ing was held in the chapel, at which Mr. Samuel Evans presided. In a short and appropriate speech, he introduced to the meeting the Rev. A. C. Bevington, who delivered an eloquent and interesting lecture on "Peter Cartwright, the renowned backwood preacher." During its delivery the lecturer was greeted with repeated applause, and at its conclusion received a most enthusiastic vote of thanks. During the evening the choir rendered, in a very excellent manner, several interesting pieces, Mr. William Evans presiding at the harmonium. Votes of thanks were heartily accorded to the ladies, the chairman, and Mr. Hatton. The benediction, pronounced by the chairman, brought the meeting to a close. The proceeds of the tea and lecture will be devoted to the fund for the erection of a new chapel.-Stourbridge Advertiser.

STOURBRIDGE CIRCUIT. METHODIST NEW CONNEXION LOCAL

PREACHER CONFERENCE. THE first Local Preacher Conference of the above circuit was held in the Methodist New Connexion Chapel, Stourbridge, on Monday last. The preachers met at half-past two o'clock in the afternoon, when an examination of the plan took place, and various

schemes were suggested and recommended for the security of future prosperity in the circuit. At five o'clock a public tea was provided in the upper school-room, at which more than double the number sat down than the most hopeful had dared to expect. A public meeting was held in the chapel afterwards, when eloquent and impressive addresses delivered by the following local brethren and other friends, viz., Messrs. Southall, Evans, Lawrence, Robins, Lowe, Mills, jun., Cartwright, Allport, Blackshaw, Sparrow, Homer, Rogers, Biddlestone, Mills, sen., and Whitehouse.

were

The

chair was taken by the Rev. A. C. Bevington, superintendent of the circuit, by whose recommendation the above Conference was held. Votes of thanks were passed to the ladies who had prepared a most excellent tea, to the local preachers for their past valuable services, with earnest prayer for their future health and success, and to the chairman of the meeting. Resolutions were also passed, first, that the Conference be held annually, and secondly, that a report be sent to the local papers and to the Connexional magazine. The doxology and benediction brought this most successful and enthusiastic meeting to a close at ten o'clock.-Worcester County Express.

EDITORIAL NOTES.

MR. DARWIN has published two volumes on the descent of man, and selection in relation to sex. These volumes are in fact a continuation of his former work on the origin of species, as both works run into much the same grooves.

We are not of those who try to confute such works with a sneer, nor do we participate in the alarm which some persons appear to feel respecting their bearing on the teachings

of the Bible and the interests of religion. The Lord our God is one Lord, whether in nature or in grace; and we are quite content that the revelations he has given of himself in grace and nature should stand side by side with each other, and we are satisfied that they will accord with and mutually sustain and illustrate each other. All that we demand is that scientific investigations and teachings should not assume too much, and that we should really be

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permitted to know for certain what those investigations amount to and have discovered, without doubt and dispute. We really cannot see, even if we were to admit the conclusions, or rather speculations of such writers-which, however, we do not admit-what they have gained as against the teachings of the Bible. They all stop at a certain point. When they have classified and analyzed to the full extent of their ability and inclination; when they have evolved and re-evolved one thing from another—a man from a monkey, a monkey from the lowest plant-they find" below all their facts, below all phenomena which the scalpel or the microscope can show a nameless something, invisible, imponderable, yet seemingly omnipresent and omnipotent, retreating from them deeper and deeper the deeper they delve, namely, the life which shapes and makes, that which the old schoolmen called the forma formatura, which they call vital force and what not-metaphors all, or rather counters to mark an unknown quantity, as if they should call it or y. One says it is all vibrations; but his reason, unsatisfied, asks And what makes the vibrations vibrate? Another-It is all physiological units; but his reason asks, What is the 'physis,' the nature and innate tendency of the units? A third-It may be all caused by infinitely numerous 'gemmules,' but his reason asks him, What puts infinite order into these gemmules, instead of infinite anarchy ?" They have not disposed of the question of final causes, when they have gone never so far or so deep. After all they have written about development or evolution, they cannot bring us to its starting-point. They cannot seize it with their forceps, and, holding it before us, say, "There it is." They are certainly, to say the least, • Canon Kingsley in Macmillan's Mogaine for March.

as much in the dark as we are. We think they are much more in the dark, and have very much to learn themselves, and very much more to teach us, before they can have a shadow of a claim on us to abandon Scriptural teaching in favour of their

own.

But this is not all. If they did know the starting-point, and could direct us to it, that point, whatever it is, would involve the whole result, up to the intellect of a Newton, a Shakespeare, or a Milton. You can get nothing out of nothing. However rude, impalpable, and apparently unsuitable for the purpose the germs of our nature may be, whether in an ape, a worm, or a "gemmule," there they are and must be if we could only find them. The very gemmules must have been formed with a purpose, and their evolution considered. An evolution certainly implies an evolver, and the Christian says that evolver is God, the final cause. The evolutionist says, "I cannot see it." Well, on this point the question must rest there. We have all gone as far as we can. We have arrived at the first element or final cause; you can take us no farther. It is absolutely certain there is something farther to be seen, understood, and believed in, but your system of evolution leaves us where, if it is strong at all, it ought to be strongest, and can do nothing more for us. Till you can advance upon this we must part company. If, then, creation were only evolution, and if what Mr. Darwin has written on this subject were true, we cannot see any need for alarm on the subject, for he who could accept evolution under these conditions must have a faith that is wide and wilful enough in all conscience.

But the theory of evolution, even before we arrive at the question of final causes, should account for phenomena which it cannot help seeing in every step it takes. For instance,

man's intellect, his self-consciousness, and his moral sense. In the first of these, the difference between the lowest savage and the most highly-organized ape is enormous, and is not accounted for in the system; and as to the moral sense, it is on this theory equally unaccountable. "I have myself," says Mr. Darwin,

seen a dog, who never passed a great friend of his, a cat which lay sick in a basket, without giving her a few licks with his tongue, the surest sign of kind feeling in a dog." Certainly; but we should have to watch a long time before we discovered a conscience in that dog, and before religion could be developed in him, or Christianity in that cat. Yet religion and Christianity are in the world, and have been evolutionized somehow. Can the evolutionists tell us how?

We, of course, have not space in this note to go far into this subject, but certainly there is a great deal more to be done by Mr. Darwin and his disciples before we can be warranted in throwing aside our received natural theology. Let us wait and see what this system will make of itself. It has done nothing yet to drive the Christian from his foundation, and we believe never will do.

We commend to the attention of our readers an advertisement of our Magazines which appears on the cover. Our circulation is not what it ought to be, considering the number and ability of the hearers and the members in our Connexion. We ought to circulate 3,000 copies of

the large and 18,000 copies of the JUVENILE magazine. Instead of this, we circulate rather less than 2,300 of the large and 13,500 of the JUVENILE. The worst feature of the business is that the circulation has declined for several years, and we have a smaller circulation this year than the last, and of course than any year for the last seven years. For our part we can make the magazines no better and no more worthy of support than we have done since we had charge of them. If our friends are waiting for any alteration in this respect they are sure to be disappointed. If they are waiting for a reduction in the price of the large magazine, that is a question we cannot decide. We give sixty-four pages now for the same money that used to be charged for forty-eight pages. We give four portraits now in the place of one formerly, and the labour of the editor and the cost of production are 25 per cent. more than they were a few years since. And yet, with all these inducements, the circulation declines, and has declined for years. It is not pleasant to have to state these facts, but they have to be stated with a view to a correct impression, and to the need of those exertions being made which will bring about a better state of things. Our power to do good and serve connexional interests through this agency is largely, from the nature of the case, in the hands of our friends. If a church must help a preacher in order to his success, so the whole Connexion must help us in order to ours, otherwise our success is impossible.

CHRISTIAN BAPTISM: ITS SUBJECTS. By R. INGHAM. London: E. Stock. 8vo, 652 pp.-We have not the pleasure of Mr. Ingham's acquaintance, but we should judge he is a man of infinite patience,

for this volume must have occupied a long time in its compilation, and an immense amount of reading and literary anatomy. He flings authorities at us by the thousand, and keeps up a running fire

through hundreds of closelyprinted pages, printed in small type. The book is certainly confusing by its massiveness, and the diversity of the opinions it records and attempts to confute. He refers to Dr. Stacey eighty-one times, to Dr. Cooke nine times, and to other advocates of Infant baptism proportionately. Each reference is accompanied with what the author deems an appropriate and convincing refutation. It is truly "line upon line," and as truly, in our opinion, "much ado about nothing.' This subject has been argued ad nauseam by our Baptist friends for ages. We have all made up our minds about it long ago; but, like this author, some men have water on the brain, and they can talk and think about nothing else. We respect the convictions of our brethren, but we cannot respect the judgment which spends so large a part of human life in proving what-if the proof were convincing-they who adopt the idea are not a whit nearer heaven than those who reject it; for Baptists have over and over again admitted that sprinkling or immersion, pædo-baptism or antipædo-baptism, are not matters of salvation. We should rather think there is something more and better to do in the moral world just now than to be wasting all these pains on so secondary a question.

GRANNY'S CHAPTERS ON SCRIPTURAL SUBJECTS. BY LADY MARY Ross. From the Death of Ahab to the time of Herod the Great. London: John Bush, Charing Cross, S.W. Crown Svo, 498 pp. -This is the third series, and we presume the third volume of these "chapters." There is another volume to follow, on the New Testament, and then the four volumes will constitute a complete Bible history. We cannot help thinking that the title is a misnomer, and that the authoress intended, when she began, to write a work less in bulk and scope than she has done, or she would have adopted a title more dignified and appropriate to her work. Be this,

however, as it may, the work is excellent in tone, replete with useful observations and illustrations drawn from Eastern manners, and adapted to be useful. But the work can never stand side by side with, for instance, Dean Stanley's "History of the Jewish Church," or works of that character. It is too large to be read by the young, for whose use it is otherwise well adapted, and older persons, especially students, will resort to works of a more elaborate and critical character. Still, Lady Ross deserves well of the religious world for the reverent pains she has taken to give a connected history of the Bible; and any one who has time to go through the work will acquire information and receive profit from its perusal.

THE ARGUMENT à priori for the Being and the Attributes of the Absolute One and the First Cause of all things. By WILLIAM HONYMAN GILLESPIE, of Torbanahill, F.R.G.S., &c., Author of "The Necessary Existence of God." Fifth edition.

London: Houston and Sons, 65, Paternoster Row. Svo, 166 pp.-This is a kind of theological Euclid, very profound, no doubt; but if there be no other way of arriving at the belief in a God than this book points out, nine hundred and ninety-nine persons in every thousand must remain atheists, for not one in a thousand can follow the author's chain of reasoning. We do not say this to disparage the book, which is really a very able work for those who have a taste, capacity, and time to digest it.

THE PLYMOUTH BRETHREN: their Rise, Divisions, Practice, and Doctrines. A Lecture by EDWARD BENNETT. Third Edition, revised, &c. London: Elliot Stock. 8vo, 56 pp.-So far as our experience has gone, we have found Plymouth brethren mostly very queer brethren. We have met with some who had souls larger than the narrow system they represent, and with these we have delighted to hold communion

in various ways as opportunity has afforded; but for the rest, and, as we believe, the more strict and perhaps consistent brethren, they have been all we say-very queer brethren. We have no doubt that Mr. Bennett's pamphlet is a perfectly fair and honest representation of these brothers, and we strongly recommend it to all who are interested in the subject. We should suppose the price is sixpence, though that is not stated on the cover.

THE LIFE OF SAMUEL BRADBURN, THE METHODIST DEMOSTHENES. By THOMAS W. BLANSHARD. Second Edition. London: Elliot Stock.

This work was noticed last year by Dr. Cooke, on the appearance of the first edition. To that notice, which very much accords with our own views both on the work and its subject, we refer our readers. Bradburn had great qualities in him, but they were never used as they should have been; and hence his memory is not reverenced as we reverence the memory of some of his brethren and contemporaries, much his inferiors in mental endowments, but who had more sobriety of mind, more tact, and more seriousness, and whom we think of with more respect. Let us, however, think of him with tenderness; for had he lived in a different age, and had his circumstances permitted the controlling influence of other and equally gifted minds, his eccentricities might have been less conspicuous, and his conduct more equable and discreet.

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CHRISTIAN STEWARDSHIP: Reminiscences of the Life and Labours of the late Henry Craigie, W.S., Edinburgh. By the Rev. WILLIAM WATSON. Edinburgh: John Menzies and Co. 18mo., 109 pp.This is a tribute to the memory of a good layman, who spent his life in doing good. It tells us, however, less of what he did than of what his contemporaries thought of him.

With an Introduction by the Rev. CHARLES GARRETT. London: Elliot Stock. 18m2, 192 pp. It is impossible to read this book without feeling our indignation aroused against the drinking habits of this day, and our pity excited by the many woes which those habits are daily creating, and which the author of this book so vividly depicts. The whole question of the evils of drinking, and of the cure of these evils by entire abstinence, or teetotalism, is strongly, and, on the whole, fairly, urged upon the attention of thoughtful men.

The book deserves to be read by all of us, and the claims it urges upon us calmly considered, with a view to the removal of the great national "curse" of drinking, and the advancement of the cause of temperance.

THE BIBLICAL MUSEUM: a Collection of Notes, Explanatory, Homiletic, and Illustrative, forming a complete Commentary on the Holy Scriptures. Especially designed for the use of Ministers, Bible students, and Sunday school teachers. By JAMES COMPER GRAY. Vol. I., Part 2, price 3d. London: Elliot Stock.-This is a beautifully printed book, and very cheap. The notes are short, but numerous, and very much to the point. They are gathered from a great variety of sources, and are intermingled with suitable illustrations and anecdotes. We have not seen any commentary so compact, so cheap, and yet so sufficient for all the purposes for which it is designed.

ANTIDOTE TO "THE GATES AJAR.” By J. S. W. Second Edition, enlarged. London: Hodder and Stoughton. 32mo 75 pp.-" The Gates Ajar" created some little sensation on the appearance of the work a few years since. We supposed it to be the work of one of the spiritualist persuasion. "J. S. W." has thought it demanded an antidote, which is presented in this little volume.

THE LAND OF CHARITY: A De