encouragement, for which we ought to thank Almighty God.

He frankly confesses that this progress ought to be greater, and that in view of the increase of population, wealth and luxuries, there is even some reason for shame. Yet he properly assumes that the progress actually made calls for devout thankfulness to him by whose grace it has been accomplished.

Then, turning from this statistical view, he calls attention to the hold which the Bible has upon minds and hearts, thus:

What have the past fifty years done with regard to strengthening faith in the Bible? Assuredly these years have been remarkable -a period of extraordinary intellectual activity and general unrest of mind; but if you go now into the company of any men who are conversant with the science of the day, would you find any who would venture to lay down boldly before his compeers the proposition that the Bible had been proved to be an imposture? Go to Germany, or wherever you like, where criticism has been keen, and, instead of finding people weaker on the subject of faith in the Bible, you will find them stronger than ever, in spite of the criticism to which the book has been subjected. The past fifty years have almost seen a repetition of the gift of tongues, because we have translations of the Bible in something like a hundred and forty tongues. Many of these were previously unwritten tongues, which had known not a word of literature before. Again, I say, what have the fifty years done to strengthen our faith in the Bible? There is not a place in the East from which testimony does not come from the mounds excavated, the old towns investigated and the countries mapped outto the truth of the Bible. Topographical researches in Palestine, excavations in Babylon, Nineveh and the like, all have contributed to place the historical accuracy of the Bible on a broader basis than ever. And a much more touching testimony to

I

that blessed book is the way in which it has been found to suit every race, every tongue, every nation and every class in the last fifty years. Take the most degraded races that commerce could not modify and politicians could not improve; when the Bible was brought to them they were raised at once— placed in a higher intellectual and moral position. The same thing has happened with regard to classes. You have taken the Bible to every class, from the highest to the lowest, with the most beneficial results. Look at the bar; look at the church; look at the navy. You will find man after man holding most prominent positions in secular affairs, and proud to acknowledge that he bows down before the Bible. In the working classes you find a marvellously-increasing interest in the Bible. A few weeks ago was in a Staffordshire town, and I found a hundred workingmen weekly attending the Bible class. Last week, again, in a corner of Whitechapel, I heard the same storyone hundred artisans attending the Bible. class week after week. Among your sailors there is a serious interest in the Bible. Among the soldiers crowds of them are studying it. The fishermen in their most perilous voyages in the northern seas pay large prices for the Holy Scriptures in order to study them. As for the poor, you find them putting by their pennies to buy the Bible. I say, therefore, that the evidence of the last fifty years, whether you look at the upper classes, at the working classes, the poorest of the poor, or whether you look at the savage tribes, the evidence for the Bible is stronger than it ever has been before. Let us go on with our work, with our faith strengthened by the rich harvest of the half century Let us not abate one jot or tittle of faith in that book. Let us feel that it is an enormous honor, and very cheering to us, to be enabled once a year to put aside all the differences that sever the Christian churches and to unite in the most cordial and most friendly way in this great work of circulating that blessed Bible, to which England, our empire and the world owes so much, and will owe more in the future.

A Christian woman on the Pacific coast, after reading our July number, especially the article on page 21 entitled "Begin at Jerusalem," was moved to write the vigorous and discriminating article which we give below. She was modest enough to express her willingness that her manuscript should go to the waste-basket if we should think that better than to send it to the printer; but we think it right to give it the

latter direction. While we are urging the church to consider whether there should not be greater readiness to furnish needed means for educating and supporting ministers, it behooves ministers and students for the ministry to cultivate a brave and generous readiness to go wherever they may be needed, wherever the Lord hath need of them, and to endure hardness as good soldiers of Jesus Christ.

Yes, "begin at Jerusalem," but be sure and begin.

Somebody says that we have in our synod 165 ministers and 160 churches, with only 40 settled pastors. What is the matter? In the city we learn how plentiful ministers are when a luncheon is given to a presbytery or synod. We women sometimes meet to make wearing apparel for a minister's family who are trying to live on a small salary. That is well, but the core of the matter is not reached in that way. Vacant churches need to be supplied in frontier towns that are fast filling up with infidels and Romanists from European countries. I have now in mind one dear little church that is paid for, but no minister will stay there. What is the reason? The salary is good; it is a far-away place, but what of that? Business men are there, a plenty of them, for purposes of gain. They can bear the isolation from the great centres of influence. I have now in mind a Christian man who was a pioneer many years ago in a western wilderness, who in his travels frequently met bears and wolves, and with his wife and daughter met hostile Indians who were on the war path, but they were unharmed. This man has not only been dil

igent in business, but fervent in spirit, seeking in every way to mould public sentiment for the future good of the country in the way of good order, temperance and true Christianity. His name is revered throughout the state which was so recently a territory. Is it harder for a disciple chosen of the Lord, and educated for the express purpose of carrying his gospel to every creature, to bear such trials in a new country than for a business man? Christ preached the gospel in far-away towns, and sent his disciples out also, and afterward sent the seventy "into every city and place." We Presbyterians are very careful to follow apostolic teaching in many particulars. Let us be equally careful about this matter. We all need more of the spirit and power of the Holy Ghost.

Some churches have bishops, who travel through the by-ways of our continent and learn the needs of the people, and they have the power to appoint preachers to fill the pulpits for a certain length of time. The command is imperative, and the men must go.

The question with our church with the system which now prevails is, How shall we fill our pulpits, and thus do our work well at home, that foreign lands may be blessed thereby?

BABIES ON

I am going to tell my little readers how little children travel in Syria. Two little girls, so young that they both may be called

HORSEBACK.

babies, were living at Sidon on the sea coast, and their horseback journey was to Schweifat, a village some way up the mount

ain. A swift horse with a young man on his back could make that journey in four or five hours, but such babies and their mother would have to ride more slowly, and to stop oftener to rest. So it took them eleven hours and a half to make the journey. They started from Sidon at three o'clock in the morning, and they did not reach Schweifat until after two o'clock in the afternoon.

But how do you suppose such little ones can ride on horseback? This is the way their mother tells it:

"Mohammed arranged two boxes with a light framework above each, so that we could cover them above and all around with blue calico curtains. How I wish you could have seen them!"

She then explains that these two boxes were fastened by straps or cords passing over the back of the horse so as to hold them, one box on each side of his body.

The babies were carried out of the city, along its narrow and roughly-paved streets, in the arms of their father and Mohammed, and then they were laid in their boxes on the sides of the horse, under their blue calico curtains, and were soon asleep. Their father and mother rode on saddles on other horses, and a man walked beside the horse that carried the babies, to guide him and to take care of them. Once the horse kicked the man with both his hind feet, but did not hurt him much, and did not spill the children out of their boxes. They all came safely to Schweifat. From that place to Beirut there is a good road, and they made the rest of their journey comfortably in a carriage. Probably they could drive that in about one hour.

In only a few places in Syria do they have carriage roads, and I wish to let you see how they do most of their travelling.

I do not think that there is any better way for two little children to ride than in such boxes. When there is only one child,

it can be carried in the arms of a man or woman, or the child can be in one box and the food or something else that they have to carry can balance it in the other.

I have several times met a family in that country travelling with a donkey, the man on foot leading the animal, on which his wife rode carrying her babe in her arms.

It always made me think of the journey which Joseph and Mary and the infant Jesus took, from Bethlehem to Egypt, almost 1900 years ago. You had the story of that journey in one of the Sabbath-school lessons in July, and you had all read or heard it many times before. Perhaps, after reading this, you will like to get a map and find Bethlehem, and try to make out how many days it would take for such a family to travel to Egypt. It will help you in this to find Sidon on the map, and see about how far it is along the coast to Beirut. If Schweifat is not on your map, you may know that it is four or five miles from the coast, up the side of the mountain which there rises right up from the sea, and it is about as far southward of Beirut. They could have gone all the way along the coast; but it was better to go up the mountain side to Schweifat, so as to ride from there in a carriage; and perhaps it was a little cooler up there, in the middle of the day, than it would be down on the coast.

If Beirut is not on the map which you have, you can look at Tyre, which is nearly as far south as Beirut is north of Sidon on the coast.

You know how often "the coasts of Tyre and Sidon" are mentioned in the Bible; and you know what great and powerful cities Tyre and Sidon were.

Perhaps I ought to tell you who the Mohammed is of whom I have spoken. You know something about the great Mohammed who lived in Arabia more than twelve hundred years ago, and who claimed

to be a prophet of God. The people who believe in him are called Mohammedans, and sometimes Moslems. It is not uncommon for any of them to name a son Mohammed, just as Jews and Christians name their sons Elijah, or Isaiah, or Moses.

My friend Mohammed in Sidon is one of those. I call him my friend because when I was in Sidon he was very kind to me, and I found him a very polite and gentlemanly man. He does many kind and helpful things for the missionaries.

He believes, as all Moslems do, in one God, who is a spirit and cannot be seen by our eyes, and must not be represented by images or pictures. Their name for God is Allah. They also believe that Jesus was a great prophet, but that Mohammed is a

greater, and they do not acknowledge Jesus as the Son of God.

This Mohammed in Sidon works for the missionaries a great deal. He can oversee the building of a house, or a school-house; he can make furniture for them; he can help them when they travel, and can do many kinds of business for them. He is faithful.

There are such Mohammedans. I have met more than one. I have also seen a few who have become Christians. Ought not we to pray that there may be many, and that our missionary friends may be helped to live such good lives among them that they will say, as a Moslem woman in Persia said to a Christian woman, "Yours is a blessed religion"? H. A. N.

A good number of our little readers have written to me just as I asked them to do in the July number, telling me what they have found in the Bible about oxen. One little girl's mother writes, with her daughter, expressing her thanks for "sending the children upon pleasing errands to God's holy word." She kindly says, "The mothers welcome any such suggestion that familiarizes our children with the precious Book of books."

I believe that my little friends have been surprised to find oxen spoken of in so many places in the Bible, and in so many ways.

Farmers' boys who drive oxen know that sometimes a yoke of oxen get the bad habit of hauling. Instead of pulling together at the load or the plough, so that the strength of both will be united to draw it forward, they pull apart, each trying to haul the other toward his side. So a great part of their strength is wasted. In just such a way sometimes when two persons ought to be yoke-fellows, instead of agreeing together and using all their united strength to carry a good work right forward, each spends a great part of his time and strength in trying to make the other let it be done in just his way. They make me think of hauling

oxen.

Oxen that are quite obedient to their driver do not get this bad habit. When the driver says "Haw!" they both turn together to the left; when he says "Gee!" they both turn together to the right; and when he has made them understand by his voice or the mo tions of his whip which way he wishes them