SCRIPTURE-READERS TO THE SEAT OF WAR. SOLDIERS' FRIEND and ARMY SCRIPTURE-READERS' PATRONS. The Rt. Hon. the Lord R. GROSVENOR, M.P. The Rt. Hon. the Earl of KINTORE. PRESIDENT-The Rev. Dr. MARSH. OFFICES-14 & 15 EXETER HALL, STRAND, LONDON. The Committee feel it a duty due to themselves and to the Christian public to state, that, encouraged by the liberality of the friends of the Soldier, they have considerably extended the line of their operations; and from the deeply interesting reports (several of which have been recently printed and widely circulated) which they are constantly receiving from their agents, it is evident that the Lord is working by them and with them, and thus crowning their needful and arduous labours with a large measure of success. Hence they are encouraged and emboldened to make a fresh appeal to the continued sympathies, fervent prayers, and renewed liberality of their supporters in this cause. For the spiritual and eternal venefit of the brave and beloved defenders of our country (in humble dependence on the Divine blessing), there are now actively employed under the auspices of this Society nineteen Scripture-readers. And the Committee would entertain the hope that this number may yet further be augmented if this appeal is liberally responded to, seeing that the supply is far from being at all adequate with the wide, and yet widening, field of labour which is presenting itself on every side. The following are the several departments of labour occupied in this Christian enterprise. One agent is actively and usefully employed in visiting the barracks in London, Westminster, and the surrounding military depôts. One is engaged amongst the militia in London, and its vicinity, who will also visit the wives and families of the soldiers. It is also the intention of the Committee, as promptly as possible, to mature certain plans for the employment of a Scripture-reader at Aldershott, during the great encampment, which is likely for some months to be located there. There are also one agent in Kent, one in Dorsetshire occupied amongst the militia, one in the West of England, one in Yorkshire, one missionary to the Russian prisoners at Plymouth and elsewhere, one in Scotland, and one in Ireland. On foreign service, there are eight at Constantinople and Scutari. Two of these are clergymen of the Church of England, one of whom chiefly directs his attention to the spiritual interests of the Protestants in the French army. One is at Balaklava. And the Committee have much pleasure in stating, that they have also just appointed a Scripturereader to labour amongst the thousands of military at Malta, under the auspices of the Rev. W. Hare, the garrison chaplain. A series of small and interesting publications, especially adapted to the thoughts and habits of the soldiery, have been prepared, and gratuitously and widely circulated by all the agents at their various spheres of labour, at home and abroad. Also an interesting magazine, entitled "The Sentinel," is published every alternate month, and gratuitously circulated and cordially accepted by the soldiers. Having before them so extensive and inviting a field of labour, the Committee confidently present the religious claims of this Society to continued and increased support before all those who profess to feel the vast value of immortal souls. They therefore most respectfully, yet most earnestly, entreat their friends, and the public at large, in no degree to relax their efforts (for the claims on the Committee are great and urgent), but rather still more effectively than before to aid them in this great and important enterprise, by their Christian sympathies, and, above all, by their united and fervent prayers for à still larger measure of the Divine blessing on their several labours, at home and abroad. CONTRIBUTIONS RECEIVED SINCE LAST ADVERTISEMENT. The thanks of the Committee are presented to the following friends for valuable presents of Books and Tracts:-Rev J. E. Dalton, Miss Gent, Mrs. R. Smith, Mrs. Bodkin, and the English Monthly Tract Society. Contributions will be thankfully received by the Treasurer, G Burns, Esq. 17 Porteus Road, Paddington; by the Secretary, Mr. William A. Blake, at the Offices, 14 & 15 Exeter Hall; by Rev. Dr. Marsh, Beckenham; by Messrs. Nisbet, Berners Street, Oxford Street: Lieutenant Blackmore, 6 Seymour Place, New Road; by the Bankers, Royal British Bank, 429 Strand; and at the Offices of the "Record" and "Christian Times." NIGHT VIEWS FROM MY WINDOW. LUNAR SCENERY. CONJECTURE is of course vain as to the past history of our satellite, which our conclusion respecting her seas or plains would suggest. Yet the thought, in spite of all we can do, sets the imagination on fire, and adds a deep and intense interest to the study of the lunar surface and the exploration of her wondrous regions, with the nature and topography of which we are becoming daily more familiar; and from which, by patient and close observation of each astronomer upon his favourite spot, we may at length fairly expect to arrive at a combined and accumulative testimony respecting her condition, and, as the geologist with his hammer, so the astronomer with his telescope, to reap a rich harvest of discovery. At all events, with such an idea as has been, not without very good reason, thrown out by Professor Phillips,* no man can henceforth examine those vast and dreary tracts of lunar desert with the telescope without having his powers of observation and investigation quickened-whether it be to refute or confirm the theory; while the bare possibility of the moon's being a world deserted by its waters, adds an inexpressible interest to the subject. Was that mysterious globe, then, ever a miniature world analogous to our own, and fitted as a habitation for animal existence, for material intelligence? Was it ever an independent planet (i. e. independent of the earth)? Was * Professor Ponzi, an eminent Italian geologist and astronomer, agrees with Professor Phillips in the opinion that water and ocean once existed upon the moon in those vast basins and reservoirs that seem so well fitted to contain them. 3 there ever a period when, as one of the family of the asteroids (some of which, indeed, are much smaller), it pursued its annual journey round the sun in a different orbit, unlinked to its earthly companion? Did clouds and an atmosphere once envelope it, and forests and savannas cover it? Was there a time when the rushing sound of waters broke the present stillness of its shores and the silence of its ravines? Did the torrent ever leap from the bosom of its dark mountains, and, flowing on in thundering cataracts, make its way through the deep channels, we can so readily perceive, widening as they go, till they empty themselves into the capacious bosoms of its seas, or now desert plains? Did strange fish sport in its ocean depths, now untenanted,— strange birds sing in the branches of lunar woods, now no more? Did the breeze play over its meadows, once enamelled with green and spangled with wild flowers? Did the streamlets sparkle through its sunlit valleys, and the many voices of animal creation, as here, break forth to enliven its solitudes? Above all, did the lungs of an Intelligent Being ever breathe its lost atmosphere, or give expression to a thought in audible accents in that now soundless place? Was hope or fear, joy or sorrow, ever known in that globe, whose calm and silent face now proclaims a world whose former glory has passed away, and the records of its history and its inhabitants (if it had any) alike perished, and the memory of the bright scenes associated with them forgotten? Was the former condition of our satellite succeeded (as, doubtless, was the case here) by a series of fearful cataclysms, which reduced the lunar garden to a desert? And at length did the Almighty hand that made her drag her from her ancient course in the heavens, changing all her axial and annual movements, placing her as a brilliant, but dreary and silent, rock, to give light to man? Did her oceans, at that dread moment, retire to the fountains of the lunar |