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presided over by Mr. Hooke, jun., when several addresses and recitations were delivered. On Sunday, April 3rd, a special address was delivered to the children of the Sabbath schools, by the Rev. S. Lepine, (of Abingdon.) On Monday, April 4th, the annual tea meeting was held. After tea there was a sale of useful and ornamental articles. This was followed by a public meeting, J. H. Cotterell, Esq. (one of the VicePresidents of the United Kingdom Band of Hope Union), in the chair. The secretary, Mr. F. Manning, read the report, which showed a balance due to the treasurer of about £1. 10s. The total number of members was stated to be over 400. The adoption of the report was moved by the Rev. W. Mottram, and seconded by Mr. Sturges. The Rev. A. Ramsey, (of Gloucester,) in moving the re-election of Mr. Hooke, jun., as president, and Mr. F. Manning, as honorary secretary of the society, delivered a most eloquent and able address, in which he appealed to his hearers to join in the conflict with England's greatest foe, and thus become champions "in the truest chivalry." T. Thompson, Esq., exhorted those present to have faith in one another, their principles, and their God, and finally they would conquer. Mr. T. Line having delivered a stirring address, the meeting terminated with a vote of thanks to the chairman. The adjourned meeting was held on the following evening, Mr. Hooke, jun., in the chair, when, in addition to recitations given by Masters Lane, Bishop, Garlick, and others, interesting addresses were delivered by the Rev. T. Noyes and Mr. William Garlick. The anniversary closed (as it had begun) with prayer.

WANTED,-INFORMATION.

The Editor is preparing a paper on the present position of the Band of Hope movement throughout the world. Will our readers kindly send him what information they may possess? For instance, let him know :

1. The name of the Band of Hope.

2. The name of its Secretary.

3. When and where it meets.

4. Number of members.

5. Influence of local drinking customs on the children.

6. How they resist that influence.

7. Facts which illustrate points Nos. 5 and 6.

8. Mode of conducting the Band of Hope: describe in full anything special in doing this.

9. Relation of the Band of Hope to a Christian Church, Sunday School, or Temperance Society.

10. Present prospects.

Our friends will please to write on one side of their paper. Crossed manuscript must not be sent.

Address-Rev. G. W. M'Cree, 37, Queen Sq., London, W.C. Good Friends! write speedily, and we will thank you much for your kindness.

J. BALE, Printer, 78, Great Titchueld-street, Marylebone.

BAND OF HOPE RECORD.

ANNUAL MEETINGS.

The annual meetings for the present year, of the United Kingdom Band of Hope Union, have been held. Notwithstanding the adverse influence of the Whitsuntide holidays, combined with extremely hot weather, they were well attended, and we believe afforded entire satisfaction to subscribers, the friends of the movement generally, and the earnest workers who attended them. They were commenced as usual, with the early prayer meeting, in Bloomsbury Chapel, which for several years has been kindly lent for this purpose, by the Rev. W. Brock and deacons. The Rev. G. W. M'Cree presided, and gave a short address on the text, a seed shall serve him." Appropriate prayers were offered by various friends.

66

UNITED KINGDOM BAND OF HOPE UNION.

The ninth annual meeting of this society was held at Exeter hall, Strand, on Monday evening May 16th. A choir of six hundred children from various Bands of Hope in the metropolis, under the direction of Mr. F. Smith, sang various pieces during the evening. The chair was aken by Charles Gilpin, Esq., M.P. The following ministers and gentlemen were on the platform :-The Dean of Dromore, the Revs. John Rodgers, M.A., J. Burns, D.D., Stenton Eardley, M.A., Newman Hall, LL.B., E. P. Fairfield (Michigan, Deputy-Lieutenant of the State, and President of the College), G. W. M'Cree, Samuel Couling (Scarborough), John Kaye (editor of the Wesleyan Times), W. Charlesworth, C. Harrison, Isaac Doxsey, and J. Boyle; and Messrs. Joseph Payne, Warren Hall, W. Purvis, John Rutherford (Northampton), John Thwaites, W. R. Selway, Joseph Sturge Gilpin (Nottingham), John De Fraine, Robert Mellors (Nottingham), G. W. Murphy, W. Tweedie, Robert Rae, William West, Colonel Young (Bedford), S. L. Carleton (United States), Eben. Clarke, jun., W. J. Haynes, William Sims, Elihu Burritt, William Spriggs, T. I. White, S. Shirley, R. B. Starr, G. S. Wybroo, T. Wood, F. Fusedale, A. Hawkins, S. Johuson, Silas Tucker, W. Bell, &c.

A hymn was sung, after which prayer was offered by the Rev. Isaac Doxsey. The children then sang the second piece on the programme. A summary of the report was given by the Rev. G. W. M'Cree.

'The third melody was then sung.

The CHAIRMAN said: My excellent friend on my right (Mr. M'Cree) has promised you the "pleasure" of listening to me after the hymn which you have just heard. I feel that I can offer you nothing in comparison with the melody of those young voices raised up in praising a cause the

good of which they have proved, and in returning thanks to the Giver of the success to that cause (cheers). Amongst the various institutions which, during this month, hold their anniversaries in this hall, I think there is none really none-which presents a higher claim-I had almost said so high a claim, upon the benevolent, the enlightened, and the Christian community, as that whose anniversary we are assembled to celebrate, and whose principles we are met together to promote (cheers). A few days hence, and what I was about to call the "parent" society—a kindred society, at least, to this, is to hold its meeting in this hall, under the presidency of that gentleman whose name has been rightly received this evening with cordial approbation-I mean the president of the Band of Hope Union, Mr. Morley (cheers). That association labours heartily, earnestly, and successfully to promote the Temperance reformation by persuading all of every age to abstain from the use of intoxicating liquors as a beverage. It labours successfully; but oh, how often unsuccessfully when it deals with those whose habits are formed, and whose characters are formed, and who find it too often all but impossible to break off their injurious habits, and to get rid of the character acquired! But there is peculiar reason and peculiar importance in our addressing ourselves to the young-these young mortal immortals-before they have felt the power of temptation, before they have acquired habits deleterious to themselves, saddening and darkening in their influences, and in raising, if possible, a barrier around them against that vice by which more have fallen than, perhaps, all other vices put together. Well, the Band of Hope Union, and those who promoted this institution, have cast their eyes along the pathway of life crowded with myriads of every age-some with the buoyant step of youth, others with the tottering gait of age, and they find that in the midst of that pathway is one pitfall deep and dangerous, into which more fall than into all other snares; and towards that pitfall there is but one pathway, and the Band of Hope Union would bar that pathway. The Band of Hope Union would place an obstacle to the entrance into that pathway by which alone the pit can be approached. I remember, many years ago, the importance of pressing the Temperance question upon the young was brought before me forcibly, and I have never got rid of the impression. It was long before we thought of Bands of Hope. I was visiting in Lancashire a poor man in connection with an Accident Association with which I am connected. He was suffering severely from an accident which had occurred to him in consequence of drunkenness. It was not the first time that he had injured himself through drink, and over and over again he had made an effort to escape from the thraldom into which he had fallen. I sat by him, and I reasoned with him, and urged him to abstain altogether from intoxicating liquor, as the only means for him to amend. He listened to me carefully, patiently, earnestly, approvingly, but at last, in his broad dialect, he said, "I mon gang mine own way;" and then pointing to his little boy beside him, he said, " But yon-oh, if you could keep yon from the drink!" Well this association would "keep yon from the drink." This society would, by gentle persuasion such as alone is compatible with its ope

rations, persuade children to commence aright, and by abstaining from the first to escape the temptations of the future. I rejoice, as you have rejoiced, to hear the favourable report which has been read this evening, or rather, not read, but told us-talked to us— -explained to us by my excellent friend Mr. M'Cree. It was a great improvement upon reading. You have rejoiced with me in the success which has attended the efforts of this association; and I can only say, may that success be multiplied a hundred fold! (cheers). We rejoice in the snccess which has been achieved; we believe in that success continuing: we believe that 66 Truth, and love, and knowledge,

The civilising three,

Still show, from good that has been,

The better that will be ;"

and we heartily hope that those who are banded together in a cause like this will be favoured to see the result of their labours blessed to all around them in the increasing intelligence, the increasing morality, and the increasing happiness of that rising generation which are the joy of the present and the hope of the future (cheers). I do not forget that the business of a chairman is less to speak than to listen; but I could not take my seat in the chair as I have done this evening without thus far expressing my earnest and hearty sympathy with the object which we are met to promote, and my willingness on all occasions on which it is in my power to lend a helping hand to those engaged in this movement (applause).

The Rev. G. W. M'CREE announced that the Rev. Mr. Bucke and Handel Cossham, Esq., would be unable to attend, but the Rev. Dr. Burns had very kindly consented to speak.

The Rev. JABEZ BURNS, D.D., said that he had come more especially to do honour to that illustrious woman who was the founder of Bands of Hope, and who had passed to her reward since they had last assembled in that hall. He referred to that noble Christian woman, Mrs. Carlisle. He had the privilege and the honour of introducing Mrs. Carlisle to the Temperance societies of England. Her life was a life of constant prayer. At the commencement and conclusion of every effort she sanctified it with an earnest spirit of importunate prayer, and she had so much of the love and spirit of her Master that wherever she went she made her influence tell in promoting the good cause. She laboured till she was blind, and till she could no longer walk, and during the past year she had gone to that higher world where the labourer received the crown and the reward, but she had left in the United Kingdom thousands and thousands of results. As soon as the Temperance cause was inaugurated she became a thorough teetotaller, and she was a wonderfully oldfashioned teetotaller, having no idea of any sort of teetotalism but one, and that was entire abstinence. There was a very distinguished medical man in Dublin, who was going to lecture to show that Dr. Lees, and Dr. Carpenter, and Professor Miller, and others had gone to the extreme in representing alcohol to be so entirely pernicious, and he was going to show in his lecture that alcohol had a conserving influence upon the

tissues, and that if it did not contain nutrition it saved the waste of the tissues. Good Mrs. Carlisle was perfectly terrified at all this nonsense, and she was taken to the lecture. The lecturer went through a rigmarole of metaphysical, and physical, and technical definitions, and when he had done, good Mrs. Carlisle, as she was wont to pray about everything, put up her arms and said, "Lord Jesus, save us from the tissues!"(laughter). In this spirit of thoroughness, simplicity, earnestness, and self-sacrifice this good woman lived and died. He would now say three or four words with respect to the occasion of their being then assembled. He said, with reference to all noble enterprises, "Give us the children" (cheers). If the Church of the Saviour.was to prosper, and if we were to see a permanent revival, give us the children. If we were to have an intelligent population, give us the children. If we were to have a growing population that should thoroughly reform and put in order the House where the chairman sat, give us the children (langhter). If we were to put down the drinking customs and the profligate habits of the nation, give us the children (cheers). It had often been said that schoolmasters were great pedants, and imagined that they were very important personages. As a schoolmaster was one day walking in the town where he taught, he met a person, and told him that he was the master of the parish. The person he addressed said, "Well, I had not the pleasure of knowing that." "Well," said the schoolmaster, "I will show you how it is. Some people think that the men are the masters, but they are not, for the women master the men (laughter). And then the women are not the masters, for the children master the women, and I master the children. Therefore, fairly and logically, I am the master of the parish." They would never get a thoroughly Temperance London until they got the children. Give them the children, and then people would not go bamboozled through the world, hood-winked, and talking about intoxicating drinks as "the good creatures of God." Give them the children, and society would become rid of the prejudices in favour of those drinks, and persons would grow up with very strong predilections in favour of teetotalism. Give them the children. because habit was second nature. He believed there were hundreds of drunkards in England whom no process could save, their self-control being almost extinct. The taste for alcohol was not natural, but artificial; and before the artificial appetite was formed, give them the children. Finally, give them the children, because children were not the slaves of custom. Give them the children, and the cause would then have in its favour power, and mind, and heart, and influence, and intellect, which were unshackled, and which might tend, under the blessing of God, to emancipate the country from the curse of strong drink. He had three or four verses to read before resuming his seat. Had he known that the poet laureate of teetotalism, of ragged-schools, of city missions, of omnibus improvements, and of every good movement which influenced this great city, would have been present, he should never have dreamed of trying to write verses (cheers and laughter); but under the emergency of the occasion, and having to supply the place of two absent speakers, he thought he had better supply the place of one in prose and of the other in poetry (great laughter) :—

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