amidst discouragement and opposition reclaimed it, enclosed a farm, erected two small houses, and engaged a school-master and a Scripturereader. The accommodation was very limited; the inconvenience to which all had to submit was very great. Food was scanty, and hard to be procured. Newport, the nearest market-town, was twenty-five miles distant, and over nine of these miles there was no road. A lady who visited the settlement gave to a friend an amusing idea of the absence of luxury about the place. "I am writing with my window open to allow an escape for the smoke. Two of the rooms have been converted into a printing-office. Joyce and Gardner, Scripture-readers, have no other home. Lendrum, his wife and six children, are all domiciled in the same house. I asked the other morning if two sorrowful-looking sheep which I saw at the door had been in the garden all night? I was answered, "No, ma'am, they were in Mr. Baylee's parlour." "Where is the old grey mare kept?" "In Mr. Baylee's parlour." "And the pet eagle?" "In Mr. Baylee's parlour.' "Where is the Sundayschool held?" "In Mr. Baylee's parlour." "And the church?" "In Mr. Baylee's parlour."

Mr. Nangle took up his abode in this place, and began a course of Scripture instruction in schools, and incessant teaching of God's Word in public and private, which was to be continued by himself or by those whom he superintended for nearly half a century, in the face of the most strenuous and unscrupulous opposition from the priests and dignitaries of the Romish church.

In a very short time he had established schools in the villages of Dugort, Slievemore, Cashel, and Keel, which were attended by 420 children; and gathered congregations regularly to hear the gospel. He and his helpers travelled laboriously through the island, a work of no little difficulty in those times of bad roads or none, and read the Word of God in the homes of the people wherever they could get a hearing. As need arose, an orphan institution was established for the education of destitute children of Protestants and Catholics alike, and a trainingschool for boys, which has produced many excellent Irish school-masters. For the enlightenment of the islanders he started, moreover, and printed, a monthly paper, the "Achill Missionary Herald and Western Witness,' which still exists under another title. Its purpose was "to bear a faithful and uncompromising testimony against the superstition and idolatry of the Church of Rome, and to proclaim the glorious truths of the gospel, and the progress of the Redeemer's spiritual kingdom." He showed extraordinary enterprise and ingenuity in the editing, writing, and printing of this paper, the power of which was by no means confined to his own little island. Not content with evangelizing Achill, the mission extended its labours to Clare island, and its aggressive spirit roused the bitter hostility of the Roman Catholic dignitaries. The popish archbishop, attended by thirteen priests, visited Clare for the purpose, as he expressed it, of protecting the islanders from being misled by the "venomous fanatics." One of the priests delivered a harangue, in which he said that persons who brought cholera into a district were beaten from the borders with sticks and stones; and that the Protestant missionaries from Achill carried with them in their religion a far more deadly plague, and ought to be driven from the

island. The unsuspecting school-master and Scripture-reader were speedily assailed with stones and sticks, and narrowly escaped with their lives to the mountains, whence they reached the coast, and got away in a coast-guard vessel.

'Why do

"What more are

Mr. Nangle had his bright as well as dark days, and one of his gladdest was when Bishop Plunket came to Achill and, in the presence of an immense congregation, confirmed 400 persons, 372 of them being converts from the Church of Rome. The Scripture instruction in the schools fell on good ground, and was intelligently applied by the sharp young scholars. A priest, we are told, met one of these boys on a country road, and, patting the little fellow on the head, asked him, "Are you a Catholic or a Protestant?" "I am a Protestant," replied the boy. "A Protestant! why, my child, you have not a Protestant face." "That may be, sir, but I have a Protestant heart." you go to school?" "To learn to read and write." you taught?" "We are taught," said the boy," not to worship as God what is made by the hands of man; for the Scripture says, 'They be no gods that are made with hands!"" "I do not want your texts," said the priest; "did you ever see God?" "No, sir, God is a Spirit.' 'No man hath seen God at any time; the Only-begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him.' "I say again, I want Rone of your texts." Well, sir," said the boy, "if our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost.' The priest was on his way to the village of Cashel, and was carrying his bag. The boy with native politeness offered to carry it for him, but the priest refused. When the little fellow was afterwards asked why he was so anxious to carry the bag, he replied that "he would learn the gentleman a great deal of the truth if he had him as far as Cashel."

แ

When Mr. Nangle went there in 1831, there was not a Protestant in Achill except at the coast-guard station. When, in 1854, he left the island for the parish of Skreen, there were five places of Protestant worship; 1,500 children in constant attendance at the Scriptural schools, and all learning the English language as well as their own vernacular; and the colony had its church, schools, hospital, orphanage, dispensary, post-office, and printing-office; while a process of evangelization went on throughout the whole island.

The veteran clergyman spent many useful years at Skreen, keeping all the while a warm place in his heart for Achill, and spending there in active labour three months in every year, till age and infirmity dictated his resignation of parish duty, and he went back to his island-home to minister to the poor people as far as his strength permitted, until within two years of his death. He died in September, 1883, at the age of eighty-four; and his biographer aptly selects as descriptive of his apostolic life, the words of Paul, "I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith."

It only remains to add that the book from which this sketch is derived is an able and energetic history of the Achill mission, forcible and graphic throughout, and uncompromising in its grasp of Scripture truth, and in its opposition to Rome. We hope this taste will whet the appetites of many for the book itself, and we promise them a banquet of wholesome and savoury fare.

D.

BE

ELIEVING that our ever-faithful friends would like to gaze upon a view which often charms our eyes, we requested our engraver to reproduce at his very best a photograph taken hard by a favourite haunt of ours. The quaint old town is, as it were, set in a frame of olives; and looks most attractive in that fashion. Close at hand is the room where our Sabbath-worship is held. Alas, the wood-block cannot reflect that lovely light which makes each object so clear, so bright; neither can any words enable the reader to judge of the glory which gilds all things when the sun rules the hour. If we may but bottle up a few of the sunbeams for the pages of our magazine, and acquire a supply of bodily health for future labour, we shall be devoutly grateful. What is the value of rest unless it enables us to serve our Master better? Will loving helpers pray that our enforced retirement may be thus sanctified to noble ends?-C. H. S.

SAL

"Use Plain Anglo-Saxon."

AID Dr. Wilson, wisely, to the graduating class at Alleghany Theological Seminary: "Young gentlemen, study Hebrew roots, pore over Greek verbs, read Latin, and if you have time and desire, translate ancient hieroglyphics; but I charge you, when you go into the pulpit to preach the gospel, to use plain Anglo-Saxon."

Well said, Dr. Wilson; but it is hard to get these young fellows to heed such advice. They talk any language except their mother-tongue. Hear how they roll out Latinized sentences, which nobody ever ought to repeat, stuffed with words which it ought to be unlawful for a man to utter! We have known young whipper-snappers, who could not have said "Boo" to a goose, but, no doubt, they had the potentiality of sustaining a fraternal dialogue with an anserine biped. Oh, that some vivisector would cut the Latin bone out of the roots of certain preachers' tongues! The teachers of the young ladies' seminary, and the editor of The Academician Monthly," and Mr. Sourkrout, the critic, might miss the grandeur of the preacher's talk; but common-sense folk would know what he meant, which is more than they do now.

We shrewdly guess that big words are often used to hide the nakedness of the land; the man has nothing to say, and so he puts it into a jargon which to foolish persons sounds as if there must be something in it. If Jesus Christ were here, he would speak so that his words could be understood by the common people. Preacher! Go thou, and do likewise.-C. H. S.

Attractiveness of Wycliff's Itinerant Preachers.

A

TTRACTED them,-but how? Not by music and pageant,-they had very hard words for those who came to church for such things. They told them in the plainest terms that they were not wanted. Not by elegant diction and beautiful language, they carefully eschewed everything approaching to it. Those enticing words of man's wisdom, so diligently cultivated in this nineteeth century, the poor priests of the fourteenth cast behind them, as wanderers from the opposite camp. Where was the use of gilding refined gold, and painting the lily? They had the grand truth: why should they conceal it by strewing gewgaws over it? They had the virgin honey: why should they present it in vessels of painted porcelain, so that men would stop to admire the jar, and would not taste the contents? The attractions that they offered were twofold: and they did the work, as those twin attractions always do, and as no other will ever do. They held up Jesus Christ before the multitude, and they did it with hearts on fire with a great passionate yearning for the souls of men, which ran from heart to heart with an electric thrill. The power of the Holy Ghost was with these men; and no attractions which do not include that heavenly magnet will ever draw the steeled hearts of sinful men.-From "The Lord Mayor: a Tale of London in 1384." By Emily Sarah Holt.

Egypt and the Pharaohs.*

THE political troubles of Egypt, as well as recent discoveries in that country, have awakened an interest such as is sure to be gratified by Mr. Berkley's attractive volume. He has industriously collected his materials; he writes in hearty sympathy with the subject; and his quaint portrayals of life in the land of the Pharaohs, thousands of years ago, all tend to add zest to the reader's enjoyment.

The grand old Nile itself is typical of the history of the country through which it flows, its source having been for ages hidden among the unknown and formerly inaccessible lakes and mountains of Africa. History, indeed, tells us that the earliest king of Egypt was called Mena; but whether this hero is real or mythical, he bears" a name that seems to twinkle faintly from beyond the abyss of long past ages like a far-off star on the horizon from beyond the wide waste of waters." Khufu, the builder of the Great Pyramid, comes on the scene centuries later, and yet he is supposed by some to have flourished more than 3,000 years before the birth of Christ.

Prior to the time of Mena, all is mythical; and some of the remains of cities are so ancient as to have their origin hidden in pre-historic times. "The twin cities Thinis-Abydos, were, as far as we know, the most ancient in the land." It is said, "Thinis was the cradle of the Egyptian monarchy; the first Egyptian dynasties were Thinite, and Mena went from thence to found his new capital." ON, the City of the Sun, in the vicinity of Memphis, has boundary foundations which, according to Mr. Poole, may yet be traced, enclosing an irregular square of about half a mile in the measure of each of its sides. ON was a great seat of learning in the palmy days of the Pharaohs. "Hither came the young men of Egypt," adds Mr. Berkley-" who shall say how many thousand years ago?-to learn all that the priests could teach at this, the most ancient university of the world."

"So far as we can gather, the teaching of an Egyptian university would comprise a knowledge of the sacred books, besides general teaching in morality. The study of the language itself must have been a somewhat arduous undertaking even for a native-born Egyptian, and to write the hieroglyphic characters required considerable skill, and even art. Many branches of science must have been pursued-medicine, law, geometry, astronomy, and chemistry, whilst in mechanics a quite marvellous proficiency was attained. Music, too, was highly prized, and carefully taught, and it is not unlikely that architects, and sculptors also, received their training in these schools."

Medicine was studied with some enthusiasm, for a Pharaoh himself, in the person of Mena, was a physician; women appear to have enjoyed equal privileges with men, and were even eligible for the throne. It also seems to be a singular fact that the Necropolis of Memphis was called the Land of Life. What a name for a vast cemetery !

The early times, before the rise of other powerful nations, appear to have been the halcyon days of old Egypt. "Fearing no rivals at home,

The Pharaohs and their People: Scenes of Old Egyptian Life and History. By E. Berkley. With numerous Illustrations. London: Seeley and Co. 1884. Price 5s.