a" pledge" to this effect: "Believing that the drinking customs of our country are producing much crime, poverty, disease, and misery, we agree that we will abstain from all intoxicating beverages, and try to induce others to do the same."

Benevolent Society, founded 1785, for relieving the sick poor at their own dwellings by Christian visitors from the church. About eight hundred cases are relieved yearly, and upwards of four hundred pounds expended, exclusive of about three hundred pounds raised at the Lord's Supper for poor members. The Benevolent Society renders help to all, irrespective of religious creed, and has in the aggregate distributed thirty-seven thousand pounds.

The Christian Instruction Society maps out the neighborhood into districts, which are visited with tracts, &c.

The City Mission has its Surrey Chapel auxiliary, and four missionaries, chiefly supported by the congregation, are always at work amongst the dense population around.

Day Schools are five in number, with seven hundred children, the expenses being met by donations and collections, aided by the weekly pence of the children.

The Dorcas Society assists poor women in domestic difficulties; and the

Female Clothing Society encourages the poor to deposit their savings, by furnishing articles of clothing at half price.

The School of Industry partially clothes fifty girls, and instructs them in needle-work and house-work, as well as in reading, &c.

The Sunday School Society embraces thirteen different organizations under one president and general committee of management, each school having its own superintendent and committee, much after the model of the Constitu tion of the United States. The scholars number five thousand three hundred, and the teachers four hundred

and seventeen. Owing to the constant changes in the congregation, it is very difficult to keep up a sufficient staff of instructors, and the society is glad of the help of members of any other neighboring church. The annual cost of the schools is about five hundred pounds.

The Southwark Mission, for the elevation of the working classes, was established about twelve years ago. The last report of the late zealous evangelist shows a weekly average of thirty domiciliary visits, nine to the sick, two and a half open-air meetings, ten in-door meetings, the gospel preached to four thousand one hundred and sixty, and one thousand and twenty tracts distributed. As stated before, Mr. Murphy's labors have resulted in the recent formation of a separate church. The mission is again pursuing its aggressive work in the hope of eventually establishing other churches in the neighborhood.

Surrey Chapel has also its auxiliaries to the Bible, Tract, and Foreign Missionary Societies.

The "Rowland Hill Fund" was commenced a few years ago under the following circumstances: Surrey Chapel is built on leasehold ground, and in a few years the lease will expire, so that the church, schools, and other buildings will belong to the freeholder, and may be sold for a warehouse or theatre. Mr. Hill anticipated this event by a bequest of his property, which was to accumulate while the lease was running on, so that the trustees might thereby purchase the property, or build another church elsewhere. But this bequest was rendered nugatory by some legal flaw, so that it has all passed away to the residuary legatee. This was formally decided during the pastorate of the present minister, who felt it his duty at once to endeavor to guard against the threatened extinction of the church. For this purpose a penny collection" is made after every service, except when an appeal is made for some special object, which is always

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once a month. Meetings for worship on Sunday without a collection are not known at Surrey Chapel. Praying, preaching, and hearing are associated with giving as an essential part of the service of God. About six thousand pounds have been raised, but owing to the great value of land, and the necessities of so large a congregation, a sum of not less than thirty thousand pounds will be needed. As the neighborhood is getting poorer every year, and as the congregation is composed chiefly of persons of very limited pecuniary resources, contributions are received with thankfulness from all persons who wish to aid in perpetuating such an organization amidst the teeming population of South London. Hon. W. E. Dodge, of New York, or Rev. Dr. Cuyler, of Brooklyn, will transmit any sums which friends in America may wish thus to appropriate to a church which, next to Mr. Spurgeon's, is visited more by Americans than any other in the United Kingdom.

As considerable interest has been felt in the United States respecting Surrey Chapel, and as the publisher has requested a full account of its history and institutions, the following sketch by the editor of the Nonconformist newspaper, and recently published in a series of papers under the title of "The Free Churches of London and London Work," is appended to the foregoing statement:

"Surrey Chapel - Rowland Hill's chapel-is probably better known by repute throughout the wide world than any other Nonconformist place of worship in England, by reason of the popularity and eccentricities of its founder, the eminence of his successors, the efficiency of its religious institutions, and as the sanctuary wherein, for sixty-one years, has been preached the principal annual sermon of the London Missionary Society. It stands on the high road, about half a mile from Blackfriars Bridge, amid the dense population of Southwark - a district not

often traversed, still less chosen as a home, by the genteel or well-to-do classes of society. Surrey Chapel, strictly speaking, does not belong to any denomination. Its trustdeed is peculiar. The officers of the church consist of a minister, curate, the trustees, who are a kind of churchwardens to attend to secular affairs, and seven elders, whose functions are almost exclusively spiritual. The Lord's Supper is celebrated twice a month, and, with slight alterations, the Liturgy of the Church of England is always used at the Sunday morning and evening, but not at the Sunday afternoon or week-day services. In other respects the polity and practice of Congregational churches is adopted. All the members of the church are invited in sections, once every winter, to take tea with the ministers and elders in the vestry. Surrey Chapel has had only three pastors since it was opened for divine worship in 1783, the Rev. Rowland Hill, who died in 1833, after a pastorate of nearly fifty years; the Rev. James Sherman, who, after a long and active ministry, resigned, in consequence of failing health, in May, 1854; and the Rev. Newman Hall, LL. B., formerly of Hull, the present minister, who preached his first sermon there in July, 1854.

"It is hardly necessary to state that the church connected with Surrey Chapel is one of the largest in the metropolis, comprising at the present time more than one thousand four hundred members. This spacious sanctuary, capable of holding two thousand five hundred persons, is, and we believe always has been from the first, crowded to the full during the Sunday services. So vast an organization, with its cluster of societies, necessarily requires an elaborate machinery, and a great division of labor, to insure its efficient working. In common with most Nonconformist churches, Surrey Chapel has its Benevolent, Christian Instruction, Dorcas, and Young

Men's Christian Institutions, and auxiliaries to the Biule, Tract, London Missionary, and City Mission Societies. They are managed by distinct committees, over all of which the pastor, ex officio, presides. The magnitude of the work they undertake, and the funds they spend, are almost unprecedentedly large. Thus the Benevolent Society, established by the Rev. Rowland Hill for visiting the sick and distressed poor, expends some four hundred pounds a year, or, from first to last, has spent thirty-five thousand four hundred and twenty-two pounds in the relief of seventy-six thousand six hundred and four persons at their own houses, irrespective of the religious opinions of the recipients. This is independent of three hundred pounds a year disbursed among the poor of the congregation. The Christian Instruction Society distributes annually many thousands of religious tracts and books during 1863 to seven hundred and fifty-nine familiesamong the poor of the surrounding neighborhood. In some of the lowest parts of Southwark are to be found lodging-houses, the inmates of which are nearly all in the poorest circumstances. In the "kitchens," or common rooms, of twelve of these places, every Sunday evening throughout the year religious services are held by members of Surrey Chapel; and by this agency the gospel is carried every week to more than three hundred persons - always coming and going—who would probably never otherwise come within its influence. Several thousand people a year are reached by this means alone. It speaks well for the confidence inspired by Mr. Hall and his coadjutors, that these ministrations are welcomed both by the proprietors of the lodging-houses and their inmates, some of whom often prove to be educated and even accomplished persons who have descended in the social scale. At all these stations a plentiful supply of Testaments and cheap periodicals is provided, and the Christian