APPENDIX.

No. I.

Specimen of Questions on the Parables of our Blessed Saviour.

Q. WHAT

are PARABLES?-A. INSTRUCTIVE HISTORIES". Q. Did our Saviour make much use of parables?-A. Yes. Q. What did he use them for?-A. To explain the truths of the Gospel.

Q. What parable is related in the first chapter?-- A. The pa rable of the Unmerciful Servant.

Q. From which of the four Gospels is it taken?—A. The Gospel of St. Matthew.

Q. What occasioned our Lord to deliver this parable?—A. Peter's coming to him, and asking, how oft his brother should sin against him, and he forgive him.

Q. Did Peter seem to think that he was bound to forgive his brother a great many times?-A. No.

Q. How many times did he suppose were enough?-A. Seven times.

Q. Did our Lord think so?-A. No; quite otherwise.

Q. How often did our Lord say that we are bound to forgive offences?-A. Seventy times seven.

Q. How much is seventy times seven?—A. Four hundred and ninety.

Q. By mentioning this large number, Christ intended to shew that there must be scarcely any bounds to a Christian's forgiveness, did he not?-A. Yes.

Q. That supposes, however, that the offender expresses sorrow for what he has done?—A. Yes, certainly.

Q. When Peter spoke of his brother sinning against him—did he mean his own brother, or any person, with whom he may have dealings or intercourse?-A. He meant any person with whom he may have any intercourse.

• In this and the following specimens of questions, the words, with their meanings annexed, which are printed in small capitals, are the Explained Words mentioned in the account of the seventh class. These are dictated and written before the class are called out to read their lesson.

Q. How did our Lord go on to instruct Peter, and others who heard him, in the duty of forgiveness?-A. By relating this pa rable of the Unmerciful Servant.

Q. What was the kingdom of heaven likened to?-A. To a certain king who would take account of his servants.

Q. His servants, it seems, had been trusted with considerable sums of money?-A. Yes.

Q. Were they all able to repay what had been trusted to them?—A. No; there was one who could not pay his debt.

Q. How much was his debt?-A. Ten thousand talents. Q. Have you ever been told how much of our present money A TALENT was equal to?—A. Yes; to MORE THAN TWO HUNDRED

POUNDS.

Q. What, then, would this man's debt of ten thousand talents amount to, in our money?-A. To more than two million pounds.

Q. What did his Lord do, upon finding him unable to discharge his debt?-A. He commanded him to be sold, and his wife, and children, and all that he had, and payment to be made.

Q. Was not the man very much alarmed at the thoughts of himself and family being sold for slaves?-A. Yes, he was.

Q. Did he try to move his Lord to pity him?—A. Yes; he fell down at his feet, and worshipped him.

Q. You do not mean that he adored him, as a God?—A. No, certainly.

Q. Only that he prostrated himself before him?-A. Yes; that was what he did.

Q. But, besides these outward marks of sorrow and submission, did the servant promise any thing to his Lord?—A. Yes; he said that, if he would have patience with him, he would pay him all.

Q. Had all this any effect upon his Lord?-A. Yes; he was moved with compassion, and loosed him, and forgave him the debt.

Q. Ought not this instance of forgiveness in his Lord to have been remembered by the servant?-A. Yes.

Q. Should it not have disposed him to be kind and forgiving to others? A. Yes.

Q. Did it do so?-A. No, it did not.

Q. This servant, it seems, had a trifling sum of money owing to himself? A. Yes; one of his fellow-servants owed him a hundred pence.

Q. When he met him, did he ask to be paid?-A. Yes.

Q. Was there any thing amiss in that?-A. No.

Q. Has not every one a right to ask for his own?-A. Certainly he has.

Q. But did this man do it, in a gentle, or in a rough manner?

-A. In a very rough manner: he took him by the throat, and demanded payment.

Q. Did his fellow-servant try to soften him?-A. Yes; he fell down at his feet, and besought him, saying, Have patience with me, and I will pay thee all.

Q. Why, this was precisely what he himself had said and done to his Lord just before. Did not the recollection of this incline him to listen to his fellow-servant's request?-A. No; he would not: but went and cast him into prison, till he should pay the debt.

Q. He did not think, perhaps, that this cruelty of his would ever reach his Lord's ears?-A. Most likely not.

Q. But his Lord did hear of it? A. Yes; his fellow-servants told their Lord all that was done.

Q. They did not approve of it, then?-A. No; they were very sorry.

Q. What did the Lord call him, when he was brought before him?-A. A wicked servant.

Q. What did he say that the pity, which he had lately shewn towards him, should have led him to do?- A. To have compas sion on his fellow-servant.

Q. Did his Lord punish him for his unmerciful treatment of his fellow-servant? A. Yes; he was wroth, and delivered him to the tormentors, till he should pay all that was due unto him. Q. What moral or conclusion did our Saviour draw from this parable? A. So likewise shall my heavenly Father do also unto you, if ye from your hearts forgive not every one his brother their trespasses.

Q. What must we do, then, if we desire that God will forgive us our sins?-A. We must forgive others.

Q. Do we not ourselves pray to be forgiven upon this very condition?-A. Yes.

Q. Has not our Saviour taught us to pray in this manner?→ A. Yes.

Q. Where?-A. In the Lord's Prayer.

Q. In what part of the Lord's Prayer?-A. Where we say, Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive them that trespass against us.

No. II.

Extract from the Shepherd of Salisbury Plain.

MR. JOHNSON, a very worthy charitable gentleman, was travelling some time ago across one of those vast plains which are known in Wiltshire. It was a fine summer's evening, and he rode slowly that he might have leisure to admire God in the works of creation. For this gentleman was of opinion, that a walk or a ride was as proper a time as any to think about good things; for which reason, on such occasions, he seldom thought so much about his money, or his trade, or public news, as at other times, that he might with more ease and satisfaction enjoy the pious thoughts which the visible works of the great Maker of heaven and earth are intended to raise in the mind.

His attention was all of a sudden called off by the barking of a Shepherd's dog; and looking up, he spied one of those little huts, which are here and there to be seen on these great Downs, and near it was the Shepherd himself busily employed with his dog in collecting together his vast flock of sheep. As he drew nearer, he perceived him to be a clean well looking poor man, near fifty years of age. His coat, though at first it had probably been of one dark colour, had been in a long course of years so often patched with different sorts of cloth, that it was now become hard to say, which had been the original colour. But this, while it gave a plain proof of the Shepherd's poverty, equally proved the exceeding neatness, industry, and good management of his wife. His stockings no less proved her good housewifery, for they were entirely covered with darns of different coloured worsted, but had not a hole in them—and his shirt, though nearly as coarse as the sails of a ship, was as white as the drifted snow, and neatly mended where time had either made a rent, or wore it thin. This is a rule of judging by which one shall seldom be deceived. If I meet with a labourer hedging, ditching, or mending the highways, with his stockings and shirt tight and whole, however mean and bad his other garments are, I have seldom failed, on visiting his cottage, to find that also clean and well ordered, and his wife notable and worthy of encouragement. Whereas a poor woman, who will be lying a bed, or gossiping with her neighbours, when she ought to be fitting out her husband in a cleanly manuer, will seldom be found to be very good in other respects.