The most important of these have been in the following lan

The number of copies of "books and tracts" printed is as follows:

Entire Bible in Vernacular Languages.

31,000

New Testament, Old Testament, and other portions of the Bible.. 1,284,503 Christian books..

2,842,495

From these summarized statements some idea inay be formed of the missionary work which is being carried on in India; and in the presence of these and many similar facts which might be mentioned, no one is justified in calling the work spasmodic, narrow, or contracted. It is a great, grand effort for the salvation of two hundred million souls, and it is touching the heart of the country every-where!

Concerning the general character and results of this great gathering we cannot do better than quote the following, which appeared in one of the leading journals of India soon after the close of the Conference :—

First among the good results already apparent, we place the exhibition of Christian unity which India has just witnessed at Allahabad. . . . The recent Conference has demonstrated that Christians of a dozen denominations and of many different nationalities may meet together in love and peace, may take sweet counsel together, and may linger before a common mercy-seat until their hearts seem to blend into one. This is Christian unity in its practical aspect, and such a manifestation of its vital reality among the scattered Christians of India is worth more than can be expressed in words.

Another good result of this Conference was the intellectual stimulus given to the missionaries by contact with so many minds all engrossed with a common purpose. It is the bane of work in India that each individual seems to be condemned to a state of mental isolation, and unconsciously the mind begins to move in fixed grooves, and year by year its natural activity is lessened.

... None but those who have had practical experience in missionary work, who have worked alone month after month without counsel and without fellowship with any Christian friend, can appreciate the intense delight with which some of the missionaries at Allahabad mingled with their brethren, and listened to their instruction and advice.

It was spiritually profitable. God was in the midst, and there was more than a mere cant expression in what a native missionary said at the close of the Conference, that the Master himself had presided over the assembly. There was a peculiar power in the simple words in which this was expressed, and many realized that Jesus was in the midst of a truth. We merely repeat the personal testimony of many when we say, that scores of the Master's laborers went away from that Conference with renewed spiritual vigor, with a more active faith, with an unwonted spirit of hope, with a new love and zeal glowing within their breasts, and with new thoughts about God's gracious purposes toward

India.

One cannot close these missionary volumes, nor discuss this subject, without asking, Will there ever be an Ecumenical Missionary Conference? The New York Convention was American, the Liverpool gathering exclusively English, and the Allahabad Conference entirely Indian; might there not be a general Congress to which delegates from every mission field might come? Innumerable difficulties present themselves at once, and many persons are ready to pronounce such a proposal chimerical in the highest degree. Difficulties, however, do not always imply impossibilities, as has often been demonstrated, and the successful and memorable meeting of the Evangelical Alliance of 1873 shows the possibility at least of a World's Missionary Congress. There are, perhaps, but three places in which it could be held-emancipated Rome, cosmopolitan London, or the Metropolis of the Western world, New York. Could such an assembly meet in the seven-hilled city and be there baptized with power from on high, the redemption of Rome and all Italy would be advanced as it has not been for centuries. London, with its surging millions, would still have room for such a Conference, and would find it a blessing. New York may be said to be too remote from mission fields for a Missionary Congress, but it is really ncarer China and Japan than London is, and only ten days further from Western Asia, Eastern Europe, Africa, and the Islands, than the capital of Great Britain. Besides, at the present

time America is supporting about one third of the world's two thousand foreign missionaries, and is every year enlarging contributions to this grandest of grand causes. Its metropolitan city would be happy to accommodate such a meeting, and the gracious results which would follow are beyond all computation.

Such an assemblage as this, wherever held, would do more. than any thing has as yet done toward putting the great Church of Christ squarely in front of the non-Christian world; an outlook upon the nations would be secured wider than we now know; and opportunity would be given-and most favorably, too-for planning the great attack upon the strongholds of Satan in pagan lands, which, if we are loyal to God and our trusts, must be a part of the history of the nineteenth century.

Whatever of this there may be in the future, it remains, at least, that the Missionary Conferences already held have been successes, and have helped in no inconsiderable degree to advance the cause of our gracions Redeemer upon the earth. They have been spiritual oases in the midst of parched deserts; they have gladdened the hearts of God's workmen, and bound them more closely together; they have aroused the Church and inspired it with increased activity in missionary enterprises; and, directly and indirectly, they have been great blessings. May the precious influences which they have left behind, and the comforting assurance that we are all "workers together with Him" who has provided a glorious salvation for the entire race, nerve our hearts and strengthen our souls for continued struggles against a falling Satan!

ART. VII. — PASSAGE OF ISRAEL THROUGH RED SEA.

WHERE WAS IT?

In a journey performed in the spring of 1874 through Egypt, the Desert, and Palestine, undertaken almost solely for the sake of biblical investigation, one of the points of special interest was to find the place where Israel crossed the Red Sea, and where the host of Pharaoh were drowned.

It had seemed to us that the theories proposed by some of our writers on this subject were not made with a sufficient regard to the biblical account of the same: some placing it at the Bitter Lakes, some twenty miles to the north of the present termination of the Red Sea; others placing it eight or ten miles south of Suez, where the sea is about ten or twelve miles wide. Still other theories have been proposed which are too absurd for special consideration; as, for example, that they passed over the Gulf of Akabah, and another that it was Lake Menzaleh.

OBJECT OF THIS ESSAY.

It is not our object to enter upon a refutation of these theories, but rather to closely follow the biblical account, and thus ascertain the most probable point at which Israel crossed. We do not regard it as possible to demonstrate, beyond a doubt, the precise point of crossing. At this distance of time, and considering the changes which the conformation of the sea may have undergone during the last three thousand years, in a region where the sands of the desert are ever moving with powerful winds, and where the bed of the sea and its bars may have been changed by mighty storms and earthquakes, it becomes us to be moderate in insisting upon a particular view. We, however, believe that a careful analysis of the biblical data, and of the present advanced state of the geographical knowledge of the region, will fix the place, with a good degree of certainty, at or near the present city and port of Suez.

THE BIBLICAL NARRATIVE OF THE CROSSING.

This is found in Exodus xiii, 17-22; xiv, 1-9, 13-15, 19-26. We herewith present them in a literal translation from the Hebrew :

And it came to pass, when Pharaoh sent the people away, that God did not lead them by the way of the land of the Philistines, because that was near; for God said, Lest the people repent when they see war and return again to Egypt. But God led them around by the way of the desert of the Red Sea; and being harnessed [fully armed] the children of Israel went up from the land of Egypt. And Moses took the bones of Joseph with him, for he had made the children of Israel positively swear, saying, God will surely visit you, and ye shall bring up my bones from there with

you. And they broke up from Succoth, and encamped in Etham, in the edge of the desert. And Jehovah went before them by day in the pillar of cloud to show them the way, and by night in the pillar of fire to give light unto them, in their going by day and by night. He did not withdraw the cloudy pillar by day and the fiery pillar by night from before the people.

And Jehovah spake unto Moses, saying, Speak unto the children of Israel, and they shall turn and encamp before Pi-hahiroth, between Migdol and the sea, before [or east of] Baal-zephon, over against it they shall encamp by the sea. And Pharaoh shall say of the children of Israel, They are bewildered [at a loss] in the land-the desert hath shut them in. And I will harden the heart of Pharaoh, and he will pursue after them; and I will be honored over Pharaoh and all his host; and the Egyptians shall know that I am Jehovah. And they did so. And it was made known to the king of Egypt that the people fled: and the heart of Pharaoh and his servants was turned against the people, and they said, What is this we have done, that we have sent Israel away from our service? And he harnessed up his chariots, and took his people with him ; and he took six hundred chosen chariots, even all the chariots of Egypt, and captains over all of them. And Jehovah hardened the heart of Pharaoh king of Egypt, and he pursued after the children of Israel; and the children of Israel went out with an uplifted hand; and the Egyptians pursued after them, and overtook them encamping by the sea. All the horses and chariots of Pharaoh, and his horsemen and his army, at Pi-hahiroth, on the east of Baal-zephon.*

Now Israel, seeing the Egyptian host, murmured against Moses. But Moses replied:

:

Stand still, and see the salvation of Jehovah, which he will work for you this day because the Egyptians whom ye have seen today, ye shall see no more forever. Jehovah will fight for you, and ye shall be quiet. And Jehovah said unto Moses, Why dost thou cry unto me? Speak unto the children of Israel, that they break up the camp: [with the view of marching forward:] and do thou lift up thy rod and stretch forth thy hand upon the sea, and divide it and the children of Israel shall go into the midst of the sea upon dry land. And the angel of God removed from going before the camp of Israel, and went behind them; and the pillar of cloud removed from before them, and stood behind them, and went between the camp of the Egyptians and the camp of Israel, and it was a cloud and darkness, [to them,] and it made the night light, [to these,] so that the one came not near to the other all

*This ninth verse shows where Pi-hahiroth and Baal-zephon were, namely, upon the sea, Baal-zephon corresponded with the present city of Suez, and Pi-hahiroth was east of it, perhaps near where the canal now enters into the gulf.]