The Sunday-School Union. LECTURES. RAGGED SUNDAY-SCHOOLS. showed that the formation of unions was calculated to effect a great change. Mr. ALTHANS followed, and took a brighter view of our position. He agreed with the lecturer, that much was to be done; but he wanted to know what, and how? He was not The lecturer, after adverting to the prepared to say what steps could be popularity of these institutions, pro- taken to arouse Christian ministers and ceeded to rebut the oft-repeated asser-churches, but he thought it a most tion that Ragged Schools are of recent important thing to be attended to. Mr. origin, by giving an historical sketch SMITHER addressed the meeting in of several that were in existence at the an admirable speech. commencement of the present century. He contended that secular schools were not the means best adapted to meet the social, moral, and religious wants of the ragged; and that the Sunday-school system, with its ordinary machinery, was best adapted to suit their peculiar necessities. He urged the immediate application of the system from two considera tions: 1. Their numerical strength; and 2. The contaminating influence of this class of children: and concluded by enforcing the desirableness of securing for them, 1. Suitable buildings or rooms. 2. Classification. 3. The maintenance of discipline. 4. Experienced and well-informed teachers. A conversation ensued, in which Messrs. Hartley, Eke, Cuthbertson, Stoneman, Althans, and the Lecturer, took part. SUNDAY-SCHOOL EXTENSION. Mr. HARTLEY'S subject is an important one, and his paper was well adapted to show the need of increased effort. He stated that in London the number of children in Sunday-schools was but 1 in 16; while in Wales, upon Mr. Baines' high authority, it was 1 in 4; and in England 1 in 9. He looked at 1 in 4 as the proper average. He stated that, in Westminster alone, there were 16,000 children of school age, 12,000 of whom went to no school. He pleaded for more efficient teachers, and more sympathy and activity on the part of the Christian church, and THE TEACHERS' STUDIES. Mr. MANN'S Lecture was most valuable. He has evidently gained his experience by personal effort and persevering the minds of those who are asking for labour, and is admirably fitted to lead the best methods and books, to lay a solid foundation, and build prudently and "by measure" an ornamental and useful superstructure. We have not room to present even an outline of the paper or the pertinent remarks of Mr. W. S. Gover. This lecture closes this series of winter lectures, of which we cannot speak too highly. NORTH LONDON AUXILIARY. THE monthly meeting of the Committee was held, as usual, at the Barbican school-rooms, on Tuesday, March 14, 1848. Mr. JACKSON in the chair. It was reported that a Branch Association had been formed at Tottenham and Edmonton, with every prospect of its being efficiently worked, and proving of great service to that locality. This completes the occupation of the whole of the ground within the boundaries of this Auxiliary. The principal business before the Committee was that of preparing for the Annual Meeting, to be held that day week. The Secretary presented a long list of ministers, to whom he had written, requesting them to take part in the proceedings; but from all of whom, with two exceptions, he had received a negative. There certainly appears an unaccountable apathy on the part of ministers, generally, towards Sundayschools. While in anniversary sermons they speak of them as the hope, the nursery of the church, the safeguard of the community, yet, if applied to, either to visit a school or take a share in conducting a public meeting, it may be affirmed, with a few noble instances to the contrary, They all began to make excuse." It is surprising that this glaring inconsistency does not attract the attention of the parties themselves. It is a source of great pain and anxiety to multitudes of Sunday-school teachers, and ministers should not be astonished if occasionally they are involuntarily led to express the emotions of their heart. Under the circumstances, the Committee had no alternative, but entrusted the resolutions to laymen. On its being proposed to report the speeches, it was facetiously observed by some of the members, that it might have the effect of inducing a larger attendance of ministers at the next Anniversary. Towards the close of the business, some important hints were thrown out on a topic that demands grave attention, namely, the paucity of young men of talent, who are coming forward and consecrating it to the noblest of Institutions-the Sunday-school. EAST LONDON AUXILIARY. THE business connected with the Annual Meeting has chiefly occupied the attention of the Committee during the past month. Mr. WAITE has commenced a course of Psalmody Exercises, at Wycliffe Chapel. WEST LONDON AUXILIARY. AT the usual monthly meeting of this Auxiliary very little of general interest transpired. A grant of elementary books was made to a school at Sunbury. One new school was reported as having beer opened at the Lock Chapel, in the North West District. Answers to Correspondents. of which is a distinct elegy, consisting of twenty-two periods, corresponding with the number of letters in the Hebrew alphabet. In the first four elegies the several periods commence as an acrostic. with the different letters following each other in alphabetical order. H. L.-Galen says, 600 muscles and 284 bones in the human structure. Separate Services for Young Children.-mentations is divided into five parts, each We thank our friend, J. R., for his note; from which, for the benefit of others, we extract the following passage:-"The two sermons, under the head of 'The Children's Separate Service,' published in the February and March numbers of the 'Sunday-school Magazine,' far exceeds, in my opinion, any thing of the kind I have ever yet seen; they are invaluable treasures, and in every respect suited, under the blessing of God, to benefit a youthful audience, such as it is my privilege weekly to meet." Our friend asks for four instead of one. This we cannot find room. Cannot the one serve as a model, J. R. preparing the other three. This is the best way to train the mind for simple teaching, and the practice is admirable. We shall continue to supply one sermon in each number; and the probability is, that at some future time they will be published. A Teacher, Brighton.-The crime of striking a parent, so sure a proof of inveterate wickedness, is denounced as a heinous crime, punishable with death; Exod. xxi. 15. A Young Student.-The Book of La E. B. W. is mistaken; the hair, among eastern nations, is employed as a symbel of honour, respect, and authority; and the cutting or shaving off the hair is in Scripture a symbol of poverty, affliction, or disgrace; Isa. vii. 20. F. C. has not been sufficiently careful in his metrical effort. The first and third lines are defective, while the fifth, sixth, and other lines are wanting a syllable. Try again. J.C.J.-Too late this month, but shall be noticed in May. Rev. J. T. Johnson.-We will use the facts. Received with thanks.-J. H. PriceJ. T.-Smethwick.-F. A.-Packard. No spot, perhaps, in Palestine, is more fraught with historical associations than the river Jordan, and few places there have been more frequently visited by modern travellers, or explored with greater interest than its course and termination have been. Taking its rise at the foot of Mount Lebanon, it passes southward through the sea of Galilee; and, after flowing for about 150 miles, loses itself in the Dead Sea. In general its banks are sterile and bare, but in some places are thickly covered with bushes, which still give shelter to wild beasts, the dislodging of which by the annual overflow of its waters gives significance to the figure, "like a lion from the swellings of Jordan.' At other times it does not exceed thirty yards in width, and would attract little notice but for its associations. The Jordan and its banks are interwoven with the history of the chosen people, from the time when its waters parted before the feet of the priests who bore the ark into the promised land, to the time when the Son of God was baptized in it by the hand of John. The annexed engraving shows the place where the last event is supposed to have taken place; and such is the interest with which this has invested it, that thousands of pilgrims annually visit it for the purpose of bathing in its waters, and thereby, as they suppose, washing away their sins; and while sorrowing for such a delusion, no Christian can gaze upon it without a feeling approaching to veneration. "There is a fountain filled with blood," &c. NEW SERIES.] F [MAY, 1848. WHAT IS TRUTH? BY THE AUTHOR OF PETER PARLEY'S TALES. IT is a question yet involved in the mazes of metaphysics, whether the mind exists before sensation. But however this may be, it seems first called into exercise by the senses, which rap at the door, and call up the sleeper to a consciousness of existence. The eye opens and reveals a world of realities. The touch, the taste, the ear, the olfactory nerve, all come like busy messengers to the waking spirit, each bearing some reality to the mind. One brings the ray of light, another tones of music, another odours and incense, another sensations of taste. They are all presenters of realities, all dealers in facts, all ministers of truth. This is the first visible process of intellectual and spiritual existence; and it is to be noted that as the body begins to be developed through the instrumentality of food, the mind begins to be developed by the instrumentality of truth. Nature, the great nurse, has provided for the nutriment and growth of the one as well as of the other. She has made as careful and as ample provision for feeding and fostering the mind, whose nutriment is truth, as for invigorating and perfecting the body, which depends on substantial aliment. The relation, then, which the mind bears to truth, is similar to that which the body bears to wholesome food. Truth is the aliment of the mind. It may be further remarked, that the intellectual faculties receive their power and use from the existence of truth and their adaptation to it. Perception is but an artist whose pictures are all portraits; memory is a recorder of realities; belief is the assent of the mind to facts; reason is a weigher and gauger of truth's merchandises. Even fairy fancy weaves her silken fabrics of the fibres of truth. There are no dreams, even, previous to experience, and the wing of imagination can only carry us to new combinations of scenes furnished by realities. As no mixture of hues can go beyond the colours of the rainbow, so fancy can produce no picture, the lights and shades of which do not consist of truth. Existence itself is but an appreciation of truth, yet it is a reality of which consciousness assures us. The minute philosophers have son. contended that man can neither demonstrate his own existence nor that of matter. This poor quibble was well answered by Dr. JohnBoswell tells us, that when walking in a field with the great moralist, he pointed to a stone, and asked the doctor if he could prove its existence. To this the latter replied in the affirmative and stamping upon the stone, exclaimed, "Thus I prove it!" Existence is a reality too clear for proof; it goes before and rests in a conviction to which external evidence can add no force. We feel that we live and breathe, and have a being. Imagination may amuse, dreams may beguile us. Fiction may transport us to other climes for a moment, but truth draws us down to a world of realities. Gravitation ties our bodies to the earth; hunger and thirst pursue us; hope beckons to us; fear warns us; passion tempts us. Expectation, love, friendship, gratitude, anger, hatred, suspicion all struggle in the bosom and declare the reality of existence. There is a never-dying desire of happiness, a sleepless aversion to pain within the breast, which comes every moment to rap at the door of the house we live in, and wake up the tenant to the assurance that life is no dream, no fiction, no fading fancy; but an inevitable truth, a stern reality, a fixed, unalterable fact! The force and meaning of existence lies in the fact that we feel! If there were no pleasure and no pain, if we were not endowed with a capacity for happiness or misery-and were it not that we are perpetually realizing the one or the other, existence would be a blank without interest or significance. But we are roused to an appreciation of good and evil, and we cannot shake off our desires of the one, nor our dread of the other. The activity of the mind renders this capacity of a man a matter of almost fearful interest. Let a person turn his eye in upon himself, and how rapid is the flood of ideas, pouring in a ceaseless cataract through his mind. The wing of thought never seems to flag. Even in dreams it is still busy, and flies with a swifter and more daring pinion. And every thought brings to the breast its quality of good or evil; every thing tastes of pleasure or pain. The hind is perpetually grinding at the mill, and never without its grist of happiness or misery. This view of the subject acquires interest from the reflection that man, thus endowed with existence, and constituted with powers of appreciating pleasure and pain, and with a ceaseless activity of these powers, is also to know no end. Existence to him is not a lease of ninety-nine years, or nine hundred and ninety-nine years; but it is a fee-simple, and that without the power of alienation. The instinct of all nations, in all ages, assures man of his immortality. The sail of thought once spread, its voyage is upon a shoreless deep; the car of intelligence once started, it is upon a tract that knows no terminus. Whoever doubts this, it would seem, must doubt in the face of the highest evidence. The voice of instinct is the voice of truth. Nature's inscriptions are never false. She tells the lion and the tiger that flesh is their proper food, and she tells the truth; she tells the deer and the sheep to feed on herbs, and her counsel is wisdom; she guides the heron and the bittern to the pool, and there they find the prey that is adapted to their organization. She instructs the bee in the economy of the hive; and the mathematican finds with wonder that Nature has been an honest school |