fluttering and trembling, my timid spirit lands in the great spirit world, it is Thy smiling face I expect to see, welcoming me home. Yes, there are many inductive philosophers who can and do believe in miracles. The Gospel is spread by a supernatural power; it is the work of the Holy Spirit. The older I become, the more firmly I believe in the necessity for the coming down of God-not only God's truth, but God Himself, into contact with the human mind. A very able American writer has said that if one of the planets became prodigal, and broke away from its orbit, nothing could bring it back from the winter of night but the going of the sun to fetch it. He would have to go and throw his long arms of gravitation around the unwise young comet, and thus he would carry it back. Brethren, we did break away from our Father's house. We went into a strange country, and found it darkness and death. And what did God do? He came down Himself. God in our nature appeared in the person of Christ. Great Christ, we bless Thee. Through Jesus Christ God came down -lays hold of the wandering one-places him in his orbit again, where he shall revolve in peace around the throne of God, for ever. Brethren, this is the grand power in the Church, the presence of God's Spirit. I think no man can live in London without feeling the absolute necessity of God's Spirit coming into the minds of men to make them good and holy. That is the greatest power in the world. Intellect is power. A man who had been to Highgate, talking with a great English philosopher who is now no more, said, on speaking of him afterwards- I was silent in his presence; I could not speak; his power oppressed me.' There is great power in intellect. When you meet a man that is mentally greater than you are, he is king and you are the subject. You may rebel against it, but still you know, as I know, you must bow. Eloquence is a power in the Church. We are at the mercy of the eloquent speaker; We are helpless in his hands. We are the instruments; he is the player. He is Moses; our hearts are rods; with his mystic rod he touches them one after the other, and the water gushes forth. should like to see all our pulpits filled with eloquent men, men of flexible lip, men of expressive face, men who have that something which cannot be described, but which goes forth a quivering power from the battery of the very speaker's heart. May God raise up men of abundant power in elequent speaking. But it is not by intellect, it is not by eloquence; it is by My power and My Spirit, saith the Lord of Hosts. And let me say there have been days when the Church was a power in the earth. We read of the heroic days. They are praised by the old poets as the beautiful and distant age when fact and myth embrace, where history and tradition meetwhen tradition melts into history, and history, like another colour in the rainbow, melts back into tradition; in that beautiful period they have placed the heroic ages when giants and Titans lived on the earth, and not small beings such as we are. Brethren, this is tradition, and myth, and poetry; but there have been real heroic ages in the Church of God, when Moses communed with God on the trembling I brow of Sinai-when David composed the spiritual hymns which thrill our hearts in the nineteenth century-when Josiah with rapt seraphic fire spake to the sinful nationwhen the Baptist thundered rebukes on the banks of Jordan-when the great Paul emptied the temples of Greece-when St. John saw visions in Patmos-when reformers struggled -when martyrs died-then there was power in the churches. Men were filled with the Holy Ghost. Ministers in England --ye want power. Missionaries abroad-ye want power. Teachers in our colleges-ye want inspiration, not only to send forth scholars, but inspired young men. Deacons of our churches-it is no time to sleep. Churches of the land-you ought not to be the dull, apathetic, material things many of you are. We cannot afford to be weak. Power everywhere. Power in the spring, bursting through the great rock; power in the grass, cutting its way through the soil; power in the lightning-flash; and shall the Church be weak? I see the syren pleasure, like another ignis fatuus crossing from marsh to marsh in the devil's land, where so many of our youths are lost. Power enough hath the syren. Yes, brethren, power is everywhere-and shall we be weak and feeble? Our fathers sleep-let not the thunder disturb their slumbers--let not the lightning-flash wither the flowers in their grave. Brave men were our fathers. I like to shake hands with them across the ages. They did their work nobly; they crossed the stage and were hurried beyond the scene into the darkness of death. They are gone, and we are here; and shall we be weakened? I don't mean that we can become as Moses, and Jeremiah, and Paul, but I do mean to say that as the ancient Titans went up to heaven and stole fire from the sun, you may go aside with God, touch the Divine mind, and come forth Divine men to mould the hearts of this nation, or to spread the Gospel of Christ in foreign lands. You have heard me kindly. I have spoken out brotherly on this subject. May God bless you all. May the power of the Lord God of Israel clothe His priests with salvation; may it be known in a dry, hard, harsh, sceptical age, that God is in Israel, and that religion is a power. The Rev. GEORGE HALL, missionary from Madras, said that in considering the results of missionary labour in India, they must remember what was the state of that land even so recently as in the beginning of the present century. The most appalling atrocities were then committed under the name of religion. Now they could point to the whole of God's Word published in no fewer than fourteen of the native languages, and the New Testament, or parts of it, in twelve others. During the last ten years no fewer than oneand-a-half million copies had been distributed among the people, besides eight-and-a-half million copies of books and tracts. Missionaries were doing a great educational work in India. There were no fewer than 96,000 young people receiving Christian instruction daily; and whenever schools were opened in the rural districts, there was no difficulty in getting them filled. The middle and higher class of natives in the great cities had an intense desire to have their sons well educated especially in the English language, and the educational institutions for that purpose had been greatly owned and blessed of God. In Madras, upwards of 400 Hindoo and Mohammedan youths were being educated in the Mission Institution; and if there was more accommodation, there would, doubtless, be many more pupils. Great difficulties, however, had to be encountered, owing to the prejudices of caste, and great were the efforts made by the parents of young men who embraced Christianity to bring them back to their old superstitions. Owing to the degradation of women in India, it was considered wrong to teach them to read, and consequently the females of high caste had remained almost wholly ignorant of the Gospel. They also exerted a great influence over their sons, and kept them from becoming Christians. Many of the natives were now, however, anxious to have their daughters taught. Two years ago we commenced a school in Madras with four or five high caste girls, and at the end of last year there were seventy receiving instruction who were now able to read the Gospel in their own language. There were several such schools in connection with different societies in various parts of India. Another result of missionary work was preparatory to the ultimate rapid spread of Christianity. With a system that had stood firm for 3,000 years, and was eagerly watched over by millions of hereditary priests, with a social barrier like caste-what wonder was it that Christianity had made slow progress? The work, however, had commenced which would undermine and overthrow the huge fabric of Hindoo idolatry. But missionaries could point to results already achieved. In the Madras presidency there were in connection with all the missionary societies 110,000 professing Christians, 20,218 of whom were communicants, or members of the Church of Christ. In the South Indian missions of their own society there were 25,849 professing Christians, of whom 1808 were church members. It was true that the majority of those converts were pariahs, and others of a low caste, but still they were human beings; and then the good work was gaining ground in other classes. Some of the sons of the oldest families of the land had suffered much that they might profess themselves Christians. There was not a caste that had not its representatives in the native Christian churches. He rejoiced to hear the prominence given in the report to the subject of the native ministry. There were in Southern India only sixty native missionaries, three of whom only were in connection with that Society. He hoped, however, that ere long there would be many more. With this view, they had established within the past few years a theological class, the members of which were sent out to preach in the villages; and the first letter he received from India after his arrival in London informed him that one of those young men had been instrumental in converting a Brahmin priest. There were 541 European and American missionaries in India, but what were they among 200,000,000 of idolators? It did but give one missionary for every 3,000 square miles of the country and every 400,000 of inhabitants, being much the same as if there were but six preachers of the Gospel in all London. There was scope for every exertion that could be made. Let the results of the past encourage them to continue with greater zeal and devotedness the great work of bringing souls to Christ. The Rev. W. LEE, missionary from Amoy, said there was a time, and that not many years ago, when a missionary returning from China could tell only of difficulties and discouragements, and present a dark picture of a few missionaries labouring amongst millions of people. But it was possible now to tell of success even in China. Fifty years ago, Dr. Morrison was honoured of God to clear away obstructions, and to dig broad and deep the foundations on which the fine structure is built that now gladdens Christian eyes in that far distant land. Other zealous missionaries were labouring in the Indian Archipelago amidst great discouragements, so much So, those fields had to be deserted; but now the fruit of their labours had begun to appear. About five years ago, a native Chinese missionary was sent to Singapore, whence the European missionaries had long departed; and now there is a church raised there with a hundred members. Moreover, there has gone forth from that church a native Chinese to Batavia, the scene of Dr. Medhurst's early labours. When it was said that comparatively little had been done in China, let it be remembered that the mission there was only in its infancy, being but twenty years old. It was, in fact, the most modern of all Protestant missions. The early difficulties, too, were hard to be overcome. The Scriptures had to be translated, and the knowledge of twenty dialects required, and the people and Government alike very hostile; so much so, that a room could not be got for preaching, except at the risk to the landlord of fine and imprisonment, and wherever the missionary went he was attended by soldiers directed to spy out all his actions. Changes had been wrought of late years by the might of England-not always very righteously put forth. We had depended very much upon the argument of force, and very little upon the force of argument. We had shown the Chinese that we possessed better soldiers and more perfect guns than they did, but they did not love us any the better for that. If, by the might of England, the missionaries had been able to climb the otherwise inaccessible mountain side on which the strong fortress of idolatry was built, it should ever be remembered that their work began where the work of the warrior and the politician ends; and that the missionary must undo much of their work before his own could begin. Then, again, no opium smoker was admitted to churchfellowship, and yet it was difficult to convince the mass of the people that the missionaries had nothing to do with the opium trade. Happily British merchants had washed their hands of that traffic, but it was still carried on by unscrupulous agents of the Spanish Government. Terrible misery was caused by kidnapping in former times, and he had known poor creatures thus caught to be carried off. leap into the sea to escape a bondage worse than death. These were things of the past, but the memory of them still operated " against the missionary, for they had left festering wounds which shrank even from the gentler touch of Christian sympathy and love. The door was now open for Europeans to traverse the length and breadth of that vast land, but it would not be wise of them to penetrate to certain districts, even if the men were to be found for the enterprise. The Taepings did not love us very much for taking part against them. We had "meddled" in that matter, and he was afraid we had "muddled" it very much. He had never met with an intelligent Chinese who believed in the continuance of the present dynasty, and did not believe that our arms would sustain it. He must not, however, be understood to be an apologist of the Taepings, and was of opinion that a false form of Christianity was harder to deal with than utter heathenism. But assuredly vast changes were coming about politically in China; what direction they would ultimately take no one could say. The report spoke of ten missionaries in Pekin, but in truth there were thirteen; for three of the missionaries had wives who were most efficient missionaries to their own sex, and were doing great good amongst the poor degraded females of that city. His heart had on more than one occasion been stirred to its very depths by the earnest prayers of the missionaries' wives with and for the Chinese women met for instruction in Divine things. It was sometimes said that the Chinese had no hearts; but he knew to the contrary, for he had seen Christian native women by the bedside of the dying wife of a missionary sobbing with agony as they prayed to God to preserve the life of their beloved teacher. Again had he witnessed similar scenes of Sorrow at a missionary's funeral. At HanKow, a city of even more importance than Pekin itself, this society had only one missionary; at Shanghai labourers were still urgently required; and at Hong Kong, Dr. Legge still laboured alone. At Amoy, his own sphere of labour, a good work was being done by all the missionaries of the Protestant churches; for, let it be observed, that in the mission-field denominationalism was forgotten, and all united in the common struggle under the banner of the Captain of their salvation. There were 850 communicants in fellowship with the church in Amoy and its neighbourhood. There were five organised Christian churches and seventeen outlying stations, with an area of fifty miles-lights planted amidst the dense darkness around. A most valuable native agency had been trained for work, and no better raw material could be obtained than in China. Fully half of those mission stations had been planted by native preachers, and sustained by the native Christians. There were some noble American brethren at Amoy. They had ordained several native pastors over churches, and two of these were supported entirely by the contributions of the native Christian people, and that in a very liberal manner. He wished all pastors in England had salaries as large as the people gave to those two teachers. The work of the European missionary in China was not so much that of the pastorate as of the bishop -the overlooking and assistance of the native brethren and churches. Of this he was fully assured, that China must be evangelised by preaching. The giving away books and tracts was not enough. Thus the missionaries in China were preaching missionaries. In India much had to be done by means of the school. In China the people were sufficiently well educated to understand the preaching, and, therefore, the impartation of general education was not necessary. As to the allegation sometimes made, that the Chinese were not prepared to make sacrifices for their religion, his reply was, they are not only prepared to do this, but they continually do it. Some of the converts have confessed Christ even to the death. He was able to say that our plenipotentiary at Pekin was now in possession of facts which he had not received when he wrote the letter to Earl Russell alluded to in the report, and that efforts would be made to obtain for the Protestant missionaries the same right of propagating their faith unmolested that had been conceded to the French. That was all that was asked for. The civil power was not desired for the support or propagation of the Gospel, for that would be an injury instead of a benefit. But it was desired that our Government should not be ashamed of our Christianity in the sight of the heathen, and that a stipulation should be made with the Chinese Government for the protection of the native Christians against persecution. Let the churches in England rest assured of this, that China shall be won for Christ, and its myriad sons and daughters gather around the feet of Emmanuel, and acknowledge Him to be Lord of all. HOME MISSIONARY SOCIETY. THE annual meeting of this Society was held in the Poultry Chapel, S. Morley, Esq., in the chair. The Rev. J. H. Wilson, secretary, read the following report : "In 1851 there were five millions of people in England and Wales living in open neglect of public worship. Of these two millions and a half were in large towns, one million and a half in the rural districts, and one million in London; but there is comfort in knowing that among the seven millions who have made public profession of the Christian faith in England, there is a power, which, if wisely directed and rightly used, will be found more than sufficient to overcome the evil with good. 66 Representing no inconsiderable proportion of this power, the Home Missionary Society has preached the Gospel during the past year in 600 towns and hamlets, containing a population of 700,000 souls, scattered over 35 counties in England and Wales, and, in harmony with county associations, has maintained 117 central mission stations, with 50 outyling evangelistic districts, under the care of 105 resident agents and 60 evangelists. The pastors have the oversight of the mission churches, and the evangelists visit for seven hours a day among 20,000 families, who, but for this agency would, for the most part, be without the means of grace. There are at present about 108 central churches, with the membership of 6,000 chiefly in villages grouped together within a radius of seven miles. In these mission chapels there are 50,000 hearers, 15,000 Sunday-scholars, 1,800 teachers, 85 Bible classes, with 1,200 pupils, and 200 voluntary lay preachers, who labour chiefly on the Sundays in the villages where they reside. During the year 250,000 tracts were distributed, 3,000 copies of the Scriptures sold, and 85,000 periodicals, including our denominational magazines-the Cottager, the British Workman, and the Band of Hope Review. The cost of this agency of the Society amounted to £6,087. 11s. 1d.; the mission churches having raised for local objects and missionary purposes about £4,093. 2s. 5d. more. "Compared with the returns for the year 1859-60, there appears a decrease in the number of small churches occasioned by the grouping of villages, in order to promote the establishment of compact and strong centres, which gives an increase of real and effective power. In 1860, there were only ten lay evangelists; in 1864 there are 60. In 1800, 530 members were added to our churches; in 1864, 850 bave been enrolled. "But while these results are encouraging, and call for devout thanksgiving to God, there is an appalling amount of spiritual destitution yet to be removed, and but little doing in some counties to remove it. In the county of Cumberland, for example, it was shown at a recent meeting of the County Association, by fully prepared statistics, that in a population of 200,000 people, of whom 120,000 were capable of attending public worship, 60,000 are absentees; that in the chief county town, out of a population of 30,000, only 4,000 are in church and chapel on the Sunday; and that with scarcely any deficiency of accommodation, the churches and chapels are not more than half filled. In other counties the returns submitted by committees of inquiry were scarcely less depressing; spiritual life and Christian effort being the exception and not the rule. In 1851, only thirty-five persons out of every 100 in the United Kingdom were present at public worship on the census Sunday; and there is reason to fear that in 1864 these returns are not materially improved. In one district in Westmoreland, for example, although there was church and chapel accommodation for every man, woman, and child in the parish, half the sittings were empty; and similar statistics might be adduced from other districts to show that now, as in 1851, church and chapel accommodation is not so much needed as 'church and chapel inclination.' "In dealing with the spiritual destitution thus indicated, your committee have found it most desirable to promote the grouping of villages around a common centre, and to increase the number of lay and special evangelists. A few practical illustrations will now be given to show the value of this agency, fand, encourage further effort in this direction. 66 I. GROUPING OF VILLAGES. "Many years ago, for example, a devoted minister was settled over a small church in a thriving town in Somerset. Having consolidated his strength in the town, he selected points of effort with a view to evangelise 'the regions round about.' Lay preachers were encouraged to go forth to the villages. In course of time village chapels were built, and a few small pastorates were established; but the danger of multiplying feeble churches having become apparent, most of the villages were grouped; and, by the aid of the Home Missionary Society, were placed under the charge of efficient agents. The beloved pastor of this diocese has gone to his rest and his reward; but his mantle having fallen on a successor of like mind, the good work thus begun has been carried forward, and has proved a great success. The original church has now 200 members, and an average congregation of 650 people, with 550 scholars in the Sunday-schools. One group consists of four villages, with about 500 in attendance, 50 church members and 130 scholars in the Sunday-school. Another has five villages, with 550 in attendance, 58 church members and 120 Sunday-scholars. A third has three villages, with 160 in attendance, 20 members and 50 scholars: while a fourth has five villages, with 600 in attendance, 110 members and 190 children in the schools, each group having a pastor, and two of these pastors having evangelists-the total results being 15 chapels in 17 villages, attended by 1,810 people, of whom 238 are in church fellowship, and 490 children are in the Sundayschools, while the parent church, which has grown from the seed to its present prosperous state, when compared with some other churches whose sympathies were never thus expanded, has realized, in a spiritual sease, the truth of the Scripture, 'There is that scattereth, and yet increaseth, and there is that witholdeth more than is meet and it tendeth to poverty.' "Take another example. Three years ago the committee of the Home Missionary Society promoted inquiry into the spiritual state of a given district in Dorsetshire, where Romanism and Ritualism were awfully prevalent. The results showed that within a radius of eight miles there were 54 parish churches in a population of 23,530 souls, and 60 resident clergy men, only one of whom was known to be evangelical; while another cared not to conceal that he offered his morning devotions before the image of the Virgin, and very few of the others did anything beyond the usual routine duties of their calling. The only agencies besides the Home Missionary Station in this district are two small Wesleyan chapels, with no resident minister, and three preaching rooms. To meet the difficulties of this case, the committee of the Home Missionary Society increased the power of their centre, and appointed evangelists for the outlying fields. The Gospel was then more extensively and directly preached, and the Bible circulated in every village and hamlet within the district. Opposition now showed itself. Five clergymen, chiefly Tractarian, were appointed to preach successively in the central church. Choral services were established; popular lectures introduced. Dissent was proscribed; baptismal regeneration taught; and the public charities freely lavished. But all in vain, for it failed to injure our Mission; and instead of this, our chapels were crowded, religious awakening and inquiry followed, and the Mission never was so prosperous as it is in that district at the present hour. The appendix will contain details regarding the other cases of a similar character which will gladden many a heart; suffice it only further to say here that to churches thus active and dependent on the power of the Holy Spirit, there have been additions of 15, 25, 30, and 45 members during the year. "To every church not doing aggressive work your committee earnestly recommend this example, believing, as they do, that the moral darkness of England will never be removed until all the churches thus shine as lights in the world,' every member holding forth the word of life. "In every case where villages have been grouped and placed under the care of rightlyqualified Home Mission pastors, with the help of lay evangelists and good local co-operation, the results have been gratifying, while single pastorates in the small towns have, with very few exceptions, made no progress. 66 LAY EVANGELISTS. "The Lay Evangelistic Agency has also been largely blessed. By the rules of their appointment, these evangelists are in no instance to take upon themselves the forma tion of separate and independent churches; neither are they to assume the status of the ordained ministry,' the converts being received into the fellowship of the churches in whose service they are employed, where they enjoy all the advantages of pastoral oversight. There are 60 evangelists now at work for seven hours every day-one-third of the salaries being paid by the Home Missionary Society, one-third by county associations, and one-third locally raised this department adding £1,200 a-year to the society's expenditure, but calling forth £2,400 in the counties where the evangelists are employed, an increase which, like mercy, has been 'twice blessed,' inasmuch as in every county association where an Evangelist Fund has been specially raised, the general funds have increased. "To give some idea of the value of this agency, two villages in Dorsetshire may be taken as an example. They contain_about 3,200 persons, two-thirds of whom are Roman Catholics. For many years a small church here was aided by the Home Missionary Society, with scarcely any spiritual results, but lately an evangelist was appointed, with instructions to go from house to house, and promote cottage services as well as the preaching in the little chapel on Sunday. At first he was coldly received, but as he had undertaken a gracious mission, and had a loving heart, his visits came to be welcomed, until in the course of the last year he had access to every family, save one, and sold nineteen copies of the Bible. In the same district, out of fourteen families visited, only two attended any place of worship, and only one in a family of nine could read. Now they are nearly all under the means of grace. In Somersetshire the spiritual destitution was found on inquiry so great, and the need of direct evangelistic work so urgent, that it was resolved, at a meeting of the association two years ago, to appoint ten evangelists, at a cost of £400 a-year to the county, and £200 to the Home Missionary Society. The funds were subscribed, ten evangelists were appointed, and a blessed work has since been done, for not only is every cottage within a given district visited, but more than fifty conversions have been recorded as the direct result of their labours. The Established Church has also been prompted to appoint Scripture readers, and our Baptist brethren in the county have taken to this method of home evangelization. "In Sussex seven evangelists have been at work for nine months, and the results of their labours show that they have 20,000 families under visitation, have held 1,000 meetings in cottages and village chapels, distributed 25,000 tracts, sold many copies of the Scriptures, and been the means of bringing more than 100 persons under the saving power of the Gospel. * * * * * * "Tracing the results of the evangelists' labours generally, in so far as they can be seen in the number of persons who have professed to find peace with God, it appears from the journals that some have been instrumental in bringing eight, some ten, some fifteen, one eighteen, one twenty-five, and one thirty persons into fellowship with the churches, the total number of additions by this agency being over 250 during the past year. "III. SPECIAL EVANGELISTS. "It is evident from these facts that our Home Mission Agency now at work is well adapted to the wants of the age; but your committee still feel that,' to use the language of one of the resolutions passed at the Evangelistic Conference, held three years ago, contemporaneously with this more limited agency, it is hoped that God will raise up men of pre-eminent piety and power, who, beyond the limitations of the pastorate, will devote themselves to the exclusive work of preaching the Gospel of reconciliation throughout the length and breadth of the land.' To the devoted and disinterested labours of the Rev. W. Grigsby, of the Tabernacle, London, who spent a month last summer in Devonshire preaching the Gospel on behalf of the Home Missionary Society in many towns and villages, and the Rev. W. Rose, of Bristol, who made a similar tour, and held special services in Lincolnshire and the East Riding of Yorkshire, the Society is greatly indebted; and, while your committee point to results of the most encouraging character as the fruit of their labour, they would affectionately say to other pastors, 'go and do likewise.' The Free Church of Scotland spend £500 a-year in providing supplies and preparing the way for evangelistic tours by the first ministers of her communion. Let us hope that our ablest ministers in London and throughout England will follow this good example, for in so doing they will not only benefit themselves but strengthen the hands and encourage the hearts of many a devoted home missionary, whose labours, though little known, are oftentimes of a self-sacrificing and most heroic character, and should rejoice in this practical experience of the truth that 'as iron sharpeneth iron, so doth the face of man his friend." |