saving health, and becomes a part of our vitality. Gold is outward wealth; iron is inward. The attraction of gold is partial; the magnetic attraction of the iron of sorrow that subdues and ennobles the soul is universal, and draws all hearts together the one touch of nature that makes the whole world kin. Not by a golden but by an iron chain are the members of humanity linked to each other; and just as in the world of art gold is sparingly employed and iron largely and constantly, so the characters that are most useful and that attract most attention everywhere are those which have been formed, not by the gold of success, but by the iron of trial; for

"Life is not as idle ore,

But iron dug from central gloom,
And heated hot with burning fears,
And dipped in baths of hissing tears,

And battered with the shocks of doom
To shape and use."

The men that have done the greatest things in
the world, and that have been themselves the
greatest characters, have been the men who were
laid in iron, and who have learned patience and
sweetness by the things which they suffered.
Pain is the deepest thing that we have in our
nature; and it brings out the noblest thing that
is in us.
Pale, etiolated, sickly is the man or
woman whose blood has lost its red particles
through a deficiency of iron. Weak and worthless
is the anæmic soul into which the iron of some
great trial or sorrow has not entered some time
or other. Paul lifting up his manacled hand
before the trembling, conscience-stricken Agrippa,
so weak, so wretched though a king, said, “I
would to God that thou wert altogether such as
I am except this chain." But he needed not to
have excepted the chain; for it would have been
better for Agrippa, brought up in sinful luxury
and ease, if a chain like that which bound the
Apostle had bound him too; for in that case his
nature might have been enlarged in distress, and
if a sadder he had been a wiser man.

More precious than gold is the sympathy of the soul into which the iron of adversity has entered. And the wonderful enlargement of human sympathy Joseph got by having his life narrowed within the straits of human suffering. God had set him free through imprisonment. The door of the prison-house was the door of a larger liberty. And so was it with St. Paul, who, when he received his call to be an apostle, was shown "how great things he must suffer for Christ's sake." At the close of life, he was immured in one of Rome's most terrible dungeons, aged, worn-out, forsaken by his friends. He was laid in iron, and the iron entered deeper into his soul than into that of any of the disciples; but what a strength, what a touching beauty did it give his character! The iron in his case had qualities superadded to it in the furnace which advanced it to the condition of steel, the most worthy and important of all the forms of iron. And not without cause is the man who has undergone this process called "true as steel;" for it gives him an elasticity of soul and a keenness of spiritual perception which pass sword-like

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through all the evils of the world. While he bore in his body the marks of the Lord Jesus, he bore in his soul still grander marks of Him. His fulness of trust in his Saviour, his gentleness and consideration for others, were most remarkable. And through his prison-bars he obtained a grander outlook into the eternal world. That fettered hand of his wielded a sceptre infinitely more powerful than that of the Roman Emperor; for it wrote in the gloom of the dungeon epistles whose mighty words have helped to build up a kingdom that has endured, while the empire of the Cæsars has vanished like a shadow.

Consider above all others the Captain of our salvation, who was made perfect through sufferings. He was laid in iron as never human being was. The iron entered deeper into His soul than into any human soul. He was the "man of sorrows," as if there were no other. He was alone in the awful supremacy of His woe, crowned with the crown of thorns as the Prince of sufferers. Was it not when nailed to the cross -when the iron pierced through and through both soul and body-that He poured out to man His tenderest words of love, and to God His mightiest cry of intercession? His cross became a throne, and the symbol of His weakness and degradation the mightiest power in the world-the glory before which all other glory pales.

The Gospel came to Europe, as it first came into the world, through the sufferings of the cross. It was in the inner prison of Philippi that it was first proclaimed. The feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace were made fast in the stocks; and the men sent to preach deliverance to the captives, themselves were bound. But from this imprisonment came forth the message of salvation which set all Europe free; which changed tyrants into constitutional kings, serfs into subjects, slaves into freedmen, and nobles into guardians of the poor. This is ever the Divine way. None can lift the iron load of others if the iron has not first entered into their own soul, and thus made them strong to bear and magnetic to feel the sufferings of humanity. Each human heart knows its own imprisonment. We may be shut out from the freedom and enjoyment of life by some hidden disease, some galling poverty, some bitter frustration of our hopes, some cruel wrong done to us when we had striven to be generous and to do the right-or by our own heart becoming the grave of a dead sorrow or of a living sorrow worse than death. But surely if we know that the iron enters our soul in order to give us a tender magnetism towards the kindred points of heaven and home; that we are thus laid in iron in order that we may be trained by all our defeats and failures for the task we have to do for God and for the world; we shall trust in the loving-kindness and tender mercy of Him who in all our afflictions is Himself afflicted, and who has given to us in that fact the assurance that we shall not be tried above what we are able to bear, but with every trial shall have the way of escape provided for us. The chain may indeed bind us for years, and may be taken off only when we have forgotten what it is to be free, and

feel like the poor prisoner who was so long in captivity that he preferred when released the prison, where he had become at home by habit, to the strange terrifying world upon which he was launched; but all the time if the chain has bound us closer to Christ, we have gained more than we have lost.

Every one has heard of the Iron Crown with which in ancient times the Lombard kings were crowned, and in later times the German emperors when they wished to manifest their claims as kings of Lombardy. Charlemagne was crowned with it eleven hundred years ago; and Napoleon Buonaparte put it upon his head when he conquered Italy. It is a golden crown, set with precious stones; but it derives its name from an iron circle fixed inside, concealed from view, which, according to the legend, was made out of a nail of Christ's cross. In connection with this crown, "the Order of the Iron Crown" was founded; and it now ranks amongst the noblest orders of the Austrian Empire.

Christian sufferers, you belong to the spiritual

order of the Iron Crown! You are not Com panions of the Thistle or the Bath or the Garter, but companions in the kingdom and patien of Jesus Christ. It is His cross that you carry It is His sufferings that you have the fellow. ship of. It is with His crown that you are crowned; a crown of gold that fadeth not awar but whose most precious part is the inner in circle that clasps your brow, made of the nails d His cross, showing that you have been crucifi with Him. For it is a faithful saying, "if we dead with Him, we shall live with Him; i we suffer, we shall reign with Him." Lister the song of triumph from one of the nobles knights of the Iron Crown, as he was chained in a Roman prison, "in the shadow of death, being bound in affliction and iron," his vision in the awful darkness piercing beyond the battle anl the struggling faith-"Henceforth there is h up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, shall give me on tha day; and not to me only, but unto all them als that love His appearing."

FOLLOW the example, and make use of the labours, of our German Brethren in the "Mission Zeitschrift," and chronicle the history of the successive mission-ships. No small interest attaches to them, for they have carried the good tidings, the merchandise of great price into many regions, and their weapons, though not carnal, have won great victories. Moreover, they have been the homes of good and holy men, both British and Native, who have devoted their lives and not been afraid to die for the great cause of the extension of their Master's kingdom.

A poetess has anticipated me in the description of this charming subject. I give Mrs. Hemans' beautiful lines, suggested by the sailing of one of the earlier vessels:

Oft shall the shadow of the palm-tree lie

O'er glassy bay, wherein thy sails are furled,
And its leaves whisper, as the winds sweep by,
Tales of the older world.

Oft shall the burning stars of southern skies
On the mid-ocean see thee charmed in sleep,
A lonely home for human thoughts, and ties,
Between the heavens and deep.

Blue seas, that roll on gorgeous coasts renowned,

By night shall sparkle, where thy prow makes way; Strange creatures of th' abyss, that none may sound, In thy broad wake shall play.

From hills unknown, in mingled joy and fear,

Free dusky tribes shall pour thy flag to mark;
Blessings go with thee on thy lone career!
Hush, and farewell, thou bark!

A long farewell! Thou wilt not bring us back All, whom thou bearest far from home and hearth; Many are thine, whose steps no more shall track Their own sweet native earth.

Among the first, though after the Morarios was the Duff, which in 1796 was chartered the London Missionary Society to convey t Gospel to the mysterious islands of the South Seas. The grandeur and novelty of the enter prise can scarcely now be appreciated. Its characteristic of that age, that the Duff chartered to call at a South American port to take up supplies of good wine for the use of th missionaries; what would the present gener tion say to that? The Duff returned safely England, but on its second voyage it w captured by the French cruisers, and the sionaries were confined in a French prison, a the good ship disappears.

In 1821, the great missionary hero, Jo Williams, purchased at Sydney a ship w he named the Endeavour, with a view of ev gelising and creating a legitimate commerc the Harvey Islands. He was ordered by th Home Committee to sell the ship. John Willia then undertook, though ignorant of shipbuilding to build himself a ship, which he named t Messenger of Peace, which for many years good service. In 1838, on his return to England by his own personal exertions he got toget enough money to purchase a larger vessel, the Camden, on board which he safely returned to the

did hi

field of his labour, and which he left only to

nurdered and devoured at Eromanga in the New Hebrides, in 1839. The Camden, till 1843, did good service in carrying the Gospel from island to sland. In 1844 it was replaced by a larger and nore convenient vessel, John Williams I., which ailed yearly backwards and forwards from England to the South Seas, until, in 1864, it was wrecked on Danger Island. The new ship, John Williams II., suffered the same fate in 1867 at Savage Island. John Williams III. then took its place, no longer to proceed to England, but destined to keep up the communication among the islands, and supplied with auxiliary steampower. It is notable that the connected islands subscribed largely to the expenses of these last two ships, and, moreover, the mission-ship proved itself to be a necessity for carrying on the work of a mission spread over scores of islands scattered over a large area. On the side of the vessel is inscribed in gold letters on a blue ground, Peace on Earth and Good-will towards Men.

The London Missionary Society had another steamer in the Torres Straits, the Ellengowan I., the generous gift of Miss Baxter, for the service of the New Guinea Mission. In 1881 the same lady presented a two-masted steamer, Ellengowan II. The work of evangelisation would be impossible without the assistance and the additional help of smaller craft, given by kind friends for the same purpose.

When Marsden had prevailed upon the Church Missionary Society to send a mission to New Zealand in 1817, he purchased at his own expense a brig, the Active, to despatch the missionaries, and he followed them himself. This ship was of a great use, and made the missionaries independent of the precarious and uncertain accommodation afforded by merchant vessels and whalers. The necessity has long since passed away.

At their Jubilee in 1838, a subscription was collected by the Methodist Church to send out a vessel to the South Seas, and in 1839 the Triton accomplished the voyage. Since 1848, the good ship, the John Wesley I., has kept up the communication of the scattered Wesleyan Missions, assisted by smaller craft. In 1865 the John Wesley I was wrecked, and was replaced by a John Wesley II. (this also suffered so much that it had to be sold) and two smaller vessels, the Jubilee and John Hunt; and with the aid of cutters all the needs of the missionaries are supplied.

The American Mission Board of Boston, U.S., and its daughter, the Hawaii Missionary Society, kept up its intercourse with its mission in Mikronesia, in the Caroline, Marshall, and Gilbert Islands, by the aid of a small vessel, the Caroline, but this proving too small was replaced in 1851 by Morning Star I., which, with the aid of smaller craft, did good service till 1867, when, being no longer seaworthy, it was sold, and replaced by Morning Star II., which was wrecked in 1869. Its successor, Morning Star III., was also wrecked in 1884. The school-children in America and Asia Minor contributed so large a sum, that Morning Star IV. came into existence, a large three-masted vessel with steam auxiliary power, three times bigger than its predecessor, No. I.,

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twice as big as No. II. and No. III., a proof of the greatly increased work of the mission.

When Bishop Selwyn, of New Zealand, first conceived the idea of evangelising the New Hebrides in 1847, he purchased a small ship of twenty-two tons, the Undine, and in 1849 in this nut-shell the bold skipper-bishop navigated the sea with a crew of four men, and brought lads from the Loyalty Islands and New Caledonia to be educated in New Zealand. For his second trip he was supplied by the Church of Australia with a larger vessel of seventy tons, the Border Maid, and penetrated as far as the Solomon Islands. The returning lads were welcomed with joy, and the ship thus became a preacher of the Gospel. In 1856 a friend presented the mission with a larger schooner, Southern Cross I., which, in 1860, was wrecked. In 1863, Bishop Selwyn's successor, Bishop Patteson, was enabled by the help of generous friends to send out Southern Cross II., larger in size and with auxiliary steam-power. As this was barely sufficient for the wide-spread work of the Melanesian Mission, the gift of a small additional steamer by a lady was gladly welcomed.

The same necessities produced the same results for the United Presbyterian Missions of the Free Church of Scotland, Australia, and Canada in the New Hebrides. The little Columba was superseded in 1857 by the John Knox, which did not prove equal to the work, and gave way in 1864 to Day Spring I., a two-masted brigantine, but after having done excellent service it was wrecked in 1873. It was succeeded by Day Spring II., a three-masted vessel of 160 tons; after excellent service this is to be replaced by a large sailing vessel, with a steam launch for the discharge of the internal service of the mission stations.

In Sumatra the Rhine Mission supplied itself in 1882 with a small steamer, the Denninger, to communicate with its stations in the Island of Nias.

The Hermansburg Missionary Society launched the first German mission-ship, the Kandace, in 1853, to take the missionaries to the mission-field in South Africa. In 1874 it was declared to be no longer seaworthy, was got rid of, and the place not supplied, as it was found less expensive to send out missionaries by the numerous commercial steamers.

The Norwegian Missionaries launched a mission-ship, named Elieser, in 1865, a three-masted sailing vessel, which conveyed their agents to the coast of Zululand and Madagascar. After twenty years' good and profitable service it gave way to a new sailing vessel, named Paulus, and it appears to make money by trading, which is very objectionable.

The Swedish Missionary Association was not so fortunate with their ship Ausgarius, named after a Swedish Apostle. It was built in 1873, a sailing vessel with auxiliary steam-power. It went to Massava in the Red Sea, and made expeditions along the coast of South Africa: soon after it was recalled to Gothenburg, and, after a very short service, sold in 1879, for it was obvious that the commercial steamers could convey missionaries at much less cost.

On the River Zambési Livingstone first ap