means to see which could do to the other the most harm.

While in this state of fiendlike feeling, a revival of religion commenced in the place, which some ridiculed as mere fanaticism, calculated to make people run mad, and turn the world upside down. Mr.

S., one of the champions of wrath, was brought by that Spirit which convinceth of sin to see the depravity of his own heart. His sins were now for the first time set in order before him, and he saw himself a lost and ruined sinner, and was led to cry for mercy. In reviewing his past conduct towards his neighbour, he saw himself a monster of wickedness, and felt that he had been completely under the influence of Satan. He cried to God for mercy, and God heard him. But he could not rest here; he must go and ask forgiveness of his neighbour. With a trembling, broken heart, he rapped at the door, which he had not entered for more than six years. As Mr. L. had no suspicion who was coming, he bade him walk in. With amazement every eye was fixed upon him. After helping himself to a seat"Neighbour," said Mr. S., "I am come to ask your forgiveness. We have had a great deal of difficulty, and I find I have been much to blame." 66 "Well," said Mr. L., "I always knew you were to blame, and I never shall forgive you. You have caused more expense and trouble than your head is worth." "I know I have done wrong; I am convinced of my sins; and I humbly ask your forgiveness. I am determined to live differently in future, and I hope that God will forgive me. We have been actuated by a wrong spirit, and we shall be afraid to meet each other at the bar of God, where we must soon appear." Mr. L., a little softened, replied, "I can never forget the sleepless nights, and the costs and damages and vexation that you have occasioned. But I am willing to do what is right about it, and always have been; and we never should have had any difficulty had it not been for you and your lad."

When Mr. S. retired, there was a general exclamation in the family

Well! what can all this mean? This is something new! I wonder what will happen next! What in the world has produced all this!" "Why," said a big tall boy, who had helped his father to carry on the quarrel, "I heard last night that Mr. S. was one of those that were under concern." The father was silent, and soon after retired, quite disturbed. "What! is S. concerned for his soul? He going to become a Christian? If he can find mercy, no one need despair. Why should he come and ask my forgiveness? If religion will humble such a man, it is surely a good thing. He said we shall be afraid to meet each other at the bar of God. It is true we have both acted like fools. But then I have had great provocation. Oh! I am a great sinner. I have been completely under the influence of Satan. I fear God has given me up. Others are anxious for their souls, and even this wicked wretch is becoming a Christian. Gracious

God! what a sinner I am! Oh, God, have mercy on my soul!" Thus his sins were set in order before him, and he was in great distress for several days. At length he could smother his feelings no longer: he took his hat, and went to see his once hated neighbour. As he entered the door, he received a cordial welcome. They took each other by the hand, and burst into tears. "You came to ask my forgiveness the other day, but I find that I have been a thousand times worse than you. I have been tempted by the devil to every wickedness, and I fear God has given me up for ever. Oh, can you forgive me, and pray for me?" Their concessions were mutual, and their forgiveness cordial; for both had much to be forgiven of God, in whose love they found mercy. Before they separated, they retired and prayed together. They became members of the same church, and lived in uninterrupted harmony, and good neighbours, ever after. Oldbury. J. BAGNALL.

THE BEST TRAINING

SCHOOL.

"Train up a child." Of late years much attention has been directed to the distinction between teaching and training. The effort was needed, and has been useful. The tendency in a former age to pile up reading, writing, and a few other kindred arts, and call them education, was superficial in its philosophy, and disastrous in its practical results. There cannot be training without teaching; but there may be teaching without training. The various branches of knowledge which the teacher imparts, constitute, as it were, the elements which the trainer employs. They are the types skilfully cast, and lying in the fount before him; but they have little meaning, and less power, until they have been arranged in his frame, and submitted to his press.

The oldest training school is still the best. Home is the best schoolroom, sisters and brothers the best class-fellows, parents the best masters. The chief value of those charitable institutions for the training of the young which characterise and honour our age, consists in supplying the lack of home education. These schools deserve all the praise that has been bestowed on them; but it is on the principle that when the best has entirely failed, the next best is very precious. When limbs are broken, hospitals are excellent; but it would have been better both

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for the patients and the community if hospitals had not been needed. To make well in the industrial school is good; but to keep well in the home is better-is best. speak specifically of trainimg-the highest department of education. As to its subordinate materials, the arts of reading and writing, and the like, parents even in the best state of society do well to avail themselves of professional aid; but themselves should preside over the process, and with their own hearts and hands labour to get the whole, while soft, cast into a heavenly mould of truth and righteousness. Let any one and every one help in spreading

a sail and catching a breeze, but let the parent keep the helm in his own hands.

Formidable obstacles, both intrinsic and extrinsic, prevent or impede parental training. In some cases personal deficiencies, in others the pressure of circumstances from without, and in many both barriers combined, stand in the way of the work. But in all these the beautiful law of Providence appears, that good principles and habits, as well as bad, count kin and help each other. Suppose a father and mother personally deficient, but desiring to have their children trained to truth and righteousness-observe how the various portions of the machinery work together for good. In giving them children, and filling their hearts with parental love, God has supplied them at once with the best exercise for improvement and the most powerful motive to urge them on. Love to the little ones will make them try the training, and each trial will increase their capacity for the work. Every effort to train their children will elevate themselves; and every degree of elevation to which they attain will be an addition to their power of doing good to the children. God's good gifts run in circles. An entrance into his family in the spirit of adoption secures for you the benefit of them all. If you should certainly know that in five years hence your boy, who is now a little child, would fall into a deep river all alone, you would not wait till the event should

happen ere you prepared to meet it. You would begin now the process which would be safety then. Your child cannot swim, and you are not qualified to teach him; but forthwith you would acquire the art yourself, that you might communicate it to him, and that he might be prepared to meet the emergency. Now, beyond all peradventure, your child, if he survive, will in a few years be plunged into a sea of wickedness, through which he must swim for his life. Nothing but right moral principles, obtained from the Bible, and indurated by early train

ing into a confirmed habit, will give him the necessary buoyancy. Hence, as you would preserve your child from sinking through the sea of sin into final perdition, you are bound to qualify yourself for training him up in the way he should go.

In like manner when the obstacles are extrinsic, the necessities of his child supply the parent with motives to exert himself for their removal; and the effort which he makes for his child will rebound in blessings on himself. For example, if a parent has, through carelessness or a supposed necessity, adopted a line of life which demands Sabbath-day labour, or late hours all the week, he will discover, as his children grow up, that his business is incompatible with his duty to them. If, from love to his family and enlightened desire for their welfare, he successfully shake off the bondage, and obtain the means of living without giving the Lord's day or the evening hours to labour, he has thereby secured a double boon-to his children and to himself.

Sabbath-school instruction, although good as far as it goes, does not supply adequate moral education for the juvenile hordes which infest the streets of our large cities. The interval between Sabbath and Sabbath is too wide. It is like spreading a net with meshes seven inches wide instead of one, before a shoal of herrings. By the great gap of the week the little Arabs easily slip through, in spite of the stout string which you extend across their path on the Sabbath evening. Ply the work by all means, and ply it hopefully. Labour for the Lord in that department will not be lost. Saving truth is thereby deposited in many minds, which the Spirit of God will make fruitful in a future day. Ply the work of Sabbath-schools, but let not the existence and abundance of these efforts deceive us into the belief that the work is adequately done. The Sabbath-school cannot train up a child. The six days' training at home, if it be evil, will, in the battle of life, carry it over the one day's teaching in the school,

however good it may be.-Rev. W. Arnot.

HEAVEN BREAKING ON THE SOUL.

MANY feel that to die is to be transferred suddenly, and with violence, into strange scenes which must overwhelm and distract the senses. It seems to them that it must be like being whirled instantly into a distant, unknown city, and waking up amidst the confusion and strangeness of that place. We cannot believe that such is the experience of dying Christians. It would rather seem that there is, at first, a perception of spiritual forms, of ministering spirits, whispering peace to the soul, and assuring it of safety, and bidding it fear not. It is said of angels, "Are they not all ministering spirits, sent forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation!" When can we need their

ministry more, than in the passage from this world to the world of spirits? Perhaps the disclosure is made of some departed friends; and the fancy of those who thought that they saw beloved ones beckoning them away, may have had its foundation in truth. There is much of probability in that well-known piece,

The Dying Christian's Address to his Soul;" and no part of it is more probable than this:

"Hark! they whisper; angels say,
Sister spirit, come away."

It is not improbable-it seems accordant with Divine goodnessthat such methods should be employed to relieve the anxiety of the departing spirit. Sometimes the dying Christian has declared that he heard enrapturing music. It is possible that voices were employed to soothe him to sleep, and to soften the transition from the full consciousness of life to the revelations of the heavenly world. Perhaps the effect of disease upon the organs of hearing was such as to produce something like sounds, which, in a joyous state of mind, were pleasurable. During the siege of Jerusalem, in 1836, the wife of an American mis

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sionary sang while dissolution was actually taking place. The tones of her voice, they said, seemingly more than mortal, were far different from anything which they had ever heard, even from her. God is often pleased to use these natural effects of dissolution on the body, to comfort the passing spirit of his child. Whether visions or real voices are actually seen or heard, is of no consequence, so long as the soul has a rational and assured hope. Some means are unquestionably used in every case to make the dying believer feel that he is safe. He is not compelled to wait in uncertainty and fear for a moment. His fears are anticipated; he is among other friends the moment that he grows insensible to those who watch his departing breath. Neither are we to suppose that heaven breaks upon the senses of the spirit with such an overpowering brightness as to excite confusion and pain. No doubt the revelation is gradual and most pleasant. Perhaps the celestial city appears at first in the distance, having the glory of God most precious; the approach to it is gradual; voices are heard afar off; and from the convoy of ministering spirits, such information and instructions are received as prepare it for the full vision of heaven. Everything is calm and serene; the light is attempered to its new and feeble vision. He who makes the sun to rise by slow degrees, and does not pour straight, fierce rays upon the waking eyes even of sinful men, certainly will not torment the soul of his child with any such revelations of unseen things as will give pain. The same care which has redeemed and saved him will order all these things in covenanted love.

Some of the preceding thoughts are well expressed in the following anonymous lines, written on seeing Mr. Greenough's group of the" Angel and Child ascending to Heaven":

CHILD. Whither now wilt thou proceed?
ANGEL.
Come up hither; I will show thee.
Follow me with joyful speed;
Leave thy native earth below
thee.

CHILD. Stop! mine eyes cannot contain Such a wondrous flood of light. ANGEL. Come up hither. Thou shalt gain,

As thou risest, stronger sight. CHILD. Lost in wonder without end, Joyful, fearful, longing, shrinking, Lead me, O thou heavenly friend; Keep a trembling child from sinking.

Oh, I cannot bear this glory! Angel brother! how canst thou? ANGEL. I will tell thee all my story; I was once as thou art now. CHILD. When some sorrow did befall me, Or I felt some strange alarms, Then my mother's voice would call me

To the shelter of her arms. Now what bids my heart rejoice, Clasped in arms I cannot see? Hark! I hear a soothing voice

Sweetly whispering, Come to

me.

ANGEL. Yes, it calls thee from on high; Come to God's most holy

mountain;

Thou hast drunk the stream of

life:

I will lead thee to the fountain. CATHARINE.

“TELL ME, I PRAY THEE, THY NAME."

WE can hardly wonder that Jacob asked and said, "Tell me, I pray thee, thy name.' Yet it appears

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to have been more curious than wise. There is much of this tendency in us all; and it is a proof of our depravity, that we are equally disposed to neglect what is plain and useful, and to pry into things which we have not seen, and which, if discovered, could be of little avail to us. This is a world of action rather than of science. The humblest Christian will know more in a moment after death, than the most laborious research can acquire now in months and years. The Scripture, therefore, never indulges a vain curiosity that would draw us off from the one thing needful. Instead of gratifying Peter when he inquired after the destiny of John, our Saviour rebuked him: "What is that to thee? follow thou me." And when the apostles would become curious in prophecy, and asked, "Lord, wilt thou at this time