tions had been given to our representative to support the proposal of the Italian Government, which would have his warm support, as he felt the importance of protecting native races from the injurious and fatal effects of the traffic in alcohol.

The Bishop of Manchester has a very serious difficulty, and he is at a loss, so he says, to know how to deal with it. One of the clergy has been writing his lordship that some of his parishioners refuse to take any other than "unfermented wine at the Holy Communion,"-how dreadful !—which the bishop says, properly speaking, is no wine at all." It is a very serious matter, we know, to qnestion the authority of a bishop, but, "properly speaking," we really are at a loss to know how even a bishop can make it out that "unfermented wine is no wine at all." We always understood, until we read his lordship's words, that "unfermented wine" was—well, unfermented wine. The bishop proceeds to say that the refusal to take other than unfermented wine at the Lord's Table argues a want of faith in "Christ to enable us to resist temptation when we are simply doing His will." What authority has his lordship for saying that we are doing Christ's will in taking alcohol at His table, and that we resist His will in refusing to take it? The bishop further says, "the clergy have no right, so far as I can see, to consecrate unfermented wine." It may be that his lordship's vision is somewhat defective. Ofcourse he ought to know his duties better than an outsider, but so far as we can see, the clergy had as much right to consecrate the one as the other. But why consecrate either?

At the annual dinner of the Licensed Victuallers' Association, which was held at Manchester, a short time ago, the usual after dinner oratory was indulged in. Mr. T. Nash, a barrister, was one of the principal orators on the occasion. He admitted that the publicans have no vested right in their licenses, but he says they have an equitable right. He does not venture to say on what that equitable right is founded. We should have been glad of a little light on this point, but perhaps Mr. Nash did not think it safe to go any further in that direction. The following was received with "loud cheers." "He (Mr. Nash) could never be made to believe that the enlightened people of this country would ever surrender their habits, their comforts, or convenience, to the arbitrary and tyrannical dictates of an unholy alliance of bigots, dyspeptics, and converted drunkards." Again, "In the present morbid state of public opinion on the liquor question, license-holders ought to trust to nobody and nothing except themselves, and their own organisations," Mr. Nash, of course, excepted-"if they do, certain confiscation awaits them. Hydrolatory, or water worship, just now, is more catching than the footand-mouth disease,”—the mouth more especially, we presume-"it infects whole districts." He further " ventured to say that the moderate drinkers represented the sound thinkers, the reasonable men, the men of backbone and common sense in the country. He had been a moderate drinker all his life." Thank you, Mr. Nash, we might never have known that you were a sound thinker, a reasonable man, a man of backbone and common sense, had you not, under the inspiration of a licensed victuallers' dinner, condescended to tell us so.

The great Caledonian Distillery, in Edinburgh, which turns over a million and a half yearly, employs 150 hands, while the Atlas Ironworks at Sheffield, turning over the same amount, gives employment to 4,500 people. It is pure fiction that the drink traffic is an employer of labour,

Sir Andrew Clarke, M.D., has been giving a "medical talk" to the members of the Young Men's Christian Association. Among other things he said that "alcohol was not necessary to health," nor was it a "helper of work, physical or intellectual, and that if a man is as well without alcohol, he is ten thousand

times better without it." He further declared that alcohol "takes the bloom o the spirit and joy and brightness of life."

The Daily News, in a short leader says, "It is certain that three-quarters of the moral evil in the world would cease if all men were converts of Sir A. Clarke's view."

We have always understood that there has been a very strong feeling against the Welsh Sunday Closing Act, but the masses of the Welsh people most certainly do not share that feeling, as the following from the South Wales Daily News will show :

:

"A meeting to express disapproval of the Welsh Sunday Closing Act was advertised to be held on the East Moor, Cardiff, on Sunday afternoon. At three o'clock, the only persons who put in an appearance were Mr. Keen, the chairman, and another, and after these two had silently waited for about ten minutes without any addition to their number, they quietly walked away." Yes, there is a strong feeling against the Welsh Sunday Closing Act, but it is on the part of English brewers.

As the result of Mr. R. Coad's two weeks' labour at Oldham, 1,000 drunkards have taken the pledge,* while over 4,000 abstainers have taken the Blue Ribbon. Would to God the cause had a thousand Richard Coads.

Dr. Parker, says the Christian Chronicle, "has made up his mind never to speak at any public meeting presided over by a brewer." We are very pleased with the fact, but we can hardly say as much of the explanations. The doctor says, "he fears the time has come when brewers must be looked upon in their commercial capacity as men of ill repute." Does Dr. Parker mean by this that it is only when he feels that the time has come for them to be regarded as such that they are such? This liquor business is either right or wrong quite independent of Dr. Parker's or any other man's feeling. If it is wrong, then the doctor's feeling is right, only it has been rather long "a commin" to the right. The doctor further adds that he "carefully distinguishes between the man and the brewer. The man himself may have many characteristics and excellences which ought to be recognised." But when will the good doctor distinguish between the nian of many characteristics and excellences and the brewer? He says that at the public meeting, he will not allow the man to preside because he is a brewer. Will he distinguish between them in the church? Will he recognise the man there and allow him to contribute towards the minister's salary? If so, why refuse his £50 to a ragged school? Is not the one as "iniquitous" as the other? We think it is a trifle

more so.

EDITORIAL NOTES.

THE FRANCHISE BILL.-This great measure, after exciting fierce discussion, has now, by almost universal consent, become law of the land. It enfranchises a larger number of persons than any former Reform Act. Two million of voters have been added to the constituencies. The farm labourers, for the first time in England's history, will have a voice in the legislation of their country. The privilege which artizans in the towns have long enjoyed is now extended to an equally deserving and very large class of the population. The injustice that one man residing in a parliamentary borough had a vote, and another, belonging to the same class, living outside its boundaries had not, ceases to exist. As does also the still stranger anomaly that the voter who changed his residence for convenience [* Mr. Coad tells us that scores of these drunkards were converted in the prayer meetings.-ED.]

or from necessity frequently suffered disfranchisement. It is not necessary to too curiously scrutinize the motives of certain politicians who, after bitterly opposing this latest reform, now pose in the character of its warmest supporters. Enough for us that a great act of justice has at length been consummated, the beneficent results of which will, we have no doubt, be wide and lasting. In it the potential germ of many a much needed reform will be found. Soon, we hope, the influence of the great mass of English people will be found shaping our foreign policy and persistingly demanding social reform. Whatever the result we rejoice that every class of the community, and almost every man, has the opportunity now to give practical effect to his views. That our country in the future will be more peaceful and prosperous than it has been in the past in its brightest periods is our confident expectation.

THE REDISTRIBUTION BILL of the Government has been read a second time in the House of Commons, and there is every prospect of its becoming law in due course. We notice that some of its hostile critics declare that it is utterly devoid of principle, but it seems to us to go very far in the direction and to be the sure precursor of equal electoral districts. We do not regard the division of great constituencies with much favour, but until an easy and intelligible plan of voting is devised by which minorities shall have their due share in the representation, it is probably the best method that could be adopted.

THE MIGNONETTE CASE.-Every right-minded person may be grateful that in this most distressing case justice has been so nobly vindicated, and that therefore mercy may be safely permitted to triumph as it has done in the capital sentence passed on Dudley and Stephens being commuted to six months' imprisonment, without hard labour. The sophistries which owed their origin to sympathy with the two unhappy men who, under the stress of circumstances such as but few can have the slightest conception of, were tempted to take away the life of their innocent and helpless victim, in order to increase their own chances of living, have been set aside by the highest authority. If the judges had come to a different conclusion the shield which the law throws around defenceless persons would be seriously weakened. The concluding sentences of the able judgment delivered by the Lord Chief Justice in the case may be fittingly reproduced here :

"It is admitted that the deliberate killing of this unoffending and unresisting boy was clearly murder, unless the killing can be justified by some well recognised excuse admitted by the law. It is further admitted that there was in this case no such excuse, unless the killing was justified by what has been called necessity; but the temptation to the act which existed here was not what the law has ever called necessity. Nor is this to be regretted. Although law and morality are not the same, many things may be immoral which are not necessarily illegal; yet the absolute divorce of the law from morality would be a fatal consequence, and such divorce would follow if the temptation to murder in this case were to be held by law an absolute defence of it. It is not so. To preserve one's life is, generally speaking, a duty; but it may be the plainest duty, the highest duty, to sacrifice it. War is full of instances in which it is a man's duty not to live, but to die. It would be a very easy and cheap display of common-place learning to quote from Greek and Latin authors passage after passage in which the duty of dying for others has been laid down in glowing and emphatic language as resulting from the principles of heathen ethics. It is enough in a Christian country to remind ourselves of the duty-which we propose to follow-of the duty in case of ship

wreck of a captain to his crew, of the crew to the passengers, of soldiers to women and children (as in the noble case of the Birkenhead'). These duties impose on men the moral necessity not of the preservation, but of the sacrifice, of their lives for others, from which in no country-last of all it is to be hoped, in England-men will not shrink, as indeed they have not shrunk. It is not correct, therefore, to say that there is an absolute and unqualified necessity to preserve one's life. It is not needful to point out the awful danger of admitting the principle which has been contended for. Who is to be the judge of this sort of necessity? By what measure is the comparative value of lives to be measured? Is it to be strength, or intellect, or what? It is plain that the principle leaves to him who is to profit by it to determine the necessity which will justify him in deliberately taking another life to save his own.

'So spake the fiend,

And by the tyrants' plea necessity

Excused his devilish deeds.'

Was

In this case the weakest, the youngest, the most unresisting, was chosen. it more necessary to kill him than one of the grown men? The answer must be

No.' It is not suggested in this particular case that the deeds were devilish, but it is quite plain that such principles once admitted might be made the legal cloak for unbridled passion and atrocious crime. There is no safe path for judges to tread, but to ascertain the law to the best of their ability, and to declare it according to their judgment; and if, in the case the law appears to be too severe on individuals, to leave it to the sovereign to exercise that prerogative of mercy which the constitution has entrusted to the hands fittest to dispense it. It must not be supposed, in refusing to admit temptation to be an excuse to crime, it is forgotten how terrible the temptation was here, how awful the suffering, how hard it was in such perils to keep judgment straight and the conduct pure. We are often compelled to set up standards which we cannot reach ourselves, and to lay down rules which we could not ourselves satisfy; but a man has no right to declare temptation to be an excuse, though he might himself have yielded to it; nor allow compassion for the criminal to change or weaken in any manner the legal definition of the crime. It is therefore our duty to declare that the prisoners' act in this case was wilful murder; that the facts as stated in the verdict are no legal justification of the homicide; and to say that, in our unanimous opinion, they are upon this special verdict guilty of murder."

THE PREVAILING DISTRESS.-It is more reasonable surely to attribute this to a succession of bad seasons, to over-production in certain trades, notably in shipbuilding, and to the improvidence of the working-classes, as the annual drink-bill of the country, enormous still, though somewhat diminished, powerfully testifies, than to the Free Trade policy of the country. It would be well if our manufacturers were as free to sell as they are to buy in all the countries of the world, but would matters be improved if we were to place restrictions on the freedom of our people to purchase because other governments have unwisely placed restrictions on the free sale of our manufactured goods among the peoples they govern. If the reports of distress in Germany and America are well founded, the answer must be, certainly not. It is a great blessing for the masses, though it presses hardly on our farmers, that bread is exceptionally cheap. In Australia, Victoria is strictly and strongly Protectionist, and New South Wales is as decidedly in favour of Free Trade, levying duties on imported goods only for revenue purposes. We were informed when in Australia, that while its population was less, and the duties it levied were

lighter on a much smaller number of articles than in Victoria, that its revenue from this source was greater, a convincing argument we hold in favour of Free Trade as against Protection. Notwithstanding, we have a lingering wish that while our people are so heavily taxed, though the necessaries of life ought to be admitted free, as heavy a tax as they will bear so as not to defeat our own purposes ought to be imposed on all luxuries, especially on such articles as wine and spirits and tobacco, which are so closely connected with the demoralization of the people.

THE WORK OF GOD.-Remembering the time of the year, which is commonly the harvest season of the church, we had hoped ere this that the glad tidings of revival would have been heard sounding from every quarter. Our double motto should be, "A Revival in every Circuit," and "Salvation in every Home." But though no great wave of blessing has as yet set in on our churches, the spirit of expectation is, if we may judge from our correspondence, keen and widespread, and we must not pass over the tokens of His favour which the Lord is graciously vouchsafing to us as a people.

The blessing of God is manifestly resting on the colleges. On several occasions there has been a work of grace among the pupils at Shebbear. The fact, reported last month, that some of the masters at Shebbear should have taken the lead in conducting successful evangelistic services, must have been a source of special satisfaction to all who are watching with eager interest the progress of our school there, and that in the first year at Edgehill a majority of the pupils should have had their "thoughts and desires" turned in the heavenward direction must, we think, be regarded as the sign and seal of the Divine approval.

On December 3rd, Br. Reed wrote: "Twenty-eight of our girls have recorded their own names in the class-book. About a dozen were members before; the others are fresh converts. The spirit of inquiry, they tell me, has existed nearly the whole term, and so far as I can judge has been real and genuine.”

At Bideford also in the general congregation, there has been a good work. Fifty-four conversions in all, and, we believe, some at Buckland. In the St. Austell Circuit sinners are also coming to Christ, more particularly at Bethel, St. Blazey Gate, and Fowey. At other places in the Shebbear Circuit, besides Lake, the Spirit has been poured out. “A fine work at Siloam, about forty saved. Several converts also at Milton and Rowden." Br. Brokenshire says the Sunday evening at Penryn, December 7th, was a very powerful one. "I felt that some one must be converted. One man has since sought and found the Lord. Several others were wounded. We have had a few converts at Falmouth." At Guernsey, three of the old members in four weeks have "gone home," but they have had a few conversions lately, and admitted nine during the quarter.

At Newport, in the Isle of Wight, there has been a few blessed conversions quite recently. Br. Bray at Newport, and Br. Dymond at Exeter, and other brethren, are expecting great things. Oh, for a mighty effort in prayer, for, to employ Trapp's simile, we must pull the harder "when we find deliverance is coming, and that God is upon His way."

BR. J. W. BUTCHER died at Peterboro', Canada, some time in November, of typhoid fever. Several of the family had it also, but when we heard last hopes were entertained of their recovery. Br. Butcher was a very estimable and useful man. At the Port Hope Conference, in 1882, he related his Christian experience with much simplicity and deep feeling, and the cheerful, modest, and sagacious way with which he narrated the difficulties and successes of the early preachers in Prince Edward Island marked him out at once as a worthy successor of such men as Francis Metherall, William Harris, and Philip James.