there is no disturbing elements within our borders, but, as far as we can see, our brethren are dwelling together in unity. We acknowledge with much thankfulness the kindness and sympathy shown us by our Christian friends at home in helping us so liberally in this our time of need. Whatever amount may fall to our lot as a circuit we shall receive with gratitude, and endeavour to make the best use of it possible. A great work is before us this year, which will tax all our energies. But our strength is in God, He will help us.

Mizpah.- Of all the years of our Mission, none has passed without a share of troubles and trials common to the Church of God. But we know of none equal with those of the past year. It was indeed a severe visitation of Almighty God upon His Churches and people, and not less upon others, who were not His people. As a Mission we had nearly become a total wreck, and it is only through His infinite mercy that our s have been spared and our name exists as a Mission. It is true other Missions suffered, but they being older and larger and stronger, were able to bear the storm better than we could. But, however, we are thankful to God for the patience and firmness of our people, inasmuch as though many of them suffered not only the loss of their houses, but also the destruction of their fields and valuable fruit trees, from which they chiefly derived the common necessaries of life and support, yet they have not been moved from the ground of their hope of salvation through Christ Jesus, but they are found in their place in tents or booths erected temporarily to worship God. Their number, instead of being decreased, rather increased. They are also grateful for the sympathy of their English brethren and friends to enable them to rebuild and repair their churches and school-houses. In this sad calamity our ministers have had, and still have, to suffer much want and privation. Their main support from the people has failed with the temporal interests of their members.

Clarendon. The past year has been one of great anxiety, sorrow, and loss. Drought, storm, and disease have had their full influence, yet we report an increase, and are thankful. The afflictions of the minister's family, and his unavoidable absence at the usual time for the Missionary services, prevented their being held, and in this department there is a decrease. We have completed a new and commodious school-room at St. Mark's since the storm of the 18th of August last, and one at Unite, very near completion, a little smaller than at St. Mark's. These were works of faith and labours of love among our people. Our attention will now be given to getting up substantial chapels at these places.

St. Ann's. The past year has been one of great trials and distresses, especially among our poor people here. Owing to the long and severe drought during the first part of the year, the pimento and coffee crops, which promised fair, were partially destroyed, provision fields burnt, and the greatest scarcity prevailed. In the midst of these we were visited by the severe cyclone, which swept away nearly all that was left, so that up to the present time our people are really suffering, not so much from the loss of their houses, as in other parishes, but from want of food. All our places of worship are standing-to God be the praise !—but they have been so severely shattered by the hurricane as to require immediate and extensive repairs. The present year has begun very gloomily; most of our people are unable to attend the means of grace, or to send their children to school, for the want of common necessaries; yet in the midst of all our trials and distresses we have abundant cause to be thankful that our lives are spared. We desire still to trust in our merciful God, who has promised that everything shall work together for good to those who love Him.

Bocas-del-Toro.-There was no report or communication from this circuit.

The Numerical Returns of the district were next presented to the meeting, showing a nett increase on the district of one hundred and twenty-seven, The report was moved and adopted.

Resolved. That this meeting would gratefully express to the Foreign Missionary Committee, on behalf of our suffering Churches and people, its deep sense of obligation for the timely and liberal aid rendered to them towards the re-erection of their ruined chapels and school-rooms.

The minutes were read and adopted. Devotional exercises for half an hour brought the meeting to a close.

THOS. ROGERS, Chairman.

E. SANGUINETTI, Secretary.

KINGSTON, JAMAICA, July 9, 1881.

DEAR BROTHER,-This mail brings you all accounts for this district up to the 30th of June. You will see what we have done in nissionary matters so far as raising money goes. It is a good deal under last year, but more than any of us ever hoped to realise.

It will be impossible to send you exact statements of expenditure of the Chapel Relief Fund until after the meeting of the district committee. The district meeting voted £670 of the sum remitted, which, with £40 to Brother Sanguinetti, the committee's old grant, made £710. In some cases the whole has not yet been expended, and in others more. The committee meets in ten days' time, when the balance in hand will be appropriated as it may find to be best. At Stony Hill very satisfactory progress is being made, and the memorial stone is to be laid on the 19th. We hope to have the walls completed by the end of this month. The old chapel was wood, the new, one will be solid stonework, twelve feet longer, and built in the Gothic style; standing as it does on a low elevation about a hundred feet from the public road, it will have when finished a very good appearance. I leave home this evening for Brother Sanguinetti's station. I purpose paying a visit to everyone of them, and shall be away for some time. Mr. Sanguinetti's death will seriously retard the work of reconstruction in that part of the Mizpeh Circuit. He had, however, got on well with Mt. Regale, the principal station. The roof was up on my last visit, and I hope to find progress made with floor and windows on this visit. Brother Winn appears likely to have most trouble with his buildings; being in the interior he cannot use imported timbers, the cost of getting up being too much, so that he has to begin at the very beginning by felling trees and sawing out his boards and beams. The long sickness and death of Mrs. Winn kept him back somewhat. We are bound to go slowly for the sake of economy. So far as we can we employ our own members, and being paid for two days they give one day's labour free, and so we are endeavouring to make every pound do more than twenty shillings' worth of work. Our people have no money to give, and it would be a waste of time to ask for it. In some localities the worst seems over, but in others the pressure appears as bad as ever. In a few months' time, when the coffee crop comes in, money matters will be sure to mend. I hope your health is now better, and that with rest and entire relief from the burden of office it will soon be entirely re-established. I have got so accustomed to writing to you that I shall feel somewhat strange for a while having to address myself to another person. I know the step is a right one, but I shall miss very much your kindly encouraging letters.

REV. R. BUSHI LL.

Yours very truly,

WILLIAM GRIFFITH.

THE

United Methodist Free Churches Magazine.

NOVEMBER, 1881.

WORK AND PLAY.
By S. S. BARTON.

THERE is an old "saw" exceedingly popular among the juvenile portion of the population, and which John Snooks is very fond of quoting when his father is disposed to be somewhat severe upon him for his lack of attention to business, and his too frequent absence from the desk or shop. With a peculiar twinkle of the eye he looks into the face of the "governor," as he somewhat irreverently styles him, and says, "You know, father, all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.'" Now John Snooks thinks when he has quoted this old saw that he has quieted papa, and said a very wise thing; he does not see how the old gentleman can possibly get over the argument, and as this little sally of mother wit generally succeeds in lighting up the paternal face with a half-gratified smile at the ripening genius of this junior branch of the family tree, Jack escapes the sound flogging that he perhaps richly deserves, and grows up an idle, careless scapegrace.

Now, there can be little question that this proverb contains a great deal of truth, and if the majority of men were polled it would be found that, all other things being equal, we should all prefer too much play to too much work. Still, this saying, like many others in daily use, is largely one-sided. It catches a phase of life that needs exposing and it does expose it; but it is wanting in a few lights and shades necessary to complete the picture. Whatever kind of dulness may be the result of too much work, it is a very questionable kind of sharpness that is produced by too much play; and as extremes are said to meet, it is not unlikely that too much work as too much play may end in much the same way. After all, we must confess that we have a great deal of sympathy with Jack in his view of the matter, and rather think he has had some ground of complaint; that a very large share of the work and a very small share of the play has fallen to his lot. Jack and his tribe have been regarded

S S

somewhat as the feet of clay on which the social Colossus was made to rest; a patient beast of burden on whose back you might lay any amount of weight, providing you stopped short of the killing point. Indeed, we are but just now growing out of the notion that all the work devolves upon one class and all the play on another. It has been largely the fashion to regard work as a degrading necessity, and play as the peculiar sphere and province of the gentleman. But

"When Adam delved and Eve span,

Who was then the gentleman?"

The time has not long gone by when to soil the hands was not only counted menial, but a brand and mark of social degradation. The separation between fustian and broadcloth was as wide as the poles asunder. Then men felt a great deal more anxious to preserve a delicate skin than a pure conscience, and to jostle a poor mechanic was deemed a greater defilement than to trample on virtue and morality. To have the least connection with trade was counted a serious blot on the family escutcheon unless it might be a little Government job, which could be done quietly, without soiling the fingers; and if a gentleman could not do a few such things what was the country good for? In short, all the difference between the workers and non-workers lay in the blood, so that the good blood did nothing at all, and the bad blood was left to do everything, a very likely way to make the bad blood "badder," as the children would say. It is, however, cause for congratulation that a change for the better is coming over the spirit of the world's dream. It is waking up to a perception of those broad phases of humanity on which all stand as on common ground; it is beginning to feel that there are duties and responsibilities connected with all conditions of life, and from which none can escape without suffering an appropriate penalty.

To a thoughtful observer it will not be difficult to discover an intimate connection between the two parts of our subject, the one being, indeed, a necessary counterpart of the other. Too much work may be as great an evil of its kind as too much play. A people may be as truly enervated by the too frequent occurrence of holidays as by their entire absence. The perfection of the individual and of society can only be attained by that state of equilibrium in which the one shall be the handmaid and helper of the other. What man can enjoy play as the man can who has earned his right to play by the excellent manner in which his work has been done? Nor is that man the less prepared to work who has refreshed his spirit with play. Indeed, men should work in order that they may have leisure to play, and play in order that they may have heart to work. We are convinced that this question is closely connected with the true development of the people;

that it has much to do with the right elevation of the workingclasses, and would do more to mediate, if not remove, some of our vicious social customs than many other questions of political and social science.

It is not necessary we should waste time in any disquisition on work, as this is a subject pretty well understood in all its practical details by most among us. Whatever else we may lack as a people, save and except our periodical depressions, we have no lack of work. An Englishman is par excellence a working-man; he is the only animal of the kind that seems to take to it kindly, and hence he is a far more dangerous creature without work than with it. Give him plenty to do and plenty to eat and he is as quiet as a lamb, and the burden must be unusually heavy that would lead him seriously to kick against it. Indeed, idleness is about the only sin for which we have no kind of toleration. Well, we have no desire seriously to quarrel with this national characteristic. Rightly guided it is a source of strength; only when perverted of weakness. We accept it as an axiom, that all men who can ought to work, and the man who won't work has no claim to eat the bread of those that do. There are few greater blots on the face of God's beautiful world than an essentially lazy man; a man walking about with his hands in his pockets, nothing to do, and a determination to do nothing.

Work is as much a divine law as any other under which we live, and like all the laws of God is characterised by wisdom and goodness. It was as much a law in Eden as afterwards in the wilderness, and is no more a condition of the curse than was freedom from labour a condition of life in Paradise. Whoever regards work as a curse must surely be labouring under some morbid affection of heart and mind, and can never have thought of the consequences resulting to society from the absence of all motives to exertion. We speak not now of the want of bread as the result of the lack of work, for even conceiving of a state of things in which all this should exist in riotous plenty, made ready to the hand of man, yet the want of work must produce such an utter stagnation of thought and energy that the world would perish from very inanity.