網頁圖片
PDF
ePub 版

and industry of the different towns in Britain can produce, calculated to minister to the necessities, luxuries, and amusements of the inhabitants of a vast empire, hitherto comparatively shut out from intercourse with the civilized world. The opening of the four ports is considered to be equal to the opening of commercial relations with four rich states, each as large as France, and densely populated."

If the field of missionary labour is the world, and those parts, especially, that stand most in need of the illuminating and purifying influence of the gospel,-in what an awful and impressive manner has the great Head of the church, as the God of providence, and the Redeemer of our race, awakened us to a concern to adopt immediate and energetic measures for the work of evangelizing China! These dark places of the earth are now revealed to us in all their pagan degradation and misery; till the termination of the last sanguinary massacre we had no access to them as a Government, and most haughtily refused all intercourse with them as a people. They regarded us as contemptible barbarians. They have been made to quail before our power; we must now inspire them with respect for our character, and irrigate their moral desert with the waters of life. We deprecate, even with horror, mingling in these waters the poisonous drug, the contraband introduction of which, in spite of the laws of China, and the determination of the executive authorities, was one great cause of the war, which we trust has now terminated in peace, and in the establishment of such a friendly intercourse between the two countries, as will confer all the benefits of our higher civilization, and the blessed influences of our holy religion, upon the millions with whom we have thus become commercially associated.

Bright will be the morning that ushers in the new year, if China form the subject of the prayers of all the Christians in the British empire, and if the voice of Providence be responded to by the sounding of the trumpet of

salvation among the myriads of that far distant land.

It is impossible, in taking ever so brief a retrospect of the departed year, not to refer to the unparalleled distress, -amounting, in multitudes of instances, to absolute starvation,—which is felt in our large manufacturing districts, and is extending to the agricultural, which has so painfully marked the year that is now closing upon us.

Into the causes of this national calamity, for so we regard it, we do not here pretend to inquire. Human agencies have no doubt produced much of it, and as far as the laws have contributed to it, the law-makers are responsible, and will be made so in the day of righteous retribution. But we view it as the visitation of Heaven upon a guilty nation, in which, through the suffering masses, God is calling to their rulers, both civil and ecclesiastical, and especially to the Christian ministers and churches in our land-to repent, and upon right principles and in a right spirit, to commence the work of national reformation. The people would not be starving at this moment, had Christianity been the personal concern of every one; had every family consisted of enlightened and Christian patriots. And whose fault is it that the population of Great Britain is for the most part ignorant of its duties to God, to itself, and to the state? Nothing can save our institutions but imparting a good education—that is, an education of principles based on religion, to our people. Poor Burns was right, when, referring to such hearths and homes as he had so felicitously depicted in his "Cotter's Saturday Night," he addressed his native landafter praying that they might not suffer from "luxury's contagion, weak and vile," with the exultation

"Then, howe'er crowns and coronets be rent, A virtuous populace may rise the while, And stand a wall of fire around their much loved isle."

Those who wear crowns and coronets should know that their best security, their only human safeguard, is a

virtuous populace, that is, "a religious people ;" and they should ponder well the question-Whether extreme destitution, linked with enforced idleness, affecting large masses of the people, and for a long time, has not a most demoralizing effect; and if not remedied, whether there is any thing on earth so likely to loosen the bonds of the social state, and to call forth the latent and desperate energies of a universal anarchy? For ourselves, we cannot read, unappalled, language like the following, from those who only give utterance to what they feel and know to be the truth:

"When I look around on every side, I see nothing but ruin, misery, and bankruptcy; when I see bankruptcy, or the fear of it, stalking through your warehouses; and famine, or the dread of famine, invading the hearts and cottages of the poor; when I see industry standing idle all the day in our market-places for want of employment; piety clothed in rags, stout hearts wailing, and manly brows weighed down by a fearful cloud of care; when I see places of scientific instruction thrown into a state of bankruptcy; when I see every place of amusement shut, and scientific specimens sold; when I see people driven from their recreations to their destitute homes, to brood upon nothing but famine, and care, and terror, and distress"- -we cannot transcribe any more. This is no exaggerated picture, and it belongs to the history of England in the year of grace, 1842. But to us, the most affecting part of the scene is, the wonderful patience with which the perishing multitudes have borne their intense sufferings. Even when under excitement, and urged forward by their misguided and selfconstituted leaders, they discovered no ferocity, breathed no revenge; and how soon was the fearful front of rebellion turned back, to bear in silent endurance what could not be remedied by the madness of physical resistance!

That this most appalling state of things has increased rather than abated, is to be inferred from the resolutions

passed at a meeting of the Common Council very recently held in this metropolis, at which the chief magistrate presided; the first of which begins thus: "That the continued and increasing depression of the manufacturing, commercial, and agricultural interests of this country, and the widespreading distress of the working classes, are most alarming." To balance this, however, we are told by persons competent to form a judgment on the subject, "that a general revival of trade is now upon the eve of taking place." Whether it be so or not, to thousands of our industrious, but unemployed labourers, Christmas has presented a chilling hearth, and the new year opens upon them without the salutation of any cheering welcome, or animating prospects. Have Christian churches and Christian ministers, as such, no duties to perform, onerous and most imperative, arising out of this condition of the British people? Whatever these duties may be, the time is urgent; and we say to each and to every one of the great Christian communities among us, and the individuals of which they are composed, however denominationally distinguished, "Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might." The remedy must be soon applied, or the ruin is inevitable. the Lord reigneth, and to Him should earnest and importunate prayer be offered, as one of the most effectual means of restoring our national prosperity; and as a pledge to our country, that, by discharging this duty, we are ready, as men and Christians, to perform every other.

But

The state of religion in the past year, as it regards systematic and widespreading efforts to propagate the most pestilential heresies, and to establish a priestly domination, subversive of religious freedom and fatal to the civil rights of Protestants and the real friends of the Reformation, is, perhaps, the worst symptom of the times. Puseyism is the type which the antichrist of England has assumed for the purpose of banishing from the pulpits of the

Established Church the precious doctrines of the gospel, and for marshalling and calling into mischievous activity a crusade of the priests and laity of the aristocracy to crush all those who, not being within the pale of that Church, maintain these doctrines, and are resolved to stand fast in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made them free. The promoters of evangelical piety have less to apprehend from the Papacy of Rome than from the Puseyism of England: subtle and zealous as the missionaries of Catholicism are at this moment, and spreading, as they do, through the length and breadth of the land, we fear less injury to the souls of men from their success, than from the effective labours of the Oxford Tractarians and their disciples. The episcopal charges recently put forth, and the aggressive action given to the machinery of the hierarchy, wherever it can be brought to bear against Divine truth and human liberty, are fearful indications that some mighty collision is at hand. It is high time that the truly Protestant portions of the community, whatever different views they may entertain on mere ecclesiastical points, should fraternise and have some visible bond of union,-some standard which may attract them all as to a common centre. That a movement towards an object so desirable should have been publicly made, is one of the favourable signs which has, in some measure, relieved the gloom of the setting year. We regard it as a gleam of sunshine amid the threatening darkness; not the lurid light that tells of destruction, but, we trust, the day. spring from on high to visit us, the harbinger of better times. The evangelical churches of the land; Congregational Unions and Associations; institutions of mercy; hospitals for the heart; Christian Instruction, Missionary, and Home Missionary societies,—as a constellation, each star of which the Redeemer holds in his hand, have shone during the past year with more than their wonted brightness, and encourage the hope that a country so highly favoured will not be suddenly abandoned;

no, all things considered, we have great reason to thank God and take courage.

The "Evangelical Magazine" has entered upon its jubilee, and its conductors have to recount forty-nine years, during which, brotherly love, Christian benevolence, and genuine piety, have marked its progress. The last year has been among its most successful. That our Magazine has contributed its full share in producing that salutary change in our periodical literature, which is universally felt and acknowledged, we may fairly assume. What conspicuous error in religion and morals; what prevalent impiety, in the form of heresy or intolerance, has ever sprung up amongst us, that we have not refuted and rebuked? We were among the first to rekindle the missionary spirit, which had been so long extinct in the British churches. Our original supporters, whose steady patronage and active services their successors acknowledge, with reverence and gratitude, were the founders of the London Missionary Society our fathers,-our tutors,-our friends;- we number it among the purest and most privileged of our enjoyments, to have had the honour and happiness of standing in such a relation to such men.

But the close of one year reminds us of the commencement of another. The point of separation between the two ought to awaken in our hearts a solemn interest. The present, past, and the immediate future, press upon us relative duties and obligations which we cannot innocently neglect or disregard.

To some of our readers, another year is not only past, but lost. All the years they have spent have been the years of a vain life. The one that is now closed has added its guilt to all the preceding. This ought to be an awakening consideration. Whatever your age may be, you belong not to the household of faith; you are not in the family of God; you are not in his house as children, nor in his vineyard as labourers. As yet you have done nothing for God; nor are you

prepared to meet him as your Almighty Friend or Foe. Will you dare to venture upon another year, every succeeding moment of which involves a deeper responsibility than the last, without once pondering the path of your feet, and asking whither this rapid march of time is carrying you? Last year you made an ample stride to the tomb; another, and your feet may stumble upon the dark mountains, and your soul be engulfed in the everlasting abyss. Hear the voice of the departed year, "It is high time to awake out of sleep."

But the readers to whom we would especially address our admonitions are those who feel their obligations as Christians, but who are unmindful of the wide sphere of duty in which their connexion with their country, the church, and the world, has placed them. It is incumbent upon the Christian, above all other men, to act the citizen. To the hands of Christian patriots, God has intrusted the prosperity of their country; not as party politicians, or as inconsistent religionists, who depress one class of duties by giving an undue preponderance to another class; but as men of God who, possessing influence, are bound to consecrate every atom of that influence in every way in which it can be employed to his glory, by advancing the interests of society.

Surely he does not merge the Christian in the citizen, who lifts up his voice against the spirit, the system, and the practice of war.

It is high time, and the history of the past year impressively proves it, for British Christians to teach the nations, and their own nation in particular, to learn the art of war no more. There is no subject of more awful magnitude, and on the right practical understanding of which the world's evangelization and happiness so much depend. Yes! it is for us to teach mankind a truer and more magnanimous path to national glory than any country of the world has yet walked in; to show how the Christian ethics of a nation is at one with the Christian ethics of its humblest individuals; and,

if need be, to prove that, instead of that ceaseless jealousy and disquietude which are ever keeping alive the flame of hostility among the nations, each may wait in prepared security till the first footstep of the invader shall be the signal for the display of its passive virtues, more powerful than the might of armies, because it has Omnipotence for it defence.

The present state of the country and of the world, and more particularly of this country and China, in relation to each other, renders this the precise period when the British churches, and especially the wealthy individuals among them, ought to make unexampled efforts, accompanied with corresponding sacrifices.

The distresses of the large masses of our industrious population must be relieved, and Christians must not stand by and let others do it. The nation must be taught, and such instruction must be imparted to it as shall counteract the further working of the accursed leaven of a spurious Popery, that threatens the destruction of the state and the ruin of the people; which already aspires to domineer over the one, while, by a thousand treacherous arts, it labours to mislead and infatuate the other. We have done our part hitherto, and, with the blessing of God, we shall continue at our post. But it is China that, with her myriads of voices, is calling to us, in the language of the man of Macedonia to Paul, saying, "Come over and help us," that has a claim upon our deepest Christian sympathies; and demands, that while commerce freights her ships, spreads her sails, embarks her capital, and concentrates all her energies to augment the wealth and extend the honour of Britain, the friends of Christian missions, in their mighty enterprise to evangelise that immense section of the human race, should as far exceed the efforts of commerce to secure its objects, as the interests of eternity exceed the interests of time, and as the prosperity of Christ's kingdom ought to be infinitely dearer to their hearts than the glory of any earthly empire.

TRIUMPH OVER DEATH.

For years ago I entered a gentleman's family as tutor. Of my pupils when I left, a year ago, the youngest alone seemed uninterested in divine things. But in his case Christ's words have been fulfilled, "The last shall be first." So interesting did his experience appear, and so apparent was a change of heart in him, before he left this present evil world, that I have thought a short narrative of his case cannot fail of proving beneficial to many who may read it.

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

Last winter, he was seized with measles. The disease could not be subdued, and the consequence was congestion of the lungs. He lingered a few months, and during that time he often suffered extreme pain. Towards the beginning of his illness he became deeply anxious about his state before God. "Oh, I cannot sleep," said he, on one occasion, when advised to compose himself to get a little sleep. I cannot sleep till I get this load of sin off!" At length he found Christ, and in him every blessing. After this his joy was almost uninterrupted. He was asked one Sabbath morning if his mind was comfortable. "Oh, yes," said he, peace! peace!" "But what is it that gives you such peace ?" "It is peace with God through Jesus Christ." That the love of God was shed abroad in his heart by the Holy Spirit, appeared evident from his anxiety that others should come to Christ. One night he was overheard earnestly beseeching some one to come to Christ. "Oh!" said he, "if you will only come to Christ, you will find that he will not cast you out. Just come to him as you are, with all your sins." Being asked if he had any message to the Sabbath-school, he paused a little. "Is it time enough for them," said his papa, "to seek Christ?" "Oh, no!" said he, tell them to seek him now, now. With all my heart I say to them, come to Christ I once pretended to come to Christ, but I did not really come." Well, Peter, but you have come now,

now.

[ocr errors]

have you not?" "Oh, yes!" "How was it you really came ?" "Oh, he brought me !" At another time one of his brothers asked what he would say to the Sabbath scholars, when he next met with them. "Tell them," said he, "I hope they will attend to the instructions they receive, and to all that is said to them." "And must I tell them to come to Christ now?" Oh, yes; tell them to come now; for now is the accepted time, now is the day of salvation." He then added, "If Jesus Christ had not first loved us, we could never have loved him.”

66

"How

Even on a bed of acute pain and sufferings he could rejoice with a joy unspeakable, and full of glory; and there too he found, that no bodily disease can destroy the blessedness of the man whose transgression is forgiven, and whose sin is covered. happy," said he, on one occasion, “is the believer in Jesus! None else can be happy; those who do not believe in Jesus are miserable." And after a pause, as if he had been thinking on their awful delusion, "They must be mad, they are really mad!" His confidence in the faithfulness of Jesus was very strong. "How kind Jesus is! If you want any thing, you have only to ask him for it, and he will give it, if it is good for you. When I think of this I cannot help laughing; it makes me so happy I don't know what to do!" One night he was overheard laughing, and when asked, what was the cause, he said, "Oh, I am so happy, I could not help laughing!" "What makes you so happy just now?" "It is resting on Christ-resting on Christ!" At one time observing his papa weeping, he said, "Oh, don't cry, papa, I am quite happy! I shall be for ever with Jesus in glory. I know I shall, he told me so; and are you sorry for that, papa ?" Oh, no," said he, my tears are tears of joy, not of sorrow." "Well, then," said he, "remember whenever you see a tear in my eye, it is a tear of joy."

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]
« 上一頁繼續 »