THE CONGREGATIONAL YEAR-BOOK. THIS is an excellent conception, and in the practised hand of the Rev. John Blackburn, it cannot fail of being executed in a masterly manner. It will supersede the separate pub. lication of the Union Reports, by presenting all the usual matter given in them, with great additions. This Volume will be emphatically what its name indicates; while the Almanack will chiefly give the information needful for the year, the Year-Book will embody Historical Records. Here will be found Lists of Churches and Pastors; of New Chapels; of Settlements, Ordinations, and Removals; Biographical Notices of Ministers deceased within the year; with matters appertaining to Independent Missions, Colleges, and all important accounts of the Metropolitan and Provincial Proceedings of the Congregational Body. To state the character of this work, is to exhibit its claims. It cannot fail to prove exceedingly useful, and to find universal acceptance among our churches. It needs only to be added that the UNION have wisely resolved to publish the volume so cheap as to place it within the reach of the poorest man in the community. Thus applying the Magazine principle to both these books, it cannot be doubted that the churches will hail the measure, and by a very great demand suitably manifest their appreciation.

OUR PERIODICAL LITERATURE. At the close of the year it becomes necessary to remind our readers of the claims of truth, and of those who dispense it through the columns of the Periodical Press. A whole year is a lengthened period in the life of man, and never fails to leave the list of the supporters of a journal more or less reduced, and hence the necessity of annual replenishment. In our last Number we recorded pleas on our own behalf; on the present occasion, therefore, we have only to speak for our brethren, to whom we consider ourselves to occupy the position of precursors, the FRIEND preceding the WITNESS, and the WITNESS the Biblical Review, the Eclectic, and the British Quar terly, Patriot, and Nonconformist. The sturdy Colonist disperses the wild beasts, burns the un→ derwood, cuts down the forest, blasts the rock, drains the swamp, and by a strong arm and ceaseless labour breaks up the soil; then come butol sd of air ya· ba

the artisan, the manufacturer, the capitalistsociety and civilisation, law and order, literature and religion. Our mission sustains a character somewhat analogous. We aspire to create an appetite which we alone cannot satisfy. Had we the whole nation for our readers we should consider the achievement less in the light of success than of failure, if they felt no impulse to move onward. We aspire to awaken the more gifted minds among the masses; to fire them with a godly ambition after the knowledge necessary to their duties as Christians and as men, and to introduce them to the teachers already mentioned. We have a strong desire to have the whole of the above publications introduced into every one of our churches, not excepting the smallest. Such is the importance we attach to this, that we scarce know the sacrifice we would not make to accomplish it. It can be done! Only let the pastor set about it; collect the male members and hearers, form them into a reading society, and-IT IS DONE! We will give an example. We have been favoured with the statistics of a county containing twenty-six churches; No. I. stands as follows:

DISSENT IN **** IN 1846.

Age of the Church, or beginning of
Preaching

Number of Hearers
Number of Members
Number in Sunday-school
Salary of Minister
Sacramental Money
Money for Sunday-school
Money for County Association
Money for Foreign Missions

Penny Magazine Christian Witness Evangelical Patriot Nonconformist British Quarterly North British Edinburgh Review

Periodicals.

1816

150

66

100

£60

• £8 10s.

£6 £2 6s. £18

See what a zealous young minister, in the most straitened circumstances, can effect! Still this result is not quite satisfactory. The £18 for Missions ought, every shilling, to have gone to the minister. He, not the church, gives this sum! Such burnt-offerings are a robbery. Again, we should like to see a larger proportion of our most valuable co-adjutor, the Evangelical Magazine. He is not quite so much a-head on some points as the WITNESS, but he is seldom far behind; while he is a correct and powerful teacher of truth, and an unwearied advocate of all that is just and good, liberal and humane, pure and holy. Again, where is the Biblical Review? Where is the Eclectic? If money was wanting,

we should rather have seen one or both of the Scottish Quarterlies out, and these in. Regard being had to the circumstances of our country and the interests of true spiritual Nonconformity, the North British and the Edinburgh are not for a moment to be compared with the Biblical and Eclectic Reviews. Let us, then, have the satisfaction of knowing that a provi sion is immediately made among the churches over all the land, for the introduction of our OWN PERIODICAL LITERATURE.

THE PATRIOT NEWSPAPER. THE claims of this Journal on the Nonconformist Community are peculiar and strong; it is all their own, and it has done them most signal service. Its originators, proprietors, and conductors have deserved passing well of the public. But as we have hinted once and again, we think the time is come for placing it on an improved footing. It may here be proper to state some facts with which the bulk of our readers cannot be acquainted. The Patriot, then, exists for the two great branches of Nonconformity, the Independents and Baptists; the Proprietary is a mixed body, representing these communities: while the Editor and Sub-editor happily sustain the same representative character. The Editor is Mr. Josiah Condér, a veteran in Letters-a man who, during the last quarter of a Century, as author of "Protestant Nonconformity," for many years Editor and Proprietor of the Eclectic Review, and latterly Editor of the Patriot,-we pass over his great work "The Modern Traveller," his Poetry, and general labours-has done greatly more than any other layman of his generation for the interests of English Nonconformity. The Sub-editor is Mr. John Middleton Hare, son of the late Rev. Edward Hare, author of the celebrated volume, "Preservative against Socinianism,"-a Baptist, a Deacon of Dr. Cox's church, Hackney, and a man who, to brilliant parts, adds attainments far above the demands of his office. Such is the position of the Patriot Newspaper; which entitles it to the entire confidence and cordial support of the whole body of the Dissenters of England. Such confidence and such support to a considerable extent it already enjoys; but, like everything else connected with Denominational literature, not by any means to the extent it ought.

Its circula

tion should be at the least five-fold. It has never yet fairly got before the mind of the community. Much, very much, still remains to be done to meet the necessities of the case, which ought to be done in an enlightened, comprehensive, and

energetic spirit, and without further loss of time. Among other things, special regard ought to be had to our poor pastors, home missionaries, small traders, and the whole body of the Working Classes of Nonconformity. Every man who is entrusted with the franchise ought to be thoroughly educated to the religious and patriotic use of that invaluable instrument; and therefore every Ten Pound householder ought to be a reader of the Patriot. But as things now stand, this is impossible. Five Pence, twice a week, is a barrier which keeps, and which will continue to keep the immense majority of Dissenting Voters out of this school of Political Truth. What, then, is to be done? Something Let the Masses

very easy and very simple. have a Weekly Patriot, formed out of the two Monday and Thursday Numbers, and comprising all the Leading Articles, Correspond ence, Parliamentary and other Intelligence, and whatever is good and useful, so far as it can be crammed in, and let it be sold for Three Pence. One good and full Paper, a week, is quite enough for the Million, as much as they have time to read, and sufficient to contain all they require to know. Such is our confidence in the Nonconformist masses of Englishmen, that we fearlessly predict for such a Paper a weekly circulation of

FIFTY THOUSAND!

Fifty Thousand! Who can tell the result of such a torrent of truth pouring forth from week to week over all the land? This mighty object may easily and at once be achieved. The type being already up, needs only to be adjusted, and then nothing remains but Paper and Presswork. We hope the Public will demand this; and that the Proprietary will make it a special instruction to the Executive Committee forthwith to` carry the matter into effect.

KENT ASSOCIATION.-Our friend Mr. Pulling, of Deptford, has sent us a kind communication with the following resolution of encouragement, which we receive with much regard and satisfaction:

"That the Ministers of this District Associa tion feel deeply interested in the success of the CHRISTIAN WITNESS, and the first year's progress of the CHRISTIAN'S PENNY MAGAZINE; and take this opportunity, at the close of the year, of expressing their conviction of the general adaptation of those publications to promote the advancement of scriptural religion, Protestant Nonconformity, and religious liberty; and entertain a hope of the increasing circulation and usefulness of these valuable periodicals."

A. WORD FOR LIBERAL BOOKSELLERS.—A zealous pastor thus writes:

"As a warm friend of the PENNY and the People, let me tell you a fact which may be of service. A gentleman travelling on business wished to get some numbers of the PENNY on his journey, to read. He asked at several booksellers before he found one who kept it, and then it was in a back street. He found most had the Churchman's Penny; but they told him they sold them to few but clergymen. The same he found the case at Manchester even, the metropolis of Independence; and at Liverpool, and two or three other large towns. Could you get no booksellers there to take them? Would not Mr. Stowell, at Birmingham, who printed a paper of yours some time ago, he told me, when there? These are the towns on which you ought to be able to depend. These ought to furnish your most numerous readers. The whole body wants much new life and sense before it is up with its duties and its opportunities. The mainsprings are the ministers, and if they are weak, the whole works must be sluggish."

We hope the matter is not quite so bad ás our correspondent supposés. The fact as to Liverpool turned out very differently from what was supposed; and we fully believe so would Manchester, if inquired into. Commercial travellers cannot be expected fully to understand the real state of such matters in any given locality.

MARRIAGE-A correspondent presents the following case, asking "whether it is a sin, meriting excommunication from a dissenting church, for a man to marry his niece (she being his deceased wife's brother's daughter), a case having lately occurred in which a man, who has been deacon of a dissenting church for upwards of twenty years, has been dismissed for this cause and this only. The person referred to has left the neighbourhood in which he formerly resided; but it is supposed will not be able to gain admittance into another church, as he cannot obtain a letter of recommendation from his former pastor."

Domestic morality lies so near the foundation of society, that wisdom always inclines to the side of rigour rather than of relaxation in matters affecting it. There is, however, a limit, which, overpassed, may extend to injustice and cruelty. The case before us seems to border upon this; if it is fairly put, the object of it has been greatly wronged. If it is still lawful in Scotland and most countries, and was lawful in England before the late Act was passed, for a Christian man to marry his deceased wife's sister, how much more her brother's daughter! There is nothing in this man's position which ought to bar his approach to any portion of the fold of Christ. Still, however, the church, even in its error, has leaned to the side of virtue, and as such ought to be leniently judged.

Cyclopedia of Biblical Literature. Edited by JOHN KITTO, D.D., F.S.A. With Engravings. Royal 8vo, pp. 1878. In Two Volumes. Edinburgh: A. and C. Black.

ADEQUATELY to investigate the merits of this great undertaking would occupy the entire Number of one of our Quarterlies; all, therefore, that can be attempted by minor journals is the expression of a wellconsidered opinion. With this view we have carefully searched into all the testing portions of the work, and now report the result to our readers. Generally, then, we have to state that the work is of no school and of no church-a fact which constitutes very high praise, and lays a foundation for general confidence, and from which we hesitate not to predict that it will please the many-please them much-and please them long. To say that in such a work there are defects, both various and serious, is almost to

utter an impertinence. How could it be otherwise? On a field so extended there are materials for controversy sufficient to create a library of 10,000 volumes. The defects, as well as the excellences, necessarily arise from the very nature of the undertaking. No objection exists against this work which would not equally exist against a library on the several classes of subjects discussed in these volumes. Suppose Dr. Kitto had instituted a lecture in London on Biblical Literature, and secured the services of "forty independent thinkers," the number of his contributors, generally men eminent for talents and for erudition; it had been utterly impossible to realize even an approach to union in sentiment and opinion. the diversities would very little have abated the general value of such a course of prelections. The sole condition on which such men would have consented to undertake co-operation would have been, unfettered expression of opinion:

But

and such also, of course, is the only condition on which they would engage to contribute to an Encyclopædia. Even had Providence formed Dr. Kitto into a Bacon, a Caliban, a monster intelligence, a prodigy of intellectual power equal to that of these "forty" contributors united, so that he could single-handed have executed this vast work in a manner as superior to what it actually is, as was the Dictionary of Johnson to that of the French Academicians—also “forty" in number-an achievement thus celebrated by Garrick,

"And Johnson, well armed, like a hero of yore,

Has beat forty French, and will beat forty more;"

suppose this to have been done, we greatly question whether the unity had been a whit greater, and whether the cause of Biblical Literature had been at all a gainer. We really think Dr. Kitto, in his capacity of Editor, has done all that could be reasonably expected. He did not, he could not, set up his own views as the standard of correct opinion, while he nevertheless intimated his expectation that contributors would abstain from introducing the opinions peculiar to their nation, or to their religious communion, at the same time leaving them unrestrained with respect to the conclusions to which inquiry might lead them. But on such a field, if perfect unanimity is impossible, it is happily very unimport

ant.

How small the space covered by the boundary lines which separate the kingdoms of Europe compared with their superficial contents! So it is in this Cyclopædia; were all the matter which we have seen objected to wholly expunged, the bulk of the volumes would be but little diminished. The original conception of the work does great and lasting honour to Dr. Kitto; it was a noble idea, and admirably, as a whole, has it been executed. An ample store of untouched materials has thus been drawn forth, digested, adjusted, and laid before the mind of the British people, that might otherwise never have appeared. Here the results of modern research and the fruits of modern criticism are combined in a manner which render the work a storehouse which, of its kind, has no equal. By overstepping the limits of party and of country, the work has been enriched by the labours of men of very different lines of reading and various habits of thought. Biblical Scholars and Naturalists here stand forth in a grand array, as joint illustrators of the Wonder

ful Volume, who, but for Dr. Kitto, would never have been heard of in such a conjunction. If in a few articles our views are thwarted, in an equal number we receive compensation. For example: if robbed of Infant Baptism, Diocesan Prelacy goes along with it! Nor is this all; we receive in addition the Weekly Observance of the Lord's Supper, and the Scripture import of the Church of Christ. The character, then, of the Cyclopædia must, like that of man, be determined by the whole, and not by particular parts; and thus tested, only the strongest language will suffice to express the simple truth respecting its excellence.

The points which are chiefly objectionable are of a nature to supply their own antidote. For example: Dr. Stebbing considers Antichrist as "the proper title of Satan"-a notion which will shock the bulk of his readers, but, perhaps, unnecessarily; for the Pope and his system are not thereby shielded, but rather branded, and pointed out for abhorrence and destruction. Even our Sunday-school children know that the "Man of Sin" is the Pope, and that his marks are among the clearest revelations of the New Testament. Again, as might be expected, some of the articles partake a little of the Neology of Germany. It is proper, then, to put our readers on their guard with respect to the articles of such men as Dr. Credner, who is beyond doubt a rationalist of the lowest class, as may be clearly seen from the following positions in his article on Biblical Theology:-" Biblical Theology does not consider inspiration to be an historical starting point of a science, but rather an ecclesiastical attribute of the Bible, to which a purely historical contemplation of the Bible may ultimately lead, but which ought not to be pre-supposed. The basis of the investigation in Biblical Theology is nothing else but historical truth. The moral nature of man claims a purely historical contemplation of the Bible, although this is opposed by hierarchical narrow-mindedness." Yes! Dr. Credner; and "this is opposed" by multitudes of wise and good men as little enamoured of the Hierarchy as yourself. Far from England and her children be such teachers as Dr. Credner!

To Christian young men generally, to students, and to lay-preachers particularly, to pastors, whether poor or rich, to families, as a companion to the Bible, as a whole, then, we most earnestly commend this work, as an invaluable repository of Biblical Literature.

The Life of Wesley, and Rise and Progress of Methodism. By ROBERT

SOUTHEY, Esq., LL.D. Third Edition, with Notes by the late S. T. COLERIDGE, Esq., and Remarks on the Life and Character of John Wesley by the late ALEXANDER KNOX, Esq. Edited by the Rev. CHARLES SOUTHEY, M.A., of Cockermouth. In Two Volumes. London: Longmans.

THE size and price of this work have, we presume, tended to cramp its circulation, since otherwise the class of merits by which it is distinguished must have carried it through numerous editions. This new edition is much enriched by the Notes of S. T. Coleridge, and the Remarks of Alexander Knox. Coleridge appears to great advantage in these pages, where his liberality, integrity, and independence of thought are strongly manifested. For example: Southey, speaking of Wesley, says, "His frequent intercourse with the more serious Dissenters gave cause of offence; for the evils which Puritanism had brought upon this kingdom were at that time neither forgotten nor forgiven;" and to this Coleridge appends the following Note:

This sentence will, I doubt not, be savoury enough to Messrs. &c.; but there are readers who love and admire Robert Southey more than the above-named gentry have head or heart to do, who would have been glad to have been informed by Southey what these evils were. Even the Tory-Stewartite, miso-fanatic Hume, has found himself compelled by truth of history to reply, Our present political liberty is the direct consequence of this Puritanism, and religious toleration indirectly. The eight or nine years' suspension of the hierarchy and of the privileged aristocracy by hereditary senatorship, with the, alas! too brief substitution of a hero for an imbecile would-be despot, was the effect of the crash of collision between two extremes, viz., the Prelatic prerogative party, and the Puritan parliamentary. Why attribute these evils to the latter exclusively?" Vol. I. pp. 128.

This shows that with all his admiration for Southey, his early, fast friend,-he was by no means blind to his bigotry and Toryism. All the views of Coleridge, if not always alike clear, were strongly expressed, because strongly realized. With the patience of Southey, he was much more fitted, both by his creed and his feelings, to discharge the office of biographer to Wesley. It is interesting to know in what light Wesley and his work appeared to that extraordinary man ; and this point comes fairly out in the following Note, where he says,

"Wesley-Boy Wesley, Youth Wesley, Young Man, Man, Elder, Patriarch Wesley: as such he was fitted for his calling; but of whom was this

VOL. IV.

calling?-Of God? I cannot say, Yes! I dare not, will not say, or even think,-No! That Arminian Methodism contains many true Christians, God forbid that I should doubt! That it ever made, or tends to make, a Christian, I do doubt; though that it has been the occasion, and even cause, of turning thousands from their evil deeds, and that it has made, and tends to make, bad and mischievous men, peaceable and profitable neighbours and citizens, I delight in avowing." Pp. 184.

This notion of Coleridge, in one aspect, strikingly coincides with the views set forth in another part of our present Number, and is satisfactorily explained on the principle of mixed fellowship. This deep thinker and wide observer seems to have come just near enough to Methodism to see its moral without its spiritual effects. From that point of view he beheld many whose characters it had reformed without changing their hearts; and this he rashly concluded was the case universally. But valuable as are the Notes of Coleridge, they are greatly surpassed by the "Remarks on Wesley's Life and Character,' by Alexander Knox, a great and venerated name. These "Remarks" form a philosophical dissertation of great depth and power, on the character, theology, and system of Wesley, to which, we presume, the religious world will attach no ordinary value. Wesley had no contemporary more capable of discovering his real merits and defects, if such attached to him, and the result is candidly, boldly, stated in the present publication:

At an early age," says he, "I was a member of Mr. Wesley's Society, but my connection with it was not of long duration. Having a growing disposition to think for myself, I could not adopt the opinions which were current among his fol lowers; and before I was twenty years of age, my relish for their religious practices had abated. Still my veneration for Mr. Wesley himself suffered no diminution; rather, as I became more capable of estimating him without prejudice, my conviction of his excellence, and my attachment to his goodness, gained fresh strength and deeper cordiality." Vol. II. pp. 416.

Ju

The withdrawment of Knox adds exceedingly to the value of his testimony, and his judgment will command public confidence all the more from the fact that his intimacy with Wesley continued to the close of the career of that immortal man; and it was after Knox had read his Life by Southey that he wrote the "Remarks," in order to modify the views and correct some of the misapprehensions of the biographer. We quote the following passage with special satisfaction:

"It will hardly be denied that, even in this frail and corrupted world, we sometimes meet persons who, in their very mien, and aspect, as

D