IN MEMORIAM: JOSEPH JARROM.

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no one of whom this may be more truly said. He grew in grace. latterly more than ever cultivated personal piety. For several years he considered himself in a precarious state. He had frequent and alarming warnings that he must shortly "put off his tabernacle." And he "set his house in order" in more senses than one. Those who knew him best can bear witness to his mellowing and ripening for a higher and holier sphere. With advancing time he bore more copiously and beautifully "the fruits of righteousness." He came to the grave "like as a shock of corn cometh in his season.'

Rev. W. Bailey, now of Buxton, who knew him long and intimately, writes, "His affliction confined him for long periods to his room; but time did not hang heavily upon him, for he was a constant reader, and few men were more conversant with current events than he. One of the last books he read was Spurgeon's 'Treasury of David;' and the rich Puritanic lore these volumes contain was a real pleasure to him. He was never tired of the Bible; it was to him the book of books, ever wondrous, ever new; and like Israel in the wilderness, he gathered a fresh supply every day. Mr. Jarrom was the worthy son of a worthy sire. He was not only by association, but by conviction, a Baptist, and a General Baptist. The institutions of the denomination were all dear to him. His memory will, however, be most cherished by those who knew him in his later life as a deacon of the church at Friar Lane. Happy the deacons who had such a coadjutor, and the minister such a helper and friend! His devotion to the sanctuary, its finance, worship, ordinances, service, and praise, can never be forgotten by the present generation. It was my privilege to see our departed brother many times during his last days on earth. I found him no stranger to communion with God. There was no need to ask him whether his hope was steadfast, for his calmness and self-possession showed this every hour. He had 'set his house in order,' and, like Christian, was waiting for the post to summon him to stand within the gates of immortality. In the third watch of the night the heavenly messenger arrived, and without fear or pang or pain, he left this house of clay for an inheritance incorruptible and divine.'

His death was rather sudden. All the spring he had been very unwell, suffering from his heart and chest, which were and had long been very much disordered, and which had made walking very difficult. On the 4th of last July he went to Buxton, a favourite place with him, where he had been in the habit for years past of spending a portion of the summer, and often with great benefit. But he was not to enjoy his residence there long this year. At one o'clock in the morning of Friday the 14th, he was suddenly seized with alarming pain in the chest, difficulty of breathing, and all the precursors apparently of approaching death. Under prompt medical treatment, however, he rallied, though the doctor said he was within ten minutes of his death, and that probably he could not survive a second such attack. In the course of a week he was able to walk gently to the Gardens, though very weak and feeble. On Lord's-day, the 23rd, he went to chapel in the morning, after the service walked to the Gardens, and then home to dinner. He was cheerful all day; at night retired to rest apparently better; but at two o'clock in the morning of Monday he was seized again as he had been on the 14th,

and though his medical attendant was at his bed side as soon as possible, he died in about an hour, conscious apparently, but speechless. His remains were interred in the family vault in the cemetery at Leicester on the following Thursday morning, in the midst of a large number of sorrowing friends, Mr. W. Bailey and Mr. Stubbins being the officiating ministers. On the next Lord's-day the last-named brother sought to improve the event from the words, "The spirits of just men made perfect."

Thus the cause at Friar Lane has been bereaved of a devoted and useful pastor, and one of its most prominent members and deacons—a period of less than three weeks intervening between the death of the one and the other. I am sure that the families of the deceased and the church bereaved will have the sympathy of the denomination. Such men are to the church to which they belong "the chariots of Israel and the horsemen thereof;" they are both its ornament and defence, and when removed they leave it partially shorn, for a time at least, of its beauty and strength. But the Saviour lives, and has as deep an interest as ever in the happiness of His people and the welfare of His cause. May He who "walks in the midst of the golden candlesticks" continue His gracious oversight of His churches, and make even these events contribute to their holiness and zeal, and to His own glory. Amen. WILLIAM JARROM.

CHRISTIAN WORK IN THE EAST END OF LONDON.

No. X.-The Home of Industry.

THE Home of Industry, Commercial Street, Spitalfields, has for its sign a Bee-Hive, and the Queen Bee is Miss Annie Macpherson. Under her able and active superintendence the place swarms with Christian agencies, and from morn to night is heard the busy hum of busy human bees. Here are held conferences of Christian workers from all parts of the world. On Sunday mornings in winter the city Arabs are called together for coffee, bread and treacle, and a Bible lesson. On winter evenings unemployed men are gathered for a cheap but wholesome supper, after which they have broken to them the bread of life. Besides these are out-door services; the visitation of lodging-houses, and meetings for the benefit of young women employed in the neighbouring factories. We do but mention these, omitting many more, and reserving two for special treatment; one this month and the other next. We call attention this month to the work of

MISS MACPHERSON AS AN EMIGRATIONIST.

She seeks to rescue ragged, homeless, uncared-for, and ill-cared-for children from their degraded condition, and to place them in homes where they will be fed, clothed, taught, and trained for adoption, or for farm or other service, across the Atlantic. When sufficiently trained she ships them to Canada, herself or some fellow-labourer always accompanying them. The work originated some eight years ago at a time

CHRISTIAN WORK IN THE EAST OF LONDON. 385

when the Spitalfields silk-weavers were reduced to great distress. Miss Macpherson saw their poor forlorn and starving children living "In dreary attics, in cellars damp,

Hiding through the wintry night,

Till they woke once more to life's weary tramp,

In the cheerless morning light."

And when she saw, her eye pitied, and her heart was stirred to do what she could to ameliorate their condition. The work thus begun is still carried on for the benefit of all kinds of street waifs. Sometimes the missionary attached to the Home will pick up a destitute one in the streets. Sometimes a policeman will direct a forlorn wanderer to the Refuge; and sometimes the young people, hearing in other ways of the Home, will come and make the plea, "Oh, could you help me to emigrate ?"

The first girl rescued by Miss Macpherson was the child of a man who had died suddenly of cholera. Her mother had tried to drown herself in a canal, but failing in that, she drowned her better nature in strong drink, and became a curse to her family. Another of the rescued ones was discovered without father or mother, selling lights in a gin shop for a man who had picked her up and was thus making a gain of her. The case of a boy is thus described, "S. W- mother dead, father left. Went out into the streets to sell cigar lights, and on his return found his father had forsaken him. Has lived three months in the streets, sleeping in holes and corners." This last is in all probability "an ower true tale," for only recently there has been placarded on the walls and hoardings of East London a list from the Whitechapel Union of twenty-one fathers and mothers who have deserted their families within the past few months; and doubtless every Union in London could tell a similar tale. Thus in a hundred different ways do cases present themselves day after day, and night after night.

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The time comes for one or two hundred to take ship. The hum of the Beehive waxes loud while each boy's bag is being packed. On the last night ladies, clergymen, merchants, with widowed mothers, and sometimes drunken fathers, step in to bid farewell to the young emigrants. Other farewells are waved at St. Pancras, Bedford, and Derby, and soon they reach the ship at Liverpool. The captain comes along and gives the boys a few hearty words of cheer. Then come remarks and questions: "Ain't he a nice un ?" "We likes him, miss. What is his work? Why has he them big buttons?" etc., etc. Acquaintance is then made with the various officers of the ship. One is found who had been led to serious thought by the consistent lives of two converted sailors. He had read one of their books, "Pike's Persuasives to Early Piety," and found it a stepping-stone to light and peace. The ship got out. Sea-sickness came and prostrated helpers and many of the children. Then Miss Macpherson had to go down into the steerage and enjoy the fun of washing the little folk and putting them to bed. Yes, fun, or at any rate something vastly better than the ennui induced by a life of inglorious ease. Miss Macpherson nobly asks, "What life of easy parlour-going, self-seeking, could compare with the opportunities given in this day's travel, with all its inconveniences?" By the good hand of God upon them the somewhat large family reach Quebec, and

away they go to one of the three distributing Homes which have been established respectively at Knowlton in the East, Galt in the West, and Belleville in the centre. At one or other of these homes the children are detained, and their training continued, till they can be placed in suitable families. The Canadian government shows its appreciation of the work by substantial help, and the Council of the county of Hastings pays the rent of the distributing Home in Belleville. Though two thousand children have already been sent out, such are the resources of that land of plenty, that still the cry is for more. The boys are placed, as far as possible, with godly people, and where strong drink is not used. When once placed they are not forgotten. On the contrary, one of the workers, Mr. Thom, devotes himself to visiting the boys in their various places, to see how they do, and, if necessary, to remove them to some other place. The interest taken in the boys is life-long.

Some of the boys knowing nothing but town life have made strange mistakes in farming. One boy didn't know the difference between a turnip and a carrot. He asked his master which were weeds and which were turnips. "He was shown the turnip plants, and was told that all which were not turnips he was to pull up. At the end of the turnips there was a bed of carrots, so the boy, literally obeying his orders, pulled the young carrots up also." Apart from trifling and amusing mistakes of this kind the boys get along remarkably well, especially when we consider their origin, and antecedents. Many of them are succeeding so well as to pay back what is called their passage money, and as much as five hundred dollars has been repaid in that way. takes £10 to provide outfit, passage money, etc., for one boy, and it costs four shillings a week to keep a child in the Training Home preparatory to emigration. Hitherto, in answer to believing prayer, the money has been forthcoming. God has put His seal on the work. In all the journeyings that have been made across the ocean, not one serious storm has been encountered, nor has a single package belonging to any of the numerous family ever been lost. Ninety-eight out of one hundred of all the two thousand who have been sent out are doing well, and the best of all is that large numbers of them have given their hearts to God. J. FLETCHER.

"WARRANTED ALL BRISTLES."

It

I SAW that over some bristles: so, thought I, might you label some men. Not women, of course. They are silk, velvet, floss-everything soft, sweet, and shining. Men abound in bristles. It is their nature. They glory in it. Look at that city prince. How his bristles do stand up. If you touch them you bleed, and serve you right, for why did you touch them? You send your card into his counting-house. He sees you; but the moment you sit down he says, "Have you come to ask for money ?" We had, you know. There was a certain widow in great distress, and we wanted a few pounds for her; but his manner was so fierce that we told him we didn't want money. It was a fib, you see; but we hope the Recording Angel did not put it down. "Well, then, what do you want?" We couldn't tell. So he rang his bell, and a clerk showed us out. Really I wonder whether such men ever go to church, and if they do, whether they ever go to heaven; and if they do, where do their bristles go to?

G. W. M'CREE.

A Chapter in the History of Cruelty.*

Is it not a distressing and painful fact that the Literature of Cruelty should fill so many shelves in the Library of the World? Does it not expose unimagined depths of depravity in our nature, that so many pages in the annals of the world's life are soaked with the dye of human blood; and that the avenues of the past ring with the agonizing shrieks and lamentations of men and women suffering from the fiendish barbarities of their fellows? I confess human history has, to me, no sadder side, human life no more revolting feature.

Get down two or three of the more familiar volumes. There is the well-thumbed Foxe's Book of Martyrs! One's blood is chilled as we read of pure and good men, and delicate but brave women, the victims of the torturing thumb-screw and the bone-wrenching rack, and a thousand other enormities inflicted in the name of religion by the so-called ministers of the pitiful and tender-hearted Christ. Next it, is the story of the Bartholomew Massacre, telling how in one fell night a nation is robbed of her best sons by the insatiable monster, and hundreds of families whelmed in incredible misery. On the next shelf you have the records of the Ten Persecutions, the Thirty Years' War, the Civil Wars, the Glencoe Massacre, the Coup d' Etat of the Second of December, the Butcheries of the Red Indians, the late atrocities in Jamaica, and so on ad infinitum and ad nauseam.

To these must be added the innumerable chapters in histories consecrated to the record of human progress or human decay. Three-fourths of their pages are stained with the same dye. They chronicle the march of civilization; but the road of this Conqueror is strewed with the cranched and bleached bones of the Destroyer. They report the origin and development of nationalities, the rise and fall of empires; but the pen is always dipped in blood. Exodus opens with the massacre of the Israelitish infants, and Matthew with the Bethlehem horrors. Macaulay describes the deeds of cruelty reduced to a science, exalted into a supreme source of pleasure, established by laws passed in the name of justice, and formed into one of the principal agencies and occupations of states; and the last numbers of the "Chronicles of Europe" issued by our daily press are filled, as we know, with the terrible horrors of Bulgaria.

In that Literature all nations find a place. No tribe or language is left out: no age, though graced with the culture of Athens, or girt with the strength of Rome, is unrepresented. Cruelty seems inseparable from the struggles and growth of human society. It thrives as well in Judæa as in Babylon, and battens itself into execrable proportions in France not less than in Africa. It appears at the dawning of the race, and stains the soil close to the gates of Eden with the blood of righteous Abel; it crops up at the dawning of Christianity, with the birth of the Prince of Gentleness, in the Bethlehem massacre; and it runs to-day like a deep and full river amongst the ruined villages and towns of unhappy Bulgaria. It crushed the Israelites 3,000 years ago, and a fortnight since, with a fiendish glare in its eye, it pitched an innocent babe into the fire, and then forced the agonized parents to eat the roasted

* Passages from a Sermon on Matthew ii. 16-18, preached Sept. 10, in Praed Street Chapel.