have taken part in more than one ordinationservice. In this town, the Rev. Professor Scholefield and Mr. Edmonds are the only ministers who were here when I came; and of those who took part in my ordination-service, all but two are gone to their rest.

A moiety of thirty-five years involves serious considerations, and would have supplied abundant materials for solemn record, monition, and valediction.

The Right Use of Leisure. An Address delivered before the Members of the Lincoln Early Closing Association. By GEORGE BOOLE. 8vo, pp. 25. London Nisbet.

WE Congratulate the young men of Lincoln on the possession of such monitors as Mr. Boole. This is a noble discourse, incorporating the two subjects of study and of literature, while every page indicates the presence of Christian principle, without any unseasonable and incongruous mixture of matter directly religious, neither necessary nor pertinent to the occasion. We heartily commend it to

all young men.

Divine Laws ordained for Blessing. A Discourse by WILLIAM URWICK, D.D. 8vo, pp. 52. London: Mason.

A VERY great sermon by a very small man! There is no risk in saying that of the multitude of admirable discourses that the Missionary enterprise has called forth during the last fifty years, there are few sermons superior to the present, if sermon it can be called, for it is a treatise of fitytwo pages; but its enormous length was necessary to the wide sweep of its statements and developments. On a foundation deep and broad the preacher has raised a noble superstructure of Mission

ary truth. It is most deserving of very wide circulation.

Discourses delivered at the Recognition of the Rev. George Thompson, Hackney. 8vo, pp. 48. London: Jackson and Walford.

THIS was an occasion of great interest, and the various services were every way worthy of the occasion. The statement of the young minister is marked by special excellence, and in the charge Algernon Wells comes forth to great advantage, with his affecting pathos, broad views, and deep sagacity. The charge contains an unusual amount of religious philosophy, pervaded by the spirit of the seer. Mr. Wells was worthily followed by the Rev. John Kennedy, of Stepney, whose special performances are always superior. His address on this occasion to the church is distinguished by passages of great worth, and contains strictures on certain matters that are needful to a class to be found in all churches of any magnitude, -strictures which that class much require, how little soever they may desire them.

The First and Second Advents, with a View of the Millennium. By JAMES CARLISLE, D.D., Scot's Church, in St. Mary's-abbey, Dublin. 12mo, pp. 31. Edinburgh: Johnstone.

DR. CARLISLE, of Dublin, is a solid scholar, already well-known to the British public in connection with the Irish Board of Education. His views as set forth in the present discourse, are grand and cheering. The close of the sermon presents a vivid and animated delineation of the present workings of Providence on the Continent of Europe. The discourse is rich in thought and in illustration.

CHRONICLE OF THE CONGREGATIONAL UNION OF ENGLAND AND WALES: OF THE BOARD FOR GENERAL EDUCATION: AND OF THE THREE SOCIETIES FOR BRITISH MISSIONS IN CONNECTION WITH THE UNION. TENTH AUTUMNAL MEETING OF THE CONGREGATIONAL UNION OF ENGLAND AND WALES. THIS important series of proceedings will take place at Leicester, commencing on the evening of Monday, the 16th of October, with a preliminary devotional meeting, and closing on the evening of Thursday, the 19th of October, with a public meeting for promoting the cause of

Voluntary Education. The order of arrangements will be found fully set forth on the last page of our Advertising Wrapper for the present Number.

The subjects that will claim attention on this occasion-the objects for promotion of which counsel will be taken and efforts made, are of the greatest interest and importance.

The morning meetings will embrace:

1. Free and confidential conference on the State of Religion within the Denomination.

2. Discussion on the Methods by which the Independent churches can most effectually promote the Religious Welfare of the Working Classes.

3. Consideration of our Sunday-school operations, with a view to their encouragement and improvement.

4. Report of progress in the Deferred Annuity Scheme.

5. Report of proceedings of the Board for General Education.

6. Other subjects of great public interest and importance will probably claim attention of the morning meetings.

7. Report of results in respect of Membership founded on Annual Contribution.

In the public meetings, those two vital questions-British Missions, and General Education -will be advocated openly and vigorously, as they claim and deserve to be.

Fellowship, devotion, counsel, and brotherly regards will be promoted. Unity and co-operation will form the essence of the proceedings. Joy, strength, and encouragement are sought in these gatherings of brethren, full of agreement and mutual confidence. Usurped authority and vexatious disputation are equally eschewed. They are meetings of equal brethren for great public objects, on which their sentiments and interests are one.

You

And now brethren are respectfully invited to this convocation; not ministers only, nor deacons only, but other brethren also, deputed by churches to attend as their representatives. Congregationalists! you have inherited from your fathers a noble cause, and an honourable reputation. Your theology, your liberty, your literature, your spirituality are a sacred inheritance and trust. The times in which your lot is cast require your zealous advocacy of them, as much as any in which your venerated predecessors acted their noble and devoted part for their defence. are vehemently assailed and resisted by adverse parties, and require the more internal union, vigour, and mutual support. Nothing can damage your cause from without, while you remain sound and steadfast within. The glorious future lies in prospect. For that future our present fidelity and zeal are demanded. Let us hand forward Congregationalism not only unimpaired, but invigorated. Whatever promotes union, love, and courage among our brotherhood, will conduce to that end. May the Assembly at Leicester be impregnated for that end with spirit and power from on high!

APPEAL FOR SIMULTANEOUS COLLECTIONS IN AID OF BRITISH MISSIONS, On Lord's-day, the 29th of October, 1848; or on some other more convenient Day in connection therewith.

1. BRITISH MISSIONS-the scene of their operations: England, Ireland, and the American and Australian Colonies; three important and principal divisions of the great British empire. Not Scotland for the Independent churches in that country have, from their first origin, vigorously prosecuted Home Missions on their own resources. With honourable independence and enlightened zeal they have cultivated their own proper field, and have largely reaped as they have wisely sown. Not Wales: for its various Evangelical denominations have filled every nook of their mountain land with humble sanctuaries and simple ministrations, suited to the circumstances and genius of the people, on

which a blessing and a power have rested, not always vouchsafed to more costly and more showy efforts. Not British India, the Cape Colony, or the West India Islands: because in those regions, Europeans being few and heathens many, the London Missionary Society has in them long and nobly represented the Congregational churches of England in effective and prosperous evangelic labours. But England, Ireland, and the American and Australian Colonies, present the extensive and important field to be occupied by the three British Mission Societies-the Home Missionary Society, the Irish Evangelical Society, and the Colonial Missionary Society.

2. THE PECULIAR CHARACTER AND WANTS OF THE FIELD TO BE CULTIVATED BY THE BRITISH MISSION SOCIETIES.-England, the selected department of the Home Missionary Society, is a land, with all its advantages, still presenting to the evangelic eye immense spiritual dangers and necessities. The sons of the soil-her numerous toiling husbandmen scattered over the land with their families, are to a vast extent in a state of gross ignorance and apathy with respect to the gospel. Her artisans, swarming in the great towns, in the manufacturing and mining districts, and along the chief lines of traffic, and in the principal ports, are more alienated from the Gospel, and hostile to it, than ignorant respecting it. False doctrine, political interests, and social power are all over England vigorously active to resist the Gospel and all efforts for its diffusion. Sabbath-breaking, intemperance, profanity, scoffing infidelity, and family wretchedness, still fearfully abound. Ireland need not be described. It has not merely an European, but a world-wide renown for transcendant misery. Popery leads on the train of its calamities, itself the chief of them all, and the cause or the aggravation of them all. Poverty, hovels, rags-indolence, squalor, mendicancy-crimes, sedition, turbulence-are the standing insignia of this abject and multitudinous race. History gives no record of any people like them in past ages, and happily the contemporaneous world has no second example of such an opprobrium on mankind. Without the common virtues of manliness, exertion, economy, and self-respect, they would seem thus sunk for a trial, whether the Gospel itself can lift them up out of this horrible pit and miry clay. The American and Australian Colonies-these are filled with the sons of calamity, misconduct, and enterprise, who find themselves where restraints are weakened, where habits grow rough, and where the earthly in its grosser forms gains fearful sway. These early settlers in new regions exceedingly require a sabbath, a ministry, a school. As they gather into towns, and begin to take form as communities and governments, they no less want religion and education to supply the primary elements of liberty, order, and well-being. They have carried with them, or there have followed after them, every European folly, vice, and error. Yet are these the beginnings of empires, the parents and patriarchs of nations!

3. THE KIND OF OPERATIONS NEEDED IN THESE FIELDS OF EXERTION.-First, they must be denominational, simply because co-operation with other bodies of Christians cannot be obtained. These have all undertaken labours on their own several resources, and on their own distinctive principles. There are, therefore, none

with whom Independents could unite in this work. But even were this not so, there are some objects that could not be accomplished, some principles that could not be maintained, by united labours, in the absence of which Congregationalists at this period would think their work most defective. They must, in England, Ireland, and the Colonies, bear testimony to the principles wherein they differ as well as to those wherein they agree with their fellow-believers of other views, on many subordinate yet important points. Second, they must be evangelical, thoroughly evangelical. Against Popery, against Puseyism, against formality, the pure, simple Gospel must be opposed. Salvation by grace, justification by faith, regeneration by the Spirit, Gospel holiness of heart and life; the Word of God, the instrument and the Spirit of God, the agent in all Gospel labours and blessings,these are the great things once delivered to the saints, which must form the sacred themes of all Missionary ministrations in England, Ireland, and the colonies. Third, they must be voluntary, purely voluntary. No Government grants must be touched. A protest of deeds as well as of words must be steadfastly maintained against the pensions of the State. We must keep ourselves pure. No otherwise can we be free and strong for our protest, that Christ's kingdom is not of this world. Fourth, they must be prompt and energetic. There is no time to be lost by further delay. Too much precious opportunity has been thus irrecoverably sacrificed already. And this is a work for energy no less than for promptitude-the energy of prayer, of liberality, of wisdom, of union, and of some of our best men devoted to the work. For this work is great and difficult. There are many obstacles and adversaries. Only true principles worked by true men, can, by God's blessing, be successful in this struggle.

4. THE SPECIAL REASONS AND MOTIVES FOR ZEAL IN THIS CAUSE. First, the love of our country, which is well worth our love. With all its faults we love it still. And there is no conceivable way of proving our love to our country equal to vigorous, generous labours to enlighten and imbue it with the Gospel. Second, the love of the Gospel. England, Ireland, and the Colonies, present a noble field in which to do the Gospel honour. To uphold the Gospel in England against Puseyism working for its destruction all the power of wealth and rank-to spread the Gospel in Ireland, despite of popery, degradation, and recklessness-to introduce the Gospel into the colonies as a germ to grow with their growth, and strengthen with their strength -will be a work equally to glorify the Gospel and to bless the empire. Third, the order of duty. All duties have not equal claims. All things desirable to be done are not equally obligatory on the same persons. Of those works we ought to engage in, some require our first efforts in order, and our greatest in degree. These distinctions are founded in relation-the nearer the relation, the stronger the claim. Our relation to country is very close; our interest in our own land and people is deep and strong: therefore, in attempting the spread of the Gospel, ought we "to begin at Jerusalem."

5. APPEAL FOR EACH OF THE THREE SOCIETIES SEVERALLY.-The Home Missionary Society carries a charm and a plea in its very name. For twenty-nine years it has prosecuted

extensive and successful labours. It has sustained a band of faithful labourers, by whom churches have been founded, schools established, souls converted, and many a benighted neighbourhood penetrated with Gospel light. No other agency could take up its operations. It intrudes on no man's field, it builds on no man's foundations. Where the people are scattered, remote, poor, and neglected, thither it sends its messengers. In populous towns, where, without external aid, the Gospel in Congregational administration could not be introduced, it has

most successfully given its aid. The Society has never been upborne by eclât and show, but it has accomplished unobtrusively a great and a good work. Never were its operations more needed, its agency more competent, or its success more encouraging.

The Irish Evangelical Society has most peculiar claims. The misery of the country; the overwhelming power of Popery; the absence or paucity of any middle class; the high qualities and ability required to render any agency adequate to the work; and the necessity that nearly all the funds required should be supplied from England and Scotland;-these considerations, rendered still more onerous by the fact, that much visible and encouraging success cannot be soon expected, render this Society difficult just in the degree in which it is necessary and important. Moreover, its claims are now doubled, as it has to provide for all the Missionary operations formerly carried on by the Congregational Union of Ireland. This arrangement was deemed indispensable by the wisest and most influential brethren of our churches. They brought it about by great labour and patient adjustment. It is working most advantageously for the common cause. But greatly enlarged resources for the Irish Evangelical Society, thus required to provide almost all the funds for both Missions, are indispensable.

The Colonial Missionary Society, of more recent origin than its two associated institutions, grew out of that great step in the onward progress of modern society, the renewed activity of British colonization. The old colonies, now forming the nucleus of the United States of America, had been separated from the mother country. Vast regions had been acquired by England either in war or through discovery. A long period of hostilities came at last to a close. Distress and want of employment pressed on the people of these islands; they began to flow as a mighty stream to Canada and Australia; there are they multiplying in numbers, forming institutions, constructing nations. To them the Gospel must be sent. Congregationalists must do their part in this great work. They have commenced and done well; but more and more is the constant demand. Three thousand pounds should be the minimum amount yearly devoted to this work.

Brethren!-the pastors and deacons of our churches!-you are earnestly appealed to for an annual collection to promote this great undertaking! The appropriation you can direct at your pleasure-all for one society, or a division to any two of them, or a portion for each. How this easy, regular, inexpensive, and effectual method of supporting this most important work, has advanced in the approval and adoption of the churches, will be seen by the following statement:

The Home Missionary Society has 121 stations, employs 50 Missionaries, assists 65 grantees in village labours, is educating eight students for the work; numbers 5,167 members in its churches, 47,747 hearers in its congregations, and 13,710 children in its Sunday-schools. Its agents labour in 417 parishes; they have gathered into communion, during the last year reported 681 new members; and have distributed 61,231 tracts, 48,324 periodicals, and, by sale, 3,180 copies of the Scriptures.

The Irish Evangelical Society sustains 26 pastors and missionaries, and employs 25 Scripturereaders; its stations and out-stations are 144; its agents preach to 7,000 hearers, and conduct 36 sabbath, daily, and infant-schools, with about 1,710 scholars.

The Colonial Missionary Society has sent forth from the parent land, for labour in the colonies, 22 ministers; it has educated, for labour in the colonies, 20 young brethren; it has assisted to sustain more than 30 ministers, who have entered the colonies on their own resources, or who were in the field before the formation of the Society, but could not have maintained their ground without such aid. It has now on its list of brethren receiving aid 35 ministers labouring in the colonies, and eight young men receiving education for the ministry therein. The number of members in the Colonial churches probably exceeds 4,000. It is likely that 20,000 persons hear the Gospel from our Missionaries. The sabbath-schools contain many thousand children. And the work and its results are ever growing.

HOME MISSIONARY SOCIETY.

WHY SHOULD CHRISTIANS, WHO LOVE THEIR COUNTRY, MAKE OCTOBER COLLECTIONS? LET the thoughtful and conscientious friends of England peruse the following details of a Home Mission, and, during the month, ponder what answer they shall make when support is solicited for British Missions. "How much owest thou my Lord ?" Does our native land require evangelical labours? and will the extension of such operations over the country be a blessing to the people?

What follows is an abridged narrative of proceedings at only one station, occupied by a Home Missionary Society agent. There are others possessing equal interest; and we should ardently desire to multiply them abundantly. J. W. MASSIE, Secretary.

Sept. 28th, 1848. "The day and Sunday-schools are doing a noble, a glorious work. We had no small difficulty in establishing these fountains of knowledge, and now we rejoice in their completed and promised usefulness. We have 113 pupils in W day-schools, and 89 in L; and the teachers are up and doing in the good work. The sabbath-schools are our joy too; for they

are clearly preparing the minds of many for future and extended usefulness.

"We had a visit lately here from a young man, who was reared up from a little boy in W Sunday-school; and it gladdened all our souls to hear that he has now been sent forth to preach Christ in the villages around, by the Rev. H. M-, his present pastor. This is encouraging; and with many other eases of decided good, arising from the labours of the Sunday-schools, urges to onward and increased

effort.

"The local preachers are valuable helpers: devoted to their work, and well calculated to promote the grand object of disseminating truth around them. When the Lord sent me here there was neither local preacher, sabbath-school teacher, nor tract distributor, so far as I knew; now we have a band of some seventy useful labourers of the above sorts on this station!

"The CHRISTIAN WITNESS and PENNY MAGAZINE are powerful auxiliaries. John Campbell is our revered name: the scourge of errorthe foe of ignorance. Long live the man of power!-for as penknives are not quite the instruments to cut down the gnarled oak, so neither are milk-and-water men the most fitting ones to exhibit the legion evils of State-churchism. No men in England are half so well qualified to tell of the horrible evils of our well-fed and worse than useless establishments, as are the Home Missionaries. We are compelled to study it in its awful and ruinous influence on the souls of millions. It is delightful to see the good effects of the Magazines on many, many minds, and they are doing a noble service to the cause of God and truth. Dr. Campbell is the best Home Missionary in England. Let us help him, and he will help us; for if you were here to see our monthly parcel arrive, you would rejoice to see so much spirit-stirring printed matter spread monthly over our locality. These and the BRITISH BANNER are widely circulated all around here.

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Religious tracts are distributed in not less than thirty parishes. I gave this day a large parcel to a devoted Christian woman, who lives in one of the most desperate places in this county, famous for impiety, having a notoriously wicked rector. She will scatter them far and wide around her; and the day will declare, whether the little messengers of truth have, or have not, been useful. I know, perhaps, twenty useful Christians who buy quantities of religious tracte, penny and juvenile magazines, to give away on the roads, &c.

"Deaths-Sickness. I have often had to transmit to the office pleasing accounts of happy deaths; and now am gratified at having a very decided case of this character to forward. We have one young woman, at present lying on her death-bed, (at least this is fully expected,) and she is certainly a lovely instance of the power and triumph of Divine grace. She has been humbled, made penitent, and is now rejoicing in heart that she has been laid low in affliction's bed; for until then, three or four months ago, she was one of the most careless young persons around us. Her gratitude for the visits paid to her, and for the Christian sympathy she has met in her affliction, is great. I now direct attention to the pleasing case of

"ST, who has been a regular attendant at our chapel for a long time, and was for

about six months before her death observed to be under deep and solemn impressions. I was sent for by her two days before she exchanged worlds; her abode was poor. I felt that I was called to do serious business for God, believing that the poor creature was soon to appear at his bar, either to condemn or approve of my treatment of her soul. She entered freely into interesting conversation with me on the things of eternity; and she expressed herself as greatly benefited by the numerous opportunities she had had of attending the services of the chapel. I made plain and affectionate inquiries as to her views of sin and salvation-of human depravity and Divine mercy; and was much gratified at the distinct and proper answers she gave me. We conversed for a long time; a portion of which I give:

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Missionary. Well, my dear friend, tell me -without asking you many questions, for you are not able to bear much talking now-how you feel as to your soul's interest and welfare, and I will give you Scriptural counsel as to your present and future happiness?

"S. T. Why, sir, for many years I have felt much concern at times now and then for my poor soul; but, I am sorry to tell you, it wore off, although I knew that it was my duty to press forward more and more, even to the end.

"Miss. If you had felt the full value of your precious soul, and had yielded your heart unto God, don't you think it would have promoted your happiness?

"S. T. Surely, sir, it would; but the trials we have gone through, and the want we have suffered, drove us to think too much of the poor body. These trials ought to make us go to God for his salvation; but, I am grieved to tell you, and it does grieve me to think of it, they did not. She here paused, being faint, and soon continued: Now, sir, I hope I have felt the power of religion-(she laid much emphasis on the word 'power'); and I can, indeed, trust to my blessed Saviour for his mercy and compassion.

"Miss. Have your views on these subjects been long as you now express them to me, Sally; and are you not greatly comforted in being thus enabled to cast your precious soul on the blessed Redeemer?

“S. T. No, sir, my mind has not been long in this happy state. About three months ago I heard you preach on the penitent returning to God, and I felt then as I never felt before: I could not think of anything night or day but the sinfulness of my character; and I almost fell to the ground under the burden of my grief on account of my sin. I wondered to see anybody laughing, although it was what I had done hundreds of times; but I thought that now every one could see into my heart, and know how I was in such trouble.

"Miss. Well, my dear friend, and have you the same feelings as to the evil of your nature now-do you think sin to be the plague of your heart?

"S. T. Oh, sir-Here she got too weak to go on, and remained about two minutes quite silent; when she said, in a very feeling tone:Oh, sir, what a mercy!-what a mercy!-what a mercy!-is it not, sir?

"Miss. I shall be glad to give you my opinion, Sally, when I know what you mean as being a mercy?

"S. T. Oh, sir, what a mercy that I was not cut down in my sins, and before I felt a gracious Saviour's love!

"Miss. Yes, indeed, my dear friend, it was; and it rejoices my heart to hear that you look at it in that way you can never be sufficiently thankful to God for thus enlightening your mind on those all-important subjects.

"S. 1. True, sir. Oh, yes, you are right: may God bless you abundantly!-and go on, sir, do go on, to tell of the good things to all the people. I have trifled with convictions; heard many scores of faithful sermons; been in many a dying chamber; and yet my hard heart did not give up. What a mercy! Oh, what a mercy that I was not cut down in the midst of my carelessness and folly.

"Miss. Well, my friend, all this is very pleasing to me; but I am very anxious to know how you feel as to the salvation of Jesus Christ, and as to your entire dependence on him for eternal life?

"S. T. Why, sir, all along, and nearly for three months, and when my sins lay like a mountain on my heart, I tried to get peace by myself, but I could not find it.

"Miss. No, indeed you could not; but, being acquainted with the Gospel plan, why did you not go at once to Jesus, the sinner's friend, for his mercy and grace?

"S. T. Oh, I'll tell you, sir: I thought that I must do some great thing, and by that means I blinded myself.

"Miss. And what was that great thing' which you thought you had to do?

"S. T. I could not tell, sir, only that was what I thought; and often since I wondered at myself for being so dark, after all the instructions I received from you and others: but nobody knows what I passed through for all the time that I was in that state.

"Miss. Oh, yes, Sally; many know it well, and can tell you what such a wounded, agonised spirit means: but in what light do you now look at the "great thing" which you thought you had to do?

"S. T. Oh, sir, this is just what I think: as you tell us all, Jesus Christ has done all for us -he has done the great thing; and I go to him as a poor sinner, and he will receive me, I know.

"Miss. This, my dear friend, is a matter of the greatest importance; and how do you know that he will receive and pardon you?

"S. T. I read it, sir, in the Testament in many places, and it comforts my soul, and now I can die happy; for while my sins are beyond counting, Jesus is able and willing to save me.

My joy was inexpressible to hear this artless and heartfelt testimony; and perceiving that she closed her eyes, I sat still for a little. She broke the silence by speaking slowly, as if to herself: Oh, that chapel-that chapel! oh, the schools-the schools! the tracts-the meetings! what would us be only for it all!' She then opened her eyes, and, shedding tears, said: 'I love you, sir; I love Mr. L, Mr. A Miss M- ; and I now think that I shall never again enter that sweet chapel; but I do hear the beautiful singing from where I lie. Oh, the chapel-the chapel! what a blessing it is! and may God bless you, sir, and all your good people, who are trying to do us good for soul and body! may they all go on well to the end

"My heart was full; I poured my soul out in