CHAP. VI.

The discouragements of Sunday School Teachers.

EVERY cause which is worth supporting, will have to encounter difficulties: and these are generally proportionate to the value of the object to be accomplished. The career of benevolence is not a path of flowers, leading down a gentle declivity, where the philanthropist treads softly and swiftly without a difficulty to check his progress, or a discouragement to chill his ardor. Mercy has far more to obstruct her course than even justice, since the latter is attended by the strong arm of power, to resent the injuries which are offered to her dignity, and remove the obstacles which oppose her progress; whereas, mercy, accompanied only by that wisdom which is peaceable, must attempt to do by gentleness, what she cannot effect by force; toil through difficulties which she cannot remove; under the most

aggravated injuries, console herself with the thought that she did not deserve them; amidst present discouragement, cheer herself with the hope of future success, and after waiting long and patiently for the fruit of her labors sometimes find her only reward in the purity of her intentions and the consciousness of having done all she could.

The faithful teacher will meet with many discouragements, which I will now enumerate, and endeavour to abate.

1. His discouragement will arise frequently from the children.

-From their dullness. Instead of finding them quick in their conceptions, and steady in their application, you will often find them volatile in their habits, and slow of apprehension. After toiling several weeks in teaching them the alphabet, you will in some cases have the mortification to find that little progress has been made, and months elapse before much visible improvement takes place. In looking round upon your class, you will sometimes exclaim with a sigh of despondency, "So long have I been laboring to instruct that boy, and yet to the present hour he can scarcely add syllable to syllable. It is like ploughing upon

a rock, and sowing upon sand. I feel almost inclined to abandon the work altogether." Never yield to such feelings. Innumerable instances have occurred, in which the dullest children in the school have ultimately become the teacher's richest reward. Plants of great excellence are often of slow growth, and pay with ample interest the gardener's heavy toì, and delayed expectations. And even should no such result crown your efforts, still bear with their dullness, recollecting that this very cir cumstance renders them more needful of your benevolent regard.

-Their ingratitude is oftentimes exceedingly discouraging. Aware of the costly sacrifices you make, and the incessant labor you endure for their benefit, you expect in them a just sense of their advantages and a grateful acknowledgment of their obligations. Instead of this you often see them utterly destitute of both: trifling over their privileges as if they were worth nothing to them, and as thankless towards you, as if it cost nothing to impart them. Perceiving that your kindness is wasted upon objects which it fails to impress, you feel sometimes disposed to withdraw your exertions, which are so little valued and improv

ed. But consider, this very state of the children's minds, instead of inducing you to relax your exertions, should stimulate you to greater activity, since it is a part of that depravity of heart and that deformity of character, for the removal of which they are intrusted to your care. To abandon them on this account, would be like the physician giving up his patient because he is diseased. The more insensible and ungrateful you find them, the more should you labor for their improvement, since these vices, if not reformed in childhood, are likely to attain a dreadful maturity in future life.

-Their misimprovement operates very unfavorably upon the mind of their instructors. Who has not sometimes experienced a chilling depression, when he has looked round upon the school at large, and compared the actual state of the children, with the advantages they have enjoyed. How common are such reflections as these. "Alas! how few of these chil"dren appear at present to be the better, as to any moral improvement, for the instructions "they have received. How few have re

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pear as depraved as when they entered the "school, and are leaving it without a single

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proof on which a teacher can rest his hope "that they are really the better for his instruc❝tions. And even of those who at one time "seemed to promise well, how few are there "whose budding excellences have escaped the "corrupting influence of bad example. Dis

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appointed so often we are afraid to indulge "another expectation. Where are the boast"ed advantages of Sunday School instruction? "Where the general improvement of mind, of 66 manners, and of heart, for which we have "been waiting? The present generation of "the poor seems to be growing up as vicious "and immoral as any that are past. We have "labored almost in vain, and spent our strength for nought. It amounts well nigh "to a question with us,

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whether we may not relinquish our efforts without any serious "injury to the interests of morality or religion."

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This is the dark side of the picture; but it has a bright one, which should check these discouraging apprehensions, and resist the paralysing influence they are calculated to cherish. That in a great majority of cases no present vi