dear, if that was the price of the nation's life. He clearly saw God's hand in this greatest of wars. In one of his letters we find this: "The clouds are black and thick enough near the earth, but, high above all, God's sun shines out bright. Notwithstanding our governmental corruption, I think too many good men's lives have been offered up in the contest, for the cause to fall through. They are wasted as far as human management is concerned, but not in the Lord's plan. Very precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints." His army letters, which have now been gathered into a volume, were written to awaken patriotism, to keep up the popular enthusiasın, to set our cause on a basis of principle, and to recall rulers and officers and people and soldiers to their responsibility to God. He saw that the war must be carried successfully through, and he saw slavery perishing in its triumphant progress; and he saw a golden future rising before the af flicted, stricken nation. He fought as a Christian patriot.

His love to Christ, sincere and earnest, was the crown of his life. It pervaded his whole character; it controlled all his conduct. Living or dying, he was Christ's. It comforted him in his last moments that "Christ had never forsaken him." After a battle he wrote to his mother that through it all he "felt that the everlasting arms were underneath and all around him." His best Friend was always with him. He could not fear. Death had no terror to him. To one who thought that he spoke too cheerfully of death in his remarkable letter on reading his own obituary, he wrote: "Death! why, I am not afraid of it, I hope! 'Tis my friend and yours. I think just as pleasantly about the subject as any other; why shouldn't I speak familiarly and freely about it? We have to look it in the face out here, and should be miserable and anxious all the time if we did not take cheerful views."

Unlike some persons holding high ecclesiastical positions, who declare that religion and patriotism are utterly divorced, his patriotism was not only wedded to his piety, but it grew out of it. Loving Christ more, he did not love his country less. It was, as we have said, in imitation of his Lord, that he was willing to be offered for his country; willing to lay

down his life, with many others, that millions for whom Christ died might be raised to manhood. On his coffin lay the cross, and the battle-stained flag which streamed over him in the charge of the Wilderness. There is such a thing as a Christian patriot.

We conclude this imperfect sketch with the words of Captain Fisk himself, written to his parents, in one of the darkest periods of the war: "I have faith in the cause and in the people, and in God, who overrules all, that this tremendous struggle shall not be in vain; and if my blood is poured out, along with that of thousands of others, I shall not give it grudgingly, nor call it wasted."

ARTICLE VI.-SABBATH SCHOOL INSTRUCTION.

The Graduated Sunday School Text Books. By CHARLES E. KNOX. Outline of the Saviour's Life. I. The Primary Year. II. The Second Year. III. The Third Year. New York: A. D. F. Randolph.

A Year with St. Paul. By CHARLES E. KNOX. New York: A. D. F. Randolph.

THOSE Whose experience extends over a period of two generations are accustomed to specify among the changes they have witnessed, the multiplication and enlargement of Sabbath schools. About half a century ago, and not far from the time when "the standing order" of churches in this State ceased to be recognized as such by law, the minds of Christian people began to devise measures for the religious instruction of children upon the Sabbath day in classes or schools. This innovation upon the customs of the people, in some cases, at least, met with disfavor, if not with actual opposition from the church organizations. The earliest schools are supposed to have been commenced by individuals on their own responsibility, and at their own charges; neither the brotherhood of believers nor the ecclesiastical society having any responsibility in the matter, or making any provision for the maintenance of the institution. The district school house afforded a more convenient place of assembly than any which the church could provide.

Since that day, great changes have been made in common schools and those of higher grade, in respect to books, apparatus, and methods of instruction; and similar changes are seen in Sabbath schools, and in the place they hold in Christian thought. They are now deemed indispensable as a sphere of religions activity, and equally indispensable for complete religious instruction. Christian churches of every denomination would feel that their influence was greatly abridged without the Sabbath School. And parents who should openly avow an intention of keeping their children away from the school and 7

VOL. XXV.

directing their religious instruction themselves, would, in some quarters, be almost ostracised. Good men would shake their heads, and sigh, and say that for the good of the greater number, if for no other reason, the parents and the children should go together to the church school. The very structure of our houses of worship attests the change which has come over the people, for no such building is complete without its separate apartments conveniently arranged for all the purposes of a Sabbath school.

But this institution of so rapid and vigorous growth is not so much a branch of the church as it is an offshoot and sucker; it is not generally directed or controlled by the brotherhood; it is not committed to the oversight of the pastor. The course of study, the selection of hymn-books and libraries, the appointment of teachers and superintendents, are determined not by the church or its officers, but by an organization as distinct from that, as both are from the parish. Sometimes, indeed, the church elects a superintendent, but this is not the prevalent usage; sometimes it is done by the teachers; sometimes by the ballot of the whole school; sometimes the appointment is made no one knows how, or for how long; while the pastor is but a fifth wheel to a coach, a welcome visitor if he chooses to go in, but not the recognized head and leader, as he is the leader of the devotions of the church and presiding elder in its deliberations. Nor does it help the matter for him to magnify his office as a teaching brother, for usually his function of teaching is supposed to be discharged elsewhere, and there is practically no place for him officially in the school room. He is there by courtesy, if he makes a casual visit; he is on a level with the other teachers, if he takes a class.

In other words the Sabbath school and the church are prac tically and generally two institutions and not one; and this, partly because the ministers at the outset did not altogether favor Sabbath schools, and in later years have either been unwilling to intrude or have felt that they had work enough in preaching two or three times, and conducting a prayer meeting;-and partly because we have been carrying democracy to an extreme in theory, denying that the pastor is by virtue

of his office the rector of the church. This is in contrast with some other systems, in which the pastor, ex officio, is responsible for the catechizing and instruction of the youth.

It is a proper, nay, rather a serious question, whether in this vibration of the pendulum, people have not come to attach a factitious importance to the Sabbath school, making it not a means to an end, but an end itself. Various things look that way. For example, we set ourselves to write and then to sing hymns laudatory of the Sabbath school in great numbers and extravagant disproportion; while the hymns of the church are ruled out and set aside. The Rev. George Bacon in a recent essay estimates that in some collections of Sunday school music books three quarters of the hymns are devoted to the praise of the Sunday school. "In all sorts of verse and metre the dignity and worth of the school is extolled. The Sunday schools are represented as of all places in the world the most beautiful, the most fascinating, the most seductive. Children cry for them. There is the most irrepressible and ardent longing to get into them, and when they are entered to remain in them. If there is an allusion to the seasons, it is only to set forth the peculiar loveliness of the school in each of those particular seasons. Sunday schools in spring, Sunday schools in summer, Sunday schools in autumn, Sunday schools. in winter, in the morning, in the afternoon,-rain or shine, wet or dry, cold or hot,-they are presented under all these phases, and their worth and glory under each and all of these circumstances especially extolled. For one hymn in which the love of God is celebrated, there are three in which the glory of the Sunday school is celebrated. For one hymn in which the love of Christ to little children is praised and thanked, there are three in which the desirableness and excellence of the Sunday school is enlarged upon.'

Then, again, what pains are taken to keep up an interest in the Sabbath school, with anniversaries, premiums, picnics, garments to the poor, Christmas trees, and the like.

Then how often we hear the lamentation that young men at

The Sunday School Times, November 26th, 1864.