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The Deity of Christ

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The Sunday-scholar's Welcome to his School and Teachers

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To the Teachers of Sunday and Weekday Schools.

MY DEAR FRIENDS, I have ever felt deeply impressed with the great importance and responsibility of your office. I regard it as second only to that of the Christian Ministry. To you is committed the blessed work of carrying out into practice the tenderest and most endearing sympathies of the Saviour, in the kindness which he shewed towards the little children, and the commands which he gave concerning them. Thus, you are in a peculiar manner fellow-workers with Christ; for on you is conferred the high privilege of carrying the lambs into his bosom.

But in proportion to the importance of our efforts to do good, will be the difficulties and temptations that beset us; and no one will ever lay himself out to be instrumental in claiming for the Saviour the young around him, without incurring the inveterate hatred and resolute opposition of that great enemy of Christ and man, under whose sad influence they have come into the world.

The strong man armed will not quietly yield to the Stronger than he. Hence the teachers and the guides of young need something more than the consideration of high privilege-something more than the impulse of

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naked duty. They need—what the ascended and victorious Saviour alone can impart a participation in his victories, in his triumphs when leading captivity captive; they need the reality of this blessedness in the communicated gifts of his promised Spirit, whereby the stripling David can alone be strengthened to withstand every giant that opposes, and to come off more than conqueror.

They need "the whole armour of God:" in this alone can they stand in the evil day.

And the succour and the sympathy of their fellowchristians must not be wanting to urge them forward, to keep them from yielding to discouragement, and to remind them continually to "be strong in the Lord and in the power of his might."

You have indeed, my Friends, the strongest claim upon all that can be done for you; but there is one point in which there has certainly been a neglect in your service. While other denominations of Christians have not failed to supply their respective Teachers with periodical publications specially adapted to their circumstances, the Teachers in our own Church have gone without this benefit. It is strange and almost unaccountable, that it should be so. Without, however, dwelling upon the past, or endeavouring to account for its neglects, it is manifestly most desirable that the thousands of our Teachers throughout the land should have a channel of communication opened for them, through which they may not only claim what they require, without fear of meeting with such reflections as are calculated to weaken their attachment to that Church in whose bosom they are labouring, but through which they may be reminded of the peculiar privileges of that Church, and be brought to be more and more in love with her truly Scriptural constitution and spiritual forms of worship.

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But let me not be misunderstood. Let me not be regarded as declaring war against those who differ from God forbid that I should be regardless of the labours of others, or that I should lose sight of the necessity which has existed for their labours. I know, alas! too well, that from the past supineness in our Church, and in the failure of adequate provision for our rapidly increasing population, the rising generation must in many districts have been wholly neglected but for the efforts of Dissenters. And I know that those efforts have been abundantly owned and blessed of God. I am not ashamed to make this honest avowal, any more than the Prime Minister was ashamed to own, in the most manly and honourable terms in his place in the House of Commons, the debt of gratitude which was due to the London Mission for their successful labours in the South Sea Islands.

If it is a fact that numbers of little ones have been brought to the saving knowledge of Christ in schools not in our own communion, and that these schools have been to them the gate to heaven; if it is a fact that hundreds and thousands have grown up in these schools to a virtuous and godly manhood, (and I do not, I cannot doubt either the one fact or the other,) then every thought of the agency whereby such good is effected, is merged in the consideration of the unspeakable value of immortal souls, and the augmented glory of our adorable Redeemer.

But still, it is quite consistent with such views, to wish for ourselves, and for our fellow-workers, and for all who are in the same Church enclosure, that we may stand upon ground on which we dare to speak of the distinguishing privileges of that Church to which we belong, and of which we deserve not to be members, if we give not to it an honest preference. And we cannot be blamed

if, while Dissenters of all denominations have their Magazines, in which they can periodically put forth the claims and the operations of their respective systems, the Church of England should aim at the same privilege, and think that we are not justly chargeable with bigotry in wishing to stand on the same ground.

You well understand then, my Friends, the principle on which I go to work on your behalf. I cannot accredit the principle of that uncharitable and, I believe, unscriptural spirit of exclusiveness which would put beyond the pale of mercy all those who differ from ourselves. A rancorous or harsh word towards them I trust you will never hear from me. Still, I must be honest and open. I wish to be your friend and fellow-helper in all respects. I shall not fear therefore to warn you against evil wherever I see it; nor shall I hesitate to embrace every opportunity of reminding you of your privileges as churchmen.

And now I beg your prayers that our gracious God will make me "to perceive what things I ought to do, and also give me grace and power faithfully to fulfil the same." I venture upon this work with fear and trembling. I would gladly have seen others embark in it. In their failure alone I step forward, convinced that such a work has long been wanted, and hoping that I am not wrong in supposing that it had best be attempted by a feeble and inadequate instrumentality, than left undone altogether.

Nothing shall be wanting on my part to administer to your benefit; and I go to work with one encouragement at least, and that is the large and special blessing which has rested upon the two smaller periodicals I have conpucted, the one of them now for more than a quarter of a century, and the other for upwards of twenty years.

And another encouragement is not wanting, namely,

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