THE COUNTESS CONNEXION, CHESHUNT COLLEGE, &c.

We are informed that the Solicitors to the Trustees have received instructions to prepare the Deeds of Appointment to the various Trusts, rendered necessary by the resignation of H. F. Stroud and James Haycroft, Esqs, and by the death of W. Jackson Taylor, Esq. The lists of Trustees will then be—

CONTRIBUTIONS, COLLECTIONS, AND SUBSCRIPTIONS. COUNTESS OF HUNTINGDON'S MISSIONARY SOCIETY FOR THE SPREAD OF THE

Contributions, &c, to be sent to the Treasurer, MR. FREDERICK WM. WILLCOCKS,

1, Myddelton Villas, Lloyd Square, London, W.C.

THE FREE CHURCH OF ENGLAND MAGAZINE.

The Free Church of England in Relation to

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Church and Dissent."

WHAT was formerly denominated Tractarianism has since been called Ritualism. Tractarianism is the doctrine, Ritualism is the practice. Call it which you will, its development in the Church of England has become positively alarming.

Some of its advocates tell us plainly-We give our people the fact; the real doctrine of the mass first,-the name will come of itself byand-bye. So, with regard to the Cultus of the Virgin, we shall only be able to establish this by slow and cautious steps. We are one with Roman Catholics in faith, and have a common foe to fight.”

The Cultus, or worship of the Virgin, is the fetishism of Africa translated into the vernacular of Roman Catholicism-a vile, degrading, and frightful idolatry.

The doctrine of the mass is the doctrine of Transubstantiation, with its associated theories-priestly power to offer to God a real sacrifice for sin, authority on the part of the priest to set up the Confessional, force the penitent into it, and to forgive sins.

In perfect consistency with their doctrine, they lift up the bread and wine, and worship them, believing them to be the real body and blood of Christ.

And yet the Church of England, in her] 28th Article, declares that "Transubstantiation is repugnant to the plain words of Holy Scripture. The Sacrament of the Lord's Supper was not by Christ's ordinance lifted up and worshipped."

The Ritualists are stopped by a recent decree from lifting up the elements and outwardly worshipping them, but they go on preaching the same doctrines as they did before.

And all this with the avowed intention of leading the members of the Church of England to Rome, either by incorporation or union.

But the Church of England must not, according to the policy of these men, go over to Rome as individuals. They say, "So long as the Church of England remains what she is, to join the Roman Catholic Church in any but a corporate capacity would be, in our view, to sin against the truth."

"WHERE ARE WE TO GO?"

SUCH is the simple yet significant question put by the Church Times, as the avowed organ of the Ritualistic party, in the face of the recent judgment of the Privy Council. If we say-to Rome-we are, it seems, uncharitable. What, then, is the answer put forth by themselves? It bespeaks the pretensions and the arrogance of the party. Here it is:

:

To organize a branch of the Church in this land free from State control would be at once to drain the Established Communion of her best blood, and still more to multiply divisions in that body for whose corporate re-union we daily pray. We love our spiritual Mother, the English Church, too well to leave her undefended in the hands of those of her children who are now trying to wound and weaken her in order to carry out their own narrow-minded and selfish ends. . . . If we were to go out, what would become of religious Roman Catholics who are constrained to seek their Sacraments elsewhere? Take the great body of earnest Dissenters who are searching after truth. If we leave the English Church what are they to do when they find their present position untenable?

Who would be left to comfort the mourners when those had gone who alone could have told them what "the Com munion of Saints" really means, and the help which prayer and sacrifice by the living may be to the departed? Who, again, would there be to bring home to the joyous hearts of children the bright side of religion, and to speak to both their eyes • and minds of a God glorious, beautiful, and loving; and to bring them to look forward to the Christian's weekly Festival as the happiest and most cheerful day of the seven? And those, too, whose hearts have been touched by God with a deep real sense of sin as defiling to the regenerate? Who, if we were to go, would there remain, to show such penitents how to remove their burden, and how the Precious Stream may be applied for the cleansing of their individual souls? What priests would be left who could be depended on to go at once, when summoned, to visit dangerously infectious cases, if ours are all to be turned out? As for themselves, the Ritualists have little enough of wordly ease or emolument to expect, and if they consulted their own personal comfort in a spirit of selfishness, they would save the Church Association the trouble of turning them out by taking themselves off with all speed. But loving their Mother and their Country far better than they love themselves, they intend to remain where they are.

Yes. They lack both the life and truth to lead them to any such selfsacrifice. It is not love to their Church or their Country that keeps them within the pale of the Establishment; we will not say, that it is the prestige and the pre-eminence which it gives them in the State, but their oft-avowed determination to un-Protestantize the Anglican Communion, and undermine all our Protestant institutions. They are shouting at the top of their voice-"Let the Church of England be free, have its rights unimpaired, and its liberties unmolested." Never-in the sense in which they mean. If the Church chooses to link herself to the State, she must forfeit certain of her rights and liberties. It is an inevitable sequence. It is bad enough, in all conscience, for the Church to be the creature of the State, but it would be unspeakably worse for humanity and the world, if the State were to become the creature of the Church.

SIERRA LEONE MISSION.

It is very evident from the following letter, that the managers of our African Churches fully expect an early visit from their true friend and minister, the Rev. J. Trotter. Shall they be disappointed? It is for our English Churches to answer this question. Surely, if Mr. Trotter is prepared for the third time to comply with their earnest entreaty, it will be not to our credit if we fail to send him at the first opportunity :Waterloo, Sierra Leone, February 13, 1871. REV. AND DEAR SIR, -We have written to your honour these few lines, before you leave England for Africa, to say, please send us notice beforehand when you are coming, that we may be prepared before your arrival; because, if we do not know the time, we cannot tell how to make ready a place for you to reside.

We have already told you of our arrangement for your coming, in which all the villages were joined. We hope the Lord of heaven and earth will give you a fair breeze and a prosperous voyage. May He Himself hold the helm and guide the ship with His Almighty arm, and may He land you safely on the shores of Sierra Leone, that we may enjoy your presence once more; so that when the days of our pilgrimage shall end on earth, we may join you and all the glorified spirits in heaven! There may you receive your full reward at last; for we know that to us poor Africans your labour has not been in vain in the Lord. May God bless you, our dear Pastor! May all your travels through land and sea, through dark nights and hot days, through storms and wet seasons, and tornadoes and harmatans, for us and for His glorious name, be paid with an everlasting payment in heaven-even with a crown full of stars, that shall shine for ever and ever! And may we all join at last in that song of Moses and the Lamb which you told us about when you were here.

We have thus written, because you told us that if you should come to this west part of Africa, you would rather stay with us at Waterloo this time, and not at Freetown.-We are, &c.

The Rev. John Trotter, Cheltenham.

SPECIAL EFFORT FOR MISSIONS.

WE invite the earnest and undivided attention of both Pastors and Churches to the following Appeal on behalf of the Sierra Leone Mission :— It is a gratifying intimation that an effort is about to be made to augment the pecuniary resources of our Missions to £1,000 per annum; and it will be the part of wisdom to consider how this amount may, during the next twelve months, be obtained.

Missionary anniversaries have become an institution in most of our churches, but there is danger lest what has thus become an established usage may degenerate into a mere formality, and so fail of its practical results. It is most desirable, therefore, that those who have the management of Missionary anniversaries, should, with ministers and their congregations, awake to the present appeal for additional funds. In addition, however, to what may be collected on public occasions, private applications must be made to those who are possessed of wealth and are known to feel an interest in Mission work. This may not be the wrong place, perhaps, to state that sums of £50, £20, £10, and £5, have already been contributed towards the £1,000 annual income. May these few large drops be the precursors of a plentiful shower!

The Rev. Henry Ward Beecher, who knows as well as most public men how the thermometer of liberality stands amongst the wealthier class of professing Christians, has said "Some men give so that you are angry every time you ask them to contribute; they give so that their gold and silver shoot you like a bullet. Other persons give with such beauty, that you remember it as long as you live; and you say, 'It is a pleasure to go to such men.'

There is a somewhat humble, but certainly very effective, method of replenishing the Missionary exchequer. Let us suppose each of our congregations, with their Sunday-schools, to furnish an average of five collectors, and each of these collectors to obtain, by collecting-cards or boxes, five shillings a-quarter, in weekly, monthly, or quarterly payments; would not the result justify the means? If any of our young friends would like to try this kind of work, the Rev. T. Dodd, of Worcester, would only be too happy to supply them with books and cards. Our own Churches may do much; but help may be sought and obtained beyond the pale of our own Communion. Instances of a broad catholicity and overflowing beneficence are not amongst the things unknown in our day. Hence our Missions may derive assistance in quarters where we have no Connexional claim; while our African Schools are of a character so interesting and important, that every lover of humanity, friend of benevolence, and follower of Christ, must wish them God-speed. And popular lectures on Africa and her Missions might add to the same result.

The claims of our Missions, especially those of the Foreign Department, are very imperative at the present time. It has already been announced that the African Churches are anxions to receive a visit from their much-respected Superintendent, the Rev. J. Trotter, of Cheltenham, and, as these poor black Christians have offered a handsome proportion towards the expense of this visit, it is confidently believed that the Churches at home will cheerfully contribute the rest. This official visit to the African Churches will involve the Churches at home in future pecuniary responsi bilities; for we can hardly expect that the Superintendent of our Missions will have his eyes greeted with signs of a Millennium when he sets his feet again on African soil. Far otherwise. The truth is, that Mission work in Africa is only just begun. Christianity at present has only touched, with slight exceptions, the hem of her wide-spread sable garment. Our own work in Sierra Leone has been, to a great extent, a work of conservation. We have had a house bequeathed to us, the work of our ancestors, which we could not see fall into ruins, but have endeavoured to improve as well as repair. We have had a fire committed to our care—a fire, indirectly, of Whit field's kindling, and of Lady Huntingdon's fostering-which we have fed with holy fuel, afraid or ashamed to let it go out. But surely the time has arrived when we ought to make—Progress our watchword,-Aggression our policy—the kingdoms, at least, of Western Africa, as well as the British Colony of Sierra Leone, the platform of our operations and the scene of our successes.

Africa, there can be no doubt, is rising before the nations as an object of increased inquiry and interest. Yes; Africa's day is coming. Long obscured, oppressed, and wronged, she is now rising into prominence, getting rid of her chains, and regaining her long-lost rights. While men of science and of commerce are eager to explore her wonders, and to develop her resources-wonders and resources which the tyranny of her chiefs and the barbarity of her tribes, the intolerance of her religion and the unhealthiness of her climate, have helped to keep beyond their reach-men of benevolence and of piety, animated by nobler motives, are eager to convey to her benighted, warlike, and degraded children the light of knowledge, the tranquillity of peace, and all the elevating influences of the religion of Jesus Christ. Ethiopia, in the best and holiest sense, shall soon stretch out her hands to God, if Christian men will but do their duty. Six hundred and eighty-seven thousand, the estimated number of African converts,—is there no encouragement here to prayer, exertion, and enlarged liberality? Where else, in all Africa, will you find diamonds so numerous and precious? In the face of this fact, ought not this special effort to succeed? J. S. H.