mountains, and bewail my virginity, I and my fellows." At the end of two months she returned unto her father, who did with her according to his vow which he had vowed. "And it was a custom in Israel, that the daughters of Israel went yearly to lament (margin, "to talk with ") the daughter of Jephthah the Gileadite, four days in a year."

So that long as she lived there was an annual break of four days' holiday for converse with her friends; apart from the duties which she had undertaken of constant attendance in the Tabernacle. Nor must we suppose that she was alone in this service: we are told (Num. xxxi. 35-40) that thirty-two young girls, captive Midianites, were the Lord's tribute, who would be employed about the Tabernacle; and Joshua ix. 27 informs us that Joshua made the whole tribe of the Gibeonites "hewers of wood and drawers of water for the congregation, and for the altar of the Lord."

What particular employments these devoted maidens had, may be at least partly conceived. Their nimble fingers would be constantly required to keep the numerous hangings and embroideries of the Tabernacle and its services in good order: possibly, also, there may have now commenced that service of song, which reached such perfection in the time of David, about a hundred and twenty years afterwards.

Jephthah's daughter, with her knowledge of the books of Moses, would be just the person to teach the Gibeonites the statutes and the worship of the one true and living God, and to lead them in holy song, and to tell them what all these sacrifices and offerings figured forth: the coming of Messiah, the Prince and Shepherd of all the families of the earth.

Jephthah's subsequent bloody quarrel with the contentious and envious Ephraimites, added to the loss of his daughter's society, so told upon him that he judged Israel only six years, and then he died.

How long his high-spirited and pious daughter survived him, we know not; but long enough to make it a custom for the daughters of Israel to make a pilgrimage yearly to the Tabernacle, to talk with her of the trials and triumphs of her younger days; and, perhaps, to speculate upon another state of being in which they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels of God in heaven.

T. C.

THE METHODIST YEAR BOOK FOR 1881.

It is

We have received a copy of this valuable annual, published by the authorities of the "Methodist Episcopal Church of America." edited by Dr. W. H. De Puy, and published by Messrs. Philips and Hunt, New York, and Messrs. Walden and Stowe, Cincinnati. Its bulk is small, but its contents are various and valuable. Such another example of the Multum in parvo could not easily be found. It gives religious

statistics, not only for the United States, but for the world, together with population and educational statistics, and many other particulars, some of them exactly ascertained, others carefully computed. There is much to challenge an Englishman's attention, and more to interest Methodist Local Preachers. We have marked some things for transference to our own pages, and will give them, with occasional remarks and links of connection.

The Twenty-third General Conference-held every fourth year-was held in Cincinnati, May 1-28 (four weeks), 1880. It is composed of ministerial and lay delegates. The Annual Conferences are each entitled to send, at least, one ministerial delegate; and those of larger extent, to send one for every forty-five of its members, and an additional one for an overplus of thirty or more members. No Annual Conference, except on foreign mission fields, must be organised with fewer than fifteen effective members. The last General Conference was composed of 248 ministerial delegates and 151 lay delegates. Thirteen bishops were present, each presiding in the order of seniority in his office. Nineteen fraternal delegates from eleven other churches, all of the Methodist family except two, were received. Four delegates were appointed to represent the Conference at the Conferences of other Methodist bodies in America and in Great Britain and Ireland. Three bishops, and two wives of bishops, died during the preceding four years.

The expenses of the delegates of the General Conference amounted to nearly five thousand pounds; the receipts from the Annual Conferences being £845 short of that amount. The deficiency was met by a "draft on the Book Concern." This is the usual resource in like cases. Our readers will generally feel pleasure in reading the following: "It was ordered that, among the questions put to candidates for admission into the Annual Conference, should be the following: Will you wholly abstain from the use of tobacco ?"" Why should this question be permitted to sink into a mere formality in any assembly of honest men, much less of Ministers of the Gospel? And why should it not be among the perpetuated questions in all the periodical meetings in which discipline is considered? Smoking, as a habit, is a vice, except when needed for the counteraction of disease or the relief of suffering; and the money spent by some men in the vicious indulgence is a scandal to religion. The filth that it causes, also, is abominable.

A yet more loathsome and detestable thing provoked the righteous indignation of the Conference; and "a resolution was unanimously passed, by a rising vote, urging upon Congress the adoption of such statutes or amendments as shall secure, or aid in securing, the extirpation of polygamy, and those other named crimes as shall make the laws of the United States supreme in Utah as elsewhere in our nation.' Our Lord Jesus Christ restored the purity of the marriage relation as originally instituted by God's own act; and the tolerance of polygamy by governments professing to be Christian, is rebellion against Him.

A resolution was passed against the ordination of women to the public ministry of the Gospel, and also against the licensing of women as local preachers. Paul speaks of some women who laboured with him in the Gospel (Phil. iv. 3). What did those women do? How did they labour? We read of Apollos, "an eloquent man, and mighty in the Scriptures, knowing only the baptism of John," being taught by a woman and her husband, who "expounded unto him the way of God more perfectly" (Acts xviii. 24-26). We read also of John Wesley's mother expounding and preaching in her husband's house to all comers, because she dare not refuse. We have heard women preach and lecture with great ability; and, although St. Paul says he "suffered not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence" (1 Tim. ii. 12), the context shows that what he then wrote was in reference to domestic life, and the godly order of a Christian home, in which the wife must be in subjection, in the Lord, to the authority of her husband, and not he to hers. There are women who can preach, and we dare not give our voice, in all cases, against its being done.

America has been greatly agitated about the large number of Chinese who have immigrated there. Some of the poor adventurers have been cruelly treated, and attempts have been made to procure their expulsion, and to prevent others from following them. Their habits of frugality and industry enable them to work for less pay than the Americans and the European immigrants. Hence the animosity with which they are regarded. The Conference took this matter calmly in hand; and, on the ground of existing treaties between the United States and China, and the faithful observance of those treaties on the part of China, passed four resolutions in favour of the Chinese immigrants, intended to influence the Government, the Press, and the Methodist people on their behalf, and to encourage and strengthen the hands of the Superintendent of its own mission among that people in California.

Our friends will be gratified, and some of them delighted, with what follows: "Whereas, The purity and exalted character of the family and social life at the White House, Washington, is not surpassed in the history of our country; therefore,

"Resolved, That we, the General Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church, assembled in Ohio, the State of the nativity of the President, Rutherford B. Hayes, and Mrs. Hayes, hereby express our high appreciation of the personal worth and noble example of the President and his wife, and commend to all the women of America the heroic conduct of Mrs. Hayes in regard to temperance, and specially, the beautiful simplicity of her Christian life."

"An important report on Temperance was adopted, providing the appointment of a Committee by each Quarterly Conference, to meet the pastor at least once every three months for consultation as to the best means for promoting the temperance cause."

The Methodist Episcopal Church of America seems not at all reluctant to take a leaf out of the book of British Methodism. "The whole matter of observing the year 1884, as the Centennial of the organisation of the Methodist Episcopal Church, was referred to the Bishops, to devise a plan for the same, and report it to the Church as early as convenient." Elaborate statistics of the literature of the Church are given. In connection therewith is the following statement: "From its regular and legitimate business alone, under the careful management of officers selected by the General Conference of the Church, it shows for the last forty-four years a clear profit of nearly three and a quarter million of dollars (£650,000); an average annual profit of seventy-three thousand eight hundred and sixty dollars! (£14,772). The achievement is without a parallel in the history of religious, benevolent, and ecclesiastical publishing establishments, reflecting great credit upon the fidelity, skill, and business tact of the Book Agents, and upon the general connexional publishing system adopted by the Church."

We are informed that "the first Methodist book ever issued in America was Wesley's Sermons, printed and circulated by Robert Williams, previous to the opening of a connexional publishing house." At present "the publications are English, German, French, Swedish, Danish, Spanish, Italian, American, Indian, Anglo-Saxon, and Ancient Greek. different pictorial engravings owned by the Methodist Book Concern, and used thus far in illustrating the numerous publications, fill a list of about 14,000, and the specimen engravings cover the pages of several immense folio volumes."

The

"The total number of periodicals in the Methodist Episcopal Church is 64; aggregate in various branches of Methodism, 159."

Among the institutions of the Methodist Episcopal Church is a Women's Foreign Missionary Society,-" Organised in Boston, March 22nd, 1869; nationalised in 1870, under a constitution providing for ten co-ordinate branches; and received official recognition and formal approval of the General Conference in 1872." This Society, according to its report of 1880, has "built, purchased, and sustained three orphanages, three hospitals, ten dispensaries, thirteen boarding-schools, and eight homes for missionaries fifty-two single ladies had gone out as missionaries, nearly two hundred native teachers and Bible women had been employed in disseminating Christian truth, and numerous day and Sunday-schools, superintended by the wives of missionaries, had been established and supported in all fields. For the maintenance of these enterprises 590,966 dollars (£118,193) had passed through the treasury. India, China, Japan, Bulgaria, Italy, Mexico, and Africa, were embraced in the Society's foreign work."

Another institution sustained by the Church, is the "Freedmen's Aid Society." "Up to May 1, 1880, the Society had aided in the establishment and support of (many) schools, six of which have full collegiate

powers." The receipts for the preceding four years amounted to 266,243 dollars (£53,248).

The Church has a Sunday-school Union, comprising 20,340 schools; 226,367 officers and teachers, and 1,538,311 scholars. During the last four years 352,908 professed conversions were reported. The International Sunday-school lessons are said to be in use "by more than 6,000,000 pupils in the United States, Canada, England, Ireland, Scotland, Australia, the Sandwich Islands, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Germany, Switzerland, Italy, Turkey, India, and China."

There

In the United States there are ninety-five annual Conferences, 11,798 itinerant preachers, and 12,620 local preachers, belonging to the Methodist Episcopal Church. The number of the latter seems to us small in comparison of the former; the excess being only 822. But the relations of the two orders there are different from what they are with us.. is a constant interchange of position going on there. They do not class their Local Preachers as laymen, but as ministers entitled to the style of Reverend. In 1879 there were 1,359 Local Preachers stationed as pastors. In the same year 1,111 Local Preachers entered the itinerant ministry, and 155 itinerants returned to the local ranks. All the itinerants, "except those received from other religious and evangelical Churches, have been received from the Local Preachers' ranks." Classleaders, numbering 85,270, are placed with the enumeration of Lay Officers. The number of presiding elders is 456, and the total of lay members in full connexion, 1,544,118, besides 179,029 on trial.

The annual collections are nine in number, and the sum total raised for all purposes, as near as could be ascertained for the year 1880, was about £2,893,000.

A "Course of Study for Local Preachers " is prescribed, for a period of four years. It comprises Christian Theology, Bible History, Catechism, Life of Wesley, Church History, Methodist and National History, Ecclesiastical History, Logic, &c., but it does not include the study of languages.

The "National Association of Local Preachers" has its place in the "Year Book ; and so has the "American Bible Society." Under the heading of "John Street Church, New York," we find the following inti mation: "As the centennial of the organisation of the Methodist Episcopal Church will occur in 1884, we suggest, without entering into details, that it may be feasible to interest the entire Methodism of our own country, as well as that of the mother country and the Canadas, perpetuating this old historic Church, planted more than a hundred years ago, to evidence on this continent the truth of John Wesley's maxim-a maxim we, his children, hold as our own-The world is our parish." We also recommend the editors of our papers to render such aid as may be necessary to carry out the suggestions of this report."

in

Some information is given as to what has been done and what is