Child-Murder.

Lo, children are a heritage of the Lord: and the fruit of the womb is His reward.-Ps. cxxvii. 3.

In the course of the recent trial of a Catskill minister for manslaughter in the first degree for having caused the death of his adopted daughter by a criminal operation, a physician named Mackey, when called to the witness stand, confessed that he had declared that "if every physician who did this illegal kind of work were arrested, all the churches would have to be turned into

jails;" and also that he had answered the coroner's question, "Have you ever done any of it?" "I have; but you can't prove it."

How far the assertion with reference to the medical profession is true and how far false we have no means of ascertaining. There are few among the number who would have the hardihood to make the declaration made so boldly by Dr. Mackey. It is altogether too probable that the crime of pre-natal murder is widespread and increasing. Judged by the fact that the number of childbirths in what are called the higher classes has been rapidly diminishing in late years, and that society's main increase is through the middle and lower classes, it seems certain that this crime is largely confined to the former. Such was the case with Roman society of old, when the day of the Empire's judgment was hastening on. How aptly do Juvenal's plain words describe the condition of things in our own day: "She who shows no long gold on her neck, Consults before the Phale, and the pillars of the dolphins,

Whether she shall marry the blanket-seller, the victualler being left.

Yet these undergo the peril of child-birth, and bear all

The fatigues of a nurse, their fortune urging them:

But hardly any lying-in woman lies in a gilded

bed;

So much do the arts, so much the medicines of such a one prevail,

Who causes barrenness, and conduces to kill men in the womb."

In a brief but suggestive work recently published, Dr. Paul Paquin, late Professor of Comparative Medicine in the Missouri State University, gives the results of a series of investigations made by him on this subject, revealing a condition of things which is truly appalling. He says:

"Of 500 women in six different denominations, married not less than five nor more than fifteen years, selected indifferently among the wellto-do, taking care not to include any one who had lost a single child even, the following was obtained: Of 100 in denomination A, Protestant, 18 are childless; of 100 in denomination B, Protestant, 16 are childless; of 100 in denomination C, Protestant, 9 are childless; of 100 in denomination D, Jew, 8 are childless; of 100 in denomination E. Roman Catholic, 3 are childless; of 100 in denomination F, Greek Church (in Europe), 2 are childless. It is safe,' continues Dr. Paquin, "to conclude that marriage under many circumstances affords a convenient cloak to cover repulsive crimes, and that Christianity, in some denominations at least, is inadequate to prevent them, while in others it prevents the most repressible, but fails to subdue the passions permanently, or even for any satisfactory length of time-not enough to eradicate what is known as lust.

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The showing is a bad one for the Protestants. There is no reason for believing that Dr. Paquin's investigations were not perfectly impartial; and this is one of the reproaches which the Romish Church has cast upon Protestants for years, that they set a light valuation on the marital relation, its responsible obligations and privileges.

That modern modes of living have much to do with the facts here stated we believe needs no proof. The tendency to abandon home life for that of compartments, in many cases where

ent class of people than goes on Sunday, and will do more good. That leaves the Sunday service for more deeply religious exercises."

We believe that there should be no Sunday service that is not "deeply religious," and that anything short of this is little better than a kind of amusement, which, while well enough in its season, is entirely inappropriate for that day which, though made for man, belongs to God. We would not be understood as hinting that the religion of Jesus Christ does not appeal to the æsthetic nature, or, rather, to the spiritual through the aesthetic, but we believe that the tendency of such services as those to which we allude is to aim at the gratification of the æsthetic and leave the spiritual untouched. Therefore let them be relegated to the week-day evening, while that of the Lord's Day is devoted to the saving or the edifying of immortal souls.

Over-Long Pastorates.

WE confess ourselves in sympathy with most of the views advanced by Dr. Haskins in his article on Long Pastorates and their Benefits, but there is another side to the question. The demands of the Church to-day are such that only the most vigorous in mind and body are capable of adequately meeting them. Many a church is losing instead of gaining because, in its devotion to a pastor long identified with it in service, it considers his feelings instead of the interests of the community in which it is located. It wonders, perhaps, that it is falling behind, not realiz. ing that, in the nature of things, a man at sixty-five cannot do the work of one at forty. Its attitude reminds us of the driver in the story told by Mr. Pollard in the Editor's Drawer" of the February Harper's. "In the days when the stage was still the prevailing mode of travel in the West, a traveller one day grew incensed at the slow progress made by the vehicle in which he was a

passenger. Remonstrating with the stage-driver, he said: What's the matter with the team this trip? We're going as slow as a New England prayermeeting. I was over this route ten years ago, and we went fast enough then.' 'We do seem to be gittin' a leetle less hump on oursel's than we did then, fur a fac', pard,' said the driver; but the why of it beats me. These here's the identical broncos we hed then.'"

Charles H. Spurgeon.

By the death of Mr. Spurgeon the Church on earth has lost a most honored laborer, the Church in heaven gained a royal witness. In the truest of senses he was a "divine," a man of God, in the testimony of his life as in that of his lips. He was a prophet and more than a prophet, speaking the truth with the unction of the Spirit. He was a priest, pouring out his intercessions with an inspiration caught from his great High Priest in the heavens. His power in prayer disclosed, in measure at least, the secret of his power in preaching. His faith was mighty, his faithfulness unfailing. But while a godly man, he was also a manly man. As he never lost his hold on God, so he never lost his touch with men. These two characteristics gave him the wonderful influence he retained till the hour of his death. Ever susceptible to the impressions of majestic truths, he was equally sensitive to the lightest touches of pure humor. A flash of his wit came across the Atlantic very recently to his American publishers, in the last communication ever received by them from his pen, when, acknowledging a remittance, he wrote: "I have received the royalty,' if such a word has any meaning in a republic." His natural sunniness won to him many a one who might have been repelled by the seeming sternness of his theology. Nor was he content simply to win men to himself; not until he had brought them to see the secret of his winsomeness, the constraining power of

the Divine love, did he feel that his mission to them was accomplished. His work was well done. His life was an effectual answer to the question of a skeptical age, "Is life worth living?" We congratulate him on his promotion in service, as we have no doubt he has already received higher and more blessed congratulations.

The Tabernacle Pulpit.

A NOTE from Dr. Pierson, just received, brings the following information, which we have no doubt will be of interest to the readers of this REVIEW : "After three months, the Tabernacle authorities unanimously invite me to continue three months longer, and if all goes well at home I may do so."

The Meanest Parishioner.

DURING an illness of my wife, and while she was still in bed, an invitation came for us to take tea with Mr. and Mrs. Lofty. My wife insisted that I should accept. I did so and spent a very pleasant evening in company with numerous friends. The following day, early in the morning, Bridget took to my wife's bed a package which had been handed in for her with the compliments of Mrs. Lofty. She opened it, but immediately delivered it over to our faithful servant, with orders to empty it into the swill-pail. Bridget took one glance, and in her sarcastic way said: "Shure and Mrs. Lofty moost ha thot we'uns were hoongry for cake."

The package was made up of the cut slices of half a cake, each slice such that it resembled glue in color and consistency. But this was not enough; we must have insult heaped upon injury. After my wife was able to leave home, and in the presence of others, Mrs. Lofty said to her: "I hope, Mrs. W., you didn't think that cake I sent to you was a sample of what I gave my guests? It was one I found unfit for use, so I sent half to Mr. Ford's and the remainder to you. I always try to remember the poo-ah." J. K. W.

The Best Parishioner.

IN W, in Galloway, in a former charge, there lived an aged believer who went by the name of "Nelly." She was bent and racked with rheumatism. She made a few pence by selling "peats" and firewood, which some of the farmers were kind enough to leave at her door. Against her will, and somewhat to her indignation, the "Poor Board" resolved, without application, to pay her two shillings and sixpence (sixty cents) per week. On the week of her first payment she sent me, carefully wrapped in paper, one shilling and sixpence for church purposes. She was scarcely able again to crawl to church. But to the very end she sent, by a little girl who passed her door every Sabbath morning, one penny to put on the "plate" for her.

"All they did cast in of their abundance; but she of her want," D. D. R.

Gall in Sweetness.

He was an apiarist. He called to sell me some honey, and was informed that none was needed. Having expatiated on the merits of that particular honey, and having used his persuasive powers to their utmost extent toward its sale, he departed, much to my relief, for I was unusually busy. But this was not the end. Late in the afternoon he appeared with a liberal smile on his face, handed me about twenty pounds of honey, saying, "Keep this till I call for it." As this remark had been used by others, who had made me presents, the honey was accepted in good faith as a gift, rather than give the brother offence by refusing it. Part of it had been disposed of among the neighbors, on the principle, "Freely ye have received, freely give." The rest was still in the cellar. But the end was not yet. On settling with the church treasurer I found that the honey parishioner had charged me with the amount that the honey would sell at the highest market price, and had induced the treasurer to give him credit on his subscription for that amount. Thus an article that was a drug on the market was forced on me under the cloak of beneficence. That honey, thereafter, was "sweet in the mouth but bitter in the belly."

THE preacher was in charge of a small station where several of the members lived in the country. One day a very prominent and wealthy member from the country was in town and called at the parsonage for dinner, ostensibly to save a hotel bill. The preacher was glad to see him; but the pantry was empty and so was the purse. Not willing that his parishioner should know the true situation, the preacher went out and borrowed a dollar with which his wife provided a very nice dinner. The guest ate heartily and praised the dinner in a most flattering man

ner.

A few days afterward one of the stewards of the charge called on this parishioner for quarterage for the pastor, upon which he indignantly replied: "I won't do it! I took dinner with that preacher last week and he lives better than I do." G. T. A.