painful, exhausting affliction, finished the work. There were days of relief and hope, but soon succeeded by weeks of agony and anguish. He was very anxious to share the opening services of our Church in December, but he was only permitted to see it with his eyes. He gave me his heartiest sympathy and prayers and money in that most anxious and trying time, and rejoiced greatly in our success, and his last days mingled in prayerful sympathy amid our revival blessings. He often told me I worked too hard, and urged me to rest awhile or I would be exhausted too soon. Said he, "You have had no rest since you came here, you have done an immense work; God will bless you, but you must rest for your family and the Church's sake. One of his last kind whispers to me was "Do take care of yourself, the Church will work you to death; you will never be an old man, do take care and rest." For all his kindness and love I am profoundly thankful indeed. Rarely have I known a truer friend, or a more noble and generous Christian heart. I will not pretend to depict the last days of terrible suffering, when the strong man became as helpless as a child, and when one of the most handsome forms that our ministry knew became so terribly exhausted and dependent. It could profit no one to tell the tale of five months of the greatest, severest suffering I ever saw, of one of the most self-reliant and independent minded of men, brought so low, that his very hands had to be lifted for him, and the food placed to his lips. His disease at times became almost more than he could bear, and there were moments of impatience and longing for relief; but if we whispered, God's ways are strange and trying, his quick reply was, "It is all right, all right; God never does anything wrong." He bore his affliction with wonderful resignation. At times he would say, "I wish the angel would come this way; oh, why tarry the wheels of his chariot." But in a moment it would be "All is right, all is right, God never errs." Said he to me one day, "I feel as sure of the truth of God's word and of the presence of God with me as that I am in this bed." It is when a man stands on the shores of eternity with the consciousness of God all about him, environed with God and the unseen, that all dissimulation vanishes, and error crumbles away, and only truth and what is true stays with him. Our Brother, when only the thinnest veil was between him and eternity, felt the fullest assurance, he feared no evil, he rested safely, calmly, grandly on the finished work of Christ, and he overcame by the blood of the Lamb and the word of his testimony. Once I said to him, "It is easier to wear out than suffer out." "Don't fear," said he, "you will wear out too fast." When speaking of his work, I said, "It is grand to

have done so much for the Master through so long a life. He replied, "I never saw my weaknesses, my imperfections, my failings, as I do now, but if I had another life I would gladly give it to Christ and the Church." Said he, "Christ has been wonderfully good to me; my blessed, blessed Saviour." He keenly appreciated words of sympathy and kind letters from brethren and friends, and though he could not answer them, bid me say how he valued them. At last the change so anxiously looked for came; just as March opened its stormy winds, a holy zephyr wafted him to the stormless land, and now he has reached his favourite evergreen shore.

His funeral took place on the 3rd of March. An immense gathering of people testified to the high respect in which he was held. The President, assisted by some of the brethren, impressively discharged the funeral service and delivered a most tender and touching funeral address. Six of the brethren were pall-bearers; so that devout men carried him to his grave in peace, and at the funeral service on the following Sabbath the church was crowded, and that vast audience remained anxiously, devoutly, to the last, through a long and impressive service. His remains rest by the side of his much-loved son, in the Exeter cemetery.

A man so well and widely known, I need not much further attempt to describe. No man in our ministry in Canada was better known, or more generally loved. He was tall, well built, handsomely formed, with a splendid constitution, a noble physique, an open and radiant countenance. To see him at his best was an inspiration. As a speaker he was free, vigorous, powerful, commanding. His manner was good, and graceful, except when denouncing some wrong or evil, when he became very animated and overpowering. He had a great power over an audience, and was a very popular speaker. He read much, and made good use of what he read. He was a close thinker, rather than deep, a keen analyzer, a good expositor of truth, apt at illustration, quick and keen to see a point, and make to it. He studied man as but few can or do, and his opinions of men were usually sound, clear and correct. A hollow man could rarely deceive him; a good man he would scent afar. He was well read in Christian doctrine, and held

firmly the root-faiths of evangelical doctrine. He was apt at repartee. I remember saying to him once at St. Thomas', 'It is quite a take down to a man like you and of your standing to come here. for 400 dollars a year, after having received 600 dollars at Mitchell." Said he, with a smile, "I guess it is a great deal more than you will be worth when you get to my age." He loved

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pleasantry, and in this respect was never old. He was full of wit and good nature. He deeply loved his family, strong and great was his attachment to his home and children. He longed and wept for their conversion, (may his tears and prayers be heard.) His family deeply loved him in return. All of them did their utmost, with the friends around, to soothe and relieve his last days and lessen his agonies. While grateful to all, he especially valued the nursing and care and affection of Mrs. Hooper and his daughter (Mrs. W. Bissett), and I would like to say they were always the best and tenderest nurses I ever saw, (God reward them!) "Good-bye, thou brave and noble and saintly one. We admire thy zeal and patience and great heart-loves. Thou hast well done for Christ. Rest now without a pain. Sing now thy gladdest song of victory for evermore."

THE PUBLIC WORSHIP PROBLEM; OR, THOUGHTS ON THE RELIGIOUS CENSUS. "Why is the house of God forsaken?"-Nehemiah xiii. 11.

HESE painfully suggestive words, of an elder time, disclose a lamentable fact and propound a serious inquiry. (1) A lamentable fact: "the house of God forsaken." The picture is, unhappily, not peculiar to Nehemiah's day. We are environed by most sad and touching exemplifications of this undesirable spectacle. As proof, we adduce the statistics of attendance at public worship, with which the proprietors of several of our provincial papers have, of late (at no little cost and labour, and wholly irrespective of ecclesiastical or political proclivities), supplied a startled community.

We remember Canning's paradoxical phrase, "There is nothing so false as statistics, except facts." We think, also, that a sagacious partizan can so manipulate figures that they shall appear to bolster up his pet theory. And, when we consider that these returns have been collected by diversified methods, and that they by no means furnish uniform particulars, we cannot recommend our readers to accept them with a too unsuspecting and credulous trust. They are, certainly, neither extensive nor accurate enough to admit of a reliable comparison with Mr. Horace Mann's census of thirty years ago. Nevertheless, seeing they have been taken from cities, towns, and rural districts in the north and in the south, in the east and in the west, and that they have not been published to serve party ends, they may be regarded as affording a fairly approximate idea of the degree in which our fellow-countrymen value the privilege of public worship.

One of the first disclosures made is the sad want of proportion between sanctuary accommodation and the population of this land. It is an unquestionable fact that, since Mr. H. Mann's census of 1851 indicated that, in England and Wales, no less than five-and-a-half millions of persons stood aloof from the house of God, church and chapel extension has been carried forward with giant strides. Indeed, the multiplication of places of worship is a striking feature of our times, and has given birth to not a few parallels decidedly unflattering to earlier epochs of ecclesiastical history. On the whole, we regard this as the natural outcome of a great and vigorous spiritual life. The churches have been aroused to a discovery of the rapid growth of the surrounding population, and have sought to fulfil their mission, and, therefore, ecclesiastical structures have been reared with unexampled energy and self-sacrifice. But many more such erections are needed ere the masses of the people can troop into God's tabernacles and worship at God's footstool. The Rev. A Mearns, in a tabulated statement which betrays scrupulous care, has shown that, while in 78 towns and districts where the census has been taken, there is an aggregate proportion of 3,629,200, the estimated number of sittings is only 1,513,726, leaving considerably more than half of the people wholly unprovided for. Even if we allow, according to Mr. Mann s computation, that only 58 per cent. are able to attend public worship at one time, there is an enormous deficiency in the number of sittings. Let Liverpool serve as an illustration. The 252 places of worship in that city are said to provide room for 179,196 inhabitants, whereas the population is 552,425. So that if all the persons in Liverpool, who can attend simultaneously (58 per cent.), were seized with a sudden resolve to do so, when all the religious buildings were crowded to their last seat, there would be still vainly seeking an entrance over 140,000 souls.

But, however we may be saddened by the incompleteness of the provision, we are infinitely more so at the ratio of attendance. The accommodation is not much more than equivalent to a third of the population, and yet almost a half of that is unappropriated. The estimated number of worshippers (in the 80 districts) was 923,296, or, according to Mr. Mearn's calculation, 25°44 per cent. of the entire population. And, indeed, we are confronted with humiliating confirmations of the figures in both our large centres and our outlying villages on the sacred day of rest.

Another very noticeable feature is, that in several instances the percentage of attendance was materially governed by the state of the weather. What havoc a wet Sunday makes in the majority of con

gregations! It would almost appear that Sunday rain contains a more dangerous element than Saturday rain. For many seem to be suffering under the hallucination that a Sabbath shower is far more likely to lead to acute bronchitis or paroxysms of rheumatism than one through which they carelessly pass on their way the arena of business, or the party of pleasure on the week-day.

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A comparison of the statistics makes it apparent that once-a-day attendance is exceedingly prevalent. We make every allowance for those whom relentless circumstances compel into that class, but that must leave a vast residuum of the population who are content to attend a single service.

We see also, when we carefully collate these returns, that the absentees from public worship are not confined to any one class in society. It may be that there is a serious preponderance in that lower stratum of the community, whose members are living not only in discomfort, but in positive wretchedness and manifest degradation. No doubt, withal, alarming numbers of the more educated and influential portion of the artizan class systematically shun the religious edifices of the country. But the evil spreads upwards as well as downwards-is characteristic of the wealthy as well as the poor. We are in full sympathy with the sentiment expressed a few years ago by Mr. Spurgeon. Said that God-honoured servant of Christ, "There is a problem I should like to see solved, and that is, how to get the people of the West-end into church. I know there are hundreds of thousands of people living in the suburbs surrounding London, having large incomes and fine houses, who do not attend church any more than many of the workpeople do."

One of the most interesting discoveries in our analysis of this census is, the relative strength of the various sections of the Christian brotherhood. The Established Church takes the forefront, with an attendance of 510,995. Next in numerical order are the Wesleyans, with 167,226. Under the heading of "Cther Methodists," we have 147,682, giving a grand total for the entire Methodist family of 314,908, well-nigh a third of the aggregate attendance at public worship. While this result should not lead to a spirit of vain glory, it ought certainly to confirm us as Methodists in the faith that the organisation in which we pride ourselves is not a signal failure.

Then follow the Congregationalists, with 118,491, and, close in their wake the Baptists, with 113,872. The Roman Catholics number 95,173; various minor sects (Friends, Brethren, Unitarians, &c.), 89,848; Salvation Army, 76,274: while the Presbyterians bring up the rear with 25,935.

It is a peculiarly significant fact that the percentage of attendance