our society, that the first fruit was gathered in the person of Mowhee, a young New Zealander, sent to this country in 1816, by the Rev. T. Marsden, who first heard of the Saviour from the lips of a pious naval captain, in the hut of his parents, before a mission to his country was ever thought of, and who prematurely died in London, while under training for the missionary work."

Mr. East proceeds to another very cheering source of joy:

"This blessed Jubilee likewise connects our spiritual exultation with that of numerous brethren, and sisters, and their children, of missionary families and their congregations, who, on this very day, are encircling the mighty globe with a bright girdle of joyful praise and believing prayer. We seem to realize the forcible language of the society's sixteenth report: "This blessed country is the heart of the moral world. The special goodness of God has caused to flow into this land, in full abundance, the streams of life; and has communicated to it an energy, by which they are impelled through every land." Each member-the tenderest fibre of the vast body, partakes of the joyful sensation that fills the heart. To-day, as the revolving dial of heaven gives the varying hours of different lands at a hundred and two missionary stations, we rejejoice with them that rejoice and keep the Jubilee festival, in the far land of Sinim: on Hindostan's vast plains and mighty streams: amidst the spicy groves of Ceylon, and the evergreen islands of the West; by the Red Sea and the Nile; in Minor Asia and in Greece; by Western Africa's sunny fonntains, and amidst the first snows of a Canadian winter; on the repulsive shores of British Guiana, and through evangelized New Zealand. Think of our 139 ordained missionaries, European and native, with 43 catechists, and lay teachers, and 1300 native teachers, and 30,000 scholars, and 13,000 communicants, and multitudes of attentive hearers, all realizing that they are one with us. The Gospel alone ever gave such a day as this to men

of every clime, separate in the flesh, but united in spirit. Varied are our tongues in song, but all our joys are

one.

"In Britain, also, the rejoicing companies are not few. In every chief city and in numerous towns and villages, the society has friends and members. Its affiliated auxiliaries and associations are many, and to-day most of them, if not all, keep high festival. Our beloved and revered Primate leads the mighty throng, and preaches in London before the parent committee; the Rev. Canon Dale having previously pleaded the great cause in St. Paul's. Archbishop of York takes the same course at York; the Bishop of Winchester in his cathedral, and the Bishop of London at St. George's, Bloomsbury; while the Bishop of Oxford will give us his advocacy in that same university church, wherein the venerable Cranmer witnessed a good confession on the eve of martyrdom for those precious truths that we are now rejoicing to spread through the earth.*"

The

The time of the society's institution may further awaken our joy and thankfulness.

"Our rejoicing is heightened when we remember THE TIME of our society's institution. Deeper gloom never rested on all nations than at the close of the last century. It was as when the earth was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep." But that was the time chosen of God to prepare the way for a new era of Christian light. The Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be light, and there was light.' 'Amidst the most desolating wars, and under the most discouraging aspect of public affairs,

*It is just three centuries since good Cranmer, with other prelates and divines, brought to completion and published the first reformed service of the reign of Edward, "the Order of Communion." It was printed in 1548. And now, in 1848, the Book of Common Prayer, for which so largely we are indebted to Cranmer, is becoming, through our Church of England Missions, the Prayer Book of every land.

the Lord introduced a hitherto unknown impulse of religious union, philanthropy, and zeal. While 'judgment began at the house of God,' the degenerated Christian Church; while the heaviest calamities afflicted and oppressed the nations; while the oldest empires were plucked up by their very roots; amidst the general confusion sprang up the Tree of Life, to spread its shade and to scatter its fruits over all the earth."

And truly one of the most gratifying sources of rejoicing is the fact, that for this long period of nearly fifty years, the Church Missionary Society has uniformly and continuously upheld the sound Protestant evangelical truth of Scripture, and done what human means could possibly do to keep out error in all its various characters, and send forth labourers determined to know nothing but Jesus Christ and him crucified. Amidst the heterodox and pernicious influences that have been at work in our church, this is a fact which cannot fail to stand prominent in our calls to thankfulness and praise.

Truly then is it observed:

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"We rejoice' that what was begun in deep personal humility, but on the very highest principles, and with the most determined energy, has been carried on in the same spirit. "This society,' said one of its fathers in the third anniversary discourse,— 'this society, I can safely assert, mean to prepare the way of the Lord, by exhibiting the only remedy for fallen nature, namely the cross of Christ, and the regenerating influence of his Spirit; and that in the most simple and unequivocal manner possible. They have seen folly and disappointment inscribed on every other remedy, or unscriptural modification of the true remedy, and that in every age, and in every place, and depend alone, under God, upon the truth as it is in Jesus.' While its founders resolved that it should be conducted upon those principles, which they believed to be most in accordance with the Gospel of Christ, and with the spirit of the reformed Chuch of England, they were equally determined, in the

expressive language of the Rev. Josiah Pratt, that its management should be kept 'in evangelical hands. In such hands it has remained for fifty years, and prospered. In such hands may the God of all grace ever keep it! Were the helm to fall into other hands, we should expect nothing else for our gallant ship than for her to be stranded on the shoals of mere moral divinity, or to be wrecked upon the rocks of ancient Romanism, or of a modern and modified Popery under a specious Anglican name. OUR SOCIETY MUST REMAIN PROTESTANT AND EVANGELICAL, OR PERISH."

Most refreshing is the following picture of our missionary labours:

"And now, 'Lift up thine eyes, and look from the place where thou art, northward and southward, and eastward and westward.' What hath God wrought by our society, and by its supporters employing also other means! Ethiopia is stretching out her hands unto God, in more than one of her many provinces. New Zealand is a diocese of the church of Britain. Eastern India has its fourfold episcopate, its numerous body of missionary clergy, its churches, schools, and evangelized towns and villages. For that establishment, which has added four vast dioceses to the English church, OUR Buchanan laboured and wrote, and our own Wilberforce toiled, and employed his persuasive eloquence in the senate. He, who at one time could hardly obtain from the government of his day, from Pitt himself, a solitary chaplain for New South Wales, lived to see greater things than his large heart ever dreamt of, or perhaps even his faith ever ventured to implore in prayer. On every continent, almost on every island, and in every kingdom, doors are opened; and, without in the least disparaging other bodies of labourers in the same holy cause, the Church Missionary body might be addressed in words similar to those of Paul to the Thessalonians: 'From you sounded out the word of the Lord, not only in Macedonia and Achaia, but also IN EVERY PLACE your faith to God-ward is spread abroad.'"

Amidst the causes of weeping, Mr. East justly laments the want of a more extended support

"While, therefore, we rejoice, and are thankful to God to them, that now, in its Jubilee-year, we are favoured with the vice-patronage of his Grace the Archbishop of Canterbury, and the vice-presidency of the Archbishop of York, and sixteen of the twenty-five English prelates, and six of the thirteen Irish prelates, and ten of the seventeen colonial prelates, -and with the countenance and support of, probably, about three thousand of our sixteen thousand clergy, and while a goodly array of nobility and gentry appears in our lists of members,-yet the cause of the society is not regarded as the cause of the whole Church. Rejoicing that our God has enabled our institution to live and work down many prejudices; to overcome much opposition and gigantic difficulties; it is still our grief, that the office of patron, reserved for a prince of the Royal Family, remains vacant; that its claims are set aside by the great majority of both our clerical and lay members; and that there are yet TEN THOUSAND CHURCHES, in England alone, in which it finds no advocacy, and SEVERAL HUNDRED TOWNS, each with above a thousand inhabitants, where there is no Association in aid of it!"

We really could not have credited the fact unless we had heard it stated on authority, that there are yet TEN THOUSAND churches in which the Church Missionary Society finds no advocacy. Deeply do we regret, not merely the failure of a more extensive support to the society, but the loss of a real benefit and privilege to so large a portion of our church. Surely the example of our bishops, and the impulse of the Jubilee will tell a different tale before long!

If we have to weep that more is not done for the society, it is not from the poverty of the country, trying and distressing as the times unquestionably are—

"It is not that our country is too poor to give further aid. The Church

Missionary Society arose and flourished amidst the pressure of taxation and national trouble, beyond all precedent. It arose in the very heat of the revolutionary war, and it almost suddenly sprang into vigour of action, and wide extent of operation, and large resources, at the time when the deadly conflict had reached its crisis, in 1813, and our country had ONE

MILLION AND FIFTY-THREE THOU

SAND MEN IN ARMS, and the expenditure of one year was ONE hunDRED AND SEVENTEEN MILLIONS! 'Mightily,' observes the Rev. E. Bickersteth, as the missionary spirit has grown at home, it must yet be admitted it burns very feebly and inadequately in our church; though the wealth of Britain is very great, and its chief wealth is in the Established Church.'

"It is our sorrow that men give not of their substance to the Lord with that holy alacrity, which marks a cheerful giver.”

More hopeful as matters are in this respect, Mr. East truly says:

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Sadly few of the class of men we need come forward and say, ' Here am I, send me!' Our younger clergy are too generally attached to the soft comforts of a home ministry, to be ready to endure hardness as good soldiers of Jesus Christ,' and go forth to fight the good fight of faith' in heathen lands; and not a few are spending the prime of their days in the cultivation of a barren and thorny divinity, which will leave them and the Church without fruit, and God without honour from their labours."

"In Southern India our missionary success has been increased SEVENFOLD, but our missionary labourers only TWOFOLD. The fields have been white unto the harvest, but the labouring reapers have been few and insufficient. In proof of the interest taken by those who dwell around our Missionary stations abroad, both Europeans and natives, the amount of their contributions last year to our funds was greater, than the whole average yearly income of our Society, through the first twenty years of its existence."

"So far are we from having any reasons for self-complacency at what we have been doing, either at home or abroad, the men who have done most lie at their heavenly Master's feet, and would have all their fellowservants join them in the penitent cry, Enter not into judgment with thy servant, O Lord.' We are called to weep with them that weep' tears of bitterest sorrow, under a sense of their unprofitableness; the coldness of their love; the weakness of their faith; the tardiness of their zeal; and the indolence of their most arduous labours for Christ and the souls of men. What might not have been done, (speaking after the manner of men, and admitting without any reserve the doctrine of the Divine Spirit's sovereignty, in dividing unto every man severally as he will,') had it been with us, as with the Thessalonians, whose faith grew exceedingly, and whose charity every one toward another abounded:' had we been more devoutly men of prayer, self-denial, and self-consecration: had our hearts been more spiritual, our temper more heavenly, our conversation more unworldly, our gifts to the treasury of the Lord's missions more suited to the bounty of the 'liberal, who deviseth liberal things,' and less of constraint or conventional habit?"

Truly touching is the following reflection:

"Looking to the average of life in heathen lands, Two GENERATIONS of men must have passed away during these fifty years of our feeble, and hesitating, and timid missionary work. More than twenty millions of these wretched beings depart into a miserable immortality every year. Twice six hundred millions of men have died in the misery of sin and entered a hopeless eternity, since it was determined here to do something' for them.

"For the greater part of these fifty years, no hostile fleets swept the intervening oceans, and forbad the transit of missionaries. No armed hosts lined the shores of the nations and forbad our landing. We have enjoyed more than thirty years of

European peace, and the whole globe has been accessible to British enterprise and commerce. And what has been done? Surely, surely, we have more cause to weep over what is left undone, and even unattempted, than to be elated by what has been accomplished."

Mr. East next regards the Jubilee as a season of Hope:

"And now, Lord, what wait we for? Truly our hope is even in thee.' We may have been too fondly depending upon, and expecting too much from men. Now, my soul, wait thou only upon God, for my expectation is from Him.' The Lord being our helper, guide, and teacher, we shall no longer make flesh our arm, reposing in human wisdom, confiding in human strength. It shall be in God, who cannot lie, that we will hope, and trust, and not be afraid, It shall not be in the soundness of our doctrinal views; in the wisdom of our plans; in the zeal and integrity of our committees; in the dignity of our patrons; in the wealth and liberality of our members; in the augmentation of our income; in the holiness, and self-devotedness, and talent of our missionaries; in the extent of our missions, or in the multitude of our converts. For all these advantages we will labour, and be thankful when they are ours; but they shall not be our dependence.

"The hope that animates us in the prosecution of our great enterprise is built upon the Rock of ages, the Lord himself. His every attribute is pledged to the furtherance of that Gospel, by the human preaching of which He is pleased to save them that believe. My word shall not return unto me void; but it shall accomplish that which I please, aud it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it.' We are in danger of calculating too largely upon the efficacy of wise human counsels, and laborious love of souls. A profane and unbelieving world may sneeringly address the friends of missions, as an American merchant addressed the great and good Morrison, when on his way to the vast field of his imperishable work:

'So you are going to China, and expect to do great things there!' His reply shall be ours. I am going to China: I do not expect that I shall do great things, but I expect that God will."

Finally, the Jubilee implies the duty of praise and prayer:

"It is matter for loud thanksgiving unto God, that our day of Jubilee can be thus celebrated with us, in above one hundred important places in the heathen world. But He who, having 'the residue of the Spirit,' 'giveth more grace,' at the same time requireth more prayer. He loves to be importuned. 'Let every member of this Society charge on his conscience, a more steady and patient exercise of prayer for this and all similar undertakings. Let his private addresses to the throne of grace, and his prayers with his family, discover a soul deeply interested in the salvation of tho world! Then will glorious times soon succeed. He who prepares the heart, will listen to the prayers which he has inspired. And when waiting faith has been exercised, it will receive its reward. * * * * Withal, in submission to the sovereignty of God, it behoves us to cherish INTENSE DESIRE for the conversion of men. Neither clerical nor lay support of missions will much avail without such desire."

The duty of personal efforts is powerfully urged:

"These duties also imply ardent and persevering personal efforts. All cannot be missionaries abroad. But all can be domestic and social missionaries-all can labour to interest others in this holy object. Let each do what he can, as in the sight of his heavenly Master, and inconceivably more will be accomplished, over which ages to come will rejoice. It is not only classical, but Christian, to learn from an enemy. My dear brethren, let us closely watch the movements of Rome, both at home and abroad. "The children of this world are in their generation wiser than the children of light.' At the rise, and for the first thirteen or fourteen years of

this Society's existence, it was thought and said by Christian men, that the Papacy was asleep as to foreign missions. But is it now? No: it has awaked as one out of sleep; and like a giant refreshed with wine.' And much of that wine has been of British vintage. Rome is at work: so must Sion be. Greater is the Lord that dwelleth in Sion, and he is our strength. Babylon shall fall: but let the children of Sion be joyful in their King, for he shall reign for ever, and they shall reign with him. More silver and more gold must be cast into the mission treasury-there are noblemen-there are commoners of this realm, whose personal incomes equal or exceed that now received by the Church Missionary Society, from all its tens of thousands of subscribers. We are not allowed to regard this society's object as that of a common charity, which one may or may not support. The Lord demands the means of missions, as well as missionary agents from his people, when he charges it upon his church: 'Go ye into all the world, and preach the Gospel to every creature.' To refuse our aid, or to give it with a niggard hand, is to rob God and to defraud the souls of men.

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And if any further motive were wanting to rouse us to an adequate sense of our duties on behalf of the heathen world, we may well gather it in the solemn appeal with which this interesting sermon concludes:

"We have been reminded of the truly affecting consideration, that few, if any of us, can witness another Jubilee of the Church Missionary Society. Let us do what we can while we can. Ere long, the wicked

and slothful servant will have his eternal portion fixed with the unbelievers. Ere long, the often weary but faithful and persevering servant will be at rest. Oh! wondrous boon of grace and love! For him there will soon be no more sympathy in grief. He will rejoice with all that shall rejoice in one unbroken and everlasting Jubilee. May that faithful servant's lot be ours!"