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(Cheers.) I will mention another case, relating to a poor girl in a ragged school; and I trust that it will not be thought improper to refer to myself in corroboration of a fact. When I went to visit that poor girl, the neighbourhood in which she lived was so thoroughly bad, that it was imprudent to go without a friend. That girl, however, was one of the firstfruits of Christian kindness in the

ragged school. She joined the church of Christ, and, under deep affliction, was taken to one of the hospitals. On her leaving it, the sister of the ward remarked to friend, "I am sorry that Mary is going to leave us." On inquiring the reason, she replied, "When the ward door was shut at night, and no one permitted to come in, Mary read the Bible, and then knelt down and commended us all to the goodness of God. She went to every dying person, and tried to point them to Christ as the only Saviour." There have been girls in the school who, when they first entered, would put one arm round your neck, and then, with the other hand, have abstracted a coin from your pocket; and yet they have been reclaimed. (Hear, hear.) We sometimes find Sunday-schools the means of uniting the rich and the poor most delightfully together. I was once in a northern county, where it was my privilege to abide a short time with a gentleman having large property there. He said on the Saturday, "We always breakfast rather early on the Sunday morning, because the whole family go to the Sunday-school." At nine o'clock we started through the park, at the end of which a beautiful school had been erected by the 'squire, in which about 300 children were collected together. (Cheers.) Who was the superintendent? The 'squire of the estate adjoining.

(Hear, hear.) Who was the teacher of the Bible class? The 'squire's butler. Who was the teacher of the Testament class? The 'squire's valet. All the menservants had their classes. (Hear, hear, and cheers.) I inquired of one of the young ladies, who had the girls' Bible class? I saw the tear flow while she said, "Dear nurse, who has trained us all up." (Cheers.) The lady of the family was in an adjoining room, with a select class, consisting of children too old for the general classes of a Sunday-school. The Spirit of God has descended on the children, and, from the kindness of those who have been placed over them, some have been brought to the saving knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. Allow me to say to teachers, Pay the greatest possible attention to the most unkind children with whom you happen to meet in your schools. Sometimes it happens that from these degraded ones there rise up the future ministers and missionaries of the church. (Hear, hear.) I knew a boy who was the most troublesome a teacher ever met with. If ever perpetual motion was found out, it was in him. He was always willing to do that which you did not wish him to do, and unwilling to do that which he was required to do. Yet I have heard that boy, whom scarcely any one could tame, stand up before two thousand people in the public congregation, and, as one of our useful ministers, preach the unsearchable riches of Christ. (Cheers.) Sometimes we see the wonderful grace of God displayed, not only in calling the vilest of our children into the fellowship of the church, but to become the future teachers of the everlasting gospel. (Cheers.) JOHN BROWN, Esq., and other gentlemen, addressed the assembly.

THE CHRISTIAN WITNESS.

TO ADVERTISERS.

THE guaranteed Monthly Sale of the CHRISTIAN WITNESS being upwards of Thirty Thousand Copies, diffused throughout the three kingdoms, renders it incomparably the most advantageous medium for Advertisements of Books, Schools, Sales of Property, Charitable Institutions, Apprentices, Servants, or Situations Wanted, and General Business.

THE FOLLOWING IS THE VERY LOW SCALE OF CHARGES:

Five lines and under, 8s. 6d. ; and Two Shillings a line beyond. Bills of two leaves stitched in, Five Pounds; four leaves and upwards, Five Pounds Ten Shillings.

* Advertisements cannot be inserted until paid for (if from the country) either by a remittance, which may be made through the Postmaster in any post town, or by an order for payment in London.

The insertion of Advertisements received after the 21st cannot be secured.

N.B. All Advertisements and matters relating to business to be sent to the Publisher. All Communications, Books, &c., for the Editor, to be addressed, post-paid, to him at the Publisher's.

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UNION MEETINGS. INSTEAD of our usual summary and review of the proceedings of the Annual Meetings of the Congregational Union, we have given the reports and principal papers at length; a measure whereby we believe we shall not only instruct and gratify our readers, but exceedingly further the important objects of the Union.

The copious and admirable annual letter read by Professor Watts will appear in our next. It can hardly be necessary to invite the special attention of our readers to the report of the CHRISTIAN WITNESS, and the resolutions which followed. There is one resolution which led to a somewhat lengthened discussion, and which was, by the unanimous consent of the meeting, withdrawn.

THE UNION MAGAZINES. THAT the reference, in the following Reports of the Union, to dissatisfaction with certain articles contained in the Magazines affecting the Established Church and the Evangelical Alliance, respectively, may be rightly understood, it is necessary to state the facts with precision. Resolutions of complaint, then, came from only three places, Hull, Liverpool, and Birmingham,--the two latter the strongholds of the "Alliance." The first town transmitted simply a temperate protest against the Appledore tract; the second, an argumentative opinion, without special mention of the Magazines, that the UNION ought not to be so identified with any publications whatever, as to be held or considered responsible for their contents; and the third, a series of resolutions to the same effect, reprobating the tone and spirit of the articles aforesaid. To meet this state of things, the Committee of the UNION, with the entire and cordial concurrence of the Editor, prepared a resolution to be submitted to the Assembly, to the effect that the UNION is to be considered as bound only by documents and papers which emanate from the Committee; that with respect to the general conduct of both the periodicals, the sole responsibility rests with the Editor; and that a note of this purport should be appended to the first Number of the WITNESs for the ensuing year. This resolution was accordingly moved and seconded; and then arose an animated discussion, in which some of the chief speakers expressed their conviction of the inexpediency of carrying the resolution to a vote,

considering that the end was sufficiently answered by the discussion. The resolution was accordingly withdrawn, with the unanimous consent, and amid the loud and general cheers of the Assembly, thus leaving the matter precisely as it has stood from the beginning, an act which was as honourable to the Assembly as it was gratifying to the feelings of the Editor, who duly prizes the generous confidence thus reposed in him by his brethren. To the resolution itself, however, he had no objection, but the contrary. Nay, he himself actually moved its adoption on the previous day, at the meeting of the distributors of the Fund for Aged Ministers, where it formed part of the report to be presented to the Assembly on the following day. How could he object to it? It was avowedly not intended to express, nor even to imply, the slightest censure on the conductor of the periodicals; but simply to define "sanction" and limit responsibility. It was, moreover, merely a declaration of what had, from the first, been the understood fact and his own view of the case, the only view consistent with reason and common sense. But, notwithstanding all this, his judgment, on further reflection, gave a decided preference to its withdrawment, forasmuch as there were parties without, whom it is needless to specify, who would have pronounced it a censure, and proclaimed it a triumph. From the resolution, which was passed unanimously, relating to the Church and State controversy, it will be seen that the amplest scope is given to writers on the subject of Establishments in both the Magazines; that the Editor is left in the full and entire possession of his official liberties, rights, and privileges; and that on the part of the Assembly there was not the slightest attempt either to gag or to fetter him the very idea was deprecated.

After the discussion which has taken place the Editor has no doubt that he could now proceed with reasonable comfort in the discharge of his duties; but on maturely revolving the subject, he has reached the conviction that the better way is at once and for ever to set the question at rest by the voluntary publication of a standing Notice, avowing for himself the sole and undivided responsibility of the general conduct and contents of the Magazine. This, which he has now done, he wishes to be considered as a spontaneous act of deferential regard to the views and feelings of those brethren who may still deem themselves more substantially relieved by it;

for although the number of such, he believes, is comparatively small, yet great in worth, elevated in position, and potent in influence, it is entitled to very high consideration. The Editor is well assured that not only the masses, but the great body even of the ministry, have no solicitudes whatever on this point of responsibility; but remembering that he labours for a Union, he will endeavour, to the utmost of his power, to please every member of it, from the least to the greatest. Such, however, are the diversities of human judgment on the one hand, and the imperfections of human action on the other, that when he has done his best he may ofttimes only afflict where he sought to gratify, and will have to ask forbearance where he expected praise. But let it not be forgotten that the error may as often cleave to the judge as to the performer, so that while the critic publishes what he considers another's fault, he may only be proclaiming his own infirmity.

Many of our zealous friends, we find, are not a little exasperated by what they deem a lack not only of courtesy, but of justice, towards the Editor, on the part of some "Alliance" brethren at the Assembly, and they all but reproach him for the excess of his moderation; but it may relieve them to be assured that he congratulates himself on his escape with so little damage, and that he was enabled to deal so sparingly in retaliation. This feeling was not a little heightened by the following passage in a public journal, on which his eye fell at the very moment he sat down to pen this article. It is headed “Editorial Pleasures," and runs thus :-"A gentleman named Doolittle, educated at Harvard University, a native of Connecticut, went to the south to edit a strong Anti-Slavery paper in a district where a whole armoury of bowie knives were used in preventing freedom of speech. Mr. Doolittle held his situation six months, during which he was stabbed twice, shot thrice, once cudgelled, and once thrown into a horse-pond; but he congratulated himself on never having been kicked. His patience, however, having at length failed him, he retaliated upon his tormentors by shooting two of them dead as door-posts, and then departed for more peaceful regions." This is doing the thing respectably. Let English Editors look at this and be comforted!

But seriously; the Editor was doubtless wronged by one distinguished brother, who seemed to have expended nearly all his milk and honey on his Evangelical Allies, and to have reserved only a draught of bitter waters

for the Editor of the Union. The provocation, indeed, was so strong that had the Editor promptly repelled the charge, which had been an easy task, and then vigorously commenced assailant on the small conspiracy which had for months been plotting against the peace of the Union and the prosperity of its Magazines, which he had ample means of doing, the bulk of his readers, probably, would have both approved and praised the deed. But remembering the exalted private worth and the preeminent public service of his offending friend, and being most anxious to heal divisions rather than to foment them, on rising to speak, he resolutely not only abstained from all attack, but confined himself to a few general and somewhat playful observations, without even offering either defence or apology, there being little to defend and still less for which to apologize; for there was not a breath uttered against aught in the FRIEND except the Appledore Tract; and that in the WITNESS over which his revered brother said he "blushed" was, of course, the Editor's letters in reply to Sir C. E. Smith,-letters in which -"blush" who may-the writer glories!

The Editor had determined to make no public reference whatever to this subject; but circumstances have compelled him. A very condensed report of the discussion found its way into the papers, and through them it has gone forth in a thousand varied verbal versions, to the no small concern of many honest hearts. Let this, then, be taken as a simple and true statement of the question. The Public Press being excluded from the meetings of the Union, the reports which appeared in the Patriot and Nonconformist were, of course, obtained clandestinely, although, we think, meritoriously; but those reports, while upon the whole accurate, were necessarily so brief as to leave out many points of great importance. Among these was the statement of the Editor, that from those three "Alliance" Associations of churches, which sent up condemnatory resolutions, not a line of complaint, or remonstrance, not a word of any sort did the Editor ever receive! This fact he announced in tones of indignant remonstrance. He asked if there was no medium between perfect satisfaction with the conduct of the Editor of a periodical, and a solemn appeal against him, without his knowledge, to the Executive Committee, and even to the Annual Assembly itself? He submitted to the meeting that from a party who so largely trade in the graces of urbanity and forbearance, in the amenities of earth, and in the

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charities of heaven, he was entitled to very different treatment, adding that he would not thus act towards the errand boy of the smallest tradesman who served his family! Even in a case so humble, he would first deal with the servant; an appeal to his master would be a last resort. He further stated, as an addi, tional illustration of "Alliance" generosity, that the complaining resolutions transmitted by those three Associations, were unaccompanied by even one breath of general approbation, or one word of encouragement! Nay more, he stated, that, with a single exception, he had never, from any individual connected with any of these Associations, received one line of contribution, or one act of assistance! These are facts which supply materials for comment; but we forbear. They are facts which show that some people suppose their relation to an Editor, intensely labouring for the public good, consists simply in two things -the privilege to judge, and the duty to condemn! Such people, however, are but a handful; and he views their conduct as the fruit not of malice but of mistaken zeal. He must nevertheless calmly, but distinctly intimate, that he expects from one and all of them very different treatment for the future. Another exhibition of the same sort will, most probably, have a very different termination. He "listened," as he said, "with patience and good temper to all that was set forth. He could afford to do it. The success of the Magazines. and the position he occupied enabled him to do so with perfect composure. He had not to come there to learn in what light his labours were looked upon by the Christian public of Britain. That point was incontrovertibly settled; there were other parties to those matters besides the Assembly then met, and whatever might be the feeling there although he was bold to believe that the feeling of that hall was in his favour-there was no mistake out of doors." The Editor, with the utmost sincerity, treated the matter very lightly. He stated that while rejoicing in the service of the churches, he was oppressed by it, and often weary of it, and that he would, with great satisfaction, for six months, place the WITNESS in the hands of Mr. James, who might then infuse into it as much of a meek and loving spirit as he wished, thus presenting a series of specimen Numbers, and enabling the public to form a judgment concerning them; and to Dr. Redford he offered, for the same period, the PENNY MAGAZINE, that he might illustrate his own ideas of benevolence and beauty. The Editor said, all his

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concern was for truth and the good of the churches; they were, therefore, at perfect liberty to take from him either Magazine, or both; or to leave both under his manage ment; or he would take both altogether, off their hands. Any of these courses, was equally indifferent to him. From all this it will be seen that, while the Editor followed the things that made for peace, he did not wholly forget what was due to truth, to the public, and to his office.

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We hope this statement will prove satisfactory to our ardent friends, from whom.communications are pouring in upon us by every post. For their sakes mainly, not our own, we have penned this narrative. We sympa thize with their just and reasonable solicitude and dissatisfaction. We can, however, assure them that they need entertain no anxieties. All is safe, and all is well. When the leader of the opposition exclaimed," Above everything, I value the integrity of the Union; let its integrity be preserved, though the publi cations should to-morrow be crushed!" who said, Amen? Union is good, but it may be purchased too dearly; we set lightly by any Union which is formed at the expense of truth. The Congregational Union is, in our eyes, a laudable confederacy; yet it must be valued not as an end, but as a means; it must be tested by its results, and in the judgment of all true and enlightened Nonconformists, its incomparably greatest achievement, and by far its principal glory, is the creation of its periodicals. "Above everything," men "value" truth; and were the alternative the suppression of the Magazines, or the loss to the Union of one or two Associations, they would, perhaps, require but a brief space to determine which event would most affect the propagation and defence of truth. With the people of England for a Jury, we should not fear to conduct this argument to a successful issue. It were easy to conceive of even a Congregational Union with a bloodless heart, a paralysed hand, voiceless, powerless, penniless,-a splendid name significant of nothing either good or useful! "The Publications crushed!" This language is full of grief and alarm to not a few of our best correspondents, who never saw anything in the character of the daughters that ought to endanger the life of the mother. Let all such take heart, and be assured that the mass of the Assembly were in perfect sympathy with the mass of the public! The conduct of that honoured body was just, nay, generous, noble, everything that the most ardent and enlightened

such

of our friends could have desired. In their spirit and deportment we gloried, and it will be our best endeavour to render the periodicals worthy o of such a community. Again, many, we perceive, are afraid lest henceforth the spirit of the WITNESS should be reduced to the temperature of the " Alliance." Such fears are groundless. While it is in our hands, it will continue to be what it has hitherto been, both in spirit and in principle, till those hands forget their cunning! The recent discussion will add to our caution; but it will in no degree abate our courage! It will be our constant and earnest endeavour to do the best work in the best manner, to invest principle with power, and to fight the battles of Heaven in its own spirit! The storm is over and gone, and now, we trust, the sky will remain clear, and the air serene. The business terminated in a manner the most harmonious and satisfactory. Of all concerned the prayer, we hope, will henceforth be, Lord, we beseech thee, send now prosperity inboeren,

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THE EVANGELICAL MAGAZINE." WE have just t received a communication from our esteemed friend, the Editor of the Evangelical Magazine, with whom and its r respected Treasurer we had previously had interviews. Both these gentlemen assure us that the agent to whom reference was made in our last Number had no instructions from the Trustees to pursue the course there ascribed to him; but that, on the contrary, they had enjoined him to use the utmost caution in the prosecution of his somewhat delicate duties, to give no offence to the friends of the CHRISTIAN WITNESS, and that for everything that their agent may have said or done contrary to this he alone is responsible. We have the greatest satisfaction in making this statement, which we feel assured will give equal pleasure to our readers. But while the Trustees are thus happily exculpated, the case of the agent, as stated in our last, remains unaltered; and *1!y!1ox

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we regret to say that since publishing the

Strange Revelation" we have had further confirmation, both oral and written, of its truth: but here the matter must terminate.

THE FREE CHURCH OF SCOTLAND. A NEW subject of deep interest has recently arisen in the religious world. The money which the Free Church received from the slave-states of America forms a question which has already begun deeply to agitate Scotland, and it bids fair also, forthwith, to engross the minds of the friends of humanity in England. In the North, the advocates of the slave have exerted themselves, with great energy and no small success, to engage the attention of Free Churchmen previous to the meetings of the Assembly. On every ground it is exceedingly to be desired that the Assembly would, at once and gracefully, yield to the surrounding and rising pressure. Time and further contention will only increase the difficulties of their position, rendering retreat both more difficult and more humiliating. If the Assembly, following the example of men in high places, could but muster suffi

cient courage, spurning the fetters

with

circumstances have bound them, to say, We have changed our minds; we will send back the money," it would not only end the matter, and extricate them from their troubles, but be an act of homage to truth, which would contribute not a little to repair the wrongs they have unintentionally perpetrated on three millions of fettered men. Or, if they cannot, or will not, change their minds, and act upon the change, then, the next best course is, promptly and magnanimously, to do the same thing as an act of deference to the judgments and feelings of multitudes of their Christian brethren. We most deeply lament that anything should have occurred to interrupt the progress of the Free Church, and to distract the minds of her ministry and people.

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