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APPENDIX.

NOTE A.

From Page 21.

TWENTY-FOUR years ago I came to this place, under considerable and peculiar disadvantages, arising from extreme youth, inexperience, and the then critical and disjointed state of the congregation: I entered upon the station with fear and trembling, and with scarce a peradventure of being able to give any general or lasting satisfaction. During this interval I have gone through many trying afflictions, some of which you have known, and others, some of the most trying, you have never known.

I have many faults to remember this day before God; much coldness of heart, many neglects of duty, and much unfruitfulness in my office; but I will do you the justice to say, that I have no injuries from you to enumerate, no personal ill behaviour from a single individual in all this

time to complain of, and if you had all treated my great Master with a regard proportioned to that I have received from you, I should have been the happiest and most blessed minister on earth. With all my imperfections, I trust I am conscious of supremely aiming to speak to you the words of truth and soberness; and I am not conscious of the predominance of a restless, discontented spirit, or seeking great things for myself. I have had my gloomy hours, many of them, and felt many distressing anxieties about myself and many individuals here for whose souls I cannot but care; and sometimes I have thought another person might be found who would suit this congregation, and fill up this particular station to better purpose. On this ground principally, I have sometimes wished to make way for a successor, but never sought out for another situation, nor peremptorily desired it. The late invitations have been entirely unprocured and unsought on my part. I consider it as an illustrious display of the divine goodness to me, and desire solemnly and publicly to give all the honour to the providence and grace of God, that, after the experience and trial of near four and twenty years, the many imperfections of which I am conscious, and some of which you must have discovered, your affectionate regard continues undiminished. The unanimous resistance you have given to the efforts made to remove me, by your strong and unequivocal expressions of attachment, amounts with me to an explicit voice from God, commanding my continuance.

was,

If I had been more disposed to hesitate than I really the spirit of your addresses would have determined me at once. Whatever I may be called to suffer, may I never be permitted to fight against God! To have broken through such cords of love would have amounted to little short of it. I can truly say, I hope the possessing

the hearts of so many of my fellow creatures and fellow Christians stands for more with me than many thousands of gold and silver, and that nothing in this connexion makes me so uneasy as an humbling consciousness of not filling this station to better purpose.

'Brethren, pray for me.'

I cannot help remarking, that while I received great satisfaction from your addresses, as coming from the congregation at large, it gave me peculiar pleasure to observe that so large a number of poor people had subscribed to them. "To the poor," blessed be God, "the gospel is preached." To them I think it a peculiar honour and happiness to address it. It is no small encouragement to me, to see the aisles and other parts of this house filled by the poor, nor is it the least acceptable part of your addresses, where you say, the pains [ have taken for their consolation have been affectionately received, and have not been altogether in vain.

The number of the poor have not more sensibly gratified me, than the respective addresses and signatures of my young friends, and I have found my mind not a little refreshed by the peculiar strength of attachment they express. I consider the younger part of my hearers as the hope of the rising age: with them rest, under God, our expectations with respect to the future church, and I am peculiarly anxious to acquire their confidence, command their attention, and deserve their affections. In this age of scepticism, I have made a point of taking all opportunities of laying before them the convincing evidences of our holy religion, and guarding them against the spreading poison of infidelity; and if my labours are blessed to succeed with a goodly number of my young friends, "my heart shall rejoice, even mine.”

The circumstance of one of the addresses coming from a Benevolent Society, composed entirely of young persons whose whole object is doing good and rendering assistance to the distressed and afflicted poor, gives me reason to hope I have not inculcated Christianity in vain on them. May they go on and prosper; may their numbers be increased; may they be actuated by the purest Christian principles, enjoy harmony among themselves, and the rich luxury of being a blessing to others.

I heartily wish and pray that the late events may be blessed to have their true effect upon us all; to stir us up to a more thorough attachment to the genuine principles of religion, a regular attendance to its ordinances, and a more diligent cultivation of its spirit; that we may be "striving together for the faith of the gospel," and anticipate the approach of that day, when sowers and reapers, pastors and people, the past, the present, and the future, shall all rejoice together through a blessed eternity. Amen.

NOTE B.

From Page 25.

UNIFORMITY of opinion on religious subjects, is, without question, in the abstract, a very desirable thing; but those who are most aware of the weakness of human nature, the limitation of the human faculties, and the prejudices to which we are all more or less liable, will be least sanguine in their expectations on this head. Surely, then, it is important, that what is wanting in uniformity of

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