J. ROPER, Sec. pro tem. Leicester, April 10. sufficiently known or understood by That the Connexion appear not feethe members and friends of our ble in the estimation of the public, viz., churches, or the response to its claims in proposing to do and not performing, would have been much more general. let there be immediate, earnest, and Let it be distinctly understood that united effort. this is not the business inerely of one church, or of one Conference, but of the body in general. The Association, in its legislative discretion, adopted a code of rules, and appointed officers to carry out its behest, and from whom it will demand an account of stewardship. Brethren, what report shall we be able to supply? Second-I wish to call the attention of those who were, and I hope are still, favourable to the project to the fact, that the officers are feeble to the full accomplishment of this work apart from the active aid of those who appointed them; for it must not be imagined that the existence of a committee removes the main responsibility of the work from the shoulders of those who vote for an executive, for even then all but all remains to be done. A few friends have done nobly, but where is the mass? The hope of success in this, as in most other matters, lies with the many. The eleven subscriptions already re. corded are all we have now to report, so that, by the scale submitted for consideration, in which all capacities may find an easy place, we are waiting (anxiously waiting) to hear from upwards of eleven hundred persons, in addition to the supposed collections from most of our chapels. Whether procrastination or want of interest be the thief, both are equally fatal to success. Third-Let me once again exhort officers of churches to be up and doing during the next few weeks, so that they may enable the committee to present a satisfactory report at the coming Association. At the risk of repetition, we again submit the table for subscriptions and donations, the payments to be made quarterly, half-yearly, or yearly, and may extend over a period of five years. 10 donations or subs. £100 each, £1000 1000 1250 1000 " 200 5 1000 300 500 With the "Working Man's" two shillings came the enclosed letter, which have the goodness to annex to this. I make this request in the hope that its publication will not only benefit Norwich-which, however, I need hardly say is my first desire-but that other churches in like circumstances may obtain the help they need. That good brother is no doubt what he modestly styles himself, "a working man"-his letter is so thoroughly practical. He has my best thanks, whoever he may be, for this expression of sympathy and interest in the work we are so anxious to accomplish for Norwich ere we quit this interesting field of labour. I sincerely hope his letter will have the desired effect. I am, dear Mr. Editor, Yours most truly, GEO. TAYLOR. Sussex-street, April 17. P. S. The fear of trespassing too 750 largely on your pages has prevented 500 my giving in detail the names of our Good News from Rev. J. G. Oncken. generous subscribers, all of whom have “147, Howard-place, Shelton, April 16, 1866. Dear Sir,-There are times when we could wish to have large and well furnished purses. Those were my feelings when I read your appeal in the Magazine, on behalf of Norwich, for this month. A course has been suggested to my mind, simple in detail, and, I think, quite practicable. My plan is as follows:-If 12,000 of the 20,000 General Baptists would at once give sixpence each, the thing might be done at once and no one be worse for it, thus leaving 8,000 of the most indigent and niggardly to go scot free. I By adopting some such plan as the foregoing, we might dispose of at least one such case as Norwich every six weeks, for the small sum of one penny per week, thus gladdening the heart of many of God's pious labourers situated like yourself. Oh, when will the time come when Bap tists will learn the potency of the pennies? We want more sympathy and more union amongst us. If you were to send a circular to each of our churches, kindly requesting to remit you sixpence each from something like two-thirds of its members, you might have the money in hand in a month or six weeks. I herewith send you twenty-four stamps as my share of the £300, and should our churches take the matter up, as I hope they will, I shall be willing to contribute my mite again. Wishing you a very large share of the Master's presence, with kind regards to your dear family, I remain, MR. EDITOR A WORKING MAN." 173 GOOD NEWS FROM REV. J. G. [We very gladly give publicity to the fol- London, April 14, 1866. My dear Brother,-You will probably have heard already that on the 1st of January, 1866, the Lutheran State Church has gone the way of all flesh. Senate and Bürgerschaft have decreed the dissolution between Church and State. The registration of all births has given place to infant sprinkling, and civil marriage as binding on all, no one excepted, instead of religious marriage. Instead of certificates of baptism and marriage from church books, they will henceforth be issued by the Civil Registrar. I am sure you will rejoice with us for such tangible proofs of the gracious declaration of our adorable Redeemer when he says, "All power is given me on earth and in heaven." But greater things than even these call for our hosannas to David's Lord. A wonderful work of conversion among the children of our Dear Sir, I sincerely hope the ur-members has been going on during the gent appeal of the Rev. G. Taylor, of last eight weeks. Just before I left Norwich, in your last number, will home a fortnight ago, I baptized sevenmeet with the practical sympathy of teen believers in Jesus among themour friends, which I am sure it deserves. fifteen dear children between nine and I feel very much for the church at sixteen years of age; and from a letter Norwich; of late they have been much just received it appears that an equal encouraged and prospered by the self- number have since then obtained peace denying labours of Mr. Taylor, and as in believing in Jesus, and are now the Connexion, through the Foreign waiting to be baptized into Christ's Mission Committee, are depriving them death. When the fact became known, of his services, the earnest desire of a few weeks ago, that we intended to Mr. Taylor to leave them in an im- baptize children, the whole city was proved position is worthy of considera- ' thrown into a state of excitement, and the throng was so great that hundreds | for us in the past that we can expect could not obtain admission. You will much greater things from Him, and I see from my appeal that we have com- am fully persuaded that this work will menced to build a house which will be also brought to a desirable close. seat 2,000 persons. If you can induce any of the brethren to aid us, I shall feel very much obliged. The task which has devolved upon me is heavy, but our dear Lord has done so much With warmest love, Ever your affectionate and grateful brother, J. G. ONCKEN. The Rev. T. W. Mathews. Preachers and Preaching. WHITEFIELD'S SKILL AND INTREPIDITY. FOR many years, from one end of Moorfields to the other, booths of all kinds have been erected for mountebanks, players, puppet-shows, and such like. With a heart bleeding with compassion for so many thousands led captive by the devil at his will, on WhitMonday, at six o'clock in the morning, attended by a large congregation of praying people, I ventured to lift up a standard amongst them, in the name of Jesus of Nazareth. Perhaps there were about ten thousand in waiting, not for me, but for Satan's instruments, to amuse them. Glad was I to find that I had for once, as it were, got the start of the devil. I mounted my field pulpit; almost all flocked immediately around it; I preached on these words, "As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness," &c. They gazed, they listened, they wept, and I believe many felt themselves stung with deep conviction for their past sins. All was hushed and solemn. Being thus encouraged I ventured out again at noon. The whole fields seemed, in a bad sense of the word, all white, ready not for the Redeemer's, but for Beelzebub's harvest. All his agents were in full motion. Drummers, trumpeters, merry-andrews, masters of puppet-shows, exhibitions of wild beasts, players, &c., all busy in entertaining their respective auditors. I suppose there could not be less than twenty or thirty thousand people. My pulpit was fixed on the opposite side, and immediately, to their great inortification, they found the number of their attendants sadly lessened. Judging that like St. Paul I should now be called, as it were, to fight with beasts at Ephesus, I preached from "Great is Diana of the these words, Ephesians." You may easily guess that there was some noise among the craftsmen, and that I was honoured with having a few stones, dirt, rotten eggs, and pieces of dead cats thrown at me, whilst engaged in calling them from their favourite but lying vanities. My soul was indeed among lions, but far the greater part of my congregation, which was very large, seemed for a while turned into lambs. This Satan could not brook. One of his choicest servants was exhibiting, trumpeting on a large stage, but as soon as the people saw me in my black robes and my pulpit, I think all to a man left him and ran to me. For a while I was enabled to lift my voice like a trumpet, and many heard the joyful sound. God's people kept praying, and the enemies agents made a kind of roaring at some distance from our camp. At length they approached near, and the merry-andrew got up on a man's shoulders, and, advancing near the pulpit, attempted to lash me with a long, heavy whip several times, but always with the violence of his motion tumbled down. I think I continued in praying, preaching, and singing (for the noise was too great to preach) for about three hours. We then retired to the tabernacle, with my pockets full of notes from persons brought under concern, and read them amidst the praises and spiritual acclamations of thousands. Three hundred and fifty awakened souls were received in one day, and I believe the number of notes exceeded a thousand. USEFULNESS. Sabbath Schools. AN eminent Scotch divine, Rev. Ralph Erskine, visiting a poor crippled woman, she thus addressed him “O, sir, I am just lying here, a poor useless creature." "Think you so!" said the minister. "I think," added she, "that if I were away to heaven I should be of some use to glorify God without sin." Indeed," replied the good man, "I think you are glorifying God now by resignation and submission to his will, 175 and that in the face of many difficulties the saints have not your burdens to and under many distresses. In heaven groan under. Your praise, burdened as you are, is more wonderful to me, and, I trust, acceptable to God." The great secret of Christian usefulness is to be awake to opportunities, and intent on doing what we can, rather than bewailing that it is in our power to do so little; and, in this respect, he who faithfully improves the one talent bids fair to be intrusted with the five or ten. Sabbath Schools. HOW TO WIN A CHILD'S HEART. | affection for them in every line of your THE heart of a child is easily won. It face, in your moistened eye, in your needs no besieging, no formidable pre-ration of it in every tone of your voice. unforced smile. They hear the declaparation for a grand assault, no advancing by regular approaches. You have only to go, in the name of love, and demand a surrender; and without parleying the prize is yours. "Love begets love." Anger and hate beget anger and hate. Smiles are like musical voices amid the hills, which come back to those who utter them with all their original sweetness. Did you ever smile on a child without receiving an answering smile? On the contrary, when you have looked down coldly, perhaps with a frown, into the eyes of a child, have you not seen the reflection of your manner and expression in the mirror-like face of the little ones? Love children, and they will love you. Let children feel that you care for them-that you are interested in all that interests them, that you sympathize with them in all their little sorrows, and rejoice with them in all their little joys, and that you are their true and unselfish friend; and in those feelings you have the key to their hearts. One word for you, dear teachers. You want to be loved by your scholars: then love your scholars. If you do love them, it will not be necessary for you to say so, in order that they may be conscious of the fact.-Children read hearts intuitively. They read your They have the assurance of it in your manner in your actions, which "speak louder than words." Happy are ye who have the love of the little ones under your care. It is a fountain of no common joy to your own heart, and it gives you an influence over them which can be obtained in no other way. Thus may you win those dear young hearts to Jesus. God help you to do it! THE SHEPHERD AND THE THE following anecdote, designed as an illustration of John x. 4, 5, is both beautiful and in point, " And the sheep follow him: for they know his voice. And a stranger they will not follow, but will flee from him: for they know not the voice of strangers." A man in India was accused of stealing sheep. He was brought before the judge, and the supposed owner of the sheep was also present. Both claimed the sheep, and had witnesses to prove their claims, so that it was not easy for the judge to decide to which the sheep belonged. Knowing the customs of the shepherds, and the habits of the sheep, the judge ordered the sheep to be brought into court, and sent one of the two men into another room, while he told the other to call the sheep, and | seemed to hesitate and fear to stem the see if it would come to him. But the flood. But after a time her fears subpoor animal, not knowing the "voice sided, she grew calm, and ceased to of a stranger," would not go to him. In the mean time, the other man, who was in an adjoining room, growing impatient, and probably suspecting what was going on, gave a kind of "chuck," upon which the sheep bounded away towards him at once. This "chuck" was the way in which he had been used to call the sheep; and it was at once decided that he was the real owner. "ONLY A LITTLE BROOK." A SIMPLE but very touching incident has been related, in connection with the last moments of a beautiful little girl in who lately died at the age of nine years and eleven months. A very little while before she died, as the sorrowing friends stood around her, watching the last movings of the gentle breath, the last faint fluttering of the little pulse, they became aware from her broken words, that she shrank with natural dread from the unknown way that was opening before her. She had come to the borders of the mysterious river which separates us from the dim hereafter, and her timid feet talk about the long, dark way, till at the very last she brightened suddenly, a smile of confidence and courage lighted up her sweet face, “O, it is only a little brook!" she cried, and so passed over to the heavenly shore. TEACHERS' MAXIMS. 1. Never teach what you do not quite understand. 2. Never tell a child what you could make him tell you. 3. Never give a piece of information without asking for it again. 4. Never use a hard word if an easy one will convey your meaning; and never to use any word at all unless you are quite sure that it has a meaning to convey. 5. Never begin an address or a lesson without a clear view of its end. 6. Never give an unnecessary command, nor one which you do not mean to see obeyed. 7. Never permit any child to remain in the class, even for a minute, without something to do, and a motive for doing it. Christian Work. THE FOUNDER OF THE LONDON and in 1830 he visited the United CITY MISSION. THE name of David Nasmith is unperishably associated with this noble enterprise. He was a native of Glasgow, born in 1799. He engaged in business, but all the while he redeemed time to the advancement of the cause of truth and godliness. He became the secretary of a variety of religious institutions in Glasgow, which were carried on in connection with one central home. In 1826 he established the Glasgow City Mission. At the end of the first year there were eight missionaries at work. His health failing him in 1828, he was invited to Dublin, and there also established a City Mission. He travelled in the north of Ireland with the same object in view, States. He received everywhere the most cordial welcome for himself and his darling enterprise. He established many local missions, and roused many to active evangelistic work among those around them. Returning in 1831 to Scotland, he proceeded to Ireland, and thence to France, where he established Christian missions in Paris and Havre. Ultimately he came to London in 1835 with the following introduction to the Christians of the metropolis. Just about this time the Hon. and Rev. B. M. Noel addressed a remarkable letter to the Bishop of London on the spiritual destitution of the metropolis. The facts were most alarming and painfully impressive. The difficulty was to carry out the |