PAPERS FROM THE PORTFOLIO OF A PARISH MINISTER.

NO. I.

MANY of us act as if we were ashamed of our church; many more shew that they know next to nothing of her glorious constitution. She does not need our apologies in the modern sense of the word apology. She deserves rather that we should go round about her with songs of rejoicing. The attacks that are now-a-days levelled against her in so cunning a spirit, but so clumsy a hand, have inclined too many ignorant and fearful persons to feel ashamed of her, and to desire, I will not say reform, (for real reform is always advisable when really needed,) but alteration, rather from a cowardly than a conciliating spirit. I should be acting very strangely if I were to begin putting into execution a plan for hiding from the sight the beautiful proportions of my venerable parish church; if I were to encase the outer walls with red brick, and cover the ancient roof with new slates, merely because persons might be found, at no great distance from us, who thought a new brick meeting-house the handsomer building of the two; or if I were to allow sash lights to be placed in the great north window instead of the diamond-shaped panes at present there, and thus substitute glare for soft and pleasant light; or, what would be deeply blameable, if I were to remove the two tables of the Ten Commandments from above the altar because, though no Christians can be found who can walk in a consistent course of practical godliness without those commandments written in their hearts, many can dispense with the sight of them before their eyes in their places of worship. And here I might ask, who can point out so fitting a place for the two tables of the moral law as that hallowed spot, where a sign and seal of the new covenant of grace, and the pledges to assure us thereof, are set forth in the holy sacrament of the Lord's Supper? "He, who blotted out the hand-writing of ordinances that was against us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to his cross," seems there to return the holy moral law to us, no longer as a covenant, but as a rule of life, and a standard for self-examination; not with the voice of an Egyptian task-master, saying, "Keep this law, O guilty and fallen man," in thine own strength; but, receive with the command the power of my grace to put the law into thine heart, so shalt thou keep it to the spirit, not merely to the letter; so shalt thou keep it willingly, and lovingly and joyfully, the love of Christ, the Mediator of the new covenant, sweetly constraining thee, not the terror of the offended Lawgiver, who pronounces death as the penalty of the slighted transgression of the law.

The member of the church of England is not called upon to any blind and unreasonable obedience to the usages of his church; but he is called upon to consider calmly and thoroughly,

to approve heartily, and to uphold unshrinkingly, those venerable institutions. The same want of thoughtful consideration that makes some men unbelievers, and keeps other men unrepentant sinners, causes many men to become dissenters. I honour the man who has seriously examined and weighed every article and every usage of the church of England, and, after finding that he cannot conscientiously subscribe to them, becomes a dissenter. I cannot honour him who scarcely knows any thing of the church he leaves, and is more wise in his own conceit than in solid and sober argument and heart-convinced objections. However, the gain of such persons to the disscuters is certainly no loss to the established church.

Alas! alas! this fatal want of consideration! The discipline and usages of the church of England are at least as scriptural, and stamped with a far more ancient and venerable character than those of most dissenters; but, while the dissenters are generally careful to inaintain the observance of their own imperfect institutions, we too often content ourselves with the knowledge of their existence, and suffer them to be seen "with no life in them." Beautiful and graceful in form, and in their fair proportions, they must always be; but they might sometimes be likened to a lamp of exquisite shape, in which a flame, if it burn at all, burns with a dull and feeble lustre.

These remarks may partly apply to the management of too many schools belonging to the church of England.

There was no school in my parish when I first came there; and, as I heartily agreed with the many wise and excellent persons who are the advocates of the education of the lower classes, I deternined to have a daily school at NI held a consultation

with two or three of the principal residents in the parish, and we agreed that a subscription should be collected, a large room fitted up, and a schoolmaster and schoolmistress engaged. I went my rounds through the parish to ask for subscriptions, and, though I had many objections to answer, I met with very few refusals. The school was established; a modest and intelligent young woman was sent for a month to a celebrated national school in the neighbourhood to learn the system; her husband undertook the charge of the boys; and, to my great satisfaction, our schools began to flourish. The children were, of course, taught to repeat, and to repeat without a mistake, our admirable church catechism, and some explanation of the church catechism, infinitely more difficult to the comprehension of a child than the catechism itself. A good explanation certainly; but better suited to grown-up persons, and full of hard long words. However, at our public examinations, all the parishioners who were present were highly gratified. The system had, we all agreed, been admirably pursued. Scarcely a mistake was made in repeating the printed answers to

the printed questions, except by one or two inveterate dunces, whose countenances shewed that there was something within which would resist most stubbornly the teaching of the most energetic master. The well-written and unblotted copy-books were handed about; and boy after boy, and girl after girl, passed before us, a sort of military file, holding up sideways their slates, on which sums or answers to questions in arithmetic were written down with astonishing readiness. The needle-work and knitting of the girls were pronounced to be beautifully executed, particularly a set of shirts which were made for my eldest son.

The examination was concluded by a prayer and singing a hymn. The master, standing at the head of the school, gave the word of command, and, at the instant, every child dropped, as if shot, upon his knees; at another signal, every hand was folded and raised in the attitude of prayer; at a third signal, the headmonitor commenced repeating the prayer. After the hymn had been sung, prizes were given to the children; and the master and mistress were highly complimented by myself and by the other visitors. Year after year passed away; the school still prospered; the examinations were still deemed satisfactory, and we continued to compliment the master and inistress till, I really believe, that helped, among other causes, to spoil them, by filling them with an overweening conceit of themselves. Though humble and unpretending at first, they at last yielded to the general opinion, which had been so diligently urged upon them, that they were a blessing to the school and to the parish. And now some of our boys and girls left school for service. Without one exception, they disappointed our expectations. One was too high, in his own. judgment of his abilities, for his place; he did not like manual labour, though a remarkably strong little fellow. Another ran away from his service, and did not make his appearance till some years after, broken down in health and spirit, to die in the poor-house. A third was suspected of thieving. Of the girls, one very pleasing and very pretty girl was discovered to be a liar, whom nobody could trust. Another came home from her place to lie in, and became a sorrowful mother before her sixteenth birth-day. Such were some of the fruits of our school. At least, I now began to suspect that something was wrong, particularly when I remembered that, for some time past, I had heard complaints made that the school children, when out of school, were a "nost audacious set ;" that, indeed, no one had ever known the children of the parish so disorderly or so insolent as they had lately become.

The fact was, that our way of proceeding had only produced its natural effects. A little common sense might have read us the same lesson which experience at length taught us. What was to

be done? Were the schools to be broken up, and the children of the parish to be left without any sort of education? Certainly

not. I asked myself the question, What kind of instruction ought to be given in a school which is under the direction of a Christian minister? There could be but one answer, and that is, Christian instruction. But had not Christian instruction been given ?-was not the Catechism taught?-was not the Bible read and taught? The memory had been exercised, the understanding awakened; but what had been done to interest the heart? to instruct, to edify, to affect the heart? to impress upon the heart those truths which are peculiarly written for making wise and holy the ignorant heart? Nor had I ever given myself, heart and soul, to the work-one of the most important works to which a parish minister is called-the instruction of the hearts of those who are so soon to stand in their parents' places, and to be themselves the parents of unborn children. I had never taught the children to look upon every sort of knowledge as of far inferior importance compared with the knowledge of their own sinfulness and weakness, and the wonderful mercy and love of God in Christ. I had never brought constantly before the children, and before myself, the necessity-the blessed necessity-of a communion with the Father of our spirits; the blessed necessity of keeping afar from them, by diligent prayer, the spirit that worketh in the children of disobedience, and of entreating the fellowship of that Holy Spirit who worketh in the children of grace to will and to do according to the good pleasure of their Heavenly Father. The wisdom to be sought by all Christians, whether in a school of parish children, or in the council chamber of the rulers of the land, is that wisdom which is from above, which is "first pure, then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be entreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, and without hypocrisy."

Judging from my own experience, I should suppose that the great error in the management of many of our parish schools is beginning to shew itself. I will not call it an error in the system, but it is surely leaving the system without the spirit which should quicken all its mechanical machinery. It is not enough to make the school a mere machine, working with mechanical correctness. The error is not in the system, for books of sacred instructionabove all, the Bible-are in the hands of the children, and all this pre-supposes, in a manner, that the book is held in the hand, that it may be taken into the heart, and the effects of it shine forth in the life and practice. No child should be allowed to think it possible that the lessons of Holy Scripture can be learned for any other reason than that they may reform the heart, and therefore the conduct. He must be taught that the word of God can only be received, to any real purpose, as an engrafted word; that the sincere milk of the word is to be received as food, as the milk of the gentle mother is received by the infant, in order that he may grow thereby.

I did indeed lack wisdom on this point-the instruction of my young parishioners, and I determined to be more diligent in using the means so graciously offered to all who feel and know their own incompetency. I determined not merely to use my own plain sense, not merely to consult the opinions and experience of my fellow men, whether in books or in conversation, but to ask of God, who giveth to all men liberally and upbraideth not, in the faith and confidence that it would certainly be given to my prayer. I think my prayer has been heard. I am quite sure that the object which I have since kept constantly before me has been to teach the heart, to influence the conduct and character, and to use the memory and understandings as channels, honoured and excellent when used to convey the teaching of God's word to the soul, but then, and then only.

I determined, as I ought to have done from the first opening of the school, to make the baptismal engagement, and the acknowledging and following up of that engagement, the grand consideration. I reminded the teachers, and the parents of the children, continually, that we were educating the children not merely of human parents, but of the church of Christ, and of the church of England.

In the best conducted schools, the minister and the teachers are naturally inclined to be most pleased with children of talent and intelligence; but the children who need most attention and most encouragement, are the dull and the slow, and the unpromising. I have found the benefit of a plan adopted by a valuable friend of mine in his school. It is this. I keep a table of the dispositions and abilities of every child who belongs to the school, at the time he enters, and leave a space also open for remarks when the boy leaves the master's care.