Worcester daily spy. [volume] (Worcester [Mass.]) 1850-1888, 1859-03-19
RELIGIOUS MISCELLANY.

the Unltrrlan parish IN new beulOfu. Inc
memorial" bears date of Jan. 10th, and was
signed by one hundred and seventy ladies
To the Rer Mr.. Weiss of Ne,0 Bedford-Our
Dear Pastor The women of your parish
have learned with inexpressible sorrow your
contemplated purpose of leaving them They
pray you to allow their gratitude, their atfec-
ton, and their need of your spiritual guidance
and support to have a restraining influence
with you in your decision. With united
hearts, but in words wholly inadequate to ex-
press their sense of the value Of your ministry
to them, they entreat you to remain among the
people who have SC long looked to you to
break the Bread of Life and whom, in the
hour when The hand of God was laid heavily
upon them, your prayerful sympathy and holy
teaching have led to the shelter of the rock
that was higher than they, and in the expert
ence of so many have brought into submission
to this Divine Will, and to a conservation of the
life to His service.
Under deep sense of their present needs,
and of the long period which, under the hap
piest auspices, must elapse before they could
again realize in any like measure the depend
ence and support for spiritual guidance which
they have in you, they do earnestly hope and
entreat that the connection which has so long
happily subssted, and with ever increasing
confidence and repose, may not be severed.
To Ny Friends, the Women aoho Signed the
Memorial.-I have already parted from por-
ton of this Society but it yet remains for me
to address you in few words of acknowledge
ment and farewell
When your beautiful memorial, clothed in
such feryent language and graced so numer-
ously with your names, was first placed in my
hands, | thought that it would be hardly pos
sible for me to accept it without at the same
to disturb the associations of the past. They
crowded into my mind with the generous ir-
ruption of the names themselves, and your
united friendship pleaded strongly with me to
preserve those fair relations. How much did
those names imply From all of them friend
ship spoke and from the many the devotion
and tenderness which have seen waiting III
the chambers of death for the words of Chris
tian promise What hours of pathetic and
bold self-sacrifice did they suggest! How they
seemed to lean toward me afresh, as you once
did, for those poor words of mine which essay
ed to interpret the pity of God, and to substi-
tute for your broken reed immortal assurances.
1t would have been strange indeed, if friend
ship that had been watered by sorrow should
have proved without root, or II your cont1-
dence in me, though not merited to its full wo-
manly extent, should have became unsettled
by the wear of time; and stranger still, if
your sweet memorial had not filed me at once
with thankfuness, regret, and longing.
But this letter of farewell is all the return
that can make to you For circumstances
very distant from the regard that you bear for
me, and the uncertainty of my health, con-
spire to make your words fruitless not fruit
less if my heart be questioned nor fruitess
if a memory enriched with so many friends be
the judge. You have memoralzed to no eff
fleet; and yet | and my family have forever
a memorial of you. Nor will you, in these
first moments of disappointment, be eager to
revoke your frank and earnest confessions of
trust in me. | shall still weigh them, and find
that they are heavy with their original muniti
cence. | shall believe that the pure coin will
not be changed, just as | am carrying it away,
into dead leaves and stubble. And you cannot
feel that you have thrown away your priceless
words, when l aver to you that they pay me,
as princess pays, for the sympathies and
anxieties Of my whole ministry.
Farewell, then, true and noble women of
the Parish. You have only regarded me so
far as | could bring to you truth and consola-
ton. Be as ever, the gentle servants of the
truth and the yearning recipients of Gods in
visible comfort. And if you can only assure
me that you will also sometimes associate my
name with some truth or beauty that is pres
ent to you, how will it soften the necessity of
February 6, 1859. JOHN WEISS.
THE COMMUNION QUEsTIoN-The New
York Chronicle, edited by Rev. Pharcellus
Church, n D., oayss
"The question of communion has finally
been brought to an open issue in an ecclesiasti-
cal council called at Rev. Mr.. Fojamber's
church in East Boston. Rev. Mr.. Mason pre-
sided over the council. Mr.. Howell, the can
dldate, passed an exceedingly good eXamina-
ton, until he was asked if he would admit
members of any evangelical church to his
communion, when promptly answered Yes
The council were astounded. Some of the
members declared that they had never heard
that answer returned to the same question be-
fore. Mr.. Howell replied that if any member
of another church should come to his COM
muniOn, if there were any sin in it, he should
not be answerable for it, but that church men,
Der himself would He would not drive away
any Christian who believed himself baptized
although he would not include all in his invi-
tation to the Lords Supper. Several of the
members of the council were decidedly op-
posed to proceeding with the ordination, and
the council finally adjourned for one week,
without coming to a vote"
AT the adjourned meeting of the council,
the candidate was duly ordained, and so the
ice is broken at last and cannot be mended
Murdoch, Dr. Baron Stow, and Mr.. Stock
bridge, among the Boston pastors, are at least
as far advanced as Mr. Howell.
A call has been extended by a committee of
the Baptist Missionary Convention of the State
of New York. to the churches of that denomi-
nation in the Eastern, Middle, and Northwest
ern States, to send delegates to a general con-
vention, to be held in.the Oliver street Baptist
Church, in New York, on the LIST of May next.
The object of the convention is to inquire into
the necessity and expediency of making the
general evangelizing agencies of the Baptist
denomination fewer in number and more sim
pie and effective in operation; and, if possible,
to devise measures for securing the more
hearty and permanent cooperation of ndivid-
uals and Churches in the glorious service of
converting the world to Christ.
A while ago Archbishop Hughes of New
York suspended the priest OF st. Johns Church
in that city, tits said, for Incorporate language
used in sermon, and last Sabbath the church
was closed. The prost, however, harangued
his congregation outside the church, saying he
would build church before long at his own
expense, and invited his congregation to help
in sustaining the purity and independence of
the pulpit.
Speaking Nth Tongues-At love feast held
in St. Paul's Church in New York, Methodists
were present, natives OF Germany Russia,
Finland, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Wales,
EnSland, and various American States. The
| speaking and singing were in various Ian
guages, and yet all seemed animated by the
same spirit and full of the same hopes.
The Philadelphia National Sunday School
Convention adjourned last Thursday, to meet
again in 1861 There were four hundred and
nifty delegates present, representing twenty