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in reviewing the productions of Messrs. Tag, Rag, and Bobtail, at ten guineas per sheet.

"Dear Montgomery, you say you wrote of nothing but yourself; only look back upon the great I's which I have sent you in return. I have always said that we English are the honestest people in the world, because we are the only people who always write that important word with a capital letter, as if to show every man's sense of its consequence. I long to see your antediluvian work. Do not talk to me of Alfred-for I am engaged three subjects deep after 'Pelayo,' and Heaven knows when that will be completed. The next in order is 'Philip's War in New England,' with a primitive Quaker for the hero."

CHAPTER X.

MAY IN LONDON-MAY MEETINGS- "THE GOOD OLD WAY -RELIGIOUS SOCIETIES COLERIDGE AND CAMPBELL LECTURE LETTERS TO PARKEN-LETTER FROM SOUTHEY - PARKEN'S DEATH-LETTERS TO IGNATIUS MONTGOMERY-BUXTON,

THE spring of 1812 again found Montgomery in London. The May meetings were the chief attraction, for May already was the anniversary month of those great religious organizations which send the life-blood of Christianity throughout the world. Many of them were then in the freshness of their youth. The Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, one of the first organized Protestant missionary enterprises, could indeed date back its charter more than one hundred years. It embraced both a home and foreign field; and extensive missionary operations were carried on in this country under its patronage. John Wesley came to Georgia in its service. Besides a Missionary, it was a Bible and Tract Society, issuing scanty supplies of religious reading long before the birth of institutions for that appropriate object. The benefactions of this charity flowed more directly from the English Church.

In 1794, an article appeared in the London Evangelical Magazine, a Dissenting journal, upon the duty and im portance of foreign missions, which immediately excited the most lively interest. The Christian public were ripe.

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for action. A convention was convoked, and for three days Spafields, one of Lady Huntington's London chapels, was filled to overflowing. Rowland Hill, George Burder, and Dr. Haweis presented and enforced the object which brought them together, with convincing power. The result was the London Missionary Society, which in two years purchased a ship, and sent off twenty-nine missionaries to distant continents, and islands of the sea. The story of the "Duff" and her precious freight, and the glowing hopes and fervent prayers which followed in her wake, are too well known to be repeated-an imperishable record of the triumphs and defeats which signalize the onward progress of the Gospel in the world.

This quickening spirit of evangelism, rising from the ebbing waters of the "great awakening" which has irrigated Christendom, hearkened and heard on all sides the sighing of souls famishing for the Bread of Life. The voice of many a living evangelist and stout-hearted itinerant was gone. Field-preaching, with the marvellous oratory which gave it power, had passed by. The spiritual emergencies which had marshalled such men as Whitefield and Wesley, Romaine and Rowland Hill, had been met, and now, in the subsidence of extraordinary measures and the withdrawal of distinguished champions, the sober second thought of the Christian public was called upon to devise ways and means systematically and permanently to supply the people with religious instruction. In 1781, a village pastor, burdened with the spiritual needs of his flock, wrote and printed a little tract, which he sent to all the houses round; some received it gladly, and others mocked at "The Good Old Way," for so was it named. The success of the little book, however, pleased and encouraged him. He soon published six more, at a

penny a piece," rich in goodly teachings, and so for nearly twenty years did the excellent and pains-taking George Burder unfold to himself and the world the idea of a Tract Society. In May, 1799, he went up to London to attend the anniversary of the London Missionary Society. A sermon was preached in Surrey chapel. At its close, while the hearts of Christians were glowing with the preacher's eloquence, a few turned aside into an "upper chamber," to whom Mr. Burder disclosed his experiments and his success in a new field of evangelical labor. The little group listened with profound interest. "Combination and enlargement," was the immediate response. The next morning, forty gentlemen breakfasted together at St. Paul's Coffee-house. Joseph Hughes was there, with his clear head and persistent industry; Rowland Hill, with his exuberant wit and glowing vigor; Wilks, with his sagacity and clownishness; Thomas Wilson, thoughtful and earnest. What other dishes were discussed we do not know; but certain it is, "The Religious Tract Society" was served up and well digested. This was on the 9th of May, 1799.

When Burder was writing and printing his first little sheet in Lancaster, a gentleman, in pursuit of a gardener, was rumaging among the neglected masses of Gloucester. Troops of noisy, dirty, swearing children dogged his heels. "Oh, sir," exclaimed a poor woman, "if you could only see them Sundays. There are a great many more and a hundred times worse- it is a very hell upon earth.” The gentleman may have found a gardener in his walk; but he found something more, for he stumbled on his great life-work, and Robert Raikes went home to project the first Sunday-school which the world had yet seen. His success kindled an interest all over the kingdom. Every

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where pious men and women offered themselves in this new field of labor, and multitudes of children, hitherto totally neglected and helpless in spiritual poverty, were gathered into these folds of religious instruction. Every city and sect espoused them; and in July, 1803, a "Sunday-school Union" was formed in London to give efficiency to the general cause. In another part of England the tears of a little girl, whom stormy weather hindered from taking her weekly seven miles' walk over the hills. to read a Welsh Bible, deeply affected the heart of her pastor. The circumstance was expressive of the general scarcity of the word of God, and the grief, "which fell a little short of anguish," felt in some districts of Wales on account of it. The pastor's heart was stirred, as men's minds are sometimes stirred by seemingly simple and strong incidents, when the public mind is ripe for action, and new tracks of effort are to be struck out into the teeming future. Rev. Thomas Charles, for that was the pastor's name, journeyed up to London, to attend a business meeting of the newly formed Tract Society. It was in December, 1802. "My people want Bibles. Wales is famishing for the word of God," is the pastor's agonizing cry. Can such a want be put off or neglected? But how supply it? The question needed little reiteration. "A Society must be formed for this purpose, and if for Wales why not for the empire and the world?" said Joseph Hughes, his eye kindling and his heart encompassing the world-wide want. Joseph Hughes was a Baptist clergyman, but no sectarian leading-strings crippled the catholic. breadth of his manly piety.

The thought has taken wings. Granville Sharp lays hold of it. Wilberforce embraces it. Zachary Macaulay advocates it. Lord Teignmouth subscribes to it. Bishops