BY THE REV. A. A. BONAR, D.D., GLASGOW.

PERHAPS the following incident may be of use to older and younger alike. It is given in the life of Dr. John Todd, who wrote the Lectures to the Young.

One hot Sabbath Dr. Todd had walked to his Sabbath-school, and felt very tired. He had said the week before that he meant to give them, at the close of the year, a history of the holy Sabbath and speak to them about its blessings and its duties. But that evening, feeling wearied, he told them how he felt, and said he would put off that subject till next Sabbath. As he said this he noticed one boy-a bright-eyed little boy sitting near-looking very much disappointed. Dr. Todd, in telling it afterwards, says: "If I had better remembered how the Master taught the woman of Samaria though He was faint and thirsty, should I not have done differently?" A teacher should take care not to miss an opportunity, as much as a scholar should beware of losing one.

Well; next Sabbath came, and Dr. Todd came to fulfil his promise. But he found the school in a strange state: some standing round the door; some looking frightened; some sobbing; all very still. What has happened? Little Lewis had just been killed by the mill! This was all they knew. Dr. Todd hastened to the mill. The miller, the father of little Lewis, was a careless man who had never taught his children to keep the Sabbath holy. And so that morning, a heavy rain having fallen during night and filled the mill-stream, the poor boy had gone to bathe and swim in it. The current was too strong for him; he felt himself carried down and cried for help; but the rush of the stream bore him on, he was sucked down under the gate, and the great mill-wheel rolled round crashing and crushing, and leaving him a mangled corpse.

The dead body was brought into the school-room. Dr. Todd says, "I lifted up the white napkin, and saw that it was the little boy who had looked so disappointed on last Sabbath because I omitted to talk about the Sabbath! Had the little boy heard that evening what God appoints for the Sabbath, who can tell but his life might have been saved? for the boy, whose careless father had never taught him to keep the Sabbath holy, would have heard and learned." Todd was then a student at college, and this occurrence made a deep impression on him. "I have never been able to look back upon that scene without keen anguish. And since I have been a minister, when at any time I have been tempted, because wearied and feeble, to put off some duty to a more convenient season, I have recalled that scene to my mind."

Dr.

Parents, before another week, or before another

year, that member of your family will be away from under your roof. Is he saved, or unsaved?

Teacher, you may not have that young scholar under your care long; nay, possibly not have any opportunity, except next Sabbath's, of speaking directly to him about closing with Christ.

Sabbath-scholar, there was once a disciple, Thomas called Didymus, who stayed away a single night from a meeting, and in consequence nearly missed that visit of Christ which made him ever after go on his way rejoicing in Him as his Lord and his God. Who can tell what you may lose throughout all your after life, if you are absent one evening? and who can tell but that you may miss salvation altogether and for ever, if you allow this Sabbath evening to pass over without your accepting Christ?

"SON, GO WORK TO-DAY IN MY VINEYARD."

And, certainly, having found for yourselves that great ransom, you will not let a year pass, you would not willingly let one day pass, without some effort made to communicate the good news to others, to men of every creed and nation. Is not the word of Christ, "Go out quickly, and bring in hither the poor, and the maimed, and the halt and the blind" (Luke 14, 21). "Compel them to come in." A. A. B.

TRACTS.

THE following admirable remarks by Theodore Monod of France, are worthy of attention:

NEW TRACTS.

"Why do we want new tracts? Why not content ourselves with reprinting the best of the old ones? It is necessary, without dropping the old ones, to have new. There is a continual demand for them. Besides, everything changes. Numbers of the allusions, and the comparisons of forty years ago, have no meaning for us now. The very manner of expressing oneself varies from one generation to another. We ought to bring forth from our treasury things both new and old.

"Who ought to write new tracts? Not always the man who says, 'I could easily compose a tract.' Nor he who says, 'I am not able to do it.' The man who ought to

write a tract is the one who feels that he has a tract to write. Have you never said to yourselves, 'There should be a tract on that subject?' Well, write one. When? As soon as possible. As the proverb says, 'Strike while the iron is hot.' What are the subjects which should be treated of, and whence are they to be taken? You must think, you must pray, you must search. In your reading you may find tracts almost ready made. In the old stories of our history, in the sermon you have heard, in the remarks made by those around you, and in the incidents of daily life-everywhere fruitful subjects are to be found. The essential thing is to have something to say, and to say it well!"

USE OF TRACTS.

The following is a grateful instance of the revolution which one tract may effect after leaving the hands of the distributer:-" A schoolmaster, whom I know well, but whose name I forbear to mention, seeing one day a Romish priest coming down the steps of his church, where he had just been saying mass, went up to him and gave him a tract. It was as if he had suddenly fired a shot. The curé was at first astounded, and probably offended; but he thought, no doubt, that the man would not have ventured to take such a step if he had not been firm in his convictions. The priest therefore read the tract; and the end of

this story is that the priest died a pastor, and a deservedly respected one, of one of our churches in the north, and the man who had been the means of his conversion became the schoolmaster in his parish."

DISTRIBUTION OF TRACTS.

"That tract distribution (says the Sword and Trowel), is the scattering of good seed, which from time to time bears abundant fruit, can be proved from the accounts we are constantly receiving. Preachers of the gospel have frequently testified that tracts have been the instruments of their conversion. Thus Mr. H. W. Webb Peploe, a clergyman of the Church of England, in a sermon preached on behalf of the society, coufe-sed that the reading of a tract on a race-course, whither he went as a young man to banish serious thought, marked the turning-point in his own career. He ded from the ground, and also from the wrath to come, to find refuge in Christ. The case of another clergyman is mentioned, who by a similar messenger was led to renounce error. He read a tract, the doctrines of which were at first distasteful, but were afterwards embraced with joy. Since that day that preacher's ministry has been blessed to thousands of souls. Cases quite as remarkable or even more so, are frequently occurring in the ranks of lowly life. Many a drunkard's home has become transformed through the reading of a tract; and temporal as well as eternal good has been the result. There appears to be an increasing willinguess on the part of the common people to read what is offered them, and this should encourage increased distribution.

"Some Christians at Antwerp were asked what they could do for God during the fêtes, where God was not thought of; how they could proclaim free salvation to the multitudes in this town, where a few steps from the chapel and from the tomb of Rubens in another chapel, and on the marble of another tomb, Catholicism has for two centuries displayed her chief error in its grossest form in a Flemish distich, of which the following is a translation'Heaven is gained by violence,

Or purchased by the force of money.'

"They decided on making a large distribution of tracts. In the space of three days more than twenty thousand tracts, and from fifteen to sixteen hundred portions of the gospels, were circulated. The tracts (wrote one of the colporteurs employed in this work) have on the whole been well received. At the Place Vèrte a German woman followed me, crying out, 'Do not accept them; throw away the books, they are bad.' In spite of this the greater number were accepted. Thus, whilst the prince of darkness employed a grown-up person to destroy the good seed, the Lord, the Father of lights, employed a little boy, who voluntarily offered himself to help in the distribution of tracts. I was still at the Place Vèrte, when a gentleman accosted me, and asked if I knew English. I answered, 'that I only knew French and Flemish.' He then said in French these short but encouraging words, 'May God bless you."

"What may be accomplished by one book is forcibly illustrated in the history of a well-worn volume given by a missionary in India to a man in a crowded market:'Twenty years after this book was given away, some missionaries visited a new and distant part of the country, and heard of a village where there were people calling themselves Christians. I happened to be a member of this party, and I never can tell you the gratitude and the joy it brought to our hearts when we heard of this; and going to the village, we were told the history of this book; how it fell into the hands of a prominent man an independent thinker; how he learned this book by heart, committed every page of it to memory, and recited it, morning and evening, to his neighbours; how he threw away his idols; how he told the Brahma priest he should never come to his house again; that he had no offerings to make to him, no worship to give him; that he became a Christian; and how, after twenty years, we found eight believers ready to be baptized and organized into a Christian church."

THE BATTLE FOR THE SABBATH.

IN the midst of abounding Sabbath desecration it is very interesting and very encouraging to the friends of the day to mark how public opinion is, as yet, on the side of the sanctity of the Lord's-day. Nowhere is this more noticeable than in London, where perhaps there is less observance of the day than anywhere else in our land. But whatever the practice of individuals may be, the conscience of the people is outspoken in favour of keeping the one day in seven holy. The importance of this fact is undoubtedly very great, amid the constant attempts which are being made to open the places of amusement on the Sabbath. When we look across to the Continent, and see how the friends of the Sabbath, who are labouring for its better observance, have first of all to set themselves to create a public opinion on the subject of the holiness of the day, we learn that our greatest danger lies in whatever tends to break down this public opinion, which meanwhile prevails among us.

Of the way in which this public opinion operates we had an instance the other day, when an attempt to open on the Sabbath the Guildhall Public Library was triumphantly defeated. In this case the ground was skilfully chosen by the enemies of the Lord's-day, and secured for them allies who would not be found in general fighting on their side. It was, that the open library provided the people not simply with a better place of resort than the public-house or the street, but with the means of moral and spiritual improvement. When, a few years ago, they tried to enlist the working-men in the east and north-eastern districts of London in a movement to obtain the opening of museums, picture-galleries, &c., and the friends of the Sabbath met them in public debate, in numerous and crowded assemblies of the working-classes, these decided by overwhelming majorities against the proposal. The people were quick enough to see that if the sanctity of the day was broken down, and the day made one of mere amusement and recreation, it would speedily become a day of work. They saw it was because it was the Lord's-day that it was their day; and they would not have such a questionable boon as the enemies of the Lord's-day proposed to give them, so they gave their decision most unmistakably. Now we have got an equally decided opinion from the common council of the city of London on the same side, and in a case that brings out still more prominently the sentiment of the community. A petition, signed by upwards of five hundred persons with city addresses, had been presented to the corporation, asking for the opening of the Guildhall Library from 2 to 9 o'clock p.m., and the petition was supported by a deputation from the National Sunday League, and the resolutions of a meeting held on the previous day. But on the other hand, a petition signed by upwards of seventeen hundred persons, merchants, warehousemen, and clerks, residing in, or employed in the city-was presented, praying that the opening might be refused; the Lord's Day Observance Society and the Working Men's Protestant League also petitioned against the proposal; and when the matter came to be decided, the motion to open the library on Sunday was rejected by 104 to 34

votes

SUNDAY TRAVELLING.

But the friends of the Lord and of His day should see to it that all this be followed up, and that these victories be not left as barren triumphs. First and foremost, should they not be very careful not to do anything, not a work of necessity or one of mercy, which entails labour for another on the Lord's-day? The amount of Sunday passenger traffic by rail and tramway, 'bus and cab, is enormous; and a very appreciable item in this traffic is that which represents church-goers travelling some distance to hear a favourite preacher or to attend a special service. The number of such is so great that it considerably helps to make the running of public conveyances on the Lord's-day a paying business. But far more than the money contribution which they give to support this form of Sabbath desecration is that which their example and influence afford. If all professing followers of Jesus scrupulously abstained from using public conveyances on the Lord's-day, not only would the moral effect be enormous, but in not a few cases these conveyances would cease to run. 'Bus men and tram and railway servants bitterly complain of the part which church-goers take in compelling them to undergo long toil on the day of rest. The question as to the use of public convey. ances on the Lord's-day may be in some cases a difficult one to decide; but let Christians who have to decide it do so with this consideration before them, that the good they may get or may do through such use is accompanied with wrong done to another, or it may be many others, and with an example which is directly and indirectly very injurious.

PUBLIC-HOUSES ON THE SABBATH.

And apart from other considerations, if we are to maintain public opinion in favour of Sabbath rest, and to take the advantage of it that we ought, we shall agitate for the closing of the publichouse on the Lord's-day. It will not do to have it said you can shut the door of the library and open that of the gin-palace. From an official return with which the police authorities have kindly furnished me I learn that at the beginning of this year there were eleven thousand and twenty-two (11,022) publichouses and beer-shops within the bounds of the metropolitan police, besides refreshment-rooms and confectioners' shops with wine licenses, and it may be taken for granted that the vast majority of these places are open on the Lord's-day, indeed very few are closed. If all were closed throughout the entire day the benefits secured would be incalculable.

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New Books.

Uncle John Vassar; by the Rev. T. E. Vassar (London: Dickinson). This is a memoir of a very remarkable Christian man, who died in America last year. In outward station and office he was (by his own choice) but a colporteur; but in faith, in devotion, in self-denying efforts to win souls for Christ, and in success, he was apparently unsurpassed in our, if in almost any, age. The comparison with men such as Rutherford, Bunyan, Baxter, Flavel, M'Cheyne, Brainerd, Henry Martyn, though made in the preface, is not the happiest; for some of these were intellectually great, and all of them have left precious written remains, by which they personally influence the world to this day. But among his own contemporaries, and in his own sphere of work, Uncle John Vassar's influence seems to have been equal to that of any of them. His life was spent in quest of souls for Christ; he sought them out everywhere, and spoke to them-no matter what their rank-on the subject of their state before God; he never missed an opportunity of asking the question, "Have you reason to think that you are born again? or, "Do you love the Lord Jesus Christ?" yet he did this in such a way as in general to disarm anger, and in cases innumerable win him access to men's hearts, so as to lead them to Christ. In this service, he spent and wore himself out. Those who knew him seem to want words to express all they think of him, heaping epithet upon epithet to describe his personal qualities and self-denying services, and adding testimony to testimony regarding his marvellous success. In the following points his biographer sums up the elements of his personal spiritual power:Unflinching loyalty to the Lord Jesus Christ, based on an adoring love, this was the mainspring of all he was and all he did; then, habitual and almost unbroken intercourse with God in prayer; mighty faith; very intimate and thorough acquaintance with the Bible; burning zeal and awful earnestness in pressing personal appeals; great persistency of purpose; tact, such that he seldom made a blunder; and yet such impartiality that he saw in every man (whatever his position) a soul to be saved whose worth he realized, and acted accordingly; deep sympathy also, unaffected humility, and withal a broad and catholic spirit. "We have plenty of machinery," concludes the biographer, "for evangelistic work; but we want men "-men like Uncle John Vassar. We give elsewhere some characteristic anecdotes.

BOOKS RECENTLY PUBLISHED, And sent Post Free at their published prices, on application to JOHN MACFARLANE, Manager, DRUMMOND'S TRACT DEPOT, Stirling, N.B.

Bible Children: Studies for the Young. By
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50 THE GRATUITOUS CIRCULA6TION of the British Messenger, Gospel Trumpet, Good News, and Tracts of the Tract Enterprise, since its Stirling 26 commencement, amounts to more than 100 38 millions. The number in 1878 alone exceeded two millions. The Trustees are anxious to continue and greatly 5 extend this gratuitous circulation, and 28they invite and would gladly welcome the contributions of Christian friends 6 to enable them to do so. Many applications could be more adequately responded to did funds allow.

During the month ending 31st October, 1879, the following quan tities were given gratuitously:

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Amount of previous Grants

as reported last month, 30,655 0 8

£30,771 1 1

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