The receipts for that year had amounted | bouring within or beyond the western to 47,151 dollars, and the disbursements to frontier of the United States among the 55,138 dollars. In addition to its regular following tribes, or remnants of tribes: the receipts, the Board had received 6000 dol- Wyandots, Oneidas, Shawnees, Delawares, lars from the American and Foreign Bible Kickapoos, Pottawottamies, Chippewas, Society for the publication of the Scrip- Choctas, Cherokees, &c., &c. The Retures; 2200 dollars from the American port for that year states the Indian memTract Society for the publication of Tracts; bers of the mission churches gathered from and 4400 dollars from the United States these tribes to have amounted to 3851. Government towards the support of schools among the Indians.* This brief notice will give the reader some idea of this excellent society's operations, and of the good that it is doing. A detailed account of its missions, particularly of those among the Burmans and the Karens, would be interesting, but would far exceed the limits of this work. It is delightful to see how much interest in the cause of missions has sprung up in this numerous and important branch of the Church in the United States. May God grant that it and every other may soon come up to the full measure of their ability and duty in this great work. Let me add, in conclusion, that the Missionary Magazine, an able and interesting monthly publication, has long been the organ of the Society, and has a wide circulation among the Baptist denomination. CHAPTER VI. TEXAS MISSION.-The Society had no fewer than thirty-six missionaries stationed in the Republic of Texas in 1843; these had laboured with much success; and they now form an Annual Conference, which, by conducting its own affairs, will probably do away with the necessity of having any independent mission in that country. This conference comprehends three Presiding Elders' districts, thirty-six travelling ministers, forty local preachers, 3698 members, of whom 536 are coloured people. A college, also, has been established under its auspices. LIBERIA MISSION, at and in the vicinity of the American colony on the west coast of Africa, was commenced in 1833 by the late Rev. Melville B. Cox, an excellent man, who fell a victim to the climate a few months after his arrival. With his dying breath he exclaimed, “Though a thousand fall, Africa must not be given up." was succeeded by others, and they, too, sank under a climate so fatal to white men. At length the Rev. John Seys was He FOREIGN MISSIONS OF THE METHODIST EPISCO-sent out, and he, through God's blessing, PAL CHURCH. has been preserved to this day. He was greatly successful in putting the affairs of the mission in order, and superintending the labours of coloured preachers from the United States, the Society having to depend chiefly on these. Last year he was succeeded by the Rev. Mr. Chase. The mission now includes an Annual Conference, consisting of twenty preachers, all coloured, with the exception of the superintendent and one other. Of the church members, about 900 in all, 150 are native Africans, who, within the last four years, were worshipping gods of wood, stone, leather, anything, in short, that their imagination could fashion into a god! THE Missionary Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church was formed in 1819, under the auspices of the General Conference, but for many years its efforts were chiefly directed to domestic missions, including those to the slaves in the Southern States, and to the aboriginal tribes within, or adjacent to, the western frontier of the United States. It afterward directed its attention to the colonies of free coloured Americans on the Western coast of Africa, and, at a still later period, it established missions on the territory to the west of the Oregon Mountains, and at some important points in South America. The German immigrants found swarming in our principal cities, at the same time engaged much of SOUTH AMERICAN MISSION.-In 1841 the its attention. Its efforts in behalf of these Society had five missionaries at Rio Jaand of the slaves, as properly falling under neiro, Monte Video, and Buenos Ayres, the head of home missions, we have al-labouring, not unsuccessfully, to introduce ready noticed, and will now give some ac- the Gospel to those cities, now so ignorant count of what are, properly speaking, its of the truth. These worthy men, howforeign missions. ever, the pressure of the times obliged the Society to recall. Within a few months the Society has resumed its labours at Buenos Ayres, and their faithful missionary is at his post again. NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS.-The Society in 1843 had twenty-five missionaries la * After the account for the year was closed, $2000 additional were received from the American and For eign Bible Society, and an equal sum from the Amer- its success this has been one of the most OREGON MISSION.-Both in its origin and ican Tract Society. To this must be added £500 from the Committee of the English Baptist Mission-remarkable of all the missions of the Amerary Society, as an expression of fraternal interest. ican Churches. About the year 1828, the CHAPTER VII. BOARD OF MISSIONS OF THE PROTESTANT EPIS- THIS Board was constituted in 1835. Its tribe of Indians called Flat Heads, living 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 above 100 scholars, youths and adults. The preaching of the missionaries is well attended, and has been blessed to the salvation of souls. CHINA. The Board has commenced a mission under favourable auspices in ChiIt has one labourer on this field, and na. 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 several American ladies as teachers, besides whom there are about twelve native teachers. Mr. Hill has been very successful in raising and supporting schools for infants, for boys and for girls, attended by about 800 scholHe 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. This mission, which from the first has been remarkably blessed, consisted, in 1841, of no fewer than sixty-eight persons, including teachers, farmers, mechanics of all kinds, women, and children, all, of course, connected with the society. It is designed, in fact, to be in a great measure a self-supporting mission. Its object part-ars. ly is, by exhibiting the advantages of civilization, to induce the Indians to engage in tillage, and to adopt the other arts and usages of civilized life, in all which the mission has succeeded much beyond expectation. Its spiritual success was still more remarkable, for the Indian converts amounted, two years ago, to no fewer than 1000. The mission, upon the whole, is an experiment of the most interesting kind. The total number of this society's for-eign missionaries amounted in 1843 to 115, of whom probably eighty were ordained. The number of members in the mission churches was 8936. Its total income for that year was $109,452; its disbursements $145,035, of which probably 90,000 were for home, and 55,035 for foreign missions.t The name of this gentleman is well known in connexion 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. It is probable that I have not apportioned with CRETE. In this island, also, there is a mission conducted by one ordained missionary, assisted by his wife and one or two natives engaged as teachers. This mission has succeeded as well as its friends and projectors had hoped. MISSION IN THE EAST.-The Board sustained a mission for some years at Constantinople. But it seems probable that it will be removed to Mardin or Mosul, in order to reach more effectually the Syrian churches, in whose behalf the Society has taken much interest. The Rev. Mr. South perfect exactness the disbursements of the Society. The Report does not separate the domestic from the foreign expenditures. The whole number of missionaries, domestic and foreign, employed by the and the members in the churches gathered were Society in 1843, was 325, ordained and unordained, 39,684. gate, who has travelled much in Asia Minor and the adjacent parts of the East, and has given the results of his observations in his interesting journals, is the Society's missionary in this field. Two others have been appointed to join him. TEXAS.-In this Republic the Board last year employed three missionaries, who were labouring with some success at Houston, Matagorda, and Galveston. It hence appears that the whole number of the Board's ordained missionaries amounted, in 1843, to eleven, labouring in seven distinct missions, besides whom there were several American ladies, chiefly engaged in teaching, and no fewer than twenty native teachers. The receipts, exclusive of $200 from the American Tract Society, amounted, last year, to $35,197; the disbursements exceeded the receipts by $4494. The Board issues an interesting publication entitled "The Spirit of Missions," for the diffusion of missionary intelligence among the churches. CHAPTER VIII. 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 $5000, 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 1843, $3502; its expenditures were $2679. 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 laboured 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 connexion with the English Church Missionary Society, the American Lutherans have resolved to send out missionaries from their own churches, and now have two labouring in 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 eight missionaries. Its receipts last year were 8364 dollars. Some years ago it received a handsome legacy from a gentleman at Philadelphia. Its organ is "The United Brethren's Missionary Intelligencer, and Religious Miscellany." 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 from that 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 FreeWill Baptist churches in the United States, preaching to them on the subject of mis- FOREIGN MISSIONS OF THE SCOTTISH sions, and acting as the corresponding sec- CHURCHES.-The reader has remarked retary of a missionary society which had that in our notices of the Associate, Asbeen formed the preceding year. Having sociate Reformed, and Reformed Presbysucceeded in rousing these churches to a terian Churches, we mentioned that they sense of their duty, he sailed in 1835 for In- have undertaken foreign missions, either dia with the Rev. Messrs. Noyes and Phil-in connexion with the Board of the Old lips 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 southwest from Calcutta. They have been labouring chiefly at Balasore with much faithfulness and success. The Rev. Messrs. Bachelor and Dow have since joined these brethren, and are zealously prosecuting their work. The Society owes much, we derstand, to subscriptions and collections 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 Christian. 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 to-wards the circulation of the Holy Scrip tures 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 dollars 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 dollars. CHAPTER IX. AMERICAN SOCIETY FOR AMELIORATING 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 live tries, and was suggested by the growing conviction of many persons in the United States, that until pure Christianity be re-stored 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. Now, while many societies seek to promote true religion in the United States, and many also to send the Gospel to the heathen, the Foreign Evangelical Society makes it its peculiar province to cultivate that great intermediate field, presented by professedly Christian countries in which, whatever may be their civilization, the lihood in America, for Jews whose conversion to Christianity exposed them to it is to the very heathen; some being Gospel is really almost as little known as persecution and the loss of the means of buried in the darkness of Romanism, and living. A farm, accordingly, of about 500 others in the still worse darkness of Raacres was purchased, on which it was pro- tionalism. In many such countries God, posed to have a colony of converted Jews, in his holy Providence, has been evidentwho, by tillage and other useful arts, might ly opening the way for the admission of support themselves and their families. the long-excluded light. Stupendous revSomehow or other this project did not an-olutions have in the course of the last fifswer the expectations of its projectors, ty years shaken, for a time at least, the and so much did the Society lose the con- spiritual despotism that had reigned so fidence of the Christian public, that for a long over a great part of Christendom, while it seemed quite lost sight of. A both in Europe and America; and the bityear or two ago, however, the impulse giv- ter fruits of infidelity, in all its forms, have en in Scotland and other European coun- disposed many, in countries where it had tries to the work of converting the Jews, sapped the foundations of faith, to return led some of the old friends of the Ameri- to the simple truths of the Gospel, unpercan Society to think of reviving it, and di-verted by human speculation and "philosrecting its efforts to the employment of mis-ophy falsely so called." The last revolusionaries among the Jews, either in Ameri- tions in France and Belgium, in particuca or elsewhere. As the Society is incor- lar, seemed to lay those countries more porated, and has property to the amount, I believe, of from 15,000 to 20,000 dollars, it may commence its operations immediately among the Jewish people, of whom there are said to be about 50,000 in the United States, whose conversion has never, it must be confessed, called forth the interest and the efforts that it ought to have done. CHAPTER X. FOREIGN EVANGELICAL SOCIETY OF THE UNI TED STATES. THIS, which is the latest in its origin of all the foreign missionary societies, was formed in 1839, for promoting evangelical religion in all nominally Christian coun hoped that, at no distant day, Spain and open to evangelical effort; and it was Portugal also would be found accessible to the Word of God. After much inquiry, partly conducted by an agent sent expressly to France and othformed in 1836, which, three years after, er countries of Europe, an association was took the form of a regular society; not, however, for sending missionaries from America to Europe, but for assisting the friends of evangelical religion in France, Belgium, and other countries similarly circumstanced. It has accordingly aided the evangelical societies of France and Geneva, and, though not to the same extent, some other, and more local associations.. Gradually extending the range of its efforts, it has also promoted the same cause by the distribution of tracts in Germany, and has even aided the friends of the truth in Sweden in what they are doing to communicate the blessings of the Gospel more effectually to the Laplanders. As the Society's Executive Committee is not restricted to any particular method of effecting its objects, it has turned its attention to a variety of ways of procedure. Clerk to the Supreme Court of the United States. The Society was organized in 1817, and its objects are expressed as follows, in the second article of its constitution: "To promote and execute a plan of colonizing (with their consent) the free people of colour residing in our country, in Africa, or such other place as Congress shall deem most expedient." The primary motive of its founders was to place the coloured man in circumstances in which he might acquire that real independence of station and character, and, consequently, that equality in social life which they supposed that he cannot reach in the midst of a white population. While making these efforts in Europe, the Society has found among the Roman Catholic population of Lower Canada, which is almost wholly of French origin, an important and providentially-prepared field, which is now occupied by a very prosperous mission. As this mission originated with some friends of the Gos- Soon after the Society was constituted, pel in Switzerland, it is supported to a cer- the Rev. Messrs. Mills and Burgess were tain extent by an association at Lausanne. sent as commissioners to explore the west Attached to it there is a large mission-coast of Africa, and select a site for the house, in which above twenty Canadian proposed colony. The first expedition converts are preparing for future labours was sent over in 1820, under the Rev. as teachers, colporteurs, evangelists, preachers, &c. There are no fewer than eight or nine missionaries, all but one or two of whom are natives of France or Switzerland; all have been accustomed to the French tongue from childhood, and several speaking no other. No one can foresee what may be the results of this auspicious commencement among a people with whom all previous attempts of a like kind had failed. The society contemplates commencing operations at several points of South America, as soon as persons fitted for the work can be found. The receipts of this society for the year ending on the 1st of May last (1843) were about 15,000 dollars; and the number of labourers, in various fields, whom it supported, was about eighty. CHAPTER XI. AMERICAN COLONIZATION SOCIETY. FINALLY, we propose to say a few words respecting the American Colonization Society, because of its connexion with missions in Western Africa, and its bearings upon the general interests of humanity, though not a missionary society itself. Though originating in a sincere desire to promote the benefit of the African race, on the part of some of the best men that America has ever seen, this society has for many years past been much decried in America, and misrepresented to some extent in Europe. The three persons who may be regarded as its founders have all passed from the present scene to their reward above. These were the late Rev. Dr. Finlay, of New-Jersey, the Rev. Samuel J. Mills, of Connecticut, and the Hon. Elias B. Caldwell, of Washington City, Samuel Bacon, who was appointed gov ernor; but he and many of the colonists were cut off by the fever of the country, in attempting to form a settlement at Sherbro, which consequently failed. Another attempt followed a year or two afterward, and though the site was not so good as might have been found, it proved far better than the former, and is now called Liberia, lying between the 8th and 11th degrees of north latitude. No great extent of country was bought at first, but other parcels have been added since, and the Society hopes before long to obtain the entire coast from Cape Mount on the north to Cape Palmas on the south, and extending to about 300 miles in length. Its chief possessions at present are about Cape Messurado in the north, and Cape Palmas in the south; a large part of the intervening coast is now in the possession of native chieftains, and on purchasing it, which the Society hopes soon to be able to do, it proposes to plant colonies at different points, for the double purpose of extending the present settlements and of abolishing the slave-trade, still vigorously prosecuted at two or three points on this part of the coast. Monrovia, the chief town in the northern cluster of colonies, has a convenient port, and is of considerable extent. There the Governor of Liberia resides. There are eight or ten villages, also, to the north and south, and in the interior, settlements having been made on the Stockton and St. Paul's Rivers, as well as at other points to the distance of eight or ten miles from Monrovia. A colony planted at Cape Palmas by the Maryland Auxiliary Colonization Society, consists of about 550 or 600 colonists from America. Many natives, Cape Palmas, Mr. Rushworm, is a gentleman of colIt is an interesting fact, that the governor at our, brought up in America as a printer, and who |