Questions should be progressive, that is, they should proceed from the simple and the known to the faintly known, and thence to the unknown. XIX. THE TEACHERS' MEETING. 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.