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The Earthquake in the Island of Ischia.

FROM REV. N. H. SHAW.

WE are in the midst of the dead season. At the beginning of it all Italy was talking of the cholera in Egypt, and of its possible coming here. But on and after the 28th of July we forgot that danger, all our thoughts being monopolized by the appalling disaster of Casamicciola. Ischia, of which Casamicciola was the capital, is a small island near to Naples, and has been from time immemorial a great centre of volcanic action. In 1881 an earthquake overthrew a great part of Casamicciola, but since then nothing extraordinary occurred till the night of Saturday, the 28th of July. Then a shock was suddenly felt accompanied by a rumbling noise, and a few persons realizing the danger were able to escape. But there was no escape for the mass of the inhabitants. Down fell the houses, the churches, the hotels full of visitors and the theatre, and formed one indescribable heap of ruins. What took place afterwards has been fully narrated in the English newspaper, but no description could do justice to the horrors of that night, and of days and nights which succeeded it. Soldiers were ordered from Rome to dig, and extricate those who were buried alive. (Would that soldiers might be always employed in saving instead of destroying men!) The minister of public works hurried also from Rome to superintend the work; and best of all, the King himself who was in the North of Italy hastened to the scene of the disaster. After a railway journey of twenty-four hours to Naples he refused to rest, but insisted on embarking at once for the ill fated-island. Arrived there, he persisted in walking over the scene of the disaster, speaking words of sympathy to the survivors, and encouraging the excavators. For seven hours the King walked about under the burning beams of a July sun. He was begged by his ministers to rest and avoid the danger, but he replied nobly: "Where others can go, I will go." And on being further importuned he seemed angry, and silenced all with the words: "Comando io," which are equivalent to: I command, or, I am master. No wonder that when the good King left the island the poor people did not know how to contain their enthusiasm. They rushed into the water as if they could not part with him, and cried as they invoked on him the blessings of the saints: "You are our father! You are our father!"

No wonder, either, that the King was deeply moved. He proceeded to Naples, where he visited the wounded in the hospitals (they were crowded, and many of the churches had to be used as hospitals too, the principal street in Naples was full of wounded people borne on biers) conversing with the patients one by one, and listening to their sad complaints. Probably many who have been rescued would have been left for dead if it had not been for the energy which the King's presence and exhortations required. His conduct on this occasion recalls that of his brave father, Victor Emmanuel, at the time when the cholera was committing such ravages in Genoa. The hospitals were full, and the deaths were being counted by hundreds. There was a panic, and the population of Genoa not yet smitten with the disease was fleeing from the city in terror, when the brave King descended suddenly from Turin, went the round of the hospitals, and not only talking with the patients, but silently rebuked and checked the cowardice of the panic-striken ones by taking in his own the blue hands of the sick and dying. Where is the republican who would not take off his hat to such a King? And King Humbert seems to inherit his father's good qualities. He has already given 100,000 lires (equal to £4,000) to the relief fund. Subscriptions are opened everywhere. I need not say that collections are being made in the Evangelical Churches. The Pope has sent 20,000 lire, and a journal has had, what some will call the bad taste to remark, that he gave the same sum about the same time as a wedding present to a relative of his. What will seem somewhat incongruous to many English is that theatrical performances (for the most part comedies), concerts, and other entertainments, are being got up, and crowded on behalf of the relief fund.

These awful accidents are permitted for wise ends. It is to be hoped that our boasted science will enable us to predict them with certainty, so that the

LETTER FROM DR. JAMES L. PHILLIPS.

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loss of life in the future may be avoided. It seems that if only a little more care had been taken, even the inhabitants of Casamicciola might have been saved, for there were not wanting premonitory indications of the catastrophe: as it is, what an awful emphasis is given to the facts of our mortality, and the uncertainty of our life here. Facts which we all admit, and all forget. More than 5,000 people suddenly hurried into eternity! How eloquent ought such facts to be to us who labour to save men, and indeed to us all, emphasizing as they do the words of our Saviour: "Be ye therefore ready, for in such an hour as ye think not the Son of man cometh!

The Pope is unwell. Some say he has the fever. Others attribute the illness to the disappointment he has suffered as the result of the correspondence with Germany.

Letter from Dr. James E. Phillips.

WE have received several communications from the Rev. Dr. J. L. Phillips, (the worthy successor of his devoted father, the late Dr. Phillips,) for which we have not yet been able to find space. Like our own, the Free Baptist Mission in Northern Orissa and Southern Bengal is very much in want of men, and the number is still further reduced. Dr. Phillips, writes:

Midnapore, July 14, 1883.

My dear brother Hill,-Changes seem to be our lot in this field. On the 11th inst. Dr. and Mrs. Bachelor, accompanied by their daughter, left us for home. They will sail from Calcutta on the 19th, in the City of Calcutta, for London. Some of the readers of the General Baptist Magazine or the Missionary Observer, have known Dr. Bachelor's name for many years in connection with this Mission. The party may spend a few weeks in Palestine en route; but this will depend upon what they learn at Port Said regarding the cholera rumour which has reached us. Should this prove to be a false report, our friends may spend the approaching winter in Palestine, and go on to America in the spring.

Dr. Bachelor was one of our earliest missionaries. He entered this field in 1840, and his first station was Balasore, in Orissa. He opened a Dispensary there, and first introduced chloroform into the province, by using it for surgical operations. He prepared a small medical work in the Oriya language, which was afterwards translated into Bengali; and he trained a class of young men for medical practice, who afterwards rendered efficient aid in several parts of Bengal. Dr. Bachelor's chief work has been medical, and he has been permitted to devote many years thus uninterruptedly to this department of missionary service. For twenty years, a furlough of three years excepted, he has kept up our Mission Dispensary in this city, and thus relieved the sufferings of many thousands of the poor.

Mrs. Bachelor and Miss Bachelor, have been engaged in Zenana work. Both Dr. and Mrs. Bachelor have the hope of resuming their labours in India.

The last mail brings us good news. Mr. and Mrs. Griffin, of New York, have been accepted by the committee, and will sail for India in September. Mrs. Griffin was Miss Cilley, and spent three years here, so has acquired a fair knowledge of the Bengali language. Others may accompany them. We are greatly needing help in this large district, and also in our section of the Orissa field. With kindest regards, affectionately yours, JAS. L. PHILLIPS.

THE REAL LIFE.-There is but one true, real, and right life for rational beings; only one life worth living, and worth living in this world, or in any other life, past, present, or to come. And that is the eternal life which was before all worlds, and will be after all are passed away-and that is neither more nor less than a good life; a life of good feelings, good thoughts, good words, good deeds-the life of Christ and of God.-Kingsley.

The Divine Method in Mission Work.

THE known world of Christ's time was, to the means of communicating, not much different, perhaps, from the known world of our day to our means of communication. The area has immensely broadened, but the means of access are proportionately increased. The lesson for us is the significant one that the gospel should be preached speedily unto all the races-the leaven should be planted at once in all the great centres of heathendom. Long will it be before the whole lump is leavened, even so. Delay not to put it where it may begin its work.

But the ever ready protest is,-"There is so much to be done at home-there is wickedness enough here; finish off one land first; let Christianity show one nation carried up to perfection, to silence all cavils." Over against all such man-made notions we put the second chapter of Acts, and, indeed, the entire record of the Acts, and say this book is as good for method as for doctrine. The argument was as good then as now, and the Holy Spirit inaugurated an entirely different policy, and set his seal upon that blessed and rapid diffusion, which filled Northern Africa, Arabia, Asia Minor, and distant parts, East and West, with churches of the faith once delivered to the saints.

Now, even more than then, does the close neighbourhood of all peoples on all the face of the earth forbid the idea of perfecting one race till all are put on the track of mental and moral, social and political elevation.—Gospel in all Lands.

Notes and Gleanings.

THE ANNUAL REPORT was ready and sent out on the 1st of August. The Secretary will be pleased, on the receipt of names and addresses, to send one or more copies where it is thought they would serve the interests of the Mission. On receiving the Report, will our friends read it, mark, learn, and inwardly digest.

A SEED OF EVIL-DOERS IN ITALY.-The Civilta Cattolica, a prominent journal in Italy, in reviewing the recent supplement which the Alsatian deputy, the Abbé Winterer, has issued to his work upon modern Socialism, which he published about four years since, draws a terrible picture of the dangers of modern society, from the irreligious classes. After making considerable allowance for much that it says, we fear that there is a very large substratum of truth in its warning. There are, it appears, two societies bearing the titles of "Societa della mala vita," and the "Societa del mal fare," one being at Naples, and the other at Genoa. Their very names give credence to the Civilta's statement, that the young men who are enrolled in them take oath never to attend any sacred worship, but to do all the harm they can, both to men and things, not omitting their own parents.

The greatest luxury of superfluous wealth is in giving it away.

The worst education that teaches self-denial is better that the best that teaches everything else and not that.-John Sterling.

It is said that about nine-tenths of the money raised by the church is given by one-tenth of the members.

All I have, God gave me; so all I have is still His, and I want to use it to His glory.

"Society of the bad, or wicked life," and the "Society of ill-doing."

Subscriptions and Donations in aid of the General Baptist Missionary Society will be thankfully received by W. B. BEMBRIDGE, Esq., Ripley, Derby, Treasurer; and by the Rev. W. HILL, Secretary, Mission House, 60, Wilson Street, Derby, from whom also Missionary Boxes, Collecting Books and Cards, may be obtained.

General Baptists in 1883.

LIKE most of the vital Christian churches of our day, the General Baptists of England have accepted and obeyed a specially divine summons to attend to the direction of the Apostle Paul. "Try your own selves, whether ye are in the faith; prove your own selves.”

The President of our Association, in his recent address, pathetically lamented our slow progress, and strenuously sought to account for it. Mr. March, in the "the Annual Letter to the Churches," turned the clear light of a faithful scrutiny on the "Erasure List," and revealed gaping defects and urgent necessities. Our "Articles of Religion," unspeakably in advance of most productions of that kind, in their tone and temper, emphasis and substance, brevity and breadth, have received an authoritative appendix of some little value, although it is merely a register of facts accomplished years ago. Moreover the churches generally betray an access of solicitude about their condition. The "reports" in the Year Book give signs of an intense self-consciousness, a pained feeling of proved incapacity, a fretful impatience with slender achievements, an eagerness for practical guidance, and a deepening determination, if only the means can be obtained, to overtake the actual work God gives us to do, in and for our own generation. It is a good omen that when "the Spirit saith to the churches," as He does now, "Prove your own selves whether ye are in the faith," our ear is open to hear, and our heart ready to obey His voice.

But is it really a good omen? Is all this introspection good? The healthiest moods of life give the fewest signs of a dominant self-analysis. When men sit with a finger on the pulse, and an ear listening to the resonance of the breathing lung, they are within a few paces of the coffin, or are already buried in the grave of a morbid and palpitating nervousness. The nation that is actually achieving great victories, and is passionately dedicated to noble works, is deaf to the appeals for examining committees and investigating commissioners. The churches at Jerusalem, and Antioch, and Rome, did some of their best work before the " reporter" was born, or a gospel was written.

Nevertheless grown nations, grown churches, and grown men, require to "prove themselves" whether they are in the faith with which they started, true to the ideals that gave them birth, faithful to the original inspirations out of which they sprang into being, and continuously adjusting their vital forces to the changing necessities of the work they have to do, and the conditions to which they are exposed. Degeneration is as true a law of life as Regeneration. We may sink to the lowest or rise to the highest. The organism that fails to develop, fails to keep what it has got, and certainly, if not swiftly, deteriorates. Churches that will not grow must die; therefore "it is wise to talk with our past hours," and ask them what rebukes they have to administer, what failures to record, what methods of action we must forget and leave behind, and in what new lines we must stretch forward "so that we may press on toward the goal unto the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus."

GENERAL BAPTIST MAGAZINE, OCTOBER, 1883.-VOL. LXXxv.-N. S., No. 166.

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GENERAL BAPTISTS IN 1883.

One thing is as certain as it is gratifying-" we are in the faith;" in the faith of the New Testament, and are as much attached to it and to our federation which expresses it and works for it as ever. We are not in the faith of Augustine; we never were. Nor in that of Calvin, and never shall be. But we are in the faith as it stands developed in the writings of James and Peter, Paul and John, and is found in the Greek fathers, men nearer to the apostolic faith than Augustine or Calvin, and, if we may say so, is summarized in our " Articles of Religion;" and we hold it as tenaciously, and practise it as earnestly, and in the same large charity, as our fathers. We are not, as they were not (and we never shall be), rigid systematizers; for it does not seem to us that Christ Jesus came into the world to make a dead machine, and to make it most abundantly mechanical; but to give life, and to give it so abundantly that it will (to talk after the manner of Spencer) " continuously adjust" itself to its "external relations."

"We are a "peculiar people," akin to the Church of England in our Protestantism, to Particular Baptists in our conception of Baptism, to Congregationalists in our church polity, and yet with more than a "dash of Presbyterianism" in the temper of our church relations; similar to the Quakers in our preference for simplicity and the thoroughness of our dependence on the Spirit, and as broad as the Wesleyans in our exposition of the sacrifice of Christ, and yet in our traditions and spirit we are (if we may borrow a word from politics) Christian Radicals. Our eyes are in the future. We have been pioneers. Our ancestors were the first to claim, at the beginning of the seventeenth century, full and absolute "liberty of conscience;" and we cling not only to the capital doctrine, but also to the pioneer position. What is being called "New Theology" in some quarters is largely an adoption of the cautious temper of our fathers as to all creeds, an acceptance of their emphasis in doctrine, and a fresh expression of the "three great universalities" of our brief and broad creed.

But though we are in the faith, the figures representing our condition and progress declare that our faith ought to prove itself by better and greater works than those we are now doing. In New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and the United States, General Baptists are making cheering progress (and together with those in India and England number not less than 180,000), but at home our rate of increase is painfully slow. The facts cited in Mr. March's letter, together with the Church "Reports," reveal a mournful condition. We seem to be in the agonies of an erasure fever. One church has "somewhat" revised its list; a second promises to do it "thoroughly;" a third is keeping a "strict hand and a firm eye" on its church list; others have resolved, at all costs, to be true; others have paid the full price, and are rejoicing in the truth. We are not alone in this fever. I see in the lists of the London Baptist Association, "erasures" for 104, 119, 163, 204, besides others running far towards three figures; and it is to be feared that the same features mark the condition of other churches.

Brothers, let us make a "clean breast of it" in this year of justice 1883, and start 1884 with justice for a line, and righteousness for a plummet. But we shall only do this when (1) we keep a non-resident or "irregular" list of church members who are not reported in our

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