Banner," which it is not very strange that we preferred even to good old Peterborough, Dundee and Mear, which had for so long been our standbyes, varied and enlivened, sometimes, greatly to our delight, by the more cheerful and animated strains of Coronation and Harborough, with its four-fold refrain of "Crown him Lord of all." Very different is your lot, children, from ours-you who are surfeited with new books of beautiful and inspiring tunes prepared expressly for you, whose sweet strains as you have sung them for us, charm and delight our ears.

I said I scarcely knew where to begin, but I find it still more difficult to stop, such a throng of associations comes pressing upon me, when I attempt to recall my life in this dear old school. But I must not dwell longer upon them, bright and inviting as they seem to me, and fragrant with most precious memories and sacred influences. The impressions made in this School were deep and abiding, and have been the actuating principle of future effort and endeavor. Never while mind and heart can be employed in labors for Christ and his cause, will the influence of the instructions, and the blessed privileges of this School, cease to exert its living energy through us, vitalized by the power of the Divine Spirit.

And what is true of us, is no less true of the hundreds and thousands who have shared in, and been blessed by the sacred influences of this School. As they have gone out from its instructions, they have carried with them into the professions, and the active duties of life, the results of the earnest prayers and faithful efforts of their pious teachers who have sought to train them in the way of life. The choicest seed of divine truth has here been faithfully sown in young and tender hearts, and often bedewed with the showers of Divine grace, so that it is not strange that the fruitage has been rich and glorious.

It would be hard to trace all the threads of influence that have proceeded from this School, for they are thickly interwoven into the web of the history of Christian effort for the last fifty years. To our human vision as we look upon

it, it seems intricate and involved, and it would be a hopeless task to extricate each thread from the completed fabric. But there is an eye that has watched each tiny thread as it has passed into the loom of Time, and has seen it mingling with its fellows from so many sources, but has kept it distinct in view, tracing it with unerring certainty through all its shifting changes, noting all its relations to the diversified plan, and registering the whole course of its progress without a single omission or mistake. That registry will one day be read before the assembled world, and then, and not till then, can it be fully known what has been accomplished for Christ and his glory through these fifty years, by the Sunday School of the First Presbyterian Church of Utica.

Children! The past is secured,-the future rests with you, and those who are to come after you. It is a glorious privilege that you enjoy to be members of a School with such a history as has this. And just as in the army, the veteran soldiers were proud to belong to a regiment or a division that had won a glorious name,-that had never suffered defeat, and whose standard had never gone down in disgrace; so let it be to you a cause of thankfulness that you belong to a band, that, in the struggle of light with darkness, and truth with error, has fought so faithfully and valiantly during half a century, for the great Captain of our salvation.

That struggle you are now to continue to wage. We commit the standard to your watch and ward. When the enemy comes in like a flood, plant the blood-stained standard of your Commander in the forefront, and rally to its defense. Never let its fair folds be sullied by defection or disgrace. Defend it earnestly with all the power of souls inspired by love for Christ and his glorious cause. Take "the shield of faith," "the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God." Clad with this heavenly panoply, you will be prepared to fight manfully the fight of faith. Thus during these coming years will you continually be gaining trophies for king Jesus, your glorious Leader; so that when another fifty

years shall have rolled around, those who meet to celebrate the Centenary of this School, shall be able to recount far greater triumphs of grace and glory.

ADDRESS OF HOVEY K. CLARKE.

I had no expectation when I came here, this afternoon, that I should be invited to address you; nor should I have dared to consent to do it, could I have anticipated that I should rise just as you had listened to the beautiful and affecting tribute from your pastor to my mother, which scarce leaves me power to command my utterance. I came here to witness what I thought would be one of the most interesting spectacles of this interesting occasion. I desired to see the School together-the same School where I was once a scholar, as you have just been told, though that was a very, very long time ago; for I suppose I am now the oldest scholar here attending these semi-centennial exercises. I would like very much, if there were time, to continue the pleasant reminiscences which were begun last evening, and have been continued here this afternoon. I would like especially to tell you what we used to do, and how we used to do it, when I was a scholar here more than forty years ago. I would like to tell you of the hymns we used to sing. There were no children's hymn books then; no such beautiful music as you have sung this afternoon. The hymns we sung were taken from the same book that was used in church.

"How shall the young secure their hearts,

And guard their lives from sin ?"

one of the versions of the 119th Psalm, was one of them.

"Alas! and did my Saviour bleed,"

was another. Tallis' Evening Hymn, Dismission, and

"See the kind Shepherd, Jesus, stands

With all engaging charms,

Hark! how he calls the tender lambs,

And folds them in his arms."

These were almost all we had. The last one was sung during public worship here this morning, though I observed a change in the first line. Your book has it,

"See Israel's gentle Shepherd stands."

I cannot but think our way was the best,

"See the kind Shepherd, Jesus, stands,"

When that

for that retains the blessed name of Jesus. hymn was read this morning, I listened for the first notes of the organ, to hear whether it would be sung to the same tune we used to sing in the Sabbath School. But it was not; and though the last verse of the hymn, that one which gives assurance that God will not forget the orphan children of those who put their trust in him, was sung with such tenderness and beauty as almost to overcome me, I could not quite forgive the choir that they did not sing it to the good old tune of "Clarendon," as we used to sing it ever so long ago.

But, my dear children, pleasant as it would be to me to think over and talk over the days when I was a scholar here as you are now, I would rather help you, if I can, to realize what a blessed place the Sabbath School is to guide you right in life. Why, children, don't you know that there is nothing so important, when any great or good thing is to be done, as to start right? And, if you start right in the great journey of life, you have good reason to hope that you will keep right. Now, that is the reason why we think so much of the Sunday School. Here is the place, of all others, for starting in life just right; for if you start only a little wrong, ever so little at the beginning, and keep on, you will be going further and further from the right way as you go on in life. A very little turning from that way now may make a great difference when you are as old as I am.

I read some years ago in a newspaper, how very near one of the ocean steamers came to a dreadful accident by a

little, a very little wrong, at the start. Fortunately, the danger was discovered in time, or it would have resulted in an appalling calamity. You know, I dare say, some of you, that there is a line of steamers between New York and Liverpool, called the Cunarders. After leaving New York, they usually stop a few hours at Halifax on their way, and then they lay their course in a straight line toward the north-east, so as to pass Cape Race, and then they turn again and take a straight course for their port of destination on the other side of the Atlantic. But this straight course! Do you know how they keep a vessel straight on its way through the fogs in the day time, and the darkness of the night, with nothing in sight on any side but the rolling waves of the ocean? They steer by the compass. In a box called the binnacle, which is right before the man at the wheel, so that he can see it all the time, the compass hangs. In the binnacle is a light at night, which shines directly on the compass, so that whether in day time or at night, though they can see nothing else, so long as they can see the compass, on they go through storms and darkness, with entire confidence that the compass is leading them right. What could they do without a compass?

Now the steamer that I am telling you about, left New York as usual, made its usual stop at Halifax, and then started out for its voyage across the ocean, laying its course east-north-east, I think it was, so as to leave the projecting head lands to their left hand. On they went, all day and nearly all one night; the man at the wheel, with his hand. firmly grasping its spokes, and his eye on the compass— the officer on duty, as he paces up and down the deck, occasionally looking at the compass to see that all was right. On they go, with no fear of danger, the route they have traveled so many times before, when suddenly, right before them, some awfully monstrous obstacle seems in their path. What is it! Is it a fog? No, it is too solid for that. Is it an iceberg? No, it is too large, too immovable for that. What can it be! They cannot tell. They only know that in a moment more they will be dashing on it, unless the