districts in which, by a little encouragement and pecuniary aid Baptist Churches, that would soon become self-supporting, might be at once formed. The Committee have already promised assistance beyond the ordinary income of the Society, in firm reliance on the sympathy and support of the Churches; believing that they would cheerfully contribute if they only had the matter fairly presented to them. Some few persons have responded to the appeal that has been made to them; and your Committee trust that many more will follow their example; and that during the ensuing year the formation of several new Churches may be attempted.

At Newark, a new chapel is being erected under the direction of the Committee of the Notts Auxiliary. The Church there will be virtually a new cause, and it is of the highest importance that by the time the chapel is completed a suitable minister be secured. Your Committee have promised to send, if possible, such minister, provided the friends in the district will raise £100 per annum towards his support.

At Gateshead, a town with a population of fifty thousand, there is no Baptist church, and there are thousands of persons who do not attend any place of worship. The Baptists have a preaching-station and Sunday-school in the Mechanics' Hall, in which a few earnest friends take an active interest. Encouraged by the liberal offer of Mr. George Angus, a warm friend to your Mission, and Treasurer to the Northern Auxiliary, to subscribe £25 per annum for four years towards the support of a minister, and £500 towards a chapel when its erection shall appear desirable, your Committee have resolved to plant a minister there as soon as possible, and to contribute £100 per annum towards his support. The Northern Auxiliary has promised a similar sum, and appointed a Sub-Committee to act in connection with your Committee; and it is hoped that ere long a minister will be appointed, and an efficient Church formed. A meeting of that Committee was attended in the month of March by your Secretary, who was much impressed and delighted by the earnestness that marked its proceedings. During the same month he visited most of the churches in Northumberland and Durham, in order to attend a series of meetings organized by the Association, in order to promote Home Mission work in the district. It was the first time that such meetings had been held, and the result cannot fail to be highly beneficial. During the year, the contributions from that district to the British branch of the mission have exceeded £500. There is, perhaps, no part of the country in which the results of the Society's operations are more striking or cheering. During the past few years, Churches have sprung up at Consett, Bishop Auckland, Crook, and Walsingham, under the fostering care of the Society, and exhibit signs of vigorous life. New chapels have been erected, and others are either in course of erection or contemplated. In other places your Secretary found strong self-sustaining Churches, with large Sunday-schools and efficient ministers, which not many years since could not have existed without the help rendered to them by the Society. In illustration may be mentioned Middlesbrough and Darlington, with their commodious chapels and good schoolrooms, both striking testimonies to the effectiveness and worth of the Society.

But the attention of your Committee has not been confined to the larger

towns and centres of population. It has extended to the rural villages and smaller country towns. By the assistance of the Society the Church at Redbourne, a village in Herts, not far from St. Albans, has been enabled to secure the services, as their pastor, of Mr. Campbell, who has commenced his labours there amid pleasing signs of good.

They have also voted assistance to the Church at Winslow, a small town in an agricultural district in Bucks, commended to their attention by the Bucks Auxiliary, where Mr. Dunning, from the Pastors' College, has recently settled. These are, in addition to the stations previously aided, some of which will always need help, and in many of which it is difficult to stem the opposing currents they have continually to encounter.

In concluding this part of the Report, your Committee notice, with great pleasure and thankfulness, the increasing interest manifested by the Churches in Home Missionary operations. The contributions to this branch of the Society's work, apart from legacies, is in excess by more than £200 of those. of any year since the union of the Irish and Home Missionary Societies. And there is every reason to suppose that at the same time a larger amount of Home Missionary work, apart from the Society, and also apart from Associations, has been done throughout the country by individuals and Churches. This fact calls for devout gratitude, and encourages to renewed and increased exertions. In IRELAND, your agents have continued their work amid difficulties and discouragements, and are able, as in former years, to sing of mercy and of judgment. They have had at times to pass beneath the dark cloud, but they have had gleams of sunshine, and out of the darkest clouds light has beamed. In the South and West of Ireland they are beset with almost insuperable obstacles. An intolerant and ever-active priesthood, with zeal worthy of a better cause, and which may well put Protestants to shame, hold the entire population with an iron grip, and render the access of the missionaries to the ear of the people almost impossible. The Roman Catholics are so completely under subjection to their priests that few dare to enter a Protestant meeting-house, or even to be seen conversing with Protestants; and it has even been proposed by Protestant ministers, in solemn assembly, to hold their religious meetings with closed windows, that some Nicodemus might be emboldened by the security afforded by darkness to enter and listen to the teaching. But even in such priest-ridden districts your agents have not been without some encouragement; and Roman Catholics at meetings and funerals have been instructed in the Word of Life. The united meetings for prayer that have been continued throughout Ireland have not been without their influence on Roman Catholics, who have learned from them that the Protestants are not so divided as they have been represented, and been constrained to attend them. Mr. Berry writes from Athlone, the centre of Ireland, under date February 23rd, 1876:-"This year has been such a blessed year of revival that very much of my time has been occupied in attending these public meetings. To this the general increase at our stations is much due, and, notwithstanding losses by death and emigration, we have had a clear increase of twenty-five. I have had the privilege of bringing the Gospel before many poor Roman Catholics who have come to our house. What hath God wrought?"

At Cork, however, your Committee regret to state, it seems impossible to turn the stream. The Church and congregation have almost died out, and every attempt to revive either has failed. "What to do with Cork," is a question to which your Committee are giving close and anxious thought. They find it hard to surrender a station which has been so long occupied by the Society, and to see a Church die that had its birth at the time of the Commonwealth. They are unwilling to withdraw from a city in which there is a chapel associated with which is an endowment. But at the same time they scarcely deem it wise to maintain a mission with no beneficial results that are apparent. The whole question is under consideration, and that your Committee may be guided aright they ask your prayers.

Dublin is also a station that has much engaged the attention of your Committee, and about which many words, without a due knowledge of facts, have been written by the correspondents of the denominational journals. There was much rottenness that needed to be removed from the Church in Abbey-street before a minister could be appointed there. An educational endowment had proved a curse, and pecuniary arrangements, or rather misarrangements, threatened destruction. Under the patient and diligent hand of Mr. T. Radford Hope, who, about sixteen months since, was led in the providence of God to reside near Dublin, the evils have been nearly eradicated. A new committee of management and finance have been appointed, the few remaining members of the Church have been brought into close and affectionate union, and it is confidently expected they will very soon be ready to invite a minister, with reasonable hope that there may yet be a strong Church in Abbey-street, Dublin, which shall command the respect and exert an influence for good in that city. Belfast has also excited the solicitude of your Committee. Soon after the last annual meeting, whispers became current respecting the views of Mr. Henry, the minister. Religious journals circulated the dreams of some American divine respecting the dying-out of the Baptist cause at Belfast as the result of open communion principles, and letters poured in upon your Secretary to know what it all meant. There was, however, some occasion for disquietude. The Church, after the tender nursing of the Society for many years, had at length declared itself independent of the Society's support, and determined to sustain itself, when Mr. Henry resigned the pastorate on some question of church government, and opened a room for preaching in Belfast, and attracted around him about sixty members of the Church of which he had been pastor. More than ninety members, however, remained, united, perhaps, more closely than before, and certainly more prepared to maintain the ministry of the Word. Negotiations were opened with a minister, in the opinion of the Church at Belfast and your Committee, well suited to meet the requirements of the Church and to represent the mission in the North of Ireland, whose services would most probably, but for some special circumstances, have been secured. The people, however, have not lost heart. They are closely united in Christian love, and full of earnestness and hope; additions have been made to the Church and congregation, and it is trusted that God will soon send them an under shepherd who shall prove a blessing both to them and the town.

From the other stations in the North of Ireland the accounts are cheering. The Church at Tubbermore has had another year of great prosperity. Mr. Carson writes: "When I made my last report to you, matters with us here were in a most prosperous state. At that time, and for the year then closing, we had an addition to our number of more than fifty souls; while in all departments of work progress marked our course. This happy condition of things, through the great mercy of God, we still enjoy. During the past year more than forty hopeful converts have been baptized, so that, for the two years added together, something like a hundred precious souls have been gathered into the fold. Up till this present moment not one of these has gone back to the world or given us any serious cause of uneasiness. Our Sunday School is not less prosperous. It is one of our best agencies, and promises a rich future harvest. We have also a most interesting Bible-class numbering fully fifty young people." From Ballymena the accounts are equally encouraging: thirtythree have been baptized; at Derryneil, twenty-seven; at Grange Corner, eighteen; and at Clough, twelve. Altogether, during the year in Ireland, 220 converts have been baptized.

Your Committee had hoped before this to have placed an agent at Londonderry, where there are several Baptists ready to be formed into a Church, and to help the missionary in evangelistic efforts. Messrs. G. E. and C. Foster, of Cambridge, have generously promised to meet the expenses of the station; but as yet a minister suitable and willing to undertake the work has not been found. Several ministers have been communicated with. One has visited the city. But all have declined. Londonderry is an important city, containing about 20,000 Catholics and 10,000 Protestants, and presents a fine sphere for an ardent and faithful servant of Christ. It has its peculiar difficulties. To work there would involve sacrifice and self-denial. But the ambition of the disciples of Jesus should be to tread in the footsteps of their Master, who pleased not Himself, but endured the cross, despising the shame, and to labour for the reward which is found in the conversion of souls and the approbation of their Saviour. Your Committee ask you to pray to the Lord of the harvest to raise up labourers for this and other fields which are being opened for Christian culture in the providence of God.

The Society has at the present time in Ireland nineteen principal stations, and one hundred and forty sub-stations, for the most part in districts wild and poor, sparsely populated, and spiritually destitute. The aggregate congregations amount to about eight thousand persons, who are under regular religious instruction. The Churches connected with the Mission contain about thirteen hundred members, and there are about twelve hundred children in the Sabbath schools.

Your Committee, in conclusion, again with all earnestness commend the Society and its agents to your sympathy, and earnestly solicit your continued and enlarged contributions. The importance of the work cannot be overrated. It is nothing less than the evangelization of your own native land. Around it gather all the sweet associations of country and home, and give intensity to its claims. Millions of your fellow countrymen are living without Christ and without hope in the world. Your own people are perishing for lack of know.

ledge. Their only remedy is Christ and His salvation. This remedy is in your hands. It is yours to use for yourselves. It is yours to communicate to the dying around you. To convey this remedy to every town, village, house, man, woman and child in Great Britain and Ireland, is the aim of the Society. In the name of Christ it asks, yea, it demands, the earnest and hearty co-operation of every Church, and of every individual Christian, in the denomination, until the work be accomplished; and it must not, it can not, ask in vain.

Subscriptions in aid of the British and Irish Baptist Home Mission will be thankfully received by the Treasurer-J. P. BACON, Esq., 69, Fleet-street, London, E.C., and by the Secretary, Rev. J. BIGWOOD, at the Mission House, Castle-street, Holborn, London, E. C. Contributions can also be paid at Messrs. Barclay, Bevan, Tritton & Co.'s, Lombard-street.