are all mankind by nature?" was the way in which the question was simply stated to the school, to which they answered almost mechanically, 'Sinners.'-It was the reply to the question, which the girls were called upon to prove.

When the night came round again in which the elder scholars were to give in their proofs, either verbal or written, Lily, who in her thoughtless way, had not sufficiently attended to the subject at home, was astonished, when she stood up in her class, to hear the girls going over so rapidly, and many of them, alas! so unconcernedly, such innumerable passages from the Bible, descriptive of the miserable state of man. She seemed to have heard, as for the first time, sentence of condemnation passed upon all men, for that all have sinned; not upon the men of one age only, not on the children of one generation only, but on all who ever lived on the face of the earth, since the evening when our first parents were driven out of the garden of Eden, down to the present moment—she seemed to see the flaming sword turning every way, pointing to all. but especially to herself, as guilty. When she heard one scholar after

another stand up and prove, that "all men are sinners," not out of the Old Testament only, but from the New-not from one book of the Bible, but from all-not by means of one or two texts, or three or four verses, but hundreds of verses, she began to feel as she never-never had felt before.

Here a little girl stood up, and repeating her selection of proofs, began to say, "Behold I was shapen in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me.-The Lord looked down from heaven upon the children of men, to see if there were any that did understand, and seek after God-they are all gone aside, they are altogether become filthy, there is none that doeth good, no, not one. And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. -The imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth. The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked, who can know it? There is not a just man upon earth, that doeth good and sinneth not-All have sinned, and come short of the glory of God-They have done abominable iniquity, there is none that docth good-By one man

sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for all have sinned."

While all these sacred texts were repeated before Lily, the observations made on each by the Teacher, were also listened to by her, in a way that she had never listened to any thing in her life before. She seemed at this moment, and for the first time, to have received the hearing ear; and now, it is possible, she also received for the first time the faith that cometh by hearing. As she listened to the Teacher explaining the evil nature of sin -that it is sinful, exceeding sinful-that it is evil, and only evil, and that continually-that it is not only contrary to the commandments of God, but opposed to all the holiness of his nature, to all the purity of his precepts that he hath cursed it in the law, and denounced it in the gospel-that in this world it makes us restless and unhappy-that at the last it is the sting of death-while to them that never repent, it becomes the worm that dieth not, and the fire that is not quenched.-While the poor girl heard all this, she felt as if a serpent had coiled round her heart. Of all the scriptures which she had learnt at school and forgotten al

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most as soon as learnt, she could remember, at this moment, only one, and what was worse, or rather what was better, she felt it,—it was this: "For the word of God is quick and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of the soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow; and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart." And of all the hymns she had learnt, she could remember only part of the following; so that if the lesson at the school that evening, had not been the parable of the Prodigal Son, (by which she was encouraged to hope) we do not know how long she might have continued to endure all this misery:

"The Word of Christ our Lord,
With whom we have to do,

Is sharper than a two-edged sword,
To pierce the sinner through!

Swift as the lightning's blaze,
When awful thunders roll,
It fills the conscience with amaze,

And penetrates the soul.

No heart can be concealed

From his all piercing eyes;

Each thought and purpose stands revealed,
Naked, without disguise.

He sees his people's fears;

He notes their mourful cry;

He counts their sighs, and falling tears,
And helps them from on high.

Though feeble is their good,
It has his kind regard;

Yea, all they would do, if they could,
Shall find a sure reward.

He sees the wicked through,
And will repay them soon,
For all the evil deeds they do,
And all they would have done.

Since all our secret ways

Are marked and known by thee,
Afford us Lord, thy light of grace,

That we ourselves may see."

Soon after this, the doctrine of salvation, by faith in Christ, became the subject of proof. "What must we do to be saved?" being the question, the answer to which was that given by St. Paul to the Jailer at Philippi; "Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved." Then the doctrine of repentance; afterwards, that of the necessity of holiness, became successively the subjects of instruction in the school, of conversation in the classes, and among the children, while at