interesting and impressive. The devo tional exercises were conducted by the Revs. J. Griffin, Dr. Vaughan, Dr. Halley, and J. L. Poore. Hymns were given out by the Revs. R. M. Davies, S. Dyson, W. H. Parkinson, and W. Parkes. Dinner was provided on the Wednesday in the lecture-room, to which a large company of ministers and friends sat down: James Sidebottom, Esq., presided on the occasion. After dinner addresses were delivered by the chairman, and by the Revs. J. Sutcliffe, J. L. Poore, James Griffin, Dr. Vaughan, Dr. Raffles, Dr. Clunie, Richard Fletcher, James Watts, Esq., James Kershaw, Esq., M.P., and by Messrs. S. Rigby and R. Rumney, &c. The entire cost of the chapel, including commodious Sunday, day, and infant school-rooms, vestries, class-rooms, house for chapel keeper, lighting, heating, ventilating, fencing, &c. &c., amounts to £5000. Towards this sum the subscriptions obtained-including £500 promised by the Lancashire Chapel Building Association—are £4150; leaving a deficiency of £850. A zealous and united effort was made in connexion with the opening services, to meet the required amount, which has, happily, proved successful. The collections on the Wednesday were £385 2s. 3d.; and on the following Lord's day, £335 19s. 6d. The further sum of £139 11s. was raised at the tea-party, making a total of £860 12s. 9d. We congratulate our friends at Longsight, and their esteemed minister, on the success of their noble effort. The style of architecture adopted is that which prevailed in this country during the thirteenth century, and is commonly known by the term "early English." The accommodation in sittings is 830, and the chapel is so constructed that side . galleries can be erected when required, which will make the entire accommodation about 1050. The whole has been executed from designs by Messrs. Travis and Mangnall, architects, Manchester. KELVEDON, ESSEX. ON Tuesday, November 15th, 1853, the new Independent Chapel in this place was opened for public worship. The Rev. W. A. Courtenay, pastor of the church, commenced the services of the day by prayer. The Rev. B. Johnson, of Halsted, read the Scriptures and offered prayer. The Rev. J. Stratten, of Paddington, delivered a most eloquent and impressive discourse from Ephesians iii. 16, and three following verses. The Rev. J. Kay, of Coggeshall, concluded by prayer. A large number of friends dined together in the old chapel, after which a clear and interesting statement of financial and other matters was read by Mr. G. T. Mayn, the treasurer. Addresses were delivered by the Revs. J. Stratten, of Paddington; T. W. Davids, of Colchester; B. Johnson, of Halsted; C. Rigges, of Tiptree; J. Mark, of Felsted; J. Kay, of Coggeshall; J. Kimes, of Totham; S. Hatch, of London; and Mr. Chevely, of Colchester. The Rev. W. A. Courtenay presided. The Rev. J. Kay, of Coggeshall, commenced the evening service by reading the Scriptures and prayer. The Rev. J. A. Miller, of Windsor, preached a highly interesting sermon from Ecclesiastes x. 18. The Rev. C. Rigges, of Tiptree, concluded the services of the day by prayer. The chapel is erected on a most beautiful site; it is in the Grecian style of architecture; it accommodates about 450 persons;-the entire cost of which, including the burial ground, is £935. The building is universally admired for its neatness and accommodation. It was erected by Mr. M. Gardner, of Coggeshall. The architect is J. Fenton, Esq., of Chelmsford. The circumstances of the day were of a pleasing nature; the chapel was crowded to excess; and it is hoped and believed that impressions were made that will not soon be effaced. On the following Lord's day three appropriate sermons were preached by the Rev. W. A. Courtenay, pastor of the church, when collections were made, the amount of which, including the opening day, was £70 148. 6d. The friends of the place having contributed to their utmost, there still remains a debt of from £250 to £300, for which they earnestly appeal to the Christian public. MILTON CLUB. We beg to call attention to an important circular just issued by the Committee, inviting attendance to a soirée at Radley's Hotel, on Wednesday, the 11th of January instant, in order to report progress, and more fully to explain the objects and aims of the Committee in the establishment of the Club, and also to obtain the small balance of subscriptions yet remaining. We need scarcely say how heartily we wish success to this attempt to combine the efforts of the Nonconformists. The Association is so untrammelled by terms and rules, that there are few occasions in which it would not serve the most valuable purposes. The meeting is by special invitation; but we know the Committee will be most happy to see any friends who may wish to be present, and who may have been by accident omitted from the invitation, if they will apply to the Secretary, Mr. Bennett, 35, Ludgate-hill. We earnestly hope that all who can, will attend, so that they may thoroughly understand the scope and design of the Club, and help it forward to final success. General Chronicle. CHINA. TEN ADDITIONAL MISSIONARIES FOR CHINA. A Letter from the Editor to the Churches. DEAR BRETHREN IN CHRIST,-The close connection in which I have stood to the London Missionary Society during forty years of public life, will be accepted, I trust, as a sufficient apology for presuming to address you, at this momentous juncture in the affairs of China. If other grounds of justification are sought for by any of my brethren, they will, I doubt not, be found in this brief but earnest appeal. I might, indeed, point them to the recent grave of an only Daughter, whose career of unostentatious usefulness in China will be remembered for ages to come; or I might refer, with exulting thankfulness, to her surviving Husband, still bearing, with a manly and Christian courage, the burden and heat of the day. But powerful as such ties are to the Chinese Mission, and closely and tenderly as they ally themselves to the deepest interests and feelings of humanity, they are not the considerations which impel to address this Letter to the churches. to wait the results? Or is she to prove herself worthy of her high vocation, by furnishing herself with the means and agencies for a great aggression upon the powers of darkness, commensurate with the mighty masses of human beings to be acted upon? Can the wealthiest or the poorest in our churches forget, that China contains nearly a third part of the human race? Is this a prize too mean to rouse the Christian ambition of the Pastors, Deacons, and Members of our churches? Ought not the possibility of entering such a glorious field to stir all the zeal and all the devotedness of every village-every rural-and every city church? And who is to move with energy and self-sacrifice, in this stupendous undertaking, if the friends and constituents of the London Missionary Society are to forsake their post? Ought they not to be foremost in the field? Forty-six years devoted to this enterprise-praying for it labouring for it-looking forward to it me-spending thousands and thousands upon it-giving up some of the best men and best women that God ever redeemed, to carry on the work-are they now, for the want of faith, or courage, or zeal, or generosity, to stop short in their career, at that precise moment when "the fields are white to the harvest ?" A great crisis is impending in the history of the Chinese Empire. An antiidolatrous movement is shaking and convulsing it in its length and breadth. Is the Church, then, to sit down at her ease, in the spirit of worldly calculation, and sion never to be effaced. Both the dead and the living, on whom | impression on behalf of the Chinese Misthe burden of the Lord has fallen, would condemn such a course. They are committed to this great work, and they dare not look back. They are equipped, moreover, for the service of Christ in China, as no other Protestant Mission is. Go forward they must. Go forward, I believe, they will. They need only to be awakened to a sense of duty. May the spirit of the living God breathe on Pastors, Deacons, and Churches, and the work will be done, Christ will be honoured, and multitudes of the Chinese will be saved. Ten additional Missionaries, indeed, for China will be but as a drop in the ocean. But if the churches combine, without de lay, by noble sacrifices among the poor and the rich to accomplish this, it will show their gratitude to Christ, their discernment of the claim of duty, their love to souls, their fidelity to the great work they have undertaken; and God will speedily strengthen them to accomplish greater things than this. It is but for our men of wealth, in their reflective moments, to feel that "the gold and silver" committed to them "are the Lord's," and their hearts will immediately open to this magnificent project, and their property will flow in plenteous streams into the treasury of the Society. And if they are influenced by faith in Christ, their most generous offerings will be returned a thousand-fold into their own bosoms. To my beloved brethren in the ministry, let me say, that they have a great but pleasing responsibility committed to them, at this crisis in Chinese affairs. Their influence, wisely and warmly exerted, will not fail to secure, in all the churches, a public collection, on the 22nd of the present month. The London Pastors have already arranged for this; and if all their brethren in the country will unite with them in so goodly an effort, and will all make China the subject of their pulpit instructions for the day, it will prove an era in the history of our venerable Society, and will produce an If I feel persuaded, from experience, that the Deacons and Members of our churches will be forward to aid such a movement. Let there be no anxiety on the subject of what the collection may amount to. If the Lord opens the hearts of the people, and he will do so, in answer to prayer, a simultaneous effort, through the United Kingdom, will produce a most cheering result; while the diffusion of a Missionary spirit will have a most blessed reaction upon the state of the churches. I knew that my people could not afford to contribute five pounds, on the third Sabbath of this month, I should regard myself as an unfaithful steward, if I did not give them an opportunity of doing what they could. Home claims will suffer nothing from such an effort; it will enlarge even narrow hearts, call forth the scanty but willing resources of the generous poor, and infuse an unwonted liberality into the minds of those whom God has blessed with abundance of this world's good. Soon, I trust, by God's blessing upon this effort, we shall have to announce that ten picked men, "full of faith and of the Holy Ghost," are on their way to China. There is not a moment to be lost. It will require full three years' study of the Chinese language, before these "messengers of the churches" can address themselves with effect to the people of the land. I beseech my brethren, "by the mercies of God," to look with a friendly eye on this appeal, and to make the 22nd of January a Jubilee in the churches. Such a hallowed concert of devotion, and of combined missionary action for the Evangelization of the Chinese Empire, will be an era in the history of the Christian Church, and will have a powerful influence upon the prosperity of our home Christianity. Other claims may be numerous and pressing. We all feel this. But let them give place, in all our circles, to this paramount and unexampled object of Christian philanthropy. Brompton. JOHN MORISON. CHINESE SYSTEM OF EDUCATION. THE Revolution in China, viewed merely as a national movement with a view to the expulsion of an unpopular and oppressive dynasty, would be among the most remarkable events of our times, but the main feature that distinguishes it from all similar convulsions, is the fact that the principles avowed by the leaders in the movement, strike at the very root of certain Institutions which for ages have been most esteemed and venerated by the Chinese. Among the causes tending to stamp that character of permanence upon the mind and habits of the Chinese which has so attracted the notice of foreigners, none has perhaps been so influential as the system of Education which, from time immemorial, has obtained throughout the empire. The subjoined extract from the work of Sir J. F. Davis, descriptive of the Chinese educational routine, affords striking evidence of the manner in which the system has operated, on the one hand, to fix and perpetuate the ideas sanctioned by time and authority, and, on the other hand, to circumscribe the bounds of knowledge, and to repress the spirit of inquiry, by saying, in effect, to each aspiring pupil, on reaching the prescribed limit, "Hitherto shalt thou come, but no further." The new ideas current among the leaders of the revolution, must inevitably tend to undermine the scholastic system by which the native mind has so long been fettered; but it is reserved for the Gospel of Christ, when it shall have free course throughout the empire, to emancipate the native youth from their mental bonds, and to give full scope to their highest faculties and noblest aspirations. "The birth of a son is of course an occasion of great rejoicing; the family or surname is first given, and then the milk name,' which is generally some diminutive of endearment. A month after the event, the relations and friends between them send the child a silver plate, on which are engraved the three words, 'long-life, honours, felicity.' The boy is lessoned in behaviour and in ceremonies from his earliest childhood, and at four or five he commences reading." which those who are obliged to labour through the day avail themselves. "The sixteen discourses of the emperor Yoong-ching, called the Sacred Edicts, commence with the domestic duties as the foundation of the political; and the eleventh treats of instructing the younger branches of a family. "Dr. Morrison, in his Dictionary, has given a selection from one hundred rules, or maxims, to be observed at a school, some of which are extremely good. Among other points, the habit of attention is dwelt upon as of primary importance, and boys are warned against 'repeating with the mouth while the heart (or mind) is thinking of something else.' They are taught never to be satisfied with a confused or indistinct understanding of what they are learning, but to ask for explanations; and always to make a personal application to themselves of the precepts which they learn. Scholars are "The importance of general education was known so long since in China, that a work written before the Christian era speaks of the 'ancient system of instruction,' which required that every town and village, down to only a few families, should have a common school. The wealthy Chinese employ private teachers, and others send their sons to dayschools, which are so well attended that the fees paid by each boy are extremely small. In large towns there are night schools, of *The Chinese: a General Description of the Empire of China and its Inhabitants, Vol. I., page 288. |