ITINERATING IN THE BUSH, VICTORIA.

preaching, teaching, and colportage. But now we go in to the tea-meeting. A bush choir has got up some of the inevitable Sankey's hymns. (What a fine thing it is to have a world-wide hymn-book!) A review of the work done for the year is given, and then, in as forceful and winsome a way as we can, Brothers Wilkin, Palmer, Pitman (a young man newly from Frome, Somerset), and I, put forth timely truth for heart and life. To crowd into the place most of those who wished to hear, the men had to stand the whole time; many listened about the doors and windows. But the interest never flagged, and no sign of weariness was shown until the last speech was made, and the last hymn was sung. These tea-meetings do several things. They associate religion and the missionaries' work with the largest and cheeriest social gathering the people have; they bring the people together at a time when the prospects of harvest, and plans for irrigation, &c., &c., afford topics of keen interest to all, and they afford an opportunity for all who are able to help the mission to do so by taking tickets, by providing tables, or by directly contributing money. Three successive bad years, through drought, when the people saw the crops and the cattle perish for water, and when many went twenty-five miles to get a barrel or two of very questionable liquid for home and absolute necessity, have greatly impoverished them; but last year was better, and this year has some promise of giving a return for outlay in toil and money, so that the people will be able to make up their arrears. They have proved that when they have the means they gladly give to support the mission.

Next day we drove twenty-five miles due north to the Murray River saw-mills. No part of the work the Home Mission is doing is more Christlike, or more needed, than this. Let me explain. The Murray divides Victoria from New South Wales. the river at different parts of its course there are forests of red-gum For miles on both sides of trees (eucalyptus resinifera). On account of its wonderful toughness and durability, this timber is very valuable. It will stand in water or damp soil for many years without being at all affected with rot. For railway sleepers, piles for bridges, posts for gates, supports for wooden houses it is unequalled. These forests are under the surveillance of foresters appointed by the Government, who see that the young timber is not destroyed, and that the duty is paid on each monarch of the woods that is felled. At different points along the Murray, individuals or companies have established red-gum saw-mills. Being far away from towns and from lines of traffic (save the river, which is navigable for twelve hundred miles), the employés at the mills, and their wives and families, were left to practical heathenism. can only reach three or four of these mills at present. Of course, our mission our pioneer missionary, Rev. George Slade, who first carried the gospel I think it was to the mills on the Gunbower Island, and across the river to the mills on the New South Wales side. I cannot forget my first impression when we drove up to the bank of the broad swift river. Giant gums fringed its margin, and stood thickly far back as the eye could reach. White cockatoos, and all sorts of coloured parrots, flashed their gay plumage in the afternoon sun, and the villages along the bank, built entirely of the bright red wood, together with great piles of the

sawn timber, were reflected in the smooth water. The Victorian Government forester, Mr. Kennedy, gave us a hearty welcome, and, after a general refresher, we crossed the river in a boat, and found our way to the long shed which had been cleared for the tea-meeting, and which was now festooned with evergreens and forest flowers and blossoms. The tables were well-spread, and eighty or more persons were ready for tea. We sang to the people, amused them with readings from "John Ploughman" and Carleton's "Farm Ballads," and finished with gospel addresses. They had a good, hearty choir of their own, led by a boundary rider, a real honest servant of the Lord, who, with accordion and voice, aided most vigorously. The next night (Saturday) at another mill, two miles off, we held a gospel temperance meeting. Many came up from the mill where we were last night, and God enabled us to lay hold of several souls, besides securing quite a number of temperance pledges, and affixing "the blue." Thank God, some decided out-andout for Christ, and many were found to be stricken and anxious.

Next morning (Sunday) we had to ride twelve miles before eleven o'clock to Cohuna, where I was delighted to find the people had built a neat, commodious wooden chapel, and fenced in the land, which had been generously given by a small, struggling farmer. The place was full, and as Brother Wilkin said, "Heaven came down our souls to greet." The genuine and hearty piety of many of the Cohuna people made it seem quite an oasis in our extended bush wanderings. That afternoon we drove ten miles, and preached at Koondrook, a saw-mill township on the Murray, and then sixteen more miles to the evening service at Kerang, where the head-quarters of the mission are for this district. The evening service, in the Mechanics' Institute, was a time of power, and some were decided for Christ and eternity.

I had now reached a part of the country over which I had travelled in 1877 with my dear friend, Mr. Thomas Spurgeon. The contrast for the better in the extent of cultivation, in the progress of the people, and especially in the increase of the means of grace through all that region would rejoice my young brother as it rejoiced me. It was indeed surprising to find great tracts of country, which were then the home of the dingo, the emu, and the kangaroo, now under cultivation, dotted with little homesteads, and with water-tanks and irrigating drains dug for many miles. The hope of this country, agriculturally speaking, lies in conservation of water and irrigation. Only now do the people and the Government seem awaking to the fact that those vast plains of rich red soil can alone be made fertile by artificial irrigation. The Wimmera is intersected by rivers which rise annually through the melting of snows on the Australian Alps; the network of creeks is filled by these rising rivers, from which the water can be lifted by force pumps on to the land, and then, through drains and laterals, distribute itself by gravitation mainly, as the country for many miles is as flat as a croquet lawn. Many are already attending to irrigation, and I hope in a few years to see, by this means, the desert rejoicing and blossoming as the rose.

Nothing astonished me more than to find we were to hold a teameeting at Budgerum. This is the name given to one of the great paddocks of the Quambatook "run," where Mr. Gideon Rutherford,

the tried and hearty friend of the President's son, Thomas, and a "vera brither" to me, used to lie out at nights to try to shoot the wild dingo dogs, which made such cruel havoc with his flocks. Yet here was the State school, and nearly one hundred people to a tea-meeting, small farms all about, and not a few of the friends of Jesus to encourage our Home Mission work. It seemed a startling coincidence when I heard that Mr. Rutherford, who has left the district for some years, and has gone to reside in New Zealand, was actually on the "run." I was disappointed, however, to find he had left the night before for Melbourne, where we afterwards met. Oh, what joy was it to find some who had been brought to Christ when, in company with Thomas Spurgeon, we visited this district years ago, standing firm in the faith, and working to bring others into the liberty of the gospel! It was in a farmer's kitchen at Oak Vale, also on Quambatook, on a Saturday night, where several of the family had been so blessed, that I preached, and had the joy of leading yet another soul, a visitor, to the peace-speaking blood.

But I fear that my narrative may become prolix and tiresome, so I hasten to a close. In company with our dear, earnest missionary, who lives at Boort, Charles Palmer, I visited Barraport, Boort, North Mysia, Minmindie, Ferniehurst, &c., and with one exception spoke to crowded audiences, and was again rewarded with some coming out on the Lord's side. I heard that requests to come and preach the glad tidings to scattered groups of people all about were pouring in upon our men, but they are unable to comply, as they already seem to live in the saddle or buggy, going about from place to place. The journeying of itself, in the fierce heat of summer, is very exhausting work. If ever there was a cry for more men and more money, it is from these regions, where a fine yeoman and peasant population is settling so fast on these new lands.

Soon after returning to my church at West Melbourne, which had so kindly released me for that work in the bush, I heard that numerous applicants for baptism were coming forward in both the districts visited, and that a public immersion in Lake Boort of a number of believers, on a Lord's-day afternoon, before a crowd of spectators, had taken place. The joyful news has also come from Kerang, which once was called a "Whiskey Sodom," that as the fruit of evangelistic services by our agents there, quite a large band of young men have come to Jesus. No wonder brother Wilkin writes, "We are in the seventh heaven; help us to shout Hallelujah!" You will, I know, help to swell that shout on your side of the globe, as we are helping to do so here. I do also most gratefully record that God is giving us just now a blessed harvest of souls at West Melbourne, more than fifty persons being now before the church. O ye that are the Lord's remembrancers, I again put in a plea that ye will not fail to mention my dear adopted land, Victoria, in all your approaches to the Throne !

B 524.-A Thief gone to Paradise.

N the morning of September the 26th, 1884, there appeared a letter

in which the writer related a part of his life-experience in a style so different from that usually adopted by the criminal class, that many who hastily perused the narrative while dispatching rolls and coffee, doubtless regarded it as quite a phenomenal production. The letter was so artlessly put together, moreover, expressing in simple but suitable language precisely what B 524 wanted to say, that incredulous souls, who had heard rumours about Paris and Hong Kong despatches being concocted in Fleet Street, may well be excused if they put the article down to the credit of some sensational flaneur. The public had just heard the audacious statements of burglar Wright, the assassin of Hoxton; but here was a witness who said that there was another side to the question, and who professed to speak about prison life, and prison officials, with the authority of one who had actually tasted of the bitterness of penal servitude. The letter was perfectly genuine, and, more than this, it was written under circumstances so exceptional, as would have added fresh interest to the confessions made had they been known to the readers. At the time of writing, B 524 was on a bed of sickness, and about seven weeks later he died. Until laid low, he was the trusted servant of a firm of printers in an extensive way of business, and who little suspected his antecedents. The general particulars of his life, and how he was reached in his last days by the grace of God, were withheld from the daily paper; but now that the poor adventurer has passed away, at the age of 35, leaving a disconsolate widow and several children, there is no longer any necessity for silence. Even apart from all this, there was great credit due to the man for the endeavour he made to expose the unreasonableness of the libels on the authorities uttered by burglar Wright. His modesty prompted him to suppress merely personal matters while defending the prison authorities. Given with ampler details, the story has not only an interest of its own, but it illustrates the admirable working of an agency like that of Mr. Hatton's, which, under all the conditions of life, seeks to attract criminals from the error of their ways, and does not do so in vain.

Born in the middle of the century, B 524 was the child of respectable parents, and his mother, who still lives, is believed to be a sincere Christian woman. When conversing about her son having gone wrong by yielding to temptation at the outset of life, she is not able to account for the calamity; but probably others more deeply versed in the tendencies of human nature, would more readily detect the original flaws in his character. At all events, we think that we can see in his turning aside from religion, the one cause of all subsequent discomfiture. He was of more than average intelligence, and thus was fond of reading; but he seemed to delight in reading books for the express purpose of exercising his critical faculty. This alone is a dangerous disposition, especially if it leads a person to treat Christian works of recognized value as though they were things merely to be sported with; and in the case of B 524, it seemed to open the path to uncompro

mising unbelief. While still only a youth, he became an infidel; and having fallen so far, the descent from bad to worse is in any case easy, because without Christian principle there is no check on the heart and passions. Having forsaken the ways of truth, he next turned into paths of dishonesty, and then soon found that life's prospects were blighted through his being sent into penal servitude for five years. He was now able to think upon the folly which had landed him, as it were, in earthly perdition; and though unable to directly retrace his steps, he determined to do the best that he could under the circumstances. He was taken from the sessions with a number of other convicts; and when, on one occasion, the governor of the prison asked any who would like to learn a trade to stand forward, B 524 thought, "Now is my chance," and accordingly at once volunteered to learn the business of a compositor. At that time this particular industry had hardly been introduced into the gaol; indeed, our friend was privileged to make one among the first six who volunteered. He harboured none of those vindictive feelings against society which are characteristic of miscreants like burglar Wright; he realized that he had sinned, that he was being justly punished, and that those in whose charge he was placed were moved by the truest compassion when they offered him an opportunity to rise again to respectability. He thought that if he had been taught a trade he would not have fallen; but he now determined to enter into the new enterprise with all ardour. "I went for it heart and soul," he remarks. "The instructing warder seeing that I meant work, did all in his power to assist me, and I owe him a deep debt of gratitude for his kindness, and patience, and instruction. When I started to learn, there were only six or eight of us in a small room, and the trade was an experiment; when I left there were sixty men, and a large plant and machinery, and altogether a complete success. After two years at Brixton, we were removed to Millbank-there was not a workshop in Brixton large enough for us-and there I completed my time, and when discharged had a fair knowledge of my trade." This shows how successfully industrial arts have been introduced into the prisons of late years.

On leaving the prison with a ticket-of-leave, after some years' confinement, B 524 was able to take a situation in a printing-office; but thinking that he was hardly competent to keep pace with the best London workmen, he preferred the country, where he soon found a congenial opening. The authorities had not turned him penniless upon the world, for he left the prison with a capital of £6, a sufficient outfit of clothes, besides a Bible and Prayer-book. What he looked forward to with the most apprehension was the duty he would have to observe of reporting to the police; but his fears were groundless, the police not only having orders not to mention to employers any man's antecedents who tries to retrieve the past, but being liable to severe punishment if they do so. On the second day that he sought work in a provincial town, an opening was found at 30s. a week. He prospered there until he was able to do better in another town; but, all along, the authorities, under whose supervision he was obliged to live, acted as his truest friends. "This is how I was hunted,'" he writes. "The chief constable of the town I was leaving gave me an open letter, strongly recommending me