SPIRITUAL AND TEMPORAL. IT was thought desirable, on Mr. Green's return from Ireland, to call our friends together to hear his report, and to devote the remainder of the time to earnest prayer for the divine blessing on the mission. Accordingly such a meeting was held at Eagle Street, on Wednesday, June 27th, and after prayer by the Secretary and Treasurer, Mr. Green gave an account of his tour, the state of the cause in Parsonstown, Moate, Athlone, Ballina, Banbridge, Belfast, and Conlig. The service was one of deep interest. He also spent several days in company with Mr. Moriarty and the Rev. G. M'Namara, and earnestly recommended the Committee to employ them if possible. As £50 had been sent expressly for this purpose, by a constant and liberal friend, it was resolved to engage Mr. M'Namara for six months, to be employed for the present in the Ballina district. Mr. Moriarty's case, we regret to say, must stand over for the present for the want of funds. As our friends generally are much interested in the farm experiment at Ballina, and others have some doubts as to the propriety of the scheme, we have great pleasure in laying before them the following letter addressed to the Treasurer by the Rev. SAMUEL GREEN, which contains some interesting details respecting it, which will, in all probability, convince them that this is one of the best methods of applying the balance of the Relief Fund. July 2, 1849. ground and for grass land, paying you for this land just what you pay for it. You have about five acres of grass for mowing, which was promising well when I saw it. All the rest of the farm is in cultivation, growing chiefly oats and turnips. There are no MY DEAR SIR,-It has occurred to me partly as one consequence of an inquiry which I have had somewhat frequently to answer in relation to the farm at Ballina, that it may be as well to give you a brief account of the result of my recent inquiries and investi-potatoes on the farm, except in the steward's gation on the spot into its working, its likely pecuniary condition, and its results as a means of relief to the almost starving and naked people of that district. The farm consists of about 135 statute acres, all arable except about fifteen acres of grass land, the larger portion of which grass land, however, was under tillage only last year or the year before. There is a small quantity of bog land not reckoned, perhaps from four to five acres. A cottage or somewhat respectable cabin stands on the farm for the manager to reside in, and there are a few other cabins or cottages which are now used as out-buildings, except two, or perhaps three occupied by tenants otherwise destitute of a house. For the whole of the farm you pay an annual rent of £83 8s. 9d. The amount of your portion of the county cess, somewhat varying, is under £4 4s. per annum; and your portion of the poor's rates, somewhat more variable still, has hitherto been under £3 3s. per annum. You have no other payments that I know of, except the cost of tillage. The managing steward hires of you by the year about ten acres for his potato garden. The whole of the land under tillage is worked by the spade. You have but one horse on the farm, and for harrowing and carting manure you hire a second. I examined as minutely as I could the state of the crop in each field. May is an early month to judge of this, especially as to turnips, of which a considerable breadth had been sown, or was in course of being sown. Taking as my guide the valuation per acre which Lord Lansdowne employed in stating the amount of loss occasioned by the failure of the crops in 1846 (see his speech of January 15th, 1847), and testing the correctness of this valuation by a tolerably extensive inquiry among men in the neighbourhood quite competent from their practical knowledge of farming to judge, the crops may be expected to realize about £550 in the market. Your steward pays you £6 10s., and you have, besides, the produce of about five acres of grass land. I looked also at the expense of tillage, including your manager's salary, manure, &c., and I found that, taking as my guide the cost of the six months since you have had the farm, during which many things have of necessity been done that will not require to be repeated, and during which also you have been compelled to purchase every load of manure, this expense will amount to £418. Perhaps £400 will be a liberal allowance annually, taking one year with another. The money showing, therefore, is as follows: Rent and yearly payments £90 15 9 £490 15 9 Value of the crop in the market......... £550 0 0 610 0 £556 10 0 Five acres of grass land, and straw, &c., not taken £556 10 0 account of. Leaving to meet any contingency that may arise each for the week of less than 1s. 114d. No wonder their appearance was tattered, povertystricken, and wretched. Yet even this pittance was received by almost every one with great thankfulness. It was a choice between that, starving at the workhouse gates, or admitted within them where the numbers crowding in must soon occasion disease and death. You know that I had not been very favourable to the farming scheme. I thought it might operate injuriously to the church at Ballina, by placing too much patronage, such as it is, at the disposal of the minister at that station; but the absolute necessity of some parties doing what you are doing, and on a much larger scale, the moral and spiritual good likely to result from an industrious 490 15 9 employment being pursued by so many under the influences brought to bear upon the men on your farm, and the fact, which I was careful to ascertain, that necessity combined with good moral conduct, is the chief consideration in selecting from the applicants for employment, removed my objections. The money contributed for the missionary and spiritual objects of your society is not, even to a single fraction, devoted to this farm, and never must be. The farm must be sustained, if sustained at all, exclusively from the funds sent to you for the temporal relief of the starving people. I wish I could hope that such relief would not continue to be needed. £65 14 3 There is no live stock on the farm. You must, I apprehend, have some about harvest time. I should hope, however, that what with the saving on manure, made instead of purchased, and what with the difference of price between fed cattle or sheep, and those brought for store, this part of the matter will pay, if even it do not yield a profit. One thing I ought to say about the man who manages your farm. He seems to be industrious, sagacious, in one word a competent man, in all those things that could fall under my observation. What sort of a buyer and seller he may be, or what may be his judgment as to cattle, I had no means of ascertaining. It should be added that by the terms of the lease the landlord binds himself to you for twenty-one years, while you can relinquish your part of the engagement at the end of the first year, or at the end of any third year afterwards. There seemed to be among practical men in all parts of Ireland with whom I met, but one opinion as to the greater benefit of relieving the starving peasantry, by giving them such labour, than by any other methods of relief. Shall I add that I was present when the labourers were paid their week's wages on Friday evening, May 25th? Part of the week had been very wet, so as to interfere considerably with out-door work; some of the people had been set to work at advanced periods in the week. There were in all 110 persons paid, 48 of whom were boys and girls from about twelve years old to seventeen. These 48 had been employed an average of three days each, at fourpence per day. Three of the men had been employed the whole week, their wages being eight pence per day. The whole 110 had £10 13s. 8d. divided amongst them, giving an average to Mr. ECCLES writes from Belfast, June 16, as follows: I had the pleasure of baptizing this day another disciple, on a credible profession of faith in Christ. She is a widow in whose house I have for some months preached weekly to an encouraging congregation. She had to encounter considerable opposition on account of her attachment to the baptists, but she has braved it nobly. Notwithstanding our losses by removals and emigration, losses trying to faith and patience, we continue to make way, and the places vacated are already supplied. We expect three other additions to the church shortly. for this district, mentions a circumstance Mr. A. HAMILTON, assistant missionary which illustrates the increasing interest felt by the people in the labours conducted there for their benefit, and the good results of which are beginning to appear. The stations are doing well, three or four of them particularly; and from them we have many who now regularly attend at the chapel, and serve to increase the congregations. Though the church does not increase as fast as we wish, yet it is progressing steadily. I preached in the mountains last week to a congregation of about fifty persons. The place of meeting was comfortably filled; and after the services of the evening were closed, one of the most respectable of the audience rose and said," My friends, this gentleman comes all the way from town for the purpose of doing us good. Let us therefore be thankful, and every one of us endeavour to bring another person with himself to the next meeting." Our friends will remember the account which Mr. BERRY gave of some out-door services held by him, and the deep attention manifested by the crowds present; and the evidence supplied by the fact of the great change which has taken place in the feelings of the Romanists in that district as compared with the state of things ten years ago, when he first came to Abbeyleix. From his letter, July 3, we extract a few particulars respecting ANOTHER OPEN-AIR SERVICE. I have again to inform you of fresh additions to our little church, which are unmistakeable signs of progress. Last Lord's day I baptized two persons, one a respectable pious protestant, the other a Romanist from the workhouse. On account of the rain the service was short, and the congregation not quite so large as usual on these occasions, yet still large. And though the people were disappointed that the state of the weather prevented my speaking at any length, they were delighted when I announced a similar service for that day fortnight. The impression in our favour is deep and wide spread, and I cherish the hope that this will yet become a large church. The Romanist whom I baptized was visited by the priest, and advice, ridicule, and threatening which he employed, only served to convince the poor man more fully of the tyranny and craft of priestism. I shall have to baptize other converted Romanists soon, and as these open-air services bring such large numbers together of all classes, I prefer having them once a fortnight during the summer. The good work continues to go on in the west. Mr. M'KEE has had some additions to the church during the past month. As Easky is near the sea coast, they have the ocean as a baptistery. GOOD TOKENS. Last Saturday, June 16th, I had the pleasure of baptizing two persons in the sea, near this village. One of these, a young man, was brought to know "the plague of his own heart," as he himself states, by hearing an address which I gave on the guilt and misery of sin. The other, a Christian female from the neighbourhood of Coolaney, has been for some time convinced that only believers should be baptized; but as her friends were opposed, she neglected this duty as long as her conscience would allow. She at length, however, summoned up courage to follow the Saviour fully, whatever it might cost her. Doubtless she will find, as David did, that in keeping the divine commands there is great reward. We have still some Romanists who attend on the preaching of the gospel. Others, who are papists still, have ceased to go to mass, and attend with us, though not in church fellowship. CHURCHISM EVERYWHERE THE SAME. Our sabbath school has been considerably reduced. One has been started by the church party here, and threats have been liberally employed to get the children away from us. In many instances these have had the desired effect. There was no Sunday-school here when I came, and it is not uncharitable to say, that probably there would have been none now but for the establishment of ours. We must, however, go on in spite of all obstacles. The young church at Banbridge has been sorely tried. We almost wonder it has continued to exist after the heavy losses it has had to bear. Mr. BATES writes, June 28, and the subjoined extracts will show our friends what these trials are. During the month I have preached in four country stations, and the congregations have been pretty good. Things are going on much as usual, but I long to see more spiritual life. We have suffered greatly from removals, but others are brought in. Not long since we had fifty members, but nearly twenty are removed, either to America, or to such a distance that they cannot attend. Still the congregation keeps up better than I could expect. There is a kind of preaching which will always bring people to hear, and we should labour to attain unto it: may the Lord give us this gift. chapel at present. Not having succeeded in I see no prospect of getting up a new obtaining money in America, or England, to the extent hoped for, and the people here being so reduced as to be unable to give what they promised, and being much cast down owing to the depression of the trade of the town, it would be imprudent to do more than fit up the room on the ground which we have purchased. It is 27 feet by 18 in the clear. We have now four families who talk of emigrating, and these contain ten of our members. We could not foresee these changes; and we can only hope that matters may ere long mend. The interest at the Kilcooley Hills presents an aspect which encourages Mr. WILSON in his work. Last month we had to report additions by baptism, and now we have to state the results of some new efforts made in other portions of the district. The congregations in Raneghmore have doubled in number. A sabbath school has been formed, and on the first Lord's day we had forty scholars present. The little church was never more tried, and certainly it was never more zealous and united. Some whom I feared were only nominal Christians are beginning to awake out of sleep, and are putting forth efforts for the conversion of sinners. There are at present four new openings for preaching, but as the reader is laid aside I cannot take them up. A considerable number of Romanist children and from twenty to thirty of these remain for the public service at noon. I intend commencing a school on Lord's day evening, at Boulay. We shall soon have other additions by baptism. attend the school at R Having given the substance of the reports of some of the missionaries respecting the state and prospects of the cause in their districts, we now turn to those supplied by the readers, and they are not less interesting or important. These exhibit the state of mind among the poor, and chiefly among Romanists, as seen in daily intercourse. During the past week, writes J. M., June 18, I had pleasing times in the neighbourhood of B, where I held four prayer meetings, at each of which we had several Romanists in attendance. On one occasion the two of them stopped for an hour, after the service, for the purpose of receiving scriptural instruction; and when they went away not only expressed their satisfaction with what they had heard, but begged me to come to their houses and read to their families. In another place where I called, a man brought out his Irish testament, saying, “I have carefully studied the passages you marked out for me, and now I see that the worship of, and prayers to, saints and angels, are contrary to the word of God." In a house where a wake was held, I read to several persons, all of them Romanists, and most of them paid great attention. W. D. who is a priest's brother, said, in reply to observations previously made, that purgatory was evidently a human invention, and contradictory to scripture, and that he much suspected, as the people were become so very poor, and unable to pay the clergy for their purgatorial services, it would soon become an obsolete doctrine. Thanks be to God, that the seed of divine truth, though sown in weakness, and often lying concealed for a long time, is yet brought to light, and in due time brings forth fruit. This is seen in the case of Mrs. H. whom you baptized last week. Some years ago she was much impressed under a sermon by Mr. Bates, and she often called upon me, to have her memory refreshed on the subject. Our meetings have been frequent, and I trust refreshing and comfortable to our souls. And now that she has been brought, after so long a time, to know and profess that Jesus is made to her "of God, wisdom, righteousness, and sanctification," we can rejoice together. Another reader writes from the mid land district, July 2nd, and sums up his report as follows: The religious exercises of the past Lord's day, as well as those of the 15th June (both open-air services), have caused great stir. Since the beginning of the year we have gathered in eleven souls, though every thing has been done to stop our way. Our congregations on Lord's days, and prayer meetings, are steadily increasing. Contributions in our next. Subscriptions and Donations thankfully received by the Treasurer, JOSEPH TRITTON, Esq., Lombard Street; and by the Secretary, Mr. FREDERICK TRESTRAIL, and Rev. JOSEPH ANGUS, at the Mission House, Moorgate Street; and by the pastors of the churches throughout the Kingdom. COLLECTOR FOR LONDON, REV. C. WOOLLACOTT, 4, COMPTON STREET EAST, BRUNSWICK SQUARE. J. HADDON, PRINTER, CASTLE STREET, FINSBURY. THE BAPTIST MAGAZINE. SEPTEMBER, 1849. MEMOIR OF THE LATE REV. DAVID DOUGLAS, OF HAMSTERLEY, BISHOP AUCKLAND. BY THE REV. GEORGE SAMPLE. I know thy works, and charity, and service, and faith, and thy patience, and thy works; and the last to be more than the first."-Rev. ii. 19. "Stillest streams Of water, fairest meadows, and the bird That flutters least is longest on the wing." whose name appears at the head of this article, the late pastor of the baptist church in the obscure village of Hamsterley. From the year 1822, till a recent period, had he lived and laboured there, and they who best knew his "doctrine, manner of life, and purpose of faith," could best appreciate their beneficial influence. His, in short, was "the path of the just which shines more and more unto the perfect day." In its influence on the young it THERE is something in the circum- | may be applied to the worthy brother stance of an individual's residing for seven and twenty years in the same place, and discharging all the while the duties pertaining to his station, till called by a higher power into eternity, which cannot fail to bespeak our most favourable regard. We infer that he has been a man of character, for had it been otherwise men would have long since "clapped their hands at him," they would have "hissed him out of his place." His patience and perseverance we cannot doubt; and the effect of his example we conclude to have been of a salutary description. Nor are we often disappointed in anticipations such as these. They are in themselves reasonable, and seldom fail. He who changes not, and but seldom wishes to change, impresses his character on his generation, and will be remembered with affectionate interest long after he has ceased to haunt his wonted sphere. These remarks, we venture to say, VOL. XII.-FOURTH SERIES. "Allured to brighter worlds, and led the way." To trace a history thus quietly developed may not be uninstructive, and such being the object of the following pages, a short statement of a few facts is subjoined. Mr. Douglas was born in the city of Edinburgh in the year 1789. His age, consequently, at the time of his death, was not more than sixty; a goodly season, indeed, yet such as to prompt 3 z |