friend, and leaning on his stick the while, and listening :-"Your nature is so polluted and defiled by sin, there is no hope for you unless you come to Jesus. Sinner, delay no longer; you may not have another day to live. If you die in your sins, with the rich man you will lift up your eyes in hell. What would you then give for an opportunity like this? It will then be too late. Devils will shriek in your ears-too late! Damned rebels will hiss in your ears-too late! There will be no reprieve, no hope, not an offer of mercy, not a ray of light; no, not so much as a drop of water will reach you there. Sinner, flee to Christ! While your case may be bad, it is not hopeless yet. In the name of Jesus I offer you salvation, but this may be the last offer you may have; before another sun may rise you may be locked in the arms of death." Billy listened and trembled. He was struck with conviction, and not long after, at a love-feast, yielded his heart to God. He soon became a local preacher himself, and like others of his class went through many hardships in the prosecution of the work, spurred on by love to Christ and to the souls of men. "I helped," he says, " to mission Docking, now the head of a circuit. When we first went there a few of the baser sort' discommoded us greatly; but in God's name we hoisted our banner, and did not fear them, though at times they drowned our voices with the noise they made. At first we were much put to it for a place to preach in. I stood by the well, and proclaimed liberty to the captive, and offered salvation to lost sinners through Christ. Sometimes I went to the green, and told the people of Jesus and his love. We then got Mr. Cook's shoeing-shop, but it was not big enough; but we were glad even of that as a makeshift. It was cold there in the winter-time, especially when the rain and snow came drifting in among the people; but they stood it like bricks, and we had souls converted at nearly every meeting."

Not very luxurious were his preaching journeys on some occasions. Here is his own description of a journey to Heacham :

"I shall never forget going to Heacham in the winter of 1837, in a snow-storm. It began to snow in the forenoon, and by twelve o'clock there were three or four inches of snow. My wife said, 'Stay at home, they will not expect you in such weather. I said, I must go," and go I did. When I got as far as Ringstead the wind began to blow in puffs, and kept increasing in strength till it quite roared and blew a mighty gale, so that the snow began to fill the road, and before I got to Heacham it was more than knee-deep. I went to the chapel and preached, and as the weather was worse rather than better I entreated the friends to let me go home. I got a cup of tea and started at once, and when I got to the Longdrove, at a quarter-past four, it was quite fall, as high as the hedges, so I had to get into the field, and the wind so blew the snow in my face that I had many times to turn round to get my breath. Sometimes I sank into the snow up to my knees and stuck fast, and at other times I stumbled and fell. Indeed, I thought I should certainly be lost in the snow. I got home to Thornham at a quarter-past nine. I had been nearly five hours going six miles. I was quite numb with cold; my clothes seemed like a sheet of ice, and icicles hung from my hair and whiskers down as low as my breast."

The following good story illustrates the superstition which sometimes reigns in the minds of the "educated gentlemen" placed in the parishes of England. "In the year 1859, in November, Mrs. Durrant was confined of a son. Now, all our children were baptized by our own preachers but this one. The morning after its birth it showed signs of going to the glory world above. Mr. Blake was our circuit superintendent at the time, and we did not know where to find him. Neither did we know where to find our second preacher; and, as it was very evident the child would die, in the emergency we sent for the rector of the parish, as we would like to see our dear baby receive the rite of baptism in some form or other. I must say, to the rector's credit, he came immediately. He sent for me out of the garden, where I was digging potatoes, to witness the naming of the child. When he entered the house, he thanked God he had come in time to save the child; then he went through the ceremony of sprinkling and naming it. After he had done this he asked if he might go and speak to Mrs. Durrant. I said, 'Go and welcome, sir.' My wife afterwards said to me he read to her a very nice prayer, and talked to her very nicely. When he came downstairs his eye flew from one table to another, and then round the room; he seemed quite in a flurry. He said to me, What have you done with the water?' Not knowing the harm which in his estimation I had done, I said innocently enough, I threw the water out, and set the basin in the cupboard.' He said, 'Oh, dear me ! what have you done? What have you done? What have you done?' I said, I did not think I was doing any harm by emptying the basin'; but he repeated, 'What have you done? What have you done? Come with me,' he said, and show me where you put the water.' I went out with him, and showed him a knoll of grass, and said, 'That is where I put the water, sir.' He went to the little hillock of grass, and fell to jumping and capering upon it round and round ten or a dozen times, stamping it down with his feet; and when he had done he turned to me and said, "I do not think any great harm is done, as nothing can drink it up now.' I said, 'No, sir.' I felt quite amused with his proceedings. I should have told him that while he was upstairs, talking with my wife, I emptied the water into the hand-basin, and washed my hands in the consecrated water, but I did not think of it at the time, but he knew it afterwards. If water after such consecration is holy, and purifies from sin, surely I can lift up holy hands. I think there is scarcely another man alive that has washed his hands in holy water; but tell me about the river of the water of life, which cleanses the heart, purifies the soul, and makes meet for heaven. Away with such popish stuff; it is a disgrace to learned gentlemen of the nineteenth century to believe such balderdash as that a little water out of our well, when the priest consecrates it, is cleansing. Oh, what popish blarney! The Lord sweep such superstitious nonsense out of the world!"

Very good, Master Billy! but if the rector was up to the neck in superstition, you yourself were knee-deep. Why all this fuss and flurry to have the dying baby christened? Your misplacement of one of Christ's ordinances will make the child no safer than the Lord's own redeeming love has made it, bless his name!

Billy found in church rectories specimens of narrowness and bigotry as well as instances of superstition.

about

"I had occasion," he says, "to go and see the rector of writing me a letter to the Lynn post-office. While he was sealing it he said to me, 'You are just the man I wanted to speak to about two or three things. What do you call yourself?" I replied, 'A book-seller.' He said, 'I do not mean that, I mean in a religious point of view.' I answered, 'A Primitive Methodist." He asked, 'Where were you christened?' I said, 'In Thornham church, sir.' Tell me,' he said, 'who christened you?' "The Rev. Charles Hare.' He remarked, 'Then you are a Churchman and not a Dissenter.' I said, 'But I am a Primitive Methodist.' 'No, you are a Churchman to all intents and purposes, though you will not own it,' he replied; and I shall put you down as a Churchman in my report.' I said, 'You can put me down what you like, but it will not make me a Churchman, for I am a Primitive Methodist, and one I mean to remain.' When he found he could not gain me over to his point, he said, 'There is another thing I want to speak to you about, and that is, you have preaching in your cottage, which is decidedly wrong in so small a parish, and more especially so as you preach at the same time as I have service in the church, which is diametrically wrong.' I said, 'Sir, I do not make the plan, and therefore I have no control over it, and I do not see that it makes any difference to your congregation.' He said, 'I am the true Vicar of God, and ordained by the Bishop, and I have charge of the souls of all the people in this parish; therefore no one else has any right to preach in this parish but me.' I said, 'We think otherwise, sir, but I will make an agreement with you if you will get all the people in this parish to come to your church, I will shut my door.' He said, I cannot do that.' I said, Then I cannot shut my door against the servants of Christ.' His reverence then asked, 'Where were your children christened?' I said, 'In the Primitive Methodist Chapel, Bury St. Edmund's, by Primitive Methodist ministers.' He said, 'They are not authorized to baptize children. It is a question with me if they were to die, as to whether they would go right.' I said, 'Sir, do you mean to tell me that if my two children were to die they would go to hell because they were not christened by a Church of England minister?' He said, ‘I did not say that.' I told him he might as well have said it as say what he did. He still contended that the ministers of the Church of England were the only ministers who had the right to baptize children, as they I told were the only ministers that were of the apostolic succession.' him that neither he nor any other minister could trace an unbroken line from the Apostles to the present Bishops of the Church of England. He said, 'If the line cannot be traced, nevertheless the line exists.' I said, 'Sir, the line you speak of has been broken into fractions again and again. If you want to claim apostolic succession you must trace it back through the Church of Rome, for there is where your church sprang from.' 'Oh, dear no !' he said. 'Well, sir,' I asked, Who were the first ministers of the Reformed Church of England but the Roman Catholic priests that came out of the Church of Rome because of her abominations, her vile and superstitious practices; also because of the licentiousness of the priesthood of that apostate church? ' He finished by saying, 'Well, I did not think you were so well-informed. As for Mrs. Durrant, I went to talk to her on these subjects, but where I said one word she

6

said twenty. I could do nothing with her; I thought you would be more reasonable, but I find you are as hard to move as she was.' I said, 'Sir, I claim the right of opinion as well as any other Englishman,' and so we parted."

When Billy was about sixty years of age he paid his first visit to London. His son took him to "Mr. Spurgeon's Chapel." "He led me up into the gallery, quite in front of the pulpit. I could see Mr. Spurgeon," he says, "but could not hear one word distinctly." The old man had grown very deaf. "My son told me there were seven thousand people present. I could compare the people to nothing but a wall of faces, tier above tier, right up to the top of the chapel. It was I think the most wonderful sight I ever saw in a chapel. Mr. Spurgeon seemed to be a very useful man.'

In his old age, for he lived to be nearly seventy-four, he settled in London. He was a bright old Christian, and his fund of humour, aud racy stories of early mission-work in Norfolk, used to hold his aged fellow-Christians spell-bound for hours. He was very deaf, and could not catch the number of the hymns given out in chapel; and so," whatever the people are singing," said he, " whether long, common, short, or peculiar metre, I always sing common metre to

The gospel which can change the dissolute village-pest into such a brave Christian and ripe saint, enriching his manhood with usefulness, and gilding his age with hope, is a glorious possession, and the Methodists of all sorts have done much to diffuse the knowledge of this gospel in the rural districts of England.

D.

66

THE

HE Dougal, an old line of battle ship, which has been lying in Portsmouth Harbour since her return from a cruise on the China station, in 1871, has been recently docked for the purpose of alterations, so as to fit her for taking the place of the Vernon, torpedo and depôt ship. During an examination of her interior, one of the workmen came across a live shell in a disused corner of the ship. The projectile must have lain where it was found for over fourteen years."

This was a startling discovery; but had no examination of the interior been required, the missile would not even now have been found. How forcibly the story illustrates the need we have for careful and frequent search into our own hearts! Possibly the projectile had been placed in the "disused corner of the ship" by an enemy; or, on the other hand, it may have been concealed ready to hurl at the foe. Anyhow, it was a dangerous thing to have stowed away, for at any moment it might have exploded, and destroyed the vessel. Self-examination is ever beneficial, and often leads to the startling discovery of some most. dangerous evil that lay long concealed in the disused corners of the heart. That we may be fitted to take our right place in God's service, and go forth to our work with his approval, let a thorough examination be made, and let all evil be removed. ROBERT SPURGEON.

Christmas in the Canal.

BY THOMAS SPURGEON.

HARDLY one of my readers stops to ask, “What canal?" Scotland

has its lovely Caledonian; England its many waterways, more useful than ornamental; Holland its network of canals; and America its long silver threads, connecting its inland seas; but the Suez Canal belongs to all the world, and is, therefore, par excellence, THE CANAL. The flags of all nations float above its narrow waters, which, for more than ninety miles, pierce the desert, and form the connecting-link between the eastern and western, and, in some senses, between the northern and southern hemispheres. Notwithstanding many defects, from one of which we have ourselves had to suffer, this canal remains the most complete triumph of engineering skill, and will do so until, perhaps, the Panama wrests the palm. It was the lot of those who sailed in the ss. Liguria from Plymouth, on Dec. 12, 1884, to find their good ship at the northern entrance of the canal on the twenty-third morning of the same month.

From Gibraltar to Naples the Mediterranean had been as blue as the unclouded sky above it, and almost as calm as if no storm had ruffled it since the Euroclydon of apostolic date. But, between Spartivento and Damietta, there were gusts and squalls sufficient to remind us that, in winter-time, the great inland sea is not always smiling, for soon its blue surface was transformed into green waving fields, across which the white sea-horses galloped in mad chase. It was, therefore, not a little to the comfort of some delicately-constructed interiors that the Liguria's bows ploughed the placid waters of the canal. To such the Port Said lighthouse was an angel of light, beckoning to peace and rest, and the dirty town itself a very paradise in comparison with the purgatory of the tossed and tumbled sea. Of course, everybody was for the shore directly the morning meal had been negotiated.

The process of coaling an ocean-going steamer is one of those things which people would rather not endure. It is as objectionable as it is essential. The barges were alongside as soon as the ship was safely moored, and almost immediately up and down the sloping planks proceeded the endless chain of "coalies," black as night, carrying six or seven hundred tons of coal on board in baskets in a few hours. Meanwhile, we were pleasuring, as far as it was possible, ashore, glad at any rate to miss the black dust which, in spite of all precautions, penetrates every crack and cranny. Only a few days previously we had meandered about the crowded streets of Naples, and visited its palaces, churches, and museums. There we were strangers, and did not look long for any one to take us in; English sheep they reckoned us, and straightway did their uttermost to fleece us. At Port Said we looked in vain for palaces, and pictures, and curios; but the takers-in and fleecers were there in shoals. We would gladly have looked again on regal splendours, Michael Angelo's sculptures, and Pompeian relics, and just as gladly have dispensed with the perpetual merchants and mendicants; but we were doomed to miss the marvellous, and to be badgered by beggars. They quarrelled as to whose boat we should be rowed ashore in, and what the fare should be.