group very up-hill work. But, in addition to the great amount of preparatory work that has been accomplished, the actual results of missionary work are very considerable, and ought not to be lost sight of in estimating the claims of this field, and the importance of the services of the Dayspring. On Aneityum the whole population have been for several years professedly Christian, and one-third of them have been admitted into the fellowship of the Church. The whole of the New Testament, Genesis, Exodus, the Book of Psalms, and some other portions of the Old Testament are printed and in the hands of the natives. On Erromanga a church has been formed; the gospel of Luke and other books are printed and in daily use, and Christianity in several districts has taken a firm hold of the native mind. On Fatè there is also a Christian

church, and, as already stated, the gospel of Mark and also other books have been printed, and are being daily read. Both Fotuna and Aniwa are occupied by missionaries. On Tanna a great hold has been obtained among the people, and we hope to occupy it with missionaries next year. Both on Tanna and Fatè we have this year reoccupied old stations by the location of native teachers. We have had a large accession to our staff of missionaries this year, and we are making an appeal for ten more missionaries, to be sent out within the next five years—that is, at the rate of two missionaries every year. We have great hopes that this appeal will be responded to, and that by 1871 we shall number twenty missionaries in this group. Every new missionary in time makes room for other two.

"

OUR readers will peruse with much interest, the following paper by Dr. W. J. Elmslie, which he read at Amritsar, upon his return from his summer campaign in Kashmir, and before setting out for Chamba, where he has since been spending the cold season, in very important and encouraging Medical Mission labour.

A PLAN FOR FACILITATING THE FURTHER EXTEN-
SION AND EMPLOYMENT OF MEDICAL MISSIONS
IN THE PUNJAB.

(Read before the Conference of the Church Mission, held in Amritsar, in November, 1866; and also before the Punjab Medical Mission Society the same month.)

The whole subject of Medical Missions having been but recently discussed at the large Missionary Conference held at Lahore in 1863, it is presumable that the majority, if not all of those now present, are more or less intimately acquainted with the arguments in their favour and the leading facts in their history. Instead, therefore, of spending the short space of time allotted to me in needlessly, and I might almost say, profitlessly reiterating in your hearing, these arguments and history, permit me rather to give a practical turn to the subject in hand, by roughly and briefly laying before this conference, a plan for facilitating the further extension and employment of Medical Missions in this province.

There can be but one opinion as to the great

influence and power, either for good or bad, which the thoroughly-equipped physician and surgeon everywhere possesses, but more especially among barbarians and semi-civilized people. In the most recent works of Oriental travel, for example, those of Vambery and Palgrave, the authors respectively tell us how considerably they were assisted and what advantage they reaped by the practice of even a little medicine, amongst the rude tribes through whose territories they travelled; and there issues scarcely a single report of

missionary labours in which medicine has been but even scantily and imperfectly employed, without express testimony being borne to the great assistance and advantage accruing to the mission therefrom. If this holds true of medicine when practised by those whom knowledge and skill are of the meagrest and most deficient extent, how much more effective and helpful, humanly speaking, is medicine likely to prove when wielded by hands properly trained and skilled in its use, and moved by living burning love to our Divine Redeemer and to the perishing souls and suffering bodies of our fellow men? This being the case, it appears to me to be but the dictate of a wise policy, on the part of the Christian Church, besides being in perfect accordance with the faultless example of our adorable Saviour and the spirit of His matchless teaching, to incorporate medical missions in her evangelistic machinery. The leading missionary societies of Great

Britain now appear fully to admit the peculiar fitness and desirableness of medical mission agency for some fields of evangelistic labour, and it seems highly probable that, were funds more abundant and labours more numerous than they are at present, or likely for some time to be, there would be scarcely a single large mission station, either in the Punjab or anywhere else in the East, without a medical missionary being attached thereto. Blessed be God! there is no lack of most inviting fields for missionary enterprize; but scarcity of funds and paucity of suitable agents are the two gigantic difficulties which our societies at home everywhere meet and have to contend with.

Hitherto the great majority of medical missionaries now labouring in Syria, Madagascar, India and China, and connected with the various evangelical missionary societies of England and Scotland, have been educated under the auspices of the Edinburgh Medical Missionary Society, which has done so much for this department of mission agency within the last twenty years. As, however, the pecuniary resources of this society are comparatively scanty, and as the number of available men at its disposal is small, there appears to be but little prospect of its being speedily able to supply the many demands of the Punjab.

It may interest this conference to know that, during the past year, I have been spoken to respecting a medical mission for no fewer than eight different stations in this extensive province, namely, those of Amritsar, Lahore, Mooltan, Peshwar, Goojrat, Kullu, Kangra, and Chamba, and so favourable do the Punjab Medical Mission Committee consider the opening in the last-mentioned place, that they have resolved, with the sanction of the Church Mission, to locate me there during the current cold season, when I am compelled to suspend my labours in Kashmir.

To obtain, at present, European medical missionaries for these numerous stations in the Punjab being all but hopeless, it behoves to look around and see whether or not we cannot, from the material which we already possess, supply, in a great measure at least, our wants in this respect. No one will even for a moment maintain, that a native agent is in all points equal to a European one; but everyone will readily admit that as to command of the vernacular and an intimate acquaintance with the manners and customs and modes of thought of the inhabitants of this colossal empire, the former is greatly superior to the latter. What, therefore, is lost in one way is gained in another; and while we are on no account to

slacken our efforts to import as many European agents as we can find and the means at our command will allow, it is manifestly wise and expedient on our part to do our very utmost to rear an efficient native medical mission agency.

Young though the different missions in the Punjab be, when compared with those of Bengal, Madras and Bombay, nevertheless, I am led to believe that, with comparative ease, a little band of students, in every way qualified as to head and heart, could be mustered from amongst them. Since my arrival in India, I have heard more than one experienced missionary complain of the considerable difficulty missionaries sometimes meet with in finding agreeable and suitable employment for their better-gifted and educated converts. If facilities were afforded to this class of native Christians to study medicine, with the view of devoting themselves to mission work in the capacity of doctors, it is highly probable that this difficulty would be greatly obviated, and much direct Christian power and influence would be utilized and retained within the pale of the church which, as things now are, is comparatively speaking lost to her; for I am given to understand that many of the young native Christians, of good parts, enter government employ as writers, &c., after quitting the higher mission schools and colleges, and thus, of course, their direct influence and help are, in a great measure at least, lost to the Church. This, we think, is more than she can at present afford. She requires to husband her resources, and turn them to the very best account. But further on this head, in all probability, and that at no very distant day, there will be lucrative and influential openings in the large and populous cities of the Punjab, for private native physicians and surgeons who have been educated by European teachers, as we find to be the case in the other large cities of the empire, for example, in Calcutta, Bombay, Madras, &c.; and it is unquestionably most desirable that these openings, when they do occur, be occupied by native Christian men, whose example and influence will be on the side of Christianity, and not by heathens, who will perpetuate and thicken the awful surrounding darkness.

With respect to the young medical missionary students, it is imperatively incumbent on the ordained missionaries in charge of the missions from which they are sent, to see well to it that they are really converted men, and have more or less a desire to serve their divine Saviour in direct mission work. Next to this all-important and

England.

(From our own Correspondent.)

:

A NUMBER of sermons have been delivered to working men in different London churches, in accordance with a suggestion thrown out at the recent conference. Dean Stanley said, in the course of his sermon at Westminster Abbey "There was a deep meaning in those words, "The poor had the gospel preached to them.' The words meant that the doctrine Christ came to preach, unlike many systems, was so genuine that it went to the heart of the humblest and simplest of men; not that the teaching was unfitted to the most refined, for the most simple was that which was best adapted at once to the most educated and the least. If any class should appreciate the gospel, it should be the working class, the class of mechanics and artisans. To these, if to any, the Lord spake still. The world of the clergy and religious teachers might have been expected to turn from Him if any; for their ancestors, the chief priests, had conspired to put Him to death. The great wealthy religious world might have been expected to turn a deaf ear to his teachings, for it was against them that his strongest rebukes were directed. Statesmen, perhaps, might be excused from entering into the spirit of one so unearthly; but that working men should be found turning away from their Friend and hardly ever entering a place of worship, this surely could not have been expected." Dr. Hamilton, of Regent Square Presbyterian Church, delivered a very remarkable sermon, of which the following is an extract:-He said it was only honest to admit that many sermons were dull-that they cleared no confusion, established no truth, impressed no lesson-or the theme was remote from all actual uses. And they were rendered still more remote and non-real by the use of technical terms and conventional phrases. The beautiful emblems of the bible could never become obsolete, but it was well that fresh ones should be added, so that persons who seldom saw a fig-tree or a fishery, but who had lived amidst telegraphs and tunnels, might not become wholly secularized, but have a good thought now and

then suggested by their new and non-biblical surroundings. He further said that an erroneous impression of the spirit of Christianity was sometimes conveyed by the tone of its preachers; and his last point was, that there was not now the sympathy between ministers and people which once existed. Speaking of the friendly footing on which the labouring classes used to stand with ministers in Scotland a hundred years ago, he said "All this is wellnigh lost. Few ministers would care to entertain such guests, and few such guests can now be found. The working classes grow up remote from the wealthier classes, and their ideas, pursuits, sympathies, are peculiar to their own order, and all lie within themselves. A scholar or a gentleman steps in and gives them a lecture or an entertainment, nay, speechifies about the dignity of labour and the rights of industry, and they are pleased; they applaud and are grateful, but after all they are not congenial; they are not near him; although a friendly visitor, he is an alien-porcelain patronising common clay, a Barberini vase conscious of its classic pattern amid surrounding pigs and pipkins."

A movement is in progress for the suppression of the Sunday Liquor Traffic-happily suppressed years ago in Scotland. A very influential requisition having been got up to the Lord Mayor on the subject, he presided at a meeting in the Mansion House, at which many well-known ministers of different denominations were present. Archbishop Manning spoke with much good sense. In the course of his speech, he said :-" The temptations to drunkenness are multiplied by unwise legislation. I will be bold to affirm, as before, that for thirty years past the wisdom of our legislators has gone astray. Thirty years ago, they departed from the footsteps of their ancestors by introducing the principle of free-trade in drink. Free-trade in cotton and bread I can understand: better clothed, better fed, and better taught if you will, but freetrade in drink is contrary to the principles of sound legislation-contrary to the principles of true economy-contrary to external morality. Whenever Parliament has introduced relaxation in the distillation of spirits, in the price of beer, drunk