THE JUBILEE SERVICES OF THE SUNDAY
SCHOOL UNION.

THE past month, young reader, has seen great and important gatherings in London to celebrate the closing of the Jubilee year of the Sunday School Union; and, standing as they do in intimate connexion with much that belongs to your religious position at this day, we think some record of them not out of place in your magazine.

The services commenced on Sunday, July 10, by a prayer meeting, held in Lion Street Chapel, Walworth, and presided over by the Rev. Mr. Howieson. A deeply-solemn feeling pervaded it, and earnest petitions rose for the divine blessing to rest on the contemplated services and the great enterprise with which they stood connected.

During the day sermons were preached in about twenty of the London chapels in behalf of the Jubilee scheme, and in BIBLE CLASS MAGAZINE.] [AUGUST, 1853.

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the afternoon about 50,000 scholars and teachers were assembled in various chapels, to whom addresses were delivered suited to the occasion. Deeply interesting were these services. The day was fine, the chapels densely crowded, and the attention and feeling all that could be wished.

Monday was left as a day of rest as regarded any public services, but on Tuesday evening the doors of Surrey Chapel were opened, and that large place filled with a most interesting audience to hear the Jubilee sermon from the Rev. Dr. Archer. Long before the time of the service the people began to assemble and fill all the front seats of the gallery and the centre of the body of the chapel, exhibiting the deepest interest in what was now before them. The service itself was most impressive and effective, and the singing, the prayer, the sermon, all fitted to leave behind the best and most hallowed influence on all assembled. The text was from Nehem. vi. 3, "I am doing a great work," and the sermon a fine exposition of, and noble testimony to, the greatness of the Sabbath school enterprise. Often during the course of it did the feeling of the people so rise as to make it difficult on their part to suppress some audible expression of it, while throughout one deeply-solemn impression reigned. None, we think, retired from that place without being more than ever possessed of the conviction that the great work now committed to the Sunday school teachers of our land stands in close connexion with the onward march of truth and righteousness, and the inbringing of the glory of the latter day.

Early on Wednesday morning, the last day of the Jubilee year, there was a busy thronging of the friends and teachers of the Union to the large room at the London Tavern, to hold the Jubilee breakfast. By seven o'clock about 600 individuals were assembled; both the large rooms were filled, and precisely at the hour named the Lord Mayor entered and took the chair. An invocatory hymn was then sung, the substantial breakfast was quickly discussed, and the meeting for prayer and addresses commenced.

The scene at this breakfast and meeting was highly gratifying to the friends of Sunday schools, while the assemblage itself was a noble demonstration of their real position and worth. There sat as the president of the meeting the highest

magistrate of the land, and around him some of the best and most worthy ministers of religion of all evangelical sections of the christian church, members of Parliament, aldermen of the city, country magistrates, leaders of the public press, veteran Sunday school teachers, the founders of the institution, while the great room was crowded by an audience of the highest respectability.

The Rev. Dr. Cox opened the meeting with prayer. A hymn from the "Jubilee Hymn Book," prepared for these services, was sung. Mr. Groser, one of the secretaries, gave a few particulars respecting the services; and the Lord Mayor gave the opening address.

Himself once a Sunday school teacher, and now the highest magistrate in the land, he spoke well from personal experience of the benefits arising to society in general, and the church in particular, from the sabbath schools of our country. His lordship's testimony was worth everything, and his presence and influence at the meeting invaluable, at the present time, to the great cause in which its friends were embarked.

Following the Lord Mayor's address was another hymn from the "Jubilee Hymn Book," finely sung by that great crowd. Then came the Rev. Thomas James and the Rev. John Adey, the last, one of the revivers of the Sunday schools in Gloucester after the death of Raikes, and when by neglect they had been allowed to die. Nothing could have been more earnest, lively, and animated than the address of Mr. Adey; and delightful was it to see that nothing of the warmth and fire of youthful zeal had departed from the breast of this

veteran in the cause of God.

Then came other hymns and other addresses we cannot stay to enumerate, the whole forming a service of a deeplyinteresting and largely-beneficial character.

In the evening a noble meeting, THE JUBILEE MEETING, was held in Exeter Hall. Over this meeting W. B. Gurney, Esq., one of the founders of the Union, and now its president after fifty years' existence, presided. He was supported on either side by the only other surviving founders, viz., Mr. Nisbet, of Berners-street, and Mr. Thompson, of Poundsford Park, all white-headed men who had lived to see their work remain, and, after consigning to the grave many of their early companions, to reap some portion of its fruits. To us that trio

formed the most interesting scene of the hall, and we turned from the thousands round, and, while looking at those now aged men, secretly prayed that from them we, the young men of the present, might catch some portion of the right spirit of christian consecration, and, while yet permitted to stand within their shadow, draw from them some lessons of wisdom and some models of action. But there were others there. There was the black minister, Mr. Ward, from Canada, and who, in these days of anti-slavery zeal, formed no uninteresting object in the group; and there, near him, was the missionary Gill from Raratonga, and seated at his side a fine native youth from that far-off isle, the son of the far-famed Papeha; and there both old men and young, laymen and ministers, of varied ranks, the sworn friends of this great cause, which had gathered them together there.

Of the meeting we cannot speak at large. It was a season of deep feeling and holy resolution.

Mr. Gurney's long review of early and continued labours in this great work; Mr. Watson's (one of the secretaries) fine statement of the past and present position and doings of the Sunday School Union; Mr. Smith's earnest address; Mr. Ward's touching appeals and statements; Mr. Gill's earnest missionary testimony; and then the rich, well-timed, and finely-expressed songs that now and again rose from that crowded hall, have left impressions behind, which cannot be recorded here, but we trust will be found in wiser action and more consecrated labours in days to come.

Such were the Jubilee services of the Sunday School Union. One great drawback from their complete triumph was the fact that the Sunday schools of the country had failed in performing what was plainly their reasonable duty, the placing of the £10,000 required for the Jubilee memorial in the hands of the committee. Of this sum only £4,000 could be reported as yet received, leaving £6,000 still to be raised. Opportunities are still to be given for this to be done, and the committee appeals confidently to the friends of this great cause to respond to its claims, and without delay furnish what they easily can by a right, general, and hearty effort.

Passing this, the services were a Sunday school triumph, and, coming in just at this time, fitted to do great good.

1. There was the public exhibition of so large and so re

spectable a body of men of the first order in their various classes, as the friends and advocates of this great instrument for saving and sanctifying the lower orders of society.

2. There was the plain and honest presentation, without pride, of the facts and triumphs of the Sunday school enterprise by all who spoke-facts and triumphs, we submit, which deserve far more attention from both the religious communities and civil bodies of our land than they have hitherto received.

3. There were the inspiring appeals and stirring calls to greater devotion, and enlarged effort in the promotion of the education and conversion of our youth.

4. There was the spirit of holy joy and gratitude, combined with that of encouragement and hope, which was raised by the whole services in all who attended them, and which, breathed through varied circles, must lead to good. So GOD grant it may, and from these hallowed engagements attracting to this cause so many eyes, and inspiring in its behalf so many hearts, cause large stores of blessing to arise to his people and their work!

ON GETTING THINGS CHEAP.

BY OLD ALAN GRAY.

coming home with his bargains. He bought a second-hand umbrella yesterday for ninepence, because it was such a bargain forsooth! Why, after the first soaking shower, it took him a matter of half an hour to get it down; and now it is down, for the life of him he can't get it up again. Right glad would he be if he could find a flat that would take his bargain off his hands.

"Ir's all a bag full of moonshine | Sam, and a soft Sammy he is, always to talk of getting things cheap," said William Bonner the blacksmith, now hammering away at a piece of iron, and now standing still, as he talked, or rather hooted out to the exciseman, who, on passing, had stopped a while at the smithy window; "you may put this down as a certainty, that nothing is to be got cheap that is worth having. 'A silk purse can't be made out of a sow's ear;' and he that can hammer a good shoe out of a bit of bad iron is a much cleverer fellow than Will Bonner.

"Skinner the tailor had a broken pane of glass, and away he goes and buys a square cheap. On measuring it he found it too big, and when he had broken a piece off it, it was too | little, and of no use to him. Why,