foundation, and now, as you list, you may build thereon. You may reason with them out of the scriptures, for they know the scriptures and are capable of hearing reason. You may quote the scriptures-use scripture terms, illustrate, at your pleasure, by scripture similitudes and scripture history; and they will not wonder, with the utterly ignorant, to whom he that speaketh is a barbarian; nor cry out, with the self-conceited, what will these babblers say?—Nor will they be in the condition of those who, because general heads have never been explicated to them, estimate a sermon by the presence or absence of the phrases of a party-which phrases they themselves cannot render into other language, and therefore can never have obtained any definite instruction from them. Your hearers, on the contrary, will admit your authorities and your vouchers. They will be familiar with the facts which you adduce. Words will stand for something in their minds, and scriptural allusions be recognised and understood. And with hope you may advance to application and exhortation, having so thoroughly made good your ground.

By open catechising in the church, very much may also be done for remedy of the difficulties which are continually besetting you, in consequence of the defective and perhaps utterly neglected education of the grown members of your congre

gations. I do not stay to inquire how often this exercise can be attended to; or how far it may be made to consist in particular cases with your other labours. But to men earnest in their calling, whose care is not to justify their own failures, but to avail themselves as they may of every facility for usefulness-to such, I commend an instrument which may very well aid their purpose. You cannot be as minute in catechetical instruction in the church as you must be in the school. But having in the school ascertained what the measure of the children's knowledge is, you can make them produce it in the church, and you can add, as I have said, your own brief remarks as they are called for. And thus all the people of your charge will have the benefit of an easy and familiar method:-you will have an opportunity you much want of instilling instruction drop by drop, into ignorant adults as well as into ignorant children; and you will be enabled, with almost equal ease and advantage, to arrest and fix their attention. For next to being asked a question ourselves, nothing awakens and interests us more than hearing others questioned. There will be curiosity to catch the child's reply. A thought can scarcely fail to cross the listener how he should reply himself, or whether he could reply. Many are glad to get information without the risk of exposing present ignorance; and when

the information is watched and waited for, it is retained. Most people take pleasure in contemplating the efforts of children; and here the auditory is composed of persons who regard the very children before them with a peculiar solicitude. The parents of many are observing the develope

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ment of their faculties and so are the friends and supporters of the school; and here, therefore, I may add, the gain will become reciprocal. As you make your instructions, through the children, both useful and interesting to your congregations, you at the same time support and benefit your school. The parents will co-operate with you when they see what their children get, and contributions will come in more cheerfully, as it is found that your own pains have not been spared-and as pious and candid persons have opportunity to judge for themselves of the nature and proper tendency of the instruction given and acquired.

I grant you, my reverend brethren, that what I have been recommending will require some study and time and labour-but if this be an objection, let me, in part at least, reply to it. Your object is not to excuse yourselves from labour, but only to see that you are expending your strength to the best advantage. Then to those of you especially who are my juniors in the ministry, being, I believe, the majority here present, I will point out one more benefit derivable from catechising: not

only will you, by means of it, make your people better hearers-the practice, I will presume to assure you, will make yourselves readier writers and better preachers: you will find, upon trial, that there is no better way of analysing and studying a portion of scripture or a head of doctrine, in order to discourse upon it, than by breaking it up, if I may so express myself, in the manner required for the purpose of instilling it, by little and little, into the weak and uninformed. You will master the matter in this way for yourselvesmany useful lights will come in upon your own minds in the process-you will see how truth may be best submitted to your hearers, and what they want to make it plain to them. When the school questioning is over, you will have collected so many materials and made so many experiments on the best method of arranging them, and so have possessed both your mind and your feelings with the subject, that you will be just in a condition to write upon it, fully and clearly and impressively; and you will be full, moreover, of matter and good thoughts, which you may carry with you from house to house, in your private visitings of your flock, to great advantage. "The truth as it is in Jesus" you understand, but it is another thing to know how to impart it, and you will surely fail in your attempts to impart it to the ignorant unless some method be taken by

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you to acquaint yourselves with their minds. Be this, however, as it may, what I have been pleading for, is a main branch of our proper work, and the night cometh when we can work no longer. We stand too, at this present moment, as Paul did at Ephesus; "a great door and effectual is opened to us" if we be zealous of our calling; and at the same time "there are many adversaries."* If we care to serve God and our country, and to do good to the souls of men, we occupy a position in which we may do it. A large body, and I believe a growing body, of the honesty, and intelligence, and wisdom, and power, and true piety of the country, is with the national church and with her ministers. But many watch for our halting, and stand ready to avail themselves of our errors and neglects; if any instrument lie unemployed by which we might build and plant, it will be seized upon to pull down and to destroy; and if we give occasion to the adversary to speak reproachfully, he will not pass it by. If our own rights are to be respected now, the correlative services must be strictly rendered; and if our institutions are to stand, it must be through our making it unquestionable that too much good is done by them to be lightly hazarded. Compassed about, as we are, by so great a cloud of witnesses, we must not disappoint the

* 1 Cor. xvi. 9.