Auricular Confession, and asserting that now Protestants confess once a year. Having left the Church, we spoke to some persons in the Piazzi, who insulted us and threatened to burn our books.

MONTEPORZIO.-Early the next morning we went to this town, spoke to the people from house to house, distributed tracts, and sold some New Testaments. In one of the houses we found the Holy Scriptures, and a woman who told us that formerly she had a copy which she had been induced to sell to the curate for eight francs. She said she read it with much pleasure.

MONTECOMPATRI.-Out side this town we entered into conversation with a priest, who spoke so loudly that a number of persons came round us. We rather encouraged the priest to proceed, and then invited him to have a public discussion with us. He refused, and the people laughed at him. In the town we had many conversations and visited fifty families, when we spoke of the Saviour, and sol nineteen copies of the New Testament.

GROTTAFERRATA.-Here we had a discussion with a priest, and then went to all the houses in the village. We sold five New Testaments and some gospels. MARINO.-Here we sold seventeen gospels and seven Testaments, and announced Christ to many persons.

CASTELGANDOLFO.-This town is full of ex-soldiers of the Pope, and is therefore called the little Vatican. We passed through the streets, as usual, with tracts, Gospels, and New Testaments. While at breakfast about twenty of the principal men of the place came to converse, to whom we sold six Testaments. One man, instead of six sous would give ten, and another gave five, which he said was all the money he had.

means.

ALBANO.-Two shoemakers wished to purchase, but could not for want of The daughter, however, went in search of coppers, and soon returned to take a copy. A poor woman was about to buy, when a man standing near intimated that the book was prohibited. Notwithstanding the poverty and misery of these people, we sold nine copies in Albano.

On reaching the station we found the train had left, so we resolved to walk along the line, and visit the guards and workmen employed and the cottagers and shepherds of the Campagna. Thus we passed from station to station until, at 2 a.m., we came to a small shrine. Finding it open, we entered, and lighted the altar candles and read the Scripture. Before reaching Rome, we sold eight copies of the New Testament and preached the Gospel to many persons. The total number of copies sold during this journey was seventy-one.

The Sonepore Fair.

THIS festival of the Hindus is held at Chapra on the River Gandak, near the confluence of that river with the Ganges at Patna. To Europeans the fair is known chiefly for the horse-racing which has long been annually carried on there, as also for the very large number of camels, horses, and elephants which are taken there for sale. Those who have a passion for such things are wont to describe from year to year in the columns of the secular press of India the commercial and sportive transactions of the fair. But like all the fairs of the

Hindus, however much they may in these degenerate times be mixed up with secular interests, the festival has a strictly religious origin. It appears that, at a fabulously remote period in the past, an elephant was crossing the Gandak and was seized by an alligator. The contest between them, there in the river continued for a thousand years, when all at once the elephant, about to succumb, cried out to the god Krishna to have mercy upon him and help him, Instantly the god appeared in view, and from mid-heavens flung his famous discus (sudarshan-chakra) at the alligator, and slew him with one blow, while the elephant escaped alive and unhurt. Near the spot where this occurred a temple has been erected, and to bathe in the river at the steps leading down from the temple, at the moment of the full moon of the month Kârttik (October-November), the time at which the event is said to have taken place, is taught by the Brahmans to be of saving efficacy.

From all this it will readily be seen how great is the call for the Christian evangelist at this festival; and especially when we remember that the mass of idolaters who assemble there on this occasion numbers something like a quarter of a million, from all the districts around in that part of Northern India, including Nepal, Western Bengal, and Behar. The fair is at its height for only three or four days, culminating on the day of full moon; though for some days before and for many days after, there is plenty of work for the preacher of the Gospel. I have attended the fair for a series of years; one missionary brother has preached there for the last seven and thirty years, with extremely few exceptions. This year there were but six European missionaries there, who, with their native helpers, made up probably fifteen. But what are they among so many! However skilfully they be arranged, and however much they may be bent upon the true and vigorous discharge of their most solemn duty, it is most manifest to any one on the spot that the heavenly message we have to deliver can reach the ears of but the merest fraction. The question is continually and widely discussed by Christian men in India, how shall we most successfully bring the joyful news of our Great Deliverer before the minds of the idolatrous people of this land? Surely the answer is, by doing (as God's redeemed people ought to do) everything which our hands find to do, and doing it with all our might. By serving Him gratefully, lovingly, and cheerfully, in season and out of season, at every opportunity and with every faculty we possess, and by every available instrumentality. Itinerary work among the villages, daily preaching in the bazaars of the cities where we reside, the proclamation of the essential truths of the Gospel to the dense masses at the idolatrous festivals of Ram and Krishna and Jagannath-each of these occupations presents, it is true, peculiar difficulties, and each has its own peculiar element of discouragement, but that it is our duty to devote ourselves zealously and faithfully to each, surely none can doubt. If we take action on the counsel of our advisers, who bristle with opinions as to "the proper way to convert the natives," each presenting us with his own particular recipe, the work of the Lord will never be done, and the witness He has commissioned His people to bear will never be borne. I would not ignore the importance of system and organisation in relation to our work; but is there no danger of a too great reliance on our mere plans, and of a too great jealousy of every unauthorised departure from them? Is there no danger of the prevalence among us of a species of ecclesiastical red

tapeism, such as to paralyze individual effort? Let us think for one moment of those missions in this land upon which the blessing of the Almighty has descended in a special manner, so as to fill all our hearts with joy and triumph. Do they not, nearly all of them, owe their origin to some idiosyncratic departure from recognised plans? Have they not been cradled amidst the jeers of the time-server and the ominous and disheartening shaking of wise-heads? When shall we learn that the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God, and that when He would confound the mighty and bring to nought the understanding of the prudent, He does so by means of some nonentity or madcap with whom wise men think it hardly the correct thing to be identified? It has been so in all lands from the time when "unlearned and ignorant men" of Galilee preached this same Gospel to the literati of Greece and Palestine and Rome; it is so still in this land, and it will continue to be so till Jesus comes. More solemn and more binding than the duty we owe to work according to plans laid down for us by others, is the supreme duty we owe as our brothers' keepers to make it a point of conscience to speak of Jesus and His great salvation to every poor perishing fellow-creature with whom we meet.

But these vast fairs of the Hindus are most objectionable places on many accounts. I will not enumerate them all. Beyond all question, the most objectionable feature of the fair to which I now refer is the stench. It needs only to be mentioned that, for that vast concourse of the animal creation-man and beast assembled for days together in dense proximity-there is no sort of drainage. By the time one's work is done, it becomes absolutely imperative to pull down our tents and escape by the shortest route. Yet we know Him who has promised to protect us "from the pestilence that walketh in darkness"; and if our hearts are rightly affected towards Him who suffered contact with this foul world for us, we shall feel no doubt that, supported by His indwelling presence and by His sure word of promise, we may safely walk in the midst of dangers as long as duty calls. What we need is that we crucify our own notions and mortify our cherished tastes, under a sense of the inestimable privilege which our dear Lord has vouchsafed to us of "preaching among the heathen the unsearchable riches of Christ."

One of the most interesting features of our work at the Fair was the circulating of Scriptures and religious books and tracts in the vernaculars. The time has gone by when any apology was needed in defence of selling as contrasted with gratuitous distribution. Of late years the plan of selling has been tried all over India, and it has been found that the circulation has increased beyond all expectation. The fact is, the people are so superstitious that they interpreted the very eagerness of the missionary in giving them books as an attempt on his part to induce them to break their caste and become Christians; and for this purpose they supposed that the mere touching a Christian book would be sufficient. The charm of this superstition is dissolved when the only condition on which a book is given is the payment of a coin. It is an interesting fact that in those parts of India where Christian publications have never yet been "sown broadcast," and where the message of the evangelist is a new thing, those publications are the most eagerly and most plentifully purchased. That the purpose we have in view is not less likely to be compassed by this means than by the preaching of the living voice will be obvious when we remember

how much more likely the truth of the Gospel is to find a place in men's hearts when they sit in their homes and read it at leisure than when they catch a few feeble words spoken in the seething crowd by the missionary-words which are likely to be at once driven out of mind by the many passing objects of a Fair. One cheering circumstance that occurred at the Fair shall bring this notice to a close. A Hindu, on seeing the books, rushed eagerly forward and said, “Have you here a copy of the New Testament of Jesus Christ? How much must I pay? I will give you whatever you ask." On the money being paid and the book given to him, he said, with much earnestness, "I have been looking for a copy of this book for years; and now, thank God, I have found it at last!" He did not stop, but went away eagerly kissing the book on all sides as he went. I would cheerfully devote all the years of my poor life to toil under this dreadful sun if it might only be my privilege to put into the hands of a fellow-creature the Pearl of great price under such circumstances as those. Some earnest men tell us that preaching to the masses of this country is casting pearls before swine, and that the proper way to do the thing embodied in our great Master's commission is to impart education to the rising generation. Others tell us that the circulation of religious books is not the right way, for the books are frequently torn up if given gratuitously, and that to sell them is infra dig. and a piece of mean-spirited auctioneering. If we were to heed the animadversions of our critics, we should end in packing up and going home to the countries whence we came. Surely, it can hardly be right to stand in each other's way; let those talk who feel that talking is the function specially entrusted to them from above; and let those work who feel that their mission is to labour. But do let us recognise the prerogative of the ever-blessed Spirit of God to effect His purposes by whatsoever method He may put it into the hearts of His children to adopt. Some reached the haven "on boards," while others more humbly followed

on

broken pieces of the ship." Let us resort to every instrumentality, and rejoice at the success of the blessed Gospel, as the angels do, in whatsoever quarter it may be found and by whatsoever agency the Lord may choose.

I will only add another word in reference to one other objectionable element in the Sonepore Fair. Traffic of a kind too bad to be mentioned in your columns has been carried on there from time immemorial, and this on both sides of the main roads of the Fair. The culprits, if interrogated, would doubtless plead that they were the wives of the grooms and other men who are employed there. However this may be, I have myself been the eye-witness of deeds of shame transacted by the side of the main road there in broad daylight and before a crowd of on-lookers. I feel quite sure that no one is to blame, and that all that is needed is that the thing be brought to the notice of those who have the charge of the Police arrangements on the occasion. Some few months ago a statement of this nature was permitted, by the courtesy of the Editor, to appear in the columns of the Friend of India; and I am glad to be able to say that the evil was in large measure remedied at the recent Fair. I am sorry to say, however, that the orders that were given were only partially observed, and that the evil objected to was concentrated in great force at the head of the Ur dú Bázár.' I did not hunt it out; the thing was on the edge of one of the main thoroughfares, and my duty continually took me that way: and it was truly sickening to find that the assemblage of gazers included not only natives but

Europeans also. I am sure that the authorities would have banished this evil if they had seen what I saw. Is it any wonder that the heathen make light of the religion of Queen Victoria when they know of such things as these being carried on with at least the appearance of the sanction of the reigning power of British India?-Reprinted from the Lucknow Witness.

Missionary Notes.

At the last meeting of the Committee, Messrs. Alfred G. Jones and Edward S. Summers, were accepted as missionary probationers. The first will go to China to help Mr. Richard, of Chefoo; the second will probably go to Bengal.

Mr. Grenfell has been on a preaching excursion with Mr. Saker up the river Camerooons, and has held several services among the Acqua slave towns.

We regret to say that Mr. Miller, of Benares, has returned home in broken health. He is suffering from nervous prostration. By a recent mail also we were informed of the serious indisposition of Mr. Rouse, through overwork. He has gone for rest and change of scene to the Neilgherry Hills. Mr. Hallam, of Howrah, too, is reported as laid aside for a while.

It is with deep regret that we have learnt of the death of Mr. John T. Sale B.A., one of the sons of our late lamented missionary, the Rev. John Sale. He died of fever at Silchar, Cachar, on the 16th of May, at the early age of twenty-three.

The Rev. Andrew G. Fuller, the eldest son of the late Rev. Andrew Fuller has presented the Society with its first Minute Book. It was written entirely by Rev. A. Fuller's own hand. This gift is accompanied with more than thirty original and valuable letters bearing upon the early days of the mission.

Two missionaries of the London Missionary Society at Hankow, China, have been severely injured by a mob, while visiting some Christian converts in the suburbs. The mob stoned them and drove them back, yelling, "Go back to Hankow and preach your Jesus; we don't want you or Jesus here."

The Protestant missions of Hong Kong have gathered 2,200 native Christians, of whom 1,400 are regular attendants at the Lord's table.

A new station of the Church Missionary Society has been opened in Japan at Niegata, a large city on the west coast of the central island, 220 miles from Yeddo.

The Baptist Missionary Union have a college at Rangoon for Burmese students, a theological seminary for native Karens, and one at Ramapatam, Madras, for training ministers for the Telegoos.