William Newman, Stepney, to John Sutcliff, Olney, 27 November 1813.

Stepney

My dear Sir

         I heard lately that you passed through London and should have been happy to see you but I suppose you were in haste to get home.

         Mr Singleton, a very valuable man, who has been with me two years, is likely to succeed Smith at Tiverton. If I could have had my will, he would have gone to another place—but the will of the Lord be done!

         We have nine left and there are nine others waiting at the gates for admission but for want of funds we cannot at present admit any of them. And this lies heavily on the minds of some of our friends. I hope some exertions will be made this winter to assist us.

          I have not yet seen Mr Johns nor the account Mr Fuller has published concerning him.

         The last N.o of Period. Accts  is very interesting and it is excellently printed. I begin to be looking for a letter from Professor Carey and some elementary books for the Lascars and Chinese. Mr Atley is still very zealous and some good fruits, I trust, will appear. There is a young man who has made considerable proficiency in the Chinese. He has been here several times to see what you sent us from Dr Marshman. Dr Gregory of Woolwich I am told, is much disposed to favor the scheme that relates to the Lascars.

         Have the goodness to read the envelope to this and if you see any remarkable omissions, point them out, as I intend to print it again before long.

         By the way, I think you were to review my little pamphlet on “Baptism a pre-requisite &c I wish I could have your thoughts on that subject at length, for I cannot help thinking that it is probably the attention of the public will be drawn to that subject before long. I have been told that Bror Edmonds of Cambridge intends to publish in defence of Free Communion.

         Excuse this hasty scribble with which I assure you that I remain

                                             Your’s very affecty

                                                               Wm Newman

Nov.r 27. [18]13—

Text: Timothy Whelan, Baptist Autographs in the John Rylands University Library of Manchester, 1741-1845 (Macon: Mercer University Press, 2009), pp. 169-70 (annotated version); also Eng. MS. 381, fol. 1485c, John Rylands University Library of Manchester. On the back page Sutcliff has written: “Rev. M.r Newman    Rec.d Dec.r 2. 1813.” Thomas Smith pastored the Baptist congregation at Tiverton, 1807-12. Singleton, then a student at Stepney College, came as a probationary candidate in 1813 and was ordained at Tiverton on 10 August 1814, where he continued as pastor until 1844. William Johns had just returned to England after his application to the East India Company for residence in India was rejected, the last missionary to be so treated before the renewal of the Company’s charter in 1813. In December 1813 he sent a letter to the Baptist Magazine about a service he attended during his brief stay at Serampore. In January 1814, he participated in the designation service of Eustace Carey at Northampton. J. G. Fuller was Andrew Fuller's son and a printer at that time in Kettering. The reference to a Mr. Atley may be the same Mr. Atlie of Harlington, Middlesex, who married a member of William Button’s congregation at Dean Street, Southwark. In 1804-1805, he was a subscriber to the Baptist Missionary Society. Thomas Edmonds, at that time pastor at St. Andrew’s Street in Cambridge, preached a benefit sermon for Stepney College in 1816 entitled The Gospel Committed to Faithful Men: A Sermon Delivered in London, on Thursday, June 20, 1816, before the Subscribers and Friends of the Stepney Academical Institution (Cambridge, 1816). Newman’s Baptism an Indispensable Prerequisite to Communion at the Lord’s Table first appeared in 1805. See H. B. Case, The History of the Baptist Church in Tiverton 1607-1907 (London: Baptist Union Publishing Department, 1907) 53-60; Periodical Accounts,vol. 3, p. 130.