be abandoned, because the success of its efforts does not equal the highest wishes of a benevolent heart?

But what if the success of Foreign Missions were less, far less, than it now is;-what if those, whom we send to cultivate the wilderness, and repair the wastes of Heathenism, saw no immediate success; would this be a reason, why we should neglect to obey the plain command of Christ, and to do all in our power, that the gospel may be preached to every creature? How often did Jesus Christ and his Apostles proclaim the truth, and no spiritual resurrection follow, no recruits come to the standard, they had set up? How often do faithful ministers labor in the best cultivated and most promising parts of the vineyard, year after year, with little or no apparent success? And is it expected, that the Missionaries in the vast wilderness of Paganism will see a verdant landscape blooming at their feet, or a rich harvest rising up before them, as soon as the first blow is struck, and the noise of the axe is heard? The husbandman, on lands long cultivated and highly fertile, waits with patience, and labors with diligence and high expectation, until he receive the early and the latter rain. And shall not the Missionary, in the midst of a deep forest, be allowed time to clear away the growth of a century, and break the ground, and scatter the seed, and nurture the rising plants, before you pronounce his labor unsuccessful and useless, because he has not gathered a matured and abundant harvest? When it is announced, that eighty have hopefully become Christians the past year under the labors of the Missionaries at Ceylon; and not less than fifty

in the Cherokee nation of Indians; when whole territories, like the Society Islands, are known to have renounced their horrid idolatries, and yielded to the influence of Christian institutions more generally, than any community in Christendom, under the labors of Missionaries, and in less than twenty-five years; shall the objection any longer be repeated, that Foreign Missions are visionary and unsuccessful?

Another objection made against Foreign Missions is, that an interest in this cause will lessen the aid afforded to other charitable institutions, and diminish the efforts made for the advancement of religion at home.

But it must be obvious to a reflecting mind, that there is the most intimate connexion between Foreign Missions, and almost all the objects of Christian benevolence. The former opens a deep and extensive channel, which conveys the charities and blessings of other charitable institutions over the world.

It is now about thirty years, "since the Apostolic spirit, which had so long slumbered in the Church, awoke," and the importance of Foreign Missions began to be felt. And to what noble monuments of Christian benevolence has it given rise in Christian lands? While the success has been greater abroad, than could have been reasonably expected, we are sometimes ready to conclude, that it has done even more for the churches at home; for the streams, it has sent forth, have risen no higher in their meanderings, than the fountain. In the period of thirty years, as the spirit of Foreign Missions has expanded the

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hearts of Christians, how many institutions for the purposes of religious charity have sprung up in all parts of the Christian world? How much more strongly has it been felt, that we must have Education Societies, because we must have more Missionaries; that we must have Bible Societies, because the influence of the Bible at home and abroad directly promotes the cause of Foreign Missions; that we must do more to promote Domestic Missions, because the efforts and charities of the whole Christian world are needed in evangelizing the Heathen; that we must promote revivals of religion, and labor to increase greatly the numbers and the piety in our churches, and to raise the standard of Christian attainments and sacrifices, because all this is necessary to send forth the blessings of salvation to a dying world.

This objection does not evince the most intimate acquaintance with the expansive and glowing benevolence of the gospel. The man, who has a strength of compassion and love, which can embrace distant perishing nations, can surely extend his solicitude and benevolence to those around him, to his own countrymen. Would any suppose, that Paul felt less compassion and solicitude for his kinsmen the Jews, because he had a benevolence expansive enough to embrace the Gentile world? And, generally, are those, who sigh and weep most over the miseries and wretchedness of distant Pagans, who have a benevolence, which bleeds and prays and labors for the conversion of the world, most indifferent to the spiritual interests of their families, to the advancement of

Zion around them, to the progress of Domestic Missions, and to the prosperity of the various benevolent institutions of the age? Are those, who do most to aid Foreign Missions, the men who complain of the burden of supporting the Christian ministry, who turn away, with cold indifference, from solicitations to enlighten the ignorant, and supply the destitute, and save the perishing in our own land? And are the other religious charitable institutions patronized wholly, or chiefly by those, who virtually say, when you pass the limits of your own family, or parish, or state, or country, you pass the limits of Christian benevolence, and go among immortal beings, who should have none of your sympathies, none of your Christian privileges, through the medium of your instrumentality? We are not disposed to make invidious comparisons, or to say that no man has any compassion or benevolence, who does not aid Foreign Missions; and, certainly, not to boast of the liberality of those who do. But we think it suitable, when this objection is raised, to meet it with plain, undeniable facts; and until these facts are disproved, we hope the objection may no more be heard.

Another objection raised against Foreign Missions. is, that the labors of the Missionaries are not properly directed.

It may be sufficient to say, in reply to this objection, that the Board of Foreign Missions have supposed the directions and example of the Apostles, who were themselves Missionaries to the Heathen, their best guide. And they have sought the conversion of the

Heathen in the same manner, in which they believe the first Christian Missionaries sought the same object; -by plain and faithful Christian instruction; by pouring the light of heavenly truth into the mind, and endeavoring to bring it in contact with the conscience and heart; by "reasoning with them out of the Scriptures." They read the command, "Preach the gospel to every creature;" they learn the fact, that the Apostles preached the gospel to the Heathen; and that when "the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe." They wish, that Christian instruction may be adapted to the state of ignorant, deluded Pagans, and that the gospel may be preached to them in the most intelligible, impressive, persuasive manner. But they expect, according to all past experience, that the strong holds of the prince of darkness in pagan lands will be demolished by spiritual weapons, and that the kingdom of Christ will be set up by the preaching of the gospel, accompanied with a divine influence. They adopt the general course of missionary labor, and indeed the only one, which has been successful in the conversion of the Heathen in past ages;—the same means, in the use of which Brainerd, and the Missionaries in the South Sea Islands, were so successful; and in the use of which, under the blessing of Heaven, they have reason to hope, that some have become, the friends of God and heirs of eternal glory, at almost every missionary station they have formed.