I

words, "Pray ye, therefore, the Lord of the Church interests of his diocese, by rethe harvest, that he would sent forth la- fusing during the whole of his seven years' bourers into his harvest." The greatness episcopate to receive the £500 a-year of the field, the urgency of the need, and stipend attached thereto, and devoting the means to be employed, were pointed from his private purse no less a sum than out and urged on the consideration of his £10,000. With such disinterested munifihearers. Mr. Fordyce was then formally cence as is thus displayed, combined with inducted, and thereafter addressed by the personal qualities that win for him the Rev. Mr. Blelloch, of Crewe, who dwelt on highest esteem, Bishop Hobhouse's colonial the Divine authority by which the office of career ought to have been as remarkable the ministry had been appointed, and the for its success as it is for its failure. faithfulness with which its duties should allude to it thus fully in the hope that it be discharged. An address was then de- may serve as a warning against appointing livered to the congregation by the Rev. to clerical offices in the colonies men W. Kennedy Moore, of Liverpool. After imbued with what are called High Church touching on the primary duty of believing principles." in the Gospel sent to them, the speaker THE REVIVAL MOVEMENT IN AMERICA. especially urged the duties of regular at--In our American exchanges we find retendance on the means of grace, liberal peated references to the revival movement Pupport of Christian ordinances, kindly and its effects, both on the Church and fellowship one with another, and sympathy, Society. The following are samples of reverence, and affection for their pastor. what is doing :-" During the spring and After prayer by the Rev. Mr. Gullan, of summer, thus far, the Rev. J. D. Potter Swansea, the services were brought to a has continued his labour in different close. The hall had been filled throughout churches in Connecticut, with great success. with a large and very attentive audience. At Hebron the awakening was very extenThe prospects of the congregation formed in this place are extremely encouraging, and it is expected that the church will shortly be opened.

THE LATE MR. NICHOLAS TOWNS.-Mr. Nicholas Towns, an old and useful elder of the Presbyterian congregation at Etal, died suddenly on the 8th ult. Mr. Towns had been a staunch friend of our Church since the organization of the Synod in 1839, and had rendered invaluable assistance to the congregation, in connection Iwith which he was born and trained. As age grew upon him he ripened in the faith, and we have pleasing intimations that he died the death of the righteous.

MISCELLANEOUS ITEMS.

sive. When it was objected to having the meeting on account of the planting, a farmer of seventy-five years of age said, 'I think saving souls is more important than planting corn; and, if so, then I think the planting should be deferred for four dave.'

That man had three sons converted-one fifty, one forty-five, and one thirty years of age. The one of fortyfive said he had more joy in his home in twenty minutes communing with God than he had experienced in all his life before his conversion. The wealthiest man in the town, a silk manufacturer, stopped his mill, and used all his teams to carry his helps three times a day to meeting. A wonderful change has been wrought in his village. At Norfolk, Va., about 125 persons have joined the church of which the Rev G. T. Watkins is pastor. There

THE LATE BISHOP OF NELSON. are about three hundred penitents seeking Among the passengers who arrived from Wellington, New Zealand, by the New Panama route, was Bishop Hobhouse, who lately resigned the See of Nelson. After seven years of indefatigable labour the Bishop recently made to his synod the painful admission that "he had to behold the failure of almost everything he had planned and cherished." Unfortunately, the Bishop has had himself, says a correspondent, principally to blame for this untoward result. "Personally, he has won the respect of every one, but in his episcopal capacity he has been arbitrary and narrowminded, a course of conduct which colonists, with their generally liberal notions, could scarcely fail to resent. Bishop Hobhouse has displayed a remarkable munificence to

religion. The work is still going on at Portsmouth. The Rev. I. J. Hill, pastor at Smithfield, has also received twenty-five members, and his charge enjoys great spiritual prosperity. About five hundred persons have united with the several churches in Springfield, Ill. The two OldSchool churches, up to this time, have received 139 by profession, besides 27 by certificate. Thirty-seven were received by the Presbyterian Church in Fairview last Sabbath. It is estimated that nearly four hundred have been added to the churches of the Presbytery of Geneva during the present year. Thirty-three new members were also added to the Broadway Congregational Church, Rev. Mr. Herricks. In Charlestown seventy-one persons were

Their

received into membership with the First cons of Zion Chapel. The clergy are not Parish Congregational Church, by the religious autocrats in the parish. pastor, Rev. James B. Miles. Forty power is limited by the privileges of the persons were received into the Congrega- parish fficers; and, if the churchwardens tional Church of South Norfolk, last Sab- were to do their duty courageously, this bath, making seventy who have been re- ritualistic epidemic might very soon be ceived as the fruits of the late revival stamped out, without the aid of either under the ministry of the lately-installed lawyers, archdeacons, bishops, or Privy pastor, the Rev. Homer N. Dunning. The Council. The law invests the churchRev. J. C. Foster, pastor of the First wardens with ample authority to control Baptist Church, Beverley, Mass., adminis- the ornaments of the church. Whether tered the ordinance of baptism by im- crosses, candles, candlesticks, flowers, emmersion to thirty persons on Sabbath broidered altar-cloths, Christo atories, or morning, June 24th, at the foot of Federal fat images, shall be used in the service, is Street. The pastor of the church in entirely in the discretion of the parishGirard, Pa., writes of a second visit of Mr. ioners and their wardens. The clergy have Hammond there, this time accompanied by nothing to do with the ordering of the his wife, the late Miss Eliza Overton, of ornaments or furniture of the church. It Towanda. The Presbyterian Church was is altogether out of their proper pronightly thronged with listeners. Sunday, vince. This is a duty cast exclusively upon July 8th, was a day of rare interest with the churchwardens; and if the minister the Chesnut Street Congregational Church, takes upon himself to set up obnoxious in Chelsea, of which the Rev. A. H. Plumb ornaments in any part of the church, or is pastor. In the forenoon the candidates upon the communion-table itself, the for admission eat in a body in the fourteen churchwardens are not only at liberty, but front body pews and the four front seats, and a practical sermon addres-ed especially to them was preached by the Rev. Isaac P. Langworthy, the former pastor. In the afternoon one hundred and nine members were added to the church, about ninety by profession."-Weekly Review.

it is their duty to ren ove them."

WESLEYANS JOINING THE ENGLISH CHURCH.-We are informed that the Rev. Samuel Henry Ireson, formerly a Wesleyan minister on the Liverpool South Circuit, has recently been ordained by the Bishop of Chester. He is appointed to the curacy of the Abbey Church, Burker head, in which town he has been residing for two years in connection with St. Aidan's College. Nearly fifty itinerants and local preachers have migrated to the same college during the last eighteen months, while hundreds of others are contemplating the same step. We bave been credibly inorned that the late Bishop of Chester was applied to by more than eighty Wesleyan ministers in the course of a few years for information as to the mode of admission into the ministry of the Church of England.-Wesleyan Times.

THE SABBATH DESECRATION MOVEMENT AT THE CRYSTAL PALACE.-Free Sundays will this year take place on the 2nd and 9th of September. The first will be for trades societies' delegates, and the representatives of the various associations in London; and ACTION AGAINST THE RITUALISTS.-the second for shareholders' triende, chilArrangements are in progress for com- dren being admitted without tickets with mencing legal proceedings against certain their parents. prominent members of the Church of England, who have recently adopted what are considered to be extreme Ritualistic practices, more especially in reference 10 the matter of vestments in the administration of the Holy Communion. The person first to be singled out for attack is the Rev. A. H. Mackonochie, M.A., incumbent of St. Alban's, Holborn, and if the promoters of the suit are successful in his case, they will probably attack the Rev. John Goring, incumbent of St. Paul's, Walworth; the Rev. Warwick B.Wroth, M.A., incumbent of St. Philip's, Clerkenwell; and the Rev. Bradley Abbot, M.A., incumbent of Christchurch, Clapham, and others. Already two "Defence Funds are in active operation, and the suits to be commenced will probably be as hardly fought as any that have ever come before the courts of law. Dr. Stephens will conduct the prosecution. The Exeter Post gives prominence to a statement of Dr. Stephens, which that eminent ecclesiastical lawyer made in the course of a recent ritual inquiry in Exeter "It cannot be too widely known that the churchwardens, and not the ministers, are the masters of the ceremonies. Their control over the clergy is, in the matter of ceremonies, as perfect as that of the dea

ENGLISH UNITARIANISM.-The following letter appeared in the Weekly Review of Aug. 25:-" Sir, In the English Presbyterian Messenger for this month there is an article on this subject, indicating briefly, but in a very striking way, some of the appropriations by English Unitarians of English Presbyterian endowments. One of the most remarkable of these is thus referred to:- Another old Presby

terian, Dr. Williams, of London, be- quarterly, and it may be thus inferred that queathed for pious purposes property the appropriation is very notorious. If worth £50,000, and in his last will used the case be as it has been now stated, this language in regard to his bequest:- ought not the English Presbyterian "I beseech the blessed God for Jesus Church to inquire into it? I am aware Christ's sake, the Head of the Church, that it is felt by our Church that the Unitwhose I am and whom I desire to serve, arian body ought not to be the custodiers that this, my will, may, by his blessing and and administrators of this trust; but I power, reach its end, and be faithfully am not aware that it has taken any steps executed. Obtesting, in the name of the to ascertain if the trust cannot be regreat and righteous God, all that are or claimed for the ends contemplated by the that shall be concerned, that what I de- pious founder. Surely the supineness of sign for his glory and the good of man- the English Presbyterian Church in rekind, may be honestly, prudently, and gard to such a matter must render it the diligently employed to those ends." Who subject of reproachful comments by other would suppose it possible that an honest members of the great Presbyterian family, and high-minded Unitarian, after reading and tend to lower it in the estimation of this solemn "obtestation" of a well-known other Churches also. Its callousness may Calvinist, could entertain the idea for a not be unattended with prospective loss to single instant of his assuming such a trust? itself. If it shows no desire or makes no Yet in the process of time, Unitarians did attempt to recover what has been alienated contrive to get hold of the Williams from its Presbyterian heritage, who will be Charity, and for many years have used it to so bold as to entrust endowments to it for maintain their peculiar dogmas.' The safe custody and faithful administration? article bears to be extracted from the I am, yours faithfully, J. M. L. LonPrinceton Review, a well-known American don, August 22, 1866."

THE REV. CANON CHAMPNEYS ON SYSTEMATIC BENEFICENCE.

:

THE following is part of an excellent speech delivered by the Rev. Canon Champneys, at the anniversary meeting of the Systematic Beneficence Society "When I was asked by the Secretary, I will not say that I was ready to become a member; but, on the principle which he has enunciated, that every Christian really is, or ought to be a member, and having been since I was twenty-five years of age, practising, through God's teaching, this very thing, I felt I was already, without any further act on my part, a member, because I had been this to my congregation ever since I almost knew it, and had seen in some of them marvelous and interesting proofs of what can be done even by persons of humble circumstances when this principle is once in their heart. One man that I remember, who rises up before my memory at this moment, and who did not wish to be known, sent me the entire tenth of all his profits in trade for the year, in order that I might spend it as I pleased for the glory of God and the advancement of his cause. At this time many poor people are having comforts in the inclement time of the year supplied by a large gift brought by another young man who was, to my certain knowledge, doing a

noble part to a widowed mother and fatherless sisters, and who brought a very large sum indeed and put it into my hands. No one knows to this day where the money comes from, though they know the comforts which come from it. Therefore I felt that, having been a member practically, I had no need to join it, and was very glad to see the effort. Now, let me first say that Christianity is not communism. God does not require any man when he becomes a Christian to give up a right in his own property, nor does this society touch upon that question at all. But while Christianity is not communism, Christianity, where it is real, introduces the man at once into a great family, and brings on him not only the blessings arising from that family relationship, but also the responsibilities. He becomes himself God's child, God's absolute property; he is not his own: he is bought with a price, and therefore he, as well as whatever he has, belongs absolutely and entirely to God. A son among the Romans was not allowed while his father lived to have any property of his own; the property which his father allowed him to call his own, was called in Latin his peculiaris, from which the English word peculiar' comes, meaning that which

belongs especially to us. Now I maintain greatest of all. They were in great trouble, this, and I hope I feel it too, that I have and St. Paul gave directions to the nothing whatever, except what I may call Churches in Gala ia that they should do my own-it is really, absolutely, and truly something; and he made a communication 'God's-it is his. And I and you, brethren, to the Church at Corinth that they should as Christians, like the Roman son, while do the same. What was it? That on the permitted in God's goodness to call this our first day of the week they should every one own, know in our hearts that it is not our of them lay by in store as God had prosown. We did not get it: it was given us. pered them, that there should be no We have nothing that we have not received, gatherings when he came. Let me just reand we all know that when men question mark, for a few moments only, on these that right, God who gave it and whose points. First They were to lay by in right is denied, can in a very short time store on the first day of the week. I need make men see that it was his. The storm not dwell upon that. The first day of the may sink the ship, and the merchant week to them was what it is to us-the who was wealthy the before day of days, when our blessed Saviour rose find himself in poverty. Health has triumphant from the grave; and more

day

been taken away, and a man whose than that, when the Holy Sprit cense

sinews were like iron becomes weak crated, re-consecrated if possible, the as water. And so God can in a moment, day by sealing the apostles for the truth. whenever he pleases, make the man that On the first day of the week they were first will not allow bis right in his property see of all to see how God had prospered them; that it is his, and make him acknowledge they were not to make any absolute fixed it in the loss of it. Now, if this be true, if gift; their gift was to be on a slidingmy property is my Father's, then surely my scale, not a sliding-scale going downwar, Father is to be consulted in the use make but rising as God made them prosper; and of my property. That is a clear case. Now as they had more they were to give more. we know it is the duty of a steward (who They were to ascertain what they had to stands in a lower relationship) to use the give, and put it by-they were to put it by money as the master would have it used; in store-they were to lay by a certain porand that is a point in that difficult and tion as they could afford it, and that was to most striking parable of the unjust steward. be kept week by week and secured for God. He used the goods as his master did not The object of that was, that there were to wish; but we, in using our goods (that is, be no more gatherings when St. Paul came; the goods that God has given us) as that that there, in fact, might be―(though we steward did (that is, giving them away for are obliged to have them now, I hope some the good of others as much as possible) are day that need not be so)—that there might using God's goods-our Master's goods- be no charity sermons when St. Paul came, as our Master really wishes us to do; and for that is the meaning of the expression; that is the point of the parable, as it seems that there should be no especial appeals to me. Now, what does God say with re- when he came, but that every individual gard to the giving of our money-the use of member of that Christian Church should our money? If it be true that we are go to his store, whether it was a large one "God's children; if it be true that he is our or whether it was a little one, and transfer Father, and has an absolute right over all that-not absolutely to St. Paul, for you we have; if it be true that we are to con- find from the next verse he claimed no sult him as to the way in which we are to lordship over their money—if they wished use our money, what does he say about it? him to go, he would go, if they delegated Well, without going through the arguments others, he would go with them--he would derived from the Old Testament, which under ake it if they liked it-he did not others will touch upon, and which are very claim to be lord over their money; it was striking, for though we are not bound by their own, and they had dedicated it to the civil precepts of the Jewish common- God. Now that appears to me, in plain wealth, the general principles that governed simple words, to be what we ought to do God's family in Israel seem applicable to in these days. But, first of all, it is not his great true Israel, which is the reality easy, it is not possible-it is not easy for of which the other was the type. But many, and not possible for some, to lay by without looking to that, look at one single in store weekly. The professional man, the passage in the New Testament, which is physician, solicitor, barrister, banker, the one I wish especially to bring before trader, are not always able to know at the you:-There was great distress in Judea: end of the week, it may be, how far God the Jews of Jerusalem were the most bitter has prospered them. The man of fixed Jews, and therefore the Christians in Jeru- income may. But the principle is the salem and Judea were the most persecuted same. Whenever the rich man, who has Christians. Their hardships were the to deal with large sums, has ascertained

how God has prospered him, he is, I con- plate or box, as it may be. Now see the ceive, under that as much bound to lay by opposite-see what is the case now. How in store -(the sum is not mentioned to is it in many instances where the opposite him; that is to be left to him)-to lay by plan is pursued? I do not think I exagge in store as the early Christians were. The rate when I say that there may be men effect, the object to be answered, is that with their hands in their pockets, containthere may always be in the hands of every ing, say, two pieces of gola and several of Christian a sum set apart for the work of silver, and as the uinister is pleading, the God. See the effect of this merely in one fingers of the man are changing, according instance, in the case of a charity sermon. to the phases of the pleading, from the I have referred to them-we must go on shilling to the half-crown; and when a with them for some time, but it would very eloquent passage comes, the fingers be a glorious day when no charity sermons, slide from the half-crown; if there be an as such, were preached. But when this old-fashioned five-shilling-piece, to that; should take place, let us conceive a congre- and if the speaker rises happily and steadily gation of Christians assembled any where to something greater, then perhaps the halfwhere you like, in any church or chapel sovereign may be touched; and then it where this systematic beneficence principle may rise to the sovereign. But if there be was carried out. Every one of those has failure at the end, and the feelings ooze got his little or his large store at home; out at the finger-ends, it may eud after all he has got what I had when I was a boy, with the shilling or half-crown. Now that jor I began it as a mere boy-my store, on is not what ought to be. Such spasmodic which I wrote, Deo optimo maximo, To benevolence will do no good, but great God the best and greatest!' Before these harm, to the man who is exercised by it; Christians go to church, they hear there is while we know that with regard to the to be a collection. They look at the object, money, though the money is the same no look at what they have to give through the matter how it is given, yet do I doubt, or year, and they say, I can give so much do you doubt, or does any Christian doubt, for this object.' They go with that money that the money dedicated from deep, childwhich they intend to give in their hand, like thankfulness to God as our Father for and then, not regarding how the pleader the benefit and glory of his name, for the may plead-the poor man may be out of extension of his kingdom, for the benefit of sorts, not well, not up to the mark, and our poor brothers and sisters in the world then the charity suffers-not regarding do you doubt, I do not believe you do, that, they go with the money in their hand that there is a special blessing resting on -it is dedicated already to God-they have money so given which does not rest upon designed it already for him; it is God's money given from mere convulsive or money, and therefore they put it into the spasmodic feeling ?"