THE BAPTIST MISSIONARY SOCIETY.

To the Editor of the Baptist Magazine.

MY DEAR SIR,

By direction of the committee of the So

ciety in aid of the Serampore Mission, I have to beg a place in your columns for the purpose of announcing the gratifying fact, that a union has been effected between the Serampore Mission and the Baptist Missionary Society. In accomplishing so desirable an object, it is matter of high satisfaction, that the negociation has been throughout conducted, on both sides, with perfect cordiality and good feeling; and while a disposition was mutually shown to accommodate, no concession was made or required, which would compromise the principles by which the two bodies have been hitherto governed-the whole of the arrangements being prospective.

A deputation from the society in aid of the Serampore mission met the committee of the Baptist Missionary Society, at their rooms in Fen-court, on Thursday, Dec. 7th. In the evening conference, the business was brought to a satisfactory issue, subject to some arrangements in detail which were referred to a sub-committee; these also were completed on Friday, and on Monday, the 11th instant, received the sanction of the committee. On Friday, the 15th, at a general committee-meeting of the Serampore society, held at Liverpool, the conduct of the deputation was unanimously approved, and the whole of the proceedings ratified.

Though the union has been thus virtually effected, several points of convenience require that its practical operation should not commence till the 1st of May next. Till then it will be necessary to collect the requisite funds to meet the current expenditure of the Serampore mission, and to discharge the obligations already incurred. In order to meet these demands, which are considerable, the zealous and liberal efforts of the friends of Serampore will be highly necessary. After these objects have been effected, it will be clearly understood, that there will be no separate collection for any thing connected with our Indian mission, that is not sanctioned by the united Society.

The union which has been accomplished, comprises the several stations hitherto connected with Serampore, with the understanding, that the direct superintendence of the Serampore station will remain with Dr. Marshman during his life. The college, which is incorporated by a charter of the king of Denmark, will continue on its own foundation, unconnected with the Society.

As the representatives of the two bodies have united so completely and affectionately, the committee of the Society in aid of the

reserved confidence and cordiality will prevail, both at home and abroad, among the respective friends of the two missionary bodies, which are henceforth to be considered as one. And as the committee of the Baptist Missionary Society will, from the 1st of May next, have to provide for a serious increase of expenditure, the Serampore committee wish to impress strongly on the minds of their friends, the propriety and necessity of the most strenuous exertions to maintain, in efficient operation, the whole of the combined missions.

I am instructed also by the committee, thus publicly to acknowledge the very kind and Christian manner in which their over

ture was received, and their deputation treated, by the committee of the Baptist Missionary Society; and to express their earnest desire that, by this union, a new impulse may be given to missionary zeal, the kingdom of Christ advanced, and, among our own denomination, an increase of peace and love be secured. I am, my dear Sir, Yours sincerely, B. GODWIN, Secretary.

55, Finch Street, Liverpool, Dec. 16, 1837.

ALFRED PLACE CHAPEL, FULHAM ROAD.

A building formerly used as the Western Grammar School, Alexander Square, Fulham Road (one mile from Hyde Park Corner), has been taken, and fitted up as a place of religious worship, It can accommodate a congregation of 400 persons, and is intended for the establishment of a Baptist church (so soon as an acceptable pastor can be obtained), with an open communion for all who love our Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity, for which the claims of the denomination, and the increasing population of the district, present the most powerful encouragements. The expenses incident to the necessary alterations, will not exceed the sum of £200, or thereabouts, part of which is already subscribed by the handful of Christian brethren at present engaged in the cause, and the remainder will, they doubt not, be readily suplied by liberal and zealous friends of the Redeemer, to whom they intend to appeal. It was opened on Lord's day, the 12th of November instant, when the Rev. E. Steane, of Camberwell, the Rev. J. H. Hinton, A. M., of Devonshire Square (late of Reading), and Dr. Murch, of Stepney college, preached. Dr. Cox, with Messrs. Stovel, Bowes, Broad, and several others, have kindly engaged to supply the pulpit in its noviciate state; and our friends visiting the metropolis, are earnestly requested to give it their assistance and support.

the Sunday-school connected with the congregation. The building has been generally admired for its noble front, internal neatness, and the comfortable accommodation it affords to the congregation, especially to the poor. The style is Anglo Norman, and the whole reflects the highest credit on the professional skill of the architect, Mr. Sambull, of Truro.

STAINES.

A new Baptist chapel, at Staines, Middlesex, was opened for divine service, on November 9, 1837. The Rev. Messrs. Davies,

of Tottenham, and Leifchild, of London, preached on the occasion; and collections were made, which, including contributions for the new school-room, sent the same day by some members of the Society of Friends residing in the town, amounted to more than £100.

The Baptist friends at Staines had raised nearly £300 before the opening of the chapel; and its erection was a work of entire necessity, the old meeting-house which had been rented for seventy years, being in a ruinous state; they earnestly hope that friends at a distance will help them to diminish the remaining debt of £500 as soon as possible, and that the Lord will command his blessing, even life for evermore.

HAVING been in habits of correspondence with many Christian brethren in different parts of the world, I shall be able to furnish you occasionally with a paper of intelligence. In drawing these up, I propose to avail myself of the substance of such letters as I am favoured with, and often of extracts. Without occupying your pages with reasons for adopting this method, instead of laying private letters before the public eye, I will proceed at once with a statement in which I shall be aided by letters from Mr. Knibb of Jamaica.

In the month of June last, when pleading for our sabbath-schools at Birmingham, I alluded to similar operations among the negro children of Jamaica. A gentleman then present, but who was an entire stranger to me, sent me, during the ensuing week, a munificent donation in support of our chapel and schools, requesting at the same time further information about Jamaica. In acknowledging this unlooked-for generosity, I supplied such intelligence relating to Jamaica, as I thought would be interesting, and inclosed also a letter I had recently received from Mr. Knibb. My anonymous

correspondent was so struck with the information, that he shortly returned me a letter commencing thus:

"Inclosed is cash, one hundred pounds; forty or fifty pounds you will please to remit to the Rev. W. Knibb, Falmouth, Jamaica. Say his prayers are heard, and that sum shall be remitted annually by you, until the funds of his church no longer require it. The remainder please request him to distribute among your schools in Jamaica, for the purchase of books, tracts, or in any way that you and he may consider most desirable to promote and extend the kingdom of our Lord Christ. Pray for me, and request the Rev. W. Knibb and his poor negroes to pray for me, that at all times, under all circumstances, and in all places, I may have but one wish, desire, aim, end, and motive, in all things to please God, to be approved of by him, and that nothing may separate me from the love of God in Christ."

No time was lost in forwarding the above intelligence and appropriating the generous contribution. I could not conscientiously transmit this sum to the recently formed society to obtain subscriptions in aid of the

Jamaica Baptist Education Society, of which an account is given at p. 546, et seq. of the magazine for December last. The objection I feel to support that Society, and in which my anonymous correspondent most entirely sympathizes, is that by the resolution mentioned p. 548, their funds are to be appropriated exclusively to stations which receive no part of the government grant. To this method of enforcing the voluntary principle I could no more consent, than I could concur in a vote that, if the missionaries so far deviate from it as to receive this aid from government, they shall no longer be supported by the society that sent them out. I hope contributors to the schools will be found, not more rigidly tenacious of the voluntary principle, than are the missionaries themselves, as evinced in their series of resolutions at p. 547.

But to resume, my letter reached Mr. Knibb at so critical a juncture that he replied in the following terms.

"Your unknown correspondent has relieved my mind from a load, at least partially, which sometimes crushes me to the earth. May the Author of all good abundantly recompense him for his kindness to the poor degraded children of Africa! You will oblige me by letting him know, that by his kind help I shall be able to keep this important school in operation. The day before your letter came I was much cast down; I knew not where to look for the money to pay the good man's salary: when I opened it, I almost wept for joy. May God bless the donor! I do not think that money could be more usefully employed than in that deeply interesting school."

Mr. Knibb represents this school at Wilberforce, as containing 80 day-scholars, and 250 on Sundays, almost all the children of apprentices. It is the only public school within six miles, though in the circumference of three miles, there is an apprentice population of 600 persons. The school is conducted by a pious young man of colour, who with his wife resides on the spot, and conducts public worship every other Lord's day. The following affecting sentence should weigh much with the pious and benevolent, during the remainder of this iniquitous term of apprenticeship.

"Such are the sorrows and such is the deep distress which the abolition law has inflicted upon the unhappy mothers, that during its continuance I have determined on taking the children free, and the church will each one give something annually towards supporting the schools."

I have subsequently received an account of the first public meeting on behalf of the schools, of which an ample report is given in the "Falmouth Post" of October 4, 1837. Of this large and interesting meeting, Mr.

Knibb says, "Happy should I have been if Mr. Sturge and his friend could have seen the place when I announced a vote for them. Many of their opponents were present, but not one opened his mouth. They have been most abominably reviled, and motives attributed to them, which none but base minds would think of. I was therefore determined at the first meeting in my chapel, to try the mettle of my own people, and of their enemies; happy am I that not a discordant note was heard." I remain, yours, &c. JAMES HOBY.

MINISTERS' LIBRARIES.

To the Editor of the Baptist Magazine.
DEAR SIR,

MANY of your readers are in the ministry, others are not; to the latter I appeal on behalf of the former. The want of books, and of the means of procuring them, is often painfully felt by those who sustain the sacred office. In many instances this want would cease, if our churches would see to it, that the income of their pastors was more proportionate to their own necessities, and to the means of the people among whom they labour. As it is, the minister's library is often nothing more than a few odd volumes, while the stores of intellectual wealth are closed against him, and the works of Howe, Baxter, Charnock, Hall, and other eminent divines, are as completely beyond his power of acquisition, as if they were written in letters of gold on tablets of ivory. I will not now so far intrude on the attention of

your readers, as to point out the irreparable injury which our churches inflict on themselves by meting out so small a pittance in the shape of salary, that it is impossible for their ministers to enrich their own minds, by the study of those works in which sanctified intellect has developed its powers in illustration of divine truth. Nor will I say what a reproach it is to some of our wealthy and educated laymen, that they can permit their pastor to lack that pabulum mentis, which they might supply without the sacrifice of a single personal comfort. present design, merely to offer a hint or two, which, I venture to think, are not inapplicable to the subject, nor to the present state of Baptist churches and their ministers.

It is my

There is reason to believe, that many valuable works, by such men as Owen, Flavel, Bates, Watts, Bunyan, Henry, Fuller, and a host of others, are at this moment uselessly occupying room on the shelves, or in the closets of those who have neither time nor inclination to read them. Might not a valuable accession to the minister's library be made, if our good friends would just transfer these neglected volumes to his shelves? If he should happen to possess

two resolutions were passed unanimously; one expressing the conviction of the Committee, that whatever difficulties of a practical nature might surround the subject, there was no impediment arising from principle to hinder the proposed union; the other, appointing a sub-committee to meet the deputation on the following morning, and endeavour to arrange the details.

On Friday morning the sub-committee, viz., Messrs. Dyer, Beeby, Bickham, Groser, Hinton, Steane, Dr. Cox, and Dr. Hoby, met the deputation. It was then agreed, that whatever books and translations at Serampore are public property, should be transferred to the Society; and that the Lal Bazaar Chapel, Calcutta, having been originally intended for the use of all denominations, and erected by the aid of the Calcutta public, should be appropriated to some object congenial with its original design. Arrangenients were made for announcing the union, and the time for its practical completion was fixed for the 30th of April; that day being convenient in a financial point of view, as it closes the Indian year. These proceedings were ratified on the following Monday by the Committee of the Baptist Missionary Society, and on the following Friday by the Committee of the Society in aid of the Serampore missions, at Liverpool.

But "it is the hand of the Lord that hath done this!" Providential changes have prepared the way for that which the Spirit of Christ, acting in the hearts of his people, has corsummated. Reverence and thankfulness become us, in reflecting on our present position. The arrangements now made will not only facilitate the progress of the gospel in distant realms, their influence will be yet more important on the British churches. They remove an obstacle to union of heart and co-operation of labour, and afford an earnest of future prosperity. "This is the Lord's doing, and it is marvellous in our eyes!"

The persecutions endured by our brethren who dissent from the National Church of Holland, demand our attention. At their request a special meeting was held at the Taitbout Chapel in Paris, on the 20th of September, when several ministers and other Christians united in fervent intercession to the King of kings on their behalf. English Dissenters will not forget them in their addresses to the throne of grace; and we trust it will become matter of serious deliberation, whether some active interposition could not be advantageously attempted. They write like men who understand and value the Gospel; but even if their faith and practice differed from ours more widely

than they do, the occasion should be seized to hold up to the view of all Europe the broad principles of religious liberty. It is to be feared that there are some other professedly Protestant kings, who need lessons on this subject as much as the king of Holland.

The Central Negro Emancipation Committee, has published an "Address to the Friends of Justice and of Mercy," calling on them to petition the Legislature for the immediate abolition of the West Indian Apprenticeship. Their object is to procure as speedily as possible, petitions to both houses of parliament for the immediate extinction of that poor, miserable system, which now tantalizes and tortures both the white and the coloured inhabitants of the West Indies. Further information may be obtained at the office of the Society, 25, Token-house Yard, London.

The Protestant Dissenters' and General Life and Fire Insurance Company, has, it appears, not only completed its arrangements, but actually commenced its operations. It now receives proposals for both Fire and Life Insurance, and issues policies. that it may furnish a means of affording May the benevolent hope of its projectors, substantial relief to the families of deceased ministers, be fully realized!

Official notice has not yet reached us of recent arrangements, by which several of the churches have been supplied with pastors, but we believe that the following particulars are correct :

The Rev. Joseph Angus, A.M. has accepted an invitation from the Church in Park-street, Southwark, formerly under the pastoral care of the late John Rippon, D.D.

The Rev. Charles Room, has accepted an invitation from the Church in Meetinghouse Alley, Portsea, formerly under the care of the Rev. C. E. Birt, A.M., now removed to Broadmead, Bristol.

The Rev. J. M. Sowle, late of Lewes, has accepted an invitation from the Church at at Battersea, late under the care of the Rev. Joseph Hughes, A.M.

The Rev. D. Katterns, late of Drayton, has accepted an invitation from the Church at Hammersmith, formerly under the care of the late Rev. T. Uppadine.

The Rev. B. S. Hall, late of Burford Oxfordshire, has accepted an invitation from the Church at Shefford, Beds.

The Rev. D. Rees, late of Burton-Latimer, has accepted a unanimous invitation to the pastoral office over the second Baptist church, Sheffield; and entered upon his stated labours on Sabbath, 31st ultimo.