auxiliary in abating the present deplorable amount of crime-an amount by no means measured or measurable by statistics of committal which can at best but record those offenders who have not managed to escape detection.

HILS

HINTS FOR TEACHING THE LORD'S PRAYER.

HAT drowsy monotony and lifeless dogmas characterise nine tenths of the school teaching of religion. There is nothing so usual among badly educated children as a rote knowledge of the Lord's Prayer. If they can repeat anything they can repeat that. Few indeed understand it, and the reason is, that it is either not explained to them at all, or, so badly explained that they profit nothing by the explanation, and would have been just as wise

without it.

We are not about to give or venture to offer any hints to clergymen, or to any people who may deem themselves with justice quite as fit to teach great truths as ourselves; but we offer our aid simply to those who really feel that they need some help in improving their mode of instruction, and who feel the great importance of making children pray with an understanding mind, and with their hearts as well as their lips.

The words 'Our Father' should be shown to have special reference to the close relationship in which God places us to Him. He is not only The Father but Ours. Refer to Gal. iii. 26; John i. 12; Gal. iv. 4—6; and John xx. 17, as proofs of this. Mark the singular number throughout the prayer Thy will be done;' show its analogy to the 1st commandment, impress on children the consistent loving kindness of God to them as his children. 'Hallowed be thy name.' Explain that hallow means to keep holy. Children generally say that we are to make it holy. Teach them that this passes human power Refer to 3rd commandment. Psalm cxi. 9. 'Thy Kingdom come.' .* Explain this as a desire for the time when earth shall pass away, and there shall be Heaven in its stead. Psalm ii. 8. Take every occasion to divest death of the terror with which it is too often clothed. Represent it as the simple extinction of the outer body, and the passage of the soul and spirit into a new sphere of being, where, in our several states, we await the coming of our Lord which is the coming of the kingdom we pray for. Strip this transition from the troubles, trials, and corporal infirmities of this life, of all dread except to the wicked, who have indeed cause to fear the kingdom to come, and who pray for their own condemnation whenever they repeat the Lord's prayer. Refer to Psalm cix. 7.

* Baoiλeía. means 'reign.' It should have been so translated.

Amos v. 12, 18. Thy will be done means no more than a fitting submission to that Divine law which is the law of life. Make them quote Matt. vii. 21. Occasion should be taken to impress strongly on childrens' minds that this is a working world. That work is the great test of duty and touchstone of profession. For work is the 'will' we pray is to be done. Nothing is more fully set out in the New Testament. Four-fifths of it are full of exhortation to works. A certain party of religionists have run riot on faith alone: we can be no more saved by faith alone than by works alone. There must be both as far as our powers permit. As in Heaven.' No rational man can doubt that Heaven is full of activity. It has been an immemorial fashion to paint it as a place of rest, where angels are idling about on pink clouds playing on lutes. These conventional pictures should be tabooed; and children taught that in Heaven there will be endless happiness, but that that happiness so far from consisting in idleness, will certainly be combined with active usefulness, though more is not revealed. In commenting on the duty of submission as expressed in the words 'Thy will be done,' refer to Christ's own use of these words in His agony in the garden. Matt. xxvi. 39, 42, 44. Point to the source whence alone strength to do God's 'will' comes. Heb. xiii. 21.

Give us this day our daily bread. We believe that this like Agar's prayer (Prov. xxx. 8.) is one solely for food, clothing, and temporal wants. We know Tertullian says, spiritualiter potius intelligamus: Christus enim panis noster est, &c. But we believe him to have been wrong, and Jeremy Taylor (a much sounder divine) right; and Taylor refers this petition to temporal things only. It seems to have escaped the self-styled 'evangelical' critics, that the wording of the prayers confines it strictly to present wants. It is this day's bread.* Do they mean to hold that we are to limit our prayer for Christ and grace to to-day? The limitation of the prayer for food to the time being as Taylor admirably shows, is intended doubtless to teach us a moderate desire for earthly blessings, and to enforce the duty of letting no lust for such things interfere with our service of God, trusting to Him to take thought for the morrow, and placing our dependence on Him for it. Guard against the possible error of indolence in worldly matters. 'If any would not work neither shall he eat.' 2 Thess. iii. 10. Prov. xxviii. 19. We pray for grace and spiritual gifts further on, and God's prayers contain no repetitions like ours.

Bishop Miles Coverdale, wishing to maintain this erroneous version of the petition, wilfully mistranslates it in his metrical paraphrase, and alters the sense in this very particular. He gives it thus:

:

And geve us ever oure daily bred,
Both for our body and soul also;
And let us with thy worde be fed,
That we be never kept therefro, &c.

SIR,

DECIMAL COINAGE.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE ENGLISH JOURNAL OF EDUCATION.

There is, to say the very least, something peculiar in the course pursued by your Correspondent, the advocate of the twenty-penny system of decimal coinage. He assumes the province of setting me "right," to use his own expression, on two matters of fact; and then, apparently for the purpose of putting an end to the discussion without allowing me the opportunity to answer, says I must decline further controversy on these points. If he is to have the right of assertion in a matter of this kind, I am sure, Sir, you will not deny me the right of reply. I may be able to show that these "two matters of fact" are already right, and that your Correspondent is going wrong himself in endeavouring to saddle me with the misconception.

The following are the points at issue, and as they are presented in the words of my late opponent, they will afford some idea of the off-hand style in which they are treated :

"First. A basis of any value whatever, and consequently one of twenty pence, divided into 100 centimes, gives a purely decimal system, whatever Mr. Hammond thinks he has shown to the contrary."

"Second. The decimal system recommended by the Parliamentary Committee, and advocated by Mr. Hammond, involves the depreciation of the existing copper money four per cent. which of course includes the penny, notwithstanding Mr. Hammond's assertion that it is a 'mistaken notion.'

Now, Sir, the logical corrections of the assertion by which I am set right on the first point might very fairly be questioned; but as I can get at the meaning intended to be conveyed, it is unnecessary to introduce another element into the discussion. It is there asserted that the twenty-penny system is purely decimal. Allow me to refer to the first letter of this gentleman, in which he expounds the principles of his plan, and then to ask him whether no other scale than the purely decimal is used in the imaginary adoption of the twenty-penny basis. He says, in opening the subject, "If instead of reckoning our pence by dozens, which we call shillings, and those again by scores, which we designate pounds, we happened to count our pence by scores, and the scores by dozens, a coin of twenty pence would be substituted for the shilling in our accounts, and it would simply require the further coinage of the fifth of a penny to furnish us with a perfect decimal system, based on a unit of twenty pence in value."

In my letters I submitted that a system having such a basis, and of a nature thus explained, would not be decimal at all. I might, perhaps, have been less sweeping, and have denied that it could be a "perfect decimal system." When, however, your Correspondent, in setting me right, asserts, or intends to assert, that a basis of whatever value, divided into a hundred parts, is capable of giving a purely decimal coinage," he is undoubtedly correct; and it is unnecessary to pretend to put me right in a matter in which our views coincide. It is the misapplication of the " consequently" in the case in question which I repudiate now, as I did the assertion itself in my previous letter. The above extract shows that it would be necessary to reckon the new coins of twenty pence by dozens; therefore the perfection with purity of the decimal scale are destroyed. A professor, Dr. Morgan, says it is better to have no change than one which only half affects the object sought. To assert that the twenty-penny system is purely decimal is scarcely more consistent than saying that were we in our avoirdupois weight to make 16 drams 1 ounce, and 10 ounces 1 pound, we should have a purely decimal division in that weight, although 112 lbs. may make 1 cwt. and 20 cwt. 1 ton.

Now, Sir, for the consideration of the mistaken notion, the existence of which I still maintain. If1 am told the pound and mil system "renders the depreciation of the existing copper money 4 per cent." I can understand the depreciation of bills of credit under the operation of certain contingencies, the depreciation of a paper currency unless convertible into specie, and the depreciation of estates in the hands of tenants on short leases; but I cannot apply the same principle to a penny piece, the possessor of which, so long as he legally holds it, would alway be able to obtain to the full his quid pro quo. Six penny pieces, while they remain the current coin of the realm, will always fetch the worth of the fourth of the florin, or 2 cents 5 mils (2 cents), and consequently cannot be said to

depreciate in value. I might with as much propriety assert of the system of which your Correspondent is the exponent, that its adoption as a purely decimal system involves the depreciation of the gold money 91 per cent. This result must surely appear ridiculous; and yet if the calculation is made upon the principle applied to the " copper money,' such it really is. If this notion of the depreciation then be acknowledged, how vastly superior must the pound and mil system, with its four per cent. of loss, be to the twentypenny system, with its loss of ninety-one and one-third per cent.

But again let us confine our consideration to the copper coins, and compare our friend's new piece, the fifth of a penny, with its corresponding coin, the farthing. Here, upon his depreciatory principle, the extent of loss would amount to twenty

per cent.

Here then again is a preference in favour of the pound and mil system, and that to the extent of sixteen per cent.

Now, Sir, having put the "two matters of fact" before your readers in a proper light, I may further be allowed to make a few remarks upon the contemptuous manner in which your correspondent dismisses the subject. Declining further controversy seems to imply that my attempt to put the subject before the public in its true form and in opposition to the views of the writer in question was a gratuitous undertaking as far as that public was concerned, and a vexatious intermeddling with the plans of the twentypenny advocates. But, Sir, the real position of the matter is just the reverse of this. Your number for February contained a very sensible article on the subject, in which the following sentence occurs,- "Nine-tenths of all who have given a thought to the subject concur in the opinion that the pound and mil system is the only one possible, and if the Government would only announce that they have decided on that system, though the immediate carrying it out be postponed, no small step in advance would be made." This article, the aim of which was rather to present the importance of the subject to teachers, than to oppose the views of those who advocated particular and peculiar schemes, was followed in the succeeding number by the article on the twenty-penny system. Although, it is true, this exposition was subscribed with the writer's name, it held so prominent a place in the pages of the Journal that it was only natural its fallacies would be pointed out. Thus, Sir, arose the discussion the result of which has been so precipitately declared by your correspondent.

I will only add, for his satisfaction, that I have perused the Report of the Decimal Coinage Commissioners; and not only Lord Overstone's questions, but Professor De Morgan's answers to them. When writing to one of our educational periodicals, published on the 1st of July, I stated "Perhaps Professor De Morgan never appeared to greater advantage than in the complete answers he has given to the sixty-five questions proposed by the noble banker, which, from his lordship's position as one of the three Royal Commissioners appointed to inquire into the desirability of introducing the decimal system into our currency, might, without being so ably answered, have not only influenced the question in the minds of the public, but might have retarded the introduction for a generation, or till schoolmasters set earnestly about teaching the simple beauties of the system, and spreading an acquaintance with the advantages which it possesses over the present ugly, cumbersome, and unscientific scheme."

August 30th, 1857.

I am, Sir,

Yours very truly,

WM. HAMMOND.

CONNECTION OF SCHOOL WITH HOME FEELINGS.-The more we can engraft and connect the school with home feelings the better; and I trust the time will come when the poor man will look upon a provision for his child's instruction as a part of his own household expenditure-just as much so as of food and clothing. The wages of the labouring man ought to be equal to all his decent wants-food, clothing, shelter, and education; and the less which is required from others in order to help him to accomplish this, the more independent and happy he will be. That state of a community is the most healthy, in which the wages of labour of the honest and industrious working man are equal to all his wants, and where he thinks it his Christian duty to provide for, and make them a part of, his family expenditure.-Effective Primary Instruction.