Memorials of the Independent Churches in Northamptonshire Part 8

(2.) Let your first views of the person you fix upon be, at what he himself is: I mean, endeavour above all things to have a man of religion, who shall be able to talk over the great things of G.o.d in a feeling, experimental manner. If this be not the case, whatever his gifts may be, and how popular soever his talents, vital religion will dwindle under his ministrations; or, if you should maintain the name, the thing will be lost. Neither the orthodoxy of his judgment nor the popularity of his delivery will ever compensate the want of this. Nor can you expect a blessing from heaven, and that success should attend the service of that man that is not inward with G.o.d, and hearty for him in what he does. "The tree is known by his fruits."

(3.) When you have satisfied yourselves in the best manner you can as to the religious part, then have regard to prudence and temper.

If a man have not prudence, what will he do that must necessarily be concerned with so many different dispositions--families under a great variety of circ.u.mstances, as well as those who are round about them? And if he is not a man of temper, you will have the less pleasure and advantage from his conversation. Some will neglect him; others will be afraid to communicate their sentiments unto him. How many, otherwise famous men, who seemed to be formed for considerable service, have miscarried here!

(4.) Remember, you are in a state of imperfection yourselves; and such, after all your care, will be the person you have to labour among you: a man subject to like pa.s.sions and infirmities with yourselves--one who at times may need your pity and forbearance, as you share in his. However, though this be a reason against being too curious and tedious, yet, on the other hand, do not be too hasty in your determination. "In the mult.i.tude of counsellors there is safety." You are to make the choice and determine the affair; but, in order to your doing this with steadiness and prudence, advise with some grave, solid persons, that you know are concerned for your welfare, and will give you the best direction they can.

(5.) I beseech and entreat you, that you "fall not out by the way, seeing you are brethren." Be together as the primitive Church was, with one accord as well as in one place. Oh, that of you it might be said, as of them, that "the mult.i.tudes that believed were of one heart and of one soul." Bury for ever--bury all former prejudices.

How would my soul have rejoiced to have seen that happy day! But I please myself to think it will soon be, and therefore shall use the Apostle's words (Phil. ii. 1, 2), "if there be any consolation in Christ."

I had a design of saying something more; but He that has cut me short in all the other parts of my work, has done so in this last attempt of respect and labour of love: but they are the words of a dying man, and the real sentiments of my heart. I shall leave that pa.s.sage with you (Acts xx. 32), "And now, brethren, I commend you to G.o.d and to the word of his grace," &c.

In the year 1727, Mr. Saunders being in London, Doddridge supplied the pulpit at Kettering for a Sabbath, when he was minister of Kibworth. A letter Mr. Saunders wrote to Doddridge immediately after this will just serve to show that while Mr. Saunders was blessed with much comfort and usefulness, it was not every one of the members of his Church that had imbibed the spirit of their pastor.

_To Mr. Doddridge._ _June 1st, 1727._

MY VERY DEAR AND VALUABLE FRIEND,--I am extremely obliged to you for your kind and consolatory epistle, and also for your kind services last Lord's-day; but am very sorry that my clerk should abscond. I suppose it was to give a specimen of his high orthodoxy, and for fear his tender conscience should be defiled with some of good old Mr. Baxter's divinity. Now this man, who is so much afraid for himself, has lately put a son apprentice in London, where he frequently hears swearing in the family, and is obliged to go to church, and has not liberty so much as to come and hear me now I am in town. But I always observed that the most highly orthodox, are remarkably defective in some branch or other of the Christian character. This is the man, too, who was so much offended because Mr. Brock was not excommunicated for going to church, who has now obliged his own child to attend it for seven years! I hope my very good friend Doddridge will take no notice of his conduct, nor in the least slight his friends at Kettering upon that account. There are not many such as he, though I cannot say but there is more than one; but were they generally of his mind, I would preach the Gospel to the wild Indians before I would serve them. You have a great many sincere friends in Kettering that love you well, and are always pleased with your good services; and I may without compliment say, when I am there, that you have one who esteems you according to your desert, and that, in my opinion, is beyond any man of your standing I ever knew.

After the death of Mr. Saunders the Church wished to have Mr. Wood, afterwards Dr. Wood, of Norwich, to be their pastor, but he declined acceding to their request. Mr. Benjamin Boyce, then a student at Northampton, under Dr. Doddridge, was invited on probation; and on May 7, 1740, he was ordained. Of the ordination service Mr. Boyce gives the following account:--

Mr. Julius Saunders, of Denton, introduced the solemnity with a very serious and suitable prayer; after which Mr. Floyd more fully engaged in prayer, with great copiousness of expression, and I hope with great fervency. Mr. Simson preached a very plain and evangelical sermon from 2 Cor. iv. 7--"We have this treasure in earthen vessels," &c. Mr. Goodrich read the invitation of the Church, to which the deacons present expressed their consent in the name of the Church by lifting up their hands, with which I declared my determination to comply. The same person received my confession of faith, which I publicly read; and after asking me several questions usual upon such an occasion, prayed over me. Dr. Doddridge gave me a very affectionate and important charge, which I desire never to forget; and to the people, a very free and affectionate exhortation. The whole solemnity was concluded by Mr. Dorsley in prayer.

Oh that G.o.d would make his strength perfect in my weakness, and his grace in my unworthiness! Oh that a double portion of his blessed Spirit may be poured upon me, who am so weak an instrument! and that such grace may be given me, who am less than the least of all saints, that I may "preach the unsearchable riches of Christ," and may be owned of him in my sincere desires and mean endeavours, if it is agreeable to the purpose of his grace, to fit and prepare many souls, that are either brought home or are yet strangers to him, by faith and holiness, for the complete enjoyment of "the inheritance of the saints in light." Thus may the Church of G.o.d be daily increased and edified, till all its pastors and all its members shall meet together to ascribe glory and grace to Him that sits on the throne and the Lamb for ever. Amen.

Mr. Boyce continued his ministry for 30 years over this people. During that period 161 members were added to the Church, and at his death the Church numbered 120 members. He died October 24th, 1770, aged 54 years.

"Mr. Boyce was a native of Coventry, educated for the ministry at Northampton; in size rather under the middle stature. He was a close student, a practical and experimental preacher."

The Meeting House was new roofed soon after the commencement of his ministry, which indicates that it could not have been done well at the first, as it had only been built about 18 years. Several new pews were made over the stairs leading to the galleries, and where forms had before been set; which pews were immediately filled, and continued so, as did all the others, until his death. He was buried in the aisle before the pulpit, where his wife also, and mother, and two children were interred; and a handsome stone, with a suitable inscription, was placed in the front of the desk. "He lived much beloved, and died much lamented." Robert Hall observes, "that Mr. Boyce sustained the pastoral office for a long series of years with the highest reputation and success; and his death was deplored as an irreparable calamity, leaving it very improbable that a successor could be speedily found capable of uniting the suffrages of a people whose confidence and esteem he had so long exclusively enjoyed. Such is the imperfection of the present state, that the possession of a more than ordinary portion of felicity is the usual forerunner of a correspondent degree of privation and distress; and the removal of a pastor who has long been the object of veneration generally places a Church in a critical situation, exposed to feuds and dissensions arising out of the necessity of a new choice." This appeared in the case of Mr. Boyce's immediate successor.

Mr. Addington, of Harborough, delivered the funeral oration at the interment of Mr. Boyce, and Mr. Gregson, of Rowell, preached the funeral sermon, from 1 Thess. iv. 13, 14. In the closing part of that sermon we find the following statements in the account given of Mr.

Boyce:--

It should be known that he feared the Lord, like good Obadiah, greatly, from his youth. He gave himself up to the Church of Christ under the pastoral care of Mr. Simpson, of Coventry, when he was 16 years of age. He acquired a rich stock of useful and valuable knowledge from those who were admirably capable of imparting from their rich treasures. Thus furnished, he began the sacred work of the ministry before he was 21 years of age, and has told you, in the last letter he will ever write, "It was the determination with which I preached my first sermon among you, to know nothing comparatively, but Jesus Christ, and him crucified; and I trust it has been my sincere concern to continue in that resolution to the last, testifying repentance towards G.o.d, and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ." You are his witnesses, my dear brethren, how well, through divine grace, he abode by his determination, and you well know that the doctrines of the rich, free, and sovereign grace of G.o.d were his delight to study and to preach; and you must know how wisely and judiciously he stated them--with what caution, guarding against every extreme, and every abuse of those great and glorious truths.

You cannot but know with what discreet zeal, with what plainness and fidelity, he published the grace of G.o.d in the ever-blessed and glorious Redeemer. Was not this the chief topic he delighted to insist upon? and particularly to show what holy, divine, and heavenly influence it ought to have upon the hearts and lives of men? and did he not do this in a very persuasive and pathetic manner? Did he not preach Christ Jesus the Lord, and constantly in his ministrations lay no other foundation than Christ Jesus, which G.o.d has laid in Zion, for your faith and hope to build and rest your eternal concerns upon? How has he declared in that very serious and affectionate epistle he sent you, "I know no other foundation that G.o.d has laid in Zion; and the more I survey the excellence of it, as given us in the Scriptures, the more I can say it is tried and precious. Nothing else will do to support the stress of our eternal hope, or indeed the pressure of painful afflictions. Blessed be G.o.d, here is support! here is consolation! it rejoices me to think that there are so many that can add the testimony of their experience to mine." The great G.o.d had blessed him with a happy temper and amiable carriage and behaviour. He knew how to weep with those that weep, and to rejoice with those that rejoice. He abhorred the mean conduct of too many in this degenerate world, the speaking evil of others; and was he not an example to believers in word, in conversation, in charity, in spirit, in faith, in purity, and in prudence, for almost thirty-three years (which was almost double the number of the years of his predecessor), amongst you, the people of his charge? Oh how comfortable and delightful was the frame of his mind in this his last illness, which suddenly came on him, made rapid progress in extinguis.h.i.+ng such a useful and precious light in this our Israel!

On the last Sat.u.r.day se'nnight, being the 20th of October, when he lay down upon his dying bed, he found great comfort from those words, in Romans viii., former part of the 34th verse: "Who is he that condemneth? it is Christ that died." He spake these words with tears of joy. His language was, "Whom have I in heaven but thee? and there is none upon earth I desire beside thee." When he was asked how he did by one of his friends, he answered, "I am well, for the consolations of G.o.d are neither few nor small; G.o.d has not left me, nor will he leave me." When I asked him how it was with him with respect to a better world, his answer was, with great pleasure in his countenance, "I can cheerfully trust my good G.o.d." He seemed always, during the intervals of his wanderings, to be praying, and before he died was very sensible; and, as far as can be learned, he spent his last breath in committing you, his dear people, to G.o.d in prayer (in which he had an excellent gift), and then sweetly fell asleep in Jesus, after having finished his appointed work and service.

Mrs. Boyce died little more than six months after the death of her husband, and that shortly after giving birth to an infant. From her funeral sermon, preserved in ma.n.u.script among the records of the Church, we present the following extract:--

After having summoned the tender and happy husband from the amiable partner of his joys and cares, and left her in widowhood to mourn his absence for awhile, he calls her to follow him--takes her away from all her new-formed and pleasing connexions, and (affecting consideration!) takes her likewise from her new-born babe. Methinks I could now take the dear little forsaken stranger, and present it to you in my arms (in the arms of my affection I do)--hear it saying, in accents truly tender and striking, "Pity me, pity me, O my friends, all ye my late worthy father's friends, my dear mother's friends, for the hand of the Lord hath bereaved me; those who might have been the guides of my youth he has taken away." Say you not?--yes, I think I read the language in some of your countenances, and in your tears--"Though father and though mother, dear babe, have forsaken thee, the Lord take thee up."

Referring to the death of Mr. Boyce, the preacher observes--

Though, as a congregation, he has taken away from you an able, faithful, useful shepherd, who watched for your souls as one that must give an account--even under a trial and loss great as that is, it becomes you not to censure or complain. Our good friend who is now taken away manifested the happy influence of the Gospel hope in the composure of her spirit under that great loss which she lately sustained, and through the afflictions by which she was removed, thankfully embracing and sweetly relying upon the Redeemer's consolation to his disciples in John xiv. 2-4, "In my Father's house are many mansions," &c. Referring to him who has recently been taken away from her and from you, she said, with apparent pleasure, in her last illness, "I shall soon be with the good man in glory"; speaking in joyful terms of being taken to sing praises with the saints in glory, for ever and ever.

In the month of April, 1771, an invitation was given to Mr. John Fuller to remain amongst them twelve months on trial, with a view to his becoming the pastor. At the expiration of that time a unanimous invitation was given to him. Mr. Fuller was ordained August 6th, 1772, when we find Messrs. Denny, Wright, King, Gregson, Dr. Ashworth, Addington, Hextal, and Dowley, were engaged. Mr. Fuller had been a member of the Church in Gravel Lane, London, under the pastoral care of the Rev. Noah Hill.

But in little more than two years from this time, dissatisfaction arose in the Church with the ministry of Mr. Fuller. It is stated, that "several persons proposed an a.s.sistant to Mr. Fuller, but the proposal was rejected by Mr. Fuller and his friends." The a.s.sistant proposed was a Mr. Richard Fuller, cousin to the pastor.

Under date of August 14th, 1774, we are informed "that a dissatisfaction having arisen in the minds of some of the Church members and subscribers with Mr. Fuller's preaching, and there being no prospect of peace and happiness, he this day declared his resigning his charge as minister and pastor; but supplied the congregation by others until Michaelmas, always behaving with a good temper and spirit, although his ministry was not by several approved." In our early days we have heard from some of the older members of the Church that the text of Mr. Fuller's farewell sermon was (Gen. xlv. 24) Joseph's counsel to his brethren, "See that ye fall not out by the way."

But after the removal of Mr. Fuller, great discord and confusion prevailed in the Church and congregation. The friends of the late pastor, who were attached to his person and ministry, were greatly displeased with the conduct of those who had been the means of his removal. Many things were done and said which were very painful to both parties, created much ill feeling amongst themselves, and exposed them to the derision of the men of the world.

After some time they sent an invitation to Mr. Saunders, of Bedworth, who they understood was desirous to remove; but the invitation not being unanimous, it was declined.

Their attention was soon after directed to the Rev. T. N. Toller, who was a student in the academy at Daventry. Mr. Toller first preached to them as a supply, October 1st, 1775, when he was not quite twenty years of age. The first text was Acts xiii. 26: "Unto you is the word of this salvation sent." In the following April, two of the deacons went to Daventry to invite Mr. Toller to become their stated supply for three months; at the expiration of this time, he was again invited for nine months; after which he received an invitation to become their pastor, which invitation was cheerfully signed, June 15th, 1777, by 87 persons, as the call of the Church to the pastoral office. The ordination service was held May 28th, 1778, when Messrs. Gregson, of Rowell, Palmer, of Hackney, Addington, of Harborough, Robins, of Daventry (Mr. Toller's tutor), Toller, of London (uncle to the pastor), and Bull, of Newport, engaged in the services of the day.

Thus commenced the longest pastorate with which the Church had yet been favoured; for Mr. Toller continued to labour amongst them until February 26th, 1821, making forty-five years and five months from the time of his first preaching at Kettering until his death. It was a ministry of much acceptance, extended influence, and great usefulness. It restored peace to a divided people; it preserved them in unbroken harmony through all its course; the congregation having often a crowded appearance, and the Church being generally in a prosperous state; not so much perhaps by the numbers added to the Church, as by the advancing piety, devotion, consistency, and intelligence of its members.

There were 221 members added to the Church during the course of Mr.

Toller's ministry. These members, we have no doubt, might have been greatly increased, had the methods adopted in some places for bringing forward candidates for the communion of the Church prevailed under the ministry of Mr. Toller. We should like to convey some idea to the mind of the reader of the nature of that ministry with which the congregation at Kettering were now favoured. It was in his stated services amongst his own people that the peculiar excellencies of Mr. Toller were developed. It was our privilege in early life to sit under that ministry, but we think we shall fail to present a correct view of the impression we have on our mind as to the distinguis.h.i.+ng features, the peculiar beauties, of that ministry; and if we were to do this, the general reader would think it too highly coloured, as our first impressions of sacred things, our deepest and most lively emotions of a religious nature, in connexion with all that we may since have known or attained, appear to us to have been derived, under G.o.d, from the ministry of Mr. Toller. His person was above the middle stature; his appearance in the pulpit venerable and commanding; his voice deep and powerful; his manner all his own, and of such a character as to chain the attention of the audience--always earnest, sometimes most fervent and impressive, rising to a high degree of impa.s.sioned eloquence when his a.s.semblies were crowded, as on the afternoon of the Sabbath. His language was always clear, forcible, and plain, suited to the manner of his preaching; his sentiments most decidedly scriptural, evangelical, and practical, with a considerable portion of experimental piety. His ministry presented a full exhibition of the Christian temper. His discourses were distinguished by great conciseness yet fulness of matter, presenting often the most familiar but beautiful ill.u.s.trations.

Some of his most impressive sermons were formed entirely on the applicatory plan--some of them founded on Scripture inquiries, such as, "What think ye of Christ?" "Dost thou believe on the Son of G.o.d?" &c.

During a very large portion of his ministry he delivered expository discourses on the morning of the Sabbath, which were distinguished by great beauty, variety, and richness of improving remarks. The afternoon sermon generally rose out of the morning exposition; not so frequently from a text taken from the paragraph expounded as a pa.s.sage suggested by the main subject of exposition. But the prayers he offered in the stated services of the sanctuary were perhaps the most remarkable of the whole--the manner was so solemn; the tone so devotional; the adorations so sublime; the confessions so abasing; the pet.i.tions so full, fervent, and appropriate; the thanksgiving so expressive and exalted; the surrender so complete and unreserved; the whole placing us so much in the presence of G.o.d, leading us to feel what we were before him, what we needed from him, what provision was made for us, what we were receiving, and what services we should render; often leading us on to the dying hour, and to the opening grandeurs of eternity. The value of such a ministry was apparent in the many cases of eminent piety that appeared amongst those that were trained up under it. Much of the Christian temper, the spirit of devotion, lively faith in the Redeemer, and the power of practical religion, were manifested in a considerable number of cases, considering the size of the place. There were "living epistles of Christ, known and read of all." We remember an eminently pious female member of the Church, of whom the pastor said, when improving her death, "He should esteem it an honour to be permitted to hold up her train in the heavenly world." While this showed the deep humility of the pastor, it showed the high estimate he had formed of the devoted member.

In the year 1799 Mr. Toller received invitations from the congregations at Carter Lane, London, and at Clapham, to become their minister, with an offer of great pecuniary advantages; but such was the attachment felt to him by his people at Kettering, as manifested in their great anxiety on the subject, and in the affectionate addresses presented to him on this occasion, that he gave a decided negative to these urgent and repeated solicitations.

In an address he delivered from the pulpit, in answer to those which he had received from his people, he bore a n.o.ble testimony to the kindness with which he had ever been treated by them; observing, "Twenty-four years ago I came to this place, under considerable and peculiar disadvantages, arising from extreme youth, inexperience, and the then critical and disjointed state of the congregation. I entered upon the station with fear and trembling, and with scarce a peradventure of being able to give any general or lasting satisfaction. During this interval, I have gone through many trying afflictions, some of which you have known, and others, some of the most trying, you have never known. I have many faults to remember this day before G.o.d, much coldness of heart, many neglects of duty, and much unfruitfulness in my office; but I will do you the justice to say, that I have no injuries from you to enumerate, no personal ill behaviour from a single individual in all this time to complain of; and if you had all treated my great Master with a regard proportioned to that I have received from you, I should have been the happiest and most blessed minister on earth," &c.

He closed his days and his ministry together. Apoplectic seizures had weakened his frame, and at length had rendered him incapable of fulfilling all the duties of his office; while they indicated to him that his end was drawing nigh. In a letter written to his people, he intimated his wish to have an a.s.sistant. They invited the eldest son of their pastor, then preaching at Wem, in Shrops.h.i.+re, to become a.s.sistant to his father. This invitation he accepted; but before he entered on this new sphere of duty, the earthly career of his beloved and venerated father closed in death. "He preached on Lord's-day morning, February 25th, 1821, with much of his usual animation, from Isaiah lxiii. 7-13, and remarked at the close of the discourse what encouragement this pa.s.sage affords the widow and the fatherless to put their trust in G.o.d, finis.h.i.+ng his last public discourse with these lines of Doddridge:

"To thee an infant race we leave, Them may their father's G.o.d receive; That ages yet unborn may raise Successive hymns of humble praise."

He spent the evening surrounded by his family, and conversing with his children in a strain of cheerful piety; and after a night of sound repose arose as well as usual the next morning. About noon, leaving the parlour, he was found a few minutes after in an apoplectic fit, or a seizure resembling apoplexy. Several medical men repaired to the spot, but life was extinct.

His remains were interred in the ground belonging to the Meeting House on Thursday, the 8th of March. On that occasion Mr. Horsey, of Northampton, read the Scriptures and prayed, and Mr. Edwards, of the same place, delivered the funeral oration. Mr. Hall, of Leicester, preached the funeral sermon on the same day from Heb. xiii. 7--a sermon which presented a most impressive representation of the responsibility attaching to a people that had been favoured with such a ministry, and the tremendous consequences that must follow the misimprovement of such advantages.

Mr. Toller only published during his life a sermon on the "faithful saying," ent.i.tled "A Plain and Popular View of the Evidences of Christianity"; a sermon occasioned by the death of the Rev. Samuel Palmer, of Hackney, Mr. Toller's most intimate friend, from 2nd Timothy i. 10--in which occurs this striking pa.s.sage:--

Suppose this house had been three times its present size, and had been filled for half the century past with a constant crowd of hearers; suppose the fame of the venerable man now gone had been shouted to the skies, and he had been held up as the pride and prince of preachers; but after all, this had been _all_:--suppose selfish motives had been supreme, under the disguise of love to souls; a mere notional religion had been propagated; people had been only amused, and amazed, and made to wonder and admire; but no minds really instructed, no hearts humbled, no sinners turned from the errors of their ways, no Christian graces implanted, no Christian duties promoted; in this case all these fifty years (as we have seen) must end; and what is the consequence? What would all this parade and popularity have proved to him? Only the bursting of a glittering bubble; the retreat of an actor from the stage amidst the clappings of the theatre, which he was to hear no more. There is one pa.s.sage of Scripture which, when realized, is worth all the cases of this kind which could occur put together, viz., when a dying minister can look round on a weeping, affectionate flock, and say, "Ye are our epistles, written upon our hearts," &c. I say, the genuine application of such a pa.s.sage as this to a dying minister would be worth infinitely more than all the applause and popularity in the world.

Two discourses, occasioned by the death of the Princess Charlotte of Wales, were also published.

Since the death of Mr. Toller two volumes of sermons, and a volume of expository discourses on the Book of Ruth, have been published, as transcribed from the Author's shorthand ma.n.u.scripts. To the first volume of sermons was prefixed a memoir of Mr. Toller, by his friend the Rev.

R. Hall.

We will transcribe from that memoir an ever-memorable anecdote, or rather, the ever-memorable use the preacher made of a domestic incident to ill.u.s.trate a most important subject:--

On one occasion he preached from Isaiah xxvii. 4--"Let him take hold of my strength, that he may make peace with me; and he shall make peace with me." "I think," said he, "I can convey the meaning of this pa.s.sage, so that every one may understand it, by what took place in my own family within these few days. One of my little children had committed a fault, for which I thought it my duty to chastise him. I called him to me, explained to him the evil of what he had done, and told him how grieved I was that I must punish him for it. He heard me in silence, and then rushed into my arms and burst into tears. I could sooner have cut off my arm than have then struck him for his fault; he had 'taken hold of my strength, and had made peace with me.'"

After the death of Mr. Toller his son was invited for six months as a probationer for the pastoral office; at the expiration of that time he received a unanimous call to that office, which he accepted, and was ordained in October, 1821, when Messrs. J. Hall, Horsey, Edwards, Scott, Bull, and Hillyard were engaged in the princ.i.p.al services of the day.

Thus, the eldest son of the late pastor, who had been educated for the ministry at the academy at Wymondley, succeeded to the place of his father in the most harmonious manner, and with the most cheering prospects of comfort and usefulness. During the 31 years that have elapsed since then, that harmony has been uninterrupted, that comfort and usefulness continued--the son pursuing a similar plan to that which the father adopted, in expounding the Word of G.o.d on one part of the Sabbath, to give enlarged views of Scripture truth, and to present the almost boundless variety the Book of G.o.d contains, habitually aiming to preserve a connexion between one part of the Sabbath services and the other. During the ministry of the present Mr. Toller 211 members have been added to the Church.

In the year 1849 very extensive alterations were made in the Meeting House, together with the building of a new vestry, school-rooms, cla.s.s-rooms, and a dwelling-house for the s.e.xton; the whole cost of which was about 1400, which was paid off within two years from the re-opening. The place is greatly changed from what it was. The large chandelier, with its dove and the olive leaf, is gone; the beautiful gaslight taking the place of the candles. The old pulpit is removed from its place, having long ago lost its n.o.ble sounding-board, it being now understood that the voice is better heard without such an appendage.

The s.p.a.cious windows on each side of the pulpit are lost, to make way for the new school-rooms, which are open to the Chapel. But the whole, we believe, has been greatly improved; additional room having been made for the hearers on the Sabbath, for the week-evening lecture, and also for the accommodation of the Sabbath-school, its Bible and its Infant cla.s.ses. The present number of Church members is nearly 200; the scholars in the schools about 280.

Services are conducted in seven villages by members of the Church, chiefly on Sabbath evenings.

An impartial review of the whole will, we believe, present to the pastor and the flock the most abundant reason to "thank G.o.d and take courage."