troubled. The older girls used to take them out alone, and talk and pray with them. Monday morning, very early, two girls came to me and said, 'We wish to talk with you about our hearts; we are so troubled.' I was afraid to talk with them, and sent them with a note to Miss Lindley. For two weeks one of them, the daughter of our pastor, seemed to be in the depths. To my question, How is it now, Nomagugu, with your heart?' she replied, in English, 'If I pray, O, it is dreadful.' But there came a change, and her face was almost radiant. A week after, five or six of the young girls came to tell me how happy they were, and how anxious they were for one member of the school who shocked them with the hardness of her heart and wicked speeches. One was praying for her brother, in the Amanzimtote school. Lessons, now, were better learned, and all the duties were more faithfully performed. All expressed a hope that God had, for Christ's sake, pardoned their sins. The interest con tinued until the close of the term. Then they went to their homes for three months, and since their return there has been no special interest. Some of those older girls are not here now, which may be the cause. Two of them are teaching. Five girls are teaching, another has taught for a year, and is engaged to teach again. "For six or seven Sabbaths some of the girls, accompanied by Miss Lindley or myself, and Mr. Dube [the pastor] or one of the lay preachers, have gone down into the Umgeni Valley, three or four miles, to meet the old and young and middleaged, a congregation of a hundred or more from the kraals, and only one man, beside the teachers, with European clothing. "There are many young girls among them who wish to be Christians, and who pray much. A girl was sent here to-day by Mr. Dube, who came to him saying she had come to believe; but her brothers came for her, and the pastor advised her to go home with them. They said she might return to morrow. We shall see." MISSIONS OF OTHER SOCIETIES. BAPTIST MISSIONARY UNION. THE following summary is presented in the last Report of this Society: "The Missionary Union has 15 missions under its care, including the mission to Japan. Of these missions 9 are in Asia. Connected with these 9 missions there are 21 central stations, and over 400 outstations. There are 514 native preachers, of whom 91 are ordained. The baptisms reported were 2,044. Church-members reported, 22,502. Including those in Burmah, not reported, the number will be not far from 26,000. The whole number of American laborers in Asia is 113, of whom 46 are males and 67 are females. There are now under appointment for these missions 7 families and 2 female helpers. "The Union has 5 missions in Europe and 1 in Africa. The baptisms reported in France were 46, and the total membership of the churches about 600. Sweden reports 877 baptisms, and 5 new churches organized, making a total of 221 churches, with 9,412 members. The returns for Germany have not been received, but it is safe to set down the total membership at 20,000. From Spain and Greece our reports are incomplete, but in the former country there have been several baptisms. The total membership in Spain is about 200. The baptisms in all the missions in Europe may be safely set down at 2,165, while the total membership will not fall below 30,212. "Combining the statistics of all the missions, including Africa, the total baptisms were about 4,319, while the total membership, allowing 1,200 for Africa, is not less than 57,512." The missions in Europe are to nominally Christian people in France, Germany, Spain, Sweden, and Greece; those in Asia are to pagan lands — India, Burmah, China, and Japan. The financial statement is thus: "The receipts of the Union during the year were from donations $164,137.98; character and circumstances; yet while there have been candidates enough for every eligible pulpit in the land, this open door has been disregarded, except by the select few who have received grace to enter it. from legacies $15,151.99; from Woman's has been personally pressed upon those Baptist Mission Society, East, $16,950.06; who were deemed available from their from Woman's Baptist Mission Society, West, $6,205.88; from miscellaneous sources $13,655.73, making a total, for the receipts of the year, of $216,100.70. The total expenditures for the same period were $239,417.27, leaving a balance against the Union for the current expenses of the year of $23,316.57. Add debt of last year, $18,753.07, and we have a present indebtedness of $42,069.64." A few suggestive and important extracts will be given also from the "General View of the Work," presented in the Report: "During the last few years the chief object which has occupied the attention of the Executive Committee, and which they have earnestly pursued, has been the strengthening of our Asiatic missions by reinforcements of laborers, and by the establishment of educational systems suited to the growing wants of those Christian communities created through the blessing of God on the labors of our missionaries, and still requiring their care and nurture. In the latter respect, something has been effected. Station schools have been fostered, in a measure, or at least encouraged; boarding-schools for girls have been planted in five important localities, three in Burmah, and two in China; a theological school has been provided for the Teloogoos, and a collegiate institution has been commenced for the Karens. .... "But, while in this respect we have attained something, though nothing worthy of boasting, in the other we have been less successful.... Of 33 new men urgently demanded by the missions during the last three years, only 11 have reached the field, or just two more than have been removed by death, or compelled by ill health, during the same time, to vacate their posts. . . Yet during all this time, every man of moderate health and of suitable mental and spiritual endowments, who has offered or even consented to go to the heathen, has been accepted and sent forward. The call for volunteers has gone forth in nearly every number of our monthly periodicals; in many instances the claims of the work "The scale of our annual expenditure has increased during this time at a rate which will soon cripple us hopelessly unless the receipts can be correspondingly increased. Yet the Committee have been able to see no other possible course than to go on with the work, on this steadily augmenting scale of expenditure. . . . It needs only a glance at the condition of the fields we are now occupying to see how imperative is the duty of the hour. The educational work set on foot in Burmah is acknowledged on all hands to be necessary for the consolidation, and even for the preservation of all that God has given us in that country, while the evangelical work of previous years must be enlarged instead of being diminished. A new impulse has come from God upon the Burmah department, so that the number of baptisms among that people was last year greater than in any year preceding. Ought we not to follow this lead of the Spirit? The movement among the Garos and Nagas of Assam continues with augmented force, and converts are multiplied faster than our worn laborers can gather them into the fold. Can we pause or retrench here? Among the Teloogoos the year closing with April 1, witnessed 950 baptisms, and hundreds are still waiting in the villages for the ordinance... Meantime the theological school at Ramapatam, which is to furnish partially instructed shepherds for these multiplying and needy flocks, has just begun its work, and needs to be vigorously supported, while a larger force of American missionaries is essential for the field work. Who dares to think of pausing here? China demands, and is beginning to reward, increased effort; Japan opens her gates and invites us to come in and possess her wide and promising fields; and Africa furnishes openings to her heatben population for which we have been seek. 900 OF SCOTLAND. ing ever since we resumed work in that MISSIONS OF THE UNITED PRESBYTERIANS country. Sweden reports nearly baptisms during the last year, and our feeble churches there are gaining in public influence and spiritual power, and need only to be encouraged by more ample help to secure one of the greatest harvests of modern evangelical history. Germany needs still to be fostered, and to France we are committed for a large outlay. Spain and Greece need larger subsidies. Indeed, nearly every field we occupy demands increased contributions of men and money, and will repay them some thirty, some sixty, and some a huncred fold. When we contemplate the scene before us we are amazed alike at the grace of God displayed in the success of our missions, and at the feeble capacity of giving and doing developed in us. It fills us with astonishment that God should do so much where we have done so little, and that we have been content to do so little, while God has been doing so much." THE last Report on Foreign Missions of the United Presbyterian Church presents the following summary of the work: "The United Presbyterian Church occupies in various parts of the world, widely distant from each other, seven foreign mission fields. These are situated in Jamaica, Trinidad, Old Calabar, Caffraria, India, China, and Spain. In these various mission fields, as stated below in a tabular form, we have an aggregate of 43 ordained European missionaries, 8 European medical missionaries, 5 ordained native missionaries, 2 native licentiates, 3 European male teachers (besides 2 about to leave for Old Calabar), 9 European female teachers, 62 native catechists or evangelists, 133 native schoolmasters, 25 native female teachers, 54 principal stations, 143 out-stations, 6,630 communicants, 1,024 candidates, 157 week-day schools, with 9,183 pupils; the total educated agency consisting thus of 290 persons." congregations, many of them doing our work in rural districts, where our presence is required. The foreign mission, as has often been justly urged, preceded the inner mission of our Church, and prompted its very existence. .... Every new step we have taken in multiplying our liabilities has led to the increase of our resources, instead of involving us in straits. In the year 1858, when our foreign missionary expenditure was £17,286, and our staff of educated agents abroad numbered 100, including 35 European missionaries, we entered into the Indian field. Four years later, when our expenditure abroad was £20,461, and our educated agents were 137, of whom 43 were European missionaries, we entered China; and now eleven years later, with an income of £33,081, (including what comes from reserved funds), with an educated agency of 290 persons, no less than 51 of that number being European missionaries, we propose to go into the empire of Japan, with a guaranty of more than £10,000 for the first five years. During this period of progress our Foreign Fund has risen from £17,286 to £33,081; the number of our European missionaries has been raised from 35 to 51; and of our native agents, schoolmasters, catechists, and evangelists, from 65 to 226. At the three dates specified, our synodical income devoted to Home objects, by synodical committees, has consisted of these three progressive sums: in 1858, £7,684; in 1862, £14,993; and in 1872, £26,954. For the same three years the total contributions of the Church for all purposes has been in 1858, £171,757; in 1862, £202,875; and in 1872, £330,953, - an income which amounts to £900 a day. These figures demonstrate that any financial difficulty connected with the new mission must be conjured up not by the experience of the past, and not by any eminent faith either in God or in the resources or good faith of his people." UNITED PRESBYTERIAN MISSION IN EGYPT. DR. RIGGS, of Constantinople, spent the last winter in Egypt, on account of ill-health. He writes: "I was much interested while there in the evangelical work among the Copts, carried on by American missionaries from the United Presbyterian Church. I visited all their stations, six in number, and was struck with the fact that those most recently established seem to have enjoyed the largest measure of Divine blessing. In Osioot, where the work was commenced only six years ago, there are now eighty church members. Their contributions during 1872, for preacher, teacher, and the poor of the congregation, amounted to £99 sterling, being an average of over $6 for every member of the church. "In Sinoris, a station more recently occupied, there are fifty church-members, and in two out-stations of Osioot (in which the first evangelical sermon was preached only three and a half years ago), there are seventy-eight and eightyfour members. In one of these out-stations, the congregational expenses are paid wholly by the people. At all these places there appeared to be earnest and faithful efforts to spread the knowledge of the gospel, members of the churches going out, two and two, every Sabbath, to preach Christ in all the neighboring villages." THE BASSOUTO MISSION. THE oldest and largest mission of the Paris Missionary Society, it will be remembered, is among the Bassoutos of South Africa. It has suffered much within the last few years from the encroachments of the Boors; but though "cast down," it has not been "destroyed." Its last annual meeting was held at Berea, near the close of April; and the spirit of the occasion seems to have been courageous and hopeful. The number of communicants had increased during the year; and the contributions had advanced from 6,100 francs to 13,784 francs. The churches, moreover, had shown a greater readiness to perform evangelistic labor among the pagan villages. Even the women were entering into this work; and not unfrequently they were meeting with a kind reception, when the men could not secure a hearing. But the missionaries refer to a danger, as seriously threatening the strength and efficiency of these churches, which they had not been called upon to notice in pre"The country of the Bas vious years. STATIONS. Morija. Thaba-Bossiou Hermon Siloam Massitissi Bethulia Smithfield Carmel "by the wagons of merchants, who bear Thabana Morena The history of the different stations during the year was carefully reviewed; and from most of them the reports were favorable. At one station, however, there were grave dissensions, the end of which could not be foreseen. On the other hand, it was found that of 524 communicants and 280 catechumens at Morija, 804 in all, only sixty had failed to participate in the privileges of Christian benevolence! If the members of our Congregational churches should give as generally, there would be but little occasion for appeals, in view of past or prospective deficiencies. The following table presents some of the most suggestive facts, in illustration of the present condition of the mission: Matatiélé. Total PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH OF IRELAND. THIS Church has one missionary in China, but its missionary work as yet is specially in India. The statistics for the last year reported give 5 stations; 4 branch stations; 7 ordained European missionaries; 7 native catechists; 4 colporters; 10 Christian school-teachers and 30 native teachers employed who are not Christians; 138 communicants; 2 higher schools, with 319 pupils - boys; and 16 vernacular schools, with 880 pupils. whole home income for the year was £6,371 2s. 6d., besides which there was received in India, from Government grants, school fees, and subscriptions, £1,040 18. There was a balance on hand at the close of the year of £2,266 13s. 6d. —“the first time for six years that the mission has had a balance in its favor." The MISCELLANY. THE RITUALISTS IN MADAGASCAR. A LETTER from Madagascar is published in a recent number of the "English Independent" in which the writer says: "Hitherto, as you are aware, there has been, and still is, a unity of feeling among all the Protestant congregations in this central province of Imerina. The churches in the capital are called mothers, those in the outlying districts apportioned to each of these city churches, are called children. The leading feature of the London Society has been recognized, and less attention paid to a prescribed form of worship than to the earnest desire that new adherents should understand the true spirit of worship itself. It was to be expected, considering the unprecedented number who crowded the 'praying' so suddenly, that irregularities would occur, and that in the |