OUR CHILDREN'S MAGAZINE. ISSUED BY The Committee of the Ragged School Union. VOL. III. This little book is meant to guide Read it, but read your Bible more, LONDON: PARTRIDGE & OAKEY, PATERNOSTER ROW; RAGGED SCHOOL UNION, EXETER HALL; AND ALL BOOKSELLERS. THE end of another year completes our labours in preparing for you our third volume. On looking over the various numbers for the year, we feel considerable interest in the efforts we put forth from month to month to please and instruct you, and now trust our labours have not been in vain. We are all a year older, and should be a year wiser and better. But is it so ? Are not some of you just as careless, and as prayerless, and as thoughtless, and as useless, as at the beginning of the year? Ah! it may be you are even more so. You ought not to be. God holds you responsible for the opportunities he has given you for improvement, and if you do not improve, the fault is yours, and from the punishment due to the fault you cannot escape. We, however, do hope very many of our dear readers are much improved in appearance, in mind, and in character, since the commencement of this year, and that they can now say as Solomon once did, "The end is better than the beginning." That we may more clearly understand each other, let us ask you a few friendly questions : Are you cleaner in your persons than you used to be? Are you more affectionate to your brothers and sisters than once you were? Are you increasingly careful not to mix with wicked boys and girls? Do you read the Bible every day, like to think about it, and better still, love to practise it? Are you on your knees before God in prayer morning and evening? Are you becoming day by day more like Jesus Christ? These are plain questions, dear children, and deserve your thoughtful consideration. During the year now closing we have been anxious to help you, so that you might now answer "Yes" to all these questions. In the new year, we intend to try again to assist you, and hope, with God's blessing, our fourth volume will be of still greater use to you. The Lord bless you. 1, Exeter Hall, Strand, December, 1853. A Drunken Mouse ... A strange-looking Creature-What is it ? with illustration Bethlehem, with illustration Better Speak the Truth, with illustration Bottles of the Bible, the, with illustration ... ... Crucifixion Day, with illustration David, the Poor Heathen Boy Fly on the Wall, the Flying Fish, the, with illustration Fourpence thrown away Grass, a Picture of Ourselves Hares at Play, with illustration How to come to Jesus Humming Bird, the, with illustration ... Israelites in the Wilderness, the, with illustration Jack and George ... 113 17 74, 91 81 Kings of England-Edward IV. 73, Edward v. 96, Edward VI. 158, Henry IV. 32, Henry v. 48, Henry vi. 61, Henry VII. 115, Henry VIII. 143, Richard 11. 10, Richard III. 103. Godliness best for this World as well as the next Happiness of obeying God On Temptation to Sin 68 167 26 152 45 10 135 183 106, 119 |