Saviour, which we shall point out to our pupils in order to strengthen their faith.

All prophecies are predictions, but all predictions are not prophecies. By the knowledge of natural causes, we may foresee and foretell with confidence certain effects; in this every thing is natural, there is nothing marvellous. But to foretell long beforehand events which depend absolutely on human will, and on a variety of circumstances which may just as well not concur as concur, this surpasses human intelligence. Such a prediction can only proceed from Him who knows all things; and we term it prophecy.

Now our Saviour has put the seal to His divine mission and authority by His prophecies as much as by His miracles. He foretold in detail His own fate; He foretold to His disciples the conduct that they would pursue, and the lot which would befall them individually; He foretold the manner in which His kingdom would be established on earth, as well as what was in store for His faithless city Jerusalem, its temple, and its people, before the generation then alive should have passed away. The aggregate of these prophecies is, in fact, a history, in which events more or less remote, and entirely contingent on the free will of man, are recorded just as if they had occurred before His eyes.

In its progress, our course of language will allude to these prophecies, which the pupils will have read in the life of our Lord. It will thus renew the impression they will have produced, and it will draw them towards Him, that they may say with all their heart and soul: Lord! we know that Thou camest forth from God, for no man could read into futurity as Thou dost, unless God had unveiled its mysteries to him.

Our Saviour was more than a prophet, for his eye penetrated into the hearts of men, and read all their thoughts. This we discover in many passages of His life; and His beloved disciple tells us, that He needeth not to be told what is in man, for He knows it of Himself; and that woman of Samaria, how great was her surprise when the stranger, who met her for the first time near Jacob's

well, knew all the circumstances of her life as well as she did herself! How remarkable are her words to the men of her city: "Come, see a man who told me all things that ever I did: is not this the Christ? *" Our course of language will not overlook these rays of Deity which revealed the Son of God in the Son of man.

The Resurrection of Christ.

If our Saviour had not risen from the dead, His work -the work of our salvation-would have been buried with Him in the grave; but it was to live and prosper, for such was the good will of our Heavenly Father, and His will must triumph over all the opposition of men.

Insensible in their blindness to the miracles of love which our Saviour daily wrought before their eyes, the Jews asked for a sign from heaven in proof of His divine mission. Then it was that He said to them: "An evil and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign, but there shall no sign be given to it, but the sign of the prophet Jonas: for as Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale's belly, so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.”

The blind leaders of the nation had long determined that our Saviour should be their victim, because the everlasting truths which proceeded from His lips cast an awful light upon them. In vain had they tried to lay snares to entangle Him in His talk, either with the people, or with the Roman authorities: they were obliged at last to have recourse to violence. They seized Him, condemned Him to death, and by means of a tumultuous populace, they over-persuaded Pilate, who was sufficiently just to proclaim His innocence, and sufficiently cowardly to give Him up to His enemies.

Our Lord had just expired on the cross amidst insult and maledictions, and to ensure His death, a Roman soldier ran his spear into His side. Emboldened by the view of persecuted innocence, two counsellors who had not dared openly to avow their faith in Him, went to Pilate

*John iv. 29.

+ Matt. xii. 39, 40.

and begged His body, took it down from the cross, laid it publicly in a sepulchre that was near at hand, and paid the last duties to His mortal remains. These men knew not that the dead would soon reappear among the living, although He had often declared that so it would be. His enemies having heard of this prediction, for fear His disciples should come by night and take away His body, and then tell the people that He was risen from the dead, set a watch before the sepulchre, and put their seal on the door of it. Vain precaution! For on the morning of the third day an earthquake opened the door of the sepulchre, Jesus came forth alive, and the soldiers fled. Under the influence of bribery, they declared that, while they slept, the disciples had come and stolen Him away; as if they could have seen what passed while they were asleep. The ignorant multitude might believe this fiction, but every rational man will behold in it an acknowledgment of the resurrection.

So little did the disciples expect it, that they were slow to believe the evidence of their eyes and ears; but they at last yielded to conviction: they went to preach Christ crucified and raised again from the dead, and they sealed their testimony with their blood. They were persuaded that the Lord of life and death, by restoring their Lord to life, had loudly proclaimed Him to be His representative on earth, His Word, and the Great Teacher of men.

Our course of language will find no difficulty in conveying this truth to our pupils, for it is obvious; and they will easily discover in the Christian Church the living proof of His resurrection, since it is on the faith of this miracle that it was first founded and built, and still rests. If our Saviour had not returned to life, the disciples from fear and shame would have held their peace, and His name probably would never have come down to us.

The Foundation of the Christian Church.

Our course of language will not fail to speak of this to our pupils; for there is in it much of the marvellous and divine, which they may appreciate at an age when their minds are not sufficiently developed to apprehend the

internal evidence of Christianity. This is to be found in our Saviour's doctrine, in the excellence of His person, and in the heavenly nature of His works, which was wholly directed to the salvation of man. But these things are above the reach of children, whom we can only prepare for the instruction in them which they will receive from others at a later period. At present we must appeal to their senses; and we shall do so by dwelling on the wonders which attended the establishment of the Church on the ruins of Judaism and of idolatry.

Our Lord, before he ascended up into heaven, commanded his apostles to tarry at Jerusalem and wait for the Holy Ghost which was promised to them—to endue them with the light, the power, and the gifts which they needed to enable them to preach the Gospel and be its witnesses to the ends of the earth. The apostles obeyed, and the day of Pentecost being fully come, they heard as a sound of a rushing mighty wind, and tongues as of fire lighted on the head of each of them. Then was their zeal kindled ; they praised God in divers tongues; they loudly preached Jesus Christ, and three thousand Jews were that day added to the Church. They also received power to work miracles, as did those on whom they laid their hands; and the Gospel spread with such success and rapidity, in spite of the atrocious persecutions which were inflicted by Jews and heathen, that in the second century it had reached to the extremities of the Roman empire and beyond them.

The council at Jerusalem early took alarm at the progress of the Gospel. It tried to silence the apostles; it cast them into prison; it commanded that they should be beaten with rods; and it was going to proceed to further extremities, when Gamaliel, one of the council, stood up and said, "Refrain from these men, and let them alone: for if this counsel or this work be of men, it will come to nought: but if it be of God, ye cannot overthrow it; lest haply ye be found even to fight against God." Gamaliel then began to doubt: what would he have said if he had

*Acts v. 38.

lived to see the triumph of Christianity? He would have seen in it the work of God.

And this our pupils will see; for our course of language will studiously speak to them of the wonderful propagation of the Gospel, in spite of every obstacle, and good sense will convince them, as it would Gamaliel, had he lived later.

To animate Gratitude to the Saviour.

The subjects we have now alluded to, with a view of producing in our pupils a firm and lively faith in Christ, are, for the most part, of a nature to affect young hearts, and to inspire them with the feelings of gratitude which they owe to Him. The Gospel directs us first to the Father, whom the Son has revealed to us, and taught us to love and trust in after His own example. He has taught us a prayer, the most perfect prayer that man can use, and this prayer is addressed to "Our Father." Undoubtedly he who honoureth the Father will honour the Son also, who is His Word upon earth, the express image of His person, at once God and man; and to whom all power has been given in heaven and on earth, because He has redeemed us with His most precious blood. But in the instruction of youth we must carefully abstain from all exaggeration, because children cannot reduce our expressions to their just meaning.

Gratitude is the first feeling of piety towards our blessed Saviour, who is now seated on the right hand of God in His glory. In order to kindle it in our pupils, our course of language will say :

"Our forefathers had not the happiness of knowing God the Father, whom Christ has revealed to us. If we no longer bow down before deaf and dumb idols, the work of men's hands, it is to our blessed Saviour that we owe it. Christianity has abolished the most horrible sacrifices, for the heathen immolated men and children to their false gods. Without Christ we could not know the Father, nor the way to Him. Before the promulgation of the Gospel, the heathen dashed to pieces on the stones their deformed or defective children, or they exposed them in