“It is much to be regretted that those young men have so little time and opportunity, after finishing their academical course, for making further progress in studies suited to their profession. The cares of a family (for marriage must indispensably precede ordination in the Russian church), their labours among their flocks, the scanty support which most of them receive, together with their isolated situation in country villages, where few traces of education and civilized life have yet entered, render this almost impracticable.”TheJesuitswere finally expelled from the empire in 1820. At that time their number amounted to 674.“On their reaching the frontiers of the empire, the emperor Alexander ordered them to be supplied with from thirty to forty ducats each, to bear their expenses to some other place of residence. But though this mighty force of papal agency was removed from the Russian territories by one stroke of the autocratic pen, yet the influence which they had acquired was not so easily to be annihilated; and there is no doubt, that in the succeeding intrigues which were played off so successfully against the Russian Bible Society, their powerful friends in the capital took a part.” p. 62.Drunkenness.On this painful topic, the author has given most melancholy information:—“Instead of restraining the use of brandy, the government, even of the present day, affords every facility to the people to obtain it, in order to enhancethe gain derived from this iniquitous source; whichamounts to nearly one-fourth of the whole revenue of the empire.”From his calculation, it appears that there is “the enormous quantity of eighty-one millions of gallons of brandy alone drunk every year by the peasantry of this empire.” pp. 75-77.Baptism.Dr. P. says:—“The cathedral church at Odessa is a noble building, in the Grecian style, with domes and crosses. One day I entered it, when the protopope, or dean, was baptizing an infant. The day was excessively cold, there being upwards of ten degrees of frost, and the water in the font almost freezing. After the ceremony was over, I expressed to the priest my surprise that they did not use tepid water, seeing the infant had to be three times immersed over head and ears in the icy bath. He smiled at my compassion, and exclaimed—‘Ah, there is no danger: the child is a Russian.’ Indeed, such are the superstitious opinions of the people, that were the chill taken off the water, they would probably doubt the validity of the ordinance.” p. 153.“In Great Russia, the child is baptized usually in the church, or in a private house; and the prayers, exorcisms, and ceremonies attending this ordinance, are long and complicated. The Greeks and Russians always use the trine immersion; the first, in the name of the Father—the second, in that of the Son—and the third in that of the Holy Ghost. When a priest cannot be obtained, they permit lay-baptism; and they never rebaptize on any account whatever.”The Duchobortzi sect has excited great attention:—“They make the sacraments consist only in a spiritual reception of them, and therefore reject infant-baptism. Their origin is to be sought for among the Anabaptists, or Quakers.”It appears, however, that“In the Ukraine, or Little Russia, it is customary also to baptize by sprinkling or pouring water upon the body. This change the Little Russians, many of whom are Uniats, adopted from the Roman Catholics, when they were under the power of the Polish government. However, in cases of necessity, even in Great Russia, baptism by sprinkling or pouring water on the body is practised, and held to be valid.”In a note, Dr. P. tells us he witnessed the baptism of an adult, in the case of the Mongolian chief, Badma, who died in 1822. He was lying in bed, in a very weak state. Prince Galitzin was godfather. Instead of immersion, water was poured on his head three times. Immediately after baptism, he received the other sacrament: bread and wine, soaked together in a cup, and given with a spoon. The pious prince evidently felt much; and when the dying man partook of the holy communion, he shed many tears. He died on the third day after his baptism.—p. 157.Proverbs.We can select only a few for the entertainment and instruction of the reader.Sin requires no teaching.Thieves are not abroad every night; yet every night make fast.Praise not thyself, nor dispraise.Thou wilt not see all the world by looking out at thy own window.A fool can cast a stone where seven wise men cannot find it.Two hares at once, and you catch neither.His wealth is not on the barn-floor; it is in his brains.At home, as I like it; in company, as others will have it.They gave a naked man a shirt, and he says, ‘How coarse it is!’Hast thou a pie? Thou wilt soon have a friend at table.The largest ass will not make an elephant.‘Freedom,’ says the bird, ‘though the cage be a golden one.’Every soldier would be general—every sailor, admiral.In travelling, and at their sports, men show what they are.AGreekspeaks truth once in the year.The cow has a long tongue, but she is not allowed to speak.A golden bed will not relieve the sick.Russian Bible Society.Dr. P. speaks in the highest terms of the Princess Sophia Mestchersky, who was among the first to encourage him to attempt, in 1811, the formation of a Bible Society in Moscow; which in two years was realized.“From this commencement in 1813 till my leaving Russia, the princess had published ninety-three different pieces, amounting to upwards of 400,000 copies, on religious and moral subjects, which together form eight volumes, 8vo., andwhich were gratuitously distributed, or sold at low prices.”Among these are the principal publications of the London Religious Tract Society.A very favourable account of the religious character of the late emperor Alexander is given, chiefly from the communications of the illustrious princess above mentioned, and written by her at the time of his death.The Russian Bible Society was founded in St. Petersburg, on the 23rd of January, 1813, and continued in full activity about twelve years under the patronage of Alexander. During the last three years of his reign, he was powerfully counteracted by a strong party formed among the principal nobility and clergy. There were, too, conspirators forming diabolical plans against the peace of the empire, who misrepresented to the government the character and labours of the friends of religion and of Bible Institutions, to turn away attention from themselves, and their own wicked revolutionary designs. But the mind of Alexander was not changed.When Nicholas his brother came to the throne, the plots of the party above referred to were happily overthrown. But unhappily Seraphim, the metropolitan, with several other prelates, and one or two fanatical monks, had for some years entertained unfriendly feelings towards the Institution. The new emperor’s Ukaz was published in 1826.It is gratifying, however, to find that on the 14th of March, 1831, a new Bible Society, exclusively for the Protestants in the Russian empire, was formed at St. Petersburg, with the sanction of the present emperor; and that the president is Prince Lieven, the minister for public instruction,“A protestant nobleman of true piety, who laboured in the cause with indefatigable zeal, during the whole period of the existence of the national institution.”We have been surprised and delighted to observe Dr. P. speaking of the present emperor as“Wise, energetic, and humane,” “who has begun a reform in the courts of justice;” “a man of penetration, energy, and benevolence; who has already given many pleasing proofs of his sincere desire to advance the spiritual interests of the Russian people;” “the determined courage and wise management of the young emperor,” &c.—pp. 348, 389, 392.Surely, then, we may hope the national Bible Society will yet be restored.The appendix contains seven sermons, as specimens of the style of preaching among the Russian clergy; and the plates, illustrative of the dress and amusements of the people, are from a collection of lithographic costumes which the author brought with him from Russia.1.An Examination of the Practice of Infant Baptism, designed to prove that it is inconsistent with the Principles of the New Testament: respectfully proposed for the consideration of all those who are desirous of a Scriptural Reformation of the Church; and who are prepared to follow Truth wherever it may lead.By aMember of the Church of England. pp. 123.—Hatchard.2.A Sermon on the Nature and Subjects of Christian Baptism.ByAdoniram Judson, D.D., Burmah, p. 84.—Wightman.Before assent is yielded to the result of any “examination,” it is important, besides cautiously considering the nature and amount of evidence which has been adduced in its favour, to reflect on the relative position which, as it respects the particular subject of investigation, the examiner has occupied in pursuing the object of his inquiry, and in relation to which he has now arrived to a conclusion he is anxious—on account (as he believes) of its accordance with divine truth—should influence the conduct of others. If it be undoubted that his education, his tastes, his connexions, and even his prejudices, were all on the side of that conviction which he professes to have derived from patient and persevering research, it seems not unreasonable to require a copiousness and strength of argument, in its support, which, were all the circumstances affecting his relation to it decidedly unfavourable, would, perhaps, scarcely be deemed necessary.When, however, we witness the comparatively rare occurrence of an individual, surrounded with almost every description of temptation to stifle conviction, and, by his silence at least, to perpetuate a corruption in the Christian church, which for ages has been protected by legislative authority, popular favour, and implicit faith, not only nobly triumphing over every inducement to compromise the interests of truth by refusing to surrender himself to its acknowledged claims, but venturing forth, and assailing error in its most splendid fastness, and pursuing it to its final retreat; and that to, by the employment of arguments whose overwhelming force is partly derived from the peculiar suavity with which they are urged, we are unable to resist such an occasion for exclaiming, “This is the Lord’s doing, and it is marvellous in our eyes.”The publications which have occasioned these reflections, whose titles are placed at the head of this article, appear to us to present more than ordinary claims to public consideration. The perspicuity of their style, the force of their arguments, and especially the thoroughly Christian temper which pervades them throughout, cannot fail, if they be read, to secure commendation, even where they fail to convince. We can easily suppose it possible to find persons who may affect to despise what is thus, with every circumstance adapted to excite respect, urged upon their attention; but that any well-constituted mind, whatever be its ultimate conclusion on the subject, can treat these pamphlets with indifference, as though that to which they relate were unimportant, or that they were defective in truth and candour, is what we are extremely unwilling to believe. At the same time, we most frankly acknowledge that, owing to certain inconveniences, and, perhaps, even consequences, which we conceive might arise, in some instances at least, from a thorough and an impartial investigation of the evidence adduced by these respective and respectable writers in support of their principles, we are not altogether without apprehension, that by something approaching to a profound silence in certain quarters, or it may be by something even more beneath the dignity of Christian criticism, the powerful, though eminently temperate, appeals of these luminous pages may obtain a perusal far less extensive than is consistent either with the interests of truth, or the merits of its advocates.Deprecating such a result of these distinguished efforts, we enter upon a more particular notice of the first of these publications. The author designates himself “a member of the Church of England;” and his design is “to prove that it is inconsistent with the principles of the New Testament” to baptize unconscious infants. The work is divided into ten sections, prefaced by a most respectful but spirit-stirring letter “to the Editor of the Christian Observer.” From this admirable appeal we extract as follows:—“This work is the result of many reflections, excited at different times, through a long series of years, by the reading of many articles and discussions in the Christian Observer. The practice of admitting infants to the sacrament of baptism, I apprehend, must appear to almost all reflecting persons, at some times, to be of a very dubious character; and if it shall appear that the fair tendency of those parts of your work which I refer to, is to render it still more so, then I am persuaded that you will allow that the publication is, without impropriety, thus offered to your notice.”He adds:—“The question respecting the propriety of admitting infants to the sacrament of baptism must, I conceive, before long, become a subject of grave discussionwithinthe church. Then the real importance of the question will become manifest, and it will be found necessary that it should be more comprehensively considered in all its bearings, than it has hitherto been. With regard to the question, as it stands between the church and the Antipædobaptist party, excepting the question—whether it is the duty of Christian governors to promote Christianity—this, respecting infant baptism, is of more real importance thanall othersin dispute between the church andorthodoxdissenters.“The reading of the papers in an early volume of your work, on Dr. Taylor’s Key to the Apostolical Writings,first excited the reflections which led to my determination to offer, for the consideration of the Christian public, some thoughts on the subject of infant baptism.”Again, in this introductory letter, we read:—“Never before, in any way, were so large a number of persons, so competent to the task, brought together for its consideration. In your volumes, men of the deepest piety, of fine talents, and with minds every way prepared for the consideration of the subject, have laboured to produce the scriptural elucidation of the baptismal grace. I am persuaded that I should not exaggerate, if I were to say that if all the divines in Christendom had been assembled at the commencement of the present century, and had held as many sessions as the council of Trent, for the purpose of settling this question, the controversy would not have been so happily conducted as it has been in your pages, nor pursued to a more satisfactory result. But what is the result? Notwithstanding that nothing is so manifest as the effects of the operation of divine grace, for wheresoever it does operate the effects are ‘known and read of all men,’ yet in answer to the inquiry, ‘What are the nature and consequences of the grace communicated by the Holy Spirit in baptism?’ the Christian Observer, with all its voices united, declares, ‘We cannot tell.’ This issue of the matter is virtually avowed by yourself incidentally in a short sentence in the number for October, 1833, where you say, ‘The Church of England certainly assumes far more than thenudum signum, though it does not go to the length of theopus operatum.’ Within these boundaries, then, it is admitted that the proper place of rest is not yet discovered.”And yet once more:“I now, Sir, with great humility, beg to submit that the church has made its utmost efforts in this inquiry—that every thing respecting it has been concentrated in your volumes; that the best Christian talents have been bestowed upon it in vain, up to the conclusion of the first third part of the nineteenth century, and to the commencement of the fourth century of the Reformation, and that, therefore, it is a fair conclusion that further inquiry is quite hopeless, the imagined baptismal grace for unconscious infants being manifestly an undiscoverable, non-existent thing. I wish here to add, that a reference to obvious facts leads inevitably to the same conclusion. In the all-wise providence of the great Head of the church, the matter has been brought to the test of experiment, which has been going on upon a sufficiently large scale for more than two centuries in this country. Two Christian parties have conscientiously refrained from having their children baptized; so that, if the baptizing of infants were accompanied with any measure of the Holy Spirit’s influence, the effects would have been rendered quite evident by the contrast. But what do facts declare! What spiritual advantages do baptized children discover themselves to be possessed of which unbaptized children do not possess, in cases where all other things are equal! Surely all fair Christian observers of the dispensations of the King of grace in his church, must be constrained to allow that the advantages are undiscernible, and therefore can have no existence.”There is still another passage in this sensible and truly Christian letter, which we must be allowed to present to our readers.“It may be assumed that I have come to a wrong conclusion; but, I presume, it will be admitted to be desirable that the question I have considered should be more satisfactorily settled than it is at present, and if, as I trust it will appear, that I have examined it under no influence but the love of truth, it may be allowed that the work may be useful in assisting others to come to arightconclusion. Every man who treats a subject honestly, does something to put it in a right point of view. I confess, I cannot now hope that, if I am wrong, I shall live to be convinced of it; but truly I feel no interest in error, and I take no pleasure in differing from ministers and brethren in Christ; so that, if I were convinced of being wrong, I could renounce my present opinions with more ease than I can now divest myself of a garment.”Whether the able writer to whom these respectful and impressive appeals are made, will so far resist their influence as to make no reply, and attempt no vindication from the charge of a destructive error, so distinctly brought against the church of which he is a member, remains to be seen; yet, after reading the powerful pages to which the preceding extracts are prefixed, if it be expected that the Scripturesexclusivelyare to be admitted as evidence in repellingthe accusation, we must confess ourselves utterly at a loss to conceive how it is possible that any satisfactoryanswershould be given. But if our author cannot be answered, let him at least be heard. He says:—“In the present day, no intelligent evangelical writer would think of advancing such things as Hooker and some other eminent and good men have said on the subject of baptism. Men of reflection and genuine Christian character now perceive themselves here to be but in cloudy regions, where mighty minds have strangely bewildered themselves, and refrain from venturing distinct speculations and positive assertions. They do not come forward with anything like the confidence of their predecessors. They speak strongly against theopus operatumof Papists, and papistical Protestants; and though they would not be thought to deny that grace is, in some way, connected with baptism in the case of infants, yet they frequently make it evident that they would rather escape from close discussion. There is a remarkable instance of this in the Bampton Lectures of the late Dr. Heber, Bishop of Calcutta. He says: ‘Both grace and comfort, if they are not necessarily inherent in the washing of regeneration, and the eucharistic bread and wine, may at least be attained by a proper use of those means.’ Surely this obscure and doubtful passage, on a subject simple and apprehensible enough in Holy Scripture, is something different to what ought to be expected from a profoundly learned ruler of the church. What Christian ever thought of denying that grace and comfort might be attained by a proper use of these ordinances? On the other hand, are we to be driven to the mortification of supposing that, in the present day, others beside Papists can be induced to suppose that grace and comfort can benecessarily inherentin any thing material? Upon the whole, I think it is evident to an observer, that there is some hesitation and want of confidence among thinking members of the church with regard to this view of baptism: yet the idea of a mysterious connexion between themateriel(if I may use the word) of the ordinances and divine grace, has by no means lost its hold of the mind; which is in a great measure owing to the magic influence of imaginary sacred words. Such terms as ‘elements,’ ‘holy mysteries,’ have a strange effect in causing men to feel as though it would be sacrilegious and presumptuous to open their eyes, and view those divine institutions in the light of Scripture.“But the imagination, that the application of the ordinance of baptism to unconscious infants is a divinely appointed medium of grace to them, is so incompatible with real facts, that a philanthropic Christian, who looks around, and has his heart affected by the real state of society, even in this country, if he could at that moment be brought closely to reconsider this opinion, which, at other moments, when facts are forgotten, raise delightful feelings in his mind, could not but have his eyes open to the fallacy:—the illusion would vanish at once. If baptism were a divinely appointed medium of spiritual good to the minds of infants, then its beneficial tendency must appear in the development of children in Christian countries. If this manifestly appeared to be the case, all controversy would be at an end. But do the instructors of youth discover it? Has the warmest advocate for the practice of baptizing children ever ventured such an assertion? And if infants grow up, believe, and are baptized, is it conceivable that their heavenly lot will be at all worse than that of those who were baptized in their infancy; or that, if they die unbaptized, without any fault of their own, they will in any wise suffer for the omission? Now if all these questions be answered in the negative, as undoubtedly they must, what becomes of the imaginary paradise of blessings and privileges to which baptism is to introduce the millions of our infants? Why should the holy Lord God, our Saviour, be represented as mocking his church by promises of mysterious, pompous nothings?” pp. 65-69.Thus it is that this author remonstrates with the members of his own communion. But does he neglect to extend the application of the argument to other Pædobaptists? The reader shall be put in possession of the means of judging.“But if the Church of England rests this practice on such insufficient grounds, how do the Pædobaptist Congregationalists support the practice? They appear to me to have scarcely any ground at all which they can acknowledge, consistently with their fundamental principles as Congregationalists. They are supported in the practice wholly by clinging to custom, and by borrowing the arguments of the advocates of national churches just for an occasion. It is quite inconsistent with their principles to acknowledge such a visible church as infants are professedlyintroduced to by baptism. They recognise no such church, except on the occasion of baptizing their children. They admit of no officers, and allow no government, for such a church. They consider all apparently unconnected persons as belonging only to the world, and admit their own children to become members of their churches exactly in the same way as they would a stranger coming from a country not professing Christianity; except that, in their case, they are saved the ceremony of baptizing, which is the divinely appointed way of admission into a visible church. National ecclesiastical establishments, which yet unavoidably resulted from the practice of infant baptism, they hold to be altogether anti-scriptural, and founded upon an anti-christian union of church and state. They have, therefore, no reasonable pretence for arguing for the practice from the appointment of circumcision, which can with consistency be used only by those who think that Christianity was designed to have a secular, external character. Some of them, indeed, seem ashamed of this obvious inconsistency, and have recourse to an imaginary distinction between the covenant of redemption and the covenant of grace; and instead of professing that by baptism they make their children members of the visible church, they assert that by doing so they place them visibly within the one covenant, though not within the other. But a serious refutation of such a notion can hardly be necessary; it may be classed with other unintelligible and unauthorized imaginations.“The members of the church, retaining their veneration for the notions respecting the sacraments established as catholic in the primitive ages, have some specious ground of hope that the administration of the ordinance to their infants will be accompanied with a communication of grace, in consequence of the imagined occult connexion between the ‘elements’ and the grace of the ordinance, they have, with something like a pretence of reason, expected that their children might thereby be made members of Christ, children of God, and heirs of the kingdom of heaven. They are persuaded that it is consistent with truth to speak of baptism for infants as ‘the washing of regeneration,’ the laver of regeneration—the well-spring of divine life, &c., &c., and that in this matter they rightly exercise Christian submission in following ‘the sacramental host of God's elect.’ But the Independents have no pretence of the kind for this application of a holy ordinance to infants. They expect their children to derive no benefit from it, other than what they would derive through their prayers, and from the blessing of God in bringing them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. They renounce all deference to catholic authority in matters of religion and conscience, and profess to believe that all the light which the case requires is to be found in the Scriptures, and that it is dangerous to follow any other. They have also no more right to use the argument drawn from the baptism of households, than they have that drawn from circumcision: they are both founded on the same principle—an assumption that the doors of the Christian visible church have been opened by our Lord himself to the unconscious and unconverted, in diametrical opposition to the principles on which they found their opposition to the established church. Surely it cannot be, that wise master-builders should much longer employ themselves in daubing this papal wall with untempered mortar.” p. 39-92.We are decidedly of opinion that whoever may take upon himself to reply seriously to these statements, will find the undertaking to be neither quite easy nor very agreeable. It may not be improper to state that this is a new and somewhat enlarged edition of a work, published several years ago, by the same author.Dr. Judson’s sermon, which is also a reprint, is perspicuous, elaborate, and irrefragable.1.The Management of Bees, with a Description of the Ladies’ Safety Hive: with Forty Illustrative Engravings.BySamuel Bagster, Jun., pp. 244. Bagster.2.Spiritual Honey from Natural Hives; or Meditations and Observations on the Natural History and Habits of Bees: first introduced to public notice in 1657.BySamuel Purchase, M.A.pp. 176.—Bagster.The worthy editor of these volumes has, we think, exercised a sound discretion in publishing them separately. To the initiated in apiarian research, “The Management of Bees” cannot fail to be highly interesting. For our own part, we must confess that, if certain minute descriptions which may possibly offend a refined moral sensibility, could have been omitted, we should have considered the work more valuable on that account. Perhaps our hint may prove availablefor a future edition. With this exception, we would most cordially recommend this production to the perusal of our readers generally; and to those who are engaged in the study of that part of natural history to which it refers, especially. The engravings are exceedingly creditable to the talent of the artist.As to the “Meditations” contained in the other volume, they are altogether above our praise. They are eminently instructive and pious, admirably calculated to secure the attention even of the thoughtless, and to promote, in a very high degree, the pleasure and the profit of the considerate. In confirmation, we present our readers with the following specimen:“If the bee lights upon a flower where there is no honey (being wasted or gathered before), she quickly gets off, and flies away to another that will furnish her. Let us not lose ourselves and forget our errand: our father, Adam, lost our happiness, and we are sent to seek it; seek it where it is, and go handsomely to work; say, I am not for riches, they are made for me; I am not for creatures, they are made for me, and I am their master; therefore these cannot make me happy: I am made for eternity, for everlasting life and happiness; therefore, let me study that; mind that end beyond inferior ends. Why do men seek wealth, but to be happy? Why pleasures, why honours, but because they would be happy? If these things cannot bless and enhappy me, why should I burn daylight? why should I not off them, as the bee gets off the plants that yield her no honey, and once, at last, see where my happiness lies, in pursuing happiness, and where my happiness lies, in God’s ways; the first step whereof is poverty of spirit?” p. 22.We hope these valuable reflections will be often reprinted.Poems on Sacred Subjects.ByMaria Grace Saffery.Hamilton and Co.; Darton and Harvey.These poems are from the pen of the widow of the late Rev. John Saffery, of Salisbury, whose name is still fragrant there, and in many other places; whose zealous labours of love in our Bengal Mission, and in the propagation of the gospel in Ireland, will long be remembered.Rich in Scripture knowledge and in Christian experience, with a lively imagination and a great command of language, the writer has poured out her melodious strains from the fulness of her heart.Most of the subjects are taken from the Old Testament or the New, and the versification embraces a great variety of metres, with the ease and sweetness almost peculiar to female writers. The whole book of Jonah is finely illustrated in a series of poems which cannot fail to please.This little volume is introduced by a modest preface, and a “Sonnet inscribed to the memory of the Rev. J. Saffery,” which is worth transcribing:—“Thou hadst a soul for melody to greet,When thou wert here, among the weary-hearted;And thoughts of thee are like sweet sounds departed,That visit time with echoes,—and repeatStrains that were breath’d beside my pilgrim feet;As if I heard the voice of my past years,And thou wert singing in this vale of tears.But ’tis not in the desert we shall meet—And who would wish thee where the world is weeping?Thou hast a blessed minstrelsy on high.The lyre of praise, o’er which thy song is sweeping,Hath not a pause like mine—a pause to sigh.Harps strung for holiest themes to both are given;But mine is tun’d on earth—and thine, in heaven.”Many others are exquisitely sweet. We have been particularly pleased with one on Jonathan’s friendship, which concludes thus:—“O chieftain! in thy life was seenThat friendship in immortal mould,To which ambition’s hope is mean,And woman’s kindest thought is cold.“Gilboa! let thy mountain-heathLike Jesse’s gentle harp complain;There Israel’s beauty bow’d in death,There Jonathan, the friend, was slain!”The work is very neatly got up, and we are glad to observe that the subscribers’ names are numerous, and highly respectable.RELIGIOUS INTELLIGENCE.an appeal to christian ladies, in behalf of female education in china, india, and the east.From the last census taken by the Chinese government in 1813, it appears that the population of that empire was then 362,447,183; a population more than twenty times as great as that of Greenland, Labrador, the Canadas, the West Indies, the South Sea Islands, the Cape, Madagascar, Greece, Egypt, Abyssinia, and Ceylon,—i.e., more than twenty times as large as nearly the whole field of Christian missions, India and the East being excepted.In 1821, the missionary, Dr. Milne, calculated the population of Cochin China, Corea, Loo-choo, Japan, and other districts tributary to China, to be about 60,000,000. If there should be in those countries, with Burmah and Siam, only 20,000,000 instead of 60,000,000, they form an important field of missionary labour. The British subjects of continental and ultra-Gangetic India, are 77,743,178; the population more or less under British influence in India, is 33,994,000; making a total under British influence in India, of 111,736,178. Of the 362 millions of the Chinese empire, probably 150 millions are females; and among the 111 millions of India there are about 50 millions more; so that, in these two countries, there are 200 millions of heathen females demanding our commiseration and Christian care.The condition of the Chinese women is thus described by the missionary Gutzlaff:—“Such a general degradation in religion makes it almost impossible that females should have their proper rank in society. They are the slaves and concubines of their masters, live and die in ignorance, and every effort to raise themselves above the rank assigned them, is regarded as impious arrogance. As long as mothers are not the instructors of their children, and wives are not the companions of their husbands, the regeneration of this great empire will proceed very slowly.” As might be expected, suicide is a refuge to which thousands of these ignorant idolaters fly. “The unnatural crime of infanticide is so common among them, that it is perpetrated without any feeling, and even in a laughing mood. There is also carried on a regular traffic in females.”The condition of the Hindoo women is, if possible, worse. They are treated as slaves, may not eat with their husbands, and are expressly permitted by law to be beaten. Degraded and despised, they naturally sink towards the level assigned them by public opinion. They have no mental employment whatever; and being very much excluded by the extreme jealousy of which they are the objects, from missionary instruction, it appears that their miserable condition must be perpetuated, till Hindoo society undergoes a radical change, unless they be improved by Christian schools.To meet these necessities, a society has been formed of ladies of various denominations, united together by Christian piety, for the wretched female population whom they wish to elevate and bless. Some of the objects to which the Committee will direct their attention, are the following:1. To collect and to diffuse information on the subject.2. To prepare and send out pious and intelligent women, as trainers and superintendents of the native female teachers.3. To assist those who may be anxious to form female schools in accordance with the rules of this society, by grants of money, books, and superintendence.What Christian lady, to whom this appeal may come, will refuse her co-operation in so good a work! To aid the beneficent legislation of a paternal government in the improvement of so large a population committed to our care; to rescue the weak from oppression, and to comfort the miserable in their sorrow; to give to the infant population of India, and of China, the blessings of maternal wisdom and piety; to teach the men of those nations, that those who are now their degraded slaves, may be their companions, counsellors, and friends; to disgrace, by a knowledge of the rudiments of European science, those fabulous and polluted legends of their sacred books, which are at variance with geographical and astronomical facts; to make them acquainted with the Bible, which now they cannot read; to place them under the instruction of the missionary, from whom they are at present excluded; to bring them to the knowledge of Christ, and to prove that his grace can do more in a few years tobless them, than centuries of heathenism could do to degrade them;—these are the great objects which carried Mrs. Wilson to the children of Hindostan, and Miss Wallace to those of China: but, while “the harvest truly is plenteous, the labourers are few.” Other women of equal capacity, and who can show the same perseverance springing from compassion and faith, must follow the good example. And if they offer themselves to this work of the Lord, will not the Christian women of this country, by sending them forth, and supporting them in their work, show to the continent and the world, that gratitude to God and to Christ for the blessings of providence and grace, can kindle in their hearts an earnest and self-denying pity for those who, though they speak in other tongues, and are separated from us by half the earth’s circumference, are yet as capable of joy and sorrow as ourselves, and are among those to whom our Redeemer has commanded that the gospel should be preached?Wives, who are happy in the affection and esteem of your husbands; mothers, who enjoy your children’s reverence and gratitude; children, who have been blessed by a mother’s example, and a mother’s care; sisters, who have found in brothers your warmest friends; Christian women, who feel that you can lend to society its charm, and receive from it a loyal courtesy in return; protected, honoured, and loved—impart your blessings to those who are miserable because they are without them. If your minds are intelligent and cultivated—if your lives are useful and happy—and if you can look for a blessed immortality beyond the grave, do not, for the love of Christ, whose sufferings have been the source of all your blessings, and of all your hopes, do not refuse to make Him known, that the degraded millions of the East may, like you, be “blessed in Him,” and, like you, may “call him blessed.”Those readers who desire further information may obtain it from Mr. Suter, 19, Cheapside; by whom contributions will be thankfully received.extract from the forty-fifth quarterly register of the baptist home mission.The Committee of this Society desire, humbly and thankfully, to acknowledge the goodness of God for the many favourable openings which appear for the “spread of the gospel at home.”Whilst they deeply regret that, for want of means, they cannot employ more labourers, they gratefully record some unexpected supplies to their exhausted funds; they indulge the hope that many of their fellow Christians will follow the example of their friend, Mr. Nice, and others, who have nobly come to the help of the Lord in time of need.The following extract from the Report of the Auxiliary Society forExeter and North Devonwill, it is hoped, be acceptable as a specimen of that work which all true Christians pray may prosper.“AtTorrington, our brotherPulsfordstill continues to carry on the work of the Lord with the true spirit of a laborious minister of the word, ever zealous in the work, and watching for the salvation of souls; and the great Head of the church has again honoured him with the reward of his labours. Possessed with heartfelt love for souls, he appears to have continually before him, as his motto, ‘Work while it is day; for the night cometh in which no man can work;’ he is instant in season and out of season. From his letter of the 15th inst., we make the following extract:—‘I have great pleasure in stating that the Lord in his great mercy continues to bless our feeble instrumentality, thirty-two have been brought to the knowledge of the truth, and added to the church by baptism since October last; and we continue to carry the word of life into thirteen villages, in many of which the power and glory of God are seen and felt. Glory be to his name. AtLangtree, we have long mourned the lack of room, but I am happy to state that a chapel which will contain about 150 is nearly finished. AtLangtree Wickwe want to do the same, and trust that the great Head of the church will prepare the way for our doing so before long. AtSt. Giles, we have added another room to the one we occupied; and atHatherleighwe have baptized ten, and as many more appear to be converted to God, and will follow the Lord in that delightful ordinance soon. Our new place of worship at Hatherleigh is covered in, and things wear a very pleasing aspect. O for the downpouring of the Holy Spirit, that the sacred fire may spread from village to village, and from town to town, till the whole world shall be full of the glory of God! Nothing is wanting to obtain this, but the hearty co-operation of all our churches in the great work—the entering into religion withallthe heart, andallthe soul, eachone laying himself or herself out for God, and the eternal welfare of their fellow-creatures. We have four Sunday-schools, in which 280 children are taught the word and way of God, and we trust will yield a future harvest to the church.’”the bishop of london and the dissenters.(From the Times.)A second edition of a “Remonstrance addressed to the Lord Bishop of London, on the Sanction given, in his late Charge to the Clergy of that Diocese, to the Calumnies against the Dissenters contained in certain Letters signed L. S. E.,” has recently appeared, with the respectable name of Mr. Charles Lushington. The letters referred to, which are addressed to a Dissenting minister of the Congregational denomination, and written, it appears, by a clergyman of the church of England, might well be mistaken for a subtle and refined ruse of a bitter enemy of that church. At a moment when the feelings of the Dissenters are wrought up to intense excitement by a sense of wrong from grievances unredressed, an individual of that class who teach from the pulpit that a man who lacketh charity lacketh every thing, has had the daring effrontery to vomit forth a mass of rancorous scurrility against the whole Dissenting body, especially its teachers, applying to them epithets proscribed in almost every species of polemical warfare, except that carried on by Carlile and his party, detailing disgusting anecdotes thinly veiled in the decency of a Latin translation, excluding them from the pale of Christianity, and proclaiming that “the curse of God rests heavily upon them!” It is to be regretted that there are a few individuals of the letter-writer’s class, men who have exchanged the sword for the gown, or who desire to transform the pen into the sword; but these intolerant zealots, so long as their acts are not countenanced by their superiors, do but little mischief. The letters in question, however, have been specifically recommended in a note appended to the late charge of the Bishop of London, as “containing a great deal of useful information and sound reasoning, set forth with a little too much warmth of invective against the Dissenters.” Mr. Lushington, who avows himself a member of the church of England, has had the candour and manliness to step forward and publicly vindicate the Dissenters from the effects of such a recommendation of such a work, suggesting, at the same time, “some political and Christian considerations, which should operate to secure for those calumniated persons a little more conciliatoriness from their opponents, and a far greater measure of justice from their judges.” He shows what the Dissenters have done, and are doing, to supply the deficiencies of the established church; he disproves the accusation that the Dissenters, as a body, seek to destroy that church, which would be repugnant to the system to which they owe their distinction as a religious body; and he suggests that, if the religious wants of the community are to be adequately supplied, it must be by one of three plans—either by the establishment and other sects, as at present; or by the establishment alone, all other sects being merged, comprehended, or put down; or by the episcopal church and other denominations, without an establishment. He assumes that the second is impracticable, inasmuch as the establishment could not be extended, on the basis of taxation, so as to meet the wants of the population, and the sects could not be merged or put down. The choice is, therefore, between the first, which renders the Dissenters necessary as auxiliaries, and therefore to be conciliated; and the third, which would reduce the church of England to the dimensions of an episcopal, but non-established, church. Such frenzied partisans as “L. S. E.” would be more likely to bring about the third alternative than the second.extract from a correspondent’s letter, addressed to the right rev. the lord bishop of london.My Lord,In the notes appended to your Lordship’s Charge, delivered at the last visitation, reference is made to a work, entitled, “Letters to a Dissenting Minister, &c., by L. S. E.” It is most prudently admitted, that the work contains “too much sharpness of invective against the dissenters;” your Lordship has, however, added, “I recommend the publication as containing a great deal of useful information and sound reasoning.”It was prudent in L. S. E. not to attach his name to a work that would give him a notoriety for impudence and slander which no future penitence could by any possibility remove. How far it was wise to sanction with the authority of your Lordship’s name, the work of an author who had not the rashness to reveal his own, remains for theeffects it will produce upon society to determine.L. S. E. has stated in page 360, that “the late Mr. Abraham Booth,[B]an eminent dissenting teacher in London, would never pray for the King (George the Third) at all.” Allow me, therefore, to inform your Lordship and the nameless individual who enjoys your patronage, that the assertion is entirely false. During the thirty-seven years in which he administered the ordinances and truth of Jesus Christ in Prescot-street, he not only never refused, but made it his uniform practice, to pray for “our rightful Sovereign the King, his Royal Consort the Queen, and every branch of the Royal Family;” of this many living witnesses may be brought, who still remain the fruits of his exertions. Much sympathy is due to your Lordship on account of the present intensity of professional excitement; but the injunction laid by inspiration upon a Bishop must not be forgotten, “Lay hands suddenly on no man, neither be thou partaker in other men’s sins: keep thyself pure.”With sincere respect, I am, my Lord, your Lordship’s humble servant,Isaac Booth.Hackney, Dec. 4, 1834.duties arising out of the present aspect of political affairs.At a Meeting of the “Deputies from the several Congregations of Protestant Dissenters of the Three Denominations in and within twelve miles of London, appointed to protect their Civil Rights,” held at the King’s Head Tavern in the Poultry, on Friday, the 19th day of December, 1834.Henry Waymouth, Esq., in the Chair.Resolved,That this Deputation cordially approves of the following Resolutions of the United Committee of Protestant Dissenters in London, passed on the 18th ult.; viz.—“That, while this Committee bows to the exercise of the Royal Prerogative, they have learned, with feelings of unfeigned and profound regret, the sudden dismissal from His Majesty’s Councils of his late confidential advisers; entertaining, as they do, a cordial approbation of the general measures of their Administration, and confiding in their principles as the sincere friends of civil and religious freedom.“That, while the Committee cannot but express their disappointment and sorrow that the just claims of Protestant Dissenters have hitherto been postponed, they are convinced that such delay on the part of His Majesty’s late Government arose chiefly from the obstructions to which they were subject, both from ecclesiastical and political opponents. The regret which this Committee feels at the dismissal of the late Administration is also greatly aggravated by the assurance that it has occurred at a moment when its members were preparing means of redress for the chief practical grievances of which Dissenters complain.“That, in the probable event of a General Election, this Committee confidently anticipates, from the Protestant Dissenters throughout the empire, the most decided and uncompromising opposition to that political party who have avowed themselves the unflinching opponents of their interests, and whose speeches and votes on the Bill for the admission of Dissenters to the Universities, ought never to be forgotten; and, in the event of such election, this Committee relies also on all classes of Dissenters for the immediate adoption of measures best calculated to ensure the return, as Representatives to Parliament, of men liberal and enlightened in their views, the tried friends of Religious Liberty, National Improvement, and Universal Freedom.“That this Committee pledges itself to persevere in seeking the full and immediate relief of the practical Grievances of Protestant Dissenters upon the principles it has repeatedly avowed.”That this Deputation strongly urges upon its Constituents the importance of promptly and vigorously acting upon the recommendations contained in the foregoing resolutions as to the choice of Representatives in the ensuing Parliament.That the declaration of the line of policy intended to be pursued by the Administration of Sir Robert Peel, as contained in his address to the Electors of Tamworth, is most unsatisfactory to Dissenters, and affords no prospect of the adoption of liberal measures on the part of the Cabinet of which he is the head.That this deputation cannot but record its total want of reliance on the granting of any effectual relief to Dissenters by a political party which have ever been opposed to the affording to that numerous and important body their just and equal rights as subjects of the Realm.That the foregoing Resolutions be inserted in the “Morning Chronicle,” “Morning Post,” “Morning Advertiser,” “Globe,” “Standard,” and “Patriot” newspapers.resolutions occasioned by the letter from the american board of foreign missions[C]to the board of baptist ministers in and near london.At a meeting of the Board of Baptist Ministers, specially convened at Fen Court, Nov. 25th, 1834, the Rev. F. A. Cox, LL.D. in the Chair, the above communication having been read, the following resolution was adopted:—Resolved unanimously,“That we receive with much pleasure the expressions of esteem and attachment, and fully participate in the affectionate sentiments, contained in the letter of the American Board of Foreign Missions, dated Boston, Sept. 1, 1834; and while we deeply regret that, in the judgment of the said Board, it would violate the Constitution of the Triennial Convention to entertain our communication of the 31st Dec. 1833, we hope that such of our American brethren as concur in the opinions of that communication, will adopt every means consistent with Christian principles, to diffuse their sentiments, and thus secure the immediate and entire extinction of their slave system.“That the Secretary be requested to transmit the above Resolution to the Vice President of the Baptist Board for Foreign Missions in the United States.“It having been reported to the Board, that our brethren who have been requested by the Baptist Union to go as a deputation to our Baptist brethren in America, having consulted their respective churches, have acceded to the wishes of the Union;”Resolved unanimously,“That this Board, feeling the importance of the deputation to America appointed by the Baptist Union, earnestly recommends, that the churches in London and its vicinity collect, in what way they may severally think proper, towards the expenses of such an object.”J. B. Shenston,Secretary.british voluntary church society.Resolution passed by the Board of Baptist Ministers at a meeting specially convened at Fen Court, Dec. 16, 1834, the Rev. W. Newman, D.D. in the Chair.“That, approving the principles and objects of the British Voluntary Church Society, this Board strongly recommends the churches of our denomination to promote its operations by every means in their power; either by obtaining subscriptions, by lending their places of worship for the delivering of lectures, or by any other means which their judgment may suggest.“That the Secretary be requested to transmit the above Resolution to the Secretaries of the British Voluntary Church Society, and to send a copy for insertion in the Baptist Magazine.”J. B. Shenston,Secretary.N.B. Persons subscribing not less than2s. 6d.per annum, are members of this Society.—Ed.unicorn-yard chapel, tooley-street, southwark, erected, 1720.From the decayed state of this place of worship, and for the safety of those persons who assemble therein, at the recommendation of several architects, a new wall has been erected, and the building generally having undergone a thorough repair, with 200 additional sittings, and baptistry, &c. was re-opened for the worship of God, on Thursday, November 27, 1834, when three sermons were preached; that in the morning by the Rev. Dr. Andrews, of Walworth, from Heb. ix. 12; that in the afternoon, by the Rev. Thomas Shirley, of Seven Oaks; and that in the evening, by the Rev. J. H. Evans, A.M., of John-street chapel, Bedford-row, when upwards of thirty pounds were collected.The church now encouraged by considerable additions, and the regular attendance of an increasing congregation, take this opportunity of gratefully acknowledging the services of those good men who helped them in their low estate, and also to record the loving-kindness of the Lord who has so graciously appeared in reviving us under the ministry of our present pastor, the Rev. D. Denham (late of Margate), who was publicly recognized as our pastor, with three of our brethren as deacons, on Monday, Dec. 15, 1834. The Rev. G. Comb, of Oxford-st., delivered the introductory discourse, and asked the church and minister the usual questions. The Rev. M. Dovey, of Rotherhithe, offered up the ordination prayer; and the Rev. Thomas Shirley, of Seven Oaks, gave an affectionate charge to the pastor from 1 Cor. iv. 1, 2. The Rev. J. Smith, of Shoreditch, explained the deacon’s office, showing the qualification and grace required to fill it, and then in a most scriptural manner addressed the church from Heb. xiii. 22. Messrs. Benson, Bridgeman, Moial, Boddington, and Hewlett, engaged in the other parts of the services.N.B. The expenses of general repairs and enlargement of the chapel (which will now seat about 700 persons, including a number of free sittings) will rather exceed 400 pounds; and as nearlyhalf that sumhas been realized by the exertions of a few individuals, we trust our appeal will not be in vain to those Christian friends to whom God has given the means of assisting us, and whose delight is to promote the cause of Christ upon earth. Donations, however small, will be thankfully received if forwarded to our Treasurer, Mr. Richard Edwards, 6, Chester-place, Old Kent-road.NOTICE.The next Quarterly Meeting of the London Baptist Association, will be held at Devonshire-sq. chapel, on Wednesday evening, January 21, 1835, when a sermon will be preached by the Rev. J. E. Giles, on the Duties of Church Members towards the Unconverted. Service to commence at seven o’clock.RECENT DEATHS.rev. dr. carey.In the Philanthropist the event is thus noticed: “The Rev. Dr. Carey died at Serampore, after a protracted illness of nine months, on Monday morning last, the 9th instant (June) in the 73rd year of his age.” The same paper contains the following account, copied from another paper, [The Sumachar Derpun] published at Serampore. “We have to communicate intelligence to-day, which will be received with general lamentation, not only throughout India, but throughout the world. Dr. Carey has finished his pilgrimage on earth, having gently expired early last Monday morning, the 9th of June. For several years past his health has been very infirm, and his strength has gradually sunk, until the weary wheels of nature stood still, from mere debility, and not from disease. The peculiarly hot weather and rainy season of 1833 reduced him to such extreme weakness, that in September last he experienced a stroke of apoplexy, and for some time after his death was expected daily. It pleased God, however, to revive him a little. During the cold season he could again take a morning and evening ride in his palanquin carriage, and spend much of the day reclining in an easy chair with a book in his hand, or conversing cheerfully with any friend that called. As, however, the hot weather advanced, he sunk daily into still greater debility than before, and could take no nourishment. He lay helpless and speechless on his bed until his skin was worn off his body, and death was a merciful relief. His dearest friends could not but rejoice, that his sufferings were ended, although they mourn his loss to themselves and to mankind.”For further particulars of this distinguished man, we refer our readers to the Missionary Herald.j. f. beard.At Scarborough, Yorkshire, November the 9th, after a short illness, James Freeman Beard, in the 74th year of his age. He was formerly, for many years, the respected pastor of the church of Christ at Worstead, Norfolk, where his ardent labours in the surrounding villages will long be remembered.DISTRIBUTION OF PROFITS.The following sums, from the profits of this work, were voted to the widows whose initials follow, at the meeting of proprietors, on Friday, the 19th ult.
“It is much to be regretted that those young men have so little time and opportunity, after finishing their academical course, for making further progress in studies suited to their profession. The cares of a family (for marriage must indispensably precede ordination in the Russian church), their labours among their flocks, the scanty support which most of them receive, together with their isolated situation in country villages, where few traces of education and civilized life have yet entered, render this almost impracticable.”
“It is much to be regretted that those young men have so little time and opportunity, after finishing their academical course, for making further progress in studies suited to their profession. The cares of a family (for marriage must indispensably precede ordination in the Russian church), their labours among their flocks, the scanty support which most of them receive, together with their isolated situation in country villages, where few traces of education and civilized life have yet entered, render this almost impracticable.”
TheJesuitswere finally expelled from the empire in 1820. At that time their number amounted to 674.
“On their reaching the frontiers of the empire, the emperor Alexander ordered them to be supplied with from thirty to forty ducats each, to bear their expenses to some other place of residence. But though this mighty force of papal agency was removed from the Russian territories by one stroke of the autocratic pen, yet the influence which they had acquired was not so easily to be annihilated; and there is no doubt, that in the succeeding intrigues which were played off so successfully against the Russian Bible Society, their powerful friends in the capital took a part.” p. 62.
“On their reaching the frontiers of the empire, the emperor Alexander ordered them to be supplied with from thirty to forty ducats each, to bear their expenses to some other place of residence. But though this mighty force of papal agency was removed from the Russian territories by one stroke of the autocratic pen, yet the influence which they had acquired was not so easily to be annihilated; and there is no doubt, that in the succeeding intrigues which were played off so successfully against the Russian Bible Society, their powerful friends in the capital took a part.” p. 62.
Drunkenness.On this painful topic, the author has given most melancholy information:—
“Instead of restraining the use of brandy, the government, even of the present day, affords every facility to the people to obtain it, in order to enhancethe gain derived from this iniquitous source; whichamounts to nearly one-fourth of the whole revenue of the empire.”
“Instead of restraining the use of brandy, the government, even of the present day, affords every facility to the people to obtain it, in order to enhancethe gain derived from this iniquitous source; whichamounts to nearly one-fourth of the whole revenue of the empire.”
From his calculation, it appears that there is “the enormous quantity of eighty-one millions of gallons of brandy alone drunk every year by the peasantry of this empire.” pp. 75-77.
Baptism.Dr. P. says:—
“The cathedral church at Odessa is a noble building, in the Grecian style, with domes and crosses. One day I entered it, when the protopope, or dean, was baptizing an infant. The day was excessively cold, there being upwards of ten degrees of frost, and the water in the font almost freezing. After the ceremony was over, I expressed to the priest my surprise that they did not use tepid water, seeing the infant had to be three times immersed over head and ears in the icy bath. He smiled at my compassion, and exclaimed—‘Ah, there is no danger: the child is a Russian.’ Indeed, such are the superstitious opinions of the people, that were the chill taken off the water, they would probably doubt the validity of the ordinance.” p. 153.“In Great Russia, the child is baptized usually in the church, or in a private house; and the prayers, exorcisms, and ceremonies attending this ordinance, are long and complicated. The Greeks and Russians always use the trine immersion; the first, in the name of the Father—the second, in that of the Son—and the third in that of the Holy Ghost. When a priest cannot be obtained, they permit lay-baptism; and they never rebaptize on any account whatever.”
“The cathedral church at Odessa is a noble building, in the Grecian style, with domes and crosses. One day I entered it, when the protopope, or dean, was baptizing an infant. The day was excessively cold, there being upwards of ten degrees of frost, and the water in the font almost freezing. After the ceremony was over, I expressed to the priest my surprise that they did not use tepid water, seeing the infant had to be three times immersed over head and ears in the icy bath. He smiled at my compassion, and exclaimed—‘Ah, there is no danger: the child is a Russian.’ Indeed, such are the superstitious opinions of the people, that were the chill taken off the water, they would probably doubt the validity of the ordinance.” p. 153.
“In Great Russia, the child is baptized usually in the church, or in a private house; and the prayers, exorcisms, and ceremonies attending this ordinance, are long and complicated. The Greeks and Russians always use the trine immersion; the first, in the name of the Father—the second, in that of the Son—and the third in that of the Holy Ghost. When a priest cannot be obtained, they permit lay-baptism; and they never rebaptize on any account whatever.”
The Duchobortzi sect has excited great attention:—
“They make the sacraments consist only in a spiritual reception of them, and therefore reject infant-baptism. Their origin is to be sought for among the Anabaptists, or Quakers.”
“They make the sacraments consist only in a spiritual reception of them, and therefore reject infant-baptism. Their origin is to be sought for among the Anabaptists, or Quakers.”
It appears, however, that
“In the Ukraine, or Little Russia, it is customary also to baptize by sprinkling or pouring water upon the body. This change the Little Russians, many of whom are Uniats, adopted from the Roman Catholics, when they were under the power of the Polish government. However, in cases of necessity, even in Great Russia, baptism by sprinkling or pouring water on the body is practised, and held to be valid.”
“In the Ukraine, or Little Russia, it is customary also to baptize by sprinkling or pouring water upon the body. This change the Little Russians, many of whom are Uniats, adopted from the Roman Catholics, when they were under the power of the Polish government. However, in cases of necessity, even in Great Russia, baptism by sprinkling or pouring water on the body is practised, and held to be valid.”
In a note, Dr. P. tells us he witnessed the baptism of an adult, in the case of the Mongolian chief, Badma, who died in 1822. He was lying in bed, in a very weak state. Prince Galitzin was godfather. Instead of immersion, water was poured on his head three times. Immediately after baptism, he received the other sacrament: bread and wine, soaked together in a cup, and given with a spoon. The pious prince evidently felt much; and when the dying man partook of the holy communion, he shed many tears. He died on the third day after his baptism.—p. 157.
Proverbs.We can select only a few for the entertainment and instruction of the reader.
Sin requires no teaching.Thieves are not abroad every night; yet every night make fast.Praise not thyself, nor dispraise.Thou wilt not see all the world by looking out at thy own window.A fool can cast a stone where seven wise men cannot find it.Two hares at once, and you catch neither.His wealth is not on the barn-floor; it is in his brains.At home, as I like it; in company, as others will have it.They gave a naked man a shirt, and he says, ‘How coarse it is!’Hast thou a pie? Thou wilt soon have a friend at table.The largest ass will not make an elephant.‘Freedom,’ says the bird, ‘though the cage be a golden one.’Every soldier would be general—every sailor, admiral.In travelling, and at their sports, men show what they are.AGreekspeaks truth once in the year.The cow has a long tongue, but she is not allowed to speak.A golden bed will not relieve the sick.
Sin requires no teaching.
Thieves are not abroad every night; yet every night make fast.
Praise not thyself, nor dispraise.
Thou wilt not see all the world by looking out at thy own window.
A fool can cast a stone where seven wise men cannot find it.
Two hares at once, and you catch neither.
His wealth is not on the barn-floor; it is in his brains.
At home, as I like it; in company, as others will have it.
They gave a naked man a shirt, and he says, ‘How coarse it is!’
Hast thou a pie? Thou wilt soon have a friend at table.
The largest ass will not make an elephant.
‘Freedom,’ says the bird, ‘though the cage be a golden one.’
Every soldier would be general—every sailor, admiral.
In travelling, and at their sports, men show what they are.
AGreekspeaks truth once in the year.
The cow has a long tongue, but she is not allowed to speak.
A golden bed will not relieve the sick.
Russian Bible Society.Dr. P. speaks in the highest terms of the Princess Sophia Mestchersky, who was among the first to encourage him to attempt, in 1811, the formation of a Bible Society in Moscow; which in two years was realized.
“From this commencement in 1813 till my leaving Russia, the princess had published ninety-three different pieces, amounting to upwards of 400,000 copies, on religious and moral subjects, which together form eight volumes, 8vo., andwhich were gratuitously distributed, or sold at low prices.”
“From this commencement in 1813 till my leaving Russia, the princess had published ninety-three different pieces, amounting to upwards of 400,000 copies, on religious and moral subjects, which together form eight volumes, 8vo., andwhich were gratuitously distributed, or sold at low prices.”
Among these are the principal publications of the London Religious Tract Society.
A very favourable account of the religious character of the late emperor Alexander is given, chiefly from the communications of the illustrious princess above mentioned, and written by her at the time of his death.
The Russian Bible Society was founded in St. Petersburg, on the 23rd of January, 1813, and continued in full activity about twelve years under the patronage of Alexander. During the last three years of his reign, he was powerfully counteracted by a strong party formed among the principal nobility and clergy. There were, too, conspirators forming diabolical plans against the peace of the empire, who misrepresented to the government the character and labours of the friends of religion and of Bible Institutions, to turn away attention from themselves, and their own wicked revolutionary designs. But the mind of Alexander was not changed.
When Nicholas his brother came to the throne, the plots of the party above referred to were happily overthrown. But unhappily Seraphim, the metropolitan, with several other prelates, and one or two fanatical monks, had for some years entertained unfriendly feelings towards the Institution. The new emperor’s Ukaz was published in 1826.
It is gratifying, however, to find that on the 14th of March, 1831, a new Bible Society, exclusively for the Protestants in the Russian empire, was formed at St. Petersburg, with the sanction of the present emperor; and that the president is Prince Lieven, the minister for public instruction,
“A protestant nobleman of true piety, who laboured in the cause with indefatigable zeal, during the whole period of the existence of the national institution.”
“A protestant nobleman of true piety, who laboured in the cause with indefatigable zeal, during the whole period of the existence of the national institution.”
We have been surprised and delighted to observe Dr. P. speaking of the present emperor as
“Wise, energetic, and humane,” “who has begun a reform in the courts of justice;” “a man of penetration, energy, and benevolence; who has already given many pleasing proofs of his sincere desire to advance the spiritual interests of the Russian people;” “the determined courage and wise management of the young emperor,” &c.—pp. 348, 389, 392.
“Wise, energetic, and humane,” “who has begun a reform in the courts of justice;” “a man of penetration, energy, and benevolence; who has already given many pleasing proofs of his sincere desire to advance the spiritual interests of the Russian people;” “the determined courage and wise management of the young emperor,” &c.—pp. 348, 389, 392.
Surely, then, we may hope the national Bible Society will yet be restored.
The appendix contains seven sermons, as specimens of the style of preaching among the Russian clergy; and the plates, illustrative of the dress and amusements of the people, are from a collection of lithographic costumes which the author brought with him from Russia.
1.An Examination of the Practice of Infant Baptism, designed to prove that it is inconsistent with the Principles of the New Testament: respectfully proposed for the consideration of all those who are desirous of a Scriptural Reformation of the Church; and who are prepared to follow Truth wherever it may lead.By aMember of the Church of England. pp. 123.—Hatchard.
2.A Sermon on the Nature and Subjects of Christian Baptism.ByAdoniram Judson, D.D., Burmah, p. 84.—Wightman.
Before assent is yielded to the result of any “examination,” it is important, besides cautiously considering the nature and amount of evidence which has been adduced in its favour, to reflect on the relative position which, as it respects the particular subject of investigation, the examiner has occupied in pursuing the object of his inquiry, and in relation to which he has now arrived to a conclusion he is anxious—on account (as he believes) of its accordance with divine truth—should influence the conduct of others. If it be undoubted that his education, his tastes, his connexions, and even his prejudices, were all on the side of that conviction which he professes to have derived from patient and persevering research, it seems not unreasonable to require a copiousness and strength of argument, in its support, which, were all the circumstances affecting his relation to it decidedly unfavourable, would, perhaps, scarcely be deemed necessary.
When, however, we witness the comparatively rare occurrence of an individual, surrounded with almost every description of temptation to stifle conviction, and, by his silence at least, to perpetuate a corruption in the Christian church, which for ages has been protected by legislative authority, popular favour, and implicit faith, not only nobly triumphing over every inducement to compromise the interests of truth by refusing to surrender himself to its acknowledged claims, but venturing forth, and assailing error in its most splendid fastness, and pursuing it to its final retreat; and that to, by the employment of arguments whose overwhelming force is partly derived from the peculiar suavity with which they are urged, we are unable to resist such an occasion for exclaiming, “This is the Lord’s doing, and it is marvellous in our eyes.”
The publications which have occasioned these reflections, whose titles are placed at the head of this article, appear to us to present more than ordinary claims to public consideration. The perspicuity of their style, the force of their arguments, and especially the thoroughly Christian temper which pervades them throughout, cannot fail, if they be read, to secure commendation, even where they fail to convince. We can easily suppose it possible to find persons who may affect to despise what is thus, with every circumstance adapted to excite respect, urged upon their attention; but that any well-constituted mind, whatever be its ultimate conclusion on the subject, can treat these pamphlets with indifference, as though that to which they relate were unimportant, or that they were defective in truth and candour, is what we are extremely unwilling to believe. At the same time, we most frankly acknowledge that, owing to certain inconveniences, and, perhaps, even consequences, which we conceive might arise, in some instances at least, from a thorough and an impartial investigation of the evidence adduced by these respective and respectable writers in support of their principles, we are not altogether without apprehension, that by something approaching to a profound silence in certain quarters, or it may be by something even more beneath the dignity of Christian criticism, the powerful, though eminently temperate, appeals of these luminous pages may obtain a perusal far less extensive than is consistent either with the interests of truth, or the merits of its advocates.
Deprecating such a result of these distinguished efforts, we enter upon a more particular notice of the first of these publications. The author designates himself “a member of the Church of England;” and his design is “to prove that it is inconsistent with the principles of the New Testament” to baptize unconscious infants. The work is divided into ten sections, prefaced by a most respectful but spirit-stirring letter “to the Editor of the Christian Observer.” From this admirable appeal we extract as follows:—
“This work is the result of many reflections, excited at different times, through a long series of years, by the reading of many articles and discussions in the Christian Observer. The practice of admitting infants to the sacrament of baptism, I apprehend, must appear to almost all reflecting persons, at some times, to be of a very dubious character; and if it shall appear that the fair tendency of those parts of your work which I refer to, is to render it still more so, then I am persuaded that you will allow that the publication is, without impropriety, thus offered to your notice.”
“This work is the result of many reflections, excited at different times, through a long series of years, by the reading of many articles and discussions in the Christian Observer. The practice of admitting infants to the sacrament of baptism, I apprehend, must appear to almost all reflecting persons, at some times, to be of a very dubious character; and if it shall appear that the fair tendency of those parts of your work which I refer to, is to render it still more so, then I am persuaded that you will allow that the publication is, without impropriety, thus offered to your notice.”
He adds:—
“The question respecting the propriety of admitting infants to the sacrament of baptism must, I conceive, before long, become a subject of grave discussionwithinthe church. Then the real importance of the question will become manifest, and it will be found necessary that it should be more comprehensively considered in all its bearings, than it has hitherto been. With regard to the question, as it stands between the church and the Antipædobaptist party, excepting the question—whether it is the duty of Christian governors to promote Christianity—this, respecting infant baptism, is of more real importance thanall othersin dispute between the church andorthodoxdissenters.“The reading of the papers in an early volume of your work, on Dr. Taylor’s Key to the Apostolical Writings,first excited the reflections which led to my determination to offer, for the consideration of the Christian public, some thoughts on the subject of infant baptism.”
“The question respecting the propriety of admitting infants to the sacrament of baptism must, I conceive, before long, become a subject of grave discussionwithinthe church. Then the real importance of the question will become manifest, and it will be found necessary that it should be more comprehensively considered in all its bearings, than it has hitherto been. With regard to the question, as it stands between the church and the Antipædobaptist party, excepting the question—whether it is the duty of Christian governors to promote Christianity—this, respecting infant baptism, is of more real importance thanall othersin dispute between the church andorthodoxdissenters.
“The reading of the papers in an early volume of your work, on Dr. Taylor’s Key to the Apostolical Writings,first excited the reflections which led to my determination to offer, for the consideration of the Christian public, some thoughts on the subject of infant baptism.”
Again, in this introductory letter, we read:—
“Never before, in any way, were so large a number of persons, so competent to the task, brought together for its consideration. In your volumes, men of the deepest piety, of fine talents, and with minds every way prepared for the consideration of the subject, have laboured to produce the scriptural elucidation of the baptismal grace. I am persuaded that I should not exaggerate, if I were to say that if all the divines in Christendom had been assembled at the commencement of the present century, and had held as many sessions as the council of Trent, for the purpose of settling this question, the controversy would not have been so happily conducted as it has been in your pages, nor pursued to a more satisfactory result. But what is the result? Notwithstanding that nothing is so manifest as the effects of the operation of divine grace, for wheresoever it does operate the effects are ‘known and read of all men,’ yet in answer to the inquiry, ‘What are the nature and consequences of the grace communicated by the Holy Spirit in baptism?’ the Christian Observer, with all its voices united, declares, ‘We cannot tell.’ This issue of the matter is virtually avowed by yourself incidentally in a short sentence in the number for October, 1833, where you say, ‘The Church of England certainly assumes far more than thenudum signum, though it does not go to the length of theopus operatum.’ Within these boundaries, then, it is admitted that the proper place of rest is not yet discovered.”
“Never before, in any way, were so large a number of persons, so competent to the task, brought together for its consideration. In your volumes, men of the deepest piety, of fine talents, and with minds every way prepared for the consideration of the subject, have laboured to produce the scriptural elucidation of the baptismal grace. I am persuaded that I should not exaggerate, if I were to say that if all the divines in Christendom had been assembled at the commencement of the present century, and had held as many sessions as the council of Trent, for the purpose of settling this question, the controversy would not have been so happily conducted as it has been in your pages, nor pursued to a more satisfactory result. But what is the result? Notwithstanding that nothing is so manifest as the effects of the operation of divine grace, for wheresoever it does operate the effects are ‘known and read of all men,’ yet in answer to the inquiry, ‘What are the nature and consequences of the grace communicated by the Holy Spirit in baptism?’ the Christian Observer, with all its voices united, declares, ‘We cannot tell.’ This issue of the matter is virtually avowed by yourself incidentally in a short sentence in the number for October, 1833, where you say, ‘The Church of England certainly assumes far more than thenudum signum, though it does not go to the length of theopus operatum.’ Within these boundaries, then, it is admitted that the proper place of rest is not yet discovered.”
And yet once more:
“I now, Sir, with great humility, beg to submit that the church has made its utmost efforts in this inquiry—that every thing respecting it has been concentrated in your volumes; that the best Christian talents have been bestowed upon it in vain, up to the conclusion of the first third part of the nineteenth century, and to the commencement of the fourth century of the Reformation, and that, therefore, it is a fair conclusion that further inquiry is quite hopeless, the imagined baptismal grace for unconscious infants being manifestly an undiscoverable, non-existent thing. I wish here to add, that a reference to obvious facts leads inevitably to the same conclusion. In the all-wise providence of the great Head of the church, the matter has been brought to the test of experiment, which has been going on upon a sufficiently large scale for more than two centuries in this country. Two Christian parties have conscientiously refrained from having their children baptized; so that, if the baptizing of infants were accompanied with any measure of the Holy Spirit’s influence, the effects would have been rendered quite evident by the contrast. But what do facts declare! What spiritual advantages do baptized children discover themselves to be possessed of which unbaptized children do not possess, in cases where all other things are equal! Surely all fair Christian observers of the dispensations of the King of grace in his church, must be constrained to allow that the advantages are undiscernible, and therefore can have no existence.”
“I now, Sir, with great humility, beg to submit that the church has made its utmost efforts in this inquiry—that every thing respecting it has been concentrated in your volumes; that the best Christian talents have been bestowed upon it in vain, up to the conclusion of the first third part of the nineteenth century, and to the commencement of the fourth century of the Reformation, and that, therefore, it is a fair conclusion that further inquiry is quite hopeless, the imagined baptismal grace for unconscious infants being manifestly an undiscoverable, non-existent thing. I wish here to add, that a reference to obvious facts leads inevitably to the same conclusion. In the all-wise providence of the great Head of the church, the matter has been brought to the test of experiment, which has been going on upon a sufficiently large scale for more than two centuries in this country. Two Christian parties have conscientiously refrained from having their children baptized; so that, if the baptizing of infants were accompanied with any measure of the Holy Spirit’s influence, the effects would have been rendered quite evident by the contrast. But what do facts declare! What spiritual advantages do baptized children discover themselves to be possessed of which unbaptized children do not possess, in cases where all other things are equal! Surely all fair Christian observers of the dispensations of the King of grace in his church, must be constrained to allow that the advantages are undiscernible, and therefore can have no existence.”
There is still another passage in this sensible and truly Christian letter, which we must be allowed to present to our readers.
“It may be assumed that I have come to a wrong conclusion; but, I presume, it will be admitted to be desirable that the question I have considered should be more satisfactorily settled than it is at present, and if, as I trust it will appear, that I have examined it under no influence but the love of truth, it may be allowed that the work may be useful in assisting others to come to arightconclusion. Every man who treats a subject honestly, does something to put it in a right point of view. I confess, I cannot now hope that, if I am wrong, I shall live to be convinced of it; but truly I feel no interest in error, and I take no pleasure in differing from ministers and brethren in Christ; so that, if I were convinced of being wrong, I could renounce my present opinions with more ease than I can now divest myself of a garment.”
“It may be assumed that I have come to a wrong conclusion; but, I presume, it will be admitted to be desirable that the question I have considered should be more satisfactorily settled than it is at present, and if, as I trust it will appear, that I have examined it under no influence but the love of truth, it may be allowed that the work may be useful in assisting others to come to arightconclusion. Every man who treats a subject honestly, does something to put it in a right point of view. I confess, I cannot now hope that, if I am wrong, I shall live to be convinced of it; but truly I feel no interest in error, and I take no pleasure in differing from ministers and brethren in Christ; so that, if I were convinced of being wrong, I could renounce my present opinions with more ease than I can now divest myself of a garment.”
Whether the able writer to whom these respectful and impressive appeals are made, will so far resist their influence as to make no reply, and attempt no vindication from the charge of a destructive error, so distinctly brought against the church of which he is a member, remains to be seen; yet, after reading the powerful pages to which the preceding extracts are prefixed, if it be expected that the Scripturesexclusivelyare to be admitted as evidence in repellingthe accusation, we must confess ourselves utterly at a loss to conceive how it is possible that any satisfactoryanswershould be given. But if our author cannot be answered, let him at least be heard. He says:—
“In the present day, no intelligent evangelical writer would think of advancing such things as Hooker and some other eminent and good men have said on the subject of baptism. Men of reflection and genuine Christian character now perceive themselves here to be but in cloudy regions, where mighty minds have strangely bewildered themselves, and refrain from venturing distinct speculations and positive assertions. They do not come forward with anything like the confidence of their predecessors. They speak strongly against theopus operatumof Papists, and papistical Protestants; and though they would not be thought to deny that grace is, in some way, connected with baptism in the case of infants, yet they frequently make it evident that they would rather escape from close discussion. There is a remarkable instance of this in the Bampton Lectures of the late Dr. Heber, Bishop of Calcutta. He says: ‘Both grace and comfort, if they are not necessarily inherent in the washing of regeneration, and the eucharistic bread and wine, may at least be attained by a proper use of those means.’ Surely this obscure and doubtful passage, on a subject simple and apprehensible enough in Holy Scripture, is something different to what ought to be expected from a profoundly learned ruler of the church. What Christian ever thought of denying that grace and comfort might be attained by a proper use of these ordinances? On the other hand, are we to be driven to the mortification of supposing that, in the present day, others beside Papists can be induced to suppose that grace and comfort can benecessarily inherentin any thing material? Upon the whole, I think it is evident to an observer, that there is some hesitation and want of confidence among thinking members of the church with regard to this view of baptism: yet the idea of a mysterious connexion between themateriel(if I may use the word) of the ordinances and divine grace, has by no means lost its hold of the mind; which is in a great measure owing to the magic influence of imaginary sacred words. Such terms as ‘elements,’ ‘holy mysteries,’ have a strange effect in causing men to feel as though it would be sacrilegious and presumptuous to open their eyes, and view those divine institutions in the light of Scripture.“But the imagination, that the application of the ordinance of baptism to unconscious infants is a divinely appointed medium of grace to them, is so incompatible with real facts, that a philanthropic Christian, who looks around, and has his heart affected by the real state of society, even in this country, if he could at that moment be brought closely to reconsider this opinion, which, at other moments, when facts are forgotten, raise delightful feelings in his mind, could not but have his eyes open to the fallacy:—the illusion would vanish at once. If baptism were a divinely appointed medium of spiritual good to the minds of infants, then its beneficial tendency must appear in the development of children in Christian countries. If this manifestly appeared to be the case, all controversy would be at an end. But do the instructors of youth discover it? Has the warmest advocate for the practice of baptizing children ever ventured such an assertion? And if infants grow up, believe, and are baptized, is it conceivable that their heavenly lot will be at all worse than that of those who were baptized in their infancy; or that, if they die unbaptized, without any fault of their own, they will in any wise suffer for the omission? Now if all these questions be answered in the negative, as undoubtedly they must, what becomes of the imaginary paradise of blessings and privileges to which baptism is to introduce the millions of our infants? Why should the holy Lord God, our Saviour, be represented as mocking his church by promises of mysterious, pompous nothings?” pp. 65-69.
“In the present day, no intelligent evangelical writer would think of advancing such things as Hooker and some other eminent and good men have said on the subject of baptism. Men of reflection and genuine Christian character now perceive themselves here to be but in cloudy regions, where mighty minds have strangely bewildered themselves, and refrain from venturing distinct speculations and positive assertions. They do not come forward with anything like the confidence of their predecessors. They speak strongly against theopus operatumof Papists, and papistical Protestants; and though they would not be thought to deny that grace is, in some way, connected with baptism in the case of infants, yet they frequently make it evident that they would rather escape from close discussion. There is a remarkable instance of this in the Bampton Lectures of the late Dr. Heber, Bishop of Calcutta. He says: ‘Both grace and comfort, if they are not necessarily inherent in the washing of regeneration, and the eucharistic bread and wine, may at least be attained by a proper use of those means.’ Surely this obscure and doubtful passage, on a subject simple and apprehensible enough in Holy Scripture, is something different to what ought to be expected from a profoundly learned ruler of the church. What Christian ever thought of denying that grace and comfort might be attained by a proper use of these ordinances? On the other hand, are we to be driven to the mortification of supposing that, in the present day, others beside Papists can be induced to suppose that grace and comfort can benecessarily inherentin any thing material? Upon the whole, I think it is evident to an observer, that there is some hesitation and want of confidence among thinking members of the church with regard to this view of baptism: yet the idea of a mysterious connexion between themateriel(if I may use the word) of the ordinances and divine grace, has by no means lost its hold of the mind; which is in a great measure owing to the magic influence of imaginary sacred words. Such terms as ‘elements,’ ‘holy mysteries,’ have a strange effect in causing men to feel as though it would be sacrilegious and presumptuous to open their eyes, and view those divine institutions in the light of Scripture.
“But the imagination, that the application of the ordinance of baptism to unconscious infants is a divinely appointed medium of grace to them, is so incompatible with real facts, that a philanthropic Christian, who looks around, and has his heart affected by the real state of society, even in this country, if he could at that moment be brought closely to reconsider this opinion, which, at other moments, when facts are forgotten, raise delightful feelings in his mind, could not but have his eyes open to the fallacy:—the illusion would vanish at once. If baptism were a divinely appointed medium of spiritual good to the minds of infants, then its beneficial tendency must appear in the development of children in Christian countries. If this manifestly appeared to be the case, all controversy would be at an end. But do the instructors of youth discover it? Has the warmest advocate for the practice of baptizing children ever ventured such an assertion? And if infants grow up, believe, and are baptized, is it conceivable that their heavenly lot will be at all worse than that of those who were baptized in their infancy; or that, if they die unbaptized, without any fault of their own, they will in any wise suffer for the omission? Now if all these questions be answered in the negative, as undoubtedly they must, what becomes of the imaginary paradise of blessings and privileges to which baptism is to introduce the millions of our infants? Why should the holy Lord God, our Saviour, be represented as mocking his church by promises of mysterious, pompous nothings?” pp. 65-69.
Thus it is that this author remonstrates with the members of his own communion. But does he neglect to extend the application of the argument to other Pædobaptists? The reader shall be put in possession of the means of judging.
“But if the Church of England rests this practice on such insufficient grounds, how do the Pædobaptist Congregationalists support the practice? They appear to me to have scarcely any ground at all which they can acknowledge, consistently with their fundamental principles as Congregationalists. They are supported in the practice wholly by clinging to custom, and by borrowing the arguments of the advocates of national churches just for an occasion. It is quite inconsistent with their principles to acknowledge such a visible church as infants are professedlyintroduced to by baptism. They recognise no such church, except on the occasion of baptizing their children. They admit of no officers, and allow no government, for such a church. They consider all apparently unconnected persons as belonging only to the world, and admit their own children to become members of their churches exactly in the same way as they would a stranger coming from a country not professing Christianity; except that, in their case, they are saved the ceremony of baptizing, which is the divinely appointed way of admission into a visible church. National ecclesiastical establishments, which yet unavoidably resulted from the practice of infant baptism, they hold to be altogether anti-scriptural, and founded upon an anti-christian union of church and state. They have, therefore, no reasonable pretence for arguing for the practice from the appointment of circumcision, which can with consistency be used only by those who think that Christianity was designed to have a secular, external character. Some of them, indeed, seem ashamed of this obvious inconsistency, and have recourse to an imaginary distinction between the covenant of redemption and the covenant of grace; and instead of professing that by baptism they make their children members of the visible church, they assert that by doing so they place them visibly within the one covenant, though not within the other. But a serious refutation of such a notion can hardly be necessary; it may be classed with other unintelligible and unauthorized imaginations.“The members of the church, retaining their veneration for the notions respecting the sacraments established as catholic in the primitive ages, have some specious ground of hope that the administration of the ordinance to their infants will be accompanied with a communication of grace, in consequence of the imagined occult connexion between the ‘elements’ and the grace of the ordinance, they have, with something like a pretence of reason, expected that their children might thereby be made members of Christ, children of God, and heirs of the kingdom of heaven. They are persuaded that it is consistent with truth to speak of baptism for infants as ‘the washing of regeneration,’ the laver of regeneration—the well-spring of divine life, &c., &c., and that in this matter they rightly exercise Christian submission in following ‘the sacramental host of God's elect.’ But the Independents have no pretence of the kind for this application of a holy ordinance to infants. They expect their children to derive no benefit from it, other than what they would derive through their prayers, and from the blessing of God in bringing them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. They renounce all deference to catholic authority in matters of religion and conscience, and profess to believe that all the light which the case requires is to be found in the Scriptures, and that it is dangerous to follow any other. They have also no more right to use the argument drawn from the baptism of households, than they have that drawn from circumcision: they are both founded on the same principle—an assumption that the doors of the Christian visible church have been opened by our Lord himself to the unconscious and unconverted, in diametrical opposition to the principles on which they found their opposition to the established church. Surely it cannot be, that wise master-builders should much longer employ themselves in daubing this papal wall with untempered mortar.” p. 39-92.
“But if the Church of England rests this practice on such insufficient grounds, how do the Pædobaptist Congregationalists support the practice? They appear to me to have scarcely any ground at all which they can acknowledge, consistently with their fundamental principles as Congregationalists. They are supported in the practice wholly by clinging to custom, and by borrowing the arguments of the advocates of national churches just for an occasion. It is quite inconsistent with their principles to acknowledge such a visible church as infants are professedlyintroduced to by baptism. They recognise no such church, except on the occasion of baptizing their children. They admit of no officers, and allow no government, for such a church. They consider all apparently unconnected persons as belonging only to the world, and admit their own children to become members of their churches exactly in the same way as they would a stranger coming from a country not professing Christianity; except that, in their case, they are saved the ceremony of baptizing, which is the divinely appointed way of admission into a visible church. National ecclesiastical establishments, which yet unavoidably resulted from the practice of infant baptism, they hold to be altogether anti-scriptural, and founded upon an anti-christian union of church and state. They have, therefore, no reasonable pretence for arguing for the practice from the appointment of circumcision, which can with consistency be used only by those who think that Christianity was designed to have a secular, external character. Some of them, indeed, seem ashamed of this obvious inconsistency, and have recourse to an imaginary distinction between the covenant of redemption and the covenant of grace; and instead of professing that by baptism they make their children members of the visible church, they assert that by doing so they place them visibly within the one covenant, though not within the other. But a serious refutation of such a notion can hardly be necessary; it may be classed with other unintelligible and unauthorized imaginations.
“The members of the church, retaining their veneration for the notions respecting the sacraments established as catholic in the primitive ages, have some specious ground of hope that the administration of the ordinance to their infants will be accompanied with a communication of grace, in consequence of the imagined occult connexion between the ‘elements’ and the grace of the ordinance, they have, with something like a pretence of reason, expected that their children might thereby be made members of Christ, children of God, and heirs of the kingdom of heaven. They are persuaded that it is consistent with truth to speak of baptism for infants as ‘the washing of regeneration,’ the laver of regeneration—the well-spring of divine life, &c., &c., and that in this matter they rightly exercise Christian submission in following ‘the sacramental host of God's elect.’ But the Independents have no pretence of the kind for this application of a holy ordinance to infants. They expect their children to derive no benefit from it, other than what they would derive through their prayers, and from the blessing of God in bringing them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. They renounce all deference to catholic authority in matters of religion and conscience, and profess to believe that all the light which the case requires is to be found in the Scriptures, and that it is dangerous to follow any other. They have also no more right to use the argument drawn from the baptism of households, than they have that drawn from circumcision: they are both founded on the same principle—an assumption that the doors of the Christian visible church have been opened by our Lord himself to the unconscious and unconverted, in diametrical opposition to the principles on which they found their opposition to the established church. Surely it cannot be, that wise master-builders should much longer employ themselves in daubing this papal wall with untempered mortar.” p. 39-92.
We are decidedly of opinion that whoever may take upon himself to reply seriously to these statements, will find the undertaking to be neither quite easy nor very agreeable. It may not be improper to state that this is a new and somewhat enlarged edition of a work, published several years ago, by the same author.
Dr. Judson’s sermon, which is also a reprint, is perspicuous, elaborate, and irrefragable.
1.The Management of Bees, with a Description of the Ladies’ Safety Hive: with Forty Illustrative Engravings.BySamuel Bagster, Jun., pp. 244. Bagster.
2.Spiritual Honey from Natural Hives; or Meditations and Observations on the Natural History and Habits of Bees: first introduced to public notice in 1657.BySamuel Purchase, M.A.pp. 176.—Bagster.
The worthy editor of these volumes has, we think, exercised a sound discretion in publishing them separately. To the initiated in apiarian research, “The Management of Bees” cannot fail to be highly interesting. For our own part, we must confess that, if certain minute descriptions which may possibly offend a refined moral sensibility, could have been omitted, we should have considered the work more valuable on that account. Perhaps our hint may prove availablefor a future edition. With this exception, we would most cordially recommend this production to the perusal of our readers generally; and to those who are engaged in the study of that part of natural history to which it refers, especially. The engravings are exceedingly creditable to the talent of the artist.
As to the “Meditations” contained in the other volume, they are altogether above our praise. They are eminently instructive and pious, admirably calculated to secure the attention even of the thoughtless, and to promote, in a very high degree, the pleasure and the profit of the considerate. In confirmation, we present our readers with the following specimen:
“If the bee lights upon a flower where there is no honey (being wasted or gathered before), she quickly gets off, and flies away to another that will furnish her. Let us not lose ourselves and forget our errand: our father, Adam, lost our happiness, and we are sent to seek it; seek it where it is, and go handsomely to work; say, I am not for riches, they are made for me; I am not for creatures, they are made for me, and I am their master; therefore these cannot make me happy: I am made for eternity, for everlasting life and happiness; therefore, let me study that; mind that end beyond inferior ends. Why do men seek wealth, but to be happy? Why pleasures, why honours, but because they would be happy? If these things cannot bless and enhappy me, why should I burn daylight? why should I not off them, as the bee gets off the plants that yield her no honey, and once, at last, see where my happiness lies, in pursuing happiness, and where my happiness lies, in God’s ways; the first step whereof is poverty of spirit?” p. 22.
“If the bee lights upon a flower where there is no honey (being wasted or gathered before), she quickly gets off, and flies away to another that will furnish her. Let us not lose ourselves and forget our errand: our father, Adam, lost our happiness, and we are sent to seek it; seek it where it is, and go handsomely to work; say, I am not for riches, they are made for me; I am not for creatures, they are made for me, and I am their master; therefore these cannot make me happy: I am made for eternity, for everlasting life and happiness; therefore, let me study that; mind that end beyond inferior ends. Why do men seek wealth, but to be happy? Why pleasures, why honours, but because they would be happy? If these things cannot bless and enhappy me, why should I burn daylight? why should I not off them, as the bee gets off the plants that yield her no honey, and once, at last, see where my happiness lies, in pursuing happiness, and where my happiness lies, in God’s ways; the first step whereof is poverty of spirit?” p. 22.
We hope these valuable reflections will be often reprinted.
Poems on Sacred Subjects.ByMaria Grace Saffery.Hamilton and Co.; Darton and Harvey.
These poems are from the pen of the widow of the late Rev. John Saffery, of Salisbury, whose name is still fragrant there, and in many other places; whose zealous labours of love in our Bengal Mission, and in the propagation of the gospel in Ireland, will long be remembered.
Rich in Scripture knowledge and in Christian experience, with a lively imagination and a great command of language, the writer has poured out her melodious strains from the fulness of her heart.
Most of the subjects are taken from the Old Testament or the New, and the versification embraces a great variety of metres, with the ease and sweetness almost peculiar to female writers. The whole book of Jonah is finely illustrated in a series of poems which cannot fail to please.
This little volume is introduced by a modest preface, and a “Sonnet inscribed to the memory of the Rev. J. Saffery,” which is worth transcribing:—
“Thou hadst a soul for melody to greet,When thou wert here, among the weary-hearted;And thoughts of thee are like sweet sounds departed,That visit time with echoes,—and repeatStrains that were breath’d beside my pilgrim feet;As if I heard the voice of my past years,And thou wert singing in this vale of tears.But ’tis not in the desert we shall meet—And who would wish thee where the world is weeping?Thou hast a blessed minstrelsy on high.The lyre of praise, o’er which thy song is sweeping,Hath not a pause like mine—a pause to sigh.Harps strung for holiest themes to both are given;But mine is tun’d on earth—and thine, in heaven.”
Many others are exquisitely sweet. We have been particularly pleased with one on Jonathan’s friendship, which concludes thus:—
“O chieftain! in thy life was seenThat friendship in immortal mould,To which ambition’s hope is mean,And woman’s kindest thought is cold.
“Gilboa! let thy mountain-heathLike Jesse’s gentle harp complain;There Israel’s beauty bow’d in death,There Jonathan, the friend, was slain!”
The work is very neatly got up, and we are glad to observe that the subscribers’ names are numerous, and highly respectable.
an appeal to christian ladies, in behalf of female education in china, india, and the east.
From the last census taken by the Chinese government in 1813, it appears that the population of that empire was then 362,447,183; a population more than twenty times as great as that of Greenland, Labrador, the Canadas, the West Indies, the South Sea Islands, the Cape, Madagascar, Greece, Egypt, Abyssinia, and Ceylon,—i.e., more than twenty times as large as nearly the whole field of Christian missions, India and the East being excepted.
In 1821, the missionary, Dr. Milne, calculated the population of Cochin China, Corea, Loo-choo, Japan, and other districts tributary to China, to be about 60,000,000. If there should be in those countries, with Burmah and Siam, only 20,000,000 instead of 60,000,000, they form an important field of missionary labour. The British subjects of continental and ultra-Gangetic India, are 77,743,178; the population more or less under British influence in India, is 33,994,000; making a total under British influence in India, of 111,736,178. Of the 362 millions of the Chinese empire, probably 150 millions are females; and among the 111 millions of India there are about 50 millions more; so that, in these two countries, there are 200 millions of heathen females demanding our commiseration and Christian care.
The condition of the Chinese women is thus described by the missionary Gutzlaff:—“Such a general degradation in religion makes it almost impossible that females should have their proper rank in society. They are the slaves and concubines of their masters, live and die in ignorance, and every effort to raise themselves above the rank assigned them, is regarded as impious arrogance. As long as mothers are not the instructors of their children, and wives are not the companions of their husbands, the regeneration of this great empire will proceed very slowly.” As might be expected, suicide is a refuge to which thousands of these ignorant idolaters fly. “The unnatural crime of infanticide is so common among them, that it is perpetrated without any feeling, and even in a laughing mood. There is also carried on a regular traffic in females.”
The condition of the Hindoo women is, if possible, worse. They are treated as slaves, may not eat with their husbands, and are expressly permitted by law to be beaten. Degraded and despised, they naturally sink towards the level assigned them by public opinion. They have no mental employment whatever; and being very much excluded by the extreme jealousy of which they are the objects, from missionary instruction, it appears that their miserable condition must be perpetuated, till Hindoo society undergoes a radical change, unless they be improved by Christian schools.
To meet these necessities, a society has been formed of ladies of various denominations, united together by Christian piety, for the wretched female population whom they wish to elevate and bless. Some of the objects to which the Committee will direct their attention, are the following:
1. To collect and to diffuse information on the subject.
2. To prepare and send out pious and intelligent women, as trainers and superintendents of the native female teachers.
3. To assist those who may be anxious to form female schools in accordance with the rules of this society, by grants of money, books, and superintendence.
What Christian lady, to whom this appeal may come, will refuse her co-operation in so good a work! To aid the beneficent legislation of a paternal government in the improvement of so large a population committed to our care; to rescue the weak from oppression, and to comfort the miserable in their sorrow; to give to the infant population of India, and of China, the blessings of maternal wisdom and piety; to teach the men of those nations, that those who are now their degraded slaves, may be their companions, counsellors, and friends; to disgrace, by a knowledge of the rudiments of European science, those fabulous and polluted legends of their sacred books, which are at variance with geographical and astronomical facts; to make them acquainted with the Bible, which now they cannot read; to place them under the instruction of the missionary, from whom they are at present excluded; to bring them to the knowledge of Christ, and to prove that his grace can do more in a few years tobless them, than centuries of heathenism could do to degrade them;—these are the great objects which carried Mrs. Wilson to the children of Hindostan, and Miss Wallace to those of China: but, while “the harvest truly is plenteous, the labourers are few.” Other women of equal capacity, and who can show the same perseverance springing from compassion and faith, must follow the good example. And if they offer themselves to this work of the Lord, will not the Christian women of this country, by sending them forth, and supporting them in their work, show to the continent and the world, that gratitude to God and to Christ for the blessings of providence and grace, can kindle in their hearts an earnest and self-denying pity for those who, though they speak in other tongues, and are separated from us by half the earth’s circumference, are yet as capable of joy and sorrow as ourselves, and are among those to whom our Redeemer has commanded that the gospel should be preached?
Wives, who are happy in the affection and esteem of your husbands; mothers, who enjoy your children’s reverence and gratitude; children, who have been blessed by a mother’s example, and a mother’s care; sisters, who have found in brothers your warmest friends; Christian women, who feel that you can lend to society its charm, and receive from it a loyal courtesy in return; protected, honoured, and loved—impart your blessings to those who are miserable because they are without them. If your minds are intelligent and cultivated—if your lives are useful and happy—and if you can look for a blessed immortality beyond the grave, do not, for the love of Christ, whose sufferings have been the source of all your blessings, and of all your hopes, do not refuse to make Him known, that the degraded millions of the East may, like you, be “blessed in Him,” and, like you, may “call him blessed.”
Those readers who desire further information may obtain it from Mr. Suter, 19, Cheapside; by whom contributions will be thankfully received.
extract from the forty-fifth quarterly register of the baptist home mission.
The Committee of this Society desire, humbly and thankfully, to acknowledge the goodness of God for the many favourable openings which appear for the “spread of the gospel at home.”
Whilst they deeply regret that, for want of means, they cannot employ more labourers, they gratefully record some unexpected supplies to their exhausted funds; they indulge the hope that many of their fellow Christians will follow the example of their friend, Mr. Nice, and others, who have nobly come to the help of the Lord in time of need.
The following extract from the Report of the Auxiliary Society forExeter and North Devonwill, it is hoped, be acceptable as a specimen of that work which all true Christians pray may prosper.
“AtTorrington, our brotherPulsfordstill continues to carry on the work of the Lord with the true spirit of a laborious minister of the word, ever zealous in the work, and watching for the salvation of souls; and the great Head of the church has again honoured him with the reward of his labours. Possessed with heartfelt love for souls, he appears to have continually before him, as his motto, ‘Work while it is day; for the night cometh in which no man can work;’ he is instant in season and out of season. From his letter of the 15th inst., we make the following extract:—‘I have great pleasure in stating that the Lord in his great mercy continues to bless our feeble instrumentality, thirty-two have been brought to the knowledge of the truth, and added to the church by baptism since October last; and we continue to carry the word of life into thirteen villages, in many of which the power and glory of God are seen and felt. Glory be to his name. AtLangtree, we have long mourned the lack of room, but I am happy to state that a chapel which will contain about 150 is nearly finished. AtLangtree Wickwe want to do the same, and trust that the great Head of the church will prepare the way for our doing so before long. AtSt. Giles, we have added another room to the one we occupied; and atHatherleighwe have baptized ten, and as many more appear to be converted to God, and will follow the Lord in that delightful ordinance soon. Our new place of worship at Hatherleigh is covered in, and things wear a very pleasing aspect. O for the downpouring of the Holy Spirit, that the sacred fire may spread from village to village, and from town to town, till the whole world shall be full of the glory of God! Nothing is wanting to obtain this, but the hearty co-operation of all our churches in the great work—the entering into religion withallthe heart, andallthe soul, eachone laying himself or herself out for God, and the eternal welfare of their fellow-creatures. We have four Sunday-schools, in which 280 children are taught the word and way of God, and we trust will yield a future harvest to the church.’”
the bishop of london and the dissenters.
(From the Times.)
A second edition of a “Remonstrance addressed to the Lord Bishop of London, on the Sanction given, in his late Charge to the Clergy of that Diocese, to the Calumnies against the Dissenters contained in certain Letters signed L. S. E.,” has recently appeared, with the respectable name of Mr. Charles Lushington. The letters referred to, which are addressed to a Dissenting minister of the Congregational denomination, and written, it appears, by a clergyman of the church of England, might well be mistaken for a subtle and refined ruse of a bitter enemy of that church. At a moment when the feelings of the Dissenters are wrought up to intense excitement by a sense of wrong from grievances unredressed, an individual of that class who teach from the pulpit that a man who lacketh charity lacketh every thing, has had the daring effrontery to vomit forth a mass of rancorous scurrility against the whole Dissenting body, especially its teachers, applying to them epithets proscribed in almost every species of polemical warfare, except that carried on by Carlile and his party, detailing disgusting anecdotes thinly veiled in the decency of a Latin translation, excluding them from the pale of Christianity, and proclaiming that “the curse of God rests heavily upon them!” It is to be regretted that there are a few individuals of the letter-writer’s class, men who have exchanged the sword for the gown, or who desire to transform the pen into the sword; but these intolerant zealots, so long as their acts are not countenanced by their superiors, do but little mischief. The letters in question, however, have been specifically recommended in a note appended to the late charge of the Bishop of London, as “containing a great deal of useful information and sound reasoning, set forth with a little too much warmth of invective against the Dissenters.” Mr. Lushington, who avows himself a member of the church of England, has had the candour and manliness to step forward and publicly vindicate the Dissenters from the effects of such a recommendation of such a work, suggesting, at the same time, “some political and Christian considerations, which should operate to secure for those calumniated persons a little more conciliatoriness from their opponents, and a far greater measure of justice from their judges.” He shows what the Dissenters have done, and are doing, to supply the deficiencies of the established church; he disproves the accusation that the Dissenters, as a body, seek to destroy that church, which would be repugnant to the system to which they owe their distinction as a religious body; and he suggests that, if the religious wants of the community are to be adequately supplied, it must be by one of three plans—either by the establishment and other sects, as at present; or by the establishment alone, all other sects being merged, comprehended, or put down; or by the episcopal church and other denominations, without an establishment. He assumes that the second is impracticable, inasmuch as the establishment could not be extended, on the basis of taxation, so as to meet the wants of the population, and the sects could not be merged or put down. The choice is, therefore, between the first, which renders the Dissenters necessary as auxiliaries, and therefore to be conciliated; and the third, which would reduce the church of England to the dimensions of an episcopal, but non-established, church. Such frenzied partisans as “L. S. E.” would be more likely to bring about the third alternative than the second.
extract from a correspondent’s letter, addressed to the right rev. the lord bishop of london.
My Lord,
In the notes appended to your Lordship’s Charge, delivered at the last visitation, reference is made to a work, entitled, “Letters to a Dissenting Minister, &c., by L. S. E.” It is most prudently admitted, that the work contains “too much sharpness of invective against the dissenters;” your Lordship has, however, added, “I recommend the publication as containing a great deal of useful information and sound reasoning.”
It was prudent in L. S. E. not to attach his name to a work that would give him a notoriety for impudence and slander which no future penitence could by any possibility remove. How far it was wise to sanction with the authority of your Lordship’s name, the work of an author who had not the rashness to reveal his own, remains for theeffects it will produce upon society to determine.
L. S. E. has stated in page 360, that “the late Mr. Abraham Booth,[B]an eminent dissenting teacher in London, would never pray for the King (George the Third) at all.” Allow me, therefore, to inform your Lordship and the nameless individual who enjoys your patronage, that the assertion is entirely false. During the thirty-seven years in which he administered the ordinances and truth of Jesus Christ in Prescot-street, he not only never refused, but made it his uniform practice, to pray for “our rightful Sovereign the King, his Royal Consort the Queen, and every branch of the Royal Family;” of this many living witnesses may be brought, who still remain the fruits of his exertions. Much sympathy is due to your Lordship on account of the present intensity of professional excitement; but the injunction laid by inspiration upon a Bishop must not be forgotten, “Lay hands suddenly on no man, neither be thou partaker in other men’s sins: keep thyself pure.”
With sincere respect, I am, my Lord, your Lordship’s humble servant,Isaac Booth.Hackney, Dec. 4, 1834.
duties arising out of the present aspect of political affairs.
At a Meeting of the “Deputies from the several Congregations of Protestant Dissenters of the Three Denominations in and within twelve miles of London, appointed to protect their Civil Rights,” held at the King’s Head Tavern in the Poultry, on Friday, the 19th day of December, 1834.
Henry Waymouth, Esq., in the Chair.
Resolved,
That this Deputation cordially approves of the following Resolutions of the United Committee of Protestant Dissenters in London, passed on the 18th ult.; viz.—
“That, while this Committee bows to the exercise of the Royal Prerogative, they have learned, with feelings of unfeigned and profound regret, the sudden dismissal from His Majesty’s Councils of his late confidential advisers; entertaining, as they do, a cordial approbation of the general measures of their Administration, and confiding in their principles as the sincere friends of civil and religious freedom.
“That, while the Committee cannot but express their disappointment and sorrow that the just claims of Protestant Dissenters have hitherto been postponed, they are convinced that such delay on the part of His Majesty’s late Government arose chiefly from the obstructions to which they were subject, both from ecclesiastical and political opponents. The regret which this Committee feels at the dismissal of the late Administration is also greatly aggravated by the assurance that it has occurred at a moment when its members were preparing means of redress for the chief practical grievances of which Dissenters complain.
“That, in the probable event of a General Election, this Committee confidently anticipates, from the Protestant Dissenters throughout the empire, the most decided and uncompromising opposition to that political party who have avowed themselves the unflinching opponents of their interests, and whose speeches and votes on the Bill for the admission of Dissenters to the Universities, ought never to be forgotten; and, in the event of such election, this Committee relies also on all classes of Dissenters for the immediate adoption of measures best calculated to ensure the return, as Representatives to Parliament, of men liberal and enlightened in their views, the tried friends of Religious Liberty, National Improvement, and Universal Freedom.
“That this Committee pledges itself to persevere in seeking the full and immediate relief of the practical Grievances of Protestant Dissenters upon the principles it has repeatedly avowed.”
That this Deputation strongly urges upon its Constituents the importance of promptly and vigorously acting upon the recommendations contained in the foregoing resolutions as to the choice of Representatives in the ensuing Parliament.
That the declaration of the line of policy intended to be pursued by the Administration of Sir Robert Peel, as contained in his address to the Electors of Tamworth, is most unsatisfactory to Dissenters, and affords no prospect of the adoption of liberal measures on the part of the Cabinet of which he is the head.
That this deputation cannot but record its total want of reliance on the granting of any effectual relief to Dissenters by a political party which have ever been opposed to the affording to that numerous and important body their just and equal rights as subjects of the Realm.
That the foregoing Resolutions be inserted in the “Morning Chronicle,” “Morning Post,” “Morning Advertiser,” “Globe,” “Standard,” and “Patriot” newspapers.
resolutions occasioned by the letter from the american board of foreign missions[C]to the board of baptist ministers in and near london.
At a meeting of the Board of Baptist Ministers, specially convened at Fen Court, Nov. 25th, 1834, the Rev. F. A. Cox, LL.D. in the Chair, the above communication having been read, the following resolution was adopted:—
Resolved unanimously,
“That we receive with much pleasure the expressions of esteem and attachment, and fully participate in the affectionate sentiments, contained in the letter of the American Board of Foreign Missions, dated Boston, Sept. 1, 1834; and while we deeply regret that, in the judgment of the said Board, it would violate the Constitution of the Triennial Convention to entertain our communication of the 31st Dec. 1833, we hope that such of our American brethren as concur in the opinions of that communication, will adopt every means consistent with Christian principles, to diffuse their sentiments, and thus secure the immediate and entire extinction of their slave system.
“That the Secretary be requested to transmit the above Resolution to the Vice President of the Baptist Board for Foreign Missions in the United States.
“It having been reported to the Board, that our brethren who have been requested by the Baptist Union to go as a deputation to our Baptist brethren in America, having consulted their respective churches, have acceded to the wishes of the Union;”
Resolved unanimously,
“That this Board, feeling the importance of the deputation to America appointed by the Baptist Union, earnestly recommends, that the churches in London and its vicinity collect, in what way they may severally think proper, towards the expenses of such an object.”
J. B. Shenston,Secretary.
british voluntary church society.
Resolution passed by the Board of Baptist Ministers at a meeting specially convened at Fen Court, Dec. 16, 1834, the Rev. W. Newman, D.D. in the Chair.
“That, approving the principles and objects of the British Voluntary Church Society, this Board strongly recommends the churches of our denomination to promote its operations by every means in their power; either by obtaining subscriptions, by lending their places of worship for the delivering of lectures, or by any other means which their judgment may suggest.
“That the Secretary be requested to transmit the above Resolution to the Secretaries of the British Voluntary Church Society, and to send a copy for insertion in the Baptist Magazine.”
J. B. Shenston,Secretary.
N.B. Persons subscribing not less than2s. 6d.per annum, are members of this Society.—Ed.
unicorn-yard chapel, tooley-street, southwark, erected, 1720.
From the decayed state of this place of worship, and for the safety of those persons who assemble therein, at the recommendation of several architects, a new wall has been erected, and the building generally having undergone a thorough repair, with 200 additional sittings, and baptistry, &c. was re-opened for the worship of God, on Thursday, November 27, 1834, when three sermons were preached; that in the morning by the Rev. Dr. Andrews, of Walworth, from Heb. ix. 12; that in the afternoon, by the Rev. Thomas Shirley, of Seven Oaks; and that in the evening, by the Rev. J. H. Evans, A.M., of John-street chapel, Bedford-row, when upwards of thirty pounds were collected.
The church now encouraged by considerable additions, and the regular attendance of an increasing congregation, take this opportunity of gratefully acknowledging the services of those good men who helped them in their low estate, and also to record the loving-kindness of the Lord who has so graciously appeared in reviving us under the ministry of our present pastor, the Rev. D. Denham (late of Margate), who was publicly recognized as our pastor, with three of our brethren as deacons, on Monday, Dec. 15, 1834. The Rev. G. Comb, of Oxford-st., delivered the introductory discourse, and asked the church and minister the usual questions. The Rev. M. Dovey, of Rotherhithe, offered up the ordination prayer; and the Rev. Thomas Shirley, of Seven Oaks, gave an affectionate charge to the pastor from 1 Cor. iv. 1, 2. The Rev. J. Smith, of Shoreditch, explained the deacon’s office, showing the qualification and grace required to fill it, and then in a most scriptural manner addressed the church from Heb. xiii. 22. Messrs. Benson, Bridgeman, Moial, Boddington, and Hewlett, engaged in the other parts of the services.
N.B. The expenses of general repairs and enlargement of the chapel (which will now seat about 700 persons, including a number of free sittings) will rather exceed 400 pounds; and as nearlyhalf that sumhas been realized by the exertions of a few individuals, we trust our appeal will not be in vain to those Christian friends to whom God has given the means of assisting us, and whose delight is to promote the cause of Christ upon earth. Donations, however small, will be thankfully received if forwarded to our Treasurer, Mr. Richard Edwards, 6, Chester-place, Old Kent-road.
NOTICE.
The next Quarterly Meeting of the London Baptist Association, will be held at Devonshire-sq. chapel, on Wednesday evening, January 21, 1835, when a sermon will be preached by the Rev. J. E. Giles, on the Duties of Church Members towards the Unconverted. Service to commence at seven o’clock.
RECENT DEATHS.
rev. dr. carey.
In the Philanthropist the event is thus noticed: “The Rev. Dr. Carey died at Serampore, after a protracted illness of nine months, on Monday morning last, the 9th instant (June) in the 73rd year of his age.” The same paper contains the following account, copied from another paper, [The Sumachar Derpun] published at Serampore. “We have to communicate intelligence to-day, which will be received with general lamentation, not only throughout India, but throughout the world. Dr. Carey has finished his pilgrimage on earth, having gently expired early last Monday morning, the 9th of June. For several years past his health has been very infirm, and his strength has gradually sunk, until the weary wheels of nature stood still, from mere debility, and not from disease. The peculiarly hot weather and rainy season of 1833 reduced him to such extreme weakness, that in September last he experienced a stroke of apoplexy, and for some time after his death was expected daily. It pleased God, however, to revive him a little. During the cold season he could again take a morning and evening ride in his palanquin carriage, and spend much of the day reclining in an easy chair with a book in his hand, or conversing cheerfully with any friend that called. As, however, the hot weather advanced, he sunk daily into still greater debility than before, and could take no nourishment. He lay helpless and speechless on his bed until his skin was worn off his body, and death was a merciful relief. His dearest friends could not but rejoice, that his sufferings were ended, although they mourn his loss to themselves and to mankind.”
For further particulars of this distinguished man, we refer our readers to the Missionary Herald.
j. f. beard.
At Scarborough, Yorkshire, November the 9th, after a short illness, James Freeman Beard, in the 74th year of his age. He was formerly, for many years, the respected pastor of the church of Christ at Worstead, Norfolk, where his ardent labours in the surrounding villages will long be remembered.
DISTRIBUTION OF PROFITS.
The following sums, from the profits of this work, were voted to the widows whose initials follow, at the meeting of proprietors, on Friday, the 19th ult.