artificial conformity to baby language affected by some. For a child to walk comfortably by your side it is not requisite that you yourself should toddle; it is not the length of the step, but the immoderate pace that kills. It may be appropriately observed here that Sabbath school prayers should be short. Undue repetition of the most simple sentences produces a monotony as injurious as the most involved complication of them. It is not necessary in any prayer, much less in a Sabbath school one, "to take the whole of theology at a lift." Three minutes afford ample time for either the opening or closing prayer. The subject-matter of Sabbath school prayers should be varied. There are indeed subjects inseparable from all prayer-adoration, thanksgiving, confession, forgiveness, regeneration. But with regard to these the form of expression should be varied. There are also topics proper to the object of meeting, such as the presence and enlightenment of the Holy Spirit, a blessing on the Word, and the bringing in of sinners through the means of the school. If possible-that is to say, if a uniform lesson is used, reference should be made in the prayer to the subject for the day; or if any remarkable providence has occurred in connection with any of the pupils, note should be taken of it. one sense especially should the prayer be intercessory. The children should be taught to pray for others. Especially should they remember their parents, their brothers and sisters, their playfellows. Nor should they forget the wide circle of mankind, their country, and the nations of heathendom for whose benefit they may be paying into the missionary box. In It is of considerable moment in connection with all this, that aspects of the Divine character should be presented in our prayers, such as are likely to attract and draw youthful hearts. That this is not done as it should be is no doubt largely attributable to the influence of the tone of our Presbyterian pulpit, which perhaps prefers the sword of justice to the magnet of love. But we have no hesitation in saying that in a school, the best impression will result from that presentation of truth which takes hold of and is in harmony with our earliest instincts, which delights in God as a Father, Christ as an elder Brother, the Spirit as a Comforter. The nature and object of Sabbath school prayer should be carefully and repeatedly urged on the children. It should be made clear to them, that it is their service, and that it is a high privilege to be allowed to take part in it. Every other Sabbath this lesson should be urged upon them by their teachers, and it should frequently be pressed from the superintendent's desk. The nature of prayer, the solemnity of speaking to God, the extent of our need, should be constantly inculcated. The duty of following the uttered prayer in the school, repeating it mentally after the speaker, and putting it up in their minds as their own, should be again and again enforced. It is a most worthy ambition on the part of teachers and superin tendents to place the devotions of the school in their proper position, and to receive from the children an intelligent participation in them. When it is remembered that to multitudes the Sabbath school is the only form of public worship they enjoy, that multitudes have no other means of grace, and that to multitudes more the school is a most essential auxiliary means of grace, the importance of making it efficient and attractive by every means is peremptory. The whole question of divine worship in Sabbath schools has to be readjusted; let us get about the reformation, aiming at this ideal,-"Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings Thou hast perfected praise."-Irish Presbyterian Sabbath School Teacher. From "Under His Shadow," the last poems of Frances Ridley Havergal A CRIPPLED SUNDAY SCHOLAR.-As an illustration of the many forms of want and sorrow which the American Sunday school missionary of the South meets and tries to relieve, the Rev. Isaac Emory, of Tennessee, speaks of finding a poor cripple crawling upon his hands and knees over a mile to attend a Sabbath school held in a slab schoolhouse. The missionary gave the poor cripple a Bible, from which he learned to love the Saviour. His eagerness to attend the school was SO great that he has trained a young ox so that by his word it comes to him, allows him to mount its back, or to hitch it to a small waggon, and in this novel manner the poor cripple is now carried to Sunday school. Burning Hearts. When with dear friends sweet talk I hold, HOULD our reader ever be visiting the oldfashioned but charmingly situated town of Bradford, in Wiltshire, we recommend him to go and see a little country chapel which is rich in tender associations and memories of saintly men who have lived and laboured there, and passed into their rest and reward. It stands on the hill that rises abruptly over the town; and the pleasantest way to reach it is to go up the street, past the Town Hall, and the Post-office, and the Priory, then turn to the left, and take the steep path up the hill-side, by the Baptist Chapel. Soon our reader will find himself in a path leading through a pleasant wood, and from beneath the arched branches he will get the sweetest pictures of the charming Rhine-like valley below. Out beyond the wood is a little settlement of cottage-houses known as Bearfield, and in amongst them is a simple square chapel, without a single architectural pretension; a tiny manse is at its one side, and as tiny a school-house on the other. It is a "Countess of Huntingdon's Chapel," and has the usual two white eagle figures supporting the desks for the reader and the clerk, and the familiar baize-lined pews on either side of the pulpit. A very simple place; but we have had many holy and happy times there, and one of them always comes to mind when we read of those disciples whose hearts "burned within them" when they had their risen Lord so near. The minister of that chapel, in the days of which we write, was the town postmaster, and printer, bookseller, and stationer to boot. But his heart was in his ministry. In a little room just next to the loft of the printers, he had his study and communion-place; and many a time we have seen him come out from it with the radiant face that told so plainly of the fire that burned within, the fire of holy joy in God, and of earnest longing for the salvation of his poor people. And many a time we have heard the simple eloquence that moved the rustic hearts, and eloquence that meant just what Paul's cultured eloquence meant in the older time,-"The love of Christ constrained him." But it is the scene of one week-night meeting that has come to our mind while thinking of the talk at Emmaus. The dear man was then getting old, and we had gone up with him to steady his steps with our younger arm, and cheer him with some talk of the things touching the King." Very few of us met in the dimly-lighted room that autumn night; only five or six poor cottage women, mostly old, and very simple and quaint in their cotton dresses, worn shawls, and big cottage bonnets; and two or three old and bowed farm labourers; and John Brooks, the village grocer, who had come in to lead the singing. And very poor, quavering, harsh singing it was; only God, who listens to the sounds that hearts make, could think it beautiful. But when the old men "went to prayer," as they called it, then their soul's life and love gained fitting utterance, and with wondrous pathos and simplicity they spoke to God as if He were indeed their God; spoke to Him as a 66 man speaketh with his friend." And presently, as we rose from our knees, we looked into the minister's face, and it was glowing with a strange light, big tears were running down his cheeks, and it was evident that he had something to say, Never shall we forget his look, or the holy fervour of feeling in his tone, as he said :- "Friends, I don't know how you feel, but I can truly say Jesus is present, and Jesus is precious." How we have longed, a thousand times since then, to know, as he knew, the mystery of the heart that "burns" when Jesus is nigh. Yet is not that precisely what we all want in our Christian work? What would we give if we could spend the daily communion time with the "burning heart," and go up into the pulpit with the "burning heart," and meet our Sunday class with the burning heart," and join at the prayer-meeting with the "burning heart!" And how did good old Joseph Rawling get it that autumn-night? Is there after all any great mystery about it? We do not think so. Any of us can win it if we will; and we remind ourselves, as well as our readers, that the great grace of the "burning heart" is surely to be had for the seeking and the asking. And first of all we put this. Joseph Rawling was singularly simple-minded and sincere. We used to call him the "Israelite indeed, in whom is no guile." He knew so little of the world's wickedness, so little of men's doubtings and infidelities, so the house of his mind and heart was not filled up, there was plenty of room for "thoughts of Christ and things Divine." Jesus could come right in, and show Himself so fully as to set all the love-fires burning. It is so That brings to light one of our gravest troubles now. difficult to find any room for Jesus in the house of our thought and love. The rooms are so full of the lumber of our learning, and our doubts, and our interests, and often the "self-furniture" even fills the very passages and landings, and really we don't quite see where Jesus is to get. Surely, dear reader, unless you find Him good house-room in a simple, guileless heart, you cannot know how He kindles the great love-fires, and fills all the house with a self-consuming glow. And then Joseph Rawling believed in Christ's living presence. The promise, "I will not leave you comfortless, I will come to you," was very real to him; and he went to the prayer-meeting, and the place of work and worship, quite sure that the Lord would fulfil His promise, "Where two or three are gathered together in My name, there am I in the midst of them." And here again we so often fail. We have not the faith that grows into actual expectancy, and makes us really look for the signs of the presence of the "faithful Promiser "; and therefore we know so little in our actual experience of the burning heart.” And God set His seal on Joseph Rawling's work, and gave him "souls for his hire, and seals to his ministry," and that also made the fires of thankfulness and zeal and love burn within him. Nothing kindles like the touch of the Lord's blessing on our work. Nothing lifts us up with a new and sacred fervour like being able to say, "God hath blessed us." A first convert makes possible a thousand, for it sets us upon fresh effort and fresh prayer to win the prevailing and converting power. Have you, reader, ever known a child, or a man, whose "heart the Lord opened" while you spoke the things of Christ? Then you know for yourself all the secret of the "burning heart." And have you never known in your class the solemn face, the moistened eye, the eager question, that showed how God was making His truth tell"? you have the gracious mystery of the "burning heart" yet to discover ; and you may well give yourself no rest until the mystery is yours. 66 Then Yet what a simple thing it seems after all. It is only having Jesus himself consciously present with us; and specially realized in our working times, the strength of the worker; in our anxious times, the quieter of the troubled; and in our communion times, the impulse of all our loving pleadings and prayers. How heartily we wish for all our fellow-teachers and Christian workers, that they may be able to say, very often, after dear old Joseph Rawling— "Jesus is present, and Jesus is precious." ROBERT TUCK, B.A. A DECADE OF WORK. THERE is always a pleasure in looking back, when the path we have pursued has been that of dutiful service to the Master; and although we are fain to acknowledge error and failure, weakness of heart and hand, still if we can measure advance by strength gained, and success by the fruit of labour, it is well that our earnest acknowledgment of praise should ascend to the All-Father, from whom the meed of strength and grace was given day by day, and hour by hour. When a teacher commences work at a fairly mature age, a decade is surely a |