rter, a large
portion of it has been lost to the public. The following fragment,
however, will be sufficient to shew its nature and its value. The
examinator wished "to ascertain the power which the children possessed
of applying the passage to their own conduct; and for this purpose, he
proposed several circumstances in which they might be placed, and asked
them to show how this portion of Scripture directed them to
act.--Supposing, said he, that your father and mother were to neglect to
take you to church next Sunday, would that be wrong?--Yes.--From what do
you get that lesson? And when he was twelve years old, they went up to
Jerusalem after the custom of the feast.--Is it right that children
should go to church with their parents? Yes.--Why? Because Jesus went
with his parents.--Would it be right for you to go out of church during
the time of the service? No.--Why? Joseph and Mary remained till the
service was over.

"The next point to be ascertained was, whether the children were able,
not only to perceive what passages of Scripture were applicable in
particular circumstances, but also to find out what circumstances in
life those passages might be applied to. For this purpose, Mr Gall
asked, 'Could you tell me any circumstances which may happen, in which
you may be called on to remember that Joseph and Mary attended public
worship?'--If a friend were to take dinner or tea with us, that should
not detain us from attending church.--Idle amusements should not detain
us from church; and nothing should keep us from it but sickness.

"Mr Gall again expressed his unabated satisfaction at the results of the
examination, in proving the intellectual acquirements of the children.
But so important did the application of the lessons appear to him, that
he must trespass still further upon the time of the meeting by a more
severe test of the children's practical training on this particular
point. It was a test which he believed to be altogether new to them; but
if they should succeed, it will prove still more satisfactorily, that
their knowledge of Scripture has made it become, in reality, a light to
their feet, and a lamp to their path.

"Mr Gall then produced a little narrative tract, which he read aloud to
the children; and after the statement of each moral circumstance
detailed in it, he asked the children whether it was right or wrong.
When the children answered that it was _right_, he required them to
prove that it was