denominations, was commemorated by appropriate religious services on Sunday last, (Jan. 31st); Mr. Jay himself preaching in the morning; and the Rev. T. East, of Birmingham, in the evening; and on Tuesday morning, a breakfast was given at the Upper Rooms, by the ladies of Argyle Chapel; on which occasion there was presented to this venerated minister a suitable testimonial of affection and esteem, from his church and people, and other members of the religious public, who appreciated his worth and excellence. The festival was concluded by a very gratifying meeting in Argyle Chapel, on Tuesday evening, when the juvenile members of the congregation presented their offerings to their venerable pastor. On Sunday, Mr. Jay delivered an admirable discourse from the appropriate text, "What is our hope, or joy, or crown of rejoicing? Are not even ye in the presence of our Lord Jesus Christ at his coming!" The testimonial consisted of an elegant silver salver, and a purse containing £650. The salver was inclosed in a beautiful purple velvet bag, richly ornamented with silver cord and tassels; the purse corresponded with it. They were presented by the chairman, H. Godwin, Esq., who delivered them with a most appropriate and feeling address. The offering of the juvenile members of the congregation consisted of a beautiful small silver salver, and a gold medal. Each of the salvers was engraved witth a suitable inscription.-Wilts Independent.

ACADEMIC HONOURS.

The Rev. Ebenezer Henderson, Dr. Ph., and Theological Tutor at Highbury College, has recently received from the University of Copenhagen a diploma of Doc. of Divinity, couched in terms highly honourable to our learned friend. The University of Amhurst, Massachusetts, has also conferred the same distinction upon him.

We are happy to announce, that at the last meeting of the Senate of the University of Glasgow, the Degree of Doctor in Laws was conferred upon the Rev. R. Alliott, of this town. The high honours which he took while a student of that University, and the excellent testimonials awarded to him by the professors under whom he studied, show that this distinction is indeed well merited by our townsman.— Nottingham Mercury.

BRIEF NOTES ON PASSING EVENTS.

The FOREIGN RELATIONS of our country happily retain that pacific aspect they began to assume last month, though some rash proceedings in the State of New York towards a British officer, Mr. M'Leod, have excited much uneasiness on both sides of the Atlantic.

At HOME-the Princess Royal has been christened by the Archbishop of Canterbury, with water" that came from the river Jordan, having been sent to her Majesty as a present for this special occasion." We recollect some years ago Viscount Chautebriand presented a similar supply for the christening of the little Duke of Bourdeaux, which seemed natural enough amongst Roman Catholics, but we confess our regret, that sanction should be given to such a superstitious preference, by the Primate of England.

All the friends of religion and humanity have been grieved at the result of the trial of the Earl of Cardigan for duelling, at the bar of the House of Lords, which was allowed to go off upon a point totally irrelevant to the merits of the case; and after the Attorney General had given utterance to sentiments concerning the crime for which the Earl was arraigned, which rendered the whole proceeding injurious rather than beneficial to the public mind.

The church and law courts have been engaged in several cases, that deeply affect our interests as Dissenters.

The Wesleyan Methodists having at length been roused by the clerical insolence and outrage of the Rev. F. S. Escott, vicar of Gidney, in refusing to bury a child that had

been baptized by a Wesleyan minister, have brought the question before the Court of Arches. Sir Herbert Jenner has not yet pronounced judgment, but the pleadings are highly interesting, and we hope will be published in full. Dr. Phillimore stated, that "many clergymen, most excellent men, felt themselves bound by their ordination oath to refuse burials" in such circumstances, and raised an objection against the suitors as being in schism, and therefore ipso facto excommunicated, and consequently incapable of prosecuting other in an ecclesiastical court !

Lord Denman has pronounced judgment against the guardians of the Braintree Union, who refused to appoint a chaplain to their poor-houses. He maintained, that "a chaplain" was included in the term "officers," and that the commissioners were right in enforcing the appointment. Will the Dissenters of England quietly submit to the charge of providing a clergyman for every union poor-house throughout the empire? How will this work in the union houses of Ireland, where almost every pauper is a Catholic?

The judges of the court of Exchequer Chamber have pronounced their judgment upon the writ of error against the Queen's Bench, in the celebrated suit on the Braintree church-rates, Burder v. Valey, and have affirmed the judgment of the court below. Still their decision, marked by cautious reserve and various exceptions, shows how important and necessary it is that that vexatious question should be finally determined by some equitable legislative enactment.

In SCOTLAND, the nominee of the patron has been ordained at Marnoch, in the face of the indignant protest of the elders, and all the heads of families in the parish, who left the church in one body, while the farce of ordination proceeded amidst a scene of riot and uproar that beggars description, and which only an armed police force could restrain. Happy union of church and state, truly!

The progress of national education in IRELAND, we are glad to find, will not be disturbed by the authority of the pope, the court of Rome having determined that each Roman Catholic bishop in Ireland shall be at liberty to act according to his own judgment in his own diocese, and shall not be permitted to disturb that of others, by his own opinions.

ANSWERS TO CORRESPONDENTS.

Favours have been received from the Rev. Drs. Fletcher-Matheson-Hendersonand Davidson.

From the Rev. Messrs. O. T. Dobbin-R. Slate-W. Walford-R. Ashton-J. Peggs-H. Rogers-J. H. Godwin-B. Brook-A. Wells-A. J. Morris-J. Sutcliffe -Joseph Morrison-T. James.

And also from Messrs. Joseph Blower-J. C. Harrison-J. E. Ryland—J. Wilson— W. Stroud, Esq., M.D.

Senex-D.G.

Anna Maria is very angry with our Reviewer of Dr. Bennett's work on justification, for saying that "the Defender of the Faith is—a woman!" (page 41.)

We can assure our fair correspondent that the sentence which has given her so much offence was penned by one who is conscientiously loyal to his Sovereign, and who has ever shown a manly devotedness to her sex, but who believes that the position which that illustrious Lady occupies in the church of England, is not according to the word of God. If Anna Maria will consult 1 Timothy, 2. 12, 1 Cor. 14. 34, 35, and then inquire what church authority her Majesty possesses, she may discover that there are Scriptural reasons, reasons which led some of the early Independents to sacrifice their lives, for speaking of such claims in terms which she calls "very reprehensible and indecorous."

"The Critical Inquiry on Baptism," will be resumed in our next.

THE

CONGREGATIONAL MAGAZINE.

APRIL, 1841.

BRIEF NOTICE OF THE REV. H. W. GARDINER, M. A., LATE OF BARNSTAPLE, DEVON.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE CONGREGATIONAL MAGAZINE.

DEAR SIR,-Many of the readers of your miscellany will, I am persuaded, gladly peruse a brief notice of my deceased friend, the Rev. H. W. Gardiner, of Barnstaple, who died on the 21st of December last, at his house in Newport, near Barnstaple. I regret that the notice must be very scanty, as there are no materials for making it otherwise; my friend having left no memoranda available for the purpose. Many solicitations were made to him by his family, without success, to draw up a memorial of himself, and he even declined to dictate a short sketch of his life, though it was pressed upon him that his friends were earnestly desirous of it.

My acquaintance with Mr. Gardiner commenced in the year 1798, when we both were engaged as Congregational ministers in the county of Suffolk; my friend at Southwold, and myself at Stowmarket. In 1799, I removed to Yarmouth, in Norfolk, a change which brought us. nearer to each other, Southwold being but twenty miles distant from Yarmouth. This contiguity of abode was favourable to frequent interviews, and our intimacy gradually grew into friendship, founded on a similarity of judgment and taste, respecting the most important themes on which considerate men think and converse. Our friendship was disinterested and unreserved, never, for a moment interrupted or abated, during more than forty years, and was a source of the purest satisfaction to me, and, as I have full reason to believe, not less so to him.

Mr. Gardiner resided at Southwold eight or nine years, when he was induced to relinquish his connexion with his congregation, by the

injurious effects of the severe winters of Southwold on his health; the town, which is situated on the verge of the German Ocean, being exposed, without shelter, to north-east winds, and extremely bleak through the greater part of the year. During his residence at this place, a considerable increase of attendants, and of general improvement, resulted from his exertions; while, by his courteous, affable, and amiable conduct, he became greatly endeared, not only to his congregation, but to the inhabitants at large, and to an extensive circle of acquaintances and friends, in several parts of the county, and the adjacent one of Norfolk. His removal was the cause of great regret to myself, and to many mutual friends; as he was ever ready to engage in the intercourse of friendship, and to unite in devising and executing plans which were adapted to promote religious improvement, among both the ministers and congregations of the vicinity.

From a communication lately made to me by his family, I ascertain, that his father was an officer in the army, that he was born at Edinburgh, in February, 1767, and that it was his father's intention for him to engage in the military profession. This project was defeated by his becoming, at an early period of his life, powerfully influenced by the supreme importance of religion; and he consequently determined to devote himself to the Christian ministry. With this view, he completed a course of theological, and other studies, in the University of Edinburgh, and took the degree of M.A. Very soon afterwards he married, but lost his wife, who died in giving birth to a son, who survived his mother but a few months.

In consequence, I believe, of this bereavement, he left Scotland in the year 1793, with an intention of becoming the minister of a Dissenting congregation at Newcastle, to which office he had received an invitation. Why this intention was abandoned, I am unable to say; but I know, that shortly afterwards he came into Suffolk, and was settled at Southwold. About the time of his leaving that place, he entered again into the conjugal relation with a widow lady of Ipswich, a woman of sincere piety, and active in the performance of the good works which are appropriate to the wife of a Christian pastor. Soon after this union was formed, he accepted an invitation to become the minister of a Congregational church at Barnstaple, in the north of Devon. He held this office about thirty years, with great acceptance, and very considerable usefulness. I visited him twice during this period; and on both occasions he became my conductor to several enchanting scenes in the north of Devon. I saw him several times at my own abode, in Yarmouth, and subsequently at Homerton. In every instance I found him unchanged; he continued to be the same kind and engaging person which I had ever known him. At the commencement of a condition of extreme nervous depression, under which I suffered the most intense agony, he spontaneously left his home, in the depth of a severe

winter, and travelled two hundred miles, with a hope that I should return with him to Devonshire, to try the influence which change of place, new scenes, cheerful converse, and most tender sympathy, might exert upon my morbid sensations. His kindness proved abortive, as I was utterly unable to accompany him, and I mention the occurrence only to illustrate the warmth of his disinterested and generous affections.

In the course of Mr. Gardiner's residence and ministry at Barnstaple, he, a second time, experienced the bereavement occasioned by the loss of his consort, who left him solitary, having had no child. Some years after he entered, a third time, into the state of wedlock, with a lady who is now his mourning widow. At the expiration of the term that has been mentioned, he became conscious of a somewhat declining ability for the performance of three public services on the Lord's day, to which he had invariably attended: and as he conceived that no one of them could be discontinued, without injury to the welfare of the congregation, he resolved to resign his charge, rather than to persevere in it, with diminished application and energy. He then entered into an engagement with the Hibernian Society, to travel on its behalf; in pursuance of this engagement, he traversed England, Scotland, and Ireland, during, I think, seven or eight years, sometimes in company, and at others alone. This species of labour, though any thing but inconsiderable in amount, proved much less oppressive both to body and mind, than the ceaseless occupations of the pastoral office. The constant succession of fresh scenes, the ever-changing social intercourse which it involved, and the influence of rapid movement through rural districts, and an uncontaminated atmosphere, generated healthy feelings, and added vigour to the frame which had been impaired by a long continuance of exertions which, however pleasing and beneficial, weaken the springs of life, and exhaust the energies of the strongest men. My friend continued his services to the Hibernian Society until he was admonished by increasing years and diminishing ability, that it was time to recede. He then retired to his peaceful abode at Newport, a village half a mile from Barnstaple, where he had many agreeable friends, who loved and revered him, and derived great pleasure from his society. He still continued to preach occasionally and gratuitously, in the neighbourhood, till within a year or two before his decease, when he almost, if not entirely, discontinued these services.

In the month of July, previous to his death, I spent eight or ten days with him, and we revisited some of the exquisite and romantic scenery which abounds in the north of Devon, on the banks of the Bristol Channel. He derived much gratification from our excursions, as he was, apparently, free from disease, quite alive to the charms of nature, and as able to receive and to communicate the delights of unreserved and friendly converse, as at any former period. When I bid him adieu,