cannot look to you for sympathy and support-if, from want of confidence, they cannot fall back, from the chilling frown of their companions, upon your tenderness— can you wonder if they draw back in disappointment of expected help? They are too young to look, in the simplicity of faith, to the immediate aid of their ever-present God. Human support is mercifully ordained for their weakness; and the failure of this may issue in heartless despondency. You will, I know, excuse these hints, and take them in the spirit in which they are offered. I add one more, comprehensive of all that has been said, or that can be said: study your Divine Master, as the grand means of conformity to him. "But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord." (2 Cor. iii. 18.) His office his discharge of it, in such tenderness, meekness, and consideration as is absolutely inexpressible: "I taught Ephraim also to go, taking them by their arms; but they knew not that I healed them. I drew them with cords of a man, with bands of love: and I was to them as they that take off the yoke on their jaws, and I laid meat unto them." (Hosea xi. 3, 4.) "Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." (Matt. xi. 28.) How have you felt him bearing with your waywardness, impatience of restraint, slights, and inattention? How do you feel your need of the continuance of this dealing? Such as he is to you, pray that you may be to your pupils. Not a thousandth part of the exercise of forbearance do you need with them, that your Saviour daily manifests towards you. He is your pattern, while he is your hope-your life-your all. With sincere interest and sympathy,

One thing more occurs to me.

CHARLES BRIDGES.

Should inconsistencies

arise, do not you reproach them with their Christian profession. It will have a hardening tendency. It is better left in the hands of their minister.

SUNDAY-SCHOOLS.

FEW of those who devise schemes for the accomplishment of a given end, anticipate the ultimate modifications and influences of their plans. When Joseph's brethren sold him to the Ishmaelites, they intended only to get rid of a troublesome dreamer; but God sent him thus into Egypt to "preserve them a posterity in the earth, and to save their lives by a great deliverance." When Columbus started on his adventurous way over the untracked waters of the West, he sought mainly a passage to the spice and gem regions of India; but his discoveries have wrought results in the condition of the world, such as the dreamers of his day never pictured to their wildest fancies.

So when Mr. Raikes, in 1781-2, hired a few individuals, at Gloucester, to gather together the idle children who thronged the streets of that city into schools on the Sabbath, and to teach them the rudiments of knowledge, little did he anticipate the modifications and influences -marvellous almost in their character-of his stray thought.

The unseen hand of Deity is ever at work overthrowing the strong towers of Babylon, when the prostration of the plans of self-sufficient man will best promote his glory; or magnifying his grace in prospering the humble attempts of his children to advance his honour, beyond their loftiest anticipations. The change or the overthrow of his schemes, in the end, clearly manifests a design above and beyond that of the mere agent. A wise, though unseen hand, guided Mr. Raikes. thousands of thousands who have been since, and are now, taught at the Sunday school the way of salvation through Christ, testify to its influence in the origin and perfection of this plan of good.

And the

Whatever the benevolent man who instituted schools for the instruction of poor children on the Sabbath might have intended in their establishment, God most manifestly designed that they should be the chief agency of the church in making the young acquainted with the things that concern their eternal peace. This, their history for

a half century would seem pointedly to indicate. Now, their text-book is the Bible; and a Sunday school at this day is scarcely to be found to which this precious volume is not as its book of books.

INDUSTRY.

One

Be industrious in religion. We can tolerate indolence any where rather than here. Here, where an eternity is at stake: here, where an hour's sluggishness may be fatal. We have no respect indeed for the indolent man, let his indolence shew itself in what form it will. of your idlers who sleeps away life, shunning all exertion, doing listlessly what he is compelled to do, and only pleased when he can be left undisturbed, hardly deserves the name of man. Man's characteristic is restlessness: restlessness foretells his immortality; and a sluggard, by his apathy, seems to destroy the mark, and silence the prophecy. If confined to other things, indolence may not be absolutely fatal. The indolent man may have wealth, which secures him against want; and by the occasional exercise of rare talents, he may, in spite of habitual sluggishness, even attain to some measure of distinction.

But an indolent Christian is a sort of contradiction. Christianity is industry spiritualised. The sluggard in religion, would be the sluggard in escaping from the burning house or the sinking ship; and who even loiters when death is at the door!

Work, then, "with all your might," if you profess to work at all: "giving diligence," as an apostle exhorts, "to make your calling and election sure." "There is no work, no wisdom, no device, in the grave."-Melvill.

SWEARING.

"I HAVE thought it to be like the sin of drinking. Men begin by little and little, till they can't do without stronger and stronger, and they get from one liquor to another, till they end in dry drams, and so consume away

their own life. I know well how blasphemy works, and it had better never be begun, lest it shouldn't stop till it comes to that point that will not be forgiven, and so eternal death be sealed."

"You seem to have impressed your lesson well on your boy."

"God, in His infinite mercy, has blessed my prayer and my endeavour.”

“What plan have you pursued with him to fasten it so upon his recollection?"

“I've watched over him, sir, in two ways: one, because he's my child, and I desired to bring him up for the Lord, and for his own eternal happiness; and the other, because he's my child, and the curse of his father might come down upon him. . .

"How did you watch over him?"

'One thing, I've never suffered him to use such words as children generally do-Good la'-'My goodness'-'Bless me'-'I'll be bound’—‘I'll warrant'-'By my word—o other foolish sayings, that may be thought nothing but fun. I never would let him pretend to be amazed and struck with wonder, and so use great swelling words; for if you notice the way in which they say them, and the swearing tone of their voice, you may know they come of evil, and they prepare the tongue for worse and worse. Especially when they hear other words, they soon imitate them. I always stopped him if he was going to say anything more than plain yes or no; and never let him make great words of surprise at anything he saw or heard. It's a bad way to let children do so; so that at last they'll say or do nothing without taking God's name in vain. And many a child of three or four years old no sooner begins to speak for itself, than it takes the language of its wicked father, and shews the truth that the sin of the fathers is visited on the children unto the third and fourth generation."-From "The Guilty Tongue," p. 140, 141.

NOTICES ON THE SERVICES OF THE CHURCH.

SERVICES FOR MAY.

THERE is one special character pervading the services which fall within this month, which the Teacher will not fail to notice, as well for his own direction and encouragement, as for the points to be particularly impressed upon the minds of his class; and that is, the recognition of a spiritual influence from heaven on the soul.

We have followed our Redeemer to the grave: we have commemorated his resurrection as a mighty Conqueror : we have sought to apply to the necessities of our souls all the succour which these wonderful events are calculated to afford: and now our Church would have her members to be following their risen Lord, and to be seeking for themselves a share in all the blessings which he has purchased, and without a participation in which Christ would indeed have died in vain and risen to no purpose. There was boundless and unmerited grace prompting the Saviour to die; but this will avail little to us if his grace do not enter our hearts, and practically and powerfully teach us the Christian life. The grace of God, which really bringeth salvation, so operates. See Titus ii. 11.

It is perhaps too common a fault with Christians to look more to a dying Saviour, than to an ascended and glorified Saviour.

Now fail not to notice the remarkable tenor of the

Services before us. Do we take up the Collect for the Fourth Sunday after Easter? What a lesson do we there learn! We are reminded that knowledge is not holiness; that the understanding may be duly enlightened, and yet the head remain unsanctified; that God alone can properly order and regulate the unruly wills and affections of sinful men. Our judgments may be correctly convinced and informed as to the grand doctrine of Christ's atoning sacrifice; we may duly have learnt all the lesson of his sufferings, and we may exult in his resurrection, and yet no hallowing or hopeful influence may come to us from all we have learnt in the head; none will come, unless God reclaim our wandering wills, and regulate our