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Schools connected with the Sunday-school Association have a considerable allowance on the books supplied by it, and the annual subscription is very small.

Sunday-school Teachers should hold a friendly meeting monthly, to review the state of the schools, the attendance of Teachers and Pupils, converse upon topics of usefulness connected with the institution, arrange for increased strength to any classes which require it, and encourage each other to labour diligently in the good work.

Annually, a Superintendent (or two, if needful) should be elected, whose province should be, to take cognizance of the proceedings each Sunday, and report to the Monthly Meeting. He should examine and transfer the Pupils from class to class periodically, and make suitable inquiries respecting any one who wishes to enter the School.

A Secretary should be appointed to keep regular minutes of the proceedings at monthly and other meetings.

Either the Teacher of each class, or a Committee appointed periodically, should visit the parents or guardians of every pupil in the Junior Classes who may have been absent from School one whole day, or several half-days; the number visited, and the causes of absence ascertained, should be reported to the Monthly Meeting of Teachers. Pupils should be regularly visited during illness,-this has a very beneficial effect upon the minds of parents.

There should be connected with every Sunday-school a Savings Fund, and Sick Club; to which Pupils should be encouraged to subscribe.

It is important for every School to have a Library, however small; and the books should be allowed to be taken home by Pupils for a moderate charge. Teachers usually subscribe to School Libraries; and it is desirable for periodical works to be circulated amongst them.

The finances are usually managed by a Committee of subscribers to the schools, or members of the congregation; and it is important either for this Committee, or for the Sunday-school Teachers, to invite a few members of the congregation, to visit the schools during a month. It is a pleasing occupation for a short period during the several Sundays for which they may be appointed visitors, and it is gratifying and encouraging both to Teachers and Scholars.

When the minister of a congregation can spare the time, his services will be found very valuable in the frequent Scriptural examination of Pupils, and the exposition of Scripture, &c.

A social tea-party of Sunday-school Teachers, male and female, minister and members of congregation, and other friends, should take place annually. Such a meeting is calculated to promote friendly feeling, provoke each other to love and to good works, &c.

May the Unitarian Sunday-schools of Great Britain increase in numbers and usefulness; may the rich and the poor, the learned and those of only moderate attainments, become convinced that their leisure hours cannot be better employed than in the useful occupation of Sunday-school Teachers; and while they will feel amply repaid by the satisfactory assurance that they are not labouring in vain, no one will be more gratified than

AN ADMIRER OF SUNDAY-SCHOOLS.

P.S. The closing paragraph from Dr. Channing's admirable discourse, entitled "The Sunday-school," may not be inappropriate:-" The most gifted in our congregations cannot find a worthier field of labour than the Sunday-school. The noblest work on earth is to act with an elevating power on a human spirit. The greatest men of past times have not been politicians or warriors, who have influenced the outward policy or grandeur of kingdoms; but men who, by their deep wisdom and generous sentiments, have given light and life to the minds and hearts of their own age, and left a legacy of truth and virtue to posterity. Whoever, in the humblest sphere, imparts God's truth to one human spirit, partakes their glory. He labours on an immortal nature. He is laying the foundation of imperishable excellence and happiHis work, if he succeed, will outlive empires and

ness.

the stars."

SERMONS OF AN ISRAELITE.

We have ever entertained a strong sympathy for the Jews. We cannot but remember that they are the descendants of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob; that among them David uttered strains loftier than had ever before

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been heard on earth, and Solomon meditated a wise morality far eclipsing all ancient ethics; that they alone, of all the nations of antiquity, possessed a religion bearing worthy claims to have originated with the Great Spirit of the Universe. We cannot but call to our remembrance the laws of Moses, and the prophecies of Isaiah, and the sublime vindication of the ways of God to man, in the mingled poetry and philosophy of Job. The contents of their sacred books alone, are sufficient to fill us with admiration and attachment to their possessors and composers.

These emotions are strengthened and softened when we think of the sad and marvellous reverses of fortune which have overtaken the children of Israel. Once the chosen people of God,-now they are outcasts and wanderers on the earth. Once the tenants of the holy city of David, they are become strangers in a strange land; and we must feel the chords of our own hearts vibrate mournfully, when they hang their harps upon the willows, and weep to remember Zion. Manifold have been the sorrows, and cruel have been the wrongs, under which they have sojourned, heavy-laden, since that fatal day when the victorious eagle of Pagan Rome fluttered in joy above the temple of Jehovah. By Christian kings has their blood been poured forth as water; by Christian mobs have their holiest thoughts been treated with vilest ribaldry; in Christian lands, and even under our own glorious constitution," a mark like that of Cain has been set upon them, and they alone are declared unworthy to meet in council with freemen. In almost all countries they are aliens; they only of all people have no fatherland:

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"Tribes of the wandering foot and weary breast,
How shall ye flee away and be at rest!

The wild-dove hath her nest, the fox his cave, Mankind their country,-Israel but the grave!" With us, Christians, there should exist an emotion somewhat akin to filial regard, when we remember, that this people gave origin to the "Author and finisher of our faith." The father of Jesus was an Israelite; the mother of Jesus was an Israelite; Jesus himself was an Israelite, until that baptismal hour, when he received a

Spirit which made him, not Judea's, but the world's. Theirs was the God whom Jesus adored; theirs were the sacred oracles to which Jesus made frequent appeals; theirs was the faith which Jesus acknowledged to be divine, even at the moment when he gave something purer and loftier to the hearts of universal humanity. Theirs was the Jerusalem over which Jesus wept; and theirs the Judea for which he uttered most patriotic

sorrows.

While these considerations should influence all who admire ancient piety, morality, and poetry-all who pity the oppressed-all who love the name of Christ,-there is another reason why those who regularly read the “Christian Pioneer," should sympathise with the Jews. For the last three thousand years, even from the day of the coming up out of Egypt, they have borne unwavering testimony to the great doctrine of the Unity of God. A thousand years before the names of Confucius, or Zoroaster, or Socrates, or Plato, had been uttered among men, they had avouched of this truth to the nations. By a wonderful operation of the providence of God, they were made prophets of this fundamental fact of all religion, among the Egyptians, the Babylonians, the Persians, the Greeks, the Romans, in almost the whole of the ancient world; and, since that truth was lost among Christians, for fifteen centuries have they lifted up an ever-sounding remonstrance against the Great Apostacy.

When induced by these thoughts to sympathise keenly with the descendants of Abraham, we cannot but regret, with a sorrow proportionate to our sympathy, that so few of them have received our Master as the Messiah promised to their fathers. Into the causes which may influence them still to reject the Gospel, we have not, at this moment, sufficient leisure to inquire. Much may be owing to the pride of former days; much to an honest misunderstanding of ancient prophecy; but more to the persecutions they have experienced, and the civil disabilities under which they labour; and more still, to the fact, that to receive Christianity as it is generally offered to their acceptance, would be to deny the leading truth of their religion, and to admit two equals with their own peerless Jehovah. While, however, we may lament that so few

Israelites are yet convinced of the divine mission of Jesus, it is a source of consolation to know, that the teachings of Jesus have changed, and are silently changing, the whole spirit and character of Judaism. The work which we are anxious to introduce to the notice of the readers of the "Pioneer," is entitled "Twelve Sermons, delivered in the New Temple of the Israelites, at Hamburgh; by Dr. Gotthold Salomon. Translated from the German by Anna Maria Goldsmid." From its pages, we hope to prove that Judaism is a very different thing from what it was during the public ministry of our Master.

FIRST, The God of the ancient Israelites was a being calculated to inspire terror rather than affection. He manifests himself on Sinai, arrayed in the most awful majesty. Bounds are set around the consecrated mountain, that whosoever of the people ascends it, or but touches its borders, shall surely be put to death. In the morning of revelation there were "thunders and lightnings, and a thick cloud upon the mount, and the voice of the trumpet exceeding loud, so that all the people that were in the camp trembled." Such was the first great manifestation of Jehovah; and it was calculated to awake in the bosoms of the spectators emotions, not only of reverence, but of fear, for the Being whose presence was proclaimed by these commotions in heaven and on earth. His future dealings with his people were not calculated to change the awe thus engendered into any softer and gentler feeling. He was "a jealous God;" He was one who said, "Vengeance is mine, I will repay;" He gave up his people to the spoiler for their transgressions; He sent among them fiery serpents for their ungrateful murmurs in the wilderness; He cut off three thousand of those who had worshipped the golden calf of Aaron. The strict justice of this, we are not at all disposed to deny; that such may have been the best, the only means of saving His people from a relapse into polytheism and idolatry, we have not the slightest intention to dispute; neither can it with truth be affirmed that testimonies to the long-suffering, forbearance, goodness, and paternity of God are totally excluded from the Old Testament; all we desire to establish is, that the general portraiture of the Eternal, exhibited to the ancient Israelites, was calculated to excite

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