Progress Of Missions

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Title:     Progress Of Missions
Author: Norman Macleod [More Titles by Macleod]

The beginning of the nineteenth century marks an epoch of revival in the Protestant Church. It would be going beyond the limits prescribed by our subject to consider the causes of that remarkable reaction into indifference of life, or of positive error in doctrine, which followed more or less rapidly the stirring period of the Reformation. Such tides, indeed, in the affairs of men,--now rushing with irresistible waves to the utmost limit of the land; then receding and leaving behind but a few pools to mark where the waters once had been; and again, after a longer or a shorter interval, advancing with a deep flood over the old ground,--are among the most striking phenomena in history.

The last century witnessed the Protestant Church at its lowest ebb. We thankfully acknowledge that God did not leave Himself without holy men as living witnesses in every branch of that Church. And we record, with deepest gratitude, how, more than in any other country, He preserved in our own country both individual and congregational life, with orthodox standards of faith. Still, taken as a whole, the Protestant Church was in a dead state throughout the world; while, during the same period, infidelity was never more rampant, and never more allied with philosophy, politics, science, and literature. It was the age of the acute Hume and learned Gibbon; of the ribald Paine, and of the master of Europe, Voltaire; with a host of literati who were beginning to make merry, in the hope that God's prophets were at last to be destroyed from the earth. Rationalism triumphed in all the Continental Churches. Puritanism in England became deeply tainted with Unitarianism. The descendants of the Pilgrim Fathers had, to a large extent, embraced the same creed in America. The Established Churches in England and Scotland, though preserving their Confessions, and having very many living men in the ministry, suffered, nevertheless, from that wintry cold which had frozen the waves of the great Reformation sea, and which was adding chill to chill. The French Revolution marked the darkest hour of this time; yet it was the hour which preceded the dawn. It was the culminating point of the infidelity of kings, priests, and people; the visible expression and embodiment of the mind of France, long tutored by falsehood and impiety; the letting loose of Satan on earth, that all might see and wonder at the Beast! That Revolution inscribed lessons in letters of blood for the Church and for the nations of the world to learn. Christians accordingly clung nearer to their Saviour amidst the dreadful storm which shook and destroyed every other resting-place, and were drawn to the throne of mercy and grace, thereby becoming stronger in faith and more zealous in life. The indifferent were roused to earnest thought by the solemn events which were taking place around them. Speculative infidels even, became alarmed at the practical results of their theories. Mere worldly politicians trembled at the spectacle of unprincipled millions wielding power that affected the destinies of Europe, and recognised the necessity of religion to save the State at least, if not to save the soul. Men of property, from the owner of a few acres to the merchant prince, and from no higher motive than the love of their possessions, acknowledged that religion was the best guarantee for their preservation. In countless ways did this upheaving of society operate in the same direction with those deeper forces which were beginning to stir the Churches of Britain, and to quicken them into new life.

The history of Europe during the first part of the present century, is a history written in blood. It is one of war in all its desolating horrors, and also in all its glorious achievements and victories in the cause of European liberty and national independence. Never was war so universal. It raged in every part of the earth. For years, the Peninsula was a great battlefield. Belgium and the plains of Germany were saturated with blood. Allied hosts conquered France. Armies crossed the Alps and ravaged Italy, and were buried beneath the snows of Russia. The contest was waged from the Baltic to the Bosphorus. The old battle-fields of Greece, Egypt, Palestine, Asia Minor, Persia, and the Crimea, were again disturbed. War swept the peninsula of India to the confines of Cashmere. It penetrated beyond the walls of China, and visited the islands of the Eastern Archipelago; touched the coasts of Arabia, and swept round Africa, from the Cape to Algiers. It marched through the length and breadth of the great Western Continent, from the St Lawrence to the Mississippi, and from Central to Southern America. Every kingdom experienced its horrors but our own; every capital was entered by the enemy but our own! During all this terrible period, our Sabbath services were never broken by the cry of battle. The dreadful hurricane raged without, but never for a single hour disturbed the peace of our beloved island-home. No revolution from within destroyed our institutions, and no power from without prevented us from improving them. The builders of our spiritual temples did not require to hold the sword. Our victories, with their days of national thanksgiving, and our anxieties, with their days of national fasting, tended to deepen a sense of religion in every heart. Men of God, in rapid succession, rose in all the Churches. A pious laity began to take the lead in advancing the cause of evangelism. In Parliament there was one man, who, by the purity of his private life, the noble consistency, uncompromising honesty, and unwearied philanthropy of his public career, along with his faithful published testimony for the truth as it is in Christ, did more, directly and indirectly, than any other of his day for the revival of true religion, especially among the influential classes of our land: that man was William Wilberforce.

But without dwelling upon the fact of the great revival which has occurred in the Protestant Church during the present century, let us notice one of its more prominent results. We mean the increased activity manifested by all its branches in advancing the Redeemer's kingdom.

At the commencement of this century, the whole Protestant missionary staff throughout the world amounted to ten societies only. Of these, however, two only had really entered the mission-field with any degree of vigour--viz., the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts; and, above all, the Society of the Moravian Brethren. The Wesleyan, Baptist, London, and Church Missionary Societies, though nominally in existence, had hardly commenced their operations. There were, besides the above, two small societies on the Continent; two in Scotland; and not one in all America! How stands the case now? The Protestant Church, instead of ten, has fifty-one societies; the great majority of which have each more labourers, and a greater income, than all the societies together of the Protestant Church previous to 1800!

If the last sixty years be divided into three equal periods, nine societies belong to the first, fifteen to the second, and twenty-four to the third.

The following facts, collected from statistics of the great missionary societies up to 1861, will afford--as far as mere dry figures can do--a general idea of the present strength of the mission army of the Protestant Church, with some of its results:--

There are now 22 missionary societies in Great Britain, 14 in North America, and 15 on the Continent of Europe; in all, 51. These employ, in round numbers, 12,000 agents, including ordained missionaries, (probably 2000,) teachers, catechists, &c.; occupy 1200 stations; have 335,000 communicants from heathendom; 252,000 scholars; 460 students training for the ministry; and are supported by an income of £860,000 per annum.

The greatest results have been attained by England. Connected with her great societies, there are nearly 7000 agents, 630 stations, 210,000 communicants, 208,000 scholars, with an annual income of £510,000.[A]

[Footnote A: One or two facts in connexion with missionary effort may interest our readers:--

Mr Müller of Bristol supports, in connexion with his famous Orphanage, 22 foreign and 80 home missionaries.

The Moravian Missionary Society has sent, since 1732, 2000 missionaries, of whom 643 have died in mission service; 9 on mission journeys; 13 on the voyage out or home; 22 by shipwreck; and 12 were murdered.

Gossner of Berlin alone originated and conducted a mission which has sent out 141 missionaries. Pastor Harms of Hermannsburg has also, by his own efforts, built a mission ship, and has sent out 150 missionaries, of whom 100 are colonists, and proposes to send 24 every two years.

Ten years ago there was little or no fruit among the Kohls of India. There are now 30,000 receiving Christ.

In India there are 500 missionaries; in Tinnevelly, above 70,000 Christians.

The American Board alone has sent out in fifty years 900 missionaries (500 being native) and 400 teachers; 55,000 have been received into church--membership, and 175,000 children passed through their schools.

America contributes £180,000 to foreign missions, and 2000 agents.

The Presbyterian Churches of the world have come late into the field, but they contribute about 900 agents, and 230 ordained missionaries, with an income of about £110,000.

One of the oldest Protestant missionary societies in existence (though now confined to home operations) is the Society in connexion with the Church of Scotland "for Promoting Christian Knowledge." It supported Brainerd and the Elliots more than a century ago.]

But in order to enable our readers still more clearly to realise the advance which the Church has made during the last half century, let us consider the progress of one of those societies, and take as an illustration the Church Missionary Society. It was founded a few months before 1800. Its income in 1802 was £356. It now amounts to £104,273. In 1804, it had one station abroad, two ordained European missionaries, but no native assistants. It has now 148 stations, 258 ordained clergymen, (many of whom have studied in the English Universities,) a large staff of native clergy, with 2034 other agents, most of whom are natives. In 1810, it had 35 male and 13 female scholars in its schools; it has now 31,000 scholars. In 1816, the good Mr Bickersteth had the privilege of receiving its first converts, amounting to six only, into the communion of the Church. Its communicants now number about 21,000.

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Let us, however, examine the missionary labours of the Protestant Church during this century from another point of view. Take the map of the world, look over its continents and islands, and contrast their condition, as to the means of grace, in 1800 and 1862.

In 1800; the only missions east of the Cape of Good Hope were in India. These were confined to the Baptist Mission, protected in the Danish settlement of Serampore; and the missions in Tanjore, in Southern India. The former was begun by Carey and Thomas, (in 1793,) who were joined by a few brethren in 1799. The first convert they made was in 1800. The latter mission had existed since 1705, and numbered about nine labourers at the commencement of the century.[A]

[Footnote A: The first Protestant missionary who visited India was Ziegenbalg, who was sent out by the Halle-Danish Missionary Society in 1705, to Tranquebar. He was joined by Plutschow in 1719. The mission was then adopted by the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel. Grundler followed in 1720, and Schultze in 1727. The mission, in 1736, had four stations, one being in Madras; 24 native assistants; and 3517 baptized members! The great Schwartz laboured in, and extended the mission from 1749 till 1798. According to Dr Carey, 40,000 had been converted to Christianity during the last century through this mission. Dr Claudius Buchanan reckons the number as high as 80,000!]

Of the East India Company's chaplains, Claudius Buchanan alone had the courage to advocate in India the missionary cause; and his sermon preached upon the subject in 1800, in Calcutta, was then generally deemed a bold and daring step. Hindustan was closed by the East India Company against the missionaries of the Christian Church. China, too, seemed hermetically sealed against the gospel. The Jesuit mission had failed. Christianity was proscribed by an imperial edict. Protestant missions had not commenced. The language of the nation, like its walls, seemed to forbid all access to the missionary. In Africa there were but few missionaries, and these had lately arrived at the Cape.[A] In the black midnight which brooded over that miserable land, the cry of tortured slaves alone was heard. New Zealand, Australia, and the scattered islands of the Southern Seas had not yet been visited by one herald of the gospel. A solitary beacon gleaming on the ocean from the missionary ship Duff had indeed been seen, but not yet welcomed by the savages of Tahiti. The mission was abandoned in 1809, and not a convert left behind! No Protestant missionary had preached to those Indian tribes beyond the Colonies, who wandered over the interminable plains which stretch from Behring's Straits to Cape Horn. Mohammedan States were all shut up against the gospel; and to forsake the Crescent for the Cross, was to die. In this thick darkness which covered heathendom, the only light to be seen--except in India--was in the far north, shed by the self-denying Moravians,--a light which streamed like a beautiful aurora over the wintry snow and ice-bound coasts of Greenland. To this gloomy picture we must add the indifference of the Protestant Church to God's ancient people. No society then existed for their conversion; and of them it might indeed be said, "This is Israel, whom no man seeketh after!"

[Footnote A: The first missionary to South Africa was George Schmidt, sent by the Moravian Brethren in 1736. He laboured alone with some success till 1743, when he was compelled by the Dutch East India Company to return to Europe. The mission was resumed in 1792, when three additional missionaries sailed for the Cape. A few others joined them in 1798. At the beginning of the century, the converts amounted to 304. The illustrious Dr Vanderkemp, along with three other missionaries, were sent to South Africa by the London Missionary Society in 1799. The only attempts made to Christianise Western Africa previous to 1800 were by the Moravians in Guinea, in 1737; but all the missionaries, eleven in number, dying, the attempt was abandoned; and by the Scottish Missionary Society, in 1797, who sent thither six missionaries. One (Greig) was murdered, another (Brunton) returned, and went to Tartary; the rest, we believe, went to oilier spheres of labour. The Church Missionary Society entered upon this field in 1801.]

How changed is the aspect of the world now! There is hardly a spot upon earth (if we except those enslaved by Popery) where the Protestant missionary may not preach the gospel without the fear of persecution. The door of the world has been thrown open, and the world's Lord and Master commands and invites His servants to enter, and, in His name, to take possession of the nations. Since 1812, India, chiefly through the exertions of Mr Wilberforce,[A] has been made accessible to the missionaries of every Church. Christian schools and chapels have been multiplied; colleges have been instituted; thousands have been converted to Christ; and tens of thousands instructed in Christianity. The cruelties of heathenism have been immensely lessened; infanticide prohibited; Sutteeism abolished; all Government support withdrawn from idolatry; and the Hindu law of inheritance has been altered to protect the native converts; while a new era seems to be heralded by the fact that a native Christian rajah has himself established a mission among his people.

[Footnote A: In 1812, we find from Mr Wilberforce's Life (vol. iv., p. 10) how he was "busily engaged in reading, thinking, consulting, and persuading," on the renewal of the East India Company's charter. He was fully alive to the importance of the crisis with reference to the interests of Christianity. He thus writes to his friend Mr Butterworth:--"I have been long looking forward to the period of the renewal of the East India Company's charter as to a great era, when I hoped that it would please God to enable the friends of Christianity to be the instruments of wiping away what I have long thought, next to the slave-trade, the foulest blot on the moral character of our countrymen--the suffering our fellow-subjects (nay, they even stand toward us in the closer relation of our tenants) in the East Indies to remain, without any effort on our part to enlighten and inform them, under the grossest, the darkest, and most depraving system of idolatrous superstition that almost ever existed on earth." The deepest anxiety was felt by all Christians for the issue of the debate. "I heard afterwards," he writes, "that many good men were praying for us all night." These prayers and efforts were crowned with success; and Mr Wilberforce, when communicating the joyful news to his wife, writes--"Blessed be God! we carried our question triumphantly, about three, or later, this morning!"]

All the islands in the Eastern Archipelago are now accessible to the missionary; most of them have been visited. Ceylon has flourishing congregations and schools; Madagascar has had her martyrs, and has still her indomitable confessors.

China, with its teeming millions, has also been opened to the gospel. The way had been marvellously prepared by Dr Morrison, who as early as 1807 had commenced the study of the language which he lived to master. Accordingly, when the conquests of Britain had obtained admission for, and secured protection to the missionaries as well as to the merchants of all nations, the previous indefatigable labours of Morrison had provided, for the immediate use of the Church of Christ, a dictionary of the language, and a translation of the Word of God. The Christian religion is tolerated by law since 1844, and may be professed freely by the natives. The gospel is now advancing in that thickly-peopled land of patience and industry, and native preachers are already proclaiming to their countrymen the tidings of salvation.

Africa has witnessed changes still more wonderful. The abolition of the British slave-trade in 1807, and of slavery in the British dominions in 1834, has removed immense barriers in the way of the gospel. The whole coasts of Africa are being girdled with the light of truth. It has penetrated throughout the south, where the French[A] and German Protestant Churches labour side by side with those of Britain to civilise the degraded Bushman, the low Hottentot, and warlike Kaffir. The chapel in Sierra Leone, built from the planks of condemned slavers, and containing 1000 worshippers, is a type of the blessings brought through Christianity to injured Africa.

[Footnote A: The missions of the French Protestant Church are situated inland from Port Natal, and along the river Caledon from its junction with the Orange River. It has gathered upwards of 2000 Bechuanas into regular church-fellowship.]

Abyssinia has also been visited with every prospect of success.

And how glorious has been the triumph of the gospel throughout the whole Pacific! In 1837, Williams was able to address royalty in these noble words--"It must impart joy to every benevolent mind to know, that by the efforts of British Christians upwards of three hundred thousand of deplorably ignorant and savage barbarians, inhabiting the beautiful islands of the Pacific, have been delivered from a dark, debasing, and sanguinary idolatry, and are now enjoying the civilising influence, the domestic happiness, and the spiritual blessings which Christianity imparts. In the island of Raratonga, which I discovered in 1823, there are upwards of 3000 children under Christian instruction daily; not a vestige of idolatry remains;[A] their language has been reduced to a system, and the Scriptures, with other books, have been translated. But this is only one of nearly a hundred islands to which similar blessings have been conveyed." Tens of thousands of souls more have been added to this number since these words were written! In no part of heathendom has the gospel produced, in so short a time, such wonderful fruit as in Polynesia. The labours and sacrifices of the converted natives are more striking than in any other missions. Many islands have been converted solely by means of a native agency, and are superintended by native preachers only. Let us take the Sandwich Islands as illustrating what has been accomplished for the natives, and by them. The American Mission was commenced in 1824. These islands have been converted long ago to Christianity, so that not a vestige of idolatry remains, and not only do they support their own clergy and schools, but have their own Bible and Foreign Missionary Society. They raise for these objects about £4000 per annum, and support six missionaries to the heathen islands around them. The communicants in the islands amount to upwards of 25,000, and the children who attend the common schools to a still greater number.

[Footnote A: The first idol which, a catechist from Raratonga, who visited London in 1848, ever beheld, was in the Museum of the London Missionary Society.]

If we turn our eye to the great Western Continent, we see the gospel preached to its wandering Indian tribes; while the condition of Mexico and of California affords every prospect of the rapid extension of truth through kingdoms long benighted.

Mohammedan countries have also been opened to the missionary. Through the influence of Lord Aberdeen and Sir Stratford Canning, the Sultan was induced in 1844 to give religious toleration to his subjects; so that now, for the first time, a Mussulman may change his faith without incurring punishment. Several societies labour in Algiers, Egypt, Palestine, Asia Minor, Greece, and Constantinople. The Euphrates is being dried up. The Mohammedan power is tottering, and ready to fall! When it dies and is buried, who will wear mourning at its funeral?

And how strange is the meeting between the distant East and West, the distant past and near present, visible in the fact, that it is missionaries from America who now unveil to the dwellers in the land of the Chaldees, and to the wanderers among the mountains which shadow the birth-place of the human race, that blessed faith and hope which dwelt in Abram, as he journeyed at the dawn of history from that old land, and which has returned thither again in Christian men embued with Abram's faith, after having accompanied civilisation around the globe? God's blessing has signally attended the American mission among the Nestorians. The revival of religion in their schools and churches has been great and glorious.

May we not exclaim, What hath God wrought! Yet how can any statistics carry to our hearts a sense of what has been done for immortal souls by the gospel during this eventful period? What homes have been made happy by it; what families united in the bonds of love; what sick-beds soothed; what dying beds cheered; what minds illumined, and what hearts filled with joy unspeakable, and full of glory!

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In close connexion with mission work, we may state the progress made during the present century in leavening the world with the Word of God. Previous to the formation of the British and Foreign Bible Society in 1804, there was not one society in existence whose sole object was the distribution of the Bible in all lands. There are now upwards of 50 principal, and 9000 auxiliary Bible societies. In 1804, the Bible was accessible to only 200 millions of men. Now it exists in tongues spoken by 600 millions. The London Bible Society alone sends forth annually upwards of 1,787,000 copies. During the last sixty years it has issued 39,315,226 Bibles, in 163 different languages, and in 143 translations never before printed. Its receipts for 1862 amount to £168,443.[A]

[Footnote A: The American Bible Society circulates upwards of 600,000 copies of the Word of God annually, at home and abroad. Besides assisting in publishing translations issued by other societies, it has been at the sole expense of publishing the Armeno-Turkish, and Modern Syriac New Testament; the entire Bible for the Burmese, and also for the Sandwich Islands; the Ojibbeway New Testament; the Gospels, or some portion of the Bible, into the languages of the Sioux, Mohawks, Seneca, and Cherokee Indians.]

It surely cannot fail to fill the heart of every Christian with deepest thankfulness, to contemplate these glorious achievements. The Church, like the angel seen in prophetic vision, has been flying with the everlasting gospel to every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people. It has given the Bible to the inhabitants of the old lands of Egypt, Ethiopia, Arabia, Palestine, Asia Minor, and Persia; to the indomitable Circassian; to the mountaineers of Affghanistan; to tribes of India speaking thirty-two different languages or dialects; to the inhabitants of Burmah, Assam, and Siam; to the islanders of Madagascar and Ceylon; to the Malays and Javanese of the Eastern seas; to the millions of China, and the wandering Kalmuck beyond her great wall; to the brave New Zealander; to the teeming inhabitants of the island groups which are scattered over the Southern Pacific; to the African races, from the Cape to Sierra Leone; to the Esquimaux and Greenlander, within the Arctic circle; and to the Indian tribes of North America. All are now furnished with a translation of that wonderful volume, which, with the light of the universal living Spirit of God, at once reveals to man, in every age and clime, his lost and miserable condition, and tells him of a remedy that is adapted to meet every want of his being--to redeem him, by a moral power it alone can afford, from all sin and misery, and to bring him into the glorious fellowship of the holiness, the blessedness, and joy of Jesus Christ, and all the family of God in earth and heaven![A]

[Footnote A: The following facts regarding tract societies may be here stated:--The Religious Tract Society of London was formed in 1799. During the first year of its operations, ending in May 1800, it had issued 200,000 tracts. What is its present working power? Its annual income from sales and benevolent contributions (£12,500) is £95,000. Its annual distribution of tracts, including handbills, from the London Depository is--in English, 20,870,074, and in foreign languages, 537,729, making an annual total of 21,407,803. It publishes tracts in 117 different languages. Taking into account the number of affiliated societies, the total probable annual distribution of tracts, British and foreign, in connexion with the London Tract Society, amounts to 28,500,000. Several religious bodies in the United States maintain Tract or "Publication" Societies. But the "American Tract Society" (founded 1825) is the largest and most influential in the United States, and has a catholic constitution similar to our own Tract Society. It is supported by more than 700 auxiliary societies--those in Boston, Philadelphia, and New York being large and efficient. We may add that its circulation is not confined to the United States, but extends to Mexico, Central and South America, and to those districts in the East and Asia Minor where the American missionaries are labouring. It has issued upwards of 200,000,000 of publications since its commencement.]

And now let us ask, What shall be the history of the Church during the rest of this century? Without attempting with a vain or profane hand to uncover what God has concealed, it is surely a comfort to be able to take our stand on the immovable rock of His promises to Christ, and to rejoice in the assurance, that, sooner or later, His name must be glorious in all the earth!

But when? Is it too much to assert, that before the end of the present century, the gospel shall have been preached to all nations, the Bible translated into all tongues, and the last visible idol on earth cast down amidst the triumphant songs of the Church of Christ? We might expect this blessing judging only from the past, and the constantly-increasing ratio with which society advances. Yet, as revolutions in the physical world anticipate in a single night the slow progress of ordinary causes, so, for aught we know, may God, by some evolution of His providence, make one year do the work of many.

But while we do anticipate the most glorious results ever attained by the human race during this century, we anticipate, also, from the signs of the time, a desperate conflict of opposing systems, both of truth and error. It is not a little remarkable, that never before was there such a life and strength in every system as at this moment. Protestantism, Popery, Infidelity, and even Judaism,[A] were never so alive; and never were alive together before. Does this not look like a coming struggle?[B] But what may appear suddenly and unexpectedly, may nevertheless be the necessary results of long preparation; like the water or the gas, which suddenly enter a thousand city houses to refresh and illuminate them, but which are the results of years of labour in digging trenches, laying pipes, and erecting reservoirs, during all which time no streams of water or of gas were ever present to the senses.

[Footnote A: It is only within twenty-five years that preaching has become common in all their synagogues, while, during the same period, ten periodicals have been started by the Jews, in different parts of the world, in defence of Judaism, in some form or other.]

[Footnote B: In a conversation which we had with Neander in 1848, (immediately before the continental revolutions,) he said, "I believe we are entering a period of unprecedented warfare, which will issue in the increased glory and purity of the Church. The light and darkness will every year be more and more separated; the one becoming more bright the other more densely dark."]

But we know from the testimony of God's Word, strengthened by the experience of past ages, how certain victory is in the end, however long and apparently doubtful the campaign may be between His kingdom and every form of evil. The day has been when "the Church" was "in the wilderness," and when within that Church four men only held fast their confidence in God, believed His word, and exhorted that Church to take possession of the land of promise, saying, "Rebel not ye against the Lord, neither fear ye the people of the land: their defence is departed from them, and the Lord is with us: fear them not." And how was that missionary sermon received? "All the congregation bade stone them with stones!" And had they done so, the world's only true lights were extinguished and lost in universal unbelief and heathenism. It was in such desperate circumstances as these that the Lord himself came to the rescue of the world, and it was then these marvellous words of promise were littered, "As truly as I live my glory will fill the earth!" The day has been, too, when "the Church" met in an upper room with shut doors, for fear of the Jews; but it was even then that its Lord said, "All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth: go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: and, lo, I am with you alway, even to the end of the world." Never more can the glory of God appear to the eyes of the weakest faith to be so dim, or the cause of Christ to be so hopeless, as it hath been in those days of old! The glory of God is filling the earth, and the gospel is being preached to all nations. Mere rays of light, which we see breaking over the mountain tops in heathen lands, are beautiful in themselves; but far more beautiful to the eye of faith are the first beams of that sun which is yet to stream into every valley now lying in darkness, and steep in its glory all the habitations of men. Those notes of joy and thanksgiving, too, are beautiful which ascend from many a heart in "Kedar's wilderness afar;" but they are still more beautiful to the ear of faith as echoes from the Rock of ages, and the prophetic song uttered by "great voices in heaven," saying, "The kingdoms of this world have become the kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ, and He shall reign for ever and ever!"

[The end]
Norman Macleod's essay: Progress Of Missions

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