FACES SET TOWARDS HEAVEN.

"MY DEAR FRIEND,

"Though we have small Mothers' Meetings in old St. Giles's, still they are very nice ones. The eager attention given the hearty singing, the quiet way they go out, as if softened by having met together around our Lord's own Word; and often the tears that we see quietly wiped away, all tell there is a work going on, and we feel as if a large blessing must and shall come on our beloved poverty-stricken people of D— street. One woman told us that she often noticed the faces of those who were 'set towards heaven,' and they seemed as if they could not look cross; always so gentle and calm, she longed to be like them.

"When I took her hand, and said, 'You can be like them if you wish, and we have come to beg you to share our joy, and let us love one another,' she hung down her head and was silent, and then looked up saying, 'I know it's true, and I should be happier.' What struck me so much was the fact that a poor woman in a garret, hard at work, no time to go anywhere -stranger to us, should tell us that Christians she knew looked happier than others. Did it not bear with reproach on some of us? Oh, I think, if all Christians shone with the joy that the friendship of Jesus must bring, ALL would begin to ask, 'Who are these, and what meaneth this joy?'

"Our appeal for old boots two months ago, I fear, has been laid aside. We are so much in want of old boots and shoes, to set our members to work.

"Yours affectionately,

"S. C. G."

A LETTER TO THE MILLION.

BY JOHN ASHWORTH.

WE lately received from our Lancashire friend a little note, accompanied by kind enquiries. His address to the Biblewomen when in London has made him feel a brotherly in

terest in our work; and amid his own continued and abundant labours, he says:-"I have been ready to quarrel with myself during the recent hot weather for doing so little for my Lord; but every day He finds me work in some corner of the vineyard and I am willing and anxious always to sow 'precious seed.' Sweet thoughts arise from the very words, Precious seed,'-thoughts to which your dear women are no strangers; for theirs is truly a mighty work, the vibrations of which will reach to the sound of the last trumpet."

In his letter Mr. Ashworth encloses a slip-paper, headed, A LETTER TO THE MILLION, which we here reprint; and may it open the eyes of many working people to see the way they are going, by the test of the Book and the DAY!

A LETTER TO THE MILLION.

"DEAR FRIENDS,

BY JOHN ASHWORTH.

"I want to speak to you on a matter in which all our individual interests are involved, and which greatly concerns the welfare of our country. Most of you will have heard, and no doubt many of you with pain, that meetings to obtain higher wages, shorter hours of labour, and to determine about strikes, &c., have been held in several towns on the Sunday. This is a new feature in our country, and reveals a defiance of God's laws, very deplorable,—a defiance hitherto principally confined to miserable and unhappy France. In 1793, the then government of France abolished the Sabbath, shut up the churches, voted they would have no God, and executed all who thought differently from themselves, until they made the streets slippery with the blood of the best citizens, and struck all nations with horror. And only a few days since one of the 'Internationalists' objected to Mazzini being a member of their committee, because Mazzini believed in a God. In degree, these are the principles, and this is the spirit that is now trying to hold Sunday political and labour meetings in this country.

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"It will be well for us to understand, that in God's moral

government of the world, there are laws firm and unchangeable as the rising and setting of the sun: one of these laws is, that Glory to God, and goodwill to all men, invariably go together; that men who dishonour God by rejecting or slighting His commandments, are, and always have been, the greatest enemies to their fellow-men. All history proves this true, and all experience shows that just as the Sabbath is observed, loved, and revered, that nations become prosperous, healthy, and strong. It is righteousness that exalteth a nation; but the nation and kingdom that will not serve God, shall perish; yea, those nations shall be utterly wasted;' and this principle holds good in all conditions of society, in individuals or corporations. The most ungodly, Sabbath-breaking Railway companies that have the most Sunday cheap trips, and goods traffic, are now at the greatest discount in the share market, and pay the least dividends; and it ever will be so: 'They that despise God, shall be lightly esteemed.'

"I believe our safety lies in utterly and immediately rejecting the counsel or advice of any man or men that advocate the holding of club meetings, labour meetings, or political meetings on the Sabbath-day. Remember the Sabbath-day to keep it holy; for if we call the Sabbath a delight, the holy of the Lord, honourable, God will cause us to ride upon the high places of the earth; for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it.'

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"Yours truly,

JOHN ASHWORTH."

A HINT FROM OUR FRIEND G. M. E.

"DEAR MADAM,

"I have thought several times about our conversation respecting surplus labour in this country and emigration. I think that the philanthropists who take interest in this matter would do well to inform themselves what departments of labour, mechanical or otherwise, need more hands in England itself, while work in many quarters is superabundant, and workpeople unmanageable. For females few better things can be done than the training of upright, conscientious girls for domestic servants -those of the old-fashioned sort."

How many of our readers will echo this desire ?

GOOD NEWS FROM BURMAH.

OUR dear friend, Mrs. Ingolls, says :

"MY DEAR FRIEND,—

"I have a rosary to send you from a Burman priest. He is reading our Bible, and last week I took my school children and some students, and spent the whole day reading our Bible and explaining its truths to him. While I was telling him of the use you had made of the Bible-woman's little idol-god, he was very much interested, and said I must send my rosary too, which I have used for so many years. When he counts his beads he repeats thus (pulling it along slowly with his fingers), 'I am the subject of sickness,' 'I am subject to old age,' 'I am subject to death.' This is to remind him of these facts, but they believe they will have rewards for counting them also. They fasten paper prayers upon a stick and place them before their

idols.

"I enclose, also, for you your

66 BURMESE BIBLE-WOMAN'S LETTER.

"DEAR MRS. R――

"I cannot write, but I wish to tell you about my people, and so I sit down and tell the Mamma* what I wish to tell you. I was very ill a few months ago, and my friends thought my Father had called for me, but God heard the prayers of the Christians and I am well again. A great sorrow was the cause of my illness, but I was able to cast my burden upon the Lord. He has had pity upon me, and I have been able to point sinners to Christ.

"I spent a month at a large town not far from this place, and I know the Lord was with me. Those people were my companions in childhood, and in after days we bowed before the same Boodhist Priest, and our silver gods were placed in the same temple. Gold and silver offerings came from our hands each year, and if one was not quite certain of a sufficient fund the others helped them to obtain the merit.

* The native appellation for Mrs. Ingolls, pronounced Mam ma. VOL. VIII.--No. 9.

T

"When I first entered Christ's religion these friends would not speak with me, but now it was, 'Come here, my sister,' 'Come here, my mother,' and 'Come here, my aunt,' and I spoke and prayed in many of these homes where the preacher only gets a mat on the verandah. They gave me food, too, and some prayed me to pardon them for their former abuse.

use.

"A number of those women were making sacred garments for the priests, and they were so convinced of this folly, if not sin, that they sold the cloth and put aside the money for other Two were arranging to put their sons in the priesthood, but they gave it up, and a number said they would ask our God to give them light so that they could understand this new way. I went to six funeral feasts with the preachers, and while they preached to the men I talked with the women who sat about me.

"I slept a few nights with some friends and taught them to pray. 'Mamma' has told me about you and the Bible-women, and I wish I could see you all, but I shall not see you here. This old faded form will perish, and in the new one and the robes of Christ I shall come forth boldly to greet you all as my sisters.

"I must not forget to tell you about the Karen Mountains, the place where we went last year. The old chief's daughter has been converted, and now all the family are Christians. Very many of the other mountain people have come out on our side; they pray and keep the Sabbath, but have not all been baptized. The Lord has just now converted a woman who is about my own age, and we are real sisters to each other. She often gives me food for my body, and I try to give food for her soul. Her husband died just as he was beginning to pray to our God, and from what he said about Christ we do hope we shall find him in heaven.

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My prayers go up to God for you my friends in Christ. These are a few lines from your Biblewoman, Mohleah :

"I have a husband and four children. God has been with me this year, and I have been able to spend many days for my Master. My heathen father taught me to read when I was a child, and I am very glad, for now I can read the words of Christ. I have been out on some trips with the