The office of Assistant Treasurer has been tendered to a gentleman eminently worthy of the trust, whose answer has not been communicated. Benjamin Smith, Esq., having resigned his place in the Acting Board, it was supplied by the election of Francis Wayland, D.D., of R. I., one of the Vice Presidents of the Board, June 7. The Home Secretary, Dr. Pattison, was chosen to the vacancy in the Acting Board occasioned by the resignation of the Rev. John Wayland. 4. APPOINTMENT, DESIGNATION, AND DEPARTURE OF MISSION ARIES. At the meeting of the Acting Board in Baltimore, Daniel J. Macgowan, M. D., was appointed a missionary, to enter the field of his labors (China) on completing his preparatory course. He is now prosecuting the study of surgery, at private charge, in Paris, France, and will be ready to engage in his missionary work the ensuing autumn. Miss Miranda Vinton was appointed an assistant missionary to the Karens, June 7, to reside in the family of her brother, the Rev. J. H. Vinton; and at the same meeting the Messrs. Bechu and Du Jardin were recognized as assistant missionaries in the French Mission. In September information was received from the Rev. Issachar J. Roberts, late missionary of the Roberts Fund and China Mission Society, that he acceded to the stipulated terms of the transfer of his missionary relation from that Society to this Board. The Rev. Asa Bennett was appointed Sept. 6 a missionary to the Karens, with the expectation that he would join the Karen Mission in 1842. Mr. Ira D. Blanchard, a licensed preacher and school-teacher, employed for several years on behalf of the Board by Mr. Lykins, was appointed an assistant missionary January 31, to labor at the Delaware station in the Shawanoe Mission, as heretofore. More recently, preparatory measures have been taken for the recognition of the Rev. Ramsay D. Potts, U. S. school-teacher at Providence, Choctaw Nation, as a missionary of this Board. It has also been resolved to appoint a preacher and school-teacher for the Putawatomie station, a female teacher for the Stockbridges or Mohegans connected with the Delaware station, and three preachers and a female teacher for the Greek Mission, a part of these to be stationed at Yannina, the capital of Albania,-so soon as the requisite means and persons shall be obtained. The Rev. Cephas Bennett and wife, returned missionaries, sailed from Boston for Maulmain Sept. 14, to resume their connexion with the Tavoy Mission. They were accompanied by Mr. J. H. Chandler, machinist and book-binder, and his wife, previously designated to the Maulmain Mission; also by Miss Vinton and the native assistant Avung. Other appointments have been deferred on account of the want of funds, or of satisfactory evidence of suitable qualifications in candi dates. The principles presented in the last Annual Report and approved by the Convention in regard to qualifications of missionaries, have been carefully adhered to by the Acting Board, and no one has been accepted as a missionary who, in addition to hopeful piety and reputed purity of motive and life, did not possess views of Christian doctrine consonant with those entertained by the Convention, or who failed to exhibit a good degree of adaptation to missionary service. 5. RELATIONS TO FORMER MISSIONARIES. The connexion of the Board with Mr. Royal B. Hancock, late printer at Tavoy, was closed Nov. 1, at his own request. It having appeared that the relation to the Board of the Rev. Isaac McCoy, formerly a missionary to the Indians, had not been sufficiently defined and understood, the Acting Board on the 17th of May directed the Foreign Secretary to insert in the Annual Report, then about to be printed, a "clear, kind, and respectful statement" of the supposed facts in the case. Such a statement was accordingly made. Subsequent inquiries led to a further consideraof the subject by a committee appointed for the purpose, who reported that they had discovered "no cause for any change in the decision of the Board touching his (Mr. McCoy's) relations to them;" and the report was accepted. At the close of 1841, Mr. Kincaid, late of Ava Mission, and Mr. Abbott, of Rangoon, having for a long time been debarred from revisiting their stations by the unsettled condition of Burmah Proper, and expecting to continue their labors at Akyab and Sandoway in Arracan, it was resolved that they be transferred to the Arracan Mission. The Ava and Rangoon Missions are therefore vacant. The Mission to the Creeks continues to be unoccupied; but a correspondence has been opened with the Rev. E. Jones, of the Cherokee Mission, relative to the practicability of its renewal. The missionaries and assistant missionaries to the several Indian tribes at and near Shawanoe, were constituted into a Mission Jan. 31, to be called the Shawanoe Mission, with authority to appoint a Corresponding Secretary and a Treasurer, through whom their transactions with the Board as a Mission might be conducted. The Foreign Secretary was instructed to communicate to the Shawanoe Mission the principles and rules adopted in reference to the Asiatic Missions, so far as might be necessary for their direction. The Asiatic Missions have each a Corresponding Secretary with requisite Committees, and measures are in progress for the appointment of a Treasurer in each, to facilitate the transmission of supplies At the close of the Report of the Board to the last Triennial Convention, extracts of communications from several of the Missions in Asia were subjoined, exhibiting some of the consequences of the reduction made the preceding year in their allowances for extra expenses. Exceedingly pained to compel the Missions to continue a system of retrenchment so disastrous, while their position and prospects were demanding a rapid extension of operations, the Acting Board, relying on the coöperation of the churches, appropriated in May an additional sum of $2000 for their temporary relief; and at a later period prepared and adopted, in view of the same considerations, a schedule of gross appropriations for the year ending Dec. 31, 1842, including the expenses of the Home Department, but irrespective of outfit and passage of missionaries, and exclusive of funds which might be received for Bible and tract appropriations, amounting to $66,100. The Board of Managers having instructed the Acting Board "to give immediate attention and distinct prominence to the subject of Indian schools," and "specially to secure to each individual whom they regard as a school-teacher, and who is reported as such to the U. S. Government, increased facilities for teaching a school as large a portion of every year as may be practicable," the state and claims of schools among the Indians came under the early consideration of the Acting Board, and such appropriations were voted, and provision made for the increased efficiency of the school department as lay within the ability bestowed by the churches, and were compatible with a due regard to the necessities of other branches of missionary work. It was supposed, however, that the instructions of the Board might have been partly based on a misconception of facts as to the expenditure for Indian schools in former years, and a careful review of those facts was caused to be made. The results of the examination are, that the gross expenditure on Indian Missions since 1826, when the Board was removed to Boston, is $131,888,56-exceeding the total receipts from Government for the same period by the sum of $59,704,38. Of this expenditure, $73,197,49 were applied to Indian schools, exceeding the appropriations from government for schools, received by this Board, by the sum of $19,667,74. It may be added, that measures are in progress for an early reinforcing of such of the Indian Missions as are most in need. Each Mission has passed or is passing in distinct review; and to one of the Missions, the Ojibwa on Lake Superior, of which sufficient information cannot be had by written correspondence, the Foreign Secretary has been directed to make a personal visitation. 8. PROTECTION AND VINDICATION OF MISSIONARIES. The measures adopted by the Board on behalf of the mission church at Hamburg, were detailed in the last Annual Report. Official notice of Mr. Oncken's release from prison was soon after received from Mr. Cuthbert, U. S. consul at Hamburg, to whose friendly offices the mission is much indebted. Since that time, Mr. Oncken has prosecuted his beneficent labors without serious molestation, and a generous sympathy appears to be extending in Hamburg and other parts of Germany in favor of religious freedom. The liberal policy of the king of Prussia is worthy of special mention, as evinced in the protection which he affords to the infant church at Berlin. In some districts of Germany, however, our native brethren have repeatedly been fined and imprisoned, and further measures may yet be found necessary to secure to them just and full toleration. In July a letter from Mr. Oncken suggested the desirableness of a delegation to Denmark on behalf of our persecuted Danish brethren; and after due consideration, the Rev. Barnas Sears was deputed to the service. President Sears having declined the appointment on account of his engagements at Newton Theological Institution, the Rev. Professor Horatio B. Hackett, of the same Institution, and then resident at Berlin, was requested to fulfil the service in his stead. Application was made at the same time to the United States Department of State for the interposition of Government in favor of the Mission so far as compatible with the principles of international intercourse, and the existing relations of the United States with Denmark and other foreign powers. Information has since been received of the liberation of the brethren Monster, after a twelve months imprisonment; but the ancient statute by authority of which they were first arrested is unrepealed, and proof has already been given that opportunities will not be neglected for its rigid enforcement. The missions to France and Greece have been free from governmental interference, with one or two petty exceptions in the former. The Greek Mission was in a highly prosperous state, so far as respected both the civil authorities and its social relations to the people, till near the close of last year; when, at Corfu, in consequence of the distribution of a few religious tracts on a feast day by Mr. Buel of that station, and the industrious circulation of certain slanderous reports, connected with a peculiarly critical conjuncture of time and other circumstances, a popular tumult suddenly broke out, which at one period threatened the extinction of the mission, and ultimately led, on the part both of the soldiery and the populace, to the loss of one or more lives. It is an occasion of devout acknowledgment that no missionary received personal injury, and that the direct pecuniary damage to the mission was comparatively of small account, being limited to the destruction of a school library, &c. It was deemed expedient, however, that Mr. Buel should retire from Corfu till the excitement should be quelled, and he accordingly sailed for Patras in a vessel kindly proffered by the Lord High Commissioner of the Ionian Islands, and from thence proceeded to Athens and Smyrna, and finally to Malta, where he now resides with his family. It is due to Mr. Buel and the other members of the Greek Mission to state in this connexion, that, from an investigation of numerous and abundantly satisfactory documents touching the unhappy affair, it appears that no blame attaches to him or them during its entire progress; but, on the contrary, their conduct was highly becoming their missionary character, while their circumstances of trial and danger claim our fraternal sympathy. We have also the satisfaction to express here our deep sense of the kindness of the Lord High Commissioner, by whose prompt and efficient interposition, seconded by other functionaries of the government and civilians, the mission was rescued from imminent peril, and a further destruction of mission property prevented.* Representations having appeared in one or more instances, disparaging the disinterestedness and economy of some of our missionary brethren in Asia, we take this opportunity to state that all insinuations of such import, so far as the knowledge of the Acting Board extends, are without worthy cause. It is also our happiness to believe that, both in the Asiatic and the other missions of the General Convention, the same sentiments of affection and confidence are felt by the missionaries towards the Board, which are cordially cherished by the Acting Board towards them. 9. PROMOTION OF MISSIONARY FEELING AND ACTION IN THE 1. CHURCHES.. Publications. At the meeting of the Acting Board at Baltimore, it was voted that 300 copies of the sermon delivered before the Convention be requested for gratuitous distribution. Of the Annual Report the number of copies printed, in addition to the June Magazine, was 1500. The Missionary Magazine is published monthly, numbering each 5,200 copies, 650 of which are distributed gratuitously. Having spoken at large, in former reports, of the importance of a wide circulation of this periodical, it needs. only to be remarked here, that arrangements have been effected by * The Lord High Commissioner speaking of these occurrences in his late speech at the opening of the Ionian Parliament, uses the following language:-"The advantages enjoyed under the rule of the law, afford matter of true congratulation to all the friends of good order. And here I would wish to pass over in silence the serious occurrences which lately disturbed our social harmony. But, in common with every friend of humanity, I am afflicted and grieved by them, and find myself obliged to express loudly my utter abhorrence of such acts, and of their guilty abettors. Yes, gentlemen, a peaceable and inoffensive foreigner has been publicly insulted the sanctity of his domestic asylum has been outraged by a mob of wicked And to their barbarous violence, a citizen of these States, and a soldier of Her Britannic Majesty, have fallen victims. But the constituted authorities will take care that the respectable population of this Island shall not be a second time exposed to a similar act of atrocity, committed in defiance of the laws, and in the face of the world." men. |