Welsh Journals

April i, 1892. THE WELSH WEEKLY. exercises in the discharge of duty, and that that gracious attitude in turn increases the suppleness and ability of the soul for its performance of that duty. His speaking of Him who is the glorious theme pro¬ duces delight in Him, and this delight in turn expands the heart and opens his mouth to speak of Him with the greater boldness and eloquence. This is the ministra¬ tion which glorifies God and edifies the churches. But if we would be habitually setting about the Work of the pulpit in this spirit we must be exercising ourselves unto godliness and labouring to grow in grace and in the knowledge of God. Do not rest content, brethren, with a narrow soul and base senti¬ ments. Your ministry is dignified, and needs a spacious temple to inhabit and to manifest itself. Strive, then, to strengthen your natural gifts and to extend the powers of your mind by diligent study, that the Gospel ttiay dwell in you with a greater breadth, and appear to your hearers, through your language and ideas, to Borne extent, in its native glory. It happens occa¬ sionally that one who knows the Gospel itself right well is scarcely able to recognize it in many a sermon, and is ready to ask with the Bethlehemites, " Is this Naomi ? " Is this the glorious Gospel of the blessed God ? So marred is its visage when once it comes to connect itself with the commonplace feelings and language of the superficial minister ! And yet how rich and glorious that same Gospel appears in the spirit and words of the apostles ! Oh, my brethren, if our powers were those of angels we might even wish them to be still greater again in order to show forth the glory of the Gospel. What, then, with our own slender ones ? Bear in mind, however, that the life and unction of all the natural talents comes from the grace and gifts of the Spirit. Supplicate them in your prayers ; and by mortifying the fleeh and giving your¬ selves to scriptural meditations, foster them carefully in your minds. See that you abound in those duties which call them into exercise, for it is by being used that they increase. There is no work for them in handling the things of the world, "or in discussing politics and ordinary affairs. And it is even possible that a man who had received a fair measure of such gifts of the Spirit may find out at some time or other 7—if his genius be allowed to run to any great length in this secular direction—that they have faded out of his mind and left his spirit dull and languishing in every spiritual exercise. Yea, it is surprising how even a temporary fondness for some other pursuit serves to destroy our relish for this work. Oh to be always keeping near to Christ! In Him the poor and destitute sinner is enriched in everything, in all utterance and in all knowledge. As you have been brought, like your Great Master, to love righteousness and to hate iniquity, you may hope that the God who anointed Him will anoint you also in Him with the Spirit and His glorious fruits. Then the penetration of your minds and the heavenly temper of your spirits will be sure to furnish you with an unspeakable advantage in addressing your hearers; a power and a tenderness will pervade your ministry which the highest gifts of nature cannot attain or show its like! Oh God, preserve this ministry in Wales ! " Oast us not away from Thy presence, and take not Thy Holy Spirit from us," for then, although we may hasten to ordain our ministers and continue to multiply our religious services, the glory of all will have departed, the church, as regards her being and her order, will have vanished, and the towers of Zion in our midst will have become the pinnacles of Babel! X. It is now arranged that the proclamation of the Welsh National Eisteddfod of 1893, at Pontypridd, shall take place on the first Monday in July, and the Lord Mayor of London, who is a native of the district, has intimated his intention of being present. The modern newspaper, Canon Knox Little said in a sermon at St. Thomas's, Regent Street, is a terror to evil¬ doers, because of the publicity it gives to deeds of evil that would otherwise be shrouded in darkness. Chris dans ought to support hisih minded papers. [Among these must be numbered the Welsh Weekly.—Ed. W. W.] Me. W. E. Walters, tbe recipient, from the employes in the Taff Vr,le offices at Cardiff, of a valuable present on his re irement aft>jr 16 year ■' service, is tha;youngest deacon of the Richmond Road Congregational Church, in ttiat town. His fa h*r, Mr. Evan Walters, was for many years the secretary of Ebenezer W-lsh Church, under R>-vs. Lewis Powell, J. Morgan Evans, and J. Alun Roberts. B.D. The disturbances of the past few days have now been replaced by a lar^e system of high pressure, the centre of which lies over our islands, the bar. meter having risen above 30£ in. The con ntipns, however, sfem to be of a somewhat unstable character. With the very dy atmo¬ sphere which prevails, ad itional cauti >n is enjoined on thos-i employed underground, as both gas and dust are unfavourably affected. Above the anthems of the celestial choir Jehovah hears ourfe hestcry; and amid the ylories of the upper sanctuary Cor si's eye turns les* ontheglhtering crowns Hisredeemed ones cast at His feet than on His people he-e, fighting in the fied of battle, we* ping in this vale of t<- ars. Therefore let us pray on, nor cease praymg till w§ cease living,— NOTES FROM THE MIDLAND METROPOLIS. At the Welsh Calvinistic Chapel, Granville Street, Mr. William Jones, of Ashted Row, delivered a lecture entitled " What I have seen and heard in Rome, Pompeii, and Naples." It was illustrated by limelight views, which were most interesting illustrations of the chief buildings and of the principal cities he had visited. The proceeds of the lecture are to be in aid of " Henry Richard " National Memorial Fund. Great credit is due to Mr. W. Jones for the zeal and substantial support given by him to this excellent movement. Me. Chamberlain's speech last week before the Birming¬ ham Jewellers' and Silversmiths' Association on the House of Commons was most humorous, and I have no doubt that a few extracts from it would be acceptable to many of the readers of the Welsh Weekly who have not read the speech. He said :—" I remember, a few years ago, asking Mr. Bright, who had had, of course, a very long experience of the House of Commons, whether he thought that it had changed in his time, and he said, ' Well, of course, circum¬ stances change, fashions change, individuals change, but in its main essentials the House of Commons to-day is what it always was.' As far as my own much more limited experience goes, that is absolutely true, and I believe that if we could recall some of the great Parliaments of the past, we should find not only that all the characteristics of the Parliament now sitting would be reproduced, but that we should actually have even the types of the men who are there to-day. We should find them, if we could raise our predecessors in the flesh, i.i the Parliaments of a hundred and two hundred years ago. In my time I have never known the House of Commons with¬ out a funny man. There is always one, and when he dies, or when he ceases to be elected, or when, for some reason or another, he retires into the background, there is another immediately to take his place. I would not name the present occupant of the place for worlds—but if you ever go to the House of Commons you will find the funny man there in all his glory, just as he was, I verily believe, in the Long Parliament. He is a man who has a natural taste for buffoonery, which he has cultivated with great art, who has a hatred of every Government, and all kinds of restraint, and especially, of course, of the Government which happens to be in office. Then there is the House of Commons bore—of course there is more than one, but there is always one par excellence. He is generally a man who is very clever, a man of encyclopaedic information, which he has been unable to digest himself, and which, therefore, he is always ready to impart to everybody else. Then you have the weighty man, and, gentlemen, the gravity of the weighty man of the House of Commons is a thing to which there is no parallel in the world. You have the foolish man, you have the man with one idea, you have the man who is a little cracked. All these men are there to-day, were there fifty years ago, and will be there fifty years hence. The House of Commons is no regarder of persons, the poorest or the richest, the noblest or the humblest, all stand upon an equal footing. The only passports to its good grace are ability, and what I think is of even greater importance, the evidence of earnestness, sincerity, and bone3ty. The House of Commons is not, on many occasions, a very lively place. Mr. Disraeli was asked once about this, and he said, after thinking for a minute, ' Yes, the House of Commons is a dull place, but there are moments of emotion.' Yes, there are moments of emotion which make life worth living, and there are times when the Hou?e of Commons relaxes its gravity and enjoys itself like a pack of truant schoolboys. There is hardly a session passes without this well-known incident. Some member, in his excitement or his agitation, bangs his hand on the head of the member in front of him, or sits down on his own hat and crumples it up, and the House of Commons bursts into a roar of laughter, and ei joys the scene a< if nothing of the kind had ever before been represented at a pantomime. I, myself, have witnessed a grave debate nearly bought to a stand-till while the crowded benches on both sides pursued, with infinite interest, the movements of a cockroach acto s the floor of the Hmse of Commons, and screamed with delight whim it rushed at a prominent Radical member, whose discomfi- tme was only too manifest," Cymeo. Wise men ne'er sit and wail tb>ir loss, But cheerly seek how to ledress their harms — Shakespeare, It would be an uncpeakab1e advantage, boih to the public and he p ivate, if men w uld consider the *>reat truth that no man is w;Se or gafe but he th*t is honest, Sir WalterBnlvtyft, ''"■..>■* - ■ ; NOTABILIA. We have it on the authority of one of the organs of the Baptist denomination that an invitation will be given to Dr. Pierson to occupy the Metropolitan Taber¬ nacle pulpit, either permanently or for a period of five years, and that it is expected that the invitation will be accepted. The Upper House of the State of Mississippi has passed a Bill making it a misdemeanour, punishable with fine and imprisonment, to sell or smoke any cigarette, or any substance rolled in paper, in the public streets, in any public building, railway station, tramcar, or ferry, or in the vicinity of any cotton warehouse. The son and daughter of the vicar of Hartford were fined £5 each by the Huntingdon county magis¬ trates for assaulting a labourer named Childs, under singular circumstances, on Sunday. The defendants had gone to Hartford Baptist Chapel in a ludicrous disguise, which caused a scene of great disorder. A summons against the vioar, who also appeared on the scene, was granted. Archdeacon Sinclair's manifesto evidently voiced the feelings of very many eminent Churchmen. In a lecture delivered last week by Eev. J. Guinness Bogers, B.A., he indicated very clearly the willingness of Non¬ conformists to meet Churchmen upon a platform where mutual respect could be observed. Other distinguished Nonconformists have been gpeaking out in the same direction. The popular impression that every family possesses a Bible as well as a dictionary and a copy of Shake¬ speare, like other popular impressions, seems to be an erroneous one, for there is in New York a firm that makes a business of renting out Bibles of an expensive and handsome kind, suitable to hand to a bishop or a fashionable clergyman on the occasion of a christen¬ ing, wedding, or funeral in the family. A New Jewish Synagogue.—Mr. Benjamin L. Cohen, L.C.C., laid the foundation stone of the Hampstead Synagogue, in the presence of a large and influential gathering of members of the Hebrew community in London. The estimated cost is .£11,000, of which all but £1500 has been raised. An interest¬ ing feature in connection with the ceremony was that the Hundreth Psalm was, for the first time, it was said, in Jewish history, sung in Hebrew to the well-known tune, " Old Hundreth." The rector of Little Bradley, Suffolk, has shown a spirit of noble Christian kindness which ministers, and laymen too, of all denominations, would do well to follow. The Congregational minister at the neighbour¬ ing parish of Cowling (Rev. W. Peters) has been dis¬ abled by a paralytic seizure, and a fund has been raised on his behalf. To this fund the rector himself subscribed £20 and collected £40, and his church¬ wardens also gave £20 each. Dr. Vaughan, Boman Catholic Bishop of Salford, whose nomination as Archbishop of Westminister, in place of the late Cardinal Manning, is announced from Borne, is in his sixtieth year. He is a man of great energy and activity. Some twenty years ago he founded the beautiful missionary college at Mill Hill, and literally tramped over America, North and South, collecting the necessary funds. This institution, with preparatory schools also established by him near Southport and on the Continent, will ever stand as a witness to his zeal and work. Rev. Mr. McAll, Founder of the McAll Mission in France, recently presided at the inauguration of a mission steamer which was moored to the Tuileries Quay, Paris. The mission possesses in France, 135 balls, dispensaries, Sunday Schools, etc., and the steamer has been built in order to carry on the work in towns which possess no mission hall. Having in view this object, it has been constructed to navigate all the canals, to pass through all locks, and under all bridges. The saloon holds 180 people, and is lighted by mx Gothic windows of coloured glass. A modest pulpit, a harmonium, and a bookca-e, with a double row of benches, comprise its furniture. A circular, dated Hankow, and signed by Dr. Griffith John, anpeals for finds in suj pirt of the Central China Religious Tract Society. Che Socie'y has already issued a vast quantity of literature, but it has had to be sold, in most easels under cost price, and, consequently, at a loss. On January 12 a fire, in Hankow entirely destroyed the depot and sto. k, doing damage to the extent of £250. There is urgent need of the S ciety's work in Hunan, for, says the circular, the famous and infamous placards of the last eighteen months are avowedly a counterblast to the Society's tracts. It' the truth is to conquer the foulness of error, we must connine to print and publish; if Hunan is to tie opened to the Gospel, we must be ready t ■ stem the issuing st-e m by au iuflosv of pu,re literatitre,