1846-1847.] SUNDA Y SCHOOL ESS A Y. 



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"to keeping the gallery quiet, and to the Christian work of 

 keeping the window open ; to do which I was obliged to let the 

 flap down and sit upon it, in the midst of the rush of air, and 

 then to go and stand at the door on the cold flags for half an 

 hour, holding the plate : and, strange to say, I did not catch 

 cold." 



The Belfast Sunday School Association had offered a prize 

 for an essay on religious education, etc., and he felt that he must 

 accept this call to write down his thoughts. Travers would not 

 write, because a prize was offered. Philip's disinterestedness 

 showed itself in his urging as many to compete as possible : 

 and in writing what he did not expect would please, on teeto- 

 talism, peace, and purity, and showing the entire inefficiency 

 of mere institutions and plans of religious teaching without the 

 living spirit in the teacher. The prize was not awarded him, 

 but the committee asked leave to print his essay. By his 

 wish his name did not appear. It is entitled " The True Object 

 and Means of Sunday School Instruction; being an Affectionate 

 Address to Sunday School Teachers, by One of Themselves." 

 "I wrote it," he informed the secretary, "at a period of great 

 mental languor, and did not succeed to my satisfaction at all. 

 I had to sit up almost two whole nights. . . . The thoughts, 

 however, are matured!'' 



At the end of November he went to Liverpool for the 

 opening of a temperance hall and sanitary work, and caught 

 a violent cold, which was followed by a carbuncle and boils. 

 A visit to Stand revived him, and he wrote home : " ' I am in 

 the way to be better,' as my father used to say ; " but he had a 

 relapse on returning to Warrington. He was disabled for more 

 than a month, but on the first Sunday in 1847 he records : 

 "Returned to my labour with great thankfulness, with mind 

 refreshed, and, I hope, prepared for faithful work, and felt 

 rejoiced to begin the year among my people." Warrington 

 was now his home, and it became the scene of his most arduous 

 exertions. This was the famine year. An interesting summary 

 of its claims upon him is found in a letter (August 19, 1847, 

 half-past four a.m.) to his friend R. Walsh in America : — 



