afternoon meeting, said, "This, Sir, to me is better than any other opportunity I have-I feel at home. I thank you for your words of exhortation, and may God bless you and your endeavours." The same poor man induced another to attend, who lived in the neglect of the worship of God, and he found himself so much happier that he began to attend the more public means of grace, and holds sittings for himself and wife, and now is regularly seen going to the sanctuary on the Sabbath-day. As it respects the Scriptures in the districts, most of the families are supplied, yet as new families come in I find many of them destitute, which I hope to supply. Many sick cases have been recommended and relieved by the district Society in connexion with St. James's Church, Spafields Chapel, Northampton Tabernacle, &c., and the Stranger's Friend Society. Cases have also been recommended and attended to, for supplying poor women, during their confinement, with boxes of linen. Many in sickness have been supplied with arrow-root, and relieved by my superintendent and another Christian gentleman. And now, in closing this brief report, while I have much to be humbled for, when I think of my want of spirituality of mind in the work, and singleness of eye to the glory of God in all that I do, yet I would praise his name for his mercy and goodness towards me, and would look up for the supplies of his grace and Holy Spirit, that in continuing the work, I may be instrumental in leading many to the cross of Christ, and that being found faithful unto death, I may receive a crown of life through the merits of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. SUMMARY OF LABOUR, FROM MARCH 31, 1839, TO MARCH 31, 1840: Hours spent in domiciliary visitation, 1,830; meetings held, 302; average attendance at each, 27; visits and calls, 5,882; of which to the sick, 1,238; times of reading, 1,772; times of praying, 1,705; copies of Scripture distributed, 7; children sent to school, 27; deaths, 53. Tracts at Bartholomew fair, 4,200; tracts in ten districts, on "The Way to be Healthy," &c., 5,650; tracts in district, 6,475:-Total, 16,325. MEETINGS IN CONNEXION WITH THE LONDON CITY MISSION, HELD DURING THE MONTH OF APRIL. A MEETING of the Westminster Auxiliary was held on April 1, 1840, at the Swan Tavern, when Charles Hindley, Esq., M.P., presided. The Meeting was addressed by Messrs. Wilson, Corderoy, Freeman, and the Rev. R. Ainslie. A MEETING was held at the Horns Tavern, Kensington, on Wednesday Evening, April 15, 1840, for the purpose of forming a Lambeth Auxiliary to the London City Mission, J. I. Briscoe, Esq., M.P., in the chair. The Meeting was addressed by the Rev. Messrs. J. Garwood, G. Clayton, T. Binney, R. Ainslie, J. Edwards, William Barber, H. Bean, Mr. William Corderoy, &c. Macintosh, Printer, 20, Great New-street, London. THE LONDON CITY MISSION MAGAZINE. JUNE, 1840. THE Committee have much pleasure in presenting to the friends of the Mission the following full account of the proceedings of the Annual Meeting. The space in the Magazine will not allow of the publication of even a part of the Report, but the following facts taken from it may gratify many, until they can obtain the Report itself. It is now in the hands of the printer, and will be ready in a few days. It opened by referring to the death of Mr. David Nasmith, the founder of the London City Mission, and proceeded to state, that, by the kind providence of God, the health and lives of the members of the Committee and of the missionaries had been preserved during the year. The present number of missionaries is fifty-eight, being an increase of eight during the past year. 223,658 visits and calls had been made by the missionaries since last May; 27,052 of which have been to the sick and dying, and making Towards the close of the Report, the fact of nearly 900 persons dying weekly in the metropolis, was particularly urged upon the attention of the assembly. The following are the statistics for the year 1840 (up to the time of the public Meeting) of the *The discrepancy between the Total and the sum of the preceding columns is occasioned by the age of one Person who died not being reported. Other discrepancies in the same column are to be similarly accounted for. NO. LIV. VOL. V. G 82 FIFTH ANNUAL MEETING OF THE a total, since the formation of the Mission, of 871,891, of which 109,151 have been to the sick and dying. 332,502 tracts and hand-bills have been given away during the year, making a total in the ordinary labours of the missionaries of 1,151,712, and 250,000 copies of the tract on intemperance, entitled, "The Way to be Healthy and Happy," have also been given away during the year as a special distribution, generously granted by the Religious Tract Society. Besides sending many children to schools, no less than five new schools have originated out of the labours of the missionaries, into which children raggedly clothed are admitted. There are now 570 such children attending these schools. The Report then referred to the efforts made relative to temperance, Socialism, fairs, penny-theatres, and Mr. Hume's Resolution for opening the British Museum on the Sabbath. Several interesting cases, illustrative of the good effects of the labours of the missionaries, under the Divine blessing, were then detailed. PROCEEDINGS AT THE FIFTH ANNUAL MEETING OF THE LONDON CITY MISSION, HELD AT EXETER HALL, ON MONDAY, MAY 18, 1840; Mr. Sheriff WHEELTON in the Chair. THE Great Hall was completely filled before | hend, the mark of respect paid in inviting me eleven o'clock, the time fixed for the Meeting, when the proceedings commenced. The Rev. R. AINSLIE announced, that as William Evans, Esq., M.P., who was to have presided, was prevented by the illness of Mrs. Evans, Mr. Sheriff Wheelton had kindly consented to occupy his place, and he begged to move, that that gentleman be requested to take the chair. This Motion was at once carried by general acclamation, and Mr. Sheriff WHEELTON took the chair. The Rev. JOHN ROBINSON (Minister of Little Chapel-street Chapel, Soho) offered prayer for the Divine blessing upon the Society, its agents, and the vast multitude whom it was intended to benefit, and also upon all assembled on that occasion. The CHAIRMAN.-Ladies and Gentlemen, -I very deeply regret, as no doubt you also do, the disappointment we experience this morning in the unexpected absence of your worthy Chairman; and the more so, because of the occasion of that absence. I regret it particularly, because I feel conscious that this Institution, which has such an extensive claim upon our attention, will suffer from his being absent, and from the chair being taken by the humble individual who has gladly accepted the opportunity of taking it, in the absence of any one more efficient. I am very unaccustomed to public speaking, and can therefore pledge myself that your time will not be unnecessarily occupied by anything I shall say, and more especially when I see many of the clerical and ministerial character around me, whose occupation leads them to address large assemblies more frequently than falls to my lot. I appre to preside over this large and respectable Meeting, has arisen more from the high and distinguished office I have been called upon to fill, than from any pretensions of the humble individual who fills that office. But though I may be inefficient as a chairman, I trust my feelings and my heart will respond to the instances of usefulness which you will find the Report exhibiting to you. I will now call upon your Secretary to read that Report. The Rev. R. AINSLIE then read the Report of the Society's proceedings during the past year, after which, the Sub-treasurer, J. I. MARKS, Esq., read the Treasurer's account. I am JOHN PEMBERTON PLUMPTRE, Esq., M.P.-My Christian Friends,-It gives me much pleasure to appear amongst you on the present occasion. This is the first time that I have appeared on this platform in connexion with this Society; and I feel that I ought to acknowledge my fault amongst you. obliged to confess that the divisions, and the bickerings, and the heart-burnings that have existed between Churchmen and Dissenters, have not been without their influence on my own mind, and have led me (I now see very unworthily) to absent myself from this Society. Sir, if this Society be the means, under God (and I humbly trust and heartily pray that it may), of bringing together good men of all denominations, men who love the Lord Jesus Christ, who desire his glory and the salvation of their fellow-creatures, I am sure it ought to be hailed in such a country and in such a day as this. Sir, I have been deeply interested by the Report which has just been read to you. The feeling which appears to have animated him who was mentioned at the beginning of it as a departed friend, the feeling of David Nasmith, I trust will be the feeling that will continue to animate the members of this Christian Society. His desire-if not expressed by words, expressed by a life, which is better than words-seems to have been, and it seems to be the prevailing desire of this Society, to glorify Christ, to disperse darkness, and to save many poor sinners" dead in trespasses and sins." And, my Christian friends, when we come calmly and seriously to consider matters, what are the ends which we ought so much to desire to promote as these great ends? These are the objects this Society has in view. And I rejoice to think, that in reaching forth towards the attainment of these great objects, you by one consent agree to drop all minor considerations; you ask not, Are you a Churchman? or, Are you a Dissenter? but you ask, Are you a poor, perishing, helpless sinner in need of a Saviour? Sir, the time is fast approaching when it will be of very little moment indeed to you and to me, and to this numerous assembly, whether we have been "of Paul or Apollos," but of infinite moment whether we have been of Christ-whether we are in Christ, whether we are on Christ as the Rock of Ages, whether Christ be " in us, the hope of glory." Why, Sir, I was struck the other day with an account in the newspaper of a recent fire in this metropolis; I read the description of some individuals being in the greatest jeopardy of perishing in the flames; I read of a poor boy in the area being in danger of the dwelling falling upon him, and of some in the upper rooms making known with fearful cries their want of assistance. Now, what was done under those circumstances? Why, effort was used, and happily successfully used, for their rescue; sheets were tied together and thrown from the window of the next house to those in the upper rooms, and the people on the ground tore up the flag-stones and iron palisades, and liberated the poor boy from the area. But was there any consideration then as to who should put the hand forward? Oh! no. Yet what a far more important work have we to do with regard to our poor perishing fellow-countrymen. We have to tell them of that great and gracious Saviour who can "break in pieces the gates of brass, and cut in sunder the bars of iron; one, "able to save to the uttermost;" able to save from the uttermost; able to save at the extremest points of life; able to stretch forth a helping and a saving hand to those who are perishing for lack of knowledge," and who were ready, as it seemed, to drop into that fire which never shall be quenched. And shall we, then, hang back our hands? We are told in your Report, that from this city alone 900 individuals are weekly passing into eternity. We know not what their condition may be, nor how far they may be prepared happily to meet that eternity to which they are called; but we know that it is our privilege and our duty to tell to poor sinners, while a day of grace and life is granted to then, that there is One who "came to seek and to save that which was lost," and laid down his life," the just for the unjust." I think you cannot consider the operations of the Society during the past year, without feeling that you are called upon to renew your exertions: 223,658 visits have been paid; of which 27,052 were to the sick and the dying. Oh! who can tell to how many who were living without God and without Christ in the world, your missionaries, in the hands of the great Head of the Church universal, have been the messengers of mercy and salvation! You have heard, through the Report, of some of the effects of those visits; but the whole of them, I believe, you will never know till the great day shall declare them. We cannot tell how many may have been thus brought to inquire, "What must I do to be saved?" I trust, therefore, Sir, that the labours of this Society may be continued and increased. I trust that there will be (as I was rejoiced to hear there had been) no strife or jealousy amongst the labourers of the Society. I trust, and I believe, that the Committee of the Society will make it their object to choose for their labourers men sound in their faith and blameless in their lives, men who can commend religion by their examples as well as by the doctrines they propound. For that, Sir, after all, is the great secret; we may speak about Christ, but unless we live Christ, it will do very little. Sir, it would ill become me to take up any longer the time of the Meeting. In fact, owing to a severe cold, I am little able to address it at all; but I feel bound no longer to keep back from the Society, and am happy to appear amongst you this day. The Motion I have to make is,— "That this Meeting expresses its devout thankfulness to Almighty God for the success attendant upon the labours of the Mission during the past year; and resolves, that the Report now read be printed and circulated under the direction of the Committee." The Rev. Dr. VAUGHAN, of Kensington.The very name of this Society, Sir, seems to present a difficulty. The London City Mission! And can it really be, that London, the metropolis of this powerful nation, a nation having so large an apparatus apparently for conveying religious instruction to its peoplecan it be, after all, that London can need to have a Missionary Society? It might well occur as a question of difficulty; but facts, we are wont to say, "are stubborn things." However humiliating it may be to the zeal of religious parties, the fact is but too plain, that London does need a City Mission. So greatly does it, and so greatly do all our large cities need City Missions, that my impression is that we were never so much in danger as a nation from the depravity of our cities, as we are at the G 2 84 FIFTH ANNUAL MEETING OF THE present moment. It is true, it would be easy to show, that the cities of this land never included so large an amount of piety as at present; but if along with the increasing elements of good, there has been an increase of the elements of evil upon a larger scale, it is not difficult to see what the issue must be. True, we do at present see broad, compact, and powerful movements in the cause of religion, which exceed everything our fathers could have dreamt of; but then by the side of these, there have been appearances of irreligion, outbreaks of infidelity, and even of the grossest atheism, forming a novel feature in our national history. These things cannot be looked at by us without anxiety. It is well, indeed, that good men have been making exertions upon a large scale for education and order and morality and religion; for if they had not, then surely our place ere now had been as Sodom, and our land as Gomorrah. All that we have been able to do by these apparently gigantic efforts, has been to keep the evil at bay, and partially subdue it. Let things, Sir, go on even as they are now doing; and in place of looking at that which we achieve, and laying to heart the confidence that we are safe and all is right, I see in the distance just the opposite of that. In order to meet the demands of our growing population, and the evils likely to spring up with it, our efforts must partake of a magnitude and a force of which they have not hitherto partaken; and, above all, there must come a larger blessing from above upon them. We occupy, Sir, as a people, with our wide Colonial territories, and our vast commercial system and population built up in great part upon those Colonies, a position in many respects different from that of any other people who have preceded us upon the face of the earth; and we are not only exposed to all the dangers that arise out of a state of high civilization wherever it exists, but to many a danger peculiar to ourselves in consequence of this peculiarity of our circumstances. Indeed one cannot look thoughtfully around upon a country like ours, without feeling that it is not more true that "all flesh is grass," than that all the glory of it, all the splendour of national greatness and grandeur, is but "as the flower of grass." Nations rise up, like a billow, to their point, and from that lofty summit rapidly sink to the level from which they sprung. Change of this nature seems to pervade every thing earthly. Ebbing and flowing we witness everywhere. We can trace progression, we can trace decay; but the point of maturity is of short continuance and hard to detect. The flower blooms, only to fade; we rise up and participate of the vigour of manhood, only to yield imperceptibly to the infirmities of age. Every thing is either rising or falling; and rising, only to fall. It is thus with nations. It has ever so been. And we have arrived at that point at which this turn for declension has usually com menced. It is a moral change in the history of nations; and it is commonly to be attributed to moral causes, that are sufficiently apparent, We can easily understand how it is, that great wealth and great power should be very dangerous to us as individuals. We never see a man rise to the possession of great wealth, and become vested with great power, without (from our knowledge of human weakness) being alarmed for him; but do we sufficiently remember, that nations are made up of individual men, and that the great power and wealth which we know to be so dangerous to individuals, is found to bring along with it the same peril to communities at large? The passion for indulgence, if it be cherished, will naturally foster all those selfish and irreligious passions, that are at variance with individual prosperity, and that undermine the fabric of nations; and we have the authority of the Scriptures themselves for concluding, that there is that in "fulness of bread and abundance of idleness" to produce effects like these, and to loosen the bonds of communities. While nations are comparatively young, and struggling through their difficulties onward to maturity, they are comparatively in little danger; it is when they attain to the point which we have reached, which admits of large masses halting in their course and giving themselves up to indolence and luxury, that sensuality and cor. ruption in all its forms may begin. We look, therefore, Sir, at this moment, down upon the ruins of the great cities of the ancient world: Babylon and Palmyra, Thebes and Carthage, Athens and Rome-they are all at our feet; but do we sufficiently remember, that they are there, having descended from that point to which we have now attained? Do we think enough, that we just now occupy that dizzy height, which they knew not how to keep ?that the cup of national grandeur and power, of which they drank in succession to intoxication and to ruin, is the cup of which we are drinking? And are we sure that we are safe in doing it? I wish I could feel that we were. Sir, I am convinced that the fate of Britain is wrapped up in the character of the great cities of Britain; and when I look to the character of her great cities, I cannot but be alarmed for the future, though I am by no means naturally disposed to take the desponding or the fearful view of things generally. Can one, for example, advert to the venom now diffused abroad among us in the shape of party spirit, and not be afraid? Is there nothing in this, think you, to offend Him, whose great rule delivered to man, as it regards his duties towards man, is- -"Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself"-" Whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them ?" Is there nothing, think you, likely to provoke the Head of the Church, if a spirit of this kind be allowed to manifest itself among those who call themselves his disciples ?-disciples of Him, who says, "This is |