not now allow of his holding any collective meeting amongst the men, though he still visits them at their work, and converses with them individually. He next secured an entrance amongst the goods porters of the London and North-Western Railway; and now the work promised so to grow on his hands, that the Committee of the City Mission set him apart for this special line of labour, and gave him a commission to open similar services wherever a suitable opportunity presented itself. He has since then been quietly, but earnestly pushing this scheme: and now he holds fifteen meetings weekly in and around Manchester, besides five which are held at the stations of Wigan and Bolton. Four nights every week he addresses the "nightsoilers" at ten o'clock; once a week he holds a meeting with the lamplighters, and once with the lorrymen of the Manchester, Sheffield, and Lincolnshire Railway; the others, with two exceptions, are held amongst the railway goods and passenger porters. In all, from 1000 to 1200 men are weekly listening to the Gospel message, through this agency. The two exceptions above-mentioned are the most recently established services, which are held in the workmen's dining rooms, at the Gorton Railway Works, and at the Ashbury Carriage Works, Openshaw. At this latter establishment, 2700 men and boys are employed, and about 600 dine at the various tables in their large room. All the men have an equal right to use these rooms, and some of them sit still, reading the newspapers, and (at Gorton) smoking their pipes, whilst the address is being delivered. At Ashbury's, many of the men leave the room when the service is about half over; because they are not allowed to smoke inside, and must have their dear pipe before the work begins. At these two services, therefore, there is sometimes a seeming want of reverence, which perhaps would startle a superficial observer; but he who knows the circumstances of the case, and watches the close and respectful attention paid by the great majority of those present, will feel more glad that so many hear well, than sorry that some are careless. At all the services the attendance of the men is purely voluntary; for whilst in every case the officials yield a courteous, and in most cases a cordial assent, no other influence is used to secure an attendance than the attraction of Christian sympathy and earnest preaching.

The services are all conducted on one plan. A Bible is provided for each place, and is in all cases the gift of the British and Foreign Bible Society. A popular penny hymn-book is provided for the men, and two or three verses of a hymn are sung at the commencement of the meeting. Next a short prayer is offered, occupying perhaps four or five minutes, and then an address is delivered, at the conclusion of which all sing the Doxology, and the benediction is pronounced just before the half-hour closes. Generally the address is founded on some text of Scripture, Occasionally on some interesting public event; but the endeavour is always to make it pointed and Mr. Chadwick seeks to enlist the cooperation of various clergymen in his work, and not a few of these lend him occasional aid. Sometimes one tries his hand who has none of the requisite tact and

earnest.

energy. In such cases his audience soon becomes thin; but the appearance of one who on a former visit has spoken with force and common sense, is hailed with quite a storm of applause. Good, hard thought, expressed in terse, strong Saxon, brightened with a happy illustration or apposite anecdote, and lit up with an occasional flash of humour, is what these men relish best. It is amusing sometimes to watch a man who is determined to care for none of these things, and means to read his paper during the whole address, staring dreamily at the print which he is evidently no longer reading, and then suddenly giving in, and throwing the sheet aside, that he may listen with all his soul to an address which gradually gets hold of him, in spite of his resolution that it should not.

What, then, of results? Does the experiment

answer? Does it tend to make the men moral and religious,-to give them happier homes and a surer heaven? Facts are the best reply to this.

Mr. Thomas Kay, one of the railway managers at Manchester, stated at a public meeting a little while ago, that the effect upon the men under his charge was most marked; that drinking, swearing, and the use of obscene language had greatly decreased amongst them, and that during the last twelve months only two or three cases of disorderly conduct had been brought before him, instead of the much larger number of former years; and this he could ascribe to nothing but the influence of these services. The testimony of Mr. Greenish, of the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway, and that of others equally competent, is to the same effect.

Now

A man's style of feeling and thought is pretty surely shown by the books he loves to read. Beside the daily papers, some time ago, the "London Journal," and other cheap and nasty trash, used to be in enormous demand amongst these men. But the missionary has recommended to them a sounder literature, and has taken care to put it within reach of them. he sells about 600 copies monthly of the "British Workman," and an equal number of the "Band of Hope Review" and "Gospel Trumpet." There have been sold in connection with these services over 2000 copies of Dr. Blaikie's "Better Days for Working People," and a very large number of the cheap issue of Bunyan's "Pilgrim's Progress." At one of the railway stations, where a service is held, more than 600 copies of the Holy Scriptures were sold to the porters during six weeks, in which the Bible Society offered them at a slightly reduced price. When men buy such books as these, they will inost likely read them; and where these are much read, swearing and drunkenness are sure to go out of fashion.

From one of the services a man took home his copy of the "British Workman." The subject of the cartoon was "The Pipe and the Pig;" and the accompanying story told how a workman, by giving up his pipe, was able to buy and feed a pig. The porter persuaded his wife, who was much given to drinking and smoking, to read this story. He then said to her, "I'll tell thee what, lass, if thou'll give up thy drink and thy 'bacca, I'll do the same." The bargain was struck; and a few months after the wife

said to the missionary, "I've bought eawr Jim a suit o' black cloth wi' th' money we've saved; and besides that, we've neaw two shares in th' co-operative stores." Here the good was effected indirectly, by the introduction of the "British Workman. But another case shows the advantages resulting directly from the addresses delivered. A porter at one of the stations, who had been a soldier, met the missionary as he was crossing the platform to one of the services, and said, "Mr. Chadwick, I've kept coming to your services, and I found I kept getting miserabler and miserabler, till I thought I'd best do the job." "Why, what have you done?" "Why, I've been and got married" (he had been living in sin); "and me and my wife's now attending St. Thomas's Church." This man died some time after. He was visited by the missionary in his last illness, and left behind him a good testimony to the power of the truth upon his heart.

The Bible presented for these services by the Bible Society is a large and well-bound volume, the price of which is six shillings and sixpence. At one of the services a man was accustomed to see and admire one of these Bibles; and soon, nothing would satisfy him but the possession of a Bible exactly like it. But how was he to pay six and sixpence out of his small wages? He gave up his beer and tobacco and bought

the Bible.

Many men have begun to attend worship, and have joined various Christian Churches as a result of these services. One of these men is a member of a Methodist church in my own circuit, and is now a teacher in the Sunday school. He was a night scavenger. The other day putting his hand into his pocket as he met the missionary, he said, “Ah, I can put my finger and thumb upon a shilling now."

Another of the same class was persuaded to attend worship. He chose the Wesleyan chapel, and the missionary encouraged him to go at once. He signed the temperance pledge, and promised he would go. His wife still retained the marks of his brutality on her bruised face and blackened eyes, when she accompanied him to church for the first time since their marriage. As she was coming out after the service, she said to him, "If thou'll keep to this, lad, till Christmas, it'll be the happiest Christmas we've ever spent." His reply was, "I've put th' plug in, lass, and I mean to keep it in."

Two of the men who have been impressed in these services are now, I know, holding prayer-meetings in their own cottages, to which they invite their neighbours and their fellow-workmen; and from another of the railway services, seven men are regularly attending the preaching of an excellent minister of the Church of England.

Facts like these might be multiplied almost indefinitely. I have myself taken part in one or more services at nearly all the stations, and am a witness of the good results which arise from Mr. Chadwick's work. He has no idea of rushing into print, but I think such facts as these are worth publishing.

We cannot expect this agency will accomplish a wholesale conversion of the people. Some fish will escape, whatever shape we give to the meshes of our

net.

But surely this instrumentality deserves incor

poration with the others now employed for the evangelization of our countrymen. It will do more to get hold of the ordinary working man than will ser vices in theatres and public halls. A man will listen to you on his own ground, while he sits in working clothes; and, indeed, he often feels thankful for anything which will give some interest to time which would otherwise hang heavy on his hands. when an entrance is thus secured for the Gospel, we may depend upon the Truth and the Good Spirit to do the rest.

And

But why should this work be left to the City Missionaries ? Their unsectarian character, indeed, secures for them admission to some places in which no minister of any one Church would be allowed to preach. But surely there are few clergymen in whose neighbourhood there is not some gathering of working people, to whom he could speak the words of peace.

It would do the minister no little good. It would teach him to preach short; for when the 3.15 train is coming in, if the sermon is not finished at 3·14, the congregation must go before its conclusion. And it would teach him to use "picked and packed words," and would force him out of the pulpit rut, in which we are all too liable to run on. It would put him on his mettle-would force him to talk common English, instead of the ecclesiastical highEnglish which is too often heard from the pulpit. It would teach him that anecdote and illustration are necessary, if a man would have the "common people to hear him gladly;" and so he would be forced to conclude that these which are necessary, can scarcely be as contemptible as some men say they And the practice and experience thus gained would give an unwonted flavour to the sermons he might preach in his own pulpit. Of course, in such a work he must preach Christianity merely, and not the peculiarities of his own denomination; but he would surely have his reward, in the attendance at his own church of many who first heard him at the mill or the forge.

are.

The effect upon the working men would be not less happy. When a "parson" stands upon a table and talks to a hundred men in their own dining-room, or to a hundred and fifty "hands" amidst the spindles of the mill, now silent for an hour, he seems, perhaps, not less a parson, but certainly more a man. Somebody has jocosely said that there are three gendersmasculine, feminine, and clerical. It is certain, however, that many working men have got the notion that parsons are not exactly men, but a sort of compound of man, priest, and milksop. Such a notion cannot live long, when the clergyman is seen adapting himself to circumstances, determined that he will do good; and so leaving his starch and lavender behind him, and "going after" in order that he may the "lost."

save

There are tens of thousands of workmen in Staffordshire, Yorkshire, about Newcastle and Glasgow, and many another place, who would gladly listen to the Gospel if it were taken to them at their own "shops." Any man who will try to carry it to them shall not lose his reward.

THOMAS BOWMAN STEPHENSON.

I.

ON a lonely sea-coast, at some distance from any houses, a lady was wandering at the turn of the tide, and watching somewhat sadly the shadows of the clouds as they passed over and changed the colours of the tranquil sea.

It was a clear morning in the beginning of September, and she had walked more than three miles from her lodgings in the nearest village. The first two miles had been under high rocky cliffs, from which tangled bugloss, thrift, and sea-lavender hung, and long trailing fern-leaves peeped, and offered somewhat to hold for the hand of the adventurous climber. The shore under these cliffs was rugged with rocks which stood out from the soft sand, and were covered with limpets; the water washing among them made a peculiar singing noise, quite different to the deep murmur with which it recedes from a more level shore. She listened to this cheery singing, as the crisp little waves shook the pebbles, playing with them, lifting them up and tossing them together; and she listened to the sheep bells, and watched with wonder how the adventurous lambs found food and footing on the slippery heights of the cliffs.

The day was so sunny, the air and water so still, and the scene so quiet, that she was tempted to enter upon the third mile; and here the high cliff suddenly dipped down with a grassy sweep, and the shore changed its character altogether.

Those who are familiar with the scene I am describing will know that I do not exaggerate in saying that after this range of cliffs, more than two hundred feet high, the last descending so steeply as not to be climbed without risk, the coast and country become so perfectly level, that, standing on the low bank of sand-a natural barrier which keeps out the sea-a spectator may discern spires and turrets more than twelve miles inland, and may carry his eye over vast fields, pastures, and warrens, undiversified by a single hill, and over which the shadows of the clouds are seen to lie, and float as distinctly as over the calmest sea.

It is a green and peaceful district; the church bells, the sheep bells, and the skylarks, make all its music; and a few fishermen's cottages are the only habitations along its coast for several miles.

As I before mentioned, the lady had wandered for more than three miles from her temporary home; and

now pausing to consider whether she should return, she observed a figure at a distance before her on the level sand; at first she thought it was a child, and then she imagined it was a large white stone, for it was perfectly motionless, and of a dazzling white in the sunshine.

It stood upon a vast expanse of sand, and excited her curiosity so much that she drew nearer to look at it; and then she found that it certainly was some person standing up but not moving; and upon a still closer approach, she found that it was a boy, apparently about twelve years of age, and that he was intently gazing up into the sky.

So intent, so immovable, was his attitude, that the lady also looked up earnestly; but she could see nothing there but a flock of swallows, and they were so far up, that they only looked like little black specks moving in an open space of blue between two pure white clouds.

She still approached, and again looked up, for the steady gaze of the boy amazed her; his arms were slightly raised towards heaven, his whole attitude spoke of the deepest abstraction; he had nothing on his head, and his white smock frock, the common dress of that country, fluttered slightly in the soft wind.

She was close at his side, but attracting no attention, said, "What are you looking at, boy?"

The child made no answer. He had a peculiar countenance; and the idea suggested itself to her mind that he was deficient in intellect.

Boy, boy!" she said, shaking him gently by the sleeve ; 66 what are you doing? what are you looking

at ?"

Upon this, the figure by her side seemed to wake up from his deep abstraction; he rubbed his eyes, and that painful smile came over his features which we so often see in those whose reason is beclouded.

"Boy," said the lady, "what are you doing?" The boy sighed, and again glanced towards the space between the clouds; then he shaded his eyes and said, with distressful earnestness, "Matt was looking for God-Matt wants to see God."

Astonished and shocked at receiving such an answer, the lady started back; she now felt assured that the boy was an idiot. She did not know how much trouble and pains it might have cost his friends only to convey to his mind the fact that there is a God; and she was not one of those who inconsiderately and unauthorized will venture to interfere with the teaching of others. She therefore said nothing; for she could not tell that to assure him of the impossibility of his ever seeing God might not confuse him in his firm belief in the being of God.

She looked up also, and prayed that his dim mind might be comforted, and his belief made more intelligent. The clouds were coming together, and as they mingled and shut out the space of sky the boy withdrew his eyes, and said to his new companion: "There was a great hole-Matt wanted to see God."

"Poor Matt," said the lady, compassionately; "does he often look for God in the sky?"

The boy did not reply; but, as if to comfort himself for his disappointment, said in a reassuring tone,

He then began to move away, but as he appeared to be rather lame, his new friend kindly led him ; but when she found that he did not seem to be making for any particular point, but wandered first to one side, then to the other, she said, "Where does Matt want to go?"

The boy looked about him, but could not tell ; perhaps his long upward gazing had dazzled his eyes; perhaps the sweet sound of some church bells which was wafted towards them, now louder, now fainter, attracted his attention, for he stopped to listen, and pointing to a grey church spire, told his new friend that the bells said, "Come to church, good people.”

This was evidently what he had been told concerning them. There were some cottages on the sand-bank a quarter of a mile from them, and not doubting that he lived there, the lady led him towards them. Though dressed like one of the labouring classes, the boy was perfectly neat, clean, and obviously well cared for; his light hair was bright, and his hands, by their shrunk and white appearance, showed that he was quite incapable of any kind of labour. He yielded himself passively to her guidance, only muttering now and then in an abstracted tone, “Matt shall find God to-morrow."

Very shortly, a little girl came out of one of the cottages and ran towards them. She was an active, cheerful little creature; and when she had made the lady a curtsey, she took the boy by the hand, saying to him in a slow, measured tone, "Come home, Matt, dinner's ready."

"How can you think of leaving this poor boy to wander on the shore by himself?" said the lady. "Did you know that he had left his home?"

"He always goes out, ma'am, o' fine days," said the child; "and we fetch him home to his meals." "But does he never get into mischief?" asked the lady.

The child smiled, as if amused at the simplicity of the question, and said, "He's a natural, ma'am ; he doesn't know how to get into mischief like us that have sense."

"How grateful you ought to be to God for giving you your senses," said the lady; "and what a bad thing it seems that children should ever use their sense to help them to do mischief."

The little girl looked up shrewdly; and, perhaps, suspecting some application to herself, began to evade it, as clever children will do, by applying it to another.

His

"There's Rob, he's the smartest boy in the school, ma'am. Got the prize, he did, last year. mother says he's the most mischievous boy in the parish. Mr. Green gave him 'Pilgrim's Progress' for his prize, but I reckon he doesn't know Rob's ways. Rob climbs up the cliffs after the pigeons' eggs, he does; and his mother says she knows he'll break his neck some day; he climbed a good way up one day, with his little brother on his back, and his mother says she thought she should ha' died o' fright."

"I am sorry to hear that he is such a bad boy,"