And then we all of us want not merely to speak truth, but to make it interesting. A man, a woman, can speak for any length of time when not well prepared-it is like extempore preaching, so-called, there is not the slightest reason in the world why some preachers should ever stop, save for refreshment and sleep. What we want is to seal home the truth with apt image and wisely worded counsel. Whenever you read or note anything to do you service, then do not pin it as a collector does dead butterflies, but keep it alive in your heart, and turn it into truth for the Sunday class.

The riches of Christ are unsearchable. The most living subject of study to the greatest minds in this age is Christ. There is Dr. Farrar's work and Dr. Geikie's work, and see how they are read! Well, they are not dry, there is plenty of imagery in them.

Don't be afraid of infidelity in your towns. It is poor work. The heart will never feed upon negations. The religious nature is in every child, and that nature is like a self-righting life-boat-scepticism cannot sink it; if it is plunged into the waters of doubt it cannot be kept down, it rises again! Leave the Bible to speak for itself. Do not defend it. I remember a little gentleman (he could not help being little) rising as a speaker at a meeting and saying he was going to speak in defence of the Bible. Very good! But you could scarcely see him under the magnificent shadow of the great Rock of Ages. I think it well that teachers should understand the evidences, historical, prophetical, and miraculous, for the inspired word of God; but it is best of all that they should remember the Bible is its own witness to the world. Some time ago I was reading of a wanderer in the prairies of the West who lost his way, and having "nuggets" in his possession he took vast care not to trust himself to strange companions, Night came on and the shadows fell over the trackless forest; at last a gleam of light was seen through the trees, it came from a wooden little shanty sort of a home in the forest; the traveller stole to it, and glancing in he saw an old man and an old woman; he tapped and went in. It happened that he was an utter sceptic, and had long been dead to divine things. The aged couple offered him some repast and all they could offer as a resting place in the shape of a shake-down bed on the floor. Oh! he didn't mean to sleep, not he, he meant to keep one hand on his revolver and the other on his gold. Presently one of the aged couple, before turning in to a little side sleeping room, said, "Stranger! before we rest we always read a chapter from the good old book and have a word of prayer." In that prayer the old man prayed for the stranger within their gates. When they turned in, the stranger laid down and slept-slept like a top-perhaps making the same whirring noise. However, he slept, and thought, as they say in Yorkshire," nowt" of gold or revolver! When he woke he wondered how it was! Had he not determined to rest, but not to sleep? How came it about that he slept? And then he remembered that it was the good old book and the prayer that quietly did it all. Yes! that is the

evidence. The Bible makes the home-makes Victoria's home, and makes every true English home! And it is a comfortable, safe, restful thing in a human, as well as in a divine sense, to love the Bible.

That is your text-book! Oldest in history, sublimest in philosophy, sweetest in poesy, and above all able to make us "wise unto salvation." I for one am glad that it is being re-translated; let the fine gold be freed from all alloy and accretion of human mistake. And as the Bible speaks for itself, it follows that Sunday school teachers are amongst the truest enemies alike of infidelity and inhumanity in all the world. Lectures against scepticism are good in their way, but the ten thousand times ten thousand teachings of the Sabbath school from week to week are the best agencies of all for confirming the faith of the soul.

Then think of your material! What a back-ground to work

on! Artists choose different back-grounds. Some choose red, some blue, some a very peculiar green, but there it is! and it is seen through all the work! Your background is what? AN IMMORTAL SOUL. A child is more than a cathedral! A child is loftier than the Alps, I take a little child to the Himalayas and on the loftiest peak I place the child. Magnificent are the mountains, but that little child is greater than the mountains. These shall perish, but the child shall remain !

And our work does not reveal all its value at once even in this world. You prepare for the future times. I was travelling with a child one day when the lights were in the carriage in broad daylight. "What were they for? " said the child. The lights did look strange in the garish light of day.

"Wait a while, child!" Presently in the dark tunnel the child understood it all! We are getting ready the lights which will shine in the dark places of their after experience-in years to come-a light in the dark places of sorrow and separation. Yea, a light even in the "valley of the shadow of death."

"I think I can see my way," said a little dying child to a missionary in Jamaica, from whom I heard it.

"See your way, my child?" Yes, sir."

"Thou wilt show me in the path of life: in Thy presence is fulness of joy, at Thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore."

Teachers should make use of nature and science whenever they can! I am greatly in favour of pleasant little lectures by able men on week-days, on the eye, the hand, the atmosphere, the heavenly bodies, the birds of Scripture, and the plants! Oh, how fond children are of flowers and fields ! I had been praying with a dear little child who lay a-dying, and after I had left the room and had come down stairs, I heard the little thin voice say: "Mr. Statham, Mr. Statham." I returned to the room, and the dear little wistful face looked at me, and the voice said, "Are there any green fields in heaven, Mr. Statham ?" I could only quote the verse,—

I wish we had more really SENIOR teachers. A sprinkling of grey heads in a Sunday school is beautiful! Our little ones at home cannot be an excuse for ever! They grow up in time, and it would indeed be well if in the evening the old love for the Sunday school would return, and the fathers take up the sweet toil of earlier days! With the new toil I am sure would come also new joy to the heart. And here let me say what we all want is a spirit of encouragement alike in superintendents and teachers. Suppose I have to give an address, here are three heads :

1. Blame the noisy ones.

2. Criticise the unprepared ones. 3. Condemn the unpunctual ones. I will alter these heads my way :1. Praise the quiet ones.

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2. Congratulate the prepared ones. 3. Commend the punctual ones.

I can leave the application to itself!

Encourage the weak, the timid,

the nervous, the anxious, and you will have done more to make a good school than by all your lectures on method and order.

Paul leads Timothy to stir up the gift that is in him, or literally to stir up the fire that is in him, and we all know what comes to fires that are not stirred up! There are plenty of people to put out the fire! We need to fan it into a brighter flame.

Every year some of our workers die, but we never hear of their regretting the time or strength they spent on the Sunday school. Never! When the evening comes-and it comes to some very earlyand the bars of amber and gold are round life's setting sun, what a joy it will be to think that the glorious harvest is on the other side of Jordan"-that we shall meet many who will be our joy and crown of rejoicing in the last great day! "The small and the great" are there not only Augustine, Chrysostom, Luther, and Melancthon, but children too, who have fought their little fight as children, and finished their course with joy.

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We have the noblest ideal of any workers in this work—it is all summed up in this-childhood for Christ, and childhood like Christ. May the Spirit be poured out from on high! May the banner of the Cross be raised high, and the bugle note be clear! May we find multitudes in the valley of decision; and when the roll call is heard may you and I stand in our lot at the end of days, as the faithful soldiers of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen.

A New Roll Book.

BY THE REV. FREDERIC WAGSTAFF.

OTHING is better qualified to impress the mind of a thoughtful teacher than the sight of his new roll book. The old one has become very familiar during the fifty-two Sundays it has been in use, and as week by week its record of work done has grown under the hand of its owner, he has been reminded how rapidly every opportunity for usefulness passes away. But when the last entry for the year has been made, and the old companion is laid aside, the sight of the new roll book with its pages as yet unstained by a single mark, tells more forcibly than one likes that the opportunities of the past are gone for ever. While the year is still unexpired, while there yet remain to us some (though few) weeks or even days, we are apt to stifle our regrets for past insufficiency by resolutions, earnest and sincere enough, as to the future. Though eight or nine months have gone, and there is little result to show for them, we console ourselves by a determination to be more diligent henceforward-a consolation which might be more real if the determination were more faithfully carried out. But somehow the declining year never seems to be actually leaving us till its last day is ended and its last hour has expired. The new roll book tells us of the past-and the story it tells is frequently a very sad one.

The names of our scholars do not remain the same from year to year. From this new book we omit some that will henceforth be to us little more than memories-perhaps pleasant ones, possibly, alas, painful and sad. Our scholars outgrow the Sunday school-do they all pass from the class to the Church? Amid all the discussion as to the best means of retaining our elder scholars, the fact remains indisputable that no method is likely to be so effectual as the exercise of a strong personal influence by the teacher upon each individual scholar. Hence names in our roll book should not represent merely the means

of distinguishing between one child and another for registering attendance and kindred purposes, but they must be to us the representatives of real living personalities. That is to say, they should each bring up before us at all times a clear conception of the child to whom the name belongs, as one with whom we sustain a vital relationship. Nor should that relationship cease when the name is removed from the class register. Gatherings of "old scholars are sometimes held with both pleasure and profit; ought we not to retain somewhere a registrar of "old scholars," with whom, by means of an occasional visit, or a letter when a visit is impracticable, we may continue a helpful association during those dangerous years that follow the age at which most scholars leave us? If this were done, names that now suddenly disappear from the roll book would be still preserved in some form or other, and, what is better still, our influence over our scholars would often continue both to their advantage and ours.

Hardly second in importance to the thoughts that cluster round the old names omitted, are those that present themselves as we enter new ones in our register. These new scholars are coming under our influence for the first time. Let us be very careful as to the nature of first impressions. Such impressions are often very lasting. Quite irrespective of any thought or intention on our part, these new.comers may conceive ideas about ourselves and our lessons which may render almost nugatory all our efforts to instruct and benefit them. Or, on the other hand, they may be so influenced by the impressions of the first interview, that their young hearts may open to our teaching, like the flower-bud to the genial warmth of the sunshine. If the new scholar's first glimpse of his teacher's face finds a kindly smile there— if the first words spoken in his hearing or to him have a loving ring about them—if the first visit to the class be welcomed by a cordial grasp of the hand-there may grow out of these things, trivial as they seem, results more momentous than one is able to conceive. Fellowteachers, as you enter fresh names in this clean new book of yours, just pause a moment to consider how you can best deal with those who enter your class for the first time.

One more thought presents itself as we look at our new roll book. With the opening year comes the commencement of a new course of lessons. Old truths, conveyed in old familiar words, but still ever new. One great charm of the regular lesson system now so universally adopted, is the variety which it secures, and nowhere is the truth of