is to furnish them with the more extended necessary information respecting the stations and the missionaries demanding their prayers and their support.

A true knowledge of the real nature and results of missionary operations, has hitherto been communicated principally through the biographies of devoted servants of Christ, who have been called at different times from their labors among the heathen to the rewards of a better world. The lives of Swartz and Martyn, of Brainerd and Elliot, of Mills and Fisk, and a few others, have done more for the vindication of the missionary enterprize in the eyes of worldly men, and the diffusion of correct intelligence concerning it among Christians, than perhaps all other means together. But the voice of these men was not heard through their memoirs till having closed their mortal career, they had ceased to need the prayers and co-operation of their fe.low Christians. Though dead, they indeed call loudly on all believers to labor for the advancement of the work for which they thought it their privilege to live, and in which they died; but their exhortations are less arousing than though they came directly from living laborers soliciting for themselves and their immediate co-workers, the prayers, sympathies, and pecuniary assistance of those who love the Saviour. When a missionary is removed from the scene of his earthly labors, many among the friends of missions, are disposed to feel a kind of discouragement and dejection very unfavorable to prompt and determined effort. They seem to take it for granted that the good cause which has been advancing so steadily must for awhile be measurably retarded. A little less immediate exertion, they therefore suppose is required of them. When the time shall come for a new effort they will not be backward. Now these contributors to the support of missions, ought to know that when a missionary dies, or a missionary printing house is burned, or any other disaster befalls a mission, their assistance is more especially needed. The work must never stop nor be retarded, but be urged on.-The biography of a living missionary, or an appeal from him comes in many respects under more advantageous circumstances and with greater power, than that of a deceased laborer. The reader feels that the subject of the memoir or author of the appeal, is still flesh and blood and entitled to the strongest affection of Christian fellowship. He may be personally in need of aid-his mission may want to extend the sphere of its operations, for which additional resources are necessary; the claim cannot be resisted or set aside; it presses for help without delay, and assistance can hardly be withheld. Is this servant of our common Lord, thus

toiling and suffering for his Master's honor, and shall I not pray for him and lend him all the aid in my power? is an inquiry that will often thrust itself into the reader's mind and arouse all the pious energies of his soul. It will kindle into a glow of religious fervor that can hardly expend itself in vain. It will transport him to scenes of action where the self-denying missionary with whose station and wishes he has thus been made acquainted, is laboring, and open his eyes to the most eligible means of helping him forward in his work.

From the foregoing considerations and several others which we cannot here present, we regard the appearance of the volume placed at the head of this article as highly favorable to the cause of foreign missions among us. It is to every reader a letter of introduction to all the living missionaries whose memoirs it contains. It brings him as it were to a personal acquaintance with one and another, of whom, before, he has hardly heard, but whose hands as a disciple of the same Lord, he is bound to uphold by prayer and appropriate effort. It gives him in a condensed form a variety of just such information as is adapted to awaken and increase an interest in the great and advancing enterprise of converting the world.

The history of the Society to which the public are indebted for this volume, is full of interest. It discloses some interesting facts connected with the incipient stages of several great schemes of benevolence which have spread themselves over the land and changed the aspect of society. It shows the point in the religious thermometer at which the zeal of the Christian community stood a little more than twenty years ago. To one who has not himself been borne along and changed with the times, the change which has taken place in our churches during this period, must appear great and encouraging.

The Society of Inquiry was formed in Jan. 1811. It owed its origin to the promptings of religious benevolence in the hearts of some young men then students of Theology in the Theological Seminary at Andover. The motives which led to its formation, are briefly stated in the preamble of the Constitution, which is as follows: "Feeling the importance of a more extensive acquaintance with the subject of Missions to enable us to ascertain our duty, and prepare us to promote the glory of our Redeemer and the eternal happiness of our fellow men; we, the undersigned, looking to our Heavenly Father for direction, do form ourselves into a Society, and adopt the following Constitution." The spirit and tenor of the Constitution may be easily inferred from this preamble. Samuel Nott and Samuel J. Mills were the first who signed the Constitution.

As early as June, 1810, several members of the Seminary had come to the determination of spending their lives in heathen lands. There was, however, no missionary society in this country, to which they could look for direction and support. In this exigency they applied to their fathers in the church for advice. At a meeting of the General Association of Massachusetts, held at Bradford, June 10, 1810, the following paper written by Mr. Judson, was presented.

"The undersigned, members of the Divinity College, respectfully request the attention of their reverend fathers, convened in the General Association at Bradford, to the following statement and inquiries:

"They beg leave to state, that their minds have been long impressed with the duty and importance of personally attempting a mission to the heathen; that the impressions on their minds have induced a serious, and they trust a prayerful consideration of the subject in its various attitudes, particularly in relation to the probable success, and the difficulties attending such an attempt; and that after examining all the information which they can obtain, they consider themselves as devoted to this work for life, whenever God in his proridence, shall open the way.

"They now offer the following inquiries, on which they solicit the opinion and advice of this Association. Whether, with their present views and feelings, they ought to renounce the object of Missions as visionary or impracticable; if not, whether they ought to direct their attention to the eastern or the western world; whether they may expect patronage and support from a Missionary Society in this country, or must commit themselves to the direction of a European Society; and what preparatory measures they ought to take previous to actual engagement?

"The undersigned, feeling their youth and inexperience, look up to their fathers in the church, and respectfully solicit their advice, direction, and prayers.

ADONIRAM JUDSON,
SAMUEL NOTT,
SAMUEL J. MILLS,
SAMUEL NEWELL.'

"This document occasioned the appointment of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions.'

The formation of a general Bible Society for the United States, was the subject of a discussion before the Society, in Nov. 1813; and a dissertation on the same subject was read about the same time. This was about two and a half years before the American Bible Society was formed. At a meeting in March, 1814, a Committee was appointed " to lay befere the Professors of the Seminary information relative to the formation of a Bible Society for the United States, and request them to write to gentlemen in the middle states on the subject."

The Society of Inquiry has from the beginning taken a lively interest in the condition of the colored population in our country. In 1816, previously to the formation of the American Colonization Society, one of its members read a dissertation on the subject. In 1817, Mr. Mills who was then at Washington exerting all his influence and rendering his unremitted services in favor of the American Colonization Society, recommended

the formation of a Colonization Society in the Andover Seminary. For a number of years a Committee on Colonization has been one of the four standing committees of the Society of Inquiry.

We would remark in passing, that the assertion which has of late been vociferated through New England, that the American Colonization Society was originated by slaveholders and enemies to the freedom of the blacks, is without any foundation in fact. No man was more active in the conception of the plan and the formation of that society, than Samuel J. Mills. If he was a friend to slavery in any of its forms, bodily or intellectual, we have yet to learn the fact. He beheld in the efforts then made for colonizing free people of color, to use his own words, 66 a mighty movement of Divine Providence." His beneyolent heart exulted in view of the great and good work which he believed the Colonization Society destined to accomplish. He prayed for its success-he was confident that Heaven would smile on the plan. How different the views and feelings of this foreseeing Christian philanthropist, from those of such men as tell us the scheme of colonization was conceived in the bottomless pit. If infatuation were not so fashionable in our day, we should be constrained to question the motives of those who give the credit of so much true wisdom and real benevolence to his Infernal Majesty. Believing fully, however, in the doctrine of human infirmity as well as peccability, we will be as charitable as we can. The heads of good men may be turned, and their sincerity only attest their infatuation.

We wish the object, principles, and tendency of the Colonization system to be well understood. We would have the whole subject canvassed with the most searching scrutiny and strictest impartiality. In the present state of the world, it rightly comes in for no small share of the discussion and investigation of a society like that for Inquiry respecting Missions, whose ultimate object is nothing less than the universal emancipation of every human sufferer from every species of degradation, moral, intellectual, and physical, voluntary, or involuntary. Africa, has high and imperative claims on the friends of missions, and too seldom as yet has the eye of Christian benevolence been turned upon her dark moral wastes. While the trumpet of the Gospel is beginning, though faintly, to be heard along the coasts and interior of Asia, this wide extended and ill-fated country with scarcely an exception has never heard a whisper of the way of salvation by the cross of Christ. Her mountains have never echoed to the sounds of prayer and praise; her sky has never been pierced by the acclamations of

Christian triumph; spiritual or intellectual light, she has none; -her land is a land of darkness, her region the shadow of death.

We are strong in the conviction that the light of Christianity must be diffused over Africa by means of colonies. The colony at Liberia is now the radiating point of moral influence to all the adjacent country. A number of such settlements along the coast, might be easily made to serve the double office of radiators and reflectors, by which the light of true religion might be thrown far into the darkness of the interior. We subjoin a paragraph from a Report on Colonization, contained in our vol

ume.

"Hitherto the extension of civilization, and, since Christianity was established in the Roman Empire, the extension of Christianity, has been almost exclusively by colonies. Whence came the civilization of Greece? It was brought by colonies from Egypt. How was Italy civilized? By colonies from Greece. How was Europe civilized? By the Roman military colonies. Whence came the civilization of America? And is not that universal spirit of improvement which is springing up in Hindoostan occasioned, more or less directly, by the British conquests there, which have poured in thousands of Englishmen, who are in effect colonzing India? Two centuries hence, the little band who are now cultivating their fields and building their houses at Montserado, and spreading over the wilderness around them a strange aspect of life and beauty, may be remembered by the thousands of their descendants, with the same emotions with which the little band who landed at Plymouth two centuries ago, are now remembered by the thousands of New England. We do not fear to say, that to the friends of missions, the Colonization Society presents a loud and imperative claim. The advantage of the Moravian missions and of the modern missionary establishments in savage countries, is, that they are in substance, little colonies. If you could carry from this country to the Sandwich Islands a thousand civilized and educated natives, would you not think you had done much for Hawaii? This is what can be done, and must be done, for Africa."

We hope at some time not far distant, to know the view which the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions take of this subject. No other body of men in our country can so well judge of the nature and extent of the connexion, if there be one, between the cause of African Colonization and African missions. Should they see fit to favor the public with an avowal or their convictions on this point, accompanied by the reasons that have led to them, it would, we believe, do much towards settling the question which is already agitating and distracting some of our churches, Whether the American Colonization Society is to be regarded as the friend and coadjutor of Christian Missions in Africa? For ourselves we are willing to submit the decision of such a question to such men, Their information on kindred topics, their sound judgement, their habits of investigation, and their disinterestedness would constrain us to submit to their arbitration. We would not, however, have them say a word on the subject to hazard their