Wilson Rescue Mission, with a trained leader and a corps of workers, on Forty-second street. Both of these are thoroughly organized, and are doing an aggressive work. It is easy to understand why the pastor of such a church as this should be chosen for the chairmanship of the Church Ex tension Committee of the Presbytery, and to one acquainted with his local work, it is not surprising that his administration in the larger capacity has been marked with unusual prosperity.

But it is not until the missionary work of the church is inspected that one gets an adequate idea of its strength and character. No less than twenty-one ministers, missionaries, and teachers, are supported by the church. Much more than half of the forty-five thousand dollars which came into its treasury last year was devoted to the support of outside benevolent work. A missionary with an assistant and three women teachers represents the church among the mountain whites of the South, and no less than seven missionaries, with a proportionate number of native workers, stand for it in the foreign field.

The amounts contributed for the support of its own representatives are wholly independent of the offerings it makes annually for the general home and foreign missionary work of the Presbyterian Church. Few churches, if any, can match this rec

ord. Without question, the Central Church is entitled to the distinction of being the first missionary church in the denomination.

Thus far I have said nothing of Dr. Smith's personal character, but in describing the character of the church of which he is the leader, I have really been compiling a biographical index. The strong, broad, aggressive work of his church is but the reflection of his own character. Deeply spiritual, large and warmhearted, kindly in temperament, radiating with good nature and cheer, and withal, manly and earnest, his personality is altogether winsome and wholesome. None admire and appreciate him more than those who know him in his home, where his charac ter glows as under no other conditions. He is fortunate enough to have a wife of exceptional personal charm and consecration, whose influence in the church adds much to its strength and attractiveness.

Dr. Smith, strong and satisfying as are his regular pulpit ministrations to his people, has rare evangelistic gifts. Few men have greater power to awaken the unconverted or to call Christians into a higher and larger religious experience. His services are in demand throughout the church, and the Spirit everywhere honors his ministry.

New York City.

Not long ago I met a minister who is approaching sixty. He said that last summer he returned from vacation with a heavy heart. He did not spend it at Northfield, you may be He had been pastor of the same church for a dozen years. He was not strong physically, and the demands of the parish were constantly increasing. Preaching was

sure.

becoming harder and harder, and he seemed to have no message for his people.

He did not feel equal to the task of taking up the burden of another year, and he began to question seriously whether a new minister could not serve the church better than him. self. For several weeks he pondered the momentous question whether he

had better not resign and hope for a smaller church. One day it occurred to him that an old minister with a new experience might be better for the church than a new minister with an old experience.

At once he began to wait on the Lord for a fresh anointing of the Holy Spirit. His heart grew hungry,

his prayers became imperative. The fire in his soul burned brighter and he fed it constantly with the fuel of God's Word. He reached the point where he fully resolved that one of two things must happen-either he would have a new religious experience or he would resign his pas

torate.

One morning as he opened a little book of selections from which he was accustomed to read before leaving his room, his eye fell upon the passage, "The Lord shall increase you more and more." Instantly there flashed into his mind a glimpse of the boundless resources of grace and glory which God had in store for him, and he cried out to his wife: "There it is, there it is, O wife; see what the Lord has given me; I haven't got to go after all." His soul was filled with heavenly joy, his eyes were wet with tears. Such a vision of the Crucified One and the depth of His riches, and such an overwhelming desire to proclaim Him came into his heart that even now he cannot recall it without tears.

It was easy then to take up the burden. Indeed it was no longer a burden, but a privilege. The chariot wheels did not drag now. Sermons were no longer made, they were born, and preaching became a delight. Never did his people enjoy his ministrations more and he seems likely to remain there as long as his earthly ministry continues.

Perhaps this incident may bring comfort to some ageing and anxious pastor whose people are becoming restless. Possibly it is not a new minister that the people crave so much as a fresh message, and that is easily within your reach. A change A change of pastors might bring no improve

ment. Indeed the old pastor with a new experience would probably be preferable to a new pastor with an old experience.

No one enjoys stale bread from the pantry nor a mouldy message from the pulpit, but a minister with a real message from God is always and everywhere welcome. everywhere welcome. Since the days of John the Baptist, whenever man or woman has been manifestly sent by God they have not lacked for hearers, and God does not call us to the ministry "until fifty," but for life, yea, for eternity.

No minister at fifty or at seventy has exhausted the resources of the Bible, though he may have exhausted his own resources. What he needs is to have his eyes anointed so that he may see the things which are really there, but which are now holden from them. "Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard. . . . the things which God hath prepared for them that love Him, but God hath revealed them unto us by His Spirit." What we need is a fresh vision of Christ which will illumine every page of the Old Book and make it new.

A little boy who had been blind from infancy had an operation which was successful. When the bandages were removed and he was allowed to go out for the first time, he looked at the grass, the trees, the skies, and then turning to his delighted parents, he said: "O papa, mama, mama, why didn't you tell me how beautiful it was before?" The parents replied, "Dear child, that is just what we were always trying to do, but somehow you were not able to sense it." Even so Paul seems to labor in prayer for the church at Ephesus, "O Lord, do open their eyes that they may know what is the hope of His calling, and what the riches of the glory of God's inheritance in the saints, and what the exceeding greatness of His power to us-ward who believe." Let the discouraged pastor quit scolding his people and pitying himself, and begin to offer this prayer daily.

New Haven, Conn.

DR. HORATIUS BONAR.

Two difficulties confront an essayest on the hymns of the Rev. Horatius Bonar (1808-1889). One consists in the fact that he wrote his hymns as his inspirations and circumstances prompted, but utterly careless about remembering the time, the place, or the inspiring cause. When questioned about the origin of some of them he could not remember.

They seldom were inspired by external circumstances and never by a ritualistic ecclesiasticism. He wrote some of them on the cars. An author is the primary, almost the exclusive, source of information on such matters, and if he fails to remember, oblivion is the result.

The other difficulty consists in the fact that he requested that no biography of himself should be written and his request has been heeded. He wrote a poem entitled. "The Everlasting Memorial," which un

doubtedly expresses sentiments that account for his feelings and request.

The resort of the essayist must be, therefore, chiefly to the literature of hymnology, which has recorded such facts as are known and given Bonar a conspicuous place in the rank of hymnists.

Horatius Bonar inherited the hymnal gift. His grandfather, the Rev. John Bonar, published several hymns in 1765. In 1837 Horatius was ordained to the ministry at Kelso, on the Tweed, near to the border of England. Two years later, in 1839, a revival of religion, originating in Kilsyth, spread to Dundee, where Robert McCheyne was pastor, and to Kelso, where Bonar was in the initial years of his ministry. wrote what he called the Kelso tracts.

He

He published "Songs for the Wilderness," two series (1843-4); "The Bible Hymn Book" (1845); "Hymns Original and Selected" (1846); "Hymns of Faith and Hope" first series (1857), second series (1864), third series (1867). These dates were given by Dr. Bonar, but the British Museum copies of the series of hymns of "Faith and Hope" are dated 1857, 1861 and 1866. In 1852 he edited "The New Jerusalem, a Hymn of the Olden Time." The preface showed learning within the realm of hymnology. In 1874 his "Song of the New Creation" was published. In 1877 he published a long poem entitled "My Old Letters."

In 1879 his "Hymns of the Nativity" were published, and in 1881 his "Communion Hymns."

Like many hymnists, he was a translator as well as an author. He translated especially from the Greek and Latin. He wrote a series of articles in the "Sunday at Home" for 1878 on hymns of the early church. Julian's Dictionary of Hymnology states that eleven of his hymns have come into common use from his two series of "Songs for the Wilderness"; two from his "Bible Hymn Book"; one from his "Hymns Original and Selected"; sixty-four from his third series of "Hymns of Faith and

Hope"; three from his "Song of the New Creation"; one from his "Hymns of the Nativity"; and one from his "Communion Hymns." In 1890 his son published a posthumous volume of his poetry entitled "Until the Day Break," and other hymns and poems left behind, from which twentysix hymns have come into common use. Among English speaking Christians, therefore, over one hundred of his hymns have come into common use, and some of these are among the finest and most useful written during the last three decades. In these data concerning his hymns we have the materials for determining his rank among the hymnists of this closing century.

1. In the first place, he is the most fertile hymnist of the century, whose hymns are in common use. His name as a hymnist appears and his hymns are sung more frequently than any other hymns since the days of Watts and Wesley, Newton and Cowper. Montgomery (1771-1854) preceded him by about a quarter of a century, and was far more voluminous. Of Montgomery's four hundred hymns more than one hundred are still in common use, or about the same number as Bonar's. But Montgomery's hymns are growing more and more obsolete, while Bonar's are not. Keble (1792-1866) preceded him by about a decade and a half, and nearly one hundred of his hymns are in common use. These are the only hymnists of the nineteenth century who are his competitors in rank, in fertility and usefulness. He is more literary than Montgomery. Keble and Bonar both needed to revise many of their poetic and hymnal productions. Wordsworth once proposed to Keble that they should go over "The Christian Year" together to correct the English.

Dr. Bonar left his hymns as he finished them. When rhyme and rhythm were wanting, as they sometimes were, they remained wanting. After his hymns were published even obvious blemishes were not corrected. Thus he maintained a lower Hterary standard than would have seemed natural and probable.

Like many other poets and hymnists, gifted with the power of versification and rhyme, he had at times what seemed a fatal facility. Hence he wrote on numerous occasions, and not merely when the inspiration of a great thought or occasion prompted him.

2. Dr. Bonar was the greatest evangelistic hymnist of this century. He was as hymnist what he was as preacher and pastor. After graduating from the University of Edinburgh, the city wherein he was born and wherein from 1866 to 1889 he was preacher and pastor, he was licensed to preach and became assistant to the Rev. John Lewis, Minister of St. James' church, South Keith. For the Sabbath-school of that church he began to write hymns. Among those written before he was thirty was one of his most popular hymns: "I lay my sins on Jesus." It was first published in 1843 and entitled: "Jesus the Substitute" and headed "The Fulness of Jesus." It has been widely used in Great Britain and America. It expresses the sacrificial doctrine of the atonement, a doctrine that has occasioned some of the best hymns that have been written, a thing that is not true of some other theories of the atonement and which on that account is doubly significant.

His career as a licentiate and an assistant minister was short. He was ordained at Kelso, November 30, 1837. He wrote there his famous Kelso tracts, which often included a hymn and which directly promoted revivals of religion in the old historic sense of the expression, viz., seasons of refreshing from the presence of the Lord when the churches are aroused and enlarged, when sinners are convicted of sin, and added to the church.

The Rev. W. G. Horder, of England, says that "Dr. Bonar is probably the only example of a really great hymnist in modern times who has consecrated his gifts to the production of verses specially adapted for times of religious revival."

Bonar continued his habit of writing hymns for the Sabbath-school of his church, and for the scattered constituency reached by his tracts. Obviously, it will not do to understand the term evangelistic in the modern restricted sense, but as broadly applicable to Bonar's ministry, and to his hymn writing as part of that ministry.

"I was a wandering sheep" was a hymn written for the Kelso Sabbathschool, and published in 1843. It was founded on 1st Peter 2: 25, "Ye were as sheep going astray'; but are now returned unto the Shepherd and Bishop of your souls." It is in common use by all English speaking Christians.

"A few years more shall roll" is the first line of a hymn written about 1842 on a fly leaf for use, not necessarily for singing, by his congregation on a New Year's day. In 1844, it was published in his "Songs for the Wilderness." It is entitled "A Pilgrim's Song." It has been widely used by the English speaking peoples. Its refrain is exquisite and ought uniformly to be attached to the hymn:

"Then, O my Lord, prepare
My soul for that great day;

O wash me in Thy precious blood
And take my sins away."

"Go, labor on, spend and be spent" was written in 1843 and published at Kelso in a booklet of three or four hymns. Its theme is the useful life." Dr. Bonar prefixed to this hymn a couplet from an anony mous and possibly very ancient Greek hymn whose translation is:

"O soul of mine, O soul of mine,
Arise, why sleepest thou?"

3. Bonar is the pre-eminent hymnist of