';JS 
 
 i^ 
 
 / 
 
 ^ 
 
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 M' 
 
 i 
 
 i^^
 
 iyi'l^^S'^'
 
 WORK AMONG THE LOST. 
 
 i8th Thousand. With an important Appendix and Two Plans. 
 
 Square i6mo. xs. 6d. 
 
 ' If any words of ours commend the little book which lies before us, and the 
 good work of which it is a simple and pathetic record, it is well. Every page is 
 ftiU of proof of sagacity and kindness.' — Spectator. 
 
 WORK IN BRIGHTON ; or, Woman's Mission to Women. 
 
 With Additions, and Preface by Florence Nightingale. 
 
 15th Thousand. Square i6mo. sewed, 6d. 
 
 * From my own experience in long past years, I am quite sure that the way 
 indicated in " Work in P-righton " is the only true way ; and I would entreat the 
 women of England to read the little book, and then judge, each for herself, in 
 what way she can help a cause which, for the sake of home and family, has a 
 claim on every woman. I bid the work "God speed" with all my heart, and 
 soul, and strength.'— Florence Nightingale. 
 
 LADIES' ASSOCIATIONS FOR THE CARE OF 
 FRIENDLESS GIRLS. 
 
 Being an Account of the ' Work in Brighton.' 
 9th Thousand. 32010. sewed, price xd. 
 
 NOTES ON PENITENTIARY WORK. 
 
 Just pubHshed, crown 8vo. in wrapper, price 6d. 
 
 ' The Authoress brings forward some valuable suggestions for the better 
 carrying out of this work. Such " Notes " are of incalculable service by way of 
 guiding earnest and true-hearted Christian workers into methods which will give 
 usefulness to their endeavours.' — Christian lVo7'ld. 
 
 WORK AMONGST WORKING MEN. 
 
 Second Edition, square fcap. 8vo. 3,?. 6d. 
 
 ' We strongly recommend this admirable little book to our readers, lay and 
 
 clerical, who have the welfare of their fellow-coxmtrymen at heart A 
 
 delightful and interesting book, and full of practical suggestions.' — Guardian. 
 
 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JAMES HINTON. 
 
 Edited by Ellice Hopkins, with Preface by Sir William Gull. 
 Third Edition, crown Bvo. with Portrait, 8j. 6d. 
 
 A FEW WORDS TO SCHOOLMISTRESSES. 
 
 By L. M. H. Editor of ' The Womati's Gazette.' 
 Price 2(f. each, or 100 for distribution at half-price. 
 
 COUNSELS TO PARENTS ON THE MORAL 
 EDUCATION OF THEIR CHILDREN. 
 
 By Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell. 8vo, sewed, is. 6d. 
 
 HATCHARDS, 187 PICCADILLY, LONDON. 
 
 J. PALMER, PRINTER, CAMBRIDGE.
 
 MISSIONS: 
 
 THEIR TEMPORAL UTILITY, RATE OF PROGRESS, 
 AND SPIRITUAL FOUNDATION, 
 
 STATED IN THE ADDRESSES OF 
 
 LORD NAPIER, CANON LIGHTFOOT, AND 
 BISHOP KELLY, 
 
 ANNUAL MEETING 
 
 OF THE 
 
 On the 2()tk APRIL, 1873. 
 
 MACMILLAN AND CO. 
 
 ... 1873.
 
 MISSIONS, &c. 
 
 ACCOUNT OF THE ANNUAL MEETING 
 
 HELD IN ST. JAMES'S HALL, LONDON, 
 
 ON TUESDAY, 29th APRIL, 1873. 
 
 The Archbishop of Canterbury, President of the Society, took 
 the Chair at 2.30 p.m. Prayers were offered by the Rev. J. E. Kempe, 
 Rector of St. James', and Treasurer of the Society. The following 
 brief Report of the year 1872 was read by the Rev. W. T. Bullock, 
 Secretary of the Society : — 
 
 " The alms of the Church, entrusted to the Society in the year 
 1872, reached the following amount : — General Fund, 84,502/. los. ; 
 Appropriated Funds, 16,529/. 4^-. Sd. ; Special Funds, 12,092/. 6s. 4^. 
 Total, 113,124/. IS. The Society has never had more reason to be 
 thankful to God who moves the hearts of men, for mcreased means 
 of carrying on the works which it has undertaken for His glory. 
 
 " The Society now supports wholly or in part 468 ordained 
 Missionaries of the Church engaged in various spheres of labour. In 
 America and the West Indies, 223; in Africa, 85; in Asia, 114; 
 in Australia and the Pacific, 45 ; in Europe, i. Amongst these 
 are included 35 native clergy in India. There are about 855 cate- 
 chists and lay teachers, mostly natives, in heathen countries ; and 
 about 300 students in colleges abroad. 
 
 a 2
 
 4 Missions, 6^f. 
 
 " Two events of the last year connected with the Society's proceed- 
 ings at home are of pecuhar importance. First, the world-wide 
 Intercessions in behalf of Missions on Friday, Dec. 20, have been 
 graciously answered by a revival of faith in, and zeal for, Missions, 
 and by numerous offers of personal service, from which the Society 
 has received substantial benefit ; it has been seen that Missions do 
 not depend on management and money ; but are a work to which 
 God calls his faithful people everywhere. And, secondly, the Society 
 has drawn together its scattered members in unity of action and 
 feeling by sanctioning the election of Diocesan Representatives to 
 act both as delegates from their dioceses to the Standing Committee 
 and as delegates from the Committee to their Dioceses. 
 
 *' In North America the prominent event is the creation of the 
 two new dioceses of Algoma and Moosonee. As an instance of the 
 progress of this branch of the Church in one man's lifetime, it is 
 stated that the Dean of Montreal was ordained by Bishop Inglis, 
 the first Bishop in British North America, who began his episcopate 
 in 1787, with only five clergymen under him, in a region where there 
 are now eleven bishops and 500 clergymen. Whilst the Church is 
 growing in silent strength throughout the Dominion of Canada, a 
 large amount of missionary work among the native Indians is still 
 carried on with unfailing activity and with visible blessing in the vast 
 outlying districts of British Columbia and Rupertsland. 
 
 ''The disheartening process of disendowment and disestablishment 
 in the West Indies still continues. The Church in the various 
 islands is rousing itself to repair the breaches which are thus opened 
 in its ranks. Christian sympathy with its efforts, and assistance both 
 in men and money, from England, will be required for some years. 
 Its bishoprics as well as its parishes are found to be suddenly de- 
 prived of the support on which our fellow-churchmen have relied for 
 many years, and with too much confidence. A letter writen by the 
 Bishop of Antigua gives an instance of the difficulties involved in the 
 withdrawal of Government aid : — 
 
 " ' By the last mail I received the resignation of the minister of 
 the Virgin Islands. His salary has been paid from the Consoli- 
 dated Fund and from the Colonial Treasury. Both of these grants 
 are extinguished with the termination of his incumbency. In 
 these islands and Anguilla the hope of maintaining a clergyman 
 without external aid could not for a moment be entertained ; and I 
 have always trembled at the idea of a resignation or death in either. 
 I believe the whole Church in the Colonies could not present to the 
 Society a case of greater need — whether we look at the urgency of 
 the work or the deep poverty of the people.' 
 
 /"\ 
 
 u,uc
 
 Events ^1872. 5 
 
 " Throughout South Africa the death of Bishop Gray of 
 Capetown is felt deeply, as is natural when the master spirit is 
 withdrawn from that great ecclesiastical community which owes 
 its present form in a great degree to him. When he was con- 
 secrated in 1847 Bishop of Capetown, there was in South Africa 
 no Church organization. Fourteen isolated clergymen ministered 
 to scattered congregations. In the quarter of a century which 
 has since elapsed, a vast Ecclesiastical Province has been created. 
 There are now in South Africa six dioceses. At the Provincial 
 Synod of 1870, five of these were announced as integral parts 
 of the province, being complete with sy nodical, parochial, and 
 missionary organizations, administered by 127 clergymen besides 
 lay teachers. All along the coast of South Africa and far into 
 its interior the pure and entire Word of God is now taught, 
 and the light of Christian life shines forth. 
 
 " The recently discovered diamond fields and gold fields present a 
 new field of work to the Church in South Africa. North of Natal 
 Bishop Wilkinson is making progress among the wild tribes who 
 occupy Zululand, and is advancing slowly but surely towards the region 
 which was the field of the labours of the late Bishop Mackenzie : 
 and in the southern portion of Africa the territory between Grahams- 
 town and Natal has been marked out for the speedy establishment of 
 a bishopric of Kaffraria, which, it is hoped, will be filled by one who 
 has long been a most efficient and honoured Missionary in connection 
 with the Society. 
 
 " In India the progress of the Gospel is marked chiefly by the 
 rapidly increasing number of native clergymen, many of them sup- 
 ported entirely by the native congregations to whom they minister. 
 To mention a single instance : — Ten years ago Dr. Caldwell laboured 
 alone in Edeyengoody at the southern extremity of India : this 
 year his work in that Mission is shared by no less than six native 
 clergymen. Twenty years ago the Society's Missions in the diocese 
 of Madras included two native clergymen, 15,000 baptized natives, 
 5,000 catechumens, and 3,400 communicants. Now the numbers 
 are 27 native clergy, 23,700 baptized, 7,600 catechumens, and 6,000 
 communicants. Yet the vast field of Missionary labour still open 
 in India calls aloud to the Church of England for labourers to plant 
 the Gospel. 
 
 " The spiritual wants of India more than those of any other quarter 
 of the globe determined the Church of England last December with 
 one voice to call upon the Lord of the harvest to send forth labourers 
 into His harvest. A gracious answer has already been vouchsafed
 
 6 Missions^ &"€. 
 
 to those prayers, and doubtless to the persevering prayers of the 
 Church a full answer will be given in the Lord's time. 
 
 " It must be mentioned with a feeling of thankfulness to God who 
 opens the hearts of men, that soon after the appointment of the Day 
 of Intercession the Society was supplied by two Special benefactions 
 with the means of beginning two new Missions, one in China and 
 the other in Japan. Soon afterwards four clergymen were selected 
 from those who at that time offered their personal services for 
 Missionary work. The Rev. A. C. Shaw and the Rev. M. Green- 
 wood are about to go to China, and the Rev. W. B. Wright and the 
 Rev. T, Peacey to Japan. 
 
 " In Australia an incident has occurred of too great importance 
 to the welfare of the Church in foreign parts to be omitted even in 
 this brief summary. A General Conference and Synod of the Bishops 
 and Representatives of the ten dioceses of Australia and Tasmania 
 was held at Sydney in October 1872, at which the foundations of 
 the Church were strengthened by the unanimous and hearty action 
 of the clergy and laity of those extensive dioceses. The Bishop of 
 Sydney writes at its close : ' Everything passed off most harmoniously 
 and successfully. I consider that a very important work has been 
 accomplished ; one by means of which the Church in these colonies 
 will be united more closely to the Church at home, and also be 
 preserved in internal peace.' 
 
 "The martyrdom of Bishop Patteson in the autumn of 1871 has 
 been followed even already by three benefits to the Missionary 
 Church of which he was the self-sacrificing leader. The alms of the 
 Churchmen have provided amply for a fitting memorial in a handsome 
 church in Norfolk Island and in a new and commodious Missionary 
 ship. Next, three additional native deacons were ordained by the 
 Bishop of Auckland in November — a remarkable addition to the 
 Christian ministry from a people who but twenty years ago were 
 regarded as savages of a very low type. And lastly, two true-hearted 
 volunteers have gone fi-om England to supply the places of fallen 
 martyrs, both men of experience in the ministry at home, and one 
 the worthy bearer of a name already honoured throughout the 
 Melanesian Islands. 
 
 " It only remains for the Society, at the end of the 171st year of its 
 labour as a handmaid of the Church of England, to call upon all 
 men of willing heart to bestow their prayers and their alms on the 
 great cause for which the Society was founded, and which still 
 requires the self-denying service of the true soldiers of Christ in this 
 world."
 
 
 MONTHLY MEETING. 
 
 The Monthly Meeting was held at 20, Duke Street, on Friday, June 20, Bishop 
 Piers Claughton in the Chair. There were also present Earl Powis, the Dean 
 of York, P. Cazenove, Esq., F. H. Dickinson, Esq., J. G. Hubbard, Esq., Rev. 
 Canon Harvey, J. E. Kempe, Vice-Presidents ; Rev. B. Belcher, H. B. Bousfield, 
 
 F. Bennett, B. Compton, Lord R, Cavendish, Dr. Currey, J. Floyer, Esq., 
 M.P., G. Frere, Esq., C. L. Higgins, Esq., Rev. H. T. Hill, C. R. C. Petley, 
 Esq., Hon. H. Walpole, Rev. R. T. West, Members of the Standing Committee; 
 and the Rev. James Allen, S. Arnott, W. Blunt, C. P. Berkeley, Esq.. John Boodle, 
 Esq., J. Cameron, Esq., Rev. W. H. Castleman, Canon Churton, S. Clark, H, N. 
 Collier, J. Collin, T. Copeman, Esq., Rev. T. Darling, Dr. Deane, J. W. Festing, 
 
 G. H. Fielding, Dr. Finch, J. F. France, Esq., Rev. C. D. Goldie, H. F. Johnson, 
 T. R. Kewley, R. Long, G. Miller, P. G. Medd, John Rivington, Esq., Rev. J. 
 H. Snowden, R. U. Todd, W. Trotter, Esq., W. E. Underwood, Esq., Rev. W. 
 Wallace, and T. Izaak Walton, Members of the Society. 
 
 1. Read Minutes of the Meetings held on May 16 and 26. 
 
 2. The Treasurers presented the following Statement of the Society's 
 Income to the end of May : — 
 
 A. — Monthly Abstract of Receipts and Payments. 
 
 I.— GENERAL FUND, at the disposal of the Society. II.— APPROPRIATED FUNDS, 
 administered by the Society. III. — SPECIAL FUNDS, not administered by the Society, but 
 transmitted direct to the persons named by the Donors . 
 
 January— May, 1873 . . 
 
 I. 
 
 Subscriptions, 
 
 Donatious, and 
 
 Collections. 
 
 2. 
 
 Legacies. 
 
 3- 
 Dividends, 
 Eents, &c. 
 
 Total 
 Beceifts. 
 
 Total 
 Patmekw. 
 
 I.— General .... 
 
 II.— Appropriated . . 
 
 III.— Special . . . . 
 
 10,157 
 1,400 
 3.644 
 
 5,826 
 
 £. 
 
 1,440 
 
 1,258 
 622 
 
 £ 
 
 17,423 
 
 2,658 
 4,266 
 
 £ 
 
 30,453* 
 1,752 
 4,048. 
 
 
 ISj20I 
 
 5,826 
 
 3,320 
 
 24.347 
 
 36,253 
 
 • In addition to this sum 0530,453/., the bills accepted, but not then paid, amount to 4,375/. 
 
 B. — Co7nparative Amount of Receipts at the end of May in five 
 consecutive years. 
 
 I. — General. 
 
 1. Subscriptions, &c. 
 
 2. Legacies . . . 
 
 3. Dividends . . . 
 
 II.— Appropriated . . . 
 
 HI. — SiPEClAL 
 
 Totals . . . 
 
 1869. 
 
 ;^9.244 
 5,414 
 1,629 
 
 16,287 
 1,808 
 3,583 
 
 it3i,678 
 
 1870. 
 
 [871. 
 
 1872. 
 
 £9A91 
 1,734 
 1,663 
 
 ;^9,i5i 
 5,410 
 1,373 
 
 ;£ 10,461 
 3. 45 1 
 1,355 
 
 12,894 
 2,900 
 4,795 
 
 ;£20,589 
 
 15,934 
 2,814 
 2,915 
 
 15,267 
 8,906 
 3,668 
 
 ;C2i,663 ! ;£27,84i 
 
 ^873- 
 
 ;^io,i57 
 5,826 
 1,440 
 
 17,423 
 2,658 
 4,c66 
 
 ;t24,347
 
 2 Monthly Meeting. 
 
 3. Resolved, on the recommendation of the Standing Committee : — 
 
 " (i.) That the Society take occasion to express its desire to enter into more 
 friendly and systematic communication with members of the Church in foreign 
 parts on the occasion of their visiting England. 
 
 **(ii.) That a Visitors' Book be opened at 20, Duke Street, Westminster, to 
 which clergymen and laymen of the , Church coming from abroad should be in- 
 vited to send their names and addresses and the period for which they stay. 
 
 " (iii.) That communication be opened with the American and Colonial Bishops, 
 and the corresponding Committees of the Society abroad, requesting them to make 
 known the desire of the Society to Churchmen on the occasion of their visiting 
 England, with a view to their names being recorded in the proposed book. 
 
 "(iv.) That the book be open to the inspection of members of the Society 
 and other persons interested in the welfare of the Church in foreign parts, in the 
 hope of promoting the intercommunion of members of the Church at home and 
 abroad, by mutual conference and friendly and hospitable meetings. 
 
 " (v.) That members of the Society resident in or near London, and wishing to 
 cultivate acquaintance with members of the Church abroad, be invited to commu- 
 nicate to the Secretary the times and occasion when it would suit them to receive 
 visitors." 
 
 4. On the recommendation of the Standing Committee the following 
 grants were made for the year 1 874 : — 
 
 Annual Grants Proposed for 1874. 
 
 I.— AMERICA, &c; 
 
 Montreal 1,800 
 
 Quebec 2,000 
 
 Ditto, Students 250 
 
 Ditto, Pensions 200 
 
 Toronto, Pensions 79 
 
 Huron 480 
 
 Ditto, Rev. A. Jamieson ... 75 
 
 Ontario 300 
 
 Fredericton 2,325 
 
 Ditto, Students 120 
 
 Ditto, Pensions 100 
 
 Nova Scotia ... .... 2,400 
 
 Ditto, Prince Edward's Island . 440 
 
 Newfoundland 4,260 
 
 Ditto, Students 50 
 
 Ditto, Pensions 50 
 
 Rupertsland 655 
 
 Columbia 1,200 
 
 Nassau 300 
 
 Antigua 300 
 
 Trinidad 150 
 
 Guiana 370 
 
 II.— AFRICA, &c. 
 
 15. Sierra Leone 200 
 
 16. Capetown (;^3oo to College) . . . 2,600 
 
 17. Grahamstown, Colonial .... 500 
 
 Ditto, Heathen and Transkei. . 3,250 
 
 Ditto, Independent Kaffraria. 1,100 
 
 18. Natal and Griqualand i)975 
 
 19. Zululand 525 
 
 20. St. Helena 250 
 
 21. Orange Free State 900 
 
 22. Mauritius 550 
 
 Ditto. Mrs. Franklin .... 20 
 
 23. Madagascar 1,700 
 
 III.— ASIA. 
 
 £ 
 
 24. Calcutta 11,300 
 
 Ditto, Bishop's College Salaries . 700 
 Ditto, Pensions 475 
 
 25. Madras, with Pensions, &c. . . . 12,000 
 
 26. Bombay 2,300 
 
 27. Colombo 1,500 
 
 28. Borneo and the Straits 3,200 
 
 Pension (Singapore) 40 
 
 29. China and Japan 2,000 
 
 IV.— AUSTRALASIA, &c. 
 
 30. Sydney, Moore College .... 50 
 
 Ditto, Life Payments .... 250 
 
 Ditto, N.E. Australia .... 150 
 
 31. Goulburn 200 
 
 Ditto, Life Payments .... 50 
 
 32. Newcastle 300 
 
 33. Brisbane .... 300 
 
 34. Adelaide (Pt. Darwin) 300 
 
 35. Melbourne 300 
 
 36. Perth 50 
 
 37. (Tasmania) 50 
 
 38. Auckland 50 
 
 39. Wellington 150 
 
 40. Nelson 150 
 
 41. Christchurch 200 
 
 42. Dunedin 100 
 
 43. Waiapu 100 
 
 44. Melanesia 300 
 
 45. Honolulu 400 
 
 V.-EUROPE. 
 
 46. Constantinople 490 
 
 47. Continental Chaplaincies .... 200 
 
 48. Emigrant Chaplains 129
 
 Monthly Meeting. 3 
 
 Single Payments. 
 
 Antigua, for Endowment 500 
 
 Nassau, for Endowment 500 
 
 Instalment of Powerscourt Legacy 230 
 
 PoNGAS, towards expense of Inspection 40 
 
 Madagascar, for building 250 
 
 Perth, towards Passage of Clergy 50 
 
 5. Resolved : — 
 
 " (i.) That the Authorities in the Dioceses of Montreal, Ontario, and Huron 
 be informed that the grants to those Dioceses will probably be considerably reduced 
 at the next appropriation, 
 
 " (ii.) That the Church people in the Diocese of Bloemfontein be urged to make 
 some regular efforts towards the endowment of that See, in accordance with the 
 conditions on which the Society undertook in 1869 to grant a stipend to the 
 Bishop. 
 
 ' ' (iii. ) That an addition be made to Regulation 49, to the effect that no local 
 Committee charged with the administration of the Society's Funds may include 
 any persons (except in some cases the Secretary) deriving benefit from the Society's 
 Funds." 
 
 6. Resolved, that the following Appropriated Funds be placed at the 
 disposal of the Bishop and Committee of the Diocese to which they 
 are appropriated : — 
 
 Delhi, 10/. 33-. ; Capetown, 35/. \']s. lod. ; Borneo, 20/. 15J. ; Melanesia, 
 267/. 19J. 3^. '; Natal, 29/. '^s. $(/. ; Zululand, 58/. ly. 2d. ; Newfoundland, 
 11/. 5^. ; Labrador, 10/. loj-. 
 
 7. Resolved, that as it appears that there is still a sum of 852/. 
 remaining of the Colonial Church Endowment Fund, and that applica- 
 tions have been made from the Dioceses of Quebec and Rupertsland 
 for grants from that Fund, a grant should be offered at once to the 
 Diocese of Quebec of 500/. from that Fund, to meet 2,500/. from local 
 sources, and on the understanding that there will be (on the payment of 
 the 500/.) a reduction of 100/. per annum in the Society's expenditure in 
 that Diocese. Also that the Diocese of Rupertsland be invited to apply 
 under the usual conditions for an additional grant of such amount as to 
 exhaust this Fund. 
 
 8. Resolved that the Rev. R. W. Griffith, of Llangadwaladr, be appointed 
 Organizing Secretary for the Archdeaconry of Bangor ; and the Rev. H. 
 J. Wale, of Folksworth, for the Archdeaconry of Hunts. 
 
 9. The Secretary stated that the Rev. Assheton Pownall, Vicar of 
 Kilworth, and E. H. B. Hambly, Esq., of B arrow-on- Suir, had been chosen 
 by the Peterborough Diocesan as Representative Members on the Standing 
 Committee, and approved by the Bishop. 
 
 Resolved that the elections be confirmed. 
 
 10. On the recommendation of the Board of Examiners, Messrs. Allen, 
 Allmond, Colbeck, Talbot, and Vallespinosa, five students of St. Augus- 
 tine's College, were approved for Missionary work ; and it was resolved that 
 Mr. Colbeck be allowed to remain as an Oriental Exhibitioner at St. 
 Augustine's College. 
 
 11. The Rev. Dr. Deane moved and ultimately withdrew the resolution 
 of which he had given notice — it being understood that the Secretary 
 would undertake to endeavour that reports of the Society's proceedings 
 at the Monthly Meeting should appear in the leading papers. 
 
 12. The Rev. T. Darling moved : — 
 
 " That the Standing Committee be requested, in concert with the President, to 
 take steps for the Society having an interview with the Shah of Persia on the oc-
 
 4 Mo7ithly Meeting. 
 
 casion of his Majesty's visit to this country, for the purpose of obtaining full and 
 legal toleration for evangelistic efforts in his Majesty's dominions." 
 
 This was withdrawn by permission of the meeting, and F. H. Dickinson, 
 Esq., moved : — 
 
 " That a special Committee be appointed, in concert with the President, to take 
 steps to represent to the Shah the desire of Christians in this country to obtain full 
 and legal toleration for the profession of the Christian Faith in his Majesty's 
 dominions; and that in the event of C.M.S. or S.P.C.K. desiring to make a 
 representation on the subject, the Standing Committee be authorized to co-operate 
 with them ; and that such Committee consist of Sir B. Frere, Rev. B. Belcher, 
 Dr. Currey, F. H. Dickinson, Esq., Rev. F. S. May, Rev. T. Darling, and 
 General Underwood, with power to add to their number. " 
 
 13. The Rev. S. Arnott gave notice of his intention to move at the next 
 Meeting :— 
 
 " That it be a condition annexed to all permanent grants made by the Society, 
 that a collection be made every year in aid of its Funds, in each parish, place, or 
 settled congregation where the ministrations of religion are in whole or in part 
 supported by the Society." 
 
 14. Grants at the rate of 10/. per annum, from Jan. i, 1873, were made 
 to four Students of the Mission House, Warminster. 
 
 15. The Rev. T. Darling gave notice of his intention to move at the 
 next Meeting : — 
 
 " That the Standing Committee be requested to enter into communication with 
 Mr. Murray, with the view of obtaining from him permission to circulate, at a 
 reduced price. Sir B. Frere's tractate entitled ' Indian Missions. ' " 
 
 16. The Rev. W. Blunt gave notice of his intention to call the atten- 
 tion of the Society at its next Monthly Meeting to certain mistakes which 
 are alleged to have been made by the officers of the Society with regard 
 to the election of certain members, with a view to making good the elec- 
 tion, if that election be found to be invalid. 
 
 All the members proposed in April were elected. 
 
 The following will be proposed for election at the Meeting in 
 October : — 
 
 James Robson, Esq., Brackenborough Hall, Louth ; Rev. T. J. Freeth, LL.D., 
 Fotherby ; Rev. J. T. Bartlet, St. John's, Mansfield ; Rev. E. S. Wilson, Winter- 
 ton, Brigg ; Rev. C. Edwards, Trinity, Bradford, Yorkshire ; Rev. G. B. Blenkin, 
 Boston ; Rev. F. H. Hotham, Rushbury, Church Stretton ; Rev. M. Amphlett, 
 Church-Lench ; Rev. C. S. Holthouse, Helidon, Daventry.
 
 The Freside?ifs Address. 7 
 
 The Archbishop of Canterbury in his opening address referred 
 to the presence of the late Governor of Madras as proving that 
 the days had gone by when it was a quaUfication for holding a great 
 and responsible office in our Indian Empire, that a man should be 
 altogether indifferent to the progress of that religion by which alone 
 peace and civilization would spread throughout the world. That 
 religion was now the hope of our Eastern dominions, and our admi- 
 nistrators there were known for their deep devotion to that faith 
 which was the guide of their own lives. As in every parish the 
 labours of the laity were as much esteemed as those of the clergy, so 
 the Missionary looked for help in his labours to the officers of the 
 Crown and merchants and others residing in heathen lands. For 
 such support he had fortunately not to seek in vain. 
 
 Two things in the report which had been read were worthy of notice. 
 One was the fact that during last year a larger number of subscrip- 
 tions had been received by the Society than at any previous time in 
 the course of its existence, and that, he thought, was a circumstance 
 which ought to give the Society courage for the future. But more 
 gratifying still was the recollection of the day in December last, 
 when, on an invitation issued by the Society, the whole nation inter- 
 ceded with Almighty God for blessing on Missionary work through- 
 out the world. Not only those who belonged to the Church of Eng- 
 land, but others interested in Missionary enterprise, joined them in 
 prayer on that solemn occasion. Perhaps they might have already 
 traced some answer to their intercessions in the success which the 
 Society had attained, but whether that answer was to be immediate 
 or not, they had expressed their faithful dependence on God, in 
 whose hands the result, speedy or otherwise, of all their work among 
 the heathen rested, and they waited in patience and in hope for the 
 blessing which they had sought. It might be suggested that, after 
 all, the labours of the Society had produced but a small result, but it 
 must be remembered that the institution was only one of many 
 having the same object and working in the same direction. It was, 
 he thought, the very argument by which they maintained the pro- 
 priety of such institutions as these, that in Societies more or less of a 
 private nature eveiyone found that mode of advancing Missionary 
 work which was most congenial to his own religious feelings, and to 
 his estimate and view of the work to be undertaken. Referring to 
 the proposal for establishing a Central Board of Missions, his Grace 
 observed that though such a Board might be very useful, he did not 
 believe for one moment that it would supersede those voluntary and 
 private efforts which the various Societies, each in its own way, were
 
 6 Missions, &^c. 
 
 to those prayers, and doubtless to the persevering prayers of the 
 Church a full answer will be given in the Lord's time. 
 
 " It must be mentioned with a feeling of thankfulness to God who 
 opens the hearts of men, that soon after the appointment of the Day 
 of Intercession the Society was supplied by two special benefactions 
 with the means' of beginning two new Missions, one in China and 
 the other in Japan. Soon afterwards four clergymen were selected 
 from those who at that time offered their personal services for 
 Missionary work. The Rev. A. C. Shaw and the Rev. M. Green- 
 wood are about to go to China, and the Rev. W. B. Wright and the 
 Rev. T. Peacey to Japan. 
 
 " In Australia an incident has occurred of too great importance 
 to the welfare of the Church in foreign parts to be omitted even in 
 this brief summary. A General Conference and Synod of the Bishops 
 and Representatives of the ten dioceses of Australia and Tasmania 
 was held at Sydney in October 1872, at which the foundations of 
 the Church were strengthened by the unanimous and hearty action 
 of the clergy and laity of those extensive dioceses. The Bishop of 
 Sydney writes at its close : ' Everything passed off most harmoniously 
 and successfully. I consider that a very important work has been 
 accomplished ; one by means of which the Church in these colonies 
 will be united more closely to the Church at home, and also be 
 preserved in internal peace.' 
 
 ''The martyrdom of Bishop Patteson in the autumn of 187 1 has 
 been* followed even already by three benefits to the Missionary 
 Church of which he was the self-sacrificing leader. The alms of the 
 Churchmen have provided amply for a fitting memorial in a handsome 
 church in Norfolk Island and in a new and commodious Missionary 
 ship. Next, three additional native deacons were ordained by the 
 Bishop of Auckland in November — a remarkable addition to the 
 Christian ministry from a people who but twenty years ago were 
 regarded as savages of a very low type. And lastly, two true-hearted 
 volunteers have gone from England to supply the places of fallen 
 martyrs, both men of experience in the ministry at home, and one 
 the worthy bearer of a name already honoured throughout the 
 Melanesian Islands. 
 
 " It only remains for the Society, at the end of the 171st year of its 
 labour as a handmaid of the Church of England, to call upon all 
 men of willing heart to bestow their prayers and their alms on the 
 great cause for which the Society was founded, and which still 
 requires the self-denyinr^^ service of the true soldiers of Christ in this 
 world."
 
 Jf0mgn farts. 
 
 MONTHLY MEETING. 
 
 The Monthly Meeting was held at 20, Duke Street, on Friday, June 20, Bishop 
 Piers Claughton in the Chair. There were also present Earl Powis, the Dean 
 of York, P. Cazenove, Esq., F. H, Dickinson, Esq., J. G. Hubbard, Esq., Rev. 
 Canon Harvey, J. E. Kempe, Vice-Presidents ; Rev. B. Belcher, H. B. Bousfield, 
 
 F. Bennett, B, Compton, Lord R. Cavendish, Dr. Currey, J. Floyer, Esq., 
 M.P., G. Frere, Esq., C. L. H:iggins, Esq., Rev. H. T. Hill, C. R. C. Petley, 
 Esq., Hon. H. Walpole, Rev. R. T. West, Members of the Standing Committee; 
 and the Rev. James Allen, S. Arnott, W. Blunt, C, P. Berkeley, Esq.. John Boodle, 
 Esq., J. Cameron, Esq., Rev. W. H. Castleman, Canon Churton, S. Clark, H. N. 
 Collier, J. Collin, T. Copeman, Esq., Rev. T. Darling, Dr. Deane, J. W, Festing, 
 
 G. H. Fielding, Dr. Finch, J. F. France, Esq., Rev. C. D. Goldie, H. F. Johnson, 
 T. R. Kewley, R. Long, G. Miller, P. G, Medd, John Rivington, Esq., Rev. J. 
 H. Snowden, R. U. Todd, W. Trotter, Esq., W. E. Underwood, Esq., Rev. W. 
 Wallace, and T. Izaak Walton, Members of the Society. 
 
 1. Read Minutes of the Meetings held on May 16 and 26. 
 
 2. The Treasurers presented the following Statement of the Society's 
 Income to the end of May : — 
 
 A. — Monthly Abstract of Receipts and Payments. 
 
 I.— GENERAL FUND, at the disposal of the Society. II.— APPROPRIATED FUNDS, 
 administered by the Society. III.— SPECIAL FUNDS, not administered by the Society, but 
 transmitted direct to the persons named by the Donors . 
 
 January — May, 1873 . . 
 
 I. 
 
 Subscriptions, 
 
 Donatioua, and 
 
 Collections. 
 
 2. 
 
 Legacies. 
 
 3- 
 Dividends, 
 Bents, &c. 
 
 Total 
 Receipts. 
 
 Total 
 Patmekw. 
 
 I.— General .... 
 
 II. — Appropriated . . 
 
 III.— Special . . . . 
 
 10,157 
 1,400 
 3,644 
 
 £ 
 
 5,826 
 
 £ 
 1,440 
 
 1,258 
 
 622 
 
 £ 
 
 2,658 
 4,266 
 
 30,453* 
 1,752 
 4,048 
 
 
 15,201 
 
 5,826 
 
 3,320 
 
 24,347 
 
 36,253 
 
 • In addition to this sum of 30,453/., the bills accepted, but not then paid, amount to 4,375/- 
 
 B. — Co7nparative Amount of Receipts at the end of May in five 
 consecutive years. 
 
 I.— General. 
 
 1. Subscriptions, &c. 
 
 2. Legacies . . . 
 
 3. Dividends . . . 
 
 II. — Appropriated . . . 
 til.— SlPECIAL 
 
 Totals . . . 
 
 1869. 
 
 ;C9,244 
 5,414 
 1,629 
 
 16,287 
 1,808 
 3,583 
 
 ^^21,678 
 
 1870. 
 
 1871. 
 
 1872. 
 
 £9A91 
 1,734 
 1,663 
 
 ;^9,i5i ;^io,46i 
 5.410 } 3,451 
 1,373 i 1,355 
 
 12,894 
 2,900 
 
 4,795 
 
 £-20,1% 
 
 15,934 
 2.814 
 2,915 
 
 [5,267 
 8,906 
 3,668 
 
 ;{;2i,663 I ;£27,84i 
 
 1873. 
 
 ;^io,i57 
 5,826 
 1,440 
 
 17.423 
 2,658 
 4,c66 
 
 ;C24,347
 
 8 Missions, c^c'. 
 
 making in the interests of Christianity. The Society for the Propa- 
 gation of the Gospel had always professed to be more than any other 
 the handmaid of the Church of England, and to submit to the con- 
 troUing power of those who governed in that Church ; and it would, 
 he thought, be an evil day for it if at any time it forgot those princi- 
 ples on which it depended for existence, and declined to render in 
 all cases that sort of quiet allegiance to the decisions of the Church 
 in connection with which it was founded. With the other Missionary 
 Societies, if it had any rivalry at all, it was of the most kindly and 
 Christian character, for their work was the same, though their manner 
 of performing it was distinct and different. His Grace called atten- 
 tion to the fact that a noble lord, the President of the Church Mis- 
 sionary Society, was one of the delegates elected as representatives of 
 the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel for the Diocese of Chi- 
 chester. The Archbishop concluded by urging that, however much 
 . might be the public zeal for Missionary work, and however large the 
 annual revenue, yet, after all, the actual personal labour of Mission- 
 aries was what was most urgently required. 
 
 Lord Napier and Ettrick, late Governor of Madras, being called 
 upon by the Chairman, said : — 
 
 My Lord Archbishop, ladies, and gentlemen, I do not present 
 myself to your notice on this occasion without a strong sentiment of 
 hesitation and reluctance, for I well know that neither by my life 
 nor my learning, nor by services rendered to the cause of evangelical 
 religion, have I a claim to appear as the advocate and defender of 
 Missionary work. I have, however, been invited to take this part by 
 competent authority, which has deemed that my testimony may be 
 of some value to the cause. Under these circumstances I feel that 
 it would be unjust and ungrateful if I did not afhrm the important 
 services rendered to secular government in India by Missionary 
 agencies — if I did not tender to the Missionary body my personal 
 thanks for many good offices, many acts of kindness and regard 
 rendered to me during the period of my Indian employments. 
 
 Christian Missions are useful to secular government in India in 
 two ways — as an educational agency and as a philanthropic or social 
 agency. You are aware of the system which the Government of 
 India has embraced in the prosecution of education. The Govern- 
 ment of India has neither the financial resources nor the professional 
 instruments at its disposal requisite for the instruction of the vast 
 population committed to its charge. It entertains an Educational 
 Department and a numerous staff of accomplished teachers, but 
 these means arc altogether incommensurate to the task. The
 
 Lord Napier, — Usefulness of Missions. g 
 
 Government therefore wisely appeals to the assistance of Christian 
 philanthropy — a power which, if properly invoked and duly trusted, 
 will never be weary and never be still. The Government cares not 
 from whence this aid is furnished, whether it comes from Rome or 
 Edinburgh, from Canterbury or Boston. The great principles of 
 denominational teaching and concurrent endowment are admitted in 
 tlie widest sense. All the Government insists on is a system of 
 teaching consistent with morality and loyalty and reaching to certain 
 intellectual standards, and, these conditions fulfilled, the most gene 
 rous incentives and supports are freely supplied, without a question 
 as to the dogmatic instruction which the several Missionary agencies 
 superadd. Now, what are the benefits which the Government secures 
 to the Indian people by this system of auxiliary teaching ? 
 
 The Missions teach more cheaply than the Government can teach. 
 If all the elem.ents of expenditure be considered, the outlay per head 
 in a voluntary but aided school is not one-third of the cost incurred 
 in a State school of the same grade. It may be fairly asserted that 
 the Mission school gives a higher form or a larger share of moral and 
 spiritual instruction, even to those who do not belong to the Chris- 
 tian religion. I do not deny that the secular State school might find 
 in the native literature of Southern India the maxims of a high 
 morahty, scarcely inferior to that of the Gospel itself ; but moral or 
 spiritual teaching will not obtain in a secular heathen school as great 
 a share of attention as it does in a Christian school, and the heathen 
 pupil in a Mission school will have the benefit of the ethics of Chris- 
 tianity even while he declines its dogmas. Again : the Mission school 
 leaches the heathen pupil what Christianity is, although it may not 
 teach him to be a Christian. Nor is this a slight advantage. If it 
 is reckoned an indispensable duty on the part of the English in 
 India, on the part of the governing class, to be intimately informed 
 of the creeds and customs of the governed, is it not of great import- 
 ance that the Hindoos and Mussulmans should have correct notions of 
 the religion of their masters — a religion which has such a powerful influ- 
 ence in shaping the policy of our country ? It is impossible that our 
 li^astern subjects should ever have a true estimate of English and Euro- 
 ])ean politics without a knowledge of Christianity, and that knowledge 
 the greater number can only obtain from the Mission school. Again : 
 the Mission school is indispensable for the instruction of the Chris- 
 tian population of India. That population numbers more than a 
 million souls, and it is increasing. The Christian population desire 
 and deserve to be educated in schools of their own several creeds. 
 For various reasons, which I need not enter upon, the Christian
 
 10 Missions, ore. 
 
 parent, while not by any means rejecting the benefits of the secular 
 State school, prefers that his child should not be educated in connec- 
 tion with the heathen, at least while the Christian school can give 
 equal intellectual advantages associated with religious instruction. 
 This is especially the case with those of the Roman Catholic religion 
 — an ancient religion in India, which has survived some persecution 
 and much neglect, which possesses adherents four or five times as 
 numerous as the Protestants, and which, under the charge of the 
 Order of Jesus, is now entering upon a course of elevation and deve- 
 lopment. It may be affirmed that without the Mission school the 
 Protestant people of India would suffer materially in their education, 
 while the Roman Catholic people would scarcely be educated at ail- 
 Finally, gentlemen, the Mission school is the most appropriate edu- 
 cational agency for women and for the very poor. The Protestant 
 Missionary has great advantages in the prosecution of female educa- 
 tion. His sacred office, his known morality, his long residence, his 
 durable connection with certain localities, the devoted help of his 
 wife and daughters in the good work, all combine to inspire a degree 
 of confidence which the secular teacher would not enjoy. Expe- 
 rience proves that the most flourishing schools for Hindoo girls are 
 conducted by Christian Missionaries, nor is this superiority apparent 
 only in teaching the female members of the heathen community ; the 
 Christian Missionary is indispensable to the formation of the native 
 female teacher, by whom the benefits of female education can alone 
 be carried over the length and breadth of the country. As far as I 
 can see, for a length of time the greater number of female teachers 
 must be native Christian women, for there is unfortunately much in 
 the social institution both of Hindoos and Mussulmans to debar the 
 respectable women of those religions from engaging in the office of 
 education. If this be the case, then are the Mission schools the 
 normal training schools for female education in India. Not less is 
 the Mission school the proper school for the outcast poor. To this 
 numerous class of the population — the most forlorn, destitute, and 
 degraded — the Government school and the heathen grant-in-aid 
 school are practically unavailable. The Government, indeed, opens 
 its doors on equal terms to the Brahmin and the Pariah, and the 
 native grant-in-aid school would only obtain State support by profes- 
 sing to act on the same principles. But the power of caste and 
 social position is irresistible : it is no uncommon thing to see such 
 schools numbering hundreds of pupils with scarcely a low-caste or 
 an outcaste boy. Even the Mission schools themselves of the higher 
 order suffer from the same difficulties, and present but a small
 
 Usefulness of Missions, ii 
 
 percentage of outcaste scholars compared with those of a higher 
 condition. If the Missionary did not step in, the caste-less order of 
 the population would remain without teaching. 
 
 Such, my lord and gentlemen, briefly stated, are the peculiar 
 functions and benefits attached to Missionary agency as a teach- 
 ing power. 
 
 I shall now consider the Missionary in connection with philanthro- 
 pic and social work. And in doing this I shall ask this meeting to 
 consider for a moment the character of the English population resi- 
 dent in India. That population, small in number and scattered 
 among an innumerable multitude of native races, is composed of 
 civil ofiicers, of soldiers, and of persons engaged in commercial or 
 industrial pursuits. The Indian civilians constitute a noble service ; 
 no body of public servants are more devoted to their duties, and 
 none have the welfare of the people more truly, more affectionately 
 at heart. But still, what is the Indian civilian in the eyes of the 
 people? Chiefly a tax-gatherer, a magistrate, an administrative 
 authority, the representative of a power, just and benevolent indeed, 
 but no doubt in the popular view severe and exacting. The miHtary 
 officer has no concern with the Indian people beyond the limit of his 
 lines. The English merchant and planter are of vast importance to 
 the Indian people by the development of traffic and culture, but 
 their relations with the people are of an interested nature. They 
 make haste to be rich and go away. Is it, then, of no importance 
 that there should be in India another order of Englishmen, men_of 
 piety and learning, of pure lives and disinterested pursuits, bearing 
 testimony to the spiritual world, engaged in teaching for the love of 
 God, the duties of man to the Divinity, and of men to one another ? 
 An order of men walking between the Government and the people, 
 independent of both, equally well affected to both? I regard the 
 Christian Missionaries as such an order of men; I consider that 
 their presence in India is a perpetual spontaneous manifestation of 
 goodwill towards India on the part of the English people who send 
 those Missionaries forth. I consider that the teaching and working 
 Missionary is a demonstration to the Indian people, that though 
 England possesses India for her own glory and profit, England 
 would not for one day enjoy the benefits attached to this magnifi- 
 cent possession without avowing and performing the duties attached 
 to this position, without offering and carrying to India what she 
 deems most precious and most useful to mankind. As a matter of 
 fact and practice the Christian Missionaries are chiefly useful to the 
 people in social work as counsellors and leaders of the people in
 
 12 MisSt'oflS, QJ^C. 
 
 their local interests, and as agents for the dissemination of medical 
 relief. 
 
 A new sphere of social duty and improvement has been opened for 
 the people in many parts of India, by the institution of local taxation 
 and municipal and rural boards. The foundation of local self- 
 government has been laid, though its progress may be slow. In the 
 outset of this system, the co-operation with the people of serious, 
 impartial, reflecting Europeans has been beneficial, and may become 
 more beneficial still. Such co-operation is afforded by the Missionary 
 body, unhappily only too few in number. In remote rural districts 
 I would advise the Missionary not to be afraid of mixing himself in 
 the secular concerns of the people. It would not be so necessary or 
 advisable in the larger towns. I have myself seen at least two 
 instances in which the Missionary was a trusted, acceptable, and 
 authoritative member of the Municipal Commission. Irrespective of 
 this official or semi-ofiicial intervention, the Missionaries are actively 
 useful in the secular business of their congregations, and thus indi- 
 rectly contributing to the interests of all. I have seen them promoting 
 agriculture in Tinnevelly and manufactures in Malabar. I have seen 
 a venerable and experienced Missionary belonging to this Society 
 the counsellor of Government itself in matters of the highest import 
 to the welfare of the country. 
 
 Of the Medical Missions I have seen much, and with the deepest 
 interest. In no way can the Christian teacher present himself with 
 more favour and more benefit than as the rehever of suffering and 
 the healer of disease. The establishments instituted by the Ame- 
 rican Mission in North Arcot and Madura, under the superin- 
 tendence respectively of Dr. Scudder and Dr. Chester, and the 
 dispensaries of this Society in Tinnevelly, under the direction of 
 Dr. Strachan, are institutions of Christian beneficence of the noblest 
 character. 
 
 Having said thus much on the secular usefulness of Christian 
 Missions, it maybe expected that I should not pass over the spiritual 
 aspect of Missionary labour entirely in silence. Christianity, in all 
 its forms and creeds, continues to spread by gradual accretion, and 
 occasionally by contagious movements of more or less importance. 
 The causes which have operated to produce these results will operate 
 in future. I doubt whether the nature of the agency employed at 
 present could be rendered more effectual by any of the changes 
 which I have heard suggested. The Protestant Mission is founded 
 on a family basis, on a home system, on the co-operation of the 
 Missionary, his wife, and his daughter in a common work. This
 
 Usefulness of Missions. 13 
 
 system probably commands the largest share of sympathy in the 
 Protestant community here and in that of India. The Roman 
 Catholics have their appropriate organizations of a different character. 
 I do not consider that anything would be gained by endeavouring to 
 impress on our Missions a more austere, self-denying, ascetic cha- 
 racter. Nor is there any way in which they could be maintained 
 with equal efficiency at a lower cost. If I may venture to offer any 
 advice to this Society with reference to the successful prosecution of 
 their spiritual work, I would suggest that they should be careful not 
 to let the standard of their purely European agency decline. The 
 East Indian race has in some instances furnished learned and zealous 
 ministers, and a native ministry is essential to the consolidation of 
 the rural congregations ; but the unity and discipline of the Christian 
 communities and the progress of conversion can only be secured by 
 the employment of Englishmen of culture, learning, and enthusiasm, 
 of men prompted by the highest impulses of faith and conscience. 
 On the one hand the intellectual standard of the heathen is con- 
 stantly advanced by State teaching and by Missionary teaching 
 itself; on the other, the Roman Catholic Missions are directed by 
 French and English Jesuits of distinguished attainments and ability. 
 This powerful and ancient Society should not suffer its representatives 
 to fall behind their adversaries and rivals. I would also say, address 
 your efforts more to the lowest classes, and through the channel of 
 elementary education ; for in those classes, and through that instru- 
 mentality, converts are most likely to be attained. I would not indeed 
 propose to you to withdraw your support from those schools of a 
 higher character which have been raised to such a pitch of efficiency 
 and reputation — no one who has seen those schools in Trichinopoly 
 and Tan j ore would have courage to advise their abandonment or 
 reduction ; but the contemplated development of elementary educa- 
 tion among the masses, in connection with local taxation, affords a 
 valuable opening to Missionary agency. 
 
 In conclusion, I must not forget that the Missionary bodies are a 
 valuable auxiliary to the official clergy in procuring spiritual offices 
 for the English residents in India. The Government chaplains 
 cannot even now cover the w^hole field of work, and we have reason 
 to apprehend that the official establishment is more likely to be 
 reduced than expanded. In such a case, it is to the Missions that 
 the scattered settlements of our countrymen must look for the salutary 
 influences and consolations of religion. 
 
 My lord and gentlemen, I must apologize to you for the length 
 of time during which I have been induced to address you. Yet
 
 14 A fissions, ^'c. 
 
 there are many things on behalf of Missions which he near my heart, 
 and which I have left unsaid. I shall conclude by expressing my 
 earnest hope that the zeal of my countrymen for this religious and 
 philanthropic work may never be relaxed or abated, and that the 
 Governments of India will never cease to afford to Christian Missions 
 a cordial though moderate and discriminating support. 
 
 The Rev. J. B. Lightfoot, Canon of St. Paul's, being called upon 
 by the Chairman, read the following paper on the subject of the 
 comparative progress of ancient and modern missions : — 
 
 It is hardly possible to glance over the columns of a newspaper, or 
 to overhear a conversation in society, where the subject is discussed, 
 without encountering some expression of impatience at the slow 
 progress of modern missions ; and not unfrequently it will be stated 
 that they are an acknowledged failure. 
 
 Now it is my conviction that this disappointment is quite as 
 unreasonable as it is faithless. I beHeve that all such misgivings will 
 melt before a thorough investigation of facts ; that if we would lay 
 this spectre of ill success, we need only the courage to face it ; and 
 above all, that an appeal to history will dispel any gloomy forebodings 
 on this score. It will be found, if I mistake not, that the resem- 
 blances of early and recent missions are far greater than their con- 
 trasts ; that both alike have had to surmount the same difficulties 
 and been chequered by the same vicissitudes ; that both alike 
 exhibit the same inequalities of progress, the same alternations of 
 success and failure, periods of acceleration followed by periods of 
 retardation, when the surging wave has been sucked back in the 
 retiring current, while yet the flood has been rising steadily all along, 
 though the unobservant eye might fail to mark it, advancing towards 
 that final consummation when the earth shall be covered with the 
 knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea. History is 
 an excellent cordial for the drooping courage. 
 
 To history therefore I make my appeal. And yet here I am im- 
 pressed with the difficulties which beset my path. Anyone who has 
 endeavoured to arrive at definite results respecting the progress of 
 Christianity in the early and middle ages must be struck with the 
 paucity of data. It is only here and there that he finds a statistical 
 fact on which, as on firm standing ground, he can plant his foot 
 securely. For the rest, hypothetical combinations and plausible 
 analogies must be summoned to fill up the void. Yet out of all this 
 uncertainty, unless I am deceived, enough of fact will emerge to 
 justify an inference and to point a moral.
 
 Professor Lightfoot. — Progress of Missions: i 5 
 
 As a starting point to my comparison of the present and the past, 
 I shall try to ascertain the proportion of the Christian population to 
 the whole human race at two different epochs. The one point of time 
 shall be the middle of the third century, when the Gospel had been 
 preached for nearly two centuries and a quarter, amid all the dis- 
 couragements of a worldly opposition, but with all the zeal of a new- 
 born enthusiasm ; the other, the age in which we live, when it has 
 passed through a chequered career of almost eighteen centuries and 
 a half. 
 
 Now I have compared the estimates given by several able statisti- 
 cians of the proportion which the Christians bear to the whole human 
 race at the present time or in the present generation, and I find that 
 it is generally reckoned at a little more or a little less than one-third 
 of the whole. This is pretty nearly the estimate of Wiggers and of 
 Berghaus.^ One authority however places it at one-fifth. ^ To avoid 
 exaggeration, I will take the lowest estimate. 
 
 For the statistics of the earlier epoch which I propose to take, I am 
 mainly indebted to Gibbon's investigations. These I have examined 
 step by step ; and though it is impossible to feel anything like abso- 
 lute certainty about the result, yet I have not found reason to ques- 
 tion the general truth of his calculations. At all events nothing 
 has yet been alleged on the opposite side which deserves the same 
 attention. What then are the facts ? 
 
 Setting aside the rhetorical passages of Tertullian and other writers,-'^ 
 which I will not venture with Gibbon to characterize as "splendid 
 exaggerations," but which, even if taken literally, bear witness, with 
 one exception, rather to the wide diffusion than to the overflowing 
 numbers of the Christians, we turn to statements at once more sober 
 and more definite, 
 
 Origen wrote his treatise against Celsus about the year 246, when 
 the Church had enjoyed a long period of uninterrupted peace, so 
 that circumstances had been peculiarly favourable to her growth. 
 
 ^ Wiggers (1842) reckons the Christians at 228 millions out of 657 millions; 
 Berghaus (1852) at 307 per cent. It is plain that so long as statisticians differ in 
 their estimates of the whole population of the globe by several hundred millions, 
 all attempts at establishing a proportion must be most precarious. The element 
 of uncertainty however is not in the Christian so much as in the non-Christian 
 portion. 
 
 2 Sondermann, in the Church Missionary Society's Atlas, where other estimates 
 also will be found. 
 
 3 Justin, Z>za/. c. 117 ; Tertull. Apol. 37 ; Adv. Jud. 7 : see Gibbon ii. p. 369 
 seq. I beUeve that if anyone will read these passages carefully, making the same 
 allowance for the rhetoric of enthusiasm which he would make in a parliamentaiy 
 speech or a missionary sermon, he will see that they are not inconsistent with the 
 conclusions at which I liave arrived below.
 
 i6 Alissions, 6^^, 
 
 Speaking of the efficacy of the prayers of the Christians, he asks 
 what might not be expected, ''if not only a very few indeed {irdw 
 oXiyoi) were to agree, as now, but all the subjects ^of the Roman 
 Empire." ^ To a Christian the proportion of the Christians would 
 appear larger than it actually was ; for they would occupy the fore- 
 ground in his field of view. It is no insignificant fact, therefore, 
 that Origen should speak of them as a very small fraction of the 
 Empire.^ 
 
 Though Origen's statement is general, he more especially represents 
 the flourishing Church of Alexandria. Not very different is the 
 impression derived from a notice relating to Asia Miijior. Gregory 
 Thaumaturgus, a pupil of Origen, was appointed to the see of Neo- 
 caesarea, the most important town, if not the metropolis, of Pontus, 
 about the year 240. After working on for about a quarter of a 
 century with marvellous success, he was able to express his thank- 
 fulness at the close of his life that he left only seventeen heathens in 
 the town and neighbourhood, though when he went there he had 
 found only as many Christians.^ We are not perhaps required to 
 take his statement literally, but after all reasonable deductions it is 
 plain that the Christians then formed only a minute and inappreciable 
 fraction of the population in one of the largest towns in Asia Minor 
 — so minute perhaps, that they would pass unnoticed in the mass of 
 their heathen fellow-citizens.'* 
 
 From Asia Minor I turn to Rome. In the capital, there is every 
 reason to think, the Christians were as influential, and bore as large 
 
 ^ c Cels, viii. 69 (I. p. 794, Delarue). 
 
 ' On the other hand Blunt, Firsf Three Centuries, p. 209 seq., quotes other 
 passages from Origen, in which, like Justin and Tertullian, he speaks of the wide 
 diffusion and great numbers of the Christians. These passages must be taken for 
 what they are worth ; but they cannot seriously invalidate the testimony of an 
 incidental notice such as I have quoted. Origen's words [c. Cels. i. 27), it is right 
 to add, are not nearly so strong in the original as they appear in Mr. Robertson's 
 quotation (i. p. 152). 
 
 '^ Greg. Nyss. Op. iii. p. 574 seq. ; comp. Basil, de Spir. Sand. iii. p. 63. The 
 passages are referred to in Tillemont, iv. p. 327. The saying of Gregory Thauma- 
 turgus is reported, as 1 have given it in "the text, by Gregory Nyssen. On the 
 other hand Basil inverts his brother's mode of statement, and says expressly that 
 there were only seventeen Christians in Neocaesarea when Gregory Thaumaturgus 
 entered upon his charge. I have felt bound to prefer the account of the former, 
 as being less favourable to my own views and as inherently more probable. 
 
 * Gibbon glances at, but does not solve, the difficulty of reconciling this notice 
 with the account which Pliny gives, more than a century and a quarter earlier, of 
 the rapid spread of Christianity in these parts. The explanation seems to be two- 
 fold : (i) It is clear from his own account that the judicious persecution which 
 Pliny himself instituted was very effective, and perhaps later persecutions also may 
 have done their work. (2) There was a strong Pagan revival in the middle of the 
 second century, which, backed by the zeal and personal character of the Antonines, 
 made great progress in several parts. On this latter point see Friedlander, 
 Sittengeschichte Roffis, iii. y. 430.
 
 Progress of Missions. 17 
 
 a proportion to the heathen population as in any part of the Empire, 
 except possibly some districts of Africa, and some exceptional cities 
 elsewhere, such as Antioch. Now in an extant letter of Cornelius,^ 
 who was Bishop of Rome from 250 to 252, it is stated that the number 
 of widows and others receiving the alms of the Church was over 
 1,500. Unfortunately the whole number ot the Christians is not 
 recorded ; but in the Church of Antioch, somewhat later, we find 
 that the proportion of these recipients of alms was three for every 
 hundred.^ Assuming this same proportion to hold for Rome^ 
 (and there is at all events no reason for supposing it less), we should 
 get 50,000 as the whole number of Roman Christians. Now, at the 
 very lowest estimate the population of Rome amounted to one 
 million (some make it a million and a half);^ so that the Chris- 
 tians at this time would form somewhat less than one-twentieth of 
 the whole. This is Gibbon's estimate, and, so far as I am able to 
 judge, it errs on the side of excess rather than of defect. At all 
 events the sepulchral monuments do not suggest anything like this 
 proportion. The extant Christian inscriptions, which can certainly 
 be referred to the second and third centuries, may almost be counted 
 on the fingers, while the heathen inscriptions of the same period must 
 reckon by hundreds or thousands. In De Rossi's collection of early 
 Christian inscriptions in Rome, I find that only nine are included 
 prior to the middle of the third century. Of these several are 
 assumed to be Christian from certain indications without definite 
 proof, and the earliest which is quite indisputable belongs to the 
 year 234.^ 
 
 From Rome again I pass to Gaul. It is recorded in the martyro- 
 logy of Saturninus, who was appointed missionary Bishop of Toulouse 
 in the year 250, that at this time "only a church had been raised 
 
 ^ Euseb. H. E. vi. 43. Cornelius also states that there were in the Roman 
 Church 46 presbyters, 7 deacons, 7 subdeacons, 42 acolytes, and 50 readers, 
 exorcists, and porters. 
 
 2 S. Chrysostom (vii. p. 810, ed. Bened.) reckons the number of the Christians 
 at Antioch, on a rough calculation {olyLaC), at 100,000. In another passage (vii. 
 p. 658) he states that the number of widows and virgins receiving the alms of the 
 Church there is 3,000. As the progress of Christianity was less rapid among the 
 wealthier classes in the earlier ages than in the later, we are almost certainly on the 
 safe side when we apply to the middle of the third century this proportion which 
 belongs to the end of the fourth. It should be added, that Cornelius includes 
 others besides widows and virgins in the 1,500. 
 
 '^ Gibbon remarks in his note (ii. p. 366) that this proportion was first fixed for 
 Rome by Burnet, and approved by Moyle, though they were ignorant of the 
 passage in Chrysostom. He adds that this passage "converts their conjecture 
 almost into a fact." 
 
 * For estimates of the population of Rome see Friedlander, Sittengeschiclite 
 Roms, i. p. 23 ; Becker ond Marquardt, Rom. Alferfh., iii. 2, p. loi. 
 
 ^ On the other hand, some of those included among the collections of heathen 
 inscriptions may have been Christian, though they give no indication of the fact. 
 
 B
 
 1 8 Missions^ 6^r. 
 
 here and there in some cities " of Gaul, " by the devotion of a few 
 Christians." ^ It is true that more than two generations before the 
 martyrdoms at Vienne and Lyons bear witness to the presence of many 
 zealous Christians in those cities ; but these, as may be gathered 
 from the narrative, were chiefly Greek and Asiatic settlers. ^ In the 
 middle of the third century then, we may reasonably infer that 
 native Gaul was not more Christian than native India is at the 
 present time. 
 
 These facts relate to some of the principal cities of the Empire ; 
 and if the proportion of the Christians even in these was so small, 
 what must it have been in the rural districts ? The word *' pagan " 
 tells its own tale. Long after the inhabitants of the cities had been 
 converted to Christianity, the peasant still remained a synonyme for 
 the unbeliever. 
 
 From such notices as these Gibbon argues that at the time of 
 Constantine's conversion not more than a twentieth part of the sub- 
 jects of the Empire had enlisted themselves under the banner of the 
 Cross, and this, on " the most favourable calculation." ^ Of the age of 
 Constantine I dare affirm nothing, for the notices do not refer to 
 this late date ; and moreover there are indications of a rapid increase 
 during the interval \ but at the time of which I am speaking, the 
 middle of the third century, we may feel tolerably confident that we 
 are overstating the proportion if we reckon the Christians at one- 
 twentieth of the subjects of the Empire.^ 
 
 And if so, what was this proportion to the population of the whole 
 world? Here we have to take account of the densely peopled 
 empires of the East, such as India and China ; we have to reckon in 
 the swarming tribes of barbarians who poured down upon the Empire 
 
 ^ Ruinart, Act. Sine. Mart. p. 130, " Rarce in aliquibus civitatibus ecclesioe 
 paucorum Christianorum devotione consurgei^ent." 
 
 2 Euseb. V. i. The date of the letter in which these mai-tyrdoms are recorded is 
 A,D. 177. The points to be observed are: (i) That the names of the sufferers 
 are Greek or Latin ; (2) That two are distinctly stated to have come from Asia 
 Minor ; (3) That the letter is addressed to the "brethren of Asia and Phiygia," 
 evidently because these latter were nearly interested in the incidents ; (4) That 
 the Churches of Gaul at this time are known to have been indebted to Asia Minor 
 for their leaders, as e.g. in the case of Irenaeus. 
 
 •"^ ii. p. 372. Schafif, History of the Christian Church, i. p. 152, estimates 
 the proportion at one-tenth ; Robertson (i. p. 156), whose estimate seems to be as 
 high as any, at one-fifth. I abstain from conjecture where there is an absence of 
 data ; but attention should be directed to the fact that the spread of Christianity 
 appears to have been very rapid between the Decian and Diocletian persecutions, 
 in the last half of the third century. 
 
 "* Even if the proportion were three or fourfold greater, which is highly impro- 
 bable, it woukl be difficult to justify the language held by the leading journal in 
 an article on the day of Intercession : "Once on a time a man {i.e. S. Paul) landed 
 on the shores of Europe determined to convert it, and he did convert, for his work 
 is done after some sort, if not quite as it should be."
 
 Progress of Missio7is. i g 
 
 in countless hordes from the north and north-east, within a very few- 
 years ; we have to allow for the unexplored regions of Africa, the 
 unknown western hemisphere, the countless islands of the ocean. 
 Should we then be wronging the Empire if we estimated its subjects 
 as constituting from one-seventh to one-tenth of the whole population 
 of the globe ? If so, the Christians at this time cannot, on the most 
 favourable computation, have amounted to much more than ifoth of 
 the whole human race ; for the scanty congregations outside the 
 limits of the Empire may be dismissed from our reckoning, as they 
 would not appreciably affect the result. I am quite aware that the 
 relative strength of Christendom at the two epochs is determined by 
 other considerations as well as the numbers. But, after all deduc- 
 tions made on this account, shall we suffer ourselves to be over- 
 whelmed with dismay because, as we pass from the third century 
 to the nineteenth, the proportion of one in 150 is only exchanged to 
 one in five ? 
 
 Soon after the epoch which I have chosen, the proportion doubt- 
 less was vastly increased.-^ The conversion of the Emperor had an 
 enormous influence on the conversion of the Empire. Then the bar- 
 barian tribes poured in, sweeping everything before them. They 
 came, saw, and were conquered. Mohammedanism constrained the 
 vanquished, but Christianity conquered the conqueror. Yet even then 
 it is quite a mistake to suppose that wherever the banner of the 
 Gospel was carried the victory was rapid and complete. Take the 
 case of our own island. There were Christians in Britain at all 
 events before the end of the second century, when Tertullian wrote. 2 
 Yet four centuries later, when Augustine landed, he found the Chris- 
 tian communities feeble and insignificant — so feeble, that they had 
 done nothing towards evangelizing the Teutonic invaders, though a 
 whole century had elapsed since their occupation of the island. And 
 shall we then, with this lesson before us, hang our hands in despair 
 because after a little more than half a century of not too zealous mis- 
 
 ^ Yet even at the close of the fourth century S. Chrysostom, who certainly 
 would not be likely to underrate their numbers, reckons the Christians of Antioch 
 at 100,000 (vii. p. 810), while he states the whole population of the city to 
 be 200,000 (ii. p. 597). Consistently with this he elsewhere (i. p. 592) speaks of 
 the Christians as "the majority of the city" (t3 -nXiov ttjs TtSheoos). Gibbon, over- 
 looking the second passage, reckons the whole population of Antioch at " not less 
 than half a million," so that the Christians would only form one-fifth of the whole, 
 and endeavours to show that this estimate is consistent with the third passage. But 
 whatever reasons there may be for taking this larger estimate of the population, it 
 was clearly not S. Chrysostom's. Still the fact is striking enough that "after 
 Christianity had enjoyed during more than sixty years the sunshine of Imperial 
 favour," the Christians constituted only about half of the population in a city 
 which had had greater advantages than any other. 
 
 * Tertull. adv. Jud. c. 7, " Britannorum inaccessa Romanis loca."
 
 20 Missions^ c^c. 
 
 sionary effort,^ India is not already prostrate at the foot of the Cross ? 
 But let me pass from this comparison of proportions to some 
 analogies between ancient and modern missions, which also have 
 their lessons of consolation and encouragement. 
 
 (i.) When we look to the history of ancient missions, we find an 
 enormous difference in the rates of progress with different religions 
 and races. The rude and barbarous northern tribes seem to fall 
 like full-ripe fruit before the first breath of the Gospel. The Goths 
 and the Vandals who poured down upon the Roman Empire were 
 evangelized so silently or so rapidly that only a fact here and 
 there relating to their conversion has been preserved. At a later 
 date the baptism of a prince carries with it the baptism of his people. 
 Clovis among the Franks, Ethelbert in Kent, are instances of this. 
 But wherever the Gospel found itself confronted with a high 
 civilization and an old historic religion, the case was widely different. 
 The religion of Rome was interwoven with its history, with its literature, 
 with its institutions, with the whole texture of its domestic and political 
 life. Against this mass of time-honoured custom and prestige the 
 wave of the Gospel beat for centuries in vain. Slowly and gradually 
 it was undermining the fabric, but no striking results were immediately 
 visible. It is an estabHshed fact that the Roman Church for the 
 first two centuries was not Latin. It was composed of Greeks and 
 Orientals, who had made the metropolis their home. Its bishops 
 were Greek, its language was Greek. More than half a century after 
 Constantine's conversion, it is, I think, plain that old Latin Rome — 
 the senate, the aristocracy, the cultivated and influential classes — 
 was still in great part pagan, so far as it was anything. Not very dis- 
 similar was the case of Athens. St. Paul, though eminently successful 
 with the mixed and floating population of her neighbour Corinth, 
 produced next to no immediate effect on this historic centre of Greek 
 culture and religion, this stronghold of an ancient ^eLa-tdaLjuovla. 
 
 Now all this is exactly analogous to our modern experience in 
 India. The success of our missions among the rude aboriginal or 
 non- Aryan tribes is everywhere astonishing. Here alone is an 
 enormous field for missionary enterprise : for these races are said to 
 amount in the aggregate to not less than forty millions of people. I 
 
 1 " Bearing in mind, " wrote Lord Lawrence to the Th;ies,]an. 4, 1873, "that 
 general missionary effort in India dates from 1 813, and that even now missionaries 
 are sent forth in such inadequate numbers, that, with few exceptions, only the large 
 towns and centres have been occupied (some of them with a single missionary), it 
 was scarcely to be expected that in the course of sixty years the idols of India would 
 be utterly abolished ; the wonder rather is that already there are so many unmis- 
 lakeable indications that Hinduism is fast losing its hold upon the affections of the 
 people."
 
 Progress of Missions. 2 1 
 
 have heard it stated (and, so far as I can see, the statement is quite 
 justified by past experience) that we have only to send fairly zealous 
 missionaries among them in sufficient force, and their conversion in 
 any numbers may be reckoned on almost as a matter of course. 
 Only the other day I was shown a letter from the chief missionary 
 station among the Kols. At a recent visit of the Bishop to this 
 station there were not less than 250 communicants in one day, and 
 375 on the next — none the same as those who had communicated the 
 day before. Are there many churches in England where such a 
 muster as this could be found ? On this same occasion 5 natives 
 were ordained deacons and more than 250 confirmed ; and in the 
 last twelve months over 700 persons have been baptized, of whom 
 more than 450 are converts from heathenism, with their children. 
 The missionary triumphs among the ruder tribes in another part of 
 India, in Tinnevelly, are well known. The number of native Chris- 
 tians there now amounts, I believe, to 50,000 or more. It increases 
 quite as rapidly as, with the existing staff of teachers, we ought 
 perhaps to desire. But with the Hindoo proper the Gospel has 
 hitherto made no progress, which is very appreciable at a distance. 
 Does history encourage us to expect any other result ? Not in one 
 generation, nor in two, nor perhaps in ten, will the victory be achieved. 
 We must be prepared to labour and to wait. If our faith needs 
 sustaining by immediate tangible results, we must look elsewhere for 
 consolation — to the ruder tribes of India of whom I have just spoken ; 
 or to Sierra Leone, where at least seven-eighths of the people are now 
 Christians, though the first mission does not date farther back than 
 the present century ; or to New Zealand, where the native population 
 was converted almost within a single generation. 
 
 (2.) But again ; it is a patent fact, becoming more patent every 
 day, that though the educated Hindoo does not readily embrace 
 Christianity, yet his own religion is relaxing its hold upon him. The 
 prominence given to this " disintegrating agency " of contact with 
 Christianity is perhaps the most remarkable feature in Sir B. Frere's 
 very remarkable paper on Indian Missions. " Statistical facts," he 
 says, " can in no way convey any adequate idea of the work done in 
 any part of India. The effect is often enormous, where there has not 
 been a single avowed conversion." ^ To some persons this negative 
 
 1 The Church and the Age, p. 339. In a lecture delivered July 9th, 1872, 
 Sir B. Frere speaks even more strongly': "I assure you that, whatever you maybe 
 told to the contrary, the teaching of Christianity among 160 millions of civilized 
 industrious Hindus and Mohammedans in India is effecting changes, moral, social, 
 and political, which for extent and rapidity of effect are far more extraordinary than 
 you or your fathers have witnessed in modern Europe." The testimony of Lord 
 Lawrence, in the letter already quoted, is to the same effect.
 
 2 2 Missions, c^c. 
 
 result may not appear a very encouraging fact. Yet, read by the 
 light of history, it is far from the reverse ; for history teaches us to 
 regard this as a natural, almost a necessary, stage of transition from 
 an ancient historic religion to Christianity. It is the great shaking 
 of the nation which, in the prophet's image, preludes the inpour. 
 ing of its gifts to the temple of the Lord.^ The cultivated classes 
 among the Greeks and Romans passed through a period of deism 
 or of scepticism, after the popular mythology had ceased to satisfy 
 and before Christianity had secured its hold. The Brahma Somaj 
 is not the first instance in the history of Christianity where a system 
 too vague and shadowy and too deficient in the elements of a per- 
 manent religion has filled the interval between the abandonment of 
 the old and the acceptance of the new. 
 
 (3.) But we may carry our comparison a step further. If ancient 
 missionary history, like modern, has had its periods of slow and pain- 
 ful progress, the importance of such periods has been vindicated in 
 the sequel. These epochs of patient working and waiting have been 
 succeeded by magnificent and sudden triumphs — fitful and capricious, 
 as we might be disposed to regard them. But is it not more reason- 
 able to look upon these triumphs as the long-deferred fruit of painful 
 labour which has been expended in tilling the ground ? Thus, when 
 very little seemed to be doing, as a matter of fact everything was 
 doing. Such a time of preparation was the period preceding the date 
 which I took as my starting point, the middle of the third century of 
 the Christian era. The missionaries in New Zealand worked on for 
 several years without making a single convert, for full twenty years 
 without producing any striking effect. All at once the aspect of 
 things was changed, and within an incredibly short space of time 
 more than half the Maori population became Christians. Can we 
 suppose that there was no connection between those long labours and 
 that rapid triumph ? Shall we believe that if Mr. Marsden had first 
 visited New Zealand at the end of those twenty years, instead of the 
 beginning, the result would have been quite the same ? But let us 
 apply this experience to our Indian Empire. We are still in the midst — 
 perhaps not yet in the midst— of this probationary period : for where 
 the aim is more magnificent, the effort also will be prolonged. But 
 shall we throw away all the toil expended in preparing and watering 
 the ground, because the plant has liardly yet appeared above the 
 surface of the soil, and the harvest is still distant ? 
 
 And indeed, though the progress has not been so rapid as our zeal 
 or our impatience would demand, it has been distinct, and it has been 
 
 ^ Haggai ii. 7.
 
 Progress of Missions. 23 
 
 steady. The decennial returns of Indian Missions for the years 
 1851, 1861, and 1871 have been placed in my hands. I find that 
 the rate of increase is, roughly speaking, 50 percent, in each decen- 
 nium. The numbers of native Christians, catechumens, and learners 
 at these three dates are over 91,000, 138,000, and 224,000 respec- 
 tively. Thus the numbers have considerably more than doubled in 
 twenty years. This return does not include the independent States ; 
 neither does it include Burmah, in which latter territory alone the 
 numbers of native Christians at the end of the year 1861 amounted 
 to nearly 60,000, the progress of the Burmese missions having been 
 remarkably rapid. Moreover, these calculations do not comprise the 
 Roman Catholic missions, of which I have no returns, and which 
 doubtless would very largely swell the numbers. The totals in them- 
 selves, I venture to think, do not at all justify the disparaging language 
 which we frequently hear ; but the point on which I would especially 
 lay stress is the steadiness of the increase. 
 
 For this steadiness is the most healthy sign. Where whole multi- 
 tudes are suddenly converted without any previous preparation, the 
 result is always precarious. What was the after-history of those 
 500,000 whom S. Francis Xavier is said to have evangelized in the 
 south in nine years, when the magic of his personal presence was 
 withdrawn? Or of those 300,000 Singalese whom the Dutch in 
 Ceylon had already converted at the close of the seventeenth century, 
 when the Dutch supremacy was removed ? 
 
 (4.) Again; we hear much of the obstacles thrown in the way of 
 missionary success by the divisions between Christian and Christian, 
 We may indeed quote the high authority of Sir B. Frere for saying 
 that this hindrance is much less on the spot than it appears at a dis- 
 tance. But let it be granted that we have here a most serious 
 impediment to our progress. Was there nothing corresponding to 
 it in the first ages of the Church ? We need only recall the names 
 of Ebionites, Basilideans, Ophites, Valentinians, Marcionites, and 
 numberless other heretical sects — differing from each other and 
 from the Catholic Church incomparably more widely in creed than 
 the Baptist differs from the Romanist — to dispel this illusion at 
 once. The sectarian divisions of the early Christians supply their 
 heathen adversary Celsus with a capital argument against the claims 
 of the Gospel and the Church. Nos passi graviora. We have 
 surmounted worse obstacles than these of to-day. 
 
 (5.) Lastly : whatever discouragements we may have encountered 
 in our English missions in this nineteenth century, they pale into 
 insignificance before the unparalleled disasters which have overtaken
 
 24 Missions, k^c. 
 
 the Church of Christ in the past, and from which nevertheless she 
 has ever risen again to develop fresh energies and achieve higher 
 victories. Shall we be disheartened if at one point the frontier of 
 Christianity should seem to be receding rather than advancing, or if 
 at another some tribe of converts should suddenly relapse into semi- 
 heathenism ? Let us remember how the once flourishing and populous 
 Church of Africa, with its 600 or 700 bishoprics, dwindled away under 
 the withering blast of the Donatist schism and the ruthless devasta- 
 tions of the Vandal invasion, till at length the inpouring tide ot 
 Mohammedanism overwhelmed the land and swept away the last traces 
 of its existence. Or, if we would console ourselves with an example 
 on a yet grander scale, we may place ourselves in imagination in the 
 middle of the tenth century, and survey the scene of desolation which 
 meets the eye on every side. I can compare the condition of the 
 Church at this epoch to nothing else but the fate of the prisoner in 
 the story as he awakens to the fact that the walls of his iron den are 
 closing in upon him, and shudders to think of the inevitable end. 
 For on all sides the heathen and the infidel were tightening their grip 
 upon Christendom. On the north and west, the pagan Scandinavians 
 hanging about every coast and pouring in at every inlet ; on the east, 
 the pagan Hungarians swarming like locusts and devastating Europe 
 from the Baltic to the Alps \ on the south and south-east, the infidel 
 Saracens pressing on and on with their victorious hosts — it seemed as 
 if every pore of life were choked, and Christendom must be stifled 
 and smothered in the fatal embrace. But Christendom revived, 
 flourished, spread. How then shall we suffer a petty disappointment 
 here or there in the wide field of missionary enterprise to dishearten 
 and to paralyse us, where there is so much to cheer and to stimulate ? 
 Again I say, Nos passi gravioi-a. We have survived worse calamities 
 than these. 
 
 In this comparison of the present with the past, I have attempted 
 to show that the missions of the nineteenth century are in no sense a 
 failure. But I seem to see the advent of a more glorious future, if 
 we will only nerve ourselves to renewed efforts. During the past 
 half-century we have only been learning our work, as a missionary 
 Church. At length experience is beginning to tell. India is our 
 special charge, as a Christian nation ; India is our hardest problem, 
 as a missionary Church. Hitherto we have kept too exclusively to 
 beaten paths. Our mode of dealing with the Indian has been too 
 conventional, too English. Indian Christianity can never be cast in 
 the same mould as EngUsh Christianity. We must make up our 
 minds to this. The stamp of teaching, the mode of life, which
 
 Bishop Kelly. — Newfoundland an instance of success. 25 
 
 experience has justified as the best possible for an English parish, 
 may be very unfit when transplanted into an Indian soil. We must 
 become as Indians to the Indian, if we would win India to Christ. 
 This lesson of the past I find frankly recognized and courageously 
 avowed from at least two distinct quarters of the Indian Mission 
 field quite recently — in the stirring appeal which the Bishop of Bombay 
 has addressed to the English Church through our Archbishop, and 
 in those noble letters from Lahore, so zealous, so thoughtful, and 
 so bold, which Mr. French has written to the Church Missionary 
 Society. This coincidence, represenring, as I doubt not, a much wider 
 feeling, is surely full of hope for the future. 
 
 The Right Rev. Bishop Kelly, Coadjutor-Bishop of Newfound- 
 land, being called upon, spoke as follows : — 
 
 Nothing could better illustrate the world-wide sphere of the 
 Society's operations than the fact that a Bishop from Newfoundland 
 should be called upon to give an account of its Missionary work 
 there, in succession to the speakers who have just addressed you. 
 From Lord Napier, who has held one of perhaps the very noblest 
 positions to which a British subject can be called — the government 
 of one of the vast presidencies of India — we have heard the way in 
 which, on its purely secular side, Missionary work has presented 
 itself to him. From Professor Lightfoot we have learnt, from illus- 
 trations chiefly taken from the same country, how little ground there 
 is for the complaints, sometimes loudly made, of the small success of 
 Missionary labours, when we compare it with the results of the same 
 labours in the earlier ages of Christianity. This is, I think, a lesson 
 specially valuable in our own age, as a corrective of that i7npatie?ice 
 which is one of its besetting faults. 
 
 The work to which I have to call your attention is a work which is 
 being done under very different conditions, in quite another portion 
 of the globe. And when we look back upon the history of the develop- 
 ment of the Church in British North America, the lesson of Professor 
 Lightfoot's valuable paper is most clearly enforced. He would be 
 impatient indeed who does not recognize with thankfulness that 
 within a century of the appointment of the first Bishop of Nova 
 Scotia the Church of British North America is able to reckon eleven 
 Episcopal Sees, nine of them founded within thirty-five years. And 
 if we look at the names of those who have been called to preside in 
 those Sees, we shall all, I think, confess that the names of Inglis, 
 Stewart, Mountain, Strachan, and Field are names as noble as are to 
 be found in the muster-roll of any Church. If I might single out for 
 
 c
 
 26 Missions, &=€. 
 
 a moment any particular diocese in the vast confederation of Canada, 
 I would venture to point to one of the latest formed, that of British 
 Columbia, as a field of Missionary labour, especially among the 
 Indian tribes, where great success seems to have been vouchsafed. 
 Anyone who has read the most interesting account which is given in 
 a little book called *' Stranger than Fiction " will at once admit that 
 the facts there recorded amply justify its title, and show that now, as 
 in other ages, earnest devotion to the work of Christ does produce, 
 with God's blessing, results the most striking and wonderful. 
 
 But it is of Newfoundland, and the work with which I am more 
 immediately connected, that I have been asked especially to speak 
 to you. The late hour of the meeting warns me that I must be 
 very brief 
 
 Formed in 1839, out of the then enormous diocese of Nova 
 Scotia, the work of the diocese of Newfoundland has become identi- 
 fied with the name of its second Bishop ; and I venture to say that 
 so long as simplicity of character, combined with entire and self- 
 denying devotion, shall be recognized in the Church at home, the 
 name of Bishop Field will be held in honoured remembrance. 
 
 That same character seems to have been impressed upon some of 
 those who were once his fellow-labourers in that still too extensive 
 diocese ; and it, too, has had its martyrs — men who have given their 
 lives in testimony of their devotion to their Master's cause. There 
 are some here who will at once recall the story of the holy life of 
 Jacob Mountain, or of the constancy even unto death of his pupil 
 and follower, Le Gallais. Others there are also, who, by patient 
 continuance in labour, under circumstances of the greatest difficulty 
 and hardship, have made the annals of the poor diocese of New- 
 foundland — poor in all outward things, rich in deeds of loving faith. 
 We have had our discouragements, and these should be always 
 admitted, lest the story of Missionary work should seem to be unreal ; 
 there have been trials neither few nor light : but, thank God, we have 
 had our encouragements also. Among the brightest of these, so far 
 as our own diocese is concerned, are the results of the great Day of 
 Intercession. No less than five young men have off'ered themselves, 
 since that day, for the work of the Church in Newfoundland. One 
 of these is an instance of the working of God's grace, so remarkable 
 that I cannot but mention it A young officer of the Royal Engineers? 
 who has given many proofs of his interest in our work, and not least 
 by the gift of his own yacht to take the place of the Church ship 
 which was wrecked some two years ago on the west cpast of New- 
 foundland, has had his former gifts so blessed that he has been led on
 
 spiritual source of Missionary zeal. 27 
 
 to make the more precious gift of himself to the work of the Church 
 in one of our remoter Missions. This instance of true self-devotion, 
 in an age of increasing luxury and wealth, is surely one which must 
 come home to all hearts, and stir us up to more earnest, self-denying 
 service. 
 
 Your Grace said no truer word in your opening address than this : 
 that it was not, after all, upon any organization, however complete, 
 that we can depend for the success of our Missionary work, but upon 
 the character of the men who are employed in it, and the Divine bless- 
 ing upon their labours and self-sacrifice. But we must not forget that 
 the rousing of such a spirit as will produce such Missionaries among 
 us depends upon the realization of the true character of the Church, 
 and of the demands which her great commission from her Divine 
 Head makes upon her. 
 
 If the Church should ever come to be regarded as a mere depart- 
 ment of the State ; if, priceless as are the blessings which have 
 accrued to the nation from her union with the State, that union 
 should be found to thwart or hamper the full development of her 
 Divine organization, then Missionary zeal will languish and die. 
 And on the other hand, just in proportion as her supernatural 
 character is recognized, and the duty of evangelizing the whole 
 world realized, will that zeal be revived, and her Missionary work go 
 forward and prosper. 
 
 A vote of thanks to the Chairman was moved by Sir Thomas 
 Gladstone, Bart., seconded by Sir Walter James, Bart., and carried 
 unanimously. 
 
 The Archbishop of Canterbury then gave the benediction and 
 closed the meeting. 
 
 R. CLAY, SONS, AND TAYLOR, PRINTERS, BREAD STREET HILL.
 
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