The Baptist Missionary Magazine

peril, and saved his servants from all essential harm. He has given health to the sick, and strength to the faint, and consolation to them that mourned. Above all, He has honored his Word among the heathen, and, in numerous cases, made it effectual, we have cause to believe, in the salvation of those who, but for the self-denying labors of our missionary brethren, would have perished in all the hopelessness of paganism.—We would, also, acknowledge our peculiar obligations to God for the favor which he has shown to the Board in their operations at home; that He has quickened among our churches, so generally, the spirit of Missions, and called forth from various portions of the community so large benefactions of prayer and offering; that He has specially directed the attention of many to the claims which the heathen have, not only on their alms and intercessions, but on their personal services, and has effectually inclined them to heed the cry for relief, so lamentably disregarded heretofore, though raised by perishing millions; that He has thus enabled the Board to send forth to the Indian Tribes at the West, to France, Germany, and Western Africa, to India, Burmah, Assam, Siam and China, more than thirty laborers since the Meeting of the Convention in April last; and that now, at the opening of a new year, He allows them to look forward, with cheerful hope, to a continued extension of missionary zeal in the churches, and the further enlargement and prosperity of the Missions entrusted to their charge. Surely, God hath done great things for us, whereof we are glad. To his name be all the glory.

Missionary Rooms, Dec. 15, 1835.

THE

BAPTIST MISSIONARY MAGAZINE.

Vol. 16.

January, 1836.

For the Bap. Miss. Magazine. SYMPATHY IN THE TRIALS OF MISSION

ARIES.

The duties of the churches to their Missionaries are various, and should each be attentively considered and faithfully performed. There should also be solicitude not to overlook any of them. "For the work of Christ they are nigh unto death,” in a sense which cannot be asserted of other laborers; and they should know that we feel that it is thus with them, and that we are coming "behind in nothing.”

There are some reasons for inquiring, Is there, in the churches generally, that sympathy in the trials of missionaries which duty and their circumstances call for? Doubtless there are some who are conscientiously faithful in this duty; but is there not in many a falling short in it? Are not the prayers of many for them hindered, or deficient in fervency, from this cause? True, in the heart of the devoted Missionary, there burns a love to Christ and to souls, which makes him to "reckon that the sufferings of this present life are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed;" and they are to his spirit lightened by the joy he feels in winning souls to Jesus. This, however, does not change the obligations of the churches who send them forth, in regard to this matter.

The object of the present paper is, to call the attention of Christians at home to this subject, that they may know better how to pray for missionaries, as well as for the prosperity of the cause in which they are laboring. When we have estimated the full amount of enjoyment which they find in their work, there are, after all, trials which come upon their spirits, as men of like passions" and

No. 1,

infirmities with those who remain at home, and which wear upon their strength, often shorten life, and make them to feel "Who is sufficient for these things!" The journals of the most devoted and active of them show this. It is nothing against their Christian character or their enterprize that it is so. It is the voice of Providence to Christians at home, saying to us," Remember them that are in adversity," especially, suffering for the name of Christ Jesus.

First, may be mentioned, the trial of separation from kindred, home, friends and country. There is no help against this; it will weigh upon a tender spirit. The "missionary spirit," in its most fervent actings, cannot prevent tender and painful anticipations of that hour when such "adieus" by him shall be exchanged as never before; and the heart will be full, almost to bursting, with the thought "we meet no more till the morning of the resurrection." Much as Martyn longed to be on heathen ground, and in his work, he felt this. In his journal, of a date before his departure, he has this record, "Went down with Capt. M. to Deptford. Passing through an inn close to the water's side, I came at once, to my great surprise, close to the Indiaman," (in which he was expecting to take passage, doubtless,) "before I was aware of it. The sudden sight of the water and of the ship affected me almost to tears. My emotions were mixed-partly of joy, and partly of trembling apprehension at my now being so soon to go away." At a subsequent date, a few days after, having preached a farewell sermon, on Acts xx. 32, and having left London for Portsmouth, his biographer remarks, "Such was the acuteness of his feelings during this journey, that he fainted and fell into a convulsion fit, at the inn

where he slept, on the road: a painful intimation to those friends who were with him, of the poignancy of that grief which he endeavored as much as possible to repress and conceal." The wife of an American missionary now abroad, who had panted to be away in the missionary field, though at the expense of leaving a home one of the sweetest, and friends among the dearest, after having passed through the trial of the hour of farewells," writes from Boston to a brother and sister at a distance, "The separation from home and beloved ones was far more trying than I had anticipated. I wept nearly all of the first day, at the remembrance of that little group which surrounded the stage coach, upon whom I had looked for the last time. The image of our dear father, waving his final adieu, rose continually before me, and my heart was dissolved in tenderness. To part with him, was more painful than to separate from all my other friends." Then, the hour when the missionary takes, toward the ship, his last steps upon the land of his birth, stands upon the deck where is offered the last prayer, and sung the last hymn, and pronounced the last benediction he will hear on a Christian shore; "the misgiving of heart," as said one, "that assails him, as the ship glides from the harbor, and boldly plunges into the Atlantic, seeming, while she unfeelingly tears him from home, presumptuously to defy the winds aud waves to match their mighty power with human skill;" to watch the fast receding shore; the light-house which can be last seen, and the mountain top which he can last discern in his native land, as it fades from his sight; all these are things which the heart of the missionary feels, deeply and tenderly feels; and he cannot help it; and grace itself does not forbid it; and he would scarcely deserve the name of a man, if he did not feel, under such circumstances. Christian at home! surrounded with friends in your own happy land, and filled with privileges and comforts, have you considered what all these things are to the Missionary, who goes for you to proclaim to the heathen the dying love of Jesus? And have you remembered him for them, at the footstool of the throne of grace?

2. The trial to humane and pious feelings which awaits his arrival amidst the scenes of a heathen shore, comes next. As he approaches land, sets his feet upon the shore, and passes along the streets of the great city, every

thing tells him, "this is a land in which men 'know not God and obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.'" The tokens of delusion, superstition or idolatry are every where, and there is a covering of 'gross darkness' upon the face of all the people. He finds himself in the midst of a valley like that in the vision of the prophet, where all around him is moral death. Every mind is dark; every soul is in ruins; every seing he meets is a hopeless candidate for an undone eternity. His heart is continually sickened, and it would be strange if the body did not sympathise with the afflicted spirit. Here stands the temple of an idol, and in it immortal men are worshipping the hideous image, "the work of men's hands." There stands the swing of self-torture, surrounded by a multitude, who drown, in their shouts, the groans of sufferers. Here sits or stands a devotee, in the squalidness and filth attendant on the long maintenance of a fixed position. There flows a river esteemed divine, in which men bathe to wash away sins which can be cleansed only by the river of Calvary. Yonder stands the funeral pile, blazing under the living and the dead.-Or, perhaps he is in a country in bondage to Popery; and idolatry in other forms, and delusions more subtle, from their having been invented in the perversion of Christianity, and bondage under a more systematic tyranny, every where display themselves. Or, he is in a Mahometan country, and every thing he sees or hears reminds him of "the false prophet." He speaks to one whom he meets, of Jesus, and of the one living and true God; and is met with the Athenian reply, "thou bringest certain strange things to our ears." He addresses a multitude assembled, and they speak among themselves, "what will this babbler say? he seemeth to be a setter-forth of strange gods." Jealousy is awake against him: prejudice is in exercise in all its bitterness. Wherever he turns his eyes, he sees things at which his soul revolts, for their contrariness to God, their complete adaptedness to delude and destroy souls. Men are full of pride, hatred, variances, wrath, strife, envy, revenge, lust; and the whole mass of mind is agitated and moved by the inward workings and the fearful outbreakings of "the strength of sin." The flood of iniquity flows on like a mighty river fed by a thousand springs. And as he rises from his bed, morning by morning, for his work, and lays his throbbing head upon his couch,

night by night, it is a thought at which | missionary goes from a temperate_and

his soul almost dies within him, when shall be "the time of the end " of these things.

healthy climate like our own New England; from the midst of our mountain air and valley breezes, and enters on his labors under a burning tropical sun, and in a climate which is to the last degree enervating. Or, he goes to a people who live much under the severities of

3. The nature of the missionary's labors is such as brings him to the trial of heavy drafts upon the strength of his constitution, and the health of his body. He cannot, like the minister in a Chris-polar winter. A constitution with its tian land, sit down in his retired study, and prepare his discourses for a church and congregation of educated people, to be in sober and orderly manner assembled on the quiet Sabbath, in the sanctuary where for years has sounded the name of Jesus, the songs of Christian harmony and of the Gospel of peace; where God's power has been seen in the revival of his work, and the conversion of sinners; and find his own labors seconded by scores of helpers in the Sabbath school. Nor does he go forth from his studies or pastoral labors to be greeted with the christian welcome as he enters each family dwelling. Very different from this. He must get the ears of dying men when and where he can, and in such numbers as he can. He must preach Christ, many times, where will rise up gainsayers and mockers. He must snatch the moment of opportunity with the wayfaring man, or devotee on pilgrimage, whom he will perhaps see no more till he meets him at the bar of God. He must open his school for children and youth amidst men of prejudiced and jealous minds; and very possibly purchase the attendance of scholars. He has to visit dwellings in which he will be regarded as an intruder, while he speaks to them of Jesus and salvation. He must learn to use, like his mother tongue, a new language; perhaps reduce to order the elements of a language never before written. He must work with his pen and with the press; be a translator of the Bible, a writer of tracts; must be a teacher of the sciences to the young, that he may gain the confidence of their parents, and draw them within the sound of the Gospel. In short, as to variety and amount, he must be "in labors abundant," before the way is prepared for him to begin to bring the gospel in contact with the minds around him. If a minister, in a Christian land, has occasion to exclaim "who is sufficient for the labors devolving upon him;" much more the missionary, with labors such as his. 4. It is not a small trial, that all these labors are to be carried forward in a climate and under modes of living, forming a great contrast to his former ones. The

habits formed under one of the most delightful and healthful climates on the globe, is transferred to one in perfect contrast, and where all the uncertainties and hazards of a climate-seasoning are to be passed through. He exchanges elasticity of spirits, and vigor of constitution, especially in a tropical country, for languor, depression, debility; and breathes where the air seems sometimes loaded with the elements of pestilence and the arrows of death. In heathen countries, too, the medical art is little known; and if unattended by a missionary physician, there is much uncertainty as to timely aid in sickness. Change of mode of living increases the trial of the strength of the constitution. The missionary goes from the hearty and wholesome table of his father's house, perhaps among the farms of New England, to the peculiarity, perhaps insipidity of a foreign and tropical diet. He must eat what and as the Hindoo does, or the Turk, or the Hottentot, or the savage islander; or he must die. It requires time and patience to become accustomed to the changes necessary, of this description.

5. The anxieties and sense of responsibility, peculiar to one who is in a foreign missionary field, constitute another class of trials. He, a lonely believer in the Gospel of Jesus, looking around on millions "wholly given to idolatry," or besotted by popish or Mahometan superstition, feels as did one who said, "What a wretched life shall I lead, if İ do not, from morning to night, exert myself in a place where, through whole territories, I seem to be the only light." "My soul much impressed with the unmeasurable importance of my work, and the wickedness and cruelty of wasting a moment, when so many nations are, as it were, waiting till I do my work." Like Paul, on Mars' hill, among a people of thirty thousand gods, not one of which can hear, pity or save, his spirit is stirred within him, in a holy yet. melancholy anxiety on the question, "What shall these do to be saved?” how shall they be led forth from their "darkness which may be felt," into the light of "the Sun of Righteousness ?"

"O'er the gloomy hills of darkness,

Cheered by no celestial ray." how often does he weep and sigh, as he contemplates the long rolling years to come, before the reign of death shall cease, and the chains of bondage to sin be broken from the sighing, dying millions around him. And while he feels that he has been sent to proclaim to them the Gospel, with what agonizing wrestlings must he lay hold on the promise of all-sufficient grace.

6. The opposition of the heathen themselves is an additional trial. The whole might of the human mind is everywhere found arraying itself against the Gospel of Christ. He is regarded as the teacher of a new and strange faith; contrary to their corrupt habits and propensities, "a stumbling-block" and "foolishness." Atheism, which in a Christian land denies the existence of any God, in others teaches of gods without number, and fills men's minds with hatred of the man who would bring them under the eye of one Jehovah, living, everywhere present, heartsearching, just, holy. He is accounted "their enemy, because he tells them the truth." The idolater, like the haughty king of Babylon, is offended because he "worships not the image he has set up." The Mahometan calls him "in

fidel," and swears by his prophet, and hints of the bowstring or the scimetar, as the punishment of his hardihood in denying the fooleries of the Koran. The Catholic is there, mingling the name and symbols of Christianity, as he holds it, with the superstitions of paganism, and is offended at the Christian independence which holds the Bible as the rule of faith, rather than "“the decisions of the Church." And the Jew he meets, full of pride that he is a son of Abraham; though a hater of the Messiah whom Abraham desired to see, and despising him who "preaches Jesus and United with such the resurrection." opposition, he has to struggle with prejudices which have been fostered for ages, and transferred from generation to generation, unimpaired, vigorous, hostile to truth and righteousness, bitter as wormwood and gall.

With all these, join the inward trials which the missionary experiences in his own breast. For his own soul, sanctified but "in part," is to be kept with great care, lest it languish. He, like the first missionaries of apostolic days, has to say, "without are fightings, within are fears;" and sometimes even trembles, lest after having preached to others, he himself should be a cast-away. (To be continued.)

Baptist General Convention for Foreign Missions.

William White,

John P. Peckworth,

Horatio G. Jones,

66 Silas Hough,

THE Baptist General Convention | Rev. Wm. Staughton, D. D., Pennsylvania. was constituted May 18, 1814, by "delegates from Missionary Societies and other religious bodies of the Baptist Denomination in various parts of the United States," convened in the city of Philadelphia; and was chartered by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania in June, 1821.

The following is a list of the

ORIGINAL MEMBERS OF THE CONVENTION.

Rev. Thomas Baldwin, D. D., of Mass.