I HAVE GIVEN MY HEART TO JESUS, EVERY BIT OF IT. THE other evening at the prayer meeting many newly-converted persons, both old and young, arose to tell what God had done for their souls, and their determination to love and serve Him. Among the rest a little girl about seven years old jumped up, her face beaming with happiness; and, straining her childish voice to speak as loud as she could, she said, "I have given my heart to Jesus, every bit of it." Was not that a beautiful little speech? I wonder if all the older people who had risen before could say what she did; "I have given my heart to Jesus, every bit of it." And is not this what Jesus wants? "My son, give me thine heart," is the command of the Bible. And will He be satisfied with having only a part of it? No, indeed; He must have the whole, every bit of it.-Christian Advocate.

REMARKABLE DAYS; OR, DAYS WORTH REM EMBERING. SUNDAY-SCHOOLS COMMENCED, JANUARY 26TH, 1784. HE old city of Gloucester, with its pleasant surroundings of hill and dale, who would willingly pass unvisited? That grand cathedral, with its fine four-pinnacled tower, its various chapels, its crypt, choir, and lofty nave, glorious eastern window, and various monuments, will occupy hours of intelligent interest; and the memories awakened about Britons, Romans, Danes, and Normans; about the old town's proud defiance of King Charles and his 30,000 besieging soldiers; about its many worthies, from Robert of Gloucester, said to have been our earliest English poet, to Robert Raikes, ever-blessed for his Sunday-schools; the memories are such as few cities of England can surpass. Therefore, an opportunity presenting, don't miss a visit to Gloucester. Let us go back a bit-just ninety years or so-and think of Robert Raikes. He owns the Gloucester newspaper; is comfortably off; and has a pleasant house and garden. See him in the old-fashioned dress and powdered wig of the period, walking through the quaint streets. He is on the way to a poor suburb, seeking

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a gardener. He waits at the door, for the man he seeks is not at home; waiting, he is pestered by the roughs, the blackguard boys, big and little, of the backslums. He hears their cursing and swearing and horrid blasphemy, and witnesses their low brutality. His generous heart is moved with pitying sympathy.

Reader, was this search for a gardener a mere accident? Surely not. Did we follow the good man home-could we peep into his little room—we might mark the grave, perplexed thought on that open brow. See him kneeling; hear his prayer for divine guidance; notice the perplexity giving way to bright intelligence, resulting in a calm, clear resolve. No accident; the good man's ways are ordered by the Lord; and God was shewing Robert Raikes the great work to be done, and how to do it.

And thus it was; for the word "try" had come into his mind, and had given energy to his philanthropic thought. God put it there; and Robert Raikes determined to make some effort to abate the mighty evil of youthful ignorance and degradation. He afterwards thus described his work:-"I found four persons, who had been accustomed to instruct children in reading; I engaged to pay the sum required for receiving and instructing such children as I should send to them every Sunday. The children were to come soon after ten in the morning, and stay till twelve. They were then to go home, and return at one; and, after reading a lesson, they were to be conducted to church. After church they were to be employed in reading the catechism till after five, and then to be dismissed with an injunction to go home without making a noise, and by no means to play in the street."

Now-a-days we should not think this an attractive programme; but probably to the poor ingathered outcasts it was a delight.

After nearly two years' trial of the work, Robert Raikes invited some friends to his house, to shew results. In the little garden—that for which he sought the gardener-he collected the Sunday-school children, seating them in rows, clean, neatly dressed, bright, seeming full of intelligence, in their right mind. All this to the surprise and delight of his visitors. "But, friend Raikes," said a faithful Quaker lady, one of the company, "when thou doest charitably thy right hand should not know what thy left hand doeth." Raikes was misunderstood; he shewed the work that it might be supported, copied, and the poor more largely blessed; to glorify God, rather than to glorify himself. "I can never pass by the spot where the word 'try' came so powerfully into my mind, without lifting up my hands and heart in gratitude to God for having put the Sunday-school thought into my mind." This he said, many years after, to Joseph Lancaster, the founder of British day-schools. "All glory be to God only."

A year later Raikes writes to a friend, "It is now three years since we began, and I wish you were here to make enquiry into the effect. A woman, who lives in a lane where I had fixed a school, told me some time ago that the place was quite a heaven, upon Sundays, compared to what it used to be. The numbers who have learned to read, and say their catechism, are so great, that I am astonished at it. Upon the Sunday afternoon the teachers take their scholars to church-a place into which neither they nor their parents ever entered with a view to the glory of God. But what is more extraordinary, within this month these little ragamuffins have, in great numbers, taken it into

their heads to frequent the early morning prayers, which are held every morning at the cathedral, at seven o'clock. I believe there were near fifty this morning. They assemble at the house of one of the mistresses, and walk before her to church, two and two, in as much order as a company of soldiers."

Gradually the schools extended in the old town and surrounding villages; accounts of their success were published from time to time in the newspaper belonging to Mr. Raikes, and copied thence into the London newspapers, and so the good work became more extensively known, and many Sunday-schools were opened in various parts of England,

Royalty delighted to think of them. Writing to another friend, Mr. Raikes says, "At Windsor the ladies of fashion pass their Sundays in teaching the poor children. The Queen sent for me the other day, to give her Majesty an account of the effect observable in the manners of the poor. And her Majesty most graciously said that she envied those who had the power of doing good, by thus personally promoting the welfare of society in giving instruction and morals to the general mass of the people-a pleasure from which, by her situation, she was debarred." Truly a Queen, akin in spirit to her royal husband, George III., who had said, “It is my wish that every child in my kingdom should learn to read the Bible."

And now, hired teachers have been long superseded by voluntary teachers, labouring from love to the work; what a mighty tree has not the seed grown to! The census of 1861 declared that 2,411,554 children are weekly under Christian instruction in our Sunday-schools-of some section or other of Christ's church —with advantage to the political and social well-being of our beloved land not to be measured, and to the everliving souls of the children blessings which only eternity can fully reveal.

Though not permitted to witness such enormous results as these, it pleased God to spare the life of Mr. Raikes till a very large extension of Sunday-schools could rejoice his heart. He died in Gloucester, in 1811, without any previous indisposition-his end was peace. He was buried in the church of St. Mary de Crypt, where the following tablet is erected to his memory :

SACRED TO THE MEMORY

OF

ROBERT RAIKES, Esq.,

LATE OF THIS CITY,

FOUNDER OF SUNDAY SCHOOLS,

WHO DEPARTED THIS LIFE

APRIL 5TH, 1811. AGED SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS.

"When the ear heard him, then it blessed him, and when the eye saw him it gave witness to him. Because he delivered the poor that died, and the fatherless, and him that had none to help him. The blessing of him that was ready to perish came upon him, and he caused the widow's heart to rejoice."-JOB xxix. 11, 12, 13.

A little consideration of the spirit of the gospel, and the true outcome of its influence upon the heart, will convince us that Sunday-schools cannot really be of modern invention. They are the work of that love which taught young Timothy "from a child to know the Holy Scriptures." The primitive church appears to have had its catechism schools, which flourished till the close of the sixth century.

Martin Luther established Sunday-schools at Wittemberg, in 1527; John Knox instituted them in Scotland, in 1560; Borromeo, the pious archbishop of Milan, is said to have instituted Sunday-schools throughout Lombardy, in 1580. Some of them are existing to the present day. It is always a touching thing (reminding the Sunday-school teachers of home) to see the children gathered in the great cathedral, or in some chapels about the choir, tended by the priest, and, sometimes, a young lay assistant or two. The writer may be doing an injustice to the teaching, but he feels bound to say, that it always appeared to him to be of forms and bead-counting, of ave marias and pater nosters. Would that he were in error. He has never seen the Bible, or portions of the Bible, in the children's hands.

In England, Alleine, the author of the "Alarm to the Unconverted," is said to have had a Sunday-school in 1688. Many others may be named as promoting isolated efforts long before the time of Raikes. Even in America they appear to have been occasionally set up as early as 1740, 1747, and 1777. But while rejoicing at all these indications of Christian life, we must not be surprised if Raikes be regarded as practically the founder of Sunday-schools.

Let us bless God for them, and well use them to his glory, though we may never see the old city of Gloucester, in which, in 1784, Robert Raikes, commenced them. W. D.

GATHERINGS FROM MEMORY.-NO. VI.

HABITS OF MY BOYHOOD (continued.)

WHAT pleasant times we used to have in wandering in the fields and woods, and what a variety of amusements we had for filling up our time, sometimes, I am sorry to say, stolen from the hours we ought to have spent at school? Wa knew the tree from which to pull the branch which, after shaping and beating, would part with its skin entire, and which, after hollowing a portion of the wood at one end, would slip on again, and thus make a whistle. This gave us amusement for the hour. And we also knew the pond or pit from which we could bring away an arm full of reeds with which we could make small Pandean pipes. But how? First the reeds were sorted into various thicknesses, and then cut into different lengths from an inch to three or four, after which we burnt out with a hot knitting-needle the interior membrane, and then fastening up the lower end with shoemakers' wax, and with the same material all sticking together make our musical instrument. This was held in the hand, or stuck in the neck beneath the chin, and, blowing into the open ends, produce a not unpleasing kind of music. Or we made squeakers of these reeds by cutting away about an inch of the material in the middle, leaving the thin skin, and then by blowing into either end a not very agreeable sound was produced, as was proved when, getting a rebuke or a slap on the cheek from our mother, we were told "to put those nasty, noisy squeakers away."

We also spent much time in gathering the small red berries from the thorntree, which we called "haws." Then, getting a piece of the hemlock, called by