of Christ as a Saviour, the blessedness of His service, and the danger of delaying to consecrate themselves to Him-let him make these the chief part of every lesson; let him affectionately urge, persuade and intreat them to give themselves to God; let him perseveringly and prayerfully do this, and he will not, he cannot, labour in vain.

(2). Another means of securing the conversion of the young, and one which would, no doubt, be very useful, if efficiently carried out, is, the service for children. Our brother Clifford, of London, introduced this question to the Association of 1870 in a speech which is printed in that year's Magazine at page 225; and to which I beg to refer any who may be interested in the matter as a very lucid statement of the way in which such services should be conducted. Preaching is the divinely appointed means for the conversion of the world; and that which God has ordained for the accomplishment of this end must be possessed of special fitness to effect it, even in children, if it be done in a way suitable to their capacities. Some of our brethren do regularly hold such services, and others would do so but they lack, or think they lack, the necessary qualifications. There are, however, in the churches of this conference, laymen, who have already proved their fitness for this work, and who are ready to engage in it more fully. And I would suggest that each Sunday school should arrange for regular holding of such services, say once a fortnight; and that such men, and such only, from their own and neighbouring churches, as are able to speak well to children, should be invited to conduct them. In this way our young people would have the gospel preached to them as well as their elders; and I have no doubt it would be attended with gratifying results.

́(3). The next means for the securing of this object, is one upon which I would place especial emphasis: it is private conversation. By this I mean speaking to the young individually and alone, and urging them to decide for Christ. Conversation of this kind has been greatly blessed to many. Let Christian parents take this course with their children. It is a sad fact that the father or mother is, in many cases, almost the last person in the world with whom a child can speak about its spiritual state. This ought not to be; and I am persuaded it would not be if we as parents did our duty, and took the initiative in such a matter; if we, with the frequency and concern which the importance of the subject demands, pressed home to the child's heart the necessity of a simple yet real trust in the Saviour. Let teachers also take this course with each member of their classes, and ministers with the young of their congregations; and it will not only encourage the timid and retiring and lead those under impression to decision, but it will frequently arouse the thoughtless and quicken the indifferent.

(4). The fourth and last thing I would urge, as a means of bringing about the conversion of the young, is the inquirers' meeting. Such meetings more effectually gather up and secure the results produced by other instrumentalities than any other plan I know. They often bring the minister in contact with the young while their religious impressions are still recent; and thus in many cases, no doubt, prevent those impressions from vanishing away. I would therefore suggest to my brethren in the ministry the necessity of holding such meetings regularly. My own experience is that the best time for holding them is immediately after the Lord's-day evening service. Where a prayer meeting usually follows that service let it be conducted by one of the deacons ; and so the minister will be at liberty to attend to this other, and, as I think, more important work. But in order that the inquirers' meeting may gather within it all the young people of

The Conversion of the Young and their Reception into the Church. 11

the congregation who are the subjects of religious impressions, it will need something more than the mere announcement from the pulpit that the minister will be glad to meet them in the vestry or school room. If that only be done, he will often have none to meet him, not because none are anxious to do so, but because they shrink from such a step. If, however, teachers, parents, and the members of the church would now and then take the opportunity of conversing privately with the young in regard to spiritual things; and, wherever, by this means, a concern in regard to the salvation of the soul is awakened, or discovered already to exist, would urge the subject of it to attend the inquirers' meeting, and, if need be, would take him by the hand, come with him to the vestry door, and introduce him to the minister if this were more generally done I am persuaded that much larger numbers than at present would be brought to the Saviour. Let such meetings be but regularly conducted in connection with all our churches, and let all who labour for the conversion of the young seek, in the way just indicated, to make those meetings the receivers, week by week, of the results of their labours; and the minister will seldom fail to have under his charge hopeful candidates for admission into the church.

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The inquirers' meeting would also most efficiently provide what, in the estimation of some of our members, is much needed, that is, the means of placing our young candidates for church membership on a longer or shorter term of probation, as the case might seem to require. If there must be a probation let it be passed before, and not after, the names are introduced to the church. A young person might be retained in the inquirers' meeting for months, and not be discouraged because he is not received into church fellowship; but it is most discouraging when, having applied for membership, instead of being cordially received, it is found that the visitors' reports are not satisfactory, and so the case has to "stand over." The inquirers' meeting might be made the means of preventing this disastrous evil.

But the point on which I would place especial emphasis is, that we should seek the conversion of the young at a much earlier period than it usually takes place. I am persuaded that our not doing so accounts to a great extent for the fact that so few of those taught in our schools unite with the church. We act too much as if it were necessary that our children should first choose the service of sin before they can choose that of Christ; and we thus let the most favourable period for securing our object slip by unimproved.

I shall now briefly refer to the remaining part of my subject, viz., THE RECEPTION OF YOUNG CONVERTS INTO THE CHURCH.

There is no doubt the early youth of an applicant for admission into the church is with many people a reason for wishing that admission to be delayed. In some cases of the kind the church has seemed sorely puzzled. There has been, on the part of the applicant, such a diffidence that he could not say more than that he was trusting in Christ for salvation, and hoped by His help to live and die in His service; and when the character and life have been examined they have been found to agree with the sincerity of such a profession; yet something more seemed to be expected, and so the case is not deemed to be satisfactory.

I have heard two reasons assigned in justification of this reluctance on the part of our churches to receive the young.

(1). The first of these is the fear that they may fall away, and so bring discredit on the Christian name. But is there more danger of this in the

young than in those who are more advanced in life? In a private letter from Mr. Spurgeon, he says that, according to his experience, "children have often most faith;" and that the younger members of his church have generally "lasted best." The question, however, should not be, Will they continue? but whether are they more likely to do so in the church, or out of it?

(2). The second reason assigned against the reception of the young is that, according to our mode of church government, they can, as soon as received, attend the church meeting, and so may outvote their elders. We all agree that “days should speak, and multitude of years should teach wisdom." But the church is not, or ought not to be, a mere monthly voting society. It exists for the very purpose of securing the salvation of men, and gathering them within its folds. And if the danger supposed have any real existence, which I very much doubt, it might furnish a valid reason why we should modify our constitution; but it should not be allowed for a moment to operate against the reception of any sincere believer in Christ whether young or old.

Some of our friends would solve this difficulty by establishing what are called "children's churches." But such a plan is open to very grave objections. First: Because the evidence of a change of heart which would admit a child into such a society ought to admit him into any church in Christendom. Secondly: Because there are no advantages, so far as I can discover, which a child would receive as a member of the children's church, which he could not more fully enjoy in the ordinary church, if in connection therewith a suitable organization were adopted and sustained. And it surely cannot be a desirable thing to make such a distinction, as the children's church would involve, between young believers and the more mature, unless some real advantage is to be gained by it which could not otherwise be secured. The third objection is, Because such a plan would tend to perpetuate the evil to which I have before referred, viz., the reluctance which some churches feel to receive young converts solely on the ground of their youth.

Upon the whole, then, if our children exercise a simple faith in Christ ; if their lives correspond with such a state of mind; and if, after a suitable probation in the inquirers' meeting, they seek admission into the church; they ought to be gladly welcomed-and all the more gladly because of their tender years. Is the church a fold? then what part of the flock so much needs its protection as the young lambs? Is it a family? then where can the "babes in Christ" receive such fitting nurture and loving care? Is it a garden? Then surely the least hardy flowers should not only be planted within it, they should occupy its sunniest and most sheltered nook.

In regard to the special kind of care the young should receive after their reception into the church, I can only say that, at Burton a kind of " class or "experience" meeting is being established for them. It is hoped by this, not only to prevent their falling away, but also to instruct and nourish them in the spiritual life. Whether this will succeed or not I cannot tell; but the young themselves unanimously and cordially fall in with it.

Let us, thus, care for the young; let us earnestly seek their conversion ; let us cordially receive them into the church; and after that let us watch over them with a love like that of a mother, "That our sons may be as plants grown up in their youth; that our daughters may be as corner stones polished after the similitude of a palace."

Burton-on-Trent.

STORIES FOR THE YOUNG.

No. I.-Maggie's Cross.

"AND, Maggie, remember that there is no need to call at Mrs. Johnson's; I particularly desire you not to do so, because-"

Maggie would not stop to listen; her pride was wounded at anything like an order coming from her young stepmother; she rudely nodded her head, and sulkily left the house without waiting to hear more.

"Just like her," muttered Maggie; "she treats me like a child. Yesterday I was told to be sure to call on Mrs. Johnson about the curtains; now I am 'desired not to do so' for some stupid reason. There! I suppose stepmothers are all alike, and she is 'my cross,' which I must bear as best I can ;" and with a self-satisfied air of martyrdom, Maggie Saunders went on her way to the village.

Maggie was fourteen years old; she had early lost her mother, and for the last few years had had her own way far too much for her own good. Her father saw her only in the evenings after his return by train from business in London, and Maggie had been left to the companionship of a daily governess and her old nurse, both of whom were unfitted to cope with Maggie's imperious disposition. A few months previously Mr. Saunders had brought home his second wife, and fondly hoped that his daughter would be glad of a guide and companion; and possibly had Maggie been left to herself it might have been so. But the governess, annoyed at a termination to her engagement, and the nurse jealous for her darling's happiness, filled Maggie's mind with such dismal forebodings of the future, that prejudice completely blinded her in her estimate of Mrs. Saunder's character, and all her acts and expressions of kindness were chilled by the child's ungraciousness.

Maggie thought herself a Christian; she attended chapel regularly, and she sometimes took an afternoon class of very little ones at the Sunday school; of the sinfulness of her own heart, of her need of a Saviour and of renewing grace, she had no idea. Save the loss of her mother, years before, when she was too young to know how terrible such a loss is, trouble had never come near the child; her stepmother's arrival was the first thing that had happened to vex her. "It is your cross, and you must just bear it patiently;" old nurse Martha had foolishly said, "we all have crosses, and this is yours." Foolish, nay, wicked words; but they suited Maggie's pride, and she adopted the idea eagerly. Everything that Mrs. Saunders did or desired was thenceforth looked on as a cross, over which Maggie sulked, that being her notion of "bearing patiently."

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How many of us, older and wiser than Maggie, bear our real crosses in that spirit, and so increase the burden of them ten-fold!

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One of Maggie's errands was to the stationer's little shop; and there on the counter were lying several cheap picture books which reminded Maggie that she had promised one to little Polly Johnson at the afternoon school last Sunday. The book was chosen. And as I shall pass Mrs. Johnson's cottage on my way home, I may as well leave it. I shall not be at Sunday school to-morrow; I wont go in; and I wont speak about the curtains, which I suppose is really what she meant to tell me not to do; but there's no reason why I shouldn't stop at the door."

Maggie found the laundress's one of the little ones to open it.

door shut, but her knock soon brought Mother was out, he said, just gone, and

Polly was up stairs on the bed. Up the steep little stairs ran Maggie, for she was quite at home in the cottage-Mrs. Johnson had been an old servant of her father's-and found Polly in bed, but the curtain was across the window, and Maggie could not plainly see the flushed swollen face disfigured with blotches. "Why, Polly, what's the matter," said she, does your head still ache like it did last Sunday, when you couldn't answer my questions properly! See, I've brought you the picture book." The child only tossed to and fro and could not reply, and Maggie, who was really fond of the little thing, put her head on the pillow and tried to soothe her. In a few moments the mother came in; she had only run for some medicine that should have come by now, and was horrified at the sight of Maggie. Oh, Miss," she cried, "go away at once; how could they let you come; I sent word last night for you all to keep away-I've only got Tommy with me because he had it years ago-how could you think of coming ?" And then Maggie learnt that Polly had small-pox. It was a great shock, and Maggie scarcely knew how she got home. "She ought to have told me," was her indignant feeling-the "she" meant Mrs. Saunders-and therefore she kept her visit to Mrs. Johnson a secret.

A few days later, and Maggie's real trouble came. She was tossing feverishly in her bed, racked with pain; and suffering, amid her bodily pain, the still keener agony of remorse. Yes, even while her head throbbed and her limbs ached, and her burning eyes made the faintest light intolerable, she knew well whose hands ministered to her, whose light touch tried to soothe, whose soft voice ever answered gently and patiently to her complaints. And it was a ministration that never seemed to fail; no matter when Maggie needed help those untiring hands were ever there; Maggie ceased to wonder or to perplex herself, she could only accept the never wavering service and bitterly accuse herself.

Then, as the acuter pains gradually left her, there followed a long time of terrible weakness, and Maggie knew that she was passing through the valley of the shadow of death. What was "her cross" now? Maggie found it to be one of the greatest earthly blessings that her Heavenly Father could have sent her. From lips that had often told the story of a Saviour's love and sacrifice, and in words that came from a heart consecrated to that Saviour's service, Maggie learnt what had been done for her on the Cross; and saw by the grace of the Holy Spirit how much she needed pardon for past sin, and divine help to resist its power. Penitent, humbled and broken hearted, she sought forgiveness through the Saviour's blood; and one day, in low weak tones, she strove to ask it from the one who had so lovingly tried to fill her dead mother's place. The broken words were stopped almost ere they were spoken, and Mrs. Saunders and her step daughter understood each other well.

Maggie slowly recovered, and never forgot the lesson she had learnt. As years passed by she saw more and more clearly that most of the " crosses we groan under are self inflicted, or would turn to choicest blessings did we use them rightly; and that while battling with the evil in ourselves, and lessening the suffering around us, our personal troubles become lighter or sink into insignificance as we think of a Saviour's love, of work to be done for Him, and of the rest that awaits those who patiently and joyfully endure to the end. E. CLACY.