ing specimens of the works of an able preacher Expository Lectures on the Second Psalm. By Instructive meditations on one of the most Reasons for not Observing the Fast. By J. P. The substance of an address delivered at the The Congregational Year Book, for 1846, con- An epitome of information on denominational matters such as our congregational brethren have never previously possessed, and of which all who desire to understand their statistics and operations will do well to avail themselves. It is larger than our Baptist Manual, to which it corresponds in character, and treats of a greater variety of subjects. A Correct Lithographic Portrait of the Rev. Mr. Branch is, we believe, a useful as well as a popular minister, and we doubt not that there are many of his friends who will be glad to learn that his portrait has been published. Its size is twenty inches by sixteen. A Classification of the Leading Branches of On one large sheet, the sciences relating to It has been the author's aim to render geography a philosophical study, instead of a mere list of hard names and numbers. It is a decided improvement upon the most popular works of the same kind. 303 The Standard Edition of the Pictorial Bible. Edited by JOHN KITTO, D.D., F.S.A. With many On the Site of the Holy Sepulchre. With a Plan of Jerusalem. By GEORGE FINLAY, K.R.G., Author of "Greece under the Romans," &c., &c. London: 8vo. pp. 48. Price 18. 6d. A Funeral Discourse, delivered on Occasion of John Gurney, Esq., and preached in Princes Street The Life of our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. London: R. T. S. 18mo. pp. 208. Tract Society's Monthly Series. The Life of Cyrus. London: 24mo. pp. 192. Price Gd. Tract Society's Monthly Serles. Garden Flowers of the Year. London: 24mo. pp. 192. Price 6d. Article in the Churchman's Penny Magazine for The Duty of a Christian People in Reference to the Present Crisis. A Sermon, preached at Craven Chapel, Marshall Street, London, March 24th, 1847, being the day appointed for National Humiliation. day Publicly Consecrated to God by the Ordinance By the Rev. J. LEIFCHILD, D.D. To which is added, An Account of a Converted Jew, who was the same of Christian Baptism; with the Confession of his Faith. London: 12mo. pp. 39. Price 6d. The Faith of Dying Jacob. By R. GOUGE, Pastor of the Church at Great Coggeshall, Essex. A New Edition. London: Book Society for Promoting Religious Knowledge, 19, Paternoster Row. 18mo. pp. 111. A Lecture on the Importance of Home Influences Counterslip British School Room, Bristol. By the in the Education of Children, delivered in the Rev. WILLIAM JAMES. Being one of a Series conducted under the Superintendence of the United British Schools. London: Aylott and Jones. 800. Committees of the Lewin's Mead and Counterslip pp. 39. Euclid's The School Edition of Potts's Euclid. Selection of Geometrical Exercises from the Senate- The Eclectic Review. April, 1847. London: A Plea for Ragged Schools; or, Prevention better than Cure. By the Rev. THOMAS GUTHRIE, Fourth Edition. Einburgh: Elder. Evo. pp. 48. INTELLIGENCE. AMERICA. ANTI-MISSION BAPTISTS IN MISSOURI. members in the churches who sympathize with the anti-mission churches. Such members are often the influential portion of the The following articles are taken from the church, and, while they do not oppose the Boston Christian Watchman : 'balance of the church in doing as they wish, yet their indifference and neglect damp "In the minutes of the 'General Associa- the ardour of their warmer hearted brethren. tion of United Baptists' for 1846, we find The ministry of the mission baptists, are the following statistics :-The number of cordial in their feelings and ardent in the associated baptists in Missouri is 19,657 support of their avowed principles. But it They are divided as follow: Missouri bap- will be seen that there are only about one tists, 292 churches, 144 ordained ministers, half as many ordained ministers as there are and 15,331 members; anti-mission baptists, churches. And there are but a very few 118 churches, 57 ordained ministers, and churches that enjoy the undivided labours of 4336 members. The anti-mission baptists, a pastor. An acceptable preacher usually so far as Sunday-schools are concerned, are a has the care of three or four churches, he can, perfect blank; they are indeed much worse therefore, devote only a small portion of his than a blank, being in feeling and in principle time to each. The usual practice is to pass hostile to any of the great objects of benevo- Saturday and Sunday with each church in lent effort which characterize the Christian succession. As a matter of course he cannot church at the present day. They are anti-mould the churches to his views of truth and nomians of the highest degree. They believe and teach that God will do his own work in his own way, and that he uses no means in the furtherance of his plans of mercy. They believe that the ministry of the word was instituted, not to secure or to aid in any way the conversion of men, but to feed the flock of God. Their oldest and ablest preacher in these parts acknowledged to a ministering brother, in a personal argument, that he did not think he had been instrumental in turning one sinner to God. The brother said to him, You have been preaching a long time, nearly half a century, and on your principles you do not think you have been the instrument of the salvation of a single soul.'No,' said the grey-haired anti-mission preacher, I do not think I have.' "This was a frank avowal, and a fearful comment on his doctrines. It follows that they would look upon sabbath schools, or any mode of religiously training the young, as presuming upon the prerogative of the Almighty, taking God's work out of his hands; hence they not only disfellowship them and all kindred efforts, but also disfellowship those who engage in them. The anti-mission baptists are on the wane, and will probably disappear, ere long, before the advancing light of truth." MISSION BAPTISTS IN MISSOURI. "The mission baptists are professedly in favour of missionary effort, and the whole family of benevolent societies. As a general ng they are so; but there are many old duty, and lead them by his guidance, as he the nature of their labours. "During the past year there have been but few additions to the churches. A general religious declension has prevailed far and wide. In this vicinity the attention of the churches was called to the subject of Sunday schools, and one venerable minister said to me, that the only favourable aspect apparent was the interest with which they were engaging in this good work." RELIGION AT THE SOUTH. "A southern correspondent writes to us, that there is an increasing interest through most of the southern states in the religious education of the coloured people; and although most of the states prohibit, by statute, the whites from teaching them to read, yet, as numerous Sunday-schools exist among them, in these schools they teach each other to read; and thus the art of reading is spreading among them quite extensively, and no one interferes. In Fayetteville, N. C., there is a sabbath-school among the blacks of one church of 110 scholars; and the minister of that church, who superintends it, told me that at least three-fourths of them could read. "There are but few revivals in the churches, while the public mind seems too much occupied with buying and selling cotton and bread-stuffs, that each may add gain to gain. The churches are generally, with few exceptions, in peace, and the ministry faithfully preaching the word; and it is hoped that there is an increasing desire among the membership that God would visit them soon with the gracious and reviving influences of his Holy Spirit." SAILING OF AMERICAN MISSIONARIES. "Messrs. Shuck, Tobey, and Johnson, missionaries of the Southern Baptist Convention, with Yong Seen Sang, the native Chinese preacher, sailed from this part to Canton, in the ship Ashburton, on Thursday morning of last week. On account of the haste with which they were obliged to set sail no religious services were held at the ship, although many of the friends of missions were present to give them the parting hand and see the ship leave the wharf; but a season of prayer was held immediately after at the Missionary Rooms, to commend the missionaries to the special care and protection of Heaven. Mr. and Mrs. Yates were prevented from sailing by the illness of the latter, and we regret to add that Mr. Yates is now quite indisposed, also, at his lodgings in this city. EUROPE. PERSECUTION OF BAPTISTS IN FRANCE. We copy the following paragraphs from the Boston Christian Watchman, because they contain some particulars which we have not previously seen relating to a subject on which we are anxious to present to our readers all the information we can obtain. They are in a letter dated Geneva, Feb. 24, 1847. VOL. X.-FOURTH SERIES. "The liberty of worship in France, although inserted in the constitution, is fettered by new restraints every day. Catholicism, faithful to its persecuting spirit, seeks in the height of its power to continue here the dragooning of Louis XIV. To behold the zeal which they put forth in order to excite the authorities against the protestants, one would think that they had sworn their ruin. I shall pass over a multitude of facts which I could cite in support of this position. I will merely acquaint you with some that relate to our baptist brethren, who have endured of late more violent and shameful persecutions than the priests are ordinarily able to originate. "Last summer, the prefect of the district of L'Aisne issued an order to the mayors of all those corporations where baptists might be found, that a proces-verbal should be made out against the minister who should come to preach to them. It was in this manner that they proceeded against Mr. Lepoids, who had laboured for several years in that district under the auspices of the Baptist Foreign Mission Board; but it was not until November and December that they came to open violence. The meetings were then broken up, and Mr. Lepoids and Mr. Besin incarcerated in a most brutal and arbitrary manner. "See what a religious journal, one of the most highly esteemed in France, says upon this subject : "It (the municipal authority), suddenly arrested Mr. Besin, one of the baptist ministers of this district, whom they found reading the bible to his friends in that village (Servais); and by order of the judge of that canton, he was conducted to the prison at Lafere, under the pretext that he had been taken in the very act. After a detention of five days in this house of arrest, he was conducted by some gendarmes to Laon, attached by an infamous chain to some thieves, to appear before the attorney of the king, who immediately ordered his release. "A month after, Mr.' Lepoids took his turn. They arrested him, conducted him to the house of arrest at Lefere, and kept him in this prison in close confinement seven days, where also they shut up, for the second time, Mr. Besin, who, from affection for his pastor, had followed him in this painful course, and who had done nothing to subject him to a new imprisonment.' "But this did not satisfy them. Messrs. Lepoids, Besin, and Foulon, a young man who was preparing himself for the sacred ministry, were obliged to appear on the 22nd of January, before the tribunal of Laon. And now it is reported that they have each been fined sixty dollars! and this for having met together in the name of a new religion which they call the Protestant Baptist. "The affair will not stop here. I have learned that an appeal will be laid before the 2 R Royal Court of Amiens. We shall then see what the judges of the supreme court think of the new religion, which has been taught and practised for more than eighteen hundred years." BAPTIST CHURCHES PRONOUNCED ILLEGAL SOCIETIES BY THE SUPREME COURT. The appeal, it appears, has failed. The Times of April 1st contains the following statement: The royal court of Amiens sat on the 25th ult. to hear an appeal,brought by three members of the Evangelical Baptist Society against a judgment of the Tribunal of Laon, by which they were condemned to pay a fine for associating with others, more than twenty in number, for religious purposes, contrary to the 294th article of the Penal Code. M. Brouard, counsel for the appellants, argued that the conviction was contrary to law, inasmuch as the religion of the appellants was declared by the Tribunal of Laon to be a novelty, and he demonstrated that the sect of the baptists had existed in England since the reformation, and that they possessed in the year 1830, in that country, no less than 1048 chapels. M. Brouard added, that the members of the Society of Baptists in the United States amounted to 570,000, and that the society dated from the year 1639. On those grounds the counsel for the appellants contended that they were improperly convicted. The court, however, decided that the sect of baptists was beyond the pale of the religions authorized by law, and was, consequently, an illicit association. The judgment of the Tribunal of Laon was then confirmed." Since the preceding articles were in type we have seen extracts of a letter from Mr. Willard, an American baptist missionary in France, in which he describes to his friends in the United States the sources of the hostility evinced. Though it was written before the preceding accounts, being dated Dec. 30, it will be read with interest. "In many parts of the field occupied by our brethren, the prospect is flattering as far as a disposition to listen to the preaching of the gospel is concerned. The labour is difficult, the toil great; but there is every appearance of an abundant harvest, were the labourers sufficiently numerous, and could they be permitted freely to cultivate the field. But the papal priests, with their usual malignity, excite the authorities against the brethren, and cause them to be brought before the magistrates and tribunals, where they are strictly forbidden to preach the unsearchable riches of Christ. Still the work has never before been so generally prosperous as during the present year. Notwithstanding threats and imprisonments, the word seems to be free. Many are desirous of becoming a quainted with the way of salvation. May God aid them,-lead them by his Spirit," Beside the opposition of the civil authorities as excited by papal priests, our brethren are occasionally annoyed with the intermeddling of "national protestants." Says Mr. Willard, "It is an unpleasant task to speak otherwise than in commendation of those who profess to be Christians, and very charitable ones too. But the difficulties and vexations attending the progress of our brethren here, could never be fully understood and appreciated were I to remain wholly silent in regard to the efforts of protestants against them." Mr. Willard proceeds to instance several cases in which, in the guise whether of pretended friends or avowed enemies, protestant pastors of the national church had endeavoured to cast suspicion upon our brethren, or, in other ways, to counteract their pious labours. He closes by saying, "We have, therefore, all things considered, a hard warfare here; but the brethren are courageous. I doubt not that any and all of them would stand firm in the day of persecu tion. Let these brethren be remembered before God. There are baptists in your land who pray for missions and for persecuted converts. Let such lift up their prayer in behalf of their persecuted brethren in France, -in behalf also of a great nation, whose small protestant population is mostly a dead letter, and whose millions of papists are passing in ignorance to the world of despair, whose millions of infidels are rendered such to a great extent by the indifference and misconduct of the two former." A letter from Mr. Besin to Mr. Willard gives the following account of his arrest and imprisonment : "I went on Sunday, 9th of December, to Douillet, Servais, to talk with the brethren about the word of God. We met at the usual hour, ten o'clock. Suddenly the vicemayor and the garde champêtre appeared and said, By what authority are you assem bled here?' I replied, 'It is by the authority of the Lord Jesus.' But,' said he, 'have you any vouchers?' 'Yes,' I replied. Show them. I presented to them my New Testament. Then they said, 'That is not it. We want a ministerial authorization, and as you have none, we notify you of a procés verbal; but yet, a moment,-have you a passport?" Yes; but I left it at Villequier Aumont;'and, at their request, I gave them my name. After the friends, to the number of ten, had answered for me, they being good people, the vice-mayor said, Very well;'-they then went away, and we continued. As I was dining, they came to take me, as I think; nevertheless, they went away without accom plishing their design, after I had spelled my inquired my name, my age, and my profession. You were last Sunday at Servais ?' 'Yes.' But for what object?' 'To meet with my brethren,-to exhort them to persevere in the doctrines of the apostles and prophets.' 'But you are not a minister, and you ought not to have meetings without an authorization.' 'But, sir, I am a protestant.' I know it very well, but you are forbidden to meet more than twenty-two persons.' Sir, I do not know that there were more than twenty-two persons,-I did not count them; but had there been more, I should not have sent them away, for one must have a hard heart to do so. Ah, sir! did you but know the ignorance that reigns in the world in regard to the things of God! Three-fourths of the people do not know God; my profes sion of colporteur enables me to know better than any other man, and all I do is to try to make known that God whom they know not.' 'What books do you sell?' 'I sell the Holy Bible and the New Testament.' No; nothing else.' I took my New Testament and said to him, This is what I sell, and what we preach.' He took it, and I said to him, If you believe what is in that book, you are saved; if you do not believe it you are lost.' You have no other books,' said he. name to them letter for letter. We assembled again in the afternoon, being strengthened by the Spirit of God. After having sung some verses of a hymn, prayed, and read the word of God, I had but just begun to explain these words, If any man thirst, let him come unto me and drink,' when I saw, for the third time, the vice-mayor and the garde champêtre coming towards me. We have come for you,' said they, 'to go to Bautor for a pass port.' I replied, that they would not give me a passport at Bautor,-that it was useless to tell me that. You must have one,' said they. I have told you that I have one. Besides, the people here have answered for me.' But the garde replied hastily, That is not sufficient; will you come with us?-if not, I will take two of the national guard.' 'There is no need of that,' said I; but if it is in reality for want of a passport that you arrest me, I consent to remain under your surveillance till I can send home for mine.' 'No, no,' said they. So they conducted me to Bautor. On leaving, I exhorted the friends' But you sell other books besides?' to read the word of God. The catholics cried in the streets, 'There go the Judases, leading away our Lord.' Others said, 'It is the wickedness of the Roman church,-I will never set foot in it again.' On reaching Bautor, I was severely handled, but I rendered not evil for evil. The mayor of BautorPardon me, sir,' and I showed him my sent me to the prison of Lafère, where I re. hymn book. Will you lend it to me?' mained five days. Then I was chained to a Willingly.' He said to me,' My friend, sell thief and conducted to Laon. I was not your books,-sell as many of them as you ashamed of my bonds, and I hope I shall can,-preach morality in the houses; but never be. At the place where we changed, I hold no more meetings.' But, sir,' said I, saw a New Testament on the chimney piece. I do not travel about on Sundays,—what As those present were looking at me, I laid shall I do? Moreover, the apostle Paul said, my hand which was not bound, upon the speaking by the Spirit of God, Forsake not New Testament, and said, 'This is the word the assembling of yourselves together.' 'Yes,' of God.' Some one laughing, said, Yes; said he, 'but you see they put you in prison.' but they who do what that says, all that is That is true, sir, but the same apostle of commanded in that book, do not go to whom we are speaking was there too for havprison.' 'Nevertheless,' said I, 'gentlemen, ing done as I do. Besides, sir, is there an there is where you mistake,—it is for having article in the law that says we must be put in preached what that says, that you see me prison.' 'No,' said he, but when you are bound with this chain.' They would not caught in the very act, you may be put in believe me till the gens d'armes said I told prison?''Sir,' said I, 'I do not understand the truth. Then some said that the world you.' 'I mean, when there are more than would come to an end soon;-others, What twenty-two persons.' Then he said to me, shall we do, if we are forbidden to do good?' Asthegens d'armes were looked at suspiciously, they said it was not their affair,-that they were obliged to do what they were ordered to do. I excused them by saying it was true; they had obeyed their master and I mine, who commanded me to preach in His name; -that he is the Judge both of the living and of the dead; that all the prophets testified of him; that whoever believeth in him shall'Indeed, sir, when one blows a trumpet on receive the remission of his sins. On the morrow I was taken from prison in order to appear before the Juge d' Instruction, but a serjeant (huissier) came to say that I was not to be conducted thither, but before the Frocureur du Roi, The Procureur du Roi When you shall come with Foulon, I will return you your books. You know I have the power to keep you in prison till your trial.' 'As you choose.' 'I have been told that you went to Servais to draw catholics from their religion in order to make protestants of them.' 'Sir, I did not go after all the catholics who came there. 'No,' said he, but you preached, and that drew them.' the market place, all the world goes to see what is there; nevertheless, no accusations are brought against them, nor are they put in prison.' He smiled, and sent me away. "Good courage, dear brother W- Pray for us." |