Six missionaries are appointed, whose exclusive duty it is to visit the various public-houses and coffee-shops in London, and to converse with the habitués on subjects of vital importance. There are also three missionaries to the London cabmen, a class greatly needing their religious offices, and by their occupation almost excluded from any social or elevating influences.
The following summary of missionary work, and its results for 1861, is sufficiently encouraging, as pointing in some instances, at least, to a sensible diminution of crime, and as being suggestive of a vast amount of good effected by this pervasive evangelistic machinery.
| Number of Missionaries employed | 381 |
| Visits paid | 1,815,332 |
| Of which to the sick and dying | 237,599 |
| Scriptures distributed | 11,458 |
| Religious Tracts given away | 2,721,73 |
| Books lent | 54,00 |
| In-door Meetings and Bible Classes held | 41,777 |
| Gross attendance at ditto | 1,467,006 |
| Out-door Services held | 4,489 |
| Gross attendance at ditto | 465,070 |
| Readings of Scripture in visitation | 584,166 |
| Communicants | 1,535 |
| Families induced to commence family prayer | 681 |
| Drunkards reclaimed | 1,230 |
| Unmarried couples induced to marry | 361 |
| Fallen females rescued or reclaimed | 681 |
| Shops closed on the Sabbath | 212 |
| Children sent to school | 10,158 |
| Adults who died having been visited by the Missionary only | 1,796 |
The income of the London City Mission, during the past year, amounted to 35,018l. 6s. 10d.; 5,763l. 15s. 7d. having been contributed by country associations.
Next to the London City Mission, the Church of England Scripture Readers’ Society is one of the most extensive and important channels for disseminating a religious influence among the masses by means of a parochial lay agency.
It is the special duty of the Scripture readers to visit from house to house; to read the Scriptures to all with whom they come in contact; to grapple with vice and crime where they abound; and to shrink from no effort to arrest their career.
“To overtake and overlook the growing multitudes which crowd our large and densely-peopled parishes,” was a work universally admitted to be beyond the present limits of clerical effort; and this desideratum has been supplied, at least to some extent, by the appointment of a lay agency, acting under the direction and control of the parochial clergy. By this means “cases are brought to light and doors opened to the pastoral visit, which were either closed against it or not discovered before; and an amount of information concerning the religious condition of the parish is obtained, such as the minister, single-handed, or with the aid of a curate, never had before.” The following results, which are reported as having attended the labours of a single Scripture reader, during a period of fourteen years, will serve as an illustration of the nature of those services rendered by this instrumentality:—
| Visits paid to the poor | 23,986 |
| Infants and adults baptized on his recommendation | 3,510 |
| Children and adults persuaded to attend school | 2,411 |
| Persons led to attend church for the first time | 307 |
| Persons confirmed during visitation | 429 |
| Communicants obtained by ditto | 269 |
| Persons living in sin induced to marry | 48 |
One hundred and twenty-five grants are now made by the Society for the maintenance of Scripture readers in eighty-seven parishes and districts in the metropolis, embracing a population of upwards of a million.
The Society’s income for the past year amounted to 9,850l. 2s. 10d.