The Dorset County Express and Agricultural Gazette.
Dorchester, Dorset, England, 1877-09-04 00:00:00

SHIPTON GORGE.

Frei AT STIIRTLL DAIRT.—On Thursday afternoon the
Bird instant, abet three pm., a large hay rick was dis-
covered to be on fire at Startle Dairy, belonging to Mr.
F. Samara's, at Chileombe Farm. As soon as it was
discovered ROMP men working near ran to it and found a
wheat rick that was near was also on fire. Everything
Tnill done to keep the fire from spreading by the people,
who ear.ae to render assistance as soon as they saw it, but
I in spite of all their efforts the fire raged the more, and it
was soon discovered that the learn And all the cow stalls
were in flames It rapidly spread. Before anything could
he dent to save the ton Aables they were also on fire, and I
the whole place, excepting the ditiryhoune. was soon one
moss of flames. Seeing no more could he done to prevent
these places from burning, men were placed on the roof of
the dairy-house, an it was considered to be in danger.
Ladders were got and water carried up, and the roof of
the briars drenched well with water, whilst other men
beat off the fire with long sticks as it fell on the roof. by
PO doing the house was Raved. Mr. Samways was away
from home at the time, but soon hearing of the news it
was not long before he was on the Mena, greatly
distreseed at what had necurre4. The following
are the things which were destroyed by the fire
—a hay rick. about 100 tons, wheat ricks, containing
seven acres; of wheat, the barn, which was of vetches,
a large waggon. nearly new, which was standing in the
horn laden with wheat, several hundred fagots of furze,
which was in th- cows stall., all the Cows stalls, the two
stables, and different things besides. It is believed that
Mr. Fred S unways has it insured, but only ennrigh to
rover about one third of the value. The cause of the fire
in mipprised to have been by the overheating of the hay-
rick. The hay and wheat bstrnt all the night, and the
fire was not gone down mach before the morning. Send.
Welsh, with P.C. Long and Bryant. remained on duty at
the fire all night, with four of Mr. Smnways' men

Neu:unfit-sta.—At the Salisbury Petty Sessions on
Tuesday before Earl Radnor and others, a girl, appar-
ently about 15, named Panes Scutt was charged with
stesling a pint of beer, the property of George Trow-
bridge, at Rower Chalke.—Mrs. Trowbridge stated that
her husband worked at C,hase farm. On the 14th instant,
she locked the dom, of her cottage, and went into the
fields to nee her hniihand. On her return she way "quite
turned," on looking through the window, to me somebody
in the hone.. She went to call the primmer, who lived
close by, and met her enming not of the hack floor of the
boom. Witness said " afers sake, what iv the
matter r She replied "1 have been into your hnnse, and
drawn some drink" Witness replied, "Then I know
Where the money has gone which I have lost." Primner
imaged her not to tell her mother, but ahe replied, "1
shall have lost no many things that T can stand it no
longer." There was beer running from the barrel. She
never expected to see the prisonsr in the house any mere
than she did the Queen from Lunnun. (A lime.) In her
defence the primmer merely said, "I went into the house,
but only hail one glass of ale" She was ordered
to be imprisoned and kept to hard labour for • month.

PROTESTANTISM AND ROMANISM
THE PREIIEHT PrAMON OP THE CHROITIAN CHURCH.

At the laying of the memorial stone of a new
ronseregati.nal Chapel at Verw.l. the Rev. J. O.
Jackson who iwesiaeil..leliverc.l the following seirlreas,
which, at this crisia of the Charchk history, will be

read with interest
The Rev. gentleman said :—Christian Friends—We are
met tneether here to-day on an OCCAllif,l of deep interest,
and one which cannot hut awaken varied reflections. It
will he my endeavour to simeret to your minds such
thoughts as an occasion like this. might to excite, and
which may he worth rementhenng in time to come.
Many of us, who have peesed the meridian of life, will
soon he passing off the stem ; hut there are children and
young people here who will live, we hope, for many years
to re/me, and who will, no doubt, remember in some
distant slay, the humble proreedings of to-day, and who,
we hope, Will remit them with pleasure and profit. The
first thought snegmted to my own mini to-day is this,
that it is our privilege to meet together as Englishmen in
the enjoyment of our civil and religious nrivileres. There
are few countriee, if any, where such privileges are
enjoyel. it is something, at this time of war, when some
of the fairest and most fertile tools of &Irene and Ask
see being desolated by the ravages of war, it is something
to he free from such horrors, awl to enjoy "or possessions
and privileges in peace. Ant we cannot but unite in the
fervent hope and prayer that the dark slow' of war may
soon peas away, and that a long and settled peace and
prosperity may follow. But here we meet as Englishmen.
"under our own vine and fie tree," enjoying nor own Heil
and religious advantages, and worshipping (11.1 after the
dictates of our consciences none daring to make 119 afraid.
It was not always so. Our forefathers won their rights
by anffering, by martyrdom and death. Other men
labonred, and we reap the fruits of their fidelity to
conscience, and their terrible sufferings. Let its as
Englishmen to-day, thank Gel that what kings, peoples
and prophets desired and longed for, we enjoy to the full.
" Not unto us, not unto us, 0 1,-.ll,hut onto Thy name he
all the glory r But a second thought that arises in our
minds to-day is that we meet NA Protestants. The house
of God, whose memorial atoms is laid to-day, is essentially
a Protestant place of worship. As thous who protest
ageinst Popish practires, whether open or secretly
diegnisel, we set up our standard here to-day. No truee
with Rome was the battle cry of the noble army of
Reformers, and the same most he ours to-day.
As Rome chances not, except to claim greater
power over men's consciences, and to hind such
chains on her victims, wi most our protest he the
some, and one spirit of hostility as firm Ind unohaneing,
hot as Ridley and Lotinier. and Hooper and Cranmor;
and Luther and Pollen and Favel held aloft this stawises,
and shook the V ,tiran and the ohi Pope tremble in
his tml.ende•l Atoovolteil CO lir, so must we catch their
spirit, and re-utter their sentiment,, and mointain their
hostility to the system of ii irk delusion that now claims,
in louder tone than over, infalibility for its doctrines, anti
unquestioning, servile and degrading imbmission to priest
and pope. We hove now read history in vain: we know
the tree by its fruits, we know something of the delusive
errors, the •:le practices, the perms-siting spirit of Popery:
we have not forgotten Bartholomew's Day, or the cruelties
inflicted by Popish soldiers on Albigenset and Waldenses,
and Confessors of every name that have dared to throw
off that Yoke. The history of Popery is written in the
blend of the saints of God. And as she—" the starlet
whore"—lifts her brazen face with shameless effrontery
and boast, that she is amp, earns, always the same, let
Us withstand her advances and meet her open or insidious
attacks with unrelenting opposition and hatred. We are
Protestants—we protest against Wettish errors and prac-
tices, whether open or avowed, as by Roman Catholics, or
seers t and dishonestly ennrealeel, as hats been the ewe by
the Ritualists. The systems are one and the same. In
both reremonim are put in the place of Christ: the poor,
sinful, yea wicked human priests in the place of the
Divine and Great High Priest: and works and duties are
put in the place of faith in Christ Be it ours to hold up
the truth in opposition to their dewily errors. Let us pro-
claim justification by faith alone; salvation by confessing
our sins to (tool. and not to a poor fallible priest: the real
presence of Chris: in the hearts of His people, and not in
mere bread and wine; worship, AA acceptable to God,
when it is in spirit and truth, sad not in outward rite and
ceremony, and elaborate and symbolical service. May
these troths ever he made prominent in this place of
worship, that whatever is preached or practised in other
places of worship, even those establatheil by law, however
dim the religious light may there be, may the tight of
these evangelical truths ever he clearly shining here. In
the night of human sorrnw and error, may this humble
structure be as a lighthouse to the tossing mariner, guard-
ing hint from rack and quicksand, and wading him across
life's troubled ma to the haven of eternal rest I But we
must remind you that we meet here to-day not only m
Britons, and as Protestants, but as Nonconformists.
We have a testimony to bear in this our day, and in this
neighbourhood to the simplicity and freedom of Christian
worship—the voluntary character of the Church of Christ.
We trust we can hold out the hand of fellowship to all
who love our Lord Jesus Christ, of whatever party or
denomination. We thank God for true Christians In
every communioa, and we yield to none in our assertion
of that part of the creed, " I believe in the Communion
of Sainte" Thus we have no narrow, sectarian feeings;
our charity and sympathy are as wide as the Church of
God itself. But we believe we have testimony to bear, •
testimony to the purity, spirituality, and voluntary
character of the Christian Church, and sta indepeudimell
of all human governments, and all worldly props egad
supports. We do not believe in a forced religion. We
cannot see that the strong arm of the law should be
employed to support or sustain the spiritual Church of
Christ. We believe that from the time of Constantine in
the fourth century downwards, the Church of Christ has
been fettered and corrupted by the very support and
decorations and honour, heaped upon it No, tree
Christianity needs only the support of those who bee it.
And 'safely may she be left to the support of her friends.
And the great lesson of the age io this ; Christianity will
he fri er, purer, stronger, if let alone by human govern-
ment. ; so that all the events of the passing age wens to ,
say to kings and princes and the great men of the earth,
" femme her and let her go," dependent solely on the
buying support of those who love her; unchecked, ,
unhindered, unbound by the swaddling clothes, or even I
by the golden chains that worldly potentates would throw
around her. These views, we think, we derive from the
New Testament, the only standard of truth and duty.
From the words of the Master, "My kingdom is not of
this world," "re gather that Christ's is a spiritual, and not ,
a worldly kingdom ; that it lives in the hearts end by tits 1
loving support of His followers, and that it should not be
governed or managed or maintained by those who under..
stand not its character, and have no sympathy with its
spirit or its Divine master." "For what concord bath
Christ with Belial, or light with darkness." And these
views we find nobly maintained at the time of the Refer
matins by Greenwood mai Barrowe, and then by the
Brownists, and a little later by the better Puritans, and
then after 1102 by the Noncomforeaste who, 2,000 strong,
left the Fctablished Church of England in one day rather
than conform to the new prayer book, and the book of
sports, which a corrupt clergy and a godless king were
forcing on the nation. We are not ashamed of our Non-
conformist ancestry. We are proud of such names as
Owen and Charnock, and Manton, and Bates, and navel.
and Richard Baxter, and John Howe, and Philip Henry,
and N ttbaniel Heywood, and Oliver Heywood, and later
on Dr. Dodilridge, and Dr. Watts, and a great multitude
of others of whom the world was not worthy, whom
record is on high. We in Hampshire are proud of the 58
ejected ministers, who, rather than lose a good conscience,
Kaye up their livings, and wandered about in poverty and
suffering. And in Dorset you had 54 brave witnesses of
whom you may well boast: while in the neighbouring
county of Wine, a band of 51 joined this noble army of
2,000 martyrs for truth and conscience mike. And for 21.10
years and more since then, have our spirituel Nonconfor-
mist ancestors bravely borne their testimony ever before
a crooked and perverse generation, and their history has
been one of severer or petty persecution; but still have
they maintained their principles amidst evil report and
good report, and, as one has said, "So absolute has the
authority of the Crown been at times, that the precious
spark of liberty has been kindled and preserved by the
Puritans alone, and it is to this sect the English owe the
whale freedom of their constitution." Puritans, Noncon-
formists, Dissenters—such are the names by which, in the
different centuries, they have been known. And what is
the testimony borne by the great Earl of Chatham in
Parliament It is one of which they need not be ashamed-
His words were these, "The Dissenting_ Ministers are
represented as men of close ambition. They are so, ml
lords, and their ambition is to keep close to the college of
fishermen, not of cardinals; and to the doctrine of
inspired apostles, not to the decrees of interested and
aspiring hishom. They contend for a scriptural creed and
spiritual worship: we have a Calvinistic creed, a Popish
liturgy, and an Armenian clergy." But your mission in
Verse:rod, my friends, is not one of controversy. That is
well and needful in its place and time and we Nonconfor-
mists have never shirked that duty, when pressed on toe
Bet. your mission is of a quieter, more peaceful, more
spiritual character. It is to bold forth the truth as it is
in Jesus, to troubled hearts and inquiring minds ; to guide
the seekers alter truth ; to point the anxious sinner to the
loving Saviour; to confirm the doubting to strengthen
the feeble and distrustful heart, and especially to gather
the lambs into the fold of the Good Shepherd. It is to do
the part of the good Samaritan to poor, wounded, sin sink
sowa, and may God Wass you in your work.