Sunday school beyond what is, alas, displayed too often in every other field of Christian labour we cannot believe.

When we examine also some of the proposals on which the complainants rely for a remedy to the presumed evil, we find them sometimes measuring the whole question by standards which we venture to think utterly impracticable and undesirable. We have heard it loudly contended, that the interest of the church should be shown by a frequent visitation of the Sunday school, by those not engaged in its pursuits, who are urged thus to manifest their sympathy in its work. Now, this we have always thought would be utterly destructive of all order; troops of gazing spectators wandering about the rooms with no obvious business, speaking to the teachers, distracting the scholars, stumbling against the superintendents, and choking the passages, would be a nuisance sufficient to ruin the efficiency of the best school. I have heard of superintendents actually locking some door of access to the classrooms to prevent any interruption. Occasional visits from persons experienced in the work, who may borrow or suggest improvements, and from pastors and friends able suitably to address the school are very useful; but let the school once become a promenade and a show, and farewell peace, attention, and thought. The gentle dew falls freely in a still night, but is checked in a gusty atmosphere.

It has often appeared to Sunday school teachers that a larger proportion than usual of the members of our churches should be actively engaged in the Sunday school; in these northern districts, however, a very large part of our communicants is so engaged. It is not uncommon for deacons to be Sunday school teachers or superintendents, and the post of teacher is generally popular. Then it should be remembered that many have no gift for instructing the young, and that you might as well fill your choir with persons having neither ear nor tuneful voice, and who could only scream in horrid discord, as your school with those who have little sympathy with youthful habits and modes of thinking, having wholly forgotten the feelings of their own early life. Many also are engaged at home, or in other walks of Christian labour. No doubt there is yet a considerable residuum of those who might work, and will not; the dead weight of a church-the care and grief of the pastor-the barren fig trees, who provoke their Lord to cut them down as cumberers of the ground. But this fact shews no want of concern for the school on the part of the church, since these cannot be roused to share in any schemes of saving effort requiring a sacrifice of ease, time, or money; and in their present state would be of small value in any cause to which they might be dragged.

But why, it is said, does not the church establish a more definite connexion with the Sunday school, assume more control over its arrangements, in appointing officers and teachers, and regulating its general plans? May I venture to reply, that probably were this attempted, none would find more objection to it than teachers themselves, and not without reason. Most institutions will be best managed by those who are practically concerned in their working. It is not well for societies to lean too much on each other, or they inevitably rob each other of independence and strength; let them be individually self-controlling, and let every bond of union be consistent with a free use of individuality. Let the church attend to its own work, and the school fulfil its own mission, and let their connexion be one of general cordial sympathy, which leaves them perfect liberty. It may be well for the church to be a final court of appeal and confirmation of what is ordinarily originated and executed by the body of teachers; for since it lends so much material support to the school, and depends so much on its welfare and success, it may well expect some report of its proceedings, and some veto upon its main transactions. When more has been attempted than this, the result has usually been discord and confusion, rather than har mony and progress.

Why should any teachers permit crude ideas like these to give birth in their minds to feelings of discontent, which are as unhappy as unjust? Let them feel they have the warm confidence and sympathy of the great body of pastors and churches, and though these may not be always coming to witness their exertions, still less to interfere with them, since they are for the most part earnestly working in other channels for the same end, let the teachers do their own work thoroughly, and cease to insist on being made objects of special attention, commendation, or sympathy. There is no vainer and more perilous spirit than that which sometimes infects an otherwise noble heart, when exaggerating the object in which it is absorbed, it yields to a morose isolation, and permits the bitter feeling to arise-"Ah! no one appreciates my labour, yet my exertions are the most essential and invaluable of all; I am passed by, while others are caressed; I work while others have the credit and fruits; I may plod on regularly, but am ever unnoticed and obscure." It is necessary to shake off this numbing, paralyzing touch; to exercise a genial faith and forbearance towards others, and especially to labour in this cause "heartily to the Lord, and not unto men." Once the Sunday school was a small and uncomely sapling; its kind of toil of the drudging order; it was pushed into wretched sheds, confined or underground; its teachers were lowly, little edu

cated persons; small results were expected from it by the church and the world;-but now it is a wide spreading tree; its abodes are spacious and handsome edifices; it shelters a large part of the population of the land; it has attracted most of the wisest intellects and holiest spirits in the church to its classes; its lessons are of the sublimest themes, and its results have been such as to elicit the adoring gratitude of pastors and churches, and the profound amazement of philosophers, educators, statesmen, and of the world. The Christian church is more likely at present to be over proud of her Sunday schools, than to neglect, or to be indifferent to them. Individuals, labouring on in their narrow niche at important work, which employs multitudes of others like themselves, are seldom able to realize the combined magnitude of what is being done by their fellow-labourers, or their age. Theirs is but a little section, and in it they are conscious of hard work, many difficulties and failures, and very slow successes. Their own weakness, weariness, and despondency often assist to prevent them from comprehending the joint and growing result. But when at times a laborious and earnest teacher lifts his eyes from the small area of his class, or school, and the separate church to which it may be attached, and from the littleness, and discouragements, and imperfections of the minuter scene; and surveys the onward march of Christianity at home and abroad, and the gigantic and invaluable potency of a Gospel training of the little ones in the classes of the church, which is, undoubtedly, the main instrument of the revival and aggressiveness of the true religion in modern times, he will surely feel that these are not days for morbid complaint and jealous separation, but for believing gratitude, and unselfish and united ministration, each to the other, in the love of Christ.

Nor would it be fair to make these remarks without also asserting that the body of Sunday school teachers are, as a whole, as little prone to the querulous and unreasonable as any Christian workers; and that their usual attitude is that of hearty, disinterested sympathy in all other Christian efforts; and of patient, happy, unexacting, unexpecting disinterestedness and contentment.

(To be continued.)

THE BRIDAL PRESENTS.

"THIS way to the Bridal Presents."

It was the directing voice of policeman Blank, of the A division, who was pointedly indicating the right road with his left hand, the fingers grouped, if we may use the expression, after the manner of those pictorial directors which shew at railway stations and else where the way out and the way in.

We were going to inspect the Wedding Gifts, to see which all the world of London had been flocking to the Kensington Museum; and the inflexible police were there before us to return civil answers, or supply information, or prevent a rush, and above all to keep the eye of vigilance on the blaze of jewels, lest swift-fingered dishonesty should abstract a gem. The visitors were very numerous, and the comparative number of the sexes was precisely opposite to what it is at our antipodes. There, I understand, there are about seventy-six men to four-and-twenty women; here, at Kensington, it was exactly the reverse. There was a steady stream of crinoline floating through the passages and courts, the narrow channels, and the deep lagoons, which led on to the Sea of Splendour where the nuptial presents were exhibited; and there were directing placards on the red baized walls which plainly told us it was the way out as well as the way in; for prudent policemen had parcelled out the court into a maze of barriers, which, after meandering over the whole display, discharged its streams of visitors into the old channels, from whence they could float whither they would, "up stairs, down stairs, or in my lady's chamber."

The first impression of being in the presence of the wedding gifts was intimated by an increased pressure and the sound-with a hollow echo through the court-of the admonitory voices of police officers-"Pass on, ladies, pass on, gentlemen, pass on!"

Then I saw two lofty Venetian Standards, with silken pennons bearing the arms of the Prince and Princess; then we passed into a gangway covered with red cloth, and began to see the sight spread out in the glass cases. And the sight was like the realization of some Arabian fable, where trees and shrubs bear jewelled fruit; gems, bracelets, rings, brooches, tiaras, necklaces: gold and jewels, jewels and gold everywhere. See, here is a suite of Indian ornaments, a coroaze, a pair of bracelets, an armlet; then one of diamonds, and pearls, and emeralds; they are in the purest oriental style, but the gems seem to have been badly used, and to be flat and lustreless, but we know the value of the gift is enormous,

and wonder and admire, until the eye is attracted by a grand diadem of brilliants given by the Prince to the Princess the day before the wedding. The circlet is formed of two rows, with ten large brilliants equidistant, and is surmounted by scroll ornaments having drop shaped brilliants in the centre of each, connected by Greek devices. Another present from the Prince is here, a necklace consisting of clusters of brilliants with pearls depending here and there, wondrously beautiful pearls that Cleopatra would not have disdained; and here is a pair of earrings, and here is a brooch to match; and yonder there are more earrings, and more brooches, and a cross and a bracelet, the gift of the Queen, in the name of the late Prince Consort. Here is the necklace of brilliants presented by the Corporation of London; and here the bouquet holder of Cornucopia form, glistening with rubies, emeralds, and diamonds; and here is another bouquet holder, beautifully wrought with pearl and coral. The first of these holders was presented by the Lady Mayoress, the second by the ladies of Gravesend. Here we have a suite of ancient Scandinavian design-diadem, armlet, brooch, hair-pins, buttons, earrings, such as were worn by the daughters of the sea kings twelve hundred years ago. Here is the fac-simile of the Dagmar Cross, with a necklace of pearls and diamonds; it is gorgeous, dazzling, and does great credit to the workmen of the Northern Athens: diamonds, pearls, emeralds-such as the Peruvians might have worshipped; rubies-that might ransom a king. Look for a moment at this octagon bracelet, with its eight fair faces smiling from out the gold and jewels-this is the Bridesmaids' present; look there at the bouquet holder of rock crystal and gold, studded with diamonds, emeralds, rubies, and pearls; it is the gift of Dhuleep Sing; observe this sapphire and diamond pin; notice this chased gold brooch, with a fine topaz in the middle; look at this brilliant bracelet, at this

"Pass on, ladies, pass on, gentlemen, pass on!"

And now we see silver plate and porcelain, and textile fabrics, all grouped together in glass cases with an eye to effect, a gorgeous, glittering sight, that it is probable no blushing bride before could ever exhibit. Here are the portraits, exquisitely finished, of the Prince and Princess of Prussia; our Princess looks charming, and her sweet smile seems to answer the pleasant glances that are given as the visitors gaze upon the picture; there is an immense vase from the Royal factory at Meissen, with a capital portrait of the strong-headed King of Prussia in the middle; and there is a Sevres clock, a china service, and a pair of beakers; and here are a table and a pair of vases in Dresden china, all decorated with figures of