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parts of our history, and to the scenes of our childhood and youth. It reminds us of the period when we were first brought to this temple, and consecrated in baptism to God; of the season when we assembled with the worshippers, and began to lisp the name of Jesus, and call on our Father who is in heaven,' and at that golden hour, when, bending before the cross of the Saviour, we surrendered ourselves to him, and to his service for ever. Surrounding friends will surely forgive us if, at such a meeting as this, and amidst such recollections as these, we drop a tear or two, and charitable allowance will be made if the speaker discover more weakness and embarrassment than his endeared brothers who sit by his side. This assembly, I say, will assuredly pardon us, if for once we publicly offer our grateful acknowledgments to our honoured father, who has oft charged, us within these walls, to remember our Creator in the days of our youth, and to our venerable mother, who, as we were grouped around her, frequently be dewed our head with the tears of her devotion, and who travailed anew, that Christ might be formed in our hearts the hope of glory. We have not the cup and platter,' of silver and gold to offer, but we present the devout gratitude of affectionate, filial hearts.

"Gratitude, Sir, may be compared to a fountain, which divides itself into several streams. If there be one which flows towards our parents, there is another, which now rolls in a quick and strong current towards you, and the members of the religious society in the midst of which we stand. We will not employ words of compliment and adulation. We sincerely thank you for all your past kindnesses, and your present memorial of unbroken regard. We feel ourselves in the situation of the younger of the three sons, who were bidden by an Eastern Lady to furnish her with an expression of their love, before she went a long journey. One brought marble tablet with the inscription of her name; another presented her with a rich garland of fragrant flowers; and the third entered her presence, and thus accosted her: "Mother, I have neither marble tablet, nor fragrant nosegay, but I have A HEART. Here your name is engraven, here your memory is precious, and this heart, full of affection, will follow you, wherever you travel, and remain with you, wherever you repose.'

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"Allow me only to add, Sir, that I cannot but consider this service as a very expressive type of that which shall take place in future, both in this world, and in that which is to come. The hour fast approaches, when we shall be successively separated from each other at the tomb, in the darksome chambers of which our bodies shall slumber, till the consumma

tion of all things shall arrive. But when the fair morning of the resurrection shall dawn, and the dispersed children of God shall be collected together, all who have been the participants of the spirit and grace of Christ, shall meet again, in a temple so spacious, as to contain a multitude which no man can number, where the endearing reciprocities of a perfect charity shall suffer no interruption, where an eucharistic festival shall be celebrated, at which there will be no need of the chalices of silver and gold, and where the devout and delighted assembly shall never be dissolved."

The solemnity was closed by a hymn, and a short devotional exercise, by the Rev. Edward Parsons.

RECENT DEATHS.

Dec. 15, 1826, died, in the sixty-first year of his age, at Nunn House, Kettering, Northamptonshire, MATTHEW WILSON, Esq., for many years a beloved deacon in the Independent Church in that town. The piety of this excellent man was of the highest order, combined with inflexible integrity, and great benevolence and kindness. Blessed by Divine Providence with an ample fortune, he considered it his duty therewith to promote the cause of pure religion, and to relieve the distresses of the poor and afflicted, to whom his benevolence was most extensive, and by whom his death will be severely felt, as well as the church and congregation with which he was more immediately connected. After leaving the bulk of his property (which was very ample) amongst his family, he bequeathed several handsome legacies for religious and charitable purposes.

Died at Dublin, in December last, JAMES DIGGES LA TOUCHE, Esq. well known in the Sister Kingdom as an enlightened Christian philanthropist. He particularly devoted himself to the promotion of the Sunday School System in Ireland-assisted at the formation of "the Sunday School Society for Ireland," and in 1809 became its Secretary; and during 17 years he

watched over its concerns with anxious solicitude, and laboured with unabated zeal, and unweared diligence, to promote its important objects.

Though a member of the Established Church, his spirit was too catholic to be shut up by the bounds of a party, and his liberal aid was cheerfully afforded to promote the kingdom of Jesus, whether amongst Churchmen or Dissenters.

Died, on Friday, Jan. 5, 1826, in the 64th year of his age, HIS ROYAL HIGHNESS, FREDERICK DUKE OF YORK AND ALBANY, &c. &c., next brother to our gracious Sovereign George the 4th. The cir cumstances of his Royal Highness's protracted illness and death are already before the public, and we only notice this melan

choly event to record the consistent loyalty of the dissenting cburches. Most of the pulpits in the metropolis were hung with mourning, and the solemn providence was improved by many of their ministers, while the most affectionate supplications were offered to the Almighty God, on behalf of our bereaved and sorrowing Monarch.

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Died during the last month, JOHN MASON Good, M. D., F. R. S., &c. This able physician and laborious author was a son of the Rev. Peter Good, a dissenting minister, successively pastor of the Congregational Churches at Epping and Wellingborough. That gentleman married daughter of the excellent and Rev. John Mason, M. A., the author of a Treatise on Self-Knowledge, whose venerated name was borne by the lamented subject of this notice. Dr. J. M. Good has given to the members of his own profession, and the public, works which will long secure him a place in the first class of medical writers; and his unwearied industry enabled him to publish several valuable works on science and general literature.

His death is a loss, not only to the republic of letters, but to the friends of biblical literature, as his attainments in oriental studies were highly respectable. He published, in 1803, Song of Songs, or Sacred Idyls, from the Hebrew, with Notes, 8vo.; and, in 1812, The Book of Job, literally translated from the original Hebrew, and restored to its natural Arrangement, with Notes, &c. 8vo.; both of which are justly esteemed. He republished Self-Knowledge, with notes, and a life of his maternal an

cestor.

Died, Tuesday, Jan. 9, aged 76, Mr. SAMUEL WEST, of Gracechurch Street, London, a respected member of the Society of Friends, and much esteemned in the Metropolis for his active services in Bible Associations, and his general philanthropy. The circumstances of his death are distressing and admonitory. He was going, on the evening it occurred, with a friend to attend one of his favourite meetings, the Bible Association at Walthamstow, when, through the darkness of the evening, the chaise in which they rode

came in contact with a waggon, near Stratford, by which they were thrown; and the wheel passing over Mr. W.'s chest, he shortly after expired.

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Died recently, the venerable and Rev. WILLIAM HUGHES, of Dinas mywddn, Merionethshire, North Wales, a laborious and devoted minister of Jesus, much beloved and deplored in the Principality.

Died, at Islington, on Jan. 25th, in the 60th year of his age, THE REV. JOHN EVANS, LL.D., for many years Pastor of the General Baptist Church, Worship Street Shoreditch. The Doctor was born at Usk, Monmouthshire, 1767, and educated at the Baptist Academy, Bristol, from which he removed to King's College, Aberdeen, in 1787, where he took a Master of Arts degree.

In Nov. 1791, he settled in London, and has sustained, with great respectability, his literary and professional character.

REMOVALS-NOTICES, &c.

The Rev. John Wittenbury, of Daventry, Northamptonshire, has accepted an invitation to the pastoral office in the congregational church at St. Neot's, Huntingdonshire, vacant by the removal of the Rev. R. Halley to Highbury College.

We understand that the Independent Church at Gosport, lately under the pastoral care of the Rev. Dr. Bogue, have given an unanimous invitation to the Rev. J. J. Carruthers, who for some years laboured as a Missionary in the Crimea, and that he has accepted the call. It is remarkable, that two eminent Missionaries have succeeded that venerable advocate of Missions in his offices of pastor and tutor. The ordination service is fixed for Wednesday, the 14th February; and we hear that Dr. Henderson is to give the charge.

The Senatus Academicus of the Univer sity and King's College of Aberdeen, have conferred upon the REV. JOHN HUMPHRYS, of London, the degree of Doctor of Laws.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS AND MINOR CORRESPONDENCE. COMMUNICATIONS have been received during the past month from the Rev. G. Redford -Dr. J. P. Smith-James Matheson--C. N. Davies-W. Walford-J. WhitridgeJoseph Cottle-John Bruce-J. Clayton, Jun.-D. Jones--J. E. Good.

Also from Messrs. J. Edmeston--W. S. Matthews-C. J. Metcalfe-W. Jones-B. Hanbury J. Woodford, Jun.--Thomas Hoskins--J. Johnston--E. Slade-H. K. Smithers--Sigma-Consistency--A. B.--Theognis-James — Flavius — Dissentiens Senex--Jacobus--Emendator.

We shall be happy to receive the Memoir, to which our friend J. W., Jun. alludes. We have received a list of the Congregational Churches in the several counties of North Wales, which will appear, with other additions, in our next Supplement.

The communication from a Lover of Consistency, is left at our Bookseller's. What advantage could result from its publication?

The friend of Theognis may be supplied with the first or second volume of the New Series, in boards, if he chooses.

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MEMOIR OF THE REV. AARON WICKENS, PASTOR OF THE CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH, GREAT DUNMOW, ESSEX.

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THE pen of biography is never more suitably employed than in delineating the character of distinguished individuals, who have been allowed to pass into eternity without a cotemporary record of their actions and their virtues. In the number of such persons must be reckoned the subject of this memoir. The Rev. Aaron Wickens was born in the year 1714, at Tadley, near Whitchurch, in Hampshire. His father was farmer, and is described as having been a worthy and respectable man. He lived to a very advanced age, surviving his son, the subject of this sketch, for a period of several years.

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With the means of Mr. Wickens' first religious impressions the writer is not acquainted; but, from the circumstance of his having at the age of nineteen become a candidate for the ministry among the Congregational Dissenters, it may be concluded that his attention was directed to the concerns of eternity in his youth. Mr. Wickens received his education for the ministry in the Academy, formerly at Mile End, but which in the year 1769 was removed to Homerton. On the completion of his preparatory studies, which was in the same year as the removal of the Academy, he was invited to the pastoral charge of the Protestant Dissenting Church at Great Dunmow. The invitation was accepted, and on the 23d of October, N. S. No. 27.

1770, he was ordained to the pastoral office. Mr. Angus, of Bishop's Stortford, Mr. Davidson, of Bocking, and Mr. Towle, of London, conducted the principal parts of the service. This ordination took place on the day preceding that of Mr. Fell at Thaxted, when the same ministers delivered the several discourses, which were published.

The life of Mr. Wickens, the greater part of which was spent in the same town, and in the same quiet though active discharge of the duties of his profession, does not furnish many particulars on which the pen of the biographer can fix. But if the lives of persons whose race is run within a narrower limit are less entertaining than the lives of such as moved in a wider sphere, they are more extensively imitable, and therefore more extensively useful. Nor does the life of a man SO properly consist in a record of whither he went and what he saw, as in an account of the way in which he thought and acted. The life of Mr. Wickens does not even supply the variety which a scries of literary productions affords. A single sermon is the only piece which he sent to the press. This sermon is entitled, "General Hints concerning the mutual Duties of Pastors and Churches." It was preached at Chelmsford in 1776, before the County Association of Dissenting Ministers, was pub Q

lished at their request, and is distinguished by a perspicuous arrangement, a lucid style, and a correct acquaintance with the topics which the preacher discusses. Mr. Wickens did not confine his ministerial services, or his attempts to do good, to the people at Dunmow, but, agreeably to the command of the great Head of the Church, "went out into the highways and hedges to compel men to come in." He established a week-day evening lecture at High Roding, which subsists till the present day. Assisted by the late excellent Mr.Thorogood, of Bocking, he maintained a Lord's-day and week-day evening lecture in an old and nearly deserted meeting-house at Stebbing. In this village, long before the education of the poor was an object of much attention, he paid for the instruction of several poor children in a day-school. He was accustomed to hold a religious meeting at Stebbing Ford, where it was his plan to discuss a question, which had been proposed to him by some of his auditory at the preceding meeting. A few years since, the writer received into the church over which he presides an aged person, who attributed his abiding religious impressions to a discourse delivered on one of these occasions.

Few men have possessed a greater aptitude for the pastoral office, or have more diligently and successfully discharged its obligations, than the excellent subject of this memoir. His conversational talents were of the first order, and he consecrated them to the duties of his station, and the service of his Master. In the instruction of the young and ignorant, in the encouragement of the hopeful, in the direction of the inquiring, he spared no time, no pains. He divested intricate points of their difficulties, bringing them to the level of common under

standings; and he displayed the religion of Christ in all its beauties, He did not hesitate to employ successive hours in informing the mind, or in removing the doubts, of a day-labourer: a sacrifice of time to a useful but unostentatious office, which none but a studious man can fully appreciate.

During a considerable portion of the life of Mr. Wickens, the congregation at Dunmow was in a flourishing condition; but an event took place, during the latter years of his ministry, by which his auditory was considerably diminished. This was the erection of a new meeting-house, and the formation of a church at Stebbing. This event has proved happy in the existence of two christian churches, prosperous in themselves, and friendly to each other: but how far the separation was justifiable in its commencement, the writer does not feel himself competent to decide. It must, however, be acknowledged, that the separatists were not guilty of the great indiscretion (to use the mildest term) of inviting a minister without possessing the means of supporting the worship. It is gratifying to add, that, for some time previous to the death of Mr. Wickens, the congregation at Dunmow gradually increased, and that, under the ministry of his excellent successor, it has attained a degree of prosperity unequalled in any preceding period of its history.

* Tradition reports, that the church now assembling at Dunmow originally met in this village; from whence, on the close moved to the more public situation which of the tyranny of the Stuarts, it was reit now occupies. But whether this traditeon be correct or not, the seclusion of a village, which is said to have contained at the period referred to a large number of

pions persons, and through which there was formerly no road, would constitute a very eligible spot for the worship of the There is a persecuted nonconformists. bearing in the brick-work the date of Quakers' meeting-house in this village, 1672.

In the public concerns of the dissenting body in the county where he resided, Mr Wickens took a prominent part. For some years he was Secretary to the Associated Congregational Ministers of Essex. To him, in conjunction with the late estimable Mr. Parry, then of Little Baddow, and afterwards of Wymondley, the Benevolent Society for the Relief of necessitous Widows and Children of Protestant Dissenting Ministers in the Counties of Essex and Hertford, is principally indebted for its existence: and in him the Congregational Union, for promoting Christian Knowledge and Practice in the County of Essex, had an able advocate and an enlightened counsellor.

The reputation which Mr. Wickens had attained for wisdom and uprightness, occasioned his advice to be frequently sought in cases of difficulty. He was especially the adviser of his younger brethren in the ministry, who, if they were possessed of the qualities which he deemed requisite to the due discharge of their work, ever found in him a friend, and in his house a home.

For several months before his decease, the health of Mr. Wickens had been gradually declining; but he continued his public services till within a few weeks of his death. At length his disorder increased rapidly, and on April 30, 1799, he was numbered with the dead.

A few years before his death, Mr. Wickens formed a matrimonial connection with a lady who for a considerable time survived her husband. Their family consisted, at his death, of two sons and a daughter, of whom the younger son only remains. him the reader will be indebted for whatever instruction or pleasure he may receive in perusing the extracts from Mr. Wickens' papers, which shall be inserted in a subsequent number,

Mr. Wickens was interred in the burial-ground adjoining the meeting-house of his church. Mr. Cooper, of Chelmsford, delivered an address at the grave; and Mr. Thorogood, of Bocking, preached a funeral sermon from Heb. xiii. 7, 8.

(To be continued.)

ORIGINAL ESSAYS, COMMUNICATIONS, &c.

ON PERNICIOUS PRINCIPLES.

PART III. (continued.) Universal Restoration. WE enter again upon the consideration of the profound and awful, yet most necessary and important subject, the everlasting punishment of the wicked in the future world. In the last paper, your attention, courteous reader, was called to three axioms, or fundamental considerations, which are either self-evident, or capable of being satisfactorily proved, and of which the right apprehension and full conviction are absolutely neces

sary to the proper consideration of the subject before us. These were, 1. That sin deserves some punishment; 2. That God alone, the Being of infinite holiness and justice, wisdom and goodness, is competent to determine what punishment ought to be inflicted upon sin; and, 3. That the decision of God, made known to us in his word, is our only sure and certain ground of knowledge upon this, as upon every other, doctrine of revelation. We then proceeded to consider the opinion of those who think that an eternal punishment of sin would not be just, and

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