I was reading only yesterday an account of a sailor who was shipwrecked on one of the Tonga Islands. While he was there the king was unwell, and he sent for an idol priest to know what he should do to recover his health. The priest told him that one of his children must be sacrificed. The mother, aware of what was going on, concealed her child, but they found it, and brought it before the king. The little creature smiled while they were putting the cord round its neck, thinking it was an ornament; but they strangled it while still smiling, and then carried the body and presented it before various idols. The king, of course, was no better for it, it was impossible that he should, and in a few hours afterwards he died. Another heathen king had entered one of the temples and was said thereby to have profaned it. It was felt that he must do something to appease the god, and he was told that he must sacrifice one of his children, and this was done before his own eyes. Thus, wherever there is idolatry, there is cruelty and a disregard of human life. Thousands upon thousands of children are destroyed year by year, some strangled immediately on their birth, others thrown into the Ganges, others given to tigers and crocodiles, and others buried alive; and before the gospel was sent to the South Sea Islands, more children were destroyed in some of them than were allowed to live.

Mr. Williams, in his Missionary Narrative, gives an affecting account of a school examination in one of the islands, in which there were 600 children. The king was present, and though he was much pleased with the progress of the children, he was deeply affected, and at last he broke out: “Oh, Mr. Williams, that the gospel had been sent here twenty years sooner, then my nineteen children might have been learning in this school, but I sacrificed them all to false gods." Idolatry, wherever it exists, is a cruel religion. This Society, besides sending out preachers, has sent out schoolmasters, in order to teach the children, and the grown up people too. There are in the schools belonging to this and other Missionary Societies, not less than 150,000 children, who are being instructed in the fear of the Lord, and many, under the Divine blessing, have turned from the idolatry of their parents and are become the disciples of Jesus Christ. They have been made happy by religion, and are desirous of making others happy. In Calcutta, youths have been educated, who go out with the Missionaries, taking their New Testament and reading it to the people, and talking to them about Jesus Christ, and many of them are preparing to become ministers. There are many black and brown children who cannot speak of the love of Jesus Christ without tears. I hope you will value the Gospel yourselves. What an awful thing it would be if, after having

been the means of sending the gospel to them, your own souls should be lost, and the privileges you possess should rise in judgment against you.

The Rev. S. A. DUBOURG (of Clapham) said, This is called a Jubilee service, and reminds us that fifty years ago our fathers began to think about the poor perishing heathen, and resolved, in the fear of God, to send them the gospel of Christ, in order to their conversion and everlasting happiness. But I have often felt more sorry than I can tell, that our fathers did not begin this work sooner. It is only fifty years since they thought of the black, the red, and the brown children, and said, "Let them have the bread of life." But thousands of the heathen are sorry too. They regret that their fathers died before the gospel of Christ came to them -they say, "O teacher, why did not the good men of your bright land send you sooner to ours? Our children, where are they? We have stained our hands with their blood!" No doubt you have heard these things before, and your hearts have been sad; and I have no doubt that many of you have had this thought: “Oh, that I were old enough, that I were wise enough, that I were good enough to be a missionary! You are not old enough to be missionaries, but you will be older; you are not wise enough, but you are learning; the grace of God may not be in your hearts, but God can send it there. When Christ is your Saviour, and salvation your glory,

will none of you girls become school-mistresses, and none of you boys school-masters ?—will none of you become missionaries? Is not that very possible? Have not some of our first missionaries been Sunday-school scholars? and why should it not be so again? and you who are teachers, bear this in mind. Be ready to enter on the field. Study the Bible, let its spirit govern you, and then the day is not far distant when you may say, "Here am I, Lord; send me." Join with us, young and old, and

hasten to the work.

W. H. WATSON, Esq., one of the Secretaries of the Sunday school Union, reminded the children that they must remember what they were doiug, for God looked at the heart. He then referred to their great advantages in being taught to read. He once rode on a coach with a man who had not been taught when he was a boy, but he learned when he grew up, and he said, "What a good thing it is that there are schools; I have sent all my children to school." Children learned at school to be tidy and clean.

If

you see a dirty child you know he is not a Sunday-scholar. The teachers were very kind, and they wished the children to know Jesus Christ. He hoped they would be thankful to God. If they were not thankful to God the teachers would be disappointed. When we have got good we must do good. Do not you think you can do good? there is hardly a child

that

here that cannot. In going through a village I saw a chapel. The next day, when stopping in a town two miles from it, I met with a gentleman who told me the history of that chapel. Formerly there was a blacksmith in the village, but no chapel and no Sunday-school. He heard, however, that a Sunday-school had been opened in the town two miles off, and thought that he would send his little girl. She went, and I will! tell you what she did. When she got home, on the Sunday afternoon, she used to tell her father and mother what she had learned that day. Her mother became so interested that she made up her mind she would go to the chapel, and hear for herself. Then her father thought that he should like to go; and what they heard did them so much good that it altered their thoughts about religion. They became concerned about their souls, and were anxious to know Jesus Christ. When they believed that he had pardoned their sins, they then became concerned for their neighbours. The blacksmith thought they would try to open a school in the village, and they did so. On the Sunday evening they got some one to preach to the fathers and mothers of the children in the school-room; and by-andby they thought they could have preaching all day; and after that they managed to build a chapel. This all arose from the little girl attending school, and then going home in the afternoon and repeating to her father and mother