Systematic Beneficence. On a most important phase of this most important subject, Pastor Joseph H. Bradley, of Tuckerton, N. J., writes: The following system of making the monthly collections for our church Boards is found to work with very great advantage here, and is submitted to the consideration of all the Boards and pastors of churches. I have had occasion to make several miscellaneous collections for which special envelopes were prepared and distributed before the time appointed to receive the offerings; and the amounts so obtained were always surprisingly satisfactory-double and triple what might have been expected by a merely formal or usual request for help. It occurred to me that a similar method would operate equally well in making all of our collections for the Boards. For a long time I have been in the habit of sending to the secretaries for such circulars as they have of late seen fit to print giving a brief statement of the condition and needs of the work under their care. These have been distributed in the pews one week before the time of the collection, and a particular reference to them made from the pulpit. But while some of the congregation were sufficiently interested to turn to the circulars, and some to take them away to read at home, as recommended, others failed to make any use of them. My latest plan, here commended after a practical test, and which I believe will easily commend itself, is to mail to all contributing members of the congregation, each month, and only a day or two before the time to receive the public offering, a brief and interesting statement of the work and needs of the individual Board for which the appeal will be made on the Sabbath, also inclosing a specially marked envelope for the money to be [October, given, thus speaking at their homes and under most favorable circumstances to those who have already been more or less informed upon the subject, and who will so be intelligently, seriously, and, so, effectively interested in the Board's work and fully prepared to give on the Sabbath. By this means also any person absent from church when the collection is to be taken may send their envelope at the time or deposit it subsequently, when it will be credited to that particular object as certainly as though received at the regular time. Also the fact of having so received the circular and envelope impresses each individual in the church with a special sense of personal obligation to use the opportunity to have part in that offering, insures a timely and universal rememberance of the coming collection, and, too, an unused circular and conspicuous (self-asserting) envelope there in the house will be a monitor not easily disregarded. I beg leave to suggest that special leaflets (not more than of two pages, and small enough to be placed in an ordinary envelope) and a small and SPECIAL ENVELOPE (striking or peculiar in color-and upon it a few words of exhortation-Scriptural or otherwise) for the money, be also prepared by each Board for its own collection (marked with its name) to be supplied, together with the leaflet, to all the pastors of the churches who will try this method to enlist the practical interest of their people in the business of making regular offerings, as of primary importance to the well-being of every church, as well as full of promise for an enlarged support of the Boards. The labor of preparing the leaflet and special envelope for mailing will not be great, and might well be undertaken by a "Christian Endeavor" committee in each church, if necessary. The expense of mailing (an im 1892.] Temperance in the British Army-One Clean Spot. pressive feature of the plan) would be borne out of the greatly increased amount of the returns. Temperance. TEMPERANCE IN THE BRITISH ARMY. Rev. J. M. Jamieson, one of our Church's early missionaries to India, gives us a reminiscence of his observations in that distant land at that distant day, which cannot fail to interest our readers. He says: On the arrival of the third reinforcement of missionaries at Calcutta, in 1836, they received letters of introduction from the venerable Dr. Marshman to his secretary, then Lieutenant Henry Havelock, afterwards General Sir Henry Havelock, the venerable Christian soldier, whose regiment was in Kurnal, a station in our field of labor. After receiving a hearty welcome from the General he requested us to organize a temperance society in his regiment, on the American plan. This two of our number did. It was the first of the kind in India and was called the Yankee notion. By the blessing of God the good cause has prospered and surpassed the land of its birth; now out of 70,000 British troops in India, 18,000 are teetotalers, for whom the authorities make an annual grant of 8,000 rupees ($4,000) for temperance work and furnish a room in every camp for meetings. Thus the men are encouraged in every way to remain true to their pledge. ONE CLEAN SPOT. At Clifton Springs lately, on a Sabbath evening, I attended a meeting in the commodious tabernacle of the Sanitarium. It was announced as the onehundred and seventy-first monthly temperance meeting which has been held in a similar way, without one omission. This carries our thoughts back over four 353 teen years. The speakers were the Chaplain of the Sanitarium and pastors of the village churches. They told us that before this series of monthly union. Sabbath-evening meetings began, their village was abundantly supplied with liquor saloons and all of which liquor saloons are the sure promoters. They consulted together for the purpose of devising a course of procedure in which all good Christians could unite to develop and organize a public sentiment which would demand the clearing of the village from such defilement and the protection of its homes from such enemies to their peace and purity. The pastors agreed to close their churches on one Sabbath evening of every month and invite their people to unite with the inmates of the Sanitarium in a gospel temperance meeting. With uninterrupted harmony, and with most happy results, these meetings have been continued until now, and they seem as likely to continue still as anything else here. The subject of temperance is presented in its moral and religious aspects, in connection with devotional exercises, and in view of Christian principles and obligations. The purpose is frankly avowed of carrying home and carrying out these principles not only in domestic and social life, but in each citizen's part in municipal affairs. Under the law of New York, the township of Manchester (six miles square) in which the village of Clifton Springs is located, has a Board of Excise, consisting 354 How a Little Indian Girl Gave Herself to Jesus. of three commissioners, one of whom is elected each year by the people of the township. The sole power of granting licenses to sell intoxicating drinks is vested in this Board; and now for a number of years these commissioners have been unanimous in granting no such license. The public sentiment here is as much opposed to liquor saloons as to gamblinghouses and brothels. Why should it not be? Why cannot it be made so in all villages? These good men assure us that it can be, by the same union of all Christian people in such faithful, charitable, persistent presentation of the Christian truth applicable to this subject, with such constant, prayerful reliance upon the divine aid of the Holy Spirit as they have constantly maintained. Do you know that it could not be done in your village? You surely do not know unless you have tried it. [October, wonder how an editor can know what interests children?-an old man, too, whose hair is mostly white, and who cannot read without spectacles? Well, I have held a good many children on my knees. Lately I have held some little children on my knees, whose fathers and mothers I have held on my knees and carried on my shoulders when they were little enough for that kind of fun. And I find that the little ones of to-day like the same things that their fathers and mothers liked when they were children, and which I remember that I liked, long, long ago, when I sat on my father's knees, and when he "trot-trotted me to Boston, to buy a loaf of bread." My father has been in heaven many years. If he had staid here till now, he would be more than a hundred years old. He loved little children as long as he lived, and I have no doubt that he loves them now. As The services of justices of the peace long as I live, I mean to keep acquainted and constables cost the town of Manchester $673 82 in 1876, the year before this series of temperance meetings began. In 1886 they were $39.75, and we are informed that in no year since have they exceeded $50.00. 1892.] How a Little Indian Girl Gave Herself to Jesus.. Wi-yu (pronounced We-you) walked up to me and said: "I want to give myself away to you." I was much surprised, but looked into the little girl's black eyes, and said: "Why does Wi-yu wish to give herself to me?" "Because," she said simply, "I love you." After this they all called Wi-yu my little girl. One day, while Wi-yu sat by me learning how to her a pocket handkerchief neatly, I asked her if she loved Jesus, of whom I had been talking to her. "No," she said, "I do not; but I want to. I want to be a Christian, but I'm too little." "But Jesus says, 'Suffer the little children to come unto me.' Wi-yu," said I, "you must give yourShe looked at me in 355 "I don't know how to go to him; I did you try any harder to please me?" don't know what to do," said she. "Oh, yes!" said she, with a bright face. "I tried to please you in everything even in the very little things." "Are you willing to do anything that will please Jesus?" self away to him." surprise. "How can I do that?" she exclaimed. "How did you give yourself away to me?" "I came to you and asked you to take me, because I love you." "Why do you love me, dear?" She hesitated a moment, and then answered: "I think it must be because you love me." "Yes, Wi-yu; that's just the reason. Now, Jesus has been loving you all this time, while you have not been caring in the least for him." She stopped sewing and sat very still awhile, thinking. I did not say a word, because I knew the Holy Spirit was teaching her. At last she said: "And yet, my Wi-yu, you are ashamed of Jesus, your most precious Friend, your wonderful Friend, who loves you so much, and who saves you from your sins. Oh, Wi-yu! Wi-yu! Let us ask him now to forgive you and help you to please him, even in this." We knelt and Wi-yu said, with a voice choking with sobs, "My own dear Jesus, please forgive me for being ashamed and afraid, and help me to tell them all that I have given myself away to you." When we arose, she said, "I can tell them now! I will tell everybody." On her way to find her schoolmates, she met a minister who was visiting the Indians, and of whom she was very much 356 The Columbian Exposition-Let It Be a Christian Fair. afraid, because he was a stranger; but, mustering up all her courage, she looked up to him, and said: "I have given myself away to Jesus." · He was much surprised and touched as he thought of his own daughter at home, who knew so much more about Jesus than this Indian girl, and who had not yet begun to love him. He put his arm about the little timid Wi-yu, and said some very kind and helpful things to her. After this, she found it easier to tell them all, and even gained courage to write to her stern, pagan father, although she was quite sure that he would be very angry with her. Here is a copy of the letter: MY DEAR FATHER:-I have given myself away to Jesus, and I am not ashamed nor afraid to tell you of it. YOUR LITTLE WI-YU. Her father was alone when this message reached him, and nobody knows what he thought; but the very next Sabbath he walked several miles to the Mission church, and heard the missionary preach about this same Jesus to whom his little daughter had given herself; and after that he kept coming, until he, too, became a Christian man, to the great joy of our Wi-yu. (Look on page 350.) Young People's Christian Endeavor. THE COLUMBIAN EXPOSITION. To none of the people of this generation will it have greater interest or greater educational value than to those who are enrolled in the Y. P. S. C. E. Nowhere else have we seen its great ideas and capabilities set forth so clearly, so fully and so power fully as in the speech of Rev. Dr. Barrows, of Chicago, at the great Y. P. S. C. E. Convention in New York. We gladly put upon [October, our pages as much of it as our necessary limitations of space permit. Our extracts are taken from the full report of The Mail And Express. LET IT BE A CHRISTIAN FAIR. I am confident that the Columbian Exposition is to provide more amply than any previous World's Fair for the higher things of the spirit. It will be an education to every thoughtful young man and woman to become a student at this World's University, and we should be diligently eager in preparing for it. The discovery of the new world was a chief event in the social and in the spiritual progress of humanity, and the pulpits and schools of America have an unequaled opportunity of showing the providential aspect of our history, of indicating what God has wrought through the four marvelous centuries since Columbus sighted the West Indian Island from the deck of the Spanish caravel. The exposition will not only furnish an unparalleled spectacle to the eye, it will also provide for the mind an unequaled feast. It is well known that a series of World Conventions, representing the chief departments of human knowledge and effort will be contemporaneous with the continuance of the Exposition. And the chief of all these, in the importance of the themes to be treated and of the interest involved and in the period of time allotted them, will be the Congresses of Religion, extending from the closing days of August through the entire month of September. Halls and churches that will accommodate 30,000 people will be found ready for this series of conventions. It is expected by many of us that Sunday will be made, in certain higher respects, the chief day of the fair from the very beginning. An association has been formed to provide for great meetings on every Lord's day, to be addressed by some of the leaders of mankind. Noble Christian music will add its attractions and its inspirations to that day which Emerson has called the "core of our civilization." The American churches and Sunday-schools, whose work constitutes the nobler part of our history, will be on exhibition before the |