The Passover

New York.

THE observance of Passover by the Jews of New York has a disturbing effect on in the municipal economy of the city. For some days it entirely disorganizes the street-cleaning department on the east side, where the poorer foreign Jews congregate in large numbers. The house-cleaning attendant on Passover brings with it so much extra work for the scavengers that, while it is in progress, they are compelled to work overtime. The district superintendents of street cleaning would rather, they assert, contend with two big snowstorms than face the work which Passover imposes upon them in the early days of spring. The thoroughness of the cleaning which then takes place in the apartments of the poorer Jews is remarkable. Every nook and corner is swept clean in order to ensure that no crumb of leavened bread remains in the house. Much of the household furniture is then renewed; and all the discarded furniture and househould utensils are, during the night, thrown from the fire-escape landings on the tenement buildings into the street. Mattresses and old sofas, beddings and cooking utensils, are hurled pell-mell into the streets to await the coming of the scavengers and the dustmen. Over three thousand mattresses, mostly stuffed with excelsior, were carried away by the street-cleaning department last Passover, and the quantity of rubbish from the Jewish working-class quarter was so large that extra barges had to be used to convey it out to sea. The city authorities, however, are patient with the Jews at these times. They respect the thorough house cleaning as part of the religious life of the Jewish people, and they allow them a latitude in throwing rubbish into the streets, which is special to Passover time, and never allowed to other inhabitants of the city. Passover involves heavy and disagreeable work to the street-cleaning department. When it is over, the sanitary authorities congratulate themselves that thousands of dark, dirty, and stuffy rooms in the crowded tenement buildings on the east side are the sweeter during the intensely hot months of the New York summer for the cleansing and garnishing that accompany the Passover feast. New York has a larger Jewish population than any city in the world; and nowhere are the Jewish festivals more generally and religiously observed than among the poor foreign-born Jews who live in the tenement blocks to the east of the Broadway. When the Feast of Tabernacles is observed, hundreds of little tabernacles are constructed on the flat roofs of these New York tenement houses.

railway companies haul the cars free of charge, and place them in convenient sidings when the missionaries are making stays of a few days in a settlement. The telegraph companies along the railways also give the missionaries free use of their wires for messages connected with their work. Each missionary carries with him Bibles in twelve languages, and a large stock of suitable publications for distribution. It is at places not large enough to maintain a church that the missionary makes his longest stops. No collections are made, as the missionaries receive all their support from the Publication Society. It is sometimes forgotten that both in the United States and in Canada there are scores of missionaries engaged in home mission work and among the Indians, who are as far removed from railways and from means of communication with the outside world as are many of the missionaries in Africa. This is particularly so in Canada. Many of the mission stations in the Far North West are six or seven hundred or a thousand miles from a railway. The missionaries have to reach the scene of their work partly on foot and partly in canoes. Travelling in canoes is oftentimes not much quicker than on foot, as there are frequent falls and rapids which involve the carrying of the canoes and their burdens for long distances overland. At these out-of-theway mission stations, the missionary and his wife are often the only resident white people. On going there they have to build their own homes. Their fare is rough and exceedingly limited as to variety. Letters and newspapers reach them with much less regularity than communications by post reach missionaries in such places as Madagascar; and the missionaries are as much cut off from their kindred and friends in the older and more settled parts of Canada as though they were at work on another continent.

Missionary Advance.

SCARCELY has the London Missionary Society completed its centenary work, when the Church Missionary Society begins to prepare for its centenary year by calls to go forward and proclaim the gospel to all peoples before the end of the present century. Its anniversary week brought together enthusiastic crowds, and the report presented was full of encouragements. The India and Ceylon missions have baptized during the year 2146 adult converts, the largest number on record, and the list includes some striking cases of conversion amongst Brahmans, Mohammedans, and Parsees. One other hopeful fact is the formation of a Parsee Christian Association at Bombay. In Western Asia difficulties showed no tendency to diminish. In Palestine there had been continual opposition, and in Persia much antagonism and no little peril. Africa presented many encouragements, especially the mission at Uganda. No less than 2921 adults were baptized there during the year, besides 600 children of Christian parents. The demand for the Scriptures is greater than ever, and 40,000 printed books were sold during the year. Disappointment was expressed that the too sanguine hopes of a few years back

that Japan was about to adopt Christianity as the national religion had not been fulfilled, and that progress latterly had been much slower than at that time. The outbreak in China had been a serious check to the work of the Society there, but in the Fuh-Kien Province 503 adult converts have been admitted by baptism to the Church. The deficiency of 17,000l. on the year is due not to failing funds but to the growth of expenditure which attends advancing operations.

The

The Baptist Missionary Society was among the first to report a year of signal blessing and success. The figures given show a large number of conversions, a considerable increase in the number of children attending day and Sunday schools, and the establishment of numerous societies of Christian Endeavour. New fields of work have been opened up in the "regions beyond,” and fields long occupied have been handed over to the care and support of the native Christian churches, the members having willingly undertaken this responsibility. native churches in this and many other ways exhibit a cheering growth, not only in spirituality and force, but in independence and aggressive activity. Everywhere the call-loud and urgent-is for larger reinforcements. There is scarcely a field where the converts are not multiplying and enquirers increasing. In some parts the people are breaking away in numbers from their debasing idolatries, and turning to the living God. In many directions the season of seed-sowing is ushering in the time of harvest, and "nothing seems in the way of a rapid conquest of the world for Christ but the coldness and indifference of many of the churches at home."

The Wesleyan Missionary Society in its report touches a point that has been often a subject of debate, the place of education in the evangelization of the world. It is stated that in the East a point has been reached when great toil is beginning to tell on a rapidly increasing scale. "The mission schools are turning out large numbers of youths on whom Christianity has made at least some impression, and many on whom it has made a saving impression. The families of the earlier converts are yielding a generation brought up within the Christian sphere, free from the moral and mental disadvantages of heathenism, and forming Christian communities from which both ministry and laity in the future will be largely recruited." The total income on current account is 123,7577.; the total expenditure is 124,7201. Practically the Society is once more out of debt.

THE place of literature is hardly less imMissionary portant than that of education in this great Literature. work of evangelisation. On many fields the number of those who can profit by tract or book is still relatively small; such interest in books as is shown in Uganda is the exception in heathen fields; and nearer home, as in Italy, there are large illiterate populations. But there are great countries like India and China, and numerous bodies of people nearer to us, as well as scattered communities in many parts of the world, that are as yet, though ready for it, scantily supplied with Christian literature. Speaking from experience of the work at home, the Rev. T. J. Waterman, of the Christian Evidence Society, says, "We are inclined to think that, in this reading age, the tract or booklet widely circulated is as valuable as the spoken address"; and happily there are yet other forms in which truth make its appeal. In

the report of the Religious Tract Society one of the most interesting things is the list of languages and dialects in which it has been enabled to present the message of salvation; these now number 215. The Society during the last year reports a total issue of 39,551,300 publications, counting the numbers of its magazines as separate. Of this the tracts have amounted to 18,192,150, while from foreign depôts and societies, aided more or less by this Society, the number may be set down as twenty millions. The number of new publications for the year reached 602, of which 165 were tracts. With regard to the work in Italy, one fact demands special record. "In former years," writes Mr. Jalla, the secretary, "the books published were mostly translations from the English, but lately, original writings have been encouraged, with a very cheering result. Out of fifty-five different publications printed in 1895, not less than twenty-four have been composed by Italian authors, while the number issued of these original copies amounted to 65,700. Some were inspired by the events of the day." It is felt that, not in Italy only, but throughout the whole foreign field, the aim should be to encourage the growth of a vernacular Christian literature. English modes of thought are in some respects strange to men of other races, and translations can seldom have the power of original works. Missionaries in India and China have long felt this need, and it is highly satisfactory to know that in an increasing measure it is being supplied.

the Board School.

FOR the past twenty years there has been The Bible in maintained in the London Board Schools a system of voluntary examination in Bible knowledge, prizes being awarded to successful competitors, chiefly copies of the Scriptures, with other volumes approved by the School Board; the whole being provided from a fund established by Mr. Francis Peek and the Religious Tract Society. The number of scholars and pupil-teachers who competed last year was 283,543, out of whom 9248 sat for a written examination, prizes being awarded to 1149, and certificates of merit to 2484. So successful has the plan been found that it has been imitated in other localities, as Plymouth, Bristol, and Hornsey, with results equally encouraging. The success of the scheme has induced Mr. Peek and the Religious Tract Society to propose its extension to other districts, and by their joint contribution, prizes will now be offered to Board Schools in different parts of England.

Jubilee.

THE jubilee of the public ministry of the Dr. Maclaren's Rev. Dr. ALEXANDER MACLAREN, of Manchester, was celebrated by a breakfast in London, at which somewhat more than four hundred ministers were present, the venerable Dr. Angus presiding. An address of congratulation was presented on behalf of the company, and signed with their names, by the Rev. Dr. S. G. Green, of the Religious Tract Society. Dr. Maclaren, in reply, said he had made it his rule to concentrate all his energies upon the one work of preaching. Especially had he tried to make his ministry a ministry of exposition of Scripture. He had preached the Christ of the Gospels, and also the Christ of the Epistles, for both were the same. He had endeavoured to preach Christ as if he believed in Him, and as if he lived by Him.

looked over her husband's shoulder, while together they read a letter which had come by the last post.

"Do? Why you must take her in, of course. She doesn't give you any option. 'I shall be with you in time for an early breakfast,' "" he read aloud. He glanced at the clock. "That means that she has started already. The train from the North gets into Euston about eight. There's nothing for it but to receive her with the best grace you can, Mary, unless you have the courage to turn her away, and tell her she must go to an hotel."

"You know it isn't that I'm not delighted to see her," she said, stooping to light the candles on her dressing-table, "I always do like having your people, Frank