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up the street. Her thinness strikes you unpleasantly at first sight, for it is evident that it is the result of hunger. Her bones show sharply out from her bare arms, and in the pinched 8 features of the face is a look there is no mistaking. Her husband is away up country, looking | for work, but meanwhile her experiences have been of the most pitiable kind. She has a baby and a little girl, yet she would not go to the soup-kitchen nor to the large-hearted butcher on the Sydney Eoad for assistance until the last gasp. She has been forced to, though, for, as she says, " a mother can't see her children starve before her very eyes." 9 As one goes from house to house in this distressed neighbourhood, the monotony of [ the stories of suffering becomes painful in the extreme. There is scarcely any variation. The husband or the brother or the mother has been without work for weeks or months : the furniture has been sold, or the bailiffs have taken it ; there is absolutely no immediate prospect of a release, In very many instances it is only during the last few w T eeks that the most crucial 10 pressure has been brought to bear on some families. In good times they had | (c.) At the rate of 100 words per minute. Takes 5 minutes. Oh ! that the cry of the Church could reach beyond its walls, and awaken a response from many a heart outside ! The times in which we live are not worse than they were in " the good old days," but it is only when we come to examine closely in the light of history that we fully realise this. People were no better, perhaps were no stronger, in the old days than are those of to-day ; but, lost in the mists of the past, they assume a beauty that did not belong to them. 1 And yet, as I think of this | City of the Plains, of what it was, of their hopes and plans who founded it, and then of what it is, well we cannot be surprised at a certain reaction, or that other influences have come into being. We cannot but see that there are evils in our midst to-day, evils that we have to recognise ; for this is a City of the Plains in more senses than one. It seems as if we were dwelling in a cold, dull, unhealthy atmosphere ; there is 2 immoral life all around us ; there is poison in our midst politically. Election times are | close upon us, the air is full of it; candidates, I know not how many, are offering themselves —good, bad, and indifferent. And what are politics? Are politics party strife, the abuse of opponents? or are they the pursuit of the best interests of the whole nation ? Who are the men most fit to represent us in Parliament ? Are they the place-seekers, the men of no opinions, ready to believe what they are told, ready to support that which will pay, ready to be anything you 3 please to make them or call upon them to be ? Or are they | the sound-headed, sound-hearted men of no party, who will put first and foremost the welfare of the country ? I grant such men are rare, are very hard to find, but what are we electors looking for? Are we going to select such men ? Is there that honest political instinct among us, bidding such men rise up amongst us, and saying, "I will not ally myself with this or that side, but I will do the right thing, God helping me, so far as I know it." Have wa not, in our political life to-day, to cry 4 aloud, "I | will lift up my heart, and take a more enlarged view of our responsibilities upon this question, looking on things from a higher standpoint." " Lift up your hearts !" You are giving control in matters religious. They tell us that Christchurch is honeycombed with unbelief. It may be so, and yet lam not altogether afraid of unbelief. I know that a wave of unbelief is passing over us ; but Freethought, as it calls itself, lifts up its head, speaks loudly, and is drawing many after it; and yet I think that our Freethought philosophy in Christchurch 5 is twenty years behind. |

Maori. — For Junior and Senior Civil Service. Time allowed: 3 hours. 1. Translate the following passage into English: — Ka hoe mai nei, a, ka uki Whanga-Paraoa, ara ki Aotea nei. Ka tata mai ki uta, kite rawa mai kite pohutukawa ote taha-tika c ura atu ana, ehara ! tau ana te tututupo kite wai. Katahi tetehi o nga rangatira o te waka ra (te " Arawa") ka karanga ake, "E, kua nui ake te kura o tenei kainga i te kura o Hawaiki, ka panga hoki ahau i aku kura kite wai " : ehara ! panga atu ana ana kura kite wai—ko te ingoa ote tangata ko Tauninihi, nana i panga atu a Tauihakaea. U rawa mai ra ki uta, ehara! kua pa atu nga ringa ki aua pohutukawa, ana, ngahoro noa iho. Katahi ratou ka mahara, he puawai rakau enei mea, ka raruraru nga rangatira o runga i a te Arawa, mo te maumaunga o a ratou kura, i panga atu ra kite wai. Muri tata iho, ka kitea aua kura a Tauninihi kite one o Mahiti—na Mahina i kite—rongo rawa ake kua kitea, tae rawa atu kite tiki, kihai i riro mai; koia tenei pepeha mo te mea kite, eka kitea te taonga makere, " Kaore c hoatu c au, tatemea ko te paekura kite a Mahina"—a c takoto mai nei ano aua kura kei ate Whanau-a-Apanui, a tae noa mai ki tenei ra. U kau atu ano ki Whanga-Paraoa, ka panga atu he kumara kia tupu i reira, a c tupu tonu mai nei ano i te pari o taua whenua. 2. Translate the following into Maori: — In the old time Maoris were nearly always at war, and the people of one settlement never knew the moment when they would be attacked by those of another settlement. Hence they could not be fairly safe unless they lived —in the night-time at any rate —in a strongly-fortified place, one that an enemy could not easily get at. Now, the top of a high hill is a natural fort, and very little work will make it very strong indeed. The higher the hill is, in reason, the better. These hill-forts, or pas, had other good things about them besides being strong and safe: there was always plenty of pure fresh air to be got outside of the dwellings; it was very easy to get rid of filth by just throwing it down the side of the hill; no water could settle in pools on such high ground, and there could be no swamps near. Of course the Maori then made his plantations on the low grounds as he does now, because such grounds produce the best crops; but he generally used to work on his cultivation by day, and