vain to oppose the spread of Sunday schools; they will ultimately overrun the land, and the devil himself cannot help it."-"These Sunday schools have done more for their side," said an enemy to all schemes of Christian benevolence, "than any thing else they have ever tried; I am really afraid of them; they spring up as in a night, and are spreading all around us." The contributions to this specific object, from May, 1830, to March 1, 1832, which is the close of our fiscal year, amounted to $60,714 60. Among the considerations which should urge us forward, may be mentioned 1. The cited on this subject interest which has been exover all our country; and there is nothing surprising in it. Prospectively, it may be said, with literal truth, that the education of the Valley of the Mississippi, is the education of our country; our course is not, therefore, to be regarded in the light of dictation or interference. It is a matter of common and momentous interest, that western education should be thorough, Christian, and universal. The American people constitute one body, though many members, and from the very nature of our compact, if one member suffer, all the members must suffer with it. 2. We may also advert to the evidence which So 6. The Bible is among the people. It begins to be seen and felt that universal religious education, not by sects but by the umpire of all sects, is the most effectual check upon the strides of a corrupt ambition. Such an education is as intolerable to the bigot and fanatic, as the light of the sun is to the owl and the bat. Considerate men are persuaded, too, that in a government like ours, religious truth is not only the just basis of popular education, and the sure foundation of political freedom, but that the universal diffusion of religious knowledge constitutes the firmest barrier that can be erected against all dangerous accumulation of ecclesiastical power. 7. Our faith is pledged to the prompt and complete execution of the resolution: and we have reason to believe that the same liberality which has sustained us hitherto, will be still shown. Every western wind brings to us impassioned appeals from the people beyond the mountains, and they are our brethren. Whatever of kindness and favor is not in their hands abounds in their hearts. It is a common cause; and though they may say, in view of our happy and prosperous institutions-This matter belongeth unto thee; they say, also, in view of their own critical relations-Arise, and do it, and we will be with thee. 8. Sunday schools must prepare the way for has been already furnished, that Sunday schools efforts in other departments of benevolence. A are precisely fitted to our great purpose. modern writer,* of more than ordinary popular. manifestly has this appeared to enlightened citi-ity, assuming that a general rectification of doczens of the west, that they have cordially weltrine and practice, and a revival of primitive comed our agency in every form; and it is to Christianity, are actually about to take place, intheir counsel, co-operation, and liberality, that much of the success of our plans is to be attri-quires, what preliminary measures might be an buted. 3. We have cheering tokens that the sacred influence of Sunday schools is making sure and silent progress. In the midst of a section of the state of Indiana, which, since our resolution passed, was an unbroken forest, an agent was passing from one log cabin to another, when he came to a spot on which the timber was just felled, and lay strewed around in every direction. In the midst of this humbled glory of the forest, a rude dwelling had been put up, and a few rods from it he found an interesting little girl, in her playhouse, built of moss, diligently preparing her Sunday school lesson. Her brother was hearing her recite this passage of wonderful import-He called his name Jesus. The words were upon her tongue before they discovered the stranger's approach, and he could not but exclaim-The wilderness and the solitary place is glad for them, and the desert already rejoices and blossoms as the rose. 4. Without further and higher efforts we shall lose what we have gained. The schools we have established, are in the midst of a scattered and unsettled population-violent prejudices surround them-their importance is but partially appreciated-teachers are few; leaders, by whose boldness and patience, others are encouraged and upheld, are rare, and suspicion and misrepresentation attach to our object, our measures, and our men. In such circumstances, it is sufficiently obvious that our course must be upward or downward; we must be constantly on the advance, or on the retreat. 5. God has given us the vantage ground. Our means, and our mode of applying them, have been tried and proved. Every good school we have established is a trumpet-tongued advocate, whose eloquence costs us nothing and is never exhausted. ticipated, as the necessary means of giving irresistible force and universal spread to such a reformation? "What," he says, "but the placing of the sacred canon, the arbiter of all dispute, and the fountain of all motive, previously in the hands of the people of every country?" Surely, we may reply-the universal adoption of some cheap and easy system of teaching, by which they shall be enabled to read the sacred canon with facility and intelligence; and that system is found, and, so far as we know, only found, in Sunday schools. 9. The conviction that error, darkness, and bondage, prevail where truth, light and freedom are not found, furnishes a powerful incentive to continued exertion. The education of western children is not neglected. Far from it. The means of both intellectual and moral training are afforded, upon certain conditions, in great abundance and perfection. Colleges and the higher seminaries of learning have been silently built up at many of the chief cities and central towns. Courteous and winning manners, unwearied kindness to the sick and distressed, and great liberality in the erection and endowment of churches and schools, have excited the surprise and gained the confidence of the unwary. The best of teachers are secured by the highest compensation, and the parent who desires the best advantages for his son or daughter, seeks of course the best teachers, and often without regard to other, and infinitely more important interests which he puts in jeopardy. And hence principles and institutions, utterly hostile to those which are the glory and defence of our country, are gaining strength and influence, day by day. A direct resistance would only aggravate the evil. Darkness must be dissipated by light. Truth must be put upon the achievement of her * Douglass. sure and complete triumph. And to this end we must have good schools, and we must have them every where. The Bible must form the basis of popular instruction; and the liberty with which Christ makes free, must be proclaimed through our valleys, and upon the tops of our mountains; from sea to sea, and from shore to shore; and we must do it-and must do it now. For, Finally, our power to affect, essentially and happily, the best interests of our country, is but momentary. Corruption and ignorance come in upon us from foreign shores like a flood. Confusion and discord and violence prevail among our own citizens, and in our high places. Our constitutions are indeed strong; but the firmest bands are loosened, and the proudest strength reduced by successive convulsions. Irreligion, and the general corruption of the press, will make appalling havoc among such institutions as ours; and if God forsakes us, our loftiest battlements will reel to and fro, and what are now admired as the monuments of our glory, will only serve to accumulate the disastrous ruin. Public sentiment is now worth something. It has done nobly in the contest with intemperance. It can do nobly for the cause of religious education. Let it only be enlightened, and urged on then, and let no man say it is enough till every inhabitant of our country can read his own Bible, and every child's name is registered on the roll-book of a Sunday school. The impression which this hasty review of another year's transaction leaves on the mind of the Board, and which we desire to have made on the minds of all our fellow-laborers in this good cause, is that of gratitude and confidence. Our strength is renewed for another year of care and toil; but how fearful is the uncertainty who of us shall be among the living at its close. That man of God, who stood with us here but one short twelvemonth since, and who urged us with so much eloquence and feeling. to labor more whose presence always animated the discourag ed-whose energy always strengthened the weak, how cordially and vigorously did he enter with us upon the Mississippi enterprise, and yet how early and mysteriously have his earthly purposes been cut off. How soon are his hope and faith exchanged for scenes and songs of heavenly glory. Let us be confident, however, of this one thing, that whether our eyes behold it or not, the institution, to whose support we now renewedly pledge ourselves, will ultimately become, if it has not already become, like the tree which the monarch of Babylon saw in the visions of the night-"It grew and was strong, and the height thereof reached unto heaven, and the sight thereof to the end of all the earth. The leaves thereof were fair, and the fruit thereof much, and in it was meat for all." MASSACHUSETTS SABBATH SCHOOL UNION. THE seventh annual meeting of the Union was holden at the vestry in Park Street Church, on the 30th of May, 1832. After the reading and acceptance of the usual reports, the Board of Managers brought forward a proposition for a separation between the two denominations, which have heretofore been associated in the Union. After a full consideration of the subject, conducted with much harmony and good feeling, it was agreed that the interests of each denomination would be promoted by separate action; a divison was accordingly unanimously voted. Immediately after this result, a meeting of the Congregational life members and delegates of the late Union was called, at which it was resolved to organize a new association, for the diligently and directly for the salvation of souls, promotion of Sabbath schools in this Common has ceased from among men, and has a place with those who, through much tribulation, have entered into the kingdom of God. And he, too, wealth. This new organization is called The Miscellanies. REV. PETER JONES' ADDRESS. AT the annual meeting of the London Missionary Society, in 1831, the following address was delivered by Rev. Peter Jones, a Canadian chief, a preacher of the Wesleyan connection. Fathers, brothers and sisters, the Great Spirit, who now looks down upon us, has brought us together this day to meet in this house. The Great Spirit, who has put it into our hearts to come together this day, on this occasion, has sent his good Spirit into your hearts, and into my heart, and we, therefore, all rejoice in meeting together. I am a poor Indian from North America, in the province of Upper Canada. I have come to you, fathers, brothers and sisters, for the purpose of telling you what the Great Spirit has done for us, and what he is still doing, and we tell you what is in our hearts, of our situation, and of our want of help in carrying on the great work of our heavenly Father among us. You have heard of us, I suppose, from your poor children in the province of Upper Canada; for many of your children, your sons, and your daughters, have gone from this country to settle down amongst us in that part of the world. A great while ago we saw no white people; we were not acquainted with our white brothers and sisters; we roved by ourselves in the wilderness, living by hunting and fishing. We caught the deer, the bear, and the beaver, and by these ani mals we and our children subsisted; but a great while ago, I cannot tell how many years, your fathers came over to our country, while we were sitting in our wigwams, and stretched out their hands to shake hands with us, and we shook hands with them as brethren. They then made known to us their desire to sit down by our sides, They said they wished to have a little part of our lands, and we immediately moved a little farther on, and gave place to your forefathers, || road to heaven. I hope that we shall all meet and ever since your forefathers came amongst together in our Father's house, where we shall us, we have been on good terms and good friend- be all one in Christ Jesus. This is all I have to ship with them. say. But let me tell you some things that have transpired since your fathers came among us. Before they came we had no knowledge, no idea, of the fire-waters, what you call whiskey. We were strangers to these things, but some of your wicked fathers brought the poison among us, and what has been the consequences of its introduction? Why, it has been poisoning us-it has been killing us one after another, and now we are left only a handful to weep over the graves and the ruins of our forefathers, and to have sorrow in our hearts. But I do not mention this, my Christian friends, with any thing in my heart to reproach you, because I think it was some of your white heathens that brought this to us. About eight years ago, the handful of us that had been left, heard of the name of Jesus Christ. Missionaries came among us, and they pointed out the way of eternal life. They told us that we had wicked hearts, and that we must repent of our sins. They told us that the Great Spirit had sent his son, Jesus Christ, to die for poor Indians as well as for white people, and that, if we would give our hearts to this Savior, he would have mercy upon us. We attended to their words; we called upon God, and he heard our prayers, and made our hearts very glad. Now, these poor Indians, who had long lived in drunkenness, worship the Great Spirit, like as you do in this city. Every morning, noon, and night, the Indians in Canada bow the knee before the Great Spirit, and they talk to our Father in heaven, and he hears the Indian's cry, and he gives to him those things which make his heart very glad. We have now about ten or eleven missionary stations in Canada, under the charge of the Methodist society, and three or four under the care of the Church of England. The work of the Lord amongst us is going on very rapidly. We might increase our labors to a very great extent if we had only the means, but, on account of not having those means which are necessary to establish schools and missionary stations, we are very much tied in our hands, so that we can. not help our poor Indian brethren who are yet destitute of the comforts of religion, and are ignorant of Jesus Christ. We have fifteen schools amongst us, where Indian children are taught to read in English, and many of our boys and girls can now read, and they begin to talk on paper, and send it to one another. REV. WILLIAM ELLIS' APPEAL. THE following is extracted from a sermon, preached before the London Missionary Society, at Craven Chapel, May 12, 1831. It will be read with more interest from the fact, that the writer is personally known to many of our churches in this country. Fathers and mothers, members of Christian churches,-next to those of the love of God, let the first ideas your lovely children imbibe bemissionary ideas. Tell them of the cruelties heathen parents practise towards their infants; and when, at the morning hour, and in the twilight of the evening, they clasp a mother's knee, and learn to lisp the first accents of prayer, teach them to pray also for the children whose parents know not God. And if God bless your efforts, and hear your prayers, for their conversion, teach them to regard the conversion of the world as the noblest object to which their days can be devoted. Think not of the pain of parting with them, think of the everlasting happiness that may result of the love of Christ, and of the love of God, who gave his only, his beloved Son for us. Let our churches honor their principles, and their ancestors, the men who, rather than sacrifice principle, left their homes-pursued their way across the then comparatively untraversed deep sought an asylum in the dreary wilderness of America-reared their forest sanctuary-and, in that state, which is now taking its firm stand by the strength of principle, laid the foundation of your side among the nations of the earth. We are, and we ever must be, one with America, in a manner in which we can be with no other na tion; and the missionary enterprise will multiply and strengthen the bonds of our union. Already the descendants of the pilgrims, and the sons of those churches that sustained the storm at home, imbibing the spirit of their fathers-partakers of One faith, replenished from the same fountain of love-have kindled their torch at the same lamp of Divine truth, and tracing their way in lines of light across the moral darkness of the world, announce to the nations the day-spring from on high. These churches have not been the first in the work; it will not be accomplished by them alone; but God appears to have designed promiI am very glad, my Christian friends, to meet nently to employ the churches of Britain and you, and to see what you are doing for the America, in the first stages of that diffusion of spreading of the gospel among the poor benight-the gospel which shall terminate in the universal ed nations of the earth. I heartily wish you success, and I pray that God may bless and own your efforts in so good a cause. I am glad to be present at your meeting, so that I may have it within my power, when I go back among my people, to tell them what I have seen in this great city, and what I have heard coming out of your hearts, from time to time, in this place. I am glad to know that God is no respecter of persons, but that he is merciful to all; that he has provided his good religion for all; not only for our white friends, but for us poor Indians: for I find, since I have been among the white people, that the same hopes fill both our hearts, and I find the same experience in the Indian's heart as in yours. We all rejoice in one Spirit, in one Lord, in one God, and all walk together in one reign of Messiah. We feel the influence of the exertions of our brethren in America-they are susceptible of a corresponding impulse from ours; let that impulse be proportioned to our station and our means. This cause, also, appeals to those who direct the movements of that institution whose annual festival we now celebrate. There are many whose day, for foreign service, is past, and whose wisdom, matured by years, is best employed at the Board of Direction. But there are others, young, or in the prime of life. Let them inquire whether, in dependence on the presence of the Redeemer, it be not their duty to go forth, for five, seven, or ten years, not to visit, but to take up their abode with the laborers, and to combine their energies in the culture of the missionary field. Their arrival will be cordially welcomed their presence will aid and cheer their brethren, and, on their return, their information and experience will be of the highest value in the direction of the operations of the society. There are those who, unable to go themselves, have, in the spirit of that work on which they deliberate, given up their children; and though they have served the cause faithfully, and efficiently, by their contributions and their counsel, they have thus given a demonstration of their sincerity, which all understand and acknowledge, and which has not been without its effect on the church. Whatever they feel, they will never regret it; it will plant no thorn on a dying pillow. but may shed a ray of light on the past, and may enliven the anticipations of the future with brighter visions of the Redeemer's glory; and the nearer they approach to eternity, and the more they realize the blessedness of the gospel, the more grateful they will feel that, while their labors draw to a close, their children are already engaged in some of the most important depart ments of the work. And there are many others, ministers and laymen, who would feel grateful to behold their offspring thus engaged. May the Lord pour out the spirit of the fathers upon the children, and make them a seed to serve him. Ministers of Jesus Christ, I feel that it would better become me to take my seat at the feet of some Gamaliel, than to address myself to you; yet I should but in part discharge my solemn trust this day, were I not respectfully, but earnestly, to invite your attention to this subject. Nurtured by your care, sustained by your influence and your prayers, and strengthened by your efforts, this sacred cause has attained the stature, and the energy, it now unfolds, and on you devolves the sacred trust of leading it onward, in its career of conflict and of triumph. The churches will respond to your call, and move at your bidding, but cannot be expected to go before you. On you devolves the solemn responsibility, which he, who walks amidst the golden candlesticks, has given, to arouse and direct the energies which Christendom shall yet put forth for Him who hath purchased his church with his blood. On you, the eyes of the world, the eyes of those now in the field, the eyes of the church, the eyes of omniscient purity, espe cially rest. Your growing attachment to this cause bespeaks the influence it has secured in your hearts, and warrants, under God, the high-|| est anticipations. when the act of uniformity passed, produced an effect upon the church as salutary as it was powerful? Who does not perceive that this triumph of principle, in the arrangements of divine Prov idence, prepared the materials and formed the basis on which the foundation of this society was laid? The actual state of the world presents an occasion, on which the successors of these noble and devoted men may, under happier auspices, give an equally powerful proof of the value of principle, and the importance they attach to the universal diffusion of the gospel. There are some whose minds are not unoccupied by this subject; may God add to their number, and lead them forth to the work! Students for the Christian ministry, on whom, under God, the hopes of the church are fixed for the diffusion of the gospel, it is impossible that you should not inquire, whether it is your duty to remain in the nation in which your lot is cast, and where the means of Christian instruction are, comparatively, so abundant, or to go to other nations perishing for lack of knowledge. I say nothing of inclination, for inclination only would be a foundation on the sand, but a regard to the command, from which alone we can derive authority to preach the gospel anywhere. That it is the duty of some to supply the va cant churches, and to plant others at home, is readily admitted; but of all the students preparing for the work of the ministry among the denominations by which this institution is supported, is it possible that it can be the duty of only fifteen or twenty to prepare for preaching the gospel to three-fourths of the population of the globe? To what are we to attribute this comparatively small number training for missionary work? I am unwilling to suppose it arises from declining piety or devotedness, and must again express a belief, that in a great degree it results from want of a due consideration of the subject. You, my beloved brethren, bave no pastoral connections to dissolve, and are exempt from a thousand ties, that bind to England many already in the ministry. You seek the sphere of greatest need and smallest help. The world is all before you; turn not your eyes from its miseries. Let this subject be contemplated by the light of reve lation, in a humble, prayerful frame of mind, with a desire to know, and a readiness to follow, the will of God; and a far greater number of students for the Christian ministry cannot fail to perceive it their duty to engage in teaching all nations. It is not to those only who have given themselves up to the work, that I would affectionately offer this recommendation, but to the youth of British churches generally, to those who have been trained to mental efforts, or who are engaged in tuition; and if to one class more urgent But allow the inquiry to be proposed: are there none in the Christian ministry at home, who could do more than all they have hitherto done, by going forth in person to the work, at least for a number of years? Is it probable that, among the great number of ministers, especially of young ministers, connected with this institu-ly than to another, it would be to those who are tion, many of whom have not yet entered upon the regular duties of the pastoral office, who have all one commission to preach the gospel to every creature, it should be the duty of so many hundreds to confine themselves to one nation; and the duty of only eighty or ninety to go unto all the other nations of the earth? Does not the fact of so few seeing it their duty to go forth, deprive every Christian minister of one very powerful means of advocacy, when pressing the claims of this cause upon the churches? Can it be doubted, that the practical demonstration given by the two thousand, (including some of the brightest lights that ever shone in the English church,) who, in one day, left their pulpits, prosecuting, or have completed, medical studies. A missionary possessing this advantage would be doubly valuable; he would be admitted where another would be rejected; he would be able to impress divine truth upon the heathen mind, when in a state most susceptible of salutary impression. The very exercise of his profession would have a tendency to prepossess the heathen in his favor, and while seeking to alleviate the maladies of the body, he would have the best facilities for recommending the balm of Gilead, and leading to the great Physician of the soul. An individual acquainted with the use of medicine, would be a welcome and a valuable member of any mission; and though a pious medical practitioner at home may be the means of great good, the present state of the world, and the uature of missionary establishments in every direction, urgently invite such individuals to the work, and promise the most beneficial results.* MISSIONARY ADDRESS. THE following address was delivered at the thirty-eighth anniversary of the London Missionary Society, by Rev. William Swan, one of their missionaries to Siberia. Mr. S. is the author of "Letters on Missions," from which a number of extracts were made, in the last vol ume. It is always expected that a missionary should deal more in fact than sentiment, and this I shall attempt. In proposing the adoption of the report, I cannot help alluding to the first paragraph of it, which records the death of missionaries during the past year. The instruments employed in this cause are mortal, but the cause itself is immortal; and He whom we serve, lives forever. Few of the missionaries, who appeared once at the anniversary meetings of this institution, before proceeding to their place of destination, returned to tell what God had wrought; but a still smaller number returned in health or in circumstances permitting them to go out a second time: and it is with feelings which may be better conceived than I can now express, that I regard myself as among the few who are thus favored. I am again about to re-enter the field of missionary enterprise; and if the question be put, under what impression I go out a second time, I would say, in a few words, under precisely the same impressions that I went out at first-the impression of duty, of imperative obligation. The charm of novelty may have passed away, but the charm of obedience to Christ has not. The enthusiasm of both may vanish, but the visions of faith cheer us as we proceed in our work. I might say (in especial reference to the land from which I have returned, and to which I expect soon to proceed again-a land of which comparatively little is known in this country, and concerning which almost all I could would be new, perhaps, to most persons present; but upon the details, respecting which cannot now enter)-I might say it is a good land, and there is much land there to be possessed. I should expect to be hissed from this platform were I to utter one note of despondency respecting the missionary cause. There is no one part of the world, even to the utmost ends thereof, that is not given to Christ for his possession. We go out to assert his claim in the midst of idolaters. I am reminded here of the picture, which has been presented to our view by my respected friend, who has addressed us, in regard to the progress of Christianity, and the state of the world during the last century. I fully concur in what he has brought before you, and perhaps it may all be expressed in a few wordsthat the prospects of idolatry were never more gloomy, and the prospects of Christianity never more bright, than they are at this present moment. But there is a fact, in reference to those say, *Some of the most favorable opportunities that have recently occurred for communicating the gos pel to the heathen, have been presented in connection with the rendering of medical aid. VOL. XXVIII parts of Siberia, where I have been for a number of years, which ought to be brought before the notice of this meeting. Had this missionary institution existed a hundred years ago, and had missionaries gone to those parts of the world, they would have found the land overrun with that form of superstition which has existed there for many centuries; but there would not have been found one priest, properly so called, and not one heathen temple desecrating the ground. But when we went thither, fourteen years ago, we found nearly twenty heathen temples rearing their heads amid the snows of Siberia, and to these temples were attached 4,000 priests of the Buddhu superstition. The simple fact is this, that if, within the last century, Christians have been making, in some parts, the greatest efforts to propagate the truths of the gospel, the powers of darkness have not been dormant. Their cause has been making progress eastward and westward; and, during the period that I have now mentioned, it has made progress in those very parts where missions have been established, and perhaps, it cannot yet be said to be retrograding. But what we have been engaged in, we trust, has at least a tendency, and we trust will soon have the effect of turning the tide; and, instead of idolatry spreading there, the light of truth will roll southward and westward to China, that grand source of idolatry. Perhaps I ought to state what have been our chief occupations, during the period of the establishment of the mission. The scriptures, I am happy to state, have been translated into the language of the Montgolian tribes-a language spoken by many of the tribes to whom we have access, and spoken within the boundaries of the Chinese empire by millions. It is spoken and read (for the books in that language are numerous) from the shores of the Baikal to the gates of Pekin. We know that the weapon by which the monster of idolatry must be pierced, is the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. That part of the scriptures which has been printed and circulated among the people, has produced effects, which we, perhaps, cannot properly estimate. Our part is to do the work; and we should ever remember that success is not the criterion of duty. But while we are circulating the sacred volume, from day to day, the light of truth is spreading to those around us in various parts of the country; and we cannot doubt but the word, in due time, will have its legitimate effect, and that Siberia will soon stretch forth her hands to God. You may easily conceive that I fully sympathise with the affectionate and tender allusion which has been made to myself and brethren in regard to the prayers which are, and, we trust, will continue to be offered to God for us and all other missionaries. We know that while to do the work is ours, we are, at the same time, to do it in the exercise of faith, the language of which is prayer; and this prayer, while I believe it is offered up sincerely and constantly by those who are sent forth in this cause, must not be omitted, and is not omitted, by those who continue at home. Those who pray sincerely and fervently will work diligently. But we consider that, while we go out and you remain at home, we are engaged in one cause, and are fellow-servants of the same Lord-that Lord before whom we must all soon appear either as those who went, or as those who sent to the help of the Lord against the mighty: we must either go or send. Those who go must necessarily be fol 39 |