PROVIDENT MINISTER: "I wish to state that I have procured an alarm clock that will wake up the congregation as soon as the service is over."

A NEGRO teamster in Nashville declares that he must give up driving mules or withdraw from the church, the two positions being incompatible.

THE master of Trinity, Cambridge, lately remarked at a Fellows'

meeting, at which some over-confident opinions were advanced: "Gentlemen, we are none of us infallible, not even the youngest of us."

A SCOTSMAN who had gone back to his country after a long absence declared, after going to the kirk, that the whole kingdom was on the road to perdition. "The people," he said, "used to be reserved and solemn on the Sabbath, but now they look as happy on that day as on any other."

A NEW Preacher used the word "optics" in his sermon; and at the conclusion of the service a farmer who was present thanked him for his discourse, but intimated that he had made a mistake in one word. “What you call hoptics," he said, " in this part of the country we call hop-poles."

IN one of the freedmen's schools a lad was to receive a prize banner for reciting the Ten Commandments. He advanced to the platform, and the superintendent asked him his name. His reply was: "Well, sah, mas'r calls me Cap'n, but my maiden name's Moses." The school smiled.

AN organ was some time ago introduced into a parish church In the north of Scotland, and some of the members took offense and left. One of these soon after met another member, and inquired "Hoo the organ was gettin' on ?" "Oh, fine," was the answer; "jist blawin' awa' the chaff and keepin' the corn."

A GIRL of Irish descent, but reared in Vermont, was rebuked by the lady with whom she was living for her interminable propensity to ask questions. Closing the rebuke, the lady remarked: "You beat the Jews at asking questions." When, true to her nature, the girl rejoined, "Do the Jews ask many questions ?"

THERE are various opinions about the millennium. The latest made public will, perhaps, commend itself to the average man, and become, it may be, the popular version. It is this, as stated by one Smith: "My idea of the millennium is when religion wont cost a cent for its support." It is thought that Smith's millennium has reached several localities already.

A LARGE chicken entered the auditory where the Methodist Episcopal Conference were holding sessions at Atlanta, Ga. This leads us to ask if this was the first Methodist Conference ever held in Atlanta. Where these Conferences are mostly held the chickens roost very high, and have never been known to take enough interest in the proceedings to make a personal call.

AN old pioneer, who was something of a fatalist, lived in a region infested by Indians. He always took his gun with him; and once, finding that some of his family had taken it out, he would not go without it. His friends rallied him, saying that there was no danger of the Indians, as he would not die till his time came anyhow. "Yes," said he; "but suppose I was to meet an Indian, and his time was come, it wouldn't do not to have my gun.”

THERE was wit as well as wisdom at the recent celebration of the Andover anniversary. One speaker more than hinted that the ministers of to-day are inferior in ability to those of some previous generations. Answering him Rev. Daniel Butler said, at the alumni dinner, that Rev. Dr. Cox once asked a railroad conductor, with some petulance, why the train was halting so long. "Better keep quiet; a little more, and we should all have been in hell," was the laconic reply. "Speak for yourself, sir!" was the prompt reply of the irate doctor. Another good thing was told by Rev. Dr. Chickering about an undevout Captain Barnard, who was requested by a deaf hostess to ask a blessing on the dinner. "Excuse me, madam, I never did such a thing in all my life." The down-turned eyes, and the dull hearing of the good lady, prevented her from taking in the situation. At the close of the meal the Captain was requested to return thanks, and made a similar reply, which was accompanied by the same devout attitude and pause on the part of the good lady. Soon after, she was heard remarking to another guest: "How beautifully Captain Barnard performed the duties of the table." For these luxuries we are indebted to The Congregationalist.

UNCLE FRED, of Texas, was a colored brother famous for his plety and for the faith he professed to have in the Lord. A friend sends this story of him to the SUNDAY MAGAZINE: Upon one occasion, he and a worldly minded young white man were shingling a house whose roof was quite steep. Despite this fact, Uncle Fred's religious notions were uppermost in his mind; and as he had a fine subject before him, he was not slow nor loath to vent himself upon the great question of Christianity. So, in a very short while after the work on the roof had commenced, a warm argument had arisen between him and his unchristian companion. Uncle Fred seemed to be full of the Spirit, and was striving with pious earnestness to bring the young man to a clear knowledge of the Truth. Each moment he became more ardent, and dwelt with enthusiasm upon the faith he had in God. His companion, however, feeling not at all enthused, but, smiling inwardly, said: "Uncle Fred, since you are blest with so much faith, and are certain of the power of the Almighty to rescue you from any and every temptation and danger, just walk along the eaves of this roof; for, should you fall, no doubt the angels will bear you up, and then I will be brought to believe." "Oh, no, massa l" suddenly ejaculated Uncle Fred; "no, sir! dat would be prankin' wid de Lord!"

THE afternoon service had ended, and the congregation were arranging themselves for the benedietion, when the parson descended from the pulpit to the desk below, and said, in a calm, clear voice: "Those wishing to be united in the holy bonds of matrimony will now please come forward." A deep stillness instantly fell over the congregation, broken only by the rustling of silk, as some pretty girl or excited matron changed her position to catch the first view of the couple to be married. No one, however, arose, or seemed in the least inclined to rise; whereupon the worthy clergyman, deeming the first notice unheard or misunderstood, repeated the invitation: "Let those wishing to be united in the holy bonds of matrimony now come forward." Still no one stirred. The silence became audible, and a painful sense of awkwardness among those present was felt, when a young man, who occupied a vacant seat in the broad aisle during the services, slowly arose and deliberately walked to the foot of the altar. He was good looking and well dressed, but no female accompanied him. When he arrived within a respectful distance of the clergyman he paused, and with a reverent bow stepped to one side of the altar, but neither said anything, nor seemed at all disconcerted at the idea of being married alone. The clergyman looked anxiously around for the bride, who, he supposed, was yet to arrive, and at length remarked to the young man, in an undertone: "The young lady, sir, is dilatory." "Yes, sir." "Had you not better defer the ceremony ?" "I think not." "Do you suppose she will be here soon?" "I, sir ?" said the young man; "how should I know of the lady's movements ?" A few moments were allowed to elapse in this unpleasant state of expectancy, when the clergyman renewed his interrogations. "Did the lady promise to attend at the present hour, sir ?" "What lady ?" "Why the lady, to be sure, that you are waiting here for." "I did not hear her say anything about it," was the unsatisfactory response. "Then, sir, may I ask you why you are here, and for what purpose you thus trifle in the sanctuary of the Most High ?" said the somewhat enraged clerical. "I came, sir, simply because you invited all those wishing to be united in the holy bonds of matrimony to step forward, and I happened to entertain such a wish. I am sorry to have misunderstood you, and wish you a very good day." The benediction was uttered in a solemnity of tone very little in accordance with the twitching of the facial nerves; and when, after the church was closed, the story got among the congregation, more than one girl regretted that the young man who really wished to be united in the holy bonds of matrimony had been obliged to depart without a wife.

When the old man lay on his deathbed he called his children around him.

"I have," he said, "searched carefully through all the traditions I could find of our family, and I could never discover that there had ever been a dishonest man among our forefathers. If, therefore, any of you, or any of your children, take to dishonest ways, it will not be because it runs in our blood. It does not belong to you. I leave this precept with you: Be honest."

The grandfather of our Livingstone, finding the Hebrides farm inadequate for the support of his large family, came southward, and entered the employment of the Blantyre Cotton Works, by whose proprietors he was largely trusted and was liberally pensioned in his old age. Some of his sons entered the army, others the navy; and one of them, Neil by name, remained at home as a trader upon an humble scale. So small at first were the profits of his little teastore that David, his second son, was, at the age of ten, set at work as a "piecer" in the cotton factory. With a part of his first week's wages he purchased a Latin grammar. His work in the factory began at six in the morning and continued until eight in the evening. For two hours, after work was over, he attended a night-school, and was wont to continue his studies till midnight; and by the time he was sixteen he had come to be a fair classical scholar.

He, moreover, read every book of science or travel upon which he could lay his hands, not wholly to the satisfaction of the good Presbyterian elder, his father, who insisted that The Cloud of Witnesses" and Boston's "Fourfold

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State," were vastly more edifying. "Our differences of opinion," says Livingstone, "reached the point of open rebellion on my part, and his last application of the rod was occasioned by my refusal to read Wilberforce's 'Practical Christianity.' His dislike to what are technically styled religious books continued for years. Indeed, like so many another young student, he for a while imagined that there was a contradiction between the teachings of Science and those of Scripture; but happily a perusal of the works of the worthy Thomas Dick convinced him of his error, and he embraced with heart and soul the doctrines of the Kirk of Scotland. "The change," he writes, "was like what may be supposed would take place were it possible to cure one of color blindness. But," he goes on, "I shall not again refer to the inner spiritual life which I believe then began. I soon resolved to devote my life to the alleviation of human misery; and I felt that to be a pioneer of Christianity in China would lead to the material benefit of some portion of that immense empire, and therefore set myself to obtain a medical education in order to be qualified for that enterprise."

In the meantime, at the age of nineteen, he had been promoted from pieeer to the better paid work of spinner in the cotton factory. The work was hard, but the wages were sufficient to enable him to attend medical and Greek classes in the Winter, and divinity lectures in Summer in the University of Glasgow. His lessons were learned bit by bit at the spinning-frame, upon which his book was always lying open. And so at last, after due examination, he was admitted as a licentiate of the College of Physicians and Surgeons.

It had been his purpose to fit himself solely by his own exertions for the warfare against the powers of evil. But his friends now urged him to avail himself of the assistance of the English Church Missionary Society, to which he offered himself with a half-hope that his application would be rejected. But he was accepted; and was directed to pass some time in the further study of theology at the Missionary Training School, some fifty miles from London. Here he became acquainted with a man whose influence

was to give direction to the whole after course of his life. Robert Moffatt nomen clarum et venerabile*—had about this time been compelled by impaired health to revisit England. He writes:

"On my visit to England in 1839, after twenty-three years' labor among the tribes of the interior of Africa, I found Livingstone preparing to go forth as a medical missionary to China. The

disgraceful opium war shut up his way to the sphere in which he had resolved to spend his life in his Master's service. From speeches on missions to Africa, and especially to the Bechuana tribes, to which he had listened with intense and increasing interest, he soon began to feel his sympathies drawn in that direetion. After several successive interviews and deliberations, he resolved to direct his efforts to the country where his self-devotion and indomitable perseverance to open up unexplored regions for the introduction of the Gospel and commerce have earned a name that many coming generations of Afric's children will b proud to rehearse. He went with the fullest conviction that God, to whom he had been looking for direction, had made plain. his path."

II. TEN YEARS OF MISSIONARY WORK. LIVINGSTONE, now twenty-seven years of age, reached the Cape of Good Hope in 1840. He proceeded in a bullock wagon to the missionary station of Kuruman, some sir hundred miles in the interior, and one hundred and fifty miles beyond the northern boundary of the Cape Colony. Here he remained several months, awaiting the return of Mr. Moffatt, in the meanwhile making several journeys further into the interior, with the view of selecting a favor. able site for a new missionary station.

At length he fixed upon Kolobeng, some three hundred miles beyond Kuruman, where, being accompanied by his new-married wife, he attached himself to the band of Alligators," a BechuSechele, chief of the Bakwains, or “ ana tribe who dwelt on the border of the Kalahari Desert.

Sechele from the first gave ready ears to the teachings of the missionary. At the very first meeting, Livingstone discoursed of the Day of Judgment.

"You startle me," exclaimed the chief. "These words make all my bones to shake; I have no more strength in Did your forefathers know of this future judg

me.

ment ?"

Livingstone assured him that that they knew of it. "But my forefathers were living at the same time yours were; and how is it that they did not send them word of these terrible things? They all passed away into darkness without knowing whither they were going." A question easier to ask than to answer.

The Bible in Bechuana was produced, and Sechele undertook to learn to read it. He mastered the alphabet in a single day, and devoted himself to study with such assiduity that he began to grow corpulent from lack of his wonted exercise in hunting. Isaiah was his especial favorite. "He was a fine man, that Isaiah," he would say; "he knew how to talk." He soon gave every evidence of genuine conversion. But still for more than two years Livingstone forbore to advise him to be baptized. The reason was that the chief had several wives. Livingstone

*Mr. Moffatt, whose daughter was soon to become the devoted wife of Livingstone, began his missionary labors in Southern Africa, when Livingstone was only three years old. He is especially known by his "History of Missionary Labors in South Africa," published in 1842; and by his translation of the entire Bible int the Bechuana language; this translation was printed under his own direction at the lonely missionary station of Kuruman, where he had also set up a printing office. In 1873, a subscription of nearly $3,000 was raised for him in recognition of his nearly halfcentury of missionary labor. In 1874, he published a touching tribute to the memory of Livingstone. To this, and Livingstone's own writings, we are mainly indebted for the materials of this sketch. We believe that he is still living, at the age of eighty-four.