admit them as a constituent portion of the United States, and subject to its laws.

As this removal of the Indian tribes to a territory west of the Mississippi has subjected the General Government to great misrepresentation, and, in my opinion, to most unjust censure, I may say a few words farther respecting it. What has been most censured is the removal of the Cherokees, a tribe of Indians formerly situated chiefly in the State of Georgia, and by far the most advanced in civilization of all the aboriginal race.

much trouble from their Georgian neighbours, they remained several years longer on their lands, and then sold them to the United States for a great price,* and removed west of the Mississippi, where they are now settled. Although their removal was attended with much hardship, and a good deal of sickness, they are represented as doing well in their new territory, where they are placed beside the Choctas, Chickasas, Creeks, and other tribes.

So, also, the course pursued by the General Government in relation to the Seminole Indians in Florida has been held up as cruel and unjust in the highest degree, as designed to uphold slavery, &c., &c. Now, though far from believing that in this matter the government has acted wisely, I think it obvious that the situation of the long, narrow peninsula in question, although nineteen.twentieths of it are quite unfit for any species of culture, might make the possession of it desirable. A large sum, accordingly, was offered for it to the 3000 or 4000 Indians who roamed over it, and whose depredations on the white inhabitants of the country adjoining had long been exceedingly vexatious. A treaty was made, as the government thought, with chiefs having full authority to that effect. But this the Indians refused to keep; hence hostilities broke out, which, after having lasted for years, are now terminated. That the government was deceived by its agents is very probable, but I do not believe that its intentions were unjust.

It is hard to see wherein the General Government was to blame in all this. It By the charter granted to Oglethorpe was in favour of removing the Indians, beand his friends, Georgia claimed an exten- lieving that it would be best for them to sive territory to the west of her present leave a territory where they could never limits, out of which the States of Alabama live in tranquillity, and place themselves in and Mississippi have since been formed. another, which, being the absolute property This territory she agreed to cede to the of the United States, could not, under any United States, provided the General Gov-pretext, be claimed by any state. There, ernment would buy out the claims of the if anywhere, they can, and, I have no Indians residing within her present limits, doubt, will be protected. and remove them elsewhere. The General Government accordingly removed the Creek Indians, after buying up their claims, from the southwestern part of the State to the west of the Mississippi. But the Cherokees, whose lands lay in the northwestern corner, refused to sell them, although the General Government for years tried every method that it deemed proper to induce them to do so. Georgia at length resolved to survey those lands, and to extend her jurisdiction over both their Indian occupants, and all who lived among then; upon which the missionaries retired, with the exception of two, who refused to take the oath of allegiance to the state, on the ground that Georgia had no right of jurisdiction over the Cherokee territory. Being arrested and thrown into prison for this, they appealed to the Supreme Court of the Confederation, which gave judgment in their favour, and ordered them to be set at liberty. This was demanded, accordingly, by the marshal of the United States residing in the State of Georgia. The Governor of Georgia refused compliance. This was reported by the marshal to the Supreme Court. Its next yearly meeting was now drawing on, and the Constitution then required that the chief-justice should call upon the President of the United States to enforce compliance, which, by his oath of office, the latter was obliged to do. At this crisis, the Governor of Georgia, well aware that the President would do his duty, first offered pardon to the imprisoned missionaries, and as they refused to accept this, as a last resort he convened the Legislature, and it, on some trivial ostensible pretext, abolished the penitentiary or state prison, and so turned the missionaries out of doors. So the affair ended. The cause of the Indians their removal, and a year's support in their new * Five millions of dollars, besides the expenses of was, in fact, sustained by the General homes. All this was in addition to the lands which Government, and though they received they received in exchange for their former country.

Upon the whole, I think that the National Government, in its transactions with the Indians, has sincerely aimed at doing them justice. Its influence is happily exercised in promoting peace among the tribes of the West, the disputes constantly arising among which its officers and agents do their best to terminate in a peaceful way, and by the influence of persuasion alone. It has often, indeed, to bear the blame due only to unfaithful agents, by whom it is sometimes both deceived and committed.

The General Government has been blamed because rum and other ardent spirits are carried by unprincipled men to the Indians on the borders, yet no government

could well do more to prevent this. It has not only forbidden, but has taken measures to prevent all such traffic; and these have not been wholly in vain. But what government on earth could effectually guard such an immense frontier of almost boundless forests as that of the United States? England and France find it impossible to guard effectually a few hundred miles of coast against smuggling; how much more difficult the task which the United States are blamed for not accomplishing? But the formation of Temperance societies among the Indians, and the passing of severe laws among themselves against every villain, white or red, who may be found engaged in such commerce, will be a more effectual remedy.

Several of the aboriginal nations now assembled on the territory which the government of the United States has assigned them, and which lies, as we have said, west of the States of Arkansas and Missouri, are making astonishing progress in civilization. As a proof of this, the fact may be cited that in some of them, particularly the Cherokees and Choctas, many schools are now maintained; some of them by the several missionary societies who employ ministers of the Gospel and teachers among them, and others by the governments of those tribes. In some cases, individual natives bear the expense of a school themselves, for the benefit of their children. Many of the natives are sufficiently well educated to be good teachers.

The Chocta government has made provision for the education of their youth, which may well cause many nations more advanced in civilization to blush. Their National Council in November, 1842, resolved to establish three academies for boys and four for girls. For the former (one of which, I believe, is to be a sort of college) they made an annual appropriation of 18,500 dollars, and for the latter 7800, making together the sum of 26,300 dollars as a public annual appropriation for the support of schools! And yet, a few years ago, these people were ignorant savages, of whom not one could read! And who have, under God, been the authors of this change? The missionaries who are labouring among them, and who are all Prot

In conclusion, I would state that the United States government has done much incidentally, during the last twenty-five years, to promote missions among the Indian tribes, by a yearly grant of 10,000 dollars for the establishment of schools, blacksmiths' shops, and other trades. This sum is generally expended through the several missionary societies, and of course by the missionaries, as the persons most competent for the task; many, if not all, of them being well acquainted with the various handicrafts most necessary to the partially civilized people among whom they live. The late Secretary of War, the Hon. John C. Spencer, has spoken in the highest terms of the judicious manner in which this money has been applied, and of the good which has been accomplished.estants. A similar testimony has recently been rendered by a committe of Congress, to which the same subject had been referred. It is pleasant to state a fact which shows the favourable disposition of the government towards the benevolent enterprise of Christianizing and civilizing the tribes on our borders, to whom we are far from having done all our duty. Many of the tribes, it may be added, appropriate large sums from the yearly pensions they receive from the United States government to the establishment of schools and the promotion of the arts.*

* The United States government has done much

to procure a favourable reception for the missionaries among the Indians, and to induce the latter to set apart large sums from the price paid for their lands by the United States, and which is generally done in the shape of annuities, for the promotion of education and religion, as well as the useful arts. These annuities now exceed 1,000,000 of dollars. To preserve these tribes, or, rather, all the tribes to which it can find access, from the ravages of the smallpox, the United States government also sends fit persons from time to time to vaccinate them.

As to the Cherokees, the progress of civilization among them is not less wonderful. Very many of them can now read. A few years ago, one of their men, who had been educated by the missionaries, invented a syllabic alphabet, by which the art of reading has been wonderfully diffused among them-a phenomenon which has had no equal in any community in the whole world these two thousand years. There are three printing-presses in this nation, one of which has lately been introduced by their government for the purpose of printing a Cherokee newspaper!

We now proceed to give some notice of the various Missionary Societies in the United States, and in doing so shall have occasion to speak of what has been done since 1815 to introduce Christianity among the Indians.

CHAPTER III.

EIGN MISSIONS.

Within the territory claimed by the United States, AMERICAN BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS FOR FORthere are now above fifty missionary stations among the Indians, about fifty missionaries, above forty assistant missionaries, American and native, and not

much under 5000 communicants or members of

churches. There is also a very considerable number

of schools and scholars.

ted Brethren, the American Board of ComWITH the exception of that of the Unimissioners for Foreign Missions is the oldest society for foreign missions in the Uni

ted States. It has also the greatest num- | ber of missions and missionaries, and the largest amount of receipts. Several religious denominations, agreeing substantially in their views of the Gospel, and in their ecclesiastical organizations, unite in sustaining it. These are the Congregational, numbering about 1500 churches, about the same number of Presbyterian churches, and the Reformed Dutch and German Reformed, numbering together about 700 churches; though but a small number of the German Reformed churches yet take an interest in foreign missions. The great body of the Congregational churches are in the New-England States. The others, so far as this missionary institution is concerned, are almost entirely in what are called the Middle and Western States. The number of congregations which are really connected with it, and operate through it on the heathen world, is about 3500, in which there may be 2,000,000 of souls.

ITS ORIGIN AND CONSTITUTION.-The Board had its origin in the following manner. Several young men, graduates of New-England colleges, and preparing for the Gospel ministry at the Theological Seminary at Andover, in the State of Massachusetts, agreed, in the year 1809, to unite their efforts in establishing a mission among the heathen in some foreign land. In this they were encouraged by the Faculty of the seminary. As the General Association of Congregational ministers in Massachusetts were to hold their annual meeting in June, 1810, these young men were advised to submit their case to that body. This was done by four of their number-Messrs. Mills, Judson, Newell, and Nott-in the following paper:

"The undersigned, members of the Divinity College, respectfully request the attention of their reverend Fathers, convened in the General Association at Bradford, to the following statement and inquiries.

Eastern or Western world: whether they may expect patronage and support from a missionary society in this country, or must commit themselves to the direction of a European society; and what preparatory measures they ought to take previous to actual engagement.

"The undersigned, feeling their youth and inexperience, look up to their Fathers in the Church, and respectfully solicit their advice, direction, and prayers."

On the 29th of June, the Association elected a Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, consisting of nine persons. The Board, at its first meeting, held in the following September, adopted the name of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, thus recognising its high calling to act for all in every part of the nation, who might choose to employ its agency in the work of missions among the heathen. The transaction of its ordinary business, however, was delegated to an executive committee called the Prudential Committee, the members of which reside at or near Boston, where is the seat of its operations. Subsequently it was found necessary to obtain an Act of Incorporation from the Legislature of Massachusetts, in order that the Board might the better manage its financial concerns. This act, being respected by the legal tribunals of all the other States in the Republic, has been found of great use, especially in the recovery of bequests contested wrongfully by heirs at law. It requires one third of the members to be laymen, and one third clergymen; the remaining third may be either clergymen or laymen. Members are elected by ballot. The object of the Board is expressly recognised in the act to be "the propagation of the Gospel in heathen lands, by supporting missionaries and diffusing a knowledge of the Holy Scriptures;" and full power is granted to hold an amount of permanently invested funds sufficient for the purpose of credit in the commercial world, and also to receive and expend annually, in pursuance of its object, any amount of contributions its patrons may think proper to place at its disposal.

"They beg leave to state, that their minds have been long impressed with the duty and importance of personally attempting a mission to the heathen; that the impressions on their minds have induced a serious, and, they trust, a prayerful consideration of the subject in its various attitudes, particularly in relation to the probable success, and the difficulties attending such an attempt; and that, after examining all the|sions. information which they can obtain, they consider themselves as devoted to this 'work for life, whenever God, in his providence, shall open the way.

"They now offer the following inquiries, on which they solicit the opinion and advice of this Association. Whether, with their present views and feelings, they ought to renounce the object of missions as either visionary or impracticable; if not, whether they ought to direct their attention to the

The number of corporate members is about 175, residing in nineteen of the States, religious men, having in general a high standing in their respective profes

These form the body corporate, the Trustees in respect to the financial concerns of the institution. But with these are associated a large body of honorary members, amounting, at present, to more than 3500, who are made such by the payment of 100 dollars if laymen, or fifty dollars if clergymen ; and who share equally in the deliberations of the annual meetings, but do not vote, as that would interfere with the charter. A third class of members are called corresponding members; they are

foreign members, and are elected by ballot.clared themselves converts to the peculiar In addition to the usual office-bearers for views of those missionaries in relation to presiding at the annual meetings, and re- Baptism. Their consequent separation from cording the proceedings at these meetings, the society which sent them forth, gave there are three Corresponding Secretaries rise to the formation of a Baptist Board and a Treasurer, whose time is fully occu- for Foreign Missions in the United States. pied with the business. Messrs. Hall, Newell, and Nott, after much painful voyaging from place to place, occasioned by the reluctance of the East India Company to tolerate missionaries, and especially American missionaries, in India (the United States and Great Britain being then, unhappily, at war), at length, in 1813, found a resting-place and field of labour at Bombay, in Western India. This was the commencement of the mission to the Mahrattas.

ferently related to the Christian religion from what they did in 1813. Much unavoidable preliminary ground has been gone over; the truth stands nearer to the native intellect and heart; the spiritual conquest of the country is far easier than it was then.

ITS HISTORY.-The proceedings of the Board, and the results of its experience and operations for the thirty years past of its existence, must necessarily be stated in the most comprehensive and summary manner. It is among the remarkable facts in the history of this institution, and in the ecclesiastical history of the country, that, at the outset, neither the Board nor its Prudential Committee, nor, indeed, any of the leading minds in the American churches at that The Mahrattas possess strong traits of time, could see the way clear for raising character as a people, compared with othfunds enough to support the four young er nations of India, as is evident in their men who were then waiting to be sent forth history for ages past. The American misto the heathen world. One of them was sionaries were the first to go in among accordingly sent to England by the Pru- them, and they entered as the husbanddential Committee, mainly to see whether man would into an unbroken forest. No an arrangement could not be made with preparatory work had been done, except the London Missionary Society, by which merely that of conquest by a Christian a part of their support could be received power, and it must be confessed that few from that society, and they yet remain tangible results have yet been witnessed under the direction of the Board. That in that mission. But there is no doubt society wisely declined such an arrange- that the Mahratta people now stand difment, and at the same time encouraged their American brethren to hope for ample contributions from their own churches as soon as the facts should be generally known. From this time no farther thought was entertained of looking abroad for pecuniary aid. Indeed, the largest legacy the Board has yet received was bequeathed to it by a benevolent lady in Salem, Massachusetts, in the early part of the year 1811. The first ordination of American missionaries to the heathen in foreign lands was in that place, on the 6th of February, 1812. These were the Rev. Samuel Newell, Adoniram Judson, Gordon Hall, Samuel Nott, and Luther Rice, all from the little missionary band in the Theological Seminary at Andover. They proceeded forthwith to Calcutta, in the East Indies, but without being designated to any specific field by the committee. There was not then the hundredth part of the knowledge of the heathen world in the American churches that there is now. The Prudential Committee seem to have been unable to point to any one country, and tell their missionaries decidedly to occupy that in preference to other contiguous countries. The comparative claims of the different benighted portions of the unevangelical world was a subject then but little understood. The missionaries were left to decide what field to occupy after their arrival in India.

Messrs. Judson and Rice had not been long with the Baptist missionaries at Serampore, near Calcutta, before they de

Among the Tamul people, found in the northern district of Ceylon and in Southern India, there was some degree of preparation when the mission to that people was commenced in 1816; in Ceylon, by means of the Portuguese and the Dutch; and on the Continent, by means of the celebrated missionary Schwartz and his associates. Hence, through the blessing of God, the obvious results have been greater there than among the Mahrattas. The systematic measures which were early adopted by the Ceylon mission for training a native agency, and the success attending them, did much to give an early maturity to the plans of the Board for raising up a native ministry in connexion with all its other missions, of which more will be said in the sequel. The most efficient seminary for educating heathen youths for helpers in the work of the Gospel, is believed to be the one connected with the mission in Ceylon. The number of pupils is 160, all of whom are boarding scholars, and about 100 of them are regarded as truly pious. There is also a female seminary, containing more than 100 boarding scholars, where the educated native helpers of the mission may obtain pious, educated wives; and there are free schools contain

ing 3000 pupils, which are a nursery for The mission was commenced on the plain the seminaries, and among the most ef- of Ooroomiah, and has recently been exfective means of securing congregations tended to the independent Nestorian tribes to hear the preached Gospel. In 1834, a among the Koordish Mountains. The leadbranch of this mission was formed at Ma- ing object of the mission is to educate dura, on the Continent, and in 1836 anoth- the clergy, and by reviving among them, er at Madras, with the special object of through the blessing of God, the spirit of printing books in the Tamul language on the Gospel, to induce them to resume the a large scale. preaching of it with more than their ancient zeal. The press has been introduced. More than 400 Nestorians are in free schools, supported by the mission, and. taught by eighteen priests and sixteen deacons; and upward of sixty are boarding scholars in seminaries. There is also a class of about a dozen in theology, instructed by the missionaries. We already begin to witness the gradual reviving of preaching among the ecclesiastics. The great thing wanting among this people is spiritual life. They number about 100,000 souls.. The Syrian mission has for some years past been cultivating an acquaintance with the Druzes of Mount Lebanon. These are about as numerous as the Nestorians, and resemble them in the mountaineer traits of courage and enterprise. The Druzes are a sort of heretical Mohammedans.. Recently those inhabiting the mountains of Lebanon have, as a community, placed themselves under the religious instruction of the missionaries. Their motive may be the improvement of their civil condition, by becoming Protestant Christians, but the fact of their permitting the mission to open a seminary at the seat of their government, and to preach the Gospel, and introduce schools freely among them, should be acknowledged with gratitude to God.

The first mission sent by the Board to Eastern Asia was to China in 1830. A pious merchant in New-York city furnished many of the facts and arguments which justified its commencement, and then he gave two missionaries their passage to Canton and their support for a year. One of these missionaries subsequently visited Siam, and opened the way for a mission to that country; as he did also to Singapore, and to Netherlands India. The mission to Singapore has not answered the expectations of the Board, and has been almost discontinued. The operations in Netherlands India have been much embarrassed hitherto by the restrictive policy of the Dutch Colonial Government. The mission in Siam has had a prosperous commencement; but its prospects have not that cheering certainty which animates the labour of missionaries under such a government as now rules in British India.

Turning our attention to Western Asia, we find a number of interesting missions under the care of this Board. The Greek mission, commenced in the year 1829, grew out of the sympathy which was felt for the Greek people throughout the Christian world, in their struggle for independence from the Turkish yoke. Dr. King, who commenced it, had previously been connected with the Palestine mission. It was to the Holy Land, in fact, that the first mission in the series was sent, in the year 1821. Messrs. Fiske and Parsons were the pioneers in the enterprise. In 1828, after their decease, war, and the hostilities of the Maronites towards the mission, compelled the surviving missionaries to retire from Syria for a season; and it is to this occurrence, in the developments of Providence, we trace the establishment of the mission among the Armenians of Constantinople and Asia Minor, which has been so signally useful to that people. Two missionaries of the Board had, indeed, gone to Asia Minor as early as 1826, but their mission was to the Greeks. In the year 1830, Messrs. Smith and Dwight were sent on an exploring tour into Armenia, and were instructed to visit the Nestorians in the Persian province of Aderbaijan. This visit brought that remnant A mission was sent to South Africa in of the most noted missionary church of 1836, and high hopes were entertained of ancient times to light, and induced the a prosperous issue. But these hopes have Board to send a mission to restore the been in great measure blasted by the sin-blessings of the Gospel to that people.gular immigration of the Dutch Boërs from

The Armenian Church has proved to be scarcely less interesting as a field for mis-sionary labours than the Nestorian. It has even afforded more abundant spiritual fruit. An evangelical influence is strongly developed among the Armenian clergy; and in many instances, where they have had no personal communication with members of the mission, but only with the Holy Scriptures, or with some of the books published by the mission, there are hundreds of Armenians, it is thought, whose minds, rejecting the corruptions and superstitions of their church, have come under the salutary influence of a Gospel that looks for justification only through faith in Christ. In short, the grand principles by means of which the Spirit of grace wrought out the Reformation in Europe, are seen to be operating in Western Asia, and their progress ought to engage the prayerful interest of all Christians.