introduced, colored persons, however well dressed and well behaving, were not allowed to occupy seats in them unless they were there as servile attendants of some other passenger. Was St. Louis peculiar in this? Now, in the street cars in that city and others, colored ladies and gentlemen are as well seated and are treated as respectfully as anybody. The change is very great. A more just and generous sentiment toward colored people is growing in all parts of our country. It needs to grow a great deal yet, and its growth cannot be hurried by debate and strife and denunciation. They will hinder it. Calm statement and calm thinking are good for it.

Let us wait patiently for the report of the committees of the two General Assemblies. Let us see if they can agree to recommend anything to the Assemblies of 1888 which proposes to make the shadow go backward on the dial-plate of our church's history. Is there any probability of this? And if it could happen, would it be possible for our committee to get such a report adopted?

Is it not better to give that committee a chance to find and to show what it can do, and what it wishes to do, without vehement assertion, on the one side or on the other, of what it cannot do, along with mere conjectures as to what it is likely to attempt?

It is to be regretted that the committee. from the other Assembly is not as unrestricted as our own. But what possible harm can come of a conference-talking the matter over as they will in that joint committee and carrying back the report of it to their respective constituents? What these two churches really need is such knowledge of each other as the two Missouri synods have. Committees of conference, and their reports and the discussion of them, promote such mutual acquaintance.

Need we be afraid of such acquaintance? When we really know each other, if we find that we cannot agree to become one, then we can agree to remain two. Let us try to conduct all our consultations and discussions so that, if we are still two churches, we shall be two sister churches, respecting and loving each other.

Those Missouri men constitute two synods co-terminous and co-operating, and they are earnestly studious of the practical questions which concern the Christianization of their great state. They desire to be one synod in order that they may do that work more effectively. They do not like to waste. strength and resources and influence with the people in keeping up two organizations, for which they find no reason in any views which they hold or in any facts of their present situation and work. Nothing else than loyal adhesion to their respective General Assemblies prevents the union of these two synods. Neither the sentiment which clings to the old, nor that which pants for the new, nor that which aspires to the grand, is finally to rule in this business, but the conviction which shall at last be reached as to what truth and usefulness require. There is not a more thoroughly practical question before us than this. How can these two Presbyterian churches do most for the country in which they exist, for the world and for God?-as two churches or as one church?

The New York Observer speaks thoughtfully and charitably of the Baptists as holding a view of Scripture precepts which constrains them to separation from others whom they acknowledge and love as fellow disciples, but who interpret those Scripture precepts differently and therefore cannot be obedient to them in the Baptist sense.

Painful as this is, the Observer points out

that there is comfort in the assurance that people who bear this pain, and the keener pain of inflicting it upon those whom they love, in simple obedience to the Bible as they understand it, can be trusted not to be unfaithful to the Bible doctrines which they agree with all evangelical Christians in holding as fundamental. They who stand thus, at such sacrifice, for what they deem essential to visible church membership, are not likely to compromise that which they and we agree in regarding as essential to the soul's saving union with Christ.

...

The Observer then pertinently adds: Meanwhile it is most important for all evangelical Christians who do not entertain exclusive views on baptism and ordination to remember that so far as actual church union is concerned their responsibility at present relates especially to themselves. . . It is time enough for them to mourn and lament over the divisive views of the Bap tists when they have ceased to be divided by their own far less influential peculiarities of faith and practice. Church union, promising and permanent, should begin with a firm cohesion of all naturally allied churches. This would greatly reduce the number of bodies to be united in the great evangelical church of the future and would greatly facilitate its development. Thus in India, Reformed churches holding the Presbyterian system are to be united in one body. It was a movement sorely needed. Their divisions were sadder and less excusable than others, and the practical evils were in proportion. Dr. Chamberlain, whose influence has been so great in support of this movement, says: "Our further aim is that on each mission field all of the churches of the same faith and polity shall first organically unite, forming, say, one Presbyterian church in India, one Methodist, one Baptist, one Lutheran, one Congregational, one Episcopalian, and then form a Federal Union of all these, with periodical congresses, or councils, that shall work in increasing harmony, until at length, in God's good time, led by our one Master, we may be able, in the premillennial future,

all to unite and have one self-governing, self-supporting, self-propagating National 'Church of Christ in India,' as prayed our glorious Leader-that they all may be one, that the world may believe that thou hast sent me."" Let us who are at work here remember the natural order in which union will manifest itself, and proceed with tender caution to take the beams out of our own eyes, that we may see clearly to remove the motes from the eyes of our brethren.

We learn from the New York Evangelist of "a notable London mission," in which our readers will surely rejoice.

A Mr. Charrington, formerly a partner, with his father, in a great firm which owned and controlled two thousand liquor stores, "in 1869 became soundly converted, and immediately began working for the Master; but his conscience would not permit him to remain a member of the brewery firm, so he

announced to his father that he could no longer remain a partner.”

Notwithstanding this withdrawment from his father's business, his father, at his death, left him a large amount of property. Consecrating this, as he had consecrated himself, he has made a large investment, which the writer in the Evangelist thus describes:

The Great Assembly Hall, with a coffee palace and a book store in its front, was built at a cost of $200,000, and was opened in February, 1886, by the Marquis of Westminster. It is the largest mission hall in the world, seating five thousand persons. The architecture of the interior is something after the style of Spurgeon's Tabernacle. With a large organ, the cost of which was $5000, and a choir of nearly one hundred fine voices, they have always good and attractive music.

Mr. Charrington's method in conducting his mission is original and successful, quite different from any other mission in many ways. Each month of the year he secures able and evangelistic ministers to conduct

the services during the month, and as it is printed on the outside of the hall "4000 nights," one can see how many evangelists have been engaged by him during the past ten years.

Mr. Charrington has sacrificed an immense income to carry on this work, and his self-denial, zeal and energy in the cause of Christ are well known. It is not too

much to say that thousands have been blessed through his indefatigable labors for many years among the masses in the east of London. He receives no compensation for his untiring efforts, excepting the approval of the Master and the assurance in his own heart that so great a number will bless God throughout eternity for the Tower Hamlet's mission.

Are there not some rich men in our

country to whom God offers the privilege of making such paying investments in our great cities? Are some of them possibly liquor dealers now, who may, in answer to prayer, be soundly converted? Have we forgotten Jerry Macauley?

The Advance gives an interesting account of a league against atheism lately formed in Paris. It is said to have been "started among some young students belonging to different religious bodies," and to have been "taken up by eminent religionists-Protestant, Jewish and Catholic." The Advance

closes its article thus:

"Leagues against atheism" are indeed needed-and how many such!-in America as well as in those countries where the fierce reactions against Romanism have left such multitudes stranded on the barren sands of materialism. But what is every home missionary society, what every Christian college, every pure and living church, every thoroughly alive Sunday-school, every wideawake young people's Christian endeavor society, but a league, and a league of just the right sort, against atheism? If only Paris and France had more leagues of this kind, there would be infinitely more hope

for that republic. Atheism will never be driven out of Paris or Chicago, London or New York, Dublin or Boston, except by the "expulsive power of a new affection." Nothing ever dispelled night's darkness but the incoming of the morning. Then how easily, how naturally, it is done.

Are not those also the best kind of leagues against intemperance, against Sabbath breaking, against gambling, and against the evil one in all the guises and disguises which he assumes?

Speaking of the Panama canal, the Northwestern Presbyterian justly says:

It is better for a nation to be putting forth its strength in such an enterprise than other people. De Lesseps and Leopold and in the long prevalent way of fighting some Stanley are beating swords into ploughshares and spears into pruning hooks by wholesale. They are the John the Baptists of a new era which, we trust, is dawning, when the strength of men will be used not in mutual destruction and the annihilation of each other's resources, but in making this old earth more convenient, more productive, more beautiful, and its inhabitants better and happier. God has given the earth to the children of men, but through their own wrong headedness and heartedness and handedness they have not begun to get the good out of it which it is capable of bringing to mankind.

Imagine all the soldiers kept under arms in Europe employed in useful national and international works of public utility. What a Europe they could make in a century! And why should not we make America what Europe would have been made centuries ago but for its silly and wicked wars? And why cannot we give the money and the men, with which we might conquer and annex other smaller countries to our own, to

Christianize them and so annex them to the kingdom of Christ? It would be less expensive and more glorious.

In a certain small town in our country there is a picture of a little red-haired Welsh boy. He is represented as holding in his left hand a staff bearing the American flag with its stripes and stars, and pointing with the forefinger of his right hand to this legend, printed on the canvas, Where liberty dwells, there is my country. This picture was made in Wales, seventy years ago. How many of my little readers can tell whether it is a photograph? How many can tell how many stars the flag had on it at that time? I shall be very glad to get letters from any of you answering these questions and giving the reasons for your answer.

That little boy's father had come to America a number of years before, while he was unmarried, and had been so much. pleased with the country and with its liberty and its opportunities that he went back to marry the young woman whom he loved, hoping to bring her to America and, with her help, to make a home here. But there were difficulties in the way of their coming, or perhaps objections on the part of their parents or friends, I do not know which or what, -so that for a number of years they could not come. A daughter and a son were born to them in Wales, and the little son grew large enough to stand up for the picture about which I have just told you and asked you the questions.

At another time that little boy was standing by the side of his father upon one of the mountains in Wales. The father took his handkerchief from his pocket, and holding it up by one corner, noticed which way the wind blew it, and then said, "That is the right wind to take anybody to America."

"And what is America?" said the boy.

no king; where they pay no tithes; and where every poor boy can go to school."

When that boy was ten years old, his father and mother came, bringing their two children, to America. They settled in one of the new states, which was then called western, but which does not seem new nor western now. That good man feared God and loved his wife and children, and wished to make a home for them where they would have perfect freedom to worship God according to their own consciences; where they would not be made poorer by being compelled to pay a tenth part of their earnings to support a form of worship which they did not approve; where no one would be born to be king whether he should be wise and good or wicked and foolish; and where any poor boy who would work and study and behave well might grow up with just as good a chance to become a ruler as any other boy, and with an equal right with any other to give one of the votes which should decide who should rule over them. He wished his country and his children's country to be such a land of liberty. He had a strong and brave heart, and he made the long journey over the sea and the land -ever so much more difficult then than now-to that new western state.

When they had been there only a short time that brave, good, liberty-loving man sickened and died, leaving his widow and her two fatherless children among strangers. Is it any wonder that the good woman was heartbroken and homesick, and that she wanted to take her children and go back to their native country?

But what do you think that the son of such a father would say to his mother at such a time? This is what that little fellow did say: "Mother dear, if you think it is best to go back to our old home, and if you

wish to go, I will go with you, and will try to be a good son to you; but when I grow to be a man I shall come back to America, because I know that my father wished me to have this land of liberty for my country." The poor woman's tired heart was rested and strengthened when she saw what a brave little son she had, so like the manly husband she had lost, and when she thought how soon he would grow up to be a strong man to protect her and his sister as his father had done. She saw, too, that to stay in America and try to get a share of the blessings which God had given to its people would be the best carrying out of the plans which her good husband had made for his family that was now possible. So she stayed. God kept his promises to her and her fatherless children. Her little son became a minister when he was grown. He has preached to thousands of people in many states. He has spoken to hundreds of Sabbath-schools. He went with a regiment of soldiers to the war, and preached to them and other regiments, and ministered to the sick and wounded and dying in hospitals. He is now nearer eighty years old than seventy, and is strong and vigorous still, travelling and preaching, and visiting hospitals and prisons, and enjoying life and work as well as ever.

He will be much surprised when he reads this, I am sure, but I think he will pardon me for telling all this about him to so many readers. For there are other little Welsh boys and girls whose parents bring them to our country now. And although our country is so much greater and richer now than it was then, I am not sure that it is not even harder now for them to find work and get a living than it was for those who came seventy years ago. And there are still greater numbers of poor people who come from other countries, who have heard that

this is a land of liberty and of plenty. Some of them do not know what liberty is so well as the Welsh, and have not been taught the Bible and Catechism like the Welsh and the Scotch. Ought not you to do all you can to get their children into your Sabbathschools, and to be very kind to them there and in day-schools, and wherever you meet them?

Ought we not to give a great deal of money to our boards of Home Missions and Education and Publication and Sabbathschool Work, to educate ministers who can preach to them in their own languages while they are learning ours, and to give them good books and tracts and papers which they can read? And shall we not do all we can to make them happy, and to help the children grow up to be good American citizens, and citizens of the kingdom of heaven?

You see, my little Presbyterians, that I am fond of getting letters from you. I do not care how many. I cannot write separate answers to them, but I hope that you find a sort of printed answers to them in these pages, and you may be sure that your little letters help me ever so much to write these pieces which many of you say that you like.

Now, how many will write me answers to the two questions in the first part of this letter, and also to these questions?—

Which way did the wind blow on that Welsh mountain?

What is the name of the state in which that little Welsh boy's father died, and in which he still lives?

What is his name?

Is he a Welshman now, or an American? What are some of God's promises in the Bible which probably comforted and strengthened that poor widow and her children? H. A. N.