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cruel that Kitto was removed back to the workhouse. One very interesting entry in his diary shows how he spent 10d.:mince pie 0d., paper 3d., Books 2d. Gave halfpenny each to five little children 24d. Gave to B- B— 1d. Left, 1d.' Here we must leave Kitto for the present. He lived to be a great student of the Bible, and to serve his country in serving his God.

Surely such a life was a patient life. Through all his early hardships his poverty, his ill-usage, his losses-he passed successfully, because he remembered that his lot was according to the will of his heavenly Father. If in the same spirit we accept all that God sends us, no matter how hard it may be to bear, God will give us strength to triumph and at last take us to Himself.

J. M'M.

GLIMPSES OF THE NEW HEBRIDES.

ANIWA.

ANIWA is a very small island near

Tanna. It has only about 200 inhabitants, but its story is a very interesting one. Like Aneityum, it is now a Christian island. Samoan teachers carried the Gospel to Aniwa in 1840. Raratongan and Aneityumese teachers were afterwards placed on the island, but very few listened to their instructions. So strong a hold had heathenism on the people, that in July 1864, when Mr Copeland went ashore with an Aneityumese teacher and his wife who intended to remain on the island, the natives would not have them, and wished the teacher, who had been with them for a time, to leave. With a sad heart Mr Copeland returned to the ship, taking with him the teacher he had brought, and promising to come back in a month and remove the other teacher if he then wished to leave.

That was a month of deep anxiety to the missionaries, and they prayed earnestly that God would touch the hearts of these degraded people and incline them to receive the messengers of peace. They could not think of taking away their only

teacher, and thus abandoning the island to heathen darkness. And God heard their prayers.

When Mr Copeland landed on Aniwa at the appointed time, instead of wishing him to take away their teacher, the natives crowded round him, imploring him to bring the teacher whom they had a month before rejected. On hearing that Navalak, the teacher, had not come in the ship, two of the most influential natives said they wished to go to Aneityum, and look at Navalak, and speak to him, and bring him to their island.

at

Great was the surprise of those on board when Mr Copeland returned to the Dayspring,' bringing with him two Aniwans and an Erromangan. The Aniwans were amazed and delighted with what they saw, and the kindness they received both in the ship and Aneityum. The day after their arrival at Aneityum was Sabbath, and Mr Copeland preached from the words, 'Come over into Macedonia and help us;' telling the congregation that here were two men come from a heathen island to get some one to teach them, and asking who would go with them. Two Aneityumese offered themselves, one of whom accompanied the Aniwans to their home and the other was appointed to Tanna. The teacher was well received on Aniwa, and the two natives shewed their gratitude to Mr Copeland by hurrying to their plantations whenever they landed and coming back with their friends, bringing cocoa-nuts, bananas, and fowls, as a present for the very good canoe,' the 'Dayspring.'

6

The people were now anxious to get a missionary, and as Tanna, from which Mr Paton and Mr Matheson had been obliged to flee, was still shut against the Gospel, in 1866 Mr Paton was appointed to go to Aniwa.

He was able to speak to the people from the very first in Tannese, which more than two thirds of the inhabitants understood, and he soon acquired their own language, though he found it more difficult to learn than Tannese. The accounts received from him have been most cheering.

'I am glad to be able to inform you that though heathenism has had a desperate struggle with Christianity since we came to this island, yet the gospel has so far prevailed, that now the whole inhabitants are professing Christians, and so many have given up their idols that I have now a canoe, a box, and several bags filled with them. Truly the Lord has done great things for us, and, through us, among this benighted people. Little more than twelve months ago they were all, or nearly all, savage cannibals; now, our average attendance at church on Sabbath morning is over one hundred and thirty persons, and at the Wednesday afternoon prayer-meeting from seventy and upwards. I am sure you would be delighted to see one hundred and sixty of them stand up on Sabbath and devoutly pour out their hearts to God in praise; or one of their number earnestly pleading with God in prayer, or another addressing his people, pleading with all to hold fast to the word of Jehovah and to live accordingly.'

One circumstance which greatly aided the progress of the good work on Aniwa was Mr Paton's sinking a well. There was a great scarcity of fresh water on the island, and when Mr Paton purposed to dig a well, the natives would not believe that there could be water under ground and under coral rocks, and only a very few of them could be persuaded to help him. All the others laughed, saying, "Missi, what is the use of helping? There can be no water there.' Even the few who did help at first, were afraid to go into the well when it was a few feet deep; and so Mr Paton had to dig and cut through the coral rocks with his own hand, and then build it all from bottom to top with great blocks of coral. The well was nearly twenty-six feet deep, and the water was excellent. When the first bucket was brought up the natives examined the water and tasted it. Then, taking each other by the hand, they ventured one after another so near as to be able to look down to the

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bottom, where they saw a beautiful spring of fresh water rising from the coral below. Their surprise and delight were so great that nearly the whole of the inhabitants came to see the wonder.

One chief cried out, 'We all thought and said that there could be no fresh water here, and we thought Missi mad for trying to sink it; but he told us there was water. Now we see the water, and believe his word. He spoke the truth, and we could not help laughing at him. This is a proof to us that, though we cannot understand all he tells us about Jehovah, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit, yet if we could see it all and taste it like the water, we would find it all to be as true. After this we must all believe all he says, though we cannot understand it all. Missi truly speaks the truth.'

Mr Paton felt amply rewarded for all his toil when he saw that the well he had made had not only supplied the natives with abundance of fresh water, but had made them more willing to listen to him when he spoke of the living water of which whosoever drinketh shall never thirst, but it shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life.

M. T. S.

THE ISLES SHALL WAIT UPON ME, AND ON MINE ARM SHALL THEY TRUST.

PRIZE BIBLE QUESTIONS.

THREE Prizes are offered for the largest number of correct answers to the Questions during 1880. The Competition is limited to those under 14 years of age. The answers to be sent to the REV. JOHN KAY, 2 Cumin Place, Grange, Edinburgh, by the 25th of each month.

31 What sin committed, on one occasion, by servants of God, is mentioned eight times?

32 When did a heathen reprove a servant of God for neglecting to pray in a time of trouble?

33 When did a heathen nation imagine that their gods had delivered a servant of the true God into their hands?

Words by

EDWIN BOWDEN.

KEY E.

Music by

W. M. M'LELLAND,

m.,f: m.,f m

d.,r:rd

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A STITCH IN TIME.

HAVE you ever noticed how a small

rent in a dress, just a little hole which you think you may mend at any time, widens and lengthens till it is quite a serious matter to fill it up? How many more stitches do you think would be needed a couple of days after some skirt has been torn, than would have been wanted at first? I am sure I cannot tell the proverb says, "One stitch in time saves nine, but I rather think ninety would be more correct. At all events, Sarah Jones did not wish to run the risk of a long seam, instead of a short one, when her sister Annie's frock required mending. Annie had not so many dresses as some of my young friends have, so there was the more need to make them last as long as possible. Sarah knew very well that every one of them cost her worthy father a good deal; wages were low, and there were many coats and frocks to be bought for the children in her cottage home. Sarah was not the eldest of the family; there were two big brothers' older than she was, and there were five 'little ones,' boys and girls, a good deal younger. But then, boys could not sew, Sarah thought, however old they were, and her sisters were too young to expect any thing of them.

Mrs. Jones very seldom had a holiday, but it so happened that she had been invited to visit an old friend not many miles off. There was a cheap excursion train in that direction, and Sarah joined her father in begging her mother to go.

'Sarah will make a splendid little house keeper,' Robert Jones had said, ‘and she'll have the house all right when you come home.'

Although Sarah was glad to think of her mother having a few days pleasure (the return ticket was from Friday till Monday), she could not help feeling a little anxious in having the charge of the household, but she promised to do her very best. It was all settled at length, and with a small bundle and a little packet of sweetmeats for the children at her friend's house, Mrs. Jones set out.

was

When Saturday morning came, Sarah set herself with all her might to do what she could of the usual work of the day. The dresser and chairs were scrubbed and scoured, the little kitchen range blackened and brightened in a wonderful manner, and the boards of the wooden floor, though they did not look so pure as under her mother's hands, showed the young worker had worked with a will. Fortunately there was some chance of their being kept clean, at least till evening, for Robert Jones had gone to spend the afternoon with a fellow workman, the children were away on a bramble expedition, and Sarah earnestly hoped might not make their appearance for a while.

Bessie Smith, a slatternly girl who had a sick mother, whom she ought to have been helping to finish up the week's work, had looked in for a moment, and begged Sarah to come out for a walk. 'I would not be tied like that,' said she, 'on a lovely day like this, and your mother out of the way, too.' But little did Bessie know of the pleasure of doing what is right, rather than what is pleasant. Sarah knew better. She resisted all entreaties to leave her post, and was glad when Bessie departed.

Tired as Sarah was, she knew there was little Annie's dress, which, if not mended now, would be sure to need a great deal more mending by and bye. She had heard her mother say, as Annie took it off last Sunday, 'That frock is wearing out fast, but I daresay it will stand a patch yet if I only had time to do it.' 'Now,' said Sarah to herself, ‘I'll do it, and mother will be so glad when she sees it done.'

Let not my young readers think that this was a dull way of spending a holiday. An old English poet has said,

'Who sweeps a room, as for God's law,
Makes that and the action fine.'

What we do is great and noble, according to the spirit, and motive as it is called, with which it is done. A desire to please father and mother, and better still, the God of love who gives us parents, home, and every blessing, is the highest motive of all,