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BASS.

TREBLE.

HYMN 1.

Tune.-"BALLERMA." (No. 207, Union Tune Book.)

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bonds of piety. 'Tis pleasant as the morning dews

That fall on Zion's hill,

Where God his mildest glory shows,

And makes his grace distil.

After which, the Rev. J. W. RICHARDSON supplicated the divine blessing.

The CHAIRMAN then rose and said-Christian friends and fellowsabbath school teachers, I feel that I have no claim whatever to the honour of presiding over this great and imposing meeting, other than the kind and unmerited request of your Committee; but I think you and I have been long enough connected with sabbath school instruction to know that it is our duty to obey our superiors -that the first thing we have to do in connexion with our work is to learn the doctrine of subordination; and, therefore, when the request or command came from your Committee, I was quite prepared and delighted to accede to it, throwing upon them the entire responsibility of the selection they had made. And yet, perhaps, I may plead in extenuation the very deep interest I have felt-not for this year only, nor for a few years, but for many years past—in the work to which you have devoted yourselves. Before I was ten years old I was a teacher in a sabbath school; and I have the honour of being a superintendent now; and I confess to you that the more I contemplate the service in which we are engaged, I feel the deep, the great, the abiding importance of the Sunday school system. I believe, and I appear here to-night not only to bear witness to that impression, but also to testify, as I do with great pleasure, to the value of the assistance rendered to the cause of Sunday school instruction by that society whose anniversary we are met on this occasion to celebrate. The value of their labours in the publication of works suitable for the young, and also to prepare the teachers for the arduous and solemn duties of their calling, cannot easily be over-estimated. Nor must we forget the voluntary and unostentatious, and yet most efficient, labours of the members of your Committee, who, solicited by country unions, and sometimes without solicitation, are fain to come amongst us, in our own localities, and afford us the full benefit of their experience and wisdom. I can, and do most cheerfully, bear testimony to the value of those services in that part of the country in which I reside; and I could tell you how their assistance has been appreciated, how the influence of their visits has been felt, long after they have left us, and how schools have been invigo rated and revived by the instruction thus afforded, and the impetus thus given to the cause. My dear fellow-labourers, neither you nor I can form an estimate of the importance to be attached to sabbath school instruction throughout this land. I believe there may be some teachers who feel from time to time discouraged in their work, who think that theirs is a very narrow and contracted sphere of

labour. Brethren, believe it not; it is not so; it is one which God has honoured, is honouring, and, I am persuaded, will continue to bless so long as instruction is at all needed in this world of ours. I do not think it is right of us to judge of God's dealings as of men's. God measures proceedings, not by results, but by principles; and I can see in these small classes of yours, in your constant prayer, in your soul of effort, in your earnest, devoted, and untiring labour, principles which God looks upon with complacency and honour, as much as those which have stirred up reformers to shake gigantic systems of error, which in their overthrow have convulsed whole continents to their centre, or nerved martyrs to suffer at the stake. With Him

To Him

"No high, no low, no great, no small;

He fills, he bounds, connects, and perfects all."

"As the rapt seraph that adores and burns,"

and I do earnestly and trustfully believe that sometimes in the services of our sabbath school teachers there is a work as great, as real, and, in the eye of God, as important, as those which operate in what appear to be more efficient spheres of labour. I look at the sabbath school, and I feel that it is doing a mighty work, one which is pressingly required by the church and the world. I am not discouraged when I look around and see what the world demands of the church, but I do feel that when evil in many forms is arising in fierce antagonism to good, when error places itself in direct opposition to truth-oh, sirs, I do feel that it is time for every christian man and every christian woman, young though they may be, weak and feeble though they may be, to stand up, to gird on their immortal armour, and be prepared, if needs be, to take their place in the fore-front of the battle. I say, that at this time there is, perhaps, more required of the church than at any former period of her history. In times gone by it has been, as we know from the records of the past, that error has presented itself in succession. There have been long centuries of black and gloomy superstition, when the human mind seemed to be paralyzed by those forms of error which hung like a heavy cloud over the world; and when the soul of man, wearied with superstition, emerged from that darkness, and escaped from its trammels, it sunk into scepticism, and so in succession you had superstition and infidelity. But now those antagonistic forces seem to be both marshalled against Christianity; and in these days one hardly knows which to fear most-the disciples of Pusey or the followers of Newman. On the one hand, there is dense and pulseless superstition; on the other, deep and earnest scepticism. With both of these the truths of the gospel

have to contend. Where, in such times, does Christianity look for support, but to the church and the sabbath school? Look at the forms of practical error and evil existing now in society. I stay not now to talk of sabbath desecration, and the fearfully pernicious and dangerous literature which is pervading every class of society; and yet these are the evils, the growing evils, against which the gospel, the pure and holy gospel, has to erect itself, and it is by that, and that alone, that we shall succeed in eradicating the mischiefs which they have produced. Then what are the claims of this present day? Look at the condition of your large towns. Look at the condition of the lower classes in London, the classes which seem to be something below and something worse than barbarism itself. Yes; and in the country it is the same. We have there masses of men untrained and untaught, the whole of whom have to be permeated and pervaded with religious truth; and where, but to the instruction of the church and the sabbath school, can we look for this great work to be achieved? We feel, deeply feel, that here, and here alone, is our hope. We speak of missionary efforts. Countless myriads are perishing, dying, passing into eternity day after day— an eternity of which many of them have scarcely heard. And we want missionaries to go forth and take to them the knowledge of salvation. How that cause has been pleaded within these walls! And we look to you, fellow-teachers; we plead with you on that behalf. It is to your classes, to the children growing up around you, who receive instruction at your knees, that we look with hope that, by-and-by, they will go forth, called by the great Master of the vineyard to publish his truth and preach his gospel in the most distant parts of the world. And there is one thought which strikes me very forcibly; it is this. I live in a part where constantly, day by day, emigration is going rapidly on. Thousands, and tens of thousands, of the very classes of society for whom you labour in the sabbath school, are daily leaving their native land to settle in the far-off regions of Australia, or in the backwoods of Canada ; and what do we hope for? We hope that the time will speedily come when from the sunny slopes and forest recesses of those colonial dependencies, the hymn of praise and the glad shout and song of triumph shall arise. But how can this be unless you first evangelize and permeate with divine truth the minds of those who are to constitute the foundations of new empires and kingdoms in those distant hemispheres ?

When I think of these things, I do feel that the work in which we are engaged grows in apparent magnitude. It becomes more and more important and dignified when we look at it, not by any

abstract process of reasoning, but by its direct practical and lasting results. And then we turn to you-and I know it, you do feel how solemn and how important is your work, and how much depends upon your faithfulness, your care, and your love, not for this life only, but for time and eternity. If we felt more the responsibility of individual effort, if we could fully understand how much depends upon our faithfulness as agents in the hands of God, if we ever with confidence looked up to him for help and a blessing, our labours would be more untiring and our success much greater. Let us see how great is the difference, and how vast the results. There are, say, two teachers, one constant at his class and the other not. And superintendents know what that is. They know what it is, alas! with heavy hearts, to see, sabbath after sabbath, that a class is irregularly taught, and that, as a consequence, the boys and girls wander from the school. And can you blame the child? Where is the teacher? I have seen another class where the teacher is watchful, prayerful, and devoted, and where the children, as a consequence, are constant, attentive, and benefited.

I do not want great genius, mighty powers of intellect, large grasp of mind, or great attainments in a teacher; if he knows and teaches the gospel of Christ, and is heartily devoted to his work, he is sure to be successful. But if, with all his attainments, the teacher is careless, and indifferent, and unfaithful; if he does not feel that the work in which he is engaged is earnest work for the salvation of immortal souls, what shall the result be? He may at last, himself, a solitary being, just wander along the narrow way to eternity; but he reaches it alone; he does not draw others with him; he has no comfortable companionship, no noble associations, no cheering fellowships; he is saved, yet "so as by fire." I see a friend near me who has perhaps often seen what I am about to describe. On that rugged coast where I live-very different to the smooth beach which you are accustomed to at the sea-side near the metropolis-the rocks rise abruptly and ruggedly from the bosom of the wide and stormy Atlantic, which beats in angry foam against them. I remember standing on a rock, close to an inlet of the sea in that part, and saying to the man who kept watch there-" Does a vessel when driven by tempests to this spot find safety here?" "Why," he replied, "we frequently save the crew, but the ship and the cargo are lost." Just saved, and no more! Is that what you sabbath school teachers desire? I remember, too, something which once struck my mind very forcibly in contrast with that. Some years ago a vessel, fitted up with everything that mechanical science and skill could suggest, sailed from the southern point of the

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