days, decorate the altar, sing "Hymns Ancient and Modern," put on tagrags, and all goes smoothly with Churchianity: preach the gospel, and denounce sin, and straightway .there is no small stir.
Well, good Mr. Vicar, may you be yet more vile in these men's sight, until they cast you out of the national church as your Master was driven forth before
you. May you please God more and more, and make the devil and all his allies heartily sick of you. Saving your vicarage, and professed
churchmanship, about which we can see nothing desirable, we esteem you .highly, and hope that you and the like of you may evermore be sustained by the abounding mercy of the great Head of the one only true church, which is the remnant according to the election of grace: May Christianity rule and Churchianity be cast to the moles and to the bats.
and how cheap an agent he is? If not, let us tell you a few things about him.
He must be a strong man, for he has to carry a heavy pack; he must be a patient laborer, for he has to toil most arduously; and he must be an intelligent worker, for he has to battle with all sorts of opinions. He journeys many miles in a day over hill and dale to remote country houses, and there tries to sell a Bible, or a Pilgrim's Progress, or some other good book; he has pennyworths for the poor, elegant volumes for the rich, and picture books for the children, all full of the gospel of Jesus. When he cannot make a sale, he leaves a tract, and says a few words about the great salvation; and, if there be any sick in the house, he reads a chapter and offers prayer, and points the dying sinner to the living Savior. Wet and dry, winter and summer, he is at his work; his district is large, and he tries to go round the whole of it at least once in every month, so that he may sell the monthly periodicals; hence he has no waste time on his hands, but is at work from morning till night. Frowned upon by Popish clergy and ridiculed by ungodly men, he is sustained by zeal for his Master's glory, and looks for his reward in heaven. He finds in many places as complete an ignorance of the gospel as if he were in India; even the name of Jesus is sometimes unknown, and that in Christian England; but, on the other hand, he sees Popish prints on the walls, which have been sold by hawkers, and bought because they were cheap and showy, and he meets with profane Songs, vile newspapers, polluting novels, and obscene literature, and has to do his best to put something better in their place. Where there is no gospel minister or missionary he is hailed as the only light which the darkened villagers have within reach, and frequently he is the herald of the preacher, and the.
founder of a Christian church For all his toils, the good man only gets sixty pounds a year, the half of which, at least, he is bound to earn by the sales which he effects; he is therefore no hireling lustful for gain, but a self denying worker toiling for love of souls. To turn him adrift is cruelty to souls, and treason to truth, shall it be done ! We thought that three hundred pounds a year would have been readily subscribed, instead of which, our friends hardly sent us fifty pounds during last year, and we have been greatly discouraged. The Lord knows how ardently we desire his glory, and how readily we would give our last penny to spread the gospel, but all are not of this mind, and hence our college and colportage are forgotten by the bulk of our readers. Thanks, .a thousand thanks to a loving and faithful few who bring tears of rejoicing to our eyes by their thoughtful and continual liberality; when will the Lord touch the hearts of others, and make them willing to come to the help of the Lord against the
mighty? Scotland has a noble society of colpor-teurs, numbering one hundred and fifty; shall England be left without such a necessary body of evangelists? If it be so, the fault is not at our door. The Lord will require the blood of souls at the hand of those who see men perish for lack of knowledge, and refuse to send them light.
Our woodcut shows the colporteur in a cold winter's day talking with the children of a lone farmhouse, and selling them some of the many excellent magazines of the present day, for he is always the children's friend, with a word and perhaps a little book to give them, or a hymn to teach them.
Bands of hope spring up around him in the villages, for he is usually a temperance man, and zealous in every good word and work. He is. a very welcome visitor, for he generally goes where there are no book shops, and where apart from him no good magazines and books would ever be seen.
God speed him in his labors, and God grant that so far from recalling him, we may be able to send out more. The matter is now left with the Lord and with his people: we will report progress hereafter. — C. H. Spurgeon.
THE SWORD AND THE TROWEL.
MARCH, 1868.