A REGULAR weekly meeting of Sabbath-school teachers for conference and prayer about all school matters, and a mutual contribution of thoughts and illustrations and plans of teaching adapted to each and to all the various classes on the next Sabbath's lesson, is now considered an indispensable necessity. And it is a great social and religious privilege as well.

We are all unworthy, and need to learn how to teach Scripture truths attractively to youthful minds. All need training for the work, and the weekly teachers' meetings ought to be the grand normal training-schools for Sabbath-school teachers everywhere. Every Sabbath-school ought also to have a Bible-class or two for the training of teachers. The almost half a million of Sabbath-school teachers in our land—the masses—cannot mingle with us in council in our great Conventions and Institutes, and consequently the few favored ones must imbibe the spirit and avail themselves of ample materials, and carry it down to the quiet, devoted workers in common Sabbath-schools through the means of a well-ordered teachers' meeting. The meeting can be held for one hour and a half on a week-day evening at the lecture-room, or, better yet, at the superintendent's house or that of one of the teachers, alternately. It is conducted usually by the superintendent, but sometimes by the pastor, or by one of the teachers who can sustain the interest.

But we are met at this point with a stubborn and overwhelming fact, viz.: a large proportion of all these meetings attempted to be held have resulted in a failure, and have been abandoned, so that now in some places not one school in ten or twenty holds such a meeting. With such an experience we can never ask Sabbath-school teachers to try the experiment on the old plan. We must count the cost, and Sabbath-school men, with only an hour or two in a week for it, cannot afford to make mistakes or failures. Time is too precious.

The great practical question arises, What are the causes of failure? Is it anything inherent in these meetings? or is it in the wrong mode of conducting them? After a most careful investigation of the subject, especially during the last fifteen or twenty years, I have come to the deliberate conclusion that it is owing almost entirely to the wrong plans on which they are conducted. What have been these wrong plans?

1st. They have ordinarily been conducted on the Bible-class, question-book, commentary-studying, and theological-discussing plans; and on those plans they have, and will, in at least nine cases out of ten, result in failure, whether in the hands of pastors or of superintendents. Teachers do not gain enough in such meetings to reward them for their time and trouble in coming, and consequently they cannot be censured for non-attendance.

2d. Another plan of conducting them is in the form of lectures. But on this plan not even an expository lecture has prevented the meeting from being a failure. Occasionally a pastor or a superintendent, with great expository powers and a sprightly manner of analyzing truth and a personal sympathy with the teachers and children, can sustain and make these meetings interesting and profitable on this plan, and to such we can say—God bless you—go on! But we cannot afford to recommend any plan for general adoption with such a prospect of failure.

What, then, must be done? We say decidedly, revolutionize your plans, and meet with the direct aim and purpose of helping one another in your work, and especially on the next Sabbath's lesson.

What then are the objects of teachers' meetings, and how should they be conducted? The objects appear to me to be—1. To get all the teachers well acquainted, socially and religiously, and as teachers. 2. To combine our mutual confidences, sympathies and prayers. 3. To mutually help each other and relieve each other's difficulties by conferring together on such questions as—how best to secure and retain attention;—how to question;—how to prepare the lesson and present it, and teach it;—how to draw lessons of instruction, illustrate and apply truth;—how to analyze the lesson, lay out the plan of it, and break it up into small, convenient parcels, adapted to all capacities from the infant up to the adult classes;—how to make the Word of God most useful, most interesting and most impressive to youthful minds, convicting of sin and converting to God; and the thorough training of the young in the Christian life, and in the sound knowledge of revealed truth.

The way to conduct these meetings is, to go to work naturally, systematically and directly, in a common-sense way, to accomplish these grand objects. Suppose, after singing two verses of an appropriate hymn, a direct prayer of two or three minutes, and one verse of Scripture that just meets the case, the leader inquires for the next half hour the size, regularity, etc., of the different classes, and asks counsel to correct irregularities. In this way the teachers will become so well acquainted with each other's classes that they can intelligently pray for each other. Then have a recess of ten or fifteen minutes for introduction and social intercourse; after which another half hour should be devoted to inquiring of each teacher for the various best thoughts of the lesson for them to use. Let the next meeting be directed to the difficulties, and how to relieve them, and the last half hour to asking for illustrations for the week or month's lesson. At the next meeting inquire, Have you visited your scholars during the month, and what have you found of interest in your visits? Then devote the last half hour to examples and plans of teaching different verses by several teachers. At the fourth and last meeting of the month inquire, Is there any special religious interest in your class? or, Why not? and lastly, How can you apply the lesson so as best to make a saving impression?

In some such way I would meet real present wants, avoiding routine, and providing something fresh and varied at every meeting, just adapted to all. In some such way conduct your meetings, and no teacher can afford to be absent.

In a country school district Sabbath-school let the teachers turn all their sociability into this channel, and set apart, say Thursday evening of each week, for a pleasant social teachers' meeting at the residence of the superintendent or one of the teachers, alternating about. Let the farmers arrange to leave their work an hour earlier on that evening for the sake of the great blessing to their children. Provide attendants for the lady teachers. Suppose the superintendent lives one mile north of the school-house, and two teachers are one mile east, three south, and four west. The two young lady teachers "one mile east" have no escort, but the superintendent remembers that in the next house further east, the only son of Esquire Jones, a fine young man of sixteen years, has just drifted out of the Sabbath-school, and is inclining toward fast horses and gay companions. The superintendent yearns to reach and save him. He thinks and prays over the matter until he feels deeply for the youth. He then visits him, and approaches him with unusual respect—informs him that he has come to ask a particular favor—will he accept the post of librarian in our flourishing little Sabbath-school? He readily consents. The superintendent then says, "Charlie, we teachers have a delightful social gathering at each other's houses every Thursday evening, and as you have a fine horse and buggy, cannot you make it convenient to bring up the two Misses S—— to that meeting?" Why, of course, it is just what the superintendent wants, and it is also just what Charlie wants—something to do, and soon, by God's grace, Charlie becomes a true Christian.

In whatever form the teachers' meetings are conducted it is indispensable—1. That the conductor feels a sincere respect for each teacher, and treats his opinions with candor. 2. That the conductor shall adapt his questions to each individual, and ask those questions with real courtesy and consideration. 3. It is absolutely necessary that the conductor should receive all replies in a life-like manner, with due respect, and make the best of them. If the answers are not well received, it will close the lips of the teachers. They must draw together, and a dull, prosy conductor will check them all.

There is great value in the combined counsels and experience of almost any common band of teachers if fairly and fully drawn out. It will often be seen that "the commonest mind has thoughts worthy of the rarest." In this way the teachers' meetings can be sustained in the hands of ordinary superintendents, and will become the most attractive gatherings in the whole community. An accomplished young lady said to me: "One such meeting as this is worth more than a dozen costly New York parties." The teachers will regularly attend, for they need the assistance which can here be obtained. As well ask a brakeman to run a locomotive, or a spinner to superintend a factory, or an untaught man to teach an academy, as to ask an inexperienced person, or even a classical scholar, to teach divine truth when no one has taught him how. James Gall says, most truly, "Education is the highest of all the sciences, and teaching the most important of all the arts." Teachers then, need training, and the teachers' meeting can be made one of the most valuable means of securing it. One of the great objects of Sabbath-School Teachers' Institutes is to train superintendents, teachers, etc., so that they can interestingly and profitably conduct their weekly teachers' meetings, which are the real institutes for the great mass of teachers.