ional men, business men, politicians,
educators, parents, indeed the whole thinking world has apparently
matriculated in a college of life. What is it, how does it develop,
how may it be influenced, how led to action? These are typical
questions to which answers are sought. There would be no value in this
study were it not for the fact that life, like all other of God's
creations, is under law, and the laws are unchangeable and universal.
Certain causes will always produce certain results under normal
conditions.

#2.# Since these laws of life may be known, two conclusions follow:
first, results which are desired in a life can be intelligently
planned for; second, haphazard, ignorant work with a life becomes
culpable in proportion to the issues at stake and the opportunity for
acquiring skill in the work.

#3. Why the Sunday-school Teacher should know the Pupil.#--Next to
fathers and mothers, the duty of understanding life is laid most
imperatively upon Sunday-school teachers. Four unanswerable arguments
present themselves as proof.

(1) _The issues are the most vital in the world._ The case the lawyer
seeks to win is important, but the case the teacher seeks to win
involves character, not reputation, and the outcome is eternal.

(2) _A mistake with a life cannot be wholly rectified._ There is a
best time for each phase of work with a life--a time to form habits
and store memory, a time to shape ideals and to crystallize life
purposes, a time to broaden sympathies and to lead to service; if this
best time be passed, the results, if obtainable at all later, come
with greater effort and with less success.

(3) _The time is short._ Measured on the dial, an hour in a week or a
lifetime out of an eternity is too brief to allow of one wasted
moment, one experimental or ignorant touch upon a soul. But measured
by the duration of a given opportunity the time is shorter still.
Conditions in the life are constantly changing, never to return in
the same way again. What is done in "buying up the opportunity," must
be done quickly.

(4) _Success is largely conditioned upon obedience to God's laws._
Only the Holy Spirit can make spiritual work effective, but he always
operates in accordance with God's laws. There are conditions between
the teacher and God which must be met before he can work, and
conditions between the teacher and the pupil. These conditions or laws
are not hidden and mysterious, but may be definitely known,