return for the benefits they receive in that most favoured locality? Will they not leastways visit the Orphanage, see for themselves, and render help in some way? Will they not cheer, by interest and sympathy, the hardworking Sisters who live so retired at life, that even in their own neighbourhood they are not known in any measure according to the value of their work?

In bringing out the Annual Report of their Orphanage, the Sisters of Bethany wish first to thank those many kind friends who have so liberally, and in so many ways, helped them during the past year.

The Subscriptions and Donations, though still falling very far short of what is needed, have largely increased; and although the Sisters cannot attempt to acknowledge, in detail, the many gifts to the Orphanage of clothing, blankets, books, toys, &c., they hope that those who have sent them will accept their sincere thanks, and the assurance that all were most useful and highly appreciated. Especial thanks are due to the friend who so kindly responded to the appeal made last year on behalf of the Children's Oratory, for painting two beautiful panels which have added greatly to its brightness and cheerfulness.

During the past year the health of the children has been remarkably good, and, with the exception of the death of one little child of two years of age, from convulsions consequent upon teething, there has been no illness at all.

The usual examination of the School by Her Majesty's Inspector took place last spring, when the children passed very creditably. In October, the Diocesan Inspector paid his first visit to the School, and seemed pleased with the religious attainments of the children.

The Sisters regret exceedingly that they have had to refuse many applications to receive more children into the Orphanage; but, until they can extend the existing dormitories-a step rendered impossible as yet through lack of funds-they are unable to accommodate more than a certain number of

One large

children, namely ninety-six. room, originally intended for a dormitory, is at present used as a temporary Chapel, the much-needed permanent Chapel not being yet commenced; and until the heavy mortgage of 3,400l. on the house is paid off, it is impossible to continue building.

The Sisters plead most earnestly for help; and there are many ways in which it can be given. The following are suggestions :— Ist. Annual subscriptions or a donation to the Orphanage.

2nd. Gifts of cast-off clothes, boots, old books, toys, &c.

3rd. Clothing, either for the children, or as contributions to outfits, knitted stockings, &c.

4th. (For those in the neighbourhood) Permission to call for scraps, broken victuals, soup, pudding, &c.

Contributions may be sent to
The Sister Superior,

Springbourne,
Bournemouth.

Heleddy.

HO is Teddy? We would give a great deal to be able to draw Teddy's portrait on this page, for nothing more, we are convinced, would be necessary to enlist the sympathies of the readers of Our Work in his behalf; but, as that is not possible, we will attempt a feeble description of the small being who bears this name.

We will ask our readers to imagine themselves standing opposite the Mission House in New Nichol Street, Shoreditch, last winter, on one of the children's dinner days. We will ask them to watch that swaying, struggling crowd of children as they push, and squeeze, and elbow their way in order to be nearest the door, and so get the first chance of forcing an entrance when it is opened, to the no small discomfort of the numerous babies, who often get sadly knocked about during the process.

They would have noticed, leaning against the door on those days, a poor, miserablelooking object-a little boy crippled and deformed-who might be any age between four and eight, with a shrunk, wizened face, and evidently suffering acute pain. Standing over him as his champion, would be his elder brother, in clothes all ragged and torn, but with a pleasant good-natured face, and occupied in protecting the little cripple from the pressure of the crowd, which he did by dealing sundry well-directed blows with his fist on any who attempted to push against him.

This poor little sufferer and his big brother were always admitted before the great rush, and helped to get safely upstairs into a quiet corner of the room, before the general public took possession. What care the boy took of his 'Teddy,' hoisting him on his back, and staggering up the narrow stairs with his heavy burden! And not a bit of dinner did he touch himself until the wants of the child had been attended to.

Teddy is never out of pain, for, besides his chronic condition of helplessness and deformity, his back is so covered with open sores that he can only lie upon his face.

And what was his home like? A tiny room in one of the most miserable of Shoreditch courts, where he fretted all day long as he lay across an old broken chair, with his face downwards, the only position in which the poor child could get any relief from the pain of the abscesses. Dear reader, this is a description of Teddy as he was.

But now the scene changes. If any of our readers care sufficiently about this sad story to pursue Teddy's history further, we must ask them to come with us to that brightest and cheeriest of children's hospitals-St. Monica's Home, Kilburn, where every alleviation and remedy that the most thoughtful care and affection can devise is lavished upon the little child-sufferers who find their way within its walls.

There, on a snow-white couch close to the open window, with a pet canary close at hand, and the merry voices of the crippled children playing in the garden beneath, lies

our Teddy. And even his mother, when she comes to see him, can scarcely recognise him. That suffering, sad, weary look has altogether disappeared, and given place to round, rosy cheeks and dimpled chin, and laughing blue eyes which express the most perfect happiness and content; her 'Rosy cauliflower,' the Lady Superintendent calls him.

Teddy is a general favourite with every one -with the ladies who conduct the Home, with the nurses, and with the children; always cheerful, never complaining, even when suffering terrible pain, he has managed to win a place in the hearts of all, and his laugh is now the merriest, his spirits the highest, of all the little inmates of that Home.

Such was Teddy's past life: such is his present lot; but now comes the question— 'What is to be Teddy's future?' His sores are healed, he is well and healthy; though, alas a cripple he must be all his life. Is he to return to that miserable Shoreditch home, to endure again privations and semistarvation? Is he to be exposed to the risk of the abscesses forming once more, as the doctor says they are sure to do if he is deprived of careful nursing and good food?

'You must not take our Teddy away,' says the Lady Superintendent of the Home. 'He is the life of the ward. We should all miss him so much.'

'Ask the little fellow himself, as he lies on his comfortable couch by the open window, amusing himself with his playthings.'

'Would you like to go home, Teddy?' He looks up with a half-serious, half-comical expression, as much as to say-'You cannot really be in earnest when you ask such a question as that.' Then, opening his blue. eyes very wide, he shakes his head decidedly, and says with great emphasis 'No, thank you, ma'am.'

Yet Teddy cannot be kept for nothing, and our mission fund is very low. To go on paying for him would soon exhaust the scanty store. His future must therefore be left in the hands of those who read this simple, true tale. No! we do not believe that

Teddy will be obliged to return to his former life. GOD will put it into the hearts of some who have a special love for children, and a special sympathy with their sufferings, to provide for his future. 12 a year is all that is needed to make this poor little one's future a comparatively happy one. For this sum he can remain at S. Monica's Home; or, when it is considered advisable, can be removed to a Cripples' Home, and taught some means-if not of earning his living, at least of doing something towards it.

Is there anything that appeals more eloquently for help than the sufferings of little children? And is not the privilege of alleviating their sufferings one of the greatest blessings GOD has bestowed on those to whom He has given wealth?

Should any reader be disposed to 'adopt' little Teddy, will he or she write to the Secretary of the C. E. A.,

Miss HELEN WETHERELL,

27 Kilburn Park Road,
London, N.W.

Mission Work at Poplar.

E trust that the short account of our work at Poplar, which appeared in the July number of this Magazine, sufficiently interested our kind readers to make them desire to hear more, from time to time, of the progress of the Mission, and to enlist their sympathy for the many poor sufferers in this populous district. Since that account was written we have become acquainted with a great many more families, and the poverty and destitution it has, in too many cases, been our lot to witness are heartrending in the extreme. Work of late years has been so scarce, that many of the poor, who at one time found it sufficiently easy to earn a living, have been reduced to a state of semi-starvation. Becoming debi

litated and enfeebled for want of proper nourishment, they fall an easy prey to illness of all kinds, and anyone who has had ever so little experience in district visiting knows what sad havoc sickness makes in homes where, at the best of times, the commonest necessaries of life can hardly be furnished.

We will subjoin two or three out of the many instances of this which daily come under our notice.

Mrs. C., a widow, has, since her husband's death, maintained herself and her little family by taking in washing. She has several children, of whom one only is old enough to go out to work. During the epidemic of small-pox which so terribly ravaged the parish last year, three of her little ones were struck down. After many weeks' illness they gradually recovered; but, alas! the poor mother's means of subsistence was gone, for who would send clothes to an infected house? She was obliged to move, and since then has been entirely dependent on the earnings of her eldest boy, and as he is as often out of work as in, they are sometimes reduced to the sorest straits. The younger ones-too ragged for school-hang about, shoeless and half-clothed, with a pinched, hungry expression on their faces that it is pitiful to see. To add to their misfortunes, one of the children, approaching too close to the bedstead, set all their scanty stock of bedding on fire, so that they had nothing left to sleep on but the bare wooden. frame or what was equally hard and uncomfortable, the floor-and without covering of any kind.

F was a sailor for forty-three years, but having had his hand smashed by a steamboiler, and becoming subject to fits, he was obliged to give up his employment. He has a wife, who, like himself, is subject to fits. In her case they have somewhat affected the brain. Neither of them can now do any work. They live, or rather starve, upon any bits of food their neighbours are kind enough to throw them. They greatly dread having to go to the workhouse, for there they would be separated, and 'We so counted on spend

ing our old age together,' they plaintively tell us.

Little T is lying dangerously ill. We found her on our first visit lying in great pain, with her father sitting beside her, watching her with anxious, tearful eyes. 'I'd rather suffer anything myself than see her in such pain,' he said, earnestly. But why was he not out at work trying to obtain for her some of the little extra things she so evidently needed? Alas! he himself is in an advanced stage of consumption—that fell disease which so unceasingly makes its inroads into the homes of rich and poor alike. The rich can greatly alleviate the sufferings of its victims, and cheat it of its prey ofttimes for many years; but with the poor it is far otherwise. To them it comes like some triumphant conqueror, encircling them in its iron grasp and crushing the very life out of them with lingering and cruel pains. The wife and mother is the bread-winner here, the poor husband being obliged to remain inactive.

'Have you consulted no doctor?' we asked. 'Oh! yes,' he replied. 'I went to the London Hospital, but they told me that medicine would do me no good without food, and as I can't get that, they took the bottle from me again. They said I ought to get an in-patient's letter for the Brompton Hospital; but that wouldn't be much good, for they won't take you in there without a certain amount of clothes, and I haven't any.' We happened to have with us an out-patient's letter, which we offered him, but he shook his head sorrowfully, "I'm too weak to walk, Sister," he said, "and I couldn't bear to take the missus's earnings, she works so 'ard already." That difficulty being removed, however, he promised to go the next day, though it was a great effort for one in his state of health. On his arrival there, he found the waiting-rooms filled with patients bent on the same errand as himself. He waited there from morning till evening before the doctor could see him, and nothing passed his lips all day. When he reached home at night, the only thing in the house in

the shape of food was a small piece of bread and butter, which he was too exhausted to eat; and the Sister on her next visit was distressed to find him considerably worse, and obliged to keep his bed. If any of our kind readers who possess in-patients' letters for Brompton Hospital would kindly send them to us, they would confer a great benefit.

It may interest some of our readers to know that the old man who expressed such an ardent desire to receive the Blessed Sacrament, not having partaken of this Heavenly Food for fifty years, had his longing satisfied, and breathed his last in peace just two hours afterwards.

The recent Confirmation has been a great event in the parish. Long before the hour announced, the street in which the church was situated was crowded with people; in fact, so closely were they packed round the church doors that it was nigh upon an impossibility to get into the sacred edifice at all. Fathers and mothers, brothers, sisters, and friends, nearly all claiming relationship, or at least acquaintanceship, with some one or other of the candidates-all were anxious to assist at the service, and a most impressive one it certainly was.

It commenced with the inspiriting processional hymn, 'Onward, Christian Soldiers,' which was sung as clergy and choir slowly filed into their places. The Bishop's address, which immediately followed the exhortation, was thoroughly earnest and practical. He bade the candidates bethink themselves of the wondrous gift they were about to receive, which was nothing less than the Blessed Spirit of GOD Himself, who was coming to dwell in them, to be their unfailing strength and support. 'It seems almost too good to be true,' he said, 'that the Holy Paraclete should deign to come and dwell in hearts so vile, so cold, so ignorant, so sin-stained as ours; and yet this is what He has promised to do, and we must come confidently, expecting to receive the blessing He has pledged Himself to bestow, remembering the words our dear LORD spake when He was upon earth, "If

ye then being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask Him?"' He enjoined them to renew with all possible earnestness their baptismal vows, and to yield themselves up without reserve, body, soul, and spirit, to Him who was so generously outpouring Himself for them. He spoke of the many dangers and temptations that would beset them, more perhaps and greater than they had ever experienced before; for if Satan saw them really in earnest, striving to overcome their besetting sins and to lead holy lives, he certainly would not fail to use his most subtle and persuasive arts to turn them from their purpose. At the same time he reminded them of the great increase of strength and grace they would have to enable them to resist him. He bid them never be discouraged, never turn back or give up the contest, never take into their lips those foolish, wicked words which, alas one so often hears 'It's no use trying!' but in all their trials and temptations only cling the closer to their heavenly Father, and trust His grace the more, as they discovered more and more of their own weakness. Some there were (he said) who approached the holy rite of Confirmation half-heartedly, without deep heart-searching preparation, and then afterwards fell away and gave occasion to the enemies of the LORD to blaspheme. We, too, often hear people say "What's the good of Confirmation ? So-and-so was confirmed, and look at him now; he's a great deal worse than those who never made any profession of religion." It is a terrible thing to be the cause of such a reproach being cast on one of God's holy ordinances. GOD forbid that any of those to be confirmed to-day should be so.' He then invited each member of the congregation to join with him for a few moments in silent prayer; specially he bid them ask for a great outpouring of the Holy Spirit on the candidates, that they might never bring disgrace on the Church and name of JESUS, but, persevering in His service, might obtain at last

a heavenly crown. The candidates he asked to continue in prayer all the time the confirmation was going on, begging them not to weary of it, and if they could not think of words to say, or things to ask for, during all the time, to ask the same petitions over and over again. He reminded them of the saint who spent hours and hours rapt in devotion, repeating only those few words, 'O my GOD, Thou art good! Oh my soul, thou art happy!' 'It is so sad and strange,' he remarked, that while we can spend almost any length of time in seeing some amusing sight, or talking to some dear friend without getting weary, a few minutes spent in speaking to our Father and Friend in Heaven is too much for us.' He told of an old lady he knew who regularly spent four or five hours daily in prayer, and said he had often wondered how she could do it, but one day she let him into the secret, for, as they were talking together, she stopped suddenly in the middle of something she was saying, and exclaimed with the greatest fervour, 'Oh, I do love GOD! I do love GOD!' Yes, there was the secret-love, deep personal love to GOD must animate us, and this we must ever be asking Him to kindle in our hearts.

After a short silence the Veni Creator was sung, kneeling, and the candidates having with one voice renewed their vows, ascended the chancel steps to receive the laying-on of hands. First to approach the Bishop were a number of married couples, and it was a touching sight to see them kneeling hand in hand to receive GOD's wonderful gift. There were also two cripples, one a dear old woman of seventy. The beautiful hymn, 'Thine for ever,' was next sung, and the Bishop spoke a few last closing words. He suggested as a motto for the confirmed, 'My strength is made perfect in weakness;' exhorting them not to neglect the great means of grace to which they now had access, but, by careful and loving reception of the Blessed Sacrament of CHRIST'S Body and Blood, to strengthen and maintain in themselves the life which without it must wither