and trembled at the thought that I might perish in my sins. I turned anon to my Bible, and grasped it, feeling something like a hope that I should not sink with it in my hands. I knew of no one to whom I could unbosom the agony that burned within. I tried to pray fervently, but thought there was a black cloud between me and the throne of God. I tried to hear Jesus saying to my soul, "Only believe;" but the passages from which I sought comfort only seemed to deepen my wounds. Living alone in an extensive garden, my little leisure was my own. One evening, while poring over the Epistle to the Romans, I could not help wondering over a number of passages which I had read over many times before. They appeared altogether different. I exclaimed, with a heart nearly broken, "Can it be possible that I have never understood what I have been reading?"-turning from one passage to another, each sending a renovation of light into my darkened soul. The Book of God, the precious, undying Bible, seemed to be laid open, and I saw at once what God had done for the sinner, and what was required of the sinner to obtain the Divine favour and the assurance of eternal life. I felt that being justified by faith I had peace with God through the Lord Jesus Christ; and that he was made unto me wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption. "Oh, to grace how great a debtor Daily I'm constrained to be!" I must now tell you how God led me to become a missionary to the heathen. I had undergone a great change of heart; and this, I believe, was produced by the Spirit of God, through reading the Bible and the Bible only for my small stock of books consisted chiefly of works on gardening and botany. Beyond visitors to see the gardens, and the men in daily employ, who returned to their homes after the labours of the day, I saw no one. I occupied my leisure in studying the Scriptures; and when opportunities offered I did not fail to try to convince others of the necessity of repentance toward God and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ. I thought I had only to tell them what Christ had done for them, and what was required of them to be saved. I wondered they could not see as I saw, and feel as I felt, after explaining to them the great truths of the everlasting gospel. On the contrary, I was treated by some as one who was somewhat disordered in mind. Having a desire to visit Warrington, a town about six miles from where I lived, to purchase a trifling article which quired, I went thither. It was on a calm re beautiful summer's evening. All nature seemed to be at rest, not a breath of wind to move a leaf. In the clear blue expanse of heaven was to be seen a single cloud passing over the disc of the sun, as it hastened towards its going down. I seemed more than usual to feel admiration of the handiworks of God. I imperceptibly was led to a train of thinking of the past, how much of my life I had spent serving the world, and not Him who died for methat I had really been living to no purpose. I thought of the present, how little I could do. It was more pleasurable to contemplate the future. The prospects of ere long being put in possession of a situation of honour and trust had, of course, a charm to one who was yet in his teens, besides the hope of having it in my power to do good. Little did I imagine that this bright picture I had been painting of future comfort and usefulness was, in the course of an hour, to vanish like a dream, and that I should be taught the lesson that it is not in man to direct his steps. With thoughts like these I entered the town, and passing over a bridge, I observed a placard. I stood and read. It was a missionary placard, the first I had seen in my life. It announced that a missionary meeting was to be held; and a Rev. William Roby, of Manchester, would take the chair. I stood some time, reading over and over again, although I found that the time the meeting was to be held was past. Passers-by must have wondered at my fixedness. I could look at nothing but the words on the placard, which I can still imagine I see before me. The stories of the Moravian missionaries in Greenland and Labrador which I had heard my mother read when I was a boy, which had been entirely lost to memory, never having been once thought of for many years, came into vivid remembrance as if fresh from her lips. It is impossible for me to describe the tumult which took hold of my mind. I hastened to obtain the trifle I wanted in town, and returned to the placard, and read it over once more, and now wended my solitary way homewards another man, or rather with another heart. The pleasing earthly prospects I had so lately been thinking of with pleasure had entirely vanished, nor could any power of mind recall their influence. My thoughts became entirely occupied with the inquiry how I could serve the missionary cause. No missionary society would receive me. I had never been at college or at an academy. I, however, began to devise plans. I had been for a short time a young sailor; and I resolved to go to sea again, and get landed on some island or foreign How I became a Missionary. shore, where I might teach poor heathen to know the Saviour. Soon afterwards, having heard that a Wesleyan Conference was to be held in Manchester, I proposed to a young man with whom I had become intimate that we should go thither. During our few days' sojourn, hearing first one and then another, I resolved on hearing William Roby. His appearance and discourse, delivered with gravity and solemnity, pleased me much. In the evening, the lady of the house where we lodged remarked that he was a great missionary man, and sometimes sent out young men to the heathen. This remark at once fixed my purpose of calling on that great man; but how and when was a very serious matter to one of a naturally retiring habit. I thought and prayed during the night over the important step I was about to take. There was something like daring in the attempt, which I could not overcome. Next morning, when I awoke, my heart beat at the prospect before me. I had told my beloved companion, Hamlet Clarke, what I intended doing, and asked him to go with me. This he decidedly objected to; but he wished me to go, and promised to wait within sight till I should return. Though the distance we had to walk was more than a mile, it seemed too short for me to get my thoughts in order. Reaching the end of a rather retired street, I proceeded with a slow step. On getting to the door I stood a minute or two, and my heart failed, and I turned back towards my friend, but soon took fresh courage, and came back again. The task of knocking at the good man's door seemed very hard. A second time I reached the door, and had scarcely set my foot on the first step when my heart again failed. I feared I was acting presumptuously. At last, after walking backward and forward for a few minutes, I returned to the door and knocked. This was no sooner done than I would have given a thousand pounds, if I had possessed them, not to have knocked; and I hoped-oh, how I hoped with all my heart-that Mr. Roby might not be at home, resolving that if so I should never again make such an attempt. A girl opened the door. "Is Mr. Roby in?" I inquired, with a faltering voice. "Yes," was the reply; and I was shown into the parlour. The dreaded man whom I had wished to see soon made his appearance. Of course I had to inform him who I was, and my simple tale was soon told. He listened to all I had to say in answer to some questions, with a kindly smile; I had given 39 him an outline of my Christian experience, and my wish to be a helper in the missionary cause; I did not even tell him that it was his name on the missionary placard which had directed my steps to his door. He said he would write to the Directors of the Society, and on hearing from them would communicate their wishes respecting me. I returned to my charge; and after some weeks was requested to visit Manchester, that he might get me placed in a situation which would afford him the opportunity of examining me as to my fitness for missionary work. On my arrival, Mr. Roby took me to several of his friends to obtain, if possible, a situation in a garden, a mercantile house, or a bank; but all failed, there being no opening for any one at the time. Mr. Roby then remarked, "I have still one friend who employs many men, to whom I can apply, provided you have no objection to go into a nursery garden." "Go!" I replied, "I would go anywhere or do anything for which I may have ability." Very providentially Mr. Smith, of Dukinfield, happened to be in town, and at once agreed that I should proceed to his nurserygarden. Thus was I led by a way I knew not for another important end, for, had I obtained a situation in Manchester, I might not have had my late dear wife to be my companion and partaker in all my hopes and fears for more than half a century in Africa. As it was, Mr. Smith's only daughter, possessing a warm missionary heart, we soon became attached to one another; but she was not allowed to join me in Africa till nearly three years after I left. Mr. Smith-whose house was a house of call for ministers, and who was always ready to advance the Redeemer's kingdom at home and abroad-only bethought himself, on returning home, that the step he had taken might eventually deprive him of his only daughter; and so, in the providence of God, it turned out. It would be unnecessary to detail the subsequent events during my stay under the watchful care and instruction of Mr. Roby, which lasted nearly a year at the nursery-garden, from which I could visit him only once or twice in each week. He and my father-in-law, as well as both of my own parents, were spared to see us, with grateful joy, after twenty-three years' absence, revisit our fatherland. It is easier conceived than described how all our hearts were filled with gratitude to Him who had guided us and blessed us. To His name be allthe glory! CUTTACK. ANNUAL COLLECTIONS.-The annual collections for lighting and repairing the chapel at Cuttack were made on Lord'sday, Oct. 13th. The afternoon collection amounted to 85 rupees; and from contributions of native friends who could not be present, will no doubt exceed 100 rupees (£10). In the evening, as both the Missionary brethren were suffering from indisposition, Mr. Bond kindly conducted the service and read a sermon on its being more blessed to give than to receive. It is gratifying to add that the collection was better than usual, and amounted to 215 rupees (£21 10s). BAPTISM.-Two were baptized at Cuttack, Nov. 3rd, by Mr. Miller-one was from the English congregation, the other was one of the sons of a beloved native preacher. May they be steadfast and faithful unto death. MISSIONARY LITERATURE. THE MISSIONARY OBSERVER now takes the place of the Quarterly Papers, which are discontinued. No returns have been received from many churches of the numbers required for collectors and subscribers of ten shillings and upwards. In these cases copies are sent at a venture, and may be too many or too few. It is important that the Secretary should know the exact quantity to send to each church. Another matter is also specially important, viz., the appointment of ONE SECRETARY OR OTHER FRIEND in each church to whom the parcels of "The Missionary Observer" and "The Juvenile Missionary Herald" may be sent; and who will regard it as a duty regularly and promptly to distribute the former to the several collectors for themselves and their subscribers, and the latter to the superintendent of the Sunday school or to the Secretary of the Juvenile Auxiliary. Attention to this request will save much difficulty and confusion in the distribution of the Society's periodicals. NEW YEAR'S SACRAMENTAL COLLECTIONS. WE would remind the pastors and churches of the notice upon this subject in the Observer of last month. As far as possible, it is desirable that the sacramental collections for the Widows and Orphans of Missionaries should be made simultaneously on the first Sabbath of the year. FOREIGN LETTERS CUTTACK-J. Buckley, Nov. 5. RECEIVED. PIPLEE-W. Hill, Nov. 1. CONTRIBUTIONS Received on account of the General Baptist Missionary Society, from Communications for the EDITOR of the MISSIONARY OBSERVER should be addressed to the REV. J. C. PIKE, Leicester. Subscriptions and Donations in aid of the General Baptist Missionary Society will be thankfully received by T. HILL, Esq., Baker Street, Nottingham, Treasurer; by the Rev. J. C PIKE, the Secretary, and the Rev. H. WILKINSON, the Travelling Agent, Leicester, from whom also Missionary Boxes, Collecting Books, and Cards may be obtained. THE GENERAL BAPTIST MAGAZINE. FEBRUARY, 1873. A NEW READING OF THE DELUGE. "WHY," said a Christian to me, only yesterday, "should the discovery of a tablet containing another account of an event fully recorded in the Bible attract so much attention; not only from antiquarian scholars, who look with strange and unaccountable enthusiasm on anything ancient, but also from Christian men, who believe in the Bible for what it is in itself, and accept all it states, whether of history or doctrine, without question?" The answer is not far to seek. This is a sceptical age. The modern spirit is a doubting, sifting spirit; and men eagerly seek all the support they can get for their convictions are glad to find one of the cherished beliefs of childhood established on a fresh basis, and to see the book they love and revere confirmed by unchallengeable witnesses. To many of us the deluge will not be a whit more true than it was before the sun-baked tablets, brought from Birs Nimroud, gave us a new edition of the story in Genesis. But even we may find it useful to tell doubters on this and other points that the bible-history has been corroborated again; and so may put broad stepping-stones over the dark river of unbelief, on which some willing but perplexed souls may securely travel into the wide and blissful shelter of the temple of truth. Men have declared, with increasing zest of late, the story of the deluge to be legendary, not a reliable representation of what actually took place; but a myth, like the famous story of the Giant Killer. But the strange thing is this, if it be not history, how is it that every nation under heaven has this legend" in some form or other? Why do you find the annals of the flood everywhere? The three great divisions of the human family have them: the Semitic, the Aryan, and the Turanian, represented respectively by the Chaldeans, the Greeks, and the Cherokee Indians. All have these traditions in numberless quantity, as though they got them from those three sons who went with their righteous and believing father into the ark. Certainly it requires less faith to believe that these accounts have a basis of fact, than to treat them as the products of a lively and poetical fancy. And now we have a reading of the deluge older and more interesting than any of these traditions. In the Egyptian Gallery of the British Museum we see three broken and unattractive pieces of baked clay, each about seven inches by six, crowded with small arrow-headed or cuneiform inscriptions; and we are assured, by so competent a scholar as Mr. George Smith, that these singular indentations form an account of the flood that VOL. LXXV.-NEW SERIES, No. 38. is no less than 3400 years old. For these tablets came, along with many others, from the library of the great King Assurbanipal,* who began to reign over Assyria, in 668 B.C. But, moreover, it is certain that they are not original documents, but copies of much older tablets, hidden in Erech,† or Warka, one of the oldest cities of the world, and cannot be placed later than the seventeenth century before the Christian era, and may be even more ancient. But what is the message of these tablets? Briefly, the biography of a man who lived soon after the flood, who may have been the founder of the Babylonian monarchy, whose chief exploits centred in the city of Erech, and who seems to have been the mighty hunter, the Nimrod of Genesis. In quest of immortality, this Izdubar, as Mr. G. Smith names him, in the absence of information as to the meaning of the signs, sets out to discover Sisit, who has attained it, and knows the secret of an endless life. After long and wearisome search he is rewarded, and hears from Sisit's lips the story of the flood, of his own piety, and of the grounds of his translation to heaven. Izdubar thereupon took great stones and set them up, like Jacob, Joshua, and others, as memorials of these extraordinary events. And does Sisit's account agree with the Old Testament? In everything substantial it does. In both stories we have an ark, or boat, "pitched within and without with bitumen," and made fit for sailing. In both we read of a "gathering of all things which are to be preserved;" an entering in, and a shutting to of the door. In both we hear "the world to sin had turned; to evil were devoted all the people." "The whole mankind had turned to sin." "I will destroy the sinners." The deluge of sin needs another flood to sweep its fearful effects away. In both the "destruction of all life from the face of the earth" by the strong tempest over the people reaching to heaven" is recorded; then follows a calm, a resting on a mountain, "the mountain of Nizir stopped the ship," and the sending out of a raven and of a dove. In both we have a promise that the earth shall henceforth be preserved from a similar catastrophe; and the whole crowned by the offering of burnt sacrifice and of prayer to God. And throughout the man of that old world time is the man of to-day. He has the same passions, the same fears and hopes. Death is to him a terror as it is to us. Life, with all its weariness, is still a goblet of joy he shrinks from leaving. He is enveloped in mystery, puzzled, perplexed, and bewildered, and ready to take long pilgrimages to obtain answers to the curious questions of his fervid brain and fevered heart. Erech had in it the same humanity as London has. Men with the same aspirations as now, with a similar faith in visions of another and a more blessed life. Fate seemed to rule them. Inflexible law seems to govern us. They were given up to wickedness. Only God's gospel keeps us from an equal depth of depravity. * But who was Assurbanipal? Mr. George Smith has published his history in a large and instructive volume, in which he gives the cuneiform characters from many tablets; the ordinary values in English letters, and a translation. From this it appears that his name, Assur-ban-ipal, means son of the god Asshur. Asshur was the son of Shem, but in later times was worshipped by the Assyrians as their chief god. Assurbanipal was the son of Esarhaddon (2 Kings xix. 37, Ezra iv. 2), and the grandson of Sennacherib. He reigned 42 years, and was a contemporary of Manasseh, King of Judah, (B.C. 673-618,) and is mentioned by Ezra iv. 10, as Asnappar (an Aramaic form of his name), who transported the people of Elam, Shushan, and Babylonia, to depopulated Samaria. On one of the tablets, he says, "I took care of the wisdom of Nebo, the whole of the inscribed tablets, of all the clay tablets; the whole of their mysteries and difficulties I solved." p. 6, Hist. of Assurbanipal. + Gen. x. 9. Erech is one of the four great cities built by Nimrod. In Ezra iv. 9, the Archevites are the people of Warka. It is now covered with mounds, and appears to have been the necropolis of the Assyrian Kings. The quotations are from the tablets. |