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PREFACE.

HE Right Honourable the Lord Mayor and Lady Mayoress accompanied by the Sheriffs of London and Middlesex, have kindly consented to visit at three p.m., on Friday, December 19th, 1884, our large Sailors' Institute, the Head-quarters of the British and Foreign Sailors' Society. Curious to begin a preface with such an announcement! Yes, but last year we had to publish by this world-wide medium in the same way that the good wife of our Prime Minister would open our Sailors Bazaar. So that we are safe to follow in true Parliamentary fashion precedent. His lordship has just been to the west in all his glory, it is right that he should come to the east in all his grace. The Institute is situated in the poorest part of London, and it will do us good in Ratcliff Highway for the Lord Mayor to come and

see us.

We shall re-open the large hall, after cleaning; there will be a Christmas-tree and sale of work to furnish presents for this festive period of the year. There is not only great depression among our shipping interests, but great distress among many of our seamen, who cannot immediately secure berths. We have given already 9584 free teas, 1138 have signed the pledge, others have been rescued, cared for, and helped to situations, so that £100 will be needed to continue this tender and helpful ministry to meet the expenditure up to our next annual meeting. It is proposed, therefore, at this Christmas time to supply this exhausted fund. The helpless and homeless ones naturally gravitate to this quarter from the north and other ports, and this extra burden is thrown upon the Society. Then the aged missionaries, the faithful servants of the Society, also need additional help, while the steam launch "William Tyler" at Malta, and the handsome gift of John Cory, Esq. (vice-president), of his steam yacht "Iole," recently given for mission work in the Channel Islands, coast of France, and our own unoccupied ports, only show that the Society is going forward in its mighty work to benefit our fishermen, firemen and seamen. Any gifts in money or goods will be duly acknowledged.

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Mr. Campbell Cory, of Cardiff, came to London this year, and took away a beautiful bride. Only relations could attend the banquet, but he told us to put him down for two guineas to feed these hungry sailors not able to come to the marriage feast. If all who have taken brides, and those who expect to, would only do this, what a list we should have for the Lord Mayor.!

Who would not continue to labour for seamen with such an illustrious example as Chaplain Jones before our eyes? We have already reviewed his book, From the Forecastle to the Pulpit,* and now place the picture of this veteran sailor preacher in our preface, that it may grace the beginning of our bound volumes. His fifty years among sailors is a contribution worthy of the century. He himself, once a reckless sailor, is a living illustration-one of a great number of what God is doing among the sons of the ocean. The Head of the Church has not exhausted His gifts. Gambiers, Newtons, Angus', Peters, Johns, will yet be called from ships. We shall return to this book again.

Mr. Alexander Scrutton, director of the British and Foreign Sailors' Society, accompanied by his family, left this morning for New Zealand. We have just seen them off from Fenchurch Street station, where a special train was waiting to take them and all their fellow passengers to the steamer at Gravesend. Though both husband and wife looked as though they were starting on their wedding trip, we feel like having a good cry rather than write the preface for our sixth annual volume. At a time when the responsibilities of this great Society are increasing, when several of its most trusted servants are needing by age and service a safe anchorage, when worthy and unworthy rivals are clamouring for support, when passing through a transition stage from the past into the future, we could ill afford to spare one who, both on the Finance Committee, Library Committtee, and Board of Directors, has given not only time and money for eighteen years, but a clear brain, sound judgment, unruffled mind, and continuous sympathy. Perhaps it is not too much to say that no one family in the whole empire has done more or so much for this Society as the Scrutton family. Every missionary who knew him, his brother directors, with all of us who had the pleasure of working with him, willl ament his

* Now published in London by S. W. Partridge and Co. 5s.

departure, but he leaves with our esteem and our affection. He will, with Messrs. Arundel and Elkin, represent the Society and still do something for seamen on those once far but now near Pacific shores.

Our Sixth Annual Chart and Compass voyage ended! Every unprejudiced reader must confess that this magazine has contributed in no small degree to the sacred cause of seamen. Without

the help of our readers and writers we could not have rendered such a service. The volume, when bound, will surpass any of its predecessors, and will make a valuable gift-book on this great subject. We have some 300 to meet the demands of our friends. Poets and preachers, sailors and soldiers, contributors and canvassers, and above all our missionaries, we thank you for your great services, and beg their renewal for 1885. One thing is near our heart, i.e., to complete the Aged Missionaries' Fund, and nothing will so enable us to do this as making our magazine a more worthy and widely scattered advocate of our sailors' cause. Gentle reader order at once either from your bookseller or from yours faithfully, EDWARD W. MATTHEWS, Editor,

Sailors' Institute, Shadwell, London, E.

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