To the Editor of the American Sunday-School

Magazine.

The address in the February number of the Magazine, prepared for the Sunday-school monthly concert of prayer, I read with peculiar pleasure. I hope with advantage. I feel persuaded that no conscientious and Christian teacher, can peruse the address without a deeper impression than ever of the importance of this work, and the necessity of vital and ardent piety, and eminent spirituality in the performance of his weekly duties. How high are the pretensions, and how solemn the professions of Sundayschool teachers! What a weight of responsibility! The teacher that does not at times tremble while he looks at the work, the interests involved, the prospects of his pupils, the subjects of instruction, the approaching and final review of all his doings at the bar of God and in the light of eternity, can scarcely have learned the first lesson of preparation for the duties he has undertaken.

There is another subject connected with the duty of teachers and friends of Sunday-schools, upon which I hope you will bestow some attention. I mean the relation of the cause of Sunday-schools to the prosperity of religion generally. I regard VITAL PIETY as the very root of the tree of which SunVOL. VII.-17

day-school, Bible, Tract, Missionary, and Education Societies are only branches. They are branches indeed of glorious fruits, and still more glorious buds and blossoms; but only branches still, and the branches cannot flourish if the root is diseased and decaying.

It is found by much careful observation, that the most devoted and spiritually minded members of our churches, are generally those who are most friendly to the cause of Sunday-schools, and indeed to all the institutions of benevolence; and it is well known that these institutions are patronised most efficiently, and prospered most signally, where true and experimental, and personal religion is most flourishing. But if the most zealous members of the church of Christ withdraw their efforts and ex. ample, and prayers and zeal, the general cause must languish. Barrenness will overspread the fields of Zion. The city will be solitary that was once full of people. The ark of God will be borne by trembling hands and with tottering steps; and the evidences of spiritual declension will multiply and darken on every side.

It may be said that the interests of a particular form of benevolence are of sufficient importance to fill the hands and the hearts of those who

engage in it. This may be true, and yet those exercises and those obligations which enlarge the hearts and strengthen the hands of the disciples of Jesus, deserve primary attention, and cannot be disregarded, or even slighted, without impairing the energies of Zion, and ultimately retarding and defeating the enterprises of benevolence.

The more intelligent and observing patrons and conductors of Sundayschool and Bible operations, &c. are aware of the connexion which exists, and which must exist between them and the general cause of religion. And they desire to promote that cause for its intrinsic and unspeakable importance to the world, as well as for the sake of all those agencies and institutions by which it dispenses its blessings to mankind. But there may be some of less experience and observation, and of less extended views, who suppose there exists merit enough in the particular object in which they are engaged, and energy enough in those concerned in carrying it forward, to secure its prosperity independently of the Church of Christ. To such, the apostle's admonition will be seasonable, and may be salutary. "Thou bearest not the root but the root thee." Under such leaders and auspices, the cause of Sabbath-schools may go on. The zeal, and piety, and wealth already enlisted, may bear it onward. Schools may be multiplied. Facilities for instruction may be multiplied. Talents and influence of a higher order may be devoted to the work-but without the fire which is to be fanned and fed upon the church's altars, the work can never prosper. Let it be separated from the spirit of humble, self-sacrificing devotedness to the general cause of Zion, and the glory of Zion's king; and let it be pushed forward in a high minded, selfseeking, independent, and worldly spirit, and the emphatic expressions of God's approbation will be withheld. The leaves may be abundant, but the fruits of righteousness will be few. The spirit of the most efficient and prominent actors in the cause, will be extended in a great degree, to those who fill humbler stations,

and perform subordinate parts, and may also be expected to affect the characters of those who have been reared and taught under its influence; and thus the joyful anticipations of the church will be turned to lamentations, and tares will be found to fill the fields from which she has expected to reap her future harvests!

It is not merely the teachers that this subject invites to solemn consideration. It deserves and demands the consideration of the active and the inactive friends of religion and of Sabbath-schools throughout the country. A system is now in operation which is destined to influence greatly the character of the rising generations of America. The questions which those who are fixing the principles and directing the exercises of our Sabbath-schools are called upon to answer, are, whether the institutions of religion and the spiritual prosperity of the church are to be sustained by the generation which is to come next, and come soon, upon the stage? or, Whether they are to be regarded as of, at best, only secondary importance? Whether the children and youth of our country shall be trained for the duties of life under a system in which the Church of Christ, as such, has refused or neglected to co-operate, and which she will be considered as having practically opposed? Whether their deepest impressions, their strongest and fondest associations shall be connected with the Church's care and guardianship, and the parental solicitude with which she has watched over them, and the hallowed influence which she has shed around them; or, Whether they shall refer their earliest religious impressions, their attachment to the Bible and the sabbath, to services and scenes in which the Church and her official representatives did not participate?

Such questions as these may seem to involve needless curiosity, or groundless anxiety, or a narrow and sectarian spirit, at variance with the simple, splendid and truly catholic enterprises of Christian benevolence. But the writer is not aware that either of the above causes has led to these observations. He believes that he is influenced by a sincere desire to