me what to say to him. I then addressed him thus; 'The subject to which God in his wisdom has now called your attention, is one of infinite importance. Your future and eternal happiness or misery depends upon the views which you now take of it. Were your prosperity only in this world suspended upon it, then it would not be of so great consequence; but when thousands and millions of years are past and gone, your present choice will fix your eternal lot.' 'O yes,' was his reply.

66

April 17th.-MAHOMED ALI returned this morning, apparently in great anguish of spirit; he had slept none during the night, so keenly did he feel the convictions of a wounded spirit. He sees no security for the immortal soul in the religion of ISLAM; and he had even ventured to tell his father, that he was afraid they could not overturn the reasonings of the English Mollas. I exhorted him to earnest and fervent prayer, that the LORD might enlighten his mind in the knowledge of the truth, and open his eyes that he might see, in their proper light, those things which are necessary for the salvation of his precious soul. I here produced an Arabic Tract, written by the late MR. BRUNTON of Karass. After reading a part of it, he said, 'Surely GOD has sent me this Tract; had I only received it some time ago, I would have torn it in pieces, but now I know better things. I am persuaded,' added he, the reason why the Persians do not see your reasonings in the same point of light that I do now, is because they care for none of these things, and consequently give themselves no trouble in reflecting upon them.' He was much affected with the history of SABAT and ABDALLAH: 'there must have been something divine,' said he, in that religion which supported the mind of ABDALLAH in the midst of so great sufferings. With what a look of compassion did he behold SABAT standing at a distance gazing upon his execution!' At this stage of the conversation we were warned that MR. BLYTH was prepared to take his departure from the Mission-house. 'I am sorry,' said he, 'that MR. BLYTH is going to leave us; he is a good man. I hope the LORD will be with him, and bring him safely to the place of his destination.' When we reached the Volga, MR. BLYTH took him aside, and exhorted him to cleave unto the LORD. I went across the river along with Mr. GLEN, to see Mr. BLYTH fully set out on his journey. On my return to the Mission-house, Dr. Ross informed me that MAHOMED ALI, instead of returning to the caravanserai with the other Persians who came to bid Mr. BLYTH farewell, had accompanied him to his study, where he had had a conversation with him on the great concerns of eternity.* He appears to be deeply concerned about the salvation of his soul. O that God would deepen conviction upon his mind!"

(To be Continued.)

*"Of this conversation, the following is a sketch.-Observing Mahomed Ali to be much affected by the departure of MR. BLYTH, as well as by the inward working of his soul, Dr. Ross remarked, that while painful feelings were excited

AN ADDRESS

Delivered at the anniversary meeting of the South-Carolina Conference Missionary Society, in Charleston, January, 1824, by the Rev. Stephen Olin.

· MR. PRESIDENT,

Ar the request of your Board of Managers, I rise to second my beloved brother who preceded me, in asking for an expression of your gratitude to the generous patrons of your society. Stranger as I am to your respected body, for this occasion first introduced me to your acquaintance, and to your cause, for it was but yesterday that I began to love the religion whose blessings you are labouring to diffuse, it were better perhaps, that I had declined their invitation altogether, and rendered back, that it might be committed to abler hands, an appointment which indeed calls forth my warmest thanks, but which far surpasses my highest faculties. But I thought, sir, that from this holiest cause upon which Christianity is expending its treasures and its prayers, I was not at liberty to withhold even my feeble assistance, that however, on other occasions, youth and inexperience might plead an apology, and diffidence become me well on the present, neutrality would be guilt, and silence treachery. I thought too, since your reliance is less upon human efforts than heavenly aid, it would minister encouragement to be assured that even the humblest believer commends your purpose, and prays for your success. rejoice to know that if your advocate is weak, your cause is strong. If the untutored hand which presumes to touch the ark shall tremble, the sacred repository of the Covenant and the manna, the abode of the glorious Shekinah shall still move securely and triumphantly on.

And I

by the separation which had just taken place between us and our Brother, yet our minds were supported, and even cheered, by that communion which we still enjoyed, as Christians united in one spirit, and by the assured prospect which we entertained of meeting again in glory, never to part. He replied, 'Mr. BLYTH took me apart at the river side, and said, "We shall see each other no more; but we shall meet again in heaven, if you believe in the SAVIOUR:" this went to my heart.' He then asked, 'Shall I meet with him there?' Dr. Ross replied, 'I do not know; there is only one true way of reaching that happy place, and if you do not go by that way, you shall never get there.' With a strong aspiration he said, 'If the LORD will, I shall meet him there.' Previous to Mr. BLYTH'S departure from the Mission-house, the Missionaries met in Mr. MITCHELL'S house, to commit him to the care and grace of GoD. MAHOMED ALI was present. During the whole of the service, he was deeply affected, and frequently sobbed aloud. He now inquired of Dr. Ross the nature of that service. Dr. Ross read to him the 121st Psalm, which had been sung; translated part of the forty-third chapter of Isaiah, which had been read; and gave a short explanation of the prayer which had been offered up. He was struck with them all; marked the chapter in Isaiah to read by himself, in the Arabic version which he had at home; (he at this time seemed particularly anxious to have either a Persic or Turkish Version of the writings of the Prophets;) and remarked, 'The Mohammedans, too, on these occasions, pray, but not like you; they speak with their lips, but their hearts are in their gardens and at the markets. After some further conversation he left DR. Ross, and called upon the German Missionaries. His heart was full. O that I had a place where I might retire and weep,' he exclaimed; and gave full vent to the feelings of his soul, by shedding a flood of tears."

There was a time, within the memory of many who hear me, when the defender of the Missionary cause had a most difficult part to perform-clad, as he might be, in all the preparation of learning, eloquence and piety. He indeed appealed to the believing soul with the cogency of resistless argument, but faith has never been the genius of mankind, and history furnished no authorities, and experience no facts, sufficient to convince a skeptical world. The force of the apostolic example was lost in the lapse of many centuries. What was enjoined by the Redeemer upon his primitive followers, was thought inapplicable to the circumstances of modern times, and the plainest declarations of the Bible, at least in one instance, exercised no controlling influence over the human understanding. It was in vain that the Missionary appealed, in vindication of his character and his conduct, to the law and to the testimony where it is written "I will give thee the heathen for thy inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for a possession," and to the gospel, where it is commanded, "go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature." It was in vain he contended that these were "words of truth and soberness," promises to be fulfilled and precepts to be obeyed, not the visions of enthusiasm, nor the mere pigments of imagination employed, in virtue of poetic licence, to round off a period and swell the glowing numbers of prophetic song. These reasonings, prevalent indeed with a humble few, to whom the gospel had proved "the power of God unto salvation," were lost upon the unbelieving multitude, for they were destitute of that spiritual sense to which alone such truths can successfully address themselves. The wise and the speculative deigned but a transient and a scorning glance to Missionary pretensions. Enough however they saw to call forth their contempt and their opposition. It was a wild and visionary scheme, an empty bubble, a nine days' wonder, just fitted to cater to the greedy appetite of fanatical credulity, destined perhaps to add another slumbering folio to the stupid legends of saintly vagaries, then to pass away and be forgotten, with Knight-errantry and the Crusades, and all the nameless follies which have disgraced the Church and disturbed the world. Against this mustered and sullen array of prejudice and ignorance and bigotry and sin, the earlier Missionaries, throwing themselves upon the resources of a "faith that works by love," rushed into the field of actual demonstration, to test their slandered theory in watchfulness, and toils, and sufferings. And besides the attainment of their holy purpose, the spread of the gospel and the salvation of souls, they have gained another point, collateral indeed, and inferior to the main object, but of singular importance to the future success of their cause. They have furnished weapons with which the weakest of their friends may fearlessly combat with the stoutest and the boldest of their foes. They have raised the trophies of their victory upon the falling prejudices of the world, and won an honourable

place, in the annals of the age, for the record of their doings. Our arguments, as the advocates of Missions, are no longer addressed exclusively to the faith of a Christian. They are all addressed to the reason of a man. Our appeal is no longer to promises, and

to the visions of prophecy, but to performance and the details of authentic history. In order to lead the disciple of a cautious philosophy into a willing subserviency to our benevolent purposes, we do not ask him to depart, by one iota, from all the strictness of his reasoning habits, nor, for a single moment, to depose his understanding from maintaining over the whole investigation, the dominion of a jealous and a watchful superintendence. We only ask him to remain true to his own admired masters, and apply to the subject of missions, those sober rules of judging by which he is guided in the pursuits of his own favourite sciences. As the enlightened philosopher would not attempt to establish the doctrines of Copernicus, by confuting, one by one, the puerile objections by which unlettered ignorance is persuaded that the earth is plane and not a globe, but by appealing directly to its frequent circumnavigation, its circular shadow and all the phenomena by which its sphericity is so conclusively demonstrated; so to these notable arguments against missions that "God made all nations and gave to them such religion as he pleased," that "the heathen are contented, and ought not to be disturbed, are prejudiced, and cannot be converted," that "without Christianity, Greece was polished, Rome powerful, and China populous." To these and the whole kindred host of objections, so well known at the present day, we pretend not to reply, either by denying truisms or by labouring to disprove what has no connexion with the subject. We only ask of our opposers to step a little aside from the bewildering mists of their speculations, to brush away the dust of controversy that obscures their vision, and then just to open both their eyes, and go along with us, not to hear what may be said, but to see what has been done. Our appeal is from slander and misconception and idle declamation, even to the very field of Missionary toil and the exploits of Missionary prowess; to Africa where the Hottentot believes, and the Caffrar prays; to Asia where the gospel utters its redeeming voice in thirty languages, and where the stubborn prejudices and grim idolatries of uncounted centuries, are melting away before the patience of Missionary labours and the fervency of Missionary zeal; to the islands of the Pacific where, in the energetic language of prophecy, a nation has been born in a day, kings and queens have become the nursing fathers and mothers of the church, and Christianity and civilization are shedding their consociated blessings upon regenerated thousands; to the Greenlander and the Esquimaux, once more savage than their own bleak hills and the cliffs on their ice-bound shores; now adorned with all the graceful lineaments of the gospel; to the West-Indies, where thirty thousand of the sons of Ham

are interceding with the God of justice in behalf of the guilty men who tore them from their native home and consigned them to bondage. Our appeal is to the islands of every sea and the inhabitants of every land; to the leaven of truth which is working its healing miracles in noiseless secrecy, and to those fields of moral beauty which from the dreary waste of surrounding sin, are every where sending up a fragrance grateful to rejoicing heaven, and, like the circlets on a summer's lake, when agitated by a falling shower, are extending their borders and enlarging their dimensions, till each shall be lost in one vast circumference of light and life that shall gird the earth around, and grasp, in its ample embrace, the universal family of man.

Such are the proofs on which we rely to vindicate the Missionary cause from the foul charge of extravagance and folly and worthlessness with which it has been aspersed; proofs so amazing and stupendous, that the mind is lost and overwhelmed in their contemplation. In kind our reasoning is precisely such as guided BACON, and NEWTON, and LOCKE in their inquiries, and planted the modern philosophy upon that solid foundation where it now reposes. Should any, regarding more the shade than the light of the picture, looking rather to what is still wanting, than to what is already accomplished, be dissatisfied, and think that near fifty thousand converts, made by the labours of less than five hundred Missionaries, is an insufficient result; we answer, that the friends of Missions do not plead their past successes as an apology for indolence and repose, but in justification of still larger anticipations and still mightier efforts. Their motto is that of a conquering hero who considers nothing finished whilst any thing remains to be done, and to day, they present themselves before a Christian public, to solicit from their charity, the means of advancing with accelerated energies, to the full accomplishment of their holy purposes.

But, sir, by a strange fatality that seems to hang over all our attempts to conciliate the regards of this caviling age, these very arguments, which we have alleged in defence of our cause, are perverted into topics of reproach and crimination. The ground of attack has been shifted, and we are no longer blamed for performing too little, but for attempting too much. The enemies of Missions, after having been demonstrated out of their skepticism by history and fact, are now seeking to hide their blushes and continue their hostility, under the whining forms of patriotism and philanthropy. What was formerly ridiculed as foolish is now denounced as expensive, and no sooner is it attempted to raise a few hundred dollars to build a cabin and pay a school-master to instruct the heathen, than the wise and prudent of this world are seized with alarming apprehensions of the poverty, which is about to overspread the land, and the national bankruptcy that must ensue from such ruinous drains of specie, and such thriftless in