and which the pressing necessities of the destitute and perishing imperiously demanded. The propriety of this remark will be but too fully illustrated in the details of the present report.

The operations of the Board during the past, as in former years, have been confined almost exclusively to the narrow limits of our own country. The map of the world has indeed been before them; the thrilling cry of six hundred millions of perishing heathen and Mohammedans has fallen upon their ears and affected their hearts, but they have been painfully compelled, by their scanty resources of men and means, to withhold from them the bread of life eternal.

No efficient measures have been adopted by the Board, to supply the spiritual wants of the destitute beyond the limits of the United States, except those which were in progress at the date of our last annual report, in Lower Canada, and among the Chippeway Indians in the North Western Territory. The station at Laprairie, near Montreal, is still occupied by a solitary missionary, who is but partially supported by the Board, and the self-denying and disinterested labors and sufferings of the Rev. Alvan Coe, have been continued among the benighted Chippeways. The prospects of usefulness, at both of these distant stations, are, at present, peculiarly encouraging, and the repeated calls for more laborers have been loud and affecting, but they have remained hitherto unanswered, because the men and means necessary have not been at command. In the neighborhood of Laprairie the way is now prepared for the permanent establishment of one or two additional missionaries, at the small expense to this Board of $100 a year each. In the very midst of the wildernesses of the wandering Chippeways, an effort has been made, to secure the benefits of religious instruction, and the stated preaching of the gospel, which may well excite the surprise, and we would fain hope, will speedily awaken the sympathies and draw forth the contributions of this highly favored christian community, in their behalf. By six Indian traders residing at Sandy Lake, in the interior of the Chippeway country, an importunate application has recently been made to the Board for the establishment of a mission and school among them, and the sum of four hundred dollars annually, for four years to come, has been formally pledged by these six individuals, to aid in the support of such an establishment. This interesting proposition has been taken into serious consideration by the Board and it remains for the Assembly and the churches under their care to say, whether this secluded desert shall "blossom as the rose," or be doomed to perpetual sterility and gloom.

The names of the missionaries and agents who have last received appointments, or re-appointments from the Board in the course of the last year, together with their fields of labor, and the periods of time for which they have been commissioned, are embraced in the following list.

[This list is here omitted, but will be inserted in the Report. ]

Of the above named missionaries and agents, there have been employed in New York 43; in New Jersey 5; in Pennsylvania 48; in Delaware 3; in Maryland 5; in Virginia 12; in North Carolina 11; in South Carolina 2; in Georgia 2; in Alabama 3; in Ohio 45; in Kentucky 11; in Tennessee 11; in Indiana 12; in Illinois 6; in Mississippi 4; in Louisiana 1; in Missouri 3; in Florida 1; in Arkansaw Terriitory 1; in Michigan Territory 2; in Lower Canada 1; in the North Western Territory 1.

Fields of Labour assigned.

Of the 233 Missionaries embraced in the foregoing list, 188 are pastors of one or more feeble congregations or supplies, for one year, of limited, destitute districts, embracing several stations for preaching; 34 have been commissioned as itinerant laborers, for shorter periods of time, with a view of collecting congregations, organizng churches, and preparing the way for the permanent location of missionaries, and 11 have been employed in special agencies for the Board.

Appointments, re-appointments, and appropriations.

The whole number of appointments and re-appointments embraced in the present report is 314. The whole number of Congregations and Missionary stations is more than 350. The whole amouut of time embraced in all these appointments and re-appointments, is 264 years and 6 months; and the whole amount of money appropriated including special agencies, and the expenses of the office of the Board for 264 years of ministerial labor is $34,198.26 and the average expense of each year's labor, is about $129.

By refering to the preceding details, it will at once be perceived, that some of the commissions here enumerated were in part fulfilled last year, and that some of them remain to be fulfilled hereafter. The specific design of the present calculation is to exhibit the sum total of the appropriations made for a given amount of Missionary labor-and the average expense of each year included in that

amount.

Economy in Appropriations.

In accordance with the views which have frequently been presented to your Board by individual ministers, churches, and presbyteries, a rigid system of economy has been adopted in all our appropriations and expenditures. No outfits are allowed to Missionaries-and the highest amount appropriated within the United States for one year's service is 200 dollars. The ordinary allowance is 100 dollars a year. Our Missionaries are required to form Auxiliaries to the Board on the 50 cent plan, in the congregations they serve, and thus to return to our Treasury a part of the appropriations granted.-To supersede the necessity of outfits and pledges from the Board for full missionary wages, great pains have been taken to prepare the way for missionaries, especially in the new and destitute settlements of the West, by a systematic arrangement of circuits, and by prudent efforts to obtain subscriptions from the people applying for assistance. The past experience of your Board warrants an expression of their decided conviction, that they can in this way, without an appropriation in any case of more than 200 dollars, provide for the comfortable support of as many faithful and well qualified mission aries as may be found willing to engage in the work of Domestic Missions.

Of the commissions granted to missionaries and named in this report, the amount appropriated for a year's service in eleven of them is 200 dollars-in twelve between $100 and $200, and in all the rest $100 or less.

Amount of labor performed.

The amount of labor actually performed by all our missionaries in the course o the last year, is equal to one hundred and twenty-nine years—exhibiting, in this important particular, an increase of more than one third, or 49 years more than we reported in 1830.

Present state of the Treasury.

The actual receipts into the Treasury of the Board, since the last report, including interest on the permanent funds, and payments for the Missionary Reporter, have been $19,158.35, shewing an increase of more than fifty per cent.. The entire amount of expenditures during the same period has been $22,158.35-A portion of this sum has been paid for services rendered previous to the last report, and a portion of it has been paid in advance for services hereafter to be performed. Balance against the Board $3.000-Considerably more than this sum has been pledged to the Board by individuals and auxiliaries, and will soon be paid. The appropriations embraced in this report, remaining unpaid, amount to several thousand dollars.

A large part of these appropriations however have been made very recently, and will not at present be needed. A lesser portion of them will shortly become due to our missionaries, and ought to be punctually paid. The Board look with confidence to the churches, for the enlarged resources, which will become indispensably necessary to enable them to meet engagements already made, and to extend their future operations, as their duty seems to demand-nor can they hesitate to believe that all the requisite funds will be cheerfully and liberally furnished by those to whom the Lord of the harvest has committed treasures accompanied with the sacred injunction "occupy till I come.

Sessional Auxiliaries and Annual Subscriptions.

More than 150 new auxiliaries have been reported to the Board during the past year, and the whole number of sessions and congregations now organized on the 50 cent plan, exceeds five hundred. Some of these auxiliaries have been formed in direct connection with Presbyteries which are themselves auxiliary to the Board. In these cases the names of the congregations are not published in the list of our immediate auxiliaries. Very few of the Presbyteries have chosen this plan

of organization, and the Board cannot but indulge and express the hope, that all the Presbyteries will speedily and cordially adopt that plain and simple but systematic and efficient plan of the Board, which brings the sessions and congregations into a direct auxiliary relation, and secures uniformity and efficiency in the measures adopted for raising funds. As the chief dependence of the Board, for pecuniary resources, is upon permanent sessional auxiliaries, and the sum expected from such auxiliaries, on the 50 cent plan is comparatively small and cannot materially interfere with any other benevolent operations, and as annual collections for the Board have been dispensed with, it is hoped that very few, if any, of the churches in connection with the Assembly, will long withhold the small amount which might thus be secured to the Board. Could the entire church be brought up to the work of Domestic Missions, and the names of communicants and such members of the congregations as might be disposed to unite with them, be enrolled as members of auxiliaries, on the 50 cent plan, a sufficient revenue would be annually secured, to answer all the purposes of the Board. The accomplishment of this desirable object will be kept constantly in view-and the measures already in progress will be vigorously prosecuted from year to year, in the confident expectation of complete ultimate success.

As considerable time, however, must necessarily elapse, before this plan can be fully consummated, and as the number of our Missionaries and Agents, and consequently the amount of our appropriations are constantly increasing, it is found necessary, for the present, to provide funds for the Board, by annual subscriptions and donations of larger sums. We are happy to inform the Assembly, that several liberal donations and subscriptions for ten years have been obtained since the last report was presented. From an unknown friend of Missions in the State of Mississippi a munificient donation of four hundred dollars has been received. From several individuals in the State of Kentucky payments have been made of fifty dollars each, as the first fruits of a plan, which originated in Lexington, for raising $50,000 from 100 individuals in 10 years. Such instances of christian liberality among the private members of our churches in distant and different parts of the land, have greatly cheered and encouraged your Board in the prosecution of their work, and can scarcely fail of producing a salutary influence upon the minds of all who realize their responsibilities as the stewards of God. The view which has already been presented of the state of our Treasury, and the amount of appropriations which have been made, renders it sufficiently obvious, that a large increase of such donations and subscriptions, is not only desirable, but indispensably necessary, in order that the operations of the Board may be continued and extended, as it is important they should be, without involving our Treasury in heavy debts. A distinct apprehension of the real wants of the Board, on the part of those who possess the means of relief, will prompt them, we trust, to a cheerful imitation of examples so truly liberal and praise worthy. "The Lord loveth the cheerful giver;" and he himself hath said, "The liberal soul shall be made fat, and he that watereth shall be watered also himself.'

A new plan of providing for the support of Missionaries,

In some of the congregations in Philadelphia, and in neighboring cities, the plan has recently been adopted with success, of providing for the permanent support of Missionaries by individuals, or associations of individuals, agreeing to contribute annually one hundred dollars-for which sum the Board pledge themselves to sustain a laborer on Missionary ground, for twelve months, in any State of the Union, which may be designated by the coutributors of that amount. On this plan associations have been formed of twenty individuals at $5 each-of ten individuals at $10 each, of four individuals at $25 each, and of two individuals at $50 each; and thus provision has been made in three or four comparatively feeble churches, for the support of twelve or fifteen Missionaries. It is supposed there is hardly a congregation, in connextion with the Assembly, which is able to support a pastor, that might not with suitable exertions sustain, at least, ONE Domestic Missionary. And not a few of our wealthy churches, might easily furnish the means of supporting from five to ten annually. In one instance the teachers of a Sabbath school in this city have formed themselves into a Missionary association, and without any great exertions secured at once the amount required for the support of one Missionary. In accordance with this plan, resolutions have been adopted by some Presbyteries, and pledges given, to raise in the course of a year, a given amount of money for the use of the Board. One Presbytery in North Carolina has thus

virtually provided for ten Missionaries, by a resolution to raise one thousand dollars; and another in New Jersey has provided for six Missionaries, by a resolution to raise $600 in the course of twelve months. Should liberal individuals, churches, Sabbath school teachers and Fresbyteries generally, adopt this plan and prosecute it vigorously-the Treasury of your Board would soon be filled to overflowing-and its operations would cease to be limited by want of pecuniary resources.

Corresponding Executive Committees of Presbyteries,

It is highly gratifying to your Board to be able to state, that the plan submitted to the Assembly in our last annual report, for bringing the Presbyteries, through the agency of Corresponding Executive Committees, into direct and immediate connexion and co-operation with the Board in the missionary work, has been very cordially adopted by a large number of those efficient judicatories, in different parts of the country-and that the beneficial results of this system of correspondence and co-operation, have been already extensively realized and acknowledged by such Presbyteries, and by many of the feeble congregations which have been brought under their particular supervision. From nearly one half of all the Presbyteries under the care of the Assembly, the Board have received satisfactory assurances of their entire approbation of this plan of correspondence, and of their disposition to aid the operations of the Board with their prayers, their counsel, their contributions, and their personal exertions. In the appendix to this report, a number of the resolutions which have been formally adopted on this subject, by several important Synods, Presbyteries, and Sessions, will be published. It is confidently believed that many more Presbyteries will soon adopt this plan of correspondence, and the Board deem it a matter of so much importanee to keep it distinctly before the churches, that they take the liberty of introducing in this place, a short extract from their last report, defining the powers and specifying the duties of Corresponding Executive Committees.

"It is proposed that each Presbytery shall appoint annually, from their own body, an Executive Committee on Missions, whose duty it shall be to open a regular correspondence with the Assembly's Board; to be invested with the following powers:

1. To receive, generally, applications for aid, from feeble congregations (within the bounds of the Presbytery) which have pastors, or stated supplies, and to recommend the same to the Executive Committee of the Board of Missions.

2. To devise and execute plans for raising funds in the several congregations within their bounds, which funds shall be reported to the treasurer of the Assembly's Board, and be held subject to the orders of said Board.

3. To select and recommend to the Executive Committee of the Board of Missions, missionary fields, and missionary labourers, and also, to locate such missionaries as may be sent to them by the Board for specific instructions.

4. To suggest the amount of aid which they may deem indispensably necessary to be afforded to each congregation, which they shall recommend to the attention

of the Board.”

The Board would again suggest, that it is a matter of great importance, that Corresponding Executive Committees should be composed of active and efficient men-that they should be located in the immediate vicinity of each other-that the number necessary to transact business should be small-and that a due proportion of each Committee should be ruling elders.

One of the prominent duties of such Committees is to prepare and communicate to the Board, a minute and accurate statement of the number, location, and wants of the vacant and feeble congregations, and destitute districts, within their bounds, and the amount of aid which may be deemed indispensably necessary, to each, for the permanent support of the gospel among them. The success of the Board in procuring missionaries, for distant churches especially, depends materially on the official information which they are enabled to present to those who apply to them for commissions. They would, therefore, importunately request of all the Executive Committees in correspondence with them, a prompt and special attention to this part of their official duty.

Itinerant Labours.

The particular attention of your Board has repeatedly been directed, within the last year, to the importance of Itinerant Missionary labours in the more destitute

No. 10.

districts, and new settlements of the country. Appeals of the most solemn and affecting nature have been made to them on this subject by influential and experienced ministers and laymen in the West; and they are now fully convinced, that immediate and persevering efforts are urgently demanded of them, to extend the blessings of the gospel, to organize congregations, and establish churches, in many portions of the land which have hitherto lain waste and neglected. To effect this highly important object in a systematic and economical manner, the Board have had it in contemplation to establish, in such destitute districts, regular circuits for preaching, embracing such a number of stations as may be visited and supplied by the missionary with frequency and regularity. By some of our agents, and by one in particular, in the state of Indiana, successful efforts have already been made to organize circuits of this description, and the way has been prepared for sustaining several itinerant labourers, at the comparatively small expense to the Board of two hundred dollars a year. It is hoped, that the attention of Corresponding Executive Committees of Presbyteries will be particularly turned to this subject, and that more extended efforts will hereafter be made, to enlarge, in this way, the boundaries of our church, and the visible kingdom of our Divine Redeemer. With a view to the same end, it would be gratifying to the Board to employ, more frequently than they have done, for short periods of time, settled pastors, who are surrounded by destitute districts of country; who, by devoting to such districts, two or three months in the year, might be instrumental in gathering congregations, planting new churches, and introducing missionaries into fields of permanent use

fuiness.

Missionary Reporter and Education Register.

The second volume of this monthly publication was commenced in September last, with some alterations in the plan of the work, designed to adapt it more fully to the purposes of the Monthly Concert. About 6000 copies of the present volume are circulated monthly, and distributed, throughout almost every section of the church-and your Board regard it as a valuable auxiliary to their operations. At the close of the present volume, a farther alteration is contemplated, with a view of rendering it entirely subservient to the cause of Foreign and Domestic Missions—and efforts will be made to furnish in a more condensed form, a greater variety of missionary and religious intelligence-together with occasional original essays, and addresses for the Concert of Prayer.

Although the payments made directly into our treasury for this work have fallen somewhat short of the expenses incurred in its publication, yet it is fully believed that the entire income has considerably exceeded the expenditures from the commencement. A great many payments for the Reporter have been made immediately to Sessional Auxiliaries, and have been included in our acknowledgments of receipts from those Auxiliaries. Many members of Auxiliaries on the 50 cent plan have been induced to become contributors of one dollar a year, instead of 50 cents, in order to obtain the Reporter, and in this way, a considerable amount of money has been secured, which would not otherwise have come into our treasury and information has thus been extensively circulated, which has a direct tendency to nurture and increase the missionary spirit. By continued efforts to extend far more widely the circulation of this very cheap and valuable periodical, on the part of agents, missionaries, and other friends of the Board, it is believed, an important service would be rendered to the missionary cause.

Results of Missionary labours during the last year.

From a detail of their own past operations, and their plans for future usefulness, your Board now turn with peculiar pleasure to the contemplation of the many and gratifying proofs, with which they have been furnished, of the commendable zeal, fidelity, diligence and success of the 233 missionaries whom it has been their privilege to engage in the service of the churches. The true character of our missionaries, the nature of the service rendered, and the beneficial results of their consecrated labours, may be best illustrated by a brief and accurate detail of the various, and divinely-authorized means and instrumentalities used by them, for the purpose of training up the young, instructing the ignorant, relieving the oppressed, reforming the vicious, edifying the pious, and saving the perishing.