inability to visit this part of my field of labour more frequently; but I attend to it as often as at all practicable."

I have also heard from Sackville, Pointde-Bute, and Bridge-Town. Messrs.

Miller and Smithson are well, and faithfully engaged in their important work. The latter says, "Our congregations are good through the Circuit generally, and our prospects hopeful."

FINANCIAL STATEMENT OF THE SOCIETY'S INCOME AND EXPENDITURE.

THE total amount of Income received for

1847, from all sources, has been......... ..£103,619 19 To which add the balance in hand from 1846

Total.........

The Expenditure for 1847 has been

4,994 9 4

..£108,613 11 1

..£114,606 17 6

Leaving a Deficiency for 1847, to be provided
for, of

£5,993 1 5

This statement, although it is one which must excite very serious and anxious feeling, and which proves the indispensable necessity of the most strenuous exertion on the part of the Committee of Management, and of all their benevolent supporters at home and abroad, is, however, not so unfavourable, all things considered, as might have been anticipated. From the circumstances of deep and extraordinary distress which have marked the commercial and monetary affairs of our country during a large portion of the year lately ended, a still larger deficiency might have been reasonably apprehended. In order to raise the income to its present amount, amidst such unprecedented difficulties, there must have been a most admirable spirit of zeal and liberality among our friends in general. For this we are truly grateful to them, and to Him who is the Author of all good; and from it we are encouraged to hope for a more cheering and satisfactory state of our finances in the course of the now current year.

DEATH OF THE REV. JOHN M'KENNY,

OF SYDNEY, NEW SOUTH WALES.

THE following intelligence of the decease of the Rev. John M'Kenny, who, after long and faithfully serving the Society in South Africa, and in the Ceylon Mission, was subsequently, for some years, the zealous and efficient Superintendent of the Wesleyan Missions in Australia, has been just received:-"Mr. M'Kenny died on Sunday, October 31st, 1847, testifying his firm faith in Christ, and his happy assurance of his saving interest in the great Atonement. He was buried on the Wednesday following, a preliminary service being held in York-street chapel. There was a full attendance of the Ministers of our society, and others, with the officers of the society in Sydney and Paramatta. About fifty coaches followed the body to the grave; where Mr. Lewis (his fellowpassenger from England) delivered a most appropriate address."

ARRIVAL OF MISSIONARIES.

WE are thankful to report the safe arrival of Mr. Meadows and Mr. Lean, at St. Mary's River, Gambia, Western Africa, on the 8th of December, after a voyage of twenty-five days. They found Mr. Parsonson well; and Mr. and Mrs. Badger and family arrived from SierraLeone, on the 25th of January.

Mr. Butcher and Mr. Wrench arrived at Grenada on the 27th of December; and soon after that date, Mr. Butcher proceeded to St. Vincent's, and Mr. Wrench to Trinidad, in conformity with directions from the Chairman, which they found waiting for them at Grenada. Mr. Sargeant reports, on the 28th of January, his arrival in St. Kitt's, after a passage of about thirty days from the Land's-End; and was likely to be appointed to English-Harbour, Antigua.

POSTSCRIPT. (MARCH 10TH, 1848.)

THE MISSIONARY SHIP "JOHN WESLEY."-FRIENDLY
ISLANDS AND FEEJEE.

VERY gratifying intelligence has been received from the Rev. Walter Lawry, dated Vewa, Feejee, Oct. 9th, 1847. We have room for only a brief extract from his letter. It is as follows:

"I AM happy to inform you that all is well in both the Tonga and Feejee Districts. Somosomo is given up for the present; and the Missionaries are being stationed in far more hopeful parts of Feejee. The great work in both groups is progressing in a most cheering and satisfactory manner. We are sailing tomorrow for two large islands of this group, where three of our Missionaries are to enter into open doors, and where Native Teachers have been labouring for some time, and a general desire for the word of God is manifested.

"The brig John Wesley' has been ashore on a reef in the Vewa waters, and remained there twelve hours, but was lightened of ballast, and got off uninjured, by God's good providence over us for good.

"In this Mission everything takes from the Chairman, not a sombre hue, but a tinge of evergreen, a glow of life; and giant strides are being made in all departments of the Feejeean work. But a school for the education of their children these noble-minded men must have. And to a man they fall in with the plan suggested by the New-Zealand

District last year.

We must quickly have out a qualified man and woman to conduct a New Kingswood-school in Auckland.

"Send us a man and a woman to conduct such a school, with all school apparatus, and beds and bedding, with other cotton and woollen articles used in such a place, and all will be content and satisfactory. The Connexional allowances will keep the thing a-going. And among ourselves we have already subscribed more than £1,000 towards buildings, &c. I am quite sure you will, if you can, help the men who need your help, and who do all they can to help themselves. I counted twenty-five children of Missionaries in one pew, at the native service last Sunday. They are gathered here at the District-meeting.

"This is my fifth month from home; and I shall not finish all my work till the end of December. But I am honoured and succoured greatly; only the intense heat almost melts me. I have a long journal preparing; and the two District Minutes will be sent via Auckland.

"I thank God for all his mercies, and you for all your kindnesses."

LONDON: PRINTED BY JAMES NICHOLS, HOXTON-SQUARE

THE

WESLEYAN-METHODIST MAGAZINE.

MAY, 1848.

BIOGRAPHY.

MEMOIR OF MR. JOSHUA THORLEY,

OF MACCLESFIELD:

BY THE REV. ROBERT JACKSON.

ALL that may now be considered as worthy of permanent record in relation to Mr. Thorley, will be found among the fruits of his faith in Christ. For the reader it is of little importance to know what he was as an able tradesman, or as a man who possessed great energy of character, and who won the esteem and confidence of all who knew him; but it is so, that he become acquainted with the principle which originated and long sustained his religious life. That principle was a penitent trust in the sacrificial blood of his Saviour for acceptance with God; and the fruit of it was joy and peace, supreme love to Christ, and a perennial stream of piety and benevolence. It was happy for him that in his youthful days he was thoroughly instructed in the blessed doctrine of a personal justification through a spiritual faith in the atonement. Not only was his mind enlightened by this, but being brought to the actual experience of the sacred privilege to which it refers, all the active faculties of his soul were put in regular motion, like the wheels of a machine, harmoniously governed by the right moving power, and securing their intended object. His obedience was the obedience of faith. He "proved the good and acceptable and perfect will of God," in realizing the sentiment so forcibly expressed by our Christian poet,

"To him that in thy name believes,

Eternal life with thee is given:

Into himself he all receives,

Pardon, and holiness, and heaven."

The correctness of these remarks will be evidenced by some biographical notices which have been found among Mr. Thorley's papers, and which will be given for the most part in his own language.

"I was born at Henbury, near Macclesfield, April 4th, 1784. My father died when I was four years old. My mother continued a widow for the remainder of her life, a period of thirty years, at the close of which she died in the Lord. She was left with six children, VOL. IV.-FOURTH SERIES. 2 L