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ANNUAL SURVEY OF THE MISSIONS OF THE BOARD.

EIGHTEEN hundred years ago Christ said to his disciples, "Say not ye, There are yet four months and then cometh harvest? Behold, I say unto you, lift up your eyes and look on the fields; for they are white already to harvest." There has perhaps ever been, as there now is, with Christians, too much of looking forward to the future with a vague, undefined expectation of what God will do hereafter for the promotion of the cause of Christ; while there is quite too little appreciation of the work which he is now doing, and, especially, quite too little appreciation of the work to which now he calls his people. A living, actuating faith in God; a firm belief of all his promises, and in the ultimate accomplishment of all his revealed purposes of mercy towards the world; a faith which would lead us, in the full expectation of ultimate success, ourselves to labor for the world's salvation, while we trust in God, and feel that the work is his, and that he alone can give success to efforts made;-such faith is needed. "I had fainted," says the Psalmist, "unless I had believed to see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. Wait on the Lord: be of good courage and he shall strengthen thy heart; wait, I say, on the Lord." But there is much waiting for the Lord which is not thus waiting on the Lord. Christians have an expectation that at some future time God will work; that he will give success to the preaching of the gospel and bring the world to know the truth; but they too much fail to feel that he is now working for this end, and that he is now calling them to work ;-that the fields are white already to harvest.

In preparing the customary brief annual survey of the missions of the Board, but little more can be done than briefly to allude to the circumstances of each mission. But the intelligent and thoughtful Christian, who

VOL. XLVI.

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will review the year with only what can here be said to refresh his memory, and revive impressions which he may already have received, while he will find much which may well lead to penitence and prayer, will not fail to see, also, much which is more directly calculated to excite fervent gratitude and cheering hope. In Western Africa, the mission has been extending its operations farther into the interior, exploring new territory and finding new and not umpromising fields for effort; while at stations before occupied, there have not been wanting tokens of divine favor and the converting agency of the Holy Spirit. Nothing has occurred to render the fields in Southern Africa less pleasant, or less hopeful, than they have been for the last few years; the slight opposition which has been awakened having come in connection with, and indeed been occasioned by, the manifest operations of the Spirit of God upon the hearts of some of the people, leading them to turn from their heathenism and their sins to the service of Christ. In connection with the different missions in India, there has been no revival, unless very recently at Ahmednuggur, though some individuals have been. hopefully born again. But though God has not seen fit to crown the labors of the missionaries with great success in the present conversion of sinners, they yet feel, generally, in the different parts of India, that he is, through their instrumentality and that of other missionaries, very obviously carrying forward a great preparatory work; that the prejudices of the people are yielding; that the foundations of idolatry are being undermined; that there are indications of a time approaching when the millions of India, casting away their idols, shall say, as once said the assembled people of Israel, after years of revolt from the service of Jehovah, "The Lord, he is the God; the Lord, he is the God." The laborers in the different missions in China, too, find their way not hedged up, but the fields opening and enlarging around them; while they are received by the people with more favor and treated with more respect, and have greater liberty and fuller opportunity for the prosecution of their work, in social intercourse with the people, in the distribution of religious books, and by the public preaching of the gospel. The Nestorian mission, around which, one year ago, there had again gathered threatening clouds, has been again permitted to see even such clouded "skies pour down righteousness." The darkness has given place to light; and the mission has again rejoiced in a work of grace of as deep interest, and, apparently, fully as great purity, as any of the revivals with which modern missions have been so richly blessed. Among the Armenians, the work of God is still progressing; light is still spreading; the people are still extensively renouncing the errors in which they have been trained, admitting that the truth is with the missionaries, and in many instances, it is believed, embracing that truth heartily, and truly giving themselves to Christ. And in Syria, there is much more movement among the people, more conversation and inquiry on religious subjects, and more apparent readiness to admit and to embrace the truth, than at any time before since the mission was commenced. Among the native tribes of our own land, some the missions have met with much that is discouraging, and with little to

awaken hope; but among the Choctaws the Holy Spirit has been present, and many have been made the hopeful subjects of renewing grace. At the Sandwich Islands, though the people have been afflicted sorely by disease, there has been this abundant cause for gratitude,-about 1,600 persons have been added to the churches on profession of their faith. Could the survey of missionary operations be extended to the labors of other missionary bodies, American and European, and to the results of their labors, the occasion for gratitude certainly would not appear less.

But does any impatient Christian feel that, after all, the progress making towards the conversion of the world is slow, and that but little success attends the efforts made? He should consider that, to short-lived and shortsighted man, all God's movements in the work of giving this world to Christ, have seemed to be long delayed, and to make slow progress. And, again, he should look upon the churches by which the missions which are now surveyed have been sustained; and while he remembers the connection which God has established between faithful labor and fervent prayer on the part of Christians, and the conversion of sinners, if he considers how little there has been of a spirit of consecration and of prayer, how worldly and cold and spiritually dead have been the churches generally, he will cease to wonder that so little has been effected by the missions of these churches, and will, rather, admire the riches of God's grace which has given so much success to efforts so unfaithful and unworthy. What if the churches of this land were really consecrated? What if the laborers furnished were as many, and the contributions were as liberal, and the prayers offered were as frequent and as fervent, as they ought to be? Let the thoughtful Christian. look abroad upon the world; considering not only missionary operations and success, but the varied workings of the providence of God, giving facilities to the church for the prosecution of her work;-the advances in the sciences and arts; the new agencies and powers subjected to man's control, and thus the increase of power put into the hands of man; the increased facilities for intercourse, and the actual increase of intercourse, between different and distant nations, and, in consequence, the spreading of intelligence and light; the increased knowledge of the rights of man, the increase of religious liberty, and the upheavings and convulsions among the nations, arising from their seeking after liberty; the various changes which, within the last fifty years, have opened so large a part of the whole world for Christian effort;—and, in view of all these things, let him say what now seems wanting, that there may be a rapid spreading of the light of truth and extensive triumphs of the gospel, hastening the day when all the human family shall know the Lord. What, but a consecrated church; -a church feeling that she is not her own, and living not unto herself;-a church giving her wealth, giving her children, giving her whole self to the work which Christ has given her to do,-preaching the gospel to the world? Let then the sincere and earnest prayer arise from every heart, "O Lord, revive thy work."

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In the survey which follows, most of the statistics given must of necessity be the same as those in the last Annual Report, the missions having made no full returns since that Report was prepared.

AFRICA.

erality with which some of the natives have contributed, out of their deep poverty, is well worthy of serious considerUMVOTI.-Aldin Grout, Missionary; Mrs. Char- ation by many members of the churches

SOUTH AFRICA.

lotte Grout. One native helper.

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Stations not known. - William Ireland, Andrew Abraham, Hyman A. Wilder, Josiah Tyler, Mission aries; Mrs. Jane Ireland, Mrs. Sarah L. Abraham,

Mrs. Abby T. Wilder, Mrs. Susan W. Tyler.

(8 stations and 3 out-stations; 12 missionaries-one a physician, 12 female assistant missionaries, and 4 native helpers ;-total, 28.)

The circumstances of this mission, during the past year, have been encour aging. The colonial government continues to manifest the same friendly feeling towards missionaries and missionary operations, as heretofore, and to pursue, towards the natives, a magnanimous and humane course. At each of the stations free schools have been established, and both children and adults seem anxious to learn. No difficulty has been found in obtaining congregations ready to listen to the preaching of the gospel. The numbers who assemble at different stations vary from fifty to six hundred, and sometimes as many as one thousand; and they are represented as listening, generally, with apparent interest, and conducting with much propriety. At nearly all the stations there have been evidences of a divine influence among the people, though the older stations, Umlazi, Umvoti, and Inanda, have shared most largely in the blessing.

Prayer meetings have been sustained with much interest at the older stations, and the native converts take a part in them with a good degree of readiness and propriety. The monthly concert has been observed also, and has been, often, a very interesting meeting; and the lib

in our own land.

There are now eight stations found among the Zulus, on either side of Port Natal, and at greater or less distances from the sea coast, each in the midst of as many people as one missionary can preach the gospel to; and there are four missionaries yet to be stationed. Three of these, Messrs. Abraham, Wilder, and Tyler, with their wives, sailed in April last, and arrived at Cape Town on the 13th of June. Churches have been formed at several of the stations, in one of which are twenty-one members. Fifteen were added to this church during the past year, and sixteen to another. The manifest influences of the Holy Spirit, and the consequent change in the moral and religious character of some of the people, have awakened opposition on the part of others; but no more than was to be expected, perhaps no more than is, on the whole, desirable. The prospects of the mission are brightening, and cheering anticipations with reference to the future may be indulged.

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The arrival of Messrs. Wilson and Bushnell and their associates, on their return to the mission, in August of 1848, relieved Mr. Walker in some degree of his loneliness. Mrs. Griswold's return, however, as it proved in a mysterious Providence, was but to testify in death her deep interest in the spiritual renovation of that continent; and Mr. Wheeler's physical constitution soon proved to be wholly unsuited to the climate, and he is now in this country.

Progress has been made by the mission towards the interior, Mr. Walker having formed a new station at Okâla,

at least seventy miles up the river from | distributed religious books as formerly. the station first formed. This places him A few young men who attend his minisin the neighborhood of the Pangwes, a trations, are in an inquiring state of mind. powerful and numerous people, who are In one of his most recent letters he says, pushing their settlements onward towards "I have, every Sunday afternoon at five the ocean. Mr. Preston is at a new sta- o'clock, a Greek prayer-meeting, in tion not so far up, but he can see the which two Greeks habitually take a part, hills now occupied by the Pangwes from reading the Scriptures, and offering an an eminence near his abode. These extempore prayer. I consider them brethren regard their stations as more brethren in Christ, of whose spirit they healthful than the one near the coast; seem to have received, and who mourn though that is believed to be much more over the moral desolations around us." favorable to health and life, than the one He is decided in the opinion, that the formerly occupied by the Board at Cape inission should be continued. His most Palmas. active and reckless persecutor, and the author of the slanders noted in the Report of 1848, has fallen into discredit with his countrymen, in consequence of recent literary impositions upon them.

The mission church contains now more than twenty members, of whom several have been received within the year. Ten or twelve boarding-scholars, in the school at Baraka, were hopefully converted, during a season of unusual religious interest, when the power of the Holy Spirit was obviously felt.

THE JEWS.

SALONICA-Edward M. Dodd, Missionary; Mrs.

Two schools have been sustained the Lydia H. Dodd, Mrs. Celestia A. Maynard. past year; one, a day-school at Prince Glass's town, and the other, a mixed day and boarding-school at Baraka, about six or seven miles from the last named place. These schools appear to have been prosperous and promising, the one at Baraka especially having been visited, as already mentioned, by the special influences of the Holy Spirit.

CONSTANTINOPLE.-William G. Schauffler, Missionary; Mrs. Mary R. Schauffler.

(2 stations; 2 missionaries, and 3 female assistant missionaries-total, 5.)

For seventeen years Mr. Schauffler has been devoted to labors for the Jews, residing at Constantinople. As one most important result of these labors, the Scriptures of the Old Testament have been given to the Sefardee, or Spanish Jews, in the Hebrew-Spanish language, their vernacular tongue; and Mr. Schauffler is now engaged, with a German associate who resides at Berlin, in bestowing a similar blessing on the Ashkenazee, or German Jews.

During the latter part of the year there has been preaching regularly in some of the Mpongwe towns and villages, and occasionally in all. The congregations are stated to have been gradually increasing, and the attention given to the means of grace encouraging. Here, as in South Africa, the incipient triumphs of the On the third of January last, Rev. cross have excited some opposition; but, Eliphal Maynard and Rev. Edward M. on the whole, the history of this mission Dodd, with their wives, sailed from Bosalso for the past year has been encour-ton to form a new station at Salonica; aging, and serves to excite strong hopes that centre of Jewish learning and influthat it is the design of God, ere long, ence. They reached Salonica on the 2d greatly to bless the labors of his people in behalf of Africa.

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of April, and had been much encouraged by the appearance of the field, and much interested in their work. But in the mysterious providence of God, the mission has been already called to severe affliction in the removal of Mr. Maynard by death. As the result of exposure which more experience in the climate would probably have prevented, he was attacked with inflammation of the head on the 1st of September, and died on the 14th of the same month.

The general principles and plan of this mission are the same, substantially, which have been so successfully followed out in the mission to the Armenian people. Two or three additional

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