are to be stationed, primarily, at Bankok in Siam, the seat of the Siam Mission, where you will be associated with brethren laboring for the same general object, and one of them specially devoted to the preaching of the Gospel to the Chinese; where a Chinese church has already been constituted and free opportunity is enjoyed to labor for its enlargement among the thousands of their countrymen who resort to that place; where, too, you will be furnished with all facilities for acquiring a knowledge of the Chinese language so far as they exist elsewhere, and may advantageously qualify yourselves to impart the Gospel to the countless multitudes who speak it, whether in the immediate vicinity or in China itself, as Divine Providence may open your way.

But while we congratulate you on the auspicious circumstances attending the commencement of your missionary life, we cannot forget the years which are to ensue, and the occasions which will inevitably arise to call into action and make full proof of the strength of your faith, the constancy of your love, your firmness of purpose, your meekness and gentleness; in a word, your Christian character and the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. It is no ordinary service, my brethren, to which you are called. Viewed in its most obvious relations, it bears the aspect of an enterprize difficult and momentous. Surveyed in its more retiring features, it makes none the less demand for energy and circumspection. I will not attempt to detail what these will prove to be with you respectively. They must be modified greatly by individual character and the unforeseen providences of Him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will. It is enough that trials will come, and that the most faithful admonitions which we can address to you, in this our last direct opportunity, will not be unseasonable, and, as we trust, not in vain.

And, in the first place, dear brethren, ever bear in mind, that the great object for which you are now sent forth, is to make known among the heathen the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. By the preaching of the word, whether in the zayat, the thronged street, by the river side, or on the borders of the jungle,-by the dispersion of tracts and copies of the sacred Scriptures, entire or in choice portions, by the establishment of schools, the introduction of the usages of Christian society, the living exemplification of the benign influences of Christian faith, by whatever means the providence and word of God shall furnish to enlightened judgment and true philanthropy, your aim and efforts will always be to impart to as many as possible, and in the most effective way, all the counsel of God. This is your appropriate, your delightful, your most beneficent work. Whatever is disconnected with this, or subserves it in an insignificant degree, you will esteem as no concern of yours, further than necessity shall require; though, in determining the relations of any subject to the main design of your mission, you are always to exercise an enlarged and sound discretion.

Of the manner in which you are to fulfil the work thus assigned

you, all which it is now necessary to say will respect the simpli cily and fidelity of your ministrations. You are to preach the word, the unadulterated word, the preaching that Christ bids you. You are his ambassadors; you speak in his name; you are to make known his will. And he has expressed his will. The doctrines which you are to inculcate, he has distinctly taught: the precepts which you are to enforce, he has expressly enjoined: the consolations which you are to administer, and the hopes which you may encourage, he has fully announced. Beyond or aside from these you are not to venture. Here you have no discretionary power.

The importance of observing these suggestions it were easy to illustrate, by referring to the sad consequences which, in different parts of the world and at numberless times, have resulted from departure, in preachers of the Gospel, from the simplicity of the faith. Actuated they may have been by the purest intentions, and confident of securing a readier admission of divine truth to the hearts of the unevangelized or the disputatious, by accommodating it to their peculiar habits of thought and expression,-they have, nevertheless, verified in all cases, the monition of the Apostle, The foolishness of God is wiser than men. But we prefer to rest simply on the authority and the explicit requirement of your Lord: we refer you to the terms of your commission as ministers of Jesus Christ: we remind you of your own most solemn engagements: we point you to the dread tribunal, at which you are one day to account. If at that day it be found that you had not honestly discharged the high trust committed to you for the salvation of the heathen, if it then appear that you had kept back aught of the precious truth which you professed to give entire, or had added to the words written in the Book of God, your condemnation must be appalling in the extreme. Whatever the misapprehensions, the follies, the crimes, the wretchedness and the irreversible doom of countless multitudes, influenced in successive generations more or less directly by the character of your ministrations as first promulgators of Christian doctrine, all will appear in due order and relation to aggravate the betrayal of your trust your guilt being graduated not exclusively according to the evils you had directly inflicted, but no less by the benefits which your peculiar position at the fountain-head of opinion and feeling, had put it into your power to send forth, through all the channels of life, for many generations.

These remarks are designed to bear as directly on the simplicity as on the faithfulness with which you address the doctrines of Christianity to the understandings of the heathen. We cannot, indeed, separate one from the other. For, though you may teach every part of the doctrine of Christ, you cannot teach it with due fidelity, if you fail to give it its native directness and force. And these will not be given, if your speech and preaching be with enticing words of man's wisdom, and not in words which the Holy Ghost teacheth. Be careful, then, my brethren, not only to preach

all the preaching that Christ bids you, but to preach it as he bids you; with the same freeness, and the same limitations; with like directness, and like gentleness; in like order and proportion. And though to some the Gospel may appear to be foolishness, and to others a stumbling-block, make no change of its matter or its method. To them who are called, it will be what it always has been, "the wisdom of God, and the power of God unto salvation, to every one that believeth." These suggestions you will keep in mind, whenever you are prompted to make special endeavors to adapt your style of address to oriental modes of conception and representation. Into whatever language the Bible is translated, and in whatever tongue the Gospel is preached, it is, and must be, unalterably the same. God designed it, just as it is, for all nations. He purposed that it should be preached to all, just as it is. He adapted it alike to the capacities and the wants of all. And so long as sin is in all men essentially one in principle and character, and salvation is by faith in one only, even Jesus Christ, just so long must repentance toward God and faith in Jesus Christ be urged for the unconditional exercise of all men, without variation or intermixture from any human system or policy whatever. To these principles you will pay unquestioning and unalterable regard. The Board, in whose behalf you go abroad to the heathen, expect it of you; the church of Christ universal, expect it; the Lord Jesus himself, whose ministers you are, requires. it at your hands.

I have stated, summarily, the work which is entrusted to you, and the manner in which it is to be performed. The occasion calls for a few suggestions relative to hindrances which may threaten to enfeeble or embarrass your exertions, and to impair, if not wholly to preclude your success.

And, first, the debilitating influence of the climate. I speak of this not so much with reference to the prostration of bodily strength-though this too will claim your wakeful regard—as in view of its unfavorable bearing on the mental powers. Beware lest your mind become inert. Let it never lack its appropriate employment. See that it work steadily, even when it will not move free. Consult not so much your solicitude to effect great results, as your duty to do something. Let every day have its appointed service, and every day witness your conscientious attention to it. And should it be your lot to accomplish but little, let it be manifestly chargeable not to a want of patient industry, or to unskilfulness of method, but to the sovereign will of God.

In discoursing to you in these terms, I trust I am in no danger of being misunderstood. Suggestions of this nature you will ascribe, not to a peculiar solicitude respecting you, more than for any individual in like circumstances; not to any distrust of your intent to carry forward your work with the highest possible efficiency to the very last moment of life; and least of all to an impatience that would urge you to measures, which could only defeat their object by precipitating your death. My simple design is to

put you on your guard against a tendency, to which all are alike exposed, and to press on you the desirableness, existing in all enterprizes, but most emphatically in the missionary cause, of securing the full benefit of system, promptitude and constancy. Study then to counteract, as far as may be, the unfavorable tendencies of the climate under which you are to labor. Ascertain by what methods of life you can secure for the Missions to which you are appointed, the greatest amount of available power; and strictly adhere to whatever course of discipline shall be found most conducive to this important end.

Beware, 2dly, lest a growing familiarity with the wretchedness which it is your object to relieve, weaken your Christian sympathy, and lead you to relax, unconsciously, your remedial exertions. On your arrival, and probably for succeeding months, perhaps, for years, we fervently pray it may so prove-your hearts will glow with generous compassion for the multitudes of ignorant, corrupt, idolatrous pagans who will throng you on every side, and whose recovery from present degradation and eternal death, you will see to depend on the promptitude of the succor which you only can bestow. But it is not in the nature of man, to be thus deeply moved without exposure to alternation. It would be strange indeed, if the time should never occur, when you would need to recall your earlier impressions of the pitiable state of the heathen, and their claims on your tenderest sympathies and self-sacrificing toils. You will be especially exposed to this decay of Christian sensibility, if your labors fail of that measure of success which you had anticipated.

Apprised of this liability to become indifferent to scenes, when familiarized to the eye, the bare recital of which had been wont to fill you with overpowering emotions, be assiduous to cherish that compassionate spirit, which first moved you to care for the heathen. Let every new discovery of their vileness, be felt as a new appeal to your pity: the more you discern of their need, the more ardent be your zeal to relieve it: the longer you are permitted to toil for their salvation, the more strenuous be your efforts that no moment be lost. And when your last moment shall arrive, and all shall have been done for the heathen, that will be done by you, and your heart shall feel how trivial its amount, compared with what will remain still unattempted, see that there be no cause of self-reproach, in the flagging of your zeal in the work, or in the irresoluteness of your endeavors to bear it onward.

And this suggests, 3dly, the importance of your guarding against the discouragement usually resulting from limited success on one hand, and the frequent contemplation of the vastness of the work to be effected, on the other. The hour may come, and we can scarce doubt it will, when in view of the wide-spread desolations of heathenism, and the feeble array of human instrumentality for their removal, and the swift flight of time, and the apathy so deep, as it would seem, and so general among those who should press forward to share in your toils,-the hour may come, when, with

these appalling facts standing out before you with a distinctness you can now scarcely apprehend, your hearts will be ready to faint within you, and your hands to fail. For the approach of such a time as this, we trust you will ever stand prepared. In regard to those who may refuse to share in the peculiar labors of the Christian missionary, you will be prompt to repel every unkind suspicion. You will exercise the charity that hopeth all things, and judgment you will commit to Him, who knoweth what is in man and judgeth righteously. You will also bear in mind, that it was the voice of Divine Providence addressed to you as individuals, which called you into the missionary field, and that in obeying that voice you consulted not more the convictions of duty, than your deliberate and free choice, regarding it as a privilege, and not merely a requirement, that you should preach among the heathen the unsearchable riches of Christ.

At the same time, you will remember, that the part to be performed by you, is distinct from the work that belongs to God. You are not to convert a single soul. You are not to command the attention of a single mind. You are responsible simply for the appropriate inculcation of divine truth according to your ability, with humble deference to the will of God respecting the measure of your success. This is equally true whether we speak of few or of many. In the prosecution of your work, though almost illimitable, the process from beginning to end must be essentially the same. The dependence of the agent on divine efficiency is alike real and irremoveable. In all cases we must wait on the operations of a power, of which it would be no less unphilosophic than unscriptural to speak of the greater and the less. Be not then discouraged in contemplating the vastness of the work in which you are engaged. Your progress may indeed be slow, and scarcely perceptible. Your bodies may be laid in the grave before the structure shall rise complete in its proportions, and in all its amplitude. Your labors will not be the less indispensable, nor the less beneficent. Your position and that of your coadjutors will closely resemble the circumstances of the earliest Christian fathers. Like them you will stand, in respect to India and China, at the very opening of the Christian era. Like them, you are to speak in tongues familiar to half the world: and the views of Christianity imparted by you, will have a formative influence on the character and destiny of unnumbered millions in all generations.

A 4th topic on which I deem it my duty to say a few words of friendly admonition, derives its importance not so much, I trust, from a liability in you to fail in respect thereto, as from the lamentable consequences which would unavoidably follow, were the evils to which I allude, ever permitted to find place among you. Who, indeed, could estimate the disaster, which would threaten that missionary station, and all the interests involved in its proper maintenance under the guidance and blessing of the Holy Spirit, into which had thrust itself the spirit of jealousy and strife! Who could understand the amount of evil which such a spirit, existing