“ A pleasant custom prevails in India which will illustrate our position. At all the military stations of the Empire, the troops are summoned to parade in the early morning by the firing of a gun. The night may still be dark; the restless sleeper may fancy it will yet be long. But suddenly amid the stillness loud and clear booms out the morning gun. The stars are still shining, and the landscape is wrapped in gloom. But THE DAWN IS NEAR; and soon every eye is open, every foot astir, and the busy, waking life of men again begins. ”

“ We have drawn not only them but their children; we have drawn them, not as isolated individuals, but as families, as neighbours, as fellow citizens, as nations. We have drawn into the church, for man's happiness, and the Lord's glory, all the influences of their private, social, and public life. We have won their intelligence, their moral life, their literature, their material resources, their public law. ”

“ It is not only that so many individual souls have been saved. We have rescued them from heathenism, from false religion, from the advocacy of error, from the practice of error, from open, unchecked vice and crime. We have drawn them from the world's disorders and cruelty, from wrong and misery. In the great warfare with vice, they have changed sides, and are now valiant for the truth. ”

“ Englishmen have done many wrong things in India, for which they have been justly chastised. But a new spirit has entered into the public government of the Empire, and during the last seven years, a degree of improvement and a solid advance have taken place, in the course of legislation and in the material wealth of the empire, of which none, except men who have seen it, have any idea. Three Universities, whose annual examinations in the English and native languages draw hundreds of native students, stand at the summit of a sound system of education which is spreading more widely every year. ”

“ Like ministers at home, our Missionaries preach the Gospel; instruct, govern, and build up churches; watch over the young, and stir up their people's zeal. But they do a great deal more. Placed in many cases in simple states of society, on a low level of education and social connection, as well as of religion; in states of society saturated with heathen vices and heathen beliefs, our missionaries have not only to Christianize individual souls, but to Christianize literature, to Christianize public law, to form a healthy public opinion, to sanctify public taste. ”

“ Adaptation is the law of life. Europeans, wherever they go, adapt their houses, their dress, their habits, and their food to the climate under which they live. However strong may be the belief of Englishmen in the excellence of our constitutional government, yet in all our colonies and dependencies the form adopted is one suitable to the knowledge, the power, the training, the degree of self-government attained by the people of that particular place. In no case do the English rulers force upon a dependency a system of government unsuitable to it, however excellent that system may in itself be. ”

“ Long has the night of heathenism and of wickedness ruled over the world. "Darkness has covered the earth, and gross darkness the people." But the gun has fired and "THE MORNING COMETH." The nations once wrapped in gloom are waking to life and truth. ”

“ With what zeal and devotedness these excellent men have laboured needs not here to be enlarged upon; and with respect to the success that has attended their labours, it is sufficient to say that all heathen and barbarous practices have been abolished, Christianity is firmly established, life and property are as secure as in England—nay, more so, as theft is almost unknown—the morals of the people have been greatly improved, a general system of education prevails, and the Bible is admirably translated and in the hands of every member of the community. ”

“ If the measure of our suffering be the measure of our greatness, we cannot wonder that this martyr church is strong in faith, giving glory to God. Hence all the quiet but solid strength of their present prosperity. Hence the great but not too rapid increase, in their numbers. Hence it is that, though persecution left them poor, they have built nearly a hundred village chapels; that their search into the Word of God is deep, continuous, and unwearied; that their congregations are crowded; that, at a missionary prayer meeting held early in the day, sixteen hundred persons gather together ”

“ The conversion of the female population of China is a subject which must weigh heavily and constantly on the heart of every earnest missionary. The obstacles are many and formidable. Both by preaching and private conversation, for nearly six years, I have been labouring to impress on the minds of the converts the duty and importance of bringing their wives under the direct influence of the Gospel. They would maintain that the custom of the country was against it. To attend chapel and join the men in public worship, would bring not only the wife, but the whole family into contempt, and so on. ”

“ We can point to 50,000 adult communicants, to congregations of 250,000 people, and to our two hundred native clergy, as fruits of grace and proofs of blessing from above. But one of the greatest fruits of all missionary labour in India in the past and in the present is to be found in the mighty change already produced in the knowledge and convictions of the people at large. Everywhere the Hindoos are learning that an idol is nothing, and that bathing in the Ganges cannot cleanse away sin. ”

“ Such a system is a formidable antagonist and the barriers it raises against change are very strong. Yet even Hindooism, so powerful, so rich, so ancient, is giving way at every point. In the external life of the Empire, a just government, providing for every one of its subjects complete security of person and property, and giving them perfect religious liberty, is adapting its public laws and forms of administration more fully to the circumstances of the time; and is introducing the natives more numerously to those posts of duty and of usefulness for which they become fitted. ”

“ Like Israel of old in presence of Moab, in the darkness of night we have been digging ditches by Divine command; but when His day of grace shall dawn and the morning sacrifice be offered, He shall fill them in abundance with His Spirit's streams, and the whole Empire be revived.
Shall the children of the world, in these matters, be wise in their generation, and the children of light not go and do likewise? It is the universal conviction of residents in India that it is a wise course not to denationalize its inhabitants, but to keep them a distinct people ”

“ Besides, evangelistic work is growing on our hands; the native churches are strong; labourers are abundant; the groups lying to the north and west are more open than ever; and the Directors are called upon to look fairly in the face a large extension of the South Sea Mission among three hundred islands, containing millions of people who are heathen still. All the objects desired through the entire range of the Society's interests and the Society's work, can with ease be secured by a vessel of our own, commanded by a truly missionary captain, officers, and crew. ”

“ It is the child of their affection; the object of their most tender compassion, their yearnings, and their prayers. Its long trial of suffering, the grace given to its scattered members, their patience, their fidelity, have drawn to its churches the love, the confidence, the reverence of all christian hearts. ”

“ Much more might be written on this topic, and these illustrations of Christian experience might easily be multiplied. Our native churches give proof in every direction of the soundness of the teaching from which they have sprung, and of the Divine blessing by which it has been followed. They differ greatly in the outer form of their life from English churches: they differ scarcely less from one another. They differ in their knowledge, in the character of their excellencies, in the form of their defects. They differ in their experience of the truth, as they have had a varied history. ”

“ And last, but not least, the full and faithful preaching of the gospel, for which our missionary brethren have ever been distinguished, and the employment of Christian education, have made a marked impression upon heathenism; have broken its prestige, have silenced its objections, and have prepared the way for future victories, more triumphant in their grandeur than anything the Society has yet seen. ”

“ It is, therefore, with indignation and regret that Christian men have seen the recent attacks made on the whole missionary body, and the contemptuous terms in which their labours have been described. Looking away from all that is temporary and special, and contemplating that which springs from their ordinary duties, the Directors would never forget what a noble position missionaries occupy, and how truly great, from its very nature, their work is. ”

“ Thus it is that not only on the Sabbath but through the week, not only in the pulpit but in the school, the market, the private house, in a boat, under a spreading tree, our brethren expound and enforce that Gospel which shall sanctify and govern the hearts of many nations. Thus it is in the cities of China and India, in the villages of Africa, among the swamps of Guiana, beneath the palm groves of Samoa, they seek to be instant in season and out of season. ”

“ Aids to civilization such things might prove; but standing alone how could they elevate, when powder fed the wars; when the drink prostrated chief and people; and even Englishmen encouraged the sale of slaves.
True civilization springs from pure religion. Where grace touches the heart of a man, it quickens all his powers. ”

“ The hundred and fifty-six English missionaries of the Society in foreign lands constitute the central force and stimulus of a wider agency, numbering twelve hundred persons, gathered among people once heathen, now Christian; an agency adopting the same aims, ruled by the same Christian spirit, and fulfilling the same Divine command. This body of true and devoted men were never rendering to the Society a nobler service than at the present time ”

“ In the Calcutta Mission last year, as heretofore, converts have been found to bear reproach and shame for Christ rather than be numbered among idolaters. Still do the tried Christians of POKLO show how grace reigns in China.
The great Christian virtues, the fruits of the Spirit, are developed in these churches as in the older realms of Christendom. In them enlightened conscience makes war with sin; Christian love casts out fear; the eye of faith sees heaven in a dying hour. ”

“ In the number and wealth of our churches, in the character and position of the ministry, the Society ought to find supporters immeasurably in advance of the few but earnest friends of seventy years ago. Our missions have made indescribable progress. Our agencies continue to grow more complete. Churches have been gathered; the members of which are no longer novices in Christian truth and Christian life. The time has come for a native ministry ”

“ As truly as a pious lad on entering London life needs the daily support of a mother's counsel and a mother's prayers; so do these young communities, exposed to the vices and temptations of stronger nations, demand the help, the sympathy, and the prayers of the English churches from which their piety springs. ”

“ Yet how wonderful the fruit of their toil! "The wolf dwells with the lamb; the leopard lies down with the kid." The destruction of life has been stayed. Beautiful as were these lands by nature, culture has rendered them more lovely still. Everywhere the white chapel and school have taken the place of the heathen marai. ”

“ These Christians are all His; their children His, and generations as they succeed each other shall be more completely His, to give Him all the glory of their growing love, and add their contribution of immortal souls to His Millennial reign. ”

“ These are our actual converts, the most striking, the most patent, if not the most real among the fruits of our past labours. These churches are unevenly distributed, but the explanation is easy. As a rule, they are largest in fields of labour which have been longest cultivated, and where converts are easily won. They appear, therefore, in inverse ratio to time and difficulty. To the native races of Polynesia, desolated by wars, torn in pieces by faction and strife, Christianity came as the healer and peace-maker, and was welcomed as soon as understood. ”

“ So ought missionaries and Missionary Societies to act in building up native churches in foreign lands. Nowhere ought we to import and force upon them those systems of church government which amongst ourselves have been largely shaped out by political struggles, by numerous controversies, by local experience, and by the far reaching thoughts of a few great minds. In most cases we are ourselves outgrowing them. ”