they continued at about the same stage, one with the other, through the dark ages, and the progress in them all became accelerated simultaneously at the contemporaneous revival of religion and letters in the 15th and 16th centuries. In all the nations of Europe, embracing all periods since the end of the 2d century, it may probably be said with truth, that the Christianity of those nations has, at its introduction or soon afterwards, been modified to correspond with the state of intellectual and social improvement in which the mass of the people were ; and has been pure and effective, or corrupted into superstition and error, according as the people were enlightened and civilized, or ignorant and unimproved. Nothing in the history of the past leads us to suppose that Christianity, sustained only by those influences with which God ordinarily attends it, will long remain among a people destitute of general education, unacquainted with the arts of civilized life, and uncultivated in their domestic habits, without being corrupted in its doctrines and forms, and let down in its standard of morals. What more probable cause can be assigned for the speedy and great degeneracy in the early Asiatic churches, than the condition of those communities in these respects? What better result could be hoped for from the Hawaiians, or any other people where modern missions have been established, if foreign teachers should be now removed? And when shall we be sure of any better issue of all our labors and expenditures among these nations, unless more effectual measures are adopted to improve their intellectual and social condition? After all that has been done, there remains between the religion of these newly formed churches, and their social condition and habits and their knowledge and modes of thinking on almost all other subjects, a strange incongruity, which cannot be permanent. The religion must come down to the social and intellectual condition; or this must be elevated into correspondence with the religion. Every day that the incongruity lasts, is, without the constant care of the missionary, perilous to the purity of the system. With this view of the subject, the question arises, What may the christian missionary, consistently with his character and commission, do to promote the intellectual and social condition of a heathen community? 1. He may do whatever will cause christian truth to be most speedily disseminated and most intelligently embraced. If the people to whom he is sent need schools, he may establish and teach them; if they need school books, he may make them; he may introduce the press and all the facilities connected with it, and keep them in vigorous operation. These and other similar means have a two-fold bearing on the rapid propagation and correct understanding of the gospel message; by giving, in addition to hearing the voice of the preacher, ability to read the word of God and other books where that message is unfolded; and by employing the mind, before unaccustomed to such exercise, on intellectual and moral subjects, and thereby enabling it the more readily and correctly to apprehend the truths heard or read The missionaries in Ceylon have repeatedly given strong testimony to the favorable manner in which, in this respect, those taught in the mission schools are contrasted with the other portions of their congregations. It is with this view that schools and presses are estab lished so extensively in connection with modera missions. 2. The missionary may do what will bring the people most speedily and steadily under the influence of the means of grace. Here he may be called to depart much further from the simple work of preaching. If he goes to unsettled and roaming tribes, like most of the American Indians, and many in Africa, Asia, and some of the islands, he has a great and difficult work to perform at the outset. No effective system of education can be introduced and established; nothing like the stated preaching or other ordinances of the gospel are likely to be enjoyed, nor the Bible to be possessed and read, nor devotional habits cultivated, nor any high attainments in christian character made, till this habit of life is changed. But these wanderers neither know how to live, nor do they possess the means of living in any other manner. The missionary may, therefore, be called to aid them in providing agricultural utensils and learning how to use them; in constructing com. fortable dwellings; how to make decent and comfortable clothing; and, in short, how to supply their own wants while living in permanent settlements. Without all this, his missionary work cannot be accomplished. No adequate human agency, to enlighten and reform, can be made to bear upon such a people with sufficient constancy and power. Much less could it be hoped that any such instrumentality, even if it were introduced, could be made perma nent. 3. The missionary may labor to reform what in the habits and condition of a people tends to immorality. Of nearly all the domestic habits of unevangelized nations, it may be said, that they are adapted to a corrupt state of morals and nearly inconsistent with any other. Idleness prevails almost universally, and where there is idleness there is vice. This idleness with the heathen is a habit, a mode of life, hereditary and inveterate, not to be cured by a few reproofs or incidental influences. A welldevised, systematic course of measures may be requisite, varying according to circumstances. To bring an idle, lounging people to be habitually employed, whether the employment be profitable or not, whether to supply real or fancied wants, greatly augments their happiness and provides one of the best safeguards against temptation and sin. It is sometimes said, that the fewer artificial wants a people have the happier and the more virtuous they are. If true at all, this must be true with very many limitations. The reverse is much better entitled to the rank of a general truth, if the wants included are not dictated by the lower appetites of our natures. The Hawaiians, it is said, can live well, in their way, with the daily labor of two or three hours. What race of men on earth has moral principle enough to keep virtuous in such circumstances? If there were nothing but the necessities of life, or even the narrower classes of comforts, to be provided, half the world would be idlers, exhibiting the vices and the debasement of idlers. No little importance is to be attached to decency in dress and to cleanliness, to which most heathen nations are strangers. The habits opposed to them are of a strongly immoral tendency. A taste for dress and personal comeliness, even if it be not very refined, has an important bearing on morals, and should therefore be cultivated. To aid a people in this may be a part of a missionary's work. The internal arrangements of almost every heathen dwelling are such as to be wholly inconsistent with domestic purity and refinement. So of family order. How few are the heathen communities where all the members of a household daily assemble around the same table, at the same hours, to receive their food and hold that intercourse which binds the members of a christian family together in harmony and love? Many other things in the habits and condition of heathen and other unevangelized communities might be specified, which, if they remain, will injuriously, if not fatally, affect the results of christian instruction. These require the attention of the missionary, and may often call for much labor and counsel, which would not otherwise be demanded of a pastor or evangelist. 4. Those measures which promote the purity and permanent influence Christianity in a nation, fall within the sphere of a missionary's labors. Converts from paganism are, from the nature of the case, and must for some time continue to be, in a state of pupilage. Their knowledge, even of the christian doctrines and duties, very limited and imperfect; and they are so unaccustomed to independent, conscientious moral action, and so incompetent to found and conduct institutions for their own intellectual improvement, that, notwithstanding all the efforts which can be made in their behalf, they must remain, for no short time, morally, in their minority. Still the aim and effort should be to teach them as soon as practicable to bear these responsibilities. The missionary's work is not finished till this point shall be attained. which, by creating or increasing the means of living comfortably, and furnishing the basis of property, lead directly and powerfully, when religious instruction is duly inculcated, to give stability and permanency to Christianity and christian institutions. The opinion that poverty, insecurity of person or rights, or adversity of any kind is, as a condition, favorable to the spread and vigorous growth of christian piety or christian institutions, if correct at all, is so to only a limited extent and in peculiar circumstances, as the history of all christian nations renders abundantly evident. Where does Christianity flourish best, in Great Britain and the United States, or in Spain, Portugal and Austria? Who will dare to say that it is not as much a part of God's plan, that science, and literature, and the fine arts, and all the useful inventions for facilitating labor and intercourse, shall be carried to their highest point, and that the human mind shall know all which it is capable of knowing, and discover all which it is capable of discovering, here in this world, as it is that the gospel shall be every where preached and every where triumphant? Not as a substitute for the gospel-not supplemental to it; but as something subordinate to it, and yet contributing to that fullest developement of its principles and results for which we look in these latter days of promise. In short, the christian missionary must sustain the character of a true lover of his race, and must feel for and endeavor to relieve, those to whom he ministers, from all the evils which combine to constitute their state of intellectual and social depression, and to confer on them whatever is conducive to their improvement and welfare. In doing this, he will be sustained by the example of his Master and Lord. How large a part of his miracles were wrought to relieve the temporal wants and distresses of the people; and how many of his parables manifest the tenderest sympathy for the poor and afflicted! Where are the heathen to look for sympathy and effectual relief, if not to those who bear the christian name? Bearing on the permanent establishment and purity of Christianity in a nation, and next in time and importance to the faithful exhibition of the law and gospel of God, is the introduction of a good system of common school education. Teach all to read, and put a Bible in every house, and a foundation is laid for intelligent piety, and a barrier erected against false teachers and prevailing error. Without this, or, as a substitute, a measure of divine influence surpassing any thing ever yet bestowed on a com- Nor should the missionary feel that while munity, general religious knowledge, or en- doing this, he is descending from his high calllightened and well directed piety, or steadfast-ing. Whatever conduces to human happiness ness and purity in doctrine, are not to be hoped for. Nor does education have this favorable bearing while it is limited to the mere rudiments of knowledge. It must not be admitted for a moment, that the highest cultivation of the human mind can be otherwise than favorable to the most perfect developement of christian piety. Literature and science, in their most elevated walks, expand and strengthen the mind, and fit it to act most steadily and to the best effect on all subjects. The more knowl edge there is of God and of his works diffused among the people, the less danger will there be of superstition, or imposture, or fanaticism, or errors of any kind in doctrine or practice. Where do we find the most freedom from these-in communities most ignorant and uncultivated, or in those where education is most universal and carried furthest? How much has modern science and learning done in the countries of Europe to dispel superstition and error, even on religious subjects? Say the missionaries in Ceylon, The introduction and prevalence of a correct system of astronomy must break down the fabric of brahminic superstition. A similar course of remark might be pursued with reference to all the useful arts and inventions, to trade, commerce and manufactures; VOL. XXXVIII. and welfare, or is adapted to elevate men intellectually or socially, as well as morally, is christian in its character, and deserving the attention of a christian missionary. Still he should never forget that his first and great object is to bring the heathen to know and love God, and that the most valuable end to be subserved by other things is to cause the blessings of the gospel to be more fully possessed and enjoyed. It would be a fatal mistake, if he should adopt such a course as should, in the estimation of unevangelized communities, cast the great interests of the soul into the back ground, and attach more importance to their rising in the scale of civilization, than to their obeying the gospel. A single remark may be made on the contrast in one respect, between the circumstances in which the apostles and modern missionaries have propagated the gospel. In respect to systems of education, or means of intellectual and social improvement, or the arts of life, the apostles possessed no advantage over those whom they sought to interest and save; while the modern missionary goes forth from the most enlightened and civilized portions of the human race to introduce the gospel among the most benighted. In regard to intellectual and social cultivation, 56 them to abandon practices equally opposed to each. Still they do not believe that Christianity can ever be symmetrical or permanent except in connection with civilization; nor that the Board can expect to be relieved of the charge and expense of any of their missions, till habits of industry, and the arts of civilized life are introduced and permanently established. The religion of the gospel is a religion of light; it is God's mode of elevating man-the whole man-and the moral perfection to which it aims to bring him can never exist, God never intended it should, in connection with general ignorance or intellectual imbecility. While, therefore, the missionary should make it his first business to preach the gospel and save the souls of men, he must not neglect to lay those foundations in the general, intellectual and social culture of the people which will render the gospel permanent. and a knowledge of the useful arts, he pos- || it, as alone furnishing motives which can induce sesses an almost immeasurable superiority. Does not this superiority impose an obligation? Does it not increase the work which modern christian communities are called upon to perform for the unevangelized nations? and if they do all that is incumbent on them, does it not give the heathen nations of these days an advantage for rapidly improving their condi tion, not possessed by those of former ages? Why, with such spiritual and providential blessings as we cannot doubt God is ready to bestow, should not barbarous nations advance as much in one century as the nations of modern Eurode did in twelve? Heretofore the nations have been left to struggle on, now advancing a little, as peculiar efforts of genius or specially favorable events in divine providence gave an impulse; and now retrograding under adverse influences; some of them, on the whole, gradually gaining, till they have arrived at their present stage of light and improvement; while others have scarcely changed their position, or have actually gone backward into deeper darkBut in these days, why should not christian nations make all the channels of intercourse with their benighted brethren and neighbors, channels through which shall flow in upon them all the intellectual, social and religious blessings which the most highly favored enjoy? How unfaithful a representative of God's benevolence have christian communities in past times been, sitting quietly by the side of the suffering nations in apathy and inaction! How like what they ought to be would they seem, when rising up and entering systematically on the work of regenerating the nations! ness. Great as the work before us is, we must not falter or despair of ultimate and complete success. In some fields, where Christianity had her whole work to do, a good beginning has been made; and from year to year, as the missionary drops his line to the very depths of human depravity and debasement, at whatever point upon it he now finds the people, in respect to knowledge, or morals, or the arts of life, such, may he say, is the measure of what Christianity, directly or indirectly, has done for them. And in future years, as he shall look back and retrace the streams of improvement to their beginnings, he will think how he approached those shores with doubt and misgiving. He will think of the first sermon, the first convert, the first press, the first book, the first school, and the dawnings of intellectual and social improvement-little rills indeed, but multiplying and combining into broader streams, until a tide of piety, and intelligence, and social improvement, and all that adorns and blesses man flows over the land. As he sees how a little one has become a thousand, and the least of all seeds has grown into a tree, and calls to mind the feeble Instrumentality employed, and the vast difficulties surmounted, his whole heart will be told in one sentence and that will be, Lo, what has God wrought! The committee subsequently presented a report, which was adopted, and is as follows: That they have examined that communication and heartily concur in the sentiments it contains. Your committee do not suppose, with some, that civilization must precede Christianity. On the other hand, they believe that in the present state of the heathen, Christianity must precede As it is sometimes difficult for the missionary to know how far he should go in giving merely intellectual instruction and in introducing the arts, as this is a point on which the christian community are not entirely agreed, and as your committee think that the document referred to them will tend to produce harmony of views on these points they recommend that it be published and circulated under the direction of the Prudential Committee. Agents of the Board travelling on the Sabbath. A memorial from sundry persons in Westboro', Ms., on this subject was read, and referred to the following committee:-Rev. Abel McEwen, Rev. Mr. Sterling, Rev. Mr. Hurlbut, Hon. S. Fletcher, and William Page, Esq. This committee presented a report, which was adopted. Subsequently the vote was reconsidered, and the whole subject was referred to the Prudential Committee. Relations of the Pastoral Office to the work of Missions. Dr. Armstrong read the following paper: The intimate relation of the pastoral office to the evangelization of the world, becomes more and more apparent, as that work advances. At its last meeting the Board expressed its conviction of the importance of that relation. And the experience of the year that has just closed, has been fraught with instruction on this subject. Much of the success that has crowned the effort to relieve the Board from its pecuniary embarrassment, is due to the blessing of God, on pastoral influence. Pastors present at the last meeting, shared largely in the spirit of renewed consecration to the work, by which that oecasion was marked; and bore it with them on their return to the people of their charge. Pastors were among the first to respond to the appeals, which went out through various channels, into every part of the country. In many cases, without waiting for personal solicitation, they increased their own contributions, in a ratio equal to the exigency, and called the attention of their people to the wants of the Board, with a warmth and earnestness, that led to a like action on their part. Not a few have expressed a readiness to extend their labors of love for the missionary cause beyond the limits of their own congregations; and several have freely expended time and strength in the performance of voluntary agencies, eminently promotive of the interests of the Board. The agents of the Board bear a unanimous testimony to the cordial co-operation of many pastors, giving unwonted facility and success to their labors in churches visited by them, and supplying their lack of service in churches which they could not reach. As the Board was formed by an assembly of pastors, so it has ever been indebted to them for a generous support. As a body, they have contributed to it, in proportion to their means, more largely than any other portion of the community. With these facts before them, the Committee cannot but feel deeply solicitous that that active co-operation of pastors, which has been of so much value to the cause, when partially given, should become universal. And while they are impressed with a conviction, that the present position and aspects of the missions of the Board, and of the people among whom they are planted, call for a great increase of the missionary spirit in the churches, they make their respectful and earnest appeal to pastors, as the chief agency, by which, through the divine blessing, there is reason to hope for such an in crease. If Crhist has entrusted to his people the word of life and the promise of the spirit, not for themselves alone, but for a world perishing in error and sin; if their fidelity to this trust is essential to the honor of his name among men, to their own spiritual welfare and joy, and to the salvation of a multitude of souls; does not this great subject claim a prominent place in the affectionate solicitude, and prayers, and labors of every pastor! Will the pastor, whose people are permitted to regard prayer for the success of missions, and effort and self-denial to publish the gospel to the heathen, as matters of secondary importance, be able to say, as did one of old, "I have kept back nothing profitable unto you, I am free from the blood of all men !" The missionaries who have been sent out as the messengers of Christ and of his people, to encounter privation and danger, in publishing the good news of salvation to the destitute, are entitled to the prayerful sympathy and generous support of all who love the Savior. The missionary character of the spiritual body of Christ is generally acknowledged. It is admitted that churches exist, and are sustain-panions of his youth, and near the sepulchres of ed, and blessed, not more for the edification of their members in love, and for the maintenance of the truth and order of the gospel within their own borders, than for the universal extension of the Redeemer's kingdom. But if this is the character of the whole company of the faithful, it is pre-eminently true of the ministry. If the church is "the light of the world," pastors are the light of the church. If their station imposes on them special obligations to labor for the peace and purity of the churches, and for the growth of their members in grace, are they under obligations less sacred to look after their faithful performance of their work, as they are the almoners of divine mercy, to a world perishing in darkness and sin? Does not one object belong as appropriately to the official duties of the pastor as the other! Can one be omitted, or transferred to other hands, any more than the other, without injury to the cause of Christ and to the souls of men! If the gospel is missionary in its spirit, and all its legitimate tendencies are to universal diffusion, ought not these traits of revealed truth to be habitually set forth, and applied, in the ordinary ministrations of "those who labor in word and doctrine ?" If the great principles of missionary effort and self-denial are essential elements of christian character, so that where they are defective, the disciple cannot exhibit, in its true symmetry aud beauty, the image of his Master; do they not claim from the faithful pastor, as careful and diligent cultivation as any other graces of that character? Why should the spirit of missions in a church, or an individual believer, be left for its sole support and training to the occasional labors of an agent, or the influence of the religious press, any more than the spirit of prayer, or of brotherly love, or of parental fidelity! Why should it not have as distinct a recoguition in the ordinary routine of pastoral duties, whether they be public or "from house to house!" But upon the pastors of the churches they have peculiar claims. To them they are allied by special bonds of brotherhood. Called by one spirit to the same holy work, educated for it under the same teachers, at the same literary and religious institutions; the pastor and the missionary are the servants of one Master, laboring under one commission, with the same great object of prayer and effort. If Christ calls one to minister at the altars where he dedicated himself to God, surrounded by the comhis fathers, while he says to the other, "depart for I will send thee far hence to the gentiles," it is because his wisdom selects this arrangement, in subordination to the great end, for which the church and the ministry exist; and the pastor and the missionary have been commissioned "to make disciples of all nations, and teach them to observe all things whatsoever he hath commanded! To whom then has the missionary a right to look, with such confidence, for affectionate sympathy, and cordial, steady support as to the pastor, from whose side he has been taken, and in whose stead he has been draughted, to the exposures and toils of the foreign field? Who shall cherish toward him the fellow-feeling of a brother, and be his fellow helper in the work, if not the pastor? When, with stammering lips, he speaks of the love of Christ, to a people of a strange language, far from the associates of his early life; and his heart is oppressed with the greatness of his work, and bleeds over the sin and misery that reign around him, where shall his cries for aid meet a favorable hearing, and a ready answer, if pastors are inattentive, or indifferent! If pastors seem to forget the missionary cause, and the Redeemer's last command, when they lead the devotions of the people of God, or break to them the emblems of his love, who is "the propitiation for the sins of the whole world," if they are absent from the annual meeting of the missionary society, or come to the monthly concert of prayer for missions, with little preparation of mind or heart; is it strange if the hearts of the missionaries faint, and their heads hang down; or surprising if the sympathies of the people with them are languid, and their efforts to sustain them few, irregular, and feeble! Pastors are the selected and commissioned agents of the Great Captain of salvation, to train his people for the warfare against the powers of darkness, and to lead them on to the spiritual conquest of the world. In relation to || speedily verify all the expectations of blessed this, or to other matters of duty and privilege, the churches have ever taken their tone and impress from their pastor. They ever will. If they ever rise to the true standard of prayer and effort, for the world's conversion, it must be by the blessing of God on the teaching and example of their pastors. Other means of cultivating a missionary spirit, and calling forth missionary action, are important. The labors of agents, the formation of missionary associations, the diffusion of missionary intelligence, the monthly concert of prayer for missions, are all adapted to this end. But they are valuable chiefly as auxiliaries to pastoral agency, and in subordination to it. Their efficacy depends very much on the personal efforts and influence of pastors, among their own people. The agent is disheartened, if the pastor receives him coldly, and admits him to his pulpit with reluctance, and expresses no zeal for his success. His visits are of little value, if the people see that they are tolerated only, not welcomed, by their pastor. The missionary association languishes, if the pastor leaves it to be cared for, and looked after by others, or is content merely to read from the pulpit a formal notice of its meeting, or its doings. The missionary periodical is little read or prized, if the pastor has little to say in its favor, or shews by his want of familiarity with its pages that he cares very little about it. The monthly concert is thinly attended, and its influence is scarcely felt, if the pastor withholds from it the time and labor necessary to make it interesting and instructive to the people. If any of these means are substituted for pastoral agency, in the home department of the missionary work, or suffered to supersede it, it will be fatal to the permanent prosperity of the missionary cause. It were better for that cause, to dispense with every other agency in this department, than to lack the cordial and steady co-operation of pastors. By their aid, giving efficiency to other means, all that is needed may be accomplished with increasing economy, steadiness, and energy. To them Christ has given ready access to the minds and hearts of his people, and unequalled power to move their consciences and affections, in all that pertains to the prosperity of his kingdom and the ultimate triumph of his cause. With his church, which is his body, where he dwells by his spirit, Christ has deposited all needful resources for the work to which his people are called; the men to bear his message of mercy to the ends of the earth; the adequate funds for their support; the believing prayer, that pleads the promises of God, and receives their fulfilment, in the outpouring of his spirit upon all flesh. And to pastors he has entrusted the keys of this store-house of mercy for a suffering world. What honor has he thus put upon them! How responsible, in this relation, is their office! How vital its connection with the glory of Christ, and the hopes of mankind! Is there any reason to doubt that a missionary unction from the Holy One, abiding on christian pastors, a fresh baptism into the spirit of zeal for God, and compassion for lost men, which animated the great missionary who came down from heaven, and which glows in the bosom of the Chief Shepherd, would be the immediate precursor of such a developement of the missionary energies of the church, and such enlargement and success of the missionary enterprise in the unevangelized world, as would. ness which prophecy and promise authorize! Will not the Board, as the missionary agents of so many of the professed followers of Christ, occupying in the providence of God, a position where the necessities and miseries of the perishing are spread out before them on one side, and the resources of the churches, for their relief, on the other, while they gratefully acknowledge their indebtedness to pastors in the prosecution of the work hitherto, respectfully, affectionately, and earnestly invite them to a renewed consecration of themselves to this work, under a deep impression of personal obligation and responsibil ity, and in such a spirit of personal effort, prayer, and self-denial, that their precept and example may, by the divine blessing, elevate their people to that high standard of faith, supplication, and action, which the command and promise of Christ warrant and encourage, and the movements of his providence and his spirit abroad in the world demand! Since the last annual meeting of the Board there is reason to believe more missionary sermons have been preached by pastors to their own people, than in any five previous years since its formation. In extensive districts visited by no agent, they have taken the whole work of collecting funds into their own hands, in some cases going from house to house in person for that purpose, in others organizing missionary associations and superintending their operation, or appointing collectors and sending them out, after bespeaking for them a kind reception from their people. With a like activity they have put the Herald or the Dayspring into circulation among their people. Their communications to the Misionary House have encouraged the hearts of those who there labor for the cause. And the agents of the Board have gratefully acknowledged their efficient cooperation, anticipating their visits in many cases, obviating the necessity of those visits in others, and in all greatly promoting the object. The results of the year bear testimony to the value of their labors. Has not the Savior expressed his approbation, by the blessing he has shed upon them and their people. May we not anticipate in the year on which we have entered, a co-operation more extensive, self-denying and efficient? If the Committee can feel assured of this, it will relieve their solicitude concerning this department of the work. Is there any other human agency which can avert a disastrous falling off in the resources of the Board during the year upon which we have entered, or call forth for the service of Christ in the foreign field, the men who are needed at this hour to fill the places of those who have fallen at their posts, and to occupy the new positions that are gained as the work advances. As the heathen world, groaning under the ruins of the apostasy, and after so many ages of darkness and sorrow, groping for deliverance, in the dim consciousness of its guilt and misery, waits for the movements of the people of Christ, the appointed almoners of heavenly mercy; so Christians partially aroused from their long slumbers, and as they look abroad upon the darkness that covers the earth, startled by the cries of anguish, borne to them on every breeze, wait for their pastors to lead them forth in that career of Christ-like beneficence, that shall bless the world, and more richly bless themselves. |