ANNUAL SURVEY OF THE MISSIONS OF THE BOARD.

As the Missionary Herald is about to enter upon a new year, a suitable opportunity is furnished for contemplating the results of the year which has just closed. The brief survey which follows, will suggest many profitable reflections. The attention of almost every one will be arrested by the frequent and important changes which have occurred, even within the short period now under review. One of the missions of the Board has been relinquished, and thus the fond hopes of many are subjected to a painful disappointment. Another mission,-announced as discontinued, one year ago, for want of adequate encouragement, has since been resumed, and is now considered more prosperous than it has ever been. Important modifications have also occurred in the plans of our brethren in Western Asia; it has even been thought expedient that several missionaries should turn away from a numerous and interesting people, and enter upon fields which promise a more speedy and abundant harvest. From India and China on the other hand, requests for additional laborers are brought to us with increasing frequency and earnestness. Lebanon and Hermon appear at length to have caught the first beams of advancing day; while the hopes of a mission still farther to the east, hitherto regarded with deep interest by all, are suddenly involved in darkness and uncertainty.

Among the missionaries themselves there have been many changes. While some have gone forth for the first time to preach the acceptable year of the Lord, others have fallen in the midst of their days and their usefulWhile some have returned to their former posts of labor, invigorated in body and refreshed in spirit, others have been obliged, in the providence of God, to leave the stations hitherto assigned them, either temporarily or permanently, and revisit the home of their youth.

ness.

But these events, however mysterious they may seem to us, are so many

chapters in that book, the future pages of which will pour their strong light on all that has gone before. Our victories and our defeats, our success and our reverses, are only parts of a plan that is slowly but surely approaching its full and glorious accomplishment. In the Author of this plan, in the God of missions, we can put our unshaken trust. "Therefore will we not fear, though the earth be removed, and though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea; though the waters thereof roar and be troubled, though the mountains shake with the swelling thereof."

taken with the acclimating fever, and twelve or fifteen years, and was instituted Mr. Campbell sunk under its influence, in manifest accordance with the will of April 19. He was ready to depart. Just Providence. It has done good. The before his death he remarked, "The Greeks are not, socially, intellectually or cause of Christ will go forward; when morally, what they would have been had he takes away one instrument he can the churches of the west stood aloof from raise up others." Mr. Bushnell was mercifully permitted to recover and proceed on his way.

Mr. Griswold and Mrs. M. H. Wilson were united in marriage in August of last year, and reside at a new station, called Oshunga, where there is a small boarding-school for girls. There is also a school for boys at the station first formed, containing twenty pupils. A number of free schools are taught by persons formerly connected with the Cape Palmas mission. The people build their own school-houses, and in other ways show considerable anxiety to be educated. Their language is not difficult to learn. Besides preaching at the two stations, the brethren regularly preach once a month at some seven or eight other towns, lying from three to forty miles distant. Mr. Walker is devoting a portion of his time to acquiring the Bakala language, which is spoken higher up the river, and more likely than the Mpongwe to facilitate their access to the unknown regions of the interior.

them. Their schools, their school-books, their literature, their knowledge of the Scriptures, their public sentiment in regard to Protestants, religious tolerance, and the authority of the fathers and of the word of God, are not, and they never will be, what they would otherwise have been. Perhaps there is more positive opposition to the truth; but this is because of their better acquaintance with the nature and tendency of the truth. The present singular agreement of the Greek people, however, in standing aloof from evangelical religion, is not all the result of direct hostility to the gospel. The national mind is deeply interested in recovering Constantinople and restoring the eastern empire; and as their religion is the principal bond of union between the inhabitants of free Greece and their brethren who are scattered throughout the Turkish empire, they have strong inducements to preserve their religion unchanged, even when intellectually convinced, as very many are, that all is not right.

Whatever the causes may be-and It is matter of profound regret that the they are doubtless various-the Greek French, in their reckless policy of colo- mind, just now, is strangely inaccessible nizing, or religious propagandism, or both, to the missionary who would preach to have seized upon Gaboon. It was a deed them the gospel. With rare exceptions, of fraud and violence, nor can we foresee they will not hear; the number of conhow the affair will end. There is no versions has been exceedingly small; reason to suppose, however, that it en- and scarcely any where in the past hisdangers our mission; and we ought not tory of the missions among them, or in hastily to believe that the French govern- the present aspect of the nation, can we ment is so lost to honor, not to speak of discover the indications of a spiritual and right and justice, as to sanction the prodivine influence. We can continue to ceedings of their agents in this case. circulate school-books that will exert a Perhaps the Lord designs to overrule this healthful influence; to some extent we event, as he did a similar occurrence at can distribute the Scriptures and other the Sandwich Islands, for the furtherance religious books; but the door of access of the cause of liberty, truth and righte- for the preacher of the gospel, for the inousness. Our means of resistance against culcation of evangelical truth with the such abuses of power are in fervent sup-living voice, is open to but very few, and plications to Him who rules among the nations, and says to each of them, as he does to the sea, "Hitherto shalt thou come, but no further."

EUROPE.

GREECE.

ATHENS.-Jonas King, D. D., Missionary. (1 station; 1 missionary.)

Our mission to Greece dates back some

even they have very little encouragement. Meanwhile the case is far otherwise with the Armenians and the Arabs, to say nothing of more distant fields. Among them the call is urgent for all, and more than all, the funds and labor which we can command. Our duty, therefore, is painfully clear. Dr. King will remain alone at Athens, our only missionary among the Greeks. Mr. Benjamin has already removed to Trebizond.

ASIA.

TURKEY.

Within the last year this mission has undergone several important modifications. For reasons already mentioned, the Greek department has been discontinued; the Jewish department is hereafter to receive a distinct and appropriate name; and the remaining department is to be called "the mission to the Armenians."

Indeed greater progress has been made within the past year, than during any period of equal length since the commencement of the mission. The means employed by the mission are all in perfect accordance with the principles and usages of our churches, and are exerting an admirable influence. The doctrine of justification by faith, without the deeds of the law, is one of the earliest seized upon by the converts, and in general is clearly apprehended by them, and made the ground of their hope. Their piety has more of primitive simplicity and more of a prayerful spirit, than is common in our country. They are found in very many of the larger cities; the number in any one place is indeed small, but the light is thus beginning to shine over the empire. From one hundred and fifty to two hundred thousand Armenians reside in Constantinople and its suburbs. Among these, at Trebizond, and in one or two places where no missionary has ever resided, the progress of the reformation has been greatest. But in no place does labor appear to be in vain.

Mr. Temple, Mr. Riggs, Mr. Ladd and Mr. Calhoun were formerly connected with the Greek department. Mr. Calhoun has gone to Syria to take charge of the seminary to be established on Mount Lebanon. Mr. Riggs and Mr. Ladd will speak one of the languages used by the Armenians, and turn their labors into that channel. Mr. Temple had no wish but to live and die in the missionary field. The idea of leaving it was inexpressibly painful to him. But at the age of fiftyfour, few are able to acquire a new spoken language; and much as he desired to pour the light of truth into the Armenian mind, it could not be done The missionaries make the preaching without a command of the Armenian or of the gospel their great business. They Turkish language; and to give him any do this formally, in the chapel, at stated sphere of labor through the press among times, and less formally in the Biblethe Greeks, would require a considerable class; also conversationally, in rooms outlay of funds annually, and the auxili-hired for the purpose in the centres of ary labors of brethren situated in different business, and in social or pastoral visits. portions of the Greek community. His The seminary at Bebek is the resort of own judgment and that of his brethren, also that of Dr. Anderson and Dr. Hawes, then on a visit to the missions, concurred in the expediency of his returning to the

United States.

ARMENIANS OF TURKEY.
CONSTANTINOPLE.-William Goodell, Harrison G.

O. Dwight, Henry A. Homes, Cyrus Hamlin, George
W. Wood, Henry J. Van Lennep, Missionaries; Mrs.
Goodell, Mrs. Dwight, Mrs Homes, Mrs. Hamlin,

Mrs. Wood.-Seven native helpers.

SMYRNA.-Elias Riggs, John B. Adger, Mission

aries; Mrs. Riggs, Mrs. Adger.-Two native helpers.
BROOSA.-Benjamin Schneider, Philander O. Powers,
Daniel Ladd, Missionaries; Mrs. Schneider, Mrs.
Powers, Mrs. Ladd.

TREBIZOND.-Thomas P. Johnston, Nathan Benjamin, Edwin E. Bliss, Missionaries: Mrs Johnston,

Mrs. Benjamin, Mrs. Bliss.-One native helper.

ERZEROOM.-William C. Jackson, Josiah Peabody,

Missionaries; Mrs. Jackson, Mrs. Peabody. One native helper.

(5 stations; 16 missionaries, 15 female assistant missionaries, 11 native helpers; total, 42)

If the reformation among the Armenians is not advancing rapidly, it is certainly moving forward with great steadiness, and gives more and more evidence of being a genuine work of divine grace.

numerous visitants, and has become an
important preaching station. The same
result is expected from the female semi-
nary which is to be established in Pera
or Galata. The disposition to hear and
inquire is extending both among males
and females. And the missionaries have
efficient native helpers in this work of
preaching; several priests are "obedient
to the faith" and take a lively interest in
its progress; and others who have re-
ceived no ecclesiastical designation, have
a manifest call of the Holy Ghost, and
their labors are not a little blest.
native agencies are under the superin-
tendence of the native brethren; and
they receive such pecuniary aid from the
mission, so far as its means will permit,
as they show to be needed and to be sure
of being judiciously applied. Thus the
institutions of a pure gospel are ingrafted
on the native mind, and wrought into the
social state. In no other mission under
the care of the Board is there so much
ripeness for this process.

The

The seminary at Bebek is a hopeful school of the prophets. It has twenty-six members, and soon, it is believed, will

have few pupils who are not candidates, | Whiting, Mrs. Thomson, Mrs. Van Dyck.-Two native helpers. in a greater or less degree, for the ministry of the Word.

HASBEITA, near Mount Hermon.-No resident missionary has been reported.

(3 stations; 5 missionaries, 2 physicians, 1 printer, 6 female assistant missionaries, 5 native helpers ;total, 19.)

The Armenians have the whole Bible in their ancient language, also in the Turkish language, printed in their own letter; and they have the New Testament in their modern language, with the Old The appropriate field of this mission is Testament in a course of translation. Beirût, Mount Lebanon and Mount HerStrange as it may seem, they have re-mon, including a part of Galilee; though ceived a valuable supply of school-books it will actually have much intercourse from their papal countrymen residing in with other parts of the country. The the convents at Venice and Vienna. Dr. population of Beirût is rapidly increasing. Merle D'Aubigné's History of the Reformation, somewhat abridged, is about to be printed for them by our brethren at Smyrna. Other books in doctrinal, practical and experimental religion, greatly needed and desired by hundreds if not thousands of the people, have been issued from the press, or will gradually be issued and put in circulation. About 7,000,000 pages were printed at Smyrna last year, though not all in Armenian.

JEWS OF TURKEY.

CONSTANTINOPLE.-William G. Schauffler, Missionary; Mrs. Schauffler.

Lebanon is terraced and planted from the lowest depths of its numerous valleys, to the summits of its majestic hills; and more than two hundred thousand hard working mountaineers reside in its romantic villages and hamlets. Of a portion of the population of Hermon, something will be said presently. This whole people, whether called Greek, GreekCatholic, Maronite or Druze, belong to the Arab race; in the Arabic tongue they have a common language;-a language spoken just as it is written, and as in ancient times, the language of 60,000, 000 of the earth's present inhabitants. The manners, customs and social con

(1 station; 1 missionary; 1 female assistant mission-dition of the people throughout are ary;-total, 2.) essentially the same.

The Sefardim or Spanish Jews in Constantinople amount to seventy or eighty thousand. Owing to the power and tyranny of their rabbis, they are at present very difficult of access, and they belong intellectually to the most degraded people in Turkey. Still there are encouraging circumstances. In morals, these Jews stand higher than the Turks. Many copies of the Old Testament in Hebrew-Spanish have been distributed among them by Mr. Schauffler; who is also engaged in preparing a variety of works which are indispensable to their intellectual and spiritual elevation. There is now leisure to prepare them, which, it is hoped, will not long continue. Mr. Schauffler is authorized to open a school for Jewish children as soon as the pupils can be procured. The Committee are desirous of finding a suitable man to be associated with him in this work of faith and labor of love for God's ancient people.

SYRIA.

This mission has a field of labor which there is ample encouragement to cultievents, creating a necessity for a new vate with industry and zeal. The late station at Hasbeiya, at the foot of Mount Hermon, two or three days from Beirût, illustrate the nature of the openings, which, though on a much smaller scale, are occurring in various portions of the which was raised against the Protestants mountain population. The persecution of Hasbeiya last summer, has not yet subsided. Whatever the issue may be in respect to them, however, it cannot fail to hasten the triumph of the gospel.

station on Mount Lebanon, under the A seminary is to be opened at the care of Mr. Calhoun. The eight common

schools around Abeih are all to be

preaching places. The laborers in the mission not being sufficiently numerous, the press has been stopped for a year, that the brethren may give themselves more to the preaching of the gospel. A new version of the Scriptures in the Arabic language is very greatly needed; and there are members of the mission who are competent to the work, but their labors in other departments cannot now be dispensed with. Several new misABEIH, on Mount Lebanon.-George B. Whiting, sionaries should be sent into this field William M. Thomson, Simeon H. Calhoun, Missionaries ; C. V. A. Van Dyck, M. D., Physician; Mrs. | without much delay.

BEIRUT.-Eli Smith, John F. Lanneau, Missionaries; Henry A. De Forest, M. D., Physician; George C. Hurter, Printer; Mrs. Lanneau, Mrs. De Forest, Mrs. Hurter. Three native helpers."