kings, disasters. They scratch them out, and if you are a wise man you come to thank God who has caused such painful scratchings in the visible, for it shows the invisible things that are underneath. When man becomes acquainted with unseen realities he rises as a servant of God, and says—“ It is good for me that I have been afflicted, for before I was afflicted I went astray.-Dawson on Things not Seen.

TAKE CARE OF THE CHILDREN.

IT has long seemed to us one of the strangest anomalies of the strange times in which we live, that while Education excites more attention than ever, so little should be done for the public instruction of children. We do not refer to schools; for in these, whilst all are attended to, there is still that individualism which makes them, after all, private and personal to a certain extent. But we allude to institutions analagous to that of the Pulpit, where children may be spoken to as children, without restraint or compromise or identification—to churches and chapels, in fact, for our little ones.

Without intending any disparagement to those old-fashioned, softly-going people who are alarmed at the notion of what are called "Separate Services" for children, we cannot undertake to defend the opinion, that a child should go to chapel merely because his parents go-because other children do the samebecause it is generally thought right and proper, or even because one or two out of as many thousands have derived benefit from the practice. We look upon God's house with no superstitious reverence. We do not believe that by some mystic charm, the mere fact of imprisoning our children there once or twice on a Sabbath, will benefit their souls, or make them either wise or good. The service of the sanctuary is a reasonable service, and unless intelligible to children, we have no reason to believe it can be useful to them. "How can they hear without a preacher ?"

But have they no preacher? We scarcely ever meet with any. There may be one amongst a thousand: we should be rejoiced to know that there was one in every hundred, who could speak efficiently to this important and interesting por

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tion of their congregations. College conventionalisms and formal dissertations are nothing to them. Theological theses, and logical essays, and metaphysical abstractions, are only long wearisomenesses. And these are the staple of most sermons.

What, then, is to be done? Common sense supplies this answer. The profoundest can understand simplicity; but the simplest cannot understand profundity. Let them at once come down from all this affectation, and formalism, and word-worship, and be simple, earnest, honest in the work. Great thoughts and great principles do not require great words or recondite illustration. Paul made the vastness of his theme his great motive for "plainness of speech."

But if our preachers will not consent always to make this fancied compromise of their dignity, let them do it occasionally; once a month, or even less, as they may think proper. This would be an important step in the right direction. Apropos of this subject, which has for a long time occupied our minds, we have much pleasure in referring to a beautiful little volume just placed in our hands, entitled "Addresses to Children," by Samuel G. Green, B. A.*

"What is to be done?" asks Mr. Green. "The ordinary sermons can never possess much attraction for childhood. An occasional direct appeal, even a simple anecdote, may arouse and fix their attention. Sometimes too the train of thought may be on a familiar subject, and of a nature so clear as to be easily apprehended by a child. In general, however, there cannot be even this adaptation, and until the plan of separate services can be effectively adopted, that of special services will be the only means to remedy the defect. Some indeed would prefer the latter in the abstract; I do not agree with them, but quite admit that it is the most immediately practicable. There is scarcely a congregation, where in one form or other, it might not at once be tried.

"My plan is this. On a stated afternoon in each month, a children's service is held. The Sunday school children are ranged around the gallery; other persons, children and adults,

Addresses to Children, with Introductory Suggestions to Ministers and Teachers by Samuel G. Green, B.A., Minister of Silver Street Chapel, Taunton. London, B. L. Green.

occupying the body of the chapel. Parents are always especially invited, and always seem glad to come. Some men and women, who had lived for years in neglect of the sanctuary, have been allured to hear the sermon to their children. Juvenile hymns are sung to lively tunes; meetings for practice being often held on a week-day evening. Every part of the service is short, and as simple as possible. A few words are generally said to parents and others; and the whole service is concluded within an hour. A year and a half has proved the success of the plan. Besides the gathering of children, the congregation is always large. The effect, as seen in the state of the school, and in the attachment of parents and children to the house of God, is most gratifying. Nor have these services been unblest to the conversion of souls."

We hail this movement as one likely to do more real good in the world than many which make ten thousand times the noise, and put forth far loftier pretensions, in the present day; and only wish that Mr. Green may find coadjutors in the work equally qualified with himself. Our experience leads us to fear, however, that he will not readily do this. One of his addresses we give in our present number; not because we think it the best of the series, but because its length is more suitable; and from it, our friends may gather some hints as to the style and matter of such discourses. Not that any one can preach to children upon paper. The manner, and in fact, the whole man must speak. "The one great requisite," says Mr. Green, "for effectively addressing any congregation, is sympathy with the audience. The preacher must for the time enter into the very thoughts of his hearers, and divine their hidden emotions. Their minds supply, so to speak,a frame-work in which he must set the spiritual truths of which he speaks. He must think not in his own accustomed train, but in theirs. He must remember that what is familiar to him may be abstruse to them. If he would be pathetic, it is to the sources of their feelings that he must appeal, although the well-spring of his own may be far other and deeper. He must seem, in short, to those who hang upon his lips, to give back to them their own conceptions, only refined, elevated, spiritualized: to waken from the depths of their spirit what was already slumbering there; and, as the

simple rustic will often say of such a master of the human spirit, to speak as if he knew them better than they knew themselves. “This is a difficulty; but every successful minister to the common people has already more or less surmounted it. The student feels he must master it, or altogether fail; he is therefore in earnest. Let equal interest be only felt in that yet simpler class of minds for which I plead, and the result will be as gratifying. It is true that some persons possess an instinctive sympathy, a facility of adapting themselves to the minds of the children, which all cannot attain. None, however, need be wholly unsuccessful. But let them sedulously avoid all tricks, and what in other connections we should call clap-trap. Some speakers, unable to interest their juvenile auditory in any legitimate way, endeavor to stimulate attention by a succession of stories. The plan answers till the children's appetite is palled, the speaker's stock of tales exhausted, and he abandons the effort in despair. Others talk sheer nonsense, and are rewarded if their hearers laugh. As a natural effect, the children remember the ludicrous associations, forget the spiritual truths, and are rather harmed than profited. Others again attenuate the matter to the last degree of feebleness, as if simplicity and babyism were identical. He talked to us just as if we were all little children!' was a Sunday scholar's scornful comment on a sermon of this class.

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"No, we need not resort either to unwholesome excitement, to laughable associations, or to empty prattle. Our discourses to children may be as thoughtful and as wise as any other sermons we preach. We must indeed be more pictorial. We must content ourselves with but few ideas set in many lights. We must be very clear, and very exact in the expression of our thoughts. Our words must be the simplest possible. We may take greater licence to throw in an anecdote or story, provided that it really illustrates, and that we keep it subordinate to our spiritual design. But all this is compatible with the most perfect and dignified seriousness. In striving to interest the children, we need never forget ourselves. Only let us understand their minds. If any minister is deficient in this, let him study them; the materials are ample. Let him listen to the merry voices of little ones at their play: let him talk to children,

as often and familiarly as they will allow him: let him even not be above reading the books of those who have shown extraordinary aptness to understand and interest the young. By these, and similar means, he will soon gain an amount of knowledge, a degree of readiness, aye, and an intenseness of affection too, which will surprise himself. And though his first attempts may be discouraging, he will before long so speak from the heart, that his little audience, ever prompt to show whether they are interested or not, will give signs not to be mistaken, that their hearts too are his."

Mr. Green is right. Sympathy developing itself in a series of pictures cannot fail to tell upon the young. We earnestly recommend all our friends to possess themselves of this cheap and beautiful little volume, and to pray with us that the Great Lord of the harvest would send forth into the neglected nursery of his church many more such laborers as its respected author.

SIR THOMAS FOWELL BUXTON, BART. *

TOWARDS the close of the last century, about the year 1798, as it was drawing nigh to the Easter holidays, a respectable widow lady, neatly apparelled as a member of the Society of Friends,- -or with just, perhaps, a shade or two less than what was required by professional strictness,-might have been seen on her way from London to Greenwich, where she had two or three of her sons at school. One of them was a lad of some twelve years of age. He was bold and impetuous-rather of a violent and "domineering disposition;" he had been fatherless from his sixth year, and his mother had "allowed him to assume, at home, the position and airs of the master of the house:" "his brothers and sisters had to yield him obedience;" he felt himself rather encouraged "to play the little tyrant," and was not very reluctant to try the character. During the Christmas holidays previous to the time we refer to, "he had been angry, and had struck his sister's governess;" and, to punish this outbreak, had been threatened with being left at school when his brothers should return home at Easter. Circumstances, however, led

Abridged from Mr. Binney's admirable Lecture, delivered before the Young Men's Christian Association, in Exeter Hall. See ante p. 212.