30. Because the lambs are so dear to the heart of the Good Shepherd, who said: "Suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not, for of such is the kingdom of heaven." SIR BARTLE T. B. Bishop. RERE ON MISSIONS. AM thankful to God that before I left those shores I saw a practical proof of the truth of what had come into my mind from other directions, and that was a proof derived from the labours of your own missionaries. We were carried by duty to the port of Majunga on the west coast of Madagascar, where, so far as I could learn from the books and reports at my disposal, I did not expect to meet with one single convert; but I found the whole of the ruling race, the whole of the Hovas who were under the direction of the Queen of Madagascar, united in Christian worship, and acting upon Christian principles, as far as I could learn, in all the ordinary affairs of life. It was by the merest accident that I learnt, on the evening of a Saturday, that on the next morning there would be Christian service conducted by the Hovas. It was a large commercial port, with a great deal of trade with the opposite coast, a considerable Hova garrison, and a very intelligent governor, with a very efficient staff at his disposal; but I was not even aware that there was a church in the place, till in my walk on Saturday evening I found a very spacious building, larger than any other I saw, which was capable of containing some 600 or 700 people; and when I asked what this was, they said, "Why, it is our church: we are Christians, and we shall be all here to-morrow morning." And, mark you, this was without the slightest warning, because we came upon them entirely by surprise. We went down to that church, and we found them at six o'clock in the morning assembling for service. Well, we were told, "You had better not stop here; you had better go to the other church up in the stockade; they have gone on to say that you have landed, and the governor is waiting." I said, "Is there another church?" However, I followed the messenger, and leaving the congregation down below to assemble naturally, I went up to the upper church in the stockade, and there I found a large attentive congregation already assembled, and the church almost as full as it could hold. It was as good a room as you could find for the purpose in any part of India—a large mat building, with five or six doors on each side, and large windows, and better ventilation than Exeter Hall has. There on the one side sat the women, on the other side the men, everybody coming in apparently to their accustomed place, sitting down and covering their faces in prayer for a few minutes; some with their hymn-books furnished by your society, some with Testaments, many with both, all printed in London in their own language. And as we sat on a kind of raised dais like this, with 500 or 600 attentive worshippers, and many standing at the doors-every one of them, remember, bringing a small piece of money, and dropping it into the money-box at the doors-the governor's son, who acted as it were as the minister on the occasion, came and explained to me through the interpreter what were the passages that were going to be read, what was to be his text, and what was to be the text of his fellow-minister. POLITICAL DISSENTERS. THE charge brought against us that we are "Political Dissenters,” comes with bad grace from the lips of members of the State Church-a Church which owes its social position to political favour; most of whose most venerable sanctuaries and richest endowments have been transferred to it from another Church by political power; whose constitution, articles, liturgy, and ceremonial, have been appointed by political authority; a Church which, from the days of Whitgift and Laud, has enforced uniformity and punished nonconformity by political enactments; a Church whose temporal head is the political sovereign; whose highest officers are appointed by the political advisers of the crown; whose disputes about creeds, formularies, clerical practices, are discussed in the political arena, or tried in political courts of justice. Surely it is futile and unseemly for a radically Political Church to attempt to stigmatise Nonconformists as political, when they only seek to liberate religion from the control of political power, to emancipate religion from political bondage and thraldom, and that all religious sects and parties should be placed on an equality before the political government. And this they demand, and will assuredly secure, as a political right. Rev. B. O. Bendall. LEANINGS. MENTION has been made of the tree that David Livingstone planted at Newstead. Long may it flourish! But oh, Mr. Chairman, David Livingstone planted more trees than that. Ay, trees that have been taken up out of the desert sands into the paradise above, trees that are standing 'mid Afric's waste to-day; and as their roots strike deep, and their branches extend, they shall shake their living seed abroad, and the time shall come when the desert shall be a fruitful field, and the fruitful field as the garden of the Lord, and the living trees shall declare His glory.-Rev. J. P. Chown of Bradford. My grandfather was a very poor minister, and kept a cow, which was a very great help in the support of his children-he had ten of them--and the cow took the "staggers" and died. ،، What will you do now?" said my grandmother. "I cannot tell what we shall do now," said he, "but I know what God will do: God will provide for us. We must have milk for the children." The next morning there came £20 to him. He had never made application to the fund for the relief of ministers, but on that day there were £5 left when they had divided the money, and one said, “There is poor Mr. Spurgeon down in Essex, suppose we send it to him." The chairman-a Mr Morley of his day—said, “We had better make it £10, and I'll give £5." Another £5 was offered by another member if a like amount could be raised to make it up to £20, which was done. They knew nothing about my grandfather's cow, but God did, you see, and there was the new cow for him. And those gentlemen in London were not aware of the importance of the service which they had rendered.Rev. C. H. Spurgeon. And in that country which has been so long the especial field of the society's labours-I mean Madagascar-(I do not forget that Ellis in his work also claims the Polynesian islands for this society) we have an excellent and interesting example of what are the difficulties which a missionary has to go through, and what are the successes that he may hope for. I notice that there are there no less than fifty ordained ministers-(that was the number mentioned in last year's report; there may be more perhaps in this year)—fifty ordained ministers and three thousand native teachers. It is by machinery such as this that a great country like that could be brought over to God. When men speak despairingly, as many persons are inclined to do in the present day, of missions, it is because their own zeal, perhaps, is not so warm as it was, or because the general tone and tendency of the days in which we live is to advance in mental culture, perhaps to the lessening or weakening of the moral sentiment within us.-The Dean of Canterbury at the Meeting of the London Missionary Society. Why, we are as broad as the world; we claim kindred with all mankind, and we are the persons who insist that all mankind shall be reckoned, none left out, for to us there are no lines of clearage which we cannot easily overpass; there are no skins so dark that we cannot see some lingerings of the Divine light that fell at first from the face of the creating God upon the creature; and there are no noses too flat to be brought in some way or other within our lines of Christian beauty. We believe that God hath made of one blood all nations of men, for to dwell on all the face of the earth. -Rev. Dr. Raleigh. 66 66 One of my colleagues had a somewhat similar experience. I refer to the Rev. William Hall, of the Methodist New Connection Mission. A most touching incident occurred just before he left. It was the day before he was leaving, and this old Chinaman came in, attended by a number of his companions, to say farewell to their pastor. Said he, "We want to say 'Farewell.' Why, bless the good man, they had been in again and again to say Good-bye." "I am," said he, an old man; I cannot go with you to England. I wish I could go to England and America, and tell English and American Christians what I feel; but I cannot go; and these young men here whether they will ever go I do not know, but any rate, they won't go just now; and we have agreed to send a message to the Christians of America and England, and we want you to deliver it." Supposing you were parting from some friends whom you did not expect to see again, you would grasp each other's hands, and choke in the throat, and say, "Good-bye, we may never meet on earth, but we will meet in heaven." The Chinese message, however, was grander than that. "Tell our friends yonder we shall never see them on earth, but when we get to our Father's house we will go up and down and look them up, and there, in the presence of Jesus and the holy angels, we will thank Heaven for what they have done for us."-Rev. T. Lees of Tien-tsin. GLEANINGS. MENTION has been made of the tree that David Livingstone planted at Newstead. Long may it flourish! But oh, Mr. Chairman, David Livingstone planted more trees than that. Ay, trees that have been taken up out of the desert sands into the paradise above, trees that are standing 'mid Afric's waste to-day; and as their roots strike deep, and their branches extend, they shall shake their living seed abroad, and the time shall come when the desert shall be a fruitful field, and the fruitful field as the garden of the Lord, and the living trees shall declare His glory.-Rev. J. P. Chown of Bradford. My grandfather was a very poor minister, and kept a cow, which was a very great help in the support of his children-he had ten of them-and the cow took the "staggers" and died. "What will you do now?" said my grandmother. "I cannot tell what we shall do now," said he, "but I know what God will do: God will provide for us. We must have milk for the children." The next morning there came £20 to him. He had never made application to the fund for the relief of ministers, but on that day there were £5 left when they had divided the money, and one said, "There is poor Mr. Spurgeon down in Essex, suppose we send it to him." The chairman—a Mr Morley of his day—said, “We had better make it £10, and I'll give £5." Another £5 was offered by another member if a like amount could be raised to make it up to £20, which was done. They knew nothing about my grandfather's cow, but God did, you see, and there was the new cow for him. And those gentlemen in London were not aware of the importance of the service which they had rendered.— Rev. C. H. Spurgeon. And in that country which has been so long the especial field of the society's labours-I mean Madagascar-(I do not forget that Ellis in his work also claims the Polynesian islands for this society) we have an excellent and interesting example of what are the difficulties which a missionary has to go through, and what are the successes that he may hope for. I notice that there are there no less than fifty ordained ministers-(that was the number mentioned in last year's report; there may be more perhaps in this year)—fifty ordained ministers and three thousand native teachers. It is by machinery such as this that a great country like that could be |