either to be immediately reinforced or transferred to some other society. It is not meant, however, that these provincial towns should be occupied by four or five missionaries, as we might occupy the city of Madras, or a place like Bangalore, containing a population three or four times as numerous (with a variety of languages, &c.) as any of them. The idea is, that other stations in the district, and at moderate distances (say from ten to twenty or thirty miles), should be occupied around the central town, and the whole carried on as one mission. In many cases, these subordinate stations would require only a single missionary, who, being so near his brethren, would be able to hold frequent intercourse with them.'

Other writers speak in similar terms of this defect of organization, and entreat the societies to consider it.

British Columbia is likely to engage our attention for some time, and we are glad to notice that most of the societies are preparing at once to occupy this field. The Church Missionary Society has already sent a well-qualified and well-paid agent; the Propagation Society advertises this month for another volunteer in the same field; and the Wesleyan Society states that four missionaries from its body are to be sent, forthwith, to this new land of promise.

6

This is not the only place requiring more labourers,' however. Here is an appeal from South Africa. We quote from the Wesleyan 'Notices:'

'A few days after our arrival here I was visited by an intelligent young chief, accompanied by a large retinue, the whole of whom were covered only with blankets, besides a quantity of beads, and such like. The object of his visit was to ask for a missionary to come and reside among his people. He told me he thought the people of England must have forgotten him, as he had been long crying for a missionary, as had his father before him; and now several had been sent out, but none for him. I told him he was not forgotten, and that missionaries were sent, not to individual chiefs, but to as many people as were within our reach, our commission from Christ being, “Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature." I also informed him that if he and his people were at all accessible, I would visit them as soon as possible, and preach to them. After a long conversation, he thanked me for my words, which he said were very good, and told me that, although I looked very young, I was his father; and that, if I would visit and preach to him and his people, he would do as I said.

This same chief also applied to our general superintendent, the Rev. William Impey, for a missionary, when he was passing through his country; and as he is at the head of a very extensive tribe, it was thought advisable to locate a native teacher amongst them, in connexion with this circuit, at a place nearly twenty miles from here.'

Lastly, this month, a bit of humour from a bishop, Selwyn, of New Zealand, describing an incident in his recent tour, the journal of which we have frequently quoted in this 'Record:'

us.

BELENI.-Here the whole male population seemed to have come out to meet A large flotilla of canoes stretched across the track by which we were approaching the island. They appeared to be of the same race as the people of Santa Cruz; but less rude and noisy than their neighbours. We were glad to buy some small turtle from them, to vary our sea-diet; but while we plead guilty to

having eaten turtle soup on board the Southern Cross, we hope that none of our friends will withdraw their subscriptions on the ground of the expensive and selfindulgent habits of the Melanesian mission, as the turtle cost a hatchet apiece, and were served out to all hands. You have heard, perhaps, of the gentleman who withdrew his subscription from a missionary society, because the missionaries were said to keep turkeys.'

Monthly Retrospect.

WE suppose the Quarterlies in January will discuss the proceedings of the Social Science Conference, and, therefore, we, a Monthly, who are privileged to speak many weeks before our aristocratic contemporaries, need not be abashed at the idea that we are a little behind time. One may blush at being late at a dinner party, but if your business compels you to be late you may put a good face upon it, and look down any frowning visitor, or even a frowning hostess herself. The Weeklies look a little foolish occasionally, when the cream of the seven days' news comes the day after publication and the Dailies have almost forgotten all about it; but we all, let it be hoped, serve our purpose,—either to give the news with the most obvious reflections upon it, as do the dailies; to comment more soberly upon it, as do the weeklies; or to revive for an hour or two the things that are being forgotten, which is all that the Monthlies can pretend to do.

It must have occurred to the most superficial reader of the reports of the deeply interesting meetings of the Social Congress to remark upon the great difference between the tone of the speeches at St. George's, Liverpool, and the tone of speeches by the same speakers at St. Stephen's, Westminster. Here is nothing but conciliation, there is nothing but opposition; here is nothing but pure benevolence, there is nothing but the worst of party service; here all is patriotism, there all is selfishness; here the good of the multitude alone is sought, there all the people are willingly thrown over for the sake of a bit of private patronage; here is advocated a reform of all bad laws, there finality, routine, and red tape, stop the way of every improvement that may be suggested. It is a curious phenomenon, to say the least, and we will only say the least on this subject, that' Finality' John-the very incarnation, in the House of Commons, of aristocratic pride, reserve, and hauteur-should so blandly propose at the opening of the congress a reform, leading almost to a revolution, in every department of

public law. We can only explain the phenomenon by a consideration of the position of the aristocracy in relation to the people during the last two or three years. It has been a position that has been constantly deteriorating. The revelations of the Crimean campaign indicated the utter corruption and inefficiency of the governing classes. Every public inquiry that has since been instituted, down to the present Weedon Commission, has but furnished fresh facts in support of the correctness of the public sentiment. The result has been, a distrust of the class, and the assignation to all its members of a lower moral status than was, perhaps, rightly due to them. Most of the members of the governing classes—those especially who are brought into close and intimate relation to public affairs—seem lately to have become sensible of this change in their position. The press snubbed them; the House derided them or coughed them down; and they have fallen back in their distress, if not their shame, upon the open sympathies of the people. Half a dozen at once are found upon a working man's platform beslobbering them with praise of their manly virtues and their intelligence, not one-no, not one-of whom will be found voting in the House of Commons for a practical recognition of this virtue. They will still tax his only means of intelligence to save their own purses; and every one will seek his private interests at the expense of the public. Public men on platforms and public men in the House of Commons are altogether different persons. We believe that they are obeying their best and most natural instincts when before the people, and that their parliamentary and official lives are, to a great extent, constrained and artificial. We believe in their private honour and integrity, but these and other exhibitions constrain us to doubt whether they have the least idea of public justice. They are like certain Evangelical Church clergymen, who, upon one platform, will express to you their great love, and upon another will order a distraint upon your goods because you cannot agree to their ecclesiastical catechism. We think the best way in both cases is to accept their conduct as sincere. In one place they are very sincere men and Christians; in the other they are not less equally sincere oligarchs and persecutors. Meet them in each caso as becomes their due, and their reception in the former may be instramental in teaching them a wholesome and a very unforgetable lesson in regard to the latter.

We are glad that the people of Liverpool have done just this thing. Casting aside Lord John Russell's later history as a mere obstructive politician, they received him as a man of generally liberal views, of ripe scholarship, and of lofty and well-deserved position as a statesman. The reception was honourable to both parties; and while we feel that on one side there was

a strong political end in view, we cannot but express our admiration of the generosity shown by the other. A churlish populace would have withheld any expression of popular feeling. Liverpool rose and gave three times three cheers. We take this reception to mean that any advances made towards creating a better understanding between the upper and lower classes, the lower classes are disposed to receive, not merely without jealousy, as would have been the case twenty or thirty years ago, but with gladness, and even gratitude.

Such meetings as those in Leeds and Liverpool cannot, in the end, but be productive of immense good.. There may be a great and unavoidable 'waste of intellect' attending them, but so there is in newspaper writing, and an apparent waste also in the whole economy of creation. Scarcely a question, however, was discussed at either of these meetings that was not advanced by the discussion. Many of them were ripened quite sufficiently for being laid upon the table at St. Stephen's, and very many more obtained considerable increase of favour with the public. Discussed apart from all asperities of party feeling, every one having really a 'fair stage' in these out-of-door parliaments, they are likely to be received in the higher court with less opposition. 'Discussed at Liverpool' would be perhaps the best backing which any future bill could bear.

Ecclesiastical subjects have also received some freshening from the winds of controversy. The Church intends to fight for its church-rates. Shrewsbury clergymen and churchwardens have sounded the alarm, and in no very indecisive tone. The majority of the clergymen would, if they could, have no surrender,' but a few more liberal men, apparently of higher weight and position, candidly confess their desire to see the impost abolished. A funny churchwarden gave information that, to his knowledge, Dissenters never held the same opinions upon religious subjects for six months together, therefore, of course, they ought to be taxed for the support of the thousand and one opinions current in the Church! The 'Press' newɛpaper, on the same subject, stigmatizes the Dissenters' agitation as one excited by a miserable minority, and calls upon the public to put down at once all minority agitators who dictate to the Legislature; while the 'Record' chants a miserere over the indifference of the High Church party to this question. This waving of all the banners indicates that the next struggle is expected to be the final one.

The Bishop of Oxford, consistently bearing out the character indicated by his popular sobriquet, is fast endeavouring to remove the damaged reputation entailed upon him by the Boyne-hill inquiry. He in favour of the confessional-not he! Does not the public voice condemn it, and is

not the vox populi the vox Dei? And so the burly bishop takes his stand upon the Bradford platform, and announces that, so far from being a confessionalist, he is a brother of the Puritaus. Oh, yes! His sympathies are in a quite contrary direction! and amidst yells and hisses he goes on with his speech, and sits down at last amidst enthusiastic applause. Yet we doubt whether he is half as respected as he of Exeter, who unflinchingly, and in his latest breath, classes all Dissenters with infidels and blasphemers.

Foreign politics, as it happens, present now no point of doubt or difficulty. France, having bullied Portugal into acquiescence with her demands, has removed this chance of disturbance of the peace of Europe. All that awaits her is what has reached us for the Oude transaction-her Nemesis.-Prussian politics, like the character of the Prince Regent, are inscrutable. The near relations of the Prince to the royal family of England have induced a belief that he is liberally disposed, and the resignation of the Tory minister has tended to confirm the belief. But our impression is the reverse, and we shall not be surprised to see the initiation of rule as severe as any that a Protestant country can tolerate.

For ourselves we have work enough before us, and work which may chance to result in our being able to bear a better face before the world. The Reform and Church-rate Conferences, in November, and the discussion on Mr. Bright's speech, will be enough to dissipate the dreariest political gloom.