ment Education scheme, and the Church Education Society. But it was the Sunday school that took the initiative, and cleared the way by toil and conflict for the grand project of rendering education universal in the land.

3. Sunday schools have accomplished much for encouraging the reading of the Scriptures and acquaintance with their contents among the people of Ireland.

Whether catechisms and other helps of human composition are used or not in the Sunday school, the cases are, it is believed, rare, if any exist, in which the scholars are not taught to regard them as in authority subordinate to the Bible, and in which the scholars are not constantly referred to the Bible as the source of information and the rule of faith in all that concerns Christianity. Teachers study the sacred writings, that they may be competent to instruct their classes, making use of the best means within their reach for obtaining a correct understanding of the mind of the Spirit in the text under consideration. And their intercourse upon it with the pupils gives them further to prove that "there is that scattereth and yet increaseth." Their own hearts, too, profiting by the knowledge they acquire, become more deeply affected with the divine lessons, and speak of them with a zest and spirit which tends to engage the scholars in an earnest and pleasurable inquiry into the oracles of God. Thus, much is done towards bringing both the instructors and the taught unto all riches of the full assurance of understanding in the knowledge of the mystery of God. And the habit so produced spreads its influence beyond the school, and stirs many to inquiry after truth by searching the Holy Scriptures.

4. Persons well acquainted with Ireland speak of the Sunday school as having greatly promoted good feeling between the different classes of society in the country.

With few exceptions, persons in the upper and lower classes had no sympathies in common. They stood apart as two races, with an impassable gulf between them, not unlike the lords and the serfs of feudalism. The Sunday school was among the first means of bridging the gulf, and of bringing both parties together in the consciousness that they were of one body, as having a common nature, a common country, and a common salvation. There the rich and the poor met in friendly practical attention and confidence. Ordinarily the rich came to impart and the poor to receive the wisdom that is better than gold. But sometimes the order was reversed, and persons in humble life ministered spiritual instruction to those above them. A fellowship of generous care-taking and trust grew up among them, as between those who were seniors and juniors in discipleship to the same Lord. Association in the class fostered mutual attachment, interest, courtesy, with appropriate demeanour and cheerful servicerendering in each party towards the other, while neither left its own place in the social economy.

5. In countless ways the Sunday school has been the instrument of blessing to christian congregations.

During its early periods, the Sunday school in Ireland was frequently a public institution, conducted by a union of benevolent persons, belonging to different religious communities in the locality-much upon the plan of the "Stockport Sunday Schools." In course of time, however, the opinion has gained ground that each place of worship ought to have a Sunday school of its own, in which members of the congregation can occupy themselves for carrying on the work of God within its sphere. It is needless to say that, when wisely and zealously attended to, such Sunday schools have proved most valuable auxiliaries to congregational prosperity. They act as gatherers and feeders, to increase attendance on public worship and the ministry of the Word, and they raise up and train persons for becoming worthy and useful members of the church of Christ. And the leading teachers in the Sunday school are, or ought to be, some of the pastor's truest and most cordial helpers in working the work of the Lord. "For my own part," an excellent clergyman in the North of Ireland wrote some years ago—-"for my own part, I owe everything, under God, to Sunday schools. A Sunday scholar, teacher, superintendent, and subsequently minister of the gospel, and connected with many schools, I have seen them blessing and blessed of thousands. Peculiar circumstances gave me extensive experience, and led me, under God, to see that if ministers of the gospel availed themselves of the instrumentality of Sunday schools, they would find them useful for many other purposes than those to which their agency is generally limited. I am fully prepared to state that while few congregations have been privileged in having a greater variety of institutions at work than the congregation wherewith, in the Lord's pleasure, I am connected, everything with us had its origin, directly or indirectly, in the Sunday school."

6. Through the Sunday school, much good has been done in families to which scholars attending it belonged.

The founders of the first Sunday school in Dublin prepared a list of rules affecting personal conduct, domestic and general, which parents engaged to observe as a condition of their children being admitted to its privileges. And though a similar pledge be not required in other cases, the mere fact that children attend the Sunday school brings the subject of religion, week after week, before the mind of the parents, and is a standing admonition that the fear of God should be the law of the household. What the children learn at the school, they naturally speak of at home, and, in many cases, become in their turn teachers of the true, and witnesses for the right, in the family circle. To this must be added friendly visits from the christian persons who instruct the children on Sundays, and are ready to forward christianizing principles and habits wherever they have access. Their example, counsels, and kind intercourse operate powerfully to

purify and bless, rendering the dwelling, however humble, like the house of God and the gate of heaven.

7. A large amount of christian energy, previously dormant, has been called forth to useful activity by the Sunday school.

Before Sunday schools began, the Protestantism of Ireland was possessed with "the spirit of slumber," save upon occasions when the tocsin of political partisanship summoned them to strife for its glorious "ascendency." Its adherents had little or no concern for that kingdom of God which is "righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost." The conversion and salvation of souls were things foreign to their thoughts, and any one who ventured to show himself at all earnest for such purposes was reckoned a foolish and dangerous fanatic. Even the so-called pastors were, for the · most part, watchmen comfortably dreaming at their posts, not less profoundly asleep than were the flocks of which they were nominally in charge. To prevent unpleasant disturbance to the clergy and laity, it was held unseemly, if not profane, that a person not in holy orders should interfere with the spiritual affairs of his neighbours.

How great and blessed the change which Ireland's Protestantism now exhibits from its state even half a century ago! Five-and-twenty thousand persons freely giving themselves, for a portion of every Lord's day, as teachers of tenfold that number of children and adults in the things belonging to their peace! Nor is this all. If the Sunday school was among the first spheres in which lay agency, for promoting religion, proved itself successful, it has from that commencement increased and spread into other ranges, multiplying life, strength, and efficiency in all parts of the body of Christ. Instead of being deprecated, it is coveted and expected that every christian man and woman should be occupied in ministration, according to their ability and opportunity, for the profit of the church and of the world. I need not dwell upon the great number of "very able men for the service of God in the gospel, as pastors and as missionaries, which Sunday schools in Ireland have supplied. Every christian community, -every mission organization,-reckons them among its best ministers and agents.

8. Though I have to omit particular mention of several important results in the Sunday school, I must not leave unnoticed its effects in connection with emigration.

Of the myriads-rather millions-who have gone from Europe during the last thirty years, to find a home in other parts of the world, by far the largest portion went from Ireland. Her "exodus" has consisted chiefly of Roman Catholics; and though we hear that many of them, when dispersed among a distant Protestant population, become Protestants, yet, where they have settled together, the Irish location was made a well-secured post for Romanism. But the Protestants of the "exodus"-and the early emigrants were principally from the better circumstanced Protestant yeomanry-took with them the Protestantism of their native land, and

with it, the Sunday school system in which they had themselves been trained. Thereby, sorely as Ireland's churches, congregations, Sunday schools, and domestic hearths suffered by the out-draining of her Protestant people to settle as colonists in regions far away, she may soothe her grief under the loss by reflecting that they have proved blessings elsewhere, and that her impoverishment has been the means of enriching what had been waste places of the earth, with christian piety and intelligence, rectitude, benevolence, and zeal.

9. I have reserved to be named last in this imperfect enumeration of benefits which Ireland has derived from her Sunday schools, the great improvement which has taken place in the observance of the Lord's day.

The ordinance of a weekly sabbath-keeping or rest-keeping is of the same divine authority as, and coeval and co-extensive with, the ordinance of marriage. Both were Paradisaic institutes, and were appointed for blessing to the race through all parts of the earth and all periods of time. Our Saviour declared, "The sabbath was made for man, and not man for the sabbath." It is remarkable that the day upon which the Creator rested after the six days' work, was the first day in Adam's life—the day which began the first week of his existence. And though the Mosaic law describes the sabbath as occurring on the last day of the seven, yet the New Testament calls the first day of the week "The LORD'S DAY," indicating that day to be, pre-eminently above the other six, holy to the Lord; and the way in which it is so called, shows the name to have been commonly used among Christians at the time when that portion of the New Testament was written. In other places, also, the first day of the week is mentioned as a day employed for sacred purposes by the people of God.

Its common name, "Sunday," is of heathen origin; implying, however, that, apart from Christianity, the day was counted highest as well as first, being devoted to the chief divinity. Nor do I think that name of it so objectionable as scrupulosity has sometimes judged it. Is not the Lord our "Sun," "the Sun of Righteousness"? Was it not on that day He rose again, after He had suffered in His crucifixion, death, and burial? Was t not on that day He showed himself to His disciples in His resurrection life, gladdening them with His "Peace be unto you"? And is it not on that day more than on any other, that the true Lord of heaven—the King of saints-comes out of His chambers, and with face all radiant shines upon His servants, giving them to walk in the brightness of His healthinspiring beams? Ought not that day to be in human consciousness the sunniest of our earthly existence? the day on which the soul's atmosphere is most calm, and pure, and balmy, and exhilarating—on which our perceptions are clearest, and our spirits most buoyant-on which we have the choicest visits of divine fellowship, and most realize our union with the saved? Verily, it is God's children's holiday, wherein they can recreate themselves at will in the engagements of their heavenly calling,

and Jehovah brings them to feast together in His banqueting-house, and His banner over them is Love.

"Blest day of God! how calm, how bright!

A day of joy and praise:

The labourer's rest, the saint's delight,
The first and best of days.

"This day believers doth enrich ;
Grace rests upon them all;
It is their Pentecost, on which
The Holy Ghost doth fall.

""Tis the fair dawn of bliss above;
The weary soul's recruit ;

The Christian's Goshen, pledge of love,
A tree of living fruit."

The prevalence of sabbath desecration had much to do in originating Sunday schools, and their establishment has already succeeded to counterwork the evil and secure sabbath observance. In no small degree they have made the day, which was once dreaded as the day fraught with sin, and curse, and peril to persons, families, and neighbourhoods, to be hailed and rejoiced in as a boon of untold preciousness, an influence of unmixed blessing, a day of heaven upon the earth.

The transition is short and easy from thankfully reflecting on what Sunday schools, in conjunction with other christian agencies, have done for promoting the keeping of the Lord's day in Ireland and elsewhere, to the hopeful anticipation of the world's great sabbatism, to which all those agencies are working on, and in which they will have their consummation and their rest, that Lord's day which shall continue for "a thousand years," when Satan shall be bound and shut up in his abyss prison; when the saints shall reign as kings and priests of God and His Christ; when the Divine Spirit shall work His will in man over the whole earth; when each nation shall be holiness to the Lord, and our globe shall abound with knowledge and equity, love and devotion, joy, prosperity, and praise.

The following hymn was then sung:—

"How sweet is christian love!

How happy is the hour,
When glowing spirits prove

Its influence and power;

And Christians, one in heart and view,

Unite, their Master's work to do!

"Now, from each various sphere
Our Master bids us fill,

Each other's heart to cheer,
To nerve each other's will,-
We meet, our labours to review,
And gain new zeal our work to do.