and vocations which nature has marked out as distinctly masculine, the most anxious as to women's forgetting their "proper sphere" never need fear.

The idea of the Christian missionary is the central one of the Sunday School, a department of patient enterprise on behalf of the Gospel, in which women have shown themselves quite as industrious and successful as men. Robert Raikes, who in 1780, by vigorous personal effort, and constant writing in his paper, the Gloucester Journal (of which he was both editor and printer), first gave shape to the Sunday-school project, no doubt is entitled to be considered the founder of the system in England. It is not to be overlooked, however, that long before Raikes was born, Sunday classes for the poor children of a village in his own countyFlaxley, in the Forest of Dean-had been established by a pious womanpredecessor. At this place, in the reign of King Stephen, a famous abbey had been founded. It was dedicated to St. Mary de Dene, and though dismantled at the time of the Reformation, two centuries ago it was still partially habitable. The estate was then the property of one William Boevey. Marrying Catherine Riches, the daughter of a wealthy London merchant, she was left a widow when barely twentytwo, and the inheritor of all his property, and from that moment, like many another thus early bereaved, she seems to have dedicated herself to works of benevolence. The age was one of great licentiousness and frivolity. The prevailing habits of the wealthy rendered still more conspicuous a purity and tastefulness of mind which, according to her biographer, would at any time and in any country be charming to contemplate. It was an age, moreover, when ladies of high position were often made types of character in literature. Mrs. Boevey furnished the model of the well-known "Perverse Widow," and perverse enough she doubtless seemed to the numerous suitors who, like Penelope's, addressed her in vain; but to her poor neighbours she was in every sense Samaritan. Instituting the Sunday classes spoken of, every Sabbathday six of the children came to the Abbey to say their Catechism, first dining at her own table, and upon every Christmas Day she invited the whole troop. Upon these occasions, as long as she lived, which was till the early part of 1726, the good old soul was accustomed to dress herself in white and silver, so as to be remembered, she told her maid, more distinctly by her little guests. It was by a poor woman, Raikes informs us, that the Sunday school, as originally started in Gloucester, was first suggested to himself. One of that large and sorrowful class, the long-suffering mothers of the naked and

famished, drew his attention to the wretched moral state of the boys and girls in the inferior quarters of the town, and the frightful way in which they spent, or rather desecrated, the Sabbath. A Sunday school of very considerable pretensions had been established also at High Wycombe in 1769. The founder of this was again a woman— Miss Hannah Ball, mentioned in the memoirs of Wesley as one of his favourite correspondents.

Women are particularly adapted for Sunday-school work in its highest sense, for the simple reason that in order to place clearly before young minds the best part of Christianity—that which renders it so chivalrous, so lofty, so generous, so beautiful, and which commends it to all the better feelings of the human heart-something more is required than ability to teach how to read and sing. Men and youths can do the latter; the former needs tender sympathy with a child's affections, in which alone can a pure and sound Christianity be implanted, and the affections here as elsewhere belong to the empire of woman. Women are further qualified for work of this nature because they bethink themselves better than men how innocent and unprovided are the minds they have to deal with. Nothing is more common, even with priests and professors, than for the aim to be missed through taking too much for granted. The school-teacher fails quite as often to effect his purpose through not duly considering the pupils' receptivity, and the measure of their learning or ignorance. It is natural, perhaps, to forget to teach truths which, though we learned them from some preceptor, have, through ancient familiarity, acquired the semblance of intuitions. Women, no doubt, are liable to this forgetfulness, but it is in far less degree than happens with men, at all events in dealing with childhood. The history of the little one's primitive bodily wants, and how and whence its first nurture were supplied, becomes, by a beautiful and purely feminine instinct, a sweet index and determining principle as to the supply of its spiritual needs. Furthermore, women-teachers have an immense advan tage over masculine ones in their aptitude for chatty and engaging talk. Every one knows how grand a service this renders in the society of grown people! It is the women who, by means of their ingenious and ready prattle, tide over difficult introductions and beginnings; who resuscitate, and keep things moving, and at the close even of a long evening, are never exhausted. The brightest intellectual stars among men are often quite devoid of this capital faculty-Schiller was a remarkable instance-but who ever heard, in

any age or country, of an unready feminine tongue? Bringing this excellent readiness down to the demands of school and lesson time, woman immediately obtains a hold. She is helped in it, at the same moment, by her natural tendency to interrogate. Women hate to be questioned, but they love to ask questions, and are never better pleased than when they can do so with authority, especially if, when the answer comes, they can impeach.

Good women operate as missionaries in their own families and homecircles. In this position, again, who shall estimate their beneficent influence upon human society? A volume might be written upon the one sole topic of the conversion of men to Christianity by their mothers, wives, and sisters. In the early ages we have the beautiful story of Monica, mother of Augustin, the famous Bishop of Hippo1 -the story so charmingly illustrated by Ary Scheffer, whose own mother it was to whom this great artist owed his early inspiration. In modern times we need think only of what the world owes, indirectly, to the wife of John Bunyan. The author of the “Pilgrim's Progress" began life as a soldier. Up nearly to the time of his marriage he had been profligate. Shortly afterwards the old spirit broke out afresh. Then was disclosed the "ornament of a meek and quiet spirit." She did her best to entertain him with pleasant conversation she told him the things she had learned, and about the books she had read. Little by little she rendered her society his delight. To hear her voice, we are told, he forsook the alehouse and sat by his own fireside then came the opportunity for "persuading to be a Christian." She herself did not live to see it, but the result of her work will endure as long as books exist. In view of what was accomplished by Bunyan's wife, and of what has been accomplished in similar manner by other Christian wives, the question has been asked whether it is consistent in good women, capable of reclaiming evil husbands, to marry men who, comparatively speaking, are virtuous? If truly wishful and zealous for the salvation of their fellow-creatures, should they not decline to marry virtuous men, and marry evil ones in preference, so that, with the Divine blessing, they may rescue them from spiritual death? No Christian is ever satisfied with the idea of entering heaven alone, desiring always to be the

:

1 It is scarcely necessary to say that the great author of the "De Civitate Dei" is by no means to be confounded with the Augustin who baptized Ethelbert. The latter did not appear on the scene till one hundred and fifty years subsequently.

instrument of another's entry likewise, and certainly no satisfaction can be greater than arises upon that "other" being the beloved of one's own household. The popular faith in women's power to reclaim in this way is assuredly considerable, or we should not have the current doctrine that men of bad moral habits should marry so as to be reformed. Women willing to undertake the office of reformer should recollect before marrying that the man least fitted for the sacred position of husband and father is the poor, weak, silly fool who during bachelorhood cannot restrain his animal passions.

No more beautiful example of the Christian home-missionary is before the world than that supplied in the life of Catherine Tait. The record of this has been so recently made public1 that a brief quotation will be quite enough in the present place. "In this totally new society" (the school-family at Rugby) "Catherine had to hold her own, and she did it quietly; her sweet looks and warm intelligence recommended her to all. She braced herself each day by the prayers of the parish church, from which she returned to family prayer. From the first she began the practice, which she continued for the five-and-thirty years of her married life, of teaching all the younger maid-servants of her household. At the school chapel, and wherever she appeared, the boys loved to look upon her face. She had the young ones to tea with her, and made conversation to entertain them; and was ready to discuss any subject that turned up at the dinner-parties in which she received the tall youths of the sixth form. In the town she was known by all the poor; she established also a little school of girls, in which it was her pleasure to teach almost every day. You could scarcely dream of a brighter, happier, busier life." What a contrast with the frivolities of fashion, and the empty and unrighteous existence of the women, alas, only too many, who think only of self, and occupy themselves with the minutiæ of their own, almost always purely fanciful, personal miseries!

1 Catherine and Craufurd Tait. A Memoir. Edited, at the request of the Archbishop of Canterbury, by the Rev. William Benham. 1879.

(To be concluded in our next.)

SAMUEL.

A SERMON TO THE YOUNG, PREACHED AT CAMBERWELL,

BY THE REV. W. C. BARLOW, M.A.

"For this child I prayed; and the LORD hath given me my petition which I asked of Him: therefore also I have lent him to the LORD; as long as he liveth he shall be lent to the LORD. And he worshipped the LORD there."—1 Samuel i. 27, 28.

My dear children and young friends, I want to-day to tell you what most of you have heard already, that this Society of the Lord's New Church wants to do its duty by you, and to find its purest pleasure in doing it. The Church here wants to act to you as a mother should do, and is trying, and means to try more and more, to do for you the best thing she can do. We want to see you happy, and yet we do not mean to try to make you happy. No, the one thing that we mean to do is if possible to make you truly wise and good. If we can do this we shall not need to take any pains about your being happy; happiness always comes to the wise and good without their seeking it, without any one's trying to secure it. Happiness comes of itself to the good, or rather the Lord Himself is happy in them, and gives them gladness, just as He has made the great sea and then created leviathan there, the great whales which He has made to play therein, as the lambs have been made to play in their green pastures.

It is because we wish to make you just what the Lord wishes you to be that one of the rules of the Society provides that you may become junior members. If your minister finds you thoughtful and kind, trying to learn your duty and to do it, he can recommend you to the committee, and the committee to the Church, and then you will be received as young members into the Church; that is, if you be willing to sign this statement: "I desire to be so instructed in the doctrines of the Lord's New Church that I may be taught both how to think concerning my relations to Him, and also how to live in accordance with His

1 The following is the new rule: "9. That any young person between the ages of fourteen and twenty years, who in the opinion of the minister is qualified to become a junior member of this Society, shall be proposed by him to the committee, and if accepted shall be publicly admitted as junior member at the next quarterly meeting, and shall sign the following declaration in a book kept for the purpose." (Here follows the declaration which is quoted in the sermon.)

It may be noted that this rule is quoted, and indeed this sermon is published, as a contribution to the study of the question so much debated of the formal and practical connections which subsist or ought to subsist between the Societies and the younger adherents of the New Church.