Amount of collection not known to the writer. Two who have laboured in Orissa-W. Brooks and W. Hill-are natives of Ticknall; and the former, after serving the Society for more than thirty-four years, is still permitted to labour in the good work.

Melbourne is the second of our Midland churches, and was formed in 1760. I may claim some sort of connection with Melbourne, as Packington, from which Measham and Ashby sprang, was one of its branches; and a great uncle of mine was a member for forty years. His name appears on the roll as far back as 1788. I found references to preaching in my native village more than a century ago; but the orthography of the good old scribe was at fault, as it was spelt "Measam." The self-denial and holy consecration of the ministers of Christ in those days are not half understood by most of us. My old pastor, in the early years of his ministry, received only £20 a year, and obtained half this sum from Melbourne for five or six years. I saw in the financial records sundry items of "Paid brother Goadby £2 10s.," for Michaelmas, or Lady-day, or Christmas, as the case might be; and there was one special payment, no doubt on account of some special service rendered, or special necessity felt, but the amount was not large-" Paid Thomas Orton and Joseph Goadby five shillings each." Melbourne and Ticknall, I should add,have steadily supported the Mission for fifty-six years.

THE YOUNG MEN'S MISSIONARY ADVOCATE for January contains a stirring appeal by C. H. Spurgeon, a wise paper on the qualifications of missionaries by G. H. Rouse, and other valuable contributions fitted to stimulate and increase the interest of young men in the work of God abroad. Our Young Men's Auxiliaries to the Mission would find this a valuable help.

FOREIGN LETTER RECEIVED.

PIPLEE-T. Bailey, Dec. 7.

J. C.

CONTRIBUTIONS

Received on account of the General Baptist Missionary Society from
December 18th 1875, to January 18th, 1876.

Subscriptions and Donations in aid of the General Baptist Missionary Society will be thankfully received by T. HILL, Esq., Baker Street, Nottingham, Treasurer; and by the Rev. J. C. PIKE, Secretary, Leicester, from whom also Missionary Boxes, Collecting Books and Cards may be obtained.

THE

GENERAL BAPTIST MAGAZINE.

MARCH, 1876.

THE LATE DR. JABEZ BURNS.

It is with unfeigned regret we record the decease of our friend and fellow-worker, Dr. Jabez Burns; for whilst he belonged to the "Holy Catholic Church throughout" Great Britain and America, and gave himself enthusiastically to the promotion of every good cause, yet he belonged by personal choice, prolonged service, and sincere love to General Baptists. Mourned and lamented by all who knew him, none will mourn so deeply as the ministers and members of the General Baptist churches, in association with whom he spent the dawning manhood and ripened maturity of his valuable life.

Jabez Burns was born at Oldham in 1805. Lancashire grows men. This is its boast; and Dr. Burns is one of many who have justified it. But he owed more to his mother than he did to Lancashire hills and valleys, or to the spirit and impulses of Lancashire life. She was a godly and earnest-minded woman, devotedly Wesleyan, and full of admiration and hospitality for Wesleyan ministers. In answer to her prayers, and owing to his ministerial surroundings, the preaching passion seized him whilst yet a lad, and signs of his real "ordination to that work were early apparent. Converted to God at fifteen, he was not long before he began, though in fear and trembling, to preach the gospel. This whetted his appetite for knowledge, and for the next dozen years, and more, he appears as a fine example of the cheerful and courageous pursuit of knowledge of all sorts under difficulties.*

Like not a few General Baptists, he began his work amongst the Wesleyans; but a weaver of Queensbury, who was a General Baptist, and an Aquila, undertook to show this Apollos the way of God more perfectly than the Wesleyans knew it; and being successful, the young preacher was baptized in our church at Suffolk Street (now Borough Road), London. For the next few years he was engaged in work connected with the Christian Union Mission in Scotland. In 1835 he accepted the pastorate of the church, Church Street, Marylebone, and from that time to his death, on the 31st of January, zealously and successfully discharged its manifold duties.

Other pens will deal with some of the more prominent aspects of Dr. Burns' many-sided life. I have reserved for myself space for a few words of appreciative description of

* See G B. Mag., 1870, for four articles of Retrospective Gossip, by Dr. Burns;
also his Autobiography. ⚫

VOL. LXXVIII.-NEW SERIES, No. 75.

I. HIS DENOMINATIONAL WORK.

FEW men have served the General Baptists for so long a period; fewer still have served it better, or more abundantly. Only half-a-dozen ministers are with us to-day who held the position of pastors amongst us at the date of Dr. Burns' advent. He came to our doors more than forty years ago came from conviction; and though he might have gone out from us again and again, yet he remained to the end of his distinguished career. He believed "what General Baptists believe" with all his heart and soul and strength; and ably defended and assiduously propagated his creed. But as he says of Robert Newton, so we may say of him, “he was singularly free from sectarian littleness and religious bigotry." He loved all Christians; worked with all in a spirit of the largest catholicity; and whilst definitely teaching believers' baptism, still held that the only condition to be imposed for church-membership is the possession of spiritual life.

His practical talent was seen in our meetings for business. His readiness of speech, despatch, tact, keen judgment, and kind spirit, were all put to the service of the Association. We shall not soon forget the eager and decisive way in which, when the business qualities of ministers had been impugned on a recent occasion, he declared that he would find half-a-dozen ministers of business capacity equal to any half-dozen laymen in the Connexion. And no one who knew him would have hesitated to name him as one of the elect half-dozen.

Twice he occupied the presidential chair. Four times he preached the Association sermon. Twice he was chosen to write the Annual Letter to the Churches. For some time he was one of the Editors of this Magazine. On two occasions he acted as our representative to the Free-will Baptists of America. Orissa Missions had in him a warm friend. Few men amongst us, not missionary officials, have made more speeches for the evangelization of the Oriyas. Again and again he obtained associational votes in favour of the repression of Intemperance, though not without encountering warm opposition. In preaching special sermons he was a great favourite. The opening of new chapels, the extinction of debts, the anniversaries of schools, and such like occasions, often took him from home. Indeed he was ready for every good work in any part of the Connexion, and rejoiced to give his ability for its promotion. In our denominational annals, the name of Dr. Burns has secured an abiding place, as that of a brave brother-comrade, an energetic man of business, a kind and willing helper, and a true-hearted leader.

We had hoped not yet to say, "Farewell." We trusted he would have lived to fill his place amongst us another decade. His marvellous stores of energy, his freshness of spirit, seemed till lately undiminished. But he "has gone over to the majority." His work is done. The Master has called him up higher, and he has joined those who since the Wisbeach Association have passed into the rest of God. Our hearts are sad as we review the denominational year. Our fathers and brethren-where are they? And the prophets-do they live for ever? Do they? Yes; not with us in person, but in their words and worthy influence; and the Lord of the prophets-this, also, is our consolation-is the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever. JOHN CLIFFORD.

THE LATE DR. BURNS.

II. HIS SOCIAL RELATIONS AND ADAPTATIONS.

83

WHOEVER knew Dr. Burns knew him to possess a genial, sympathetic, social nature. Society was life to him; and from the social element he drew an inspiring influence which he as quickly distributed afresh. If he ever sighed for some lone hermitage, the sigh was short and was happily ungratified. As a recluse he would have rusted, never attaining the old age of monks like St. Antony, or even the threescore years and ten which were his own earthly portion. The luscious and oily manner in which some people show their fondness was distasteful to his disposition and manly sense; but he was equally free from the taciturn reserve which not unfrequently conceals a heart warm with generous desires.

While his surviving children were young, he was spending laborious days in his study and public work; but they were ever delighted when he relaxed from sterner tasks to share in their amusements; and their joy was great when any little presents, meant as a surprise, were rewarded with a paternal smile. He was a practical believer in the apostolic dictum, that he who provides not for his own household is worse than an infidel. This provision was mental and moral as well as physical; and in selecting employments for his sons he was careful to note the special inclination each displayed, and to shape his arrangements for them accordingly. In matters of domestic economy he was rigidly exact, as a means of living honestly in the sight of all men. He abhorred debt, and looked upon a minister who lived above his income, and laid himself under pecuniary obligations to others, as one who preached in fetters, and was ill-fitted to maintain his proper dignity and independence.

It must have been a wretchedly composed company wherein Dr. Burns found himself solitary for many hours. Any kindred spirit would be intuitively detected; and where any one, not altogether kindred, had points of attachment, his sympathetic magnetism would quickly operate to elicit them. He had, in a high degree, all the emotional and moral qualities which make up the patriot and philanthropist. Liberty he loved, injustice he hated; and in the joy of others he delighted. He was never more himself than when laying a lash of fiery words on the tyrant and oppressor; never, unless when pleading, with flashing eye and pathetic tone, the cause of the poor and needy. His tenderness seemed to increase with age; and in recent years his public allusions to troubles and loss of friends were seldom made without ineffective efforts to repress the signs of a swelling and bleeding heart.

The happy art was his of winning friends and of retaining them. He never violated confidences, or deserted those who trusted in him. Being without envy of other persons' prosperity, he could rejoice with them sincerely; and if they sought him in trouble they could rely on his best counsel and assistance. He had, too, a hopefulness and buoyancy that was better than medicine to the sorrowful and dispirited. In a letter received since his death from a minister of another denomination, it is said, "Often have I, or my wife, or both of us, gone to him with heart or hearts overwhelmed with sorrow, and come away cheered and refreshed." Many could bear a testimony like this. His sympathy made him realize the wants of poorer ministers in regard to theological

works; and his endeavours to meet such wants were lately repeated by the despatch of many free grants from the shelves of his own wellstocked library.

;

Dr. Burns was no croaker, or echoist of mournful platitudes. Preferring warmth and brightness for himself, he imparted as large a measure of them as he could to the chilled and beclouded subjects of misfortune. Some of his sermons were vivid with the terrors of the Lord but he chiefly loved to exercise a sunny ministry, radiant with the enlivening beams of the Sun of Righteousness reflected from the pastor and preacher's soul. He was not one of "Job's comforters," ironically so-called; and could he have visited the patriarch of Uz when sitting in sackcloth, that much-enduring and friend-fretted man would have enjoyed some relief from his well-meaning tormentors.

Dr. Burns's social nature had an earnestness and realism in it that made itself understood and prized. Being fond of children, he gave them caresses-and "sweeties:" no wonder the fondness was reciprocal ! In striving to gratify children of a larger growth he also studied their peculiarities. His "enthusiasm of humanity" was of the same practical character; not vague, frothy, and dreamy, but solid, active, and well-defined. He had no fellowship with the topsy-turvy philanthropists who are so bent on regenerating the species that they overlook the individual. He loathed a spurious sentimentality, and drove as straight as he could at the causes of social evils. Hence he was a cordial advocate of all measures for removing the sources of intemperance, whether consisting in the use of strong drinks, or in social and legalized inducements to indulgence in them. Whatever his hand and his eye found him to do he did with all his might; while his social temperament impelled him to press others to join him in doing good by adding their might to his.

He was, from constitutional tendencies, sensitive to injury, insult, and neglect; he was easily grieved and angered, but he could as easily forgive. Bitterness was not congenial to him, and his life was undisturbed and unsoured by the harbouring of rancorous and resentful feelings. Far be it from me to claim for him a faultlessness of temper he never pretended to have acquired; but sure I am that it is not filial bias which exonerates him from any spirit of meanness, narrowness, and detraction. He was generous and magnanimous in no common measure; and well had he learnt and practised the gracious lesson, that he who loves his God should love his brother also. DAWSON BURNS.

III.-AS PREACHER AND AUTHOR.

As is manifest from his career Dr. Burns was a born preacher. No where was he more "at home" than in the pulpit and on the platform. The matter of his sermons was strongly evangelical. There was about them a savour of "the doctrines of grace" without either the narrowness of Calvinism, or the mawkish sentimentalism of another class of speakers and writers too popular in the present day. He delighted to expatiate on the universal love of God, and at the same time pressed strongly home upon his hearers their own personal responsibility. To one or two phrases in common use, such as the necessity of "making one's peace with God," he had a very strong objection. He was of