the master and the scholar. Good scholars deserve it, and the teacher's health requires it. He will be enabled to return to his arduous and laborious employment with new vigour and zeal. Should you have any lessons given you to learn at home, during the vacation, take care to learn them in time. See that you do not lose by the vacation: you may at least look over your last lesson, and do your last sum before you return to school. If nothing is done by the scholar from the time he leaves school till he returns to it again, he will find that it will take him some time to repeat his last lessons.

Another very important thing is to be present when the school begins. This is of more consequence, perhaps, than you imagine. Often, but very little, if any thing at all, is done for the first two or three days after the vacation, because the scholars are not returned. The classes cannot be formed, and no new arrangements can be made. This is all lost time. Be present, that you may begin and go on with the rest of your class.

The time of death may be called a vacation, or breaking up, as some children call it. When the holidays commence, the scholar is separated from his teacher. Death separates the soul from the body. Death is called a departure-a going out of this world, into that which is to come. You may leave school to return to it no more. At the vacation there is an end of lessons and learning for a time. At death there is an end of lessons and learning for ever. "There is no work or device in the grave.' There all your limbs will be cold and motionless. The Bible cannot be read there. You can write no copies, work no sums, cast up no accounts, when you return to the dust from whence you were taken. The next account which you are to give, will be to God, and not to man. Here let me remind you how many sins some children commit while at school-how watchful you ought to be that you may not be led into sin by any of your schoolfellows; for all is known to the all-seeing God. Be wise betimes to shun every evil work.

In books, or work, or healthful play,
Let your first years be past;

That you may give for every day

Some good account at last.-Watts.

Though you may stay many days, perhaps thirty or forty, still you must return to school at the appointed time. Though you may rest long in the grave, still you must rise from the dead, "for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be

raised incorruptible." At the morning of the resurrection, you will have a work to perform, for which all the rules in arithmetic can furnish no example. Good children will not be able to count the days of everlasting happiness which they are to spend with God. Bad children will not be able to count the miseries which they will have to endure in everlasting fire. Who can enumerate eternity? Who can add

to eternity? Who can take from eternity? Here no subtraction can be made, and you may multiply millions by millions in vain. None can reduce eternity--you cannot divide eternity-there are no fractions in eternity. It is a complete whole a period without end! The joys or miseries of the eternal world will be known only by practice or experience. Happy will those children be who have practised the sacred arithmetic, the holy art of numbering their days, and applying their hearts unto wisdom. Miserable, indeed, will be the condition of those children, who will practise or experience what the torments of hell are for ever and

ever.

Endeavour to improve yourselves in every branch of useful knowledge. "If the spring puts forth no blossoms, in summer there will be no beauty, and in autumn no fruit; and the winter of age will be barren indeed. If youth be trifled away without improvement, your riper years will be contemptible, and your old age miserable beyond description.

Love your teachers for the instruction which they give you you cost them inany a weary hour and many a painful thought. You often give them unnecessary trouble, and try their patience to the utmost, by your evil deeds. Pray for them, and pray that God would bless all the instructions which you receive while you are at school.

A HYMN.

How happy is the child who hears
Instruction's warning voice;
And who celestial wisdom makes
His early only choice.

For she has treasures greater far,
Than east or west unfold;

And her rewards more precious are,
Than all their stores of gold.

In her right hand she holds to view
A length of happy days;

Riches with splendid honours join'd
Are what her left displays.

She guides the young with innocence,
In pleasure's path to tread;
A crown of glory she bestows
Upon the hoary head.

According as her labours rise,
So her rewards increase;

Her ways are ways of pleasantness,
And all her paths are peace.

LECTURE VIII.

CHRIST IN THE TEMPLE, AMONG THE DOCTORS.

LUKE ii. 46.-And it came to pass, that after three days they found him in the temple, sitting in the midst of the doctors, both hearing them, and asking them questions.

ON my way to India, I tarried some weeks at a certain city. A few days after I had resided there, I saw a man walking along the street ringing a bell, and several children followed him. On inquiry I found that a child was lost, and whenever this was the case, the parents or friends of the child sent the bell-man through the streets to make known their loss.

This brought to my recollection an anecdote, which I read in the Youth's Magazine. And, having a Lecture to deliver to a large number of children, I chose the words of the text, and introduced them by this anecdote. No doubt, you wish to know what it was about; young folks are very fond of short stories. I will tell it to you; but you must promise to pay great attention:

"There are many young people, who, though they are, in general, dutiful and obedient to their parents, yet in some instances they are apt to forget the respect that is due to them. Kitty Atkins was a child of this disposition. She had frequently been told by her mother to make haste home from school, and in general she did so.

But it happened one afternoon, that a school-fellow, about her own age, invited her to drink tea with her, and promised her a variety of agreeable amusements in the evening. Kitty

was so delighted with this invitation. and the pleasures which she was to enjoy, that she quite forgot what her mother had so often told her, and went without even informing her mother where she was going. Her mother finding that she did not return for more than three hours, concluded that she was lost, and actually employed the bell-man to go about the streets, and offer a reward to any person who would bring her home.

"This was done; and just as the bell-man had finished his round, Kitty came home, about nine o'clock in the evening. On being asked where she had been, she confessed the whole truth; for she never told a falsehood, even to screen herself from punishment. She begged her mother's forgiveness, and promised never to offend in like manner again. Her mother pointed out to her in proper terms the fault which she had committed, and told her, at the same time, that she should speak to the mother of the little girl who had enticed her to go with her, and also to the governess of the school.

"This she did the next day; and it was determined, with a view to prevent the ill effects of so bad an example, that on the very next half-holiday, all the young ladies should be assembled, in the play-ground; that Kitty and her companion should be placed in the middle; that a man with a bell should go three times round the yard, proclaiming a lost child, in the same manner as the bell-man had done when Kitty was lost.

"In vain were the entreaties of the two young ladies, to be excused from the shame attending this mode of punishment. They were obliged to submit to it; and it had so good an effect upon them, that they have behaved well ever since.".

This is the anecdote; now let us attend to the Lecture. The observations which I shall make on the words I have read to you, are six in number, and the Lecture will be concluded by remarks applicable to the subject, and to you.

I. That Jesus was lost.

His parents knew not where he was; but supposed him to have been with some neighbour or friend, either before or behind. With these thoughts they were satisfied for the first day. They went a day's journey—a day's journey then was reckoned to be about eighteen or twenty miles. All this time they thought Jesus to be safe among some of their

* See Youth's Magazine for 1807, vol. 2, page 167.