'Upon the great dial-plate of ages
The light advanced no more recedes'?
If this be so, let us bind on our armor, and as the newborn year takes its place as the successor of those that are past, and after it shall have done its full measure of service in the long line of years shall give place to others, who we hope may be blessed in their deed and doing far beyond their progenitors.
"On the closing day of the last year I stood with my fellow-travellers upon the western slope of Mount Lebanon, and there reviewed the past and looked prayerfully forward to the incoming year—a year whose history will soon be complete. And what a history! and what a work has been accomplished!—work in which millions have been actors. The citizens of the two great English-speaking nations, Great Britain and the United States, have with unprecedented unanimity at their late elections declared in favor of religious liberty and of political equality. In Spain multitudes seem only waiting to claim for themselves and their countrymen these inalienable rights of all men.
"Even in Turkey, where the teachings of the Koran and the False Prophet have dominated so long, see we not bright rays of light here and there amid the darkness? I think we do. The Christian woman with her firman from the sultan is diligently instituting schools where the children of the Jew, the Christian, and the Mohammedan are taught not the Koran, but the page written by inspiration of God.
"If we turn to Madagascar, that far-off island of the sea, we observe much with which to fill a large page in the history of the year just closing. A queen has reached the throne who looks approvingly upon the workers among her pagan subjects, while thousands press about those who tell the good news of salvation by Jesus Christ, and hear them gladly; while Liberia, India, China, and Japan can each furnish a page that shall tell of light advancing and declare to the world that 'God is love' and the 'Father of us all.'"
As the winter passed and Sybil Jones felt new strength come from her partial rest in Great Britain, while her husband continually carried on the work, sometimes alone, sometimes with her help, they each began to feel that there was more work to be done in the East, though neither had spoken to the other in regard to it. The 22d of 2d mo., their prospect having become definite, with the full approval of English Friends they once more embarked for Syria. They spent nearly a week in the south of France, revisiting their many friends there and encouraging them all to continue on in their lives of service to the Master. The meetings were very large, sometimes fully five hundred being present, and they found their work done sixteen years before had left a lasting impression.
After a delightful voyage over the blue waters of the Mediterranean they came to Alexandria, where there were many opportunities offered for spreading the news of the way of life through the Saviour. Here and at Cairo there were many who gladly listened to the great truths which they were inspired to preach. There, where Napoleon had told his soldiers that forty centuries looked down upon them from the heights of the Pyramids, these missionaries of love labored to point their hearers to the Ancient of Days, whose habitation is from eternity and which standeth sure. The different mission-schools of Northern Egypt were visited and helped in various ways.
Of this work Ellen Clare Miller, again their companion, writes:
"The visit to Egypt was altogether of remarkable interest, there being, especially among the native Christians at Alexandria, an interesting and open field for the spread of spiritual Christianity, and an earnest longing in the minds of some after a closer acquaintance with the teaching of the Holy Spirit and His appearing in the soul."