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Missionary Observer.

ANNUAL MEETING OF THE FOREIGN MISSIONARY SOCIETY.

THE above meeting was held in the Belvoir Street Chapel (kindly lent for the occasion) on the evening of Wednesday, June 22nd.

GEORGE STEVENSON, Esq., Mayor of Leicester, presided. He alluded to the fact of this being the Centenary Year of the Denomination, and to the large amount of good that had resulted from its labours both in England and Orissa. Although numerically small, their distinctive principles had permeated other religious communities in this country, while in India vast masses of the people were being awakened to a conception of those great fundamental doctrines, the Fatherhood of God, and the Brotherhood of man, than which no doctrines were more descriptive of their common christianity.

The REV. J. C. PIKE, read an abstract of the Report; and the Treasurer, Mr. THOMAS HILL, gave a statement of the receipts and expenditure of the Society during the past year.

The Rev. W. SAMPSON, of Folkestone, (formerly missionary at Serampore) then addressed the meeting. He was very glad to be there at the annual meeting of the General Baptist Mission to show his sympathy with them in their work, and his sympathy and thorough confidence with the men whom they had sent out to Orissa. He had had the pleasure of meeting in India several of those brethren; for the station he was privileged to labour at was very convenient for the brethren of other bodies to call and see them. They were always pleased to meet brethren of another denomination, though he did not know why he should call them (the General Baptists) another denomination. He remembered his friend, the Rev. Mr. Stubbins, coming to see him and preaching at the mission chapel at Serampore; and though he and his colleagues listened they could not detect anything but the most thorough orthodoxy, and just the same doctrines that they preached themselves. The report he had heard read had given him great pleasure; it was quite on a par with the reports of preceding years. By the

courtesy of the Secretary he had been enabled to peruse the reports of the three past years, and he thanked God they were enabled to send forth such reports. He had been asked to move the following resolution :

"That the Report, an abstract of which has been read, be received and printed under the direction of the Committee. That the meeting rejoice in the tokens of the Divine favour enjoyed by the Society in the past year, and recognize the urgent necessity, in the present enfeebled state of the Society, for additional missionaries to be sent out at the earliest possible period."

He had been requested to say a word or two as to the urgent necessity of sending out additional labourers to India. When he heard that report it seemed to take away from him all he wished to say. What more could they want than the bare facts of that report to induce them to do what they could to supply the great lack of labourers in that country? Four European missionaries in that part of the district which they had under their especial care! And how many people thought they there were there? Four millions! What more did they want to make them determine that, in the strength of God, they would supply the lack of service in that land. He reminded them of the Saviour's words when He saw the people scattered as sheep having no shepherd; His divine heart was touched, and turning to His disciples He said, "The harvest truly is plenteous, but the labourers are few; pray ye, therefore, the Lord of the harvest that He will send forth labourers into His harvest." It seemed to Him that the spirit of the words of Christ was caught in that resolution. It was their duty to listen to their Master, and to exert themselves that labourers might be sent forth. What should be the result of that appeal which their Secretary had made to them? They had heard with what joy the news had been received in India that their brother, the Rev. W. Bailey, was going out in August, perhaps accompanied by another missionary, and the answer received from Mr. Buckley, "He rejoiced to hear it, and hoped he should not be disappointed." He wondered whether similar hopes had been excited in his heart before, and had

been disappointed, that caused him to send such a message? It seemed to him that it rested very much with that meeting whether that brother would be disappointed or not. Was any young man present ready to start to his feet and say, That brother shall not be disappointed ? Would to God many young men would hear that thrilling appeal made in the words of the report, and that they would deluge the Society's Committee room with applications to send them forth in the name of the Lord! If the Committee had not the funds to send them forth, never mind-apply to them notwithstanding, and let them go to their churches and say, "Here are twelve or twenty young men wanting to go forth and we are unable to send them from lack of funds." That would be a most potent argument and most effectual appeal to the liberality of the churches. They could not send men forth for nothing, and they could not keep them for nothing: they had bodies that wanted to be fed and clothed, and if they did forsooth want to have the comfort of a wife with them, let them have it. Let no man at home stand between a missionary and his wife. He would not detain them long, but there were one or two things he should like to say in reference to some of the questions that have been before the public mind in connection with missions for some time past. So far as the results of missions were concerned, he thought, comparing the immense difficulties in the way with the few labourers they had engaged to do the work, they had no cause in any part of the field in India to hang down their heads and be discouraged at the lack of results. He was astonished when he brought the two together, and then thought what they had done, and the amount of success God had vouchsafed to them. He would advise every one who wished to have an insight into the real work of missions in India, carefully to study Sir Bartle Frere's essay on The Church and the Age." Bartle Frere, as they all knew, had been many years in India, and his whole public life stood very high, not as a missionary, but as a layman. He had been brought in contact with an immense number of men from his official position, and he knew a very great deal about the mental and physical position of the people in that part of India in which he

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had been; and his testimony was thisthat through the direct and indirect missionary efforts, the whole continent of India is being revolutionized. He thought Sir B. Frere took even a more hopeful view of the present condition of things in India than many missionaries did. He commended his remarks to their very earnest attention. In reference to the work of the missions, so far as their enemies were concerned, they expected to be misrepresented and misunderstood; but he must confess he had been compelled to feel that many of the friends of missions did not know what had been done, and were not aware of the results of mission work in India. They must expect to have the whole of their work in the mission field passed under review, and he was quite sure he might speak for the brethren actually engaged in the work, and that they shrank from no investigation, however rigid it might be: he was convinced that the more thorough and honest that investigation might be, the better pleased they would be with the results. They heard complaints sometimes that their missionaries had not the dash they formerly had, but missions could not be carried on by a succession of dashes. The common sense estimate of the position would be that they had arrived at that stage when, in the words of the report, steady progress would characterize their proceedings, instead of excited and uncertain efforts. When missionaries first went to Orissa, they opened up new fields and new territories, and their intercourse with the people was beset with immense obstacles, accounts of which interested and excited people at home. But their brethren went there now, and found that a great many of the obstacles had been removed and a great many of the difficulties overcome, and they had to go on in a very much more jog trot, steady way than the pioneers of the missions did. And it was one of the results of the missions that some of the difficulties having being swept out of the way, those who followed after had not the exciting incidents to record, but only the steady plodding every-day work. Look at that beautiful place of worship! When the pastor came there many years ago it was not in existence, and its erection subsequently, created a great stir in Leicester. Suppose his successor-and God grant it

Annual Meeting of the Foreign Missionary Society.

might be long before a successor was needed - was to come and complain there was not the same amount of ex. citement and eclat-that he could not preach in that place, but would build himself another; would they not think there was something for the successor of the present pastor to do in keeping together the congregation he had gathered, and leading them onward as the Spirit led him, so that he might be a mighty influence for good in that important town? If he could not speak of the excitement incident to the erection of a grand place of worship, he might be able to say that by honest plodding persevering work, he kept together the men and women who before his coming were gathered together by the pastor. That illustrated the present position of their missions. It seemed to him that they were settling down to calm steady work, and from the altered condition of things, there could not be just the same excitement as in former years. When he heard men talk of the little heroism exhibited in the mission field now, he felt so deeply that he could scarcely speak about it. There were heroes in that field now; men, perhaps, of whom the world knows little, and of whom they heard but little; but their names were written on high. He heard from a brother missionary the other day, who said his sight was getting very bad, and he feared that in a short time he should be blind, and yet what was that man doing? He was commencing a work that would tax his eyesight for seven or eight hours day by day throughout the year. Was not that heroism? It was something for which to be thankful that they had such men to do the work. Most of their brethren there might go to secular employment, and do half the work they did, and treble or quadruple their incomes, but they did not do it, and plodded on with their incomes, large though they seemed to them at home, yet scanty enough there. He hoped the churches would not be questioned whether a missionary could live for £20 or £30 less than he had. If they sent men out, let them sustain them as well as they could; it was the cheapest policy to sustain men well when there. Questions arose sometimes about the deficiency in preaching of their missionaries, but the brethren connected with the two Baptist bodies were noted for giving their time to what was

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called the direct preaching of the Word of God; but he thought men might be engaged sometimes in other work with great advantage, in illustration of which opinion he pointed to the labours of Knibb, in his efforts to secure the emancipation of the slaves, and to the labours of Dr. Duff at Calcutta-a man of ripe scholarship, who consecrated his talents to the teaching and training of young men for the work of Christ. He concluded by urging his hearers to carry out the spirit of the resolution, and to mark the Centenary year by determining to send out more labourers to the promising field of Orissa, to carry on the great and glorious work which their Master had entrusted to them to do.

The Rev. W. BAILEY, who is about to go out to India, next addressed the meeting. He remarked that his connection with the Society extended over a quarter of a century, and it was impossible for him not to be interested in its welfare; in fact, the Mission to Orissa had become almost part and parcel of his very existence. When by the mysterious dispensation of Providence four years ago he was compelled to leave the work, it was one of the heaviest trials he had ever known. A famine was in the land, and the cry for bread went up from every cottage; the pestilence which walketh in darkness and wasteth at noonday was sweeping away its victims with fearful rapidity; and there were dark forebodings in reference to the time to come-no missionary was there to take charge of the station he was about to vacate, and what would become of the people in that crisis he could not imagine; and when from the deck of the steamer he took what he feared would be a last look at the blue mountains beneath whose shadows he had so long laboured, his soul fainted within him. The vow of the missionary was one of immense love and sacrifice, and involved immense responsibility, and could not be broken without the clearest evidence. No amount of pressure from the Committee, and no amount of applause from the churches, would have induced him to sever ties dearer than life; but a solemn conviction that the work would be marred or perish unless some one acquainted with the work went out at once, led him to make the sacrifice.

There were emergencies when even old veterans must again enter into service; and when they put the musket to the shoulder, the old fire flashed in their eyes, and the muscle almost regained its youthful power. Would that some old veterans present who had fought so well under their flag would again take the field! They had been appealing for money he was nauseated with the name, and felt that they wanted men rather than money. Give them men who would face without a murmur any hardship, or danger, or death-men who, like William Carey, preferred the hardship and dangers of a missionary's life to the seductions of cultivated society at home, and who offered himself for the work when there was only £13 2s. 6d. in the exchequer. If they had men such as he ready to go out, there would be no lack of funds; the heart of the great English nation would be touched, and their exchequer would be filled to the brim. If some of the brethren in England would let some of their early zeal, and love, and power come back, it would touch the wellspring of English liberality. He denied that missions were a failure, and pointed in confirmation thereof to the missionary labours in Jamaica, Orissa, and other places, remarking that he would be a bold man who would say that the labours of the Rev. J. O. Goadby had been a failure, and that it was only those who went down to the bottom of the well who could best realize its depth,-and it was only those who had gone to the depths of Hindooism who could estimate the difficulties the missionary had to encounter in India. The speaker then glanced at the persecutions to which native christians were subject to the obstacles which caste had placed in the way of the missionary-and to the tenacity with which the natives adhered to the truths of christianity when once they had imbibed them, notwithstanding the persecution to which they were subject. The native christians included persons of all castes, from the highest Brahmin to the basest Sudra, who ate of the same bread and drank of the same cup together. These were not the days when men should talk of the failure of modern missions. When he thought of India now compared with what it was a quarter of a century ago, he stood amazed at the rapid strides which had been made.

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Talk of missions being a failure when an English bishop of strong ritualistic tendencies visited and examined the schools, bearing testimony to their efficiency and worth-when the Commissioner of Her Majesty, the chief representative in the province, would actually sit down at the same table with native christians at the wedding feast, and use his utmost influence to raise the social status of the people-when engineers would gratuitously prepare plans for their chapels and superintend their erection! Talk of missions being a failure when the Commander-in-Chief, Sir Hope Grant, evinced such interest in the progress of the work! Sir Hope Grant, after arriving with a regiment at Berhampore, called to his tent a converted Mahommedan, who told him the whole of the circumstances connected with his conversion; and then, to the astonishment of the sepoys around him, took the converted Mahommedan by hand, and wished him God speed. Should they talk of missions being a failure when officers in the army preached in their uniform in the chapels of the Society, and distributed tracts in the villages-when the Government of India call for a full report of the persecution of the native christians in the central district of Cuttack, and strongly rebuke the native magistrates for not doing their duty! And lastly, the speaker pointed to the interest the Duke of Edinburgh, as the representative of the Queen, took in the native christians, and in the progress of the work of missions. Mr. Bailey, in the course of his speech, gave translations of two native poetical effusions, the last entitled "No Salvation without Christianity," by Makunda Das, which evinced much feeling. He alluded in passing to the visit of Mr. Chunder Sen to this country, and expressed a hope that he would not be able to return to India and tell the Brahma Somaj that in England there was a want of earnestness and liberality. He thus concluded: Whether he stood there to address them at their annual meeting for the last time, God only knew, and he thanked God that He had placed a veil between him and the future. He confessed to them that his faith was not so much in secretaries, treasurers, and committees, not so much in the General Baptist Association itself: his faith was in God. He asked them to

Annual Meeting of the Foreign Missionary Society.

give over talking about money, and to talk about work. They wanted faith, and the money would come; constrained by the love of Christ, they could not keep it back if they would. They wanted faith, and mountains of difficulty would instantly dissolve.

The resolution was then submitted to the meeting and carried.

The Rev. DR. HAYCROFT moved the following resolution:

"That the thanks of the meeting be presented to the committee, treasurer, and secretaries; to the ministers who have preached and attended missionary meetings on behalf of the Society; also to the collectors and officers of auxiliary societies throughout the Connexion; and while urging them to continue and abound in their labours of love, the meeting would express their deep sense of the importance of fervent prayer to God for the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, to render effectual the work of His servants both at home and abroad."

The rev. gentleman having expressed his cordial concurrence in the resolution, Isaid it was desirable to allow those who had actually been engaged in mission work, who had facts to tell which others had not, and which if they had could not tell so well, to address the meeting; he should therefore not detain them with any remarks of his own. He then retired from the pulpit, but after repeated cries for "Dr. Haycroft," reascended it amid much applause. He said at their request he came forward just to say a few words. It would be impossible for him to enter into that wide field which had naturally been suggested to one's mind at their Centenary meeting. A hundred years was a long time over which to glance, and to contrast the present aspect of things in our own country with what it was at the former period. He had contemplated doing that, but it was simply out of the question. He might ask their attention to just one or two points with regard to the mission field at the present time. It might be as well for them to glance at the actual facts transpiring around them. A hundred years ago the Bible existed only in some of the principal languages of the people, and it was denied to most nations even in those languages in which it did exist. Since then the Bible had been translatedchiefly through the agency of christian missionaries-into the languages of ninetenths of the world's population. In some instances the languages of whole nations had been by missionaries for the

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first time reduced to form and shape; and during that period christian missions to the heathen had become almost worldwide. Whereas a hundred years ago there was not a missionary society in existence, with the exception of the one connected with the Moravians, at the present time in almost all the languages of the world they found the gospel being preached they had missionaries in the West Indies, on the south, east, and west borders of Africa, and they were penetrating into the interior, where God, in His merciful providence, was watching over their honoured brother, Dr. Livingstone-the pioneer of European civilization and evangelical missions. The gospel had been carried to Madagascar, to Japan, to China, India, Egypt, Turkey, Tartary, Persia, and to the very centre of the Himalaya Mountains. So that during the last one hundred years, just as in the time of the apostles, the gospel had been brought front to front with every variety of pagan superstitionfrom the gorgeous mythologies of Greece and Rome, to the miserable superstitions of their Teutonic and Celtic ancestors. And not only had they found that christian agency had brought the gospel front to front with every variety of modern error, but wherever the missionary had carried the truth he had happily not carried it in vain; and thoughtful men must admit that surprising results had followed in the course of the last seventyfive years in connection with missionary work. Dr. Haycroft then alluded to what had been accomplished in the way of the evangelization of Jamaica, the West Indies, and other places. He said Jamaica had set an example to us all. Within the last twelve months, at the very spot where the frightful massacre took place, two christian churches had been gathered, numbering some three hundred members. Another fact was that, whereas in England, from whence they sent the missionaries, they had a State Church still, and could not get rid of it, in Jamaica, where our missionaries were sent, they had got rid of it; so that the children were teaching their fathers. He then referred to the progress of missions in the South Pacific and in Africato the revolution caused by the spread of christianity in the condition of Madagascar to the large number of small churches scattered along the borders of China-and to the immense number of

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