you will see that He was vexed and grieved with the disciples and said, Suffer the little children to come nnto Me, and forbid them not, for of such is the kingdom of God. And He took them up in His arms,

laid His hands upon them, and blessed them.""

"I wish I had been one of them," said little Harry.

"And so do I! and so do I!" was the general response.

"And me do!" said "King Toddlekins," who had a vague idea that it must be something good in which he ought not to be forgotten or left out.

"Well," said mother, "you remember the second verse of your favourite hymn

"Yet still to His footstool in prayer I may go

And ask for a share of His love;

And if I thus earnestly seek Him below

I shall see Him and hear Him above.'

Jesus is not changed at all in His love for the children. If He were here now I am quite sure He would take you up in His arms, lay His hands upon you, and bless you. He did not behave to those children so kindly and lovingly because they were richer, or prettier, or better dressed, or cleaner, or better behaved than others, but because they were God's children. Now you will remember, will you not? that you may be quite sure that Jesus loves children, and therefore loves you, not only by what He said about them, but also by the way in which He behaved to them when they were near Him.

"And now we must leave off, and next week I will tell you the best proof of all that He loves you. Let us sing

'Now the day is over,'

and then we will repeat together Our Father.'" And once again mother and children joined together in praise and prayer to Him of whom it is written-"Who has set Thy glory above the heavens. Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings Thou hast perfected praise."

Mr. Beecher on Elocution.

W. EVANS.

I HAD frem childhood a thickness of speech arising from a large palate, so that when a boy I used to be laughed at for talking as if I had a pudding in my mouth. When I went to Amherst, I was fortunate in passing into the hands of John Lovell, a teacher of elocution, and a better teacher for my purpose cannot conceive. His system consisted in drill, or the thorough practice of inflections by the voice, of gesture, posture and articulation. Sometimes I was a whole hour practising my voice on a word-like justice. I would have to take a posture, frequently at a mark chalked on the floor. Then we would go through all the gestures, exercising each movement of the arm and throwing open the hand. All gestures except those of precision go in curves, the arm rising from the side, coming to the front, turning to the left or right. I was drilled as to how far the arm should come forward, where it should start from, how far go back, and under what circumstances these movements should be made. It was drill, drill, drill, until the motions almost became a second nature. Now, I never know what movements I shall make. My gestures are natural, because this drill made them natural to me. The only method of acquiring effective elocution is by practice, of not less than an hour a day, until the student has his voice and himself thoroughly subdued and trained to right expression.

Pen Pictures of Nonconformity.

FROM KING HENRY VIII. TO QUEEN VICTORIA.

No. IV.-NONCONFORMITY A TRUE PILLAR OF THE THRONE. CONSIDER the difference between the history of England, and that of our nearest neighbour and sister country, France. The horrors of French Revolutions and the Infernal Reign of Terror have never cast their shadow over Great Britain, and it is a deep-rooted conviction in the English mind that they never will, or can. No greater contrast could be presented than that exhibited by the insecurity of successive French governments, and the perfect stability of the British Throne.

What is the reason of this contrast? Both countries have struggled for the union of strong government with liberty, for permanent institutions with freedom for progress; France has failed most signally, England has succeeded most triumphantly. In both the tyrant has done his worst, as in both the people have suffered and sighed under the scourge of oppression. The tremendous difference. must have its root in some sufficient cause; and that cause is showing clearly in the history, principles, and achievements of Nonconformity. Tyranny in France was borne first with a kind of brute patience, and then resisted with brutal savagery. Tyranny in England was suffered with heroic fortitude, and resisted by men who stood upon the sacred ground of conscience, duty and law. Puritanism is at once one of the grandest and most redeeming elements that ever helped to make the history of a great people. The Puritans were so called by the Church and Tory party of their day, because of the marked purity of their lives and the direct honesty of their purposes. Puritanism, or the Nonconformity of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, is the father of modern Nonconformity, and of our modern liberal policy. Whatever of obeying God rather than man is found in the principles of Nonconformity, whatever of steadfast adherence to principle rather than to persons, is inherent in liberal politics, has come straight down from the puritan Nonconformist liberal heroes, who in the older days were wont to buy the truth both in religion and politics with all they had, and who counted not their lives dear unto them in their resolve to sell it not. They believed first of all in loyalty to God and justice to mankind; and on this basis they fought their magnificent battle with the Jameses and the Charleses for the liberties of England. They dethroned the first Charles when he had reduced the rights of Englishmen to a quantity measureable only by his selfish will; but they made no resistance to the recall of his son on the death of the noblest dictator that ever lived, the renowned and mighty Oliver Cromwell. It can scarcely be doubted that the Puritans who set up the grandly honest Oliver could have established his dynasty if they had felt it their duty, as they felt it their duty to save their country from the despotic Charles the First. But there was the young king who had done no wrong so far, who had rights of his own, and who was promising in his famous Declaration of Breda to respect the laws of his country and the consciences of his subjects. Oliver was dead: he had been raised up by God to deliver his country from a tyrant; but not they thought to found a sovereign race in face of the rights o others; consequently the Presbyterians,

Independents, and Baptists, welcomed with hope and with joy the fairpromising but alas! false Charles II. How cruelly they were disappointed we all know; and how shamefully they were treated the stories of Baxter, Bunyan, and many another illustrious hero remain to tell us; how patiently they suffered is writ on one of the most enduring pages of English history. We are told they failed because a Stuart king once more ascended the throne; we answer, they crowned themselves with double honour, for they saved both the monarchy and the freedom of their country. They saved freedom by revealing to a despotic government their irresistible might, and by teaching the people of England to stand up and look a king in the face.

They saved the monarchy by their unconquerable respect for law and legitimacy. Since the day of Naseby no king could reign long in England who did not know how to bend to the will of the people. The Puritans alone secured that. Charles II., bad as he was, died king because when the worst came to the worst he was resolved to yield to his people rather than be sent again upon his travels. James II., his brother, stood against the current of English freedom, but he only stood for a moment; Churchmen appealed to Nonconformists and not in vain, for they drove him from his justly forfeited crown. Puritan and Churchmen united to put the next legitimate heir upon the throne, and Mary II. was peacefully placed with her husband William III. upon the seat of power. No pandemonium, or Reign of Terror, was possible when the liberal party, resisting old tory tyranny, was Nonconformity with its conscientious loyalty to religion and religious law.

But on the other hand with such a Party in the state, no king could ever again govern by his personal will, and make the great England he ruled the tool of his selfishness or ambition.

William III. had a will of his own, and it vexed him to the heart that parliament, and not he, should rule; but he had to curb his proud temper, and give way. George III. was a tenacious and ambitious man. He also strove to tighten the grip of power for the crown, and and make parliament the creature of his will; but he, too, like William, though he talked of abdicating, had to be a parliamentary, that is a people's, king, and to be content with a limited monarchy. The Puritan revolution consolidated the constitutional monarchy in England; the lightnings of the Puritan battles burnt up the unwholesome vapours of king-worship and priest-worship that had brooded over England from the middle ages. Despotism and a sword in the hand of a priest have, since the Puritan era, been impossibilities in the land of the Briton. What more distinguished place in history could any great Party have than this? Our fathers were brave to win our liberty, they were wise and patient to preserve the throne.

The spirit of our fathers beats high in the bosom of their sons to-day; the backbone of Liberalism is Nonconformity, the spinal marrow of Nonconformity is reverence for divine law, and every human law that is in accord with the divine. It is the fate of mere Toryism to yield to this invincible Liberalism, till just authority, stripped of the last vestige of feudalism, rises to its fullest height amidst a happy people absolutely free to its humblest unit. E. H. JACKSON.

The English Baptists: who they are and what

they habe done."

66

THE ministers of our London churches have set a good example, and done a worthy work in delivering and publishing the Lectures" which form this interesting and handy volume. The Editor who has carried the work through the press has put his mark upon it in the terse title, the characteristic preface, and the elaborate historical notes, as well as in the first lecture, the fruit of considerable research. The good friend of "fertile mind," who suggested the series, takes also his appropriate place as the exponent of the noble work Baptists have done in the cause of human freedom. With respect to the other brethren associated in this movement one is pleased to find that Mr. Avery speaks copiously and earnestly of Baptist martyrs; and Mr. Fletcher gives a lively and spirited account of the redoubtable Dan Taylor; that Mr. Batey makes a sharp and incisive defence of the distinctive principles of Baptists, and Mr. Burns shows the connexion of Baptists with the great Temperance Reform, and the work that remains for them in the future; while Mr. Smith vigorously sketches the lives and labours of prominent Baptists of the seventeenth century; and Mr. J. F. Jones tells with freshness the story of Baptist Foreign Missionary enterprise, touching, all too lightly perhaps, upon the work of the Orissa Mission. A volume which is thus the joint production of eight London ministers, and which treats so ably of subjects of high historical and religious interests, should have a hearty welcome from our churches, and may afford, not the suggestion only, but in large measure the material also, for lectures and addresses of a similar character throughout the entire range of the denomination. It would be well if the younger ministers of our churches in the large towns and in the villages would, at least in the matter of lecturing on topics of denominational history, polity, and faith, follow the example set by the London "Fraternal." There is no doubt that, in these times, our polity and faith demand consideration; and there is equally no doubt that among all our admitted possessions as Baptists, and as the solid support of them all, we have a "history." We are not of to-day only, but of yesterday also, even as we expect to be of to-morrow. But yet little is known by some of our young people of the noble and world-conquering principles our fathers enunciated and proclaimed in the dark day, and of the brave heroic struggles in which they engaged in order to give effect to them. Humanity stands indebted to Baptists for more than it often cares to acknowledge. First in advocacy, in England, of the principle of the absolute liberty of conscience in matters of religion; the first and perhaps the last to suffer in this land for so-called heresy; first in providing by legislation in America for full and complete religious liberty in the State; foremost among the churches at home, and-as represented by the Freewill Baptists-beyond the Atlantic as well, in the great and now triumphant anti-slavery struggle; and prominent throughout the world in the philanthropic work of the Temperance Reformation, Baptists occupy an honourable place in the history of Christian civilisation, and have an emphatic claim upon the regard and gratitude of mankind.

The circulation of this excellent volume in our churches amongst the young people of our families, and in our Sunday schools amongst the scholars of the senior classes, will help to explain and diffuse the principles we cherish, will do good and much-needed service to the Institutions we love, and the body of churches whose prosperity we all so much desire and seek, T. GOADBY.

THE PEGG SCHOLARSHIP.

It is with special satisfaction we report that Mr. G. H. BENNETT, of our College at CHILWELL (and of Praed Street and Westbourne Park Church), has passed the Matriculation Examination of the London University. By this Mr. Bennett becomes entitled to the Pegg Scholarship, and enjoys the distinction of being the FIRST PEGG'S SCHOLAR.

Eight Lectures, Historical and Descriptive, given by General Baptist Ministers in London, during the past winter. Edited by John Clifford, M.A., LL.B. London: E. Marlborough & Co. Price 2s. 6d.

Scraps from the Editor's Waste-Basket.

I. OUR RECENT ASSOCIATION will long be remembered, not only for the intrinsic value of the gatherings, the cordial welcome and bountiful hospitality accorded to us by the friends of other churches, but also for the heroic spirit in which our friends at St. Clement's, under the leadership of our dearly beloved brother Taylor, prepared for our arrival, and ministered, not merely to our necessities as men intent on business, but also to our happiness and joy as visitors. The hearty and generous interest taken in us and our welfare by H. Trevor, Esq., of the Plantation, as shown in throwing open his charming grounds to the visitors, and in many other ways, contributed very largely to the profit and pleasure of our annual gathering. The pastors, Revs. G. S. Barrett, G. Gould, and T. Wheeler, were superlatively kind; and J. J. Colman, Esq., M P. for the City, laid us under large obligations by his specially generous hospitality. We have attended many "Associations," but do not recollect one richer in pleasant and cheerful reminiscences, or marked by a healthier tone.

II.

"CROWDED OUT."-The business connected with the Association has crowded out several papers that we had hoped to insert this month. Mr. Atkinson's interesting paper on the "Gospels" is obliged to stand over. A whole basketful of "Scraps" is flung aside, some of them, alas! lost for ever. One on "talk," and another on "crushed enthusiasms," and "mordacious proclivities," and a third in answer to the question, put by a junior, as to "whether old saints are always sour, and if so, why ?" we hope to recover from the destruction that threatens them. Some answers to criticisms have failed to see the light! O, the cruelty of fate.

III. THE NEEDS OF COUNTRY PASTORS. Another young friend promises 10s. per annum; a pastor sends his name for a sovereign; a church will give two pounds per annum. Again I say, These are practical responses. Who will follow.

IV. ERRATA in July "Mag."-Some of these ought to be corrected. Page 242, line ten from foot, read Three for "these." 243, line twenty-three from foot, read Open for "when." We apologize for giving our readers this trouble.

V. NOTTINGHAM, HYSON GREEN.We are delighted to hear that our friends have, with the heroic venturesomeness,

which is a good augury of success, secured a capital site in the midst of a populous neighbourhood It is in Palin Street, just off Basford Road, and will cost between £600 and £700. Nottingham, both in population and trade, is one of the most thriving towns in the kingdom. Its public spirit, too, is high; and surely our churches ought to share it, and to make solid and large advance. The enterprise of our friends, under the leadership of our brother, Rev. Robert Silby, deserves the heartiest help all round.

VI. THE PUBLICATION BOARD have, according to the desire of the Association, printed the paper by Mr. S. D. Rickards, on "The Work of the Church amongst the Young." It will be sold for a penny, or at the rate of 6s a hundred. It ought to be distributed in our churches with the freest hand. I am also glad to learn from our Secretary, the Rev. W. R. Stevenson, that our New Tune Book is progressing at a most pleasing rate.

VII. THE UNIVERSITY College, NOTTINGHAM, recently opened by the Duke of Albany, is one of the finest illustrations of municipal wisdom and enterprise our English life has presented. As we read the accounts, though it is started by the munificent gift of £10,000, it is built by the Corporation, out of corporate funds, to be sustained as corporate property at a yearly cost of £6,515. It is a bold and sagacious venture, full of good auguries for the town and the kingdom. Would we could have written, in letters of light, in all our churches, the wise words spoken by the Duke of Albany, to the effect that a deep interest in the welfare of one's own town is the truest patriotism! And by its side we would write the kindred truth, that a deep interest in the welfare of one's own denomi nation is the truest Christianity. History proves that he who begins to care little for his own denomination, usually ends by caring very much for himself, and doing infinitely little for Christianity.

VIII. LOOK AMONGST YOUR OLD BOOKS for the undermentioned. They are much wanted. Mr. John Taylor, of Northampton, who is compiling a work on the Primitive Faith and Practice of Baptists, strongly desires them. Kindly forward them as a gift or loan, or for sale, to me, and they shall be gratefully acknowledged.

"Britten, William. The Moderate Baptist, briefly shewing Scripture way for