consider a good training and a careful preparation great helps to
ministerial usefulness. The students are lodged in families around, and
on the Sunday are principally employed in preaching in various districts
near London. Some of the Baptist places are very small indeed, and very
badly attended. It were better, one would think, that they were shut up
and merged with other churches or denominations. There is something
inexpressibly melancholy in the long lists of Zions, and Bethels, and
Mount Sions, where the pastor and the people scarcely live. Amongst some
of the Baptists there are some of Antinomian tendencies, and the
preachers of such doctrines have very large congregations. They are the
elect of God, and can never sin. As to their doctrine and its results,
one illustration will suffice. A member of one of the largest of these
Antinomian places unfortunately got tipsy, fell out of the cart in which
he was riding, and broke his leg. "Ah!" said his sympathizing pastor
when he heard of it, "what a blessed thing he can't fall out of the
covenant." The Antinomian believes that Christ paid, with his death, the
price of the pardon of a certain number. These are in the covenant, and
out of that covenant they cannot fall. There are in the Church of
England those who preach this doctrine, but their number is rare. Up in
Notting Hill is a Tabernacle built up and carried on by Mr. Varley, an
humble imitator of Mr. Spurgeon. Originally Mr. Varley was a butcher,
but he took to preaching; and finding that people came to hear him, and
that he did them good, he now devotes himself entirely to ministerial
work. At his Tabernacle, in St. James's Square, there is accommodation
for 1200 hearers, and for the education of more than 500 children. This
history of these Tabernacles shows what may be done when suitable agency
is employed. Mr. Spurgeon's subscriptions are really wonderful. Twenty
thousand pounds were given him by one lady for the purpose of founding
his orphanage. More than once 2000_l._ have been dropped into his
letter-box, as he told the writer of an article in the _Daily Telegraph_,
where, ludicrously enough, he appeared under the head of "Unorthodox
London." "When recently attacked by illness, he began to despair; but
that same evening a lady left 100_l._ at his door, and 1000_l._ came in
immediately afterwards."

CHRISTMAS MORNING WITH THE YOUNGSTERS.

Amongst the most unpleasant recollection