Page images
PDF
EPUB

General Baptist Building Fund.

IN June, 1876, it was resolved by the Association held at Osmaston Road Derby, that the capital of the Building Fund should be raised to £5,000. It was proposed to raise the £2,000 required by an appeal to the churches and to individuals, to give amounts to be paid in five years. A liberal response was given, and over £2,000 was promised. Some of these promises have been redeemed, and others are in process of redemption. Between eight and nine hundred pounds have thus been contributed, and the money is being used for the purposes of the fund. But as the current year is the fourth, and next year, 1880-1, the last appointed by the Association for completing the £2000, it is evident that the promises are not being redeemed at the same rate at which the years are passing. Only about two-fifths, instead of four-fifths, have been paid up. This is partly accounted for by some of the churches preferring to raise the whole sum promised by one effort; and as they have not attempted it yet, their total amounts are yet due, and no doubt will all be paid together before the end of the time specified. But that which needs to be carefully observed is that, during 1878 and 1879, some churches which up to that time paid by fifths annually, have ceased to do so. We are thus falling seriously in arrears; and unless the churches take up the matter speedily, and endeavour to bring up their amounts to four-fifths of the sum promised by next May 31, the labour of raising the amount to the required sum in 1880-1, will be found to be a serious strain to many of the churches, and may prevent the accomplishment of our object, viz., to have the whole £2,000 in the fund by June, 1881.

To the great majority of our churches the effort to meet their promises will be far more easily made if spread over the remaining time, than if left until the last year, or the last few weeks of that year. The necessity for carefully considering and arranging a plan for meeting their promises at, or within, the specified time, by the churches, is manifest. No church would intend to put off the attempt to raise the promised sum until after 1880-1. But unexpected difficulties sometimes arise in churches, which prevent the accomplishment of their purposes, when too short a time is left; and so, against their intention, churches might be compelled to carry their fulfilment into another year. Now such a failure on the part of several churches would prevent the denomination from realizing its end in this direction; and such a failure on the part of the united churches, could not but be a disappointment to those who have liberally and ardently supported this movement, and a disgrace to the federation to which we belong. To prevent this most undesirable end, let the churches at once take the matter in hand, and provide against failure.

It is of the first consequence that this fund should be well supplied. It is an important feeder to our denominational strength. Money devoted to it is a perennial blessing. It is constantly circulating and carrying with it encouragement and strength, and promoting self-help and enterprise. Like the dews and rains of heaven, it falls on dry and thirsty soil, and enriches and fructifies it, and then returning to its source, it again descends to produce, in other fields, fruitfulness and joy. The more quickly, therefore, the churches send in their contributions to replenish the fund, the sooner and the longer will they be in use for the good of the churches, the progress of the denomination, and the glory of God. WM. BISHOP.

N.B.-The Treasurer's account is closed, each year, on May 31st.

A NEW "ORGAN" IN OUR COLLEGE.

FOR some time there has been a desire amongst our students to obtain an organ for their own use in the College, and arrangements were being made to afford an opportunity to our friends to show their interest in the students, and in their musical culture, by contributing to the purchase of such an instrument; but the "opportunity" is gone! as, indeed, all our opportunities are fast going; though not from the same benign cause. A friend, who wishes to be unnamed, has generously "done the whole thing" out and out, and presented an American Organ of sweet tone and good compass to the institution. A thousand thanks are hereby given to the unlabelled benefactor. And all the students say "Amen!"-Scraps.

Leaves out of our Church Books.

No statements of fresh and helpful methods of church activity have come to hand, in response to the gentle appeal made in our last issue. Of course this reticence is not due to any lack of Christian ingenuity; or to the vice of indolently and heedlessly keeping in the deeply cut ecclesiastical "ruts" of this age; but rather to that admirable and abounding modesty which shrinks from establishing any telegraphic communication between the right and left hands of our denominational "body." We are a quiet and humble people, and are willing to pay for our modesty, by keeping our fellows unacquainted with our penetrating goodness.

But though nothing has been forwarded from inside the church, a letter is to hand from an "OUTSIDER," which deserves attention for what it says, and also because it calls attention to a page in our church books, headed,

III.-SEAT-HOLDERS WHO ARE NOT MEMBERS.

The letter says "A dear venerable brother, who had filled the Secretary's post in a church for many years, was asked a question concerning a family who had regularly attended the services, and contributed to the support of that particular church from its formation. The air of meek rebuke and mild surprise with which he regarded the questioner, as he gently informed him that the officers of a church have nothing to do with those who are "only members of the congregation," struck that young inquisitor dumb. Of course this was a long way off, and a long time ago, and such fossil notions are rare; yet it does occur to the writer that some such ideas may even yet linger in remote districts, where the influence of the spirit which pervades Praed Street has not yet permeated, and the question arises, If every member of a Christian church, and especially every officer, does not feel it an obligation, as well as a privilege, to endeavour to secure the fellowship of those who worship with them, is it a marvel that so many remain for years like your correspondent ? OUTSIDE."

I won't trust myself to express my indignation against the anti-Christian spirit that breathes in the sentence quoted above. I will merely say that this letter hits, I fear, a "blot" in our arrangements, and one that many years ago we tried to wipe out at Praed Street by the following method. Each seatsteward was requested to supply a list of seat-holders in his department. From this the names of those not yet in the fellowship of the church were selected; and pastor and elders met, and arranged that church officers, or persons of competent skill and experience, should take an early opportunity, in a natural and inartificial way, of bringing the subject of the Christian life and of church fellowship under their notice. They were to keep the work in hand from month to month, and REPORT their success, or otherwise, from time to time, through the elders, at the elders' meeting. The method was signally successful.

But it should be remembered that the success was not owing so much to the method itself, as to the tact and good sense with which it was carried out. For the right workers, no plan is more effective. It makes a personal interview a necessity; and no arrangement is so likely to be successful as that. Of course blundering is fatally easy; as, alas! where is it not in our human life? But I only remember to have heard of one mistake in many years, and that really arose out of a departure from our plan. A friend had been allocated to undertake the task of opening "the door of the church" to a husband, and he had succeeded; and he said within himself, naturally, though not wisely," why should I not proceed further, and lead the good man's wife along the same path ?" Without consultation with others, he essayed the task, and soon wished he had'nt, for he was met with the crushing and unsympathic remark from the strong-minded damsel, "What's that to do with you? When I want to speak. about church fellowship, I'll see the minister."

That friend never repeated his mistake. He did not know the good lady. She was of the nature that makes priestism so easy in churches, and disdained the idea of being conducted even to paradise by unordained souls. Such a case, however, is extremely rare in our congregations, but it is enough to show

LEAVES OUT OF OUR CHURCH BOOK.

107

(1.) The necessity that the method should be worked by men who can take the measure of the people about them, and who have a quick eye for "the eternal fitnesses of persons and things."

Another requirement is (2.) persistence, through one or two, or three or four years. This is pre-eminently the case with Christian men, and specially with men over twenty years of age. Caution increases every day, and the appeal must be made again and again, if these outsiders are not to remain outside for ever.

(3.) We must also put variety into our arrangements. If A has failed, try B; and if B, try C; and so on to Z: and beyond it if necessary. Church fellowship is really an enrichment of Christian life and power, and therefore these saints out of the household must be brought within the family circle.

(4.) Records should be kept by the pastor, or secretary of the elders or deacons, of these efforts, and of the success which attends them.

(5.) The whole of this work should be done without fuss or noise, and with all the grace and beauty of a living naturalness.

IV.-MEMBERS OF THE CONGREGATION AT CHURCH MEETINGS.

Another plan we have adopted at Praed Street will be extremely reprehensible in the judgment of some of our readers. But we are so accustomed to censure of one kind or another, that we are afraid of acquiring a taste for it. Come what may, we will tear out this leaf, and show it you. In announcing the church meeting, it used to be said, " Any Christian friends who would like to see the INSIDE of church life, are welcome to attend, if they will make known their wish to any of the church officers."

This did good in three ways. It gave the officers an opportunity of personally inviting any whom they judged eligible for fellowship; and secondly, it gave a chance to those who knew little about church life to become acquainted with it; and, thirdly, possibly it put us on our good behaviour. We were under the law which says, "walk in wisdom towards them that are without."

I need hardly say that our church meetings were such as would bear inspection, and would attract, rather than repel. They were cheery, bright, glad, and gladdening gatherings; mostly (if business were not too abundant) social and chatty; and yet withal instructive and helpful.

I am afraid some churches belonging to others than General Baptists might find this a dangerous plan. Think of an invitation to dissect the inside of some churches! What an appalling task! The inside of Vesuvius; the inside of a geyser might be inspected; but the inside of a church! Surely the less of that the better! By no means. Where a church is moderately unselfish, tolerably wise and well-conducted, fairly aggressive, and with a spiritual temperature a few degrees above zero, the invitation to "outsiders" may be given with fine promise of success. But it is "flat," contrary to the "traditions of the fathers;" it is revolutionary; it is against all the hand-writing on the "red tape" of the churches. And so let it be, but it does its work for God and His church; "and in that I do rejoice, and will rejoice.”

"Do they vote?" says an objector, in breathless haste. No; of course not. They don't want to vote. The chief end of church membership is not lifting up the hand for or against the purchase of a foot of window-leather, and a yard of the best brown soap: it is the growth of men in goodness, and beauty, and truth, and usefulness, by contact with one another, and by a common fellowship in worship and work.

We have another scheme on the tapis for Westbourne Park just now, about which I will say nothing, for these "leaves out of our church books" are given to show what has already been done, rather than what is to be attempted.

Certainly, one of the questions of our day is that urged by Christian men who are still OUTSIDE THE CHURCH OF CHRIST, and who are themselves suffering, though they may not think it, and are making the church and the world suffer through not falling into the ranks of the army of the Captain of Salvation.

How are we answering it?

JOHN CLIFFORD.

Scraps from the Editor's Waste-Basket.

I. THE LESSONS OF THE ELECTIONS are obvious to all who are willing to learn. Lord Ramsay's defeat at Liverpool in the effort to wrest a seat from the Tories, tells us that even when we have chosen candidates of great personal power, and manifest fitness for their work, we must still toil long and terribly in order to succeed. On no account may we underrate the strength of our foe. Not a man can be spared in the war against Lord Beaconsfield. Every vote will be required; and every voter will have an opportunity of rendering good service to his country.

The ignoble and disastrous exhibition in Southwark points several "morals." First, and mainly, it warns us against division. We must unite to secure a victory for liberation as a whole, and not divide on segments of our programme. Secondly, we must have candidates-if we can get them-who will command votes for what they are in themselves as well as for the cause they represent. Money must not be allowed to injure the country. Parochial work ought not in itself to constitute a claim to Parliamentary representation. The petty ambitions of men of wealth should not be suffered to prevent the expulsion of the Tories from power. united, and resolute.

Let us be wise,

II. THE TEMPERANCE JUBILEE.-The fortieth Annual Temperance Sermon in Church Street Chapel, Edgware Road, was preached on Sunday afternoon, the 25th of Jan., by the Rev. Dawson Burns, M.A. The text was "What hath God wrought?" and it was applied to the Temperance movement. He said that this particular service derived a singular interest on account of the fact that this was the year of the Temperance Jubilee in England. It is fifty years since the Temperance cause was first promoted in this land. It began a little earlier in Ireland-August, 1829-and in Scotland in the September of that year; and, therefore, during the last year our Irish and Scottish friends were celebrating with good heart and cheer their Temperance Jubilee. Our English Jubilee is reserved for the present year, and he trusted that honour will be done it, and that in succession those towns where the Temperance cause was planted in 1830 will gather themselves together in strength, and unite to

celebrate the advent of this great Reformation among them.

III. JOHN BRIGHT ON HIS ECCLESIASTICAL RELATIONS.-"I am myself—I am not ashamed of it-sprung from the stock of the martyrs and sufferers of two centuries ago," said the member for Birmingham in his speech at Islington; and in this, as in many other respects, he is a noble example of courage and fidelity, of heroic simplicity and beautiful sincerity. The passion for "respectability" and social prestige is so strong in many hearts that they are ashamed of their Dissent; and treat the society to which they belong by conviction as though it was a plague. But faithfulness to conscience is the highest respectability; and it is a loftier honour far to continue the work of the sufferers for truth and liberty, than to take rank with the leaders of society, or rise a few inches higher in the social grade. "I dwell among mine own people" is the motto of the illustrious Quaker, and the witness to his reality and greatness.

IV. HERAT, AND LORD BEACONSFIELD'S FOREIGN POLICY.-The last startling information concerning the Tory Cabinet is that England is about to eviscerate the treaty of 1857, and assign Herat to Persia, and of necessity back the seizure of Herat by English military force. That we have no right, of any sort whatever, to do this counts for nothing. It is the old story, "One lie needs half a dozen more to take care for it." Lord Cranbrook suggested to Lord Northbrook that "a case" could be invented for invading Afghanistan; and though Lord Northbrook would not be his tool, his successor was ready to do his bidding, and did it; and now a second wrong is necessary to take care of the first, and a third and a fourth will have to follow. The ghastly words of Sir Charles Napier about the seizure of Sindh are the mirror of the foreign policy of Lord Beaconsfield, "We have no right," he said, "to seize Sindh, yet we shall do so, and a very advantageous, useful, and humane piece of rascality it will be." There is the root of the nation's evil; we have lost faith in right, and believe that "rascality" is advantageous, useful, and humane. But, as sure as there is a God in the heavens, it will yet be seen that righteousness, and not "rascality," exalteth a nation.

Reviews.

THE GOSPELS: THEIR AGE AND AUTHOR

SHIP. By John Kennedy, M.A., D.D.
Sunday School Union.

THIS is one of the most living questions of our day. Rationalistic criticism has gathered its hosts together against our gospels, and strained every nerve to impeach their reliability; and the result is, to make more manifest than ever the solid basis of historically verifiable fact upon which Christianity rests. Dr. Kennedy,-following in this respect the method so ingeniously illustrated and effectively worked by Isaac Taylor in his "Restoration of Belief,-has traced the history of the four Gospels, as tracts or books, from the era of the Diocletian persecution up to the times of John and Paul. Starting from the unquestioned data concerning the "burning" of the four Gospels by the command of Diocletian, and the degraded position held by those who were weak enough to give up "the sacred books" to the flames, and were called traditores; he marches forward on the solid ground offered in the statements of Eusebius, in the histories of Origen (184 A.D. to 253); Clement of Alexandria, and his predecessor Pantanæus; Irenæus (126-202); Justin Martyr (103167); Ignatius, (died 117); Polycarp (69155), on to John and Paul. The witness of the Syriac, and other second century versions, is also cited; and the whole forms a book replete with valuable information, enriched with the verdicts of our safest students of the New Testament text, and constituting a well-compacted and irrefragable defence of our faith in the four Gospels as belonging to the first century, and coming from the men whose names they bear.

THE HOLY SPIRIT'S WORK: ITS NATURE AND EXTENT. By George Cron. London: Hamilton, Adams, & Co. Glasgow: T. D. Morison. Price 2s. 6d. WE hope our readers are making themselves acquainted with this valuable issue of theological works. It is published under the auspices of the Evangelical Union, and bears the name of the Evangelical Union Doctrinal Series. We noticed, some time ago, a volume on Regeneration, and subsequently one on the Fatherhood of God. The volume named above is the third of the series; and though we have warmly commended its predecessors, we are more strongly disposed to urge our readers to secure an early acquaintance with this one. It is on the work of the Holy Spirit that some of

our doctrinal opponents imagine we are weak. They think we cannot prove from Scripture that "the field of the Spirit is the world;" and they are guilty of the inconsistency of maintaining that even if the love of the Father be universal, and the sacrifice of Christ be for all, yet the work of the Spirit is restricted. We maintain, against all comers, that "the Spirit stands in a direct relation to the world; that the world is His sphere, and has all along been His sphere." Christ Himself says this in a passage of condensed force and wonderful compass when He affirms that "when He, the Spirit, is come, He will reprove the world of sin and righteousness and judgment." Our doctrinal position, as General Baptists, is maintained with admirable and winning power in Mr. Cron's volume. He has clearly stated it, amply defended it, and urged its acceptance with a "sweet reasonableness" that ought to commend this teaching of Christ to all his readers. The book is also valuable for its utterances on the Trinity; the Personality of the Spirit; the Quality of His Work; the relation of Regeneration to Faith; and the connection between "the truth" and the work of the Spirit In short it is a brief but lucid and most wholesome and helpful exposition of the work of the Spirit; and as such we cordially commend it to our young men, Sunday School Teachers, Local and other Preachers. It ought certainly to have "free course" amongst our churches.

[ocr errors]

THE SECOND ADVENT IN ITS RELATION

an

TO MAN'S SPIRITUAL NATURE. By the Author of "Hamartia." Stock. THIS is a thoughtful and carefully written essay in advocacy of the position that the Second Advent of Christ is a spiritual one, and dependent upon the opening of "interior vision" in man, by which they see Christ, as Elisha's servant saw "the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire round about Elisha." The pith of the essay is in this sentence, "The Lord has never left us; He is with us always, and, in a special sense, at every meeting of His disciples. His promised Advent consists in our being made sensible, by sight, hearing, and touch, of His presence, and that is effected by the opening of the spirit in those prepared for the change." The acuteness, carefulness, and tone of this essay, evoke our admiration; but a fair exegesis of scripture will not sustain its conclusion as applicable to the Second Advent of Christ,

« PreviousContinue »