cause of geographical research. I may be reminded that human infirmity and the snares of the devil have marred some of this Niger Mission work. But what work for Christ have they not marred? It would be the deepest ingratitude to ignore the results that have been achieved by Divine grace even in this darkest of dark lands, and with very imperfect instruments.

But if West Africa thus shows advance, what shall we say of East and Central Africa? What did the Report for 1860 say? Henry Venn could only tell of the one solitary missionary, Rebmann, on the coast, and acknowledges the failure, so far, of the Society's plans for strengthening the Mission and penetrating the interior. "Those hopes and preparations," he says, "though founded upon the Gospel of Christ, had in them, it may be, too much of human power and enterprise," and they “came to nothing." Yet in that same Report three interesting facts are mentioned, the significance of which could not be fully seen at the time. The first baptism in East Africa had taken place on Whit Sunday in that very year 1860; the chief authority on the coast had just passed from the Imam of Muscat to the new Sultan of Zanzibar; and Captains Speke and Grant had landed on Sept. 14th, to begin that famous journey which, three years later, revealed to the world the existence of Uganda and King Mtesa.

It is difficult to compress into a few words the marvellous events which have signalized the twenty years that have since elapsed. Livingstone lost, found, lost again, and dying on his knees at Ilala; the efforts to put down the East African Slave Trade, initiated, and largely influenced, by the Church Missionary Society, and entirely successful within ten years of their inception; the journeys of Vanderdecken, New, Baker, Cameron, and Stanley; the work of Colonel Gordon in the Soudan; the great missionary enterprises of the Scotch Churches on Lake Nyassa, of the London Society on Lake Tanganika, and of the Universities' Mission in Usambara and elsewhere; the establishment of the C.M.S. Freed Slave Settlement at Frere Town; the C.M.S. Mission to the Victoria Nyanza, in connexion with which no less than twenty-one missionaries have made their way into the interior of the Dark Continent, of whom eight actually reached Uganda, and five have occupied important stations on the road to the Lake, at places whose very names were unknown in England eight years ago; and, lastly, the reception within the past few months, by her Majesty the Queen, of envoys sent by King Mtesa himself from the uttermost parts of the earth to see her greatness and her wisdom, and brought hither by the missionaries of that Society, the failure of whose efforts to reach the interior of Africa Henry Venn sorrowfully acknowledged twenty years ago. With a great sum obtained we these results, it is urged. Quite true; and yet it is worth remembering that, although the Society's expenditure upon Africa has doubled in the twenty years, it is still only one-third of that upon India, and indeed just equal to that of South India, the model Mission for economy and efficiency.

Let us turn to INDIA. We have not here the remarkable contrasts which Africa presents. Yet there is significant progress. The number

of Native Christians connected with the C.M.S. has risen from 46,000 to 93,000, just double. The number connected with all Protestant Societies has more than doubled. In 1860, it was about 200,000. A low estimate makes it now 430,000. The figure of 100,000, supposed by Lord Granville to represent the Protestant Christians of India, is supplied by the C.M.S. and S.P.G. in the small province of Tinnevelly alone. Still more striking is the increase in the C.M.S. Native clergy of India, from thirty-one to ninety-nine; in connexion with which it may be observed that the 1860 Report contains not the faintest allusion to the Native Church organization which has since been so successfully developed, but which was then a thing of the future. Tinnevelly, for instance, was then worked by sixteen European missionaries. Now we have but four, one of whom is the Bishop, Dr. Sargent, and the other three are engaged in educational work. The entire pastoral care of the 875 villages that contain bands of Native Christians is supplied by the Native clergy, of whom there are fifty-eight, against seventeen in 1860. By a complete system of Church Committees and District Councils, culminating in a Provincial Council, all the local affairs of the Church are conducted on the spot; and 2500l. a year is contributed to religious objects by the C.M.S. Tinnevelly Christians alone, the majority of whom are wage-earners of 2s. 6d. or 3s. a week.

Under the head of North India, the 1860 Report has two interesting passages. One describes the commencement of village schools among the aboriginal Santâls, a people who have since then given the C.M.S. nearly 2000 converts and three clergymen. The other is an appeal from a missionary honoured then, and still more honoured now, Robert Clark, in behalf of the Afghans. Peshawar was then a young Mission, with only three or four converts. It has been a hard field, and there are now only a hundred; but many of these are Afghans, converts from Mohammedanism, and their pastor, the Rev. Imam Shah, is also a converted Mussulman. Within the last two years, English missionaries have crossed the frontier for the first time, and visited Jellalabad and Kandahar; while Imam Shah has reached Kabul itself, and ministered to the little band of Armenian Christians in that dangerous capital.

The CHINA Mission in 1860, after fifteen years' faithful labour, was still in its infancy. There were but 150 converts; and Mr. Venn commences that section of the Report with these words: "The aggressive operations of the Society in China during the last year have been confined to one of its three stations," the other two being held only by new-comers learning the language. That one station was Ningpo, to which belonged almost all the converts. In the history of one of the other two, Fuh-chow, the year 1860 was a memorable epoch indeed. It was in that year that the Committee resolved to withdraw from a city which had yielded no fruit to ten years' labour; that the young missionary, George Smith, begged for one more year's respite; and that the Lord then sent the first droppings of the coming showers of blessing. Just as 1860 is dying out, on December 22nd, Smith writes, "I hope that a brighter day is about to dawn upon us. There

are three men whom I look upon as really honest inquirers." When Mr. Venn inserted those simple words in the short paragraph allotted to Fuh-chow, he little thought of the deep historical interest that attaches to them to-day. For that barren field has become the brightest spot in our China Mission. In more than a hundred towns and villages in the Fuh-Kien province you may now find 3000 Christians, four Native clergymen (besides two others who have died), 100 catechists, and 104 churches and chapels.

Taking all the China stations, the 150 C.M.S. converts have grown to 4000, and eleven Chinamen have been ordained to the ministry of the Church. Or, enlarging our view, and taking in the Missions of other societies, we find 50,000 Chinese Christians where there were not 5000 twenty years ago. China, in fact, is beginning to occupy a fairer place among the mission-fields of the Church of Christ; and the C.M.S. alone expended 16,000l. there last year, against 35007. in 1860.

In one respect no advance can be reported in China. In 1860 we find the senior missionary writing with sorrowful indignation of Christian England having just "forced the gates of Peking, and burnt down the imperial palace, to secure legal access for opium to all parts of China." That senior missionary was Mr. (afterwards Bishop) Russell, who but lately died at his post without seeing any remedy found for that gigantic evil.

The next mission-field is one whose name does not appear at all in the 1860 Report-JAPAN. Only seven years had then elapsed since the first attempt had been made to break the seal which for more than two centuries had hermetically closed the mysterious empire against all intruders. Only two years had elapsed since the British treaty had secured to foreigners the right of residence at certain ports. Eight years more were to pass away before any foreign Minister could get a sight of the Mikado; nine years, before the first English missionary was to land; thirteen years, before his successors, or the Americans who had preceded him, could do any open missionary work. And now? Western civilization is established in Japan-railways, telegraphs, lighthouses, pillar letter-boxes, daily newspapers, and school inspectors; nearly a hundred missionaries are at work; some five thousand Japanese Christians have been gathered already, mostly of the educated classes; and the leading Native newspapers make no secret of their belief that, in the words of one of them," if Christianity should progress in the future as it does now, it is certain that this religion will prevail all over our country." And if the share of England in this grand work is relatively but small, let us rejoice that the C.M.S. has now nine missionaries at five stations, and already two hundred converts. Crossing the Pacific to NORTH WEST AMERICA, and thus passing from the Eastern to the Western Hemisphere, we find in the 1860 Report two items of special interest. One is the location of the first resident missionary in those vast territories that now form the diocese of Athabasca, and in which Bishop Bompas counts to-day more than three thousand Protestant Christian Indians. The other is a letter

from William Duncan, then, after three years' work, just beginning to gain an influence over the wild Tsimshean tribes, in which he suggests the expediency of establishing a settlement at a place which Mr. Venn spells Metlahkah. Who could foresee that Metlakahtla would, within a few years, be a household word throughout the Christian world; that its red-skinned community, once sorcerers and kidnappers and murderers and cannibals, would be acknowledged by governors and magistrates to be a conspicuous element of strength in the population of a growing British colony; that its influence should have spread order and peace along the whole coast; that it should have cast forth its branches east and west and north and south; and that in the year 1879 a Bishop would be consecrated at St. Paul's Cathedral to preside over the advancing Church?

Some have thought that the Church Missionary Society has spent too much relatively on the few Red Indians scattered over the wilds of North West America. Let me quote Henry Venn's words in 1860:"They are now only the remains of nations; but they are living remains; and if it has been justly esteemed an enterprise worth much sacrifice of treasure and life to search through those very regions for the unburied bones of Franklin and his brave companions, surely the Church of Christ cannot refuse to send forth its messengers to search out and to bring to life everlasting remnants of tribes, dead in trespasses and sins, yet inviting us by a living voice to go over and help them."

Such is a brief and imperfect sketch of the more salient points of contrast between the principal mission-fields in 1860 and the same fields in 1880. Can we find a like contrast in the manifestation, at these two periods respectively, of missionary interest and liberality at home?

In one somewhat different matter the contrast at home is certainly remarkable. The Report I have so often quoted concludes with a reference to the revival movements of 1860; and Mr. Venn sees in them "the stamp of a Divine dispensation-of the first fruits of a general outpouring of the Holy Spirit." It is indisputable that from the movements of that year have sprung the astonishing developments among us of a more vigorous and aggressive spiritual life-the special services, the parochial missions, the lay preachings, the prayer-meetings, the crowded gatherings for the promotion of personal religion. Drawbacks and defects there are in all these, without doubt, as in everything else that is human; but I suspect that those who least sympathize with them would be sorry to find themselves back again in 1860.

But what has been the effect of these movements on the interest of the people in Foreign Missions? Not perhaps quite what might have been expected. The multiplicity of objects for Christian sympathy and Christian labour to expend themselves upon has tended to dissipate the attention which once was concentrated on the Church Missionary Society. Let us now seek to give our own cause the place due to it as the first and greatest of all, without in the smallest degree injuring others. "These ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone."

The ordinary income of the Church Missionary Society twenty years ago averaged 125,000l. a year. In both the two previous periods of twenty years it had about doubled itself. If it had now doubled itself again, it should be 250,000l. In fact it may be taken as 187,000, an increase of only fifty per cent. The Association Returns, which in 1860 were about 100,000l., may now be put at 135,0007., a still lower rate of increase.

Now it is remarkable that 1860 was a year in which a new machinery for developing the Society's influence and funds was first set on footthe very machinery which in 1880 the Committee are making fresh efforts to perfect-the system of Honorary District Secretaries. It may be interesting to quote from Henry Venn's 1860 Report a few words which exactly express what, after twenty years' experience, the Society still needs, and the Committee still desire. After acknowledging the "very valuable and self-sacrificing labours" of the Treasurers and Secretaries of Associations, of their clerical supporters, and of the individual collectors throughout the country, the Report goes on"The Committee think that enlarged resources may be obtained through the assistance of Honorary District Secretaries. With this view they propose a sub-division of counties into districts of such moderate size that clergymen and laymen of influence may undertake to canvass their neighbours for support, and to arrange for meetings, sermons, and deputations. Such a sub-division of labour would greatly augment the efficiency of the Association Secretaries." The work

thus described has been nobly done by individual friends in various parts of the country; but the system has, I think, hitherto been carried out in its entirety only in Norfolk-and the rate of increase in the Norfolk contributions during the twenty years has been nearly seventy

per cent.

I was requested by your Committee to draw some practical lessons from the facts I should lay before you. Let me express them in five texts of Scripture:

1. "The works of the Lord are great, sought out of all them that have pleasure therein." Yes, the works of the Lord are great. Do not judge those of the past twenty years in the foreign field by the meagre summary I have now read in your ears. This paper is but as the Catalogue of the Royal Academy Exhibition. Who could judge of the Exhibition by reading the Catalogue? Go and see the works for yourselves which is, being interpreted, Read the Church Missionary Society's publications. Do not complain of these publications because they are not exactly light literature. They are not meant for the world, but for the living members of the living Church. "The works of the Lord are great, sought out of "-whom? "Of them that have pleasure therein." And it is true in this as in so many other matters, that "he that seeketh findeth."

2. "Who hath despised the day of small things?" Who indeed can do so, when he thinks of the solitary East African missionary, of the feeble beginning on the Niger, of the humble Santâl schools, of the three men at Fuh-Chow who really might be "honest inquirers," of the "place