suppose, it would cost to go and return from Worcester, and one dollar and fifty cents for one day's labor.

"And now, dear brother, I wish I had a thousand dollars to send you for this good cause, but I know that riches take away the heart, and, perhaps, if I had a thonsand dollars, I should not have a heart to devote it to the Lord. I think, therefore, it is best as it is. But the hearts of all men are in the hands of the Lord, and he can turn them as the rivers of water. How earnestly ought we, therefore, to pray for those who have abundance of this world's goods, that the Lord would take away the heart of stone, and give them a heart of flesh, that they may feel for the wants and woes of a world perishing in sin. I feel that I have not done so much for the foreign missionary cause, in time past, as I ought to have done, although I have felt an interest in it, ever since I had a hope in the Savior; and for the last twenty years have generally given about five dollars a year. This year I doubled my subscription, but I feel that that is not enough; and as one object of the meeting, I suppose, will be to obtain pledges for more enlarged effort, I purpose (if the Lord will,) to give, hereafter, fifty cents per week to the foreign mission cause, commencing on the first day of November, and paying a year's subscription when the year has half expired. Is it meet for the people of God at such a time as this to sit still, and to say, my Lord delayeth his coming? No, but rather let us feel that we, and all that we have, are the Lord's, and that he will shortly say to every one of us, Give an account of thy stewardship, for thou mayest be no longer steward.'"'

DEFICIENCY IN MISSIONARY ZEAL.

The several missionary fields occupied by the Baptists described, with a comparative view of the number of laborers sent to each from New England and elsewhere during the last thirty

years.

The missions of the Board in Asia are to Burmah Proper, Tenasserim, Arracan, Assam, the Teloogoos, Siam and China; embracing a population of 350,000,000.

To the first three of these, constituting formerly what was called the Burman empire, and embracing a population of, at least, 5,000,000 of souls, the attention of American Baptists was directed nearly thirty years ago. Mr. Judson arrived in Burmah in 1813, and in the following year he was adopted by the Baptist General Convention as their missionary. From that period to the present, the Burmans

and Karens have been our neighbors. A short interval excepted, nothing has interfered with the direct transmission of any amount of supplies in men or money from this land to the Burman coasts; and within the empire itself, including Tenasserim and Arracan, scope has been given for the application, to the fullest extent, of whatever missionary force we might have been disposed to employ. We have been distinctly apprized of these facts. We have known the ignorance, idolatry, and degradation of the Burman people; their number, and their dependence on American Baptists for the communication of the gospel; and the facilities for imparting the gospel to them. And at a very early day, both by implication and avowedly, we assumed the responsibility of this ministration.

This responsibility has not been worthily sustained. Something, it is true, has been accomplished. The entire word of God has been translated and published in the Burman language, with numerous religious tracts both in Burman and Karen; the Karen dialects have been reduced to a written form; the New Testament translated and in part published in the Sgau, and parts of the same in Pgho Karen, and in the Peguan language; schools have been established, and multitudes taught in the Scriptures; the gospel has been preached, thousands of the heathen converted, churches organized, and native teachers and preachers raised up; the missionaries have toiled to the utmost of their strength; and have filled their bosoms with sheaves. But the harvest has not been fully gathered in. The work was immeasurably too large for the number of laborers in the field: their importunate appeals for help were suffered to pass unheeded, except, that at distant intervals, a solitary individual was here and there sent to supply the place of the dead : and to this present hour, the number of laborers is utterly inadequate to the need.

Meanwhile, an entire generation of Burmans and Karens, amounting to 5,000,000, have gone to their last awards, without God and without hope in the only Savior of lost men.

The number of missionaries from New England, exclusively of female and other assistant missionaries, sent to the Burman empire, has been exceedingly small. Mr. Judson had been laboring four years in Burmah, when New England sent its first reinforcement, Messrs Colman and Wheelock, in 1817. These died; and the next solitary helper was sent in 1825,-Mr. Boardman, after a delay of eight years. During the next seven years we sent three missionary preachers, Mr. Mason and Mr. Jones in 1830, and Mr. Brown in 1832,

with two printers, Messrs. Cutter and Hancock; and within the last ten years we have sent five preachers, Messrs. Vinton, Ingalls, Haswell, Hall and Brayton, and one machinist, Mr. Chandler. The whole number of preachers sent by New England to Burmah during the last generation is twelve, or an average of one for every two and a half years. Four of these have died, and two have been employed in opening other missions. The whole number of preachers from New England now laboring among the Burmans and Karens, including Mr. Judson, is six, or one preacher to 840,000 souls the net results, in this department, of the efforts of New England Baptists for a period of thirty years, to evangelize the Burman empire.

Perhaps it will be thought that this paucity of laborers in Burmah has been owing to a disproportionate multiplication of missionaries to other pagan countries. On the contrary, while so little has been accomplished for the Burman empire, for others we have done less. Mr. Jones commenced the mission to Siam in 1833, and during the nine years of its existence has been laboriously employed, in translating the New Testament into Siamese, in the preparation and distribution of religious tracts, and in preaching the gospel and other appropriate duties; administering, so far as one individual might, to the spiritual necessities of 2,000,000 of people. But with the exception of a missionary printer and a few female assistants, Mr. Jones has no helper for the Siamese. Of preachers, New England has sent to his support not

one.

The Chinese department of the mission was commenced in 1835, in a dialect spoken by 150,000 in Siam. For these 150,000 New England sent one preacher, Mr. Goddard, in 1838. And Mr. Goddard is now laboring alone.

The mission to Assam was commenced by Messrs. Brown and Cutter in 1835-6. The Assamese part of the population numbers 700,000, and there is probably an equal number within the territory, who speak other dialects; making a total of nearly 1,500,000; a territory and population twice as great as in this Commonwealth. The missionaries have reduced some of the dialects to writing, and translated portions of the scriptures and tracts into Assamese and other languages. They have earnestly requested a reinforcement of twelve missionaries; New England sent them one preacher, Mr. Barker, in 1839.

To the Teloogoo Mission, established in 1836, among a people of 8 to 10.000,000, no missionary has been sent from New England. And to China, with its population of more than 300,000,000, none.

The proportion of preachers sent to other continents is essentially the same. The West African Mission was originated in 1819. Mr. Holton was sent from New England in 1825, Mr. Skinner in 1830, Mr. Crocker in 1835, Mr. Clarke in 1837, and Mr. Constantine in 1840; making an average of one preacher for every four years, for a heathen population of 120,000.

Missions to the Indians commenced in 1817. New England has furnished, in the course of twenty five years, five missionary preachers, towards the supply of these 100,000 heathen; two only of whom, Messrs. Pratt and F. Barker, are now laboring in the field.

To the European Missions, commenced in 1832, New England has also sent three missionaries; of whom one, Mr. Willard, still continues in the service. Since the organization of the General Convention, the entire number sent to all the missions, from the New England States, including also Mr. Judson, has been but twenty eight, scarcely one preacher a year: more than half of whom, during this long period, have been removed by death or other sufficient cause. Of these twenty eight, Massachusetts has furnished ten, Vermont seven, Connecticut five, Maine three, New Hampshire one, and Rhode Island one. During the last two years the number of missionary preachers from all New England has been not one.

It cannot be urged that the fewness of missionary preachers from New England has arisen from the fact that an adequate supply has been furnished from other parts of our confederacy.

The Baptists of these United States, exclusive of New England, furnished for the conversion of the heathen, during the fifteen years next succeeding the organization of the Convention, thirteen preachers for the Indians, four for West Africa, and three, including one printer, for Asia. Of these twenty, there only remained in the beginning of 1830, by reason of death or otherwise, one preacher in Asia, none in West Africa, and four among the Indians; total, for all the missions, five. During the last thirteen years, the supply has been greater and the removals fewer; but in 1836 the whole number of preachers connected with all the missions, including those from New England, was only thirty six, and in 1842 but forty five. Of these forty five preachers, twelve were among the Indian tribes, three in Europe, three in West Africa, and twenty eight for the 350,000,000 connected with our missions in Asia.

Nor has this deficiency of preachers in the foreign service, from Baptist churches,

been compensated by a superabundant sup- | males, the prevalence of oppression and

ply from other christian denominations.
Apart from those countries for whose chris-
tianization we labor in common with other
evangelical Christians, the nations and
tribes whom Divine Providence has pre-
sented to the special regard of American
Baptists, and who have depended and are
depending almost exclusively on us for the
knowledge of the only Savior of men, em-
brace a population of at least 15,000,000
of souls. The Burmans and Karens and
other tribes of Burmah and Arracan, the
Assamese and others of Assam, the Te-
loogoos in Southern India, and the Bassas,
in West Africa, have been consigned to
our sympathies and charities as if by the
general consent of Christendom; scarcely a
solitary laborer of any other christian de-
nomination participating with us in the
ministry of the gospel to these nations.
Are these 15,000,000 supplied by ten
preachers? or, if we include all that are now
laboring for their salvation from all the
churches of our country, are they ade-
quately supplied by twenty three preach-

ers?

It is a truth ascer-
violence, and the fearful expectation of
greater evils to come.
tained that "the dark places of the earth
are full of the habitations of cruelty," and
that the heathen, wherever found, are es-
sentially of one family and one caste, “be-
ing filled with all unrighteousness,” “ha-
ters of God," "without understanding,
without natural affection," "implacable,
unmerciful.”

It is equally an ascertained fact, that upon all these millions of heathen the influence of the gospel may be brought to bear. Their languages are susceptible of reduction and acquisition, and can be made to express justly the truths of the scriptures. The attention of the people can be secured, their confidence won, their understandings enlightened and strengthened, their consciences roused. Their systems of false philosophy and idolatry may be put to shame, and the foundations thereof destroyed. Their children may be rescued from death, and abuse worse than death, and generations be trained up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.

Do the Baptists of New England It was the lot of our earliest missionfind sufficient justification for sending but ten preachers to these millions, in the dis- aries to struggle with privations, and sickcovery that with the aid of other parts of nesses, and barbarities unknown in chrisour country the average of supply has been tian lands, and unalleviated by human raised to one preacher for 650,000 souls? sympathy. The narrative of their sufferBut their How then shall we account for this pau- ings and constancy, even unto death, seems city of laborers for the missionary service? now almost past credence. Is it because new developments have been strength was as their day. In later years, made of the nature of the missionary work? apart from the peculiarities of climate,-in Have the representations of the ignorance, all that concerns domestic comfort, and debasement, wickedness and misery of the freedom, and safety of person and life, paheathen been found to be overdrawn? gan and christian lands are brought more The rough places have Has it proved to be impracticable at any nearly to a level. point to obtain admission, and a hearing of become plain. Political power, commerthe word? Have the languages of the hea- cial interest, intelligence, incipient refinethen defied analysis and acquisition? Or ment, and christianity, diffuse their influhave the deprivations and hardships of mis-ences round every mission compound and sionary life transcended the apprehensions of those who have embarked in it; and are they esteemed too costly a price for the ends that have been attained? Have the features of the enterprise become repulsive, because more nearly brought to view, and more distinctly discerned?

The facts are far otherwise. What was matter of faith or of inference, is now the record of eye-witnesses. Missionaries have gone

into the midst of the heathen; have seen them on the highways, and in their fields, and in their workshops; have entered their houses and their temples; have attended their feasts and processions, their revelries and their idol-worship; and have handled their gods of wood and stone. They have seen the unutterable corruptions of heathen society, its destitution of truth, virtue and humanity, the degradation of fe

solitary zayat, and protect and cheer the missionary in all his journeyings in the jungle, and "beside all waters."

Is the fewness of the candidates for missionary appointinent owing to the character and proceedings of those already engaged in the service? Have they not done honor to the missionary profession? Have the missionaries grown weary and sick of their employments, or have they been disheartened, and sent back to us an evil report? Who then are the missionaries? and what their individual character and manner of life?

It is true, they are but men, "subject to like passions and infirmities with us." They are men, too, of various temperament, discipline, acquirements, and capabilities; placed in conditions of untried and ever-changing and perplexing difficulty;