The causes seem to me to be threefold :

I. The attractions offered in the Sunday school are eclipsed by the attractions outside the school.

II. The attractions offered in the Sunday school are insufficient to retain the scholars.

III.-The hearts of the children being carnal, they do not understand, and not understanding do not relish, the spiritual truths taught by the teachers.

The tracing of causes is utterly useless, unless the tracing of them suggests remedies. This evil, like nearly all social evils, lies at home. It lies at our doors, dear reader, and at home we must look for the remedy. We are not as a body up to our work as teachers, as good stewards of the mysteries of the grace of God. We do not teach as blood-bought, soul-redeemed men and women. 1.-More earnestness in teaching.

2.-More Gospel brought out in our lessons.

We want

3. More realization of eternal things; heaven, hell, &c.

4. More realization, that it is by faith alone the soul is redeemed from hell.

5.-More prayerfulness and faith.

6. More consistency in life.
7.-More special meetings for boys.

8. More speaking personally to scholars.

9. More acting in harmony with superintendents.

I am persuaded of this, that when once the Gospel is received into the heart, the scholar will be very loth to leave the class of the teacher who first taught it to him or the roof under which he received

it.

The

1.-First, then, we want more earnestness in teaching." teacher thoroughly in earnest generally succeeds. The moment he sits down in the class, be shuts out all externals, and his very earnestness gives a power to the words he utters which few teachers experience. Earnest! who can help it, when there are some ten or twelve lads before you who will shortly sail down the stream of life, cross the river Jordan, and be launched into the awful, fathomless ocean of eternity? Yet there are some teachers whose motto seems to be, "always just in time to be too late ;" who regard any time better than the present to plant the Gospel truths in the fallow, rotten, and corrupt hearts of their scholars; and who regard it as one and the same thing (though they are found in the path of duty, teaching), if their scholars accept or reject the truth as it is in Jesus. God save our schools from them, from these Achans in the camp No wonder, teacher, you do not see fruit, you merely scatter the seed

on the ground, instead of burying it in the ground. we must be thoroughly in earnest in teaching; this is which we must strengthen the chains.

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Well, then, one way by

2. We want more GOSPEL taught in our lessons." No teaching will have a lasting effect on any one, children or adults, in which there is not the Gospel proclaimed. Teach the Gospel as it is;"Jesus Christ the Saviour of the sinner." The bare explanation of doctrines, the defining of the difference between consubstantiation and transubstantiation, lessons on controverted points, have no hold on the mind, much less on the heart of scholars. The mission of teachers is to bring the heart to God rather than to cultivate the mind. We want more Gospel truth,-pure, unadulterated truth. Whenever a lesson is taught, or a scholar visited, nothing is so calculated as the Gospel to "strengthen the chains."

3. Again, to "strengthen the chains," we want "more realization of eternal things, heaven and hell, &c." Realization and application are two most desirable things in the present age. Heaven and hell are realities, woe be to us if we underrate them. Jesus did not, shall his servants do so? If we realized them as heaven and hell, we should speak with tongues of fire. Oh, let us realize eternal things; let our prayer be for the next three months, "Shew us eternity as far as we are able to bear it, O Lord." By so doing we shall strengthen the chains."

4. We want " more realization that it is by faith in Jesus Christ alone that the soul is redeemed from hell.” "Whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life." This is the testimony of the Saviour. The moment a man believes in Jesus Christ, and rests on Him as the atonement, he is a saved man. Sanctification comes in afterwards. Justification takes place directly the sinner, with the eye of faith, takes hold of Christ. Keep to that, insist upon it. Make your scholars know that it is not praying, nor doing, nor anything else, under heaven or in heaven, than by believing in Jesus Christ. He it was, dear teacher, who came into the world "to seek and to save that which was lost."

5-" More prayer and faith;" and more prayer IN faith. "Prayer moves the hand that moves the world." Pray! pleading the atonement and the promises; pray! pleading your helplessness; pray! without ceasing, amid the roar of cannons and the noise of many waters; in the hour of temptation and of prosperity; in the hour of teaching; amid the din of business; amid the grinding of machinery; pray, when walking the London streets, or country lanes; and let THIS be the burden of your petition,-" O LORD, REVIVE THY WORK

IN THE HEARTS OF THOSE WHOM THOU HAST GIVEN US TO TEACH."

"O child of God, there is a well,

From whence exhaustless treasures spring;

All Egypt's wealth cannot excel

The blessings faithful prayer doth bring."

Ah, and these blessings are for you, dear reader; pray, and by this means "strengthen the chains."

6. Another desirable improvement amongst us is "consistency in life." We should either leave off teaching, to go thoroughly with the world, or at any rate not deceive ourselves, and bring scandal on Jesus' name by mixing mammon with righteousness. God loves the man who is holy. That man has most power in prayer who is most holy. Oh, Sunday school teachers, be consistent in life. Many cannot join with the poet :

"Raised from the dead, WE LIVE ANEW,

And justified by grace."

And being strangers to that, they will not realize the two next

Ah, dear friends, Watts gives you a warning when he writes :

"MISTAKEN Souls! that dream of heaven,

And make their empty boast

Of inward joys and sins forgiven,
While they are slaves to lust."

Children are close observers; they see your inconsistency, and your words ever afterwards fall upon their ears as sounding brass, or as a tinkling cymbal. The Apostle has a word to you, and God write it upon your hearts, to the saving of your souls and the stirring of your ardour:-"Awake to righteousness and sin not; for some of you have not the knowledge of God: I speak this to your shame."

7.-" More special meetings for our scholars." I lately attended such a meeting. The one thing spoken of was,-"Salvation through Jesus Christ." About twenty-five boys were present. Presently one boy began to cry; before the meeting closed, nearly all were in tears: but at length those tears were stilled, and there is reason to hope that ten or a dozen boys went away happy, believing in Christ. Have special meetings for your boys; speak pointedly, speak personally, speak prayerfully; and may God bless your efforts in this endeavour to lengthen and "strengthen the chains."

8.-We want "speaking personally to scholars," as if what you said concerned them. In these days of public discussion, when we talk of the public, we are apt to forget that we individually form part of the public; so when we tell our scholars "Except a man be born

again he cannot enter into the kingdom of God," we must put it to them personally, "Except You, Charles, be born again, You cannot enter," &c. Speak to them personally.

9.-Then again, "more acting in harmony with superintendents" is wanted. We are apt to look upon their movements with suspicion and mistrust. They are generally patriarchs, veterans in Sunday school service, hence they command our respect. Not only that, they certainly know more of the work than their companions in labour. Experience, the best school after all, has taught them many lessons which guide them in their work, and aids their judgments. Disunited armies are unfit for the battle field. Captains quarrelling with their generals is as unseemly and as mutinous, as soldiers quarrelling and disobeying their commanding officers. We have, now-a-days, very little of the spirit of Abram,-"Let there be no strife, I pray thee, between me and thee, and between my herdsmen and thy herdsmen, for we are brethren. Is not the whole land before thee? Separate thyself, I pray thee, from me; if thou wilt take the left hand, then I will go to the right; or if thou depart to the right then I will go to the left." Oh, do your best to strengthen the chains between superintendents and teachers, and consequently between teachers and their scholars.

Now I have been writing, and you have been reading some most important words; what effect has it had upon your heart? Are you prepared now to go forth to your class, and know no other name under heaven than that of Jesus whereby man can be saved? Are you saved yourself? Have you realized the truth? If you die to-night, where will you go? Jesus is ready to save you; now, while you are reading this paper, if you will but believe. I see thousands of children in our Sunday schools, how many of them are saved? Are there not hundreds leaving year by year to fight their way through life with their souls unsaved, or,-to put it in Saxon language,-LOST? Let us unite in a body, individually and collectively, teach Jesus and Him crucified, the power of God to the salvation of every one who believeth. Let us beg, beseech, nay, agonize the God of heaven to bless our instruction to the eternal salvation of the Sunday scholars of England. "Faithful is He that promiseth, who also will perform ;" performing, He will make his soldiers rejoice; and rejoicing, we shall catch up the language of the Psalmist,—“ O Lord, open thou my lips, and my mouth shall shew forth thy praise;" and join also with the poet :

"Ye mountains and vales in praises abound,
Ye hills and ye dales continue the sound;
Break forth into singing, ye trees of the wood,
For Jesus is bringing lost sinners to God."

E. H. I.

WALK IN WISDOM TOWARDS THE JEWS.

WE ever look to the result of any course of action, as the best test of its wisdom; it may be useful to try the treatment which the Jews have met with, in different ages, by this simple rule, and see whether other nations, or whether we ourselves, have "dealt wisely with them."

When the "new king arose over Egypt," he found "the land filled" with the children of Israel; and his appeal to his people was, "let us deal wisely with them." Therefore he afflicted them, made "their lives bitter with hard bondage," and made them " serve with rigour." In this example of expediency, he was, if possible, outdone by his successor, whose cruelty in "scattering them throughout the land of Egypt, to gather stubble instead of straw," and still demanding the usual tale of bricks, is known to every one. But "there is way which seemeth right unto a man, while the end thereof are the ways of death." And Pharoah and his lords must have felt this, when there " arose a great cry in Egypt, for there was not a house where there was not one dead," and when they saw themselves spoiled of their jewels of silver, and jewels of gold, by the six hundred thousand on foot, beside children, who went out free. And Israel must have thought of this, when they saw "the Egyptians dead on the sea-shore," when "there remained not so much as one of them."

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Balak too, the rich king of Moab, found "the face of the earth covered with this people, come out from Egypt"; and by his housefull of silver and gold, he tried to bring down on them that curse which should enable him to overcome them and drive them out. But he must have remembered the parable of Balaam, how it said, "there is no enchantment against Jacob, neither is there any divination against Israel," in the day when God sent Moses forth to avenge them of the Midianites, and " Balaam the son of Beor, they slew with the sword." And he must have trembled at the thought of "great riches, and trouble therewith," when he heard how the gold, silver, brass, &c., had been taken by Israel, with the immense spoils of flocks and herds. And Israel too, must have been overwhelmed with awe and gratitude, when at the end of the battle, they took the sum of the men of war, and "there lacked not one of them."

Further on in Jewish history, we read of Haman advanced by his sovereign," above all the princes and servants of the king;" how, in his house, he sent and called for his friends, and Zeresh his wife, and told them of all his riches, and the multitude of his children, and how he was promoted-" Yet all this availeth me nothing, so long as I see Mordecai the Jew, sitting at the king's gate." And we read