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of the most valuable labourers, including the Rev. John Wray, father of the West Indian mission, had been removed by death. The darkness which hung over Madagascar at the last anniversary still remained. The following was the number of missionary stations and out-stations belonging to the Society, in different parts of the world, missionaries labouring at the same, &c. &c.

South Seas........
Ultra Ganges....

Stations and Missionaries.

Out-stations.

Assistants, Native, &c.

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East Indies....

Mediterranean

Russia......

South Africa and African

Islands

West Indies

............

"The Directors had sent forth, during the past year, to various parts of the world, missionaries with their families, amounting, exclusive of their chil dren, to sixty-one individuals. The number of churches was 93, communicants 7,347, and scholars 36, 954, being an increase on the year 1837 of 9 churches, 932 communicants, 2,732 scholars. In relation to the funds the Directors had to report that the amount of legacies received during the year had been 3,740/. 68. 8d., being 4,0371. 58. 8d. less than the amount of legacies received during the preceding year. The contributions for the ordinary and special objects of the Society, of which the items would be specified in the larger Report, had been 66,5147. 168. 1d., making, with the legacies, a total of 70,2557,, being an increase beyond the income of the last year of 5,8821. 38. 7d. The expenditure of the year had been 76,818. 168. 11d., being an increase beyond the expenditure of the previous year to the amount of 13,6587. 78. 9d., and an excess beyond the income of the past year of 6,5631. 16s. 11d.”

"The Rev. Arthur Tidman said-The resolution which I have the honour to propose to the Meeting is this

"That this meeting has heard with satisfaction and pleasure the abstract of the Report which has been read; that it presents to the Directors its congratulations on account of the greatly augmented operations of the Society; and that it cheerfully pledges itself to meet, by renewed and zealous xeertion, the heavy additional expenditure which must result from the proceedings of the past year. That most interesting document which we have just heard, assured us that in the forty-fourth year of the Society's operations, many events of interest and importance have occur red, unknown in its previous history; and whatever expectations may have been thus excited, I will pledge myself on the part of those who heard the details that we have not been disappointed. When did the friends of modern missions ever listen to a record of events so calculated to awaken their gratitude, to expand their hopes, and to stimulate their zeal? That this Society should have employed, including those adopted and those sent forth, nearly a hundred additional agents within the limits of a single year, is a new thing in its history. I hope it will be but the first of many such years. Another new thing! We have a vessel of our own in which our beloved brethren are now ploughing the mighty ocean to the far distant isles of the South, and this little sanctuary of the waters has been purchased, not out of the ordinary resources of the institution, but with the extra free-will offering of the Christian public. (Cheers.)

Another new thing in our history! This enterprise has not only received the generous contributions of many of our liberal-minded nobility, but we have had the generous aid, also, of the first municipal body in the first city in the world-(Cheers)—and that aid has been given under the firm conviction that the best and only effectual method to civilise the savage, to restrain the tyrannical, and to elevate the degraded, is to send the Gospel throughout the world. (Cheers.) There would be no end of these novelties if I were to go through them. (Laughter and Cheers.) But they are all as delightful to our hearts as they are new to our ears. How altered are our circumstances to-day from those meetings which some of us were accustomed to attend in the days of our boyhood and our youth. The fathers of this institution, whose names are embalmed in our affectionate remembrance, and whose works follow them, for many a year could only announce the tidings of bitter disappointment. One year, my elder brethren can remember, though some of us were then, perhaps, in our cradles, they had to tell the churches that their faithful band of missionaries were captured by an enemy; another, that their self-denying and laborious agents were harassed and annoyed, and almost forbidden to proclaim the glad tidings to the Caffres and the Hottentots; another, that the doors of India were shut and barred by British hands against the heralds of the Cross; another, that all their missionaries, with the exception of two, (one of whom I am happy to see in this assembly to-day,) had been forced by persecution or discouragement to leave the islands of the Southern Seas. These were years of mourning, lamentation, and woe; but we have met together to-day not to sigh over the withered blossoms of our hope, nor merely to refresh ourselves with the fragrance these flowers exhale; but we are assembled (thanks be to God, the Author of all good) to feast richly on these fruits of life which he has granted in such profusion and variety, as the reward of our anxiety, our toil, and our prayer. (Cheers.) If it should be imagined, from what we have heard, that there is at least one exception to this scene of fertility and beauty-if it should be said that there is one island over which the keen blast of persecution has just passed, and left behind it irreparable desolation-I cannot subscribe to such a sentiment. No; we have just seen a new thing indeed in the history of the Society, but we have seen, even in that act of murder, new evidence to the divinity of our faith; we have seen that the Gospel which we propagate, with all our conscious weakness and imperfection, can make the saint, and sustain the suf ferer. We have seen that the Gospel, applied, by the power of the Divine Spirit to the heart, is sufficient still to make poor, feeble, unbe friended woman, the calm, the dauntless, the triumphant martyr.. (Cheers). It is true that that fair land of promise has been severely stricken by the blast, but let us not forget that the tree of life is planted there; and though the branches may be torn by a rude and ruthless hand, when the race of persecutors shall have passed away, that tree, the germ of which is indestructible, shall thrive, and grow, and wave its branches over their dishonored ashes. (Hear, hear.) We are told that when the multitudes were brought forth to see that foul deed, and when the property of the martyred saint was presented to tempt the violence and selfishness of the soldiers, there was not found a hand to touch it-it was a sacred thing. (Hear, hear.) If I rightly understand that conduct, it was language of the heart that the lips dared not express; and I entertain no doubt that some who came to see the martyr bleed, went home to learn the faith in which the martyr died. (Cheers.) The blood of the Demarara martyr proved the seed of the church; and the blood which has newly stained the soil of Madagascar will hereafter bring forth fruit

thirty, sixty, yea, a hundred-fold. Christian brethren, remember those that are in bonds as bound with them; but rejoice that while the iron hangs around their neck, it leaves the spirit free; rejoice that they were counted worthy to suffer for the Lord's sake, and pray that others, now driven to the glens and caverns of that island, waxing confident by their bonds, may become bold to speak the word without fear, so that the things that have happened in Madagascar may turn out rather to the furtherance of the Gospel. (Hear, hear.) We have been carried with breathless velocity, by the abstract of the Report, around the world; and we have been permitted only just to glance at many lovely fields on which a seraph might delight to linger. I think this assembly will not be unwil ling to retrace their flight, and glance again, although we can give but a glance, at some of those delightful scenes. We first caught sight of the distant islands that bestud the Pacific. And those islands, though most remote in space, are perhaps the nearest to our hearts. They were dear as objects of pity to the fathers of this Institution, by their moral transformation they are dearer still to us; and by their advance in knowledge, piety, and truth, they will be still dearer to our children. (Cheers.) In the exhibition of Polynesian piety, there are two things characteristic of the very best times of the Christian Church, diffusiveness and heroism. In that most charming of all charming productions, in that book that may be called, The Acts of the Apostles of the Islands of the South, our beloved brother who has so lately left us has presented exhibitions of renewed and sanctified humanity, before which many of us should sink into the dust of insignificance and self-abasement. Of that book a Christian Bishop has lately said in this place with equal candour and judgment, "I would rather part with half the folios of the fathers of my library, than with the volume of the missionary Williams. (Hear, hear.) One is glad to see such an exhibition of candour and true wisdom in contrast with the miserable sophisms and bigotry of that party whom it was intended kindly to rebuke. (Loud applause.) In the islands of the Southern Seas we have seen exhibited the true principle of apostolic piety. Freely they have received, and freely have they given.' They have sent their property, to the value of thousands, to our treasury; and what is better far, they have parted with their best men, and parted with them gladly, to spread the Gospel in the regions beyond them. And thus we are reminded, even in our own degenerate times, of a little fraternity who had turned from their idols, and received the Gospel but a few months before, and who were then struggling for their existence with their persecutors; but of whom it was said, 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." We find some maintaining-1 will not say controversy, for they have it all on one side-but we find some maintaining not dignified, argumentative, and fair discussion-of that we should have no cause to complain-but in the spirit of angry vituperation and party sarcasm, we find some discussing the grave question, What is the best means of sustaining and extending the blessings of Christianity? (Hear, hear.) Let us not lose our time or our temper in entering into such discussions, but let us work on in that way in which God is working with us mightily. (Hear, hear.) We find others making higher pretensions to the exclusive authority of propagating the Gospel, and referring (strange inconsistency, that with such political prejudices there should be so much ecclesiastical sympathy)—(Cheers)-but we find them referring to the authority of Rome for their credentials. We do not wish to seek the seals of office in that quarter. (Laughter and cheers.) We desire no letters of commendation thence; we point to the islands of the South-(Load

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cheers)-there are our epistles known and read of all men. (Renewed cheers.) But, turning from the South to the islands of the West, let us take a glance there. Those islands have their claims, their distinct peculiar claims, on the Church of God in Britain. They appeal to our justice no less than our religion. There we, as a part of this guilty nation, have inflicted wrongs-deep and deadly wrongs-which admit of no restitution but in the liberty and glory of the Gospel. (Cheers.) We have heard it said, for the 999th time, that the negro, forsooth, is too dull to learn; too nearly allied to the brute to receive instruction. To-day we have visited the schools of Demarara, and have seen the lamented and enlightened Governor of that colony suspending the medals of merit around the necks of little negroes, who, with glistening eyes and lighted countenances, looked up, and seemed to say, 'This is a new thing in Demarara.' (Cheers.) We have heard it said just as often that the negro is too lazy to work. Money would have no attraction for him. The whip, and nothing but the whip, would make the negro toil. (Hear, hear.) Let it be known by this assembly (for it was not mentioned in the Report) that the congregation of our late lamented brother Howe, in which there was not a single white man, contributed in one year more than 2001. for the spread of the Gospel. (Loud cheers.) That is not a solitary case; other congregations of coloured people not quite so numerous have contributed in the same, and I think I might affirm, in a still larger proportion. And when the day shall come, which I trust is not far distant, when industry shall have fair competition (Loud cheers)-and when labour shall have an equitable reward, then, I venture to predict, that at least the churches of that colony will not only be self-supported, but that they will prove valuable auxiliaries in the missionary cause. (Loud cheers.) If additional evidence were wanting, we have that evidence this morning, that all the benefits which the generous public of Britain intended to secure for the negroes, in the cheerful payment of 20 millions sterling-that all the blessings of education, religion, and immediate freedom, might be enjoyed not only without danger, but with the highest possible advantage to themselves and to the colonies. (Immense cheers.) I am quite aware that I am not this morning addressing an Anti-Slavery Society. (Cries of "Yes, yes.") A friend says he thinks I am. Well, I recal the sentence, because, according to the interpretation that would be given of that sentiment, I do most cordially concur, and say that every society founded on the principles of the Gospel of Christ, breathing the spirit of Christ, and seeking the honor of Christ, must be an enemy to slavery in every place, and in every degree, and in every form. (Loud and long continued cheering.) But what I meant to say was this, that instead of attempting to arouse the honest and righteous indignation of this assembly against that system of modified bondage falsely called freedom, I should rather call them to rejoice that, notwithstanding the serious impediments it has left to the spread of the Gospel, the Word of God is not bound, but has free course, and is glorified among them. (Cheers.) I cannot, however, but seize➡ (and I think you will not begrudge the moment I so employ)-I cannot but seize the passing opportunity to express my thankfulness to God-and I am sorry, in so doing, for the presence of one gentleman in this assembly-to express my gratitude to God, who has put it into the heart of one of the earliest and most active friends of this Society to do honour to his Christian principles, by declaring that his servants shall not only have the name of liberty, but that they shall be free indeed.) (Loud cheers.) Of the pecuniary sacrifice involved in such a determination, I will say nothing, because I am sure that those greatly miscalculate who calculate on the side of losing. The master who acts uprightly and generously will find his ample compensation in the fidelity, affection, and Alex. Hankey, Esq.

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industry of his servant. (Loud cheers.) But of the moral courage displayed in such an action I might say much, and I would say, but for the regretted presence of one behind me. I know that our valued friend does not seek, and I am quite sure that he does not require the commendation of any man. No; the man that shall rise on the 1st of August from his pillow, with a conviction that the blessing of the thankful and the prayers of the free are descending on him, can desire no higher recompence, can taste no purer joy. (Reiterated cheers.) Although I have already too long detained you, I should deem myself most criminal if I could overlook one land of missionary effort, compared with which the population of every other field of our exertion, with the population of our own empire added, will sink into comparative insignificance-I look to India-to India, which demands all the resources of the Christian church, and would amply repay its noblest exertions. I have been speaking of some new things in the history of this Society, but that a handful of islanders, distant many thousand miles, and separated from the mighty continent by rolling seas-that a handful of islanders so circumstanced should exercise direct authority or a paramount control over nearly 200 millions of their fellow-creatures, is a thing unknown in the world's history-the wonder of the world's old age. (Hear.) And what is to be the end of this mystery in the operations of Divine Providence? The politician looks, and perhaps looks no farther than the glory of that little land, which is a mere speck in the mighty waters. But the Christian will look to the honour of Him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will, and at whose bidding nations and empires rise and fall, flourish and decay. We have often lamented, and we have lamented again to-day, that China is not open; and deep and sincere is our grief that its massive gates are still unbarred. But India is open, and to India the providence of God points the church of God as the present field of its noblest efforts, and the destined field of its brightest achievements. Sir, I seem to see the sacred hand of God guiding and directing us thither with as much distinctness as though we were following the pillar of cloud by day, and the pillar of fire by night. (Hear, hear.) But anxious as we are to see India obedient to the faith, we disclaim, utterly disclaim the imputation, that we wish to see her subjugated by the power of coercion. The mercantile princes of Leadenhall street, who reiterate this charge, do not know the best friends of India, and strangely misrepresent the best portion of their countrymen. No; glad as we should be to see the heathen turning from their idols— thankful as we should be to see them filled with holy indignation, casting their idols to the moles and to the bats-we should be among the first to raise the loudest remonstrance against the man who would dare to force the idolater from his false gods, or attempt to tear a base and senseless idol from the temple of its votaries. No; that is not our plan-we are not quite so wicked as to wish it-we are not quite so mad as to think it practicable, if we could desire it. (Loud cheers.) The only power which we wish to employ for the subjugation of India is the force of truth-the only influence with which we would assail idolatry, is the influence of tenderness and persuasion. We would just remind those who so strangely libel the church of God, that India is no stranger to coercion! The coercion of the cannon and the bayonet has been tried there! (Hear, hear.) They know by whom, and for what purpose. And India is no stranger to coercion still; or why are our noble-minded countrymen compelled to desecrate the Christian Sabbath, and to perform military honours to the rites and absurdities of Mahomet? (Hear, hear, and cheers.) India is no stranger to coercion still; or why-why are our countrymen compelled, upon penalty of loss of rank, to add to the splendour and pageantry of an idol's train? India is no stranger to coercion still; or why is the native soldier, if he renounce his idols and become a worshipper of Christ, compel

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