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Saviour and Master, and the sailors visiting it will soon realize there is one at least to care for them and do them good. But in addition to the grants to agents, institutes and bethels, reading rooms and rests, boats and boatmen, according to the needs of each port, have also been sustained.

BETHEL SERVICES AFLOAT AND ASHORE. During the past year 5,304 Bethel Services have been held afloat and ashore attended by 232,909.

These religious services constitute not the whole, but a very important part of the Society's work. Sailors for months together do not attend an ordinary place of worship, and many long voyaged seamen have not been for years. Those who have a disposition to go, often feel very awkward and uncomfortable intruders in the rented pews of places of worship. Saturday is the great sailing day for steamers, and every sailor knows what that means for the day which follows. In foreign ports, steamers flying the British Flag, almost invariably work cargo on Sundays. All the officers, therefore, are more or less engaged tallying cargo, and it has a very demoralizing effect on all on board. When, however, the hydraulic power is generally introduced, the people on shore though they will see all that is being done, will not be disturbed by the rattle and shriek of chain and winch!

Anything therefore which can in any way make up to the sailor for the loss sustained by the nature of his calling, is of the utmost moment. Who can tell the restraining influences, the good impulses, springing from these services? At these meetings many seamen put their ships about, took the Great Captain on board, accepted the Bible as their Chart, and began the voyage to heaven. Think WHERE these services have been conducted by the agents of the Society. First in the great Port of London. At the head quarters of the Society in Shadwell. At the Sailors' Home in Well Street (the greatest gathering of merchant sailors in any one place in the world), through the kindness of its managers, both the secretary and the missionaries have conducted occasional services. At Belvedere, where the old seamen have gathered to spend in peace a few months or years ere they die, services have been held every week for them. Start then on a voyage of circumnavigation round these British Isles, then pass from Hamburg in the north to Malta in the south, and the Pireus in the east, and you will find nearly in every port kindred services have been held either by our agents, or those local societies working upon our same broad lines.*

* As at Liverpool, Hull, Glasgow, Greenock, Bristol, Plymouth, and Scottish Coast Missions.

ON THE MOUNT OF VISION.

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Not only have there been many individual conversions as evidenced by religious officers in and out of our Bethel Union Register, who are as much interested in the spiritual welfare of their crews and do as much as though they were their ordained pastors, but it is not too much to say, that though we have had to contend with the lowest moral slums and all the allied forces of evil in every sea port into which our seamen are constantly plunged, yet the whole tone of our mercantile marine has been lifted up, drunkenness, debauchery, and blasphemy have so much decreased, that were one of the early part of this century to return from his grave he would see as great a change in the sailors as in the ships. Unfortunately, in all our seaports, there is found in the very midst of our sailors' quarters, the lowest drinking shops, supported by Government license; while the most abandoned women and men are in league to live on the festering vices of seamen. Against this army there is still needed, not only the single handed agent, but a band of volunteers both men and women.

The Secretary visited Naples and Genoa in December last; at the former place services were conducted on board the floating Bethel and attended by many officers and men. A large social gathering was held on board, presided over by H. B. M. Consul. He stated that during the Christmas festivities with all the excitement and license on shore, and where sailors were exposed to powerful temptations, NOT ONE had been seen under the influence of drink. This is one of many testimonies confirming the statement, our labours have not been in vain in the Lord.

It gives the Directors great pleasure to refer to the Italian Metropolitan port of Genoa. A port which has had not only a great past, but is destined to have a great future, and with which the name of the immortal Columbus will be ever associated. A magnificent floating Bethel, built under the superintendence of the Rev. Donald Miller, was opened on the first day of the new year. She is built of iron and in every way fitted for her beautiful mission. When she was towed in the harbour, several ships dipped their flags, as well they might. In the year 1814 when the Bethel prayer meetings began on the Thames, Lord Bentinck bombarded Genoa. In the year 1882, the harbour was again attacked by a ship, towards which his lordship's relative, Lady Harriett Scott Bentinck, gave £1000. The chief instrument of attack is the word of God; and on the day of opening, five Waldensian children presented to the Bethel on behalf of their Sunday school a large beautiful Bible. The Italian government has shown special favour to the Bethel and her people, which, thanks to that great sailor Garibaldi, have thrown off the shackles of their popish

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despotism, appreciate such disinterested efforts in their sea ports. It is hoped that Englishmen will in the future glory in thus attacking every port of the world, not with the bayonet, but the Bible.

Since the above was written notice of the death of Lady Harriett Scott Bentinck has been published. Her Ladyship died at Naples in April, aged 84 years. Our missions in the Italian ports have lost a generous friend. She gave also over £2000 to the Naples Floating Bethel and Mission, and there is no doubt had she lived a few more years, successful missions would have been established in other ports also. For her Ladyship desired not only to establish, but perpetuate such institutions. May her mantle fall on others and teach all the lesson, "Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might."

MANCHESTER.

THE Sailors' Society Meeting went off with a tempest of enthusiasm. Miss Cave, the indefatigable Secretary, did her very best to get up a good meeting. Dr. A. Thompson, in whose Lecture Hall it was held, entered, with his sympathetic heart for the sailor, most warmly into the proceedings. H. Helm, Esq., a Manchester merchant, most courageously took the Helm and safely steered the ship through the dangers of public speech. A first-rate chairman was he. Poor little London was represented by only one unfortunate brother, the Secretary of the British and Foreign Sailors' Society, while Liverpool sent down under the care of the Rev. J. Watson, no less than three of its biggest nautical guns. One looked upon them not only in their very marked individualities, but in their representative character. Captain Dutton, R.N.R., was Peter possessing many of the virtues and vices (not bad ones) of the impulsive old fisherman. Captain Price, R.N.R., was an Andrew, who practically said, “though I cannot do much I can introduce my big brother Peter.” Andrew, however, gave Peter some very hard hits, as for instance, when he said, that “he had so much poetry in his head that it drove all the hair off the top of it!!" Captain H. J. Ward, with his quiet gentle manner, was the John. Looking at these men physically, mentally, and spiritually, they were worthy sons of such a noble sire as old ocean. Christ is still calling and consecrating men of the sea. Dutton is Moody and Sankey rolled into one, with a happy mixture of poet and preacher, sailor and saint. We want to-day thousands of fishermen, thousands of longvoyage sailing shippers, thousands of steamboaters, to witness for Christ. Our deep conviction is that God is blessing us all along the line. Manchester, if you have done well in the past, do better in the future. EDITOR.

FOLKESTONE.

MISS GROSVENOR has again rendered a good year's service to the above Society. The annual meeting, presided over by the Rev. Mr. Palmer, was very interesting and encouraging. Gilbert, Bishop of Dover, bishops are, yet has more fire than many of the live Gilbert. His address was full of interest. gave us one of those unique little sailor talks for Thorpe, who has the power of expression in no ordinary degree, helped us much.

though getting in years as most young curates of to-day. Long Tract-bag Cook, of Folkestone, which he is famous. Rev. Mr.

SAILORS, STUDY THE WONDERS OF THE DEEP. (Written for Chart and Compass.)

DON'T know if sailors use sponges to wash themselves as we landsmen do, but if so, I wonder whether they know what a sponge is, or rather what it was when alive? What is that elastic flannel-like stuff which can suck up such a quantity of water, or be squeezed almost dry in a moment?

This substance is really only the sponge's skeleton, for when the sponge was alive, it was quite covered and hidden by a jelly-like stuff containing an innumerable quantity of fine holes or pores, that could open and shut, and allowed the sea-water to pass into a number of canals penetrating the sponge in all directions, which canals, of all sizes, we see in the skeleton we use to wash our faces with.

I daresay some magic-lantern, with a microscope, has already shown you that sea-water, even when seemingly quite clear, is full of small living creatures, these invisible organisms, as they are called, pass with the water into the canals of the sponge, are there caught and kept by a number of exceedingly fine hairs with which the canals are lined, and serve as food to the sponge, which absorbs and digests them in its own peculiar way.

This wonderful creature fastens itself to rocks or coral-reefs, at the bottom of the sea. There it lives and grows, looking, in spite * Jack, a literary character. (See "Floating Libraries.")

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of its cannibal propensities (for it eats as you see, living animals,) much more like a plant than an animal.

Some sponges have hard skeletons of pure white flint or chalk, and these sponges are beautifully coloured, orange-red or brimstoneyellow, while their skeletons are made up of bits of chalk of all possible shapes, like stars, anchors, needles, balls, hooks, and so on, which can only be seen under a microscope, and these shapes serve to distinguish the different kinds of sponge, as each kind has its own peculiar one.

If ever you have rowed in a small boat into one of the many grottoes under the cliffs of the Mediterranean or other coasts, no doubt you have seen the rocks, just at the water-mark, lined with a crusty substance of a beautiful red colour; this also is a collection of sponges.

It is impossible to kill a living sponge merely by cutting it, for the divided parts, if left in the water, soon grow again into two wholes, so that one sponge is made into two.

The time for fishing bath-sponges is in spring. Two men go out to fish in a strong open boat, one rowing, and the other looking over the side to look for sponges on the rocks below, This man carries a long flexible spear with prongs, something like the trident you see in the hand of statues of Neptune; when he sees a sponge, he waits till the boat is directly over it, and then plunges in his spear and tears the sponge away by main force.

When taken, the sponges are at once kneaded and squeezed, and laid by for a day or two. By that time the living jelly-like substance is all decayed, and the sponges are again pressed and squeezed until nothing is left but the clear, tough, leathery skeleton. Then the fishermen do a shabby thing. They fill the little holes and canals with fine sand, for they sell the sponges by weight, and thus make them heavier so as to get more money. If ever you have used a new sponge, you will remember what a lot of sand came out when you first washed it in water, and how often it has scratched your face, because bits of rock were left sticking to it at the root, or part where it was fastened when alive.

When different kinds and differently coloured sponges are clustered together on some coral-reef or rock under the blue water, they look like a garden of flowers.

This is all I can tell you about sponges, but I hope, when you wash your faces with a clean sponge, and smell the refreshing odours of the sea which still cling to it, that you will remember it was once a wonderful living creature, enjoying its life at the bottom of the sea, and endowed by the good God with the beauty which He so lavishes on even the smallest and most humble of His creatures. LILY WOLFfoshn.