So pleasant have ye made these days,
That in my heart, long as my heart shall beat,
Minutest recollections still shall live,
Still be the source of joy.'

But the will of the Lord be done. God
grant the decision of this day may have
his blessing and redound to his glory, and
that we may all meet in our Father's house
with songs of thanksgiving and everlasting
joy upon our head, for all the ways by
which he has led us to that home where we
meet to part no more."

CHELTENHAM.—A valedictory tea meeting was held in the Town Hall on the 11th February, on the occasion of the removal of the Rev. Dr. Steel to Sydney, New South Wales. There was a large attendance. Mr. Ward occupied the chair, in the absence of W. D. Wills, Esq., Bristol. The Rev. Dr. Brown, the Rev. Messrs. Lewis, Wake, Waddy, and Smith, Nonconformist minis. ters of the town, and the Rev. W. Collings, of Gloucester, were on the platform. The chairman, after alluding to the trying circumstances in which they were met, presented the Rev. Dr. Steel with a handsome and valuable escritoire, "as a testimony of their respect and esteem, and as a mark of the many virtues which had adorned his character during his residence in Cheltenham as minister of the Presbyterian Church." The Temperance Society then presented Dr. Steel with an address expressive of their regret at his removal, and their gratitude for his services. This was accompanied with five volumes of the "Critical Commentaries of Dean Ellicott on the Epistles." The reverend gentleman replied in suitable terms. Various addresses were delivered

by the ministers present. The Presbyterian Church has now attained a most honourable and respectable position in Cheltenham, which we trust will be maintained by the successor of Dr. Steel, whose removal is generally regretted.

MICHAEL CHURCH, ESCLEY, HEREFORDSHIRE.-The members and friends of this congregation, at a farewell visit of the Rev. Dr. Steel, on the 15th and 16th of February, presented him with a silver salver, "as a token of their regard and esteem, and gratitude for the kind interest he has taken in their spiritual welfare."

The Rev. Dr. Steel sailed for Sydney on the 28th ult., by the Colonial Empire.

TWEEDMOUTH.-The half-yearly sermon on behalf of the Sabbath school in connection with this congregation was preached on the evening of Sabbath the 26th January, by the Rev. Mr. Cant, from 2 Chron. xxxiv. 3 Josiah, while he was yet young, began to seek the God of David, his father." Besides the children, there was a good attendance of parents and others; and the

subject, which was illustrated by anecdote and Bible history, was attentively listened to throughout. Motives to early piety were set forth in a simple and very engaging manner. The annual treat took place in the school-room, on the evening of Tuesday, the 6th February, when the children, teachers, friends, and minister's Bible class, in all about 180, sat down to tea. The blessing was asked and thanks returned by the minister. Afterwards a hymn was sung, and, as the school-room was too crowded, it was agreed to adjourn to the church. Mr. Pearson, sen., being now called to occupy the chair, gave a short address, which was delivered in his usual happy and engaging manner. Addresses were delivered by the Rev. Mr. Cant, Mr. Pearson, jun., Mr. Younger, and Mr. Reid. The singing of the hymns, which was conducted by Mr. Makins, one of the teachers, tended to enliven and interest the meeting. The present aspect of this school is very encouraging.

UNITED PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH.-The contributions in aid of the Home and Foreign Missionary operations of this Church during the past year has considerably exceeded any former period, notwithstanding the depressed state of trade throughout the country. The following is the amount received by the treasurer for 1861 :

For Home and Foreign
Missions

For London Movement

£26,851 23 3,000 0 0

Amount in Year £29,851 2 3

This sum does not include local Missionary operations, such as City Missions carried on by individual congregations, nor funds for church buildings.

DEATH OF THE REV. GEORGE MACKAY, D.D. OF RAFFORD.-The Banffshire Jour"Another of the fathers of the Free Church has fallen. The Rev. Dr. Mackay, nal says, of Rafford, died at Burgie Lodge, near Forres, N.B., at half-past four o'clock on the morn ing of Sabbath the 19th of January. The rev. doctor's constitution had been breaking up for some years back, but nothing serious was entertained till the end of last week, when he became seriously ill. By his own congregation the doctor was much beloved,

and wherever he was known he was much respected. Dr. Mackay had a large family, eight sons and four daughters. His second son, Capt. John Mackay of the 5th Light Infantry (Bengal Presidency) was killed in the Affghan war, at the age of 22; the third son, one of the most amiable of men, Hugh Macpherson Mackay, for several years a resident in Ceylon, died at Burgie two years since; and Mrs. McLachlan, Edin

burgh, a daughter, died there five years cut him off-a low continued fever.-Glassince." [We may add that one of the eight gow Paper for January, 1862. sons above-mentioned has been an officebearer in one of our own congregations in London, for some twelve or fifteen years.]

THE AGED SERVING GOD. MAY the old servants of God be dismissed from waiting on Him? No; their attendance is still required, and shall be still accepted; they shall not be cast off by their Master in time of old age. Therefore, let not them desert His service. When, through the infirmities of age, they can no longer be working servants in God's family, yet they may be waiting servants. Those that, like Barzillai, are unfit for the enter tainments of the courts of earthly princes, may yet relish the pleasures of God's courts as much as ever.

The Levites, when they were past the age of fifty, and were discharged from the toilsome parts of their ministrations, yet still must wait on God, must be quietly waiting to give honour to him, and to receive comfort from Him. Those that have done the will of God, and their well-doing is at an end, have need of patience to enable them to wait till they inherit the promise; and the nearer the happiness is which they are waiting for, the dearer should the God be they are waiting on, and hope shortly to be with eternally.—Matthew Henry.

Original Papers.

PRESBYTERIANISM-ITS PLACE, PRESENT AND
PROSPECTIVE, IN ENGLAND.

It has long been a consolation to English Presbyterians, that though still occupying the Vale of Humility, as one of the smaller sections of the Christian Church, they have no reason to be ashamed of their principles, or to modify the frankness with which they are accustomed to announce them; and it is to them a cheerful thought, that the best causes have often, for ages, owed their vitality, and at length their triumph, to obscure minorities. Our Church's testimony is for the highest truth, and this reconciles us in the mean time to the lowest place, where we calmly and confidently await that "good time coming" when truth shall triumph.

The present day is one of steady-sometimes rapid-change; and we know not how soon God may call us to enter on a work in England for which He has given us a special aptitude. Small as we are, we have a very peculiar position here, and to this the duties which are likely to have a close relation. may devolve other. We are dis-established, but we are not voluntary. We do not own Our system differs materially from every upon us external authority, but we hold ourselves bound by a very full and welldefined Confession of faith. We are not under a priesthood, and yet we acknowledge a supreme church legislature, and a strict government and discipline. We maintain our Presbyterianism to be dictated by Scripture, but we do not deny the brotherhood of any believer. to the cause of civil as well as of religious liberty, and yet we think it wrong Our principles attach us to bring worldly politics within the precincts of the church. Ours is a system at once peculiar and catholic-at once liberal and conservativeecumenical in its aspirations, but very English in its present specialities. We can hardly help perceiving that we have elements in our ecclesiastical position and character which, if rightly used, may fit us for rendering services to truth in this country which are less in the power of any other body of Christians among us. Were we more numerous, and better acclimated, our capabilities for good would be, doubtless, greater, but in both these respects our progress is hopeful.

In the meantime progress is making elsewhere. Time is shaking the venerable but worn-out frame-work of the Church of England, and no one can predict how soon her best men will be compelled to leave her. There is a large body of warm-hearted Christians, of the most earnest evangelical type, existing in the bosom of the Establishment, who are fast coming to their wits' end as to what their duty is to their Church. They have learnt by the teaching of the Word and Spirit of God to hold positive evangelical truth. In many of their own churches they hear it preached, and they love the Church of England both from early associations and personal gratitude. But they are now becoming grieved and staggered by the strange absence of all No. 172.-New Series.

positive principles in that church's teaching. Not only does it appear that they have no guarantee for the continuance of the Gospel in their own congregations, which a single week may see handed over to a Tractarian or an infidel ministry, but they feel that, as things now are, themselves and their families are everywhere in danger. A Christian parent dreads, lest when his children leave his roof they may be thrown under the teaching of some subverter of their faith-some wolf in sheep's clothing-some Puseyite or "Essayist," who, in the name of the Church of England, will dispense to them poison for bread. Such teachers are unfortunately furnished with the means of disguise by the Church herself. Forms, venerable by antiquity, and reverenced from association by her members, invite them to a treacherous banquet spread within her walls. A Liturgy, foolishly and fulsomely commended to their idolatry by many of their most evangelical ministers, gilds the venom, which enters the unsuspecting heart and undermines the spiritual life. Early principles are often thus, to the grief of many a pious parent, hopelessly subverted. Their children return home only to scoff at the faith in which they were educated, and family distrust and dispeace miserably succeed to mutual understanding and sympathy.

Such evils are becoming at length intolerable to many of the best of the Church's members and adherents. Many of the clergy, though an aspect of strange indifference appears on the surface, are deeply moved by the state of affairs, and feeling perplexed as to the path of duty, are probably awaiting some indication of Providence as to the course they ought to adopt. More than one of them has been compelled by conscience to withdraw from the Establishment. Others are mourning and grieving in secret over evils which they cannot prevent, and against which they lack as yet the courage even to protest. The prelates, from some of whom better things might have been expected, and for whose guidance some of the clergy are vainly and helplessly waiting, have shown a singular and discreditable apathy, and one of the gravamina chargeable against the Church system is certainly this, that its honours and emoluments, in our day at least, have so generally (may we not say universally ?) resulted in paralysing those who have partaken of them.

Among the devout lay members of the Church, however, this state of things cannot long continue to be bearable. They have borne long with abuses which they have fondly, but vainly, expected to be removed, and the only reasonable hope for the Established Church seems now to be, that by some revolutionary movement, the causes or the course of which cannot yet be conjectured, the rubbish will be hurled from the temple, and peace and purity restored. Much more likely, however, does it at present appear that corruptions will grow stronger and more intolerable, till good men are compelled to withdraw themselves from a system which has proved itself to be equally dangerous and incurable.

Now, supposing for a moment such a disruption as this to have taken place, whether suddenly or by a gradual process eliminating the evangelical leaven from the membership of the Established Church, where, let me ask, would the anxious Christian Churchman find an asylum ready to open its doors for his reception, and which at the same time he could feel confidence in entering? We might naturally expect, indeed, that he would look round for such a refuge among the leading sections of Dissenters-but among these there are generally many things directly tending to repel the class of whom we are now speaking, and too powerful to be overcome. Take this into view, that, almost to a man, the individuals to whom we are now adverting are in heart Churchmen, attached to a settled government in Church and State;

that with few exceptions they are Calvinists, and in earnest on doctrinal principles; that they desire simply a sphere of quiet duty and of peaceful piety, and that nothing would be more distasteful than to be brought into contact with noisy polemics, with ecclesiastico-political agitations, or with congregational disputes; and it will be evident that, in most of the existing denominations holding a prominent place in the public eye, there is little to invite the pious Churchman, fleeing from the heresies of an Establishment to which all his associations from boyhood have attached him, and where he has hitherto contentedly occupied the place of a humble listener and learner.

Such a man, earnestly intent on doing the best under a painful necessity, is apt to find himself hopelessly perplexed. He examines his neighbourhood with a view to discover some body of Christians with whom he may agreeably associate. Arminianism in one, Anti-Churchism in another, Baptist views in a third,—in most, the absence of any recognised Confession of faith or of any Articles of religion; a rumour of the prevalence of Negative Theology here, and of intestine divisions there. Such are the powerful elements that must deter many from uniting themselves to almost any of the churches beyond the pale of the Establishment, and that sometimes tempt them, in desperation, to give a new illustration of the maxim that "extremes meet," by rushing into the open arms of the Plymouth Brethren. Now if our Presbyterianism in England were at this moment what it ought to be, we might offer to our perplexed brethren of the Established Church what they are vainly looking for elsewhere, and might hope that they would thankfully accept it at our hands. In opening our doors to welcome them we could offer them a Confession of Faith as Calvinistic as are their own Thirty-nine Articles when read with simplicity and candour, and less ambiguous; we should ask them to exchange their Episcopacy of Prelacy, which has wrought so ill in the Established Church, for our Episcopacy of Presbytery which works so well in ours. We should hold out to them for that deplorable laxity which suffered themselves and their families to be invaded by medieval fanaticism and German infidelity, a system of efficient discipline, whereby heresy is detected, checked, and banished from our borders. We should offer to them, instead of patronage-ever threatening congregations with false teachers-a regulated freedom of election, within limits which secure an Evangelical, a well qualified, and well educated ministry to all the congregations of the Church. Instead of internal political contentions, we should present to them the peace and good order of a people governed by rulers of their own choosing, mutually counselled, assisted, and controlled, and we should say to them, "Come with us and we will do you good; we will require you to change no principles, to alter no old habits, to enter on no unusual or distasteful courses. Like yourselves, we are Calvinistic Churchmen; like yourselves, we are opposed to political agitations under the disguise of religion or in connection with it; like your. selves, we see great beauty in a well-constituted government, and like yourselves, we love a well-defined and unambiguous standard of faith. Here you will find what you need, and if you can be content to enjoy the Gospel divested of some of the ornaments with which the Established Church surrounds it, and which have often, as you acknowledge, proved a snare; if a liturgy, and an organ, and an altar are not essential to your edification, then you will find among us all that you can desire to aid your spiritual progress, and to guard yourselves and your children from devious courses and treacherous errors."