too quickly. Granted that they are slow, and that that provokes us; but we are too quick, and that hurries and annoys them; depriving them of the calm equanimity of spirits indispensable to their peace. Let us put ourselves in the place of others, and above all consider Him who "endured such contradiction of sinners against Himself," lest we be "wearied and faint" in our minds.

Edinburgh.

HINTS ON FORMING LESSONS.

JUDGING by my own early experience as a teacher (for which I must now look back some eighteen or nineteen years), I should say that one of a teacher's chief difficulties is the getting a grasp of his Lesson. I trust my readers will not quarrel with this phrase, but no single word occurs to me as conveying my idea.

What I mean by it is this:-We take a portion of Scripture, containing some well-known narrative, and endeavour to prepare it as a Lesson. In doing so, we see at once the more prominent truths taught by it; truths which have been urged on our minds by ministers, parents, or books. We recognize at once the duty of bringing these truths to bear upon the children; for however true it may be that there is much "strong meat" in the Bible, not to be laid before babes, that epithet does not apply to the leading doctrines of Christianity.

We see then, partly, what we have to do, though not wholly that; for we have a growing consciousness that the more we study the Scripture the more we shall find in it of richness and fulness of truth.

Then comes on the feeling of inability to cope with our subject. We seem to have taken hold of a weapon like the old two-handed sword, which we can neither thoroughly handle nor accurately apply; or, to recur to my phrase, we cannot get a good grasp of the Lesson.

I need say but little as to the evil results of this. An experienced teacher, overhearing the efforts of a beginner, would find as much cause (or more) for censure in the omissions as in the mistakes. He would observe the young workman (albeit interested and zealous in the work) using noble means with poor effect, dealing with great and powerful truths, but with a light and lax hand; just as if a ploughman only grazed off the thistle heads with his ploughshare, or as if a painter drew nothing of a higher character than straight lines. The young teacher would seem to him to be often on the very verge an important Lesson but to stop short-to aim a blow, but never to let his arm actually fall.

of

Now, of all this, that beginner would perhaps be as painfully

though not as intelligently conscious, as the more experienced educator. I am sure, for my own part, that I have many and many a time gone through a Scripture Lesson with my class, and ended it with the painful assurance that the passage of Scripture we had read contained both a richness and an unity which I had failed to grasp, and therefore could not succeed in imparting.

Never do I hope to see the day when I could pass to the other extreme, and dream that I had fathomed the depth, and exhausted the fulness of any portion of Scripture! To go to one's work in such a spirit were indeed to throw away the first requisite of success -an entire dependence on the teaching and aid of the Holy Spirit. But far removed alike from confusion and ill-arranged ideas on the one hand, and from inflated conceit on the other, is that sober-minded but intelligent view of the things to be taught, and the way to teach them, which characterizes the experienced teacher.

How is this great end to be attained?

I know no royal road to it. Of tact in teaching it may be truly said that it is, in a great degree, innate, not acquired. Some teachers have that about their manner which wins the little ones.

But the talent of which I am speaking is not of this sort. Rather do I believe it to be, in a vast majority of cases, the result of real hard study, close observation, and untiring perseverance.

Is teaching worth these? Oh, who can hesitate at the answer, if we do but realize the end of Religious Education-the eternal happiness of the soul in heaven! Yes, teaching is worth any effort; the prize is one for which we may well strive; the race one which may well command our utmost energies.

How then are we to acquire this capacity of grasping and mastering the Lesson, so that we may first feel deeply in our own hearts the truths to be conveyed, and then go forth to our work with "the spirit of power" ?

It is difficult to realize what our feelings would be were we now for the first time poring over the Sacred Page; but it is all too easy to discover how much of what we read and hear is allowed to pass by us unexamined, from its very familiarity! Those well-known words have fallen on our ears from the early days of childhood, and they seem as natural to us as the sunbeams on our daily path, or the verdure of the beauteous world; like these, alas! they form too often but the background of another scene. They live before us, but not in Or, without so entire a loss of their power, they seem like the blue hills of the distance, not like the nooks and crannies of our loved home.

us.

"These things ought not so to be." It is just this indistinctness which ruins so much of what would otherwise be good teaching; and

one of the very first essentials in forming a good Lesson is the power of making its various component parts stand prominently out; and this, as we shall see, can only result from a clear and distinct notion for ourselves of what we have to impart to others.

This brings us to the answer to my question.

I have been led into this train of thought by having, a few Sundays back, come, in the usual course of my Lessons, to the incident of Christ blessing little children. It has occurred to me that my own experience on that occasion may not be altogether useless to my younger fellow-labourers, for whom alone I am now writing, as likely to assist them in a similar process of getting at the Lessons contained in the passage under treatment.

I need not repeat the words of St. Matthew, they will recur at once to my readers, who probably will enter into my feeling, "What am I to do with this incident ? "

This question of course must be answered with reference to the age and attainments of my class. Had they been infants, one of the cheap and well-drawn prints, now so common, would have arrested their attention whilst I first told the circumstances-then asked a few simple questions on them, and made a short and plain application of the subject to them. But instead of infants I had to teach the first class, containing young ladies (I mean literally so), quite able to give such a Lesson to an infant class. What then was I to do? It would have been injudicious to treat the subject before them just as I would have done before infants. That would indeed have been my plan if my present object had been to show them how to teach; but my duty clearly was to try and teach them-to make them feel the force and fulness of the passage.

Driven thus from the old familiar path, I hesitated, and that feeling placed me, I think, in nearly the same position as that which I have spoken of as common in the experience of young teachers-I felt doubtful how I could manage the Lesson.

I am writing in all sincerity, and therefore candidly confess that my first impulse was to pass lightly over the passage and look for the main points of my Lesson in the following verses. Is there not an echo to this in the hearts of many of my readers? Do they not remember to have sometimes felt "I must go on, I have nothing to say about this"? This is the secret of getting through chapter upon chapter, outrunning the table of appointed Lessons, and coming to a dead stand long before the hour has ended. Surely the apostle's gentle reproof may well rouse us; it is in ourselves that we are "straitened." Well," thought I, "this cannot be quite right; these verses must have much more in them than such a casual explanation would imply; let me look again at them,"

I must again repeat that I am writing for young teachers, and that if any experienced ones have followed my remarks so far, they must not be disappointed if they meet with nothing new to them.

Todd (followed by Stow) strongly urges the habit of picturing out the incidents of Scripture History; first, of course, in one's own imagination. I tried this plan, and as the scene rose before me a fresh light broke in upon the Lesson.

I am no painter; and if I were, I doubt if I could ever attempt to delineate those sacred features on which the favoured apostles gazed in daily intercourse. But imagination is a better painter than Raphael or Rubens, and the picture soon stood out before my mental vision. The Son of Man, in mingled majesty and tenderness; the parents* anxious yet trusting; the disciples harsh and unkind (no wonted temper with them); and the little ones, the objects both of that parental and that Divine love.

It was as my eye seemed to rest on the prominent figures of the group, that a tenfold interest attached itself to the Lesson; for who and what were they-The Giver and the receivers; the Blesser and the blest? The Son of Man was there, veiling Divine glory in a tabernacle of humanity; a Man of sorrows, it is true, but yet Emmanuel; a Sojourner in that world which erstwhile his voice had called into existence. There He stood, in great humility; yet the Creator, the Lord of all-Omnipotent-Omniscient-Omnipresent-Everlastingthe Conqueror of sin and death—the Brightness of the Father's glory. And what of the little ones? I needed but to turn my thoughts to my own treasures, and in childhood I saw the exact contrast to the attributes of the Messiah; the very type of weakness, dependence, and helplessness, contrasted with the type of Divinity.

Again, I thought of the greatness of his work-the work which He burned to accomplish. On Him rested the only hope for man; his life, his death alone could reconcile the fallen world to God. This He knew from the first, and spoke of as his "Father's business." How then should He turn aside to attend to the little ones?

This introduced the disciples, who were doubtless actuated in their mistaken interference by a feeling that these parents were intrusive. Next, how came the parents to venture on such a step? how ask this favour from One whose miracles had wrung from unwilling voices the acknowledgment,-" Is not this the Christ"? The answer to this is obvious:-The most wonderful display of his power had been to bless, not to punish; to preserve, not to destroy; and they who had seen or heard of the water turned to wine, the stilling of the

* Why do painters represent the mothers alone? The Greek, "those that brought them," is masculine, and cannot therefore be appealed to as excluding the fathers.

storm, the feeding of the five thousand, and, with more or less of true faith, had recognized in Him the promised and expected Saviour, longed for the pouring forth of his love on those infant spirits, that were dearer to them than their own lives.

And they judged rightly in their application. The interference of the disciples was rebuked, even with displeasure; the hand was laid upon each little head, and the true blessing given.

My thoughts next assumed this form.-What was there in children that might especially excite that sympathy, and render the blessing such an act of delight to the Redeemer?

He sympathizes with all: "Ho, every one that thirsteth;" and "Come unto Me, all that labour, &c.;" but there occured to me four reasons for that sympathy with children, each of which would form a good topic for questions and remarks.

I. They are the men and women of the next generation, the fathers and mothers who are to train up the children after them.

II They are "by nature born in sin, and the children of wrath;" partakers of a fallen nature which, but for a Saviour, would leave them without a hope of everlasting life.

III. He came to offer them also the pardoning mercy of his Father; they too might yet inherit the kingdom, and that not at mature age alone for

IV. He recognized the possibility and loveliness of early piety; such as Samuel, Josiah, Timothy, in turn exhibited.

My readers will, I think, allow that the passage of Scripture so analyzed, became sufficient of itself for a good hour's Lesson; and so indeed I found it; for although I had intended to embrace the following verses on the rich young man's coming to Christ, I could not bring them within the allotted time.

I am not setting this preparation before teachers as a model; I am rather endeavouring to shew how, by this picturing out, the verses in question expanded into an interesting Lesson. Different subjects would be treated in a different manner, and I may perhaps, on a future occasion, offer to my young readers another of these unpretending descriptions of the way in which a Lesson may be formed.

I should add, that I have not touched upon other essential parts of a Lesson, viz.—the illustration of the Truth by anecdotes, and the employment of the Truth by some point of direct personal application.

3. G. F.