the like.* The answer, doubtless, is in the book in the child's hand, or under his eye, and therefore you may say, it is not much that he should be able to give it,—very true: but it is a good deal, and you will find it so, that you have brought him to look for it, and to fix his eye upon it that he may give it, and then to utter it with his own lips; for he will thus have learnt to fix his attention upon one thing at a time. The little matter which he has told you he will remember, which is better than having a wise saying of yours to forget, and he will have taken the first step towards giving his mind to the subject matter of his reading; whereas the most he knew before, or sought to know, was that such or such a combination of letters indicated such or such a sound. This is the first step: let us now take another. A difficult or unusual word is to be explained : in the parable of the two men who went up into the temple to pray, you ask perhaps what is a publican? The child cannot tell, or tells you wrong. It is very easy for you to set him right; but why do that, when it is much better and very possible to make him inform or correct himself. He will re * Jesus-seeing-the multitudes-went up-into a mountain. Whom did Jesus see? Who saw the multitudes ? When Jesus saw the multitudes, what did he do? Who went up? Where did he go up? When did Jesus go up into a mountain? &c. &c.-Bell's Instructions, p. 83. member, if you ask him, that there were twelve apostles, that one of them was a publican, and that his name was Matthew. And he can tell you then where Matthew was sitting, and what he was doing when Christ called him. He will thus have been brought to refer to two passages at least of his former reading; and what he has thereby himself collected he will hold fast. And besides this, you will have entered him upon a practice which you will soon be able to carry much further, to his great profit and great delight; that, I mean, of the collation or comparison of scripture with scripture. It would astonish an inexperienced person to see how much very young children may acquire in this way, and how much a whole school may be interested by it. In the first place, they get imperceptibly a knowledge of words and a fuller vocabulary; and so one of the peculiar difficulties which every one will meet with who attempts to instruct the children of very ignorant parents, will be in a good degree overcome : his pupils will be able to explain themselves to him in a way which their original poverty of dialect at first prevented, to the great hindrance and fatigue of both parties. But better far than this, they will not only come to treasure up a great deal of scripture in their memories, they will come to a good and profitable understanding of it to sound and simple, and, in time, very en larged views of divine truth. When a child produces one text to expound another, he puts what he remembers to use, he goes to work with it, and gets something out of it. Through collation of two passages he remembers both; and his memory is of the sense, and of the words, as expressing that sense. People sometimes wonder at the quantity even of long passages which children will quote and repeat. This is the way, however, by which they are brought to it, and not by setting them down to learn passages by rote. And how much the method excites and interests them, and, at the same time, how easy it is to store their memories by means of it, may be seen in this, which, in the church, it is often necessary to check; that when, in answer to a question, one child begins to quote a text, many more invariably, and often the whole school, instantly, and with a natural sympathy, go along with him in the utterance of it to the end. Let me, however, As the two men refer to the parable once more. went into the temple to pray, you will naturally be reminded to instil into the child some simple view of what prayer is, and of the spirit which begets it and befits it best, and is necessary to it. But it will be to little purpose to make a speech to this effect; neither is there any need for it. In answer to your question, the child can tell - you what the two men went into the temple professedly to do. If an illustration is wanted, so familiar an object as the hungry beggar in the street will supply one; and the child can quote a text in which praying is expounded by other expressions, as "asking," in order to receive, and "seeking," in order to find. When he has told you whose house the temple was, he need not be informed who is to be addressed in prayer. And looking at the parable again, and repeating what the pharisee and the publican severally said and did he can state to you that the one, in fact, did ask or seek for mercy, whilst the other asked for nothing; consequently that the one actually did pray whilst the other forgot his errand. And then you may readily get it out of him how it so came to pass, and what was so acceptable to God in the behaviour of the one party, and so offensive in the behaviour of the other. For the one called himself a sinner, as sensible of his need of mercy, and stood afar off as conscious of his unworthiness, whilst the other only railed and boasted. And so the child has learnt what thoughts of himself he must put out of his mind, and what humility and contrition befit him, when he would pray; and since it is so clear that he has no claim or merit of his own, he will soon tell you also that he needs an advocate. I say, this method will do more for a child than the plainest sermon whilst he is a child; and when he shall become a man he will put away childish things. The catechist, I mean, may deliver him over to the preacher. The first fruits of your labours, if you shall have persevered in the work, will be, that you will have trained up a body of hearers, attached to your persons, and to your ministry, and to the church also-and its usages and formularies—whom it will be easy to instruct further and to edify by sermons, and whom the adversaries of the truth will not easily corrupt. They are not to go out of the world, but the seed will have been sown in their hearts which, under the divine blessing, will keep them from the evil. Should their lot be cast among any who make open mock at sin, or deny the Lord that bought them, or impugn any plain and fundamental verity -all this will strike their minds at once as manifest contradiction to what they have been taught. The clear texts which in their obvious sense do actually disprove it all-and which they have a thousand times alleged with their own lips to prove the contrary, are still in their memoriesand they will not be imposed upon by the mere effrontery of such as they know to be putting darkness for light and light for darkness. But you will possess their confidence-as wise master builders, you have already laid the one sound |