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the military band? When the names of warriors are forgotten in Africa, or remembered only to be execrated, those of Vanderkemp, Philip, Moffat, and others, will live from age to age, engraved in the heart of ransomed nations! Again, survey the empire of the East; request the understanding, among the millions of Hindostan, to state the amount of their debt to muskets and the cannon of the military establishments of England, and at the same time to record the extent of their obligation to her bible and missionary societies. Inquire of them whether there is one substantial blessing connected. with British rule, which may not be distinctly traced to the influence of British missions. We abide by the result of the investigation!

O ye orators and philosophers, who make the civilization of the species your dream! look to Christian missionaries, if ye want to see the men who will realize it. You may deck the theme with the praises of your unsubstantial eloquence, but these are the men who are to accomplish the business! They are now risking every earthly comfort of existence in the cause; while you sit in silken security, and pour upon their holy undertaking the cruelty of your scorn."*

* Chalmers's Sermon before the Dundee Missionary Society, in 1812.

LETTER VI.

TO JAMES DOUGLAS, ESQ., OF CAVERS.

ON THE RESULTS OF MISSIONARY LABOUR IN RELATION TO

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MORAL SYMPATHY.

SIR, It is now about twenty years since the appearance of your "Hints on Missions;" and since that time, you have favoured the public with your work on "The Advancement of Society in Knowledge and Religion;" and with the article "Missions," in the Encyclopædia Britannica. For these publications, the Christian world is deeply your debtor, and its guiding spirits are not insensible to the obligation. It deserves remark, that, while you are one of the very few great landowners in Britain entirely devoted to literature, you are the only layman of your class who has stood forth as the bold and unwearied advocate both of home and foreign missions. While your compeers are inflamed with the spirit of a low ambition, or are the slaves of still worse passions, the comprehensive and philosophic spirit with which God has endowed you, felicitates itself in the exalted region of contemplation, whence you descend from time to time to communicate, to the occupants of

a lower and a busier sphere, the practical result of your high inquiries. May the life so laudably devoted be prolonged to a good old age, that you may witness the realization of many of those prophetic views with which your productions abound!

I have read most, if not all, that you have written; and been studious to compare your abstract speculations with the practical operations of the mission field. Frequently have I been gratified in observing with what exactness the deductions of reason have been verified by the test of experience. Matters are, in many respects, altered and improved since the publication of your "Hints," and it cannot be doubted that they have materially contributed to that improvement. When you wrote that piece, the work of missions was, in many quarters, but just begun; and much that you desiderated, there had not been time to produce. Of this, indeed, you were fully aware. But the following passage, although true to the letter at the period when it was written, can no longer be taken as a correct description of the state of things." Two great, though indirect, means have been mentioned for spreading Christianity, -colonizing, and the introduction of the arts. It is surprising how little missionaries have availed themselves of the last. With the exception of some Moravian settlements, no instances, till very lately, could be pointed out to an infidel, of what missions had done for the temporal good of mankind. Can we be surprised, then, if men of thought, but whose thoughts are confined to the present world, should despise missionaries, who, instead of reclaiming barbarians to civilized habits, have sunk down to the outward condition of the people to whom they are preaching? And certainly

the accusation of indolence is naturally brought forward against missionaries, who will not make the moderate exertions requisite to procure the comforts of life for themselves and those around them. This reproach, however, is gradually wearing off; and missions, though not with any very enlightened and enlarged plan, are gradually introducing the simpler productions and arts among their converts. Till more exertion of this kind takes place, it is almost hopeless to expect that missionaries, or the directors of missions, will do much to procure such information as would attract the attention of men who, without being Christians, are well-informed, and benevolent too, as far as kind wishes and kind speeches go, and who take an interest in whatever furthers the temporal welfare of humanity, without impairing their own. Between Christians and those who are called philosophers, a great and impassable gulf seems fixed; while the first are interested in nothing but what concerns the next world, and the second neither care for nor believe in any thing but the world of to-day,' as the Mahometans speak. It is rather singular, however, that those who are looking to the future and the invisible, are the men of action; and that those, whose only world is the present, have never advanced one step beyond professions of philanthropy, nor made the least effort to introduce the improvements of philosophy into the greatest and uncivilized portion of the world. Still it is to be regretted that Christians will not show them what Christian benevolence can do for the comforts and embellishments even of this transitory life, and thus there might be some common feeling between two parties, who might gain much by mutual intercourse. The missionaries, instead of filling their

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journals with the experiences of particular converts, which have often more connexion with the state of the body than the soul, might be gaining experience themselves of the climate and the country, the modes of thinking, and the prevalent superstitious notions of the people by whom they are surrounded."

During the last twenty years-the period elapsed since you penned the foregoing passage-much has been done to correct the errors and supply the defects referred to. Proofs of this might be derived from every part of the missionary field, and from every section of the missionary church; but my purpose only requires it to be shown, that much in this way has been done, in Polynesia, by the labours of Mr. Williams and his brethren. It is not easy to conceive of any thing, within the power of a missionary to perform, that has not been either achieved or attempted, for the earthly good of the islanders.

The arts are at once a cause and an effect of civilization; their existence implies the antecedent existence of society; and society is cemented by sympathy. But sympathy may arise from different, nay from opposite sources. The highest order of society, however, demands for its cement a sympathy founded on humanity. Now humanity is not a quality of savage nature; it has every where to be created. Here, then, the missionary commences his operations; and the success which attends them in producing that humanity, demonstrates the infinite superiority of gospel truth to philosophic dogmata. The speedy and almost utter loss of this gentle quality, was among the earliest indications of the fall of man. Hesiod, the father of poetry-for it is probable that he was the contemporary of Homer, and somewhat

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