At another, relate an anecdote or fact which will tend to interest the scholars in the performance of duty.

The teacher should be very careful not to imitate on these occasions the formal style of exhortation from the pulpit.

Let him use no cant and hackneyed phrases, and never approach the subject of personal piety, or speak of such feelings as penitence for sin, trust in God, and love for the Savior, unless his own heart is really at the time warmed by the emotions which he wishes to awaken in others.

Children very easily detect hypocrisy.
They know very well when a parent or teacher is talking to them on religious subjects merely as a matter of course for the sake of effect, and such constrained and formal efforts never do any good.
Let, then, every thing which you do in reference to this subject be done with proper regard to the character and condition of the youthful mind, and in such a way as shall be calculated to _interest_ as well as to _instruct_.

A cold and formal exhortation, or even an apparently earnest one, delivered in a tone of affected solemnity, will produce no good effect.