unquestionably are yet a Baptist Noel is a phenomenon in a generation. 4. The fourth thing to be taken into account is the great increase in all kinds of religious literature, and the consequent breaking down of the ignorance if not of the prejudice formerly existing against those who bore the Baptist name. Spurgeon, Maclaren, Culross, and others whose names might be given, are known over the length and breadth of the land-known to be Baptists. For simplicity, directness, and power on the side of evangelical truth, it would be readily acknowledged by others that we take a foremost rank; and yet there cannot be said to be a corresponding increase to our numbers. I have glanced but very briefly at some of the elements which fall to be reckoned in answering the question with which we started-" Are Baptists increasing numerically as a Christian denomination?" Looked at comprehensively, and considering the increase in population, in general Christian activity, in denominational organisation, in the spread of intelligence among the people, I am compelled to say that so far as I can see we are not making a proportionate or adequate numerical advancement. We are like travellers on a road which sometimes widens and sometimes contracts, but which has been arranged to measure so many square yards, width at one point with a set-off of narrowness at another, like an army here gaining, there losing, but not materially advancing all along the line. In the northern and southern portions of the kingdom we are surrounded, I might say hemmed in, by great ecclesiastical bodies on which we seem to make but little advance-I mean but little advance when you take into consideration all that I have already said. There is another side of the question, however, which is full of cheerfulness and encouragement and hope. If we have not grown numerically to any great extent our sentiments have become far more widely diffused during recent years then ever perhaps before in our history. The views which we hold are better known and more respected than ever they were, and there is a wide and growing sympathy with them. The way in which we have been accustomed to look at church membership and order, at the very nature and meaning of a Church of Christ, is being more and more felt to be the right way. The Scriptures are being searched more diligently, and it is becoming thus more apparent that we are nearer the Word of God in our spirit and practice than the great ecclesiastico-political bodies around us. Earnest and philanthropic Christian men find in facing the social evils and sins and needs of our great populations that the Baptist position, so far as church life and effort are concerned, is the right one. All this seems to point in one direction, and, looking towards that, we can afford calmly to bide our time and wait the issue. We shall find, and that it seems to me at no very distant day, that our maintenance of unpopular but eternal principles has not been in vain. Our Baptist ranks, however, will not be materially increased by the twos or threes here and there who may from out the great mass join us from time to time. I do not know that we are likely to gain much from going over the old arguments about the meaning of Greek words, or conjuring up formidable lists of authorities on our side of which people have heard again and again and have grown weary of them, and will neither patiently listen to them nor read and compare them. Our hope lies in the life which is in these bodies rising up and attesting the truth of those principles for which we have so long contended. Looked at thus our numerical increase may be small, and if we measured our progress by that alone we should have reason to feel dispirited, but, on the other side, our increase in moral power, in sympathy with us felt by earnest, Christian men, in ripening convictions which are all but declared, is greater far than it is possible for us to reckon. When the change comes a nation will be born in a day. Let us but keep our lamps burning, and, although we be few among the thousands round. about us, when the light flames forth the victory will arise not merely nor alone from our scattered lamps or broken pitchers, but from and in the midst of the other camps. Reviews. THE LIFE OF THE REV. GEORGE THE appearance of these volumes is ject, has acquired command of a large amount of biographical material, of which other writers seem to have been ignorant, and has fulfilled his task with an evident sense of "delight and liberty." This is unquestionably the life of the great evangelist, and that by which in future generations his work will be most widely known. It is the complement of Mr. Tyerman's "Life of Wesley" and of his "Oxford. Methodists," and, in conjunction+ with them, gives a full and detailed account of the condition of morals and religion during the earlier part of the eighteenth century, of the manner in which these powerful revivalists began and prosecuted their mission, and of the marvellons results which, under God, they were enabled to achieve. The story of Whitefield's conversion and religious experience, of his apostolic labours in the Old World and in the New, has for us an interest deeper than that of any romance; and we have read Mr. Tyerman's biography with a sensation of the keenest pleasure. Since the era of Whitefield's labours there has been a marked progress in the education and religion of the people, and few contrasts are more steiking in this respect than the England of to-day and the England of a hundred and twenty or thirty years ago. But we have not yet reached the goal, and in every direction "there remains much land to be conquered." We are still continually discussing the question, How can we effectually reach and evangelise the masses? how can we counteract the effects of Rationalism and unbelief? how give full expression to the now latent power of the Church? Our candid and deeprooted conviction is that the best and most satisfactory answer to these and similar queries will be found on the lines laid down by the reformers of the last century. Faithful, earnest proclamation of the Gospel by men who themselves feel its power, and who are thoroughly fired by its spirit-this is what we most need, and without which all other agencies will be vain. We hope before long to direct attention to some of the more important lessons of Whitefield's life, as they may be gathered from these volumes. For the present we must be content with introducing to the notice of our readers the volumes themselves. They will, in truth, find in them all that they can desire. The narrative portion of the work is as graphic as it is exact. Mr. Tyerman has shown great wisdom in using, wherever possible, Whitefield's own letters and journals, as well as in quoting so largely from his contemporaries. His own style is terse and lively, and, as a history of the times, his work is entitled to a high rank. He enables us to see, as it were, for ourselves the stirring scenes in which Whitefield and his co-workers lived -the immense and motley multitudes held spell-bound by the power of the preacher. trembling under deep convictions of sin, awed at the thought of judgment and eternity, and subdued to penitence by the presentation of the love of Christ. So, again, we may understand better from these volumes than from almost any other, the nature and extent of the clerical opposition to Whitefield's work, and the reproach to which he was so unjustly subjected.. The author's judgment is, as a rule, singularly fair and trustworthy. He plainly strives to be impartial, and has, for the most part, succeeded. He is no mere hero-worshipper, and makes no attempt to conceal Whitefield's failings. His Wesleyan and Arminian proclivities do occasionally bias his judgment, and we cannot unreservedly endorse his estimate as to the relative greatness of Wesley and Whitefield; nor do we think that in the dispute in which they were at one time unhappily engaged the former carried off the palm. But, this notwithstanding, we can heartily testify to the honesty of the biographer's purpose, to the minute and conscientious accuracy of his representations of Whitefield's beliefs and actions, and to his thorough competence for the important task to which he has so enthusiastically addressed himself. This is one of a series of works by which he has rendered the entire Christian Church his debtor. Our Wesleyan friends will here learn (as the biographer himself suggests) that Whitefield's services to Methodism were far greater than they have yet acknowledged. Nonconformists will find that their churches also were quickened. and elevated by his mission; and the Church of England, bitterly as it opposed him, is under lasting obligations to him in this respect. In America his influence was unrivalled, and produced comparatively greater results than in England. His relations to the Calvinistic Methodists of Wales, to the Countess of Huntingdon's Society, to the Secession Church and other Presbyterians in Scotland, are all powerfully portrayed; and numerous specimens are given of his preaching. Whitefield was a born orator, with a voice of marvellous compass, which could be heard at a distance of two miles, and with varied intonations and all the force of impassioned music. He had a definite and a loving heart, and a fervour which must have seemed to many akin to prophetic inspiration. He was not a profound or careful thinker; and, from an intellectual standpoint, his reputation has no doubt suffered by the publication of his sermons. He was not a scholar, he was not an organizer, or an ecclesiastical statesman; but he was emphatically a preacher-a herald of the glad tidings of the Gospel; and, apart from the apostolic age, perhaps the greatest preacher the world has seen. We should sincerely rejoice if Mr. Tyerman's biography of this unrivalled evangelist could be read by every minister and every ministerial student-nay, by every professed Christian in the kingdom; and we earnestly urge our readers not to be content until they at least have perused it, and laid its lessons to heart. JUBILEE OF SOUTH PARADE CHAPEL, LEEDS, WITH MEMORIALS OF THE THE BAPTIST CHURCH, MYRTLE STREET, LIVERPOOL, MANUAL, 1877. BLOOMSBURY CHAPEL YEAR BOOK, 1877. PUBLICATIONS of this kind have a value far beyond that which is indicated by their dimensions, their cost, or the reception they meet with at the time of their appearance. To the congregations with which they are specially identified they are eminently valuable as preserving the record of Christian work, and thus furnishing a standard by which the progress or decline of the Church may be estimated years after the period of publication. In the area of the community for whose advantage they are chiefly intended, they keep before the attention of all concerned the various operations in which the Church is employed, and thus stimulate the liberality and the zeal of the whole number. When they travel beyond the sphere of their origination, other communities derive similar benefit from their influence. In reference to the three publications now under notice, it would be an unquestionable advantage if they could be circulated throughout all the churches of the land. To the future historian of our denomination these records of church life will be of as much service as the small quartos of the seventeenth century were to Macaulay immortal work. Mr. Ashworth, who when he was labouring over his is the successor of our friend Mr. Chown at Bradford, has wrought a labour of love in preparing the interesting though condensed history of the church at South Parade, Leeds. Mr. Ashworth was trained in the Sunday school of that Church, and joined its membership. Among the pleasing incidents connected with the jubilee services of the Leeds Chapel is the fact that the venerable Dr. Acworth who entered on the pastorate of the Church fiftyfour years since, was spared to take part in the proceedings. South Parade Church has been blessed with a goodly succession of pastors and deacons, and from its member shipmany well-known godly ministers and laymen have gone forth to distribute far and wide the blessed influences of which it is the centre. From a foot-note we gather that the Congregational subscriptions and collections for the year 1875, amounted to £3,866 2s. 7d. May the successors of Langdon, Acworth, Giles, Stalker, Bailhache, Edwards, Brewer, and Best, see even greater things than the fifty years commemorated in this little book have produced of spiritual prosperity and consecrated Christian enterprise. The Manual of the Myrtle Street Church, Liverpool, partakes more of the nature of a private than a public document, though we are comfortably sure that no breach of confidence is involved in transferring to our pages the following statistics. The register of the Church contains the names of 827 members in actual attendance. Its Sunday schools number nearly 2,000 children, 41 of whom were added to the Church in 1876. The numerous mission stations, cottage meetings, Sunday schools, and the branch churches maintained by the parent community at Myrtle Street, bear testimony to the active zeal and liberality of the Church under Mr. H. Stowell Brown's able superintendence. Besides the two mission stations at Mill Street and Solway Street, there are affiliated churches at St. Helens, Warrington, Widnes, and Earlstown, with 75, 44, 41, 30 members each. It would be well for our denomination and its pastors if all existing churches having a membership of less than one hundred each could be thus strengthened by identification with a larger church. The Myrtle Street Manual contains no cash accounts, but it is wellknown to be amongst the foremost of our churches in the large amount of its pecuniary contributions. The Bloomsbury Chapel Year Book for 1877 is another most gratifying record of labour for the Lord. In one of our latest conversations with our dear friend Dr. Brock, we expressed the fear that his retirement from Bloomsbury Chapel would be seriously felt in consequence of the loss of his admirable faculty for organization and the management of the efficient agencies of that Church. "Bless you," was his reply, "that is just the weakest part of my character. It has all been done by others. I never knew where to find my own boots or a postage-stamp without asking the dear wife." It is pleasant to find Mr. Chown reporting that the increase to the membership is proceeding at even a higher rate than in the past; and that all the varied organizations of the Church have been sustained in continued and even increasing efficiency. The Chapel income for 1876 was £1,373 17s. 11d., and its charitable contributions amounted to the large sum of £2,015 16s. 1d. We believe that five other churches of our denomination in the Metropolis presented an equally flourishing report for the past year, but we hope to place these statistics before our readers in a future number of the Magazine. |