enness has increased." The meeting was addressed by the Rev. Newman Hall and others, and a form of petition to Parliament was agreed upon, which has already received very numerous signatures. It is high time that the whole question of the licensing of public-houses, the number of which is a disgrace to the country, should be revised; but to this movement especially every sincere friend of religion should give his hearty support.

A conference of those interested in the extension of the female diaconate was held recently at Ely House, Dover Street, under the presidency of the Bishop of Ely. The Bishop of Ely said that he felt the greatest interest in the extension of the female diaconate, having written a pamphlet on the subject fourteen years ago, hoping that it would be considered by Convocation. He noticed that in the early Church the organized work of women was most beneficially employed, and concluded by hoping that by means of wise measures the ministrations of women might be restored to the Church. Mr. Dale defined the deaconess to be a woman holding the bishop's commission, which in the diocese of London runs thus :-"I authorise A. B. to act as a deaconess within my diocese when called upon to do so by the parochial clergy." The Rev. Dr. Howson described the progress towards deaconess institutions in the diocese of Chester, Ely, and Norwich, alluding to a corresponding movement in the Episcopal Church in America.

Two

The seventh annual meeting of the supporters of the midnight meeting movement in London, was recently held. The report stated that twentyeight meetings had been held under the auspices of the association during the past year. thousand unfortunate women had attended, of whom 411 had been rescued from their sinful way of life. The estimated number of prostitutes in London was about 40,000; and it was a source of grateful consideration that through the various Christian agencies now at work about 1,000 were rescued yearly from their evil ways. In the annual statement of the London Female Preventive and Reformatory Institution in Euston-road, it was reported that 559 had been received into the institution, and of these 232 had been placed in situations, and 69 restored to their friends. The total number of cases reclaimed from 1857 to 1866 had been 2,165, while the admissions amounted to 4,540. It was worthy especial remark that a large proportion of those who came under the notice of the promoters were orphans, either entire or partial.

Mr. Varley, whose labours in the neighbourhood of Notting-hill are so well known, is now holding evening services at Exeter Hall. As many of our London readers, says the Christian Times, are aware, he preaches usually in the Free Tabernacle, Notting-hill, without any other recompense than the luxury of doing good. Professionally speaking he is a butcher, and not a minister; but many will have occasion to bless God that he has felt it his duty to preach the Gospel. He has taken Exeter Hall in the hope of attracting a larger audience of the working-classes than he could gather in his own place, and that he might do his part in appealing to the masses of the metropolis who attend no place of worship. As far as the experiment has yet been tried, Mr. Varley has every reason to be satisfied with its success, as the attendance has continued to increase. Last Sunday evening the hall was well filled; and it was pleasing to notice a goodly number of Mr. Varley's own confraternity present, thus showing that they would not only display his bills in their shops and windows, but come and give him a helping hand in the service itself. The service was of the simplest, but at the same time of a most impressive character. The devotional part of it lasted for about an hour, and was sufficiently varied to be interesting to different classes of hearers. Mr. Varley's voice is clear, strong, and musical, and, without any effort, its tones completely fill the building, so that those in its far end can hear just as well as those upon the platform. In prayer he was extremely earnest, especially when he prayed for those in mature years who had not yielded themselves to Christ.

The following graphic account of the singing in Mr. Spurgeon's Tabernacle, appears in an American journal :--

The hymn was read entirely through, and each verse was read before it was sung. The singing was started-not led-by a person who stood beside Mr. Spurgeon. I welcomed the familiar notes of Old Hundred, and for the first time for several months, essayed to join in singing it. But I was surprised into silence by the manner in which the audience took possession of the tune. The most powerful organ, if there had been any thing of the kind used, could not have led them. The second hymn was announced to be, Jesus, Lover of my Soul. The preacher said, "Let us sing this precious hymn softly to the tune of Pleyel's Hymn." When the first verse had been sung, and after he had read the second, he said, "Sing it softly!" With a countenance uplifted

and beaming with fervour, his book in both hands, keeping time involuntarily to the music, he sang with the congregation. When he had read the third verse, he said, "You do not sing it softly enough!" They sang it softly. It was as though some hand had dammed up the waters of the Falls of Niagara, leaving a thin sheet to creep through between two fingers and make soft, sweet music in its great lap and plunge into the great basin below. Then when he read the fourth verse, he said, "Now if we feel this we will sing it with all our souls. Let us sing it with all our might;" and the great congregation burst into song. It was as though the Great Hand had been suddenly uplifted, and the gathered waters were rushing on their united way in awful grandeur.

I have heard the members of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church, with a great company of their wives, and daughters, and friends, sing Old Hundred with a fervour that thrilled me. I have heard oratorios rendered in Exeter Hall by a thousand selected voices, five hundred instruments, and a great organ; I have heard operas rendered in the Imperial Opera House of the French Emperor by a great number of the best vocalists and musicians that could be found in Europe, but I have never heard music so pathetic, grand and soul-stirring as that made by those who worshipped with me in the Metrolitan Tabernacle. I was too much carried away to take part in it myself. Mr. Spurgeon always uses those "precious hymns" and the old loved tunes.

Scotland.

(From our own Correspondent.)

THE Scottish Evangelistic Association pursues its work with great success. From its interesting published statement, we gather the following:-"At no time since the commencement of this Association's operations has the number of agents employed in holding meetings been so great, nor the work of awakening and actual conversion to God so deep and wide-spread, as during the past year. Few beyond those who have actually been engaged in holding meetings throughout the country, and have become acquainted with the actual work going on, will be prepared for tidings of such a gracious and wide-spread Revival as is now manifest throughout Scotland. In the words of a minister who has just written the Secretary, -Quiet, deep, and wide. It is the Lord's doing, and wondrous in our eyes. May he make you

and your fellow-labourers the means of abundant blessing to the many anxious ones here.' Repeated and pressing requests for special and continued meetings and assistance, where a work of grace had begun or was in progress, were responded to by sending agents of the Association, and such other assistance from the General Committee and other friends of the cause, as could be procured at the time. In so doing, our aim has been, in as far as possible, to carry out the leading principle of the Association, by 'co-operating with the ministers of the several localities with the view of strengthening the churches that exist' there, and practically endeavouring to show that there may be hearty and efficient co-operation in such a good work without any compromise of those minor differences which distinguish the followers of the Saviour."

The Statement* which we would commend to our readers, gives interesting details from all parts of the country of the progress of the work of

grace.

At the recent meeting of the Free Church Commission, Dr. Buchanan reported on behalf of the Sustentation Fund Committee, that the contributions for the nine months ending 15th February this year amounted to £85,013, whilst last year the contributions amounted to £84,645, being an increase of £437 this year. The associations this year had produced £82,288, while last year during the same period the amount was £81,178, showing an increase from the congregational contributions of £1,110. The equal dividend fund for the year was £75,348, as compared with £75,139 last year, being an increase of £208.

Dr. Robert Lee's persistence in the use of a written form of prayer, has been met by a prohibition of the Edinburgh Presbytery, of which he is a member. He has appealed to the Synod of Lothian and Tweeddale, and the matter will come before the General Assembly. If the practice is condemned there, as expected, he will, it is believed, carry his case to the law courts.

Dr. Guthrie recently spoke at his native town, Brechin, in favour of penny readings as a popular amusement :-"I advise all to come to the penny readings, though they should pay sixpence, rather than go to the public-house on a Saturday night. And since these penny readings are calculated to wean people from drinking habits by bringing them here, I say that, as a minister of the Gospel, as a preacher of Jesus Christ, as one that seeks to save * Published at the Office, 5, St. Andrew Square, Edinburgh.

the souls of men, and as one who would do good to my fellow-creatures both for time and eternity, standing on this platform, to preside at a penny reading, I hold myself in a place befitting me as a minister of the glorious Gospel of Jesus Christ. I am not against innocent amusements. Very far from it; and if people say, 'This amusement will do very well for us, but it will not do for you; it is very well for the members of the Church, but not for the minister,' I deny that in toto, which means entirely. I say there is no man or woman here who should resort to amusements where his minister could not go. Every man is bound to be as holy as a minister; and I would lay down these two propositions-people should not go where the minister cannot go, and the minister should not absent himself from amusements which other people can engage in.

Ireland.

(From our own Correspondent.)

THE Lenten pastorals of the Romish prelates contain the usual admonitions, and imply a gradual relaxation of the austerities of the season. "In the early age of the Church," Cardinal Cullen says, "Lent was observed with great vigour. Flesh meat was strictly prohibited; no food was used except of the plainest sort; and no meal was taken, except on Sundays, until evening. This rigorous system is still maintained in many of the Oriental churches. With us the strictness of the law of fasting has been gradually mitigated by the church, which, acting like a tender mother, has taken the weakness and infirmity of her children into consideration, and exempted them from a burden which they were no longer able to bear."

This prelate also condemns Fenianism with a vigorous sagacity, marred only by the qualification that it is rather run down as absurd and illegal than denounced as disloyal. He is very careful also to quote from previous addresses proof that for years past he has been warning against this conspiracy, and that, in common with his brother prelates, he not only has done his best to stop it, but that the little hold it has is owing to his exertions. His just commendation of the measures of the government comes with much more force from one who seldom writes without a grumble, and is likely to produce a good effect on the less restless and ill-disposed members of his flock.

"The unfortunate poor men who have been led

astray by their enemies, have suffered severely for their folly; but they must admit that their sufferings would have been much greater were it not that our rulers have acted with great lenity and moderation, and that the police and others actively employed in preserving the public peace seem to have been animated with a most praiseworthy spirit of humanity in all their proceedings. May God inspire all in authority to continue to act in this way! May all their undertakings be guided by a spirit, not of hatred or vengeance, but of Christian charity! Kindness is always felt and appreciated by the warm-hearted people of Ireland, and produces a great impression even on those who would be but little moved by the terrors of the law."

Indeed, since clothed with his scarlet dignity, Dr. Cullen has shown himself clothed with more charity than he was wont to wear. At the Lord Mayor's dinner, while making the most of "the denomination with which he was connected," and how it "had, within the last thirty years, done miracles of charity and prodigies in the erection of churches, splendid schools, colleges, and alms-houses, widows' houses and hospitals, for the alleviation of all the miseries with which the members of the human race were afflicted," he referred to "the assistance which had been given by both Protestants and Catholics to prevent the spread of the cholera, and to what had been done by the clergyman and dignitaries of the Protestant and Catholic churches, and by the laymen of all churches, in the administration of the funds collected in the name of the late distress, and the manner of the administration could not be found fault with, even by the most censorious." In another week he might have noticed their co-operation, for they have gone heartily hand in hand in their effort to close the public-houses on Sundays, a measure which, to judge from the unusual large and influential public meetings held through the country, would be extremely popular.

A deputation from a committee of the Presbyterian Church has waited on Lord Derby to ask for an increase of the government grant to Presbyterian clergymen. It is sought to raise this grant from £69 to £100, which would involve an addition to the estimates of £18,000 a-year.

The ritualistic controversy has lost some of its keenness and alarm. In a sermon preached in one of the churches which tendencies to ritualism have rendered notorious, Archbishop Trench dwelt on the relation of forms to worship and the spiritual life, and, while pleading for vessels to

hold the wine of devotion, he insists that "entirely lawful concessions to this just craving of the human heart may be turned into occasions of mischief. Over and over again God had occasion to cast a slight on His own temple worship, its gifts and its sacrifices, when they had become means not any longer, but ends to His people; not helps to bring them into His presence, but substitutes for the presence. And if that which was a Divine appointment was itself thus liable to abuse, how much more that which is of man's devising !"

and shown up the awful demoralization set by all, and of which the Revue Chrétienne says:—“ A few years more of this practical materialism, this disdain of all that is great, this forgetfulness of what is invisible and eternal, and what would become of our noble and generous country?" While the classes who should direct public opinion give themselves up to carelessness, others do not sleep. They sleep not, those workmen who have of late organized themselves into a vast European association, having its annual congress, its executive commission, working out the ma

Tuesday, April 9.-Spiritual men alone fitted for the Christian ministry. By what means their number in it may be increased.

Wednesday, April 10.-The Pastoral Visitation, of the Whole and the Sick, the Rich and the Poor.

Thursday, April 11.-The Present Dangers and Future Prospects and Church of God upon the Earth.

basis of Proudhon's atheism." The second congress is to be held this year, in September, at Lausanne. They sleep not, the infatigable romance writers, filtering out their distilled poison of all religious principle, of all moral ties, sending it out daily in the papers through the length and breadth of the land. They sleep not, the sowers of tares in all ranks, in schools, in lectures, in books, in pictures, in journals. But men sleep, Christians sleep, and darkness thickens; and "if

France.

(From our own Correspondent.)

THE arousing of the nations from their long torpor, their starting into conscious life after the sleep of ages, is hailed as glorious progress by our liberal press, progress towards the grand consummation, the advent of universal democracy. The crusade against ignorance is also pushed on to the utmost; and while clerical schools and clerical influence are denounced and shown up with (too often deserved) contempt, there flows underneath a current of anti-Christianity, which threatens to engulph all. The Imperial "crowning of the edifice," i.e. giving the last stamp of liberty to the Constitution, is but a trifle longer tether; neither liberty of meeting without previous authorisation nor liberty of the press is granted, but a few modifications made in the laws, slightly to ease the public; the same with regard to elementary instruction, and the rules of the parliament discussions. The grand full flow of liberty is not, and cannot be, co-existent with a constantly lowering scale of principle, for such is the universally attested fact, the whole tone of society is rapidly going down. The Archbishop of Paris has taken up the theme of the Bishop of Orleans,

Oh that my prayers! mine alas!
Oh! that some angel might a trumpet sound;
At which the Church, falling upon her face,
Should cry so loud, until the trump were drown'd,
And by that cry, of her dear Lord obtain
That her sweet sap might come again!

Young collegians, certain Protestant pastors, the Jews, Garibaldi, the most unexpected names and classes are found among the subscribers to, and abettors of, the scheme to erect a statue to Voltaire. It is distinctly understood and proclaimed to be an anti-clerical protest of the whole world,—and subscriptions come in from America and England, as well as from other nations, an "homage to the Revolution which commenced and prepared our emancipation from thraldom. The humanitary, political, and social work to which our fathers of 1789 gave their life, is not ended; the reaction against which they exhausted their courageous efforts is yet standing, it surrounds us, it coils about us in all the circumstances of our life, even penetrating into the intimacy of the domestic circle. Let us struggle with energy, and protest by raising a statue to the most ardent, the most indefatigable enemy of every superstition and every prejudice; the adversary of that faction which seeks to domineer by fanaticism, building convents with its untold wealth to conceal young

Mortaras, which dreams of, and urges on, odious projects, which gives the title of August to the tribunal of the Inquisition. Our aim is to give to the people the image of the precursor of the French Revolution, of the Apostle who cast into society, as a fertilizing seed, those principles of 1789 which are the new Gospel of civilized nations."

Let no one cast aside these facts as of little weight. The old papal spirit re-quickened, so rapidly spreading in England, and, through her, to a vast multitude all the world over, the spirit of sceptical anti-Christianity gathering forces in France, and, through France, permeating all nations, and the spirit of Cæsaro-democracy ever rising like a flood from beneath, while fomented from above, these would seem the spirits by which the adversary of mankind is marshalling his armies. And against these it behoves us to make a stand.

It is with heartfelt gladness that we find the glorious subject of the future brought before the Free Church Conference, on February 27th, at Marsillargues (Herault), in a vigorous and practical lecture on the "Appearing and Kingdom of our Lord,” by G. A. Krüger. We trust it will be a beginning of better things, of more solid faith, more vivid hope, more active work for souls. The next day was devoted to hearing M. Turquand on the variations in the organization of the churches in the Apostolic age; the conclusion of which was that the Church should be free from all State connection, and that the Free Churches are, in France, those which answer the best to the idea of a Church. M. Boubila gave a most edifying account of the awakening in the Arriège, of which your readers have already been made acquainted. After other exhortations, the Lord's Supper closed this very interesting conference.

Let it not be thought that nothing is done to stem the torrent of evil. Education is called for loudly by all parties. The map of ignorance, published by the Minister of Public Instruction, has stirred up many to lighten the dark shade which covers their department, by opening adult schools and evening classes, organizing lectures, and removing pecuniary obstacles to children being taught. It is said with truth that this map is also a map of Protestantism; inasmuch as the shade grows lighter wherever Protestants form a large portion of the population, and is the darkest where there are none.

M. F. Monnier has just brought out a valuable treatise on the state of public instruction in Germany, in which he shows, by documentary

evidence of the highest interest, the immense influence of the Reformation, and of Luther personally, in creating schools and popular means of instruction. But what are we to set before these readers and learners? If it is mere worldly lore, or simple morality, we shall be cultivating the crab-tree, and bitter fruit will be the result,-yea, the multiplication of it. Here, again, should the cry go forth, awake! to Christians, indeed, to spread the Gospel, which alone can change man's nature, and make education a blessing.

The Lord has inclined the heart of some to take advantage of the opportunity afforded by the Exposition Universelle. Most of those who will enter the great gate will be attracted by the handsome kiosk on the right, surrounded by flags from various nations, and from whence separate Gospels will be freely given, in ten languages, by as many brethren, each of a different nationality, and from whence the Bible Society of France will sell the Scriptures to all who wish to buy. All who arrive by the railway must pass by the smaller kiosk, in which a press, moved by a small and elegant gas machine, will print off suitable sheets, pictorial and others, to be offered as souvenirs to visitors, each publication containing the full free Gospel. One of the small books for distribution, "Not happy! Why not?" has been prepared by the English Monthly Tract Society, in five languages, for this purpose. Opposite another of the thoroughfares, the Tract Societies of London and Paris will unite to spread broadcast their precious seed, while the Missionary Museum will speak to the eye of gods in captivity, and victories won in the name of Jesus, -without the use of the deadly weapons exhibited by the English immediately opposite, alas and the conference hall will resound with ! prayer and praise, and the voice of inviting mercy. Opposite the International Club the great British and Foreign Bible Society shows its open treasures, and the Hebrew antiquities proclaim love and goodwill to Israel.

During the many weeks which have preceded the opening, experienced Evangelists have circulated thousands of tracts and gospels among the motley throng of workmen and visitors, the policemen on duty frequently running to get their share. The fact of preparations being made for the nightly reception of 6,000 or more of the best workmen and artificers of France, who are to come up by subscription, spend the day, and make room for others, gives an immense importance to these distributions of good books.