Nelson's Puritan Divines-Adams' works. That the volume of Adams' works contains much important truth, many important moral instructions, striking figures, &c., I am prepared to admit. But whilst prepared to admit the general truth of the volume, I am astonished that any Tutor of a Dissenting College can recommend for wide distribution a work containing much that may and will be turned against Dissent. In the present day of spreading Puseyism, it certainly must appear strange that such a work, containing remarks against schismatics-respecting sacred fonts, and so little to inspire true spirituality of mind and close walking with God, should be sent forth, particularly under a Puritan name. As a sincere lover of truth, I more than question the propriety of sending forth such works as those of Jeremy Taylor, and a few others. I am not insensible to their excellencies; but the present day requires for the poor of Christ's flock, and for the church generally, plain full gospel. Be assured that all attempts to catch the world and Churchmen by such works as Adams' will utterly fail. We want the plain pure truths contained in the works of Sibbs, Heywood, Charnock, &c., &c. To publish cheap, for the poor of Christ's flock, is most admirable. It will do immense good. Do, then, exert your powerful influence, and let the simple folk' have the plain simple gospel at the cheapest rate possible. As the Puseyites are publishing even cheaper than Nelson, I hope, for the good of Zion, a good full shilling volume of such good old divinity as that of Byfield, Jacomb, &c."

JUSTICE TO MINISTERS.-A correspondent writes as follows:-"I think that each minister should be supported according to the means of the church and congregation which he serves. I do not see why his family should be totally unprovided for, which in many, I think I may say in most instances, is the case. How often have I been pained at reading the appeals to the public on behalf of the widow and family of a deceased minister, which might have been rendered unnecessary by a small sum paid annually by the church on a life insurance for their minister. Men in business have many ways of making some provision for their families; but a minister's income is generally a stated limited one, and, if he invest a few pounds in railway shares or any other speculation, he is censured as acting inconsistently with his holy calling. Far

be it from me to justify such a step; there is great danger, when a minister of the gospel begins to speculate or to trade, that his own personal piety, and consequently the prosperity of the church over which he presides, will suffer by it; but let us take a calm and sober view of the case. I refer not now so much to the poorer churches as to those in large towns, where there are to be found many respectable tradesmen and even wealthy members. Their minister's salary may be somewhere from £250 to £500 per annum; but with this sum what numerous demands he has to meet! He is expected to live in a respectable house, and to make a genteel appearance with his wife and family; his children must be educated as well as clothed; and if his pulpit services are to be acceptable to an intelligent and educated people, he must possess a well-furnished library, to which frequent additions must be made. Then he is expected to give liberally to various religious societies, especially to those connected with his own place of worship, and this he would desire to do as far as possible. Then there are various incidental travelling expenses to be met, and his own health, at times, apart from that of other members of his family, may require some relaxation and change of air, which involves expense he can often but ill bear. With all these and numberless other demands upon his income, how can he spare anything to provide for the future support of his family? Truly it is often as much as he can do to make all ends meet and keep clear of debt. Then how often does it happen that in the midst of his labours he is called to his rest, and after having faithfully ministered to a people for ten, twelve, fifteen, or more years, he leaves a widow and young family without any adequate provision for their support. Surely these things ought not so to be.' Let the churches consider, if they do not owe it to their pastors, who serve them faithfully, and whom they profess to love and value, to relieve their minds of that anxiety which every kind husband and father must at times feel on this subject? Can they do better than begin with the new year?"

CASE OF CONSCIENCE. In a very affecting letter the following questions are put:-"Can a Christian find in God's word, our rule of faith and practice, a warrant to sanction him in adulterating, and vending as genuine, any adulterated articles?

COMIC LITERATURE.-We have been gratified to find that our strictures on this subject have given much satisfaction to godly men. As an example, we give the words of a devoted Christian minister:-"My tribute of admiration and praise is of little worth, but that fact in no degree diminishes the pleasure I have in paying it. It is heartily rendered now for the strictures in your December Number of the WITNESS on Punch,' in connection with the 'Comic History of England.' My natural predilections would be entirely on the side of such publications, while my spiritual perceptions fully concur in your own views, as declared in the critique alluded to. It will be found detrimental in the highest degree, I feel persuaded, to foster in our youth a taste for the 'ludicrous,' as, if indulged, it will surely be carried into the house of God, and prove, it is to be feared, a successful barrier to the saving reception of Divine truth; for the peculiarities of the preacher in tone, gesture, and expression, will receive a much larger share of attention than the solemn themes on which he discourses concerning the kingdom of God. This is not the first stroke of the censor's' pen that Punch' has received at your hands, and I trust that your plain-spoken opinions of that popular periodical may not be lost upon its professedly pious readers and the members of their families."

These light writers have only a single virtue they are honest in avowing their intentions, which avowals, among people of sense, ought to serve as a beacon. Take an example: "Our mission is to amuse; to edify the spirit of mirth, and to comfort and advance the risible faculties of the human soul. We shall take up the rarer and better sort of new books, occasionally visiting the old ones, and pick out all the more elegant jocosities, the quips, the quirks, the anecdotes, the finished foolery, and even the most solemn and arid productions, in some degree certain. By this analysis, Dr. South, who has usually been seen in wig and gown, will appear in cap and bells.

Locke, opened by this key, shall read as mirthful as a Housatonic trout cuts red. We shall distil drollery from dictionaries, and twist sermons into squibs."-Englishmen, are you prepared to patronize such abomination? If not, away with "Punch" and his pestilent progeny.

THE DEACON'S OFFICE." A Young Deacon" writes, "Will you have the kindness to inform me whether there be scriptural authority for the permanency of the office of the deacon? Also, the best book written upon the duties connected with that office?"

The Scriptures are open to our correspondent as well as to us, and he must see they are silent. The deaconship is, of course, governed by the same law as the ministry. There is nothing in the thing itself involving "permanency" in spite of circumstances. The tie was a mutual act, and its continuance must depend upon mutual satisfaction. "A Treatise on the Office of Deacon," by Rev. J. G. Lorimer, of the Free Church, is the last, and a good work, notwithstanding its Presbyterian bearings. Dr. King, however, on "The Ruling Eldership, which, among Presbyterians, has much in common with our deaconship, is the book for our correspondent. This is a very valuable production, which, in its turn, will be brought more fully before our readers. The Annual Address also on the office, by our own Union, deserves especial notice.

LIFE INSURANCE.-A Sunday-school Teacher writes, "Believing you deem provident institutions commendable, I have ventured to hope the following will not be foreign to the pages of the CHRISTIAN WITNESS and CHRISTIAN'S PENNY MAGAZINE, both of which are read extensively. Is it not to be regretted that some institution, which shall provide for dependent relations and friends after death, has not been established among church members and Sunday-school teachers (the former almost including the latter)? Their principles ensure lives of an order which would guarantee the success of such an undertaking, if it were but begun in the right quarter."

We quite concur in these views, and the establishment of Congregational Benefit Societies will, in all respects, meet the case.

CHEAP EDITIONS.-The response to the statement in a former Number has been

loud and general. We give a few sentences from some of our correspondents: "I most sincerely hope that you will succeed in accomplishing this very desirable object. I promise to do all I can in obtaining purchasers or in forwarding the object in any possible way. I believe that many of our ministers, village preachers, sabbath-school teachers, and poorer lay-members, will thus obtain a rich treat in the means of self-improvement which the Congregational Lectures afford. At the same time the usefulness of those eminent and honoured ministers who delivered the lectures will be greatly extended, and thousands will bless God for the Congregational Library."

Another writer says, "Until a recent period I was acquainted with the Congregational Lectures only in name; their price precluding the purchase of any of them.

The remarks of a friend relative

to their value induced me to borrow the third volume of the series, ('The Atonement,' by Rev. J. Gilbert,) which I read with attention and great advantage. Having thus myself received good from it, I recommended it to a relative living at a distance from here, for whom I thought it adapted. He succeeded in obtaining the loan of that volume, and to him it has proved almost invaluable, enabling him to hold fast the profession of his faith, and to give a reason of his hope to those who sought to turn him aside from the truth as it is in Jesus. Impressed with a sense of the great value of these works, I cannot help thinking that it is to be much regretted that their price bars them from the people. Reduced to 6s. a volume, they will yet be shut up from the mass of young people who read. Looking at the price of some other publications, I beg to ask, Is it impracticable to produce them at half the proposed price? I fear it is not sufficiently pondered by those who conduct these publications, and who wish to do good by them, that the price determines who shall read and who shall not. Without farther occupying your time, I beg to subjoin the following as an illustration of what I mean. I myself would gladly take twenty copies of the above if published at 38. 6d., or thirty if published at 3s.; whereas, though I am so interested in their distribution as to be ready to make any effort to recommend them, I do not know but a very few individuals indeed (perhaps not four) in my circle of acquaintance who could be induced to take a copy at 6s. 6d. Can anything be done?"

"Can anything be done?"-Done! Yes; with only a thousand such men as our correspondent, anything could be done!

AN EXAMPLE TO MASTERS.-A gentleman in the north of England thus writes: "I am much gratified in reading your excellent appeal on behalf of the CHRISTIAN'S PENNY MAGAZINE, and do earnestly hope your anticipations will be realized. I think much more might be done, especially if employers would introduce it to their work-people. As an instance, I would say that the firm with which I stand connected employ about thirty men, and last year, having presented each man with a copy, I solicited their names as subscribers, and succeeded in obtaining twenty, and we now stand at twenty-five. Besides this, it has created a taste for reading; and this year it is my determination to work with redoubled vigour, and hope to be able to report equal success with the WITNESS. I would also suggest the propriety of superintendents in sabbath-schools introducing the matter to the notice of the scholars: by that means a greater circulation might be insured. The school with which I have the privilege of being connected take about fifty or fifty-five, and is gradually increasing.'

Were all employers to imitate this worthy example, we should unquestionably realize our wishes, and gentlemen would find their own account in the end. Such cases are full of encouragement.

FICTION. From a well-written letter we extract the following: "As you are at all times ready to bear witness' against the evil tendency of prevailing customs and usages of the present day, permit me to say that I think you are not sufficiently aware of the prevailing evil and fearful extent of Novel reading. I am aware that on one occasion, in the WITNESS for 1845, page 254, you have spoken Christian-like on the subject; but, Sir, in this town I understand that fictitious works are regularly read by members of Christian churches, and, as I have said before, I cannot believe you are aware of its fearful extent; if you were, you would sound the WITNESS again and again, until the cry should have reached the ears and hearts of those called Christians.

"I attended a few nights since a Society for Mutual Instruction, instituted by members of a Christian church for the benefit of the young, whose object was to impart to their tender minds all knowledge that

was good and consistent with the Christian character. At this meeting it was proposed that a certain number of books should be bought for the use of the members; among others were two or three works of fiction. These were very properly opposed by some of its members, and I could have wished that they had been by all; but, to the utter astonishment of many, were advocated and strenuously urged to be read by those persons that are really teachers of the gospel. Now, Sir, what must be the effects of such proceedings on the thinking and youthful mind?"

To our correspondent's question we reply, the effect cannot be other than injurious; and we are fortified by the following passage of Dr. E. Mason, of the United States, who in an able discourse on the influence of light reading, proceeds to sketch the proper qualities and objects of reading: "It should strengthen and develop the mind, furnish it with practical knowledge, and also improve the heart. Tried by this test, what must be said of the great mass of novel reading? At best it amounts to nothing, and in most cases is worse than nothing. It does not improve the mind; it does not foster the imagination, for the novel reader revels in the imagination of another, rather than uses his own.

It does

not strengthen the judgment, nor furnish any real practical knowledge. Its effects are to dissipate the mental powers, give false views of life, and to disturb the proper balance between the faculties of the mind. As to its influence upon the moral nature, novel reading is evil, and only evil. It blunts the sensibilities, depraves the taste, hardens the heart, and creates a distaste for all that is real, practical, and useful. The hardest heart to be found is one indurated by a process of light reading; and if the secret thread of any gambler's or villain's history could be traced, very few would be found who have not had an intimacy with the novelist or the dramatist. Sir Walter Scott himself has said that at best novels could only be read for amusement, without the least hope of instruction; and the experience of any reader will sustain the justice of the opinion. Yet of all amusements it is the worst."

Reader! this witness is true. Awake, then, to the voice of wisdom, and eschew novels! The times which are passing over us demand a race of pure-hearted, iron-minded men, not a brood of feeble, polluted, sentimental drivellers!

DEFERRED ANNUITY FUND FOR AGED MINISTERS.

To the Editor of the Christian Witness.

SIR, I have just received the enclosed from a devoted and honoured brother in North Wales, and feel very desirous that it should appear, if possible, in the February Number of the CHRISTIAN WITNESS. I am particularly anxious that this highly-important measure should be much more fully discussed in your pages before the Annual Meeting.

The luminous, powerful, and spirit-stirring appeal of the excellent Treasurer and Secretary in the January Number has greatly delighted me; still I fear it will not prove successful to the extent of their wishes, because the scheme as there proposed does virtually exclude all but young ministers from participating in its benefits. For ministers at or under thirty years of age, the proposed aid will be admitted on all hands to be generous and ample; but inasmuch as virtually nothing is to be done for poor ministers who have reached say forty or fifty years, I very much fear the appeal will not meet with that ready and liberal response which it would do if the scheme proposed could more fully meet the cases of such.

It is true indeed the proposed plan does offer to such £6 per annum; yet the sum to be furnished by themselves is so large as to amount to a virtual prohibition. I fear, therefore, it will be felt that something very like injustice will be done to the present race of devoted and selfdenying ministers, if an equal chance, so to speak, be not given them of endeavouring to subscribe for an annuity. I am deeply sensible of the very many and serious difficulties which surround the question, and how almost impossible it would be, on a general scale, so to aid ministers who have reached forty or fifty years as to enable them to secure so large an annuity as £50 on arriving at sixty. But if after all it should be found necessary to adhere to the principle of a uniform sum, I would suggest whether ministers beyond thirty-five or forty might not be allowed to subscribe for a less annuity than £50? To many a self-denying brother who has had to support a family on £50 or £60 per annum, a retirement of even £30 would be deemed anything but a contemptible sum. if it be determined that the utmost aid afforded shall be £6 per annum, and the lowest annuity subscribed for shall be £50, then it is pretty clear that almost all ministers at or above forty years of age must virtually be excluded.

But

Then as to the matter of raising a fund of £20,000, it does appear to me to involve a serious reflection on our denomination to entertain a suspicion that it would be at all difficult. Twenty thousand pounds, and for such an object! To keep from absolute penury, in their old age, some of our most honoured, most devoted, most self-denying, and most inadequately-remunerated ministers! Ministers who have spent their life and their labours in poor rural districts, where Protestant Nonconformity has been persecuted and oppressed in almost every possible way; in spheres of great usefulness, where brethren of more brilliant talents and more cultivated minds would not have laboured, and to which perhaps they would not have been adapted,-not to raise £20,000 for such an object! "Oh! tell it not

in Gath, whisper it not even in the streets of Askelon." Why, Sir, I cannot help thinking when the thing becomes properly known and understood, there may be found among us One Hundred affluent men who will most cheerfully follow the noble example of two of our honoured brethren, and make an investment in perpetuity of £200 each, and thus furnish at once the proposed amount ! And then even should more be required to make this thing efficient, there might be numbers found who would be willing to give smaller sums. To the affluent, then, of our denomination is this appeal made. "Who is on the Lord's side ?"

Who amongst you is willing

to consecrate a little of his superfluous wealth to the Lord, in the persons of his poor, faithful, devoted servants, in such a case as the present? It is a grand comprehensive scheme, which once established and put in operation, will go on selfsustained in perpetuity. The present generation and all coming generations will bless you. You will have the satisfaction of feeling that being, by Divine mercy, strong, you have been endeavouring to sustain the weak," who could not sustain themselves; and then you may hope, through rich grace, to hear from the applauding lips of your Divine Master the animating declaration, "Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me."

Still looking to you, Sir, to aid by your powerful pen this great and noble scheme, I remain, Yours truly,

RICHARD HARRIS.

Westbury, Wilts, Jan. 9, 1847.

REV. AND DEAR SIR,-In looking over the proceedings of the Union on this important subject with eager and anxious thoughts, I find the plan proposed will be utterly out of my reach. Being just now entering my fifty-fourth year, it would be necessary for me, it seems, to pay about £50 per annum, in order to receive an annuity of £50, beginning at the age of sixty.

Now, a donation of £6 per annum from the profit of the Magazines would do much for young ministers; but how could I pay in addition the sum of £44 for six or seven years? All my income can hardly be called £50 per annum ; about £20 from my people, which is very precarious, as well as the other sums of our income. My poor flock, though they are most affectionate and faithful, valuing my ministry as much, perhaps, as those rich churches who are able to give their ministers £300 a-year, are but poor miners. Many of them do not earn more than 58. per week, and as they are now without potatoes, they do not get enough of dry dark barley bread, but are in actual need of the common necessaries of life! I know that prisoners in England fare much better! We cannot expect them to contribute for religious purposes, although of the best Christian character.

Having been called to preach, and then to enter a college, nearly thirty years ago, by a numerous and respectable church, when in good business, and I saved a little money, which I cheerfully spent in the college; and I may humbly add that my feeble labours have been owned of the Lord; I have received to church fellowship above 300; six of them are useful preachers,-I labour very hard indeed, as I have three small chapels under my care, at some distance. I am engaged every evening through the week, except Saturday evening. Should the Lord spare my life, I cannot be efficient for my hard duties much after coming to sixty years of age. But how can I live? It is very gloomy before me and mine. Could the Union assist me to secure an annuity of £40, or even £30 per annum, I should feel more happy. I apprehend that there are many, many similarly situated, if not much worse off.

Hoping your honoured Committee may make some provision for such cases, I remain, Yours most affectionately,

MEMOIR OF MRS. ANN MITCHELL, OF KEIGHLEY.

THIS lady, who was of good family-one of the most respectable in Keighleywas born in 1772, and slept in Christ in 1846, was a widow, and of more than ordinary attainments in piety; distinguished alike for the urbanity of her manners, the kindness of her disposition, the depth of her devotion, and the vigour of her faith.

It is not my intention to enter into the particulars of her life, more at least than is sufficient to illustrate her Christian character. Indeed, for the purposes of a mere sketch, it would be impossible to detail the events of a long and useful life, as it would be utterly needless. A dry

account would be uninteresting, and a full one would render its insertion, in a periodical like the WITNESS, out of the question. Besides, I cannot speak, from my own knowledge of her history, for more than some twelve or thirteen years; and, as it is my design to say only what I know, or think I know-knowledge arising from personal observation and frequent intercourse-I shall entirely pass by her history preceding the year 1834, the time of my intimate acquaintance with her, except by saying that she was admitted a member of the Independent church at Keighley in the year 1823; and that, before that time, she had been a greatly afflicted lady.

Without attempting to illustrate all the