with the sorrowful details of heartrending facts; facts that have thrilled the hearts of your readers, aroused their tenderest sensibilities, and enlisted their noblest sympathies in our behalf. It is not, therefore, my intention to add to the number of these facts, but simply to endorse them. They might be multiplied by scores, and by hundreds, aye, and by thousands, throughout the cottonless Cotton District; but it is in their truthfulness, rather than in their amplitude, that the secret of their heart thrilling potency is found. And we thank God, and you, brethren, that by your timely and generous assistance, many of our sufferers have been saved from extreme poverty; others perhaps from disease, and premature death. We sincerely thank you, brethren, for your liberality, and assure you that its moral effect has been second only to its material influence in alleviating the sorrows of those who have been its grateful recipients. Thank God, our present distresses have demonstrated the fact that there is an underlying bond of sympathy still existing in the Christian Church. We hail this harmony of brotherly feeling, as an earnest of better times when the reign of righteousness shall be fully inaugurated in the earth, and slavery and war, the two prolific sources of our present calamities, shall be utterly, and eternally abolished. in your pages without more delay, that any persons whose address is not known, or who may have been unintentionally overlooked, may be able to see what is going on. The Nottingham ladies are in full work for it, but they are anxious to be assured that others in distant churches are co-operating in the effort. The exigencies of our Foreign Mission may hinder some of its friends from doing that for the College which they might do were the Mission funds in a good state. It is to be regretted that so serious a deficiency should have occurred at all; but more so that it should have happened while the College Building enterprize is taxing the resources of the Connexion. It should however be considered that the Mission is dependent on the College for its very agents. All the excellent brethren now in the foreign field were once students in the College, and the last who left it for India did not cost the Mission one farthing. Formerly the Mission fund was charged with the expences of the student's education, if he went direct from the College to his missionary work. No application for such reimbursement was made in the case of Mr. Thos. Bailey; and should other students follow his steps I hope the old custom will never be revived. While this is the policy of the College Committee toward the Mission, and while the two Institutions are so identical in their aims and efforts, that preference of the one to the other which causes the subject of it to withhold assistance from either is both unjust and injurious. Not liking to trespass on your space I forbear to write more at the present, and remain, Yours truly, W. UNDERWOOD. Chilwell College, January 15, 1863. BAPTIST COLLEGE, CHILWELL. WE address you on the subject of the Bazaar, which the last Association, at Halifax, appointed to be held Correspondence-On the Work of the Ministry. during the week of the Association, at Nottingham, in 1863, to assist in extinguishing the debt on the College at Chilwell. The amount required is nearly £1,000 in addition to what has been already paid and promised. We are happy to state that the ladies connected with our churches in Nottingham have commenced a society for the preparation of articles for the Bazaar; an example which might be followed in other towns where two or more churches exist. In places where working societies of this kind cannot be formed, we respectfully request that individual effort may be employed. As the Bazaar was appointed by the annual meeting of our Body, and as it is Denominational in its object, we hope to obtain the cooperation of all the churches in carrying out the appointment, and in accomplishing its design. Considering also the town in which the Bazaar is to be held, and the public occasion on which it will be open, it is desirable that it should be as rich in its contents, and as attractive in its appearance as the whole Denomination can make it. We forbear to specify the kinds of contributions which will be acceptable, since any enumeration of them would be incomplete. Everything useful or ornamental which ingenuity can devise, which skill can execute, and which generosity can part with, will be thankfully received by Mrs. Lewitt, Annesley Grove, Mrs. G. Truman, Derby Road, and Mrs. T. Hill, Arboretum Street, Nottingham, or at the College, Chilwell, near Nottingham. W. UNDERWOOD, President. ON THE WORK OF THE To the Editor of the General Baptist DEAR SIR,-I have no doubt that 65 the members of our churches require to be told the things which Mr. Dowson has most weightily told them in the first page of your Dec. issue. They need, and the world demands, preaching of an exalted and exalting character. But is it not too much to assert that a minister should give himself wholly to the pulpit and preparation for it? Is he not to teach both publicly and also from house to house? to be instant in season and out of season; to rebuke and exhort; and to comfort the feeble-minded; as well as more publicly to lift up the standard to the people. I suppose it may perhaps lie in the nature of things, that the same person should be called to sustain the distinguishable, though usually united, offices of preacher and pastor. They work well together. Perhaps many a preacher will acknowledge that not a few of his most useful sermons have been suggested, almost inspired, during his pastoral visitations. It is then he has become acquainted with the variety of experience, difficulties, prejudices, and mistakes,' prevailing among the people. I dwell on this the longer, because I am half conscious, and half afraid, that Mr. D's remarks may foster in us ministers a tendency that seems to need no encouragement, to make too light of pastoral house-to-house work. The difficulty is to combine the two in just proportion. Mr. D. says, that everything betokens the convulsion of present systems;' but hopes for a better system of ecclesiastical arrangements.' There is a point sanctioned, not more by antiquity, than I think by common sense, to which we Congregationalists would do well to return. Would it not be well, if it were a rule among us, that no one should sustain the pastoral office, till he had, for some period, been an assistant minister? A young man, however he may have profited by his inestimable advantages at college, is not prepared all at once for the undivided labours of either a pastor or a preacher. When the united tide of both offices is rolled on him, he is carried away or overwhelmed. Oh. had he only been 'serving as a son with a father,' as Timothy did with Paul! Without such training, pastoral in addition to collegiate, no one in the Roman Catholic church can have a cure of souls committed to him. In the Anglican church, a man, before he can be made a priest, must have been at least twelve months a curate, that is, an assistant minister. In thevarious Methodist bodies an equivalent regulation prevails. Overpowered by the weight of his duties efficiently discharged, I believe many a young man feels himself driven to habits of indolence in his pastoral and carelessness in his preaching duties. He gets through; and he loses all hope of doing anything more. What a boon would it be to him to have at once a coadjutor and a guide! The older brother, the actual pastor of the flock would have better opportunity for the discharge of his far larger share of the work. See Exodus xviii. 32. And would it not also be a twofold source of blessing to the church itself, receiving both the additional care of an esteemed young under shepherd, and the edification of his fresh ministry, and his not overtaxed powers. And with what enlarged abilities, ripened experience, and chastened courage, would he afterwards undertake a charge for himself, to the incalculable benefit of the flock of which he became the overseer. Humbly commending these thoughts to the serious consideration of your readers, I am, dear Sir, ever yours, ABOUT THE WORD 'CHAPELS.' DEAR SIR,-Though the subject of your correspondent's query is, I think, hardly worthy of any anxiety The College might furnish half his salary for one year. Its in its proposer, he will, I hope, allow me through you to say that the reason we use the word chapels for our places of worship is, that is so exactly expresses what we mean, that everyone understands us (and no mistake), and that we know no other term that could answer the purpose better, or even so well. Church' would have done; but unfortunately our English translation of the Bible always uses that word for ecclesia, and that term is in Scripture never applied to a building, but to an assembly of people. common application in England to ecclesiastical structures, has produced an ambiguity (which, judging from its most perverse application in Acts xix. 37, was, I fear, intentional); and we do not approve of ambiguous expressions; so that when we speak of our churches, we do not at all intend people to think we mean our chapels, nor vice versa. We speak intelligently and neatly, when we speak of the church meeting, for instance, in Salem chapel. But how would it sound, if we spoke of the church meeting in Salem church? nor would it be much improved by saying, as the Quakers do, the church meeting in Salem meeting house; or if we said in Salem Hall; or Salem house of assembly; or Salem assembly room; or Salem synagogue; no; Salem chapel is best. We call the fourth day of the week Wednesday without paying douleia to Woden, and the sixth Friday, without rendering hyperdouleia to Freya. And our house of worship we call chapel, without honouring St. Martin's cope, caring whether the word came from кажηλiα, a booth at fairs, or from capella, the goat's hair which covered its roof. Just as a plain man digging in his garden (without caring whether his implement got its name from pateo, or from somewhere else), calls his spade a spade; so we call our chapels chapels, because they or are so, in a sense that no one can misunderstand. I remain, dear Sir, M. B. Notices of Books-Acts of the Apostles. QUERY ON HEBREWS VI. 4-6. DEAR SIR, (Heb. vi., 4th, 5th, and 2. That from this latter condition 67 of apostacy, it is impossible to be delivered. He has also understood the 13th verse of the 5th chapter of Matthew to teach the same truth. Is he right or wrong? If wrong, does his opinion militate against one of the General Baptist tenets ? Answers to the above will be very acceptable to several students of biblical truth, and will oblige, Yours truly, J. W., D. Notices of Books. ACTS OF THE APOSTLES: an exposition for English Readers, on the Basis of Professor Hackett's Commentary on the original text. By the Rev. J. S. GREEN, B.A., Rawdon College. With a new and literal translation. Vol. II. (Bunyan Library). London: Heaton and Son. We have purposely given the whole of the title of the volume before us. It so exactly and pithily describes the main contents as to make it unnecessary for us to give them again in detail, as in our first notice. Nor, after an examination of this second volume, do we bait one jot of the praise already awarded in these pages to Mr. Green, for the admirable way in which he has popularized Professor Hackett's commentary. There are three supplementary notes to the present volume. The first continues the narrative of the Acts; the second touches upon Paul's visits to Corinth; and the last is a connected and popular sketch of Paul's career. We give one or two citations from the commentary, and the notes. 'Acts xvii. 23. And closely observed the objects of your veneration. (" devotions," Authorized Version). It is not quite certain whether our translators intended to use this word in a sense which it sometimes bore in Old English, as Dean Trench, in his work on the Authorized Version of the New Testament, proves from Sir Philip Sidney. The sense is now, however, obselete; and indeed, the probability is, that the English translators employed the word in its modern significance of "acts of worship." If so, they were decidedly incorrect; as the original signifies, things worshipped (so 2 Thess. ii. 4), and is used as a generic term, under which are classed temples, images, altars, and the like. The altar particularly mentioned was one of these. [The English versions fall into the same error-" the manner how ye worship your gods;" excepting Rheims, which has, more correctly, "your idols," and Wiclif, who reads 66 youre mawmetis." In Old English a mawmet was an idol: strangely enough; the word being derived from Mahomet, who was regarded as the great impersonation of the heathen antichrist. Our ancestors forgot, or did not know, that the Mahometansystemwas distinguished above all by its repudiation of image worship-Ğ.'] 'This, in ignorance of which, ye worship. Here observe, the word which governs the relative is not the verb, worship, but the participle rendered (erroneously) in A.V. ignorantly. The apostle does not say, "Ye Athenians are ignorant worshippers of God; " | who first brought the gospel hither, but "Ye are worshippers, ignorant of God." This distinction involves a serious difference.-G.' 'tis so long since, the British church hath forgotten her own infancy, who were her first godfathers. We see the Light of the Word shining here, but see not who kindled it. I will not say, as God, to prevent idolatry caused the body of Moses to be concealed, so to cut off from posterity, all occasion of superstition, he suffered the memories of our primitive planters to be buried in obscurity.' THE BAPTIST HAND-BOOK for 1863. London: Heaton and Son. The following is from the first supplementary note: Writers of earlier times make it clear that the gospel was preached in Britain in the age of the apostles: and it is highly probable that Claudia, the Christian lady mentioned in 2 Tim. iv. 21, was the daughter of a British king. The name of Paul is, however, unconnected with any Christian traditions respecting WE are glad to welcome what has Britain in any writer earlier than Venantius Fortunatus, a bishop of now become a familiar friend-the Poictiers, about the year 600, of Baptist Hand-Book. whom a Latin stanza has been pre-issue as accurate as possible. Its has been taken to make the present served:- Transit et Oceanum, vel quâ facit insula portum, Quasque Britannus habet terras, quasque ultima Thule :-- thus quaintly rendered, Saint Paul did passe the seas, whose isle The Cape of Thulè land. "The tradition of St. Paul's visit to Britain,' say Cony beare and Howson, 'rests on no sufficient authority,' Vol 2. p. 490. And the'wise and witty Thomas Fuller well states the matter. 'Churches are generally ambitious to entitle themselves to apostles for their founders; conceiving they should otherwise be esteemed but as of the second form and younger house, if they received the faith from an inferior preacher. Wherefore as the heathen, in searching after the original of their nations, never leave soaring till they touch the clouds, and fetch their pedigree from some god; so Christians think it nothing worth, except they relate the first planting of religion in their country to some apostle. Whereas, indeed, it matters not if the doctrine be the same, whether the apostles preached it by themselves, or by their successors. We see little certainty can be extracted Great care If place can be supplied by no other AND THE MARRIAGE GIFT BOOK |