I am sitting in my library. The fire burns cheerily in the grate. A dear voice is singing sweetly by my side. For baby is restless to-night and Jennie has brought him down to rock him to sleep here and keep me company.

The years pass in review before me. Thank God for the dear wife who three years ago persuaded me that I was a Christian more than a Congregationalist. The years have not been unfruitful. The work has been, oh! so little, and the harvest so great!

I believe the whole church is satisfied with the result of our peculiar method of candidating. I am sure there is no one who would willingly exchange Mr. Mapleson for Mr. Uncannon. There have been rumors once or twice that there was danger Maurice Mapleson would leave. He has twice had invitations to preach in city churches whose pulpits were vacant. But he has declined. "I hope," he says, "to live and die here. It is as God wills. But I have no ambition for a larger field of usefulness. It is all I can do to cultivate this field."

My prophesy has proved true respecting Mr. Work. He has broken down, given up preaching, nominally because of a throat trouble; really, I believe, because of spirit trouble, and has opened a young ladies' school in one of the suburbs of the city. Mr. Uncannon has left North Bizzy after a year's pastorate, for one of the great cities of the West, where he is about equally famous for his fast horses, his good cigars, and his extraordinary pulpit pyrotechnics.

Maurice Mapleson's experiment has proved a complete success. Our church at last is out of its financial difficulties. We held our annual meeting last week. And here is the financial exhibit as it appeared in the treasurer's report:

 
                   Cr.

Monthly Subscriptions . . . . . . . . $1,675.00
Sunday Collections . . . . . . . . . . . 395.85
Ladies' Entertainments (a special fair
having been organized by Miss Moore to
secure the interest money.) . . . . . . . 251.06
----------
$2,321.91
2,276.90
Balance in Treasury $45.01

Dr.

Minister's Salary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $1,500.00
Organist, (the office was discontinued,
congregational singing established, and
Deacon Goodsole's eldest daughter voluntered
to play.). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Nothing
Church Repairs-Sundries . . . . . . . . . . . 55.50
Interest on Mortgage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 315.00
Sexton (Salary reduced by himself as a
contribution to the support of the church.) . . 175.00
Fire, lights and incidentals . . . . . . . . . 231.40
--------
$2,276.90

The church has never before had a balance in its treasury, and it was bewildered with astonishment at the result. The money was really due to Maurice, who was to pay, the reader will recollect, the incidental expenses out of the monthly subscriptions and take the remainder as his salary. But Maurice positively refused to take it. He, however, has long wanted the old pulpit cut down and a low platform substituted. The money was voted for that purpose, and the alterations are now going on.

Though the pews are free, the pew system is not wholly abandoned. Each attendant selects a seat for himself or a pew for his family. This is regarded his as much as if he paid pew rent for it. But instead of a fixed rent he pays what he will. No one has paid less than the old rates and some have nearly doubled them. But the improvement in finances is not the only nor even the best result of Maurice Mapleson's experiment. The congregation has increased quite as much as the income. Not less than a score of families are regular attendants on our church who never went to church before. With one or two exceptions every pew is taken. We are beginning to talk quietly about an enlargement.

I think this change had something to do with the revival last Spring. Maurice thinks so at all events. And any attempt to go back to the old system would meet with as much opposition from Deacon Goodsole as from Jim Wheaton. The only member of the congregation who regrets the change is Mrs. Potiphar. She turns up her nose --metaphorically I mean--the natural nose is turned up all the time at that revival. "It did not reach any of our set," she says. "Why, bless you, I don't believe it added fifty dollars to the church income."

One would think to hear her talk that Mrs. Potiphar supported the church. If she does, her right hand does n............