was to have his horse properly cared for. He might be wet and cold and hungry himself, but he neither could nor would enjoy any comfort until his horse was suitably stabled, covered, and fed. Our brother's horse served him in good heart for almost a quarter of a century, and if Mr. Bergh's thought of a possible immortality for animals should prove true, I am sure our brother's horse will gratefully and peacefully graze on the greenest slopes and in the fairest valleys of the equine paradise. I was once riding with him when darkness came on. To the overshadowing of dense clouds on a moonless night was added a dense fog from the sea. We were often in the ditch, first on one side, then on the other. After a time of careful groping the horse stopped. "Hamlin," said Brother Warren, "there are times when a horse knows more than a man, and my horse knows more now than you and I both. He is going to wait for more light,—just what we must often do in this dark world." We were close by a house, where we obtained an excellent lantern and achieved the remainder of the way in light. I shall always love Brother Warren the better for the kind and excellent care which he took of his horse. If there should be any purgatory for good ministers, it will be for those who have been cruel to dumb animals, or careless of their rights. The churches always seemed glad to see Brother Warren. The Sabbathschools rejoiced in him. He loved the children. There was so much strength to his character that it was not a little curious to see it all devoted to children. He had a clear, extensive knowledge of the whole missionary field. He felt the necessity of laborers over all the whitening fields. He groaned in spirit that so many must perish before a Saviour can be revealed to them. But while hastening to do if possible the work now, he relied more upon the ultimate results of interesting the children in the work, and when they shall grow up they will have it at heart. His addresses to them were simple in style, easy of apprehension, weighty in meaning, and so illustrated as always to secure attention. In his departure from earth the Sabbath-schools of his whole district have lost a friend whom they all loved, and whose place will not be readily supplied. I cannot but bear strong and feeling testimony to the very kind and delicate attentions which he paid to those who traveled with him to speak as returned missionaries. When he introduced them it was in few words, and at the close of their addresses he would sometimes in five minutes bring the whole to a head with singular felicity and power. His advocacy of the missionary cause was wise and able. It was based upon Scripture truth. It was illustrated and illuminated by an extensive and accurate knowledge of the great fields of labor. His heart was wholly in the work, and he lamented the failure of strength when he desired to labor more earnestly than ever. He had always been interested in education. His soul rejoiced in the springing up of flourishing institutions of learning on missionary ground. He saw in them sources of great power and progress for the future. They were to him exponents of the vigor, wisdom, and success with which the work was conducted. He would gladly continue in the work in order to see those grand triumphs of the kingdom of our Lord which he believed the closing quarter of the century would witness. He may survey them all from a higher sphere, and rejoice over them with a purer joy. But the church on earth has lost one of her faithful servants. He was a good man and true. He was strong as he was gentle. He was unselfish, laborious, devoted. "A great man has fallen in Israel." But we may write over his tomb, with sorrowing, yet rejoicing hearts, "Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth. Yea, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their labors, and their works do follow them." DR. LIVINGSTONE ON MISSIONARY SACRIFICES. THE new international magazine of the Presbyterians, entitled the Catholic Presbyterian, was fortunate enough to obtain for its first issue an article written by Dr. David Livingstone on his return for the first time from Africa, but never given to the press until now. The article is one of remarkable vigor, and its force is intensified by the remembrance of the heroic life of the author. In the following extracts, liberty has been taken to condense a few paragraphs: -: It is something to be a missionary. It is something to be a follower, however feeble, in the wake of the Great Teacher and only model missionary that ever appeared among men ; and now that he is head over all things, King of kings and Lord of lords, what commission is equal to that which the missionary holds from him? May we venture to invite young men of education, when laying down the plan of their lives, to take a glance at that of the missionary ? What means the lugubrious wail that too often bursts from the circle of his friends? Pathetic plaints are penned about laying their bones on a foreign shore by those who never thought of making aught of their bones at home. (Bone dust is dear nowhere, we think.) And then there is the never-ending talk and wringing of hands over missionary "sacrifices." The man is surely going to be hanged, instead of going to serve in Christ's holy gospel! Is this such service as he deserves who, though rich, for our sakes became poor? Bipeds of the masculine gender assume the piping phraseology of poor old women in presence of him before whom the Eastern Magi fell down and worshiped, aye, and opened their treasures, and presented unto him gifts, gold, frankincense, and myrrh. They will give their "mites," as if what they do give were their "all." Why should we so regard all we give and do for the Well-beloved of our souls? Our talk of sacrifices is ungenerous and heathenish. A white man, having the bone of his arm crushed by a lion, was crossing a small stream on his way home, and, feeling faint from loss of blood, tried to stoop down and drink; but he could not support the dangling limb with the other hand, and so bend himself to slack his thirst. A black man lifted up water in his hands repeatedly, till he was satisfied. Now, had he done this to one of his own countrymen he would have thought no more about it; but he had done it for a white man, - he had made a sacrifice! A few days afterwards he made his appearance, and, after inquiring for the arm, remarked, "It was I who helped you with the water;" and he repeated the observation on subsequent occasions, with the addition, "As I helped you, I hope you will help me, when you recover." The white man gave a present in order to wipe off the obligation. It is just so we are disposed to value highly what we do for Christ. We talk of "sacrifices," till, we fear, the word is nauseous to him. We have no English female missionary biography worth reading, because it is all polluted by the black man's idea of sacrifice. It ought not so to be. Jesus became a missionary, and gave his life for us. Who would not be a missionary? His noble enterprise is in exact accordance with the spirit of the age, and what is called the spirit of the age is simply the movement of multitudes of minds in the same direction. They move according to the eternal and all-embracing decrees of God. The spirit of the age is one of benevolence, and it manifests itself in numberless ways ragged schools, baths, and wash-houses, sanitary reform, etc. Hence missionaries do not live before their time. Their great idea of converting the world to Christ is no chimera. It is divine. Christianity will triumph. It is equal to all it has to perform. It is not mere enthusiasm to imagine a handful of missionaries capable of converting the millions of India. How often they are cut off just after they have acquired the language! How often they retire with broken-down constitutions before effecting anything! How often they drop burning tears over their own feebleness amid the defections of those they believed to be converts! Yes! but that small band has the decree of God on its side. Who has not admired the band of Leonidas at the pass of Thermopyla? Three hundred against three millions. Japhet, with the decree of God on his side, only three hundred strong, contending for enlargement with Shem and his three millions. Consider what has been effected during the last fifty years. There is no vaunting of scouts No Indian gentlemen making themselves merry about the folly of thinking to convert the natives of India; magnifying the difficulties of caste; and setting our ministers into brown studies and speech-making in defense of missions. No mission has yet been an entire failure. We who see such small segments of the mighty cycles of God's providence often imagine some to be failures which God does not. Eden was such a failure. The old world was a failure under Noah's preaching. Elijah thought it was all up with Israel. Isaiah said: "Who hath believed our report, and to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed?" And Jeremiah wished his head were waters, his eyes a fountain of tears, to weep over one of God's plans for diffusing his knowledge among the heathen. If we could see a larger arc of the great providential cycle, we might sometimes rejoice when we weep; but God giveth not account of any of his matters. We must just trust to his wisdom. Let us do our duty. He will work out a glorious consummation. Fifty years ago missions could not lift up their heads. But missions now are admitted by all to be one of the great facts of the age, and the sneers about "Exeter Hall" are seen by every one to embody a risus sardonicus. The present posture of affairs is, that benevolence is popular. God is working out in the human heart his great idea, and all nations shall see his glory. now. A monstrous idea once obtained among those from whose own education we might have hoped better things, — " that any pious man who could read his Bible and make a wheelbarrow was good enough to be a missionary;" and the idea is not yet quite extinct, that more learning and ability are needed for the home pastorate than for the foreign field. The idea would be tolerable if any of those who entertained it were not judges and jury too in their own cause. The complaisant belief that we at home require ministers of greater abilities than does the missionary work smacks of the conceit of which Solomon gives some judicious hints. It is, in fact, believing that household troops need more ability than those who must rough it in the field, and that Field-Marshal Prince Albert requires more talent than FieldMarshal the Duke of Wellington. This work requires zeal for God and love for souls. It needs prayer from the senders and the sent, and firm reliance on him who alone is the author of conversion. Souls cannot be converted or manufactured to order. Great deeds are wrought in unconsciousness, from constraining love to Christ; in humbly asking, Lord, what wilt thou have me to do? in the simple feeling, we have done that which was our duty to do. They effect works, the greatness of which it will remain for posterity to discern. The greatest works of God in the kingdom of grace, like his majestic movements in nature, are marked by stillness in the doing of them, and reveal themselves by their effects. They come up like the sun, and show themselves by their own light. "The kingdom of God cometh not with observation." Luther simply followed the leadings of the Holy Spirit in the struggles of his own soul. He wrought out what the inward impulses of his own breast prompted him to work, and behold, before he was aware, he was in the midst of the Reformation. So, too, it was with the Plymouth pilgrims, with their sermons three times a day on board the "Mayflower." Without thinking of founding an empire, they obeyed the sublime teachings of the Spirit, the promptings of duty and the spiritual life. God working mightily in the human heart is the spring of all abiding spiritual power; and it is only as men follow out the sublime promptings of the inward spiritual life, that they do great things for God. Who would not be a missionary? They that be wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament; and they that turn many to righteousness as the stars for ever and ever." Is God not preparing the world for missions which will embrace the whole of Adam's family? The gallant steamships circumnavigate the globe. Emigration is going on at a rate to which the most renowned crusades of antiquity bear no proportion. Many men go to and fro, and knowledge is increased. No great emigration ever took place in our world without accomplishing one of God's great designs. The tide of the modern emigration flows towards the West. The wonderful amalgamation of races will result in something grand. We believe this because the world is becoming better, and because God is working mightily in the human mind. We believe it because God has been preparing the world for something glorious. And that something, we conjecture, will be a fuller development of the missionary idea and work. THE LETTERS FROM THE MISSIONS. who took a prominent part in the movement, desirous of completing the work, RE- totally destroying the idols, and inviting the missionaries to use the building in the rear for a chapel, and that in front for a public school. Desirable as this seemed, there were certainly grave difficulties. The gratitude for relief in famine had gradually cooled, as the harvest everywhere produced such a plentiful crop that millet was sold at the same price per pound as charcoal, and sweet potatoes at the same price as kindling wood. Not that any one regretted the step taken, or entertained the least idea of retracing it, but there was no longer the same momentum as at first." THE missions of the American Board in Northern China have hitherto been mainly confined to the province of Chihli. During the recent famine our missionaries passed to the southeast, into the province of Shantung, where they ministered relief to large numbers of people. The results of this reliefwork are both speedy and surprising. A familiar letter from Rev. A. H. Smith, giving an account of the cleansing of an idol temple at Shih Chia Tang, and of the deeding of the whole property to the Church of Christ, has been in the hands of many pastors who have doubtless reported the facts to their congregations. But the story is so striking that some permanent record of it should be made in this magazine. Extended extracts from this letter of Mr. Smith will therefore be here given, and also a letter from Mr. Sprague, who narrates other incidents connected with this remarkable movement. A PRESENT OF THE TEMPLE. "One day last week, the temple keeper came up with a proposition and an inquiry. He asked whether, if the temple were purified of idols, and, together with the whole premises, presented to the Jesus sect, the church would accept it, be responsible for repairs, and establish a public school, in which Chi Mr. Smith's letter is dated October nese and Christian literature should be 29, 1878: "You will remember hearing from Mr. Sheffield and from me [see the Herald for November, 1878], of the renovation of the temple at Shih Chia Tang, the Hall of the Shih family,' about seven miles southwest of our headquarters. The step which was taken in June, of removing the idols from the rear building and congregating about sixty of them in the smaller building in front, was much more than could have been expected by the most sanguine of us, yet it was done. As there was, however, no precedent for anything of the kind, it was natural that some hesitation should be felt to outrage public prejudices by such an act. The step seems not only to have met with no opposition, but on reaching here we found that lapse of time had made the villagers, taught in equal proportions. I consented to the conditions, provisionally, and the temple keeper took his departure. He is a man of strong convictions, but extremely unobtrusive, and had long since decided to leave the temple, if it remained such, although he has a family and no other means of support but the temple land. Many regard him as an amiable idiot, for in addition to losing a certain support, if the land should be given with the temple, he would forfeit certain perquisites of great value. Twice a year, after the summer and autumn harvests, he has the prerogative of going about in the village and collecting contributions of grain. This, of course, would be at an end. On Sunday, day before yesterday, he came again with a native helper, to say that the matter had gone so far that he |