light foretelling of a more perfect joy awaiting those who are engaged in His service. Oh, ye who are young in years, lay it to your hearts till you shall become old; you will not have the least conception of the possibilities of joy in connection with the Saviour's service. Begin it; begin it early; fling your whole nature into it. The nature steeped in the Lord's love becomes essentially angelic. The wings of light shall bear it away to a better world from whence its essence came, and where its final joy and final abode will be.”—The missionary sermon by Mr. Roberts, at Bloomsbury Chapel, with "Jesus Christ conducting His Church into the Inner Sanctuary of Missionary Devotion" for its theme, was one of the ablest discourses to which we have had the privilege of listening for many years, and was in every part of it perfectly appropriate to the occasion; replete with lofty and sometimes subtle thought, presented in clear and felicitous diction; delivered without ostentation, and equally without timidity; imbued with the Spirit of the Master; true to the real aim and the best methods of the enterprise; and eminently adapted to guide, to encourage, and to stimulate. Mr. Roberts is one of the youngest of our more prominent preachers. May his career be one of lengthened and constantly enlarging prosperity.-The missionary cause must have a powerful hold upon the sympathies and solicitudes of our friends, else would the soirée at the Cannon Street Hotel have been, at least in point of numbers, a failure. The rain poured down heavily and persistently; yet the large hall was full, and the proceedings reached the usual pitch of animation, under the rousing influence of good chairmanship and excellent speaking. It was a pity, however, that Mr. Hill, of Leeds, was left without time for his allotted part in the fulfilment of the programme.-The Zenana meeting was another success in the splendid series, as it was sure to be from the attractions springing from the peculiar nature of the work it was designed to promote, and from the sanctified eloquence of such speakers as Mr. Robarts, of Liverpool, Mr. Gogon Chunder Dutt, and Mr. Baynes.

We might write in a similar strain of the tone and character of the other assemblies which gathered for more or less distinctively missionary purposes. Amongst these the Bible Translation Society ought to take a much more influential place than it has yet occupied. Is the fact that it commands only a partial support to be traced to the more strictly denominational aspect which it seems to wear? If

that be so, the fact is scarcely creditable to our denominational loyalty. The Society had an honourable origin, and Baptists ought certainly to feel both the legitimacy and the importance of its claims. Bigotry is hateful everywhere; but fidelity to principle cannot be disregarded anywhere without a wrong done to conscience. Many striking statements were made at the meeting, and those who were present enjoyed them; but we should have been better satisfied if Bloomsbury Chapel had been crowded. There was some improvement in the attendance at the meeting of the British and Irish Mission, and again the speaking was of a high order. This Mission is passing through an important change by its absorption into the work of the Union. Such a change cannot take place without a certain measure of risk; but we trust that the issue will be seen in a greatly increased efficiency. That result will probably be a work of time; but we shall all do well to seek, to hope, to pray, and to toil for it.

The Union moves along with steady step in the path which opens before it year by year. It often has tough work to do; but it is robust and athletic, and knows how to "endure hardness." It is gradually consolidating its strength, and defining to itself the specific objects to which its energies should be devoted. The amendment of its constitution did not fail to provoke a sufficient amount of animated debate; but there were no unseemly displays of temper, and Mr. Bompas's proposals were carried. The position and prospects of the Annuity Fund were somewhat anxiously discussed. Contributions, for one reason or another, do not come in with a freedom and a fulness sufficient to justify the expected grant to the beneficiaries without encroaching upon the capital. Is it desirable that this should be done? That is at present the crucial question. For our own part we do not think that the just expectations of the beneficiaries should be disappointed, unless the disappointment is inevitable. May not the future of the fund be left, to some extent, to the conscientiousness and the enthusiasm of the future? At the same time, Mr. Booth's statement, that an additional income of £400 per annum for three years in the form of free contributions would ensure the full grant to the beneficiaries for that period, ought to stir up the friends who are interested in the project, with a view to preserve the capital intact on the one hand, and to avoid a very natural dissatisfaction amongst the beneficiaries on the other. The paper by Mr. Lockhart on the

evangelistic problem was one of unusual point and power; and the speech of Mr. Henderson, of Coventry, which immediately followed it, brought to the front another of our younger men worthy to take his place by the side of Mr. Greenhough and Mr. Roberts. He spoke with an He spoke with an ease. mingled with earnestness, with a chasteness and a beauty mingled with quiet, penetrative power, which reminded us of the addresses of the late Mr. Birrell. The discussion which succeeded seemed sometimes in danger of going away from the precise subject in hand; but many admirable things were admirably said, and the morning was, in our judgment, well spent. We were happy in our chairman. His address was timely and able, and his management of the business and of the assembly was at once so energetic, so prompt, so adroit, and so genial, that scarcely a sign of disorder was observable. Mr. Sampson's absence was an occasion of deep regret, but we were glad to learn that his health was improving, and gratified to have so efficient a temporary substitute in Mr. Booth.

This rapid and imperfect sketch must close. We lack space for further remark. We are thankful for this last of our anniversaries, and pray that a rich blessing from heaven may follow it through the coming year, and that those of us who may be spared to meet next April, and those who may then join us, may have more reason than ever to unite in the acknowledgment, "The Lord hath done great things for us, whereof we are glad."

Darwinism and Christianity.

HE recent death of Mr. Charles Darwin, the great English naturalist, has awakened general sympathy, and led once more to an eager and interested discussion of the theories with which his name is inseparably associated. He had acquired, by the sheer force of his genius, a world-wide fame; and on the Continent not less than in England and America, by those who have most persistently opposed his hypothesis as sincerely as by those who accept it, he was held in deserved admiration

and respect. It cannot now, at least, be said that the mention of his name evokes the blind and unreasoning hatred of religious partizans, and that his writings are the innocent cause of a wide-spread and unnecessary alarm. The storm of disapprobation with which his views were received in 1858 has, for the most part, passed away; and even the men who are sneered at for their orthodoxy and ecclesiasticism can discuss the "Origin of Species" and the "Descent of Man" with singular calmness, appropriating from them all that is good and true, and assured that, when it is fully admitted, it cannot overthrow the foundations of our Christian faith, invalidate our belief in God, or destroy so much as one essential element in our conception of His government of the world. In fact, the religious press has been as unanimous and hearty in its eulogy of Mr. Darwin as the warmest of his admirers could desire, and, if there be any just cause of complaint, it is that the praise is as indiscriminate and as injurious as was the censure of three and twenty years ago. Representatives of evangelical theology have vied with one another in their adulation of a man whose character and mission have not, we are told, been sufficiently appreciated. It is, perhaps, not surprising that Professor Huxley should have affirmed of the "Origin of Species" that it worked in a dozen years as complete a revolution in biological science as the "Principia" did in astronomy. This judgment is—to use the mildest term-premature, yet it is deliberately endorsed by writers in the religious press, who place Mr. Darwin near Copernicus and Sir Isaac Newton in the roll of scientific fame. Whether we are singular in our views or not, we do not know. But we contend that the researches of this distinguished naturalist are as little entitled to the loud encomiums lavished upon them in the name of science and modern thought, as they merit the harsh and ungenerous criticisms of those timid and insolent partizans who, in the name of religion, are said to have spoken nothing but "abusive nonsense."

There was very much in Mr. Darwin's character which we sincerely admire, and in which it would be well for his opponents, no less than his professed friends, to imitate him. His candour, his unwearied diligence, his patience and his modesty were patent to all who knew him. He was no rash or hasty speculator, eager to divulge a newlyformed theory at the earliest opportunity. After his voyage in the Beagle, during which he made researches of unsurpassed interest into the geology and natural history of the various countries visited in his

sail round the world, he believed that his observations would throw some light on the origin of species, and at once set to work "by patiently accumulating and reflecting on all sorts of facts which could possibly have any bearing on it." And it was only after five years' work that he allowed himself to speculate on the subject. Canon Liddon has rightly said that "Professor Darwin's greatness is not least conspicuous in the patience and care with which he observed and registered minute single facts as well as groups of facts." That he was absolutely free from bias, and that his work was begun and carried on apart from the influence of preconceived opinions, is more, we think, than can be claimed. But he was, in the main, cautious in coming to conclusions.

The theory which, for convenience sake, is described as Darwinianism, is also popularly known as evolution and development. It is but slightly different from the theory of Lamarck-that all vegetables and animals living on the earth, including man, are developed from certain original and simple germs; though, before Lamarck propounded this doctrine in 1809, it had been presented by Darwin's grandfather in 1794. Mr. Darwin does not, like the French naturalist, start from the basis of dead matter, but from living cells or germs, whose existence he simply assumes. Neither does he believe that the diversity of species is produced by the inward power of development, but by the force of a law operating from without-the struggle for life, the survival of the fittest, natural selection, sexual selection, and other influences of which we are probably ignorant. His own words are, "I believe that animals are descended from at most only four or five progenitors, and plants from an equal or lesser number." Analogy would lead me one step further-namely, to the belief that all animals and plants are descended from one prototype." "All the organic beings which have ever lived on this earth may be descended from some one primordial form." We cannot minutely follow Mr. Darwin in the "pedigree of prodigious length" which he gives to man; but a cursory glance at it shows that it makes immeasurably greater demands on our credulity than any theological or ecclesiastical theory which has ever gained currency, either in ancient or modern times. Not content with expressing his belief that " man is certainly descended from some ape-like creature"-"a hairy quadruped, furnished with a tail and pointed ears, probably arboreal in its habits, and an inhabitant of the Old World; " he traces our early progenitors