GREAT BRITAIN.-On the 21st, Gladstone presented in the House of Commons the Government's request for a credit of $55,000.000 for the army and navy account. Of this sum, $22,500,000 is for war purposes in the Soudan, and $32.500 000 for the naval and military preparations. The Premier said that the Government felt it necessary to hold all the resources of the empire, including the forces in the Soudan, available for instant use wherever required. The credit did not include any provision for further offensive operations or military preparations for an early march on Khartoum. Though the Suakim-Berber railway had been commenced, any considerable extension of it would have to be suspended. It would be necessary to hold Suakim and one or two places in the vicinity for health considerations until some permanent arrangement shall have been effected. The Suakim-Berber railway was merely a work of military necessity, but the Nile railway would be completed apart from military reasons. In regard to interior steps in the Soudan, the Government reserved entire liberty of action, subject to the judgment of Parliament. The credit coming up for consideration on the 27th, a proposition to divide the credit for the Soudan from that for other purposes was opposed by the Government, and was rejected by 229 votes to 186. The entire amount asked for was then voted without discussion, after an earnest and effective speech of W. E. Gladstone.

A Radical member inquired whether the Government would endeavor to have the dispute with Russia referred for arbitrament to the United States of America. Gladstone replied: "The Government are quite sensible of their heavy responsibility to maintain the honor and good faith of the country on one hand, and on the other to use every means consistent with that honor to avoid war. I can give no more particular reply than this."

Sir Peter Lumsden's reply to the inquiry respecting the details of the battle on the Kushk, directly controverted Gen. Komaroff's account in most particulars, representing that the Afghans did not advance from their previous position until after the Russians had manifested a purpose to provoke a conflict. It was announced in the House of Commons on the 27th by reading a telegram from Sir Peter Lumsden, that a member of the Afghan Boundary Commission had started for London bearing maps of the disputed zone and a detailed statement of all the circumstances leading to and attending the conflict near Penjdeh, and that a full statement of the present condition of affairs would also be sent. To an inquiry whether negotiations with Russia would be suspended until the arrival of this messenger, Gladstone answered, "No."

The War Office on the 22d issued a notice calling out the first class of the army reserves, comprising fifteen regiments, for immediate and permanent service. Those serving as police in England or Ireland are exempted. The other classes of the reserves have been notified that they will probably be called out

soon.

It was stated on the 27th that the British Minister

partment, in the basement of the building. The glassdomed roof was shattered, and the plastering torn from the walls of the room. The Assistant Secretary, E. N. Swainson, was injured, but not seriously. The explosive used is believed to have been gun cotton,

The bill to federate the Australasian colonies was read a second time in the House of Lords on the 23d. It includes five of the colonies, New South Wales refusing as yet to enter the federation.

At a large meeting of rich and influential landowners, including such as the Duke of Argyll, the Earl of Carnarvon and the Marquis of Ripon, held in London on the 24th, it was resolved to take steps for forming a corporation to be called the National Land Company, for the purpose of securing a gradual breaking up of the "large parcel" system of land ownership now injuriously prevalent in Great Britain, The plan of the new organization is to buy land at wholesale, and sell it out in lots not to exceed 40 acres, under conditions likely to cause further subdivision. The company will probably buy for cash, and sell on partial payments covering several years.

IRELAND.-The Prince and Princess of Wales, on the way from Killarney to Dublin, stopped at Limerick, and were well received, though some unfriendly mani. festations had been met on the journey thither. On the 23d they reached Belfast, where they were warmly welcomed, as well as at several points on the way, and also at Londonderry on the 25th. On the 27th they embarked at Larne for Scotland.

FRANCE.-Difficulty has arisen between France and Egypt, mainly in connection with the suppression by the latter of a French newspaper, the Bosphore Egyptien, in Cairo. It was feared that this might lead to trouble between England and France, as Gladstone, in reply to a question in the House of Commons, said that Egypt had not acted alone, and admitted that England could not disclaim all respon. sibility for the act. It was reported on the 24th that the French Chargé d'Affaires at Cairo had been directed to suspend all official relations with Egypt; but later accounts represented that this action had been postponed, and on the 28th it was announced that through the intermediary offices of England, the ques tion had been settled, as follows: Egypt apologized to the French Chargé d'Affaires. The office of the Bosphore Egyptien will be reopened, and the paper allowed to reappear; and France abandons the demand for the recall of the officials who forcibly entered the office of the paper.

DOMESTIC.-A bill has passed the Ohio Legislature requiring saloons in Cincinnati to remain closed from midnight to six o'clock A. M.

A majority of the Judges of the Supreme Court of the United States has rendered a decision in the cases between the State of Virginia and holders of its bonds, concerning the tax coupons. When originally issued, the interest coupons on the bonds were made receivable for State taxes, but the State subsequently refused so to receive them. The decision of the Court is against the State in all material points, and in favor of the bondholders. The Chief Justice and three other Judges dissented.

the battle.

Great excitement was caused in the Admiralty Of fice in London, on the 23d, by an explosion either in or immediately outside of a room in the Secretary's de

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RELIGIOUS INTELLIGENCE.

A WRITER in the Quarterly Review makes an estimate of the relative strength of parties in the Church of England. Placing the whole number of the clergy at 23,000, he thinks that to the High Church school in its various shades belong upward of 11,000, or nearly one half of the whole. He gives to the Evangelical section about one-fourth of the whole, or 6,000, and to the Broad Church section 3,000, or about an eighth of the whole, leaving another 3,000 which cannot strictly be claimed by either party.

THE ABYSSINIAN CHURCH.-The Church of Ethiopia is in many respects unique and peculiar. Abyssinia was converted to Christianity early in the fourth century, and in 380 Athanasius consecrated their first bishop. The Christianization of this country proceeded from Egypt, and from the very beginning the connection between the churches of the two countries has been most intimate, and to the present day the Abyssinian Abuna, or bishop, is consecrated at Cairo by the Coptic archbishop. When in 451 the fourth cecumenical synod at Chalcedon declared it to be orthodox doctrine, that the one Christ consisted of two natures, the Monophysitic Church of Egypt, and with it the Abyssinian, withdrew from all outward and inner connection with the Byzan

EDITORIAL.-U. S. Supreme Court on Basis of Morality-Good

Examples among Princes....

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CORRESPONDENCE.-T. Chase on Greek word huper-Hoshangabad Mo. Mtg.-White's Institute, Ind.-Meetings in Florida. 637 Enoch.... ·J. Hemmenway 638 Items........... POETRY.-Jesus-The Mountain Stone... SUMMARY OF NEWS......

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tine churches. Since that time the Church of Abyssinia has been entirely isolated from all others. And this has not been without important results. If anywhere the spirit of conservatism, which is inborn and a powerful factor in the life of all Oriental peoples, has managed to keep a nation in statu quo for centuries, this has been done in the Church of Abyssinia. Travellers in this country are unanimous in declaring the orthodox faith, the worship, the liturgies-in short the whole religious systema complete petrifaction of the Oriental Church of the fifth and sixth centuries. The spirit is indeed gone, but the form and the words are there. The Abyssinian Church is an Oriental ruin; but it is not one of stone or brick.

The Christianity of Abyssinia is sui generis. The native chroniclers are certainly correct when they indicate that this nation was not converted from heathenism to Christianity, but rather from a form of Judaism. The Abyssinians are a Semitic people in speech and bodily form, and early came over from the southern part of the Arabian peninsula. The character of their religion seems to indicate that their Christianity is a plant put into Israelitish soil. They observe two days of rest, Saturday and Sunday, but lay more stress upon the latter than upon the former. They practice both circumcision and baptism; a male child is circumcised on the eighth day, and on the fortieth day it is bap

tized, while a female child is not baptized until the eightieth day; and in the former case the mother can enter the sanctuary again after forty days, but in the latter case only after eighty. The Abyssinians have a great many festival days, many being distinctively Jewish. They observe the Mosaic laws concerning unclean meats, as laid down in Lev. ii., and in many other ways show the influence of Old Testament commands.—Independent.

THE MISSION PARTY FOR CENTRAL AFRICA. The United States Consul at Sierra Leone, West Africa, has informed the State Department at Washington of the arrival on February 19 of the band of forty missionaries, who, under the lead of Bishop William Taylor, propose going a thousand miles in the interior. The Consul writes:

"People who know the coasts of Africa do not hesitate to say that it is absolutely wicked to bring the children of the party to this country, where they have so many chances to die, and only few to live. It would be well for missionary societies at home to consider well, before contracting the responsibility of sending such an expedition to the wilds of Africa. We are prepared to hear sad news within a year from this little band, who go out with light hearts, not knowing what is before them."

No Missionary Society sent this party. We do not believe there is a Missionary Society anywhere that would encourage such an undertaking.

They went without persuasion, believing that Bishop Taylor knew Africa and Africans so well, they could rely upon his expressed opinion, that they could secure a support from the natives, whilst they should labor to lead them to Christ.

It is a noble band of Christians. It may be they are led by the Spirit of God, and that they will be successful in their mission. We pray for it, and yet with but little faith

We see no reason to expect anything but disaster to the enterprise, and the untimely death of many of those engaged in it. Pray for the mission band on their way to Central Africa.-Gospel in All Lands.

D. L. MOODY ON PRAYER.

Pray patiently. Be ready to wait a month, a year, a century, if need be, for your prayer to be answered. Pray wisely, asking not for what you plainly ought not to have. Pray resignedly, with willingness to accept uncomplainingly either the blessing or the denial, as God wills. The three Bible heroes whose prayers would seem to us most likely to have weight with God, no one of them received the blessing he sought in the way he sought it. Earnestly, longingly, did Moses ask of God the right to conduct the people he had led in all their desert wanderings northward into the Promised Land, but God ruled otherwise, and Israel's first leader only saw afar off the land that Israel's later generations inherited. Was Moses' prayer then unanswered? Fifteen hundred years rolled by-and who were those that stood with Christ on the Mount of Transfiguration, talking of

the decease the Saviour must accomplish at Jerusalem? Moses' prayer was at last heard and answered; his feet were pressing the soil of the Promised Land. Because God delays to answer prayer, the answer need not therefore be refused. And was not Moses' prayer answered even more blessedly than it would have been, had he been permitted to lead the Israelites into a hostile Palestine, where Joshua found only incessant fighting for thirty years.

Pray wisely. Elijah prayed earnestly that death might come and find him sitting under the "juniper-tree," and God would not let his servant die. "Papa," said a little four-year-old, who had been attentively watching his father shave, “I want your razor to whittle wiv.” "No, my child, you cannot have such a dangerous plaything," and the father shut it up, and put it away, while the little boy cried bitterly, with sobbing protestations that his papa "didn't love him." God doesn't give his children razors to play with, however earnestly they pray for them; and Elijah's prayer was unanswered because he asked unwisely, sitting under the "juniper-tree."

Pray resignedly. If any one of Christ's followers seemed to have special power with God in prayer, it was the apostle Paul, yet the thorn in the flesh for whose removal the apostle so earnestly prayed, still remained, until he learned to ask not for less In heaven now, suffering, but for more grace. Paul doubtless rejoices over the fact that that prayer was unanswered, since by the trial he came to possess a larger share of Christian grace. If one has not the spirit which says, "Nevertheless, not my will, but thine be done," he is not in a frame for the best praying.

For Friends' Review.
FIRST-DAY TRAIN-RUNNING.

It is said that one hundred and forty-eight pas senger trains run in and out of Broad Street Station on the first day of the week. How many trains loaded with freight are despatched from the city freight depots of the same great corporation on the day of rest, I know not.

A few weeks ago the opportunity was open to me to obtain, at an exceptionally low rate, an ex. cursion party ticket to and from the New Orleans Exposition. My engagements would not permit me to accept it, and yet, had they done so, it is probable I would have still felt best satisfied to decline the liberal proffer. It occurred to me that the accompaniments and the experience of the proposed party of excursionists might not be markedly different from that of a large party who had just made the trip, and who, upon the plea of having met with an unlooked-for detention, traveled through all the hours of First day. Then there was the euchre playing on other days to beguile the monotony of travel through an uninteresting country, and the theatre visitation (a half-dozen of the party only declining) where there was a stop-off over-night. Likewise was to be taken into account

the fact that the great exhibition was open upon First-days as upon other 'days, the consideration thence arising as to whether it were well to encourage in this dangerous direction a community which I believe was the first in the land to permit open theatres every day in the week.

It is common to speak of our railroads as great civilizers; nevertheless, unregulated-working for the promotion of selfishly secular interests-they become capable, it seems to me, of thwarting the advancement of the concerns of religion to a degree second only to that of the rum-selling evil. This is particularly true when they work in the direction of (what is commonly spoken of as) the "secularization of the Sabbath." In this baneful work they find ready auxiliaries in the "enterprise" of the publishers of the leading dailies of the large cities, and also in the acquiescence of the postal authorities respecting the running of mail trains on the first day of the week. The complacency or connivance of the general government goes to the extent of permitting the running of special newspaper trains on that day, as instance the method employed last summer by the New York Tribune to get the Sunday edition" of its paper into the 'hands of its Saratoga and Catskill patrons. Boastfully it announced to its readers that by running a special train to Schenectady, and employing a fast team, with relay, twenty-two miles, the Saratogians were supplied with a First-day edition of the paper as they sat down to their hotel breakfast. "Coffee and beefsteak without a good New York paper," says this unmistakably enterprising journal, "are a hollow mockery to any one brought up in the metropolis, as everybody knows," which seems to agree only too well with what was lately stated in the Christian Statesman, namely: "A Brooklyn dealer who serves 400 customers with the daily papers, recently stated that all but 20 of the 400 take the Sunday edition, that a number of persons who take no paper during the week take a Sunday issue, and that quite a number of his regular patrons take several of the Sunday papers."

In the same journal from which I have just quoted, I some time ago saw an extract from an article taken from the Interior, in which a correspondent who calls himself an "old fogy" tells how he stayed one First day not long since with a merchant (an Elder) living in a town to which he had gone to sell his wheat. A single paragraph will show how the Elder kept his Sabbath, and at the same time will make apparent what is likely to be the spiritual effect of opening the post-offices on that day, and the duty of Christians to anticipate and forestall such a calamity.

"After church, the Elder said, 'Let us go around by the post-office. The Chicago mail gets in at 11.20.' Well, we found that nearly all the congregation knew about the Chicago mail. They formed a procession from the church to the post-office, and the clerks who had been distributing the letters while we were listening to Dr. X's sermon, had a lively time for half an hour giving out letters. The Elder had a lock-box, so he did not have to wait.

He got half a dozen letters and several papers, one a Sabbath morning daily from Chicago. We went home. He handed me some of the papers while he just glanced over his letters, as he said, 'There might be something very important you know.' The letters having been glanced over ' pretty carefully, the Elder took up the papers, and read them and commented on their contents till dinner-time." I trust that the instances where our members either purchase or receive by carrier or from the post-office what we know as "the Sunday papers" are extremely rare, and that, as a Society, we may strenuously resist the opening of post-offices and the distribution of the mail-and indeed the running. of mail trains at all-on the day of rest. It is through the latter plea that such advances toward the secularization of the day have been made in many quarters. J. W. L.

BOOK NOTICES.

A REASONABLE FAITH. SHORT RELIGIOUS ESSAYS FOR THE TIMES.-By three "Friends." London: Macmillan & Co. 1884. Pamphlet, pp. 102.

(Continued from page 614.)

brevity, suffice to show that we are not misrepreOne more passage must, for the sake of needful senting the real character of the argument of these Essays. It is said (p. 58):

"The shedding of Christ's blood is represented forgive sin. Sins are said to be covered,' and be-, as the 'procuring cause' of God's willingness to lievers 'sheltered' by the blood of Christ. But this is simply the forensic' or substitutional view of the Atonement in a more specious, because a more highly figurative form; and this is a theory, as we have elsewhere explained, altogether out of harmony with the true nature of God, and the essential attributes of justice and mercy."

Here we have the line drawn clearly between. these authors' views and those commonly accepted by evangelical teachers and believers. The "three Friends" admit that the love of God was shown in the coming of Christ, as God manifest in the flesh, to share in full sympathy all human experiences, and to meet the natural result of a perfect life amongst sinful men in humiliation and an agonizing death. But they omit all recognition of the suffering of Christ in the stead of guilty sinners; as bearing the penalty of the transgressions of the whole world. In an interesting comment upon London Friend, this view is approvingly set forth, these Essays (not wholly endorsing them), in the as follows: Referring to the agony of our Lord at Gethsemane and on the cross, it is said, “That at that time an awful sense of the world's guilt, culminating as it did in his murder, overwhelmed him, we can understand; but we dare not say that in addition to this he bore, laid upon him by his Father, the penalty the world had incurred by its transgressions. We do not find this in the Bible."* We do find it there: in common with a great *The (London) Friend, Third mo., 1885, p. 50.