to the plans of former times, without a regard to the exigencies of the present, would be to contravene apostolic example. We expect little benefit from a change in the constitution of societies, but we anticipate great benefit from a higher spiritual tone on the part of all engaged in this Godlike enterprise.

Our conviction is, that the missions

of our own day have a healthier organization than those of the Middle Ages, or than those of modern times, which to a large extent have been formed on their model. It is undoubtedly right in certain circumstances to remain unmarried for the sake of extending Christ's kingdom, but a vow of celibacy is altogether wrong, because opposed to the fundamental principle of human society; and the rapid deterioration of the fraternities formed on a celibate basis, we may regard as heaven's vindication of its own law. Protestant missions have not fallen into this grievous error; but so far as they have formed themselves into communities on a socialistic basis, they have been following an expedient, we believe perfectly justifiable in certain circumstances, and adapted to certain exigencies, but which the constitution of human society, as ordered by God himself, will not permit to be permanent. Control over one's property, subject to the individual conscience, seems to be a necessary corollary from the Divinely-constituted family relationship, and from the circumstances to which that relationship gives rise. The communism of the Primitive Church was only for a very short period, for a special object, and speedily gave way to the ordinary course of society. Neither in the

Church nor in the world can it permanently succeed. Missions formed. on this plan look very beautiful, but they have in them the seeds of decay, and very soon they are either essentially modified, or grievous heartburnings are sure to arise. The troubles and distractions of the Serampore Mission, of which Mr. John Marshman gives so painful an account, were evidently traceable in a great degree to the plan on which the mission was based. We have no regret that the plan of a common purse is now so commonly abandoned, and as little do we regret that the missionaries, by the arrangement of regular salaries, are released from the necessity of labour, and are allowed to devote their undivided energies to their proper work. We think wisdom is shown in the changes through which the organization of missions has passed.

There is unquestionably one great evil to which our present plans are liable. Secretaries, committees, and missionaries are alike in danger of being encompassed with a cold official atmosphere, which chills the heart, and is opposed to the strong mutual love by which those who are combined in such an enterprise ought to be united. We believe all parties desire to do the will of God, and as Christians love each other, but it may be questioned whether there is the warm glowing sympathy which ought to fuse into one the hearts of all engaged in so peculiar, so excellent, and so arduous an enterprise. The mediæval missionaries returned to the bosom of the mother community-the Moravian missionaries of the last century returned to their beloved Herrnhutt-while the modern missionary, so far as his Society is concerned,

returns to Secretaries and a Board. With sweeping charges against Secretaries and Committees we have no sympathy. The duties of the Secretaries of our large societies are most onerous and responsible, and are discharged, we have no doubt, most faithfully and conscientiously. This, however, does not diminish the necessity for brotherly, as well as official intercourse between the missionary and his Committee. When he travels for the Society with which he is connected, he has many opportunities of intercourse with Christian friends, but so far as the executive of the Society is concerned, he as a rule meets them only in committee rooms and at public meetings, and the opportunities of knowing each other, which free Christian converse

would give, are rarely possessed. The evils which result from this state of things, and the good which is lost, are too obvious to be mentioned. If this isolation be the necessary result of the peculiar circumstances in which Providence has placed us, let us submit to it, and guard as much as we can against its chilling influence. But we do not believe that such isolation is inevitable. And our lifelong and deepening attachment to our own "London" Mission emboldens us to make our appeal to all" whom it may concern," to do what in them lies to realise all the good of which its constitution is capable, with as little as possible of the evil to which it is liable. And may the whole earth speedily see the salvation of God!

JOHN PYER was born in Bristol, December 3rd, 1790.* His father died when he was seven years of age. Like many others, John was, as а child, fond of playing at preaching, the mother and indulgent neighbours expressing their satisfaction. He says of this early period, that he felt great tenderness of conscience, and was always careful to abstain from the levity and unkindness of bad boys. So good was he that companions called him "Parson Pyer." His mother, though frequently a

* See "Memoirs of the Rev. John Pyer," by K. P. Russell. London: J. Snow. 1865.

hearer of John Wesley, manifested no change of heart. It was Mr. Pyer's happiness after his own conversion to lead his mother and three of her children to Christ. The early promise of the boy-parson was like "the morning cloud and early dew;" it passed away. So early as eleven years of age, with a strength of will which was one of his characteristics, he broke from his mother's control, and went to work at a glass manufactory. His aim was a guilty independence. Mother's tears availed not. He soon became the foremost in every wickedness, and on this account was the pride and idol of the depraved

place. God followed him with strong convictions through this mire of iniquity, and the lad dared not sin to his mother's face, and aimed by denial of reports to live in her good opinion.

The changes of maturer life were foreshadowed by the incessant changes which took place in Mr. Pyer's external circumstances between the ages of eleven and twenty-two. Beginning in a glass manufactory, he becomes at fifteen an assistant in a haberdasher's shop; at sixteen, removes to a glass-work in Exeter; returns to Bristol; at eighteen, is a grocer; at nineteen, book-keeper to an engineer; at twenty, joins his eldest brother as a druggist; at twenty-one, is a travelling preacher for the Methodists; at twenty-two, is a shopman in a grocer's shop in London; and in the course of the same year returns to Bristol to engage in business on his own account. There he remained until he twenty-nine, at which age he gave himself wholly to tent missionary work. This was a rolling-stone indeed! No doubt Divine Providence overruled this varied life for good; but, judging from our stand-point, we should be inclined to say, it was a pity that there was not an early apprenticeship to some definite business, since a necessitated perseverance in one thing would have begotten and strengthened habits-intellectual and moral-of a most valuable character. We fancy we detect for long years after, a desultoriness and restlessness perhaps begotten by that inconstancy of youth.

was

So early as 1803, when Mr. Pyer was thirteen years of age, he joined the Methodist Society. No doubt there was then much to mourn over in

He

heart and life, and for a long time after. But there was manifestly growth in Divine things from that time. The natural decision, energy, and perseverance of his character were in favour of spiritual progress. Many Christian friends were raised up who helped him much to the knowledge of Christian truth, to an experimental acquaintance with its power, and to a clear and fervid utterance of it to others. His own earnest co-operation was not wanting. rose early, often at four o'clock, in order to advance-before his daily work began the culture of his mind and heart. The soul was kept awake by arousing providences. Once he was in great peril through clambering with other lads the perpendicular face of the St. Vincent Rocks at Clifton. At another time, in a press-gang riot, he was all but shot, his companion falling dead at his side. Near Bridgewater he was all but killed by the break-down of a post-chaise, the driver still pushing forward in a state of intoxication. At eighteen inflammation of the lungs brought him to the gates of death; whilst a terrible fire, which destroyed the whole of his brother's household furniture, wearing apparel, stock-in-trade, nurse and two children, made a deep impression on his mind.

An ardent passion for the ministry began to burn when between fourteen and fifteen years of age. And this was a fire that never went out. At nineteen there was an unburdening of mind on this subject to the classleader. The subject was mentioned to Mr. Lomax, and the following year Mr. Pyer's name was inserted in the local preacher's plan. The next year another promotion, he being sent to

the help of the travelling preachers in the Oxford circuit. The wind seemed

now to have set fair. But no; "the circuit-steward-a man I had seen but three times in my life-wrote a letter, which so operated against me that I was suspended." The candidate was told, at a meeting of the travelling and local preachers, his faults, and by Mr. Entwistle, the then president of the Conference, "At our quarterly meetings it was said you were trifling and foppish-as a proof of which you were observed to carry a fashionable great-coat. It was also said, that you had been saying some disrespectful things of the preachers." Such charges requira no comment, especially for those who knew the grand simplicity of the heroic man in later years. Deposed from the position of travelling preacher, Mr. Pyer went to London. Just before entering on his situation there, he happened to attend a chapel where Dr. A. Clarke failed to keep a preaching engagement, and had to preach for him. Four years later this consuming desire for the ministry broke out in the form of ardent longing for missionary service in the East. The Wesleyan Missionary Committee declined the offer on the ground of his having a wife and family. For eleven years the fire had burnt and would not be extinguished. About this time, a pious captain offered him a free passage to the East Indies. On this there is the following comment in the diary" Aug. 23, 1815. Whether this is from the Lord or not I am not prepared to say, but, blessed be His name, I feel He has made me willing to go east or west, just as seemeth best to Him. I only wait for Him to open the way. May

I be directed by His counsel, and afterwards received into His glory! I bless His name; this is all I wish to live for, to be useful to my fellowcreatures. While I can promote the Redeemer's glory in the salvation of men, I shall be content to stay on earth; but when I can no longer do this, then I pray God that I may

'My body with my charge lay down, And cease at once to work and live!""

At twenty-three, after settlement at Bristol, Mr. Pyer had married Miss Mary Smith, whom he had met during his short experience as travelling preacher in the Oxford circuit. Her friends, members of the Established Church, were not well pleased. It was proposed that he should seek episcopal ordination and admission into the national Church. This sturdy Nonconformist had then no objection. But the Rev. Mr. Bridges (the expositor of the 119th Psalm) and other clergymen, with whom a meeting had been arranged, were not pleased with the rank Arminianism of the candidate. Other tempting proposals crowded upon his path, but the one desire was to know and do the Father's will.

A few, very few, short years of domestic happiness, and this fine spirit passed into a region of perpetual shadow-the line of his pilgrimage coming out again to golden light only as it ascended the slope of the celestial city beyond the Jordan. Before the birth of her second child his dear wife had been the subject of sudden fright. This acted on a highly nervous temperament, and the result was soon first symptoms of mental derangement. The cloud gradually darkened till the home was bereft of the sunshine of wife and mother's presence. Into the cloud, in a drear grandeur

of spiritual loneliness, our friend passed, to do his work and to finish his course. We have seen, in mountain districts, clouds part for a few moments to let in seas of glory from the world above. No such opening or relief for the soul! To the weary end he persevered. Three years she survived him, and then her troubled spirit healed, glorified, rose to be with him evermore at rest. Stern and reserved to a stranger's eye he often seemed, but that aspect was only the veil over a tender loving heart, drawn by the unseen hand of a commanding sorrow, which asserted. à regal supremacy over every element and adjunct of his life. This mighty grief was the key to much otherwise insoluble in this saintly, noble character.

A year after marriage, and Mr. Pyer had become a tent missionary. It is difficult to realise the intense spiritual ignorance which pervaded the country fifty years ago. A few friends in the Methodist Society at Bristol resolved to do something to irradiate the surrounding darkness. Two warm-hearted local preachers, who had often found it difficult to procure rooms for village preaching, conceived the idea of a travelling marquee or tent, to be used during the summer months. The idea became a fact, and the first tent was erected April 24th, 1814, at Whitchurch, near Bristol. Mr. Pyer was amongst the local preachers who on that occasion conducted the service. The novelty of the scheme, the fervour of the preachers, and the opposition of enemies, made the movement at once successful; it made rapid progress in public favour, and for some years was an instrumentality greatly owned by God.

In the first instance Mr. Pocock, the principal of a large and influential boarding-school at Bristol, a man of great energy and burning zeal, who had been the means of erecting the tent and had taken Mr. Pyer into the work of evangelizing as his coadjutor, devoted the summer vacations to this itinerancy. In course of time the period of operation and the staff of labourers were increased. Mr. Pyer went heart and soul into the work. A new wing to the tent became necessary, and was added. In the autumn of 1815 a great revival of religion took place at Bedminster through the labours of the preachers. It should be remembered that in the early years of this movement all that the subject of this brief memoir did was in addition to, and amid, the pressure of business and family claims. During a whole week in April, 1816, on the occasion of a poor fellow being hung on the Friday for forgery, the tent was pitched on the Gallows Field, Bristol. There was a service every night. About 4,000 attended on each occasion. Thirty thousand came to see the execution. On that sad day services were held afternoon and evening. On the following Sunday there were two services in the field, and in the evening at least 10,000 persons heard the word of life from a large band of preachers.

In July, 1818, the tent moved to Southampton and the Isle of Wight. It reads curiously in these days:-"Monday we crossed to the Isle of Wight.

Our passage was tedious, and the landing of our horses and luggage more so; insomuch that we did not reach Newport-a distance of eight miles from Cowes-till the time announced for preaching was almost