"When the heavens above are clear, and bright, and blue, and peaceful; and when the piled-up snowy clouds, with their sunlit edges, are still,-when the vault above is so beautifully tranquil that your spirit feels expanding with joy and thankfulness; again it appears as if God were speaking, and the language of the picture of the new book is, 'Love me!'"

"When the rising sun is gilding the firmament with glory, and when his setting beams are mingling purple, azure, and crimson, with a flood, nay, a sea of molten gold, we look at the picture with astonishment and admiration, and though half blinded by our tears, we are still able to read what is written in the picture before us. Hardly could the Lord of heaven and earth utter more distinctly the expression. 'Praise me!'"

"You make the meaning of every pic

ture so plain, that it must be just as you

say.

"I have now explained the language of a few pictures in the new book; but sometimes the pictures so mingle what is striking, awful, convincing, beautiful, and transporting, that one thing at a time is not enough to satisfy us, and we are compelled to believe, fear, trust, love, and praise Him all together."

"Well! I did not expect, uncle, when you called out to me, 'Another new thing, Cecil! another new thing!' that it would turn out to be what it is. At first, after you talked of 'thousands of large pictures,' I felt disappointed to find that it was the sky you meant; but you have satisfied me. The sky is a new book to me now, and I shall do my best to learn to read it, and to understand as many of the pictures in it as 1 can."

MRS. WIGNER,

LYNN, NORfolk.

On the Afternoon of Friday, Feb. 7th, Harriet Louisa, the valued and beloved wife of the Rev. J. T. Wigner of Lynn, took her departure from this dying world to the "rest that remaineth for the people of God." To the readers of "The Church," an outline of Mrs. Wigner's career may neither be uninteresting nor unprofitable; the writer, therefore, offers it hopefully, especially praying that the perusal of it may promote, to some valuable extent, the holiness, earnestness, and usefulness of those whom it will reach.

The subject of these remarks was a daughter of Geo. Ovenden, Esq. of Dalston. It was her privilege to be the child of godly parents, whose first desire on her behalf was, that she might grow up in the knowledge and fear of Him, whom to know is "life eternal," and whose fear "is the beginning of wisdom." These desires were not disappointed, for as soon as she began to know the use of a book, the bible became her companion and her treasure; and so effectually was it studied, that, at the early and tender age of six years, she not only proved herself to be well acquainted with the letter of the word, but gave satisfactory evidence also of having received "the grace of God

in truth." About this period, this interesting child was called to part with her beloved mother. Seeing her bereaved father in tears, she said, "Why do you cry, papa ?" Her parent replied, " Because your mother is dead, my dear." The little comforter further enquired, "Did mamma love the Lord Jesus Christ ?" Her father replied,

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Yes, my dear." "Then," said she, "mamma is not dead;" and fetching her bible, she turned to John xi. 25, and read, "Jesus saith unto her, I am the resurrection and the life; he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live." At sixteen years of age, this young disciple became a member of the Independent church, meeting in Maberly chapel, and continued her connection with that cause until her marriage with the Rev. J. T. Wigner, when she was baptized, and received into communion with the Baptist church under the care of her husband.

Mrs. Wigner's history as a pastor's wife covers about ten eventful years. To enumerate, in this brief account, the various acts of usefulness in which she was occupied during that time would be impossible; suffice it to say, she shared in the labours of her husband, and though dead, yet speaks by living witnesses to her loving and faithful instructions. Mrs. Wigner

was admirably fitted for the important position she held. Added to the very perfection of amiability, God had endowed her with a large amount of "the Spirit of Christ," so that she was emphatically an imitator of the meek and lowly Jesus. In all the trying circumstances which must of necessity mark a pastor's path, Mrs. W. was, indeed, a "help-meet" to her husband; she knew how to bear chastisement, and how to advise and console the chastised.

During four or five years of growing disease, our departed friend manifested an unwavering faith in the power of divine grace to sustain its possessor under the heaviest load. Her patient submission to the will of her Lord, her calm resignation of her all into his hands, and her complete readiness to depart, were marks of an enviable state of "perfect peace.' "The change that immediately preceded dissolution was rather sudden, though for several days she seemed to have death as her settled prospect. For some hours previous to her departure, she spoke almost entirely of her anticipated removal; and, though suffering intensely, she said, "I rest in the Lord, and wait patiently for him." "The Lord God is a sun and shield: the Lord will give grace and glory: no good thing will he withhold from them that walk uprightly." She commended her children and husband to the blessing of their best Friend, and about three o'clock on the day mentioned, in the arms of the sorrowing partner of her youth, she calmly obeyed the summons: "The Master is come, and calleth for thee." Her remains were deposited in Abney Park Cemetery on the following Thursday; and as a proof of the extensive

regard borne her, it may be stated, that, on the morning of her removal to London, some two hundred friends accompanied the hearse from the house to the railway station in Lynn, clad in mourning, and deeply bewailing their loss.

MR. GODFREY BERRY,
LOCKWOOD.

Mr. Godfrey Berry was baptized in his 17th year. In his 70th, on the 9th of October, 1850, he passed from sin and death to glory. Through last summer a gradual decay was perceptible. The closing scenes of his life were solemn and affecting. His last distinguishable words were, "Victory! victory!" the third attempted repetition be came inaudiable on his faltering lips.

As a member of the church, his regularity in attending meetings for prayer was worthy of universal imitation. Prompt to relieve the needy and infirm, he sought, in a variety of ways, to aid the advancement of the Redeemer's kingdom. His liberality was, in many instances, an influential means of soliciting from other hands what else might never have been laid on the altar of the Lord.

As a deacon, he was grave in his deportment, guarded in his language, and judicious in his deliberations; but had he acted with less reserve towards his associates in office, whose confidence he certainly possessed, it would have rendered his counsels more available.

He was interred on the 14th of October, the Revs. J. Barker of Lockwood, J. Stock of Salendine - Nook, and J. Thomas of Meltham, taking part in the service.

FRIENDSHIP WITH GOD.-Facility of access to God is one advantage of this friendship. We approach a cold stranger with contrivance, with palpitation, with the utterances of second thoughts and the chill of artificial forms. But these circumstances are not allowed to regulate the approach of friend to friend. We are always welcomewe are free-we think aloud. There are times in the life even of the unconverted man, when he longs for the privilege of free access to an almighty friend; just as he longs to reach heaven, as a shelter from hell. In the chafing deeps of trouble, when "waves and billows roll over him," it is

natural for him to cry in agony, "O lead me to the rock which is higher than 1!" But it may not be:-the conditions of this privilege are wanting. When, however, my name is written in the book of life as a "friend of God," I have free access to the Presence at all times. Through physical infirmity, or the impressions of recent sin, I may not be aware of the privilege, but still it is mine. Like the stricken patriarch, I may say, "Behold I go forward, and he is not there; and backward, but I cannot perceive him;" but this is only because through mortal weakness or sinful principle, my spirit is blind to his light, and deaf to the

whispers of his voice. Free approach to him is right. If I wake in the night, "I am still with him." I have liberty to pour out my awed thoughts to him in still and fearless reverence, and my gentle thoughts in confidential love, and my troubled thoughts in prayer, and my gladsome thoughts in the songs of the spirit. If I wish it, when I travel, I travel in divine society; when I walk in the midst of trouble, he revives me; when I droop in the valley of the shadow of death, he comforts me; when I am engaged in no defined act of devotion-when not a voice is whispered, nor a look reflected-"tender thoughts within me burn, to feel a friend is nigh." When I go out into the solitudes of nature, I feel around me a thinking silent life, and "all the air is love." "Surely God is in the place." I hear his voice in the song of the winds, and the chime of the waters; the earth rocks to his tread in the tempest; at his smile the "wilderness breaks forth into singing." When I return to my home, he who made "the desert rejoice," makes the "solitary place glad." I can find him anywhere, and at all times; and find him as my friend; in the work shop, in the loft all hung with cobwebs, behind the screen of the shaded lane, I can find a "holy of holies;" and solitude of spirit, where I can find no solitude of place, is often to me, "none other than the house of God, and the gate of Heaven." This is not fiction, it is not poetry, unless we mean by poetry, fine, deep, delicate truth; it is that it is experimentit is life. Friendship with God, a Sermon, by C. Stanford.

THE EVANGELIZATION OF THE WORLD.— A few years since, Mr. Jay was invited to preach before the Baptist Missionary Society in London, with several of the founders of which he was well acquainted. The sermon was a fine illustration of piety and of

fraternal love. He beautifully sketched the origin of the missionary spirit, and the difficulties it had to encounter. He stated that he himself, when a comparative youth, had some doubts as to whether the time was come for the evangelization of the earth, and at length he determined to call and converse on the subject with the venerable John Newton. The aged apostolic clergyman received his younger brother with ardent affection, and requested him to detail the peculiar difficulties which oppressed his mind. Mr. Jay did this at considerable length, especially insisting on the manifold obstacles which idolatry and human depravity, in all their various forms, presented to the extension of the gospel. When he had ceased, the venerable clergyman slowly laid down his pipe, gathered up his form to an erect posture, and looking his junior brother full in the face, said, in a most emphatic tone, "My brother, I have never doubted the power of God to convert the heathen world since he converted me!” "Never from that period," said the preacher, "have I had a doubt on the subject. Facts, too, have proved the fulfilment of divine prophecies, and have gone so far to accomplish the divine oath."

THE BEST STUDY.-Christ crucified is the library which triumphant souls will be studying to all eternity. This is the only library in which is that which cures the soul of all its maladies and distempers. Other knowledge makes men's minds giddy and flatulent, -this settles and composes them; other knowledge is apt to swell men into high conceits and opinions of themselves,-this brings them to the truest views of themselves, and thereby to humility and sobriety; other knowledge leaves men's hearts as it found them, this alters them and makes them new, so transcendent an excellence is there in the knowledge of Christ crucified.

THE PAPAL MEASURE.

Our last number left her Majesty's ministers all out of office; our present number finds them all in again. Financial incompetence, haughty rejection of the most moderate extension of the suffrage, above all, Lord John's anti-papal letter and bill, were the causes of their disgrace; and while we write they are endeavouring, by delaying the public business of the country, to evade censure for the gross blunders and cruel executions by martial law, perpetrated by their Colonial governor in the Island of Ceylon. Lord John's determination to stick to his anti-papal measure; hindered his junction with more competent statesmen, and has left him and his colleagues to shift, for the present, as they best can. He has now stripped his bill of the clauses, rendering legally void all bequests to Catholic bishops, the only clauses of any

worth, and which, as we mentioned last month, we could wish extended to all Ecclesiastical corporations; and nothing now remains, but a confessedly nugatory clause, forbidding the use of the new Episcopal titles! in other words, forbidding the" Right Reverend Fathers in God" (we shudder while writing the impious words), of the Established Church to have any rivals in their proud titles! And for this, then, counties, cities, and towns have been called together, Dissenting deputies have addressed the throne, and some of our most valued Dissenting brethren have even gone in form to the Queen! For this,-to save the English bishops! We differ from such brethren with all modesty; yet it would be unmanly to conceal that we do differ, and that entirely. We are confident in their upright intentions; but we cannot surrender our opinion that their mistake has

very seriously lowered the position of Dissenters. It is now acknowledged by the Premier that no law has been violated; and therefore all the stir has been made ostensibly to uphold the Queen's right to confer Ecclesiastical titles, which all Nonconformists abhor; but really, we think, because it was hoped that chastising papal impudence by legislation would aid in repressing popery. We think that popery has gained by all legislation against it, and will gain.

It is now alleged that the Romish Canon Law is the sting of the Papal aggression, and that English Catholics do not wish to be under it, then, let them renounce their popery, or that part of it. That powerful and thoroughly consistent journal, the Norfolk News, thus writes:-"We have repeated the argument, ad nauseam, that the Catholics have as much right to their bishops, as Nonconformists to their congregational ministers-that diocesan bishops are necessarily territorial bishops, and as such are essential to the development of the religious organization of the Roman Catholic body-and that to permit the reality and refuse the name, is a ridiculous act of legislation beneath the dignity of a British Parliament. With the canon law of the Romish Church, we, as Protestants, have no more to do than with the laws and traditions of the Jews, or the laws of the Wesleyan Conference. Whatever the laws may be to which any body of religionists may choose voluntarily to submit themselves, Parliament has nothing to do with them. The growing intelligence and the increasing love of freedom which characterize this age, will deal, in due time, with every thing that subverts the rights of the people to exalt a despotic priesthood."

We conclude with a brief extract from the New York (Baptist) Recorder :"Hereafter we hope to give our reasons for hoping that nothing may lead the English people, especially the Dissenters, to depart from the great doctrine of liberty of conscience. The present juncture in England will be a severe trial to those principles which every Baptist holds so dear. We hope that our Baptist brethren will be equal to the occasion."

THE ANTI-STATE-CHURCH MOVEMENT.

The Anti-State-Church Association has just concluded a series of public meetings, the character of which has evidenced the rapid advance of its principles in public estimation. The largest buildings in the largest towns in the kingdom have been filled by enthusiastic audiences, by whom Anti-State - Church principles have been adopted, in some cases unanimously, and in others by very large majorities.

On the 10th of February, Mr. Edward Miall and the Rev. G. W. Conder of Leeds commenced a tour, which included Boston, Lincoln, Nottingham, Derby, and Liverpool, and at each place addressed crowded meetings. On the 27th and 28th, the same gentlemen visited Manchester and Bir

mingham, and at each addressed, perhaps, the largest audiences ever assembled on the question. The Free-Trade Hall was crowded, and on the platform were between thirty and forty ministers of various denominations, and many of the influential Dissenters of Manchester. At Birmingham, the meeting was held in the Town Hall, Joseph Sturge, Esq. occupying the chair. Nearly 4,000 persons were present, and the whole of the resolutions were passed-six dissentients only holding up their hands against them. During the same week, the Rev. J. H. Hinton (in the absence, through illness, of Mr. Miall) and the Rev. Brewin Grant attended a meeting at Bristol, and Messrs. Grant and Kingsley at Worcester. At the former, upwards of a thousand persons were present; and at the latter, the large room was crowded. The resolutions at each were carried unanimously.

Mr. Kingsley and Mr. J. Carvell Williams, the Secretary, have attended several sectional meetings in Manchester, and also at Stockport, Ashton, Bolton, Oldham, Rochdale, and Staley-bridge, some of which have been larger than on any former occasion. At most of these meetings, working men have attended in large numbers, exhibiting the keenest interest in the subject, some of them coming forward and advocating the movement. The recent agitation, as might be expected, was the frequent theme of remark, and so far as the sentiments of the meetings were expressed, there appeared to be a decided hostility to any attempt to check Romanism by a resort to acts of Parliament.

BAPTIST UNION.

To the Editors of "The Church.” Dear Sirs,

Will you kindly announce to your readers that the Thirty-ninth Annual Session of the Baptist Union will be held in London, on Friday, the 25th of April? The Union will assemble at the Library of the Mission House, Moorgate-Street, at ten o'clock, when an introductory discourse will be delivered by Edward B. Underhill, Esq. Refreshments will be provided in the course of the day; and it is earnestly hoped that the brethren will arrange to devote the whole day to the business of the Session. Yours sincerely,

March 12, 1851.

EDWARD STEANE,
J. H. HINTON,
Secretaries.

RIDDINGS, DERBYSHIRE.

Mr. J. P. Barnett, of the Baptist College, Bristol, having accepted the unanimous and cordial invitation of the Baptist church in this place to become their pastor, commenced his labours amongst them on Lord'sday, March 16th, with many promises of happiness and success.

EYE, SUFFOLK.

The Rev. C. Carpenter, pastor of the Baptist church in this place, intends to resign his present charge as soon as he shall meet with another opening for usefulness.