when we commenced our session. We have the same means proposed as in 1838, 1839, and 1840. We have calls, appeals, pledges, recommendations; but we are now deeper in debt than ever, and provisions made for an increase of funds in time past, are not adequate to the present emergency." Is not this precisely the present condition of the London Missionary Society? Again, then, I ask, What is to be done? Do you say, We cannot tell? Well; but is it not very clear that there is something which we must not do? Is it not plain that, come what may, that, whatever else you do or suffer, you must not fall into the snare of the American churches connected with the Board of Foreign Missions? You must hazard all, and spend all, to enable the London and other missionary societies, if not to enlarge their respective spheres, at least to maintain them. Flinch who may, let not England flinch! In the darkest hour let England trust her God, and cleave to the cause of her Saviour! Let her not grieve the Holy Spirit, by whom she has been selected from amongst all the nations of the earth, to enjoy such mercies, work such wonders, and diffuse such benefits!

The cloud will again pass away!

The sun of our prosperity and glory will again break forth, and the days of our mourning will end!

Brethren of America! Multitudes of the best people of England have long been accustomed to look to you with affection and admiration. They have often been animated when sluggish, and comforted when depressed, by the report of your zeal and liberality. It may be truly said, "they glorified God in you." In all your joy they rejoiced, and were exceeding glad to hear, from time to time, that "the Lord was among you." Of late

years, however, they have had great misgivings concerning some of the phenomena of your religion; they have been uneasy at the extensive popularity among you of certain views of divine truth, and of certain methods of promoting it. They have entertained a great dread lest the end should proclaim that you had been walking with man, rather than with God. Still they loved you, and endeavoured to exercise towards you much of that charity which "hopeth all things." But now it is to be feared that their confidence in you will be shaken. They will not know what to make of you. They will be utterly unable to reconcile your domestic revivals with your missionary retrogression. The spirit of God is the spirit of missions. His high function is to extend the kingdom, and thus to advance the glory of Christ; and all those in whom he dwells, are zealously intent on the same object. A real revival, produced by the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, is always accompanied with compassion for perishing souls, whether at hand or afar off. Your apathy towards your Board is not one of those things which are of "good report." It is wholly inexplicable. We are often hearing of your great revivals, and of your entire personal consecration to works of piety and mercy; and of business being carried on simply for the cause of God. We have heard a multitude of glorious facts relative to your zeal and liberality: and these facts are most surely believed among us; indeed we cannot discredit them, for they are reported by our own messengers. But while we believe their testimony, we cannot reject that of your honoured brethren, the members and officers of your own Board. Our astonishment is increased by the facts which are so frequently adduced in praise of your

condition. You have no public debt, you possess a cheap government, your taxation is a trifle, you enjoy abundance of well-paid labour, and you have no pauperism. You are deemed a happy people, the envy and admiration of all other nations. In the face of these facts, however, stands your strange apathy to the cause of foreign missions.

Brethren of America! be assured the Christian people of England love you with parental affection. They glory in you! They exult in your religious character, and in your godly rivalship of them in the work of spreading the gospel. Nor is this all; amid the discouragements of their peculiar position, at the present time, their hope under God centres wholly in you! From Ireland, the chosen abode of the man of sin, in relation to the work of missions, they have nothing to expect, but every thing to fear. As England looks towards the continent of Europe, scarce one of its nations meets her with a single ray of hope. In Europe, England alone is the land of Protestant doctrines and Christian missions. Her protestantism, however, stands in imminent peril from the elementary popery of Oxford, and from that more matured form of it which flows in endless torrents from the sister isle. An awful cloud rests on the prospects of English protestantism. It seems not improbable, that the dark and dreadful days of your illustrious forefathers may yet again, and, perhaps, at no distant day, return. The reascendancy of popery in England seems but too probable. In this event, it is likely there will be another, and a much larger body of pilgrim fathers, who will go forth and lay the foundation of new colonies, destined at length, like your own, to become great independent empires.

But amid possible distraction, distress, convulsion, confiscation, banishment, or exile, what is to become of the enterprise of missions? England entrusts it to the hands of her children, to yourselves? Will you disappoint her? Will you prove recreant to a cause so dear to her heart, so intimately connected with the life of the world, and the glory of Zion's King? Will you, can you forget the land of your fathers' sepulchres, the land of your language, and of your religion? Oh! awake to a due sense of the dignity of your origin, the grandeur of your position, the elevation of your honour, and the weight of your responsibility!

Brethren of America! suffer the word of exhortation. Why has such a blight come over your once fair moral creation? Are you sure that the Lord has not a controversy with you? Has your treasury never been polluted by the wages of iniquity, the price of blood? What meant the memorial presented" to the Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions," at your last Assembly, by the New Hampshire ministers? Its burden was slavery; its object, purity! What meant the emphatic and thrice-repeated reference to the "studied silence of the Board? We are troubled by the following words of that calm, judicious, and respectful document: "The sober and considerate ministers and members of our churches, who have from the first been the firm and true friends of the Board, are distressed. They love the Board, and have loved it long. They regard it as foremost among the benevolent societies of the day. They have paid more for its support than for the support of any other society; and, more than of any other, has its prosperity been the burden of thier prayers. But we greatly fear that their contributions must ultimately,

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and that before long, be suspended, if the Board shall think it their duty to observe such a studied silence on this great subject of interest and responsibility to American Christians." The admirable document from which these words are taken, is worthy of the servants of Christ, and of men descended from the Pilgrim Fathers. Its just and upright authors have the hearts of the British empire with them, and posterity will honour their names! We rejoice to think that they are New England men. The answer of your Board is a thing of course. We were once familiar in England with such answers; and the experience we have had enables us to give you good and safe counsel. We say, then, take warning! The present course of your Board will inevitably drive them on a rock, on which the goodly vessel must be dashed in pieces! Let them beware of worldly expediency! Let them beware of things that will "satisfy the South." Such things, we fear, will not often satisfy an enlightened conscience. Well might the Rev. Mr. Blodget, of South Carolina, say, "the report would satisfy the South. All the South asks, is, that the Board will attend to its own business, and so long we shall be glad to co-operate:" that is, Let us go quietly on, making merchandise of our fellow-creatures, and you shall have a small share of the profits! Brethren, who is it that hath said, "I hate robbery for a burnt-offering?" One of your own Committee was anxious to know, "how much the Board would lose by the withdrawal" of the anti-slavery churches. This is good. Where the demon of slavery presides, the proper morality is arithmetic! How can a ruthless slaveholder endure the presence of any other conscience but that of profit and loss? Brethren, again I say, beware!