aught in half-worked, or altogether silent machinery, aught among bankrupt merchants and manufacturers, aught among impoverished and emaciated artizans, to encourage the hope? There is much reason to fear, that for some years to come, there will be difficulty in steadily maintaining the societies' incomes, even at the rate of the present year; and certainly any substantial augmentation is not to be hoped for. "What, then, is to be done?" Yes, brethren, this is just the question. What is to be done? Tell us! Tell us! It is very obvious that

"Shall we be able

all idea of further extending the Redeemer's kingdom, for the present, must be given up. to maintain our ground?" Brethren, beware of uttering such words, or of suffering them to penetrate your ears! They are treason! The ground MUST be maintained, cost what it may! The withdrawment of missionaries, the cessation of preaching, the disbanding of schools, the extinction of the little light which you have put into the hands of benighted millions who sat in thick darkness in the region of the shadow of death! Oh, it must not be. Better, far better, that they had not seen the faces of your missionaries! The honour of your country, of your religion, and of your heavenly Master, are all concerned, and all in peril!

Brethren of England! It behoves you, in this awful moment, to profit by the example of the churches in America. The records of the American Board of Foreign Missions, for the last five years, form the most instructive chapter in the history of modern missions. Their annual meeting, recently held in Philadelphia, far surpassed, in point of solemnity and importance, every thing of the kind with which we are acquainted. This I affirm, after a deliberate and trembling perusal and

meditation of the voluminous report of its proceedings. The "Prudential Committee" of the Board are clearly men worthy of their work, and equal to the emergency. On that solemn occasion, they fully delivered their own souls. It is to be hoped that the Directors of the London Missionary Society, and kindred institutions, will not have occasion to report similarly of your conduct in exciting hopes only to disappoint them. The affairs of the Board had been considerably deranged prior to 1837, but that year brought on a crisis. Their income, from the apathy of the churches, not keeping pace with the extension of their field of labour, and all expedients failing, the Board were driven, by necessity, to curtail all the branches of their operations; a measure which, in its consequences, has proved most disastrous. The mischief was first felt at the foreign stations, where the intimation broke upon the ear of the agents like a thunder storm at the midnight hour. It smote them to the heart. This was a new calamity. They had never anticipated even the possibility of such a thing. Yes, it smote them to the heart. It shook their confidence in the churches; it brought both themselves and the Board into discredit with the heathen, when the latter saw them breaking up their schools and reducing their stations. One missionary disbanded schools of 5,000 children, and sent them back to idolatry, to worship at its altars, and to perish in its darkness! You will not be surprised at hearing that the hearts of some of the missionaries were broken, and their health ruined. But the mischief was not confined to the actual scene of missionary labour; it re-acted with double force upon the churches in the United States themselves. Many of them, it seems, came to

view missionary expenditure much in the same light as that of a public commercial company, or a state, where the established and approved remedy for straitened circumstances, is, retrenchment. In this way, an element of worldly prudence came to be substituted for a heavenly principle! Things were thus identified, which are wide as the poles asunder. Brethren! must there not be something wrong amongst a body of churches, who could compel, or even allow their Board, to adopt so cruel a step towards the nations which Christ had bought with his blood, and withdraw from labours in which the hand of the Lord was with them? Does not such a course implicate both the philanthropy and the piety of our Trans-atlantic brethren? Heaven avert the discredit, the shame, the guilt, of such a course, from the churches of Great Britain!

Brethren of England! The awful lesson and warning do not end here. The constituents of the American Board deeply grieved the Spirit of God! They were guilty of a heinous insult to the Son of his love! A trifling general effort would have sufficed abundantly to meet the necessities of the case; that effort they refused to make. By their deeds they said, "Let the head of the heathen' get possession of his kingdom as he best may, we will not advance another farthing for it. If what we have done will not suffice to crush idolatry, let it live and reign for ever. If perdition be the reward of its worship, then let its votaries descend into eternal night. What is that to us? Let those who will, see to it." So be it, but remember this; no man ever yet hardened himself against God, and prospered. Your brethren, regardless of the honour of their Lord, and of the salvation of the lost millions of

our race, saved their money, and God hath "sent leanness into their souls." Sad compensation! The facts which came out at the last annual meeting, are an index to their true spiritual condition. According to Dr. Armstrong, one of the secretaries, "One third of the churches, nominally the friends of this Board, make no regular contributions to its funds; and in those churches which do contribute, one third of the members, and in some two thirds, and in others three fourths, give nothing. One half of the church members did nothing last year. Of the 300,000 members, 150,000 made no contributions." Here, as usual, it would seem that the adage, "like priest like people," holds good. The Hon. S. Hubbard, one of the Board, expressed a doubt, "whether half of the ministers preach on the subject of foreign missions once a year." Dr. Armstrong also intimated that the single "state of Massachusetts, during the past year, paid in nearly one third of the whole contribution." Brethren, who can read these statements without a mixture of grief and astonishment? this is not the worst: the Rev. Mr. Greene, another of the secretaries, stated a fact of the most extraordinary character, which will suffice to illustrate the marvellous apathy of the churches. His words are these: "If all the money now due from delinquent subscribers to the Missionary Herald, could at once be collected, it would pay off the debt of the Board." What think you of this statement? What is your estimate of the spiritual condition of these people? Surely these facts do not accord with much spiritual prosperity. Oh! let us beware, lest we sink into the same condition. Let us tremble at the thought of following the American example! If we trifle as they have trifled with the

But

cause of God, we may look for a like recompense. The Lord of the harvest has singularly blessed the American missionaries in all their fields of labour. He has, in fact, opened for them a wide door in Palestine itself. Prior to the recent meeting, just as the secretaries were leaving Boston, the extraordinary intelligence arrived that the Druses, Mohammedans, 100,000 in number, on Mount Lebanon, had determined to become Protestant Christians. They implored the American missionaries "to come and help them." The missionaries did so, and now, says Dr. Anderson, we have not money to send them, and no prospect of having it!" The same gentleman attributes this fearful state of things to the withdrawment of Divine influence. Having expatiated on the "extraordinary" encouragement received abroad, he said, "The state of things is equally extraordinary at home. The Spirit of God is withheld from the churches here, while it is poured forth so liberally abroad; and the missionary spirit, on which every thing depends, is languishing. Even the fear of retrenchment among the missions, and re-calling of missionaries, no longer appears to excite apprehension or anxiety. The retrograde movement of 1837, was disastrous, because it familiarized the churches with the idea of curtailment, and they are no longer to be roused by the cry that the same danger has again returned." Brethren, what instruction and warning do these facts impart! They are all the more alarming, from the analogy which the case of the American churches bears to that of the British societies, especially the London Missionary Society. The words of Mr. Secretary Greene are obviously applicable to it. "As yet," said he, "through all the remarks that have been made, I see no more light, than