The churches and ministers comprised in Letter he had been appointed to draw up on this association are the following: "The Connexion between Doctrinal Error and Spiritual Declension." Mr. Dickerson occupied the chair. The letters from the churches were read, and addresses were delivered by Messrs. Ward and Betts. Horsley Street.........J. George. Islington Green ......T. Pottenger. Kennington ...........T. Atwood. Kensington ............W. G. Lewis. Keppel Street On Tuesday, May 8th, the Rev. Charles Smith, lately a student at Horton college, Bradford, was publicly and solemnly recognized as the pastor of the baptist church, Whitchurch, Hampshire. The devotional services were commenced at eleven in the forenoon, by the Rev. W. Goodman, B. A. of Andover. The introductory discourse was delivered by the Rev. D. Katterns, of Hack ney, who, in a very lucid and effective manner, stated the nature of a Christian church, and the law of the New Testament respecting its support. The usual questions were proposed by the Rev. J. Millard of Lymington, who had formerly been pastor of the church, who also offered the ordination prayer. The Rev. Dr. Godwin addressed both pastor and people from Phil. i. 1 and 27, and concluded in prayer. A considerable number of friends adjourned, at three o'clock, to the White Hart, where a plain but excellent dinner was provided; and a still larger number from the town and neighbourhood took tea together. Soon after six the services again commenced, when Dr. Godwin took the chair. The meeting was addressed by the Rev. W. Goodman, B. A., the Rev. J. Drew of Newbury, the Rev. T. Thomas, independent minister of Whitchurch, the Rev. D. Katterns, the Rev. J. Morton, independent minister of the neighbourhood; the Rev. J. Millard, who gave an interesting historical sketch of the church, interspersed with some singular anecdotes relating to its previous pastors and the persecutions which they suffered; and the Rev. Mr. Ashley. The newly recognized pastor then expressed his feelings on the occasion, with reference to the kind sympathy of the friends from a distance, and to his former pastor, Dr. Godwin, who concluded in prayer. The day throughout was one of unmixed pleasure and edification, all was peace, and love, and harmony. The neat and commodious place of worship had been repaired and painted, and looked as bright and cheerful as though it sympathized with the services, and welcomed with a smiling face the visitors. The attendance was very good; the services, though of necessity long, were not tedious; all appeared to be gratified, and the general feeling seemed to be, "Save now, we beseech thee, O Lord; O Lord, we beseech thee send now prosperity." The baptist church in this town is of considerable antiquity. Though the date of its formation cannot be ascertained, the church book shows, that as early as 1690 there were thirty-seven members under the pastoral care of two brothers of the name of Kent. During the persecution which continued under the Stuart dynasty, the little flock, it seems, met for worship in Cowdown Coppice, about a mile from the town, and some women were baptized at midnight in the river. At present the cordial union prevailing among this community, and the reciprocal affection of pastor and people, give the most cheering hope that, under the blessing of the great Head of the church, a happy measure of peace and prosperity is before them. BIDEFORD, DEVONSHIRE. Mr. B. Arthur of Bath has accepted a cordial and unanimous invitation to become the pastor of the baptist church at Bideford, and commenced his labours on Lord's day, April 22nd. ASHTON-UNDER-LYNE. The Rev. James Macpherson, late of Bramely near Leeds, has accepted the unanimous invitation of the baptist church, Ashtonunder-Lyne, to the pastorate, and commenced his labours on Lord's day, May 20th. RECENT DEATHS. MR. HENRY COLLIER. It does not seem to be saying much for religion, when we merely affirm that it forms the character to whatsoever is lovely and of good report; and yet in saying so we attribute to religion a power really divine. Especially is this true when the character requires very much of modification in order to this result. There are instances in the New Testament, as Paul who had endeavoured to destroy the faith of Christ, but who was changed into a zealous promoter of that faith; and the Corinthians who were washed, and sanctified, and justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God. There are instances also in common life, as the pages of this magazine from year to year have recorded. If even the men whose memories we embalm were not all that could be wished, still they differed so widely from what they would have been but for the grace of God, that we cannot but acknowledge the finger of God in them. Philosophy did not mould their character; mere morality could not have rendered them what they were. It pleased God who separated them from their mothers' womb, to reveal his Son in them; their own acknowledgments and those of others equally glorify the grace of God which has wrought such wonders. The subject of the present memoir is an instance. What he might have been but for divine mercy scarcely any of his surviving friends can conjecture. They know what he was; and though perhaps a larger measure of the softer virtues might have given lustre to his character, they saw in the "sturdy saint" abundant reason to glorify God on his behalf. Henry Collier was born at Thrapston, where he lived for nearly sixty-three years without interval, esteemed and confided in by all who knew him. His parents were unknown to fame; he was the tenth of eleven children, a large family to press upon straitened resources. Perhaps this circumstance tended to induce some of those peculiar features by which through life he was distinguished; one of the most strongly marked of which was a rigid economy of time and money. He had learned their value in early life, and he could never squander either, though he was equally unable to be parsimonious of hours or shillings when they were legitimately claimed for the service of religion or benevolence. In early life, though Mr. Collier's school education had been limited, he read and thought a good deal, thus acquiring a considerable amount of mental vigour and of clearness of conception. He did not confine himself to the intellectual, and the moral, or religious; infidel publications and works otherwise of a pernicious tendency engaged his eager attention, and at one time some friends feared for him that he was being borne towards the vortex of scepticism and infidelity. The example of excellent Christian men around him, and occasional remonstrances, both of parental affection and faithful friendship, preserved him in great measure from this evil. At about his eighteenth year he began to think on the things pertaining to his peace; and whatever were his wishes he could not become a confirmed unbeliever. Thrapston had been a favoured place in respect to religious means for some years previously to this time. There was a somewhat numerous congregation of dissenters in the town; among whose members were many, the names of whom are still greatly fragrant for the high excellences of their Christian character. The town was within nine miles of Kettering, and was, therefore, somewhat frequently visited by the late Andrew Fuller, one of whose searching discourses founded on Col. i. 28, 29, and delivered on a Wednesday evening, found its way to Mr. Collier's heart. He had become dissatisfied with his infidel tendencies, and had begun to read the scriptures in the hope of being convinced that they were a revelation from God. "He read them," says a friend, "quite through with great attention." No wonder that he was led to regard them as the word of God "making wise the simple." Mr. Fuller's sermon, described by a friend who heard it in company with Mr. Collier, as an earnest entreaty to his hearers to receive Christ, as an affectionate and manly appeal to them to relinquish all bondage to any man or to any set of opinions, and accept the freedom which Christ gives," was exactly suited to Mr. Collier's state of mind. The Holy Spirit accompanied it with his own sovereign power, the would-be infidel listened, embraced, and lived; and from that moment his course was decided. The book of God became his constant companion; he read, and prayed, and meditated, rejoicing in its light, and resting upon its truths and promises; and never, not even to his last hours, did his delight in it flag or fail. His plan was to read it through again and again, till, when he was laid aside by his last illness he was pursuing his sixtythird perusal of its entire contents. Nor did he merely read, he thought upon it, he understood and felt its truths, and few men ever VOL. XII.-FOURTH SERIES. " made a more appropriate use than he did of its inexhaustible treasures. "I remember the time," says one surviving friend, "when Mr. Collier was more a lover of pleasure than a lover of God, though he never was what is usually called an immoral character. His change from darkness to light was decisive. Old associations were broken up, new ones were formed. With him truly it might be said, 'Old things passed away, all things became new.'" At this period, among the young men in the congregation at Thrapston, there was one a little older than Mr. Collier, Mr. John Joseph Stevenson, of whom some account appears in the Baptist Magazine for 1829, p. 449, between whom and Mr. Collier similar feelings and views produced a friendship which lasted till Mr. Stevenson's death. The friends were beginning life at the same time, and pretty nearly in the same circumstances; Mr. Stevenson was accustomed playfully to refer to this commencement. One of them was worth sixpence, the other was that sum in debt. Both began in the fear of God; both resolved to befriend his cause as he should prosper them, adopting as their rule the suggestion of the apostle, 1 Cor. xvi. 2. Their trades were not equally large and gainful, and, perhaps, their dispositions were somewhat dissimilar, so that their support of that cause was not equally munificent; both, however, often adverted with thankfulness to the resolve which at that early period they respectively made. It checked a selfishness which otherwise might have grown upon them, it furnished the means of meeting legitimate claims on Christian liberality; and it changed them, so far as their savings were concerned, into trustees and dispensers rather than owners. What they gave was already the Lord's. Mr. Collier soon after his conversion united with the church at Thrapston. He was baptized by Mr. Fuller in the river adjacent to that town in 1810, and from that time he became constant and punctual in his attendance upon services which he had been taught to love, and sought to promote the interests of the church in which he had found a home. There were five young men, of whom Mr. Collier was one, who devoted themselves to the promotion of the welfare of the church with an energy and piety which scarcely fail of receiving a blessing. They were accustomed to meet frequently, sometimes in an upper room," sometimes in the quiet fields about the town, for spiritual conversation, for reading the scriptures together, and for united prayer. They occasionally thought when thus assembled, that, perhaps, some of them, if not all, might, at least occasionally, have to conduct more public devotional exercises in the villages around, and one object of their social gathering was to cultivate with this view any gifts which God might have gra 3 B ciously bestowed upon them. Three of the five still live, one of whom has long been pastor of one of our churches not far from London. All were engaged as they supposed they might be, in the villages, from whence parts of the congregation at Thrapston came to worship, and especially Mr. Collier was frequently employed in preaching, and with an acceptance which commended him as an occasional supply to ministers whose stations were not far from Thrapston. At length he was called upon to undertake a Lord's day monthly evening service at Thrapston, while the pastor occupied some neighbouring village or town. Mr. Collier's pulpit exercises were always judicious, scriptural, and earnest, they were, therefore, highly acceptable, though he made no pretensions to either rich variety or profound research. His circumstances stood very much in the way of that kind of preparation which he scrupulously deemed such services to require. He could not, therefore, be prevailed upon often to occupy the pulpit. It is gratifying to know that his labours in this direction, and those which also he conducted in connexion with the Sunday school of the congregation, were rendered, by God's blessing, the means of producing salutary and lasting impressions, of which one instance has come before his sorrowing widow and family since his decease. These labours produced one result which Mr. Collier never failed to turn to good account. While mere official pretensions in ministers were estimated at their proper worth, he always held the work of a faithful pastor in high account. Towards such pastors he was always respectful and indulgent, and if at any time hearers murmured, or expressed dissatisfaction with anything in the manner in which that work was discharged, Mr. Collier's homely thrust rebuked their murmurings "You fancy you could do better; go up into the pulpit and try." As a man of business Mr. Collier eminently "set the Lord always before him." His trade was never large, and sometimes he complained of vexatious opposition which he thought was occasioned by his political and religious views; and, perhaps, in some degree on this account his attention to business was unremitting and close. For many years he was not absent even for a single day from it, except on holidays such as Christmas day and Good Friday, which he regarded in no other light than as days of welcome cessation from his labour. This constant application did not arise from a sordid love of gain, nor did it stand in the way of the higher claims of religion. It was itself prompted by a devout regard for the injunctions of godliness, so that it readily yielded whenever those claims appeared to him legitimately to demand his attention elsewhere. From a large trade Mr. Collier shrank quite as much from inclination as from necessity, indeed much more, since his credit soon came to be good to almost any amount; and since neighbours and friends, both in and out of his immediate circle, repeatedly offered him any pecuniary aid he might require. Integrity and uprightness preserved him. An accommodation bill, a trading puff, and a disappointed commercial traveller, Mr. Collier never knew. Tricks and chicanery in trade he always regarded as deeply injurious to the character of the party who yields to them, and whenever they are descended to by a professed Christian, more injurious to religion than even the flagrant vices into which sometimes religious men are betrayed. This uprightness of Mr. Collier in his own affairs commended him to his neighbours as wisely and honestly managing theirs, when of necessity they have to be entrusted to other hands than their own. His counsel was continually being sought, and never in vain; nor was more substantial aid withheld from those who needed, as timely loans without interest to relieve the embarrassments of some of his neighbours bore ample testimony. He was one of those to whom the language of the psalmist applies, "A good man showeth favour and lendeth; he will guide his affairs with discretion. He shall not be afraid of evil tidings, his heart is fixed, trusting in the Lord." Mr. Collier was as decided in political sentiments as he was upright in his business. He soon acquired a freeholder's right, and never failed to exercise that right in favour of the slave when questions pertinent to emancipation were under discussion, and in favour of the people in all questions of peace, reform, and retrenchment. Such consistent voting is not always easy to a small tradesman in a town like Thrapston, where all manner of adverse influences were brought to bear against it, not the least potent being the example of men who fail to maintain their inner sentiments through some supposed hazard to their outward interests. Mr. Collier, however, was not an agitator. The influences of private life and example, and the clear and manly expression of his views at the hustings, were all that he felt himself at liberty to employ, and these he sought habitually to place under the direction of religious principle. In one respect Mr. Collier regarded his voting as a freeholder in the same light that he did his performance of any religious duty as a Christian. Both had to be performed in the fear of God and with an eye single to his approbation. This quiet consistency commanded respect for Mr. Collier, even among opponents. "When a man's ways please the Lord, he maketh even his even his enemies to be at peace with him." In the case of Mr. Collier this was exemplified, in that persons of station and influence in his neighbourhood, entirely opposed to his political and religious views, spontaneously offered him aid in his trade to a considerable efforts. Mr. Collier felt that the chief thing required in order to the success of such efforts is not zeal or talent, but character and repu amount when he was thought to need it, Mr. Collier was the subject from youth of frequent disease, he often endured great pain, which fact may explain a certain degree of irritability to which occasionally his friends thought him liable. He knew his failing and watched against it; they who know anything of the pain, the horrors of constitutional dyspepsia, especially with great natural activity of mind and character, will be able to sympathize with him. He had married an excellent member of the church at Thrapston, who still survives him, and they were blessed with eight children, one of whom was taken from them in infancy, two others, one an amiable daughter at eighteen years of age, the other an affectionate son a year older, were taken away after long and severe affliction in both cases; the parents' hearts were solaced by the peace with which the one anticipated death, and the triumphant confidence of the other. Still these afflictions somewhat aggravated the sufferings Mr. Collier's own personal disease occasioned, and claimed for him the tenderest sympathy. The welfare of the church of which he was a member, and for nearly the last twenty years a valued deacon, lay near his heart; in its prosperity he rejoiced, over its adversity he mourned, betaking himself, however, in these times of trial to the word of God for consolation. He was accustomed generally, and perhaps not without reason, to look for some positive cause of adversity in the church, whensoever it occurred, in the conduct of its members; sometimes, therefore, he seemed to censure when he was anxious only to stir up his own heart and that of others to the things that might check the evil. The condition of the church, for some time previously to his last illness, was such, in his judgment, as to awaken anxiety, which he felt so deeply as in the opinion of his family, who were most likely to know, to contribute to shorten his days. He might be mistaken in the judgment he formed. He might do, as sometimes men of advancing life are prone to do, somewhat unfairly compare the present with the past. That past might take in his view a fairer character than it was justly entitled to; the present might be a little too deeply tinged with the hues of passing clouds; nevertheless, Mr. Collier felt deeply, and his prayers on behalf of the church were incessant and earnest. Happy would it be for every church were its members equally earnest, and if this earnestness always expressed itself in appropriate To these, therefore, the one as the necessary concomitant of the other, he directed his chief attention, both as to himself and others. He took his standard of character from God's book, he could not lower that standard to meet the imperfections he was obliged to admit were in view, neither could he approve where he thought Paul would have censured. Perhaps a larger measure of the bland kindness of John might have given a greater effect to his imitation of the fidelity with which Paul withstood a wrong-doer to the face. Mr. Collier's last illness was of about a month's continuance, exhibiting the calm resignation, the steady hope, which a long-continued and unwavering confidence in Christ might be expected to yield. His faith was simple, clear, and evangelical, it did not, therefore, at the last leave him the subject of doubts. It was faith in a complete atonement, a faith that realized a present and unchanging Redeemer. Those who approached his dying couch witnessed and bore testimony to his serene and scriptural confidence, and were benefited by the counsels he found himself at leisure to give. Among these was a student from Stepney College, who supplied the vacant pulpit at Thrapston early in December last, with whom Mr. Collier's conversation turned on the blessedness of an intimate acquaintance with the bible. "I was much struck," that student writes, "with the just estimate in which Mr. Collier held the book of God. He had evidently been a constant reader and a diligent student of the holy word. The sentiment of the Old Testament saint, Therein do I meditate day and night,' was evidently one that he practically adopted. Sitting in his room late and lonely, he told me that his practice had been to pursue a systematic course of bible reading, and by this means he was able to read the word of God entirely through much oftener than many have the wish or the time to do. also expressed his firm conviction that the result of this had been an increased desire still to read the holy book, whose hidden treasures were known only to those who searched for them by constant and devout study. Having found this exercise thus useful to himself, he was very anxious to impress upon all the necessity of more close and constant attention to the scriptures. It was a delightful testimony to hear delivered by one so near his end. To go to the brink of eternity clinging fast to the revelations of God's word, is to go in the surest and safest way." He | |