"How could they wait in the wards, if the Hope of the world were a lie?

How could they bear the sight, the hateful smell of disease, But that He said, Ye do it to Me, when ye do it to these."

Some three years ago, a Sister came to Rochester, and failing to find the accommodation which she had anticipated in the house of an absent friend, went for two nights and days to a small hotel in the neighbourhood. Meeting the landlord on the morning of her departure, she asked for the sum of her debt, and was greatly delighted when he said, with a respectful bow, "I could not think of making any charge to a lady who is engaged in such a charitable work." And yet I have met those who regard the publicans, selling beer in the nineteenth century, as contemptuously as the proud Pharisee despised the publican, who collected taxes, in the first.

The Mission of Trinity College, Cambridge, is engaged in fulfilling, upon the same principles, and with the same success, the Divine intention of the Great Missioner, that the poor should have the Gospel preached to them, not only by words, but by works. And like Him, with all reverence be it spoken, it was born a little Babe in a stable. In a stable were commenced its first Mission services,1 1 and with that building is associated one of the most interesting events in its history. It was from the first in an advanced stage of decomposition, and in

1 Another Mission was begun by the Rev. A. B. Goulden, without church or schools, in part of a stable. This was exchanged for a disused skittle alley, and finally developed into the spacious and beautiful church of St. Alphege.

the second year of its transformation it collapsed and fell. You will imagine the dismay and the despair of the Chief Missioner, when, like Marius weeping over the ruins of Carthage, he surveyed the scene! Their funds had been exhausted. What were they to do? Quickly, to their grateful glad surprise, the answer came. Soon after the catastrophe, a deputation of working men called at the Clergy House to express their sympathy and their willingness, in common with a large number of their fellow-workmen, to undertake the erection of a more commodious building, if the clergy and their friends would find the materials. The offer was joyfully accepted, and at such times and with such contributions as they could spare they built the far more suitable and spacious structure, which remains to this day, a monument of their generous self-denial.

It was a co-operation to be happily remembered by those who were thus happily united by brotherly good-will. It brought a testimony to the beautiful immutable law that love creates love, that the charity, which hopeth and endureth all things, is in the end irresistible, and that Christianity, and Christianity alone, has the power to overcome evil with good. "They tell me," a working man said, "and I believe it, that some of these gentlemen, who come among us, and who live very much as we do, and work as many hours as we do, are the sons of lords, and dukes, and squires, and have been brought up in fine houses and gardens and parks, with servants, and carriages, and horses, and all sorts of wine and cookeries, and that, if they liked, they need do no

work, leastwise no more than those parsons as only opens shop on Sundays, and might go a hunting, and a shooting, and a fishing, a racing and a betting, just as much as they pleased, but that they think it's their duty to God and to their fellow-men to do all the good they can, that idleness is sinful, because the Master of us all has given every man his work to do, and that unless we bear one another's burdens we cannot fulfil the law of Christ. I've heard them say so, and what they say they do."

"When they first came," another said, "I could not make out what they wanted; and when gentlemen cultivate our acquaintance, they mostly want something. They seemed to care nothing about politics. They did not want us to hate any one in particular, or to destroy existing institutions, to groan, or to howl, or to rise as one man, and hurl the tyrant from his throne. They never told us that we were the cream of creation or the backbone of the universe, or better than other folks. They went quietly about in their long black coats, with their cheery faces and kindly words, and seemed so anxious to help us, that we were forced to like, and hear, and believe. Then I found out what it was they wanted: they wanted us to know the Truth, ‘the Truth as it is in Jesus.' They desired that we might share the happiness which made them happy. I remember how one of them set this plainly and persuasively before us in a sermon upon the text, 'We seek not yours, but you,' and ever since I have prayed and tried to follow whither he leads."

There is a charming garden in one of our midland

counties. The sweet flowers glow upon bank and lawn,

"Stars, which on earth's firmament do shine,"

the fountains glitter in the sun, the birds sing in the trees, the mellow ouzel fluting in the elm, the gay butterfly and the busy bee pass each other, as when it might be some gaudy tourist meets the diligent worker in the street. A fair ground, a goodly heritage, yet it was once a wilderness, treeless, flowerless, a barren and dry land, where there was no water. The noble owner, a man of artistic taste, observed the capabilities of the site, made and realized his plans. And there, in a conspicuous part of this delightful scene, was placed a statue of the artist, and on the pedestal these words inscribed, "He made the desert smile."

And so it may be said of every man, who lives for others and not only for himself, who tries to make some home brighter and some heart lighter; of every man, who, not satisfied with sentimental sighs, and mean subscriptions, which he will never miss, visits the fatherless and widows in their affliction, who obeys the inspired mandates, be pitiful, be courteous, "tender-hearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you;" of such shall those words be spoken, "He made the desert smile;" he changed "the desert into the garden of the Lord;" "he hath dispersed abroad, and given to the poor, and his righteousness remaineth for ever."

V.

OUR PERPLEXITIES.

Drunkenness - Includes All who are "Worse for Drink" - Some of the Causes-The Remedies - Total Abstinence and Temperance - Doctors differ - Prevention Better than Cure America Foremost in the Crusade - Decrease of Drunkenness.

WITH all our progress, we have, of course, our perplexities. We build, as they builded, in the days of Nehemiah, the ruined walls of Jerusalem - in one hand the weapon of warfare, in the other the mason's tools. There is that terrible foe, drunkenness, which maddens the brain, petrifies the heart, enfeebles the strength, cripples the limbs, dims the sight, confuses the speech, disfigures the countenance, wastes millions of money in debauchery, and millions of years in indolence, degrades whatsoever is noblest in manhood, and utterly destroys that which is most beautiful in womanhood, the "shame which is a glory and a grace." It brings the religion, which is professed by the drunkard, into contempt and ridicule. It makes us to be rebuked of our neighbours, to be laughed to scorn and had in derision of them that are round about us. It makes us to be a byword among the heathen, so that the people, whom we so call, ask, "Is this Christianity?" when they see the drunken stranger on their shores. "You come to us," they say to our missionaries, "with