The

Sunday-School Department.

The Absent Teacher.

He

in the eye, and said deliberately, "Will you join us-or-not?" For a moment THOSE boys had no teacher at the the boy hesitated. He looked at his opening of the school on a recent Sun- comrades. They were evidently with day. They were restless and rude. the teacher, and he was left out. The superintendent seemed worried. could come in now. He quietly dropped As he went from one person to another, into the circle, and the teacher's victory speaking timely words, he occasionally was won. Most of the class hour had, looked toward that class of boys, but it is true, been consumed in this effort; received only positive shakes of the but attention and order and unity were head. They had an unpleasant reputa- fairly secured. It had been no easy tion, and they knew it themselves. As task, nor was it accomplished without a last resort a visitor was invited to the result of former preparation and of teach them for the day. He did not extended experience; but the time know them, nor did they know him. taken had been well spent, and the atQuick as thought they prepared for "a tempted work well done. As the visitime." "Can you join me in reading tor left the class, one of the boys said, the lesson?" asked the visitor. An- "Mister, will you come and be our swers came thick and fast: "We have teacher? We will do our best if you no lesson papers." "We don't have will." The story of those boys runs any regular teacher, sir." "Nobody thus: They had been taken out of a likes to teach this class." "Say, mister, class against their wish. They had lost can I go and get some Bibles ?" "Too interest in the school. One or two much work to teach us, sir." "We teachers had tried to teach them, and don't think much of this school, any- failed. No one wanted to experiment way." After this volley there was a with them further. They had won a change of tactics. Instead of a class bad name, and had come to glory in it. to teach, the visitor saw that he had a This visitor's experience with them had class to tame. He seemed to study each shown that they were not incorrigible. boy separately, and the class as a whole. What the result will be depends largely By a few well-directed questions, he dis- on how they are managed for the next covered who of the boys was leader, few months. If they are neglected, and he began with him. It was not they will doubtless leave the school with long before that boy's face was on his the feeling that they are stronger than hands, and his elbows on his knees. He its best teachers. If they are wisely and the teacher were getting into sym- cared for by a teacher who knows how pathy. His attention had been arrested. to do his work, and who does it in faith, Other boys joined as the conversation they will be retained in the school, and went on, until all but two had surrender- be, perhaps, among its better and more ed. These two seemed determined not to yield. The teacher turned to one of these boys, and, putting his hand gently but firmly on him, looked him squarely

interested scholars. And those boys are specimens of a large class in our city schools. They are worth caring for.-S. S. Times.

"Only Trifles."

66

through a forest and see no fire-wood," a true seer learns from the smallest things and apparently the most insigniWhen tempted to scorn the little du- ficant people. "Sir," said Dr. Johnson ties of our calling, let us think of such to a fiue gentleman just returned from sayings as the following. One day a Italy, some men will learn more in the visitor at Michael Angelo's studio re- Hampstead stage than others in the tour marked to that great artist, who had of Europe." Wellington's achievebeen describing certain little finishing ments were mainly owing to the fact that "touches" lately given to a statue- he personally attended to such minutiæ "But those are only trifles." "It may as soldiers' shoes, camp-kettles, biscuits, be so," replied the sculptor; "but re- horse fodder; and it was because Nelson collect that trifles make perfection, and attended to details in respect of time that perfection is no trifle." In the same he was so victorious. "I owe," he said, spirit the great painter Poussin ac"all my success in life to having been counted for his reputation in these always a quarter of an hour before my words: "Because I have neglected time." "Every moment lost," said nothing." It is related of a Man- Napoleon, "gives an opportunity for chester manufacturer, that, on re- misfortune." Well would it have been tiring from business, he purchased for himself-as his bitter end provedan estate from a certain noble- had this European ruler known another man. The arrangement was that he fact that every moment selfishly emshould have the house with all its fur- ployed is worse than lost, and “gives an niture just as it stood. On taking ps-opportunity for misfortune." However, session, however, he found that a cabinet he attributed the defeat of the Austrians which was in the inventory had been re- to his own greater appreciation of the moved; and on applying to the former value of time. While they dawdled he owner about it, the latter said: "Well, overthrew them. I certainly did order it to be removed; but I hardly thought you would have cared for so trifling a matter in so large a purchase." 'My Lord," was the reply, "if I had not all my life attended to trifles, I should not have been able to purchase this estate; and, excuse me for saying so, perhaps if your lordship had cared more about trifles, you might not have had occasion to sell it."

66

Galileo's discovery of the pendulum was suggested to his observant eye by a lamp swinging from the ceiling of Pisa cathedral. A spider's net suspended across the path of Sir Samuel Brown, as he walked one dewy morning in his garden, was the prompter that gave to him the idea of his suspension bridge across the Tweed. So trifling a matter as the sight of seaweed floating past his ship, enabled Columbus to quell the mutiny which arose amongst his sailors at not discovering land, and to assure them that the eagerly sought New World was not far off. Galvani observed that a frog's leg twitched when placed in contact with different metals, and it was this apparently insignificant fact that led to the invention of the electric telegraph. While a bad observer may "go

SIR WALTER SCOTT once lent a book to a friend, and as he gave it to him, begged that he would not fail to return it, adding good-humoredly," Although most of my friends are bad arithmeticians, they are all good book-keepers." In conclusion, I beg to give the following extract from some poet's witty verses, entitled "The Art of Bookkeeping":

"I, of my Spenser quite bereft,

Last winter sore was shaken
Of Lamb I've but a quarter left,
Nor could I save my Bacon.

They've picked my Locke, to me far more
Than Bramah's patent worth;
And now my losses I deplore,

Without a Home on earth.

They still have made me slight returns,
And thus my grief divide;
For oh! they've cured me of my Burns,
And eased my Akenside.

But all I think I shall not say,

Nor let my anger burn;
For as they have not found me Gay,
They have not found me Sterne."
-Correspondent of an English newspaper.

SUNDAY-SCHOOL LESSONS.

Eighth Sunday after Trinity.

KEY-NOTE: "Every good tree bringeth forth good fruit."

LESSON XXXII.

The Passover.-Exod. xii. 1–14.

QUESTIONS.

NOTES-The key-note, expressing the leading thought of the Gospel and Epistle for this Sunday, which has been called the "Sunday of good works," teaches that, while we are saved, not by works, but by faith, our Christian faith must nevertheless approve itself as such by means of good works Good fruit does not make a good tree, but a good tree produces only good fruit. So good works do not make a Christian, but a man does good works because he is a Christian. "Faith without works is dead." James ii. 20; Gal. v. 6.

The passover, one of the great Jewish feasts, was instituted, and observed for the first time, in Egypt, in the night of the departure of the children of Israel from that land of bondage; and was so called because the angel of the Lord passed over the houses of the Israelites when he smote the first-born of the Egyptians; in commemoration of which deliverance the feast was afterwards observed.

VERSES 3-5. In the tenth day of this month, i. e., four days before the exodus. Perhaps the only reason for this early selection of the victim of the passover was to guard against the contingency of any of the people not being ready at the decisive moment. At any rate, this was a feature that seems to have fallen into disuse afterwards. A lamb. Literally, one of a flock, whether of sheep or goats. And if the household be too little, etc. If a household was too small to consume a whole lamb, then one or more households of the same family or clan (according to the house of their fathers) might join together for this purpose. According to the rule which became established in later times, ten was the smallest number of persons that could celebrate the passover together. No single person could lawfully eat the passover by himself, because it was intended to symbolize the union of God's people, as the Holy Communion does now. Compare 1 Cor. x. 17. Without blemish, i. e., without physical VERSES 1-2. And the Lord spake defects, such as lameness, blindness or unto Moses. After the great darkness, malformation of any of its members. when the decisive hour of deliverance This quality of physical perfection was was approaching. In the land of Egypt. intended to symbolize the necessity of This is added in order to show that moral perfection or wholeness on the when the account was first written, part of the worshippers. A male, beIsrael was no longer in Egypt. This cause the male is the most perfect month. The month which had already representative of the species. Of the begun, and in the night from the 14th first year, i. e., one year old, because to the 15th of which the exodus took then it is full-grown. From the sheep place. It was called Abib (green ears), or from the goats. Though the animal because the barley was then in the ear, might be selected from either class, yet and at a later time Nisan (month of in later times, the sheep, as the more flowers, or month of the new year), and valuable of the two, was generally prebegan with the new moon nearest to the ferred. vernal equinox, corresponding therefore with the latter part of our March and shall kill it. Every household in the former part of April. Shall be the Israel shall slay its lamb at the same first month of the year to you, i. e. of the time. In the evening. Between the two sacred or ecclesiastical year, by which evenings, as the margin reads. The the festivals were afterwards regulated. most probable meaning of this is: from The civil year began with the month the time when the day begins to deTisri, corresponding with our Septem-cline, in the afternoon, until sunset. ber and October. Remembering, then, At sunset the fourteenth day of the that the first plague occurred in the month ends, and the fifteenth begins. latter part of June (the time of high water in the Nile), and the exodus on the 15th of Abib (about the beginning of April), we get a period of about eight months for the efforts of Moses in Egypt, and for the succession of the ten plagues.

VERSES 6-10. The whole assembly

They shall take of the blood, and strike it on the two side posts, etc. This was to be done with a bunch of hyssop, according to ver. 22. The purpose of this sprinkling of the blood upon the lintels and door posts is explained in ver. 13. It serves as a protection against the

plague by which the firstborn in Egypt are smitten. Ia later times, after the tabernacle and temple had been built, the blood was no longer sprinkled upon the doors, but upon the altar, near which the lamb was then slain. The animal having been thus slain, it was fixed upon a spit (some say two, arranged in the form of a cross) and roasted whole at the fire, and when the darkness had set in, it was eaten with unleavened bread and bitter herbs (lettuce, endives, horehound, etc). The unleavened bread symbolized three things: the haste with which they fled from Egypt; their suffering while in Egypt; but chiefly their purity as a consecrated nation." The bitter herbs also were a symbol of their bitter bondage. The flesh was all to be eaten during the night, so that nothing might remain till morning. But if any of it should happen to remain until morning, it was to be burned with fire; for it was a consecrated, or holy thing, and must no the put to any common use, or eaten as ordinary food.

but is most destructive from March till
May (Knobel). The miraculous ele-
ments were: the prediction of the
event by Moses; the sudden spread of
the disease, and the fact that it at-
tacked only the firstborn among men
and beasts; the preservation of the
children of Israel. And the blood shall
be to you for a token. Observe here
that the Lord
says, not the blood shall
be to me for a token;" but He says,
"it shall be to you for a token." God
needs no tokens, signs, sacrifices or sa-
craments to make Him favorably dis-
posed towards men, or to put Him in
mind of His promised mercy.
But we
need them in order to be able to confide
in God's saving grace, without which
confidence that grace could be no be-
nefit to us. But when God, accommo-
dating Himself to our capacity and
wants, gives us such tokens, these are
not empty signs, but actual means or
channels for the communication of His
grace. They convey what they signify;
for, if we knew that they did not, how
then could they be helps to our faith?
Hence it is added here: And when I see
the blood, I will pass over you, etc.
What God has given as a token to His
people He observes Himself. The blood
of the passover is a type of the blood of
Christ," which cleanseth us from all
sin," (1 John i. 7) and thus saves us
from the righteous judgments which
God visits upon sin. The result of this
last plague upon the Egyptians, from
which the children of Israel were only
saved by the bl. al of the passover, was
their immediate deliverance from the

VERSES 11-13. With your loins girded, your shoes on your feet, etc. They were to eat the passover in this attitude and manner, in order that they might be ready at once to begin their journey, when the decisive hour should have come. This feature connected with the first celebration of the passover in Egypt, was not preserved in later times in Palestine, where it would have been without meaning. The Chrtian Church has acted on the same principle in dropping some of the non-land of their bondage. In that very essential circumstances connected with the first celebration of the Lord's Supper, such as feet washing, the use of unleavened bread, etc. It is the Lord's passover. A sacrificial offering to Jehovah, and a symbol of Jehovah's passing over the houses of the children of Israel, when He smote the Egyptians. This is the reason given for the name in verses 12-13. I will pass through

and will smite all the firstborn in the land of Egypt. The fulfillment of this declaration is recorded in verses 29-31. The means by which it was fulfilled was the well-known Egyptian plague or pestilence, which prevails in that country, more or less, at all times,

night, at the urgent entreaty of Pharaoh and his people, who were now thoroughly scared, the Israelites began their journey from Egypt to the land of promise, verses 31-36

VERSE 14. And this day. The fourteenth day of Abib or Nisan, the first month of the sacred Hebrew year. Shall be unto you for a memorial. Ye shall remember it and observe it as a sacred feast to Jehovah in commemoration of your deliverance from the land of Egypt. Ye shall keep it a feast by an ordinance forever. Both the day nnd the sacrifice were to be permanently observed by the Israelites as a sacred ordinance. In later times, eight days