strong, attractive sympathies towards young people, and power to move, and win, and organise them for good, could be entirely devoted by the Conference to this work. During the year a deputation from the Band of Hope Union waited on the Committee to consider the possibility of a Connexional agent or of a minister set apart for the Sunday-schools and Bands of Hope jointly. On several grounds the Committee did not think the plan of joint action feasible; but the conversation which ensued deepened the conviction of the Sunday-school Committee that we need some more direct, personal, and commanding spiritual influence on the young people in our families and schools; that it was desirable to have some minister or agent wholly devoted to spiritual work among our young people; and that the subject was worthy of further consideration. Amongst our 80,000 scholars there is certainly a most fruitful harvest-field for Christian work. SUNDAY-SCHOOL STATISTICS. The Committee have again tried to obtain these by separate schedules, and are glad to say they have received reports from all the schools in England and Ireland, showing the following results :-Schools, 466; teachers, 11,120; scholars, 81,955; teachers, members, 8,793; scholars, members, 5,145. These figures, when compared with those returned to the Committee last year, show a decrease of 17 teachers, 252 scholars; 19 teachers who are members, and an increase of 18 scholars who are members. In conclusion, some circuits may wonder why they are not named at all in our record of achievements in Sunday-school work. It is not the Committee's fault. Similar schedules with requests for reports were sent to all the circuits. But fourteen were returned without a single line of news; and some others were returned with the candid intimation that there was "nothing definite or "nothing striking" to report this year. The Committee is far from supposing in the case of the blank schedules that there was nothing good to report; for a few of them belong to our more enterprising and progressive circuits. The Committee, therefore, assume that the brethren concerned were either too busy or too modest to send a report of the excellent work and spiritual achievements which some of them have done. The solemn fact for us all to remember is that out of our more than 80,000 scholars only about 5,000 are full members of our churches. Surely, the Lord of the harvest, ever yearning for sheaves, is through this fact sending a loud cry for action to us all; for He designs us to make the Sunday-school His perpetual harvest-field, with its grain ever ripening and ever being garnered for Him. June, 1885. JAMES GIBSON, Secretary. RELIGION is as necessary to reason as reason is to religion; the one cannot exist without the other. A reasoning being would lose his reason in attempting to account for the phenomena of nature had he not a Supreme Being to refer to.-Washington. PRUNING." A SHORT PAPER FOR SUNDAY. "As the harpstrings only render All their treasures of sweet sound, "Spices crushed, their pungence yield, When 'tis cast into the fire. Richest, sweetest fruits do yield; And through suffering, toil, and shame, THE aim and purpose of the husbandman is to make the vine strong, healthy, and above all things fruitful, so that at all seasonable periods it shall hang heavy with purple grapes. At times all his pains in cultivation and training are ill repaid. Though the plant is strong and hardy, the fruit is poor in quality, and meagre in quantity. He proceeds, therefore, to take other and more vigorous measures to gain the desired end. New methods must be tried, new means employed, to make those barren branches bend with fruit. See the husbandman standing before that enormous bough, from whence the twigs and smaller branches are growing in rich and manifold profusion; and everywhere the leafage is green, abundant, luxurious. But his observant eye discovers no bloom of promise, nothing that betokens the coming of rich clusters. In his strong hand there gleams the sharp blade of the pruner's knife. With quiet decision he cuts and severs until all the leafy glories are strewn around his feet. Pruning is one of the most common methods by which increased fruitfulness is produced. No plant requires more pruning than the vine. So bountiful is its sap, so vigorous its vital force, that the abundance of superfluous growth, which it annually produces, is amazing. If left to its freedom, it employs this superfluity of growth in climbing up, and mantling with its foliage, the loftiest trees; but in order to adapt it to our condition of growth, it is systematically crippled and restricted in every part. This process is performed for two reasons; it removes superfluous, and stimulates latent, growth. The consequence of this pruning is, that in a little while the sap that was wasted upon those useless suckers goes back to the dormant buds, and stimulates their slumbering vitality so powerfully, that they will force their way through the wood and bark to the surface, though that wood may be the growth of years. natural vine, the Now, what the natural vine-dresser does to the great Husbandman does in the spiritual vineyard. "Every branch in Me that beareth not fruit, He taketh away and every branch that beareth fruit, He purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit." Among all the Christians within the circle of your acquaintance you would find it a very difficult thing to select one whose spiritual growth is harmonious, a perfect expansion. In nearly every case growth in grace is unsymmetrical. Qualities that are solid and valuable are united with weak, worthless ones: graces that charm by their beauty lie side by side with defects that repel by deformity. Some graces, repressed, it may be, by unfavourable circumstances of continued prosperity, are dormant in the soul, or starved by the over-development of other graces. Worldliness, pride, covetousness, impatience, irritability, and other "sins which do so easily beset us," are allowed to grow, and exhaust in their noxious growth the life of the soul. Now, to repress the evil and stimulate the good, our Heavenly Father, the Divine Husbandman, subjects His people, the living branches, to the pruning of His providence. As no branch develops naturally and spontaneously its full fruitfulness, but requires to be pruned, so no believer grows in grace naturally and harmoniously, but requires to be chastened. Chastisement is the special privilege of God's people. It is a proof that the branch is a fruitful and living one. The Husbandman takes away the branch that has only a name to live-that has only the form of godliness; while He purges the branch that beareth fruit. The barren tree is left in its barrenness, while the fruit-bearing tree is stimulated to produce more fruit. The branch that has life is helped by all the influences of nature to more abundant life, while the dead branch is blanched and crumbled into rottenness by every raindrop and sunbeam. This principle, which runs throughout life, also obtains in the kingdom of heaven. "For to him that hath shall be given, and he shall have more abundantly; while from him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he seemeth to have." God acts upon this principle. He gives more abundant life where He sees life. He purges the branch that bringeth forth fruit, that it may bring forth more fruit. Those branches receive most of His care that will reward Him most. What helpfulness there is in this aspect of chastisement. And everything that will throw light upon, and yield comfort amid these "pruning experiences," ought not to be neglected or overlooked. For there are times when sharp is the stroke, and keen the knife. From some the little ones are taken away and the domestic hearth left desolate, that out of the sore trial the parents' hearts may learn more of Divine love. With some, means are lessened, and losses in business come quickly, that the treasure in heaven may increase more rapidly. Then others know the burden of sorrow about an afflicted partner, or an afflicted child. Ah! there is a great deal of pruning in the Lord's vineyard. Every fibre of the heart cries out in its misery and anguish, yet He that wounds, wounds to heal. "He woundeth, but His hands make whole; and the compensations that follow of fruit and flavour, drown the memory of the grief in a summer tide of healthy growth; a vintage rich in the fruits of holiness, high service, and enjoyment, fruits which are earnests of eternal life. Remember that the stars shine the most brightly on the darkest nights; torches give the best light when beaten; grapes yield most wine when most pressed; spices smell sweetest when pounded; vines are all the better and bear more fruit for bleeding; gold looks the brighter for scouring; juniper smells the sweetest when it is in the fire; camomile, the more you tread on it the more you spread it; the Jews were always at their best when they were the most afflicted; the Athenians would never mend, but when they were in mourning; the "Christ's cross," said Luther, "is no letter, and yet it hath taught me more than all the letters in the book.” The wisdom and experience of the husbandman lead him ofttimes to lop and cut one branch that another branch may be advantaged and made more fruitful thereby. As in our dear Saviour's case, so in the experience of many of His servants. Suffering is sent, and pain, and loss, that some other soul may be saved, some other living branch be made fruitful, and that the general health and prosperity of the whole vine may be secured. Much of this pruning and purging process is mysterious. Many a time I have stood and watched the vine-dresser at his work, saddened to see the leafy glories fall to the ground in quick succession. Our heart and flesh fail full often because we cannot understand, because we misread, the Husbandman's design. Let us ever remember that the Vine-dresser thoroughly and perfectly understands His work and office, and always pursues the best ends, using the wisest means to bring forth "more fruit." Be sure that His knife will never cut to harm that which is to Him even as the apple of His eye. VOL. LXXXVIII. "My God gives me a cross to bear, 34 |