ers, who, with quick parts and active minds, lack the correctives of a sound erudition and stable principles. They are, as we have remarked on another occasion, the scatter-brain proclaimers of what may be called a mixed eclectic Gospel, composed of religion, rationalism, politics, and philanthropy, who perhaps, in sincerity, think they are preaching Christ, when in reality they are preaching, with fervid vehemence, for popular applause, their own irreverent individualities. These men, when they meet any thing in the Bible which opposes some favorite notion of politics or philanthropy, are ever ready, in the language of one who is a type of the class, to "let it go to the desolating armies of its enemies." Such men will find in this book an easy method to escape the coercive restraints of the Bible, and plenty of wind with which to fill the sails which they weekly trim for popular applause. For them we can do nothing.

But there is another class, for whom we feel the deepest concern and sympathy, and for whom this book seems to have been especially designed. They are the young and ardent inquirers after theological truth; young men, perhaps just entering the ministry, in the first blush of their intellectual prime. Conscious of the budding promise of future mental power, they resent-alas! we know how keenly-any shackle upon free thought, or any attempt to confine within bounds the full exercise of their untrained intellectual powers. To them the constant appeals which this book makes to their pride of reason, is full of seductive danger. To such we would say, "Are you willing to abandon the Faith of your fathers, to deny your Saviour, and forego those glorious hopes of a blessed immortality which the Bible unfolds, for the present gratification of a proud philosophy, falsely so called ?" The answer doubtless will be,-God forbid! Then we would say: Lay down this dangerous book, till your powers are more matured; or, if you will read, do it with your eyes open, and with the full conviction, that, if you lend a willing ear to the seductive appeals which these writers make to your intellectual pride, and if you admit, unquestioned, the sophistry of their premises, you cannot logically stop till you reach the Deism to which they have all attained, and the blank Atheism to which they are all hastening.

ART. VI.-CHURCH MISSIONS IN NEW YORK CITY.

Annual Report of the Protestant Episcopal Mission to Public Institutions in the City of New York.

BETWEEN eleven and twelve years ago, some of the Rectors and Communicants of our City Churches, dissatisfied with the general usage among us of opening the House of Prayer only on the Lord's Day, were in the habit of meeting daily for the celebration of Public Worship. In certain of our Churches this custom, new to this generation and Church and country, had already for some years obtained and found favor. At the time however of which we now speak, one after another had been added to the number of Churches open for Daily Worship, amid somewhat of excitement, discussion and opposition. Some advocated the practice earnestly, others as strenuously opposed it. Like many another movement, good in itself, its own merits were lost sight of, and it was advocated by some in connection with usages with which it had really no necessary connection: opposed by others in part, because of the system to which it seemed to them to belong, in part perhaps because of the persons by whom it was here introduced. In short, like many another subject, although having no necessary connection with any party in the Church, it became a party question, and its true merits were lost to sight.

The Rev. W. Richmond, of blessed memory, was a man above all party, a Churchman who, throughout his whole life, loved what was Christ-like wherever found, and was ready equally to follow or lead in what seemed to him to be good. He saw in the opening of the Churches for Daily Prayer, not only an appearance and means of greater devotion, but a greater self-sacrifice on the part of the Clergyman who each day at the appointed hour led the prayers of those assembled, than on the part of those of the Clergy who opened their Churches only on Sundays. It may be, also, that he had in mind the example, not only of the Early Church, but of the

zealous, untiring Henry Venn, who, in one of his country Parishes, was accustomed to hold a Daily Service, not in his Church, but at evening in the kitchen of his own house, where he gathered, at the close of their day's labor, as many workpeople and others from the neighborhood as would give heed to his call.

In thinking over the subject with reference to his own duty, Mr. Richmond for a time hesitated as to his course. If two or three should desire to gather for Daily Prayer, he was ready to meet with them, whether in the Church or from house to house. Yet, it could not escape the attention of one who had to an uncommon degree the gift of looking at a subject from every side, and in every light, that the few who would meet for Daily Service would be among the most devout and best circumstanced; whereas, amid the wickedness and woe of this naughty world, the time and power of Christ's Ministers ought, it would seem, to be chiefly given to saving men from sin and relieving suffering. By the Holy Spirit of God, Mr. Richmond's attention was at this time directed to the Public Institutions of our city, then unvisited, except occasionally, by any Clergyman of our Church, some of them seldom receiving a Minister of any denomination within their walls. He expressed it as his opinion, that, by taking the time required to maintain a Daily Service, and devoting it to labor in some of the Charitable Institutions of our City, he should be better serving his Master and his brethren, than by the introduction of more frequent Services into his own Parish. Accordingly,

having obtained the necessary permission, he commenced a Weekly Service at the New York Orphan Asylum, containing about two hundred children, and, at the City Lunatic Asylum, on Blackwell's Island, another, which was attended by about seventy persons, among them some who in former years had been under Mr. Richmond's ministry. At his suggestion, his Assistant began at about the same time to visit twice each week the Colored Home, holding Service in the Chapel, and visiting the sick in the Wards.

Such is the history of the origin of the Mission to Public Institutions. In writing out this account for the present

occasion, we have relied chiefly upon memory. Although the reasons given by Mr. Richmond for making this labor his, are well fixed in our mind, owing to the fact that the subject was thoroughly discussed in his family, of which we were at the time an inmate, very possibly we may have unwittingly ourself supplied some of the connecting thoughts. The main facts, however, are as has been stated. The institution of Daily Service led Mr. Richmond to ask if he were doing all that he ought and could. The result of his thought was the planning and commencing of this Mission.

Mr. Richmond continued to visit and hold Services in the Lunatic and Orphan Asylums, until his departure upon the Oregon Mission. In the meantime, however, the Alms House had been added to the field of labor, a Weekly Service being established there, and the Holy Communion occasionally administered, in Chapel and at the bedside, to those desiring to partake.

After Mr. Richmond's return, broken in health, from the shores of the Pacific, he was for a time unable to perform any Ministerial duties. With his returning strength, his desire to be engaged in some Missionary labor led him to visit, upon Blackwell's Island, the Penitentiary, the Work House and the Institution now known as the Island Hospital, holding also frequent, and when able, Daily Services in the House of Mercy. With the consent of the authorities, he made arrangements for Services, occupying the whole of one Sunday in each month, in the Penitentiary, the Alms House, and the Work House, preaching on those Sundays to more than fifteen hundred prisoners and outcasts, among whom were about sixty Communicants of our Church, whom age or sickness had cast upon the Public Charity.

His return to his Parish enabled his Assistant to open a Mission to Randall's Island, containing at the time about twelve hundred children in the City's care. The Leake and Watts Orphan House was also visited, and a Weekly Service commenced there. All of the Institutions named have continued part of our Missionary field, from the time of commencing the Services to the present day. Occasional visits have been

made to other of our Public Charities: as however we have not yet been able to establish regular Services, excepting in the places named, we have not thought it worth while to enumerate them now. The Institutions regularly visited at present are therefore the same to which this Mission has directed its attention for the last seven years. Notwithstanding that this is the case, the Mission for these seven years has by no means stood still. Our desire has been rather to make the Mission effective in the field occupied, than merely to extend its area. To this end we have accepted all opportunities furnished us for gathering the inmates of these various Charities in the Chapels, or Rooms for Service, with which many of them are provided : but more especially has it been our aim to minister faithfully and fully to the sick. Two of our principal Hospitals, containing together about fifteen hundred beds, receive into their Wards very many who pass their days sadly removed from every holy influence. Some of them have never been taught of Christ, others have quite forsaken Him. If there be ever a time when the Gospel is welcome to such, it is while they lie, lonely and sick or dying, in a Public Hospital. As we have been able, therefore, we have increased our labors in these Hospitals, until the present time, when each is visited regularly by a Clergyman thrice in the week, and frequently also by a female Bible Reader who gives to each a portion of her time.

Another institution claiming our tender care, is the Alms House, in which are gathered many hundreds whom natural incapacity, or old age, or some infirmity or misfortune has driven to its shelter. In this common home of the poor, we find many brethren of our own household, members, by Baptism or Communion, of the Episcopal Church. Scattered as they are more or less throughout all the departments of Public Charity, they form at the Alms House a little Church by themselves. Never shall we forget the happy day when, under this Mission, the opening Service of our Church was held in the Alms House Chapel. Tears of joy and thanksgiving fell from the aged eyes of those who had never hoped to join again upon earth in the loved Worship of their childhood's Church. It was like the gladness that filled the soul of the aged Simeon, when