amphlet, "Our
Perishing Little Ones," she says: "As to the present state of the
mission, we simply say 'Come and see.' It is impossible by words to give
an idea of the mass of 120,000 precious souls who live on this one
square mile.... My longing is to send forth, so soon as the ice breaks,
500 of our poor street boys, waifs and strays that have been gathered
in, to the warm-hearted Canadian farmers. In the meantime, who will help
us to make outfits, and collect _5l._ for each little Arab, that there
be no hindrance to the complement being made up when the spring time is
come?... Ladies who are householders can aid us much in endeavours to
educate these homeless wanderers to habits of industry by sending orders
for their firewood--_4s._ per hundred bundles, sent free eight miles
from the City." And, again, in Miss Macpherson's book called "The Little
Matchmakers," she says: "In this work of faith and labour of love among
the very lowest in our beloved country, let us press on, looking for
great things. Preventing sin and crime is a much greater work than
curing it. There are still many things on my heart requiring more
pennies. As they come, we will go forward."

Miss Macpherson's motto is, "The Word first in all things; afterwards
bread for this body." There are some of us who would be inclined to
reverse this process--to feed the body and educate the mind--not
altogether neglecting spiritual culture, even at the earliest stage, but
leaving anything like definite religious schooling until the poor mind
and body were, so to say, acclimatized. It is, of course, much easier to
sit still and theorize and criticise than to do what these excellent
people have done and are doing to diminish this gigantic evil. "By their
fruits ye shall know them" is a criterion based on authority that we are
none of us inclined to dispute. Miss Macpherson boasts--and a very
proper subject for boasting it is--that she belongs to no _ism_. It is
significant, however, that the Refuge bears, or bore, the name of the
"Revival" Refuge, and the paper which contained the earliest accounts of
its working was called the _Revivalist_, though now baptized with the
broader title of the _Christian_. Amid such real work it would be a pity
to have the semblance of unreality, and I dreaded to think of the
possibility of its existing, when little grimy hands were held out by
boys volunteering to say a text for my behoof. By far the most
favourite one was "Jesu