The opening services were resumed the following Sunday, when sermons were preached by the circuit minister.

The building is a neat structure, mixed in style, with an open roof, the woodwork is of pitchpine. It will seat nearly a hundred persons. The entire cost (site included), is £187 12s. 6d.

The following are the receipts :—

£ s. d.

By Memorial Stone services, tea and collections.... 8 5 o

In point of comfort, both for preacher and people, this chapel is almost perfect. The society and congregations are increasing. May it prove the birth-place of many souls.-Amen.

REPORT OF THANKSGIVING FUND.

D. M.

Will our friends kindly send on the subscriptions they have promised, and the brethren arrange for a meeting in places where they have not yet been held, and try to get fresh subscribers in every Circuit ?

EDITORIAL NOTES.

THE JAMES THORNE CLUB. The third annual meeting of "Ol Shebbear Boys" and their friends, under the presidency of Mr. F. T. Gammon, was held at Waterloo Road Schoolroom, February 19th, when a very pleasant evening was spent, the speaking being agreeably diversified by music and singing, and intervals allowed for free conversation. The chairman commended the project of a club-house for the "boys" coming to London from Shebbear, congratulated the meeting on the fact that so many of them were earnest Christian workers, and exhorted them to be faithful to the Bible Christian Church. Mr. J. P. Tonkin, in his report, said the annual subscription as a condition of membership was to be discontinued, suggested that the prizes to be given this year and next should be for "art" and "science" respectively, and invited subscriptions to the proposed testimonial to Mr. Gammon on his resignation of the governorship of the college. Brief addresses were delivered by Messrs. S. Moore, H. C. Honey, and W. B. Luke. A statement from Br. Ruddle was read during the evening. Besides referring to various matters of interest with which through our columns our readers are familiar, Mr. Ruddle expresses the hope, as they have secured a most efficient art teacher, and the charges for drawing are fixed very low, that a large proportion of the pupils will join the art classes. On Friday, January 23rd, the College was visited by Professor Buckmaster, on behalf of the Science Department at South Kensington, to inspect the laboratory. He suggested a few improvements, which will not cost more than a few pounds. It is hoped that in about a year one class will be prepared for an examination in practical chemistry, and another for practical botany (or biology). The curriculum will be snfficiently wide to enable a pupil to pass creditably the "Preliminary Scientific" examination at London University; and thus a medical student will be able to begin his hospital practice immediately on leaving school. The charge is to be only three guineas per annum. Latin in future is no longer to be charged for as an "extra," but is to form part of the general instruction given in all but the lower division of the school. The number of pupils taking music continues very high. No very brilliant results can be achieved as long as the average stay of the pupils is so short. Accommodation is now provided for 130 pupils, but the school can never be all that is desired until the number of resident boarders is 180, divided into six "forms" of about thirty pupils in each. Such a consummation is not very difficult, if the hearty cooperation of all the ex-pupils is enlisted. The teaching staff was never so efficient and trustworthy, and the comfort and happiness of the pupils were never better cared for than now.

FOREIGN POLITICS.

These continue in a critical condition, occasioning much anxiety. The fall of Khartoum has rendered the concentration of our little army in the Soudan essential to its safety, and the two most advanced columns have had to retire upon Korti, after suffering heavy losses from fighting and sickness. The approach of the hot season will effectually prevent any active operations being undertaken for several months. In the meantime a strong force is being collected at Suakim, and we may expect soon to hear of further murderous battles in that quarter. Say what we please about prestige, the wisest course surely would be to withdraw from the Soudan at the earliest possible movement. If war with Russia should unfortunately break out this course would doubtless have to be adopted. But this terrible catastrophe will not happen unless there is some wretched blundering, or a settled purpose on one side or the other to hasten a conflict that many persons believe is sooner or later inevitable.

Two great nations can surely agree on the best possible boundary line if there was only the desire to do. There is, however, a little rift in the clouds. The settlement of the Egpytian Financial question is a clear and distinct gain, and the little misunderstanding with Germany seems to be wholly removed.

DESTITUTE LONDON.-The great meeting held at City Road Chapel, on Tuesday, March 10th, is the outgrowth and the evidence of an intense desire felt by London Methodists to do their part to evangelise the neglected parts of the greatest city in the world. The poverty to which multitudes seem doomed, the wretched homes in which they live, their apparent utter religious indifference, are better known than ever before. Their helplessness, their misery, even their hatred to Christianity in many cases, have been felt to be a resistless appeal by numbers of Christ's most devoted followers. All the churches seem to have a quickened sense of duty. The Church of England, the Congregationalists, and other bodies are nobly exerting themselves, and London Methodists appear determined not to be behind the chiefest of them. The conviction is deep and strong that the work must be done, and many are now seeking to discover the best method of doing it.

The Methodist Times truly says, "This thing is not to be accomplished upon what are called the old lines.' The old lines' have emptied Spitalfields, St. George's, the Seamen's Chapel, and other splendid centres of Christian work. The old lines,' the old pews, the old pew rents, the old quarterly collections, the old times, and, if necessary, the old trustees, the old officials, and the old congregations, must retire from the scene to some congenial resting-place. The time has come when the salvation of 10,000 immortal souls can be no longer subordinated to the imaginary interests of a handful of excellent Christians."

It is proposed to raise at once a fund of £25,000 to carry on this special work. A good start has been made, and in a few weeks the sum named will doubtless be subscribed. With all our hearts we wish God-speed to this new enterprise, and small and feeble as is our church in London in numbers and resources, we must not only admire, but seek to emulate to the utmost of our ability the conduct of others.

The new enterprise at South Tottenham referred to on page 182, we cordially recommend as one worthy of practical sympathy, and let us not forget that there is something more important than to construct vast machinery, to create powerful organisations, to collect vast resources, something in which we can all take part, viz., the entire sanctification of ourselves to God and to His work, which is the first essential to the true improvement of the condition of men and the conversion of the world.

THE "ORIENT" reached Adelaide, March 18th, and from a telegram Mrs. Botheras has received, we are grateful to hear that her husband and nephew are both much better.

OUR MISSIONARY SOCIETY.-The meetings, we hear, are going well in many places. If care were taken that in no place the receipts were allowed to go behind, there would be a substantial increase in the year's income. And our brethren and friends know for reasons that have been again and again stated that this is needed. We hear that at Brotton, in the Barnstaple Circuit, two boxes brought six guineas. One young friend collected £3 6s. in a week. At Charles Bottom a handful of coins was brought by a collector, as the box would hold no more. The total was £4 6s. At Goodleigh a boy went seventy miles in two

TEMPERANCE DEPARTMENT.

days with his box. How gratifying it would be if many others would go and do likewise.

Our friends will please bear in mind that the Exeter Hall Meeting is to be held on Tuesday, May 5th, when a successful meeting may be expected.

March 19th.

Correspondence.

"THE MISSION TO CHINA AND EVANGELISTIC WORK."

To the Editor of the "Bible Christian Magazine."

DEAR MR. BOURNE, -We are greatly cheered with the reports from the different stations in this month's Magazine. They are very interesting, and plainly show that the Bible Christian Connexion is instinct with life and the spirit of progress. The Mission to China, which was so powerfully advocated at our last Conference missionary meeting, and also brought before us in the closing session of the Conference, and to which you call the attention of your readers, is a glorious opportunity for which we have been long praying. the charge so often preferred, "that we have no mission to the heathen proper," Let us answer by entering these open doors.

Ought not the subject to be more fully brought before our people? Could not arrangements be made to hold a meeting in every chapel specially to advocate the China Mission? Unless the matter be taken up heartily and unitedly it had better be left alone.

We believe, Sir, that all our friends will hail with satisfaction the opening of a Mission in China, and will give it their cordial support, especially if brought before them in public meetings, and suitable brethren appointed, both ministers and lay, to plead on behalf of such a noble enterprize.

With respect to your note on evangelistic work we sincerely hope that your excellent suggestion that laymen should be employed to conduct special services will be largely acted upon. I am sure as ministers we shall welcome with delight such a movement, and gladly stand shoulder to shoulder in the great and grand work of saving souls. To use a military sentence we would form a dead centre against the enemy, and win mighty victories for the Captain of our salvation. As a Denomination we may not be prepared to take ministers from regular circuit work to conduct evangelistic services, even though they have special qualifications for it, but every circuit could make its own arrangements, and it is possible for every preacher, and every teacher in our Sabbath-schools, to be himself a special evangelist. The work will be more likely to be thoroughly done thus than by delegating it to a few special revivalists. Could not the whole case be met by ministers giving a week now and then to special services in other circuits, without being out of their own pulpits on the Sunday? By co-operating thus, with the help of the laymen, great and lasting good would result.-Yours truly,

[The writer expected this to appear last month, but it did not reach us in R. EDGCOMBE. time.-ED.

Temperance Department.

NOTES.

IN the official records of the Zulu war there is an item of £400 amongst the miscellaneous charges, which is thus accounted for. Sir Garnet Wolseley (as he

then was) when riding out one day, met three waggons laden with spirits intended for sale amongst the British troops, and he felt at once that if this liquor reached its destination a certain amount of demoralisation in the ranks must be reckoned upon, and this he determined to prevent at any cost. Accordingly he struck a bargain, bought up the lot for £400, had it then and there destroyed, and so avoided the risks which would have inevitably attended the carrying out of the vendor's plan.

"Doctor," said a brandy-faced customer on one occasion to a physician, "Doctor, I'm troubled with an oppression, an uneasiness about the breast. What do you suppose the matter is?" "All very easily accounted for," said the physician, "you have water on the chest." "Water! come, that'll do well enough for a joke, but how could I get water on the chest, when I hav'n't touched a drop for fifteen years? If you had said brandy, you might have hit it."

John Ruskin says, "The encouragement of drunkenness for the sake of gaining money is a desperate form of assassination." The Times says,-" The public-house degrades, ruins, and brutalises a large fraction of the British public." We learn from the British Medical Journal that there was last year an enormous loss to the effective forces of the army and navy from intemperance. In the army 1,400 cases of drunkenness were tried by courts martial, besides over 4,000 convictions from crimes springing from excessive drinking. During the year 15,904 soldiers, or 102 in every thousand, were mulcted in their pay for drunkenness.

During the fifteen months that the Dalrymple Home for inebriates at Rickmansworth has been opened, 40 inebriates have been admitted. Of these 8 have passed through a college curriculum, 13 were gentlemen of no occupation, 7 civil servants, 3 medical men, 3 solicitors, 1 barrister, I medical student, 4 clerks, 2 stock brokers, 2 manufacturers, 2 commercial men, I librarian, I land agent, I military officer, I underwriter, 2 drapers, the rest were engineers, builders, &c. When the late "Father Taylor," of New York, the seamen's friend, was delivering one of his temperance lectures, a well-know drunkard present, disliking some of his remarks, commenced hissing. Father Taylor turned the attention of the audience to him, and then said in his own peculiar way, as he pointed to him: "There's a red nose got into cold water. Don't you hear it hiss."

The Licensed Victuallers have been holding their annual meeting at Southhampton this year, and the following is among the resolutions adopted :—“That the Sunday closing movement is a delusion and snare-its origin and progress, being due merely to a worked-up agitation promoted by drink suppressionists and that class of religious zealots who believe more in coercion than persuasion. That a public demand on Sundays—a demand extending over centuries-should in itself be a sufficient reason why a public supply should be provided for and secured by the State. That to ignore or disregard such public requirement, which a sanction of Sunday closing would mean, is sumptuary in its character, and specially insulting to the poor-they suffering from denial which would in no way affect the rich. That their objections are not disposed of by a resort to the subterfuge of Local Option; and this meeting, impressed with these and other facts, is determined to resist, resolutely, any further encroachmens in this direction, and, in addition, to seek for its repeal in Ireland and Wales." Will our friends bear this in mind when the next election takes place? The publicans will put forth every effort to be better represented in the next Parliament. The friends of temperance must do the same.

A correspondent of the Torquay Times gives the following:-"I am well acquainted with a man who is very fond of beer, and who has told me on many occasions, he is certain that, for the past forty years, he has drunk upon an