rules, indeed, prohibited the suspension of a school for a single Sabbath without permission, but whose members stood in no need of such restriction, seeing that it was the pride of most of them never to be absent from their classes all the year round, except from causes beyond their control. It would, we apprehend, be disheartening to learn how many of the same schools will presently be abandoned, without leave asked or granted, for two or three months to come; and to what an extent very many of our Sabbath schools throughout the city suffer in this way every successive summer. Considerations of this nature, however, will only weigh, if they weigh at all, against the abounding spirit of self-indulgence, with those who are amenable to religious responsibility. But is it only the churches, the Sabbath schools, and the local missions, that suffer from the annual dispersion of the citizens? And bas the community at large no interest in restraining and limiting the practice of breaking up families, and keeping them asunder for the summer and autumn months? Apart altogether from religious motives, the mother of a family must be deeply absorbed in her own selfish interests who never reflects on the perils to which she exposes her sons, by leaving them from Monday to Saturday to lead a homeless, haphazard life in the city, exposed to the temptations of singing saloons, and the hundred other seductive influences which waylay the steps of the unwary. How many mothers and sisters of the genteel families of Glasgow are obnoxious to censure for this selfish neglect of their sons and brothers, and to a great extent responsible for its consequences! the The effect of the prolonged vacation upon the state of the schools of upper and middle classes is, by the uniform testimony of teachers, very pernicious. In Edinburgh, educational work goes on vigorously till about the end of July. In Glasgow, the vacation continues during June and July, but only a comparatively small proportion of the pupils appear at the re-opening of the schools in August; that month is nearly wasted in waiting for the re-construction of the classes; and, were the whole truth told, there is little real work done so long as the coast continues to present its attractions; and the month of September is only in a slight degree better occupied than August. The consequence is, that the work of the educational year is condensed into six or seven months, instead of being diffused over ten; so that one-half of the year may be said to be given up to desultory habits, and the other half to excessive brain-work. In the case of boys, the latter evil may be counterbalanced by the long period spent in active physical exercises in the country; in that of females, it may fairly be questioned whether irremediable injury is not inflicted upon many constitutions by the necessity of cramming so much intellectual exertion into the school-period,—interrupted, as even that too brief space frequently is, by the gaieties of the winter season. We have heard the late Mr. David Stow, the educationist, remark, in his humorous way, that as the Glasgow ladies "danced all winter, and dookit all summer," it was to him a perplexing problem how they ever got decently through their education at all! The young ladies and gentlemen of Edinburgh, and those who flock into it from all parts for education, are under mental training for six or eight weeks longer every year than the same classes in Glasgow; and the result cannot but be manifest in after life, on a comparison of the intellectual character of those who were permitted to run wild for five or six months in the year, and those whose youth was judiciously distributed between sustained and deliberate mental training, and a tempered allowance of recreation and physical exercise in the country. Teachers confess their inability to curtail the long vacation, or even to restrain the growing tendency to extend its duration. It is for all sensible parents to set their faces against it, if they would avert from us the rise of a frivolous and undereducated generation. Idle and desultory habits are by no means confined to the youthful frequenters of the West Coast. Multitudes of grown-up people, who have a passable reputation, when they are at home, for the discharge of family and relative duty, and even for active efforts toward good ends in congregational and other spheres of beneficence, allow themselves to degenerate into this sort of indolence at the sea-side, and dawdle away their precious time without useful purpose or rational pursuit, long after all the requirements of health have been met by a moderate period of retirement from home and city duties. It is a grave mistake to suppose, that in these circumstances prolonged idleness is conducive to health or mental elasticity. The effect is quite the reverse. Many a sound constitution we have seen to collapse, in men of active habits, who, from good or evil fortune, found themselves deprived of the healthy stimulus of their daily work; and the vacant faces and languid manners which one sees among the lingerers at the coast as the season advances, when numbers of people, young and old, seem to be reduced to the necessity of subsisting on such humble kinds and degrees of excitement as are derived from the arrival and departure of the steamboats,-testify to a diminution of the vital energy, and a zoophytish condition of existence, which would be ludicrous were it not pitiable. NATURAL HISTORY OF SCRIPTURE. THE CUCKOO. In the Old Testament, the Hebrew word shachaph is translated "cuckoo," (Leviticus xi. 16, and Deut. xiv. 15.) Neither the sound nor the derivation of the original word helps us to a reliable idea of the bird intended. But the cuckoo frequents Palestine; and the Arabs, mimicking the sound of its voice, give it the same name that we use. Dr. Tristram, who is a skilful ornithologist, observed that two species of cuckoo visit Palestine in the summer,—our own common species, named Cuculus canorus, and another, still more common there, the great spotted cuckoo, Oxylophus glandarius. The cuckoo is better known to us by its voice than by its appearance. "No bird in a state of nature (it has been remarked) utters a note approaching so closely the sound of the human voice as the cuckoo." The circumstance of the familiar notes issuing from the copse or the wood, while the bird itself is concealed, is referred to by Wordsworth: "Thrice welcome, darling of the spring! No bird, but an invisible thing— A voice, a mystery." And who can listen to its simple song of two notes (which, by the way, a musical critic describes as being invariably E flat and C natural, “forming not a perfect musical interval, but something between a minor and a major third") without pausing to recall the words of Michael Bruce, in the finest tribute, beyond comparison, which poetry has ever paid to the unseen minstrel : "The school-boy wandering in the woods More beautiful still the allusion to its migration:- "Sweet bird! thy bower is ever green, Thy sky is ever clear; Thou hast no sorrow in thy song, No winter in thy year. Oh! could I fly, I'd fly with thee; The cuckoo arrives in this country about the middle of April, and departs in July, the young birds remaining till October. During its *The cuckoo begins early in the season with the interval of a minor third, the bird then proceeds to a major third, next to a fourth, then a fifth; after which his voice breaks without attaining a minor sixth.-Transactions of Linn. Soc., vol. vii. sojourn with us, the cuckoo leads a sort of vagrant, homeless life, building no nest, and frequenting no particular locality; shewing no ill-will to birds of any other kind, but not much affection for its own. The males are rather quarrelsome when they meet; and single combats betwixt them are not infrequent. The cuckoos do not pair; and the male and the female bird are seldom seen in company. The male is, however, frequently followed by a small bird of another kind, the pipit, titlark, or titling, the companionship familiarly known in Scotland as that of "the gowk and the titling." In May and June the female cuckoo lays her eggs, from five to twelve in number, each being deposited separately in the nest of another bird, that of the pipit being the most frequent; but the nests of the sparrow, robin, linnet, skylark, chaffinch, wagtail, blackbird, and several others, share also in the distribution. Some of these nests being so peculiar in regard to structure and position, as to render it impossible for so large a bird to deposit its egg in the ordinary manner, it is inferred, with probability, that the egg is always laid at some distance from the nest, and borne thither in the bird's bill; a task of no difficulty, as the cuckoo has a wide gape, and its egg is remarkably small, as compared with its own size. The bird takes care to select a nest in which one egg, or more, has already been deposited, and lays down her burden in the absence of the rightful owner of the nest. The exceptional smallness of the cuckoo's egg is not without an obvious reason. Were it much larger than those belonging to the nest, suspicion would be excited, and it would be either ejected, or the nest would be deserted; besides, a large egg would require a longer period of incubation than the others, and would either fail to be hatched, or produce a young cuckoo at a time when his foster-brothers had grown strong enough to thwart his evil designs.-(Jones.) It is affirmed, that only those nests are selected in which the young cuckoo is secure of being fed with insects; in other words, the nests are those of birds which are strictly insectivorous. Beyond this necessary provision for their upbringing, the hen cuckoo pays no more attention to her callow young, than the roving male. The language which Job applies to the ostrich may be transferred to the female cuckoo. "She is hardened against her young ones, as though they were not her's; because God hath deprived her of wisdom, neither hath He imparted to her understanding." KINDNESS IN THE SABBATH SCHOOL.-In the model Sabbath school everybody is kind to everybody, because everybody loves everybody for Jesus' sake, who cares for us all with such an infinite tenderness. Everybody's face reflects the beaming of His kindliness in a way that is altogether good and pleasant-" like the dew of heaven when the Lord commanded His blessing, even life for evermore." Children are specially susceptible to these influences, which attract them as certainly as do pretty clothes, dainty food, bright flowers, or sweet music, They know intuitively whether your cordiality is sincere, or you are condescending and kind from a sense of duty. Only the plenitude of the love of Jesus can make Sabbath school workers genuinely social.-The Independent. PROPOSED INTERNATIONAL SCHEME OF SABBATH SCHOOL LESSONS. SOME time since we received from an old and esteemed friend, the Rev. George D. Mathews, formerly a minister of the United Presbyterian Church in Stranraer, and now the pastor of Jane Street U. P. Church, New York, the following communication, recommending a uniform system of Sabbath school lessons in the United States and this country, -which is also the subject of an article in the Christian Worker, of New York, edited by Mr. Mathews, and briefly noticed in another part of the present number. The following is the principal portion of our friend's letter: 46 We have in this country as many uniform schemes of lessons and notes' for our Sabbath school teachers as there are centres of Sabbath school activity. These schemes and notes are always published in some Magazine; and for the teachings of the Magazine, or notes, there is no person responsible save the proprietor. An immense amount of very sad teaching is thus scattered over the land. To remedy this, it has been proposed by some of our leading Sabbath school men, to prepare a National Scheme-the notes to be prepared by each denomination for the use of its own schools. The scheme to be printed separately from the notes. This idea has been warmly approved of by Mr. Vincent, secretary of the Methodist Sabbath School Union, Dr. John Hall, Dr. Howard Crosby, and other leading men in this city. It has been suggested that this National Scheme might be made an International one, were our friends in the old country to take part with us in the preparing of the scheme, the notes, of course, for your use would be prepared, as at present, by yourselves. I have been requested to ask your co-operation in securing the support of the Glasgow Sabbath School Union for this movement. Would it not be a pleasant thought for our teachers, that whilst they in one country were teaching from a certain portion of Scripture, teachers through all English-speaking Protestantdom were using at the same time the same passage? We enjoy the communion of saints which we partake of during the week of prayer. Would not this be a still grander communion? May I ask you, therefore, to bring this proposal before the committee of your Glasgow Union; and if its members be willing to look favourably on it, a correspondence could easily be opened. Some of your Sabbath school men will likely visit this country this autumn, and attend the meetings of the Evangelical Alliance; the whole matter might be well considered then." In the Worker, published subsequently to the date of this letter, it is mentioned, respecting the proposal: 66 'Already, we believe, the support of our leading Sabbath school men has been obtained for it, and a correspondence opened with the Unions of Great Britain. So soon as the plan has been fully matured, we shall have great pleasure in submitting it to our readers, with a series of notes and illustrations suitable for the United Presbyterian Church." At the writer's request, we respectfully submit the proposal to the Directors of the Sabbath School Union, who, in common with the other Unions consulted, will, no doubt, give it due consideration. |