REPLY TO LONGFELLOW'S "PSALM OF LIFE.”*

By the Reb. James Mackay, B.D., East Indian Chaplain.

'Tis a theme for mournful numbers:

Life must be a fatal dream,

If the soul in darkness slumbers,
Christ omitted from our scheme.

OUR QUARTERLY OBITUARY.

THE Congregational Year Book for 1866-which we most earnestly commend to the acceptance of the Churches, if a book so indispensable can need commendation-contains biographical notices of fifty-nine deceased ministers.

Among the elders of these are Dr. Burder, Mr. John Clayton, and Mr. Craig, of Bocking.

Among the younger men whose obituary is found in the "Year Book" is the REV. RICHARD BRINDLEY. Mr. Brindley was born in Worcester, in 1825, and at the age of fourteen he was articled to a law stationer in Cheltenham. Here he enjoyed the ministry of the Rev. Samuel Martin, now of Westminster, by whom he was received into the fellowship of the Church. After study at Highbury college, Mr. Brindley became pastor of the Church at King's Lynn, where he laboured successfully for two years. For ten years it was his happiness to minister with usefulness and honour in Percy Chapel, Bath; and on the retirement of the Rev. Clifford Hooper from Markham-square Congregational Church, Chelsea, Mr. Brindley was invited to London. The large debt on the new edifice to which he was thus called, rendered his London work difficult and discouraging. But he girded himself manfully to grapple with its difficulties, and he had the prospect of speedy success, when he was suddenly struck down by disease, in the autumn of last year. The few sentences which he was able to utter, during his brief illness, indicated a calm trust in that Saviour whom it was the purpose of his life to serve. He entered into rest on the 19th of October, 1865.

The "Year Book" contains brief records of the decease of three young foreign missionaries. JAMES HENDERSON, M.D., Medical Missionary in Shanghai, in connection with the London Missionary Society, died on the 31st of July, 1865, at the early age of thirty-five. WILLIAM WELLS, M.D., a young man of high attainments, was appointed by the directors of the London Missionary Society, to Hankow, in China, and sailed for China, on the 13th of July, 1864. He was taken suddenly ill on the voyage, and died peacefully and calmly in his cabin, while sailing through the Straits of Sunda, on the 15th of October. The REV. P. GOOLD BIRD was born in the village of Blantyre, near Glasgow, January 20, 1838, and in early youth became a member of the United Presbyterian Church. He was educated for missionary service under the Revs. John Jukes and William Alliot, at Bedford, and left England for the South Seas, in the "John Williams," on her last voyage. But in the fourth year of his missionary enterprise and labour in Samoa he was called to enter into rest-his beloved wife having preceded him to the tomb only a few months. Mr. Bird was a man of the most enthusiastic devotion to his work; and those who knew him, as we did, anticipated from him a course of labour which would fill our churches with thankfulness and joy. Now the question is, who will be baptised for the dead? Young men in our colleges, young men entering on the Christian ministry, WHO?

THE REV. D. J. DRAPER, WESLEYAN MINISTER.

The name of Daniel James Draper will long be remembered in connexion with the melancholy wreck of the "London," on the 11th of January, 1866. He was born at Wickham, near Fareham, in Hampshire, August 28, 1810, and received the best education his native village could afford. His early years were spent in the pursuit of his father's craft-that of a carpenter and builder. A new direction, however, was given to his life by his coming in contact with some devoted

Wesleyans who resided in his neighbourhood. The youth became a decided Christian, and before he was twenty years of age was well known as an earnest and acceptable preacher. He was still very young when he was received into the Wesleyan ministry; and in 1834 he was appointed to the Chatteris Circuit in Cambridgeshire. From thence he removed to Australia, which became henceforth the scene of his labours for nearly thirty years. He arrived at Sydney in 1836, and subsequently his life became subject to the changes incident to missionary life amongst ministers of the Wesleyan community. In 1865 he was appointed by the Australian Methodist Conference to be their representative at the British Conference, and he arrived in England in the spring of the year. His good sense, sound judgment, kindliness, and devotion, excited the respect and admiration of all who came in contact with him. Having accomplished his purpose in coming to England, Mr. Draper and his wife (the daughter of the Rev. Shelley, one of the first missionaries to Tahiti, who sailed by the ship "Duff" at the end of the last century), took their passage in the "London." Mr. Draper's fortitude and self-possession amidst the terrors of the storm and the wreck are beyond all praise; and his fervent ministrations were, it may be hoped, largely blessed to many of the sinking passengers. His voice was heard in prayer and exhortation by the last man who escaped from the doomed vessel, and this was only about five minutes before the " London" went down. Among his last words were: "Well, my friends, our captain tells us there is no hope; but the great Captain above tells us there is hope, and that we may all get safe to heaven." In a few minutes after, his spirit was safely harboured in the presence of the Lord whom he served.

REV. F. W. FISHER, LATE OF HOXTON ACADEMY CHAPEL.

Frederick William Fisher was born at Cheltenham, January 8th, 1827. To parental prayer and instruction he owed, he believed, his spiritual life, and, to a great extent, his ministerial usefulness. In the providence of God, he became a missionary in London, in connection with Dr. Cumming's Church. Here he laboured incessantly and earnestly for a season. In the year 1851, the Church in Mendlesham, in Suffolk, invited him to become their pastor; and after four years of successful labour, he accepted a unanimous invitation to become the pastor of the Church at Hales Owen, near Birmingham, where for five years he was blessed with unbroken prosperity. Thence, in 1859, he removed to a still larger sphere of labour at Boston, in Lincolnshire. The Church, at the time, was in a low state, but under the new pastor's earnest and devoted efforts, it rapidly increased in numbers, influence, and activity. Much beloved and respected not only by the church and congregation over which he presided, but by the ministerial brethren and people of the town and neighbourhood, his loss was much deplored when, in 1864, he removed to Hoxton Academy chapel. Here by his kind, genial, loving, forbearing spirit, he gained, as before, the affections of his people, was much blessed in his work, and never were his hopes brighter, or his usefulness more manifest, than when in the mysterious providence of God he was by death called away from his labours. At the close of last year he took cold, which issued in gastric fever; and, on January 16th, 1866, in death. Of his dying experience little can be said. The malady that laid him low, rendered him unable fully to express his thoughts. Delirium was always more or less upon him. When, however, he was more composed than usual, he expressed his entire submission to the will of God; and on the last visit paid him by a ministerial brother, pressing his hand, he said to enquiries respecting his state of mind, "All is well." The overwhelming

prostration of his physical powers by disease, rendered him incapable of much speaking, but what he did utter, testified that he acquiesced in the providence of God, and had full confidence in the atonement of Christ and the certainty of heaven. His removal has produced a deep impression over a large circle of ministerial and other friends, and elicited much sympathy on behalf of his bereaved widow and fatherless children.

THE REV. WILLIAM SWAN, FORMERLY OF THE SIBERIAN MISSION.

William Swan was born on the 21st of June, 1791, near Leven, in Fifeshire. He received a good education in the parish school, and attended the university of Edinburgh for two sessions. But not having at that time a heart for the Christian ministry, which his parents wished him to enter, he preferred to be apprenticed to an accountant in Kirkaldy, in his native county. The instructions of the parish minister of Kirkaldy were blessed to him, and he became a new creature in Christ Jesus. From the first he was distinguished for his decision of character, and, adopting Congregational views, he joined the Congregational Church in Kirkaldy. In 1816 he went to Glasgow to attend the university and to prepare for the ministry, under the care of Mr. Ewing and Dr. Wardlaw. In 1818 he was ordained in London as a missionary to the Buriats of Siberia. Along with his fellowlabourer, Mr. Stallybrass, who survives him, he prosecuted his work among the tents in this wilderness with great zeal, and ultimately with encouraging success. But in 1841 he was driven from the field by the resistless fiat of Russian authority. During the twenty-four years which he has spent since then in his native land, his life and energies have been devoted to manifold labours in the service of God. His character was so transparently pure and Christlike, that he drew to himself the confidence and affection of a large circle of friends. On the 18th of January, 1866, he was removed to his heavenly rest, in the seventy-fifth year of his age.

MR. THOMAS RUSSELL, OF EDINBURGH.

Mr. Russell was born at Peebles, in 1797, and there received the elements of a sound and liberal commercial education. At the age of fourteen he was apprenticed to an Ironmonger in Edinburgh, and in 1822 began business on his own account. Previously to this he had been brought under the power of divine truth, and had connected himself with the church in Albany-street, then under the pastoral care of the late Dr. Payne. During a lengthened period he served this church as a deacon, and as treasurer of its funds. Later in life he connected himself with the church under Dr. Alexander. His earliest labours were in connection with a Sabbath-school, and many of his old pupils still speak in terms of the most grateful affection of the interest which he took in their welfare. Possessed of great natural shrewdness, energy, and capacity for business, he was soon led to take a prominent part in public affairs. He was well known as a zealous voluntary, and an uncompromising opponent of the annuity tax for the support of the Edinburgh clergy. This tax was never paid by him, though he paid dearly for his resistance to it. His goods were repeatedly seized, and his bank account arrested; and in 1837 he was for nearly two months imprisoned in the Calton jail. His release was procured by the necessary amount being raised by public subscription, without his knowledge. Four times he was elected a member of the City Council, and in 1857 a magistrate. He took a great interest in the charities of the city, in its public schools, in its prison discipline and management, and especially in its criminal population. He was the founder of the Wellington

Reformatory for juvenile criminals, and one of the most active managers of the Royal Infirmary. His aid was always cheerfully given to every holy cause. In private life, Mr. Russell was one of the most genial of men. By his brethren in Church-fellowship, he was always regarded as a sincere and guileless Christian ; and, though what is considered extreme in his ecclesiastical and political views, he never made an enemy. His fellow-citizens of all classes mourned him in his death, which took place on the 31st of January, 1866.

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