perish, but the Kingdom of God will endure for ever.' I then read the parable of the 'goodly pearls,' Matthew xiii. 45: 'The jewels you have received will make the body look beautiful, but the graces of the Holy Spirit will beautify the soul, and will last for ever.'

"This lady admitted the truth of what I had said, and after a short conversation I left her."

Dr. Thomson entreats the prayers of his friends for this interesting woman, of whom he says, "She is not far from the Kingdom of God."

THE MISSING LINK ON THE NEILGHERRIES. MARY WESLEY, one of our best reporters of Bible-work in India, and much employed in a city hospital, needed a change of scene and labour on account of health, and has sent us the following account of it :

"During the past six months my work has to a great extent been of a preparatory nature. I was placed in a new sphere, where I had to deal with persons of whose habits and customs I was ignorant, and it was necessary for me to become acquainted with them and win their confidence and good-will before I could hope to be of much use to them.

"In the way of visiting them at their own homes I have not much to speak of at present. But such as came to the hospital for medicine (and a great many do this) I have pointed to the Saviour of mankind with all sincerity and earnestness. Nor have I confined myself to mere talking and reading to them. I have endeavoured to reach their hearts by paying what attention and doing what little services I could for their bodies. As my son, a medical missionary, is frequently travelling about the surrounding coffee estates, I have found it necessary to learn the treatment of the simpler kinds of sickness, and it not unfrequently happens that I am called upon to treat them in his absence; and in this way I have made greater progress in gaining the confidence and regard of the people here (both men and women) than I could otherwise have hoped to do. Dressing a sore, making a poultice, or giving a little plaster

or liniment are excellent helps to speaking a few words on the great subject of salvation.

"In another way also have I been able to draw many women to our house, and this is by helping them to cut and stitch their jackets and their children's joobbees, which has been greatly appreciated. The maistries often come and beg us to stitch their half coats, and great is their satisfaction when they are finished. In this way my dear daughter-in-law Ruth is as a right hand to me, and her presence and ready help make the task light and easy. The women at Pillode were very much attached to us, and the men regarded us kindly. Often did my son and myself speak to the maistries about their souls, and we have reason to hope that the good seed will spring up and bring forth fruit. When we left the place for Runnymede, the women and men and children accompanied us for a mile with expressions of sorrow at our departure. 'Oh! Amma,' said they, with tears in their eyes, 'you used to give us medicine when the Azya was away,-who will give us medicine and stitch our clothes and read to us hereafter?' Some of them came with us to the end of the journey, and when about to return they requested us to give them a few tracts as a memento. Though we can't read,' they said, 'still we will keep them as memorials, and when we go to our country we will get them read to us by others.' We gladly gave them such tracts as 'The History of Joseph,' 'The History of Daniel,' 'The Prodigal Son,' 'The Debt Cancelled,' The Two Ways,' 'The Priest,'' History of Christ,' &c., all in Canarese, and we have reason to know they will be treasured, and may be conducive to the salvation of many.

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"I will conclude this imperfect report with the case of a young man who came to the hospital some time ago for medicine. He was suffering from an old-standing colic. My son was away, and I had to see him. After inquiring into the case, I noticed a choodoopoo (a pledge or token of a vow) on lis arm, and asked him what that was for?

"He told me, and I asked him, 'Has your god, ther, cred

you?"

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"No, Amma,' he replied, "I am suffering greatly. Give me something to heal me.'

"Well, I will give you something, but first take off that piece of cloth, as it has done you no good, and believe in our God, and see what He can do for you.'

"He at once cast away the symbol, and I gave him a mixture of chlorodyne and peppermint oil, and told him to go home and apply hot fomentations.

"When he presented himself the next day the poor fellow was not doubled up, but walked with an upright posture and an elastic step.

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"O, Amma,' he said, 'your God is the true God; tell me more about Him.'

"Gladly did I sit down and read to him about the Great Physician, and beseech him to give himself up to HIм, and be His disciple.

"That I shall do, Amma, you may depend upon it,' replied he enthusiastically. He continued coming to me often, and hearing more and more about the Lord Jesus Christ. Alas! in a month after this he fell a victim to cholera. I grieved for him, but I hope he is now before the great white throne. "MARY WESLEY, Bible-woman.

"Coonodd, Neilgherries."

ASSYRIA'S WITNESS TO THE WORD OF GOD. THE most remarkable "Missing Links" between the old world and the new restored to this age are the Tablets of ancient Nineveh. They have provided a vast platform of ancient surroundings on to which can pass, with full scenic effect, into their historic places, the chosen men of Israel, with whose divinely-sketched portraits believers in God's Book had for ages been familiar; the mists of nearly 4,000 years have vanished; and with the skilled reading of cylinder after cylinder, and tablet after tablet, which would have been of no value unless illuminated by a careful study of that old Book, the BIBLE, those "musty records of the Pentateuch," as well as those of Israel's Kings and Chronicles, have become instinct with fresh life, and there also throng on to the stage the warlike

figures of Israel's foes, Sargon and Sennacherib, Tiglat} Pileser, and Shalmaneser, whom we see in the mirror of thei daily lives.

But the story of Nineveh is an old story, and though God has very plainly caused it to be repeated to England in thes days, still comparatively few care for its colourless, unclassica! though priceless relics, and therefore, in reasoning with Sceptics we heard a late accredited defender of the faith, and his apologist a dignitary of the Church, admitting, alas,* that the grand colossal Pillar of fulfilled Prophecy "is less fitted than formerly to bear the weight put upon it, owing to the acumen of moderr critical research," and they, in defence of such "acumen," casi slight upon two of its Mosaic Foundation-stones (Levit. xxvi and Deut. xxviii), calling these chapters "rhetorical minatory, rather than predictive, and adding that modern critics assign to them a date subsequent to the deportation of ISRAEL."

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It is, therefore, with no small satisfaction that we observe in the Reports of the late Congress of the Established Church at Sheffield, that incidentally Dignitary answers Dignitary, and we are delighted to close the year with testimony from the mer best able to afford it, to the contrary of the above depressing admission.

We hasten to hear the combatants speak for themselves, according to a recent report in the Times newspaper, 5th Oct.

CANON RAWLINSON ON ASSYRIAN DISCOVERIES. Ar the late Church Congress, held at Sheffield, Canon Rawlinson said, that "To show the effect produced on the interpretation of Scripture by the recent Assyrian discoveries, he must go back some thirty years. At that time the system of interpretation almost universally prevalent in Germany and largely current in England, was the 'mythological.' The historical books of the Old Testament were regarded by the learned as a bundle of myths. It was held and taught that they contained, not nar

* See Preface to " Argument from Prophecy," also p. 191. By BROWNLOW MAITLAND. Christian Evidence Series. S.P.C.K. Society. 1877.

ratives of facts, but romantic tales, the invention of their several authors. The tales were divided into 'myths' and 'legends.' It was asserted that the Scriptural narrative was in many important points absolutely at variance with Profane history, and was consequently false; and also that the manners and customs of Foreign nations brought into contact with the Jews were greatly misrepresented. The supposed instances were— the pre-eminence of Babylon over Assyria in the early timesthe late appearance of Assyria as a conquering Power-the Cushite character of the early Babylonian monarchy-the implied subjection of the Medes to Assyria when Media was really independent—and the pure invention of certain monarchs, as Zerah, the Ethiopian-Sargon, King of Assyria-and Belshazzar, King of Babylon.

"Declared instances of error with respect to manners and customs were-Egypt, as described in the Pentateuch-Babylon, as set forth in the Book of Daniel-and Persia, as depicted in Esther. In these three cases the sacred writers had been taxed with extreme and extraordinary ignorance of the true habits of the countries, or with the strangest intentional misinterpretation of them."

In proof of the hold which this system of interpretation had taken upon Germany, Canon Rawlinson quoted passages from writers both of the Rationalistic and the Orthodox schools, viz., De Wette, Strauss, and Kiel. "It was," he said, "when things were in this state, when the mythical interpretation had triumphantly established its complete dominion over the Old Testament, and was beginning to attack the New, that by God's providence the series of Oriental discoveries commenced. Man was silenced by the 'Stones' being made to 'cry out.' The mounds of Mesopotamia gave up their treasures; the enigmas of the hieroglyphic, hieratic, and cuneiform character were penetrated; the language of ancient Egypt, Babylon, Assyria, Persia recovered; a contemporary literature was dug out of the earth; paintings and sculptures revealed the manners and customs of the people; and a light was thereby shed upon Ancient history such as it had never before received.

"Then a fresh comparison was made between the sacred nar