by its profundity to the investigation of the sage. But while we have full confidence in the gospel, as the instrument of the world's regeneration, there may be other methods of bringing it into contact with the popular mind; without changing the remedy, we may adopt new means for promoting its application. Our church and chapel services, as ordinarily conducted, are useless, if the parties will not attend them; nor is the preaching there always best adapted to the peculiar modes of thought of our working men. If they will not come to hear the gospel, we must convey it to them; and we must present it in a manner most likely to overcome their prejudices, to arrest their attention, and secure their belief. Let the gospel be presented thus, and we fear not for the results, whether brought into contact with the brutally profligate or the intellectually sceptical. I am glad to say that your committee are fully alive to the importance of such efforts, and would gladly employ them to a much greater extent than their means will allow. They wisely resolve not to wait for a perfect organization, but to do what they can with the means they have in their power, in a spirit of humble, suppliant, confiding dependence on God, with whom is the residue of the Spirit, and who alone can give the increase. Still, I can perceive in the expressions at the close of the report a tone of just complaint, or of sincere regret, that you do not supply them with the means of instituting a more perfect organization, and procuring men adapted for another kind of labour than that in which agents are usually engaged; a labour more loudly called for by the wants of the time, and for which little provision is made by any denomination of Christians, but which is likely to be productive of the most gratifying results. I, for one, do not believe in your inability; there may be exceptions, but, as a general rule, I solemnly deny it ; and if more be not done by you than has been done hitherto, I shall not attribute it to your want of ability, but to your want of willingness. I pray that God in His mercy may save us from the sin of shrinking from the post of duty, when the voice of perishing thousands around us calls upon us to bestir ourselves when the efforts of the adversaries of the cross, the infidelity which is seeking insidiously to undermine the citadel of our faith, and the Popery which

is stretching forth its arms on all sides, summon us 66 to the help of the Lord, to the help of the Lord, against the mighty."

The resolution was put and carried unanimously.

The Rev. C. STOVEL moved the second resolution:

That, notwithstanding the efforts made by this and kindred institutions to evangelize the people, there remains an afflictive amount of ignorance, indifference, and practical as well as speculative infidelity, to be overcome; and that as means, sagaciously adjusted to the corrupted vigorously employed by the advocates of various susceptibilities of human nature, are being

anti-Christian errors, which tend to the eternal undoing of our countrymen; it is highly important that the agents of the society should be well qualified for their work, both by their general intelligence and as men of God, and operations by liberal supplies of tracts and that they may be greatly assisted in their other publications distinguished by wise and benevolent adaptation to the characteristic requirements of the times.

He could have wished that the proceedings had closed, as far as speaking was concerned, with the admirable address of the last speaker, and the remainder of the service been consecrated to devotional exercises. Very true it was, that even where the highest and richest fruits of intellect had been acquired, the heart was in as much need of the sanctifying influences of Divine mercy as it was before. The observations made in the preceding address respecting the popular literature of the day were worthy of the most profound consideration. The evil was not confined to books adapted to the lower orders, but extended to works of a more cultivated character. An illustration of this remark might be found in Carlyle's “Memoirs of Stirling," in which he seems to have embodied in himself a practical development of his own Mephistopheles. But there was not so much danger from vulgar hostility or refined scepticism as from the religious operations of the churches themselves. He could not take his New Testament in his hand, and walk through the region of his acquaintance, and say, "Here is a living embodiment of the great truths which are written there." Still, in reviewing some of the operations of the society, there was ground for encouragement. One of the chief difficulties against which all such labours as those connected with this society had to contend, was the well-organised system of Catholicism and semi-Catholicism that so extensively

prevailed throughout the country, and it needed all their efforts to counteract the workings of that system. Especially were their labours required, as Mr. Griffiths had shown, among working men, more particularly those in manufacturing towns, where semi-politics, infidelity, and sentimentalism, were presented in such awful shapes-where one was compelled to hear coarse blasphemies uttered at the corners of the streets, even on the sabbath-day. What was needed was some well-sustained effort to bring together all the collective thoughts which many of these working men entertained in reference to religion, and to meet them by sound and scriptural arguments. An earnest, hearty, fervent ministry was needed, adapted especially for the rural population of the country. It was not theory against theory which they should endeavour so much to set up; it was not so much the amount of knowledge possessed by individuals, as the formation of personal habits adapted to personal intercourse, which must constitute the basis of all their advance in the work of God. We were apt to forget in our demonstrations of doctrine, that homage which was due to those personal ministrations by which mercy was handed out to man. Let it be remembered that God was doing that which was already anticipating many of our movements, and which would either second our right endeavours, or shake the whole structure of our communions as with the force of an earthquake, and crumble all the fabrics of our associations in the dust. There was now in this country a tendency to a sweet, and spiritual, and vitalising religion which no power could repel. As in the days of our Lord it was said, "Where is the kingdom of heaven?" and Jesus said, "It is rising in the midst of you;" so even now, while we were trying to press our little schemes, God was showing, in the streaks that were seen upon the cloudy horizon, indications of the morning. Let it, then, come and fill the whole horizon of our conception, and bring the day of triumph to our blessed Lord.

The Hon. and Rev. BAPTIST NOEL, in seconding the resolution, said: The various speakers had spoken with much force upon the adaptation of the gospel to the various classes of society. One had dwelt upon the tendency of the gospel to elevate and give force to the working classes; another insisted on the way in which it was calculated to save,

and aggrandize, and bless them for time and for eternity. But they did not seek it unless it was addressed pointedly to their minds; they were very much disposed to overlook it, because, with all these high tendencies, it had, at the same time, an aspect which to our fallen nature was very repulsive. It humbled, and demanded the entire subjugation of the will; it insisted that a restraint should be put upon the passions; it led men into communion with God, which naturally they did not like; and therefore it must be patiently and powerfully addressed to them. The churches of Christ had a commission to present that appeal to man; and unless they fulfilled their mission the masses of men remained unblessed, because uninstructed in the gospel. Never was that work wanted more than in our own day; and the churches of Christ in this country had that commission directly given them by our Lord. Many churches of the establishment, with able and zealous pastors and willing and earnest people, were doing their part in the work; and so were the numerous churches within the Wesleyan and Independent communities; but amongst these he conceived that the society whose claims were then advocated had the advantage. The churches within the establishment had numbers on their side, and the prestige of long position; they had education, and talent, and piety among them, and might accomplish, and he believed were accomplishing, a great work for God. The Wesleyan churches, whose mission it was to preach to the masses of our countrymen, in addition to having the gospel, which the evangelical churches of the establishment also possessed, had the advantage of being freed from the trammels of government, and were not exposed to that prejudice and dislike which were often attached to efforts sustained and ruled by the state. The Independent churches were, he thought, still happier in their efforts, because they possessed the gospel to preach to their fellow countrymen, as the Establishment and the Wesleyans had; like the Wesleyans, also. they were free from the trammels of an establishment, and, better than that, they had that church order and discipline which was calculated to strengthen their hands and materially aid them in their work. The Baptists, coming last, had an advantage in addition to those which the Independents possessed, inasmuch, if he mistook not, they cor

was

"My father," says Dr. Cramp, a native of St. Peter's, Isle of Thanet, in which place he spent his whole life, and laboured there in the gospel during the long space of sixty-four years. He was born March 25, 1770. He died Nov. 17, 1851.

"At the time of his birth his parents were members of the church of England. Martin Cramp, his father, was a strong-minded, well-informed man, accustomed to independent thinking. For nearly forty years he filled the post of village schoolmaster, with great credit and success.

"My father was the subject of serious impressions in his early youth. He felt deep reverence for sacred things

VOL. XV.-FOURTH SERIES.

and was very desirous of gaining religious instruction. There was a yearning after spiritual life which was not produced by the teachings of the parish minister, whose dry moral essays, though listened to with utmost attention, were entirely incomprehensible, because they were destitute of heart. Most earnestly did the youthful hearer long to understand religion, and with great desire did he look forward to the seasons of Christmas and Easter, because in the sermons then delivered there was something about Christ:-that was intelligible.

"At length the time of enlightenment arrived. Within half a mile of the village, at Shallows, a secluded hamlet, a small baptist church met for worship. It had existed from the time of King William III. Jonathan Purchis was the pastor. He was a very grave, solid preacher-plain, yet powerfulrich in doctrine-and a man of holy life. He preached and prayed, and watched and tended the little flock, in

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