missionaries and assistant missionaries, including twenty-one supernumeraries, 476; other paid agents, as catechists, ininterpreters, school teachers, &c., 782 ; unpaid agents, as Sabbath school teachers, &c., 8,477; church members, including Ireland, 108,078; increase 3,843; on trial for church membership, as far as ascertained, 5,499; scholars, 79,841. "Under such circumstances as he had enumerated, the promoters of any merely human enterprise might well expect success; but they had broader ground to build upon, and still stronger assurance with which to buoy up their faith. Their ambition was, the recovery of the world to God; but this was also God's purpose; it was that for which the Saviour came down from heaven; it was this which cheered him on in the path of suffering and of sorrow, and made him obedient unto death. The work was not theirs, it was God's; his spirit commenced it, his power energized and defended it; it was one, might he say, with the constitution of the world; it was linked to the wheels of destiny; it was one of those fiery chariots on which the King of Glory rode forth conquering and to conquer. Outwardly it might look like a series of reverses and failures; inwardly looked at by the eye of faith, it was a succession of triumphs. Their brethren might fall upon the field-Carey, and Knibb, and Burchell, and Davies, and Newbegin, might rest from their labors; but God still lived, his will must be obeyed, and in his presence might be discerned the dawn of triumph. Yes, it was before them. With the eye of faith they might behold the vision of that happy day. It looked as yet like a fair illusion —a soft and vernal landscape, sent as if to make us feel the sterilities through which they were passing, a heavenly ideal of truth, and happiness, and beauty, sent to make us feel the distance which still separated earth and heaven. But it would be realized; the time would come when one song, the outburst of a deep feeling of love to God and man, should rise from all nations, and mingle with the strains of heaven's more glorious anthem, which should announce that the kingdoms of this world had become the kingdom of God and of his Christ." WESLEYAN MISSIONARY SOCIETY. The last annual report states the receipts of the year to have been £111,730, and the expenditures £111,555; central stations, or circuits, in Ireland, the British colonies, and among the heathen, 356; chapels and other preaching places connected with central stations, 3,092; PERSECUTION IN FLORENCE. That the Church of Rome has no real hold on the popular mind in Italy, is abundantly manifest by events that have occurred there in and since 1848. The opening of the country, even for a brief space, to the entrance of the word of God, proved conclusively that the continuance of religious liberty was the annihilation of Romish influence over a large portion of the community. Accordingly, on the suppression of civil freedom, liberty of conscience was summarily abolished. But the people had "tasted the good word of God," and were not to be diverted from its enjoyment; if they could not hear the word preached, nor freely communicate it to one another, they would read and meditate. To prevent this as far as lay in their power, the government next, on the 25th of April, 1851, issued a decree authorizing the magistrates to commit to prison any person known to possess or to read the bible, or suspected to be averse to Romanism. At the same time the priests exerted all the power of the confessional to compel persons to betray their friends and acquaintances. By such appliances a father was made to inform against his two sons, who were immediately arrested, and a wife to denounce her husband; his house was searched three times without finding anything to convict him, but he was suspected and accordingly imprisoned. Count Guicciardini and seven other persons with him, were surprised by the police while reading the New Testament. They were several times privately examined, but steadfastly avowed their faith in Christ, and for this were banished. The case of Francesco Madiai and his wife has excited so painful an interest, from the barbarity of the sentence visited on them, that it may fitly be noticed more particularly. On the 17th of August his house was searched and two bibles and a religious work in English were found. He was arrested and lodged in prison, with three others in the house against whom not a tittle of evidence was produced. One, being an Englishman, was released, but the other two were compelled to choose between banishment and imprisonment; they left the country. Twelve days afterwards Madame Madiai was also imprisoned and put in solitary confinement. Neither her husband nor any other friend, not even her medical attendant, was permitted to see her. Besides their imputed heresy - a charge against which they made no defence, but boldly avowed their Protestantism the Madiais were accused of gross immoralities; but all such grounds of proceeding were abandoned, and their prosecution based on the naked charge of dissenting from the doctrines and discipline of the Roman Church. Their belief was their only crime. It was not alleged that they had attacked the church, or its doctrines or rites, or that they assailed the faith of others. But when questioned, they had ingenuously testified their faith in Christ only; and they had the word of God in their house. manifested when I took the communion in the Swiss Church.” Madame Madiai replied to her interrogator, that after reading the word of God and contrasting it with the Romish doctrine, she abandoned that church and made a public profession of faith by partaking of the Lord's Supper, at a time when the laws gave religious liberty to the citizens. The audience were struck by the simplicity and calmness of the sufferers. The trial lasted for two days more, and a considerable time on the fourth day was occupied by the judges in consultation. The court was divided, three judges for condemnation and two for acquittal. Sentence was pronounced immediately; M. Madiai to hard labor at the galleys for fifty-six months, and Madame Madiai to hard labor at the ergastolo (the female galleys) for fortyfour months; both to be for three years after the termination of their sentence under surveillance of the police, and to pay costs. The public were indignant at this inhuman severity, and the government, it may be suspected, are somewhat indisposed to execute such a sentence; such, at least, is the natural inference from the fact that the Minister of the Interior recommended that a commutation of the sentence to banishment be immediately petitioned for. The prisoners' counsel advised an appeal to a superior court. The victims of persecution were not forsaken, but found occasion to glory in tribulation. On the day they were sentenced Madame Madiai addressed the following letter to her husband. 66 My dear Madiai, — You know that I have always loved you, but how much more ought I to love you, now that we have been together in the battle of the Great King - that we have been beaten, but not vanquished! I hope that through the merits of Jesus Christ, God our Father will have accepted our testimony, and will give us grace to drink, to the last drop, the portion of that bitter cup which is prepared for us, with returning of thanks. My good Madiai, life is only a day, and a day of grief! Yesterday we were young, to-day we are old! Nevertheless, we can say with old Simeon, Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, for mine eyes have seen thy salvation.' ward, apparently three or four hundred feet, flooding the summit of the mountain with light, and gilding the firmament with its radiance. Streams of light came pouring down, flashing through our windows and lighting up our apartments; so that we could almost see to read fine print. When we first awoke, so dazzling was the glare on our windows, that we supposed some building near us must be on fire; but as the light shone directly into our dormitory and upon our couch, we soon perceived that it proceeded from a volcanic eruption. At the end of two hours the molten stream had rolled down the side of the mountain, as we supposed, about fifteen miles. The eruption was one of terrible activity and surpass Courage, my dear, since we know by the Holy Spirit that this Christ, loaded with opprobrium, trodden down and calumniated, is our Saviour; and we, by His holy light and power, are called to defend the holy cross, and Christ, who died for us, receiving his reproaches that we may afterwards participate in his glory. Do not fear if the punishment be hard. God, who made the chains falling splendor; but it was short. In about from Peter and opened the doors of his (Signed) "ROSA MADIAI.” AND SHALL NOT GOD AVENGE HIS OWN ELECT, WHICH CRY DAY AND NIGHT UNTO HIM, THOUGH HE BEAR LONG WITH THEM? VOLCANIC ERUPTION IN HAWAII. Rev. Mr. Coan, in a communication to the Missionary Herald, gives an impressive and admirable description of a scene full of sublimity, and one fitted to excite awe, when viewed even at this distance, and through the medium of written words. At half past three, on the morning of February 17, a small beacon light was discovered on the summit of Mauna Loa. At first it appeared like a solitary star, resting on the apex. In a few minutes its light increased and shone like the rising moon. Seamen, keeping watch in our harbor, exclaimed, "What is that? The moon is rising in the west!" In fifteen minutes the problem was solved. A flood of fire burst out of the mountain; and soon it began to flow in a brilliant current down its northern slope, in the line of the great eruption which I visited in 1843. In a short time immense columns of burning matter were thrown heaven twenty-four hours all traces of it seemed extinguished. At daybreak, February 20, we were again startled by another eruption burstthe mountain, and exactly facing Hilo; ing out laterally, about half way down so that we could again see it through the windows of our dormitory. This crater seemed as active as the one on the summit; and in a short time we perceived the molten current flowing directly towards Hilo. The action became more and more fierce, from hour to hour; floods of lava were poured out; and the burning river soon reached the wood at its base, a distance of some twenty miles. Clouds of smoke ascended, and hung like a vast canopy over the mountain, or rolled off murky, blue, white, purple, scarlet, as upon the wings of the wind. They were they were more or less illuminated from the fiery abyss below. At times they assumed the figure and the hue of a burning mountain inverted, with its apex pointing to the orifice over which it hung; and at times, after shooting up several degrees vertically, the illumined pillar made a graceful curve, and swept off, like the tail of a comet, farther than the eye could reach. The whole atmosphere of Hilo assumed a lurid appearance; and the sun's rays fell upon us with a yellow and sickly light. Clouds of smoke careered over the ocean, carrying with them ashes, cinders, &c., which fell upon the decks of ships approaching our coast. Filamentous vitrifactions, called "Pele's hair," fell thick in our streets and upon the roofs of our houses; and while I write, the atmosphere is in the same sallow and dingy state; and every object looks pale and sickly. Showers of vitrified filaments are falling around us; and our children and the natives are gathering them up. Mr. Coan started on the 23d, with Dr. Wetmore, to visit the crater. Their way led through a dense forest, "so completely intertangled with ferns, vines, brambles, &c.," that they could advance not more than about one mile an hour. I approached as near as I could bear the heat, and stood amidst the ashes, cinders, scoria, and pumice, which were scattered widely and wildly around. There had been already formed a rim of from one hundred to two hundred feet in height, surrounding the orifice in the form of a truncated hollow cone, per At noon of the second day, having gain-haps half a mile in circumference at its ed a high ridge overlooking a portion of the surrounding country, they discovered that the lava current had swept half through the forest towards Hilo. "The fiery flood was rolling steadily onward, sweeping the trees before it, and sending up volume after volume of lurid smoke. Like an immense serpent it moved relentlessly along its sinuous way, overcoming all obstacles, and devouring all forms of life in its track." Here Dr. Wetmore decided to return, and Mr. Coan proceeded alone, with great difficulty, and on the afternoon of the third day after he reached the crater and "stood alone in the light of its fires." A near view of the eruption. It was a moment of unutterable interest. I seemed to be before the burning throne of the Eternal; and I felt that, while every other sound was hushed, he alone spake. I was ten thousand feet above the sea, in a vast solitude untrodden by the foot of man or beast, and amid a silence unbroken by the voice of any created being. Here I stood, almost blinded by the insufferable brightness, almost deafened by the clangor of this fearful trumpet, and almost petrified by the terrific scene. The heat was so intense that the crater could not be approached within forty or fifty yards from the windward side; and probably it would not have been safe to go within two miles of it from the leeward. The eruption, as before stated, commenced on the very summit of the mountain; but the central pressure became so great as to force itself through a depression in the side, cracking and rending the mighty mass all the way from the summit to the point where it burst forth. The mountain seemed to be siphunculated, the fountain of fusion being elevated some three thousand feet above this lateral crater; and, being pressed down an inclined subterranean tube, the lava was ejected with such power as to throw it from one hundred to five hundred feet in the air. base, and three hundred feet in diameter at the top. From this horrid throat vast and continuous columns of red-hot and white-hot matter were ejected, with a voice which was almost deafening, and a force which threatened to rend the rocky ribs of old Mauna Loa. The sounds often seemed deep, subterranean and infernal; first a rumbling, muttering, hissing, with deep and premonitory surging; and then an awful explosion, like the roar of broad-sides in a battle at sea, or the quick discharge of park after park of artillery on the field of carnage. Sometimes the sound resembled that of ten thousand furnaces in full blast; sometimes it was like the rattling fire of a regiment of small arms; sometimes like the roar of the ocean along a rock-bound shore; and sometimes like the booming of distant thunder. The eruptions were not intermittent, but continuous; and the force by which the columns were expelled, shivered them into millions of fragments of multiform size, some rising, some falling back in vertical lines into the mouth of the crater. Every particle shone with the brilliancy of Sirius; and the creation and breaking up of every kind of geometrical figure was constantly going on. No tongue, no pen, no pencil can portray the beauty, the grandeur, and the It was terrible sublimity of the scene. something to be felt, not described. Night coming on, we retired about a mile from the crater, having still a perfect view of the whole; and here we took our station for the night; not indeed to sleep, for that was impossible; but to listen to the awful roar of this great furnace of Jehovah. During the night the scene surpassed all my powers of description. Vast columns of lava, fused to a white heat, were going up continually in the form of pillars, pyramids, cones, towers, turrets, spires, scimitars, &c.; while the descending showers poured a constant cataract of fire upon the rim of the crater and the surrounding area, each containing matter enough to force the proudest ship far down into the ocean's depths. A large fissure, through the lower side of the rim of the crater, allowed the molten flood to flow constantly down the mountain in a broad channel, at the rate, probably, of ten miles an hour. This fiery stream we could trace all the way for twenty or thirty miles, until it was lost from the eye by reason of its own windings in the wood lying between us and Hilo. AMERICAN BAPTIST MISSIONARY UNION. RECENT INTELLIGENCE. Rangoon. The letter from Dr. Dawson, which we published in our last number, gave the most material facts in relation to the capture of Rangoon. From the copy of a letter addressed by Mr. Kincaid to his wife, dated April 15-20, some particulars are derived, which, although they do not bring down the narrative of current events to any later date, or cast much light on the future, go to complete the view of transactions important and interesting to all friends of the Burman Mission. Under the date first mentioned, the day after the final battle at Rangoon, Mr. K. says: "I dined with the officers on the field; then I went, when the flag was up, to Shway Dagong. Found Gen. Godwin and Capt. Latter, and also two boxes of my books, just in time to prevent the soldiers from carrying them off one by one. They claim everything they find. Yesterday and to-day they have been rushing here and there gathering up everything, digging for silver and gold and precious stones, and I am told they find not a little. What little the poor Armenians and others had saved from the rapacity of the Burmans is now seized. Captains and officers of transport ships, with their lascars, are carrying off vast quantities of property. "All Monday and Tuesday the governor was in a deep hole under the north side of the pagoda, so frightened that he could hardly speak, and Tuesday night he fled. The deputy governors and other great officers fled immediately after. All who were in the new town and around the great pagoda on Wednesday, were robber chieftains and their followers. Their object was plunder, and they kept three or four thousand unfortunate beings at the guns while they were plundering the town. This is what the Armenians tell me. Great numbers of Burmans had their throats cut by order of their own officers. Every one who tried to run away, or was suspected of a wish to run away, was instantly killed in a horrible manner. Whether Gen. Godwin will advance upon Prome or not, is yet uncertain. So terribly have they been beaten, that Prome might be occupied without another struggle, if proceeded against at once. "18. This is the Lord's day, but I have been unable to go out. Have been thronged with people coming in from different places where they had fled. Capt. D—, of the Madras forces, found me out and called. He is a pious man. I became acquainted with him many years ago. Soon after, about twenty pious non-commissioned officers and soldiers called, some of them Baptists, others Independents and Methodists. I learn there are quite a number of pious men and several pious officers, and they are wishing me to preach and hold prayer meetings. Of course I shall get a place soon. Major His a high churchman, but invited me once to breakfast, asked me a variety of questions about our missions, and appeared to take no little interest in my replies. He said also he should take special pains to collect any of my books that might fall into the hands of his officers and men. "19.-Early this morning we set off in search of a building. It is hardly prudent yet to live out by Kau-dau-gala, and we have taken a kyoung near the pagoda. It is not very large, but still, larger than any ordinary house, is constructed so as to be light and airy, and looks out upon the river. Quite a large |