The "GOLDEN WORDS" may be used as texts for lessons, or may be committed to memory by the children.

The Creed may be recited by the whole school in unison, three or four times in the year, or on festivaldays, as the conductors of the schools may decide.

The author is persuaded that the element of worship should enter more largely than it does into the systematic instruction of the young. He has, therefore, made copious selections in that department; offering no written prayers, but endeavoring to express every form of the devout sentiment in language richer than he could frame. The poetical pieces are designed to be read responsively, like the psalms; teacher and scholars reciting the alternate lines in full school. It is recommended that one or more of these, and one or more of the pieces in the Second Part, be used at each service; the choice of pieces being guided by the feeling of the superintendent, or by the tone he wishes to give to the general exercise.

The special forms of service for the festival-days indicate the order which the writer has found most convenient in the administration of his own school.

A few hymns and tunes, as many as the space would allow, and perhaps enough for ordinary use, are added to complete the design of the volume.

The book is, in the main, a compilation; as every such book must be. All available sources have been freely drawn from, with suitable acknowledgment to the authors. Where the pieces were entirely original, as is the

case with those taken from A. J. DAVIS's little Manual for the Children's Lyceum, special permission to use them was cordially granted.

The list of "RULES FOR THE GOOD LIFE," and the Questions and Answers on the subject of Rewards and Punishments, were copied, with some changes, from LEIGH HUNT's lovely little book, "THE RELIGION of THE HEART." For the rest of the Questions and Answers, and for the Creed, the writer himself is responsible. The "LEGENDS OF VIRTUE" were taken from different collections, and have been written out for the benefit of the younger children, who can hear them read by parent or teacher. The number of them might have been indefinitely increased, had the size of the volume not forbidden.

Such as it is, the book is an experiment. If it makes a contribution to the meagre literature of the Sunday School and the Home Worship, or fills, for a time, a place now unfilled, the compiler will be satisfied.

O. B. F.