SCRIPTURE LESSON SCHEME, 1885 NEW SERIES LESSON SHEETS, 2s. per 100; per Post, 2s. 3d. THE Lessons for 1885 are a continuation of the present Series; and the Scriptu passages chosen are of the most interesting and fundamental character. They are groupe into sets of two months for Review purposes, a method which has given general satisfa tion. With very few exceptions, this Lesson Scheme is used in all the Schools in Glasgo and Suburbs, and also very extensively throughout the country-the circulation bein 150,000 copies annually. A Column with Psalms and Paraphrases has been added to th Sheet for 1885, as a Memory Exercise. SPECIMENS ON APPLICATION. GOLDEN TEXTS for 1885, In Sheets of SMALL ILLUMINATED TICKETS, 2d. per Sheet. These small Tickets serv admirably for Distribution as Rewards, or for a Memory Lesson. The Texts are paralle to the Lessons in the Union's Scheme for 1885. JOHN M'CALLUM & CO., 177, 179, and 181 Buchanan Street, Glasgow Now Ready, THE SABBATH SCHOOL ROLL-CARD. FOR particulars of this New Roll-Card published by the Union, see Book Notices, pag i 286. Copies (One Penny each) may be had at the Union's Rooms, 70 Bothwell Stree Glasgow. CONFERENCE OF SABBATH SCHOOL TEACHERS. THE first of a Series of Monthly Conferences will be held in No. 7 Room, Christi Institute, on Thursday, 20th November, at Eight o' Clock, p.m. The Subject of Conference,-viz., "SABBATH SCHOOL LIBRARIES: HOW 1 FORM AND CONDUCT THEM,"-will be introduced by MR. THOMAS MASON, Libraria Stirling's and Glasgow Public Library. These Conferences are designed to afford opportunity for the free discussion of questio pertaining to Sabbath School work. A large attendance of Sabbath School Teaches (Ladies and Gentlemen) is earnestly requested. TRAINING CLASS FOR TEACHERS. THIS Class meets on Saturday Afternoons, in the Lesser Hall of the CHRISTIAN INS ITUTE, 70 Bothwell Street, from Five till Six o'Clock. will be taken up as under: The Lessons of the Union's Scher e Jesus Healing the Blind and the Dun). The Apostles' Reception and Reward. THE TRAINING CLASS for INFANT CLASS TEACHER Conducted by MR. FREDERICK A. LAING, Principal of Albion Crescent School, is he in No. 7 Room, CHRISTIAN INSTITUTE, on Saturday Afternoons, from Half-past Four t Five o'Clock. The Lessons given are from the Union's Scheme of Scripture Lessons i r Infant Classes. All Infant Class Teachers are cordially invited to attend. NOTICE TO CORRESPONDENTS. ALTHOUGH We have added Eight pages to our issue for this month, we have been compell d to hold over several articles, in order that we might give a summary of the Proceedings f the Convention at Kirkcaldy. The particulars we have gleaned from the local press a d other sources. THE Sabbath School Magazine. NO. XI.] NOVEMBER 1, 1884. [VOL. XXXVI. Sabbath School Teaching as a means of Self-Improvement.* By REV. JAMES STALKER, M.A., Kirkcaldy. THE two great motives of Christian work are the glory of God and the good of men; and the true spirit of the Christian worker is one which, in order to attain these two ends, is willing to practise any selfdenial. This spirit must come into play in Sabbath school teaching. The love of your Lord, and the love of the children committed to your care, ought to make you ready for any sacrifice. No doubt this view of your work will be pressed upon you often at this Convention; but I venture to dwell for a little this evening on the opposite view-the view of your work not as a self-sacrificing duty, but as an enriching privilege. When our Saviour called His disciples to forsake all and follow Him, He added that they would receive an hundred-fold more even in this life. All service rendered to Christ has its rich compensations. But of no kind of service is this truer than of yours. Even teachers whose modesty will not allow them to believe that they have done any good, will heartily acknowledge that they have themselves got good. Look back and you will find that your teaching has been to yourselves one of the most valuable of influences. Let me speak of its bearing-first, on your acquaintance with God's Word; and, secondly, on your acquaintance with God himself. I. I have seen the remark made about the Bible, that there is no book more read or less studied. Perhaps there is not more truth in this *An Address delivered at the opening of the Seventeenth Scottish National Sabbath School Convention, at Kirkcaldy, 9th October, 1884. L smart saying than in many other epigrams; but, at least, it draws a valuable distinction between the reading of the Bible and the study of it. There may be a great deal of reading of the Bible with little or no study. Indeed, it cannot be doubted that very many even of those who regularly read the Bible scarcely study it at all. Their reading is a pious habit; the statutory chapter is gone through day by day, now and then a striking verse will attract attention, and the exercise will have a soothing and elevating effect on the feelings; but the book is not grappled with; there is no rousing of the whole man to take possession of it. But the Bible requires to be studied. There is no delusion more complete than the notion that it is a simple book. It does, indeed, contain milk for babes and instruction for the simple; but its whole tendency is to brace the mind which attaches itself to it to vigorous effort, and it has heights and mysteries which draw the student on to ever profounder inquiry. Who would say that the Epistle to the Romans is a simple book, or that the Prophecies of Ezekiel are plain reading? The fact that the Bible is a book so ancient, which came into existence among a people so different from us in their manners and customs as the Jews, renders study necessary, for it is full of allusions to the times and the scenery in which it arose, and these cannot be appreciated without a great deal of information. Besides, it contains the thoughts of the Divine Mind. As these entered into the minds of inspired men, they often strained them to the uttermost, and language was strained to the uttermost to give them expression. The result is that these oracles are the deepest and the subtlest writings which the human mind can approach; they demand from it all the effort it is capable of, and they repay it with the richest rewards. Now, a teacher has this advantage over an ordinary reader of the Bible, that he must study what he reads, for he has to explain what is unfamiliar, and bring forth what is recondite into the light. I believe it is a general experience of all who have tried any kind of teaching, that there is nothing which you know so well yourself as that which you have taught to others. It is when you try to communicate anything to others that you realize how little you know about it. Many here, when preparing an address, have, no doubt, gone through the experience of finding that, although they thought they knew the subject well, yet, when they began to consider how they would put it before an audience, they were able to say in five minutes all they knew about it; or that their knowledge of it was a mere confused tangle, which it required long reflection to clear up. But when the subject has to be expounded to others, and especially to the young, the mind is forced to clear up its own ideas, to go in search of the information it lacks, and to turn the subject round and round until it has it completely in its grasp, and ready for communication to others. "There is no subject," said a friend once to me, "which I know so well as one which I have taught to a class or given an address upon." This is a universal experience. Many of you have been driven, by the requirements of your teaching, to seek information about your Bibles on difficulties which the ordinary reader of Scripture passes over without inquiry; and you have a little library of books of Biblical information which you would never have possessed but for your class-work. You have had hours of happy thinking, and felt the thrill |