The Departure of 1854; the Coming of 1855. A FEW THOUGHTS ON THE CHOLERA-THE CONFLICT OF NATIONS-THE CHURCH OF CHRIST THE GOSPEL. EIGHTEEN-HUNDRED AND FIFTY-FOUR has, indeed, been an eventful year-"at home there has been death; abroad the sword bereaveth." Surely it becometh us, who are yet spared, to lay these things to heart; and in the strength of the Lord, to examine ourselves, and to examine our position, and with all diligence, and singleness of eye, to use the little talent we possess in extolling the Prince of Peace, exhibiting the truth, exhorting the saints, and exposing the falsehoods and flatteries of the great enemy of souls. In sentiments like the following would we urge on the souls of the ransomed, until on heaven's bright plains we meet to part no more: Saints, for whom the Saviour bled, On to victory! See your foemen take the ground, Sparkling from on high! By the ransom which he gave, And when death's dark form is nigh, Grasp the victory. In closing up the tenth volume of this work, we desire to render thanks unfeignedly to the God of all our mercies, for having thus far permitted us to be employed in an humble effort to promulgate the truth-to edify the church—and to encourage the seeking seed of Jacob in their path of tribulation and sorrow. Having ourselves been brought down-at least, in anticipation-near to the grave; and standing now in weakness, sometimes in fear, and much trembling, we are more than ever Vol. X.-No. 119.-Dec. 1854. impressed with a deep sense of the solemn responsibility that rests upon us of laying ourselves out fully and faithfully in the holy service of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. The events which have transpired around us during the past year-the awful slaughter now going on in the East-the gathering of the dark clouds in the distance-all these things have surely a voice to Christian men that cannot, must not, be disregarded. Let us spend a few moments, dear reader, in a little reflection upon matters connected with our present and our future condition. We would be glad to aid your meditations by a few words: First, On the Consequences of the Cholera. Second, On the Present Conflict of Nations. Third, On the true Character of the Church of Christ. Lastly, On the Position to be maintained by the Gospel Ministry. I.-The Cholera, and its results. A great authority says, "the Cholera has killed throughout our land, at least, TEN THOUSAND. But few, perhaps, of our readers, have ever witnessed the awful desolation which this dark agent produces when he comes clothed with his deadly power. We will furnish them with material for thought, and with matter for deep humiliation before God. "In a pamphlet published by the curate of St. Luke's, in the parish of St. James, we have some striking, and evidently faithful, sketches of the scenes which took place in the parish at the time of the cholera visitation: If a person were to start from the western end of Broad Street, and, after traversing its whole length on the south side, from west to east, to return as far as the brewery, and then, going down Hopkin's Street and up New Street, to end by walking through Pulteney Court, he would pass successively forty-five houses, of which only six escaped without a death during the recent outburst of cholera in that neighbourhood. The pestilence did not settle down upon the district by slow degrees : it enveloped the inhabitants at once in its full horrors. Of the deaths nearly all took place in four days. With scarce an exception, the people the first fortnight; and at least 189 in the first stood by one another in the season of peril and N 270 perplexity with unflinching THE CONFLICT OF NATIONS. and admirable breathed their last about the same time.' courage. Panic there was none; but it was a Highly though we admire the brave and genetrying time-all the more trying by reason of the rous women who have gone out to nurse our uncertainty that prevailed at first as to the area sick and wounded soldiers at Scutari, not one of of the pestilence and its probable duration. The them is entitled to more love and admiration morning of Friday, the 1st September, was a than the modest heroine of the following tale :day long to be remembered in this neighbour- 'A woman was watching by the bed-the deathhood. The first intimation which the writer re- bed, she imagined, of a kind and affectionate ceived of the sad incidents of the night, came in husband. Her children were with her, already the form of a summons to the death-bed of one orphans in her sight. She had passed one long with whom he had cheerfully conversed at a late night of sleepless anxiety; another was before hour on the preceding evening. A patient, gen. her-the shades of evening fast closing upon the tle widow, she was an object of special interest to silent group when a gentle tap summoned all who knew her. Many a pitying glance was her to the door to welcome the sympathiscast that morning upon her little children as sing countenance of a stranger. Your husthey moved about scarce conscious of what was band is ill, said this unknown friend, and you happening. What was to become of them? What sat up last night with him. I will sit by has become of them? They have found an him to-night. Hush! (motioning to discourage asylum, but it is in their mother's grave. A the expressions of gratitude that were forthfearful tragedy was enacting in that one small coming), we must not disturb him ;' and then house, when eight of its twenty inmates died in she proceeded at once to the bedside to nurse the quick succession before the night of the 4th Sep- sick man as only a woman-and not every woman tember. And one there was, who will be remem- -can. It is notorious that for this disease, by bered by the survivors as one of God's own far the best remedy is an indefatigable and skilheroines, a truly Christian woman, who watched ful nurse; and so we may believe that, under day and night at the bedside of the dying, and the blessing of God, this kind, good woman had by her calm and quiet demeanor sustained the much to do with the favorable turn taken by her spirits of the living, till she herself fell the patient in the course of the night. There, he eighth victim to the disease. The writer will is better now,' she said in the morning;' I not soon forget how, on the 5th or 6th evening think you will be able to manage,' and then of the month, he found the remnant gathered to- withdrew as quietly as she came. Two or three gether in one room, in a state of anxiety and times afterwards she presented herself at the suspense concerning one of their number, who door, but only to ask after the object of her complained of feeling sick and ill, and how their tender care and solicitude, and immediately to countenances lighted up with a gleam of satisfac- retire.'" tion when he confidently assured them that the disease was subsiding, and its virulence abated, We might fill pages with records of this and that sickness was no longer the certain fore-kind. But we have a higher object in view. runner of death.' What can be more touching than this tale of domestic suffering? The writer well remembers one that he witnessed. It was on a ground-floor, where three rooms communicated with each other. In the centre lay an interesting girl, just recovering from collapse, feebly inquiring for her mother and sister. None dared to whisper that right or left lay a coffin in either room. Worn out by the fatigue of two harassing days and a sleepless night, either dozing or too broken-hearted to speak, sat the father by the corpse of his wife. Two grown-up sons were alternately nursing their sister, and conversing with a friend and neighbour, who had come to cheer their drooping spirits. The sequel to this sad narrative is fraught with far too much of melancholy interest to be passed over in silence. The poor girl seemed for a time to progress favorably, and it was deeply touching to see how the prospect of her recovery engrossed her father's thoughts. If she were but spared to him, he frequently said, he could be content to live. But his own turn came to be laid low, and he was removed up-stairs, there to be tenderly nursed by his sister-in-law and his sons. Meanwhile, his daughter died of the consecutive fever. For a few days, her death was kept from his knowledge, and he appeared to be slowly recovering, till one afternoon he somehow became acquainted with the truth, cast one look of anguish upon all present, turned bis head on his pillow, and was dead before night. His sister-in-law, one of her children, and the friend whose midnight visit to the family was just now mentioned, all What are the results? The cause of this dire disease is a mystery. We do know somewhat of its nature, its mode of visit, its tendencies, its favourite haunts, but of its origin we are utterly ignorant. What it is which appears to travel from one locality to another, what infinitesimal portion of miasm it is which thus strikes with death one individual after another, we know not. The Homopathist asks, What is the Cholera, poison? Its weight, its quantity? Define you this? Never! An unseen, yea, invisible something strikes as it were the victim-he falls-he grows pale and cold-his countenance changes -he vomits-he is purged-he is cramped— he turns blue, and dies. What is it? Where the poison seated? Nowhere-veritably, nowhere: not more than in him, who in a thunder-storm, receives through his body (which is a conducting medium,) the power which strikes him lifeless; nor more than him who is struck by a meridian sun, and dies of THE CONFLICT OF NATIONS. 271 The poison! How apt we are to attribute | at the record of these three hours. Ten thousand men fell on that battle-field! action to matter-ponderable matter. In the patient suffering under Cholera, we view the effects the system has received a shock, and the effects persist until interfered with, or arrested by other means. : But we come to results. Families have been bereaved, and plunged into great distress. Benevolent Christians! be you up and doing-let your character be seen in that extraordinary chapter, the twenty-ninth of Job -let your conduct answer to that therein detailed—“ I delivered the poor that cried, and the fatherless, and him that had none to help him. The blessing of him that was ready to perish, came upon me; and I caused the widow's heart to sing for joy. I was a father to the poor; and THE CAUSE THAT I KNEW NOT I SEARCHED OUT." Some of you are laying up largely for your heirs; we beseech you that have time and means at command, to "consider the poor." Look into your neighborhoods and real cases of distress you shall find. Carry them the word of God. Pour out for them your prayers at the feet of God-sympathise with them, and help them; and it shall be for thy good. We must pass on. We are no commentators, no dry essayists. We look around; we listen to the voice that speaks in Providence, and in the movements of Nations - we speak a word by the way, and onward again with our work. II. The Conflict; the awful outbreak of Nations. We write not critically, nor politically. We read facts, and labour to learn useful lessons therefrom. Here are facts of a fearful character indeed : "The sanguinary battle of the Alma has been fought. A dreadful conflagration has occurred at Newcastle. The steamer Arctic has been lost! A single sentance may record these events, but what pen can describe them? The allied army landed on the shores of the Crimea on the 14th of September, and on the 20th engaged in mortal conflict with the Russian forces, who had taken up a most important position on the heights of the Alma, not far from Sebastopol. There were 47,000 Russians, it is said, on the field; but only 28,000 of the allied troops where actually engaged in the sanguinary contest. The Russians were so confident of the superiority of their position, that Prince Menschikoff wrote to the Czar that they could keep the allied army back at least for three weeks; but in three hours they were dislodged from it, and the tri-colour waved over it. But humanity shudders, and christianity weeps and veils her face Above 2000 of our soldiers were killed and wounded. Between 1400 and 1500 of our French allies; 6000 Russians; and of Turks it is not said how many. One of the surgeons who attended the wounded said that the field was like an abatoir! It was, indeed, a place of dreadful slaughter; and it has made many a Bochim throughtout our peaceful land. Thousands of weeping friends still refuse to be comforted, because their sons, brothers, fathers, husbands, are no more! "O that my head were waters, and mine eyes a fountain of tears, that I might weep day and night for the slain of the daughter of my people!" "At Gateshead, Newcastle-on-Tyne, a fire broke out in a stocking factory, which proved very destructive both of life and property. It -the inhabitants were brought out in consterna "Six days after the battle of the Alma was fought, the Arctic, from Liverpool, was run down by a French vessel near New York, and upwards of 300 were drowned. The cholera has killed about 10,000 throughout our land! Have these calamitous events no meaning? Ah, surely they call to us with trumpet-voice. May many hear, and unto God be turned !" We have always had some fearful misgivings as to the purity of our country's movement in this great, this dreadful commotion; and feel convinced there is much painful truth in the following sentences contained in John Bright's letter to Absalom Watkins, He says "At this moment England is engaged in a murderous warfare with Russia, although the Russian Government accepted her own terms of peace, and has been willing to accept them in the sense of England's own interpretation of them ever since they were offered; and, at the same time, England is allied with Turkey, whose Government rejected the award of England, and who entered into the war in opposition to the advice of England.” And what is the bitter cost of all this? "War in the north and south of Europe, threatening to involve every country in Europe. 272 THE CONFLICT OF NATIONS, ETC. Many, perhaps fifty millions sterling, in the to pass, still the "Lord of Hosts is with his course of expenditure by this country alone, to be raised from the taxes of a people whose extrication from ignorance and poverty can only be hoped for from the continuance of peace. The disturbance of trade throughout the world, the derangement of monetary affairs, and difficulties and ruin to thousands of families. Another year of high prices of food, nothwithstanding a full harvest in England, chiefly because war interferes with imports, and we have declared our principal foreign food-growers to be our enemies. The loss of human life to an enormous extent. Many thousands of our own countrymen have already perished of pestilence and in the field; and hundreds, perhaps thousands, of English families will be plunged into sorrow, as a part of the penalty to be paid. When the time comes for the 'inquisition for blood,' who shall answer for these things?' people; the God of Jacob is their refuge." These thoughts make our hearts to rejoice; they afford a solid ground of comfort; and lead us to exclaim, "therefore will not we fear." There is, notwithstanding, a PRACTICAL POSITION to be occupied by the churches of Jesus Christ, in such portentous times as these. That position, we rejoice to find, is being recognised by some portions of professing Christendom, as the following announcement indicates : "The war with Russia.-The committee of the Evangelical Alliance affectionately and earnestly invite their Fellow Members, and Christians generally of all Denominations, to Two Meetings for special humiliation and united prayer, in relation to the above subject, which will be held D.V. at Free Mason's Hall, on Tuesday Nov. 28, 1854; one in the Forenoon, at 11; another in the Evening, at half-past 6. By order of the Committee. This is pleasant to our anxious spirits. Let come what may, when we can approach the mercy seat, we feel it must be well. Let all our churches assemble, and unite for special prayer, that God would make this Russian slaughter to cease, and peace again to be found in all our borders. John Owen, speaking of the prayer of Habakkuk, says, "The prophet having had visions from God, and pre-discoveries of many approaching judgments, in the first and second chapters, in this, by faithful prayer, sets himself to obtain a sure footing and quiet abode in those nation-destroying storms. We are closing 1854 with gloomy prospects indeed. As a nation we are "walking in darkness, and have no light" as to what is coming upon us; provisions and taxation dreadfully high; commerce almost paralyzed; our soldiers and our sailors slaughtered; our families bereaved, and plunged into the bitterest anguish and distress. In such a state of things where shall the christian look ? Where can he hide? On what can his hope of a better state of things be placed? We know of no safe retreat but that described in the forty-sixth Psalm; and how unutterably grand-how divinely comforting is the language of a living faith, as therein recorded, "GOD IS OUR REFUGE AND STRENGTH; A VERY PRESENT HELP IN TROUBLE.' He it is who "maketh wars to cease, even unto the ends of the earth." At the birth of Christ, there was a general peace on the earth, though it did not last long and in the latter day, when the PRINCE OF PEACE shall take unto himself his great power, and stretch his golden sceptre over the nations of the earth, then shall not the people learn war any Until then, there are three things for the christian's direction and consolation. First, the Lord to his Zion says, "Be still, and know that I am God." Not, as Kimshi says, "that the christian is to be like a stock or a stone; unconcerned at the commotions that are in the earth: or unaffected with the judgments of God." No-but to be still and free from fretfulness and unbelieving fears; to be patient and resigned; knowing, second-greatest distresses let neither unbelief nor selfly, that his glorious Lord will be exalted contrivances jostle us out of this way to the among the heathen; He will be exalted in the earth; for, thirdly, whatever may come more. "A prayer of Habakkuk the prophet;' that is the title of it. And an excellent prayer it is, full of arguments to strengthen faith,-acknowledgments of God's sovereignty, power, and righteous judgments,-with resolutions to a contented, joyful, rolling upon him under all dispensations. "Prayer is the believer's constant, sure retreat in an evil time, in a time of trouble. "It is the righteous man's wings to the name of the Lord,' which is his strong tower,' Prov. xviii. 10,-a Christian soldier's sure reserve in the day of battle: if all other forces be overthrown, here he will abide by it,- -no power under heaven can prevail upon him to give one Hence that title of Psa. cii.step backward. A prayer of the afflicted, when he is overwhelmed.' 'Tis the overwhelmed man's refuge and employment; when he swooneth with life again. So also-Psa. Ixi. 2, 3. anguish,' (as in the original), this fetches him to Rock of our salvation. In our "Prophets' discoveries of fearful judgments must be attended with fervent prayers. THE CONDITION AND CHARACTER OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. "That messenger hath done but half his business who delivers his errand, but returns not an answer. He that brings God's message of threats unto his people, must return his peoples' message of entreaties unto him. Some think they have fairly discharged their duty when they have revealed the will of God to man, without laboring to reveal the condition and desires of men unto God. He that is more frequent in the pulpit to his people than he is in his closet for his people, is but a sorry watchman. Moses did not so—Exod. xxxii. 31-neither did Samuel so-1 Sam. xii. 23;-neither was it the guise of Jeremiah in his days-chap. xiv. 17. If the beginning of the prophecy be, (as it is), The burden of Habakkuk -the close will be, (as it is), The prayer of Habakkuk.' Where there is a burden upon the people, there must be a prayer for the people. Woe to them who have denounced desolations, and not poured out supplications ! Such men delight in the evil which the prophet puts far from him-Jer. xvii. 16-'I have not desired the woful day, [O Lord], thou knowest." " We have run into subjects which require much more space than we can command :the connection that evidently exists between some parts of prophecy and events now transpiring on some parts of the earth, opens a large field for reflection and comment: but it is left to abler hands, and for future numbers. As we stand on the margin of the year now rapidly closing up, and for a moment, endeavour to look forward,-three questions arise. First—what is the present condition of the Church of Christ? Secondly, what is the Position of the Gospel Ministry? Thirdly, If spared, in what way can we best evince our love to our gracious covenant God, and most efficiently employ our little talent which the Master has entrusted to us? Questions to us of no mean import. Oh, Holy Ghost, Eternal | Spirit, help us, for Christ sake, to answer them not merely in print, but in practice, to the glory of thy great name. 273 with sin, satan, the world, and the flesh, every "Indeed it may be said, that all things converge towards this dispensation of the fulpoint. The present condition of everything ness of times; like many lines towards one terminates when the future dispensation commences, the change will be universal. "I see around me the suffering church, and I trace it as a suffering church in all the New Testament. But if I ask, How long will this condition of the church continue? I find Scripture answers, Until the dispensation of the fulness of times. "I know that satan is unbound; I know that he is abroad in the earth, entangling everything-the church and the world, flesh and spirit; blending all things good and bad so cleverly together, that none but God can now perplexing and deceiving souls. know that this also is until an appointed when Christ comes: he shall be bruised under our feet shortly. Thus I see that satan also has a set time,-a time running on to the very same point, even to the dispensation of the fulness of times. teach how to unravel them. Thus satan is But I season. I know that satan shall be bound "All these things, which we now know as existing and progressing around us, will run on as they now are until the coming of Christ, who will gather them all up, and alter the relation of them all to himself." What then should be the Position of the The Condition and Character of the Gospel Ministry?—A firm, an unflinching conChurch of Christ. THE CHURCH OF tion for every revealed principle, and every CHRIST! Where is it to be found? It is to written precept, is one part; discriminating be found mixed up with a large body of nomi- between the works of the flesh, and the nal, amalgamating, world-pleasing profes- essential work of the Spirit, is another part; sion. The true CHURCH OF CHRIST is com- and a labouring to comfort and encourage posed of all those who are quickened into life poor Zion, by as noble a development of the by God the Holy Ghost; who have laid un- glorious Person and complete Redemption der the heavy sentence of a broken law: who work of Christ, as we can possibly make, is have fled for refuge to the gracious Lamb of a third part; a secking by every scriptural God, who have received into their very hearts means, the solid peace and prosperity of and souls, the precious truths of the ever- Jerusalem, is a fourth part. There are other lasting gospel; and who are waging war features; but, brethren, may we look well to |