foundest of human philosophers, who dared to touch the problems of human suffering and the universal environment of evil, also discoursed upon the phenomena of the air and other physical topics in a fashion entrancingly simple and sublime.

The men of the past were our full equals in both brawn and brain. The literature of two millenniums ago comprises the college of classics of to-day. Solomon was right in saying "There is no new thing under the sun." For all our forebears, away back to dim antiquity, meditated precisely as do we about the same themes, and amid the endless discussions of the Bible, pro and con, at least nobody has dreamed of adding to it a contribution of the present age.

Of course, men have always speculated upon the origin of life and the birth of the planethow could they help it? The piety that contemns science still survives in considerable patches-we must have compassion on it, but it is not the best type. Men and women who cherish the hope of immortality must scripturally have a reason for it, and when the Masterworkman hangs all about us the proofs of his wisdom, power, and love it behooves' us to pause and reflect. And thus men paused and reflected in other ages.

One of the impressive pictures of the Old Testament exhibits Abram in an outdoor night school, receiving an object lesson indicative of the number and greatness of his posterity. The moon was in hiding, its silvery beams falling upon distant America-destined to remain for thirty-four centuries more, so far as geographers might know, as occult as if it were a part of the embryonic chaos, and in the singularly clear and crisp Eastern atmosphere the host of heaven glittered vastly more numerously and brilliantly than in those latitudes where the SUNDAY SCHOOL JOURNAL is most familiar. "Look now toward heaven," said Jehovah to the bewildered octogenarian, "and tell the stars, if thou be able to number them. . . . So shall thy seed be." And though Abram saw the astral avenues crowded with suns, and the Galaxy on the point of dissolution into uncountable separate brilliants, he believed, and God counted it to him for righteousness.

In all secular literature there is nothing half so fine as David's declaration, "The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament showeth his handiwork," or, "When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained; what is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the

son of man, that thou visitest him?" Paul's day antedated that of the telespectroscope by eighteen centuries, yet he said with absolute scientific accuracy, "There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars; for one star differeth from another star in glory."

Addison's paraphrase of the nineteenth psalm is perhaps as happy as Dr. Neale's translation of Bernard's "Celestial Country," yet who will affirm that the dignity and stateliness of the noble Davidic song are fully reproduced? Eloquent indeed are some of the astronomical allusions of modern writers and lecturers, but the Hebraic references to the universe are majestic. Berwyn, Pa.

The Sunday School Library.

BY THE REV. J. WESLEY JOHNSTON, D.D.

I AM under deep obligations to the Sunday school library, deeper than I can ever repay, for it influenced my early life in a remarkable degree. My father, being a Methodist of the strictest type, was most careful in the books which were chosen for his children, and the Sunday reading in my boyhood days was not aggressively alluring. To begin with, there was the Arminian Magazine, a full set of which was one of my father's choicest possessions, part of this set being an inheritance, for my grandfather was also a Methodist, opening his home to the early Methodist preachers as one of their regular preaching places; and my father for a long period had been a subscriber to this publication.

Now, the Arminian Magazine was doubtless a most valuable and deeply religious periodical, but for a boy not yet in his teens it did not offer much that was of absorbing interest. Following hard upon the magazine came Wesley's works, Sermons, Notes, Journals-in fact, most of the writings of this singularly productive man. In later years I have reached a more definite appreciation of John Wesley as an author, but in those unregenerate days he held small charm for me. By way of relaxation the Missionary Notices were read, and as the missionary life at that time was one of danger and excitement these Notices were not without interest. On Sunday afternoon my father would generally read an article from the Arminian Magazine, a sermon of John Wesley's, occasionally a chapter of the New Testament, with Wesley's Notes thereon, and follow this up with several pages of the Journals. Of course it was my wicked and depraved heart, and I

ought to confess it with deep sorrow, still when we used to sing,

"How sweet a Sabbath thus to spend,
In hope of one that ne'er shall end!"

the proper enthusiasm for such a pious hymn was sadly lacking on my part. As my father was superintendent of the village Sunday school, naturally his bent of mind influenced the little library to such a degree that nothing was allowed on its shelves except such books as were of the most severe religious type. He had a horror of fiction, and I think seriously doubted the value of Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress!

But there came a time, some few years later, when I found a Sunday school library with books which appealed to my juvenile tastestories, incidents of travels, records of adventure, bits of history, biography-and though very young, still the desire for reading gradually came upon me, a desire which has remained to this day. Since then the Sunday school library has been something of a hobby with me, and I think it will be found that in each Sunday school over which I have been placed as pastor the library has received considerable care. During these twenty-odd years of pastoral serving I have made some discoveries relative to the Sunday school library:

1. The whole subject is not given the attention it deserves. The pastor as a general thing takes little interest in it; the superintendent often regards it as of small importance; the teachers' meeting rarely gives the matter more than the briefest consideration.

2. The Library Committee is seldom made up properly, or feels a definite sense of responsibility. No one should be given a place on this committee who has not a distinct taste for books, an appreciation of their value, and an ability to cater to a large variety of needs. There are many variant and various minds in the average Sunday school. The person capable of enjoving the biography of Hester Ann Rogers would not sit up all night reading Robinson Crusoe. The Library Committee should have a deep appreciation of different tastes and aptitudes, and be able in some measure to provide for all classes and conditions. Its sclection is therefore a matter of special importance, a duty to which both the pastor and superintendent should give careful attention.

3. Too many books are purchased at one time, and without due examination or critical judg ment. The Sunday school library is often the victim of spasms and spurts. Instead of a few

books being added every month, the committee usually wait for a year or two, and then buy a whole lot, spending perhaps less than an hour in their selection-in fact, taking the books suggested by the polite salesman. No one would dream of making up a private library in this fashion; and yet greater care, much greater in every way, should be given to the library of the Sunday school.

4. The librarians are not sufficiently acquainted with the books under their care. A good librarian should know in a general way the contents of his library. A catalogue, even at best, is only a makeshift. The title of a book has often slight relation to its contents. Under the head of "Astronomy" I once saw catalogued Beecher's Star Papers! There are, indeed, many painstaking librarians in our Sunday schools, but if the importance of their work is once realized the number of these will be vastly increased.

Properly managed, the Sunday school library can do an immense good. But it must be in constant process of renewal. Fresh, vivid, useful books are an imperative necessity. Our young people will read-of that fact we may be certain and the quality of their reading will depend very largely on what they secure through the Sunday school. The enormous sale of nickel and dime novels-wild, startling, fearfully constructed tales of pirates, robber chieftains, full of daring escapades and lurid adventures-is a serious matter, for it means that our boys are reading this foul stuff which poisons and pollutes every mind it enters. And what is true of the boys is equally true of the girls. Their favorite stories may not be of highwaymen or freebooters, and yet they are often even more fascinating and dangerous. A solemn duty and a serious responsibility, therefore, attach to the work of the Sunday school library. To overcome evil with good is an apostolic injunction. And if we can displace a bad book with a good one; if we can save a young life from being corrupted and at the same time build that young life up in honor and manliness; if we can weed out the unholy, securing as well the planting of good seed that will bring forth a noble harvest in character and virtue, we shall have done a work the value of which no one can estimate. Then let us give earnest attention to our Sunday school libraries. Let us plan, work, think, provide, and thus make possible, within our means, the brightest, purest, sweetest, and most interesting literature that can anywhere be found. New York.

The Eye or the Voice in Discipline?

On

BY THE REV. A. H. MC KINNEY. GIVEN as factors in the problem: A large Bible school well disciplined; an acting superintendent with a quiet, orderly school. another day the same school, led by another superintendent, is noisy and disorderly. Why the difference in the deportment of the school? This was the problem for which I sought to find an answer. Close observation gave the solution.

Superintendent number one used his eyes a great deal and his voice but little. He was very quiet, but his eyes took in everything in the room, and saw things in their proper relations. The members of the school were conscious that their leader's eyes were upon them. He talked to the restless and the indifferent one, and even to the disorderly one, with his eyes, and for the most part they responded quickly and willingly. The other superintendent did not use his eyes enough. He saw things, but not in their relationship. When he beheld offenders he did not talk to them with his eyes. On the contrary, he used his powerful voice a great deal in talking about the offenses of a few. The results were: Much valuable time was lost, the innocent members of the school rebelled against the treatment they were receiving, and those who were inclined to be disorderly took advantage of the confusion created by the noisy superintendent to play their pranks.

In that school the difference between order and disorder, quietness and confusion, was largely due to the difference between two men. Investigation is revealing the fact that this is true in regard to many schools.

If a superintendent will talk very little about the disorder in the school, if he is selfpossessed and very quiet himself, if he uses his eyes for the double purpose of noting disorder and of talking with them to the offenders, and carries on the exercises without interruption, there will be but little disorder. Those who refuse to be benefited by this method of treatment should be noted and dealt with personally, outside of the school hour.

The close of the nineteenth century saw the passing away of the bell in Bible school discipline. Shall not the beginning of the twentieth century mark the use of the eye rather than the use of the voice in securing attention and order? At this point I hear the feeble voice of some easy-going superintendent saying: "That is just what I always said. There is no use telling boys and girls to behave themselves in Sunday school. One must let them have their

own way, or they will leave the school." Nay, nay, my brother, that is not so. The quiet man may be forceful. He ought to insist on order in the school. He can have order. The man who allows the pupils to do as they please is insulting God and doing them an irreparable harm. He is disobeying the command, "Let all things be done decently and in order." New York.

The Opening Prayer.

BY THE REV. W. R. GOODWIN, D.D.

THE opening prayer at the Sunday school session is one of the most important parts of the entire service, and yet it is frequently considered of trifling importance. In some schools the superintendent always makes the opening prayer, although he is not gifted in that direction. In other schools anybody that is willing to pray in public is called upon, and the result is quite mixed. Occasionally only the pastor is invited to offer the opening prayer. While it is well to call upon different persons, it should be known who can pray to edification. A man or woman may be able to pray admirably in a prayer meeting, and yet almost entirely be disqualified to pray before a Sunday school. Brevity, comprehensiveness, and an understanding of child-nature should characterize every prayer. Some offer a long, rambling prayer that wearies the school; others pray for everybody in particular, and then repeat the request at length for the school; others repeat "Our Father" in nearly every sentence, or some other phrase, as a kind of starter. A prayer at the opening of the school should be thought out in advance, and should include the officers, teachers, scholars, visitors, parents, and the lesson. Beyond this but little need be prayed for, and once is enough to go over the ground. Avoid vain repetitions. Ordinarily the prayer should not be more than two minutes in length. Reserve longer prayers for the closet, prayer meeting, or public congregation. The opening prayer in the Sunday school should be brief, comprehensive, spirited, spiritual, and edifying. Humdrum, miscellaneous prayers are not adapted to the Sunday school.

Redondo, Cal.

MANY scholars have no other way of learning courtesy excepting from their teacher. Be careful, O teacher, that you are yourself upon your best behavior while teaching your classes, while calling at the homes of its members, or receiving them into your own home.

WHAT is the best time on Sunday for holding the session of the Sunday school?

Some Sunday schools meet on Sunday morning just before the preaching service, others meet immediately after the morning service, and others meet in the afternoon, after an interval of an hour and a half or two hours, or, in other words, in the middle of the afternoon. Now, are they all equally good, or is one particular period the best time for the Sunday school to meet? Doubtless something may be said in support of each hour named. For any one of them probably some one can be found who will say, "We always met at that time, and we ought always to meet at that hour," but that is merely stating a fact and not giving a good reason. That it has always been so may be justification for a demand that the superior advantage of some other time shall be demonstrated, but it is not proof that the time-honored hour is really the best. Every school should be sure that it has the best time; but what is the best time?

We have an opinion from Margaret Meredith, of Princeton, N. J., in favor of afternoon schools. This is what she says:

An expert in Sunday schools gives this opinion: "All Sunday schools which have a large missionary element ought to be in the afternoon and Sunday schools, of course, usually ought to have a large missionary element."

Various circumstances may make the afternoon an impossible time; but its great advantages should always be taken into consideration when there is a doubt in making the choice.

This man went on to say: "Working people get into no harm in the early morning of Sunday they are asleep. It is the afternoon in which they are on the streets and in danger."

That strikes one at first glance as going rather far afield for a main reason, but really it presents the soul-saving advantage in a nutshell-two nutshells rather; for not only is the attracting of scholars out of harm and danger during the bulk of Sunday afternoon an immense added gain, but on the other hand scholars will not come who are asleep.

To elaborate: Sunday teems with danger for the irreligious. It is the only time except in the evenings when there is much leisure for it.

Sadly, often, with the men, Saturday night begins and Sunday night finishes a steady debauch; while for those not sunk so low, often for even the small children, the maelstrom swirls around them closer and closer week after week, and the women and little girls are entangled in its miseries and degradation in innumerable

ways.

Some imagine that in the country and its little villages these conditions do not prevail. Those who carry on religious work in the country have no such roseate views. The Saturday night and Sunday carouses at crossroads ginshops or in friendly kitchens are perhaps even more fascinating to tired farmer lads, after a monotonous, laborious week, than those which lie in wait for the same rough element in cities are to their victims.

Well-behaved young men take the Saturday evening chance for long pleasurings, if only visits to their best girls; and a 9:30 A. M. Sunday school can have no hope of securing them. They sleep late, the carousers sleep late, the very hard workers sleep late, and if any can be induced to be ready for morning church service it is something of a triumph.

One argument against all these remains, to my mind, paramount in certain cases, although it is an argument which to many will not appeal at all: For some Sunday schools in a neighborhood to be in the afternoon and some in in the morning gives opportunity, to those who wish it, to attend two. It is only in good Christian homes, I contend, that children can be better occupied during either portion of the day than they are at a second Sunday school. if they go to it of their own free will and accord―to one being required to go, to another being allowed to go.

Teachers' Meeting.

By the teachers' meeting we do not mean the Sunday School Board which supervises the school, for that contains more than teachers. Neither do we mean a business meeting, for a teachers' meeting has no business function. What we do mean is a meeting of teachers for the purpose of preparation and inspiration.

Some experienced Sunday school workers do not hesitate to say as a result of their experience that it is not possible to bring the work of the Sunday school to the highest standard of efficiency without holding fre quent, regular, and stimulating meetings of

the teachers.

Even if it were possible, everyone must admit that the school will be greatly helped by such a meeting. The practical difficulty is how to get the teachers together and how to sustain the meetings with regularity and spirit.

Queries.

Questions relating to Sunday school work or on subjects within the scope of this Magazine are requested.

Has the second Quarterly Conference power to appoint nine additional members to a Sunday School Committee, thus raising the number to ten?

From this inquiry it appears that a Quarterly Conference appointed only one person on its Sunday School Committee, and the question is as to the right or power of a subsequent Quarterly Conference held before the year ends, say the second Quarterly Conference, to appoint nine additional members, and thus make a Sunday School Committee of ten.

In the first place, if the Quarterly Conference appoints anybody at all it will have a committee of more than one; for if it appoints one, then there will be a committee of two, for the pastor, by the law, is chairman of the Committee on Sunday Schools. This he is, without any action by the Quarterly Conference; SO that, assuming the question to be correct as to the fact of the appointment of only one by the Quarterly Conference originally, still the original committee consisted of at least two and the addition of nine would have made a committee of eleven. But if the Quarterly Conference only appointed one member of the committee it erred, for the law reads: "Said Quarterly Conference shall appoint a committee of members of our Church of not less than three nor more than nine for each Sunday school in the charge." If, then, the Quarterly Conference had failed to perform its duty by appointing at least the minimum number it would be its duty at the earliest moment to correct the defect. It could not, however, add nine to one, for that would go above the maximum permitted by the law, neither could it add nine to the committee of two, including the pastor, for that would be eleven, but it could go up to the number nine.

IF a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church has been appointed a member of the Sunday School Committee by the fourth Quarterly Conference and afterward appointed a

teacher in the Sunday school by the superintendent, does that invalidate him as a member of the Sunday School Committee and rescind the action of the fourth Quarterly Conference?

In answering this it is necessary in passing to call attention to the error involved in the statement that the individual was "appointed a teacher in the Sunday school by the superintendent," for, as a matter of law, a Sunday school superintendent cannot appoint anyone a regular teacher in the Sunday school. The superintendent does not make teachers. The most that he can do is to nominate a person for the position of teacher, and even that he cannot do unless he has the consent of the pastor to make the nomination, and, even with this consent on the part of the pastor, the nomination by the superintendent does not make the individual a teacher. The nomination is merely a proposal to the Sunday School Board for its consideration, and the board has power to confirm or reject the nomination, so that the nominated person becomes a teacher only when the board has confirmed the nomination.

But supposing the individual has been made a teacher according to law, the question will stand precisely as the inquirer intends. This is the case: One has been duly made a member of the Sunday School Committee of the Quarterly Conference, and, subsequently, this individual becomes a regular teacher in the Sunday school. Now, may this individual be a teacher and at the same time be a member of the Quarterly Conference Sunday School Committee, or does his new position as teacher vacate his place on said committee? The plain answer is that there is no law that states he cannot hold both positions, and the act of the Sunday School Board in making him a teacher can have no effect on the action of the Quarterly Conference. If in the first place the individual had been a teacher in the Sunday school, it was quite within the province of the Quarterly Conference to place him on the committee, and if it had done so that would not have affected his position as a teacher, and for the same reason his becoming a teacher does not affect his position .on the committee.