Missionaries do not come." I hope you will send Missionaries there soon. There are great many tribes on the Mississippi, Red-River, Red Lake, and other parts of the interior of America, that are still in darkness. I believe, if you send Missionaries, they will meet with success wherever they go. The inland Indians, between Lake-Huron and Hudson's-bay, I want to bring before your notice: they are most disgraceful and miserable objects; they are perfect children. I will tell you one thing, which will show how dark their minds are. I was told, the first time these Indians came with their furs to the trader to purchase articles, they were struck with wonder to see great many curious things they never saw before. One of the Indians took a fancy to a large kettle for cooking; he purchased it, and was very proud of it; he put it on his head, and exhibited it to his brethren. One of the Indians said to him, "O my friend, you very great fool! What will you do with that great big thing in a few years? It will grow so big you won't be able to handle it. I'll go, and buy one." Well, this man went, and he bought one that would hold about a quart. "Here," he said, "I've got one just proper size: I shall keep it good many years, and then it will grow proper size." They thought, you see, the kettle grew just like trees in the fields. The hearts of Christian Indians will rejoice to hear of what was told in the Report. I left my country, to bring the subject of our Indian lands before the Queen and the British Government. Our people have been afraid they would be driven away from their land, and it had great effect upon the people. But when they hear your Queen has ordered their lands to be secured to them, their hearts will jump for joy. I do shake hands with your young Queen in my heart; and I return thanks to your Committee and officers for the trouble they have taken on this important subject. hope, my friends, that we shall all worship one God, go on the road together, and all meet in our Father's house above.

I

The REV. EDWARD FRASER.Mr. Chairman, ladies and gentlemen, the proceedings of this day remind me of some things I have read concerning a Roman triumph. You know, that, upon that great occasion, there were many requisites for the day, and among the rest, exhibitions of a few of the captives from nations that had been subdued. To-day there is a Missionary triumph; and you have something like that exhibition of

captives too; only you have the advantage over the ancients in this respect,-that they exhibited the captives whom they had in chains, and you exhibit the captives whom you have liberated and blessed. I believe I was announced to you as being from Antigua, in the West Indies. I shall take the liberty to say, that there is a little mistake there. This is the second time I have had the honour of appearing before you, or at least, before a respectable audience in this place. Last time I was from Antigua; but, going upon the rule of the Report, remembering that this is an Anniversary Meeting, and that I have now passed a year in this country, I think I may venture to consider that I am not from Antigua strictly, but that I am from England. I have been throughout your country, passed by some of your fields, been into some of your gardens, and seen how, under your superior skill in agriculture, the earth yields an abundant production. You may admire a foreign production here and there; but, taken as a whole, you may depend upon it, you have the most reason to be thankful in this country. If there is any production of mother earth which your climate is not suitable for, you make a climate suitable for it. A gentleman took me into his botanical garden, where I was surprised to see some of the productions of my own clime. He proceeded further and further with me, until I was astounded to find that he raised a temperature capable of producing any thing. I have been throughout your city; and surely there never was a city so deserving of a great nation. What buildings! what squares! what circuses! what terraces ! what crescents have you not !-every order of architecture; every thing for stability, splendour, and beauty. Look within, and you will find all that is useful, all that can relieve the ills of life, and make life itself agreeable. I have looked at your palaces, and at your great buildings; and there is one kind of your palaces that invariably strikes the tenderest feelings of my heart,—I mean the palaces you have erected for the beggars, your great hospitals for the sick, your asylums, your charitable establishments, scattered throughout England. O! these at once show the character of that religion to which you yourselves, as well as those who are the objects of your Missionary benevolence, are so greatly indebted. I have likewise looked to the mansions of the nobility; and sometimes even got a glimpse at your royal palaces. When the Queen of Sheba went to see

King Solomon, she was utterly astonished at his grandeur; why, she would have been no less struck, had she paid a visit to Queen Victoria. Heaven bless our youthful, noble Queen! (Longcontinued applause.) I am sure, if there is one disloyal heart throughout her vast dominions, that heart does not wear a face like mine. I have gone through some of your factories; and there I find you work without hands, and yet produce the finest specimens of every article. Look at your commerce : sometimes I walk to your ports; and there the shipping crowd from almost every part of the known world, strewing the waters, and making them look almost like an aquatic forest. In travelling, neither wind, nor tide, nor weather, -nothing will stop you now. You are here just now, and presently yonder, at an immeasurable distance in an hour.

When you cannot find a way above ground, you make one underneath it. A short time since, I went from Manchester to Liverpool. As we approached Liverpool, they began to light the lamps of the steam-carriages. I inquired if they were going to put us under ground before we were dead. The answer was, "Yes, we must go under ground for a few minutes:" but the distance was a mile; and there was a resurrection in the noble town of Liverpool. Then again, I have looked to your churches and your colleges, and I have thought I could go no further. "Here," said I, "I have come to the source of your earthly prosperity, and of all that I have seen which is great." The light of science and the light of religion combining make you what you are; and, looking at those venerable institutions, I have been ready to cry out, "Ye miserable ancients! had you these?" But you will say, perhaps, "What has all this to do with the Missionary Meeting?" O, be assured I did not forget to trace the connexion. I began to think that all this prosperity of the English people, all this honour, and this wealth, not only furnished them with the ability, but laid them under the obligation, to establish and support Missions. Then came into my mind a proposal which I thought I should one day, when I could put on an impudent face, make to you. Reference has been made to an idea of "stopping the Missionary supplies;" and the proposition which I thought of making was, to relieve you from the burden. I speak not now of myself in my personal character, but of myself in my national character; and I desire you to take me now

for a Heathen, if you please, speaking to you on behalf of that portion of the human race from which you are distinguished by a line of such broad demarcation. Thus considering myself, then, I would offer to relieve the English people from their Missionary benevolence. But, mark you, you must give me all that which constitutes the obligation to support the cause. Suffer me, then, to make the proposal, and suppose that there are half a dozen lawyers engaged to secure this transfer:-I must have all this national prosperity, all this intelligence, all the colleges in London, in Dublin, in Glasgow, and Edinburgh, and I must have the two eyes of England, named Oxford and Cambridge. Those cathedrals and places of worship, they are all to be transferred to me; and I shall have your authority among the nations of the earth, your weight of character, so that if a man were to start up from the dead, and proudly say, "I am a Roman citizen," I should be able to stand up against him, and say, "I am a modern Englishman." I shall have all your commerce; all your profitable and civil institutions; and I shall also have your bank in this city; so that you see I am a human being, with a head not destitute of the organ of acquisitiveness. I shall then not forget the conditions which I am to take upon myself; namely, all this work of civilizing and Christianizing. The exertions of mankind should be marshalled together; I should summon up every particle of talent, I should not find a white or a coloured man whom I would not engage in the cause; I should make a monopoly of the work, that we might teach all nations to honour the Lord, and diffuse the blessedness of religion into the hearts of the human race throughout the known world, extending the victories of the cross, conquering human hearts, and widening the dominion of the Son of God. Well, then, what in exchange is to be given to you? Why, you are to be relieved from all this burden and labour. You are no longer to have to come here to celebrate Anniversaries, or to tire your bodies by sitting long days in a crowded assembly; and the gentlemen on the platform are no longer to tax their ingenuity to make long and impressive speeches. You shall not have any longer touching appeals from your Treasurers and Secretaries: the Lord Chancellor shall issue an injunction against them; they shall no longer be at liberty to talk to you so affectingly about the Fejees. Exeter-Hall shall be converted into a place of merchandize, and no Col

I

lector shall be allowed to approach your door, even on behalf of Missionary schools, on pain of forfeiting a penny sterling for every offence. But, Sir, I must come down from my castles in the air: for I fear I may be fatiguing the patience of this respected audience. But I know that you understand me; and I am satisfied you feel "it is more blessed to give than to receive." If, however, I may be permitted to go on with my travels, I have still a few observations to make upon them. I have observed, in moving from place to place in this country, that much good-will prevails towards the cause of Christian instruction. was sent out into the provinces, and I have gone through many cities and towns, to plead on behalf of schools for the lately-emancipated people of the West Indies; and really, if any of you have not yet proved how kind and how hospitable your countrymen in the provinces are, I would advise you to lose no time in going among them in some such cause as that in which I have been engaged. They have insisted on my coming into their houses to be warmed, to be filled, and to be supplied with the needful for the work in which I was engaged. I had thought, it would not be unedifying for the purposes for which we are called together, to mention some instances of liberality I have experienced in England. I had thought once of mentioning towns and cities which I had found to be pre-eminent in their munificence; but, upon reflection, I thought, from principle, I ought to make no selection, not even of Manchester, where I experienced the greatest benevolence. But I think I shall not act improperly, if I mention some instances of personal generosity. [Mr. Fraser then described several instances of the most liberal pecuniary assistance which he had received from various individuals and localities; and concluded by expressing a hope, that the contributions of that day would at least equal the former exertions of the friends by whom he was surrounded. He reminded them, that it was cheaper to bear the expense of Missions and Mission-schools, than that of a war to put down insubordination. should, in all probability, not have an opportunity of being there next year, but he hoped to hear, that this country continued not to forget other countries less highly favoured than itself. And he concluded by imploring ten thousand blessings on their English heads and hearts.]

He

The Resolution was put, and carried unanimously.

GEORGE FINCH, Esq., in rising to move the next Resolution observed, that he had come to the Meeting under a determination not to address it; but that, about half an hour previously, he had been informed that his noble friend Lord Ashley was unable to attend, and the Secretaries requested him to be his representative. He (Mr. Finch) regretted that the Meeting should have lost the presence of his noble friend, and that they should not have had a better representative of him than they had in himself. He deplored the deep affliction which had overwhelmed his honourable friend Mr. Plumptre, who was to have occupied the chair; although he was satisfied that his present affliction would subside into Christian peace. He would not assume the language of flattery, for that would be no compliment to a religious Meeting; but he felt peculiar pleasure in attending the Wesleyan Missionary Anniversary, because the conduct of that body had been marked with the strictest consistency. The Methodist church owed its origin to a Missionary spirit. It was Wesley, and Whitefield, and their colleagues, who, looking around them, and seeing the exertions that were required, felt called upon to brave the difficulties that presented themselves; to expose themselves to every personal inconvenience, to accomplish their philanthropic object; and even to cross the Atlantic, to prosecute their exertions, that they might diffuse in the most distant regions a knowledge of "the unsearchable riches of Christ." The Report which had been read that day, although it had drawn largely on the patience of the audience, yet if it had been as well heard and as well understood by all present as it had been by himself, he was satisfied that all must have wished it had even been longer. The details had been most gratifying; and, so far from showing that there ought to be any "stoppage of the supplies," it presented the most energetic appeal to the continued liberality of the British public. The Meeting had no reason for despondency. The energies of the friends of this cause had been too much tested already to admit of a doubt that their energies would be continued. The Missionaries that were yet going out must be armed, not only with pecuniary means, but with every implement of Christian faith; because they had much to encounter; at the same time they had the consolation of knowing, they were going out to do their Master's will. He should not detain the Meeting longer, but cheer2 H

fully move the Resolution which had been put into his hand :

"That this Meeting, while contenplating with great satisfaction the operations of the Wesleyan Missionary Society in other parts of the world, regards with peculiar interest the Mission lately undertaken to the dark and cannibal population of the Fejee Islands; the proposed re-inforcement of the important Mission in New-Zealand; and the measures in progress for the religious instruction and benefit of the Indian tribes of British North America: and that these holy enterprises are specially recommended to the generous support of the Christian public, the fact being now ascertained, that the gratifying increase of the Society's regular income has been more than counterbalanced by the unavoidable increase of its expenditure; so that, without a farther and very considerable addition to its annual receipts, its actual operations cannot be maintained on their present scale, nor those new enterprises be prosecuted for which such pressing applications are constantly made, and which the moral wants and miseries of the world so imperatively require."

HENRY POWNALL, Esq., was prepared to support this Resolution; the Wesleyans were prepared to support it; the Christian country in which he lived was prepared to support it also; and every lover of Jesus Christ must delight in supporting the work of evangelizing and sending forth Missionaries to the heathen world. This was a high day for the Wesleyan-Methodist Society. There had been on the platform that day a native of China, who, if he had addressed that vast assembly, would have given utterance deep and penetrating to an appeal to every heart, to come forward in support of Missionary efforts for one third of the human species. The Meeting had already been addressed, in strains that would not soon be forgotten. Africa had sent forth one of her descendants, who had been introduced into the glorious liberty of the cross; and who was not only enabled to thank God for what had been done for him, but to stimulate, by his eloquence, the friends of the Missionary cause to still greater exertions. He had exhibited the banner of the Redeemer, and called the attention of the Meeting to subjects of vast importance. Babylon had had her palaces and her temples; but she had been weighed in the balance and found wanting. Nineveh, too, had had her palaces, her statues, and her monuments of antiquity: where were they? Mouldering in the dust,

Why? Because her palaces and her population were not consecrated to the great Jehovah; and Nineveh had passed away. Tyre, also, had had her commercial enterprises; but they had not been consecrated to the true God. Tyre might have been now sending to India, and to distant places, and throughout the world, her Missionaries for the civilization and Christianization of the human species; but she also had fallen. It was the privilege of this great nation to send out the standard of Christ; and there could not have been a more gratifying scene than was presented to the friends of religion by that Meeting that day. By sending forth the religion of Christ to the heathen world, the population became industrious, and blessings of inestimable value were the result. There was every encouragement held forth to the lovers of freedom and of religion, to proceed with those exertions which, under the blessing of divine providence, were calculated to spread the name of the Redeemer from sea to sea, and to give support to every Missionary in his work of labour and love; that of carrying the glad tidings of the salvation of Christ to a lost and perishing world. He had great pleasure in seconding the Resolution.

The REV. BENJAMIN CLOUGH, from Ceylon, observed, that he appeared before the Meeting under peculiar disadvantages. In the first place, he laboured under a considerable degree of indisposition. In the second place, his embarrassment arose from the very peculiar feelings of his own mind. He looked at the interesting audience around him, and saw gladness apparent in almost every countenance, which made him almost say he felt himself to be the only unhappy being present. The cause of his distress arose from his being separated from his Missionary work, and compelled to leave a cause which for many years had been dear to his heart. No one could conceive what his feelings were, when he entered upon the platform, and heard almost the first name mentioned to be that of the late Rev. Dr. Coke. It was nearly twentyfour years since he, with three other young men, stood on the deck of an East-India ship, and committed the mortal remains of that inestimable man to the silent deep. From that time, as the Meeting might suppose, the Missionary life had not been an altogether easy life to himself. He had had to encounter storms, gales, and hurricanes; to suffer shipwreck, and pass through various scenes of difficulty, in the prosecution of the

great work, to which, he trusted, under the guidance of the great Head of the church, he had been directed: yet none of these things had moved him; none had diminished those feelings of strong attachment to the great Missionary cause, which, he believed, even in death would warm his soul. When he was requested that morning to take a part in the proceedings of to-day, he had intended to enter into a few of the details connected with the East Indian Missions, at the time when he was in the province, and painfully called upon to leave it; but the time had gone by, and he could not now permit himself to enter into those details still, with the permission of the Chairman, he would give a few of the impressions of his mind. He was sorry that the paper which he had furnished to the Secretaries had been omitted, in order to save time in reading the Report, as that would have given the general outline of his views. Considering what the state of our Missions was in the East Indies, at the time he left, he should give it as decidedly his opinion, in the first place, that, although the Society perhaps, comparing its operations in India with the operations of its other Missions, especially in the South Seas and the West Indies, (scenes of Missionary labour very widely different from those in which he was engaged,) could not reckon on the great number of sound conversions to God, as crowning the efforts of their Missionaries; yet he believed that even at the present period vast benefit had been accomplished in many instances among the heathen population of India. believed that an impression had gone forth, by Christian education, the translation of the Scriptures into different languages, and the teaching of the word of God, and an impulse had been excited, in the vast population of India, which must and would prove triumphant in the final overthrow of Heathenism in those nations. He regretted that the tottering system of Heathenism was upheld by British power and influence, and wished that measures could be adopted for the purpose of withdrawing that support. He would not countenance any law that would go to the forcible abolition of idolatry. Let the British nation only remove from under Heathenism the pillars which supported it, and idolatry would fall. Mr. Clough then adverted to the subject of education in India. When he looked at the vast sums which had been expended upon it by the Indo-British Government, and by the East India Company, he could not but deeply regret the man

He

ner in which those sums had been appropriated. He alluded to the total exclusion of the word of God. There had been a system adopted of excluding, as much as possible, the interference of the Clergy, and a peculiar guard had been placed, in that system of schools, against the introduction of the Scriptures. He could not believe that the British public ever contemplated this, or were cognizant of it. Then, as regarded the prejudices of the nations of the east, it was a great mistake to suppose that the population there viewed with jealousy the interference of the British Government. Millions of instances might be brought forward of the deepest gratitude to the British Government for the suppression of the Suttee sacrifices; and those who were opposed to such enactments consisted only of a comparatively few individuals, forming what ought to be called a secret cabal. That cabal insidiously represented, through the press, that there existed prejudices in the Indian population against the interference of our Government. Experience teemed with facts to the contrary, showing that the population was thankful for such interference. It afforded sincere satisfaction to his mind, that, under the divine blessing, the conversion of this people was rapidly advancing. It was impossible for him to enter into all the details that day, which he should otherwise have pleasure in doing; but he would mention that a Missionary had stated, that a Chief of a Kandian tribe had conveyed to him an assurance, that if they could obtain a certainty that that country would be preserved by the British Government, and would not be allowed to fall back again to the native Government, they would cheerfully renounce Heathenism and embrace Christianity; but they could not do so unless there was that certainty afforded, because the moment it fell back into the hands of the native Government, they would become the first victims of sacrifice. In reference to the Mahometan population of India, an impression had gone forth that this world would shortly become subject to the sway of Christ; but it was a matter of faith with them, that Christ had entered into a compromise with Mahomet, to bring Mahomet with him. Although such a notion was to be looked upon with pity, yet the Christian world could not but congratulate itself that even such an impression as to the ultimate triumph of Christ and his religion was made on that population.

At this stage of the proceedings, Mr. HARDY, being obliged to retire, was