behalf, dear brethren, of your own communions and churches, whose zeal in this pious work will never be overlooked, nor suffered to pass unrewarded. We could indeed multiply arguments on this momentous topic. God forbid that any considerations of interest, any sectarian prejudices, or local jealousy, and, above all, any unfeeling indifference to the circumstances of thousands of our countrymen, without hope, and without God in the world; should close our ears and our hearts against the earnest cry from the destitute, "Give unto us the bread of heaven, that we may live; and send us faithful ministers of the Lord Jesus, who shall guide us in the way which our fathers trod, that we may hereafter enter with them into rest."

The Directors would earnestly commend the cause of the Society to the benevolence of the friends of missions, and entreat their active co-operation in the formation of Auxiliary Societies, communicating information, and promoting, by every means, the object of the institution.

FEMALE MISSIONARY SOCIETY.

THE sixth anniversary of the Female Missionary Society for the poor in this city, was held in the Brick Presbyterian Church on the 12th inst. at half past 4 o'clock, P. M. The Rev. Dr. Spring commenced the exercises with prayer, and then read the Report of the Directors. The Rev. William Gray, the Society's Missionary, read his annual report, and the Rev. Dr. Spring, Rev. Samuel H. Cox, Rev. E. W. Baldwin, Rev. John Truair, Rev. John H. Rice, D. D. of Richmond, Virginia, and the Rev. Mr. Stockton, addressed the meeting. The latter gentleman offered the concluding prayer, and the Rev. Mr. Baldwin pronounced the benediction.

There were nearly 200 ladies and several gentlemen present, and the exercises were rendered peculiarly interesting on account of the suggestion made in the Report, and followed up by some of the gentlemen who spoke, that the cause of the Society's failure was owing to the location of the Church; and that the only plan which would promise success was the removal of it, or the erection of a new one in some neighbouring street.

To these opinions we cannot subscribe: and we believe it will be easily shown that the zeal and perseverance of this Society have been crowned with as great success as any similar efforts: if this be true, there can be no reason for removing the Church. But if there has been a failure we would inquire, with one of the Rev. Gentlemen who addressed the meeting, whether the cause of it may not be found somewhere else. We have not room for further remarks on the subject at present, and shall conclude by informing our readers that the Society need some pecuniary aid to fulfil their present engagements, which we hope will be immediately supplied. The Report shall be noticed in our next.

Obituary,

OF PROFESSOR FISHER.

MR. EDITOR-While I sympathize in common with many others, with the friends and relatives of those who found a watery grave in the Albion, I must be permitted to distinguish the loss of one on board, as a severe public calamity. Professor Fisher, of Yale College, was a young man of rare talents and great promise. He was the oldest child of Mr. Caleb Fisher, a respectable farmer of the town of Franklin, in Massachusetts. His early years were marked by an uncommon thirst for literary acquisition. With few exterior accomplishments, except the gracefulness of youthful integrity and industry, to ensure the partiality of his teachers and acquaintance, he never failed of distingushing him

self. His taste for science, induced his parents to give him an acade mical education. He entered Yale College at a tender age, where he soon evinced himself equal to the most difficult studies, and graduated in the fall of 1813, inferior in sholarship to no member of his class. The following year he passed with his parents at Franklin; and, in the latter part of 1814, became a member of the Theological Seminary at Andover. It was here that the writer became more intimately acquainted with his intellectual resources and moral habits. And he can safely affirm, that he was never more impressed with the gigantic powers of any man. The genius of Professor Fisher was not, however, of that popular character, which bursts like a flaming meteor upon the public, and attracts our gaze and wonder, by a momentary coruscation. It consisted rather in a singular aptitude for rapid and profound investigation. He was a most industrious as well as successful student. With the talent of approaching every subject by a natural and easy method, he possessed that of bringing to its elucidation, all the aids that his other acquisitions could supply, and a patience of investigation which was singular. "He is a bundle of ideas," said one of his most celebrated instructors. And probably few minds have been as exclusively occupied as his, with naked thought.

His election as Professor of Mathematics, in the venerable institution at which he graduated, was, in no degree, the result of favouritism. He was selected to fill that important station because he was known to possess the requisite qualifications. And though he was, at the time, a mere youth, and remarkable for a modest, retiring spirit, approaching to timidity; he is understood to have equalled the most sanguine expectations of the friends and patrons of the institution. Besides faithfully discharging the duties of his office, he occasionally employed his pen, with much credit to himself, for the public. The writer is unable to state precisely how much he furnished for the "Christian Spectator," and the "Journal of Science;" but he is known to have contributed liberally to both these works. In the latter, his dissertation on “ Musical Temperament," has been considered in this country, and in Europe, a masterly production.

It would have been unhappy indeed, if such a mind had not become thoroughly satisfied of the reality and ineffable value of personal religion. My impression is, that there was a time when he regarded the evidences of Christianity with a degree of perplexity and doubt. But the result of his investigations was most decided; and though he never made a formal profession of his faith, he has left behind him very consoling evidence, that he was more than a speculative believer in Jesus Christ. His public testimony and more private expression of his views on this subject, were altogether in favour of the great principles of the Reformation. His penetrating mind discovered no force in the arguments with which a vain philosophy has dared to assail them. Having ranged the entire field of metaphysics and didactic theology, he found that he could rest his hopes of future blessedness on nothing but the grace of Almighty God through a crucified Redeemer. Here, it is charitably believed, he did actually suffer them to rest. If he did, the ocean's tempest has borne him to a nobler and more happy country, than even that to which the Albion was destined.

AMICUS.

Seaman's Magazine,

He maketh the storm a calm, so that the waves thereof are still. Then are they [sailors] glad because they be quiet; so he bringeth them unto their desired haven. Psalms.

SECOND. ANNUAL REPORT

OF THE

SOCIETY FOR PROMOTING THE GOSPEL AMONG SEAMEN IN THE PORT OF NEW-YORK.

Presented June 4, 1822.

THE proceedings of this Society for the last year, have chiefly been a continuance of the measures, the adoption of which was announced in their former report. And although they have nothing to boast of as to the greatness of their exertions, and much to lament on account of the backwardness of the commercial public in promoting objects so important as those pursued by this Society, yet they are grateful to the author of the Gospel, that their efforts to spread it among seamen are not wholly without success; that they are permitted, to some extent, however small, to witness the springing up of the good seed which has been sown, producing fruits which they would fain regard as the forerunners of a plentiful harvest.

Before entering into the details of their labours and success, they would call the attention of the public to the extraordinary number of disasters to ships and those sailing in them, which have occurred during the past year. Our own coasts have been visited with tempests of a most destructive character: and many of our seafaring countrymen have sunk in the ocean under the stabs of pirates. On the coasts of Europe an unusual number of shipwrecks has taken place, accompanied with scenes of distress and death, calculated to excite the deepest feeling: On the coast of Jutland it is said that, during the past winter, more than fifteen hundred dead bodies of those who had suffered shipwreck had been found: and recently the loss of the Packet Ship Albion, Captain Williams, of this port, with more than forty souls, many of them known to us in the intercourse of society, some endeared to us in friendship, some of them seamen who have been indebted to the efforts of this Society for the last, perhaps the only offers of the Gospel ever made to them, and who have, in our Mariners' Church, either received the knowledge and love of the Redeemer or rejected the offers of his mercy, has given a melancholy memento to us of the importance of our labours and the necessity of renewed zeal and activity. The Directors would call the attention of the public to these things, not as affording any new proof of the uncertainty of life, or of the perilous nature of the employments of those for whom they labour, or of the importance of communicating the Gospel to those who

are so soon to answer their judge for the deeds done in the body; but as instances in which these common, these universally admitted but generally neglected truths have been illustrated in the most affecting manner. And in the light of such reflections as events like these ought to excite, the Directors would have the importance both of their enterprize and of their success viewed and appreciated.

The Directors will now proceed to render an account of their labours, and then mention the success which they have witnessed.

The Mariners' Church has been constantly occupied during the past year for the purposes for which it was erected. It has regularly been opened in the forenoon and evening of every Sabbath, for Divine worship, and the stated preaching of the Gospel. It has also been generally opened in the afternoon of every Sabbath, and the time occupied in prayer, and in the reading and communicating of religious intelligence by members of the board and others. And on the Wednesday evening of every week, a lecture and prayer meeting for seamen has been held in the room under the Church.

The Rev. Mr. Chase has continued in the service of the Society, affording to our seafaring population such pastoral services as circumstances would permit him to render. He bas, besides supplying the pulpit on numerous occasions, visited the families of seamen and their boarding houses; has held prayer meetings with them on board of ships and on shore; has distributed among them about eight hundred religious tracts, and, when opportunity has offered, he has conversed with and advised them on the subject of religion. His services to the Society have been of the most valuable nature, and, considering the other avocations with which he was loaded by his connexion with the Wesleyan Seminary, do honour to his industry and perseverance, as well as to his piety. His useful services are still continued.

Convinced from experience of the importance of such pastoral services, and of their indispensable necessity for accomplishing, to any considerable extent, the purposes of the institution, the Directors, although supplied scantily with funds, and embarrassed in their pecuniary condition, considered it a profitable economy to engage a pastor who might devote all his time to such duties.

They had besides in view, the soliciting of funds in various parts of the country for this institution, and found that for this purpose, a pastor, who should know from experience the condition of our wants and the prospect which our labours afforded, and who should by his intercourse with seamen be warmed with peculiar zeal for their interests, seemed to them a necessary acquisition.-They have accordingly engaged the services of the Rev. Mr. Truair formerly of Cherry Valley and they have a pleasure in recording their testimony to the zeal and diligence with which the pastoral duties of his station have been performed.

It was not the intention of the Directors, by engaging a stated pastor, to have the pulpit wholly supplied by his ministrations. The Catholic plan on which their institution is founded, and the principles on which they endeavour to conduct it, cause them to depend for a supply of preaching not merely on the services of a stated pastor, but on

those of clergymen of various denominations, who would take a part in the duty, and for the former part of the year they depended on such assistance as the clergy of this city, with the occasional aid which the Rev. Mr. Chase could afford, for the supply of the pulpit. But the Directors have found, that independent of the absolute necessity of having some person stationed in connexion with the Church, to visit seamen, and to be visited by them for christian advice and instruction, and who might, by personal acquaintance, form an immediate link of communication between seamen and this Society, it was useful and necessary to have a pastor on whom they might rely for supplying the pulpit, instead of being wholly dependent on sources of a precarious nature. And that it was necessary, in order to ensure the attendance of seamen, that the regularity and constancy of preaching in the Church should be depended on.

The funds of the Society, of which a more particular account will hereafter be given, did not admit of their making any encroachment on them for compensating the pastor they have engaged. To accomplish this object they have set on foot a subscription for annual payments for this purpose, to be in the nature of a separate fund, and have made some considerable progress in raising a sum for his salary: they are however still far from having accomplished their design in this respect, and they rely upon the liberality of the commercial and maritime public for their ultimate success in it.

The Sunday school for the children of seafaring people, has been continued under the direction of the Board. The school now consists of about eighty children, fifty of whom are females; and the number of female members of the school is increasing. Prayer meetings have been held for the children at the houses of their parents; and the Directors would greatly rejoice, if by an increase in the number of teachers, they could be enabled to carry into effect a contemplated plan of visiting, on the local system of Dr. Chalmers. The Directors consider the Sunday school as a very important branch of their labours, not only as affecting the subjects of their instruction, but as tending to connect the parents with the objects of the Society, and to give them that interest in our plans which is always felt for any design where the welfare of our children is connected with it. A species of moral kindred is thus created, which will prove one of the most important auxiliaries to the success of our institution, and connect its stability with the very existence of mariners as a class of our population.

The scantiness of the funds of the Society, and their inadequacy to supply even the existing demands upon them, have prevented any attempts at the establishment of the weekly school for the gratuitous instruction of adult seamen, formerly contemplated by the Board.

The Christian Herald and Seaman's Magazine, continues to be published under the patronage of the Board, and they would earnestly press upon the friends of the Society the importance of extending its circulation. It serves as an avenue by which the plans and the success of the Society reach the minds and hearts of the public on shore; and it operates to excite a general feeling in favour of the purposes of the Society -effects in which the Bible and Missionary Societies of the present day VOL. IX.

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