befriend, patronize, serve, the Sunday-school; strengthen and promote the cause of Sunday-school instruction; and extend, as you may, its influence; the Clergy, in their proper province, as the Pastors of the church; the laity in due subordination to those who are the divinely appointed guardians and feed ers of the flock of Christ; and all in the true spirit of the Gospel, in deference to the good order and wholesome discipline of the church, and in unwavering consistency with their character as members of the primitive and apostolical communion.

Such, however, is the present imperfection of man, in every individual and social department, that nothing good is without its exposure to attendant evil. Two dangers of this kind present themselves to my mind as requiring notice in reference to Sunday-school instruc

tion.

It were a sad abuse of so holy and blessed a charity, if, because of its requiring the services of lay-aids to the Pastor in imparting religious instruction, it should excite in any a spirit of insubordination, or infringements on the proper prerogatives of the pastoral office. The principle should never be forgotten, that Sunday scholars are catechumens, belonging to the Pastor; and Sunday-teachers, catechists, acting by permission, and under the authority, of the Pastor. Every Pastor, therefore, should be held as supreme in the school or schools of his parish. Gladly, indeed, and gratefully, should he avail himself of the kind Christian offices of those who are disposed to be his aids in this great work; and all the arrangements should, as much as may be, be made with a reference to their feelings and views, and a due respect to the results of their experience and mutual counsels. But the responsibility should be his undividedly; and nothing, therefore, be done without his direction, or his consent and approbation. No independent action, and especially no influence, in either their individual or collective capacity, beyond the simple business of their office, as the Pastor's aid, in the care

of the Sunday-school, should be thought of by the Sunday-teacher. Sore evils, in the violation of Christian order, to the discredit of the Christian character, and to the disturbance of peace and harmony in the church, have been felt as the consequence of other principles. Against these the truly Christianminded Sunday-school teacher will most solicitously guard.

Another subject, connected with our Sunday-schools, on which I regard them as dictating a word of caution to my reverend brethren, is suggested by the bearing which those schools may have on the im portant pastoral duty of catechising. I am not without my fears, that the kind offices of Sunday-school teachers are sometimes suffered to operate as a dispensation from that attention to this duty, which the church evidently designs to inculcate upon her Pastors, and which has ever been regarded as among her best means of the spiritual care of her members. She requires that her Ministers examine all the children of their cures in the catechism, and instruct them therein. The first requisition makes it the Pastor's duty to attend, in person, to seeing that the children know the catechism; and the second supposes his diligently engaging in a system of instruction which will enable them properly to understand it.

It is farther required, that the catechetical examination and instruction be done "diligently," and "openly in the church." This evidently enforces upon the Clergy the duty of examining and instructing the children in the catechism, with such frequency as will justify its being regarded as "diligently" done; "in the church;" and "openly;" so that all who will may be present to witness the exercise, and profit by it.

If, in consideration of the labours of Sunday-school teachers, the Pastor should be remiss in his required personal attention to this duty; if other modes of religious training should be suffered to supersede diligent and thorough instruction in the catechism; or if the use of other places, and the

greater privacy of school exercises, should prevent due attention to catechising, and instructing in the catechism, openly in the church; there would be an unnatural and injurious

ILLUSTRATIONS

In many parts of Hindostan are mosques and mausoleums, built by the Mahommedan Princes, near the sepulchres of their nurses. They are excited by a grateful affection to erect these structures, in memory of those who with maternal anxiety watched over their helpless infancy: thus it has been from time immemorial. How interesting is the interview which Homer has described between Ulysses and Euriclea! When Rebekah, too, left her parents, on being betrothed to Isaac, we read that she was accompanied by her nurse, who never left her until the day of her death; which event is not deemed unworthy of being recorded in the patriarchal annals. "But Deborah, Rebekah's nurse, died, and she was buried beneath Bethel, under an oak; and the name of it was called Allon-bachuth, or the oak of weeping." (Gen. xxxv. 8.)-Forbes's Oriental Memoirs.

THE funeral ceremonies of the Mahommedans in India resemble those in Turkey, Persia, and Arabia. Widows and matrons are hired to weep and wail, and beat upon their breasts with loud lamentations.

This was practised, not only among the Greeks, but adopted by the Jews, and many other nations. The howling and lamentation, on such occasions, by the vociferous females in the suburbs of Baroche fre

interference of a system of great excellence in itself, and in its proper sphere, with the good order and wholesome provisions of the church.

OF SCRIPTURE.

quently reached to Vezelpoor, and disturbed the tranquillity of our re

treat.

It appears from a passage in the Prophet Amos, that this sort of mourning and lamentation was a kind of art among the Jews: " Wailing shall be in all streets; and they shall call such as are skilful of lamentation to wailing." (Amos v. 16.) -Ibid.

FUTTY SING was a remarkable instance of the blended characteristics of pride, avarice, and a sordid disposition. As a Prince he had many names and titles. Futty, or Futtah Sihng, implies the "Horn of Victory." The horn has always been a figurative expression in Asia for power and dignity. David says to his enemies, "Lift not up your horn on high;" (Psalm lxxv. 5;) of himself, "My horn shalt thou exalt like the horn of an unicorn;" (Psalm xcii. 10;) or rather the rhinoceros, it being a most offensive weapon in that animal. In Abyssinia the horn, according to Bruce, is worn as an ornament by the nobles and great men, and bound upon the forehead in the days of victory, preferment, and rejoicing; on which occasions they are anointed with new or sweet oil; a circumstance which David expressly unites with that of lifting up or erecting the horn.-Ibid.

some spoken, and others recorded ?*

«The entire economy of Methodism, perity, may now be considered as having both as to its spiritual and temporal prosattained such a degree of maturity and perfection, as is not likely soon to admit of any material improvement."-Dr. Warren's Digest p. xviii., 1827.

In eating up their own praises of our present constitution, and reversing their own sentence upon it, they must show their former ignorance, or folly, or naughtiness, in extravagantly lauding a system so corrupt. They must show their own consistency and high principle, and make out a good case for themselves, not only with their own party, but before the bar to which they now appeal, for continuing, or wishing to continue, in religious fellowship with that body with which "no honest and upright man" can remain. It must appear that they are disinterested, not merely in a pecuniary way, but in the matter of ambition, envy, disappointment, revenge, or any other such passion; or there will be prima facie evidence of unfitness for legislation. There are certain common notions abroad, that they will have to work against; as, that those who declaim most loudly against tyranny are generally those who most long for power ;that those who are most anxious for its possession are least fit for its exercise ;-that the appearance of passion and prejudice betokens some private pique; or perhaps a little envy, which somewhat hates the excellence it cannot reach ;—or that perhaps they have become obnoxious to the very laws which they rage against-and it is commonly understood that their character ought to be free from stains who come forward as religious reformers, and are themselves most liberal in personal criminations.

They must especially have a good knowledge of Methodism, in its origin, principles, laws, usages, designs, and operations. A narrow mind, or a one-eyed justice, may quibble at some errors or defects in the administrators, and charge them upon the system; or may attribute to the principle that which is only an error in the application. They must understand our rules, as well as keep them, before they attempt to mend them. They ought to know that Methodism will not square with High-Churchism, or low Dissent; nor will it quadrate with any political creed whatever. It cannot be gauged

by the rules of other churches; and it exists for no purposes of party.

They who would improve upon the system of Methodism must be men of enlarged mind and solid judgment; clear, expanded, considerate; with a large preponderance of the deliberative faculties; coming slowly and cautiously to a determination; regarding well the interests of all parties, and not, by every change, abridging the power of one estate, or class, merely to aggrandize another. They must not, for instance, be men who, out of doors, cry, "The people,-the people," to raise a flood-tide of popular prejudice, as if the interests of the Preachers and the people were distinct, divisible, and even opposite; and then, taking it at the flood, bear themselves on to fortune, securing all the power into their own hands. They must have great judgment and principle, that they may not have too frequently to change their purposes, and that no feeble minorities may control and coerce immense majorities.

Above all, those who would reform should have a paramount regard to the objects for which Methodism was originally established. If their object be to go back to greater simplicity in preaching and administering ordinances; to greater vigour in our whole administration; to greater amplitude in carrying out God's original designs by us; this is good; but it must stand out; it must become so prominent, that all shall see it is their one great design.

Το

Such a design, if it be supreme and final, must necessarily influence their measures and their spirit. bring in, or attempt to apply, political principles, excitements, watchwords, or remedies, does not indicate such a design. To assert that a political partisanship is already manifested or existing, and to apply the spirit of another faction as a counter-irritant, is no indication of spiritual wisdom; albeit it may show some desire to swell the amount and influence of another political creed. They who trust to cure a worldly priesthood by the application of a political remedy, are ignorant quacks,

who neither understand the nature of the disease, nor the constitution of the patient. Political partisanship, simply as such, is one of the deepest devices of Satan to hinder the work of God, and the most concentrated curse that can come upon the church of Christ. If ever such a spirit should infect any portion of the Methodists, the great majority of them will know better than to expect Satan to cast out Satan. "This kind can come forth by nothing but by prayer and fasting."

The right sort of men to effect the renovation of Methodism could not make their attainment of ecclesiastical power their chief object, and the spiritual good of the societies a secondary matter. On the contrary, we might expect them to revert to the original designs of Mr. Wesley, as embodying their leading principles; and we might then suppose they would publish, as the conditions of union with themselves in a Grand Central Association, that every member should promise sacredly to set apart some portion of every day to plead for an increased effusion of divine influence on the whole Connexion, lest, by the devices of Satan, "strife, and envy. ing" should creep in, and be followed by "confusion and every evil work." We might expect of those who would effect glorious changes in Methodism, to inquire how the spirit of prayer, of brotherly union, and forgiveness, of compassion for our neighbour, and of pity for a perishing world, might be rendered more scriptural, more lofty, more tender, more practical. Some references might be expected to the purification of the church from such as walk disorderly, who, in their eagerness for gain, violate God's Sabbaths, cannot endure sound doctrine, refuse the hire of the labourer, or cause divisions and offences; with distinct reference to the conduct of Mr. Wesley in cutting off "practical, ranting Antinomians," after bearing with them for a season. We should have reason, if spiritual good were their chief aim, to expect the country to be deluged with tracts, letters, and various publica

tions, containing striking exhibitions of the singular zeal and piety of the first Methodists; their great regard for the paramount duties of honesty, industry, and liberality,sobriety, loyalty, and catholicity; and examples from these primitive days of high spiritual attainments and services, associated with the most profound humility. And since the spirit of gain so easily generates a spirit of covetousness, that they would advertise every Methodist that he could not be a Christian who did not contribute of his substance to the cause of Christ, by that apostolic rule, "as the Lord had prospered him," according to the good old doctrines and practices of our fathers. And we might also have expected some noble examples of selfdenial and generosity, in supplying the wants of worn-out Preachers, widows, and orphans, helping the poorer Circuits, and extending our Missions; and in the bland spirit of the Gospel, merging all minor points in these great and worthy purposes.

But if it were to appear that the men who toss up the cap of liberty, and shout "Methodist reform," were the men to oppose the instituted ministry; if they endeavoured to represent the body of Preachers as a set of proud, arrogant, tyrannizing, untrustworthy men; if they were to exert themselves to stop all supplies, and only aim at retaining their own membership in order to trouble and divide the church of Christ; if they were eager to carry matters before the world, and to overturn the constitution as at present existing; and if in private life also, they were fond of legal proceedings; if they were to clap their hands at every scattered congregation, and every small collection; and if they hailed every flaw or mistake in Ministers of Christ as a good omen to their cause; judge,-let who will judge,-whether these are the men who should legislate for us to the very core! They who can hear of peaceable societies being convulsed, mutual confidence destroyed, and souls scattered, thousands of whom will probably never be recovered, and rejoice rather in