the Society when ignorant of its principles, and we should at least feel that the Church, while leaving results to God, had performed its part as a nursing mother towards those committed to its care.

How far these suggestions can be carried into practice, or even be tried by way of experiment, in dependence upon Him who is pleased to bless the most simple means to His own glory, it is not for me to say; but I would commend the subject to the earnest and prayerful consideration of the members of our Society on this side of the Atlantic-hoping that these remarks may not merely be read and laid aside, but be weighed and pondered; and that if a new field for seed-sowing should be presented within the precincts of our own borders, the labourers may be found who shall sow in faith, looking for a blessing from the Lord of the harvest.

MARY E. BECK.

THOUGHTS BY A PICTURESQUE SEA COAST

THANK God for His gift of Sea!
For ocean's ripple and sheen,
For the mirror on whose changing glow

Earth's fairest tints are seen:

Gray in the early quiet dawn,

While morning mists are furled,

Ere Aurora has touched its waiting waves
With hues of the daylight world.
Purple and azure and green,

Ever-shifting its noontide dower;—
Catching the sun's own brilliant dye
In the evening's golden hour:
Placid and calm in the tranquil air,—
Waving beneath the breeze,—
Lashed into surge and crested waves
'Neath the tempest's stern decrees.
Charming alike in tumult and calm,

In the morning and evening glow;
How many a joy o'er mortal hearts

From the waves of ocean flow:

Were their motion lost and sheen withdrawn

How drear this earth would be:

Thank God for His gift of Sea!

Thank God for His gift of Sky!

For the azure arch o'erhead,
For the softly drifting cloudlets, oft

Over its brightness spread:

For the unveiled sun that pours

Glory and brilliance round;

For the cloud of purple that sometimes screens

With a golden selvage bound.

For the bright and far-shining stars at night,
In varying clusters set:

For the comet that speeds its mazy way
Through the celestial net.

For the prism-power He gave the cloud
To unweave the rays of light,
And paint each radiant shade and tint
In arched bands fair and bright.
Ah! great indeed our loss had been
Had He set no glory on high:
Thank God for His gift of Sky!

Thank God for His gift of Hills !

For the purple and the gold,

Which in mingled mass of heather and gorse,

Their swelling summits fold:

For the bracken's dying glow

Of brilliant, amber light,

Richly shed on the mountain crest,

'Ere lost in the shades of night;

For the grandeur of the shadows
Along its rifts and side:

For the light still lingering on its top
When gone from all beside:

For the streams that, sparkling, rush
With clear unceasing song;
For the quiet, ferny lakes that lie

Its rocky nooks among.

For the power possessed by those cooling heights

To bid the clouds bestow

Their lading on them, to be after passed

To the valleys far below.

How parched and monotonous earth would be

Without her mountains and rills:

Thank God for His gift of Hills!

Thank God for His Leaves and Flowers!

The wavy green of earth's sod;
The statelier plumèd fronds and bells
That over the grasses nod;

For the great gnarled branches waving high
Of the overshadowing trees;

For their varying leaves whence varied notes
Are evoked by the passing breeze.

For the bare and rugged boughs

Thrown against wintry sky,
Bordered at times with snowy wreaths
Of pure and dazzling dye:

For the bright fresh buds of promise
That come in the early spring;
For the fuller leafage where many birds
In many accents sing.

For the grandeur, beauty, and elegance
So rife in this world of ours:

Thank God for the Trees and Flowers !

F.

BIBLE STUDY.

(A Paper read before the Bible School Conference of Ohio Yearly Meeting, First Month, 1879.)

BY STANLEY PUMPHREY.

THE main business of the teacher in the Sabbathschool, as of the preacher of the Gospel, is to set forth the revealed truth of God; and this is only to be authoritatively found in the Holy Scriptures. This, at least, has been the concurrent sentiment of the early Christian Church, and of all Protestants; for whatever measure of Divine help may have been received while writing by servants of Christ like Augustine, Jerome, or Chrysostom, in early centuries, or by Thomas à Kempis, Archbishop Leighton, Bunyan, Fox or Wesley in more recent ones, no one claims for them, as they certainly never thought of claiming for themselves, that their writings ought to be regarded as authoritative in the same sense in which our Lord and His Apostles regarded the Scriptures of the Old Testament, or as all Christians since have regarded the Scriptures of the New. The prediction of Daniel as to the sealing up of the vision and prophecy* seems to have been as exactly fulfilled as his predictions with regard to the coming, character, and work of the Messiah. If, then, the only sure revelation of the truth of God is in the Holy Scriptures, we need no argument to prove the importance of a thorough knowledge of their contents in those who undertake to teach Divine things.

* Dan. ix. 24.

*