donations, collections, and bequests, which, when its operations are practically shown, cannot but be anticipated, it would be a moderate computation to suppose its capital will soon be 1000l. which, in the period specified (24 years) will place at the disposal of the denomination a sum of 10,000l. for the repairs, enlargement, and increase of its places of worship; and should the thoughtful friend pursue his calculations still further, he will be gratified to find how large a capital would be at this society's controul in the course, of 30 or 40 years. And as we are now reaping the advan tages of our forefathers' exertions in the cause of religious liberty, we may indulge the pleasing prospect of our children's children enjoying the benefits of our liberality. It is ardently hoped, therefore, that many churches will be inclined to enter with zeal into the design. All communications addressed, free of expense, to the Secretary, 36, Hunter Street, will be immediately attended to; or to either of the Committee, to whom the enquirers may be known. J. Marshall, Esq. Treasurer. Mr. R. Nichols Mr. C. Cadby Mr. S. Cadby Mr. S. Keene Mr. T. Mason. Mr W. Napier Cheltenham .... Abingdon Tewkesbury Evesham Stow on the Wold. .. 12 ... 11. 11 ... 10 10 0 10 8022064 6000060 2 6 The annual sermons for the Baptist mission in London will be preached, (Providence permitting,) on Wednes day the 24th of June, by the Rev. S. Saunders, of Frome; and the Rev. F. A. Cox, of Hackney. The morning service at the Methodist Chapel, Great Queenstreet; and the evening at Sion Chapel. Other particulars in our next. The anniversary of the Bedfordshire Union of Christiaus will be held at Bur ford on Wednesday, May 20, when Mr. Thorpe, of Bristol, and Mr. Hobson, of Malden, are expected to preach. The next meeting of the Bucks and Herts Association will be held at Risborough, on Wednesday, May 27; service to begin at 10 o'clock. Anniversary at Harrow on the Hill.— On Whit Monday, May 11, 1818, two sermons will be preached: that in the morning by the Rev. James Elvey, of Fetter-lane; and that in the afternoon by the Rev. William Farmer, of Henley, Staffordshire. Services to begin at halfpast ten in the morning, and at three in the afternoon. The Chapel for Seamen, moored near Wapping Old Stairs, will be opened on Monday, May 4; when two sermons will be preached on board-that in the morning by the Rev. Rowland Hill, and that in the afternoon by the Rev. T. Roberts, of Bristol. The services will commence at eleven in the morning and three in the afternoon. The eleventh annual meeting of the London Female Penitentiary will be held at Freemasons' Hall, Great QueenBroadmead, Bristol ........ 14 4 0 street, Lincoln's-inn-fields, on Monday, ........ May 11. Charles Grant, Esq. M. P. is expected to take the chair, at twelve o'clock at noon precisely. The Protestant Union for the Protection of Religious Liberty will be held at half-past ten, Saturday, May 16, at the Albion Tavern, Bishopsgate-street. The Society for the Relief of Superannuated Baptist Ministers will hold their annual meeting at Bristol, on Wednesday, June 10, when the Rev. John Foster will preach on the occasion. In the interim, the beneficiary members, annual subscribers, and congregations, who are disposed to aid the funds of the society by a collection, are respectfully requested to pay their several subscriptions and collections member of the Committee, who are de to any sired to remit all sums received on account of the Society to the Secretary, the Rev. J. P. Porter. The first public meeting of the General Wesleyan Missionary Society will be held in the City-road chapel, London, on Monday, May 4.-The religious services connected with this meeting are as follow: On Friday, May 1, at eleven o'clock in the forenoon, the Rev. Adam Clarke, L. L. D. will preach in Great Queen-street chapel.-In the evening, at half past six, the Rev. Thomas Roberts, of Bath, will preach at Hinde street chapel, Manchester-square. And on Monday evening, May 4, at seven, the Rev. Robert Newton, of Liverpool, will preach in the City road chapel.-Collections, in aid of the foreign Missions, carried on under the direction of the Wesleyan Methodists, will be made after each of the sermons, and at the public meetings both of the Auxiliary Society and of the General Society. On Sunday, May 3, sermons will be preached, and the usual annual collections for the above-mentioned Missions will be made, in all the chapels of the Wesleyan Methodists in the London circuits. The annual meeting of the Church Missionary Society will be held May 5, at the Freemasons' Tavern, chair to be taken at two o'clock.-Sermon at St. Ann's, Blackfriars, Professor Farish, of Cambridge. The annual meeting of the Bible Society will be held, May 6, at the same place; chair taken at 12 o'clock. London Missionary Society.-13th, sermons at Surry chapel in the morning, Tabernacle in the evening.-14th, Tot tenham Court.-Ministers: Messrs. R. Wardlaw, of Glasgow; William Cooper, of Dublin, and Johnstone, of Edinburgh. The Sunday School Union, the Tract Society, and the Hibernian Society, hold their meetings on the mornings of Wed. of the same week, at seven o'clock, at nesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday the City of London Tavern, Bishopsgate street. Poetry. THE RETURNING BACKSLIDER. Oh the pains of once backsliding, From the Saviour's easy yoke; Always follows dreadful chiding; All our peace must long be broke. Satan tempts to shrink from duty, Or commit some direful sin; Points us out in haste its beauty, Then succeeds assent to win. Lest we should his end discover, He the evil hides from view, Tells us " pleasures round it hover, Present pleasures are but few.” Thus he leads to sin's commission, Ere the consequence we weigh, But 'tis comfort's abolition ; Peace will now no longer stay. Conscience home the matter bringing, Fills the heart with poignant grief; Yet it will not cease from stinging, Nor admit the least relief. God our former help in trouble, Grants no more a cheering smile; Frowning makes the anguish double, Nor can ought the pain beguile. Satan, ere the foul transaction, Cloth'd the sin in beauteous dress; But amidst the soul's distraction, He upbraiding adds distress. If within our eyes be turning, There's a heart as hard as stone; Once with love to Jesus burning, Now completely callous grown. Fears of hell the soul tormenting, Who this agony can bear? Doubts of e'er aright repeating, What can follow but despair? Pious youth the Saviour loving, Shun the first approach of sin; dread the Lord's removing, Keep your garments white and clean Though you now enjoy the morning, If you Sin may soon becloud your day; Take, Oh take, this dear bought warning, And for him who warns you pray. DESERTOR MISER Baptist Magazine. JUNE, 1818. MEMOIR OF THE LATE REV. THOMAS LITTLEWOOD, WE are sorry that our materials for composing a memoir of this excellent and useful man, are so few. In a book found among his papers, containing the diary of a few weeks, written nearly two years ago, he mentions his hav ing kept a diary for years, but which he had since destroyed.He expresses his regret at having destroyed it. We express our regret on the same occasion, as all the hope of becoming acquainted with the exercises of his mind in general, as also in the most interesting periods of his life, cherished by his family and friends, are hereby extinguished. Nor can we omit to avail ourselves of this opportunity of expressing our earnest wish, that good men would not be so unkind to their surviving friends, and to the religious public, as to destroy the private annals of their own lives. Let them occasionally peruse them, and expunge what may be improper to be made public; but let them not destroy them altogether. For though we readily admit, that motives arising from modesty and humility, may have led some good men to such a measure, we cannot but think it, VOL. X. upon the whole, indefensible. Had Brainard, or Edwards, or Whitfield, or others we could name, done so, of how much good would the ministers and friends of evangelical truth have been deprived! But from the materials we have, we draw up the following ac count: Mr. Littlewood was born at Lidget, near Clayton, a village in the parish of Bradford, in Yorkshire, on the 17th day of March, in the year 1753. Of his childhood and youth, few particulars worthy of notice have transpired. His parents, though not opulent, were in respectable and comfortable circumstances. His father died when he was seven years of age. He had as good an education as the circumstances of his parents enabled them to give him, and his future prospects seemed to require. It did not go beyond that of writing, arithmetic, and book-keeping; in which branches he made a much greater proficiency than most of his equals. He was bred up to the worsted manufactory, the trade of the neighbourhood in which he resided; and afterwards engaged in the business of a woolstapler, In the year 1778, he 2 D married Anna, the daughter of Mr. Thomas Thornton, a very respectable manufacturer in the neighbourhood, who died at the advanced age of 95 years, in the month of February, 1816. At the time of his marriage, Mr. Littlewood was a wool-stapler; but being brought into considerable difficulties, by the fraudulent proceedings of some impostors in London, who professed to lend money on bond security, he relinquished that employment. This event, though painful in itself, was productive of very happy consequences, and led on to the most important affairs of his life. tifies it, and its general contents indicate that it was written about this time. In it he bewails him. self as one who had long strove against conviction, and sinned against light and knowledge; bemoans his hardness of heart; seems to apprehend his case to be singular; and expresses his fears that such a sinner as he, was, most probably, beyond the reach of mercy. We are sorry we have no means of tracing the progress of his convictions, nor any particular information of the time or means of his relief. He himself, as has been above related, destroyed his own private memorandums; and all his religious associates, at that period of his life, have been since removed to an eternal world: nor was he much in the habit of relating to any of his younger friends the details of those early days, owing to a great degree of diffidence which attended him through life. Most probably, the ministry of Mr. Crabtree was the means of his relief. He however did not make a public profession of reli The father and mother of Mr. Littlewood were members of the Baptist church at Bradford, as was also his step-father, Mr. William Pritchard, to whom his mother was married some time after his father's death. He had therefore the advantage of a religious education, and was, from his early years, brought up under the ministry of the venerable Mr. Crabtree, the pastor of the church, of which his parents were mem-gion until he removed to Rochbers. But though his general de- dale. Thither he went in the year portment was blameless, and he 1780, in consequence of an ap was, at times, the subject of those plication from Thomas Smith, transient impressions not uncom- Esq. an opulent manufacturer, mon to young persons in his cir- who resided in the vicinity of that cumstances, there is reason to town. Mr. Smith concluding think that the great change did from his hand writing, which not take place until his twenty- was very fair, and from other inseventh year, and that the diffi- dications of a superior mind, that culties into which he was plunged, the humble situation he then ocabove referred to, were the means cupied was beneath what he ought the blessed God saw fit to em- to fill, engaged him in his own ploy in effecting that change.-employ, and placed him as prinIn it the exercises of his mind were very painful, as appears from a letter found among the papers of the late Dr. Fawcett. This letter is without a date, and has no name subjoined to it; but the hand writing sufficiently iden cipal clerk in his counting-house. In this situation, Mr. Littlewood acquitted himself with the greatest fidelity and diligence, and thereby secured a very high degree of respect from his employer. Nor was it without extreme difficulty and regret, that Mr. Smith was prevailed upon to part with him from that important post, when he found himself compelled to relinquish it in order to engage in the stated exercise of the ministry; and for a considerable time after he had left his employ, he was regularly engaged by Mr. Smith, at stated periods, for the purpose of inspecting his books. Some time previous to Mr. Littlewood's removal to Rochdale, the foundation of the Baptist church, in that town, was laid, of which, as well as of its progress, we beg leave to present our readers with the following account, chiefly extracted from a manuscript in Mr. Littlewood's hand writing, we only premise this remark, That at this period, Rochdale, though a town of considerable extent and population, containing at least 5 or 6000 inhabitants, and surrounded by a populous country, was in a state of great ignorance, and had no other evangelical preaching than what was found among the Wesleyan Methodists. The account referred to, has no date affixed to it, but from the circumstances related in the close of it, we conclude it must have been written within the last three or four years. The substance is as follows: "About forty years ago, some members of the Baptist churches meeting at Bacup and Wainsgate, settled at Rochdale, and finding a few others of the same way of thinking with themselves, they used to meet together for prayer, and to consult what steps could be taken, with the probable hope of success, for extending the knowledge of what they judged to be the truth, in the neighbour hood in which Providence had fixed their residence. Their number was very small, and their means nothing; hence they could only talk, and wish, and pray, without daring to hope, that they should ever live to see their de sires in any degree accomplished. They used to travel on Lord's days, either to Bacup, at the distance of eight miles, or to Wains gate, at the distance of fourteen, longing for the time when they should have the privilege of worshipping in the way they thought right in their own town. Frequently conversing with the ministers, ministers, whom, after many a painful step, they were accustomed to hear, they at last determined to request them to visit them, and preach occasionally amongst them. One great difficulty however lay in their way; they had not even the means of accommodating the ministers when they should come, except by procuring them lodging at the public inns. This difficulty, the zeal and disinterestedness of the ministers enabled them to sur mount; and the Rev. James Hartley, of Howorth; Fawcett, then of Wainsgate; Crabtree, of Bradford; Hirst, of Bacup; and some others, visited them, and preached in private houses, and assisted and befriended them in various ways. The labours of these good men, all of whom are now called to their rest, were owned to the good of many who united themselves to this little band, and thereby strengthened it. The increase, however, was gradual, but such as encouraged them to resolve on taking a room, and to attempt to carry on the worship of God regularly on Lord's-days. This, with considerable difficulty, and in the face of great opposition, they at length effected. The opposition gradually subsided, and the labours of the ministers sent to them, were |