The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1844-05-28 00:00:00

CHURCH MISSIONARY SOCIETY.

The adjourned meeting of the Church Missionary So-
ciety was held on Tuesday morning last, in the Collegiate
tution.
Dr. TaTTntsit ALL was called to the chair; and the pro-
cedilings wet e opened by prayer.
Thc,, Rev. J. H. STEWAItT moved the first resolution,
whiA expressed the desire of the meeting to give all the
el fry to God for the success which had attended the oper-
ations of the society. One instance of the success which
had attended the society's labours was to be found in the
sound religious principles instilled into the free labourers
from Sierra Leone, who had been working in the island of
Jamaica, and whose excellent conduct had attracted the
praise of the governor, Lord Elgin. With reference to
them, his lordship's chaplain declared that their supe-
rior conduct arose from the religious principles carefully
implanted in their hearts, and diligently cultivated, by the
assiduous labours of the Church Missionary Society.
The Rev. J. J. WElTsaaenT seconded the resolution
in a long and able speech, which he commenced by ob-
serving that, without the aid of God's holy spirit nothing
effectual could be dune among the Hindoos. It was much
easier to civilize and convert savage nations, such as the
New Zealanders and the Hottentots, than to bring to the
saving knowledge of Christ a nation which had had a re-
ligion imposed upon them by a proud and crafty priest-
hood like the Brahmins. It was almost incredible what
large sums were actually spent by the Hindoos in the sup-
port of their idolatrous worship. Sonie years ago he vi-
sited a young Rajah in the neighbourhood of Burdwan,
whose income was reputed to be more than £300,000 per
annum. In the palace he observed bags of money tied up,
some containing 1,000 rupees, and others more. " What,"
he demanded from the Rajah, "is all this money for ?"
" Oh," he replied, " it is for my God ; I am sending one
part to Benares. in order that there I may be prayed for
so that I may go to heaven ; and another part is going to
Juggernaut that I may be proved for likewise." This was
only one specimen of the absurdity of idolatry ; and yet
upon it this individual spent not less than £20,000 per
annum. And this sum bore no comparison to the entire
amount ; but if so much were spent in supporting an abo-
minable and idolatrous worship, what should we Chris-
tians do who really derive benefit and blessings from our
holy religion, who enjoyed peace with God and who ex-
perienced the delightful privilege of approaching the throne
of mercy with confidence? The Hindoos, however, not
merely went to great expenses in the support of their
idolatrous worship, but many put themselves to the suffer-
ing of great pains and anguish. They allowed themselves
to be tortured, and torn, and maimed; and when asked
the reason of it they would invariably say, " it is because
I wish to go to heaven" On this point the rev. gentleman
described several instances. In one of them a man was
seen by the late Mr. Reynolds, a missionary, with an iron
fastened throrigh his cheeks, to which was appended a
chain, at the end of which there was a box in which the
man collected alms. This torture was undergone by the
direction of the priest for some crime which the unhappy
man was thought to have committed in a former state of
existence ; and by it be thought to obtain salvation. All
these things, the rev. gentleman remarked, showed that
the Hindoo had a longing after salvation ; that he was de-
sirous of enjoying peace of conscience; but it was a la-
mentable fact, that three thousand of them were daily
going into eternity without being acquainted with the
way, and the truth, and the life. Was it not then a duty
most incumbent upon us to give them the bread of life?
Should we not try, at least, to convert the multitudes of
Hindustan, which the Almighty had evidently placed at
the feet of Great Britain for the purpose? Well, there
were a small band of missionaries there. proclaiming the
blessings of the gospel ; and many instances might be given
of genuine conversion through their means. Some of
these Mr. Weitbrecht narrated with much simplicity and
effect. There were thousands of native young men who
spoke English, and who had received an excellent English
education, but who had never seen a bible. The natural
consequence of this was, that when they became acquaint-
ed with literature, they learned to despise the religion of
their fathers ; but at the same time they learned nothing
better, because the bible was not admitted into the school
established by government. It was, however, most satis-
factory to know that many of those young men, who once
had been infidels, having once become acquainted with the
bible, studied it for themselves, and eventually became
converted to the truth. And he believed that within the
next fifteen or twenty years, a great and glorious work
would be done in this manner to India, especially if more
missionaries were sent into that country. A most earnest
principle of love was necessary to penetrate our souls with
respect to this cause ; and we must support it not only
with our purses and our prayers, but we must send forth
young men ready to devote themselves to this blessed
work. Whilst urging this topic, the reverend gentleman
related an anecdote of a missionary who was about to pro-
ceed to Sierra Leone. Before going there he wished to
be united to a young lady, but her mother refused her con-
sent, on the ground that, if her daughter went to that
country, the cl.mate would speedily prove fatal to her.
At length, however, she considered that if her daughter
were instrumental in effecting the conversion of one poor
African. her reward would be great, and she co.asented.
The union took place ; the missionary and his wife pro-
ceeded to Sierra Leone; and in seven mouths she died.
She left a memorial behind her, however, for her instruc-
tions had effected the conversion of a poor African boy,
who blessed her for the change she had been the means
of effecting in his heart. This was the reward which mis-
sionaries had in view, and it was with this spirit of earnest
devotion and faithfulness which he wished to see cultivated
among our educated young men. The resolution was
c rried.
The Rev. HUGH WNEILE moved the second resolu-

tion, which was to the effect, that while the meeting re-
cognised with gratitude the progress of the society in past
years, it earnestly pressed upon the recollection of all the
fact that vast masses of our fellow-men were yet without
the Gospel, and the consequent necessity for increased
exertions to me'•t more widely the operations of the
Church Missionary Society. Some years ago, said the
reverend gentleman. it was usual to estimate the popula-
tion of the world, in gross number!, at eight hundred mil-

lions. This was very far, he should think, from the pre-
sent population, but call it eight hundred mill ons, the
proportion of those who professed Christianity was no
more than two hundred millions ont of eight hundred mil-
lions. And the proportion of those who enjoyed Chris-
tianity in its saving power, it would be a very liberal
allowance indeed to estimate at a fourth of the professors.
Was there any country in Christendom where one-fourth
of the population were vital Christians? Was there any
such city, or town, or village? Was one in every four
in the population of Liverpool a really really converted
person ? He feared it would be a stretch of charity at
the expense of truth,to answer in the aflironat.ve. Yet,
with regard to Christendom, although one-fourth was a
very large proportion to allow, if we estimated the really
Christian population of the earth at fifty millions, then
the masses of our fellow-men who are without Christian-
ity was seven hundred and fifty millions ! And this in
every passing generation. Here was a motive to increased
and increasing exertion to which the resolution invited the
auditory. One branch of their exertions was by sending
forth suitable men—men qualified by sound learning—to
meet the subtleties of learned Brah reins by holding forth,
in all simplicity, the sacred pleadings of the divine pro-
mise. (Cheers.) It was to this that he would exhort
them—to more heart-stirring earnestness in prayer to God
for the communication of his grace to those who are al-
ready qualified in his providence by the cultivation of
their natural gifts—that those gifts might be brought as
trophies to the foot of the cross, and consecrated to this
holy cause. Then they might hope that the work would
indeed progress. But without suitable men, money could
not accomplish the work. Nay, an increase of their in-
come would but add to their embarrassments, and involve
them in considerable risks and dangers. They would feel
very uncomfortable in allowing large sums of money to
remain unemployed. And how were they to employ them ?
In sending forth questionable men. Here would be a
ground of painful embarrassment. They might be send-
ing out men who would injure instead of forwarding their
cause—who might bring a scandal upon it in the eyes of
an evil world. While, therefore, they urged thtir friends
to add largely to their treasury, they urged them more
and more to pray that the Lord of the harvest would send
forth suitable labourers into the harvest. The teaching
of the schools and universities, valuable as it was, could
never give the right preparation for the work. It could
prepare men to grapple with all that is reasonable in Chris-
tianity—it could prepare men to argue all that is evidential
in Christianity, to state soundly the nature of miracles, to
state truly the fact of the performance of miracles, to rea-
son correctly on the proof thereby given of divine interpo-
sition—all this the natural understanding of man could
accomplish; but what said the master to such a man?
" Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom
of God.' So they said to their scholars. They did not
depreciate the value of their acquirements. Far other-
wise. They greatly valued them. qualitying, as they did,
those who possessed them to put to shame the preposter-
ous miracles put forward both in Christendom and in hea-
then lands. But after all that schools and universities
could do—after all their examination of evidence, and the
most critical acquaintance with languages, and the most
accurate information in church history—still they were not
labourer's labourer's for that society's work unless they kne.v.retinoo-
- it was by the foolishness of preaching— tu
echmools—un-
man's wisdom, after the philosophy of
proved statements of God—unproved after ths
tbtehat one person
proved in the last resort how or why it is than
vs it is that the
can be both God and man—how
sonrcithe sins of many—
sufferings of one should atone
f foolishness that the
unless they knew that it was
such"was to be carried on. He
work of salvation among menuc men, that the work might
exhorted them to prayhfeor n
had such men, then, of course,
prosper. And when they "anner of
meansy to supply them, to send them
when they were gone. they would want He had
a letter from a
received, since he enteredregatton, whose name he
them
the building,
was not at
(being, as is said, his
had heard
mention. He a ear of the anecdote liberty to
poor lame black, who had come forward, a
anfignorhis wife, and put down
money for himself, Iris wife, and his child, tied he had
gone home and written
tmfoorertroh
b,
earn
himself,odftko ills
sustain
; and he prayed to God that others might
this letter, enclosing £2
better half,") £1 for his first son, now with Jesus,
for his other son and three daughters 15s. each, and for
show more zeal. lie (Mr. M'Neile) understood that the
collection would be made after he sat down, and be would
his servant 10s.
leave this example before them, reminding them of a re-
mark in his friend's letter, that " talking d • was not oing.
He would add, that clapping their hands and approving of
what he talked was not doing, and now came the time for
making another and a better use of their hinds. (Cheers
and laughter.)
The CHAIRMAN then gave out a hymn, during the
singing of which the collection was made.
The Hon. and key. BAPTIST NOEL seconded the reso-
lution. It called upon them, he said, for earnest endea •
yours to save some out of the vast mass of their heathen
fellow-creatures. He would endeavour to point out the
influence which one missionary station might exercise, and
that not one of the principal or most successful, but a

May 2S, 1844.

small and feeble one. If they were to descend from the
sparkling and foaming springs of that mighty river, the.
Ganges, among its pyramids of granite and its domes of
everlasting snow, descending till it ceases to wear the ehas.
racier of a sparkling torrent, arid becomes the settled,
still, and magnificent river, and, receiving new tributaries
from the Himalayas, still rolled on a mighty river to the
ocean a distance of seven or eight hundred miles, they
would come to a city built on its banks about seven hun-
dred miles above the metropolis of British India. That
city was Benares, containing a population of not less than
500,000 souls; 70,000 were Mahometans and the others
Hindoos. There were no fewer than 30,000 Brahmins,
the great numbers of whom maintained by the people
might be understood from the statement of Mr. Weit-
brecht, who bad told them that so many of the priests
were maintained by the Rajah of Burdwan. Benares was
the most sacred city of the Hindoos—more sacred than
Rome to the Roman Catholics, Mecca to the Mahometan,
or Jerusalem to the Jews. It was the place in which his
religion told him if he died he would be carried to heaven.
Till lately we had nothing for the evangelising of its inha-
bitants. Yet they were our fellow subjects : they were
deeply depraved t they were Hindoos, a compendium of
all that was vile in the race of man. Persons in this coun-
try knew very little of Brahminism. Brahminism Nov
that which made men think that if they tortured their ho-
dies in the way his reverend friend 68d described—if they
fixed a hook in their naked backs and swung in agony—it
would please the deity they adore. It was that which taught
them they could wash their sins away in the waters of the
Ganges. It was that which taught them to pour mud in
the eyes, and ears, and nostrils of their sick, and to leave
them to be suffocated by the rising of the river. It was
that which justified the Thugs, one-fourth of whose plun-
der is consecrated to their gods. It was that which sanc-
tioned infanticide, and taught the young widow to allow
herself to be burnt on the funeral pile of her husband. It
was that which had crushed under the intolerable load of
caste the vast multitudes of th..t nation. It was that which,
having first taught that woman is incapable of virtue or
intelligence, denies her the common privileges of a social
being. It was that which had done all that a perverse and
corrupt imagination could do to degrade the worshippers
of its false gods, and to place them as abject slaves under
the feet of those thousands of Brahmins who from age to
age exercise a lordly superiority over them, not the conse-
quence of any advantages of talents, or education, or mo-
rals, but often in defiance of the grossest deficiency in
these respects. This religion their missionaries had en-
deavoured to attack, and it was not without opposition
that they had made the few steps they had already taken.
For some time, when discussions took place between the
Brahmins and the missionaries, the people generally ap-
plauded the Brahmins and hooted the missionaries. Now
all this was reversed; and if ever a Brahmin attempted
such sophistry as they had just heard of, the multitude'
uniformly sided with the Chriwian missionary, applauded
his arguments, and delighted in s-eing the Brahmin si-
lenced. (Hear.) He had not much to say of conversions.
But if that great change in public opinion had taken place'
among 500,000 persons, or a considerable portion of them,
then their missionaries had not laboured in vain. And let
him now tell them what those good men had done. On
one side of that vast city they would see the suburb where
the English residents were gathered. A neat chapel had
been raised by British residents, and here the missiona-
ries were in the habit of preaching to the English. About
forty families were residing there. Those forty families.
professing to be ( hristians, would have had no worship,
no public recognition of God ; and the poor idolaters•
living around them could have pointed to English resi-
dents living among them, and said, "Is this religion?'
Where is your adoration of your God—your honour of
your deity ? That religion which never honours God in•
any way cannot be true ; and therefore our idolatry, bad
as it may be, is preferable to your atheism." (Hear.)
But seeing the British residents meet Sabbath after Sab-
bath for worship, they learnt that Europeans have a reli-
gion, and might learn how superior it was to their own-
Hear, hear.) On the other side of the city was a small•
low building, one portion of which formed a chapel, and
the other the missionaries' dwelling-house ; and connected
with this was an orphan school, containing 120 boys and
50 girls. The whole range of building had been raised bY
the friends of the Church Missionary Society resident in
Benares. In that suburb there were 120 native converts
who from Sabbath to Sabbath met together as Christian
brethren. The word of God was preached to them in their
native language. The fact of the gatbering of the orphans
had contributed greatly to that change in public feeling to
which he had alluded. The sweeping destruction caused
by famines in that country, rendered the interposition of
such an institution oftentimes of most seasonable service.
There was nothing more important in India. Their rele:
sionaries had four day schools, crowded with native childents
all the heathenism that in the day they weretaught to disbe-
lieve. But in the orphar schools the children were wholly
ren ; but through the night they learn from their par
under the missionaries' care. Six young persons were
here training for the labour among their own countrymen.
He had mentioned that fifty girls were in this school. 11.11 s
was a still more important and delightful feature in
mis
sionary work. Till Mrs. Wilson went to Calcutta, out of
the fifty millions of females in India, not one
was taught
reading or writing. or the use of the needle. It was so
stated, among other authorities, by Bishop Heber, in his
journal. When these children should become Christian
women, they would see the important influence it would
exert upon the natives at large. Instead of a Hindoo fa-
mily being, as it was now, a picture of misery, it would
then be a scene of peace, comfort, and industry. But the
missionaries had other work. They had an English school
conta ning 190 boys, which had been founded by one of
the natives, though an idolator. All these boys, though
nearly all Brahmins, were being taught the Christian re-
ligion. There were likewise four chapels in the heart of
the city, two for the Mahometans and two for the Hin-
duos • and here every day those devoted men, Mr. Lypole
and ?Mr. Smith, were engaged in preaching Christ. Mr-
Noel here gave an interesting account of the conversion of
one of the fakirs, the most hopeless class of heathens, and
of a Hindoo woman. When they had these fruits to point
to, was it not, he asked, a good work to strengthen their
hands and to set them forth ? He called upon them to
sustain them in their work by their contributions, in the
security that as Christian liberality enlarged, so Christian
men of just the character that had been described would
be found, as they ever had been found, in proportion to
the liberality of the Christian community at home, to
carry the doctrines of the Gospel to those benighted peo-
ple. He would say a word to those who had it in their
power to go themselves to accomplish this work—a work
that did so charm the imagination—that did so engage the
best feelings of the heart, that it made one sometimes env!,
those who had the honour and happiness to be employe°
in it. If there were any young men who had it in their
power—who wanted nothing but the will to go—then hs
asked them to remember the sacrifice made by that young
Christian woman who went to Sierra Leone, and that
Christian mother who consented; and when they remem-
bered that though her career was s,) short, yet that in be-
ing instrumental in the salvation of one negro boy she
had not lived in vain, perhaps they might ask themselves
could they do better than brave a little peril, and endure
a little sacrifice—for this work of missions was not so ar-
duous after all—for the sake of him who loved them and
gave himself for them, and for the sake of the irony mil-
lions who knew nothing of him. Or if they
wished
ano-
ther example, let them think of their dear brother mis-
sionary, or
who, when I e told them of that woman, g
un' failed to tell d that it was his own sister, and that
while she willingly laid down her life for Christ, with no
that
less zeal did he consent to the sacrifice, and rejoice
his sister, though dear to him, had preceded him in the
road to glory, and was waiting to welcome another fellow-
labourer to the realms of bliss. At least let them live in
that spirit, if circumstances forbade their partaking in
that work. Let them devote themselves to him who was
worthy of the whole energies of their whole being ;
r
and so
living that they should at least be in the path of duty and
the way to bliss. (Applause.) _ _

The CHAIRMAN then put the resolution, and it Was
carried unanimously. After which a doxology was sung,
and the meeting di&persed.

Another adrurned meeting was held in the Ann3lll-
theatre, on Thursday evening, at which there were present
on the platform a large body of the clergy and influential
gentry of the town, and in the body of the house a veil
numerous and respectable audience. We are precluded
from inserting our report of the interesting proceedings on
account of the crowded state of our columns with election
proceedings, &c.