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Your Committee anxiously look forward to greater local exertions on the part of the friends of your cause, and they strongly recommend the extension of the Agency system into this Province.

PROVINCE OF MUNSTER.

The following statement exhibits the number of Schools, Scholars and Gratuitous Teachers in connexion with your Society, up to 1st January, 1829.

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On reviewing your operations in this Province during the past year, no considerable variation appears to have taken place in the number of Schools, Scholars and Teachers, except in the County and City of Cork. Your Committee rejoice to report that there your cause is still progressive. In this County and City there has been an increase during the past year, as regards your Society, of 20 Schools, 1008 Scholars and 113 Gratuitous Teachers, which more than doubles the total increase in the remaining five Counties. In addition to the Auxiliary Society in Cork, mentioned in your last Report, Associations in connexion with your Society, have been formed at Bandon, Kinsale, and Mallow; and there are at present six Branch Parochial Sunday School Associations, in active operation within the City of Cork. Two Public Meetings of the Cork Auxiliary, which were very numerously attended, were held in the Month of September last, and your Committee are assured, that they have excited a more lively interest in your cause; and they have just received the gratifying information that a Sunday School Union has been formed for the City of Cork, comprising the Patrons, Superintendents and Teachers of twenty-five Sunday Schools.

Your Committee endeavoured to introduce the Local Agency system into the County and City of Waterford, but difficulties greater than they anticipated having arisen, they are not at present able to report that the attempt has been successful.

The increase in this Province as regards your Society has been 30 Schools, 1440 Scholars, and 168 Gratuitous Teachers.

Your Committee would here repeat the warm acknowledgments frequently made by former Committees, of the inestimable ser

vices of the Conductors and Teachers of the Sunday Schools in connexion with your Society. These form the basis upon which, humanly speaking, the principal efficiency of your exertions, in the cause of Sunday School Instruction, must ever rest-and your Committee earnestly pray, that while these valued friends water others, they may be abundantly watered in their own souls.

Your Committee now present the following Recapitulation of the number of Schools, Scholars and Gratuitous Teachers in con nexion with your Society in each Province, up to 1st January, 1829, with the proportion which the Scholars bear to the population.

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It will be observed, that the number of Scholars in connexion with your Society amounts to 185,490—of this number 88,896 are reported to be reading in the Bible or Testament, and 31,755 are reported to be Adults, above the age of 15. The information which has been furnished to your Committee, justifies the statement in your last two Reports, that at least, one half of the Scholars in the Schools connected with your Society, do not attend Daily Schools.

Your Committee in offering a few observations, suggested by the preceding statements, would call your attention in the first place, to the subject of Local Agency.

The painful fact, that in the twentieth year of your Society's existence, the proportion of Sunday Scholars in Leinster, Connaught and Munster, in connexion with your Society, should be in relation to the whole population of each of these Provincesin Leinster, as 1 to 70-in Connaught, as 1 to 155—and in Munster, as 1 to 176, calls for additional means to promote the work of Scriptural Instruction in these Provinces. Your Committee have already intimated the high estimate they have formed of the fitness of Local Agency for this purpose. They cannot here attempt to detail the various advantages of the system, but they desire to convey the strong sense they entertain of the important services, which a zealous and prudent individual may render to your cause, in the capacity of a Local Agent. He assists your friends in the formation of Sunday Schools, Sunday School Unions

and Associations-he suggests and encourages local exertions, and stimulates to combined and more efficient efforts, the scattered zeal and latent energies of the District to which his labours are directed at the same time that he is bound to act in strict conformity with the second general rule of your Society, by which “it shall "not assume to itself, any control over the internal regulations "of the Schools in connexion with it, nor use any other inter"ference in their concerns, than that of kind admonition and "advice."

Your Committee would now briefly advert to some particulars, suggested by the retrospect of Sunday School operations during the past year, as exhibited in the Annual returns from the several Schools connected with your Society.

The Sunday School system continues to manifest its utility in affording to many, if not the only, at least the only available means of attaining the knowledge of reading. This sufficiently appears from the fact before stated, that of the whole number of scholars receiving instruction in the Schools connected with your Society, not one half are attending at Daily Schools.

In observing the humble rank, and consequently the limited means of many of the conductors of Sunday Schools, your Committee have to notice the importance of your Society in affording, by its gratuitous grants of books, and by the simplicity of the system which it recommends, a field for the benevolent exertions of this portion of our population, without which much of that energy which has been called into active and efficient operation, would have lain dormant, or have been circumscribed in its exertion. And your Committee may here observe, that in several instances, the most efficient teachers are reported to be those who have themselves been instructed in Sunday Schools-an interesting fact, which exhibits each of these Institutions as containing in itself the seed by which its extension may be promoted, and its continuance perpetuated.

Your Committee have also the satisfaction to observe, that from the increasing interest evinced by the higher orders in the work of Sunday School instruction, its tendency to produce mutual kindness and affection between the rich and the poor, continues to be more fully developed; and the Christian patriot must surely rejoice, to see the more exalted classes of society thus personally engaged in promoting the best interests of their humbler brethren, and without impairing the just relations of civilized life, or weakening the due subordination of rank, calling forth the warmest feelings of the heart, and uniting the whole community in the bonds of affectionate intercourse.

Your Committee advert with pleasure to a striking proof of the increasing interest in the cause of general education, and which they believe may be distinctly traced, in many instances at least, to the influence of Sunday School instruction—namely, the erec

tion of several School-houses by voluntary subscription-a work to which the poor have cheerfully contributed their money and their labour. To the same cause is to be attributed the establishment of numerous Lending Libraries; and the avidity with which the books are sought after, evidences the growing thirst for knowledge, and suggests the powerful influence which these Institutions are calculated to exercise, in raising the intellectual and moral character of this country.

Your Committee have the gratification to report, that Sunday Schools for the instruction of adults are progressively increasing. The attention of some individuals interested in the progress of these Institutions, has been directed to the inmates of almshouses, and other similar establishments; and in this way have they been enabled to provide for those, who groan under the combined evils of age, poverty, and destitution, a kind instructor to sympathize in their feelings, relieve in many instances their temporal wants, and direct their eyes to Him who heals the wounded spirit with the balm of salvation.

Your correspondents, in reporting the progress, during the past year, of the several Sunday Schools under their superintendence, have borne gratifying testimony to the general improvement of their scholars in knowledge, intelligence, good conduct, and even in outward appearance-an improvement which in many instances is also visible in the parents of the children in connexion with your Society.

Your Committee have also received repeated assurances of the direct influence of Sunday School instruction, in producing a reverential observance of the Sabbath-in leading to a more respectful attendance on the ordinances of public worship-in introducing the reading of the Scriptures and family worship into the cottages of the poor; and in preparing the scholars for a more profitable reception of the instructions delivered from the pulpit. The Conductors of Sunday Schools continue to assure your Committee, that the great object of their instruction has in various instances been accomplished, by the implantation on the hearts of their scholars, of that knowledge which is the germ of eternal life. Your Correspondents thankfully state, that the individuals to whom they refer, are walking soberly, righteously and godly in this present world; and that many who entered the Schools in total ignorance of the way of salvation, have manifested in the trying hours of sickness and of death, a full confidence in the atoning merits of their Redeemer.

Your Committee cannot resign their trust, without again expressing their unfeigned gratitude to God, for the success which has hitherto attended the operations of your Society, and they would call on its friends to draw encouragement from the past, to go forward in the work which yet remains to be accomplished. They would remind them, that through the instrumentality of a scriptural education, they seek to promote the happiness of man,

and the honor of his Maker-to make known to ignorant and sinful creatures, that a Mediator between an offended God and our guilty race, is found in the man Christ Jesus. Difficulties may occur, and obstacles present themselves, but the cheering aspect of your Society, constrains your Committee to exclaim, "Fear not, for they that be with us are more than they that be with them." In entire dependance on the Spirit of the Most High, they would earnestly invite to increased exertions, that Ireland's moral destitution may be no longer a bye-word and a proverb-that every individual in our country may possess the knowledge which leads to everlasting life; and they would conclude with expressing their earnest hope, that by more vigorous efforts on behalf of religious instruction, and more special prayer by Christians for the Spirit to be poured out from on high, shall "peace and happiness, truth and justice, religion and piety, be "established among us throughout all generations."

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