gospel was the first, chief purpose of the mission then, as now; and having created a desire, or aroused a curiosity before unknown, the next object was to furnish them upon easy terms with the sacred volume.

With what measure of success has this effort been attended? Is the Bible better known and better read among the millions of the metropolitan poor? "How wears the missing link?" The originator of the enterprise commenced with a five-pound note, not suspecting that an army of women would be supported in the course of a short time. "The first five pounds to meet and sustain these temporal aims of the mission came, unasked, from Ireland, from a Christian lady who hoped that her own country-people would be comforted and raised; and in fourteen years this five pounds has expanded into one hundred and fifteen thousand pounds, still all unasked, in the form of individual petitionunasked, save by the eloquence of facts in the mission history." And now two hundred agents are employed and supported. At the end of the first month's labours of "Marian," the first Bible-woman, seventy Bible subscribers were placed upon the books, and the Bibles sought for were mostly those adorned with gilt edges. The purchasers in St. Giles were of the lowest class of street bread-winners, many of them gaining a livelihood, such as it was, by selling articles of small value. The promise to purchase and to read the Scriptures was not enough; the word must be spoken to them. Free conversation upon religion must be sought. "It was found impossible to sit down to read to them in the midst of their dirt. The Bible-woman proposed to ask a few of them to tea with her that she might have a little talk with them, and see if they could help each other to secure some more comfortable homes in St. Giles. Her own poor but tidy room was the pattern, and eight of the most punctual Bible subscribers honoured the invitation by coming as clean as they could. Being alone together they talked freely, and in one or two things they were all agreed. They had all bad husbands, and they could not attend public worship for want of clothes. Their hostess proposed their following the example of a family who had become teetotallers. Then clean and cheerful rooms were spoken of, and how these, with a kind and sober wife and tidy children, tended to make good husbands. Then they heard a chapter of the great Book' explained and prayed over. On the whole they thought they had never spent such a pleasant evening in their lives. Some gradual and important modifications took place afterwards, but this was the beginning of our now wide-spreading mothers' classes for the outcast poor." It was not pecuniary help that these poor women most needed, but SELFHELP, the great want indeed of the poorest classes. If the Bible had been given, it would probably have been sold for gin; if it were purchased, it would be better prized. So with clothing-to give it would injure rather than help them. To teach them how to get more comfortable and tidy clothes, was the better way of raising them in position. This has been a principle never forgotten by the mission.

Of the spiritual character of the results we have many interesting notices, written for the most part by the ladies who act as superintendents to the Bible-women. One writes that she has more than one hundred women at her mothers' meeting, and many seem in earnest

about their souls; another has eighty mothers, to whom the Lord is so greatly blessing the word that it would take hours to relate it all. Another writes: "One day I invited a woman to our mothers' meeting; her answer was a striking one: 'I'll come, marm, if they be all bad and ragged like myself; but I'll never go to no more churches. I went once, and got a seat by a quality; and if she didn't pull all her things so close round her that I up and went out.' The joy of this poor heart, when she found our room was open on purpose for such as she, was very cheering. She is a regular attendant now, and is often seen to drop big tears as the word of life is read; and she has brought to the room seven others like herself." The ladies who superintend the districts, and the Bible-women who work under them, must not be afraid to associate with those who are far from clean either in person or "It is sometimes," writes one lady superintendent, "by shaking dirty hands that we reach dirtier hearts." One such dirtylooking young woman was brought to receive Jesus Christ as her Redeemer through the message delivered in the mothers' meeting; but she is no longer unclean in appearance. Her home is tidy; her baby well looked after, and the little thing wears a hood hemmed by its mother an accomplishment quite unknown before she was brought under Christian influence. The conduct of the Bible-woman often wins the approval of the roughest and most reckless of men. likes that new woman o' your'n," observed a man one day to a lady superintendent, "and I'll tell ye why-'cos she's never bin in this room. yet five minutes before out comes the Book. Now, I'm a rough chap, as you well knows, and I'm not too good; and if there's one thing that I dislike more than another, 'tis havin' to sit and listen to the Bible, for it makes me feel awful uncomfortable-you knows how I fidgets about." To which appeal the visitor responded, "And yet you tell me you like the new Bible-woman, because she reads this Bible to you." "Well, ye see," was the reply, "I reckons this way-you knows what a sight I think o' my littie Tom, there; well, whether folks likes it or not, I can't help talken about him, and catchen hold on him, and showen him off; and I says to myself-If these 'ere good people loves God so much as they say they does, and thinks so much of his Book, then they ought to talk on him, and pull out the Book that shows him off, and I respects 'um for it, too, and I ain't without a few thoughts of being like 'um." What good reasoning is this! Many Christians we know might greatly profit by it were they to take it to heart. Let us hope that this "rough chap," as he describes himself, is "not far from the kingdom of God."

Not only are the mothers cared for, instructed and helped, but a lively concern is shown for the fathers; and Mrs. Ranyard makes a very earnest appeal to Christian gentlemen to inaugurate Bible-classes, to be held in the evening, for the fathers of families. "Where," she asks, "are the educated Christian gentlemen of any neighbourhood, who will individually take up the classes of fathers, whom they might weekly see around them, to influence for good; to whom they too might lift up Jesus,' and in such a way as would keep them from the debasing society of the public-house all the rest of the week?" This work, of course, is not neglected by the many city missionaries and Scripture-readers; but

what we suppose Mrs. Ranyard desiderates is something more efficient, and after the pattern of the mothers' class. The late Duchess of Gordon subscribed £100 for this special object, and the mission has been founded. We have one illustration of what has been done in this direction. The class was formed in consequence of a husband of one of the mothers attending the meeting observing to the Bible-woman, "I wish the lady would do something for us, as well as for the missusses." The lady felt it to be hardly within her province, but resolved upon making the experiment. Six men met on the following Wednesday evening in the Bible-woman's home-men who were living recklessly and sinfully-and the number did not increase for some time. Afterwards, the class met in a more suitable room, and was attended by about fourteen men, some employed in a neighbouring gas-factory and some in the cemetery. Their numbers considerably increased, and their interest grew, and we read some interesting details of the results of these gatherings. Two of the men were great drunkards, but learning habits of sobriety they also acquired habits of thrift, and ultimately became possessed of pigs and poultry, "having quite little farmyards." "They showed me their stock," says the lady teacher, "triumphantly saying, There you see, these be fine fellows! Thanks to the men's meeting. One young man was converted during prayer, and he has become useful in distributing tracts among the gasmen with whom he labours. “Three of our working men have agreed to visit twelve families every Sunday morning before divine service, leaving a tract with each, and to enquire whether they go to any place of worship: if not, to try and induce them. We have a club into which the men pay as much as they can spare, and half-yearly their savings are returned to them. They find the benefit of their pence being returned to them in silver, and their silver in gold."

The Bible-women's Mission has not been altogether neglectful of the City Arabs, and tailors' classes for wild boys have been formed-a good idea, which some Ragged Schools we know have long carried out with considerable success. "We choose the cleverest boy for a captain, and appoint him storekeeper of needles and thread ;" while the Bible-woman dispenses and guides the whole. Sometimes a poor old tailoress is employed for a small payment. "The first twelve in this district were afterwards glad to go to a Ragged School, when they were so well patched, by their own fingers, as to excite the envy of their new mates, who demanded of their governess to be taught to patch also."

A new work, hitherto unnoticed in these pages, has been started. Some of the Bible-women are trained for nurses for the helpless and the sick. This has grown out of the other work. The Bible-woman has defied the rules which restrict her to her particular work, through feelings of sympathy with the suffering. As it was rightly deemed too much for her to act as nurse by night and Bible-woman by day, a "second arm" of the mission was thought of, composed of those who were well fitted for nurses, and who by a little training might be devoted to the gratuitous nursing of the very poor. A gentleman and his wife provided a suitable "Mother House" for the nurse department of the the mission, and a few women who had the faculty for this work were appointed. Some of these nurses were first led to Christ at the mothers'

classes, and the better acquainted they are with the condition of the poorest and the untidiest, the more successful do they become in their new occupation. "Our very first month's experience of the working of our Mother House' showed, as might be supposed, the great want of the London poor of nursing at their own homes, and the desirableness of gradually setting apart to this service all the suitable women who weekly apply to us for evangelising work." The Bible-women nurses "have often to sling their tin basin round their waist, and, besides their provision basket, travel with a leather postman's bag, in which they can. find all they want, ready to hand, that will be lacking in the poor man's house-rag, lint, lotion, and oil-silk for dressing wounds; thimble, thread, needles and pins, knife and scissors; and then what itinerant blessings they prove to countless numbers who are not only lost for want of a word' to their souls, but often lost for want of some early and simple care for their bodies, and who suffer long sicknesses from the neglect of common remedies." The demand for these nurses has been greater than was anticipated, and medical men, and the medical lady superintendents, have spoken highly of the way in which their delicate duties are performed. We give an extract from one of the reports

"Mr. S- speaks so gratefully about nurse. He cannot lie down in bed, so his fish-basket and his own clothing were piled up for him to lean against. These things were so hard that his back was very sore. Imagine the comfort of an air-pillow to him.

"She's the right sort of woman, mum,' said he, this here nurse; she understands everything. The poor was never waited on in this style afore, to my knowledge. Then she's a Christian. I don't want no gossips, only I wish I could read?'

"We told him the story of one of our mothers now in glory, who 'thanked God that he would not shut her out of heaven because she could not read,' and entreated him to believe the good news that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.”

Many similar testimonies are given in the book from which we quote, sufficient to show that the mission did wisely in starting this department, and in not losing sight of the distinctively religious part of its work. The dormitories for working girls have also been highly successful indeed, the work of the mission seems to increase year by year, so that it is impossible to tell whereunto it will grow. Not the least satisfactory portion of the result is the influence which it has exerted upon Christian churches. Many of us prefer to see churches sending visitors and Bible-women to the poor rather than leaving it to great societies, however wisely formed or successfully managed those societies may be. We are not frightened by the bugbear of denominationalism, which alarms so many who prefer everything that is unsectarian to the work done by the Christian church. On the contrary, we hold that unsectarian societies are mainly useful in filling up the gaps which the churches have left alone. We are glad, therefore, to find that many churches have been aroused by such noble efforts as the Bible-women's Mission to look after the poor, and if this society had done but little else it would have effected much to justify its existence. Certainly, in these days of cheap Bibles, it is a shame if every effort be not made to bring the word of God to the homes

of the humblest classes in our great cities, and to induce them to read, mark, and inwardly digest the Word of Life. And considering the great needs of London-needs that have been far from fully suppliedwe hail with joy every attempt made by those who love the Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity and in truth, whether working in connection with church organizations or in avowedly unsectarian societies, to extend the kingdom of our dear Redeemer.

A Few Summer Reminiscences of Jona.

IN wety on the north of Britain, and consequently the

N a former paper we showed how, ages ago, Iona became the principal

most favoured of the Hebridean Isles. If she withheld not her spiritual wealth, but freely distributed knowledge among surrounding heathen clans, posterity has not forgotten the obligation; for the condition of the island in our own day shows that, at least, good has been returned for good.

What may be called the Free Church history of Iona is both instructive and encouraging. At the time of the memorable disruption. in the church of Scotland, one devoted pastor, with his wife, left a comfortable manse and the good things of time for conscience sake, and found an abode in this place, his home having been an indifferent hut, with its thatch secured by stones, which, to the terror of the uninitiated, would sometimes fall through to disturb a dinner or to awaken a sleeper. "It was not without emotion," wrote D'Aubigné to Dr. Chalmers, "that I landed on the shores of Iona, whence so many centuries ago Christianity was borne to a part of the Continent, and even to our own Switzerland; and when crossing the churchyard, where the chiefs of the clan rest, I heard that there the Free Church assembled. When entering one of the miserable huts, almost exposed to the inclemency of the weather, where the minister and his family had taken refuge-then, dear doctor, I better understood the Free Church."

The

Happily things are altered for the better. The Free Church having passed from strength to strength, its Ionian agent now occupies a neatly-constructed manse, and ministers in a sanctuary suited to the requirements of his congregation. What a piquant chapter in the annals of providence is the history of secession in Scotland! testimony of the Free Church for Christ is full and faithful; and, while rejoicing in this fact, we feel a growing interest in the isle whence the cloud, no bigger than a man's hand, first arose to bless the mountains and plains of Britain with fertilizing showers.

Much may be said against the vice of hero worship, and of the vanity of posthumous fame; yet nevertheless, for Columba's sake, a lasting interest has attached itself to Iona. The Romanist may come in search of worthless legends, the mere dross of history. We visit the ground, as we think for the sake of no unprofitable remembrances. True to the famous prophecy-whether uttered by Columba, or whether the invention of a monkish chronicler does not affect the subject-the island continues to draw to its shores a crowd of Christian antiquaries, most of