I have much pleasure in complying with this request, and beli that it will be read with considerable interest throughout the Chur and I entertain the hope that the remarkable success of the Miss enterprise in the East end of Glasgow will incline and excite many greater liberality in their contributions to the Home Mission Fu and so to help forward and sustain a work that has been owned, trust, by the Lord.

The report sent herewith is the second which has been sent in Mr M'Kay (the worthy and energetic missionary minister in Bridgeton Mission) since the meeting of Synod. The former rep embraced four months, ending with the month of July, and appea in the November number of the Magazine. It was then stated t the average number attending morning worship was 38; aftern worship, 67; and evening worship, 68. These numbers were c siderably higher than those in the previous report, which I find have been in the morning, 25; in the afternoon, 47; and in t evening, 60.

But the present report, which embraces a period of four mont also, ending with November, shows an average attendance in t morning of 46; in the afternoon of 79; and in the evening of 10 Thus, in eight months the general average attendance has increas by 102 persons. Had there been only 30 more it would have be

doubled.

Great fears and misgivings were entertained by many when it w resolved about sixteen months ago to enter upon Territorial missi work in the East end of Glasgow. It seemed to some to be a ras enterprise, when none, or almost none, were certainly known to willing to adhere to the proposed mission station. But how hav their fears been disappointed, and hopes that were even sanguin exceeded. If we were possessed of more faith we would ventur much more, we would accomplish much more, and we would hav cause to rejoice more in the success and advancement of the Lord' work. It was upon the 5th day of December, 1875, that the missio station was formally opened, and that Mr M'Kay entered upon hi work. At that time he found seven whom he could count upon as the nucleus of a congregation, but in twelve months to a day--it was wholly a providential occurrence, and only noticed after the time hac been fixed-the congregation was formally declared to be formed, and constituted a regular congregation of the United Original Secession Church; and it has now a membership of 58 persons in full communion and 62 adherents, as I learn from the roll which is before me.

At the meeting of Synod in October last the Presbytery of Glasgow intimated that it was their purpose speedily to form the Bridgeton Mission station into a regular Territorial Mission congregation. In this resolution the Synod heartily concurred, and encouraged the Presbytery to do so with all convenient speed. Having the countenance of the Supreme Court, in conjunction with the Home Mission Committee, the Presbytery resolved among other arrangements that the sum allowed from the Home Mission Fund for three years should be

success of Home Mission work, and that many compassionate t perishing souls of their countrymen at home, to whom it is a duty carry the message of salvation.

Christ's commission to His servants and His Church binds the and her to engage in Foreign Mission work, but no less does it bi them and her to engage in Home Mission work, and in respect of th work how impressive is Christ's example. The Saviour of mankin the object of our faith, and love, and hope, and joy, was eminently home missionary. How noble and how honourable a thing it is f any, however humbly and feebly, to be following His example, an to be workers together with Him who came to seek and to save th that which was lost.-I am, &c.,

JOHN RITCHIE,

Convener of Home Mission Committee.

NOVEL INSTANCE OF ERASTIANISM.

Sir, Though the "Lilley case," is neither more nor less, in itself, than a unhappy domestic quarrel, it has acquired such notoriety, and involved consequence of so much importance, as to remove any delicacy in alluding to it in your pages. A is well known, the case recently brought before the Court of Session was a petition from the Rev. Mr. Lilley, Arbroath, asking the Court to order his wife, from whom h was separated, to deliver up their child to him. The question raised was, whethe the father or the mother was the party entitled, in the circumstances, to have the custody of the child. The father based his claim on his civil rights, and that was the only point the Court was called on to deal with and determine.

The Lord President, however, on the case coming before him, enquired whether the child had been baptised; and, on being informed that it had not, he refused to proceed with the case until that was done. This refusal amounted to an order to dispense the ordinance of baptism; counsel for the parties on both sides acquiesced; arrangements were made for baptising the child, and it was baptised accordingly.

On the merits of the case, or on the judgment that followed, which doubtless was according to law, I have not a word to say. But the question remains, and may be legitimately put, was the Court of Session as a purely civil court justified in taking the course it did? Is it to be understood that a child has no civil rights or status until it is baptised? Let me suppose that the parents had been Baptists, instead of Presbyterians, belonging to a section of the church which does not believe in, and does not practise, infant baptism, would the Court of Session in that case have refused to interfere? If that is the law of the land, it is high time our Baptist friends and others were attending to their interests by getting it altered.

In no country, perhaps, have the relations between Church and State been so much and so keenly discussed as they have been in Scotland. Most of the ecclesiastical divisions that have occurred have arisen directly or indirectly therefrom. Over the whole of the last thirty years, in particular, they may be said to have been the question of the day, and at this very time it is a subject of intense interest with several sections of the Church. I venture to assert that during that period, or in any previous period, no such direct and high-handed act of Erastianism has occurred equal to that now referred to.

How Free Church counsel could have acquiesced in the order of court; how a Free Church minister could have baptised a child under such circumstances; and how the Rev. Sir Henry W. Moncreiff, though he politicly saved himself, could have approved of it, are circumstances at which I can only marvel! It is very evident that the parents could not be in a proper frame of mind to have the solemn ordinance of baptism administered to their child, and from that point of