labours to serve his Divine Master and his fellow men, prays that he may be guided by wisdom from above to make the best possible use of those great talents for influence and usefulness with which he has been entrusted.

The brief statements of the affairs of the three Societies for British Missions were then read that for the Home Missionary Society by the Rev. R. Ainslie, that for the Irish Evangelical Society by the Rev. T. James, and that for the Colonial Missionary Society by the Rev. A. Wells.

On which the following resolution was moved by the Rev. J. L. Poore, of Salford; seconded by the Rev. Patrick Thomson, of Chatham; and adopted :

III. That the Assembly is deeply impressed with the growing importance that its British Missions should be carried forward with vigour, and would express its judgment that the new arrangements in the executive rendered necessary by the lamented death of the late Dr. Matheson should be such as to promote energetic action in working all the three Societies.

The Rev. James Sherman next read a report from the Committee appointed to prepare Rules and Tables for Congregational Provident Societies: whereon it was moved by the Rev. J. E. Richards, of Wandsworth; seconded by Edward Baines, Esq., of Leeds; and adopted :

IV. That the report of the Committee on Christian Mutual Benefit Societies, now submitted to the Assembly, be adopted; and that the plan for such societies described therein be recommended to the immediate attention of all our churches and their pastors. CHRISTIAN MUTUAL PROVIDENT SOCIETY.

Report of the Committee appointed by the Congregational Union in England and Wales, to consider the Rules and Tables suitable to the Formation of a Provident Society for the Churches and Congregations of the Denomination.

WHEN your Committee presented to the Congregational Union the Rules and Tables which were afterwards published in the CHRISTIAN WITNESS, they believed their work accomplished, and that the plan was theoretically complete. The wide circulation of the CHRISTIAN WITNESS, carrying them into all parts of England, was however of great value to the scheme, as observations were elicited from practical men which led to thought and inquiry. Among other communications was one directing our attention to a work lately published by F. G. P. Neison, Esq., on Vital Statistics, as containing proofs of the defectiveness of our tables

and rules. After perusing that able work, and after repeated interviews with Mr. Neison, your Committee became painfully convinced of their duty to revise both the plan and tables.

To show that no light or trifling suspicion has caused the Committee to waver in their opinion of the security of their former rules and tables, it may be necessary to state, that the statistics of Mr. Neison are derived from the two quinquennial returns of the Enrolled Benefit Societies to Government, and of returns from other societies which have not taken advantage of the Act, altogether amounting to the vast number of 4000. To obtain statistics independent of the Government, Mr. Neison offered premiums for the best returns according to the schedules furnished. These premiums induced many to sacrifice the time which such an analysis of their members, receipts, payments, deaths, expectations, and funds required, and brought to him a mass of statistical information on Friendly Societies which has never been accumulated before. These returns have been so arranged and analysed, that he has ascertained the value of life in all the principal trades and professions. So accurate and extensive has been the investigation, that nearly every member belonging to those 4000 societies has his entire history recorded, his age at entering, the amount paid and received, his number of weeks' sickness, whether he is alive or dead, and whether the society has gained or lost by his membership. Besides the incredible labour of this Herculean task, the expense to Mr. Neison of bringing the statistics to the present state of perfection has not been less than £3000. The results of this investigation were submitted to a council of the Statistical Society, consisting of the first authorities in Europe, who have approved and sanctioned their publication, and agree that they are the only work upon which dependence can be placed from actual data furnished by existing Societies. Mr. Neison assures us that up to March, 1845, he should have considered our rules and tables safe, but the facts have overthrown existing theories; and he feels obliged to submit to the actual experience of so many friendly societies.

Such were the reasons which induced the Committee to pause and investigate their plans, and the result they believe will prove that there was another hand than chance which guided them.

After the most anxious thought and deliberation, they beg now to submit the following plans and alterations which they propose for adoption :

1. The admission of females as insurers against sickness as well as males.

The former rules allowed males only to insure for sickness, under the prevailing notion that females had more sickness than males, and that it was more difficult to detect imposition in sickness in females than in males. From returns

of various societies of 133,000 weeks' sickness, the difference in the sickness of males and females during that period was very trifling, but the balance was in favour of females. This is accounted for by females being subject to less accident, and having greater freedom from intense care than males. The actual experience of friendly societies investigated proves that females may be admitted with equal safety. As this is a very important discovery, both morally and statistically, the Committee have determined to adopt the plan of female insurance.

2. The Rule relating to prohibited and hazardous trades has been abandoned, for the satisfactory reason that some of the trades and professions supposed to be most prejudicial to life are found, upon statistical investigation, to be less so than some which are believed to be more healthy. For instance, clerks are found to have less sickness and more mortality than printers, who have more sickness and less mortality than clerks. Every person proposing to join the society is therefore left to the discretion of the directors and of the surgeon.

3. Instead of a table for pay in sickness during life, it has been made imperative that a person who insures against sickness up to sixty, sixty-five, or seventy, should also insure for a weekly sum of at least half the amount after that period to the end of life; because a provision for sickness through the whole of life would amount to nearly the same sum as an assurance for sickness up to seventy, and an annuity of half the amount.

4. The clause in the rule which states that a member shall be excluded "if he cease to be a member of a Christian church or regularly to attend Divine worship,” has been omitted, because your Committee thought it unadvisable and unjust to inflict a temporal punishment for an ecclesiastical offence.

5. An additional provision has been made for females during confinement. By .adding 8d. per month to their regular

contribution, married females can have the attendance of a surgeon-accoucheur, and 4s. per week during their confine

ment.

6. The table for immediate annuities has not been reprinted, as it was supposed that a person wishing for an annuity would generally prefer the Government tables and security.

7. No reduction is to be made in the sick pay. Whatever sum a member assures for he will receive, however long the duration of his illness. This alteration your Committee have adopted after several lengthened interviews with Mr. Neison, at which he proved it was both morally and scientifically correct; that the most flourishing societies act upon the same plan; and that the tables were prepared for that end. Your Committee feel this will be a great improvement, and prove a vast blessing to the members.

8. The chief difficulty your Committee found has been to render the Society available to every congregation; but this they now think is overcome. In many societies, if members remove to another locality, they are obliged to sell their interest in the society, or to lose their future advantages. The Committee were most anxious to prevent the possibility of a member being obliged to sell his interest in consequence of removal; therefore they now propose that each congregation, however small, may have its own society; that a number of congregations shall form a district, over which a local committee or board of directors shall preside, to superintend its local affairs, and be paid for their services, and an agent or secretary be appointed, so that any member removing to another district shall merely be transferred from the district in which he formerly resided to that into which he has removed; that separate and distinct accounts be kept of the receipts and disbursements of every district, and all surplus funds above those required for claims shall be transferred to the central office in London, and be placed out at interest by the general treasurer. Thus a common fund of mutual interest will be established. Money can be employed to greater advantage in large than in small sums, and greater safety secured by a large and united institution than by small local or district societies.

Thus your Committee have endeavoured to present to the churches a Society the operations of which they believe will prove a blessing wheresoever it may be

cherished; but as its success will much depend on the patronage it shall receive from the ministers of the churches, they beg respectfully to recommend it to their notice, trusting it will commend itself to their judgment, and be found worthy of their adoption and support.

The report of the Wycliffe Society was then read by the Rev. John Blackburn: on which W. A. Hankey, Esq., moved the following resolution; which, after having been seconded by the Rev. William Bean, of Camberwell, was adopted :

V. That this Assembly would again record its cordial approval of the plan and objects of the Wycliffe Society, and its deep anxiety that it should be adequately sustained; and that as it seems indispensable to its perpetuity that some guarantee be obtained to protect its Committee from personal risk while attempting to augment the number of its subscribers, and to carry forward its literary labours, this Assembly authorizes its Committee to give such guarantee, on their receiving a lien on the unsold copies of the Wycliffe Society's publications.

REPORT OF THE WYCLIFFE SOCIETY.

IN entering upon a Report of the proceedings of the Wycliffe Society, the Committee would request permission to refer to the circumstances which led to its formation, and for their own vindication to detail somewhat minutely the particulars which have placed it in its present critical position.

At the Autumnal Meeting of this Union, held at Liverpool, October, 1842, a memorial was presented by one of its Secretaries, recommending the formation of a Society, that should rescue from oblivion the scarce and almost extinct tracts and treatises of the ablest advocates of further reformation, from the time that popery was abolished till the Revolution was effected.

This overture was most favourably received by that assembly, and it was resolved that vigorous efforts should be made to obtain the greatest possible number of subscribers, while the task of maturing the plans was remitted to the executive of the Union with instructions to carry it into effect.

The Committee of the Union was occupied till the spring of 1843 in preparatory arrangements. They resolved to designate the association, the "Wycliffe Society," in honour of the first English reformer; and they calculated that they could furnish three volumes,

with an aggregate of 1,500 octavo pages, if they should succeed in obtaining not less than 1,500 subscribers.

The first prospectus, issued early in that year, was followed by a second in the autumn, in which, so convinced were the Committee of their need of 1,500 subscribers, to fulfil their engagement to give three volumes, that it was distinctly stated, "That no work will be put to press till the list contains that number of names."

At that time, not 700 subscribers had been registered: the Committee therefore continued to use all the appliances of the press, and of the post-office; and by public advertisements, and private circulars, sought to augment their number. Most languid was the response to these appeals, as will be shown by a single fact, that the issue of 3000 circulars only produced 49 additional subscribers; so that in a fourth prospectus, dated July, 1844, they announced that " Nearly eight hundred members have enrolled their names, and the subscription list will be kept open until at least fifteen hundred subscribers have been obtained." No considerable augmentation having followed these oft repeated appeals, it became a grave question with the Committee whether they should not publish the failure of the project, pay off the expenses already incurred, and return to the subscribers the balance due to each.

Anxious, however, to avoid a course which would so signally dishonour the Congregational body, they were willing to hope from the experience of similar societies that the publication of the first volume would immediately produce a great augmentation of subscribers. They therefore resolved to proceed, and to print 1,500 copies of each work, that they might be ready for the anticipated influx of new members.

As it now devolved on them to decide on the subject of that volume, they concluded that in effect that question was determined already by the illustrious name which the Society had adopted, that they must commence the series with "The Tracts and Treatises of John de Wycliffe."

As probably no individual in the kingdom was more fully qualified by previous researches to prepare such a volume than Dr. Vaughan, they applied to him to undertake the task, to which he consented, and the work was ready for distribution in March, 1845. Although there does not exist any

col

lection of the great reformer's writings, at all equal in extent or information to that volume, yet from causes which the Committee cannot explain, its appearance did not produce the expected augmentation of the number of subscribers; and their fond hope of seeing £1200 or £1500 contributed was disappointed, as the list never contained more than 950 names, and from several untoward circumstances the amount actually received by the treasurer did not exceed £850.

Your Committee having began to print, no course was now open to them but to proceed with the second volume. The great and impressive use made of patristic learning and ecclesiastical history by tractarian writers suggested the propriety of putting to press "the Select Works of David Clarkson," who had vindicated our opinions by an appeal to the writings of the fathers. They were accordingly adopted for republication, and it was anticipated the volume would be quickly prepared for the subscribers. But here also your Committee were doomed to disappointment, for the posthumous works of Mr. Clarkson had been originally prepared for publication by persons so incompetent to the task, that Mr. Cooper, to whom the editing of the volume was confided, found himself involved in a very laborious and difficult task, which delayed its publication to the beginning of the present year. The works of the Rev. John Robinson, who was the virtual founder of the colony of New Plymouth, and whom Neale calls, "The Father of the Independents," were selected to form the third volume, for the first subscription; but the facts already recited will, the Committee hope, be sufficient to justify them in not putting it to press until they should have the judgment of this assembly thereon.

When it is known from the audited accounts that 37,500 prospectuses have been printed, and 13,300 circulars issued; that the postages have cost £70; and the repeated advertisements in 29 newspapers, magazines, &c., £80, no surprise will be felt that about £267 have been expended in getting the Society into existence, though many will doubtless marvel that such strenuous appeals to the public spirit of our own denomination, and to the Nonconformist body at large, should not have obtained much greater returns.

In such circumstances, it is plain that the Committee cannot proceed in the management of the Society at their own personal risk, and that they must look

somewhere for a guarantee to protect them from pecuniary loss.

They are well assured that in the largest publication societies, private gentlemen anxious for the success of the enterprise have been responsible for large amounts, in order that the respective undertakings might advance without embarrassment for want of means.

Such efficient patronage the Committee hope to find in this assembly. If twelve gentlemen would guarantee £25 each, or if the assembly by its vote to-day would authorise its Committee to give a guarantee for the same amount, this noble scheme may yet be realized, and a series of volumes produced that will be at once a testimony to the faith of our forefathers, and a memorial of the filial gratitude of their descendants.

There are reasons, however, to fear that the very object of the Wycliffe Society is not understood. It has never proposed to publish cheap volumes like the series of the practical works of English Puritans; nor has it promised to produce popular books, adapted to the prevailing spirit of the age; but to collect and republish the scattered tracts and treatises of those noble confessors who fought the battle of scriptural Protestantism and of religious liberty in this country, and to whom its Nonconformist communities are under lasting obligations. It is a fact, not generally known, that complete collections of their writings do not exist. In vain will you turn to the catalogues of the Bodleian library, at Oxford, or of the British Museum, Sion College, and Dr. Williams' library, to find them, as it often happens that the entire stores of these noble repertories, do not even supply anything like complete series of their publications. Now at a period when the public mind is awakening to the principles and struggles of these men when the painter depicts their forms, and the man of letters vindicates their characters, and refutes their calumniators, surely those who boast of inheriting their principles, and of occupying their pulpits, should not abandon an enterprise which proposes to rescue their expiring testimony from oblivion, and to erect a literary memorial to their honour, more significant and enduring than monuments of marble or of brass. Nor need we abandon it, if that co-operation be afforded to which this literary enterprise is unquestionably entitled. The absence from the subscription list of many well-known names amongst us, both lay and cle

rical, has excited the surprise of various subscribers belonging to other denominations. Surely if the Duke of Manchester thinks the Society worthy of his patronage, wealthy Nonconformist gentlemen may offer it their aid; and if the Bishop of Georgia can contribute to its funds across the Atlantic, many of our brethren in the ministry at home may assist it by their subscriptions.

The Nonconformist ministers and laity of the 17th century munificently patronised the proposals to publish the practical works of their revered pastors; and by their munificence the ponderous folios of Goodwin, Baxter, and Manton, of Bates, Charnock, and Owen, are found upon our shelves. Their tracts, and those of their predecessors, are rapidly becoming extinct, and the reasons which led them to brave the loss of all things will be rather a matter of oral tradition than of documentary evidence, unless we are prepared to emulate the zeal and liberality of former generations.

The Rev. John Ely, of Leeds, then presented and read the report of the Committee on Congregational Economics.

On this important paper the Rev. John Blackburn moved; Malachi Fisher, Esq., of Blandford, seconded; and the meeting adopted:

VI. That the cordial thanks of this Assembly be given to the Rev. John Ely and the Committee on Congregational Economics, of which he acted as convener, for the valuable report now presented, and that it be printed in the CHRISTIAN WITNESS, with a view to prepare for the further consideration of its proposals at the adjourned Autumnal Meeting of this Assembly; but that its suggestions in particular on the further consolidation of the British Mission Societies, the collection of statistics, and such other points as admit of any present action, be referred to the immediate consideration of the Committee of the Union.

Report of the Committee appointed to meet at Birmingham, to take into consideration the Suggestions contained in certain Papers on the Economics of Congregationalism, and read at the Autumnal Meeting of the Congregational Union, held in Manchester, in 1845.

The Committee appointed by you at your last Autumnal Meeting, to take into consideration certain suggestions on the Economics of Congregationalism, proceed to report the result of their deliberations.

To facilitate the consideration of these suggestions, a series of questions was prepared by the writers of the papers containing the suggestions referred to, and transmitted to all the members of the Committee. The replies to these questions were carefully digested, and their substance was presented at the first session of Committee.

The Committee convened in the month of March, and devoted two entire days to the business for which they were designated.

I. The subject of STATISTICS first occupied the attention of the Committee; and the first inquiry entertained respected the matters that would most fitly come within the range of statistical investigation. The following resolutions were adopted in reference to statistical re

turns:

1. "That the parliamentary returns be made the basis of the proposed arrangement for obtaining accurate local statistics; and that the ascertaining of these points be the business of the party making the application to the respective places.

2. "That the names of chapels and of pastors for the time being be an item of information.

3. "That in ascertaining the capacity of chapels, the number of sittings be accurately stated.

4. "That the return of the congregations respectively be the average attendance of that part of the day when the congregation is largest, exclusive of Sunday-scholars.

5. "That in ascertaining the full amount of persons under ministerial care in respective localities, the average above referred to be estimated as constituting two-thirds of the whole.

6. "That the numbers of the members be taken as returned by the respective pastors.

7. That the returns of Sunday-schools include the number of children (male and female) and of teachers (male and female,) with a statement of average ating queries, Are there any day-schools tendance; and also replies to the followsupported by your congregation? What number on the books? What average attendance? Does your congregation assist in supporting other day-schools?"

Your Committee felt that there are many other matters of statistical inquiry well entitled to be included in the returns sought but they were impressed with the desirableness of avoiding whatever

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