the matured Christian. Hymn 600 was a favourite with the child during his last illness, and he had marked the first and last verses. It is given in the narrative with the following note : " It was written originally to comfort a bereaved mother and widow in her hour of sorrow, and the Lord made it a comfort to the soul of this young disciple." It was the seventieth, second part in "Psalms and Hymns and Spiritual Songs," a collection without date. We believe the hymn was written in 1843 or 4, as a correspondent has informed us it was written at Wellington, whither Mr. Deck went in 1843.
In the year 1829, Mr. Deck was an officer in the Indian army on field service at Bangalore, where he met with the parents of the child already referred to. In 1835, he was obliged to return to England on account of the failure of his health. In 1843, he went to Wellington, Somerset, where he was the minister of the Brethren s congregation. He was afterwards for a time at Weymouth, and about the year 1852, he went out to New Zealand, where he is now residing.
In 1845, Mr. Deck published the second edition of " A Word of Warning to all who love the Lord Jesus : the Heresy of Mr. Prince, with Extracts from his Letters." In 1850, he published a letter, " On Receiving and Rejecting Brethren from the Table of the Lord." Two years after, he published another letter on the same subject, in which he explained that he had so far altered his views as to admit that scripture justified the corporate rejection of Churches that were not only evil but that refused to repent. A new edition of "Joy in Departing" appeared in 1855.
Mr. Deck has written a considerable number of good Christian hymns. In some, the versification is pleasing, but they do not rise to the level of Montgomery or Cowper. " The Wellington Hymn Book," 1857: a collection of 505 hymns, edited by D. C. Fox, contains twenty-seven hymns by Mr. Deck, of which the above-mentioned hymn (600) is No. 481: and in "Hymns and Spiritual Songs for the Children of God," 1860, edited by John Usticke Scobell, Esq., there are seventeen hymns by him.
