of no schools for our children, and neither ministers nor means of grace for our souls, until in many instances we were living in ignorance, and irreligion, without God and hope in the world. "In this state we have been visited by your missionary, the Rev. W. Clark, who has revived our dying hopes; called forth afresh the recollections and impressions of former days; and led us to enquire seriously concerning our duties and privileges. By him we have been formed into a regular Congregational Church, trusting that God will enable us to walk worthy of the high vocation wherewith we are called, and to adorn the gospel by our consistency and usefulness. "We are thankful for the periodical visits of our beloved friend, and your missionary; but feel that it is too much to expect that he, with an increasing charge in the town of London and its vicinity, should be able regularly or occasionally to take a journey of nearly one hundred miles for our edification and prosperity. "We, therefore, earnestly apply to your Society for a devoted minister of Jesus Christ, to take the pastoral charge over us; to administer divine ordinances; and to direct our efforts for the spiritual welfare of others. "We feel that the application ought to be accompanied with a pledge on our part for the support of our minister when placed among us. "We trust that God has led us so to appreciate the blessing of the christian ministry, that we are ready to devote a part of our worldly substance towards its support; and although cash as yet we can promise none, yet we will readily and cheerfully engage to furnish him with sufficient produce for the support of himself and family. "Trusting that you will kindly and promptly respond to this application, we remain your brethren and sisters in Christ, 66 (Signed) "Warwick, December 15th, 1839." "JONATHAN SMITH, Deacons. "ENOCK THOMAS, The names of twenty-one other church-members follow. The following extracts of a letter to Mr. Roaf, are inserted as illustrative of four important points.-1. The destitution of religious means in Upper Canada. -2. The simple zeal and love stirred up in truly christian minds witnessing the spiritual wants of the people.-3. The thankful joy with which efforts for the good of their souls are hailed by them.-4. The want of money in this primitive, rudimental state of society, which makes the obtaining an efficient ministry by the unassisted efforts of the people impossible; and shows that brethren sent to labour amongst them must receive, for some time, a portion of their support from the churches of the father land. “To the Rev. J. Roaf, Toronto. "Oakville, December, 30th, 1839. "Rev. and Dear Sir,-The object I have in view in addressing these few lines to you, I know will be a sufficient apology for taking a few moments of your valuable time. You will remember, Sir, I was with you on Sabbath evening after service, November 1st, at your house, to obtain your advice and assistance in the circulation of tracts, &c., when you gave me your recommendation to the Toronto Tract Society's Library, where I found, as you supposed, two libraries, the cost of each three pounds sixteen shillings. As I could not take one with me, I agreed to call for it in two or three weeks. The tracts you gave me, are the greater part in circulation. My family were out with them on the following Sabbath morning, at the same time informing the people of the offer I had obtained through you, of a library consisting of 100 volumes for the trifling cost of three pounds sixteen shillings. That I proposed taking the books, and letting the free use of them to 30 subscribers of two shillings and sixpence each. That they should be kept under my care, and let out as might be required, free of any further cost, subject to certain rules to be agreed upon at a meeting of the sub scribers. Your heart, Sir, would have rejoiced to see and hear the joyful anxiety that prevailed. The shares were all taken up in one or two days, and several applications were too late. The only trouble was how shall we obtain the cash; I then proposed paying for them, and taking of the subscribers what they might have to dispose of, such as butter, eggs, &c. In that way all was very soon arranged, and I have no doubt I shall have to double our number, and get more books. But before any more is done, I hope to see you. My principal object in writing to you at this time, is to request you to secure the library for me, as they fear it should be disposed of before I can come to Toronto. They would take no nay, I must write to Mr. Roaf. It was my intention to have been in Toronto on Saturday the 28th; but on last Sabbath Mr. Denny came and preached in the evening, for the first time. He proposed visiting us again, when I intend, God willing, to convey him from his place to our's. At the same time I am happy to say he was very much approved, and I have every reason to believe will meet a large congregation next time. Mr. Bigger, our Methodist minister, and Mr. Williams, are with me in forming our reading society. Unity is strength in all cases, and I hope it will prove so in this. The scarcity of Bibles in this part is truly deplorable, and that with people of good property, and some professing Christians. Some say they have no opportunity of purchasing one, and others not the means; but most are anxious to possess one or more, and are willing to pay for them in any way they can, but have not the cash. I suggested the idea that I thought of taking cord-wood in exchange for Bibles. It soon became known, and I have had upwards of 30 applied for, they offering to deliver the wood on the lake shore, so that I can export it as soon as the navigation opens in the spring, sell the wood in Toronto, and purchase Bibles with the money, and deliver to each person in proportion to the wood he has produced. I have deferred to give any decisive answer until I shall see you. Pardon, Sir, the liberty I have taken in detaining you so long. I hope your family with you are in good health and strength; and in the enjoyment of every needful blessing. That you may see the cause of the Lord prospering in your hands, that he may give you souls for your hire here, that shall be your crown of rejoicing in another and a better world, is the fervent prayer of one whose desire it is ever to be your's in the strictest bond of christian fellowship and love till time shall be no more. "JOSEPH CLARK." ADVICE AND ASSISTANCE TO MEMBERS OF CONGREGATIONAL CHURCHES EMIGRATING TO UPPER CANADA, Since persecution happily ceased in our favoured country, emigration to obtain liberty of conscience has of course ceased with it. The causes, however, now so powerfully operating on general society to render extensive emigration necessary, affect Christians equally with others; and the cases are very numerous in which secular considerations make it the path of wisdom and duty for Christian parents to proceed with their families to the various British colonies. It may, however, be entertained as a serious question, whether for the sake of service to the cause of Christ it might not be well for many zealous Christians, not urged to that step by temporal difficulties, to emigrate. They would find before them a wide and open field of usefulness. They could lay the foundation of schools and churches; they could distribute tracts and bibles; they could welcome and sustain christian missionaries. Certain it is, that pious emigrants whether necessity or choice has occasioned their departure from their native land, are the salt of the new communities in which they find themselves placed; and equally for their own sakes, and for the cause of religion, it is most important that where there are pious emigrants, there missionaries should be placed; or that where missionaries are labouring, to those spots pious emigrants should resort. Mr. Roaf's wise and public-spirited proposal is therefore published at this juncture, when the season for emigration to the Canadas is approaching, and when restored tranquillity in those provinces is likely again to turn the stream of emigration in that direction. N. S. YOL. IV. C c "Toronto, Upper Canada. "Reverend and dear Sir,-In this country I and my brother ministers often meet with parties who, in the British Isles, were worshippers or members with Congregational Churches. In such cases we commonly hear bitter regrets, that upon their arrival in the province they were ignorant of spots where they might settle near pastors and churches of a scriptural order; and such regrets are ordinarily justified by the evidently deteriorated character of both parents and children. Besides the religious deprivation thus experienced, the families have sustained great, and sometimes ruinous temporal injury, from their want of intelligent and disinterested advisers as to the selection of locations and methods of procedure. "It therefore has occurred to me, that were such members of our British churches as may emigrate to the Canadas, to be furnished with written introductions to myself from their pastors, I might direct them to neighbourhoods accordant with their professional, or commercial, or agricultural views; and to individuals able and disposed to supply the information requisite for their guidance. Such a step might be serviceable not only to the individuals and families more immediately concerned, but to the churches with which they might become connected. For this purpose the bearers of such introductions to myself might, upon disembarking, forward me their letters by post, with any accompanying statement as to the part of the country, the kind of pursuits, &c. &c. that they have in view, and I would instantly put them into a course for the accomplishment of their plans. I am obliged, however, to restrict my offer to the cases of church members, for while I should be happy to assist every emigrant, my inability to do so obliges me to select the class that can be best defined, and for whom I feel the strongest interest. "If you circulate the above suggestion, I and many others may have cause to express to you our gratitude. "Believe me, dear Sir, your's cordially in the Gospel, "To Rev. A. Wells, Congregational Library." "J. ROAF." OPENING OF THE NEW CONGREGATIONAL CHAPEL, TORONTO, UPPER CANADA. In our Magazine for December, (pp. 853-855) we inserted an appeal for aid on behalf of the Congregational church at Toronto, in erecting a new house of prayer in that important city, and gave a wood engraving of the intended edifice. It is now our pleasure to record that that erection is completed, and that the chapel was opened for public worship on Wednesday, January 1st, 1840. The Rev. William Ryerson, a leading Wesleyan Methodist, of liberal opinions, preached in the morning, and the Rev. W. Wastall, of Guelph, in the evening. The attendance was large, and the collections liberal. The chapel is situated in Newgate-street, and is described by The Toronto Christian Guardian as "the most beautiful edifice in the city." The people have exerted themselves most liberally, but still about £400 needs to be raised to complete the sum required for its erection. Most cordially do we congratulate our excellent brother, the Rev. J. Roaf, on this token of his ministerial success, and earnestly commend this case to the liberality of our readers. CONGREGATIONAL MISSIONS IN IRELAND. (To the Editor.) MY DEAR BROTHER,-Letters from your side of the channel press for more statements regarding Ireland and the proceedings of our Congregational Union. Truly it delights our hearts to find that the representations which you, and our early and worthy friend the editor of the Evangelical Magazine, enabled us to place before the British public, have awakened so much christian interest in behalf of this country and our doings in it. Oh! there is a life-inspiring, soul confirming influence in expressions of fraternal affection, consisting not in words but in deeds, which no other principle can impart. It often comes in our way to read Papal communications to clergy and laity. Their style is usually kind and condescending. They address as "brethren." They speak of being "servants for Jesus' sake." They profess devoted, painful, self-denying solicitude for the persons they concern. But throughout they breathe a tone of hierarchical superiority, that makes the reader know they come from minds accustomed and resolved to lord it over God's heritage. Now, though men trained in passive obedience to ecclesiastical supremacy may, no doubt, be wrought upon thereby, we, as Congregationalists, have been discipled to Christ, not schooled to Rome. We call no one master, but Him who bought us with his blood and now reigns Lord of all. And when others would stimulate us to good, let them give us to feel that the pulse of warm generous LOVE beats in them strongly, steadily, healthfully, towards us. Christians with you can form only a faint idea of the effect which pledges of regard and support have upon us working on, year after year, amidst difficulties and discouragements such as few or none in England have to grapple with. We complain not of our lot. It was through choice, not force, that we took up our position. Ireland, with all its untowardnesses, must be occupied. It is a country worth the sacrifice of lives to win; and had British piety done its duty, the country had ere this been rid of its multiform Antichristianism, and made one of the fairest, brightest spots in the dominions of the Son of God on earth. And here we are willing to remain, and do the best we can for Christ and souls, till more efficient men come to the help of the Lord in such numbers as will make our presence unnecessary; when we will at once and thankfully retire"thankfully," I say, not, however, because our indolence longs to exonerate itself from toil, but on account of the ample provision that will then be made to evangelize the land in whose regeneration our happiness is bound up But till then we surely have a right to calculate on all the encouragement which the churches in Britain can give. Nor, I am sure, if they are permitted to know our circumstances, will that encouragement be expected in vain. The night has been long, and dark, and wearying. But we think the day is breaking at last. Two omens, trustworthy in our judgment, bespeak that God is on his way and near at hand to bless us. One of them is the fact, of which we are well assured, that the Divine Spirit has begun to breathe upon the slain in the mystic valley, while the agents of our Union are crying, "O ye dry bones, hear the word of the Lord." And we know that, dry and bleached as those bones may be, the breathing of that Spirit is the one thing needful, self-sufficient and all-sufficient, to make them live. The second omen is, the cordial response with which our appeals for Ireland and our Union are being met by friends in Britain. We look upon that response as betokering a movement of Divine agency there in our behalf, concurrent with a manifest movement of the same agency here; and we connect with it Psalm cii. 13, 14; "Thou shall arise and have mercy upon Zion; for the time to favour her, yea, the set time, is come: FOR thy servants take pleasure in her stones, and favour the dust thereof." We may be deceived. Eyes earnestly, anxiously looking for an object are liable to have the image of that object so wrought in them as to believe they see it, when there is externally no answering reality. But if we are mistaken at all, we have little hesitation in saying that our error regards the existence of the second omen, not the first. We think there is a stir for us among the Congregationalists of Britain. Are we correct or not in that opinion? That we are not wrong as to the first omen, we have already given evidence in the few extracts from the letters and journals of our agents which we have placed before you. I venture now to add to those extracts. And I could occupy far more of your pages than you could After mentioning various towns visited by him in the months of December and "The whole land is open to the preaching of the Gospel. There is scarcely a town to which we may not have access. The people are looking for the plain faithful statements of divine truth. They are beginning to distinguish between what is right and what is wrong in doctrine. They are looking at the motives of preachers; and there is no missionary that will really give his heart to the work, and show the people that he is anxious for their eternal welfare, who will not have a most attentive and grateful hearing from all classes and denominations of the community. In towns where I have been an entire stranger, persons have offered their services to obtain congregations; and when the meeting has closed the greatest anxiety has been manifested to know when I would return, or when any of our missionaries would be that way. Frequently have I been asked, Could you not stop another evening? We used to have the Church Home Mission visiting us, but they have been prevented preaching through the country, and now we are glad when one comes round who will preach to us the glad tidings of the Gospel.' "There is much need of missionary effort in the North of Ireland. Though "Then her millions shall for ever Burst the bondage of her chains; |