This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1830 Excerpt: ...periods, discourses particularly adapted to their character and circumstances; and many are now the ornaments of our churches, who ascribe their first and most decided impressions of divine truth to these effusions of pastoral solicitude. But still greater importance is to be attached to more frequent and more familiar methods of instruction, in which the precise plan maybe adjusted by that practical wisdom, which will take into view the education, the habits, the intellectual attainments, and the degree of leisure, by which the greater number may be distinguished. If they have advanced beyond the age ordinarily compatible with catechetical instruction, their attention may bedirected, with advantage, to a familiar exposition of some appropriate portions of scripture--or to a series of familiar lectures on the most important points of theological truth--or to the persusal, at their own convenience, of books calculated to impress upon their minds the leading principles of divine revelation, on which the minister may offer his own remarks, for the purpose of additional illustration and enforcement. It is impossible to calculate the benefit which may arise from the persevering employmentof such plansas these, when pursued with a devotional spirit, and with earnest supplication for that divine influence, without which the weighty reasoning of Paul and the winning eloquence of Apollos, even in happiest combination, would be altogether inefficient. But the most beneficial of all plans which can be adopted for the advantage of the young is, I am fully persuaded, the method of Bible Class instruction, which, I trust, will become at length as general in this country as it is already among the American churches. " The leading object of Bible classes may be stated...