Donations, from November 15 to December 15, 1835. Rev. S. Cornelius-omitted in last report, Rehoboth,-H. B. Lust, for Bur. Bible, per Mrs. Baldwin, 10,00 1,00 Providence, R. I., Fem. Soc. in 4th Bap. ch. for education of a child in Burmah, per 12,50 South Yarmouth, Mass., Bap. Ch. per Rev. S. Crowell, 3,75 24,00 Bible, 52,25-Bur. Miss. 214,22, per Rev. Dr. Mercer, by Doct. W. H. Turpin, 1473,63 Ashburnham, Mass., Mrs. Dorothy Green for Bur. Miss., per Mr. H. Green, Boston, Juv. Miss. Soc. in Fed. St. Bap. S. S., Male Dep., to edu. a Burman youth named Wm. Manning, 50,00 25,00 Boston, Mr. Thomas Shaw, for Burman Mission, 50,00 South Carolina, Welch Neck Asso., for For. Missions, 566,62-Bur. Mission, 7,00 Cincinnati, Fem. Miss. So. of Enon ch., to sup. Ko Chet-thing, 17,40-Harrisburg, 600,00 100,00 211,71 34,00 2098,65 94,40 Mr. Loomis, to educate Indian boy at Thomas Station, 10,00 Brown University, So. of Miss. Inquiry, per Mr. A. S. Lyon, treas., 12,00 Also, in October last, Rev. Jesse Mercer, D. D., fifty shares of the U. S. Bank, 5,500,00 Several packages of clothing, &c., have been received within the last few months, among which are the following: Westfield, Mass., fr. 1st Bap. ch., a box, no estimate given. Worcester, Mass., per Rev. O. Converse, Treas., 1 box and 2 bundles, 20,24. Framingham, Mass., Juv. So., per Miss Elizabeth Bigelow, Treas., 1 box for Bur man schools in Ava, 8,00. Sandisfield and vicinity, Mass., from ladies, 1 box from same, 11,00. New York, South Bap. Ch., ladies, 1 box, 75,00-New Ipswich, N. H., Ladies' All boxes, packages, &c., designed for Missionary Stations, and forwarded to the Rooms of the Board, should be accompanied with the names of the donors, together with a schedule of the articles contained, and an estimate of their value. This is especially important in regard to boxes, &c., intended for stations in the East, as they are liable to be searched and their contents injured at the Custom House where landed, unless the consignee is advised of their contents and value. HEMAN LINCOLN, Treasurer. "An Appeal to American Christians on behalf of British India," with several other articles designed for this number, we must defer for want of room. THE BAPTIST MISSIONARY MAGAZINE. Vol. 16. February, 1836. No. 2. SYMPATHY IN THE TRIALS OF MISSION- | Christians, undervalue the missionary's 66 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, 66 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 service, even among some professors of 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 know 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 sorrows, 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 coming the characters of missionaries, plaint. It was an injunction of an apostle to his brethren, in the early ages of the Christian church, 66 Remember those who are in bonds, as bound with them." "Rejoice with them that do rejoice, and weep with them that weep." 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 sorrowful. An attentive reader of the monthly intelligence from them, published 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; 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 it— as 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. 4. We should prove our interest in missionaries and their work by a pious liberality in furnishing the means for 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 Missionaries have wholly unheeded by us. been sent out, and stations established in these sections of the country by the American Board of Commissioners, the Western Foreign Mis- | sionary 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 KyoukPhyoo in Arracan, which is embraced in the Bengal Presidency, but its purport remains in full force. Some explanation of this parent 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. ap it 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 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 husbandmen? 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 ? Dear Brethren,-We appeal to you in the name of our common Lord, on be- These are the interesting but painful half of the spiritual wants of the people circumstances in which we are daily among whom we are called to labor in placed; opportunities offering for glorithe province of Bengal. We do so at a fying God, without the ability to embrace most interesting and critical period in or improve them; like Moses we stand the history of India. By various means, between the living and the dead, but we but especially through the instrumen- cannot like him point the dying thoutality of Missionaries of various denom-sands to the source of life and salvation; inations, an important crisis is evidently we see year after year thousands borne approaching. The bible has been trans-by the irresistible flood of time to the lated, schools have been established, depths of hell, without being able in the and instruction disseminated, calculated majority of instances to do more than to shake the confidence of the people in look on and weep. those systems under which their con- We do not hesitate to say, that this sciences have so long been fettered, and has accelerated the death of many of our which are based not only on theological most devoted brethren. In mercy, therebut philosophical error. Tracts have fore, to those already in the field, as been composed and dispersed. The well as in compassion to the heathen, Gospel, in its purity, has been preached; we pray you, send us more men! The and the result of these efforts has been present state of India must not pass una gradual and sensible awakening of improved by the Christian church. It mind among the people, who appear is the infancy of a nation's thoughtfulrising from the slumber of ages, and ness. Whatever cast then be given to manifesting a spirit of inquiry unknown that thought, will be stamped upon its in the country before. But whilst we maturer years. This is an impression view these appearances with thankful-not confined to the Missionaries' breast; ness, 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 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." |