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and enlarged, tend to become one, and to bring what truth there is in both into unity.

It is coming to be more and more seen that to give a whole people liberty and opportunity to do "their level best," implies the liberty to each individual to do the "perpendicular best" of which God. has made him capable. It is also more and more seen, that to those who cannot be stopped short of the higher education. -the highest attainable-to them must we look to administer and to improve the common education. The academy and the college are as necessary for the best common schools as springs on the hills are necessary for the streams that are to fertilize the valleys.

Is it not also true that some institutions for higher education are demonstrating the mutual helpfulness of industrial edu-. cation and higher education in the same institution and to the same pupils? Call it "manual training" and "mental discipline," if you like these terms better: is each of these exclusive of the other, or is each an help meet" for the other? We propose these questions not as being ready to give full answers to them, but quite willing to provoke earnest study of them.

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We rejoice in the earnest and sober experiments that are in progress in such institutions as Park College and Biddle University, and thus far, as we have watched them, we are not sure that the tools of manual labor are less effective in developing muscular energy and cerebral energy, in harmony-brawn and brain in happy partnership-than are oars and bats and other gymnastic appliances. We do not dislike the latter. We believe in them for youth who can afford to have them, and especially for those who have no opportunity for wholesome muscular activity in the use of tools, and the pleasant mental exercise which the skillful use of tools induces, but we also like and believe in manual labor as a means of manual and mental training and recreation.

Look at the groups of mechanics in our pictures. Do they look jaded? Do they look "dull," like Jack of the nursery rhyme, who had "all work and no play?" Do not they look rather like hearty, healthy lads who have found out how to make all work as good fun as any playwho have found "life worth living," and are diligently, joyously and successfully getting an education which will make it still better worth living?

THERE is a refreshing directness and reality about a preacher's prayer, of which Mr. Watson sends an account to the London Presbyterian.

It was after a request for prayer for "the lukewarm church" of Liong-khay had been preferred that one of the preachers prayed thus, with a most evident belief that prayer

is answered:" Almighty Lord, Everlasting answered:-"Almighty God, Head of the Church, we come boldly to Thy presence to ask Thee for Liong-khay. Some have left the church, some have grown cold. Thou art compassionate. We grieve.

How much more dost Thou. Be

gracious. Hear our prayer. Give them repentance, so that they may flee from the wrath to come. Keep Thy servant who preaches and teaches there; he is in weak health. Give him strength daily, for if weak he cannot work. Make him strong in spirit and faithful, a vessel meet for Thy use. Help all the office-bearers and preachers. Make us wise to win souls; keep us from being stumbling-blocks. Some of the elders are not very faithful, some not very sincere. Enable them to realise that they have receiv

ed grace more than others, so that they may seek to help others by their example and instruction. . . . God of pity, be gracious to Thy Church at Kwan-jim. The trouble there is not yet over. Cause the opponents' plots to fail, and lead them to knowledge of sin and repentance. At Tung-kio there is increase of members, but no increase of life. Enable the old Christians to be earnest to know Christ better."

CONCERT OF PRAYER.-The pictures of the present situation in Japan, compared with those which were coming to us a few years ago, are sobering but not disheartening. Read and ponder the thoughtful articles of Drs. Imbrie and Knox, and see how far those veterans are from despondency, while they seek to give us a clear and correct view of the difficulties yet to be overcome. In Japan, as in China, we should hold ourselves ready for a long pull as well as a strong pull. Mr. Wenn sees the "dawn on the western coast of Japan," and shows us how even "opposition has brought out unknown friends." They are the true soldiers who know how to make difficulties a discipline, and defeats only reconnoisances preparatory to victories.

THE OUTLOOK to which our brethren on the Home Mission watch-tower invite us, has features and aspects which might discourage feeble faith. But to the vigilant, the active and the brave," the "good soldiers of Jesus Christ," it is, on the whole, fitted to rouse and impel to resolute exertion.

Consider especially what those H. M. watchmen tell us about the "demand for evangelical German preachers for Texas, Wisconsin, Minnesota "-for "Italian

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preachers, of the fervent, spiritual, evangelical type."-Twenty thousand of that people in St. Louis alone, where "a late Italian consul is preaching the Gospel to his countrymen every Sabbath!" Bohemians, Armenians, Bulgarians and Syrians are also mentioned as accessible to home missionaries. See how home missions and foreign missions are more and more blending. "Our fears, our hopes, our aims are one; our comforts and our cares"—yes, and our prayers—a true concert of prayer.

Rarely have we presented our readers more thought-laden or more work-stimulating pages than those in this number for the Concert of Prayer for Church Work at Home and Abroad.