versations, ending in the captain asking Nan to be his wife, and in her refusal of him, although liking him well.

And then there is an interval of three years, in which Captain King sticks to his ship on a foreign station, and Nan, as her brother says to the captain on his return home, " is on the pious lay. High Church, and reredoses, silver embroideries, don't you know, and visiting the poor, and catching all sorts of confounded infection. And then, I suppose, she'll end by marrying that curate that's always about the house. What a shame it is! she used to be such a brick. And to go and marry a curate."

This brother Tom also informs the captain that his youngest sister, Margaret, "is in a hole. She is eighteen, and uncommonly goodlooking, I think. Have some sherry. Well, the Baby made the acquaintance, at somebody's house, of a young fellow, son of a barrister. Not a farthing but what he picks up at pool. I don't think she meant anything; I don't, a bit. There's a lot of that kind of nonsense goes on down there. Nan is the only one who has kept clear out of it. Well, the guardians didn't see it; and they went to the court; and they got the Vice-Chancellor to issue an order forbidding young Hanbury from having any sort of communication with Madge" (she being a ward in chancery). "Now you know if you play any games with an order of that sort hanging over you, it's the very devil. It is. Won't you have some pickles ? "

Thus enlightened, Captain King calls on Lady Beresford, hoping to see Ann, and to learn whether he or the curate had the greatest share in her affections. He did not see her; but he saw Madge, grown into the likeness of what Ann was three years before. And so, he does not come to any further understanding with the old love, but straightway makes love, and shortly proposes to Madge; who accepts him with as much ease as Ann had declined him three years before. If this is the way affections are transferred-bandied about like shuttlecocks from battledore to battledore-among the upper classes, it shows how far their hearts have degenerated; for we are told by the highest authority that God hath fashioned all hearts alike. But if this is as unusual as it is unnatural, the author is guilty of an impertinence in setting before us such "a dish of skimmed milk." Worse, however, remains ; for Madge, apparently without cause, suddenly elopes with her old love in spite of the Vice-Chancellor, and leaves the way clear for Nan to cry off from a proposal from the High Church curate, and for Captain King to find out that he has never loved truly any other girl than Nan; and for Nan to acknowledge that she has loved him ever since he proposed to her more than three years before. Of course the ViceChancellor vindicates his authority, and commits Madge's husband to prison. His father then sets him up in business as a brewer, which is supposed to ensure him a good fortune; and, on proper submission being

T

made, the young Madge's fortune settled on herself, and all expenses paid, he is discharged. Another daughter marries a soda-water maker of great wealth. And of course Captain King and Nan are happily married at last. Such is the tale. Its main facts are unnatural, its dialogues, when not slang, are prosy and stale enough. And the book ends with a full length drawing of the author, WILLIAM BLACK, Author of "That Beautiful Wretch," "Sunrise," &c., from a Painting by J. Pettie, R.A. He is depicted as a young man with shaven whiskers but full moustache; bareheaded, but clad else in a coat of mail; with a sword in one hand and a roll of paper in the other. Such clothing is about as natural and suitable for this nineteenth century as his tale is to the realities of life.

We lay the paper down with a sigh of regret that modern light literature is so poorly represented. Rather let a man take up the humble "LOCAL PREACHERS' MAGAZINE" and follow one of its writers through a picturesque "Tour." His time will not be wasted nor his patience tried as ours has been in conning over "That Beautiful Wretch."

T. C.

BRIEF MEMOIR OF THE LATE JOHN HODGSON, OF

KEIGHLEY.

THE late brother, John Hodgson, was born in Wensleydale, but removed to this district while still young. He was convinced of sin and was converted in early life, and was admitted on trial as a Local Preacher in the year 1834, and received on the full plan in March, 1835, after a very searching and exhaustive examination. Having imbibed a love for learning in early life, he became conversant with most of the standard works of the day, both secular and sacred; and, having a retentive memory, he held fast to the last much of the valuable learning thus early stored in the mind. On becoming a Local Preacher, he not only read, but mastered, most of the more important theological works then available to Local Preachers.

But not content with studying for his own pleasure and profit, he endeavoured to assist his less favoured brethren, and encouraged the young men connected with Methodism in Keighley to join him in this important branch of study. For many years he took a very active and leading part in a flourishing theological class, from which there came, in course of time, a goodly number of Local Preachers of more than average ability; while others entered the ranks of the itinerant ministry, and are doing good work for the Divine Master in distant lands to-day. In such service he found a congenial sphere, and threw his whole energies into the work.

Another sphere in which he loved to labour, and with more than

average success, was pioneer work, or opening out branch places. As illustrations of his success in such work, we may mention Long Lee, Eastwood, Heber Street, and Sun Street. In each of these places he was one of the first and main movers, and his early and earnest efforts will be held in grateful remembrance by those who were his fellow-labourers in these necessary offshoots from the central society at Temple Street.

As a preacher he had a preference for doctrinal discourses, and was always clear and strong in his setting forth the great and fundamental doctrines of our holy religion. Though not a popular preacher, still he had many admirers among the more thoughtful members of our congregations; and especially in his earlier years of service for the Saviour, he was made the instrument of winning many souls. And, although for some years prior to his death he was in feeble health, and consequently unable to take a full share of work, still he remained in harness almost to the last days of life, until he was called to lay down the warrior's weapons and receive the victor's crown; having received a kind warning from the Heavenly King that his call home would probably be somewhat sudden. He laboured more earnestly to complete life's work here, while preparing more prayerfully for the rest that remaineth hereafter. He lived looking to, and labouring for, Jesus; and died with the holy Bible open before him, his closing eye gazing on the glorious Gospel just before there burst upon his spiritual vision the exceeding and eternal weight of glory before the throne of God. Thus quietly and quickly closed a life of loving labour for the Lord, extending over nearly fifty years.

"May we triumph so, when all our warfare's past,
And dying, find our latest foe under our feet at last."

MEMOIR OF MRS. MAWER, OF LOUTH.

SUSANNAH, wife of Mr. W. Mawer, Secretary of the Louth Branch of the Local Preachers' Mutual-Aid Association, was born at Ketsby, near Louth, Jan. 28th, 1818. Her parents being Methodists, she was brought in early life under the influence of those simple but powerful truths which have been blessed to the conversion of thousands. At the age of fourteen she entered a situation in Louth, and continued to reside in the town until her decease. In 1834 a gracious revival of the work of God broke out, and, under the ministry of the Rev. Charles Haydon, Susannah Cotton gave her heart to the Lord, thenceforth to be His alone. The same year she was received as a member into the society, and so continued until the disruption, now dying out of the recollection of the churches. Becoming acquainted with William Mawer, a Local Preacher and Class Leader, they married in 1848. Two sons and a daughter were given to her; and her influence as a Christian mother will never be

forgotten by them. Finding her true sphere in the home circle, she sought to lead her children to the Saviour, and had the joy of seeing one of her sons become a preacher of the Cross of Christ. Her husband being one of the expelled in 1853, they united together with the Methodist Free Church, of which she was a consistent member to the end of her days. For some years past her health had been declining, and on the first Sunday of the New Year, 1881, she went to the house of God for the last time. During the ensuing week sickness came on, and medical aid was deemed requisite. On Jan. 10th bronchitis set in; and, the weather being severe, and her constitution feeble, all efforts to rally her were in vain; and on Jan. 12th she fell asleep in Jesus, in the sixty-third year "Absent from the body present with the Lord."

of her age.

Temperance.

TEMPERANCE AND LIFE

ASSURANCE.

In his recent lecture at the City Temple, the Rev. Joseph Cook quoted from the 66 National Temperance League's Annual" the well-known experience of the United Kingdom Temperance and General Provident Institution, and read the following extracts from prospectuses of other insurance societies which have temperance sections:

THE EMPEROR (52, Cannon Street, E.C.): "The directors having had repeated applications from active and influential members of temperance societies in England and Scotland to insure the lives of total abstainers at reduced premiums, thereby securing them an immediate bonus, have agreed to do so, the more readily that many years since the directors deemed it proper to secure for abstainers from intoxicating liquors the benefits resulting from their assumed longevity, and established a section in which they are kept apart, and receive their additional profits. The wisdom of this step is daily becoming apparent, the experiment having proved greatly in favour of abstainers; and the public press is awakening to the fact that abstaining assurers are better lives' than non-abstainers."

THE WHITTINGTON (58, Moorgate

Street, E.C.):-"It has been proved that the mortality among those who abstain from the use of alcoholic liquors is less than among ordinary lives. As such persons are entitled to the benefit of this fact, instead of having to share in the greater losses resulting from the deaths of nonabstainers, total abstainers are insured in a separate section, the profits of which are kept distinct from those of the general department, and determine the amount of the bonus in that section. In 1866, and again in 1869, the bonus in this section was nearly 7 per cent higher than in the general department, while in 1872, 1875, and 1878 it increased to 14 per cent."

THE BRITON (429, Strand, W.C.): In order that those members of the association who abstain from the use of alcoholic beverages may enjoy such advantage from the practice, by way of decreased mortality, as it is believed attach to it, the directors have established a special section to which only total abstainers are admitted."

THE SCEPTRE (13, Finsbury Place South, E.C.):-"The experience of the past thirty years having proved that the mortality among those who abstain from the use of alcoholic beverages is less than among ordinary lives, and such persons being entitled to the benefits arising therefrom,