all over the land shall hear, as they never yet have heard, the imploring prayer for women's ministry in Eastern homes. The money will come for such as need it. But in many instances God has endowed the workers with means sufficient for their own personal necessities. Let the called listen to the Master's voice:

"Be swift, my soul, to answer Him!

Be jubilant, my feet!"

Such as assuredly know that their duty is to abide here in order to render public or semi-public service to British villages and towns, or to occupy themselves chiefly in responding to domestic claims, will learn, as the sense of their own calling deepens, to recognise the vocation of their sisters who go abroad, and they will be eager to show prayerful, generous sympathy by helping to sustain the women who represent them as well as Jesus Christ in India and China. The times appeal for an enlargement of the class of men and women who feel that the world's wrongs, sorrows, vices, glorious possibilities, are such that they, while judging no one else, must find their chief delights not in ordinary indulgences and pleasures, but in the warfare with evil and in the endeavour to augment, at least a little, the common good. Our song shall spring out of our work as a lark from the corn-field. We belong to the weak, the sad, the oppressed. It is possible to find a deep joy in ministry, and to allow ourselves only such recreations, beyond those inseparably associated with service, as may enhance the brightness, cheerfulness, and power of our offering to humanity. We belong to Him whom heaven did not content so long as our race was not journeying thither, and who burnt His life out here in the fires of redeeming love. “He was a man of sorrows;" "He was anointed with the oil of gladness above His fellows." He gives us an object outside of ourselves-a cause wise enough to inspire a rational ardour-great enough to give scope for the development of every part of our being-holy enough to deliver the mind from the festerings of its own self-consciousness.

The SECRETARIAT is a most important connecting link between the churches and the labourers abroad. Such as occupy the post worthily cannot be ordinary men. Uncommon qualities of heart and head are required. Nowhere is there clearer evidence of God's favour to us than that which is found in the roll of those who have been called to the high office of leading God's people in the conquest of the globe for the Lord Jesus Christ.

ANDREW FULLER

had vowed to hold the ropes for God's miners, and nobly was the vow redeemed. Some would have cut the ropes, others would have drawn up the men when their work was scarcely begun. The conduct of the affairs of the Society in this country involved a continuous strain upon the physical and mental strength of the devoted secretary. Though he had excellent colleagues in Ryland and Sutcliffe, and the important assistance of Robert Hall's eloquence, yet the chief burden of responsibility and toil was carried on Fuller's broad shoulders. The apostle's words would have suited his lips: "In labours more abundant, in journeyings often, in weariness and painfulness, and in watchings often." As his powerful writings had removed from many minds such doctrinal errors as might have rendered unwelcome a proposal to propagate Christ's truth, so his courage and zeal, his wisdom and perseverance, were used by God to overcome the early difficulties which beset the Society, and to give the Mission an invincible position among philanthropic organisations. Travelling north, south, east, and west, he made numberless appeals to private persons and to public assemblies. He managed all the accounts and wrote shoals of letters to correspondents in the United Kingdom and in India. All the time he continued in charge of the church at Kettering. Added to the ordinary cares of the Mission was the conflict which had to be waged with enemies who sought to induce the Government and the East India Company to harass and cripple the Bengal work. Edinburgh reviewers and many Anglo-Indians tried to prevent any more missionaries from being sent to the East, and to get Carey and his companions recalled. In the main points the Society was victorious. But the contest was obstinate and required years of vigilance and persistency. During the last years of his life Fuller, who passed to the heavenly rest in the year 1815, gave a good deal of his energy to the endeavour to gain for missionaries, not favour or endowments, but the liberty which now seems to be an axiomatic right. He had the satisfaction of seeing a more enlightened policy prevailing in Government circles before his labours closed, and he had seen the country manifesting splendid generosity when the sad news came in 1812 that damage amounting to £10,000 had been done by fire at Serampore. The readiness of British Christians, of all sects, to repair the loss was so prompt and hearty, that in five weeks the amount required was raised and contributions had to be stopped. The event,

which at first sight looked disastrous, had beneficial issues, for by drawing public attention to the Mission it increased the number of regular subscribers. Before the termination of his earthly labours, Fuller saw much to gratify him as the result of the toils in which for more than twenty-two years he had taken a conspicuous part. The enterprise had gained a firm hold upon the sympathies of the denomination far on towards £90,000 had been obtained; the Scriptures had been translated into many languages; converts from Hindooism had been formed into native churches, many of the members of which were preaching Christ to their countrymen; the British Government, having been persuaded to look more favourably upon the objects of the Society, had withdrawn its opposition to the settlement of missionaries in the East: moreover, the joy of Fuller was augmented by the circumstance that all the principal sections of Christ's Church had chosen their fields of labour, and were employing between four and five hundred agents in the great task of which the Kettering pastor had been the pre-eminent supporter.

DR. RYLAND,

of Bristol, who had provisionally accepted office in May, 1815, consented to become secretary in the following October. Associated with him in the duties of the post for two years was the Rev. JAMES HINTON, of Oxford. Mr. Hinton had evinced the strongest attachment to the Society for a long time, and his knowledge, his skill, his courteous and conciliating bearing proved of great value to the Mission. It was with extreme regret to himself and to the Committee that considerations of health and the pressing character of the claims of his ordinary calling as pastor and schoolmaster caused him in 1817 to resign his partnership with Dr. Ryland. His place was filled by the Rev. John Dyer, of Reading. Although the infirmities incidental to old age prevented Dr. Ryland from rendering much active service, the retention by him of office was advantageous; for being acquainted with every detail of the Society's history from the first, and being remarkable for the soundness of his judgment, he was well fitted to give advice. Moreover, in view of the distrust felt by the Serampore brethren in the management of the Society by many with whom they had no personal acquaintance, the continued presence of Dr. Ryland was extremely helpful. The Doctor was a link between the past and the present, between the new men at home and the

distinguished missionaries who had made Serampore famous. The Committee existing at the time when he passed away express their grateful remembrance "that he intimately shared in all the difficulties and anxieties of the undertaking from its very commencement, and proved its consistent, affectionate, and successful advocate to his dying day"; and "they reflect with pleasing interest on the missionaries who, under his paternal instruction, have been trained for honourable service abroad." Robert Hall, preaching to the Broadmead Church and to the constituents of the College, both of which institutions Dr. Ryland had served from 1793 to 1825, says: "It is not easy to determine whether the success of our Mission is most to be ascribed to the vigour of Fuller, the prudence of Sutcliff, or the piety of Ryland. Is it presumption to suppose they still turn their attention to that object ?-that they bend their eyes on the plains of Hindostan, and sympathise with the toils of Carey, content to postpone the pleasure which awaits them on his arrival, while they behold the steady though gradual progress of light, and see, at no great distance, the idol temples fallen, the vedas and shastras consigned to oblivion, the cruel rites of a degrading superstition abhorred and abandoned, and the kingdoms of this world become the Kingdom of our God and His Christ?" Of

THE REV. JOHN DYER,

who ended his course in 1841, the following testimonies have been borne :-"He was a man addicted to habits of devotion. With David he might have said, I give myself unto prayer.' He worthily succeeded the eminent men that went before; and with business habits far greater, he had a love of missionary labour and a love of perishing heathen not less than theirs." "Prompt, indefatigable, persevering, he was in a sense a martyr to the cause. It was his life. In counsel he was discriminating; in judgment, sound; in point of information, always correct and copious." "In pleading for the Mission he was fluent, copious, occasionally impassioned, and never failed to leave an impression of the integrity of his mind and the warmth of his benevolent heart."

The Society has had ten secretaries, four of whom are amongst us still.

THE REV. JOSEPH ANGUS, D.D.,

has given the Mission inestimable support for more than half a century. He joined Mr. Dyer in 1840. From the Jubilee year till

1849 he was in office alone

in the middle of that period he went in company with the Rev. C. M. Birrell, of Liverpool, to Jamaica, for the purpose of making arrangements consequent upon the novel conditions involved in the emancipation of the people and the independence of the churches. The beneficence of Sir S. M. Peto (who was treasurer at the time, and who, to the close of his life, continued an ardent worker for the Mission) enabled the deputation to distribute £2,000, whereby many embarrassments were relieved. As president

of the College, located first at Stepney and now at Regent's Park, Dr. Angus has supplied the Mission with many who, having caught his ardour for the extension of Christ's Kingdom, have worthily ministered to men in every part of the globe. During his tenure of the secretariat, the Mission House in Moorgate Street was built, at a cost of £10,300-a part of the thirty-three thousand pounds raised to commemorate the Jubilee. The premises continued in use for twenty-two years. Through the increasing demands of the denomination the accommodation became inadequate, and the house was sold for £19,500-a sum more than sufficient to purchase the buildings now used by the Society in Furnival Street.

THE REV. FREDERICK TRESTRAIL, D.D.,

with Dr. Underhill for colleague, was at the head of affairs, for nearly twenty-one years. On his retirement in 1870, the members of the Society gratefully acknowledged his "untiring energy," his cheerful self-denial, and the ability with which he had advocated the claims of the Mission. As tokens of the appreciation felt for his services, a pecuniary testimonial was presented to Dr. Trestrail, and a portrait of him was afterwards placed in the room in Furnival Street where he had so often deliberated with the Committee respecting the publication of Christ's Gospel. For ten years previous to his official work, and for a score of years after his resignation, he laboured with animated and inexhaustible zeal for the cause he ardently loved. The last public act of Dr. Trestrail was the offering at Cardiff of a solemn and fervent prayer for the missionaries who were then ready to depart for service abroad. It was an appropriate close to the labours which had covered half a century. The official connection of

EDWARD BEAN UNDERHILL, LL.D.,

with the Society began in 1849; and when in 1876 the ordinary secretarial position was vacated, an honorary one was created, which