Ship-that the Expenditure, during the last year, over the Income is only 1,8217. This is just the second time for the last twenty years that we have been so near a balance. This speaks well for the Institution. It is a great thing to be out of debt, and a great thing to keep out of it. We are nearly out of it now, and the Meeting must keep us out of it. But this is not all. We may have escaped bankruptcy hitherto, and we rejoice in it; but we must not fall into it in future. It is of great importance that the Institution should be enabled not only to keep the ground it already possesses, but to go on to the occupation of more ground. We cannot suppose that the money expended during the past year is all that is necessary, all that is right, all that is binding on the Christian world, in connection with the labours of the Missionary Society. We must not say, Hitherto we have come, but will go no further. We must proceed in our work and take up new stations-new stations in climes already visited, and new climes, many of which, with their teeming myriads, we have never yet visited; and the Meeting and the friends of the Society throughout the country must aid in this extension of our work of faith and labour of love.

The Report has dwelt at some length on the case of Tahiti, and has very properly dwelt on it; and my friend who preceded me has pressed that subject strongly. I do not despair for Tahiti any more than my friend who has just sat down; but I must tell you that only yesterday there appeared in the papers a letter from Valparaiso telling us that the Tahitians had been compelled to surrender to France. The French have broken in on the mountain-fastnesses-they have destroyed their means of subsistence by destroying the vegetation of the country; the natives have surrendered to them, and they have yielded without resistance. Their surrender has been as peaceable and manlike, therefore, as their stand in the mountains was in itself brave. I do not mean to say that I sanction standing to arms at all, but I can easily see the manhood of the spirit which draws itself off into the mountains, and remaining there, desires to be free rather than participate in the slavery and the corruption of a better and secure position below. But what could the people do when their means of subsistence were destroyed? It would have been folly to have remained there to starve-to have resisted, when the resistance was totally useless. The French had nothing to do but to pour in their fire, and they would have been annihilated. They have taken, therefore, the wisest course; and now let us look to the men that made that stand upon the mountains. Who knows but that they have come down to expose, by the contrast, the

corruption to which my friend has referred, and to throw the weight of Tahitian Christianity into the scale against the corruptions of civilization. Who knows but that, even now, these confessors and almost martyrs to the faith may not be winning souls to God, even from amongst their invaders, till at last they have occupied the position of the sanctified and the free. Let it be remembered that Tahiti is worth nothing to France. The expense of Tahiti is 100,000l. a year, and there is no return whatever. How long will France bear that? How long will France continue to send her population to the antipodes for nothing? How long will they like to be banished to the South Seas? How long will they like to put up with this expatriated condition-their own fair France separated from them by the diameter of the globe itself? If, however, we leave this in the hands of Divine Providence, we can look to the Report, which tells us that our Missionaries still are there -still we are represented in the mass of that people, and the men who communed with them on the mountain can also commune with them in the plain and in the town, and then the principles which they have been taught will sustain a consistent profession on earth, and give them a better meetness for heaven. I see, therefore, nothing connected with Tahiti to dispirit us.

But look for a moment at the case of China; and that which was once said of a good woman in the Gospel is the best thing that can be said for us- -We have done what we could. I am not of opinion, that the hasty selection of Missionaries as they offer is a good plan. I reckon it a bad and dangerous plan; and Missionaries have sometimes been hastily selected, and consequently as hastily rejected. We take it for granted that Missionaries must be well known and carefully selected, but especially for such a wondrous country as China. country so little known to us till of late; a country whose language is complicated-a country which requires so peculiar a cast and tone of mind-cannot and ought not, to be rashly and hastily supplied.

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Looking to India, and finding, as the Report has directed our attention to it, how much has been done there, can we not say, and say with great truth, there is reason to thank God and take courage? Africa, it is true, suffers; but are we for a moment to take it for granted, that light is to be withdrawn when danger comes? If civil wars should arise in any country, is it not of great moment that we have here and there the people of God amidst the conflict, who are as much the subjects of his care in the rage of violence, as when in the quiet prayer-meeting they are offering their undisturbed affections to God. It is of great

mportance that there should be ambassadors of peace amongst surrounding wars: they will frequently be found to operate as oil on the water.

If I look to the West Indies, I find the Report states, in connection with those Islands, some circumstances at which I am not at all depressed-I mean the results of the importation of labourers from India and Africa. I recollect, Sir, holding common views with your honoured father upon that question, and we then anticipated the mischiefs that would arise; therefore we were not surprised at their occurrence. But when we come to reflect that this is the result of Commercial Policy, struck out by minds that are but little influenced by anything that makes not a commercial return, we must still with patience sustain our Missionaries in the midst of the difficulties, and endeavour to meet the rising corruption with the pure discoveries of the Gospel of Christ. We have no other way in which we can meet them as professed followers of the Lord Jesus.

Upon the whole, the Missionary Society is, in my estimation, at this moment on as high ground as I ever saw it occupy, and I trust that that ground it will continue to sustain; so that the more the ship is shaken, the more closely its timbers will adhere one to another; and the more it is exposed to storms, the more will be manifested its competency to ride them out; and while, with the great Head of the Church as the Pilot of the vessel, we may look forward to the many seas through which she is destined to make her way, I hail the anticipation of the period with joy, when those who have so often sustained her at home shall see her come in again, decked with the colours of all nations-for she belongs alike to all-to tell that "the earth is the Lord's, and the fulness thereof."

The Resolution was then put, and carried. The REV. J. A. JAMES moved the next Resolution:

"That the striking and gracious dispensations of Divine Providence, which have opened to the Christian Church the vast and populous regions of idolatry in the East, present to the friends of Missions in general, and to the members of this Society in particular, an imperative claim for more strenuous effort and enlarged liberality."

As an old friend of the Society, (said Mr. James,) I have been requested to move this Resolution; and I value, I claim, and I acknowledge, the honour of the designation. I am a friend of the Society, as I am sure every feeling of my heart, and I believe, every action of my life attests. I have given to it the ardour of my youth, the vigour of my manhood, and now offer to it all that remains for me to present-the approaching years of decay and declension.

It is forty-three years, I believe to-day, since I first joined in the proceedings of an Anniversary of the London Missionary Society. In looking back upon that period of nearly half a century, I recognise that I have been a participator of its labours, of its joys, and of its success; and now I feel delighted (at the same time that I am conscientiously called upon to declare it) to affirm that I never cherished towards this Institution a profounder respect, a warmer affection, a deeper sympathy, and a more entire and unhesitating confidence than I do at this time. The review of the period to which I have alluded brings to my recollection the beautiful language of the Prophet -"All flesh is as grass; the grass withereth, the flower fadeth, but the word of the Lord endureth for ever." This, like every other word of Inspiration, has been fulfilled; the grass of that day has withered, the flowers have faded, but verdant and fresh is the cause over which those flowers shed their fragrance, and cast their beauty. What venerable forms rise before my imagination in this hallowed moment, of men that have gone successively to their rest and their reward. Mortal are the instruments, but immortal the cause which they subserved. Whoever dies, the Church will live. The Church is safe, though all else perish. God has taken from us the former generation of Directors, but he has given us others equal in ability, in skill, in fidelity. He has taken from us Treasurers. Hardcastle, Hankey, and Wilson, are removed from us-though one, I rejoice to say, still lives but he has given us Sir Culling Eardley Eardley. He has taken from us Secretaries-Burder, Orme, Ellis, Arundel, though two of them yet live amidst some infirmities may God be their supporter and comforter! but he has given us-and thank God for the boon-as a precious gift, TIDMAN and FREEMAN. To take up the illustration of my friend Burnet, ever since our Vessel was launched amidst the storms of the French Revolution, no one has lacked zeal for the Barque. . We have never wanted Sailors to man her, nor Officers to command her, and to His praise who holds the cause as his own, we have reason to say, that the Divine Pilot has never forsaken our deck, nor abandoned our helm. Take courage, friends of the Missionary cause! whatever baffling winds may blow, and whatever billows may rise, the Ship is safe, the Pilot is still on board. Look up at the flag that floats at her masthead-the Cross! Look at Him whom the winds and waves obey, and who has undertaken to steer. Shall we be wrecked under these circumstances? No-on the vessel goes, and if her sails be filled with the breath of prayer, wrecked she cannot be.

I am aware we meet to-day under circumstances a little trying to our faith and patience the details of the Report make this sufficiently apparent. Tahiti has been dwelt upon at length, and I need not again touch it. In Madagascar the tigress Queen is still upon the throne, still braving Omnipotence; but we have reason to hope that Christianity is approaching that throne. Have we forgotten it, friends of this Society! that it is only a few years since the Emperor of China passed an Edict making it death to convert his subjects to Christianity; and now an Act of Toleration has been passed by the Emperor, granting liberty of conscience throughout the whole of his vast Dominions. Does not this encourage us to hope for Madagascar? Ever since the first martyr's blood was shed, I have viewed the Island as baptized for Christ, and Christ will claim his own. Have we forgotten the first ages of Christianity, that there were Emperors, if not Queens, who set themselves against the Lord and his Anointed, and persecution raged. Yes, but then the imperial dove chased the imperial eagle before her, and Christianity, with the diadem on her brow, and the purple on her breast, ascended the throne of the Cæsars, before which she had been dragged as a criminal and condemned as a malefactor, and there gave laws to the world. Shall we doubt for Madagascar, while we have this record upon the page of history?

After referring to the case of South Africa as affected by the Caffre War, Mr. James continued:

As to India, I shall leave that subject to a respected Missionary, who can do it more justice than I can, and for one moment touch on China. There is a great deal in the present condition of various Missionary Stations that is exceedingly painful; but let one messenger come and tell me, "Tahiti is lost;" I reply, "China is open." Let a second come and tell me, "All the stations in South Africa are broken up;" I still reply, "China is open ;"-and let him next give the doleful intelligence that Madagascar is closed; my answer still is, "China is open." And were all the Missions we have in existence at the present moment destroyed the next hour, standing upon the mournful ruin, after I had wiped away a tear of regret for this extended devastation, I would lift my heart to God in thanksgiving and say, "Blessed be thy name! China is open to us!" And again, were we to employ ten Missionaries, where we are employing one, for the conversion of China; I would still say, "What are they among so many?" May I here for a moment, as Representative of Spring-hill College, say a word to the Metropolitan Schools of Learn

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ing. The former Institution, although in its infancy, has sent two Missionaries to China-one has been sent back by the providence of God, through ill-health; but that is not our fault; two men have gone from us to China. Homerton, where are your Missionary Students for China? Hackney, where are your Missionaries? Manchester, whose Representatives are here, where are yours? Rotherham, Bradford, and Exeter, what are you doing for China? Have you none to send? And while I call upon the Colleges to contribute Missionaries for China, I call upon the Constituents of the Colleges to support these seats of Learning, that they may educate more Missionaries; and then I call upon them better to support the Missionary Society, which requires funds to send them out after they are educated.

In the few remaining remarks I shall make, I will allude to a paper in the present number of the Evangelical Magazine, written by a returned Missionary. The paper to which I allude is designated-and I trust that the Press will give it wing, and let it fly through the land-" Prayer is the best Hope of the Missionary Cause." If that is not worth recording, I am sure that nothing I have said, or can say, deserves to be remembered. Let it be circulated in ten thousand echoes throughout the country; let every platform and every pulpit ring with it; let it be the text of a thousand sermons, and the subject of ten thousand speeches; and if we were walking this day in procession, with music and with banners, I would claim that this should be the song of our march. I would ask that the richest and largest of the flags should have this emblazoned in golden characters, that the multitudes of the pious who observed our progress should catch the theme and be awakened by its inspiration-" Prayer is the best Hope of the Missionary Cause." Let that shout be raised throughout the land, and every idol will totter on its basis; hell will tremble, heaven rejoice, and eartli to its very extremity be glad. A great deal is said about money. I wish there was no need for saying so much. For one, I could be content that not a single syllable about money were uttered for the whole of the next year, and that the subject of our speeches and sermons should be of prayer. Why, say some, would not this stop the supplies? But I am quite sure that the more we have of prayer, the more we shall have of money. And I am equally sure that the more we have of money, the more we ought to have of prayer. We cannot succeed without divine help, which we obtain by prayer; and God will not do without our money, which we call forth by appeals to the liberality of the Church. Now, breth

thren in the Ministry, and brethren out of the Ministry, let us, from this year, take up a determination that from hence there shall be more earnest and united prayer. Let us hear the voices that come to us from every quarter, "Brethren, pray for us!" The Directors, amidst their arduous labours, pressing difficulties, and sore trials, say, Brethren, pray for us!" The Secretaries, under their deep perplexity, and solemn responsibility, say, "Brethren, pray for us!" The Missionaries, amidst insalubrious climates, with enfeebled constitutions and great discouragements, say, "Brethren, pray for us!" The Missionary Churches, amidst idolatry perpetually tempting them to relax and to apostatize, say, Brethren, pray for us!" The whole world, groaning and travailing together until now, if not by the voice of entreaty, yet by the extremity of their misery, say, "Brethren, pray for us!" Whatever storms roll over us-and we may expect them-yet, in the progress of our history, Prayer is the conductor that extracts the bolt from the cloud, and guides it innocuously to its grave in the earth. Whatever difficulties we may yet have before us, they must be overcome. I see the cloud of commercial embarrassment, darker every hour, rising upon the horizon of our country, in the shadow of which all our Institutions must, more or less, be involved. The spirit of infidelity and false philosophy are working their way throughout the world. Worldly-mindedness, luxury, soft effeminacy, are enfeebling the Church of Christ. Tahiti is gone from us; Madagascar is closed; the stations in South Africa are partly disabled from their usual work. But let me see the Church of God rising in the power of faith and prayer, and I cast my fears to the wind. I am full of hope for the cause; assured, as I am, that the importunate, combined intercessions of a Praying Church, will soon be swallowed up in the hallelujahs of a Redeemed World.

Rev. T. Boaz (Pastor of Union Chapel, Calcutta,) said: I have been deputed by the brethren and churches of India to visit this land for the purpose of conferring with the Directors of our Society, and fraternizing with the brethren and churches in Britain, with a view to stir up a stronger feeling of sympathy between British India and England, and of exciting your prayerful consideration towards the Missionary work in that land; and I am confident that, if the proposition which has just been made by Mr. James-so much in accordance with my own feeling, and that of my brethrenwere acceded to by this Meeting, and you would devote one Sabbath through all your churches to prayer for the conversion of India-I am confident, I say, that we should see a work begun there that would astonish

and cheer the Church. It is prayer, chiefly, that we want; and if we have the prayers of the churches in Britain for India, your men, and your money, and your strength, will flow to us adequately and at once. Our motto is, "A praying Church, a successful Church." Your past conduct towards India, coupled with your present position, leads me to anticipate the day when her children shall be free as the eagle that soars above the peaks of her lofty Himalayas, and when the Church shall become more abundant in peace and love than the everlasting spring of her bright and gushing rivers. British India is a vast and promising field for the Christian Church to exercise her energies. In Northern India, we have a population of upwards of ninety millions, without young Egypt, as we call it-the newly acquired territory of Scinde, or the Punjaub.

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this field, vast in its territory and vast in its population, are ninety millions of immortal beings, held either under the influence of Hindooism, or the still more paralyzing and withering influence of Mohammedanism, all of them (with the few exceptions that have been gathered by our Missionaries) without the knowledge of God and his Son Jesus Christ. That surely is a field that should command your attention, excite your sympathy, call forth your prayers and your benevolence, and lead you promptly to send forth Missionaries for the work.

Now, I will just tell you what is the state of things in Calcutta at the present moment, in connection with Missions. There are in that City eight Churches connected with the Episcopalian Communion; one church connected with the Established Church of Scotland; one connected with the Free Church of Scotland; three connected with the Baptist fellowship; and your own five churches. On the day that I left Calcutta, there were in the different schools in that City upwards of 6,000 pupils, young men, the greater portion of them receiving an education equal to any that you could obtain in your Colleges at Oxford and Cambridge, and the larger portion of these young men directly under the influence of our Missionaries. Your own Institution contained 780 on the day that I left; and I had a letter only yesterday, telling me that the number is rapidly increasing, and that they were urged into expenses they wished to avoid; but, so many coming in, they were obliged to increase their expenditure. Thus, you see, that as it regards Christian instruction and Christian schools and churches, a great work has been ac accomplished in the City of Calcutta. But that is not all. You have had from these schools, and from the preaching of your Missionaries, several very interesting converts. One that I have spoken of in this

hall, at another meeting, forfeited his property to the amount of 5,000l. for the sake of Christ; and, when he sacrificed that property, he said to me, "I put Christ into the one scale, and all the property into the other, and the property is lighter than nothing and vanity."

You have heard in the Report about the great efforts that have been made by the infidel party. But you will rejoice to hear that only about a week before I left India the chief agent in that infidel movement was baptized into Christ by a Missionary. He stated that it was the very temperate and Christian conduct which was manifested by the Missionaries that first of all impressed him; for, he said, if it had been ourselves we should have got into a rage; but you were mild and gentle, and, instead of doing us any harm, you gave us the Word of God and bid us God speed. I retired to the house; I thought over it; and now I seek for baptism, and wish to cast in my lot with you." There are many such things occurring, and now all we want in India is men; and I have to ask this Society, for that part of India from which I have come, for five Missionaries. It is a moderate request. I should like fifty, and I will undertake that my people in Calcutta, those with whom I am associated, will pay all the local expenses connected with the labours of fifty Missionaries; but I ask only for five, and yet your Secretaries have told me positively that they can get no young men to go out as Missionaries. My friend, Mr. James, has appealed to Homerton, Hackney, and Highbury, and other Educational Institutions, for young men for Christian Ministers in China. I ask the Tutors in those Academies if they have no men for India. I like a noble rivalry, and I should be glad to see fifty men for China and five men for India. Now I leave this matter in your hands, only asking you to look to the Missionary work with an intelligent eye, to look to it with an informed sympathy, to deal with it in fervent and persevering supplication before God, and to rise up to your work in the exercise of an untiring faith - a faith that shall lay hold of the Divine strength, and prevail with the God of Missions, to bless his own cause with a peaceful and glorious victory.

The Resolution having been put and carried, the Collection was made.

The Rev. J. G. MIALL, of Bradford, moved the next Resolution, to the following effect:

"That this meeting deeply sympathises with its Missionary brethren in different parts of the world, who have, during the past year, been subject to various painful visitations of Divine Providence: it cordially rejoices in the means of relief which have been liberally supplied by the

Christian Public for the suffering people in the Hervey Islands, and in Southern Africa; and it hereby gives its assurance to the devoted Missionaries labouring in Jamaica and British Guiana, that the Society will cheerfully afford them all needful aid, under the influence of any adverse events which they may be called to bear."

It will be in the recollection of most of the Constituents of the Society now present, (said Mr. Miall,) that a Select Committee, which was appointed to consider the financial position and prospects of the London Missionary Society, brought up a Report at its last Annual Meeting, in which it was stated that the Directors had held out to them the hope that they should be able, during the coming year, to diminish the Expenditure by the amount of 10,000l. Now I wish to have it most distinctly impressed upon the minds of all the Christian Friends who are present, that this proposal to diminish the Expenditure did not originate with that Committee; that, so far from having in any way suggested it, it was suggested to the Committee, as a possible thing, on the part of the Directors themselves. I wish to take this opportunity of referring to that part of the Resolution which I have read, and to express for myself-as a Member of the Select Committee-my firm conviction, that had the Directors, under the altered circumstances of the last year, hesitated to do just what they have done with regard to the subject referred to in this Resolution, I should have deemed it much more worthy of censure than of applause. I think it would ill become a Society so great as this to withdraw, under any consideration whatever, the hand of its ready and generous help from any of those who are in so much need of its extension. I think it would augur ill for the future prospects of a Society like this, if at any time, when Missionary Brethren were calling out for help, it should deem itself restricted from holding out its helping hand. I have far too much confidence in the energy of Christian character, as well as in the strength of the Voluntary Principle, to believe that, when there shall come a time of danger-a crisis of difficulty-the hearts of the Constituents of this Society will be coldly shut, under the influence of any calculating feeling whatever. Let us remember what was said when the first Baptist Missionaries went out to India, and the representation that was made to those who were left behind: "We are descending into the mines, and you have to hold the ropes above." That was very strikingly brought to my recollection, when, on one occasion, I witnessed the process of a diving-bell, and saw the men descending to their work far below the waters, and how entirely they were dependent upon the agency of those above to supply them with the air necesary for their