Ragged-school? I was there a few days ago, and my heart was warmed and my sympathies drawn out by the poor ragged little children-one hundred and forty of them in the infant school, not one comfortably dressed among them. They did not know me, but they smiled and clapped their hands, for they look upon all visitors as dear friends.

"What can these little people do?" I asked. "We can sing, we can sing," shouted many voices. And when asked for their favourite hymn, they said,

"My Jesus, I love Thee."

I turned to a little curly-headed girl, and asked, "Do you love Jesus?? "Yes," she said. "Why?" "I don't know," she answered. A little crowd had gathered around, and a little palefaced boy amongst them put up his hand as a request to be allowed to speak. "I love Him," he said.

"Why?" "Because He loved me first," he said. Ah, yes! Jesus loves the poor ragged little ones, though His people take so little notice of them. Ministering angels love them, for many of them are heirs of salvation; and I am very sure if Christian people would visit the schools, and see the ragged children, they would learn to love them too, and they would make up old clothes into small garments for them, and they would try to collect a little, if only thirty shillings a year, which would give a daily breakfast to one little hungry child.

The good missionary who lives at the Coombe wrote me a little note last Saturday. He says

"Could you do anything to help us? You know how many, many poor children we have. When I go into the schools, and see the little eagerlooking faces, I can scarcely meet the

appealing looks, knowing, as I do, the circumstances of each poor home; remembering that in some there is a dying parent, in several no food or firing, and in almost all a sad lack of many things which our English friends could scarcely imagine people living without. One of our dear little children said to me to-day, 'We shall not have anything to eat any more now till father gets work.' I said, 'Will you have no dinner nor supper?' 'No, sir,' replied the child; Mother says we must do with the breakfast we get here.'

"In the evening I went up to their house, and found the mother putting the little things to bed. The room was beautifully clean, for, though so hungry and poor, the mother and children knew whom to trust; and they did not sit down in despair and misery. I sat down with the mother, and she told me of her

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children's trust in God. As she was getting them to bed one said, 'Mother, when shall we get anything to eat?' And the mother answered, 'Go to sleep now, in the morning God will give you something in the school.' Another little one said, 'But, mother, why would not He give it us in the evening as well as in the morning?' 'Because,' said she, when all the children and their teachers meet together they pray to Him.' The little ones were comforted, and one said, 'Well, mother, cover us up now, that we may go to sleep; and we shall not have to go to bed any more without supper, for to-morrow we will pray to Him for that, and He will send us dinner and supper as well as breakfast.'

"Oh, do try and get us some help if you can. Your English friends have often befriended us; perhaps they would again if they knew our need."