383 CARRICKFERGUS. This place, like many others, has been the scene of great commercial distress. Many of our members have shared in the common calamity; but the Lord has been their prop and stay: they have not cast away their confidence, which hath great recompence of reward, but through all have steadily relied on Him who is the friend of the distressed. A few weeks ago our Society was threatened with a sore trialthat of being deprived of their minister. When this announcement was made the cry was, Alas! who now shall guide us-who shall instruct us in the way of truth and righteousness?" But oh, 66 how often are our fears scattered to the winds by a special intervention of Providence? The Lord, in answer to prayer, has not allowed the trial to fall; and now every member seems to be of one heart, one mind, one soul, determined to be more diligent in the cause of Christ. We have lately had some delightful showers of heavenly grace, and God is evidently moving among us by his Holy Spirit. Upon the whole, our members are growing in grace, seeking after the deep things of God, in more extended knowledge of vital godliness; and are praying, hoping, and believing, for the full manifestations of God's power and glory. Oh, brethren, pray for us, that the Word of the Lord may have free course, run, and be glorified. JABEZ TIDSWELL. August, 1842. CHELTENHAM. ON Sunday, the 12th instant, we were favoured, in the morning and afternoon, with two very interesting and appropriate sermons, from Rev. James Ward, of Worcester; and one in the evening, from Rev. Henry Tarrant, of Birmingbam. The latter was of a very comprehensive, lucid, and impressive character. On Monday, the 13th, we held our public meeting, which was respectably attended, and addressed by the Revs. J. Ward, H. Tarrant, S. Martin, (Independent), N. Parkyn, and Messrs. Baker, Bennett, and Lane. The friends seemed highly gratified by the interest CAMELFORD ON Lord's-day, May 15th, a new chapel was opened for divine worship, in connection with the Wesleyan Methodist Association, in the parish of Lanlivery, county of Cornwall; on which occasion three sermons were preached. Those in the morning and afternoon, by Mr. John Harley, itinerant preacher; and in the evening by Mr. Grigg, non-itinerant preacher, from the Liskeard circuit. All the services were exceedingly well attended; crowds indeed, could not obtain accommodation within the chapel, and were addressed in the afternoon, in the open air, by our much-esteemed brother Abrahams, of Lostwithiel. delightful influence was felt by the con A ing statements and speeches, to which they attentively listened. On Tuesday, the 14th, Mr. Tarrant preached another soul-stirring discourse, which will be long remembered by those who were present on the occasion. The collections were about equal to our expectations, and I trust the services will be found to have given an impetus to our Missionary cause in this place. O that we may ever feel the importance of combined exertion, persevering zeal, and divine help, in a work so great and responsible ! CIRCUIT. NATHANIEL PARKYN. gregation throughout the day--the collections were liberal. This is the second chapel erected in the same parish, for the Association, within three years. It is named "New Ebenezer;" is calculated to seat about 150 persons; and being built nearly square, can be easily enlarged to accommodate fifty more. The walls are high enough to admit a gallery, and preparations have been made for such an erection, if necessary. The chapel has been raised through the liberality of "Farmer James," who desires thereby to bring glory to God, by bringing souls to Christ. Through his instrumentality another "Bethesda " has been raised, where sinners diseased and wounded by sin, will hear of a perfect cure for all their maladies; even of the "Blood of Jesus," the true "Balm of Gilead," the Heal all," which the Gospel reveals to us. With reference to this Temple, we pray in the language of one of our own hymns : "Here to thee a temple stand, WORLE. The fifth anniversary of the Wesleyan Methodist Association Sabbath-school in this place, was held on Sunday and Monday, the 24th and 25th of July, 1842. On Sunday, two sermons were preached by Messrs. Morcom and Hicks from Cornwall, to crowded and attentive audiences. The children, 107 in number, presented a delightful appearance, being dressed uniformly, and placed on a platform made for the occasion around the pulpit. On the following morning, our juvenile friends from various quarters were seen bending their course to the chapel, loaded with evergreens, flowers, &c., to beautify the Lord's house for the evening service, which was done with very great taste. At two o'clock, p. m., the children arrived at the chapel, and, joined by a great number of friends, proceeded to the top of the hill, where an address was delivered by our esteemed pastor, Mr. J. Carveth; and from a moderate calculation, 500 or 600 persons were present. It was a pleasing sight. After our return to the chapel, the children received their usual treat of tea and cake; and about 400 persons partook of the like fare. The cloth being removed, T. P. Rosevear, Esq. was called to the chair, and after his Address, which was delivered with great effect, the children went through their examination in a manner creditable to themselves and encouraging to their teachers and friends. The meeting was ably addressed by the Revs. Joseph Hopkins (Independent), W. E. Buckley, J. Carveth, and Messrs. Hicks and Morcom. We have never had a more interesting anniversary, and we are encouraged to go on: (onward is our motto) and we hope not to get weary in well doing. Several of our children meet regularly in class, and are consistent members of society. It is a matter of thankfulness that our funds have suffered no decrease from the depression of the times, so generally felt throughout the kingdom. The collections were good, amounting together to the liberal sum of £24 5s.-to God be all the praise. WORCESTER. ON Sunday, July 3d, two Sermons were preached in Park-street chapel, in behalf of our Mission Fund, by the Rev. Nathaniel Parkyn, of Cheltenham; and on Monday the 4th, a public meeting was held in the above chapel, at 7 o'clock. After singing and prayer, the Rev. J. Ward was called to occupy the chair. The meeting was addressed by the Rev. N. Parkyn, Rev. Dr. Redford, and Rev. Wm. Crowe. The spirit of Christian sympathy, and of brotherly love, which breathed through the ad dresses of the respective speakers, rendered the meeting very interesting and profitable. We cannot but express our sense of obligation to our dissenting W. R. brethren for the very kind manner in which they laid aside their usual Monthly Union Missionary Prayer Meeting, and came with their friends to our assistance. At Droitwich also, on Sunday the 3d, two sermons were preached in behalf of the same Fund, by the Rev. J. Ward; and a meeting was held on the following Tuesday. The collections have exceeded our expectations. For this, also, we cannot but feel thankful to the giver of all good, who has disposed the hearts of His people to the liberal support of his own cause, notwithstanding the prevalence of commercial difficulties. T. C. JOHNS, PRINTER, Red Lion Court, Fleet Street. THE WESLEYAN METHODIST ASSOCIATION MAGAZINE. OCTOBER, 1842. MEMOIR OF THE LATE MRS. DENT. MRS. DENT, daughter of John and Ann Gunson, was born at Neasham, near Darlington, in the county of Durham, on the 1st of October, 1806. From her early childhood she was often the subject of gracious impressions, but these, and the frequent purposes of amendinent which they produced, were like the morning cloud and the early dew, which passeth away. It was not, however, until she had reached her eighteenth year, that she experienced the manifestation of divine mercy, which brought her "out of the horrible pit and out of the miry clay, set her feet upon a rock, and established her goings, and put a new song in her mouth, even of praise unto God." Whilst listening to a sermon, preached at Northallerton, by Mr. James Smith, from, "Now consider this, ye that forget God, lest I tear you in pieces, and there be none to deliver;" the Holy Spirit accompanied the word with effectual unction, and she was powerfully convinced of her miserable and dangerous condition as a sinner before God-she resolved to remain in the chapel and wrestle with God for the pardon of her sins; and He who does not despise the sighing of the contrite heart, heard the cry of his handmaid, revealed His Son in her heart, and gave her the assurance that her iniquities were pardoned and her sins covered. Previous to this, although she was ardent and persevering in the cultivation of the powers of her mind, yet she was extremely fond of gaiety in dress; decorating the body, occupied much of her time and attention; but now this passion for external ornament was exchanged for the more laudable anxiety of becoming "like the king's daughter, all glorious within; " gold and pearls and costly apparel were seen to be of little worth when compared with the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit, which is in the sight of God of great price. To have her heart right with God; to be adorned with the beauties of holiness; "to have her conversation as becometh the Gospel of Christ, "— to sparkle with the diamonds of grace, wisdom, and purity, now became the great object of her ambition. stition, which imposes the yoke of slavery on the intellect. In China, that wide extended empire, which with various changes of dynasty has existed for between two and three thousand years, you may find a few persons, the votaries of Jesuitical missionaries who have received Roman Catholicism in lieu of Christianity, and more than three hundred millions who have embraced the absurdities of Budhism as the true religion. In Hindostan, a country three times as large as both France and Austria, and containing about double their population, you are told, that with the exception of five millions of Mohammedans, two millions of Roman Catholics, and sixty thousand Christians, all her teeming population bow down in the worship of Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva, the triad of principal Hindu gods; a superstition whose doctrines are as revolting to reason, as its practices are to humanity. Disgusted with the superstitions and Antichrist of Asia, let us seek in Europe the most verdant scenes of this all but universal wilderness. But alas! how much of Europe is yet "covered with thorns and briars ;" and how true it is, that though in Europe the darkness be not so thick and palpable as in Africa and Asia, yet it prevails even there in awful blackness. Were you, sir, to make a tour through Italy, France, Spain, Portugal, the Netherlands and Bohemia, what would you see, but the cathedrals, the monasteries, and the Inquisitorial tribunals, which Roman Catholicism erected during her undisputed supremacy in Europe, and which still remain the monuments of a corrupted religion, which for the last seven hundred years has done more to perpetuate the ignorance of mankind-to strengthen the iron arm of despotism, and to extend infidelity, than all other causes put together. You witness in Switzerland, Ireland, and Germany, a fierce contest going on between the reformed and unreformed faith, whilst Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Prussia, Holland, and Great Britain, are the only countries in Europe where the true faith is professed by the nation at large. In the extensive regions of European Russia, you have to mourn over the corruptions of the Greek Church, whilst in the metropolis of Turkey, a place so rich in classic associations, of which Constantine once boasted that it, the new capital of the East, was never profaned by the worship of idols, you would find the Turks divided in their suffrages, between the impostor of Mecca and the patriarch of Constantinople. But any sketch of the moral condition of Europe would be essentially defective that did not include a reference to the Socinian heresy and nominal Christianity which prevails to a considerable extent in every European country-the neology of Germany, and the various forms of infidelity which are found every where, from the Papal states themselves up to France, with whose name infidelity has long been associated. What an awful, what a lamentable picture! How ignorance, superstition, and misery, are mingled together in the actual state of the vast majority of mankind. But, sir, your Missionary Societies, in accordance with the spirit of this resolution, contemplate the conversion-the renovation of the whole. And they do this with their eyes fixed upon all the difficulties they can possibly encounter. Never did the sceptic, who opposed Missions on the ground of their utopian character, more accurately estimate the effect to be produced-the change to be effected, than Missionaries and Missionary Societies. Their minds are deeply impressed with the almost invulnerable character of a longestablished and deeply-rooted superstition: they know how unchanging are the manners and customs of Eastern nations, and they know, too, how dexterously the priest can appeal to the feelings and fears of the worshipper, by referring to the longevity of error. No one has ever walked more frequently round, or measured more accurately, the dimensions of the colossal structures of Chinese and Hindu superstition, than the Christian Missionary; and though he knows that the difficulties in the way of the triumphs of truth wear all the appearance of impossibilities, yet his faith is strengthened by the conviction that, "Things impossible to men and he finds this truth illustrated in all the history of Christianity. Yes, from the time when the fishermen of Galilee watched over the infancy, up to the time when Constantine paid homage to the maturity of the new religion, Christianity triumphed by the power of the Holy Ghost: from that memorable time, when she entered the Temple of Serapis, and demolished the Juggernaut of the Egyptians, amid the threats of a wily priest, who said, that if any one should ever dare to touch the idol that stood in the midst of the Temple, with arms stretched to either side, the heavens would return to their primeval chaos, and the earth be consumed in one general conflagration: up to the time when the power of the Cæsars vanished before the rising stars of the Gothic kings, Christianity was indebted solely to Divine influence for that moral supremacy which she enjoyed over the minds of men, both in the Eastern and Western empire. When, sir, at the Reformation, Luther attacked the ignorance and superstition of the age, by what did he triumph? It might be true, as was said of him by a celebrated cardinal of those times, "that Friar Martin had a fine genius:" it is true also that his fine genius had the Vulgate version of the Bible as an instrument by which he attacked the ignorance and vice of the age. But what was Luther and the Vulgate against all the darkness which then prevailed throughout Christendom, and that incalculable power which belonged to a church bolstered up by all the vassal thrones of Europe? They were as nothing! But yet the Reformation was begun, and to the transactions of that period we are indebted for the Christian light and liberty which we now enjoy. How, then, is it to be accounted for? Simply, sir, on this principle: "Paul planteth, Apollos watereth, and God giveth the increase." Conversion itself, wherever it takes place, on the burning sands of India, or in the frozen regions of Greenland, in the new principles to which it gives birth, and the new feelings which it excites, is an event that can be accounted for on no other grounds besides that of the employment of a supernatural influence. And this moral influence, and these moral changes, form standing miracles in the Church. And while our minds are thus filled with past and passing events, none of which could possibly have taken place by the operation of merely natural causes, how is it possible that we should look with despair upon the future and regard the conversion of a world as hopeless ? What is there that God cannot effect? What is there that Omnipotence cannot achieve? But it may be asked for there is nothing too frivolous for a sceptical interrogation-what can you have to do with the universal triumphs of the Redeemer, whose avowed object is the evangelization of Jamaica ? We answer, Much every way. In the evangelization of Jamaica, we are as much concerned, in the communication of the Gospel to the world, as the bricklayer who works perpetually at the angles of a building, while others attend to the other parts, is concerned in the erection of the whole. Jamaica is a small part of the globe; it contains but a small proportion of its population, and it belongs to that Archipelago where commercial cupidity has so long made haste to be rich; but still it is a highly-important and deeply-interesting part of the globe. It has been most beautifully said, "that if you cast a stone over London Bridge into the Thames, it will raise the ocean all the world over." That sentiment admits of a striking application to the present case-it teaches that local causes have sometimes remote effects. It is so, and, sir, you cannot advance the cause of Missions in this island, and not advance the destinies of Africa, America, and the world.* * The whole of this speech would nearly fill the Missionary Notice.-We purpose giving the remainder in the next month's Magazine. We have given as much space as we can spare. |