prepare our hearts to be taught by God, or to hold communion with Him, it must first be by the stillness which is here enjoined.

But besides the necessity for quiet in order to enable us to realize the presence of God in prayer or praise, it is also essential in securing the attention of those who are taught. Not only are the teachers perplexed and distracted by the turmoil around them, but their classes are incapable of receiving the instruction they are able. to give. Their restlessness, the constant incitements to wandering thoughts, eyes, and ears, which abound on all sides, divert them from the subject of their lesson, and effectually check anything like serious impressions. The school-time comes to an end, leaving a painful impression on the anxious teacher's mind that he has been beating the air, that he has failed, often to be heard, always to be attended to with that thoughtful seriousness which alone can give him reason to hope that his words will find a way into his scholars' hearts.

With some such feelings as these, I found myself depressed while in London, but a week or two afterwards I was far away in the country, and, as is my habit, on Sunday I bent my steps towards the village school. It was a great contrast in every way to the scene of my usual labours. The gentle river flowed with scarcely a sound or a ripple, at a short distance from our place of assembly; the trees peered through the open windows, and the wind rustled softly among the branches; high rocks rose up on the opposite banks of the stream, clothed with verdure, but here and there white crags cropped up to the surface, showing how scanty was the soil in which the foliage grew. The room itself was a model of a village schoolroom, and the children were ranged about it in order, but without formality. Girls and boys in separate classes, occupied different parts of the room, and it seemed to me that the mingling of the two tended to soften down that roughness of manner which boys are apt to exhibit when assembled separately; while, I fancy, that even the teachers in the boys' school were unconsciouly led to modulate their voices, that they might not interrupt, by the loudness of their teaching, the ladies whose classes were so near to them. However this may be, we assembled the little company in perfect order, prayers were read without a sound of interruption, and the teaching was carried on in such a subdued tone, that while the whole produced that pleasant hum of voices which proved that earnest work was going on, it fell far short of that confused noise which we hear in our large boys' schools in London.

the

Perhaps my readers may think my contrast an unfair one-a small village school of mixed boys and girls being placed in juxta-position with a large school of London boys only. Undoubtedly, I ought not

to expect the one to be as quiet as the other; but I think we ought all to try to obtain as much quiet as possible, as well for our own sakes as for the benefit of our scholars. It is not all to be left to the superintendent: it is a difficult work for him to restore order, when it is lost; but it is not so difficult for the teachers to preserve it. He rings his bell, knocks on his desk, or sounds his whistle to command silence and attention; there is a temporary lull, but in a moment or two all falls back again into the same confusion, and neither by threats of detention after school hours, nor by abruptly calling for periods of cessation from teaching, and for perfect listlessness till silence is obtained, can peace be restored. Fretful submission may be enforced by such means, but it is only temporary, and the restraint is broken through as soon as possible. Far better to appeal, by a few words of kindly but strict exhortation, to the good sense and right feeling of the elder boys, and to look to the teachers to secure sufficient command over the younger ones. Indeed, it is to the teachers chiefly that I would look to remedy such a state of things, wherever it exists. By their timely presence, a little while before the opening school service, they can engage their boys in a quiet conversation, or, at least, hinder any noisy talk among themselves; in the opening school service they can keep a watchful eye upon their class, while taking their own part in the prayers; and, in the time alloted to teaching, they can keep the voices of their scholars subdued, and repress that loud boisterous reading or repetition which is so annoying to surrounding classes; while, by thus preserving comparitive quiet in the class, they will not need to raise their own voices so loud in speaking to their boys as to interrupt any of their fellowworkers close by. I especially refer to the last point, as it is one not sufficiently remembered; for, although I would not go so far as to say with Pope, that "it is with narrow-souled people as with nar row-necked bottles-the less they have in them the more noise they make in pouring it out," yet I have observed that the most skilful teachers are always those who make least noise in imparting instru tion to their classes.

While I am anxious to urge upon my fellow-labourers the impor tance of obtaining comparative quietude in their classes, to enable them to carry on their work as teachers of God's truth, yet I am desirous, on the other hand, to guard against the wrong impression, on the opposite side, that if a class be kept from making a noise, and well-disciplined by the constant preservation of order, the great sim of the Sunday-school teacher has been attained. For, while it is quite true that no effectual religious instruction can be given in the midst of noise and inattention, it is also true that the mere exercise of discipline can never be a substitute for it; although nothing can

be done without discipline, it is nothing in itself, or except as it enables us to communicate more effectually the knowledge of Divine things to our scholars. No superintendent will be satisfied in feeling that he is a sort of policeman to the school,-that his hours of rest on the Sabbath are to be devoted to the mere drudgery of keeping silence or repressing disturbance. He wishes to be engaged in God's work on God's holy day, and all he does should be with the fixed purpose of drawing the children under his charge nearer to their heavenly Father, and to the knowledge and love of their Saviour. In the spirit of Christian tenderness, not unmixed with the strictness and severity of truth and right, as opposed to falsehood and error in any of their forms, he will speak to the children, exhorting them to reverence the Lord's day as one of great happiness, to read the Bible as the word of the living God, to join in the prayers offered up to Him as if they were visibly in His presence, to sing His praises with reverent voice and thankful heart, and to learn from their teachers how to walk in the ways of holiness and the paths of peace. Either for superintendents or teachers in a Sunday-school to be satisfied with a lower standard than this, is obviously to derogate from the real position they occupy as fellow-workers with the ministers of Christ in feeding the lambs of the flock. Each time we assemble, it is to promote the Saviour's kingdom, and to win souls for Him. Let this thought animate both superintendents and teachers alike, and they will feel that rightly to enter into the spirit of their work, they will need to be themselves in a calm aud tranquil state of mind, and that they can only impart a like feeling to the scholars by first ensuring that cessation of noisy confusion by which all such impressions are effectually excluded from the Sunday-school.

S. A. W.

THE LIGHT OF LIFE.

The hours have passed of silent night,
With all their sweet repose,
And now the sun's bright cheerful light
High o'er the mountain glows;
Angels above, with gladsome heart,

Loud hallelujahs sing;

Creatures below, come, bear a part,

To praise the heavenly King.
Night is for rest,- for work the day,

'Tis ours to use it well,

If sorrows drive our hopes away,

Or joys our grief dispel :

Then in our joy or in our woe,

May each, by heaven's light,
Tread the strait path of life below,
As in our Father's sight.

The night which veils the earth and sky,
Points to a brighter morrow;

"Tis gone, it only dims our eye,

Like passing tears of sorrow:
Spirit of Light, thro' life's dark way
Be thou our cheering guide,

For what shall tempt our feet astray,

If Thou with us abide ?

And when Death comes and dims our sight,

And calls this life away,

Lord, grant that we may see the light

Of everlasting day.

Cheltenham.

W. H. 1.

SYMPATHY.

SYMPATHY-genuine, deep, and active-is one of the brightest and noblest of the Christian graces; and it is one of the rarest. Without it, as St. Paul reminds us, a man may display the heroism of a martyr, and the generosity of a philanthropist, and yet both his heroism and his generosity be utterly worthless. It is not the stern resolution that will BEAR, nor the ready profuseness of an open hand that delights to GIVE,-it lies far deeper, it is the thrill of the heart that has learnt to forget itself, and to realise the experience of others. Even the heaven-born quality of Mercy fails in its mission if Sympathy be wanting; for Mercy looks, indeed, with deep compassion on the lost offender, breaks his chain and sets him free; but it is SYMPATHY that follows him back to his polluted and disgraced home, and devotes itself to the task of comforting strengthening, and restoring the pardoned one. And as for the difference between these two, I need only refer to the experience of those of my readers (and who will be exempt ?) who, when humbled by a sense of guilt, and then comforted by the assurance of pardon, have also felt that they were NOT LEFT ALONE to fall again unaided, but that He who pardoned still followed the humbled penitent, not only bidding but HELPING him to sin no more. We are not left to think of God as only a far-off Judge before whose bar we stood trembling, and heard the glad accents of Divine compassion and forgiveness; if that were all, despair would soon return. No! but the whole history of an incarnate Redeemer shows us the

ever-present Friend who has not only blotted out our sins by His own precious blood, but has determined never to leave us nor forsake us, perfect in the sympathy that He gained by becoming actually one of us, partaker of our flesh and blood. For thirty years He mingled in the quiet scenes of private human life; for three more He was found amidst the most public places of resort, and in constant intercourse with men of every stamp. There are no phases of human nature unknown to Him-no depths of feeling that He has not sounded, no secret emotions that He has not detected; no subthe motives that He has not unravelled. And, perfect in His knowledge, He is perfect in sympathy. It is as if a physician, walking through a vast hospital, crowded with sufferers from every variety of disease, knew at a glance the real state of each one by having been himself attacked, and knew also the remedy. How our Saviour CAN so feel WITH as well as for those whose moral and spiritual maladies must necessarily be so terribly hateful to His pure sinless nature, is indeed one of the mysteries that we cannot fathom; but we dare not refuse to take Him at His own word, and as we mourn under the burden of our multiplied infirmities, we rejoice to know that He will not therefore spurn us, but rather count our utter weakness the strongest reason for helping us.

"Go AND SIN NO MORE." What should we think of this, if we had not His aid? But when He adds, "My grace is sufficient for thee," hope revives.

The teacher that would be like his great Example, must seek this spirit. It does not come naturally to many of us; for if I have made clear the distinction between feeling for and feeling with our charge, it will be allowed that we are very far from the spirit of our Master's sympathy. Children come under our notice, and our care. We know, perhaps, how injurious the influence at home may be, and thus we feel for them. It is a step in the right direction, but mother needs to be taken to feel with them. What are the sources of this sympathy? inward and outward work? What its results?

What will be its

There we

I-The sources of sympathy lie not on the surface. may, indeed, find that sentimentalism that drops its tear over human misery when forced on its sight, but gladly forgets it when unseen. There, also, we may find the semi-selfish desire to heal those wounds of others that spoil our own comfort by the evidence of suffering. How many of us, alas! even with far nobler minds than such poor feelings evince, are yet very stoical about the misery of our fellowcreatures, so long as it lies hid in courts, cellars, and prisons, or ut-of-the-way hamlets, and does not thrust itself on our notice like Lazarus at Dives' gate.