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salary does not support him. You fulfil your contract, I suppose. You give him all you agreed to, but his family bas increased, and he can't make the two ends of the year meet. He does not complain, but he cannot help feeling anxious. He wants to educate his children; but he can't pay the bills, and he has nothing else to give them. Hadn't you better try the experiment of raising his salary? Has not the Lord so ordained, that they who preach the gospel should live of the gospel?" Is it right to keep him upon short allowance, when you have enough and to spare! If you were to add one or two hundred dollars, where there are so many to bear the additional burden, (if you choose to call it so,) you would hardly feel it, but he is embarrassed and dispirited by having to bear it all. Why not relieve him at once, and save him the necessity of asking you to help him, or asking for a dismission.

You say he seems to be depressed. Perhaps you don't pay him his salary punctually, and he is obliged to purchase family necessaries on credit and at an advanced price, and can't pay his bills when they become due, because you have kept back the only means he has of fulfilling his contracts. Is it strange that he is depressed, and even grieved, under such circumstances of embarrassment? Would you be willing to take his place?

Some hidden anxiety seems to be preying upon the mind of your minister, does there? Perhaps, poor man, he has been obliged to contract debts and to pay interest, and his creditors begin to grow uneasy and importunate. If he has done the best he could with his scanty income, and fallen behindhand in your service, will you not help him out if you can, and if not, will you wonder any longer that he is cast down and discouraged?

"I wonder what ails our minister. He does not preach such able sermons as he used to. It is evident he does not study so much." Well, whose fault is it,

his or yours? Perhaps he is compelled to keep school, or labour half the time with his hands to support his family. Give him enough to live on, and then, if he "serve tables," instead of giving himself to prayer and the ministry of the word, entreat him. If you are few and weak, and unable to pay him a full salary, and he is willing to stay and serve you as best he can under the embarrassment, be thankful that you can have even this, till you get stronger and able to support him, so that he may give himself wholly to the work among you.

"I wonder what ails our minister. He has grown exceedingly dull lately. He used to be much more earnest in the pulpit than he is now. What can the matter be? Are not souls as precious as ever, and in as much danger of being lost? What can ail him?" Let me ask, by way of answer, What ails you? Do you pray for him as much as you ought, or as much as you once did? May not your own neglect in this regard be one of the reasons why he has grown dull and prosy? Ought you not to try the experiment of remembering him daily and earnestly at the throne of grace, and see how it will affect his preaching?

You can't see into his being so dull. You are a professor of religion, I take it, and as much bound to be in a right religious frame as your minister. Is he duller than you are? When he looks down upon your pew, don't he frequently see you nod, or your head down in the midst of his sermon, and many others, in the same predicament? If so, the wonder is, why you can wonder at all what ails him. Is it strange if his heart sinks within him under such circumstances of

discouragement? "As iron sharpeneth

iron, so the countenance of a man his friend." Try the experiment. Let him see that you and all the rest of his church are wide awake, and attentive to his discourse from beginning to end, and then, if he is lolling and prosy in the pulpit, go away wondering what ails him.

Column on Conversion.

THERE are few things that more strikingly illustrate the providence of God, and the purposes of grace, than the conversion of men. It often happens that the enjoyment of a means of a character the most excellent, and in a measure the most abundant, leaves an individual un

awakened, unenlightened, and consequently impenitent and unbelieving; while the same individual, by a very casual and apparently unimportant circumstance, will be struck down, as by the blow of an invisible hand, and from that moment become a new creature.

Multitudes, also, who have been living beyond the reach of ordinary means, have, in a way the most unlikely, been brought into contact with the truth, which, on a first hearing, has proved the sword of the Spirit, transfixing the soul, which has thus died unto sin, and been made alive unto God. The late Rev. Matthew Wilks, a man of great worth and great usefulness, who, for fifty-three years, was pastor of the Tabernacle, Moorfields, London, when a thoughtless youth, heard of some preaching affair in a house or barn adjacent to the place of his residence; the intelligence fired his curiosity to know something about it. He was, moreover, too proud to go in and take his place in the meeting; but he listened through the key-hole of the door, and through that aperture a word reached him which became the power of God to salvation, and commenced that course of lengthened and laborious service in the cause of his God which has given him a name and entitled him to a high place in the records of British Christianity. Within the range of our acquaintance was a youth who heard two ungodly persons speaking in terms of admiration of a certain young minister who had come to a particular chapel: at that moment this youth was attending no place of worship, but the conversation he heard prompted him to repair to the place in question, where he was immediately brought to the knowledge of the truth, and from that time has continued faithful to the Lord, and one of the most zealous labourers of the age he lives in. But we

must cite a case of a still more striking and interesting character:

A Christian minister, some years ago, on returning from preaching in a village, was asked by an individual to direct him to a certain place. The request was attended to, and when the stranger was thanking the minister for his kindness, the latter replied, "Take care, my friend, you are in the right way at last." These words appeared long to sound in the man's ears, and what could the gentleman mean by them? was an inquiry often presented to his mind, and at length it led to the salvation of his soul. Some years had passed away, with all their attendant cares, joys, and sorrows, when the minister was solicited to preach at Ludlow, Salop. After the service, he was requested to visit a member of the church, who was in dying circumstances. As soon as he approached the dying man the latter fixed his eyes upon him, and, with a peculiarly significant look and emphatic voice, said, "Sir, I know you! I know you!" "Know me!" replied the minister; "how can that be? for I am a stranger here." "I know you, sir," again he replied. "Do you not remember," said he, "some years ago, a person asking you the way to such a place, and your returning with him, putting him in the right path, and when you were parting saying to him, My friend, take care you are in the right way at last?'" "No, I do not," replied the minister; for it had completely escaped his memory. "Yea, you did, sir," rejoined the dying man, "I have not forgotten it, nor ever shall forget it. right way at last;' O, sir, am I in that way now? I cannot live long, I feel that I am dying; tell me, O, tell me if I am in the right way." The minister questioned him as to his faith in Christ, and on other important points, to which the dying man returned suitable and satisfactory answers. The minister then affectionately and earnestly recommended him in prayer to God, and left him; and in a few days his mortal career ended.

The Oracle.

IN continuance of our remarkable facts, extracted from the History of New England, by the celebrated Dr. Cotton Mather, we shall select an instance which, at that day, excited considerable attention throughout the Christian world, relative to a Major Gibbons, which is one of the most remarkable to be found in the records of maritime dangers and deliverance. Hard beyond all hardness must be the man who stands unmoved in the view of a display so obvious and striking of the Divine Hand. The genius of Infidelity itself ought to stand appalled, and feel constrained to exclaim, "Surely this is the finger of God!”

WONDERFUL STORY OF MAJOR GIBBONS.

Among remarkable sea deliverances, no less

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than three several writers have published that wherein Major Edward Gibbons, of Boston, in New England, was concerned. A vessel bound from Boston to some other parts of America, was, through the continuance of contrary winds, kept so long at sea, that the people aboard were in extreme straits for want of provision; and seeing that nothing here below could afford them any relief, they looked upwards unto heaven in humble and fervent supplications. The winds continuing still as they were, one of the company made a sorrowful motion, that they should by a lot single out one to die, and by death to satisfy the ravenous hunger of the rest. After many a doleful and fearful debate upon this motion, they came to a result that it must be done. The lot is cast; one of the company is taken; but where is the executioner that shall do the terrible office upon a poor innocent? It is a death now to think who shall act this bloody part in the tragedy. But before they fall upon this involuntary and unnatural execution, they

once more went unto their zealous prayers; and behold, while they were calling upon God, he answered them; for there leaped a mighty fish into their boat, which, to their double joy, not only quieted their outrageous hunger, but also gave them some token of a further deliverance. However, the fish is quickly eaten; the horrible famine returns, the horrible distress is renewed; a black despair again seizes their spirits. For another morsel they come to a second lot, which fell upon another person, but still they cannot find an executioner. They once again fall to their importunate prayers; and, behold, a second answer from above! A great bird lights and fixes itself upon the mast; one of the men spies it; and there it stands until he took it by the wing with his hand. This was a second life from the dead. This fowl, with the omen of a further deliverance in it, was a sweet feast unto them. Still their disappointments follow them; they can see no land, they know not where they are. Irresistible hunger once more pinches them; they have no hope to be saved

but by a third miracle. They return to another lot; but before they go to the heart-breaking task of slaying the person under designation, they repeat their addresses unto the God of Heaven, their former friend in adversity. And now they look, and look again, but there is nothing. Their devotions are concluded, and nothing appears; yet they hoped, yet they stayed, yet they lingered. At last one of them spies a ship, which put a new hope and life into them all. They bear up with their ship, they man their long-boat, they beg to board the vessel, and are admitted. It proves a French pirate. Major Gibbons petitions for a little bread, and offers all for it; but the commander was one who had formerly received considerable kindnesses of Major Gibbons at Boston, and now replied cheerfully, "Major Gibbons, not a hair of you or your company shall perish, if it lies in my power to preserve you." Accordingly he supplied their necessities, and they made a comfortable end of their voyage.

Lessons by the Way; or, Things to Think On.

LIVE FOR SOMETHING. Thousands of men breathe, move, and livepass off the stage of life, and are heard of no more. Why? They did not partake of good in the world, and none were blessed by them; none could point to them as the means of their redemption; not a line they wrote, not a word they spoke, could be recalled; and so they perished their light went out in darkness, and they were not remembered more than insects of yesterday. Will you thus live and die, O man immortal? Live for something. Do good, and leave behind you a monument of virtue, that the storms of time can never destroy. your name, by kindness, love, and mercy, on the hearts of thousands you come in contact with year by year, and you will never be forgotten. No, your name, your deeds will be as legible on the hearts you leave behind, as the stars on the brow of the evening. Good deeds will shine as brightly on the earth as the stars of heaven.Dr. Chalmers.

THE MILLENNIUM.

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Oh! blessed Saviour, what a strange variety of conceits do I find concerning thy thousand years' reign! What riddles are in that prophecy, which no human tongue can read! where to fix the beginning of that marvellous Millenniary, and where the end; and what manner of reign it shall be, whether temporal or spiritual, on earth or in heaven, undergoes as many constructions as there are pens that have undertaken it; and yet, when all is done, I see thine apostle speaks only of the souls of the martyrs reigning so long with thee, not of thy reigning so long with those martyrs. How busy are the tongues of men, how are their brains taken up with the indeterminable construction of his enigmatical truth, when, in the meantime, the care of thy spiritual reign in their hearts is neglected. Oh! my Saviour, while others weary themselves with the disquisition of thy personal reign here upon earth for a thousand years, let it be the whole bent and study of my soul to

make sure of my personal reign with thee in heaven to all eternity.-Bishop Hall.

MANLIKE AND GODLIKE.

A gentleman who had filled many high stations in public life, with the greatest honour to himself, and advantage to the nation, once went to Sir Eardley Wilmot in great anger at a real injury that he had received from a person high in the political world, which he was considering how to resent in the most effectual manner. After relating the particulars to Sir Eardley, he asked if he did not think it would be manly to resent it? "Yes," said Sir Eardley; "it would doubtless be manly to resent it, but it would be Godlike to forget it." This the gentleman declared had such an instantaneous effect upon him, that he came away quite another man, and in temper entirely altered from that in which he went.

DESCENDANTS OF A DISTINGUISHED
PURITAN.

In an Appendix to the Life of Thomas Hooker, a work recently published, we have a catalogue of some of his descendants, in which we find the names of forty-one ministers of the Gospel, and forty more who married his female descendants; nine professors, authors, and poets; forty who have occupied important public offices; fourteen members of the bar, not included in the preceding; and seventeen doctors of medicine. The list comprises some distinguished names, such as the late Dr. Dwight, Jonathan Edwards, D.D., (the second Edwards,) Dr. Yates, Jonathan Edwards, the late Dr. Richardson, Dr. Cornelius, Percival the poet, Gen. Hart, Maj. Hooker, and Col. Hooker, of the Revolutionary Army, Aaron Burr, with a list of judges, governors, and legislators. Verily, "children's children are the crown" of that good man's memory, and "the glory of the children are their fathers."-Chris

tian Observer.

EJACULATIONS.

They take not up any room in the soul. They

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A WORD FITLY SPOKEN.

Job Throgmorton, a Puritan minister, who was described by his contemporaries "as being as holy and as choice a preacher as any in England," is said to have lived thirty-seven years without any comfortable assurance as to his spiritual condition. When dying, he addressed the venerable John Dod, "What will you say of him who is going out of the world, and can find no comfort ?" "What will you say of him," replied Mr. Dod, "who, when he was going out of the world, found no comfort, but cried, 'My God! my God! why hast thou forsaken me?"" This prompt reply administered consolation to the troubled spirit of his dying friend, who departed within an hour after, rejoicing in the Lord.

TIME LOST.

One of the sands in the hour-glass of time is, beyond comparison, more precious than gold. In nothing is waste more ruinous, or more sure to bring unavailing regrets. Better to throw away money than moments; for time is much more than money. As we lose our days, we incur an increasing risk of losing our souls. "The life-blood of the soul runs out in wasted time." The years which have winged their flight have gone to be recording angels; and what is the "report they have borne to heaven ?" Will the record testify for us or against us, when the throne of the Son of Man shall be set, and the books shall be opened ?-Chris. Observatory.

THE OLDEST RELIGION.

A certain Italian priest, of a social and friendly character, recognized in his church, in time of mass, the well-known countenance of an English gentleman. Glad to see him there, and wishing to convince him of the superiority of the Papal communion, he wrote on a slip of paper with his pencil, and sent to his friend the following words: "Where was your English Church before the days of Luther?" The English gentleman wrote, in like manner, the following answer: "In the Bible, where your Roman Church is not."

LIBERALITY.

"Let us," says Dr. Chalmers, "pour forth of our liberality for the support of our Master's cause and honour in the world; suffering no pretexte, not even the plausibilities of a seeming

and common place philanthropy, to divert our means from this the greatest of objects, and in the prosecution of which it will be found that the most devoted piety and the truest philanthropy are as one."

PETITIONS OF DR. CHALMERS.

Do thou, O Lord, break my hard heart, and then heal my broken one.

May thy grace, O Lord, open a way for thy word into our hearts, and strengthen us to act upon it.

Let me bridle my tongue, so as that neither the impulses of passion shall hurry me into bitter, nor the sallies of humour betray me into idle words.

GOLD HUNTING.

Mr. Prescott, in his History of the Conquest of Peru by the Spaniards, gives the following as the result of the great gold finding, which set all Europe crazy in those days. Can it not be regarded as applicable to the present mania?

"It was the story often repeated in the history of Spanish enterprise. A few, more lucky than the rest, stumbled on some unexpected prize, and hundreds, attracted by their success, press forward in the same path. But the rich spoil which lay on the surface had been already swept away by the first comers, and those who followed were to win the treasure by long protracted and painful exertion. Broken in spirit and fortune, many returned in disgust to their native shores, while others remained to die in despair. They had thought to dig for gold-but they only dug their graves."

PLEASURE AND ADVANTAGES OF
LABOUR.

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The rich man pays dearly for health-the labouring man is paid to be healthy. Exercise is the best physician. Those who have strength and a good pair of legs need not to be drawn about in a cab, a brougham, or a carriage-andfour. Coaches are fine things for doctors. The more they increase, the more need will there be of medical men and drugs. Were our carriagefolks to walk or to work, they would save themselves feeble legs; and those who never work create for themselves weak arms, delicate hands, and infirm or crooked spines. Labour has its joys as well as its sorrows, and a far higher reward than that of wages. If this fact were better understood, no one would be idle. Far better is it to work for no pay at all, than to suffer the ills of having nothing to do. Go and sweep the causeway, mend the road, or relieve yonder poor traveller by carrying half of his burden, rather than sit still. What if there is no pay in pounds, shillings, and pence; there will be health, and the satisfaction of doing good, which, after all, are higher wages than the idle sinecure gains with his £10,000 a year. A good appetite, healthy digestion, and a free circulation of the blood, are among the blessings of labour.

GREATNESS.

The greatest man is he who chooses the right with invincible resolution, who resists the sorest temptations from within and without, who bears the heaviest burdens cheerfully, who is calmest in storms, and most fearless under menace and frowns, whose reliance on truth, on virtue, on God, is most unfaltering. Channing.

Biography.

REV. WILLIAM JONES,

TABERNACLE, BRIDGEND, GLAMORGANSHIRE, SOUTH WALES.

AMONG the many localities in which the Congregational Churches of South Wales have recently been called to lament the loss of their beloved and devoted pastors, a conspicuous place has been assigned to the county of Glamorgan. Repeatedly, and at no distant intervals, have the Christians of that district had occasion to propose the ancient inquiry, “Our fathers, where are they? and the prophets, do they live for ever?" The late Rev. Griffith Hughes Whitecross, whose memory persons of all classes united to honour, is no more. The Rev. Thomas Williams, Bethesda-y- fro, the sweet singer of Israel, and the talented preacher, is gone. The Rev. Daniel Griffiths, of Neath, whose talents as a preacher aroused the Principality, is not to be found here. The Rev. Herbert Herbert, of Newton Nottage, with the Revs. Jones and Evans, Merthyr; Jones, Taihirion; Morgans, Pendarren; Jones, Cwmbach; are all silent in the grave. And we have to add to the list of the sainted dead, the revered name of William Jones, Tabernacle, Bridgend, the late venerable secretary of our County Association, who sustained, for thirty-seven years, the pastorate of the Congregational Churches assembling in Bridgend, Brynymenin, Coity, and Bethel, and whose praise is in all the churches. The excellency of his character, the extent of his usefulness, and the estimation in which he was held, not only in Glamorgan, but in the different parts of North and South Wales, as well as the Metropolis and Liverpool, which were the scenes of his occasional labours, demand that, in the CHRISTIAN WITNESS, a tribute should be paid to his memory as a Christian and a Christian Minister.

The Rev. William Jones was born in the town of Bala, Merionethshire, North Wales, in the year 1784. is parents' names were William and Elizabet Jones. They were members of the Calvinistic Jethodists in that town, and his father was an officer in the church. So it was his happiness to be blessed with a godly father and mother; and powerful was the influence which their advice and prayers and examples exercised over his youthful mind. He was allowed, when a child, to attend the societies of the Methodists by the hands of his godly parents; and early convictions brought him as a penitent sinner to the foot of the cross. It was not, however, till about the sixteenth year of his age, that he could date that decided change which at once made him " a new creature in Christ Jesus," and opened to him those resources of infinite mercy which were to be the foundation of his hope, and the occasion of his joy for ever. No longer did he feel any satisfaction in the companions which once were his choice; his heart was renewed by Divine grace. His views, his feelings, his habits, his whole character, was changed. The things which he loved before had lost their charms.

So far as instrumental agency was concerned, he assigns this change to a sermon which he heard from the late Rev. Thomas Philips, D.D., Neuaddlwyd, Cardiganshire, founded on David's

choice: "I had rather be a door-keeper in the house of my God, than to dwell in the tents of wickedness," (Pa. lxxxiv. 10.) He heard it with a solemnity appropriate to the subject itself, and to the excellent talents of that extraordinary preacher. As a penitent sinner, he was drawn to a throne of grace; the ear of mercy gently bowed to listen, as he approached in prayer; the God of his parents he soon found to be his God. The whispers of pardon, the aboundings of Divine love, melted his heart"Old things passed away, and all things became new." Consequently he united himself with the Independent Church at Bala; of which he continued an honourable and useful member, until it pleased God to commit to his charge that ministry which was to be afterwards the business of his life. In reference to this, he related his experience to the writer several times, thus: "I cannot remember a time when I had not a wish to enter the ministry; but when I began to feel the power of religion, and the vast importance of an interest in Christ, my desire for this work increased, though my motives assumed a different character. It was my wish to devote myself to the study of the Holy Bible; and, as I found that every renewed discovery of its excellences, and its adaptation to sinners, endeared it the more to my heart, I longed to proclaim it to those who were without God in the world. I can certainly say that my only desire was to preach the Gospel of Christ; to reveal more extensively his glory; to forward the sublime purposes of his redemption. I entered not, however, on the work of the ministry until I had taken the advice of those on whose judgment and prudence I could rely; and chiefly through the instrumentality of the late Rev. Thomas Charles, D.D. (Methodist Minister), I was introduced to the academy."

Feeling, however, the importancy of mental cultivation, as a preliminary to the Christian ministry, he sought admission into the Academy at Wrexham, then under the presidency of Rev. Jenkin Lewis, D.D. (afterwards of Newport, Monmouthshire), and he was fully admitted, in the year 1806, in the twenty-second year of his age; where he spent four years, pursuing very diligently his studies, with great honour to himself as well as his competent tutor.

Having honourably completed his academical courses, he accepted the unanimous invitation of the Churches at Bridgend and Brynymenin, Glamorganshire, to become their pastor, and commenced his labours there in June, 1810. After having preached with great acceptance and usefulness to the people, he was ordained February, 1811; on which occasion, his venerable tutor, the Rev. D. Davies, of Swansea, the Rev. G. Hughes, Whitecross, and the Rev. E. Jones, Pontypool, conducted the leading parts of the service. At Bridgend and Brynymenin a wide and barren field presented itself before him. He entered upon the cultivation of it with diligence and zeal; and was privileged to witness the fruit of his labours. Many sinners were awakened and converted under his mini

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