3. _Through Opposition._—In every age there have been searchers of the Bible actuated by the motive of unbelief; men trying to find in it the weapons for its own destruction. Yet even their study has often proved serviceable to the believer in the divine revelation. 4. _Through Spiritual Desire._—Multitudes have studied the Bible, multitudes are studying it now because they find in it that which their spiritual nature craves, the knowledge of God. They feed upon the Word because it satisfies the hunger of their spirits. IX. We find this _divine revelation circulated among men_. The history of the Bible since its translation into English has been the history of multiplication. Language after language has had the Bible added to the library of its language. Unwritten languages have had characters invented for them to represent their words and the Bible has thus become the first book of the new-made written language of the people. All the leading languages of the world have thus been put in possession of the Bible, and the signs of the times point to a speedy realization of the hope that soon all the nations of the earth will know the divine revelation of our Father which is in heaven. CHAUTAUQUA NORMAL CLASS. _Twelve Lessons on the Sunday-school and the Teacher’s Work._ LESSON I.—THE PLACE, PURPOSE AND PREROGATIVES OF THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL. _I. The place of the Sunday-school._ 1. The Sunday-school is one of the means employed by the Church of Christ for bringing men under the influence of the Gospel. It is not designed to fill the place of any of the other accepted agencies of the church. 2. The Sunday-school does not, and should not accomplish the work belonging to the pulpit and the pastor, nor does it subserve the purpose of the church meeting for prayer and interchange of Christian experience. 3. The Sunday-school can in no sense do the work of the Christian home. It is an agency differing from all other agencies of the church, and is made necessary by the nature and extent of the body of truth accepted by the church, so necessary that without it the church would be to a certain extent crippled. 4. It is a school, _organized and officered as such_; occupying a well defined place in the religious system of the church, having a specific purpose, and entitled to certain prerogatives. 5. As a school, its constituency is a body of teachers and pupils, associated together voluntarily, but not without responsibility and accountability. 6. The Sunday-school in its theoretic constitution is the parallel of the secular school. (_a_) As the latter derives its life from the community, so the Sunday-school derives its life from _the religious community, the church_. (_b_) As the community delegates the power of control over the secular school to a representative body which exercises supreme authority over its affairs, so the church entrusts the management of the Sunday-school to her representative executive body, by whatever name known.