Gospel Guide, in its report of this large meeting, says:—

Mr. Edward Butt, the devoted secretary of the Building Committee, rose and said, that they did not think it was necessary to prepare any kind of report; the meeting was more for thanksgiving to Almighty God, for His goodness to them as a people during the year 1864. He said, when we look at the past, it is truly wonderful. None of the societies in con nection with the Surrey Tabernacle have been injured by our new undertaking, The ordinance fund, which is distributed amongst the poor of the church; the sick fund, a truly useful society, from which many are helped in seasons of affliction, and all other societies were working well. During the past year the Church and friends had nobly contributed, as underLadies' Society - £65 8 1 78 6 0

Poors' Fund

Aged Pilgrims' Friendly Society

For the widow of the late Mr. Pells

151 12 8

60 0 0 The Benevolent Societies have all been maintained in their full tide of doing practical good. Mr. Butt said, during one year our Building Fund has realized £3,000 2s. Total amount in hand since the commencement, which is about eighteen months, is £4,968 19s. Promises, which we consider will be fully met, amounts to £700. Sometimes Satan has set in, and said, "How will you get the rest?" Well, when this unbelief comes in, he could only say, that which had been done was a guarantee from the Lord that He would enable them to finish the work; and hence they often sang"Begone, unbelief, my Saviour is near,

And for my relief will surely appear." Next Good Friday, a Public Meeting will be holden in the same place, in behalf of the New Surrey Tabernacle; which we are happy to hear is fast going on to completion.

Mr. Williamson's fourteenth anniversary, at Johnson street, Notting Hill, was celebrated February 14th, in the usual highly respectable and happy spirit. Mr. James Wells was prevented from being present to preach the sermon-being detained at the funeral of the late Mr. Lee; but Mr. Williamson gave the waiting audience a most interesting commentary on the one portion of Israel's prophecy, which was found, perhaps, quite as acceptable as any discourse Mr. Wells could have delivered. This sweet interposition of the Lord's blessing in an unexpected channel should quite silence all the little murmurings which disappointments sometimes produce. As predestinarians

why not believe that Mr. Wells WAS NOT to come that afternoon, and that Mr. Williamson WAS TO BE the Aaron for the people, and that through him the Lord designed to bless them; and there end all further controversy. Mr. Williamson's meeting was full, and the cause still prospers.

THE BAPTISTS IN SCOTLAND.

MY DEAR SIR,-In the February VESSEL, you made some remarks on the tour and labours in Scotland, of the well-known servant of Christ, Mr. T. J. Messer.

You also favoured your readers with an extract from a letter you had received from him, in which he stated, "There is a fine opening in this country for a truth proclaiming evangelist or two. There is more Arminianism in Scotland than you would imagine."

Now I do not believe that Mr. Messer intended by that to insinuate that the Baptist Churches in Scotland hold Arminian views, but referred to the aspect and tendencies of religious teaching generally throughout Scotland.

However, I feel sure that you, Mr. Editor, and the readers of the VESSEL, will be glad to know there are some Baptist Churches in Scotland who maintain fearlessly the doctrine of salvation only by the free distinguishing and sovereign grace of God, and who also maintain the practice of Strict Communion.

Unquestionably like most churches who hold the truth of Christ in its simplicity, and proclaim the Gospel as the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth, without fear or favor, they are few in number, and have not succeeded much in making known their distinctive views and practices throughout Scotland.

A meeting however was held at Edinburgh last summer, attended by delegates from kindred churches in Wales and England; at which it was resolved to appoint an evangelist to declare the Gospel of the grace of God wherever an opportunity was afforded of doing so.

The individual appointed (who by the way is an Englishman) has been engaged during the last few months preaching the Gospel in Scotland, and you will be glad to know that his ministrations have been received with favour among the people, and blessed by the Spirit of God to the conversion of some,-four persons having been baptized at Newinburgh, Fifeshire, a short time ago.

We may sincerely hope that this effort made by the Scotch Baptist churches, is in harmony with the will of Christ, and devoutly pray that it will be favoured and blessed by the Spirit of God.

I purposed making some remarks on the practice of weekly communion maintained by the above churches, and referred to by Mr. Messer, but am afraid of intruding too much upon your space; so we will defer doing so till next month.-R. B.

OUR CHURCHES IN LANCASHIRE YORKSHIRE, JAN. 26, 1865.

I AM leaving Sheffield this morning for London. It is a cold winter morningsnowing, and blowing, and freezing; but being packed in a corner of a Great Northern, 1 will endeavour to obey the orders given me by some good Christian people in these parts, to write the experiences of my journey, and put them in an EARTHEN VESSEL. When I left London last Saturday afternoon, that mighty metropolis was enveloped in one of the thickest fogs that any can remember-it was dense and fearful. I was very ill-fitted to take such a journey; but I had engaged to preach on Sunday three times in Manchester; and throwing myself as well as I could into the arms of an Almighty preserver, I set out at three o'clock in the afternoon; and found myself beside Mr. John Derbyshire's fire, in Colnbrook, Manchester, between ten and eleven that same Saturday night. Six or seven gentlemen travelled with me, and being well jammed in, I could hardly get room to write, but write I did, and then my mind was well employed, and thereby the tediousness of the journey was somewhat relieved. To be enabled, while travelling. to lift one's thoughts above this earthly clod, is a mercy of mercies; and seeing there is a promise left for "them that thought upon His name," I would hope that I shall not be found at last "a cast-a-way." It matters nothing to me whether I am at home in the study, or walking the busy streets of Londonwhether lying in the sleepless hours of the darkest night, or travelling on the line, I am never more quietly comfortable than when I can think upon His name, penetrate into the holy mysteries of His word, and draw out therefrom soul-saving truths, and thus, sometimes behold the King in His beauty, and have a glimpse of the land which is yet afar off. Meditation on things divine, is, to me, like a chariot, carrying me away from the sorrows of the desert.

As

I walked from poor Charley Chapman's grave last Monday week, I said within myself, "Certainly, Satan has tried hard to do three things-to stop my mouth; to destroy my position; and to sink my soul into black despair." As yet, he has not completely perfected either one of these deeds. As in Job's case, the enemy has done much; prayer, in my experience, has been almost dried up at times; the word has appeared closed; providential dispensations have looked painful; the pious and the proud, the mockers and the mischief-makers; and even some of the darling saints of God have conspired to hurl me to destruction, and to leave me there; and it is no part of my work to condemn them for this. It is so easy to a man who never fell down and broke his leg, to censure the poor fellow who has, and to show how with care he might have corrected it; but this world is

one of pits and snares; and like myself, some fall therein.

Sympathy with an afflicted little flock drew me last Saturday to Manchester. I preached to them three times on the Sunday; and some hoped good was done; but the minister had brought a cloud over them, and we all felt the sorrows which spring from a want of purity and uprightness in the worship of God. Paul's words are verily true-" If any man defile the temple of God, him will God destroy." It is a fact full of the heaviest solemnity, that no man can successfully stand in the holy worship of God, unless his garments are clean, and his heart sincere.

The church of the living God is a sacred enclosure; and if, at any time, ungodliness creeps in unawares, it is not long ere it is hurled out with contempt and dismay.

The history of the efforts made by good men to extend the Gospel in Manchester during the last five-and-twenty years, is written by a zealous citizen of that immense community; that history has been committed to my care; and from its large folios I may draw out not a few chapters of instruction, caution, and, perhaps, a little comfort too.

There is no reason why the EARTHEN VESSEL should not contain a concise history of the rise and reign of the Gospel in Manchester, from the period when God raised up William Gadsby, and made of him a polished shaft, a piercing quiver, yea, a burning and shining light, in that dark population, where sin did, where Satan doth, so effectually work.

After William Huntingdon, dear Gadsby was the next man specially raised up by God in England to feed the flock of slaughter; and a faithful, a fruitful, a loving and laborious under shepherd was he; and with all the good men, and great men, Manchester has had sent into her during the last fifty years, my conviction is, that for spiritual power, for the unction of the Holy One, for a pure and precious experimental ministry, William Gadsby has never been excelled. Without the least desire to serve ourselves, or offend others, we believe the Manchester Strict Baptist pastor was a man of more spiritual weight and value than ever was permanently settled in that large cotton community; and this, as we proceed with our Manchester history, may be proved more clearly.

"Ah! to be sure," said a venerable friend of Mr. Gadsby's, to us (on this last visit we made), "we thought for years that there was not such another man in all this world as Mr. Gadsby; and when he came before the church one day, and wanted us to let him go to London, we did not like to spare him at all; but, thinking the poor Londoners were starving, and feeling it was not right to be so selfish, we at last agreed to let him go, and to make shift with one James Wells, who was to come to us during Mr. Gadsby's absence. We knew nothing about Master Wells," said the good matron, “but we

were willing to put up with him, while our Master Gadsby went to feed the poor starving sheep in London."

Ah! it was thrilling to hear this mother in Israel describe Mr. Wells' first visit to Mr. Gadsby's pulpit in Manchester. The Sunday morning came; to chapel the people went; James Wells was in the pulpit; the service began; the minister read, expounded, prayed and preached; but before half this was over, the congregation was amazed, they were all taken up with a kind of electric power, and they hardly knew where they were. Could you have seen the eyes of that immense congregation that Sunday morning all rivetted to the preacher, you would not fail to remember

it.

"When service was over," said my friend, "you might have seen the people all in groups, telling with astonishment of the things they had heard." Said she, "We called ourselves a thousand fools, because we had never thought that there were any ministers in London; but when we saw, and heard, and received this Master James Wells, we were like electrified and astonished not a little."

This first advent of Mr. Wells to Manchester opened up the way for another cause in that city, whose history I may give from the folios now in possession; it has the diary of Oldham-street, and all the subsequent places arising therefrom; it describes the ministration of the Corbitts, the Bidders, the Palmers, the Hanks's, the Stringers, the Wyards, the Banks's, the Samuels, and a host beside; but I cannot stop longer in Manchester now, only I must say, that Mr. John Derbyshire, his brother, and a few good folk who reside in the Hulme district, have a little chapel in Bold-street, Chorlton-road; and if the Lord will send them a blessed, and holy, and wise, and useful servant, of His own calling and making, there may yet be, in that part of Manchester, a happy and extensive church.

I left Manchester last Monday for Sheffield. I had never been into Sheffield before; had often passed the great cutlery capital; but its hills before I had never climbed, its streets I had never trodden; and when I write down two facts-first, that there is not one Strict Baptist Cause in all Sheffield; and secondly, that when Mr. Gadsby tried, some years since, to preach in Sheffield, and none of the open communion would admit him into their pulpit, it may well be asked how, and by what means could such a little thing as myself get to preach in this Yorkshire borough? We may still sing

"God moves in a mysterious way," &c. It is not unlikely but our heavenly Father may yet plant a Strict Baptist cause of truth in Sheffield. There is not one now, but in the midst of between two and three hundred thousand inhabitants, there doubtless are some, I believe many, who are decided lovers of Gospel order and of New Cove

nant truth; but they have no shepherd, no leader, no tent, no tabernacle there, consequently, they "go about," often saying one to another, "Saw ye him whom my soul loveth?" What answer they get, I cannot here decide; but after my preaching there, I found there were gathered together some of the old London hearers of Mr. Dickerson, Mr. Stenson, Mr. Wells, Mr. Stringer, Mr. Cozens, Mr. Carpenter, and others. Such groups together met, and for old friends enquired!

Some years ago, a member of Mr. Dickerson's married a very honourable quartermaster sergeant, who was subsequently made "barrack-sergeant" of the Sheffield barracks, which office he filled for a long period with such zeal and strict integrity, that when an over-worked brain compelled him to resign an appointment so responsible and important, the governor awarded him a well-merited annuity, with honorary medals, and substantial rewards, as expressive of their esteem for service so long and usefully rendered. I had the pleasure of spending a few days at Mr. Bryhurst's house, the retired barrack-sergeant's name -and a more pleasant and agreeable gentleman I have not lately met with. good lady is a Baptist, and they were the means of bringing from London to Sheffield, one James Johnson and his wife, both of whom were members of the church under the pastoral care of John Stenson, late of Chelsea.

His

James Johnson and his wife were of one heart and mind as regards Gospel truth, and Strict Communion, neither of which could they find in that immense district called the borough of Sheffield.

For a godly man and his wife to leave London friends, London privileges, and a happy London church, and to go and settle down in a large manufacturing town in the north of England, is a transition anything but profitable to the soul.

In London, we are not so aristocratic as they are in the north about ministers. In London, we allow farmer's labourers, carriers, tailors, blacksmiths, printers, shoemakers, or anybody (if we believe the Lord has need of them) to be our preachers and our pastors, and we sit down at their feet with confidence and comfort; and in all parts of England, and in all ages of the church, we must confess that God has chosen the foolish things of the world, to confound the mighty monarchs of the philosophical and scientific schools.

Who can dare to despise such men as the tinker Bunyan, the coalheaver Huntington, the stocking-weavers Gadsby, Warburton, and Renshaw? We ask, what man-in his right mind-could dare to despise, to cast contempt on thousands of those most gracious men, whom the Lord hath called from the army, the navy, the ploughtail, and the bench, and hath Himself qualified and honoured them for and in the work of the ministry?

Do I ask, who could despise them? Why

these Sheffield cutlers would. They are so highly educated themselves, they have powers of mind so full of the highest intelligence, that no man shall ever enter their pulpits but the sons of the academy, and the readers of the classics. Certainly, every minister ought to well guard his pulpit; but we may go to extremes either way. There are thousands heaped upon thousands in these manufacturing towns, who really have not their intellects sufficiently brightened to comprehend the refined oratory of the schools. They would gladly listen to the warm-hearted, outspoken preaching of a man whose soul is all on fire to do them good; but the cold collation which the refined academic prepares for his "first-class" seat-holders, is so little understood by those dear souls who toil from Monday until Saturday in the factory dens, that they care but little about it; consequently, they either drop into the snares of the world, or the "Glory band,” "the Hallelujah band," or James Caugher's revival band, or the Primitive Methodist band, or some of the Arminian companies entertain them for a time; and the final result is, that hosts of these people getting neither an intelligible nor a powerful Gospel, their hearts get cold, their consciences get seared, their minds become more and more beclouded, and their hopes and expectations constantly blighted, and like unripe fruit they fall off from the tree of profession; if they are only vessels of wrath, they fill up their measure in some carnal and sinful pursuit; or if they are vessels of mercy, they are by these Arminian and compromising parsons literally sentenced to a life of penal servitude; and instead of enjoying Gospel peace, Gospel freedom, and Gospel fellowship, they are threshed to labour all the year round, and if they cannot work well, dress well, and pay well, they must not expect much sympathy from those who profess to be the faithful followers of Him who said, "I am the good Shepherd; and the good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep."

TWO QUESTIONS I would ask at the feet of the CLERGY and MINISTRY of Sheffield. It is quite notorious that in Sheffield there are six or eight large Independent chapels, many churches, some Open Communion Baptists, lots of Methodists, Primitives, Ranters, and Glory band people, and yet Sheffield is declared to be dreadfully sunken in wickedness; except on a Sunday evening, they cannot get congregations of any large amount to preach to:-how is this? Is it because there is not a vitalizing power in the ministry? Is it because the ministers spend so much time in dressing up their idol, their painted and enrobed idol natural intellect, that they cannot give any time to work practically among the people? I fear, we are nearly all of us guilty of two great evils-INSULTING THE SPIRIT, and NEGLECTING THE PEOPLE.

A MODEL SUNDAY SCHOOL
REPORT.

AT the Annual Meeting of the Sunday Schools, in Zion, Goldington-crescent, St. Pancras, holden last January, Mr. George Webb, the pastor, in the chair, the following able report was read. We were so interested in it, we begged permission to give it the churches, believing it would do good. The minister and deacons consenting, here it is:

MR. PRESIDENT AND CHRISTIAN FRIENDS. -Fourteen years have rolled away since we first opened a Sunday School in connection with this our beloved church of Zion. Some who were with us then either as teachers or scholars, are still connected with the school or church, but most of them have been removed in the providence of our God, while we know that many have been taken from this mortal state to put on incorruptible bodies and wave the palm branch of victory to the honour of Him who loved them and laid down His life for their sakes. During this fourteen years there have been 1,662 children entered on the books; of these, during the last year, there have been 62 added, the number at the present on the books being 244, of which the average attendance has been about 180. These are great numbers for a small school like ours, and when we think of an eternity either of happiness or misery being certain to each one of them, we feel that we are unable to do any good among them, and whatever blessing may attend our labours that blessing must be entirely and alone the work of God, the Holy Spirit, who, we believe, has been our teacher, and the revealer to us of whatever we know of Christ the Lord. As teachers we take our stand upon the Bible, as the revealed will of God to man. The only teacher whom we believe can make us to understand it is the Spirit of the living God. To Him we look, and His aid we wish to rely on whenever we take our Bibles in hand, either for our own comfort and edification, or for the purpose of teaching the children. We believe the Bible to be written under the inspiration of the Holy Ghost, except the Preface, which is usually put in Bibles, which reads thus, "To the Most High and Mighty Prince James, &c. Great and manifold were the blessings, most dread Sovereign," &c. This preface we believe to be the work of man, especially as it glorifies man and his works, while the rest of the Bible pours contempt on human pride, and exalts our Lord Jesus Christ as King of kings and Lord of lords. We find Christ all through the Bible, from the first verse unto the last verse of it, and we find in Christ all that our souls can desire, either for time or eternity: and what we find our Redeemer to be to us, we try to explain and illustrate to our young ones. But, while Christ is the great Alpha and Omega, the first and the last, we find many things in the Scriptures which are con