The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1854-04-25 00:00:00

EVENING MELTING.

The evening meeting was held in the hall of the Colle-
giate Institution. There was a very numerous attendance.
Amongst the clergymen and gentlemen on the platform
we noticed the Rev. Dr. M'lceile, who presided ; also; the
Revs. A. Knox, S. Minton, W. Pollock, F. Ould, C. Law-
rence, D. Anderson, W. M. Falloon, T. C.• Cowan, J. Bards-
ley, W. H. Wright, J. Crump, R. Wolseley, J. Robinson,
J. 0. Powell, E, Gabriel, H. Hampton, J, H. Jones, T.
Gell, W. Rawson, G. Reade, W. H. Duck, G. L. Ireland,
W. Matthias, R. Vance, S. B. Sutton, Job Lee, D. T. Barry,
G. Cuthbert, J. Lawrence, H. Gough, T. Moeran, J. King,
A. Hughes, J. Hughes, F. Barker, &c., &c. ; and-Messrs.
T. D. Anderson, C. Inman, H. J. Webster, A. Hodgson,
Pain, J. K. Rounthwaite, &c. The meeting having been
opened with prayer,
The CHAIRMAN addressed the meeting. He commenced
by observing that the successive weeks and months of the
year drew nigh. They had froM time to time strangers pre-
sented to them with introductions and recommendations.
They had opportunities, occasionally, to meet with acquaint-
ances, and to make those acquaintances more intimate; and,
occasionally, they had the happiness to meet with an old fami-
liar friend. The Church Missionary Society was of this last
crass—an old familiar friend. It required no introduction.
It required no recommendation, but was at once received into
our cordial embraces-as a friend. The duties,. therefore, of
chairman on such an occasion were very simple. He had ne-
ttling.- to explain. He had nothing to commend. He had
merely to perform the outward part of acting as the instru-
mentality which sets-the meeting agoing, speaking generally,
and considering the limits prescribed by their rules, wisely
and briefly, the business of the meeting, and calling upon
the various speakers to proceed with time details.. He had,
therefore, already performed all that the circumstances of the
case rendered imperative upon a chairman.. Having done
so, they would in all probability indulge him whilst he
indulged himself in saying that they were engaged in that
great work in which the greatest of the apostles felt to be the
highest honour. "Unto me," he said, "who am less than
the least., is it given to preach among the Gentiles the
unsearchable riches of Christ." In that work they were
engaged. Let them recal to their minds what those riches
were. Let them consider to whom they were to be
proclaimed, and then come back to the instrumentality by
which the proclamation was to be made. Need he enlarge on
those riches. They heard them spoken of from week to week,
—he hoped they read of them from day to day.. All things
were comparative in this world. Riches were comparative
when viewed with reference to poverty. Compared with one
another some were rich, some were poor.. Compared with
God, all men were poor, except the man Christ Jesus. He
possessed all the riches required for eternity ;.and therefore
he called upon us men, as poor, blind, and naked, that
through him, like gold purified, we might become rich indeed.
And what did that gold signify? All !hat Gott himself could
require,. to send forth into action his own love. We were in-
debted to the love of God, in the unsearchable gift of his Son.
He would not have exercised his love but in the light of
righteousness,. and that his love might go forth, his Son
came amongst us to love and save the unrighteous. All
that the governing character of Almighty God required,
was that sinful man might be willing to be won. All that
the fallen,, alienated character of man reqpired was, that lie
might be won back anti restored to his loving father. So,
then, these riches cons.sted in all that God, as the lawgiver,
could. demand—all that man, as the lawbreaker, could have
righteously demanded from him ; and now, all that man, the
alienated, conscious breaker of the law, could require to
restore him, was to look back with affection, with interest, with
love, without trembling, in the face of Him lie had offended,
and to feel, that, notwithstanding his. offences, his father
would not upbraid him, but send peace and love into
that holy house. These were the riches. Now, among
whom were these riches to be proclaimed ? The gen-
tiles, amongst whom it was written all mankina was in-
cluded except the Jewish nation. We now included in that
term all those who knew nothing of our heavenly father—
whose only idea of God were a strange, crude, unkind, judg-
ing of him by themselves—judging.of his revenge of faults by
their own revenge against faults—jiiging of him that he was
ready to strike because they knew that they had struck, and
making a demon of their imagination, and calling it a God..
The friends of Christianity had to overcome these evils—that
was their mission, and the instrumentality for its working
was their missionary society. It was their great happiness
that they were not compAled to originate any new
instrumentality—that they were not confined in their
exertions to what they could personally do. The great
machinery had already been prepared for them, and
in order to bring it into action they were only required to
touch it in those parts which.came nearest to themselves. At
the same time he should say that it was not enough that they
should supply funds for keeping the Church Missionary
Society in motion. He was grieved to say that while funds
wrre supplied, their present want was for living agents rather
than for the means of supporting them. Some one had
said that if St. Paul, under similar circumstances, had
been preaching from the text "Go ye into all the world,
and preach the gospel, to every creature," he would very
likely have more particularly insisted on the word "go";
whatever he might have said as to the instrumentality of
the society at borne, he would have mainly dwelt on the
word " go." Was there a man present who could
in his heart and conscience answer that call of " go,
and preach this gospel to every creature." Their friends in
the Church Missionary Socieiy wanted many such. They
wanted soldiers. See what a response there now was
to the call of our Queen to engage in her war-
fare. See, when the proclamation was made, and her
warriors were called forth, see with what enthusiasm
the mothers, and the wives of our soldiers, would patt with
those nearest and dearest to them, that they might go for-
ward and fight the battles of their Sovereign. Was it too
much to ask, then, that we should show the same readiness,
the same ardour, the same enthusiasm, and readily sur-
render our dearest kindred, when they were called upon
to go and serve their God? Ought we not gladly to
offer them a prayerful parting, and say, " Go, and
the blessing of God be with you whilst you fight,
not against man, but against the devil and against sin,
against spiritual wickedness in high places." The times
forcibly made an appeal for missionary labour. The circum-
stances of the country favoured, it. Wherever the world
was open, Englishmen went. They have gone for com-
merce, and now they were going for war. No climate
deterred them—no hardships deterred them, but onward
they " go." Anti the Church Missionary Society asked
the young men of England, Who will go forward in the
service of the Lord—who will engage in this missionary
labour—to preach the unsearchable riches of Christ to the
Gentiles?" We in this country had the Gospel; but thou-
sands and tens of thousands in distant countries had it not,
and all the society said was, give it to them. We had, in Eng-
land opportunity, influence, energy—an open world on all
sides where it had been closed before; India open, a great
part of China open, and all that was required was right-
minded labourers. The committee of the society had the
means to send men, and were ready to employ them provided
the right sort of men presented themselves ; but while nature
could make soldiers to fight the battles of Victoria, nothing
but grace could make soldiers for God. (Hear, hear.) Some
of our young men, comparing the honour and the dignity of
this cause, which was indeed beyond all others—for what
could be compared with the honour and the dignity
of supporting and being supported for Christ—would,
be earnestly hoped, engage in this work, and pray for strength
to be constant, and then go to the secretary and the com-
mittee, and say to them, in the name of the Lord let me go.
(Hear, hear.) The rev. chairman, in conclusion, feelingly
alluded to the loss which Liverpool and the missionary so-
ciety here was about to sustain in the removal from this die.
trict of one of the local clergy (the Rev. Frederick Barker, of
Edge-11111), who was about to address the meeting for the last
time, he believed, as one of themselves. He hoped, howev.er,
it would not be the last time that they should have his pre-
sence in the town, but that he would otter: visit them in con-
flexion with the great work in which they were engaged.
But, as he had already said, as one of themselves, he ad-
dressed them to-night for the last time. It was, indeed, with
considerable solemnity of spirit that he (the chairman) re-
ferred to the subject at all. He knew not what feelings such
a subject might inspire in others, but for himself he felt:that
an event of this kind tended to deepen the impressions on
his mind that all their opportunities were now very short.
Some of them had bad many of those opportunities. Per-
haps some of their young men might not live to have so
many, or the circumstances in which they were placed might
not afford them such opportunities ; but when he spoke of
his dear friend and brother, who was to leave them in a few
weeks, he spoke of one who had borne the burthen of labour-
ing in the great work, and who, in many respects, had had a
very difficult task to perform. He was sure that they all felt
grateful to their dear friend for the part he had been per-
mitted to take amongst them. He knew that he (the chair-
man) should feel his loss deeply. He could only in a few
words offer him a tribute of his esteem. He prayed that God
would bless him in his work more abundantly than he had
yet been blessed, and he hoped he would not forget them in
Liverpool, but that, from time to time, he would come
amongst them from the retirement of a country parish, to
give them occasionally a word of comfort and encouragement.
The rev. chairman resumed his seat amidst loud cheering.
Is&Rev. J . BATEMAN,after giving an interesting account of his
experience of the society's workings in India, proceeded to
remark that the main support of the society was derived from
the contributions made by Liverpool and Manchester. This,
he considered, was a matter of which both communities
might well be proud, and it was a rivalry deserving of every
encouragement. He remarked, however, that this year the
contributions of Liverpool had been less titan those of Man,
cheater. He alluded to a desire, which, lie said, he was in-
formedexistedamong the inhabitants of those two towns to he
considered the metropoil of tbeaortb.west ofgoglAud. 1t any