DEATH OF A TEACHER.

27

him, dear children, he is in glory above, and does not need your tears; but weep for yourselves and your sins, lest you should not meet him there.'

M. Don't alarm yourself, my dear; I'm sure, take you altogether, you are a very good boy, and if ever you did any thing amiss, before you knew any better, I dare say God Almighty will forgive you.

T. I hope and trust he will, for Jesus Christ's sake. But indeed, mother, I am a very sinful child; the more I try to be good, the more I find my heart will be wicked; and when I try to remember good things they slip away from me, but if I hear a naughty word, then I can't forget it. And now that Mr. Matthews is gone, I'm afraid I shall go back more and more; for he used to explain things so nicely, and talk to us about our behaviour as well as our learning. It grieves me to think how heedless I have been to what he said, and how little I have been the better for what he has taught me ; and now I can never ask him any more questions; and what is more than all, I shall have to give an account to the great God for all his good instructions, and then what will become of me! As Mr. Mason said this morning, 'How dreadful it will be, my dear children, when the Lord Jesus Christ comes down from heaven to judge the world, and you see your dear teacher among all the holy angels, crowned with glory, and singing hallelujahs, if you should be driven away into misery, because you would not obey the good instructions and advice you received.' And then he told us it would go much harder with disobedient Sunday-school children than it would with the poor heathen who never heard the name of Jesus Christ; and he bid us read the chapter in the Testament, where our Saviour himself says words to

that purpose. I'll fetch the Bible and read it to you now, shall I mother?

M. No, not just now, Thomas.-Here, you peel these potatoes, while I lay the cloth and take up the bacon; and let us sit down and have our dinner,that will cheer you.

T. I can't eat any dinner;-so I'll learn a hymn the while out of a book my teacher lent me. Do let me just read it to you, mother.

M. Well, do if you like; but I wish you would have some dinner, and read afterwards.

THE HYMN.

Oft as the bell, with solemn toll,
Speaks the departure of a soul,
Let each one ask himself, am I
Prepar'd, should I be call'd to die?

Only this frail and fleeting breath
Preserves me from the jaws of death;
Soon as it fails, at once I'm gone,
And plung'd into a world unknown.

Then, leaving all I lov'd below,
To God's tribunal I must go,

Must hear the Judge pronounce my fate,
And fix my everlasting state.

But could I bear to hear him say,

'Depart accursed far away! !

With sinners in the lowest hell,

Thou art for ever doom'd to dwell.'

Lord Jesus! help me now to flee,
And seek my hope alone in thee:
Apply thy blood, thy Spirit give,
Subdue my sin, and let me live.

DEATH OF A TEACHER.

Then, when the solemn bell I hear,
If sav'd from guilt I need not fear,
Nor would the thought distressing be,
'Perhaps it next may toll for me!'

Rather my spirit would rejoice,
And long and wish to hear thy voice;
Glad when it bids me earth resign,
Secure of heaven if thou art mine.

29

[having read the hymn, which was more than once interrupted by his sobs, Thomas continued.]

T. Oh! mother, if I had been called away instead of Mr. Matthews, what would have become of me? M. Ah! Thomas, I have often thought how many years I lived without reading the Bible or minding the Sabbath, or thinking about my soul! I may well say if I had been called what would have become of me? and so often as I am poorly, what could be more likely? I hope it is not too late for me to mind religion now, but oh, to think that I have neglected it all my life, till within the last year or two! and if it had not been for your going to the Sunday School, I dare say I should not have thought about it even now.

T. No mother, no, it is not too late. What a sweet verse is that on one of my tickets, Heb. vii. 25. "Wherefore he is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them."

M. I have sometimes thought that I am so ignorant that I shall never be brought to understand religion aright.

T. Oh mother! we will pray to God himself to teach us, and as the minister said to day, we are none of us too ignorant to be made wise unto salvation, when God himself becomes our teacher; and

30 DIALOGUE ON THE DEATH OF A TEACHER.

we will read the Bible more and more; and perhaps, mother, if we contrive to do things more on a Saturday night, you would be able to get out on Sunday mornings as well as afternoons; and we will mind more what the minister says, and mark all the texts, and talk about them when we get home; and we must try too and leave off every thing that is sinful. But mother, I remember it says we cannot even think a good thought of ourselves: I hope God will bless us, and keep these things in our minds, and help us to perform them, or else I am afraid we shall soon forget all that we now resolve. If you have done dinner, mother, I can put the things away, while you dress yourself, that we may go out in good time most likely there will be something said in the sermon about Mr. Matthews.-Thomas sang, as he cleared away, the following verses, which he had learnt at the Sunday School:

Now, Lord, inspire the preacher's heart,
And teach his tongue to speak;

Food to the hungry soul impart,
And cordials to the weak.

Furnish us all with light and pow'r

To walk in wisdom's ways,

So shall the benefit be ours,

And thou shalt have the praise.

A short time after the Sabbath on which this dialogue took place between Mrs. Davies and her son Thomas, one of the Sunday-school teachers made a visit to their cottage. The substance of the conversation on this occasion will be presented to your young readers in a future Number.

MARA.

A LETTER

FROM A SUNDAY SCHOLAR TO THE EDITOR.

SIR,

I Do not see that you have given poor Sundayschool children leave to write to you; but I hope it will be no offence if I make so free as to tell you, that many of us in the school where I go, are not a little pleased with the notice you have taken of us. We are very glad, in particular, that you mean to help us to understand our Bibles better, which we want very much; for, as you told us last month, it is of little use to read, if we do not understand and indeed what we do understand is so good, that we should wish to know the meaning of every word.

:

If you would not smile at our ignorance, and think our questions too childish, I would tell you some things we should like to know. It is not always the same kind of letters we find in the Bible: for instance, in the 110th Psalm, the same word is in different letters; "The LORD said unto my Lord," and we find almost always in the Old Testament the name of the Lord in great letters. Besides this, there are some words put in small letters, as in the 10th chapter of John, where our Lord says, "They shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand."

Now we suppose that there are of course some reasons for these things, and if they are what we can understand, we shall be very glad if you will tell us something about them. And if you like poor children to write to you, perhaps I may tell you some more things we cannot understand, but which you might not think of explaining. JOHN ***.