The Gigantic Plan of Operations for Satan's Kingdom. 1063 they have made oars; and benches of ivory; broidered work to be thy sail. The inhabitants were thy MARINERS; the wise men were thy PILOTS. All the ships of the sea, with their MARINERS, were in thee, to occupy thy merchandise. Tarshish was thy merchant, with silver, iron, and lead." Many isles were the merchandise of thine hand; Judah and the land of Israel were thy merchants, in wheat, honey, oil, and balm. The ships of Tarshish did sing of thee in thy market; and thou wast replenished, and made very glorious in the midst of the seas." Ezek. xxvii. Thus England may now be hailed as of old in the sacred scriptures, "Ho! to the land shadowing with wings," or colonies, "which is beyond the rivers of Ethiopia," or Africa; and by foreign missions, for the universal spread of the gospel," that sendeth forth ambassadors," (as ministers of the gospel are called by the apostle,-" Now, then, we are ambassadors for Christ." 2 Cor. v.) "That sendeth forth ambassadors by the sea, even in vessels of bullrushes, upon the waters, saying, Go, ye swift mes"When he lifteth up an ensign sengers," in sailing ships or steamers. "In that time shall a present be and bloweth the trumpet, hear ye." brought unto the Lord of Hosts, of people, to the name of the Lord of the Lord of Hosts, the MOUNT ZION." Isai. xviii. But with all the riches and grandeur of the British Empire, at home and abroad, it becomes all ranks and degrees of men to consider that the history of all nations, as well as the oracles of God, demonstrate that National Sins produce National Judgments. It is now universally established, as an awful fact, that, with all the Christianity of this kingdom, DRUNKENNESS is the great national sin of Great Britain and Ireland. It is also proved that religion and temperance moral reform are the only essential remedies that can heal the nation of this vice, and prevent its horrid effects, by means of shipping and sailors, in all parts of the world. Sailors and seaboys have long been the most neglected and notorious for drunkenness in the world. The Wapping district has been equally celebrated throughout the world, as the great centre and fountain of all vice and immorality among sailors. The head of this demoralizing district is Ratcliffehighway. The temptations here for drunkenness and immorality are so numerous and fatal, that but few sailors can escape from them; and the provision made for their religious and temperance instruction, from Tower-hill to Shadwell, in a direct line of their chief resorts, is most inadequate and inefficient for the reclamation of drunkards, or the prevention of moderate drinkers becoming drunkards. THE GIGANTIC PLAN OF OPERATIONS FOR SATAN'S KINGDOM There is now in this line of vice and immorality, a station occupied for religious and temperance instruction, the most important of any such mission station in the whole world. This in the main street, about the middle of Ratcliffe-highway, facing the warehouses and shipping of the London Docks, and in the usual nightly run of sailors and sea-harlots. This is at present upon an annual rental; but the subjoined plan is now submitted to universal consideration. Here are two large houses, with most capacious and extensive warehouses behind them, and two great entrances from the main street under the dwellings. If the freehold property of 1064 Dissenters and Methodists have no Sailors' Home. those two great premises were purchased, or a long lease obtained for them both, by suitable trustees, the whole of the warehouses might be prepared for a Mariners' Church and Sailors' Temperance Hall, that would accommodate full two thousand persons; and the dwellings be converted into a Sailors and Soldiers' Orphan Temperance Asylum, with an additional story, to bring both houses on a level with a large adjoining house. The roof of the two warehouses being raised, and a large front gallery formed from the back rooms of the first floors of the dwellinghouses,-two masts to be erected on the roof for suitable signals, that would soon be generally understood by immense multitudes of sailors and their families, or associates passing and repassing in this great and constant naval and commercial thoroughfare. The eastern adjoining dwelling could also be purchased, as a residence for the stationed minister, as superintendent of the Church and the Hall; so that the whole range of premises being connected, would form the most popular, inviting, and accesible range of buildings, for the religious instruction and the suppression of drunkenness among sailors and their families, or immoral companions, of any place in the whole world; and in a few months, by means of shipping and steamers, this establishment would be known and talked of throughout all the sea coasts of Europe, Asia, Africa, and America. Such is my plan, without the least prospect of its ever being carried into effect; and very similar was my first plan of a Sailors' Home, when the Brunswick Theatre fell;-but what hath God wrought with Sailors' Homes since, froin that small grain of mustard seed, that has now become a great tree in London, Liverpool, and America? The Lord can raise up friends and funds even for this; and some may be almost disposed to sing,Smiles at impossibilities, Faith, mighty faith, the promise sees, And says, It shall be done!" Jesus said, "If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say to this mountain, Be removed and cast into the sea; and it shall be done; and nothing shall be impossible unto you. All things, whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer believing, ye shall receive." Matt. xvii. and xxi. DISSENTERS AND METHODISTS HAVE NO SAILORS HOME Alas! alas! gentlemen and ladies, is this true? What! the Church of England has a Sailors' Home in Well-street; and a noble spirited merchant has a Sailors' Home at Blackwall; but you, as a great, and extensive, and wealthy body of Presbyterians, Independents, Lady Huntingdon's, Congregationalists, Baptists, Wesleyan-methodists, New Connection Methodists, Association Methodists,,Primitive Methodists, and Bible Christians,-yet you, the whole of you, living upon the fruits of sailors' labours, in manufacture, trade, and commerce,-you have no Sailors Home for poor weather-beaten, robbed, and plundered mariners! You dare not enter the Sailors' Home in Well-street, to perform any kind of religious service, because it is wholly Episcopal, under the Bishop of London, where no dissenter or methodist could be allowed to perform divine service; and yet you are not provoked even to jealousy to rear a Sailors' Home, to preserve your perishing countrymen, who go The Origin of Home Mission Societies. 1065 down to the sea in ships, from perishingby crimps and Jews, thieves and harlots. What a disgrace to the whole body of dissenters and methodists! Would to God that they did but feel it to be so, and come forward instantly, only a few of them, to make a beginning, and have a Sailors' Home built immediately, erccted in Ratcliffe-highway, where sailors could be earnestly invited to board and lodge, on temperance principles, at ten shillings a week; and where ministers of all evangelical denominations could address them, on subjects of everlasting im portance to their eternal interests and happiness in this world and the world to come. How many hundreds of sailors have fathers and mothers, wives and children, brothers and sisters, relatives and triends, who are dissenters and methodists, that attend your chapels, and pay to your collections all over the kingdom?-and, yet, you leave their relatives or friends, for whom they feel the utmost concern, to perish among drunkards, and men and women thieves, because you will not combine together to build a Sailors' Home for them, as a refuge from the storms of sin on shore, when they arrive in the Port of London! O! ye dissenters and methodists, Arise! awake! and bestir yourselves! Communicate with sailors' friends, at No. 159, Ratcliffe-highway,-and ways and means can immediately be pointed out by which you shall have a Sailors' Home of your own, in the heart of the devil's kingdom, as well as the Church of England; and then you can call upon his Royal Highness Prince Albert, to lay the corner stone, as he did for the Sailors' Home, at Liverpool. Now is your time,-who will begin first, as a Sailors' Evangelical Alliance? -for the glory of God. THE ORIGIN OF HOME MISSION SOCIETIES. What a wonderful blessing followed my arduous, trying, and persecuting Sea Coast, North Devon, and Somerset Open Air Preaching Mission, thirty years ago, next year, as it was in the year 1817! This mission, by the acknowledgment of Thomas Thompson, Esq., was the cause of the Home Mission being founded by the independents. This had an effect upon the small and contracted Baptist Itinerant Society; and they very zealously caught the flame, and formed a large Baptist Home Mission. Then the Countess of Huntingdon's Connection had a Propagation Fund; but they also changed the name to the Home Mission Fund. And thus the Lord was pleased to bless my North Devon labours for which I never received any pecuniary reward; but I rejoice in all the good done for the glory of God-in the churches since formed at Great Torrington and other places-and in the souls converted by Divine grace, of whom I have heard; and to God I give all the glory-for it was his work-I am nothing, and can do nothing without him. O that he would bless our present labours. THE SAILORS AND SOLDIERS' TOWER HILL JUBILAH. "Ye shall hallow the fiftieth year, and proclaim liberty throughout all the land, unto all the inhabitants thereof. IT SHALL BE A JUBILEE UNTO YOU." "A jubilee shall that fiftieth year be unto you." 66 Ye shall not oppress one another." The solemn command of God was to Israel, that, when they entered into the land of Canaan, their fiftieth year should be a 1066 Baptist Missionary Societies Pipes and Tobacco. year of jubilee, or deliverance from oppression. "If thy brother be waxen poor, and hath sold away some of his possession; "❝in the jubilee it shall go out, and he shall return to his possession." Therefore the ju bilee was a year of redemption, or return back to an original settlement. "And if thy brother be waxen poor, and fallen into decay with thee; THEN THOU SHALT RELIEVE HIM, though he be a sojourner, that he may live with thee." The jubilee was thus, by divine command, to be a year of relief to a poor decayed brother. "If thy brother be waxen poor," "thou shalt not rule over him with rigour; but shalt fear thy God." "Then will I command my blessing upon you." "The land is mine." "Ye shall not rule over one another with rigour.' "I am the Lord your God." Lev. xxv. The jubilee was to be a year of kind and gentle treatment, as well as deliverance from oppression, redemption from bondage, and relief in poverty. This year, 1846, is the fiftieth year of my eventful life, as I was bound apprentice to the captain of an American brig, upon Tower-hill, in 1796, and sailed with him trom England to the West Indies, in the spring of that year. God has mercifully spared me through all the storms and dangers, by sea and land, during the last fifty years; who, then, will now come forward to contribute to a MINISTERS' JUBI LEE FUND? It is now most notorious that I have been oppressed and in bondage, and that I am waxen poor, and have been ruled over with ri gour, and have thus fallen into decay; and now, in the name of the Lord, I humbly ask for aid to a Jubilee Fund, for the following objects:First.-Present Pecuniary Aid. Second.-A Pair of New Shoes; a New Suit of Clothes; and a New Great Coat. Third.-Assistance to enable me with our Orphan Asylum House, near Tower-hill, where I lodge, as my residence, with poor fatherless children, and thus return back to the place where my God so graciously and mercifully arranged that I should commence my great career of public labours, to fit and prepare me, fifty years hence, for my great and important Sailors and Soldiers' Missions; and for my village, town, and city, street, lane, and highway open air missions, to the chief of sinners, in England, Scotland, Wales, and Ireland, and in Spain and France, on the continent of Europe; and by means of magazines, tracts, and influence, to the world at large. BAPTIST MISSIONARY SOCIETY PIPES AND TOBACCO. I have just seen an account presented by the superintendent of the Baptist Mission at Fernando Po, in Africa, to a Baptist missionary from Jamaica; and in this account, I see the superintendent has several charges for pipes and tobacco supplied to the Mission Station; and I was the more struck with this, because, at the World's Temperance Convention, of various ministers and advocates, some very important books were distributed, from a Temperance Hotel in Manchester, containing a valuable lecture, from an eminent physician, on the physical and moral evils arising from the use of tobacco; and I know that the Rev. William Jay, of Bath, as our most distinguished and aged minister, has written and published against obacco, and declared to me, that were he a member of a Christian church, he should object conscientiously to a minister who used pipes and tobacco. Having for some years seen the evil of this nox. The Dreadful Fall Down Stairs in the New House. 1067 ious weed, and preached and admonished all to abstain from it, I am now grieved to find the sale and use of it has the sanction of the Baptist Missionary Society; and this I must enquire into, as I am confident that tobacco is unnecessary and injurious, and a waste of money, and a dangerous example for the heathen. I shall, therefore, oppose it with all my might through the kingdom, regardless of whose self-interests or family connections it may offend. I must also know if any missionaries abroad deal in intoxicating drinks, as we have heard from a missionary to-day about one in Africa buying some gallons of strong drinks from a ship, and selling them on shore. This must not be, gentlemen, directors, secretaries. and treasurers of Foreign Missionary Societies. Tetotalers must cry aloud against all the traffic of intoxicating drinks by societies that receive public money to spread Christianity, and not for pipes and tobacco, and intoxicating drinks. Missionaries are but men, with all the passions, snares, and infirmities of other men. Bnt these things must be fatal to the heathen, and to captains and sailors, who see and know such things. What intoxicating drinks do you embark with, missionaries; or send out to mission stations, brethren? THE DREADFUL FALL DOWN STAIRS IN THE NEW HOUSE. Saturday, Oct. 31st. What an extraordinary week this has been! Lord's-day I enjoyed the presence of the Lord in my labours; and on Monday was engaged all day, with two sailors, one soldier, and a carpenter, in removing books, and tracts, and papers, saved from the wrecks of the house that fell, and bringing them to rooms provided in this house, No. 159, Ratcliffe-highway; and on Tuesday was occupied all day removing goods from lodgings in Commercial-road, and placing them in rooms of this house. In the evening of that day I had the dreadful fall down the large flight of stairs, and was wounded and bruised, and am suffering pain and agony to this day; but, blessed be God, am just able to conduct our Bethel meetings, with orphans, every day still, and give directions about Society affairs, amidst much persecution. This morning I awoke, dreaming that I had read, "How much more shall your Heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit unto them that ask him;" and I thought I was running through a large congregation, saying to each, "Will you ask for the Holy Spirit?" This has made me pray almost the whole day, and say, "Lord, give me thy Spirit!" We read this morning early, First, Job v.; and I thought, How was Job afflicted and distressed by Satan,-and so am I! Then we read, as our second lesson, 2 Tim. 1. Here I cried out, How was Paul also tried-a prisoner in Rome, (as 8th v.)-deserted by all in Asia, (as 15th v.), after the labours of many years-and only one faithful friend, Onisiphorus, sought him out and relieved him, (17th v.) ;—all this from Satan also, lest he should be exalted above measure. Well, I am just in the same state, within these two years, a prisoner-poor, afflicted, deserted, and perishing-but preserved, as by a miracle of mercy, from day to day. Unable to preach to-morrow; yet the Lord has helped, in sending a Baptist missionary, from Jamaica and Africa, to preach for me; and an old sailor, who was with me in Nelson's fleet, at Copenhagen, in 1801, to get the place ready |