For

unlimited. It is from one of these calamities that this district is now suffering, and has been for some eight or ten days past, and though in less volume than at first the waters are still rushing through the breaches that have been made. In the vicinity of the breaches it is said that several villages with people and cattle have been swept completely away, but as at present the places are unapproachable, it is difficult to ascertain the real facts of the case. miles round the people have been shut up in their villages, and in many places have had to take shelter on their house tops or in trees. Upon multitudes of poor people loss and hardship have been entailed, and unless the breaches can be quickly made up, any rice crop for this year will become an impossibility. The people say that it is now too late to re-sow their fields, and if it were not they have no seed corn.

Our communications with Bileparda have been re-opened. Several of the boys have come into Piplee, and to those remaining with the cattle we have sent supplies. The man I sent over has sent me a note describing the wreck of the village, and which confirms previous reports. The bungalow and all the other houses are destroyed, together with the store and growing rice. Four of the houses were nearly new, three of them being occupied by young couples from the orphanages, and who have been married only about two months. Thus to have their houses swept away-houses which cost three-fourths of the allowance by government towards starting them in life-is very trying, and they wish they had not been married quite so soon. their father, and mother, and all, we shall have to do what we can to help them towards a fresh start; but to entirely rebuild the village will take a rather large sum. Several years ago there was an inundation, and the table was washed out of the bungalow, but then it did not reach the houses. If possible, I shall build this time on a rock, and not on the sand; so that when the rain descends, and the floods come, and the winds blow, the houses may not fall. The man in charge of the boys fled at the commencement of the flood, and took shelter with his wife and family in a heathen village. When I see him I shall not be able to commend him as a good shepherd-fleeing,

As

as he did, at the approach of the waterlike wolf.

Several of our buildings at Piplee have been damaged by the heavy rain. The long weaving shed has been so injured that in the cold weather it will have to be re-roofed. The children, too, were made rather uncomfortable by droppings from the school-room roof. If they tried to sit or sleep here or there, the water came dropping, said they, upon them. Whether Solomon knew anything of the uncomfortableness of thatched houses I cannot tell, but he seemed to know of something as bad when he wrote, a continued dropping on a very rainy day, and a contentious woman, are alike." In this country the figure is very significant.

Though our own house was free from annoyance as regards leakage, we were not a little annoyed one day by a dead decomposing human body, which was thrown on the bank of the river not far from the back of our house. A mother and her only son had both died of cholera, and as the people were unable to burn the bodies entirely, they simply threw them outside and partially burnt them to save their reputation. As the river was full and we were unable to send any one to remove it, we were compelled to put up with the annoyance until relieved by the jackalls. I do not wonder that the apostle Paul should see something peculiarly offensive and horrible in being fastened to a dead body, and that he should ardently desire deliverance from that body of sin of which a dead human body was the symbol. Just as I had finished the last sentence, a messenger came to say that there was a corpse at the side of the river at the back of our house. had been carried out of the bazaar by the sweepers and thrown there, so I have been writing to the police to have it removed.

It

We were not able to learn anything from Bonamalipore until this afternoon when Bhobani Mahanty-one of the preachers arrived at Piplee. This village, like others, has suffered from inundation, every house has been injured more or less, and the little chapel has been washed down. "This year's heat, this year's rain, and this year's floods," said Bhobani, "have been quite unusual, but by the mercy of God no life has been lost among us-no not so much as that of a kitten." Many of

the people in this village are weavers, and they had to tie their looms up in the trees for safety.

On Sunday last the Juggernath car festival was to be held. Brother Buckley, myself, and several native preachers were expecting to be present, but as the roads were washed away and the rivers impassable, we were compelled to forego the opportunity of there witnessing for Christ. Usually about the time of the festival the road is thronged with pilgrims, but at no season of the year have I ever seen it so deserted. Yesterday and to-day there have been a few pilgrims passing by our house, but as compared with other years they are very few.

As the roads from most of the villages are still impassable, rice is scarcely to be procured, the markets being given up.

Fortunately we have another week's supply in hand, by which time it is to be hoped we shall be able to purchase more, though it will be at a greatly increased price. With a family of nearly three hundred to provide for, and with a daily consumption of three hundred and fifty-two pounds of rice and eighty-two pounds of vegetables, our expenses will be greatly augmented. To re-build our chapels and houses, to relieve the distressed, and to meet other extra expenses, funds will be required;

-Archbishop Whately.

BACK from our holiday rambles and holiday reflections, full of new plans, new hopes, and new feelings, the question starts to the front what is the most urgent need of our churches at this hour. Is it not a fresh and fuller flow of the grace of Christ amongst us, a more marked and manifest intenseness of spiritual life and power?

We have propriety, profession, learning, and some power. We are not wholly without means, style, respectability, and good repute; but we have not that strong impressive spiritual quality, that penetrative force of spiritual character that makes itself felt everywhere and at once; and testifies to living faith in, and constant and joyful fellowship with God, and to a whole-souled love of the gospel of Christ as the best gift of God to men, and the most priceless possession of mortals. Men do not feel that coming near to us is getting into the presence of a light and lifegiving sun. We have spring promise and blossom, but not summer fulness and exuberance. We need glow, ardour, intensity of spiritual life. We have life, but we want it more abundantly, flooding every fibre of our nature, overflowing in every act, entering as a healing influence into all we touch.

VOL. LXXIV.-NEW SERIES, No. 34.

This is the chief good. Urgency, pathos, tenderness, sympathetic care for the souls of men come of this. Reality, transparency, perfect naturalness and unaffected but burning earnestness come of this. Nature affects nothing has no disguises, no pretences. It lives, and it glows with the brightness and reality of its life. The church of the apostles is simple in its aims, and work and character. It lives, and in the fulness of its life is above all unreality and hollowness. Humility, peace, joy, and a labour which is but the free and glad play of our powers come of this: for life is strength, and strength rightly used is delight and peace. Truly if our churches were but filled with the fulness of the life of Him that filleth all in all, I know not what wondrous works would be wrought, and what unspeakable joys experienced. Oh, Christ, flood us along all the channels of our being with the streams of thy saving life.

We want this intensity at the prayer meeting. It will give directness and force to our petitions, save us from wandering along the oft-frequented paths from John o' Groat's to Land's End, from wearisome length, from meaningless petitions, affected fervour, chilling hardness and painful professionalism. Better than all

rules, safer than all directions, shall we find a really strong and full spiritual life. A handful of such living men and women at our prayer meeting will move the stagnant waters, change weakness into power, and the desert into a garden of the Lord.

We want it in the pulpit. It is character that preaches; the man's being that vitally affects his hearers, and abidingly dwells with them for good or ill. James Hamilton preached well, wrote better than he preached, but he himself was better than his books, and better than his sermons. His was a "Life in earnest." Our reading, prayers, and sermons cannot be reservoirs of spiritual power if we are cold and dead. Have I a "good sermon" to preach is a vastly important question; but am I really a Christian man, swayed in thought and act by the love of Christ, wasting neither feeling nor deed on myself, penetrated to the core with "earnest life," is infinitely more so. The mark of a man's power over others is not his learning, accuracy, or rhetoric, however helpful these may be, but the intensity of his life. The apostles "gave themselves," all of themselves, "to prayer" - to seeing the face of God: and to the "ministry of the word"-to serving men by the publication of the gospel. It is in that face to face vision with the eternal Father we get fitness to serve.

We want it as leaders and guides; as officers of our churches. Our lives raise or depress the tone of the church. Hard, selfish, grasping men, deteriorate and lower all around them. It is best to keep out of their way. True, earnest, loving and living Christian leaders, comfort and gladden and strengthen their fellowmembers. It is joy and power to be with them. Every man whom God has called to the office of a deacon or elder needs to look closely into the influence he is exerting on the faith

and love, zeal and generosity of others, by his example. Let him ask himself seriously as before God," Am I freezing the earnestness of others by my coldness, stopping the flow of the gifts of others by my stinginess, closing the door of the prayer-meeting on some who need it wide open by my absence, weakening and wasting the life and strength of the church by my want of intensity and living force? God has given me this position to fill, not for my honour, but for His glory-how do I fill it? Is the spiritual life of the church made deeper and fuller by my constant additions? Were more souls saved last year because of my aid ?" A deacon who had so searched his soul said to me, "I do want to be a power for good: I hunger to be more useful to Christ and His church." Dear brethren and fellow-helpers in the gospel of Christ, Is this the most keenly felt craving of your hearts?

We want it in the Sunday school, to make our work hopeful, joyous, and full of fruit; in the Home, so that we may lead our children, while they are children, to Christ Jesus; in commerce, to counteract its hardening influences; in the social circle, that we may talk with ease and naturalness concerning Christ and the things which pertain to the perfection and fulness of our spiritual life. We want it in all our churches, and in all the members of our churches, so that we may more clearly reflect the Saviour's image, and more largely bring souls to love Him. Who will join with us this day in praying for more spiritual power, intenser earnestness, more fulness of life in all our churches? Who will now resolve at any cost, by God's grace, to reach this higher Christian experience? Let us hunger, thirst, and pray for more reality, more force, more grace, and we shall be filled. JOHN CLIFFORD.