aid has given the Magazine a standing, both in Theology and other departments, which entitles it to the growing confidence and support of the Churches.

But the Magazine is not only a vehicle of sound Biblical Instruction, and of popular Religious Intelligence ;—it is, and has been for sixty years, the steady friend of THE MINISTER'S WIDOW. The Editor never allows himself to forget this;-he entreats his beloved Brethren in the Ministry never to forget it. It is not a slender benefit that is conferred on our Widowed Sisters, from the funds of the EVANGELICAL MAGAZINE. £1,300 per annum, looking at the charitable resources to which Ministers' Widows can look with hope, are, indeed, a large revenue. But let not our dear Brethren forget, that this revenue depends mainly on the sale of the work. Our Congregational Brethren ought to be the last to forget this. Presbyterians, Episcopalians, Calvinistic Methodists, receive considerable help; but the Widows of Congregational Ministers had voted to them, for 1853, the splendid sum of £1,108.

The Editor, then, would say, with all the earnestness he can command, to his Brethren, read-circulate the EVANGELICAL MAGAZINE, for its own sake; it will be a blessing to the Churches; it will prove itself the friend of Pastors and their Flocks;-but, if you can lose sight of all this, do not forget the 150 Widows of your deceased Brethren, who are dependent for subsistence and comfort upon the annual votes of the Trustees; do not devolve on that highly respectable body the sad mortification of reducing the incomes of these godly women, who are struggling hard to maintain themselves in respectability, and to keep their heads above water. Do not do this, especially when a little zealous effort, and a warm notice from the Christian Pulpit, would ward off the whole calamity. With a steady circulation of 2,000 more copies monthly, the Trustees will be able to continue their gratuities without diminution.

May "the Father of the fatherless, and the Husband of the widow" put it into the hearts of all our Brethren, to make such efforts for the Magazine, during the present month, as shall relieve the Trustees from anything like the apprehension of a diminished scale of distribution. Let the issues of January, 1854, prove that this appeal has not been made in vain.

EDITOR.

THE

EVANGELICAL MAGAZINE,

AND

MISSIONARY CHRONICLE.

FOR JANUARY, 1853.

THE POWER OF EVANGELICAL TRUTH.

A MEMORIAL OF INTERESTING MINISTERIAL LIFE.

(To the Editor of the EVANGELICAL MAGAZINE.)

MY DEAR SIR,-It cannot be denied that the members of our churches, who have called their respective pastors to labour amongst them, have a principal claim to their time and their energies; yet, what faithful minister would not wish to do something, at least, beyond his own immediate "line of things," in order to "win souls" to Christ? Much good has been done by this means, and the spirit of our holy religion has been thus exemplified by some who have given proof of a real "apostolical succession," upon whom episcopal hands were never laid. Among such zealous and exemplary pastors was the Rev. William George, minister of the Independent church at Ross, Herefordshire, who laboured amongst that people from the year 1796 until 1802, when he removed to some other station, to me at present unknown. I have been informed, however, that he had something of the spirit of the immortal Whitefield, and what I am about to write will show the effect of an occasional sermon which he preached from home, and the irresistible force of evangelical truth, when attended by the influence of the Holy

VOL. XXX

Spirit in the conversion of mankind. Mr. George being announced to preach at a farm house, near the village of Whitchurch, among those who came to hear was the Rev. Thomas Jones, a clergyman, who resided at no great distance.

Under that sermon, Mr. Jones was so deeply affected, that he is said to have "wept like a child," and soon gave satisfactory evidence that his impressions were salutary and permanent, as he became quite another man. Having considerable landed property, and valuing the gospel more than the parochial system of the Church of England, he erected, at his own cost, a substantial chapel at Ruxton, for the spiritual benefit of his tenants there and at the adjoining farm of Lancraugh, with such other persons as might choose to attend it, although the parish church at Marston was not far from it. He died, however, before the building was entirely finished, when his son, the late Rev. John Jones, who was then under age, took an interest in the affair, and determined to finish what his father had begun. He also bore the expense of getting the chapel supplied, and continued to support

B

evangelical preaching there as long as | perty, and in which the church prayers he lived. Through his influence the were read from the beginning, as in Rev. Isaac Skynner, of Monmouth, was most of the chapels of the Countess of induced to supply there on Sabbath Huntingdon. He then resided at Langafternoons, and eventually to become | ston Court, one of his own estates, where minister of the place, until he removed he delivered lectures on Sunday eveninto Warwickshire, and died in Bir-ings, preaching at Ruxton only on Sabmingham. bath mornings. Having an ample fortune, he officiated gratis, and, for several years, defrayed all the expenses attending public worship, having no collections, nor ever asking the people for anything. In front of Ruxton chapel he built a noble portico, having antique Ionic columns and pilasters, which, being of freestone, greatly adds to its respectability, and forms a lasting monument of his taste and munificence, After this, Mr. Jones purchased Langrove cottage, with a few acres of land, which he has since left in trust towards the support of his successors in the ministry. Here he took up his final residence, and built an elegant room for public worship, adjoining his own dwelling. Here he preached on Sunday evenings, until the autumn of 1851, when he had a paralytic stroke at the close of the service, in consequence of which he was entirely laid aside from his public engagements. Although favourable to Congregational, or Independent principles, his judgment was not decided until he read the "Declaration of Faith, Church-order, and Discipline," published by the Congregational Union of England and Wales, when he yielded to the force of truth, or what appeared to be so to him. Although, in public worship, Mr. Jones made use of the Book of Common Prayer, and thought well of it upon the whole, without regarding it as a faultless composition, he concurred with the Rev. Rowland Hill, that "ministers should have elbow-room," and not be slavishly confined to it. He therefore took the liberty of altering and abridging it, and seldom used the Lord's Prayer more than once in the same service. In short, he would not read,

During Mr. Jones's minority, he was sent by his father's trustees to Rotherham College, where he was educated for the ministry, under Dr. Edward Williams, who had been pastor at Ross, where those trustees resided, and who are believed to have been church members there. Whether this was done by virtue of the father's will, or otherwise, is not certain; but the former is thought to have been the case. At Rotherham, Mr. Jones was received as a parlour boarder, and became the attached friend of his fellow-student, the Rev. John Hammond, of Handsworth. Such was their friendship that when the latter was about leaving college, Mr. Jones offered him Ruxton chapel, with a good residence at Whitchurch, but which he declined accepting, because of the smallness of the population. Mr. Jones was not then a Dissenter, and there were, indeed, reasons which led him to receive episcopal ordination, after which he successively served two or more curacies in Herefordshire, and at one time was curate at Walton, in Staffordshire, under the liberal-minded and excellent Mr. Gisbourne. While discharging his duties in the Establishment, Mr. Jones told me that he "never was much of a churchman;" and it is certain that he became, by degrees, so dissatisfied as finally to give up all official connexion with it. Mr. Hammond remembers to have asked him "how he became serious and evangelical in his views," when "he looked up, and said he believed it to be from above, but did not seem to trace it to any human instrumentality." On retiring from the national church, Mr. Jones became minister of Ruxton chapel, which was still his own pro