the county magistrates, but on the first occasion the "notice" was not producible. At the adjourned hearing, the magistrates discovered that the date of the rate and that for which the meeting was convened by the notice did not correspond; and the chairman of the bench, though a great upholder of churchrates himself, upon looking further to the list of items in the estimates, found some under such titles as "legacies for the poor," "vestry clerk," etc., all which he declared to be entirely illegal. Mr. Thomas Waters, solicitor, who appeared on behalf of Mrs. Osborne, told the magistrates that they might suppose a lady at her time of life would not be at such trouble to oppose the payment of a paltry 6s. 8d., except at the dictate of the strongest conscientious motives. He handed in a written list of objections to the rate, and the magistrates thereupon dismissed the case, as out of their jurisdiction. SPECIAL EVENING SERVICES AT WESTMINSTER ABBEY.-The dean and chapter will open the nave of Westminster Abbey on Sunday evenings, from Sunday, Jan. 3rd, for a series of special services, commencing at seven o'clock. It is not known whether the dean and canons will officiate, or apply to well-known_popular preachers to take the duty, as at Exeter Hall. It may be remembered, that there were evening services in the abbey in 1851, during the Exhibition, the great attraction of which was the choir of 120 voices. THE LAITY IN CONVOCATION. The Union says:-"A report has reached us, on undoubted authority, that the bishops of the English Church are unanimously agreed, that the admission of the laity as elected members of convocations or synods is directly contrary to ancient practice; and therefore they will not sanction any such plan, though they will be prepared to invite laymen to be present at such meetings." THE NEW TRACTARIAN PLATFORM."We stand aloof from Protestantism. We renounce it. It is none of ours. We see in Rome a sister-we see the links broken, which God and Christ would set at one again. We can recognize the Patriarch of the West on his throne in the Vatican. But we are asked to read history by the light of other eyes than our own. We are asked to accept de fide that which was never till lately made a condition of communion. We are asked to abjure all that we have so long held dear-to give the lie to every thought, and word, and deed in our past-to denounce our worship as a blasphemy, and our ministry as a sacrilege. Because we venture to vindicate the presence of God among us, as we recognise it among those who have left us, they-(for it is not Rome, but England, which brings the accusation)-they dare to point at us as unfaith ful to the sacred cause of unity, as cowar ly and timid, as uncatholic and unchristian. The conditions of unity should not be, cannot be, subjection. If we are wrong, we ought not to speak of union; if we are right, they might not demand submission." Such is the boast of men who eat the bread of the Church of England! THE REV. GEORGE TOWNSEND, D.D., Prebendary of Durham, who died recently in that town, was the son of the Rev. George Townsend, for many years the excellent pastor of the Independent chapel, Ramsgate. He was educated at Cambridge, and, by some tracts on the Romish controversy, had the good fortune to gain the favour of Bishop Barrington, of Durham, whose patronage of men of ability was exemplary. Dr. Townsend was one of the ablest opponents of Rome in the days of Charles Butler and Dr. Milner. Some of his historical works still live; but perhaps he will be most permanently remembered by his "Arrangement of the Holy Scriptures," a book of unalterable value. His office was worth 1,000l. a-year, and is in the gift of the bishop of the diocese. THE REV. MR. NEALE AND THE SISTERS OF MERCY. It would appear that the late Miss Scobell, whose funeral occasioned so much disturbance at Lewes, was a proselyte of the Rev. Mr. Neale, who used to meet her clandestinely. The charges made by the father against this Protestant priest are very serious. In August, 1857, Miss Scobell enrolled herself among the Sisters of Mercy at East Grinstead. In the beginning of November last she was taken dangerously ill. Her father was admitted to one interview, and received a promise that if any change for the worse took place he should be summoned immediately. The change for the worse did take place, but the summons was sent with so much wilful and unnecessary delay, that she was dead before he arrived. After her death it was found that she had made a will, in which Mr. Neale was made executor, and Miss Græme (the head of the establishment) executrix, although a few months before she had spontaneously declared that nothing should tempt her to alienate her property. These facts are brought out in the published correspondence. ECCLESIASTICAL EXPENDITURE IN INDIA. On the motion of Colonel Sykes, a return was ordered of the annual expenditure for ecclesiastical objects in India, at the different presidencies, from 1836-7 to the latest period, under the several heads of bishops and cathedral establishments, number of regular chaplains, number of uncovenanted auxiliary chaplains, cost of building churches, cost of grants in aid of church building, allowances to Roman Catholic chaplains, and miscellaneous expenditure. Poetry. THE WIDOWER'S WARNING. 'T WAS when wind and woodland grappled, and the dawn rose drear and dappled, Barr'd with cloud, like streaming pennant, that my young wife dying lay, And dim warnings pass'd before her, in the twilight shadows o'er her, Warnings to the spirit tenant, ere should fall the home of clay. Prayer was vain for death to leave her prayer that God would stay the fever; Night and morn we both besought him to remove the hectic bloom. Springtide gave the fatal blooming, Summer found the bud consuming, And God took her in the Autumn-and the red leaves strew'd her tomb. Years have pass'd. This morn I wander'd through the graves, and idly ponder'd How the ivy trails crept higher on the stone at Amy's grave; How the emerald mosses stain'd it, how the lichens pale engrain'd it, How the autumn-crimson'd brier its fantastic shadow gave; So I mused, for grief is listless, and a longing came, resistless, Once again to slumber by her, where the dreaming shadows wave. On the dark rank grass I laid me; Amy's spirit seem'd to shade me; Every sense in sleep surprising, with sleepsounds the air was rife. Ah, once more we slept together, in the soft and sunny weather, And the slumber-sound seem'd rising-the old graveyard teem'd with life! Voices of past generations came in mystic low vibrations, Fitfully around me straying-vague and awful mutterings; Youthful voices, infant lispers, and the old men's broken whispers; Would I knew what they were saying! murmuring of forgotten things. Then from Amy's rayless dwelling came a tender tone upwelling; The old graveyard thrill'd and trembled, like an ocean-murmuring shell. First it came a sobbing mutter; then as silver tongues did utter These sad words-my heart-pulse bounded to the voice I knew so well. Strange! the words so heavy-hearted have from memory departed; Though in fancy still I hear her, yet the sense I can't recall. But I think it was a warning, sent through visions of the morning, That I soon shall slumber near her, in the soundest sleep of all! A LITTLE WHILE. BEYOND the smiling and the weeping, I shall be soon; Beyond the waking and the sleeping, Love, rest, and home! Lord, tarry not, but come. Beyond the blooming and the fading, I shall be soon; Beyond the shining and the shading, Love, rest, and home! Lord, tarry not, but come. Beyond the rising and the setting, Beyond the calming and the fretting, Lord, tarry not, but come. Beyond the parting and the meeting, Beyond the farewell and the greeting, Love, rest, and home! Lord, tarry not, but come. Beyond the frost-chain and the fever, Beyond the rock-waste and the river, Lord, tarry not, but come. DEATH. H. BONAR. FOR what is death to him who dies A charter-not a sacrifice, A life immortal to the dead. And life itself is only great When man devotes himself to be By virtue, thought, and deed, the mate Of God's own children and the free. Monthly Review. THE great events of the Month, as well as of the year, refer to the revolt of the Indian Army, the accompaniments of which, for cruelty and horror, exceed everything known in modern history. The number slain, so far as at present ascertained, are about 1,524. Of this multitude, the loss of military officers amounts to 256. Of the distress and anguish connected with the matter, it is impossible for men at home to form anything even approaching an adequate idea. Those on the spot alone can do so. If the very report, though necessarily most imperfect, has made the ears of Europe to tingle, and the blood of the civilized World to run cold, what must have been the feelings of those on the spot, personally and relatively the objects of these atrocities? It was once the custom of a certain school of moralists and politicians to extol the character of the Natives as all innocence, as arrayed in all the virtues that can adorn humanity, and as likely to lose rather than gain from the introduction of Christianity. This mis representation, or misapprehension, is now at an end; it has been incontrovertibly proved, in the face of an astonished world, that the inspired descriptions of human nature, in all their fulness and particularity, apply to them. The most humiliating epithets of the Apostles rather come short of the fact than exceed it. 66 But the character of the Natives is not the only thing that has been revealed by the Revolt. Much hitherto, in a great degree, hid in darkness has been brought to light, and more will follow. The Natives have hitherto been the subject of great and numerous grievances, not of a religious, but of a social and political character. The Government of the East India Company has been, to say the least, a very mixed benefit to Hindostan. If they have achieved much good, which cannot be denied, they have also perpetrated much evil. While they have frowned on Christianity they have smiled on Idolatry, and nourished its institutions with an illjudged and lavish generosity. These matters are now in the way of being fully illumined, and the result will be reform, correction, and instruction in righteousness." The Company will either be removed and supplanted by the Crown of England or thoroughly controlled; the government of that vast region will now be put on a right foundation. It will, doubtless, in the end, be assimilated to that of the other Colonies of England, which enjoy the benefits and blessings of the British Constitution. The policy of the Company has hitherto been, to the uttermost, to keep out, as much as possible, all English settlers from the country, a prime source of the present calamity, which, under other circumstances, would probably never have happened. This will now, we trust, be reversed, and every inducement held out to the people of England to emigrate to the fertile plains of Hindostan. What is wanted above all things is, the introduction of 150,000 English families, or as many as to furnish about a million of subjects, of both sexes and of all ages. This number, great as it might seem to people of other countries, from an English point of view, is quite within the compass of reason and practicability. With proper arrangements it might be accomplished in a comparatively short time. If a period of fifteen years has sufficed for Great Britain to send forth no fewer than three millions of Emigrants, many of them to inhospitable regions, and all to countries none of which in point of temptation may be compared with India, what might not be accomplished in that direction? This once effected, the basis of empire, true and lasting, would be supplied. Such a population would not only admit of, but demand, the establishment of Local Government, subordinate to the Imperial Legislature, as in Canada, the Cape of Good Hope, and in Australia. In this way a redeeming element will be thrown into Indian society,-a leaven which, in the end, will leaven the entire community, and lay a foundation for its conversion to God, and to the ultimate establishment of representative government with free institutions. That the thing will one day take some such turn we consider absolutely certain. It is impossible that the system of the last hundred years can go on to the end of all things. In the meantime, political England is waking up to a sense of her duty, and she will perform it. Religious England is also becoming alive to her responsibilities, and she will not be found wanting. To cultivate the heart of India with its two hundred millions of population, will require all the energies and resources that England can put forth for generations. But, under God, in the end she will prove herself equal to the matchless enterprise. How mighty the work to be done! How worthy of her! How vast the obligation it imposes, and how overwhelming the responsibility! The end will correspond with the means. When achieved, it will be incomparably the most glorious event of the kind to be found in the history of nations. The heart throbs in its highest force while endeavouring to anticipate the day when there shall not be in Hindostan a heathen temple or a heathen priest; and when it will be as difficult to find an idol there as it is now in Tahiti or Rarotonga! Yet that day must come, for God has spoken it; and there is no hazard in affirming, that the Revolt has ushered in a course of events which will end in putting everything in a train for the thorough regeneration of that countless people; and that nothing else could have brought it about. In this way the Lord will make "the wrath of man praise him." Had things continued to move on at the rate of the last century, a thousand ages would have passed away before the work would have been done, nor would that have sufficed to realize this sub lime and glorious consummation! The Revolt, in spite of its crimes and its horrors, will be looked back to by the natives of generations to come with joy and gratitude. The Sepoy will be viewed as, after all, in effect, the grand regenerator of his country. At home things present a very chequered aspect, The Bank Failures and the countless suspensions which have taken place throughout England, Europe, and America are unparalleled and appalling. While the results of these things are primarily commercial, they must also exert a mighty influence on morals and religion. The shock will be felt everywhere, more especially in the commercial districts; and there is reason to fear, that unless men of wealth, rightly reading the signs of the times and comprehending the obligations imposed by their position, shall step forth to meet the emergency, the effect will be seriously to cripple evangelical operations. With regard to the directly religious aspect of affairs throughout the Congregational Body, matters, if not all that could be desired, yet supply much cause for thankfulness. The one great denominational object that is at present engrossing public attention is the very unsatisfactory state of things regarding the support of the Ministry. The subject is exciting unusual interest, and there is reason to believe, that, even should it not realize all that is desired, it will unquestionably be attended with the happiest consequences. The masterly correspondence which has appeared in the British Standard in the course of the last few months, would constitute a considerable and a very valuable volume. The meeting to be held in the course of the present month will, we doubt not, materially contribute to converge the scattered rays of light which able and zealous ministers, such as the Revs. John Ashby, John Ross, Dr. Ferguson, and others, have been throwing on the subject. The discussion will render the year memorable in the history of our Church finance and in that of other denominations. To prevent mistakes, however, it is proper to state, that we, the Independents, are, in this matter of Pastoral Maintenance, not worse than our neighbours; facts indeed prove that we are in a better condition. In the Established Church and in the Baptist body the Ministry are still worse provided for; nor is the evil confined to England, it is but too prevalent in the United States. Our Protestant horizon, we regret to say, is not without clouds. Puseyism is displaying itself with a front of more than usual hardihood, and is more and more proving itself to be Popery in a rudimental condition. From a single church in London, which is occasionally honoured with the presence of Dr. Pusey, no fewer than six clergymen, within a limited period, have gone over to Rome! In this way, the ranks of Popery are being replenished at the expense of Protestantism. One of the most cheering signs of the times is, the growing attention manifested on behalf of the perishing mil lions. Methodism, which from the first was one immense Home Missionary Institution, has, as to its ministry, necessarily become modified to meet the wants of an enlightened people. But the multitude are not to be forgotten by the descendants of their illustrious friend; steps are being taken to establish a Home Mission for their special benefit. The Church of England, too, has put forth its strength in divers ways, for the promotion of the spiritual good of the surrounding heathen. The most remarkable thing touching Africa is, the publication of Dr. Livingstone's long looked-for Book, and the conse quent establishment of a Mission in Central Africa. The stupendous results of this discovery cannot, at present, be at all conceived. There can be no doubt, however, that trade and commerce, on a vast scale, will find their account in the hazards of the heroic traveller, to say nothing of the spread of religion which will cement and sanctify the whole. In China, things remain as before, and probably will do so till the tumults of India shall have subsided. It is to be hoped that the cause of humanity will gain from delay, and that negotiation, in mercy to bo tries, will supersede the necessity of conflict. Time has been given them to cool, and, we do not now despair of the pacific ad both coun 1 justment of their difference. In the whole of this affair, it is easy to observe the operation of a hand higher than that of man. At the very moment when the artillery of England was ready to burst forth for the destruction of Canton, doubtless, alike to the astonishment of Chinese and English, a new turn was given to the whole affair Another and a more serious enemy took the place of the children of the "Flowery Land," and the sphere of action came much nearer to the heart of England. The prayer of the faithful, then, should now be offered up without intermission for justice and peace, and the spread of the Gospel throughout the whole of that mighty country, comprehending as it does, one-third of the human race Theology. LIVING AND DYING UNTO THE LORD.* LITTLE did I expect that so shortly after I saw our brother, whom it has pleased the All-Wise Disposer of events to remove to a better world, apparently even better than he had been for some time in bodily health, I should be called on to improve his death under more than ordinarily arresting circumstances. But so it is. When we looked not for it, the summons came, and while yet we anticipated the presence, in our worshipping circle at the footstool, of one whom we all regarded as a blessing communicated to us as a church, it pleased Him who doeth all things well to disappoint our expectations, and take our brother to himself, to augment that innumerable company of sinless worshippers who surround the throne in heaven. How limited is the vision of mortals! How uncertain all their calculations! Truly may it be said, "We know not what a day may bring forth." I need not say that, in the removal of our friend, we feel that, as a church, we have sustained a loss, and that some of us, whose privilege it was to enjoy more intimate and frequent intercourse with the departed, experience not a little of the poignant sorrow of personal bereave ment. It is but natural to mourn the loss of friends-it were not Christ-like to restrain our grief when Christians die. But, blessed be God, the sorrow of the saints for the loved ones who have fallen asleep in Jesus is not hopeless sorrow. There is a future-a bright, gladsome future, and in it-not far distant-the reviving hope of a sweet re-union. There is, my beloved friends, I feel, a duty, though a melancholy one, devolving on me, to attempt some improvement of this sore and unanticipated stroke, which as a Christian church we have just experienced. I have already attempted so far to discharge this duty, by leading your thoughts towards a theme fitted to exhort and console; but it were unbecoming did I not advert a little farther more particularly to the event which has filled one home with sadness, and taken from our little company another soldier to the rest and reward above. It is to me matter of regret that I am unprepared to furnish much, if any information respecting the early years of our departed brother. From childhood he appears to have been unusually susceptible of religious influences; and, as in some cases with which it is our happiness to meet, even in this lamentably defective age, became the subject of salutary impression regarding spiritual things when comparatively young. Whether Divine truth had obtained a hold upon his mind previous to his public identification with a professing church of Christ, is perhaps unknown. I have reason, indeed, to believe, that some time previous to the year 1831, while attending on the ministry of the late Dr. Wright, at that time a clergyman of the Established Church in Stirling, he underwent a marked change in his spiritual state. The minister just mentioned appears to have been a zealous and faithful servant of the Great Master, unfolding in his public teaching, with simplicity and clearness, the grand fundamentals of the evangelical system. And although our friend had before this period become an earnest student of Divine truth, it was not until in the providence of God he was led to seek spiritual instruction from the lips of Dr. Wright that he obtained those transparent, comprehensive, and soul-satisfying views of the way of salvation, which so highly distinguished him in after life. Oh, my friends! what an inestimable blessing is an evangelical ministry, when characterized by simplicity of statement and fervour of spirit! What a responsibility is associated with its enjoyment! How incalculably precious the results of its improvement! You, who were privileged to listen to the intelligent and unhesitating manner in which our departed brother referred from time to time to the ground of his eternal hope, and the nature of his anticipations connected with it, cannot but realize the nameless consequence of receiving the rudiments of our holy religion in all the grand simplicity with which the Divine record sets them forth. As will invariably occur in cases of genuine conversion, our brother, from • The close of a discourse preached on the occasion of the death of a member of the Congregational Church, Cambuslang, Glasgow. VOL. XV. E |