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ness, and am now about to realize them with all their wondrous meaning. I cannot say that I have any great triumph, but I am thankful that I have neither doubts nor fears. I know in whom I have believed,' &c. Is Christ now precious? He is most precious. I am throwing my arms around Him, and He is mighty to save.' Then she quoted texts of Scripture till her strength was exhausted. A valued friend coming in soon after, she kissed her and said, "The sands of life are running low with me. Do stop and take your things off, for you will soon be wanted." Only a few minutes before she expired, I inquired, “Can you bear us to have family worship in your room? She replied, "Yes; I should like it very much, for I shall not be with you in the morning." I read a few passages from the two last chapters in the book of Revelation, concluding with the words, "He which testifieth these things saith, Surely I come quickly." She caught the words, and instantly said, "Yes! that is what I want. Do come, Lord Jesus, come quickly, if it be Thy blessed will. I am afraid He delays, because I am impatient to be gone. If I am, O Lord forgive me. O Lord Jesus, into Thy hands I commend my spirit."

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We knelt down to pray, and on rising, being asked if she were able to unite, she answered, Oh yes! I said 'Amen' to every petition with all my heart." But she was now in the valley of death: the end was nigh. Only to herself did she speak after this, when we caught the words, Fear not, for I am with thee;" More than conquerors through Him that loved us; Victory through our Lord Jesus Christ!" and one or two gentle sighs, and her spirit left its

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earthly house," and attained its house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens." Thus died, on Monday evening, the 18th of January, 1864, one who was beloved by a numerous circle of friends, and whose memory will be long had in remembrance. Her funeral sermon was preached on the 17th of February, by the Rev. James Parsons, of York, from 1 Cor. xv. 57, "Victory through our Lord Jesus Christ," words which, by her desire, were engraven on the card commemorating her decease.

Amongst the prominent features in the character of the departed, there was the most sincere and unaffected piety. She lived in "the fear of the Lord all

the day long," and delighted greatly in His ways. Religious exercises were natural to her, and her enjoyments of its privileges made her a cheerful pilgrim. "God was in all her thoughts, making His word her constant guide, and His favour her daily aim. She "set Him always before her." She carried this as "a woman professing godliness" into all her household affairs. Her strict integrity, and regard for truth, showed her hatred of evil in its "very appearance." From a child her conscientiousness had been noted. There were no exaggerations in her statements, and no concealments. She was addicted to self-examination, and maintained a watchfulness over her spirit. It may, however, be affirmed that she was painfully conscious of many imperfections, and of easily besetting sins. These were lamented and confessed before God. On several occasions during her illness she remarked, “I know that I have been naturally of an uneasy and irritable disposition. It has often occasioned me great sorrow that I have given way to this, and spoken unadvisedly with my lips.' I have wanted things far too much according to my mind, and at my own time. And be sure," she enjoined, "if any notice be taken of my death, that nothing be said in my praise. Do not let me be eulogised when I am gone. would be contrary to my feelings. My prayer is, 'God be merciful to me a sinner.'

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Another feature in her character was her love of devotion. She found great enjoyment in the private exercises of religion. She withdrew herself and there prayed." When unable to kneel, as was the case previous to her death, she would say, “I can subscribe to dear Mrs. Sherman's statement, Oh! it is hard to get into bed without prayer.' 'The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.'" And to the devotional exercises of the family and the sanctuary she attached great importance. She loved all Christian ordinances, and wondered that with Christians it could be otherwise. The benefit she herself found, she thought others might.

And withal she was a humble-minded Christian. She desired to be like Christ. Her endeavour was to "walk as He walked." And now she "walks with Him in white." She has gone to "be with Christ, which is far better." May we who have known her and loved

ker be quickened in our Christian duties by the influence of her example, and by the hope of meeting her in our Father's house, to " go no more out for

ever. "Be not slothful, but followers of those who, through faith and patience, inherit the promises."

Lay Preaching.

PREACHING, AS DISPENSING.

TRUE preaching is not only 1. Promulgating, 2. Self-evidencing, 3. It is dispensing. The condition of the effectiveness in the first particular is the power of a bold, outstanding rhetoric; in the second, it is the indwelling of a profound, experimental assurance; in the third, it is the actual and large possession of the Gospel. The effectual preaching is the generously dispensing. Paul as he was at Ephesus, may illustrate. He was there so surcharged with the miraculous potency, that from his body were brought unto the sick handkerchiefs and aprons, and health and life were diffused. The same thing, I love to think, held spiritually; and it was the Gospel in Paul, so opulently and massively in him, that constituted largely, in his case, the wonderfully productive preaching force-not in him merely as assured truth, and to go from him in some form of resistless demonstration-in him rather as a resource and wealth of blessing, as a divine treasury of good, as a fountain of saving efficacy. I do not give to the servant the prerogative of the master; but I do conceive of the servant, under the flowing of the master, as taking in quantity; as largely possessing Gospel; and then in the uttering, pouring it forth as a power of salvation. It goes from him, because it is so largely within him. As Peter said, "What I have I give thee." And it was a more enduring substance than silver or gold.

There is a mystery in these transmissions from mind to mind; from preacher to his hearers. It is not thought, opinion, argument,' merely, that it conveys. In all instances of commanding effect, it is of the nature of substance; and seems to act almost as a physical property; and yet, finely etherial. It wells up and pours abroad, crowding, as it goes, every avenue and every possible egress limbs, eyes, mouth, every feature; letting forth, as it were, a diffused substance of eloquence.

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It is by volume and quantity the man thus rules over us.

Dr. Chalmers was a marked instance of this. A friend and countryman of his, in accounting for that almost unequalled sway he bore over other minds, refers to the activity and quantity of the affections, and all vital possessions. It was the massive earnestness of the man which worked hugely within, and worked out in expression through all the openings. And so he seized you, overbore you; held you at his will; and, by some commonplace truth, made grand by his imagination, and bathed with his passion; by an intrepid iteration, and a cumulative instance, he wrought the effect. On other rostrums this may be a sort of magnetic quantity. In the preaching-place, it should be Gospel quantity-Gospel brought within by experience, by faith's appropriations, into large and benignant possession. This resource of efficacy we all may have. If we have it, we receive it from the fountain above. It is the gift of God, at once a palpable instrument and a very substance of power, the means exhaustless of blessing and saving.

The remark here suggests itself that, in respect to high pulpit efficiency, it is very plain in what direction it lies-in the spiritual enduing, not in the external adjustments.

And yet how strong is the tendency to the merely external, and how common. We come to regard preaching as a profession. We cultivate the humanities. We get steeped in the literatures, trained to the peculiarities and niceties of style, and grow partial to the novel modes, phrases, expressions; and we use them. And thus we carry away the religious discourse from the unalterable conditions of a large effect. Preaching power does not lie, it never can lie, in these æsthetic conditions. The entire history of the Church, the failures and the successes in preaching alike show this. Go back to that passage of more than a century ago, in

which the Wesleys and their co-workers broke in upon the broad, stagnant calm, the all but universal sleep of death. They took one great truth, "We must be born again," as a life and reality into their own souls; and with a few coarse words they spoke it, and it shook like the trump of resurrection. And as they went abroad, hurling this one truth, in ungainly phrase, against the roughest and the stoutest souls-souls turned by myriads-demonstrating by their turning the might of the truth, and the mode.

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We have somewhat of the like in our day; a style and mode unusualpalpable handling of truth, and a veritable pulling at souls, as though they believed them literally dropping into hell. The preaching and the measures both put us in doubt, and cause us to stand aloof. And yet we have to confess that there is something there we have not; elements of power there worthy of our considering. And we can hardly doubt that we ourselves should advance in power by an infusion from these unauthentic quarters-if we would but consent to modify our stately proprieties with some of these pungent extravagancies; and if, in consequence, the damaging charge is cast upon us, as it was upon Paul, that we are mad, we can take refuge with him in his own summary vindication, "The love of Christ constraineth us." Better one

surging sea of fire than these vast Arctic floats of ice, amid which we now seem wedged and stuck.

We have a great deal to teach us and set us in that direction in which the power lies. God is now putting us to school, and in this school giving us a lesson on the genuine earnestness, and also on the more effective speech and preaching. Our ministers who go to

the camp and the field all testify that they learn new methods; come to preach in all possible plainness, directness, and brevity, the result, all through the ministry, we expect, will be a decided advance in strength and terseness of doctrine-giving in bolder proclamation the great verities of sin and retribution now coming daily into clearer revealings, brought, as it were, to the notice and conviction of the world in pillars of blood and fire and smoke.

It will be a shame to us who stand in the pulpit, if under such lessons and influences, there is not some progress of this sort in our preaching. Whilst the carnal guns are all the time growing bigger-mouthed-in their capacity to throw heavier and still heavier boulders of metal-how recreant and disgraceful if our pulpit ordnance is seen in the same ratio genteelly contracting its calibre-and this when the enemy is putting himself in stronger and more defiant positions.

GEO. SHEPARD.

The Sunday School.

DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES OF THE TEACHER. BY A STUDENT OF A NORMAL SCHOOL.

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THE Emperor Napoleon once inquired
of Madame Campan,
What does
France most need in order that her

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youth may be well educated?" 'Mothers, sire," was the unhesitating reply. The truthfulness and wisdom of this answer none will deny, for who would dare to undervalue the influence of mothers? Yet we who live in this nineteenth century cannot but feel that, amid much truth, Madame Campan's justly celebrated answer does not contain the whole truth. A mother's influence, mighty as it is, is not, in our day at least, the whole agent in forming the character of the young. The work of education is now generally intrusted

to comparative strangers, and when this is the case, the influence of those who undertake the responsible, yet pleasing task, can be second only to that of a mother.

Education, in its wildest and proper sense, has reference to the whole of man's complex being. Its true aim should be to bring to the greatest possible perfection all the faculties with which man has been endowed by his Creator. All the powers of our nature must be developed, and one part of our being must not be cultivated at the expense of another. Education, then, is not simply a training of the intellect; it is something more than this, and the

teacher who makes this his only object commits a grievous error, and leaves his work but half done. He should seek to "educate the whole man-the head, the heart, the body; the head to think, the heart to feel, the body to act."

Since, then, so much devolves upon the teacher, how important is it that he should be well qualified for his responsible duties! No mean work, no ignoble task is that which he undertakes. Think you that the sculptor counts his an ignoble task when he spends weeks and months, perchance years, in carving the rough marble into graceful forms, whose beauty and faultless symmetry seems to rival nature herself? Ask him, and he will tell you that he considers himself repaid for long years of toil by one successful effort. But incomparably higher and more noble is the work of the teacher; he works, not in cold and lifeless marble, but on the warm and impressible mind of childhood; not in perishable stone, but on immortal spirits.

But if the teacher be not properly qualified, how shall he do his great work? Long years of apprenticeship are considered necessary before a man is thought capable of working at the simplest manual trade. He who intends to practice law must devote his attention to it for years before he is admitted as a barrister. The physician must study medicine long and faithfully, and wait, perhaps, many a weary year, before people learn to trust him sufficiently to employ him. But teaching -0, that is so easy--no one needs to spend time in learning how to teach. Too long has such a feeling existed, and hence it is that the sacred work of the teacher has too often been so imperfectly performed. But a better day has dawned, and people are beginning to feel that the man or woman to whom they entrusted the education of their children should possess proper qualifications for the office.

The inquiry very naturally arises, what are these qualifications? To this we answer, that the teacher, or the intending teacher, should, in the first place, be actuated by a right spirit. A high and noble work is that to which he aspires, let him enter upon it in a high and noble spirit-a spirit which will lead him to seek the highest good of those committed to his care. No mean spirit, no unworthy motives

should influence him who undertakes the responsible, yet, if properly conducted, the "delightful task," of training up young immortals for virtue, God, and heaven.

The teacher ought, in the second place, to be deeply impressed with a due sense of his responsibility. For he is responsible in a very high degree, whether he feels it or not, both for what he does and for what he leaves undone. He is partially responsible for the bodily health of his pupils. He ought, therefore, to possess a knowledge of human physiology, that he may act himself, and teach his pupils to act in accordance with the laws by which the body is governed. The seeds of much suffering, and of many diseases have been sown at school, through the ignorance or negligence of teachers.

But if a knowledge of the laws which govern the body are necessary to the teacher, it is much more important that he should know something of those which control the mind. For it is the teacher who is mainly responsible for the intellectual growth of the child. Look at the lapidary, with that rough unpromising stone before him. Does he fling it away because he cannot yet see the brilliancy of the diamond concealed there? No; he knows too well the value of the jewel, so he works patiently at it, polishing and repolishing, till the diamond blazes forth in all its splendour. Now, what the lapidary does for the rough diamond the teacher must do for the minds of his pupils. It is for him to arouse and develope their latent faculties till that priceless gem, the human mind, shines forth in all its God-given light and glory. Well may the teacher shrink back appalled, for here is indeed a fearful responsibility; but let him faithfully follow nature in the order in which he seeks to develope the dormant powers of the mind, and he cannot greatly err.

The teacher is also responsible, to some extent, for the moral tone of the child's mind; to some extent, for of course parental influence must have great weight with a child. But let the teacher's own moral character be blameless, let all his actions arise, not from impulse or caprice, not from feeling, or the mere whim of a moment, but from a deep abiding moral principle. Let the teacher himself be in a moral sense all that he would have his pupils be; and he will thus be able, by the in

fluence of a pure and holy example, to teach them far more impressively than he could by mere precept. He should also make constant appeals to the consciences of his pupils, and continually strive by all the means in his power to impress upon their young minds the duty of listening to the "still small voice" of this inward monitor.

The teacher is responsible, too, in a measure, for the religious training of his pupils. Every teacher is bound to impart religious instruction to his scholars, yet this must be done in a proper spirit and manner. The children who compose the school come from families belonging to various religious denominations, and it is not for the teacher to introduce controverted points of theology into the schoolroom, or to teach sectarianism instead of religion. But he may and ought to occupy the common grounds upon which all Christians stand, and seek to impress upon the minds of his pupils the leading doctrines of the Bible, such as man's depravity, the love of God to sinners, Christ's atoning sacrifice, their own duties to God and man-on these and kindred points he may safely impart instruction, and if he fail to do this he neglects an obvious duty. But above all, the religious example and influence of the teacher should be in the right direction, that thus he may "allure to brighter worlds, and lead the way."

The personal habits of the teacher are by no means unimportant, for he will find that his pupils will be in this respect whatever he is himself. If he would teach his pupils to value neatness, punctuality, order, and the other "minor virtues," he must show that he values them, not by long lectures upon the excellence of these habits, but by cultivating them in himself. Courteousness, both in words and manner, should mark the teacher's conduct, for to him not only his pupils, but the community at large, will look for an example. By courteousness is not meant obsequiousness or affectation, but simply true politeness, which has been well defined as being nothing more nor less than the fulfilling of our Lord's command, "Whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them."

Habits of study are essential to a teacher, if he wishes to improve his mind, to go on increasing his mental stores. The body cannot live to-day

upon the food with which it was supplied last week, or even yesterday; yet it would be just as reasonable to expect this to be the case with the body as with the mind. Daily study is as necessary to the mind as is daily food to the body; a certain portion of each day should therefore be spent not merely in reading, but in a regular course of study. A very learned man being congratulated on the stores of knowledge which he had acquired, replied, "I am only just beginning to learn how ignorant I am." Thus will the teacher feel, if he be wise. He will not fancy that because he has passed a creditable examination, and been appointed to a school, that his own education is therefore completed. On the contrary, he will deeply feel that it is only just begun.

The teacher must be able to impart to others the knowledge which he has obtained. He cannot do this properly without having first prepared himself by a careful study of the lessons in which he has to instruct them. He should think of them in his walks. He should keep his eyes open, and bis powers of observation on the alert, that he may be able to catch, from surrounding objects, illustrations to present to the minds of his pupils.

If the teacher would succeed in his work he must win the love of his pupils, and strive to make them regard him as their friend. He must sympathize with them in their little joys and sorrows, and take an interest in their childish sports. He must be of a cheerful open temper, and, like the little ones themselves, be ever inclined to look upon the "sunny side" of every thing. He must understand the nature and the various dispositions of the children with whom he has to deal. He must study them, therefore, in the play-ground as well as in the schoolroom, and wherever he can gain access to them.

He will not be a truly successful teacher who keeps himself at too great a distance from his pupils. It will not do for him to stand upon the heights of knowledge to which he himself has attained, and coldly bid the little ones come up to him. He must descend from his own elevation. He must learn to come down in his thoughts and expressions to the level of a child's capacity, and use only such words and illustrations as its limited powers can under

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