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visited us some weeks ago, and delivered some very thoughtful and edifying addresses. We are gladdened by the frequent appearance of strangers, and some who have been constant attenders for some time are expected soon to put on the Lord Jesus. For the benefit of young brethren a Mutual Improvement Association was formed about two months ago, which is conducted with spirit, and is likely to become a valuable auxiliary to the church. Since August last the congregation have met in the West End Academy, which they rented on the hall in which they before assembled having been sold. There is again the prospect of another change being made, but this time, if expectations be realized, the church will remove to a meeting-house of its own. For this they are entirely indebted to sister Tener, of Moree, who has, with the most praiseworthy liberality, undertaken to erect the new house and to hand it over to the church on payment of a nominal yearly feu-duty. The site, which has just been purchased, is in Constitution Road, and about a hundred yards north of the Watt Hall. The new house will be seated for 250 or 300 persons, and have class-rooms and ante-rooms at tached. Steps have been taken for the erection of the building as speedily as possible, and a strong effort is to be made to have it completed by May next.

T. Y. M. DERBY.-The church here has pleasure in stating that, by the blessing of God, the preached word is making its way to the hearts of sinners, and that during the past four weeks three have made the good confession and have been added to the church by immersion into the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

R. M.

BRISTOL.-A meeting was held here on November 29th, in favour of Undenominational Education. Owing to what one might call an error of judgment, the place of assembly was in Clifton, and consequently the attendance was not what it might have been had a Hall in the less aristocratic quarter of the city been selected. It was, however, very interesting, and may be the forerunner of something better. Perhaps the most hopeful sign shown at the meeting was the presence of the Rev. J.W. Caldicott, Head Master of the Grammar School, who moved the first resolution.

He gave a lengthy address, which he prefaced by remarking that he stood on that platform not as an opponent of the church of which he was an ordained minister, nor yet as a supporter of her enemies, but simply as an Englishman desirous of giving equal justice to all, and of showing his repudiation of the foul libel cast upon Dissenters by Churchmen, who say that the Nonconformists wish to give children an irreligious education.

Observer, Jan. 1, '72.

R. W. Dale, of Birmingham, and Dr. Brown, of Cheltenham, followed, and between these the audience could not fail to understand the gravity of the question now looming into view. R. SCOTT.

NEW BRINSLEY.-The faithful preaching of the old truth has produced faith in the hearts of three others, who came forward and confessed their faith in the Christ and were buried with Him in baptism. C. COOK.

Obituary.

EDWARD CUTHBERT, Sen., fell asleep in Jesus, at Spittall, December 4, in the 70th year of his age. He was at his work on the Saturday, at the Lord's table on the First day of the week, and finished his course on the Monday evening. Our beloved brother was immersed nine years ago, was a consistent member of the Baptist Church, Berwick, and was among the number who withdrew and formed a church here. His love for the Saviour was exemplary; He was indeed precious to him. His jubilee of service was celebrated under the firm of Thos. Black and Sons, in July last, when several suitable presents were made to him.

J. R.

JOHN K. LESLIE departed this life on Saturday evening, November 18, at Moree House, Dungannon, Ireland. The brethren of the Dundee, Glasgow and Irish churches will long remember our brother for his noble, generous and Christian spirit, his sympathy with distress and his love for the beautiful, pure and good, in grace and in nature. He went from Glasgow to Ireland to regain his health, about the beginning of 1870, and so far recovered as to try business again in May, 1871, but his distress struck him down the first day he was in the city and he returned to Ireland where he has lingered with varying strength and at last departed strong in hope, committing his sister-wife and two little ones to the care of our Heavenly Father. Full of desire to be at rest and free from pain he often repeated the words

"O, welcome day! when thou my feet

Shalt spring Heaven's shining threshold o'er;
A Father's warm embrace to meet,
And dwell at home for evermore!

He was interred in Dundee.

J. ADAM.

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Observer, Jan. 1, '72.

MATTHEW BRADBURY departed this life, November 18, 1871, in his seventhy-ninth year. Many years a member of the church in Barker Gate, Nottingham. T. W.

ELIZABETH WILKINSON, relect of Thos. Wilkinson, departed this life, November 6, 1871, aged seventy-four, having been connected with the church, twenty-nine years. W. H.

Family Room.

A TALE OF BUTTONS.

66

BREAKFAST was just over; the table | she asked, as Mr. Ashton, having was cleared away, the chair set back, exhausted the paper, arose from the and Mrs. Ashton, in a neat morning- sofa corner. dress, with a pretty little cap on her pretty little head, was standing with her arm over her tall husband's shoulder, looking at the morning paper. And as fine a looking pair they were as you will be likely to see in a summer's day.

Mr. and Mrs. Ashton had been married about six months, after an engagement of almost three years, during which time they had corresponded vigorously, but had seen very little of each other, for Mr. Ashton was an assistant in one of our larger cities, and could seldom be spared; and Chrissey was a teacher in another great city, where she supported herself, and helped by her labours to educate one of her brothers for the

'Visiting, I must go up to old Mrs. Balcomb's and see the Jones's, and try to prevail on Phil Taggart to let his children come to the Sunday-school once more. Then I have to see poor Maggy Carpenter, who is much worse again, and if I have time, I shall get into the omnibus and ride out to the mills, to that girl Miss Flower mentioned to me yesterday."

"What a round!" exclaimed Chrissey. "You will never get home I think I to dinner at two o'clock. will put it off till six, and run the risk of being thought 'stuck up,' like poor cousin Lily."

"What do you mean?"

"Why you know they always dine at six to suit the Doctor's arrangements. One day Lily called about some society matter on a lady who lives not a hundred miles from her street, about five o'clock in the after

noon.

The lady herself came to the door, and Lily was about entering, when she thought she perceived the smell of roast meat in the hall, and said very politely, But, perhaps it dinner hour? your No indeed!' replied madam with indignation. 'We don't dine at this time of day; we are not so stuck up.'"

ministry. It was not till this brother
had finished his studies, and was
placed on an independent footing,
that she had consented to be mar-
ried.
Under these circumstances,
they did not see much of each other,
and they were finally married, with-
out Chrissey's ever having suspected
her husband of any infirmity of
temper. She had suffered much on
discovering that such was the case,
and felt inclined sometimes to wish
that she had never been disenchant-
ed; but she was a wise woman; she
knew her husband's intrinsic excel-
lences and strength as well as his
weakness, and altering an old maxim
to suit her own purpose, she resolved
both to endure and to cure.
"What do you set about to-day ?" | to be said."

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666

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Poor Lily!" exclaimed Mr. Ashton, laughing "what did she say?" "O! she did her errand, and retired, of course. There was nothing

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He turned into his study, shutting the door after him with rather unneccessary force, and Mrs. Ashton returned to the fire and arranged her work-basket for the day, with something of a cloud on her fair face. She was not left long undisturbed, for Mr. Ashton's voice was soon heard calling her in impatient tones. She sighed, but arose and entered the next room, where she found her husband standing before his bureau partly dressed, and with shirts, cravats, and handkerchiefs scattered about him like a new kind of snow, while his face bore an expression of melancholy reproach at once painful and slightly ludicrous.

"What's the matter?" she asked. "O, the old story! Not a button where it ought to be! not a shirt ready to wear! I do not mean to be unreasonable," he continued, in an agitated voice, as he tumbled over the things, to the manifest discomposure of the clean linen, "but really, Chrissey, I think you might see that my clothes are in order. I am sure I would do more than that for you; but here I am delayed and put to the greatest inconvenience, because you cannot sew on these buttons! I shall really think that a little of the time

Observer, Jan. 1, '72.

you spend in writing to George and Henry might as well be bestowed on me."

This address was delivered in a tone and manner of mournful distress, which might have been justified, perhaps, if Mrs. Ashton had picked his pocket as he was going to church.

46

What's the matter with this shirt?" asked Chrissey, quietly examining one of the discarded garments. "It seems to have all the buttons in their places; and this one, too, is quite perfect; and here is another. My dear husband, how many shirts do you usually wear at a time?"

We

"O! it is all very well for you to smile, my love, but I do assure you I found several with no means at all of fastening the wrist-bands. had breakfast late, and now I shall be detained half an hour, when I ought to be away. I know you mean well, but if you had served a year's apprenticeship with my mother be fore you were married, it might have been all the better for your housekeeping."

"It might have prevented it altogether," thought Chrissey; but the thought was repressed in a moment. She picked up and replaced the scattered apparel, folded the snowy cravats, and warmed her husband's overshoes. Before he left the house, Mr. Ashton had forgotten both his fretfulness and its cause. He kissed his wife, thanked her for her trouble, proposed that she should send for Lily to spend the day with her, and strode away with his usual elastic step and pleasant face.

Chrissey watched him from the door till he turned into the next street, and then went back to the fireside, and to her own reflections.

This fretfulness and tendency to be greatly disturbed at little matters, was almost her husband's only fault. He was self-sacrificing to the last degree, faithful and indefatigable. He could bear injuries, real injuries, with the greatest patience, and was

Observer, Jan. 1, '72,

never known to harbour resentment. | slippers before the fire, he related to his wife all the events of the day, describing, with all the enthusiasm of his earnest nature, the patience and holy resignation he had witnessed, and ended by saying:

But with all these good qualities, Mr. Ashton had one fault-a fault which threatened to disturb and finally to destroy the comfort of his married life. If his wife, by extravagance or bad management, had wasted his income and involved him in difficulties, it is probable that he would never have spoken an unkind word to her; but the fact of a button being missing, or a book removed from its place, would produce a lamentation half indignant and half pathetic, which rung in Chrissey's ears, and made her heart ache long after Clement had forgotten the circumstance altogether. Strange as it may seem, Mr. Ashton had never thought of this habit, of which indeed, he was but imperfectly conscious, as a fault.

He thought, indeed, that it was a pity he should be so sensitive, and sometimes said that he wished he had not such a love for order and symmetry, for then he should not be so often annoyed by the disorderly habits of other people. He said to himself that it was one of his peculiar trials--that even Chrissey, perfect as she was, did not come up to his ideas in this respect; but that his peculiar trials, as he was pleased to call them, ever became trials to other people, he did not imagine. He had, indeed, remarked, in spite of himself, that Chrissey's face was not as cheerful, nor her spirits as light, as when they were first married; and he regretted that the cares of housekeeping should weigh so heavily upon her; but nothing was further from his thoughts than that anything in himself could have produced the change.

Mr. Ashton, exhausted with his day's work, turned towards home with his mind and heart full of all that he had seen and felt. He said very little during dinner, but when the table-cloth was removed, and he sat down in his dressing-gown and

"Certainly, religion has power to sustain and console, under all trials, and under every misfortune."

"Except the loss of a button," replied Chrissey, seriously. "That is a misfortune which neither philosophy nor religion can enable one to sustain."

Mr. Ashton started as though a pistol had been discharged at his ear. Why, what do you mean, Chris

66

sey?"

"Just what I say," returned Chrissey, with the same soberness. "Yourself, for instance; you can endure, with the greatest resignation, the loss of friends and misfortune; I never saw you ruffled by rudeness or abuse from others, or show any impatience under severe pain; but the loss of a button from your shirt, or a nail from the carpet, gives you a perfect right to be unreasonable, unkind, and-I must say it-unChristian."

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Mr. Ashton arose, and walked up and down the room in some agitation. I did not think, my love," he said at last, in a trembling tone," that you would attach so much importance to a single hasty word. Perhaps I spoke too quickly; but even if it were so, did we not promise to be patient with each other's infirmities ? I am sure I am very glad to bear with"

Mr. Ashton paused; he was an eminently truthful man, and, upon consideration, he really could not remember that he had ever had anything to bear from his wife.

"If it were only once, my dear husband, I should say nothing about it; but you do not seem in the least aware how the habit has grown upon you. There has not been a day this week in which you have not made my

Observer, Jan. 1, 72.

heart ache by some such outburst of if I had not been left here alone all fretfulness." day, I think I should hardly have got up my courage now. But if you are not angry, I am glad that I have told you all that was in my heart; for indeed, my dear, it has been a sad, aching heart this long time. And now I must tell you how those two unlucky shirits came to be buttonless."

Mr. Ashton was astonished; but, as he began to reflect, he was still more surprised to find that his wife's accusation was quite true. One day it had been about the front-door mat, the next about a mislaid review, and then about a lost pair of gloves, which after all were found in his own pocket. He felt that it was all true; and as his conscience brought forward one instance after another of unkindness-real unkindness-he sat down again, and covered his face with his hands.

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No, don't say one word about them, my love," said Clement, penitently. "I will never complain again, if the sleeves are missing as well as the buttons."

"But I must tell you, because I really mean to have my housekeeping affairs in as good order as any one. I was looking over your shirits yesterday afternoon, and had put them all to rights but these two, when Mrs. Lennox came in, in great distress, to say that her sister's child was much worse, and they feared dying; so I dropped all, and went over there. You know how it was. No one had any calmness or presence of mind. The child's convulsions were indeed frightful to witness; the mother was in hysterics, and Mrs. Lennox, worse than nobody at all. It was nearly midnight before I could get away, and meantime, Amy had put the room in order, and restored the shirts to their places."

Chrissey arose and went out into the kitchen, and Mr. Ashton, taking a candle from the table, entered the study and locked himself in. Chrissey waited for him a long time, and at last went and tapped at the door. It was opened, with a warm embrace, and though there were not many words spoken on either side, there was a light in the eyes of both husband and wife which showed that the understanding was perfect between them.

But I do think, nevertheless, that men's wives ought to sew on their buttons. American Paper.

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