among the trappers of the American and Hudson's Bay Fur Companies, sent some of their chiefs into the United States to inquire as to the various forms of religious worship observed here, and to decide upon which to recommend. After a long and painful journey they reached St. Louis, and stated the object of their coming to the late General Clarke,* then Government Agent for Indian Affairs in that district, by whom it was communicated to the ministers of the Gospel in the place. A great sensation was naturally produced. The Methodist Missionary Society was the first that took the matter up, and, desiring to act with prudence, sent two judicious and experienced persons across the Oregon Mountains to visit the Indians, ascertain their present position, and choose a proper situation for a mission. On their arrival they found the way wonderfully prepared by the Lord's providential dispensations, so that after their return, a mission on a large scale left New York for the Oregon country. After a journey of some months it reached the place of its destination, and was welcomed by the Indians and the Agents of the Hudson's Bay Company stationed in that region. But it was soon found that this mission was formed on too large a scale. It has since been reduced to only two or three missionaries.

In China the Methodist Episcopal Church sustains a mission at Fuh-chau, where three missionaries are laboring. In Europe it employs several missionaries in Norway, Sweden, Germany, and France. The German missions are prosecuted by twenty-two missionaries, assistants, and colporteurs, at Bremen, Hamburg, Frankfort, etc. In Scandinavia there are three laborers, and in France thirty-one.

The total number of this society's foreign missionaries amounted in 1855 to eighty-four. Its total income for that year was $254,587; its disbursements $218,667, of which probably $90,000 were for home, and the remainder for foreign missions.

The Methodist Episcopal Church, South, supports missions among the Indians, of whom there are this year (1856) three thousand six hundred and thirteen members of the churches. There are thirtytwo missionaries in this field. In China it has also a mission, with three missionaries.

* The name of this gentleman is well known in connection with that of the late Governor Lewis, from the Exploring Tour they made in company across the Oregon Mountains to the Pacific Ocean, during Mr. Jefferson's presidency.

40

CHAPTER VII. .

BOARD OF MISSIONS OF THE PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH.

THIS Board was constituted in 1835. Its domestic operations we have noticed in another place, and have now to speak of its foreign missions, which extend to three continents.

WESTERN AFRICA.-It has a very flourishing mission at Cape Palmas, and at several stations along the coast for three hundred miles. In 1855 it comprised a bishop and eleven ordained ministers, together with seven white and ten colored teachers and assistants. The place has been well chosen, for Cape Palmas is one of the healthiest spots on that notoriously unhealthy coast. Several American ladies have resided there in the enjoyment of good health for some years. Attached to the mission there are several schools, partly for the colonists, partly for the natives, and attended by a goodly number of children, youths, and adults. The preaching of the missionaries is well attended, and has been blessed to the salvation of souls.

CHINA.-The Board some fifteen years ago commenced a mission under favorable auspices. It has a bishop and four ordained missionaries, and several lay-assistants, on this field, and is about to send others.

GREECE.-The Board has a mission at Athens. There the Rev. Mr. Hill, with his wife (who is a remarkably efficient person), are stationed, and an American lady, as teachers, besides whom there are several native teachers. Mr. Hill has been very successful in raising and supporting schools for children, for boys and for girls, attended by about four hundred scholars. He preaches, also, on the Sabbath, and other occasions, in Greek, to a congregation of young and old. Yet, owing to the perpetual jealousy of the Greek clergy, and their influence with the government, the missionaries find themselves exposed to many difficulties.

MISSION IN THE EAST.-The Board sustained a mission for some years at Constantinople, as well as at Crete; both have been discontinued.

It hence appears that the whole number of the Board's ordained missionaries amounted, in 1855, to eighteen, including two bishops, laboring in three distinct missions, besides whom there were several American ladies, chiefly engaged in teaching, and no fewer than fifteen native teachers. The receipts amounted, last year, to $57,600; the disbursements exceeded the receipts by $3,000. The Board issues an interesting publication entitled "The Spirit of Missions," for the diffusion of missionary intelligence among the churches.

CHAPTER VIII.

FOREIGN MISSIONS OF OTHER DENOMINATIONS.

MISSIONS OF THE FREE-WILL BAPTIST CHURCHES.-The Free-Will Baptist Foreign Missionary Society was organized in 1833, and originated in the correspondence of the Rev. Mr. Sutton, of the English General Baptist Mission, with Elder Buzzel, a Free-Will Baptist minister in the United States. Mr. Sutton wrote in 1831, representing the deplorable state of the heathen in India, and calling on his American brethren to come up to the help of the Lord against the mighty. Returning to England in 1833, Mr. Sutton went thence to America, there spent several months preaching to the churches; then, after another short visit to his native land, he made an extensive tour in 1834 through the Free-Will Baptist churches in the United States, preaching to them on the subject of missions, and acting as the corresponding secretary of a missionary society which had been formed the preceding year. Having succeeded in rousing these churches to a sense of their duty, he sailed in 1835 for India with the Rev. Messrs. Noyes and Phillips and their wives, being the first missionaries from the new society. On their arrival they went with Mr. Sutton to Orissa, a province lying on the western shore of the Bay of Bengal, some hundred miles south-west from Calcutta. The society has now three missionaries in that province. The Rev. O. R. Bachelor and Rev. Jeremiah Phillips are now, with their families, in America, but intend shortly to return to India. The society owes much, we understand, to subscriptions and collections at monthly prayer-meetings. The Rev. Luther Palmer, of Norwalk, Ohio, a Free-Will Baptist pastor, some time ago gave himself and all his property, valued at $5,000, to the society, wishing the latter to be applied to the support of the press in India. Such liberality reminds us of Pentecostal days. The receipts of the society were, in 1855, $6,301 89.

FOREIGN MISSIONARY SOCIETY OF THE LUTHERAN CHURCH IN THE UNITED STATES.-This society, which dates from 1837, originated in an appeal from the German missionaries in India, Mr. Rhenius and his associates, to their brethren in the United States, for the assistance they required in consequence of their separation from the Church Missionary Society of England, on account of certain of its views and measures which they disapproved, after having labored for several years in its service. In answer to their appeal, a convention of Lutheran ministers and lay-members was held at Hagerstown, in Maryland, and the society was organized. But these missionaries

having renewed their connection with the English Church Missionary Society, the American Lutherans have resolved to send out missionaries from their own churches, and now have five, with their families, laboring in India. The stations occupied are Guntoor, the Palnaud, and Rajahmundry, on the eastern coast of India.

FOREIGN MISSIONS OF THE MORAVIANS, OR UNITED BRETHREN.— The Moravian Brethren in the United States formed a society for propagating the Gospel among the heathen in 1787. An act for incorporating it was passed by the State of Pennsylvania; and it has been actively employed ever since in promoting missions. This society sustains two missions among the Indians (the one among the Delawares, the other among the Cherokees), and twelve missionaries, under whose care there are at present four hundred and thirty-five

converts.

FOREIGN MISSIONS OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCHES.-The reader has remarked that in our notices of the Associate, Associate Reformed, and Reformed Presbyterian Churches, we mentioned that they have undertaken foreign missions, either in connection with the Board of the Old School Presbyterians or independently, within the last few years.

Such are the societies in the United States which have been expressly formed for the propagation of the Gospel in pagan countries, although some of them have missions in countries nominally Chris tian.

Let me add, that the American Bible Society, and the American and Foreign Bible Society, supported by the Baptists, have been making large yearly donations toward the circulation of the Holy Scriptures in foreign, and especially pagan lands. Some, also, of the State and other local Bible Societies, such as those of Massachusetts and Philadelphia, have done something in this way. The American Tract Society has likewise made yearly grants of from $10,000 to $40,000 for the publication and distribution of religious tracts in foreign, and chiefly in heathen lands. The American Sunday-school Union, too, has granted both books and money for promoting its objects abroad. I am unable to state the yearly amount of all these donations with perfect accuracy, but believe that, taking the average of the last ten years, they have exceeded $50,000.

CHAPTER IX.

AMERICAN SOCIETY FOR MELIORATING THE CONDITION OF THE JEWS.

THIS Society was formed in 1820, for the purpose of providing an asylum, and the means of earning a comfortable livelihood in America, for Jews whose conversion to Christianity exposed them to persecution and the loss of the means of living. A farm, accordingly, of about five hundred acres was purchased, on which it was proposed to have a colony of converted Jews, who, by tillage and other useful arts, might support themselves and their families. Somehow or other this project did not answer the expectations of its projectors, and so much did the society lose the confidence of the Christian public, that for awhile it seemed quite lost sight of. A few years ago, however, the impulse given in Scotland and other European countries to the work of converting the Jews, led some of the old friends of the American Society to think of reviving it, and directing its efforts to the employment of missionaries among the Jews, either in America or elsewhere. Accordingly it has for some years employed several missionaries in this country. Its receipts last year were about $8,000.

CHAPTER X.

AMERICAN AND FOREIGN CHRISTIAN UNION.

THIS, which is the latest in its origin of all the missionary societies, was formed in 1839, under the name of THE FOREIGN EVANGELICAL SOCIETY, for promoting evangelical religion in all nominally Christian countries, and was suggested by the growing conviction of many persons in the United States, that until pure Christianity be restored in nominal Christendom, the conversion of the heathen world can hardly be looked for. There are millions of Protestants, and tens of millions of Romanists, so manifestly ignorant of the great doctrines of the Gospel, as to prove by their lives that they are little better than baptized heathen. Hundreds of thousands professing Christianity may be found in some countries, who have actually never read a page of the Book which God intended should be emphatically the people's Book, but which those who put themselves forward as their guides have kept from them, either from ignorance of its value, or from a dread of its influence when read.