cessful part of our work is the Sunday-school. It began as a very humble affair indeed, but now it has an attendance of about twelve hundred pupils. We have two other subsidiary schools, with an attendance of about sixty or seventy each.

Although the time for the Sunday-school is 10 o'clock on Sunday morning, not a few children appear as early as 8 o'clock. We open the doors and take care of them. Four of the scholars begin to play on tambourines in the inner court connected with the school building. About half an hour before time for beginning Sunday-school, the Director goes out with scholars and with these tambourines, and they march through the principal streets, and by the time they come back to the school they have about a thousand children.

In Spain there is not religious liberty granted to us, but we take it!

The buildings are comparatively small, but we have two halls and into these we pack about six hundred each. I speak to the larger children in one of the halls long enough to explain to them the Sunday-school lesson. After they have listened, and sung hymns, and prayer has been offered, the doors are shut, and then the magic lantern is brought

out.

When they have been there with the door shut, and the windows shut, six hundred children packed in that little building, they do not suffer from the cold. Once this first batch has been dispatched, the second contingent comes in from the other hall, eager to see the magic lantern slides. They have had, in the meantime, the Sunday-school lesson also.

Sunday-schools in most parts of the world last about an hour, but here they begin at 8 o'clock in the morning and it is about midday before they end. This is only the beginning of what will yet be in Spain, with the blessing of God.

Sweden

BY HERR AUGUST PALM

The whole world has great reason to thank England for the blessed idea of Sunday-school work; but Sweden has still more reason. And we are very happy for this opportunity to express our heartiest thanks to our English brethren for all they have done for the young in our country.

We have not only got the idea from England. An English lady, daughter of an English Consul in Stockholm, organized the very first modern Sunday-school in Sweden, in 1833, but great opposition from clergy and others killed the work. An English Wesleyan missionary, the Reverend George Scott, organized the second Sunday-school in Stockholm two years later; but he had to flee to England on account of persecution (the people would have stoned. him), and his little Sunday-school plant was destroyed.

During the following sixteen years several Sunday-schools were organized by Christian Swedes both in the capital and other cities, but continued only for a short time. In 1851 the example of the Sunday-school friends in London was of the greatest blessing to us. Mr. Per Palmquist, a teacher in Prince Carlo's School in Stockholm-our Robert Raikes, and a countess, Lady Ehrenborg, among others, visited the exhibition in London. Both of them saw the Sunday-school work there and became deeply interested in it. Upon their return they tried to put into practise what they had seen. Mr. Palmquist, who was an inspector for the poor, invited some of the poorer children on Christmas Eve to his house. He did not dare to invite his own school children. If he were quite true to the example seen, I am not sure but that he opened his Sundayschool with a big portion of porridge and milk. At any rate, the school was organized and became the parent Sunday-school for the Free Churches in Sweden, and is still prospering in the First Baptist Church in Stockholm.

A year later Lady Ehrenborg, knowing nothing of Mr. Palmquist's school, began a course of training for teachers, and in the following year, 1853, she organized a Sundayschool, which in the same way became the private School of the Established Church. The Sunday-school Union of London, having heard of this beginning, wrote an encouraging letter to Mr. Palmquist, and asked him to visit other places and organize schools, and enclosed £25 for traveling expenses. He did so, and schools were organized in Upsala, Gefle, Nerike and other places.

During the first twenty years the work went on rather slowly. But in 1871, a Sunday-school Union was organzied in the province of Nerike. Our dear Brethren in the London Sunday School Union sent a delegate to its first annual meeting. After this begins another period. Through the help of the Sunday School Union in London a missionary was engaged, a periodical with an explanation of the text and hints for teachers was printed; hymn-books for children were prepared. The missionary not only reorganized the old Sunday-school and organized new Sunday-schools, but provincial Sunday School Unions were organized in various districts. New missionaries were engaged, training courses for teachers were held and the work began to prosper as never before. More help was received from London, more missionaries, more work and more blessings. At last twenty faithful missionaries were on the field. In 1894, the different provincial unions were united in the Swedish Sunday School Union. Last year this Union had nineteen missionaries on the field, of which fourteen work during the whole year. Beside these the Baptist Union supports three or four missionaries annually. The Congregationalists also carry on a missionary work through the preachers, who at the same time are a kind of Sunday-school missionaries. And still we have several large provinces and very wide districts in other provinces, where the Sunday-schools are scarcely known. But we hope to be able to reach even

them, by and by. In the province of Herjeadalen, far east, there are only a few schools and one chapel in the whole province.

And now, what has the Sunday-school done for Sweden? Very much. Remember that the Sunday-school was organized in 1851, before the Free Churches (Baptists, Methodists and Congregationalists) were introduced to Sweden. Here and there were some few Christians. They were too few in number to organize a church, but a Sunday-school, however, could be taught by them. God blessed this work, souls were converted and the Christians were multiplied. Then churches were organized, and churches and chapels erected.

The Sunday-school missionary has in a great many districts opened the way for the preacher. The Sunday-school has had more to do with religious life among elder people and the spreading of the gospel than many realize.

In a word, in 1851 there was not a single church or chapel. Now the above mentioned denominations have 1,826 churches, with 151,050 members and 1,923 chapels and church buildings to a value of sixteen millions of kronor, without the houses for preachers. We have 1,192 Young People's Societies, and the 52,000 active members mostly have come as a fruit from the Sunday-school. Especially during the last years the Lord has granted us rich blessings. Spiritual movements have been seen in most of the provinces. The missionaries have often been obliged to break off their journeys, and give up their training class and draw in the nets. Revival meetings have been held evening after evening. Only one example. I have a delegate with me, Mr. Coresan, from Eskilstuna. Last winter about one hundred, and the winter before about two hundred, children and adults of his school were converted. Similarly, in the school to which I belong.

In provinces where the Sunday-schools have been held for a long time, opposition and prejudices begin to disappear.