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N. M. 7th F. Qr. 14th

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THE CHURCH MISSIONARY GLEANER.

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THE OMNISCIENCE OF GOD.

APRIL, 1883.

F. M. 22nd.. 11.27 a.m.

L. Qr. 30th.... 7.3 a.m.

1st. aft. Easter. Thou God seest me, Gen. 16. 13.

M. Nu. 16. 1-36. 1 Cor. 15. 1-29. E. Nu, 16. 36, or 17, 1-12. John 20. 24-30. 2 M He knoweth the secrets of the heart, Ps. 44. 21.

3 T H. Budd d., 1875. Knoweth the way of the righteous, Ps. 1. 6. 4W Stanley's meeting with Mtesa, 1875. The king's heart is in the 5 TI know thy works, Rev. 2. 2. [hand of the Lord, Pro. 21. 1. 6F He that formed the eye, shall He not see? Ps. 94. 9. 7 S His eyes behold, His eyelids try, the children of men, Ps. 11. 4. [shall be there perpetually, 1 K. 9. 3. 8 S 2nd aft. Easter. Miss. Children's Home opened, 1853. Mine eyes

M. Nu. 20. 1-14. Lu. 9. 1-28. E. Nu. 20. 14 to 21. 10, or 21. 10. 2 Cor. 11. [30 to 12. 14.

9 M Bapt. 1st Uganda convert, 1882. I know My sheep, Jc. 10. 14. 10 T His eye seeth every precious thing, Job 28. 10.

11 W He knoweth our frame, Ps. 103. 14. [always upon it, Deu. 11. 12. 12T C.M.S. established, 1799. The eyes of the Lord thy God are 13 F Freed Slaves bapt. E. Africa, 1879. I have seen thy tears, 2 K. 20.5. 14 S 1st Af. bapt. S. Leone, 1816. O Lord, Thou hast seen my wrong, Lam. 3. 59.] [knowest it altogether, T's. 139. 4. 3rd aft. Easter. Not a word in my tongue, but Thou, O Lord,

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M. Nu. 22. Lu. 12. 35. E. Nu. 23 or 24. Gal. 5. 13.

16 M Search me, O God, and know my heart, Ps. 139. 23.

17 T His eyes as a flame of fire, Rev. 1. 14.

18 W Proclam. Sultan Zanzibar'agst. slavery, 1876. I have heard their [cry by reason of their taskmasters, Ex. 3. 7. 19 T For I know their sorrows, Ex. 3. 7. [Is. 57. 18. 20 F1st bapt. Ningpo, 1851. I have seen his ways, and will heal him, 21 S Waganda Envoys arr., 1880. Thou only knowest the hearts of all the children of men, 1 K. 8. 39.] [15. 3. 22 S 4th aft. Easter. The eyes of the Lord are in every place, Pro. M. Deu. 4. 1-23. Lu. 17. 1-20. E. Deu. 4.23-41, or 5. Eph. 5. 22 to 6. 10.

23 M The eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth, 24 T The eyes of the Lord are over the righteous, 1 Pe. 3. 12. [2 Ch.16.9. 25 W St. Mark. He knoweth the way that I take, Job 23. 10. 26 T 1st bapt. Kagoshima, 1879. The Lord knoweth them that are 27 FKnoweth them that trust in Him. Nah. 1. 7. [His, 2 Tim. 2. 19. 28 S Lord, Thou knowest all things, Thou knowest that love Thee, Jo. 21. 17.] [Ps. 38. 9. 29 S 5th aft. Easter. Rogation Sun. Lord, all my desire is before Thee, 80 MC.MS. Ann. Serm. Your Father knoweth what things ye have [need of before ye ask Him, Matt. 6. 8.

M. Deu, 6, Lu. 20. 27 to 21. 5. E. Deu. 9 or 10. Col. 1. 21 to 2. 8.

MORE JERSEY BREEZES.

IV. Our Habitation.

"Hath determined. . . the bounds of their habitation."-Acts xvii. 26. S we journey on safely, step by step, despite manifold chances and changes, it is well to mount some mental eminence from time to time, and cast a lingering look along the sacred way of God's providential guidance. Is not each stage marked by a different habitation? Very likely the first lesson that impressed us with the transitory nature of all things earthly was conveyed by the sudden breaking up of our earliest homestead. Death, sickness, losses, and crosses, all seem to cut away the foundations of our faith in human foresight. It is well when the heads of a stricken family can look up and cheer their anxious dependents. No strange thing has happened. "He" marketh all our paths. Wherever He bids us pitch anew our moving tent, He will again meet with us as in past days. He is the same yesterday, and to-day, and for ever. To many the first rude wrench from scenes familiar comes when school-days must begin. The loving mother well knows her brave boy will only return to her as a visitor, and things can never be the same again. But to him novelty is charming, and it is only when lying quietly in his school-bed, or praying the prayer his mother taught him, that the dawning truth fills his young heart with loneliness hitherto unknown. Happy the child who has learnt, beneath the wing of fostering parents, to cling to his father's God, his mother's strong Consolation. But youth flies, and a career must be

selected. Anew the young man or maiden goes forth to an untried dwelling-place. In such a crisis, let us ask the wanderers' Guide to make His way plain before our face. As time after time we have to pass on further, let us look into His countenance ; let us listen for His voice. He can lead us into those scenes and societies which shall mould our character by subduing our self-will. He is too pitiful to leave us in perplexity. What the unthinking might call "a fortuitous conjunction" of circumstances will so re-assure us, that we shall go boldly forward in humble dependence on His evident indications.

It seems as if the missionary could especially enter into these thoughts. Beneath what a variety of sheltering roofs has he laid his weary head, before reaching the scene of his temporary service. He, of all men, must feel a stranger and a sojourner. And this sense of instability may well quicken his energies. Far from the haunts and homes of the fatherland, he must doubly need the sweet sureness of the Home above. This leads us to the bright comforting thought, that when opprest with earth's continual changes, we possess, even here, a lasting Habitation, an abiding Home, a most quiet Resting-place. We shall find it if we cry with one of old, "Be Thou my strong Habitation, whereunto I may continually resort."

Will not this suffice for all our longing? Accessible in every time and place, our God vouchsafes to be to us, in very deed, a Home. Surely in the remembrance of such a Traveller's Rest there is calmness and assured confidence. Instead of repining over all the way whereby we have been led, let us resolve to know no fixed Habitation save only the Lord, the Creator. Within His compassionate heart there is room for the sorrows and joys of a myriad of worlds. Let us turn to Him just where we are. And if in simplicity we thus turn, we may appropriate this blessed promise, "Because thou hast made the Lord, which is my refuge, even the Most High, thy Habitation, there shall no evil befall thee, neither shall any plague come nigh thy dwelling." Because we make Him our sunshine, He will also be our shadow; and as we sit within in peace, let us not only enjoy, but also impart. For to teach a human soul the secret of true rest is better than to conquer worlds. The wise Solomon was called a Man of Rest. Let us try, God helping us, to educate such men. But we shall try in vain, unless we abide ourselves within the safe shelter of the Father's love. His Spirit will guide us thither, for the sake of that dear Saviour who said, Abide in Me.

Shall we speak of the last earthly habitation of our frail bodies -the narrow home appointed for all living? The fleshly tabernacle will rest well there, until it is called to rise and put on immortality. In that day we shall sing with the confidence of the redeemed, "Lord, I have loved the Habitation of Thy House, and the place where Thine honour dwelleth." A. M. V.

THE NEW EGYPT MISSION.

T is with much thankfulness that we report the receipt of encouraging letters from the Rev. F. A. Klein, who reached Cairo with his family on December 16th. The readers of the GLEANER Will be glad to have some extracts from them. Let us explain that of the population of Egypt about nineteentwentieths, or 95 per cent., are Mohammedans. About onetwentieth are Copts. These Copts are the descendants of those Egyptians who became Christians in the early days of the Church, and they are believed to be the purest representatives of the ancient Egyptian nation, with little of the Arab admixture which is largely found among the Moslems. The Coptic

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Church has come down from the days of Origen and Athanasius, THE REV. VIRAVAGU VEDHANAYAGAM. but it has not kept its purity. Like all the Eastern Churches, it is sadly corrupted in doctrine and degraded in practice, and MONG the now numerous Native clergy of South it does nothing whatever to make known the Gospel to the India (the Clergy List gives 127, viz., 88 C.M.S., Mohammedans. Missionary work ought not to be necessary and 39 S.P.G.), no one is more respected than the where a Christian Church exists; but in this case it is necessary, Rev. Viravagu Vedhanayagam, pastor of Vageikuif the light of the Gospel is to be spread at all. Sixty years ago lam, Tinnevelly, and Chairman of the North Tinnethe Church Missionary Society tried to wake up the Copts to velly Native Church Council. Many of the present pastors are fresh life (see GLEANER, September, 1882); now we hope Mr. the children of Native Christian parents, but Mr. Vedhanayagam Klein will be able to devote himself to the Mohammedans. He was born a heathen. He belonged to the high Vellala caste, writes as follows:which has, through the enlightening power of Divine grace, given many members to the Church of Christ. His conversion was indirectly a fruit of the work of a mission school. His brother (also now a clergyman) went as a heathen boy to a C.M.S. school, and there embraced the faith of Christ, but at first concealed the fact. After the parents were dead, this young man told his wife, two brothers, and sister; and through his influence they all became Christians. The little family circle has since increased to more than fifty souls, all members of the Church. The other brother is a merchant at Palamcotta. The sister, after most faithful service to the Mission, died in 1873.

December 19th, 1882.-Here we are at last in Cairo-our new home and field of labour-the city of luxurious eastern palaces and miserable Egyptian hovels. It has made remarkable progress in Western civilisation since I saw it last, perhaps ten years ago. It is indeed the Paris of the East. But how much there is of hollowness and vice below this brilliant exterior!

On our arrival we were very glad to be welcomed at the station by Miss Whately and the doctor of her dispensary. We have only had time hastily to look into part of Miss Whately's schools; but even this was quite sufficient to convince us that she is doing a good work here, and that her efforts are blessed by the Lord, and appreciated by the people. Most of my time is now constantly taken up by going about and looking at houses, and discussing this great question of the day; and here I again painfully feel that I am in the East and require a tenfold measure of patience; after half an hour here may mean after three or four hours; the morning extends to the evening; el yom (to-day) often means to-morrow; and bokra (to-morrow) in Arab parlance may mean any time in the future.

January 22nd, 1883.-We are now, thanks be to God, in our own home, camping somewhat like Bedouins till we get from Alexandria or procure from here the necessary furniture; but still we feel at home.

Very soon after my arrival here I received various letters from Native friends at Alexandria and other places, expressing their pleasure on the circumstance of our Society being about to begin a Mission in Egypt, and congratulating me on having come to this country in order to labour in this new field. Some of my former friends of Palestine, Arabs and proselytes, also an English soldier, who had been educated at the Jerusalem school, I occasionally met in the street; they all seem to do well and to remember their benefactors with gratitude. Some Syrian friends also called on me, and I trust I may be able to look after our Protestants of Palestine, who have come or may yet come to Egypt, in order to find their livelihood here, and make them feel that here also they have friends who take an interest in their welfare, and are ready to advise and assist them.

Vedhanayagam was afterwards at Bishop Corrie's Grammar School at Madras, and was subsequently employed as a schoolmaster and catechist in the North Tinnevelly Mission, under Ragland, D. Fenn, Meadows, and W. Gray. On Dec. 21st, 1859, he and twelve other Tamil candidates (one of them being W. T. Satthianadhan) were admitted to holy orders together by Bishop Dealtry of Madras, who wrote at the time, "Never since the time of the Apostles has a Christian Bishop been privileged to take part in so solemn and interesting a service." Native ordinations were not so common then as they have become since. On the roll of C.M.S. Native clergy from the beginning Mr. Vedhanayagam stands No. 60; and the number is up to 310 now. The ceremony took place in the Rev. J. T. Tucker's large mission church at Paneivilei, and the sermon was preached by the veteran Rev. John Thomas, from the words, "It is required in stewards that a man be found faithful." And faithful have those Tamil clergymen proved-not the least of them Viravagu Vedhanayagam. For twenty-three years he has laboured zealously and with manifest blessing in the same field of North Tinnevelly; and now there is no English missionary there at all, but Mr. Vedhanayagam, as Chairman of the Church Council, superintends seven other Native clergymen and 94 lay agents, who minister to more than 5,000 Tamil Christians scattered among 195 villages.

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THE REV. VIRAVAGU VEDHANAYAGAM, Pastor of Vageikulam, and Chairman of the North Tinnevelly Native Church Council.

On Sunday, the 14th, I held my first Arabic service in the large hall of Miss Whately's school-house, where I addressed the little audience on Rom. i. 16, on the Gospel of Christ, as being not a mere code of doctrines, but a power, the power of God, alone able to renew and sanctify the hearts and lives of individuals, and to regenerate nations. Last Sunday (21st) I had a large congregation of adults and children, most attentively listening to my address on the Parable of the Grain of Mustard Seed. The hall was full, and behind the curtain, which divides it into two parts, there were a number of Native ladies and girls.

Miss Whately and the medical missionary, a Syrian gentleman who accompanied her, are quite delighted with the opportunities they have found in some larger places up the Nile, of distributing copies of the Scriptures and tracts, and of preaching the Word of God to Copts and Moslems, and greatly encouraged me occasionally to go and see these people, who are most anxious to have schools opened for their children, and be themselves instructed in the Word of God. For the present, however, I think it will be better for me to become more acquainted with Cairo and its population, and the opportunities offered here for preaching the Gospel, and to improve the opportunities for doing so in my immediate neighbourhood.

When the appeal for funds for our Egyptian Mission meets with due response, which I have no doubt will be the case now there is such a general interest taken in Egypt by our Christian friends in England, I daresay the Committee will be ready to extend the cords of the tent, and open schools in some of the larger neighbouring villages, as centres of evangelisation among the fellah population.

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The Rev. R. R. Meadows, who has known Mr. Vedhanayagam for thirty years, writes of him :

Though born a heathen, he has been for many years a tried servant of Christ. His consistency of conduct and zeal for the Gospel are beyond all praise. His powers of organisation and ruling are considerable. His manner towards both heathens and Christians is loving and judicious. Born of high caste parents, he endeavours to be an impartial overseer over agents of other and lower parentage. He speaks and writes English with a creditable degree of fluency and correctness.

A Servant's Offering.

IR,-I enclose four shillings worth of stamps for the Church Missionary Society; I am sorry 1 cannot send more, but I am only a servant. I hope to send some more when I take my next quarter's money; I hope you will accept this small sum. I am almost ashamed to say this is the first time I have tried to help to send the Gospel to those who have never heard of a Loving Saviour; as I have, I want to try and do all that I can for them. My wages is only seven pound a year. L. D.

OVER THE WATER.

BY EVELYN R. GARRATT.

CHAPTER IV.-WAITING IN THE TWILIGHT.
UMMER with all its dazzling glories had departed, the
autumn tints had also faded, and the leaves fallen, only a
few still clung persistently to the brown branches. The
days closed in early now, and the afternoons, which only a
few weeks ago had been flooded with golden sunshine,

turned cold and damp before the light had vanished.

Mrs. Venning had been into her district, and was now returning chilled both in body and soul. Her people disappointed her, and so did the world in general; even her husband did not sympathise with her in the difficulties of the work as much as she had once hoped he would.

"My dear," he would exclaim, whenever she ventured to broach the subject to him at dinner, "remember I've been among the sick and dying all day, and want something to cheer, rather than to depress me further. Pray leave your good women to take care of themselves for an hour or two."

Mrs. Venning rarely mentioned her district to her husband now, as she did not like the wet blanket he threw over her plans whenever she ventured to do so. It had pained her not a little at first, " but," she reasoned to herself, "being a doctor, of course it is not likely he should care to talk about what are such common sights to him; there is some excuse for him, I suppose, but none that I can see for Ella and Beatrice, that they should care so little about their poorer neighbours. It is not as if they had not been brought up to it, for ever since they were little children I have tried to inculcate in them the duty of parish work. Why, they have taught in the Sunday-school ever since they were twelve years old, and though Beatrice was at first unwilling, and drew back from the work, I insisted upon her undertaking it. I'm sure I have done my best to make both the girls care for it."

It never struck Mrs. Venning that it would have been wiser for her to have put before her girls that to work in God's vineyard should be looked upon as a privilege rather than as an irksome duty, for what work can be pleasing in God's sight that is not done cheerfully and willingly for very love of Him? Will He indeed accept work given grudgingly?

Mrs. Venting's house was in High Street, and possessed no garden either in front or behind, but the house itself was large, comfortable, and interesting in i's old-fashioned interior. The long rather dark drawingroom, with its carved ceiling and many nooks and corners, looked cosy enough on this first day of November as Mrs. Venning entered it.

On each side of the fire-place, ensconced in easy-chairs, were her two eldest daughters, both of them deep in their books. They were pretty, healthy-looking girls, though the expression of their faces could as yet scarcely be called either interesting or particularly intelligent. What they might become, if roused to the consciousness of life's reality, remained to be seen, but at present they were looked upon by the busy set in Inglesby as empty-headed girls, shallow both in heart and brain, and not of much use to the world in general.

This was man's way of looking upon Mrs. Venning's two eldest daughters, forgetting that the most shallow and useless of the human race are included in the "all" for whom Christ died, and whose souls and bedies cannot therefore be worthless in His sight.

Ella looked up as her mother entered, and yawning, asked if it were not very cold out of doors? While Beatrice only leant forward more eagerly towards the fire, by the light of which she was reading.

"Cold! I should just think so," answered Mrs. Venning, taking off her fur cloak; "a regular first of November. Reading by firelight again, Beatrice? When shall I be able to impress upon you girls the folly of trying your eyes in that way? The bell is close at hand, Bee; surely it is not too much trouble to ring for the candles."

"She doesn't even hear you, mother," said Ella, laughing; "she is far too engrossed in her book. Happy girl, to be able to escape from this dull little Inglesby in that fashion."

"Stupid book!" exclaimed Beatrice, suddenly shutting it up, and throwing it impatiently away; "it ends just as every other-nothing new about it whatever."

"Ring the bell for the candles and for tea," said her mother. "It's past our usual time already. You really should try to be more thoughtful, girls; it ought not to fall upon me to see after every little thing."

Beatrice rang the bell a little impatiently. After imagining herself to be in the place of the heroine of her book all the afternoon, she found it difficult to settle down to commonplace life again, and to take a scolding amicably. Ella, on the contrary, was of an extraordinarily placid temperament, was seldom even ruffled, and found no difficulty in smiling, though all the rest of the household might be frowning. Of the two, Mrs. Venning found Ela the most difficult to deal with; she never would acknowledge herself to be in the wrong, and by her smile and placid face made every one else appear to be so.

It was with a weary sigh that Mrs. Venning left the room; these pretty daughters of hers lay very heavily on her heart. Two strong young lives, which might have been consecrated to her Master's service, to be wasted as they were! Was it her fault? she wondered, as she took off her bonnet, and if so, why had she failed? "It seems so strange," she thought to herself, "that my children, of all others, should do so little, and should keep clear of every meeting and good work. I know now they won't go to the missionary meeting on the 16th. Who's that, I wonder? as she heard a hurried kuock at the front door. "Ah, it is Sasie Ogilvie's step; I wish I could persuade her to go to the meeting, for then I know the girls would," and Mrs. Venning began to pin on her cap, while her face became more hopeful.

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"I'm a pleasant surprise, I hope," said Sasie, merrily, and rather out of breath, as after running upstairs hastily she entered the drawing-room. "The truth is that I had not intended coming in at all to-day, only I wanted to escape from some one."

What a pretty picture she made, standing framed in the doorway, the firelight shining upon her! No one could have failed to admire her. "The very one for Thy work," old Mr. North had said that summer afternoon as his eyes had fallen upon her; and had he seen her now, with her eager young face, which the cold air outside had tinged with a pretty colour, looking so strong and bright, I think he would have echoed his own words.

Ella and Beatrice, who had been at home all the afternoon, buried in their books, and were only too glad of the small excitement of a visit from Sasie Ogilvie, who was a favourite with most of the Inglesby girls, came forward to welcome her and undo her cloak. But Sasie, instead of allowing them to help her, hurried to the window, the blinds of which were not yet drawn down, and looked out into the cold twilight.

"Who is it you were escaping from?" asked Ella, following her. "Old Mr. North," said Sasie, laughing. "Somehow I'm always running up against him when I particularly want to avoid him."

"Mr. North, who is lodging at Mrs. Caston's!" exclaimed Beatrice. "What is there to object to in him? He's a little queer, it seems, but apparently quite harmless. Why should you mind him?

"Simply because the only time I have ever spoken to him he asked me questions which made me feel uncomfortable for days. But I shall have to go and see him some day, I suppose, as I promised.”

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And you mean to put off the evil day as long as possible ? "

'Yes-but," added Sasie, her eyes getting accustomed to the twilight, "isn't that him, standing just opposite ? "

Yes, there he was, bent and bowed, but looking towards the house where he thought he had seen his "bit of sunshine" enter, with his hand as usual shading his eyes. Ah! he'd been hunting for his " bit of sunshine," this poor old man, ever since he had met Sasie in the churchyard on that summer afternoon, when the sun had streamed in all its wealth of light upon her, causing him to shade his eyes as he looked after her. Though other things had faded from his mind since that afternoon, Sasie, in all her sweet bright girlhood, was still fresh in his memory. Her face had haunted him day and night, and every footstep on the staircase had made him hope for the sight that his poor weak eyes longed for. But as days and weeks passed by, and the chair he had placed opposite his was still empty, and the pretty pictures and little knick-knacks he fancied would amuse her remained where he had put them, a fear arose in his heart lest the "bit of sunshine" had been nothing more than a delusion on his part. And yet how often he imagined he caught sight of her bright hair and lithe figure in his walks!

Once he thought he had seen her only a few feet in front of him as he

was on his way to church, and he had quickened his pace, but as he walked faster so it seemed to him did Sasie, and she was soon lost to his sight among the crowd. At other times he fancied he saw her in the woods, or in the streets before him, but always just when he hoped he had found her she vanished from him. This evening he thought he saw her again, indeed he was convinced that Sasie had entered a door on the opposite side of the road. Was that where she lived? he would wait awhile and watch, so sitting down on a doorstep among the shadows, where he could not easily be seen, he waited. Would she come?

Sasie meanwhile had been standing watching him from the window, and as she watched her conscience smote her. Was she acting very unkindly towards this poor old man, she wondered, and had she been wrong in not fulfilling her promise sooner? And yet she felt so disinclined to go and see him; and what good could she do even if she went ?

She wished, however, she had gone in the summer, when she had had nothing much to do, for Sasie was busy in a certain way now.

Finding herself growing somewhat miserable and morbid, she had lately, unknown even to her own people, joined two or three societies, which helped to occupy her and to plan out her day. A reading and a practising society were among them; she had till now kept rigidly to their rules, and, however much she was wanted elsewhere, she was determined nothing should induce her to break them. These societies were therefore a decided trial to her home people. Unconscious of the fact that Sasie had bound herself to any course of action, her sudden craze for reading and practising was an enigma to them.

"Sasie is no good to any one," Mildred had remarked more than once, when, on the plea of having too much to do, her sister had shirked some home duty. But Nona Iancaster, who understood Sasie better, and loved her not a little, by no means despaired of her becoming both a good and useful woman.

It was dark before Sasie, after having had a warm cup of tea, and a merry chat with her friends, started home again. And it was not till she had reached her own gate that she remembered Mr. North. Scarcely, however, had she stepped into the brightly lighted hall before the drawingroom door was opened, and Leith Lancaster made his appearance.

"Ah, Sasie, is it you at last?" he said, on catching sight of her; "well, now I may just as well wait for the answer to the note I have brought you from my mother." And so Mr. North was banished, any how for the evening, from Sasie's mind.

But not from Leith Lancaster's. Making his way home through the dimly lighted High Street half an hour afterwards, his foot struck against something that made him start back with an expression of dismay on his lips. Stooping down he caught sight of a streak of silvery hair. "It is my poor old friend," he murmured, with a tremor in his voice.

THE PRIEST OF THE HUNTING GOD.

ALANANI was the priest or sorcerer of the hunting god Ayappan, whose chief shrine is in Savari-Ma'a (a place visited by Rev. J. Caley some years ago*), a hill among the Travancore Ghats. It was the duty of Talanani to deck himself in a certain fantastic garb, and brandishing a sword, to dance and shake himself about in a frantic way, rattling his bangles, and, intoxicated with drink and excitement, reveal in unearthly shrieks the mind of his god on any given question. He belonged to the Hill Arraan village of Erumapara, or Eruma-para (the rock of the she-buffalo), some 35 or 40 miles east from Cottayam, and first brought within the sound of the Gospel by the apostle of the Arraans, Henry Baker, junior, in 1852. The time when Talanani lived can be nearly calculated. "Old men who are now grandfathers say that their fathers knew him when he was an old man," as I have been told. He was a man of a remarkable character, and very devoted to his god; when the people of his village used to start on pilgrimage to Savari-Mala, he would say, "I am not going," and yet when they arrived at the shrine he was there to welcome them, a remarkable feat of bravery, since he performed alone a march through the forest which none others dared to do except in large companies, and even then wild beasts, tigers, &c., and disease claim numbers before they reach their journey's end. So men had a great regard for him, and while things were in this state the neighbouring Chogans (palm

See the GLEANER for May, 1878, which has a sketch of Mr. Caley sleeping in a tree. † See GLEANER, June, 1879.

tree climbers) killed him during one of his frequent drunken bouts and hid his body in the forest; but the tigers, Ayappan's dogs, scratched up his body, without tearing it, and leaving it on the edge of the grave the wild elephants, out of respect for the forest god, carried it to a road where friends found it, and so the murder was out.

A plague of small-pox broke out among the Chogans, which one of the Arraan sorcerers (or devil-dancers) revealed would not abate until they made an image of their victim and worshipped it, and that the plague was sent by the anger of Sastawn (Chattan, or Sattan, the god of the Travancore Hill boundary). The image was duly made of bronze, about four inches high, and placed in a tiny temple in a grove. The heir of Talanani became the priest of the new shrine, and frequent vows were made by the Arraans when they went on hunting expeditions that if successful they would give the deity Talanani refreshments, arrack, parched rice, venison, &c.

The story so far is what a heathen Arraan would tell in all good faith, but more remains to be said. All the descendants of the once worshipped heathen sorcerer are now Christians, the spiritual children of the late Mr. Baker; and when I was in charge of Melkavu in 1881, the last heir, who was not a Christian, decided to join "such as are being saved," and when he put himself under instruction for baptism he handed to the catechist for me the bronze image of our hero, the large sword, more than four feet long, and the silver-tipped wand, a pair of bangles, and two necklaces, one of large and one of small berries, sacred to the Hindu god Siva, which had been used in the worship of Talatani. The village of Erumapara is now in charge of Rev. W. Kuruwila, who was ordained deacon by Bishop Speechly on September 21th, 1882, but he had been for many years previously the catechist at Melkavu, living with his family amongst the Hill Arraans, a day's journey from the low countries, and exposed to much danger of fevers as well as comparatively isolated. Very few natives from the plains care to live at Melkavu. May God bless and keep the new pastor, and reward him with many converts from among the heathen Arraans. W. J. RICHARDS.

MEN'S WORKING PARTIES.
To the Editor.

IR,-I have great pleasure in sending you, according to promise, an account of the things made by the men of my village Bible-class for our CM.S. sale. My ex-soldier made an excellent rug of snips of cloth, some of which were kindly sent by one of the readers of the GLEANER in response to my letter in the January number. "Sweet home was worked in red cloth in the centre. The gardeners made two beautiful bird-cages, two knitted scarfs, and three walking-sticks. The tailor made a small suit of clothes, the baker sent six loaves of bread, and last, but not least, the blacksmith made four fire-shovels and two pairs of tongs, all of which were sold immediately, and more were so much wanted that he has kindly promised to make them. All these contributions had a table to themselves, and excited especial interest both before the sale and at the time. Everything was bought.

I do hope many other young men will go and do likewise, and feel what a privilege it is to work with their own hands that they may have to give to those who need that greatest of all blessings, the knowledge of the Saviour who gave Himself for us.

The men were very much interested in the Norwich C.M.S. Exhibition, and I think the sight of the idols of wood and stone have made us all realise more than ever the need and importance of missionary work. Would it not be a good plan to have little exhibitions of the same kind in our village schoolrooms? S. C. E.

A Working Man's Effort.

To the Editor.

EAR SIR,-Seeing in your January issue mention made of Men's Work ing Classes, it occurred to me it might be a hint to some if you thought well to state my last year's plan of helping.

Being only a working-man, and unable to give but a small sum, and being fond of birds, it occurred to me (after hearing a local clergyman urge the claims of this grand Society) that I might combine pleasure to myself and assistance to the Society, so I made a large cage, and obtained a pair of common canaries, with which last summer bred, and sold their young, enabling me to add about 19s. Cd. to my box, besides having two yet unsold. X. Y. Z.

Devonshire Mosses for the C.M.S.

EAR MR. EDITOR,-We have been considering how we could add our share to the "half as much again," and have thought that the lovely We have lanes and moss-covered banks of Devon might assist us. pressed and mounted various specimens of messes, and should now be glad to dispose of them either singly or in a collection for the benefit of the C.M.S. Should any of your readers be disposed to give us orders for this good cause, we shall be most glad to receive them. L. E. JUKES. Address-Miss L. E. Jukes, 11, St. Paul Street, Tiverton, Devon.

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