a fair specimen of real Sabbath school work in Canada. The circumstances were abnormal; such, nevertheless, were my experiences on that hot Sabbath afternoon.

Church of Scotland Sabbath School Report, 1882.

THE following extracts, from the Report submitted to the last meeting of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, will be read with interest:

SCHOLARS ON ROLL.

The total number of scholars receiving instruction in the various schools and classes is 240,361, made up of 191,657 scholars on the roll, 43,512 in attendance at ministers' adult or advanced classes, with 5,192 taught by elders and others not ministers. If to this we add 17,565 teachers, then we have 257,926 engaged in communicating or receiving religious instruction. These figures will make the General Assembly aware of the dimensions which this great Christian agency has now assumed, and how serious and increasing are its claims on the attention and deliberate consideration of the supreme court of the Church. The cause of Sabbath school instruction would be greatly stimulated if the General Assembly could arrange to devote a part of its time to discussing the whole question, with the view of considering how the Sabbath school system of instruction can be rendered more interesting and more efficient.

ADVANCED OR ADULT CLASSES.

Last year it was pointed out, that of all our Sabbath school scholars not one in four re-appears in advanced classes. This year it will be seen that the proportion is very slightly over one in four. We have still, therefore, to face the undoubted fact, that at the most important and influential season of life, when childhood is passing into adolescence, the link which unites ministers and teachers with their scholars is broken, and youthful scholars pass, in the great majority of instances, beyond that personal influence and religious control which had done so much for them, and which would do still more if only it could be maintained.

Your committee, in connection with the subject of advanced classes, would again direct attention to what was said in last year's report as to the need of providing separate class-rooms for adult classes, and equipping and furnishing them in such a manner as to make them convenient and attractive. Sufficient suitable class-rooms for instruction of those young persons about to leave our Sabbath schools is one of our great wants. It is a want which must be supplied if we would retain many of those young persons who now escape us. Your committee are glad to know that in many instances this want is not only felt, but that vigorous steps have been taken to meet and supply it.

IRREGULAR ATTENDANCE OF SCHOLARS AND TEACHERS.

Much more might be said in this direction, but your committee pass from it to notice the difference in numbers between those enrolled and

those in attendance during the year. This difference amounts to 43,554; the number on the roll being 191,657, and the average attendance 148,103 (fully 77 per cent.), shewing that nearly a-fourth of those enrolled do not attend. This disproportion is most of all occasioned by the returns from great centres of population; it appears to be chiefly due to the want of steadiness in attendance within large towns; for example, in the Synod of Aberdeen, while 20,761 are enrolled, the average attendance is just 15,725 (75-74 per cent.), leaving 5,036, or nearly one-fourth, who do not attend. In the Synod of Lothian and Tweeddale, out of 24,739 on the roll, only 18,620 (75.3 per cent.) are in regular attendance, and 6,119, or nearly one-fourth, do not appear to attend. In the Synod of Glasgow and Ayr the attendance is slightly better, being about 77 per cent.; but still 16,406 out of 71,415 on the roll, or a little less than a-fourth, seem to be continually absent. Such a state of matters is eminently unsatisfactory, and needs to be set forth in plain terms. The convener has, in previous reports, brought this matter under the notice of the House and the Church, in the hope that systematic and sustained endeavours would be made by all ministers and teachers to raise the "average attendance” from the very low point to which, in many places, it appears to have sunk. Various attempts have been made to account for this disheartening irregularity in attendance, but none of these could be viewed as sufficient. A new light has, however, been cast on this matter by an article published this month in the Glasgow Sabbath School Union Magazine. At page 112 of the magazine referred to, it is stated, on the authority of the "carefully compiled statistics of the secretaries of the Union," "that out of the 8,742 teachers composing the Glasgow Sabbath School Union, fully 1,000 of them are absent every Sabbath upon an average during the course of the year." So surprising did this statement seem to the present writer, that before founding upon it he took means to ascertain its accuracy, as it really seemed to him as if there must be some error in the numbers set down; but their truthfulness has been confirmed in such a way that they may be accepted as substantially correct. If, then, it is to be assumed that in the great centres of population nearly one-fourth of the scholars, and more than an-eighth of the teachers are absent every Sabbath upon an average during the year, then the Sabbath school system is in a thoroughly unsatisfactory state; and we cannot expect it to accomplish the amount of good which it is capable of doing in behalf of the young, until it is placed in a better position. The attention of the Church is seriously directed to this great evil, which seems to intimate a want of organization in all the schools. We need no longer wonder at the great deficiency in average attendance among the children, when we learn how great is the deficiency in average attendance among the teachers. This House has often recorded votes of thanks to Sabbath school teachers, and has expressed a grateful sense of the value attributed to their self-denying labours; but without recalling such expressions, or desiring to modify them, it is equally necessary to state that scarcely anything can make up for irregularity of attendance on the part of the teachers. Want of stedfastness in this respect not only seems to justify irregularity of attendance on the part of the scholars: it draws after it so many attendant evils, that the very foundations of the efficiency of Sabbath school instruction are

shaken, and the whole system is necessarily deprived of much of its life and power. Imagine the roll of Sabbath school teachers called over some Lord's day, and the fact proclaimed, "Out of 8,742 teachers, fully 1,000 are absent." Distribute this deficiency over the various schools, and the evil will become manifest to every mind. And while it is more easy to point out defects than to propose a remedy for them, the convener of the General Assembly's Committee is convinced, that in all the circumstances of the case stated above some system of visitation and inspection of our Sabbath schools has become necessary, and that the sooner such provision is made, the better will be our prospect of removing the evils complained of, and of communicating new life and efficiency to the system of Sabbath school instruction.

The Ladder of Life.

A CATERPILLAR was one day noticed to be painfully crawling up a pole which it had mistaken for a tree. It paused from time to time in its upward course, to feel for the leaves upon which it wished to feed, and then, disappointed in the search for them, again pursued its ascent, only to meet with fresh failure in the object it had in view. The observer of

the insect's movements could not help pitying it, and reflecting on the culminating disappointment it must experience when, on at last reaching the summit of the pole, it would find that all its toil had been in vain. The little incident formed afterwards an illustration in an address to which Sir Titus Salt, of Saltaire, that eminent benefactor of the working classes, listened; and it seemed to him such a true emblem of the soul's want of rest in the pursuit of earthly honour, that from that hour, it is said, his ambition entered upon unseen instead of earthly things.

The above anecdote may suitably introduce to us the subject of rank, or our right place in life, with its bearings on happiness.

Society is a ladder with many rounds, having the king at the top and the beggar at the bottom. To climb to a high position in this ladder is considered by some a great ingredient of happiness. The art of climbing it, too, may be said to form the subject of some of our most interesting biographies: such as that of the Corsican lieutenant of artillery, who became Emperor of France; that of Eldon, the son of a Newcastle coal merchant, who became Lord Chancellor; or that of George Moore, who, from his eminence in the lace trade, was called the Grand Napoleon of Watling Street. Now, we cannot condemn, but must, on the contrary, commend the spirit and the perseverance which leads men to make the best of their powers, so long as they do so fairly and honourably. Mr. Roscoe, at the opening of the first French revolution, and before its excesses developed themselves, spoke of the day-star of liberty advancing, amidst the applause of Europe, to its proper place in the skies. human life, too, whether in ordinary or extraordinary cases, there is the same sort of satisfaction felt by society when a man, by the fair exercise of his talent and right use of opportunity, rises to some elevation of life for which he is qualified. To climb the ladder of rank, however, by

In

doubtful methods, is but making an assignation, with vanity and vexation of spirit to meet us, when we have got to the summit of it.

66

High positions, in truth, generally carry with them an anxious responsibility; and if they have the greatest honour, they have the least comfort. Oliver Cromwell spoke the experience of many men elevated to great eminence, when he said to his parliament, "I would have been glad to have lived by my own woodside, and to have kept a flock of sheep." To a similar effect was the confession of a lady who lived in the full splendour of the first Napoleon's court: "I had," she says, a beautiful house; I had fine diamonds; every day I might vary my elegant dress; a chosen circle of friends dined at my table; every theatre was open to e; there was no fête given in Paris to which I was not invited, and yet an inexplicable cloud hung over me-a secret anxiety as to the future oppressed us." All these illustrations, however, of the burdens of high place are dwarfed by the recent tragic end of Alexander, the Emperor of all the Russias.

me

The truth seems to be that the best men who have had high rank, have valued it chiefly for the greater good it enabled them to do. "My ambition," said the present Lord Chancellor (Selborne) at an entertainment given to him when he was first elevated to his great office,-"My ambition is not high place; it is, if it be possible, to do some good in the position to which I am called; and if I cannot do good in that position, I would rather leave it, and try some other."

To pine for admission to a higher circle of society than that to which we have access, merely because it is a fashionable one, is, although a common vanity, a very contemptible one. Sydney Smith rebuked such a spirit when, in answer to an inquiry about his family coat-of-arms made by some vainglorious individual, he replied, "Oh, the Smiths always signed their letters with their thumbs." If any physic be wanted for pride in these matters, it may be found in the monitory career of Miss Patterson, of Baltimore, the wife, according to American law, of Jerome Bonaparte, who consumed a long life in the chase of high rank, and saw her vain aspirations successively blasted, Napoleon I. refusing to acknowledge her union with his brother; her son making what to her ambitious eyes seemed a plebeian alliance; and the poor lady consoling her cheerless old age by devotion to avarice. "When I was young," she said, "I had everything but money. Now, when I am old, I have nothing but money."

The highest place in life, then, which a wise man should desire, is that one best suited to his natural powers, and in which he can be most useful. To gain such a place, even if it be a lowly one, and fill it aright, is to be a member of nature's peerage, whether or not the patent of our nobility be registered in the Heralds' College.

Christianity does the best for us here. It gives its followers a true humility of mind which dries up a false ambition. It gives them, at the same time, that diligent use of every talent which eventually, under the guidance of God, leads them to their right places in life, and makes them fill them in the best manner. If the Christian occupies a lowly place, he has no envy at those who have a higher one; if his rank be elevated, he humbles himself under the mighty and gracious hand which has conducted

him to it, and carries himself with condescension and lowliness of mind to all beneath him. Thus he will not be, as was said of Lord Thurloe, in reference to his obsequiousness at court and haughtiness in other circles, 66 a willow at St. James, and an oak elsewhere.”—William Haig Miller.

Testimonial to Miss Marion Paul Aird.

IN the month of September there appeared in our Magazine an able and appreciative article, by the Rev. W. H. Wylie (Author of Thomas Carlyle: the Man and his Books), on the poetry of Miss Aird, in which special attention was directed to the "Herd Laddie," the "Auld Kirkyard," the "Song o' the Spindle," and the "E'enin' Fa'," which he ranked among the most exquisite little classics of the kind in the Scottish language. As more appropriate to this journal, he reviewed the hymns and other religious poems, of which she is the writer, signalizing the hymn, "Far far away," as one which has "already secured the suffrages of all the Evangelical Churches in every land where the English language is spoken, and as having in it that which will keep it alive through the coming ages;" and, referring to Miss Aird, as now nearly seventy years of age, and to the circumstance that the writing of verse, even when it is of the best quality, is, in a pecuniary point of view, a most unremunerative employment, he suggested that the Sabbath school children of the West of Scotland should unite to present to Miss Aird a testimonial of their gratitude and respect.

This suggestion has been carried out, and on the evening of Tuesday, the 6th of June, a meeting was held at Kilmarnock of the Committee, at which it was reported that the sum of £74 5s. 44d. had been collected; and it was resolved that this money should be lodged in the Bank in the name of three of the Committee, to be disbursed by them to Miss Aird.

The Committee will be happy to receive further contributions, which. may be sent to the Rev. David Landsborough, Kilmarnock, by whom they will be acknowledged. A list of the contributions is given on the cover of this month's Magazine.

Fragments.

HELPFUL THINGS.-Do little helpful things and speak helpful words whenever you can. They are better than pearls or diamonds to strew along the roadside of life, and will yield a far more valuable harvest.

THE INFANT CLASS.-Spurgeon says: "I reverence the man or woman who can efficiently teach an infant class. I question if Robert

Hall, or Chalmers, or even Whitefield, could have performed the task." SYMPATHY FOR CHILDHOOD.Too often fathers, mothers, and teachers-it may be thoughtlessly or unconsciously-you are stunting or entirely uprooting the first tender shoots of infant thought and wonder, to which, if the sunshine of your smiles and the dew of your gentle