The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1843-04-21 00:00:00

HOME MISSIONS

After the transaction of some less important business, the
Moderator (the Rev. Alexander :Murdoch) called on the
gentlemen from the different presbyteries to read their reports
on the home missions.

The Rev. JAMES CHALMERS BURNS, of the London
Presbytery, gave a report of the progress of the home mis-
sion in London, which showed that five new stations had
been formed, and expressed a hope that these would speedily
become new and flourishing churches.

The Rev. Hyatt CAMPBELL, of Manchester, gave the
report of the Lancashire Presbytery. He said that in Wigan
a most excellent missionary had been appointed to the congre-
gation there. His own conviction was, that in a few months
they should find it to be their duty to ordain that missionary,
and appoint another missionary in the place. Next year
they hoped to have a new church erected in Bolton. In
Liverpool, it was the intention to establish a mission in a
very populous part of the town, in which a great number of
presbyterians resided, and with the intention, he believed, of
having a church there at no very distant period.
The Rev. Dr. PATERSON, of Sunderland, (Newcastle-on-
Tyne Presbytery,) said that a very efficient home missionary
had been introduced into Newcastle-on-Tyne, from whose
labours much good was expected to result.
The Rev. PETER SAWERS, of Newcastle-on-Tyne, said
that the greater part of the population of that town, many of
whom had formerly been presbyterians, seemed to have sunk
down into utter appathy and neglect of religion. Out of a
population of 116,000, there were 92,000 who never entered
a house of God. The missionary now at work was confined
to a single locality of the town, in order that a clearer idea
might be formed of the good which resulted from his labours.
The Rev. Mr. MuNit°, of Manchester, said that they had
been cheered by the statements of what was being done in
London and other places; but the report from Newcastle-on-
Tyne was more deeply and painfully interesting. He felt
convinced that there had been some great neglect towards it
in the christian world. Belfast and Newcastle-on-Tyne were
originally almost all presbyterians, and they had grown uppari
et
hadr
ea
lt
i the
sreAlitgi trong oneous conditionperiod,hold in Newcastle-on-Tyne, and he say thirty or forty years
of the two places was
paaau;awg but the religious condition of the two places was
widely
edi uff
therefore thought it was their duty to do something for its
spiritual welfare.
The MODERATOR, vacating his seat, read the report of the
Berwick Presbytery on home missions, which stated that
until they had a missionary of their own, they had determined
to aid the Presbytery of Newcastle-on-Tyne, the claims of
which place they considered vastly more urgent than their
own.

The Rev. W. GRAHAM, of Newcastle-on-Tyne, who had
been resident there for five years, expressed his belief that
the gloomy state of the town had been much exaggerated.
He said that his congregation, which, when he went there,
assembled in an old chapel, that would only contai❑ 100 per-
sons, had built a chapel capable of containing between 300
and 500 persons, and it was well filled every Sabbath.
The Rev. Mr. SAWERS said that the statistics presented
by him had been given by three different religious bodies,
and that their results all concurred within a few hundreds.
The same statements had been made in the newspapers, and
had never been contradicted.
The Rev. JAMES HAMILTON, of London, after some ob-
servations on the relative number of persons that might be
expected to attend church on Sunday, said that they might
♦ery properly go on the supposition that the bulk of the la-
bouring population, in all our large towns, was virtually
heathen. If they expected to see their congregations thrive,
and Christianity progress in this land, they must set out on
a new principle. They must not think only of the scattered
members of the Church of Scotland. If Presbyterianism
was good for Scotland, it was good for England. If it had
once such a hold on England that the great bulk of the peo-
ple belonged to it ; if the bulk of their standard works in di-
vinity were the production of Englishmen, why should they
not see again what England had seen ? But to accomplish
this, they must give up their pulpit etiquette, and go out
into the lanes and hedges : they must look to the labouring
population, and to the lower portions of the population, so
low that other denominations overlooked them. lie believed
that a blessing would rest on such an aggressive movement,
and that the result would be the gathering of many souls into
the fold of the good shepherd. It was only in such ways
that presbyterian principles and their presbyterian church
could make head in this land.

The Rev. JAMES LAIDLAW, of Bewcastle, read the report
of the presbytery of Northumberland.
The statements and reports were adopted as those of the
respective presbyteries.