arrangement of the Church Catechism, it contains short expositions of most of the subjects treated of in it; and in point of doctrine and simplicity, and even in phraseology, will be found not to have departed from it. The Catechism being considered as the text, the greater part of these pieces are the exposition and comment upon that text; and in practice I have found continual occasion to refer to the Catechism as an expounder of the selections.

As Evening Schools afford, as I have said, almost the only opportunity a clergyman has of giving any thing like a regular course of instruction to a great number of the youth of both sexes, and as they are a popular and pleasing entertainment during the evenings of the winter months, it is very important to adopt every suggestion that shall make them more pleasing and efficient.

If the gift of knowledge be given to any of us while others are destitute, let us be "ready to distribute, willing to communicate1." There are great numbers, the soil of whose hearts requires only

1 1 Tim. vi. 18.

cultivation to be made fruitful; and who, with lessons of prudence and religious principles properly engrafted, would be capable of adorning their station in life; but who, from the neglect, or ignorance, or want of opportunity, in their parents, and from the indifference of masters, are growing up without any sound maxims of religion and prudence, at least without any strong persuasives to forsake the foolish and live. And how

many are there, the " noble flame" of whose hearts is repressed or forced into a wrong direction, merely from the want of a fostering hand to nourish and guide it, having not in themselves the skill to form a system for their own government out of the Scriptures, not to distinguish rightly between the grandeur of the natural and of the spiritual man.

Any thing after the Bible is but a trifling assistance for these ends, but any thing that shall convey the precepts of the Bible, in a new or systematic and explanatory form, may be of important use in storing the mind with just sentiments and governing principles.

As I found no book to my hand of the kind I wanted, I made my own selections. Defective

as they may be counted, they have served my purpose according to my views. And as the

hearts of men answer to one another as face answers to face in a glass, it is to be hoped that these selections, which were made for one class of youth, may be found equally suited to every other; and that, while made for a particular purpose, they may be found generally useful.

I wish, in conclusion, to bear my testimony in contradiction of the supposed ill-effects of using the Scriptures for a school-book. I believe that these ill-consequences exist only in some men's imagination. I confess I have been astonished to behold the readiness with which boys, that have passed regularly through the National Schools, and might be supposed to know the Scriptures almost by heart, have, of their own accord, voluntarily put themselves into the Scripture classes, in the Evening and Sunday Schools, to read the same chapters they have been used to, with boys who were spelling their way through the verses. Long habit and the absence of any better entertainment can alone account for this,

but the opposite of an acquired dislike, is manifest; and, considering that almost the whole of a school-boy's knowledge has been drawn from the Scriptures, and that these are still the depository of all his learning, and that his knowledge thus derived is, as he must be sensible, really great and valuable, would it be possible for him really to regard with any other sensation than pleasure and pride that book which thus contains his all, that knowledge that sets him infinitely above the rest of the creatures, and in which he feels himself superior to many even of his kinsmen and elders.

But to the good effects of these Scriptural readings I can bear the most pleasing testimony; and to give a reason, Let me ask what is this book but the Scripture of truth?" but a book containing only truth, as opposed to error and fiction? It also sets heavenly things and eternal life in that conspicuous and predominant view, that all things else seem small beside them. And just such appears to me to be the high station that truth and the things of heaven and eternity have

acquired, and possess in the minds of those who have been early and continually read in the Scriptures of truth. There is such a greatness and reality in all that is contained in the Scriptures, they have such a fixed and enduring hold upon the mind and the affections, because there" is truth and no lie ""-things of immortal consequences, fit themes for immortal souls-that they are "like a nail fastened in a sure place, that cannot be moved"." And in the mind so possessed with truth and impressed with the prospect of an eternity, all things else, whether history or fiction, seem to be brought to the truth and eternal duration as to a test, and being found wanting in interest and value, are rejected. Minds habituated only to the truth cannot abide a grave fiction. Thus the stories of the Arabian Nights have been represented to me as "such nonsense;" and histories, as relations merely of the events of time and of passing interest, do not meet with such eager reception as might be expected. The fact

1 1 John ii. 27.

2 Isa. xxii. 23. 25.