HOME-MISSIONS.-The interest felt and shown by all evangelical churches, in the religious welfare of the people, has been not only maintained during the year, but increased; and a deeper earnestness, highly encouraging in its manifestation, is putting itself forth. Before the stern necessity of the case, and at the call of Christian love, some long-cherished conventionalisms have been departed from. Bishops, and the higher orders of the Clergy, have, like Wesley and Whitefield, preached in the open air, and lifted up their testimony for Christ to the "working classes," in Exeter-Hall; and that with the approval of the strong sense of the nation. While we welcome such Ministers into this sphere of Christian labour, we must not retire, but more fully occupy it ourselves. Home Missions have been anxiously discussed in Convocation, and brought to the notice of Her Majesty in the address of that body to the Crown. The Pastoral Aid Society has also greatly increased its income during the year, and is enlarging its beneficial operations; and all kindred institutions are displaying quickened activity. In Scotland, all the churches are aroused to the importance of HomeMissionary efforts....... During the year, the Methodist Connexion has shown itself increasingly impressed with the duty of taking its share in the work of evangelizing our home-population, and has evinced a growing determination to pursue its holy vocation with enlarged zeal and liberality, and with constancy. The present is not a spasmodic or fitful effort of an enfeebled people, or the struggle of decaying life, but results from that gracious revival of religious principle and feeling with which our Societies and congregations have recently been favoured, and from a return to the original purpose of our fathers. Nothing could be more consistent, as an expression of devout thankfulness to God for present prosperity. Recent encouragements are unquestionably designed to lead us to enterprise, more extensively, in a field where we have already been successful, and where certain triumph will wait, as it has ever done, on faithful labour.

The awakened interest of the Methodist Connexion in its Home-Mission operations has been evinced by the increased income of the Fund during the year. The contributions from the classes, from congregational collections, and from public Meetings, as also from personal subscriptions and donations, exceeded those of the former year by £1,108. 3s. 7d.; a result highly encouraging in the imperfect initiation of what will assuredly become a work of the highest importance.*-Second Report of Wesleyan Home-Missionary and Contingent

It

A FRENCH WESLEYAN CHURCH IN CANADA.-I am glad to inform you, that on Wednesday, the 19th instant, the first French Wesleyan church in Canada was dedicated to the worship of God. is situated in the township of Roxton, Canada East; and on this most interesting occasion our Missionary, the Rev. T. Charbonnell, preached an admirable and impressive sermon in French. Mr. Tetrau, some time a Roman Catholic Priest, and Mr. A. Parent, a candidate for our ministry, addressed the audience in the same language with great effect; myself, and other Ministers of the District, taking part in the services of the day. The church, which was filled to overflowing, chiefly with Canadians con

verted from the errors of the Popedom, is a neat, commodious building, will accommodate two hundred hearers, and is in a part of the country where there are a considerable number of the adherents of the Church of Rome. The cost of the building will be about £200; £150 of which have been generously contributed by friends in the cities of Montreal and Kingston, and the gratuitous labour and contributions of the people in the immediate vicinity.

In connexion with the Roxton Mission we have twenty church-members, and about twenty families who have left the Romish Church, and form a congregation, to whom the Gospel is preached in their own tongue. A good work among the French Roman Catholics is going on in these parts: they begin to come to our places of worship to hear for themselves. Rev. John Tomkins, Clarenceville, August 22d, 1857.

CANADA.-Coloured Mission at Buxton. Many of our readers are aware that the Presbyterian Church of Canada have had an active and successful Mission among the coloured people of Buxton, which has been in successful operation for six years past, under the devoted and laborious direction of the Rev. William King. This gentleman was himself a slave-owner in Louisiana, who manumitted his slaves, and brought them to Canada. The Elgin Association purchased some twelve hundred acres of land, called "the Elgin Block," on which some hundred and fifty families of coloured people are settled, many of whom are refugees from slavery. In the settlement there is an excellent steam saw and grist mill; a grammar school, in which some of the coloured boys are reading the ancient classics; two churches a Presbyterian and a Methodist. There is a growing improvement, also, in matters of agriculture. The settlement contains 200 cows, 80 oxen, 300 hogs, and 52 horses.

The quantity of land fenced and cleared is 1,025 acres, of which 354 acres were planted last year with corn, 200 with wheat, 70 with oats, and 80 with potatoes and other green crops.

On Wednesday last a conjoined meeting of delegates from the Elgin Association, and the Synod of the Presbyterian Church of Canada, was held at Buxton; and it is not too much to say, that no such meeting ever assembled on Canadian soil. This broad assertion will be justified when your readers notice the following facts.

There were present between six and seven hundred coloured people, including men, women, and children. There were also present, on the platform, the delegates of the two bodies above referred to, as also the coloured band from Chatham, who discoursed splendid music. And the meeting was graced by the presence of Viscount Althorpe, eldest son of Earl Spencer, who is travelling in America at present, and who was accompanied by J. W. Probyn, Esq. On hearing of the above meeting, these ennobled and distinguished strangers came down from Detroit to witness the proceedings of the day, and to take part in the same.

The vast assembly met in an arbour erected on the grounds of the Rev. William King. This arbour was one hundred and forty feet in length, with boarded roof and lattice sides; the upright posts being of solid native oak. Adjoining it were a kitchen and confectionery.

At eleven o'clock the proceedings of the day were commenced by an appropriate prayer offered up by Principal Willis, D.D.; after which the Rev. R. Irvine, D.D., of this city, addressed the Sabbath-school children, some one hundred and fifty pupils being present.

Dr. Willis next addressed the parents and guests who were present. His speech was greatly to the point, full of animation and earnestness, and was heard with breathless attention. He was often interrupted with loud acclamations; and on putting the question to his coloured audience," Would you prefer the liberty of Queen Victoria's dominions to the bondage of the South?" the most enthusiastic affirmation was unanimously uttered by every voice in that vast assembly.

After dinner, the Chairman introduced the distinguished guest, Lord Althorpe ; who delivered a chaste and feeling speech, which breathed a spirit of lofty philanthropy, and proved that his Lordship had been brought up under the influence of that Christianity which teaches that God "hath made of one blood all nations."

On resuming his seat, the noble Lord was loudly applauded; after which the coloured friends moved three cheers for the Queen, and the band gave "God save the Queen."

Two coloured gentlemen, William Day and Dr. Delany, both educated, and both endowed with very superior powers of mind, addressed the meeting ; and there was a power and an eloquence about both the speakers, which could not

fail to impress the audience. Seldom has your correspondent listened with such delight to the powers of the human voice on the platform.

On the following day the delegates visited the (coloured) Grammar-School at Buxton, and found some seventy-five pupils present,-some reading, others studying English history and geography, others English grammar and arithmetic, and some reading the ancient classics.

The whole of this educational and moral machinery is worked by the presiding genius of the Rev. William King, to whom the entire settlement are under felt and acknowledged obligations. He teaches them agriculture and industry; he superintends their education, and preaches the Gospel on the Lord's day.

The experiment which Mr. King has been trying among this people bids fair to result in a most favourable solution of the problem so long agitated, and so often repudiated by the southern planters and the northern apologists for slavery; namely, Is the coloured race, if placed in circumstances as favourable as those of the white man, capable of raising a self-sustaining and progressive race? Mr. King holds that they are, and hopes to find the proof of this doctrine in the future history of the Buxton settlement. -Canada "Christian Advocate," Hamilton, September 23d.

HOME-MISSIONS IN GERMANY.The centre of the Committee is Berlin and Hamburg; but it has its agents and correspondents in all the states of Germany, and extends its operations through all branches of the Inner Mission.

For the cause of Sabbath-observance, exertions have been carried on with unabated zeal. Much has been done by the press, sermons, associations, and also in some of the German states by the local and state authorities and the legislatures; yet the evil of desecration is so general, that improvement proceeds but slowly. The Temperance movement opens a wide sphere of action to this Committee. It would be impossible, indeed, to carry a Maine law in any part of Germany; yet legislation has, in Prussia particularly, done much to limit the use of brandy. The retail trade in liquors has, consequently, so much diminished, that in 1855, in Prussia, 3,849 brandy-taverns, and in 1856, 1,657 additional, were closed. Still there is no lack of them. The example of Prussia has been followed by some other Governments, by restricting licenses for the retail sale of liquors, forbidding pedlers

to sell brandy, and revoking the sale of it to persons of immature age.-The care of prisoners, during and after the time of their imprisonment, occupies the attention of a great number of large and small Societies all over Germany. The large jail in Moabit, Berlin, has lately been placed for spiritual supervision under forty brethren educated in Wichern's Institute, near Hamburg. It is to be used as a model prison. The Prussian Clergy are very active in this matter of prison-reform. South Germany also abounds in Societies for the reclaiming of dismissed prisoners. The GrandDuchy of Baden has more than thirty of such Societies, and Wurtemberg more than forty. The number of asylums for destitute children is increasing every year. In 1855, seventeen were opened; in 1856, thirteen; and as many in the current year. Another object of the Central Committee is to excite interest on behalf of many thousands of poor Germans who cross the Atlantic to find a home in America. Care has been taken, in many states in Germany, that emigrants may have a special religious service on their leaving. A number of Societies have been formed, to provide them with Bibles, hymn-books, and prayer-books, previously to their departure; and Preachers have been sent to some of those sea-ports at which the most of them embark. This has proved a great blessing to many of those poor people. The Protestant diaspora, both at home (in districts of preponderating Popish population) and abroad, has been another object engaging the special attention of the Committee. The Missionary work among these dispersed members of the German Protestant body is but in its infancy. Yet the attempts that have been made in Paris, Lyons, Havre, Rotterdam, London, and Constantinople, have been remarkably blessed.

These are the principal schemes in which several hundred labourers are now employed. The greatest merit in the cause of Home-Missions must be ascribed to Dr. Wichern, in Horn, near Hamburg, (now also in office in Berlin,) a man whose entire life is devoted to charity; and not to a mere philanthropic charity, but to that which springs out of the love wherewith Christ has loved us, and which is conducted with a view to the promotion of Christ's glory.-Report.

Two MISSIONARY SHIPS IN THE PORT OF HAMBURG.-The German Church is making rapid progress in the right direction in the work of Missions.

and the heretic donors. The consequence was an awakened curiosity to see and desire to get possession of the prohibited article. More than forty copies were soon in circulation, and eagerly read. My spirit was now stirred within me; and, my health being greatly improved, I invited a few of the inquirers to come to my lodgings on the following Sabbath afternoon, promising to try to expound to them the way of life. To my surprise, I had a little congregation of fifty souls. Finding that I could make myself intelligible to them, I was encouraged to invite their return on the following Lord's day. On that day the Priest told a crowded congregation about my meeting, and warned them against going to it, of course under the usual pains and penalties.

This advertisement proved seasonable. Women and children were frightened. Not more than ten of these ventured to the meeting. But there were at least one hundred and fifty men; and a more touching sight to a Preacher I have never witnessed, such was the eagerness with which they drank in the word. At the close of the service many expressed deep regret that I had not begun to instruct them sooner (for it was my last Sabbath there); and when I suggested the possibility of a French Preacher being found for them for a season, they hailed the suggestion with great joy. I then told them, that, since it had pleased God to restore health to my body in their valley, I would like to do something for the good of their souls, and would, therefore, as a thank-offering, use every effort to get a Missionary located among them for three or four months. Being warned by them not to send a stranger to such a cold Alpine field of labour in winter, I procured some books and tracts in Geneva, and sent them, in the hope of their proving useful till a Preacher might be appointed. Much good seems to have been done thereby. And I mention this, that some future travellers on the Continent may be induced to provide themselves with a supply of these silent messengers, and scatter them in their wanderings, "as they have opportunity." Let me mention the effects produced by one little packet which I consigned to an intelligent and interesting young man. Having been much impressed by some of the little books, he lent them to a companion, to whom, also, they proved words in season. Lent by him in turn to a female friend, who read them in secret, they awakened her to deep concern for her soul. Her husband, seeing it, demanded

the cause. She was silent. "I shall know it," he exclaimed; and, taking advantage one day of his wife's absence, he searched the house, and found the books concealed in a bed. Upbraiding his wife, on her return, for reading bad books, he was asked to read them, and judge for himself whether they were really bad. He read, the truth told again with power, and a fourth witness for Christ was found; for these four have all become open and steady confessors, of whom the Missionary cherishes a good hope.

Through the liberality of several Christian friends, means were soon furnished to enable me to fulfil my promise. The Evangelical Society of Geneva found a most suitable agent, an ordained Missionary, lately returned from Africa invalided, and whose health, it was hoped, might be much benefited by a sojourn in Courmayeur. He arrived on the field in the end of May last, and was received by the people joyfully. On the 20th of June he writes as follows:-" I had fifty persons at our first service in my room. The place having become too small, I have rented a larger apartment, in which, and the adjoining corridor, the people stand. The number of auditors is now one hundred and fifty; and they all show a most devout attention, and a lively desire to profit by the holy word. After worship, which is at four P. M., I hold private conversation with many who ask further explanations of the word, and to be enlightened regarding their religion. I feel assured that the Gospel is well relished here, and that God will accomplish a work of grace calculated to rejoice our hearts. Many are earnestly asking, "What must I do to be saved?' Many Bibles and Testaments are bought. The little library which I have founded is getting into circulation." (The Priest was at this time even more afraid of the books than of the preaching.) "It is to be regretted that there can be only one diet of worship on Sabbath, and none during the week, owing to the very long hours of labour during the short summer. ...... Many have already given up praying to the Virgin and the saints, both in the church and at home. It is gladdening to see them invariably carrying their New Testaments with them to the church, to read them there during the whole time of the mass."

SILESIA. A Silesian Minister, the Rev. Dr. Nowotny, formerly a Priest of the Romish Church in Bohemia, has