"Our first visit," he observes, "was to an upper room, which we reached by climbing half-a-dozen dirty, crazy stairs. My friend without ceremony lifted the latch, and stood, like a sudden apparition from another world, upon the startled group within. Standing in his shadow, I [mentally] photographed the faces, and fixed the impression. The room was large, but with bare walls, and without chair or table. A few bricks in the fireplace had been blackened by an occasional fire. The boards of the 'set-in' bed had evidently been turned into fuel, and only a few rags and a little straw lay in the corner. Three persons sat on the floor, with a broken bottle, and a couple of broken tea-cups. The householder-a little shrivelled man of fifty-sat opposite the door; his wife, about the same age, with a draggled dress and dirty' mutch,' ('cap,') from which her untidy hair escaped, sat close to him; and with his back to us sat a stranger in good black dress, and with thin silky grey hair falling over a forehead that bore the marks of some culture. We learned afterwards that he had been once well off, with a dozen men in his employment; but here, under the spell of the old tempting spirit, he was in the midst of another'spree.' The old shrivelled face belonged to the Mission, and needed looking after: 'Weel, Jamie,' said Mr. Hogg, in reproachful tones, 'hoo are ye getting on?' The old man, startled, and now in sober earnest, dropping the cup from his hand, with what remained of its contents, cried, 'Just gaun to the deevil again, Maister Hogg!""

After describing other cases of poverty and sorrow, not by any means always the result of crime and intemperance, Mr. Maccoll says:—

"The work of visiting such a district was by no means pleasant. In the hot summer days, among ill-ventilated rooms and badly-drained 'closes,' it required considerable courage; and often by the bedside of the dying, how depressing it was to see the coverlet crowded with flies, and not a hand to keep from the clammy face the tormentors that would not admit repose! My first visit to such a case broke me down. The man was old, had been decent and industrious, but knew little of Christ. He was ignorant of many terms in common use among those accustomed to read and hear the Bible; and, as a divinity student, I got one of my first lessons in opening the ears of the deaf and the eyes of the blind.” "I got my own eyes opened too," it is significantly added, "when I found my bottle of wine had been drained by a drunken daughter, and not a drop given to her dying father!"

It was among practical, deeply instructive studies like these, bringing him into close contact with the sins and sufferings of a swarming population, sunk low in misery, that Mr. Maccoll spent his summer vacation; "now standing beside a woman busy at her washing-tub, speaking about the things of her peace, till she would wipe away the soap-suds from her arms, and then the tears from her eyes; again, sitting beside the shoemaker or the tailor, urging them to arise and seek the Lord." Admirable training this for the duties of a ministerial "charge," or of a Methodist "Circuit!"

After Mr. Maccoll had been engaged for ten months in making these preliminary experiments in Home-Mission work, he drew up a report of the state of things in the Wynds, and presented it to Dr. Buchanan's con

gregation; who, it appears, had been sustaining a Mission in that district. Among various wise remarks in this report, there is so just a description of the qualifications requisite to form a successful evangelist in such a neighbourhood, that we cannot refrain from transcribing it :"The man that would have even a probability of success, requires to combine most opposite extremes of character. He must be kind, and yet sometimes seem cold, that he may sympathize with the needy, and be proof against the designing. Frank and open, that the most timid may approach, and speak without stammering; and yet of sufficient firmness not to descend below the level of Christian manhood. With a firm grasp of the guiding principles of life, and of the great truths of the Gospel, he should be able with simplicity and point, in plain and earnest language, to speak to the heart. Besides all this, there is need of readiness in resources, and a quickness to seize on opportunities which occur but once to most men, and by their sudden appearance test a man's fitness for his place and time. He should have a ready sympathy with all pure delights; and, while sensitive to all that is most beautiful and good, should not be too easily driven from duty by the reverse. He should be able to awaken sometimes in the dreary dens of vice a yearning for the sanctities of home; and, amid the dinginess and dirt of unswept courts, and the stifling air of unventilated rooms,beneath a dark leaden sky that looks on no verdure and ripens no bloom, he should be able easily to recall thoughts, as if newly gathered from the haunts of summer, and make some desolate heart feel as if he came from Araby the Blest, with its odours still lingering about him." As we read such a sketch of the kind of men needed for successful toil, on a large scale, amongst the thousands of people massed together in all our great towns, we are reminded very forcibly of the words of the Lord Jesus: "The harvest truly is plenteous, but the labourers are few. Pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that He will send forth labourers into His harvest."

After a period of preparatory work in the Wynds, a church was built by the aid of the Free Church Building Society. On the 22d of August, 1854, Mr. Maccoll received ordination to the ministry, and on the same day he entered upon the charge of this Wynd Church. Referring to this period, he says:

"I was ordained by the laying on of the hands of the Presbytery and I received on the same day the hearty right hand of fellowship at the door of the church, from those who were now members of the Wynd Church, and were the nett result of above three years' varied and most earnest mission effort. These members now intrusted to me numbered exactly ninety-nine, and were literally the poor, the lame, the maimed, and the blind.' Yet out of their deep poverty, and in many hard-earned pence, they had contributed about £50 to the Building Fund; and, at my suggestion, this, their first gift into the treasury, was expended on a circular pulpit window of stained glass, and with these verses inscribed :'OUR FATHER:'JESUS THE MEDIATOR:''THE SPIRIT OF TRUTH: 'FATHER, I HAVE SINNED.' That last verse has more than once since then been the means of catching a careless but curious eye, and of helping a poor prodigal heart home."

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Mr. Maccoll tells us that in accepting this Home-Mission work among the people of the Wynds, his great wish was to test, by actual experiment, how far the Gospel of Christ could repeat its recorded miracles of grace among the most hopelessly fallen of our country's population. He says, "The main, and, as it seemed to me, most needful, question to be kept in view from the first was this,-Can a church, a true primitive church, after the example of the Acts of the Apostles, be gathered from these Wynds? Can we now, in these days, grow such a church simply from the seed? I wanted honestly to try that. My future ministry and life's work depended on whether that was possible. If nothing could be done but gather people into a building, to hear sermon or service, I confess I had no mind to labour at that. If even higher work could be done, but only upon people in respectable dress, and already living decent and industrious lives, I would have doubted if this was the work of the Gospel.* I wanted to know if miracles of grace could still be wrought in the name of Jesus-if the true evidence that Christ is come was to be found in the work He still continued to do-if we could still point doubters, like John's disciples, to similar facts, only more inward and more needful, and fully promised: The deaf hear, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the dead are raised up, and to the poor the Gospel is preached.' This, therefore, was my first work......I was jealous, almost to a fault, for several years, of every well-dressed stranger that entered the church. I did nothing to encourage him to settle with us. I was anxious that no doubt should finally rest upon the experiment we were conducting. I hoped no one should be able to say that we had carried other soil from longcultivated fields, and so dressed our own bare rock."

It was truly a "work of faith" this; and, except as a "labour of love," too, and as prosecuted in the unwearied "patience of hope," it could never have been carried on. At first the people around seem to have maintained a sullen, dead indifference. Slowly, very slowly, did they come to the new church. "Each one had to be asked before he came some had to be asked scores of times." Still they did come; it was not labour finally in vain.

Among various strange and most opposite characters, thus 'drawn together from the miserable dwellings of the Wynds, Mr. Maccoll mentions some who " came with certificates of church-membership twentyeight years old, kept carefully, like title-deeds, when everything else was gone." What tales of wandering from God, and heart-aching misery, could those dreary years unfold! Tender and touching details of individual cases are given, illustrative of various phases of human character, and the winning power of earnest, loving toil. But we have not space to transcribe them.

Mr. Maccoll soon began to infuse his own earnest spirit into the hearts of his people. Immediately after the first communion in the

This is strongly put. But we presume that Mr. Maccoll means, simply, that nothing would satisfy him short of evidence that the provisions of the Gospel were fully equal to the very utmost demands of human nature, in its most helpless spiritual necessities. And surely the desire was as praiseworthy as it was bold.

Wynd church, a few young women who had joined in the service waited upon their pastor to tell him how it had been impressed upon them, that, when Jesus was on earth, He sent His disciples to say that the "kingdom of heaven was at hand;" and that they would like to go round to some of the houses with tracts. They added, "We have here six shillings to pay for them. We hope to give that at least every month."

They agreed to spend an hour, between the morning and afternoon service, among the people in the neighbourhood, and invite them to go with them to church. It was also resolved "to meet together for five minutes every Sabbath, at the close of the morning service, to apportion the tracts, and implore " power from on high."

Referring to these fellow-helpers, Mr. Maccoll says, "These were hard-working girls, chiefly engaged in factories or warerooms; but in a few weeks we had thirty of them thus engaged. And every Sabbath afternoon, for months after, as we sung our opening psalm, I saw one and another of the more successful entering the church, with several followers in ordinary working dress. In a little time we arranged to speak to the people of the district about their buying Bibles for themselves; and in one year these girls sold no fewer than seven hundred at full price.

"These were our first Bible-women, and were working for two years before the famous Missing Link' was made known by the much and justly honoured L. N. R. This Bible-work went on, and goes on still."

Before long, classes were formed for the purpose of training workers for various departments of service; and, in a short time, twelve "male helpers" began to visit the neighbourhood.

As they went from house to house, they soon met with a difficulty which was dealt with in a very original fashion. Waiting upon the minister, they said, "We cannot longer get people to follow us into church in the afternoon, because, they say, we are all now so well dressed." "What do you propose then?" asked Mr. Maccoll. The question was followed by a request for a short service in the evening, especially with reference to this class.* This was at once acceded to, on condition that "they would come out in their working clothes, so as to induce others to do the same. The tame elephants, as in jungle hunting, might thus bring in the wild. Accordingly, about thirty visitersthe young women putting aside their nice dresses and bonnets, and the men their broadcloth, and coming out in the dress which they wore at work-went round and gathered the first evening thirty others. We now instituted what we called our night brigade, a band of male visiters, armed with bull's-eye lanterns, who penetrated the dark 'cluses' and 'stairs,' a little before the service began, to get promises fulfilled. The second evening we had ninety present, the third about a hundred and fifty, and soon we had the church half filled, sometimes crowded: : some of the visiters would peep into the vestry, before service and say, 'We have swept the closes clean to-night.'"

* Service is not held in the churches in Scotland, as with us, on Sunday evenings.

Speaking of the people thus compelled to come in, and of the effect produced upon his own mind, as he gazed upon the strange-looking congregation, unaccustomed to Christian worship, Mr. Maccoll remarks, "The audience affected me profoundly. They taught me how to preach. There they were, many of them in rags, some of them unwashed, some brought in from their firesides, as they remained after their Saturday night's dissipation. Many had never in their life been within a church door; many had not been for ten or twenty years.

"And there they sat, as I stood up to preach, looking into my eyes with eager search, as if for light, waiting to know if I really had any good news for them. They seemed to say, 'We have come, for once in our life, at any rate, within your reach; and we shall listen to-night till you've done. Say your best; do your utmost: we are dead, hopeless creatures. We know we 're lost; you need not tell us that. We believe in hell; we have been there: but is there salvation for us? Can you do anything to save us? For God's sake, try!' And I did try. But for a little, I lost sight of them in tears; for my words were broken and mingled with sobs. But, as it happened,* my emotion moved them. Some of them were softened, and their hearts took away impressions from the truth.......The church now began to fill more rapidly. At each half-yearly communion we had a larger addition to the membership, sometimes thirty or forty. The communion class, held for six weeks before the communion, was our harvest time. Then our 'latter rain' fell, and we reaped our precious seed. What stories of life were told me at those periods, and what records of mercy were unfolded!”

Four years of noble, unwearied work, and the rejoicing labourer records, "The Wynd church was filled!" There was a complete staff of elders, deacons, visiters, collectors, and Sabbath-school teachers; and, besides the services in the church, fifteen meetings were held in different sections of the district.

And now the time seemed to have come for carrying the work further, and pushing into the outlying territory. The experiment as to whether or not "a church, a true primitive church, after the example of the Acts of the Apostles, could be gathered from the Wynds," had succeeded, and succeeded sooner and better than most had expected. Then a harvest could be reaped from other similar fields; only let the " sower go forth to sow." "From the beginning," writes Dr. Maccoll, "I had taken to the work in the Wynds, not simply to form a congregation and be a pastor, but, by God's blessing, to conquer a great and urgent question that concerned this and other cities.......I believed that the seed of all change for the better, of all renovation, of all permanent progress, was the truth of the Gospel. I believed it was seed suited to our soil, even where most barren, most waste, and nigh to utter cursing. I believed that an apostolic church could be grown from that seed. I did not yet know what such a church could not do. I believed that faith need have no impossibilities."

After much careful thought, plans for wider action were laid before

* Yet there is another way of accounting for this.