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SCHOOLS.

BIRCHCLIFFE. Our annual sermons were preached on June 2nd, by Revs. N. H. Shaw, of Dewsbury, and W. Adams, of Luddendenfoot. The collections reached the noble sum of £90 11s. 10d.

BURNLEY, Ebenezer. On Lord's-day, June 9, after an address in the morning to the young by the pastor, two sermons were preached by the Rev. J. Harvey, of Bury, in behalf of the Sunday school. Collections £123 3s. 4 d.

CROWLE.-On Sunday, June 2, the pastor, Rev. J. Stutterd, conducted the services. The children gave recitations and sang their anniversary hymns to crowded congregations. On Monday following a large company took tea, after which a public meeting was held. Mr. Mayhew, of Misterton, in the chair. Addresses were given by Revs. W. M. Anderson, J. Stutterd, T. Ashmell, S. Johnson, of Epworth, and T. Foster. Collections £10 13s. 9d.

DENHOLME.Our school sermons were preached on May 12, by Rev. J. Maden, Shore. Collections £36.

LINEHOLME.--On May 26 the Rev. R. Silby preached the annual sermons of our Sunday school. The congregations were large at both services, and the collections -£44 3s. 74d.-were the largest which have been made on any similar occasion, being £5 more than last year.

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MILFORD.-On June 9 sermons preached by Rev. James Greenwood, of Chilwell College. Collections £12 4s. 6d.

OVENDON.-School sermons by Rev. B. Wood, of Bradford, afternoon and evening. Address in the morning by Mr. J. Binns, of Halifax. Collections £22 Os. 10d.-an increase on last year.

SAWLEY.-On Sunday, June 16, the Rev. T. Ryder preached the school sermons. Collections £18 5s. Od, being a considerable increase on previous years.

MINISTERIAL.

WILSHIRE.-On Tuesday, June 4, the recognition services of the Rev. Joseph Wilshire as pastor of St. Mary's Gate church, Derby, were held. In the afternoon Mr. Henry Varley preached from Heb. i. 3. About 500 persons partook of tea in the school-rooms, after which a public meeting was held in the chapel, the spacious building being well filled. The Rev. John Stevenson, M.A., a former pastor of the church, occupied the chair. The secretary of the church, Mr. Councillor Hill, gave a brief but comprehensive history of the circumstances leading to Mr. Wilshire's settlement as pastor. Mr. Joseph

Hill, as senior deacon, gave the new pastor the right hand of welcome on behalf of the church. The Rev. J. Wilshire expressed his thanks for the cordial reception they had given him, and spoke hopefully of his work. The Rev. W. R. Stevenson, M.A., offered prayer. Addresses were delivered by the Revs. H. Crass weller, B,A., (late pastor,) W. Underwood, D.D., J. C. Pike, T. Goadby, B.A., and Mr. H. Varley. The Revs. W. Griffith, and E. H. Jackson, of Ripley, offered prayers.

REV. JAS. BROWN, of our College, having accepted the pastorate of the church at Desford, near Leicester, commenced his ministry April 21st.

REV. R. P. Cook, of Chilwell College, has received a cordial invitation from the church, Nantwich, Cheshire, and commenced his labours on the last Sabbath in May.

REV. G. PARKES, senior student of Chilwell College, has received and accepted a cordial and unanimous invitation to the pastorate of the church, North Gate, Louth, and commenced his labours June 2,

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BIRMINGHAM, Longmore Street.-March 29, two; June 5, seven; by L. H. Parsons. BOSTON.-May 26, one, by J. Jolly. BURNLEY.-May 5, four, by G. Needham. CASTLE DONINGTON.-May 19, five, by W. Dyson.

CARRINGTON.-June 2, sixteen, by W. Burton, in the Old Basford chapel.

COVENTRY.-June 2, nine, by H. Cross. HITCHIN.-May 30, four, by J. H. Atkin

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DURING the connexional year now about closing, the ancient church at BIRCHCLIFFE has had to mourn the loss of several of its members.

The name of SARAH CLEGG, of Hebden Bridge, stands first on our death list. Naturally of a weak and feeble constitution, she, at times, suffered a great deal, and for years was often absent from the means of grace. Her last affliction was long and severe; still she was perfectly happy and resigned to her heavenly Father's will, and was able to meet death with calmness and composure. She fell asleep in Jesus, Sept. 7, 1871, aged 59 years.

RICHARD THOMAS, of Cote, in Wadsworth, departed this life, Jan. 30, 1872, aged 76. For some time our friend had been in a very low state of mind, and at length the worst fears of his friends were realized, and trouble and disease speedily brought him to his end.

BRIDGET GREENWOOD, of Fieldhead, also in Wadsworth, was the next to be removed from us. For many years she had been a devoted member of the Birchcliffe church, and attended its worship with great regularity, though her residence was far away. During the last few years of her life, in consequence of distance and the infirmities of age, her visits to God's house were "few and far between," but still her heart was there; and she retained her hold of Christ, and her interest in His love, and so departed, Feb. 12, 1872.

DAVID CRABTREE, of Hebden Bridge, was called to exchange time for eternity in the early part of this year. Ever since the memorable "cotton panic" he had been incapacitated for much mental labour. Asthma was the disease from which he chiefly suffered; so that, excepting during the warm days of summer he was not often able to meet with us in the house of God. When his last affliction came he was found ready; and he died "Looking for the mercy of the Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life."

GRACE GREENWOOD, of the Hirst, was removed from us, March 13, aged 76. She was a distant relative of the late Rev. H. Hollinrake, and has now, we trust, followed him to the better country. Her end was peace.

SALLY HARWOOD, of Pecket, was the next to be called away. This friend was very old, and very infirm, and for many years had been in a state of "second childhood." Some of our older friends speak of her with great respect for her memory, but she was hardly known at all to the younger members of the church. As long as health and strength and intellect permitted she

attended the services of the sanctuary, but for many long years she had been unable to do so. She died May 23, 1872, as she was getting fast towards 87 years of age.

ON the same day, in the afternoon, we sustained another loss in the removal of JOHN LORD, of Hawksclough. Of him we may say, he came "to his grave in a full age, like as a shock of corn cometh in his season," for though seventy-nine years of age, the faculties of both mind and body were good to the last. He was a Christian of a high order, and was much attached to the house and service and worship of God, never absenting himself unless from some unavoidable cause; and he was pre-eminently a man of peace. For some weeks his health had been failing, and he was unable to meet with us in God's house. But early in May, being a little better, he came again one Sunday afternoon, though he had a considerable distance to walk. This was his last visit to the place, from which, during his long Christian career he had never willingly absented himself. The next Sabbath afternoon he was seized again with illness, which continued to lay him prostrate, till, on the following Thursday afternoon, the Master he loved and served took him home. He died as he had lived, resting on the Lord Jesus Christ; and those of us who saw him could hardly help saying, "Let me die the death of the righteous, and let my last end be like his."

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And then, last on our death calendar, but not least respected and beloved, must be placed the name of JANE LORD, of Hawksclough, the daughter of the above John Lord, who, to our great sorrow, has been taken from us very suddenly. On the Friday and Saturday she was busy preparing for her father's funeral. went to bed, and arose on Sunday morning in her usual health, and was for some time engaged with her Bible and her God; but while sitting at breakfast with her sister, her head dropped, and she became insensible in a few minutes. It was something like a stroke, or fit of paralysis; and by a little after noon of the same day, she breathed her last; and at once father and daughter lay dead in one house.

They were loving, and happy, and peaceful in their lives, and, in their death, were not long divided. One died on the 23rd, and the other on the 26th; and on Tuesday, May 28th, both were laid in the same grave, in the presence of a crowd of sorrowing friends, who came together to mourn for, and to bury them. Our consolation is this-they were ready; and our loss is their eternal gain. W. G., B.

Missionary Observer.

THE CHILKA LAKE.*

AT sunrise on the 1st February, 1870, my boat was punted across the line on the Chilka Lake, which forms the southern boundary of Orissa. A few days before I had landed at Gopalpore, an open, surf-beaten port in the northernmost district of Madras, consisting of half-a-dozen mercantile houses built upon the sandy ridges of the beach, with a distant background of peaked mountains, and clustering little colonies of hills projected out upon the plain. Proceeding north-west by palanquin, I had passed through Ganjam, once a great river harbour, and the official and mercantile capital of the province, but desolated in 1815 by fever, and deserted alike by the governing body and by its native population and trade. Of its former magnificence scarcely a sign remains, except a few half-fallen mansions, with hovels swarming around their lower storeys and seeming to grow out of their ruins. Lofty pillared gateways stand about the rice-fields, leading nowhere, or, a more pregnant lesson to human vanity, are utilized as entrances to the peasant's thatched cottage.

At Ganjam I joined the Great North Road, and a few miles farther on began to ascend the watershed which separates the river system of the Ganjam district from the Chilka Lake. It rises from a solitary rice country, where the children came trooping out of the hamlets to stare at my white face; while the cattle in the bullock carts took fright, and rushed down the embankments of the road, as my palanquin approached. The pass grew narrower as it rose beyond the range of cultivation, and the banyan trees had a ragged and battered look from half a century's exposure to the southern monsoon. Bamboo jungle laden with creepers next commenced to line the road, and before long its green masses had filled up the whole space between the converging hills. A wild peacock strutted along the wayside, daintily picking up his food, and spreading his tail in unconcerned pomp. At the top the pass

* Orissa. By W. W. Hunter. London: Smith, Elder & Co.

appeared to be little more than half a mile wide; but by the time I had reached it the sun had set. The northern descent was down a dark covered way of noble banyan trees, secured by the intervening hills from the dilapidations of the monsoon. From underneath their spreading branches came glimpses of mountains on either side, exaggerated by the twilight; and as night closed in I began to catch the reflection of the canoe lights flashing on the Chilka Lake below.

The Chilka Lake is a shallow inland sea, situate in the extreme south-east corner of Orissa. A long strip of land, which for miles consists of nothing but a sandy ridge little more than two hundred yards wide, separates if from the ocean; and the roaring of the exterior unseen surf can be heard far across the lake. On the west it is walled in by lofty mountains, in some places descending perpendicularly upon its margin, and in others thrusting out gigantic arms and promontories of rock into the water. On the south it is bounded by the hilly water-shed, which forms the natural frontier between Orissa and Madras. To the northward it loses itself in endless shallows, sedgy banks, and islands just peeping above the surface, formed year by year from the silt which the great rivers bring down. A single narrow mouth, cut through the sandy ridge, connects it with the sea. Through this the tide comes rushing and storming against the outward currents; at certain seasons throwing itself up in pyramidal billows topped with spray, and looking like a boiling river in which no boat could live.

Thus hemmed in between the mountains and the sea, the Chilka spreads itself out into a pear-shaped expanse of water forty-four miles long, of which the northern half has a mean breadth of twenty miles, while the southern half tapers into an irregular curved point, and barely averages five miles wide. Its smallest area is as nearly as possible the size of Huntingdonshire, being 344 square miles in the dry weather, and extending to about 450 in the rainy season. Its average depth

is from three to five feet, and scarcely anywhere exceeds six. The bed of the lake is a very few feet below the level of sea high water, although in some parts slightly below low water mark. The distant inner portions of the lake keep about two feet higher than the exterior ocean at all stages of the tide. The neck which joins it to the sea is only a few hundred yards broad; so that the narrow tidal stream which rushes through it is speedily lost in the wide interior expanse, and produces a difference never greater than four feet between high and low water, and at times barely eighteen inches, while the tide outside rises and falls five feet. It suffices, however, to keep the lake distinctly salt during the dry months from December to June. But once the rains have set in, and the rivers come pouring down upon its northern extremity, the sea-water is gradually pushed out, and the Chilka passes through various stages of brackishness into a fresh-water lake.

This changeable inland sea forms one of a series of lacustrine formations down the western shores of the Bay of Bengal. The strong monsoon and violent currents which sweep from the south during eight months of the year have thrown up ridges of sand, in some places rising into lofty yellow cliffs along the coast. An eternal war goes on between the rivers and the sea: the former struggling to find vent for their columns of water and silt; the latter repelling them with its sand-laden currents, and giving a northward bend to their estuaries as they enter the Bay. Where the river has the complete mastery, it sweeps out to the ocean, scouring for itself a channel through the sand. When the forces are so equal as materially to counteract each other, a stagnation takes place, the sea depositing a bar outside the river-mouth, while the river pushes out its delta to right and left inside. There are therefore two sleepless artificers at work forming land out of water; the ocean which throws up its sand, and the rivers which bring down their silt. The land grows at the expense of the sea, and pushes itself forward in the shape of rounded promontories. Indeed, the Indian coastline of the Bay of Bengal consists of nothing but a series of these blunt projections formed by the mouths of

rivers, and separated by long gentlycurving bays.

It has been necessary to explain the growth of deltaic land in order to understand the formation of a deltaic lake. We have seen what results when the river gains a complete mastery over the ocean, and also when the forces are fairly balanced. But when the river comes down languid, or too widely diffused, the victory is with the sea. The sand-laden tides and currents of the Bay throw up a beach across the mouth, which chokes the river and causes the formation of a lake behind it.

Orissa has formed one of the great battle-fields of this struggle between the rivers and the sea. It consists of an inland hill country, with a strip of alluvial land lying between the mountains and the Bay of Bengal. At some period, infinitely remote as regards the world's history, yet still commemorated by a local proverb, and very recent if computed by the epochs of geology, the surf of the Bay used to lash against the foot of the hills. But from these hills two great river-systems issued, charged with tons of silt, which they deposited as soon as they emerged on the more equable levels beneath. During ages they have been patiently carrying their burden of sand and slime from the interior highlands, and making it into new land at the ocean's edge. The sea has thus been slowly pushed back, and a strip of alluvial country, 150 miles long by about 50 broad, has been formed. It is this strip of country which constitutes the lowlands of Orissa.

Around this vast shallow basin dwell communities of men, as diverse in their nature and history as are the geological formations which hem it in. On the western side, where the mountains overhang the lake, wild races pick up a livelihood as best they can, in a region of bamboo and endless thorn jungle, hunting, wood-cutting, waging man's primeval warfare against the wild beasts, and cultivating their highland valleys with a fitful tillage. Hamlets of fishers and salt-makers dot the eastern strip between the Chilka and the sea, and a sparse agricultural population gambles at getting a rice crop from the temporarily dried-up shallows of the lake. At the southwestern end, villages of boatmen thrive

by transporting the surplus crops of Orissa to the Ganjam shore, in flatbottomed, coffin-shaped canoes. At the opposite extremity, where the rivers pour into the lake from the north, skilled agricultural communities live behind dykes and embankments, reaping rich crops, but every fifth or sixth year swept away, with their cattle and their homesteads, by the floods, and fortunate if they can float on a rice stack or thatched roof till the waters subside.

MINCHIN PATNA.

Piplee for Cuttack, India,
May 13, 1872.

BY THE REV. W. HILL.

IN company with Mr. Miller I have paid two visits to Minchin Patna, our newly-formed christian location, six miles north-west of Koordah. As the site selected for the village has proved very unhealthy, and all the boys have suffered from fever, we determined to select another. Moreover, in addition to its being unhealthy, the site first chosen was both lonely and difficult of access; and as the boys were afraid to venture out of doors after dark in consequence of the tigers and leopards, they naturally took a dislike to the place. Under these circumstances there seemed no alternative but to remove to a more favourable situation. On our second visit, therefore, we selected another site, and marked out the road and plots for building a chapel and a number of houses. Many years a heathen village stood on the same site, but it was abandoned in corsequence of the incursions of wild beasts. The people have still some very strange traditions as regards these natives of the jungle; and in answer to a question proposed by the magistrate, as to why the village was deserted, one of them said that "One hundred and twenty women had been made widows through tigers killing and eating their husbands." If the ravages of these monsters were anything approaching to what is represented, no wonder that the people should flee to a less infested locality. It is to be hoped, however, that our native christians will fare better than their predecessors, and that by clearing and cultivating the jungle

they will turn the lair of the savage beast into the fruitful field. Moreover, let us hope that these material transformations may be emblematic of those spiritual changes which still take place in the condition of mankind-changes which shall result, not only in the expulsion of wild passions from the human heart, but in the production of the "fruits of righteousness which are by Jesus Christ unto the glory and praise of God."

As a great part of the land is covered with jungle an immense amount of labour will be required to bring it under cultivation. In many places, too, it will have to be levelled and terraced before it can be properly irrigated. Of water, which is so essential to cultivation in this country, there is happily a good and constant supply, there being, at the foot of the adjacent hills, several capital springs-springs which it is said never fail. The land is, I believe, suitable for sugar cane, oil seeds, cotton, &c., as well as rice, so that with health, industry, and God's blessing, the settlers ought to succeed. The magistrate of the district takes an interest in the location, and has obtained from government a considerable sum of money to be expended in roads and irrigation.

To the missionary in charge, the amount of labour and anxiety involved in the establishment and management of one of these christian villages is immense, as he has to combine in his own person the offices of land holder, farm bailiff, builder, accountant, referee, judge, doctor, relieving officer, &c.; indeed, he has to be a regular factotum. In the past history of the mission it has appeared indispensable for the missionary to become mixed up with the affairs of the native converts. How could they have done otherwise than befriend those who had to give up everything for Christ-those who were rescued from a barbarous death among the Khonds-or those who, more recently, have been bereft of their parents through the terrible Orissa famine? As christian men and women they could not turn their backs on the outcast and the orphan. And in future years it may be seen that the labour spent in instructing hundreds of children-the fathers and mothers of the next generation-in the truths of the Bible, has been as profitably

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