THE SABBATH SCHOOL TEACHER'S CLOSET COMPANION. QUESTIONS FOR SELF-EXAMINATION. 1. Am I myself abiding in Jesus? 2. Is my only object the glory of God in the salvation of souls? 5. Am I careful and prayerful in preparing my lessons? THE BIBLE IN THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS OF THE UNITED STATES.-It is a matter of shame and surprise that a Christian people should ever have engaged in a parley on a subject of such vital interest to our national life and free institutions, as that of the Bible in our public schools. It has degraded us. It has weakened the good cause. It has uncovered us before the enemy, and yielded the vantage-ground to him. It has opened the gates of the citadel to the foe, and ten chances to one if we be able now to keep him out. When our innocent and unsuspecting mother argued the case with the old serpent, he was more than a match for her, and by his sophistry despoiled her of her purity, and so argued her step by step out of Paradise. And so it ever is. To debate with evil is to yield; a man who disputes with the tempter is sure to be foiled. By entering into a parley with the enemy on the matter of having the Bible in our schools, we have yielded to him half the victory; for we cannot parley with wrong without giving up principle, and to give up that is to throw away both sword and shield, and fly the field. Our duty at the first was to fight, and not debate; to resist, not argue. Had we fought the devil thus at first, and not dallied, he had fled defeated, and we been left to enjoy our Bibles and our free-schools without annoyance. But we toyed with him, and tempted him to tamper with us. We disclosed to him the secret of our strength; and already his treacherous hand is on our locks, and we-we are asleep!-Rev. J. L. Clark, in the "Christian Worker," New York. "WHAT SHALL THAT BOY DO?"-Who will tell? The boy who reads this, what will he do? When he becomes a man he will do many things. Will he read, and so be intelligent? Will he bring the powers of mind and body into exercise, and so be useful, and healthful, and strong? Will he pray, and be pious, good-of a noble and virtuous soul? Will he write, and so be graceful in speech, ready in communication, and of a strong influence? Say, my boy, what are you going to do? What you like to do now, you will be very likely to do by-and-by. Do you swear now? Do you cheat, deceive, lie, steal? Do you do dishonourable things? Are you disrespectful to, or do you disobey your parents and teacher? Remember, the boy makes the mau. If the boy is bad, the man will be. If he is idle now, he will be idle when a man. What will you be? OVER AND OVER AGAIN. (By Josephine Pollard.) Over and over again, No matter which way I turn, I must take my turn at the mill, I must grind out the golden grain, I must work at my task with a resolute will, We cannot measure the need Of even the tiniest flower, Nor check the flow of the golden sands And the sun and the summer rain Over and over again The brook through the meadow flows, The ponderous mill-wheel goes. Once doing will not suffice, Though doing be not in vain, And a blessing, failing us once or twice, The path that has once been trod Is never so rough to the feet; And the lesson we once have learned Is never so hard to repeat. Though sorrowful tears may fall, And the heart to its depths be riven, With storm and tempest, we need them all To render us meet for heaven. Watchman and Reflector. It is good to be found doing now that which we would be glad to be found doing hereafter-world without end. "Some years ago," says HAVE PATIENCE WITH THE "BAD SCHOLARS."the Rev. William Jay, "I had in my garden a tree which never bore. One day as I was going down with the axe in my hand to fell it, my wife met me in the pathway, and pleaded for it, saying, 'Why, the spring is now very near; stay and see if there may not be some change; and if not, you can deal with it accordingly.' As I had never repented following her advice, I yielded to it now; and what was the consequence? In å few weeks the tree was covered with blossoms, and in a few weeks more. it was bending with fruit. Ah! said I, this should teach me. I will learn a lesson from hence not to cut down too soon; that is, not to consider persons incorrigible or abandoned too soon, so as to give up hope, and the use of means and prayer in their behalf." A TRUE ILLUSTRATION OF THE ABUSE OF MONEY.-Early in the last century there lived in Paris a person of the name of Vandille, who amassed property to the extent of £800,000. Penurious habits became the occasion of his lodging in a garret, which he preferred should be of lofty situation, in order to avoid both noise and visitors. For a daily attendant, he hired an ancient dame on a weekly salary of sevenpence. His diet consisted chiefly of bread and milk, some light wine being added on Sundays, when he gave a farthing to the poor for the sake of his soul; of which beneficence he kept an exact account. When, in early life, he enjoyed the office of magistrate at Boulogne, he appropriated to himself the office of milk-taster-general, and thereby contrived to satisfy the most pressing of his temporal wants. When out on long journeys he preferred walking, and, disguised as a begging friar, he was not ashamed to impose on the charitable. But contemptible as was his procedure during life, the events of his last days were even more humiliating. After bargaining one day with a woodman for a supply of fuel, he took a cold, and from that a fever, through endeavouring to enrich himself by despoiling the peasant of his logs. While lying in his last illness, he dismissed two surgeons successively on finding their charges to be exorbitant; and so, after being bled by a barber for the sake of cheapness, Vandille died, when his worshipped money-bags were transferred to the State.-The Sword and the Trowel. There is more evil in a drop of sin than in a sea of affliction.T. Watson. Intelligence. CONVENTION OF THE SABBATH to Prepare and Teach a Lesson," SCHOOL SOCIETY FOR IRELAND, IN Mr. William Craig, Ballymoney. CONNECTION WITH THE PRESBYTERIAN 3. "How best to cultivate a MissionCHURCH.-This Convention is an-ary Spirit in the School," Mr. J. W. nounced to be held in Belfast on Steel, Cork. 4. "Efficient SuperinWednesday the 15th, and Thursday tendence," Rev. J. M. Rodgers, Derry. the 16th, of June, current. The papers to be read are on the following subjects:-viz., 1. "Selection and Preparation of Teachers," Rev. J. W. Whigham, Ballinasloe. 2. "How 5. "The Church's Duty to the School," Rev. F. Petticrew, Faughanvale. 6. "Services for the Young," Mr. James Bell, Glasgow. 7. "Bands of Hope,' Rev. William Park, Ballymena. Notices of Books. PICTORIAL EXPLANATORY NEW TES- to the authorized version, without THE notes and illustrations are added of the ordinary school copy of the New Testament. The notes are necessarily brief; but all of them that we have examined are very much to the point, and indicate careful and judicious editing. The pictures, without professing to stand high as works mind. TRACTS FOR BOYS AND GIRLS. Issued by the GLASGOW FOUNDRY Boys RELIGIOUS SOCIETY. THE attention of Sabbath School Teachers is directed to this series of publications. They are very suitable for circulation amongst the young. of art, are nevertheless sufficiently | written in a sparkling style, and its illustrative; and some of them throw pages are beautifully illustrated. But that vivid kind of light upon a pas- it contains some of the most ridiculous sage or an event, which our readers botanical blunders we have ever seen may remember to have been reflected in print. In a popular book, intended into their own imaginations in early for youthful readers, we might have life by far inferior Scriptural pic- been disposed to touch somewhat tentures. Young people will take to derly upon these mistakes; but the such a copy of the New Testament author virtually challenges criticism, with peculiar relish. The posthumous by assuming a pretentious air, and writings of Dr. Chalmers notice with writing ex cathedra, and in the first approval the tendency of the Pictorial person. An example or two will Bible to produce salutary and per- suffice to justify our censure. Thus, manent impressions on the youthful speaking of the arrangement of leaves, the writer says: "In the common house-leek, so indispensable to every cottager's soup, the stem consists [?] of no fewer than thirteen leaves." This is illustrated by the picture of a genuine leek, bearing the title, "Houseleek, Sempervivum tectorum!" The plant so named is not a leek at all; it is the well-known Fouet of the Scotch, although we have never heard of a Scotsman boiling it in his soup: its favourite habitat is a thatched roof, (whence its specific name;) and we venture to do the author the serdown to Canonmills, he will find a vice of telling him, that if he will step specimen of Sempervivum tectorum growing upon an ornamental urn on the wall of a primitive-looking cabaret, where it has been familiar to many a passer-by for twenty years and more; and if he will then compare the house-leek, so-called, with "the common house-leek" of his picture, he will discover that his blunder is as if the picture of a horse were inscribed a hippopotamus. Further, the writer informs us, that "Coniferous trees have small roots," [he should see the old patrician pines of upper Deeside ;] "but these trees do not depend upon the soil for sustenance;" [what trees do?] "their means of growth is almost entirely derived WONDERS OF THE PLANT WORLD; or from the atmosphere." Now, coniferCuriosities of Vegetable Life. Nel-ous trees, like other trees, have roots son & Sons, Edinburgh, London, and corresponding to the bulk of their New York. 1870. stems; and trees of every description THE plan of this book is excellent, are alike dependent upon the soil for and its spirit commendable. It is their earthy ingredients, or their in WHO WERE THE FIRST BUILDERS? and New York. 1870. A PLEASANT little book, with spirited illustrations. The first builder is shewn to have been the Beaver. The habits of this animal, and of several others, are described in a conversational form, so as to interest and aid a youthful inquirer into the wonders of animal instinct. It is a book fitted to awaken in the young mind sympathy and admiration for the animal kingdom; and it breathes, at the same time, the devout spirit in which we should like to see all the studies of nature begin and end. 66 66 66 or organic food, and upon the atmosphere | else exception might be taken to the for carbonic acid, the source of their writer's description of a thing so comcarbon. Again, "The banyan, the mon as the potato plant, which, says screwpine, and many other species of the writer, has no roots!" although ficus," [the screwpine is not a ficus,] the picture of the plant in his own are described as epiphytes or air- pages has plenty adding, "the plants," the writer confounding aërial straggling stem which grows underor adventitious roots with plants ground and bears the potato, is really which, like the orchids, grow upon what botanists call a tuber!" Botanother plants. Again, "Tubers and ists are not to be credited with anybulbs are also developments of the thing so foolish. They call the potato roots," which is simply nonsense. itself an 'underground stem,' The writer is equally at sea when he tuber. touches upon classification. He says, "Flowers are classified according to their stamens;" in illustration of which he gives a fragment of the Linnæan method, without, apparently, being aware that plants are classified according to their natural affinities. But fault-finding is an ungracious task; and having encountered these strange mis-statements in the earlier pages, we feel no encouragement or desire to proceed beyond the threshold of the volume. We cannot help noticing, also, that the beauty of a stanza from Mrs. Hemans, p. 41, is spoiled by a slovenly misquotation in the third line. PLAIN WORDS. A Christian Miscel- The USEFUL PLANTS. Nelson & Sons, THE CHRISTIAN WORKER. Edited London, Edinburgh, and New by REV. GEORGE D. MATHEWS. New York, 1870. York. 1870. AN admirable specimen of the taste- THE first two numbers of this periodiful and even luxurious style of many cal (for March and April respectively) of the books issued from the press of have been sent to us, with a request the present publishers. This superi- for exchange with our Magazine, to ority, in the little volume before us, which we heartily agree. The Worker extends even to the binding, which is lays out for the field of its activity,— singularly neat and ornamental. The "Practical religion, modes of usefulbook contains a profusion of excel-ness, Sabbath school work, missionary lent woodcuts, and as the descriptions intelligence, news of the Churches, are written in a lively manner, the literature," &c. The two numbers book is suitably put forward as the before us give promise of a varied, precursor of a series of works for spirited, and useful periodical,-for young readers, intended to form a the success of which our wishes are library of useful information on all the more cordial, that the excel"common things.' Such a series, if lent editor was, a few years ago, an carefully produced, cannot fail to be esteemed minister, a warm friend of useful and successful. Scientific exact- Sabbath schools, and an active coness is, perhaps, scarcely to be ex- operator in every good work, in the pected in a popular book like this, south of Scotland. |