was waited on by some of his friends, who endeavoured to dissuade him from persevering, and among other things, they intimated to him that he might lose the sub

scriptions of some wealthy persons. "Do not tell me of losing," said the doctor, "I value nothing in comparison with the gospel. I am not afraid to be poor.”” »

THE MONTH.

The Canada Clergy Reserves Bill has become law. The Bill for completing the Religious Liberty of the Jews, by allowing them to sit in Parliament, has been thrown out by the Lords. We congratulate the christian church on the former; we mourn with all enlightened christians over the narrow bigotry which led even the Earl of Shaftesbury to head a State-Church opposition to the latter. We could wish that truly benevolent nobleman's judgment and liberality were equal to his feminine gentle

ness.

Well, Voluntaryism has gained a most efficient standing-place in the British Empire. The splendid province of Canada is free to devote its ecclesiastical endow

ments to secular purposes. It had long resolved to do so, but English bishops were the hindrance. They have been obliged now to capitulate; they fought hard for the outworks; but they have been beaten. They will fight harder for Scotland and for Ireland; but they will be beaten there also. The duration of the conflict may be longer or shorter; but it must soon rage intensely at home. The war of political, commercial, and agricultural classes is drawing to an end, for all special privileges and exemptions are fast disappearing from our taxation and our administration. Something, energetic minds must have to debate and contend for: the Church will be the only abuse, the only national evil worth much effort, and it will be vigorously attacked. The State-Church principle is now fairly launched into the arena of Parliamentary discussion. The press and the country will take it up in earnest before long, and the results of discussion are certain. No Churchman, in the ordinary way, dares discuss. His refuge is burking the question. Even a humble Dissenter can always silence him in argument. Let State-Churchism, therefore, once become the common topic of discussion, and opinion will ripen with marvellous rapidity. May Nonconformists have their appropriate share in the conflict! It is humbling, truly humbling, to see that the majority of wealthy laymen and popular ministers shirk consistency with their principles; incurring thereby the secret contempt of the Churchmen they fawn upon, and losing the crown which may, even in their lifetime, reward the consistent Dissenter.

Mrs. Stowe has been honoured with the highest attentions of the highest in the land. At the Duchess of Sutherland's, Cabinet Ministers, as well as a whole bevy of Duchesses, were fain to mix with a select Farty of four hundred or more, to do homage to the nobility of genius and benevolence

in the person of the authoress of "Uncle Tom's Cabin." Mrs. Stowe demeaned herself worthily of her superiority, with republican simplicity and courtly ease. She assured the ladies, that the sarcastic replies of the American press to the English address were no specimen at all of the general feeling of American ladies; that their feeling was for the more part worthy of their sex. She appealed strongly and justly to this nation, as the great consumer of American cotton, and, therefore, the great upholder of American slavery, to encourage the growth of free cotton, and to express in every way its sympathy with abolition efforts. Every English man and woman who wears a cotton garment, and Manchester and Liverpool especially, the chief gainers by the cotton trade and manufacture, should proclaim aloud to America their readiness to submit to any of the consequences of emancipating the plantation slaves. A monster memorial to this effect must tell in America, and would clear us of guilty complicity.

To our readers, especially, it is but common charity to inform them that another Savings' Bank has been robbed by its secretary, at Newport, Isle of Wight. The loss will be very heavy. It is only right that the poor should understand, that they have no Government security for their money, as too many yet suppose. The character and business habits of the managers are the only guarantee against fraud. We certainly would not discourage saving on the part of the poor; but we must, on the one hand, caution them against public house clubs, which waste their earnings in drink and silly shews, and on the other, against placing their money in savings' banks where the trustees and managers do not themselves inspect the accounts regularly. The Christian Mutual Provident Society is much the best thing of its kind we know of, for working men to insure small sums, and for attendance in sickness. The Freehold Land Societies are by far the safest permanent investment, in addition to furnishing a vote for the county.

The Caffir War is ended for the present; the chiefs have submitted, have retired from their own territory, and left it to the British settlers. A million or two of English money has been wasted, hundreds of English lives sacrificed, the poor natives and their cattle destroyed; and, after all, but two alternatives remain, either to leave an extensive frontier to the colonists to defend, with the certainty of a continual and savage border warfare, or to defend a territory not worth half a small English county, with regular troops, at the cost of millions to this

country. Such are the common results of war and ambition.

A WEEK AT THE ANNUAL MEETINGS.
(By one who was there.)

[We must not be understood as agreeing in all the sentiments, and especially in the criticisms, of the friend who has favoured us with this sketch. Not having had the pleasure of attending the meetings ourselves, we could not be competent judges of their character and tendencies. We may

say, however, that this article is by a well known and respected ministerial brother, who was present at the meetings he describes, and we prefer, as will also our readers, a sketch by an observer, rather than a dry detail of dates and facts.-EDS.]

The question has no doubt often been asked of those who attended the annual meetings of our Denominational Missionary Societies, "How did the meetings go off this year?" Will it be permitted me to give utterance to the impressions I received from the meetings, as an answer to that question ?

Not to begin positively at the beginning, let us take the meeting of the Home Missionary Society, on Monday evening, April 25th, that being the first of the public meetings. It was a wet evening, and made most persons feel that we were to have a repetition of last year's weather. The attendance was decidedly small. The speeches good. The speaking, for the most part, failed to give effect to the sentiments expressed. That which was most observable in the meeting was, the prominence given to the infidel aspect of the age. The speakers were perhaps scarcely responsible for this.

The motion which referred to the report involved it, inasmuch as that it was very properly a noticeable point in the report itself; but the second resolution distinctly referred to it as one of the facts of the age, and thus the subject became a prominent one with each of the speakers. There can be no doubt as to the fact, nor as to its importance; but there is some doubt as to the advantage of bringing it in for controversy too distinctly at our public religious meetings. It is a pleasant thing no doubt to come the knight errant of the truth in chivalrous conflict with the foe. But I submit that an audience on occasions like this requires something which should reach the heart, touch the sympathies, and so stimulate zeal. Had the speeches all of them partaken more of the character of the first in this particular, I imagine the audience would not have been reduced to almost half its numbers long before the close of the meeting.

The Irish Society's meeting followed upon the Tuesday evening. A much larger company was gathered together. The meeting was decidedly more interesting than that of the previous evening. There was one speech which I should think satisfied all wants; rather longer perhaps than was desirable, notwithstanding its quality, but there was no part dark throughout the

whole. It placed Ireland in its present religious circumstances before the audience, and I should suppose made every one feel "How much it is to be regretted that our Society is not taking her proper part in this great work!" Of the other speeches, one can only say, they were ordinary. There was a novelty, however, in the meeting. The report was read at twice, certain speeches intervening between the first part and the second. The arrangement did not result certainly from the peculiar interest of the report itself, for from the beginning to the end it reminded one of what has often been heard from public speakers, "that they never find it so difficult to finish a discourse, as when they have had nothing to say." Had the report been confined to about two-thirds the time occupied in the first reading, prominence being given to the only noticeable fact, that there was a good round sum in the hands of the treasurer, with which to be doing something during the next year, the meeting would have been saved much weariness, and time would have then been given to the later speakers to say fully what they wished to say, and the general impression of the meeting would have been more favourable. As a whole, however, I should judge the effect was to create a very earnest desire that the committee will carry out the recommendation of the speakers, or something analogous to it, in the operations of the ensuing year.

The Sermons for the Foreign Mission followed on Wednesday, and surely no one of the hearers will have retired from these services without being somewhat the better for having attended them. Simple, earnest, affectionate, in the morning. Vigorous, earnest, practical, in the evening. One feeling I had which I almost fear to utter. It was, that the effort at the close of the evening discourse, to give a dramatic form to the appeal, was not artistic enough, and therefore was prolonged rather beyond its strength, so as to lessen rather than increase the effect of the previous part of the discourse, and of the concluding appeal One could not help grieving that out of all the London churches, larger audiences did not hear these sermons,-especially must this have been felt with respect to the morning assembly.

The great meeting of Thursday was a great meeting in many respects. The audience was large; the annual report good; the prospect opened in the future bright and promising; the pecuniary issue of the meeting good; and the effect of the speeches in the main was good. A most rare and singular effort was that which constituted the central speech of the day. Seldom have the mere money claims of any Society been advocated with so much poetry, pathos, and power, as in that one speech. preceding speakers were listened to with much interest, and the unprofessional part of the speakers in public was well sustained by the opening speech. The plan of dispensing with resolutions promoted the interest of the meeting. It is to be hoped

The

that these forms will speedily disappear from all such meetings. The meeting was prolonged unusually, in consequence of the length of the one speech specified above, and this notwithstanding that one of the speakers was transferred, with his own consent, to next year; a transference which, doubtless, he wonld not much regret, seeing that he had appeared at one of the previous meetings, and was engaged to speak at another the same evening. Three meetings out of five for one speaker, illustrates, I suppose, the great paucity there is of platform speakers amongst our preachers; vindicating, also, the remark, which has often been made, that preachers always preach, whether from the platform or the pulpit, in the public assembly or the social gathering.

I

The meeting of the Bible Translation Society was held the same evening. Engagements prevented my attendance. sincerely hope it was, in all respects, a brighter and better demonstration than the corresponding meeting of last year.

From the end of the series to the beginning; no, not quite the beginning,-the Session of the Baptist Union on Friday morning. Is it utterly impossible to make the Union a power in the country? The attendance shewed too plainly how utterly the Union fails to engage the sympathies of the denomination, and the balance sheet confirms the decision. The Secretaries, no doubt, work hard and honourably in the work devolving upon them; but it is cause of regret throughout the churches, that the Union does not undertake some earnest, practical work. Let the proposal be made, and the funds will not then have to be dragged out of the treasury of the churches in the smallest possible sums. The discussions of the Session were spirited, but wordy, as when are they not, if a number of ministers be the chief disputants? communications from the Continent were deeply interesting.

The

I did not hear the sermon delivered that evening in connection with the Irish Society, nor that of Wednesday evening to the Young men, the report of which, doubtless, interested all who read it.

At the Hanserd Knollys Society, a resolution was adopted, which, it is hoped, will give to that Society a form more valuable than it seems to possess at the present time, if it continue to exist as a Society at all.

The general meeting of the subscribers to the Irish Society met on Monday morning. It is, in fact, a general Committee for choosing an Executive for next year, and for talking together upon the interests of the Society. There was some lengthened talk, but there did not appear to be much earnestness. The choice of a new Treasurer will, it is hoped, be the beginning of a new day. There was some talk of the need, also, of a new Secretary, should the business much increase, as it would then be beyond the powers of the present officer. Not wholly an impossible supposition, seeing that the business of the last year was said to be almost too much for him.

The general meeting of the Foreign Missionary subscribers sat for a similar purpose, next morning. A numerous and interested assembly, and a harmonious meeting, a most grateful change from the corresponding meeting of last year, and a pleasing assurance, it may be hoped, that the churches are in sympathy with the Committee and its movements. The motion for a change in the constitution will most probably die a natural death, I should think, overpowered at the next meeting by the activity of the Committee in carrying out their beautiful and worthy project for extending the Mission in India. May God speed their efforts!

The first, last; -the prayer - meeting which introduced this series on the Thursday morning. The attendance was very small. The tone not very strong. There were prayers offered, and an address delivered, which, very likely, were cooled by the smallness of the company. But why this fewness? The common answer will be, it was a very wet morning. True, and yet in that company were some from almost every extremity of London. They came through the wet; but out of all the Baptist churches in London and its suburbs, there was not enough of earnest sympathy with this devotional exercise to fill that little library. at the Mission House.

I refer to this first meeting last, for the purpose of uttering the one general impression I received from all the meetings. It is, that there was a very decided lack of that still, earnest, devotional element, which after all, is the true power of a public meeting on behalf of a religious object. There was everything to stimulate the thinking faculty; but little, in proportion to the whole, to awaken affection, to enliven sympathy, to stimulate zeal; but little, as it seemed to me, to give new impulse to love -the omnipotence of christian activity. The spirit of the age prevailed over the spirit of christianity; and from the prayermeeting at the beginning, to the close of the series, there was a deficiency in this respect. The topic was introduced once and again; but the most devotional sentiments seemed to possess but little devotional power. It is to be feared, that the representatives of the churches in the country will return to those churches, and that the churches in London will return to their usual routine, not much increasedly affected with the claims of divine love and human souls upon their sympathies, their labours, and their love-not much more earnest in their appeals to the throne of mercy for one another, for our father-land, for Ireland, for India, for the world, in consequence of having attended these meetings. Yet this is the one element which needs to be quickened within us. This is the one want of the churches. In this one quality lies the true power of our Missionary Societies and missionary labours. From this alone, can come the men for India, for Ireland, and for our home villages and towns. Money is abundant enough, as is tolerably apparent, but for this cause it needs to be

consecrated money. And when the love of the churches is raised to this point, all other main requisites will be comprehended-the men to enter upon the whitening fields, and the power by which the harvest may be gathered.

I know it may be said, this deficiency attributed by you to the meetings, is to be accounted for by your own hardness of heart. Be it so. I am willing to allow that it is so largely. But if the majority feel as I do, what then? This is but to repeat what has just been said, that there was not that power in the meetings which was fitted to soften hard christian hearts. I do not say, of course, that the majority do feel as I; but I much fear that throughout a very wide circle a similar admission would be freely made. May all who so feel, be found in daily utterance of this prayer: "Oh, that Thou wouldst rend the heavens, that Thou wouldst come down, that the mountains might flow down at thy presence."

Let me assure every one whom it may concern, that in uttering these reflections there is not a single emotion but of truest sympathy with all the Societies, and of loving-kindness towards all the brethren to whom there is any reference,-most of whom I am hononred to know personally, and some of them even familiarly.

THE ANTI-STATE-CHURCH ASSOCIATION.

The annual public meeting of this body was held on Wednesday, May 4th, at Finsbury Chapel, which was crowded on the occasion, there being a numerous body of members of Parliament, ministers, and country friends of the society, on the platform. The secretary read a brief report, which referred to the change of sentiment gradually being effected in the public mind, to the gratifying results of the general election, and to various votes in the House of Commons. The circulation of the "Library for the Times," issued by the association, was reported to be steadily increasing. In conclusion, the friends of the association were urged to put forth special efforts to insure a numerous and influential conference in the autumn. statements of the report were loudly cheered. The speakers were the Rev. J. Burnet, J. P. Murrough, Esq., M.P., the Rev. J. J Brown, of Reading, Apsley Pellatt, Esq. M.P., Edward Miall, Esq, M.P., Lawrence Heyworth, Esq., M.P., the Rev. E, S. Pryce, of Gravesend, Charles Jones, Esq., and the Rev. W. Griffiths

The

The fifth annual meeting of this society was held on Thursday evening, the 14th inst., at the Freemasons' Tavern, which was presided over by John Cheetham, Esq., M.P. Prayer having been offered by the Rev. Henry Batchelor, the chairman opened the meeting in an appropriate speech, when the secretary read the report. From this, it appeared that the funds and operations of the society had greatly increased during the past year, the income having advanced from £350 to £487, and the issue of tracts from

280,000 to 564,500. Resolutions adopting the report, and expressive of warm sympathy with the objects of the society, and pledging hearty co-operation in extending its field of usefulness, were spoken to by the Rev. Henry Batchelor, Rev. J. Fitt, Rev. T. G. Horton, Rev. W. Roberts, B.A., Rev. C. A. M. Shepherd, and Joseph Payne, Esq. A vote of thanks to the chairman was moved by J. Churcher, Esq., and seconded by Rowland Elliott, Esq.

HORTON COLLege, bradford',

On Friday afternoon, the 6th of May, a, meeting was held at Horton College, Bradford, on the occasion of the termination of Mr. Charles Carter's studies, preparatory to his engagement in India, under the auspices of the Baptist Missionary Society. After a special prayer-meeting, the students took tea together, and Mr. Carter was presented with a copy of Kitto's Biblical Cyclopædia, as a mark of the affectionate regard cherished for him by his brethren, and of their admiration of the noble-hearted courage and philanthropy which prompt his enterprise. Addresses were delivered by the Rev. S. G. Green, B.A., the Classical Tutor (the revered President, Dr. Acworth, being unavoidably absent on account of severe indisposition), and by many of the students; and the evening was one which will be long remembered by all concerned, as one of the most interesting and agreeable they ever spent together.

NAZARETH, LLANELLY, MONMOUTHSHIRË.

On Monday afternoon, April 4th, Mr. Ebenezer Lewis, of Ebbw Vale, was recog nized as pastor over the English church in this place. Mr. J. Lewis, of the Baptist College, Pontypool, commenced the services by reading and prayer. Mr. B. Williams delivered the introductory address. Mr. D. Davies, of Bethlehem, Llanelly, put the usual questions, which were very satisface torily answered by the young pastor. venerable Mr. J. Davies offered up the ordi nation prayer, and Mr. D. Davies delivered an excellent charge to the pastor, from Ezra x. 4, and Mr. J. Davies to the church, from Phill. i. 27.

RISHWORTH, NHAR HALIFAX.

The

The Baptist church at Rishworth, being without a stated minister, has unanimously given an invitation to Mr. Eli Dyson, & member of the Baptist church at Lockwood, near Huddersfield, to become their pastor. Mr. Dyson has acceded to their request, and commenced his regular labours amon them on the first Lord's day in April.

HALIFAX.

The Rev. W. Walters, of New Park street, London, has received and accepted a unanimous and cordial invitation to the pastorate of the Second Baptist church, Halifax; and enters upon his labours on the first Lord's-day in July. The prospects of this church are of the most cheering kind; and the friends hope to meet in their spacious and handsome new chapel before the close of the year.