HINTS TO SUNDAY SCHOOL TEACHERS.

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them with. Let us then not relax in our exertions to keep to the knowledge of this blessed truth; and may the reward of such exertions be a better knowledge of these things.

HINTS TO SUNDAY SCHOOL TEACHERS.

THE fear that some who take classes, are not sufficiently impressed with the importance of the instruction they are called upon to give, and of the impressions to be made upon the minds of the children thus entrusted to their care, has induced me to say a few words on this important subject. It is different from any other instruction given at schools, both in its importance and bearing upon the future lives of these children; and to have it felt by the children, it must be felt by the teacher and brought to the child with earnestness. All are in some degree dependent on manner, and children feel it quite as much as the matured mind. I should be far from wishing this instruction to be given in a formal, solemn, studied manner, but this differs widely from a light or thoughtless manner of addressing them. I would have cheerfulness carried to the school as to the house of worship, but not gaiety; and I have felt some fear that if the heart of many teachers were sufficiently impressed with the great truths of which they speak (and it is not for us to judge the heart) they did not go with that calm, quiet manner which carries with it to the child a conviction of the value of the subject to our own minds. This is an argument against very young teachers, and I feel that there are objections to those whose minds are hardly made clear upon the subject of religion. They cannot be expected to give clear views to others. I know that mere years are of no avail ;

for many live to be very old without serious or right thoughts, but the young have hardly had time to acquire the knowledge requisite to arrange their thoughts with sufficient clearness to teach others who are hardly less experienced than themselves. We must be in earnest and feel the full importance of all we say, or it will be a cold work, little felt and of slight continuance. All teachers ought to be careful not to use the school room as a place for meeting and talking of other concerns foreign to the subject of the school, or in a light manner upon that subject. Many things right in themselves may do harm here, by giving a greater liberty both to children and young teachers; for in almost all schools there are some so young as to look up to the older ones for an example. How careful then ought we to be that our example is good, that we do not injure a cause that we mean to help. We must be in earnest, for it is God's work in which we are engaged; we must be diligent, for our time is short; we must be serious, for the happiness of Heaven may be increased by our exertions, if rightly performed.

A.

INTELLIGENCE.

Annual Fasting and Prayer for Colleges.-The last Thursday in February was observed as a day of humiliation and prayer, among many, perhaps all, Orthodox Churches, with special reference to the colleges. We are informed that this is a stated observance, designed to be perpetual. In the Quarterly Journal of the Education Society, we find the following estimates. "The number of young men, now enjoying the advantages of a public classical

education in these United States, is estimated at three thousand. About one third of the young men in the New England Colleges are professors of religion. Our information from the middle, southern and western colleges is much less particular; but we fear that not more than six or seven hundred of the whole three thousand included in our present estimate, are now on the Lord's side. More than three to one probably are still his enemies. Probably more than a thousand who will soon enter the higher seminaries are now pursuing their studies in academies. Supposing one fourth to be now pious, which is a large estimate, between seven and eight hundred are aliens, without hope and without God in the world. Five hundred who are now unreconciled to God, will become members of our public seminaries the present year; and how great is the hostile influence which they will carry along with them." With what feelings can we regard this presumptuous spiritual arithmetic, this guaging of the public morals? We know there is much honesty and seriousness in the motive. God forbid we should judge those harshly who calculate these desolations in Zion but to pray and weep over their amount. But in the name of reason and conscience, what power has this arithmetician to make a statistical matter of private personal religion? It is here soberly set down against hundreds of our young scholars, that they are enemies to God. What next? Shall we not one day have the names of reprobates entered in the same bill, and our students classified, according to the judgment passed abroad upon their piety, when they enter our colleges? There is something in this which our intelligent community should frown upon.

Charity Students. Of those who have belonged to the Theological Seminaries of Andover, Princeton, and Auburn, and who have become ministers or missionaries, it is stated in the Quarterly Journal of the American Education Society, that the largest proportion have belonged to the class of indigent or charity students. Fifty-seven beneficiaries have been taken under the patronage of the Education Society since the 1st July last.

The Presbytery of Hanover.-This presbytery embraces the Synods of North and South Carolina, and has under its care the Union Theological Seminary. The two following Resolutions were lately passed by that body.

I. Resolved, That at every meeting of Presbytery the Professors

belonging to the institution be required to make a particular Report respecting the religious state of the students.

III. That on every occasion when students are called upon to perform exercises for trials, there be also an Examination of them as to their progress in vital piety; which examination shall be held in private, by a Standing Committee appointed for that purpose. Are we then to have a Confessional in our public schools? And shall Protestants place over their consciences a Standing Committee? What use can there be in this inquisitorial practice! The hypocrite may still deceive, and the good man will yet be known only by his conduct.

Religious Denominations in the United States.-1. The Presbyterian Church comprises, 16 Synods, 90 Presbyteries, 1214 Ministers, 1880 Churches, 136,479 Communicants.

2. The Orthodox Congregational Churches in New England contain, 62 Associations, 720 Ministers, 960 Churches.

3. The Episcopal Church has 11 Dioceses, 11 Bishops, 486 Clergymen, 598 Churches.

4. The Methodist Episcopal Church has 17 Conferences, 1465 Preachers, 2,500 Societies, 381,997 Members.

5. The Calvinistic Associated Baptists have 190 Associations, 3723 Churches, 2577 Ministers.-See Quarterly Journal of Education Society.

We wish some one would furnish us with materials for a general estimate of the number of Unitarian Churches. In the statements of the Journal above quoted, respecting Ordinations, &c. Unitarians and Congregationalists are kept distinct. But it is well known that the Unitarian Churches are, with scarce an exception, Congregational. To what is the mistake in the Journal owing?

Missions.-The amount of donations received by the Board for Foreign Missions from January 21st to February 20th last, was $8,982,75.

Hungarian Popular Songs.-A volume bearing this title, with critical and historical notices of the manners, literature, and language as spoken in Hungary and Transylvania, is speedily to be published by JOHN BOWRING, author of " Matins and Vespers," &c. "It is said Mr Bowring is now a sufferer by heavy commercial losses, which renders him dependent on public patronage for the furtherance of his literary enterprises. We earnestly hope he may not find this reliance vain."

MY RESPECTED FRIEND,-In the course of conversation last evening, when you undertook the defence of the Trinity, I was forcibly impressed, with the power of mystery, to charm the finest understandings. You appeared to be attached to the doctrine, not so much because you were struck with the strength of argument in its favor, from revelation or from reason, as because your imagination was fascinated by its very indefiniteness and obscurity. In your mind, the same grandeur was associated with the mystery of the Trinity, which belongs to the mysteries of our own being, of the operations of Providence, of the system of nature. But, I confess, that to me, the Trinity recalls no such emotions. Instead of classing it with those sublime subjects of thought, which are suggested by our condition in this world, and our hopes of a future, I should place it among those fictitious creations of a strange fancy, of which the dark ages were fertile.

I have always thought,—and I was confirmed in the opinion by your conversation,-that the doctrine of the Trinity bore a striking analogy to the doctrine of Tran