6f 4- 5-/t <> ■« ■ » ^XOafeMlty/tit a=/Yo.. UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. IXJ&rJ"^ ^^.95. f ' . pB&I MK-ft £^A£_ -^ /l**^z> am. i'-k= m "l~-\iv V .? .-^a "-Zfe- Jvz&£ i/"^e ceidd, kve to see this ingat7uvina v speabal maxy sap. lord,™™? lett&t thou tAfy servant de/iart in peace. " &*? Xfe/t-'ff& MEMOIR GEORGE DANA BOARDMAN, LATE MISSIONARY TO BURMAH. CONTAINING MUCH INTELLIGENCE RELATIVE TO THE BURMAN MISSION. BY ALONZO KING, MINISTER OF THE GOSPEL IN NORTHBOROUGH, MASS. " I will go in the strength of the Lord God."— Ps. lxxi. 16. WITH AN INTRODUCTORY ESSAY, BY A DISTINGUISHED CLERGYMAN. NEW AND IMPROVED STEREOTYPE EDITION. BOSTON: GOULD, KENDALL & LINCOLN. mdcccxxxvi. v 3 fcjftp> Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1836, by GOULD, KENDALL, & LINCOLN, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts. J f OS STEREOTYPED BY T. G. WELLS & Co. BOSTON. ADVERTISEMENT. The following work is respectfully presented to the Bap- tist Board of Foreign Missions, at whose particular request it was undertaken. Its appearance in public, has hitherto been prevented by circumstances not within the control of the Compiler. He hopes, however, that it has lost nothing by the delay. The recent arrival from India, of Mr. Boardman's private journal and some other papers, has contributed much to the interest and value of the book. It is now commended to the charities and prayers of the pub- lic, and to the blessing of the God of missions. Northborough, (Mass.) March, 1834. NOTICE TO NEW EDITION. The rapid sale of the large edition of this work first published— the increasing demand for it, — and the evident good which its circulation has accomplished, have induced the publishers to bestow much expense and labor upon it, in order to pre- sent the present edition in as complete and attractive form as possible, with a view to giving it a still wider and more rapid circulation. The revision of this work for the press, was among the last things that occupied the attention of the Author, Mr. King, before being called to rest from his labors, and join the company of the redeemed. Thus early, have the subject and the Author of this memoir, been permitted to meet and embrace each other on the heavenly plains, where they doubtless, now together, swell, with rapturous notes, the song of redeeming love, before the throne of God and the Lamb. A valuable Essay of thirty-Jive pages, written by one of the most eminent divines of the present day, has been added*, and in addition to its having been handsomely stereotyped, a correct likeness of Mr. Boardman, taken on steel, from a painting in possession of the family, and a beautiful vignette, representing the baptismal scene just before his death, have also been added. The publishers feel a pleasure in presenting this work to the public, in its present improved state, — they feel a pleasure in being able to hold up to the world some- thing of the character and the labors of one so universally beloved — one possessing such ardor of piety and depth of humility, such striking traits of a faithful persever- ing Missionary — one who labored so successfully, who fought so valiantly, and who died in the field of conflict so gloriously ; and they confidently believe that the perusal of these pages, will, by the blessing of God, be the means of awaking the Church, more fully, to the cause of Missions 5 and that many of her young men, on casting their eyes around and beholding the moral desolation of the heathen world, and the question coming home, who shall carry the news of salvation to these benighted heathen ? who will go for us ? will be led to exclaim as did George Dana Boardman, " Pll go." THE PUBLISHERS. Boston, Feb. 1836. CONTENTS. Page. Introductory Essay -i CHAPTER I. Including a sketch of Mr. Boardman's early history ... 9 CHAPTER II. Mr. Boardman pursues his studies at Waterville — He indulges a hope in Christ, and makes a profession of religion — The happy state of his mind ------.-,-14 CHAPTER III. Waterville College — Mr. Boardman enters it — His progress in study — Graduates, and is appointed tutor 28 CHAPTER IV. His domestic afflictions — Progress and result of his exercises on the subject of missions — He offers himself to the Board and is accepted — Leaves College 37 CHAPTER V. He pursues his studies at Andover — Correspondence — His labors for tiie Clarkson Society in Salem — He visits Maine and receives ordination -57 A* CONTENTS. CHAPTER VI. Mr. Boardman's travels West and South — His marriage, embarka- tion, and voyage -75 CHAPTER VII. Mr. Boardman's arrival and residence at Calcutta — Description of schools and native churches -------88 CHAPTER VIII. Mr. Boardman announces the close of the war with Burmah — He is requested by the English Baptists to remain still longer in Calcutta 103 CHAPTER IX. Mr. Boardman leaves Calcutta and arrives at Amherst — Estab- lishes a new station at Maulmein — He is in imminent peril of his life, and suffers loss by robbers 122 CHAPTER X. Mr. Boardman is joined at Maulmein by Messrs. Judson and Wade — He opens a school for boys — Conversation with his two Burman scholars — Review of the past year, and resolu- tions for the future-*-His letter on the death of Mr. C. Holton — An interesting extract from his diary 134 CHAPTER XI. The thermometer at Maulmein — Mr. Boardman's religious dis- course with his pupils — Death of Dr. Price — He leaves Maul- mein and establishes a new station at Tavoy — Prospects of the mission at that place - 150 CONTENTS. CHAPTER XII. Historical sketch of the Karens — Their apparent readiness to re- ceive the Gospel — Description of Tavoy, with its temples and images ----- 163 CHAPTER XIII. Uncourteous demeanor of a few natives — Interesting case of a Chinese youth — Hopeful conversions and baptisms — Mr. Board- man's method of spending the Sabbath 176 CHAPTER XIV. Plan of enlarged operations in the department of native schools — The deified book of the Karens 190 CHAPTER XV. Mr. Boardman's first tour into the Karen jungle — Baptisms — Visit to the prison in Tavoy — Execution of a bandit - 209 CHAPTER XVI. Voyage of health to Mergui — Description of Mergui — Death of little Sarah — Review of the past year 226 CHAPTER XVII. Revolt of Tavoy — Mrs. Boardman repairs to Maulmein — Mr. Boardman follows, but soon returns to Tavoy and resumes his labors - - - - 238 CHAPTER XVIII. Dangerous illness of Mrs. Boardman — Visit to the Karen settle- ments south of Tavoy — Mrs. Boardman leaves for Maulmein 258 CONTENTS. CHAPTER XIX. His letters to Mrs. B. at Maulmein — Leaves Tavoy to take charge of the station at Maulmein — His health declines — Returns to Tavoy — Success of the mission 273 CHAPTER XX. Mr. Boardman's last letter to his relatives in America — Mr. and Mrs. Mason join the mission — Mr. Boardman dies amid the mountains of Tavoy - 292 CHAPTER XXI. Conclusion 309 INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. " The Missions in Bengal, of which the public have heard so much of late years, are the Missions of Anabaptist dissenters, whose peculiar and distinguishing tenet it is, to baptize the members of their church by plunging them into the water when they are grown up, instead of sprinkling them with water when they are young." Edinburgh Review, Vol. xii. p. 158. " The first number of the Anabaptist Missions informs us. that the origin of the Society will be found in the ivorkings of Brother Carey^s mind, whose heart ap- pears to have been set upon the conversion of the heathen in 1786, before he came to reside at Moulton. These workings produced a sermon at Northampton, and the sermon a subscription to convert 420 millions of Pagans." lb. p. 158. " We must be satisfied that the rapid or speedy conversion of the whole world to Christianity forms no part of the scheme of its Almighty Governor; and that it can be no offence in his eyes, that we do not desert our domestic duties, and expose the lives and worldly happiness of multitudes of our countrymen to hazard, in order to attempt this conversion, under circumstances the most untoward and unpromis- ing." lb. p. 170, note. " No man (not an Anabaptist) will, we presume, contend that it is our duty to preach the natives into an insurrection, or to lay before them so fully and emphati- cally the scheme of the gospel, as to make them rise up in the dead of the night and shoot their instructors through the head." lb. p. 171. " The misfortune is, the men who wield the instrument, ought not, in common sense and propriety, to be trusted with it for a single instant. Upon this subject they are quite insane and ungovernable ; they would deliberately, piously, and con- scientiously expose our whole Eastern empire to destruction, for the sake of con- verting half a dozen Brahmins, who, after stuffing themselves with rum and rice, and borrowing money from the Missionaries, would run away, and cover the gospel and its professors with every species of impious ridicule and abuse." lb. p. 173. " The duties of conversion appear to be of less importance, when it is impossible to procure persons to undertake them, and when such religious embassies, in con- sequence, devolve upon the lowest of the people. — Why are we to send out little detachments of maniacs to spread over the fair, regions of the world the most unjust and contemptible opinion of the gospel ?" lb. p. 179. " If a tinker is a devout man, he infallibly sets off for the East. Let any man read the Anabaptist Missions *, — can he do so, without deeming such men pernicious and extravagant in their own country, and without feeling that they are benefiting us much more by their absence, than the Hindoos by their advice ?" lb. p. 180. " Shortly stated, then, our argument is this -. — We see not the slightest prospect of success ; — we see much danger in making the attempt 5 — and we doubt if the con- version of the Hindoos would ever be more than nominal. If it is a duty of general benevolence to convert the heathen, it is less duty to convert the Hindoos than any other people, because they are already highly civilized, and because you must infallibly subject them to infamy and present degradation. The instruments employed for these purposes are calculated to bring ridicule and disgrace upon the gospel." lb. p. 180. " We have one short answer, it is not Christianity which is introduced there, but the debased mummery and nonsense of Methodists, which has little more to do with the Christian religion, than it has to do with the religion of China. We would as soon consent that Brodum and Solomon should carry the medical art of Europe into India, as that Mr. Styles,* and his Anabaptists should give to the eastern world » Rev. Dr. Styles, of Brighton, who had written a c-jtique of their former article. 11 INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. their notions of our religion. — Why are common sense and decency to be forgotten in religion alone ? and so foolish a set of men allowed to engage themselves in this occupation, that the natives almost instinctively duck and pelt them ? — Our charge is that they want sense, conduct, and sound religion ; and that if they are not watched, the throat of every European in India will be cut : — the answer to which is, that their progress in languages is truly astonishing ! If they expose us to immi- nent peril, what matters it if they have every virtue under heaven ? We are not writing dissertations upon the intellect of Brother Carey, but stating his character so far as it concerns us, and caring for it no further." lb. vol. xiv. p. 45, 46. " Make the Hindoos enterprising, active and reasonable as yourselves, — destroy the eternal track in which they have moved for ages, and, in a moment, they would sweep you from off the face of the earth. Let us ask, too, if the Bible is univer- sally diffused in Hindostan, what must be the astonishment of the natives to find that we are forbidden to rob, murder, and steal,— we, who, in fifty years, have extended our empire from a few acres about Madras over the whole peninsula, and sixty millions of people, and exemplified in our public conduct every crime of which human nature is capable. What matchless impudence to follow up such practice with such precepts ! If we have common prudence, let us keep the gospel at home, and tell them that Machiavel is our prophet, and the god of the Manicheans our god." lb. p. 48. " Our opinion of the Missionaries and their employers is such, that we most firmly believe, in less than twenty years* for the conversion of a few degraded wretches, who would be neither Methodists nor Hindoos, they would infallibly produce the massacre of every European in India', the loss of our settlements 5 and consequently of the chance of that slow, solid, and temperate introduction of Christ- ianity, which the superiority of the European character may ultimately effect in the Eastern world " Ib. p. 50. * This article appeared in April, 1809 ; twenty-six years have now elapsed. It is in the power of some of our readers to look back to the era when, as it may in some sense be said, Modern Missions began. True it is, the Moravians had been long employed in silent and steady labors for the heathen, but their example seemed lost upon the other Protestant churches. The growth of Neology was draining all spiritual life from Germany, the country which had sent forth Swartz and his associates. And it was chiefly with the prayers and the efforts of our own breth- ren, Carey, Fuller, Ryland, Sutcliff and Pearce, that there began that train of thoughtfulness and energetic exertion for the souls of the heathen, which is now spreading throughout the evangelical churches of Europe and America. Sublime as was the design, there was, save to the eye of faith, something so painfully and absurdly inadequate in the means with which the design was to be accomplished, that the world looked on the enterprise and its abettors with a boisterous and heartless mer- riment. " Sixty millions of Hindoos" (we quote the actual language of the scoffers,) "to be converted by four men and sixteen guineas:"! or t0 repeat the words already cited — words which shrunk yet more the means of the enterprise, and in- creased its magnitude, " a sermon and a subscription to con- vert four hundred and twenty millions of Pagans." The Edinburgh Review, then risen to be lord of the ascendant f Edinburgh Review, Vol. XIV. p. 48. INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. ill in literature, threw its withering scorn on the Serampore Mis- sion. It is matter of devout pleasure now to turn to the pages, (some at least of which, it is said, were furnished for that peri- odical by a clergyman of the English Establishment, who is yet living,) and to contrast the eloquent and bitter contempt there poured upon men of whom the world was not worthy , with the actual results of their labors, and the high position, which even by the consent of the world, is now accorded to their Mission. The Anglo-Indian empire was to fall in twenty years, unless the ignorant fanatics were curbed. But, as Foster has said of this same " wrathful earnestness" on the part of the accusing seers, " time and experience have brought contempt on all their rant of prognostication." Never were the gainsay- ings and the prophesyings of this world's wisdom more signally rebuked. And a most impressive document might be com- piled by gathering these articles, (the writer of which, Robert Hall described as uniting "to the levity of a buffoon, a heart of iron and a face of brass, 15 ) and some similar attacks of less able assailants, and placing them in one volume, and under the same covers, with a modest memoir of the Northampton- shire shoe-maker and his humble associates, " the nest of consecrated cobblers," whom the Edinburgh Reviewer boasted of " routing." * They were poor men, originally uneducated, the ill-paid ministers of a church, unendowed and portionless. But in their weakness, it might be said, was the secret of their strength. Men of greater fame might have shrunk from risk- ing their character in so arduous and novel an enterprise; and men of opulence would have been slow to leave their downy comforts. Their station and origin contributed to make them humble; and to be humble, before Christ, is to become mighty. Did the world mock and scorn them? They had but expected it, and might feel as if they deserved it. But when the world went on to mock and scorn their enterprise, they defied her with a holy intrepidity, and paid back her proud contumely with a serene meekness. Their enterprise was ChrisVs, and would and must live, though all its instruments sunk and broke, in their unequal conflict with the vanities and idolatries of a godless world.f * Edinburgh Review, Vol. XIV. p. 40. f It is but justice to the memory of those from among these devoted men who have now entered into rest, to quote the language of Heber, in his Epis- copal charge to the clergy of India. Against one scholar we would thus set another of still higher name; — to a dignitary in England, prophesying of the things that should be, we would oppose a higher dignitary in India, describ- ing the things that were ; and to the fancies of one writing at a distance from the scene, the testimony of another, an eye witness, as to the results spread as they were before him, and around him. " To the former of these classes," IV INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. And well has the issue answered to their faith. God has upheld and prospered, even beyond the limit of their own modest hopes, the holy men who have from our own and other churches gone forth to labor for the heathen. Within the last half century, Christian Missions have done more to refine and humanize the savage, than was ever done in ten centuries by the philosophy and the philanthropy of this world. New Zealand was, but a very few years since, given up to hordes of treacherous cannibals. What has made so many of her ports now, the safe resort of the navigator? — The faithful toil of the Missionary. The Hottentot of South Africa was, in the literature of our forefathers, as any man conversant with it will have observed, the name for a mongrel and debased ani- mal, living, if he belonged at all to our own race, upon its very outskirts, the connecting link between the man and the ape, — the humiliating proof to civilized men of how much stupidity, and how much filthiness, and how much deformity might dwell in the shape of their own kind. What has stripped from the Hottentot the garb, and ejected the spirit of the beast, and made him the cultivated, and active, and cleanly being which travellers now describe him? — The Missionary has done it: — is the answer reluctantly growled forth by the boor, from whose lash and yoke Missions have ransomed this his bruti- fied slave. Who went in to stay the desolating flood of licen- tiousness that was sweeping over the fair isles of the Pacific, and to bring back the race from the sties of blood and lust, in which they were losing their national power, and melting away the strength and life of their souls? — Upon the head of the Missionary rests the shame of this work also, by the unani- mous and indignant testimony of the profligate voyagers, who, hoping there to find the victims of an unbridled licen- says the Bishop, " may be referred the loud opposition, the clamors, the ex- postulation, the alarm, the menace and ridicule which, some few years ago, were systematically and simultaneously levelled at whatever was accomplished or attempted for the illumination of our Indian fellow subjects. We can well remember, most of us, what revolutions and wars were predicted to arise from the most peaceable preaching and argument ; what taunts and mockery were directed against scholars who had opened to us the gates of the least accessible oriental dialects ; what opprobrious epithets were lavished on men of whom the world was not worthy. We have heard the threats of the mighty ; we have heard the hisses of the fool; we have witnessed the terrors of the worldly wise, and the unkind suspicions of those from whom the Missionary had most reason to expect encouragement. Those days are, for the present, gone by. Through the Christian prudence, the Christian meekness, the Christ- ian perseverance, and indomitable faith of the friends of our good cause, and through the protection, above all, and the blessing of the Almighty, they are gone by! The angel of the Lord has, for a time, shut the mouths of these fiercer lions." — Heber^s Sermons in India, p. 11. INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. V tiousness, have been met by the purity, and the order, and the mental culture of a Christian land. Who gave to the Green- lander, " the man-fish," as Cecil has so appositely termed him, a being well nigh as stupid and brutish as the seal or the bear on which he preyed, civilization and comfort; and planted amid the snows of the cheerless North, the hopes, and the order, the peace, and the moral purity of a Christian commu- nity? — The Missionary. What has shaken to its base the system of Hindoo Polytheism that stood up in gloomy magnifi- cence, the work of long centuries, and rooted in all the habits of the nation; and has at the same time left in perfect solidity, and unshorn of its splendor, the British power, that seemed originally enveloped by, and dependent upon this great fabric of idolatry? — The toil of the Missionary, sapping as quietly and effectually as the noiseless tooth of time, but far less tedi- ously. In the frequent and varied attempts made to stay the decay, and to raise and civilize the character of our own Indi- ans, what experimenter has gained even partial success ?- — The Missionary, and he alone. And it is not in the lands of heathenism only, that the effects of our Modern Missions are to be traced. The Church has been blessed by them to an extent which would well repay her every sacrifice of funds and of life, had she failed to gain a single convert from among the tribes of Paganism. Her own mind has been enlarged. Neff, in order to give to his moun- taineers the interest he desired them to feel in the Monthly Concert of Prayer, taught them geography. They learned the extent of the earth, and when they saw the breadth and com- pass of its moral desolations, their zealous evangelist needed no more to busy himself in stimulating their flagging energy. To feel for the heathen, it was necessary that the range of their own minds should be enlarged, and a care for missions in him, indirectly wrought to make his people scholars. The church at large has felt, in some measure, a similar necessity, and experienced a like benefit. Christians have acquired a greater amount of knowledge, and the consequence has been an increased liberality of thought. We may have, many of us, noticed the effect produced upon the feelings and energies of some rural and secluded community, when several of its youth have wandered away, to become the colonists of some far land that richly repaid their adventurousness and their toils. We have seen how interest in the lot of those who were their own children, or had been their pupils, or neigh- bors, o£* playmates, united the old and the young in the eager pursuit of information. All the books they could find were consulted; travellers were questioned; letters were exchanged: and it was not until they had a thorough knowledge of " the B VI INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. what and the whereabouts" of the lot of their absent friends, that the little community could content itself, and be at rest. It has been even thus, that the missions of the church have benefitted Christian lands. The churches at home have learned to inquire about the world. Their hearts have gone with the Missionaries who quitted their altars and hearths for a more blessed but more toilsome life. The minds of those who continued to hold the homesteads of the church, have been enlarged, as they crept up the hills that girt around the happy valley, where Rasselas-like, they had lived in the enjoyment of a peaceful ignorance, and as they looked abroad from the eminence thus gained, upon that wide world beyond, which before had been to them an unknown land. There is a degree of knowledge in the common members of the church now, regarding the character and moral condition of the nations which was utterly wanting to those of the last generation. The Missionary enterprise has done yet more. It has not only enlarged the minds of Christians, but it has softened and bettered their hearts. There is something delightful in the very exercise of kindly affection, though it be lavished in vain, and waste itself on an unworthy object, or though it spring less from principle than from impulse. Even the daughter of gaiety and dissipation, who has, in some hour of thoughtless generosity, given to suffering poverty, but that she might be relieved from its importunate cry, or its irksome presence, has returned at night to gaze with a keener delight, and fonder affection, on her own cradled child, as she contrasted his lot with that of the squalid misery, to which the past day had intro- duced her ; thus carrying back into her own ceiled and sump- tuous mansion a new-found pleasure, from the scenes of want and wretchedness she had left behind. Christians have learn- ed, thus, to prize the gospel more than they did, ere they knew, in the review of the heathen world, the miseries en- tailed by the want of that gospel. And they have found, too, a luxury of the highest order in their feelings of compassion for the multitudes that lay perishing in their ignorance. To the soul of Howard, as he returned at night to his pillow, fatigued with the toils and privations of his pilgrimages of benevolence, there was more of pure and high pleasure, (con- sidering the question merely as one with regard to the degree of pleasurable excitement), in the feelings of sympathy and commiseration he had gratified, in his visits to the dungeon, the galley, and the hospital, than he could have found, had he resorted to the palaces of kings, swollen the train of an ambas- sador, or lingered with the scholar, to wonder and muse amid the glorious monuments of ancient art. The luxury of doing good has become known to the church; and through the instru- INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. vii mentality of our larger Missionary Societies, and their numer- ous dependent associations, the new found pleasure has been made cheap and accessible, until it can now be shared by all ranks and conditions. And the veriest child, whose petty contribution would scarce, when separately reckoned, pay the expense of its own transmission to Pagan lands, may, through the innumerable channels now opening for the charities of the churches, reach the most distant heathen ; and she finds her own heart gladdened by the assurance that she is printing the Bible, and scattering tracts, sustaining the missionary, and- teaching the true God to the little heathen child, whose hands had else been folded in prayer before some idol shrine, and whose eyes had else looked only to the gods of wood and of stone that can neither hear nor save. It has given activity to the church. And this to man, in every state, brings in its train a thousand attendant blessings. To instance but one of its good effects, the theories of the church have been made clearer, and her principles stronger, by the occupations to which she has thus devoted herself. The waters of salvation have sparkled and brightened, and become purified, as they ran forth to reach the far heathen. As they flowed onwards, gathering speed and strength as they went, they were seen, beneath the open heaven and its freshening airs, cleansing themselves of the feculence that had mantled upon them, as they stagnated in the pools of a missionless church. The real nature and full powers of the truth are never developed, until the truth is seen in action. Much of the drivelling, and much of the quibbling, that have beeu miscalled theology, would never have been known, had the church remained true to her missionary charter. It could not have existed in a community actively embarked in efforts for the world. And it is to the missionary employments of the church that we look with confidence, as promising much for the practical theology of the nineteenth century. Missions have already thrown a mass of new evidence around the great outworks of scriptural orthodoxy, as held and defended by the evangelical Christians of all ages. It was one of the charges which Socinianism brought against the Deity and vicarious atonement of our Lord, that the doctrine hindered the progress of the gospel, and that the promulgation of such statements, as a revelation from heaven, would only awaken the hootings of the nations not yet christianized. But what has been the actual result ? If any one fact stand forth as a prominent and immovable one, sustained by the consenting testimony of all our missions, of whatever sect, and whether in Greenland, in India, or in South Africa, among the Indians of North Ameri- ca, or the natives of the Isles that " float like halcyon nests on Vlll INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. the bosom of the Pacific," it is just this, that no statement seems to touch and melt the heart of the Pagan like this ; — that the sufferings of a dying God, incurred in love to his murderers, are seen to unbar the heart that had remained impervious to all other arguments ; — and that so far from shocking or repelling, it is true of the doctrine of the atone- ment, that it proves its identity with that cross of Christ which was the theme of Paul's boasting, by its becoming every where, to the men of every creed, and every hue, and of all the varied grades of barbarism or civilization, as did Christ crucified in the teachings of that Apostle, the power of God to their salva- tion. So again the vaunt of the Romish church, that she proved her apostolical character by being the only community that sustained, and sustained successfully, missions to the Pagan,* is now smitten down: and the rival zeal, and supe- rior success of Protestant missionaries, have furnished new arguments to those who assail the grand apostasy of Roman- ism. Again, the Mission field affords a ready test for the trial of every theological speculation. Men of old might devise pretty and plausible systems, which would look well and win a name for their authors, because they were not tested and worn in the out-door labors of the church. But the teachers of the modern church must expect their opinions to undergo a speedy and severe trial in the out-posts of missionary labor ; and the church will say to them, as Fuller, with his wonted masculine sense, said in reply to the scruples and quiddities of his Scottish brethren: "If you have a better discipline and uniform, and more ample accoutrements than are ours, prove it, by sending out your troops and officers into the field against the common foe. 5 ' It will not longer avail for any Christian denomination to while away its time in boasting of its own transcendent knowledge, or its ancient and unstained lineage, now that the onset of the church upon the heathen world has fairly begun. We point her to the breach — we summon her to the high places of the field — we look for her banner in the thickest of the strife. And if she fail in this test 3 we scout her pretensions. Yet let it not be supposed, that the church will find her doc- trinal purity invaded, or her great outlines of religious belief materially altered by the missions of the age. Many truths, however, which have as yet received but a scanty measure of attention, will now be more anxiously studied, and better un- * " This conversion of nations, according to the divine commission, is the prerogative of the Catholic church, in which it has never had any rival." But- ler's Lives of the Saints : Vol. xi. p. 14. See also Bp. Milner's End of Controversy. INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. ix derstood; and others, which have been unduly magnified, will sink down into their proper place in the great " proportion and analogy of the faith." We have seen many a youth going out into the world, strong in the store of pithy maxims received from his father or teachers; and they did indeed profit him much: but he was quick in learning, that he had not estimated properly their relative value, when compared one with another. Experience soon taught him, which were of rare applicability; and which, from their constant usefulness, should form the very staple of his meditations and his plans. Thus is it with our views of theology. It is an active and an evangelizing church, that will be, in some respects, most competent to give due ad- justment, and the needed symmetry, to her own views of scrip- tural truth. She will take her vestments out of the presses and the wardrobes, in which they have been treasured by the economy and industry of other ages, and putting them to actual use, learn their fitness or their deficiency, their power to clothe the arm, and cherish the vigor of the warrior, or to turn the dart of his antagonist. Old truths thus perpetually put anew into successful application, will not be forgotten or become obsolete ; while on the other hand, the weapon of a new opin- ion, that may have all the gloss and burnish of novelty upon it, will be little valued, if it be found that its edge is turned, and its point lost, whenever it is tried in the contest that is continually waged with Paganism, and superstition and skep- ticism. And in thus acquiring a sounder and juster view of the great system of Christian morals, and Christian doctrine, we anticipate much from the unsophisticated judgment and piety of the recent converts from heathenism.* We see reli- gion too much as to its minor details, with the traditionary disfigurements and corruptions we have inherited from our revered ancestors, and which the influence of habit has in our eyes adorned with a spurious sanctity. But the neophytes of our Missionary brethren will aid in disabusing and disen- chanting us, although we may be their superiors and their teachers, in biblical criticism and ecclesiastical history. And * Cecil, in his Life of the celebrated English sculptor, Bacon, has said of him, that he was prepared to heed the criticisms of his friends, even upon those subjects in which his own experience was far superior to theirs. " Once walking" (says his biographer) " through his pieces, as I passed a statue nearly finished, I hastily said, ' Mr. B. that leg is too short.' He replied^ c Stop, stop: look again: for it never occurred tome.' 'Phoh!' said I, * I know nothing of the matter: no doubt but you are quite right.' 'I don't know that,' answered he ; ' I have taken no other rule of proportion than the measure of my eye, and the remark of a fresh eye is always matter of serious consideration with me.'" Now, the new-made convert brings this "fresh eye" to the gospel. X INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. as the church goes on, kindling in hope, and growing in energy and in love, she will find the swathings of her sickly, her peev- ish, and her dependent infancy unwrapping themselves ; and the church, surrounded by her missionary colonies, will be not only a larger, but a purer, not only a more powerful, but a better tempered and more thoroughly educated community, than she has yet been. If it be needed to defend such an expectation from the charge of presumption or fancifulness, we might adduce the language of that eminently sober-minded theologian, the elder President Edwards. "It may be hoped then, that many of the Negroes and Indians will be divines, and that excellent books will be published in Africa, in Ethi- opia, in Tartary, and other now the most barbarous countries; and not only learned men, but others of more ordinary educa- tion, shall then be very knowing in religion. — There shall then be a wonderful unravelling of the difficulties in the doctrines of religion, and clearing up of seeming inconsistencies: c Lo, crooked things shall be made strait, and rough places shall be made plain, and darkness shall become light before God's people.' Difficulties in scripture shall then be cleared up, and wonderful things shall be discovered in the word of God, which were never discovered before. This seems to be compared, (in the book of Revelations,) to removing the veil and dis- covering the ark of the testimony to the people."* Such were the hopes of one who, more than most interpreters, was of intellect " all compact," and who had drunk deeply into the spirit of the scriptures he studied. And as the church sees, from many a shore now resigned to the unmolested sway of their ancient superstitions, the clouds of new-born Christians, who shall come trooping to her side, like doves to the windows of their dove-cote, she will find her- self prepared for, and entering into, that state of union, the object, in our own and former times, of so much devout aspi- ration, of so many anxious speculations, and such repeated and fruitless efforts. Of the various schemes that have been devised for the entire, or more partial union of evangelical Christians, from the days of Dury and Calixtus down to those of Hall and Mason, we may say that most seem to have over- looked the need of a higher state of holiness, ere union could become profitable, even were it possible. And in reviewing many of these attempts to fuse an alloyed and debased Chris- tianity into one homogeneous mass, we cannot but remember the language of Jeremiah: " The founder melteth in vain, for the wicked are not plucked away." A higher state of Christian * History of Redemption, Period III. Part VIII. Edwards' Works (Dwight's Ed.) Vol. iii. p. 405, 406. INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. XI discipline, and vital godliness more fully developed, are needed in all communities, to make such union feasible, and to make it advantageous were it feasible. There have been temporary unions, in which the principle of aggregation was merely the binding frost of a common liberalism, — an indifference to all truth. Such unions, if universal, would but convert the church into an avalanche, powerful indeed, but powerful only for deso- lation and ruin. The furnace of a common affliction, but yet more, the intense flames of a holy and heaven-descended char- ity, will produce the refined purity needed to effect an union that shall endure, and be worthy of the name. And Missions will aid in this. The exercise of Christian graces in the field of Missionary labor will have aided to purge from every com- munion much of its errors, and more of its selfishness j and above all, will have given to every denomination that high standard of personal holiness, the want of which, although few have suspected it, is, after all, the chief barrier to union among Christian sects. Men are not prepared to bear, and to forbear, to resign, and to adopt, to yield the post of superiority, or take the burden and the peril, as they must do, ere Chris- tians can live together as one banded family. The growing holiness, and the growing dangers and obstacles of a Mission- ary community will bring the various bands nearer. And as they look abroad upon the hills darkened with the gathering lines of those who fight against their common God, and look onward to a common heaven, then seen more nearly and vivid- ly than it now is, they will learn to know their brethren, upon whom they have heretofore looked askance as rivals, or aliens; and along the whole line one watch-word will run, and every eye will kindle with a contagious ardor, and the banners of sectarianism will fall before, or be clustered harmoniously around the uplifted Cross, as it is borne onward, amid their deep and silent prayers, to a perilous onset, and a protracted conflict, but to win at the last an assured victory. And how much have Missions already done towards that holy commu- nion of heart, — that spiritual unity, which is far preferable to any merely external uniformity of symbols and of ordinances. The true Christian holds closer to his heart the brother of known piety, who speaks not his own sectarian Shibboleth, than he possibly can the lukewarm professor, who wears indeed his own partisan badge, but displays no warmth of piety. The existence of such men as Martyn, and Buchanan, and Thom- ason and Heber, has done more to reconcile the Baptist to Episcopacy ; and the labors of David Brainerd have done more to excite his sympathy for godly Paedobaptists, than would have been effected by tomes of angry and able debate. The Episcopalian cannot,despite his prejudices, look down with Xll INTRODUCTORY ESSA\. contempt upon the community that fostered a William Carey: and the sturdiest champion for the government of the Church by her presbyters, and for the admission of her infants to the privileges of membership, finds his soul melting into somewhat of sympathy for the Antipaedobaptist, when he reads the gush- ing heart of Pearce, as it yearned over the Missionary field, or tracks the labors of our own Judson and Boardman. And Swartz and Vanderkemp, Fisk and Gordon Hall, Chamberlain and Ward, and Pacalt, Harriet Newell, and Ann Judson, and Charlotte Sutton, and Eliza Leslie, and Harriet Winslow, and a host of names that crowd in on the memory and the heart, as we write, are felt to belong, in a higher and better sense, to no one community, but are hailed by the whole household of faith, as kinsmen and kinswomen, our common love to whom should be the bond and the pledge of our love to each other. And all this is true, the bitter taunt of the Reviewer already quoted to the contrary notwithstanding, when he asserts, that " the dar- ling passion in the soul of every Missionary is, not to teach the great leading truths of the Christian faith, but to enforce the little paltry modifications and distinctions, which he first taught from his own tub."* We have seen what Missions have done, and are still to do. Yet let us remember the vast field that remains unbroken and unreached. The snows of the North, and the sands of the South are traversed by whole tribes that know not our Savior. The Sun of Righteousness has indeed arisen upon the earth, but how faint is his lustre, and how limited the range of his rays, compared with the realms over which, in his zenith, he is yet to shine, swathing the world with his light as with a gar- ment. Asia and Africa are yet as continents unevangelized. Europe is but too largely overspread with the pall of Antichrist, except where " the covering" he has " cast over the face of the nations " is eaten away by the moth of scepticism it ever breeds : and the Southern portion of our own continent is his undis- puted domain. The millions of the earth are on the side of their destroyer. The King, the Redeemer, is denied by the vast mass of the race he came to ransom. The cause of Missions must be carried forward, and the ef- forts of its friends greatly enlarged, to meet the wants of a world, to answer the claims of our Lord, and to fulfil the vows of our own high profession. May we be allowed, therefore, to turn the eye of the reader awhile to some of the suggestions which have been made for upholding and extending the Mis- sionary enterprise. In an undertaking of such general interest, and of such vast importance, it may be expedient at times to * Edinb. Rev., Vol. xiv. p. 46. INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. xiii remember, that in the multitude of counsellors is safety. From the bosom of that multitude, obscure, incompetent, and unex- perienced, truths may yet at times come, deserving the most thoughtful study. The remarks already made have overgrown the intended bounds of this Introduction. The suggestions which yet re- main have been gathered by the writer, amid other and en- grossing employments, that forbade his giving them the order and the compression he would have desired. Loosely and hastily thrown out, they may yet, ere they perish, meet the eye of some one better qualified and more at leisure, to give to the churches a review of the various plans of modern Missions, and their real or supposed defects. The remarks to be offered may be grouped under the several heads: I. Of the Home Re- sources of the Missionary enterprise; II. Of the training and character of Missionaries ; and III. Of the various plans for Missionary labor. I. The church in Christian lands bears to Missions, evidently, the relation of a cabinet of war and an arsenal, to an army in foreign service. She must have wise counsel to form her plans of action; must provide the needful funds and materiel of warfare ; and select as her agents abroad, those who will necessarily, from the distance at which they labor, be left in many instances to their own discretion, and who should there- fore be of the character to meet satisfactorily, so great a trust. She must also have those channels of access to Christians at home, by which information may be continually given them, and the needful aid, mental and pecuniary, be as regularly received from them. She must elicit prayer, and send back the records of its achievements and answers, to stimulate and sustain prayer. Every closet and sanctuary must become tributary to her in supplications, just as every Christian home and congregation should be brought to minister to her ex- hausted treasury. The system of effecting all this, that shall exhibit the greatest simplicity compatible with the requisite strength, will be the best of all systems. Various suggestions have been made as to this division of the Missionary enter- prise. An original and vigorous writer of our own times (Douglass, in his work on the Advancement of Society,) has proposed that the concerns of our Societies should be in the hands of a few, as increasing the sense of responsibility, and as securing men more likely to keep themselves informed of the doings and experience of their predecessors; and that the active labors of the Society should rest chiefly on one or more Secretaries, adequately paid, and who should give themselves to the work exclusively of all pastoral engagements. Upon these principles, it is believed, most of our Societies act. XIV INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. Another writer of high talent, the author of " The Natural History of Enthusiasm," has urged an entire change in the organization of Foreign Missions. His plan, it will be ob- served, extends to the third division, the labors of Missionaries abroad, as well as to the topics embraced under the first head; but its consideration seems, on the whole, to fall more naturally under the present head. In a treatise, which he has entitled "A New Model of Christian Missions," he has insisted on the loss of power to the Church, from her neglect of the great principle of the division of labor, and from the want of system and union in the Missionary efforts of Christians. His pro- posal is, that the entire body of evangelical Christians in the British Islands, not excluding foreign Protestant Churches, should throw together their resources, moral, mental, and financial, into one and the same coffer, thus forming " an uni- versal, or rather a harmonious association for the purpose of propagating Christianity abroad." These entire resources should then be decomposed and recast in the form of seven societies, formed on the basis of the dissimilarity of the seve- ral spheres of Missionary labor. The first acting against Romanism in those countries that still profess Popery; the second assailing Mahometanism ; the third place to be occu- pied by the existing Society for promoting Christianity among the Jews ; a fourth Society undertaking the propagation of the gospel among the polytheistic nations of Southern Asia, and the numerous islands in the Eastern Sea; the fifth attacking the irreligion of China, and the nations of Northern Asia; a sixth to be occupied with the African race, excluding the Ma- hometans of the Northern and Eastern coast, and including the negroes of the West Indies ; while to the seventh would be left the aborigines of the two Americas, and the islanders of the great Pacific. Each one of these great societies would have its subdivisions of committees for the several departments of financial management — the education of missionaries — the government of the foreign stations — negotiation with their own or foreign governments, &c. Some of them would have sub-committees peculiar to themselves; as for the Mahometan society he suggests a sub-committee, who might attempt to lay before the more advanced of the Mahometan nations, the bait of European philosophy, science, and art, and even of their political institutions and social economy. As it would be im- possible for the several evangelical communities to contrive a new model of worship and ecclesiastical government to unite the suffrages of all parties, he proposes that, waiving all dis- cussion, and to secure the attainment of an object, confessedly so glorious as that of an united and vigorous onset on all error, all denominations should submit in the concerns of the pro- INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. XV posed society to some one existing model of church govern- ment and worship. As precedence is, in private society, deter- mined for the sake of peace by some accidental preeminence, he proposes to yield the guidance of the new institution to the Established Church, as being already possessed of a visible precedency ; and the forms and the ritual of the English Church would be sent abroad by the united Missionary Soci- ety. Baptist and other teachers, wherever called to labor, would enjoy the liberty which belongs to every Christian, to set forth, in charitable terms, and on proper occasions, the grounds of their peculiar opinions; and they, and the converts who adhered to them, would be free, individually, to abstain from any practice which they should think unwarranted by Scripture, and to observe any ceremonial they regarded as being of divine authority. The whole plan is evidently mould- ed only for the Missions of Britain. It would be a dereliction of evident duty, for American Christians to confine their labors to the field of his seventh society. For them to cooperate in advancing the objects of the other six societies, only as auxili- aries to the British union, would be at a loss of laborers, and funds, and missionary zeal, which they could not justify. Sup- posing the attempt made to establish independent associations for this country, upon the above scheme, the question of pre- cedency is embarrassed here, with yet greater difficulties than surround it in England. With no sect which might claim it as the established religion of the land, Presbyterianism might plead her amount of intellect, and sacred learning, and social influence ; Episcopacy her popularity with the opulent and the refined; while the Baptists and the Methodists would, on the score of their numbers, claim precedency, and reinforce that plea with the added one of their confessed zeal and suc- cessfulness. Even in England, the design, magnificent as it is, seems to have been regarded as impracticable. The argu- ments wherewith the author has labored to show such a course consistent with our own principles as a denomination, seem to us insufficient; and even were such an association formed, it seems doubtful whether good would be the result, unless a great and thorough change were wrought, infusing more largely the life of godliness into the community, which he would make the leading one in this great scheme. That he should confine this power to the evangelical party in that Church, seems to us difficult. Now the mere possession of wealth, and secular influence, and learning, would not ensure its due or wise application in the Missionary field, and the National Society, like the Establishment it represented, might show itself careless or unable to follow up and secure the bold and vigorous inroads, which weaker and sectarian bodies had XVI INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. made into the domains of heathenism. Union without an advance in general holiness, would only serve to palsy the little life already developing itself. Yet the ideas of mapping out the unevangelized world, and bestowing labor according to its needfulness, and of introducing more system, and of culti- vating all possible union, are worthy of being pondered again and again. And through the whole discussion are scattered thoughts and feelings of high value.* That our Mighty and Wise Father has undefined and unde- finable purposes of mercy and reformation towards the church herself, in her present missiouary efforts, seems to us an un- questioned truth. But that the disunion of Christians is the great impediment, or that union in the mode devised by this gifted writer would prove the great remedy, or would even be allowable, seems to us more doubtful. It was a charge brought by a great man of our own com- munion, Robert Hall, against some of the machinery of our *The hints with regard to the subdivisions or Committees may yet be available. And the language which follows must, in part, find a response in the heart of every Christian. "The Missionary zeal has been sent down upon us, not merely Cor perhaps chiefly) as the means of converting the nations ; but as a spirit of burning and of judgment, of scrutiny and discrimination. It ferments in the lump to separate the precious from the vile ; to make manifest who are on the Lord's side, and who, by the confession implied in their conduct, are to be numbered with his foes. Then again it penetrates more deeply into the mass of profession, and tries us, and dis- criminates, in the capital article of Christian love. In measure we have come forth as gold from the trial : — the calumny of Satan, who, in the open court of heaven, has these many ages been saying that the disciples of Christ love not each other, is now found, like all his spiteful but specious allegations, to be false ; and it is seen that, though still infirm in judgment, and faulty in practice, the company of the godly are one in heart, and purpose. Thus have we passed through the initial process of the trial. " But the work of the Heavenly Refiner is not yet perfected. Think we that he is content with what has been accomplished, or will stay his hand, just at the moment when the fine gold is bursting forth from the dross ? Assuredly not ; He will rather urge the heat, in confident hope of the issue. " It is sublimely affecting to look round and see in what manner we are shut up — shut up beyond possibility of escape, under the hand of Him who is dealing with us. Omnipotent both for judgment and mercy, and stern in the determination of awful beneficence, and wise to catch us in our own craftiness, he has been lead- ing his church into the snare of its own zeal, for its good. Let us contemplate the straitness of the ground on which we are placed. — We have been quickened to a sense of our duty to preach the gospel among the nations •, we feel that this obligation cannot be evaded, cannot be forgotten, cannot be deferred. And now, for a forty years almost, we have been toiling in the work, and are coming to a conviction that a new, a greater, and a better directed effort must be made in behalf of our benighted brethren than has yet been thought of. We do not taint, or admit misgivings ; but yet in the depths of our hearts we conceal the wistful prayer of conscious imbecility, and are fain to ask that the Lord, in compassion to the world, would once again, as in ancient times, grant to the use of his ser- vants the rod of his omnipotence ! " Whether or not this unwhispered desire shall be listened to, who shall say ? But first the church must be brought deliberately to revise its proceedings •, must candidly confess that it has erred, and must address itself to the great work in a better manner." New Model, &c, p. 142 — 145. INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. Xvii Missionary Societies, that there was too much of publicity and display, and an appeal to unhoJy feelings in their meetings. That there is justice in the suggestion, all must have felt; — that there is feasibility in his proposed remedy, the making of yearly collections in each church, remains to be determined by actual trial.* The address of Hall to Eustace Carey deserves, and we must suppose, receives the frequent and careful study of every one about to enter the field of Missions. To quote it seems but marring a fabric of splendid symmetry and beauty. It contains, however, one suggestion, that needs anew, and again and again, to be brought home to the hearts of the church. •" When the first Missionaries who visited these western parts were sent out, their designation was accompanied with prayer and fasting: whence we may infer that fervent supplication ought to form the distinguishing feature in the exercises ap- propriated to these occasions. An effusion of the spirit of prayer on the church of Christ is a surer pledge of success in the establishment of Missions than the most splendid exhibi- tions of talent." \ The powerful Missionary Discourse of Foster is known, we presume, to all, and the stern rebukes which it contains of fatalism, and party spirit, and the love of money, as hindran- ces at home in the path of Missions, have become, we would hope, familiar to all our readers. Every community, maintaining Foreign Missions, has found the value of intelligence from the scene of labor, in sustaining * The passage may be found in a letter written by him to Dr. Ryland of Bristol.— Works, (Harper's Ed.) Vol. iii. p. 257. f A suggestion of kindred spirit has been made with regard to the Annual Meetings of our Societies. The remark is one which should have great weight with the churches, as corning from a beloved and devoted Missionary, now entered into rest, and who poured out his life as a libation on the Mis- sionary altar. "One would expect," exclaims Ward, for it is of him we speak, " that all the churches of Christ, throughout the united kingdom, would be invited on these great days to join the churches and delegates in Lon- don, in solemn acts of fasting and prayer. What an impressive and most interesting spectacle would this be to see all England, Scotland, and Ire- land, on their knees, supplicating the Father of Mercies in behalf of a sinful and lost world. And might we not hope that their united cries would come up with acceptance before Him, with whom is the residue of the spirit'? But instead of fasting and prayer at these great seasons, we keep a religious jubilee , although six HUNDRED millions of the beings to whom it refers, die every thirty years, without God, without Christ, and with/jut hope in the world ! "* To us at least it seems that there is something fearfully impressive in the truth thus simply enunciated. Prayer — prayer for the Spirit involves at the same time the great duty and the true might of the church. * Ward's Farewell Letters, p. 105. XV111 INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. the zeal of the churches at home. In addition to reports and periodicals issued for the purpose of supplying this needful and daily food to the Missionary spirit, other measures have been suggested and employed. In the delegation of Tyerman and Bennett, as in a recent appointment by our own Board, the Parent Society has, by a deputation, visited its mission sta- tions. The practice is upheld by apostolical usage. As car- rying to the scenes of Missionary toil a new eye, and as bring- ing before the community at home more vividly than a Mis- sionary, (in whom habit has deadened the sense of novelty,) can see or paint them, the fruits of Missionary labor, this measure at fitting seasons would seem one well repaying the expense of time and funds it may require. Reciprocal visits from heathen lands, on the part of the Christian converts, to the parent churches, have been of fre- quent occurrence. They bring to the eye of the careless or the skeptical, the fruits of Missionary toil, as the wagons of Joseph brought conviction of real and waking bliss to the heart of his desponding father. But they withdraw from the Missionary field, now so scantily tilled, so much of talent, — the new convert passes through so fiery an ordeal from the attentions of Christ- ians, — and there is so much to perplex him in our lukewarm- ness and our divisions, that many good men have doubted the general expediency of such visits. Yet another proposal has been made for tightening the cords that bind the churches at home to their far colonies in heathen lands. It is, that our opulent churches should, in addition to their regular pastorship, sustain, each one, evangelists among the destitute of their own borders, and one or more Mission- aries in Pagan lands, who, in addition to their reports to the general society, (which should always retain the power of ap- pointing and directing them,) should maintain constant corres- pondence with these their patrons. The machinery for benevolent contribution in our churches needs revision, to work with more ease and constancy, as well as with greater uniformity, and efficiency. And the bringing before the young men of the evangelical communities, more steadily and strongly the question of their own personal obli- gations to become Missionaries, requires perhaps new efforts on the part of the societies and churches that sustain missions. A more equal division of the fiscal and intellectual resources of the church, between its home labors and its foreign, is a problem of great practical importance, deserving thorough study. If the churches at home be not overstocked with laborers, it is but too certain that their limited needs are most wastefully supplied, when compared with the crying desola- tions of the heathen world. INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. XIX II. And here we have approached the second topic of discussion, the character and training of Missionaries. The physical and moral training by which such travellers as Burck- hardt fitted themselves for the privations and the novel habits of the nations they visited, have been sometimes proposed as a fit model for the imitation of the Missionary. The amount of literary culture to be required is, Ave believe, to be determined rather by the special circumstances, than by any general rule. Those who are to become translators will need learning and mental discipline; but in others, we should believe the native strength of the mind to be a far more important question than the amount of literary furniture; and a high grade of piety is far the most important of all requisites. To what extent he should provide himself for labors merely secular among the heathen, is a vexed question. Vanderkemp, although an ac- complished scholar, and a physician of high reputation, wrought, if we recollect aright, in a brick-yard, to prepare himself for usefulness in the arts of civilized life, among the Caff res and Hottentots of South Africa. We believe that the inclination of the friends of the heathen has generally become this, to rely for such aid rather on pious artisans who may devote themselves to the work, than upon the Missionary preacher. The profession of the physician has been more successfully, than any other secular employment, grafted upon that of a spiritual guide to the heathen. The planting of Christian colonies comprising merchants and artisans, has been also a subject of discussion That the private members of the church may, and should guide their commercial enterprises more into the channels of the church's benevolence, seems plain; but colonies admit so little of that nice selection and close restraint necessary to the Mission enterprise, and their moral influence in most instances has been upon the natives of the land so evil, and where good has been so indirect and dilatory, that we should doubt the ex- pediency of throwing the Missionary ventures of the church into this exact form. The term for which the laborer among the Heathen should engage himself, whether for a period of years, or for life, has divided also the opinions of those who patronize Missions. The general feeling has decided it in favor of leaving to the Missionary no retreat, and, like the Spanish adventurer who burnt his fleet, that he might leave to his army no hope, except it were onward, and in the field of conflict, the church has shut up her Missionaries to the expectation of making their graves in the land of their labors. Whether the church is to rely on her younger members to recruit the failing ranks of the Missionary host, or whether she XX INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. will not, in her coming days of higher devotedness, draw largely upon her older and more experienced laborers, the settled pastors of the churches, is an inquiry that has not yet perhaps received all the attention it deserves. The energy and enterprise of the young, and their greater pliability of character recommend them; but the prudence, and the wide influence, and the tried virtues of men long known to the churches at home would also be of high value to the Mission- ary cause, in guiding it abroad, and in strengthening its hold upon the sympathies of the churches at home. The increased difficulty of acquiring in later life, a new language, is perhaps the most weighty objection; and this seems to have been the reason, why the" Nonconformists of England, when silenced at home, did not go forth to seek the liberty of exercising their ministry among the heathen.* Another question of interest in this connection regards the comparative advantages of celibacy and of marriage in the Missionary. Swartz, it is well known, was unfriendly to the marriage of Missionaries, at least during the first years of their ministry, both as being expensive, and as embarrassing, by its cares, their progress in study. f The subject has been inci- dentally considered by Jowett, in his review of the Romish Syrian Missions, with clearness and force. J He is adverse tc celibacy as a general rule. For an itinerating Missionary, however, the cares of a family would seem an unmanageable clog. If settled at a station, it would in most instances appear to be his duty to give to the heathen, as the head of a family, the benefit of his example in the discharge of every social duty. The religious community of Great Britain were, a few years since, somewhat startled, and not a little annoyed, by the sweep- ing charge brought against the Missions of the modern Church, by the able and devoted, but eccentric, Edward Irving. He impugned the London Missionary Societ}^, to their faces, in a discourse delivered before that body, and involved all other * " There are many here, I conjecture," (says the holy Baxter, in a letter to Elliot, after telling his correspondent that there was ' no man upon earth whose work ' he thought c more honorable and comfortable') " who would be glad to go any where, to the Persians, Tartarians, Indians, or any unbeliev- ing nation, to propagate the gospel, if they thought they would be service- able ; but the difficulty of their languages is their greatest discouragement."* We cannot but think that this difficulty was then, and yet is overrated. Xavier, whose success was so signal, had reached the thirty-sixth year of his age ere he sailed for the East, a season of life in which the flexibility of youth has as perfectly disappeared as at a later period. f Memoirs, p. 357, 358. $ Christian Researches, p. 266. ♦ O.me's Life of Eaxter, Vol. I. p. 133, INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. XXI similar associations in the charge, as departing from the apos- tolical model, and as having an undue regard to money as a necessary means, and to the qualification of prudence in the Missionary to the neglect of zeal and faith. The apostolical was, according to him, a permanent office in the Church, and the Missionary of our own times was the legitimate successor of the Apostles. The charge given by our Lord to his disciples, when going forth to evangelize Judea, that they should not take two coats, nor shoes, and that they should not salute any man by the way, was, in his view, intended to be of perpetual obligation, and furnished to the evangelist, who entered heathen lands, the charter and the rule of his office. Employed by no society, subjected to no earthly rule, self-sustained, discarding all con- fidence in earthly wisdom, or wealth, or friendship, and strong in simple faiths the Missionary was to go forth, looking to Heaven alone for his commission, his success, and his recom- pense. Although the results at which Irving arrived are gen- erally rejected, there are yet passages in his discourses on this topic, of high eloquence, but yet more impressive by their solemn truth ; they are on the wisdom of the divine plan in making Faith the great armor of the Christian Missionary. The whole of his " Orations" (as he has entitled them) "for Missionaries after the Apostolical School," may be read with profit, as containing many elements of truth, but not skilfully arranged and combined, and not producing, in consequence, a true practical result. " Their miracles," (says he, in describing the first Mission of the Apostles,) " which saved many, protected not them- selves ; their inspirations, which blessed many, could not shield themselves from every harm and sorrow which patient nature can endure. They are to be placed at the bar of civil law, to be hunted out with religious persecution ; against them the tender affections of life are to rise in arms, and the soft and downy scenes of home are to bristle like the iron front of war." p. 20. " Go, my chosen ones, (said their Lord,) go like the defence- less lamb into the paw of the ravenous wolf: the world thirsteth for your blood, and is in arms against your undefended lives. Nevertheless, go. You are without weapons of defence, no bribes are in your hands, nor soft words upon your tongues 5 and you go in the teeth of hatred, derision, and rage. Never- theless, my children, go." — p. 21. There is intermingled with these passages, as they stand in the work itself, some incorrect exposition of Scripture, as it seems to us; as in his explanation of salutation being forbidden to the disciples, lest they should thus conciliate friends. It c* XX11 INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. appears rather an allusion to the speed he required in their cir- cuit through Judea: a similar charge was given by the prophet to his servant Gehazi, when carrying his staffto be laid upon the dead child. It was an injunction of speed, the more necessary in the East, where the forms of salutation are of the most wea- risome length. The resources also, which a traveller, unpro- vided like the Apostles, might yet find in the famed hospitality of the East, should not be overlooked, by an interpreter of these instructions. And the proof, that these instructions alluded to something more than their first tour as evangelists amid their countrymen — proof essential to the validity of his argu- ment, seems to us deficient. Yet, with these deductions, there is force and beauty in the picture of the Apostolic Mis- sion, strong in faith, and next, strong in what Milton has some- where styled u the irresistible might of weakness." But in the passages which now ask the reader's notice, there is higher power, and more entire truth. " Men must have a livelihood before they can speak or act : they must have protection to cover them from the tyran- ny of power, and law to save them from the riots of the people : they must be well paid if you would have them work well, for if a man have no comforts his life is miserable. — What ! such mendicants as these convert the world ! say the well-conditioned classes ; vagrant, vagabond fellows, they are fitter for the stocks or the common jail. Such illiterate clowns, such babblers as these, instruct mankind ! say the learned clas- ses ; away with them to their nets and fishing craft. And, say the political classes, it is dangerous to the state; they cover plots under their silly pretences, and must be dealt with by the strong hand of power. Methinks I hear, in every contemptible {con- temptuous ?) and arrogant speech which is vented against the modern Missionaries by worthy and self-sufficient men, the echo, after two thousand years, of those speeches which were wont to be poured upon the twelve Apostles and seventy disciples, when they began to emerge out of the foundation of society, into the neighborhood and level of its higher ranks." — pp. 21, 22. Yet there was a Divine Wisdom in the deprivation. " It was a spiritual work they had to do, therefore he disem- bodied (if I may so speak) and spiritualized the men who were to do it. It was Faith they had to plant, therefore he made his Missionaries men of Faith, that they might plant Faith, and Faith alone; they had to deliver the nations from the idol- atry of the gold and the silver, therefore he took care his mes- sengers should have none; they had to deliver them from the idolatry of Wisdom, therefore he took care they should be foolish; they had to deliver the world from the idolatry of Power and Might, therefore he took care they should be weak; INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. XX111 they had to deliver the world from the idolatry of Fame and Reputation, therefore he took care they should be despised; they had to deliver the world from the idolatry of things that are, therefore he took care they should be as things that are not: — making them in all respects Types and Representa- tives of the ritual they were to establish, models of the doc- trine which they went forth to teach." — p. 27. And there was safety and strength of some sort in this des- olate innocency. " Now, bad as the world is, wild as is its ambition, heartless as is its vanity, proud as its riches are, — and mad as they are all, ambition, vanity and riches, I cannot but please myself with the imagination that there is no clime, so barbarous, or, (which I believe the more dangerous extreme,) there is no region so polished, as not to possess a gleaning of worthy spirits, to welcome these travellers between heaven and earth. For there is no visible thing about them to create hatred; the men come in the name of peace : there is no visible thing to excite jealousy; the men are possessed of nothing, and coveting nothing: there is no visible thing to excite envy, for the men call nothing but their life their own, and even of that they are not careful; and they meddle with no earthly concern, and have no earthly end, and walk in innocency, and live in sim- plicity, and cleave to no sect or party of men, and know no country, and intend no interests; and their tidings are all from heaven, and their discourse all of immortality, and their debate ever holden with the immortal soul, and the end of their min- istration is the salvation of mankind; and it is virtue which they commend, and peace which they promote, and charity toward all which they enforce; and a blessing goeth with them, and health cometh to the house where they abide, and the Son of Peace resteth there, and salvation entereth in as into the house of Zaccheus, that day they arrive. I cannot help thinking that the men were well endowed for their work, and that their work was worthy of the endowment, and that they would find in the worst of climes (as verily they did, for these same twelve planted the Gospel far and near, from India to the Brit- ish Isles,) a class of men, and that the highest, to give them welcome. The ambitious, I see, would spurn them, and they would be content to be spurned; the cruel, I see, would mal- treat them, and they would be content to be maltreated; the hollow-hearted wits and satirists would make merry with them, and they would be content to be made merry withal; and the busy, bustling crowd would pass them unheeded, and they would be content all unheeded to be passed. ' What do these babblers say? 5 c They seem to be setters forth of strange gods.' c Great is Diana of the Ephesians. 5 ( They set up >-. XXIV INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. another king, one Jesus.' c Away with them, they are not worthy to live.' I hear these sentences echoing round their path; and I see them following it fearlessly onward to the death. But do I not see a Felix trembling, and a royal Agrippa knitting his half convinced brows, and a judge of Areopagus blessing the heavenly tidings, and a Jason giving pledges for them, and a Gamaliel speaking before senates in their behalf; a Dorcas, a Lydia, and honorable women not a few, waiting upon the wants of the all-enduring men: and the thoughtful of the people are pondering the words which they speak, and the serious minded are applying their heart to the doctrine, and charity is leading them by the hand, and broth- erly humanity is opening to them the gate, and affliction, com- forted by their presence, is anointing them with tears of joy ; and the genius of every high and heavenly faculty of the soul is sitting at their feet, well pleased to be schooled and taught by the messengers of Heaven." — p. 39 — 41. We are greatly deceived, if this be not highly eloquent, and in the main, as profoundly true as it is eloquent. It is good to dwell here, gazing on this vivid portraiture of the first Mis- sionaries of the cross, even though we cannot with Irving be- lieve, that they have left to the Missionaries of the modern church an inheritable dignity.* Irving then proceeds, (and here, we think, the evidence of the Apostolical Epistles fails, and is no longer with him in his subsequent deductions,) to infer that such is the charter eter- nally of the Missionary enterprise, and that " the modern method of furnishing out the Missionary" (p. 61.) is not justi- fiable. " The warlike spirit of the crusaders, who unsheathed the sword which the blasphemous Father of Christendom had blessed, and unfurled the consecrated banner of the cross, therewith to spread the gospel of peace, and the artful spirit of the Jesuits, who brought all the stores of human wit and worldly wisdom to the same great undertaking, and the spirits of this moneyed and prudential age, who preach the crusade of gold as eagerly as Peter the Hermit preached the crusade of steel; all these seem to arise to overwhelm the poor wight who shall say that neither gold, nor steel, nor worldly wisdom are essential to the equipment of a Missionary." — p. 75. He proceeds yet further, and would seem to claim for the evangelists of the church to the heathen, the unearthly com- * Some of the terms employed in his work seemed derived from his inter- course with Coleridge, whose society he at this time frequented; to whom he has dedicated the work itself, in language of the most affectionate venera- tion, and to whose discourse he acknowledges himself indebted "for a new impulse towards truth, and a new insight into its depths." INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. XXV mission, the irresponsible, (as far as man is concerned, irre- sponsible) powers of the ancient prophet. " What are Missionaries but the prophets' order ? It is a presumption hardly short of Papal, to command them. They are not Missionaries when they are commanded. They are creatures of the power that commandeth them. Up, up, with the stature of this character: it is high as heaven: its head is above the clouds which hide the face of heaven from earth- born men: its ear heareth the word of God continually, and continually re-echoeth what it heareth to the nations." — p. 93. This is most extravagant, — involving, for it is no less, a claim of prophetical rank, and of actual inspiration. It seems to us the flowering, in Irving's mind, of those unhappy errors with regard to the prophetical character, as being permanent in the church, which, as they ripened, shed out their bitter and fatal seeds over the last years of his life. But although strenuous for his own views of the Missionary's proper character, he allows that much good has been done by those w T ho have taken what he regards as an inadequate view of the Missionary character, and an unworthy estimate of its powers; God hav- ing blessed the labors of the present and former laborers ac- cording to the measure of their faith. It is difficult, at times, to disentangle the ideas, from the web of his highly imaginative and ornate style. It seems modelled on the magnificent and embossed prose of Milton, and like that, is as gorgeous, but often as stiff, as some rich, antique brocade. Passing, of necessity, the details of his argument, we have adverted to his peculiar views, with some hastiness, and perhaps not without some in- accuracy. That, as he would wish, the Missionary should go forth, not under the directions of any Society, but to be swayed by the impulse of his own spirit, seems to us not only unreasonable but highly unwarrantable. Even Paul and Barnabas went forth, in their earlier missions, only by the sanction and with the consent of the churches. The door, by such principles, would be cast open before the fanatical and the presumptuous; while the man of true piety, from the very humility which attends it, w r ould be the last to discover his own right to arro- gate so singular and high an office as the Apostleship; and, at the same time, the views of Irving would, as it seems to us, shut the church out from the privilege of rejecting on the one hand the unqualified candidate, or of drawing forth, on the other, the qualified missionary from his obscurity, and speeding him on his way as an evangelist to the Gentiles. But into the sen- timents of Irving, as to the necessity of a high order of faith in our Missionary brethren, and perhaps even into some por- tions of his charge of undue worldliness, as made against our XXVI INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. present schemes of Missions, it is not inexpedient to look. That a simpler faith will, with fewer instruments, work more splendid and durable results, seems to us a supposition neither irrational nor uncharitable. The errors even, of such a mind as Irving's are instructive. For the ultimate decision, he appeals to the church in coming times, " from the ostracism of the people, the voice of a hireling press, and those who would sell the judgment of the matter to the highest names on a subscription list." III. For the best modes of Missionary labor, we must look mainly to the records of the past. A thorough and devout commentary on the Acts of the Apostles, as indicating the most successful plans for evangelizing the heathen, would be a work of untold value to the church. Yet the spirit of the labors there recorded, evidently is one that would accommo- date itself to, and employ every innocent instrumentality, pe- culiar to any age or country, although unknown to the era in which the apostles labored. They would not have hesitated to use the press had it been then known, and they who be- came all things to all men would not, in our own times, have neglected to appropriate to the high service of the sanctuary, every new implement that was not incompatible with the sim- plicity of the gospel.* Whether the Gospel would be most effectively dispensed by itinerating over a large district, or concentrating effort and strength upon a few points wisely selected, is an inquiry full of interest, and not without its difficulties. The opinion of Bampton, a devoted laborer in the Orissa Mission, seems to have been in favor of the former; Mr. Sutton, the historian of that Mission, is, from a view of the results, led to prefer the latter. One of the instructions given to the Romish Mission- aries in Syria was, that, on account of the extent of the harvest and the fewness of the laborers, the stay of a Missionary in any one place should not be prolonged, except for weighty causes, beyond three years; when he should proceed to culti- vate other regions of his assigned province, preferring the more populous to the less densely peopled districts.! This is evidently an attempt to combine the advantages, but perhaps unites also some of the disadvantages, of either form of labor. For the supervision of Missionary labor, Douglass has pro- posed a measure, which seems to resemble in character the * Among the suggestions of the present day, has been that of freighting a Missionary ship with Bibles and Tracts, to be scattered along the coast of those heathen nations, in whose tongue such works may have been prepared. f Jowett's Christian Researches, p. 24S. INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. XXvii appointment held by Dr. Philip, in South Africa. It is, that some individual of distinguished qualifications should act as the superintendent of the Society's labors and laborers in the country he inhabits. The Apostle Paul, in the powers confer- red by him upon Timothy and Titus, seems to have sanctioned this principle. As in their case, the appointment should be but an occasional and temporary one. The action of one, thus at hand and prepared for prompt and intelligent interfer- ence, seeing much which no Society at home could, through any correspondence, be made to see, might be often of great value. A permanent office of the kind would unsettle the power of the Society who had appointed him, to control their own Missions, and be clothed with the evils which our churches dread in an Episcopate. The best mode of employing the native converts as the evangelists of their own nation, is a subject that in proportion to the increase and success of our Missions, will demand patient and devout examination. The Baptist Board of For- eign Missions is understood to contemplate the establishment of a Theological Seminary in Burmah, for the native preach- ers. The practice of the Romish Church seems to have been, to send back its youthful aspirants for the priesthood, from heathen nations, to Rome for education. Indeed, of the policy of that church this was but a natural fruit: its boasted unity was best maintained by giving to all its teachers the stamp and imprint of the Roman mint, and by submitting to the personal inspection of the Propaganda, those who were to be intrusted with power abroad. The effective system of superintendance and religious cul- ture, provided by Wesley in his bands and classes, have seemed to some not inapplicable to the condition and wants of recent converts from heathenism, in training them and carrying them onward amid the multiplied snares and obstacles of their course. Something equivalent to this, is, we believe, adopted by the English Baptists in their Missionary labors among the negroes of the West Indies, where the character of the con- verts requires just that vigilant supervision, which their num- ber makes it impossible for the pastor, alone and unaided, to exercise. Of the suggestions w T hich have been made in our own coun- try for an advantageous change in the plans of our Missiona- ries, there are two which seem most deserving of examina- tion; one which suggests our having allowed other modes of assailing the heathen mind to usurp the place which God has determined to reserve exclusively for the preaching of the word, and another which inquires, whether our efforts would not be more successful, werJ there a more thorough identifi- XXVlll INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. cation of our Missionaries in garb, customs, and dwellings, with the heathen nations they visit. As to the first of these, it would appear, on reviewing the field of Missionary effort, that the labors there bestowed have run chiefly into three channels ; education, the press, and preaching. Some seem to have looked mainly to the influence of the gospel, as brought to bear through the medium of schools on the minds of the young. Others have devoted themselves more to effecting translations of the Bible, and preparing and scattering tracts : whilst others again, after having acquired the language, have confined themselves chiefly to oral addresses, and these, often, as delivered in a course of itineracy. All these seem to have been useful, and God has honored all; yet, if a preference is to be given to any, not only apostolical usage, but the first principles of human nature seem to require, that the pre-eminence should ever be claimed for the last. Against the giving of an undue precedence to schools, it has been observed by Ward, cc that the great preference frequently given to this order of means, has arisen from the want of a more firm belief in the certainty of obtaining those influences by which the gospel is the power of God. When we hear persons say, c Schools are the only means, by which Christi- anity can obtain a footing in India,' this unbelief is too appa- rent."— {Farewell Letters, p. 153.) This system of benefit- ting the heathen involves, if lifted into the first place, an injury and a wrong to God's appointed instrumentality, the oral preaching of the Word, xigain, it leaves one whole genera- tion, the parents of these children, to go down unpitied to the grave and to hell. In neglecting this adult portion of society, it loses, too, the most likely means of increasing and consoli- dating its schools. Convert the parent, and you have his children as scholars. Neglect him, and you have no certainty of retaining his children; whilst you have the certainty that his moral influence, as parent, is steadily counteracting your own influence as teacher. And you are in a case of great difficulty, and a work of urgent necessity, choosing an indirect and dis- tant road, to the neglect of a briefer and less circuitous path. You hope to instil the gospel in the process of education, grad- ually and unawares; instead of endeavoring by the gospel to lay the foundation for general education. In other words, it seems to involve a similar error, in substance, with that which Chalmers so eloquently and indignantly exposed, and which is very ably examined in an Essay of his gifted pupil, young Urquhart: — you will not Christianize until you have civilized, while in fact, in most savage nations, civilization becomes fea- sible, only as the fruit of an engrafted Christianity. Again, over the press, the discourses of the living evangelist INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. XXIX have these advantages, that they reach all, those who cannot, or who will not read, as well as those who do read; — that they are susceptible of perpetual variation, and may be constantly adapted to the character and needs of the hearers; — that they answer objections and difficulties in the mind of the hearer, fast as they arise to manifest themselves ; — that they appeal to the sympathies of man by the living voice, the speak- ing countenance, and the earnest gesture, giving to the auditory visible token of the importance attached to the subject, by the speaker himself, and of his ardent sincerity, and benevolence; — and, above all, that God has selected this mode of spreading truth, and in all ages honored it. It is one of the original and simple discoveries given to the world by Jesus of Nazareth, that in this mode the opinions of a nation may most readily and thoroughly be changed. A zealous devotedness to it is the very means most likely to make evident the necessity, and to hasten the completion of Scripture translations. And when these translations have been provided, this furnishes the means of distributing, explaining, and commending them to the heathen nation. In this exercise, also, a person is most likely to ac- quire that knowledge of the popular intellect, its prejudices, and its habits, and that mastery of the national dialect, by which he shall be best qualified to make an intelligible translation, or to become an effective writer of tracts. Preaching, too, has another recommendation. It is the least costly of all methods of disseminating truth. And such are its peculiar advantages, so evident and great have they been in trial, and yet so unsus- pected were they, as a means of changing a nation's heredita- ry opinions, that we should almost deem a list of the evidences to the divine origin of Christianity incomplete, that did not enumerate as one of them, the employment of preaching as the great instrument of popular reform. Yet all these various methods of benefitting the heathen are to be employed, and to be combined, in varied proportions^ according to the peculiar circumstances of the nation, or the era. To give to preaching more effectiveness, it might be well to examine, seriously and prayerfully, the question as to the line at which conformity to the habits of the heathen nation should end.* We know the common argument, that it is needed not * The following quotation bears indirectly on this subject. It shows that much good is done by not asking the heathen to come out from his national habits. Would it not authorise the experiment of going still further to meet the heathen in these habits, by assuming and copying them'? "As a part of this system, we have carefuliy avoided every thing which might Anglicize the converts. We have made no changes in their dress, their names, their food, their language, or their domestic habits. Krishna, who was baptized more D XXX INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. only to Christianize the heathen, but to civilize him ; and that the Missionary cannot win his respect if he adopt his garb : but we must confess that we remain yet unconvinced. The great principle of our Savior in his teachings, seems to have been, to get himself and his word close to the eye, the ear and the heart of our race. To do so, he looked with a holy indif- ference upon the infirmities of our kind, and wore with a holy composure the littlenesses and the weaknesses of humanity; that so he might bring himself near to the minds he would win and elevate. The lever which was to upheave the national intellect and conscience, was thrust beneath them ; and the very lowliness and obscurity of his origin, and education, and attendants, gave him the deeper and surer purchase, in his en- deavors to loosen and to lift the souls of his people from the dark quarry in which they slumbered. As for civilization and all its blessings, the Missionary may well leave that; it will surely and speedily follow in the train of true piety. It would seem as if in our own times, Gutzlaff had been raised up in part, to illustrate and commend the principle adverted to, in the reference to our Savior's labors. Part of his wondrous suc- cess is, doubtless, attributable to the perfect imitation found in him, of Chinese speech, manners, and personal appearance. The Romish Missionaries often acted upon this principle with great and astounding success. Though the emissaries of a Church, fully identified, as we believe, with the great Anti- christian apostasy predicted by Paul and by John, yet many of them were men of indomitable energy, and splendid powers, and some of them at least, men of true and rare piety. We plead not for the infamous perversion some of their number made of the principle, in becoming all idolatrous things to their idolatrous hearers, until, as their eloquent eulogist Chateau- briand has (unwittingly as we think) allowed, they actually assumed among the Hindoos the garb and brutal penances of the degraded Fakir. * But let us look to such a man as Francis than twenty years ago, appears among his countrymen as much a Hindoo as ever, those things contrary to Christianity excepted. If we had given the converts English names, and the English dress and appearance, the idolaters would have triumphed ; for every such convert would have been a man on a gibbet, hung up to warn others not to permit themselves to fall into the hands of the English." — Ward's Farewell Letters, p. 166. * Chateaubriand's Genie du Christianisme, 1. 4. c. 1. " A combien de saints deguisemens, de pieuses ruses, de changemens de vie et de mceurs n'etoit-on pas oblige d'avoir recours, pour annoncer la verite aux homines! A Madure, le missionaire prenoit l'habit du penitent indien, s'assujettissoit a ses usages, se soumettoit a ses austerites, si rebutantes ou si pueriles qu' elles fussent.' 5 The work contains a most brilliant panegyric of the Catholic Missions. Voltaire and Montesquieu, names less friendly to religion, are INTRODUCTORY ESSAY, XXXi Xavier. We think that we discern in his spirituality the traces of that early leaning to Lutheranism— that "pleasure in hear- ing these novelties/ 5 of which Butler speaks,* and from which Loyola saved him, when a student at Paris. In reading his life and labors, spite of the mists which his lying eulogists have also to be numbered among the eulogists of these same Missions, that from the extent of the scale upon which they were planned, and from the outlay of time, and talent, and zeal made upon them, were certainly most magnificent undertakings. Yet an impressive lesson, as to the sure result of all such unwarrantable arts of accommodation as they at times adopted, is read in the fate of the Mission at Madura, above named. This Mission was once called by an admiring and delighted Missionary, Father Martin, the most beautiful and most perfect one that ever was. Their converts were gathered by thou- sands. (Murdock's Mosheim, III. 282, note.) The whole of the country in which it was situated has been resigned, in our own times, by the Catholic Missionary, the Abbe Dubois, in utter despair ; he pronounces all their con- verts insincere, and accounts for the entire failure of the Romish Missions in India, by supposing gravely, that God has sealed the whole nations to eternal reprobation. Thus they won and lost China — thus they won and lost Japan — thus they won and lost Abyssinia. Yet while we reject their errors, and condemn the arts that made them mandarines and courtiers in China, bramins in India, and cannon-founders in Paraguay, let us not forget their martyrs, for they have been many, or refuse to do justice to the intrepidity that faced the most fearful dangers, and endured, where there were none to commiserate or to applaud it, the most^ bitter privations. And we will hope that the church which possessed, amid all her corruption, such men as Fenelon and Pascal, Massillon, Nicole and Arnaud, had also among her many and dauntless Missionaries — some few at least, who breathed a kindred spirit with those holy men, and amid much blindness loved Christ, and were loved of him. When viewed as a whole, we have no regret for the failure of their Missions. And yet it is afiecting to read the testimony to the good that was found in them, borne by the descend- ants of those Canadian Indians to whom they ministered. A recent voyager mentions his having seen, five or six hundred miles beyond the limits even, to which the more wide-spread civilization of the present age has reached, small wooden huts erected by the Jesuit Missionaries, while Canada was a French province. The poor Indians, now relapsed into their former habits, yet respect these places, as haying been the abodes of" the good white fathers who, unlike other white men, never robbed or cheated them." (Ross Cox's Ad- ventures on the Columbia River, p. 149.) The Roman Catholic is unhappily not the only communion which has en- deavored to proselyte by methods entirely repugnant to the spirit of the gos- pel. The Dutch in Ceylon, by holding out the lure of pecuniary advantage and official distinction, brought multitudes of the natives to a nominal Chris- tianity, while they retained all the superstitions and practices of heathenism: and a more corrupt church, in whom the conduct was therefore less inexcusa- ble, that of Russia, is said to have proceeded yet further, with some of the Pagan hordes subject to the Russian government. The Turalinians, the most civilized of all the Tartar tribes found in Siberia, were forcibly baptized, in the river on whose banks their towns are situated, by Philoppei, a noble or ecclesiastical dignitary, assisted by a body of Cossacks. — Make Brun, II. 2, * Butler's Lives of the Saints, vol. xi. p. 1<5. XXXII INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. gathered around the name they sought to honor, we cannot but see a man of eminent devotedness and sanctity, whose -lying words were, we doubt not, fully verified in that eternity to which he past while uttering them : " In thee, O Lord, I have hoped ; I shall not be confounded for ever." Few men have produced such wondrous effects. And we cannot but think that in addition to his immitigable zeal and industry, much of his success might be traced to the single-hearted bold- ness with which he threw himself among a heathen population, mingling with them, and conforming to their habits as far as he well might. Oh, had he but represented the true church, and scattered the written Word ! The church now requires a history to be written faithfully, and after long and devout study, of the various plans pursued by Missionaries, and their results ; as has been suggested by a living Missionary, in an address, delivered during the present year to some Evangelists, about to embark for the East.* Such a history is at this juncture greatly needed. In the plan of a Church History, sketched by Lord Bacon, he proposed to di- vide the annals of religion into three portions, " whether it be fluctuant, as the ark of Noah; or movable, as the ark in the wilderness ; or at rest, as the ark in the temple: that is, the state of the church in persecution, in remove, and in peace." f The history of the Missions of the church, would comprise, properly, the second of these divisions: the ark in the wil- derness. It may be a work reserved for the men of a later and more blessed age, — the task of some gifted mind, deeply sanctified, and who shall live in the latter and palmy days of the church at rest, and who shall dwell fast by the ark, when installed in its quiet glory within the temple, lighted by its gold- en lamps, and inhaling its fragrant odors; while before it, now for ever at rest, the wealth, and the talent, and the taste, and the learning of all the earth are heaped as votive offerings ; — it may be his task, we say, to prepare and give to the world a full story of the journeyings of this ark, while it was yet in the wilderness, as it past from nation to nation, and shore to shore, on its missions of peace. But meanwhile, and ere that glad hour have fully come, a good work will have been done to the Zion of God, should some one, competent and possessing the requisite materials, arise to devote his studies to the task of * " It were desirable (is his language) that a philosophical, or rather a scriptural view of modern Missions should be written, bringing forward the results of the various forms of operation, (many of which can be regarded as only experimental,) and by an induction of facts showing the excellences and defects of the present system." — Rev. Myron Winslow, of Ceylon. Sun- day School Journal. July 5, 1835 f Advancement of Learning, Book II. Bacon's Works, vol. i, p. 87. INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. XXX111 aiding to guide that ark now, and while it is yet on its march, by instituting a close scrutiny into the history of its wander- ings and triumphs in apostolical times, and of the modes of con- ducting it in each subsequent age, their comparative nearness to the scriptural model, and their comparative results? If the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire were, to a heart chil- led by infidelity, a vast and exciting theme, what higher honor and delight await the writer, who, in glowing love to his God and his race, shall assay to record the dawning, — the undeclin- ing glories of the Messiah's Reign, the Rise and Establishment of Christ's Empire over all lands, and all people. He would not labor in vain, nor spend his strength for nought: the king- dom of which he should write, shall be an everlasting kingdom, unconscious of decay; and the Vine, whose obscure planting, and whose slow growth he should record, is shooting its vigor- ous branches onward into the eternal world, and fastening the tendrils of its unfailing hope upon the unshaken throne of the Almighty. Yet to make that history all that it might be to the church, it is needed to enter fully and faithfully into the history of the evangelization of the lands now professedly Christian, and to examine the share of the Roman See in extending the know- ledge of Christianity among the nations. And either as includ- ed in the above, or as a separate work, a history of the more modern Romish Missions to heathen lands, would be a timely and valuable one, if written by a Protestant qualified to expose the unhallowed arts of the many, but prepared to do justice to the fervid piety of the few; to analyze the causes alike of the success and of the decline of those Missions; and ready to deal out even-handed justice, neither misled by the glozings of Po- pish biographers, nor yielding credence to the undiscriminat- ing vituperation of many a stanch Protestant accuser. A work thus prepared might read to Protestant churches many a lesson, pregnant with admonition, counsel, or incitement. The great improvements of the Missionary enterprise, how- ever, are to come in another quarter, than from the councils and plans of man, and come not with observation. Upon a church humbled to the dust in devout lowliness, the Spirit of God will descend, in wisdom and power, ere she is aware. This work, the spiritual building of God, will ascend noise- lessly, as did his ancient house, when in awful state The temple reared its everlasting gate. No workman's steel, no pond'rous axes rung; Like some tall palm the noiseless fabric sprung! * * Heber's Palestine. D* XXXIV INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. The church must be more prayerful, and a higher standard of personal holiness must be studied. He that doeth the will of my Father, the same shall know of my doctrine. New light is to be expected, and new power, in the path of obedience. And from the common highway of the Scriptures, which has been trodden, day by day, and trodden in vain, by an undiscerning, because a lukewarm age, a more holy generation shall yet glean the gems that have escaped the research of our times. We may not all, with the sober-minded Tillotson, believe, that the age of miracles will return to an evangelizing church, faith- fully discharging her duties to the heathen; but we must all believe that a church so engaged, will find her powers and knowledge infinitely enlarged. Wondrous is the fertility of invention, and the amount of mental vigor, developed by an eminent holiness; and until the church pray for this, and prac- tice this more earnestly, the day of her redemption cannot come, and the bondage of the nations must be yet for a time prolonged. And here each one of us may labor. In the language of that most eloquent discourse, the voice of which is yet loud and sweet in the ears of the church, and which did more than aught else to rebuke the contempt prevalent among literary men for the Missionary enterprise, we would say, " each one of us is as much obliged as the Missionaries themselves, to do all in his power to advance the common cause of Christianity. We, equally with them, have embraced that gospel, of which the fundamental principle is, None of us liveth to himself. And not only is every one bound to exert himself to the uttermost, the same obligation rests upon us so to direct our exertions, that each of them may produce the greatest effect. Each one of us may influence others to embark in the undertaking. Each one whom we have influenced, may be induced to enlist every individual of that circle of which he is the centre; until a self-extending system of intense and reverberated action, shall embody into one invincible phalanx, c the sacramental host of God's elect.' " Every Christian is letting or helping the evangelization of the world by the character of his own piety; and he is writing out the history of his closet, of his home, of his warehouse, of his pulpit, on the face of heathen lands. To you the dying heathen look for the aid of your substance, your prayers, and your example. To the influence of your prayers, your exam- ple, and your substance, a dying Savior, alike their brother and yours, bequeathed the care of these heathen. You cannot give? You cannot go to them? — But you can pray — you can live for them. Glance but on the misery, hopeless and end- less, that fills their despairing eyes, as they shoot the gulf, and INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. XXXV ere the jaws of the pit have closed upon them for ever, and say, fellow believer, will you not henceforth be more holy for their sakes ? It is chiefly as furnishing another example of Christian holi- ness, that the Memoir of Boardman is commended to the churches. He fell in youth, but his death was not an untimely one: and the God whom he served, perhaps caused to cluster around his memory the regrets, that gather around the name of the early lost and the long remembered; in justice punishing by this method a church, whose prayers did not aright sustain this his faithful servant; — and in mercy and kindness, thus awakening that church to commiseration and to repentance, — and teaching her sympathy for the heathen, and love for the Missionary. Nor was his a lost life. Had he poured out his blood on the shores of his invaded country, or wasted his strength in the successful pursuit of science, or fallen in his lonely path as the ambitious and distinguished votary of art, his death would have been deemed an enviable and a glorious one. And such it was, when met for Christ amid the heathen. It was deemed so in heaven. It was deemed so by the Karens whose souls God gave to his prayers and labors. And when the tinsel of earthly honors shall have faded, and the laws which apportion this world's poor and petty distinctions shall have passed away in the general wreck, his name and history shall survive, recorded in higher annals, and upheld by the word of Him, whose judgment it is, that he that winneth souls is wise ; and whose purpose it is, that they that be WISE SHALL SHINE AS THE BRIGHTNESS OP THE FIRMAMENT ; AND THEY THAT TURN MANY TO RIGHTEOUSNESS, AS THE STARS FOR EVER AND EVER. MEMOIR. CHAPTER I. Including a sketch of Mr. Boardman's early history. " It is a homage due to departed worth, whenever it rises to such a height as to render its possessor an object of general attention, to endeavor to rescue it from oblivion ; that when it is removed from the observation of men, it may still live in their memory, and transmit through the shades of the sepulchre, some reflection, however faint, of its living lustre. By enlarging the cloud of witnesses by which we are encompassed, it is calculated to give a fresh impulse to their desire of imi- tation; and even the despair of reaching.it is not without its use, by checking the levity, and correcting the pride and presumption of the human heart." Hall. George Dana was the third son of the Rev. Sylvanus and Phebe Boardman. He was born in Livermore, State of Maine, Feb. 8, 1801. His father was at that time pastor of the Baptist church in that place, but has since removed to New Sharon, in the same State, where, though now in the decline of life, he still performs with ability the duties of a faithful and affectionate minister of Christ. Desirable as it is to know something definite of the early years of one, whose memory is cherished, and whose name is held in high esteem by all who knew him, curiosity pries almost in vain into the dawning and gradual development of that intellect, which, in the zenith of its strength, shed an influence at once so healthful and enlightening, on pagan darkness. From the scanty materials in our pos- session, we are able to discover the germ only, or at most the tender bud, while the flower, in its early freshness and beauty, was 11 born to blush unseen, And waste its sweetness on the desert air." His venerable father, by the request of the Compiler, has furnished a few interesting incidents of the early years of George. From childhood he was much attached to 10 MEMOIR OF books, and would often attempt to conceal his bodily indis- position from his parents, lest it should induce them to detain him from school. To his instructers he was uni- formly endeared by his proficiency in juvenile studies. His opportunities for improvement were rather limited, till 1810, when his parents removed to North Yarmouth. Here he enjoyed better advantages, and evinced a more ardent desire for the acquisition of knowledge. His at- tachment to books increased; and while they withdrew him from his youthful sports, they rewarded the trifling sacrifice by the superior enjoyment of their perusal He had begun to "sip at the Pierian spring," and so sweet to him were its waters, that at the age of twelve years he determined, if not immediately, yet at some future period, to allay his thirst by drinking " more largely" at the foun- tain-head. At that early period, says his father, he had resolved on a collegiate education, and had remarked to his mother, that if the circumstances of the family were such as to forbid it at present, this should be his first object after he became of age. This ardent thirst for know- ledge his parents wisely cherished; and after having stated to him distinctly, that if such were his determination, he must depend for support on his own resources — to which he promplty and cheerfully assented — he was sent to the academy in North Yarmouth. He was now in his thir- teenth year. An incident here occurred, which, as re- lated by his preceptor, evinced the ease with which he could commit to memory the lessons assigned him, and the power with which he retained them. He was put upon the study of the Latin grammar. This he des- patched in less time than his instructer had ever known it done before. Having gone through it the first time, he fondly hoped to be put immediately to the use of the Lexi- con. He was told, however, that previously to this he must go through the grammar once or twice more. He was disappointed, but took his seat; and after an hour or two, was asked if he had got a lesson, and being called, he recited, verbatim, sixteen pages. He was then asked if he had got more. He answered, "yes;" and on being asked how much, he replied, " I can recite the whole book, sir, if you wish." In 1816, his parents removed to New Sharon. George REV. G. D. BOARDMAN. 11 was now placed for a season at the academy in Farming- ton, where his proficiency gave him the pre-eminence over most of his fellow students. He soon after commenced the study of algebra, in which he made no considerable pro- gress and seemed discouraged; but when he was removed to Bloomfield academy, and put under the tuition of Mr. Hall, a thorough mathematician, he soon overcame the difficulty of obtaining the knowledge of that abstruse sci- ence, as he before thought it, Mr. Hall ever retained for him a high degree of respect, and was often heard to speak of him as a youth of much promise. Such Avas his confidence in him as a scholar, that on one occasion, hav- ing business that called him abroad for a week, he com- mitted the whole charge of the academy to his young pupil during his absence. Mr. B. was then only sixteen years of age. " From a child," says his father, " he possessed strong passions, but not turbulent, — was fond of pleasure, but more fond of books. The labor he did on the farm was done hastily, and often so as to indicate absence of mind from his employment; but when he had done his work he could always find a book. On a rainy day in hay-season, when the laborers had left the field, he was soon missed, and upon inquiry, ' where is George? ' it was replied, 'he is in school. 5 To his parent's authority he seemed to feel bound and willing to submit. His health, after the age of three or four years, was generally good, and he appeared to possess a strong and vigorous body. He bid fair, till after his close application to study, to be very strong and athletic; but after the age of about fifteen, he was seldom long at home, and seemed to grow tall, spare and deli- cate." His aptness to teach, and his talent in commanding the attention and respect of his pupils, were evinced at an early period of his life. When in his sixteenth year, an age at which few persons think of entering the field of public instruction, he was found capable of governing, to the entire satisfaction of parents and children, the most unmanageable schools in the country. On his entering the place where anarchy had prevailed, order arose out of confusion, and the discordant elements, of which district schools are often composed, settled down into unbroken 12 MEMOIR OF harmony. The influence which he wielded, and which gave him such success in his employment, was not of a despotic character, such as in days gone by led to the bar- barous use of corporal punishment; it was the subduing influence of love blended with fear; a respectful influence, which, while it prompted obedience through fear of offend- ing, rendered that obedience pleasant by the love which it inspired. He understood better than most persons of his age, the principles of human nature, in the application of which to the business of instruction he was completely suc- cessful. His countenance, though youthful, was capable of assuming an expression pre-eminently calculated to in- spire with respectful attention the minds of his young pu- pils. Words with him were seldom necessary to produce order. He could look them into silence, and was wont to observe, humorously, that if a scholar withstood his looks, he usually considered him a hopeless character. The order and quiet introduced by his judicious management, were turned to the best advantage, and under his skilful guidance his youthful charge went rapidly forward in the acquisition of knowledge. It is amusing and instructive to recur to the days of our childhood, to trace the progress of improvement in the business of instruction, and mark the wide difference be- tween that age and the present, in the modes of imparting knowledge. Then, a common school was an absolute monarchy, in which the teacher was the despot. The badge of his office, the emblem of his unlimited authority, is too well known to require description, and needs only to be alluded to, to fill the mind with horror. The innocent trifles even of playful children were laid under its ban, and received the rigor of its discipline. This, together with the tedious routine of forms, was pre-eminently calculated to fill the minds of children with gloom, and render the ac- quisition of knowledge any thing but pleasing. Happily the times and the customs are now in a measure changed, though there are but too many vestiges of former barbarity still lingering about the nurseries of learning, in the more retired parts of the country. Primary schools have as- sumed more the form of little republics, where the youthful citizens are exempted from needless restrictions. The laws by which they are governed are of a moral character, REV. G. D. BOARDMAN. 13 enforcing obedience from the power of motive. The teacher is regarded as a kind and faithful guardian, watching over the best interests of his little charge, and leading them on, by gentle means, in their delightful employment. The superiority of the latter over the former method of in- struction and government, is too obvious to need a labored support. It requires little depth of penetration to discover, that those youth who are made to feel that all the avenues to knowledge are strewed with flowers, will enter with a keener zest, and make more rapid advances, than those who feel that at every step they are treading on thorns and thistles; and that such as have been taught to govern themselves, will be likely to make more active and useful citizens, than those who have been required to surrender their wills to that of a tyrant, and to yield both body and mind to a state of vassalage. The very task of self-gov- ernment brings into exercise the best feelings of their nature; and the consciousness of possessing the power and the right of self-control, impresses them with the proper dignity of intelligent and accountable beings, which is itself one of the strongest moral restraints, and a most powerful incentive to virtue. If Mr. Boardman had not adopted, int all its extent, the present mode of instruction and gov- ernment, he was evidently advancing towards it with a quickened step, and had he continued in the field, would unquestionably have stood conspicuous in the ranks of ap- proved instructers. One who knew him well has remarked, that he always taught school with great success, and pos- sessed such a versatility of talent, that he was never for a moment embarrassed with the multiplicity of objects, which necessarily engage the attention of a teacher in common, district schools. 2 14 MEMOIR OP CHAPTER II. Mr. Boardman pursues his studies at Waterville — He indulges a hope in Christ, and makes a profession of religion — The happy state of his mind. " I was a stricken deer, that left the herd Long since. With many an arrow deep infixed My panting side was charged, when I withdrew To seek a tranquil death in distant shades. There was I found, by One who had himself Been hurt by the archers. In his side he bore, And in his hands and feet, the cruel scars. With gentle force soliciting the darts, He drew them forth, and healed, and bade me live." The seminary at Waterville, (Me.) was, for several years, known only as a literary and theological institution. The reputation which it had acquired for literary advantages, soon drew the attention of young Boardman; and as his parents were desirous he should be placed under a decidedly moral and religious influence, it was determined that he should pursue his studies for a season at that place. He repaired to Waterville in May, 1819, and entered upon his favorite pursuit with renewed ardor. - For a time, the society of the religious students, then about twenty in number, did not exert that influence upon him, which his friends had fondly antici- pated. Perhaps, as is often the fact, the religious atmosphere in which he moved, awakened the latent enmity of his heart, and instead of subduing him to the obedience of Christ, served only to drive him to greater extremities. He, however, always paid an external respect to religion and religious people, and in the midst of youthful recreation, was the subject of many painful relentings. As he was al- most the only one in the institution who was not professedly religious, the pious students, as well as officers of instruc- tion, watched his movements with deep concern, and felt a strong desire for his conversion to God. His father, alluding to this period in the history of George, thus speaks of him: "Many things seemed calculated se- riously to impress his mind. The scholars were usually called on in rotation, to lead in morning and evening REV. G. D. BOARDMAN. 15 prayers, while he was passed by. Prayer meetings were weekly held, at which he attended, when his case was rare- ly, if ever omitted, in such terms as he could not mistake; and when he came to occupy the same room with: one of the students, he soon learned that his companion constantly repaired to his closet once a day, where he spent one quar- ter of an hour in agonizing prayer for his conversion. Much religious conversation with him in person, evinced the deep solicitude his friends felt on his account. At length an expression of concern depicted on his counte- nance, and the half-suppressed sigh, which would sometimes escape his bosom, inspired the hope that an arrow had reached his heart. Some time elapsed, however, before a gleam of hope was by him expressed, as having arisen in his forlorn bosom; and after a faint hope was acknow- ledged, he often expressed strong doubts of his gracious state, thinking himself too great a sinner, so soon, if ever, to find forgiveness. But so rich was the grace, and so abun- dant the manifestation of a Saviour's love, that all his doubts and unbelief were soon overcome, and his heart was filled with rapture, and his tongue with praise. And now, he who never before had the gift of singing, applied himself with such assiduity to the study of music, that, aided by a strong desire to unite with the people of God in that de- lightful employment, he became, though not a melodious, yet a judicious participant in vocal music. Never has the first visit at his father's house, after his conversion, been forgotten, nor the circumstance of his being requested to lead in the devotions of the family." It will be interesting to enter more in detail into the ex- ercises of his mind previously to conversion, and to know something more of the darkness of that night, which was succeeded by so bright a morning. The following account of his religious experience, taken from his original manu- script, in the hand-writing of his bereaved widow, has at length reached us. It is given entire. Mr. Boardmatfs Christian Experience. " My parents were hopefully pious. They often instruct- ed me in the principles of religion, and urged on me the im- 16 MEMOIR OF portance of possessing, at an early age, an interest in the Redeemer. Their parental instructions were, however, too much neglected. The world with its fascinating charms, had too much engrossed my mind. Sometimes the realities of religion forced me to serious thought; but at others, the amusements of the young attracted my chief attention. I desired to have Christ for my friend at a dying hour, but my language generally was, ■ Go thy way for this time. 5 When any alarming sickness prevailed in the vicinity, I felt a desire to be prepared for its attack; but when the apparent danger was past, my anxiety abated, and I lived as before. I would occasionally resolve to attend to the subject of religion without delay; but some unexpected event ever induced me to procrastinate. " Thus was I led on, till the fifteenth year of my age. At that time, the doctrines of divine sovereignty and elec- tion greatly harassed my mind. They appeared to me the most hateful sentiments that could be inculcated. I en- gaged in a violent opposition to them, but was soon defeat- ed. The arguments brought to their support, were incon- trovertible. I was silenced, but not satisfied. When I ceased to oppose these doctrines, I became concerned for the salvation of my soul. I viewed myself exposed to the displeasure of God for ever; but had no discovery of the odious nature of sin in his sight. For several weeks, my mind continued in a state of deep distress. I sought for peace ; but how to obtain it, I knew not. Soon, however, I became so much at ease respecting myself, that I again engaged, though somewhat reluctantly, in the amusements of the young. But I found not that enjoyment in them, which I formerly had. The solemnities of eternity would sometimes rush upon my mind, and leave no place for enjoyment from my youthful recreations. I chose rather to be under deep distress for my sins, than to enjoy the pleasures of the world. It appeared tome, that should God cut me off as a cumberer of his gound, and send me to hell, he would be just. I delighted in Christian company and conversation, although I at such times felt the greatest distress. I wept over my sins, but found no relief. This state of mind continued till a change of circumstances, un- favorable to religious inquiry, put a check to my serious thoughts, and allayed, in a degree, my distress of mind, I REV. G. D. BOARD MAN. 17 was now among the irreligious. But still, the recollection of my former feelings would sometimes renew my distress. My conscience would often check me in presence of my gay companions, and I found it exceedingly difficult to conceal my feelings. S( About this time, I conceived the plan of effecting my own conversion. I had not much doubt, but that at some future time, God would give me grace. But as I was naturally proud and aspiring, I expected to experience a remarkable change. Something more than ordinary must usher me into the kingdom of Christ. " About three years rolled away, without any considerable change in my feelings. My great purpose of self-conver- sion was not carried into effect. I mingled with the world more than ever, but still thought often on the subject of religion. " In my nineteenth year, my mind became more deeply distressed in view of my state, than at any preceding period. The thought of hell alarmed me. I viewed myself to be alone in my exercises, considering them as entirely different from those of any other person. My sins appeared great and aggravated; but such was the hardness of my heart, that I could not repent. I saw no way of escape. Nothing but destruction awaited me. Christ seemed to be a Saviour for those who trusted in him, but not for me. Such was my anxiety of mind, that I could not, for some time, attend to my usual employments. " I remained much in the same state of feeling for seve- ral weeks, when a subject different from any thing I had previously thought of, powerfully impressed my mind. I saw that I had been engaged in continued acts of rebellion against that God, whom it was my duty to serve. Those very deeds, which once appeared commendable, seemed now only to increase my guilt. Even my prayers, which I once thought were pleasing in the sight of God, now ap- peared abominable in my own. My impressions were not, however, so deep as those of many persons, nor were they such as I had expected. It was not now the fear of hell, but the thought that I had sinned against God, that was the cause of my trouble. But yet my heart was so hard, that it seemed impossible to melt it into contrition. With the poet I could say, 2 * 18 M E M I R O F 1 1 mourn because I cannot mourn.' Thus from day to day was I troubled, ' not as other men' are, but pursuing, as I supposed, an untrodden path. The Bible was wholly laid aside; because the threatenings which it contained applied to me with renewed force and terror. I could discover a Saviour for every body but myself, c O' thought I, c If I could but repent, it would allay my distress. But, alas! I fear that God has left me to final impenitence and unbelief. It would be just in him to make me misera- ble. What shall a wretched sinner do? I cannot remain here, I dare not go back, I cannot go forward. I will mourn over my sins, if, peradventure, the Lord may give me repentance unto life.' " At this time, my attachment to Christians became more ardent. While I witnessed their devotions, I longed to fall upon my knees, and pour out my heart with them in prayer. Soon after, I became oppressed with fear, lest I should be a hypocrite. My prayer ascended to God, that if I never found peace in believing, I might never find it in any thing else. " At this critical moment, Christians began to speak to me in encouraging terms. But the effect was only to in- crease my distress, as I now thought that I had deceived them. I resolved never to hope till I had reason to hope, and until I could even say, ( I know that my Redeemer liv- eth.' I now felt the keenest distress, for I was in my own estimation a hypocrite, and a most heinous sinner. Christians continued to encourage me. But their encour- agements did not comfort me. At length a person, whose piety I could not doubt, related to me his Christian experi- ence. I traced the progress of his exercises, and wonder- ed at the apparent similarity between his experience and my own. Still I expected him to speak of some more won- derful manifestations of divine things, of more deep convic- tions, and the like. And when he came to the time when he obtained hope, ' What,' thought I, e is this a Christian experience? I have felt nearly all which he has expressed. There is one point in which we differ ; he has evidence of pardon and acceptance with God; I have none. If, how- ever, he has related a Christian experience, and my experi- ence correspond with his, may I not hope?' A calmness succeeded, to which I had ever before been an entire - REV, G. D. BOARDMAN. 19 stranger. I opened the Bible, and, O how precious was that holy book. It spoke the language of salvation. The Psalms were peculiarly precious. Secret prayer became a most delightful employment. Christians were endeared to me more than ever. "Soon after this, I disclosed my feelings to a very dear Christian brother. I acknowledged to him that I had some- times hoped, but had not much evidence, that I was a child of God. After conversing for some time, he said to me, ' You have evidence, if you are not too proud to receive it. You must be willing to be a very little Christian.' 'Dear Lord,' was my silent ejaculation, 'let me be the least of all saints. I had rather be a door-keeper in the house of the Lord, than to dwell in the tents of wickedness.' " In the course of the conversation, my mind was filled with holy joy, and I returned home late in the evening, happier than though I had been elevated to an earthly throne." In July 16, 1820, Mr. Boardman made a public profes- sion of religion, and united with the Baptist church in Waterville. Mr. F. who was then a student at Waterville, in a letter to the father of Mr. Boardman, speaks of this event in the following manner: "Dear Sir, "As it must afford you great joy to know, that your children are walking in the truth, I take the liberty to inform you, that on Saturday last, at the monthly meeting of the Baptist church in this place, your son George gave a relation of his Christian experience, and proposed him- self as a candidate for baptism. The Sabbath following was appointed for the administration of the ordinance. The day was fine, our meeting full, and after the close of the morning services, he gave, by request of the church, a public account of what the Lord had done for him. The whole assembly tarried and heard with attention. It was a new thing in this place. Probably many who were present had never before heard a Christian experience. Some were apparently affected. The administration of the ordinance was solemn and deeply interesting. Your son has experienced a great blessing in obeying the com- 20 MEMOIR OP mand of Christ. His exhortations and prayers have been heard in all our meetings since his baptism. The good confession which he has witnessed, has been peculiarly satisfactory to me. I have now no doubt remaining, of his having passed from death unto life. 5 ' Mr. C. also a fellow student with Mr. Boardman, in a letter to the Compiler, relates the following incident: " While associated in study with Mr. B. at Waterville, a circumstance occurred, which was deeply interesting to me at the time, and whenever it has since occurred to me — and it often has — the most pleasing emotions have always been produced. " I had known, that Mr. Boardman's mind had for some time been unusually impressed with religious subjects; and though I had said but little to him personally, I felt much interest in his case. As he had not appeared, for a week past, so much affected in view of his state, as for some time previous, I feared his religious feelings were beginning to subside, without producing any permanent good. "One evening, as I was sitting alone in my room, Mr. B. came in. My fears, as to the decline of his religious feeling, were at once removed, on discovering that he was then in a deeply anxious state of mind. Some questions were proposed to him, which led him to say, that he had at times indulged a faint hope, but that he then thought he had been utterly deceived. At my request he gave a par- ticular account of his mental exercises for some weeks past. As he advanced in his relation, his countenance began to brighten. A heavenly glow took the place of gloom and anxiety; his soul seemed filled with the peace of believing; and after engaging with him in prayer, he retired, giving glory to God. " From his account of the exercises of his mind, it was evident that he had a deep sense of the depravity of his nature, and saw clearly that it was alone through the blood and righteousness of Christ, that he could hope for pardon and salvation." These are pleasing testimonies in favor of the genuine- ness of the change which he professed to have experienced, REV. G. D. BOARDMAN. 21 and are the more valuable, as they are given by those who were intimately acquainted with him, and had ample op- portunity to observe the character and progress of his religious exercises under all the circumstances connected with his conversion. But it is not to first impressions that we are to look for the best evidences of grace in the heart. " Behold, we count them happy, who endure." "He that shall endure to the end, the same shall be saved." The following extract of a letter, addressed by him to his sister, Mrs. Blanchard, discloses the particular state of his mind at the time of his baptism, and immediately subsequent to that event: "My dear Sister, "To describe my various feelings since I last wrote you, would be to fill a volume. I then informed you that I entertained a hope of having experienced a change of heart. Although my hope was then faint indeed, I have since, if not deceived, been blessed with a gradual in- crease of faith till the present time ; even such an increase as has enabled me to follow the footsteps of my blessed Redeemer in baptism. An awful sense of my total unwor- thiness would have restrained my steps, had not the voice of duty called me to go forward. At this crisis, the dear Saviour, in whom I trust, promised that he would never leave me, nor forsake me. Encouraged by his word, and trusting in him for grace equal to my day, I cheerfully submitted myself to the ordinance of baptism. The occa- sion was solemn to the last degree. " In the afternoon I sat down, unworthy as I was, at the table of the Lord. My soul was melted with the love of Christ. I never experienced such a season before. I cannot express to you the joy I felt on that occasion. It seemed to me that I could never again forsake my Saviour. The love of Christ appeared truly incomprehensible. I wanted to tell the world what a dear Saviour I had found. The half of the enjoyment to be found in the service of God, had not been told me. My heart throbbed with joy, while my eyes were suffused with tears. Since that time, I have, in general, enjoyed a sweet composure of mind till yesterday — Lord's day, P. M. — when the discourse from the pulpit became so deeply interesting, that I almost 22 MEMOIROF fancied myself disembodied from the flesh, and desired to depart, and to be with Christ." The extract here made, exhibits a high degree of reli- gious enjoyment. He was then in the morning of his espousal to Christ, under the influence of his first affec- tion, contemplating the love of his Redeemer in the sym- bols of his body and blood. It is here, at the table of his divine Master, beholding thus in the elements of the Sup- per the body of the Lord Jesus, that the believer feels most forcibly the import of the apostolic exclamation, " Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed on us, that we should be called the sons of God." But a discovery of what he is at heart, often calls back his thoughts from Christ, and fixes them upon himself. It is then, in the strong, clear light of contrast, that he sees the immense moral distance at which he is from what he should be; that he becomes wholly dissatisfied with him- self and his attainments, and ardently pants for entire conformity to the divine image. Such were the feelings of Mr. Boardman, when brought down from the high and delightful contemplation of his Redeemer's love, by a glance at his own deep moral pol- lution. " But I have great cause to mourn over the sin- fulness of my heart. I am not as I would be. The monster, pride, has shown himself to me in all his de- formity, and has fixed his abode in my heart. I hate him. Fain do I hope, that the Lord will assist me in vanquishing him, and all my other foes. He has done marvellous things for me; his goodness is without a bound. Time shall be but the commencement of the service I owe him, and eternity will only suffice to utter all his praise. That such a guilty, sinful, polluted wretch as myself should be brought to partake of the banquet of Jesus's love, seems strange almost beyond belief. ■ Herein is love, not that we loved Christ, but that he loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses and sins.' " We hope, dear sister, that in this amazing love, we have a mutual share. Our conflict with sin will soon be ended, and we shall be made like unto our glorious Head, even Christ. What if we are afflicted during the few moments of our stay on earth, if we are to praise and enjoy =; REV. G. D. BOARDMAN. 23 God for ever in eternity. Christ, also, was a man of sor- rows, and acquainted with grief. Whose sorrows are like his sorrows? Certainly not yours nor mine. Let me request you, dear sister, to pray often for your unworthy brother. Remember his need of divine assistance, to ena- ble him to discharge with fidelity the duties of one who professes to be a disciple of the meek and lowly Jesus. " You undoubtedly rejoice to learn, that two more Bur- mans have embraced the religion of the Saviour, and have professed his name. It is matter of joy, even among angels, when one sinner repenteth." Early in August, while meditating on the shortness of time, and the rapid approach of eternity, he was roused by intelligence from his friends of the most cheering charac- ter. On opening a letter, which assured him of the hopeful conversion of a beloved sister, he exclaimed, with a full soul, " O, may I render to the Lord the tribute of a grate- ful heart." Some time in the same month, he visited his friends at New Sharon, and had the satisfaction of witness- ing the baptism of his sister. From the time when he made a profession of religion, till he was unable to write, he was in the habit of recording the most important inci- dents of his life. While on this visit to his friends, he made the following memorandum in his private journal. It forcibly illustrates the effects of what Payson denomi- nates, in relation to himself, " accursed self-seeking." Few, if any, even of the best of men, have entirely escaped its killing influence. A well-meant, and perhaps accept- able, discharge of duty, is often followed by this bane of religious enjoyment, a fear lest men may not think well of us and of our performances. Much of the mortification, some- times apparent in men otherwise deeply pious, results not so much from the thought of not having honored God, as from the fear that they have failed to set off self to advan- tage in the view of men. This morbid sensibility should work its own cure. It is destructive to peace of mind, a formidable barrier to usefulness, the offspring of Satan, and utterly abhorrent in the sight of God. It is as unbe- coming to the creature, as it is odious to the Creator. None but a perfectly independent being can, without the imputation of weakness, seek his own glory. It is a base 24 MEMOIR OP passion. Of this we need no further evidence, than that which is furnished by the shame and backwardness which men universally feel in acknowledging themselves under its influence. Even the most unprincipled men would hide this weakness from the view of others. Its food is adulation, and its name is legion. The example of Him, who sought not his own glory, but the glory of Him that sent him, should effectually extirpate this root of bitterness from the human breast. Happy is the man, who has gained such an ascendency over this abomination of his heart, that he can, on all occasions, lose sight of self in the interest he feels for souls, and the honor he would bring to God. The extract follows. " Sabbath eve, Sept. 10. I have had a trying day. I am a poor, ignorant, proud creature. Why am I thus? O that I could hide myself from the face of men. What shall I do? Lord, direct me. I fear I have wounded the blessed cause. I acknowledge my unworthiness and sin. O my pride; what a monster! I fear — O abomina- ble wickedness — I fear that men will not think well of me. This is what troubles me. Begone, base fiend, and let me lie at the feet of Jesus." On his return to Waterville, he wrote as follows: "Sept. 14. To-day, I have had a pleasant season in meeting my brethren in Waterville, the place of my spirit- ual birth. Dear Saviour, thy children are precious com- panions. May they be my company on earth, and mine in eternity. Thanks be to thee for preserving me in my absence, and blessed be thy name in the great congrega- tion. Deign, gracious Father, to communicate thy grace, that we may spend our days in thy blessed service. Give us much brotherly love, and incite us to watchfulness and prayer." "Lord's day, Oct. 21. Have had some precious sea- sons of late. How shall I express God's goodness to me! It is like a powerful and constant stream, which, though it meets with many obstructions, yet keeps continually flow- ing. Why does God bless me so? Certainly not on ac- REV. G. D. BOARDMAN. 25 count of any merit in me. It is all of grace, through Jesus Christ his Son." It is not always easy to determine the exact limits of propriety in selecting from a private journal. Here the mind is seen in its undress. Whatever is beautiful in its structure, or rich and elegant in its furniture, may be ex- amined and brought to light without fear of censure. And why may not its most prominent blemishes also be exposed ? Because custom — modern custom indeed — seems to forbid it. It is, indeed, a common remark, in writings of this kind, that the individual was not without his failings; and this general acknowledgment is thought amply sufficient, without entering into particulars. And if, in some instan- ces, special blemishes are brought to light, they are often so modified as to set them, at last, in the light of virtues. It would be difficult to justify custom in the delineation of such traits as are lovely, and in the studious concealment of whatever is calculated to cast a shade upon the picture. The true standard of a man's piety is most clearly seen by presenting him as he is, a compound of evil passions and propensities, and by exhibiting the power of grace which enabled him to overcome them. From characters which have been given of some good men, one would suppose that human nature, in those instances, at least, had been cast in a mould peculiarly favorable to piety, that there was very little of the strength of depravity with which to contend, and that, consequently, the obstructions to an elevated degree of purity w r ere few 7 and easily removed. It is the man, not the grace of God, that in these instances is the object of admiration. If, in any circumstances, man is deserving of praise, he certainly is deserving of the great- est, who has had to contend with, and has overcome the most powerful human corruptions. Where sin is seen to abound, and grace much more to abound, the glory is then transfer- red to Him to whom it exclusively belongs. If infidelity scoff at such seeming contradictions, it is for the same reason that it scoffs at every thing else, which is too elevated and spiritual for its conceptions. It is thought that the tendency of a biography, in which light and shade are seen to intermingle, is more favorable to the mind of the pious reader, than one which dazzles 3 26 MEMOIR OF by its brightness. For here he finds himself conversant, not with one of a higher order of beings, but with a man of like passions with himself, agitated by the war in his members, and sighing for deliverance from his body of death. It certainly is not a dictate of piety that induces a man to be satisfied with harboring in his own breast the hateful passions which he sees have existed in the bosoms of men eminent for their religous attainments. The fact of their having gained the ascendency over self and sin, will gird him with strength for the same conflict; while a faultless character, by the elevation to which it rises, may discourage even an attempt at imitation. In the latter case, the effect is to throw the mind into a state of doubt and gloominess, if not into despair. While, therefore, on some, a character drawn in its highest degree of perfec- tion, may act as a powerful incentive to imitation, on others, and probably the far greater part, it acts as a real discouragement. And on men of the world, it is be- lieved, that such a character is far from leaving the most favorable impression. For though they may pretend to doubt every thing else pertaining to religion, they seldom doubt that a man professing to be pious has his failings And the very concealment of those failings, which are common in a greater or less degree to all, only gives them greater reason to regard the whole in the light of fiction. The advantages, then, are on the side of plain truth. And when it is remembered that at the day of final account, the secrets of all hearts will be revealed by Him who knoweth what is in man, what motive can justify the concealment of those traits of character, a full disclosure of which will then be made, presenting an affecting con- trast to the historic page which has recorded only the virtues of his people. It is said, that respect for the dead, and regard for their surviving relatives and friends, should deter us from the disclosure of any thing which may cast an unlovely shade over their memory. It is replied, that respect for departed worth is but a poor apology for mak- ing the pious dead speak falsehood, which is, in effect, the case, where there is but a partial exhibition of charac- ter. And with respect to regard for surviving relatives, the Compiler of this work is relieved from apprehension of censure arising from this quarter. The father of our be- REV. G. D. BOARD MAN. 27 loved Boardman has explicitly stated his desire that no effort might be made to extol his son, but to magnify the grace of God in him. These remarks are made with a view to present the reasons for giving the following extract from Mr. Board- man's private journal, and a few others of a similar char- acter in subsequent pages. " Oct. 28. All the fiery darts of the adversary seem aimed directly at me. Pride, abominable pride, most of all, torments me. I am proud even of my faults. Envy, too, prevails, to an alarming extent in my heart. I was displeased to-day, and felt wickedly, because one of my Christian brethren appeared more spiritual than myself. We were conversing with an aged Christian friend on the subject of religion, and this brother answered the ques- tions which were proposed better than I could; he also asked better questions than I could, and discovered more grace than I. O wretched man that I am! I fear I shall never be of any service in the world. At present, I am a tax on Christ and on his people, if the expression be admissible. If ever a Christian had reason to com- plain, I more. A child of God, and at the same time serving self and sin; a proud wretch, and yet a pen- sioner on the divine bounty; a sinner, a pharisee, a worm, a nothing, and still hoping for eternal life. O Lord, save me, for I sink in deep waters, where there is no standing. Help, Lord, or I perish." 28 MEMOIROF CHAPTER III. Waterville College — Mr. Boardman enters it — His progress in study — Graduates, and is appointed tutor. The friends of the Waterville Seminary, both in Maine and Massachusetts, impressed with the importance of giv- ing to their beneficiaries, most of whom were then at Wa- terville, a more classical education, deemed it expedient to raise the character of the institution to that of a college. The State of Maine, comprising nearly as much territory as the whole of the other New England States, command- ing an extensive range of sea-coast, and a soil of much pro- ductiveness, and rapidly increasing in population, was con- sidered as an inviting field for the establishment of such an institution. The local situation of Waterville was such as to favor the plan, lying far in the interior of the State, and containing a flourishing village at the head of boat-naviga- tion, on the waters of the Kennebec. The resources of the State were considered as amply adequate to the endow- ment of another college; and the number of her youth as sufficient to fill it with scholars of a promising character. It was confidently believed, that the contemplated change in the character of the institution, so far from proving de- trimental to the truly able seminary at Brunswick, would actually add to the interests of both; and thus increase the amount of intellectual culture in the State. Thus far, the experiment has proved the correctness of the theory. Most of all, the situation of the churches in Maine, many of them in their infancy, located in flourishing villages, and desti- tute of pastors, seemed imperiously to demand the immedi- ate adoption of the measure. It was also hoped, that an institution of the kind, established in that region of country, might eventually send forth men, whose religious influence should be felt on other continents.* A petition was accord- * The hope was not in vain. The voice of one of her first and ablest sons, has been heard in distant India, gladdening the dwellers amid the mountains of Tavoy ; and that of another, Mr. C. Holton, one of her most meek and godly pupils, among the " sable sons of Africa." REV. G. D. BOARD MAN. 29 ingly presented to the legislature of the State, in the early part of 1820, and a charter was granted, giving to the insti- tution the title of Waterville College. Mr. Boardman and a particular associate in study, composed the first class. Such had been the proficiency which he had made in his studies, that, at an examination by the Faculty, he was found quali- fied to enter two years in advance. Usefulness now became his ruling passion, and as his studies were pursued with this object steadily in view, he applied himself with an assiduity, which left little time for miscellaneous reading and correspondence. Yet, in the ardor of these pursuits, he did not neglect the cultivation of personal piety. Aware that his future usefulness depend- ed mainly upon this, he eagerly embraced every favorable opportunity to accomplish so desirable an object. Though young both in years and in Christian experience, he had become extensively acquainted with the deceitfulness and desperate wickedness of his own heart, and felt deeply the need of close self-examination, watchfulness and prayer. How much his rapid growth in grace and in the knowledge of Christ is to be attributed, under God, to the circumstan- ces in which he was placed, is not for us to determine. Those circumstances, however, were peculiarly favorable. He was the first that had experienced religion at Waterville. With the religious students, he had been, as we have seen, the subject of many prayers and tender expostulations. His hopeful conversion, therefore, sent a thrill of joy through every bosom. They hailed this new accession to their number and their strength, with ardent gratitude to God; and were ever ready to impart that instruction, which greater length of experience had enabled them to treasure up. The ministry, too, under which he at that time set, was of the most able and instructive character: a ministry, which, by the grace of God, was full of divine unction. The truths to which he was accustomed to listen, seemed to fall from lips touched as with a coal from the altar of God, and were like apples of gold in pictures of silver. Under such circumstances, encompassed by such associates, and breathing such an atmosphere as every where encircled him, it might be expected that his improvements would be in proportion to his advantages. The following extracts from his correspondence, will 3* 30 MEMOIROF give a general view of his religious and other feelings, at the time of entering college: " Waterville College, July 20, 1821. " My dear Sister, t( Your favor of last January, was gratefully received. It is my intention to visit you at Cumberland, soon after the close of the term in August. I have also contemplated vis- iting other places in that vicinity at the same time. But while I lay plans for the future, let me well remember that all things here are fluctuating and uncertain. Next fall may find me in eternity. " Reflections on this subject are often profitable. The decay of things earthly, though a gloomy consideration, is a source of great consolation to the true Christian. Were those who are practically waiting to receive a crown of glory, to indulge the thought of continuing here for ever, how would it damp their joys. Yes, dear sister, if I thought this sinful world was to be my everlasting home, I should be in despair. My affections, however, are too much set on earthly things, ( My soul lies cleaving to the dust.' All my trust is in the Lord Jesus Christ; to him I look for par- don and salvation. Indeed, it is joyful to know that salva- tion is of grace. Were any part of it left to me, I should utterly fail of the crown of life. " Permit me to inquire respecting your own state. If you do not enjoy all those manifestations of the divine pres- ence which you may desire, allow me to caution you against rash conclusions. A decision respecting our characters as Christians, is of the utmost importance. We ought, there- fore, to take an impartial survey of our situation. We may determine too hastily. If you do not enjoy religion, as you once thought you should, you ought not to yield im- mediately to despair. We must not think, when visited by fiery trials, that some strange thing has befallen us. But while we guard against despair, we ought to be still more guarded against presumption. This has ruined thousands." Some of the earliest records of his religious exercises, in- dicate a prevailing tendency of his mind to the Christian ministry. He was early led to inquire, "Lord, what wilt thou have me to do," and to pray that he might have grace REV. G. D. BOARDMAN. 31 to discover, and pursue the path of duty. He appeared to feel habitually, and to a very high degree, the preciousness of souls, and the importance of their conversion to God. The result was, that a growing, and finally settled, convic- tion, that it was his duty to devote himself exclusively to the work of the ministry, took possession of his mind. While in his last year in college, he made the following entry of his feelings in his private journal: " I shall soon be twenty-one years of age. A wide world lies before me; a world of various pursuits and employ- ments; a world of sin and of sinful beings. It becomes me seriously to inquire, what God would have me to do. I have some fondness for science and literature; a greater fondness for theology. My constitution is pretty good, my heart exceedingly prone to evil, my talents for speaking small, but my mind is swallowed up in the cause of Christ. My inclinations to engage in the gospel ministry, are very strong; my sense of my insufficiency, very deep; my im- pressions of duty, increasing; the calls for laborers in the Lord's vineyard, very loud and frequent. The churches at home are destitute of pastors, and souls are perishing by thousands in heathen lands, without the knowledge of the Saviour. O my God, what shall I do? where shall I go? I am willing, so far as I know myself, to devote my all to the service of my God. O Lord, direct me. Send me where thou wilt. I am thine. Only let me glorify thee in all things, whether by life or by death." Nearly at the same time his mind was directed to the subject of missions, with an absorbing interest. His feel- ings in relation to the state of the heathen, were not, as is too often the case with young Christians, slight and ephe- meral; they were deep and abiding, and continued to in- crease, till they carried him away from kindred and coun- try, to toil and suffer and die in a pagan land. The following letter to his father, contains the first dis- tinct enunciation of his feelings on this subject: " Waterville College, Oct 13, 1821. "My dear Father, " I readily embrace the opportunity presented, for writing and sending to you. Since leaving New Sharon, I have been busily employed in study, and, as I feared, have found 32 MEMOIR OP little to facilitate a growth in grace. Butler's Analogy of Natural and Revealed Religion, however, furnishes many- strong evidences in favor of Christianity, and will, I hope, prove useful to me in some situations in life. "I cannot say that I am fully established as to the course which it may be my duty, in future, to pursue. That it is my duty to be engaged somewhere in the pro- motion of the Redeemer's cause, I have but little doubt. But how, and where, are questions with me — questions, which I would submit to Him, who knoweth all things. To Him, I am in some measure willing to devote my all. These physical and intellectual powers with which he has endowed me, are his by right, and ought to be sacredly devoted to his service. I feel a good degree of satisfaction in committing my case to him, and am willing to go where he shall direct, whether among the Indians of North America, or of Hindostan, or among the islands of the sea. Learning, eminence, riches, honors, applauses, are comparatively nothing in my esteem. I am willing, so far as I know myself, to be hungry, poor, naked and despised, if I may thereby win souls to Christ. This world presents nothing worth attention, compared with the pleasure of being wholly engaged in doing good, and in reflecting honor on the dear Redeemer of lost sinners." Ever after his conversion, he took a deep interest in the spiritual welfare of the people in Waterville. A friend, who was with him at college, says, "He probably visited more among the inhabitants of the town, and labored for their spiritual good more assiduously, than any other stu- dent. And the Sabbath school immediately became to him, and continued to be, so long as he was in the place, a delightful sphere of Christian effort." The subjoined extract corroborates, at least, a part of the above testimony. " Waterville College, Jan. 14, 1822. "Dear brother P. " I embrace this opportunity of writing and sending to you. As to the state of religion, it is mournfully low. The young seem to rejoice in their youth, and to let their hearts cheer them in the days of their youth — to walk in REV. G. D. BO A RDM AN. 33 the way of their hearts, and in the sight of their eyes; but they forget that for all these things God will bring them into judgment. O, my brother, these things grieve our hearts; we did hope for better things. I trust the children of God do feel for this people. Last evening we had a little prayer meeting, after the close of the meeting, in the evening, and it was to me a refreshing season. O that God would bless the inhabitants of this place by a co- pious effusion of his spirit. Brother P. do you pray for us daily? Perhaps the Lord will hear. Our little Zion rs in deep trouble. Her enemies have besieged her round about. If the Lord were not on our side, our prospects would be gloomy indeed. But I believe we do feel to put our trust in him. His elect are his; his cause is his; we hope we are his; and we know he heareth us, if we pray as we ought. O, it may be that Satan is making a despe- rate effort with the people here — that Zion, having been long in deep waters, is about to receive deliverance. The Lord's hand is not shortened, his ear is not heavy. I be- lieve, that in due time, this village, which is now a £ valley of vision,' full of dry bones, over which the ministers of Christ have long prophesied, will feel a shaking, and that we shall hear a noise, bone coming to its bone — that the breath of the Lord will blow upon them, and there will stand up here an exceeding great army. May God hasten the joyful time. ' The Lord can clear the darkest skies, Can give us day for night ; Make drops of sacred sorrow rise To rivers of delight.' "We are told, that when the enemy cometh in like a flood, the spirit of the Lord shall lift up a standard against him. And may not the prayers of saints compose that 'standard?' I do feel, deeply feel, at some seasons, for this people; especially since they have indulged so far in vain amusements. They little think, while in the midst of their recreations, that their Christian friends are praying for them; they little think of the awful nature and tenden- cy of sin. May the great God awaken them from their slumbers, and renew their hearts." 34 MEMOIR OF Mr. Boardman had now nearly completed his collegiate studies, and the question as to his future course became increasingly pressing, and called for an immediate deci- sion. His character, as a scholar, and his talent in teach- ing, had made the most favorable impression on the minds of the Faculty. It had already been intimated to him, that on closing his studies, he might, if he would accept of it, receive the appointment of Tutor in the college, with the understanding, that as soon as circumstances would per- mit, a Professorship should be given him. It was even anticipated, as we shall hereafter learn, though probably not mentioned to him at the time, that eventually, he should be raised to the Presidency of the college. These circumstances will account for the severe mental struggle exhibited in the subjoined letter to his father, a few weeks previous to his graduation. " Watermlle College, July, 19, 1822. " My dear Father, "In a letter I lately wrote to brother H. I promised to write you soon. Depressed in spirits, and weary with study as I am, I will endeavor to fulfil my engagement. But I know not what to write. If you are acquainted with deep anxieties of mind as to a future course of conduct; if you have experienced a long suspense of judgment re- specting the path of duty, inclined to go one way, but feel- ing some, yea, many apprehensions, that God calls you another way; if you have seen the time when friends, the providence of God, and your own choice, called you differ- ent ways, and if, in such a time, you have been left to mourn in sorrow the hidings of the Saviour's countenance, you know how to pity me. Alas, my father, your son is unhappy. I want to preach the gospel; I want to give myself wholly to the work; I want to be benefiting im- mortal souls. But some of my friends advise me to remain at Waterville, while others would dissuade me from it, and the providences of God seem rather to indicate that it may be my duty to stay. If I stay, I cannot speak much in public. The duties of an officer in college would engross my whole attention. While my thoughts are devoted almost exclusively to scientific pursuits through the week, I am but poorly prepared to stand up in the counsel of REV. G. D. BOARDMAN. 35 God on the Sabbath. Study engrosses the mind much more than labor, especially mathematical study. Still there are many things in favor of my staying. The good instruction I might receive from the excellent Dr. C. is truly tempting; I want to be with him. Besides, the college very much needs such help as I might, perhaps, be able to give it. Under all these considerations, increased by the urgent request of the president, your own advice, and that of some others, I feel a little inclined to remain in Water- ville a year or two, should my services be needed. " But must I forego the pleasure of preaching Christ and him crucified? I cannot easily endure the thought. Pray for me, my father; and again, I say, pray for your unhap- py son." The solicitations of his friends finally prevailed, and on graduating, he received the appointment of Tutor in Water- ville college. Yet such was the reluctance with which he yielded, for the present, his favorite object of becoming a missionary to the heathen — an honor, which he coveted above all others, that he remarked to a fellow student, " I now calculate on a year of misery. My whole soul is engrossed with the state of the heathen, and I desire to go among them. But I have engaged for a year, and I must remain. 55 The following letter to his father speaks of his return to Waterville after visiting his friends, and of his entrance on the duties of his office. " Waterville College, Oct. 10, 1822.