Protestant societies. And when, in 1877, the Committee had to consider some important Resolutions agreed to by the Indian Bishops, it was interesting to see two ex-Viceroys of India, Lord Lawrence and Lord Northbrook, sitting side by side. Most emphatic has been the testimony again and again publicly borne by Lord Lawrence to the reality of missionary work. When, on the first Day of Intercession in 1872, a very incredulous article on Foreign Missions appeared in the Times, Lord Lawrence replied in an able and conclusive letter; and at a missionary meeting at which he spoke in 1870, he uttered, with regard to India, these memorable. words "I believe, notwithstanding all that the English people have done to benefit that country, that the missionaries have done more than all other agencies combined." He went on They have had arduous and uphill work, often receiving no encouragement, and sometimes a great deal of discouragement, from their own countrymen, and have had to bear the taunts and obloquy of those who despised and disliked their preaching; but such has been the effect of their earnest zeal, untiring devotion, and of the excellent example which they have, I may say, universally shown to the people, that I have no doubt whatever that, in spite of the great masses of the people being intensely opposed to their doctrine, they are, as a body, remarkably popular in the country. . . In God's good will the time may be expected to come when large masses of the people, feeling the want of a religion which is pure and true and holy, will be converted to Christianity. ... I have a great reverence and regard for them (the missionaries) both personally and for the sake of the great cause in which they are engaged; and I feel it to be a pleasure and a privilege to do anything I can in the last years of my life to further the great work for which they have done so much. May God raise up men like-minded to govern our Indian Empire ! President of the Church Missionary Society, and occasionally AN EXMOOR PARISH AND ITS MISSIONARY BOXES. attended the Committee meetings, besides frequently giving valuable counsel upon matters submitted for his opinion. He was Chairman of the Victoria Nyanza Sub-Committee, and signed its first Report recommending the General Committee to undertake the Mission. When Bishop Copleston had an interview with the Committee before first going out to Ceylon, Lord Lawrence, being present, addressed him, and dwelt on the importance of co-operation between the missionaries of different T is well and good when two fair and useful powers work one with another, each helping and strengthening each: it makes a harmony by the dusty highway of life, which the angels love to stoop from heaven and hear. In a large scattered parish in the west of England, on the very borders of Exmoor, where the red stag makes his frequent haunt, where a steam whistle has never yet been heard, except now and then perhaps from a travelling threshing machine, which with its busy whirring disturbs the music of many-voiced brooks and murmuring woods, where the so-called roads are in winter one uncomfortable patchwork of mud and stones, where the golden gorse and the purple heather dress the hills in August in a royal mantle of glory, where men still believe in strange, beautiful, old-world traditions in such a parish as this, home work and mission work walk hand in hand together, each giving the other a firm but loving support. her husband took her to his home, she mounted at once a throne as a household queen, from which she governs with a gentle sway even the dainty fairy playing at her feet, who otherwise is supreme equally over her father and the kitten. Patty's house is as neat and bright as if it were a doll's house, and as if Patty herself spent her time playing at house-keeping; Patty's husband would tell you that his dinner every day is cooked well enough for the master of the West Somerset stag-hounds himself, always the most exalted of men in a west-country farmer's or villager's mind; Patty's child, the saucy fairy before mentioned, is always Let us glance for a moment at one or two of the holders of our the trimmest little maiden in the school; Patty's kindly hand is missionary-boxes, to see how brave home work is the friendly always ready to help an old or a sick neighbour; Patty's husband's companion of brave mission effort. Across yonder breezy field, apprentice is, through her motherly influence, become the steadiest from which the church and vicarage make so winsome a picture, and prettiest-mannered lad in the parish. Yet with all this, Patty comes stepping a tidily-built, bright-faced young fellow. His is very true to her duties as a missionary-box holder; she has heard arm is the strongest and most skilful on his father's farm; when that there are lands where the crown of woman's dignity is east he mows, the old people say that the sweep of his scythe is like in the dust, where the sanctity of woman's kingdom, the home, the sweep of the scythe of his grandfather, who built up the is profaned. She cannot join the band of brave, tender, highfortunes of the family, working at enclosing his own little spot spirited Englishwomen who are making it their life's noble work of land by moonlight while the rest of the parish were asleep; to clear away some of the foul mists that fill the seraglio and the and Fred will build up the family fortunes yet higher, and zenana; she will do what she can, even if sometimes it may be will found them too on the Rock of Ages, for his young feet but little she can do, to help those sad, degraded sisters. Let stand already firmly upon it. He is the treasurer of our reading- no one say, after looking into Patty's home-we know full well room committee, which is composed of all good men and true that there are some good people who do say so that interest in of the rare old west-country type, and keeps his account book as mission work makes a woman cold, and inactive, and unsympaneat as a flower garden. He is one of the heads of our large thetic in family life. Bible-class, where farmers' sons and farmers' servants, artizans and their apprentices, all sit down to read the Word of God together. When Fred is bending over the sacred page, there is something in his earnest face that makes us think of the look which the widow's son must have fixed on the Lord who called him back to work, and live, and love for Him yet a while on this earth. If there is any good new thing to be set going in the parish, his words to his companions always are, "Come along, I'll give the first helping-hand," and give it he does with a downright will. One might think that Fred's hands were full enough, but added to all this bravely-done home work he is the holder of a missionary-box, and it is a box that always returns a very cheery ring to an inquiring rattle. The brightness of Gospel light in which he himself walks, makes his generous heart long to spread that light through lands that sit in darkness and in the shadow of death; he feels, too, how all tender Christian courtesies, all gracious household Christian observances, have worked sweetly upon his own young life, and he will do his utmost to help towards their finding their way into far-distant homes, where flows the grand, deep-gliding Ganges of which he reads so wonderingly, and where dusky forms, yet forms of brother men for whom the blood on Calvary was shed, bow down to monster shapes beneath the feathery palm. He owns with manly joy the glorious freedom of the law as it is in Christ Jesus, and he would have it bid those arise and walk who lie chained in the bondage of black heathen superstition. Thus with him home work and mission work march along side by side like friendly comrades. Let us look now for a moment at another of our missionarybox holders. The face bending over this cottage hearth might be the embodiment of some old Italian painter's dream, who had gone to sleep trying to imagine a picture to be begun on the morrow of the Virgin Mother in the home at Nazareth; and that face is the true outward and visible sign of the heart and mind within. Ever since she was a baby, Patty has been, by some sweet law that seems to rule as a matter of course everybody that comes near her, a darling. The old rector, who first christened, and then in due time married her, used, when she was a little toddling thing, to call her, as he caught her up for a kiss, his "beautiful butterfly." When she grew to girl's estate, Patty found her way into the house of an old lady, who petted, but could not spoil her. When the honest, sturdy blacksmith who is But nowhere in the parish do mission work and home work go on so briskly together as beneath the roof where we hold, in different rooms, but in one Lord and one faith, our Sunday-school and our adult Bible-classes. Here the most popular character in the whole place is a little Negro kneeling on the top of a box with a hat in his hand, a Negro of most exceedingly polite habits, for even a farthing donation will draw from him the most courteous of bows. The children all regard him in a double light, partly as a protecting genius, partly as a pet and protégé. When a visitor enters the school, the Negro is pointed out to him with a hum of universal pride; the handsome lad who is the head Sundayschool teacher, and whose face is such a merry mixture of thought and fun, constitutes himself his especial champion and guardian. It is at once a pretty and a pathetic sight to see a class of little girls that surround a lady who is the presiding spirit of the room, a lady with all the mother in her eyes, who moulds the prayer on baby lips, and trains tiny voices to chant about "The green hill far away, without the city wall," making spring music for the thoughtful soul. How that little maiden's checks flush and her eye sparkles as she advances and drops, half importantly, half shyly, her penny into the wonderful hat; what a heroine she is evidently considered by the rest of the group as she trips back to her place. What a depth of touching meaning for us all there is in the act of that pale, wistful-faced child who takes the small coin from the pocket of her shabby frock, and turns it into treasure that neither rust nor moth can corrupt, as tremblingly, and scarce believing in her own good fortune that she has at last attained to bringing a half-penny for the loved missionary-box, she steals forward and deposits it. The Negro is also a very welcome guest when he is brought in in state and placed on the Bible-class room table. The wit of the class a young fellow whose spirit of adventure once made him run away to sea, but whose heart brought him back in time to his sick mother's side-introduced him on his first arrival as a foreign gentleman, who was come to give bowing lessons. The soberer elders (there are many married men at the class whose children fill the Sunday-school room) are much troubled in their brave, honest hearts at the thought of lands where that precious yet familiar Book they hold in their broad brown hands is unknown; what a dark, almost incomprehensible, picture for them it is the picture of a country where there is no Bible, no Sabbath rest; and how sadly the eyes of their minds dwell upon it as they take out their own small contributions, which have been spared from the weekly family earnings, and slip them into the Negro's box. Then they turn to their lady teacher, and ask her, in true west-country dialect, to tell them "Summat about what them poor souls believe;" whereupon, feeling a trifle uncomfortable. as to her capabilities for the task-for the study of the Bible lesson for the week has certainly not included such subjectsshe has to deliver a lecture on Mohammedanism or Buddhism. A day of great interest is the day when all the missionaryboxes are opened. What a rattle there is of pence, what a clatter of tongues, what a lively general rivalry; what a deal of recollecting about last year's collection, what a deal of wondering about the collection of to-day; what a volley of merry chaff the pair of young lovers have to go through, whose boxes produce exactly and miraculously the same sum! The ceremony of emptying the boxes is naturally, and as a matter of course, followed by a tea, of which Devonshire cream forms the most remarkable feature. It is a bright Sunday among our village Sabbaths, when the soldier-like form of the preacher, who for many years has represented the Church Missionary Society in the parish, ascends the pulpit, and his clear voice, full of heart music, rings through the pillars, round which twine in delicate carved work the simple wild flowers of the deep west-country lanes, the ferns that drape the hedges of Somerset with fairy feather patterns, and the stag's horn moss, which is the prime glory of Exmoor, as it creeps about among the heather. The old women pucker up their faces into lines of solemn attention; the bronzed, weatherbeaten working men look up with thoughtful expectancy in their gaze; the young people turn towards him bright earnest eyes: they all love the Bible pictures he draws for them, and the stories he tells them of strange, distant lands. They are thankful they can do a little in the grand cause he advocates, and they long to do still more. The double work for God goes on bravely and with quiet success, and both are blessed, because their mainspring is one and the same-combined love for Christ and for His people. A BLESSED CHOICE. ALICE KING. "I often walk in that Afghan cemetery where sleep six of Christ's faithful Missionaries to the Afghan people. On the grave of one of these, a young Missionary who laboured there for a year and died (Roger Clark), are the words, "Thankful to the last to have been a Missionary." Sermon by Rev. T. P. Hughes. OIS fair young soul the world essayed to woo, That sight behind the world had power no more, To India's land in faith his way he wends, How blest are they whom Jesus deigns to send, O hear His voice whene'er it speaks to thee, AN AGED BABALAWO EXCHANGING IFA FOR CHRIST. [The following is from the Rev. James Johnson, the Native African Missionary at Abeokuta. A Babalawo is a priest of Ifa, the most popular of the Yoruba gods. A full account of Ifa was given by the late Rev. E. Roper in the GLEANER of June, 1876.] OSIMU, a baptismal candidate of about seventy years of age, and of the township of Ikeseka, brought me his Ifa on September 21st. He practices in medicine, and has been an important and influential Babalawo or priest. The practice of medicine is invariably an accompaniment to priestly functions in heathenism, and priests profess to learn by consulting Ifa, or Ofele his messenger, the remedy that may be suitable for a particular disease. As a rule, cures are attributed more to Ifa than to the doctor's knowledge and skill and the power of his drugs. Babalawo Dosimu has been suffering for about two and a half years from a very painful ailment; the exercise of his priestly functions and the employment of his own medical practice and those of others his brothers in the profession failed to give him any relief and secure for him a wink of sleep for a long time. But Jonah Shekere, a communicant member of the Ake congregation, told him in his despair of recovery that prayer to God through Christ might and would give him the help he had failed to find in lying divinations and in medicine, and invited him to meet with him at his place regularly for prayer on his behalf. God was not long to answer, and in a few days Dosimu experienced much relief, and began to be refreshed with sleep. This immediate answer to prayer, though recovery was not yet perfect, together with remarks and teachings from Jonah, made a very strong impression upon him and decided him at once to embrace Christianity and renounce Ifa entirely. This he has done, and he has since been a very punctual and earnest attendant at the public means of grace and at instruction meetings. He is so anxious thoroughly to understand the religion he has taken up, and enter into Church connection that, old as he is, he has set himself to learning to read; he does not content himself with what he hears at instruction meetings and other gatherings, but visits some advanced Christians, from whom he receives instruction in reading, and hears and learns in familiar conversation more of our religion. When he brought me his Ifa as a proof of his sincerity and earnestness, he said, "I cannot tell how much I have spent in vain upon this useless thing. I sought recovery from it in illness and it promised it, but its promises and assurances have not been fulfilled. Prayer to God has been of real help to me. I renounce Ifa and will follow Christianity that the Lord may give me perfect recovery." There is in this a worldly motive; but a babe must speak a babe's language. God elects His own auxiliary ways to bring a sinner to salvation through Christ. I was struck with what he said as to answers to prayer, and those happy coincidences which heathen priests and others of their school often take advantage of and set forth as answers from the gods they pray to. "Such answers to prayers," he said, "I have found to be not answers from Ifa whom I had prayed to, but from God Himself whom I ignorantly addressed as the holy, sinless, and good One when I addressed Ifa thus, and who was pleased to apply to Himself the prayers and addresses offered in simple faith, though in ignorance, to a thing that could not help." Light was gradually dawning upon the benighted soul, and he saw men as trees walking. When on Sunday, June 9th, I preached on the power of the Holy Spirit to renew the heart and life, he was almost breathless attention, and was heard afterwards to express his surprise at such a new doctrine, and to say to a daughter of his who is secondary wife to a polygamist and makes profession of Christianity, "Have you heard what the minister teaches ? You have a bad temper; go and ask for the Holy Spirit's power to change it." He had blamed her also for not having invited him before to the Christian religion. His eldest son is a Babalawo; he had taught him Ifa worship, and advanced him to the priesthood. This son comes with him to church sometimes, but is still blind and sticks to Ifa. His father speaking to him some time ago said, "It is strange that when I who gave you Ifa say I have found that there is no truth in it, you should still hold to it as truth." Dosimu attributes his conversion entirely to God. "What else," he says, "could have brought me?" His chief anxiety is to be baptizedpinodu," as he calls it. Pinodu is an abbreviation of "Pa-ina-Odu," to kill or put out the fire of Odu. Odu is a companion of Ifa, and is represented by charcoal, powdered camwood mixed with water, and mud. He is the god who afflicts mankind with sickness, death, and other troubles, and is said to be always in wrath against them. This wrath is "ina" fire. To put out this fire is to propitiate him, remove his wrath, and secure his favour and exemption from his inflictions. Propitiation is made in a private house with the blood of a goat or sheep, and fowls slain at night at the time of offering. When Dosimu says he wants to "pinodu," he means to dedicate himself to God by baptism. THE LATE MRS. DEVASAGAYAM. OR many years the name of the Rev. John Devasagayam was a household word among the friends of the Church Missionary Society, and missionary boxes used to be adorned with a picture of him preaching to his Tamil congregation at Kadachapuram in Tinnevelly. He was the first native clergyman in South India, being ordained by the Bishop of Calcutta (Dr. Turner) in 1830, and he died in the midst of his people, full of years and honours, in 1864. Almost his last words were, "Oh, Jesus, precious Jesus, He is my treasure; love Him." One of his sons, the Rev. Jesudasen John, is now pastor of Palamcotta, and his daughter is our good friend Mrs. Anna Sattianadhan. A few months ago Mrs. Hobbs, wife of Archdeacon Hobbs of Mauritius, and formerly of the Tinnevelly Mission, sent us some pretty sketches made by her fiveand-thirty years ago, which have been engraved for the GLEANER, and will appear in an early number. One of these was a delicate pencil drawing, from life, of Ammal, or (as she was always called) "Mrs. John," the wife of Mr. Devasagayam. Hardly was the engraving from this sketch ready, when a letter from the Rev. W. T. Sattianadhan informed us of the death of his venerable mother-inlaw on the 23rd of February last; so that in looking upon the pleasant face in our picture, we can think of her whose likeness it is (or rather was, thirty-five years ago) as now reunited to her husband in the presence of the Lord they both loved so well. Mrs. Devasagayam was (we believe), like her husband, born of Christian parents, and descended from the early converts of Schwartz and other missionaries of last century. Mrs. Hobbs, in sending us the sketch, writes thus of her : OUR PEKING MISSION. VERY reader of the GLEANER knows that Peking is the capital of China; but not every reader knows that the Church Missionary Society has a Mission there. In the five years and a half of the GLEANER'S existence, the work at Peking has, we fear, never once been mentioned. But in that respect it is only like a good many other stations-so vast is the Society's field of labour ! "Whoever has not seen Peking does not know what decay means," wrote a traveller some years ago. Yet in spite of its decay, it is believed to be still the second city in the world, the population being variously estimated at from one to two millions. The first picture on the opposite page shows one of its busiest parts. The broad causeway is a marble bridge crossing a canal, though the canal itself cannot be seen. This bridge is just within one of the principal entrances to the city, the Chien-Mun gate, which may be noticed at the very edge of the picture on the left hand. It is called the Beggar's Bridge, from being a favourite resort of beggars. The covered carts are standing for hire, like cabs, and it is in these that the missionaries travel. Bishop Burdon says of these carts, that "for discomfort they surpass every other conveyance of the kind to be found in any part of the world where he has been." One of the memorial arches so common in Chinese cities, built in commemoration of some event or great man, appears beyond the bridge. The second picture represents a monument erected by the Emperor Chien Lung to a famous priest. THE LATE MRS. DEVASAGAYAM. (Sketched by Mrs. Hobbs in 1844.) Dear Mrs. Devasagayam-one loves to think of her as we knew her in Tinnevelly-the bright, shining light in the midst of her fellow-countrywomen. Her manners, at once so dignified and unassuming, were the index to her well-regulated mind. She was a devoted Christian and an able teacher. During the time of our residence at Sattankulam, Mr. Devasagayam was in charge of the neighbouring district of Kadatchapuram, when it was my privilege to cultivate Mrs. D.'s acquaintance and friendship, and At the time the portrait was taken (April, 1844) I have the following entry in my journal:-"Yesterday we visited Mrs. John's Adult and Girls' Day Schools, with both of which I was delighted; but I cannot attempt to convey, although I think I never can forget, the impression made on my mind whilst listening to her classes, first with the 'female helps' who teach the Lord's Prayer, &c., to the women, and afterwards with the Catechists' wives, about twenty in number. On each occasion a hymn was sung, and a lesson, given at the previous meeting, repeated; then a chapter in the Bible was read, and Mrs. John gave an address and concluded with an extempore prayer. Such an address, and such a prayer! both so simple and earnest, so full and so much to the point. I could only covet earnestly' the gift of tongues, and that better gift of the Spirit, whose teaching was so manifest in my native friend." In her daughter, then the little Anna" growing up under that Christian mother's influence and training, how many points of her character do we now see reproduced! to glean from her many a valuable hint with regard to our work. It was on October 12th, 1860, that Peking fell before the assault of the British and French allied troops. The peace that followed permitted foreigners for the first time to reside at the capital. In 1862 Bishop Smith and Mr. Burdon visited Peking, and the latter remained and began missionary work. The following year he was joined by the Rev. W. H. Collins, and they two (together or separately) carried on the Mission until Mr. Burdon was appointed Bishop of Victoria in 1874. From the fruitless task; and after some years Mr. Burdon wrote, referring first, the preaching of the Gospel proved a difficult and almost to the missionaries of other English and American societies, as well as to himself and his colleague," We all seem as husbandmen trying to till the soil still bound by the frosts of winter." Nevertheless, although Peking is not a Fuh-chow or a Ningpo, the blessing of the Lord has not been withheld. Connected with different societies, there are now more than 800 converts in the city and neighbourhood. The C.M.S., which has never thrown its strength into Peking, can claim only a tenth of these. The following extracts are from the last Report of the Rev. W. Brereton, who is associated with Mr. Collins. Very significantly do they illustrate the saying that the Chinese are not a religious people like the Hindus, but " of the earth, earthy' Our usual afternoon preaching to the heathen is carried on in two |