ral condition of the school. It must be so. Though many will be
inattentive, and many utterly unconcerned, yet it is not possible to
bring children, even in form, into the presence of God every day, and
to utter in their hearing the petitions which they ought to present,
without bringing a powerful element of moral influence to bear upon
their hearts. The good will be made better; the conscientious more
conscientious still; and the rude and savage will be subdued and
softened by the daily attempt to lead them to the throne of their
Creator. To secure this effect, the devotional service must be an honest
one. There must be nothing feigned or hypocritical; no hackneyed phrases
used without meaning, or intonations of assumed solemnity. It must be
honest, heartfelt, simple prayer; the plain and direct expression of
such sentiments as children ought to feel, and of such petitions as they
ought to offer. We shall speak presently of the mode of avoiding some
abuses to which this exercise is liable; but if these sources of abuse
are avoided, and the duty is performed in that plain, simple, direct,
and honest manner in which it certainly will be if it springs from the
heart, it must have a great influence on the moral progress of the
children, and, in fact, in all respects on the prosperity of the school.

But, then, independently of the _advantages_ which may be expected to
result from the practice of daily prayer in school, it would seem to be
the imperious _duty_ of the teacher to adopt it. So many human minds
committed thus to the guidance of one, at a period when the character
receives so easily and so permanently its shape and direction, and in a
world of probation like this, is an occasion which seems to demand the
open recognition of the hand of God on the part of any individual to
whom such a trust is committed. The duty springs so directly out of the
attitude in which the teacher and pupil stand in respect to each other,
and the relation they together bear to the Supreme, that it would seem
impossible for any one to hesitate to admit the duty, without denying
altogether the existence of a God.

How vast the responsibility _of giving form and character to the human
soul!_ How mighty the influence of which the unformed minds of a group
of children are susceptible! How much their daily teacher must
inevitably exert upon them! If we admit the existence of God at all, and
that he exerts any agency whatever in the moral worl