Carry back your mind to these periods of your life, and meditate upon them again, and then come forth with the glorious sun on the morning of that day of sacred rest, and pour forth your gratitude, impart your pious feelings. into the hearts of some of these little ones in the Sunday school, who through your instrumentality perhaps, may be trained not only for happiness here, but for never ending felicity beyond the grave. G.

SUNDAY SCHOOL ANECDOTE.

A

A PART of Dr Channing's Sermon, on "the Duties of Children," was read some time since in one of the Sunday schools in this city. The children generally seemed much impressed, and listened to it with attention. short time after, a teacher in a visit to the parents of the children under her care, was informed by the mother of one of them that a very great change had been effected, as she trusted, in the character of her daughter. The girl had not formerly been strictly obedient to her parents. But, a few days after the reading of the sermon mentioned above, the mother remarked that she had been very dutiful, very prompt to perform all that she was desired to do,—that she had not once disobliged her for several days. She inquired the reason of this change. The girl replied,-" O, mother, last Sunday Mrread to us a sermon that told us how good our parents have been to us, how much they have done and are constantly doing for us; how they took care of us when we could not take care of ourselves,-and what we owed them in return for all this kindness and love, for all their

endeavors to teach us to be good and to make us happy. And I determined, when I thought it over, after I got home, that I would never again grieve you by my ill conduct, that I would always try to obey you in all that you wished me to do, or not to do; for Mr told us, also, that our parents knew better what was right for us than we possibly could know ourselves."

I of course have not given a very exact relation of this circumstance; but it is correct in its general features; and is an encouragement to teachers to go on in their "labor of love."

Boston, Jan. 8th, 1828.

M.

MODE OF INSTRUCTION.

[From the Rev. Dr. Parker's Address.]

WITH respect to the manner of administering instruction, permit me to remind you, that you have a most perfect pattern in the example of Christ. You have also in his practical character a most lovely exhibition of the nature of that goodness, which the gospel would produce. You behold him seizing every incident in life, and every object of nature, which could be advantageously employed, to give interest and impression to his teachings. He likewise employs in his inimitable parables a mode of instruction, which brings religious truth before men, clothed in a visible form. It is worthy of inquiry, whether the modes of preaching, adopted by the most exalted minds, are not defective, considered as the means of giving impression to religious truth. The truth may be stated, and this may be done plainly and forcibly; but is

If

it not often done in a manner too purely intellectual ? Do not individuals often fall into the same error in their modes of representing religious subjects to their own minds? I feel a strong persuasion, that we are so earthly in our nature, that in order to render the instructions of religion moving, we must give to them a form which will connect them with our senses and affections, as well as with our intellect. If we wish to represent impressively the character of God, we draw a picture of a parent, and contemplate the picture, rather than the abstract attributes of the Deity. The imagination and the affections are operated upon, and stimulate the understanding. The springs of moral action are touched. The same may be said of almost every subject of religious instruction. this consideration be neglected, though our speculations may be very accurate and refined, our hearts will be cold and our lives barren. These remarks, if they have any force, apply particularly to instructions, given to children, whose habits are very intimately connected with their sensations, and whose minds are with difficulty made to receive truth in an unembodied form. Imitate, therefore, the impressive manner of the Teacher from heaven. Make the incidents of life, and the objects of nature administer assistance in impressing the truths of the gospel. Condescend to collect and occasionally to tell such incidents, as may have the same kind of effect, as had the Saviour's parables. You will thus not only give interest to your instructions; but you will connect religious impressions on the minds of the children with objects, and incidents most familiar to them; and make christian truth their daily bread, rather than a medicine occasionally to be administered.

ORIGINAL MORAL TALES. Vols. I and II. Bowles & Dearborn. 1828.

In the popular system of education the understanding is constantly employed while the heart is left vacant and the hands idle. This is particularly the case in the instruction of girls. There are too many young ladies among us who have been taught the common and even the higher branches of learning, and furnished with expensive and useless accomplishments, who enter upon the arduous duties of domestic life without a knowledge of the first principles of christian duty or even those elements of household management which are so essential to the happiness of the fireside.

Young men generally find the means of physical developement in active sports of their own, but they are too frequently brought up in the almost total neglect of

moral education.

The series of tales before us is intended to furnish a means of remedying this important defect, and we know of none so admirably suited for the purpose, The writers appear to keep constantly in view the importance of preparing children for a faithful discharge of the active duties of life with a continual sense of their dependence on the Divine care and responsibility to the Divine Arbiter.

The shorter stories are told with the view of impressing some single important truth, or showing the propriety of some particular line of conduct. The longer ones inculcate the benefit of a good, or the ruin resulting from an evil course of behaviour. They are generally enough diversified with incidents to keep up a lively interest, and the style is characterized by that clearness and simplicity

so absolutely necessary in books addressed to the young, and yet so frequently neglected by those who write professedly for their instruction. The characters introduced are usually in the middle station of life, although there are suitable exceptions to this rule, and the scene is almost invariably in our own country. American customs, institutions, habits and prepossessions are recognised; and the whole costume, to apply the word in its most enlarged sense, is native.

To many persons this last may seem a trivial consideration, but we confess, that to us it does not appear so. The English works for children, which we have hitherto been content to use exclusively, always have more or less of strangeness to the young American reader, from the circumstance that ranks, habits and opinions are continually presenting themselves, which are, and for ever must be, utterly foreign to us. In a book which is intended to furnish direct practical lessons of warning and example, this is no small deficiency. It must frequently impair, and sometimes entirely prevent their utility.

There are other considerations which render a large portion of the foreign juvenile publications which are continually republished here, utterly useless in a practical point of view. Society here is constituted on principles radically different from those which support the hereditary distinctions of England and France. The modes of education are not the same, and they ought to differ more than they do at present. Many abuses and absurdities received from the old world retain their places here through the influence of the books which we are so eager to republish, and many errors in moral and intellectual education, we have no hesitation in saying, are even