proceedings of the first day of the Missionary Conference were begun with a prayer meeting led by Rev. Henry Blodget, D., of Peking, from 10,30 to 11 a.m at the Lyceum Theatre.
The opening sermon was preached by the Rev. J. Hudson Taylor, of the China Inland Mission, from Matt, xv. 32-39. The course consisted of a plain and forcible statement of the analogy between the work given to the disciples in feeding four thousand persons with but seven loaves and a few fishes, and that committed to the Church of the present day in the commission to preach the Gospel to the whole creation. Mr. Taylor is a unique porsonality among the missionaries in China, and great weight is attached to whatever he says, on account of his phenomenal expe ence as the organiser of the great China Inland Mission, of which he has been from the beginning the life and the soul. Mr. Taylor's discourse was extemporaneous and apparently unstudied, and commanded the closest attention of an audience which nearly filled the body of the theatre, as well as the first gallery. Mr. Taylor's know-Lodge of China at first hand is probably greater than that of any member of the Missionary Conference. It is therefore a matter of general interest to learn that so high an authority does not put the population of the empire at the high figure which is still so frequently assigned. He intimated that the estimate of two hundred and fifty millions is the very lowest which can be reasonably given. Mr. Taylor made an earnest plea that a call be uttered by this Conference for at least a thousand new labourers to work in China, with a view to the presentation of the Gospel to every family in China within the present generation. Mr. Taylor has recently visited Norway and Sweden, and is confident that from those countries one hundred labourers
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.