PREFACE.

N the 16th of January, 1882, I pre

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sided over the Third Annual Social Gathering of the Congregation attending the St. Saviour's Mission Room, South Hampstead. I never presided over a heartier meeting, or over one more truly representative of what it professed to be. The Address printed at the end of the Preface will tell, in the very words of the people themselves, what this lay-mission has done for them. I had ocular and auricular proof of the high estimation in which Mr. Mackeson was held by them, and of the beneficent influence he had been permitted to exercise over them.

The Mission is a model of what a laymission should be. Conducting it in dutiful obedience to the Parish Priest, under direct commission from the Bishop, Mr. Mackeson has been able to bring over one hundred Com

municants for early celebration at the Parish Church; and while some permanently join the Church services, others come in from the surrounding masses to fill their places in the Mission Room.

The Mission-room Addresses were delivered extemporarily; but as they were fortunately taken down by a short-hand writer in the Choir, they are now given to the public. It is hoped they may be useful as models for lay-mission addresses. It will be interesting to many to study their short, simple, straightforward, and truly practical words: a true type of the tone of the general teaching, which has resulted, as the Address of the Congregation testifies, in 'peace and comfort to ourselves and our children, in the general raising of the tone of the neighbourhood, and in the growth of a feeling of union,' of which the Annual Gathering was a striking evidence. The publication of these Addresses at the present time is very opportune.

The Salvation Army has shown us, as the

Wesleyan missions did in the last century, that there are masses of our people that have been neglected by us, who nevertheless can be influenced, and can be organized to help on the work which has aroused them.

We see very much the same zeal, the same extravagancies, the same attacks from rough mobs, the same support rendered against the rioters by the civil power, the same exaggerated sympathy by some of the clergy, the same antagonism by others, which were conspicuous in Wesley's times.

Will the Church again fold her hands, and shut her ears to the same warning voice? Will she do nothing to build up the souls won for a time by these irregular workings of the overflowing Spirit of Grace, but which will inevitably fall back after the first excitement, if left to take refuge in false Sacraments or unauthorised ministrations?

The call now, as the call then, is a distinct one-to teach the masses of our people by establishing Special Services for them, and

by organizing a regular system of itinerant lay - preachers from all classes to carry on perpetually, under Apostolic authority, this special work.

It is a privilege to be called to work as the Established Church of this country; but we must not forget that the Church is a great deal more than the Establishment, and that she is now called upon to utilise all her inherent power, without waiting for State compulsion to enforce it, and to go forth to all by voluntary effort.

Go out quickly into the streets and lanes of the city, and bring in hither the poor, and the maimed, and the halt, and the blind' (Luke, xiv. 21).

NELSON.

To THE RIGHT HON. THE EARL NELSON.

MAY IT PLEASE YOUR LORDSHIP,

We, the Congregation of St. Saviour's Mission Room, South Hampstead, beg respectfully to thank you for coming amongst us to preside over our Third Annual Social Gathering. We should have invited your Lordship to meet us in our Mission Room, but