force something may be said. The work originated with a missionary in Spitalfields, who supposed it was his duty to devote a portion of time to promoting the welfare of a neglected class. Through calling at a certain station he heard of a constable who lay on a bed of sickness, and obtaining permission to visit the sufferer, the evangelist became the instrument of the man's conversion. The policeman died, and by following him to the grave with a number of comrades a ready introduction was gained as well as a favourable opportunity of benefiting others secured. The earnest evangelist soon became a favourite, and on pay days could often be seen distributing tracts and speaking words of Christian counsel to the men. A more widespread interest in what the stranger said and did was soon apparent. What did it all mean? Then came the uncommon and unlooked-for discovery-it was perceived to be truth indeed that some people really did care for policemen's souls. The question also suggested itself, If one division appreciated the Christian attention shown them, why were not other divisions looked after? "I hear sad complaints of you," said a Christian tradesman to the missionary; "my neighbour opposite says you have nearly ruined him. Till you got among the police they would go over to his house and have a jolly drinking bout. Now, he scarcely gets a call on pay day." Having proved his fitness for certain duties, the missionary was specially appointed to labour among the police, and on leaving Spitalfields was presented with a testimonial by a number of converts.

On being allowed to devote his whole time to the constables, this evangelist set about the task of completely mastering what he called police science. He associated with the men as frequently as opportunities allowed, and at all hours of both day and night. The gratitude of one constable was ensured by giving him a tract when St. Paul's clock was chiming the midnight hour, and by asking the pointed question, "If you should die before that clock strikes again, where will your soul be?" The men were not long in discovering that they possessed a real friend, and one worthy of being made a confidant in reference to their every-day trials and difficulties. Work among their ranks then became extremely onerous, two or more services a day being necessarily conducted. The chief commissioners, both the good Sir Richard Mayne and his predecessor, aided and sympathised in the good work, and showed a constant readiness to listen to any suggestions which might tend to promote the comfort of their officers; and hence, probably some thanks are due to hard-working evangelists for the comforts and improved dwellings which the men now enjoy.

Besides the services held for their special benefit at the stations or section-houses, the married police enjoy the privilege of being visited in their private homes. Great diversity of character exists among them. One who had lain in delirium for days became calm and restful on being visited and spoken to of Christ. Another appeared to be brokenhearted on account of a wicked life, and anxious to drink in such comfort as the gospel of peace can give. The needs of others are as various as their characters. Some who are just entering the service look for counsel suited to their position; others who are about resigning their situations to try the fortune of a foreign clime also listen to advice. Perhaps a whole family is found embarking for one of the

colonies, where the father hopes to thrive as he cannot thrive amid the hard competition of London. Often, too, can a policeman tell a remarkable life-story. One was encountered who in his youth had received a university training at Oxford. He was about taking honours at his college when, overtaken by family misfortune, he was compelled to relinquish the tempting paths of literature for the broad highway of commerce. When he started on his new career fortune smiled upon him. Securing a valuable appointment in the wine trade, he advanced rapidly until he was eventually taken into partnership, and at length he succeeded to the entire business. He amassed a large fortune, and could he have remained content, he might have lived in luxurious ease. Still thirsting for more gold, however, he embarked in a large speculation and lost all his capital. He now sank to the verge of starvation, and was only saved from utter destitution by accepting a situation in the police force. This severe reverse, joined to the heavy labour of his new position, so affected the poor fellow as to pccasion premature death.

Not only strange histories, but startling adventures are met with. Once at midnight the police missionary was crossing a bridge in the London Docks when a splash and the call of a constable's rattle told that some sudden tragedy had occurred. It was a suicide, and the flesh tingled as it will do when aught more horrible than usual is happening. The truth was soon out. An unhappy creature called Plymouth Poll, who had not been sober for weeks, took a last dread leap in the darkness! The body was soon recovered, and in the room of a public-house hard by, persevering but fruitless efforts were made to restore animation. Of all the heart-breaking sights which a sincursed city can present, perhaps none equal in horror the dragging from the cold flood the lifeless body of a woman, whose vicious course of life led her to make a fatal attack upon herself. The darkness, the black, yawning water, the shrieks, oaths, and curses of the victim's degraded acquaintances who rush to the waters edge, make up a scene which none need desire to witness, for after having once seen it, who would not desire to blot it from his memory?

There is one other class of public servants which may be named in connection with the work in hand, viz., firemen. The number of fires in London during each year exceeds a thousand, and the number shows a tendency to increase. Gas, matches, and other conveniences are in a great measure responsible for this, and were the curfew obeyed which still tolls at Shoreditch and other churches, the city would, in all probability, enjoy greater immunity from fires than it does at present. In olden times, when houses were made of wood, the curfew must have been the means of preserving many a home from untimely destruction. However, that institution is gone for ever.

Before the organisation of the police force, the neighbours around the spot where a fire occurred were required to guard the ground, and were summoned to the scene of action by the beating of a drum. After the great fire, and prior to the founding of insurance offices, the citizens enacted various regulations, which may now serve to amuse the antiquary. Each parish was required to be furnished with such machinery as was then in vogue for conquering the enemy. There

was no lack of buckets, ladders, and shovels; while would-be sightseers were required to stay at home until sent for by the Lord Mayor, whose presence on the scene was indispensable to impart due eclat to a considerable conflagration, and he commonly came up with an imposing guard of "company" men, whose duty may have consisted in seeing that no timbers or firebrands fell on the chief magistrate's coach. These picturesque exhibitions are now substituted by fire engines and trained firemen, the fire offices having united to establish the London Fire Brigade. The Brigade is now in a high state of efficiency; its movements and achievements exciting the surprise of all observant foreigners who visit England.

An evangelist who specially devotes his time to firemen has greater difficulties to encounter than are common to similar work among the police. The very nature of the firemen's calling tends to make them careless, and those among them who are disposed to attend public worship will not always find opportunities of following their inclinations. A certain missionary, when appointed to these duties, at once perceived the obstacles he should have to overcome. By way of commencement, he called at the chief station in Watling Street, carrying with him a number of publications, which he offered to lend. On his entering the establishment, the men, engaged in cleaning their engines, were unable to account for the intrusion of a stranger, who spoke what was to them the strange language of Christianity, and so treated the affair as a joke, and turned the business into laughter. At first, judging him by the pack he carried, the company half suspected the missionary of being a travelling jeweller, but when, instead of Brummagem trinkets, interesting books were shown them, a real interest was excited. The chief engineer, in a most respectful manner, selected a book, and the late unfortunate Mr. Braidwood politely welcomed the newcomer. In this manner was the ice broken. The routine at other offices was similar to this. At one of them, a man said he had no time for reading, nor for worshipping God, though he considered himself none the worse on that account; but when he proceeded to depreciate the Bible as a book of contradictions, he was rebuked by the others, who confessed that they should be better men if their lives were guided entirely by Scripture precepts. At another station there was scarce time to put down the pack, and to begin to speak to the officers, ere news of "fire" was flashed into the building, and in two minutes the engine was ready, horses were buckled to, and all sped away as if for dear life; "Ah, sir," called out one of the men, 66 we don't know that we shall ever come back, when we are

going out!"

These men are extremely subject to accident; often is some strong fellow found prostrated on a bed of pain in the hospital. But whether at work or at rest, they are indispensable public servants, and as such deserve sympathy and Christian instruction at the hands of those whom they serve. Many whose duties oblige them to spend the greater portion of their time in the streets, cab and omnibus men, police and firemen, are being blessed by the all-reclaiming touch of Christianity, and in every instance wherein good is communicated, the public is a substantial gainer. Since we accept their services, let us give them something better ia return, and show that it is more blessed to give than to receive.

Real Contact with Jesus: a Sacramental

Meditation.

BY C. H. SPURGEON.

And Jesus said, Somebody hath touched me: for I perceive that virtue is gone out of me.-Luke viii. 46.

OUR Lord was very frequently in the midst of a crowd. His preaching

was so plain and so forcible that he always attracted a vast company of hearers; and, moreover, the rumour of the loaves and fishes no doubt had something to do with increasing his audiences, while the expectation of beholding a miracle would be sure to add to the numbers of the hangers-on. Our Lord Jesus Christ often found it difficult to move through the streets, because of the masses who pressed upon him. This was encouraging to him as a preacher, and yet how small a residuum of real good came of all the excitement which gathered around his personal ministry. He might have looked upon the great mass and have said, "What is the chaff to the wheat?" for here it was piled up upon the threshing-floor, heap upon heap; and yet after his decease his disciples might have been counted by a few scores, for those who had spiritually received him were but few. Many were called, but few were chosen. Yet, wherever one was blessed our Saviour took note of it; it touched a chord in his soul. He never could be unaware when virtue had gone out of him to heal a sick one, or when power had gone forth with his ministry to save a sinful one. Of all the crowd that gathered round the Saviour upon the day of which our text speaks, I find nothing said about one of them except this solitary "somebody" who had touched him. The crowd came and the crowd went, but little is recorded of it all. Just as the ocean, having advanced to full tide, leaves but little behind it when it retires again to its channel, so the vast multitude around the Saviour left only this one precious deposit-one "somebody" who had touched him and had received virtue from him.

Ah, my Master, it may be so again this evening! These Sabbath mornings and these Sabbath evenings the crowds come pouring in like a mighty ocean, filling this house, and then they all retire again; only here and there is a "somebody" left weeping for sin, a "somebody" left rejoicing in Christ, a "somebody" who can say, "I have touched the hem of his garment, and I have been made whole." The whole of my other hearers are not worth the "somebodies." The many of you are not worth the few, for the many are the pebbles, and the few are the diamonds; the many are the heaps of husks, and the few are the precious grains. May God find them out at this hour, and his shall be all the praise.

Jesus said, "Somebody hath touched me," from which we observe that in the use of means and ordinances we should never be satisfied, unless we can get into personal contact with Christ; secondly, if we can get into such personal contact we shall have a blessing; "I perceive that virtue is gone out of me;" and, thirdly, if we do get a blessing, Christ

will know it; however obscure our case may be, he will know it, and he will have us let others know it; he will speak, and ask such questions as will draw us out, and manifest us to the world.

I. First, then, IN THE USE OF ALL MEANS AND ORDINANCES LET IT BE OUR CHIEF AIM AND OBJECT TO COME INTO PERSONAL CONTACT WITH THE LORD JESUS CHRIST.

Peter said, "The multitude throng thee and press thee," and that is true of the multitude to this very day; but of those who come where Christ is in the assembly of his saints a large proportion only come because it is their custom to do so. Perhaps they hardly know why they go to a place of worship. They go because they always did go, and they think it wrong not to go. They are just like the doors which swing upon their hinges; they take no interest in what is done, at least only in the exterior parts of the service; into the heart and soul of the business they do not enter, and cannot enter. They are glad if the sermon is rather short, there is so much the less tedium for them. They are glad if they can look around and gaze at the congregation, they find in that something to interest them; but getting near to the Lord Jesus is not the business they come upon. They have not looked at it in that light. They come and they go; they come and they go, and it will be so till at the last they will come for the last time, and they will find out in the next world that the means of grace were not instituted to be matters of custom, and that to have heard Jesus Christ preached and to have rejected him is no trifle, but a solemn thing to be answered for in the presence of the Judge.

Others there are who come to the house of prayer, and try to enter into the service, and do so in a certain fashion; but it is only selfrighteously or professionally. They would come to the Lord's table; they would attend to baptism; they would join the church; but they have baptism, yet not the Holy Spirit; they have the Lord's Supper, but they have not the Lord himself; they eat the bread, but they never eat his flesh; they drink the wine, but they never drink his blood; they have been buried in the pool, but they have never been buried with Christ in baptism, nor have they risen again with him into newness of life. To them to read, to sing, to kneel, to hear, and so on, are enough. They are content with the shell, but the blessed spiritual kernel, the true marrow and fatness, these they know nothing of. These are the many, go into what church or meeting-house you please. They are in the press around Jesus, but they do not touch him. They come, but they come not into contact with Jesus. They are outward, external hearers only, but there is no inward touching of the blessed person of Christ, no mysterious contact with the ever-blessed Saviour, no stream of life and love flowing from him to them. It is all mechanical religion. Vital godliness they know nothing of.

But, "somebody," said Christ, "somebody hath touched me," and that is the soul of the matter. Oh, my hearer, when you are in prayer alone never be satisfied with having prayed; do not give it up till you have touched Christ in prayer; or, if you cannot get at him, at any rate sigh and cry until you do. Do not think you have prayed, but try again. When you come to public worship, I beseech you, rest not satisfied with listening to the sermon, and so on-as you all do with