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LONDON MISSIONARY SOCIETY.

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LONDON MISSIONARY SOCIETY. The anniversary meeting of this society took place on Thurs- day, lotli ilist., at Exeter Hall, which was crowded in every part. His grace the Duke of Argyll occupied the chair, and the plat- form was never more crowded by so large. an assemblage of Christian ministers and influential laymen. After the usual preliminaries of singing and prayer, the CHAIRMAN- addressed the meeting, to the effect that the obligations upon England were great to extend the blessings of Christianity over the face of the earth; but that he had become acquainted with a cir- cumstance that he felt it to be his duty to mention, and he would do this without asperity. Hitherto it had been the habit every year to have a sermon preached in support of this Mis- sionary institution in one of the Churches belonging to the Establishment; for fifty-four years it had been the habit freely to give the services of the Church of England for the support of this institution but this year, for the first time, a prohibition had been issued by the Bishop of London against this support to the charity. Now we are bound to conclude that the Bishop of London has in this movement proceeded from conscientious motives, and that some new light has struck his mind but it is my deep conviction that the interests of the Church of Eng- land will be better served when all its members prove that they do not place Episcopacy in the. front of Christianity. After alluding to the labours of the society in various quarters of the globe, the noble Chairman resumed his seat; when the Secre- "or "a the report, from which the following facts were elicited:— In Polynesia, during the past two years, three native evange- lists had fallen victims to the violence of the people. The Christians of Tahiti remain insensible to the attractions of Popery. In South Africa, the missionary settlements at the Cape are enjoying peace. In the West Indies, the missions have pecuniarily suffered, but spiritually the directors speak in terms more cheering. In China, the success has exceeded the most sanguine expectations; whilst in India the Society's schools number 337, and its scholars exceed 12,500. The Christian Churches under the pastoral care of its mis- sionaries are 25, and include upwards of 1,000 members. The amount of income for the year ending March 31, 1849, was E 64,508, and the expenditure E67,238, which gives an excess of £ 2,730." The Rev. James HILL, of Clapham, in an eloquent speech, moved the adoption of the report; he said It is comparatively easy for the philosopher to sit down and speculate in his study on the moral improvement of man by the introduction of science but where are the agents that philosophy has ever employed for carrying its schemes into practical effect ? Where are the men of science and of literature who have been willing to forego the comforts of life, and live for years in the society of barbarians, that they might lift them from their abject condi- tion? Direct us to a single nation which has been so raised? Pass over with us to the isles'of the sea. What is it in many of those islands, which has put an end to human sacrifi.ce, that has stopped the career of desolating and exterminating war; that has multiplied the nation and increased its joy that has res- cued the new-born infant from the deadly grasp of the de- stroyer that has exchanged the instruments of death for the implements of husbandry; that has spread the sail of com- merce that has introduced learning and the useful arts; that has caught the floating sounds of a merely spoken dialect, and given them forn, and pressure, and embodiment in a written lan- guage that has taught the art of printing, that mighty engine of mental and moral improvement ? What, but the labours of Christian missionaries ? As members of this society, we can never think of those islands without a thrill of the liveliest emotion. Oh, Tahiti! thou hast been to us a dove with wings covered with silver, and her feathers with yellow gold. And gladly would we have sheltered thee, as a hen sheltereth her chickens under her wings, when the rapacious eagle swooped to make thee her prey. But there is hope concerning thee. Will not our dove yet return and bring us back the olive branch, newly-plucked, to indicate that the waters are assuaged, and that the land is beginning to bloom and blossom, and send forth her fragrance. Have we not that branch in the state- ments made in the report of this day. Seven hundred copies of the revised edition of the Scriptures have been sold in Tahiti alone. E280 have already been paid to the British and Foreign Bible Society as the product of that sale. Proceed we now to Africa, and which of the nations of Europe is not a debtor to thee? And of those nations, which more than ourselves? Many of our luxuries have been obtained by the sweat of thy brow much of our wealth has been corroded by thy blood. Which of thy trackless wastes might not have been traversed by the line of bones which marked the dreary path which thy children trod when torn away from home, from kindred, and from country, to pine under the lash and the load of the op- pressor ? Which of thy arid sands has not been steeped with thy tears and with thy blood ? We have verily been guilty concerning our brother. Thou shalt yet have beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness. From Africa we pass over to the islands of the West, those scenes of England's shame and England's glory, too. Nor can I here forbear adverting, for a moment, to one of the collateral benefits of missionary effort. e give all due praise to the men who so nobly fought the battle of negro emancipation in our own country. They were men of whom the world was not worthy. But we cannot forego the con- viction, that the labours and the sufferings of missionaries had more to do with that victory than the advocates of freedom seem sometimes disposed to acknowledge. Who furnished the most affecting details of the wrongs inflicted by slavery? Who supplied the materials from which the friends and advocates of emancipation wrought their eloquent addresses? Who drew aside the veil which planters and slave-holders had, by bribery and. corruption, so long been able to hang before that system, and displayed it as an object to be loathed and abhorred ? Who, by their correct information, made the story of the negro's wrongs, and the clank of his chain, and the groan of his oppres- sion to be heard in every city, town, village, and ham- let of this country, until England rose in her might and in her munificence, to redeem their soul from deceit and violence, and to show that precious was their blood in her sight? Who? Let the fear and the dread, the hatred and the outrage, the violence and the merciless cruelty shown by the planters to the missionaries, answer who. This was be scent of a stanch hound: it was the scream of the im- pure birds of night at the approach of day. They saw that the Gospel was creating a moral atmosphere in which slavery would not be able long to breathe; was diffusing' a light too bright for the bleared eyes of oppressors to see in. We are next brought in the order of the report to China. But my spirit well nigh faints when I think -of China. A third of the human family is congregated there. More than three hun- dred millions of human beings, amongst whom is not one that does homage to the God that made it. What a sea of immortal mind In looking across it, and observing it rolling, weltering, surging in the billows of its own corrupt inclinations, one almost feels as we may suppose Noah felt when he first lifted up the window of the ark and saw sea everywhere, and everywhere sea; and we can suppose him saying to himself, Is it possible that the earth can ever again be the residence of man ? What is impossible with man is possible with God. And again he opened the window of the ark, and the mountain tops had began to appear, and to lift their bare bosoms to the skies. Presently the slopes of the hills are covered with verdure; the world's winter is passed, the rain is over and gone, the turtle dove is heard in the valley, and the time of singing of birds is come. Is anything too hard for the Lord ? Cannot he who reneweth the face of the earth, cause even China to emerge from her moral deluge, and as she rises, present an aspect beau- tiful as the garden of the Lord ? The report closes with India; and who at all acquainted with its history, does not feel his imagination filled and fired by the theme. It is there," to quote the words of an eloquent writer, "that we seem to be introduced to the very fountains of ancient philosophy,—to the laboratories of those various opinions which formed the schools of the west,—to the nursery of our race, where the first accents of our language are preserved in their simplest forms,—to the very oracle or sanctuary of all ancient heathen worship,—to the innermost chamber of all mystic and mythic lore." But to a Briton and a Christian it ought to be a still more interesting and affecting thought, that in that land we have some hundred and thirty millions of fellow-subjects, all overshadowed with the gloom of Paganism, or deluded by the impure and intoler- ant principles of the Arabian impostor. All these, from the ocean which rolls at their feet on the south, up to their sublime mountain boundary on the north, feel Britain's power,—shall they not feel her mercy too ? They have gods many, and lords many; but the only true God is the only God unknown there. What a battle-field for truth What trophies are there to be won not of carnage and of slaughter,—not of rivers stained with blood, and choked with the dead,—not of magazines bursting with the destructive violence of a volcano in the midst of her crowded cities,-but trophies of light and love, of mental joy and heavenly freedom. One of her Mohammedan con- querors was accustomed to call India the emerald of the world. Who does not long to see it burnished into brightness, and set as a gem in the diadem of the Redeemer's mediatorial glory ? The Rev. Dr. CUMMING said I regret, in common with your grace, the loss of a place of worship in which a minister of the Church of England has statedly preached for this Society. Your grace remarked, that the respected diocesan had felt it to be his conscientious duty thus to act; but it is right to tell a bishop, as well as a presbyter, that he may be conscientiously wrong as well as conscientiously right. Your grace stated, and stated justly, that new light had dawned on his lordship, for whom I feel the highest respect; but instantly it struck 11 y me with my Scottish head, that it was doubtful whether it was light at all-because the Scripture says, that if the light which is in you be darkness, how great must that darkness be. But if I could conclude, with your grace, that it was light, I began to inquire from whence it came. Did it come from Glasgow ? It could not have come from thence, because the spark that was struck there was quenched by our Scottish Protestantism. Perhaps it came from Exeter (cheers). If it did, I dare say the beam gathered splendour in its transit through the gaol in which Mr. Shore is incarcerated (loud cheers). No; it did not come either from Glasgow or from Exeter-it came from Gaeta—where the Pope is in exile, learning better lessons than he learned at Rome. You have lost a chapel in Gray's-inn- road for the advocacy of your. missions, but Asia is open; Africa, with its broad and burning fields, is open India's plains are open you have lost a few square feet, but the whole world is open to the London Missionary Society. I have the misfortune to differ from some of my brethren around me. I believe in Established Churches I am a minister and a mem- ber of one myself. It is one of the minor details on which we differ. I believe, however, that the hour of their existence is stated and recorded where it cannot be erased. Much as I love my own dear Church, yet I feel that the hour is on the wing- when it shall share in the common crash and during tne little day that remains, Establishments might afford to be ge- nerous. Let me then say, that as you have lost the Established Church of England, come and try mine. I believe that all Churches are going through a new ordeal. We live in an age of tests,-and depend upon it, the best Church will be found, not to be that which can trace its pedigree with the greatest minuteness, but that which does God's work in God's way,— in God's name for God's glory,—and for the spread of truth. What is the best machine ? The machine which does most work with the least noise. What is the best corn-field ? That which grows the best corn with the least trouble. What is the best Church ? The Church that preaches most. faithfully the Gospel, and shows that it values it by spreading it with the greatest devotedness. We live in a day of great practical sagacity the men of the world have discovered this,—and de- pend upon it, if you fall back on your old anile crotchets, and baptise them with the name of conscientiousness if you ex- clude the London Missionary Society because it has no certain apostolical succession, it will prove injurious rather than bene- ficial. I would rather belong to a society which has such a splendid report to present as the one we have heard to-day, than to a society that can trace i's pedigree to Peter's great toe. I am sure you will not suppose that I am hostile to the Church of England; on the contrary, I am attached to it. I believe it to have had a splendid literature, a sound theology, and I should wish its last days like my own, not to be its darkest, but its brightest. I am not now speaking against the institution but let me ask would you not rather have the Gospel preached by one who has no succession, than nonsense, preached by one who has the most lineal succession? It seems to me that not only should episcopacy be put a little behind,, but very far be- hind Christianity. Let me appeal to any one in the Assembly as to the best vessel out of which to drink water. Is it not the one that gives it the least flavour ? What is the best Church ? Certainly that which conveys the living water of the living God with the least of its ovii idiosyncracy. Let me refer to an an- cient and a Scriptural case. The Israelites" werB dying in the wilderness, and you remember that the prescription of God was that a serpent of brass should be raised on a pole and it came to pass that whosoever looked upon the brass was restored to perfect health. That pole typifies the Christian minister; the brass typifies the Saviour. Now, suppose some old conscien- tious crochetty Israelite, lying in the wilderness serpent-bitten, was anxious to be healed; "suppose he had said to Moses, That serpent you tell me will cure me if I look to it, but it stands on a pole if you, Moses, will show me the genealo- gical and botanical succession of that pole if you will only de- monstrate to me that that pole is a chip of a tree that grew 100 years ago, which was a shoot from one that grew before the flood, which last was a shoot from one that grew in Paradise before Adam fell, then I will look at the brass," Moses would have replied, You are most conscientious, but if you will make the experiment you will live whether you can rrace the botanical succession of the pole or not." So I say of those missionaries whom you send to foreign lands the virtue is not in the men, but in the message the power is in the Gospel, not in the lips that preach it; and I care not whether that glorious Gospel be preached by a Wesleyan or a Presbyterian, a Congregationalist, or an Episcopalian, let it be preached in its glory and fulness, and may God bless the messenger, and seal his truth. I rejoice at that allusion in the report to the success of your schools in India. I am a great advocate of schools. I am an admirer of ragged schools. I believe that the next generation will be the exponent and result precisely of what the present is made—I look upon a child's pinafore as more precious than a bishop's apron. I make the comparison with no disrespect either to bishop or presbyter; and if any one is offended I will not say more precious than a bishop s apron, but a presbyter's gown, whether Geneva, English, or any other. I look upon education in India, England, and' Scotland, as most important. These infant minds are either seed-corn, sown to-day, that will burst into a harvest, and re- flect a nation's gratitude or they are the gunpowder trains that lie dead and dark till the spark struck from Revelation touches them, and they will then explode the firmest foundations of the world. Educate at home and abroad. Attach to Christian education an emphasis and weight such as never attached to it before. The report led us back to the days when the Society was founded, a little more than fifty. years ago. There was scarcely a missionary society in Christendom. The angel of the everlasting Gospel had folded his wings for a thousand years, and only then began to spread them and remarkable it is that the missionary says, all had their birth amidst the storms of 1792 and if I am to judge from the report of to-day, and those of other missionary institutions, 1 believe they are to renew their strength amid the storms and convulsions of 1848. It is interesting to notice that, amongst the first of the institutions that siarted into being, was the Baptist Mission, then the London, the Wesleyan, the Scotch, and the Church Missionary Societies. If I am chronologically wrong, it is easy to alter the collocation. These mis- sionary societies came in succession like bridesmaids making ready for the bridegroom, or like the successive peaks of the Alps, or the Apennines, each touched with the 0 beams of the rising sun. I have read, with great delight, the beautiful testimony of Wilberforce, when he stood in the House of Commons and I hope that if a senator so spoke there, that this distinguished man's sons, one of whom is now in the Epis- copal Bench, will not be ashamed of the echo. He says, I do not know a finer instance of the morally sublime than that a poor cobbler, Dr. Carey, working all day at a stall, should have conceived the magnificent idea of converting the world. Milton's planning Paradise Lost, was not a nobler spectacle than Carey, planning the conversion of the heathen." It is the moral that is grand—the material becomes pale and invisible beside it: That poor cobbler planning the conversion of the heathen was a spectacle which angels from their starry thrones paused to behold and praise with adoring gratitude, whilst monarchs upon the field of battle, or sitting triumphantly on thrones, were objects passed by or disregarded. And what has been the result of that cobbler's first conception? Our missionaries are now in the Isles of the Pacific they are seen in the cinnamon groves of Ceylon, and amid the plague-smitten atmosphere of Turkey. The Gospel is preached to the Arab in his tent, to the Cossack in his forest; and it is becoming every day more and more true that, wheresoever Great Bri- tain's power is felt, mankind are beginning to feel her mercy too. It is not a probability; it is not a speculation that may fail; it is a fixed principle,—it is a dead certainty. God's purposes are surer than man's performances, that the whole of the earth shall be filled with the glory of the Lord God of Israel. A touching allusion was made to Tahiti. If the royal exiles at Claremont have moments of thought and recollection, -if the Pontiff at Gaeta reviews the scenes and transactions of the past,—they must have painful thoughts about that one word, Tahiti. But what a triumph it is The monarch's sword was stretched out to smite,—the pontiff s crosier fol- lowed, to confirm the blow; the monarch's sword is shivered, thcpontiff's tiara is torn away from his brow, and he has run away in a footman's livery. I see in the past victories of Christianity augurs of its future triumph. It came with only twelve fishermen by the banks" of Gallilee to preach it. It en- countered the prejudices of the ignorant, the passions of the depraved, the eloquence of gifted men, the power and resources of royal men,—and it moved through them all. It never ad- vanced, but to victory it never retreated, but to cover that retreat with greater glory than the advance. It made martyrs in the shops of Rome, confessors in the palaces of Rome,—and the past history of Christianity has confirmed this high glorious fact, that no patronage can build up a lie, and no fires can burn out the truth of God. The very existence of Christianity seems to me no less a miracle than its past triumphs. A speck upon the wave,—an exotic flower amidst storms and frosts,— a book hated by men because it reformed their sins,—and yet here is a strange fact, that monuments of Grecian literature and Greek poets and dramatists, Latin poets, orators, and dra- matists, the books that men loved because they chimed in with natural sympathy, and spoke peace, peace to them,—these books are many of them lost, all of them mutilated to a limited or a great extent, but this book, which all hated because it re- formed their sins this book, which had no quarter, has been persecuted by all, misrepresented by all, caricatured by all, yet lives. Suppose a man were to come into this assembly who had lived eighteen centuries ago; suppose he had been shot, tod yet not dead suppose arsenic had been administered, and he were not poisoned suppose he had been cast into the sea and yet not drowned thrown into the flames, and yet not burnt; what would you say ? That the broad shield of God's omnipotence had been over that man. The Bible is that man. The poisoned notes of Douay and Rheims had been appended it had been cast into the flames of a hundred inquisitionvs, buried in the floods, and buried in the earth, and yet that book is in every Presbyterian, Baptist, Independent, Wesleyan, Episcopal pulpit, in unshaken magnificence. I believe we have a token, from what is going on in the world, of what is soon to be the triumph of Christianity. I believe the time is short; but what inference do I draw? Not that we should cease to work, but that we should do that work with greater energy and enterprise. I believe the candle is nearly burnt to the socket; use that which remains. I believe the paper is almost covered: crowd into the manuscript much more important statements still. I -believe that the twilight time is come, which is signified by the crash of empires, the fall of dynas- ties, and the disorganisation of the Church that we love. I believe that we hear, amidst the crash and the desolation of empires, the first tones of that glorious jubilee, The Lord God Omnipotent reigneth the kingdoms of this world are became the kingdoms of our God and of his Christ (cheers). I see tokens of the great seal burst in every part of the world. Our steamers are floating on the waves of every ocean-tlie Tigris, Nile, Euphrates, Indus, Missouri, and Mississippi are the high roads of our civilisation. I see those remarkable dis- coveries which science is making. Do you think the railroad was meant to enable the men of Birmingham to buy cheaper, and for no other purpose? Do you believe that the telegraph was invented merely to tell the price of stocks? I do not believe it. I believe these are the responses of God to the thirst of humanity for a common brotherhood, and that the cement of that brotherhood is the light and.love of the Gospel. I believe these are rails laying down for a great victory I be- lieve these are bridesmaids getting ready for the advent of the bridegroom I believe these are the. voices of a thousand Bap- tists, who have got the Baptist's inspiration, breathing forth the strain first heard on Jordan's banks, and which shall be last heard at the Millenium, Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sins of the world." After a few more remarks, the rev. gentleman sat down, when the Duke of Argyll stated he was compelled to leave the chair, and requested he might place therein Sir Culling Eardley, Bart., who: accordingly took the chair. The Rev. T. R. BIIOOKE, rector of Aveling, Gloucestershire, was introduced as the clergyman who was to have preached the annual sermon which was prevented by the Bishop of London. He moved a resolution to the effect of renewing their zeal aii4 increasing their liberality, to enable the directors of this society to meet the numerous and pressing appeals for the in- crease of missionaries and the extension of its labour." This resolution was enforced upon the assembly by the rev. gentle- man, who was succeeded by Dr. ROBSON, of Glasgow, who followed up in the same path, and gave way to a native chief of Raratonga. He addressed the meeting in his own language, which was interpreted by the Rev. Mr. Buzacott, and seemed to give great satisfaction to the assembly. Addresses were delivered by several other rev. gentlemen, when the meeting adjourned, and was again held the same evening, at Finsbury Chapel, Edward Baines, Esq., of Leeds, in the chair. There the proceedings were also of a very in- teresting character.

[No title]

JOHN MINISTER, MY JO.

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CONGREGATIONAL UNION.