XL.

I am not able to speak, but feel I ought not to leave Brighton without telling you of what the dear Lord has done for me since I was at Oxford. There I gave up all, will and everything. And I can only say with grateful heart, "Praise the Lord, Oh my soul, and all that is within me bless His Holy Name." It is far, far easier to have only His will than my own. The Lord grant that all here may try it.

XLI.

If I were to send a text by way of saying what the Brighton Convention was to me, I should have to send the whole Bible, for it all glows through and through to me afresh. To have a deeper conviction given us that our Lord Jesus abides in us really, always combined with something of a further glimpse into what He is, is intense, overwhelming, and immortal joy. I go home lightened in heart, not leaving the source of this joy behind.

XLII.

I hope all have received the great blessing that I have done from these meetings. The Lord has brought me through a long, dreary wilderness, out at last into the bright, sunny day, where I can rest on Jesus, and trust Him always. "I leave it all to Jesus, for He knows."

XLIII.

For many years I have been longing for a holy life. Praise the Lord I have now found out the secret, simply trusting in Jesus moment by moment.

LIV.

I came to Brighton longing for a blessing, but feeling I could not give up my will. But now, Jesus has it all, and I have never known such joy and peace before. "His Banner over me is Love."

*

**Want of room alone prevents our adding largely to these testimonies, which continue to pour in almost daily, both on the other side of the Atlantic and on this. But a very few of the former were sent over, and of these the above are only a selection : some others will be sent to the Editor of "The Pathway of Power for insertion there. So full and constant is the witness to the blessing of these marvellous days!

ADDRESS OF THE REV. C. GRAHAM, ON THE "UNITY OF
THE CHURCH.” *

The Rev. C. GRAHAM, in the first place, referred to the promise made by God when He brought Israel into the new covenant. God, he continued, promised four things. In the first place it is stated, "Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall be clean." That is a glorious prefiguration of the work of the Lord Jesus Christ, applied to us by the Holy Spirit. But God promised another thing. He promised to give them a new heart and a new spirit. "A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you.” And in connection with that take the verse, "And I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you a heart of flesh." Then pass on to "I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in My statutes, and ye shall keep My judgments and do them."

Well, Israel had to be brought where we are. We are in the bond of the new covenant, and all these things are ours in the Lord Jesus. They are secured to us by Him, and we have only to put out the hand of faith and take them to realise them. Israel will become united; Israel will become one. "I will give them one heart." In the prayer of Jesus, in John xvii., He asked that His people might be one-one in Him as He and the Father are one, that the world might believe that He was sent of the Father. Now the Church has failed in manifesting this unity, and thus it has become-I speak it with sorrow-to some extent a stumbling-block to the world. In the Church the world has not seen that embodiment in symbol of the unity between the Father and the Son. But when the Church was united in the beginning then it was that it went forth "fair as the moon, clear as the sun, and terrible as an army with banners." It went forth then in the power of the Lord and everything fell before it.

We know what the united Church in Jerusalem did: from one hundred and twenty soon the number of names amounted to five thousand. If these bright and blessed days had continued, we could form little idea of what the Church would have become. Now, I believe that those who really wish to promote the progress of the word must begin by promoting the unity of the Church. The richest promises God has given His people are in connection with united prayer. May we not now by united prayer bring down larger blessings than the Church has ever known in England, by this Conference in Brighton? Here God's people are united, one in heart, one in confidence, one in the exercise of their trust in the Lord Jesus Christ. May there be real consecration to the Lord Jesus! "If I," said David, "regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord

*This Address should have had place on page 129.

will not hear me." That is bringing us to a practical point, as to what is the power of prayer. Are we conscious that we abhor iniquity? We shall not be blessed, we shall not be used of God, we shall not be the means of bringing down blessing on others, unless we have given ourselves to God. "If we say we have fellowship with Him, and yet walk in darkness," that is, in moral evil, "we lie, and do not the truth." We want individual dwelling in God; we want God to search us. Let us all give ourselves honestly to God, and "reckon ourselves dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord."

THE LATE REV. THOMAS RYDER.

A contributor kindly supplies the following:

The number of those to whom the friends of the Convention are under obligation is very large, but none, perhaps, deserve our gratitude more than the leaders of song. The many who joined in the choir and attended the services with self-denying diligence are not forgotten before God-they shall stand in His presence some day among the white-robed throng of the harpers harping with their harps. But to those who came from a distance, purposely and constantly giving themselves to this very thing, a still fuller meed of loving thanks flows forth from a hundred hearts. How much the Convention owes to the music and management of the Revs. Mayers, J. Mountain, T. Ryder, and Stevenson, only those who have attended meetings where the lack of such leadership has been a felt deficiency can estimate. If the prayers of the saints are too precious to be entrusted to anything less costly than the golden vial full of odours, where are the praises kept? We know who it is that inhabiteth the praises of Israel, and we feel sure that His indwelling is to all of them the best reward.

One of them has already past into the Presence, and even while we write his voice may be joining in the new song

"To see the light of glory,

To bend before the throne,

To feel temptation past for aye,

To live with saints alone:

Ah, for the fulness of the life above,

We'd cast aside the bands of earthly love.

"No envious foe without us,

No tainted heart within,

No wandering to the boundary line

That separates from sin;

Oh! city of the changeless life, to know

And share thy brightness is the end of woe!"*

* BOWER'S Hymns of the Christian Life.

As Mr. Ryder was one of the leaders in the Service of Song at these meetings, we feel a mournful pleasure in inscribing his name in this record. Just as the summer was passing into autumn he has been called from the imperfect service of the earthly tabernacle to engage in the perfect worship of the heavenly temple. To him was given one of God's choicest gifts, a voice of singular sweetness and power to move the hearts of his fellow men, and this gift he consecrated and used for the service of his Lord and Master.

The Rev. Thos. Ryder, who was born in 1840, was educated for the Ministry at Cheshunt College, which he left in 1863 to become the Pastor of the Congregational Church at Padiham. He afterwards adopted Baptist views, and in 1870 became the minister of Stoney Street Chapel, Nottingham. Not content with fulfilling the duties of the pastoral office and exercising his ministry amongst his own congregation, he also threw his energies into the Temperance Movement, and was the founder of the Nottingham Band of Hope Union. For some time he acted as Editor of the Midland Temperance Record, and filled in the Order of Good Templars the position of Past Grand Chaplain of England.

He also occupied a prominent place in the ranks of the Tonic SolFaists, and some of his sacred songs and music were beginning to make his name known in England and America. A few lines he wrote after one of M. Monod's addresses at Brighton are printed in this Record, but spiritual and elevated as are the sentiments they contain, they can hardly be considered as showing his powers at their best. He was one of the few who are able not only to preach for Christ, but also to sing His praises, a work surely as noble in its way as making known His will by speaking, if praise be, as we believe, the very blossom of religion and the ceaseless worship of the redeemed in bliss.

In September of the present year, it became evident to Mr. Ryder's friends that his health was failing from over-work. For some time he had been far from well. He was therefore advised to take a thorough rest; and, that he might still be amongst friends, he resolved to visit the United States, hoping there to gather strength for future labour. This hope, however, was not to be realised. "Man proposes, but God disposes." His course below was almost finished. He crossed the Atlantic, indeed, but he crossed it only to die. That world of new life and almost boundless possibility could not give him the health he sought. For a short time after his arrival in America he seemed to be better. The sea breezes, the entire rest, the complete change of scene, restored for a little time the waning powers of life, but for all this the summons was just about to go forth that called him to enter into his Master's presence.

During a visit to Twin Mountain he made the acquaintance of Mrs. Beecher Stowe, and at her request he went to spend a day or two at her residence at Hartford, Connecticut. There it was he passed away. In a sympathetic and beautiful letter addressed to his widow, Mrs. Stowe thus speaks of his last evening on earth :-"At my request he went to the piano, and sang in excellent voice the Ninety

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and-nine,' and then those other hymns I have marked in his book— Hymns of Consecration and Faith. As he was singing the last, 'Almost persuaded,' his voice faltered, and at the end of the second verse he turned round and said, Why, Mrs. Stowe, there's something about these words that affects me so that I cannot sing.'

"But after that he seemed still cheerful, and I showed him a variety of things that interested him-the different editions of Uncle Tom's Cabin, the address of the Ladies of England, with its many volumes of signatures. He seemed interested in looking over the signatures, and said, Who knows but I might find my dear mother's name there?' I showed him some other memorials, which seemed to please him. About eleven o'clock he said, 'Mrs. Stowe, you must send me off when it's time,-our English hours are so different from yours; so I gave him his chamber light, and told him the breakfast hour. In the morning, at about half-past seven, I sent up the servant with hot water, but she soon returned, saying that she had rapped and called, and could get no response. After various vain efforts to get a response, we opened the door to find him dead. His appearance when found was that of tranquil slumber, the expression of his face sweet and peaceful, and his attitude perfectly natural. Till the doctor came we indulged the hope that possibly he might be only in a swoon. But after a minute examination the doctor declared that there was no hope of restoration. He said that probably there had been a rupture of a blood vessel, and that death had been instantaneous and without pain, and this idea was confirmed by the serenity of his face and the tranquillity of his attitude.

"A book of devout exercises lay upon his table-he had evidently read the passage for the day. The joy of the Lord is his; for those he has left remain the loss and the sorrow.

"We cannot but rejoice, since he must depart from a foreign land, that his way was guided to us, and that our house has been consecrated by his last visit. We feel that the angels have visited our dwelling, and we rejoice that his last experiences were among friends-cheerful and gladsome, and that he was spared mental and physical anguish in his last hour."

He departed this life October the 7th, 1875, aged thirty-five years.