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sources of contribution, larger and larger every year, should be opened up, to keep stationary the Society's income, and render almost hopeless the attempt to increase it to any extent. During the year, however, excluding legacies from the calculation, the contributions for the united mission have amounted to £1,392, about £130 in excess of last year or the year preceding; and the contributions for the Home department of the work amount to nearly £1,000, about £350 in excess of either of the last two years. But the contributions to the Irish branch of the work have decreased about £300. This decrease may be accounted for by the absence of three or four special contributions which were received last year. It appears, however, from a comparison of the reports of the last ten years, that direct contributions for Ireland have gradually decreased and that, more than can be accounted for by the regular increase in the contributions to the united mission. This fact is commended to the consideration of the readers of this report, in the hope that fresh zeal may be enkindled on behalf of a country in which the operations of the Society were never more necessary, and never more blessed to the conversion of sinners than at the present moment. During the year the legacies have amounted to about £600, as against £1,400 in the year preceding. Your Committee, in concluding this subject of their report, express their gratitude to Him to whom belong the silver and the gold, and in whose hand are the hearts of both rich and poor, that the income has been equal to the expenditure, and that at the close of the year they have a somewhat larger balance in hand than at the commencement.

During the year the work of the Society has steadily progressed both in Great Britain and Ireland, and the reports from the several fields of labour inspire gratitude and hope. There have been the cloud and the sunshine. It has not been all bright-neither has it been all dark. The goodness of God has sustained and cheered the hearts of the brethren, and in most cases the toil has been succeeded by the harvest. The usual complaints of increasing Ritualism and High Church intolerance are found in the letters of some of the brethren, and others speak of spiritual depression and mourn over small success; but the large majority of the letters tell of baptisms, and breathe a cheerful spirit. At Eastbourne, eighteen have been baptized; at Faversham, fifteen; at Hornsey Rise, thirty-five; at Redditch, nine; at York, eighteen; at Bournemouth, nineteen; at Woodstock, eight; at Longhope, seventeen; at Brough, eight; Milford and Ashley, eight; and at Swanwick, eighteen. In the other churches the additions have been smaller; but there is scarcely one in which there have not been conversions and baptisms. The letters do not simply record additions to the churches, but indicate a condition calling for thankfulness. One brother writes:"Everything denotes health. Labourers are forthcoming for the various departments of Christian service, and unitedly we are looking forward with great confidence to a year of large blessings." "The year has been one of blessing and much success. At no period since the formation of the Church were prospects more cheering," is the language of another. A third writes:"The past year has been one of hard work and also of blessing. Thirteen have been baptized; two are waiting for baptism; and others are anxiously seeking the Saviour. The congregations have greatly increased, and our weeknight services are very well attended." Many similar quotations might be

given, evincing the same gratitude and hope, and proving that the work of your agents has not been in vain in the Lord.

The colporteurs have continued their work during the year. Mr. Mizen has been labouring in connection with the Church at Downton. His district has Downton for its centre, and extends about twenty-four miles from one point to another, and comprises twenty-five villages, many of them very scattered, and possessing a considerable population. He has given away a large number of tracts, many of which he knows have been read; has paid thousands of visits; has been frequently called upon to instruct and comfort the sick and the dying; and has been generally engaged in preaching on the Lord's day. Mr. Hodge, who labours in West Medina, in addition to the sale of a large number of Bibles and Testaments and religious publications, has quite revived the Sunday School at Wellow, and organized a weekly service which is well attended, besides visiting many sick, and giving lectures occasionally at Wellow and Yarmounth.

It was reported last year that a new Church had been formed at Tunbridge Wells, and that in connection with the Kent and Sussex Association, your Committee had been able to secure the settlement there of an efficient minister, the Rev. W. K. Armstrong, B.A. The undertaking has succeeded beyond expectation. The regular Sunday evening congregation exceeds 200 persons; the Church numbers 55 members; and if a suitable and well-situated place of worship were erected, there could be no doubt of the rapid progress of the Church and congregation.

A new Church has recently been formed at Bournemouth and Boscombe, about two miles distant, under the direction of the Rev. H. C. Leonard, M.A. There are two congregations and one Church. A new chapel has been opened at Boscombe which is well attended, and one is being erected at Bournemouth, meetings being held in the British Schoolroom during its erection. The Church already numbers more than forty members. Your Committee have promised to this new and interesting undertaking £60 per annum for two years, and hope that by the expiration of that time it will have become able to support itself, and in its turn help others.

At Aldershot a Church was formed about two or three years since which has been aided by the Society. Mr. Wainwright has been supplying there for several months with great success. The Church numbers more than twenty members, and the congregation on the Sunday evening amounts to about 120. There is a Sunday School with an average attendance of eighty children, and well supplied with teachers. Mr. Wainwright, relying on the promised help of the Society, has accepted an invitation to the pastorate, and will remove there very shortly.

Your Committee are very desirous of multiplying cases of this kind. It is one of the most important operations of your Society. Of the sixty Churches, at the present time helped by the Society, about twenty were by its aid either originated or nursed into active and vigorous life. There are at least a hundred towns and centres of population in this country in which a Baptist minister ought forthwith to be stationed and a Church formed. Applications for help are continually being received from infant Churches full of promise, and from

districts in which, by a little encouragement and pecuniary aid Baptist Churches, that would soon become self-supporting, might be at once formed. The Committee have already promised assistance beyond the ordinary income of the Society, in firm reliance on the sympathy and support of the Churches; believing that they would cheerfully contribute if they only had the matter fairly presented to them. Some few persons have responded to the appeal that has been made to them; and your Committee trust that many more will follow their example; and that during the ensuing year the formation of several new Churches may be attempted.

At Newark, a new chapel is being erected under the direction of the Committee of the Notts Auxiliary. The Church there will be virtually a new cause, and it is of the highest importance that by the time the chapel is com. pleted a suitable minister be secured. Your Committee have promised to send, if possible, such minister, provided the friends in the district will raise £100 per annum towards his support.

At Gateshead, a town with a population of fifty thousand, there is no Baptist church, and there are thousands of persons who do not attend any place of worship. The Baptists have a preaching-station and Sunday-school in the Mechanics' Hall, in which a few earnest friends take an active interest. Encouraged by the liberal offer of Mr. George Angus, a warm friend to your Mission, and Treasurer to the Northern Auxiliary, to subscribe £25 per annum for four years towards the support of a minister, and £500 towards a chapel when its erection shall appear desirable, your Committee have resolved to plant a minister there as soon as possible, and to contribute £100 per annum towards his support. The Northern Auxiliary has promised a similar sum, and appointed a Sub-Committee to act in connection with your Committee; and it is hoped that ere long a minister will be appointed, and an efficient Church formed. A meeting of that Committee was attended in the month of March by your Secretary, who was much impressed and delighted by the earnestness that marked its proceedings. During the same month he visited most of the churches in Northumberland and Durham, in order to attend a series of meetings organized by the Association, in order to promote Home Mission work in the district. It was the first time that such meetings had been held, and the result cannot fail to be highly beneficial. During the year, the contributions from that district to the British branch of the mission have exceeded £500. There is, perhaps, no part of the country in which the results of the Society's operations are more striking or cheering. During the past few years, Churches have sprung up at Consett, Bishop Auckland, Crook, and Walsingham, under the fostering care of the Society, and exhibit signs of vigorous life. New chapels have been erected, and others are either in course of erection or contemplated. In other places your Secretary found strong self-sustaining Churches, with large Sunday-schools and efficient ministers, which not many years since could not have existed without the help rendered to them by the Society. In illustration may be mentioned Middlesbrough and Darlington, with their commodious chapels and good schoolrooms, both striking testimonies to the effectiveness and worth of the Society.

But the attention of your Committee has not been confined to the larger

towns and centres of population. It has extended to the rural villages and smaller country towns. By the assistance of the Society the Church at Redbourne, a village in Herts, not far from St. Albans, has been enabled to secure the services, as their pastor, of Mr. Campbell, who has commenced his labours there amid pleasing signs of good.

They have also voted assistance to the Church at Winslow, a small town in an agricultural district in Bucks, commended to their attention by the Bucks Auxiliary, where Mr. Dunning, from the Pastors' College, has recently settled. These are, in addition to the stations previously aided, some of which will always need help, and in many of which it is difficult to stem the opposing currents they have continually to encounter.

In concluding this part of the Report, your Committee notice, with great pleasure and thankfulness, the increasing interest manifested by the Churches in Home Missionary operations. The contributions to this branch of the Society's work, apart from legacies, is in excess by more than £200 of those. of any year since the union of the Irish and Home Missionary Societies. And there is every reason to suppose that at the same time a larger amount of Home Missionary work, apart from the Society, and also apart from Associations, has been done throughout the country by individuals and Churches. This fact calls for devout gratitude, and encourages to renewed and increased exertions. In IRELAND, your agents have continued their work amid difficulties and discouragements, and are able, as in former years, to sing of mercy and of judgment. They have had at times to pass beneath the dark cloud, but they have had gleams of sunshine, and out of the darkest clouds light has beamed. In the South and West of Ireland they are beset with almost insuperable obstacles. An intolerant and ever-active priesthood, with zeal worthy of a better cause, and which may well put Protestants to shame, hold the entire population with an iron grip, and render the access of the missionaries to the ear of the people almost impossible. The Roman Catholics are so completely under subjection to their priests that few dare to enter a Protestant meeting-house, or even to be seen conversing with Protestants; and it has even been proposed by Protestant ministers, in solemn assembly, to hold their religious meetings with closed windows, that some Nicodemus might be emboldened by the security afforded by darkness to enter and listen to the teaching. But even in such priest-ridden districts your agents have not been without some encouragement; and Roman Catholics at meetings and funerals have been instructed in the Word of Life. The united meetings for prayer that have been continued throughout Ireland have not been without their influence on Roman Catholics, who have learned from them that the Protestants are not so divided as they have been represented, and been constrained to attend them. Mr. Berry writes from Athlone, the centre of Ireland, under date February 23rd, 1876:-"This year has been such a blessed year of revival that very much of my time has been occupied in attending these public meetings. To this the general increase at our stations is much due, and, notwithstanding losses by death and emigration, we have had a clear increase of twenty-five. I have had the privilege of bringing the Gospel before many poor Roman Catholics who have come to our house. What hath God wrought?"

At Cork, however, your Committee regret to state, it seems impossible to turn the stream. The Church and congregation have almost died out, and every attempt to revive either has failed. "What to do with Cork," is a question to which your Committee are giving close and anxious thought. They find it hard to surrender a station which has been so long occupied by the Society, and to see a Church die that had its birth at the time of the Commonwealth. They are unwilling to withdraw from a city in which there is a chapel associated with which is an endowment. But at the same time they scarcely deem it wise to maintain a mission with no beneficial results that are apparent. The whole question is under consideration, and that your Committee may be guided aright they ask your prayers.

Dublin is also a station that has much engaged the attention of your Committee, and about which many words, without a due knowledge of facts, have been written by the correspondents of the denominational journals. There was much rottenness that needed to be removed from the Church in Abbey-street before a minister could be appointed there. An educational endowment had proved a curse, and pecuniary arrangements, or rather misarrangements, threatened destruction. Under the patient and diligent hand of Mr. T. Radford Hope, who, about sixteen months since, was led in the providence of God to reside near Dublin, the evils have been nearly eradicated. A new committee of management and finance have been appointed, the few remaining members of the Church have been brought into close and affectionate union, and it is confidently expected they will very soon be ready to invite a minister, with reasonable hope that there may yet be a strong Church in Abbey-street, Dublin, which shall command the respect and exert an influence for good in that city. Belfast has also excited the solicitude of your Committee. Soon after the last annual meeting, whispers became current respecting the views of Mr. Henry, the minister. Religious journals circulated the dreams of some American divine respecting the dying-out of the Baptist cause at Belfast as the result of open communion principles, and letters poured in upon your Secretary to know what it all meant. There was, however, some occasion for disquietude. The Church, after the tender nursing of the Society for many years, had at length declared itself independent of the Society's support, and determined to sustain itself, when Mr. Henry resigned the pastorate on some question of church government, and opened a room for preaching in Belfast, and attracted around him about sixty members of the Church of which he had been pastor. More than ninety members, however, remained, united, perhaps, more closely than before, and certainly more prepared to maintain the ministry of the Word. Negotiations were opened with a minister, in the opinion of the Church at Belfast and your Committee, well suited to meet the requirements of the Church and to represent the mission in the North of Ireland, whose services would most probably, but for some special circumstances, have been secured. The people, however, have not lost heart. They are closely united in Christian love, and full of earnestness and hope; additions have been made to the Church and congregation, and it is trusted that God will soon send them an under shepherd who shall prove a blessing both to them and the town.

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