INTRODUCTION. IT is mentioned by Andrew Fuller, that he had thought of preparing a new system of theology, in which the atonement of Christ should be made the central truth, and all the other doctrines of religion be interwoven into the treatise in their relations to the great fact of man's redemption. Blending as his mind did such clearness and such force, we might have well expected that any work it should have produced upon this plan would have been of great value. It is one of the excellences which distinguish the present essay on Missions, that its eloquent author has commenced the discussion of his theme at this same point; viewed our world, as the field of missionary toil, through the atmosphere of Gethsemane and Calvary; and labored, as the apostles in their day also did, to set before the church "the love of Christ," not only as the motive of effort, but as the model of all our plans and sacrifices. A more unreserved surrender by Christians of their faculties, their substance and their influence into the hands of Him who bought them with his own blood,-a life of closer communion with our Lord, and of more entire conformity to His image, is the great deficiency of the church, in our times. Were it attained, a thousand errors would disappear, without further controversy; the efforts of the church would be at once infinitely augmented, even without the addition of one convert to the ranks of her present laborers; and her power over the world would become alike incalculable and irresistible. The writer of these remarks would not assume to himself the task, to which he feels himself so unequal, of discussing afresh any of the topics so ably handled in the present work, to which he has consented, at the request of the American publishers, to furnish an Introduction. But it will be observed by an attentive reader, that there are questions regarding the missionary enterprise, which the author did not consider as falling within the limits of the plan he had prescribed for himself, symmetrical and comprehensive as that plan is. To some of these he alludes, as "questions of surpassing interest," and as being topics "which are likely, at no distant time, to force themselves on our attention in a manner for which previous consideration, and devout inquiry of God, can alone prepare us.”* He speaks of them as clothed "with growing interest ;" and although, from various causes, it might be inexpedient that the work he has so ably prepared should enter formally into the examination of these topics, they are some of them practical questions, which are each day pressing themselves with added momentum and greater weight on the attention of the churches. The past history of the Christian church may aid us in part to obtain the solution of some of these problems; for the annals of the world and the church are but the book of "Providence teaching by examples." And if, with regard to others, a satisfactory decision seems more remote, yet there are contingencies, in which even conjectures may not be without their value. When Napoleon, with his staff, was crossing an arm of the Red Sea, and the waters were found to be rising, while the shades of night were gathering around them, and the French general saw himself menaced with the fate of Pharaoh, he displayed his pre-eminent sagacity by the orders which he gave. Checking his own horse, and remaining stationary, he ordered each of his attendants to ride onward to the several points in that circle of which he was the centre. He who found the water becoming shoal, was to call on all the rest to turn and follow him. Yet it is sufficiently evident, that in thus effecting an escape to the shore, all were instrumental,-they who * Page 385. found themselves swimming in the deeper waters, as well as he who happened to turn his horse's head towards the land. In the discovery of the true and safe path in some moral enterprise, the process pursued by the investigator must often be an exhaustive one. He must consider and review all the possible forms that may be suggested, in order to acquaint himself with their relative merits and defects. And in carrying forward to its triumphant accomplishment the present missionary enterprise of the church, occasions will be found, when a calm estimate of all the doubts and difficulties which seem to hide the path of duty will be doubly beneficial. Such examination will call out the wisdom and exercise the prudence of the church; and drive her also, under the deepening sense of her own ignorance and insufficiency, to that mercy-seat which she has never sought in vain. And in the discussion of such questions, the Christians of our own country have a peculiar and hereditary interest. America was long to the Christians of Europe the field of missionary effort. Columbus, its discoverer, was strongly actuated by the prophecies he was wont so intently to study, and by the hopes he cherished of extending here the kingdom of Christ. In the mind of his patron, the Queen of Spain, the conversion of the heathen to Christianity, was an object "paramount to all the rest.” * And Protestantism vied with Romanism in endeavors to establish on our shores Christian colonies. The brave and devout Coligny, while heading the Protestants of France, labored to plant the faith in either portion of our continent, in Brazil to the south, as in Florida to the north, although in each case in vain. The Puritan Fathers of New England were more successful, and the world is yet wondering at the rapid development each new generation is making of the influence those Christians exercised. Some of the strongest and noblest minds of Europe looked intently to our country as the scene of missions. Such were Cromwell, and Boyle and Berkeley in England. Such was Fenelon, one of whose youthful schemes it was, to become himself a missionary in Canada, then a French province.† Amongst *Prescott's Ferdinand and Isabella, II, 496. † Bausset. Hist. de Fenelon. ourselves, too, God raised up missionaries, at a time when the Protestants of Europe were comparatively inactive in this work. Our Eliot, our Mayhews and our Brainerd, labored long and devoutly. The memoirs of the latter, especially, served to excite the zeal, and to mould the character of William Carey and of Henry Martyn, two of the most honored names among the modern missionaries of Great Britain. And in our own times, the Great Head of the church has given to the Christians of this land, among those whose work is now ended, and those who yet toil in the mission field, some names not likely to be forgotten as long as the earthly church has a history and a being. As the children of a soil which the Christians of Europe thus sought to evangelize; as the descendants of those who labored when the Protestants of the old world were comparatively inefficient; as the compatriots of those who have left their bones in Asia, in Africa, and in the islands of the sea, taking possession there for Christ and his church of the countries of the heathen, American Christians have an undeniable interest in the examination of every scheme and every question that bear directly or indirectly on the great duty of evangelizing the world. They are thus repaying the debt they owe to the Christians of other nations; asserting anew the principles of their forefathers long since gathered to their rest, and guarding also the memory of their brethren who have more recently fallen in the missionary field. In the discussion, too, of some of these questions, the Christians of this country have stores of experience that are peculiarly their own, and that are not equally accessible to their fellow-Christians in Europe. We need but name the power of the voluntary principle, as seen amongst us in the support of religion and its institutions; and the exemption of our churches alike from the oppressions of the State, as dissenters, and from its patronage, as an establishment,-evils felt by our brethren in the foreign as well as in the home field. 1. A question of great moment, that has within the last few years perplexed the missionary bodies both of the old and new world, is, that of the mode in which funds may be secured, adequate to the support of the missions, which the providence of God has cast upon them. And these We missions need not only to be sustained, but the wants of the heathen, and the commands of the gospel join with the invitations of Divine Providence to require that they should be widely extended. This was a difficulty which the earlier friends of modern missions scarce anticipated, as one that could by any possibility occur. Such, at least, was the sentiment of Fuller. In a letter of advice to a friend, who had commenced a society for the evangelization of Ireland, he recurs to his own experience in the work of propagating the gospel in India. "Be more anxious to do the work than to get money. If the work be done, and modestly and faithfully reported, money will come. have never had occasion to ask for money, but once The first contributions at your meeting were much beyond £13 2s. 6d. with which we commenced. Money was one of the least of our concerns; we never doubted, that if, by the good hand of our God upon us, we could do the work, the friends of Christ would support us.' Yet, within a short time, we have seen schools disbanded, the cries of missionaries for assistants in their labor disregarded, and our Missionary Boards compelled, by the dread of bankruptcy at home, when the loud summons of Providence called them to enter upon the widening and whitening fields ripe for the harvest, to meet the call with the complaint, that an exhausted treasury left them no means for enlarging, scarce even of sustaining their present endeavors. Various modes have indeed been attempted, and not without some measure of success, to remedy this distressing state of affairs. Among the most promising are, perhaps, the appeals made through Sabbath schools to the younger members of the church. The Wesleyans of England, and the London Missionary Society have both received large and efficient aid from these sources. Under the auspices of the latter body have been lately prepared a series of missionary works for the use of children. The method has the advantage of not only creating in the minds of the young habits of liberality likely to grow with their growth; but of also training up many to become themselves missionaries, dedicated with "the dew of their * Letter of Fuller to Ivimey, dated Kettering, April 22, 1814. 3* |