strain the conscience and engage the affections, how they should become the elements of a new existence, and be breathed into the soul as the breath of spiritual life, without experimental religion? "No unskilful hand should ever play upon a harp when the tones are left for ever in the strings." No bird is like a living bird to tempt others into the net. The mightiest weapons of man, which thrice arm him with truth, are his secret armor. The shaft that would cut its way through the ice and iron of human depravity, and probe the depths of the soul, must be pointed and polished by heaven.

"A drop of grace has been declared to be better than a sea of gifts." You may pile the fuel mountain high, and unless you can breathe into it the principle of flame, unless you can touch it with the finger of fire there will be no combustion. The laws of nature forbid a harvest without the seed, and also that the stream should rise higher than its source. Nor will your instructions be likely to raise men above their level, your moral hearts. The thermometer of their affections will rise no higher than the caloric of your piety will make it rise. Men are sympathetic, they feel as others feel; it is only when they are fired with energy themselves, that they energize all around them. Like the Leyden jar which only when charged to a plenum, and coming in contact with dead things or lifeless men, emits sparks sufficiently potent to electrize them into celerity. "A corrupt tree cannot bring forth good fruit." Man as legitimately exerts influences in accordance with the character he has formed morally, mentally, and physically. If the character of his mind, from which these influences proceed are impure, corrupt, and vicious, what process of filtration exists between the teacher and child, which can possibly prevent this moral putridity from being transferred to the latter? If the teacher be of an opposite character, such, also, will be the influence he will exert upon the child. There are many schools, however, where pious teachers cannot be obtained, where persons of ability, devoted zeal, and moral worth, must be employed, though these qualifications are not united with decision of religious character. We find convicts in our prisons teaching classes of their fellow-prisoners within these walls of justice with considerable success; though they are doubtless often thoroughly reformed men.

"Men who are not inwardly Christians may be useful in promoting the subordinate ends of this institution, by performing the humbler duties of this spiritual husbandry, of gathering out the stones and preparing the soil for the good seed;" and they may reach the object which is ultimate and supreme. These exceptions are instances where God literally chooseth the "foolish things of the world, base things, and things which are not, to bring to nought things that are, that no flesh should glory in his presence." But experimental knowledge and acquaintance with the science taught, should certainly be the rule of qualification for the teacher in order for the blessing of God, and also for the confidence of the children; for a haughty or indifferent demeanor will quickly alienate their minds and render them intractable; and no counterfeit of the graces will answer; an imitation of this part of duty will be unavailing, for children are nice observers. They understand as it were instinctively the real feelings of those who have the charge of them; they read the language of the eye, and keenly observe all the nameless indications of unaffected kindness and grace. If, therefore, you would with the finger of Omnipotence strike the master spring of the human soul, and cause it to vibrate for immortality, you must be "endued with power from on high." " And a teacher of this stamp, walking in the Eden garden of childhood, will never be in his school as a flower blushing unseen in the desert, or a gem in an unfathomed ocean cave. His industry, enthusiasm, and still baffled but still renewed endeavor, will awaken still responsive echoes in his pupils, though his circle be broader than theirs. Contagious virtue will go out of him. Then he will be ever before them as a cluster of Eshcol, ripe, purple, gushing, alluring them towards the land of learning whence it came. Here is the secret of success; they make scholars because they are scholars; their tones, gestures, words, pronunciations, casual sayings, and classic taste, insensibly permeate and leaven the whole lump."

CHAPTER XI.

THE RESPONSIBLE AND HONORED POSITION OF SABBATH SCHOOL TEACHERS.

Ir is an important consideration that our churches are already in the hands of Sabbath school teachers ; they give character and create the passion and feelings of our churches. None can doubt that Sabbath school teachers, before and after the conversion of their scholars, have much more to do in forming their moral principles and habits, than the pulpit can possibly effect; their instructions are more frequent, direct, and personal. The Sabbath school may be considered the outer court of the temple, the primary department of religious education; and the Sabbath school teacher is the initiatory officer, he watches at the temple gates, and makes his mark first and deepest. How important, then, that our teachers who thus bear the vessels of the Lord, have clean hands; that they be living exemplifications of the power of vital godliness.

Let them believe and teach error, and the church cherishes in her bosom an infant Hercules, whose club will shortly be used in beating and killing his own mother. Let them feed the children from the vine of Sodom, and clusters from the vineyard of Gomorrah, and we have a power of antagonism growing up in our midst, which is irresistible. Like an ill-going town clock that deceives a whole town, so they lead whole societies astray. Teachers must be taught and indoctrinated, that they may feel the ground on which they tread is firm, that their path is through light and under sunshine; for the safety of our churches, their stability, permanency, order, purity, knowledge, all, under God, depend upon the character of the Sabbath school. Hence the vast importance of having at the head of our Sunday school classes, not theologians or polemics, but plain men and women of ripe Christian experience, rooted and grounded in the faith once delivered to the saints, - mighty in the Scriptures, - apt to teach, - patient, constant, faithful. It has been said that moral teaching produces all other teaching, and is reproduced in all others, and that Sabbath school teachers should therefore bring into the school-room every thing which the children will afterwards need in the world; the whole of Christianity; its precepts, its doctrines, its duties; involving all they owe to God; to their parents, their teachers, their friends, their country, and all mankind. Such teachers will not regard the children under their care merely as creatures that are to be fed and clothed and gradually to become profitable; they will not regard the teaching of a Sabbath school class as a piece of job work, like the sawing of a load of wood, to be done with little or no thought at the time, and then forgotten; nor will they find a moment's leisure time in the brief space allotted them to minister to the transcendent wants of the human soul, and fit it for never ending