what they are, still the one hour in the week has been proved, by human experience, to have had influences on the character which remained through life-and we should forget the greatest purpose of our work as Sabbath school teachers were we to forget this. For there is danger in all the study, and preparation, and training which are now demanded of Sabbath school teachers-the danger that beguiled through love of novel and fanciful methods, wooed away through surface hand-books from patient and thorough study, teachers should lose sight of the great doctrines of the Christian religion as they relate to Christian living and Christian believing. Through all his teaching, and through all its subject matter, one voice must be always clearly heard—“ Be ye followers of me, even as I also am of Christ."

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Every Christian," says Hugh Macmillan, "is producing two sets of influences. One is the unconscious, involuntary influence of his real character; the other is the voluntary influence of what he consciously says or does what he says and does for a special purpose. A man preaches love to Christ to men, but if his own heart and life are not saturated with this love, he will preach in vain. For the language of his nature will be opposed to the language of his lips; the influence of his character will contradict the influence of his words. The power of character arises from its truthfulness." These are wholesome wordsgolden sayings for the Sabbath school teacher. May we lay them to heart. By character can character alone be influenced. Let us labour, and, in these days of the deification of labour, let us also forget not to pray. So with God's blessing graciously given in answer to our prayers, our work shall prosper, and we shall become better teachers than before, For while teaching our subject-matter more thoroughly and more accurately, we shall at the same time deepen the moral and the spiritual life of those entrusted to our care, and make our little hour once a-week to become a fruitful influence throughout the land.

Thus, from our Sabbath schools there shall pass into the world outside a band of youths and maidens who fear God, and who believe in Jesus Christ; who take the Holy Bible as their rule of faith; who find in Christ's Church a free atmosphere in which intellect may live and move; and who also receive therein every supernatural help which they feel to be needful to enable them to live " a sober, a righteous, and a godly life."

The Secret of Teaching Power.

By MR. A. T. WATSON, M.A., Rector, Burgh Academy, Dumbarton. (Continued from page 96.)

I must leave a deal unsaid that might profitably be said on two of the secrets of power in teaching,-viz., Discipline and Modes of Questioning. I shall merely glance at them.

As to Discipline. It has already been said that power to interest is the secret of keeping a class attentive. Well, an attentive class is, in general, an orderly one. But in practice we find (1), that what interests

one pupil may not be equally interesting to another; or (2), that our own interest in the topic far outlasts that of the class; or (3), that while we are making our lesson as interesting as it can be made, in its nature it does not happen to be half so agreeable as having sport on the quiet with some class-fellow, or at the expense of the teacher. The first and second of these conditions can properly be dealt with only by varying your mode of treating the subject. Dr. Arnold used to stop altogether a lesson that failed in these respects. It is a case like the third, however, that introduces the necessity for repression or control. Power here lies not so much in controlling the pupil directly as in gradually leading him to control himself. With that in view, you must be content to check, quietly and firmly, first with the eye, and afterwards with a word of reproach, and to be patient all through, leaving many a little failure to act up to your requirements entirely unnoticed. Children have been divided into the wilful and the weak in will. But I am disposed to think that a deal of what is called wilfulness is really due to want of will-want of training of the will-of self-control. All teaching must incidentally give habits of self-control; and religious teaching is very little of a power without it. In class-teaching, to keep down disorder, we must have a quick ear and a quick eye-a quick eye constantly on the move. The glance of an experienced teacher's eye is always comprehensive enough to take in every member of the class. A schoolmaster said to a visitor who expressed surprise at the ready and constant attention he always secured, "It's all in my eye." The teacher who does not cultivate this power, but who allows himself to become so engrossed with his subject as to take interest for granted, seldom gets a chance to teach. If he has it, he must be very deficient in other respects if every arrow he shoots does not hit the little targets.

As to modes of giving lessons—a branch of my subject in itself wide enough for a paper I have left myself time to say no more than that success lies in the direction of telling as little as possible. Child-nature is activity itself. To remain long passive, a sort of gaping receptacle, is impossible to it. Therefore, "Give them all the work to do, if you can. Draw out from them all the information you can. Make them find out for themselves all they can." That's the whole secret. It is nature's own method; and where that method is persisted in success is invariable. Skilful questioning excites the child's curiosity; curiosity being excited the child is mentally active. It is when the mind is mentally active that it can receive with most profit. Thus the most powerful mode of teaching is constant interchange of questioning and telling. Besides, it serves as a most efficient drag upon the speed of your own wheels, and prevents you running away from the little ones. A young lady-teacher, resident in this county, tells me she had almost finished a lesson on the subject of the widow of Nain, when she carelessly asked the infants, "What is a widow?" She was astonished with the reply-" A woman wi' a lot of weans." She said, "No." Trying again, they called out, "A woman without a man." She reminded them that she had no man, and asked them if she was a widow. With great indignation they called out, “No, ma'am." But the little things did not understand it until she told them. In class avoid using books of prepared questions. They place a wall

between teacher and class. There's not the touch of life in them, no sympathetic thrill can be communicated by them. A lively enthusiastic teacher can beat any question-book to tatters for influence over the young. As I have already far exceeded my limit of time, for which I beg to make my apologies, I shall close in haste with an extract from Stanley's Life of Arnold, which sums up pretty much all I have said:

"But more important than any details was the union of reverence and reality in his whole manner of treating the Scriptures. Many lessons bearing the name of religious instruction deserve it less than many other lessons commonly called secular. Not so those here described. The same searching questions, the same vividness which marked his historical lessons, the same anxiety to bring all that he said home to their own feelings which made him, in preparing them for Church membership, endeavour to make them say, 'Christ died for me,' instead of the general phrase, 'Christ died for us '-must often, when applied to the natural vagueness of boys' notions on religious subjects, have dispelled it for ever. 'He appeared to me,' writes a pupil whose intercourse with him never extended beyond these lessons, 'to be remarkable for his habit of realizing everything that we are told in Scripture. You know how frequently we can ourselves, and how constantly we hear others go prosing on in a sort of religious cant or slang, which is as easy to learn as any other technical jargon, without seeing, as it were, by that faculty which all possess of picturing to the mind and acting as if we really saw things unseen belonging to another world. Our Lord's life and death were to him the most interesting facts that have ever happened-as real, as exciting (if I may use the expression) as any recent event in modern history, of which the actual effects are visible.""

You see that Arnold's great power lay in this, that having an intense earnestness in life-an earnestness healthy, sustained, and constantly carried forward in the fear of God, coupled with unaffected simplicityhe, by sympathy with the wants of each pupil, gave each a thrill of his own moral earnestness. His earnestness, however, was no morose knitting of his brows or setting of his teeth. If it had been, it would have failed. It was a bright and genial thing, evidence of a life "rooted in God."

Behaviour and Attention.

By MR. ALEXANDER MURDOCH, Neilson Educational Institution, Paisley. In every school, whether Sabbath school or day school, the first task to which the teacher must set himself is that of securing good order; and in our Sabbath schools in particular, the importance of maintaining correct behaviour can scarcely be overestimated. Here, if anywhere, care should be taken to carry out to the letter the injunction-"Let all things be done decently and in order."

In too many cases, however, this is not so. Have we not all seen young people assembled together professedly that they may be led to

strive after virtue, whose ways are ways of pleasantness, and all whose paths are peace; and yet have we not seen these same young people engaged with each other in noisy hostilities, the Bible itself being converted into a weapon of war, while teachers and superintendents alike have serenely shut their eyes to all that was going on? Have we not all observed, too, with grief and pain, the rude jostlings, the unseemly squabblings, and the riotous shoutings with which some, at least, of our scholars rush forth to the open air as soon as the school-work is done?

There are, no doubt, some teachers who are inclined to think that the behaviour of their pupils while being taught is a matter of comparatively slight importance, provided only the teaching itself be sound and faithful. But this is, in my opinion, a grievous error; for, on the one hand, the lessons given to unruly, disorderly children are almost certainly given in vain, since they fall upon unheeding ears; and, on the other hand, the simple training in habits of decorous behaviour and respectful attention, even were no set lessons in morals inculcated, is in itself a most valuable education. Indeed, without good order no other part of the work of instruction can be successfully carried on, nor should it even be attempted. The well known adage declares that Order is heaven's first law, and certainly it ought to be the first law in every schoolroom.

It is a great mistake, too, to suppose that children do not like good order, for they certainly do. They may not relish some of the means adopted to secure discipline, but when the result has been attained, they take pleasure in it quite as much as the teacher can do.

I shall now mention one or two of the causes of confusion and misbehaviour in our Sabbath schools, and follow these up with some brief hints as to the means to be adopted for the establishment of salutary discipline.

(1.) The first obstacle in the way of securing good behaviour is the size of some of our schools. There is almost everywhere an unhealthy rivalry between Sabbath schools of different denominations as to which shall shew the biggest roll of membership; and as the results of the work done in these institutions are never thoroughly tested, some superintendents are tempted to prefer the numerical display of a large though disorderly mob to the efficiency of a small, compact, and thoroughly organized army of scholars; and thus liberties have to be allowed which otherwise would not be tolerated for a moment. Now, it should be the ambition of superintendents to have rather a well-conducted school than simply a large one. The managers of a Sabbath school, or of a Children's Church, or of a Band of Hope, should be content to begin with small things, and their first efforts should be-not to increase their numbers, but to perfect their organization, and to secure sound progress and gentlemanly behaviour on the part of their present pupils. Everything in the nature of juvenile rowdyism should be rigorously suppressed. By example and precept the teachers should endeavour to promote the cultivation of the graces of sweetness and light; and having thus laid a good and firm foundation, they could with confidence proceed to build thereon the superstructure of a large and flourishing school.

(2.) Much of the confusion and disorder to be observed in our schools is due to the want of punctuality on the part of the teachers. No doubt in many cases this unpunctuality is, under present circumstances, un

avoidable, and can only be thoroughly cured by means of some re-distribution of the hours of Sabbath service. Nevertheless it is a great evil. Boys, when brought together in numbers, with nothing to do, and with no one to check them, very soon become restless. They begin to indulge in small experiments in mischief, which forthwith develop into open and uproarious misbehaviour; and conduct of this kind allowed even for a night is difficult to cure.

(3.) But worse even than unpunctuality on the teacher's part is irregularity. A class left for a night or two without a master rapidly becomes demoralized. It would never do, of course, to allow these scholars to sit all the hour in idleness, unheeded and untaught; and yet the alternative of breaking up the class and dividing its members among the other teachers is not much to be preferred. For not only do these members, as a rule, decline to settle down quietly under the instructions of their new master, but their presence in his class diverts the attention of his own scholars from their usual work, and the result is generally a trying hour for the teacher, and a profitless one for the taught.

(4.) Let me point to one other cause of unruliness on the part of Sabbath school children. It is this: a belief is becoming very prevalent among a certain section of educationists, that the attainment of order and obedience should be sought for through moral suasion alone. These gentlemen maintain that children should be governed wholly through appeals to their reason, and that they should be asked to obey only when they thoroughly understand the good object to be attained by the carrying out of the given command. With such views I cannot agree at all. I hold strongly that in many cases young people should be asked to obey simply because obedience is a duty which they owe to those in authority over them. Saul could see no good reason why he should utterly destroy the Amalekites and all that belonged to them-in fact he thought he could see excellent ground for the adoption of a different line of conduct-but the swift retribution which overtook him sharply taught him the grand lesson that to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of And so our children should learn that their first duty is prompt and unquestioning obedience; and school superintendents should see to it that every command they give is strictly carried out.

rams.

(To be continued.)

Paisley Sabbath School Union.

THE eighty-sixth anniversary of this Union was held in the Clark Minor Hall, on Tuesday, 18th March. Mr. Allan Coats, the President, occupied the chair.

Mr. THOMAS F. REID, the secretary, read the Annual Report, which, after detailing the work of the Directors, expressed the hope that before long the churches may see it to be their duty to provide accommodation as suitable as can be obtained for the religious education of the young, since premises in all respects fit for the purposes of Sabbath school teaching would not only be a very great help to the teacher in keeping