in the British school-room. In the evening a public meeting was held in the chapel. The Rev. John Spurgeon, of Cranbrook, occupied the chair. Mr. T. E. Slaughter, one of the deacons, gave a brief account of the past history and present prospects of the church. The pastor then gave a touching narration of his conversion and call to the ministry. The charge to the pastor was delivered by the Rev. John Aldis, of Reading. Very suitable addresses were then delivered by the Rev. W. A. Blake, of Brentford; W. C. Bunning, of the Tabernacle College; H. W. Stembridge, of Tenterden; Kendon, of Goudhurst; Gill. of Rye; Jackson, of Sevenoaks; and J. Drew, of Margate. UNION CHAPEL, LUTON.-On Tuesday, Feb. 20th, the annual tea-meeting of the church and congregation connected with Union Chapel, Luton, was held. Five hundred persons took tea, the recently altered school-room being tastefully decorated for the occasion. At seven o'clock a public meeting took place. The room was densely crowded, and numbers were unable to gain admission. The chair was occupied by W. Willis, Esq., LL.D., barrister-atlaw, who, in his opening remarks, made kindly reference to the improvements lately made in the chapel and school-room, and congratulated the church on its prosperous condition. Addresses were also delivered by the Revs. W. Cuthbertson, B. A., of the Congregational Chapel, Bishop's Stortford; W. T. Henderson, of Devonshire Square Chapel, London; G. H. Davis, of Houghton Regis; C. H. Emerson, of Breachwood Green; T. Hands, and H. Ashbery, of Luton; and T. R. Stevenson, pastor of the church. ROTHESAY, N. B.-Services were held in Ardbeg Chapel, Rothesay, on Tuesday, February 27th, for the purpose of publicly designating Mr. Alexander M'Dougall, of the Metropolitan Tabernacle, London, as pastor of the Baptist church. In the unavoidable absence of the Rev. A. Macleod, of Glasgow, the Rev. R. Thomson, of Millport, presided. Mr. Thomson read two portions of Scripture bearing on the necessary qualifications of a pastor, and offered the ordination prayer. The Rev. J. Culross, of Stirling, afterwards addressed the pastor in a pointed and practical manner, and was followed by the Rev. W. Grant, of Grantown, who gave a spirited address to the church, when the proceedings terminated. A soirée was held in the same place in the evening, when about 350 persons sat down to tea. Colonel Scott presided. Addresses were delivered by Mr. M'Dougall, Messrs. W. Grant, of Gran town, J. Culross, of Stirling, T. W. Melhurst, and H. H. Bourn, of Glasgow, R Thomson, of Millport, and J. Crouch, stu dent from Mr. Spurgeon's College. In the course of the evening, John Jackson, Esq., Hillside House, one of the deacons, in the name of the members of the church, presented to Mr. Thomas Fyfe a handsome writing-desk, as a token of esteem for him as a member and a deacon, on his leaving Rothesay to reside at Ardrishaig. RYDE.-On Tuesday evening, March 6th the friends who have worshipped sinc December last in the Assembly-room High Street, were publicly formed int and recognised as a church of Christ of the Particular Baptist denomination. The Rev. H. Kitching, of Landport, read the Scriptures, offered up prayer, and delivered the introductory address. One of the friends having stated the grounds upon which they were acting, the Church Covenant wa read and assented to. Prayer was offered by the Rev. H. Hardin, of Towcester, for a blessing upon the newly-formed church. The Rev. E. G. Gange, Landport, then administered the Lord's Supper, with ap propriate prayers and addresses. The Rev. H. Hardin addressed the spectators. MINISTERIAL CHANGES.-The Rev. Jas. Davis, of the Pithay, Bristol, having accepted the cordial and unanimous invita tion of the newly-formed church at Teig mouth, South Devon, commenced his pastoral labours at Teignmouth on Lord's day, March 11.-The Rev. J. M. Stephens B.A., of Regent's Park College, has so cepted an invitation to the pastorate of the church at Naunton and Guiting. He wi enter upon his duties on the first Sabbath in July.-The Rev. Thomas Pottenger, of Rawdon, has accepted the unanimous invi tation of the church at York, to the pasto rate, and commenced his ministry on Sun day, March 4th. An eligible site has been secured for the erection of a chapel, which will be proceeded with in due course. The Rev. R. Morris, of Westmancote, bas accepted the unanimous invitation of the Baptist Church, Garway, Ross, Herefordshire, and entered on his stated duties there. The Rev. J. Parkinson, of Guls borough, Northamptonshire, has received an invitation to labour at Brightside, Shef field, with a view to the formation of & Union church.-The Rev. W. F. Gooch ha resigned the pastoral charge of the church at Foulsham, Norfolk, and has accepted the cordial invitation of the church at Diss, in the same county, and purposes entering on his new and enlarged sphere of labour on the second Sunday in April, THE CHURCH. "Built upon the foundation of the Apostles and Prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner-stone." MAY, 1866. THE SPRING. BY THE REV. O. M. BIRRELL. Most of our large towns have been constructed in such a way as to shut out nearly all traces of the operations of nature, and to prevent thousands of their inhabitants from being able to tell by any visible sign what season is coming or going. Those, however, who have persevered steadily all the year round in an early walk in the direction of the country are sensible at this moment of the passing of an extraordinary and general change over the arth's aspect. A very little while ago everything looked dead. The sun seemed hardly diaposed to get up at all, and at most only crawled from behind the distant church tower, and then sloped off in a line nearly level with the horizon as the shortest way to his bed in the west. The early vapours were in consequence hardly ever dispersed, and the gleam which reached you occasionally was chill and sickly. The trees were cheerless; and the snow-drifts under the hedges, despoiled of their original purity, seemed scarcely to know whether ogo or stay. At length the airs have become genial; a soft flush of green has tinted the ploughed land; great buds which you had not before noticed ve had the gum which sealed them dissolved by the growing warmth, and you are at last startled by flowers colouring sheltered spots with their and purple. A singular sympathy with all this has stolen over the ds of men, especially of those who have been at all imprisoned ring the winter. You notice the sick man, with the pallor still on his , and the ankles tottering under the unwonted load, leaning on arm of wife or sister, gratefully pacing the sunny side of the street; and the country roads, a little way out of town, how pleasant it is to see Eplete families, in carriages unusual to them, accompanying the longfather or mother into landscapes which they hail as "opening Fanalise!" But this is not a time of mere enjoyment. It is to the husbandman a time anxiety and responsibility. Work may then be done which cannot afterwards overtaken. He must be afield early and late, confirming the hold of the J young plants, sowing fresh seeds, and outrooting the sprouting weeds. the negligence of these weeks will afterwards be brought to light, and their diligence rewarded; for when the autumnal suns crown the year w goodness, God will give to every such man "according as his work shall b This is true of the spring-time of our natural life. There is a season w the mind is pliant and susceptible. It puts forth its new pow timidly and tentatively. If a thoughtful and intelligent guardianship given to it, it will finely open, acquiring every day new streng knowledge, and beauty. But if it is treated with harshness or negliger if the soil is not prepared for the soft rains, and the weeds are allow to come up rank and strong, damage is done which can never perfectly remedied. It is sad to look upon a field of good soil covered w desolation, but no sadness is like that produced by the sight of one, wh childhood gave promise of good, ending in sterility-the countenance f of trust, the step free and elastic, the language pure and noble, giving pla at last to the reserve of conscious guilt, the irresolution which comes fr victorious temptation, and the selfish hard look which follows upon indulg sin. Yet we are forbidden to despair. Just as the new life in nature mak its appearance, not only in cultured lands and gardens, but also occasional in the courts and alleys of great cities and among heaps of rubbish ruined mansions where one hardly looked for it; so the spiritual life gree you, now and then, not only in pure Christian homes, but in places whe vice and ignorance seemed to forbid the expectation of such a miracle. a moment, sometimes, such a soul is called from its couch of death, ar stands upright, throws off the air of the maniac, and is calmed and cloth in an instant-just as the earth, in northern latitudes, flings off her cle of snow, and puts on her green mantle in a few hours. This is a transition, whether slow or rapid, more delightful than a other which takes place upon our planet. What is lovelier than the growi seriousness of the soul, the increasing sensibility of conscience, the deepe ing love and reverence for Christ, the passing away of winter and t coming-on of the eternal summer? Yet it ought not to be overlooked t as the natural winter, in our climate, makes many efforts to return, a sometimes immediately after a warm day, or even before such a is well over, sends biting blasts which nip the young plants, it is so w the moral winter from which the spirit has escaped. It is a very notice fact that some of the sharpest tests of piety have occurred in its springt It was soon after his call that David was forced out of his retirement, & made to face the flatteries and hatreds of Saul's court. It was in the s season, probably in the seventeenth or nineteenth year of his sage, that Dan was taken from the religious associations of his native country, and exposed the idolatries of Babylon. It was not long after Saul of Tarsus receiv his life's commission that he was assailed by the taunts and persecutions his countrymen; and was it not, to allude to the highest example, at t very opening of his public life that our Lord was led off to the horror the wilderness? It is not likely that any of us shall escape those frosts, and we should therefore be prepared for them. The gardener is not thrown off his guard by few genial days, but keeps up his shelter behind the more delicate shrubs, gives protection to what it is possible to protect. Do you find those companions leave behind them a distaste for the companionship of God? Decline intimacy with them. Does that sort of reading, though not in itself wrong, unfit you for what is healthful and elevating? Take it in smaller proportions, or abandon it altogether. Do you find anything giving power to your passions, relaxing the vigour of your purpose or diminishing your d to serve and enjoy God? Throw up a barrier against it. Turn in ather direction and enjoy the sunshine. Let not your early blossoms be bited; let not the whole-hearted dedication of your first months end in indiference; let the spring pass into summer and the summer into the fruitful autumn of eternity! It Is it possible to leave the scene around us without being reminded of the power which shall, one day, summon the human race from the chambers of the dead? The seeds which the gardener a little while ago flung into the soil became disorganised and reduced to an apparently final corruption; yet from those tombs life and loveliness are everywhere leaping forth. cannot, therefore, b a thing "incredible" that God should raise the dead. But what is it which has emerged from the ground? The bare grain which was cast into it! No. Something related to it, but much more beautiful. There, instead, are the leaf, the stalk, the flower a structure of exquisite symmetry, colour and fragrance. The body which was "sown in dishonour is raised in glory;"" and when we look to the painted cup of the talip and the manifold bells of the hyacinth as they hang over the graves of the bulbs from which they sprang, we cannot but calculate that so prea seed as that of the body of a saint will be followed by a flower of Proportionate splendour. Sown a "natural" it will be raised a "spiritual" bul-not necessarily an immaterial one, but such as shall perfectly meet the requirements of the spirit. Our present bodies are meant to serve both the earthly and the heavenly nature, but they lean so much to the lower as to Ranger perpetually the interests of the higher. The maintenance of a at balance between these two, supplies, indeed, the chief part of our discipline on earth, and not till we have passed the grave shall the disbe en led. But then, physical and moral disorder shall depart toer, and the redeemed will serve God under conditions which admit of a erfect obedience and a perfect blessedness. Let us, then, hold up our vrage through what remains of the winter-the breath of spring already is the brow. SPECIAL SEASONS. BY THE REV. J. UPTON DAVIS, B.A. "And He led them out as far as to Bethany, and He lifted up His hands, and blessed the And it came to pass, while He blessed them, He was parted from them, and carried up heaven. And they worshipped Him, and returned to Jerusalem with great joy: and w continually in the temple, praising and blessing God. Amen."-Luke xxiv. 50-53. THE Jews had been too bitter against the Master not to be suspicious of His followers, so that when Jesus led the disciples out as far as to Bethany, He took them from danger and fear to safety and repose, and their return to Jerusalem, to wait there, was going back to peril and to work. In this light Luke's brief statement is suggestive of some facts in Christian experience. 1.-Special seasons of devotion are seasons of special blessing. Our Christian life does not run an even course; it does not flow between straight and smooth, but between broken banks-here a wide shallow, and there a deep pool; it broadens irregularly. We all have our spiritual "moods"; to-day with small joy in the Holy Ghost-to-morrow full of reverent thanksgiving and praise. Such a "flush" has its source in the head, the heart, or both. The blessing may be given when our minds are enlightened to discern some new feature in God's character, when we are more sensibly affected by what we already know, or when the mind makes some spiritual discovery and the heart exults in the revelation. Such seasons are, to adopt Peter's phrase, times of refreshing from the presence of the Lord." 66 Such times of refreshing often occur when we are turned aside from our usual course. It was not resting under the curtains of his father's tent, but in the open air-his head pillowed on hard stones-that Jacob saw the vision of the angels. It was not when busy with his ring-streaked and speckled cattle, nor when sacrificing in the midst of his family, but when alone on the other side of Jabbok, that he wrestled with the angel like a prince with God. We have been reading "To-day's Times," "This month's 'Cornhill,' or "The last from M die's," and, scarcely knowing wi have laid it aside for the New Tes ment, when fresh truth has shone in its pages, and we have had a clearer derstanding of the "truth in Jesu We have been deep in controversy a have closed the sceptical book of o adversary to follow the current thought which it started, when have been borne close to the side our enthroned Redeemer. By a cha of association-in the first link so i explicable, and in the last so surpri ing-our thoughts have been set fre from the work under our hands; and above the rattle of machinery, th rumbling roar of traffic, the prattlin of children, or the sudden silence scratching pen and clicking need our prayer has risen straight to "ot Father" on a steadier wing than b our bedside in the morning, or in th evening with our friends. We ha strayed into a strange chapel, and t new voice and fresh style have arreste attention and quickened old feeling into livelier exercise. Christ led t out to Bethany and blessed us there. It has been well "dinned" into 1 that "work is worship." So are trun with bare boughs, in winter, tree And as we look for spring buds, summ bloom, and autumn fruit from tree so we look for more than "stern duty in that worship which is " the deep votion of a living soul." The reape must be devoted to his children, w for their sakes puts in the sick in the grey morning, and only bea it away on his shoulder there are three stars in the sky But, besides that, if they pass in work, he has a word or s for them, and on his coming hom much talk and cheerfulness. It is ju then they are most gladdened and "whe |