came forward to receive their "notes" of admittance. The service was most impressive. The services will be continued. The attendance has increased every week, until it has become large. The spirit of prayer has been poured out copiously, and the friends are working with unflagging interest in promoting the good work.

[Since the above was written, the number of avowed conversions at the services has increased to about thirty-five. The Anniversary Sermons were preached on Sunday, November 20th, by the pastor. The chapel was filled at night. On the Monday upwards of two hundred persons sat down to 'tea. The amount obtained was about £120, raised by subscriptions spread over a given time, and collections. A good work has broken out at Ryde, too, and is continuing. Br. Carvath has conducted the services, and about fifty persons have become converted.]

Brother Broad, Liskeard, writes:-The Lord is working mightily in our midst. I believe that more than one hundred persons have been saved in the circuit within the last fortnight, and the prospect has never been more cheering than now. We are expecting the blessing to extend throughout the entire circuit. Ten places out of the fifteen have already been visited, and still we are praying, “O, Lord revive Thy work." You may expect a further account next month.

Correspondence.

BIBLE CHRISTIAN FIRE INSURANCE ASSOCIATION. DEAR MR. EDITOR,-Will you kindly permit me to use the Magazine, through which to bespeak the interest and co-operation of Ministers, Circuit Stewards, and Trustees, in favour of our Connexional Fire Insurance Association ?

The charges for Insurance are so small that I hope it is not too much to ask that every one of our trust estate, whether chapels, school or house, and also furniture and goods in circuit houses, be insured with us.

A good number of insurances have already been effected, and there is ground to hope that in a few years a large amount of free capital will be accumulated, the whole of which will belong to the connexion.

Assuming that all our leading friends are readers of our Magazine, and that, therefore, this will come under their notice, I trust they will help us to realise, as speedily as possible, our reasonable expectations.

The conference engages to meet every legitimate claim which may come in, and this, with the existing substantial "Loan Fuud" as a further guarantee, ought to be security sufficient to satisfy the most timid Mortgagee or Trustee of connexional property.

Proposal forms and any information will be promptly supplied, on application to,-Yours faithfully, J. C. HONEY, Secretary.

COLLEGE FUND.

DEAR BR. BATT,-I send for report the three sums following:-Previously acknowledged, £1,558 12s. 5d.; Rev. T. Braund, the first year's interest on £250 on head-master's house, £10; Rev. S. H. Rice, third instalment, £2 10s.; Woolwich, Miss Bridges, second instalment, £1. If, through changing, the brethren do not know the list of promises made in their Circuits, we shall, on application, be glad to supply them. We shall also be glad to attend public meetings, if arrangements can be made.

J. HORSWELL, Treasurer.
W. HIGMAN, Agent.

E come upon the shore of this Psalm just as the sigh-billows of David's heart roll with thunderous crash of inquiry, filling our ears with the melancholy dirge-"How long! how long!! how long!!!" We are greeted with the howling of a storm, with the moaning of an oppressed and troubled heart. But before we quit it the storm subsides into a calm, the dirge passes into a pean, the roar of despondent sigh-breakers is changed into the music of rejoicing faith in the mercy of God.

The "salute" is a sigh, the "adieu" is a song. We sight the Psalmist prostrate before the mercy-throne, wrapped in grim shadows of gloom, bowed in soul by the weight of a great sorrow, howling, "How long!" &c. We leave him sitting in the stillness of a new confidence, enwreathed with sunbeams of gladness, pealing forth from harp and lip an exultant Te Deum!

We have first earnest inquiry-verses 1 and 2: Then inquiry passing into fervent entreaty-verses 3 and 4: Then entreaty rising into triumphant assurance and praise-verses 5 and 6.

It is a four-fold inquiry. Can God forget? Never. Omniscience cannot be charged with a defective memory. "Can a woman forget?" &c. (Isaiah xlix, 15, 16). It is only seeming forgetfulness. The design thereof is disciplinary. "The Lord hath been, and ever is, mindful of us" (Psalm cxv., 12).

D

He "hides His face," not willingly, but of necessity, that we may seek His face. And the longer, that we may seek it the more earnestly. When we get the cloud instead of the sunny smile, we may well search our hearts for the cause, and be certified of a divinely recognised "needs-be": No father unnecessarily uses the "rod" on his child; and Jehovah never hides His face, never chastises, but for some important reason, and for our “profit.” He is as much "our Father" hidden as when revealed. The veil effects no alteration in the relationship, but stimulates to inquiry-"Why?" "Wherefore?" "How long?" &c.

Taking counsel from one's own heart is like drawing waters from a broken cistern, or looking for a rose in a sandy desert. Refuge is nowhere to be obtained in such a wilderness; relief cannot come from such a barren soil. Our own soul has no compensation to render for the hiding of God's countenance, no comfort, shelter, satisfaction to afford, when sorrow breaks its angry waves on the shore of consciousness. It is God only who can give "counsel," relief, refuge, and smite our enemies to the dust. Self is helpless, God is all-sufficient. Looking within worries; looking above brings an answer to our inquiries, a solution of our sorrows, and a "Peace, be still," to our moral unrest.

The enemy will remain "exalted over" us, if we simply try to subdue Him by taking "counsel in our own soul: the royal road to victory is "the path of prayer:" the enemy will fall like Dagon before the Ark as soon as we urge in faith our suit before God, &c.

Thus should earnest inquiry always pass into devout and fervent entreaty (verses 3 and 4). The most effectual praying is when entreaty flames into a holy passion, enthusiasm, agony of soul. Formality cannot pray, its lips are frozen. Trouble gives point, pathos, and power to prayer. It will cry until it prevails. Genuine entreaty comes from a soul that has a (a) clear recognition of its personal relationship to God:-"O, Lord my God." The child can go where the rebel dare not venture. The son can solicit what the beggar must not presume to seek. Moral relationship to God makes a marvellous difference in approaches unto God, &c.

Genuine entreaty is (b) definite in request:—It knows what it wants, and asks for it. There is a large amount of random supplication; objectless and indefinite prayer; unthinking and irreverent devotion. It is a terrible thing to insult God on one's knees! Entreaty has aim, directness, special need; hence, is definite in request: e.g., Jacob, &c.

Here it seeks first the Divine Attention-"Consider and hear

me, O Lord," &c. Secondly, the Divine Illumination-"Lightenmy eyes," &c., which is inclusive of deliverance from oppression, sorrow, trouble, danger, and the subjugation of the enemy, &c.

Genuine entreaty has (c) powerful reasons for what it requests:"Lest I sleep," &c.: This is from the self-side. God takes pleasure in His Saints: they are precious to Him, wont suffer them to be moved, is pledged to preserve them: This, therefore, a weighty reason, &c. The child in danger of death appealing for help and deliverance is sure to succeed. So the Christian.

"Lest mine enemy say," &c.: This is from the God-side. Prevailing against Him would be injurious to the truth; rejoicing over His overthrow, which is the ultimatum of their united and subtle endeavour, would be seriously dishonouring to God. Jehovah is jealous of His own glory as well as regardful of His Saints. His honour is inseparably bound up with their safety and moral wellbeing, &c. Two omnipotent reasons, then, at the back of this entreaty, which cannot fail to carry its subject up to the radiant heights of triumphant assurance and praise-(verse 5 and 6.) "But!" a hinge of gold on which the soul turns from prayer to praise. The first sun-ray of victorious confidence through the riven stormclouds, heralding a clear sky and a tranquil trustfulness. The keynote of the heart-anthem which fills the Psalmist's being with melody and gladness! There are buts, which are heavens!! and this partakes of the nature of such; and there are buts which are hells!! "But I have trusted in Thy mercy":-Here we have trustfulness (a) well-located: "In Thy mercy." God's attributes a sure foundation, &c. Trustfulness (b), triumphant: "I have trusted": through the fancied forgetfulness, and the hiding of the countenance, and the sorrow and heaviness of my heart, "I have trusted" at the throne urgent in request I doubted not Thy mercy, "I trusted," &c. Trustfulness also (c) exultant: "My heart shall rejoice," &c. Assurance gives birth to joy. Salvation to outbursts of gratitude. Faith, when crowned, sings. Gladness ever finds its highest expression in song. Exultant confidence reviewing the past-the seeming unmindfulness, the hidden face, the surging sorrow, the howling tempest, &c.--exclaims, "He hath dealt bountifully with me!" So, too, when we read our pilgrim-life in the light of God's heaven, exultingly we shall sing-" He hath done all things well!"

"We have been wont to call this the 'How long Psalm.' We had almost said the 'Howling Psalm,' from the incessant repetition of the cry, 'How long?'" -C. H. Spurgeon.

"Continued importunity is undeniable oratory."— George Swinnock.

NE has only to examine the copious catalogue of Messrs. Hodder and Stoughton, to be convinced that that enterprising firm merits the heartiest support. Perhaps it would be impossible to discover a slipshod work bearing their imprimatur. Few publishers have a clearer understanding of what the times require. In confirmation of this, we direct the attention of our readers to the series of biographies, entitled, Men Worth Remembering, which they are issuing at brief intervals, at 2s. 6d. each.

Someone has sagaciously remarked that, "It has been the fortune of many a good man to be twice buried, first in 'the house appointed for all living,' and then in a series of portly octavos, called Memoirs."" We have seen numerous instances of this. Some biographers make the subject a self-advertising vehicle, and, by perpetually obtruding themselves, write their own name in larger type and more brilliant colours than that of the man they profess to commemorate. They build a huge mausoleum wherein to bury their dead out of their own and others' sight, and which becomes an imperishable memorial of personal vanity and stupidity. It is a fortunate thing when the painter is happy in his subject and vice On glancing down the prospectus of Hodder and Stoughton's series, and finding that the lives to be written are those of Wilberforce, Henry Martyn, R. Hall. Doddridge, Chalmers, Wycliffe, Fletcher, &c., and that the work has been entrusted to such pens as those of Stoughton, Stanford, Paxton Hood, Donald Fraser, W. M. Taylor, &c., we think we have a sufficient guarantee that the characters to be portrayed are such as "the world will not willingly let die," while the scholars who portray them are conspicuously fitted for their delicate task. We may rest assured that the books will be worthy of the themes, the commentaries pertinent to the texts, and the music of the good men's lives set to true and noble words.

versa.

We can say this pre-eminently of Dr. James Culross's brief, yet graphic, story of Dr. William Carey's wonderful career. He had already won an enviable reputation as an author. As a critic said of one of his unpretending, yet most stimulating little volumes, "He leads us, not along the stiff embankments of a reservoir, but by the margin of the sea, with its majestic sweep." We had read some of his earlier productions, viz.. Emmanuel, Christ's Message to Laodicea,

*William Carey: By James Culross, D.D. Hodder and Stoughton.