SPENCER-PLACE CHAPEL, GOSWELL-ROAD, LONDON. On Thursday, December 4th, services were held in this place to publicly recognise as pastor the Rev. J. H. Cook, late of Stepney College. In the morning a prayermeeting was held, when the Rev. C. J. Hall, missionary to China, gave an address. A cold collation was provided at one o'clock, at which about fifty sat down. The afternoon service was commenced by the Rev. A. Thomas, of Islington, with reading and prayer. The Rev. F. Wills, of Kingsgate chapel, stated the nature of a christian church. The Rev. W. Miall, of Dalston, asked the usual questions of the church and pastor, which being answered, the Rev. J. Peacock, for thirty-five years minister of the place, offered prayer. The Rev. J. Angus, D.D., president of Regent's-park College, concluded the service with an appropriate address on the nature and duties of the christian ministry. After a crowded tea-meeting, the Rev. C. Hawson, of Woolwich, opened the evening service with reading and prayer. The Rev. J. Viney, of Bethnal Green, gave an address to the church. The Rev. J. G. Oncken, of Germany, made some statements concerning the condition of the churches there. The Rev. D. Katterns, of Hackney, addressed the general congregation. The Rev. J. Spurgeon concluded with prayer. BROMPTON, MIDDLESEX. On Wednesday, Dec. 3rd, the Onslow Baptist chapel, Brompton, was opened for divine worship by a sermon by the Hon. and Rev. Baptist Noel, M.A. In the after'noon a public meeting was held in the chapel, when the Rev. Mr. Bigwood occupied the chair, and in opening the proceedings expressed the intense pleasure he felt in beholding, as pastor of the church, the opening of the scene of his future labours. Several ministers and gentlemen addressed the meeting, and the proceedings terminated with the usual compliment to the chairman. The Rev. Newman Hall preached in the evening. MINISTERIAL CHANGES. The Rev. S. Davies has resigned the pastorate of the Baptist church, Burtonupon-Trent, and since sailed for the United States of America.-The Rev. Alfred Tilley, of Bridgnorth, has resigned the pastorate of the church in that town and accepted an invitation from the church meeting at Bethany, Cardiff.-The Rev. Chas. T. Keen, jun., is about to resign the charge of the church meeting in the Borough-road chapel, London.-The Rev. George Pope has resigned the pastoral charge of the church at Collingham, after having been there thirty-eight years. His future residence will be Folkestone, in Kent.-The Rev. T. D. Jones, of Blaina, has accepted a unanimous invitation to the pastorate from the church at New Malton, Yorkshire. The Rev. Adolphus Cole, of WestHaddon, Northamptonshire, has accepted the unanimous invitation of the church in Goodall-street, and commences his labours at on the first Sabbath in this month.-Mr. A. Scarr, of Brandon, Suffolk, has accepted the cordial invitation of the church Aylsham, Norfolk, and commences his labours the first Sabbath in this month.-Mr. D. Morgan, after a pastorate of seven years and six months of the church at Horeb, Blaenavon, has accepted a unanimous invitation from the church at the Tabernacle, Pontypool. The undermentioned students of Pontypool Baptist college have accepted cordial and unanimous invitations to the following places, and purpose entering on their labours at the commencement of the year: E. Jenkins, to Madely, Salop; C. Griffiths, to Aberavon, Glamorganshire; J. G. Phillips, to Market Drayton, Salop; S. Nicholas, to Pembrey, Carmarthenshire; D. Evans, to Cymmer, Glamorganshire. Obituary. THE REV. JOHN WILLIAMS, OF RHOS, We regret to announce that the death of the Rev. John Williams, Baptist minister of Rhos and Penycae, Denbighshire, one of the most renowned Biblical scholars of Wales, took place at three o'clock on Saturday morning, Nov. 15th, in the 50th year of his age. When a mere lad he displayed great mental powers, and, unaided, made rapid acquisitions in the classics. This soon awakened the interest of some of the wealthy of his neighbourhood in his favour, who sent him to the Church school at Tamworth, intending to bring him up for the ministry of the Establishment. When he left this school, to the great disappointment of his patrons, he adopted the views of the Nonconformists, and joined the Baptist denomination. He was soon called to the ministry, and served successively the churches at Llansilin, Rhos, and Newtown. He remained about thirteen years at the last place, where he laboured in the pastorate with great assiduity, and in addition to his ministerial labours, made a new translation of the New Testament from Greek into Welsh, which, no doubt, will prove very useful to the people in proportion as its value is appreciated, and which is favourably referred to by the American Bible Union. At the recommendation of his medical adviser he resigned his charge at Newtown about four years ago, and became the pastor of the small churches at Penycae and Rhos, where his health for a time greatly improved. His health again soon declined, and for the last nine months he was continually under medical treatment. At last he fell asleep in Jesus. His end was peace. A large concourse of people attended his funeral, which took place on Wednesday, the 19th Nov. The Revs. D. Evans, R. Ellis, H. W. Hughes, and W. Roberts, officiated on the solemn occasion. Mr. Williams has left a widow and four children to mourn his loss, entirely unprovided for. Efforts are being made to aid them, for which purpose contributions will be received by the Rev. Hugh Jones, Ruthin, Denbighshire. THE CHURCH. "Built upon the foundation of the Apostles and Prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner-stone."-Eph. ii. 20. FEBRUARY, 1857. THE MEMORY OF THE DEAD. A MEDITATION. BY DR. F. A. G. THOLUCK.* "For God is not the God of the dead, but of the living: for all live to him."-Luke xx. 38. In presence of the dead, holier feelings steal over our souls. We even speak more softly, we shrink more from all that is sinful. We feel as if the spirit could not be far distant from its tabernacle. Spirits of the deeply slumbering, ye are not far distant from us. God is a God of the living, and not of the dead: for all live to him. O ye, my beloved ones, who have passed away, be near to me,-be near to me on this day at least, and may your nearness fill my heart with holiest thoughts! What were you to me? Ye made me rich. I live only as I love, and as I am loved in return. Ye loved me, ye pardoned my weakness, gently and kindly ye reproved my lapses, and in loving me, ye exalted all my sensations of life and existence. Oh, how trying it is to be left alone! Yes, possessing you, I was rich indeed; through you I first learned to know aright what my possessions were. The feelings which we deposit in the bosom of a friend, we receive back again a thousand times increased, and even our thoughts seem more clear and pure, when they are reflected from his spirit. How often we have reposed in heart communion, like two canoes gently gliding side by side. How rich were the gifts which the world spread around us, when each one could enjoy what the other had received. But ye have not wholly departed, ye blessed ones. Whatever I have received from you, whatever of yours lives in me, is my own property, and will continue to live within me. And even now, when some good fortune befalls me, when my cheek flushes with joy, my soul heaves with a great thought; or even when my body proves to me my weakness, how often do I say to myself in spirit, just so he would have spoken now, in this way would he have increased my pleasure, supported my feebleness, and in this way even now ye continue to expand, exalt, and bless my life. Perhaps our communion may go further still. If it be undeniable that spirits do not at all times require sensible nearness in order to communicate with one another; if even here among those who are chained to the visible, contact takes place with the far distant, forebodings are awakened in critical moments of life as to that which is about to happen to a friend, may not ye likewise, departed spirits, in hours when your whole souls are directed towards us, strike the tense strings of our hearts and allure forth tones intelligible to us? *From "Stunden Christlicher Andacht." VOL. XI. с Indeed, ye are not so very far removed from us, no ocean lies between us; ye travel on the sunbeams, and are present here-present to the eye of faith. May better worlds than this, where night alternates with the day, ever be your home; yes, your home, but not your bound. I have often found you to be angels to me, even when we yet walked with one another in the garments of the visible, and your eyes like mine were obscured by mist; but now, where no mist any longer clouds your vision, ye, my angels, will descend to me, if it be permitted, whenever you see my foot about to stumble! Surely ye will not be angry with me, if again I indulge the desire that your glorified eyes might be once more turned upon the land of pilgrims which ye have left behind you, and that you were now, as of old, the confident of my little joys and my little sorrows. In time past, how willingly ye left your own employments, and forgot yourselves for others; and now that you are so much more rich in love, ye can do it more completely. Is it not written of the angels, that even in their own untroubled light, they receive accessions of joy from earth's repentant sinners? And you must feel like them. On this day especially, when so many eyes and hearts are looking upwards to the land of the blessed, surely as many eyes, as many hearts, will be looking down! Yes, ye were much to me. I knew not how much, while ye were yet with me, but I know it now. And for this, I thanked not the Giver of All Good, as I thank him now. Yes, to day, my Father and my God, I would desire to offer thee on the altar of love, my most ardent gratitude for all that thou hast given me in my beloved! And what was I to you? Ah, the numberless instances in which man only sees clearly, what he might and ought to have done, when he can do it no longer. When the form is before us, when the arms are extended towards us, when the eye watches over us, it is not then that all which we might be to the beloved object occurs to our minds; but when that form is stretched before us on the bed of death, when the clammy hands are folded over the cold breast, and the eyelids are drawn like a veil-for ever drawn-over the bright and faithful eye,—ah, it all comes to mind then! Yes, when we cannot tell them with what love we have loved them. Now, too, it becomes apparent to me, how much of selfishness there was mingled with my love; and how I loved you more for the sake of my own enjoyment, than to form your happiness. Perhaps it is not all well with some of you! Perhaps it would be better for some of you now, if I had been more faithful in the concerns of your soul's salvation. Oh, when the corpse lies before us, how many are the good words we wish we had said; how many useless, how many evil ones, we wish we could recall. I can speak no more to you now; I can do no more for you. But I know that you cry to me from the eternal world; what thou wouldst do for us, do for those whom we have left behind with thee! Ah, the tears that are shed at the grave mound, do not sink into the sand; they are not lost; no, there are some from which flowers spring forth, and my tears must not sink into the sand. The silence of the grave stills our souls, so that we hear what the spirit of the Lord would say to us; and thus the cold grave itself becomes the birth-place of a new and ardent love. Father of my life, grant that what I have not learned from the living, I may learn from the dead. Teach me to put in exercise a true, an active, a ministering love. We feel existence not merely as we are loved, but likewise as we love. And as the circle of those by whom I am loved becomes more narrow, my love should be drawn towards and con centered on the few that are left. Spirit of Jesus Christ, do thou set me free from that selfish love which seeks its own gratification, and teach me to exercise a love that ministers. When unbridled lamentation is made at the bier of a friend over the loss that has been sustained, is it not a sign that our love is seeking more our own rather than another's good? For if we have loved with a ministering love, we would rejoice to know that a better and a richer love fills the place of our poor love, and shall conduct the dear departed ones into the abodes of everlasting light. Rarely do we feel so much nearness of heart, so strong communion, as when we can say, standing beside the remains of a beloved one, "I have tried to be to you in life all that I could be." What are you now? What are you now, ye departed ones? Many of you, I know full well, are now in peace. My looks follow you as they do the sun, when on a serene evening, the day's work achieved, he sinks behind the mountains. But this I cannot say of you all. And what can I do for you now? Oh, how heavily it now weighs upon my soul, that I did not do for you all that I might have done. Dare I yet pray for you? Although my HEART would do so, surely, O God, my prayers could not set aside the decrees of thy holy wisdom. I will not question thy wise judgments, for I know they are right. I would not question, though thou shouldst condemn myself. Yea, although thou shouldst pronounce upon this one and that one of my loved ones, the sentence, "Thou art weighed in the balance and found wanting," I would not dispute with thee, for thy love is as great as thy righteousness; I would adore. But if it were possible-oh, that it were possible-that, if by thy grace I shall be conducted yonder, I may not miss in thy heaven any one of those whom thou hast given me on thine earth! Oh, if it were possible that those who have gone before me might lead me thither! What courage they would infuse into my timid spirit; how quickly would they make me acquainted with my home-land. Some of you I shall find again; how much will ye have grown since the time when we last met. And will ye not be ashamed of the poor stranger? Ye will not be ashamed to go with me through the resplendent golden streets, and show me her walls and battlements. How happy ye were while here, when ye could exalt the mean, strengthen the strong; ye will not be less happy now in doing the same! If the unveiled light of that sun would blind me, ye will hold your hand before me; if my foot totters, ye will uphold me. Here, in the depths of the valley, we cannot see aright how the pathway leads upon which we are journeying. Yonder, upon the bright mountain heights, it will be all quite plain to us. Communion in the Lord is even now the centre point of all happiness on earth, clouded and interrupted though it be with our faults and without our faults, from within and from without! Now the people of God, who are upon earth, are as it were upon a wide plain, here and there stands a solitary bush, yonder it shall be all forest, tree upon tree, and over all, that sun which never more shall set. THE WORLD'S HATE. BY THE REV. C. BAILRACHE. "Ye shall be hated of all men for my name's sake."-Matt. x. 22. Strange words these: spoken by the Saviour of the world to its best benefactors! Christ has but just commissioned his disciples to go forth into the world, to heal the sick, to cleanse the leper, to cast out devils, to raise the dead,-freely to give what they had freely received; and yet they were to be hated of all men. Their life was to be embodied love,their reward, fierce hate. In their case like should not beget like, but its most cruel and horrible unlike; and as regarded themselves at least, this poor world was to be a type of hell, and its men the likes of fiends, since there was to be no exercise in the world of the simplest, hardiest, most imperative impulse-gratitude: a payment which poor fallen man has never utterly denied to his benefactor, in a scene which, though degraded, has never been without its market for virtue. Strange words: but, alas, too true! These earnest disciples, thus commissioned, went forth: they did their work, and endured their toil, and the record of their sufferings and trials is at hand, to prove that their Master's prophecy realized indeed its dread fulfilment. The fact is perplexing, and one naturally asks "the reason why." Surely these men were not hated because they healed the sick, and cleansed the leper, and cast out devils, and raised the dead? And surely, too, if they had done nothing else, their names had been enrolled high in the records of fame, as the names of "gods come upon earth.' Perhaps so: but look at the narrative for a solution of the difficulty. Before they were commissioned to perform these healing acts, they were told to preach the gospel, and to declare that "the kingdom of heaven was at hand." And because the disciples understood this, and made every other work subservient to the great end of preaching the gospel, therefore they were hated. They healed the sick; but they also told of a sickness of the soul, a moral malady beyond their reach, which the great Physician alone could heal. They cleansed the lepers; but this outward malady was but the type of the leprosy of sin. They cast out devils; but they spoke, too, of passions and impulses, the fiends that rule the heart, and which the finger of God alone can expel. They raised the dead; but physical death was but the symbol of spiritual death. And they declared all this as part of their great mission to the world; while they were to point to the Saviour through whom all its help could come. But, alas, all this was truth which the world would not receive, and repugnant to the heart that is enmity against God. The world, then, rejected these messengers of Christ, not for their deeds of charity, but for sake of Christ's name. Their works would have made them heroes, but their word made them foes! Passing from the history of Christ's disciples in the first century, to that of his followers in the nineteenth, how stands the case in this particular? Are we, too, hated of the world for Christ's sake? and is his strange prophecy true in our case as it was in theirs? In answer to this we may first observe, that if now hatred ever wears the garb of love, and if to hate a man is to smile on him, and heap your favours upon him, then the Christian is far more fatally hated now than he was then; for then the hate he bore was undisguised, now it is insidious and masked. But it is not so. The world is not hypocritical to such an extent. True, it has not the old and bloody means of venting hate that it once used, but it has thousands besides, and there is no mistaking the use of any. The conclusion, then, seems to be, that whatever may have been the case with the first disciples of Christ, we, their followers, are not hated of the world. Things, then, have materially changed their aspect; and another question we have to ask is how this is to be accounted for. It is possible that this cessation of the world's hate is the result of a closer approximation of the world to the church; that perhaps men generally have become more imbued with the spirit of Christianity; that the principles of the gospel enter more largely than they did into the |