new plans altogether. Neither must it be forgotten that a thinking teacher will train thinking children, and a thinking generation is a country's glory.

We will suppose a class of children about to commence the learning of spelling. Of course they can read a little, and we must make as much use as possible of this power of reading, and, because children love to display what they know, the teacher will say to them "Who knows the name of that animal at home which kills the mice?" Up comes a sea of tiny hands, and many are the smiles upon the faces of the eager and delighted little children all ready to answer "CAT." Has the teacher done good or harm in raising these smiles upon his children's faces? Most assuredly he has done good; for, besides making their little hearts glad, and so leading them to love him and his teaching, he has secured their attention, and that is the first requisite for a good lesson.

66

The teacher now proceeds: "Who has ever seen a picture of a cat?" Plenty of hands up again. "How did you know it was the picture of a cat?" Answer: "It looked like one." Question: 66 How else could you tell it was the picture of a cat?" Perhaps there will be no answer; the teacher therefore produces an illustrated wall-card, upon which is the picture of a very fat cat, and says, "Do you see anything upon this card to tell you this is the picture of a cat?" There is the name upon the card, the children see this, and reply, "Yes! there is her name under the picture." Very well," says the teacher, "I will write her name upon this black-board; there (writing Cat), is that pussy's name?" Then, again looking at the card, he proceeds,: "What sort of a cat is that?" After some time, perhaps, the children tell him it is a FAT cat. He then writes "FAT "" on the black-board beneath the word " CAT," at the same time asking as many questions as he can about it. He then proceeds: "What did you say pussy kills ?" Answer: "Mice." Teacher: "Yes; and now what little boy can tell me something else that she will kill?" Answer: "A RAT." Proceeding in this way, the teacher gets upon the black-board these three words, Cat, fat, rat. He then very slowly, and with the utmost distinctness, repeats the three words CAT, FAT, RAT, and soon he leads the delighted children to observe for themselves that they are all very nearly alike in sound. By means of a few carefully graduated questions he also leads them to see that the three words are also very much alike in form, i.e., that their spellings are very much alike.

Having got so far, the teacher, with a pleasant smile, and in an encouraging tone of voice, says, "Now, if I rub out these words that are on the black-board, who could write one of them down again on it?" Without trouble he in this way gets all the children to reproduce the spelling of these three words, and then to impress this spelling he asks them to write these words on their slates without seeing the black-board. Care should be taken that the

children do this writing well.

NOTES.

(1.) This is sufficient for a first lesson. The next lesson the teacher gives would continue this one, and deal with the words Mat, Sat, Bat, &c.

(2.) The lesson may be rendered further interesting by asking the children to try to draw a picture of a cat. Of course

they would be allowed to see the card while drawing. (3.) Let the teacher give similar lessons on a PIN, tin, &c., a NET, wet, &c., a PIT., &c., and more advanced lessons on a BOAT, a RING, &c.

(4.) The advantages of such a lesson as this are-first, that the children have been learning spelling without knowing it; second, they have been happy because they have been employed; third, they have been led to compare words, both as sounds and as written characters.

Studies on the Gospels.

BY CHARLOTTE. M. YONGE,

AUTHOR OF THE "HEIR OF REDCLIFFE."

CHAPTER I.

INTRODUCTION.

OUR word Gospel is a contraction of good spell. Spell originally meant something fully told. Good spell then is the same as good message, and thus translates the Latin title Evangelium, from the Greek ευαγγελιον, derived from ev, good, and αγγελιον, a message for the life and death and resurrection of the Redeemer are the best message ever brought to mankind.

Evangelist then means the messenger of good tidings, and is

a title given especially to the four writers of the history of our blessed Lord's ministry upon earth.

Many persons took in hand to write this history, but none of their works showed the stamp of truth, or of the guidance of the Holy Spirit. These four are quoted as Scripture by writers from the earliest times of Christianity, and in the council of Laodicea, A.D. 320-370, were declared by the Church to be part of the canon of Scripture.

St Mark

Of these four evangelists, two, St Matthew and St John, were apostles and close companions of our Lord; St Mark is believed to have written under the guidance of St Peter, and St Luke to have collected his materials during St Paul's imprisonment at Cæsarea, and to have written with his assistance. St Matthew, who was the first in point of time, seems to have chiefly had Jewish Christians in view; indeed, it is thought his first version was in Hebrew. He dwells throughout on the fulfilment of prophecy, and takes for granted knowledge of Jewish customs. seems to have abridged St Matthew by leaving out discourses, but he gives single scenes with close detail, as if from St Peter's own lips. His gospel being written for Roman converts, does not appeal to prophecy, but explains Jewish observances, and gives the evidence a Roman would require. Both these Evangelists class events and discourses of the same kind together, instead of placing them in order of time, as St Luke does. He wrote for the Greeks of Asia Minor and Greece with much detail and explanation. These three are called the Galilean gospels, because they are chiefly occupied with our Lord's doings in Galilee, and also the Synoptical gospels, because they all afford a synopsis, or general view, of our Lord's life on earth.

The Gospel of St John was written later in his old age for the Ephesian Christians, with the intent of supplying what the other three evangelists had left untold. Thus he leaves out much of what they had told, gives much more mysterious discourses, and narrates chiefly what took place at Jerusalem. Thus, in order that we may have that holy life in its fulness, it is given to us from different points of view.

The four living creatures or Cherubim seen by Ezekiel (ch. i. 4) and St John (ch. iv. 7) in the midst of the Throne, are used as emblems of the four gospels, because these represent different phases as it were of our Lord's manifestation of Himself. St Matthew's. has the man as showing the Incarnation, St Mark's the lion as displaying the king, St Luke's the ox for the

sacrifice, St John's the eagle at once for loftiness and tender

ness.

St Matthew begins with the genealogy of our Lord. The Jewish genealogies were carefully kept, as we see in the 1st Book of Chronicles. Each man knew his connection with Abraham and his right to his inheritance. The custom was no doubt divinely established, in order that our Lord's descent might thus be clearly traced, showing the fulfilment of the prophecies which had marked him as to spring from Abraham (Gen. xxii. 18), Judah (Gen. xlix. 10), and David (Is. xi. 1).

St Luke gives another genealogy (iii. 23-38). He traces back from JESUS of Nazareth to Adam, which was the son of God, because he means to mark that He was man coming to die for man. Matthew begins from Abraham, and goes forwards to mark the kingly descent. Several points are to be observed. Women were never counted in genealogies, therefore the Mother, though the real parent, is not mentioned, only Joseph, but as she was his near relation the same ancestors were hers, therefore her Son's. The genealogies agree as far as David, but there St Luke takes the descent from Nathan (1 Chron iii. 5), and St Matthew through the royal line of Solomon, only leaving out the three kings between Jehoram and Uzziah, namely, Ahaziah, Joash, and Amaziah. The supposed reason of this is, that the taint of the idolatry of Ahab, derived through Athaliah, mother of Ahaziah, did not wear out till the fourth generation. The difference between the names of the same person is from the Greek versions of Hebrew names being used throughout the New Testament. The two lines agree in Salathiel, the father of Zerubabel, the leader of the return from Babylon (Ezra iii. 2). The explanation of this is that the line of Solomon was really cut off when Zedekiah's children were killed, since Jehoiachin (Jeconiah or Coniah) had been declared childless (Jer. xxii. 30), but that when he was released by Evil Merodach (2 Kings xxv.) he adopted his kinsman Shealtiel, of the line of Nathan. The lines diverge again with Abiah and Rhesa, probably because he was reckoned as continuing Solomon's line, the other Nathan's. Joseph is thought to have been the son actually of Jacob, but of the widow of Heli, by he (Jacob) marrying her to raise up seed to the otherwise extinct line, as in the case of Boaz and Ruth (Ruth iv. 10), and thus Joseph is reckoned as sou to both fathers in the different pedigrees. These are the explanations of early writers skilled in Jewish customs, and we may be satisfied with them.

Four mothers are mentioned in this pedigree, Tamar, the wife of Judah, a Canaanite;]Rahab, the faithful woman of Jericho (Josh. ii. 1); Ruth the Moabitess; and Bathsheba, the occasion of David's sin. These show first that our Lord deigned to inherit Gentile blood, when sanctified by faith, and next that He bore our shame, since, except Ruth, each woman has evil recorded against her.

Domestic Economy for Pupil Teachers.

BY JANE STOKER,

TRAINING COLLEGE, STOCKWELL.

"I NEVER practise Domestic Economy," said a very hard-working teacher, who lived alone in her schoolhouse. "I buy what I can eat, and do not think of what costs least."

"Any one living alone, as you do, requires not only good but tempting food;" was the reply. "In the choice of food, at least, you have adopted the system of domestic economy best suited to your peculiar circumstances, provided you keep up a healthy appetite by daily taking plenty of fresh air, and a fair amount of physical exercise."

66

'My household duties compel me to take exercise;" said the teacher; "the necessary rubbing and scrubbing for keeping my house in order give me employment for two hours every morning before school commences. I have one of my elder girls to help me, and so get all the work done in these two hours; but I assure you that it gives abundant exercise to all the bodily powers that are not called into action by my school duties."

"Your system of domestic economy seems to me to be a capital one;" replied her friend. "Your household duties are so arranged as to prepare you for school work, and to allow of rest and enjoyment of leisure when school duties have exhausted you; and you are, besides, training a young girl to be a very useful woman, by teaching her to manage household affairs. Do not say again that you never practise Domestic Economy."

"But I always thought that economy means saving," said the teacher.

Most people make the same mistake. One of the most admired writers of our day, John Ruskin, in his lecture on the "Political Economy of Art," says, concerning this prevalent error- "We have warped the word 'economy' in our English language into a