is the easiest method of doing good, and by far the most respectable. But is this well-pleasing to God? We trow not. He demands both our money and personal effort. Every talent is to accumulate: all our powers are to be consecrated. He who has wealth as well as physical and mental abilities is doubly responsible. Because I have a pair of horses, shall one of them do all the work, and the other remain unemployed? Nay, they shall both be put into harness. Now, it is what Thomas Carlyle calls an everlasting act of heaven's parliament' that nothing and no one shall be an acceptable substitute for our individual endeavour. Its message now is the same that was delivered to a morally indolent people in times by-gone ;Woe unto them that are at ease in Zion. To such as pay guinea subscriptions, and give sovereign donations to benevolent societies, to such as sit comfortably in pews, and send Edmund Earnest, and Priscilla Patient, to do the spiritual work, to such as pray and pay, but end in this,-woe indeed! Measured by the standard of a diseased public opinion, they may come off with flying colours; weighed in the balances of God, they will be found wanting.' Dear reader, whether you are trying to be a servant of the Most High on this wretched system of substitution is best known to yourself. If you are, lay well to heart the great lesson which He has been teaching you from your youth up, that He must have your head and hand toil as well as your money. Delay no longer, but lay, if possible, this hour, the foundation of a building of usefulness erected, stone after stone, not by others, but thine own labours. Begin to-day nor end till evil sink In its own grave; and if at once we may not Be sure at least that ever in our mind Stars Encompassing these dusky tents; a thing Absolute, close to all, though seldom seen, Near as our Heads, and perfect as the Be this our aim and model, and our Hands Shall not wax faint until the work is done." Heavens. MEMOIR OF THE REV. JAMES KIDDALL. It is impossible within the ordinary limits of a magazine article to give anything but the merest sketch of a life of religious activity extending over a period of thirty-seven years. In such a life there is much that might with propriety be recordedincidents in personal religious experience desires and purposes to be useful to others-works attempted for Christ and souls, and work accomplished-sheaves brought home with rejoicing-and above all the grace by which the soul was enabled to suffer as well as labour, and in suffering made more than conqueror too:-but the writer's difficulty is so to select and combine these incidents as to give in a few pages a graphic picture of a busy life, and a truthful portrait of an earnest minister that shall speak home to the hearts of all readers, and lead them to glorify God in him. The events in the outward history of our beloved brother Kiddall were not very momentous, only such as are common to men, and important only from the religious and ministerial history that is interwoven He was born near with them. Manchester, January 12th, 1796. His father was a native of Grainthorpe, near Louth, and an ordained minister in the old General Baptist body, and for some years pastor of a church at Grainthorpe, now extinct. At the early age of ten years the subject of this memoir became a resident of Louth, and was afterwards apprenticed there to the drapery business, and with the ex Memoir of the Rev. James Kiddall. 379 ception of a few brief intervals re- | 1831, the friends resolved to pursided in the town till his death. chase the building and accordingly did so. From this time he was minister of the united church at Maltby and Alford. In 1819, he was married, and commenced business for himself, and in 1824, he and his beloved partner gave themselves to the Lord and were baptized by the Rev. F. Cameron, and united with the church under his pastoral care. We regret that Mr. Kiddall's memoranda referring to this period of his history is so scanty, a diary which he kept from 1817 to 1856, he afterwards destroyed. As a Christian our departed brother belonged to the beloved disciple class. He was one whose natural amiability was transformed into a sweet, tender, and earnest Christian love. Between himself and his pastor there grew up a strong brotherly affection, which ripened into great mutual confidence, that increased with the lapse of years. They were eminently like-minded in religious views and feelings. As might be expected Mr. Kiddall became his fellow helper in the Lord, often sharing his labours in occasional preaching and visiting, and in his absence presiding at church meetings. During the year in which he was baptized he began to preach the gospel in Louth and the surrounding villages. Eventually by the advice of the late Rev. Joseph Jarrom and his honoured pastor, he relinquished his occasional ministry in the villages, and began regularly to preach at Maltby. The congregations much improved, and the cause of Christ prospered in his hands, and in 1829 he was ordained pastor of that ancient church, which office he sustained till his death. The late Rev. J. Bissell, of Sutterton, and his pastor, Mr. Cameron, took part in his ordination. It was at Maltby that he preached his first public sermon-baptized his first convert-and for the first time officiated in the burial of the dead. In addition to ministering at Maltby he opened a small chapel at Alford, and preached at the two places every Lord's-day, and in In 1834, he had a stroke of paralysis which disabled him, but only for a few weeks, his strong constitution rallied and he was soon able to resume his beloved labours. From this period to 1844, but little is recorded except that he took part in the ordination of several ministers, and preached on other public occasions. What a persistency there must have been in him, in prosecuting his disinterested labours, when year after year passes away with little variation of work and service, and yet he is ever at his post, giving continual proof to his people how much he loved the work, and that he sought not theirs but them. It will be proper to remark here, that though he was pastor of the church at Maltby and Alford, yet from the beginning he provided for himself and his own by a situation which he held in the Stamp Office. In 1845, he records that to audit stamp accounts he had travelled through the county once a year about fifteen times, and on retiring from this situation was presented by the subdistributors of stamps in the county with a handsome silver tea pot. From this time forward we find him engaged as a regular clerk in the Louth bank. In 1847, he records, August 29th, at the age of sixty-five, my dear friend Cameron died. For the last three weeks of his life I left not his house day or night, and continued there until his interment. At that time I officiated in the General Baptist chapel, North-gate, and preached his funeral sermon before the corpse was lowered into the tomb, from Psalm xxxvii. 37. Mark the perfect man, &c. Afterwards wrote the inscription for his tablet and his memoir. The last sermon that Mr. Cameron heard was delivered by myself in his pulpit, August 8th, from 2 Timothy ív., 8. December 29th, Charlotte, widow | Many brief but precious interviews of the above named, died suddenly, aged sixty-three, and on Friday, January 7th, 1848, her remains were deposited in the tomb of her beloved husband. I again officiated and before her remains were lowered into their resting place, preached from these words, This woman was full of good works and alms deeds which she did, and it came to pass in those days that she was sick and died. In January, 1849, Mr. Kiddall opened Walker-gate chapel Louth, as a branch preaching place of the church at Maltby and Alford. From this time his duties were very laborious, preaching three times every Lord's-day, and travelling twenty-five miles. Yet he braced himself nobly for the additional work, counting no sacrifice too great that he might serve his Master, and testify to others the rich gospel of His grace. In this he had a great reward. The little church grew and increased, additions were made to it by baptism every year, and it will be said at last of many who listened to his voice in this place of worship, This and that man was born there. In 1854, the Rev. J. C. Smith became co-pastor with him, and preached at Maltby and Alford, and himself at Walker-gate, Louth, only. In 1855, his friends at Maltby, presented him with a silver tea service as a testimonial of their gratitude for his disinterested labours on their behalf. In September, 1858, a serious attack of illness overtook him, and it began to be evident to his friends that his active labours for Christ and his church must cease. But the end was not yet. His strong constitution partly rallied, and much lingering suffering had yet to be borne. Many months of weary waiting elapsed before his spirit was released. It was during this long lingering affliction that the writer of this brief notice became intimately acquainted with him, by coming to share his toils, and as far as able, carry on the work he had begun. | are still fresh in recollection, in which, while the bright joyousness of his natural disposition was manifest, his conversation was seasoned with grace. When in health and vigour, the joyfulness and hopefulness of his character, and temperament, must have made his presence a sunshine. His was the goodness which charms and not awes you, and it was so to the last. Apart from his affliction his spirit seemed young and buoyant. He was dis tinguished by the courtesy of his manners, and the urbanity of his spirit. His carriage was that of a Christian and a gentleman. His social affections were very strong. In no respect was he a self-contained, cold, and reserved man. To love and be loved were the impulses of his social nature. It is not for the writer to dwell on the manner in which he filled up the nearest and dearest relationship of home, that ground is sacred to silence and sorrow. But to be known thoroughly he must be seen at home, amid the ease and quietness of domestic life. The fervency of his religious feelings was manifest in his ardent sympathy with every religions movement which promised spiritual results. In his pastoral visits he was instant in season and out of season, ready to every good word and work. With him activity was not so much an effort as an element, that which would have been a toil to others was to him a passtime and a pleasure. His general habit was to rise at four o'clock in the morning, study till breakfast-during the intervals from official duties, in the time allowed for dinner and tea he would call on six or seven families never at rest-never sparing him. self-and not going about empty handed but ministering to temporal as well as spiritual need-he valued property only that he might have to give to him that needeth and adorn ing all with a blameless life. Ye are witnesses and God also how hohly and unblameably we behaved ourselves among you that believe. Memoir of the Rev. James Kiddall. He was eminently a lover of all good men, and as a consequence, had a large circle of Christian friends in the various denominations of the town and neighbourhood. 381 into ruin and helplessness after his death is able to support two ministers. Mr. Kiddall's life and labours prove that ministerial efficiency is compatible with secular employment, and also that a feeble church thus assisted becomes able and willing to sustain itself. Not only was Mr. Kiddall's ministry gratuitous, but as far as we can judge he was enabled to do the work of two men. To all ap During Mr. Kiddall's long af fliction his friends at Walker-gate presented him with a purse, containing £40. He wrote respecting it: To God be all the praise, and to my friends sincere thanks.' While free from narrow and sectarian views he was a conscientious and consistent Nonconformist. None understood the principles of Dissent better, or held them more tenaciously than he did. As a theologian his views of divine truth were clear and settled-evan-pearance he was as efficient in his gelical and orthodox. He implicitly ministry as if he had been wholly received and firmly held the true devoted to it, and probably as efficient divinity of the Saviour, the all- in his other duties as if they had had sufficiency of His atoning sacrifice his entire time and labour. The for the sins of all mankind, and full change of employment was constantly and free justification through His beneficial to him. Bank duties great work without the deeds of the relieved him from other anxious law. He received the kindred thoughts and cares, and after they truths of the Deity and agency were over he could return to of the Holy Spirit, and the ministerial work with new energy necessity of His influences in the and zeal. renewal and sanctification of our nature. In these and other kindred doctrines he was fully established, and as years and experience increased he held them and the hopes they inspire dearer than life. Our denomination cannot boast of a minister who approved its distinguishing tenets, or held them more thoroughly than he did. It is deserving of record that throughout his entire ministry he made the Gospel free of charge. Perhaps the feebleness of the church in the first instance made this necessary, and a gratuitous selfsacrificing ministry was the only one by which the church could be increased and extended. The Lord enabled him to attempt this great work, and the result is, that after thirty-seven years toil, in which he must have travelled to minister to his charge, more than 40,000 miles, and preached upwards of 5,000 sermons; 240 souls have been added to the church, by his efforts, 110 of whom still remain. The Alford branch has been planted, and a chapel purchased, and paid for; and the Walker-gate branch, Louth, though at present only renting a chapel, numbers seventy five members, and the church collectively instead of sinking of A He was not at any period of his illness in raptures of joy, but he had what, when rightly estimated is far more important and assuring, a calm, steady, and abiding faith in Christ. His sense of unworthiness was great, and expressions humility frequent and strong, but it was humility, not fear. He knew in whom he had believed, &c. stroke of appoplexy terminated his earthly career. On Lord's-day, April 13th, 1862, he was at chapel in the morning, and heard a sermon on Christ the Head of the church and the Saviour of the body. He remarked when returning home that he should soon be with that Head. While at dinner a stroke of appoplexy came, he was never more conscious, and the following day he breathed his last. He rests from his labours and his works do follow him. Great and blessed is his reward. Many have already gathered around his glorified spirit with grateful greetings, ascribing through grace their salvation to him, and many more 'Servant of God well done, He has descended to the grave, and the esteem of the inhabitants of the town at large. His death was improved on Lord's-day, April 27th, 1862, to a large and deeply affected congre. gation, from a very favourite passage selected by himself, Unto me who am less than the least of all saints is this grace given that I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ. The members of the church have erected a neat marble tablet to his memory in the chapel, and friends in the town and neighbourhood have erected a suitable monument in the cemetery. EARLY ENGLISH BAPTISTS. * BAPTISTS have little reason to be | Ivimey repeats Crosby, and in a ashamed of their ancestors. Their style so dull and nerveless that few love for the Word of God, their care to read him. Mr. Wood has courage in the avowal of their dis- given us a condensed history, with tinctive opinions, their advocacy of plenty of information, especially perfect religious freedom when re- about the period intervening between ligious freedom was very unfashion. Taylor's time and his own, but it is able, and their fortitude under the chiefly valuable as a book of referlash of irritating slanderers and relentless persecutors, are rather matters of which every one of their descendants may well be proud. And yet how few Baptists there are who know much of their ancestry. How imperfectly acquainted are even the best read among them with the names and the virtues of the men from whom they are lineally descended. It is not very difficult to account for this. Nor is it very pleasant. But the truth must be told. Baptists have never had an historian equal to their history. Crosby was the first who attempted a history of the English Baptists, but his narrative lacks order and vivacity, and is now very rarely met with. Adam Taylor did something for our section of the denomination fifty years ago, and gave the world two volumes full of information, but little better digested than the materials which Crosby had accumulated for the larger theme. ence. And, with the exception of Mr. Underhill's sketches in the various volumes of the Hansard Knollys Society, this is all. We are, therefore, right glad that Dr. Evans has entered the field. We could wish he had been more ambitious, and that instead of giving us a small contribution to the elucidation of the history of the Baptists,' he had attempted an elaborate history of the Baptists generally. The materials are abundant. The theme is inviting; and many, we doubt not, would eagerly possess themselves of such a history. However, in what he has set himself to do, Dr. Evans has rendered good service to the denomination at large, and for ourselves we tender him our best thanks. Dr. Evans begins by enquiring whether the early British churches THE EARLY ENGLISH BAPTISTS. By B. EVANS, D.D., Vol. I. London: Heaton and Son, (Bunyan Library.) |