all they could to maintain their authority. Paul places disobedience to parents in the same category with all unrighteousness, with envy, hatred to God, implacability, with malignity, destitution of natural affection, and with maliciousness and murder. And he adds, that the guilty are "worthy of death." (Rom. 1: 29, 32.) These testimonies are only selections from the Old and the New Testament upon this subject. The general language of the Bible shows its importance. "Chasten thy son while there is hope, and let not thy soul spare for his crying." "Withhold not correction from the child, for if thou beatest him with a rod he shall not die." "Foolishness (wickedness) is bound in the heart of a child; but the rod of correction shall drive it far from him." "The rod and reproof give wisdom; but a child left to himself bringeth his mother to shame."

In the childhood and youth of Jesus, our Redeemer, God sanctions the relations of life. At the early age of twelve years, Christ was about his Father's business; teaching the doctors of the law, confounding the mighty, and reviving the spirit of prophecy. Yet when found by his reputed parents, he left his work at their command, returned to his home in Nazareth, and became subject to his parents. Thus in his life he sanctioned the obedience due to parental authority, as of old he hallowed the Sabbath by his example.

Parents cannot receive that respect which is due from their children, unless they are obeyed. The Bible commands children to "honor their parents." It attests that "the eye that mocketh at his father, and despiseth to obey his mother, the ravens of the valley shall pick it out, and the young eagles shall eat it." But insubordination forbids respect; the magistrate or the parent who is not obeyed, is not respected. The germ of filial respect is reverence for authority. Take any family in which parents are treated with rudeness and disrespect, in which daughters are uncivil, and sons unkind, and you find a home where the word of the

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Stanzas, written during Illness.

11

mother is not obeyed, and the command of the father is not law. It is so in human government; it is so in the government of God. And many parents sigh over the habitual disrespect of their children towards them, which even the presence of strangers cannot restrain, while such conduct is the direct result of mistaken indulgence. While there was hope they did not chasten them.

M. H. S.

STANZAS, WRITTEN DURING ILLNESS.

Is there not a place of light,

Where thy face, O God, is seen?
Where no black, oppressive night
Comes the soul and thee between?

Is there not a place of rest,
Where thy peace is ever felt?
Where thy saints, supremely blest,
Beneath thy smile in transport melt?

Is there not a place of joy,

Where thy friends shall gathered be,
Where the high, the sole employ
Is to praise and honor thee?

Thither would my soul be gone,

From the ills that pierce me here?

From the sin, the wrath, the scorn,
That darken earth with guilt and fear.

But awhile my lot may be

In this field of strife to stay,

To show the lost the way to thee,

For Zion's weal to watch and pray.

Let me then in patience wait,

My earthly task with zeal fulfil,

And every duty of my state

Perform according to thy will.

Arm me with thy Spirit's power,

Fill me with thy peace divine,

And prepare me for the hour

That shall make me wholly thine.

PRIVILEGES AND PLEASURES OF SABBATH SCHOOL TEACHERS.

1. THE association with pious companions. Whatever exceptions there may be, we sincerely trust, and think it may be said of Sabbath school teachers as a body, that they are a band whose hearts the Lord has touched, and who, by the help of divine grace, have consecrated themselves to the work and service of God, and who are desirous of doing good in their day and generation; to be brought within the sphere of their fellowship, and to be associated in their labors (we speak from experience), we consider to be no small blessing. The most advanced Christian finds it good for advice, for solace, and for support, to be associated with those who are traveling the same road as himself; how much must they who, in comparison with such, are but just commencing their course. Persons of this description constitute a large portion of those engaged in Sabbath school labors; busied during the hours of toil in the concerns of the world, often, there, standing alone in their attachment to religion, grieved by the scoffer, or, at least, by the indifferent, the Sabbath school and its connections become to them as a well-spring of life, a pure and invigorating atmosphere in which they breathe, and are refreshed. Often has the writer rejoiced to escape for a season from his daily occupations and companions, to meet with those with whom he was united in this delightful work; and to spend, not only the Sabbath, but the week-night hour in company with his fellow-teachers, was to him both pleasant and profitable. From such week-night meetings, devoted to prayer and serious conversation, he has often returned with his spiritual strength renewed, and better prepared to withstand the contaminating influences by which he was surrounded; with his thoughts turned into a purer channel, and his feelings directed to better objects than those which had engaged them during the day; and now looking back to those occasions from the distance of more than twenty years, he feels as he has ever felt, that to the influence of these

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association, under God's blessing, he was deeply indebted for the formation and settlement of his character in those critical years, when so often the mould is struck which shapes the whole future existence. It is no small benefit, at such a period especially, to be brought into connection with those whose influence may be so beneficial; and in this way we see how Sabbath school engagements promote the growth of Christian character.

2. The opportunities they afford of meeting for social prayer might be more specifically noticed; but having already adverted to this point, we will only add, that it has been on these occasions that very many have first ventured to speak to God in prayer, and for God before their fellow-creatures, -that in these meetings has commenced many a career of public usefulness, which, in its ultimate course, has largely blessed both the church and the world.

3. It is no small privilege to be engaged in the Lord's work. "We are laborers together with God," was the emphatic description which the apostle gave of the work in which he was engaged in proclaiming the gospel of salvation; and who can desire a higher privilege than this, to be allowed in any way, however humble, instrumentally to bring sinners to a knowledge of the truth. It is a labor, too, which brings its own reward, both in the satisfaction it affords, and in the effects which it produces on the hearts of those who, with right motives, are engaged in it. The only other thing we shall here notice is,

4. Seeing something of the results of our labors. Though this is not the ground of our obligation to perseverance in our work, it is a most delightful and effective incentive to it. Every diligent and faithful Sabbath school teacher knows something of it; we are not called to labor and see no benefits result. Every minister and every church can testify, that many have thereby been rescued from the paths of the destroyer, and gathered within the fold of Christ; glorious

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and multiplied are the seals which God has put to this work, but the full amount must be left for the day of God to declare. What we see ought to be sufficient to cheer our hearts, to confirm our faith and steadfastness, and by urging to the exercise of the gifts that are in us, confirm and justify the belief that Sabbath school engagements are eminently calculated to promote the growth of Christian character."

CHRISTIANS SHOULD CONVERSE FREELY ON THE SUBJECT OF RELIGION.

"Ir were much to be hoped by this means [catechetical exercises] that faulty shyness would be overcome, which appears too generally, of discoursing at all about the things of God and the matters of religion, and what men find in their own spirits of savor and impression of such things. It is very strange and unaccountable that there should be so peculiar a shyness in reference to the matters of religion, to discourse of them, especially as to one's own sentiments about them; what one apprehends and feels in his own breast. There is not such a shyness in reference to any other concerns as there is in reference to those concerns that relate to men's souls, and their state toward God and eternity. Nobody is shy to speak of his own or others' acts, for the most part; nobody is shy to speak of an aching head, or an aching tooth; but what a shyness is there to speak of spiritual maladies, a bad heart, a blind mind, and the like! If discourses were in this way more frequently introduced, so as to become familiar, this shyness would be gradually overcome. We find, in public assemblies, it is usual to give an account of things that are of another and most inferior concernment; as in courts of judicature, where persons of the meanest capacity are called frequently to speak their knowledge, to tell what they know about such and such a matter, that