and in many instances hopes are entertained that souls have been won to Christ. Your Missionary has delivered in at the office of the London City Mission sixty reports of death-bed scenes, some of them truly awful to read, and much more so to witness; others, of a different character, have much encouraged him to hope that his "labour has not been in vain in the Lord."

One remarkable case of this description many present probably are familiar with--the case of Thomas Stevens. The particulars of it were published in the "City Mission Magazine" for March 1839. He was an avowed Infidel when first visited by your Missionary, but he became, through the blessing of God, a humble and decided Christian. A tract embodying the facts of the case is in the course of preparation.

Another case of affliction, which terminated in death, is also peculiarly interesting. About twelve months ago, your Missionary was informed by a respectable female that she was about to go into the hospital. He requested her to read, while there in retirement, "Thornton's Companion to the Sick Chamber," which he lent her from a loan library; she thanked him, and promised she would. She was some time in the hospital; and on her return, he was surprised to hear her say, "Through my affliction, and reading that book you lent me, Sir, I think very differently from what I did before; I am very desirous now of knowing more of the way of salvation; I long to get to a place of worship, and feel I shall never be happy till I am one of the people of God." From this time she attended the Rev. J. Yockney's ministry, where her convictions of sin and the necessity which she felt of self-dedication to God were deepened. This woman had always been of a moral and consistent character, but never till then was divested of selfrighteousness. Nothing but very humbling views of herself kept her from Church communion. She often conversed on that important subject. A short time back she was again attacked, and suffered severely from her disease as well as from surgical operations. Yet no murmuring escaped her lips; "It is all for my good," was her constant cry. On the first visit paid her in this affliction, she said, "I deeply regret I did not give up myself to God sooner; I shed many tears now on account of my sins. A few nights after this, about twelve o'clock, she sent her husband for your Missionary. He immediately visited her, conversed and prayed with her, and six other persons present. It was a solemn midnight service. She soon after entered that rest that remaineth

for the people of God.

If it should be said that the genuineness of death-bed repentances cannot be relied on, your Missionary is happy to be enabled to state that there are "LIVING WITNESSES" to prove that his labours have not been in vain in visiting the sick.

Early in 1838, he visited a young man much troubled with epileptic fits, so much so, that death was daily expected. After

various means had been used he recovered, and when restored to health, he gave very satisfactory evidences of a change of heart, and was shortly after admitted into Church-fellowship. Since which he has been most exemplary in his conduct, and devoted in the cause of the Lord Jesus. He came every Lord'sday last summer from Charing-cross to Islington, to assist the Missionary at his meetings. His heart seems full of love to Christ and souls, and he is very desirous of being entirely devoted to Missionary work. He has received testimonials of character for this end from two ministers of the Gospel, for a country town Mission. Shortly after he married, he brought his wife to the Missionary Meetings, when she soon felt it her duty to give up herself to Christ, and soon also was united with the Church at Lower-street, where she attended with her husband. And what is still more gratifying to report is, that the father of this young man, who had been a drunkard thirty years, after joining the Teetotal Society, in Church-street school-room, has been led to feel it his duty to give up himself to God, and has also been admitted into communion at the same place. If your Missionary had no other encouragement than this, he would be fully compensated for his feeble labours.

MEETINGS.-Your Missionary has held 447 meetings since he has been here. The poor are indeed truly grateful for them, and they have been the means of great usefulness.

In closing this Report, your Missionary would beg to return his sincere thanks to those kind Christian friends who have so often sympathized with him in severe affliction, and although "faint," he rejoices to say he is "yet pursuing," and counts not his own life dear unto him so that he can save souls from death and extend his Redeemer's cause. He also gratefully acknowledges the assistance he has received from the different sick Societies in the neighbourhood, which have attended to the pecuniary wants of the afflicted ; especially to Lower-street Sick Society, and the Strangers' Friend Society. Through the visitation of the latter Society, a man who told your Missionary that he used to "work on Sundays to get drunk on Mondays," has been snatched as a brand from the burning, and is now a member of the Wesleyan Society.

SUMMARY. In giving the summary of labour, your Missionary deeply regrets that more has not been done; but it has been the hand of the Lord by afflictions that has prevented him from doing more. He has however held 447 meetings-the average attendance at each meeting has been about 17 persons. He has paid 12,756 visits, of which 1,548 have been to the sick and dying. He has distributed 16,799 tracts; had the promise of 91 children to be sent to school, and induced 49 persons to attend public worship.

Macintosh, Printer, 20, Great New Street, London.

CITY

THE LONDON

MISSION MAGAZINE.

FEBRUARY, 1840.

REPORT OF THE RECENT DISTRIBUTION OF THE TRACT ON INTEMPERANCE; ENTITLED

THE WAY TO BE HEALTHY AND HAPPY."

ALL the families in the metropolis found destitute of the Holy Scriptures, at the close of the year 1838, were supplied with a copy of the New Testament and Psalter. Every visitable family from Highgate, on the north, to Streatham, on the south; and from Hammersmith on the west, to the East India Docks on the east, amounting to nearly 250,000, or about 1,000,000 of the population, have been supplied with a copy of the tract on intemperance, entitled "The Way to be Healthy and Happy." The agency in this second visitation has been exclusively that of the Missionaries of the London City Mission, and has occupied the time, more or less, of forty-four of the Missionaries, for nearly six weeks.

The prevalence of the sin of intemperance induced the Committee of the London City Mission to make this special effort with a view to its decrease. In the present state of public opinion as to the best means of abolishing intemperance, it was not easy to prepare a tract to satisfy all parties, especially as the London City Mission could not give its sanction to any one of the existing institutions for the suppression of intemperance.

A tract was, however, at length prepared, which was approved by the Committee of the Mission, and also approved and adopted by the Committee of the Religious Tract Society: and one of our first objects this evening, after thanking Him who is the author of every good and perfect gift, is to express our gratitude to the Committee of the Religious Tract Society, for the kind and noble grant of 250,000 copies of the tract for gratuitous circulation in the metropolis.

The gin-palaces, public-houses, beer-shops, and many coffee. shops have been visited, and a copy of the tract has been left at

This Report was read on the evening of Wednesday, January 22, 1840, at a Public Meeting held at Freemasons' Hall. Some particulars of the Meeting will be given in our next number.

every gin-palace and public-house. By some of the proprietors of these places it was received with respect and gratitude, but by others the Missionaries were treated with insult, and the tract with contempt: the by-standers not unfrequently praising the tract and the effort to lessen intemperance, to the mortification of those whose interest it is to perpetuate and extend some of the worst evils now afflicting society.

In some districts the Missionaries met with the fiercest opposition from old drunkards, both male and female, and from the ignorant and low Irish, but chiefly on those districts where the people know but little of a Christian teacher or minister, and where they are uninstructed, and unblessed by Christian visitation.

It is by no means an unimportant result that the attention of so many of our fellow-creatures should have been called to the subject of intemperance by this large and simultaneous effort among our metropolitan population. The excitement that has prevailed, and still prevails among the labouring population, through the circulation of the tract is very great, and as the tract presents the principal aspects of the subject before the mind, every view of temperance and of intemperance has been taken in the thousands of conversations which have been held on the merits of the tract, and the truthfulness of its contents.

Another gratifying result has been the increased interest awakened among the pious poor, and among pious people generally, in the efforts and success of the London City Mission, of the British and Foreign Bible Society, and of the Religious Tract Society. Never had these Institutions such a place in the affections and prayers of the labouring population of the metropolis, as they have at the present time.

Another result has been, that many hundreds of afflicted and dying persons have been visited by the Missionaries, who are as much neglected as to Christian instruction, and are nearly as ignorant of the way of life, as if living in a land without a minister, or without a Christian. The cry for religious instruction, and for the visits of a religious instructor, has been loud and urgent, and great was the regret of many when they found that the one visit with the tract would be the solitary visit of the Missionary. Three hundred Missionaries might be located in the metropolis without at all interfering with the work of clergymen or ministers, except in increasing the number of persons attending upon their ministry, and in preparing the people more fully to appreciate and profit by the ministrations of the sanctuary.

We shall now read to you some extracts from the Reports of the Missionaries.

The Necessity for Missionary Effort, from the Actual State of many parts of the Metropolis.

One Missionary observes

"I have met with more wretchedness and misery in the past week, than ever I have in my whole life. Some of the places at the back part of Saffronhill are so bad, I scarcely thought it possible that any human being could be found there; but on reaching the top of some of the dark and filthy staircases, I found different families completely sunk in vice and misery; and, notwithstanding their extreme poverty, many of them were in a state of intoxication. I could have wished some gentieman had been with me. I was thus favoured for a short time last week, and the bare outside appearance made a deep impression on that gentleman's mind; but if he had gone through the houses with me this week, it might have filled his mind with horror: several refused the tracts; some swore at me; others asked me for gin; and it was with much persuasion I could prevail upon many of the Irish to take them."

Another says

"I have now completed three districts, viz. Gough-square, Clifford's-inn, and Snow-hill districts, and in all of them I find there are many more tracts wanted than were at first assigned to them. Instead of two families in a house, I generally find from three to six; and some houses which, at first sight, might not be considered visitable, I have found every room in them inhabited by a separate family. If I had not actually gone into the courts and alleys as I have done, I should have had no idea of the wretchedness which I witnessed in those places of misery: some were nearly in a state of starvation for want of employment; others were pining away in sickness, and some were lying in their coffins: those outward circumstances, although painful to witness, are nothing when compared with the spiritual state of the inhabitants-the one might form a kind of index to the other. Some of them told me they could not read; others refused to take the tracts; in some cases I was abused for going up stairs; but by far the greater part received them very thankfully. I have had many opportunities of speaking a word in season, especially to the sick and dying. I find there are still some who are destitute of the scriptures; and only just one here and there who attend any place of worship. What with the fatigue of going up and down so many flights of stairs for hours and many of them so confined, dark, and filthy-and having to speak to so many persons who appear completely hardened in sin, I often felt my spirits sink, and at the close of the day returned from my labours thoroughly exhausted. In the three districts above-mentioned, I have distributed 2,371 tracts. I might just say in conclusion, that no person could imagine when passing along Snow-hill or Holborn, that such scenes of wretchedness and misery were to be met with just at the back of those respectable houses.”

Another says—

"Part of the district is in the most wretched portion of Lambeth, where vice and immorality abound: indeed, one could not imagine that one's fellowcreatures could exist in such hovels as some are into which I entered; but other parts were very different, yet, by the very poor, myself and tracts were well received: and I had an opportunity of recommending many to send their children to a Sunday School, which was opened last Sabbath by the clergyman of the district chapel, for the purpose of receiving the most abject children-it may be called a fragment school. Many expressed their thanks for the information. Entering a house in Free-court, Princes-street, I found a young man had just died; the wife and a man and woman were apparently just come down from laying him out. I found he had entered eternity, without having any one to speak a word to him on the necessity of preparation for the change. Those I saw were as ignorant of Divine things