to as suitable on which to visit every house in a given locality, in order to discover children not attending any juvenile society, and to obtain the influence and consent of the parents with a view to their attendance. On that day 12,000 houses were thus visited, and 4000 pledges were actually obtained, either from parents themselves or from children whose parents objected to their joining a society. The drink bills of Victoria and New South Wales, each with a population of little over one million, was 6,500,000l. each for 1892.

A Vigilance Association has been formed in Melbourne, composed of men and women "who have banded together to grapple with some of the deepest problems of our national social life." It seeks "to concert measures for the prevention of infanticide and for the repression of criminal vice and public immorality; to check the causes of vice; and to protect minors." The Association regards it as a central truth "that the moral law is the same for all men and for all women." It finds, however, a general lack of sympathy with the injured class (who are under sixteen), and a great unwillingness on the part of juries to convict, even for proved offences. The moral conscience of our people wants arousing, and though our laws are good, they avail nothing if young girls may be ruined with impunity "before they are old enough to know the sanctity of their bodies and the priceless value of their virtue." About four cases of infanticide, known to the police, occur in Melbourne every week, and forty or fifty unfortunate woman apply to the society in the same brief space for relief in trouble.

II. OUR EDUCATION, taken as a whole, is distinctly nonreligious. A system which in its cardinal features is "secular, compulsory, and free" prevails almost everywhere, except in New South Wales. The Victorian Act came into force on January 1, 1873, and has naturally borne fruit "after its kind." One person out of every 102 is now undergoing a prison sentence. In the year 1890-91 there were 1081 children arrested in Melbourne alone as "neglected, deserted, or criminal." Twelve millions of money have been spent on the Act, not only thus impoverishing the Treasury, but producing inadequate results. In 1891 there were in this one colony 33,000 persons above fifteen unable to read. Roman Catholics, who were specially in view in the Act, are forbidden by their priests to countenance state schools, and

are clamoring for a separate grant. The churches are permitted to give religious instruction on certain days, after school hours, when the children are weary. In populous places this is possible, but ministers of religion cannot teach the Word of God in the country with any regularity. We sow the wind and we shall reap the whirlwind. The churches have some power over those who are familiar with the letter of Scripture, but the gospel makes small headway where men's minds are trained to deal with worldly knowledge only, and where morality is not based upon religion. Energetic measures are being taken everywhere to have the Bible restored to have given to it some place of honor, if only as a book to be ignorant of which is to be unlearned.

Our universities are all secular; but in Victoria, at least, splendid grants of land have been made, contiguous to the University itself, for the erection of colleges, denominational and affiliated.

III. BENEVOLENCE is a marked feature in our colonists. They have received freely and they give freely. Charitable institutions such as hospitals, infirmaries, asylums for the aged, the blind, the deaf and dumb, convalescent homes, orphanages, refuges, reformatories, Royal Humane Societies, and St. John Ambulance Corps-are to be found on every hand. Appeals in the daily papers are readily responded to, and if a public calamity occurs, the sufferers are sure of the sympathy of a thousand outstretched hands.

IV. ECCLESIASTICALLY there is much in which to rejoice; there is much also to awaken grave solicitude. Worldliness is blighting professing Christians. The same people attend theatres, races, dances, and the Lord's Supper; and office-bearers are often chosen on the sole ground of influence, ability, or wealth. If I might venture to delineate the various sections of the visible Church the sketch would be somewhat as follows:

(1) Numerically.-Taking Victoria as a sample, the Church of England leads with 417,000, out of a total population of 1,140,000; Roman Catholics follow with 248,000; Presbyterians next, with 167,000; Wesleyans, 158,000; Baptists, 28,000; Independents, 22,000; Lutherans, 15,000; Salvation Army, 13,500 (this is the more remarkable, for they had no existence among us in 1881); unsectarian, 7000; Jews, 6000; avowed freethinkers, 5000; Unitarians, under 3000; Plymouth Brethren, about 1000.

Few write themselves down in the census as Spiritists, although Spiritism that latest of satanic developments-has a considerable following.

(2) Spiritually.-The Church of England can boast of a few thoroughly evangelical bishops, but she has also others, broad and high. She has light, learning, and eloquence. She employs laymen to a very large extent in her ministrations, and in church. councils nothing can be carried against their will. Hundreds of young souls are annually gathered into the fold of God during her season of preparation for confirmation; able and devoted men hold parochial missions every now and then, and although we have never had a great revival, we have certainly had times of refreshing. The most successful missions are often held in scattered places. There are ritualists and rationalists in every diocese, but they are not nearly so extreme as in Great Britain. I cannot speak of spirituality among Roman Catholics, for how can it flourish, except under the rarest conditions, in the great apostasy? And are not Roman Catholics rather Marians than Christians? And do not they need a mission altogether to themselves? Yet, inasmuch as Rome exercises such an enormous influence everywhere, both in church and state, her colonial offshoots are worth mentioning. They are the zealous advocates of a narrow but religious education, and they are spreading their seminaries throughout the continent. They undertake to instruct Protestant children for fees less than the ordinary grammar-school, promising non-interference in religion. We know how little that pledge avails, for it is not the dogmatic word, but the atmosphere, that tells. Rome has as yet won over very few converts, but her steadfast aim is supremacy. Her followers are rapidly filling available offices in the civil service, in public institutions, in the constabulary, in parliamentary, military, and municipal places. Unless we look to it, therefore, we shall find some extraordinary results in another generation. Her scholars of to-day will be a power to-morrow; they will not only be religious, but they will be religiously controversial; while our thousands of children will be exposed to their seductions, because ignorant of vital and fundamental facts.

Our Presbyterians are not, as elsewhere, a divided, but are a compact and solid body, worthy of their name and history. Some of their teachers may, indeed, be "Moderates," formalists,

or latitudinarians; but their public assemblies seldom give an uncertain sound when great questions are put to the vote, such as the divinity of Christ, the inspiration of Scripture, or the sanctity of the Lord's day. They have among them liberal and holy men, eloquent preachers, vigorous defenders of the faith; and they ally themselves very closely in love with evangelical brethren in other communions.

The Wesleyans command our admiration for their unity, push, and church energy. They have chapels and services everywhere. Their machinery is never out of order. They have great riches and a large following. They have few, if any, camp-meetings, and they do not inculcate sinless perfection. They stand almost alone in their grand Sunday-schools for adults, and there are, I think, hopeful signs that their weekly experience classes will be made to alternate with meetings for Bible study, so that they may neither be defective in true holiness nor behindhand in that extended knowledge of the Word of God which so characterizes believers of this present time. They have not forgotten their traditions, and though they have not yet, as a body, embraced the promise of the speedy advent of the Lord Jesus, the best among them love to exalt the Person and Work of God the Holy Ghost.

The Baptists are united as one man. Owing their existence to their views on a definite, tangible subject, and holding the doctrines of grace just as they are generally set forth in Protestant standards, they increase and multiply more in proportion than other denominations by adhesions from without. The preaching of their ministers to their own unbaptized is necessarily very pointed; they are mostly free from "down-grade " sentiments; and the genius and eloquence of Spurgeon are reproduced in some degree among not a few.

The Independents have nothing to say against an established church, for there is no establishment. In the sense of not receiving state aid we are all equally independent. They sided in the first instance with the government in the policy of excluding the Bible from the state school curriculum, but by ever-increasing minorities they have at last obtained a majority who are heart and soul with us in the fervent prayer that the Book of books may soon be brought back to its rightful place amid the acclamations of an intelligent people. The universal father

hood of God, that nonsense called the "Higher Criticism," and conditional immortality are taught in some leading pulpits, as may be said, indeed, of other churches; but, thank God, the Congregationalists have amongst them sterling ministers and devoted laymen; their churches are by no means concert-rooms; they have much corporate vitality, and they give with an open hand.

I may here add that the missionary spirit—that sure mark of a living church-is wanting in scarcely any of our religious brotherhoods. The Church of England has several associations in connection with the great Church Missionary Society. She has already sent several of her sons and daughters to the front, and she is training and sending more; she supports the Melanesian Mission with considerable sums of money, and keeps in perpetual freshness the laurels of her fame in connection with the evangelization and instruction of the natives of New Zealand.

You will glorify God with me that neither in Sydney nor in Melbourne has the Church of England forgotten the first business of any church whatsoever-a mission to the Jews. The Presbyterians carry on a blessed work in the New Hebrides, besides extending a helping hand to India and Korea. The Wesleyans have just cause for pride in the stability of their work among the Fiji Islanders, and many of their colonial ministers being retired missionaries from the South Seas, the flame of love for the heathen is kept brightly burning. Some of the Baptist churches are quite intense in their zeal, and send large reinforcements to Asia; while the Independents render substantial and intelligent aid to the operations of the London Society, especially in New Guinea and the Pacific Ocean. All these denominations, moreover, without exception, combine in supporting the China Inland Mission both with men, women, and means. They are also alive (though none of them sufficiently so) to the wonderful opportunity which God has given them in sending to their very doors 42,000 Chinese immigrants—an army of heathen sojourners fully intent upon returning home. We know that every Chinaman whom we trade with in the colonies goes back to his native land either the worse for his contact with European carnality or the better for his contact with the messengers of God. The same may be said of the hundreds of Kanakas who labor on the Queensland sugar plantations. There are some also