then endeavoured to teach, what he had learnt himself, to the ignorant and the young. And as for reading the Bible in private, as you say he does, he never opened the Bible at home before he became a Sunday-school teacher."

Is there not a sneer, or at least a smile upon the lip of some of my readers, at the mere mention of a Sunday-school teacher. Alas! how we are misled by our associations, and how many associate the idea of a Sunday-school teacher with what is contemptible and methodistical, with what is low and mean in intellect, as well as station. And will not the smile and the sneer wear a more decided character, when I boldly assert that the office of a Sunday-school teacher is a noble office in the highest sense of the word. Among the many glorious things that are spoken with truth of our Christian Universities, I may mention a fact, perhaps but little known, of the University of Cambridge. There is, and has been for some years at that place, a Sunday-school of two thousand scholars, supported and taught entirely by the undergraduates of the University, and among the most diligent, the most efficient, and the humblest of all the teachers of that Sunday-school was a young man of high connexions, who had lately taken the very highest academical honours; nay, I believe that it was the testimony of his most distinguished examiner, Professor A-y, that no senior wrangler for many years had approached his standard of excellence.

Whatever the worldly and the prejudiced may say against Sunday-schools, and Sunday-school teachers, we would say with that truly Christian poet on the same subject,

God scorns not humble things,
There tho' the proud despise,
The children of the King of kings,
Are training for the skies.

60

CHAPTER III.

THE LOVE OF MONEY.

As Mr. Lea and Mr. Freeborn were on their way to the Leaside, they passed the house of old Mr. Harding, the wretched unbeliever, whom we mentioned at the beginning of the first chapter. A woman came to the door, and stared round about her as if in search of some one. The instant she saw Mr. Lea, she said to him, "Come in at once; you will do; you are the very person, and the only person, perhaps, that would have any influence with him."—" Why, what is the matter, Mrs. Skelton?" he replied; "how is your uncle ?"—" Oh! he is dying, and I wish him to see some one at once. Pray do come in, that's a dear good man, or I think I shall go wild." Mr. Lea turned to his friend Freeborn, and begged him to go at once, and join the family party at the Leaside. "I cannot refuse you," he said, to Mrs. Skelton, and he followed her into the house.

My uncle," she said, "has been taken in a strange manner; but I am quite sure he has not long to live. The doctor has been here, and he tells me

so." At this moment, the voice of the old man was heard, calling to her, petulantly, to come up to him at once..—“ I shall tell him you are here,” she said; and then, "pray come up, and talk to him;" and then she screamed out, "I am coming to you, uncle, only it's not quite ready. It is ready," she added, in a lower voice, pointing to a little mug of gruel which she had placed on the upper bars of the dim fire to keep it warm. -"What I want you to do, my dear good Mr. Lea, is to get him to settle his affairs; to speak to him ahout making a will. He wont hear me; and I have spoken to him so often on the subject, that I do believe he would drive me out of the room, if I were to say another word about it.”—“ I thought," replied Mr. Lea, "by your anxiety, and recollecting the high religious professions you have always made, that you were thinking about far higher things. Has he sought for pardon? has he cried for mercy through our forgiving Redeemer, to that great and merciful God, whom he has utterly forsaken for so many years?"-"Oh, no! at least, I am sure I can't tell you; but he is dying, and there's no will made."" Never mind the will, we will think of that afterwards. Shall I go for Mr. Burkitt?"-" Dear me, no!" she replied; "he can't bear the sight of him; he almost turned him out of doors, when the minister came to beg him to come to church, or to go to some place of worship."-" Hetty, are you coming?" called out the old man; and again she

answered with a scream, "When your gruel is

ready, but I can't come before."-" If he will not see our good clergyman," continued Mr. Lea, “ perhaps he will listen to me, when I say a few words to him about his wretched sinful life."- "But what am I to do, if there is no will made?" she replied. "He'll not attend to you, if you talk to him about religion. I know he won't; he never would to me; and I am quite sure that he will put himself dreadfully out, for you know how violent he is; and then-" The eye of Mr. Lea was fixed so sternly and so searchingly upon the woman's face, that she stopt." And then ?" he repeated; "well, and what then?" Why," she said, "he wont hear you speak a word about the will and the money;—so, there's a dear good man,”—and she now spoke in a coaxing, wheedling tone, and almost fondled the hand of Mr. Lea in her own, looking up into his face with a smile, which agreed but ill with her skinny, soured features,—“ dear good man, get him to settle temporal things, to settle them all comfortably, and then talk to him about his soul."-" Hetty, Hetty!" cried the old man, from above; "come up at once; never mind the gruel; I'm very bad; I am much worse." She moved to the foot of the stairs, and cried, "I'm coming this very moment;" and then, as if she could not, and would not yet leave the subject nearest to her heart, she came back to Mr. Lea, with the look of a creature almost desperate, and said, "You do not think what is to become of me, if he does not make a will! He promised me, if I would