by a master's hand in the Epistle to the Colossians (iv. 7, 8): All my state shall Tychicus declare unto you, who is a beloved brother, and whom I have sent for the same purpose; that he might know your state, and comfort your hearts.'

"Were the ecclesiastics of the United Church to make friendly inquiry, either by letter, or through British chaplains resident abroad, or representatives of a missionary society, or clergymen occasionally on their foreign travels, concerning the numbers, condition, and prospects of Christians in the oriental churches, they would soon re

ceive, in reply, such an account as would move their hearts to commiseration and zeal." "The object of St. Paul, however, in sending a faithful fellow-servant to the church at Colosse, was not simply inquiry and sympathy. This Christian ambassador was charged with a communication of the state of the Apostle's affairs. There is something very emphatical in the expression, all my state,' &c. A full account of the labours, success, sufferings, and patient faith of the Apostle, could not fail to animate, comfort, and direct the hearts of any church." "Were a clergyman, charged by the highest ecclesiastical authorities of our church, to visit the dignitaries of the Greek Church; and were he to reof

late to them in detail the proceedings

our church, and of our benevolent institu

tions-the plans by which we act at home, and the result of our operations in India, in Africa, and the islands of the most distant oceans he would give such an impulse to their feelings, and such a new direction to their efforts, as would not fail to bring down a blessing upon the church which thus received our communications. Our example would be felt by them, both as encouragement and counsel.” “ Necessity, duty, pity, love, all plead for offices of Christian intercourse-not casual, but constant-not merely from benevolent individuals, but under the sanction of rank, and with the combined energies of learning and piety." pp. 340–342.

the extent of country, number of languages, diversity of national character, variety of creeds, errors, religious prepossessions, and the other advantages and disadvantages which a missionary would encounter; and they trace the requisite qualifications of labourers in such a field; enlightened piety, implying habitual conscientiousness, and fidelity towards God, and a feeling of supreme enjoyment in his service; and natural endowments, being a spirit of enterprise, inventive talent, sound judgment, a talent for conversation, and competent learning. A variety of new stations are suggested, as highly important for occupation; but Malta is urged, as possessing claims, and offering peculiar advantages, as a central depository of missionary resources. So may it be! that from it, as from another Patmos, a better order of knights than it once possessed may go forth, armed with Divine panoply, champions for the true faith of St. John and all the Evangelists, to destroy every thing that hath done evil in the sanctuaries.

May the concluding appeal of Mr. Jowett, himself an advocate and an example in this hallowed work, be heard by our clergy and our univer sities! and, rousing themselves from the lethargy which has too long depressed their zeal and ardour, may they perceive the Lord giving the word; may great be the company of those who publish it in the dark abodes of Paganism and the dim habitations of decaying Christianity, that they of the household may di vide the spoil! The labourers at present are numerous, yet they are few in comparison of their work.

To Mr. Jowett, and to all others engaged in the field of missionary exertion, we cannot, in conclusion, address more appropriate and encou raging language than that which is contained in one of the letters of Archbishop Wake to the missiona ries on the coast of Coromandel, to which allusion has already been made. "Let others," he writes, "indulge in a ministry, if not idle,

certainly less laborious, among Christians at home. Let them enjoy, in the bosom of the church, titles and honours obtained without honour and without danger. Your praise it will be (a praise of endless duration on earth, and followed by a just recompense in heaven,) to have laboured in the vineyard which yourselves have planted; to have declared the name of Christ where it was not known before; and, through much peril and difficulty, to have converted to the faith those among whom ye afterwards fulfilled your ministry. Your province, therefore, brethren, your office, I place before all dignities in the church. Let others be pontiffs, patriarchs, or popes; let them glitter in purple, in scarlet, or in gold; let them seek the admiration of the wondering multitude, and receive obeisance on the bended knee. Ye have acquired a better name than they, and a more sacred fame. And when that day shall arrive when the chief Shepherd shall give to every man according to his work, a greater reward shall be adjudged to you. Admitted into the glorious society of the Prophets, Evangelists, and Apostles, ye with them shall shine, like the sun among the lesser stars, in the kingdom of your Father for ever."

The Character and Happiness of them that die in the Lord: a Sermon, preached October 13, 1822, in Park Chapel, Chelsea, on occasion of the Death of the late Rev. John Owen, M.A., Minister of Park Chapel, and one of the Secretaries of the British and Foreign Bible Society. By WILLIAM DEALTRY, B.D. F.R.S., Rector of Clapham, &c. Hatchard. *1822. Attachment to Life: a Sermon, on occasion of the Death of the late Rev. John Owen, M.A., &c. who died at Ramsgate, September 26, in the 57th year of his age. By JOSEH HUGHES, M.A., one of the surviving Secretaries of the Bible Society. Hatchard. 1822.

The Speech of the Rev. Dr. Steinkopff, at the Eleventh Anniversary of the High Wycombe Auxiliary Bible Society, on Tuesday, October 1, 1822, a few days after the lamented Death of the Rev. John Owen, and containing an affectionate Tribute to his Memory. Taken in Shorthand by the Rev. J. SNELGAR. Westley. 1822. Speech delivered at the Twelfth Annual Meeting of the Sheffield Auxiliary Bible Society, October 22, 1822. BY THOMAS SMITH, A.M. Sheffield. 1822.

A Tribute of Gratitude to the Memory of the Rev. John Owen; particularly addressed to those who felt the Power and Value of his Ministry. By ONE OF HIS CONGREGATION. Hatchard. 1822.

AMONG the duties which were assigned to the sacred writers, one of the most painful must have been that of recording the death of the devoted servants of God. We may judge so from the attendant circumstances which we usually find mentioned, and particularly the regrets and sorrows of the bereaved survivors. These sorrows were felt, indeed, in different proportions; sometimes by only a limited number of friends or families, at others by a whole people, but in every case the feelings of the sacred historians were doubtless in unison with their subject. It would not be with a cold indifference that they would put on record such statements as these :---"So Moses, the servant of the Lord, died: and the children of Israel wept for him in the plain of Moab thirty days." "And it came to pass, that Samuel died; and all the Israelites were gathered together and lamented him." And "devout men carried Stephen to his burial, and made great lamentation over him." And when Jesus heard of the death of John the Baptist, retired into a desert place apart." These were incidents which might justly awaken a lively sorrow; the

"he

most legitimate cause of which might not be the visitation of the sentence of mortality on the individuals, but the condition of those who were 66 yet alive, and remained." The world at large, and even the most mature Christians, can so ill afford to forego the benefit which they derive from the exertions, the example, and the prayers of the servants of God, that their removal by death is one of those dispensations which, besides the disruption of the ties of affection and friendship, calls to sadness of spirit from the recollection of privileges that are departed, and labours that have ceased. We apprehend that such feelings have been experienced by every devout historian as his pen has traced events of this description. It was not possible to speak of the glorious company of the Apostles, the goodly fellowship of the Prophets, the noble army of Martyrs, and the confessors, fathers, ministers, and members of the "holy church universal," as they have successively departed from their spheres of usefulness, to be "numbered with the saints in glory everlasting," without adverting to those spheres of usefulness left vacant, the demands upon the exercise of their several powers and qualifications left unsatisfied, and a great work left still to be achieved. There would, however, arise in the midst of these dispensations a source of consolation which nothing but revelation could open-the entire conviction of that infinite wisdom which prescribes all events; that love, which does not willingly afflict or grieve the children of men; and that unremitting watchfulness which, keeping the good of his church in view, makes all things prove subservient to it. It was this conviction which, while on the one hand it enabled the sorrowing survivor to trace the departed spirit up to

"That holy star-paved land

Where angels and archangels stand,” * enabled also the bands of yet un

The Lord Almighty doth but take the mortal life he giveth.

Glory, glory, glory! the Lord Almighty reigneth:

He who forfeits earthly life, a life celestial gaineth *."

It was this, also, which, in the view of the future necessities of the church and the world, supported them in the assurance, that as "not one good thing had failed," so "no good thing should be withheld;" that numbers would yet arise to be "baptized for the dead;" to inherit their zeal, their faith, their patience, and to fill up the measure of unaccomplished and yet defective service. Such, we imagine, have been the oft renewed emotions which from time to time, in the various ages of the church, have filled the minds of those who narrated the deaths of such of the faithful servants of God as have occupied any prominent post of usefulness. and importance. Such, we might add, have been our own, as in the course of our periodical labours we have been painfully summoned to the duty of recording again and again the removal of good men, who have been for a part of life our contemporaries or our associates, and whose labours, lives, and deaths we have heard of or witnessed. There are not a few pages in each of the volumes of our miscellany occupied by these afflicting details. We cannot now allude to particular names: one, however, among many, forcibly recurs to our minds, in connexion with the individual whose lamented end has called forth these tributes of respect and affection; we mean

• Milman's "Martyr of Antioch."

judiciously selected; and are carefully distinguished from the reward of merit, as being the remuneration of mercy. The application is just to the case of one who was "in labours more abundant." We strongly recommend the whole of this discussion to the perusal of our readers; but we must ourselves hasten on to the author's remarks on Mr. Owên. Mr. Dealtry speaks of Mr. Owen as first known to him at the university of Cambridge. There his talents appear to have been early elicited; and by the patronage of the excellent Bishop Porteus, he was brought to Fulham, and eventually led to connect himself with that Society which placed him for eighteen years unceasingly before the world. The previous incidents in Mr. Owen's life which contributed, in addition to his natural talent, to fit him for this post, are thus stated.

"The conviction that there exists a directing Providence, over-ruling for its own high purposes the pursuits and occupations of men, when they, perhaps, little suspect it, might lead us to observe, with some interest, the way in which he had previously become qualified for this particular appointment. It is of great importance to the welfare of the society, that its secretary should be well acquainted with modern languages. Your deceased minister had not only a singular facility in acquiring this knowledge, but it so happened, that in his early travels, he had cultivated that talent, and had made himself familiar with the manners, habits, and modes of thinking, which prevail in different parts of the continent. Little did he anticipate, when engaged in these pursuits, to what account they would be turned! And little would any one have imagined, while looking at the youthful traveller, that he was thus training, however unconsciously, to be the effective agent of a society, which should, ere long, arise to embrace, within the sphere of its benevolence, 'every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people:' and that in the very countries which he now visited to gratify a laudable curiosity, he should hereafter appear as its accredited representative." Dealtry, pp. 23, 24.

With Mr. Owen's general and public talents most of our readers

are probably acquainted. We shall, therefore, pass over those observations which apply to these parts of Mr. Dealtry's delineation, and shall dwell more particularly on what is, in many respects, by far the most interesting portion of the sermon before us.

The following passage points out a feature in Mr. Owen's character, which was of prime importance in the difficult post which he occupied, and which exemplified his great power of self-command, and his determination to avoid every source of unprofitable litigation, or unclerical consumption of his time and energies; especially when we consider the peculiar tact and penetration which would have qualified him for the discussions alluded to, and the taste which he once discovered for them.

:

To the

"In early life he had shewn no disinclination to lend himself to pursuits unconnected with religion and it is said, that, like many of his young contemporaries, he took a strong interest in political questions. But he had long ceased, in any sense of the word, to be a party man. king he was a loyal subject, and the radical and blasphemous spirit of the day he beheld with feelings of serious concern; but on questions purely political, I know not that I ever heard him deliver an opinion: he was occupied by higher things: he determined to have nothing else in view than the glory of God, and the benefit of mankind." Dealtry, pp. 24, 25.

The following testimony to his Christian meekness and magnanimity is highly interesting.

"I have witnessed with no little pleasure,' observes a common friend, 'his conduct and demeanour when he was provoked into—I should rather say, for it is that I mean, when he bore, with unperturbed and inexhaustible good humour what would have provoked almost any other man; and when he suffered to remain in the quiver arrows which he could have sent forth with unerring aim and vigour.' I have, myself, seen him on many such occasions; and a harsh or unbecoming word never, in my presence, fell from his lips. The only feeling, I am persuaded,