as of those quoted by our Lord in the Old. It strikes us that this laborious concentration of the subject would separate into many excellent Bible lessons with our Mothers, especially with such as could find the chapters and verses in their own Bibles.

BIBLE-WOMEN IN MADAGASCAR.

OUR friend Mr. Pool writes:

I have pleasure in forwarding the enclosed details from our missionary friend Mrs. Montgomery, at Ambohipotsy :She says that Suenifara and Razafindriana, the two Bible-women supported by the "MISSING LINK" Fund, are still diligently and faithfully pursuing their good work.

"There was a slave woman whom we found sitting at the spring side with her child fastened to her shoulders, for the child was ill, lean, and wasted exceedingly. We said to her, 'What ails the child?' And she answered that she had taken it everywhere (in search of cure) and had spent all that she had on the doctors.

"We said to her, 'Do you pray?' And she answered that she had sometimes gone to the assembly in time past, but when the child became ill then she ceased going.

"Then said we to her, 'Who, think you, can heal your child but God only? yet you do not seek Him to help you, but wear out your life running hither and thither seeking for help from men.' Then we read some verses to her, and admonished her, saying, "If you will but really trust in Jesus Christ, the Son of God, then your child will yet be healed.' Then, said she, "Thank God for these words, for wicked indeed has been my course of life; and for the future then the Son of God shall be leaned on by me, for it is only He who gives and He who takes away.'

"And the woman did so, according as she had promised, and became most regular in her attendance at public worship, and her child became well until now.

6

"We said to her after that, Are you progressing in making friends with God? exhorting her from the words, 'Awake

thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light.' And she answered us, 'Yes, that is what I am seeking for above all things, for Christ it was that healed my child.' And just now she has come forward to be baptized, and her child also is well.

"And there were also a man and his wife, who were well to do in the world, and at the time when the people began to pray these were not willing to pray. We said to them, 'Do you then care nothing that the Queen has become Christian, with all her subjects, yet you stand off? And do you not fear God who gives you your riches? Therefore do not thus, but begin now to worship Him.'

"Then they professed that they would; but they had no love for the praying, but only shame concerning it. Afterwards they left their house in the city, and put some of their slaves in charge of it, leaving a little money with them and saying, 'If there should be any church business to be done, then give to these two women this money; and if they inquire about us, then say that the children are ill and that we have taken them away for change of air.' But nevertheless they took the inpisikidy (diviner of events) along with them whither they

went.

"After they had thus gone away one of their children that had been ill became a leper, and the family were afraid to eat the rice that they themselves had planted, and they exchanged it, for they said, 'We have been bewitched by someone.' Soon after this they lost a daughter by death, but again they sought to divinations concerning their children. So we went to them and admonished them, and read to them in Luke xii, and we said, 'There is no place where death comes not, so why do you wander foolishly about, and why do you not come to trust and rest in Jesus Christ?' Then said they, That is true, and we will return home now, but we will carry this baby about a little while, and then we will return'; for they were bidden by the diviner to continue wandering from place to place, saying, 'If you take it home then,-dead is it?' said he. And so they bought a house in another village, and when they had stayed there a little

while the child died; and after a few months their little boy was bitten by a mad dog and died; and the husband, too, became ill, and he sent for us, and when we came to him, then he wept, and took hold of our hands, and said, 'Surely hath been accomplished in me that word which you read to us, saying, "That there is nothing covered that shall not be manifest, nor hid that shall not be seen." And I suppose that God will not listen to us now, but nevertheless entreat Him for us.' Then we read to him the word in Isaiah i. 18, 20: 'Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord: though your sins be like scarlet they shall be made white as snow,' &c. Then said we to him, 'Go back to your former house, for God is very merciful; and repent, therefore, of the sins that you have done.' And thereupon they returned to their former dwelling-place; and they begged forgiveness from the Church, and entreated to be baptized; and they continue to advance now in the praying, but the man is ill with ulcers still. Alas! for the trouble that befel these unhappy ones, before they would yield themselves to the Lord.

66

Again: this is another portion of our business. There was a certain impure woman, whom we saw sometimes on our journeys, and she would not be admonished, but continued in her wickedness. And we were not able even to converse with her, for she reviled us when we spoke to her, and said to us, ' Where is the God whom you have seen, and keep deafening me about?' And thus she fled from us always.

6

"So lately we hired her to weave a cloth for us, for we did not see how else we could get to converse with her, for she always fled. And when she came to us then we did not address her, but we read aloud in her hearing, and such words as Eccles. xi. 9; xii. i.: Rejoice, O young one, whilst yet thou art young, and let thy heart make thee glad in the days of thy youth,' &c. Such as these were the words that we read aloud to her, and after a while she sighed, and said 'Heigh! will God bring us to judgment after death?' swered her, 'Is it not that which we have been warning you about, for this life does not last?' Then we read to her that

And we an

word in Rev. xxii. 14, 15: 'Blessed are they that keep His commandments. . . . For without are dogs, and sorcerers, and whoremongers,' &c. Then she said, 'Alas! for I am ready to perish then-for I have done wickedness greedily. It is good that you have employed me to work for you, so that I have heard the true words of God!'

"Then we said to her, 'How now is your heart?' And she said, 'My heart trembles and shakes when I listen to these words.' Then we read again to her, 'Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved' (Acts xvi. 31). And from that hour she stopped her evil courses, for, said she, 'I have done with these things! And she is diligent in learning continually, and has been baptized now, and still goes forward hopefully. "RAFURA and RAZAFINDRIANA.'

DID PETER DIE IN ROME?

The following has been sent us from a friend in Germany. translated from a German religious paper :

"Count L. A. Millin, President of the Imperial Consistory at Riga, states that he received the following remarkable information from a French officer, Col. Tournouvilliers, in the year 1814, which was published in a literary magazine, edited by Wolfgang Menzel, of Stuttgart, some twenty years ago, and it was brought to the recollection of a gentleman at the time of the disputation about St. Peter having resided and died at Rome "In February or March of the year 1799, some of the learned members of the Egyptian Institute' who accompanied General Bonaparte to Syria, discovered in the neighbourhood of Joppa, or Jaffa, a tombstone, most likely laid bare by casting up embankments. It was from five to six feet in length, one to two feet in thickness, with an inscription in Hebrew characters. SIMON CEPHAS, THE DISCIPLE (SCHOLAR) OF JESUS,

RESTS HERE.

"When this important discovery was communicated to General Bonaparte, he gave the strictest orders not to publish it, and at once ordered the Stone to be demolished. This calculating and imperious man thought perchance, even then, of the time when he would need the assistance of the Roman See, and therefore abstained from provoking it."

N.B.-The foregoing may or may not be worthy of credit, but there have been true discoveries of Stones as old, and older, of late years. The Rosetta stone, and Alphabet of Egypt, was in the same Expedition excavated by a French officer of engineers, and concerned the coronation of a king nearly 200 B.C.

66

THE "WAY OF THE SPIES."

We read in the Book of Numbers that after the King of Edom had refused a passage to the Israelites through his territory, they pursued their journey by a route known as the way of the spies." This locality has now been identified, according to a communication made by Canon Tristram in a paper read before the late Church Congress. "The discovery by Mr. Holland only this year of a labyrinth of valleys, slopes, roads, and hilly country in the north of the desert of Tih, in the region just south of Ain Gades, recognised as Kadesh Barnea, solves," says the learned Canon, "the difficulties connected with the protracted sojourn of a vast host for many years in this region. Proceeding northward through Jebel Mugrah, Mr. Holland found what seems to have afforded the road known as the way of the spies,' a wide region full of traces of ancient habitations and cultivation. West of this region he has traced an easy, direct, and well-watered route to Egypt, with wells and ancient ruins, proving that it was a road much used in very early times, while large tracts of land are still cultivated.”

FOR LONDON BIBLE AND DOMESTIC FEMALE MISSIONS. Money received between Sept. 10th and Oct. 15th, 1878.