The Teacher.

SCRIPTURE HORNS.-As the horn is the strength and beauty of many animals, it was from the earliest ages used as the symbol of power and dignity. The cut represents those of the male and female Jew. They were often made of very costly materials, and studded with gems. By their position also, they often indicated the state of the wearer as being single or married, wealthy or poor, etc. The absence of the horn was significant of great depression. Ps. xcii. 10. Job xvi. 15

THE SUNDAY SCHOOL PORTRAIT PAINTER. Portrait painting, whether natural or moral, is an interesting employment. There are two kinds of portrait painters. One class delineate the natural face and features, the others are portrait painters of the mind. One paints for time, the other for eternity. He who paints the natural face nearest to the life is esteemed the best artist. But he who paints well on the mind does far the noblest work. The portrait of the natural face with its original, however beautifully drawn, will soon fade and turn pale, and its living lineaments dissolve and disappear in the night of the grave. But the portrait of

the mind once drawn to the Ifie, and its features fixed and colored by the indelible and ineffaceable colorings of its moral nature, and to all eternity this portrait will not fade, nor grow pale, nor decay, nor dissolve, nor one feature be obliterated, but will increase in distinctness and vividness, and in the strength of its moral colorings through countless years.

The painter of the natural face must delineate its features as they are, or he fails in obtaining a good likeness. He cannot add nor diminish from the original before him. Not so the portrait painter on the mind. He has a mind before him of vast and ever expanding capacities on which to delineate features and fix impressions. He has heavenly implements and colorings made ready for his use, and the aid of the blessed Spirit to guide his pencil, and give accuracy, and vividness, and celestial beauty to the divine likeness which he is attempting to draw on the immortal mind. If the painter discovers an unlovely feature beginning to appear, he may dip his brush in the living light of truth, and by God's help efface it, and inscribe in its place a line of celestial beauty.

Sunday school teachers are portrait painters of the mind.

They paint for eternity. They paint every sabbath, when youthful minds assemble for religious instruction, and receive fresh impressions from the pencil of truth. The painter who comes direct from his closet. with his face beaming like Moses, with heavenly radiance from communion with God, is prepared to exert his skill on these young minds, in improving and assimilating them more, and more into the Divine likeness.

What a work is this for mortals to perform! What skill is required! What responsibility is incurred! What care is necessary! What incessant and prayerful solicitude and watchfulness is demanded, lest some one of these portraits should be marred and disfigured by some unskilfulness or mis-stroke of the pencil! Or rather, lest the blessed Spirit, without whose direction and agency not one feature can be rightly impressed on the mind, should disown the workmanship. And yet what exalted honour is bestowed by God on sabbath school teachers, in being thus employed in preparing immortal minds for the bliss and glories of heaven! And yet in this wondrous work every faithful Sunday school teacher is permitted to engage every sabbath. But does such a one fully realize the nature and importance of his work? Does he go forth to his labour of love on the sabbath morning under a deep and affecting impression that he is to be engaged for God this day with immortal minds and painting for eternity? Does he earnestly seek Divine aid and Iskill in his work? Does he implore the blessed Spirit to soften and prepare these young minds to receive the lineaments divine, and fix them indelibly on the soul? And does each one thus employed realize the presence of invisible spectators, who gaze with intense

interest on each movement of his pencil and effort of his skili? What if this view of the matter be figurative, does it not teach lessons of practical wisdom suited to impress and affect the mind of every teacher of youth? We all need a constant recurrence of means and motives, ordinary and extraordinary, to keep our minds alive to the convictions of duty, and to the everlasting results of our actions. This dealing with immortal minds, young or old, is a solemn business. It is so not only to the Sunday school teacher, but applies with even greater force to the ministers of Christ, and to the parents of children,

And there is another view of this matter which should not be forgotten. There is to be, ere long, a grand inspection of portraits hung up, so to speak, all around the walls of eternity. There, along the walls of this vast picture gallery, every painter on the mind will find his work, well done or ill done, and all the portraits he has helped to paint. And not only so, but he will find his own moral portrait drawn to the life, truer than any Daguerreotype likeness ever was. And moreover it is a most solemn and affecting thought, that there will be not only one, but two grand portrait galleries in eternity. Two worlds, indeed, devoted to it. In one will be the portraits of all the holy, the beautiful, beaming with celestial radiance; the pure in heart, and all whose features, and lineaments, and breathings are impressed with the Divine likeness.

But of that other gallery we would fear to speak, where are the portraits of all the unholy, with features hideous and malignant, and dreadfully expressive of guilt and woe. They are the portraits of the enemies of God, by wicked works, who died in

their sins. You could not look at them or think of them without deep feelings of horror and dismay. Portrait painter of thyself or others, thou art painting for eternity! Paint for heaven and heaven's glorious gallery, and may you be found among the gems and jewels which shall deck and adorn the Redeemer's crown for ever.

ATEACHER LOST! LOST! LOST! -In a village on the coast of Scotland, there lived a young man, the eldest son of pious parents, and the child of many prayers. The early instructions he received, and the preaching of the gospel he sat under, seemed to have had, with the blessing of God, such a salutary influence on his heart and life, that when he proposed himself to the fellowship of a church in Christ, he was received 'without doubting.' Having good natural talents and extensive knowledge, he soon became a most zealous and useful member of the church. His labours as a sabbath school teacher were abundant and acceptable; his prayers most fervent, and apparently experimental; his addresses in fellowship meetings highly instructive and edifying; his conscience seemed to become more and more tender under the word of God, even to a degree of simplicity; he was also a 'faithful reprover of sin in the gate,' and, for many years, was like a 'burning and a shining light,' in the dark course where he lived.

But, alas! under his splendid profession of religion, he secretly contracted a love to strong drink. When his dangerous predilections for ardent spirits became known to his Christian brethren, he was faithfully and affectionately dealt with. He was warned, admonished, and reproved; but, continuing to pamper with the 'accursed thing,' after the exercise of much forbearance, he was at

length laid aside from the fellowship of the church.

Instead of this having the tendency of causing him to be ashamed, and to bring forth fruits meet for repentance,' it seemed to remove the only restraint that had hitherto kept him from running to every excess of riot. He now more openly and more frequently gratified his unhallowed appetite; till by degrees he became a monster of intemperance. During his dark and awful career, his wellinformed conscience would not allow him to neglect the public means of grace, nor could he endure those who preached any other gospel save Jesus Christ and him crucified. Out of many which might be mentioned, the following facts may show the state of his mind in his more sober moments:-A neighbour having been, in the way of business, at a large city, was asked by him, 'What news have you been hearing?' 'No news but the best that ever were heard by the ears of mortal man. I have heard the good news of salvation, through faith in the blood of Christ preached in a very plain and experimental manner. John, you once loved to hear of the good news of the gospel.' 'Ah,' he replied, 'I did so; but that cursed whiskey, what has it done to me?' Pointing to one end of the empty house where the conversation took place, he said, 'Were that end of the house filled with untold gold, and if it were not my own, I would court none of it; but were a barrel of whiskey in the other end, such is my insatiable thirst after ardent spirits, that I do believe a sight of the very flames of hell could not keep me from it.' On another occasion, being in the house of a neighbour, and a fire burning very brightly on the hearth, he said, 'Do you see

'Yes.'

that fire how it burns?' 'Then I am as convinced in my conscience that there is an eternal hell, as I am of that fire burning before me, and that it will be at last my portion.' When it was observed, that it was strange how, with such a conviction, he should still persevere in the way that he knew was leading him to such a dreadful end, he replied, 'You ought to be thankful that you know not the accursed infatuation connected with the love of drink. I feel that it has got a sort of cmnipotency over me, and it will be my eternal ruin.' A pious member of the family exclaimed, 'Oh, I hope not. I have still some hope that you are one of God's backsliding children, and that the Lord in mercy will yet bring you back to himself.' Mark his answer,-'I once thought so myself, but my habit of drinking has been persevered in so long, that all hope of that kind has departed from me.'

While he made a great deal of money by his trade, his intemperate habits kept himself poor and his family wretched. From being of a kind and obliging temper, he became remarkably quarrelsome and litigious. Like a true son of Nabal, there was no speaking to him. His neighbours, among whom he had once lived as their teacher, and for whom he had offered up many prayers, he would now fight with in a savage manner; and his wife and children, and even his aged and truly respected and venerable parent, felt the effects of his ungovernable anger.

But, sooner or later,' wickedness overthroweth the sinner ;' and, in a variety of ways, he soon found it to be so. In consequence of his intemperance, repeated shocks of an apopletic kind now dreadfully shook his frame; but being sold unto sin,' no warning had any permanent

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effect. One evening he had seven shocks of apoplexy; all around him thought him dying, but recovering towards morning, the first use he made of returning strength was to procure whisky, with which he completely intoxicated himself. But the time came when he must die; and how did he die? Did he feel repentance or remorse for the past? or was he agitated with restless anxiety or alarm at the prospect of the future? No; he was utterly unconcerned about the past, the present, or the future. His former pastor, who never lost sight of him, although unsent for, visited him on his death-bed. But no representations of the love of God, and his readiness to receive backsliders and the chief of sinners-no annunciations of the efficacy of the blood of Christ to take away sin-no relation of the happy restoration of backsliders, after many years of deep transgression

neither tears nor prayers could draw from him one confession of his sin, or one petition for pardon. The very desire to taste the mercy of God in Christ, seemed to have perished out of his heart. And the last words he uttered in this world were to give him whisky. 'He that hath ears to hear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches.'

VARIETIES OF TEACHERS.There are four orders of female teachers, the peacocks, with whom dress is all; the magpies, with whom chatter is all; the turtles, with whom love is all; and the birds of paradise, above them all.

WANTS.-Wisdom wants more pupils; truth, more real friends; virtue, more admirers; honesty, more practitioners; religion, to have less said of its mysteries, and more of its duties.