Изображения страниц
PDF
EPUB

he embraced it to preach the unsearchable riches of Christ. He has often made the roof of his own carriage his pulpit, to address in the fields, and various outskirts of the metropolis, surrounding multitudes. It has been computed, that the congregated body of his hearers, when he has at times preached in the White Conduit Field's, Islington, has not been less than ten thousand; and his oratorical abilites commanded the attention of the whole, so that, in comparison, a whisper could scarce be heard, while his words dropt as the dew of heaven. We trust this little imperfect sketch, may excite some of his relatives, if they should read these lines, to give the public a biography of this highly honoured Minister of the Gospel.

The

In closing this article, we would notice his death was premature, at the age of only forty-four, occasioned by the puncture from a lance, in dissecting a putrid body of a female, for scientific informnation. Being in his youth brought up to the surgical profession, he was continually in the habit of doing good, and promoting the spiritual and temporal interests of his fellow creatures. operation he performed, if we recollect right, was on a Wednesday in the month of August, 1786. He preached in his own chapel the Friday evening following, with his arm in a sling, at the time the mortification must have taken place. After a consultation of the faculty at his house in James Street, Westminster, it was agreed to amputate his arm, so if possible to stop the gangrene. Being acquainted with the result, he replied, with a calmness and serenity of mind, "No, He that has took my arm has a right to take my body, into his hands I commit my spirit, my God and my Redeemer " He survived but a few hours after, and on the next day, being Sunday, when it was announced to a large concourse of individuals, who had assembled to hear him on the morning of that day, that he was no more, it caused the most sensitive feelings and agitation that cannot well be described. At the time of his death he was rector of Bloxam in Lincolnshire, the gift of Lord Robert Manners.

·000

AN ANECDOTE OF MR. ROMAINE.

THE REV. Mr. Scott who was afternoon lecturer of one of the city churches, on his return home, called in occasionally to hear Mr. Romaine preach in the evening at St. Dunstan's. As that precious man of God was departing from the church, intermixing with the crowd going out, Mr. Scott came up to him with an intention to speak, but Mr. Romaine proceeded on, without noticing him. The next day he received a letter from Mr. Scott, charging him with incivility, to which he replied, he never meant to be rude or uncivil, but he always made it a rule to go from his knees to the pulpit, and from the pulpit to his knees, as such, he avoided every interVOL. III.-No. IV.

R

ruption, while he was about his Master's business. But if Mr. Scott would favour him with an interview any morning before eleven o'clock at his house in Blackfriars, he will most cheerfully enter upon the business he mentions; and ask forgiveness for what might have appeared at the time rather uncivil.

China Row, Chelsea, Jan. 5, 1839.

GEORGE BARKER.

N. B.-The above was communicated to me by the Rev. Erasmus Middleton, formerly curate to Mr. Romaine, and afterwards lecturer of St. Luke's Chelsea.

A NOTE.

IF we may be permitted to add an observation on the above little bagatelle, it will in a degree confirm what is related. In our boyhood, about the age of nine or ten, we had an opprtunity of noticing many incidents of that distinguished servant of God, William Romaine, several of which made in our carly days, that deep impression on our minds, which can never be effaced. We well know it was his invariable rule to avoid entering into conversation with any one in the sanctuary of God. At St. Dunstan's, when he had finished his devotional exercises in the pulpit, he has immediately descended, went into the vestry which was adjoining, disrobed himself, put on his great coat, and then made the best of his way through an immense crowd, to a hackney coach ready for him, leaving behind him the far greater portion of his congregation. He was a pattern to us of decorum in the house of God, and of abstractedness from idle gossiping, so prevalent in that sacred place.

EDITOR.

·000·

Theological Review.

Regeneration founded on Baptism, and the Form and Mode thereof described. By Investigator.-Masters.

THE subject of baptisms here treated on, by its long continued controversy, becomes a mere scribbling dispute, a war of words, and abusive altercation. Party against party, cavilling and barking at each other like two animals picking at a bone. We have before remarked, what a lamentable reflection it is, that so simple an ordinance, as that of an outward initiation into the professed Christian Church, by the symbolical representation of water, should have been perverted to such fiery litigation, and to form such an endless ground of contest. In fact it has been made a religious whirlpool whereby the Christian affections of brother to brother have been swallowed up and lost, and the most bigoted ferocity has usurped an arbitrary domineering power over the con

sciences of many simple hearted followers of Christ. It is true those water-disciplinarians, fire not with cannon, and tie to no stake, but the fury by which they assault each other, as is displayed in the above pamphlet, and in other publications, evinces that had they cannon or stakes at command, their opponents would have been suddenly destroyed or slowly burnt. There are despots in the church as well as on a throne.

·000.

The alarming increase of Papistry in England, particularly since the Year 1826, stated. Its bitter persecuting intolerance depicted, and its infamous tenets unfolded.-By William Staunton, A.M., Curate of St. Mary's London.-Cox.

THE traits here displayed of the increase of Popery, the contemplation is appalling, and the extraordinary events likely to follow, and that quickly, cause the mind to take a sombre cast, it looks at the present and reflects on the past. It contrasts the magnificence of the building with its present decay, and its impending ruins, and takes a retrospective view of the greatness of its former inhabitants, with the hapless fate of its last most pitiable occupants, when its stupendous towers shall be in ruins, and the walls lying in mouldering heaps.

We certainly, when the enemy was preparing for war, sounded the trumpet of alarm from our citadel, but few regarded it. If our readers will only refer to the latter volumes of this magazine, they will see how we rang the tocsin. We drew a picture of what Catholic emancipation would produce; among many with which our work abound, we refer to page 238, for the year 1828. After taking a view of Catholic emancipation, we observed in a concluding paragraph, in addressing the Christian reader, particularly in reference to a delineation we had given of Popery from Dr. Nares, in a work of his containing an extract from Lord Burleigh, we there put a question by saying, "You who are averse to the mummeries of the Church of Rome, what think ye of the above particulars, so simply and impartially represented by the above statesman, so that no doubt can be entertained of their impartiality and probity."

We then asked, and asserted, and our words have come to pass, "Can any man after these facts stated of Popery, advocate Catholic emancipation, falsely so called, for do not every one in that profession, worship under his own vine and under his own. fig tree, and is so protected that none dare molest him. What do these people want, not so much for political aggrandisement, for twenty out of a million will not be benefited thereby. Is it then for spiritual accession, most certainly. Will they ever obtain it, we reply shortly; for such is the spirit of the age. What will be the consequences of Catholic emancipation. We see them as

clear as noon day. Not the bloody Marsian persecutions immediately, though the human heart is the same as in the sixteenth cen. tury but overwhelming oppression of priests, who will leave no stone unturned to bring about their purposes. For as soon as the Roman Catholics have the free exercise of their liberty, then contention after contention. A demand will be made that all Roman Catholic priests shall be paid out of the English treasury; and then the bishopricks shall be given to their rightful original legitimates, and the consequence will sooner or later follow they must be remunerated, and then all church lands be restored." We thus concluded at the time by observing, "So much for the hue and cry now going forward for the boon of Catholic emancipation and the repeal of the Test Act. Let the discerning part of those we address only think of what is to follow. Nevertheless, to them who are in the ark, will ultimately outride the billows."

We would notice that in the following year, 1829, we had to meet with a formidable host, in battle array, determined to unmuzzle the devourer, and to let loose the wild beast of the forest. Not only Papists, and men of infidel principles, but a numerous body of Dissenters, added to which, a large mass of those denominated Evangelicals, coalesced together into a phalanx, and have took the fortress by storm, insomuch that the foundations and towers are beginning to fall.

If our readers will turn to our number for June in the above year, they will meet with an article of our Review, which we have been entreated to reprint, containing our caveat against a letter of the late Rev. Mr. Daniel Wilson in favour of Catholic emancipation. And such were his dim optics at the time, that he said, "he hoped to see that it would tend to the prevalence of pure Christianity throughout the empire, and produce obedience to the gospel, and excite personal faith and love." We at the time observed upon this expectation of his, "that it was far fetched, a mere piece of Alummery and gasconade; and calls forth our deepest execration on such religious trifling, for what can accrue from such a deadly pool but the most stagnant waters, causing the most malignant pestilence and destruction!"

The above destructive letter of the then Vicar of Islington was reprinted by the Papists, by thousands and tens of thousands, and distributed gratis, and we believe the government gave the like assistance on the occasion; and we do think, among various other stratagems, the letter gave a helping hand to the inevitable doom of Protestantism. And as the late Vicar, we understand is on the eve of returning to this country, having finished his work of converting the idolatrous Hindoos, he need not be idle when he comes back, for he will find an increasing batch of idolatrous Papists to convert and bring into the fold.

General National Education, the Means of saving Great Britain, and upholding her Institutions.-By Gabriel Thornton, Esq.Moody.

MANY are the writers who have treated on the subject of Education, but few have felicitated themselves on the completion of their labours. They have played round the head, but never reached the heart. Among this description candour obliges us to include the present writer, for rarely, have we perused pages of such obscurity. There is an unnaturalness both in the sentiment and the language; every page marked by affectation. All is discoloured and distorted; and what the writer would aim at is to us ambiguous, dark as Erebus.

Indeed the term education is indefinite; in its extensive view, it embraces the whole circle of science, but our statesmen are puzzled how to proceed, so as to select that part which may be advantageous. A portion has been tried upon the population, and the conclusion has been, that the educated are MORE addicted to crime than the uneducated. A nobleman said, a few days since, that the mode of instruction must extend further than reading and writing, it must embrace the mathematics, and the study of philosophy, in the higher branches of literature. We would pause, and ask the highly talented gentleman, who is to empty his lordship's sinkpool, pave his street, or carry a hod of mortar up a ladder to the extent of a hundred feet on his shoulder to repair his Lordship's house: here the scope of amplification might be extended, insomuch as the laborious and menial drudgeries of life will be shunned as degrading, and the enforcement treated as an imposition of one class of mankind ruling over another.

Then respecting religious education the phrase is likewise equivocal; for under the term we must take in not only the christian religion mixed up in various "cloven-footed forms," but the Pagan, Mahometan and Jewish religion. Then again enforcing religious education we get into such a mizzy maze and entanglement, that the shrewdest cannot make their way through. All such speculations only bewilder the projectors into the intricate tracks of utopian fancy; and the golden results expected therefrom must in the end prove unattainable. When we meet with such visionary plans, founded on futile hypothesis, we cannot forbear exclaiming in the words of Horace,

Quodcunque ostendis mihi sic, incredulus ode.

The fact appears to be this, though a coat of learning may hide a mortification, still the putridity is going on. Untutored or civilized, the human heart remains the same. The ignorant savage in his hut, sleeping on a turf, without clothing, and his poJished equal in a palace, reposing himself on a bed of down, with the thread of the silk-worm to clothe himself; the one as a wild boar in the forest, and the other by the accidence of birth, with the

« ПредыдущаяПродолжить »