will must be felt; for he dispenses his gifts and graces according to his own sovereign pleasure. "The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh or whither it goeth, so is every one that is born of the Spirit." How carefully should the teacher order his steps before him! What a place of high communion and earnest wrestling should his closet be!

And, moreover, as the teacher's dependence for its salvation is not upon the will and resolution of the child, for "it is not of him that willeth nor of him that runneth," but upon the immediate and efficient energy of the Divine Spirit, he himself should seek to become, in connection with the divine word he uses, a channel of mercy to his listening children, "communicating grace" as one apostle says, " to them that hear him;" or, as another has it, "begetting them in the gospel" unto life and salvation. Need we urge that such a teacher should be a prepared channel, a sanctified, humble, loving medium for the grace of the Holy Spirit. If holy men of old were selected by God as the conveyancers of the inspiration of the Holy Ghost in the composition of the Bible, assuredly holy men should now be selected by the church as the conveyancers of the grace of renewal and sanctification. God has appointed not simply the bare word as the chief instrumentality of the Spirit's work, but that word uttered, orally delivered by Christian lips from Christian hearts. "It has pleased God by the foolishness of preaching," lay and clerical, "to save them that believe." The teacher should, therefore, himself be a person full of faith and of the Holy Ghost. The word he utters should be a living word, a fire in his bones, a word that penetrates and moves, illumines and constrains him. Then it is most likely to be a word of power wrought into the soul of the hearer by the Divine Spirit.

The question is often asked, " Can children, as such, be converted to the Lord Jesus Christ?" The answer will be found to be various. Often grave doubts are suggested; many reserves are made. The emphasis, it is true, is not laid so much on the word can, on the possibility of their conversion, as on its unreliability; and the mind is put into a condition of hesitation and difficulty on the subject. This is owing,

doubtless, in part at least, to the associations which the word conversion excites. The mind fixes itself upon the finite and sinful child, upon his intellectual and moral powers and activities; and such queries as these are started: Do not the requisite mental acts and exercises demand a degree of intelligence and moral balance, that little children can scarcely be supposed to possess? Must there not be, what is called a "law work," a work of reproof and alarm and conviction, a conscious struggle against sin and Satan and the world, precedent to conversion? And can we, in the inexperienced and relatively unformed minds of little children, rely upon the preliminary steps which lead to true faith and repentance? Thus the subject of the salvation of children is clogged and darkened by questions pertaining to mental and moral philosophy, and zeal for, and confidence in, the work, are greatly abated.

But when the question of regeneration is raised, the mind is otherwise affected. Another and a totally different class of associations is awakened, and the answer is prompt: "Nothing is impossible with God: he can make Christians out of the stones of the streets." The mind dares not limit the power of the Eternal Spirit. We are very ignorant of the mysterious mechanism of the human mind in all its stages from infancy to old age, and we should be exceedingly careful how we traverse the work of its Creator upon its subtle substance. "As thou knowest not what is the way of the Spirit, nor how the bones do grow in the womb of her that is with child, even so thou knowest not the works of God who maketh all." The degree and kind of the understanding of truth, requisite to the Holy Spirit's work on a child are beyond our ken. A single seed of truth lodged in his soul in infancy, may be made the occasion and instrument of regeneration. And we do not know but that the effectual work of the Spirit may antedate, in some children, the intellectual apprehension of any truth; that they may be sanctified from the womb, or from baptism, and qualified by the presence and power of the Spirit for a very early apprehension of the truths of the word of God. The Lutheran and Reformed churches are based upon this conception of the regenerating efficacy of the Spirit in little children.

The covenant-promise of the Holy Spirit is, "to parents and their children." And the work of regeneration involved in "the promise of the Spirit," is the work primarily regarded and believed in, by these churches. The evidences, the fruits and manifestations of that work, in the infantile and childish mind, subject as that mind is to the restraints and training and religious habits of a godly home, may be, must be in many cases, difficult to detect before their riper years and larger experience of sin and temptation and the world; but the assumption of these churches, based upon clear Bible revelations, is that the children of believers are regenerated and savingly united to Christ, until the contrary is established in their subsequent life; and it is expected that at an early age they will be admitted to the Lord's table. The agency of the Spirit, according to the promise, is taken for granted: and the children of the church are to be looked upon and trained and treated as renewed and united to Christ, till they themselves disprove it, by their own wilful rejection of the covenant in which they were born, baptized, and blessed. This, we say, is the underlying assumption of most, if not of all, the churches of the Protestant world.*

And here another inquiry suggests itself, Will the Spirit of God regenerate Sabbath-school children? May teachers depend on him for this result, and look for it with confidence?

To a very large extent, as we have already observed, our schools are composed of children whose parents are irreligious,

* In the constitution of the Presbyterian Church the following language is used on this subject:--I. Children, born within the pale of the visible church, and dedicated to God in baptism, are under the inspection and government of the church; and are to be taught to read, and repeat the Catechism, the Apostles' Creed, and the Lord's Prayer. They are to be taught to pray, to abhor sin, to fear God, and to obey the Lord Jesus Christ. And, when they come to years of discretion, if they be free from scandal, appear sober and steady, and to have sufficient knowledge to discern the Lord's body, they ought to be informed, it is their duty, and their privilege, to come to the Lord's Supper. II. The years of discretion, in young Christians, cannot be precisely fixed. This must be left to the prudence of the eldership. The officers of the church are the judges of the qualifications of those to be admitted to sealing ordinances; and of the time when it is proper to admit young Christians to them."-Directory for Worship, chap. ix.

who have no personal connection with the churches. It is of these we would particularly speak. We remarked just now, that an acquaintance with the methods and conditions of the operations of the Holy Spirit, is exceedingly important to the successful teacher. Among these we would name, as one of the most signal and essential, that of the existence and use of the means of sanctification. Regeneration is an instantaneous and finished product, when it is effected; and it is ordinarily wrought in view of the subsequent sanctification of the individual. This is progressive, a work of time, frequently of many years, running through the entire interval between the regeneration and the death of the person. In the case of the children of believers, the appropriate and appointed means may readily be found. But in the case of others, who constitute the great majority of Sabbath-school classes, it is otherwise. The Bible, the family altar, the recognition of God at the table, the closet, religious conversation and instruction, a holy example, are all wanting; and selfishness, worldliness, and godlessness, obtain and hold large sway in the household, and sometimes profanity and Sabbath desecration are habitually practised. The atmosphere of the family is irreligious. Is it not self-evident, that in such cases, the work of sanctification is, to a fearful extent, precluded? There is no doubt, that a little child, brought up under a home influence of this kind, presents a case exceedingly trying to the intelligent faith of a teacher. Is the early regeneration of such children to be expected?

In answering this most pertinent and solemn question, we would briefly submit the following observations :

1. In the first place, the providence of God in the institution and vast enlargement of the Sabbath-school, must be honored. This is one of the most distinctive signs of the times in which we live. It is a special manifestation of God's love for children; for children outside of the pale of the visible church. This divine affection is real and wonderful. Witness God's word in respect to Nineveh, "Should not I spare Nineveh, that great city, wherein are more than six score thousand persons, that cannot discern between their right hand and their left hand?" And in one day, that love emerges

into activity, and permanent development, as never before in human history. The millions of children that have been brought under the care of the church, through the Sabbathschool, have been so brought by God's all-wise providence, not in judgment, but in mercy; mercy which can be overborne and thwarted only by the infidelity and neglect of his own professing people. The Lord's arm is not shortened that it cannot save, nor his ear heavy that it cannot hear, but the sins of his people, their coldness, and prayerlessness, and unbelief, and worldliness, may clog and stop the channels of his mercy. This high responsibility has been put upon the church, we may reasonably infer, not without the proffer of the needful supplies of divine influence, looking toward the actual regeneration and salvation of the perishing children. This is one all important consideration, which should sink down into our hearts.

2. In the next place, if this end is to be secured, it must be done within a limited period. There is to all men a day of grace, a space for repentance, a line drawn across their path, visible only to God's eye, beyond which there is no hope. This space is measured, not so much by years as by privileges and opportunities. If we take little children under our care, and they are not renewed by the Divine Spirit, the danger is very great that they will become gospel-hardened at an early period. The habit of refusing the Lord Jesus Christ, and of resisting and grieving the Holy Spirit, formed during the plastic period of childhood, grows rapidly and strikes deep into the soul. It is a lamentable fact, often mentioned and deplored, that great multitudes of Sabbath-school children cease their connection with the church when they leave the Sabbath-school, and that it is exceedingly difficult to retain, under Christian influence, very many of them, after they have opened into manhood and womanhood. So that, if they are not "born again" while in the Sabbath-school, the likelihood of their subsequent regeneration is immensely diminished. The processes of indwelling sin and Satanic agency are very subtle, very powerful, and urgent. And thus it would appear, that the existence of the Sabbath-school, while it is a signal token of divine mercy, is, at the same time, a sign of