godly and of the godless, will meet together to receive the manifold blessings of such an institution.*

II. THE MID-WEEK SERVICE.

As preliminary and helpful to the "Children's Church," might we not have a special service for children in the week? It is well known that our Sabbath worship is not and cannot be conducted throughout and in all its parts in such a way as to accomplish at one and the same time the greatest amount of good to the young of the school and to a miscellaneous assemblage of adults.

* When I wrote this paper I had no case" to give illustrating the mode of operation and the certainty of success. Englishmen rarely accept any teaching without a "case." They are so "practical," that truth that is not set in the light of many facts is altogether unattractive. What I have done myself is so preliminary and tentative that I could not quote it, and therefore I have been anxiously looking out for a "case," and am extremely glad to be able to give the following. The Rev. J. C. Gray, of Halifax, has had a "Junior Church" in operation for at least a year, and in a letter received from him he says: "It is every way a success. We have a school of about four hundred scholars, and nearly fifty of these are now members of this church.

I regret deeply that I did not begin before.' And in a pamphlet on "the Church in the Sunday School," which I warmly commend to all our pastors and teachers, he describes the mode of formation, thus: "I began by talking about it among the teachers and deacons until I found that they were ready for action. They all saw that it was a good thing, but did not see how it might be carried out. Then I invited the youngest members of our church, who were either teachers or scholars, to meet me at my residence. About thirty responded to that invitation. After I had put the case before them, I asked them to consent to be formed into a junior church, it being distinctly understood that their connection with the senior church should not in any way be interfered with. They kindly agreed to this, and we separated. Then at a full meeting of the teachers I laid the case formally before them, and asked-and I need not say, obtained-their co-operation. I then asked the teachers to introduce to me, at the close of the teaching on the following Sunday, such scholars as they judged most eligible. No less than twenty-five scholars were thus introduced. made an appointment with these little ones, and met them in three divisions at three different hours during the week to suit their convenience. At these meetings I took down their names and addresses, and the names of their teachers, and conversed with them briefly, but pointedly. I found that they all belonged to about six or eight of the middle classes in the school. The next Sunday I asked the teachers of those classes to meet me at the close of the afternoon session, and we went very carefully through all these names, marking off those who in the judgment of two or more teachers were best qualified for membership. At a meeting held that day, before the evening service, we had the first gathering of the junior church, composed of those who had consented to compose it, and who were already members of the senior church. At that meeting sixteen of these

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Moreover, is it not desirable to get the school together between the Sundays? It is certain the church of Christ is not doing so much as it ought and must to secure the affection and worship of children for Christ; and a mid-week meeting would be appreciated by the children and very profitable to all engaged in it. Let me illustrate what I mean by a case." As soon as Mr. Forster's bill came out my mind was directed afresh to the necessity for something of this kind. I mentioned the matter at once to the teachers at Praed Street chapel, and

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scholars-ranging from ten to fourteen years of age-were proposed. In each case the scholar's teacher and one other member were requested to confer together, and visit the scholar; and then report to me before the next meeting if any scholar had better stand over. So cautiously had the first steps been taken, that none of the scholars, most of them being the children of church members, had to be deferred. Meanwhile, during the next week or two, the teachers went to work looking after other scholars, until the original twenty-five increased up to forty. The additional fifteen were seen as before. At the next meeting of the teachers of these classes we went through the list of sixteen who stood proposed, and passed them. Then we went through the list of the remaining twenty-four, and selected eleven others as suitable candidates. At the next meeting of the junior church we first appointed a secretary to keep the books and mark off the attendance. Then we proceeded to receive the sixteen members. In each case the name was read out, and the question was asked, 'Is there any objection to that name?' The number to be received compelled us to waive all needless discussion; the more needless on account of preliminary work. Then, while we sang a hymn, the secretary introduced the young people, to each of whom I presently gave the right hand of fellowship, and then briefly addressed them. I then proposed the eleven who were selected by the teachers, and the secretary handed a note to each whose business it was to make inquiry, with a view to their admission at the next monthly meeting. This account of these first two meetings will suffice to show how our junior church was formed. (2) As to the method of conducting it, our course is very easy and simple. We meet once a month. In the place of the scholars' prayer meetingwhich is held each Sunday from 5.30 to 6.15 p.m. -we have a meeting of the junior church on the third Sunday in each month. We do not administer the ordinance, but we encourage-nay, expect the presence of the young people when the ordinance is administered to the senior church. Each one is provided with tickets of membership, one of which is collected from each one who is present at each meeting of the church. We encourage their attendance also at the meetings of the senior church. On being received as a member each scholar is placed under the care of two of the elder members, who engage to look after their charge, the secretary supplying the names of absentees." As to the name, Mr. Gray says in his letter, "Whatever your title, let the word church be in it. Let the children feel they belong to the church and are linked on to it. 'Inquiry class,' &c., won't do."

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I agreed, with their assistance, to conduct a service on a Wednesday night, from six to seven o'clock, all children who would come. Our plan is this. We sing one of the hymns in Philip Phillip's Songster (selecting only such as are fitted for children), then offer a prayer as from a child's heart to God; sing again, then read a few verses of Scripture, and give and illustrate the sense; sing a third time (for children love song), and follow that with a simple address or sermon, prepared throughout expressly for them, and then after one more hymn and a prayer the service is over. The name, age, and address of each child are registered, the attendance taken down, and we seek to exercise over each a special watchfulness and care. We have had four months experience. The attendance increased in the first quarter sixty per cent., and according to every visible sign the hour is very interestingly and profitably spent.

Of course this is extra work, and therefore very objectionable to men whose heaven is to have little or nothing to do; but if any man says he cannot do this and then follow in half-an-hour with his week-evening lecture, might he not get some of his best trained speakers to take a part or the whole of the service for adults, and so he be free to give at least one hour a week to the promotion of the welfare of the young or, if that is impossible, is there not a teacher qualified to undertake such a trust? The work will have to be done, and we had better prepare ourselves for it at once.*

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III. MORE AND BETTER TEACHERS.

No one can think of the Sunday schools of the future without being impressed with the necessity for more and better teaching. It is not

* I rejoice to be able to say that several communications have been received describing the commencement of the mid-week service in connection with some of our schools since the Association.

fault-finding to say this. God forbid that I should utter a word in disparagement of the cheerful and willing service of the thousands of teachers who give their young and ardent enthusiasm for Christ to the work of communicating the light and love that are in Him to the hearts of the young. They work well and nobly, and form one of the most attractive features of our Christian life. But I am verily convinced of these two things, (1.) that we have not yet employed a tithe of the teaching power of the church of Christ; and (2.) that what we have at work needs to be raised as soon as possible to a higher state of effectiveness. We must increase the company of the teachers and augment their efficiency if we are to bring all the children of the nation under the genial influence of such a spiritual tuition imparted by spiritual men, as shall lead the major part of them to Christ. The young and the enthusiastic are pressed into this service, but where, alas! where are the men of ripened experience, broad culture, and gray hairs? How is it we have in so many instances lost the services of those who were trained in our Sunday school and became teachers when the dew of their youth was upon them? Why have we not, as they have in America, the best thought and culture of our congregations with us in our work? We are thankful for those who are with us, but we must not rest until the entire teaching power of the church in its variety and diversity is brought into active service for the Lord of children.

Meanwhile we must seek means more perfectly to qualify for their tasks those already at work. No mistake is more common, and few are more injurious, than the supposition that those who know little will suffice to teach those who know less; and that the teacher who is one stage before his scholar can as

well as any other show the way. The approximation needed between the disciple and his master is not one of ignorance, but of sympathy and of mutual understanding. The recently initiated are not most apt at unfolding the truths of the Christian religion. The wisest will, all other things being equal, best teach the most ignorant. Omniscience would be the fittest instructor of the youngest.

Given as the fundamental and indispensable requisite the special aptness for communicating spiritual truth and power which springs from a living sympathy with Jesus and an intense yearning for the salvation of souls, then we must seek a fuller knowledge of the Bible and of the relations which theological truths bear to each other, a firmer grasp of the fixed principles of the gospel, and adequate information as to the nature of the material on which the teacher works, all of which may be gained by an apprenticeship spent in a well conducted training class. Training classes are one great and signal necessity for the schools of the future.

IV. BETTER SCHOOL-ROOMS.

Lastly, we must, by all means, obtain more suitable and appropriate accommodation for all classes of our pupils. School-rooms must be so built and arranged in all their details that they will impart an attractive and fostering influence to all who come within them. The conservatory should be fitted for the plant at the successive stages of its growth. The house that protects an Englishman at John O'Groats would smother and suffocate him at the tropics. All bodies do not conduct electricity with the same power, nor do all buildings facilitate the work of the Sunday school teacher in the same degree. Some rooms are far from the ideal. Constructed as if to poison, the blood, check the

flow of thought, beget bad temper, and block out at every avenue the entrance of the truth and grace of God into the heart, the wonder is that any good at all is done in them. Their attractions and adaptations are at the lowest imaginable point; and yet surely instead of being inferior to the chapel, and the worst part of the building in which the church carries on its work and offers its worship, they should be, if there is any difference, the best, the most commodious, light, airy, and charming part of the church's home. School-rooms should harmonize more with the joyful and exuberant piety of childhood than with the sober reflective godliness of age. Why not hang the walls with frescoes and teach by pictures? Why not have class-rooms as numerous as classes ? Are they not a positive necessity for effective teaching? Should not provision of some kind or other be made to get quiet and comparative privacy for each group of children if we would multiply the power of the teacher, unite him in closer bonds to the children of his class, and facilitate his bringing them to Christ? Our spiritual efficiency as teachers, and the receptivity of our children as hearers of our words, are made or marred in no small measure by the state of the air we breathe, the quantity of light that beams upon us, and the general physical conditions under which we work. We must, therefore, have a good schoolhouse, large, lofty, and well ventilated, with no lack of rooms for special classes, in the Sunday schools of the Future.

V. I will only add another suggestion, to the effect that in those cases where the teachers are unable to visit the sick, follow the wanderer, and gain the co-operation of parents by going to their homes, the employment of a paid officer, whose time and energies should be wholly

that for the following century she was afflicted with the curse of spiritual barrenness.

But the causes of religious decline among the Nonconformists are not so obvious. The following, however, appears to me to be the true view of the case; and if our account of the matter is correct, the facts are eminently instructive and admonitory as regards ourselves.

In the first place, during the period we are discussing, the Nonconformists enjoyed a degree of liberty and countenance from men in power, to which they had hitherto been strangers. The Toleration Act had been passed. The first two Hanoverian monarchs were decidedly and avowedly their friends. Even bishops, like Warburton, condescended to smile upon them. doubt they were still subject to certain legal restrictions, but as compared with former days, their position was one of light and favour.

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Secondly, during this period the English people generally, Dissenters included, were rapidly increasing in wealth. This was before the outbreak of those great wars which have so enormously added to the taxation of this country. Historians tell us that the proportion of the means of living to the number of the population in England, was perhaps never greater than in the former half of the 18th century. Combine the two facts that have been mentioned, the cessation of persecution and the increase of material wealth, -and we have in part the explanation of the painful circumstance we have been noticing, the decline of religion among the Dissenters. The saying of the old book was again fulfilled, "Jeshurum waxed fat and kicked."

But another fact is to be noticed. As an accompaniment of an improved material condition, there sprang up a demand for higher mental culture; and as men usually go by extremes, the homage properly due to intellect

became idolatry. This presently told upon the character of pulpit ministrations, both in the Church and amongst Nonconformists. Dry moral essays became the substitute for warm-hearted evangelical discourses. Judge Blackstone, the author of the "Commentaries on the Laws of England, lived in those days, and at one time went about a good deal among the churches of the metropolis. He had a kind of passion for hearing, and I dare say criticising, sermons; and he declares, with regard to the majority of the discourses to which he listened, that it would have been impossible, except for the places where they were delivered, to have told whether their authors were Christians or Mohammedans. Dr. John Guyse, an eminent Dissenting minister in the year 1729, exclaimed, "How many sermons may one hear that leave out Christ, both name and work, and pay no more regard to Him than if we had nothing to do with Him!" Another, writing about the year 1744, says, "The Dissenting interest is not like itself; one hardly knows it." It used to be famous for faith, holiness, and love. He had known the time when he had no doubt, into whatever place of worship he went amongst Dissenters, his heart would be warmed and comforted, and his edification promoted. "But now," he says, "I hear prayers and sermons I neither relish nor understand. Primitive truths and duties are quite oldfashioned things. One's ears are so dinned with reason, the great law of reason, the eternal law of reason, that it is enough to put one out of conceit with the chief excellency of our nature, because it is idolized and almost deified." As connected with this last point, the frequent appeal to reason, it is only fair to state that the early part of the 18th century was a period when the deistical controversy raged. The attacks of clever infidel writers put Christians