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ground have its proper amount of labour, and no part of the world will yield so rich a harvest.

The girls' school lately established on these premises has prospered amazingly. We have, I think, two hundred children, not taken from other schools, but gathered from the streets and lanes of Royapettah. This is encouraging: snatched, we hope,

from the corruptions and ignorance of Heathenism, they are now learning to read the Bible, and daily kneel under the sound of prayer. May God prosper us in the interesting and important task of teaching these poor children the way of salvation, and may all our plans begin and end with Him!

MISSIONS IN THE WEST INDIES.

HURRICANE IN NEVIS.

THE late Hurricane in the West Indies, we grieve to state, has been attended with very disastrous results to several of the Islands in which our old and time-honoured Missions in that part of the world are located. We take as a specimen the case of Nevis, described in the following communication. The Mission-Chapels and Houses, indeed, though not all unvisited by this calamity, have not suffered so extensively as on some former occasions. But many of our people have sustained sad and distressing losses of their little property; and our Funds must painfully feel the effect of their diminished ability to contribute, as heretofore, to the support of their Ministers.-Men of Israel, help!-in this hour of special exigency.-The state of our West-Indian Missions, generally, is one which calls very loudly not only for earnest prayer to God, but for every possible effort, on the part of our friends at home, so to increase the pecuniary means placed at the Committee's disposal, as will enable them to meet the heavy demands which in all probability will and must soon be made upon them, in consequence of the very serious and distressing changes which have taken place in the social and commercial condition of all classes in the West Indies. Missions so dear to our hearts, so eminently successful, and on which so large an expenditure of money, and of invaluable Missionary labour and life, has been bestowed, must not now be suffered to be destroyed. Let British Christians stand prepared to meet this clear call of duty.

Extract of a Letter from the Rev. George Blanchflower, dated Nevis,
August 26th, 1848.

ON Monday night, 21st instant, we were visited by the most awful hurricane that has been experienced here for the last thirty years. The storm commenced about twelve at night. No person in the island had any idea, when they retired to bed, that a storm was so near, as there were none of those premonitory signs which generally precede these dreadful storms. Scarcely had persons time to fasten up their houses before destruction commenced. At two o'clock, our house, which is new, and a strong wood building, writhed under the power of the blast, and every joint cracked, as if it would fall to pieces. But the Lord had mercy on us, and it stood firm; and, with the exception of a little injury to the roof, and being flood

ed with water, it is not much injured. The outbuildings were most of them destroyed. My dear wife and myself were graciously supported. We fully expected the house would give way; and there seemed but a step betwixt us and death. No one who has never witnessed a scene of the kind can form any idea of the power of a tornado.

In that dread hour, we felt the value of personal religion, and cried unto the Lord, and he delivered us out of our trouble; and, with the exception of getting wet, we escaped uninjured. "O that we may "praise the Lord for his good

ness!"

The chapel is somewhat injured; three or four windows are broken to pieces, and a part of the wall has given

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The destruction among the houses of the labourers is truly distressing on the windward side of the island very few are left standing. Scores of our poor and beloved people have lost their all; their houses are shattered to atoms; furniture, clothes, and every little comfort they had collected since their freedom, are totally destroyed. My heart bled, and tears involuntarily flowed from my eyes, as I went among them the next day, to see them seeking the broken pieces of their houses, &c., some of them blown a quarter of a mile from the foundation, and to hear them in submission saying, "Massa, me house gone! me clothes gone! but Massa Jesus spare a' we life! Me pickne (children) spared! Him too good to a' we." Our people were reduced low enough before; what they will now do I know not. Those who can get work only earn 6d. per day. And were the planters ever so much disposed to help them, they are not able; they too are great sufferers. Scarcely a boiling-house or mill but what the roof is in part or wholly destroyed, as well as many of their dwelling-houses.

Two or three persons were killed, and numbers had limbs broken, and others very much bruised. We are thankful that so little Mission property is de

stroyed, compared with what others have suffered. May the Lord sanctify this afflictive dispensation to us all! Our congregations have been good; but we have not fully witnessed those glorious results which we know the Gospel is able to produce. "O thou that hearest prayer," let all flesh come unto thee!

We had just concluded our Missionary Meetings; and though we did not realize more than half what we got last year, had we to hold them now, we should not get anything. This is a dark day for the West Indies generally, but in particular for those who have felt the effects of this storm. While we are anxious to relieve the Committee, it will now be impossible to carry on the work without additional grants from them. Unless the Home Government does something to help the colony in this emergency, it will hardly recover the shock.

Our beloved friends in the mother country have much cause for thankfulness, that they are secure from the hurricane and the earthquake. May their thankfulness be manifested in enlarged contributions for the help of their needy brethren throughout the vast Missionfield!

I am resolved to live only to glorify God, and to "preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ." We have need of your prayers, and those of Christians generally.

RECENT MISCELLANEOUS INTELLIGENCE. GIBRALTAR.-On Thursday night I preached a special sermon, in Spanish, on "the Exaltation of the Holy Cross." It was the Romish feast-day, in celebration of the alleged appearance of the Cross to Constantine. I had a very large congregation, about one hundred outside: great interest was excited. My discourse consisted of a statement on the origin and de

sign of the Romish institution, and, as my principal object, of as powerful a representation as I could make of the true evangelical and apostolic view of glorying in the Cross of Christ, contrasted with the blind, vain, and frequently idolatrous reverence of Papists for the wood of the Cross.-Rev. G. Alton, Gibraltar, September 16th, 1848.

DEATH.

Ir is our painful duty to announce the decease of a venerable and faithful Missionary of the Society, who for upwards of forty years laboured to promote the spread of true Religion in the Provinces of British North America. The Rev. Stephen Bamford died at Digby, Nova Scotia, on August 14th, in the seventy-eighth year of his age. He proved in death the efficacy of that Gospel which by his life and ministrations he recommended to the acceptance of those whom the Great Head of the Church had committed to his pastoral care.

LONDON: PRINTED BY JAMES NICHOLS, HOXTON-SQUARE.

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THE

WESLEYAN-METHODIST MAGAZINE.

DECEMBER, 1848.

BIOGRAPHY.

MEMOIR OF MR. EDWARD HENLEY,

OF TORQUAY:

BY HIS SON, THE REV. WILLIAM HENLEY.

My father was born in the parish of St. Mary Church, South Devon, in the year 1770. His parents, although strangers to the enjoyment of spiritual experience, yet, according to their light, which, in those days and parts, was very obscure, feared God, and wrought righteousness. They were Nonconformists by descent, and had been accustomed to attend the Dissenting chapel; but removing into a neighbourhood favoured with the ministrations of a Clergyman more than usually faithful and evangelical, they generally attended the parish church. They were soon, however, furnished (as I and my readers will believe) with the means of becoming yet more perfectly acquainted with the way of salvation. Wesleyan Methodism was introduced into the village, and a cottage was opened in the vicinity for divine worship. Mr. and Mrs. Henley, sen., were among the first to receive the message of mercy. There was a gracious visitation connected with these earlier religious services; it seemed as if a sacred fire were brought down on earth, and many caught the flame. Among them were Mr. and Mrs. Henley, sen., together with some others, of the older branches of the family. The leaven thus cast into the domestic circle continued to diffuse its influence, till some of the younger branches began also to experience its power. My father was early convinced of the exceeding sinfulness of sin, and felt, as well as saw, the absolute necessity of a change of heart. Very frequently deeply serious impressions were made on his mind, heavenly aspirations awakened, and holy resolutions were formed by him; but it was not till he was about twenty years of age, that these buds and blossoms produced their proper fruits. Some of his juvenile days were passed on the ocean, as he had been intended for a seafaring life, a climate little congenial to the culture of piety; so that we cannot be surprised that at this period his goodness again and again passed away, as the morning cloud and the early dew. Providentially, this intention was ultimately abandoned. It was by the instrumentality of a 4 P

VOL. IV.-FOURTHI SERIES.

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