their appeal might find utterance in the familiar words, "Come over and help us."

A bridge of difficulty lies between the English girl and the factory girl, but it is such an one as may be crossed by steady feet urged forward on their mission by a heart yearning to minister to the pressing need of others. It is only in the evening that those who are employed all day at work in factory or mill can be reached. The evening hour has other occupations to the English girl. Of what kind? Concerts to attend, evening parties to be present at. Yes, true, but will the English girl forego no social pleasure or enjoyment in seeking to

"Rescue the perishing, care for the dying."

Is it only the dregs of her time, the superfluous energy of her life, which she would offer to her Lord and Master, Jesus Christ? Will she jealously guard against any interruptions to the even flow of self-pleasing? Will she at once and altogether ignore the Saviour's teaching, "Whosoever will come after Me let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow Me?"

Let us not be mistaken in our line of thought

here. We fully recognise the claims of home upon every English girl, and with the conviction that "duties never clash," we would not for one moment seek to create some special call to outside work, where daughterly love and sisterly usefulness proclaim the English girl's place to be rightly at home. But we are not asking her for every evening in the week, neither are we urging upon her the need of giving up her hours at home; we are appealing for some of the time spent in recreation, for some of the hours devoted more especially to self-enjoyment.

Would it be too great a sacrifice to demand of an English girl, that she give up now and then a concert or an evening party to spend the time which either would occupy, in visiting in their homes, or in receiving in her own house, or meeting elsewhere, those whose dreary lives need specially to be brightened by the healthy sunshine of Christian sympathy and influence?

Is it too much to hope that the day will yet come when half a dozen or more Christian English girls, knit together by the ties of friendship, will be found in every parish in London, and in towns needing their services, seeking to establish classes for the working

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girls, endeavouring to gather around them to spend a happy evening in social enjoyment, those whose homes are so unattractive, and whose lives demand as a necessary reaction to the toil which belongs to them, some sort of recreation? Could parish schoolrooms or mission halls be put to better use than this, once or even twice in the week? Could voices trained in sweetest harmony perform the "ministry of song" better than upon these occasions? Could well-told stories, or gently uttered poetry secure more needy listeners or have anywhere a higher mission? Could kind smiles, gentle voices, youth and beauty, have a greater power to win than here?

We are not pleading for the help and work of "Sisters of Mercy," in the common acceptation of the term, such as are known by some outward uniform or dress. We are asking for the time, and thought, and labour of bright, healthy, laughter-loving English girls. We want them. to bring their brightness, even of dress and colour, (apart from extravagance or untimely following of fashions, which can never help to elevate or make better,) their sunny faces, and energetic movements and tones-we want them

as they are, to live freely, naturally, without effort or restraint, among lives less blessed than theirs, hearts less buoyant with life's hope. We want them to come as a purer atmosphere, a higher thought to those who live in vitiated air, whose minds, because of daily surroundings, bear down towards earth. We want them by their own glad life of love to make possible to some the belief in the God of Love, whom pressing care and unceasing toil have shut out from their hungry hearts, making the present world hard, dark and cold, and life to come a barren wilderness of thought.

We are pleading that our working girls may, as a class, be borne upon the hearts of others, to be yearned over, prayed for, lived amongst. And we know while we thus plead that here and there work of this kind has been attempted, is even now in full operation, but we are also conscious that the best success possible to this work yet waits to be realized, and} we feel we are not far from the truth when we look to the English girls as the workers best fitted for the labour, and to their sympathy as the power by which they shall win the way they seek to make their own.

ON MISSIONS-AT HOME AND ELSEWHERE.

"WHAT is my mission in life?" is a question which, sooner or later, comes to the heart of every English girl. Well for her if, coupled with the enquiry, is the prayer, "Lord, what wilt Thou have me to do?"

We have heard of one, who, awakening to the privileges and responsibilities of her life, exclaimed, "What can I be?" to whom the answer was speedily given, by a friend gifted in wisdom-"Be yourself."

Be yourself! Within these words lies the spirit of all true life. Consciously or unconsciously the English girl is in life what she is in character, and in character what she is in heart. High aims and lofty aspirations do not stand in the place of true living. Life gathers its force and its reality from the soul within. What the soul is, and nothing more or less, such will the life be, in its purity and signi