. It is a great scheme of domestic missionary enterprise, and is the conservative of all the other branches of evangelical effort. Establish schools in every church for the religious education of all classes, from infancy to old age; make every qualified member an agent in some department of the operations, and a large number of ministers will be raised up for the service of Pagan nations. Form a great Christian bond of fellowship to unite the various sections of the Church in holy concord and combination, and every teacher and thousands of scholars will be gratuitous agents for the dissemination of the Bible and of tracts. On this ground the hostilities of sectarism may be slain, and the universal Church ally for Christ and for the cross. "No such singular conjuncture of symptoms throughout the world, has ever before invited the activity and zeal of Christians. And if the pressure of responsibility is at all times great upon them, in this behalf, it has acquired now a treble weight; inasmuch as it seems as if the antagonist powers were fast drawing off from the field. Looking out to the long and many-coloured array of ghostly domination, as it stretches its lines across plains and hills, we discern movement; but it is the stir of retreat. Encampments are breaking up; barriers are trampled upon; standards are furled; the clarion of dismay is sounded. -this then, is the hour for the hosts of the Lord to snatch their weapons and be up!"*

* Saturday Evening.' Art. ii.

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