being stopped, and therefore stole a march upon the authorities by taking a boat from Dera Ghazi to Rajhanpore. By this little manoeuvre I got in front of the column, and reported myself to Colonel Nicholets, who took me on with him."

When the Journal of the March to Kandahar was put into type, we found it a great deal too long for our pages, and in sending a proof to Major Gordon we intimated to him that we should have to omit some parts of it for the sake of space. In a very kind letter he expressed his acquiescence in this course. When we came to make the necessary excisions to reduce it from about eighteen pages to fifteen, it seemed natural to select the paragraphs referring to the military operations, the information in which is of course quite out of date now, while the descriptions of the country and people are of permanent interest. Major Gordon is anxious, however, that the foregoing paragraph should appear, on account of the light it throws on his brother's position as an acting chaplain to the British force. We are the more glad of the opportunity thus given to repair its accidental omission, because it so plainly confirms a correction which we made four months ago of the error into which the daily papers fell respecting Mr. Gordon. So far as these came under our notice, they contained no reference to his connexion with the Church Missionary Society. They called him a "chaplain," and in some it was even stated that he originally went out to Madras as a chaplain.* In this sentence of his own, written at the time, we have a vivid glimpse of the ardent missionary, volunteering as a chaplain in order to get into Afghanistan, and when no official reply came, by "a little manoeuvre" getting in front of the British force, and then no doubt being gladly accepted by the authorities.

To prevent any possible misunderstanding (since this matter has been the subject of some correspondence in the Record newspaper), it may be well to add that this volunteer service of Mr. Gordon's was in no sense an exchange of his position as a C.M.S. missionary for that of a chaplain. He was not first one, and then the other. He was, during the whole time, an honorary missionary of the Society in charge of its stations at Multan, Pind Dadan Khan, and Dera Ghazi Khan. Between his two visits to Kandahar, the first of which occupied a few weeks, and the second about six months, he was for nearly a year engaged in active work at these stations and in the surrounding country; and every step he took was (with almost excessive loyalty) reported to the Committee, and their instructions sought.

Mr. Gordon valued his connexion with the British forces at Kandahar, and nobly used the opportunities which it gave him of ministering spiritual instruction and comfort to both English and native officers and soldiers. But he valued still more the privilege of being a missionary to heathen and Mohammedan; and the Church Missionary Society is proud to have had his name upon its roll for fourteen years, from 1866 to the day of his death.

It is only just to add that the Record did not fall into this mistake. Its interesting biographical sketch of Aug. 27th did full justice to Mr. Gordon's services as a missionary. Indeed, in that article there was no reference (though there was afterwards) to his having been an acting army chaplain in Afghanistan. It called him an "honorary chaplain" of the Church Missionary Society, by which unusual phrase was no doubt meant "honorary missionary."

THE MONTH.

UR friends are aware that one principal object in providing the Henry Venn steamer for the Niger Mission was to increase the facilities of communication between the different stations, and so secure more frequent and thorough superintendence of the work. She has already been most useful for this purpose; but further arrangements involving questions of importance have become necessary, and with a view to careful consideration of these arrangements, the Committee have determined to send a deputation, consisting of the Rev. J. B. Whiting and the Lay Secretary, to Madeira, where they will be met by Bishop Crowther and the Rev. J. B. Wood of Lagos, for the purpose of full and uninterrupted conference. At the same time, the opportunity will be taken to consider also the present difficulties of the Yoruba Mission in respect of the domestic slavery prevalent in that country, and various educational and other questions requiring solution both at Sierra Leone and at Lagos.

It will be remembered that the mission of inquiry to West Africa undertaken by Edward Bickersteth in 1816 was the starting-point of the great and blessed work of which Sierra Leone has since been the scene. Let our prayer be that a like happy result may by God's mercy follow from the journey of Mr. Whiting and Mr. Hutchinson. They sail (D.v.) on Feb. 4th, and we earnestly commend them and their mission to the sympathy and prayers of all friends of the Society and of Africa.

We are glad to say that the appeal for a Mission steamer for East Africa as a memorial to the much lamented late Honorary Secretary of the Society is meeting with a hearty response. Up to Jan. 21st the amount promised is about 16501. The sums acknowledged on the last page of this number of course include only actual payments, and those only up to Jan. 10th.

LETTERS have come to hand from Mr. Mackay, dated Kagei, Sept. 27th. He had not yet been able to get across the Lake to Uganda. He forwards letters he had received from Mr. Pearson at Rubaga, confirming what appeared in the January Intelligencer, and adding that Mtesa, whose health was worse and his caprice greater than ever, had again changed his profession of religion and avowed himself a Mohammedan. Mr. Pearson writes on July 1st," Yesterday Mtesa called all his chiefs to baraza, and recounted a dream that he had the previous night, which I give you second-hand. He saw the moon surrounded by ten other moons. This centre moon waxed bigger and bigger, and the others made obeisance to it. Then appeared two angels to Mtesa, and asked him why he had given up saying Allah Akbar, ordering him to do so. Then he awoke, and behold it was a dream! This is a condensed report. His wives told him that he was the moon, and that ten kingdoms are about to request him to allow them to be placed under his gentle sway. Mtesa then ordered all at court to say Allah Akbar, and he has proclaimed himself a Muslim again. The flag is not to be hoisted on Sundays nor the gun fired, the two things in which his Christianity consisted."

Mr. Mackay mentions that the French Roman Catholic missionaries who were also at Kagei, waiting to cross the Lake, were very indignant at finding

the French papers stating that Mtesa had expelled the Protestant missionaries, and assured him (Mr. Mackay) that they had written nothing of the kind. We may observe that it is mostly from those sources that the London newspapers get their occasional scraps of Uganda news.

THE Bishop of Calcutta has appointed the Rev. H. P. Parker, Secretary of the C.M.S. Calcutta Corresponding Committee, and the Rev. W. R. Blackett, Principal of the C.M.S. Divinity School for Bengal, to be two of his Honorary Chaplains. These, says the Indian Church Gazette, with three other Hon. Chaplains-Dr. Coe, Principal of Bishop's College, the Rev. E. F. Willis, of the Oxford Mission, and the Rev. K. M. Banerjea, LL.D., “will be the advisers of the Bishop on subjects connected with missionary work, and will have their assigned stalls in the cathedral.”

THE REV. J. Allcock, of Baddegama, Ceylon, sends a journal of a recent tour made by Bishop Copleston and himself through his district. "For some weeks previously," he writes, " special prayers had been offered up at our daily prayer meetings, earnestly imploring the blessing of God on the Bishop and the candidates for confirmation. We believe there was a deep conviction in the hearts of many that the sacraments and ordinances of the Church could not be effectual unless worthily, penitently, and faithfully received. There was a general desire on the part of the Native Christians to give the Bishop a cordial welcome, and I think that desire had been a little intensified by the unhappy disputes of the past four years." The Bishop arrived at Baddegama on Oct. 9th, and addressed the congregation. in Singhalese at the 5 p.m. service. Next day, Sunday, there was an early communion service in English, full morning service in Singhalese, a confirmation afterwards for twenty-seven Native candidates, of whom all but two were adult converts from heathenism; and at the evening service, four baptisms of converts from the schools. During the next few days the Bishop and Mr. Allcock went from village to village throughout the district, travelling 178 miles by boat or on foot, visiting twenty schools, and delivering thirty Gospel addresses; and twenty-one more candidates were confirmed.

We trust that all our future intelligence from Ceylon may be of a similarly pleasant character.

Ir has been a great pleasure to hear of the Rev. R. Clark's safe arrival at Amritsar, and that he is in better health. A most affectionate and appre

ciative address was presented to him by the Native Christians:

"Allow us," it says, "to take this opportunity of expressing to you our gratitude for the innumerable blessings which, by God's grace, you have been the means of conferring on us. The Alexandra School, the Amritsar City Mission House, the Punjab Native Church Council, the Punjab Bible and Religious Book Society, the Lahore Divinity School buildings, the Christian settlement at Clarkabad, are some of the standing memorials of your missionary energy, Christian zeal, and organizing genius. But what is more, there are at present in this assembly living memorials of your missionary toils, some whom you have begotten in the Lord, and many whose lives and character have been moulded by your exemplary Christian life. In the Christian self-denial and devotedness to Mission work, shown by your return to this country on this occasion, we have a fresh evidence of your love for us and our country, for whose good you have devoted twenty-eight

years of your life. May the Lord grant you health and strength! May He bless your work that it may bear fruit, and be the means of bringing salvation, peace, and joy in this land, to the glory of His name

י!

THE Native Church Council of the North-West Provinces held its annual meeting on Oct. 15th, at Lucknow. Mr. W. Seetal, the Native head-master of the Mission High School, writes in, the Lucknow localized edition of the C. M. Gleaner :

"After a period of anxiety, dismissals, reductions, and breaking up of the different Mission establishments, extending over the last ten months, the news that the Lucknow Mission house was not to be sold, nor its High School abolished, that its solitary European missionary was to be retained, and the evils of its further summary reductions stayed, had been received with profound thankfulness to God. Despair thus giving way to hope, anxiety to peace, suspense to certainty, and heaviness to joy, need we wonder that the strains of joy and praise formed the burden of the anniversary services. Joy inside the church, joy outside the church, showed itself at every turn."

THE REV. W. T. Satthianadhan has rebuilt his church at Chintadrepettah, Madras so far at least that only the four walls remain of the old building, which was originally a chapel belonging to an American Mission. The total cost has been about 8001. The new edifice was solemnly dedicated to the service of God by the Bishop of Madras on Dec. 8th. Special prayers were said by the Bishop, followed by the usual evening Tamil service; the Magnificat, Nunc Dimittis, and hymns, being led by the choir, and heartily joined in by a large congregation of Native Christians. The Bishop preached from 1 Peter ii. 5-"built up a spiritual house." building is called Zion Church.

The new

SOME items in a letter from Archdeacon Crowther dated Bonny, Oct. 19th, are very interesting and encouraging. St. Stephen's Church has had to be enlarged to accommodate the increasing congregations. On one occasion lately, 950 were present. Another church, provided by King George Pepple, has been opened in a part of Bonny called Bolobiri, and at the first service there were 183 worshippers. One of the chiefs, who calls himself Squiss, being desirous of presenting St. Stephen's with a clock, sent to England for one without saying anything about it, and in due time astonished Archdeacon Crowther with the gift of "a splendid drawing-room clock"! for which he had paid 97. This chief is not a Christian; but, says the Archdeacon, "he is really having stirrings within. Some time ago, he ordered the juju charms in his bed-room to be cut away and burnt, and cleared his doorways of their hangings of juju; and he has commenced prayer in the evening before going to bed. He remarked that he was 'waiting a bit to see what juju would do to him for this first act of offence."" An interesting illustration of the heartiness of the Christians is

given:

The road has already been cut through from the back of the church to King George's road. After notice at church, all the converts voluntarily came on Monday and subsequent days; and not only did they cut through the road, but laid large trees felled down

on the marshy parts, and filled part of the road, over 1200 feet long by 27 feet wide, with mud to the height of two feet; and this week the church women are carrying sand over the mud. We have been fully three weeks on the road working, and the people were deter

mined to finish it, and give you [the Bishop] no occasion of going to Bonny by the beach part.

One cannot help acknowledging the power of the Gospel, to see how willingly over 200 men were working, not for pay, and without any signs of

quarrel or fight, in a place like Bonny, where formerly a touch of the elbow was a sufficient cause for civil war. The Europeans are astonished, and are already enjoying the walk from their cask houses through Bonny to the Mission.

THE higher educational institutions in Tinnevelly have undergone several changes from time to time in their grouping and administration, these changes being generally dependent upon the particular missionaries available for the work. For many years, as our older readers will remember, there was a Preparandi Class under the care of Mr. (now Bishop) Sargent, a Vernacular Training Institution for Schoolmasters under Mr. Spratt, and an Anglo-Vernacular School under the late Mr. Cruickshanks. During the last ten years the Training Institution has sometimes been amalgamated with the Preparandi Class and sometimes with the School. Latterly all three branches have suffered somewhat through the weakness of the European staff; but during the last twelve months plans long in contemplation have been matured, and we trust that by the Divine blessing all three will in future be carried on with much increased efficiency. The Rev. T. Kember now conducts the Theological Class and the Training Institution at Palamcotta, and the School is under a lay agent; while the Rev. Henry Schaffter has started another Anglo-Vernacular School and College in the heathen town of Tinnevelly as a directly evangelistic agency. He opened it there last February, and in September had 220 pupils.

Mr. Schaffter mentions two encouraging incidents which occurred lately at Palamcotta. A catechist employed in the Training Institution was the means of bringing to the knowledge and confession of Christ a Shanar priest, whose income mainly consisted of alms given in return for the sacred ashes distributed; and a whole family of the Retti caste were baptized, who had been brought under the influence of the Gospel by a Native Christian who is a postmaster in Government employ, and who has a medal and a pension for great bravery displayed by him in the Mutiny of 1857. This postmaster rebuked a boy of thirteen, who was playing in the street, for using improper language, telling him it was displeasing to God. The boy, much astonished, went to his house and asked him what other things displeased God. He invited the lad in to family prayers, and the acquaintance thus begun led to the boy's family all coming under this Christian postmaster's instruction, and so to their conversion.

Ar the Diocesan Synod of Waiapu, held at Napier, N.Z., on Oct. 12th, Bishop Stuart delivered an address, in the course of which he thus spoke of the Native Church in the diocese :

The Native Church Board of the Waiapu district held its annual session at Turanga-nui, Poverty Bay, on the 3rd and 4th of November, 1879. In accordance with the Statute of the General Synod, under the provisions of which these meetings take place, I presided on the occasion, having the assistance of Archdeacon Williams in the

conduct of the business. All the proceedings are in the Maori language, and are carried on according to the usual forms of our Synodical meetings. Six Maori clergymen and seven lay representatives were present. Various ques tions relating to the order and good discipline of the Church were discussed. The duty was also recognized of making