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The General Baptist College.

THE premises comprising Chilwell College will cease to be in the possession of the General Baptists after Saturday, the 9th of June. The sum of £4,550 has been paid for the College since March 24th, the place being occupied in the meantime at a rent of four pounds per week. At Lady-day the house in the Forest Road, Nottingham, known as Sandy Knoll, which has been, since its erection twenty years ago, used as a high-class school, came into the possession of the General Baptist Board of Trustees, the price paid being £3,400. The Committee appointed by the Association met in very full numbers on Tuesday, May 8th, and decided to spend about £750 in reconstructive work and enlargements, to render the new premises suitable for collegiate purposes, inclusive of rooms for matron and servants, lecture room, library, common (or dining) room, and bedrooms and studies for the accommodation of fourteen students, some jointly and others separately. The large playground adjoining the Forest Road premises affords a very fine site for a tutor's residence. Mr. Booker has prepared plans, which the Committee approved of with hearty commendations. The erection of this residence will require almost a thousand pounds more than the Committee had for the old premises-taking all extras into account. The land, which is very expensive in that part of Nottingham, is now lying idle. The Congregational Institute, with its two tutors' residences, is opposite, on the other side the road, and it is believed that the value of the land constituting that site is now equal to what was given for the building and land together by the Congregational Committee. The Committee, looking at the tutors' residences in the Congregational Institute as something of a guide, reckon that a Principal's house would cost at least sixty pounds a year in that part of the town, and have expressed an opinion that it would be better to build on their own land, as the interest of a thousand pounds would be fifteen pounds a year less than such a rental. This question has been referred in toto to the Bradford Association, in the hope that the expense of a mortgage may be rendered unnecessary, it being stated that many active members of the Association have risen up who did not contribute to the effort made twenty years ago, when £3,000 was raised. Some of those who gave before have not yet finished their "giving" days. R. F. GRIFFITHS.

A French Medley.

ENGLAND IN FRANCE. It is astonishing to what a prodigious extent the British, who are all over the worldare in France. Smollet, writing of Nice, thrice lovely Nice, said, in 1763, "The town of Nice is wedged between a steep rock to the eastward and the river Paglion, which washes the walls to the West." Now there is a new Nice, still further to the West. But who made it? The initiative was given by the English when they constructed the magnificent Promenade des Anglais-one of the most beautiful promenades in the world.

Who

founded Cannes? It cannot be doubted that it passed from a dwarfed and unknown fishing village into one of the chief resorts of the fashionable world at the bidding of our Lord Brougham, whose monument adorns one of its squares, and whose memorial is conspicuous in its beautiful Cemetery. Exhaust the British element and influence from Mentone, and

you sap its life. Nor here only, but in Paris business, in French securities, in exports and imports, in manufactures, and in French thought and life, the English element is strong. In the Crédit Lyonnais of Nice, telegrams are chalked up day by day, recording the opinion of London newspapers on French politics. All day long these telegrams are read, and by all "sorts and conditions of men." France is extremely sensitive to British opinion, and to British example. The newspapers are replete with references to English precedents. Orators in the Chamber of Deputies, and preachers in their sermons, draw their illustrations and arguments from our institutions, history, and action; therefore we ought to give the more earnest heed to form our opinions on the broad and sure basis of fact and truth, to model our institutions on the principles of justice and unselfishness, and to act for the largest good of the largest num-.

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A FRENCH MEDLEY.

ber of men-so that the influence of England in France may always be of a truly salutary and elevating character.

II. ROME IN FRANCE.-Is it an "intimation of immortality" that the work of the mighty Roman should be marked by such grandly enduring qualities, and that the signs of his rich genius, his finely drilled faculty, his tremendous capacity-capacity for thinking and also for doing-should exhibit their memorials in our own energetic and electric age? Southern France is rich in the relics of departed civilizations. Marseilles, the asylum of the refugees from the tyranny of Cyrus, became great in commerce and navigation, literature and art, in even pre-Roman times. Arles and Nîmes have immense amphitheatres, vividly reminding the traveller of the Coliseum at Rome; but the architectural and engineering genius of the Eternal City has left no more eloquent witness than the Pont du Gard, a bridge and aqueduct crossing the valley and the stream of the Gardon. It is a superlatively impressive sight from beneath, and from beyond, and from its topmost tier of arches. There are three tiers of arches, the lowest of six, supporting eleven of equal span in the central tier, surmounted by thirty-five of smaller size, these carrying a covered canal nearly seven feet in height, and four feet wide, and through which you may walk. It was built, it is said, by M. Agrippa, son-in-law of Augustus, B.C. 19, in order to carry water to the town of Nîmes, distant some fourteen miles. Stretching across the solitudes of a rocky valley, it proclaims, with an ineffable eloquence, the splendid resources of man!

III. THE NUMBER OF THE CLERGY IN FRANCE.-M. Flourens, the Director of Public Worship on behalf of the Statefor Roman Catholicism is in France a State-supported religion-has just issued a statistical account of the Roman Catholic clergy in France. It is an interesting summary, published at an opportune moment. A great fight is being waged just now between clericalism and freedom (say some; others say atheism, others, tyranny,)—and it is important to know the strength of the antagonist. 55,385 persons hold different offices in the Church. 87 are bishops or archbishops; 182 are vicars-general; 751 are canons; 130 are bishops' secretaries; nearly 14,000 are parish priests, or vicars; and the curates number a little short of 30,000. The rest are composed of professors and secondary ecclesiastics. This

is a great and imposing army, and is destined to play a momentous part in the present and coming conflicts; but it must be remembered, it is an army of leaders, and has at its bidding thousands of devoted women, passionately attached to them and to the Romish Church; and it is vigorously, sedulously, and with an unwearied patience, drilling the childhood of the time. The anti-clericals will make a serious mistake if they despise the strength or acuteness of their enemies.

The

IV. THE "MEDICALS" AND THE REPUBLIC.-It is likely to go ill with an institution that arrays against itself the vast majority of the members of a profession whose functions are so eminently beneficial and salutary to society as those of the medical profession. Yet it seems as though the French Catholic Church had succeeded not only in repelling the doctors, but in converting them into active advocates and agents of the Republic. Healers of the body are the natural allies and capital helpers of the healers of souls. No human works are so thoroughly interwoven. The perfect physical health of society is one of the best auxiliaries to moral sanity; and moral sanity is a fine force in promoting good health. "cleric" and the "doctor" ought, therefore, to work together: but in France, the medical body are Republicans almost to a man, and the clergy are Monarchists and Imperialists of the strongest dye. The clergy trammel education, and thrive on ignorance and superstition; the "medicals" promote "science," and agitate for an unfettered and widening education. Now in the conflict with the clergy no man is so capable an antagonist as the doctor. Has the priest access to the home? So has the doctor. Can the priest disseminate his imperialist literature? The doctor is not without a similar weapon. Is the priest always on the alert? The doctor is everybody's friend, trusted and respected, and his one voice counts for a hundred when the elections are given. Great is the force of the clergy in France; scarcely less is that of the medical profession.

V. FRANCE AND HUMANITY.-Harriet Martineau says, "The grand idea that nations, as well as individuals, are parts and proportions of one great, wondrous whole, has hardly yet passed the lips or pen of any but religious men and poets. And yet, it is the one great principle of the greatest religion which has ever enlightened the intellect and nourished the morals of mankind.

JOHN CLIFFORD.

I.

Hotes.

REV. GILES HESTER.-The "fund" that is being raised to provide an annuity for Mr. Hester has not yet reached £700, and it was considered desirable to mention £1,000 as "the mark” when our effort began. As the list will be very soon closed, it is especially desirable that those friends and churches who have already promised contributions should forward them within the next three or four weeks to Mr. J. W. Garrett Pegg, Chesham House, Bucks, Treasurer to the Fund.

W. J. AVERY, Secretary.

II. NOTTINGHAM, Hyson Green.-The enterprising and praiseworthy effort of Mr. Silby and his friends at Hyson Green to erect a new chapel, is rapidly taking shape, and growing, we trust, as it well deserves to do, in popular favour. The stone-laying ceremony is fixed for Thursday afternoon, June 14th. The Broad Street and Mansfield Road churches are taking special interest in the event, and it is to be hoped that every church within reach will send its contingent of friends and funds to help on a work which is as needy as it is necessary.

III. LADIES AND THE ASSOCIATION.We are desired to say, for the benefit of ladies who usually attend the Association, and who hope to grace the coming one with their presence, that if they have no acquaintances in Bradford, and are not otherwise provided for, they should write to Miss Wood, 26, Houghton Place, Bradford, by June 6th.

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IV. MR. BRIGHT AT MR. SPURGEON'S TABERNACLE. - Multitudes, like ourselves, must have gratified the desire of years in hearing Mr. Bright at the great Liberation Meeting on the 2nd of May. It was the first time the right hon. gentleman had occupied the platform of the Society. His speech was a crushing indictment of the bishops as representatives of the Established Church in the House of Lords. But how deliberate, how measured his utterances ! He might have been a judge on the bench. Justin McCarthy, speaking of him in connection with the Anti-Corn Law League, says,* *"His style

of speaking was exactly what a conventional demagogue's ought not to be. It was pure to austerity; it was stripped of all superfluous ornament. It never gushed or foamed. It never allowed itself to be mastered by passion. The first peculiarity that struck the listener was its superb self-restraint. The orator at his most powerful passages appeared as if he were rather keeping in his strength than taxing it with effort. His * History of our own Times, vol. i., p. 342.

voice was for the most part calm and measured; he hardly ever indulged in much gesticulation. He never, under the pressure of whatever emotion, shouted or stormed. The fire of his eloquence was a white heat, intense, consuming, but never sparkling or spluttering." What he was then he was on May 2nd. One couldn't help marvelling that such a style should exert such a power, and yet a combination of features gave it force. There was a deliberateness which never outran the slowest mind, a lucidity which made it perfectly easy to understand everything, a smartness here and there which added sauce to the solid dish of food, as when he said, in reference to the Affirmation Bill, that there were people who were more ready to worry a government than to honour God; and above all there was that about the whole attack which made you feel you were following a general no less skilful than bold, and one from whose toils there was no possible chance of escape. It was a speech all speakers will do well to study.

V. THE AFFIRMATION BILL. -The masterly speech on this subject given by Mr. Gladstone in the House of Commons on Thursday, April 26th, has added new lustre to the splendid abilities and noble spirit of the worthiest statesman of our times. Pain and peril were in his path, both as an individual and as a party leader; but if these made it difficult to do justice, they magnify all the more the self-sacrificing spirit in which the attempt was made. Nothing could have been finer than the way in which he cut through the position of his adversaries, and showed that in trying to bar out atheism they left open the door to the far more mischievous and wide-spread agnosticism, and that in opposing Bradlaugh they were on the side of Voltaire. The speech should be read by every Nonconformist in the land. It is a plea for religious liberty which does honour to religion, and which, as it fetched tears to the eyes of Mr. Bradlaugh, will make the worst enemies of Christianity pause before they say that the spirit of its founder has ceased from among the sons of men.

VI. CLOSE AND OPEN FELLOWSHIP.Mr J. Sharman, of Nottingham, read a paper at the last quarterly meeting of the Nottinghamshire Baptist Local Preachers' Association, on "The duty of the Baptist Churches in relation to Believers' Baptism and Open Fellowship." The paper has been published by Derry, of Nottingham. J. FLETCHER.

Reviews.

THE TRIPARTITE NATURE OF MAN;

SPIRIT, SOUL, AND BODY. By J. B. Heard, M.A. Fifth Edition. T. & T. Clark, Edinburgh.

THIS work has reached a fifth edition, and is widely accepted as an authoritative English exposition of a topic handled with great skill and fulness of learning by such German writers as Delitzsch and Beck. Since "no question emerges in Theology which has not previously emerged in Philosophy," the theme is and must be of perennial interest; and since on earth, and of the earth, no subject is of profounder significance than man, no sincere discussion of his manifold and complex nature can fail to attract and hold a large body of elect readers.

Mr. Heard's treatment of this theme proceeds on the basis that "there are two parts of human nature, the body and psyche, or sense and intellect, of which Aristotle knew as much as we do; and a third faculty, the pneuma of St. Paul, which lies wholly beyond the psychical man's horizon, and of which all that we know is to be gathered from one bookthe Bible. Thus of the three forms of consciousness-sense, self, and God-consciousness-Philosophy can tell us of the two former, Revelation alone discovers to us the third and highest."

And what is this "third and highest?" It is "what the moralist describes as conscience-with this difference, that the unconverted conscience is only conscious of the law of God, not of the gracious character of the Law-giver, and when sincere is an 'excusing or accusing conscience,' not an approving. It is only when the conscience is quickened and converted, and when perfect love casts out fear, that the Spirit beareth witness with our spirit that we are the sons of God."

This definition is discussed with acuteness and wide research: and it is applied to such vital questions as man's differences from the brutes; the "Immortality of the Soul;" "the Intermediate State;" and "the Spiritual Body," with signal thoroughness and manifest skill. A masterly work-but the last word has yet to be spoken.

HOUSEHOLD LIBRARY OF EXPOSITION.

THE LAMB OF GOD. By W. R. Nicol, M.A. Macniven & Wallace.

It was our privilege a short time since to commend to our readers a volume by this author on " the Incarnate Saviour." The

excellencies that gave such a subtle charm to that biography characterize this exposition of the allusions in the writings of the apostle John to Jesus Christ as "the Lamb of God." That figure holds a prominent place in the Johannine writings of the New Testament, being found no less than twenty-seven times. It is found in the opening of the fourth gospel, and recurs with suggestive emphasis and manifold significance in the apocalypse. Baur, indeed, treats it as one of the great dogmatic points in the interest of which the gospel was penned. With delicate sympathy and winning tenderness, sweet repose of style, and beauty of thought, Mr. Nicol treats of the figure in its different settings, and presents a book helpful at once to the intellect and the heart.

BIBLE CLASS PRIMERS. THE KINGS OF JUDAH. By Professor Given, Ph.D. Macniven & Wallace.

THE high level attained by the former works in this series is maintained throughout this production, rendering it a most compact, clear, and full statement of a period of Hebrew history concerning which confused and perplexed notions are far too common. Knowledge of the results of the best scholarship is not obtruded, but it moulds and qualifies assertions, and gives various signs of its useful presence. The skilled marshalling of facts, the separation of the occasions of events from their causes, and the neat framing of questions, give indications of practised tutorial ability of the highest value in such a series as this. These books are so cheap and serviceable that they ought to have free course in all our senior and young men's classes.

PRINCESS ALICE, AND OTHER POEMS. By W. H. Parker. F. R. Webb, Basford. THE MONTHS, AND OTHER POEMS. By George Burden. Marlborough & Co. THE former work comprises selections from the writings of our G. B. friend; and we are interested to observe that it is published for the Sunday-school Bazaar at New Basford. Many of these compositions have been suggested by passing events, such as Wolseley's March on Telel-Kebir. The treatment is simple and energetic. The price is only ninepence; and those who purchase the book will be helping on a good work.

In the second production we have a collection of sonnets and reveries, vary

REVIEWS.

ing in merit, but all thoroughly readable. The author, in his country rambles, evidently has his "senses exercised" to receive the many messages Nature has to communicate. It is with pleasure that we commend this little book as the work of another friend-and one well-knownwithin our own borders. W. J. A.

HAND-BOOKS FOR BIBLE CLASSESROMANS. By Principal Brown, D.D. T. & T. Clark, Edinburgh. THE merits of this exposition are brevity and compactness of statement, and aptness of practical suggestion. The introduction and the "Notes" appended to the exegesis will be of special service; but it is necessary to be careful in accepting the interpretation of controverted passages. Making an abatement for the marring effect of traditional and exploded theories, in certain special cases, the commentary may be commended to the leaders and students of our Bible classes.

INFANT BAPTISM DEMONSTRATED TO BE REASONABLE, HISTORICAL, AND SCRIPTURAL. By James Malcolm. Houlston & Son.

HERE is an argument put forward in catechetical form against Baptist teaching by a Scottish missionary of the Morrisonian school. The attempt is gallantly made to controvert the utterances of Dr. Landels, Revs. J. Batey (in "The English Baptists: their Distinctive Principles"), T. W. Medhurst, and others, but the result is meagre. As usual, vague sentiment is allowed to take the place of calm reasoning. Our opponents generally approach the discussion of this topic with a frantic air, like those who fight in a battle already lost, and the most probable effect of the book upon an impartial mind will be the confirmation of Baptist ideas. It is not too much to say that the author has, perhaps through inadvertence, sadly misrepresented us.

W. J. A.

THE GOOD SHEPHERD. By James B. Allan. Stock.

SOME twenty, out of three hundred and fifty, pages in this book are devoted to the commendation of Spiritualism as "a blessed ally" of the Christian against infidelity. The Lord Jesus is referred to as the "Great Medium." The greater part of the book by far is, however, occupied with consolatory thoughts for the troubled, and admonitory suggestions for the sinner, based upon the twenty-third Psalm. To this little exception can be

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taken; indeed the devout tone which prevails throughout we cannot fail to appreciate. But in regard to so covert a method of introducing spiritualistic delusions, perhaps the less said the better. W. J. A.

THE OLD FASHIONED BOOK ON THE OLD FASHIONED RELIGION. By an Old Fashioned Man. Passmore & Alabaster. THE aim of this little work is to refute Unitarian teaching, and the author's appeal is exclusively to Scripture. The references are very numerous; and although they are not always used with sound exegesis, the biblical student cannot but derive profit from considering them as they are here set forth. More regard seems to be had by this writer for the "fashion" than for the essence of truth, and that is the defect of his book.

W. J. A.

JUSTICE AND MERCY: A Sacred Poem. By Daniel Wilson. Halifax: John Wilson & Co.

ACCORDING to the author's preface "the subject of this work was suggested fifty years ago," and although he wrote the poem "at long intervals" during that period, no part of it has been published until now. We doubt not that this small volume, which gives a versified account of "Immanuel's" Mission, will be acceptable to many as a memorial of the worthy deacon so long identified with North Parade church. A brief memoir, and a capital photograph of the author, are attractive features in the book. W. J. A.

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