an extremely valuable hint at the way religious work may be successfully sustained and vigorously pushed in the poorest neighborhoods.

The Mission Church of Britannia Row is nearly a mile and a half away from the parent church. It stands in a narrow lane off from a portion of a great North-London thoroughfare, to which its abandoned character has given the title "The Devil's Mile." The population thereabout is of the poorest class, -day-laborers, washwomen, and costermongers. The Mission has all the ap

pointments of a regular church. Its house of worship is large and comfortable. A regular pastor devotes his whole time and strength to its service. It has its own treasurer, deacons, and committees, and is in every respect like an ordinary church, except that it leans upon a stronger sister for support.

No church in such a community, with such a membership, could live a vigorously independent life, if it could live independently at all. There would be two great difficulties, and these the chief difficulties that disturb independent religious enterprises everywhere in poor neighborhoods: First, lack of money to support an efficient pastor, and to conduct the affairs of the church in a proper way; second, lack of workers competent to take helpful part in prayer-meetings, to organize and lead the various agencies that are needed to lift along the work, and to teach in the Sundayschool. In this case the difficulty is overcome by uniting the weak church with a strong one. The latter, out of its abundance, supplies the needs of the former, and both are benefited by the transaction, -one with the blessing of giving, the other with that of receiving. The Highbury Quadrant people pay the entire pastor's salary for their brethren at Britannia Row, and in hard times, when the weather is bitter and work short, so that many are in destitution, they come generously to their aid with gifts of food, clothing, and fuel. The stronger church sends also a corps of its very best workers to assist in the Sunday-school and prayermeetings, to lead mothers' meetings, and even to take the office of deacon in the church. It would be strange if this outlay of its strength in support of a feeble sister did not, as it does, react powerfully upon the sustaining church, giving it more means for home expenditure and more workers for home work. It would be strange if going down to play the part of brother and sister in deed and in truth, by working shoulder to shoulder with these sons of toil and daughters of sorrow, did not, as it does, give to the well-to-do people of the Quadrant Church such an under

standing of the needs of the poor, and such sympathy with their troubles, as no end of reading and speculation could afford. It would be strange if these gifts of money, of strength, and of fellowship did not soften the bitterness of the poor toward the rich, as indeed it does, convince them of the reality of Christian brotherhood, and open their hearts to all the uplifting influences of the Christian religion. Within the past ten years the neighborhood of Britannia Row has been surprisingly transformed. Neat and comfortable dwellings are rapidly taking the place of the wretched rookeries that once abounded in those parts. Where once the people were, almost without exception, ragged, drunken, and miserable, they now appear, in a great majority of cases, to be neatly clothed and comfortably situated. This remarkable change is doubtless chiefly due to the influence of the Mission Church.

The other mission connected with the Highbury Quadrant Church is smaller, and more of the usual type. The feature of it that appeared to the writer most interesting was a workingmen's club and benefit society, comprising seven hundred members, of which Dr. Bevan was president, for whose meetings the Mission buildings are used. A similar club meets also in the lecture-room of the main church. The church, with both of its missions, sustains a very great number of societies, clubs, classes, meetings, penny banks, unions, mothers' meetings, fathers' meetings, etc. The Church Report states that, "irrespective of meetings for worship, there are, in all, not less than 56 such institutions, all of which, with the exception of five, meet at least once a week; that honor the pastor with the title of president. The Sunday-school scholars in all these institutions number more than 1,300; the members of the various mothers' meetings, nearly 1,000. Their annual contributions for the purchase of coal and clothing exceed £600; penny banks have 926 depositors, and their total deposits last year amounted to £579. The various temperance organizations have a membership of 700; the mutual benefit societies, a membership of over 1,100, with an income for mutual help of more than £1,350. Once a week, during six months of the year, about 350 poor children receive a meat dinner, and 700 poor families, or 3,500 individuals, receive, on Christmas eve, sufficient material to provide substantial dinners for two days."

Not far away from the church are the stables of one of the great street-railway companies. In these buildings, and on the cars

that run out from them, are employed, day and night, seven days in the week, a large number of men, of a class as much neglected by teachers of religion as any in civilized countries. A missionary is employed for their special benefit, a man of their own rank, who before his conversion was well known to them as a famous quack, gamester, and drunken horse-doctor. He is now a thoroughly changed man, full of zeal, with a rough sort of power, and an ardent advocate of temperance. His history, experience, and natural gifts, sanctified by the grace of God, secure for him great influence over the men. He has won scores and hundreds of them to total abstinence, and many to the service of Christ.

It is estimated that through these various channels the church, whose membership is only 517, comes in contact with at least 10,000 lives.

The Tolmer's Square Congregational Church adapts its work to the needs of the poorer classes by a very interesting movement of a somewhat different character. This church stands in the northwest quarter of London, not far from the junction of Euston and Tottenham Court roads. The neighborhood is one which was long since abandoned by the wealthy, and from which well-to-do householders have gradually been moving away, leaving the better streets to business and boarding-houses, while the poorer ones swarm with an ever denser population of artisans and laborers. Few churches have been called upon to look more squarely in the face the sternest, most difficult problems of city evangelization. As an effort toward the solution of those problems, some ten years ago, under the pastorate of the Rev. Henry Simon, now of Westminster Chapel, there was projected by the church an institute for workingmen; that is, a place for the meetings and the headquarters of their friendly and temperance societies, and a place where they could always gather for a social evening. The Rev. Arthur Hall, of Bristol, brother of Dr. Newman Hall, succeeded Mr. Simon, and pushed forward with great energy the plans of his predecessor. During his pastorate that noble building was completed which bears the name of Tolmer Institute. At a distance of about three minutes' walk from the church it rises loftily in the midst of a multitude of small shops, gleaming gin-palaces, and dingy tenement-houses. Four shops occupy the ground floor, one of which is a temperance café belonging to the Institute. The rest of the building is occupied by rooms of various shapes and sizes carefully adapted to its needs. Among these are a gymnasium and three good-sized audience-rooms, the largest of which has seats for 800

people. The cost of the whole establishment, together with the land on which it stands, was not far from £14,000. Not more than five years have elapsed since its completion, and about three since the coming of the present pastor, the Rev. Frederic Hastings. Yet under his skillful management it has become a potent centre of Christian influence in that community, and its spacious accommodations are already taxed to their utmost capacity.

Among the various institutions for working-people that meet in this place, the following are noted: a Sunday-school, a Band of Hope, two lodges of Good Templars and one of Sons of Temperance, a woman's temperance society, a thrift society, three building societies, a mutual improvement society, a "help-myself" society, two Phoenix (that is, temperance friendly) societies, a penny bank, and a number of evening classes. There are also frequent "smoking concerts" for workingmen, and popular penny concerts, which draw audiences of seven or eight hundred every Saturday night, and pay their way handsomely. Here the pastor's wife holds mothers' meetings, where poor women gather weekly, bringing their babies and their sewing, to hear reading, music, and gentle words of encouragement and helpfulness. Here, too, are held frequent mission prayer-meetings. The best thing about it is that all these various institutions move on of themselves, and are not a great and crushing weight upon the shoulders of the pastor.

It is worthy of notice that the chief political power in that district, low and vicious as the neighborhood appears, is in the hands of no brewer nor liquor-dealer. The member of Parliament for the west division of St. Pancreas publicly acknowledged, at the last election, that he owed his seat to the personal influence of Mr. Hastings.

Before leaving this part of the subject the reader will be introduced to one other church, engaged in work of still another kind among the poor, work which, in its way, is as remarkable as any that the world has to show. This is the East London Tabernacle. Its pastor, Rev. Archibald G. Brown, is a Baptist of the broad English type. He is a man of rather striking appearance, somewhat above middle height, rather slender, with soldierly bearing and laic dress, is prematurely gray, with a fresh animated face, clear tenor voice, and eyes that are full of leadership. He is gifted with remarkable executive capacity, and is at the same time a ready and effective speaker, filled with a passionate love for

souls. His audiences perhaps surpass in size any to be seen in London, with the exception of Mr. Spurgeon's and those of the cathedrals. The church is a plain, square building, with scarcely the appearance of an ecclesiastical structure. It has seats for thirty-two hundred people, and remarkably good acoustic properties. It stands on Burdett Road, a few rods from Mile End Road, in the centre of East London. There is probably nowhere else in the world so extensive and so homogeneous a population of working-people as that in whose midst it is located. Many of these are exceedingly poor and degraded. Within five minutes' walk of the church in several directions, one may come upon the lowest types of human habitation. It was in this neighborhood, and by the assistance of Mr. Brown and his missionaries, that many of the investigations were made, the account of which, under the title "The Bitter Cry of Outcast London," so startled England and all the world four years ago.

A correspondent of "The Daily Telegraph" has written a graphic account of an interview with Mr. Brown and a visit to certain parts of his parish, from which we shall quote at length, in order to give a better conception of the nature of the work in which he is engaged :

66. If you want statistics of the one-room horror, you shall have them out of my very district,' said the minister, turning to a carefully prepared tabulated sheet, which comprised every house to which his missionaries had access. 'What do you say to this? Three hundred and forty rooms yield nearly two hundred and sixty families, or, in square figures, twelve hundred and forty-four human beings. Cast your eye, sir, over the list. No. -, Cable Street, there are six families in twelve rooms, and twenty-nine persons living in the twelve-roomed house. Next door there are twenty-eight human beings in the house, exactly the same size. Number, BB― Street, appears to head the list. No less than forty-seven human beings, the total of six families, are thrust every night into six rooms, and you shall presently see what rooms they are for which sums varying from 2s. 6d. to 3s. 6d. are charged, - rooms with ceilings breaking away from the rafters; smoky and grimy rooms; rooms where chimneys smoke and windows won't unfasten; rooms smothered in vermin, or overrun with mice; rooms approached by breakneck staircases as black as

1 This is chosen as an example of a style of Christian work such as that of Mr. Spurgeon, Dr. Bernardo, and others, in which the personality of the leader is a most important element.