(HEADINGTON)

PARISH MAGAZINE:

An Organ of Church Work & Local Intelligence.

I am permitted, through the goodness of God, once more at the beginning of a new year to greet you with a few words of good wishes for your health and happiness of body and soul. And as I do this I cannot help feeling how much more right I have now than in years before to address you as friends. I have now been living and working among you for nearly five years; and this is the fifth time that I have had the opportunity through the Magazine of giving you my New Year's greetings. I have now been with you long enough, I think I may say, thoroughly to have got to know you, and to appreciate the many acts of kindness, the sympathy and the help, which I have experienced from many of you. There is scarcely a person in the parish with whom at some time or other I have not entered into friendly converse; there is I believe not a house in the parish which

I have not entered as a pastor and, I trust, a friend. I have been here long enough to see many who were children at school when I first came growing up now into young men and women, and have had the opportunity of preparing nearly a hundred persons at different times for the sacred rite of Confirmation. I feel, then, more especially now that I may address you as my friends. But as I look back over the varied work of nearly five years among you, and look around upon the state of the parish now, thankful as I am for many encouragements, and many mercies to myself and you, I yet feel that there is much to be done and much to be wished for. 1 ask myself and I ask you what has been the result of my work amongst you. Outwardly, thank God, there are many improvements. We have now a beautiful Church, bright and hearty Services, weekly Communions, and well-ordered and efficient Schools. But is there entirely that spiritual and moral progress which we could all desire? Are our Services as well attended as we could wish? Are the communicants as earnest and regular as they might be, and examples of Christ-like life? Is there an increasing desire after godliness in the parish? Is there a greater hatred of sin, and greater love of what is good? Is the Holy Spirit's work manifest more amongst us? In asking these questions generally I would ask every one who reads these words to ask them particularly to himself or herself. Do you attend the worship of God in Church? If not, why not? If you do worship in God's House, do you try to worship the great Spirit as He only can be worshipped-in spirit and in truth? Are you a communicant? If not, again I ask, why not? If you are not fit to be a communicant you are not fit to die, and the entry of a new year reminds us that death is hastening on towards us. Or if you are communicants, why is it that so many of you are irregular, and need constant reminders often that you have not been of late? Do you read your Bibles at home? Are you men and women of prayer ? Have you accepted Christ's salvation for yourselves in its fulness and power? Is God the Holy Ghost dwelling in your hearts, transforming you day by day more into the likeness of Jesus? These are solemn questions for the beginning of a New Year, and I trust may lead you to make earnest resolves that if God spare you, this year, 1884, on which we are entering may find you each one growing in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Friends, I wish you a 'Happy New Year;' happy in freedom from sin, for 'sin brings sorrow.' God's desire is for the happiness of His children; and, as God's Minister in your midst, I earnestly wish it for you in the best

sense.

I am your sincere Friend and Pastor,

E. F. TYNDALE,

Missionary Work.

A meeting will be held at the 'British Workman' on Tuesday, January 8th, at 7.30 p.m., when Commander Ogle, R.N., who was till lately in command of the forces of the Sultan of Zanzibar, will relate his experiences of missionary life and work in Central Africa. The subject promises to be most interesting, and it is hoped that a large gathering of persons will come to hear an account of that missionary work in which one who was well known to us here (Herbert A. B. Wilson) last year laid down his life. A collection will be made in behalf of the mission after the meeting.

On Sunday, January 13th, Sermons will be preached and an Offertory made in behalf of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel by Rev. S. Coode Hore, Missionary from British Guiana.

Upon receipt of this magazine will all those persons in the parish who have missionary boxes kindly send them in to the Vicar, if they have not already done so, as the amounts have to be transmitted to the Society before January 15th. The amounts collected in each box will be published in the February magazine, and the boxes returned during the month.

Besides the current expenses, we have had the new room built by Miss Watson Taylor, costing £120; furnished by Mrs. Reid and Miss Nichol, £10; repairs, painting, and whitewashing, £35, by Miss Nichol; amounting altogether to £165.