great company now stood round, and the Padri Sahib said: "This is not merit, but sin; for it is written in your own books, Atum gháti, máhá pápi' (i.e., self-destroyer, mighty sinner). Therefore, forsake this evil practice of a false religion, for God is not pleased with this, but displeased. Therefore, now learn to serve God with the heart, and praise Him with the spirit, for God is a Spirit." R Appeal from Kingston, Jamaica, BAPTIST MISSION HOUSE, Hanover Street, August 9th, 1876. EV. SIRS,-I am constrained to write you just now on account of a sad disaster that has recently fallen upon us as a church and congregation. We were engaged in building a large and commodious schoolroom on the site of the old one which had long ago been dismantled and taken down. For many months I toiled personally and otherwise in obtaining the necessary funds for commencing and carrying on the building. Our good friend, Rev. Mr. Taylor, while here, gave us very material help by a social meeting held under his auspices, which brought in a pretty good sum. We commenced building several months ago, and had made rather some considerable progress in the erection, for it had been shingled, and all the uprights put up, and only required to be boarded round and floored, when, on the morning of the 19th July last, a violent rainstorm came on, and in a few hours the whole upper story of this work, which had cost me much money and much anxiety, fell down with a thundering crash; fortunately, as no one was then within the building, there were no lives lost. I had, up to this time, expended an amount of over £200 on the building, most of which is lost. The shingles and some of the uprights are good, and can be again utilized, but a good deal of lumber will again be required for the rebuilding. My own people are all poor, and can do but very little. They have done well in the past, but their hands are now hanging down, and they know not where to go for help. The necessity for a school such as we contemplated having, is sorely felt all over the Island. It was to be a day as well as a boarding school for girls, especially those of our own colour and race, as in the boarding schools in the town black girls are more or less excluded simply from complexional prejudice. Ours was to be open to all who chose to come, be their colour what it may. But now our hopes are all but dashed to the ground, especially when we thought we were so near the completion of the many years' dream of our hearts. We appeal to the body at home for some help; however small it be, we shall be very thankful, and any aid you can render us by tongue or pen, we shall be grateful for. I beg you will sympathize with us and bear us on your hearts at the throne of grace. Hoping to hear soon from you, with best wishes to you both, in which my dear partner unites.-I am, Rev. Sirs, very faithfully yours, EDWIN PALMER. P.S.-Please lay this letter before the Committee, for although sent to you I shall thank you to give it as wide a publicity as you can. However, I safely leave that to your own judgment. E. P. NOTE by the Secretaries, Baptist Missionary Society.-The Committee have sanctioned the publication of the above statement and appeal. Any contributions sent to the Mission House, for our brother Palmer's need, will be thankfully received and duly acknowledged. A "The great piece of stone," says the 'Indian Mirror, "which has fallen off from the central dome of the pagoda of Juggernath, and created such a sensation all over Orissa, is about ten feet in length, five feet in breadth, and four feet in depth. It evidently belongs to the inner cornice of the temple, though the damage is imperceptible to the eye, owing to the intense darkness in the interior of the edifice. There is a prophecy which is much talked about in Puri in these days, that when the first stone is unfastened, the temple shall not stand. The repairs, say the Oriahs, will take at least fourteen years; and during all this time no public worship or festival in Puri is allowable. suspension of fourteen years, if it can be enforced, will cause, we think, the utter extinction of the worship of Juggernath; and Puri may present that scone of desertion and fallen grandeur of which the holy city of Bhuvaneshwara, in Orissa, is so full. The temple of Juggernath, it will be remembered, was built by Rajah Anangabhima Deva, of Orissa, in the middle of the twelfth century; and during the last seven hundred years not a trowel has been laid upon it in the way of repair. The magnificent dome is composed of immense blocks of stone, not kept together by cement or mortar of any kind, but made fast by an elaborate process of dovetailing; the slabs being arranged in horizontal layers narrowing towards the end, which is covered by a huge head-piece, carved and ornamented." Here is a striking illustration of the success of missions in the South Seas. Not long ago a young man come from Raratonga to London, and was taken to see the British Museum. Among the rest of the wonders he there saw was a row of idols, and amongst others a Raratongan god. He looked at it with wondrous curiosity, and asked permission to take it in his hands. He looked at it all round for a while with great interest, and passed it back to the guide, and said:- "Thank you; that is the first idol I ever saw in my life." In the time of the honoured John Williams there were more than 100,000 individual gods in Raratonga; and so clean a sweep has the Gospel of Christ made of the whole abomination, that a young lad of nineteen had never seen one of them from the day of his birth, A good work has been going on in Sweden-especially in Stockholm-for some time past. It derived a fresh impulse from the week of prayer, at the commencement of the year. Men's hearts were impressed, conversions took place, and from various parts of the lands the Macedonian cry has been heard, "Come over and help us." Few but diligent have been the labourers in Sweden for some time past. One organization which was established at Stockholm just twenty years ago has been the means of supporting a hundred evangelists and colporteurs, has printed and circulated a large number of books and tracts, gathered in thousands of communicants, and has established numerous Sunday schools. The idea of starting Sunday-schools in Sweden was borrowed from England, we are told, and has been well carried out. There are in that country about fifty thousand Sunday-scholars, and a proportionate number of teachers. Most of the persons engaged in these Christian efforts are in humble circumstances, and gain a livelihood by hard work; but they give, as well as exert themselves, according to their ability for the furtherance of the truth, and a manifest blessing has followed.-Saturday at Home. In not a few villages of Bengal, Christian songs are displacing the immoral songs which, often under the guise of religion have hitherto been generally heard. Happily, Bengal hymn-writers of considerable poetic faculty are beginning to appear. A book of sacred songs has lately been published, of which 10,000 copies have been sold in a few weeks.-Free Church Record. There are said to be seventy Catholic negroes in the College of the Propaganda in the city of Rome, training for the missionary work in Africa. Mrs. Binney, the wife of the Rev. Dr. Binney, who with her husband has been a missionary to Burmah for more than thirty years, has brought to completion an Anglo-Karen Dictionary. Great success seems to have attended the preaching of the Gospel last year: in Travancore. So many as 116 baptisms are reported to have taken place, the majority of the baptized being adults. A deaf and dumb Christian worker has applied to the London Methodist Missionary Society to be sent to Japan to preach the good news of Him who "maketh both the deaf to hear, and the dumb to speak." Fifty-one Burmans The most cheering intelligence comes from Burmah. have been baptized, and received into the Christian Church. versions have come through the instrumentality of Christian books. In 1776, there were about 25,000 Baptists in the United States. Now there are over 2,700,000 that baptize by immersion-a gain of over one hundred to one. THE MISSIONARY HERALD. Our Foreign Missions in 1881 and 1876. BY DR. UNDERHILL. BEYOND question, the quarter of a century that we propose to pass very briefly in review has witnessed events of the deepest moment in their bearing on the social, political, and religious history of the world. It has been an era of revolutions and wars, of vast enterprises, of gigantic works of engineering science, of grand discoveries in the physical regions of the universe, and of an unparalleled expansion in the commercial transactions of this country and the world. The hopes of peaceful progress among the nations which ushered in the period, and which found their embodiment in the Great Exhibition of 1851, were rudely dispelled before the year came to its close, and from that time to this, wars and commotions and incessant movement in all parts of the globe, have changed the aspect of human affairs. Thrones have been set up, and have disappeared, new kingdoms have sprung into life, and the two great systems of false belief which have so long held in bondage the cultivated peoples of the East and West, have received a blow that threatens their speedy overthrow. Modern missions began their onward and prosperous course amid the discords and conflicts which ensued on the great French Revolution, and none the less have they made great advances during this latter period of turmoil and change. New countries have been opened to the messengers of Christ, new languages have been taught to utter His redeeming grace, and new churches, in many lands unknown to our fathers, bear witness to the power of His Word. Your Missionary Society bas shared in the Divine blessing that has fallen on the efforts of Christ's servants. It has passed through many difficulties. Many anxious hours have fallen to the lot of the Committee and the Officers, but the good hand of the Lord has been with us, and we have to speak to-day of progress on every side. It may be that the results are not equal to our expectations-are not so large as they ought to be. It is probable, before this brief paper is closed, there may appear reasons for more strenuous exertion, for more entire consecration, both of our persons and our substance, to the service of our Lord. It may be that we have yet to lay to heart more seriously the largeness of the meaning of our Saviour's words-" Seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all things else shall be added unto you." OUR MISSIONS IN 1851 AND 1876. Let us, in the first instance, glance at the condition of the Society in 1851. The sum total of the Society's income in that year, from all sources, was £19,064, and there was a debt due to the treasurer of £5,751, largely owing to the demands of Jamaica on its resources. The number of missionaries and their helpers sustained by these funds amounted to thirty-eight European and 118 native brethren. In some previous years the income of the Society had been larger, but the permanent income, that which is derived from the regular contributions of the churches, had remained with little change. The jubilee, indeed, following shortly after the stirring times of emancipation, had given an impetus to the Mission, and strenuous efforts had been made to increase the staff. But frequent special appeals barely enabled the committee to maintain these operations, so that the general result was one of embarassment. The ordinary resources of the Society were inadequate to the support of the ordinary work. The year 1851 was, however, free from all special calls on the resources of the churches, and its income may fairly be taken as the measure of liberality and interest in the mission cause prevalent at that date. How stands the case in the year just past? Omitting the donation of £4,000 given to the Society by the late Mr. Leckie for the establishment of a mission in Cachar, and also £1,334 donations to extinguish the debt of the year before, we have a total income of £39,428 —a little more than double that of 1851. A like increase has taken place in the number of missionaries employed. Thus, at the close of 1875-76, the Society had seventy-three missionaries, eleven home missionaries (in India), and 222 native brethren in its various fields of labour—that is, a total of 306 agents as against 156 in the year 1851. A comparison of the lists of stations will show that the places occupied have undergone a large increase in India and Ceylon and Africa, while new fields have been opened in China, Norway, and Italy. The general result in converts, through God's blessing on the toil of His servants, has undergone a similar enlargeThus, in 1851, the members of the mission churches numbered 5,013; now they number 11,095. In both cases, it must be remembered, that there is not included in these figures the more than one hundred flourishing churches in Jamaica, with their 26,000 members. We must not omit to notice that, while double the number of agents are supported ment. |