no permanent good can be accomplished in a School, for reverence is the handmaid to devotion. No one would forbid an occasional smile, or brightness of demeanour, for indeed it would be impossible to gain the confidence of the young without this; but there may, and must be, reverence co-existing with cheerfulness. If men and women feel strongly the importance of teaching and know how vast the issues are that depend on the way in which the work is done, they will so bear themselves that the atmosphere is charged with this spirit. IV. THE ATMOSPHERE SHOULD BE FULL OF LOVE. It has already been said that the great strength of our Sunday School work consists in the fact of its being a labour of love, pure and simple. Yet to enter our Schools, one would not always imagine this to be the case. The wrinkled brow, the fretful look, the harsh impatient gesture, the voice raised in loud and angry expostulation— still worse, the push or blow-all these are so many nonconductors of the electric current of love that is an omnipotent agent for good. It is impossible to overrate the importance of Love as a motive power in our teaching, and if it prevail in the teacher's individual work, it will of necessity diffuse itself throughout the atmosphere of the School. Let it, in the first place, actuate us in the preparation of the lessons. Let this be no perfunctory task, got over in the quickest possible manner; a few dry facts dug up from the dusty depths of a commentary, and flung down pell-mell before the scholars, without care to render them inviting or to prepare them for the young recipients. Rather let the teacher, impelled by real affection for every child in his 66 class, study what will interest him, what will best appeal to his special tastes, what will be likely to come home to him, and the effect will be at once apparent. Loving care is of necessity discriminating; unloving care tends to generalization and wholesale treatment. Nothing is worse for children than this. Take for example, the children of a large Workhouse School. They are sufficiently fed, decently clothed, fairly housed; but what a look of dulness, apathy, un-childlike misery is on their poor little faces as they trudge slouching along in their uniforms in long procession on their joyless walk! Go into the cottage of a labourer, whose children are not so regularly fed nor warmly clad as the workhouse waif! but they have the individual affection of a mother! They are not mere units in a whole, but have each their separate individuality, recognised and tended! If she be a woman at all, her children will be utterly different from those of the workhouse ranks! Listen to their merry cries! Look at their bright faces! What a contrast! It is the individual care that makes the difference; and this consideration has lately led to the introduction of the boarding-out system in our workhouse schools, which is good and merciful. I merely give this illustration to enforce the need for children of the individual attention that love only will dictate. You cannot study your scholars' dispositions too closely, and your affectionate attention to the idiosyncrasies of each in preparing your lesson will have its reward. Secondly, this love should not be kept for the study, but should freely manifest itself in the school when you meet your children. Do not greet them with an indifferent or an unsympathetic manner; sharp, irritable speeches in fallibly counteract the good effect of the teaching that accompanies them. They harden the unruly, exasperate the sensitive, and do no manner of good. Let us, as teachers, read and re-read the 13th chapter of the First Epistle to the Corinthians in the Revised Version. Yes, we may speak to the scholars "with the tongues of men and of angels," as regards our historical knowledge, our Scripture erudition, and yet if we have not love we are become "sounding brass or a clanging cymbal." For this heavenly love" seeketh not its own, is not provoked, taketh not account of evil . . beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things." We can have no safer guide than this, and in so far as we follow out the inspired teaching, we shall find the hearts of our scholars unlock to the golden key. Thirdly, this love should exist independently of the moral or intellectual status of the scholars. Nothing is so injurious as for a teacher to show favouritism. It puffs up the favoured, and either irritates the others, or fills their hearts with a sense of bitter injustice. This danger is one into which teachers who are really interested in their classes are very apt to fall. The quick, clever child whose answers are always forthcoming-how hard not to openly prefer her to the dull, spiritless little girl in the corner, who never knows anything, and scarcely lifts her eyes to the teacher's face! Or the quiet, docile lad, attentive and earnest, of whom your are so fond-is it possible to show the same kindness to the restless, frolicsome, troublesome boy who will never sit still two minutes together, and taxes your patience almost beyond bounds? It is of course impossible to entertain inwardly an exactly uniform measure of affection for all your scholars, but if you really cultivate the grace of love towards them you will endeavour to find out the good qualities of every one. The dull, uninteresting little girl may need your affection, aye, and deserve it too, far more than her bright and winning companion. An unhappy home, lack of nourishing food, deficiency in the joy that should be a child's lot, may have fixed the stupid look on that poor little face. She may lack the power to learn, and yet have more will to do so than the other. And the restless lad may have elements within his nature which, if the touch of affection wins them forth, will make him a fine young fellow, one of the pillars of the school and church in days to come. Do not, therefore, let your least attractive scholars be deprived of the unspeakable benefits that come from this wise, sympathetic love. Let it be in the atmosphere of your school. Young hearts will unfold in its warmth and rejoice in its sunshine; all their best qualities will grow and expand, all their worst will shrink away in its presence. It is the force that, in one manifestation or another, rules the world, and God Himself is Love. V. THE ATMOSPHERE OF THE SCHOOL SHOULD BE INSTINCT WITH ENTHUSIASM. This is a beautiful word, with a beautiful meaning. It comes from two Greek words—έv (in) Oɛós (God), and God within" the man who possesses it. means 66 All great movements in the world have been wrought by enthusiasts. The God has come down and stirred on men's hearts, often when they knew it not. But they have been driven on by the mighty indwelling to great and noble deeds, and their history is the history of the progress of the world. Men all see and acknowledge this Divine possession at once. When a man has it-be he patriot, reformer, preacher, what you will-they cry at once, "Here is an Enthusiast." He may be poor and unlettered, like the disciples of our Lord; frowned upon by a whole hierarchy, like Martin Luther; denounced as a fanatic, like John Wesley; decried as a revolutionary, like Mazzini; but men will note the power within him, will rush to see and hear him, hang upon his lips, and follow whither he leads them. Listen to the words in which a modern poet makes St. Paul describe this God-possession: "Lo, as some bard on isles of the Ægean, Lovely and eager when the earth was young, Praise of the hero from whose loins he sprung: "He, I suppose, with such a care to carry, Wandered disconsolate and waited long, Smiting his breast, wherein the notes would tarry, "Then in the sudden glory of a minute, "So, even I, athirst for His inspiring, I, who have talked with Him, forget again; "Then through the mid complaint of my confession, * "Scarcely I catch the words of His revealing, "Whoso has felt the Spirit of the Highest Cannot confound nor doubt Him nor deny; |