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proposal, at the present time, met with but little favour even from the Wesleyans. The letter was courteously acknowledged, but the general feeling of the Conference was expressed by the Rev. W. Arthur, who observed that while rationalism might get the better of mere forms and ceremonies, such as the Church now encourages, "Methodism did not fear any form of error, and all they asked for themselves was fair play!" It is thought to be one of the most remarkable phenomena in daily literature that the Times has this year devoted a large portion of its space to report the proceedings of the Conference. readers are amazed at the event, and are asking how it has come about? Who has furnished these full reports? What friends have the Wesleyans on the Times Staff? After all, the actions of the Wesleyans in politico-ecclesiastical matters are not of much consequence. They did nothing to promote the abolition of Church Rates; and the opening of the Universities—aye even the overthrow of religious establishments can be effected without their halfhearted concurrence.

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about half an hour before. Beyond Llandulas a portion of a goods train to Holyhead became detached, and stood on the line. The driver of the mail, which was going about forty miles an hour, saw the collision was inevitable, and jumped off; he escaped only slightly hurt. The stoker, Jos. Holmes, of Stafford, remained. At the back of the goods train was a wagon laden with petroleum, When the collision occurred, the petroleum was scattered about and caught fire. The engine, tender, and three first-class carriages were smashed up together and burnt with the petroleum. A watch was found with an inscriptiou showing that it belonged to Lord Farnham, who, it is supposed, was accompanied by his wife and two daughters. Duchess of Abercorn and Lord George Hamilton were in the train, but escaped unhurt. Locomotives, cranes, and men were sent from Chester and Crewe, and the line was cleared about half-past five. Twenty-three bodies have been brought to Pensarn Station, placed in coffins, and taken to Abergele church. Numbers of passengers hurt are distributed about Pensarn, Abergele, and other places near. is feared that none of the bodies will be recognisable by friends, they are so frightfully charred. The body of the stoker was picked up from under the broken engine. Thompson, the driver, is lying at a cottage near the scene of the accident, and is able to give some account of what he

saw.

Marriages.

NEWMAN-WHEATHERHOG.-July 28, at the Baptist chapel, Coningsby, by the Rev. W. Sharman, Mr. John Newman, of Loughborough, to Anne, only daughter of W. Wheatherhog, Esq., of Coningsby.

HOPWOOD-FOSTER. Aug. 4, at the Baptist chapel, March, by the Rev. J. C. Jones, M.A., of Spalding, the Rev. Jesse

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Hopwood, of Lutterworth, to Emma, second daughter of the late Michael Joseph Foster, Esq., of Whittlesford, Cambs.

COLLINS-GAMBLES. Aug. 11, at the Baptist chapel, Coningsby, by the Rev. W. Sharman, Mr. George Collins, of Ruskington, to Miss Annie Gambles, of Coningsby.

Recent Deaths.

MRS. SARAH DEACON.

IN their efforts to promote the glory of Christ the ministers of the word have often had to acknowledge the co-operation of men, but not unfrequently have some of their best and most valuable helpers been among "those women who laboured

in the gospel." Indeed in the archives of the church many of the most precious treasures are records of female character, of piety and zeal, of toil and suffering, by which that character has been distinguished in different ages and different lands. But concerning the great majority

with which the church has been honoured and the world has been blessed we know nothing-not even their names-and we can only speak of them as the apostle spoke of the holy women at Philippi as those "whose names are in the book of life."

Among those whose names deserve to be placed on record is that of Sarah, the beloved wife of Mr. Thomas Deacon, of Barton, who died "looking to Jesus," August 3rd, 1868. She was born at Barton in 1808, and her father, the late Thomas Jackson, was one of those holy men concerning whom the Rev. W. Felkin, an eminent minister, said in 1824, "I challenge you to go to any church and find such a circle of holy, spiritually-minded Christian people as may be found in that church. They are the excellent of the earth." Being the favourite child and almost constant attendant of such a parent, she was made acquainted with the Holy Scriptures and became wise unto salvation. In July, 1827, she was baptized and added to the church at Barton by the late Rev. John Derry, the honoured pastor of the church, and whose name was as "ointment poured forth." From that period up to the time of her death her conduct was as becometh the gospel of Christ. Though not given so much to talk on religious subjects as many, she abounded in good works; and while she believed with Paul that "by grace are ye saved through faith," she also believed with James that "faith without works is dead." Not having children of her own she adopted, when they were quite young, three orphans of a deceased brother; all of whom she lived to see grow up, and two of them added to the church. To a large circle of nephews and nieces her house was always open, and the visits paid were a source of mutual gratification. Attachment to the house of God, regular attendance on the services of the sanctuary, both on the Sabbath and week-day, and a lively interest in the cause of Christ, were prominent features in her character. To these must be added kindness to the poor; and by the delicate, unostentatious manner in which her gifts were bestowed they were rendered doubly valuable. By the death of Mrs. Deacon," observed one, on the day of her funeral, "the poor have lost their best friend." In a pre-eminent sense she Was "given to hospitality;" and on ordinary, as well as on special occasions, Christian friends could always depend on a sincere and hearty welcome. Like Phebe of the church at Cenchrea, "she hath been a succourer of many," and faithfulness compels the writer to add, "and of myself also."

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Until about twelve months ago the sub

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ject of this sketch had enjoyed robust health, when symptoms which terminated in her death first manifested themselves. Though everything which skill and affection could suggest was attended to, her disease gradually gained strength, until death released her from her sufferings and she entered into rest. In the early part of her illness she entertained hopes of recovery; nor was it till a few weeks before her death that she was convinced that her disease would prove fatal. Then, to give up life she had a severe struggle, and she thought one reason was that she had been so comfortable and happy in her family and circumstances. By the heaviness of her affliction, by the preciousness of Jesus, and by the sweet assurance of heaven, she was gradually weaned from earth. The current of her feeling was reversed, and set in towards heaven; and she was not only ready, but desired to depart and be with Christ, which is far better. Why! Lord, delayest thou thy chariot ?" was one of the last utterances which came from her lips. The last night but one she spent on earth she thought the time of her departure was at hand, and had her friends called to bid them adieu. After a little while, however, she rallied; but expressed her disappointment in finding herself on earth instead of in heaven; saying also that the joy she experienced in entering upon the valley and shadow of death was unspeakable and full of glory. On Monday morning, August 3rd, after a restless night, her spirit took its departure to join the church of the first-born which are written in heaven; and on the following Wednesday evening, in the presence of a large gathering of sorrowing relatives and friends, her remains were laid in the burying ground at Barton, there to await the resurrection of the just. On the Sabbath but one after a funeral sermon was preached by the writer to a large and sorrowing congregation, from Phil. i. 21, “For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain."

W. H.

JACKSON.-April 23, aged ninety-three, Mr. Thomas Jackson. He was the oldest man in Arnold. He was baptized about twenty years ago, and joined the General Baptist church in this place, and by his amiable disposition gained the esteem of those who knew him. During his illness (of about ten days) he was visited by a number of friends and relatives. He was at times insensible towards his end, but on recovering his faculties expressed his desire to depart. He was interred in the General Baptist burial ground, and was followed by a very large number of children and grandchildren, and also a great num

ber of the members of the church. Rev. J. Batey preached his funeral sermon at Arnold, from Isaiah xxxviii. 1.

KENT.-May 27, at Camden College, Sydney, New South Wales, aged forty-two, Emily, wife of the Rev. S. C. Kent, and daughter of the late Mr. Frederick Deacon, of Quorndon, Leicestershire.

SMITH.-June 25, at Coalville, Samuel Jeffcoat Smith, son of our respected deacon, aged eighteen years. He had been a member of the church three years, and had taken an interest in the Lord's work as Sabbath school teacher and distributor of tracts, till consumption set in, and made the banner-rose of health pass from his cheek, and "the flower of spring to fade in its fresh blossoming." His sickbed was his sanctuary, and as the outward man perished was the inner man renewed day by day, till his spirit departed rejoicing, with the word 66 Glory" on his lips. He desired his pastor to preach his funeral sermon from the words, "Remember now thy creator in the days of thy youth," &c.; thus indicating his desire for the salvation

of his young friends, among whom he was held in great respect, and who gathered in large numbers on the occasion. W. S.

GARRET.-July 31, at Chesham, Bucks, John Garret, Esq., aged eighty-five. A member of the General Baptist church from his youth, and for the greater part of his life a deacon. A lowly-minded Christian, and a liberal supporter of the denominational Institutions, as well as of his own particular church.

BARTON.-Aug. 1, after a short illness, aged thirty-five, Mr. John Thomas Barton, of Leicester, and late of Derby.

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Varieties.

A SUBLIME SPECTACLE. - There is surely something of high moral sublimity in the sight of a whole people, once in every week, ceasing from their business and their toil to celebrate the great facts of creation and redemption-" the plough left to sleep in the furrow," the loom motionless, the anvil silent, the mine and the factory tenantless, and the whole monotony of common life turned and elevated into a kind of sacred praise. This solemn pause over the wide extent of Scotland, seen still more perfectly in her rural districts than in her great cities, strikes us as the nearest approach we have ever known to national worship. And we do not wonder that all the great poets of our land-our uninspired prophets, whose work it is to reflect and to idealize our purest national feelings,should so often have "sung the Sabbath," and that the Sabbath pictures of our national poet Burns in his "Cottar's Saturday Night," though, alas! he seldom consecrated his great gifts to religion, shine as the most beautiful passages in a poem that seems marked for immortality.

TRUE REASONING.-In many of our conflicts and strugglings with sin and temptation, we may adopt Rebekah's

words, "If it be so, why am I thus? If a child of God, why so careless or carnal? If not a child of God, why so afraid of, or so burdened with, sin ?" -Scott.

TRUE FAITH.-Two boys were conversing about Elijah's ascent in the chariot of fire. Said one, "Wouldn't you be afraid to ride in such a chariot ?" "No," was the reply; "not if God drove." Might not many old Christians learn a lesson of faith from the above?

SHORT HINTS.

How can you expect the furnace to be pleasant?

Let your lapses in the past be your lessons for the future.

The foolish are afraid of others; the wise are afraid of themselves.

Beware how you either neglect your duties or despise your opportunities.

The brightest sunshine is often that which breaks between the clouds.

Every great trial through which we pass is meant to be the providential precursor of some special development of our higher nature.

Missionary Observer.

GREAT FLOOD IN ORISSA.

Extract of a letter from Rev. J. Buckley to Rev. I. Stubbins, dated Cuttack, June 27, 1868.

WE have had an unprecedented flood. The country between the Brahminee and Byturanee, for twenty miles, has been one great river. The Calcutta post was stopped for nine days. Khundittur has been a second time nearly swept away. None of the christians however have lost their lives, though I fear the loss of property will be serious, but full particulars are not yet to hand.

Rice was selling at three seers the rupee instead of more than twenty a few days before. Brother Miller has gone to Khundittur and Jajapore to see how the people are, and know what can be done to help them. I fear the condition of many of the poor people that know not Christ is very sad. The Khursua rose so suddenly, and with such violence, that men, women, horses, furniture, cattle, bears, tigers, and even elephants, were carried away by the force of the stream.

I hope, from what I hear, that in other parts of the Cuttack district the damage has not been great, nor has it been very considerable in Pooree Zillab. The tract of country I have described has suffered most, and Dhenkanal has suffered greatly. I fear that the beali (early rice) crop will be found to have been very much damaged. I never knew anything like the rain we had in May; and on June 13th our great river was as high as I have known it on July 25th. The judgments of God are again hanging over poor Orissa; but I do hope that it will be found not more than a local calamity.

It is said that the Pooree district has been saved from a general inundation by the anicut at Naraj. The Madras dáks came regularly with the exception of one day, so that it cannot have been so bad southward.

ADDRESSES AT THE ANNUAL MEETING OF THE FOREIGN MISSIONARY SOCIETY, HELD AT ST. MARY'S GATE CHAPEL, DERBY, JUNE 24, 1868.

THE REV. T. W. MATHEWs, of Boston, moved the adoption of the Report in a resolution which also expressed regret, that with new and wider openings for the diffusion of the gospel, their missionary band had been reduced in number. He said that the very abstract of the Report was interesting; how much more would it have been in its entirety. But as Lord Castlereagh used to complain of "the ignorant impatience of taxation manifested by the people of England," so Secretaries had a right to complain of the ignorant impatience of Reports felt by the audience at the annual meetings of our great religious institutions. The consequence was, that people got only a spoonful of information and encouragement when they might have had a bowl. For, after all, they really came together to

hear the Report; i.e., the account of what had resulted from their money and their prayers. The Report was as the substance of a building; the speeches that followed were as the mere friezes and cornices by which the plasterers might adorn it.

The resolution speaks of "new and wider openings for the gospel in India." Compared with sixty or seventy years ago, this fact is obvious to all: when the first missionaries were, by the British authorities, prohibited from commencing their christian work, and had to run for refuge to the little Danish settlement at Serampore; when it was the fashion for English gentlemen and scholars, called christian, to dissuade their countrymen from doing anything to disturb the religious opinions of "the mild and virtuous Hindoos;" when, on the one hand, the

"Honourable Company" would not permit any attempt to be made to christianize the natives; and when, on the other hand, even Dr. Claudius Buchannan recommended the rulers to force christianity on the natives at the point of the British bayonet. Wonderfully different is the present aspect of things in India. There is perfect liberty of religious action. The government neither blesses at all nor curses at all. The prejudices of the Hindoos are in some measure giving way. Caste has in multitudes of cases been renounced. Brahmin priests have become obedient to the faith. Ability to read has become almost universal among the men. The women have discovered they have souls. Education has found its way into the zenanas of Indian ladies; and even in the humbler ranks (so a missionary lately returned has informed us) young men declare they "cannot afford to marry a woman who cannot read." European civilization, as it spreads, contributes to the disintegration of Asiatic prejudices. The convenience of railway travelling reconciles the man of high caste to sit side by side with the despised pariah.

For our own missionaries, in particular, wider doors have recently been opened. As God the Saviour wonderfully shielded them in the time of the dreadful mutiny, so He has most conspicuously kept alive both them and all dependent on them in the recent terrible famine. Nay, that very famine, so fearful an evil in itself, has been subservient to this good, that it has brought 1,300 parentless Hindoo children under the direct control of our missionaries to train them for Christ; and some of them have already given their hearts to our Redeemer, and their hand to His people.

Dr. N. McLeod, who has recently visited India to inquire into the effect of christian missions in that country, has declared that all means of destroying Hindooism have entirely failed except education. Without endorsing that sentiment for the preaching of Christ has proved itself there also to be the power of God unto salvation-it is gladdening to find our missionaries, and through them ourselves, thus, by a singular providence, led and constrained to become nursing fathers and nursing mothers to this vast family of orphan souls.

Yet, with all these increased facilities

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for work, we must bear in mind that the chief difficulties remain substantially the The soul can have no eternal life without the knowledge of the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom He has sent. Men cannot become children of God but by receiving Christ. And the depravity of the heart is yonder as strong as it is at home. And what it is here we all know and feel. Moreover, the nameless, shameless abominations of idolatry are still openly practised. The same self-torturing_pilgrimages are still being performed. The Morning Star of June 10 informs us that in Rajpootanah the unfortunate subjects of leprosy are hunted like beasts, and in some cases are burnt alive. The Pioneer of Bombay gives a detailed account of a suttee, which, though strictly forbidden by Government, and severely punished, was, on the 17th of April last, enacted at Cawnpore; the fire which consumed the dead husband and the living widow was lighted by their own son, a youth of eighteen years old. The same paper contains also the following: A Hindoo living in the sub-district of Sasseram, in Bengal, with the hope of obtaining a son, made a vow. A son was born to him, and became a healthy boy. Misfortune overtook the man, and he thereupon made another vow, viz., to sacrifice the child to appease the wrath of his god. He accordingly took him to a cave, and offered him up as a sacrifice. He then wrote a "proclamation, addressed to all religious and God-fearing dwellers in this place," stating what he had done, and then he went and hanged himself on an adjoining tree. "The dark places of the earth are still full of the habitations of cruelty." O Cawnpore!

The aim of our missionaries is to make the Hindoos like ourselves. Not less; for we love them, or ought to love them, as ourselves. We wish them to have the same liberties and civilization as we have, the same heart-satisfying faith, the same heaven-inspiring hope. We aim not to make them christians in name, but in heart; not in the lump, not by districts, as if religion were a geographical idea, but individually; each family apart, and their wives apart. As God hath said, "I will gather you one by one." Individualism," as Dr. Gotch lately said, “Individualism is the essence of our religion." Dr. N. McLeod, before

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