and the dew of our youthful ardour fell on them; and, as the "course of true love never did run smooth," so our bosoms have known what it has been to feel the contending emotions of hope and fear, gladness and sorrow, holy joy and indignant grief. We have exulted with rapture, and wept tears of bitter anguish. Oh Tahiti! thou hast been to us as a dove with wings covered with silver, and her feathers with yellow gold. And gladly would we have sheltered thee, as a hen sheltereth her chickens under her wings, when the rapacious eagle swooped to make thee her prey. But there is hope concerning thee! Will not our dove yet return and bring us back the olive branch, newly plucked, to indicate that the waters are assuaged, and that the land is again beginning to bloom and blossom, and send forth her fragrance? Have we not that branch in the statements made in the Report of this day? Seven hundred copies of the Revised Edition of the Scriptures have been sold in Tahiti alone; 2807. have already been paid to the British and Foreign Bible Society, as the product of that sale. Who does not hear, in that event, a voice exclaiming, "Thus saith the Lord, Refrain thy voice from weeping, and thine eyes from tears, for thy work shall be rewarded, saith the Lord;" and there is hope in thy end, that thy children shall come again to their own border !

Proceed we now to Africa; and, which of the nations of Europe is not a debtor to thee; and, of those nations, which more than ourselves? Many of our luxuries have been obtained by the sweat of thy brow-much of our wealth has been corroded by thy blood. Which of thy trackless wastes might not have been traversed by the line of bones that marked the dreary path which thy children trod, when torn away from home, from kindred, and from country, to pine under the lash and the load of the oppressor? Which of thy arid sands has not been steeped with thy tears and with thy blood? We have verily been guilty concerning our brother. We owe thee much, and we have been attempting to pay thee somewhat of what we owe. We will strive still further to heal the wounds which we have made, and to pour the oil of gladness into thy bleeding heart. Thou shall yet have beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness.

After referring to the past history and present state of the Missions of the Society in the West Indies, Mr. Hill thus continued:-We are next brought, in the order of

the Report, to China. But my spirit well nigh faints when I think of that vast country. A third of the human family is congregated there. Each of these possesses an immortal mind-a mind capable of knowing, loving, and serving God-capable of bearing His moral image, and reflecting His moral likeness. What noble materials! And yet they all lie waste;

materials, on every fragment of which may be seen traces of a Divine hand, but marred, obliterated, and almost effaced. What a spectacle for an angel's mind to gaze upon. More than three hundred millions of human beings, amongst whom is not one that does homage to the God that made it. What a harvest of immortal souls, but all ungathered for lack of labourers!-a harvest wasted, and trodden down by the polluted hoof of superstition and crime. What a sea of immortal mind! In looking across it, and observing it rolling, weltering, surging in the billows of its own corrupt inclinations, one almost feels as we may suppose Noah felt when he first lifted up the window of the ark and saw sea everywhere, and everywhere sea; and we can suppose him saying to himself, Is it possible that the earth can ever again be the residence of man? What is impossible with man is possible with God. And again he opened the window of the ark, and the mountain-tops had begun to appear, and to lift their bare bosoms to the skies. Presently the slopes of the hills are covered with verdure, the world's winter is passed, the rain is over and gone, the turtle dove is heard in the valley, and the time of the singing of birds is come. Is anything too hard for the Lord? Cannot He, who reneweth the face of the earth, cause even China to emerge from her moral deluge, and, as she rises, present an aspect beautiful as the garden of the Lord? Then shall there be,-for a watery waste, a fertile soil; for the works of the flesh, the fruits of the Spirit, genuine faith and inward purity-the animation of hope, and the ardour of love-an enlightened understanding and a peaceful conscience-devotedness to God as a Sovereign, and intimacy with him as a Father-the abasement of lofty principles, and the mortification of carnal appetites-death unto sin, and life unto holiness. The Report closes with India; and who, at all acquainted with its history, does not feel his imagination filled and fired by the theme? What a battle-field for truth! What trophies are there to be won! not of carnage and of slaughter,-not of rivers stained with blood, and choked with the dead,-not of magazines bursting with the destructive violence of a

volcano in the midst of her crowded cities, but trophies of light and of love, of mental joy and heavenly freedom.

The Rev. Dr. CUMMING, in seconding the Resolution, said :-You, my Lord Duke, have remarked-and the remark, I am sure, must have interested every individual in this assembly-on the connexion between Home and Foreign Missionary labour. I have examined the lists of contributions to both, and I find that those who have given the highest donations to the latter, are the most munificent supporters of the former. I find that, like the twins of Hippocrates, Home and Foreign Missions flourish or expire together: they are inseparable; and where the heart has been touched by Divine grace, both will be prized. If you take a pebble and cast it into the centre of a placid lake, the impression will be deepest where it falls, but it will send out concentric circles till the utmost margin is reached. Thus it comes to pass, that he who has the deepest interest in Home Missionary exertions, will do most for Foreign Missionary Evangelism. I regret, in common with your Grace, the loss of a place of worship, in which a Minister of the Church of England has statedly preached for this Society. Your Grace remarked, that the respected Diocesan had felt it to be his conscientious duty thus to act; but it is right to tell a Bishop, as well as a Presbyter, that he may be conscientiously wrong as well as conscientiously right. You have lost a chapel in Gray's-inn-road for the advocacy of your missions, but Asia is open; Africa, with its broad and burning fields, is open; India's plains are open; the whole world is open to the London Missionary Society. I have the misfortune to differ from some of my brethren around me. I believe in Established Churches-I am a minister and a member of one myself. It is one of the minor details on which we differ. I be lieve, however, that the hour of their existence is stated and recorded where it cannot be erased. Much as I love my own dear Church, yet I feel that the hour is on the wing when it shall share in the common crash; and, during the little day that remains, Establishments might afford to be generous. Let me then say, as you have lost the Established Church of England, Come and try mine. Dr. Stevens, one of my predecessors, was one of the Founders of the Society, and it obtained from the Church under his charge munificent support. If you will take the same day that you lost in Gray's-innroad, and come to Drury-lane, I will do my

best to advocate your cause, and I think you will obtain as good a collection in the latter as in the former, any day. I believe that all Churches are going through a new ordeal. We live in an age of tests; and, depend upon it, the best Church will be found, not to be that which can trace its pedigree with the greatest minuteness, but that which does God's work in God's way,-in God's name for God's glory,-and for the spread of truth. What is the best machine? The machine which does most work with the least noise. What is the best corn-field? That which grows the best corn with the least trouble. What is the best Church? The Church which preaches most faithfully the Gospel, and shows that it values it by spreading it with the greatest devotedness. Let me appeal to any one in the assembly as to the best vessel out of which to drink water. Is it not the one that gives it the least flavour? What, then, is the best Church? Certainly that which conveys the living water of the living God with the least of its own idiosyncracy. Let me refer to an ancient and a scriptural case:

The Israelites were dying in the wilderness, and you remember that the prescription of God was, that a serpent of brass should be raised on a pole; and it came to pass that whosoever looked upon the brass was restored to perfect health. That pole typifies the Christian Minister; the brass typifies the Saviour, who said, "As Moses lifted up the brazen serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life." Now, suppose some old conscientious crotchetty Israelite, lying in the wilderness serpent-bitten, was anxious to be healed; and suppose he said to Moses, "That serpent, you tell me, will cure me if I look to it, but it stands on a pole: now, if you, Moses! will show me the genealogical and botanical succession of that pole; if you will only demonstrate to me that that pole is the chip of a tree that grew 100 years ago, which was a shoot from one that grew before the flood, and which last was a shoot from one that grew in Paradise before Adam fell, then I will look at the brass;" Moses would have replied, "You are most conscientious, but if you will make the experiment you will live, whether you can trace the botanical succession of the pole or not." So I say of those Missionaries whom you send to foreign lands: the virtue is not in the men, but in the message; the power is in the Gos

pel, not in the lips that preach it; and I care not whether that glorious Gospel be preached by a Wesleyan or a Presbyterian, a Congregationalist or an Episcopalian, let it be preached in its glory and fulness; and may God bless the messenger and seal his truth!

I rejoice at that allusion in the Report, to the success of your schools in India. I am a great advocate of schools. I look upon Education in India, England, and Scotland, as most important. These infant minds are either seed-corn, sown to-day, that will burst into a harvest, and reflect a nation's gratitude; or they are the gunpowder trains that lie dead and dark till the spark struck from Revolution touches them, and they will then explode the firmest foundations of the world. Educate at home and abroad! Attach to Christian Education an emphasis and weight such as never attached to it before!

The Report led us back to the days when the Society was founded-a little more than fifty years ago, when there was scarcely a Missionary Society in Christendom. The angel of the everlasting Gospel had folded his wings for a thousand years, and only then began to spread them; and remarkable it is that the Missionary Societies all had their birth amidst the storms of 1792; and, if I am to judge from the Report of to-day, and those of other Missionary Institutions, I believe they have renewed their strength amid the storms and convulsions of 1848. It is interesting to notice that, amongst the first of the Institutions that started into being, was the Baptist Mission, then the London, the Wesleyan, the Scotch, and the Church Missionary, Societies. These Missionary Societies came in succession, like bridesmaids making ready for the bridegroom, or like the successive peaks of the Alps, or the Apennines, each touched with the beams of the rising sun, and each Society, in succession, coming under its blessed influence. I have read, with great delight, the beautiful testimony of Wilberforce, when he stood in the House of Commons: "I do not know a finer instance of the morally sublime, than that a poor cobbler, Dr. Carey, working all day in a stall, should have conceived the magnificent idea of converting the world. Milton, planning Paradise Lost, was not a nobler spectacle than Carey, planning the conversion of the heathen." It is the moral that is grand-the material becomes pale and invisible beside it. That poor cobbler, planning the conversion of the heathen, was a spectacle which angels from their starry thrones paused to behold, and praised with

adoring gratitude, whilst monarchs upon the field of battle, or sitting triumphantly on thrones, were objects passed by or disregarded. And what has been the result of that cobbler's first conception? Our Missionaries are now in the Isles of the Pacific: they are seen in the cinnamon groves of Ceylon, and amid the plague-smitten atmosphere of Turkey. The Gospel is preached to the Arab in his tentto the Cossack in his forest; and it is becoming every day more and more true that, wherever the power of Great Britain is felt, mankind are beginning to feel her mercy too; and more than ever we can anticipate the fulfilment of the words of that beautiful hymn

"Arabia's desert ranger

To Him shall bow the knee,
And Ethiopian stranger
His glory come and see.
With anthems of devotion,
Ships from the isles shall meet,
And pour the wealth of ocean
In tribute at His feet;

For He shall have dominion
O'er river, sea, and shore,
Far as the eagle's pinion

Or dove's light wing can soar."

I see, in the past victories of Christianity, augurs of its future triumph. It came with only twelve fishermen, by the banks of Galilee, to preach it. It encountered the prejudices of the ignorant, the passions of the depraved, the eloquence of gifted men, the power and resources of royal men,-and it moved through them all. It never advanced, but to victory; it never retreated, but to cover that retreat with greater glory than the advance. It made martyrs in the shops of Rome, confessors in its palaces; and the past history of Christianity has confirmed this glorious fact, that no patronage can build up a lie, and no fires can burn out the truth of God. I be lieve we have a token, from what is going on in the world, of what is soon to be the triumph of Christianity. The progress that Missionary Societies have been making is very striking. I find that, thirty years ago, Missionaries were barely tolerated in India. In 1792 the income of the Baptist Missionary Society was exceedingly small. Andrew Fuller hoped it might gain 50007. a-year-it has reached 26,0007. The London Missionary Society, I find by the statement of Dr. Bogue, had, about its commencement, the annual income of 50007., and Dr. Bogue hoped to see the day when it would reach 20,000. It has now reached 64,0007. I see, therefore, in this progress, the earnest of a result which we anticipate with delight, when

Let not the Society be discouraged-you were much discouraged when I spoke two years ago. I see you have left the minor, and taken the major key. I am glad to see that your faces are more radiant, and to hear your Report expressing greater hope. Do not be discouraged by anything that has happened. We want only to be combined-to unite the Irishman's glowing enthusiasm, the Englishman's pure light, and the Scotchman's indomitable perseverance,-and then we know we have God with us; and if God be for us, who can be against us? We need trials. Societies, like individuals, need to be sometimes under the cloud. Bright meridian beams are too hot to be borne always-we need a little shade or occasional cloud. I have noticed, that, in trial, a Church or a Society always does the noblest things. I was reading, the other day, a statement which will shew what I mean. In a voyage to the north, the sailors caught a bird called the albatross. The narrator states, that when this bird was placed on the smooth deck of the ship, and left at liberty, owing to the smoothness of the deck it was unable to spread its wings one of the sailors, who loved liberty, flung it overboard, close to the ship, and it instantly spread its wings, and soared to its own glorious realms unhurt and undismayed.

:

It is the same with religious Institutions: when in prosperity they have a smooth surface-they begin to like the bed on which prosperity has placed them. God's hand comes through clouds, flings them from the nest in which they were lying, and then they begin to spread their wings and take a bolder and more glorious flight. What we want in this great cause is firm principle. Sentiment will not sustain you. The Missionary Moffat and the Missionary Williams are men who found that sentiment, and a sofa, and a drawing-room, would not do for Africa and Tahiti. A religion of mere emotion will not suit you. You must have wept tears as you heard, in the Report, of the cruelties perpetrated by the heathen; and, if the victims were within your reach, you would stretch forth your hand to deliver them. But when we begin in the Mission-house to enter upon the mechanics of our operations, then the religion of emotion dries up with the tears by which it was expressed. Nor will the religion of mere sympathy do. The religion we want is the religion of principle: we want men whose minds are made up that it is our duty to evangelise

thick and thin-men that will be bending like the willow in things indifferent, but rooted like the oak, because duty and fixity of principle sustain and animate them. And let us anticipate that day, which is no speculation, when the scimitar shall no more be waved; when the tiara shall be buried in the depths of the flame that consumes its wearer and advocates; when persecution shall not breathe at Exeter, Rome, or Spain; when God shall make a new Genesis pass over the length and breadth of the world; when all scenes shall be light-all sounds harmony; when men shall love nothing but truth, do nothing but duty, and feel that the highest sacrifice is the highest glory to God as well as the strongest expression of good-will to men.

The Noble CHAIRMAN, in rising to submit the Resolution, said, he regretted that circumstances compelled him to retire from the meeting, but he was happy to know that he should be succeeded by a gentleman who took a deep interest in the Society.

The Resolution having been put and carried, the Noble Duke retired amidst the cordial acclamations of the assembly, and was succeeded in his office by Sir CULLING EARDLEY EARDLEY.

The Rev. T. R. BROOK (Rector of Avening) said :—I regard it is a symptom and an evi. dence of a great and blessed fact, that an allusion to the circumstance which prevented my advocating this Society in another place, and my perfect willingness to advocate it here, was received in the way it was, because I feel that, in a vast meeting like this, composed, as I conceive it necessarily is, to a very large extent, of Nonconformists-it is an evidence that there exists in the Christian public of this great community, outside the peculiar Church to which I belong, an open and will. ing heart to receive Christian brethren from whom they differ; and, amidst any discouragements which some may throw in the way, are yet willing to look at the great truth, that we ought to be one in the service of our God and Saviour. Without further introduction, I will lay before the meeting the Resolution with which I have been charged :—

"That this meeting, deeply impressed by the de

graded and awful condition of the yet unenlightened

tribes of Polynesia, and by the wonderful facilities presented by Divine Frovidence for the introduction of Christianity to the idolatrous millions of the East; animated also by the conviction, that the Gospel of Christ, attended by His gracious sanction, is the appointed and the only effective means for the elevation and redemption of man under every sort of Pa

If God permits a scene like this to be one of much spiritual advancement to Christians in this place; nay, if he suffers us to be gratified by the talents of our brethren, I conceive that we must never forget that, at the same time, he imposes upon us, by such opportunities as these, increased responsibility. The Resolution in my hand affirms, if this meeting pass it, as I anticipate it will unanimously, two great truths-first, that the Gospel is the one appointed effective means for lifting from the millions of paganism the dark veil beneath which myriads are passing into an eternal state; and secondly, it declares that the details of the interesting Report which we have heard, imposes upon the Christian community an increase of exertion, and an increase of liberality. It affirms that the Gospel is the one appointed means of spreading the knowledge of Christ. It is no Church system-however good -however we may prefer it—it is the Gospel, and the Gospel alone, which can awake the heathen, and add them to the members of the universal Church of Christ. That is indeed, as the Resolution truly says, the appointed way that is the effective means; for through out some eighteen or nineteen centuries, God bas evinced that it is the means he has used, and is using, for the conversion of mankind.

However well, however judiciously, how. ever eloquently the hindrance which has been thrown in the way of this Society lately, has been adverted to already, both by our late Noble Chairman, and by my eloquent Christian brother who has just sat down, I conceive that I should hardly be doing my duty, under the peculiar circumstances in which I stand at this moment, unless I were to make some allusion to that subject. If it be wrong for me to plead for other Missionary Societies than my own, and that even while I give-as is natural to every one-to my own, my chief support, then it can only be because the Gospel is not attended with the sanction of God, and is not the effective means for the elevation and salvation of mankind, unless it is preached in connection with some peculiar organisation. Now this is not the place, and if it were, this is not the time, to discuss either the philosophical or the evangelical bearing of this question; but how can I, how can any Christian, be unfaithful to the cause of Christ in plead

ing for a Society, through the instrumentality of which the Spirit of God has been pleased to work by a Williams, and to give it the first fruits of Polynesia? When I consider the preaching of the Gospel as God's method of saving men, and while I know that my own Church, and every other Christian knows that his Church, can never meet the wants of this dark world, how can I bind up my sympathies to one single system? Can I believe that I ought to shut up my love when I see other Christian brethren ready and willing also to work for God in this greatly honoured field?

But there is also an important matter, which this great meeting ought to take into consideration, before it passes this Resolution. However much the Christian public may have done for this work of God, they have not accomplished yet a tithe of their labour; where, I ask, where are we to find the increased exertion and the increased liberality? Permit me, with the greatest deference, to say, that I believe, if this country is ever to advance as it ought to do in the work of Missions, it must be by a change in our method of working these Societies, and that that change consists in this,-that we must have more of prayer to God. I believe it is thus, and thus alone, that we can meet the calls which the Directors of this Society make upon us. I would, therefore, most earnestly recommend this Resolution to the meeting, entreating them to pass it, and to carry it out in the spirit of fervent prayer.

The Rev. Dr. ROBSON, in seconding the Resolution, said: I must begin by expressing the gratification I feel at being present this day at the anniversary meeting of the London Missionary Society. I feel my own spirit to be refreshed by the eloquent addresses to which I have listened, and which are so much calculated to produce that state of mind that would send us forth to carry on the noble enterprise in which we are engaged, with increased humility, increased dependence, and more fervent prayer. The Resolution, which I have the honour of seconding, pledges the meeting to renewed zeal; and I trust that the meeting will bear in mind a statement which has already been made, that you must not pass the Resolution, and think that you have done with it, but must embody it in your daily lives. I often feel self-reproach at my own coldness and indifference in reference to the cause of Missions; for it is the only cause for which, in point of fact, it is worth living. What is the object of our being sent into this world? What is the great duty that God calls