whole; and the influence of all readily concentrated in one series of efforts. Here are all mutual counsellors, and mutual supporters. Their measures will of course be generally concerted with prudence, and their purposes executed with energy. Thus many members constitute one body, animated by one soul. Thus man, who alone is but a pigmy; by union and association becomes a giant; a giant, not only with a hundred hands for Jabor, but a hundred eyes for dis

covery.

It is the glory of Christianity to have given rise to associations of this description. Search all the records of Pagan antiquity and modern infidelity; and you will find nothing, like the humane and benevolent societies, which exist in such numbers, in almost every section of Christendom. In Protestant countries, however, these institutions have always been most numerous and flourishing; and within a short period, have been multiplied, beyond all former example. It would be in vain to attempt a complete enumeration of the charitable associations, which have been recently formed in this Commonwealth alone. For the relief of the distressed, for the comfort of the sick, for the support and education of or phans, for the dissemination of Christian knowledge; in a word for the prevention of evil of ev. ery description and the promotion of happiness in every form; societies; more or less extensive, and bearing various names, according to the nature of their respective objects, have been instituted by persons of both sexes, of all ages, and of every

religious denomination. Among these recent institutions is "The Massachusetts Society for the suppression of intemperance.” Auxiliary to this, smaller associations have been formed in-various parts of the state.

It is the general object of this auxiliary society, as briefly stated in the preamble of their constitution, "To promote the design of the parent society, and diminish the temptations to intemperance and its kindred-vices.'

And is not this an object, worthy the attention and the most self-denying labors of the benevolent? Is not this a work, in which every friend to humanity, every lover of his country, every one, who regards the happiness of the rising generation, should engage with zeal, energy and perseverance? Is not this a labor of love a good work, to which we should provoke one another; and which we should strive to promote by example, by exhortation, by friendly concert and united exertions? Look for a moment at the nature and extent of the evil, which we wish to prevent, and hope at least to diminish. Go with me to the house of the intemperate. Behold the man; his eyes inflamed, his countenance distortedhis limbs enfeebled-his constitution broken-his mind; deranged-his passions without control!-Behold his family;--who can describe the mixed emotions of their souls! Compassion and indignation at once swell their bosoms; shame covers their cheeks with crimson, while they attempt to conceal the cause; they

dread his presence, but natural affection forbids them to fee. Has he a wife? She is

bathed in tears-her heart is broken. Has he children? They are mortified; they are disgraced; all their prospects are blasted. His house, once the abode of peace and love, has become a place of wretchedness and woe. Confusion and every evil work are there. The evil spirit hath entered, and all domestic comfort hath fled forever. His estate is wasting away; disease is preying on his vitals; death is hastening to close his mad career; and what is infinitely more awful, he is daily becoming more hardened in sin-more stupid and insensible of his danger, and thus sealing with his own hand his eternal doom!

This, my friends, is not exaggeration; it is the sober truth. The scene described is not imaginary; it is real; it is common. The evil is extensive and alarming; and, with those which follow in its train, it threatens destruction, not only to individuals and families, but to the country itself. Say not, then, that the subject furnishes no cause for the consideration and activity of benevolence. Say, rather, here is need of all her wisdom and strength; let her exercise all her skill in devising means, and exert all her energies in executing plans of reformation.

If the measures of this society are adopted with prudence and executed with firmness, they will not fail to produce a salutary influence. They may not reclaim the confirmed drunkard; but they will prevent others from falling into his fatal habit. They may be the means of preserving some even of our own number. I say, of our own number; for who of us can say; VOL. XI.

"I am out of danger-I am beyond the reach of temptation?" Others, who had been men of sobriety, of good character, of understanding and apparently sound discretion, have been led away and enticed-overcome and destroyed. Let him, therefore, that thinketh he standeth, take heed lest he fall. The frequent and melancholy instances, in which those, who had promised to be useful and happy in life, have been gradually and imperceptibly drawn into the fatal vortex of intemperance, furnish us with awful warnings of our danger, and call upon us to watch and be sober.-We may be instrumental also in saving others of this generation from the destroyer. The very existence of such a society as this, naturally awakens attention, and leads to inquiry. The sober and considerate, who, from motives of popularity, or through want of faith in our success, choose not to associate with us, will still be gradually led to countenance and adopt our prudent measures, for their own good and the benefit of their children. We may even succeed in breaking down those pernicious customs, by which men tempt one another to intemperate drinking, out of which have grown more than half the existing evil. At least we may hope to obtain a salutary influ ence over the habits of the rising generation; and thus ultimately save thousands from untimely death, and perhaps from everlasting destruction.

Let us not then be weary in well doing. Let us exert our united endeavors, to check this vice, and the prevalence of the vices connected with it, which

23

MISSIONARY NOTICE.

Ar a late session of the Prudential Committee of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, after serious and prayerful deliberation, it was resolved, to fit out a mission with all convenient despatch to Ceylon: the mission to be composed, in the outset, of Messrs. JAMES RICHARDS, jun. DANIEL POOR, and HORATIO BARDWELL, with their wives. The Ordina tion of these brethren, together with Messrs. EDWARD WARREN, and BENJAMIN C. MEIGS, is appointed to be on Wednesday the 21st of June next, at Newburyport.

From ample information obtained, Ceylon appears to present a most eligible field for missionary labors.* It it so represented by Dr. Buchanan, in his Christian Researches; it is so represented by an intelligent

gentleman resident in that isiand, who wrote to the London Missionary Society, "I hope the Missionary Society and all other Societies, will strain every nerve to send some able teachers to this country; never was such a harvest as is here prepared for the reapers;" and it is so represented by our own Mr. Newell, who sojourned in Ceylon about ten months, visited the principal parts of the island, and made his observations and inquiries with a direct reference to a missionaThe ry establishment there. population of Ceylon amounts to between two and three millions, a very considerable portion of which is in a state peculiarly favorable for the reception of Mis

sionaries.

In a part of the Island the Tamul language is spok en a language into which the Scriptures have been translated, and which is also spoken by eight or nine millions of people on the neighboring Continent; and by means of a great temple, to which multitudes from various parts of the continent continually resort, peculiar facilities are offered for distributing the Holy Scriptures and diffusing the knowledge of the Gospel thence to a very great extent. Ceylon is not under the jurisdiction of the East

India Company; the Governor, Chief Justice, and other principal men, are well disposed towards missions, and even desirous of having missionaries sent thither; and Mr. Newell was as sured, that himself, and as ma ny of his brethren as would come thither, would find protection and encouragement. "Here," says Mr. Newell, "missionaries may labor with perfect safety; the people will not molest them;— the government will protect them. On these accounts, there is perhaps no portion of the heathen world, which affords so ma. ny advantages for spreading the Gospel as this." Whatever doubts may be entertained in regard to the expediency of females being attached to missions to be established in some parts of the heathen world; there should be no doubt that they may, very properly and with fair prospects of great usefulness, make a part of a mission to be established at Ceylon. The state of society and the circumstances of the people there, especially in some of the principal places, are in this regard particularly favorable. The wife of the missionary, Mr. Palm, while there was eminently useful: and a Mrs. Schrawder, mentioned by Mr. Newell in terms of high praise, who is now there, employed in a school and in imparting religious instructions to many of all classes, is doing incalculable good.*

*That missionaries should, as a general rule, live in the married state, wherever they can obtain a settled and undisturb ed residence, is argued from the following ponsiderations.

4. All the arguments in favor of the marriage of the clergy, generally, can be arged in favor of the marriage of missionarica, gituated as above described; and

Such is the field to which the mission now in view is intended

some of these arguments can be urged with peculiar force.

2. Those Christian duties, which result from the relations of husband and wife, parent and child, and master and servant, can never be so well inculcated, nor so well understood, by a solitary man, removed far from Christian society, as by persons, who sustam these relations in a well organized family; but, particularly, these duties cannot be exemplified before the heathen, unless by missionaries, who are married to well educated and pious females, who have formed all their habits and modes of thinking in a Christian country. This is a point of immense consequence, and is not sufficiently attended to, by those who give a cursory glance at the subject.

3. Missionary Societies ought to strive to raise up a Christian population in heathen lands. The children, in most heathen countries, are like wild asses' colts;

they grow up ungoverned and ungovernable, and of consequence become idle and dissolute, But missionaries can govern industrious; they can make many of them their own children; they can make them studious and learned; and, by the blessing of God, can fit them to become future high accomplishments. The sons of Dr. missionaries, with many advantages and Carey and Dr. Marshman bid fair to be the very first oriental scholars. How

could such scholars be formed in any other way so easily, as by making them acquainted with the languages of the country from their infancy? Two sons of Dr. Marshman, aged thirteen 'and eleven, carried on a public disputation in Chinese, which called forth the high encomium of the Governor General. Let it be remembered, that the Chinese is a language, which has been pronounced till lately impossible to be thoroughly learned by a European.

4. The decencies of civilized life, includ ing a just appreciation of the female character, can never be introduced among hea thens, unless by the aid of females who have been educated in a Christian coun try. We are not to forget, that those heathen countries, which are so far civilized, as to have made great progress in agriculture, manufactures, and commerce, and to have enjoyed a written language for many generations, are yet altogether uncivilized in many most important respects, as Dr. Buchanan has proved, in his Christian Researches. Domestic virtae and domestic happines are unknown among them. Our missionaries at B'q abay have been witnesses of such gross,

to be sent; and which at this moment most earnestly solicits the liberality of all, who wish well to the spread of the Gospel, and to the most important interests of their fellow men. The outfits of this mission, the expense of conveying the missionaries to their destined field, and the advances suitable to be made to them for their establishment and support there, are estimated at seven or eight thousand dollars. Nearly

as much as this, when our mission was fitted out three years ago, was contributed in three or four weeks, and within a very limited district of our country. If a similar liberality be displayed in the three or four months, which may elapse before the departure of the missionaries now to be sent out, there will be no occasion to diminish the present productive funds of the Board. This cannot fail to be regarded, by all the friends of the glorious cause, as vastly desirable; if they at all consider the necessary permanent expense of sup porting so many missionaries as

enormous, and universal violations of morality and decency, as could not be named, or even hinted at with propriety in this place.

5. The experience of all modern missionaries, who have been in a situation like the one here in view, seems to be decisive on the subject. Dr. Carey, in a conversation with one of the American missionaries on that subject, would hardly admit the possibility of a missionary being so situated, as not to make it expedient that he should be married. As a gen eral rule, he urged marriage upon missionaries as an indispensable duty. The missionaries in South Africa, among the wild Hottentots, Caffres, and Boschemen, have generally deemed it expedient to be married. The Moravian missionaries, though engaged among the most savage people, have generally been married. Surely all this experience is entitled to very great consideration.

we shall have in the East, and especially if they also consider, that it is now in serious contemplation to commence, as soon as possible, a missionary establishment in the Missouri Territory, and another in South America, for the benefit of the Aborigines? of our own continent, who have so many powerful claims on our Christian benevolence. The missionary work has long been obstructed by the war: by the return of peace the obstructions are removed; doors are opening in various directions; every thing invites and urges to the most zealous and vigorous operations. Shall pecuniary means be want ing? Are there not many, very

Attempts to evangelize the barbarians of our own continent have met with great discouragements. Their irregular and idle habits, their having no settled residence, in the proper sense of the word residence-their having no written language-their stupid, incredulous and obstinate disposition,-their aptitude at catching the vices of our dissolute countrymen, who visit them for purposes of trade -the systematic opposition of these vile wretches to every thing which is good, and their successful endeavors to prejudice the natives against the Gospel:-all these things make it a matter of peculiar difficulty to diffuse the knowledge of Christianity, among them. But arduous as the task is, it must be undertaken.. While missionaries are sent to foreign parts, where the incalculable advantages of a settled residence, a written language, and a civil government are enjoyed, the Christians of this country will not forget our savage neighbors, who are as yet des titute of these advantages.

American settlements are extending ou the Mississippi, and its tributary streams.. The tomahawk is now buried We ardently pray, that it may never be seized again. Authentic information is received, that some of the principal men in our border settlements would foster a mission to the Indians. Let this favorable season be gladly embraced. Let all, who love the Lord Jesus Christ, pray carnestly that his Gospel may speedily be preached, with divine effect, from the Mississippi to the Pacific ocean.