CONCLUSION--BENEFITS OF SUNDAY-SCHOOLS.

Having now brought my sketches to a conclusion, I would here make a few
remarks, before I take leave of my reader. First: the benefits resulting
from Sabbath-schools are not confined to those which are present and
palpable. How often do we hear of children leaving the school, and going
out into the world, without any apparent effect being produced in their
minds; but yet, in the course of time, through the blessing of God, the
most beneficial results have appeared from these instructions.

Not a few instances of boys who have been excluded on account of bad
conduct, but who have been brought to the knowledge of the truth, through
the blessing of God upon the instructions received in the Sabbath-school,
have been laid before the public. And who will say, that in many cases
where there seems no connection whatever between the instruction and the
conversion of the individual, no such connection exists? It is my firm
conviction that a person who has received instruction in a Sabbath-school
is much more likely to receive the truth in the love of it, than is the
individual who has been brought up in complete ignorance of the truths of
the gospel. The heart and understanding of the former may be compared to
the ground broken up, and prepared for the seed; while those of the
latter are like the field through which the plow has never passed, and
the face of which has never been prepared; to sow seed on which is, in
general, to cast it upon "stony ground, where" it is either picked up by
the "birds of the air," or, should it chance to take root, soon "withers
away, because it has no deepness of earth."

Secondly: if no positive good resulted from Sabbath-schools, the amount
of negative good produced would be sufficient to compensate for all the