_Sunday-schools_ are now an important appendage of every church, and have been a benefit to millions of immortal souls; but it deserves to be mentioned that Hannah Ball, a young Methodist lady, had a Methodist Sunday-school at High Wycombe fourteen years before Robert Raikes began his at Gloucester; and that Sophia Cooke, another Methodist, who afterwards became the wife of Samuel Bradburn, was the first who suggested to Raikes the Sunday-school idea, and actually marched with him, at the head of his troop of ragged urchins, the first Sunday they were taken to the parish church. The first _British Bible Society_ that existed, “The Naval and Military,” was projected by George Cussons, and organised by a small number of his Methodist companions. The _London Missionary Society_ originated in an appeal from Melville Horne, who, for some years, was one of Wesley’s itinerant preachers, and then became the successor of Fletcher as vicar of Madeley. The _Church Missionary Society_ was started by John Venn, the son of Henry Venn the Methodist clergyman. The first _Tract Society_ was formed by John Wesley and Thomas Coke, in 1782, seventeen years before the organisation of the present great Religious Tract Society in Paternoster Row—a society, by the way, which was instituted chiefly by Rowland Hill, and two or three other Calvinistic Methodists. It is believed that the first _Dispensary_ that the world ever had was founded by Wesley himself in connection with the old Foundery, in Moorfields. The _Strangers’ Friend Society_, paying, every year, from forty to fifty thousand visits to the sick poor of London, and relieving them as far as possible, is an institution to which Methodism gave birth in 1785. _Building churches_ is one of the great features of the age. Unfortunately, England has had no religious worship census since 1851; but even then, according to the tables of Horace Mann, Esq., Methodism had, in England and Wales only, 11,835 places of worship, with 2,231,017 sittings. In America, according to the census of 1860, Methodism nine years ago provided church accommodation for 6,259,799, which was two and a quarter millions more than was provided by any other church whatever. The _public press_ is one of the most powerful institutions of the day. England has four Methodist newspapers; Ireland, one; France, one; Germany, one; India, one; China, one; Australia, two; Canada and British America, five; and the United States about fifty.