This institution enjoys affiliation with McGill University. During the past quadrennium its friends were called to mourn the death of its honoured principal, the Rev. Geo. Douglas, D.D., LL.D. The number of students has averaged seventy each session. Of these thirteen per cent. took the Arts course in McGill, twenty per cent. the course for the degree of B.D., forty per

cent. the course for licentiates in theology, seventeen per cent. the Conference course for probationers, and ten per cent. preliminary

or matriculation work.

The endowment fund is increasing gradually. The total assets amount to $130,000, and there is no debt on the building. Students board at the College at a much less cost than they could in the city.

The

Increased accommodation is required both for lecture-rooms and dormitories. The Rev. W. I. Shaw, D.D., LL.D., is now principal. total staff of teachers is six. The Methodist College at Stanstead. This college has done a noble work for the youth of both sexes. Recently $20,000 was raised for the payment of certain debts and providing further facilities for usefulness.

Albert College, Belleville.

This college was instituted by the late Methodist Episcopal Church in 1857, and was incorporated with Victoria University at the Union of 1883. The total number of its students last quadrennium averaged more than 220. It has been an excellent auxiliary to Victoria, and its students have proved themselves equal to those of any similar institution.

1873, but for want of support was discontinued until 1877, when it was incorporated. It is now affiliated with the university of Manitoba. The members and friends of Manitoba and the Northwest Conferences have nobly sustained the college. A building is now in course of erection, towards which Mr. H. A. Massey, of Toronto, gave $25,000, and other gentlemen have generously contributed several thousand dollars. Already the institution has been of great value to the rising ministry of

the Conference.

The Columbian Methodist College.

The Rev. R. Whittington, M. A., B.Sc., after spending a few years in Japan, has entered upon the duties of principal of this institution in British Columbia, which was incorporated in 1893. Though only that it has entered upon an honourrecently organized, its friends believe able career.

In addition to the important seats of learning now named as belonging to the Methodist Church, there are also the Ladies' colleges at Hamilton, St. Thomas and Whitby, all of which have done valuable work. The college at Hamilton was the pioneer institution of its kind in Canada.

tutions in Japan; Mount_Elgin There are also missionary insti Indian Institute, and the French Methodist Institute in Montreal. There are Indian industrial schools at Red Deer, Port Simpson, Morley Some of these and Chilliwhack. are supported, at least in part, by the Woman's Missionary Society, which also sustains schools at Tokyo, Shizuoka, Kanazawa and Kofu, Japan, the Crosby Home at Port Simpson, the Indian School at Chilliwhack, the Chinese Rescue Home at Victoria, and some French schools in the Province of Quebec.

Sunday-schools.

Wesley College, Winnipeg.

increase 22,265. Amount raised for Sunday-school Aid Fund in quadrennium $16,717.73, increase $2,842.73.

Grants have been made to schools to the amount of $19,249, an increase on the previous quadrennium of $7,372. These grants were distributed through every province of the Dominion in the missionary districts of Newfoundland, the Maritime Provinces, in the new settlements of the upper Ottawa, Muskoka, Algoma, Manitoba and the North-West and in British Columbia.

The work of the Secretary has largely increased, 4,800 letters have been written during the quadrennium.

Within a very small fraction of the entire income of the Board is distributed directly for the benefit of poor schools, there being no expenses of management beyond a small amount for postage and a few sundries of the kind. It is gratifying to notice that the schools are responding more uniformly and more liberally to the appeals made

for this fund.

The expenditure for schools maintained during 1894 reached the very large sum of $122,422; an increase of $19,172, or nearly twenty per cent. over that of 1890, which was an increase of thirty per cent. on that of 1886. The number of books reported in the Sunday-school libraries is 318,017, an increase of 51,543 on books of 1890.

There has been raised in the schools for missions in 1893-4, $25,361, an increase of $1,636 on the previous year. Of the Sunday-school periodicals over 160,000 pages are printed for every working-day in the year. The

entire income from these exceeds $200,000.

with the Christian Endeavour societies and vice versa. Large hopes are entertained for this late movement of Methodism. There are also 259 Christian Endeavour societies in the Methodist Church in Canada. There are also a number of societies of King's Sons and King's Daughters, and 253 Mission Bands and Circles. Book-Room and Publishing House.

An increased amount of business was done during the quadrennium; hence there was an increase of profits in all the departments amounting to $72,874.02, notwithstanding the large deduction made by the valuators on the assets. The capital stock has been increased to $65,209.93, an increase on the quadrennium of $12,301.18. During the same term $26,300 was granted to the Superannuation Fund, an increase of $4,300.

A loan of $10,000 without interest is granted the Book-Room at Halifax.

The price of the Christian Guardian is to be reduced to one dollar, commencing January 1st, 1895. A largely increased circulation will be required to save the House from loss. The Book Committee is authorized to open a depository in Winnipeg if expedient, and a corresponding editor at Winnipeg is to furnish matter for a page in the Christian Guardian; two pages are also to be set apart as the Epworth League department.

The eastern section of the BookRoom has had an increase of sales, which has produced net profits amounting to $3,434.97. The price of the Wesleyan is to be reduced to one dollar, which it is hoped will be the means of greatly increasing the circulation of that weekly.

Missionary Report.

The income during the quadrennium was $857,156 and the expenditure $951,332, leaving a deficit of $23,000. The contribution per member averaged 77 cents. Toronto Conference is the largest, $1.06.

The Woman's Missionary Society reports an income of $37,974, a gain in four years of $15,667. All this amount is expended among the

French, Indian, Chinese and Japanese missions, schools and missionaries.

The Board strongly recommended that something should be done to reduce the number of home missions, as some places had been missions forty years. Means should be adopted also to prevent so many Protestant missionary societies labouring in the same localities, as such proceedings involved unnecessary expenditure both of men and money.

The foreign missions in China and Japan presented many interesting features. In the former a chapel had been built, largely by the aid of a liberal friend at Halifax, N.S., also two parsonages and a dispensary

were in course of erection.

With a view to reduce expendture the number of members on the General Board has been reduced. The General Secretary has generously reduced his own salary $500. A reduction is also made in the

salary of the assistant, so that the expense of management will thus be reduced $2,000.

Owing to increasing demands, the Board at its late meeting could only make grants to the domestic missions averaging about seventy per cent. of their claims. This is a great hardship. Cases have come to the present writer's knowledge, where young men, university graduates, received smaller allowances than female teachers in the public schools. It is to be hoped that during the current year there may be an increase of income. A Children's Day and collections in the Sundayschools should help to swell the amount of income to $250,000.

Embarrassed Trusts Board Report. Several trusts, nineteen in all, including St. Lawrence Camp Ground, have been aided to the

amount of $16,145.98, besides the sum of $17,454.27 paid in interest to various trusts on borrowed money. There are now only five trusts besides the camp ground, which have not been wholly relieved. An increase of one per cent. during the next four years will do much to completely relieve the embarrassment. The collections received in four years amount to $17,550.35.

Superannuation Board Report.

The number

$206,038.83, an increase of $29,The invested capital amounts to of claimants has increased, so that 038.83, since 1890. there are now 204 ministers, 151 widows, and eighty-two children receiving aid from this fund.

During the quadrennium there was an increase from investments,

but a decrease from ministers' and circuits' subscriptions.

In future ministers' subscriptions are to be in proportion to their salaries, on which they are to pay three per cent., none less than $15, on salaries of $500 or under. Departments which have the services

of ministers are to contribute an

amount equal to what the circuits would be likely to contribute should those ministers be employed in the pastorate.

General Conference Fund Report.

The income for the quadrennium was $22,352.70, but the expenditure was $37,192.02. The excess in the expenditure arose largely from unforeseen expenses in connection with the Ecumenical Council, law expenses, committee meetings on union, and commission on boundaries. If the various Annual Conferences will exceed their collections during the quadrennium twenty per cent., the deficit may be removed by the General Conference of 1898.

THE New Testament affords but one hint of the personal appearance of Jesus Christ. John is in the Spirit, it is said, on the Lord's Day. He is awakened as from a trance by a great voice like that of a trumpet, turns to see who it is that is speaking to him, and, being turned, beholds one like unto the Son of man: "His eyes were as a flame of fire, and his feet like unto fine brass, and his voice as the sound of many waters." This is not like the pictures of Christ which conventional art has furnished us-a feminine face, hair parted in the middle, long flowing locks, all gentleness, tenderness, femininity. One can imagine, from this picture, John recalling the appearance of Christ when He drove the traders from the temple, His eyes flashing fire, His firm and martial tread indicating the resistless will, and His voice of wrath deep and sonorous. As one looks at this picture he can, too, better understand some misunderstood or forgotten incidents in the life of Christ. He will remember how more than once this Christ faced a mob and the mob parted before Him, and He passed through them as Israel through the Red Sea; he will remember how the Temple police came to arrest Christ as He was teaching in the Temple, but left Him untouched and went away and reported, "Never man spake as this man; he will remember and get new light upon the declaration that Jesus Christ spake with authority, and not as the scribes; he will re

"

member the significant little incident recorded in Mark, that, as Christ and His disciples went up to Jerusalem, Jesus went before the rest, and they, amazed and afraid, followed after; he will remember and better understand the declaration of the evangelists, more than once repeated, that the disciples were afraid to ask Christ, and questioned among themselves as to His meaning; he will remember the night of the arrest, and how Christ went out and put Himself between His half-awakened disciples and the band of police, confronting the latter, and how they fell backward to the ground before Him, and He waited, holding the band at bay by His mere presence, until He gave opportunity to His disciples to escape; he will remember and understand the awe of Pilate before this majestic personality.

But was not Jesus gentle, and tender, and patient? Was not His gentleness, His tenderness, His patience, more than woman's, the wonder of His disciples? Yes! But what made this wonderful was that such a man as He possessed also these traits. The Lion of the tribe of Judah was the Lamb who before His shearers opened not His mouth. What amazed them was that a man with such power of wrath that the traders fled before Him unarmed and unattended, a man with such power of indignation that the Pharisees quailed before His flashing eye and sonorous utterances-that such a man as He, when personally insulted,

was silently patient, standing calm and unmoved when spit upon and buffeted. For in Jesus Christ the strength of manhood and the patience of womanhood were united. He knew how to be angry and sin not, for His anger was inspired by love, never by personal pride. He bore with unruffled patience wrongs to Himself, but His eyes flashed fire when He saw wrong perpetrated

upon others. The world yet waits for an artist who shall paint a Christ that shall answer to the vision which John saw in the isle of Patmos, a Christ through the windows of whose soul spirit flashes out in gleams of fire, whose feet have the tread of might and majesty, whose lips suggest a voice in its deep musicalness like the voice of the ocean, full of power.

Chinese Characteristics. By ARTHUR H. SMITH, Twenty-two Years a Missionary of the American Board in China. Second edition revised, with illustrations. Fleming H. Revell Company, New York, Chicago and Toronto. Price, $2.00.

The attention of the world is turned to the great Chinese Empire

as

never before. This greatest, territorially, and oldest of nations seems to be on the eve of breaking up. Certainly it is getting such a rude shaking by contact with Japan,

and the modern arts of war, that it will never be again what it has been in the past. It is probable that before the end of this century railways, telegraphs and steam navigation will open up the country to the Gospel and Christian civilization as never before.

In view of these changing conditions a recent and authentic description of the country and its people will possess unusual interest. Such description is given in the volume under review by a missionary of twenty-two years' standing and of keen powers of observation and description. In a number of graphic chapters the author describes the extraordinary economy and industry of the Chinese, their uniform politeness, their disregard of time and accuracy, their talent for misunderstanding and indirection; and, in happy phrase, their flexible inflexibility and intellectual turbidity, their absence of nerves and contempt

for foreigners, their absence of public spirit, their conservatism, patience and perseverance, content and cheerfulness, filial piety and benevolence, mutual suspicion and absence of sincerity. Chinese religions, the real condition and need of China, are the subject of concluding chapters.

From this enumeration it will be seen how wide is the range of this survey. This will be an adınirable book for mission bands and circles.

The numerous illustrations from

original photos are exceedingly good. The interior views especially bring before us the social life of the people in a very realistic manner.

The Last Leaf. By OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. Illustrated by GEORGE WHARTON EDWARDS, and F. HOPKINSON SMITH. Boston and New York: Houghton, Mifflin & Co. Toronto: William Briggs. Price, $1.50.

There is a peculiar pathos about the posthumous issue of this poem, which the genial "Autocrat” has illustrated by his own lingering life. In a fac-simile letter, dated July 12th, 1894, he says: "I am one of the very last of the leaves which still cling to the bough of life that budded in the spring of the nineteenth century. The days of my years are threescore and twenty, and I am almost half-way up the steep incline which leads me to the base of the new century, so near to which I have already climbed."