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rates it from the worthless. What is it which thus tries man? Is it harder to keep your temper when you are encouraged, or when you are provoked? "When I am provoked." When is it more difficult to be patient-when you are well, or when you are ill? "When 1 am ill." It is easy to profess to be a Christian when you are among Christians, is it not? Yes, sir." But is it easy when you are in the shop? No, sir." Why not? "Because they laugh at me." But being provoked-being ill-being laughed at—are, what you call them? "TRIALS." And trials, you told me, are? "Tribu lation." If your religion, then, is like the chaff-light and good for nothing -this tribulation will blow it away.

Tribulation, then, means WINNOWING; and trials are so called, because they tend to separate the good from the evil. This might, then, be illustrated from the Scripture. Reference might be made to the people who shouted "Hosanna!" when Christ made his triumphal entry into Jerusalem, and "Crucify him!" a few days afterwards, when they found that to follow him must expose them to suffering; to the seed sown upon the stony ground; to the different effect of trials on Joseph, Peter, Demas; and so the truth be confirmed, that TRIALS purify a true faith, and scatter a false one to the winds; and that, for this reason, the early Christian writers called it by the name of "tribulatio," or winnowing.

Sometimes it may be well to draw the picture in its outline, before you begin to question. Children will attend to such teaching, if it be life-like, varied, minute, and real. Take the next idea in this passage-" being cheerful in tribulation." Let us suppose ourselves (one might say) inside a prison, eighteen hundred years ago. Prisons are bad enough now, but they were terrible then-cold, filthy dungeons, with no light or air but what came through a hole in the wall, and nothing to lie on but the ground. Let us look into one of the cells. There lies one victim in irons. His thoughts are of his home, his wife, his children. They are crying for him, but he shall never see them again. There is another going to be put to death to-morrow. He has no Bible, poor fellow! nothing to cheer him. He does not know what to think of. His only companion is a spider, which he is watching making its net across the air-hole of his cell. But, hark! there are two men singing in the next cell. Listen, they are singing praises ! and see. Can they be prisoners? Let us go What it is the worst cell in the prison; and look, their feet are made fast in the stocks; they are lying with their legs cramped; and see, there is blood upon their garments; they have been cruelly beaten, and yet they are singing praises to God! Who are they?" Paul and Silas" would be the ready answer. Where "One of great sufare they? "At Philippi." What is their condition? fering." They are in great? "Tribulation." And yet they are? Of good cheer." See, then, how Christ gives "joy in the Holy Ghost, even in much affliction,"

NEVER TELL TOO MUCH.

Do not tell the learner too much about a subject, and puzzle him with many things, before he has understood the first principles; do not aim at being wonderfully profound in your first explanations, but reserve your profundity for subsequent stages. Even extreme accuracy may be dispensed with at first; it is not wise to puzzle the learner with little niceties and refinements, when he is convulsively grasping at anything like an approximate idea of the matter in hand. You will not mislead him by using or permitting an expression which is not quite technically accurate; the mistake will not fix itself upon his mind, for he is not giving his attention to that little point in which the inaccuracy lies: he is not yet able to appreciate nice distinctions and petty exceptions. The first thing is to give him a rough general idea of the subject; and when he has mastered that, you may proceed to enlarge, refine, and dive deep. There are some teachers who cannot hold their peace when occasion requires, but seem impelled by their nature to tell all they know upon every subject they touch upon; the consequence is, that the learner, being unable to discriminate between the essential and the non-essential, is overwhelmed with the mass of learning, and instead of having a clear idea of the main points, has an indistinct recollection of many things.-Everett's Philosophy of Teaching.

THE BEST KIND OF KNOWLEDGE THE EASIEST
OF ATTAINMENT.

Every man ought to try to get as much knowledge as he can on all subjects; for knowledge is power, and it is not good for the soul to be without it. But how small a portion of knowledge can the most industrious acquire ! We do not, however, say, with

"Athena's wisest son

All that we know is, nothing can be known."

That is not true. We can know something; but how little compared with what is known by beings who occupy a higher sphere! And how little of that which we call knowledge really deserves the name! Hypothesis, conjecture, speculation, constitute no inconsiderable portion of what we call philosophy. Even in religion some are found frequently to dogmatize when it would be better for them to doubt. It is well for us that we are not bound, as Chillingworth says, to know the meaning of a million points contained in Divine revelation. It is fortunate, indeed, that necessary knowledge comprehends but a few points, and those easily comprehended, and as easily attainable. We can be saved through the atonement of Christ, without being able to explain its philosophy. We may repent, and believe the Gospel, without being skilled in the schools of divinity. We may know our Bible true," without the capacity of producing the evidences by which its Divine origin is demonstrated. The masses of mankind cannot find the time, they have not the capacity, they are not in the circumstances, to make the investigation of the scholar, or to master the

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systems which a human learning has formed. But the man never lived, no matter how obscure his station, how dull his intellect, how pressing his engagements, who could not acquire knowledge enough to save his soul alive. Let him have an honest, docile, earnest mind, and the most unlettered may take honors in the school of Christ.

"No matter how dull the scholar whom He

Takes into His school, and gives him to see;
A wonderful fashion of teaching He hath,

And wise to salvation He makes us through faith."

Some such views as these led that great light of the old British pulpit, Bishop Sanderson, to remark, at the close of one of his sermons :

"We may puzzle ourselves in the pursuit of knowledge, dive into the mysteries of all arts and sciences, especially engulf ourselves deep in the studies of those three highest professions of physic, law, and divinity: for physic, search into the writings of Hippocrates, Galen, and the methodists, of Avicen and the empirics, of Paracelsus and the chemists; for law, wrestle through the large bodies of both laws, civil and canon, with the vast tomes of glosses, repertories, responses, and commentaries thereon, and take in the reports and year-books of our common law to boot; for divinity, get through a course of councils, fathers, schoolmen, casuists, expositors, controversers of all sorts and sects. When all is done, after much weariness to the flesh, and, in comparison thereof, little satisfaction to the mind; for the more knowledge we gain by all this travel, the more we discern our own ignorance, and thereby but increase our own sorrows: the short of all is this, and when I have said it I have done,-you shall evermore find-try it when you will-temperance the best physic, patience the best law, and a good conscience the best divinity."-Wesleyan Sunday School Magazine.

FAITH OF CHILDHOOD.

How beautiful and lovely is the confiding faith of a little one! Behold a little darling applying to his ear the convolutions of a smooth-lipped shell. He deems he hears the murmurings of the distant sea,—with what rapture does he listen,-how his little eyes gleam on you in surprise and wonder; how delightful is faith to him, so glad, so joyous, receives he the tidings of the unknown world. Call this not credulity, but a divinity that stirs within us-the longings of the soul for its native home. Oh! damp not this pure faith, but use it as one of the first instruments of teaching. In conveying instruction, it is a most important point always to bear in mind, that far more may be done by exciting the sympathy of a child, than by appealing to its reason. Things indeed should always be presented to it in a garb of truth and good sense; but unless its feelings are in unison with its convictions, it may be perfectly persuaded of truths, without being influenced by them in practice.

A SCHOOLMÁSTER IN PARLIAMENT.

THE electors of Berlin have chosen a schoolmaster for their representative, and in so doing have entered a protest against the system which has been long at work-before 1848-undermining the national schools, formerly the pride of Prussia. Herr Diesterweg was director of the seminary for the training of national schoolmasters in Berlin. In this capacity he had shown peculiar powers, and under him the Berlin seminary not only rose to an unprecedented degree of efficiency, but gave the tone to the other training schools throughout the country. This success gave umbrage to the Reactionary Minister of Education, Eichhorn; and he endeavored in every way to thwart the director. Diesterweg, conscious of the value of the work which he was doing, bore with much. But not only was his position made uncomfortable to himself, but his utility was destroyed by forcing upon him assistant masters who would not work in harmony with his views, and he consented to be placed "at disposition." This was before 1848. In 1850, questions were asked in the Chamber why so valuable a teacher remained unemployed. The then minister of Education, Ladenberg, also a man of the Reaction, offered Diesterweg an inferior post-that of Schulrath at Stolpe, in Pomerania. A civil servant, placed zur disposition, is obliged to take any government employment which is offered him, or to resign the salary of his former office, which he continues to enjoy as long as he is z. d. Diesterweg, who had no mind to be exiled to Pomerania, resigned, and has since employed himself in editing an educational periodical, and in preparing popular books on natural science, &c., for the use of schools. That he will be useful in the Chamber, even on his own special subject, is hardly anticipated. It is not thought that he possesses parliamentary tact or weight enough to get attention, though doubtless the national schools, as much as any other department, demand that "hand of improvement" of which the Prince's address spoke. It is however, an encouraging sign that the subject is not overlooked.-The Times Berlin Correspondent.

THE LANGUAGE OF ANIMALS.

"THAT animals have each a language of their own to one another," says James Hogg," (the Ettrick Shepherd"), in his sermons, "there can be no doubt. I know a good deal of their language myself. I know by the voice of the raven when he has discovered one of my flock dead-I know also his prelude to the storm and to fine weather. The moor-fowls call one another from hill to hill. I learned to imitate their language so closely that I could have brought scores of them within the range of my shot of a morning, The blackcock has a call, too, which brings all his motley mates around him, but the females have no call. They are a set of subordinate beings, like the wives of a nabob. They dare not even incubate upon the same hill with their haughty lords. But the partridge, and every mountain bird, have a language to each other, and though rather circumscribed, it is perfectly understood, and, as Wordsworth says, 'not to me unknown. Even the

stupid and silly barn door hen, when the falcon appears, can, by one single alarm note, make all her chickens hide in a moment. Every hen tells you when she has laid her egg; and lest it should not be well enough heard or understood, the cock exerts the whole power of his lungs in divulging the important secret. The black-faced ewe, on the approach of a fox or a dog, utters a whistle through her nostrils which alarms all her comrades, and immediately puts them upon the look out. Not one of them will take another bite until they discover whence the danger is approaching. If the dog be with a man, sundry of them utter a bleat which I know well, but cannot describe, and begin feeding again. If the dog is by himself, they are more afraid of him than any other animal, and then you will again hear the whistle repeated through the whole glen.

But the acuteness of the sheep's ear surpasses all things in nature that I know of. A ewe will distinguish her own lamb's bleat among a thousand all braying at the same time, and making a noise a thousand times louder than the singing of psalms at a Cameronian sacrament in the fields, where thousands are congregated-and that is no joke either. Besides the distinguishment of voice is perfectly reciprocal between the ewe and the lamb, who amid the deafening sound, run to meet one another. There are few things have ever amused me more than a sheep-shearing, and the sport continues the whole day. We put the flock into a fold, set out all the lambs to the hill, and then send out the ewes to them as they are shorn. The moment that a lamb hears its dam's voice, it rushes from the crowd to meet her, but instead of finding the rough, well-clad, mamma, which it left an hour, or a few hours ago, it meets a poor, naked shriveling-a most deplorable looking creature. It wheels about, and uttering a loud, tremulous bleat of perfect despair, flies from the frightful vision. The mother's voice arrests its flight-it returns-flies, and returns again, generally for ten or a dozen times before the reconcilement is fairly made up.

SEARCH INTO THE HUMAN MIND.

THE value of mental Philosophy, is thus pointed out by Burke, in his Essay on the "Sublime and Beautiful"-The more accurately we search into the human mind, the stronger traces we everywhere find of His WISDOM, who made it. If a discourse on the use of the parts of the body may be considered as an hymn to the CREATOR, the use of the passions, which are the organs of the mind; cannot be barren of praise to Him, nor unproductive to ourselves of that noble and uncommon union of science and admiration, which a contemplation of the works of INFINITE WISDOM alone can afford to a rational mind; whilst, referring to him whatever we find of right, or good, or fair, in ourselves, discovering His strength and wisdom in our weakness and imperfection, honoring them, where we discover them. clearly, and adoring their profundity, where we are lost in our search, we may be inquisitive, without impertinence, and elevated without pride; we may be admitted, if I may dare to say so, into the counsels of the ALMIGHTY, by a consideration of HIS WORKS. The elevation of the mind, ought to be the principal end of all our studies, which if they do not in some measure effect, they are of very little service to us.

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