SUDDEN DEATH.

To the Editor of the Gospel Magazine.

DEAR BROTHER IN THE LORD,-I could not help being struck with your remarks in the Magazine last month relative to the late Mrs. Pinniger on the subject of "Sudden Death," so exactly are they in unison with my own views and feelings on that subject. I mean with regard to the desirableness of such an event for the believer; and, whenever it comes to such, I consider it quite a mistake to term it an awful visitation. Solemn it certainly is, and blessedly so, too. It was no longer back than the very last week that I remarked to a Christian friend I could not cordially add my "Amen" to that prayer of the Church of England where she prays to be "delivered from sudden death;" at the same time I do not say that it would be right in the believer absolutely to petition the Lord for such a dismissal, yet where such prayer is accompanied with a "neverthless, not my will, but Thine, be done," I can see no objection to it. It is recorded (as no doubt many of your readers are aware) that Archbishop Leighton, that eminent man of God, often expressed a desire, with submission to the will of heaven, "that he might die from home and at an inn," assigning, as a reason, that he thought the care and concern of friends were apt to entangle and discompose the dying saint, and that he should be spared that by dying amongst strangers. This desire was obtained; the dear man died at the Bell Inn in Warwick Lane, London. But with regard to the manner of our removal from this poor dead and dying world, I would not willingly dictate to the Lord in the matter, for I know not but there may be (and, I fear, there often is) a good deal of what may be called creature cowardice connected with it, fearing what one may have to suffer in the last conflict, not merely from pain of body, but from the sore and deadly thrusts of the enemy at that season, those solemn moments when poor exhausted nature is in her last struggle; for, while the wicked have no bands in their death, the poor Christian often has many in his, notwithstanding the Lord's kind and gracious promise, "I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee." We know very well in our better judgment that all the dark and fearful forebodings of the Christian are altogether groundless, for, let believers sink as low as they may, they cannot get below the everlasting arms of their covenant God in Christ, who is, and everlastingly will be, the portion of His saints in life, in death, and through a neverending eternity. He has a propriety in them; they are "bought with a price," and a great one, far too great, indeed, ever to suffer one of His jewels to be lost at the last.

I would just add, in conclusion, that the Lord in one moment removed from me my own dear wife by a fit of apoplexy. Sudden death in her case, poor dear, was, I trust, sudden glory; still, to those who are left for awhile behind, the parting is, and cannot be otherwise than, painful. I can, and do, therefore, sympathize the more readily with my unknown brother, Mr. Pinniger, under his bereavement, and pray that the dispensation may be sanctified to him and to those in immediate connexion with him. Let us remember for our comfort and Christian consolation that we are fast going home.

"A few more rolling suns at most,

Will land us on fair Canaan's coast."

Believe me, faithfully yours in the Lord,

Fletching.

H. H.

Passing Events.- Monthly Note.

"Can ye not discern the signs of the times?"—MATT. xvi. 3.

We were not wrong in the anticipations which we expressed last month that a renewed and determined attack would shortly be made upon another of the Protestant bulwarks of our land-the Irish Church. The storm has partly burst, and that with extraordinary fury. Disregarding the solemn pledges which have from time to time been given to Ireland that her Church shall be preserved intact (witness the 5th article of the Act of Union, which asserts "That the Churches of England and Ireland, as now by law established, be united into one Protestant Episcopal Church, to be called 'The United Church of England and Ireland,' and that the doctrine, discipline, and government of the said United Church shall be, and shall remain in full force for ever, as the same are now by law established for the Church of England; and that the continance and preservation of the said United Church, as the established Church of England and Ireland, shall be deemed and taken to be an essential and fundamental part of the Union;" and also the oath taken by Her Majesty at the time of her coronation; the Queen was asked, "Will you maintain and preserve inviolably the settlement of the United Church of England and Ireland, and the doctrine, worship, discipline, and government thereof, as by law established, within England and Ireland, and the territories thereunto belonging? And will you preserve unto the bishops and clergy of England and Ireland, and to the churches there committed to their charge, all such rights and privileges as by law do or shall appertain to any of them ?" And Her Majesty answered, "All this I promise to do;" and she kissed the Bible and signed the oath), it is now loudly asserted by some of our leading statesmen, supported by a multitude of followers, that nothing will content them but the dis-establishment of that Church, and the plunder of her revenues. Lands and endowments given, not by the State, but by pious men and women in past ages for the maintenance of that Protestant institution, are to be violently taken away and put to the support of Popery, or irreligious purposes. What a monstrous shame is this! The consequence will be, if this measure is carried, that in large tracts of country where the Protestants are few in number, and too poor to support their own pastors, and where there are no Dissenters, the poor Protestants will be deprived of the ministry of the Gospel, the churches will be closed, and the inquiring souls amongst the darkened Romanists, who when aroused to a sense of their spiritual needs betake themselves instinctively to the Protestant pastor for advice and help, are to be left without a guide, sheep without a shepherd. In the towns, it may be, little harm will be done, the Protestants there can afford to support all their pastors, and keep up their churches; but in the poverty-stricken agricultural districts the mischief of the proposed measure will be incalculable. And why, we may ask, is this great change to be effected? Is it because the Irish Church has failed in her duty, or because she has become cold and careless, or that she is increasingly obnoxious to the people? Never could such charges be brought against her with less reason than at the present time. Once, indeed, she may have been cold and faithless, but, thank God, we believe that she is not so now. The returns of the last census show that she is quietly winning her way in all parts of the

country; from the census of 1834 to that of 1861 there was a relative increase in her adherents, as compared with the number of Roman Catholics and Protestant Dissenters, of two per cent. In 1730 the number of churches was 400, in 1864 it was 1,579; nearly four times as many. In 1730 there were 800 clergy, there are now upwards of 2,100. Does this look as if the Irish Church was a failing Church? She has, there is no doubt, of late years aroused herself to a sense of her responsibilities, and, of course, she has naturally excited a corresponding increase of opposition, but, we believe, that in the hearts of the right-minded, loyal people of Ireland, Roman Catholics as well as Protestants, she never was more valued or more beloved. The devotion of her clergy to the poor during the potato famine, when some of them even sold their furniture to provide bread for their poorer neighbours, and the increased interest that they of late years have shown in the temporal and spiritual welfare of their Roman Catholic parishioners, have won for them respect and gratitude which were formerly unknown. What, then, is the cause of this violent change? Political ambition: the desire of place and power on the part of ejected ministers, and the determination to obtain that place and power by any means. The Roman Catholics must be conciliated at any price; favour after favour must be given them to gratify their insatiable desires; and, in order to win their support, solemn pledges are to be broken, the bulwarks of Protestantism are to be one after another thrown down, truth is to give place to error, and the harlot of Babylon is to reign mistress in our land. Can we expect that God's blessing can rest upon us as a nation when such is the case? We may rather look for His righteous curse and indignation. Not that we wish to ignore the failings of the Irish Church, or for a moment to assert that she is not possessed of any. Far from it, she has many failings-what earthly institution has not? But we hold that her virtues are more than her failings, and that, as a faithful proclaimer (speaking generally) of the Gospel of Christ, and as a Protestant Church, it is the duty of every Christian and of every Protestant as far as possible to support her. That those failings should be made an excuse for open robbery-robbery of property to which the Irish Church has as much claim as any English nobleman has to his estates; and robbery of property which never belonged to Roman Catholics (for the property which formerly belonged to the Roman Catholics was given at the Reformation to laymen, not to the Church) is, we affirm, a crying sin and shame. It is stated in justification, that nothing less than this will satisfy the Roman Catholics, and give peace to Ireland. But will this satisfy them and give peace to Ireland? Never. Let us hear what the Roman Catholics themselves say about it. The Tablet, one of their chief organs, states, "If the Irish Church Establishment were abolished to-morrow-if its churches, lands, and rent-charges were applied to secular purposes, or even to [Roman] Catholic purposes, we should only have dealt with one feature, with one symptom of the disease, and should not have reached the seat of the disorder." No, what the Roman Catholics of Ireland want, is possession of the land in Ireland, of which at present they have little, and the complete supremacy of their Church; and, if they get what they want, woe be to all who oppose them, woe be to the poor Protestants, whether Episcopalians or Dissenters; and, we may add, woe be to Ireland. We live, indeed, in most eventful times, times in which we are taught more and more how little dependence is to be placed in man, poor fickle,

foolish, selfish man. May we be led more fully to trust in Him who is worthy of all trust-the Lord Jehovah-who is able to take care of His people amid every peril and distess, in whom is "everlasting strength." We regret to hear sorrowful tidings from Abeokuta. We have just read a letter from the wife of one of the missionaries stationed there, and the account which she gives is very gloomy. The poor missionaries have suffered considerable privations, and have been in constant fear of a renewed attack; they feel that their lives may at any moment be taken; but it is cheering to observe how peaceful, how resigned, they seem to be under these trying circumstances, and the perfect trust which they place in their heavenly Father.

A SEARCHING QUESTION.

"How can ye believe, which receive honour one of another, and seek not the honour that cometh from God only ?"-JOHN v. 44.

:

CHRIST is here speaking to the Jews, not to His disciples. Their religion consisted of forms and ceremonies, in which they were most anxious to stand creditably in the sight of men, so that the few who did believe in Christ as the Messiah durst not confess Him. "Nevertheless, among the chief rulers also, many believed on Him; but because of the Pharisees they did not confess Him, lest they should be put out of the synagogue: for they loved the praise of men more than the praise of God" (John xii. 42, 43; also vii. 12, 13). The Jews seemed to have a great desire to stand high in the synagogue, and even sacrificed the principle of truth to that end, as we learn from John ix. 21, 22: "But by what means he now seeth, we know not; or who hath opened his eyes, we know not: he is of age; ask him he shall speak for himself. These words spake his parents, because they feared the Jews: for the Jews had agreed already, that if any man did confess that He was Christ, he should be put out of the synagogue." And, when the blind man gained courage to confess that Jesus was of God, they cast him out, or excommunicated him (John ix. 34). But there is also a great lesson to be learned by Christians from the passage under consideration. The fear of man is a terrible snare, and is a sad hindrance to individual usefulness. How often, when we might speak a word for God, are our lips sealed by the foolish dread of worms like ourselves, instead of with a holy boldness acting upon the plan of the apostle Paul, mentioned in 1 Thess. ii. 4, 6: "But as we were allowed of God to be put in trust with the Gospel, even so we speak; not as pleasing men, but God, which trieth our hearts. Nor of men sought we glory."

May the Lord pardon His servants in this thing, and make them more faithful in His cause: "For not he that commendeth himself is approved, but whom the Lord commendeth."

The end of preaching is individual application.

W.

The lowly in heart, whether rich or poor, are those whom Jesus is not ashamed to call brethren.

Pharisaism is the parent of Antinomianism; where the one exists, the other will surely follow; but a free reception of the doctrines of grace will invariably lead to a holy life, and bring glory to God.

Reviews and Notices of Books.

WE have received a number of Abel Heywood's Penny Guides to various places in and round London, Manchester, Liverpool, and Harrogate, Coniston and the Lakes, North Wales, The Isle of Man, Matlock, Buxton, Scarborough, York, Brighton, Chatsworth, Birmingham, Kenilworth, and many other spots of interest to the tourist. To many others they will be very useful. Published by Abel Heywood and Son, 56, Oldham Street, Manchester.

Atonement. By HON. SOMERSET R. MAXWELL. London: William Yapp, 70, Welbeck Street. Hamilton, Adams, and Co., Paternoster Row. Dublin, John Robertson.-The talented author in the introduction of his work says: "This treatise is intended not only to reach the case of those deistical votaries of intellectuality who, following in the way of Cain,' avowedly reject, as did their great proto-master in theology before them, all reference to the blood of atonement in their dealings with God: it has a further aim; it would, without ceremony, intrude itself on the devout adherents of a ritualistic formalism, which would call to the aid of faith, or rather would substitute in the stead of the pure actings thereof, the varied appliances which 'the god of this world' has ever at hand, to gratify the eye and the ear of those who have yet to learn that "God is a Spirit," and that "they who worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth."

Biblical Expositions, Lectures, Sketches of Sermons. By the late HENRY CRAIK. London: Morgan and Chase, Ludgate Hill. Bristol: W. Mack, 38, Park Street.-The high standing of the late Mr. Craik, as a scholar, as well as his Christian character as a Minister of the Gospel, will be sure to secure for these "Expositions," &c., the respect and consideration they merit. We promise ourselves much pleasure and edification in the examination of this work.

Brief Memoir of Emma Farrer, who died in the Lord, May 5th, 1867.A beautiful testimony to the Lord's wondrous work in conversion. After long waiting He revealed Himself to the young sufferer, and she died in perfect and inexpressible happiness. A great encouragement to young believers, to hope on to the end. It is reprinted from The Little Gleaner, a little periodical we often speak of favourably. Come and See; or, Christianity its own Witness. By the Author of "Sunset Thoughts," &c. London: Hamilton, Adams, and Co., Paternoster Row; Nisbet and Co., Berners Street.-Well does the author of this neat little work, say, "The truth of the Gospel soon stills the doubts of the intellect, when once it has gained the assent of the heart.” Definition of Man. By G. G. London: W. H. Collingridge, Aldersgate Street, E.C.-This work is so brief as to leave so vast a subject not a little "undefined."

Essays on the Principles of Morality. BY JONATHAN DYMOND. London: F. B. Kitto, 5, Bishopsgate Street Without; S. W. Partridge, 9, Paternoster Row. Carlisle: Hudson, Scott and Sons.-A reprint, in a cheap form, of the more voluminous work.