on our list is F. When F. goes to his class a happy class it seems. They are all there, and all ready for him. How is this? When a boy is absent, F. never rests until he knows why. And to get at this he does not simply enquire of the boys present, but goes himself to the parents. That is his plan to ensure a regular attendance, and as far as our experience goes, no better plan has been devised. Parents are always civil, and always seem pleased to see the teacherhow can they be otherwise? He, at all events, has no selfish ends. Not only does he go to school, which to some teachers might seem sufficient, but he seeks the children out of school-hours, an additional proof, if any be wanted, that he is sincere in his endeavours to do them good. And then how quiet is that class of F's! No disturbancebut all goes on smoothly, and all seem happy, teacher and boys seem as though, had time permitted, they would have gone on for another hour. Before we close we would say a few words more upon the subject of visiting absentees. Absentees are of various kinds. There is the boy who will not come; who prefers the fields on Sunday morning to the school, probably unknown to his parents. The cure for this is visiting. Whenever you miss a boy once, visit ; never let his absence be marked on your register twice, unless you know the cause of it. A visit at once will generally cure the evil, while, if the visit be delayed, the bad habit will grow, and the child may become irreclaimable. Again, absence may arise from want of thought on the part of the parents; they may not see the need for such regularity as you require, and so to keep the children at home on Sunday morning is but a small matter. But when the teacher looks at it in a light sufficiently serious to induce him to go and seek those children, the parents are soon brought round and the children come to school. Absence may arise from illness-how can a teacher neglect this? What would his feelings be if the child were to die without a visit from him? When the children are absent he cannot be certain of the cause without going to see. It may be they have been led astray; it may be parents are negligent; it may be sickness or death; whatever it is, the teacher's duty is plain. It is due to the child as well as to the school that every absentee should be looked up. If this were done our Sunday School would wear a different aspect. Its tone would be more quiet, its forms better filled, and others would not be pained by seeing so many children wandering about on Sunday, when they ought to be at the School or the Church. I. M. C. The Teacher in his School. NOTES FOR THE PREPARATION OF A LESSON OR ADDRESS FOR GOOD FRIDAY. DEAR CHILDREN, Though you are still young, some among you may, perhaps, have been present at that solemn and awe-inspiring scene, a death-bed; if so, you know how anxiously listened to at the time, and how subsequently treasured in the memory, is every word which falls from lips we are expecting, moment by moment, death to close for ever. Death is a subject on which historian, poet, and painter frequently dwell. History tells how, in far distant lands, the soldier fights and dies; the poet's heart-stirring strains immortalize his deeds of fame; and the painter's skilful brush depicts vividly, and often with painful fidelity, the closing scenes of the hero's death. Some of you may remember how, eight years ago, when at war with Russia, our soldiers endured the rigours of a Crimean winter, and the many privations and hardships inseparable from a long siege, with uncomplaining fortitude; and still fresher in your memory must be the terrible Indian Mutiny of 1857, when our few European troops, though fearfully outnumbered by the enemy, performed acts of daring valour: historian, poet, and painter vie with each other in handing them down to posterity. And yet, dear children, the most thrilling tales of heroic resistance, patient endurance, and uncomplaining fortitude fall short of the pathos which attaches to the story of Calvary-and why? Is it not because the death of the man Christ Jesus, the Great Captain of our salvation, is intended as an example to us, as good soldiers of the Cross, pledged to a manful warfare against sin, the world, and the devil, if we would continue faithfully fighting under his banner to our lives' end. And specially on this day on which our Church invites us to commemorate our Saviour's death let us dwell on his dying words. Seven times during that terrible six hours' agony was His voice heard. 1st. "Father, forgive them, they know not what they do." The uncomplaining Victim, the sinless Lamb of God is led to the slaughter. Mute as a sheep before her shearers, no word of suffering escapes his lips, as in the midst of an infuriated multitude He reaches Golgotha. The stern Roman soldiers, accustomed to scenes of bloodshed, pursue their cruel work, and, amid the mocking of soldiers, the reviling of priests, the hooting of the populace, and the bewailing of women, the nails are driven home. Then the pale, closed lips part, and distinctly heard above the din of angry voices, and the strokes of the descending hammer, is the melting word "forgive." The doctrine of forgiveness with which He commenced his ministry (Matt. v. 44) is at last sealed with his blood. Surely the mind which was in Christ Jesus, the Captain of our salvation, ought to be in us, his soldiers, that we may be the children of his Father and our Father, who is in heaven, 2nd. "Verily I say unto thee, to-day shalt thou be with Me in Paradise." Long before the Saviour was born, God foretold, by the mouth of his holy prophet Isaiah, not only the manner of his death, but each circumstance attendant upon it. The very men who crucified Him had often heard them read in their synagogues ; but their hearts were too hard to comprehend the full meaning of the mournful words. He was numbered with the transgressors; He made his grave with the wicked and with the rich in his death, Isaiah liii. And, ignorantly, they fulfilled the Scripture, when on Calvary they crucified Him, "and the malefactors, one on the right hand and the other on the left," Luke xxiii. 33. As we think upon this scene, which the most vivid fancy can but feebly pourtray, our thoughts rest upon the centre figure of the group; and as we note each different particular of His agony, we more fully realise the great-❘ ness of our sins. How varied are the details of the sufferings the Saviour underwent as “He bore our iniquities.” His justifying blood, as it flows from head, hands, side, and feet, wounded for our transgressions, not only supplies the needed stream to cleanse our sins, but also the needed balm to heal our wounds; and as He hangs bleeding on the Cross, we behold not only the Good Shepherd, giving his life for the sheep, but also the Good Shepherd supplying from his own wounds the balm more precious than that of Gilead, by which alone the health of the daughter of his people is recovered, Jer. viii. 22.* And plainly visible, in spite of the streaming blood, are the bruises made by the scourgings of Pilate. The bruises were for "our iniquities," by "his stripes we are healed;" and they are typified to us by the sweet spicest of the sanctuary, the pure perfume of which went up continually before God in the Holy of Holies, where He, from time to time, met the High Priest. But mark the preparation which these spices, sweet though they were in themselves, had to undergo before they were used for the incense. They were pounded very small, Ex. xxx. 34-38, and the fragrant odour they possessed • It may was thus completely brought out; so, likewise, the Saviour's undeserved bruises, which He bore with such meek fortitude, brought out the fulness of his merits, which form the pure and holy perfume of the rich incense in which God smells a sweet savour of rest. And the Lord of life and glory has two companions in the shameful death He is enduring, guilty sinners. How different is their respective conduct! One, in impotent rage, rails because the Saviour will not save him from his agonising death; the other, meekly recognising the justice of the punishment he is receiving at the hands of man, turns to Jesus for mercy on his soul. Nor does he look in vain. True, it is the eleventh hour, but he receives a3 full a salvation as if he had borne the burden and heat of the day; for the same gracious voice which had in the full vigour of life, declared, "He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life," now speaks to the penitent thief the re-assuring words "Verily I say unto thee, to-day shalt Thou be with me in Paradise." The whole strength of the promise is in the I. And who is the I? God Himself. 3rd. "Woman, behold thy son ; ... behold thy mother." We have here the purest exhibition of a woman's love, in its almost unmatched fortitude. The Saviour's mother stood by his Cross; and though the iron does, indeed, enter into her soul as she experiences the truth of the prophetic words of the aged Simeon, Luke ii. 35, yet she stands by, comforting as only a mother can, Isa. lxvi., every feature displaying sorrow, sympathy, and love. The beloved disciple is there also, and to him, who had leaned on his breast, John xiii. 23, and had thereby felt most of his love, the dying Saviour bequeaths his mother. He, as it were, substitutes one to fill a not be uninteresting to say that the Hebrew word for balm is taken from the root to wound. Balm really means something obtained by wounding. ↑ Spices is, in like manner, a Noun, obtained from the Hebrew root to bruise. void which He never will again be able to do; for during the forty days He was on earth, after his resurrection, the things pertaining to the kingdom of God would seem to have exclusively occupied his mind. Dear children, with his dying breath, the commandment the Saviour honoured on the Cross was that which tells us to honour parents. In what high esteem He must have held it! 4th. "Eli, Eli, lama sabacthani." "My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me?" A fearful and mysterious darkness covered the earth for three hours, and that at just the brightest part of the day. At the ninth hour, the Saviour, in the very extremity of his agony, uttered these heart-rending words; the Lord had, indeed, "laid on Him the iniquity of us all;" and the intensity of the weight may be judged from this exclamation. He was the offering for our sins; and how fearful must have been their exceeding sinfulness, when the righteous soul of the pure and holy Jesus is thus cast down within Him. Constantly during the Saviour's earthly career He had been cheered and encouraged by some direct manifestation of his Father's love; at his Baptism, Matt. iii. 16, 17; at his Transfiguration, Matt. xvii. 5; and again, shortly before his agony. What wonder, at the last dread moment, when the Father's face was obscured, He faints for the light of His countenance. How terrible is the hiding of his face from his people; and equally how terrible to his enemies is the regard which He casts at them. The first is illustrated in Ps. x. 1; civ. 29; xxxiv. 15; Jer. xxiv. 6. To the wicked, on the contrary, God's eye is a source of disquiet; as with the Egyptians, Ex. xiv. 24; and it will be in the last day to the finally impenitent, Rev. vi. 16. 5th. "I thirst." These two simple words were uttered in fulfilment of Scripture, John xix. 28. In Ps. Ixix. 21, the vinegar and gail are foretold. It is worthy of notice, that the very sensation of thirst was an indication that both the mental and physical agony had greatly abated; for it is a known fact that whilst either are at their height the animal wants of the body are for the time unfelt and unnoticed. Special communion with Jehovah was the immediate object of each recorded instance of the forty days' seclusion, Ex. xxiv. 19; 1 Kings xix. 8-18; Matt. iv. God doubtless meant to teach that man does not live by bread alone, &c. There was a refinement of cruelty in the mode in which the Jews responded to our Lord's cry. Vinegar was refreshing, and in the hot climate of Judea was in frequent use. See Boaz's permission to Ruth, Ruth ii. 14. And it would seem, lest they should be too merciful, they mingled gall, thereby rendering it too rancorous even for Him, who had endured many hours of agony beneath a burning thirst, to touch, Matt. xxvii. 34. How ignorantly, in their blind rage, were they fulfilling the prophecies. 6th. "It is finished." The Saviour's perfect work is now over, and as, step by step, we trace his career, from the manger in Bethlehem to the Golgotha, where He died, we find Him ever obedient; and when He used these words He intended to tell us all that we could add nothing to his perfect work. And what was the work which the Father had given Him to do, and which He had so perfectly executed in John v. 30, and vi. 38? He says it was to do the will of Him that sent Him, and He proved what had been told by the prophet Samuel 1 Sam. xv 22. And it is surely well for us to be up and doing, that at our death we may be enabled to say we have finished the work which our Father has given us to do. And what is it Jesus tells us? John vi. 29. It seems easy, but faith in God's dispensations throughout our lives, however hard they may appear, is not an easy grace to acquire; and well is it for us that our grounds of acceptance will be the Saviour's finished work, and not our own. 7th. "Father, into thy hands I commend my Spirit." How calm is the resignation here expressed. The silver cord is loosed, and the golden bowl broken, Eccles. xii. 6,7; and though the bruised body, with its pierced feet, hands, and side, never saw corruption, still the Saviour commends his Spirit into the hands of Him who gave it; whilst the spirits of all flesh return to God, only his followers can have the privilege of commending their spirits to Him. We find St. Stephen, the first martyr, imitating his Saviour. Surely, in the Saviour's dying words, his twofold nature, as God and man, is exhibited; and by a careful consideration of his death, we shall be enabled more perfectly to understand the sen tences of the Athanasian Creed, which we shall repeat on Easter Sunday. "Perfect God and perfect man, of a reasonable soul, and human flesh subsisting, equal to the Father as touching his Godhead, and inferior to his Father as touching his manhood." S. B. but for [The general treatment of the subject in these Notes is excellent ; either a Lesson or Address to Children the language employed is often far too high for their comprehension, and would render much that is good in itself unintelligible to those for whose instruction it is intended.-EDITORS.] A LESSON FOR A SENIOR CLASS ON THE CHARACTER OF JEREMIAH. T. THE character which we shall study to-day, is that of Jeremiah. In order to be able to form a correct judgment of the individuals whose characters have lately been passing before us, we have on other occasions found it useful to look first into the general history of the person, and then to trace out the points of character by which they were distinguished, as examples or as warnings. Following this plan, let me hear what you can tell me of Jeremiah? Scholars. He was a prophet. T. Do you know where he was born? (No answer.) T. Turn to the 1st chapter of his prophecy, and you will obtain some information respecting him. Read the first three verses. (Girls read.) T. Now tell me his birthplace? S. Anathoth. S. The tribe of Benjamin. T. Do you know the situation of the possession of Benjamin on the map? S. North of Judea. T. Yes; here is a map shewing the division of the land between the tribes. S. Here is Benjamin, and there is Anathoth. T. Tell me now what station of life did Jeremiah fill? S. He was a priest. T. And in the reigns of what kings did he live? S. Josiah, Jehoiakim, and Zedekiah. T. Besides these, there were two others, Jehoahaz, who succeeded Josiah, and Jehoiakin, son of Jehoiakim, who each reigned only three months, and are not mentioned in this chapter of Jeremiah. What was the character of T. Anathoth was a city of the priests, Josiah, in whose reign Jeremiah began -in what tribe was it? to prophecy? Ꮮ |