that the receipts for the past year amounted to 1,825. 16s. 8d., and the expenditure 1,954. 158. 9‡d., leaving a balance due to the treasurer of 1281. 198. 1‡d.

We are qualified, however, to be able to add, that by the liberality of the meeting, this debt was more than liquidated, the contributions and extra donations amounting to 4301. May this Society receive more and more that support from the Christian public to which, amongst kindred institutions, it has so strong a claim.

SOCIETY FOR PROMOTING ECCLESIASTI-
CAL KNOWLEDGE.

The First Annual Meeting of this Society was held at the London Coffeehouse, Ludgate Hill, on Tuesday Even

late Rev. C. T. Mileham, is chiefly supplied by the students from Stepney College, and the latter by the Rev. Andrew Fuller (son of the late venerated Secretary of the Bap-ing, May 4th, and was most numerously tist Missionary Society.) It is hoped, from and respectably attended. Apsley Peltheir proximity to London, that some of our latt, Esq. the Treasurer, occupied the wealthy friends may be induced to settle in Chair. those places, and become the nursing fathers and mothers of those little charches, that the necessity of pecuniary aid from such an institution as this may be but temporary.

"Your Committee have engaged missionaries in Sussex, East Kent, and Hampshire. Mr. Foster, jun. is stationed for the present at Midbirst, in the former county Mr. Metters at New Romney, in Kent, Messrs. Crossman at Anmore, and Mr. Whitewood at Andover, in Hampshire. In Wiltshire, Mr. Shell continues the Missionary at Semley; and at Berwick, St. John, Mr. Wren.

"Your Committee have been enabled to send six additional missionaries into the field during the last year; and through the divine blessing upon their labours, many have been convinced of sin, called by grace, and gathered into the fold of Christ; yet without greater aid, the work will be retarded, and souls left to perish through our neglect and parsimony, although we know that one soul is of greater value than all the wealth that Omnipotence ever created."

"The Rev. Mr. Brown, from Ireland, having opened the meeting by prayer, the chairman said, the audience would expect from him some statement of the objects of the Society. The stately vessel which was intended to sail from port to port in ecclesiastical knowledge had been already launched, and was in some measure known to them by the progress she had made. He felt himself to be something like the river pilot, whose business it was to steer the vessel through the shoals and banks of the river, and then leave her to the superior skill and experience of the captain and crew. object of the society was to analyse ecclesiastical polity, and it was to be presumed that all men of intelligence would submit to the alembic their opinions and sentiments for analysis. From the society, publications would continue to emanate similar in character to those already published. The course pursued by the society would not be one of hostility to any one; its object would be to neutralise and destroy error, by the diffusion of truth."

The

The following ministers and others addressed the meeting. The Revs. T. The Rev. Dr. Cox, one of the SecreGriffin, I. Smith, Ilford; W. Copley, taries, read the Report, which was Oxford; Dr. Cox; J. Green, Thrap-highly gratifying. The following brief stone; J. Winks, Loughborough; and extract is all our limits will afford:Ebenezer Foster, Esq. Cambridge, &c. &c.

"The Committee of the Society for the Promotion of Ecclesiastical Knowledge,

By the Treasurer's accounts it appears cannot but express their high satisfaction

been welcomed beyond the expectations of the Committee, and the sale is increasing. The first, On Free Inquiry in Religion, and the second, Christ the only King of his Church, have been reprinted in a second edition, and the same happy necessity has been prevented with regard to subsequent numbers, only by the foresight of printing an enlarged edition.

"These have been entitled, No. III. State of the World at the Christian Epoch. No. IV. The Importance of correct Views on the Constitution of the Church; and on the Constitution of the Primitive Churches. No. V. Historical Series: No. 1. of the History of the Church to the Age of Constantine.

3. On the

concerning Offences. 2. On the Duties of
Church Members, consisting of Extracts
from Flavel's Double Scheme.
Importance of Right Views on the Consti-
tution of the Church. 4. On the Constitu-
tion of the Primitive Churches.

at the degree of success with which their labours have been crowned. While they had the commendation of their own judgments in the objects they contemplated, and the means by which they proposed their advancement, it was matter of unfeigned regret that misconceptions of their design, tended to prejudice some on whose aid they bad a right to calculate. They have reason, however, to believe, that in many cases they have succeeded in removing the mistrust with which their early proceedings were regarded, as well as in confirming the good opinion with which some were pleased to encourage their just efforts. The society originated in the conviction that many who call themselves Dissenters are unacquainted with the principles and history of their de- "The tracts also issued at the time of the nomination. This fact has been more strik-meeting were:-1. On the Law of Christ ingly elicited in the course of the society's proceedings, and will now gradually cease, the Committee would hope, to be the disgrace and the bane of so large a proportion of our number. The unparalleled events which have lately occurred, have put the religious parties of our kingdom into a new "The Chairman, as treasurer, next read and peculiar position. The secular power a statement of the accounts, from which it has been divested of an authority, by virtue appeared that the receipts for the past year of which it presumed in former days to en-were-subscriptions, 100l., by sale of pubtrench on the sacredness of conscience, and lications, 591. 9s. 6d., by stock on hand, 36l. to profane the temple of God. The public making a total of 1951. 9s. 6d. On the mind is left free to pursue its inquiries with- other side were claims for printing paper, out any other influence than is consistent literary labour, advertising, &c. to the amount with its rational and responsible character. of 1987. 15s., leaving a balance against the Of this improved state of things prompt ad- Society of 31. 5s. 6d." vantage has been taken by all parties who have resorted to the press as the most efficient instrument they can wield in addressing the public mind. It is somewhat strange that Protestant Dissenters should so long have neglected to avail themselves in any adequate degree of this mighty auxiliary. As a body, they have never attempted, till the formation of this society, to render it subservient to the diffusion of those principles on which the existence of their churches is dependent.

The Rev. James Matheson of Durham; Professor Hoppus of the London University; the Revs. J. Morrison, J. Campbell, of the Tabernacle; Dr. J. P. Smith, Dr. Bennett, and others, proposed and seconded the respective resolutions in speeches evincing their conscientious attachment to the principles of dissent, and their readiness and ability to defend them.

LANGUAGE.

Let the principles of dissent be imperfectly comprehended, and, as a consequence, lightly esteemed by those who are nominally of our body, and the decline of all that is vigorous among us, wiil, ere long, he ap- PREACHING AND TEACHING IN THE IRISH parent; and judging from history, or observation, if piety be found in a waning state among Dissenters, it will soon be found in a state still more foreboding among all others. In contending, therefore, for the principles of Protestant nonconformity, we feel that we are advocating the cause of religion through the earth, and the cause of all those charities which give to earth whatever constitutes its faint resemblance to heaven.

The Rev. Robert Stodart has received a letter, with the Newcastle U. L. post mark, inclosing 107. to aid in the Preaching the Gospel in the Irish Language. Our kind Christian friend who signs D. T. has not informed us how we should acknowledge the receipt of it.

Through the medium of your magazine, our kind friend and the friends of Christ in general, will be pleased to bear that since the publication of the " Appeal" on this

subject, we have received the assurance of support from so many highly respectable Christian friends, and an almost universal approbation of the work itself, that we have been encouraged to take the responsibility of applying for, and we have pleasure to add, we are likely to obtain a person of piety and evangelical sentiments to be employed in preaching or teaching, in the Irish language, the way of salvation, and the reading and distribution of the Scriptures in that language, in London and its vicinity. We hope soon to give notice of a meeting to be held in Pell-street, late Nightingale-lane, Meeting, for the purpose of regularly forming a society for this object.

SIR,

self confessed, that thirty-nine lashes of it were equal in severity to 500 lashes of the cat-o'-nine tails.

Is it not time then that our British churches took up the subject, and that our ministers employed their talents and influence, in rousing the attention of their people to the most active exertions, until petitions to parliament be presented from every congregation in the kingdom, and until not a British subject be held in slavery?

But, Sir, my principal design in addressing you now, is to call the attention of your readers to a most valuable opportunity which presents itself to those of them who have the elective franchise. Dr. Lushington,* in his speech at the late annual meeting of the Anti-slavery Society, says, "The time of a general election is approaching, this is the time when the people can most effectually serve us, if they go with us heart and hand, if in their very sonls they are convinced of the necessity of abolishing the degrading system which prevails in the slave colonies, now is their time to aid its extinction. every man who has a vote either in any single town, or in any county; let every such man remember that it is his sacred duty to see that neither his vote or his influence shall be given to any one who would not positively pledge himself to the cause of abolition, let him give his vote to no lukewarm friend-to no stickler about indemnities-to no putter-off of the question to a day that may never come-to no advocate for vested interests as paramount to the

Let

who would pledge himself to say, this iniquity has been committed by those who have legislated before me; my soul sinks under that sin, and by the blessing of God, every effort shall be made by me to remove the load of guilt from my country and my conscience;-to one who would rise early and go to bed late to carry the point. If once this spirit can be roused into activity, and if men would give their vote and influence honestly aud fearlessly to such, and such only, then would our efforts be crowned with success, and that guilt which has stained this country more deeply than any other on the face of the globe, would be removed from us with all the mass of misery and suffering now endured.

West Indian slavery still exists in all its horrible injustice, 800,000 of our fellow-claims of justice and humanity, but to one creatures and fellow-subjects still wear the chains of the oppressor, notwithstanding government pledged itself on the 15th of May, 1823, that it would take the matter into its own bands, and see to it, that such measures should be pursued as would seoure to the negro population a participation in the civil rights and privileges enjoyed by other classes of his majesty's subjects, seven long years have rolled away, and yet the poor slave groans under the iron rod. It is true, that it was proposed to restrict the arbitrary power of the masters of slaves, as to the extent of punishment he should have the power of inflicting; but still the law of Jamaica allows owners, attorneys, managers, overseers, work house-keepers, gaolers and others, to inflict on any slave, man, woman, or child, thirty-nine lashes of that horrible cart-whip, of which a planter him

Referring to a paper entitled "An Appeal to the Christian Public to Aid in establishing and preaching of the Gospel in the Irish Language in the Metropolis," which, had our limits permitted, we should have been glad to have inserted in our pages.

Let then our influential friends be awake to their responsibilities and their privileges, and not suffer the present favourable opportunity to pass unimproved. Let all who wish that the oppressed may go free, and that every yoke may be taken off, be earnest in

*We feel confident this enlightened and humane legislator will be zealously supported by our friends at Reading.

prayer that God may make the reign of his most gracious Majesty, William IV, the period when every subject of the British crown shall realize the fulfilment of the royal declaration, “I will protect the Rights|clared by municipal laws to be inviolable. and Liberties, and promote the happiness of all classes of my people." Portsea.

The Circular Letter attached to our Magazine has been transmitted, or will be by Mr. Ivimey, as a member of the Anti-sla-ish crown, innocent children, born British very Committee, to the pastor of each of our congregations in England and Wales, requesting that petitions be sent to both Houses of Parliament. We have no doubt there will be a prompt reply made to that communication by the adoption of its recommendations.

however, to say, that defeats have not subdued the spirit of intolerance, but that, on the contrary, renewed attempts have recently been made to impose still severer restrictions on the religious instruction of the slave.

est interest in the present degraded state of the slaves in the British Colonies, and the greatest anxiety for the abolition of the inhuman system of slavery throughout every part of his Majesty's dominions, strongly recommend to the various congregations of Protestant Dissenters in the United King- They had flattered themselves that the dom, to petition both Houses of Parliament, Toleration Act was of too weighty and imfor the speedy accomplishment of that abo-portant a character to have admitted of any

lition.

2. That the committee of this deputation be instructed forthwith to prepare petitions to both Houses of Parliament, from this deputation, for the abolition of slavery throughout the British dominions, and that the body of deputies be summoned to meet for the consideration of such petitions, on Friday the 4th day of June next.

3. That the committee of this deputation be instructed to render every assistance in its power to the Anti-Slavery Society in furthering their intention of procuring petitions from dissenting congregations in Great Britain and Ireland.

4. That these resolutions be communicated to the Anti-Slavery Society, with authority to its committee to make such use thereof as they may think proper.

Ar a subsequent meeting of the Deputies held on Friday, the 4th day of June 1830,

WILLIAM SMITH, Esq. M.P., in the chair.

The petition to Parliament, for the abolition of slavery was read, of which the following is a copy :-

The [humble] petition of the under-signed Protestant Dissenters, being Deputies from the several Congregations of Protestant Dissenters of the three denomina tions, Presbyterian, Independent, and Baptist, in and within twelve miles of London, appointed to protect their civil rights,

Humbly Sheweth,

That your petitioners have, in the course of their duty, been frequently compelled to appeal to the justice of his Majesty's government against the oppressive acts of the West Indian Colonial assemblies, and the popular violences committed in those islands in contempt of the provisions of the Toleration Act, and of the established rule by which the laws of the mother-country are acknowledged to be in force there, unless expressly altered by competent authority.

Your petitioners are enabled to state, with grateful satisfaction, that in all instances their applications have been successful. The just and liberal feeling of the British councils bas uniformly yielded to their representations, and expressed strong disapprobation of such injurious conduct. They regret,

ettempt at its abrogation by any mere local legislature, however consequential in its own eyes. They had thought, and still think, that in the mild temper and peaceable submission inculcated by christianity, (and by none of its teachers more than by those who have been made the objects,-in some instances, the martyrs,-of persecution), even slave-masters might have discovered a more effectual protection from the legion of dangers which despotism raises against itself, than in the heaviest shackles which power can impose on the defenceless. But they are compelled to acknowledge their mistake. By painful experience the conviction is forced upon them that the pretensions of slave-masters are irreconcileable alike with the precepts of christianity and the laws of justice, that slavery can never be upheld but at the tremendous sacrifice of the most sacred principles of our religion, and the most imperative of moral duties, and is, therefore, equally a reproach to our national character, and an anomaly in our constitution; that its effects are every way pernicious, debasing the slaves below the standard of their rational nature, and degrading slave-masters beneath that rank which they might otherwise hold in the scale of civilized communi

ties.

Your petitioners read with unfeigned gratitude the resolutions passed by the British legislature in the year 1823, for ameliorating the wretched condition of the slaves; but, from the failure of that measure, are now fully convinced that nothing short of the entire and unqualified abolition of the system of slavery, can ever attain the object which, as men, as Britons, and as christians, it becomes them to seek.

Your petitioners, therefore, beseech your [right] honourable house, without delay, to adopt efficient measures for this abolition, and that amongst them you will especially be pleased to make provision for declaring free all the children of his Majesty's subjects who shall be born after an early day, to be appointed by Parliament, and for effectually protecting such children from any claims that may be made to them as slaves.

And your petitioners shall ever pray, &c.

Resolved unanimously,

That the petition now read be approved and adopted, and signed by all the deputies now present, and that the same remain at