them in zeal for the success of the work. Give me pious women and I will give you a strong Sunday-school. Give me a strong Sunday-school and I will give you a strong church able to subdue the world.

Mr. Murch:

Starting up from Egypt to Rome I put into my pocket these two little objects which, had I come some eighteen hundred years sooner, I might have been exceedingly anxious to have used for the purpose for which they were intended, for securing admission to the Roman Theater. They are two small disks of bone or ivory, about one and one-fourth inches in diameter. One of them bears the inscription, in Greek letters, "Sophron." Sophron may have been the name of the play, or it may have been the name of the play's author. The other ticket bears a portrait which may be that of the author of the play or that of the chief player.

These were carried to Egypt, most likely, by purchasers who had failed to use them, where, when the owners had died, they were left to be found by people of our age. Yes, the Romans went to Egypt. Away up at Aswan on the southern border of the land of Egypt the Romans built on the shore of the Nile one of their famous baths. At Esna, one hundred miles further north, they built another bath; and at Luxor, ancient Thebes, they built a magnificent quay of hewn sandstone brought from a point eighty miles up the river.

For nearly two thousand years the successive rise and fall of the Nile has gone up and down without intermission, the waves of the mighty river beating against these baths and quay and still, though all but the ruins of their former greatness have been carried away, the foundations of them all stand firm and secure.

Again at Aswan, at Edfon, at Esna, at Luxor, and at Dendera, the Romans built Egyptian temples so complete that to our day they remain for us, the interpretation of the

older Egyptian temples, some of them now ruined almost past recognition-remain so complete in all their detail of foundation, pillared hall, and solid stone roof that could the old Egyptian priests return they might begin their solemn rites and ceremonies just where they left them off more than fifteen hundred years ago.

The idea I would wish to have suggested to us by these things is the duty of our laying the foundations of our work deep, deep, strong, strong, strong and enduring. Ours is a work the permanency of which will not have been shaken by a jot or tittle when Egyptian pyramid and temple shall have crumbled into dust and have passed away forever. As we go back from this Convention to our respective fields of labor, considering both the preciousness of the materials with which we work and the permanency of the work we have to perform, let us labor to place our foundations firm, broad and enduring.

I might easily spend more than all the time I have at my disposal in telling you more of the interesting sect from which our young friends come who have already spoken. But a much heavier burden lies upon my heart. It is the burden of Muhammadan Egypt. The educated Muhammadan admits that Jesus was a prophet; but he persistently denies our Lord's divinity. Millions of Muhammadans are never taught the Lord's Prayer. Millions of Muhammadan children are never taught a "Now I lay me down to sleep;" never taught "Jesus loves me;" never taught that "God is love." With these people our lot is cast. We are brought into daily contact with them in all the walks of life. Their children are in our schools; we are welcomed and entertained by them in their homes; we rejoice with them when they rejoice, and we weep with them when they weep. Our hearts reach out towards them and their children in yearning love for them and in the desire that they may know Christ. Strong as adamant, hard as that Egyptian granite of which so many of the statues of their old

Pharaohs were sculptured, so strong and so hard have their hearts been turned away from and against the Saviour we love, Jesus to whom we owe all. Our heart's desire and prayer to God is that the Christian Church may speedily rise up and put on her armor, and go forth in the name of our divine prophet to win the peoples of such lands as Egypt for Christ.

EDITOR'S NOTE.-Mr. Murch's words will have added significance, as a last message to his fellow-workers in the world field; for only five months after the Convention, on Oct. 15th, he was suddenly called upon to lay down his work and entered into the new life.

France

BY THE REV. CHARLES BIELER AND BLANCHE D'AUBIGNÉ BIELER

The Rev. Charles Bieler:

How can I better review the situation of the Christian churches of France, and the task allotted to our Sundayschools than by these two words: disruption and union?

The mere idea of a rupture with Rome would have seemed incredible half a century ago. At that time, there was an army of fifteen thousand French soldiers maintaining within the walls of this city the power of the Pope. The name of the street in front of this building reminds us of that important date: September 20, 1870, when, after the removal of that French army, Italian troops, dealing the final blow to the temporal power of the Pope, triumphantly entered into Rome and began the era of liberty, order, and prosperity which we admire and enjoy to-day.

In 1870, France was so closely allied to papacy as to be ready to shed the blood of her children in its defense. After thirty-five years of gradual estrangement, and of growing discord, the visit of our President, M. Loubet, to the Italian King, causing the Pope to unjustly attack the French government, brings matters to a sudden crisis. The old

bond between the two powers was definitely broken December 9, 1905, and France is the first nation of the Old World to adopt in her constitution that great principle of Cavour, the great Italian statesman, and already realized in the United States, one hundred years ago: a free church in a free state.

Disruption between Church and State, disruption in our old Reformed church of France, which has organized itself into three sections, with separate synods: the most important comprising the conservative evangelicals, the extreme left having very much the same standard of faith as your Unitarians, while a third central organization represents more the social than the dogmatic side of Protestant Christianity. Although we grieve at this dismemberment of the old historic church of the Huguenots, we rejoice to think that if this disruption was a necessity of the times, many forces in our country are working towards unity.

To-day I can speak of only one of these forces, and that is the Sunday-school. Our French Union is, if I am not mistaken, the only one in the world which unites all the Protestant denominations of one country. The children of the Reformed, Lutheran, Free, Methodist, and Baptist churches, with a few individual exceptions only, study the same Lists, read the same leaflets, sing from the same hymn book. Our influence spreads over 1,200 schools, 7,000 teachers, and 67,000 scholars. Is this fact not the promise of a future union of all the Protestant forces of our country against the old enemies-papacy and infidelity? At every hand we see the blessed results of this close bond existing between our churches and our Sunday-school union. Allow me to give you a few instances of this co-operation, and of the new opportunities opened out since the Disestablishment.

The little town of Agen, celebrated for the dried prunes which we find on all the luncheon tables of the civilized world, was until last year celebrated by another circumstance.