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believer loves and lives in JESUS, and by Him enters into peace. Unbelief is another hindrance to peace; but the Christian, as he draws near his end, is frequently favoured to stretch forth the wings of faith and love, and thus to find an abundant entrance administered unto him. C. W. B.

LINES IN MEMORY OF OUR LATE BELOVED PASTOR,

March 5th, 1868.

MR. JOHN WEBSTER, OF STEPNEY.

DEATH has been here, and borne away

A faithful, loving pastor dear:
He's gone to realms of endless day,
His Saviour's glory there to share.
John Webster's gone, and left below
A church bereaved, and people dear;
These things but teach, and let us know,
We've no abiding city here.

This widowed church, and people, keep!
To each fresh strength and life impart
Give grace that we may cease to weep,
Comfort and cheer each mourning heart.
Dear Lord, the deacons still maintain;
Guide and direct them by thy will:
Send those that will thy truth proclaim,
Till one at last this gap shall fill.
Farewell, dear Webster, though no more,
You're safe at home with Christ above;
We shall, through grace, to glory soar,
To sing with you redeeming love.

THOMAS E. MOORE.

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IN Onr Own Fireside, there are a series of papers on The Homes of Old Writers ;" and to the antiquarian, and lover of literary research, they must be pleasant and edifying. The March number has a chapter on "Old Thomas Fuller." The writer has seated himself in the Church where this quaint and learned divine ministered about 1630 and onward; and from the writer's musings in the Church, the following extracts are taken :

"The curiously carved pulpit and reading-desk at Broadwindsor still remained to tell where Fuller gave his parishioners the first hearing of the discourses which were published in 1640, forming part of a collection of Funeral Sermons" by eminent preachers of the day. From that pulpit some of his characteristic utterances were given; as when he was once heard to say,

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"I know, and see by daily experience everywhere, how few there be that in their lifetime deserve the praise of religion in their death. For my part, I never did and never will gilt a rotten post or a mud wall, or give false witness in praising; to give the praise of religion to those who deserve it not. I desire those of my own congregation would make their own funeral sermons while they be living, by their virtuous life and conversation. As the Apostle saith, He hath not praise that is praised of man, but he that is praised of God.""

We could not help sitting for some time in silence before that

pulpit, until our inward ear caught a few broken sentences as from our old friend's voice in the distance; he was not seen in the pulpit, but it was Fuller verily saying to us,-" Let the man of meanest parts labour to some competent measure of knowledge in matters of salvation, that so he may not trust every spirit, but be able to try whether he be of God or no. Believe no man with implicit faith in matters of such moment; for he who buys a jewel in a case without ever looking on it, deserves to be cozened with a Bristol-stone instead of a diamond." A pause, and then the voice again-" What shall I say? Shall I praise you in this? Pastors may and must praise their people wherein they do well. 1. Hereby they shall peacefully possess themselves of the good wills of their people, which may much advance the power and efficacy of their preaching. 2. Men will more willingly digest a reproof for their faults if praised when they do well. 3. Virtue being commended doth increase and multiply; creepers in goodness will go, goers run, runners fly. Use. Those ministers to be blamed who are ever blaming, often without cause, always without measure (whereas it is said of God, He will not be always chiding. Do any desire to hear that which Themistocles counted the best music, namely, themselves commended? On these conditions we ministers will indent with them. Let them find matter, we will find words. Let them do what is commendable, and blame us if we commend not what they do. Such work for us would be recreation; such employment a pleasure, turning our most stammering tonges into the pen of a ready writer. To reprove is prest from us, as wine from grapes, but praises flow from our lips as water from a fountain. But, alas! how can we build when they afford us neither bricks nor straw? How can we praise what they do, when they will not do what is to be praised? If, with Ahab, they will do what is evil, we must always prophesy evil unto them." [It is said, Mr. Stringer wisely praised his departed brother Webster as a good man. Mr. Stringer rejoiced in the faith he enjoyed, that he also should live and die in THE TRUTH. What a mercy!]

Is the Gospel Ministry Paralysed?

OUR attention has been specially directed to a small volume published by Messrs. Partridge & Co., bearing this significant Title, The Present Crisis of the Church of God, &c., by E. Cornwall of Craven hill chapel. The contents of this volume are quite in agreement with the spirit and teaching of other works of a similar character; but, in this book we have a comprehensive view of the professing church of Christ earnestly expressed, by one who has carefully and feelingly watched over, and deeply lamented, the present divided, weakened, and almost nominal, if not fearfully deceptive condition of our so-called "Evangelical Christendom." Mr. Cornwall opens his first chapter with the heading, "The Church of God asleep." We fear it is worse than being asleep. There is a kind of mental weakness, called "Sensible Insanity." That we are nearly all of us, (in a religious sense) insane, we can believe; but it is a blind, prejudicial hardened, deluded, and dreadfully blind insanity; so that while men are on the borders of destruction, they are crying out, "Peace! safety!! prosperity!!! grace now, and glory for ever. "We have come (says Mr. Cornwall) not only to a great uni

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versal political crisis, but, also, and no less, to a great, to the greatest crisis in the spiritual world. Everywhere we perceive a spring-tide of Romanism. Infidelity, open, unblushing wickedness setting in on the world, which bids fair to sweep before its almost resistless progress, every half-hearted professing Christian, every one who does not decidedly and at once enter the life-boat of the Gospel, and manfully pull against the flood.

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We are glad to find Mr. Cornwall faithfully pointing to the church's only remedy for all the evils awaiting her. Nothing but what constrained the apostles, and Christians generally, of the first and second centuries, and enabled them to overcome the Roman world in the very midst of suffering, persecution, and death; nothing but what strengthened the martyrs, reformers, revivalists, a Wycliffe, a Tauler, a Luther, a Wesley, a Wilberforce, even a powerful realization of the love of God in Christ Jesus themselves individually, and to all." Nothing but the mighty power of God put forth in the souls of His own people, ever can make the church to be "terrible as an army with banners."

Those persons who read different reports of the rapid rise of new churches and chapels everywhere under the presidency of the Bishop of London, the Wesleyan Conference, the Congregational Union, the Scottish and English Presbyterians, Mr. Spurgeon, and the Baptists generally, such casual and it may be, indifferent readers will not entirely agree with Mr. Cornwall; as regards "the present alarming symptoms, everywhere being manifested throughout the Christian world."

Whether they enter into these things or not, there is, to us, a solemnity indescribable, in the question, "Why are hundreds of millions suffered to go down to their graves with a lie in their right hands? WHY is it so? Who, or what, is the cause of this unspeakable, this eternal calamity? * How shall we account for the palpable fact, that the Gospel, in our day, appears, generally speaking, so paralyzed? Why is it so ineffectual in stemming the enlarging tide of sin ?"

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It was not so, Mr. Cornwall believes, before the anti-Christian apostasy set in. Ere that period, the Gospel spread rapidly, triumphed gloriously, and, soon, it was thought, its conquests would be complete ; and that the dispensation would close. But, there was a falling-away predicted. That falling-away has ebbed and flowed for centuries; and until "He shall come whose right it is to reign"-this overspreading of heresy and schism, of apostasy, and of different kinds of delusions will continue. Lamentable is the fact; but it is, nevertheless too true. Satan is not yet cast out. Christ is not yet come the second time without sin unto salvation; the true knowledge of the Lord does not yet cover the earth; the church is not yet called to the marriage supper of the Lamb, nor can we be bold enough to predict how near to us are the crisis and the change which shall usher in the fulfilment of many prophecies yet in abeyance. These few introductory notes to a further notice of Mr. Cornwall's book, must suffice for the present. Meanwhile, we inwardly mourn o'er the desolations of sin, the spreading of error, and the inactivity and lukewarmness of multitudes who believe they are saved themselves, and there contentedly rest. Ought such things to be?

Whether Mr. Cornwall's prophecies are all correct, according to the will of God, may be left for another notice of his stirring work.

Lights and Shadows of a Pastor's Life.

BEING A DOZEN CHAPTERS IN THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A LIVING MINISTER.

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(Continued from page 82).

[P to this time I had earned little or nothing towards my own livelihood, and my parents sometimes murmured, and murmured justly, that I was doing nothing to support myself. They would occasionally ask me what good so much reading did me? I answered that I hoped it would do me good hereafter, though I confessed that in a pecuniary point of view, it had done me no good hitherto.

But one day, about the period I am speaking of, I saw an advertisement in the Times, for a French tutor, at a school at Merton in Surrey; and it was added, that a gentleman possessing a knowledge of Greek preferred. I at once wrote in reply, and received an invitation to call on the proprietor. I saw him. After a little conversation, he asked me what salary I should require. Afraid of losing the situation if I asked too much, I said £20 per annum, board and lodging, He at once assented, and promised me the situation. I was to enter upon my duties after the Christmas holidays, (it was now the beginning of November). Meanwhile, he wished me to come over twice a week, from D- to Merton, a distance of nearly ten miles, to teach the boys. This I consented to do, and the small sum I received for this six weeks labour (three pounds) I laid out in purchasing certain neeessaries for my outfit. About a fortnight before the holidays expired, and I was to ommence my duties, I received a letter from the proprietor, saying that his former tutor, who had left through illness, having now recovered, and expressed a desire to come back, he had consented to let him do so, and he hoped that I should not feel disappointed !!! Not disappointed! What did he think I was made of? Never shall I forget that day, I seemed prostrated in mind and body, my hopes had been raised so high, and coloured with the rich lines of youth; nothing had ever opened to me before that I felt I could undertake, never before therefore had I met with a disappointment. I groaned in spirit being troubled, and for an hour or two could scarcely speak. Even now after the lapse of more than twenty years, the memory of it brings a gloom over my spirit. Let not my reader smile at this; my circumstances were peculiar. My brothers were hard working men, and earned their living by manual labour, but I was not fitted for this, either physically or mentally; yet it was absolutely necessary that I should do something for a living, and teaching was the only thing I could undertake, and for a moment the prospect brightened, but only to shroud itself in deeper gloom directly after. This was my first engagement in the battle of life, and I was knocked down at the onset.

I next endeavoured to get into the British and Foreign School Society as a master, but for want of a few pounds which were necessary at starting, I was again doomed to disappointment.

I now began to attend several forensic and debating societies, and taking part in these discussions, to familiarise myself with public speaking.

After having spoken a few times in public, I began to receive invitations to attend public meetings, and at last to deliver lectures on various subjects. My first lecture delivered at Albion Hall, Moorgate street, for a public Institution was on "Elocution."

My lecturing engagements now began to increase rapidly, and at length I began to realize a little monetary help. I received an invitation to deliver a series of lectures at Swansea, in South Wales, an engagement which paid me very well. From Swansea I went to Cardiff, Newport, Abergavenny, Carmarthen, Pembroke, Tenby, Milford, Haverfordwest, lecturing in all these places; at Brecon, I lectured to the students at the college on Elocution, by the request of the president. On returning to England, I was invited to deliver a series of lectures at Manchester, at Liverpool, (collegiate institution) and other towns, in the north-west of England, on the origin and affinity of the European languages.

I now began writing fictitious and literary articles for different periodicals, but sometimes did not get the stipulated sum for them when I had written them. Being asked one day by a friend to write a paper for a sanitary journal, the proprietor expressed himself so pleased with it, that he wrote and asked me to take the editorship of the "Health of Towns Magazine," which I did, and held for some considerable period. My remuneratiou for this was a small weekly salary, and furnished apartments rent free at the west end of London.

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Having obtained a number of subscribers, I now issued, at the interval of some few years, two volumes of original poetry, but they have both long since sunk into oblivion. When the printer sent me in his "little account for the first, £20, not being in London, I sent the money up to a friend to pay the bill for me; instead of which he appropriated the money to his own use, so I had the pleasure of paying it twice.

Speaking one night at the Literary Institution, Aldersgate street, in reply to Charles Pearson, the late City Solicitor, a gentleman came to me at the close of the meeting, and asked me if I was open to an engagement? I asked him of what nature? He said, a lecturing engagement on behalf of one of the London Assurance Companies. I told him that I was ignorant of the subject, but that if the engagement were worth my while, I would soon master the details. I saw him next morning at the office, and he wished to know what salary I should require. Afraid now of saying too little, as I was once afraid of saying too much, I told him that I must take time to consider, but would let him know in two or three days. I then called upon a friend who was one of the directors of the Legal and Commercial, and having ascertained what they paid their travelling agents, I went according to my promise, and said I should require five guineas per week, and half a guinea per day travelling expenses. To these terms he assented in a moment, and then asked me when I would start for the north-west of England, to begin my lecturing tour. I answered to-morrow morning. "Well," he said, "I like decision in business, here is five pounds to pay your fare, and I will forward you your money weekly." The next morning at six o'clock I was on my way to Manchester, making that my centre of operations. I lectured and appointed agents in Liverpool, Staleybridge, Oldham, Ashton, Bolton, and all the principal towns in the north-west.

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