CHAPTER VII. BOARD OF MISSIONS OF THE PROTESTANT EPIS- THIS Board was constituted in 1835. Its domestic operations we have noticed in another place, and have now to speak of its foreign missions, which extend to various parts of the world. WESTERN AFRICA. It has a very flourishing mission at Cape Palmas, and at two or three stations a few miles distant in the interior. In 1843 it comprised five ordain tribe of Indians called Flat Heads, living to the west of the Oregon Mountains, prompted, probably, by what they had seen and heard of the Christian religion among the trappers of the American and Hudson's Bay Fur Companies, sent some of their chiefs into the United States to inquire as to the various forms of religious worship observed here, and to decide upon which to recommend. After a long and painful journey they reached St. Louis, and stated the object of their coming to the late General Clarke,* then Government Agent for Indian Affairs in that dis-ed ministers, together with three white trict, by whom it was communicated to the ministers of the Gospel in the place. A great sensation was naturally produced. The Methodist Missionary Society was the first that took the matter up, and, desiring to act with prudence, sent two judicious and experienced persons across the Oregon Mountains to visit the Indians, ascertain their present position, and choose a proper situation for a mission. On their arrival they found the way wonderfully prepared by the Lord's providential dispensations, so that after their return, a mission on a large scale left New-York for the Oregon country. After a journey of some months it reached the place of its destination, and was welcomed by the Indians and the Agents of the Hudson's Bay Company stationed in that region. and ten coloured teachers and assistants. The place has been well chosen, for Cape Palmas is one of the healthiest spots on that notoriously unhealthy coast. Several American ladies have resided there in the enjoyment of good health for some years. Attached to the mission there are several schools, partly for the colonists, partly for the natives, and attended by above 100 scholars, youths and adults. The preaching of the missionaries is well attended, and has been blessed to the salvation of souls. CHINA.-The Board has commenced a mission under favourable auspices in China. It has one labourer on this field, and is about to send others. GREECE.-The Board has a mission at Athens. There the Rev. Mr. Hill, with his wife (who is a remarkably efficient person), are stationed, and several American ladies as teachers, besides whom there are about twelve native teachers. Mr. Hill has been very successful in raising and supporting schools for infants, for boys and for girls, attended by about 800 schol This mission, which from the first has been remarkably blessed, consisted, in 1841, of no fewer than sixty-eight persons, including teachers, farmers, mechanics of all kinds, women, and children, all, of -course, connected with the society. It is designed, in fact, to be in a great measure a self-supporting mission. Its object part-ars. He preaches, also, on the Sabbath ly is, by exhibiting the advantages of civilization, to induce the Indians to engage in tillage, and to adopt the other arts and usages of civilized life, in all which the mission has succeeded much beyond expectation. Its spiritual success was still more remarkable, for the Indian converts amounted, two years ago, to no fewer than 1000. The mission, upon the whole, is an experiment of the most interesting .kind. The total number of this society's foreign missionaries amounted in 1843 to 115, of whom probably eighty were ordained. The number of members in the mission churches was 8936. Its total income for that year was $109,452; its disbursements $145,035, of which probably 90,000 were for home, and 55,035 for foreign missions.† The name of this gentleman is well known in connexion with that of the late Governor Lewis, from the Exploring Tour they made in company across the Oregon Mountains to the Pacific Ocean, during Mr. Jefferson's presidency. + It is probable that I have not apportioned with and other occasions, in Greek, to a congregation of young and old. Yet, owing to the perpetual jealousy of the Greek clergy, and their influence with the government, the missionaries find themselves exposed to many difficulties. CRETE. In this island, also, there is a mission conducted by one ordained missionary, assisted by his wife and one or two natives engaged as teachers. This mission has succeeded as well as its friends and projectors had hoped. MISSION IN THE EAST.-The Board sustained a mission for some years at Constantinople. But it seems probable that it will be removed to Mardin or Mosul, in order to reach more effectually the Syrian churches, in whose behalf the Society has taken much interest. The Rev. Mr. South perfect exactness the disbursements of the Society. The Report does not separate the domestic from the foreign expenditures. The whole number of missionaries, domestic and foreign, employed by the Society in 1843, was 325, ordained and unordained, and the members in the churches gathered were 39,684. gate, who has travelled much in Asia Minor and the adjacent parts of the East, and has given the results of his observations in his interesting journals, is the Society's missionary in this field. Two others have been appointed to join him. TEXAS.-In this Republic the Board last year employed three missionaries, who were labouring with some success at Houston, Matagorda, and Galveston. FOREIGN MISSIONARY SOCIETY OF THE LUIt hence appears that the whole num- THERAN CHURCH IN THE United States.— ber of the Board's ordained missionaries This society, which dates from 1837, origiamounted, in 1843, to eleven, labouring in nated in an appeal from the German misseven distinct missions, besides whom sionaries in India, Mr. Rhenius and his asthere were several American ladies, chief-sociates, to their brethren in the United ly engaged in teaching, and no fewer than twenty native teachers. The receipts, exclusive of $200 from the American Tract Society, amounted, last year, to $35,197; the disbursements exceeded the receipts by $4494. The Board issues an interesting publication entitled "The Spirit of Missions," for the diffusion of missionary intelligence among the churches. CHAPTER VIII. FOREIGN MISSIONS OF OTHER DENOMINATIONS. MISSIONS OF THE FREE-WILL BAPTIST CHURCHES.-The Free-Will Baptist Foreign Missionary Society was organized in 1833, and originated in the correspondence of the Rev. Mr. Sutton, of the English General Baptist Mission, with Elder Buzzel, a Free-Will Baptist minister in the United States. Mr. Sutton wrote in 1831, representing the deplorable state of the heathen in India, and calling on his American brethren to come up to the help of the Lord against the mighty. Returning to England in 1833, Mr. Sutton went from that to America, there spent several months preaching to the churches; then, after another short visit to his native land, he made an extensive tour in 1834 through the FreeWill Baptist churches in the United States, preaching to them on the subject of missions, and acting as the corresponding secretary of a missionary society which had been formed the preceding year. Having succeeded in rousing these churches to a sense of their duty, he sailed in 1835 for India with the Rev. Messrs. Noyes and Phillips and their wives, being the first missionaries from the new society. On their arrival they went with Mr. Sutton to Orissa, a province lying on the western shore of the Bay of Bengal, some hundred miles southwest from Calcutta. They have been labouring chiefly at Balasore with much faithfulness and success. The Rev. Messrs. Bachelor and Dow have since joined these brethren, and are zealously prosecuting their work. The Society owes much, we understand, to subscriptions and collections States, for the assistance they required in consequence of their separation from the Church Missionary Society of England, on account of certain of its views and measures which they disapproved, after having laboured for several years in its service. In answer to their appeal, a convention of Lutheran ministers and lay members was held at Hagerstown, in Maryland, and the society was organized. But these missionaries having renewed their connexion with the English Church Missionary Society, the American Lutherans have resolved to send out missionaries from their own churches, and now have two labouring in India. FOREIGN MISSIONS OF THE MORAVIANS, OR UNITED BRETHREN.-The Moravian Brethren in the United States formed a society for propagating the Gospel among the heathen in 1787; an act for incorporating it was passed by the State of Pennsylvania; and it has been actively employed ever since in promoting missions. This society sustains two missions among the Indians (the one among the Delawares, the other among the Cherokees), and eight missionaries. Its receipts last year were 8364 dollars. Some years ago it received a handsome legacy from a gentleman at Philadelphia. Its organ is "The United Brethren's Missionary Intelligencer, and Religious Miscellany." FOREIGN MISSIONS OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCHES.-The reader has remarked that in our notices of the Associate, Associate Reformed, and Reformed Presbyterian Churches, we mentioned that they have undertaken foreign missions, either in connexion with the Board of the Old School Presbyterians or independently, within the last few years. Such are the societies in the United States which have been expressly formed for the propagation of the Gospel in pagan countries, although some of them have missions in countries nominally Christian. Let me add, that the American Bible Society, and the American and Foreign Bible Society supported by the Baptists, have been making large yearly donations towards the circulation of the Holy Scrip tures in foreign, and especially pagan tries, and was suggested by the growing lands. Some, also, of the State and other conviction of many persons in the United local Bible Societies, such as those of Mas- States, that until pure Christianity be resachusetts and Philadelphia, have done stored in nominal Christendom, the consomething in this way. The American version of the heathen world can hardly Tract Society has likewise made yearly be looked for. There are millions of Protgrants of from 10,000 to 40,000 dollars for estants, and tens of millions of Romanists, the publication and distribution of religious so manifestly ignorant of the great doctracts in foreign, and chiefly in heathen trines of the Gospel, as to prove by their lands. The American Sunday-school lives that they are little better than bapUnion, too, has granted both books and tized heathen. Hundreds of thousands money for promoting its objects abroad. professing Christianity may be found in I am unable to state the yearly amount of some countries who have actually never all these donations with perfect accuracy, read a page of the book which God intendbut believe that, taking the average of the ed should be emphatically the people's last ten years, they have exceeded 50,000 Book, but which those who put themselves dollars. forward as their guides have kept from them, either from ignorance of its value, or from a dread of its influence when read. CHAPTER IX. AMERICAN SOCIETY FOR AMELIORATING THE Now, while many societies seek to promote true religion in the United States, and many also to send the Gospel to the heathen, the Foreign Evangelical Society THIS Society was formed in 1820, for that great intermediate field, presented by makes it its peculiar province to cultivate the purpose of providing an asylum, and professedly Christian countries in which, the means of earning a comfortable live- whatever may be their civilization, the lihood in America, for Jews whose con- Gospel is really almost as little known as version to Christianity exposed them to it is to the very heathen; some being persecution and the loss of the means of buried in the darkness of Romanism, and living. A farm, accordingly, of about 500 others in the still worse darkness of Raacres was purchased, on which it was pro- tionalism. In many such countries God, posed to have a colony of converted Jews, in his holy Providence, has been evidentwho, by tillage and other useful arts, might ly opening the way for the admission of support themselves and their families. Somehow or other this project did not an-olutions have in the course of the last fifthe long-excluded light. Stupendous revswer the expectations of its projectors, ty years shaken, for a time at least, the and so much did the Society lose the con- spiritual despotism that had reigned so fidence of the Christian public, that for a long over a great part of Christendom, while it seemed quite lost sight of. A both in Europe and America; and the bityear or two ago, however, the impulse giv- ter fruits of infidelity, in all its forms, have en in Scotland and other European countries to the work of converting the Jews, sapped the foundations of faith, to return disposed many, in countries where it had led some of the old friends of the Ameri- to the simple truths of the Gospel, unpercan Society to think of reviving it, and di-verted by human speculation and "philosrecting its efforts to the employment of mis-ophy falsely so called." The last revolusionaries among the Jews, either in America or elsewhere. As the Society is incorporated, and has property to the amount, I believe, of from 15,000 to 20,000 dollars, it may commence its operations immediately among the Jewish people, of whom there are said to be about 50,000 in the United States, whose conversion has never, it must be confessed, called forth the interest and the efforts that it ought to have done. CHAPTER X. tions in France and Belgium, in particular, seemed to lay those countries more hoped that, at no distant day, Spain and open to evangelical effort; and it was Portugal also would be found accessible to the Word of God. After much inquiry, partly conducted by an agent sent expressly to France and othformed in 1836, which, three years after, er countries of Europe, an association was took the form of a regular society; not, however, for sending missionaries from America to Europe, but for assisting the friends of evangelical religion in France, Belgium, and other countries similarly cir FOREIGN EVANGELICAL SOCIETY OF THE UNI- cumstanced. It has accordingly aided the TED STATES. THIS, which is the latest in its origin of all the foreign missionary societies, was formed in 1839, for promoting evangelical religion in all nominally Christian coun evangelical societies of France and Geneva, and, though not to the same extent, some other, and more local associations. Gradually extending the range of its efforts, it has also promoted the same cause the whole number of missionary labourers | books and tracts in thirty-three different Organized by these missions, and under their pastoral care, are 62 churches, to which have been received during the last year 2690 converts, and which now embrace, in regular standing, 20,797 members. This number does not include some hundreds of hopeful converts among the Armenians, Nestorians, and other communities in Western Asia. ges are the Zulu, Grebo, Italian, Greek, Armenian, Turkish (in the Armenian character), Arabic, Mahratta, Portuguese, Goojurattee, Hindosthanee, Latin, Tamul, Teloogoo, Siamese, Chinese, Japanese, Malay, Bugis, Hawaiian, Cherokee, Choctaw, Seneca, Abenaquis, Ojibwa, Ottawa, Creek, Osage, Sioux, Pawnee, and Nez Perces; fifteen of which were first reduced to writing by missionaries of the Board. The sixty-two churches which have been gathered among the heathen are formed as nearly on the Congregational or Presbyterian model for such ecclesiastical organizations as the nature of the case would permit. None but converts who have been received as members of the church, after giving credible evidence of piety, are alThe number of printing establishments lowed to partake of the Lord's Supper. connected with the missions is 16, with The spiritual fruits of the missions to the four type foundries, 43 founts of type, and Oriental churches are, of course, not in30 presses. Printing has been executed cluded in this number, such not having for the missions in 33 languages, exclusive been gathered into distinct and separate of the English, 15 of which were first re-churches, the effort there having been to duced to a written form by the missiona-infuse the spirit of the Gospel into those ries of this Board. The copies of works religious communities as they now are. printed at the mission presses during the past year exceed 600,000, and the number-The Board does not regard any of its of pages is about 56,383,000; making the missions as being permanent institutions. total number of pages printed for the Their object is, through the grace of God, missions since they commenced about to impart the spirit and plant the institu442,056,185. tions of the Gospel where they do not In the department of education the mis-exist, and then to leave them to the consionaries have under their care seven sem-servative influences that shall have been inaries for educating preachers and teachers, in which are 524 pupils, besides 22 other boarding-schools, in which are 699 pupils, more than 400 of whom are girls. Of free schools the number is 610, containing 30,778 pupils; making the whole num-sential principle of his calling, a sojourner, ber of pupils under the care of the missions 32,000. THEORY OF THE MISSIONS OF THE BOARD. gathered about them. This is true theoretically, and it will come out in fact as soon as the means are furnished for prosecuting the work with becoming vigour. The missionary is emphatically, in the es pilgrim, stranger, having no continuing city. over the The leading object of its missions, Of the 32,000 youth in the mission therefore, is the training and employment schools of this Board, somewhat more of a native ministry, as the only way in than 1200 are boarding scholars, in schools which the Gospel can soon become indiwhere the leading object is to train up a genous to the soil, and the Gospel institunative ministry. Five hundred and twen- tions acquire a self-supporting, self-propaty-four are in seminaries designed exclu-gating energy. And the fact is importan sively for males, where the course of study to be noted, that the elders, or pastors is as extensive as it can be, while the lan-whom the apostles ordained guages of the several countries where they churches they gathered among the hea exist are no better furnished with works of then, were generally, if not always, native sound literature and science. In general, of the country. While the apostles ha the text-books for all the schools have to not the facilities of the present day fo be prepared by the missionaries, and a very training men for this office by education great progress, on the whole, has been they had not the necessity for so doing made in this department, especially in ge- Among their converts at Ephesus, Berea ography, arithmetic, geometry, sacred his- Corinth, Rome, and elsewhere, they ha tory, and the first principles of religion and no difficulty in finding men who only re morals. quired some instruction in theology, a scarcely that when endowed with mirac lous gifts, to be prepared for the pastor office. How they did, or would have don beyond the Roman Empire and the boun About 442,000,000 of pages have been printed at the sixteen printing establishments connected with the missions of this Board. These establishments have printed 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 of missions-simple, economical, practical, Scriptural, mighty through God. The manner in which the Board is endeavouring to carry out this theory in practice has perhaps been sufficiently indicated. But the subject is one of so much importance, that it will be worth while to quote part of an article upon it, which was submitted by the Prudential Committee of the Board, at the annual meeting in the year 1841. I. On the manner of raising up a native ministry. "1. This must be by means of seminaries, schools of the prophets, such as, in some form or other, the Church has always found necessary. There should be one such seminary in each considerable mission. It is an essential feature of the plan that the pupils be taken young, board in the mission, be kept separate from heathenism, under Christian superintendence night and day. In general, the course of study should embrace a period of from eight to ten or twelve years, and even a longer time in special cases. Pupils can be obtained for such a course of education in most of the missions; but, as a nursery for them, it is expedient to have a certain number of free schools, which also greatly aid in getting audiences for the preachers. "2. There will be but partial success in rearing a native ministry, unless the seminary be in the midst of a select and strong body of missionaries, whose holy lives, conversation, and preaching shall cause the light of the Gospel to blaze intensely and constantly upon and around the institution. Experience shows that in such circumstances we are warranted to expect a considerable proportion of the students to become pious. ties, and there is a race of children with Christian ideas and associations, from among whom we may select our future pupils and candidates for the ministry." II. On the employment of this native ministry. "The pupils in the seminaries will have different gifts, and the same gifts in very different degrees. All the pious students will not do for preachers. Some may be retained as tutors in the seminary, others may be employed as school teachers, others as printers, bookbinders, etc. Those set apart for the ministry, while they are taught the way of the Lord more perfectly, can be employed as catechists, tract distributers, readers, or superintendents of schools, and thus gain experience and try their characters. In due time they may be licensed to preach, and, after proper trial, receive ordination as evangelists or pastors. "While care should be taken to lay hands suddenly on no man, there is believed to be danger of requiring too much of native converts before we are willing to intrust them with the ministry of the word. Generations must pass before a community, emerging from the depths of heathenism, can be expected to furnish a body of ministers equal to that in our country. "Could the present native church members at the Sandwich Islands be divided into companies of 180 each, 100 churches would be constituted. Native pastors should be in training for these churches, and evangelists for the numerous districts where churches are not yet formed, and where the people are consequently exposed to the inroads of the enemy. In the other missions the chief employment, at present, must be that of evangelists. In the Tamul missions hundreds might find ample employment; and in the Oriental churches, our leading object should be to bring forward an able evangelical native ministry with the least possible delay." III. On the power and economy of the plan. "In most of our missions we are oppo "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 set apart for the sacred ministry might remain as a class in theology at the semi-sed by these formidable obstacles, namely, nary, after completing the regular course of study; or, according to the old fashion in this country, which has some special advantages, they might pursue their theological studies with individual missionaries, and, under such superintendence, exercise their gifts before much responsibility is thrown upon them. distance, expense, and climate. England was opposed by the same obstacles in her conquest of India. And how did she overcome them? By employing native troops; and it is chiefly by means of them she now holds that great populous country in subjection. We, too, must have native troops in our spiritual warfare. Why not have an army of them? Why not have as numerous a body of native evangelists as can be directed and employed? "4. The contemporaneous establishment of female boarding-schools, where the naive ministers and other educated helpers n the mission may obtain pious and intel- Such a measure would effect a great igent partners for life, is an essential fea-saving of time. Indeed, we can never leave ure in this system. A native pastor, with our fields of labour till this is done. Our n ignorant, heathen wife, would be great- mission churches must have native pastors, U |