SYMPATHY IN THE TRIALS OF MISSION- Christians, undervalue the missionary's ARIES. (Continued from page 8.) Do all the trials of the missionary spring up in his heathen field of labor, or from his own heart? Would that it were so. But the weight of these is sometimes increased by those which travel to him from "his own country, and his own house." From amidst the gloomy desolations which surround him, and with the earnestness of a heart melting in pity and love toward the heathen, he calls for more helpers; for means to extend and sustain the operations of benevolence around him. To Christians and churches sitting under the shining of the blessed light of the gospel at home, and with wealth enough to send thousands of missionaries to the unevangelized portions of the world, he appeals, that, as bought with "the blood of the everlasting covenant," and having "nothing which they have not received," and as owing themselves and their substance to Christ, they will hear the cry of the perishing, and open their hands and their hearts for their relief. While by some who love Christ and souls, this appeal is answered, yet how far is the church as a body, behind the spirit of the gospel; how many-as though God had no claims, and the heathen no souls-hold fast the wealth which, employed to send preachers of the gospel to the heathen world, might draw forth from millions the acclamation, "How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace."-From many who have named the name of Christ, is received slender testimony-perhaps none-that the anxious, tried, laborious, daily-dying missionary is remembered at the throne of grace. Some, too, having the name of labors, misconstrue his motives, are dissatisfied with his most affectionate and reasonable appeals on the wants of the perishing, and the duties of those who have the hope of the gospel. And the limitedness of benefactions which threatens at one time to keep at home men who long to be in the great field of harvest; at another to stop the missionary press; at another to constrain the closing of heathen schools; at another to make necessary the abandonment of a station, or to forego the occupancy of a new one ;-these trials, though they travel far to reach the heart of a missionary, yet come over his spirit heavily, and make him to mourn that the redeeming love of Christ is so requited, and the souls for which he died are so faintly pitied. With these and many other like trials, is it matter of wonder, that the lives of missionaries are short-that by the deaths of missionaries in the midst of their days, the friends of this cause have been so frequently thrown into tears. They have dropped into their graves in the midst of their usefulness; "their sun is gone down while it was yet day." "The precious sons of Zion, comparable to fine gold, how have they been esteemed as earthen pitchers, the work of the hands of the potter."-Of how many a one has there been occasion to say "how is the strong staff broken, and the beautiful rod!" A missionary now abroad from this country, looking at the privileges and blessings of our churches, exclaims, "Happy art thou, O New England; who is like unto thee, O people, blessed of the Lord." So indeed it is. The country is not to be found on the face of the earth, where Christian privileges are so richly bestowed. But it is to be feared we are more proud of them than grate- | and ask for them mercies of "the God ful for them; and are too much occu- of heaven" and of missions, as you pied with our own prosperity, to think would desire them to do for you, were in proper measure of those who are you in their circumstances. There "perishing for lack of vision," or of those needs to be in all of us more of that who have gone to them with the mes- tenderness of heart for these servants of sages of salvation. It is time that we Christ, which shall lead us away from awaked more fully to our duties to these ourselves, and make us earnest in our friends of God, and of souls, who are intercessions for every needful interpo"hazarding their lives for the name of sition of kind providence in their beJesus."-A few of these duties will be half. briefly stated. 3. A generous appreciation of their motives, in all they have done and are doing for the heathen, is another obvious duty. There is a way of thinking and talking of the missionary's character and 1. We owe it to those who are abroad in the various fields of missionary labor, to think more of their trials, that we may sympathize with them. We are all so constituted that, under sor-service, even among some professors of rows, to know that our fellow-men think of us, and feel for us is in some measure an alleviation of them. The golden rule of benevolence, given by our Lord and Savior, demands this of men toward each other. Forget not where these servants of Christ are. Be not inconsiderate or ignorant of their circumstances. Read their journals of progress and labor. Be willing to know their sorrows and conflicts, their discouragements and trials, as well as their successes. They are to be vindicated from all charges of a complaining spirit, relative to the things they suffer. Their troubles come to our knowledge, in the natural train of the narration of their labors, not in the strain of complaint. It was an injunction of an apostle to his brethren, in the early ages of the Christian church, "Remember those who are in bonds, as bound with them." "Rejoice with them that do rejoice, and weep with them that weep.” religion, as strange as it is unkind and unchristian, in which he seems regarded as more zealous than wise, or as ostentatious and proud of his singular distinction in self-denial. And there have not been wanting those who could pour upon the head of the toiling, suffering missionary the odium of misapplication of means furnished, or of secret motives of gain, or of curiosity for travelling and seeing the world, and seeking his pleasure at the expense of the churches-and who plead such imputations as reasons for declining to contribute to the foreign missionary treasury. Let that professor of religion, who, with such ample means for knowing the characters of missionaries, learning their motives, watching their expenditures, and knowing their selfdenials, privations, toils, sufferings and sorrows, still locks up his heart in icy and prayerless indifference to their case, and grasps his purse with the jealousy of avarice; let such an one consider himself-for he may well do itas probably not having the heart of a Christian; and as having yet to do, after many sins of hypocrisy, the work of repentance and conversion, in order to his own salvation. A Christian is not the man to cherish in his breast that avaricious jealousy and self-love, which will quietly see millions perish, and forget or malign a toiling missionary, hazarding his life for the name of Jesus. 2. We must carry them often in our prayers to the throne of grace. And this not in that cold generalness of petition, which just glances at the fact of their existence as objects of the divine care, without any affectionate dwelling on their case before God. Divine Providence, through their correspondence and published reports and journals, gives us the means of knowing "all their state," in its particulars, both prosperous and adverse, happy and sor- 4. We should prove our interest in rowful. An attentive reader of the missionaries and their work by a pious monthly intelligence from them, pub-liberality in furnishing the means for lished in the periodicals of the Boards which send them forth, can hardly fail of knowing how to pray for missionaries, so that they shall feel that prayers are offering for them somewhere, as Peter did, when the angel released him from prison. Dwell on their trials at the footstool, as you would upon your own; sending them helpers, and for enlarging their operations in diffusing religious knowledge among the heathen. When the churches have furnished to the missionary his mere personal support, they have but made a beginning of what is necessary to be done. The press, the school, the seminary for educating native converts for the ministry; and the sustaining of efficient assistants in all these departments of missionary labor, are things indispensable. To make the case plain, suppose we blot out of existence all the common schools and the academies in our towns-take away the Bible out of every family, and with it every book of religious instruction, bring to a close the Sabbath school and the Bible class, and seal up the lips of every one now a helper in the religious instruction of the young, and let the work done for the good of souls be only the preaching of two sermons on the Sabbath, to a handful of hearers, in some place of worship, and the labors of one feeble man from house to house during the week. And amidst such lack of education, and such moral darkness and ignorance, and with such solitary and discouraged laborers, what could be done for the salvation of souls? Almost nothing. The minister settled in one of our well-ordered parishes, finds, through schools and education, certain things done to his hand, and which prepare the way for his usefulness. But it is to be remembered that the missionary in a heathen land has to create such a state of things, by the press and the school, before he can work to much advantage for the spiritual good of those to whom he goes. Let, then, a large and generous view be taken by Christians in the happy home of our own country, of the requisites to advantageous missionary labor among the heathen, and to good courage in those brothers and sisters in Christ, who have gone forth on the errands of mercy, and let them cherish the spirit of the first propagators of the gospel, in which to trials, under which none but a prayerhearing God can sustain them, should kindle and keep alive an interest, fervent, affectionate, unwavering. For their sakes, should all in their good work share in our interest and prayers; and toward the missionary enterprize, and all engaged in it, the feeling should constantly glow in our hearts, and constrain us to duty,-"Peace be to thee, and prosperity within thee"-"For our brethren and companions' sakes we will now say, peace be within thee"-" Because of the house of the Lord our God we will seek thy good." Christian friends, and friends of human happiness, God has called us to contemplate the missionary in his labors, discouragements, trials, sorrows, and the laying down of his life, for the sake of souls, and the name of Jesus; and with these are before us, our duties as blessed with privileges and as professing to belong with our possessions to Christ. Let us carry these matters into our closets, and spread them before the Lord, with confession of past sins of neglect and unfaithfulness, and with resolves, in divine help, on better service for the future. Let there live in our thoughts and in the feelings of our hearts, a continual remembrance of them who "count not their lives dear unto themselves," that they may carry the gospel to dying millions. Let us love them more, for their love to Christ and to souls. Let us emulate their spirit, follow their example of devotedness; and get ready for our own final account as stewards of the divine bounty and professed heirs of eternal life. ON BEHALF OF BRITISH INDIA. not any of them said "that aught of the AN APPEAL TO AMERICAN CHRISTIANS things he possessed was his own," but remembering that they were bought with a price, not of "silver and gold," but of "the precious blood of the Son of God," each sought to glorify God, in all that he possessed, and in all that he could do for the salvation of a guilty world. Some of our churches are especially called to these duties from the providential circumstance that some who lived among us, whom we have known and loved, have gone "far hence to the Gentiles," and some of these, gone home too, to their heavenly Father's house, and to their rest and reward.-That there are those whom we love, now in foreign lands, who have a claim for our kind remembrances, our sympathies and prayers; and that they are called The attention of our readers is particularly requested to the following Appeal on behalf of British India, to which we alluded in our last number. The brief notices of this country, which have recently appeared in the Magazine, have indicated, in some measure, its vast extent and dense population, the encouragements it holds out for immediate missionary effort, and the comparative dearth of laborers. They have also shown how small a part of what has been done for its Christianization, is attributable to the holy enterprize of American Christians. The claims of Northern, Western, and Southern India, have not been wholly unheeded by us. Missionaries have been sent out, and stations established in these sections of the country by the American Board of Commissioners, the Western Foreign Missionary Society, and the Baptist Board of Foreign Missions. But in the Presidency of Bengal, the district especially referred to, in the Appeal, containing a population of not less than 30 millions, the American Church has not a single missionary. Possibly we might except to the letter of the statement, the solitary station of the Board at Kyouk Phyoo in Arracan, which is embraced in the Bengal Presidency, but its purport remains in full force. Some explanation of this apparent neglect is to be found, perhaps, in the apprehension which has existed in years past, that the co-operation of the American church in evangelizing British India was not specially called for, and might by some be deemed an interference. But this apprehension, so far as it ever existed, may now be dismissed. British India herself solicits our aid. Dear Brethren,-We appeal to you in the name of our common Lord, on behalf of the spiritual wants of the people among whom we are called to labor in the province of Bengal. We do so at a most interesting and critical period in the history of India. By various means, but especially through the instrumentality of Missionaries of various denominations, an important crisis is evidently approaching. The bible has been translated, schools have been established, and instruction disseminated, calculated to shake the confidence of the people in those systems under which their consciences have so long been fettered, and which are based not only on theological but philosophical error. Tracts have been composed and dispersed. The Gospel, in its purity, has been preached; and the result of these efforts has been a gradual and sensible awakening of mind among the people, who appear rising from the slumber of ages, and manifesting a spirit of inquiry unknown in the country before. But whilst we view these appearances with thankfulness, we rejoice with trembling; for whatever direction the spirit of inquiry shall take, will materially affect the present and future ages. For this period of interest the church has long prayed. Will she now embrace the opportunity offered to bring the millions of India into subjection to Jesus? We have prayed the great Head of the church, and appearances evidence His answer to our supplications; and we have good hope, the day is not far distant when a more complete accomplishment of his promise will be manifest. It is to be seen whether the Church will now put forth that energy she possesses, and improve by prompt and vigorous measures the approaching crisis. Shall we make it time better than the souls of men? appear we love our property and our There is but one exception to the otherwise highly encouraging aspect; but this of the highest importance: it is a dark shade in the midst of the rising brightness: it is a want of men. The soil is ready for the reception of the seed, and the seed ready to be sown,-but where are the husbandinen? In some the fields are white for the harvest,places it has been scattered abroad, and but where are the reapers? Congregations large and attentive might be procured every day, but we have no men!! Schools might be established on Christian principles, but we have no men!! Humanly speaking, souls might be saved; but how can they hear without a preacher? These are the interesting but painful circumstances in which we are daily placed; opportunities offering for glorifying God, without the ability to embrace or improve them; like Moses we stand between the living and the dead, but we cannot like him point the dying thousands to the source of life and salvation; we see year after year thousands borne by the irresistible flood of time to the depths of hell, without being able in the majority of instances to do more than look on and weep. We do not hesitate to say, that this has accelerated the death of many of our most devoted brethren. In mercy, therefore, to those already in the field, as well as in compassion to the heathen, we pray you, send us more men! The present state of India must not pass unimproved by the Christian church. It is the infancy of a nation's thoughtfulness. Whatever cast then be given to that thought, will be stamped upon its maturer years. This is an impression not confined to the Missionaries' breast; it is generally felt, that if India is to be either religiously or politically regenerated, this is the time. Government under this impression have determined to give a system of education to the people. From this system, religion is carefully excluded. It remains, therefore, with you, whether this increase of knowledge shall prove a blessing or a curse to the natives of India. Knowledge without religion is, alas! too often, if not generally, the parent of infidelity and scepticism. "The world by wisdom knew not God." We make no comment on such a testimony. The present number of Missionaries is very inadequate, even to carry on the stations already in existence, much less to extend the sphere of their exertions, which would be so desirable. Many of them are already advanced in life, and must, in the ordinary course of events, soon be called from the field of conquest to the temple of reward. The religious regeneration of India is | rich and abundant harvest of improvethe work of Missionaries: other efforts ment and future benefit. I would give may trim the branches of that deadly them, as an example in support of this Upas, which has spread its poisonous and advice, the school founded exactly upon destroying foliage through the length these principles, lately superintended by and breadth of the land, but their's strike the estimable Mr. Duff, that has been at its very root, and cut off the source attended with such unparalleled success. of the evil. This is not an interested I would say to them, finally, that they view of Missionary labor. Our late re- could not send to India too many laspected Governor General, whose know-borers in the vineyard, like those whom ledge of Missionary character, labor, and I have now the gratification of adof the native habits, was not limited, in dressing." reply to an address presented at his departure by a missionary deputation, said, "There is, I understand, in England, a large class of excellent persons, who consider as a compromise of principle the protection afforded to the religions of the country, and would gladly induce more active interference on the part of the ruling power in the diffusion of Christianity. They may be assured, that a more grievous error could not be entertained. The recollection of past ages, when conversion, by whatever means, by fire and sword, if persuasion failed,-was the first care of the conqueror, is not obliterated from the memory or apprehensions of the people; and the greatest obstacle to the cause they espouse, would be the distrust any decided intervention of the Supreme authority would inevitably create. The extension of Episcopacy was not without objection, as involving the great principle of neutrality. Known as this great dignitary is, to derive his office from the crown, and bearing always the rank and character of one of the highest officers of the state, it is difficult for the public to see him in his other capacity of head and patron of the church missionaries, without having the suspicion that the Government must have some connection with and interest in their proceedings. We may rely with confidence on the exercise of the greatest caution in this respect, on the part of our excellent Diocesan, but that caution is now and will always be particularly called for. "Being as anxious as any of these excellent persons for the diffusion of Christianity through all countries, but knowing better than they do the ground we stand upon, my humble advice to them is, Rely exclusively upon the humble, pious, and learned missionary. His labors, divested of all human power, create no distrust. Encourage education with all your means. The offer of religious truth in the school of the missionary is without objection. It is, or is not, accepted. If it is not, the other seeds of instruction may take root, and yield a Men are needed to fill up their places. But how shall India be regenerated, without we have a large accession to our numbers? We can assure you, that although the field has now been occupied 40 years, there are yet vast numbers not more than 50 miles from this city that have never heard of the Gospel, and are "perishing for lack of knowledge." Other powers do not sleep. Infidelity is awake, nor are its conquests few. Deism can display its trophies. Popery, the blight of Christianity, has been aroused by the impulse, and is endeavoring to quell the spirit of inquiry by its unscriptural mummeries. The real benefactors of the world only sleep. With all deference to what you have done for India, we assert, that as far as the spiritual condition of this country is concerned, the Christian church appears to sleep. The conquests of truth are but few. How is this? Is it because infidelity and popery have their active and numerous agents in the field? At this time the Propaganda Fidei have sent to this city, men who have already obtained great influence over the minds of the unwary. We only droop. But we trust we shall not droop long. We look to you, churches of America, with hope and confidence; next to our Lord, we rely on your prayers, sympathies, and energy. Shall we trust in vain? Oh, no! We believe that our confidence is not misplaced. We believe that the Spirit which first kindled the missionary flame on the altar of the church, will not only maintain, but augment its lustre and bright |