men. Intelligence. HOME MISSION. in each congregation. It is much to be regretted that as yet so little has been done in this direction. And it is earnestly hoped that one practical result of this interesting conversazione will be the formation of an association in each of the Manchester congregations, that has not yet adopted this most effectual mode of supplying the treasuries of the Church's Missions. HORNCLIFFE. Rev. Joseph R. Welsh A Friend W. K. Coubrough, Esq. Do. Do. Do. Do. J. R. Brougham, Esq. £ s. d. 0 10 0 10 0 2000 0 0 0 0 0 10 0 0 0 0 10 0 0.10 O 040 400121O-OOOoooo-ITOO 5 0 5 0 5 0 0 10 5 0 On the evening of the 12th November, a general meeting of office-bearers, and members of the various Presbyterian Churches in Manchester was held in St. Andrew's School-room. Its object was to interest the churches more deeply in the Mission, by giving information regarding its objects and recent operations. After tea, which CONTRIBUTIONS from gentlemen in Liverwas kindly provided by the St. An- pool and Manchester toward defraying the drew's cffice-bearers, the Rev. William expense of the Manse at Horncliffe:M'Caw, Convener of the Home Mission Committee, took the chair, and addressed the meeting. He was followed by Robert Barbour, Esq., the treasurer, Rev. J. C. Paterson, Messrs. J. Halliday, G. Stewart, P. McGregor. W. M'Ferran, J. Robb, D. Magill, Edwards, Corson, and other gentle- J. Dowie, Esq. It was felt by all, and strongly R. L., Esq. expressed, that one of the primary J. Cropper, Esq. duties of the Church is to maintain A Friend her Home Mission efficiently. Its two great objects were dwelt on-first, the planting of congregations in those populous towns of the country that are the great centres of her manufacturing and mercantile industry; and, secondly, the supplementing of the very inadequate salaries of many of the ministers, especially in the rural districts. Special reference was made to the two most recent enterprises that have been aided by the Mission, the one in Carlisle, and the other in Exeter. In both these important places the banner of our Presbyterianism has been recently unfurled, and there is the prospect of vigorous congrega. tions being organized. Whilst the Church rejoices in such hopeful movements, it devolves on her to furnish the means whereby they may be efficiently carried out, and whereby an entrance may be effected into other of the large towns of the country. It was strongly felt that for this purpose mere annual collections will never be adequate. The Synod has repeatedly expressed its sense of the importance of Congregational Associations for raising funds in behalf of the Missions, and has strongly recommended that such an association be organized William Birrell, Esq. John Moore, Esq.... John Stuart, Esq. J. A. 1 0 0 10 0 10 £19 10 0 We still require £215 to pay expenses and clear off our debt; and for this we must look almost wholly to the Christian liberality of the able members of our of Church, who, we trust, on seeing this, will give our call their very favourable consideration. Contributions may be sent to Mr. James Paxton, or Mr. Mark Thompson, Horncliffe, Berwick-on-Tweed; or to Yours, very truly, PETER VALANCE, Obituary. JAMES ARNOT, ESQ., OF GATESHEAD. "It is surely quite superfluous for me to refer to the fact that the deceased appears to have been universally respected and esteemed by his fellow-men. After the first sensation of surprise that affected the public mind when his lamented death became known, there was but one feeling that succeeded it THE following is the conclusion of a sermon-the feeling of a general loss sustained. on Rev. xiv. 13, lately preached by the Rev. J. Jeffrey, of Gateshead, on the occasion of the sudden death of one of the elders of his congregation, who has long taken an active interest in the prosperity of our Church in Newcastle, and vicinity. "And now, dear friends, the application of the solemn and affecting theme we have just been considering is, unhappily, in one sense a matter too plain and easy for me. It is presented to us by the very circumstances in which we are to-day assembled. You are all well aware that since I last had the privilege of addressing you from this place, death has singled out from our ranks a victim. God, in his mysterious and inserutable providence, has been pleased, in a manner at once striking and unexpected, to take away from amidst us a leading member, an esteemed office-bearer, a much-loved, and greatly-valued friend; and painful as the task undoubtedly is to my own feelings, I should be negligent of my duty as your minister, besides depriving myself of a melancholy source of satisfaction, were I to abstain from improving, in the present closing remarks, the trying dispensation to which I have just adverted, and paying my humble tribute to the memory of our departed brother. That tribute will, I sadly fear, be, from the very nature of things, more imperfect than I could otherwise desire. I have only enjoyed for a period comparatively brief the friendship of him over whose decease we all so justly and so profoundly sorrow; and, therefore, my intimacy with him-the intimacy of but two short yearshardly gives me the same right to speak of the distinguishing excellencies of his character, which might properly be asserted as the fruit of a far more protracted acquaintanceship by not a few among my audience. At the same time, the circumstance to which I thus advert is of the less importance, inasmuch as simply to know our departed friend was to respect and love him. It needed no long intimacy to mark his virtues and to appreciate his intrinsic worth; and while, consequently, it is with my whole heart that I render the present offering of respect to his memory,-a memory that I myself, personally, shall never cease to reverence and love,-I would also fain hope that in the few sentences I am about to utter, the hearer may recognise some portraiture, however feeble, of him who has been so speedily snatched away. By the kindly suavity of his manners, and the cordial readiness with which he was ever willing to communicate advice to all who sought it from him, he had deservedly made many friends; and so, when like lightning from a cloudless sky, the stroke of the great adversary descended, it was as if a common father, or a common brother had been suddenly removed. Nor is it at all difficult to account for such a state of feeling, when we reflect on the peculiar character of the deceased. I, at least, am free to confess that I deem it one of singular worth and merit. Many fine and noble natures I have had the happiness to encounter, both in my own and other lands; but a finer and nobler I scarcely ever met with, I can say with a safe conscience, than that of him we mourn. Without entering at any length into a description of the same, I may be allowed to single out at present two points that imparted to it alike a special significance and a special charm. The first is the remarkable union, in the case of the deceased, between great firmness and great gentleness of mind. There was, on his part, the most constant and undeviating devotion to high principle and inflexible integrity; but all this was beautifully harmonised with exceeding calmness, gentleness, and amiability of disposition. Where those two elements are blended in harmonious concord, we have, as I have sometimes before told you from the place I now occupy, the approximation to the ideal of perfect moral manhood; and, without employing words of flattery that would have been the very first thing to revolt the humble and lowly spirit of him I endeavour to describe, I think I may safely assert that as regards the rare union of unbending firmness of principle with gentle, courteous, and kindly manners, the ideal already mentioned was, in his case, at least so far as remaining human imperfection would allow, comparatively and largely realized. His heart was devoted to the cause of truth; yet it was not the less under the influence of a kindred, although too frequently neglected principle the principle of love. "The other point to which I would briefly refer, as peculiarly distinguishing the character of our departed friend and brother, was the lowliness and humility of his nature. You yourselves are witnesses to the retiring modesty that marked him, to the unwillingness he ever displayed to occupy an obtru sive position, to take up even the ground to which, as an office-bearer, and leading member of the congregation, he might be said to be justly entitled, -and to the reluctance he invariably manifested to utter a single word or perform a single action that should savour in the slightest of undue prominence in ecclesiastical, or, indeed, any other matter. How rare is such a spirit! and instances of such a line of conduct how few and far between! We live in an age of vociferous boasting and arrogant ostentation, even as regards the very religion we profess; we are too fond of blowing the loudest of trumpets in our own praise, while we forget altogether the precise command of a great apostle,- Be ye clothed with humility.' But if there was ever one who wore that loveliest of all spiritual garments, it was he whose death we deplore. And it must be remembered that in his case it was no mere holiday robe, no raiment assumed on the Sabbath to serve a pharisaic purpose, and then flung hastily and gladly aside when the week-day work began, but worn by him at all times, and in all circumstances, so that it was properly part and parcel of his very being, instead of, so to speak, the mere external covering of the soul. The Saviour's injunction-Let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth'-embodied the principle on which our deceased friend proceeded in his extensive and unostentatious private charities, as well as in the more public business of the Church; and on such a feature of his character we, therefore, feel inclined to linger with peculiar complacency. "Yet these are merely natural virtues, and, although too rarely manifested, it is quite possible that they may co-exist with the lack of deeper religious emotion and more earnest Christian principle. You are well aware that there may be much amiability and little or no godliness. In the case, however, of our deceased friend and brother, the natural graces to which I have referred were hallowed by the latter influence. Exemplary in all the relations of life, he was equally characterised by the presence of a most sincere, and yet most unobtrusive piety. For the same retiring element that found so largely a place, as I have already mentioned, in his demeanour otherwise, distinguished also in marked degree his religious profession. There was no outward show of ostentatious sanctity: there was no thrusting of the Divine into the foreground, that the worldly, with such a cloak before it, might have fuller and freer scope for its development behind. But there was a calm, a loving, an all-pervading faith in the great realities of the Gospel,-those realities that cluster round the cross of the Messiah, as at once their origin and centre. And the fruit of such a faith was openly exhibited in the untiring attention paid to every religious ordinance, and in a zeal that devoted itself to the furtherance of the best interests of the Church, so that here, once more, there was a perfect harmony between faith and practice, and a palpable proof of the grand fact that cannot too frequently be insisted onthe fact, namely, that true Christianity, besides being a belief, is a LIFE,-a spiritual existence, harmonising alike inwardly and outwardly with the requirements of God's holy word. "But I feel that I have said enough, as I am portraying no unknown character, but one with which many of you were familiar, and I, therefore, pursue the theme no longer. Painful, as in present circumstances, may be our emotions, for him, at all events, we need not sorrow; the change that has befallen our departed brother is, we may safely conclude, a happy and a blessed change. He has passed from a world of suffering and trial to a land where trouble has no existence, from a scene of labour where the over-burdened brain wore out at last the exhausted physical energy, to a place where the intellect is for aye unclouded, and the glorified body bears no remaining trace of the ancient earthly weakness, from this dark valley of bleeding and broken hearts to the perennial sunshine around the throne of God. He has crossed the gates of pearl, he has entered the walls of jasper, he has trodden the golden streets of the New Jerusalem. Our duty, therefore, while we sympathize with his bereaved and sorrowing family, and pray that the God of all grace may support and comfort them in the season of their affliction, is to profit by so startling a dispensation of Divine providence, to hear therein the voice of solemn warning addressed to ourselves, and to imitate the example of him who has been so unexpectedly called away. Therefore, my beloved brethren,' says the apostle Paul, immediately after treating in language of unequalled sublimity and beauty the very theme, the triumphant death of the believer, to which our thoughts have been directed,Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye stedfast, unmoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labour is not in vain in the Lord.' Let that, then, be the great maxim of our existence, the principle on which we henceforth proceed, in every item of our lives, both temporal and spiritual. "I heard a voice from heaven, saying unto me, Write, Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth; yea, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their labours, and their works do follow them.'" LONDON: ROBERT K. BURT, PRINTER, HOLEORN HILL. ENGLISH PRESBYTERIAN MESSENGER. 1861. "A CONVERSION from depravity and actual transgression to active godliness, is a sublimer miracle and a more efficacious proof for the divinity of the Gospel than was the resurrection of Lazarus. A life of growing likeness to Christ is both a prophecy and the fulfilment of all prophecy. Of all modes of inculcating Christianity, exemplifying it is the best. The best commentary on the Bible the world has ever seen is a holy life. The most eloquent sermon in behalf of the Gospel that the world has ever heard, is a uniform, active piety. The best version of the written truth that has ever been made is a consistent religious example. The Christian whose light thus shines, not only correctly renders, but beautifies the Sacred text. His life and conduct is a sort of second edition of the written Scriptures-a living epistle that all can read, all understand, and that convinces and convicts all."-Personal Piety. VOL. XII. NEW SERIES. LONDON: MARLBOROUGH & Co., AVE MARIA LANE. our, 333 Presbyterianism in England, 274 Schools of the Prophets, 365 of the, 65, 97 Spanish History, 305 Illustrations of Scripture, 18, 20, 50, 278, Jesus our Shepherd, 115 Merle D'Aubigné on Calvin, 372 Our Schools-Do they Train? 343 Prayer a Privilege, 346 Prayer Meetings, Congregational, 136 308 Revivals, The, 52 Rule, Rev. Gilbert, M.D., 43, 73 Scottish Reformation, Meeting to celebrate Sketch of the History Sterne, The Last of, 281 Substitution, On the Nature of, 242 MISCELLANEOUS PAPERS. As Old as the Creation, 381 All have Influence, 139 Ancient Libraries in London, 105 Christian Experience, Letters on, 81 Church-going Bell, The Sound of the, Communion Sabbath at Aldershott, A, 275 Formosa, A Visit to, 10 Foolish Thoughts, 83 Free Church General Assembly, The, 221 God our Father, 115 God in Christ, 116 Study Christ, not Self, 280 252 Teaching, Practical Suggestions on, 185 Weaver, Richard, 215 Whited Walls, 311 Wounded Spirit, The, 312 Worldly Christians, 313 EXTRACTS FROM NEW PUBLICATIONS. Adolphe Monod on the Mission of Women, David's Song of Thanksgiving, 47 Death of Death, The, 46 Firmness of Purpose which Religion pro- Moses and the Monuments, 109 Mosaic History of the Creation, The, 76 Protestant Galley Slaves of the Eighteenth Ross-shire Minister and his Coadjutor, A, 183 Suffering and Glory, 48 POETRY. A Broken Blossom, 252 High and Low against the God of the Epitaph on Four Infant Children, 381 Sabbath, 307 Falling Leaves, 381 |