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Intelligence.-Liverpool and Leicester Domestic Missions.

Mr. Dare's Report of the Leicester Mission is not less interesting than Mr. Bishop's. The Mission has been efficiently conducted at a cost of about £150. Connected with it is a Sewing Society, with an average attendance of 40 persons. About 500 articles made by the society are yearly sold to the poor at the price of the materials. An adult male class was attended in the winter by nearly 60 persons. Popular lectures on philosophical subjects were delivered once a fortnight. The boys' instruction society has taught about 80 pupils. The female adult class numbers 30. The girls' instruction society has had an average attendance of 100. Scarcely an evening passed without some being denied admittance for want of room." Notwithstanding the great depression of the times, £60 has been collected by the Provident Society. The attendants on the reading-room have considerably increased. Let the composers of tracts for the people listen to Mr. Dare's suggestion as to what is most wanted: "We want healthful tracts on social and political economy; on the domestic affections and household virtues; on sanitary and scientific subjects, and tales of fancy and imagination. It is by the distribution of these, with others of a liberal tone in theology, that the bigot, the quack and the demagogue, will be driven from society, and the vicious taste rectified that hungers after downright deep romances. Mr. Dare's description of the Sunday-school, which works most successfully, is interesting: "It has rather a motley appearance. Wives and widows in spectacles, nurse girls, factory hands, and poor little children, whose appearance plainly tells of 'home wretchedness,' make up the weekly assemblage." The Sunday evening service has been well attended during the winter, and Mr. Dare desires to gather out of the attendants communicants for the Lord's Supper, in the hope of cherishing in their minds the religious sentiment, strengthening the ties that attach them to the humble house of prayer, and refuting the slander that the supporters of the Mission do not believe in Jesus Christ. The meetings of the ladies' Working Society are usually attended by their indefatigable Missionary, who reads on these occasions his monthly reports. During the year he has paid 4000 visits. Of all men, the Domestic Missionary must not weary in well-doing. Mr. Dare says, "I have continued my calls at

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some houses for two or three years before any visible effect has been produced. Then some of the family would join one of the classes, or attend the Sunday-school, or come to the evening service. Visiting is the great means of influencing the poor. They require continual encouragement in their efforts for improvement. They must not be deserted even after repeated failures." Mr. Dare's experience respecting party spirit has not been as happy as that of Mr. Bishop. The Report mentions several instances of the attempts of the clergy of Leicester to thwart his usefulness. As specimens of the degrading superstition and bigotry which he sometimes encounters, we close our notice of his labours with another extract:-"In a house where I had been requested to call, I was informed that two clergymen had just made a visit. One of them urged a sick inmate, the father of the family, to confess to the other, as he would then banish all his sins from him, like sinking them into a well.' These words were used by the invalid's wife in giving me an account of the circumstances. refused to make confession, and very naturally inquired, how it was that one of the reverend gentlemen couldn't give absolution as well as the other?' Oh, 'replied the negative divine, Mr.

The sick man

is a priest; he has received the power from Almighty God; I have not.'

The following fact illustrates 'what manner of spirit' is at work for the extirpation of heresy and the revival of the religious sentiment amongst the fallen masses of our poorer brethren. One day a curate had just made a call where I usually visit. Some statements had been put forth by him which were controverted by the inmates of the house. 'Oh,' he answered, 'I come to give instruction, if you are willing to receive it, not to enter into controversy. Argumentation with you would only degrade my office and flatter your vanity.'

*Why do you

attend chapel?' asked a clergyman of a poor woman; 'you won't hear the gospel there; you should come to church to obtain the truth.' She inquired how she could be assured of that. 'Oh,' he replied, the Bishop will see to that: he makes us preach the truth.' 'Well,' said another to a poor old person who has attended our Mission chapel from its opening, 'you may live seven years, but, if you do, I won't read the Burial Service over you.'

OBITUARY.

1848. Oct. 30, at Dorchester, Massachusetts, aged thirty, Rev. HIRAM WITHINGTON. Of this estimable American minister we derive the particulars that follow from an affectionate tribute to his memory, in the last number of the Christian Examiner, from the pen of his friend, Rev. Alonzo Hill.

Mr. Withington was born in Dorchester, July 29, 1818. He was educated in the schools of his native village, and at the early age of seventeen became an instructor in the grammar and Sunday-schools which he had attended. In the latter, he was a favourite with young and old. When it was his turn to give the general lesson to the children in the school, so attractive was his little sermon, so simple and beautiful, delivered in a tone so impressive and sweet, that they would cluster around him and hang upon his words. His thoughts turned from an early period to the ministry. There were many difficulties to be overcome in the preparatory studies. He picked up a little Latin here and there, and laid aside the small income of his school. By the mediation of Mr. Hall, his minister, he was introduced to Dr. Allen, of Northboro', with whom he spent two years as a pupil-assistant. He then entered the Divinity School at Cambridge, where he spent three years. He left Cambridge in July, 1844; and the dissertation which he read at the annual visitation, "on the Mystical Element in Religion," awakened high expectations. It was published in the Christian Examiner, Ñovember, 1844. He settled at the close of that year at Leominster, as minister of the First Congregational church. He better loved to think than to read and study. His intellect was exceedingly active. He learned almost by intuition. His discourses were composed with great rapidity. Compositions which enchained the attention of his hearers were thrown off at a sitting. He possessed great richness of fancy. He was an habitual student and an ardent lover of Nature. His early sermons were lavishly adorned, and possessed more poetry than theology. This was a fault which he soon corrected. His views of life were, notwithstanding his poetical temperament, eminently practical. His plans of usefulness were sober. He was the life of his Sunday-school, and all its

details were arranged by himself. He attempted important changes in his church, resolving it into an association for religious improvement and benevolent action. In his habits, he was simple almost to plainness. In his dress, his domestic arrangements, his social intercourse, his pastoral walks, his pulpit exhibitions, he was the farthest possible removed from a finical elegance. Yet he possessed a peculiar refinement of taste and feeling. He was gentle in his manners, speech and thought, loving in his affections, tender in his feelings and most tender of the feelings of others, true in his attachments, pliant in his temper, and yielding in his disposition to a certain point, to any extent of inconvenience, playful almost to hilarity within the bounds of innocent freedom; but beyond those bounds, when truth and duty demanded it, he was fixed and firm and unyielding as a rock. His, too, was the true spirit of devotion; his piety was unaffected and childlike. In his parochial duties he was most faithful, inviting his people to his own house, visiting them in their scattered homes, taking the superintendence of their schools, addressing them in religious meetings, lecturing before their Lyceums. Considering his broken health, the amount of work he achieved was almost incredible; yet he thought he had done nothing. He married, but in one short year his home was desolate: he found himself a widower, the father of an orphaned babe, whose mother, the object of his early attachment, was in her early grave. When the heats of summer came on, his health gave way. He dragged his enfeebled frame about with the slow martyrdom of the invalid. Notwithstanding sickness and bereavement, he met his friends with his accustomed smile, and to the outward eye went on his way as cheerfully as ever. After a time he married again, and gathered about him anew the comforts of a home. His illnesses soon became frequent; he had pressed the feeble frame too far. Finding himself utterly unequal to his weighty charge, he sought and received a dismission from his people, July 2, 1848. Their sorrow was expressed by their votes and by their continuance of the salary to the day of his death. It was his hope, after a few months' rest, to resume his labours in a smaller field

of duty. He retired to his native village. The summer passed and the autumn advanced amidst alternate hopes and fears. With the autumn came sickness and prostration of mind and body: his fine powers were all unstrung. After weeks of almost unconsciousness, he sunk to rest, October 30, 1848. He was buried, in a spot chosen by himself, in his own parish at Leominster. He was followed by a long procession of his people and friends to the place of his rest. It was the noon of a beautiful autumnal day, and the sun without a cloud was looking down upon a congregation in tears, for he was now preaching to them his last and most impressive discourse. The young pastor who had come to them in the full tide of life and hope three years before, who had walked among them so holily and unblameably, and won their affections, now led them into the beautiful grave, where he had so often followed to soothe and sustain. There he sleeps beneath the soil, while the spring flower above him in its early decay shall image to the heart his brief life, and the pine trees that wave over him in their perennial verdure shall be the emblems of the influence which he has left behind.

Feb. 20, at his residence, St. Martin's, Leicester, PETER COLSTON, Esq., aged 68. Through a long series of years he suffered at intervals from the attacks of a painful disorder, and for more than twelve months previous to his death he was afflicted with total blindness; but, like so many who have gone before him, he found his best support under the trials of life in a firm belief of the enlightened and consolatory views offered by Unitarian Christianity. He possessed also another source of mental peace, even more important-a good conscience. In all private relations his conduct was exemplary, and as a master he secured the attachment and respect of his workmen in a very high degree. This was the result of his uniform practice of justice and humanity-points not always sufficiently attended to by employers. It was his rule in every case to do, not the thing that appeared in some respects desirable, but the thing that was right.

Feb. 20, at Devon House, Kingsdown, Bristol, SAMUEL LANG, aged 65. Mr. Lang was born at Tavistock, in Devonshire, in the year 1785. His pa

rents were Presbyterians, and members of the Old Abbey chapel in that town. When he was quite young, an interesting event occurred in connection with the chapel. Mr. Theophilus Edwards had been the minister more than twenty years. But in the year 1794, he was called by the Mint congregation to remove to Exeter, where he became the successor of the Rev. Joseph Bretland. A vacancy was thus created in the ministerial office, and the Rev. William Evans, who was then temporarily supplying the pulpit at Bridgewater, was invited to preach. The precise views of Mr. Edwards on doctrinal subjects had not been declared to his congregation (having rarely, if ever, preached a doctrinal discourse), but it soon became evident that the new candidate was a decided Unitarian. This caused a schism in the congregation; and it rose to such a height, that a secession of some of its members was the consequence. The parents of the subject of this memoir, and all his family, who formed a majority of the congregation, took part with Mr. Evans, and he was consequently chosen minister. This incident shews the interest which the family of Mr. Lang took in liberal Christianity. How largely he imbibed their spirit, was evinced in the warm interest he took throughout his life in the promo. tion of Unitarian Christianity. When first he entered upon the active business of life, he was engaged with an uncle at Plymouth, who was always a kind friend to him. Here he took a great interest in the affairs of the Unitarian chapel, and, having given some attention to psalmody, became a member of the choir. About the year 1806, he removed to Bristol, where he entered vigorously into mercantile pursuits, which he carried on with success until his retirement from business, about the middle of last year. He always maintained a high character for principle and integrity in his dealings, and was held in great esteem by all who knew him. He spent a large portion of his time in travelling through South Wales, where he was universally beloved. In fact, so highly was he appreciated, and so kind and affectionate were his manners, that it has frequently happened, when a dispute occurred between neighbours in the interval of his journeys, it was left till he came to heal the breach, and to bring those who had been estranged for awhile together again. He was generous almost to a fault. He was an ac

tive member of the Lewin's Mead society for upwards of forty years, during which time he filled the office of treasurer and deacon, was also secretary to the Western Unitarian Society, a feoffee of the Stokes Croft charity, and was a zealous supporter of the various schools connected with the chapel. In his political opinions he was a reformer. He took a warm interest in the late Sir Samuel Romilly's cause, when he contested the representation of the city; and had all professors of liberal opinions been as consistent as himself, that great man would have been Member for the city. He was very diffident of his own powers, and always shunned display, preferring rather to follow than to lead; but a man more active and diligent in any thing he undertook, never lived. On his retirement from business, he was looking forward to pass the remainder of his days in the peace and quiet of his family. He was singularly fond of children. It was his custom, to the close of his life, to have many of his children and grandchildren with him on a Sunday. It was hoped and fondly believed by those who best knew Mr. Lang's worth, that many years of usefulness and tranquil happiness were yet in store for him; but it was otherwise ruled by the Great Disposer of events. He sank under the effects of a malignant disease which had

only recently manifested itself. He was singularly patient and resigned during his decline and fatal sickness, and shewed the consoling power of the religion which had been his guide through life.

Bristol, March 2, 1849.

Feb. 7, at his residence, Hull, HERBERT SEATON, Esq., aged 66 years. He had for many years retired from business, and devoted his time and services to the improvement and well-being of the town. He was an earnest and devoted attendant on Unitarian worship. In his private relations, he was a kind master and an affectionate husband. His remains were attended to the cemetery by a long train of townsmen and fellow-worshipers, anxious to pay the last token of respect to his

memory.

Feb. 28, MARY ANN VENNING, elder daughter of the late Ann and John Venning, of Walthamstow and Milk Street.

March 3, Miss WATSON, of Lansdown Crescent, eldest surviving daughter of the late Rev. Thomas Watson.

March 12, at Homerton, of consumption, aged 24, LOUISA, youngest daughter of Mr. E. I. FIELD.

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THERE is no subject more interesting and important than that of the Philosophy of Religion. The views entertained on that subject must have a powerful influence both upon the formation of a religious faith and the cultivation of a religious life. As is the character of men's philosophy of religion, so will, in a great measure at least, be the relation in which they stand toward Christianity. It is not necessary, in order to this, that a man should have professedly directed his attention to such philosophy; for the very crudity and scantiness of his notions with regard to it, will have as distinct an influence upon him as the most profound investigation could.

Important as this subject must at all times be, it seems to us especially important at the present time. In our age and country, religion is evidently in a state of transition; and the safety of that agitation by which its changes are accompanied, mainly depends upon the nature of those philosophical principles in consistency with which the transition may be effected.

It was under the impression of these sentiments that we opened the book whose title we have given below. We rejoiced that a book with this title had been published by so respectable a writer as Mr. Morell, hoping that it would tend to settle, on a satisfactory basis, some of the religious questions which just now imperatively require to be settled. We have been disappointed. Though displaying considerable talent, the work is wanting in the depth and grasp of thought which the subject demands. Its great merit is its clearness; but it owes this quality rather to the limitation of its views than to the mastery attained by its author over the topics he discusses. We doubt whether the character of Mr. Morell's mind would fit him, under any circumstances, for the adequate fulfilment of the task he has undertaken; but the position he has chosen to occupy renders what fitness he might possess almost entirely abortive. It is his constant attempt to patch up a reconciliation between opposite theological opinions; and he thus deprives himself of the force appropriate to either side of his case. Instead of the independent and vigorous effort we could desire, we meet with untenable compromises, by which heterodox doctrines are clothed in orthodox forms; and hesitating inquiries which halt between the premises and their legitimate conclusions. It is true that the theory of religion advocated by Mr. Morell does not, in the same sense, possess the

By J. D. Morell, A. M. London-Longman,
Pp. 427. 1849.

* The Philosophy of Religion. Brown, Green, and Longmans. 8vo.

VOL. V.

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