emigrated from these parts, some to the Canadian and others to the United States. I do not, at present, know of any young men, such as you mention, who are desirous to emigrate; or if there are any they have not the means to do so.

How glad I

In the postscript to your letter, you ask, "What of the world's convention to be held in London next spring? Will you attend it? If so please to let us have an account of it in the Messenger. should be attended; yet I think it will amount to little. What of Sir Robert Peel's sliding scale? Will the corn laws be repealed?" &c. To these interrogations, each of which might form the basis of a long epistle, I cannot now attend, except to say, I shall not make a purpose journey to London to attend the convention; nor do I expect any good to result from it, seeing it proposes an amalgamation of parties at the expense of the truth of God. The corn laws, it is settled on all hands, must be repealed. The progress is slow and tardy, but it must come. I may here express an opinion, that I am expecting, ultimately, free trade not only in corn, but also in religion and humanity. Our establishments, both selfish, physical, and religious, are all doomed to destruction. See Rev. xvi. 17-21.

But I must bid you adieu, and remain yours affectionately for the truth's sake,

J. WALLIS.

EXTRACT FROM A LETTER TO NEW YORK.

Nottingham, January 30th, 1846.

BELOVED BROTHER BEADMAN.-I now enclose you a short obituary and an elegy occasioned by the unexpected and mysterions removal from amongst us of one whom we all loved-our brother John Frost is no more, he is numbered with the dead-he sleeps in Jesus. You will see the particulars in the enclosed printed articles. It seems not a reality, but a dream.

I am sorry you so seldom write to us. I hope you are not becoming swallowed up with the bustle and business of New York, and that gold will never become your God.

About two months ago I received a commission from your brother Thomas to purchase for you Boothroyd's Bible. I am glad you have not forgot the blessed Book. I shall attend to it before your brother John leaves England for New York, which he is expecting to do about the first week in April.

Pray what is become of brother Reid? Is he dead or alive? If the latter has he forgotten how to write? In what way is he keeping his promises to those in this country who esteemed him very highly as a brother in the Lord? I shall conclude he is either dead, or very ill, or very forgetful of his old friends. With love to Sarah, thy better half, J. WALLIS,

I remain, dear brother, yours affectionately,

.

66

REPLY TO THE ABOVE.

172, Spring Street, New York,
March 31st, 1846.

BELOVED BROTHER WALLIS.-We received your favour of February 4th, and being entirely unprepared, were astounded by its fearful intelligence; and with you, if it was possible, I would gladly persuade myself that the mournful facts there detailed, were but the mere baseless visions of the mind sporting in its glorious independence, while its material helpmate was locked in the embrace of slumber, even as a dream;" but there is no philosophy, no wisdom in practising upon ourselves such deception-brother John Frost is dead, he has fallen asleep in Jesus! He has followed his divine Redeemer to the dark cold chamber of death, where all would be silence and doubt but for the hope-inspiring, joy-creating inscription upon its portals, "I am the resurrection and the life, he that believeth in me though he were dead yet shall he live, and whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die." He is gone. I knew him, I admired him, I loved kim, and often did my mind delight in tracing out for him a long and bright career of usefulness and of glory; often has my imagination chiseled a niche for him high in the Christian's temple of fame, a temple reared by infinite wisdom and fixed in the presence of the people of many worlds, where the noble amongst them may raise themselves to lofty places, and on their foreheads write, Immortality. I viewed him as he was a young, intelligent, noble, uncompromising soldier of the cross, a distinguished monument of the power of Christ's Gospel in preserving man in the most bewitching portion of life from the allurements of false philosophy and fashion; and when I have heard him unfold the mysteries of redemption in their winning simplicity, when I have seen him with one drop of sound logic, precipitate the adulterations with which sectarian alchymists have mingled the cup of salvation, when I have seen him tear away the perplexed mazes with which spider-like they delight to wind around their victims, I have been constrained to exclaim," Oh the depths of the riches, and of the wisdom, and of the knowledge of God!" But he is gone-his beloved wife is left a widow; his children fatherless; the churches have lost one of their most useful and ornamental pillars; you have lost a companion and a fellow helper in the faith; and truth has lost an able advocate. We deeply simpathize with you all, beloved brethren, and hope that the removal of one, so young a plant, and so valuable to the paradise of God, may be the means of causing each of us who remain in the vineyard, to bring forth more fruit, that when the solemn moment of our departure comes, the saints may console themselves by repeating the glorious benediction and promise, "Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord; yes, says the Spirit, that they may rest from their labours and their works do follow them."

May we venture a word in explanation of this painful and mysterious providence, if it is admitted, all perhaps that we ought to say is, that the scheme of God's moral government of this world is but very partially and but dimly seen by us, but from the fact that, God is good in an infinite degree, we necessarily conclude that the scheme is such

as to render indispensable such great afflictions; perhaps the deterioration of our nature is such, the tendency of our affections is so far downward, our aptitude to imagine ourselves immortal, and with the most ignoble puerility contract the horizon of our eternal destiny to the dot of a world like the one we inhabit; perhaps all or any of these is the reason why so bitter an ingredient is mingled with our probation here. Be this as it may, we cannot avoid the influences of such events without doing violence to the laws of our being; and our wisdom, I conceive, will be best exhibited by allowing them to exert their utmost amount of influence. May this be our conduct for his sake who loved us and who died for us.

Perhaps now I ought to answer your question why you have not heard from us lately. My reason is, I do not know what! Certainly not because I have drowned or intend to drown myself in the bustle of New York. I love my mind; I love truth too much to allow myself to become the slave either of business or of gold, though I have ample opportunities of doing either. Business is not my hobby-horse; nor is gold my god. But I cannot write anything worthy the publicity you are pleased to give my trifles. It is not because I am ungrateful; we shall always cherish thankfulness for the work of faith and the labour of love bestowed upon myself and my beloved wife-but I cannot write.

We receive the Messengers often once in three months. It is greatly improved in appearance, and I have no doubt in usefulness. I think you cannot offer a more acceptable sacrifice to your Saviour for the benefits of his " Light," then by continuing its publication.

You enquire about brother Reid. He is not dead, neither has he forgotten how to write, as a specimen we received the other day testifies. But he is very very poorly. To-day he is able to walk abroad for an hour, but to-morrow he is confined to his room. To-day he is able to sit up and converse with his friends and his brethren, to-morrow he must be wrapped in his blanket and fixed in his rocking-chair. Now his spirits seems to exult in its powers of observation, criticism, and sarcasm; now it seems to cower and shrink under the sluggish streams of life, which like the waters of a dead sea, seem almost stagnant and putrefying; now his countenance is lighted up with hope by the light of eternity; and now the smile is gone, like the last of an oft repeated echo. He is at this time better; he called upon us yesterday.

I expect, long before now, you will have sent Boothroyd. I shall value it highly as having been sent by brother J. Wallis from my native land. J. & S. BEADMAN.

Yours in the blessed hope,

EVANGELICAL ALLIANCE.

AN association has been formed called the " Evangelical Alliance," which is to consist of all classes of Dissenters, and as many Churchmen, as, says the Post, " may be weak enough to join it." The Duke of Manchester is to preside. A great aggregate meeting of the divisional committees is was held at Birmingham on the 31st ultimo, and the 19th of August has been agreed upon as the day for the first assembling of the proposed conference in the metropolis.

REVIEW OF BOOKS.

FRAGMENT ON THE CHURCH.

BY THOMAS ARNOLD,

D.D. London: B. Fellows, Ludgate-street, 1845.

[Continued from page 190.]

In accordance with the outline furnished in the first notice, we now proceed to examine the pleas of the moderate Churchmen.

First. “That it is an unwarrantable assumption that the form of church government which prevailed in the Apostolic period, was designed as a model for all succeeding churches under diverse circum

stances."

I. Before we speak of the assumption, let us consider for a short time, the actual constitution of the government as unfolded in the Record, and embodied in the early age. Two of the most distinguished among the disciples of the Lord, anticipating the speedy erection of a splendid political monarchy, desire the superlative honour of nearness and conspicuity by the throne. When the Monarch clad in robes of orient beauty puts on his crown of golden stars, and in imperial pomp sits down on the seat of empire, they ambitiously crave the brightest and most prominent place in the effulgence of his presence, the favour of his smile, the administration of his authority. They desire to be supreme or prime ministers, one on the right hand and another on the left, when he sits in his glory. When the other disciples hear of this grasping petition, they were highly displeased-not smitten with the deep sorrow of spiritual wailing over their earthlyminded brethren-but wounded in pride and vain glory, each one doubtless conceiving that he was as worthy to sit near the throne and become a grand pillar of the state as either of the soaring sons of thunder. Under such circumstances, the Lord calls them around him, and his address is remarkable for distinct and solemn accents: "Ye know that they which are accounted to rule over the Gentiles, exercise lordship over them, and their great ones exercise authority upon them. But so shall it not be among you: but whosoever will be great among you, shall be your minister; and whosoever among you would be chief, shall be servant of all. For even the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and give his life a ransom for many." Mark x. How finely the empires and their essential attributes are discriminated and contrasted; and how wide is the chasm which yawns between them. There is invulnerable life in the aphorism enunciated by the Lord. It can never lose its significance so long as the dispensation remains in which Christianity is humanly administered. Stern lordship maintained by the sword of naked force,

with all that the sword symbolizes-the awful judgment seat, the dark dungeon, the terrible scene of judicial death. Watchful authority compelled by dire necessity to strain in iron compression upon the heaving masses which would otherwise explode tempestuously, overthrowing the bulwarks, and drifting away the fences and framework of society on a sea of passion and darkness. Such is the dread, yet necessary power which prevails in worldly governinents. Such is the character of the authority exercised, yea, and the exercise of which is so urgently demanded, that those who administer and execute, are called and felt to be benefactors. "But it shall not be so among you."

No! benefaction of a loftier and sweeter kind will flow in new channels. He who would be great or chief in the spiritual monarchy, must serve and minister as the divine founder served and ministered—in humiliation and self-sacrifice-in toil and patience-in prayers, and tears, and blood-in life and in death.

We cannot help feeling that there is an immeasurable gulf stretching betwixt these two kingdoms, and that it is impossible for the hero and legislator of the one to be the saint and martyr of the other, for the elements of the two to be fused and aggregated into one great smooth working unity, or the responsibilities of each sustained by the same functionaries. Indeed, those who rudely dream of such a union now, are fighting against the well ordered plan of the divine Ruler, by wishing us to establish a monstrous and incomplete imitation of the old Hebrew republic. Led by the hand of the Lord from the wilderness of Sinai, with its abysmal glooms and bitter waters, we have approached a region of palm trees and fountains spouting in the shade; and we will not endanger our souls by urging a blind, backward, and perilous journey.

In the true sublime of inward, concentrated, God-like endurance; in the calm, collected, and solemn might of spiritual elevation, where in the chronicles of humanity can we equal or approach the following confession and testimony: "Then Pilate entered into the judgmenthall again, and called Jesus, and said unto him, Art thou the King of the Jews? Jesus answered him, Sayest thou this thing of thyself, or did others tell it thee of me? Pilate answered, Am I a Jew? Thine own nation and the Chief Priests have delivered thee unto me: what hast thou done? Jesus answered, My kingdom is not of this world: if my kingdom were of this world, then would my servants fight, that I should not be delivered to the Jews: but now is my kingdom not from hence. Pilate therefore said unto him, Art thou a king then? Jesus answered, Thou sayest that I am a king. To this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth. Every one that is of the truth heareth my voice." John xviii.