A petition was once presented to the public school board of one of our large cities, proposing to erase the word HOLY from the title-page of the BIBLE, and expressing the hope that "our people would, through the exposure, be possibly induced to inquire into the causes which have made one of the most nonsensical religions of human invention the religion of a large portion of the most intellectual stock or species of people on the face of the world." The name signed to the petition was John Smith. Whether that was a real or a fictitious name we care not to inquire. But we have a few questions for the man who wrote that petition.

1. How did this book ever get that title? and how has it kept it so long? why is it that the men and women who have read it most, and are thus most familiar with it, choose to call it holy, and solemnly feel that it is holy? These people know what they mean by that term. They call their own promises sacred; they consider the constitution of our country sacred. They mean all that that word expresses, and something more, by this word holy. Whenever they attentively read the Bible, or hear it read, its words, its sentences, its paragraphs, awe them as those of no other book can. It gives them thoughts and emotions such as nothing else does. It seems to bring them near to God; makes them feel as they would if they heard his voice. You will not

deny that there are parts of it which have this effect upon you, and if you will go with some of the Christian men or women who visit the worst places in the city to read the Bible to the ignorant and degraded residents, you shall see it producing a similar effect even upon those debased minds, and you shall see that the more they obey the teaching of this book, and become morally better, the more do they revere the book, and feel that it is holy. You will perhaps say that this is only true of parts of the Bible. But you must know that these people upon whom those parts have the most decisive influence generally regard the whole book as holy, and insist upon keeping that name for it to which you object-THE HOLY BIBLE. How do you account for this?

2. Do you really think that the printing of a school edition of this book, with a dif ferent title-page from the one commonly received, by the authority of a public school board, would be a very effectual "exposure" of the Bible? We incline to the opinion that they would find it rather more of an exposure of themselves.

3. But, supposing that this proposed "exposure" should lead "our people" "to inquire into the causes," etc., might they not reasonably ask you to account for the fact that the Bible-reading portion of mankind. has become "the most intellectual stock or species of people on the face of the world"?

Is it not a fact that those who most revere the Bible as holy, are kept, by its authority, from those habits which most enfeeble and deteriorate "the stock," and are led to cultivate those habits which give it most vigor?

It has happened to more than one nation "on the face of the world" to have this Bible translated, by its best scholars, into its language, and then freely circulated among its people. In such cases the people generally show a good deal of eagerness to read this book, and many learn to read for this purpose. This is matter of history. Do you know of any people whom this has made. less intelligent or less virtuous than before? Did Wiclif and Luther debase, or elevate, their countrymen by giving them the Bible in their own tongues and waking them up to the reading of it?

4. Suppose you could cut out or squeeze out of the Bible all which it contains of what you call "one of the most nonsensical religions of human invention," would there be left in it anything which could exert such power over a people? You would have to change a good deal more than the title-page; but suppose you could get everything out of the book which that obnoxious epithet "holy" implies, would not the book then be about as tame and flat a book as could be found? Would any scholar take pains to translate it? Could any publisher make money by issuing it? Is it not strange

[October,

that a book should have so much power over mankind, and on the whole such beneficent power-that it should have most influence over the most intelligent people, and should be evidently the most powerful means of making them intelligent-and that, after all, we should not be able to find any other really living power in it, except what you call "one of the most nonsensical religions of human invention"?

5. Permit us to come a little closer to you, and to inquire into the real state of your own mind when you offer such a petition to guardians of public schools. Do you really dislike the Bible because it has the word "Holy" on its title-page, or just because it is holy? If it were less truly soif it were less solemnly, less strictly, less awfully holy than it is, would you not have less aversion to it?

The friends of the Bible, the reverent believers in it, have not made a mistake in keeping the word "Holy" on its title-page. It belongs there. It will stay there. There is nothing more certain than that the Bible is holy. The character which that word expresses is what gives it its wonderful power. "Our people " doubtless are not too fond of holy things. But they do generally think that the Bible is holy; and they will be apt to keep on calling it so; and they are all the more desirous to have their children acquainted with it because it is so.

It is time for us-all who are interested in THE CHURCH AT HOME AND ABROAD, and all who have responsibility concerning it-to be forming plans and making preparations for its fourth year, A.D. 1890.

The experiments, the consultations, the correspondence, the fraternal criticisms, the discovered mistakes and the acquired expe

rience of these three years have—may we not reasonably assume?-prepared us to enter upon our fourth year with such mutual understanding, such generous confidence and such settled purpose as will assure a real and large advance.

Numerous and gratifying assurances have come from ministers, elders, laymen, women

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and children in all parts of our country, and with special emphasis from missionaries and residents in other countries, that our efforts to produce a magazine worthily representing and advocating our Church's wide and various work are generously appreciated.

These encouraging testimonies are the more satisfactory because they have not been undiscriminating, but have as faithfully criticised as they have generously commended and encouraged. We are especially happy in view of assurances that the arrangement, appearance and real interest and value of our pages have steadily improved, especially during the current year. We shall by no means remit our exertions for continued improvement.

The General Assembly of 1889, adopting the report of its Special Committee on THE CHURCH AT HOME AND ABROAD (Minutes, page 20), also placed on record (page 78) its sense of "the great importance of such an instrumentality to stimulate the intelligent action of our church members in the support of the great agencies of our Church," and its belief that "the wide distribution of this magazine, properly conducted, is of more importance than the question of its being a source of revenue, or even a self-sustaining publication." In this belief the Assembly ordered that the price to subscribers shall be one dollar per year.

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magazine, with reference to its number of pages, quality of paper and workmanship, shows that the price thus fixed by the Assembly is extremely low, and cannot possibly "cover the cost of publication" unless the number of subscribers can be made very large. Cannot this be done? Is it not worth an earnest, general, united effort?

Will not our brethren of the press, and in the presbyteries and synods which will soon have their autumn meetings, and in the sessions and congregations throughout the land, rest assured that in the editing and management of our magazine there shall not be wanting respectful and dutiful attention to all the criticisms and suggestions which they have given, careful and earnest obedience to all the General Assembly's directions, and constant endeavor to realize the Assembly's idea of "this magazine properly conducted"? In such generous confidence, will they not thoughtfully and systematically set in motion and steadily promote all suitable instrumentalities, in synods, presbyteries and congregations, to make sure that every family shall be invited and advised to secure a copy of the magazine for 1890?

The committee in charge of the magazine and its business manager will seasonably supply all pastors and sessions with circulars and envelopes and all other conveniences for canvassing congregations and obtaining sub

of his five children. All our readers know how the grace of God has upborne him. through rare sorrows and abundant labors, and how acceptably to the Church and usefully his labors still continue.

In the course of that visit we talked of some journeys of home mission exploration which he had made in the really wild West

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of twenty-five years ago. He had written a letter to a home missionary graphically picturing one of those adventures. It has cost some persuasion to overcome his modest scruples and induce him to let our readers look on the picture which his pen so vividly portrays.

We fearlessly take the responsibility, and only hope that he and his friend to whom the letter was addressed will furnish more such pictures to illuminate our pages.

LETTER FROM REV. DR. KENDALL TO REV. DR. WHITE.

Do you remember that it is twenty-five years this very mouth since we took that long exploring missionary trip in Nevada? We met and spent the Sabbath at the then flourishing but now dilapidated and almost abandoned mining town of Austin, where we had then and for several years after a Presbyterian church and a pastor, and the former, alas! abandoned, if not disbanded. also, years ago.

From that point we set forth to find certain other mining towns where it might be thought best to plant Presbyterian churches. Do you remember that you had written me of a certain bed of salt nine miles long and three miles wide, and had said I might offer the letter to be printed in the New York Evangelist? The editor, considering your statements incredible, refused to print the same till I returned to New York and assured him that I had seen that body of salt, had walked out on it, and had verified all your previous assertions. How well I remember the afternoon, when our horses toiling wearily through the burning desert sand brought us, in the broiling sun, in sight of this valley of salt as white as the driven snow, having the exact appearance of a lake of like dimensions frozen over and covered with snow! We spent the remaining hour of the day examining this wonderful deposit, and slept the following night on the bare ground in the sage-brush by its side. Do you remember that other night when we slept beside a coal-pit? Some one had told us we could shorten our journey if we

[October,

would go over a mountain, and that we could spend the night with a party of coalburners at the foot of the opposite side. We found and followed the obscure trail till the shades of evening began to gather about us, and then the mountain rose frowning before us, at the sight of which our hearts sank within us. Our little team undertook the ascent, but wearied with their day's work gave out utterly in the first thirty feet, and we saw it was useless to expect them to bring our wagon to the top. There you left me for the doubtful experiment of scaling the mountain in safety, finding the coal-pit and relief.

Left to myself, I concluded I did not care to be left alone through the night in a desert mountain wilderness, and therefore determined to try my own resources. So I took possession of the water-keg, put a few crackers in my pocket, loosed the horses from the wagon, and leading, perhaps rather being led by, the trustiest one, whose name was 'Blue Dick," I clambered and crawled to the top of the mountain. There I met you with an ox-team and a driver on your way to the rescue of what I had left. Then I mounted "Blue Dick," and as I could see no path, I trusted, under God, to the sagacity and surefootedness of the horse, not knowing but any moment he might plunge over some precipice. I began the descent of the mountain, leaving him to choose his own

way.

In the darkness and silence he engineered our descent, till at length we were greeted by the barking of a dog, and soon. found ourselves in the presence of the muchdesired coal-pit, where you found me, lying on the ground wrapped in my blanket trying to sleep, at eleven o'clock at night. We made little of this at the time, but I can hardly think of it now without a shudder. Trusty old " Blue Dick" must have gone the way of all horseflesh long ago.

The following few days, including the Sabbath, we spent at Unionville, Star City and the mining towns in that part of the territory, and the following Sunday at Virginia City. Here we had a church and a missionary, whose oldest son, an infant, I baptized at that time.

1889.]

I cannot forbear to mention the three missionaries and their brave wives who went out to that distant field together the year before: Rev. D. Henry Palmer, D.D., of Virginia City, now of Penn Yan, N. Y.; Rev. W. W. Macomber, of Gold Hill, now of Milwaukee, Wis., and Rev. L. P. Webber, of Austin, who died several years ago in southern California. Those were the days of the great gold output from the mines of Nevada, when fabulous fortunes were made and lost and none seemed to dream that the supply of gold would ever fail. But to go into that wilderness to carry the gospel to a people drawn thither by the supreme desire for gold involved great hardships and called for rare heroism.

Then we went to Carson City, the capital, where your missionary labors began in the territory, and where we were guests in the same house with the facetious and brilliant governor, afterwards senator, Nye, since dead. Then joined by Rev. Mr. Vedder we went to the famous lake Tahoe. You cannot fail to remember our last night, when we sat on the rocks overhanging the lake, talking of our country-for it was General Grant's summer in the Wilderness-and of the Church in the country, till darkness gathered about us. In the morning you and Mr. Vedder left me waiting for the incoming stage to take me to Placerville over the route made memorable by the ride the peerless mountain driver "Hank Monk" gave Horace Greeley to bring him to Placerville to meet an engagement to lecture there the evening following. I had an engagement there the next day. I had an invitation to attend the laying of the corner-stone of a new church

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edifice that has stood to this day an ornament to the town and a blessing to the people.

But I took up my pen to suggest to you to do some things that you can do better, perhaps, than any other man living.

1. Write an article for THE CHURCH AT HOME AND ABROAD on planting Presbyterianism in Nevada. Nobody can do it. better. I remember when I used to read your letters to our old Home Mission Committee, men like Drs. Adams, Hatfield, Prentiss and Stearns used to sit and wonder at the facts, and admire the skill and power with which they had been presented.

2. Write about that earlier history at Los Angeles. No man can do it like yourself.

3. Give us also some of your travelling and missionary trips in your early life in California. You and Brier went across the continent to get there. You saw "the elephant" and various other wild beasts, and wilder men.

You are a natural explorer. You have the requisite physical vigor and nerve force and the mental qualities to meet emergencies. In physical qualities you remind me very much of Muir, the California explorer and the Alaska glacier discoverer. Give us some of your preaching trips in the mining towns twenty-five to thirty years ago. Get down your old quill, sharpen it up, and draw from your stores of memory lest these things shall never be recorded.

4. Try your hand sketching the lives of some of the early departed or still living old men of California. The famous trio-Woods, Woodbridge and Williams; the two first are dead, and Williams, old and feeble, has come East to spend the remnant of his days. Here is a fine field. Do not neglect it.

in the address of the president, Mrs. D. R. James, and the report of the treasurer, Mrs. M. E. Boyd, and the corresponding secretary, Mrs. N. V. Finks.

Although doubtless a large part of our readers are also readers of the Home Mission