From the ample information recently furnished by the missionaries to the Directors, we learn that these two colonies of the British Crown contain together a population of Negro extraction amounting to half a million individuals; viz.: BRITISH GUIANA, 100,000; JAMAICA, 400,000. Besides these there are Indian Coolies, 28,800 in number, of whom GUIANA has 25,000. That province also contains 7,000 Indians, while Jamaica has its thousands of heathen Maroons. The ruling population of whites is 13,816 in Jamaica, and 2,000 in Guiana, or about 16,000 in all. This native population of half a million, just equal in number to the population of the single city of Calcutta or Canton, spread over an occupied territory of twelve thousand square miles, and situated only four thousand miles from England, enjoys the services of three hundred professed ministers of the Gospel; of whom a hundred and forty are supplied by Missionary Societies not connected with the established churches and supported by voluntary funds. The bulk of the population is nominally Christian, and has been for some years as well instructed in Christianity as an equal number of persons in the country parts of England. And doubtless it has been thus christianized the more fully because of the large supply of religious teachers furnished by the different sections of the Church of Christ.

It is evident that the converts in Jamaica occupy a much higher position of physical and social comfort than those in GUIANA, and that the latter are not so well off as they were five-and-twenty years ago. While wages have fallen and prices have increased, it is evident that the moral influence of the 25,000 Coolies from India, with all their heathen vices, on the 100,000 Creoles has been exceedingly injurious. In neither colony has there been that thorough spiritual growth, that self-control, that self-reliance among the christian converts generally, which their best friends hoped for and thought they were able to find. This cannot be deemed unnatural, when it is considered that only thirty years have passed since the Act of Emancipation, and that ages of training will be needed before the moral taint of slavery is purified away.

RIDGEMOUNT, JAMAICA.

The Directors therefore feel that it would be in every way a mistake to throw these young and imperfect churches at once upon their own resources. They have also not seriously entertained the suggestion made to commend them to the care of some other evangelical denomination seeking the same end as ourselves. Nevertheless the Board cannot think it right or wise to continue the present system unchanged. If unable completely to run alone, our churches are too large, the members too numerous, and their resources too great to justify any continuance of that complete dependence upon the Society which has prevailed with them hitherto. The Board desire to see the churches strong in themselves, managing completely their own affairs, providing the ministry by which they shall be instructed, and engaged heartily in missionary efforts for the conversion of their heathen neighbours. This is the end which, they trust, will henceforth be distinctly kept in view, and which should be sought by every means which practical experience finds suitable to promote it.

They have resolved, therefore, to adopt the following measures:—First, they limit the staff of English missionaries to the number of men (thirteen) now left in the field. They desire that steady efforts shall be made to place all the churches under the pastoral charge of suitable Native ministers. They desire that all the local and incidental expenses of the mission shall be entirely defrayed by the Native Churches. Lastly, they will limit their grants from England to the allowance of the English missionaries.

XIV.—INCOME AND EXPENDITURE.

1.—RECEIPTS.
1. CONTRIBUTIONS FOR GENERAL PURPOSES—
a. Subscriptions, Donations, and Collections £56,685 2 11
b. Dividends 584 4 9
c. Australian Auxiliaries and Foreign Societies 3,191 6 10
d. Legacies 10,875 13 7
e. Fund for Widows and Orphans and Retired Missionaries 4,500 15 0
f. Mission Stations, English and Native Contributions, raised and appropriated 19,414 16 4
g. Ditto, additional from the South Seas, unappropriated 1,070 19 5
——————— £96,322 18 10
2. CONTRIBUTIONS FOR SPECIAL OBJECTS—
a. For the Extension of Missions in China 552 12 10
b. For the Extension of Missions in India 371 5 4
c. For Madagascar Mission 1,521 7 11
d. For Memorial Churches 1,267 17 0
e. For Training Native Agents, other than in India 1,000 0 0
f. For Missionary Ship 253 19 0
g. For Expenditure of 1867 and 1868 79 7 8
——————— £5,046 9 9
———————
Total Income
 £101,369 8 7
3. Balance in hand, May, 1868 1,062 8 4
4. Funded Property, Tasmania Bond, paid off 500 0 0
5. Value of Stock transferred from Ship Account 2,432 0 0
6. Rev. Dr. Tidman's Testimonial Fund 3,483 18 11
——————— 7,478 7 3
———————
£108,847 15 10

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2.—EXPENDITURE.
1. FOREIGN EXPENDITURE.
a. China Mission: allowances of the English Missionaries; Rents; Repairs; Sick Leave; Expenses of Itinerancies; Native Agency; Education, and the Press (as detailed in the last Annual Report) £10,103 7 3
b. India Missions: Bengal and North India; the Madras Presidency; and Travancore 35,386 13 11
c. Madagascar Mission 6,686 4 4
d. South Africa Mission 9,872 1 6
e. West India Mission 9,225 10 9
f. Mission in the South Seas 13,454 19 2
g. Education of Missionary Students 2,109 10 4
h. Retired Missionaries; Widows and Orphans 3,398 8 0
———————
TOTAL FOREIGN EXPENDITURE
 90,236 15 3
2. HOME EXPENDITURE.
a. Expenses of Administration £1,913 16 10
b. Expenses in Raising Funds 3,477 12 4
c. Periodical Literature 1,539 1 1
d. General Home Expenses 794 19 8
———————
TOTAL HOME EXPENDITURE 7,725 9 11
———————
Total expended in 1868 £97,962 5 2
3. Investments 9,017 0 0
3. Balance in hand, May 1, 1869 1,868 10 8
———————
£108,847 15 10

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This statement shows that the greater ordinary income secured during the past year is needed every year, to maintain the Society at its present strength. Even with revised establishments working at a reduced cost, the Directors still require £75,000 a-year to meet the various items of general expenditure for which they have directly to provide. But that is precisely the amount which the revived interest and the earnest exertions of deputations and collectors have brought into their hands; and no margin is left at their command to cover any extraordinary expense which may arise. Nowhere, therefore, may our friends relax their efforts or diminish their recent gifts. Givers, collectors, ministers who plead, are still invited to uphold the hands of the Society, and to urge its claims. And if we look to extension, that extension which comes naturally to a prosperous field: still more to that extension for which the field untouched cries mightily day by day: how shall this enlargement of our operations be secured but by still augmented resources, by still higher consecration, still greater liberality, and more earnest prayer?

The SOCIETY DESERVES such help from our Churches; its history, its sphere of usefulness, the spirit in which it is managed, the rich prosperity which the Lord has granted to its labours, all appeal in its name. THE FIELD DESERVES AND NEEDS IT. How little has been accomplished of the holy purpose which Missions have in view. Compared with the millions unevangelized, the converts gained are numerically nothing. Indeed, the sphere of our labour has continued ever to grow wider, and every answer of God's providence to the Church's gifts and prayers and self-denial has been to extend its power to be useful and give it much more to do.