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APPENDIX.

The Committee have thought that it would be very profitable to annex to the preceding Report the substance of an address delivered on the Day of Humiliation, by the Rev. Dr. Potts, of New York. They would earnestly commend it to the prayerful perusal of every one into whose hands this pamphlet may come; and may God carry its truths home to every heart, and awaken all his people to greater diligence, devotedness, and liberality.

I will not amplify the proof upon this point, which might be drawn from the pages of the New Testament. It might easily be shown that evangelization is a necessary element, a part of the very essence of Christianity; that every promise, every warning, every prophecy, every command has a relation more near or more remote to this grand work of the Church. Every christian grace when permitted to expand itself without restraint, will be a missionary. To bless the world and not itself only is the mission of the Church upon earth. For this end it was gathered: for this end it has been kept alive. To work in this cause, it has heavenly implements given to it: heavenly weapons are placed in our hands, to carry forward the conquests of the Gospel. All,-all things that have been, are now, or will be,-conspire to emblason the truth, that the Church of Jesus Christ is a great Missionary Society.

What then? What are the hearings of these great principles? They are so vast, and the facts which illustrate them are so numberless, that it would carry us beyond the bounds of one discourse, and divert our attention from the principal point to which I desire to draw your minds at the present time, were I to treat the theme, as a theme. I pass by designedly much that might be said, in order to bring the matter of duty home as practically as I can; and will consider, not the position of Christendom, for that would be too wide a field, but the position of our own department of Christendom, in respect to evangelization.

Oh! my brethren, I tremble to touch this point. I tremble to lay the measuring-rod of truth to the foundations of our Zion, lest they be found narrow even beyond the fears of the most desponding among us. I tremble to examine the degree of correspondence between our theory and our practice upon this vital subject. But I remember that this is a day of humiliation, and I must speak out, though it should be to utter truths which may shake the security of my own hope toward God. I dare not flatter myself or you-for I believe that there is no darker omen forewarning us of coming desolations, than the present apathy which affects and has for years affected the

church to which we belong, in relation to this plain obligation of the Gospel. Unless it be broken up, we are ruined! For it betokens a spiritual palsy, which, unless checked, will spread from limb to limb until it reach the central parts, and all is lost. Aye, and so it should be! Who can murmur if the presence of Christ should be ultimately lost to any body of professors who persevere in slighting his last commands? When we have lost his presence we shall have lost the vital principle. Our Church shall be as an abandoned temple. A frozen body may have the outward proportions and semblance of the man; not a limb may be wanting-but it is a mockery of humanity, for life is gone. We may be assured that the warm-hearted who are now among us and who will work for Christ, will abandon those who will not, and in other connections seek for a kindred spirit of devotion. As a Church, we must arise and shine, or our light shall go out at noon. Let these convictions be our justification for all plainness of speech.

There are some among us, individuals and churches, that have begun to rouse themselves and look out upon the waste that lies around them, and no longer deluded by a selfish piety nor deterred by the magnitude of the work, have begun to corroborate their prayers by their works. But I know that the best of the most vigorous supporters of missionary enterprise will be the last to claim entire consistency between their creed and their practice in respect to this duty-and the first to acknowledge the fitness of this appointment of a day of humbling. It is one of the burdens of their spiritual complaints before God, that they are not yet-to use the dying words of Legh Richmond-half awake. More love for souls, more zeal for Christ, more sympathy with him in the great object that brought him down from heaven, more self-denied, steady, uniform activity and liberality on behalf of a dying world-are not these and kindred objects of prayer, the objects in which they are conscientiously defective, and for which they call daily upon God? They are. And what does the very asking for them imply? I thank God it implies that we are not without some good tokens that He is yet among us;-but it implies also, (unless our prayers be mockery,) that we are yet far, far short even of our own acknowledged standard of duty. I would not be ungrateful for the tokens of missionary zeal, which christians in this and other churches have evinced within the last twenty years, because those tokens are the gift of God: but I do maintain that there has been, not an undue thankfulness to God, but an undue self-congratulation expressed from the pulpit, the press, and especially the anniversary platform, the natural effect of which is, first to fill our churches with pride, and as a neces

sary consequence to relax effort. I hold that the language of self-condemnation is the safest, simply because it is the truest. Some will have it that this view is discouraging; but this we cannot believe, any more than we can believe that a sincere humility for sinful defects, is unfriendly to the removal of them. No, my brethren, as in every other case, so in this-penitential humility is not groveling despondency, which abandons a duty because it is difficult; it is the parent of that noble ambition which forgets the things that are behind, and reaches forth to those that are before, till it gains the prize. Pride only, is the foe to effort, because it concerns itself in admiring what it is, rather than what it ought to be, and looks rather at what it has done, than at what it ought to do. Such pride be far from every one of us! Let us humbly bow before the truth and make no excuses for our barrenness.

And what then is the truth?-what are the facts which present themselves to us of the Presbyterian Church, at the present moment, and furnish an index of our present spiritual condition? We contract our survey. We will not uncover the nakedness of other branches of the professing Church of Christ, but look only at our own. And we look at our own, not for the purpose of uttering criminations against those whose zeal we may suppose to be more defective than our own, but of awakening our own zeal.

Look first, at what God has done to equip our Church for this work. We are a constituent part of the great assembly of churches in Christendom; we have been gathered into an organic form, more than fifty years; in former days we have had provided by the grace of God, (as if to prepare the ground for our labour in this field,) a large body of Ministers, eminent in their generations for piety and intellect; we have grown in number year by year; we have been kept alive in spite of opposition from without, and painful internal discord, the consequence of the introduction of uncongenial elements; we have fought a successful battle for the truth, in which God, not our own might, made us victors; we have in consequence obtained scope for unembarrassed action in any department of benevolence, and especially in this, into which we professed our desire to enter independently of influences which we thought were hurtful in their tendency. This impediment is in a great measure gone.

Still more: those in our connexion who have a heart to work and pray in this cause, have had the way to the heathen opened to them, and the suitable men raised up to go into the work; we have had as much encouragement as any one could rationally expect, from the labors they have performed: in the most extensive of our missions, the necessary pre-arrangements are

now completed in view of the great purpose-preaching the Gospel; schools have been successfully organized. We have not a variety of fields, because views of expediency, as well as the necessity of the case, have led us to prefer the policy of concentration. We know that we suffer with the public in consequence of this concentration, because we cannot fill the pages of our periodical with a large variety of missionary intelligence: an evil which will be remedied as soon as the Church furnishes the means of more extended operations. So far as means have been furnished, men have been furnished well equipped, and there they are, living in hope toward God, and resting upon the christian honor of those who have sent them forth; they have begun their work faithfully, and have found some favour in the eyes of the heathen. They have stout hearts, and are yet ready to live and labor and die, if needs be, in the high places of the field.

Still more: in answer to prayer doubtless, other men and women have been raised up and have offered themselves to this service, and are ready to go; twelve or more Missionary spirits wait at our doors saying, "Send us;" a certain indication of what the Lord desires of the Presbyterian Church in this matter; and a proof of what He is willing to do. Christ has not frowned upon us, though he has permitted our faith to be tried by disappointing some of our plans: but He has not frowned. All He has done, is fitted to teach this Church that as soon as it shall embody its missionary forces, he stands ready to head the host, and himself lead it to conquest.

And now look secondly at what the Church has done to meet these invitations of our Lord? What are the facts in respect to the means put into the hands of those who have the responsibility of managing this great interest? Listen and weep, ye who love the Lord's cause,-listen and tremble, ye who love it not enough to come up to the help of the Lord against the mighty.

Although God has given us, (what as a Church we had asked for,) room for unembarrassed action-although he has raised up men as well qualified as any, and sent them forth-although others stand ready to go-although the door is open-although our chief ecclesiastical assembly has resolved and pledged itself to labor-although we are not straitened in Christ: yet tell it not in Gath, publish it not in the streets of Askelon-at no time have the gifts thrown into this treasury furnished an amount which, if divided among the individual professors of religion, in number about 160,000, would make the average gifts of each exceed one-third of a dollar! Nor is this the whole or the worst view of the case. We look at our statistics, and find that some whole Churches have done nothing, and that after

all, what has been done, has been done by a fraction of the whole body. Nor is even this the worst we have to mourn over. Although our General Assembly recommended an increase in our contributions for the coming year-the startling fact is, that thus far, since the financial year has commenced, the amount received is not only not equal to, but four thousand dollars less than the amount received during the corresponding period of last year!

Now here is a strange contradiction. Let us take the most favorable view of the causes of a phenomenon which, (pardon me if I speak warmly) might almost stagger our faith in the efficiency of christian principle, as it most certainly does in the consistency of christian profession. It is said that many of our Churches are poor: but is there any one of them so poor as to justify this? It is said that they have been suffering, ever since our work commenced under unexampled embarrassments. It is true they have; but have they economized in other things as they have in this? It is said they need information of the wants of the world: be this also true, then must we come to the sad conclusion that their Ministers have been awfully criminal in not disseminating the requisite information. I use the word advisedly, and repeat that if this be the cause of our meagre receipts, their ministers have been awfully criminal.

Dear brethren, pause here and consider this picture. Surely, surely the professing christians-the Ministers of our Zion cannot but be moved by such a statement of facts, when it shall have been laid before them, as it now is before you. What else can we do than spread it out before you, mortifying as it is. It is humiliating, it is alarming in whatever light it is considered. It calls for universal motion throughout all the churches of our connexion. An universal cry should be raised-Where lies the fault? . Could we persuade Ministers and people to put this question, we should consider the work done.

Where then lies the fault? Does it lie at the door of the brethren appointed for the management of the work? They have with great solicitude asked themselves the question.What more can they do than they have attempted to do; what appeal could they have made, which has not been made; what service rendered, which they have not rendered? Let the Church point out any reasonable claim upon them, and they will cheerfully comply, although, if it were the will of God, they would gladly be released from the heavy responsibility of working almost without means. They are very sad at this moment, dear brethren, for they are overwhelmed in spirit with calls for help, and discussions, perplexities, despondencies, which cannot be spread upon the printed page. But tell them what more they can do, and they will do it.

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