of civilization, we are not informed; but | ly embarrassed and hindered in his work. in the use they made of a native ministry, In this manner Christian families are we recognise one of the grand principles formed, and at length Christian communiof their missions, and also the true theory ties, and there is a race of children with of missions-simple, economical, practical, Christian ideas and associations, from Scriptural, mighty through God." among whom we may select our future pupils and candidates for the ministry." II. On the employment of this native ministry.

"3. The student, while in the seminary, should be trained practically to habits of usefulness. But this requires caution, and must not be attempted too soon. Those III. On the power and economy of the plan. set apart for the sacred ministry might "In most of our missions we are opporemain as a class in theology at the semi-sed by these formidable obstacles, namely, nary, after completing the regular course distance, expense, and climate. England was of study; or, according to the old fashion opposed by the same obstacles in her conin this country, which has some special quest of India. And how did she overcome advantages, they might pursue their theo- them? By employing native troops; and logical studies with individual missiona- it is chiefly by means of them she now ries, and, under such superintendence, ex- holds that great populous country in subercise their gifts before much responsibil-jection. We, too, must have native troops ity is thrown upon them.

and pastors of some experience, who can stand alone, before we can leave them. Besides, we should make far greater progress than we do had we more of such helpers. "And what economy of money there would be in the operation of this plan! The cost of a ten years' course of education for five natives of India would not be more than the outfit and passage of one married missionary to that country. And when a company of missionaries is upon the ground, it costs at least five times as much to support them as it would to support the same number of native preachers. The former could not live, like the latter, upon rice alone, with a piece of cotton cloth wrapped about their bodies for clothing, and a mud-walled, grass-covered cottage, without furniture, for a dwelling; nor could they travel on foot under a tropical sun. They could not do this, and at the same time preserve health and life.

en boarding-schools. But the scheme, however promising and indispensable, cannot be carried into effect without a large addition of first-rate men to the company of our missionaries."

It is interesting to observe how the attention of Protestant missionaries from Europe, as well as the United States, has been drawn of late to the importance of a native ministry as a means of carrying on the work of missions among the heathen. There can, however, be no doubt that this Board has taken the lead of all other missionary societies in giving that subject the prominence practically which it deserves in the great system of missionary operations.

THE ANNUAL MEETINGS OF THE BOARD.The annual meetings of the Board must receive a brief notice. They are held in the month of September, in some one of the more important cities of the Eastern or Middle States, and occupy three days. The session is for deliberation and busi

"The cost of educating 1000 youth in India, from whom preachers might be obtained, and afterward of supporting 200 na-ness. The annual meeting for the year 1841 tive preachers and their families, would be is a fair specimen of the usual attendance only about 25,000 dollars, which is but little of members. There were 56 corporate, more than the average expense in that coun- and 102 honorary members present. Of try of twenty-five missionaries and fami- the corporate members five were heads of lies. Now, if the preaching of two well- colleges (there are thrice that number beeducated native preachers, labouring under longing to the corporation); thirty-one judicious superintendence, may be expect- were pastors of churches, or otherwise ed to do as much good as that of one mis- employed in the Christian ministry; ten sionary, we have in these 200 native preach- were civilians; and the remaining ten eners the equivalent, in instrumental preach-gaged in mercantile or medical pursuits. ing power, for 100 missionaries, and at an expenditure less by nearly 75,000 dollars a year. And then, too, the native preacher is at home in the country and climate, not subject to a premature breaking down of his constitution, not compelled to resort for health to the United States, or to send his children thither for education. Besides, the native churches and converts might gradually be brought to assume a part or the whole of the support of the native ministry; while it is very doubtful whether it will ever be expedient for the missionary to receive his support from that quarter.

"One hundred thousand dollars a year would board and educate 4000 native youth. That sum would support 500 or 600 native ministers with their families; and if the value of this amount of native preaching talent equalled that of only 200 missionaries, the annual saving of expense would be at least 125,000 dollars. But it would in the end be worth much more; so that we see, in this view, how our effective force among the heathen may, in a few years, be rendered manifold greater than it is at present, without even doubling our annual expenditure. Some progress has even now been made towards this result. We already have 500 male youth in our seven seminaries; and a still greater number, male and female, in our other twenty-sev

The first day of the session is employed in bringing forward the business of the meetings, so far as the Prudential Committee is concerned, which is done in writing. This, including the different parts of the annual report, is usually referred to some fifteen or more committees, who report during the session. Their reports often give rise to friendly discussions, which are always interesting, and often eloquent. All the meetings are open to the public, and are usually held in a church, that there may be room for those friends and patrons who wish to attend. In the evening of the first day a sermon is preached before the Board by a member appointed to the service at the previous meeting, and the members unite in celebrating the Lord's Supper during the session. A meeting for popular addresses is held in the evening of the second or third day. The last day of the session is generally the great day of the feast in point of interest; and it may truly be said that the annual meeting of this Board, as a whole, has for several years past exerted a great and good influence on the community, its proceedings being more extensively and carefully reported in the religious newspapers than those of any other religious or charitable institution in the country.

PUBLICATIONS. The publications issued | lished in the National Intelligencer under by the Board directly are, 1. The "Mis- the signature of William Penn, 1829, by sionary Herald," published monthly in about Jeremiah Evarts. Speeches on the Pas24,000 copies; 2. The "Day Spring," a monthly publication just commenced in the form of a small newspaper; 3. The "Annual Report," a document of about 200 pages, of which 4000 or 5000 copies are issued annually; and, 4. The “ Annual Sermon," and occasional missionary papers of various descriptions.

66

Among the numerous works which have been occasioned more or less directly by its missions, though not published by it or at its expense, the following may be mentioned:

sage of the Bill for the Removal of the Indians, delivered in the Congress of the United States, 1830. History of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, by Rev. Joseph Tracy, 1840.

CHAPTER IV.

BOARD OF FOREIGN MISSIONS OF THE PRESBY

TERIAN CHURCH.

We have gone into considerable detail in the preceding chapter in order to exhibit, once for all, the grand principles of our American missions-the establishment of schools for the Christian instruction of youth, and especially for raising a native ministry among the heathen themselves, and the employment of that most important auxiliary, the press. The views of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions on these points are held, I believe, without exception, by all our other missionary associations, so that we may dispense with going into the reconsideration of them in the notices that are to follow.

We turn next to the Presbyterian Church's Board for Foreign Missions, not because next in point of date or extent of operations, but simply because it derives its support from a member of the same great Presbyterian family of churches, of certain other branches of which the Amer

Missions is the missionary organ. The two societies, in fact, comprise nearly all that is now done for the conversion of heathens, Mohammedans, and Jews, by Presbyterians of all shades, in the United States.

Memoir of Mrs. Harriet Newell, by Rev. Leonard Woods, D.D., 1815. Memoir of the Rev. Levi Parsons, by Rev. Daniel O. Morton, 1824. Memoir of the Rev. Pliny Fisk, by Rev. Alvan Bond, 1828. Memoir of Catharine Brown, a Christian Indian of the Cherokee nation, by Rev. Rufus Anderson, 1824. Memoir of Rev. Gordon Hall, by Rev. Horatio Bardwell, 1834. Memoir of Mrs. Harriet L. Winslow, by Rev. Miron Winslow, 1835. Memoir of Mrs. Myra W. Allen, by Rev. Cyrus Mann, 1834. The Little Osage Captive, by Rev. Elias Cornelius, 1822. Memoir of Mrs. Sarah Lanman Smith, by Rev. Edward W. Hooker, D.D., 1839, Syrian Mission. Memoir of Mrs. Elizabeth D. Dwight and Mrs. Judith S. Grant, 1840. The Christian Brahmin, or Memoirs of the Life, Writings, and Character of the Converted Brahmin, Babajee, by Rev. Hollis Read, 2 vols., 1836. Memoirs of Ameri-ican Board of Commissioners for Foreign can Missionaries, formerly connected with the Society of Inquiry respecting Missions in the Andover Theological Seminary, 1832. Tour around Hawaii (one of the Sandwich Islands), by Rev. William Ellis, 1826. A Residence in the Sandwich Islands, by Rev. Charles Samuel Stewart, 1828. History of the Sandwich Islands' Mission, by Rev. Sheldon Dibble, 1839. Observations on the Peloponnesus and Greek Islands, by Rev. Rufus Anderson, 1830. Researches in Armenia, by Rev. E. Smith and Rev. H. G. O. Dwight, 1833. Residence at Constantinople, by Rev. Josiah Brewer, 1830. The Nestorians, or the Lost Tribes, by Asahel Grant, M.D., 1841. Missionary Sermons and Addresses, by Rev. Eli Smith, 1833. Journal of a Missionary Tour in India, by Rev. William Ramsey, 1836. Journal of a Residence in As the Old School Presbyterian Church, China and the Neighbouring Countries, by which appointed and supports this Board, Rev. David Abeel, 1834. The Missionary numbers 1409 pastors and 2088 churches, Convention at Jerusalem, or an Exhibition and as nearly all these have it in their of the Claims of the World to the Gospel, power to aid the cause, there is every by Rev. David Abeel, 1838. Journal of prospect of its becoming in a few years a an Exploring Tour beyond the Rocky very efficient association. Its receipts for Mountains, by Rev. Samuel Parker, 1838. the year ending May 1st, 1843, were 64,734 Essays on the Present Crisis in the Con- dollars, and it had expended about 65 doldition of the American Indians, first pub-lars more than this. In this statement are

The Board of which we have now to speak was constituted only in 1837, the congregations which it represents having before that combined with others in supporting the American Board, and many of them, indeed, with a truly liberal spirit, now support both. The latter of the two Boards arose from a conviction which had long been gaining ground, that the Presbyterians as a Church, and by the medium of their supreme ecclesiastical judicature, ought, like the Church of Scotland, to undertake foreign as well as domestic missions.

included the sum of 3000 dollars from the American Bible Society for the printing and circulation of the Scriptures, and 2200 from the American Tract Society for the publication of tracts. It has the following missions :

Sabathu, Saharunpur, Allahabad, and Futtegurh, no fewer than fifteen ordained missionaries, most of whom are married, one printer, three teachers, one physician, and one catechist, all Americans, besides two native catechists, and one native assistant. This mission has been remarkably successful, considering how lately it was commenced. Schools have been established at the different stations, and a considerable number of publications, including parts of the Bible, have been issued in the Hindustani, Persian, Panjabi or Gurmukhi, and Hindi languages. To this, preaching CHIPPEWA AND OTTAWA TRIBES. -One in the native languages at the different missionary and a teacher, with their wives, stations is now added, and in English, also, are labouring with considerable and en- at one or more of these, for the benefit of couraging success among these two tribes, the British officers and other foreign resiwhich are still in the western part of Mich-dents, some of whom, we rejoice to say, igan, not having been yet removed to the west of the Mississippi.

IOWA, or SAC INDIANS in the Indian territory westward of the Missouri. Here it employs a minister, a teacher, and a farmer, and their wives, with an encouraging prospect of good being done by preaching, and still more by schools. Intemperance is found the greatest bar to the progress of the Gospel among the Indians.

have shown much kindness to the missionaries, and have liberally contributed to the support of the schools.

The missionaries in this quarter have lately formed themselves into three Presbyteries, and these have been organized as the Synod of Northern India by the General Assembly in America, to which it is sub

CREEK INDIANS. These form a powerful tribe of above 21,000 souls, in the Indian territory to the west of the States of Arkansas and Missouri. Until of late, they have been averse to receiving missionaries, but the Board has now taken measures, with the consent of their chiefs, for sus-ordinate. taining a mission among them, and a minister, with his wife, have entered upon their work.

TEXAS.-One missionary and his wife have been stationed on the western border of Texas, but as this mission is intended for the benefit of Mexico, they remain where they are only until the door is opened for their admission into the latter country.

WESTERN AFRICA.-The Board has four missionaries, with their wives, and one coloured female teacher, sent from the United States, and two male native teachers, at Cape Palmas, the site of a colony of coloured people from America. The mission bids fair to be eminently useful.

THE CHINESE.-This mission was at first established at Singapore. Two missionaries, one of whom is married, and a physician and his wife, were employed in preaching and in the education of youth among the Chinese, who either permanently reside at that port or occasionally visit it. But now that the door is open for the entrance of the Gospel into that great empire, the Board has lost no time in turning their attention to it. Last year they sent two ordained ministers, one physician, and one teacher to this important field.

SIAM. In this kingdom the Board maintains one missionary and his wife, who are preparing themselves for their future work by acquiring the language of the country, and making themselves useful, in the mean time, by an abundant distribution of portions of the Holy Scriptures and Tracts.

NORTHERN INDIA.-Here it is that the Board has its most extensive missions, having at its different stations at Lodiana,

The Board takes a deep interest in China, and looks forward to the day when the truth may find an effectual entrance into that populous empire. It has, at a great expense, had 3326 matrices made in Paris for the casting of as many different types, which, by their combinations, can produce above 14,000 different characters: a number, according to the report for 1841, amply sufficient for missionary purposes. Hence it would seem that the question, how far the Chinese language may be printed with movable type, is about to be resolved by this Board; and it is a striking fact, that solely to its liberality the ingenious French printer, M. Marcellin-Legrand, under the direction of M. Ponthieu, who discovered this method of printing_Chinese, and of Walter Lowrie, Esq., Secretary to the Board, and himself an excellent Chinese scholar, owes his having been enabled to make so much progress in preparing a complete fount of type in that important but difficult tongue.

The Board is annually appointed by the General Assembly, and to that body it makes its report. The business, however, is mainly conducted by a very efficient committee subject to its supervision, and through this committee as its organ it issues a monthly publication, called The Foreign Missionary Chronicle, presenting not only full accounts of its own missions, but summaries also of what is done by other missionary societies. From 5000 to 6000 copies of this valuable periodical are circulated through the churches.

The Board has now under its direction, sent out by the Church that appoints it,

more than seventy labourers at foreign support. Meanwhile, Mr. Judson withdrew stations, of whom twenty-eight are minis-into the Burmese territory, and there comters of the Gospel. It has, besides, eight menced a mission which has been signally native assistants, some of whom are learn- blessed. The society, which they were the ed persons, and all of them hopefully pi- means of originating, is now a great instious, and in different stages of trial and tution, with no fewer than nineteen mispreparation for labouring among their be- sions in various parts of the world. How nighted fellow-countrymen. Through the wonderful are the ways of God! bringing stations occupied by these missionaries, good from what seems to man, for a time the Presbyterian Church is brought into at least, to be evil. Had not the two miscontact with five different heathen nations, sionaries become Baptists, where would estimated to comprise two thirds of the have been the blessed mission to Burmah, whole human race. and how many years might have elapsed before the American Baptists entered on the prosecution of foreign missions? And had not the Governor-general of India excluded American missionaries from Bengal, where would have been the promising American missions in Ceylon, in the southern part of Hindostan, and on the western side of the Indian Peninsula?

CHAPTER V.

MISSIONARY BOARD OF THE BAPTIST CHURCHES.

Such was the origin of the Baptist Board

THE operations of this Board now extend over thirty years. It was first constituted in 1814, by the Baptist General Convention for Foreign Missions, which meets triennially, and is, in fact, a mission-of Foreign Missions; let us now glance at ary society. To it the Board makes a regular Report of its proceedings.

its various enterprises as reported for 1843. MISSIONS IN NORTH AMERICA.-These are This association has from small begin- eight in number, and embrace the follownings advanced from year to year in re-ing tribes: the Ojibwas, Ottawas, Oneidas, sources and efficiency, until, through God's blessing, it embraces all the four great continents within the sphere of its operations. These have been conducted with singular wisdom, zeal, and perseverance, and have been crowned with remarkable success.

and Tuscaroras, Otoes, Shawanoes, and others, Cherokees, Creeks, and Choctas, the last three residing on the Indian Territory. Among these various tribes the Board has eighteen stations and out-stations, thirty-two American missionaries and assistants, and eight Indian assistants.

Greece, two stations, two preachers, three female assistants, and one native assistant.

IN WEST AFRICA, the Board has two stations, three preachers, one printer, one female assistant, one native assistant, and fifteen churches among the Bassas, a native tribe near the colony of Liberia.

Its history shows how wonderfully God, in his providence, orders and overrules IN EUROPE.-In France, the Board has events while enlisting new agencies for seven stations and six out-stations, one the accomplishment of his purposes. In missionary and his wife, and ten native 1812, the American Board of Commission- preachers and assistants. In Germany ers for Foreign Missions, a Pædobaptist and Denmark it has nine stations, and thirsociety, sent several missionaries to Ben-teen native preachers and assistants. In gal. On their voyage thither, two of these, the Rev. Messrs. Judson and Rice and their wives, changed their views and became Baptists; an event that not only gave much distress to the other members of the mission, but produced, perhaps, for a time, other feelings besides disappointment in the minds of the members of the Board In ASIA, the Board has missions among that had sent them out. On their arrival, the Karens on the borders of Burmah, in they found that the British East India Siam, in China, in Arracan, in Assam, and Company would not permit them to labour at Madras and Nellore and British India. within its territories; so that after a few These, forming eight distinct missions, weeks' stay they had to leave Calcutta. comprehended in 1843 thirty-five stations Messrs. Judson and Rice, however, with and out-stations, fifty-six missionaries and their wives, were received with great kind-assistant missionaries, and about seventy ness by the excellent Dr. Carey and his native assistants. associates, Baptist missionaries from England, settled at Serampore, a small Danish possession not many miles above Calcutta. There was no Baptist Foreign Missionary Society at that time in the United States, but as Messrs. Judson and Rice had become Baptists, were now in India, and wished to remain and preach the Gospel there to the heathen, their case drew the attention of the Baptist churches in America, and a society was organized for their

The total numbers, including all the missions, were, according to the Report for 1843, as follows:

19 Missions.

80 Stations and out-stations.

103 Missionaries and assistant missionaries (Amer-
cans), of whom 44 are ordained.
115 Native preachers and assistants.

77 Churches, comprehending more than 2000 mem-
bers.

898 Baptisms in the course of the year reported on. 4000 Members in native churches.