Intelligence. THE WESLEYAN REFORM MOVEMENT has been of late in a state of comparative quiescence; progressing, however not so rapidly as some might wish-with steady, even steps. The policy of the hierarchical party in Methodism has for some time past been much conformed to the advice of Gamaliel, "Refrain from these men, and let them alone; for if this counsel or this work be of men, it will come to nought; but if it be of God ye cannot overthrow it;" and it is true the recusants thus tolerated, stand much in the same relation to the "United Pastorate," as did the disciples of old to the priestly conclave to whom this advice was tendered. Occasionally some choleric priest, unable to contain himself, breaks through this hedge of calm, inscrutable dignity, within which many are attempting to intrench themselves, and by his splenetic criminations shows how deeply reform and reformers are hated. The case of Mr. Lord, which occurred in the First London Circuit a few weeks back, is an illustration. A local preacher and leader of many years' standing, and more than average ability, one having no connection with reform, in an evil hour consents to preach for the Rev. Mr. Burnett, unaware at the time that the sermon was one of a series of special services under reform auspices. This is his only offence; it is not shown that he aids, abets, or sympathises with the agitation in any way. But forthwith he is a marked man; shortly afterwards he meets his pastor, the Rev. Charles Prest, and receives the "cut direct." He calls on him to ask the reason and to expostulate, and is politely shown to the door. He is next summoned to a leaders' meeting, and there told that by preaching the gospel, to those who are undoubtedly regarded as children of wrath, he has disqualified himself for holding further connection with that meeting. What would have been the result if Charles Prest had been the Grand Duke of Tuscany, and Mr. Lord his subject? A new project for aiding in the erection of chapel and school property has been announced during the month under the name of "The Wesleyan Methodist Benefit Building Society." The iniquitous and oppressive operation of the "model deed " has rendered the necessity for some means of promoting chapel building deeply felt, and the present scheme comes forward under the auspices of many reformers of the highest respectability, as a feasible and desirable means of meeting the necessity. The mode in which the Society will offer its assistance, is by granting loans for the purchase or erection of real or leasehold property, receiving a mortgage by way of security, and allowing the repayment by easy weekly subscriptions. From the calculations on which the terms of the Society are based, it appears that a loan of £1, together with interest, may be repaid in a period of five years and a half, by a weekly payment of one penny; so that a society of two hundred persons may secure a loan of £200 at a cost to each comparatively insignificant. Some doubt has been expressed as to the legal working of the scheme, but in absence of any evidence to the contrary, we see no reason to doubt the practicability of the project. The attention recently called to the question of AMERICAN SLAVERY by the publication of "Uncle Tom's Cabin," resulted a few weeks ago in an address from the women of England, headed by the Duchess of Sutherland, to their sisters in the United States, imploring them to use their influence with their fathers, husbands, and brothers, to procure some amelioration of the condition of the slave. This has provoked a recriminatory address from the women of the United States, in which they tell their English sisters some extremely unpalatable truths. After referring to the indefensible wars by which England has obtained much of her territory, and to the results of misrule in Ireland, they remark that England itself is filled with slavesslaves to ignorance, slaves to penury, and slaves to vice. They add, that in London alone, according to recognized statistics, there are a million immortal beings who were never seen in the house of God. They advert to the state of our education in the lower classes, proceed to lay bare our social evils with unsparing hand, and conclude with a forcible appeal to the women of England as wives, sisters, and mothers, to lift up their voices, and use their influence in removing such enormities from a civilized and Christian land. It is, perhaps, not unsalutary at times to have a faithful daguerreotype of our social system brought before us, and thus having an opportunity of seeing ourselves as others see us; but to place these things in the scale against slavery is at once unjust and absurd. Admit that in England we have sorely neglected our duty to some of our degraded population, that surely is inferior in enormity to using them as chattels, and buying and selling them "body and soul." To neglect their condition is not to deny their rights. A slave to vice or penury by the accident of birth and position, may be elevated; a slave by the law of a powerful nation cannot be elevated : "Slaves for want of legislation, Are not quite like slaves by law" EMBLEMS. An evening cloud, in brief suspense, Was hither driven and thither; It came I know not whence, It went I know not whither; I watch'd it changing in the wind,Size, semblance, shape, and hue, Fading and lessening, till behind Poetry. It left no speck in heaven's deep blue. Amidst the marshall'd host of night, Shone a new star supremely bright; With marvellous eye, well pleased to err, I hailed the prodigy ;-anon, It fell;-it fell like Lucifer, A flash, a blaze, a train-'twas gone! A fly's wing shook it: round and clear, In trembling brilliancy they hung Ere long exhaled in limpid air, Some mingled with the breath of morn, Some slid down singly here and there Like tears, by their own weight o'erborne; At length the film itself collapsed, and where The pageant glittered, lo! a naked thorn. What are the living? Hark! a sound From grave and cradle crying, From infancy to utmost age, The pathway to Death's portal; The dead are the immortal; Cloud-atoms, sparkles of a falling star, Perfect existence from a point begun ; Part of what God's eternity hath been; Whole immortality belongs to none But HIM, the first, the last, the only One. James Montgomery. MILTON'S LAMENT.* I am old and blind Men point at me as smitten by God's frown, Afflicted and deserted by my kind, Yet I am not cast down. I am weak, yet strong; I murmur not that I no longer see; O merciful One! When men are farthest, then Thou art most near; When friends pass by, my weakness shun, Thy chariot I hear. Thy glorious face Is beaming towards me, and its holy light Shines in upon my lonely dwelling-place, And there is no more night. On my bended knee I recognize Thy purpose, clearly shown: My vision Thou hast dimmed, that I may see Thyself, Thyself alone. I have nought to fear; This darkness is the shadow of Thy wing; Beneath it I am almost sacred; here Can come no evil thing. Oh! I seem to stand Trembling, where foot of mortals ne'er hath been, Wrapped in the radiance of Thy sinless land, Which eye hath never seen. Visions come and go; Shapes of resplendent beauty round me throng; From angel lips I seem to hear the flow These beautiful lines, than which nothing more touching ever proceeded from author's pen, have been, by som strange inadvertence, omitted from the majority of editions of Milton's Works. They appear in the first published edition, and have been inserted in the recently-issued Oxford edition. Their tenderness and power, and the feeling allusion to the superstition of the times, which regarded his calamity as the judgment of offended Heaven, give the lines peculiar interest. The Wesley Banner, AND CHRISTIAN FAMILY VISITOR MARCH, 1853. Essays, Articles, and Sketches. THE PULPIT OF METHODISM, AND THE REV. THE following sketch of the character of the Rev. Dr. Newton as a preacher, together with the prefatory remarks on the present and past influence of the pulpit of Methodism, are extracted from the same source as was the graphic and pleasing sketch of the Rev. Dr. Beaumont in our last. We give them without comment, neither endorsing nor repudiating the views expressed. Whatever may be thought of the correctness of the writer's estimate, the vigour of his style and the interest of the subject to most of our readers, are sufficient warrant to us for reproducing the article : : The pulpit of Methodism has occupied a peculiar position in its influence over the mind of the country. When it first began its work, it was a most real and vital thing, and it gave birth to most real and vital things; and still the most elegant pulpits of the land are perhaps those belonging to the Methodist body. Through the large towns of the North, how spacious are the chapels, and how vast the congregations !—excepting, indeed, in those places where those naughty Reformers have spread their poisonous leaven. With a few exceptions, such as the cathedrals of Dr. Halley, in Manchester, and Dr. Raffles, in Liverpool, and the great Metropolitan temples of Nonconformity, with these exceptions, we say, Methodism boasts the possession of the most costly pulpits in the land. But we wish to speak with great respect, when we say we doubt whether the work * "Shadows from the Lights of the Modern Pulpit."-We are glad here to have an opportunity of correcting an error in regard to the Rev. Dr. Beaumont, which prevails very widely, and to which we gave further publicity and authority in our last Number. We refer to the statement that the impediment of speech, which distinguished him in early life, was owing to defective organization, and had been obviated by a surgical operation, and the insertion of a silver palate. We have received a communication from a member of the Doctor's family, assuring us that the statement is wholly without foundation, as he never had the slightest physical defect or malformation of the anatomy of the mouth or organs of speech. In his youth, and to some extent during the first years of his ministry, the Doctor's utterance was at times impeded by a habit of stammering: but this, for the last twenty years, he has succeeded in overcoming.-EDITOR. H VOL. V. within, is equal to the work without; for, in a word, this pulpit may be said to be characterless; it has not now what it had once-individuality. Once it stood alone and apart from other pulpits; it claimed to be the bearer of a distinct message to the people; and the triumphs of the Methodist pulpit are among the most glorious and significant in the history of preaching. Through the northern, and especially through the western counties of England, the stirring words of humble and plain-spoken men shook the souls of rough colliers and miners. A review of the history of civilization in England, would be quite incomplete which did not include the development of Methodism within the community during the last century. Its effects were as instantaneous as those which followed the preaching of Peter the Hermit. Populations the most densely crowded and benighted the most stolidly ignorant and embruted-were moved by the rude oratory of men wholly unlettered, but who were able to say, "Whereas I was once blind, now I see." Refinement sneers at their style, but religion marks its usefulness. Methodism now is too proud to use this instrumentality; but it has not supplied another of equal, not to say of greater efficiency. The last preacher of genuine Methodism, the last who from the Conference pulpit spoke in the strain of the old time, was WILLIAM DAWSON. We will not say that preaching like his suited the structure of our personal religious life. He could give but little spiritual aliment, but most wonderfully could he rouse the slumbering convictions of the soul. Coarse and intolerant, he was fitted to cleave rocky hearts,-unless we commit ourselves altogether to the superiority of the system which implies the superior force of gentle words, dropping like the still rain, or quiet snow, and penetrating, like them, the most arid soils and rocky substances. Dawson truly spoke in thunder-literally in thunder. The terrors of the Lord ever gleamed round the pulpit in which he spoke: he had but two words, but he uttered them in a wonderful variety of cadences-"REPENT, or be DAMNED." His was a style strange and eccentric in the highest degree; and when he preached, strong convulsions rocked alike the pulpit and the pew. Some of our readers, perhaps, heard that strange discourse delivered, as we understand, in many ways, from the text, "The Lord shut him in." After announcing his text from the pulpit, the first movement of the preacher was from it. "This," said he, "won't do." He went down the pulpit stairs, and, standing in the large table, or class-leaders' pew, he supposed himself to be Noah, the pulpit to be the ark which he was building, and his hearers around him to be the ungodly world to which he was preaching. Meantime he was preparing the ark; and, while talking, he was gradually mounting, step by step, the pulpit, till at last he reached the door; then, slamming it to, he shouted, "The Lord shut him in!" And now the flood, the thunder, the lightning, the fall of rocks and crags, and the shrieking of perishing sinners rose around; while the ark, the ark, drifted safely over the billows, amidst the terrors of fire, and thunder, and storm! As in most preachers of his class, there was a rough histrionic power; his words, and his actions too, were most graphic. There was a strange sermon from the text, "He brought me up also out of a horrible pit," &c., &c. The colloquy between the preacher and some person he supposed to be beneath the pulpit, down in the miry clay, is often spoken of as a singular illustration of his power of graphic painting, and something like ventriloquial speech. The tale is well known of the pedlar, who, when Dawson was preaching from the text, "Thou art weighed in the balances, and found wanting," pressed through the crowd, up the pulpit stairs, and gave up his measure. "Break it, sir,” said he, "break it; it was short;”—and to his imagination and conscience all the sermon appeared to be levelled at him. My dear reader, all this may appear very coarse to you; but, in fact, do we not want now some preaching like this? Are you to scale other men's requirements by yours? Forcible preaching to you may drop most lifelessly and useless upon other ears. We confess we should not like to attend the ministry of William Dawson long,-and yet would to God that among our itinerant prophets there were some strong, coarse, rugged, pictorial souls like his, to awake the moral Bosjesmen of our country to some dim twinkling of religious perceptions! Is the pulpit of Methodism at present most appropriately represented by DR. NEWTON? Certainly we think not; and yet his name is the most attractive in all parts of England; and we have gone with thronging crowds to the largest conventicles in the country, in London, in Liverpool, in Leeds. We have heard him upon great occasions and upon small occasions, and we cannot understand it. There is something mythical about the man; he is the most famous preacher in the world. So say his admirers. We have read his sermons, we have heard them delivered, and we do not remember that we have ever been benefitted by a single new thought, new illustration, or new impulse. Once, indeed, we heard him say, in Oxford-street Chapel, at Leeds, that "prayer was like an arrow; shot up to heaven, it brought back a blessing on the quiver." The figure appeared to us not of the best, but still good; and as it was the only one, we took it, and were thankful. But, turning over "Bishop Hall's Contemplations," six months after, we found our arrow there. The only good thing we ever had from the Doctor was borrowed. There is nothing ill-natured in these remarks. The fame of Robert Newton is extraordinary in England and in America. We, the humble writer of this, must be wrong: two hemispheres cannot be at fault; and there are men whose presence is their power. Whitfield cannot be seen in his sermons, wonderful as was their effect in delivery. We read them as among the tamest of human compositions. John Elias, also, of Wales, as mighty a master as Whitfield himself among the mountains and people of that glorious and lovely land, yet, dead, he will not speak thus. We can conceive, too, that power leaves a man; that we have no right to judge the man of half-a-century by his thoughts and his tones to-day. It is fifteen years since we heard Newton first; it is eighteen months since we heard him last. Again, we say, we cannot understand it: thought or language we cannot, we never could, detect: truly, truly, among the hundreds of local preachers of our acquaintance, we know very many in mental structure apparently far taller than Robert Newton. But his manner, says the reader,-what do you think of his manner? Excellent!-easy! and, in many particulars, perhaps, even graceful. No doubt, in youth and manhood, there was a perfect and self-possessed dignity, which wins wonderfully in popular estimation. No doubt, the tones of that voice then were thrilling and shrill; and yet, in wonderful combination, full of compass and of power. We surmise all this, for we have not heard it; but a friend of ours, a clergyman, from Louisiana, who heard him preach in the Hall of Congress, in America, declared to us that those tones were so marvellous and electrical, that when the preacher gave out the hymn, "Would Jesus have the sinner die?" |