Northern Times.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1859-05-17 00:00:00

CHURCH

MISSIONARY SOCIETY.

The Annual general meeting of the above society was
held last evening, in the Collegiate Institution, Shaw-street.
There was a very crowded attendance, and on the platform
among other gentlemen were—The Iter. C. B. Leupolt, a
missionary who has just returned from Lucknow ; the Rev.
G. Pettit, late a missionary in South India and Ceylon ;
and the Rev. Hugh Stowell, of Manchester, who attended
as a deputation from the parent society ; the Revs. Dr.
M'Neile, A. Knox, H. Carpenter, Dr. Taylor, C. Lawrence,
H. Jones, J. Crump, T. Cowan, R. D. Powell, W. H.
Wright, T. M. Lester, T. Moore, Y. 0. Powell, I, Thomas,
A. Gore, J. Hamilton, D. Anderson, J. Bardsley. F. Harke,
H. P. Linton, J. Butler, D. T. Barry, W. It. Stephens, H.
'Harlem, T. Fenton, Arthur Gore, W. B. Kerr, J. W,
E. F. Green, C. Ball,. H. Martin, J. Evans, Dr. Hirsch,
W. Fenton, H. Woodward, H. Postance, J. Watson,
J. Kewley, G. French, W. Ffolliot, G. Ireland, S.
Bannerman, J. Lucas, J. Keer, J. Troughton, J. Haworth,
T. Lingley, W. D. Ireland, It. Moore, J. Pilkington, J.
M'Allon, T. P. Ball, W. R. Hunt, J. Herbert. Jones, Wilfred
Levisoa, T. W. Moeran, J. 11. Connor, J. E. Ellison, D.
Rycroft, S. Sampson, W. Calder, G. W. Wavr, J. Wright.
(of Latchford), Dr. Hillcoat, John James r - Messrs. W.
Gregson, T. D. Anderson,- J. Rounthwiate, E.. Jones, R. A.
Payne, 11. Webster, J. Eden, J. Mulvaney, T. Triven, W.
Maples, G. J. Duncan, IL Halhead, J. Campbell, C. Gray-
son, . and G. Holden.

The Rev. Dr. Taylor moved that, in the absence of Mr.
Adam Hodgson, who was announced to take the chair, but
was prevented from being present by a melancholy event
connected with one of his. family, the chair be taken by
Mr. Thomas B.- Horsefall, M.P (Loud cheers.)
Mr. Horsfall took the chair amid• loud applause, and the
meeting was opened with prayer.
The Chairman, then said : It is hardly necessary for me
to say that, I entirely concur in, the observations which
have fallen from. our friend Dr. Taylor, with reference to
the absence of Mr:. Hodgson and. the cause of that absence.
I can only say that, I will endeavour to the best of my

V 111
humble ability, to discharge the duty which I well know
would have been so much better discharged by him if he had
been here. I think that, there never was a period when the
proceedings of the Church Missionary Society were looked
forwith greater interest, or with deeper. Christian sympathy.
(Hear, hear.) 1 have not had the privilege of seeing
the report which is to be submitted, to you this evening,
but whilst we may expect that it will contain.
some painful details, I trust, that we meg also expect from
it some precious hopes for the future. I have no doubt
that it will tell us of the wide fields of missionary labour
which are opening upon us in the comparatively civilised
country of Japan (hear, hear), and that it will tell us of
the wide fields of missionary labour which are opening to
us in China; but it will tell us also, I cannot doubt, of the
loud call' which is made upon us from India, that we should
return to our poor benighted fellow-subjects there, good for
evil. (Hear, hear.) We cannot forget that they are our
fellow subiects, and that they have an especial claim upon
us. They are estimated, I think, at 130 or 140 millions of.
people. Now we hear, not unfreqnently,. of travellers who
have been in India when they return to this country, saying
that they hear here of missionary labour, but when there
they never met a missionary—they never saw a missionary
station. I have heard such, remarks myself, and they
brought to, my mind a circumstance related of a botanist,.
who had gleaned from an adjacent hill a beautiful collection
of flowers, which he showed to a friend. His friend told
him he hall often traversed that hill, and had never observed
such flowers there, and that it was therefore quite impossi-
ble any such flowers could have grown there. The plain
explanation of this was that the one was a botanist, who
sought for flowers, and therefore found them, while the
other cared nought for them, and, I dare say, trod them
under foot.. (Applause.) So it is with travellers in India.
The one will tell you that he, could not find a
missionary station, because he never inquired
for either. (Hear, hear.) Others will tell you
that when they travelled through India they enquired as
they went along, " is there a missionary station near here ?"
and they. found one,—" is there a missionary in the neigh •
bourhood ?" and they had no difficulty in meeting with
one. (Hear, hear.) Now it was my priviledge a few
weeks ago to meet with a Christian officer, who had been
for some years in India. He was asked to preside at a
meeting. lam not sure whether he said it was of the
Church Mission Society, or of the Bible Society, but
it was either one or the other, and he did preside.
In the course of the evening a respectable
person of colour presented himself on the platform, and.
desired to address the meeting. He received the sanction
of the chairman, and his observations were to this effect :
"I am a stranger in these parts. Some four or five years
ago, when crossing the floor of my own house, I saw a piece
of paper lying on the ground. I understood English a little ;
I took it up, and read the second and third verses of the second
chapter of St. Luke. I thought it was nonsense, and I then
threw it away ; but when I went out I could not get the
verses out of my mind. I went back, I took up the paper
and read it again. I thought it is great nonsense ; but
this thought," he said, "occurred to me. If there is a
second chapter there must be a first, and possibly the first
chapter would throw some light upon the second. I went
to an European friend in the neighbourhood, and asked him
if he could explain it. He gave me the whole Gospel
of St. Luke printed by itself. I took it home. I
read it. I did not understand it ; but I thought

it a most extraordinary thing. I went to a Christian
missionary (whom he managed to- find) who was in the
neighbourhood —he explained it to me, he prayed
with me for the teaching of the Holy Spirit—he gave me
a copy of God's blessed word —and I now stand here a
Minister of his Gospel." (Loud applause.) I think, at the
present moment, it is impossible to ovexrate the importance
of the question of national education in India. (Hear,
hear.) It is there the battle of scriptural education must
now be fought, (Hear, hear.) It is for the people of
this country to say whether the Bible is the only
book which shall be prohibited from being read and
taught in the schools supported by the British government.
We profess to give them an education. We give them
information, and we give them power with that information,
but we withhold the principle which should guide that
power. What was the remark made by Mr. Williams, the
missionary from India, at a recent meeting in this country ?

He complained of the system of education, and he gave this
specimen of it. lie said—" I knew Nana Sahib (whom
we well .know in this country by reputation), he
was. an educated man, and to all appearance a
polished gentleman—he was an at\ eist, but he was educated
in one of the schools of the British Government." (Hear,
hear.) Again, there was another missionary—Mr. Hay, I
think, was his name, who corroborated the view as to the
system of teaching ; but he says, further, we are told that it
is the natives who most object to the teaching of the Word
of God in their schools ; but what does Mr. Hay say is the
fact, a missionary who witnessed it with his own eyes ? He
says, that wherever there is a school of the British
Government from which this Riblp ic

school belonging to the missionaries in which it is taught,
the missionary school is invariably crowded, while the
school of the British Government is comparatively empty.
(Loud applause.) I might make, some further observations

upon the subject, but —there are those here who are much
more competent to grapple with it than myself, and I will,
therefore, only intrude upon you one further observation,

3e an observation o

my own

Jut it s

be the observation of a lady, who, With her husband
and her child, was massacred by the monster to
whom I have alluded. In writing to this country she
speaks to this effect, a very short time before she fell
a victim to Nana Sahib, and it is a very remarkable
coincidence that the letter's dated this very day, 16th May,
two years ago, She says, speaking of her husband,
" I think John feels much at the state of things, and

thinks our government are to be blamed for giving the
natives secular education without religion, which only arms
them with power which may be"— and which has been—
" turned against us. But I trust God will pardon us in
this matter, and not pour out his fury upon us for all our
forgetfulness of him. Last year he sent the pestilence, now
we are trembling lest his sword should be drawn again, but
I trust we shall be stirred up to call upon God, and be
reminded wherein our great strength lies. I trust that the
people of this country will remind the Government where
their strength lies in India. (Hear, hear,) It lies in
the faithful teaching of the word of God to the natives.
(Applause) If there were no principle involved in the matter
there is policy," (Hear, hear.) For it is an ascertained
fact that, during the whole of the revolt, not one single
native Christian, of those who numbered from 100,000 to
200,000, was engaged in it, while many of them suffered
with the Europeans. (Hear, hear.) The chairman, in
conclusion, referred to the loss the society has
sustained since its last meeting, in the loss of the treasurer
of the institution, Oil:: late Mr. Inman, whom he pronounced
to be one of th 9 most unostentatious beings he ever knew,
in Christian charity, and in the discharge of faithful
Christian o.uty. (Hear, hear. and applause.) He then
appealed to the meeting, in a few words, for their warm and
earuest support to the objects which thesociety had in view,
and resumed .his seat amid loud applause.
The Secretary was then called up to read the annual
report. The report stated the encouraging fact, that the
funds of the society continued to increase; The inco--„