i 
 
 My Dear Christian Friends and Brethren, 
 
 Your love to your Redeemer, your compassion for a lost world, 
 and your bowels of mercy tor your dying, perishing fellow men, 
 often move you'tocall out, “ Watchman, what oPthe night?” A dark, 
 a long, a gloomy, a woful night has settled upon our guilty race. It 
 envelopes all. Its issues are too expanded, too tremendous to be 
 comprehended by finite intellect. But glory be to God in the 
 highest and forever, that the darkness of man’s fall was rapidly suc¬ 
 ceeded by the light of his recovery. From the hour the first beams 
 of that light revealed to man the redeeming love of God, in the garden 
 of Eden, how has every succeeding ray that has fallen upon this 
 dark earth, cheered the heart of Christian benevolence, while every 
 intervening cloud, obscuring the prospects of love and mercy among 
 men, has tried, and grieved the people of God. 
 
 To the far distant heralds of Zion our hearts often seem to call, 
 “Watchmen, what of the night?” Sometimes the reply is, “Zion 
 travaileth and bringeth forth children, the Lord hath done great 
 things for us, whereof we are glad. The word has been preached, 
 prayer has been made, the Spirit has been given, sinners have been 
 converted.” We hear the glad tidings. Our hearts leap for joy. 
 We thank God, and take courage. 
 
 We turn again, and in other directions ask, “ Watchmen, what of 
 the night ?” Their mourning hearts heave the heavy sigh ; and the bit¬ 
 ter lamentation breaks upon our ear ;—“ The night is prolonged ; 
 the blackness of darkness still gathers upon it. The people see no 
 light. They continue sitting in the region and shadow of death. 
 They stumble upon the dark mountains. Their feet go down to 
 death, their steps take hold on hell. The Sun of righteousness does 
 not arise to shed his vivifying light upon them. The Lord delay- 
 eth his coming to save them. The beautiful feet of those upon the 
 mountains who bring good tidings, who publish salvation, do not 
 come here.” Heavy tidings. Who will not mourn ? And is such 
 the mournful condition of three-fourths of our race? Ah it is; it 
 is. And do the blood redeemed followers of Jesus, who received his 
 farewell charge, “Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to 
 every creature,” know that such is the mournful condition of three- 
 
5 
 
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 fourths of their kindred race? Ah, thistheyknowfullwe.il ! Think 
 of this, and weep, O my soul, and be in bitterness. Oh that my 
 head were waters and my eyes a fountain of tears, that I might weep 
 day and night for my beloved fellow-creatures, thus left to grope in 
 darkness, and perish without hope ; and for the churches too, who look 
 on, and behold this tremendous ruin of immortal souls, sweeping 
 over a long succession of generations, and yet make no more effort 
 to stay its awful progress! 
 
 Beloved in the Lord, do you from Zion’s most favoured mount, turn 
 a pitying, waiting, longing eye to this dark hemisphere, and ask, 
 “ Watchmen, what of the night,?” I am permitted to stand in the 
 place of a watchman ; but it is on a slender, incipient out work, 
 very far distant frorft the walls of Jerusalem. O that I may always 
 be found vigilant and faithful at my post, and ready to give a true 
 report. 
 
 I will send you tidings. In some respects they are joyous; but in 
 others they are grievous. I see much around me that is joyous. If I 
 turn back no farther than to the period of my own arrival on this 
 spot, and survey but what seems to be our own neighborhood, much 
 that is cheering greets the eye. Then from Cape Comorin through 
 the whole range of sea coast by Cochin, Goa, Bombay, Surat, Cam- 
 bay, Bussora, Mocha, and by Mozambique, including Madagascar, 
 Mauritius and other islands, to the Cape of Good Hope, there was 
 not one Protestant missionary, if we except a native missionary who 
 was for a short time, partially established at Surat. 
 
 But about three months ago, delegates from five missions met in 
 the Bombay Mission Chapel, and formed a Missionary “ Union to 
 promote Christian fellowship, and to consult on the best means of 
 advancing the Kingdom of Christ in this country.” 
 
 The individual missionary who constituted one of these missions, 
 has since gone to England, not to return, and therefore, for the pre¬ 
 sent, that mission is extinct. To the other four belong nine mission¬ 
 aries, and two European assistant missionaries. These missions 
 have two common printing establishments, and one lithographic press, 
 consecrated to Christ as so many powerful engines for scattering 
 abroad the light of life. These four missions have in operation about 
 sixty Schools, in which are more than 3,000 children reading, or daily 
 learning to read, the word of God, and receiving catechetical instruc¬ 
 tion. The missionaries, some or all of them, are every day preaching 
 Christ and him crucified to the heathen. The Scriptures and tracts 
 are travelling abroad, and the word of God is working its way to 
 immortal minds in every direction. Prayer is made, and the pro¬ 
 mises of Jehovah are laid hold on; while the means (missionaries 
 excepted) of doing a thousand times more in similar ways for the 
 cause of Zion here, are ready at hand. These are good things; and 
 
1 
 
 3 
 
 we rejoice in them. You too will rejoice in them; and let us all 
 praise the Lord for them. 
 
 But there is something in the weakness of our nature, or in the 
 deep subtlety of our adversary, which, even while we contemplate 
 such good things, and are praising God for them, is exceedingly liable 
 to practice a moral mischief upon us, by so alluring and engrossing 
 the mind with the little that is done or doing, as to render it seem¬ 
 ingly blind to the almost all that still remains to be done. This 
 bring us to the grievous part of the subject. 
 
 It is grievous to behold such an extent of country and so teeming 
 with immortal souls, but yet so destitute of the messengers of life. 
 
 From Bombay we look down the coast for seventy miles, and we 
 see two missionaries; and fourteen miles farther on we see two more. 
 Looking in a more easterly direction, at the distance of about 300 
 miles, we see one missionary, chiefly occupied however as a chaplain 
 among Europeans. In an eastern direction, the nearest missionary is 
 about 1,000 miles from us. Looking a little to the north of east, at 
 the distance of 1,300 miles, we see ten or twelve missionaries in little 
 more than as many miles in length on the banks of the Ganges. Turn¬ 
 ing thence northward, at nearly the same distance from us, we see 
 three, four, or five more separated from each other by almost as 
 many hundred intervening miles. And looking onward beyond these 
 distant posts, in a north east direction, through the Chinese empire and 
 Tartary, to Kamschatka, and thence down the north western coast of 
 America, to the river Colombia, and thence across the mountains to 
 the Missouri, the first missionaries we see in that direction, are breth¬ 
 ren Yail and Chapman among the Osages. 
 
 Again we look north, and at a distance of 180 miles we see two 
 missionaries ; but from thence (with two or three doubtful exceptions,) 
 through all the North of Asia, to the pole, not a single missionary is 
 to be seen. In a north western direction, it is doubtful whether 
 there is now one missionary between us and St. Petersburgh. Wes¬ 
 terly, the nearest is at Jerusalem, or Beyroot.—South west, the near¬ 
 est is at Sierra Leone, and more to the south, the nearest may be 
 among the Hottentots, or on Madagascar. 
 
 Can you count the millions and millions comprised in this range? 
 Can any but an adamantine heart survey them and not be grieved? 
 
 I should like to see a new chart of the earth adjusted to a double 
 scale of measurement, one shewing the comparative surface and the 
 other the comparative population of the different sections of the earth 
 —all presenting a black ground, except those spots where the gospel 
 is preached. And on a slip of white ground, I would have a note of 
 reference to Mark xvi. 15, 16; and this I would have bound up in every 
 bible so as to face the same divine charge of Christ to his disciples. 
 It might be recommended to all Church Members, deacons, pastors 
 
4 
 
 ✓ 
 
 and teachers of theology, to add to the note on their map Romans x. 
 14, 15, and Isaiah vi. 8. to the last clause; which latter clause I would 
 have every student in theology, and young believer of good talents and 
 education, print on his chart in grand capitals; preceded by LORD 
 WHAT WILT THOU HAVE ME TO DO? 
 
 As we must habitually set the Lord Jesus before us, or not expect his 
 love will habitually constrain us ; so must we habitually contemplate 
 a fallen world, lying in the wicked one, or not expect that our hearts 
 will be exercised with any proper sympathies for the perishing. 
 
 But I will take a more limited view. Here are the Mahrattas. They 
 have been estimated at 12,000,000. To preach the gospel to these 
 12,000,000 of heathen there are now six missionaries, four from the 
 Scottish Missionary Society, and two from our Society; that is, one 
 missionary to 2,000,000 of souls. And to furnish these 12,000,000 
 with the Christian Scriptures, and tracts, and school books, there is 
 one small printing establishment. It is now about twelve years since 
 the mission here began, in some very small degree, to communicate 
 the truth to some of this great multitude. Let these facts be well 
 weighed. 
 
 Turn now to another hemisphere, and behold thirty missionaries 
 sent to 30,000 Islanders, (I do not here vouch for precision)—that is 
 one missionary to 1,000 heathen; and mark those missionaries labouring 
 for twenty years before the Spirit is given and sinners there convert¬ 
 ed ; and then say if the missionaries here should be suspected of un¬ 
 faithfulness, or they and the people be viewed as under some peculiar 
 frown of heaven, became the labours of six missionaries among 
 12,000,000, or one among 2,000,000 have not been accompanied by 
 their conversion in twelve years; yea, in much less than that, for during 
 a considerable part of those twelve years, there were not more than 
 three missionaries among these 12,000,000, some of the time but two, 
 and a part of the time not one. Under such circumstances, could 
 more be reasonably expected than has been done? With such an 
 abashing—such an appalling disparity between the magnitude of the 
 work, and the fewness of the workmen, would not any special work of 
 conversion, have been a stranger thing than the absence of it is? 
 
 The magnitude of this work, and the wants of these 12,000,000 of 
 heathen, we have, from time to time, for twelve years, and in language 
 as plain and urgent as we could use, expressed to our Board, and to 
 our churches ; and what attention has it received, and what have they 
 done? Before these twelve years commenced, they had sent three mis¬ 
 sionaries to go they knew not where, but whom Providence directed 
 to this spot. Since they began to hear the Macedonian cry from this 
 spot in behalf of these 12,000,000 of souls, they have sent four more 
 missionaries, one of whom has returned to the bosom of the Church in 
 America, and two rest in the Bombay Mission burial Ground—while 
 
D 
 
 but two of your missionaries survive to address, as your delegates un¬ 
 der Christ, the tidings of salvation to these 12,000,000 of heathen. 
 Yes, reverend and beloved Members of the Board, and ye most sig¬ 
 nally blessed American Churches, the fact must be repeated. For 
 twelve years have we sent forth to you, the Macedonian cry in behalf 
 of 12,000,000 of heathen souls; and often in our pleadings with you 
 for them, have we laid them as suppliants at your feet begging from 
 your hands the bread of life; and you have in all that time sent them 
 but four missionaries—and you have now one less missionary among 
 them than you had ten years ago; and now, while almost every opera¬ 
 tion of the mission is dragged on at a most affecting and reproaching 
 disadvantage, we are told from the Board that they know not when 
 they can send any more missionaries beyond the Cape of Good Hope! 
 
 Is it not doubly grievous—doubly distressing to contemplate 
 such facts? grievous beyond expression in view of the millions pe¬ 
 rishing eternally through such neglect—and hardly less grievous to 
 behold Christians, through the same neglect, so wronging their own 
 souls and the souls of their fellow men, and so robbing their pre¬ 
 cious Saviour, of what they, in their every prayer, acknowledge to be 
 due to him from them, and from the heathen, who are given to him? 
 
 But there is another grievous view of the subject. During those 
 twelve years, the facilities for imparting Christian knowledge among 
 this people, or for employing among them the appointed means of 
 salvation, have so multiplied and improved, that 1 think it mode¬ 
 rate to say that a missionary arriving here now, could, in an equal 
 period, do ten times as much for the diffusion of Christian know¬ 
 ledge, as could have been done by one arriving here twelve years ago. 
 Then there was no school in which to catechise and give lectures—■ 
 no chapel—no Scriptures and tracts to disperse. Now we have a 
 chapel—more than thirty school rooms—and the Scriptures and 
 tracts for distribution—while hundreds of towns and villages, by 
 all the eloquence and pathos that the most imperious want and the 
 direst necessity can inspire, are supplicating for more mission school 
 —millions of people, calling for Scriptures and tracts, and preaching 
 —and an untold number of large towns, in population like Boston, 
 Cambridge, Andover, Providence, Dartmouth, Williamstown, New 
 Haven, Albany, and Schenectady, calling for missionary establish¬ 
 ments in them. If some of these places are not quite open for the re¬ 
 ception of missionaries, others doubtless are, and all we believe will 
 be, by and by, while all are now open, in various ways, for the re¬ 
 ception of Christian books. 
 
 Under such circumstances, with such facilities, what nnmber of 
 Christian books might be prepared, printed and distributed, what 
 number of children taught to read the word of God, and catechised; 
 and what number of perishing sinners pointed to the Saviour s cross, 
 
6 
 
 
 in one year, if there were but a supply of missionaries !* Is it not 
 a grievous thing to witness such facilities for missionary action, lying 
 comparatively neglected? Is not here a vast and fertile field broken 
 up and ready for the casting in of the seed ? And is not the seed 
 already in the field waiting for the sowers to scatter it? What should 
 we say of the farmer, who would turn away from such a field and 
 leave the seed in the field to perish unscattered, and go to some 
 comparatively desolate heath, where much must be done before even 
 that can be prepared for the seed? 
 
 Surely no one can understandingly answer the question “ where is it 
 best to send missionaries ?” without first duly considering the com¬ 
 parative population of the places in question, and the comparative 
 facilities for imparting Christian knowledge to that population. On this 
 score, I plead that justice may be shown to these 12,000,000 of 
 heathen. Here I ground my plea. Letthefacts speak. Twelve mil¬ 
 lions of your race are prostrate at your feet. You can need no 
 delineation of their moral character. It is enough to know that they 
 are your brethren, but are heathen, —that they are idolaters and in 
 ignorance of their Maker and their Redeemer and that you can, if 
 you will, send them the gospel. Their untold miseries supplicate 
 you to open your hands, and give them that salvation which your 
 Redeemer and your Judge has entrusted to you for them, and so long 
 ago charged you to give them. You see also what are the facilities 
 for now giving them that salvation which you have so long held 
 in trust for them, but so long withheld from them. What will you do? 
 Will you spurn them from vour feet; and command them to let 
 you alone, and wait, as they are, till the judgment day ? Is this the 
 love of Christ? Is this the beauty of the Lord upon his holy Zion? 
 Where are the hundreds of students in theology? Where are the 
 tens of hundreds of blooming, pious, well educated youth, the 
 
 * Note. —The following facts, from the last report of our schools, show how 
 extensively Christian knowledge might be diffused among a rising generation of 
 idolators, were there only a supply of missionaries and funds; and if but the 
 Spirit of God were given, in answer to prayer, to seal upon the youthful mind 
 such Christian instructions, what would not soon be accomplished. 
 
 “ Our number of schools at present is 32. The number of children on the 
 teachers’ lists is 1750. Of these 75 are girls, and 133 Jewish children. 
 
 “ During the past year, as nearly as we can calculate, 1,000 have left our 
 school, most of them having obtained what the natives esteem a sufficient good 
 school education. Among these, together with those who have left informer 
 years, are many boys and young men, who can read with a fluency and propriety 
 that would put to shame a great majority of the common bramhuns. And the 
 fact is peculiarly gratifying, that instead of having imbibed any prejudice against 
 us, or our books, from the Christian instruction given in our schools, these very 
 youth, and their relatives, wherever we meet with them in the country, are of all 
 others the most forward to receive and read, and beg, the Christian Scriptures and 
 tracts. In not a few instances, fathers earnestly solicit them for their little sons. 
 
 “ During the year about 786 children have committed to memory the Ten 
 Commandments, and 376 a Catechism of sixteen small pages. A much greater 
 number have committed to memory parts of the same. 
 
 “We continue to have numerous and urgent applications for additional schools; 
 but shall he obliged to decline them, until we are furnished with larger funds, 
 and more fellow-labourers.” 
 
7 
 
 professed followers of the Lamb ? Is there none among you who have 
 a love, a sympathy, a compassion, for all these your long neglected, 
 your dying, your perishing fellow men? 0 remember, there is a dead 
 love, a dead sympathy, a dead compassion, as well as a dead faith', 
 being without works. O, it was not a dead love, or sympathy, or 
 compassion, which brought your Redeemer to the cross. That was 
 not idle breath which he uttered, “Go ye into all the world and 
 preach the gospel to every creature,’’ nor yet that interceding appeal 
 to the Father, “ As thou hast sent me into the world, even so have I 
 also sent them into the world.” O contemplate on the cross, your 
 bleeding Saviour, tasting death for every man, and then survey the 
 spiritual miseries and prospects of these millions of heathen souls 
 dying in ignorance of that only name by which it is possible for 
 them to be saved; and then lay upon your hearts your Redeem¬ 
 er’s farewell charge, and when you have faithfully done this, judge 
 of your love and regard for Jesus, and of your compassion for im¬ 
 mortal souls, by your ivorks. 
 
 But I ask again, must these eminent facilities for your diffusing 
 among these millions the knowledge of salvation, still remain neglect¬ 
 ed at such a fearful rate? If our Board cannot send us help, is 
 there no other Society in America that will send us help? Or must 
 we in future turn our hopes to England only? Before missionaries 
 can leave America—come here, and acquire the language so as to be 
 well able to prepare Christian books, and to preach, nearly three years 
 must elapse. But should God send death among us for the next 
 fifteen months, as he has in the past fifteen, the Board would not, at 
 the expiration of those months, have a single missionary on the 
 ground. In such a case must the chapel and printing office be shut 
 up, more than thirty schools dissolved, and our other operations ter¬ 
 minated? Or into whose hands shall all this property and establish¬ 
 ment be transferred? Uo not these peculiar circumstances call for pe¬ 
 culiar efforts? 
 
 I will endeavour, as God shall enable me, so to labour here on the 
 spot, that the blood of these souls shall not be found in my skirts; 
 and while I cannot but witness a generation of 12,000,000 of unevan¬ 
 gelized souls in succession to the hundreds of generations gone 
 down before them, dropping into eternity, leaving prospects but little 
 better for the next generation, I will endeavour as a watchman at 
 my post, faithfully to report what 1 see. Wo is unto me if I pro¬ 
 claim not the wants of this people—and the eminent facilities made 
 ready for the supply of those wants. This I would wish to do so 
 plainly and fully that if the guilt of neglecting their salvation must 
 lodge any where, I may be able to shake it from my garments; so 
 that I may stand acquitted before my judge, both as to my personal 
 labours among them, and as to my pleading with you on their behalf. 
 
 The remarks I have now made, are in a great measure applicable 
 
8 
 
 to other parts of Tndia. And there i9 yet another very grievous view 
 to be taken, which I can but barely mention. In little more than a 
 year past, death, sickness, and other causes have, so far as I can learn, 
 laid aside 19 missionaries in India, while but six or eight have, in the 
 same time come to India; and so far as I know, from missionary ap¬ 
 pearances, (not from God’s promises) there is a prospect of further 
 diminution rather than of augmentation. In view of these things what 
 will the English and American Churches do? Is it not time, for 
 every missionary in India, to cry aloud and spare not? Would you 
 have vour missionaries leave their work, and come home, to plead, in 
 person before you, the cause of the heathen ? Do not tempt us to 
 do so. Some have, in Providence been called home, especially to 
 England, and their pleas, in person, have been successful so far beyond 
 what has been otherwise attempted, as seemingly to call for the mea¬ 
 sure, though so expensive, and, for the time, so privative to the hea¬ 
 then. Why is it so? Why cannot facts be weighed ? Why can¬ 
 not the vvell known necessities and miseries of the heathen speak, 
 and plead, and prevail, without the aid of any such disastrous expe¬ 
 dients? Does this tell to the credit of those whom the gospel makes 
 wise to do good? O think of these things every one who has a mind 
 that can think ! 0 fed, every one that has a heart that can feel. 0 ye 
 
 redeemed of the Lord, whom he has made kings and priests unto 
 God, “I beseech you, therefore brethren, by the mercies of God, that 
 ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God 
 which is your reasonable service,” and in the true spirit of such an 
 unreserved consecration of yourselves to your Redeemer, ask him, 
 " LORD WHAT WILT THOU HAVE ME TO DO?” And let his 
 Spirit, and his truth, and your own conscience give you the answer 
 which shall guide you in a matter of such unparalleled moment. 
 Your affectionate fellow servant in the Lord, 
 
 GORDON HALL. 
 
 Bombay, \st February, 1826. 
 
 N. B.—I hope it will be deemed excusable to add a most respect¬ 
 ful, but fervcntn quest, that this plea in behalf of a population equal 
 to that of tlie North American States, though so brief and feeble, 
 may be presented to the Christian public, through the various reli¬ 
 gious Newspapers and Magazines in the United States. 
 
 £Since the above was written, this faithful servant of God, has 
 fallen on his distant post. It would almost seem from this affecting 
 plea with American Christians that he had some premonition of the 
 nearness of his departure. Only a month after the date of the above, 
 he wrote that he finished revising for the press the last sheets of 
 the New Testament—and having thus obtained a little leisure from 
 his labour w r as about starting on a tour into the country for preach¬ 
 ing. On the 2d of March he commenced his journey, was seized 
 with cholera morbus on the morning of the 20th, and died at a quar¬ 
 ter past 12 on the same day. Mr. Graves is the only missionary 
 now remaining at Bombay. The heathen wonder that the number h 
 not at least kept good.'} 
 
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