custom, belonging to
a time not so far in the past but that many of us remember it, of
consigning the "infant class" of the Sunday-school to any amiable young
girl in the parish who could promise to be reasonably regular in meeting
it does not obtain at the present day. Sunday-school teachers are
trained, and trained with increasing care and thoroughness, for their
task.

[Illustration: CHILDREN GO TO CHURCH]

Readiness to teach is no longer a sufficient credential. The amiable
young girl must now not only be willing to teach, she must also be
willing to learn how to teach. In the earlier time practically any well-
disposed young man of the congregation who would consent to take charge
of a class of boys was eagerly allotted that class without further
parley. This, too, is not now the case. The young man, before beginning
to teach the boys, is obliged to prepare himself somewhat specifically
for such work. In my own parish the boys' classes of the Sunday-school
are taught by young men who are students in the Theological School of
which my parish church is the chapel. In an adjacent parish the "infant
class" is in charge of an accomplished kindergartner. Surely such
persons are well qualified to help to inspire and to encourage the
children to regard churchgoing as a privilege, and to make them wish to
go!

And the minister! I am inclined to think that the minister helps more
than any one else, except the father and mother, to give the children
this inspiration, this encouragement. Children go to church now, when
churchgoing is voluntary, quite as much as they went when it was
compulsory. They learn very early to wish to go; they see with small
difficulty that it is a privilege. Their Sunday-school teachers might
help them, even their parents might help them, but, unless the minister
helped them, would this be so?

There are so many ways in which the minister does his part in this
matter of the child's relation to the church, and to those things for
which the church stands. They are happily familiar to us through our
child friends: the "children's service" at Christmas and at Easter; the
"talks to children" on certain Sundays of the year. These are some of
them. And there are other, more individual, more intimate ways.

The other day a little girl who is a friend of mine asked me to make out
a list of books likely to be found in the "children's room" of the near-
by public library that I thought she would enjoy rea