Contributions In Aid of the Countess of Huntingdon's Missionary Society during the month. Collected by Miss Howes EAST GRINSTEAD. Rev. B, Slight. YARMOUTH. Rev. J. Meffen. Lady Huntingdon's New Church, Sandown, Isle of Wight. Further Donations and Subscriptions in aid of the Turkish or African Mission will be thankfully received by Mr. F. W. Willcocks, 98, Goswell-street, London, or by any Minister of the Connexion. Rev T. Dodd Thomas Edminston, Esq, Briness, Shet- Thomas Newton, Esq, Wiveliscombe Hugh Watt, Esq, Irvine, N. B. Hadleigh: collected at Rev J. Palmer's per Ditto .... A Friend. per Rev E. S. Hart, St. Ives.. 15 3 2 50.0 .... .... 500 500 500 500 .... 2 2 0 100 20 0 .... 200 500 .... 500 10 0 0 1 13 1 200 THE HARBINGER. MARCH, 1857. THE LATE DR. HARRIS, AS AN AUTHOR. As an author Dr. Harris specially "served his generation." We do not propose to supply an analysis of his writings; this would occupy too much of our space, and might not prove sufficiently interesting to our readers. One thing concerning them has very forcibly impressed us, and on this we shall dwell, yet briefly ;—we mean, that his works were chiefly published, if they were not all specially written, to meet particular demands of the times in which he lived. Omitting numerous contributions to the Evangelical Magazine and other serials, we observe, that his first work of any magnitude was the "Great Teacher," a subject that, we can confidently say, supplied the keynote of all that followed; for although his later writings were more philosophical than we approve in a theologian, we believe, with all his breadth, and expansiveness of thought, his chief aim was to unfold, what he so appropriately designated, the great manifestation of Divine love for the recovery of a fallen world. It is the opinion of some that this first published volume is superior to any that appeared subsequently. The theme was well calculated to call forth the noblest energies of his soul. "In Him was life, and the life was the light of men.' A less refined mind than that of Dr. Harris, with a heart beating with love to such a Saviour, could not well produce a book on such a theme, without many bursts of thrilling eloquence, like the following: "Jesus of Nazareth! who can declare thee! thou wast the heart of infinite love, beating and bleeding for human happiness ! * * * * In Thee wisdom and goodness were in conjunction with holiness and power. All who treated with Thee tasted of goodness, of Divinity; Thine actions, if distributed over the course of time, might have formed its eras; Thy virtues were dowries sufficient to enrich a world; Thy character was glory set in grace." This book met the fate of many others written by men unknown, for the intrinsic excellence of a work is not a guarantee for its wide circulation,—more copies remained in the publisher's hands than were circulated, until its author was heard of as the successful essayist on the subject of "Covetousness, the Sin of the Church." "Mammon" produced great sensation in the different sections of the christian church, and in none more so than amongst the Wesleyans. We cannot endorse all that the book contains, because not believing it in accordance with the sacred scriptures, but that Dr. Harris considered the whole in strict harmony with them, we fully believe. Here too the Great Teacher is prominently exhibited, and the writer's most powerful arguments, and most pathetic appeals to benevolence, and liberality, are drawn from the commendation of Divine love "in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us." That noble proof of liberality that the Wesleyan body gave in their Centenary fund, was, to a very great extent, called forth by the reading of "Mammon." Essayists were again challenged to produce the best work on benefitting our maritime population, Dr. Harris was successful in this instance also, and the result has been published under the title of "Britannia." A friend of missions, who mourned the supineness of the church in the cause of the heathen, had recourse to the same kind of stimulus. A prize was offered, and there were many competitors, but Dr. Harris was again declared successful. "The Great Commission" was published, and its beneficial influence was seen, in the improved finances of the different societies, and the greater earnestness of those who contributed. The amount of the prize was, we believe, two hundred guineas, and the manuscript realized about seven hundred more, the whole of which, the writer has been informed, was devoted to the purchase of an annuity, for the benefit of some aged and near relatives of the author. Passing by minor publications, such as occasional sermons, most of which were prepared to counteract prevailing errors, or to correct existing defects, the attention of Dr. Harris was next directed to a subtle, but talented, and therefore the more dangerous, book, entitled, "The Vestiges of Creation," a book that must have been written by an eminently scientific man, but one who was evidently determined to aim a blow at the Bible. Though himself ashamed, or afraid to publish his name, perhaps not having confidence in his expressed tenets, or at least fearing that their publication might interfere with his other enterprises, he nevertheless found some who were too well versed in holy writ to be bewitched by his plausibilities, or thrown off their guard by his puerilities, and they stood forth and replied in a manner that not only exposed his fallacies but disproved his erroneous statements. Of these Dr. Harris was one. To meet the case, he adapted the early part of his Course of Lectures on the Great Manifestation, and by direct reference in the text, or by foot notes, supplied a most complete refutation of those parts of "The Vestiges," that reflected on the Mosaic account of the Creation, as recorded in the first chapter of the book of Genesis. This book is entitled "The Pre-Adamite Earth;" and formed the first of a series that the Doctor had intended to publish in succession, but only two of which have yet appeared. These are entitled respectively, "Man Primæval," and "The Patriarchy"; Man as formed by God; and Man as he was during the Patriarchal times. The Bible thus encountered an enemy in a man who professed no love for it, it has had many such but "the word of God shall endure for Nevertheless its greatest enemies are some who call themselves friends; men who say they admire and love it, and yet who do all they can to rob it of its glory, and to see it shorn of its strength. If the Bible ever. is not a divinely inspired book, our preaching and your faith is in vain, and we are without a guide to immortality and eternal life. This subject was being agitated at the time Dr. Harris left our Connexion College for New College, which induced him to take it as the theme of his Introductory Lecture, and to any who would see this important element in our faith treated in a masterly and satisfactory manner, we commend that lecture to their notice. Our author has been withdrawn from his labours, and is now participating in "the Divine rest," of which he had so powerfully discoursed a few weeks before his decease. He has been removed from the office of teacher of others to learn more directly of the glories of the Great Teacher, from Him who here spake as never man spake. He has been taken away from this selfish world, to where Love only abides. He has left Britannia for Britannia's God. His Commission in its Greatness was executed, and he is now reaping his reward. His disembodied spirit is now with Jesus, the second Adam, the Lord from heaven, and his dust awaits the resurrection morn, when in company with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob,—the brightest ornaments of the Patriarchate, he will appear to inhabit the new Heaven and new Earth wherein will dwell righteousness: and then, oh how blessed the prospect! he will fully and completely enjoy things which "eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him. But God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit." He believed the testimony, and will then realize the blessing. Reader, are you anticipating such a meeting? If so,-on what ground? Is Christ precious to you! There is salvation in no other; for "there is none other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved." And as "it is appointed unto men once to die, but after that the judgment: so Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many; and unto them that look for him shall he appear the second time without sin unto salvation." A VOICE FROM WESTERN AFRICA. "The lion hath roared, who will not fear? the Lord God hath spoken, who can but prophecy?" Amos iii. 8. In the days when the late Reverend and excellent John Newton visited the coast of Africa, first as a slave and then as captain of a vessel, Sierra Leone was covered with trees and infested with lions. So terrible indeed was the noise of these animals, and the tradition of their savageness, that the part which a mysterious providence has appointed to our especial care and encouragement, as a religious Connexion, obtained its name from its mountain and its lions. For a long time, indeed these hills were being partially cleared of their forest, and consequently of the kings of the forest; the ground near the water was being drained and cultivated, and houses were built and families reared, and the gospel preached and its power felt and expressed by many of the colonists, of which not a few professed to be christians of the Countess of Huntingdon's Connexion ; and our best friends in England either were quite ignorant of these facts or received their knowledge in so faint a tone, that no practical impression was made upon them. Nay, while the missionary spirit was being enkindled, and even while the Rev. Melville Horn and others were calling the attention of christendom to a Western African mission, we heard not the voice of hundreds of our fellow christians calling to us by our very name "Come over and help us.' At length however we heard, we startled from our apathy, and resolved to aid so interesting a cause, such a band of brothers, as far as it was in our power. Happily our sable friends had learned by more than fifty years experience, to trust in God, and, under him, to rely more on their own independent resources than on British assistance. The history of this people, as written by Mr. J. B. Elliott and others, is one of the most extraordinary proofs of the force of the gospel to prepare and to prompt a partially enlightened and oppressed body of christians to self-reliance and personal exertion in maintaining the means of grace. An exchange of thought, however, soon made it evident, that we in England, might help our beloved African brethren in more ways than in sympathy and prayer: we might help by grants of books-by pecuniary aid-by counsel-by furnishing them with the means of teaching their scholars, and of training more efficiently their exhorters and preachers. This led to the coming of Mr. S. R. Wright to England for education for the pulpit and the superintendence of the native preachers, and of Mr. John Williams to be instructed in the British and Foreign School system, to improve the method of teaching and managing the schools in the Connexion throughout the colony. This perhaps was the best we could do, and in the mean time we sent the Rev. G. Fowler, one of our brethren, as a deputation to organize and encourage the natives in any way in his power. We were pleased, perhaps too pleased with our project; and hence, the lion has roared again and again, and filled us with alarm, and we have been disposed to prophesy a gloomy issue. Our gourd was too frail to afford us shade from the scorching sun for Williams had scarcely commenced his studies when he shewed indications of insanity; this disease grew upon him, and terminated in his early death: thus were we bereft of our schoolmaster then Wright, selected by our Freetown friends, and in his piety and zeal justifying their choice of him as a minister to be trained to take a lead in the churches, and to succeed the venerable Elliott, after studying here for a short time, and labouring in the colony with great diligence and success, sickened and died. While dear Elliott, to whom we and Sierra Leone are so much indebted for his zealous and valuable labours as exhorter and superintendent for the space of forty years, at a good old age is removed from the sphere of his toils and triumphs. His death makes us feel that a sort of key-stone is taken from the mission-arch; for if ever fisherman might be considered to be a successor of the apostles, Anthony Elliott had claims to that distinction. Within a few days, however, of each other the father and the son in the gospel are summoned nearer the SHEPHERD and BISHOP of Souls! Mr. Fowler's health too compelled his premature return to England. ; Another event also pains the friends of the colony, Thomas Canray |