by his mother on her death-bed, and drawing his chair near to Susan, read aloud that beautiful chapter wherein our Saviour asks for little children to be brought unto him, "for of such is the kingdom of heaven." When he had concluded he closed the book, and, clasping the hand of his wife affectionately within his own; "Susan," said he, and his voice sounded like gentle music in her ears, "let us not murmur. God is just-is merciful. If he had lived, it would only have been to grope through the world. Now he is in heaven, where, to all, all is light. Let us deserve to meet him there."

Only a few years afterwards, Jeremiah was reduced to comparative poverty. The bulk of his property had been invested in the stock of the bank, which failed, unable to pay a shilling in the pound. Thus compelled to dispose of his expensive establishment, change his style of living altogether, and, with his wife and four children, take to "short commons," his spirits did not desert him. Said Jerry, "Never mind!"-two words which he never failed to throw at the teeth of every mishap he encountered. "Never mind! I like variety. I am tired of riding in a carriage; I once broke my leg in one. Walking is an exercise that I need very much. Come, come, this is not so bad an affair after all. It will test the value of my friends. Besides, now I can earn the bread we eat. Ah! it will be a labour of love, and that enriches the soul! I can almost say I am glad this accident has happened; I can indeed!"-From E. Paxton Hood's "World of Proverb and Parable." A Volume full of wise and witty things.

A

Devonian Local Preachers.

BY ONE OF OUR OWN MEN.

MONG our village-workers in Devonshire, our local preachers deserve special mention. They are the backbone of our churches; sturdy, faithful, and loyal to the cause of Christ; and constantly occupied, like their Master, in going about doing good, and preaching the gospel of the Kingdom. Many of our outlying stations could not be maintained without the assistance of these earnest helpers of the pastor. These brethren are indeed worthy of our sympathy and prayers. They are not deterred from their work either by the heat of summer, or the cold of winter. They read their marching-orders on the "plan," and a local preacher would not consider himself worthy of his title unless he kept all his appointments, no matter how great the distance or how bad the weather. The other day, a local brother said that he had been looking over his old "plans," and found that for ten years he had walked on the average ten miles, and preached two or three sermons every Sunday. What an amount of foot and mouth work is represented by these figures! "How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings!" Surely these words have a special application to the army of godly men who gladly leave their homes upon the Sabbath morning, after a hard week's work, to walk many a weary mile over moor and hill-side, to tell, out of a full heart, "the old, old story, of Jesus and his love." A neighbour of ours, a real good brother, who loves the Master, and delights in his service, had walked out on one occasion fifteen miles from his home, and had preached three

times. On his homeward journey, he sat down to rest a minute upon the fourth mile-stone, and, wiping the perspiration from his brow, exclaimed, "Bless the dear Lord, only eleven miles left!"

At a meeting held recently in our region, the chairman related the following incident. He said, "My father was a strict Churchman, but was converted under the preaching of a Bible Christian local preacher. He had heard of these Methodys,' and when a popular local brother came into his neighbourhood, he went to hear him. The preacher in due time gave out his text, and soon waxed eloquent upon his subject. As he warmed to his work, the perspiration stood in beads upon his forehead, but he mopped it up with his handkerchief, and then went on full-steam-ahead. At length, his preaching was with such demonstration and power, that he pulled off his coat, rolled up his shirt-sleeves, and dealt with thirdly and lastly' in splendid style. "Well," said the speaker, "my father was by this means convinced that the preacher possessed power to which he was a stranger; he was led to enquire what that power was; he discovered that it was the constraining love of Christ; and ere long he was himself filled with the same power. You see, my father had often seen preachers 'preaching by the day,' but he had never seen one preaching by the job' before."

Our locals, like their pastors, occasionally have very singular adventures. A brother, well known to the writer, was returning late one night from a preaching service; it was dark and dreary, and he was hurrying along as fast as he could towards his home, when suddenly, a man leaped down from the hedge, and clasped him in his arms. Our friend struggled to get free, being, of course, somewhat alarmed, and at length succeeded in releasing himself from the unexpected and unwelcome embrace of his unknown companion. During the struggle, the man, who was much the worse for the liquor he had been drinking, kept crying out, "Be you the parson? Be you the Baptist parson? Our good brother replied, "No, I'm not; I'm John H.” “Oh!” exclaimed the bewildered worshipper of Bacchus, "I'm drunk, and my wife won't let me in till I've signed the pledge, so I'm looking for Mr. H—.” Pastor H-congratulates himself that he was busy in another direction that night. He is always glad to help a poor drunkard who wants to give up the drink, but he has no wish to have such a wretched individual clinging round his neck upon a dark night in a lonely road. Such experiences are not good for the nerves of preachers who are not as strong as Samson, or as great as Goliath.

Sometimes our local brethren get very hard treatment in return for their voluntary services. One friend, after walking a long distance, conducted the Sunday morning service, and then waited in expectation of an invitation to dine with one of the members; but they all passed out, and left the preacher with no prospect of dinner. When he had seen the last of the congregation leave the premises, he started for a walk, in order to try the effect of fresh air upon an empty stomach; but he did not find it very satisfying. After a while, he came to a cottage, where he resolved to see if anything was to be had. The inmate was an old woman, living in poverty. She heard his tale, and then said, “Do'e come in and sit down." She set before him some very weak tea and some very dry bread, and as she did so, exclaimed, "There, if you'm a gude

man, you'll be thankful; and, if you'm a bad man, it's better than ye desarve." The hungry brother, to prove that he was a "gude" man, tried to be thankful, and no doubt succeeded as well as might be expected under the circumstances.

Some of our "locals" deserve to be ranked among the eccentric preachers who have adopted extraordinary means of reaching those whom they wanted to help. In a certain village in our district, there lived a notorious sinner, who had been often prayed for, warned, and earnestly entreated to give his heart to the Lord; but all efforts had been in vain. A local preacher, who was very anxious about him, resolved to preach to him in an unusual manner; so, at the witching hour of midnight, he quietly took his position under the man's bedroom window, and shouted at the top of his voice, "Fire! fire! fire!" Very soon the casement was flung open, and out peered the white face of the startled sinner, who cried in alarm, "Where? where? where?" "Why," thundered the local preacher, "its hell-fire, and you'm just on the borders of it, sure enough." The bow was drawn at a venture; but, guided by the Holy Spirit, the arrow stuck fast in the sinner's heart; it brought him to his knees, and he then and there sought and found the Saviour.

The pastor of three or four village churches, who has a good list of "locals" for his quarterly "plan," is fortunate indeed. They are generally amongst the best workers, and the best givers; and, having had some practice in preaching, they know what it means to have "a good time," or "a heavy time," and can thus fully sympathize with their pastor in his varying experiences. Let our united prayer be "God bless our local preachers, and send us more of them;" and every village pastor will answer, and say, "Amen."

Christ has made a Man of Me!'

A CONFESSION AND A CONTRAST.

HOSE hard-working men who till our fields, build our houses, make our

and greatness of England, are such valuable subjects of the Queen that we may be excused for regretting that they are not more often the builders of their own fortunes, and the friends of that gospel which can best ensure their elevation in the world. The buman heart is more prone to evil than to good; but there is still a remedy, and working-people need not be lower down in the world than Providence ordains. I suppose the ambition of every boy with a healthy mind in a healthy body is to be "made a man of" by having a good start in life; but as everybody may not know what I mean by true manliness, I will tell a little story from real life such as all may understand.

About twenty years ago, the pastor of an important London church wished to see how the poor lived in their crowded dwellings; and, accordingly, he asked a City Missionary to lead him through a poor district. Meeting at the place and time appointed, the two soon found themselves exploring the nooks and corners of a squalid lane, where the people lived in single rooms instead of separate houses, and were too closely packed together for health and morality. Going up one of the partially dark, and otherwise uninviting staircases, they presently came to a room which was the home of the man who is the subject of my narrative.

The man whom the gentleman saw sitting before him had been a sceptic, but he was now a Christian. Suffering from paralysis, he was able to do

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but very little at his trade, which was that of a tailor. Judging of him as he appeared to be, and according to the common ideas of people of the world, this man ought to have been wretched; and yet so far was this from being the case, that the visitors were struck with the tailor's beaming countenance. "I am happy, blessed be God," he said, in reply to their salutation; "God had been at me for two years before I was subdued by his grace." "Tell me what you were," said the minister, interested in so strange a confession. "I was such a wicked fellow," answered the other; "I cannot tell you how wicked I was." Some further conversation passed, and the minister desired to know how the great change had been brought about. In words as simple as they were forcible, the afflicted convert replied, "God has done it for me; and

CHRIST HAS MADE A MAN OF ME!"

A confession like this deserves to be well thought about by all who have not the poor paralytic's faith.

This simple and uneducated man was more interested in religion than inanything else. It had become everything to him, for he owed everything to it. In speaking of the humanity of Christ, he said, "It is of no use to put reason to it, it is above reason; it is of no use to put science to it, it is above science; it is of no use to put history to it, it is beyond all history; it is God-like."

Prosperity in this world alone will not make a man of any one, in the sense intended; our hopes must reach beyond the things of time. If we were to gain the whole world, and nothing else, we should, in point of fact, be less successful in life than the paralytic tailor, because when laid low by death we should lose our all. Strive to be a man, and remember that the humblest peasant whom God makes a man of has hopes which will live for ever. He has reached the true standard of manhood, and no one approximates thereto who only lives for passing animal enjoyment.

This leads me to say, that working-people live in a world where they have many enemies as well as friends; and the first are rather more to be avoided, than the last, because, like the serpent in paradise, they profess to be well-wishers to those whom they tempt into dangerous paths. No man or woman can have foes more deadly than pretended friends; and such are they who would draw you aside from accepting the old well-tried gospel for the sake of a counterfeit which the weakest test will prove to be worthless. It is well known that in London, and other large manufacturing towns, hard-working people are invited to attend halls of science instead of going to the public worship of God; and I am sorry to say that the only freedom which is there offered them is an invitation to surrender heaven-bought liberty for the bondage of Secularism. Shall the gospel be banished from the work-shop by men whose only God is earthly gain, and whose only good is the pleasure associated with time and sense? Let working-people answer this question in a manner worthy of themselves.

In the story of the paralytic tailor I showed what Christianity can do for a man; have you ever taken note of what unbelief can do for him? Another little history will make this also clear.

Some years ago, a man and his wife were found living in a wretched brokendown house in a low part of London; and although the husband was down with illness, his only bed was a little straw, with a coarse dirty wrapper for a covering, and a brick for a pillow. An old chair and a saucepan appeared to be the only other furniture on the premises, while the wife in attendance was subject to fits, which made her for the time more like a wild animal than a woman. Though reduced to so wretched a condition, this man was really gifted and educated; and in days of health and strength he had worked with his pen for an infidel publisher. What, then, was the cause of his downfall? It so happened that the sufferer answered this question himself; for, casting his dull, leaden-looking eyes around the room after a visitor had entered, he remarked,

"THIS IS THE WRECK OF INFIDELITY!"

OUR

New Brompton Baptist Chapel.

UR readers may remember that, in November, 1878, our students commenced preaching in the growing region of New Brompton, which is an outgrowth of Chatham. One of them-Mr. Blocksidge-settled down to the field of labour which it presented, and worked at it with heart and soul. In a short time a church of 45 members had been gathered, and arrangements were made to build a chapel-school to seat 250 persons. Cost of site and building made up £794; and this has been all paid. For this progress there is great reason to bless God, and abundant ground for taking courage, and proceeding to greater things. Many of the Lord's stewards in the neighbourhood have given again and again to this object, and the people themselves have plodded away with the heartiest perseverance; and they have had the joy of seeing everything advance steadily, while they have never had to pay a single penny for interest, for they have had no debt.

Now comes the tug of war. Such a church deserves all the help that we can win for it, and it needs no less. These friends will want, speaking roughly, some £3,000 wherewith to build the chapel, to hold between 600 and 700 persons: the present chapel-school will remain in the rear, and form the nucleus of the future school accommodation. In the region around there are more than 20,000 people, with this as the only meeting-house for Baptists. What is proposed to be done is less than is needful, though it is all that is possible with the present available strength. A strong, self-supporting interest will be the sure result, under the Divine blessing, if the chapel can be built upon the same lines as the church has moved upon hitherto-namely, the avoidance of anything like a burdensome debt. The artizans, tradesmen, and work-people, who make up the present church, show, by their hearty co-operation in holy service, what a power there is in the gospel of the grace of God. If we had a large fortune, or our ship would come home, we should like to take a leading part in this enterprize; as it is, we shall do our share; and we are glad to state that more than £400 have been promised towards the £3,000. Contributions can be sent to Pastor W. W. Blocksidge, 26, Green Street, New Brompton, Kent, or to C. H. Spurgeon, Westwood, Beulah Hill, Upper Norwood, London.