their own wild way during the week. Your boys are mixing with the wicked and the unprincipled very likely, and perhaps your influence on Sunday may be their only safeguard. But the anxiety you feel about them is, I truly think, the best beginning. Christ has said, "Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled," and this is a great truth. Whatever the soul hungers and thirsts after, it is likely to accomplish. A teacher who loves his scholars warmly and truly, and longs for their salvation, is almost sure, I think, to obtain a strong hold upon their affections. But it must be an earnest, patient, long-suffering love."

"Yes," said Roger, "that is the very thing. I am not patient, I get discouraged, vexed with myself, and vexed with my scholars, when I see how little real serious feeling there is amongst them, how little earnest desire after true knowledge."

'But, dear Roger, you will be patient, if you think of all the struggles and difficulties of these poor boys in striving to do right. Think how often they have to meet with ridicule, and evil example, and how difficult are the first attempts to live the life of a Christian. We must seek every means of influencing and helping them, and one great means is to visit the boys at their homes, and so get acquainted with their trials and difficulties. Talking to their parents, and making yourself a friend in their families will give you great power over your scholars. If you can once get your scholars to talk openly to you of their daily lives, and induce them to come to you when they are in trouble or have done wrong, you can then do very much. Nothing but love and patience and gentleness can give them this trust in you. When you thoroughly know the circumstances and tempers and characters of your scholars, then you will have far less difficulty in making the Sunday teaching a preparation for the coming week, that may protect them from evil."

"I do indeed feel the benefit of getting better accquainted with my boys. I am trying more and more to become so. But good Mr. Arnold has been urging upon all the teachers, the necessity of this home visiting, to give a teacher due influence with his scholars. As he truly said, there are so many things which a teacher may say to a parent, or to the boy alone, which cannot be said before all the class. He said, too, that it is very desirable that we should give our scholars free permission to come to us at any time during the week, if they needed advice, or if there were any trouble or sickness in the family. Many teachers, he said, could not assist the bodily distresses or alleviate the poverty of their scholars, but they could all give sympathy and advice, and if there was a case of distress, they could always make it known at the teachers' meeting."

"Sometimes," said Philip, "when I am in one of my idle, longing fits, I wish I could creep to your teachers' meetings. They must be delightful evenings. I wish every Sunday school had such a spring of life and sympathy to draw from. It seems to me quite necessary for the healthy working of every school. I like very much the plan of fixing the scripture subject for the whole school on the following Sunday, and preparing for it, at the previous meeting. It must give great interest both to the teachers and scholars to know that all are upon the same subject, and that all have been dedicating their best thoughts and energies to preparing for the Sunday. It must be especially valuable for the young teachers to have this opportunity of being thoroughly prepared, and of profiting by all the light that the minister and elder teachers can throw upon each portion of scripture."

"Philip, do not you think that the Bible studied in this way, and made so intensely interesting as it is by understanding all its beauty and meaning, is almost enough in itself for Sunday school teaching?"

"Indeed Roger," said Philip, "I think we must be very careful not to multiply our class books, so as in any degree to exclude the Bible. The scripture lessons for the day should ever be made the most important and the most interesting; but in those places where there is morning and afternoon school, there is I believe time for some study of other books, which may help to unfold to the mind all the wonders and beauties of the world around, and so open pure sources of enjoyment. Every thing that purifies and raises the mind is preparing the soil to receive the love of God, and to see His hand in all things."

"I do believe," said Roger, "that if the teacher's mind is filled with a true love of God, if he walks in close fellowship with Christ whatever he may be teaching, or whatever he may be doing, he must exert a right influence over the minds and hearts of his scholars; and if our scholars had no other opportunity of learning to read and write, it would in fact be banishing these poor ignorant children from our Sunday schools, if we refused to teach reading and writing. In this way we should shut them out, and leave them as it were in the dark. We must be content to do the best we can, and not expect perfection in our system of management."

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But," said Philip, "there is one perfection we may all aim at. We may all strive after the perfect life of Christ. We may all seek to have our own minds, and those of our scholars, filled with his spirit, and so in the beautiful words of St. Paul, be reconciled to God by him. Sin, vanity, worldly thoughts and desires, with the

affections and lusts of the flesh, will then be crucified, and our life will be hid with Christ in God.

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During Philip's long-continued illness, Roger had frequent opportunities of renewing these conversations with his friend; and in after years, when still continuing his valuable labours as a Sundayschool teacher, he attributed his success, under the blessing of God, chiefly to the lessons which he had learnt in the sick-room. So true it is, that "they also serve who only stand and wait.”

A. D.

LIFE

OF MOSES.

(Continued from page 179.)

DAY after day rolled on, and the people waited in vain for the return of Moses. At length, wearied with expectation, and probably much in want of such necessary employment as-if there had been enough of it might have guarded them from the dangers of evil thoughts, and the sins to which they ever were most prone, their hearts turned again to the pastures of Goshen, the unfailing waters of Egypt, and the splendour, pomp, and sacrifices of the old idol worship. It seems strange to us, but so it evidently was, that their tendency towards idolatry almost amounted to a passion;—a passion which nothing but some strong impression upon their senses- -the recollection of recent punishment, or the fear of impending calamity, was for many years able to check or control. It seems to us incredible that after what they had so lately witnessed, after the express command given as it were but yesterday, that they should not make to themselves any graven image, nor the likeness of anything that was in heaven above or on the earth beneath, or in the waters under the earth, and more especially that they should not bow drown to them nor worship them :-that while their great leader was gone up into the Mount to receive the further commands of God, and while the glory indicating the presence of God was still enveloping and enshrouding it;—that even then, and even there the people who were encamped upon the plain below should yet sigh after the gods of Egypt, and feel it like some strong necessity of their nature that they should have a visible image before them to worship and bow down to. Yet so it was:-and in their wayward and stiff-necked wickedness they came to Aaron, and demanded of him that he should make them a god like the god of the Egyptians, who might

go up before them on their way, and be their supporter, their protector, and their guide. And still more strange was it that Aaron yielded to their request, and instead of reproving them with stern severity, as Moses would have done, and sending them back to their tents self-convicted and ashamed, he assisted them to execute their purpose, and to sin the great sin which they were come out of the land of their bondage to escape from.

He made for them a golden calf-probably a representation of the sacred bull of Egypt, "Apis,"—an animal which was kept in one of their temples as an object of worship for the multitude, and of which some likeness in wood, ivory, or gold, ornamented almost every dwelling in the land.

This golden image they placed upon a fragment of rock that served it for a pedestal, and then assembling round it, and bowing down as if in lowly adoration, they cried aloud one to another "These be thy gods, O Israel, that brought thee out of the land of Egypt." And Aaron went farther, and built an altar before the idol, that they might offer up to it such sacrifices as God had appointed for Himself only. Yet even in this it does not appear that they really intended to renounce the worship of Jehovah, and return to the gods of the Egyptians. At least Aaron did not encourage them in such intention, for when he had built the altar he reminded them, as if for a reason why he had built it, that to-morrow there was to be a feast-unto the Lord. It only seems that they felt as if they must have some visible thing before them to worship, and as if an Invisible Being, however great, terrible, and near, could not satisfy their degraded longings, or be a real existence to their gross, unspiritual natures. 66 And on the morrow they rose up early, and offered burnt offerings, and brought peace offerings, and the people sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to play."

Amid this scene of wild festivity, Moses suddenly re-appeared among them. He had been warned while in the mount what was going on in the plain below, and had hastened down to put an immediate stop to the disgraceful exhibition. He appeared with two tables of stone in his hand, on which were written portions of the law he had been receiving from the voice of God. The people, when they saw him once more among them, were awakened as from a dream.

As

The sight of their venerable leader recalled the thought of God, the remembrance of His power, the fear of His just anger. they looked upon his well-known and still beloved countenance, now glowing with grief and indignation, they were at once recalled to themselves; they were awakened to the recollection of the past;

their eyes were opened; they saw their shame; they recognised their sin-they fell back from before Moses :-the sounds of mirth and revelry died away :-the instruments of music were cast behind them—and the mad craving for the celebrations of idol worship gave place at once to feelings of remorse and consternation. Moses looked round him upon this scene of shame and sin. He looked upon the golden image which stood upon its pedestal of rock, senseless, inanimate, unmoved. He looked upon the altar on which the sacrifice was yet burning. He looked round upon the people now silent, abashed, and trembling. He turned and looked back to the mount still covered with the glory of Jehovah. He did not speak, but he pointed with his finger towards the mountain, and then pointed, with a gesture none could misinterpret, to the golden image that stood there in its nothingness before them. Then he lifted the tables of stone that he still held in his hand, and dashed them to the ground. They were broken in pieces before the mount. Of what use were tables and laws for such a people? Of what use was a prophet or a God? Was it for this that they had been delivered from the bondage of the Egyptians? Was it for this that the waters of the great deep had been opened before them, and that they had been led through the bottom of its rolling waves into a wilderness of safety? Was it for this that God had come down to earth, to commune with his people, and to occupy himself in providing for their welfare. Behold He was even now upon the mountain, and His people were assembled at the foot of it, worshipping-a bull!

Still Moses did not speak. What words could speak the feelings that were filling his heart, and almost rending it asunder? He said nothing, but he went straight up to the idol, tore it from its pedestal, and threw it into the fire. He watched it in silence feed the flames, till it was so softened by the heat that it could be reduced to ashes. Then he took it out, and ground it to powder, and scattered it on the water, and made the people drink their self-made God. He had destroyed their idol. Where was it? Gone. Vanished. Crushed into dust. Was this a God?

And where were the worshippers? Silent and awe struck they stood around, hanging their heads in shame; now alive to the past. and trembling for the future. Then Moses spoke for the first timeand it was to Aaron—“ What had this people done unto thee, that thou hast brought so great a sin upon them?" Aaron stammered out a lame reply ;- -a reply that contained neither justification, nor mitigation of guilt. Moses hardly waited to listen, but turning from him and from them all, walked with the step of an indignant monarch towards the gate of the camp. There he stood still.