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OUR CONFERENCES.

305 many past years, and are not unlikely so to continue for years to come. Having no man set over them by the providence of God, to lead them out and to bring them in, might not the Conference exercise some direct care over them? Might it not, with their concurrence, appoint a sort of itinerant pastor, to oversee them; or failing in that, could it not urge the regular, settled ministers, to give one day of the year in turn, for preaching the word, and dispensing the ordinances among them? In either way the strong would be bearing the infirmities of the weak, and not exclusively pleasing themselves.

The admission of Churches into the Conference is an act nearly akin to that of receiving individual members into the churches. In neither case should the reception be hasty and without due knowledge, since our gains are eventually decided not by the numbers, but by the Christian worth of those who become allied to us.

In the case of such vacant churches as can support pastors, and as are seeking to obtain them, might not the Conference have the privilege of speaking and of being consulted? If ministers do presume to write to such churches, or in other ways than by writing, privately to recommend their friends and acquaintance to the vacant office, would it be more presumptuous in the Conference to take some sort of action for the proper filling up of the void and needy places? No such chasms can occur in any of the great Methodist bodies. And when they happen among Presbyterians, the local synod or presbytery interests itself for their speedy and appropriate filling up. It is anything but creditable to our freer polity that years should elapse, sometimes, before one pastor deceased, or surceased, is followed by a worthy successor. Has the Conference no bowels to feel compassion for those who are as sheep without a shepherd? And has it no brains to devise means of meeting these manifest emergencies? If it were all that it should be, taking instant notice of necessities as they arise in the affiliated churches; and proceeding to immediate measures for the best available supply of such necessities, it would win more esteem and favour than have ever been shown to it. And we who feel it a duty to uphold it by our presence, should come to its meetings with an earnest expectation and hope beyond what has ever yet moved us, and we should go from these meetings with a gladness and a satisfaction not hitherto realised.

A PAGE OF HISTORY.

ON May 25, 1812, Bonaparte left Paris for Dresden; and on the 22nd of June following he declared war against Russia, and proceeded shortly after to place himself at the head of an army of some 470,000 men, which constituted the Russian expedition. From the first of these dates onward to July 15, 1815, when he surrendered himself to Captain Maitland, on board the Bellerophon, may be marked the period of the actual " decline and fall" of the great Napoleon; and it stands out as a period of the blackest ferocity that national wickedness ever presented as a warning to mankind. It is very credibly stated that, in the Russian campaign, there were sacrificed 500,000 men in about 173 days. In 1813 alone, the conscripts raised in France were-January, 250,000,-April, 180,000,-October, 280,000,-and in November, 300,000: total in that year, one million and ten thousand men. Nearly all of them perished in battles and retreats! Truly, it is time the people reigned in peace instead of kings reigning by war. G. W. M'CREE.

Local Preachers' Associations as a Means of Extending the Denomination."

BY J. SHARMAN, OF NOTTINGHAM.

THE "Local Preacher" is confessedly a necessity. Village churches, if they exist at all, cannot thrive and extend without him. He is essential to their vigour and usefulness; and it is hardly likely that many villages now unoccupied will be planted with churches without his self-sacrificing and persistent aid.

Formerly the ministers of town churches considered it a part of their duty to visit the surrounding villages, and preach the gospel, hold meetings from week to week, and lay the foundations of branch churches. Thus, for example, churches were placed in the neighbourhood of Nottingham for seven or eight miles round, by the labours of that indefatigable Apostle of the Peak, Mr. Pickering, during the time he held the pastorate of Stoney Street, and by his colleague and successor, the zealous and warm-hearted Hugh Hunter. These two devoted servants of God found time to visit the rural districts, and the results of their labours are seen in the various churches clustering about this expanding midland town.

But the circumstances of town churches have altered in recent years. The mental competition is so keen that the minister must be a student as well as a preacher; and the demands for work in the town are so largely increased that the margin of time left for the village work is exceedingly narrow.

Still, all will admit that we must have churches in our villages, and that they must be maintained in as flourishing a condition as possible. It is from them the town churches receive some of their best men: men of the most spiritual sinew and muscle. Some of the most zealous workers we have—our deacons, officers, and Sunday school teachers-" hail" from the rural districts. Reared in the fresh and bracing atmosphere of the village, they carry their rough force, with beneficial effect, amongst the feeble and shrinking sentimentalism of the town. Therefore these churches must be maintained at their best. And yet, who shall undertake this work? We have no denominational organization adequate to it. Grouping, though often heard about, is not eagerly sought. Town ministers cannot do it. We are, therefore, thrown back upon the agency of the Local Preacher. He is absolutely necessary to the maintenance of Free Church life in our villages.

Still more is the aid of the Local Preacher indispensable in the work of extending the denomination in the rural districts of England. He must be the pioneer to break up the country, plough the ground, and cast in the first seeds of the gospel of the kingdom. He only can do it inexpensively, regularly, and with the strictest economy of resources; and therefore it is necessary, both for keeping up the usefulness of existing village Churches, and beginning new ones, that Local Preachers should be increased, and those we have rendered more efficient by means of Associations.

It is a fact well known to those who have observed the working of Methodism that, to a very large extent, it owes its rapid progress to its elaborate organization. The Methodist denomination has spread itself like a net work over the whole country, and the secret of its success lies, in a great measure, in the fact that each circuit has an organised band of Local Preachers; and men of talent and social position have not been ashamed to identify themselves with their humbler brethren. In the midland counties, where our denomination is the strongest, especially in the towns of Leicester, Derby, and Nottingham, as centres for their respective counties, associations have been formed. Speaking of the Association over which I have the honour to preside, I can say, without the fear of contradiction, that it has been of immense use to the churches around Nottingham, and in some parts of Leicestershire and Derbyshire. We have a printed plan, with the names of the churches we supply, and the names of the associated preachers. There are, at present, connected with the plan, 15 churches and 37 preachers. In addition to these churches we supply a number of others, who have their own printed plans. As an association we * The substance of a paper read at the Local Preachers' Conference of the Association. We hope to be able to give the pith of Mr. Ashby's paper next month.

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meet quarterly for the transaction of business, when delegates from the churches give reports of their spiritual state.

The Association, some nine months ago, decided to commence a new interest at a village of the name of Kimberly, which is about six miles from Nottingham. The village has a population of about 4,000, without any adequate provision for religious worship. We rent the British School at a cost of £20 a year; this sum is a burden at present, for it is a well known fact that local preachers, as a rule, have not much of this world's goods. The infant cause has been affiliated to a neighbouring village church, whose pastor takes a great interest in the work. What we need to make the work at Kimberly a permanent success is a suitable chapel; but, alas! we have no funds, and no where to apply for any. Churches which for years were supplied by Local Preachers have so prospered as to be able to support a pastor, e.g., Beeston, Old and New Basford, Hucknall, Sutton, Kirkby, and Lenton. There is, then, in our Local Preachers' Associations, a grand and powerful organization, and the denomination would be consulting its highest interests by utilizing these associations. There are men, whose hearts the Lord has touched, banded together to spread the glorious gospel, and, if encouraged and supported by the denomination, would be a means of preaching the gospel in our large villages and rising hamlets, where our denomination is little known, thus counteracting those pernicious influences which arise from the promulgation of false doctrines. While we are seeking, as a denomination, to establish churches "in the great centres of population, let us not forget the home of our childhood. Cradled and nurtured, if not matured, in the small country towns and villages, we have still a work to do in connection with them. In many places, at least, we cannot plead our want of men to do the work, for there are Local Preachers sufficient in the midland counties to carry the good news of salvation to a considerable number of places where the voice of a Baptist is seldom heard.

In conclusion, allow me to make a suggestion, Let the brethren who may reside within easy distance of each other, who feel the importance of preaching the simple gospel, unite themselves together and encourage each other in endeavouring to extend the cause of our blessed Master, not minding who may smile or who may frown. We want more of the pluck, the energy, and selfdenial of the men who founded the New Connexion of General Baptists.

Brethren, let us not be recreant to our convictions, and show ourselves unworthy of our glorious ancestry. Let us emulate their zeal and devotion, not being unmindful of the commendations of Him who will say to each of us, if found faithful, "Well done, good and faithful servant, enter thou into the joy of thy Lord.

The Potter.

TURN, turn, my wheel! Turn round and round

Without a pause, without a sound:

So spins the flying world away!

This clay, well mixed with marl and sand,
Follows the motion of my hand;
For some must follow and some command,
Though all are made of clay!
Thus sang the Potter at his task
Beneath the blossoming hawthorn tree,
While o'er his features, like a mask,
The quilted sunshine and leaf shade
Moved, as the boughs above him swayed,
And clothed him till he seemed to be
A figure woven in tapestry,
So sumptuously was he arrayed
In that magnificent attire

Of sable tissue flaked with fire.
Like a magician he appeared,
A conjurer without book or beard;

And while he plied his magic art-
For it was magical to me-

I stood in silence and apart,
And wondered more and more to see
That shapeless, lifeless mass of clay
Rise up to meet the master's hand,
And now contract and now expand,
And even his slightest touch obey;
While ever in a thoughtful mood
He sang his ditty, and at times
Whistled a tune between the rhymes,
As a melodious interlude.

Turn, turn, my wheel! All things must
change

To something new, to something strange:
Nothing that is can pause or stay:
The moon will wax, the moon will wane,
The mist and cloud will turn to rain,
The rain to mist and cloud again,
To-morrow be to-day.

Longfellow's "Keramos."

MENTAL WORK.

Lord Brougham's three rules: 1. Be a whole man to one thing at a time. 2. Never lose a passing opportunity of doing anything that can be done. 3. Never entrust to others what you ought to do yourself.

Study is not merely the furnishing of the memory, but much more, the sharpening of the attention, the exercising of the judgment, the acquiring a habit of considering every subject carefully and impartially on every side. More depends on the quality of what we read than on the quantity; and more on the use which, by reflection, conversation, and composition, we have made of what we read, than upon both the former.-Dr. Campbell.

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A wise man is formed more by the actions of his own mind than by continually feeding it. 'Hurry," says Chesterfield, "from play to study; never be doing nothing." I say, frequently be unemployed; sit and think. There are on every subject a few leading and fixed ideas; these tracks may be traced by your own genius as well as by reading. A man of deep thought, who shall have accustomed himself to support or attack all he reads, will soon find nothing new.-Sheridan.

Sir W. Hamilton used to tell his class that it is better to read one good book ten times over than ten good books only once. So much attention is necessary to get all the good out of a good book, and only in this way can it be got out. Many fancy that they are acquainted with our best authors as a matter of course, who have never fathomed one thousandth part of their meaning. Perhaps only those who write, adequately know how much attention it is necessary to bring to bear on all books that are worth knowing. Jansen read the whole of Augustine ten times, and his Antipelagian writings thirty times, before he wrote his " Angustinus."

Avoid intense study for many hours at a stretch. Whatever exhausts the mind, not only enfeebles its power, but narrrow its scope. Study with regularity at settled hours. The man who has acquired the habit of study, though for only one hour every day, and keeps to the thing studied till it is mastered, will be startled to see the way he has made at the end of a twelvemonth. Spare no pains in collecting details before you generalize; but it is only when details are generalized that a truth is grasped.-Bulwer.

Miss Martineau sometimes read only a page in an hour. Comte read for twenty years an incredibly small number of books. Multifarious reading weakens the mind more than doing nothing; for it is an excuse for the mind to lie dormant while thought is poured in and runs through, a clear stream over unproductive gravel, in which not even mosses grow. I read hard or not at all. Plato, Aristotle, Butler, Thucydides, J. Edwards, have passed like the iron atoms of the blood into my mental constitution.-F. Robertson, Life, ii. 209.

Docendo disces was the favourite maxin of Ascham. The affectionate wish and strenuous effort to impart knowledge is the best possible condition for receiving it. The necessity of being intelligible to others brings with it an obligation to understand ourselves; to find words apt to our meaning, and a meaning commensurate with our words; to seek out just analogies and happy illustrations. But above all, by teaching, or more properly, by reciprocal intercommunication of instruction, we get a practical acquaintance with the universal laws of thought, and with the process of perfection, abstracted from the accidents of the individual constitution; for it is only by a sympathetic intercourse with other minds that we gain any true knowledge of our own.Hartley Coleridge, Worthies of Yorkshire, 300.

Are mouldy records then the holy springs
Whose healing waters still the thirst within ?
O never yet hath mortal drunk

A draught restorative

That welled not from the depths of his own soul.

-Goethe, Faust.

London Chapels and Churches.

THE Secretary of the London Congregational Union has been investigating the needs of London in the matter of religious accommodation, and he shows (1) that London contains more than one-eighth of the entire population of the United Kingdom, estimating the latter at 33,881,996. What proportion, then, of effort should the Home Missionary Societies of England give to London work? What ought we to do, who have yet to strike our first blow in Home Mission labour on behalf of the four millions and a half of the metropolis.

(2) He shows that there is a deficiency of accommodation for worshippers of one million; that 1,000 chapels or churches, holding 1,000 each, are required to supply sittings for fifty-eight out of every hundred of the population; and (3) that if Congregationalists do their share they should build at least six chapels every year, each capable of holding 1,000. These are facts for Baptists to ponder. We cannot shirk our share of responsibility without rebuke. We need more generosity in giving, and more enthusiasm for the salvation of souls.

Yes, but, says one, "the churches and chapels we have built are not fully used. Many are only sparsely attended. Some are never more than halffilled. Others are only used by a gathering of people for about ninety minutes a week. It is to be feared, indeed, that London has in it not less than two millions of people who do not attend any place of worship from January to December; and that indifference to the Sabbath and to the sanctuary, and to the claims of Christianity, is-notwithstanding our glorious activity, and our great successes in many departments of Christian work-deepening and extending."

"What, then, shall we say to these things ?" "Build no more; fill what you have, and then dig out the foundations for fresh edifices ?" That would not be progress, but decay. We colonize, and thereby make more useful vast tracts of the old country. England owes her greatness, in no mean degree, to the fact that she has ventured upon the new whilst seeking to utilize the old. Vacant pews are due in some quarters to an ill-placed sanctuary. There has been a recession of the people. The warehouse has swallowed up the private dwelling, and the children born in Aldgate and Bishopsgate Street are dwelling at Sutton and Clapham, and in other suburbs of the metropolis. The empty synagogue calls for the auctioneer, urges instant sale, and the conversion of the proceeds into brick and stone in really necessitous districts.

But that does not account for every empty seat. In seven cases out of ten it is to be feared the vacant pews are due to vacant pulpits. There is a figure on the rostrum, but heart, intelligence, sympathy, hard work, practical directness, the passion to do men good, are absent, and therefore the people do not come. The power of habit and association is relaxed in large towns, the influence of opinion is not so acutely felt; and so it happens that those who attend church or chapel do it because they feel they have something to go for, some need to satisfy, some work to perform, some actual good to get; and they must have in the pulpit the supply of these wants, or they will soon go in quest of other pastures. Paul's ministry at Ephesus was one of enormous industry, of incessant and real work: of work "night and day;" of intense individuality, addressed to every one; as if the true test of success was in the number of separate souls won to Christ; and of subduing pathos, for, said he, Remember that by the space of three years I ceased not to warn every one night and day, with tears." Such a ministry shatters idolatry, compels attention, wins converts, and builds a stable, self-denying, and victorious church. Give us preachers of this type, and the people will press to hear the word of God.

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But three pews out of ten are empty because the human church is empty; it lacks life and love. It wants ardour and glow. It does not care for men. utters no welcome to its privileges. It knows little of the dignity that comes of lowly service to mankind. It fails to create a spiritual home, and to provide a well-supplied table for the refreshing and gladdening of the hungry souls of It is like that "half-way Church" of which George Eliot sings

men.

"Which racks your reason into false consent, And soothes your love with sops of selfishness." The Church does not attract, and therefore men do not come.

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