To our Friends.

Upon reaching the last issue of help and pood for the current year, it would be ungratefulness not to acknowledge the conscious help the Lord has given along the way. Small as it is, no service perhaps in one's path has excited more the sense of responsibility and dependence, and therefore the need of prayer. There has been no lack of trial in it; but if we live no more unto ourselves, but unto Him who died for us and rose again, trial is but the way of progress, and progress is gain for eternity. The fellowship of fellow-laborers has been more abundant in various ways, and so the labor has been sweetened much. A greater sense of responsibility seems to have come upon such as are able to minister with the pen, and this is cheering. If they are diligent, and persevere with prayerfulness, and are patient toward the more or less faulty, though sincerely careful, criticisms of the Editor, they will find in the end that their labor has not been in vain. The Lord, beloved brethren, make you all, young and old, increasingly able to feed the flock of God. There is growing need of it. Let your words be as few as possible with clearness and pointedness. Do not load up an article with too many things. The great majority of people can take in only so much at a time, and no more.

Do not think it necessary to find some new and astonishing things to say to minister to God's people. '' The sincere milk of the Word "; the plain food; the precious things which flow from our Lord Jesus Christ, are ever in demand. If we live in them ourselves, and enjoy them, the sheep of Christ will thankfully pick them up from our lips. Ever keep in mind the whole Church of God. Our magazine is not for a little section of the people of God, but for all, and what is ministered therefore is of necessity to be in view of all, for the instruction of any and every child of God who desires to learn the word of God.

We are thankful that there has been increase in the circulation. Might there not be more ? We have received letters during the year from persons who had received rich blessing through its pages, and they stirred in us the desire to have it spread farther. Effort in this way usually finds success, and distributors and writers share in the common coming reward.

Above all things, we make request for the prayers of God's people, both of individuals and of prayer-meetings ; for what is all our service worth without the "increase" which God alone gives, or can give? What fruits we may find, when we reach the glory, from having made every service in Christ which commends itself to our Christian conscience a matter of individual and collective prayer-earnest and persevering prayer! While the Lord yet tarries, may we all live, serve, labor, as men who wait for Him.

Another Mark of the Approaching End.

We have from time to time taken notice in our pages of the great marks of the near coming again of our Lord-such as the return of the Jews to their land, the apostasy of Christendom, etc., preliminaries of which are now manifest before all who have eyes to see.

The downfall of "Babylon the Great" is another mighty event which is to take place at that time. It is described in Rev. 17 and 18. Preliminaries of this are also showing themselves, as witness her being cast off by the state in France of very recent date. We copy from a late number of The Presbyterian Record the following concerning her downfall in Italy. It shows in the same way what is surely awaiting her for all her awful history of crime, when God lets loose against her the hosts of her enraged enemies. As she has done to others, so is it to be done to her, and that not by the people of God surely, for they are a forgiving people, but by His enemies who know no mercy.

"Italy, as every one knows, is the seat and shrine of the Roman Catholic Church. In Rome the Pope for ages and ages has had his palace, and in Rome he once ruled supreme, and from that Old-World city made his influence felt for good and evil-mainly for evil-throughout the civilized world.

"In Italy, the "spell" of these "mighty magicians" has been broken. The Pope and the Curia have to content themselves with the use of the Vatican Palace, lent to them by act of Parliament; and even within that building they have obtained the protection of the Italian Government by night and by day to save them from the violence of the inhabitants of Rome.

"The tables in Italy have been entirely reversed. The Pope, cardinals, archbishops, bishops and priests throughout the whole land, exist only on sufferance. All property has been taken from them. The Papal Church does not possess a stone of building in the land, nor an inch of soil. It cannot hold, it cannot build, it cannot inherit property. It is only a tenant at will.

" Indeed, by the new code, which threatens with fine, imprisonment, and dismissal from office, any priest who, in the exercise of his duties, talks against the king and government, or disturbs the peace of families, or seeks to annoy an Italian subject in the free exercise of his civil rights, or for doing what the law permits him to do-by this new penal code, the Roman Catholic Church in Italy is virtually placed in the category of criminal institutions.

"Again, marriage has been taken out of the hands of the Catholic Church entirely. No priest can perform the marriage ceremony. The Pope himself could not legally marry any one. Marriage in Italy is a civil rite, only legal when performed by the syndic (provost) of the place in which the couple reside, or by one of his assessors, and in the city council chambers.

"That law was found to be necessary in the interests of morality, as the Church was prepared to marry almost all and sundry, no matter though within the forbidden degrees, if money sufficient was paid for the indulgence. It was largely a question of pounds, shillings, and pence-just as in former times it was with all crimes, when the Church committed them for money.

"Again, education has been completely taken out of the hands of the Church so far as the national schools of the land are concerned. Before 1876, when the temporal power of the Pope was overthrown, education was entirely in the hands of the Church. Now, no priest, no monk, no nun, no sister, is permitted to be a teacher in any national school.

" It is an impossibility for the Church in Italy to get enough priests to fill her pulpits. Hence she is drafting them from Britain and Ireland and America and all countries. Hardly any respectable father will give his son to the priesthood. The priests are drawn from the lowest class in the land, many from the pauper and criminal classes. Two months ago the Government issued an order forbidding soldiers to salute the host, a thing they had been accustomed to do for centuries. The whole nation is up in arms against the Church. The Pope and the priests say this agitation is the work of Anarchists and Socialists, and is financed from France. It is nothing of the kind. It is the national movement, called forth by the discoveries of unspeakable crimes committed by priests and sisters in their educational establishments."