ANNIVERSARY EXERCISES.

THE Thirteenth Anniversary of our Board was observed in Woodland, September 30th, in connection with the annual meeting of the General Association of California. There was an afternoon session for ladies, which was devoted largely to reports from the branches and from the auxiliaries, while the moments were linked with a most tender sense of fellowship.

In the evening, at the First Congregational Church, occurred the public anniversary exercises, and the sympathy of the churches with our work was attested by a crowded church, by profound attention, and by a generous contribution. Rev. Dr. Barrows, of San Francisco, presided. Inspiring hymns were sung, an appropriate anthem was rendered by a choir, and other devotional services were performed by Rev. I. P. Marty, of Petaluma, Rev. C. S. Vaile, of Martinez, and Rev. W. C. Merrill, of Sacramento. A delightful letter of greeting was read from Mrs. S. B. Pratt, of Boston, in behalf of the Woman's Board. The annual address of our President was followed by the reports of the Secretaries and Treasurer, which presented our specific work to the churches; after which an address was given by Major-General Howard, who thrilled all hearts with his earnest, sympathetic words.

We felt that a fresh impulse was given on this occasion to the foreign mission work of the Pacific Coast.

PRESIDENT'S ADDRESS.

DEAR FRIENDS OF "THE WOMAN'S BOARD OF MISSIONS FOR THE PACIFIC": It is with peculiar pleasure that we come, year after year, to hold our anniversary under the auspices of the General Association of California. Such a gathering is full of significance, for it defines our relation to the Church, and proves us to be a recognized channel through which her life flows out in blessing to the world. Our activities are not outside her hallowed borders, but the aggressive energies of her spiritual life sweep through us in proportion to the height to which they rise. Thus, being ourselves a part of the Church life, we are, like a river, both the channel and the stream.

Shall not that channel be kept clear by a strong, pure current of religious life?

We are veins and arteries of the Church, through which her vital forces flow out to return in fresh and quickening power.

The pulsation can be strong, only as we abide in Him who said, "Apart from Me ye can do nothing."

While we rejoice in being one of the agencies through which the Church is touching humanity, do we fully realize our peculiar obligation to send the gospel to the heathen? We repose upon the strong, deep current of religious life which has borne us along from childhood; but are we not in danger of forgetting that this blessing has come to us from a foreign missionary source? In Canterbury, England, stands an ivy-covered church, which is the grandest monument in the land; for there was echoed the voice of St. Augustine, centuries ago, as he preached for the first time to the Saxon people the riches of a crucified Redeemer. Though the Frankish Queen Bertha was a Christian, few had a knowledge of the truth in England until this time, when King Ethelbert and many more were led to bow their heads for baptism; and thus, in our ancestral home, the stream of blessing started to which we owe our hopes for time and for eternity. Shall we check the flow of that mighty river now, or shall we let its current bear us on to greater victories?

One has said: "Preaching is born of conviction; strong belief cannot be silent."

These forceful words enunciate a principle which pertinently applies to our missionary work. How many of us perform it with this impelling conviction forcing our activities, which are, therefore, attended with a convincing power that is all aglow with the fire of intense belief and devotion in our own souls ?

"We also believe, and therefore speak," says the apostle; and our hearts are thrilled as we read his words, for they give out the light and heat of that fire which his conviction kindled,— that is destined to burn on, and fill the Church with the glory of his Lord. There was not a single motive to actuate the Apostle Paul, which does not appeal to each one of us with equal force to-day. The constraining power of Christ's love, the work of the Holy Spirit, the unconscious pleading of a dying world,- all these are urging us forward. Where, then, is our excuse if we "sit at ease in Zion"?

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"Oh! I believe in seeking to save those for whom Christ died," says one, but I am entirely opposed to foreign missions." In the light of these tremendous truths, who dares to set a geographical limit to the salvation of God? Who can thoughtfully and prayer

fully say, "I believe with all my heart and soul in the wonderful salvation of my crucified and risen Lord, but I choose to keep its blessings at home, for it is a waste to send it like a winged seed to far places in the earth" ?

No church is symmetrical that does not let her light shine forth on every side like the radii of a star, thus finding innumerable outlets for the God-given love at her heart, for all for whom Christ died.

"God so loved that he loved the world." Then let no eclipse cut off any radiant lines of effort, but let them shine out into "all the world" as we follow him in whom is no "shadow of turning."

Near the sacred spot in Rome where the Apostle Paul was put to death rises an obelisk, which holds in stony silence the memorial of some long-forgotten glory of idolatrous Egypt. It stands like the grim skeleton of a memory from which life and personality have vanished forever,-cold, self-centered, and unknown.

On either side are fountains fed from the hills, which throw up their silvery streams in perennial splendor. Night and day the music of their rising and falling waters may be heard, while starlight and moonlight turn the spray into liquid pearls, or sunshine transforms it into a dazzling shower of jewels. Shifting rainbows play lightly on the waters as they fall in perfect symmetry of form in their appointed place, and then disappear from view, to rush through hidden pathways in purifying streams.

Such is the contrast between the empty glory of the world and those "living fountains of waters" whose overflow upon the nations the great apostle only began to witness as, with reverent hand, he opened the gateways through which the unsearchable riches of Christ were to go forth upon the Gentiles in beauty and in power. Were to go forth? Yes, verily; but it pleased God that through his children, in all ages of the Church, the blessing should reach the dark places of the earth.

"God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the mighty;" and upon us the Divine commission is resting at this hour as really as it rested upon the Apostle Paul, or upon the wondering eleven who heard on the slope of Olivet the words of the ascending Christ, "Go preach my gospel to every creature; and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world."

The foreign missionary work is not founded upon poetry, nor is it a visionary scheme, without substance or reality; but it builds upon solemn, vital, glorious fact, with certainty of progress and certainty of reward. Springing from the great central truth that Jesus died to save the world, it overarches all time, and rests in the victorious coming of our Lord; and when the divine light it

brings touches the clouds that hang over a sinful, suffering, dying world, lo! new glories are revealed of which the rainbow splendor is but a faint and fading type.

Who, then, can measure the fullness of divine possibility in that prophetic command, "Arise, shine, for thy light is come"? Can we say, "I know whom I have believed"? Then, verily, we know a Saviour whose love sends us with his grace into "all the world." Looking into the starlit heavens, we become conscious that one star after another seems to start with sudden clearness out of the splendor of distant spaces, and becomes to us real and individual, sending the light from ages past upon us with its unfathomable mystery. So one motive after another for faith in the foreign missionary cause becomes distinct and real to us in the unsearchable radiance of God's "eternal purpose," as the "mystery which hath been hid from ages" is more and more made manifest to us that Jew and Gentile, "from sea to sea and from the river unto the ends of the earth," shall acknowledge the dominion of our Christ forever and ever.

A few divinely-lighted motives we have considered this evening: a sense of privilege in being a channel for church-work; thankfulness for that which foreign missions have done for us; an impelling conviction of the world's need that springs from a vital belief of the truth; love for the Church, and desire that she may be roused from apathy, and may reflect on every side the Divine glory; humble gratitude that to us the grace is given to do this work for God; joy in the enduring glory of efforts which find their culmination in the triumph of the cross,- these are but a few of the stars that we may discern if we gaze intently on the many-sided aspects of the foreign missionary work,- stars that become blazing suns as we approach to a nearer conception of their relation to the Lord and his coming kingdom.

Around the ineffable glory of that central Sun, the infinite personality of Christ, the Church moves on with the circling ages; and at last, in the nearer glory of the Great White Throne, will gather not those alone who stand to-day upon the mount of privilege, but "a great multitude which no man can number, of all nations, and kindreds, and people, and tongues," even "they which came out of great tribulation, and have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb."

Africa will be there, and India and China, and the islands of the sea. There, we, too, shall stand, to hear if we have been faithful, the music of the Master's voice saying even unto us, "Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto Me."