THE SUPERINTENDENTS.

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moulding their natures for good or evil. Cultivate their confidence, and when you have it, esteem it sacred. In all things, seek to become their intimate friend, for what is needed in this work, is pre-eminently heart influence; and you can only accomplish your object by bridging over the distance between yourself and the child, and, like a father in the midst of his family, become to them a child once more.

(5.) Don't expect too much. Old heads are proverbially out of place on young shoulders; and religion is not some monstrous thing that crushes all human beings into one shape and pattern, but a light and glory that shines into and through the whole nature, not destroying, but developing and ennobling its individuality. Even so will it be manifested in children, and they will be children still. Our work with the little ones is not so much to repress as to guide, for as it has been happily said :

"He who checks a child with terror,

Stops its work, and stills its tongue;
Not alone commits an error,

But a grievous moral wrong.

Give it work, and never fear it,
Active life is no defect;
Never, never break its spirit,
Curb it only to direct.

Would you stop the flowing river,
Thinking it would cease to flow?
Onward it must flow for ever,

Better teach it where to go."

Besides, little children have their conflicts and difficulties. Speaking one day to a little girl, nine or ten years' of age, about love to Jesus making us desire to do right, she said, "Oh! I do try." So, I asked, "Well, can't you do it ?" And she answered, "Not always." "Why?" "Oh! it is so easy to do wrong."-" Well, when you have tried and find you can't, what do you do?" "I pray to Jesus." Another little one, a boy about the same age, trying one day to give a similar account of his difficulties, burst into tears, and could not finish his story. Brethren, we may find a more fully-developed religion in men; but we can nowhere find it more genuine than in little children.

In conclusion, I should like, if it be not presumptious on my part, to drop a few hints into the ears of our highly-esteemed officers, the superintendents.

(1.) Be more anxious to have quality in your teachers than quantity. More effective and lasting work will be done by two or three competent workers, than by a school-room full of dummies. Far better give a large class to a good teacher, than divide it among several powerless

ones.

(2.) Insist upon some good evidence of capability in a teacher before appointing him to any class; for incapacity is ruinous anywhere, and nowhere more so than in the Junior classes.

(3.) Abolish the idea that it is a promotion for a teacher to be removed from one class to another, consisting of older scholars. Our only true promotion is to do our duty better than before. Some years ago, the following sentence appeared in an article in the Contemporary Review:

"The counter-Reformation, which snatched half of Europe back from the hands of Protestantism, was mainly carried out by means of the schools set on foot by the Jesuits; and their unexampled success was due to the observance of one rule. According as a teacher showed more and more aptitude for his office, and proved it by the rapid progress of his pupils, he was promoted in the school by being set to hear a class junior to his former one, till the ablest tutor was found, and set to teach the rudiments of knowledge only, on the sound principle that when the art of learning has once been acquired, and a taste for reading instilled, the pupil may be safely left in great measure to his own exertions; but that no task is harder than that of arousing a hitherto sluggish and unawakened mind." It made a deep impression upon my mind at the time, and the more I have since thought of it, the more I am impressed with the soundness of the principle underlying it, whatever one may think of that particular method of embodying it.

(4.) When you get a really good teacher, young or old, put him just where he can do the best work; that is, the work most adapted to him, and keep him there. Do not let him slip away in some moment of weariness or weakness for want of a word of encouragement or advice. And when once a strong bond of attachment is formed between him and his class, never break it, except in case of sheer necessity. Let them grow together; and if "shifting Sunday" is to be retained at all, as a relic of the past, make it the occasion of removing scholars from a teacher who cannot help them, to one who can, and not a time for severing the sacred ties of love.

And now my task is done. The one thought I desire to leave standing out before you most prominently for your mature consideration is, that at present we employ too small a proportion of thought and ability upon our junior classes, which are the most readily available spheres for our successful working, and trust too much to our senior classes putting things to rights; when, alas! too often, the opportunity is gone for ever.

And in all our work let us follow closely after Him, who, to one of His most devoted servants, so emphatically said, "Feed my Lambs;" that at the last we may hear His, "Well done."

"Enter not heaven alone,

But let thy way

Up to the golden city be thrice blessed,
By taking others with thee.

Stoop, and tell the wandering child,
Of Him who loved the little ones;

Till, planted in his heart,

The living seed take root for ever."

DON'T BE TOO CRITICAL.

WHATEVER you do do not set up for a critic; we don't mean a newspaper one, but in private life, the domestic circle, in society. It will not do any one any good, and it will do you harm-if you mind being called disagreeable. If you don't like any one's nose, or object to any one's chin, don't put your feeling's into words. If any one's manner don't please you, remember your own. People are not all made to suit one taste; recollect that. Take things as you find them, unless you can alter them. Even a dinner, after it is swallowed, cannot be made any better. Continual faultfinding, continual criticism of the conduct of this one and the speech of that one, the dresses of the other and the opinion of the t'other, will make home the unhappiest place under the sun. If you are never pleased with any one, no one will ever be pleased with you. And if it is known that you are hard to suit, few will take pains to suit.

Getting a New Minister.

VII. Conducting the "Exam."

BY A "LIVE" DEACON.

THIS process is mostly thought to be as simple as it is exciting, and as easily got through as it is vigorously enjoyed by those conducting it; and yet the mistaken methods adopted by some churches, and the foolish use of good methods into which other churches are betrayed, suggest the need of a little good sense, some capacity, and much carefulness.

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Some churches choose their pastors as some men do their wives-at an evening party, on a grand show occasion, when everything is strained, excited, and unreal if not unnatural. Domestic life, however, is not one eternal round of evening parties; and the work of a pastor and teacher of men requires qualities other than those which can be displayed in a "show" sermon. The advice I once heard of, as given by a father to his son, smitten by the charms of a fascinating damsel at an evening party, commends itself to my maturer judgment. Harry," said he, "mind what you are doing. Don't be content with gas light. Get a sober view of facts. Unexpectedly appear at Jenny's house some morning before breakfast, and observe the way in which she comes down to the breakfast table. See how she starts the day. If she is neatly attired, cheery, bright, good-tempered, and ready to help everybody first and herself last, it is all right; but if there's a ruffled dress, and a ruffled temper, and a ‘ruffling' of everybody else, then turn ́the question' round a good many times before you 'put' it."

So I would say to churches conducting "the exam." of a candidate for the ministry. Go and see him at home, and when he is unaware of your presence and purpose, and least suspicious of inspection. Never imagine you can see the whole man in two sermons preached with "a view," and an appendix in the shape of a diligent effort to "trot him out" at the supper table. Men differ. Some " wear their hearts upon their sleeve," and are seen and known at once and anywhere. Others can only be fairly judged in their domestic surroundings, amid their own friends, where they are sure of the confidence of their hearers, and can let their nature have free play.

Get a friend or two who can read character, judge fairly, and know "the sort of man the church wants," to travel incog. to visit his present sphere of labour, to hear him in his own pulpit, to see how he governs his own home, and to get the best and widest knowledge possible of his whole character. Even brilliant sermons are eclipsed if the preacher and pastor lack that bright courtesy, cheerful disengaged temper, and beautiful consideration for the highest welfare of others, which enable a pastor to make all the interests of all the members of his flock his own, and to do better than preach, every time he sees them, by moulding their characters, and really forming them into model Christian men and women.

If a deacon may say such a thing in the hearing of preachers of the Word, that seems to be the "standard" set up by Paul in his letter to his son Timothy, when he says that a bishop must be irreproachable, vigilant, or wideawake; sober-minded, or self-controlled; hospitable, or genial and kind; apt in teaching, no brawler, no striker, but forbearing; averse from contention; no lover of money; ruling well his own house, having childen in subjection with all gravity; not a novice, but with some experience of life and duty, and wellreported of by those who know him. The man who could get "full marks" in an "Exam." on these points, would be worth more money than any church could ever give him!

Let our churches adopt that standard, and conduct their "exam." on the spot where such qualities are most likely to be exhibited; and though they may now and again miss the "brilliant" preacher, they will get good pastors and teachers, men after God's own heart.

Ministers Solidays.

IN our Almanack for this year, under date August, are the following words with the heading above:-" Has your minister had his holiday? If he has not, see that he has one soon. Make your own heart glad and his sermons all the richer in brain-force and heart-feeling by sending him a five-pound note. You need not say who sent it. It will be one of the best gifts you can make to the church."

Now we have something better to write. This morning a letter came to hand from an unnamed donor containing five such five-pound notes, to be distributed amongst five of our ministers needing the holiday and needing the cash quite as much to enjoy the holiday. We have not felt more ready to sing a Te Deum or chant the 103rd Psalm for some time, than on the receipt of this welcome epistle. We are profoundly grateful to God, the source of all goodness, and to this ministers' friend for making us the distributor of so much joy and power. If the donor knew the gratitude these gifts had evoked, and the good they are now doing and will do, we are sure there would be the readiest endorsement of the words, that such generosity is "one of the best gifts that can be made to the church" of the Lord Jesus. Not one of the men to whom they have been sent would have had a holiday but for this spontaneous kindness.

Ministers who are truly "alive unto God" and to the need of souls, are "working men" in the fullest sense, and need rest and change more than any class of labourers, not even excepting medical men. Our work, if done with the heart-and we had better not do it at all if we do not do it with the heart-is perilously exhausting to nerve and brain. The drain is deep and incessant. No member of the congregation, no officer of the church ever knows what a true pastor and teacher has to do and to bear either as to its variety or range. Sunday rest, too, is a stranger to us; for though we may arrange for a Sabbath in the week, the difficulty of carrying out the arrangement is enormous, and often insurmountable. Ten, twelve, and in some cases fourteen or fifteen hours a day without Sabbatic repose, carried on for months, is a most exhaustive process, and it is impossible to maintain the freshness and effectiveness of one's work without the recuperating influences of change of scene and vocation.

And let me say to my brethren in the ministry-Take care to get a real holiday. Do not preach a solitary sermon, if you can help it. Don't give an address at a prayer meeting. Rest, i.e., rusticate, row, romp, ride. Don't lounge and "idle" about. Get physical exercise, and leave the brain perfectly free. Climb the hills. Swim in the sea. Get on horseback. Be a downright thorough-going "muscular" Christian for one month, and you will be a better "spiritual" Christian all the rest of the year for it. I know somebody who has more than once given his holidays to preaching away from home; but it has always been with a sense of the "exceeding sinfulness" of that "sin," and with not a little genuine repentance afterwards. Beware of the "delusion" which says, "Take care of yourself by coming and rusticating at the sea-side or amongst our hills," and then flings in, as if it were nothing at all, "and preach for us a time or two." It is a snare, notwithstanding a genuine friend may set it. We need a complete and unbroken holiday.

May the God of rest and blessedness so favour us in our quest for bodily strength, that we may come back to our work with our sermons full of the salt of the sea and the breezes of the everlasting hills, and with our lives richer in all the force necessary for doing His joyous work. JOHN CLIFFORD.

PPAYER is

"A breath that fleets beyond this iron world,
And touches Him that made it."

Tennyson's Harold, Act iii., Scene ii.

Our Forthcoming Hymn Book.

A POLYLOGUE.

So many letters have come to hand on the above interesting subject, that we are obliged to select the salient points from each, say a word or two about them, and then leave the many-sided discussion to speak for itself.

H.W.-If your words about the New Hymn Book, Mr. Editor, to the effect that it is to be "the best in all Saxondom" are not to be idle words, it will be necessary to take care that the faults of the existing work are not repeated. We must not have changes introduced in the different and successive editions. Better wait a year or two longer and do the work well, than have such glaring differences as we have now (e.g.) in the different editions of hymns 80, 740, and 855. The first is a stumbling-stone, the second is a rock of offence, and the third is as good as a conundrum if only you have a sufficient number of editions. Alterations should not be necessary after the book is once issued.

Z.-Certainly a denominational hymn book ought to be without "spot or wrinkle,” and I believe I may promise the utmost painstaking on the part of those who have the forthcoming book in charge, to secure a work perfect, from first to last, in these respects.

H. W.-It is also very necessary that care should be taken in correcting for the press. For example, t has been changed to w in Hymn 43 in a late

edition of the Appendix. It is distressing to read,

"We waste thee, O thou living bread;"

though certainly this is not so disastrous a case as one in which an edition of a child's primer was destroyed by the omission of the letter c, the lesson appearing in this form

"When the last trumpet soundeth,

We shall not all die;

But we shall all be hanged

In the twinkling of an eye."

Z.-Oh! dreadful! Poor typo! Did that really occur? Any way, that is a tale that needs no "moral."

H.W.-Let that pass; but I should like to advise that short religious prose poems and theological essays should be conspicuous by their absence.

Z.-You may also let that pass.

R.—But let me say, Mr. Editor, referring to our old book, that I find it is like all others in this-that it has no section headed "Christian Work." This I have found to be a serious defect.

Z.-Nay, nay! That will not do! You are surely mistaken. Look under the headings of "Zeal," "Benevolence," "Courage," etc., and you will find no lack of suitable hymns for this aspect of Christian life. I know you will miss some of the stimulating and inspiring hymns produced within the last twenty years on this subject, but it is for the same reason that you would be missed in a search amongst the men of sixty years ago.

J.B.-Certainly we could not expect in a book published in 1851, hymns that have been born since; but will you allow me to make a suggestion about the contents of the book? Why may it not be a COMPLETE book of praise? It is a pity we should be obliged to have a book of chants and of anthems beside. Let the Psalms printed for chanting, and a good selection of Anthems, be bound up along with the Hymns, so that having it, we may have all we need.

Z.-I quite concur in that. It would not add seriously to the cost of production, or to the price at which the book would sell, to insert, say, 100 or 120 chants, and the words of 30 or 40 anthems; and it would be a great convenience to those congregations now using, or likely to use, chants and anthems. We will return to some other letters about price, name, order of arrangement, etc., next month. JOHN CLIFFORD.