your income last year was £29,000. The Rev. W. LANDELS said,-Where is the Church that is doing all it can ? I should like to see it. It must be a very eminent Church indeed that has risen to the utmost height in privilege and duty, and to whom the Saviour will say, "They have done all they could." Of course there are no smokers amongst the members of such churches! Of course their wealthy members bave disposed of all their superfluous wines! Of course their tables groan beneath no luxuries! Of course theirs is strictly Spartan fare! Of course there is not a jewelled finger to be found in any of their congregations! The ladies bave stripped themselves of their ornaments and laid them on the altar of the Lord! You need not be told how very far we are from this state of things. Now, remember, I don't say to what extent you are to go in this direction, but I do say that, until you have reached something like that state of things, you cannot, you must not, you dare not say, "We have done all we could." But long before we have reached anything like that point we shall have greatly augmented the funds of our missions. I suppose that one penny a week from each of the members of the denomination would not impoverish them greatly; and yet it greatly exceeds the present income of this society. The members of the Wesleyan denomination, it is said, are about twice the number of our own. They contribute six times as much, and I don't know that they starve themselves, or even give up luxuries. Their increase this year amounts almost to as much as our entire income. Now, one wonders how we cannot do as well as they. I do not think they believe more firmly than we do the great doctrines of the fall and the depravity of man, or that Christ is the only Saviour. I am afraid you would blame me if I ventured to say they did. Your orthodoxy is known to all men. Your praise in this respect is sounded throughout all the churches. You are the denomination of which Fuller was a member and an ornament. I do honour the orthodoxy of this denomination. I admire with others your soundness and your zeal; only bear with me if, while I admire, I also venture to plead for your consistency You know this as well as I do, that you would question the soundness of any man who did not believe that the London Missionary Society. heathens are living without God, and dying without hope. It is computed that of the population of the world about one passes away into eternity at every second; every tick of the clock ushers one soul into the unseen; since this meeting commenced thousands have gone into the eternal world, and, as you believe, they have gone, a great number of them, into an eternal hell. And they are brethren of yours, bone of your bone, flesh of your flesh, their souls are as precious as yours, they will sink as deep in perdition as you could ever sink, they might rise as high in glory as you can rise, your Master would not be less honoured by their salvation then he is by your own. If hell would be an awful thing to you, it is no less awful to them. Nor do the attractions of heaven prove stronger to you than they would to them. Christ's blood was shed for them as well as for you. He tells you to go and preach the Gospel to them, to tell them of his dying love, of his willingness and his ability to save. What are you doing for this purpose? What are you doing for a world that is perishing? About a halfpenny a week on an average for each of your number! We are orthodox, we are sound in the faith, we believe in the depravity of mau, we believe that the guilty soul is a ruined soul,-hopelessly ruined but for Christ's Gospel. But what becomes of our consistency in view of these facts? I do not think our soundness of creed would be at all injured were there a little more consistency of practice. LONDON MISSIONARY SOCIETY. We regret we have only room for one of the able speeches delivered at this meeting. THE Anniversary of the Loudon Missionary Society was held in Exeter Hall, on Wednesday, May 1st. The Right Hon. the Earl SHAFTESBURY in the chair. The Rev. FRANCIS TUCKER, of Camden-road Chapel, said: 1 feel it no small privilege to take a part in this mis sionary meeting, but I must confess it is not a privilege entirely unmixed. I am here to day almost as a stranger amongst you, and yet, in the presence 237. of the noble lord, I suppose the most friendless man in London feels at home; and as I have happened otten to be in his company at the raggedschool meetings, and have got a very ragged reputation in consequence; his lordship, however, appearing in tatters in that respect from top to toe, I will not feel myself a stranger in this audience. Besides, I must not forget that this is a missionary meeting, and that once-for too short a time- I my. self was honoured to be a missionary. My lord, these are happy times in which we live; with all that we have to deplore in them, they are happy times after all. Prophets and kings, aud righteous men desired to see things which we see; and in this season our spiritual firmament seems all a-glow with constellations, and if our Bible Society must be looked upon as a kind of Arcturus in front of the host, I look upon our missionary societies as sister Pleiades beaming brightly side by side, and raining down their sweet influences on the thirsty soil beneath But I am sure I cannot tell how your strength, my lord, bears up as you go like a Catholic and a Christian from missionary meeting to missionary meeting. There is one thing, at any rate, that helps to console you and port you, and that is, I believe, the unity of spirit, and the unity of heart, that you find among the whole. (Cheers.) Yes, my lord, and sometimes I dare say you almost forget what denomination you have got among. (Applause.) I do not know whether you ever forget what denomination you yourself belong to. But the very phraseology of this time of the year bears all that is Catholic and delightful. You will find the Baptist sprinkle all natious. (Loud applause.) longing for the time when Christ shall You will find our brethren of Mr. Punshon's denomination longing for the time when God shall accomplish the number of his elect, and hasten his kingdom. (Applause.) surrounded, my lord, by many pure You are voluntaries this morning, but you have heard them longing for the time when kings shall be the nursing fathers, and queens the nursing mothers of the church of God. (Applause.) And if, sup without offence, I may refer to your own denomination, and to your own rank, you will not, I think, disagree with the when I say that the highest churchman with whom you may have any accord whatever, longs for the time when the lowest castes and masses of the people shall be elevated to a height equal to his own, made kings and priests unto God, even the Father. (Applause.) Among these missionary societies, yours, my dear friends, holds no unhonoured place; and, as a Baptist minister on the committee of the Baptist Missionary Society, and once an agent in one of its fields of labour, I am here to-day to express with my whole heart the esteem and the love in which we hold you. We sympathise with you in every part and department of your work. We rejoice with you over Tahiti; your success there has become matter of history; and no one, be he Freuchman and papist, as he will, shall rob you of your glory. (Hear, hear) We stand in the presence of your Madagascar with something like wandering awe, for there we find, while you have not been permitted to do very much for God, God has been pleased to do very much for you-(Applause)-and the story of the progress of the Gospel in Madagascar reads more like another chapter of the Acts of the Apostles than the common story of missionary enterprise. (Applause.) But you have not been satisfied with the islands of the sea; you have been wisely ambitious of continents and empires; you have laid your hand on the caste of India, you have planted your foot on the wall of China. Oh, what a field for enterprise you have there. After listening to Mr. Mullens, I am almost ashamed to say a word about Iudia; and yet, having been in India, how can I help it? India, the land of thirty nations, of 200,000,000 of people, and 300,000,000 of gods-India, the land studded with stately cities when our ancestors were running painted through the woods, but now looking to us for a higher civilization, and bowing with us to the sceptre of the good Queen Victoria-India, the land where politeness, and outward politeness, has done its best, and pollution, and inward pollution, has done its very worstoh, what a field you have there for the missionary enterprise. (Applause.) It is, my lord, a beautiful sight to see this little island of the German Ocean, once sunk in Druid barbarism and stained with human blood, sending out the glorious Gospel to the largest continents, and to the hoariest empires of the world-to see this little spot, once hidden in thick midnight darkness, a beaming centre of light and truth to the darkest and most distant nations! And then our child across the water, America, is following in our steps, I rejoice to think of what America is doing. It is a beautiful fact that America, the youngest born of ha manity, is sending back her missionaries to the very birthplace of humanity-sending them to Syria, sending them to Armenia, sending them to Mount Ararat, sending them for aught I know to the garden of Eden itself (Applause)-to tell them that the seed of the woman has come, and that the head of the serpent shall be bruised, and that while the first Adam, that was of the earth earthy, fell, there has appeared in the world a quickening spirit, the second Adam, the Lord from heaven. And then to think, my lord, that we have in our Gospel the instrument that is suited for all these natious and kindreds, for all these tribes and tongues. You do not want one Gospel for China and another for Labrador. You do not want one Gospel for India and another for Tahiti. No, you find that the one Gospel is adapted to all nations and kindreds, civilized or barbarous, Greek or Jew, bond or free. You cannot say this, I believe, of any other religious system that has ever appeared in the world, it has shown that it is not of God because it has shown that it is not infinite, not adapted to the case of all God's creatures. I have sometimes thought how the Chinaman would laugh-and well might he laugh-if you carried the greegrees of African worship to Pekin or Canton, and bid him to bow down and adore. I have sometimes thought what a poor man in Siberia would think if you carried to him the Brahminism of India, with all its rites and all its ceremonies. But the Gos no London Missionary Society. pel is adapted to all mankind. The Rose of Sharon, depend upon it, will grow in any latitude. (Applause.) No frost will nip it, and no heat will wither it. There is not a spot over the broad earth which it will not adorn with its beauty, and bless with its perfume. (Applause.) And if it be adapted to all spots, do not forget especially in this our day, that it is adapted to all times. The Gospel does not need to change itself with the progress of the age, and the advancement of its civilization. (Applause) Other things may have to change, but the Gospel never. Our books of science we are obliged almost every year to issue new and enlarged editions of them; our encyclopæe lias, they want new supplements ever and again, but the Bible wants no supplement; there need be new or enlarged edition of the revelation that has come from Heaven. | (Applause.) When this wintry earth of ours wants to deck herself in her summer glory, she does not need a new sun to be kindled in the firmament, all she has to do is to turn round towards the old sun and she has all the glory she requires. (Loud Applause.) It is a part of Indian history that when Mahmoud came down from Guzna as a Mabomedan to conquer the rich lands of idolators, he strode on through the terrified cities until he reached the temple of Somnaut, on the shores of the Indian Sea. He fought his way into the temple, struggled up into the presence of the idol. Here the idol stood-gorgeous, for it was of pure gold-colossal, for it was of immense height-and yet most hideous all the while; and the undaunted conqueror, drawing his sword, smote the idol on the face. His companions broke it in pieces; and what was their surprise; out from its interior poured, in rich profusion, a torrent of rubies, pearls and diamonds. I believe that to be a veritable fact in Indian history. My lord, this Society stands front to front with an idolatry on the shores of India -colossal, gorgeous, and hideous all the time. And imprisoned in that idolatry are souls, gem-like souls, more precious than any rubies, pearls, and diamonds. Now for your muscular Christianity, brethren! (Applause) | 239 Now, smite it on the face! now, hurl it to the ground! and there shall come forth these gem-like things that for the first time shall drink in the rays of the Sun of Righteousness, and then flash them out brightly all the world over. (Applause.) One word more, and I have done If there was ever a year when we should gird ourselves afresh for this missionary enterprise it is this. The year began, as we have been told this morning, with solemn and united prayer. Never can we forget the holy week of the early part of January. This hall was filled with devout and praying souls. The influence spreadspread eastward into the city, even reached the Royal Exchange Men there actually forgot the price of shares in thinking on the worth of souls, and there were gatherings in the heart of this metropolis, and gatherings all round, and we felt how good a thing it was to draw near to God. Wheuce came that impulse? From a little missionary station, the other side of the world-Lodiana. We hardly knew its name; we had hard work in finding it on the map; yet, thence came the whisper across lands and seas, Brethren, pray! brethren, pray!" And WO passed on the whisper until the Church of God rose up in her humility, and yet in her strength; and He who heareth prayer looked down and saw a forest of hands lifted without debate or doubting, aud this was the cry: "Thy kingdom come; Thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven." My friends, that prayer was not unheard; that prayer shall not be unanswered. You may have to wait awhile, but the answer will come. Many a backward spring is followed by an abundant harvest, and as Kirke White says of the early primrose, that spring wrestled with winter, and then threw the primrose on the bank to show that it had got the victory. So now it seems to me the spring of this world's hopes is wrestling with the winter of its desolation; and I! there are the flowers scattered on the bank; and but a little time and the wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad, the desert shall rejoice and blossom as the rose. (Loud applause). 64 RECEIVED ON ACCOUNT OF THE GENERAL BAPTIST MISSIONARY SOCIETY, SPECIAL NOTICE.-The Treasurers and Secretaries of Auxiliary Societies, and Friends having Cash to remit, are reminded that the financial year of the Society is considered as closing on May 31st. It is particularly requested that all sums yet unpaid may be forwarded to the Treasurer, Robert Pegg, Esq, Derby, or to the Secretary, Rev. J. C. Pike, Quorndon, near Loughborough, during the first week of the present month, so that the accounts may be completed for the Annual Meeting The facilities for transmitting cash by Banker's Cheques, Post Office Orders, or half notes in a registered letter, render it unnecessary for any parties to pay in money at the Association, a practice which involves much extra anxiety and labour to the Treasurer and Secretary. |