CAPTAIN COOK'S TREE, TAHITI.
It is impossible for any Report to describe in detail, and with full justice, the varied labours in which these brethren are engaged. Like ministers at home, our Missionaries preach the Gospel; instruct, govern, and build up churches; watch over the young, and stir up their people's zeal. But they do a great deal more. Placed in many cases in simple states of society, on a low level of education and social connection, as well as of religion; in states of society saturated with heathen vices and heathen beliefs, our missionaries have not only to Christianize individual souls, but to Christianize literature, to Christianize public law, to form a healthy public opinion, to sanctify public taste. Forms of agency, therefore, unneeded at home, are required on every hand; varied in character, at times expensive, all carefully adapted to the case with which they deal. And it is in the employment, the adaptation of these means to their appointed ends, that missionaries specially prove themselves "wise to win souls."
INSTITUTION AT MALUA, SAMOA.
Thus it is that not only on the Sabbath but through the week, not only in the pulpit but in the school, the market, the private house, in a boat, under a spreading tree, our brethren expound and enforce that Gospel which shall sanctify and govern the hearts of many nations. Thus it is in the cities of China and India, in the villages of Africa, among the swamps of Guiana, beneath the palm groves of Samoa, they seek to be instant in season and out of season. Some are pastors of churches, others preach almost entirely to the heathen. Some are training students in seminaries. Some superintend a range of simple schools; others, in Indian cities, give large time and effort to the important Institutions taught in the English and Native languages. A few are revising translations of the Bible; others are preparing commentaries, school-books, and other Christian literature. All have to share in building; and, besides the Medical missionaries, a great number constantly give medicine to the sick. Here we see Dr. TURNER, in the admirable seminary at Malua, training the Native Teachers; Mr. EDKINS and Mr. MUIRHEAD penetrate the Mongolian desert, to inquire into the place and prospects of a Mission among the Tartar tribes; while Mr. JOHN, after completing the new Hospital, is isolated within a vast sea, the overflowings of the mighty Yangtze, which has drowned half the streets of Hankow. We see Mr. ASHTON and Mr. JOHNSON, Mr. COLES and Mr. BLAKE, Mr. HALL and Mr. RICE, surrounded by the hundreds of their students and scholars, diligent in daily English studies. We see the TRAVANCORE brethren in the midst of their many agents; advising pastors, instructing catechists, reading evangelists' journals, examining candidates, and auditing accounts; while, in their midst, Dr. LOWE and his seven students administer to their crowd of patients in the hospital that medicine which shall relieve their pain. Dr. MATHER re-edits the Hindustani Scriptures. The brothers STRONACH, fellow-labourers indeed in the kingdom and patience of Jesus Christ; still watch over the prosperous churches of Amoy, which they were honoured to found. In the midst of barbarism, Mr. MOFFAT carefully revises that Sichuana Bible of which he was the first translator. In the midst of civilization, after reading the proofs of the Chinese New Testament, Dr. LEGGE, consulting his learned pundits, dives deep into the ancient Chinese classics, and strives, by an erudite commentary, to make plain the early history of China. While Mr. LAWES, who describes himself as the "poet laureate" of Savage Island, after completing the New Testament, prepares the first Christian hymn book, for the use of the converts he has brought to Christ. Mr. THOMPSON, visiting the Missions in Cape Colony, drives with hard toil across the fiery dust of the Karroo desert; Mr. JANSEN and Mr. MUNRO, in their long canoe, traverse the gorgeous and silent forests of Guiana, to visit the little Mission among the Indians below the rapids of the Berbice. Mr. MURRAY, opportunely arriving in a screw steamer, prevents war among the Christians of Manua; Mr. CHALMERS, voluntary leader of the band of converts who keep the John Williams afloat, sticks by the vessel to the last, and, with his brave wife, refuses to quit the ship till she is anchored safe in Sydney harbor. While Mr. PHILIP, pastor and schoolmaster, doctor and lawyer, engineer and magistrate, of the flourishing Hottentot Christians of Hankey, when overturned in a ravine on a visit to his out-station, preaches to his people with a broken arm, rather than deprive them of that bread of heaven which they had come many miles to hear. Who would not rejoice and thank God for such men? Of the ninety Protestant Missionaries labouring in China, the five who stand first in public estimation for character, scholarship, and zeal are missionaries of this Society. Among the five hundred missionaries of India, not a few of our brethren occupy a high and honoured place; while in all other of the older Missions the men who with fidelity and zeal have steadily maintained their posts for twenty-five and thirty years are numerous, and are all held in honour. A just consideration of toil like this will show that never in the Society's history had the Directors greater reason to thank God for the grace bestowed upon their missionaries, or stronger ground for holding them in esteem as workmen not needing to be ashamed.
NAGERCOIL SEMINARY.
SCHOOL-HOUSE, CUDDAPAH.