The cause of domestic missions in the members of the Board, and to it is comPresbyterian Church now went on with mitted the whole subject of missions. But fresh vigour, and the synodical and pres- the better to expedite the business intrustbyterial societies becoming either merged ed to it, the Home and Foreign departin the Assembly's board, or affiliated with ments are directed, respectively, by two it, the whole assumed a more consolidated committees, each consisting of four clerform and greater consistency. From 1828 gymen and four laymen, under the presito 1843, the missionaries increased from dency of the bishop of the diocess in which 31 to 296. The Report for the latter year the committee resides, and both commitpresents a summary of 296 missionaries tees are ex officio members of the Board. employed; 900 Sunday-schools, attended by at least 30,000 scholars, connected with the churches under their care; 4800 members added to the churches, of whom 3600 upon examination of their faith, and 1200 upon letters of recommendation from other churches; the receipts were about 35,000 dollars, and the expenditures exceeded 31,000. The average expense of each missionary is 130 dollars. The Board pursues the wise course of simply helping congregations that as yet are unable to maintain pastors, by granting them so much on their undertaking to make up the deficiency.

Such is a brief notice of the operations of the Home Missions of the General Assembly of that branch of the Presbyterian Church commonly called the Old School, to distinguish it from another branch called the New School. The Board has been instrumental, under God, in giving a permanent existence to some hundreds of churches. The divine blessing has been remarkably vouchsafed to its efforts. Its affairs are managed with great wisdom and energy, and the Church is much indebted to the Rev. Ashbel Green, D.D., for the deep interest which, during a long life, he has felt in this cause, and for the devotedness with which he has laboured to promote it. Nor can it fail to be a great consolation to him, in his declining days, to see his love and zeal for this enterprise crowned with abundant success.

CHAPTER IX.

It is only since 1835 that the home missions of the society have been prosecuted with much vigour, but every year now bears witness to the increasing interest felt by the Episcopal churches of the United States in the work of building up churches in the new settlements, and other places where none of that communion had before existed.

During the year ending 21st June, 1843, the Board had employed ninety-four missionaries, and that they did not labour without effecting much good, is apparent even from the imperfect statements of the Report. The number of communicants in 84 out of the 180 places to which the missionaries had extended their labours was 2190; and that of the children under catechetical instruction was 2014. The income for the home missions, collected throughout the thirty diocesses into which the country is divided, was $38,835. From 1822 to 1841, 186 stations had been adopted as fields of special, permanent, and, as far as practicable, regular labour. During the same period eighty church edifices had been erected in those stations, and the number of these once aided, but no longer requiring assistance, was forty-four.

From this it will be seen that this society has not laboured in vain, but that it, likewise, is an instrument by which churches that have long been favoured with the Gospel, and highly prize it, are enabled to assist others, until they, too, have grown up into a vigorous independence of foreign aid. Freely ye have received; freely give;" this admonition and command should never be forgotten. It is the true

66

HOME MISSIONS OF THE EPISCOPAL, BAPTIST, basis of the whole Voluntary System.

AND REFORMED DUTCH CHURCHES.

We shall only add, that the missionaries employed by the Board of the Episcopal Church are chiefly confined to the Western States and Territories.

A SOCIETY was formed in the Protestant Episcopal Church of the United States, for the promotion of Home and Foreign Missions, in the year 1822. During the The American Baptist Home Missionary first thirteen years of its existence, that is, Society was instituted in 1832, and has up to 1835, it had employed fifty-nine la- been eminently useful since in building up bourers in its home missions, occupying churches of that denomination, both in the stations in various parts of the Union, but West and in many of the Atlantic States, chiefly in the West. The society was re- where the assistance of such an instituorganized in 1835, and, as now constituted, tion was required, as well as in establishis under the direction of a Board of thirty ing Sunday-schools and Bible-classes. Its members, appointed by the General Con- great field of labour, however, like that of vention of the Church. The bishops, to- all the other Societies and Boards for dogether with such persons as had become mestic missions, has been the "Valley of patrons of the society previously to the the Mississippi." It has numerous branchmeeting of the Convention in 1829, arees and auxiliaries in all parts of the United

States; and during the year ending in May, Ordinarily, as often as once in the fort1843, had ninety-three agents and mis- night, a circuit-preacher conducts a regusionaries in its own immediate service, and lar service at each of these preaching pla275 in that of its auxiliaries, making a total ces, whether it be a church, schoolroom, of 368, all of whom were ministers of the or a dwelling-house. In the largest towns Gospel, and believed to be faithful and ca- and villages such services are held on the pable labourers. They preached statedly Sabbath, and on a week-day or evening at 762 stations, and had travelled 175.035 in other places, and thus the Gospel is miles! They reported 4920 conversions carried into thousands of remote spots, in and baptisms, the organization of fifty which it never would be preached upon churches, and the ordination of twenty- the plan of having a permanent clergy, three ministers. By their instrumentality planted in particular districts and parishes. 6520 persons had been induced to join the It was a remark, I believe, of the celetemperance societies; 11,742 young per-brated Dr. Witherspoon, that "he needed sons had been gathered into Sunday-schools no other evidence that the Rev. John Wesand Bible-classes, taught by about 1500 | ley was a great man, than what the system teachers. The receipts of the parent society and its auxiliaries amounted to $40,583. | In addition to what the regular Baptists are doing for home missions, it ought to be stated that the Free-Will Baptists have a Home Missionary Society, which employs some six or eight men.

The General Synod of the Reformed Dutch Church has a Board of Domestic Missions, which is now prosecuting, with zeal and wisdom, the work of gathering together new congregations, and fostering them during their infancy, wherever it can find openings for so doing. For several years past it has been extending its operations, and during that ending in June, 1843, it aided forty-seven new or feeble churches and two stations. Five of these were in the Western States, and in these five missionaries were occupied in preaching the Gospel. The receipts for that period amounted to $5127.

If the truth is to be carried into every hamlet and neighbourhood of the United States, it can only be by all denominations of evangelical Christians taking part in the enterprise; and it is delightful to trace the proofs of this conviction being widely and deeply felt. All are actually engaged in the good work, and send forth and support missionaries in some portion or other of the country.

of itinerating preaching presented to his mind, and of which that wonderful man was the author." The observation was a just one. It is a system of vast importance in every point of view; but that from which we are at present to contemplate it is, its filling up a void which must else remain empty. Of its other advantages we shall have to speak in another place.

But, capable as the system is of being made to send its ramifications into almost every corner of the country, and to carry the glad tidings of salvation into the most remote and secluded settlements, as well as to the more accessible and populous towns and neighbourhoods, many places were found, particularly in the South and West, so situated as to be beyond the reach of adequate supply from itinerant labourers; a fact which led to the formation of the Missionary Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church in 1819.

This society, like that of the Protestant Episcopal Church, was formed for the double object of promoting missions at home and abroad. Reserving the latter for future notice, I turn at present to the former. According to the twenty-fourth annual report, being that for 1843, I find that it employed 210 missionaries within the limits of the United States, exclusive of those labouring among the Indians, whether within or immediately beyond those limits. The churches enjoying the services of these missionaries comprised above 30,000 members, and many of them HOME MISSIONS OF THE METHODIST EPISCOPAL had flourishing Bible-classes and Sunday

CHAPTER X.

CHURCH.

schools. The report also states, that among the members of the Society's missionary churches, there were not fewer than 13,320 coloured people.

IT has been said, with truth, that the Methodist Church is in its very structure emphatically missionary, and it is an inexpressible blessing that it is so, as the Perhaps of all the fields cultivated by United States strikingly prove. The whole this society, the two most interesting, and, country is embraced by one General Con- in some respects, most important, are ference; it is again subdivided into thirty-those presented by the slaves in the extwo Annual Conferences, each including a large extent of country, and divided into districts. Each district comprehends several circuits, and within each circuit there are from five or six to above twenty preaching places. K

treme Southern States, and by the German emigrants found in great numbers in our chief cities. The missions among the former were commenced in 1828,* and origi

* I speak here of missions technically so called, for, in their ordinary labours, the Methodists, from

amounted to 109,452 dollars, and its expenditure, including both its foreign and domestic missions, was 145,035.

Here I close these brief notices of the

nated in a proposal made by the Hon. It has a mission, also, at St. Louis, on the Charles C. Pinckney, a distinguished Chris- Upper Mississippi. The churches gathered tian layman of the Episcopal Church in by the Society's missionaries from among South Carolina, and which has been car- the Germans in those places had no fewer ried into effect with much success, the than 1366 members in 1843, and of these slaveholders themselves, in many places, more than 200 had been Roman Catholics. if not all, being pleased to have the mis- Yet this work had commenced only a few sionaries preach the Gospel to their people. years before. Twenty missionaries were The following paragraph from the report engaged in it, and several of these were of 1841 will give the reader some idea of men of considerable talent and learning, as the hazardous nature of this work: "In well as zeal. One of them, the Rev. Mr. the Southern and Southwestern Conferen- Nast, at Cincinnati, conducts a religious ces, it will be seen, under the head of do- paper with a circulation of above 1500 mestic missions, that, with commendable copies, and which seems to be doing good. zeal and devotion, our missionaries are The Society has a mission, likewise, still labouring in the service of the slaves among the Germans, reckoned at 30,000 upon the rice-fields, sugar and cotton plant- at least, in the city of New-York. The ations, multitudes of whom, though des-income of this excellent and efficient socitined to toil and bondage during their earth-ety, for the year ending April 20th, 1843, ly pilgrimage, have by their instrumentality been brought to enjoy the liberty of the Gospel, and are happily rejoicing in the blessings of God's salvation. In no portion of our work are our missionaries call-home missions of the chief evangelical ed to endure greater privations, or make greater sacrifices of health and life, than in these missions among the slaves, many of which are located in sections of the Southern country which are proverbially sickly, and under the fatal influence of a climate which few white men are capable of enduring, even for a single year. And yet, notwithstanding so many valuable missionaries have fallen martyrs to their toils in these missions, year after year there are found others to take their places, who fall likewise in their work, ceasing at once to work and to live.' Nor have our superintendents any difficulty in finding missionaries ready to fill up the ranks which death has thinned in these sections of the work, for the love of Christ, and the love of the souls of these poor Africans in bonds, constrain our brethren in the itinerant work of the Southern conferences to exclaim, Here are we, send us!' The Lord be praised for the zeal and success of our brethren in this self-denying and self-sacrificing work."

churches in the United States. They will give the reader some idea of the mode in which new and feeble congregations are aided by the oider and stronger until able to maintain the institutions of religion themselves. The societies which we have passed under review in these four chapters supported, in all, nearly 1900 ministers of the Gospel, in the year 1843, in new, and, as yet, feeble churches and flocks. Year after year many of these cease to require assistance, and then others are taken up in their turn. Be it remembered, that the work has been systematically prosecuted for no long course of time. Twenty years ago, in fact, the most powerful and extensive of these societies did not exist; others were but commencing their operations. It is an enterprise with respect to which the churches have as yet but partially developed their energies and resources; still, they have accomplished enough to demonstrate how much may be done by the voluntary principle towards the calling into existence of churches and congregations in the settlements rapidly forming, whether in the new or the old states.

Not less interesting are the Society's missions among the Germans resident in the chief towns and cities of the Valley of the Mississippi. Beginning at Pittsburgh and Alleghany Town, on the right bank of the Alleghany, opposite Pittsburgh, it has missionaries among these foreigners in many of the chief towns on the Ohio, such THE VOLUNTARY PRINCIPLE DEVELOPED.—IN

as Wheeling, Marietta, Portsmouth, Maysville, Cincinnati, Lawrenceburg, New Albany, &c., as well as in towns remote from the river, such as Dayton and Chillicothe.

the first, have had much to do with the slaves in the South, as well as with the free negroes of the North. In fact, no other body of Christians, perhaps, has done so much good to the unfortunate children of Africa in the United States as the followers of John Wesley.

CHAPTER XI.

FLUENCE OF THE VOLUNTARY PRINCIPLE ON
EDUCATION.-OF PRIMARY SCHOOLS.

We have seen how the voluntary principle operates in America in relation to the building of churches, and also the support of ministers of the Gospel in the new settlements forming every year, more or less, in all quarters. We now come to consider its influence on education. Hundreds of ministers, it will be perceived, are

required to meet the demands of the rap-being taught, in every school district, by a idly-augmenting population. Where are master for the older youth during winter, these to come from? Besides, in a coun- and by a mistress for the little children try where the right of suffrage is almost during summer. Wherever we find the universal, and where so much of the order, descendants of the Puritans in America, peace, and happiness, that are the true ob- we find a people who value education as jects of all good government, depend on the first of all earthly blessings; and when officers chosen in the directest manner a colony from New-England plants itself, from among themselves, these must be in- whether amid the forests of Ohio, or on structed before they can become intelli- the prairies of Illinois, two things are ever gent, virtuous, and capable citizens. Igno- considered as indispensable alike to their rance is incompatible with the acquisition temporal and to their spiritual and their or preservation of any freedom worth pos- eternal welfare-a church and a schoolsessing; and, above all, such a republic as house. that of the United States must depend for its very existence on the wide diffusion of sound knowledge and religious principles among all classes of the people. Let us, therefore, trace the bearings of the voluntary principle upon education, in all its forms, among the various ranks of society in the United States. We shall begin with primary schools.

It may well be imagined that emigrants to the New World, who fled from the Old with the hope of enjoying that religious freedom which they so much desired, would not be indifferent to the education of their children. Especially might we expect to find that the Protestant colonists, who had forsaken all for this boon, would not fail to make early provision for the instruction of their children, in order that they might be able to read that Book which is the "religion of Protestants." And such we find to have been the fact. Scarcely had the Puritans been settled half a dozen years in the colony of Massachusetts before they began to make provision for public primary schools, to be supported by a tax assessed upon all the inhabitants.* And such provision was actually made, not only in Massachusetts, but in every NewEngland colony. And such provision exists to this day in all the six New-England States. Schools are maintained in every school district, during the whole or part of every year, by law.

With the exception of the State of Connecticut, where all the public schools are maintained upon the interest of a large school fund, primary instruction is provided for by an annual assessment-a school

* The small colony of Plymouth, as soon as it was in some measure settled, set about providing schools for the children, and this was several years before the colony of Massachusetts Bay was planted.

But if the New-England Puritans were zealous in the cause of education and learning, the Virginia colonists seem not to have had any such spirit, for one of their governors, Sir William Berkeley, in 1670, in replying to the inquiries addressed to him by the Lords of Plantations, says, "I thank God, there are no free schools nor printing, and I hope we shall not have them these hundred years; for learning has brought disobedience, and heresy, and sects into the world, and printing has divulged them, and libels against the best government. God keep us from both!"-Hening's Laws of Virginia, Appendix.

Nor was this thirst for education confined to the New-England Puritans; it prevailed to no small degree among the Scotch and Irish Presbyterians, the Huguenots, the early German emigrants; among all, in fact, who had fled from Europe for the sake of their religion. It is owing to this that primary education has been diffused so widely throughout the United States, and that no less effective legal provision has been made at length for the support of common schools in New-York, Pennsylvania, and in Ohio, than in the NewEngland States, and to a considerable extent, also, in New-Jersey and Delaware, while in all the others it has led to the adoption of measures for the education of the children of the poor, and to the creation of school funds, which, taken together with other means, promise one day to be available for the education of all classes.

The white population of the United States amounted in 1840 to 14,189,218, of which number it was ascertained that 549,693 persons, above twenty years of age, could neither read nor write. A large proportion of these must have been foreignersIrish, Germans, Swiss, and French-as is evident from 13,041 of them being found in the six New-England States, where education is nearly as universal as can well be imagined. That a native of either sex, in short, above the age of twenty, may be found in Connecticut or Massachusetts who cannot read, is not denied; but that there should be 526 such persons in the former of these states, and 4448 in the latter, cannot be believed by any one who knows the condition of the people there. The greater number were not native Americans, and of those that remained the ma-. jority were idiots.

By the census of 1840, it appears that the number of primary or common schools amounted to 47,209, attended by 1,845,245 scholars; of whom 468,264 were taught at the public charge, the remainder at that of their parents and friends. From this it will be seen that education in America depends very much on the Voluntary Principle. But though primary schools were in all parts of the country originated and sustained at first, as in most of the states it

continues to be, by the people themselves, | ern States. But it is an evil which diminor, rather, by the friends of education, state ishes with the increase of population, and, after state is beginning to be induced by besides, much attention has of late been the efforts of these to make a legal provis- paid to the training of teachers. A very ion, to a certain extent at least, for the in- laudable effort is now making in Newstruction of all who may choose to avail | England, and also in New-York, and some themselves of it, for in this they do not see other states, to attach a library of suitable that they violate any rights of conscience. books to each school. The plan is excelThe right of giving instruction is, in the lent, and promises much good. United States, universal. Even where there is an all-pervading system of public schools, any number of families may join together, and employ any teacher for their children whom they may prefer. Nor has that teacher to procure any license or "brevet of instruction" before entering on the duties of his office. His employers are the sole judges of his capacity, and should he prove incapable or inefficient, the remedy is in their own hands. The teachers employed by the state pass an examination before a proper committee. In all the states where there is a legal provision for primary schools, there is a yearly report from each to a committee of the township, from which, again, there is a report to a county committee, and that, in its turn, sends a report to the Secretary or School Commissioner of the state.

In most cases, a pious and judicious teacher, if he will only confine himself to the great doctrines and precepts of the Gospel, in which all who hold the fundamental truths of the Bible are agreed, can easily give as much religious instruction as he chooses. Where the teacher himself is not decidedly religious, much religious instructien cannot be expected; nor should any but religious teachers attempt to give anything more than general moral instruction, and make the scholars read portions of the Scriptures, and of other good books.

The Bible is very generally used as a reading book in our primary schools, though in some places, as at St. Louis, the Roman Catholics have succeeded in excluding it, and they have been striving to do the same in the city of New-York. In so far as relates to public schools, I see no other course but that of leaving the question to the people themselves; the majority deciding, and leaving the minority the alternative of supporting a school of their own. This will generally be done by Protestants rather than give up the Bible.

Primary instruction in the United States owes almost everything to Religion, as the most efficient of all the principles that prompts to its promotion. Not that the Protestants of that country interest themselves in the primary schools for the purpose of proselytizing children to their views, but rather that at these schools the youth of the nation may be qualified for receiving religious instruction effectually elsewhere, and for the due discharge of their future duties as citizens. And, however much they may wish to see religious instruction given at the common schools, they will not for a moment give in to the opinion that all is lost where this cannot be accomplished. Primary instruction, even when not accompanied with any religious instruction, is better than none; and in such cases, they that love the Gospel have other resources-in the pulpit, the family altar, the Bible-class, and the Sabbath-school.

CHAPTER XII.

GRAMMAR-SCHOOLS AND ACADEMIES.

BUT if Primary Schools in the United States owe much to religion, Grammarschools and Academies, which may be called secondary institutions, owe still more.

In 1647, only twenty-seven years after the settlement of the Puritans in NewEngland, we find the colony of Massachusetts Bay making a legal provision, not only for primary, but for secondary schools also. "It being one chief project of Satan," says the statute, "to keep men from the knowledge of the Scriptures by dissuading from the use of tongues; and to the end that learning may not be buried in the graves of our forefathers in Church and tommonwealth, the Lord assisting our endeavours; therefore be it enacted, that every township, after the Lord hath inIn most parts of the United States, it has creased them to the number of fifty housebeen found extremely difficult to procure holders, shall appoint one to teach all chilgood teachers, few men being willing to dren to write and read; and where any devote their lives to that occupation in a town shall increase to the number of 100 country so full of openings in more lucra- families, they shall set up a grammartive and inviting professions and employ-school, the masters thereof being able to ments. Hence very incompetent teach- instruct youth so far as they may be fitted ers-not a few from Ireland and other for the university." Such was the origin parts of the British dominions-are all that can be found. This is particularly the case in the Middle, Southern, and West

of the grammar-schools of New-England, and now they are so numerous that not only has almost every county one, but