IRISH CHRONICLE.

JANUARY, 1858.

THE BAPTIST IRISH SOCIETY.

THE following article, which lately appeared in the Freeman, puts so correctly and so forcibly some points, with regard to our Irish Mission, that we have great pleasure in transferring it to our pages. It is cause for encouragement that the plan of action resolved upon by the Committee is approved by a writer entirely unconnected with them, but evidently quite competent to judge of the merits of the plan as well as to advocate the claims of the Mission. We are glad that the editors of the Freeman have added to many well-written articles on various topics, one on the Baptist Irish Society, so entitled to the serious and prayerful notice of British Christians. If the statements of this paper be carefully considered, the characteristic Irish benediction, desired for the Committee and the Secretary, "more power to their elbow," will soon have its fulfilment.

When Dr. CHALMERS was asked to accept a professor's chair, one of his parishioners came to expostulate with him on the sad consequences which would ensue to his deserted congregation. The doctor heard him, and then answered him in a simile which came home to his farmer elder's business and bosom, thus:-" John, whether do you think the man that salts the pigs, or the man that makes the salt that salts the pigs, does most ?" "Deed, sir, the man that makes the salt." Well, then, John, a minister salts the pigs, and a professor makes the salt that salts all the pigs." The elder was silenced.

The inseparable connection between pigs and Ireland has reminded us of this story in connection with some new operations proposed by the Baptist Irish Society, for which we are anxious to bespeak the interest of our readers, and to which we believe we let out no secrets in now referring. The Committee of that institution have resolved on altering their mode of operation, somewhat in accordance with Dr. CHALMERS's illustration. Hitherto their stations have been to a considerable extent situated in small country towns and in uninfluential districts; and a large portion of their machinery has consisted of Scripture readers and schoolmasters. It is now deemed advisable to adopt a double process, of reducing these scattered efforts by degrees on the one hand, and concentrating the main stress of work on the larger centres of population on the other. The former process is to be commenced by diminishing the number of schools and Scripture readers. The latter by an attempt to establish a congregation in Dublin, in addition to the one already existing there, unconnected with the Society, under the pastoral care of an esteemed brother, Mr. MILLIGAN. For this purpose it is intended, in the meantime, to rent some eligible public hall in a good district of the city, and to provide a succession of our best ministers who will each occupy the pulpit for a month or so. The issue of this, it is hoped, will be the collection of a congregation and church, the building of a chapel, and the establishment of a base of operations. If support be rendered and success granted, other large towns may be taken up in due time, and a few points thus secured from which the work may be pushed into the rural districts. In a word, it is intended not merely to spend all our strength in salting the pigs-that is, in sustaining churches which can never become self-supporting nor exercise any wide influence-but in making salt-that is, in establishing churches which will, after a bit, be able to run alone, and put their own hands out to nurture and to build up the smailer places. Such a plan, in its broad outlines, seems to us the very thing that is wanted, and we congratulate the Society on having got at length upon the right track.

Up till the present time we fear there has been little active interest called out by its proceedings. A limited income, a heavy debt every now and then, and of course a desperate whip to get up a special fund, are unmistakable signs that the churches do not, as a whole, feel a very lively sympathy. The cause of this comparative indifference has not lain in any want of confidence in the executive, nor in any grudging of help to Ireland, but mainly in the doubt whether the largest possible amount of work was being done and an adequate measure of results obtained for the money. A glance at the lust

VOL. II.-NEW SERIES.

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annual report will show how much need there is for some change in the mode of operation. The income of the society amounted to 2,000l. odd, from which 3007. legacy is to be deducted, a sum not only far below what might be raised if our churches were up to the ideal of money giving, but also far below what even the present scale of their liberality would furnish if fairly appealed to for an object in which they were interested. This sum supports, wholly or in part, ten missionaries, and nine teachers and Scripture readers. There are eight stations, and thirty-three sub-stations, making, in all, forty-one preaching places. The average number of attendants at all of these is at most 1,200, which gives an average to each missionary of 150 hearers, or to each of the forty-one preaching places of thirty. Running our eye over the report, we find such notices as these appended to different stations:-" church numbers eleven members;" congregation about thirty;" "attendance very small;" "congregation not large;" and so on. The number of members in church fellowship is 428, being an average of fifty under each missionary, but distributed among the various stations and sub-stations, for one missionary has in some cases more than one church under his care. If the church at Tubbermore be deducted, the average becomes thirty-seven under each missionary. The day schools contain 225 children, and the Sunday schools 620. The localities of the work may be understood from the list of the chief stations:-Ballina, Banbridge, Belfast, Conlig, Cork, Curragh, Moate (Athlone), Tubbermore.

Now, we do not for one moment mean to measure spiritual results by the rude bushel of numerical statistics, and especially we do not wish to be understood as gauging a missionary's devotedness or worth by them; but whilst admitting most heartily the wellworn saying, that if one soul only had been converted, it would be worth all that has been spent, we remember that God does not usually make wise work for him fruitful on so small a scale as that axiom contemplates. The question for us to consider is not the proportion between the pecuniary cost of work and the spiritual worth of its results, which are quite incommensurable; but we have to look at the amount of labour and the amount of success, and, if the former be great and the latter be small, the first question we have to ask is, whether anything in the kind of labour may account for it. A most hearty and willing testimony must be borne to the talents of many and to the devotedness of all our brethren, the Society's agents. They are worthy of all praise, of better incomes, and of larger spheres. The duties of their present spheres they do with energy, with admirable patience. We do not disparage them, nor do we underrate their work. All we say is, that by the very nature of the case, many of these stations must always remain small, almost all of them must be always feeble. Is it not a wise move, while continuing such, or only introducing alterations very gradually and with scrupulous tenderness, to adopt a new way of doing altogether, and, if we have but a small sum to spend, to spend some of it in establishing churches which shall not be lame from their birth and needing alms all their days?

The schools of the Society, too, which absorb a considerable proportion of its funds, are not so necessary as they once were, from the altered circumstances of the country, and especially from the establishment of the National Society's schools. A better education can be had there, than in ours; and it may be doubtful whether the latter are very effectual as feeders of our congregations. In these circumstances, it will be generally considered a sound discretion which the committee has exercised, in recognising this department as a subordinate one, which need not be enlarged, and may even in some cases be curtailed. A similar remark applies to the employment of Scripture readers. Their work was indispensable when the Bible was a sealed book to the peasantry, and when class-feeling and religious animosity ran higher than now. But the new order of things in Ireland, with all its other blessings, has brought out at once a great subsidence of these; and, with the weakened power of the priesthood, an extension of Bible reading among the people. These changes, which, like the butcher and baker in the nursery rhyme, have "all come out of a rotten potato," have diminished the necessity for the employment of Scripture readers. Consequently this class of agents also need not be increased.

There will be, we doubt not, a pretty general acquiescence in the opinions, that the main object of the Society should be to send forth thoroughly competent ministers to preach; that while rural stations should be maintained, effort should be principally directed to more populous places; and that the best beginning that can be made is in Dublin as proposed. As to the wisdom of this course, we have no doubt. Common sense, Scripture practice, and our own experience, also confirm it. It is on the large towns that we must work, if we hope to secure the establishment of future centres of influence. The way at the beginning was the wise way: Jerusalem, Samaria, Antioch, Ephesus, Philippi, Corinth, Athens, Rome, were the stepping-stones across which the Gospel strode on its first triumphant march. How long would it have taken to reach

the gates of the Eternal City, if it had pitched in little villages and shunned the very foci of the world, if it had crept along bye-paths and not taken the world's highway? Fix a church in a great town, where sin is most rampant, where the whole current of life is faster, whence impressions are always going out over a wide circle, and you have done more, inasmuch as you have established a body which has in it some power of selfpropagation, than if you had, by God's grace, gathered in the same number of truly converted souls, who, from their social position in some small place, are unable to put forth an equal influence. The life of the country is a still pond; the life of the great town is a swift river. Launch your boat, if you want it to reach the great sea, on the latter. This principle may easily be strained. Indeed, we may see signs that there is some danger of faithful country pastors being forgotten, and of the real greatness of their work on souls which, though they have little influence, yet have the same needs as others, being underrated. Possibly, we are tending somewhat in this direction. But still, the Gospel teaches us to look on a man's conversion as a means to further conversions, and the spread of God's glory more emphatically than as an end in itself; and we are quite justified in applying this view to the comparative importance of Christian efforts, and of preferring, if we cannot do both, that which is most clearly the means to the largest end. On this principle, the evangelisation of the large town is the greater work. Fly at the head and you secure the limbs. Put your cultivation and your seed on a field which will yield you "seed for the sower, as well as bread to the eater." Pour the water down the well from which you can pump up something. So we wish our Irish Committee and their energetic Secretary great success in their wise new scheme of action; and, to use a characteristic Irish benediction, "more power to their elbow ;" and we beg most warmly to bespeak for the Society a larger support than it has ever received, for we are fully convinced that its plan of proceeding is sounder and wiser than formerly. We ask our readers to give it their attention and co-operation, and to continue these for a reasonable length of time, that the new plans may have a fair chance.

BELFAST.

MR. ECCLES reports that the services conducted by him have, of late, been marked by considerable encouragement. The congregations have been the best that he has ever been privileged to address in Belfast. He speaks of the sufferings of many of his small flock, through the present commercial pressure, as being very severe, and likely to become yet more so during the winter. He also adverts to the fact which needs always to be borne in mind, with reference to Christian Missions to Ireland-viz., the wide dispersion of many of the Irish people, and especially of that part of the people who have been brought to the knowledge of "the truth which makes them free." " The souls that God graciously gave me are," he says, "some of them in every British colony, some in the United States, some in Great Britain. It was not God's purpose they should remain around me here. This would, indeed, have been pleasant; but it may be better as it is. They are widely dispersed, but not lost to God. Often have I preached, and no fruit appeared. Often has the fruit in which I rejoiced been removed to gladden another hemisphere. In all will I rejoice. There's nothing lost.' The word shall not return to Him void; and to Him live the children whom he gave me, however widely dispersed for the present- There's nothing lost.'"

CONTRIBUTIONS,

Received on account of the Baptist Irish Society, from November 21 to Dec. 20, 1857.

ARTICLES OF CLOTHING will be greatly valued by many destitute persons with whom the Agents of the Society are in daily contact. Parcels addressed to the Secretary will be forwarded at once.

SUBSCRIPTIONS AND DONATIONS will be thankfully received by the Treasurer, THOMAS PEWTRESS, Esq., or the Secretary, the Rev. CHARLES JAMES MIDDLEDITCH, at the Mission House, 33, Moorgate Street; or the London Collector, Mr. W. F. CAREY, 1, Vernon Terrace, Portobello Road, Kensington Park; and by the Baptist Ministers in any of our principal towns.

QUARTERLY REGISTER

OF THR

BAPTIST HOME MISSIONARY

JANUARY, 1858.

MR. WEBB'S JOURNAL OF A MISSIONARY | interest to us while we opened the way of