of fire round about them, and to know that more are they that be with them than they that be against them. Nor are there wanting grounds of encouragement in the history of the people. If not homogeneous, if signal successes like those of Madagascar and the South Sea Islands and Jamaica have not yet occurred, European culture may contribute to blend the various races and castes together into a new nation, and subtle and mighty sympathies may make them of one heart and mind. "To any one acquainted with the revolution of races," says Dr. Hunter, "it must seem mere impatience ever to despair of a people." But the government official looks with fear and trembling where we may look with expectation and hope. He says these Hindus "have got a capacity of belief and a depth of religious emotion which, if worked upon by a really great leader, may yet be destined to blow into pieces our rule." Let us say rather, to make memorable our rule, and shatter for ever the reign of idolatry and superstition. For the native church shall yet show this large capacity of faith and fervour worked upon and possessed by the spirit of the Great Leader, Christ, and they shall use it for the evangelization of the land.

Why should we despair of seeing Orissa and India won for Christ? These children of the sun have more in common with us than we sometimes imagine. They have been moved by great historic impulses that moved us. For example, their great temples were built when our great cathedrals were reared. From the tenth to the 13th centuries, architecture was the ruling passion of the Indian princes no less than of European kings. The noble structures at Peterborough and Salisbury arose in the same age that saw the temple of Juggernath rise over the sands of Pooree, and the temple of the Sun on the coast at Kanarak, now overlooking, in desolate beauty, the blue waters of the Bay of Bengal. When English genius was competent to raise those great epics in stone in which grandeur of outline is combined with exquisite richness of detail, in Orissa they also were building like Titans, and finishing their work like jewellers. Moreover, a great Orissa reformer, who preached that all men were alike ca

pable of faith, and that all castes by faith became equally pure, was born only two years after Luther, and flourished at the time of the English Reformation. Great changes have swept over the life, and great thoughts have agitated the minds of the Hindus as of ourselves; and who shall doubt that greater changes are yet to take place. Looked at in the light of human history, the prospects of the kingdom of Heaven are bright and hopeful even in the darkest province of Hindustan. What resources, too, are on the side of truth and the gospel of Christ! What great divine spiritual strength is ours! The truth and grace that conquered the idolatries of Europe will yet triumph over the idolatries of Orissa, of India, of the world.

Courage, brethren, and faith against all the errors and superstitions of all nations. Let the preparatory work be faithfully done. Let the Word of God be diligently published. Let the gospel of Christ be earnestly preached. Let prayer go up to the Eternal Throne and faith grasp the Omnipotent Arm, and the day of human emancipation shall surely come. The rains of God's Spirit shall descend upon the hills, the channels of grace shall be full, and the knowledge of the glory of the Lord shall cover the earth as the waters cover the sea. Our hope, at least, is buoyant and bright. The work has been slowly but surely begun; it will some day be swiftly and signally completed. It is said of the Chilka Lake-a beautiful expanse of water on the south-east corner of Orissa- that it is distinctly a salt-water lake during a part of the year; but when once the rains have set in, and the rivers come pouring down upon the northern shores, the sea water is with mighty force pushed out, and the Chilka passes through various stages of brackishness into a fresh-water lake. So shall the rains of God's Spirit fall-so shall the channels of grace be filled, and streams of blessing shall flow into the heathen mind, and overspread its thought and life, until the old heathen faiths shall be all displaced, and the streams that mock man's thirst but do not assuage it shall be sought no more, and all the world shall be freshened and made joyous with the sweet waters of Divine Life in the Lord!

MISSION TO ROME.

IT will be seen that a few additional subscriptions have been received. It would much facilitate the effort, if friends who are purposing to contribute, would at once intimate their intention, or better still forward their contributions to the Secretary, who for the present has been appointed to take charge of them as a separate fund.

Mr. Thomas Hill, of Nottingham, promises one pound a year.

The Rev. J.Clifford writes,-" Would it not be well to get the Churches to guarantee a small sum? £1 10s. per church per annum would do all we want. Praed Street would give five pounds per annum for the next five years I am sure."

In

A lady in Lincolnshire suggests another and not less feasible plan. a letter to the Secretary, she states,"On reading Mr. Cook's letter in the October Magazine I thought, could not something be done to start this Mission? So I at once commenced a 6d. subscription, and I hope to realise two or three pounds; if warm-hearted friends could be found in all the churches to try this, I fancy the money would be forthcoming. I tell the members I want 6d. from each; if they cannot afford that, I will take less, but I wish all to have the honour of helping in this Mission. Do you think there is any encouragement for me to go forward? I am not promising to do it for five years, though I will not say I would not; but I am anxious that something should be done. I shall be glad to hear what you think of my scheme."

NOTE FROM THE TREASURER To the Secretaries of Local Missionary Societies and others.

DEAR FRIENDS,-Will you oblige me by making up your remittances to level sums in shillings and sixpences. In several instances I have had the EXACT amount of a collection sent, such as £9 19s.113d. In one case, I had a cheque sent in that way, although the banks will not receive odd half-pence-and in another case where the money was sent in cash it was sent to the farthing-even when the addition of another farthing would have made a level shilling. I am aware that this is a small matter, nevertheless the suggestion would be an improvement

and give less trouble with the accounts If it cannot be managed otherwise, then I would say, let the odd halfpenny or farthing be left over as a nest egg toward the next remittance, but better still make up the amount to a level sixpence or shilling.

Yours, very sincerely,

THOS. HILL, Treasurer.

MISSIONARY ANNIVERSARIES. MACCLESFIELD.-On Sunday, Oct. 13, the Rev. George Taylor preached two sermons in aid of the Mission fund, and gave an address to children in the afternoon. On the following Monday evening was held our annual Missionary meeting, David Holland, Esq., in the chair. Interesting and inspiriting addresses were given by the Revs. George Taylor, Broadhead, and Isaac Watts. The attendance was good. Proceeds of meetings and juvenile cards £18-a sum in advance of what has been raised for several years past.

TARPORLEY.-Anniversary services on behalf of this Mission were held on Sunday, October 13th, and Monday following. Dr. Underwood delivered a very impressive discourse in the morning from Deuteronomy xxxiii. 26-29, and preached in the old chapel at Brassey Green. In the evening an appropriate sermon was preached in the Tarporley chapel, by the Rev. R. F. Griffith, of Llangollen, now the pastor of the church. At the Missionary meeting the Rev. R. Kenney was chairman. Addresses were delivered by Revs. R. P. Cooke, of Nantwich, T. Bailey, Hugh Jones, of Llangollen, B. Salt, and R. F. Griffith. The subscriptoins and collections realised the sum of £61 6s. for the Mission.

SERVICES were also held during the past month at RIPLEY, QUORNDON and WooDHOUSE, BURTON-ON-TRENT for the Juvenile Society, SHORE, VALE, LYDGATE, LINEHOLM, and TODMORDEN. The brethren Thomas Bailey and G. Taylor were the deputation, assisted at Quorndon by the Secretary. At nearly or all the places the amounts contributed were in excess of last year. Referring to Yorkshire, Mr. Taylor writes, "You will rejoice to hear that the services were all of a most encouraging kind; not only has about twenty pounds more been raised than last year, but a thoroughly missionary spirit appears to have been awakened in the churches." Meetings at Halifax, Denholme, Queensbury, and Coventry, were being held when we went to press.

It is possible to get a life of higher tone, purer feeling, and greater fervency. But ought we?

Many Christians say "No;" and cherish what they think a salutary dread of religious fervour, and prefer to move on the dull and monotonous level of respectable consistency and even-spirited devotion. They have no Christmas festivity in their piety. There is always the sombre gloom of Lent; the dreariness of "sackcloth and ashes" about them. Exuberant joy would discredit them for ever. A spontaneous outburst of feeling would be a sure mark of want of culture, and a trace of bad breeding and defective education. that could not be doubted. The religion that is in good repute in these circles is without warmth, coldly correct, always extremely respectable, but never ablaze with the glow of a healthy and bounding life. It is the piety of a feeble and ricketty constitution that has avoided the bracing air of the hills, and coddled itself into weakness and uselessness; and not the eager animation and spontaneous activity of a full-toned and well-nourished healthfulness.

This false and accursed theory blocks the way to more abundant life. It puts the brain before the heart, criticism before love, accuracy before energy, and the stiffness and

VOL. LXXIV.-NEW SERIES, No. 36.

| precision of the funeral before the freedom and enthusiasm of life. It robes the church in such tight-fitting garments that she cannot fully breathe the air of heaven, or get increasing strength by the unhampered use of her limbs. It stifles "fellowship," imprisons sympathy, locks the lips of love, and makes the members of the family of God more frigid and formal and distant than the strangers of a railway carriage. It mounts the pulpit, and converts the preacher into a careful literary essayist, who never trips, reads like a book, and never gives anybody the slightest reason to imagine that he carries a heart. It freezes the stream of song, and lowers the temperature of prayer. Men and women who sing at a concert with every nerve, are placid as marble when they join in the praise of the sanctuary praise that should overflow with the fervour of love, the exultation of hope, and the fulness of the joy of God. The church of this day has not a worse or deadlier enemy.

We are not the defenders of riotous vulgarity or wild excitement. Nor do we expect every Christian man, whatever his natural temperament, to rise to the same level of religious feeling and expression. Still less do we regard exaggerations and mistakes as necessary or desira

ble. All we ask for is abundant life, free and full in its emotional play, spontaneous in its expression, and so natural as to be almost involuntary in its joyful and blessed activity. The church is not a mummy needing careful preservation in the spiced linens of custom, dignity, respectability, and worldly precedent, but the daughter of God, the living offspring of Jehovah, drawing energy from the fresh founts of His exhaustless life, and rejoicing in the excess of conscious power, like a strong man to run a race. We ought, therefore, to have done with the continuous and systematic repression of the natural emotions of the sanctified heart. We should seek a uniformly higher, intenser state of religious feeling. vour of spirit" is as much a Christian duty as "diligence in business."

"Fer

Our religion is of the heart. That is its home: its throne. Love is its essence; and love is an emotion whose life is fed and strengthened by expression. It increases by scattering, grows by giving. God, its author, is love; and His love is ever finding fresh forms in which to reveal itself. We are made partakers of the divine nature; that is, we are love. It is shed abroad in our hearts, not sparingly, but liberally; not along one or two channels, but abroad, over all, by the Holy Ghost, which is given us: so that we are filled with joy unspeakable and full of glory. New sympathies sway us: new emotions "constrain" us. Shall we not, with Paul-like fire, fervour, and faith, live to Him who died for us and rose again?

There is no doing much good without feeling, or without a free and natural outlet for it. It is the heart that moves others. Glowing feeling is contagious. Fire spreads. Every preacher has been taught that a few sentences spoken in the fulness of feeling, with the ring of real conviction, and a burning love for the salvation of souls, even though wholly

unpremeditated, have a far better chance of entering men's hearts than elaborate exposition and fine writing. Getting to the heart is the main thing; and to do it a man must have a heart, and speak from its profoundest depths. With a heart filled at the centre, and to its outermost fibre, with the passion to exalt and glorify Christ, marvels will be wrought on the most hard and selfish men. We need the sacred fire upon us, and then we shall burn till others are kindled into heat. This will bring pathos, urgency, the "tear in the voice," success. A high state of religious feeling, freely flowing out, is the Christian worker's power in pulpit and school, at home and abroad.

Is it not, too, the healthy brain. that thinks easily and sees clearest? So it is in the full glow of feeling that the soul sees furthest. We discover truth in a heat of feeling that was invisible to us in our lower moods. He that loveth knoweth God. The prophets were moved by the Holy Ghost; and it was in the all-swaying fervour kindled of His presence that they became the Seers of the Most High. God reveals Himself to fervent feeling. The eye must have light, or it cannot see; so the soul must have glow, or it will not understand the revelation of God. It is to the soul in its most exalted moods that God discovers most of Himself. On the holy mounts of our transfiguring experience we see "Jesus only."

Moreover it is in fervour of feeling that we readily cast off care and bear trials with a light heart. The disciples rejoiced that they were counted worthy to suffer shame for the name of Christ. Men do deeds of heroism under the inspiration of hallowed feeling that they would condemn as imprudent and hazardous in their cold calculating moods.

May God give all our churches the heavenly "glow" of a fervent spiritual life. JOHN CLIFFORD.