"WHEN OUGHT THE DOOR TO BE CLOSED?" REV. SIR, As the above subject has been resumed by "A Constant Reader" in your valuable "Teacher's Visitor" for this month, I am induced to send you the following, and if you consider it calculated to afford any satisfaction to either of your correspondents on this subject, perhaps you will kindly give it a place in your next number.

The School with which I have been connected for the last twelve years opens in the morning at nine o'clock, with prayers, and in the afternoon at half-past two, with a hymn. When these services commence, the doors are closed, but not bolted; and boys arriving during the time of prayer or praise are allowed quietly to open the door, and to kneel, or stand, (as the case may be) immediately inside, until the conclusion, when they go to their classes. They are of course marked late; and they do not receive the full reward. This plan has worked very well in our school; and its adoption in the school with which your correspondent, "Wm. —,” (in the No. for September last) is connected, would, I think, be a decided improvement.

With many thanks for the valuable services you render us, I remain, Rev. Sir, most respectfully yours, February 9, 1846.

W. M.

York, February 12th, 1846. REV. SIR,-Having observed in your valuable "Teacher's Visi tor" for the present month that the correspondence on the question, "When ought the door to be closed?" is still open, I am induced to offer a few remarks. I have no disposition to dictate to my fellow teachers, but having been connected with Sunday-schools for many years, and observed the inattention and disorder attendant on the admission of parties during the opening services of the school, I venture to make a few observations.

I think that when the psalm or hymn is given out, the duties of the school have fairly commenced, and that the doors ought to be closed, because the entrance of any one attracts the attention of the other children, and disturbs that order which I think ought to be maintained during singing as well as prayer. When the singing is concluded, those who are waiting outside might be admitted, and the door again closed until prayer is over. In the school that I am connected with, all are considered late who are not present when singing commences. To admit children during the singing is calcu lated to make them think lightly of that portion of religious wor ship. They no doubt have it often impressed on their minds by

their teachers, that all our efforts to do or get good are ineffectual without the blessing of God that we cannot have that blessing unless we seek it-and that singing the praises of God, and calling upon his holy name are privileges, the neglect of which is attended with loss to themselves; and therefore whatever tends to weaken that impression must be injurious, and ought to be avoided. To admit teachers and not the children seems to me an act of injustice to the latter, which they are not slow in discerning.

If I understand your correspondent in the "Visitor" for Sep. 1845, he speaks of the singing occupying twenty minutes. This I consider much too long: the singing and prayer together ought not, I think, to exceed that time, if so much, or the children will become restless and inattentive, and there will be but little time for the other exercises of the school, especially where the whole time does not exceed an hour before church time.

With regard to teachers, I think the cases where they are so situated that they cannot attend early are not many. I have almost invariably found that those teachers and children who live at the greatest distance are most regular and punctual in their attendance. This ought not to be the case, yet such is the fact; for I have observed it for some time. But even should difficulties be in the way, let us only feel as we ought our responsibility as teachers, and I am sure we shall use every proper means for their removal.

I would recommend every teacher to read over and reflect seriously on the remarks on "Punctuality" contained in the "Visitor" for February, of the present year; and I am sure, if he be a conscientious teacher, he will be stirred up to renewed diligence in prosecuting the duties of his office, and should he be so unfortunate as to arrive too late for admission before the singing, he will be willing to wait a few minutes, rather than divert the attention of the children, and disturb the order of the school by his entrance.

In order to shew the importance of an early attendance on the part of the Teachers, I would just mention a circumstance which occurred in the school with which I am connected, one Sunday morning. The superintendent observing a boy who looked much dissatisfied, went up to him, and asked what was the matter? "Please, sir," said the boy, "the teacher has marked me late." "Well, my lad, were you here before singing commenced?" "No, sir, but I was here before the teacher."

A TEACHER.

DICTIONARY OF THE BIBLE.

REV. SIR,-What is the best work upon the Liturgy, or entire Services of the Church, explanatory of the Prayers, Collects, &c.? "Bailey's Liturgy compared with the Bible" is, I believe, a good work on the subject.

What work can you recommend as a help to the reading or study of the Scriptures? One by Mr. Nicholls is exceedingly useful, published by the Society for promoting Christian Knowledge. I have "Bickersteth's Scripture Help,” and find it very useful; but what I still want is a kind of key, or dictionary.

A TEACHER. [Perhaps some reader would kindly furnish the information required.-ED.]

ON MOVING IN CLASSES.

REV. SIR,-In looking over the "Teacher's Visitor" for this month, I find in your Notices to Correspondents that the case stated by a "Sunday-school Teacher" is not quite understood by you: allow me to lay it before you as plain and in as brief a way as possible.

In my letter of the 25th Nov. 1845, you will find there are Nos. 4, 5, 6, and 7 classes mentioned, and that the young people's attainments and efficiency in No. 7 class did not merit a removal to No.6 class. As you will be aware that in all schools the lower the number the higher the class—for instance, No. 1 is the highest class in the school, and each successive number a class lower-so it is in our school-and No. 4 class being higher than Nos. 5, 6, and 7, as Nos. 4, 5, and 6 classes were denominated "Bible Classes," and No. 7 a "Testament Class." And the question to which I seek an answer is, Why not remove the young people of No. 7 class to No. 6, and so on to Nos. 5 and 4 respectively, as they merited such removal? and not remove the whole of the young people of No. 7 class, together with the Teacher, to No. 4 class, and the young people and Teachers who were in Nos. 4, 5, and 6 are in what is now denominated Nos. 5, 6, and 7 classes, consequently a class lower in the school; and so remains the case to which I am alluding.

And concluding with these remarks, hoping they will convey to you a clear understanding of what is meant and sought for, and apologising for this trespass on your time, I again subscribe myself, Rev. Sir, A SUNDAY-SCHOOL TEACHER.

Macclesfield, 7th Feb, 1846.

FOSTER, PRINTER, KIRKBY LONSDALE.

THE

TEACHER'S VISITOR.

No. 24.

APRIL, 1846.

VOL. IV.

ADDRESS TO TEACHERS.

SOME of you are TEACHERS. It is much to be lamented that there are so few enthusiasts in this honourable and important work. Many who are engaged in it regard it as a bondage, and sigh for the day which shall finally release them from its drudgery and din. They have never felt that theirs is a high calling, nor do they ever enter the school-room with the inspiring consciousness, that they go as missionaries and pastors there. They undervalue their scholars. Instead of regarding them as all that now exists of a generation as important as our own; instead of recognizing in their present dispositions the mischief or beneficence which must tell on wide neighbourhoods ere a few short years are run; instead of training up immortal spirits and expansive minds for usefulness now, and glory afterward, many Teachers have never seen their pupils in any other light than as so many rows of turbulent rebels, a rabble of necessary torments, a roomfull of that mighty plague with which the Nile of our noisy humanity is all croaking and jumping over. And many undervalue themselves. Instead of recollecting their glorious vocation, and eyeing the cloud of teacher-witnesses with whom they are encompassed; instead of a high-souled zeal for their profession, as that which should form the plastic mind after the finest models of human attainment and Scriptural excellence, many regard their office as so menial that they have always the feeling as if themselves were pedants. To prescribe the task, to hear the lesson, to administer monotonous praise and blame, is the listless round of their official perfunctoriness. But there are few fields of brighter promise than the calling of a

Teacher. If he gives himself wholly to it, if he set before him the highest object of all tuition, the bringing souls to Christ; if he can form a real affection for his scholars, and maintain a parental anxiety for their proficiency and their principles; if he has wisdom enough to understand them, and kindness enough to sympathize with them; if he has sufficient love for learning to have no distaste for lessons, he will be sure to inspire a zeal for study into the minds of many, he will win the love of all except the very few whose hearts are deaf-born, and in a short time the best features of his own character will be multiplying in spheres far-sundered, in the kindred persons of grateful pupils. Should he live long enough, they will praise him in the gate of public life, or cheer his declining days in the homes which he taught them to make happy. Or should he die soon. enough, the rest from his labours will ever and anon be heightened by the arrival of another and another of the children whom God hath given him.

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But without descending to more minute particulars, let me remind you, my friends, that all of you who are members of this church have got a special "business" as the professed disciples of Jesus Christ. In the day when Christ said to you, Arise, follow me," he called you to a life like his own, a life of industry and self-denial, and continual doing good You are a consistent Christian in proportion as you resemble him whose fervent spirit poured out not more in his midnight prayers than in his daily deeds of mercy, and who, whether he disputed with the doctors in the Temple, or conversed with the ignorant stranger at the well, or fed the five thousand with miraculous loaves, or summoned Lazarus from the tomb, was still about his Father's business." They little understand the Christian life, who fancy that a slothful or languid profession will secure an abundant entrance into the heavenly kingdom. If the believer's progress from the cross to the crown be, as it is again and again represented, a race, a wrestling, a warfare, a fight, a continual watching and a constant violence, there is good reason for the exhortations, "give diligence to make your calling and election sure. We desire that every one of you do shew