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MISSION TO CORFU.

SINCE our last publication, an important step has been taken by the Ladies' Society relative to the Mission to Corfu. A correspondence with the Rev. WM. CHARTERIS, a licentiate of the Free Church of Scotland, has terminated in his undertaking the Mission. He will be ordained by the Presbytery of London; and, as soon as the requisite arrangements are completed, will proceed to the scene of his labours. The Society gratefully own the guiding hand of the Great Head of the Church, in directing them to an agent qualified for this peculiar work; and one who has with much frankness and disinterestedness accepted their invitation. They trust that, by God's blessing on them, his ministrations in this neglected colony may be the means of gathering in Christ's redeemed people from among Jews, and Greeks, and British residents. As in this case the missionary's wife cannot take charge of the Jewish school, the Committee are anxious to find a lady qualified for this important department of their original scheme-one who, feeling an affectionate solicitude for Israel, is willing to labour among the Jewish girls of the island.

THE REV. DR. WELSH.

As our last number was on the point of being put to press, we were most painfully startled by the sad intelligence that Dr. Welsh, Professor of Church History in the College of the Free Church of Scotland, had died suddenly on the 24th April; the intelligence reaching us, however, too late to admit of its being then reported. Although Dr. Welsh had long suffered severely from disease of the heart, no immediate danger was apprehended, and on the forenoon of that day he had taken his usual carriage-airing. In the evening, by the fire-side, Mrs. Welsh was occasionally reading to him passages of Scripture, and amongst these, the tenth verse of the sixty-first chapter of Isaiah, "I will greatly rejoice in the Lord, my soul shall be joyful in my God; for he hath clothed me with the garments of salvation, he hath covered me with the robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom decketh himself with ornaments, and as a bride adorneth herself with her jewels." He immediately turned these words into a beautiful prayer, which he had scarcely finished, when he stretched out his hands, exclaiming, "Oh, I am going," and falling back in his chair, expired without a struggle, leaving a blank which, we fear, there is at present no means fully to supply. In the scope which our limited space affords, it were

MONDAY, JUNE 2, 1845.

impossible, either to detail the many causes which render the removal of Dr. Welsh, at the present time, an irreparable loss to his country and his Church, or to state, with anything like the fulness which the subject demands, the But we cannot let pass so heavy and mournful a dispensation without recording, however imperfectly, our sense of his eminence as a Christian minister, a scholar, and a trainer of youth. It was the good fortune of the writer of this notice, in his own early years to make the acquaintance of Dr. Welsh. He was introduced to his father, a clergyman of the then unbroken Church of Scotland, by another distinguished man (of whom also mention is made in this number of the "Messenger"), and with him, or alone, he occasionally visited the country manse, and sometimes officiated for the minister. The writer was then too young, perhaps, to estimate fully and accurately the peculiarities of Dr. Welsh's mental conformation; and his long absence from Scotland in later years gave him only occasional opportunities, when Dr. Welsh visited England, of observing personally the progressive development of his character. But on looking back to the earlier time, he can trace, in the impressions Dr. Welsh then made on him, the embryo pencillings of that fully filled up picture which the future course of that gifted man has engraven on his mind, and which he cherishes with a warm remembrance of the interest he took in his youthful studies. His deportment then seemed to the writer to be outwardly rather cold and retiring, but there was an evident sincerity in all he said or did, a true-heartedness in all his bearing, which at once drew confidence and esteem, and which bespoke an under-current of strong and genuine feelings, calmly and steadily flowing, although with little on the surface to mark its course. His high attainments as a scholar, a philosopher, and a divine, the writer could not then pretend fully to comprehend or appreciate, but he felt the surest proof that they were lofty and of wide expanse, and that his views and principles were sound and true, in the pleasure which his intercourse ever afforded to his father (himself, even a son may say, of masculine intellect, of extensive erudition, and sincere piety), to whom the visits of such a man as Dr. Welsh, though few and sometimes far between, were like angels-brightening the path of his everyday arduous calling, with an enjoyment of intellectual companionship, which he sought in vain amongst the men of his own neighbourhood. Dr. Welsh was at that time residing in Edinburgh, pursuing that course of study and moral training which made him in after life the fitting historian of Dr. Thomas Brown, and a faithful and laborious minister of the Gospel of Christ. In the life of Dr. Brown, and more especially, perhaps, in the chapter on the "Inquiry into the relation of Cause and Effect," and one or two which follow in connexion with its subject, Dr. Welsh displayed a singularly clear

events of his honourable and useful career.

No. 2.

and penetrating knowledge of the human mind and all its intricate operations, and discoursed of these in noble and majestic thoughts, but with such lucid and familiar illustrations as have rendered them intelligible

even to unlearned readers. As a minister and

pastor he fed the flocks intrusted to his care with all diligence and affection; and his published sermons abound with clear and elevated views of all parts of Divine truth, showing him to have been amply furnished for the work of the ministry, zealous in the discharge of all its duties, and most anxiously solicitous to make his ministrations conducive to the eternal welfare of his people. With a mind richly supplied from all departments of learning, whose stores he dispensed liberally, and with admirable clearness and ability, and ever ready, from the native kindness of his disposition, to communicate to others, he was greatly prized and esteemed by all who had access to his society, whilst they who knew his inner man, his thorough sincerity, his sanctified devotedness, and his lofty and holy communings with God and things eternal, were led to regard him with peculiar affection and esteem. His fame was in all the Church; and, on a vacancy occurring in the chair of Church History in the University of Edinburgh, his appointment to that important professorship was hailed with universal satisfaction. How well he justified these approving opinions— how earnestly he devoted himself to the labours of his office, and how truly he sought to give the best and most profitable direction to the studies of his pupils, both prior to the disruption in the Church of Scotland, and subsequently in the same office in the College of the Free Church, we need not tell; but the happy results of his training, we doubt not, will be seen hereafter in the ministry and life of those whom he so well instructed. It were to slight a great benefit, conferred by the providence of God on that Free Church, did we not refer, with deep gratitude, to another important event in Dr. Welsh's life, viz., his being at the period of the disruption Moderator of the Assembly-a position requiring, under the very extraordinary circumstances of the time, a large exercise of his characteristic wisdom and decision; and which, with the high esteem universally entertained both for his public and private character, gave to him an influence most beneficial to the progress and success of the great work then begun. In the sudden removal of such a man, the Church and the world sustain a loss, which both must confess their present inability to repair; but whilst his death excites most poignant and general sorrow, let us be thankful that a gracious God placed him where he was, at a most eventful time, when his mighty intellect, his high attainments, his holy principles, and the general weight of his character, were of peculiar value to His cause in the land of our fathers, where, doubtless, his name will be long and reverently honoured, and where, we trust, his example will not fail to influence others to follow in his steps.

ON a day like this we can scarcely pass in silence that great man who first occupied this pulpit-whose name is indissolubly associated with this sanctuary, and but for whom there should have been no such edifice. Indeed, it is not in our heart to do so. We think the day has come for alluding to him freely. We never felt, what some here have felt, his living spell-the majestic enchaining of his eloquence, or the happier thraldom of his bewitching intercourse. It is among the first of childish memories, the awful security with which we rode on his shoulder, and then played with himself, anxiously, at first, as we should have played with a lion, and then, in excessive glee, surprised to find our lion so exceeding gentle in his sport. Then fourteen years passed on, and we saw one Sabbath afternoon a solemn apparition slowly riding by, and many of the passengers turning round to gaze after the wonderful but sore-wasted man. He seemed like one who was riding to his tomb, and taking a stately leave of the gazers who looked after him. It was beside that Glasgow Cathedral, where a few weeks after they laid his bones, that we caught this second sight of the memorable man, whose playful company we shared among the hawthorn trees and lilac bushes at Strathblane. We never adored nor maligned him when living, and, perhaps, can the more truly speak of him now. It is our deliberate conviction, then, that few have, in these last times, more marvellously united the pastor and the prophet, consecrated genius, and assiduous affection that intellectual sublimity which ennobled the topics which it touched, and that exuberant benignity which propitiated, and carried conclusively captive, the objects of its continual forth-flowing. His mind was like his heart, of the largest human size; and, as he loved without effort, so he was inevitably eloquent. And because he squandered his brave thoughts and burning words on the most ordinary occasions, and in the midst of the littlest men so the very consistency of his grandeur abated much of its effect, in a world which keeps its grandeur for set times and gala days. There was nothing vulgar in his make, and consequently nothing looked trivial in his eye. His mental furniture was all in keepingmassy, antique, ample; and his vocabulary was the expression of his mind. Through the stained window of his rich-colouring fancy every landscape wore its luxurious gaiety, or its purple gloom; and in the silver basket of his idealism, the most common gourds shone through like golden apples. And it was not his fault, but the world's, that life is not actually the thing of wonder, and nobility, and delight, which his creative eye beheld it. Hence came what is vulgarly called his vanity. No sort of vanity is good; but the most innocent is that which comes, as his did come,

*The above is from the close of a sermon on Eph. iv. 11, preached in Regent-square Church, on Sabbath, May 1lth, the eighteenth anniversary of its opening. To meet the request of some who heard it, and to save a separate publication, the portion immediately referring to Mr. Irving

is inserted here. Next to the Church of Scotland, the thing of which he was proudest was Scotland itself. No man ever did so much for either in the British metropolis; and it is to be regretted that the services which in his best estate he rendered to Presbyterianism and to Christianity, are so much forgotten in the theological errors of his latter years. Of course the word "prophet" is used in the restricted sense of which it is still susceptible-one who consecrates genius to the enforcement of the Divine

requirements or the exaltation of the truth as it

is in Jesus.

But I am speaking of the man who entered this pulpit on the morning of that Sabbath, in May 27; and I say again, it will be long before any pulpit exhibit such a combination of the prophet and the pastor, as entered this one that day. If to speak what a man believes to be truth, in the name of the Lord, without fear or favour, make a man a prophet if to rear a fence of stately protection round any assaulted doctrine, expounding it, so as to make it divinely self-commending, or attiring it in such glories of noble thought and feeling, as to draw towards it the reverential regards of passers-by-if this be, in any Bible sense, to prophesy, he was a prophet indeed. Seldom have bigger thoughts and loftier sentiments struggled for expression in mortal speech, than those which are all but embodied in his magnificent Orations; and, though his practical wisdom did not keep pace with his discursive prowess, the might of his genius, and the grandeur of his views, and the prevailing solemnity of his spirit, gave a temporary lift to an earthly age. His presence was like Elijah's in the land of Israel, a protest against prevailing sins; and, like every protest in Jehovah's name, it carried a sanction, and diffused an awe. And here lay his moral greatness. Here was the thing which truly made him a "Hero." In each controversy, he took what he believed to be the Lord's side; and in every audience, spoke clearly out what he believed to be God's truth. With all his love of human love, he had no fear of man; even, as with all his faithfulness, there mingled no atom of malignity. In the pulpit as bold as the Baptist, he was, in private, a very Barnabas a son of consolation. In his voice, and looks, and movements, such continual comfort-in his spontaneous sympathy, and exuberant joy, that perpetual cordial, which an image of a better Friend-made no day dull on which he shone, and no dwelling desolate which still expected his visit. And whilst the multitudes came out to hear the prophet, the memories in which he now chiefly lives are theirs, who knew him as the pastor. His big heart, and noble purposes, gave a new idea of the capabilities of this our mismanaged and ill-wrought humanity; and if even his noble nature was frustrated at last if his burning and shining light felt the lurid obscuration of bewildering fogs, it is only one reason more for desiring a firmament without a fog-a region without delusion-a world where the noblest purposes will have nobler consummation, and the biggest heart will never break!

MORPETH PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH.

To the Editor of the English Presbyterian Messenger. Morpeth, May 6th, 1845. REV. AND DEAR SIR,-Allow me to request the favour of a small space in your " Messenger" for the accompanying list of subscriptions towards the repair and enlargement of our place of worship. The main object we have in view is to provide church accommodation for the

|

large and increasing number of children attending our Sabbath-schools. The want of this is an evil of serious and alarming magnitude. A church-going habit is never acquired, and the young grow up in a state of alienation and estrangement from the communion to which they belong. The impressions made by the instructions of the Sabbathschool during the few brief hours of attendance there are brushed away by the afterwork of Sabbath desecration, which is the almost necessary consequence of exclusion from the house of God. What we desiderate is that the Sabbath-school shall be made the porch of entrance into the church, and that all who are pupils in our schools shall be worshippers in our congregations. The only way in which we can rationally hope to obtain a permanent augmentation to our numbers and to the household of faith at large, is by operating upon the young. A great number of the children at present receiving instruction in our Sabbath-schools belong to parents who have no religious type beyond that of having been baptized in the Church of England, though they never cross the threshhold of her sanctuary, nor indeed that of any place of worship on the Lord'sday. But their children might be trained to better habits, at least, and by being brought under holier influences, might become, through the working of God's Spirit, fellow-citizens of the saints, had we, what the bounty of our friends could soon enable us to possess, the means of assembling them with their teachers in the house of God on his holy day. While earnestly desirous to bring these little ones to Christ, we cannot be unconcerned about bringing them to him through the medium of our own scripturally constituted Church; the more especially that but for our interposition, or that of our Dissenting friends in this community, they must become the prey of those who are constantly laying in wait to appropriate them, that they may lead captive their yet ductile and undiscerning minds, to the slavish belief of dogmas and doctrines, which we cannot more charitably characterize than as the poisonous expressed juice of an ill-concealed Popery.

When our plan was projected in the end of last year, I stated to the representatives of the congregation, that if they would raise among themselves, and their friends, the sum of 2001., I would pledge myself to raise 100% on the faith of the Christian benevolence of Presbyterian England. Though comparatively a poor congregation, they promptly implemented their part of the contract. I have now to redeem mine; and though in return to about forty circulars which I issued in January, I have only received the sum of 15%, I am so far from being discouraged, that I solicit this opportunity, through your indulgence, of a wider circulation to the appeal which I reiterate in the lingering hope that it may yet be responded to. I feel it to be rather an unseemly office to assume at the very outset of my settlement in a strange land (which is now my adopted home), to appear as a petitioner to public bounty. It is an embassy on which I was never before employed, and for which I have, perhaps, as little aptitude as I certainly have little inclination. But the events of late years, among other valuable lessons, have taught me to accommodate myself to my circumstances, and having girded myself to the work, I will, with God's help, go through with it, and with all the more confidence, that I plead for no private interest, but for a great and a public good. Circumstanced as Morpeth is, without any self-supporting power, and now deprived of

Mr. Robt. Hood
Mr. Wm. Pringle
Mr. Robt. Purdy...
Wm. Woodman, Esq.....
Mrs. Fenwick ...
Mr. John Angus

its markets, which were formerly the feeders of its ordinary channels of industry and income, our Sabbath-schools will become as subservient to the growth of other congregations as to our own, by the removal of a large Mr. D. Cairns portion of our youth to wider and more encouraging spheres of employment.

I will not believe, unless the conviction is forced upon me by the failure of the present application, that the bounty of our friends will be withheld from a congregation struggling to sustain its present usefulness, and to secure its future strength. Regarded merely as a matter of ecclesiastical economics, the boon solicited would not be uselessly bestowed. It might have a fruitful increase. It would certainly prompt a grateful congregation to reciprocate it by more willing and self-denying efforts to help forward the Church from which it emanated, in her educational and Evangelistic operations. If the money realized should be more than sufficient to meet the expenses of the contemplated improvements, the surplus will be devoted to an object of parallel importance, that of building a school in inseparable connexion with the Church. But should we be denied the means of realizing even our first desideratum, it had been a thousand times better that we had never

entertained it, for the disappointment of our
hopes would impart renewed energy to the
active and very undisguised efforts which are
now being made to undermine and extinguish
us. Our proselytizing antagonists, (I am com-
pelled to use the term,) powerful only by their
carnal weapons, would eye us as an easy con-
quest, when they discovered that, though
nominally the members of a strength-gathering
body, we were yet left virtually without sym-
pathy for our wants, or aid for our weakness,
to sustain our disputed status on our own
scanty resources. And our semi-presbyte-
rianised people would refuse their consent to
a Synodical Confederation of congregations, in
which the weak derived no benefit from
union to the strong. Subscriptions will be
received in London, by Mr. James Anderson,
No. 6, Billiter-square, and in Morpeth, by

Your faithful and obedient servant,
JAMES ANDERSON.

Subscriptions received towards the Repairs and Enlargement of the Morpeth Presbyterian Church.

Wm. Trotter, Esq., M.D........

Mrs. Pawson, Shawdon.....................
Mrs. H. Nicholson ..

Hon. Capt. Howard, M.P.

Lord Morpeth

Miss Trotter

£50 0 0 50 00

00

0 0

20

10

5

5

0 0

...........

Mr. Robson (labour)
Mr. Robt. Anderson

Mr. Geo. Anderson, sen.
Amicus

Mr. John Robinson ..............
Chas. Wm. Bigge, Esq.
Mr. Jas. Jobling (Leading)

Mr. Geo. Hood

Mr. Robt. Hood, jun.

Messrs. Drew and Co., London

Mr. John Cranston....

Messrs. Terry and Co., York
Mr. Thos. Cranston
Rev. Matt Brown
A. R. Fenwick, Esq.
La Pleurée

Mr. John Ismay

Small Subscriptions

................

........

£0 100 of an authoritative kind. Even the Assembly of Divines at Westminster was not properly an Ecclesiastical Court. It was called together in 1643, by Parliament, to advise in the formation of a creed, and the exhibition of that creed to Parliament. There was no right recognition even of Presbyteries after that Assembly. The days of Cromwell were at hand. And after the Restoration, when the Episcopal ministers were driven out, they could not even maintain their position as congregational pastors. He mentioned these things because of the blame that had been cast on English Presbyterianism, as first containing Arminian, and then Socinian doctrine, and then a Rationalism approaching to Infidelity. Blame did not fairly attach to it, because, in 6 point of fact, Presbytery never was rightly organized in this part of the island;-there were no properly constituted Courts of Christ, and no proper Courts of Review. He rejoiced to find that day, in their position as Presbyteries and a Synod, what was formerly wanting, and it augured well for their future prospects. He had always thought, when he heard in India of their applying for representation in the Scottish Assembly, that they would better discharge their duties without that dependence upon another body. He congratulated the Synod on the formation of a College. It ought to be a maxim in every Church to depend on itself mainly for its own ministry. Even in propagating the Gospel among the Heathens, they had been compelled to admit this principle. And the course which the Synod had pursued, it was already evident, from the funds raised, the able professors appointed, and the number of the students, proved that it upon by God." He believed the eyes of other Christians in England were now directed to the Presbyterian cause more than ever they were before. Till recently, while in the north some right idea of Presbyterianism had existed, for there the system has been in a measure organized, in the south of England the idea was associated with Socinianism. Now, however, it was known that there was a Presbyterian Church allied to that which has lifted up so signal a testimony for Christ's headship. The Free Church had a great advantage in this, that her ministers were tried men, who had suffered for Christ to the spoiling of their goods. In that advantage the Presbyterian Church in England also shared. If it had not undergone great trials, it had overcome great temptations. The eyes of worldlings had been turned to the vacancies presented in the north, and they had gone to supply them. As the pole attracts the needle, so had such men been attracted by the metallic veins which the disruption had laid open in Scotland. They had, therefore, a purged ministry in England, whom the Free Church

Wooler, Thursday.

was smiled

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come great temptations. He did not doubt but they would maintain the purity to which happily they had arrived. It would generally be found that declension was introduced into the Church mainly by carelessness in admitting ministers. Against that evil he was sure they would guard. He rejoiced, too, that they were missionary in their spirit, and were bent on tiles. He was in the Holy Land when he pursuing such efforts among Jews and Genheard of the Scottish disruption, and the first question he put to himself was, "How will the Free Church of Scotland treat the country? Will they resort to Dr. Chalmer's plan, as it was derisively called, of drawing squares and parallelograms over the country, or will they act upon the congregational plan of establishing churches in the centres of circles?"