evening, Mr. Abercrombie preached in the chapel to a good audience, and Mr. King occupied the Wesleyan Chapel, at the Guide Post, some three miles distant, having a full and deeply attentive audience. Tuesday night was a time of storm, wind and snow, enough to keep all lukewarm people at home. But Mr. King was announced to lecture on Spiritualism, and the chapel was again well filled. This lecture was, by special request, as that delusion of wickedness had got some footing in the neighbouring villages. Questions were permitted and answered to the speedy discomfiture of the Spiritualists who ventured to present them. At the close of this meeting a deputation obtained Mr. King's consent to preach the next night in the Wesleyan Chapel, Scotland Gate, which, though there was only one day's notice, was well seated with an audience, almost breathless in attention, and composed chiefly of persons not in any way connected with us, there being only some five of our members present. Thursday evening, Messrs. Abercrombie and King gave gospel addresses in the chapel. On Friday evening, by special request, Mr. King lectured on Spiritualism, in the Wesleyan Chapel, Guide Post, where there was somewhat of a scene. Some good while before the time for commencement people were returning, unable to get inside the doors. Mr. King arrived a quarter of an hour before the time, but the question was how to get in, there being no entrance not choked up. Give way the people would not. There was no help for it, but that a good friend, above the average height and strength, constituted himself a wedge, and gently but firmly drove through, followed by the lecturer. This process had to be continued right up the pulpit stairs, and even the pulpit itself was not unoccupied. The service commenced before time, the hearing was good, notwithstanding the uncomfortable condition of the people, owing to overcrowding. The chief Spiritualists of the neighbourhood were present. Some opposition of an unimportant kind was put forth and replied to with effect. The chapel is the largest in the neighbourhood, but it is supposed that one three times as large would have been filled. On Saturday afternoon the new chapel was filled to a tea meeting. Two hours were spent in consuming the good things provided; the tables having to be used by three companies in succession. After tea, the chair having been taken by R. Metcalf, the large assembly was addressed on gospel themes, by Messrs. Abercrombie, Watson, Scott, Rae and King. singing, led by D. Phillips, had place between the addresses. At the close of the meeting the Baptistery had to be made ready in order to the immersion in the morning of one who had confessed the faith and desired to be buried with the Lord. Thus ended the first week of the opening services at Bedlington.

Select

SLAMANNAN (Scotland). The church here has recently made an appeal to the churches, by circular, for aid to pay the cost of its present meeting place, which has been established not merely for its own convenience, but for the presentation of the truth to the neighbourhood. The smallest contributions of individuals, as well as the larger, will be gladly received and are needed. The position of the church is encouraging. During the past year forty-three have been immersed, eleven restored, five received from sister churches, the total membership being ninety

Observer, April 1, '76.

four. They appeal only to those of like precious faith, and trust for hearty response.

R. C. LIVERSEDGE (Yorkshire).-We have pleasure in reporting the addition to the church of four by immersion; two of them from the Sunday school. N. K.

GREEN HILL LANE (Derbyshire). - Lord's day, March 5, three young persons from our Sunday school were immersed into Christ. On the Tuesday evening two others were buried with the Lord in baptism.

J. C. SPITTAL.-We are glad to report that three members of one family, formerly immersed, have been added to the church. J. R. LEYTON (Essex).--The little church meeting here is gladdened after three months' labour by three immersions. A. R.

Family Room.

THE MASTER SITS BY THE TREASURY.

And Jesus sat over against the treasury and beheld
how people cast money into the treasury.-Mark xii. 41.
The Master" sits over against it,"
As He did in the temple of old,
When the rich in the vestibule tarried,
To cast in their treasures of gold;
And the Pharisee poured in his off'ring,

To chink 'gainst the sides of the chest ;
And the widow stole up with her farthing,
And the publican smote on his breast.
The Master sits still by the treasury-
As He did in the temple of old,
Though centuries along have glided

Since the Pharisee cast in his gold.
And He sees, though the name is discarded,
The sect, in its vigor, remains,
And the devotee eases his conscience,

By giving of ill-gotten gains.

And the widow still comes with her off'ring,
All fragrant with love and with prayer,
And the Master accepts of the treasure,
The richest and sweetest that's there;
And pours in the heart of the giver,

So much of His love and His grace,
She goes forth to new self-denial,

Repaid by a glance of His face.
The Master still sits by the treasury,
And oft sees the rich heavy fold
Of velvet and satin sweep near Him,
And the glitter of jewels and gold-
As the maiden comes up to deposit,
From fingers all flashing with light,
A coin-a penny-or farthing,

Unconscious, alas! of His sight.
The Master" sits over against it;"
O, brother, can you or can I,
With confidence bring in our off'ring,
And cast it beneath His pure eye?

Observer, April 1, '76.

Should He take up the gift-O, how paltry!
And weigh it before us to-night,
Encumbered with every mixed motive-

Oh, what would it seem in His sight?

The Master "sits over against it,”—

A terrible thought, and yet true— When His servants, His own ransomed children, Withold from His treas'ry His due. And each of His substance is spending, For what seemeth best in his sight, Yet goes through the door of the temple, And casts to his Master his mite.

COVERING UP.

W. L. M.

"I WILL do my best," said the little rue-leaved fern on the wall.

It was a very bare stone wall, and it wanted a vast deal of covering up to make it look respectable. And the rue-leaved fern is very small and makes so little show, that unless you were close to it, you would never know it was there. But you must notice what a resolute little plant it is, and that it has set itself to do nothing less than covering up that bare stone wall, with the beauty of its own tiny stems and fronds. So it crept into all the crevices and sent its thread-like roots into the crumbling mortar, and, nothing daunted, kept on getting a little bit farther every day, as cheerily as though it had been the easiest and most natural thing in the world.

"I am very thirsty," gasped the little fern, at last; "it is so hot and dry here; if I could only grow now like the great shield-fern under the hedge yonder, it would be so nice: but never mind, I'll cover up a little bit of the wall if I can do no more, and there will be so much more green in the world by every step I take.

Just the other side of the wall is a canal, and an ugly red brick archway. It wanted something to cover it worse than the stone wall, and something there was doing its best. It was a little plant with dull green leaves and whorls of reddish flowers, decidedly dull in its whole aspect-the wall-pellitory. Nobody looks at it a second time. You have seen it often and often, probably without knowing the least what it is like now. But the humble flower had its own purposes, nevertheless, and it nodded to the fern in approval of what he had been saying, and had a word to say, too, on its own account.

"Yes, I too am a poor weak thing, and yet I can do something that grander plants cannot, for I can grow where they cannot. My roots rather like the taste of brick. There's no accounting for taste you know; and I have a fancy for covering up, what is ugly and unsightly. I am trying to do just what the ivy does, only he is so dignified, and I but a mean, worthless weed. Our object is the same, he covers up the castles, and I the common wayside walls. So, one brick at a time, some day I shall wave my green mantle over the whole archway."

The wind carried the words of the little pellitory to a bank at the other side of the field. It was not bare, like the stone wall and the arch; but it would have been without the moss which had made a cover

111

ing, oh, so soft and green, over its length and breadth. There were hard, rough stones on that bank, there were sharp pieces of rock, and there were dark clods of earth, but you saw them not. It was all buried and hidden under the moss, covered up and cushioned over by the fairy handicraft of the humble, yet wonder-working moss.

"Humbler than either of you," said the moss, gently, "yet I feel I am a fellow labourer with you, and my end the same as yours. Perhaps it goes a little farther: "I like to soften the sharp edges, I like to smooth over what is rough and rude, and only give me leave and give me time enough, I would fling my own greenness and beauty over all the world."

66

Heigho!" cried the grass in the field, so suddenly that it made the pellitory start and the moss tremble. Why, don't you know that all this is what I am doing, and have been doing since creation? I wonder what would have become of the earth without me! I don't want to set myself up, but just think what a state of things it would have been, if I had not had this mission of covering up. Look at those mountain slopes, and fancy what they would have been with no grass on them. There would have been no lights and shades, no bright vivid green for the eye to rest upon, but only the dreary fallow from which all the beauty had died away. And beneath the hills it would not have been much better, there would only have been the dull dark soil, instead of the verdant pasture and the rich carpet of my never-fading grass. Ah! If the world only knew how every blade is at work in its cause, it might well be grateful! If people only knew what might have been!"

Ah," whispered the moss, quietly, more as if it were talking to itself than to anybody else, "there are other places in this world that want covering up, and there is something that is always doing it even as we are. But it is neither ferns nor flowers; they only shadow forth faint pictures of that higher life which lies above them and around them. There are those who move about in that higher world flinging as they go a soft green mantle over the roughness and the rudeness, over the sharp points and the cutting edges, until you would not know that they were there; they are all covered up and mossed over by the soft, magic cushion of love!"

And the last word that I heard on that mossy bank, and which I carried back with me to a working, jarring, inharmonious world, was that one sweet undertone-love.

"Charity (or love) shall cover a multitude of sins. Charity (or love) never faileth: beareth all things, believeth all things, hoping all things, endureth all things."

SOWING.

SCATTER We must and scatter we will,
Strewing them broadcast all along,
Over the valley or on the hill,

The seeds of right or the seeds of wrong.

Every thought is an embryo;

Every word is a planted seed,
Look to it well that the seeds ye sow

Be for the flower, and not the weed.

Observer, April 1, '76.

IX NIGHTS'

SIX

between DAVID KING and CHARLES BRADLAUGH, held in Bury, Lancashire. Subjects:-I. What is Christianity? II. Is it of Divine Origin? III. What is Secularism, and What Can it do for Man that Christianity Cannot?

"This Report of the Discussion between King and Bradlaugh will be read with great interest by all who take an interest in the diffusion of truth.

Throughout Mr. King had the best of the argument, and every candid man must rise from the perusal of the book more than ever satisfied of the truth of the Bible and of the great doctrines which it teaches."-Perthshire Constitutional and Journal.

"What can we think of the Atheistic champion? That his untrustworthiness has been exposed, and that, too, most thoroughly, is certain. We thank

Mr. King for the exposure he has made, and it will not, we are certain, be lost. It will do good.' Christian News. Post free, complete in paper covers, 1s. 1 d., in Cloth, 18. 7d.

THE "OLD PATHS,"

For February, March, and April will contain topics from the recent Discussion on the Action and Subjects of Baptism, between the Clergyman of Liudal and David King of Birmingham. The topics selected include "Jesus and the Children: "Faith, Baptism, and Pardon;" The Commission and the Babes;" 66 Saints in Swaddling Clothes;"" Baptism and the Clergyman's Millstone;" Baptism of the Little Fathers in the Sea," etc. Monthly, price One Halfpenny. Six copies, post free.

GOOD FRIDAY.

This litle paper of 12 pp., proves the Pagan Origin of Good Friday, Easter, and Lent; and that the Saviour was not crucified on the Friday. Six copies, post free, 3d.

HE BIBLE UNION TRANSLATION OF THE

THEBESTAMENT, Edition, type, post free, 18.6d.

HE INTERPRETING CONCORDANCE OF THE NEW TESTAMENT, showing the Greek Original of every word, with a Glossary, explaining all the Greek words of the New Testament, and giving their varied renderings in the Authorized version. By JAMES GALL. Price, post-free, 68.6d.

INDEX TO THE BIBLE.-Subjects Alphabetically

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UIDE TO THE PRONUNCIATION, SIGNIFICATION, AND GEOGRAPHY OF SCRIPTURE PROPER NAMES. BY F. THOMPSON, M.A. Price 6d., post-free, 7d.

PRACTICAL GUIDE TO THE GREEK NEW

TESTAMENT, designed for those who have no knowledge of the Greek language, but who desire to read the New Testament in the original. Price 3s. 6d.

THE TWELVE TRIBES-Their Relation

To Palestine, to the Nations and to Christ, con

taining Historic Proof that Ten Tribes were not lost, but well known throughout the Mosaic Age. By EDWARD EVANS. Post-free, 44d.

THE SUNBEAM, for 1875, Stitched, post

THE

THER

free, 6d.; or Bound in Cloth, 11d. A few vols. of 1870, 1871, 1872, can be sent, stitched, at 6d. each. THE OLD PATHS, in Volumes, can be used as an eligible and instructive present, both for persons of mature age and for the young. The Volume for 1875, Stitched, is now ready. Also 1870, 1871, 1872, 1874, sent post-free, 6d. each volume. The Volume for 1875, Bound in Cloth, post-free, 11d.

THE CAMPBELL VOL. OF OLD PATHS.

The Volume for 1873, consists solely of articles from the pen of Alex. Campbell. Bound in Cloth, post free, 11d.

REVIEW;

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ALL COMMUNICATIONS (Including those for the Committee of the Free Distribution Fund) to be addressed Editor of the Ecclesiastical Observer, 30, Belgrave Road, Birmingham."

“OR

"The

RIGIN of the New Testament and Mistakes therein." Infidel Secularism has welcomed into its circle another Lecturer and Editor, in the person of Mr. G. W. Foote, whose ability for talk, and in other respects, perhaps, is a fair specimen of the Bradlaugh-Watts class. The "Weekly Exchange" is to hand, with a report of his recent lecture, in Middlesborough. Bible: What is it, and when was it written?" In this lecture, Mr. Foote talks very much as in a recent lecture, delivered in Birmingham, on "The Birth, Development, and Decay of Christianity," when he confounded the development of Christianity with the development of the Apostacy. From the "Exchange" the following may be taken as a sample :

Passing to the New Testament, there was no evidence to show that the four Gospels were in existence until several hundred years after the time of Christ. When any of the evangelists made quotations from the books of the Bible, they were always careful to say, Elias hath said so,' or 'Moses hath said so;' but when they made any quotation from any of the Gospels, they never said, Matthew hath said so,' or Mark hath said so,' clearly showing that they knew nothing of the authorship of any of those books, Irenius, in trying to explain the reason why there were only four Gospels, had said that such was the case because there were four quarters to the globe, four winds of heaven, four faces to the cherubim; and so he went on with his four-fold analogies. Tradition it was that had originated the

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books, and tradition was an old beldame that had gained for hersef the reputation of an old liar. The story of Christ's death and resurrection was a strange one, and, looking at it for the first time with an unprejudiced mind, one would say that a good deal of evidence would be required to prove it."

This is the stale stuff of the infidel platform. The men who live by palming it upon the dupes, whose pence they finger, know too much to warrant our receiving it as an outcome of their ignorance. Giving it as truth, in exchange for money received, and knowing the facts are falsely represented, their trade is fraudulent.

This notice, however, would not have been taken of the person in question, but that a series of articles on the same subject, delivered as lectures, by Prof. J. W. McGarvey, of the College of the Bible, Kentucky University, and now re-written for the Apostolic Times, is to hand. There is nothing in these articles which we have not already in print, in volumes accessible to the public; but they commend themselves to an existing want by their popular style. Many who would not read the highly satisfactory books, known to many of us, would go through these even as recreation. It is, therefore, intended to reproduce them in the E. O., either in their entirety or with but slight abbreviation. The first may be expected in our next, under

the heading "MISTAKES IN THE BIBLE." If they prove not highly acceptable and useful to young converts and inquirers, and also serviceable to many others, we shall be disappointed.

PRAY MORE-WORRY LESS.-A lady correspondent inquires if this is not a good text for an article"Pray more-worry less." Yes, manifestly; and the text "preaches itself;" scarcely needs any intended homily for its illustration and enforcement. Worry is the bane of the times. It is everywhere. It comes in a thousand forms, and from ten thousand sources, and its inlets are wide open in the hearts of the multitude. People fret, and fume, and chafe themselves into disease and wretchedness, and finally to inanition and an untimely grave. The true antidote to excessive worry is more prayer. There is a passage in the divine word (Phil. iv. 6), of which a burnt-out friend gave an impromptu and almost inspired analysis, as with his family he sat down in his hired residence on the evening after a great fire: "Be careful for nothing: but in everything, by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known unto God." "There," said he, "that means just this-that we must be care-burdened with nothing; that we must be thankful for anything. Let us pray." And he knelt down and poured out his heart in the spirit of that exegesis, and went forth to his rest calm and tranquil as a lake unstirred by a ripple. The prescription is also for these, and for all times:

"O, to live exempt from care,

By the energy of prayer;

Strong in faith, with mind subdued,
Yet elate with gratitude."

HINTS TO YOUNG CHRISTIANS.- Don't be afraid to "show your colours." A cowardly Christian is a misnomer. Shrink from no declaration, from no duty that Christ desires of you. The timid course is the hardest and most barren. The brave, outspoken, faithful life is the happiest and most effective.

There are many things you do not understand as yet; but let no doubts or uncertainties prevent you from acting on what you do know. There are plenty of duties plain enough; act immediately on these. Do faithfully all you know you ought to do, and the larger knowledge will follow.

Use earnestly every means that will enlarge and strengthen your Christian life. Study the Bible. Pray without ceasing. Neglect not the prayer meeting nor the Sunday school. Keep your heart warm by doing good. Make your life beautiful in the sight of men, and show them the sweetness and power of Christianity. Be conscientious in little things. Let the Master's spirit shine through every hour of your life. In school, in shop or field, in society, the young Christian ought to be the most faithful, the most courteous, the most generous and kindly, the noblest of any person there.

Follow Christ. Seek to reproduce His traits in your life. Do always as you would believe He would do if He were in your place; so you will have a growing, joyful, successful Christian career.

C. H. RICHARDS.

1.-A scheme for making GOD beg the patronage of the Devil.

2. The children taking the place of the dogs, or the church picking up the crumbs that fall from the world's table.

3. A church-egg hatched by the world. 4-Religious bread, buttered thick with worldliness. 5.-Religious cake made palatable to the world, by the spice and plums of vanity. 6.-A vanity fair, got up in the name of God. 7.-A shop in which the merchants often attract more than the merchandize

8.-A shop in which ministers and office bearers are the shop walkers.

9.-A fraudulent tax imposed by customers on their tradesmen.

10-A raffling shop alias a gambling house.

11, semi-musical entertainment, in which the religious characters of the performers is nothing, their skill everything.

12.-A direct temptation" to women professing godliness to disobey GOD'S command respecting dress. 1 Tim. ii., 9.

13.-A provocation to emulation amongst exhibitors

and donors.

A WONDERFUL thing is seed

The one thing deathless for ever! The one thing changeless, utterly trueFor ever old, and for ever new,

And fickle and faithless never.

Plant blessings, and blessings will bloom;
Plant hate, and hate will grow.

You can sow to-day: to-morrow shall bring
The blossom that proves what sort of a thing
Is the seed-the seed that you sow.

Editorial Notices.

Second Edition not yet

M. E. LARD ON ROMANS. ready. Expected early. AMERICAN BOOKS.-See last page, BELFAST.-Disciples Break the Bread on the first of the week, in No. 40, Old Lodge Road, Belfast.

PAYMENTS RECEIVED to April 7.-T. Ridgway, Thos. Barlow, J. Partridge, H. Hamilton, J. North, W. Rossell (N. Z.), J. Rea, P. Ditchburn, W. Smith, J. Crockett, J. Wait, W. Balding, Thomas Shaw (Crofthead), J. Foster, W. C. Frail, H. Johnson, Thomas Edwards, J. Crawshaw, J. Leavesley, G. Shutt.

Free Distribution Fund.-Church in Barkergate, per T. Langton.

Training Fund.-S. Jenkins.