littérateur in search of the material called romance in real life would certainly have been in his element. The company now includes a converted Jew, lately a Rabbi of Jerusalem. Then there sat another man who had been a policeman and a detective, and being well acquainted with the darkest side of life in St. Giles's, he was now the missionary appointed to visit the taverns in that notorious locality. He could tell of strange characters, or fallen stars, met with in the pestiferous lodginghouse kitchens-men in holy orders, or who had received a university education, grovelling in the mire of vice and drunkenness. Another told of a wretched creature encountered in the street at Lambeth on that very morning. "How can I be saved?" she asked with awful emphasis, "I was born a lady; I know the Scriptures from end to end; my husband is a doctor of divinity in Scotland." Such are the characters who are continually appearing on the scenes; and even in regard to the meeting held once a month at our place of rendezvous, those enter the room who attend nowhere else. Poor women sometimes come to return thanks for mercies received with infants in their arms, and never know any other churching!

Shortly after eight o'clock the meeting takes place in a large upper room, and the congregation appears to muster about a hundred. A veteran who visits public-houses in East London presides, and his opening words are as well chosen as they are telling. Then, after a hymn, a couple of prayers, and the reading of Luke xv., a waiter from one of the large city establishments is called upon to say a few words.

Like many other speakers he came unprepared to say anything; but still he should be sorry to allow such an opportunity to pass unimproved, because it was the duty of all believers to speak aloud of what the Lord had done for them. He could never forget the time when Mr. Parker first came to them; and now that he had tasted of the blessing himself, he was doing what he could to prevail upon other waiters to come to the meeting. Some came, others could not come; and there were a number who staid away because they feared the after laugh of worldly companions. After all the meeting had grown most encouragingly. The speaker then proved that religion is a great blessing even in a worldly sense. Thus, since he knew the Gospel he had been able to resist temptation, and none, save themselves, knew the temptations of a waiter's life. By way of giving one illustration he pictured the scene at a special grand dinner, when there were exceptional opportunities for self-indulgence, especially in regard to the drink; but he had himself been a teetotaller for four years. Very remarkable were some of this speaker's personal allusions. He had never in his life received a day's schooling; and when he came to London, twenty-two years before, he could neither read nor write. Now he could do both, although there might be some need to apologize for limping grammar.

The next speaker was the manager of a leading luncheon bar; and as he regularly conducts a Sabbath meeting of his own on the south side of London, he was called a waiter-pastor. He showed that sin was like leprosy-it spoiled everything, and it was an evil for which there was no human cure.

The third speaker was of a different class; for although he had once been a waiter, his work was of a lower kind. He had lived at a tavern

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in Clerkenwell, and until the time of his conversion, of which he gave a strikingly graphic account, he was a gamester, a hard swearer, and generally vicious. "But what am I to do ?" he asked of a Christian friend, when the Gospel first reached his heart; "I can't come; I'm a waiter-I'm too bad-I've got my concert-room to look after," and so on. "The Lord will provide," said the other;" and the matter ended by the concert-room and the low public-house being thrown up for the sake of something better. The Lord did provide, as He always does.

A fourth speaker, also a waiter, confessed to having been a sinner of a more respectable kind. He had served in high places, including St. James's Hall. He showed how he had been led on from one thing to another, until he became converted. He spoke particularly of boldness, and pointedly asked his comrades who were Christians if they ever shrank from the duty of showing their colours.

A meeting like the above, held in the midst of the City-confessedly very difficult ground-shows that the mission to the taverns of London is not so totally unpromising as might at first sight appear. Many remarkable things have come to light during the progress of the movement, more than are likely ever to be made public. Some landlords have been converted through the instrumentality of the visitors, and have at once felt the difficulties of their position. The houses, under such circumstances, have been immediately closed on the Sabbath; and when the opportunity has come, the landlord has quietly undertaken some other business. As a rule the managers of taverns favour the missionaries visits; and the customers, with some exceptions, appreciate the attention which is shown them. This appreciation was once honestly expressed by a poor working-man I once encountered in a Billingsgatebar-"If it were not for such as you we should be wuss than blacks." Though addressed to me, the observation rightly belonged to Mr. Parker, who stood at my elbow speaking to another cluster.

Mr. Parker is an enthusiast in his work; and we realized that he was right when, on taking our leave, he said, "The Christian church ought not to ignore a work like this.”

The above description of a very pleasant re-union, something aside from the beaten track of church doings, might have been greatly extended; but the account, though brief, will suffice to show the character of the work in progress. Having been interested in their operations for some years, I was not only glad of an opportunity of seeing nearly all the public-house missionaries sitting around one table, I was more than gratified at the creditable appearance presented by the united band. Their knowledge of their work and its requirements was surprising, while their faith in the Mission bordered on enthusiasm. They were well aware, at the same time, that they are frequently misunderstood by the kind-hearted public, and they are accordingly always ready to attempt a settlement of the controversy. There are two sides to the enterprisethe dark and the bright-and the public look too much on the one, while the visitors, conscious of the good they have done, are naturally more disposed to fix their eyes on the other. The evils associated with the trade are neither few nor small; but with these the visitors have nothing to do. If, under exceptionally difficult circumstances, it is impossible

for them to labour as teetotal advocates, they are Christian agents who know how and when to correct sin. Why, then, should objections be raised, and difficulties be put in the way of an enterprise fruitful in good results? It is at least scriptural to carry the Gospel among the people; and while, unfortunately, too many of our fellows are found in the tavern when they ought to be at home, we would not, for our part, withhold the Gospel from them even there. A Sunday night's exploration of Marylebone, a Saturday evening's tour over Paddington, and a day spent among the taverns of the City, did more to clear my mind of lurking prejudice, than any number of books and speeches could have done. The readiness of the crowd to hear and speak about religion is really wonderful; and with the exception of a few conceited objectors-like a man who once asked us, "wot we should think of 'm if he follered us into a church with a pint of ale and bitters"-they are not a little grateful for the attention they receive. Thus much we can personally testify on behalf of the bar-frequenters; and Mr. Parker is able to say quite as good a word in the interests of the landlords. "The publicans, as a body," he says, are not unconscious of the evils of their trade. They groan under the present state of things. Their desire to have the Sunday as a day of rest is general; and to secure this great boon and right for themselves, their families, and their assistants, they would gladly submit to some pecuniary loss. Many public-houses, however, are in the hands of capitalists, who employ active barmen and showy barmaids to serve and do the laborious part of the work. The unseen but powerful capitalists are the persons most opposed to any movement to secure a relaxation in the hours of business on the Lord's-day.

We are no apologists for public-houses, believing that great evils are associated with them in the majority of instances; but we can prove that vast good has certainly resulted from their visitation. In front of the bars the Gospel has won its trophies; and already many landlords and landladies, on accepting the truth, have first put sterner restrictions on their trade, then they have closed their houses on the Sabbath, and, finally, they have abandoned a calling which they judged to be inconsistent with a Christian profession. The visitors are all men of tact and sympathy, well acquainted with the Scriptures, and gifted, in an enviable degree, in the heart of repartee. Often tempted to confess themselves advocates of teetotalism, they invariably rise with dignity to something higher. Assailed sometimes with low cockney wit, they set an example by repaying with something better. In other quarters illiterate

Romanists make fruitless endeavours to catch them in their words. "Now, Guvnor, what do yer think of the Pope?" may be asked, for instance. "What do you think of the Lord Jesus Christ ?" is the reply embodied in another question. "Well now, I wasn't thinking of Him." "And I," remarks the other, "was not thinking of the Pope." By all means let us encourage these good servants of the Master, and remember what Mr. Parker says, "The Church ought not to ignore a work like this."

The experience of Mr. Parker in the City was, in general interest, far above the average of ordinary missionary work; for in the course of some years he invaded all kinds of refreshment houses, from the high class restaurant to the frowsy coffee-shops were carters and labourers

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take their meals. How many phases of life does such a visitor see in the course of one brief day. Now it is a woman giving an infant spirits to save a fit;" and at the next stage it is the sight of twenty-seven smart young men in one house drinking rum and milk and wine soon after nine a.m. Then our friends diary has some sad revelations concerning that wonderful hive of busy life, Cheapside, and its tributaries—a scene we have often looked upon with a pensive kind of wonder: "From nine a.m. till eight p.m. the drinking-bars, often in quiet secluded nooks, are thronged with clerks, cashiers, foremen, managers, travellers, etc. My own personal knowledge enables me to say that some of these men, after retaining their situations for twenty years, have been compelled to lose their employment, and salary of £500 a year, owing to their habits of intemperance. The men lead each other astray, until the firm' can endure the evil and risk no longer."

His testimony regarding the hundreds of young prepossessing girls found engaged in the better class of refreshment-bars, is that they are exposed to peculiar temptations; but to many such he has proved a timely counsellor, whose words of advice and warning have not been ignored. Occasionally a landlord will have an eventful life history to tell; and many such, in their last days, have had the Gospel presented to them as they never had before. One of this class who benefited in life's last days by the attention paid him, said, "By trade I was a maker of stained glass windows. Some of the small particles of glass and white-lead are lodged in my lungs, and that is the secret of the mischief which you now see." He was a man who well knew the value of mere ornamants in a church, and he could have given Ritualists some useful hints; for when in a lighter mood he once remarked, "After I've put a beautiful stained-glass window into a church I've been obliged to say to the admiring clergyman, 'Your text, next Sunday, sir, ought to be, Now we see through a glass darkly.”

There are some Christians, very strong on the side of teetotallism, who denounce this mission to public-houses as mistaken zeal, or an innovation likely to lead to more mischief than good; but notwithstanding, the work is now carried on, with more or less success, all over London. The mission was, singularly enough, inaugurated at The Bell, in Warwick Lane, a genuine old hostelry, and in a sense classic ground, because it was there that Archbishop Leighton halted for the last time on earth. "If I had the power to choose a place to die in it should be an inn," remarked that Christian veteran, "it looks like a pilgrim going home, to whom the whole world is but a large and noisy inn, and he a wayfarer tarrying in it as short a time as possible, and then hasting away to his Father's house." This eccentric wish was gratified; for on one of the longest summer days of 1684 the Archbishop died at the The Bell, supported by the loving arms of Gilbert Burnet, who seems to have travelled from his house at Clerkenwell to see the last of a devoted friend.

The Gospel has reached many in the bars.

G. HOLDEN PIKE.

The "Grace" of Christian Gibing.

WHOEVER LOVES, GIVES. This is a truth universal in its application. Between the lover and his dear one, the husband and his wife, the mother and her child, loving means also giving. God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son. Jesus Christ so loved me, said Paul, that He gave Himself for me. You can as well imagine a sun ray that emits no light, or a burning coal that radiates no heat, as a loving heart that gives nothing to cheer and help the object of its love. Whoever loves the Lord Jesus Christ, GIVES, must give, to further His great work of lifting up men out of their degradation and sin. And this includes the gift of money, or money's worth, because it includes everything by which man can reach the heart or mind of his brother man, either by his own effort, or that of a messenger he may select to work for him.

Christ's command to love our neighbour if we love Him stands unrepealed; and as we look at the picture He drew to show how that love was to be manifested, we hear His royal voice speaking as of old, "Go and do thou likewise." The Good Samaritan still stands as our patternthe kindly man who gave his sympathy, his time, his effort, his oil and wine, the use of his beast, the money out of his purse, and the promise of more in the future if wanted-that is, he gave part of everything he had to give which was needed to save his poor wounded brother from death.

Christian giving simply means carrying out this principle. We cannot give to God or to the Lord Jesus Himself, but we can give to the poor hungry starved bodies and souls of our brethren; we can give our money as well as our time and our effort to spread the kingdom of Jesus amongst men.

This, probably, would be admitted by most, if not all, Christians; and yet, notwithstanding there has been a wonderful increase in the wealth of the country, in which Christians have shared, the amount given for promoting the special work of evangelizing this and other countries is singularly small, while the needs of men here, and all over the world, were never so great and pressing as they are to-day. Does not this point to some mistake somewhere in the principles on which our offerings are based.

The New Testament does not supply a table of logarithms in which are expressed the gold or silver quantities by which we are to show our love to the Lord Jesus, or the souls He came to save; but it is possible to discover in its teachings certain lines on which all may travel who desire to follow the Master's will.

We are there told that there is a blessedness in giving greater than in receiving. We are required to give according to our several ability, and that ability is to be reckoned not on what faith may believe is coming in the future, but what industry has stored in the present, i.e., as the Lord hath prospered. This reckoning is to be made at stated times (which amongst Christians in the early ages meant, and with many now may mean, the first day of the week); and it is to be done readily, not grudgingly, for the Lord loveth a cheerful giver.

Of the above directions, the only one which perhaps it is desirable to treat is that which refers to our offering "according to our ability," or