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Missionary Register.

No. 17.

MAY, 1814.

No. 5. Vol. II.

Home Proceedings.

SOCIETY FOR PROMOTING CHRISTIAN KNOW-
LEDGE.

"An Abstract of the Annual Reports and Correspondence of the Society for promoting Christian Knowledge, from the Commencement of its Connection with the East-India Missions, A D. 1709, to the present Day; together with the Charges delivered to the Missionaries at different Periods, on their Departure for their several Missions.” In 1 large vol. 8vo. pp. xvi. and 750.

WE have great pleasure in announcing this volume to our readers; and we recommend it to the perusal of all persons who wish to know the history of the most important Missions in which the English have ever been engaged, and to do justice to the exertions of the Church, and of those excellent men who have laboured in fellowship with her members.

The Charges delivered to the Missionaries contain a series of learned and enlightened Christian Instruction, which may be studied to the greatest advantage by all who are called to labour in India: and the Reports of the manner in which the Missionaries discharged the duties undertaken by them,

supply a Code of Missionary Experience, which cannot fail to assist very essentially other Societies and their Missionaries in their benevolent plans and labours.

This publication will serve, at the same time, to inform those persons who betrayed, on the discussions concerning India, such ignorance on the subject of Missions; to vindicate the conduct of the Missionaries from the calumnies of ignorance or ill-will; and to excite the zeal of Churchmen, in particular, in support of Missions conducted, on the principles here displayed, in, connection with members of their own communion.

Those of our readers who have been interested in our Life of the venerable Swartz, will find in this volume many of the particulars respecting him which we collected from those Annual Reports from which this volume is compiled; and much matter of a similar nature respecting his coadjutors in the great work.

On these various accounts, the public are much indebted to the Board of the Society for this seasonable publication; and to the distinguished Member of the Society, who has so well executed the task undertaken by him. The history of its Missions is now no longer to be hunted through upward of one hundred separate Annual Reports, many of which are now scarcely to be procured, and where it lay unnoticed amidst a great accumulation of other important matter: but this volume, having been placed on the List of the Society, will afford ready information on the subject to all its members.

The following extracts from the Preface contain a just summary of what may be expected from a pe rusal of the volume.

Whether the British Name and Character may have shared, in any manner, in the stain of those inconsistencies which have stripped the Christian Pattern of its due attraction in the eyes of strangers, is a matter which requires from us no light thoughts of heart, and no trilling measure of consideration; but certain it is that the public acts of the British Government have declared a better spirit, and have testified it by the salutary regulations long since intended and resolved, though not completely put in force. Similar provisions have recently been made by the Councils of the State, upon a fuller scale; and we have to hope that they may be followed by the happiest effects.

The spiritual wants of our countrymen, in their separation from their native land, have been regarded; and with respect to the multitude of those among whom they live, and who are now subjects of the British Empire, let us not build pleas and excuses upon any past neglects. Let us not be ready now to urge that such are the obstacles which we either find or create, that it is a vain thing to think of doing much for the Christian Cause, for the honour of God, and the salvation of souls, in a foreign land, where we go for other purposes, and have different aims and objects to engage our efforts. Let us not pass yet further, and say that it is not possible to conquer heathen prejudices, or to enlighten heathen blindness, and that it is most dangerous and even foolish to attempt it.

Shall we assert this in the face of all the world, after long years of intercourse, during which time British Arts and British Science, British Laws and Jurisprudence, a British Rule and Sovereignty in all its branches, civil and military, have flourished, with many a testimony of the character and honour of the Nation. Happy will it be for us, should it appear from authentic records, that wherever the enterprising spirit, and the industry of our countrymen, have found a footing, the British Name may justly challenge a precedence over every other for integrity and righteous dealing. There will, perhaps, be little cause for boasting, when this challenge shall be made, and this preference be admitted. Should it prove, however, to be no more than a comparison among defaulters; yet most happy will it be for us, if we can point to any trophy obtained by us in this noble field of contest, and shew a real promptitude in leading others in the ways of truth and righteousness.

But to pleas of insuperable difficulty, of danger, and, alas! (for it is so said) of inexpedience, it is time to uppose the documents of plain facts, and the long course of experiment pursued with unremitting efforts, and followed by none of the disastrous consequences which are now so anxiously predicted. Facts and experiments they are which have a tract of years, beyond the customary life of man, to vouch for them as practicable, safe, and full of substantial benefit; and all this under weak encouragements, it must be owned, with limited and languid patronage, and with deficient means. It is in order to produce this evidence of fact, and these plain lessons of experience, that the following Abstract has been formed and put forth, by which it will appear that the Society for promoting Christian Knowledge, for above a century, has supplied its succours, when its means were least abundant, for the propagation and support of the cause and interests of Christian Truth, of religious knowledge, and of conversion in the eastern world.

They, who shall think fit to peruse the following statements, will find indubitable proofs, that whilst many are debating concerning what is practicable or desirable, possible or safe, the work has, in one way at least, been reduced to practice, is found and acknowledged to be most beneficial, and has, for more than an hundred of years, been carried on without risk or inconvenience. It will be found, that this has been done publicly and openly, without hatred, ill-will, or revolt, but with the gratitude, the good-will, and esteem of thousands; of whom many, through the blessing of Almighty God, have profited effectually in the chief concern upon which the present hope and the future welfare of mankind have their dependence.

Are there those, who, without the thoughtless courage of direct opposition or hostility, remind us only that a cautious and a gradual course must be pursued? The counsel is most salutary: but such persons may learn here, that the course has been thus cautious, the progress gradual, and the increase also such as has grown up by degrees. It has advanced, under the good Providence of God, with little more than the succours of a Society which exerted its endeavours to this purpose when its powers were limited and scanty, and would gladly now enlarge them to the same end when its hands are strengthened. Had the encouragement been as

hearty and effectual from other branches of the community, it seems probable, from past success obtained with very slender means, that the progress would have been less gradual indeed, but more prosperous and happy.

It remains but to add here, that no one testimony has been omitted, or disguised, by which the merits of the general question respecting the propagation of Christianity in India can stand affected. It may be right to make this declaration, and to rest the credit of this work upon the truth of the assertion, since it will be found, with some surprize perhaps, how destitute of all solid grounds, those clamours and objections are, which have been so industriously excited on the subject of diffusing the knowledge and profession of the Christian Faith in that country.

SOCIETY FOR PROPAGATING THE GOSPEL IN
FOREIGN PARTS.

The Publication of its History suggested. WE would respectfully submit to this venerable body the expediency of imitating the example of which we have just spoken. Since the publication, now nearly a century since, of Humphreys's History of the Society, the public have had very inadequate means of becoming acquainted with its proceedings. The annual Sermon and Report not being published for sale, but limited in their circulation to the members of the Society, very little is known of its transactions to the Christian World at large: nor is justice done to those patient and successful exertions by which it long reproached the supineness of others. A mass of instructive matter might be drawn from its Records; and a volume compiled, little inferior in interest to that which we have just praised.

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