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Bible class, which ought to be the case, extraordinaries excepted. These classes will lie at the foundation of the church, and of all that is good among you. I am aware that it is sometimes the case that the superintendent and Teachers are unwilling to transfer their precious charge; and they feel as a pastor feels when his flock is passing out of his hands into those of others. It is human nature to wish to keep all the ground we have ever occupied. Remember, however, that though this is human nature, it is human nature fallen, and the principle is a selfish one.

A PRAYER FOR A SUNDAY SCHOOL

TEACHER.

REV. SIR,-Some time. ago "A Prayer for a Sunday-school Teacher" was put into my hand, which I was told was regularly offered up in private before the throne of Grace, at half-past seven o'clock on Sunday mornings, by the Teachers in all the Church Sunday-schools in one of our sea-port towns. I immediately introduced it into the School in which I was then a Teacher, the Vicar kindly consenting to our laying aside one which we before used, that we might unite in offering the same petitions as many of our fellow-labourers, and thereby form a "threefold cord not easily broken;" and I trust that great benefit has been derived from its use, both to teachers and children. Since the publication of the "Teacher's Visitor," it has occurred to me that if it were inserted it might be adopted by very many Schools. And who can tell, if the petitions contained in that prayer are offered with sincerity and earnestness, in dependence upon the merits and intercession of our blessed Redeemer, what abundant blessings may rest upon our labours among the rising generation. I enclose you a copy, which, if you approve, I trust you will publish. Yours very faithfully, PHILALETHES.

Parsonage, B-, Yorkshire.

care.

HEAVENLY FATHER, I would now bring before thee those Sunday-school children whom thou hast put under my Who am I, O Lord, that thou shouldest allow me the privilege of teaching them the things which belong unto their peace? I feel my unworthiness; I acknowledge my sinfulness: of myself I can do nothing; all my

*This is especially intended for Sunday morning. It is proposed by many Teachers to engage in prayer at about half-past seven o'clock on the morning of the Sabbath: that by union in prayer they may derive those advantages which are pointed out in the Rev. J. H. Stewart's tract, "On the Outpouring of the Holy Spirit."

sufficiency is of thee, O Lord. Perfect thy strength in my weakness. As thou hast put it into my heart to undertake this blessed work, so give me grace to go on with it with a single eye to thy glory. Holy Spirit, teach me, that I may teach the dear children under me. Make me wise to win souls to Christ. Give me patience, zeal, faith, and love. Shew me the real state of each child in my class, and enable me to speak to each a word in season. * Blessed Saviour, look upon them all, and visit them with thy salvation. Bring them, one and all, into thy fold. Feed thy lambs, and grant that they may grow in grace and in the knowledge of thee their Lord and Saviour.

What I have asked for myself and the children in my class, I would also beg for all the children and teachers in my school, and the other schools in connexion with us.

O God, pour down upon us all the abundance of thy blessing. Grant that the children may have humble and teachable minds. Open their hearts to receive thy word, that they may be savingly impressed by its truths. May they love thy word, love to pray, and love thy sabbaths and all thy ordinances; preserve them from the temptations of the world and the wiles of the devil. Oh! give unto them thy Holy Spirit; draw them to thyself, and make them wholly thine.

Bless the Superintendents. Give them wisdom, firmness, faith, love, and every other grace which they need. Bless the Teachers. Let them feel more and more the value of the soul, and know more and more of the love of Christ. May the conversion of the children be the great object of their exertions: for this may they watch, and pray, and labour.

Give unto us all the spirit of intercessory prayer for each other, and for the children in our schools; and hear this and every other petition, and answer and do for us more than we know how to ask or think, for the Redeemer's sake! Amen.

[* Here the cases of any particular children may be dwelt upon.]

CENOTAPH.

In Memory of

THE REV. THOMAS STOCK, A. M.,
RECTOR OF THIS CHURCH,

Who first suggested the Institution of Sunday-schools;

AND, IN CONJUNCTION WITH

MR. ROBERT Raikes,

Established and supported the Four Original Sunday-schools in this Parish and St. Catherine's,

IN MDCCLXXX.

HE DIED DECEMBER XXVII. MDCCCIII.

AND LIES INTERRED IN ST. ALDGATE'S CHURCH.

GYPSIES.

(From "A Plea for the Education of the Children of
the Gypsies." SEELEYS.)

WHILE we are zealously affected in seeking to send the schoolmaster abroad, to instruct the children of the East, of North-West America, and in all heathen lands, in the Christian faith, it surely needs no argument to prove that it would be a cold-blooded philosophy, and contrary to all the benign principles of Christianity, to deny to the poor, forlorn, Gypsy children at home, this inestimable boon. Happily, we know of no unreasonable prejudices of this kind; but, on the contrary, we find an interest awakened in their behalf, which has not been known before; and many of the clergy and laity are opposed to any longer delay, in making some practical effort, to afford them Christian instruction. These, with other combined circumstances, have led to the attempted formation of a Gypsy-school establishment in the county. Nothing, we believe, is more practical, and nothing is more called for, in the present day; and we plead earnestly for its accomplishment, in the full conviction, that a sound, Scriptural education, is the best means, and the only probable means, of rescuing the Gypsy children, and gradually, and eventually, the Gypsies themselves, from that state of degradation, in which they are born; and from that idle vagabond life, in which they are tainted with every vice from their infancy.

It is gratifying to state, that a benevolent friend has liberally purchased a most eligible site, as a gift, of nearly two acres of freehold land in the parish of Farnham, to build the establishment upon. This parish has been fixed upon for the proposed charitable institu tion, from the circumstance of two Gypsy families having been located in it, for the last three years. They live in two neat cottages, with an allotment of half an acre of land to each, rent free. The men seek employment occasionally through the surrounding villages, one with a razor and scissors grinding machine, and the

other with a machine for sweeping chimnies. With the encouragement that they meet with, and their industry on their allotment land, and from the active, persevering industry of their wives, in selling baskets, and various articles from a basket borne on the arm through the neighbourhood, their families are pretty well conditioned. Their children are taught in a small Gypsy-school, and are found to be more quick and ready in their progress of education, than the children of the agricultural poor.

Much good has followed the humane and Christian exertions of The Rev. James Crabb; and it has gladdened the heart of many, to have met at the annual festival, some truly reclaimed Gypsies, as Christians. But with all the individual success that has been achieved, it is his decided opinion, that no very general good can be calculated upon among the adult Gypsies. Cradled in a ditch, they have grown up in ignorance and idleness, the nursery of every crime, and have become so fettered in those loitering, lawless habits of a vagabond life, which no examples in civilized life, or instruction, that might reach them, seem at all likely to change.

We come, therefore, to the conclusion, from some practical knowledge of their character, that some educational plan is necessary to be adopted for the instruction of the children; and no plan whatever has any prospect, we believe, of substantially benefiting the Gypsies, like the one now proposed.

We would provide, at the commencement of the institution, for the maintenance and education of, at least, twenty-four orphan Gypsy children, under six years of age; or boys and girls, not older, from the largest and most destitute Gypsy families: and we would wish, that the establishment should afford, at the same time, an asylum for the orphan, or destitute Gypsy child, whom any kind and benevolent person might be pleased to adopt, on the payment of a moderate annual sum, of at least five pounds, towards its education and support.

We have no means of ascertaining, with any degree of accuracy the number of Gypsies wandering in numerous small detached parties throughout the length and breadth of the land. They are, we believe, a much more numerous race than those who have paid but little attention to their history, are aware of. From eighteen to twenty thousand, it is thought by those who have sought the best information on the subject, may be the Gypsy population of Great Britain; and if we look upon them, as we are constrained to do, as a people generally sunk in the most degrading ignorance and vice, how appalling the consideration, that so large a mass of evil as they form, should be floating amidst the population of the country. It is a matter, that deeply challenges the contemplation of the clergy, magistrates, and benevolent Christians in every county, and with them in every county, the government itself.

With the facts, of the existing state of the Gypsies before us, we know of no remedy, or plan, that can be adopted, in the hope of substantially improving their character, like the one proposed; and we would cherish the belief, that whatever aid is afforded towards the building fund, or given by donations and annual subscriptions for the maintenance and education of the children of the Gypsies, will carry with it, the full approbation of the judgment and conscience. We can only move in working out our plan, as a Christian public sympathises with, and encourages our object; but with the

means, we have no fears of obtaining Gypsy children, in proportion to those means for their education. The Gypsies are a shrewd, intelligent, and sharp-sighted people; their eye, in perpetually wander. ing through the country, is on the passing events of the day. They see every other child educated, and have an impression on their minds of the disadvantages which their children are under, and we have no doubt, with other circumstances, that they would gladly confide them to the fostering care of an establishment for education, and their being brought up in habits of industry.

It is our happiness to live in a country where charitable institutions abound, where the deaf-the dumb-the lame-the blind-the afflicted-the fatherless and the widow, make their appeal to British benevolence, and not in vain; and while British charity is not only diffused through the land, but flows in so wide a channel as to convey the invaluable blessings of a Christian education to the most distant quarters of the globe, we have a good hope, that the Gypsy children will not be left to perish in the highways and hedges at home, as heretofore, for want of Christian instruction. We are not among those, who would pull down one pillar in the temple of charity, to build up another; but in your charitable contributions, as "casting thy bread upon the waters: give a portion to seven, and also to eight; for thou knowest not what evil shall be upon the earth."

The Gypsies perish day by day,
Forlorn and ignorant they pass away,

Help! Christians, help! the means supply
To teach them Jesus, ere they die.

Thousands! thousands! know not as yet, that a Saviour was born at Bethlehem-that He was crucified at Calvary for the remission of sins, and afterwards ascended into the heavens, that we might not perish, but have everlasting life. Our sole and simple object is, that they may be taught these essential and important truths, and led to an influential, practical knowledge of the Redeemer, who in coming into the world "to seek and to save those that were lost," suffered little children to come to him; and when brought to him, "took them up in his arms, and blessed them." JOHN WEST.

Chettle, June 1, 1844.

Patron.-The Lord Ashley, M. P. Treasurer.-George Carr Glyn, Esq. Trustees.-The Rev. Rob. Moore; The Rev. Carr J. Glyn; The Rev. John West; The Rev. C. Baring Coney; Francis Archibald Stuart, Esq. Honorary Secretaries.-The Rev. John West, Chettle, Dorset; The Rev. James Crabb, Southampton; The Rev. C. B. Coney, Farnham, Woodyates, Dorset.

Donations to the Building Fund-Donations and subscriptions for the annual support of the Establishment, will be thankfully received by the Trustees and Secretaries; at Messrs. Glyn and Co's, Bankers; and Messrs. Seeleys', London; and at Messrs. Bastard and Oak, Blandford Bank.

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