On Lord's day morning, October 21st, this much esteemed member of the church at Harlow finished her course in peace, in the seventieth year of her age. Her health had been declining for the last twelve months, which she bore with Christian patience and resignation to the divine will. The fears she had sometimes felt in thinking of the last conflict entirely passed away as the time drew nigh. Her confidence in the Saviour remained unshaken, and when the final hour came, she felt its supporting and cheering power, calmly resting upon the divine promise, and desiring to be "absent from the body, and present with the Lord." She had been a widow twenty-six years, and fortyseven an honourable member of the Christian church. Her spirit and conduct in all life's relationships, were consistent and exemplary. a person of sound judgment, enlarged benevolence, and sterling piety; while her liberality to the necessitous, to charitable institutions, and to the cause of Christ in its various departments, was carried to the full extent of her means. She was highly esteemed by the whole church and congregation, with whom she had been so long connected, and by the neighbourhood at large, and will be long and gratefully remembered. Her pastor improved the event on the sabbath morning following, from Prov. She was x. 7. "The memory of the just is blessed." The sermon preached on the occasion, has been published at the request of her family and friends. REV. JOHN THOMAS. Died on Thursday, the 1st of November, aged eighty-nine years, the Rev. John Thomas, father of the Rev. James Thomas, of the Baptist Mission House, Calcutta. This venerable servant of the Lord was for thirtynine years the faithful pastor of the first baptist church, Broseley, Salop, and the honoured instrument of winning many souls to the Saviour, of whom several are now labouring in the ministry of the gospel. The superior strength of divine grace over that of nature was strikingly evinced in that, whilst he was oblivious of even his own daughter, (who was his constant, tender, and affectionate attendant), he was at the same time fully alive to Him, whom, in nearly his last moments he designated, "The chiefest among ten thousand, and the altogether lovely." Here was the "ruling passion strong in death." CORRESPONDENCE. ON BAPTIST COMMENTARIES. To the Editor of the Baptist Magazine. DEAR SIR,-I was highly pleased with the short review on the works of the American authors in your Magazine for September last, especially the remarks on the merits of Professor Ripley's expositions, arising from his Scriptural views of baptism. I fully concur in the remarks of the Reviewer, respecting the pernicious effects of reading pædobaptist expositions on the mind of the young of our families, and believe it to be the means of leading many of them into a depreciation, and, in some cases, utter abandonment of the only views which we deem scriptural of this ordinance. After all, strange to say, these are the expositions which obtain circulation among our denomination. For every family which has an exposition that advocates the baptist side of the question, we have scores with commentaries advocating the pædobaptist side. What wonder, therefore, is it, to see some of the members of those families imbibe the principles which are thus plausibly though silently insinuated. This cannot but work greatly to the disadvantage of the prevalence of our views. Suppose the case to be the reverse, as it is almost universally with our pædobaptist brethren, and that all the expositions in our possession advocated our own views, the result would necessarily be very different. Instead of witnessing the young adopting views contrary to our own, we should see them arise as one band in earnest in their defence. And why should it not be so? Is there something disrespectful in our views of this important ordinance? Is there a doubt lurking in our bosom as to their being scriptural? if so, we should at once abandon them; if not, we should use every exertion in their advocacy and dissemination, and call forth every legitimate means to our aid. Perhaps it will be said, we have but few commentaries that advocate our views. This is a fact, and a deplorable fact it is. The most celebrated commentary we have of this kind bears, in itself, great disadvantages for a wide circulation, in its extreme prolixity and consequent expense. I refer to the valuable commentary by Dr. Gill. Why this sterility in our denomination ? Were our great men, ancient and modern, wanting in that learning, mental perception and piety, which is necessary for the exposition of the scriptures? Are there none in our days, in our denomination, qualified for the work? The idea cannot be admitted; their other productions prove the contrary. The only clue to the mystery seems to me to be a want of sufficient encouragement in our denomination. The productions of our own men are generally depreciated and condemned without a hearing; other works are eagerly received, without regard to their tendency, and that in many cases to the exclusion of our own. This remark stands good I think, Mr. Editor, with respect to our monthly periodicals in particular. Those of other denominations are received in many a family where those of our own are comparatively unknown. And why is this? Are our publications inferior in matter? It cannot be. Some of them may be less in size, and so they will be, while that support is withheld by us, to which they have the first claim. Let due encouragement be given to our Editors and Authors, and their productions will not be a whit behind those of other denominations. I have one suggestion to give before I conclude, respecting the American works referred to, especially those of Professor Ripley. I know nothing either of this author or of his works, except what the reviewer has stated; but I am an admirer of American works. The reviewer regretted "that there is so little intellectual intercourse between America and England," he considers it a serious loss to Christians of both countries, and expresses his desire, that his notice of these books should be the means of introducing them to English readers. Mr. Editor, is there no plan that could be adopted for the purpose of issuing a cheap series, beginning with Professor Ripley's, and followed, if sufficient encouragement be received, with other works of the same stamp? Plans of this kind are adopted, and work their way well for the issuing of other works, and can it be impracticable in this case? Are there none among our denomination in the metropolis sufficiently spirited to form themselves into a committee for the management of such undertaking? Some there must be found to take the initiative in every undertaking; and who knows, were a well-concocted plan for this purpose proposed, through the organs of our denomination, and through the press in general, but that sufficient encouragement would be secured, notwithstanding all our apathy; and that several of other denominations would receive the works, in return for what we have done in promoting their undertakings. You are at liberty to do as you please to these, either to commit them to the flames, or give them publicity; but I hope the object in view will not be lost sight of. I am, Pontesbury, Nov. 16th, 1849. ON THE AGED MINISTERS' SOCIETY. To the Editor of the Baptist Magazine. DEAR SIR, I am glad that the insertion in your September number, relative to the Aged and Infirm Baptist Ministers' Society, has led our friend, Mr. Lillycrop of Windsor, to feel so warmly, and to write so earnestly, in behalf of this important Institution. Mr. Winter of Bristol, has also been made the medium of conveying to the treasurer, J. L. Phillips, Esq., a kind donation of £5 from a real friend to the ministers of Christ, and I think that the letter accompanying that contribution, should (with your permission,) appear on the pages of the Magazine. It is as follows: "MY DEAR SIR,-I was grieved to find the finances of the Society for the relief of Aged and Infirm Baptist Ministers, so low, as stated in the Baptist Magazine for the last month. It inclined me to send you £5 through my invaluable friend, Mr. H.; but since requesting him to do this, I have thought and thought again,-O how small a trifle is this divided among so many! and at last it struck me, if a collection were made, the first month in the ensuing year, in every Baptist church, after the ordinance of the Lord's supper, much might be done, and at scarcely any sacrifice. If you were to call the attention of the churches to this important subject in the December Magazine, requesting all the ministers of the respective churches to speak freely and affectionately to their people, methinks, from 80 many churches, and as there are so many holy, wealthy people in those churches, £100 might easily be raised for this most valuable Institution: and if in the February number for 1850, an account be given of the money received from the various places, it will cause the whole body to rejoice with those aged and infirm members, whose benefit and gratitude will be more especially promoted. And doubtless, all those of the Lord's people, who shall put a helping hand to such a good work, will have to exclaim, "It is more blessed to give than to receive.' "I thus submit you my thoughts to do as you please with them. Should the plan proposed be carried out, I will put one sovereign to aid the attempt; remembering what our blessed Lord has said, 'Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.' "I am, my Dear Sir, "Yours in the Gospel, "A LOVER OF CHRIST'S MINISTERS." To Rev. T. Winter, Bristol. ON A REVIEW OF MR. NOEL'S WORK ON tures To the Editor of the Baptist Magazine. DEAR SIR, It is not, I am aware, your usual practice to insert in your pages stricon papers that have appeared in other magazines. There are, however, occasionally, instances in which this rule may wisely be departed from, and allow me, although deferring to your decision, to express my opinion, that the manner in which the reviewer of the Evangelical Magazine has treated the work of Mr. Noel, in the November number, deserves to be regarded as an exceptional case. The reviewer professes to have read the Essay "with all careful attention." He desires "to report with all truth and candour." The "pure evangelism" of Mr. Noel's book he heartily admires, as also "its Christian its sincere devotion." "No spirit," and production" of Mr. Noel, he is quite sure, "would betray an absence of the spirit which should adorn the work of every Christian writer." but Nevertheless, he proceeds to "report" to his readers unfavourably of Mr. Noel's "fairness." The whole volume is pervaded by a "petitio principii," and "a spirit of dogmatism and peremptory conclusion," not to be expected from so intelligent an author; in which baptists are prone to indulge. Be sides, Mr. Noel's "gratuitous assumptions" "special pleader could are such as only a have advanced," or would be employed by "the most reckless champion" of a losing cause. "Some of them are such as should never have escaped the pen of honourable controversy." Nay, Mr. Noel even descends to "abuse," to "indiscriminate censure," and to misrepresentation," and the reviewer cannot withhold the charge, that Mr. Noel is actuated by the "zeal of an apostate," though he tries to soften the offensive word. Now, dear sir, how am I to reconcile these contradictory descriptions of the same work? What is the "truth and candour" of the reviewer worth, which, in the course of one article can first praise a book for its Christian temper, its devoutness and sincerity, and then make assertions respecting it, which if true, must for ever brand it as an example of the most unchristian and untruthful spirit. In one respect I most fully believe the truthfulness of the reviewer. Mr. Noel describes his state of mind while a padobaptist, as one of "indefinite fear of the conclusions' at which he might arrive, should he turn his attention to the question of baptism. He therefore avoided the study of it. So the reviewer. On taking up Mr. Noel's Essay, he confesses to have felt some sort of misgivSecretary.ings and nervous apprehensions, lest after all, our pædobaptist predilections should be May the benevolent desire of the writer be largely realized in the increased ease and comfort of our valued, hut in many instances, necessitous pastors. I am Dear Sir, Yours, very truly, CHARLES DANIELL, 66 shaken, and our convictions upturned." "We almost trembled," he says; and I verily believe him; for in this he but confesses the condition, to my knowledge, of many pædobaptists. Indeed, I admire greatly the reviewer's candour in telling his readers, that he entered on the perusal of Mr. Noel's book in a state of mind so very adverse to a fair and just judgment, and one most fatal to the attainment of the truth. In plainer language it were not possible to be informed, that the reviewer stept forth into the arena, not as a fair combatant and one open to conviction, but as a partisan, seeking only a decent pretext to adhere to his " predilections," and to cover the conscious weakness of his cause. Hence he is "most thankful" "to be perfectly relieved, to have passed the test, and to have endured the storm," and to be at ease once more, seeing the assault was not so severe as he expected, and he was able by a little manoeuvering, of which I shall presently speak, to avert the ponderous blow. Very candid indeed! But now, sir, I come to a very striking and eminent example of the reviewer's notions of truth and candour. In Mr. Noel's preface stands the following sentence, and I beg your readers to mark especially the words I have given in italics. I am also particularly anxious to mention that I have not omitted a single word or stop, and that the words, "the evidence," &c. come immediately after the semicolon which follows the word "immerse." Special reasons, soon to appear, make me thus particular. I will now give Mr. Noel's words. "I assume in the following essay, that the word baptism, means immersion, and that to baptize is to immerse; the evidence of which fact I hope to adduce in a separate volume." Of course the reviewer gladly admits that an author has a right to propose what object he pleases." Moreover, the reviewer has a right to say, that Mr. Noel's assump. tion is rather an important item in the thing to be proved, and for which he and we are equally bound to search the scriptures." But what was my amazement, with the last part of the above quotation before me, to read, a few sentences afterward, the following assertion-that this matter of infant sprinkling "is the very point in question, and which the volume proposes to discuss in order to prove!" He then goes on to quote an example or two of what it pleases him to call "specimens of the reasoning, or rather the substitutes for it, with which the present volume abounds," and expresses his desire that Mr. Noel had proceeded "a little more in the way of fair ratiocination, and after the mode of the inductive philosophy." He finishes by felicitating himself that having "patiently read all that this volume contains in favour of immersion, as well as that of some others," he is able to affirm that it is all "vitiated and nullified" by its want of accordance with the thing signified. Why, dear sir, he might have read Mr. Noel's book backwards, or upside down, with the same success. The "truth and candour" of the process pre-eminently appears, not only in the fact that Mr. Noel tells him in plain words, that he will NOT find any proof in favour of immersion in this but in another volume; but also in the very honest act, that the reviewer himself quotes the above sentence down to the word "immerse," and then quietly ignores the rest. He charges Mr. Noel with unfairness and misrepresentation; but what is this? Admirable "truth and candour!"-the reviewer "has read with all careful attention!" I am shocked, sir, and indignant at such violations of integrity and truthfulness occurring in the pages of a professedly Christian journal. Had Mr. Noel's reference to another volume, in which the proof of his assumption would be found, occurred some pages afterward, I could have attributed the course adopted by the reviewer to inadvertence. But this excuse cannot avail. The whole sentence, in good large type, was before the reviewer's eyes. He copies the first part of it, and omits the rest. By the grossest inattention, if not from some worse cause, he takes advantage of the wrong he had done, and represents Mr. Noel as having failed to accomplish what he never attempted nor proposed to do. By this manoeuvre the reviewer's tremors are allayed, his fears removed, his oppressed conscience relieved, and he regards himself as a beautiful example of " truth and candour!" But this suppression, wilful or not, vitiates all his pretensions to fairness, and displays not only incapacity for the func tion he has assumed, but destroys all confidence in his representations and judgment. It is the grossest unfairness to Mr. Noel. I now turn to the critic's notice of that part of Mr. Noel's volume which treats of circumcision. It betrays an equal presumption and incapacity. Thus he writes: "It would be perfectly tedious to follow Mr. Noel through the sixty pages of his Essay wherein his lucubrations on this matter are found. Suffice it to say, with a great part of what he has written we entirely agree. It contains but a succession of truisms, which scripture asserts and nobody denies. But we see nothing in his conclusions." The animus of the critic is here clearly shown. Although agreeing with Mr. Noel's "truisms" and undeniable scripture assertions, yet they are "Mr. Noel's lucubrations." If true and scriptural, why speak thus disparagingly of them? Or if they agree with his own, why the reviewer's sneer at what he himself believes? But Mr. Noel's conclusions are wrong. How does the reviewer prove this? By reiterating some of the "truisms," with the affirmation that Mr. Noel has not disproved | an end. To this work on baptism it might them; whereas Mr. Noel and the reviewer Very curious is the contrast the reviewer draws between Mr. Noel's Essay on the Union of Church and State and this on bap. tism. The former was a "noble volume." There, Mr. Noel "was at home, at rest, his heart right, his head clear, his pen correct, his work unanswered and unanswerable." But, alas! how are the mighty fallen. His "honour" is departed, his "usefulness" at be supposed "he would not bring altogether a candid and impartial mind." On this subject, his former connections incapacitated him "to separate the precious from the vile." He is but another specimen of the axiom, that "human nature is fond of extremes." His work therefore is an "entire failure;" and "pædobaptist friends have nothing to fear." Has the reviewer forgotten the old fable of the "Fox and the Grapes?" The book is very sour, very sour indeed-it is baptist! But what if Mr. Noel had written in favour of pædobaptism? Why, Mr. Editor, on the very face of the matter it is a pure specimen of sectarian lament and vexation. The pædobaptists have lost a man whom they flattered and caressed, and hoped to have secured among them: Hinc ille lachrymæ. You cannot, sir, be ignorant of certain facts, which are known widely in London circles, and which would amply prove my remark. I will only say, that if baptists had put forth one tenth part of the efforts to secure the adhesion of Mr. Noel to their body, which have been made by certain eminent pædobaptist ministers on behalf of pædobaptist independency, no terms would have been thought too severe to censure the proselyting spirit and sectarian. ism of baptists. One more example of the reviewer's truthfulness and candour, and I have done. Mr Noel informs his readers in the preface, that "he determined to form his judgment entirely by the study of the scriptures, and of such authors as advocate the baptism of infants;" and in a subsequent page he appends a list of "books referred to" in the course of his essay. With an extreme anxiety for fairness doubtless actuating him, the critic is pleased to understand this list as comprising all the books consulted and read by Mr. Noel, and to affirm that "some of the most powerful and satisfactory are omitted." Among these "powerful" writers, he names Turretine, Pictet, Williams, Edwards, and Thorn;names, to say the least, not much known now as peculiarly eminent or satisfactory. But in fact, as is apparent by the heading of the list, Mr. Noel makes no pretensions to give a complete list of the works which he had read, but simply those he has had occasion to quote or refer to in the essay itself. For aught that appears, Mr. Noel may have consulted every one of the authors named by the critic, and many more; but surely in a list of the books referred to in the essay, we should not anticipate the insertion of numerous writers who were not referred to at all. Such a parade of names would have been inconsistent with the humility of a Christian man like Mr. Noel, and altogether contrary to the purport of the list, which was merely to facilitate reference to the editions and titles of the books quoted. Nevertheless, the |