Correspondence.-Union of General and Particular Baptists. 421 We and that experience was a good teacher, I man' seems to have got a stock of old but we did not know that these things crotchets on haud, and he finds his lay at the root of our disunion. Live brethren will not have them at any and learn' is a good rule. We are price, and therefore they are narrowassured that our distinctive principles minded, wanting in catholicity of spirit would have increased influence, if it and seek to explain away what they do were shown, that along with a deter- not like. The union of the two bodies minate will to uphold all the institutions would not in itself draw any nearer of the gospel in their integrity, we were churches in the same town, for each yet a body distinguished for catholicity section has churches in some towns as of spirit, and a willingness to leave isolated as if they belonged to quite every man uutrammelled, and free to different bodies. Your business man' receive and appropriate truth wherever seems well satisfied with his name, it might be found. But why speak of and closes by saying, I conclude the influence of principles and of our we are not right in maintaining our determination to uphold all the in- isolation. If we are, let those who stitutions of the gospel in integrity, if think so justify themselves.' personal preferences, exclusive fellow should rather say, 'let those who adship, and it always was so,' lie at the vocate the change, adduce adequate root of our disunion.' What a chaos! reasons for it.' We exist as a distinct Well, never mind the position of our body. We have gradually progressed, principles; we have them, not at the and are doing so still. We have a large root it seems, but at the top of the tree: amount of property in chapels and still we have them; but then we are schools. We have no reason to be narrow-minded, wanting in catholicity ashamed of our intelligence, or our of spirit, and will not leave every man social position. We can not only untrammelled and free. Certainly not. stand, but walk alone. What then, we There can be no such thing as absolute ask, is the nature of the proposed freedom either in civil or religious union. How far is it to go? What are society. We cannot indeed prevent the advantages contemplated? These any man from appropriating what he are questions which require a definite may consider to be truth, but if we answer. What is to be the nature of consider it to be error, we can admonish the union? One Lord, one faith, one him, we can warn others, and if the baptism, says your correspondent. Is case require it, we can withdraw from the belief of the two bodies the same? him. He may tell us we are narrow- Ours has not changed. Has the other? minded, but there is really no help for We are often told they are coming over him in society. If he wishes to be to us; but have they come? What we absolutely free, he must become a want is documentary proof. Can that Robinson Crusoe. Then, seated on his be furnished? We think not. We solitary rock, he may chant all day are told by a business man,' that 'no long, and from January to December, question of principle separates us if it pleases him, Baptists, and that no question of practical Christian obedience demands it; but what the case requires is proof. Till that is given, little progress will be made. Would the Rev. James Smith endorse the assertion, no 'principle separates us Baptists?' If no question of Christian obedience demands separation, what shall be said of those churches in the Particular Baptist body,which not long ago formed a separate association on a question of Christian obedience? If they are not united among themselves, by what power is a cordial union to be formed between them and us? Then, we I am Monarch of all I survey, The proposed union would, it is said, bring us nearer the truth. What truth? And we should then have 'less of that unworthy heresy, (is there some worthy heresy?) which seeks to explain away what it does not like.' Sir, we wish to enter our strong protest against this uncharitable and unjust reflection. Mistaken we may be in some of our views of truth, but not untrue, not dishonest. No man has a right to say we do not like truth. A business should be glad to be informed how far the union is to go. Are our institutions to be absorbed? If we cease to be General Baptists, how will that bear on our Trust Deeds? And what is the world to gain as the result of the union? To us, with our present light, it seems that the union must be effected virtually before it is formally. That any attempt to force the union before the churches are ripe for it, by a formal vote of the Association, would be most disastrous in its consequences, and that the best, in fact, the only thing which can be done at present is for the two bodies to act together when necessary on public questions, exchange kind sentiments and manifest a Christian spirit. I should not have written upon this subject had I not smarted under the lash of a business man,' who I suspect after all is not a layman; and I think it is but just that the man who takes the rod should give his name. RICHARD HARDY. Queenshead. MR. MEE, OF PACKINGTON. To the Editor of the General Baptist DEAR SIR,-Thinking the following information may be interesting to your readers, I send it for insertion. be terrible work in the afternoon! The writer has beard him say, that in the hottest of engagements, (for he was with Nelson at the battle of Copenhagen, the Nile, and Trafalgar.) these words sounded in his ears, Take care and meet me in the morning of the resurrection; for there will be terrible work in the afternoon.' The writer has reason to believe, that be died with a good hope of meeting his father in the morning of the resurrec tion. Francis Mee, the other son, removed when a young man, to Smalley, in Derbyshire, and there for more than forty years, faithfully preached the gospel. He died in June 1850, leaving two sons, one of whom is the present pastor of the General Baptist Church, Isleham, Cambridgeshire. After the fathers shall come up the children.' ADVANTAGES OF THE WEEKLY To the Editor of the General Baptist DEAR SIR,-I have been hoping some Thomas Mee, of Packington, the individual referred to in the last month's Magazine, in the Historical sketch of the Church at Melbourne, by Mr. Gill, was by trade a hatter. Going out one day into his garden from his work, he took cold, and lost the use of his limbs. From that period he gave up his business, and taught a day school, and for several years the friends used to draw him in a small carriage to the meetinghouse, where he sat and preached unto them the gospel of Christ. He had two sons, one of whom went to sea; and a striking and remarkable charge he gave to him before leaving the parental roof, proved the means of his conversion thirty years after. Tom,' he said, when bidding him farewell, I shall never see you again in this world. Take care and meet me in the morning of the resurrection; for there willment of a tax in the form of a seat-rent. 1. It tends greatly to promote the benevolent principle. Its exercise in voluntarily offering to the Lord a small acknowledgment for his daily goodness, gives joy and satisfaction, and is vastly different in its influence to the pay Correspondence.-Farewell Letter from Rev. D. M. Graham. 423 2. The church is more easily maintained in a spiritual and healthy state. Under the old system how many of our members are lost, when seasons of poverty come upon them, and they cannot meet the quarterly demand for seat rent, subscription, &c. The result is, absence from the means,' loss of interest in the cause,' and often as a consequence, declension, and entire loss of religion. Is it not so? 3. The Weekly Offering brings into immediate exercise the principles of Christian benevolence, while the heart is, under the influence of its first love, and the habit of giving to support the cause of Christ is formed under the most favourable circumstances. It is our usual plan to present to each candidate for baptism, a packet of thirteen envelopes, with a few suitable remarks on their duty and obligations in this matter. 3. In large places of worship, it might perhaps be requisite to appoint two brethren to the several divisions of the chapel, to collect every Sabbath evening the envelopes, and book them at their convenience on the following day. 4. We find the Deacon's Account Book,' printed by Judd and Glass, London, which may be obtained through any bookseller, very convenient. Mr. W. Bennett, Grocer, Derby, keeps a stock of envelopes on hand, at four shillings a thousand. I name these matters for the consideration of the churches, in the hope the system may become universally adopted. I remain, very sincerely, yours, J. E. FAREWELL LETTER FROM REV. D. M. GRAHAM. Britain. 4. It saves an immense amount of trouble and annoyance in having to go round with collecting books, and call- To the General Baptists of Great ing on friends, perhaps several times, before the money can be obtained, and sometimes from a grudging heart. It does away with quarterly collections, seat rents, and all other subscriptions, for our own cause. Seats are taken as usual, but the amount given is left to the voluntary principle. 5. It is the Primitive and Scriptural method on the first day of the week, to appropriate a certain portion of one's comings in, to the service of God, and is, in all cases, when conscientiously and properly carried out, immensely more advantageous in a pecuniary sense. As to the mode of carrying out the plan 1. By all means don't attempt it without the envelope, and a regular register of the monies given. To do otherwise would open a door for inconsistent and unprincipled members, being admitted to all the privileges of church fellowship at the expense of their more worthy friends. 2. Let suitable receiving boxes be fixed conveniently at each of the entrances to the chapel, and let them be so made and fixed as to be an ornament, rather than otherwise, with Weekly Offering neatly printed over them. DEAR BRETHREN,-It was my privilege to step upon your shores for the first time, the first day of last June. A few days later it was my privilege to present to your Association, at Wisbech, my credentials as deputation from the Free-will Baptists of America. In the name of the sixty thousand Christians, whose humble representative I am, I most heartily thank you, brethren, for the Christian welcome you have given me in your Association, in your churches, and in your homes. This is not the language of empty compliment; nor is it the language of one who accepts these attentions as bestowed upon himself, as an individual, and not as the representative of a band of noble Christians in a kindred nation beyond the Atlantic. But, personally, I have many kind attentions to remember to a dying day; still this is hardly the place to speak of them. one In following out the plan suggested by a committee appointed by your Association, it has been my privilege to address public audiences over hundred and twenty times. My regret is, that I cannot visit every one of your churches. Especially do I regret that 424 Correspondence.-Farewell Letter from Rev. D. M. Graham. I have been obliged to omit the churches at Louth, and others it was in the plan for me to visit. I may be allowed to mention with gratitude to God, that notwithstand ing this service, I have now the pros pect of returning to my native land in better health than that in which I left it last May. The General Baptists of this country, and the Free-will Baptists of America, are one people. One in views of Divine truth, one in the nature of their organization, one in spirit, and I may add, one in defects, as well as one in things to be praised and admired. It will not be in vain to continue our exchange of deputations, if it shall serve in any good degree to make us conscious of our real unity, aud if in the strength imparted by that consciousness, we duly address ourselves to the work of augmenting our graces and diminishing our defects. Such, most certainly, has been the tendency in the past, and I see no reason why it may not become more potent in this direction in the future. Allow me, therefore, brethren, to unite my request with that presented in the letter I brought from the American brethren, that you send us a deputation in 1862, to attend the next session of our General Conference. Two things demand our special attention, if I may now speak of ourselves as one people. The first is, increased facilities in theological training. On both sides, a good beginning has been made, but nothing adequate to our means, and, therefore, to the call of God upon us, has been done. More akin to the defect hinted than many at first would think, is our inadequate support of Home Missions. We act as if it were a sin to put our light upon a candlestick, or thrust our leaven into the meal. To me, after long reflection, it is evident that at tention to these two things is no more and no less than the question of denominational existence. In other defects, we only share the common infirmities of denominations; in these we are on both sides of the Atlantic, pre-eminent, if one may so speak of any thing so sad. We must go for ward, or I believe God will remove our candlestick out of its place. In my remarks upon the cause of Home Missions, I, of course, particularly allude to our duty to plant churches in the larger cities. Not that I would forget churches in smaller places, but that the only way of preserving them also, is to go forward; that in a day not far distant, the city's churches may with filial gratitude save the life of those that soon must otherwise perish. It is not so much with the bope of remedying these evils that I take the unseemly liberty of thus speaking of them, as it is, I feel, that without so doing, I would suffer in my conscience as an evil-doer. On the great subject of the Temperance cause, I have frankly spoken, and I would not by the brevity of this allusion here, have any think I feel the responsibility for the testimony of the church on this subject, is less than I have everywhere declared among you. I thank you for the candour and patience with which you have listened to my views, however diverse from your own. It would be violence to the best feelings of my nature, to close even this hasty note without an allusion to generous freewill offerings you have made, and propose to make, for three years to come, to aid that feeble band of brethren in New York city, to maintain the cause at a point where the interests of our people on both sides of the water so manifestly meet. Allow me to mention, that as that cause is the child of our Home Mission Society, your generosity to it is an act of taking each one of our sixty thousand by the hand and bidding him be of good cheer in attempting to remedy one of the great evils I have before spoken of. As the appeal of the sainted Sutton once aroused us to Our own duty in Foreign Missions, so I believe your present act will be blessed to the mutual good of giver and receiver. It is perhaps not too much to hope that if, by united help, we succeed in a point so difficult as New York, we shall come to feel that nothing, under God, is too hard for us to undertake. It is by no means too great a thing for our Heavenly Father to bless this co-operation to sustain such a point to Intelligence.-Conferences. the inauguration of an era of great usefulness in our conscious fellowship in the kingdom and patience of our Lord. There only remains for me the hard duty of saying farewell, which word I write with a depth of emotion I cannot describe. When most of you read this, I shall be in the midst of my homeward voyage. It is a comfort to me, at this hour, to believe the prayers of genuine Christians will follow even so humble an individual as writes these words. In memory I shall often live over my joyous experiences with you 80 long as memory performs her functions. Brethren, farewell. God's choicest blessings be upon you. God's choicest blessings be with your nation and mine, that we always dwell together in unity. Address me, till further informed, at No. 13, Horatio-street, New York, U.S. I remain in Christ, dear Brethren, Your humble servant, D. M. GRAHAM. London, Oct. 19, 1860. 425 our highly-esteemed brother was unable to prepare, in time for this Magazine, the promised list of donations and subscriptions in aid of the noble brethren in New York. It will appear in the December number. Our brother sailed from Liverpool on Wednesday, October 24, and is followed by the earnest prayers of many thousand hearts for his safe return to his country, his brethren and his home. Every reader will say 'Amen' to the fervent wishes with which the above letter closes. We rejoice to be able to add, that our brother has promised occasionally to speak to us through the pages of this Magazine. May God bless abundantly the efforts made by brother Graham to draw still nearer together the General Baptists in this country and in the United States and Canada.-ED.] ERRATUM. In the September number, page 334, first column, twentythird line from the bottom, for also called Antipater,' read son of Anti [Owing to the press of business just before leaving our shores for America, | pater.' CONFERENCES. Intelligence. THE LINCOLNSHIRE CONFERENCE was held at Coningsby, on Thursday, September 27th, 1860. In the morning, brother Matthews preached from John vi. 55. The Secretary preached in the evening. At the meeting in the afternoon, from the reports presented, we learned that twenty-six had been baptized since the last Conference, and that seven remained candidates for baptism. We much regretted that an unusual number of the churches neither sent representatives nor reports. A full account having been given of the present state of the church at Lincoln, it was resolved, That we thankfully receive the report of the success which has attended the efforts |