to give is eighty-three years of age, and has been preaching to this people for eighteen years. Let me read an extract from a letter received from this good man only a few days ago:

"I am not now in commission. I am living on the $200 which the people give me, and the rest of the salary is from my own income. I have yielded to the request of the church to continue another year, Providence allowing. This will be the eighteenth year since coming to the place. My life spared this year will bring me near the close of my eighty-third year. The Lord be praised for so long a time of service for so glorious a cause. In my last will I donate to the American Home Missionary Society $500. Dear Brother, please pray for me, that a few more years be given me to preach Christ to dying men.

"Fraternally yours,

"OTIS HOLMES."

Read an extract from the letter of another of our octogenarian missionaries:

"I have preached regularly at Parkville and Windsor Terrace during the year. The field in both places is much affected by the fact that it is on the outskirts of a great city, and the increase of wealth and numbers is slow. It is believed, however, that a system of rapid transit is in the near future, and the church in Parkville will become an important center of influence for coming ages. Though the field is a difficult one, and needs strong faith, yet I enjoy the privilege of preaching the glorious gospel of Jesus Christ, and hope to continue it till I am called up. Wesley continued to preach two or three times every day, up to the time of his death, at the age of eighty-eight. I have not reached that mark, but so long as I live, I ask no higher privilege or honor than to preach Christ. I agree with you in your desire to extend the time of ministerial usefulness. The Psalmist of old said, 'O God, thou has taught me from my youth, and hitherto I have declared thy wondrous works. Now, also, when I am old and gray-headed, forsake me not until I have showed thy strength unto this generation, and thy power unto every one that is to come.' If the churches would offer this prayer in faith, for their pastors in advancing years, I think God would be well pleased, and hear and inspire. I am yours in Christ,"EDWARD BEECHER."

Such men by their living example do more toward wiping out the "dead line of fifty," than any number of philippics hurled at the churches. As we witness these fathers, cheerfully toiling in the vineyard, keeping abreast of the times by reading the latest books, and writing new sermons, and discovering new methods for Christian workers, one is almost driven to the conclusion that there is no "dead line" for live men.

WE have just started, but are sure that now is the time to strike. We worship in a hall up-stairs. The only way to it is a long outside flight

of narrow stairs; and an Odd Fellows' hall, with its pictures, is not just the best place. We use their organ. We use their organ. We have neither a communion set nor anything else. We wish that some church having the Songs of the Sanctury, and tired of them, would remember us. Our congregations are very interesting and, in many respects, very encouraging. With God's blessing, we hope to build up. We have some who are deeply interested.-Rev. J. M. La Bach, Newton, Kan.

FIVE DEDUCTIONS.

OUR general missionary in Kansas sends the following deductions from his observations in the five fields under his care: 1. Those churches flourish best who own and solely occupy their house of worship. 2. Difficulties among church-members are often most successfully attacked by prayer and Bible readings, before which they melt away. 3. The western quarter of Kansas now affords some excellent opportunities for vigorous work at strategic points, led by pastors of tact and power. 4. The marked power of the right man as pastor, to Overcome great obstacles and resurrect a dead church, making a fine field for evangelism. 5. The great wisdom of hearty union of all denominations in a judicious revival movement in any one of the churches, in order to move a very worldly community.

CHRISTIAN GROWTH IN A MINING CAMP.

Two years ago I was sent here to engage in mission work. I had never lived in a mining camp before, and I found much to astonish me in this, the largest mining camp in the Northwest.

Saloons, gambling-houses, and houses of ill-fame are open day and night. Many of the citizens have become so accustomed to this order of things that they are in a state of lethargy and have come to believe that these evils have a right to be.

There are good Christian people here who are looking hopefully forward to a change, and work is being done which will, by and by, overcome much of the evil now so powerful. There are seven denominations represented in Butte, of which six have church buildings. The denominational lines are not so closely drawn here as in the East, and there is a spirit of hearty co-operation among the churches. The transient character of the population is against us, but the people are energetic and wide-awake, and when they do put their hands to the plow, they work with a will, and the results are very apparent.

When I came to Butte our people had a cozy little church and a membership of twelve, including only one family. The first Sunday I

preached, the congregation numbered twenty-two in the morning and twenty-five in the evening. The attendance was very fluctuating for a long time, and often I was greatly discouraged, but kept at the work with much prayer until it began to prosper beyond my expectation. We have now over fifty families who look to our church as their home, and our membership of twelve has increased to fifty-seven. This advance may seem small to those who cannot appreciate our surroundings. A debt of four hundred dollars on the church has been paid, a parsonage costing thirteen hundred dollars has been built and paid for, excepting a loan of four hundred dollars from the American Congregational Union. The church has recently bought three hundred dollars worth of furniture for its pastor.

The Sunday-school has grown from an average attendance of twentyfour to sixty-six, and the prayer-meeting from three to twenty-five and thirty. A flourishing and interesting young people's meeting has been established and is well attended. An efficient Ladies' Society meets each week. Altogether, the Lord has prospered us greatly; and to his name be all the praise.-Rev. C. L. Diven, Butte City, Mon.

A LESSON IN FAITH.

THERE is sometimes a touch of romance in the frontier experiences of a Home Missionary as well as in the career of a soldier or a mariner. Twenty-five years ago, my church, like others of the "New School" wing of Presbyterianism, made its contributions through the American Home Missionary Society and the American Board of Foreign Missions. Both, since the Reunion in 1870, are now Congregationalist. At that time one of my family wrote to the Secretary to ascertain who of all the frontier missionaries was in sorest need of a little extra help. The Secretary designated a Rev. Mr. H- then laboring in Sauk County, Minnesota, and who was having so hard a pull of it that he had to pick cranberries for market in order to eke out his scanty subsistence. He lived in a logcabin without glass windows, and when the storm beat in from one side of the house through the chinks, he moved his sick wife over on the dry side of the cabin; when the wind shifted, he changed sides (like the Vicar of Bray). The nearest doctor was thirty miles off.

This statement was enough to entitle Mr. H—, as the most needy man on the roll, to the little donation, and it was sent. The reply was so heart-touching that I read it at our monthly concert, and for two years I used to read his unique letters at the meetings in order to fire up the zeal of my people for Home Missions. In 1882 I passed through the scene of his pioneer labors, and found that his log-cabin had grown into a thriving country-town with several churches, but Mr. H had long before removed to another field. Now for the sequel. To-day I re

ceived a letter from my Congregationalist brother, dated at F in Nebraska. He says: "You and your good old mother have probably forgotten me. But I owe to you both a lesson in faith which has always been to me a great source of spiritual strength. When I was at that outpost of civilization in Minnesota, my poor wife was sick and downhearted. I had broken my arm, and before it healed I had to help build a log house. I moved our few household goods with an ox-team, and returned for my sick wife. She said to me Charlie, what are we to do? We have no money, we are going among strangers, and into the sorest privations of pioneer life.' With a troubled heart I went off to the postoffice, and there I found that kind letter from your mother, with that most unexpected enclosure of money. That letter with its contents has been worth thousands of dollars to the cause of Christ. It gave me a new view of God's Providence, and taught me that if we are in a path of duty God stands behind us. Since that time I have built sixteen new churches, and have been at the front about all the while. God has given me hundreds of souls for my hire. Many a time I have looked over a new field, and first found out if God wanted a church built there, and often have begun with the gift of a lot without one dollar. In every instance the money has been forthcoming, and no church has been left with a debt on it. God has been good to me in giving me a missionarybody to keep up with a missionary spirit. You are right when you say that no throne was ever built which comes within ten leagues of a pulpit.' This mighty West, with its thousands surging past us, draws out a man's soul as nothing else can. Give your mother my grateful re

membrance."

I make no apologies for transcribing so largely from a letter which reads as if it came from old George Muller himself. It shows what sort of stuff Home Missionaries are made of, and also what splendid “dividends" result from money planted in frontier missions. If our great rich church "goes back" on our heroic pioneers, the Almighty Head of the Church will go back on us. Rev. Theodore L. Cuyler, in the N. Y. Evangelist.

WOMAN'S DEPARTMENT.

OUR COUNTRY.

SUPPOSE we were carrying on missions in Europe, covering the countries of Great Britain, France, Germany, Austria, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Switzerland, Denmark, and Greece; and an equal amount of territory in Asia, and in Africa. Suppose these countries not to be densely popu lated as they are, but possessed by settlers, and rapidly filling up at the

rate of one million a year. Would not our mission work be considered as not second to any other benevolent enterprise in the world? Would not the very fact that these countries were not now filled with a dense population, but filling, give to our work a more important, because a more hopeful aspect?

This is a true picture of the field of the American Home Missionary Society. Instead of battling with time-honored and time-established false religions, our wisest effort is to plant the cross, with the story of redeeming love, in every settlement through these vast regions, before the false religions and the atheisms, coming to us with the foreign population, have time to take root and strengthen. Pre-empt the soil with Christian institutions, and we may expect to hold our country loyal to those principles of religious liberty, justice, and truth, for the possession of which our forefathers came here. What surer way to retain and increase our power in the evangelization of foreign heathen lands than to see to it that we keep the home fountain of influence pure and evangelical?

APPLICATIONS to our Society for home missionary families in need of aid in the way of clothing, bedding, etc., come mostly in the fall and early winter. Naturally, as a result of this, winter clothing is mainly thought of and provided, whereas the need is often quite as much of summer clothing, particularly in families where there are a number of small children, who require so many changes during the long summer months.

To Sympathizer, Pequabuck: Your recipe for "Easy Washing" has been forwarded to the missionary in Croton, Mich.

ONE WAY TO HELP.

COULD you put me into communication with some Ladies' Aid Society which would be so kind as to assist me in my spring sewing? With three little ones, and no help, I find it very difficult to do my sewing and get out any among our people.

We received a box last fall which contained many very useful articles, but nearly all for winter use.-Nebraska.

Our Ladies' Missionary Society is accomplishing a good work. The gentlemen are allowed all the privileges of the society except that of holding office. The children are also admitted into the membership, and are assigned parts on the programme of the monthly meetings. All the children have missionary-boxes, while the older persons have pledgecards. The amount of money raised is divided between the home and foreign work.—Rev. F. G. Appleton, Mitchell, Dak.