become a Bishop at the age of 37. On the same page, however, we find the statement (in this case a correct one) that the consecration was in 1864 -another pretty arithmetical puzzle. Nor is this all. Our biographer, after speaking of the "large tears" that "coursed down the cheeks" of the good Bishop while he was telling his story, goes on to describe how the dutiful son took his mother to Lagos, "and closed her eyes himself when a few years ago she expired in his arms." Now (1) the meeting of Crowther and his mother took place at Abeokuta in 1846, many years before he ever visited Imaha (or Yimaha), or before there was any Mission on the Niger at all, or before he became a Bishop; and (2) that mother has not yet expired in his arms," for she is still alive at Lagos! However the Bishop took M. Burdo up the Binue as far as Yimaha in the Henry Venn steamer, which is mentioned as being "under the direction of an excellent man, Mr. J. H. Ashcroft, of Manchester, delegate of the Missionary Society"; and another startling picture represents the reception of the three travellers by King Kpanaki. The account of this visit would be interesting if one only knew exactly where the hard and tame facts end and where the romance begins. It is highly instructive to compare with it Bishop Crowther's plain narrative of the same journey, published in our own pages in February 1879. We are not professing to review the book as a whole; but we must add that we are not a little puzzled to divine in what light the English translator and publisher expect us to regard it. It is one thing to supply the French market with a lively burlesque on the style of Mr. H. M. Stanley, garnished with engravings representing its hero now engaged in heroic combat with fleets of armed canoes, and now in inspecting a great chief's harem. It is quite another thing to put a romance of the kind into English dress and call it a book of " travels in Central Africa." SIR ARTHUR COTTON ON THE PROGRESS OF THE GOSPEL IN INDIA AND ENGLAND. [The following speech was delivered by General Sir Arthur Cotton, K.C.S.I., at the Anniversary Meeting of the Church Missionary Society at Oxford on Feb. 7th, on which occasion he took the chair.] M Y claim to take the position that you have offered to me, and that I have presumed to occupy to-day, is that, having been sixty years connected with India, I can speak from my own experience of the effects of Church of England and other Missions in that vast country. Let me first say something about India's outward state. It contains now upwards of 260 millions of people in a state of perfect peace and under the most upright, merciful, and wise government in the world, or that ever was in the world, and that beyond all comparison, though there are still many things amiss in it. I may mention a proof of the wonderful progress of ideas among its present rulers in respect of its material welfare. Fifty years ago I proposed a work to cost a lac of rupees, 10,000l., and it was treated with utter derision, as if it were likely that the Government would go to such an expense for such a work! Since that, 200 millions, 20,000 lacs, have now been spent on works of material improvement, irrigation, railways, roads, harbours, buildings, &c. Such has been the amazing expansion of our own ideas of our management of our vast charge. Let me also speak of the change in our ideas of our moral duties there. For years after I went to India the Government of Madras used to send the heads of police in state to present a grand dress to the principal idol of Madras, and a collector of a district would go out in R full state, attended by his peons, at the annual drawing of the idol car, and dismounting from his horse put himself at the head of the thousands of poor degraded creatures to take hold of the great rope by which the car was dragged, himself by far the most degraded of the whole assemblage. Such was the state of things long after I went to India. Compare the state of things of late years, when Governors-General have not been ashamed of their God and Saviour, and have publicly declared themselves most anxious to lead the Natives to turn from their idols. And what has been a prime cause of this blessed change? Undoubtedly the Missions so despised at first have been principally instrumental in shaming the rulers into conduct more becoming their position as Christian men. And what has been the effect of their labours on the ruled ? I read in Hough's India that in 1823 the number of Christians in Tinnevelly under the Church Missionary Society was 100; it is now 53,000; increased 530-fold; and the whole number of converts of this Mission alone is just 100,000, and under all the Missions more than 500,000, and the increase in the last two years has been about 100,000; and to give a more distinct idea of what is now going on there, there have been repeated instances of large bodies of Natives, several thousands in a single locality, coming to the missionary to beg for instruction, who, upon careful investigation, have shown that without the help of any missionary they have, from tracts and Scriptures, become so well grounded in the great fundamental truths that the missionaries could not refuse to baptize them at once. There are now large tracts of country where there are thus scattered through the villages real little Native Churches. I could give several instances of this sort. In one place in the Madras Presidency the missionary on first visiting it found a little knot of ten or fifteen who met regularly to read the Scriptures together, and there are there now, partly in the Hydrabad State and partly in our own, about 100 Native Churches in so many villages round that place. India is thus now in a most intensely interesting state, and there is apparent certainty of multitudes coming forward to put themselves under Christian instruction within the next an few years. But what has been the source of all this blessing to India? how comes it that there are now some 800 missionaries scattered through the country besides all the admirable and most effective Native ordained ministers? This number includes the female missionaries, for I at least ought to acknowledge prophetesses as well as prophets; though, by some strange defect, it is not the fashion to acknowledge in Mission reports those whom God has ordained, though they don't wear hats and coats. Let us then just look to the source of all this wonderful increase of Christian work, the state of the Church in England. What was the state of things in England when I was born? There were things occurring among men calling themselves Christian ministers that could not be mentioned before this assembly. But no more effective and true barometer of the state of the truth in England could be found than the funds of the Church Missionary Society. The average annual income at the time of my birth was 5007.; it is now more than 200,000Z.; an increase of more than 400-fold. This is an unmistakable proof of what God has done for England within my own day. But one thing impresses itself more and more every year I live, and that is the inconceivable mercy of God to England when He laid that solid foundation of truth, in the rooting of the glorious Liturgy in every parish of the land. Who can estimate what God did for our most favoured land in this one act? By this, whatever foolishness or falsehood any minister may utter from the pulpit, he is under a blessed necessity of utter ing from the reading-desk the purest exhibition of every one of the great truths of God that ever was composed by uninspired men, a Liturgy every word of which affords the clearest, most full, and unflinching exhibition of the truth. Thus the whole atmosphere of England is kept redolent with the revealed truths of God's Word, and the very Papists and infidels of England are very different men from what they would have been if they had not, in spite of themselves, breathed this air of life and truth. And what has been the fruit? Will you bear with me in speaking of what my heart cannot but be full when I return to a place in which for more than sixty years I have had a home ready for me. In the late Provost of Worcester you have lost a man of whom I can only say that in all my long life I have never met with one who I felt more truly and simply walked with God from his entering Oxford as an undergraduate. But what thousands of such faithful men there are now in the Church of England! Not a word about them in the Times or the Record. They never commit murder, nor incite to murder, nor rave in the House of Commons, nor even stand on a heap of vestments and crow as if they had done some great feat. How can the columns of important journals be occupied by notices of such insignificant people? But are their words not reported? Are there no heavenly newspapers, whose reporters are here on earth? Of these men it may literally and truly be said, as of the heavenly bodies: no voice; no language; their sound is not heard; their voice is gone throughout all the earth and their words to the end of the world. Their pleadings and the effects of them go beyond their parishes. They are opening Africa, and pouring light upon China and the Hudson's Bay Company's Territory. And are they unsupported by the laymen of the Church? And lay-women? Do let us look back upon England and see out of what depths of stupidity and ignorance she has emerged in my time, that we may not dishonour God by forgetting what He has wrought for this land, so raised above all the earth that now we see fulfilled the prophecy: "The isles shall wait for Thy law.' Nothing can be more certain than that this favoured land is now the head-quarters of God's truth, as Palestine once was and shall again be before long. A gentleman said to me, "These are terrible times; I am continually asked by friends to help them in trying to find for them godly curates, and they seek in vain." I replied, "What glorious times we have fallen upon! In spite of the vast increase of godly young candidates for the ministry, such is the amazing increase of godly incumbents that the demands for such curates far exceed the supply, though since my boyhood they have certainly increased fifty-fold." Nay, now there has been such an answer to prayer for more labourers for the dark places of the earth, that the supply at this moment quite exceeds the funds for their support, so that we have now chiefly to ask for the gift of liberality to God's people, although their givings have, as I have said, increased 400-fold. Compare this with the time when we had to send to Germany for two or three missionaries because England could not supply one. THE REV. E. H. BICKERSTETH AT CALCUTTA. HE Indian Church Gazette contains a report of a missionary meeting held in the Town Hall, Calcutta, on Jan. 17th, the Bishop of Calcutta presiding. The speakers were the Rev. E. H. Bickersteth, of Hampstead (who, as our readers are aware, has been visiting India); his son, the Rev. E. Bickersteth, of the Cambridge Mission at Delhi; the Rev. J. Vaughan, C.M.S. missionary at Krishnagar; and the Rev. J. C. Whitley, of the S.P.G. Mission, Chota Nagpore. The speech of Mr. Bickersteth of Hampstead is thus reported: He felt it a high privilege to have an opportunity of relating his impressions of what he had heard and seen in India during his short stay. The difference between seeing and hearing had been very clearly illustrated in his case, and the words of his father, when he returned from Africa in the year 1816, came vividly back to him, how it was one thing to hear of a great fire, and of one and another perishing in the flames, but a very different thing to see it. On his first landing at Bombay he had been affected to the very depths of his heart on seeing the mark of idolatry on the forehead, the sign of devotion to some heathen divinity, imprinted so clearly, and he had longed for those brows to be signed with the sign of the Cross. Verily God had given India to England, and though at one time it seemed as if He would have allowed it to be wrested from her, yet He had given it back again. Mr. Bickersteth had visited various cities in India. At Cawnpore he had seen the well, and the beautiful figure of the guardian angel. He had been to Lucknow and seen the battered Residency: the Ridge at Delhi he had also seen, and the words of Daniel lingered in his ears, "The Most High ruleth in the Kingdom of men, and giveth it to whomsoever He will." The question he constantly asked himself was, Why has God given India to England? Truly it must be in order that the prayer of our Blessed Lord might be answered, "Thy Kingdom come." Benares also had not been unvisited by him. With intense interest and pain he had watched the worshippers on the sacred river's banks, as they gazed upwards at the Sun, devout and sad: he had stood by a burning ghat, had seen a widow rake among the ashes: had seen her, as the pitcher of water placed on her shoulders fell down shattered into a thousand pieces, turn away with a look of oh! such untold misery: he had been to the Golden Temple and had watched the offerings of rice, and the worshippers as they devoutly drank the foetid water sold them by the priests. In another temple he had seen sculptures on the walls outraging all morality, and earnestly had he prayed to God that He would speedily send His Light and Truth into the hearts of these poor deluded people; but what he had elsewhere seen and heard convinced him that the light of God's truth was being diffused among them, and he had taken heart, and was truly thankful for the many signs of it that had crossed his path. A grand work was going on and much self-sacrifice was being displayed, but more still was wanted to complete the work. He ventured to read some lines he had written the other day as expressive of the feelings of most present : Hark! Hark! the voice of numbers, And stirs her long repose: The wail of men and mothers, The children's piteous cry, "Come help us, we are brothers; Come help us, ere we die." Ah, woe for human nature! Time's daily load of care, Broods infinite despair! There no baptismal blessing Rests on the infant brow, No lips one God confessing Pledge there the holy vow! No ear enraptured listens To Jesus' words of grace; No eye with longing glistens, To see Him face to face. Still onward to the river, Which all must cross, they move, Of everlasting day; O tell them of the story, Spans all the gloom of this; And knits our earth to heaven. Of the seed that had been sown in India, the speaker went on to say, a scant return had so far been yielded, but as God raised up true apostles within India itself, India would be won to God: he could not but feel the truth of Bishop Johnson's words at the Conference so recently held, that truly Bishop Cotton's intercessory prayer appeared to have been answered; and the words of Mordecai to Esther seemed to him applicable to the present Bishop of Calcutta, "Who knoweth whether thou art come to the Kingdom for such a time as this ? " THE MONTH. HE Rev. J. B. Whiting and Mr. E. Hutchinson returned to England from Madeira on March 7th. The Conference there was attended by Bishop Crowther, Archdeacon D. C. Crowther, the Rev. J. Quaker (Principal of the Sierra Leone Grammar School), the Rev. G. J. Macaulay (of the Sierra Leone Pastorate), and Mr. J. Boyle (of Bonny)-all Africans; also by the Rev. M. Sunter (Principal of Fourah Bay College), and Mr. J. H. Ashcroft. Much interest was manifested by the people of Madeira in the presence of such an assembly. The Bishop and the Archdeacon preached in the English church, and a missionary meeting was convened, which was addressed by Mr. Hutchinson, Mr. Whiting, and Mr. Quaker. There is good reason to hope that by God's blessing this Conference may result in important developments of the Society's work in Western Africa. THE Rev. Dr. Boultbee, Principal of the London College of Divinity, St. John's Hall, Highbury, has been appointed to preach the Annual Sermon before the Society at St. Bride's Church, on Monday evening, May 2nd. THE four additional missionaries referred to in our last, the Revs. J. H. Knowles, H. Rountree, F. E. Walton, and C. B. Nash, were admitted to priests' orders on Sunday, March 13th, by Bishop Perry, acting for the Bishop of London, at St. John's Church, Paddington, which was kindly lent for the occasion by the Rev. Sir Emilius Bayley. The sermon was preached by the Rev. F. E. Wigram, Hon. Clerical Secretary, from 1 Thess. ii. 7-12. Our four brethren are not likely to forget that at their first ordination the preacher was Henry Wright, and at their second ordination his successor. A MARBLE bust of the late Lieut. G. Shergold Smith, R.N., of the Nyanza Mission, executed by Mr. Henry Harvey, has been presented by his friends to the Society, and was unveiled on March 14th, in the presence of a large number of the members of the C.M.S. Committee and others. The presentation was made, in the unavoidable absence of Sir John Kennaway (an intimate friend of Lieut. Smith's family), by the Rev. W. H. Dalton, who has acted as treasurer of the memorial fund. The bust now stands in the lobby outside the Committee-room in Salisbury Square. We may take this opportunity of mentioning that Lieut. Smith's father, Commander Smith, R.N., died lately at the age of eighty. He was one of the officers concerned in the rescue, just sixty years ago, of the little slave boy who is now Bishop Crowther. We regret much to hear of the death of the Rev. Tang Tang-Pieng, of Fuh-chow. He originally heard the Gospel from the Rev. W. Welton, the founder of the C.M.S. Fuh-Kien Mission, but was baptized by the Americans. He became a C.M.S. catechist nearly twenty years ago, and has laboured with much zeal and faithfulness. He was ordained by Bishop Burdon on Easter Day, 1876, with three others, only one of whom, the Rev. Ting Sing-Ki, now survives. Out of the six Chinese clergy of the |