By the bedside of the diseased and dying, seated with the household of the peasant around the cabin fire, and conversing with the solitary traveller by the way-side, they endeavour by all means to save some. But the preaching of the Cross is their primary duty-the glory of their ministry. Each Agent, in addition to stated labours at his principal station, performs a circuit of itinerant service, which involves almost daily occupation through the week. In some districts, a still wider range of labour is requisite to meet, though in a very inadequate degree, the necessities of the multitude who are perishing for lack of knowledge.

On the varied labours of these faithful evangelists, the divine benediction has been graciously bestowed. By their means many a devotee of popery has been led to discard his charms, his relics, and Saints, and to embrace the pure and glorious doctrines of Redemption, and many a bigoted and self-righteous Protestant, who had a name to live but was dead, has been quickened together with Christ through the power of the Holy Spirit. About twenty Christian Churches (many of them the fruit of their ministry) are under their pastoral oversight, and these shine as lights in the world, holding forth the word of life in the midst of the gross darkness by which they are surrounded.

The Irish Evangelical Society, though formed on principles that invited the co-operation of Christians of every orthodox communion, has been mainly dependent for its income on the Congregational churches of Britain: with perfect justice and consistency its resources have therefore been directed to the promotion of Congregational Christianity in Ireland; and at the present time a majority of the ministers and churches of that faith and order are dependent on its funds.

To their long tried and faithful friends, the Congregationalists of Britain, the Committee still look for continued and enlarged support. They are especially anxious to multiply the number of their general missionaries-a class of agents peculiarly adapted to the present state of Ireland-and they now earnestly entreat the enlarged exercise of christian liberality, to enable them to send a large additional number of these faithful Evangelists throughout the length and breadth of the country, to make known to their ignorant and deluded countrymen a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord.

Nor can the Committee suffer themselves to believe that they shall ask in vain; they cannot believe that, while the cry of Ireland demands more labourers, the friends of the Society will be satisfied with the present limited number; they cannot believe that, while the churches of England incline a willing ear to the entreaties of the distant stranger, they will remain indifferent to the pressing appeal of millions of their fellow subjects; they cannot believe that, while the mercy of Britain enriches and makes fruitful the deserts of another hemisphere, they will allow a wilderness to remain unblessed on the very skirts of their own island and within the limits of their empire; they cannot believe that hearts which so readily yield to the charities of a universal philanthropy, will prove insensible to the demands of patriotism, consistency, aud justice.

Signed, on behalf of the Committee,
ARTHUR TIDMAN, Secretary.

Society's Office, Blomfield Street, Finsbury,

Feb. 17, 1840.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS AND MINOR CORRESPONDENCE. Favours have been received from the Rev. Drs. Cox-Henderson-Clunie. Rev. Messrs. T. Milner-J. Whitridge-Thos Edkins-R. Thomson-W. Walford-Ed. Steane-G. Greatbatch-R. Slate-W. Groser-C. Gilbert-J. Watson-J. Turner-R. R. Pearce-A. Wells-A. E. Pearce-J. Young.

Also from Wm. Stroud, Esq. M.D.-Messrs. E. Philips-G. Lewis-T. Harrison-B. H. Cooper-W. S.-Ch. Warton.

An Independent Minister's kind note is forwarded to the parties to whom it relates. We do not think that any good purpose would be answered by its insertion in our pages.

THE CONGREGATIONAL MAGAZINE.

MAY, 1840.

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE

OF

THE REV. THOMAS MORELL,

LATE DIVINITY TUTOR OF COWARD COLLEGE, LONDON.

FROM the great respect we entertained towards Mr. Morell—to which his personal and christian character so eminently entitled him, and which we cherished in common with very many, and from the standing reputation which he so long maintained in connection with the Congregational body-we were anxious to furnish to our readers some brief notice of his course and character. We should have applied for this purpose to some of his more immediate friends, and were about to do so, when we received information that the funeral sermon, delivered by Mr. Binney, was likely to be obtained, and that it would include something suited to our purpose. That discourse is now before us. It is founded on Isaiah, ch. xxvi. ver. 3. "Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed upon thee, because he trusteth in thee. We mention the text because it is referred to in what follows. We think it best to confine ourselves to what Mr. Binney's discourse furnishes, brief and rapid as its sketch of our friend is, and shall therefore neither attempt to add any thing to it, nor defer its introduction by further preface:

"The Rev. Thomas Morell was born at Maldon, in Essex, and was, at his death, in his fifty-ninth year. His parents were descendants of French Protestants, who fled from their country in times of persecution. More than one of his remote ancestors, he had reason to believe, were distinguished as ministers-some certainly were so for their faith and heroism. Mr. Morell received the N. S. VOL. IV.-VOL. XXIII.

N n

rudiments of classical learning from his two elder brothers, who were both at the time preparing for the ministry. He became a student in Homerton College, and came out, at or about the age of twenty, a respectable scholar, and well furnished in other respects for the sacred office. He was first settled over a church at St. Neot's, Huntingdonshire, where he remained twenty years, and spent a most useful portion of his life. In 1821 he became the divinity tutor of Wymondley Academy, having, if I am not mistaken, been invited to the same office three years before, though he then declined it. That academy, a few years ago, was removed to London, and became connected with the London University, under the title of Coward College, from the name of the person by whom it was originally founded and endowed. Here our friend continued till his death, which took place, rather unexpectedly, on the morning of Tuesday week, the 25th of March.

I am not preaching in the chapel of the college, nor by the request of the trustees of the institution referred to; I not only feel, therefore, that I am not called upon to refer minutely to our departed friend's academic life, but that there would be something like an impropriety in doing so ;—indeed, this is not the place, nor is this the time, in which to advert to such a subject. It was not in this character that you knew him, but as a man of God, a minister of Christ, who often occupied this pulpit, and spoke to you the words of eternal life in his own affectionate and touching manner. I have to refer to points of more importance than any thing which officially distinguished the deceased. Having, however, been in the college when our friend came to it, and knowing, as well as any one, its exact state at that time, I cannot forbear saying, as I pass on, that I regard his accession to the office he filled as having been of great and permanent advantage to it. Many of his students are now occupying posts of great importance and usefulness, and will, with those who are at present in the college, regard his memory with affectionate respect.

Our departed friend was pious from a child. He was one of those of whom it may be said, "they never need to be converted." I do not mean that he did not need to be renewed and sanctified by the divine Spirit; but that the imperceptible influences of that Spirit, so early and efficiently descended upon his soul, as to mould it from the first to habits of holiness-to impress it in childhood with God's image-and thus to keep him from those sins from which so many require to be turned, and have to learn to lament with bitterness and tears. He was kept innocent, innocent even of the knowledge of much, which perhaps may be known without sin, but certainly not without danger. He advanced to the ministry with ardent zeal -from voluntary choice-with decided piety-and with enlightened attachment to the great principles of evangelical religion.

When Mr. Morell first entered upon the work of the ministry he had a slight hesitation in his mode of utterance, which by care he almost effectually overcame, so that it never interfered with the effect of his addresses, and, indeed, sometimes even added to that

effect. His sermons were always distinguished by great seriousness -richness of evangelical truth-tonching appeals and very often by beautiful thoughts clothed in chaste and elegant language. In his first charge he was exemplary as a pastor;-was attractive to, and interested in, young persons;-and was blessed of God to the conversion and establishment of many souls. In addition to the usual engagements connected with his church, he was in the habit of preaching in several villages, and thus extended at once, his labours and his usefulness. While doing this, he was not inattentive to personal improvement. He both studied much on subjects immediately connected with his work, and composed and published several vofumes containing an outline of general history. His occasional services, in the pulpits of his brethren, during his late residence in the metropolis, were always acceptable to the judicious and the devout; and the charges which he delivered at the ordination of his students, were equally distinguished by the weight of their counsels, the solemnity of their tone, the faithfulness of their appeals, and the affection of their spirit.

The piety of our friend was of a high order. He was a devout man;" but he had nothing of sourness or severity about him. His disposition was bland and cheerful; there was a loveliness and sweetness about his mind and character that endeared him to all that were in the habit of approaching him. More than any man I ever knew he exemplified the character, and enjoyed the blandness, of which the text we have been considering speaks. "His soul was kept in perfect peace, being stayed upon God-for he trusted in him." His religion was not a thing of times and days-of alternate fits of ardour and coldness, of ecstacy and depression; it was constant and uniform,-a pure, living, lambent light-always fednever obscured,-like that of the morning, and the path of the just, "shining more and more unto the perfect day." The secret of his calm and happy composure, was his habitual exercise of christian faith; I do not deny that he was blessed naturally with a peculiar felicity of constitution and temperament; but this, of itself, was far from being the sole cause of the "perfect peace" which he habitually enjoyed. It arose partly from the firm and unhesitating manner in which he received the verities of the gospel,-partly from his constantly realizing his own interest in the blessings they secured, and partly from his viewing every thing in connexion with God, and from the exercise of a truly childlike trust in his wisdom and goodness. I have been with him under various circumstances-amid some calculated to ruffle and annoy-in the midst of anxiety-in the death-chamber, and at the early grave, of an only

The volumes referred to by Mr. Binney are entitled "Studies in History, in a Series of Essays, accompanied with Reflections, References to Original Authorities, and Historical Exercises for Youth." The first comprised the History of Greece, and was published in 1813. The second was devoted to that of Rome, and appeared in 1818. The third and fourth were devoted to the History of England, and were published in 1818 and 1820. We believe our lamented brother also published a Poem, entitled "The Christian Pastor," and a few occasional Sermons.-EDITOR.

son; I have seen him on his own bed in extreme weakness, pain, and danger; I always found him the same man. Whatever was passing over the surface of his feelings, there was "perfect peace settled in his soul. He took the promises of God as an angel would take them, or as a little child listens to the words spoken by its parent; he did not know what it was to doubt, or why Christians should be troubled in mind, since God had spoken, and spoken as he has !

I ought to have mentioned that Mr. Morell was, from early life, much interested in the conversion of the heathen, in which, we may remark, he only resembled the excellent and amiable Dr. Doddridge, to whose divinity chair he succeeded, for that eminent and benevolent man, a century ago, long before modern missions were thought of, projected a periodical meeting of ministers for the express purpose of engaging in prayer for the extension of the gospel throughout the world. I am not, I think, mistaken in stating, that our friend was, from his known interest in the subject, applied to to undertake the visit to the missionaries, which was ultimately performed by the late Mr. Tyerman, in connexion with Mr. Bennet, the surviving member of that deputation.

Mr. Morell, though of a peculiarly amiable and lovely spirit, was never led by this to the least compromise of important principles. Not only was he decided in his adherence to all evangelical truth, but he was firm and forward in his attachment and advocacy of those views of the kingdom of Christ, of church government, of religious liberty, and of the sin and danger of political interference with spiritual things, which distinguished the body to which he belonged. He had decided sentiments on these matters; he believed them to be both true and important; and he was prepared to advocate and to urge their diffusion, confident that the result could not but in the end produce good, whatever misrepresentation they might

encounter now.

About twelve months since, our friend was attacked and prostrated by disease he was seriously ill; and though he revived somewhat during the summer, his strength and health never returned. His friends, however, hoped, and he hoped himself, that his life might be lengthened for some time, and that he might still survive for further usefulness. But that God "in whose hand our breath is, and whose are all our ways," had otherwise determined. A few weeks ago he became worse, and after some days of increased suffering "fell asleep." I had not the privilege of visiting him in his illness, for I was out preaching for the Colonial Missionary Society, and I knew nothing of his relapse or danger till I arrived in town, and, while accidentally passing his residence on my way home, observed the indications of mourning and death, and found, at once to my surprise and sorrow, that he was removed from us. I have been favoured, however, with a brief account of the last day or two which he spent on earth, and from this I shall extract two or three characteristic passages.

"A perfectly calm resignation to the divine will was the principal feature in our dear friend's mind, during the twelve months of severe