enlightenment of a generation now growing up to be, as we trust, the joy and rejoicing of the Christian churches of this and of other lands. We, who know the secret of our strength, and know, also, the great object we have in view, are deeply humbled in the consciousness that these praises of men are likely to prove a great and mighty snare, and that there is great need to remind ourselves habitually that the work of conversion is the work of the Holy Spirit, whose aid and power we meet at this time to invoke.

We are gathered for prayerprayer for our Sunday schools.

Would to God that this were not so much a special as an ordinary service. Petitions in the pulpit are seldom or never omitted; in prayer meetings the school is often remembered-in some families it is frequently thought of-but a church gathered for the special purpose of prayer for the Sunday school, when does that occur?

We are invited now to think upon our mercies. Let this be a season of humiliation, and let the united confession of churches and schools be, that hitherto the real work of the church among the young has not been recognized. And, dear brethren, it may be said with some justice, that the school has not furnished you with just ground for supposing that the work was one of a strictly spiritual nature. Hitherto the Sunday school has partaken too much of the character of the Day school; it has been heavily weighed down by mere secular engagements, and has not risen much above the mere rudimentary instructions which lie at the vestibule of the temple of knowledge. Robert Raikes had a desire to do good, to promote order, and to afford the means of learning to read the Bible; and, true to its original character, the Sunday school has been most useful in promoting general education, but till lately it has not taken up its rightful position. We have of late years been putting our house in order-we have discarded the A B C, the

spelling and the copy-books. The Bible has been proclaimed the textbook, and piety is regarded as a primary and essential qualification of the teacher.

In speaking of this as a great reformation of recent date, we must not be supposed to undervalue the work of the past half century, or to estimate its results as small or unimportant. Millions have passed through our schools, thousands have there learned to read, and have become possessed of Bibles, which otherwise they might never have called their own. Multitudes have learned to reverence the Sabbath-day -to accept the "faithful saying," and to give themselves to the Lord -and multitudes more have received seed, which will appear in due time, if we are found looking for "the promise of the Spirit through faith." In the review of the past, we are constrained to say, "What hath God wrought? what pious mind can contemplate the future, and see this vast agency consecrating its great powers to the winning of immortal souls for Christ, without intense and devout devotion ?" Then, brethren, pray now, and as you never have done, for an outpouring of the Holy Spirit, that we may receive "not the spirit of this world, but the Spirit which is of God, that we might know the things which are freely given us of God."

The Sunday school has recently opened its door to little children. They come and crowd our infant classes with evident delight, and learn the first lessons of order, obedience, and truth with us, and as they hear the story of Redeeming love many of them become lambs of the fold of Israel's gentle Shepherd. They come in many cases from homes where all is darkness, and like little missionaries they carry back into those benighted homes the lamp of life, and not a few have become the good evangelists to those who dwell in the City of Destruction. Brethren, pray for these little ones, that their hearts, so susceptible to kindness and good impressions, may

in their earliest years be yielded to the Saviour, who said, "And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments and do them."

How can we retain our elder scholars? is a question constantly before us. Children come and gothe hours are brief-the interruptions are many-the years are few; pride of heart, intolerance of restraint, and the fashion of the day, lead our elder children to quit our schools at an age when we can scarcely call them senior scholars. Where the affections have been engaged, and the heart has been changed, it is with reluctance; but the large bulk of our children leave us at a certain age, when they think they are too old to remain in the Sunday school. In some parts of England, especially, thousands drop away at this "certain age," the most critical period of life, and are lost for ever to our influence for good. Our churches are mainly concerned in this matter, for the loss is theirs. The fruit so long cherished is never gathered, and God is dishonoured by our want of success, in that our labours "bear little fruit unto perfection." The period when children become, or think they become, too old, is the very period when the wisdom of the church should be discovered in special efforts for securing their retention. Our youth do not like the association of children, but they do like the special class meeting in a private room, or in a private house, under the care of teachers specially qualified; and unless holy men and holy women of our churches, with intellectual and spiritual qualifications of a somewhat high order, will bring the influence of character and station which God has given them for His service, and lay it at His altar, the work will never be done. Our merchants and lawyers must do for Christ what Ruskin does every week of his life for the artizan students of his favourite art, out of pure love to his fellow-men; so our best men must let their posi

tion and acknowledged superiority form a centre of attraction to such as otherwise would drift hopelessly away from our influence and efforts. Brethren, pray for our rich men that they may come out to the help of the Lord, and for our elder scholars that they may be bound to us till we can secure them to the church of the Living God.

But the church must do more. Our teachers, well-fitted in former years for the work of elementary instruction, have need now of special aptitude as instructors in the things of righteousness. The present is a work of the heart, rather than the head, and unless our teachers teach "with understanding" they do not teach to profit, and we have no right to ask the blessing we now come together to seek. Twenty years since one-third of our teachers were pious, now, perhaps, two-thirds may be so, but no single class should be under the care of a teacher who is not "wise to win souls." The church must provide the lack-must call out the pious young men and maidens of our families, must set them apart for their solemn work, and must encourage them in it. Brethren, pray then that the Holy Spirit may quicken pastors and deacons to the recognition of this great claim, and that the bonds of union may be drawn closer between the church and the school, as the true sympathies in the work are felt to be reciprocal. Then shall the promise be fulfilled, "Beloved, I will pour out my Spirit upon you, and I will make known my word unto you."

Our teachers are counselled to follow their children to their own home; to become the friends of the parents, and if they win their confidence, to establish their right to be looked upon as advisers in temporal things, having reference specially to the welfare and advancement in life of their children. Thus they help them in sickness, advise them as to employment, use influence to obtain situations, and secure to them at least one friend who cannot be sus

pected of having selfish ends to serve. This is a most valuable collateral means of usefulness; while children are with us, it helps to bind them to the school, and the tie is not broken even when they have left it, if correspondence with old scholars can be kept up.

In this way introductions are given from town to town, from home to the colonies, and many are thus transplanted with care and nurtured by affectionate solicitude. Brethren, thank God to-day that by this means Morrison, Milne, Williams, and Moffat found their way to the mission field; that thus your ministry has been replenished and sustained; that thus your agencies for Christian instruction have been supplied; that from the school have come forth your city missionaries, your deacons, your helpful laymen, and remember with gratitude, that all over the world are to be found men in all conditions of life who live to thank God for the British Sunday school.

Brethren, we live in important times; the work to be done is momentous the issues are eternal. Who is sufficient for these things? none but He whose aid we now humbly but importunately implore. It was His help which gave to the holy Alleine strength and courage to gather around him in his litter in the streets of Bath, the children of the town, fearing not the rough hand of law which had silenced him in the pulpit; and it is His help which, in days far removed from those of the intolerant Stuart, will give us strength to do and fortitude to bear much which yet lies before us. We want to be imbued with the sentiment, that while we seek all the help human wisdom can afford us, we must not substitute the teaching of man for the teaching of the Holy Spirit; and while searching the Scriptures with all diligence, may we pray with the true spirit of supplication to be taught what is the mind of the Spirit, using the means as though there were no God to bless, and

depending upon God as though there were no means to be employed.

And if a Sunday-school teacher may say it to the church-I say, pray for union. In this Bicentenary movement we are thought to have committed ourselves to a work of uncharitableness, and in the judgment of some we are readily condemned. It is possible that some words may pass on either side which might well be left unuttered, but this, it is believed, will not break the bonds of unity which so happily exist among Sunday-school teachers of all denominations. Teachers lean so much on each other, and need to co-operate so much, that, knowing the value of union, they, at least, are bound over to keep the peace, and while earnest in the declaration of principles, they will, I am persuaded, be strenuous in their endeavours to maintain a good understanding in the sight of God and man, speaking the truth in love.

They have shown already that when other efforts fail they have a common platform, and in their aggressive and unsectarian action upon localities lies our great hope of the accomplishment of their great ameliorating work.

The best teachers of a denomination are the property, not of a sect, but of the Christian church, and they seek by mutual effort to lay out a broad foundation whereon to erect a temple of eternal truth and universal love.

Brethren, pray for us, that in our work of aggression, and in our work of instruction, we may be one in work and in prayer till the Spirit be poured out upon us from on high, assured of the promise of Him who says, "If ye, then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those that ask Him."-I am, yours, in Christian love,

CHARLES REED.

Hackney, May 20, 1862.

SUCCESS WITH A BIBLE

CLASS.

AFTER about twenty years' experience as a Bible-class teacher, I have observed that success depends greatly if not mainly on the following points:

1. Punctuality of the teacher. He must not be behind time, keeping his class waiting.

2. The teacher must be master of the lesson with all its collaterals, and be able to give illustrations clear and pointed, and such as his class may readily understand.

3. He must treat Bible subjects with that seriousness and earnestness which belong to them.

4. He must encourage the timid, treat with respect opinions differing from his own, and shield from mortification those who may chance to give wrong answers.

5. He must allow no tedious discussions, and not prolong the session of his class beyond one hour.

6. He must give every member something to do, and not allow a few to monopolize the time, even if he has to suggest answers to those who are backward for fear of answering incorrectly.

7. He must manifest a personal interest in each member of his class, treat all with cordiality, and carefully avoid any appearance of partiality.

8. He must let no exercise pass without making it contribute in some way to the conviction that the Bible is really and truly the word of God, and, as such, the most important book that man can study.

9. He must endeavour to infuse promptness and animation into all his exercises, and not allow anything like monotony to pervade his class.

10. He must make the spiritual and intellectual prosperity of his class the subject of stated special prayer.

You will live for ever.

There are no dead. The blow which struck asunder body and spirit did not end the spirit's life. And so the countless myriads of the past, whose dust has long since mingled with the soil, "still live." The men, women, and children of Noah's day, and Abraham's, and David'sthe motley tribes that herded beneath the crescent of the Arabian prophet-the swarms of Goth and Hun, Tartar and Vandal, that swept the plains of the Eastern world-the red men that roamed the forests of the Western world, and left in mounds and tree-grown ruins the dim history of their earthly existence-all these are yet alive. They cannot die. Immortality is their birthright and inheritance

With the first breath of life they inhaled immortality.

You, too, are henceforth eternal. The life you have begun is an endless life. You have only crossed the threshold. The countless ages before you stretch out in immeasurable distance. When you have trod the path of those years or millions of years which you can reckon up, there will still be before you as many more, fresh and new like the first, and so on for ever and ever. As a traveller can discern his pathway winding among the hills till far off on the horizon it seems to end, but when he reaches the place there stretches the path again away to the hill-top-so will the ages of your endless life lie before you ever the same, age following

age, cycle following cycle, till all your powers of computation and measurement have been baffled and silenced-and yet you have scarce begun! The never-ending eternity stretches out just as far ahead as when you took the first step of the journey.

How long will you live? You will live for ever. And your life there will depend on your life here. Every day as you complete it, will reappear in the years to come. Every hour, every moment, as it hurries on its way, leaves a page to be read before the throne. Every word, every act, every thought and feeling of your heart, records itself imperishably in the memory of One who never forgets. You are writing your life for eternity.

In a gallery at Paris hangs a famous picture by Murillo, of an old Spanish monk seated at his desk. He had begun the chronicle of his life. Death had summoned him before the work was done; but he had sought and obtained leave to return to earth and finish it.

You

see in the monk's pale face a more than natural energy. Those sunken eyes had looked "beyond the vale," and gleam with the visions of eternity. The soul within has communed with the unseen world, and beheld face to face "Him who is invisible." And the solemn task renewed with the earnestness of one who has passed the fading scenes of time, and is absorbed in the realities beyond.

So let the record of your life be written as in the light of eternity. Look beyond, and see the unutterable things which shall soon surround you, when you stand before your Judge. Behold your endless life-your speedy departure!

heedless soul, prepare for that eternity-and write now such a liferecord of faith in Jesus Christ and obedient service toward Him, as that you may read it in eternity with joy.

SCRIPTURE ILLUSTRATIONS. 66 THE "BLAST."

THE destruction of Sennacherib appears to have been effected by that pestilential wind, called the simoom. The wind in the arid regions of the East, blowing over an immense surface of burning sand, becomes so charged with electrical matter as to occasion the greatest danger, and often instant death, to the unwary traveller. A Turk, who had twice performed the pilgrimage to Mecca, told Dr. Clarke that he had witnessed more than once the direful effects of this hot and pestilential wind in the desert. He had known all the water dried out of their skin bottles in an instant by its influence. The camels alone gave notice of its approach, by making a noise, and burying their mouths and nostrils in the sand. This was considered an infallible token that the desolation was at hand; and those who imitated the camels escaped suffocation.

NINEVEH.

NINEVEH, a town of Assyria, so called from Ninus, its founder, stood on the banks of the Tigris, nearly 300 miles north of Babylon. It was of enormous dimensions, being fifteen miles in length and nine in breadth. This extent will not seem incredible when we reflect that the houses were not built in continuous streets, but stood apart, as the tents formerly did; each surrounded by gardens, parks, and farms, the size of which varied according to the rank and wealth of the proprietors. Nineveh was, therefore, less a city than a collection of villages, hamlets, and noblemen's seats, enclosed within one wall as a common defence. The prophet Jonah describes it as "an exceeding great city, of three days' journey" (round the walls), "wherein are more than sixscore thousand persons that cannot discern between their right hand and their left hand; and also much cattle." (Jonah iii. 3; iv. 11.) The walls were 200 feet in height, and