success. We have now a chain of stations from Dauan to Mibu at convenient distances from each other, and, although some of them are on islands off the coast, they must not be confounded with the islands in Torres Straits. They are almost connected with the mainland at low water, and the natives are the same as those at Katau and Tureture. In this western branch of the mission we have at present six stations on the new Guinea Coast, and four on islands in Torres Straits. From Mibu we hope very soon to branch out in all directions. The town of Kiwai can be distinctly seen from Mibu on the eastern side of the river, the population of which is supposed to be about one thousand. The still larger town of Samari is only ten miles from it. Sumaiut is ten miles in the opposite direction, and there is a large village on the western side nearly opposite Mibu. With all these people we have had intercourse, and they know that "missionary" means peace It is already the pass-word in the Fly River. We returned from Bampton in the night, having to leave at high water to get over the reefs. The Venture being a flat-bottomed craft, drawing only three feet of water, we sailed over everything, making straight for Mibu, which we reached about midnight. To find the port was not so easy in the dark. After sailing along the island for some time, one of the students declared that we must have passed it, he supposing that he recognised low land beyond. None of us caring to go to leeward, we hauled on the wind and took a tack across the river, but being unable to recognise the land on our return we anchored, "and wished for day," as our little craft rolled heavily in the middle of the river. At daylight we found that we had not gone far enough. After a bath and breakfast, we went to put the roof on the mission-house. It is a very strong, neat little house, wood frame enclosed with iron, built on posts seven feet from the ground, under some large trees near the beach. They will soon build a large native house, keeping this more as a store-room. We attached a flagstaff to the end of the roof, on which the captain hoisted the Society's flag amidst three hearty cheers. We have annexed the Fly River to the London Missionary Society! Why should not we do a little annexing on our own account? Who has a better right? We were the first to ascend the river, and are rendering valuable service to commerce in opening it up. I hope that in the course of twelve months our chain of mission stations will extend fifty miles up the river, and that without the aid of steam or any foreign vessel, but simply by means leaves, to carry round a winnowing fan, with bread, saying: 'I have escaped the evil and have found the better!' * The wedding-cake is an institution of great antiquity. It was, and is still in Greece, made of sesamé and honey, the seed being very self-multiplying. Fruits were in the same way used in profusion on the occasion, as symbolic of fertility. The bridal pair ate together a quince on the evening of the wedding-day, and it was considered to be an institution of Solon. But Plutarch gives another and a pretty turn to it, when he says that it signifies that the grace of voice and lip should be from the first harmonious and sweet. The day after the wedding, the bridegroom separated from his wife, and took up his abode with his father-in-law. Then the bride sent him a dress, woven with her own hands, to bring him back as it were. After this ceremony the bride was visible, and received the visit and congratulations of parents and friends. At the present day, scenes may be witnessed in Greece full of the old dramatic symbolism, and not to be understood except by those who have accustomed themselves to decipher, through all the varieties of silent or articulate expression, the same throbbing pathos of the human heart. As the bride leaves her parents' house, she may be seen to shower upon her future husband coins, rice, corn, and cotton-seeds: an omen of the blessing she hopes to be in his home. But not less she testifies the sadness felt at all that she is to leave behind for ever. sings a song of farewell to parents and neighbours. One runs thus: She I leave a greeting to the neighbours, a greeting to all my friends; The one to drink at dawn, the other at morn, The third, and bitterest of all, on every holiday.' ་ Then she bursts into loud laments, and struggles with those who would lead her away. But if the bride-leader' says, 'Leave her, for she weeps,' her reply, so true to the woman's heart in the great crisis of life, is, Lead me hence, but let me weep.' Then the train, led by fiddlers and cither-players, moves towards the church, the bride on horseback, led by the bridegroom and his friends. She wears a transparent veil of fiery hue, with golden fringes. So with the ancient Romans; a flammeum, or flame-coloured veil, was used. After the priest has blessed the pair, chaplets, made of lilies and corn-ears, or of vine-leaves, are placed on their heads by the priest and the bridesman; and are For corresponding usages, observed by modern travellers, see Wachsmuth, p. 83; Hahn, Alban. Stud.,' p. 146. three times changed from one to the other. A similar ceremony is performed with the golden and silver rings, taken by the priest from the altar. They are frequently exchanged, but in the end the bridegroom retains the golden, the bride the silver, ring. Here the pair are conducted three times round the altar, under a shawl held over their heads. Finally, the priest gives them, together with the bridesman and the bridesmaid, to drink of one cup, and to eat of pieces of bread soaked in the wine. With this act of communion, the ecclesiastical ceremony ends. In all Greek feasts there was and is, so far as we know them, an emphatic meeting of opposites, first and deepest in feeling, then in thought and custom. The lament for departed joys is followed by the pæan of gladness; the loud laughter and mirth broke suddenly out of silence and tears. Below all lies the truth, with all its pathos, that life advances to gain only through loss and tribulation. There is a 'single blessedness;' there is a higher-a wedded blessedness. But we may not, as the boy with his symbolic lesson taught at the festival, aspire to the oak-leaves till we have won the thorn-crown; nor eat of the bread that satisfies till the false delights have been winnowed away. All the religious and poetic still-life of humanity puts forth its strength and flowering beauty at the wedding season; and Christianity knows no more gladsome, no more solemn image under which to set forth the hopes of life's completeness and consummation, than the sitting down at the marriagesupper of the Lamb. GONE! Nor as a lamp extinguished in Death's night, Not a lost link torn roughly from the chain;- A flower, not nipt, but waiting for the spring; Rest, little head and hands, God judged unmeet Life's weary pilgrimage you left untrod, G. R. C. take the places of those who have just been appointed teachers. Saibai will furnish us with our best teachers for the Fly River, the Seminary being supplied from the Industrial School. For years these Saibaians held out against the Gospel. The teacher has had to fly for his life twice. They have frequently tried to kill him with their charms. They have given him poisoned fish to eat, &c., but God has preserved him, and turned the hearts of the people to receive his message. From the first I have looked to Saibai for suitable teachers, and I am devoutly thankful to see my hopes being realised. We have now a healthy retreat and educational centre in Torres Straits, and a firmly established and growing mission on the adjacent main body of New Guinea. Thus the islands have proved the true stepping-stones to the mainland. The Ellengowan has done splendidly, is in first-rate condition, ably commanded, and well kept. THE LATE MR. JAMES STEWART, C.E. THE friends of missions, and especially of those connected with Central Africa, will have heard with regret of the death, on the 30th of August, of MR. JAMES STEWART, C.E., of LIVINGSTONIA. The Lovedale Christian Express thus refers to the event :-"Only a few days before the receipt of the telegram announcing the sad news, a letter had been received from Mandala, dated 24th of August, stating that Mr. Stewart had recently left, taking the Ilala up to the north end of Lake Nyassa with sections of the London Society's mission steamer on board. He was then apparently in good health, and had undertaken the charge of the ship, in consequence of the death of Capt. Gowans, the master of the Ilala, some short time before. Mr. Stewart was the second son of the late Rev. Charles Stewart, Free Church minister of Kirkmichael, in Perthshire, where he was born in 1845. Mr. Stewart went to India after he had gone through his school and University education in St. Andrews and Edinburgh, and after a regular training under a well-known firm of Civil Engineers in that city. When the Livingtonia Mission was started, he wrote from near Umballa, in the end of 1875, that he thought of giving his life to missionary work, if he could be of any service to the newly established mission in Central Africa. From the month of February, 1877, till his death, on 30th August last, he threw himself with great enthusiasm and unsparing devotion into his self-imposed task, and was one of the ablest and most useful men engaged in Livingstonia. But the work which was the heaviest and most laborious of his undertakings was the construction of the great road between the Lakes Nyassa and Tanganyika-220 miles long-to complete and connect the water-way formed by these two lakes." A II.—Madagascar. AMBATONAKANGA CHURCH AND DISTRICT. BY THE REV. T. T. MATTHEWS. LTHOUGH the past year has been one of commotion, excitement, and trial such as, perhaps, has never before been known in Madagascar, still I am very glad to be able to say, in beginning my report of it, that we have much, very much, to be profoundly thankful for. Our people have been tried, are being still tried, and, we fear, there are still greater trials in store for them in the future; but it is something to be able to tell that, so far, they have stood their trials well, and have borne up bravely under them. Their behaviour all through these trying times has proved that they have not all received the Gospel in vain. Anything more creditable to the spirit of true Christianity than the conduct of the Hovas towards the French subjects has been seldom seen, and would certainly be very difficult to imagine. The conduct of the Malagasy all through has simply been splendid, and such as even we hardly expected to see. Even some of those who used to make a point of sneering at our work, and were never weary of saying and writing the most unpleasant things they could think of about it, are now forced to confess that "the missionaries have certainly done something for the Malagasy" and that "Christianity has certainly taken a greater hold of the Malagasy than ever they believed it had." I took up the work at AMBATONAKANGA on the first Sabbath of August, 1882, that was a week after my arrival here in the capital, and since then I have been doing my very best and utmost for all the interests connected with church and district committed to my charge. It was some time before we felt at all at home at Ambatonakanga; for things were so different from what they used to be at our own old country station. We were very much shocked the first few Sabbaths by what seemed to us to be a want of that reverence in the house of God to which we had been accustomed, and which we expected to find in such a congregation. Things have improved in this respect, although there is still room for improvement. Our work, both in the city church and among the country congregations, has gone on most harmoniously from the first. I have never proposed a single thing to them that they have not fallen in with, and carried out most heartily. A few weeks after taking charge, as we |