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Friends during the last few years. The great success which has attended the adult schools in Birmingham, has had a powerful influence in this direction. The Committee believe that in many cases the efforts of our members can be most usefully directed towards scholars of this class, yet they hope that the instruction of children will not be, by any means, lost sight of. There are some respects in which the adult school is more attractive than the juvenile school. In the former, the difficulty of keeping order is hardly felt, the restlessness so natural to children, and often so trying to the teacher, is not known, and the scholars are, for the most part, endeavouring to learn as much as they can, instead of as little. But the difficulties attending the instruction of children are all capable of being overcome, or borne with, and they have been found a most valuable moral exercise for the Christian teacher. Whilst, therefore, fully estimating the important service of adult teaching, the Committee are desirous that their friends should not hastily conclude that they have no part to take in the care of young scholars. This is a work which has been abundantly blessed and owned by the Great Teacher, the Shepherd and Bishop of souls, who said, "Suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not, for of such is the kingdom of heaven."

Whether we look at our individual growth in grace, or our position as labourers in the Lord's vineyard, it is equally true that

our teachers. Whilst it is greatly to be desired that they may be preserved from formality and the unprofitable use of words, yet, on the other hand, the Committee regard it as a most precious evidence of Divine favour, that so much of the true spirit of prayer prevails amongst them. And they ask for the prayers of the Church, that the Holy Spirit may be more largely poured out upon them. Can we doubt that, in answer to the prayer of faith in the name of our risen Lord, a yet more abundant shower of blessing will descend? For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh, it shall be opened.

PROGRESS OF NATIVE EDUCATION
IN INDIA.

SIXTY-FIVE of the head men of Coorg, India, have presented a petition to the Government, in which they confess that, six years ago, they were so ignorant as to dislike a school established among them; but it has done so much good, been so well conducted, and "the great influx of European settlers makes the education of their children appear so necessary," that they have raised £600. to endow the school and build a boarding-house, while they ask the State for £1,100. more, which Lord Elgin has gladly promised. A gymnastic apparatus is to be erected, and a garden laid out for the boys. Mr. Bowring, the commissioner, observes, that such an instance as this, of a whole race putting aside traditional prejudices, and meeting half way the earnest wish of their rulers to educate themselves, has, probably, never before occurred in

"We perish if we cease from prayer.” It is a cause for deep thankfulness that the indispensable importance of this Christian duty is so largely acknowledged by our history.

Passing Events.

THE wonderful patience under suffer- outbreak at Staleybridge. This is not ing, which the COTTON MANUFACTURING at all surprising. It was foreseen that DISTRICTS have exhibited for so many much difficulty would be found in remonths has been broken by an storing the people to their ordinary oc

cupations, and the more especially when in age, but youthful in energy, after

there was only a very partial supply of taking an active part in the debates of work for them to do, so that their earn- the House of Commons on Friday night, ings would not much exceed what they went to Glasgow, and on Monday had been receiving from the Relief Com- was installed into this new office, to mittee. It was also suspected at Staley- which it is customary for the students bridge that some of the money given to elect men, who, from their literary or was not properly expended. These con- political eminence, are thought worthy siderations led to a resolution, that the of the honour. On Monday his lordpay in the schools should be reduced, ship was installed, and delivered the and that they should be paid by tickets customary address to the students. After on tradesmen, instead of by money. In some general observations on the imconsequence of this, on Friday, March portance of their improving their present 20th, the operatives broke into the relief opportunities, and cultivating an acstores, and threw out the clothing, quaintance with the writings of antismashed windows, and did other damage. quity, he saidThe Riot Act was read. Cavalry was "In recommending you to make yourcalled in from Ashton, which cleared selves acquainted with the poets and the streets, and was patrolling the town historians of ancient times, I should be late at night. On Saturday great ex- wanting towards you if I did not charge citement prevailed. Sixty persons were you also to become familiar with the taken into custody; and twenty-nine, great masters of English literaturewith one exception, Irishmen, were sent with Milton, with Shakespeare, with to prison. The police were stoned, and Pope, and with other distinguished in the evening the provision shops were writers, whose works form the standard sacked. The cavalry finally charged the of our language, and whose works mob and dispersed them. On Monday also teach you how to condense your morning the Staleybridge mob marched thoughts, and how to express them in to Ashton, which it closely adjoins, and appropriate and adequate language. commenced an attack on the bread shops. Gentlemen, don't think that I am pointing After very riotous conduct there, they out to you exertions beyond the strength proceeded to Dukinfield, where a body of any individual, or advising you to of the county constabulary, under Capt. studies for which the brief period deElgee, with the assistance of the military, voted to your education would be indispersed and drove them back to Staley-sufficient. You are all of you probably bridge. None of the people of Ashton took any part so far as is known in the disgraceful proceedings of the mob. When we learn who the prisoners taken into custody were, the causes of this outbreak, painful as it is, are but too apparent, and our sympathy for our opportunities may present themselves Lancashire fellow countrymen should to you for doing so. Whatever may be not be in any respect diminished in the profession which man enters, he consequence of it. will perform the duties of that profession better by having general knowledge, and that generality of knowledge will not interfere with the successful study of what is necessary for that particular line which he determines to enter. Learn THE NEW LORD RECTOR OF GLASGOW a little of every thing of which you can UNIVERSITY, Lord Palmerston, veteran learn anything. It will be useful here

The contributions received by the Sunday School Union to the relief fund, originated by them, have now reached the sum of £3,419. 14s. 2d.

destined to some particular profession. Make everything belonging to that profession the subject of your intense and preferential study, but do not on that account omit acquiring general information upon other matters whenever

after in your own line. It may be the wonderful progression of late years, and foundation upon which you will build by the labours of others it is easier for up as you go along through life. It you to acquire a share in that knowledge. cannot be supposed that in the coun- There is this remarkable difference betry of Reid and Stewart-the phi- tween the present and former ages. In losophy of mind should not form an former times there were men of genius object of attractive study, and of and of research, who made great progress investigations which will tend to open in the study of the laws and phenomena the mind, to enlarge the faculties, and of nature. In those days men of science to improve that understanding of which contrived to give the results of laborious you are studying the theory and the phi-years in so short, compendious, and inlosophy. The Scotch mind, also, which is telligent a manner as that you are able a very reasoning one—a mind that loves to profit by the labours of others, investigation and the pursuit of truth- and by those pursuits which other men is well known to be peculiarly adapted have worked out by a long and to mathematical science. In a country laborious study. The first object of that gave birth to the man who invented study ought to be comprised in chemistry, logarithms it is useless to inculcate any- including the operations of nature in all thing upon that subject-but, depend those elements in which we live and with upon it, there is nothing which which we deal-a knowledge of which is gives greater accuracy to the op- useful to every man in his individual erations of the human mind than condition, and on the study of which dethe study of mathematics. Gentle-pend the industry, wealth, and prosperity men, we should have lived in vain, of nations. It is not, of course, expected or at least the purposes of existence that those who are destined for the Church would only be partially accomplished, if or the bar, that they should become skil we were to stint our minds to the pre-ful chemists; but even they should be sent, regardless of what has passed before acquainted with the general methods in our time, and the study of history is which substances act upon each other, therefore a most useful and necessary for this knowledge will be found useful part of the accomplishments which youth in every position in life. Gentlemen, ought to acquire. History will not, in- it is only comparatively of late years deed, give you materials which by a that men have turned their attention geometrical proposition you can apply to acquiring scientific knowledge with with accuracy; but it is of great service regard to the crust of the globe on for those who have to act, to know what which we live, and certainly Scotland have been the failures and successes, has contributed its full share towards what have been the errors and achieve the knowledge and information thus ments either of men or nations in times gained. It is only after the great past, and these examples may serve so knowledge which we have obtained that far as to exemplify principles of action- all your mineral experiments have been may serve as guides to every man, either conducted with the success which has in private or in public. Gentlemen, attended them. Well, then, rising from we have talked here of the works of man, the crust of the earth, and all those and they are well deserving of your numerous phenomena and arrangements investigation; but you would fall short of connected with the atmosphere, the that which I recommend to you if you ocean, and the various circumstances did not devote a portion of that period of belonging to the surface of our globe, study and leisure to the contemplation we naturally turn our thoughts to the of the works of God. That branch of position and action of our globe, and knowledge has in many respects made that system of which our sun is the

centre; and that knowledge of astronomy there is a man who, in the consciousness

connected, at all events, with the solar of genius, in the enjoyment of wealth, system, is so easily acquired, and so in the possession of station, is inspired interesting when known, that no man by feelings of vanity and pride, when he who has an opportunity of investigating reflects that the world which he treads could for a moment neglect these op- upon is a mere speck in creation, and portunities and remain in ignorance. It that he himself is an immeasurable atom is admirable to think that all the varied in that speck, these thoughts must tend arrangements upon which day and night to lower that pride, to divest him of that and the succession of the seasons depend vanity, and to teach him veneration and have been so beautifully adapted to the humility in his position. But, gentlepurpose of those who inhabit this globe; men, when he turns his thoughts to the and a knowledge of these things, I trust, other scale-when he thinks and conno man who hears me will fail to acquire, siders the infinite variety, the inconso far as opportunity offers. But there ceivable ingenuity and wisdom with is a wider range with regard to that which everything in this earth has been great and extensive study. Our solar adapted to specific purposes and to the system, as is well known, forms but a enjoyment of created beings-when he comparatively insignificant part in that sees that even in those smallest and great universe of which, on a starlight most minute animals of creation, which night, we see some portion exposed to are hardly perceptible, and some not our view; and the study of the mecha- | perceptible, to the naked eye, there is nism of the universe is one which leads the mind to the most exalted thoughts

most admirable adaption of every detail for the purpose of the enjoyment of that creature so long as it is to live—when he reflects on the constitution of his own frame, when he considers the powers which have been given to man to extend his ken far away from the globe which he inhabits, and to acquire a certain amount of knowledge of things so distant that even, it is said, millions of years are required to bring to us the light which flows from their centre-he must be persuaded that those arrangements were not intended in vain. He must be convinced that those powers which have been given to his mind, those moral and intellectual powers with which he has been endowed, have not been given simply for the purpose of a day, and that day the life of man. He must be convinced that they are designed to fit him for some better and future state, and therefore I assert that these great, exalted and sublime contemplations are calculated to strengthen and encourage that faith of which it is said that parting for a happier state, it deems death but na

hich expands our considerations more than any other-and although it has not arrived at certain results, such as have been attained in the study of our own solar system, yet I believe enough is known to excite the wonder and admiration of those who are acquainted with it. Let it not be said that those studies divert the mind from the practical precepts of religion. On the contrary, I maintain they tend to strengthen and confirm that faith which is inculcated by our revealed religion. If when, on the one hand, we contemplate those marvellous arrangements, extending over space indefinite, and comprising worlds innumerable, with order and arrangement that nothing but the most supreme wisdom could have established-when we contemplate, in the first place, the arrangement for one system-when we consider the multitudes of suns and worlds even beyond the range of the telescopic power of man, and are made sensible of the comparative insignificance of everything that belongs to this ture's signal for retreat. earth, this species of creation,-then if

NOTES OF A SUNDAY SCHOOL TOUR.

AMONGST the various efforts put forth by the Sunday School Union for the improvement of Sunday schools, the visits paid by various members of the Committee to the provinces are not the least important. They have thus an opportunity of seeing how the schools are conducted, and of talking over with the teachers the suggestions which have resulted from those visits. The value of these efforts is seen, not only in the pleasure with which such visits are received, but by the adoption of similar plans by other bodies. The Church of England Sunday School Institute and the Friends' First-day School Association have both followed the example thus set, and, we doubt not, with much benefit to the schools associated with them.

During the last few years, teachers in different parts of the country, finding so much benefit arise from mutual intercourse, have gathered together in counties or districts for the discussion of practical subjects, and Good Friday has been found very convenient for such assemblages. The attendance of some member of the Committee of the Sunday School Union is generally solicited, and we believe that no less than seven such applications were received this year. The difficulty of supplying the demand thus made, led to our being requested to undertake one of these missions at Easter last. It would probably be more correct that our report should appear in the "Union Magazine," as the official organ of the Committee by whom we were sent forth; but the Editor will doubtless thank us for relieving him from some of that embarras des richesses which the number of such communications will occasion.

Our first destination was Doncaster, where the Seventh Yorkshire and Lincolnshire Sunday School Teachers' Conference was to be held; but on our way we stopped at Grantham, and saw the statue of Sir Isaac Newton, who, though born about six miles off, received his education at the grammar school of that town. The statue was cast out of the metal of a large bell taken from the Russians during the Crimean war; it is of full life size, and is placed on a green by the high road leading into the town from the south.

We reached Doncaster in time to attend the prayer meeting, held to supplicate the Divine blessing on the proceedings of the following day. Mr. Joseph Marsden presided, and delivered an address on the importance of prayer, adverting to the difficulty of the teacher's work as arising, not merely from the depravity of the

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