PULPIT OF METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, ON OCCASION OF THE FUNERAL OF C. H. SPURGEON. CASKET OF OLIVE-WOOD.

(From Photograph, Copyright in Great Britain by G. M. Miller, 13 Cambridge Terrace, Belgravia, London, England.)

no rival. It was no wonder that they became to thousands an authoritative oracle.

IV. This world-wide mission of Spurgeon is seen also in the benevolent institutions which he founded and fostered.

Probably the most conspicuous contribution to missions at home and abroad, of any man of this generation, unless it be George Müller, is to be seen in the general work of this "Kelvedon lad." He was the originator and inspiration of the Pastor's College, which has sent forth nearly one thousand students, one hundred of whom have gone to their reward, while seven hundred and thirty are still actively busy in God's work, six hundred and fifty of them being Baptist pastors, evangelists, or missionaries, who for the past quarter century have instrumentally added to the Church over one hundred and eighty thousand souls! The Stockwell Orphanage has five hundred boys and girls in training for Christian lives of service, and has been sending out thousands whom it has prepared for society; and the Almshouses provide homes for the old and needy, while missionary enterprises at home and abroad, whose name is legion, attest the broad sympathies of the aggressive man of God, who, as Macaulay said of Goldsmith, left nothing untouched and adorned whatever he touched.

Nowhere did Charles H. Spurgeon prove a failure. As is promised to the man who is planted by the river of God, and takes into the very roots of his being the Word of God, whatsoever he did, prospered. His success in every sphere was so marked that he seemed specially fitted for everything he undertook. He was evidently in league with God.

How long and how vigorously his work will survive him is yet a problem. As to the Orphanage, it seems established on permanent foundations; it is always full, and has thus far always been supplied with needed funds from its strong hold upon popular confidence and sympathy. It is painful to see it stated that the Pastor's College has had to reduce its number of students by three eighths, and that the Sunday offerings applied to its support are not nearly up to the former standard. It is to be hoped that this, if true, is but a temporary decline. After enjoying weekly contact with the students in that Institution, for two college years, and lecturing to them every Friday, the writer can bear witness that, for average ability, soundness of doctrine, and aggressive spirit, he has never known any equal number of young men in any other theological seminary. They do not wait to graduate before they engage in work; they are a power for God even during their period of training, and Britain, not to say the church everywhere, owes to them a debt that is incalculable, for their persistent advocacy of sound doctrine and apostolic church life.

Mr. Spurgeon found necessary, in the multitude of his arduous labors, to commit in part, to other hands, much of the administrative duties connected with these institutions. A quarter of a century ago he called to his aid his only brother, James Archer Spurgeon, who, until the very death of

Charles, largely relieved him of these cares; and with characteristic generosity Charles, both in conversation and correspondence, always did ample justice to his brother's administration. In fact, one of his best friends thinks that he so unduly magnified the services and influence of others that he minimized his own. Certainly he remarked to the writer more than once, that his brother James had sacrificed himself to his usefulness, and that the public did not know how largely he had thus been laid under obligation, both by his brother's capacity and sagacity. Without attempting to recall his exact words, he left upon me the impression that many of the plans and measures of which he was the public exponent and expression were really due to the careful thought of that younger brother, hinting, half playfully perhaps, that there was more than one case in history where "Aaron" had acted as the spokesman and mouthpiece of "Moses," and got credit which was due to him. But, when all allowance is made for James Spurgeon's efficient help, it is transparently plain to all who were intimately linked with Charles Spurgeon and his work, that his own "mind" was behind his own "mouth" in all that implies actual origination of benevolent work. He was not a man who could ever be servilely dependent upon any other person for guidance or control. bore the popular title of the "governor, " and he earned it. He was by nature an autocrat, but in no offensive sense, and shaped the policy of the institutions which he founded. If, like Pharaoh with Joseph, he made any other, ruler, he still remained on the throne, and greater than all his helpers, always chief, never subordinate.

Such was the man whose death at Mentone, three years ago, January 31st, 1892, set millions mourning. Great as he was, he was at the same time so genuine, simple, humble, childlike, unpretending, gracious, urbane, sympathetic, that we know not which most to admire, his public ministry or his personal manhood. How few have been in the home so winningly good who have been in the world so influentially great! combining such an imperial sceptre of influence with such private and domestic virtue! He showed what one man can do to make the whole world better; and no arithmetic can do justice to the colossal dimensions of his actual achievement. The children trained in the Orphanage, and the preachers trained in the College, have been widely scattered seed which has greatly multiplied the harvest of his sowing; and the evangelistic and colportage work, whose inspiring source he was, added indefinitely to the sphere which belongs to his life and work. Nor must we forget, in estimating his immense service, that book fund, jointly administered by himself and his wife, which distributed so many thousands of volumes among needy clergymen and other readers.

In heaven, says Swedenborg, "instruction is committed not to memory, but to life." Here we have an example of such a principle without waiting for the heavenly sphere. We look from this man to the timid apologists for Christianity, the half-hearted servitors of a secular religiousness, the sensational pulpit declaimers of the day, and we wonder whether,

like Lucius in the "Golden Ass," they have not got hold of the wrong witch-salve. When Fotis gave him the mistaken unguent he extended his arms, swayed to and fro, expecting to be metamorphosed into a bird and soar aloft; but, instead, he found his hands and feet growing horny, hairs shooting from his thickening skin, and the suspiciously long ears appearing, which betray the ass. Have modern preachers got hold of the devil's magic ointment instead of the Spirit's "eye salve" and Divine chrism? Are they looking for a metamorphosis which will never come, because they have mistaken human learning, oratorical graces, worldly popularity, for the true anointing which is from above? and are they really moving on a terrestrial level, like four-footed beasts and creeping things, while professing to discourse of celestial things like soaring and singing larks?

Who shall enable us to learn the lesson that every man may be a missionary, if he knows the missionary Spirit as his indwelling guide? Whether in the heart of China or Africa or India, or in the pulpit of a great city of Christendom, or in the humblest workshop of a tradesman, every God-sent man does the God-appointed work. From the outset every such man is, like his Master, about his Father's business, and can say at the end, "I have finished the work which Thou gavest me to do.' The Church and the world need missionaries, and the need is imperative and immediate; but no need so great exists as that of men and women who in the calling wherein they are found therein abide with God, and whose life is, like John the Baptist, a perpetual voice of witness, a living epistle of the power and grace of God, read and known of all men.

THE AMERICAN MISSIONARY ASSOCIATION.

The American Missionary Association has for nearly a half century been engaged in evangelistic and educational work among the negroes and poor whites of the South and the Indians and Chinese of the West. This Association has 42 common schools and 36 graded and normal schools in the South. In New England the illiterate population over ten years of age is less than 6 per cent; in the South it is 27 per cent. The illiterate element of the colored population is 60 per cent, and over one third of the population of the South is of colored blood. The industrial, intellectual, and spiritual training of the negro is the hope of the race which is waiting to prove either a terrible curse or a great blessing to the land in which we live.

The number of Indians in the United States (exclusive of Alaska) is now only about 225,000. The red man is coming to appreciate and desire the benefits that flow from Christianity. In spite of the bright outlook, the Association has been compelled, by lack of funds, to cut down by one half their work among these, the "nation's wards." Two new churches have been established among the Indians during the past year, and Christian Endeavor work is especially successful. Chinese converts returning to China are preaching the Gospel largely under the auspices of the "Chinese Missionary Society" of the Pacific coast. There are 21 schools on the Pacific coast, carried on by the American Missionary Association, in which schools 34 teachers have taught 1201 Chinese pupils, leading 197 of these pupils to turn from the worship of idols, and 173 of them to profess faith in Christ.