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here and there to whom the original Australian tribes are dear, but the difficulty of winning to Christ the members of a wandering and degraded race is greater than can be imagined. They are best reached, as some are reached, when persuaded to settle with their families on large government reserves, where the everfaithful Moravian Brethren superintend their education and their manual labor, shield them from temptation, and watch over them to their dying day. New Zealand has more or less evangelized her 41,000 Maories; Tasmania has no aborigines to evangelize; but Australia is only just awakening to the existence of some 60,000 natives, chiefly roaming its Northern and Western Territories, before whose eyes the light of God has never shined. Victoria has another work, almost unique-a mission by post, not without fruit, to the lighthouse-keepers and their families all along the Australasian coasts. For the deepening and expansion of our missionary enthusiasm we are greatly indebted to the occasional presence amongst us of such men as Dr. Jacob Chamberlain, Dr. Paton, the Rev. Hudson Taylor, and Mr. Eugene Stock.

Among colonial institutions of a distinctly religious character I may mention:

Y. M. C. Associations.—There are twenty-two in all, with property worth 150,000l., 4550 enrolled members, and six paid secretaries. The Adelaide branch stands in the van of aggressive work. It has achieved signal success during the last five years in a work amongst boys between thirteen and eighteen-quite a new departure. The attendance at its theatre services last year was 40,000; while of a "Christian Workers' Band" numbering ninety young men, nearly half were won to the Lord Jesus by this instrumentality. This society enjoys the confidence of some very wealthy and liberal men; has three of its number engaged as missionaries in China, and four more are accepted conditionally. In all our Associations spiritual work receives the very first care. The Sydney branch is exceedingly popular with the churches-a sure token of healthy and legitimate developmen—and does a great work amongst men in a city where secularism is strong, profane, and defiant. The Melbourne branch has had a splendid but checkered career. It stands first for its gymnasium, with its trained and devoted instructor from America,

and for its Sunday-afternoon Bible-class. Some of the smaller societies, such as Auckland, N. Z., are doing nobly.

Young Women's Christian Associations are planted out pretty generally in coast cities, and real soul-work is being done, although on a limited scale. The factory department both in Melbourne and Adelaide has been much blessed, and the work which they seek to do amongst all young women is being supplemented by the "Society of Time and Talents" and by " Girls' Friendly Societies."

Individual Christians are greatly helped in their inner life by means of the Bible Union, which assigns one consecutive chapter daily to its 300,000 members throughout the world. The Scripture Union comes to the aid of the young with its selected passages; and the Sunday-school Union issues a somewhat similar calendar of its own to its immense constituency. The Children's Special Service Mission is beginning to take root, especially in connection with its seaside services. The Society of Christian Endeavor, the latest plant of our Heavenly Father's planting, has just come to us from America to supply a long-felt need, and we hail it joyfully. The British and Foreign Bible Society, the Religious Tract Society, and other well-furnished depots keep our workers supplied with seed for sowing; while we, in return, are not unmindful of their world-wide character and peculiar claims. Christian Conventions commenced in Australia about twenty years ago, somewhat on Keswick lines, but, having removed to a capital, they now more nearly resemble Mildmay. Recent circumstances, however, and spiritual hunger of the deepest kind have called the Geelong Convention into existence. Here addresses are delivered bearing directly on practical righteousness, heart-purity, and the filling of the Holy Ghost. The ministers with whom the Conference originated met three years ago to wait on God until their own souls were satisfied, and they still wait on him for hours every Saturday afternoon for fresh accessions of-power and to plead for a great revival.

We have not as yet any very notable itinerant preachers, although the Presbyterian evangelist for Victoria, our Southern John MacNeil, is as dear to us personally as ever your Northern John MacNeil can be to you. We have lately lent you for a little season a lady of the stock of Abraham, whose testimony amongst you has been owned of God, and who is most grateful

for the welcome you accorded her; I allude to my friend Mrs. Baeyertz. We are favored from time to time with visits from mighty men of strength from the old worlds, and although we have not yet heard Mr. D. L. Moody, we have had (in succession) Bishop Taylor, Dr. A. N. Somerville, Henry Varley, George Müller, and George Grubb. The pathway of the latter is still shining; souls have been delivered and believers uplifted, and candidates called out for the conversion of the heathen.

The secular press is, as a rule, in the hands of men not in sympathy with spiritual things, and who take the wrong side on the question of Bible Education, Sabbath Observance, and Worldly Amusements. Still we have much cause to be thankful that the work of God is very fairly reported in the daily papers, and that religious correspondence is treated, not always, but generally, with a considerable measure of fairness. Church papers are to a large extent in the hands of Evangelicals.

It may be asked if our colonial churches are fulfilling their social mission. "Yes" and "No." The Salvation Army began well, and rescued many out of the depths. City missionaries day by day enter the doors of the fallen. The clergy, if faithful, either personally or by their representatives knock at every door, and multiply machinery for conversion and sanctification. Hundreds and thousands of godly men and women toil in Sundayschools, night-schools, refuges, reformatories, and flower-missions. Open-air preachers proclaim the gospel in public gardens, in parks, and at street-corners. Prisoners and all the suffering classes are yearly remembered by the Christmas Letter Mission. Young Men's Fellowship Meetings in connection with congregations are becoming cradles for evangelistic heroism. Notwithstanding, it cannot be denied that the lower strata of society are not being properly reached, and that the wealthier classes are to a very great extent divesting themselves of even the externals of religion. Sunday is to thousands a day for novels and newspapers, for riding and driving and tennis, for morning visits and dining out. Yet there would be hope if only the world would keep itself to itself, and not seek to demoralize the church. This, however, we have to be thankful for—that although our colonists are passionately fond of music, our sanctuaries are seldom profaned on the Lord's day with money-bought singing, and never with "quartettes."

Our country is still young, and, though full of sin's leprosy, there is not one of our many colonies without some lovely lamps of pure divine truth glittering in surrounding darkness. Freethinkers may be bold and blasphemous; standard-bearers may faint or flee; the number of the saved may be comparatively small; but yet there is a "remnant according to the election of grace," and JEsus shall reigN. Brethren of the United States, your continent is next eldest to ours: let us have a place in your plans and in your prayers, and the redeemed of Christ from the last discovered land will not prove altogether inglorious allies in the last campaign of the holy war.

THE RELIGIOUS CONDITION OF CANADA.

BY REV. GEORGE MONRO GRANT, D.D., PRINCIPAL OF QUEEN'S UNIVERSITY, KINGSTON, CANADA.

I HAVE been asked to give an estimate of the character and movement of the religious thought and life of Canada, and in making the estimate to limit myself to the Protestant churches. The limit simplifies the problem. Of our five millions of people, fully two millions are Roman Catholies, and the great majority of these French by race and language-would require separate treatment in any discussion. They were as completely cut off from France by the Conquest of 1763 and the Revolution as they were from all currents of American life by distinctive institutions, laws, and language which British legislation secured to them. They have in consequence remained-for good and evil alike to a great degree unaffected by the modern spirit. Of the Protestants of Canada, more than nine tenths are Methodists, Presbyterians, Anglicans, or Baptists, this being the order in the census; and as their historical evolution has been determined by a common environment and common causes, the general religious condition and movement can be traced without much difficulty.

Three events, subsequent to 1763, exercised a controlling influence on the Canadian people-the forced migration from the States into the different provinces of a hundred thousand Tories or U. E. Loyalists, at the close of the Revolutionary War; the voluntary migration from Great Britain and Ireland, chiefly in the second quarter of this century; and the political unification of Canada into a Dominion in 1867, followed by the opening up of the Northwest and the extension of the country to the Pacific.

The first event shaped our character in infancy. We sometimes speak of the United States as a new country, but it is of venerable antiquity compared with Protestant Canada. When

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