entire efficiency, but also the entire consistency of our operations. I have been induced to refer to it because I proposed to myself in this address (so far as the limited time allotted to me would allow) an honest exposition of our whole state and work; and because, as some questions of legacies and ancient endowments are at present pending, it seemed a proper time to call attention to a subject, which might possibly be advantageously included in their anticipated issues.

I have only to trespass a little longer on your attention while I glance at the villages. These have hitherto, with few exceptions, been the sphere of our labour as the friends and supporters of the Home Missionary Society. But how few we have yet included, compared with the number we have omitted. There is here much land yet to be possessed. How is it to be entered on and cultivated?

There are different modes of operation at present obtaining in our country. There are counties in which our churches are numerous, liberal, and active, and in which the whole work of evangelization is carried on by the county association. In these cases local knowledge and interest are made available to their fullest extent; the field of labour is immediately under the eye of those who provide for it, and who witness its improvement; and they who sow and they who reap rejoice together. Would that the churches in every county were in circumstances which might permit them to follow so laudable an example! But even then, as the principle of centralization prevailed in the country-the habit of looking at all subjects in the aggregate-the power of diffusing from one centre the sentiment and feeling which shall awaken active sympathies through a wide circumference—even then it might be found convenient and desirable to have some kind of general union, for the interchange of fraternal greetings-for casting up the amount of distributed labours-and for giving those new impulses to effort which are derived from mutual provocation to love and good works.

In the present relative position of our churches generally to the population around them, other, and more difficult efforts, than would be required in such an union, have to be made. Their weakness must be helped. Their resources, sometimes entirely dormant because too feeble to inspire confidence, must be developed. Encouragements from example, sympathy, the proffer of assistance, must be presented. To what extent, and in what different ways, this has been already done, the last report of the Society gives full and explicit information. That report should be in every hand, and be carefully read, not only to obtain the information which it conveys, but also to be instructed and won by the spirit which it exemplifies. How ardently and inflexibly bent on the one great object, the spiritual welfare of our country. How patiently meeting the difficulties which arise in the prosecution of the work. How cheerfully becoming all things to all men, if by any means, and in

any mode of co-operation, the work can be advanced. A society, so conducted, must gather to it, as it proceeds, the love and confidence of all good men; must bring down upon its labours His blessing, the sweet savour of whose name it is so earnestly desirous to spread through every village and hamlet of our country.

Were I to venture an opinion as to what mode of co-operation is the most likely to secure the object desired, I should say, that in which the County Association becomes an auxiliary to the Society. I should say so, looking at the various modes as they are described upon the pages of the report, because there is in this more of system and regularity. I can speak with the greater confidence, because I have seen how easily and healthfully the combined operation can be worked. Where both parties are equally concerned for the common object, each of them quickly finds its own separate functions; and instead of interfering with each other, and clashing, they harmoniously combine in producing a more beneficial result than either could separately command. The superintendence is local, belongs to the auxiliary, and relieves the officers of the central administration from an attention to details which, at a distance, could be but imperfectly understood. Yet the report required from each station monthly, which report passes through the hands of the secretaries of the Auxiliary, before it is transmitted to the Parent Society, keeps up a two-fold inspection, and is one of the best securities for the continuance of efficient labour. The assistance rendered by the Parent Society in funds, connected as it is with a continuous report of labour, operates not as a bonus on sloth and parsimony, but as a stimulus and encouragement to our greater liberality; to a wider occupation of the field; and to more enlarged operations.

The pecuniary terms of the relationship, so long as legacies, donations, subscriptions, and extra collections, are continued to the Parent Society, may always be in favour of the Auxiliary-that balance, of course, regulated in its amount by the power of the Parent Society on the one hand, and the wants of the affiliated auxiliary on the other. While the Society remains, what it now is, a kind and faithful parent, living only for and in its children; concerned to nurture them in habits of economy and activity, and to lead them onwards in every opening path of usefulness; though it may carry the burden of parental anxieties, and that burden may increase with the increasing number of its family, yet will there, at all times, be a providential and reasonable supply; and in the filial devotedness, expanding powers and virtues, augmenting activities and successes of its progeny, will it richly enjoy a parent's comfort and reward. Its path must be onward. By patient continuance in well doing, it must succeed. One difficulty after another will be surmounted. One link of union after another will be formed. The weak will seek affiliation with it for the help it affords, and the invigoration to their feeble, irresolute, and uncertain steps which they

may derive from it. The generous will embrace it for the larger sphere through which they may pour and replenish those warm and expansive impulses, which render pleasurable benevolent efforts concerted with their brethren in every part of the land. The strong, who have earned for themselves the privilege, perhaps too highly prized, of standing alone, will at length find that they can proffer their hand without fettering or weakening it; and that they can receive, as well as give, both enjoyment and power, by enlarging, consolidating, perfecting, the union of all the Congregational churches in the home of our country, and for the blessed work of filling every part of that home with truth, liberty, charity, righteousness; thus making it a home in which our children may feel it an honour to have been born and nurtured, and from which the world at large may receive its richest blessing.

FRAGMENTS OF PURITAN HISTORY.

No. XI.

(Concluded from page 760.)

THE learned John Udal was a zealous and distinguished Puritan divine, and a great sufferer for the testimony of his conscience. He was beneficed at Kingston-upon-Thames, and was eminently devoted to God; but, for his stedfast adherence to his principles, he was silenced from his ministry, and deprived of his benefice. Having endured these privations, he, by the recommendation of the pious Earl of Huntingdon, removed to Newcastle-upon-Tyne, where, for about a year, he laboured, and his ministry was made a blessing to the people. He, however, found no security in the north; but, in December, 1589, he was brought up to London, convened before the privy council, and committed to prison. Having remained many months in close confinement, he was convened, in July, 1590, to the assizes at Croydon, in Surrey, and, with the vilest criminals, arraigned at the bar before Baron Clarke and Sergeant Pickering, having irons on his legs; he was indicted for publishing a book, entitled, "A Demonstration of Discipline," and tried for felony! At the close of the disgraceful mock-trial, in which not a single witness was produced for the prosecution, nor any evidence allowed in his defence, and even the assistance of counsel denied him, a long conversation followed, the leading particulars of which may interesting to the reader. The trial having approached towards a close, the judge thus addressed the prisoner :

“Mr. Udal, do not stand in it, but confess it, and submit yourself to the queen's mercy, before the jury find you guilty."

“UDAL.—I beseech your lordships to give me leave, and I will be very brief. My conscience doth not accuse me, that I have, in any respect, offended her majesty, her council, or the meanest of her people, in any thing that I have done concerning this

cause.

For if I had, of all others I deserve the least favour, being one who professed to teach others loyalty to her majesty, and love to one another. And would you have me to confess a fault where there is none? No; I cannot do it ; neither will I.

"Then was read the examination of Henry Sharp, of Northampton; who, upon his oath, before the lord chancellor, had said that he heard Mr. Penry say, that Mr. Udal was the author of the Demonstration.' To this Mr. Udal replied, That Sharp and he were not more than once together, neither knew he ever any of his dealings. He then added, This is nothing to prove me the author of the book. Reports are uncertain; and, if reports be true, the archbishop himself told me that Mr. Penry made the book, which is more forcible for me, than any of Sharp's reports can be against me. Here is one man saying that another said so. Let the jury consider of what force this proof is. I pray your lordships give me leave to show that which I have to say, and I will be very brief. It is to prove that, if I were found to be the author, yet it cannot be within the compass of the statute, whereupon the indictment is founded. Though I be not by profession a lawyer, yet I think I can show it clearly by these reasons following :-The intent of the law-makers, which is always to be regarded in these cases, and is to be considered, which appeareth in the preface of the statute, in these words, to suppress the malice of those that be evil affected to her highness.' Now, I pray you consider this, how can it be? or how is it possible, that a preacher of the same religion as her majesty professeth and maintaineth, who is known continually to pray unto God for her highest prosperity and happiness, both of soul and bodyhow is it possible, I say, that such an one should be maliciously affected to her majesty? It is also evident, that the statute was made against the papists, who used to slander her highness with terms of heretic, and no way against us. For I dare boldly say of myself, and of all my brethren, cursed is he of God, and he deserveth doubtless to be hated of men, that doth imagine the least hurt against her majesty. The matter that maketh a felon by that statute must proceed from a malicious intent against her highness; which I can in no ways be justly charged with, partly because my course of teaching and living these nine years, saving this last year, wherein I have been absent, is known to have tended to no other end than the provoking and persuading of the people to love and yield obedience unto her majesty, and the religion received in her dominions. For the proof whereof I refer myself to the consciences of all men in the country that have heard me; and further, is it likely that I, who have been trained in the university, under her majesty's protection, and have always bent my studies to the advancement of the sincerity of the Gospel, so that these small crumbs of learning which I have gathered, I do acknowledge to have received by her majesty's means-these things considered, how can it be that I should be evil affected towards her royal highness, whom I protest I unfeignedly reverence; and, therefore, that the worst that the author can be charged with, is his over heat and too much vehemence, by reason of his zeal against the abuses, and not any malice against her majesty, or the meanest of her subjects. And the matter, to bring it within the compass of the statute, must be false. But this book is written in behalf of the most true cause: and the end of it must be either to the defamation of the queen's majesty, or stirring up of insurrection, sedition, or rebellion. For the former, I trust that the whole course of our behaviour, both in our ministry and conversation, declareth itself to be so far from seeking to defame her highness, as tendeth to the utmost of our power to the advancement of her honour. I am persuaded that none of us would refuse to undergo any pain, whereby her majesty might, in any way, be the better honoured; year we would not refuse, if need so required, to lay down our lives for redeeming the least aching of her majesty's little finger. As for the sowing, or stirring up rebellion, I pray your lordships, and you of the jury, to consider, that there have been since the first days of her majesty's reign, learned men, who have

desired the advancement of this cause, and many of the people have affected it; yet it hath never appeared that there hath, in all this time, been any, in any place, that have raised any insurrection or sedition; yea, the book now in question hath been extant these two years; yet, I trust neither your lordships, nor any here present, can show that any one person hath taken any occasion hereby to enterprise any such matter; therefore, the making of this book cannot be felony. Besides, if any such thing had been meant by the author, or received by the people, as the indictment chargeth me with, which is the defamation of her royal highness's government; yet, as I take it, it is not felony by that statute; since the whole conrse of it declareth, that it is only meant of those that defame her highness's person, and not her government, as it is manifestly in the last proviso, wherein is shown that the whole statute doth determine and end with her majesty's life; and we may not think their wisdoms that made the law, to be so unadvised as to make a law for the preservation of the prince's government to last no longer than the life of one prince, which is temporary. Therefore, it seemeth, that the statute hath no further regard than that her majesty's person might be preserved in that honour and dignity, which becometh her royal dignity and estate. And, I do beseech your lordships to answer me. For I appeal to your consciences, as you will answer to God for my life; and I pray you tell the jury, whether you do think the intent of the statute be, in any sort, against us, and not rather against the papists.

“Puckering.—You do not well to charge us so, with our consciences, which God only is to know. I answer you, that the intent of the statute is against all.

"U.—The words, my lord, I confess, are so; but is the principal intent so? "CLARKE.-Yea, it is so. We have heard you speak of yourself to this point at large, which is nothing to excuse you; for you cannot excuse yourself to have done it with a malicious intent against the bishops, and that exercising that government which the queen hath appointed them, and so it is by consequence against the queen.

"U.-My lords, I am persuaded that the author did it not of any malice against them; and, for myself, I protest I wish them as much good as I do to my own soul, and will pray to God to give them repentance. But the cause why the author did so earnestly inveigh them was, it seemeth, because he perceived them set only to execute an authority which he taketh to be unlawful by the word of God, but also that they do not the tenth of that good, even in their corrupt callings, which, by law, they might do. And I am persuaded that your lordships know, in your own consciences, they do not the tenth part that they are bound to do.

"C.-That is true. They do not the good that they might do; but that doth not excuse you. For it is plain in your book, that you wrote not against them only, but against the state. Is it not against the state when you say, that it is more easy to live in England a papist, an anabaptist, the Family of Love, and what not; yea, you say, ‘I could live so in a bishop's house, it may be, these twenty years, and never be much molested for it?' What is this but a plain slandering of the state? And mark the words; for you say, you could live so in England. Doth her majesty then allow of papists? This maketh evidently against you; and it is so plain, that you cannot deny it.

"U.-My lords, if it might please you to hear a few words, I will show the meaning of the author of that book. I beseech you to hear me. I know that the laws of England do not allow of any such as are mentioned in the book; for these are godly laws, made for the punishing of them, if they were put in execution; but this I take to be the author's meaning, that it is not spoken of her majesty's government and laws, but of the bishops, whom your lordships know to be wholly employed in finding us out, and punishing us, not concerned about punishing any others.

"C.-What, sirrah? Will you not confess any fault to be in the book? You seek to excuse all.