Religious and Missionary Intelligence. BY THE REV. E. BARRASS, D.D. WESLEYAN METHODIST. In Great Britain and Ireland there are nearly half a million Wesleyans, over 100,000 Primitive Methodists, nearly 75,000 members in the Methodist Free Church, and over 36,000 attached to the Methodist New Connexion, and on Good Friday a union meeting of the four Methodist bodies was held at Wakefield. A Wesleyan minister presided, a Methodist Free Church minister preached, after which the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper was administered. In the Fiji Islands, out of a population of 120,000, 105,000 attend Wesleyan places of worship. An English earl visited Fiji and said to a chief, "You are a great chief, and it is a pity that you have been so foolish as to listen to that story about Jesus Christ. No one nowadays would believe any more in that old Book which is called the Bible," etc. The old chief's eyes flashed, and he answered; "Do you see that great stone over there On that stone we smashed the heads of our victims to death. Do you see that native oven over yonder? In that oven we roasted the human bodies for our great feasts. Now, you! you! if it had not been for these good missionaries, for that old Book, and the great love of Jesus Christ, which has changed us from savages into God's children, you you! would never leave this spot. You have to thank God for the Gospel, as otherwise you would be killed and roasted in yonder oven, and we would feast on your body in no time." Thomas Mercer, a blind native preacher in Antigua, West Indies, has been conducting evangelistic services in that island. He can read the Bible with ease and efficiency by means of his fingers. Great in cational work of the Methodist Missions in Pekin, that it has promised to give positions upon the railways, or in telegraph offices, to all graduates, at a fair salary, with the added privilege of keeping the Sabbath. All graduates from the medical department will receive appointments in the army or navy. PRIMITIVE METHODIST. $250, The reported increase of members is 1,000. Nearly $150,000 has been secured for the Jubilee Fund. 000 is the amount expected. Several ministers are completing their term of service of four, five, and more years on the same circuit; one has been fourteen years on his present field of labour. BIBLE CHRISTIAN. Several Evangelistic services are reported. Hatherleigh and Caldicott have been graciously visited. Some of the roughest and worst characters have been completely transformed. Drink has been given up, pipes and cigars have been discarded, the public-houses are almost empty; the publicans are enraged, but the places of worship are crowded. niversary meeting was held and the receipts were increased five-fold more than last year. New churches have been erected in several places. An METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH SOUTH. This Church began work among the Indians as far back as 1863, and has expended upon them in all upward of $400,000. In the Indian Territory last year there were ninety missionaries and 12,000 members. In Mexico there are eighty native preachers and 5,000 members. An unusual occurrence recently took place at Piedmont, South Carolina. At the evening service conducted by the Rev. Geo. Boyd, three other ministers were on the platform, one being his father and the other two his brothers, a father and three sons all regularly ordained ministers. The father is eighty-eight years old, and has been presiding elder and has delivered one hundred sermons or more since he became an octogenarian. THE METHODIST CHURCH Victoria University has had about one-third more students than during the last year at Cobourg. There are 10 professors and lecturers in arts and 5 in theology. The students in arts number 152 and in theology 84. Since the first graduating class went out from Victoria, the graduates in arts have numbered 606; in science 9; in law, LL.B., 111, LL.D., 31; in medicine, 1,655; and in theology, 96. General Superintendent Carman continues as usual to be ubiquitous. He recently returned from Bermuda, and while we are preparing these notes he is in Toronto attending the Victoria Board of Regents meeting, and will leave immediately for Win nipeg, where he preaches on the Sabbath, and then goes to British Columbia Conference, and on his return will attend Manitoba Conference and thence go east to New Brunswick Conference. Truly he is in the Itinerancy. Rev. W. G. Griffin, D.D., the newly appointed Treasurer of the Superannuation Fund is doing good service and presenting the claims of the by preaching in different churches, superannuated to the people. The Empire, in giving a report of a sermon preached in New Richmond Church, said, "He met a good many of the stock arguments against the system and claimed that without the superannuation allowance the itinerant system would be impossible. A Methodist preacher had to go where he was sent and take what was given him, the contract or understanding being that he was to be provided for when he was worn out. If it were otherwise, then preachers would begin to ask about what they were to receive before accepting an appointment. Dr. Griffin pointed out that several of the preachers entitled to superannuation allowances had declined to accept them. He gave figures showing that Methodist preachers are liberal givers, also showing that if the amounts due as salary and unpaid during the last forty years were paid up there would be therefrom over half a million of dollars, which would almost make the church independent of the Superannuation Fund." The Methodist Social Union of Toronto made a new departure recently by holding a public meeting and discussing the question, "Workingmen and the Church." Rev. Dr. Sutherland and Mr. E. Gurney read brief papers, which were followed by several three-minute speeches, all of which were deeply interesting; The meeting was really unique, and many expressed a hope that others of a similar kind might be held in the near future. Rev. Dr. Carman presided with his usual ability. We are gratified to hear of revivals in several places. Scarcely had Bros. Crossley and Hunter opened their campaign at Berlin than we hear of showers of blessing descending upon the place. They have since engaged in revival work in Napanee. Rev. Messrs. Brooke, McGregor and Inwood, Keswick brethren, have held a convention in Toronto for the promotion of holiness. Hundreds, we believe, received the fulness of blessing. RECENT DEATHS. The Rev. James Donnelly, Secre tary of the Irish Methodist Conference, died March 30th, Portadown, He entered the ministry in 1853. In 1884 he was Vice-President, and during the last twelve years he was Secretary of Conference. He was one of the five ministers who were elected from the Irish Conference to the late Ecumenical Conference in Washington. The Rev. Thomas Perry Oliver, Bible Christian, died at Chatham, England, March 8th, in the 72nd year of his age. He entered the itinerant work in 1846 and laboured in several important circuits. For two years he was Secretary of Conference, and was President in 1868. The Rev. Francis Hunt, of Montreal Conference, commenced his ministry in the Methodist New Connexion in 1842; thirteen years afterwards he joined the Wesleyan Church, and with the exception of a few years, during which he retired, he laboured earnestly in the Province of Quebec until 1877, when he took a supernumerary relation and remained in retirement until April, when the Master called him home. was The Right Rev. John Horden, Bishop of Moosonee, died at his post, In 1852 he January, 1893. ordained at Moose Factory, and thus for more than forty years he laboured in comparative seclusion. He translated a large portion of the Bible and prayer-book into the Cree language. The remains of the martyred Bishop Hannington have been discovered at Usoga under an old ammunition box buried beneath a half-demolished hut. By permission of the chief they have been carried into the country which he twice tried to enter. They will be laid in the Cathedral Church of Uganda. Rev. Thomas White Ridley was a veteran minister of the Methodist New Connexion who died at GatesFor more head in November, 1892. than half a century he was a prominent minister and was often entrusted with important interests. His beloved wife was a niece of Rev. Alex. Kilham, the chief founder of the Connexion. She died five weeks A son of previous to her husband. this venerable couple, who was also a class-leader and local preacher, died three days before his honoured father. Rev. I. S. Bingham, D.D., of the M. E. Church, died at Herkomer, New York, April 21st. He had long been a leader of the Lord's hosts. ister, he became presiding elder and Besides being a circuit mineditor of the Northern Christian. Advocate. He was a member of several General Conferences, and for twelve years was one of the assistant secretaries and also secretary of the Book Committee. He was fraternal delegate to the last General Conference of the Methodist Church, but was not able to fill the appointment by reason of illness. Book Notices. The Lost Atlantis and other Ethno- This posthumous volume by the late President of the Toronto Uni- The first paper is that on "The It fabled to have been sunk beneath the Atlantic waves. Sir Daniel carefully examines the evidence upon the subject and concludes that if any Atlantis ever existed, it was probably the continent of America itself. is not impossible, he states, that Phoenician inscription or Assyrian gryffons or Tyrian shekels may still be discovered among the treasures of the Montezumas, but until such evidence is forthcoming, the legendary Atlantis must remain a myth. "The Vinland of the Northman " is the subject of another essay. Here we are on much more solid ground. While Sir Daniel makes short work of the Dighton Rock inscriptions and of the Legend of Norembega, he recognizes the historic value of the ⚫evidence of the early Norse occupation of Greenland and discusses fully their occupation of the mainland. A paper on The Trade and Commerce of the Stone Age' is of exceeding interest to us as Canadians, and shows the extensive travel and migration of pre-historic times. Öther articles, in which the ar chæological learning and research of Sir Daniel Wilson are shown, are those on "Pre-Ayran American man ;" and "The Esthetic Faculty in Aboriginal Races," as evinced in their pottery, carving, picture writing and even their language. "The Huron-Iroquois," with whom the into such frequent and deadly conflict, French and English settlers came are justly described as the typical and vigour and in truculent ferocity. Indian race, typical in bodily strength Other essays are of a more technical character, but all are of permanent value. scientific accuracy and the fine litThe volume is characterized by the erary form with which Sir Daniel invariably treated whatever subject on which he wrote. Of him as of Goldsmith it may be said, "Non tetigit quid non ornavit." On Sledge and Horseback to Outcast Siberian Lepers. By KATE MARSDEN. New York: Cassell Publishing Co. Toronto William Briggs. 8vo. Pp. 291. We published some time ago in this magazine Mr. Stead's graphic sketch of Miss Marsden's wonderful two thousand miles' ride across Siberia. We have here that lady's volume giving a detailed account of her philanthropic labours. She exhibits the characteristic energy of "A King's Daughter," of which order she is a member. She has been especially successful in awakening the interest of royal personages. Her book is dedicated, by special permission, to the Queen, who has taken "a deep interest in Miss Marsden's work among the lepers, and recommends her to the attention and consideration of any persons whose assistance she may have occasion to require in connection with her benevolent effort in the cause of humanity." The Empress of Russia has also lent her countenance to this work, on which Flo rence Nightingale invokes the divine children, to meet the ever-increasing blessing. demands of war." Few women have ever undertaken such a herculean task or carried it through with such success. The narrative is one of hairbreadth escapes, and of great periland privation. Through Miss Marsden's efforts several nurses have already devoted themselves to the loving care of the suffering lepers. On someone saying to them, "You must have a great deal of the enthusiasm of humanity to keep you in such a place as this,' "Enthusiasm of humanity," a nurse replied; "that motive would not keep us here a single day. The love of Christ constraineth us." This book has attracted great attention in Europe, and has had the honourable distinction of being prohibited in Austria and Germany on account of its vivid presentation of the horrors of war. It is the cry of a human heart wrung by the sevenfold sorrows inflicted by the dreadful war system of Europe. The book has been translated at the request of the International Committee of Arbitration by a member of that body. The translator well remarks that "Madame Suttner's vivid pages will enable those of us who have not seen any of the ravages of war, or felt the griefs and anxieties of noncombatants, to realize the state in which people live on the continent of Europe, under the grim 'shadow of the sword' with constantly increasing demands on the treasure accumulated by their labour, and on their still dearer treasure, their The story is that of an Austrian Countess whose young husband was summoned to the Italian war of 1859 and was slain at the battle of Solferino. The narrative gives from a personal point of view the military history of Europe from that period down to the siege of Paris, when her second husband was shot by the Communards. The Schleswig-Holstein war, the financial ruin which it brought to thousands, the fearful scenes of the Austro-Prussian war, the author's experience in a journey over the Bohemian battle-fields in search of her husband, after the battle of Königgratz, the story of the Franco-Prussian war, and the horrors of the siege of Paris and the Commune are vividly described. We do not wonder that the " war sketches of a soldier who abhors war" give a vivid picture of what few of us can realize. It is only by creating a wholesome moral sentiment in aly of the nineteenth century shall favour of peace that this great anom be abolished. The ministers of the Prince of Peace, poets and statesmen have too long thrown a glamour over the atrocities of war, but the democratization of society and the protest of the masses dragged from their homes, drilled in the art of butchery while women are left to till the field, and at last sent forth as sheep to the slaughter, will surely soon cause a moral revolution against this relic of barbarism. "The warrior's name shall be a name abhorred, And every nation that shall lift again Its hand against its brother, on its forehead Shall bear evermore the brand of Handbook of Literary Curiosities. By WILLIAM S. WALSH, author of "Faust, the Poem and the Legend," etc. Philadelphia: B. Lippincott Co. Toronto: William Briggs. 8vo. Half bound. Gilt top. Pp. 1,104. This large and closely printed book is a perfect mine of information upon |