this remark, that beyond all question their first want is a reinforcement of missionaries. It is a pertinent inquiry, however, in view of the urgent need of more missionaries, Why distribute the supply through so many years? Why not reduce the expenditure at other points, so as to concentrate a larger proportion of the annual income upon the single object of sending out missionaries? But at what points shall the reduction be made? Shall we reduce the number of native preachers and assistants? To derive from this quarter substantial aid, our number of dismissals must be large. A reduction of one fourth of all our native preachers and assistants would not provide à sufficiency for sending out two mission families. A dismissal of one fourth in our Asiatic Missions alone, where the substitution would be designed to be made, would not provide for sending out one missionary. Besides, if a substitution could be made of one missionary for thirty-three assistants,for in Asia that would be the proportion the first year.-it would be a substitution of which we might well challenge the expediency. Native helpers are helpers of exceeding value, for the services to which they are appointed. They are emphatically the successful preachers. They can labor unweariedly and uninterruptedly where missionaries may not, and ought not, venture. They are often the right arm of the missionary;-teachers, interpreters, assistant translators, messengers, representatives among the churches, pastors. They are eminently the fruits of missionary labor; and their coöperation with missionaries and eventual capability to dispense in good measure with foreign aid in evangelizing their own people,—a capability with which they can be endued only by this very course of preparatory training as auxiliaries,-is one of the most cherished and gainful results which missionaries are sent to achieve. Shall we reduce the number of schools? Dismiss all the day schools and we release half the funds requisite to send one mission family. Dismiss all the boarding schools, except those supported from Government appropriations, and we can send three, perhaps four, missionaries. That is, dismiss the Bassa school in Africa, the Nowgong orphan school, the school for Karen assistants in Arracan, and the schools of Maulmain and Tavoy. But in dismissing these schools, we pluck up the seed which we have sown; we lay waste the promise of future years. We do more. We wrest from the hands of missionaries already in the field, skilled in labor and diligently urging forward their appropriate and chosen tasks, the very implements, together with the subjects, of their successful toil; we condemn to comparative inactivity or to forms of labor of secondary utility, trained as they have been to particular kinds of service and placed in favoring circumstances, workmen chosen and tried and who need not to be ashamed; and we do this, that we may a little sooner place by their side strangers yet to be acclimated, helpers who have yet to acquire their instruments of labor and the ability to use them, fellow-laborers who, when they shall have become equally with themselves inured to labor and at home in their work, may be also, like them, constrained in turn to stay their hands from the reaping. These schools are not mere incidents to the missionary enterprise; they are part and substance; they enter into the essential texture of every plan of permanently profitable evangelism. They are not the immediate instrumentality of preaching the gospel-although they generally furnish the most auspicious opportunities for its dispensation;-but they are an indispensable instrumentality. They are not literally native pastors and teachers; but they are nurseries and seminaries of a native ministry. In a more unrestricted view, schools are of highest moment to the general evangelizing of a people. In lands so destitute of intelligence and intelligent thought as are heathen countries, mind must be quickened, and fed with thought and disciplined. Knowledge must be communicated, and all the varied helps to knowledge as well as to piety must be provided. This is done by schools. And in missions of the Union these schools are multi plied in the lowest possible proportion with other instrumentalities, consistent with any good degree of efficiency in themselves or those. The only other departments from which to withdraw funds so as to enlarge our reinforcements, are the publishing and the miscellaneous. Of the former, the publication department,-to which specifically and as a net surplus we have apportioned but $3000, the expenses are for the greater part defrayed by Bible and Tract Societies, whose appropriations we are not at liberty to divert to purposes of our own. The balance, with a very inconsiderable exception, is embraced in the allowances to the missionaries and assistants, or is covered by the earnings of the several printing establishments from occasional services to others,-services which they would be ill able to render, if suffered ordinarily to lie unemployed and by almost unavoidable consequence to become disarranged, and covered with dust and mould. As to miscellanies and unforeseen exigencies, it is, doubtless, possible to reduce the expenditure, provided the Executive Committee will maintain against all appeals from the missions an inexorable ear, and will shut their eyes to all indications of Divine Providence, however clear and authoritative. The experience of the past is, nevertheless, replete with instruction. It would remain an open question, to say the least, whether in such a substitution of measures the greater good would not be sacrificed to the less, the suggestions of sound discretion to the promptings of a shortsighted zeal. Our conclusion is, that the ratio of expenditures in the several departments should remain essentially as it is now. To send larger supplies of missionaries we must have a proportionably larger income. We say nothing of larger supplies of candidates for missionary appointment. We apprehend little embarrassment from want of men. Ordinarily, the supply is proportionate to the demand, and to the liberality of the churches in supplying the requisite funds. Two inquiries remain to be considered or noted. The first respects the order in which reinforcements ought to be sent. Without attempting very minute specifications, we suggest the following principles as a directory. 1. Regard must be had to the relative necessities of the stations,-the amount of labor indispensable to be performed, and their liability to partial or total abandonment in consequence of sickness or death of missionaries; -or to the general importance and promise of the several fields, and the peculiarly favorable crises which one and another may present at any moment for effective labor. Thus, of all the missionaries to be sent within the ensuing five years, we have designated one half for the Burian and Karen Missions. For the other half it would be difficult to determine the priority of clains, provided the stations be continued. China, Siam, Assam, the Teloogoos, the Bassa Mission, each in turn pleads for succor with an earnestness and importunity that cannot be resisted. 2. In the perplexity occasioned by the apparently equal validity of conflicting claims, God may enlighten our darkness by the diverse peculiarities of gifts and graces which he bestows on those who are to be sent to the missions. Apart from individual predilections for one or another field of labor,-predilections sometimes implanted at almost the moment of one's spiritual birth, and growing thenceforth with bis growth and strengthening with his strength;-there are often adaptations of character, native and acquired, mental and corporeal, which indicate with great clearness the appropriate field and sphere, and may not without improvidence be set aside. The Committee recognize in such adaptations some of the ways in which Christ by his spirit and providence expresses his will; and they obey. The second inquiry alluded to, respects the expediency of attempting to reinforce all the stations; in other words, the expediency of allowing one or more of the stations to become extinct, so as to enlarge or strengthen more expeditiously at the remaining points. On this question we have purposely, in this paper, forborne to speak. Our remarks have been based on the contrary assumption, inasmuch as the agitation of this subject would be to call under revision a part of our admitted policy. Still, it is a subject for grave inquiry, and pertinent to the present occasion, whether all our missions and stations ought to be continued; and it is proposed to submit the question for consideration in a separate paper. All which is respectfully submitted. By order of the Executive Committee, The Committee to whom was referred the paper of the Corresponding Secretary on the Expenditures of the American Baptist Missionary Union, and the policy to be pursued therein the ensuing five years, have attended to that duty and ask leave to report:— The document submitted to their consideration has been prepared with great care, and presents an amount of statistical information of great value to the friends of missions. It, however, embraces a great variety of detail, and looks forward to the operations of the Union for so long a period in advance, that there are many of its suggestions which require a more deliberate examination and a wider knowledge of facts than in the time allotted can be given to it by your Committee. A few suggestions in regard to the principles which it involves, are all that can be expected on the present occasion. Your Committee are in doubt as to the propriety of making any estimate of the increased contributions for the next five years a basis for present action. Nor does it appear that such a basis is of any practical value. In this respect we must rely upon the annual contributions afforded us, while we must make every effort in our power to increase their amount. The document also suggests the ratio of appropriation to the several branches of missionary labor for five years in advance. On this subject they could not decide without farther information. If a decision on this question is to be had at the present meeting, they would recommend that the Treasurer be requested to report before the adjournment the salaries at the different stations, the annual expenditure for buildings and schools in each, and the amount of incidental expenses, together with the manner in which such expenditure is usually incurred, whether by the missionary or the vote of the missionary community, or by the order of the Executive Committee. Without such information the Board could not decide so intricate a subject so long in advance. In regard to the relative importance of the various departments of missionary labor, your Committee offer the following suggestions. 1. The first and great object of the Union is to send the gospel to the heathen by the living voice of the preacher. This is in obedience to the explicit command of Christ, and to it every other should be subordinate. Experience has shown in the history of missions, that where the preaching of the gospel has abounded, converts have been multiplied; and where this has declined, the Spirit has been withheld. Your Committee would, therefore, urge the increase of preachers of the gospel both by missionaries and uative assistants, to the widest extent that our means will allow. The printing of the bible and of tracts is chiefly sustained by kindred Societies, and, therefore, it needs but a passing remark. This means of converting the heathen derives almost all its efficacy from the preaching of the gospel. In vain are bibles and tracts printed and given away, unless the living voice has aroused the slumbering conscience of men dead in trespasses and sins. Hence it is deserving of inquiry, whether this means of doing good has not assumed too great importance. To follow the preaching of the gospel, it is invaluable; to precede it, comparatively useless. Hence the number of printing establishments should be no greater than the necessities of the stations demand. It would be bad economy to employ two when the work could be done by one. Schools among the heathen are of two kinds;-one for the religious instruction of native assistants, the other for the literary education of children. Our expenditure in this department is estimated, aside from the salaries of teachers, at $10,000, or at two thirds the cost of native assistants. The schools for the instruction of native assistants are invaluable, and are essential to the promulgation of the gospel among heathen nations. They ought not, however, to be multiplied beyond necessity. It is to be seriously considered whether our theological schools could not be united, and thus additional means afforded for the preaching of the gospel. The education of the young by day and boarding schools is, in the present condition of our missions, a matter of secondary importance. The missionary who is by profession a preacher of the gospel, should never leave his appropriate work for that of teaching school. If, during the rainy season, labor abroad is impracticable, then the time of the missionary may be thus appropriated. But such labor should not be suffered to interfere with proclaiming the news of salvation to the perishing. To spend that time in teaching children to read, which might be spent in leading men to Christ, cannot be the duty of the missionary of the cross. Again. In determining the relative importance of different missions, care is to be taken. The rule we suppose proper to be observed is, that we should send laborers most abundantly where God has set before us the most abundant harvest. We have not at the present time a sufficient number of missionaries to baptize the converts whom God has given us among the Karens. This mission should, therefore, occupy the first place in our expenditure, so long as the present encouragement continues. Again; when a people may by other means than our agency, be supplied with the preaching of the gospel, the demand upon us becomes less urgent. Again; a mission of equal promise easily accessible should be preferred to one far distant and difficult of approach. On the matter of the temporary return of missionaries, if they choose it after a given period of foreign labor, your Committee fully coincide with the suggestions of the Secretary. They believe that such a measure would be both wise, economical, fraternal, and fraught with rich blessings to the churches at home. They recommend that the statistics on this subject be presented by the Secretary at the next annual meeting, in order to prepare the Board for passing a general regulation for the government of our missionaries. Your Committee offer these brief suggestions as the result of the limited opportunity in their power for reflection. They are well aware that the pecuniary means at the disposal of the Board are insufficient to accomplish the tithe of the good which they desire. It is, therefore, our duty to employ our means to the best possible advantage, so that our efforts may tell with the best effect on the spiritual good of the souls to whom the Son of God has commanded us to bear the message of salvation. All which is respectfully submitted. By order of the Committee, F. WAYLAND, Chairman. The Committee on European Missions reported through Rev. R. Turnbull, chairman. The report was adopted, and ordered to be printed. The Committee to whom was referred that part of the report of the Foreign Secretary which concerns European Missions, beg leave to report :The principle seems to be universally conceded, that it is our duty to act in the direction of the Divine purpose, so far as we can ascertain it from the movements of his providence and grace. This has been our settled policy in missionary operations. Following out this principle, we have been encouraged to prosecute with vigor our operations in Germany, where God has most evidently opened for us "a wide and effectual door." Pious and able men have been raised up in that interesting country, and churches formed at the most important points, in the vallies of the Elbe and of the Rhine, in Hamburg, Berlin, Breslau and other cities. Notwithstanding the intolerance of the established churches, and the various embarrassments and difficulties thrown in their way by despotic governments and the prejudices of the people, our missionaries have prosecuted their labors with cheering success, and the churches formed under their ministry, in almost every part of Germany, have increased in purity and numbers, and extended their labors upon every band. The recent political changes, all of which look to the establishment of civil and political freedom, have removed the principal obstacle, in the structure of society and of government, to the promulgation of the gospel and the formation of independent Christian churches. All Germany, from the Rhine to the Danube, has felt the shock which has passed through Europe and roused the nations to the assertion of their rights. Hamburg is free. All Prussia is open to the gospel. Hanover and Saxony, Baden and even Wurtemburg have established entire religious liberty. Indeed, no part of Germany remains under the shackles of intolerance, and all invite the proclamation of an unfettered Christianity. Much confusion of a political and social kind will, doubtless, ensue; and it is not impossible that Germany may become the battle-ground for freedom among the nations of Continental Europe; but these changes are under the control of the Altnighty, and will, doubtless, prepare the way of the Lord. "Ask of me," says God, addressing his Son, "ask of me, and I will give thee the nations for thine inheritance and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession; and thou shalt break them with a rod of iron, and dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel." That this has reference to impious and tyrannical empires and states, cannot admit of a doubt; for it is immediately added, "Be wise now, therefore, O ye kings; be instructed, ye judges of the earth. Serve the Lord with fear, and rejoice with trembling. Kiss the Son lest he be angry, and ye perish from the way when bis wrath is kindled but a little; blessed are all they that put their trust in Him." Thus Jesus Christ is king in Sion, and controls the nations of the earth; and thus, by means of change and revolution, he dashes them to pieces whenever they impede the progress of his reign. The gospel advances, and erects its noblest triumphs upon the ruins of broken empires and fallen dynasties. Though kings and judges "perish from the way," the people that remain are the objects of his love and pity, and will yet receive the glad influences of the gospel. "For the mountain of the Lord's house shall be established upon the top of the mountains and exalted above the hills, and all nations shall flow unto it. And many people shall go and say, Come ye, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob, and he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths; for out of Sion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem; and he shall judge among the nations and rebuke many people. And they shall beat their swords into ploughshares and their spears into pruning-hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more." The Germans, through all their political changes and revolutions, are becoming prepared for free institutions. They possess some of the noblest traits of character; and although agitated by speculative doubts, are longing for the truth. They are precisely in that transition state which is favorable for the triumphs of Christianity. "God has broken off our fetters," exclaims the noble and devoted Oncken, “and the whole land lies open before us for the most extensive missionary efforts." In France the prospect is equally promising. Indeed, no country at the present moment presents a more important and encouraging field of missionary labor. In the recent revolution, so sudden, so startling and complete, no one can fail to discern the hand of God; and whatever may be the issue, it cannot fail to secure entire religious liberty, and prepare the |