which had risen from 77,8361. to 86,9411. Some time was occupied in the discussion of hymns and music; and finally a resolution, expressing regret at the offence caused in some quarters by last Assembly's decision but declining to recall it, was carried by 351 to 119.

THE General Assembly of the Irish Presbyterian Church was enlivened by a debate on the vexed question of instrumental music which began early in the day and was continued till two o'clock the following morning. A resolution was moved to the effect that discipline should be exercised against congregations using instruments. An amendment, setting forth that this would be disastrous to the church, was carried by 266 against 245. A Pan-Presbyterian Assembly has since met at Belfast. Some discussion took place as to the admission of the Cumberland delegates from America, but in the end it was agreed to give them place, by a resolution "without approving their church's revision of the Westminster Confession, and Shorter Catechism."

The

THE China Inland Mission has now been in operation eighteen years. It employs a staff of one hundred and twenty-six agents, assisted by one hundred native helpers. At the annual meeting held in Mildmay Park it was stated that thirty-two missionaries had gone out during the last year. Stations had been opened in ten out of the eleven provinces, and 1,300 persons had been baptised. income was 14,3381., a slight advance on the previous year. Mr. W. Stevenson, one of the first missionaries who went out, was among the speakers. He said he had just returned from Burmah, where some of the wild hill people had been led to Christ, and were now standing firm among their own countrymen as Christians.

MISS WESTON recently gave, at a meeting in the Mansion House, some account of her work in the Navy. It appears that many captains of vessels have now become presidents of societies formed on board for the promotion of temperance and piety. Meetings are held periodically; Bible classes have been instituted, and various other Christian and civilising agencies established and carried on in accordance with the rules and regulations of the service. There are now in the Royal Navy fully 12,000 officers and men teetotallers. Besides what is being done afloat, there are five Sailors' Rests at the principal government ports, which are entirely selfsupporting. Subscriptions are urgently needed for the extension of the Portsmouth Rest.

THE London Mission of Messrs. Moody and Sankey, carried on for eight months, was brought to a close by a series of services at the city's centre, in a building erected on the Thames Embankment. At the last which was held, Mr. Moody said these meetings were a good thing for a season, but it was unhealthy to keep on at them. Converts should learn to be self-reliant. The results of the mission over the whole field are regarded as, in the highest sense, satisfactory. Some two thousand young converts met at Exeter Hall to say farewell to Mr. Moody. Mr. Sankey was obliged, by failing health, to leave a few days earlier. Considering the part which song has had in this mission, Mr. Moody's confession after his companion's departure is worth noting: "I don't know one tune from another; but I do like to hear the sweet songs of Zion. It stirs my soul to its very depths."

THE Mildmay Conference brought together, as usual, a large number of people. The range of subjects discussed was very wide, including not only practical work, but the various needs of the inner life. "The interest and enthusiasm that gather round the Conference," says one correspondent, "are quite remarkable. Some weeks ago it

was announced that all the numbered seats had been allotted. Now these reserved seats entirely fill the body of the hall; there must be over a thousand of them, and they are sold at 78. 6d. a piece for the three days. The spacious galleries are free, and these are filled an hour before the meetings commence-meetings, be it remembered, of a purely devotional character, consisting entirely of spiritual addresses, prayers and hymns, and with no names of speakers announced beforehand, when platform fireworks are impossible, and where the gentlest applause would be counted as brawling. And who constitute the audiences? All classes are represented, but the large proportion of the upper middle and upper grades is notable. The ladies naturally are a majority, but that majority is not over

whelming, and the scores of young men-gentlemen unmistakably are one of the most striking features of the Conference."

MR. SPURGEON's fiftieth birthday was made the occasion of a public demonstration. The members of his own church, the largest individual church in the world, some five thousand strong, assembled the evening previous in the Tabernacle. Mr. Spurgeon met them with his wife; on his right sat his venerable father, on his left his brother, and one of his sons. The vast gathering had a private and family character, though many visitors were included. Mr. Spurgeon, who could not but be greatly touched by the enthusiasm of affection which greeted him, expressed his conviction that he owed the prosperity he had had in preaching, "to the Gospel that he had preached." He wished to see all preachers preach more simply. "Death to all fine preaching; there was no good in it. All the glory of man and the wisdom of man would come to nought, but the simple testimony of the good will of God to man, that would stand the test not of the many years that he had preached it, but of all the years until Christ should come. Mr. Moody described his first visit to England,how he went straight to the Tabernacle, and the influence Mr. Spurgeon's sermons had had upon him. Many addresses and telegrams of congratulation from a distance were read; and then Mr. T. Weldon Carr read the address of the congregation. The Rev. James Spurgeon, brother of the pastor, and the Rev. Charles Spurgeon, the son, afterwards spoke, and were followed by representatives of the various institutions. The next day witnessed another immense and equally enthusiastic gathering. Congratulations poured in from men of various ranks and opinions. The Earl of Shaftesbury-who by the way has this month received the freedom of the City of London-took the chair, and in speaking of Mr. Spurgeon's career, while he thought their friend showed the brightest in the foundation and government of his college, said the force of his preaching was in this, that he invariably preached one and the same doctrine-Jesus Christ, and Him crucified. Canon Wilberforce, who spoke next, said he regarded Mr. Spurgeon's work as "one of the greatest bulwarks of the faith in modern times." Speeches followed from the Rev. C. P. Giffard, as representing America, Sir William McArthur, M.P., the Rev. Newman Hall, the Rev. W. Williams and Dr. Parker. Amidst immense enthusiasm, Mr. T. W. Olney then presented Mr. Spurgeon with a cheque for 4,500l.; but this, it was said, was only an instalment, as the list would still be kept open. Previous testimonials had been handed over by Mr. Spurgeon to his various institutions, and he now again declared his intention of allocating to them as much as he was free to use in that way. If people wished to see what money did, let them come and inspect the agencies in which it was employed. The proceedings closed with a prayer offered by J. P. Chown. Such a celebration is almost without precedent.

THE death of the Rev. James Baldwin Brown removes one of the most highly-esteemed members of the Congre gational body. The son of a barrister, he graduated at the London University at the age of eighteen, on the first occasion on which degrees were granted, and kept his terms at the Inner Temple; but before being called to the Bar he felt, to use his own expression, that "necessity was laid upon him to preach the Gospel." After completing his college course, he accepted a pastorate at Derby, where he remained for two years, but subsequently became the minister of Claylands Chapel, Clapham Road. He was the author of various volumes, and a frequent contributor to periodical literature. For the last two years he had been compelled to retire from active work, and was staying at Coombe, in Surrey, when the final summons came. Arrangements had been made for a visit to Switzerland. when he was suddenly stricken with apoplexy. He appears to have cherished the hope of meeting his people once again before his departure. Some few sentences, the commencement of an address on the first Psalm, were found on his dressing-table after he had passed away; he was engaged on them at the time when he left the room and received "the Father's message." The last words stand as follows: The law of the Lord' is a large word, rich in interestnot legislation merely-exhortation, warning, prophecy, psalm, and history. No reading like it. Infinite depth and fulness. Wise unto salvation, and rich unto life eternal is the man who masters it."

666

OME of my readers have no doubt visited Iona. Who that has ever done so, even in the company of a mob of tourists, can forget the impression which it made?

Leaving Oban in the freshness of an early autumn morning, and steaming outside the green island of Kerrera, which stretches as a breakwater between the deep bay of Oban, and the long roll of the Atlantic, we run along the southern end of the great island of Mull, with its high cliffs, and bare stretches of red rock, glowing above the flashing restless waters, that break over them in a glory of violet and white. The breeze freshens, and tastes salt to the lips, and strings the muscles. To our left is a long sweep of sea, with island peaks, each of them lit with some legend of saint or chief. As we round the Ross of Mull, a sea opens before us northward, and near by an island, some three and a half miles long, grassy and silent, with low-lying little plains, a hill or two of no great elevation, and coves and bays of the most wonderful translucent water, showing a bottom of the whitest sand.

The steamer casts anchor. The noise of the paddles stops, and the silence is felt, while gleaming gulls flash about the stern. Where we anchor in six or seven fathoms of water, we can see the bottom, and almost the crabs walking on it. We are pulled ashore by sturdy Highland arms, land on a little quay, get through a crowd of children begging and selling shells, and past some poor houses, and soon find ourselves among a group of ruins, humble and stern, grey and grim, eaten into by the salt tooth of the west wind, and bearing marks of the firebrands of Norwegian pirates. There is a church, a convent building or two, an enigmatical ruin for antiquarians to fight about, the tombs of Celtic kings carved with rude devices, and half-worn names, three or four tall crosses covered with the exquisite tracery of the Celtic artist,-and that is all.

a

But while many tourists scamper through the whole and see little and feel less, to some presence seems to fill the air of Iona, which inakes these lonely, simple ruins infinitely pathetic and noble. Though of far more modern date, they represent to us the life's work of a great man, who for thirty-four years lived on that lone island, and whose personality, while he lived, and for centuries after he died, made it the centre of Christian light and civilisation to a barbarous land.

Somewhere near these ruins, stood the wooden huts and church of the monastery which St. Columba, with his twelve white-robed companions, founded thirteen hundred and twenty years ago. They have long since vanished, and the traces of his work have nearly perished too, but his influence still lingers, around that storm-beaten island, and

he and his shine like a bright taper, in the darkness of that far-off age. Through all the rubbish of miracles and legends which has been piled on his memory, we can see a man of rare power, eager with the fiery spirit of his race, gifted with the magnetism of personal influence which marks the born kings of men, brave, self-forgetful, enthusiastically devout, ready for any danger, and suffering for Christ's sake, burning with missionary fervour, in a guise very unfamiliar to us, and withal a passionate lover of nature, with a poet's heart, and somewhat of a poet's life.

We know him from later biographies which are not quite trustworthy, but mainly from an invaluable life, written by Adamnan, who succeeded him as abbot of Iona, eighty-two years after his death. The good abbot has the prime quality of hearty admiration for his subject, and his book is precious for its early date. But he would rather tell a miracle any day than some plain fact, that would help us to know the man. So we have to sift and pick out a few grains of gold from the mass of dust and rubbish.

Saint Columba was born in Ireland in 521. He went to Iona and founded the monastery in 563, being then forty-two years old. He died in Iona in 597, in his seventy-seventh year. These are the bones of his biography. What kind of world was he born into in Ireland in 321? It is one very little known to most of us. Fifty years before, the last Roman emperor had laid down his dignity, and the seat of empire was now at Constantinople. The fierce assaults of the barbarians had broken that power which had bound Europe in a beneficial unity for centuries; and its withdrawal meant chaos. All over the lands which had constituted the Western empire there had been a hundred years of blood and fire, of nameless horrors, and long protracted agonies. More than a hundred years had passed, since the last Roman soldier had been withdrawn from Britain, and between these islands and Rome there lay wide countries, writhing in the miseries of the barbarian invasion, and forming an impenetrable barrier to any intercourse with that city, which still remained the mother city of the Western

church.

Over the European continent the barbarian invaders were gradually accepting a nominal Christianity. Clovis, and his wild 3,000 Franks were "converted" about the end of the previous century (496), but the greater portion of the various tribes of Teutons, Goths, and others were still pagan. In England, Jutes, Saxons, and Angles, were pushing their conquests. According to ordinary reckoning the latter landed in 527, when Columba was six years old. Ireland was torn and bleeding from the constant warfare of tribe against tribe.

Christianity had taken root in Ireland at an earlier period. The story of its introduction is