his spare time and mental energy. Having stored with theological tomes his dim and dingy printing-office in a corner of Warwick Square, Newgate Street, he made good speed in authorship. At the instance of his friend George Morley, he began his richly annotated translation of the Works of Arminius, which was issued in Parts. This work, left halffinished, has been happily completed by his son. In 1824, appeared his great work, in two goodly octavo volumes: Calvinism and Arminianism Compared in their Principles and Tendency; or, The Doctrines of General Redemption, as held by the Members of the Church of England, and by the Early Dutch Arminians, exhibited in their Scriptural Evidence, and in their Connection with the Civil and Religious Liberties of Mankind.

Fifty-four years ago Calvinism held a very different position in this country from that which, thanks in great measure to such writers as. James Nichols, it now holds. According to Mr. Dale's happy illustration in the English Independent, Calvinism even in Calvinistic Churches, is now treated as the bees treat the queen-bee-respectfully stowing it away in a corner of the hive, and keeping it close under a coating of wax. But, half a century ago the queen bee was at large and prolific, and gallantly guarded by a thousand stings! It is enough to say that in both the great works of Mr. Nichols the best judges have recognized the safest guides to an accurate estimate of the momentous questions involved in the Calvinistic Controversy that the nineteenth century has supplied. The labour involved in the production of each was such as could never have been sustained had it not been a labour of love. And it was not labour in vain. Its full and fair presentation of the real views of the prince of Dutch theology must ever be of real service to every student

of the subject and the times. It is, as Richard Watson said, 'a manifold work.' Thus for several years Mr. Nichols was enriching the learned and religious world, at no slight expense to himself, in more ways than one. He was sometimes in grave pecuniary straits; but he believed that he was serving 'his own generation by the will of God;' and he was a man of prayer and childlike faith in Providence, a faith which experience raised to settled confidence.

Happily, the warm gulf-stream of fraternal love which has set in since the date of Mr. Nichols's theological works has greatly improved the climatic conditions of the Evangelical Churches, by at once accumulating and distributing an equatorial warmth of Christian charity. Now, the difference in teaching on the doctrines of grace amongst earnest Protestants is much rather one of degree than of kind. The vast majority of zealous Preachers of the Gospel can subscribe without reservation to the Arminio-Calvinian Confession of St. Peter that all true believers are 'elect, according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through sanctification of the Spirit unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ.'

Mr. Nichols still worked hard at his old vocation as careful editor of firstclass works which had drifted into comparative neglect. Amongst these may be mentioned Fuller's Church History, his Holy State and Profane State and his History of the University of Cambridge and of Waltham Abbey, with The Appeal of Injured Innocence, Faringdon's Sermons, Chillingworth's. Religion of Protestants, Alleine's Alarm to the Unconverted, and Pearson On the Creed. He also produced admirable editions of the Latin Classics and of English Poets Cæsar's Commentaries and Virgil's Eclogues and Georgics, and the Works of Thomson and Young.

Of the last two, the Athenæum speaks in the highest terms, in a tribute to his memory which appeared in that Journal shortly after his death (December 7th, 1861): Among the many works which he edited, there are two, at least, which cannot be surpassed for judgment, zeal, care and scholarship on the part of the editor, namely, The Poetical Works of Thomson, and The Complete Works of Dr. Young. A great number of Articles in Watson's Theological Dictionary are from the pen of Mr. Nichols. Among the works which he left unfinished was a nearly completed edition of Samuel Wesley's Poems.

His learning was held in great esteem in the highest literary circles. Southey, Wordsworth and Bishop Tomline, sought out the retiring Methodist printer in his studious privacy, and two celebrated Church dignitaries, Bishop Blomfield and Archdeacon Wrangham, earnestly pressed him to accept episcopal ordination, and preferment in the Established Church. But nothing could detach him from the Church of his youth, of his convictions and his heart.

Our own acquaintance with Mr. Nichols began when he was about sixty years of age. His intimacy

with the father, in his old Yorkshire days, secured a cordial reception for the son. We found him a tall, bright-complexioned, well-propor

tioned personage, of neat attire and frank and hearty bearing. An antique simplicity was stamped on his face and dress and manners, yet he had withal the appearance of a literary or professional man. He was cheery, jocund and communicative, one might say, chatty; fond of recalling old times and old friends, and evidently of a trustful, hopeful and unanxious habit of mind. His strong, plain tone announced the fact of his early connection with the North. Above all, James was a good man,' a true Christian. His habitual mood was that of Believers Rejoicing and Believers Working. His last distinguishable words seemed ringing echoes of a Yorkshire Prayer-meeting: 'Hallelujah! Praise the Lord! Amen! Amen!' He died November 26th, 1861, in the seventy-seventh year of his age.

James Nichols must be ranked amongst the noble fraternity of printer-authors, along with Aldo Manuzio, the Elzevirs and his halfnamesake, the London printer, John Nichols, author of Literary Anecdotes.

An earnest tribute of gratitude is due to the Rev. Edwin H. Tindall, for The Wesleyan-Methodist Atlas of England and Wales.* And, in order that any such tribute from us may not be barren, our first duty will be to afford a fair notion of the work done. The title is a very inadequate description of the contents. Besides

As

the fifteen plates of which it speaks, there are three Tables equally elaborate and even more important. an Atlas this magnificent volume is all, and more than all, that the best atlases usually are; it is perfectly adapted to the purpose intended.

We have not had a Connexional Atlas before this. The three or four

Maps by which this was preceded, had no such pretensions. The Wesleyan Map of London, even as improved and re-issued under the sanction of Connexional Committees, was confined to London and its immediate surroundings; whatever it may have suggested by comprising Circuit boundaries, the population included within each, and the accommodation provided by Wesleyan Methodism. Mr. G. Booth's Wesleyan District Map of Great Britain (1848) described the Districts minutely from official documents, giving the distances between town and town, with railways and their stations. It showed also Circuit towns and some other preaching-places, with several other particulars. The Wesleyan-Methodist and General Reference Map of England and Wales, which Mr. H. Manby published in 1866, distinguished county from county by colours, marked the boundaries of districts with a red line, and gave, not only the Circuit towns, but also the other places where a Minister resided, but it stopped short at that point.

:

If, therefore, from one point of view, we owe Mr. Tindall's complete Atlas to what Messrs. Booth and Manby had already done, we owe it much more to what the better of them left undone for as Mr. Tindall informs us, if Mr. Manby had felt justified in publishing his Map as it was originally sketched, this second attempt would have gone far towards satisfying the want so long felt.' Happily, Mr. Tindall was not deterred from entering upon his more elaborate design, either by the immensity of the labour or by the expense which it involved.

His pre

decessors did not venture upon a larger scale than that of twelve miles to an inch; whereas, he has had the spirit and the perseverance to start with and adhere to a scale of four miles to an inch. By this one means he has been able to make every thing

far more

distinct than it could have been on any scale more contracted, and to include many valuable and even necessary particulars which those who went before him felt it fruitless to attempt.

Candid minds will promptly respond to Mr. Tindall's modest claim for indulgent consideration towards a volume which in its exact delineations and tabulated figures, both involving extreme pains and patience, presents the fruits of 'singlehanded' labour; and, when to this are added, prospectively at least, the incalculable practical benefits towards the effectuation of which these plates and tables can and will be made directly helpful, one cannot but feel that Mr. Tindall has laid the Connexion under great obligations, and the souls whose evangelical history in years and ages to come shall be the result of fitting up these lacunæ, or waste-placessometimes made in county after county, and in even District after District-under far greater still. But, in order to all this, the Atlas must, by one means or another, be placed where it can be leisurely studied and fully comprehended by every mind, ministerial or lay, that is, or that ought to be, absorbingly interested in the universal extension of the Christian salvation to the inhabitants of England and Wales. Mr. Tindall's direct religious aim,' in his design and its execution, is every where apparent. Let us take his Tables first, and make the tour of his Maps afterwards. The first shows every parish and township arranged alphabetically by counties, with the population in 1871, and the number of Wesleyan-Methodist chapels and the amount of accommodation in December, 1873. The second shows the parishes and townships, and their population, which have not any such chapel or preaching-place, classified according to size and county. The third shows the

6

percentage of increase or decrease, first of the general population, then of the members of Wesleyan-Methodist Societies, in each county, ten years by ten years, from the first year of the century. Taking the three Tables together, we see from them, first, what is the present state (for practical purposes) of the comparison between populations and chapel accommodation; secondly, the individual and aggregate amounts of places and populations for which no such accommodation has yet been provided; and, thirdly, the rate at which the Methodist Societies have kept pace with, lagged behind, or outstripped the increase of population.

Some parishes or townships render difficult a perfectly exact account, by extending into two or even more counties, whereas they can, for the present purpose, be unconnected in but one; because, as at Hungerford, the chapel is not in Berkshire, but in Wiltshire, to which it is relegated accordingly. But these causes of disturbance are too few to be material. Table I., may be thus summarized:

ENGLAND.

Population. Chapels. Sittings. 146,257 90 23,970 196,475 57 9,638 175,879 84 14,309 186,906 57 12,929 561,201 219 53,740 362,343 388 97,720 220,253 123 19,239 379,394 197 37,708 601,374 222 55,326 195,537 130 19,685 685,089 258 60,491 466,436 74 16,049 534,640 130 28,745 125,370 41 4,834 192,226 48 8,432 63,708 35 6,046 848,294 171 41,596 2,819,495 484 186,587 269,311 117 21,458 436,599 450 82,165

4,520

557,035

Lancashire

2,361

846,113

Leicester

500-1000

1,527

1,070,829

Lincoln

1000-2000

634

868,254

Middlesex

2,539,765 108

54,439

2000-3000

Monmouth

66 195,448

180,544

Norfolk

438,656 143

78,686

Northampton

243,891 115

104,060

Places whose population is under 250 From 250-500

Table III., like the preceding, is subject to slight inaccuracy, by reason of the division of Circuits, throwing, in some cases, the divided parts into different counties, the head of the old Circuit being in one county, the head of the new one in the other. The cases of decrease are indicated by the prefix of the sign minus (—) to the number This Table expressing the amount. shows in each county of England, (with the general average for England and Wales,) whether, ten years by ten years, from 1800 to 1870, the Wesleyan Methodists and the general population have increased or decreased, and by what percentages. With regard to the former, there were in the first decade nine counties stationary Bucks, Cambridge, Hereford, Hertford, Monmouth, Rutland, Suffolk, Surrey, Westmoreland. There was a decrease in two: Berkshire and Cornwall; an increase in all the rest. In the second decade, the stationary counties were six: Buckingham, Hertford, Rutland, Surrey, Westmoreland; Sussex, decrease occurred only in one, Cheshire; increase in all the rest. Third decade; four stationary: Hertford, Kent, Rutland, Surrey; decrease in none; crease above 100 per cent., one, Dorset. Fourth decade: stationary, one, Rutland; decrease two: Cumberland, Durham; increase above 100 per cent., one, Hertford. Fifth decade (1841-51): stationary, two: Hertford, Warwick; decreases,

in

twenty-six; increases, thirteen, the highest being Monmouth. Sixth decade: stationary, two: Nottingham and Wilts; decreases fifteen; increases twenty-three, the highest, Dorset, thirty-five. Seventh decade: stationary, four: Cambridge, Devon, Essex, Worcester; decreases, twelve; increase, twenty-two.

The general average (including Wales) appears to be an increase between 1800 and 1870: in Wesleyan Methodists, 287 per cent., in total population, 155 per cent. figures for each county are too striking not to find a place in this summary : Wesleyan Methodists.

Bedford

Lincoln

The

Population.