We have not room here to enter into this subject more at length; but a careful study will make this clear. Such study should be given in view of the important position which the Jewish people hold at present in the world. Their preservation to this day is a standing proof of the truth of the prophecies. Who can enter a Jewish synagogue, and not find tangible evidence that such a person as Abraham did indeed live when we see before us his descendants?

Another proof of the truth of the Scriptures may be found in the perfect adaptation of their teachings to the supernatural element in the mind of a child, so early developed in the imagination.

Where is there a more beautiful lesson for all ages than the trusting faith with which these little ones receive the most wonderful truths from the lips of a parent? Where is the child who ever listened to the marvellous story of Jonah, and doubted?

Children will naturally, if permitted to follow the bent of their own inclinations, select for their reading, in opening the Bible, the Old-Testament stories, the miracles, and the parables. These attract them, and they should be encouraged to become familiar with them as children. Their faculties are more receptive, their minds more easily impressed, their imagination more vivid, and their feelings more sensitive, than in later years; and truths stamped upon heart and brain at that time remain indelibly fixed there, requiring a serious effort to efface those early impressions.

The Bible is pre-eminently the book for Sunday; and no Sunday-school teaching should ever be allowed to take the place of the parents' reading it themselves with their children.

Sunday-school teaching may often be most valuable; but, too frequently, it is disjointed and fragmentary. A lesson is given and recited without any question of what interest it may excite in, or what benefit it may be to, the mind of a child. A case in point occurs to us. A little boy, in answer to the question,

"What did you learn, to-day, at Sunday school?" replied, "I learned a text."

"Can you repeat it?"

"And Mary arose in those days, and went into the hill country with haste, into a city of Judæa!

This was the child's teaching for the day, and surely is beyond comment.

Instead of such instruction, if parents will only follow a child's lead, and make it familiar with what it naturally prefers, benefit will result to parent as well as child; for they will thus both become interested in following what we have called the golden thread of the story of man's redemption, which runs throughout the whole volume, and is most clearly seen exactly in the portions which we have already referred to as the child's own choice.

Besides the spiritual influence of the Scriptures, their effect upon character, in elevating and refining it, should never be forgotten. We need most specially to remem

ber this in our country, where we have no court standard of manners, and the Bible precepts, "Be courteous," &c., are the rules which, as a people, we must depend upon.

The effect of these teachings may be best shown by the following anecdote:

About the year 1232, when Henry the Third was on the throne of England, the Bishop of Lincoln was distinguished for the elegance of his manners. The king one day remarked that it was strange that a man who was only a student, and of low birth, should have all the graces of a refined gentleman.

The bishop replied, that "he had been educated among the brightest exemplars and the principal characters of the world."

The king demanding an explanation, the bishop said, that, "in reading the Scriptures, he had found those who were able to instruct him no less than if he had seen and conversed with them; and that he had endeavored to imitate those models of behavior."

One of the highest departments of human genius, the art of poetry, has its most perfect models in the Bible, and in those uninspired compositions which are most imbued with its morals and philosophy; as we find in the works of Shakspeare, Dante, and Milton. In this poetry of religion, woman, whenever she shall be allowed the advantages of mental culture equally with her brother man, will excel. Professor Wilson (Christopher North) thus describes the characteristics of her poetry:

"Women are privileged from on high to write poetry

yes, the highest poetry; for innocence and purity are of the highest hierarchies; and the thoughts and feelings they inspire, though breathed in words and tones gentle and low, (an excellent thing in woman), are yet lofty as the stars, and humble, too, as the flowers beneath our feet."

a woman.

Piety is essential to the cultivation of poetic genius in She cannot but look upward; for her heart and imagination crave that which is nobler, lovelier, purer, than actual life supplies. Hence it is that so much of her poetry is religious: those who consider religion and sermonizing synonymous may call it monotonous; but the subject of poetry always receives the impress of the mind through which it passes, as light takes a hue from stained glass. No person can truly estimate the highest genius of woman who has not moral delicacy of taste, and a reverence for things holy and good.

The poetry of Mrs. Browning is an excellent illustration. No one doubts her title to the first poetic place among women; and observe, that much of her writings is directly religious, and all is penetrated with the spirit and power of Christianity. The same is true of lesser lights, Miss Ingelow, Miss Rossetti, Miss Procter. No English poetess, we think, can be named, whose works do not bear witness to the influence of religious feeling.

PART FIFTH.

I.- HEATHEN HOMES.

THE qualities of things are best understood by their

opposites. Night and day make us realize darkness in contrast with light. Thus, too, the conditions of life are most truly apprehended, when we place the good in contrast with the evil, love with hatred, mirth with grief, joy with sorrow, happiness with misery.

This mode of illustration is indispensable to a right appreciation of the social advantages and domestic blessings which the home-circle enjoys in our country; and yet how few among us ever reflect to what cause we are indebted for these advantages and blessings.

The aim of this, and a former article upon the "Social Life of the Chinese," is to reach precisely this point, and to show that our present condition of life, and all the enjoyments resulting from that condition, are due to our Lord and Saviour, and to the blessings flowing from the light of God's holy Word.

This can be proved in no clearer manner than by force of contrast, by looking at the results of heathen rule.