"My Queen, Victoria, 21 years and 119 days. "The Lord my God, 11 years and 262 days. "Would you know what were my wages?

"The wages of the first service were very hard, with the prospect of death at the end.

"The wages of the second are very fair and reasonable, with a pension for life.”

"The wages of the last are most glorious here, and in the world to come life everlasting.

"Do you ask how my expectations were realized?

"The first promises great things, but never performs them.

"The second fulfils all the promises it makes.

"The last FAR EXCEEDS OUR UTMOST EXPECTATIONS AND DESIRES. "This day has been long and anxiously looked for, but will its accomplishment give me all I could desire? No. Jesus and all His fulness can only satisfy the craving of my soul. Twenty-one years have been devoted to my beloved Queen and country, may God help me TO DEVOTE THE RESIDUE TO HIM."

West African Scenes: being Descriptions of Fernando Po, its Climate, Productions, and Tribes-the Cause and Cure of Sickness-with Missionary Work, Trials, and Encouragements. By Rev. HENRY ROE, Missionary to Fernando Po, and Author of "Mission to Africa." Seven Engravings. London: Elliot

Stock.

MR. ROE has embodied in this little, but deeply interesting work, no small amount of information on the various matters to be found on the title-page, and withal in a most pleasant and lively manner. We can confidently recommend the book, and it might very advantageously find a place in every Sunday-school library.

An Allegory, teaching of Sin and Salvation, their Sources and Operations. By THOMAS SAMPSON. London: John Kempster.

THIS is the "People's Edition" of a more expensive work, entitled “The Heart and its Inmates." Allegorical in form, it is Scriptural in principles, chiefly valuable because it insists so strongly and intelligently on the necessity of conversion.

Pulpit Earnestness; or, The Ministry of Earnestness and Power, the great want of the Sacred Desk. By SILAS HENN. Fourth Edition, enlarged. London: Elliot Stock.

A PAMPHLET on such a subject, in the fourth edition, needs no other recommendation; but we may add that our readers who have not seen it, will find it stimulating and soul-stirring in an eminent degree.

Mrs. Butler's Pamphlet, entitled Some Thoughts on the Present Aspect of the Crusade against the State Regulation of Vice is able and convincing; our friend, Mr. Mark Guy Pearse's little book, A Question for Everybody: Can I be saved? we devoutly wish everybody would read; and Mr. Longley's Church and Home, and Mr. Allingham's Christian Glowworm, might be localised by the Churches, as they are intended to be, and widely circulated with great advantage.

Poetry.

LEAVES FROM THE PAST.-No. 3.

"For the invisible things of Him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and godhead."-ST. PAUL.

Starlight o'er Babylon. The fiery glare

Of noontide heat hardening the bitumen
Of walls and towers that span the city's girth,
Falling no more on knots of turbaned men
Amid the streets and squares, along the quay,
By river-steps, upon the bridge of stone
Raised by Nitocris from Euphrates' bed;
Nor floating lights of even longer known.

No sound of horse or rolling chariot wheels
Breaks on the stillness of the midnight air;
Barges are moored, the boatmen sunk to rest,
No engine workers on the terraced stair,
Their work all done; delicious coolness drips
From hanging gardens balmed in orient myrrh
Where tier on tier aerial columns rise,

With trees and palaces intercalar.

Climbing the pyramid that erst was raised

On Shinar's plain, where Seth's descendants sought
A tower by means of which to reach the sky,
And varying language dire confusion wrought,
A youth is seen, for whom the starlit heavens
Spread not in vain their roll of mystic lore,

Beyond the secret of astrology

Already have his fancies dared to soar;

Reading in vaulted dome of stedfast blue

Messages from the boundless realms of space :
"Your sculptured gods, oh men of Babylon,
But hide from view the great Creator's face.
Can hunting Belus represent his form?

Can winged lion shadow forth his might?
The human-eagle emblem, with what speed
He moves amid the empyrean light?

Not all the images set up below

That nature's forces worship may receive,

Can manifest aright his qualities

On whom the universe bids man believe.

Greater than Baal is this Unknown One

Who made the earth, the things which are therein,

Likewise the upper air; of all that breathe

The vivifying source and origin."

S.

THE

BIBLE CHRISTIAN MAGAZINE.

AN EARNEST WORD OF EXHORTATION.

SINCE the Conference, the noble watchwords of William Carey, Attempt great things for God," "Expect great things from God," have been ever in our thoughts. At no former assembly of the kind have we witnessed the same spirit of hopefulness and courage, and now, calmly sitting down to review the proceedings, we can do so with all but unqualified satisfaction. The ecclesiastical year just closed has been one of almost unbroken harmony, and it is clearly seen that the best interests of the denomination are being consolidated, and therefore that its position and prospects are brighter than ever before.

We do not forget that in several departments-chapel, and missionary, and educational—we are still heavily weighted; but when we remember how our friends are multiplying, and their wealth, too, and that in some parts of our work-the chapel, for example the burden is becoming lighter, we do greatly rejoice. Notwithstanding the increase in the number of our chapels, and the improvements that have been effected in nearly all, the aggregate debt is yearly diminishing. There is, however, danger, as one speaker pointed out at the Conference, without constant watchfulness and care, that isolated cases may become more and more burdensome, despite the general prosperity.

Nor do we forget the discouraging effect produced when brethren in the ministry separate themselves from us, as some have done in the past year. We would not judge them too harshly-ours is a OCTOBER, 1874.

E E