In 1864 the General Conference gave evidence of the progress which the Sunday-school was making among us by further identifying it with the Church. It invested the quarterly conferences with power to remove unworthy or inefficient Superintendents. It also made it the duty of each quarterly conference to appoint a Sunday-School Committee, the Preacher in charge to be chairman, the duties of which committee to be to aid the Sunday-school in every possible way by procuring suitable teachers, by promoting the attendance of children at Sunday-school and public worship, and by raising money for the expenses of the schools. The committee, with the Superintendent, are also to decide what books shall be used in the schools.

The demand for improvement among Sunday-school teachers increased to such an extent, that the Rev. Dr. Wise, the efficient Corresponding Secretary of the Union, who already had the work of two or three men on his hands, asked the Board of Managers in 1866 for the appointment of a General Agent who should travel throughout the country to hold institutes, and to further all the interests of the Society. The Board appointed the Rev. J. H. Vincent, of Chicago, to this office. He traveled far and wide, aroused Sunday-school teachers to efforts for improvements, held institutes, established normal classes, and in a variety of ways so demonstrated the necessity for special efforts in behalf of an elevated standard of Sundayschool education that the General Conference of 1868 created a "Department of Sunday-School Instruction," which should have supervision of all Sunday-school requisites, and of all textbooks for Sunday-schools and for Normal Classes. Mr. Vincent was appointed to the superintendency of this department, in connection with the Corresponding Secretaryship of the Union, and the office of Editor of the "Sunday-School Journal.”

We have thus traced the growth of the Sunday-School Idea from the earliest history of our Church to the present time. A glance at the present position of the Sunday-school in its official relation to the Church will serve to show how great this growth has been.

tional Service; 2.10 to 2.30, Plan of conducting Teachers' Meeting, by Rev. J. M'Clane; 2.30 to 3, Sacred Geography-Drill conducted by G. J. Bliss; 3 to 3.30, Lecture on "Our Institute and Sub-Institutes," by Rev. J. H. Vincent.— Adjourned.

I. The Sunday-school is clearly recognized as a part of the Church.

The Sunday-School Union is organically connected with the Church by act of the General Conference. The Bishops are ex officio its presiding officers. Its executive officer, the Corresponding Secretary, is appointed by the General Conference, which body has also ordered that collections shall annually be taken for it in all our Churches. To this Union every Sundayschool in our Church is auxiliary.

The central authority of each Sunday-school is the quarterly conference of the Church to which it belongs. The Presiding Elder is required to ask certain questions in reference to the school, and it is the duty of the Preacher in charge to report statistical and other items in relation to it. The Superintendent is a member of the quarterly conference, and may by it be removed from office for cause. The same body appoints a committee to promote the welfare of the school.

The Pastor's duties in relation to the Sunday-school are defined by the Discipline. He is to preach on the subject of Sunday-schools at stated times; to visit the school as often as practicable; to supervise the selection of books to be used; and in every way possible to further the interests of the school.

II. Abundant provision is now made for the wants of our Sunday-schools.

There is an Editor for the "Sunday-School Advocate," for library books, and for children's publications generally, and another Editor for the "Journal," and for Teachers' text-books. There is a department of instruction specially designed to facilitate the work of teaching. Hundreds of thousands of library and text-books are furnished, as well as an immense quantity of what are known as "Sunday-school requisites." SundaySchool Institutes and Normal Classes are established for the training of teachers; and there is a uniform lesson system for all the schools in our Church, with special and efficient helps for teacher and scholar.

III. The present statistics of our Sunday-schools, according to the report published in January, 1871, will show how the Idea has grown in our Church.

We have in round numbers 17,000 schools, 190,000 officers and teachers, and 1,220,000 scholars. Of requisites, books of instruction, etc., there were published in 1870:

The total number of pages of printed matter issued in 1870 by the Department of Requisites of the Sunday-School Union is 28,237,400.

There were forty-one volumes added to our Sunday-school libraries; 489,166 library books bound; 275,212 books in paper covers, and 290,613 children's tracts. The number of printed pages in the issues was 12,235,000. The maximum circulation of the "Sunday-School Advocate" was 368,000.

Thus has God's providence led us, until we find grown up in the Church an institution whose power of usefulness it is difficult to estimate. We have not, however, seen the perfect development of which the Sunday-School Idea is capable; and while it is proper for us to rejoice over the progress already made, it is also well for us to see in what direction there can be further improvement. There is a general consciousness that we need a higher grade of teaching than we have had in the past. Common school facilities are constantly increasing, and care must be taken that there be not too marked a contrast between the style of teaching our children receive during the week, and that which they get on the Sabbath. This reflection ought not to bring discouragement to any right-minded person who desires to do good in the Sunday-school, for the facilities for self-improvement now offered to Sunday-school teachers are such that pious persons of ordinary good sense, though having but little culture, can by determined perseverance become qualified for the duties to be performed.

We also need a more general practical acceptation by the

Church of the principle, already recognized theoretically and formally, that the Sunday-school is not a mere independent voluntary association, but an essential part of the Church organization. When this truth is recognized as it ought to be, every member of the Church will feel that his solemn Church covenant binds him to an active participation in some way with the Sunday-school. There are a few Churches, we believe, where the members are all engaged in the Sunday-school either as scholars or teachers. As the Idea continues to grow, the number of such Churches will increase. Every member of the Church should also feel it to be his duty to contribute to the necessary expenses of the school, and these expenses ought to be regarded as a part of the necessary expenses of the Church, and provided for as all other Church expenses are.

There is also needed a constant spirit of consecration to the work, and never failing spirituality on the part of the workers. We do not share the fears expressed by some, that the progressive movements in our Sunday-schools during the last few years may result in higher attainments in biblical knowledge at the expense of vital piety. We see no reason for these fears while our Sunday-School Conventions and Institutes are characterized by their present deep tone of spirituality; nevertheless, if we would keep the standard to its present height we must have perpetually before us the need of an intimate spiritual relationship to Christ, and the necessity of a constant presentation of the Saviour to the school. A Christless Sunday-school will inevitably produce disastrous results.

The signs for the future are hopeful. We think there is a deep meaning in the general awakening in the mind of the Church to the importance of the Sunday-school movement. There is significance in the anxious desire so frequently and so freely expressed by our Sunday-school laborers, for the means of greater efficiency in their work. What is to be the peculiar characteristic of the historic period of Sunday-school labor on which we have now entered can only be known when the lapse of years shall develop some marked event which shall indicate its close. We should have great reason for joy if we thought it might truthfully be called the Period of Realization; the period when the great ideal of the true Sunday-school should

be reached. All devout hearts should labor and pray that the Church may become a thinking, Bible-studying Church; a Church built up in Christ by faith in him, and by a diligent study of his divine word. Then will the Sunday-School Idea be fully realized.

ART. V.-ARTS OF INTOXICATION.

Arts of Intoxication: The Aim, and the Results. By Rev. J. T. CRANE, D.D. New York: Carlton & Lauahan. San Francisco: E. Thomas. Cincinnati: Hitchcock & Walden. 1870.

TEMPERANCE literature is becoming extensive, and, though apt to be somewhat monotonous, it is always interesting. This literature has three elements of great power to secure attentioneconomy, comedy, and tragedy; and nowhere else is there a better theater for their combination and exposition, for vivid delineation and dramatic illustration..

These elements of interest have been used and applied during a third of a century with increasing force and skill. Comic orators and writers have amused the people with representations of the grotesque effects of intemperance. Books and newspaper serials have done with the pen what Hogarth did with the pencil in his "Rake's Progress;" and the successive steps from the gay, social glass, down to a broken fortune and a desolated family, have often been portrayed with fidelity and power. The injury which intemperance inflicts on the finances of the State, on the morals of the people, and on the bodies and minds of its victims and their offspring, have often been clearly and forcibly expounded. But while these powerful arguments and touching recitals have stirred the feelings, and awakened inquiries and earnest desires for the suppression of intemperance, they have failed in many cases to remove an injurious indecision of judgment and of purpose, because of conflicting ideas which have prevailed respecting the operation and effect, and the proper uses, of the intoxicating agent.

Yet these endeavors of the friends of temperance have not been unavailing. They have exerted directly a vast moral effect on the community at large-promoting a fuller and deeper comprehension of the subject of temperance, more union of sentiment among its friends, more firmness of attitude and