as well-"They that water shall be watered themselves." None the less will be done at home and for minor missions, because you may do much in China, but rather the more! You hardly know your strength until you try it.

May I ask the favour to hear from you in due time, whether anything can be done in this matter? And should I be able to serve you here by further information, or in any other way, I shall be most happy to do so. Command my service at pleasure in the mission line.

Yours most respectfully,

J. J. ROBERTS.

Canton, October 12th, 1863.

[Strict Baptists! Is not this letter a call on your Christian zeal and activity, and should it not be regarded, in the order of Divine Providence, as a parallel case with that of Paul (Acts xvi. 9-10) and the man of Macedonia who prayed, "Come over and help us?" We so regard it; since it has not been sought for but has come to us spontaneously, but verily not by human accident or mere chance. And how should the Strict Baptists treat this fervent appeal? As one man they should say with faithful Caleb, "Let us go up at once, and pos sess it; for we are well able to overcome it." Will our friends favour us with their thoughts upon this important subject, and the earlier the better-ED. OF P.C.M.]

THE BAPTIST TRACT SOCIETY.

To the Editor of the Primitive

Church Magazine.

MY DEAR SIR,—The constant and increasing opposition of Puseyite clergymen and others, to Baptists and Baptist principles, in many parts of the country, but especially among the poor, requires to be met by the free circulation of

scriptural truth. The publications of the Baptist Tract Society are well adapted for this purpose, and hence, numerous appeals have, year after year, been made to the Committee, for free grants for distribution. By this means many have been enlightened upon the ordinance of Baptism, as taught in the New Testament. The Committee have never refused an application for grants until the present year, but they are obliged to do so at present, as the funds are exhausted.

Very many urgent appeals are now before your committee, which they are anxious to assist, and they have, therefore, been compelled to make an especial appeal for increased subscriptions and donations.

One hundred pounds are required immediately, to supply present wants, and remove the debts, and an increase in subscriptions, of from thirty to fifty pounds per annum, that the spheres of usefulness continually opening may be occupied.

In the hope that this may be accomplished, the Committee have engaged the services of Mr. Adam Whitehead, a member of the Baptist church, at Ogden, in Lancashire, to visit the churches and friends in the North, and by personal application, endeavour to obtain collections, subscriptions, and donations for the society.

As the principles and usefulness of the society are generally known to our ministerial brethren in the denomination, it is hoped, and earnestly requested that they will kindly render any assistance in their power to Mr. Whitehead, when he visits the neighbourhood in which they reside.

which would exclude from animadversion, not only the abstract question of religious establishments, but all abuses, past and present, which might attach to our social institutions, would narrow the freedom of discussion to a degree, that, in a nation as practical as ours, would deprive the Review of all interest to persons holding decided opinions. Against this equivocal and undignified position which even then, and still more in later years, would be so unsatisfactory to earnest minds, Mr. Foster made frequent and pointed remonstrances, which, combined with the tone of several of his articles, contributed to a settlement of the Journal on a Nonconformist basis." p. 311.

This "settlement" of the foundation on which the superstructure should be built, gave to the Eclectic at its commencement a freshness, a distinctness, and a freedom, which, while honourable to its projectors and supporters, were the means of securing its early success. Its mission was thus defined by a manly boldness tempered with charity, which its leading contributors studied to maintain. Hence those noble papers by Robert Hall, on "Zeal without Innovation," and on Gisborne's Sermons; that also on Foster's Essays; and others by cotemporary hands, possessing powers scarcely, if at all inferior to those of that celebrated writer. There are disquisitions on numerous topics of great interest and importance, in the first ten volumes of this Review, which fifty years of subsequent improvement have not excelled. For profundity of thought, clearness of expression, and comprehensiveness of view, they even now, keep their place among the first productions of the periodical

press.

But has the Eclectic maintained its character? This question is too important to admit of a hasty reply, nor should any reply be attempted without a careful examination of its recent issues, and a candid allowance for such changes as upwards of half a century has unavoidably introduced. Whoever presumes on a premature answer, is fairly open to the charge of prejudice, ignorance, or partiality.

We have carefully watched the course of the Eclectic for the last few years, have read its articles with attention,-aud done our best to determine how far it is faithful to its early profession of being a "journal on a Nonconformist basis." For inferior matters we care very little; but we are seriously concerned about a Journal that is the avowed exponent of Nonconformist principles, and which was intended to be the literary organ of those conscientious men who are not believers in the popular but empty cry of, "Church and State."

Then comes the question; how far has the Eclectic kept steadily in view its early intention? To what extent has it proved itself to be the faithful expression of Nonconformist opinions? We approach the enquiry with due caution, and proceed with candour to furnish a reply.

That the Eclectic has been respectably conducted, no one of its readers can question; but respectability is only one quality among many in the management of such a periodical. If power, and above all if Nonconformist principle are wanting, or but defectively supplied, mere respectability will do but little for the avowed object of the work. Above all other elements that of dogged, straight-forward, and even old fashioned principle is required, to give weight and influ

ence to any organ that assumes to represent the Nonconformist body. Has the Eclectic, in recent years, supplied this principle? In other words, can we place this journal on our table with a full and safe conviction that our children will learn from its pages the immortal principles for which our forefathers suffered, bled, and died?

To answer this grave question to some extent, let a careful reader examine the leading articles of the Eclectic for 1863. They are the following: Christopher North,The Jewish Church,-St. Bernard,Kinglake's Invasion of the Crimea,John Leifchild,--James Sherman,A Modern Quaker Apostle,-Legge, of Leicester,-Ulrich Von Hutten,An old Eclectic Reviewer,-Jeremy Taylor, and Dante. But from which of these could any young Nonconformist learn the nature of those principles which have induced his father to take sides with Dissenters; and to cut himself off from the more respectable" worshippers at the Established Church? We are deeply concerned about these matters, and cannot allow a journal to escape merited censure when it fails to fulfil its openly avowed mission. It signifies just nothing that it does something else; it has a Nonconformist duty to discharge, and surely it is not too much to expect that in a whole. year's work, there should be some direct proof that it has not been "a dumb dog that cannot bark."

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We cheerfully award to this periodical the merit of industry, smartness, and a fair amount of general reading; but we miss the gravity, adherence to principle, and impressiveness of former years. The spirit of levity, or of common-place remark, has nearly superseded the profound criticism.

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and manly discrimination of the past, and in lieu of solid scholarship we are too frequently treated to the clever superficialities of dilettanti professors of the reviewing art. "Light reading" we can have any day in "Cornhill" and Temple Bar,"-but we have a right to expect something more weighty in the pages of the Eclectic. Shall we have this in the forthcoming Eclectic and Congregational Review? If so, we shall not again be annoyed by an implied censure upon modern ministers, who happen to be "fevered with anxiety about conversions." (August No. p. 90.) Surely the writer might never have heard of a Baxter and a John Howe ;-of "The call to the unconverted," and "The Redeemer's Tears over lost souls." If the Eclectic requires to be reminded that "conversions" are at once the proof and reward of ministerial earnestness and fidelity, it has sadly missed or forgotten its early mission. For our own part we fervently pray that this "fevered anxiety" may warm every Nonconformist pulpit under the sun. Its absence would transform the preacher into a statue, and his hearers into idle formalists; but its presence would go far to renew the scenes of that favoured period when "the Lord added to the church daily, such as should be saved."

BAPTIST SUNDAY SCHOOL UNION. Circular issued by the Committee.

Nothing can be more appropriate, or more timely, than this union, for the purpose of a more successful co-operation among Strict Baptist Sunday Schools. Having attempted something like it ourselves, among the churches, we

rejoice to see a similar movement among the schools; and we thus publicly tender our thanks to the Committee in general, and to Mr. Hawkins, in particular, (the originator we believe,) for this judicious effort to unite a comparatively scattered body.

For what are the facts of the case but these? Here are the open men, united as a Macedonian phalanx, and compact as completeness itself can desire, ready for attack, defence, or combined retreat, as circumstances may dictate. Their Magazines from the Baptist down to the Church, work and teach to one uniform purpose, that of open-communionism; and their societies from the Baptist Mission, the Home Mission, &c., to the Young Men's Association, partake of the same general inspiration; and their academies or colleges, from Bristol, to Regent's Park, and Rawdon, bear with certainty in the same general direction. Not that this in every instance is intended, for we are fully aware that in many cases there are no questions asked upon the communion subject, and so far the institutions are not to blame. But notwithstanding this abstract impartiality yet the tendency, to all intents and purposes is the same; and like adventurers in the stream who intended to swim in one direction, but who find out when too late, that they are carried to the opposite point by the sheer force of the current, so, in very many instances ministerial candidates and others, are borne away from early conviction by influences too abundantly supplied by these popular combinations. They bravely purposed ascending the river, but before they well know where they are, they are carried off their feet into the "open" sea.

VOL. XXI.-NO. CCXLI.

And what are the facts on the other side, namely, that of strict Baptists, but these? Here are some two hundred churches, or more, with no acknowledged bond of union. With three or four Magazines, (the Gospel Herald, the Primitive Church, the Voice of Truth, and, in some sense, the Earthen Vessel,) frequently in each other's way, and scarcely one of them able to go alone, yet are they as far from concerted action, as if they inhabited different planets. They have no "school of the prophets," for the improvement of young men whom God has called by his Holy Spirit to the work of the ministry, with the solitary and humble exception of the domestic establishment of the Baptist Evangelical Society. They have no organized mode of missionary action, and while they frequently find fault with the "open" tendencies of the Baptist Mission, yet, in this department of labour they do next to nothing themselves. Nor have they anything like systematic arrangement even for their own defence, notwithstanding the significant warnings they have received from Norwich, and Ramsgate, of what the charity" of open-communionism will do if allowed to indulge its own voracity. What the recently formed Strict Communion Baptist Society may accomplish, remains to be seen; but should it fail, it will fail from the very cause of which we now complain, namely, the want of hearty union among Strict Baptists. Yet they possess both in their numbers and their principles sufficient power for every denominational purpose; the deeper should be our regret therefore, that a people who, if united, might take a foremost rank among religious bodies,

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