We deeply regret to record the sudden death on Monday,
at Coombe, in Surrey, of the Rev. James Baldwin Brown, the eminent Independent minister, at the age of sixty-three. He took his degree as a lad of eighteen among the first on whom the University of London ever conferred a degree, and was then destined for the Bar. But he felt the strong desire and capacity for work bearing more directly on the moral character of his countrymen, and after undergoing a theological training, accepted a pastorate in an Independent church at Derby in 1843. In 1845 he came to London, and became minister to the chapel at Clayland Road, Clapham; and some twenty-five years later, a portion of his congregation built for him a chinch at Brixton, of which he had the care up to his death. He was one of. the strenuous opponents of dogmatic trust-deeds in the Inde- pendent body, and was most powerful and eloquent as a Christian preacher ; indeed, he had been laid aside for a year from over-work, and was believed to be at last recovering, when a stroke of apoplexy carried him off. We have said something of Mr. Baldwin Brown's great gifts elsewhere; and will only add here that Mr. Baldwin Brown, with all his predominant moral ardour, had more of the specifically artistic temperament than is at all usual with the great popular preachers of the Noncon- formist Churches.
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