thus be compelled to restlessness under a keen sense of the world's need.

The last whistle of the tender sounds, and we are soon rounding the towering bow of the Neckar, with the comfortable glow of her cabins shining upon us as we reach the embarking stairs slung by her black sides. There is the laughter of friends along the decks, the display of the day's purchases, and then the slow swing of the ship as her anchor comes in, and her engines throb once more with life. We pick our way out by the buoys, and make for the open sea, while the lights of Algiers sink into the darkness far astern. For the missionaries in the Arab quarter a new light has been lighted to-day in the visit of the Americans. Perhaps, too, some of the missionaries may know that sleeping man by the quay, and his name may be in their book.

Algiers to many of us was a climax of the voyage to Italy, especially in its missionary aspects. On Friday Mr. Geo. T. B. Davis led our prayer-meeting, and Mrs. E. B. Waterhouse of Honolulu, Sandwich Islands, spoke on work in the Sandwich Islands. Mr. Albina, Clark's tour conductor, in the afternoon spoke on travel in Italy. In the evening the Rev. J. B. Ganong, of New Brunswick, Dr. Bailey, and the writer spoke on organized Sunday-school work. On Saturday morning the prayer-meeting was led by the Rev. Dr. J. T. McFarland, of New York City, and Dr. Andrew C. White, of New York, offered prayer. In the evening resolutions of appreciation were offered to Dr. Bailey for his devoted and tactful leadership; to the obliging Captain Harrassowitz, his officers and crew; to Mr. and Mrs. Landes for their most welcome musical help on the whole voyage, and to the excellent band of the ship. Nor could we forget the sweet music of the "Neckar Quartet," Messrs. Landes, Solandt, Meyers, and Mercer. We anchored in the Bay of Naples on that evening, and early on the following morning, May 12, we were among our hospitable Italian brethren.

The Convention Itself

BY PHILIP E. HOWARD

Picture to yourself a fine stone office-building of majestically simple design, occupying a corner of a broad and busy thoroughfare, with crowds of men and women of many nations thronging its corridors and splendid church auditorium. Then let your imagination take you back thirty-seven years to 1870, when, along that same street on the twentieth of September, marched the battle-worn, victorious Italian troops, the Bersaglieri, who had entered Rome through a breach in the Aurelian wall, on their way to the Quirinal Palace, where liberty and unity were to be proclaimed to the land. Past the corner where the stone building now stands, within eye-shot of the palace, the troops marched triumphantly, and with them came a man drawing a cart of Bibles for distribution-a book before that day prohibited within the city walls. And now in that corner of the Via Venti Settembre rises the imposing Methodist Building, with its large audience-room for Italian services, an American church, Sunday-school room, Epworth League parlors, apartments, offices, and a fine printing establishment.

It was in this building that the great convention met, with eleven hundred and eighteen delegates, from thirty-seven countries and great divisions, representing forty-six denominations-delegates whose mileage would average nearly nine thousand miles.

It was a distinctively Sunday-school convention, missionary in spirit and personnel. From its inception, "The Sunday-school and the Great Commission" was the dominant theme throughout.

The convention was kaleidoscopic. Around the gallery of the white auditorium were flags of many nations; in the crowded seats were Egyptian preachers with their red fezes; white-bearded, keen-eyed American business men from the States, some of them round-headed like the emperors of Rome's golden era, and, like the emperors, leaders of men;

here the blue-eyed Teuton close beside the olive-skinned, black-eyed Italian, or the alert, clean-cut Frenchman; here a sturdy Briton, and close beside him a slender Portuguese; there a missionary from Palestine or Turkey or Bulgaria or the Congo, and here a quick-witted, bright-eyed Canadian, or an earnest, eagerly-listening Greek. Was there ever such an audience? South Africa and Saskatchewan, Greece and Georgia, France and Finland, Turkey and the Transvaal, Palestine, Mexico, Norway, Scotland, Argentine Republic, Hungary, and Ireland and Wales and Japan and Poland and Mexico and the Isle of Man-and all singing the same hymns, worshiping one God and one Saviour, and one in their determination to make the most of the Sunday-school as the great evangelizing agency of our day and all days.

On Saturday morning a reception was given in the Hotel Quirinal to the missionaries and Committee members, and in the evening a banquet was given by the President and the Executive Committee to the Italian Local Committee.

The evening of Saturday was devoted to greetings on behalf of various countries and bodies represented. Prayer was offered by the Rev. Dr. J. C. Massee, of North Carolina, U. S. A. President E. K. Warren, of America, whose wit, heartiness, and tact, and freedom from formality all through the meetings, had much to do with the effect of the sessions, introduced the Reverend Henry Piggott, B.A., President of the Italian National Sunday-school Committee, as chairman for the evening. The representation on the platform then was typical of every meeting, for greetings were brought by Dr. Hail, of Japan, Campbell Morgan, of Great Britain, Mr. D. Ballantyne, of Scotland, Principal Cotelingam, of India, Pastor Basche of Germany, and Edward K. Warren, of North America. An enthusiastic reception was given the young American Ambassador, the Hon. Lloyd C. Griscom, who heartily welcomed his fellow-Americans to Rome, and generously invited all the delegates from every land to meet him at the Embassy on Wednesday afternoon.