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could attend to the word of God, where they might learn some good, instead of learning all manner of mischief, learning it fast, learning it with all their heart. Now, you think it a good thing that your parents send you here, and don't let you run about the roads. It is dreadful to think in what manner many spend the time which you spend here; the very venom of Satan seems to be thrown into them. No wonder mankind are so bad. I do not wonder when I hear of persons being taken up, or hear of their being hanged, when I see how they are brought up, or rather not brought up at all, but just left to do what they like. It is a good thing that our young friends are here. What are they here for? When we go anywhere, it concerns us to ask what it is for. They come here to learn the art of reading. Now, think. A great many men and women may take up a book, and see nothing but black strokes and lines. Yet they know that some persons find a great deal that is curious in the book, as well as what is solemn the account of the creation of the world, of Adam and Eve, of the destruction of the world, of the duty of men, and what is necessary for their salvation. But, now, how sad not to learn all this for ourselves? One is perfectly astonished at persons growing up content to be so ignorant. It is a great burning shame not to learn. It is a laborious thing to learn to read; some of my young friends find it so. They spend a great deal of time, and still find they don't read so well as some who have been here longer. It's a hard thing, that's the plain truth of it; but it requires great pains to learn anything that is good, any trade, any business. Persons who have not learned to read will sit down and sleep away their time. Now, don't you think it far better to read the book of God? Think of two young persons. One can sit down and read, and wonder at what he reads, and be very much pleased; he may find out his own faults, and that's a good thing; he may know what will be done at the end of the world, It is dreadful to see men live on like cattle, and not so good as cattle. Now, we have to expect our young friends to take pains. Don't think it too hard and harsh in your teachers to require attention. Endeavour to do your best. They that will try the second and third time, and go on to the hundredth time, will find that they get on; at the end of a month or a year they will find that they have got a great deal more than they had at the beginning. We might say here, you should not think that all the rest of the week there is to be no improvement at all. Do not think that the lessons of the Sunday are like fine clothes, to be put on that day only; they are as good on the Monday or the Wednesday. It is a good thing to read on the Saturday, or any day; it is never but a good thing; it is never a bad thing to read a good book. To learn to read should not be called a task, for that means a hardship. Pay attention to your teachers. Think whether it is not due to them. What do they gain by it? If they got a great deal of money, that would be something. Our friends take this trouble out of good-will; you are nothing to them, in the common sense of the word. They could employ their time in a way that would please them far better; they do not think it so delightful to come and toil and toil again; but they come because they wish to do you good. You owe great attention to your teachers. Let me insist on this again and again. You should labour to understand what they say.

Again, we have to say that the important instruction of teaching you to read is not all they wish to give. They endeavour to give you some instruction about what you read. A person may run on reading the book of God, and yet not learn anything to good purpose. Religion is the knowledge, the love, the fear of God; a concern to please God; a concern to know about Jesus Christ, who came to suffer death that men might be saved. Your teachers tell you that sin is an offence against the great God; they tell you that no man has seen God, because he is a spirit, but he sees all of us. God is such a kind of being that he can be in every place, and see children at home and

in school, and everywhere. But this important instruction requires attention, to think what God is, why sin is so bad a thing-why so bad in its consequences, to go to a dreadful place called hell, where sins bring down the punishment of God: and your teachers tell you all this, and how sin may be pardoned. They tell you about Jesus Christ-about his suffering malice and injustice from men, and all this while divinely glorious and excellent. You have not learned any. thing to good account unless you have learned this.

With regard to the parents, they have a duty to do. If persons come to instruct their children out of pure good-will and benevolence, they should not think themselves exempted from doing what they can. Parents should endea vour to give instruction now and then, and always, that if God please to give his grace, their children may grow up good Christians, members of the Church, and, at last, of heaven itself; a glorious thing for parents to think of that.

Our young friends should be reminded of a judgment to come. Those who have followed vice and folly and wretchedness, will be condemned before God. The teachers will have to say, "We warned them, prayed and entreated them to fear God, but they would not." It is a happy thing when children grow up thankful to their teachers; but, on the contrary, when a child grows up and can say, "I never cared-I never attended to my teachers,"-it is a dreadful thing to come to that pass; and knowing all this, we inculcate upon them with all our might to think of their duty, to remember that God calls them to repentance.

We would express in the strongest terms our regard for the teachers-respect and value for their services-foregoing a great deal they would like for the pur pose of instructing the children, just because they fear God. We have the very highest possible respect for those who take all this pains; one only wishes they may have patience and not be weary in well-doing. There are some children, perhaps, to whom they do not seem to do good; but even in such cases I hope their instructions will, as it were, some day, rise from the dead and do good & long while after. If the teachers do no good at all to others, they will still have done their duty; but we are sure this cannot be the case. They themselves will be the wiser for it; they will see how difficult it is to communicate knowledge; it has made them try to make it plainer, and therefore they understand it better themselves. They are doing what God is calling them to do.

I do not know that anything more can be added to these plain hints. The great thing is, to lay these things to heart, to strive to grow in grace, and entreat our heavenly Father to take us and our children under his divine protection and favour.

CHRISTIAN WORK.

BY THE REV. THOMAS HANDS.

"And they bring unto him one that was deaf, and had an impediment in his speech; and they beseech him to put his hand upon him. And he took him aside from the multitude, and put his fingers into his ears, and he spit, and touched his tongue; and looking up to heaven, he sighed, and saith unto him, Ephphatha, that is, Be opened. And straightway his ears were opened, and the string of his tongue was loosed, and he spake plain."—Mark vii. 32-35.

THE life of Jesus is full of teaching, and one of the most prominent lessons in it is, that human life is not to be merely quiescent and recipient, but active and communicative. Jesus was pre-eminently a worker. "He went about doing good." We get occasional glimpses of him among friends at social entertainments, but there

some

we find him still teaching and doing good work. We see him occasionally retiring to the mountain sides, and getting apart from his disciples and from the mul titude, that he may think and pray; still we see that he is seeking fresh strength for holy work. "I must be about my Father's business," is the motto of his life.

but

The teaching and training he gave to his disciples were adapted and intended to fit them also to be workers. He never encourages a religion which can live only in a still, warm atmosphere, and under a cloudless sky. Christ came into the world, because the world wanted workers, not dreamers. Work here, rest in heaven, must be the Christian's motto; and, to be like Christ, we must be "workers together with him."

But not only do we find in the life of Jesus example and stimulus for work, we learn also the principles, the purposes, and the results of Christian work; and I am about to use the incidents of this narrative to illustrate these points.

I. We have here an illustration of the nature of true Christian work:-" And they bring unto him one that was deaf, and had an impediment in his speech; and they beseech him to put his hand upon him.”

Now observe, Jesus does not reprove these people for seeking his aid in the removal of physical suffering. He does not tell them that to heal bodily ailments, and restore to health and enjoyment, are purposes aside from the work he had come to do, and that they are anxious, in this matter, about that which is of very inferior account. He does not say that they ought rather to have come to him seeking light and power for the man's soul, instead of seeking relief for his bodily ailments. Those ailments were part of the entail of sin, and were obstacles to the man's recep tion of higher good; and Jesus does not think it beneath him, though he had come into the world chiefly to seek and save men's souls, to apply his healing touch for the removal of their physical maladies. Let us not, then, simply gaze and wonder at the display of his miraculous power in such cases, but let us also learn this lesson, that the object of true Christian work is the relief of the miserable, whether in body

or soul.

To use our property for clothing the naked, feeding the hungry, providing shelter for the houseless, and healing for the sick; to instruct the ignorant in secular knowledge, and to use our social and political influence in improving the condition of the community, destroying political and ecclesiastical abuses, and extending among men the blessings of freedom and of good government, are truly Christian purposes. They are indeed subordinate, but they are included in true

Christian work. It has higher aims than these, but it comprehends these. The religion of Jesus sets a high value on the bodies as well as on the souls of men. It teaches us to despise neither, but to work for the salvation of both; and if, like the priest and the Levite, when we come upon a suffering man, we gather our garments about us, and pass by on the other side, we are influenced by a spurious sanctity, and mistake the genius of true religion. Then are we most like the Master, when we stoop to the wretched wherever we find him, pour balm into his wounds, and provide for his commonest necessities. Thus Christ's example hallows for us the most secular forms of Christian activity.

But there is another lesson for us here, at which we glance in passing :-Our hope in Christian work is in the power and compassion of Jesus. They brought the man to Jesus that he might put his hand upon him. Perhaps, wearied by the use of various specifics, and disappointed by the want of success of eminent physicians, they now come to Jesus, whose fame has reached them-come to him as their last hope. Blessed is the despair which drives us to Christ! For then only does hope begin, a "hope that maketh not ashamed.' Miserable indeed would have been the condition of this poor man, had not his friends brought him to Jesus, and besought him that he would put his hand on him. Just so the hope of success in all true Christian work rests on the power and compassion of our Lord; and if we would do true service to men, this must be the object of all our efforts to bring them to Jesus. There are objects we may accomplish in a different manner. We may secure personal and sectarian objects by bringing men over to our party and to our church; but true Christian work can only be done by bringing men to Jesus.

Let us, then, learn to work, to work com. pletely, aiming to benefit men secularly and spiritually; and in all our working let this be the chief end, and the ground of our hope of success, to bring men to Christ, that he may put his gracious hand on them.

II. We have here an illustration of the method of Divine co-operation with us in our work.

Jesus is the Divine worker; he works with Divine power, and his is the Divine method. Now, look at him effecting this Here is no vaunting of ability, no

cure.

parade of means, no summoning a crowd of on-lookers, or waiting for an opportunity to produce a thrilling effect. "He took him aside from the multitude." God works quietly. That is our lesson-a lesson we very much need to learn in this day. We find quiet work the hardest work of all, and are apt to think nothing is being done if there is no noise, no demonstration. But it is often "apart from the multitude" God does some of his most notable works. How quietly does he evolve life in a thousand forms; forms of beauty, which come, and live their age, and fulfil the Divine purpose, and pass away unnoticed by the multitude! How quietly and slowly does the coral reef rise from the ocean, and receive the soil, and become covered with verdure, and then become the home of man! Through long years the monarch of the forest springs from the little seed, and becomes the tall sapling, and then spreads his branches in noble beauty, and yields grateful shade to man and beast. These are but illustrations of what God is ever doing in the spiritual kingdom. In many a soul, unseen and unnoticed by the multitude, the seed of the kingdom finds an abiding place, and there quietly and slowly grows, until it yields the fruits of righteousness, unknown even to the sower. Surely Jesus says to us, by taking this man "aside from the multitude," there is real work to be done in the quiet by-ways of life-work, real work, though unnoticed and unapplauded by the multitude; and that we should not seek, in the work he gives us to do, to be sustained by the excitement of publicity, but should be content to work for God and man as bravely and as truly in the solitary places, "aside from the multitude," as amid the approving gaze and loud plaudits of a crowd.

Observe again :-he "put his fingers into his ears, and he spit, and touched his tongue, and saith unto him, Be opened." His mere will was adequate to the production of the cure. Why, then, does Jesus act thus? The lesson is on the surface. A miracle of healing is wrought-wrought by the hand of the Divine Ŏne; but not wrought by the immediate action of the Divine will. Even He who has all power, here acts through visible means. Is not this, then, our lesson-God co-operates with us in the use of instrumentality in our Christian work? This is the method of the Divine operations everywhere. He chooses his instruments of such a cha

racter, and employs them in such a manner, as to manifest his own power, and to teach us that he could do without the instrument, and that if any man glory, he should glory in the Lord. But he also employs instrumentality to teach us that, if we would be healed, or be healers, we must not stand aside and look for miracles, but must work-work with such means, and such tools, as he gives us to work withal. Everywhere in nature we see the same great truth, and that is but the illus tration of God's mode of operation in the kingdom of his grace.

And further, notice how simple the means were which Jesus employed in effecting this cure. He only touched him with his fingers, and from those fingers flowed the healing power. To the human hand, the God within gave healing efficacy. The man's ears were opened, and in rushed all the harmony of earth and heaven through those gates of the soul; his tongue was unloosed, and out poured distinct, articu late praises of God's mercy. What & wonderful change! And how simply produced! Yes, brethren; and what a strik ing lesson again for us! God works great purposes by the simplest means. Very fre quently does he show us this. From nature and from history we could multiply illustrations, and in spiritual work it is constantly seen. We are often constrained to exclaim, "Not great things, but things that are despised, and things that are not, hath God chosen, to bring to nought the things that are, that no flesh should glory in his presence." Despise not simple instruments; they are oftentimes God's mightiest levers for effecting spiritual revo lutions. The "preaching of foolishness" is "the wisdom of God, and the God." The simple story of the Cross has done more for the world than all the world's philosophy, or the world's power, or the world's wealth.

power

III. Here is an illustration of the spirit in which all true Christian work should be done:" And looking up to heaven, he sighed."

Is it mere fancy to say that Jesus teaches us here something like this:that if we would be successful workers among men, we must cherish a spirit of kindly sympathy for those we would help that in our work we must remember and acknowledge our dependence on God; and that our work must ever be accompanied by prayer? I have not space to enlarge on

15

of

these points; but I think we shall miss the teaching of the narrative if we overlook them. But is there not much socalled Christian work in which we are painfully conscious of the absence of these characteristics ? Proud, cold, austere working among the poor, the ignorant, and the outcast, in which there is no tender sympathy of soul; boastful, selfconfident working, which relies on talent, skill, eloquence, wealth, and takes no account of God; bustling, noisy, impetuous working, which knows no calm, solemn moment of communion with Heaven; a zeal which is devoured in its own flame, and is never renewed in the secret place of prayer :-alas! we have too much of this. Such working may fill the world's eye, and the world's ear, for a season; but it will never fill the world with blessing. If we would open the ears, and loosen the tongues, we must often sigh in sympathy with the sufferers, and look up to heaven for His blessing by whose power alone we can be made effectual workers.

IV. We have here an encouraging illustration of the success which always follows true Christian work.

You may be ready to say, the success here is no ground of assurance of success to us. Jesus commanded success by virtue of his Divine power, and there is no parallel between him and us, as workers. Stay!

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Has he not said, "The works that I do
shall ye do also; and greater works than
these shall ye do, because I go to my
Father"? He has associated us with him
in his work; he has shown us how to do
that work; and he has promised to aid us
in it, and to place at our disposal his own
Divine energy. May we not then fairly take
his success as the guarantee of ours? "Lo,
I am with you alway, even to the end of
the world." And because he never failed,
we shall always succeed. Sometimes our
success is immediate ; we have results
straightway." The Lord sends his word,
uttered by us, direct to the soul, and
straightway the ears are opened, and the
string of the tongue is loosed," and we
marvel at the suddenness as well as at the
greatness of the change. Sometimes we
have to toil on for a season apparently in
vain. But it is not in vain.
"If the pro-
mise tarry, wait for it." "He that goeth
forth and weepeth, bearing precious seed,
shall doubtless come again with rejoicing,
bringing his sheaves with him." Break
up the fallow ground; sow the good seed
of the kingdom; and as the rain and the
snow shall not fail of their purpose, so the
word of the Lord shall do the work of the
Lord, and the patient labourer shall
become the joyful reaper. "Learn to
labour and to wait," and your expectation
shall not be disappointed.

GOOD-NIGHT AND GOOD-MORNING.
A CHILD'S SONG.

A FAIR little girl sat under a tree,
Sewing as long as her eyes could see;

Then smoothed her work, and folded it right,
And said, "Dear work, good-night! good-night!"
Such a number of rooks came over her head,
Crying "Caw! caw," on their way to bed:
She said, as she watched their curious flight,
"Little black things, good-night! good-night !"
The horses neighed, and the oxen lowed;

The sheep's "Bleat! bleat!" came over the road,
All seeming to say, with a quiet delight,
"Good little girl, good-night! good-night!"
She did not say to the sun "good-night!"
Though she saw him there like a ball of light;
For she knew he had God's time to keep
All over the world, and never could sleep.
The tall, pink foxglove bowed his head;
The violet curtsied and went to bed;
And good little Lucy tied up her hair,
And said, on her knees, her favourite prayer.
And while on her pillow she softly lay,
She knew nothing more till again it was day
And all things said to the beautiful sun,

"Good-morning! good-morning! our work is begun!"

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