46 THE LATE EARTHQUAKE IN ANTIGUA. ruins. While we gazed upon the work of desolation, and wept, our people came to comfort us, with the assurance that it was the Lord's doing, and that He did all things well. We immediately visited the wounded, and sent for a medical man to attend them. In the large village near our Church, where a great many of our people live, scarcely a house is left standing all is desolation. Yet I have not heard one complaint: they all say, "It is the Lord's doing." They feel and acknowledge, that in this visitation, mercy has been mixed with judgment; for had it taken place in the night many thousands would probably have perished. In looking over the ruins, I could not help remarking how providential it was that we were absent at the time of the shock. Had we been at home, either my wife or myself would have been giving a Bible-lesson to about fifty children at the very time, and in that part of the Church which was thrown down. Our house, which is of wood, I am thankful to say is not injured; but every out-building of stone is flat on the ground. In the evening, many of our people met at our house to thank the Lord for His sparing mercy, and to seek His protection for the time to come. Many found shelter with us who had not a place in which to put their heads. We had not long retired to rest when we felt another smart concussion, which brought down more of our Church. We have since had many slight shocks. The island is in ruins. How the fine crop of sugar will be taken off, no one can tell. During the earthquake, the bells at Gracehill and Lebanon rang, as if for Divine Service. Below Gracehill, the earth opened and threw out water, The barometer was higher than it had been for some time, We now have our Public Services out of doors. These were attended, last Lord's-Day Morning, by more than a thousand persons. May the Lord bless the preaching of His Word to many souls! DEATH-BED VIEW OF THE VALUE OF MISSIONS. A CLERGYMAN in Nottinghamshire was called upon, a few years ago, to attend a member of his congregation in his last hours; when the dying man thus addressed him : O, Sir! if it should but please God to raise me up againthough I desire to leave all to His disposal-yet if He should raise me up, I trust that I shall set about things in a very DEATH-BED VIEW OF THE VALUE OF MISSIONS. 47 different spirit from that in which I have lived. A little while ago I should have replied, if any one had asked me the ground of my hope toward God, that I had done no harm to any. No HARM! why, WHAT GOOD have I done? What greater harm can a man do, than to do nothing? The little that I may have done, I did as if I did it not.— There is the Church Missionary Society. Oh! if I live, I hope I shall promote it in a better spirit. I see things very differently now. I used to think you a little visionary; at all events, a little tainted with enthusiasm, in that cause. I gave you a Guinea a-year, out of respect to you; and I gave a Guinea to another fund, to please the good people connected with it; but my heart was not in it. I was pleased with the Meetings, and gratified to see others pleased, and thought them good things; but that was all. On being asked what had been the means of leading him to view this subject in a different light, he said A night or two since, it might be about midnight, I awoke from a doze; and after having recollected where I was, I stretched out my hands, and pulled back the bed-curtains, to see if any one was watching with me. My two dear sons were sitting, one on each side of my bed; and instantly bent forward with affectionate care, to see if I wanted any thing. The recollection of what was said at the Missionary Meeting concerning the Hindoos drowning or forsaking their aged parents, when they became a burden to them, instantly flashed across me; and as suddenly I thought, To what do I owe the difference? Why am not I taken out by my dear sons, and laid in the river to perish? How is it that I have them thus leaning over me, and watching every breath and wish, and my family contending among themselves who shall have the honour and privilege of sitting up with me? It is to the Gospel of Christ that I owe this! I used to reason, that pious men were too much wanted in England, to send them abroad; and that we ought to wait till the Gospel produced more general fruits among us. But I was wrong. If the first Christians had waited till the Jews had been converted, I should not have had my two sons bending over me, no affectionate family to cheer me, and I should have perished without a hope. Reader! View the important subject of Missions now, as you will wish you had viewed it when you LINES TO A MISSIONARY LEAVING HIS NATIVE LAND. 48 come to die. Work while it is called day: knowing that the night cometh, in which no man can work. [From the Missionary Gleaner. LINES TO A MISSIONARY LEAVING HIS NATIVE LAND. FAREWELL, my dear Brother, thy country forsaking, E'en thou wast a captive, till Love everlasting Then, freeman of Christ, for His warfare selected, Though feeble thyself, fear thou not, but remember The gracious, eternal, unchangeable Lord. Shouldst thou look with regret on the objects forsaken, May the prospect of glory thy spirit awaken, When compass'd by foes, through discouragement drooping, Or when through disease or infirmity stooping, May Jesus sustain thee, and comfort supply ! When thou'st fought the good fight, and in death art declining, May Jesu's bright presence illume the dark vale, On the arm of His love ever faithful reclining, Nor death nor his terrors shall cause thee to fail! Then, thy weapons and warfare for ever relinquish'd, Farewell, then, my Brother! thy country forsaking ; [Rev. G. Pebtitt. No. 5. CHURCH MISSIONARY GLEANER. MAY, 1843. VOL. III. CONCLUSION OF THE FORTY-THIRD REPORT. THE HE necessity which exists for the friends of the Society to continue their efforts in its behalf, not only in order to the support of the existing Missions, but to provide means for the entrance of Missionaries into the new fields of labour which have been providentially opened before us, is thus enforced by the Committee, in the conclusion of the Forty-third Report: The Committee, in concluding their Report, desire to impress upon the friends of the CHURCH MISSIONARY SOCIETY the urgent need which exists for the continuance of those noble efforts by which its treasury has been replenished: and they earnestly deprecate the notion, that because so large a sum has been raised during the last year they may now relax in their exertions. We need all the strength at present employed in each of our successful Missions, in order to sustain the work which God has graciously enabled us to accomplish. European superintendence over those feeble flocks, which have been gathered in Tinnevelly, Krishnaghur, and the villages near Calcutta, will be absolutely necessary for many years to come, to preserve them from being scattered, or from falling into such a state as will disgrace the Christian name. Never should it be forgotten, that the venerable Schwartz and his co-adjutors left a large flock, which, through the neglect of the succeeding generation, fell into a condition. little better than that of Heathenism. The blessed work we now commemorate in Tinnevelly is but the revival of the work which Schwartz left behind him forty years ago. 50 CONCLUSION OF THE FORTY-THIRD REPORT. The Bishop of Calcutta lately visited Tinnevelly; and after witnessing the Mission-work of this Society, and the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, combining both of them in one animated appeal, his Lordship exclaims: "I cannot but express my wonder at these blessed Missions. There must be twenty-four more Missionaries sent out, twelve from each Society. For now all the harvest languishes for want of reapers. . England has done nothing for her Heathen subjects in India, comparatively speaking. Where are our pious young Clergy? Where the flower of Oxford and Cambridge? Where the enterprising spirit of our glorious Military and Naval Christians, returned home from the wars, and prepared to devote themselves to the spiritual conflict with Satan in the strongholds of Idolatry in the East?" But not only is there a sacred necessity upon us to continue a full measure of support to the existing Missions: new and most wonderful openings have been suddenly presented to us; and dead to every Christian and generous impulse must be the heart which can contemplate them without emotion. A highway into Central Africa, and the banks of the Upper Niger, has been pointed out, by the evident finger of God, through Sierra Leone, comparatively free from that terrific scourge which haunts the regions of the Delta and the Confluence. The kings and chiefs of inland tribes have been the foremost to invite us to send Missionaries unto them, and to receive their sons into our Seminary at Sierra Leone: thus, as it were, interchanging hostages with us, in ratification of a solemn compact that England and Africa shall yet be united in the brotherhood of a common faith. The eyes of Christendom are turned also with intense interest and expectation toward China. The amount of its population-more, probably, than one-half of the whole heathen world; the deep injury inflicted upon its morals and its prosperity, by British Christians, through the nefarious traffic in opium, the barrier which has hitherto encircled its empire and excluded the Gospel; the peculiar facilities afforded for the rapid propagation of Christianity, when once the breach shall have been made, by the fact that almost the whole male population is a reading population, and reading the same books, however much their spoken |