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trations, they could not feel the same personal attachment, and they were not brought under his ministrations in the same way as when they viewed that tie as one of the most solemn and sacred. Perhaps, from the circumstances in which the Free Church had been placed, a certain number of translations had been inevitable, and he would not say that there were not circumstances in which translations were not only fair and proper, but also in which they were highly expedient, where the good of the Church, and the interests of the Church, and the good of souls, required them; but if they were frequently to take place,-if the minister was not to regard himself as bound by the most awful considerations to his flock, the pastoral tie would be held as very light, and the minister himself would be held as very light. It was not necessary, he considered, to detain the house with many suggestions on the subject, as they had constantly before them examples of the evils resulting from translations. They caused suspicions to arise, created uneasy feelings in the congregation, and injured the influence which the minister might otherwise exercise. It appeared to him, then, important that they should fix some period of years during which a minister should not be removed from his charge. Cases such as that of the theological chair were not likely to be very numerous, so that there was not likely to be many demands in that way; but, except in such cases as that, it appeared to him that some limit ought to be placed,-that some period should be fixed within which ministers should not be removed. This was the case with the probationers, and the Church, in the same way, had the power to regulate as to ministers. He moved that the overture be remitted to a Committee to consider and report. Mr CARMENT supported the overture.

Mr DUNLOP, advocate, could not acquiesce in the idea that the evils spoken of could be prevented by the proposal of Dr Brown, as, in his opinion, improper translations could only be guarded against by a right exercise of their judicial powers, and of all the subjects on which they needed no legislation, he viewed this as one. In the Kilbride case, the Grennock case, and the Paisley case, the Assembly refused to authorise translations, and he did not see how Dr Brown's motion was at all called for. But, after all, Dr Brown did not suggest a remedy against the evils of translation. The evil he wished to guard against was the possibility of translation in cases where the man was not rightly settled in his charge; but he (Mr Dunlop) was not sure whether, if they were to translate a man, it was not better to take him who had not had time to entwine around him the feelings and affections of his flock.

Mr DUNCAN of Lockerby condemned the doctrine propounded by Dr Brown as to translations as opposed to historical experience, inasmuch as there was scarcely an eminent man of the Church of Scotland who had not been twice or thrice translated. It was, besides, altogether an unfounded statement that it was not the practice of the Church of our fathers; it had always been the practice to have translations from inferior to superior charges. Eminent relatives of Dr Brown had been translated; and he would remind his friend Mr Carment that he was himself a translated man. (Laughter.)

Dr CANDLISH.-Mr Carment is quite an original man. (Laughter.)

Mr DUNCAN. It is indeed quite original for a reverend father of the Church to hold such a view.

Mr CARMENT.-I was only a curate then. (Renewed laughter.)

Dr CANDLISH opposed the overture as unnecessary and uncalled for, and, on the motion of Mr Dunlop, it was dismissed.

OVERTURE ANENT ADMISSION OF MINISTERS FROM OTHER CHURCHES.

Dr CANDLISH moved, that, as this subject involved more a matter of arrangement than a question of principle, it be remitted to the same Committee as the first business on the roll of that evening's business.-Agreed.

REPORT OF FOREIGN MISSIONS COMMITTEE.

Mr TWEEDIE, in bringing forward the Report, explained that it should have been laid before the Assembly by Dr James Buchanan, Convener of Committee, to whom he was but lately appointed successor. He therefore craved the indulgence of the Assembly, on the ground that his experience in the office had been too short

to enable him to make the report such as the importance of the subject required :The Committee would lay their Report for the past year before the General Assembly, under the three following heads :-I. They would refer to the progress and position of the missions at the different stations in India and Africa; II. The Committee would advert to the financial affairs of the missions; and, III. They would submit some plans for future procedure, suggested by the exigencies of this important department of the Church's labours.

"I.-INDIA.

"1. Calcutta. They begin by referring to the progress of the work at Calcutta, the oldest of the Church's stations. The accounts that have been transmitted to us from that Presidency are such as to cheer and encourage, while they at the same time try and humble us. While baptism after baptism has taken place, and the hope has been fostered that this man and that man have been born of the Spirit there, the enemy of souls has not been inobservant of these events. On the contrary, strife, and envy, and debate have been stirred up against your missionaries and the truth; and at one period threats were uttered, and fears entertained, regarding the life of Dr Duff. Such had been the success vouchsafed, so wide-spread the spirit of inquiry that was produced, and so numerous the baptisms which followed, that the most determined hostility appeared. Meetings of the natives were held, and violent resolutions adopted, having for their object the extermination of Christian missions, and the expulsion of the missionaries from India. For a time these measures appeared formidable from their extent and their rancour; but, under the controlling power of Him who stills the tumult of the people, they gradually subsided. Measures were concerted, however, in consequence of the hostility thus displayed, for an attack upon Christianity in general. Amid the ferment occasioned by the success of the baptisms, its credentials were challenged ; and the consequence was, that arrangements were made for a public discussion on the Christian evidences and truth, between Dr Duff and certain of the more prominent natives, aided or led on by an infidel European. The result of these measures was a total discomfiture; and the abettors of the cause of heathenism and infidelity were covered with confusion. In spite of every hostile effort, the seminaries connected with the mission are crowded to excess. The Free Church Institution stands numerically at the head of all the others in point of attendance, while reiterated applications are made to it for teachers from various parts of the surrounding country-so eager is the Indian mind becoming in pursuit of that knowledge which God is overruling to overthrow its gigantic superstitions. Some, who had formerly appeared to apostatize, have been reclaimed. One has been admitted, after his mind had been to a large extent perverted by the principles instilled at an institution from which the truth as it is in Jesus is excluded. In short, many tokens have been granted, that if the Church of Christ would arise to realize her duty, and put on her strength, people among the heathen who shall be heirs of glory would soon be gathered in. A new station has been opened at Bansberria. Other opportunities occur in numbers, could they be embraced; and intelligence is spreading, and the day of final triumph, though distant, becomes sure.-But the success which God over all has thus granted to his servants and his truth, is mingled with sharp and trying dispensations. During the eighteen or nineteen years of the mission's existence at Calcutta, the Committee have not been called on to lament any breach by death among the European missionaries. The Church has had to mourn over the departure of some of her converts, taken away from the work of winning their countrymen to Christ, to the higher work of being for ever with Him in glory; but never, till now, have they been called on to mourn, and humble themselves before the Lord, on occasion of any missionary's death. It is well known, however, that during the past year, He who killeth and maketh alive, has been pleased to call away to his rest and reward, the Rev. John Macdonald, formerly of London, but who, since the year 1837, has laboured, in season and out of season, in the missionary field at Calcutta. Your Committee need attempt no character and no enlogy on that departed servant of Christ. His works praise him in the gate. In love to the souls of men, in simplicity of faith, in catholicity of spirit, in energetic, though calm and deliberate action, in holy devotedness to the work to which his life was consecrated, Mr Macdonald

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has left few equals in the Church; and the wide-spread lamentation that his sudden death occasioned, not merely among the missionaries of the Free Church in India, but among the missionaries of all the Christian bodies there, is at once his best encomium, and a sure token of the loss which the mission has sustained. While we bless God for the good which his servant was honoured to do, and for the sparing mercy which has so long watched over our missionaries, the Committee would see in this a new call to work while it is day. They would at the same time gratefully record, that when his funeral sermon was preached, four Hindus, three of them of Brahman caste, were admitted into the Church by baptism.-Such has been the success and expansion vouchsafed to the mission at Calcutta during the past year, that most urgent applications have again and again been made for additional labourers to occupy the extending field. With these, the Committee have as yet been unable to comply. But both on account of the surviving and devoted missionaries and for the work's sake, they lost no time in looking out for a successor to Mr Macdonald, and have appointed Mr D. Sinclair, preacher of the gospel, to proceed to Calcutta in that character as soon as arrangements can be made. For a number of years Mr Sinclair has had his mind set on missionary labour, and the Committee cherish the hope that he may be largely blessed, and made a blessing in the important sphere to which he has in Providence been appointed. The Committee would gladly dwell at length on the interesting case of the girl, Charlotte Green, did they not believe that it had been made familiar to all by the tract of Dr Duff, giving an account of her conversion and her death. Rescued as she was from ignominy in every sense, her case was one well fitted to encourage the missionaries amid much that tends to dishearten; while it may be ranked among those rare examples of the power of grace by which praise is perfected even out of the mouths of babes.-The missionary tours undertaken by the labourers at this and the other stations, might furnish materials for copious remark. The Committee regard them as not the least important of their agencies. The good that is accomplished by their instrumentality is so often demonstrated by incidents which occur to the missionaries, that the Committee feel assured the Assembly would rejoice, could the intelligence be fully laid before them. But owing to the minuteness of detail, inevitable in such cases, the Committee must refer to the Missionary Record for more ample particulars. This remark applies not merely to Calcutta, but to Bombay, Madras, Nagpur, and other stations where the work of evangelization is carried on by these tours.

"2. Bombay. The latest intelligence from this station enables your Committee to report favourably regarding it. Dr Wilson has now returned to his sphere, and resumed his labours, to the great joy of his friends in the East; and Mr J. M. Mitchell, whom a similar reason had occasioned to visit his native country, is also again at his post; but, while recording these gratifying circumstances, your Committee have to add, that, the Rev. R. Nisbet, who has for many years faithfully served his Master and the Church in India, has, for similar reasons, been under the necessity of returning for a season to Europe. It is hoped that the object of his visit may, by the blessing of God, be speedily accomplished; and meanwhile, should the state of his health admit of it, the Committee cherish the expectation, that Mr Nisbet's visit to this country may be overruled for good, by his stirring up the too languid zeal of the Church in the great work which its Head has given it to do. Your Committee have now the great satisfaction of announcing, that the Rev. Dhanjibhai Nauroji has commenced his labours in the missionary field. He returned to India in company with his friend and spiritual father, Dr Wilson; and, after a brief survey of the state of matters, has begun his labours with zeal. The Committee would cast this interesting minister of Christ on the prayers of the Church, that he may be made a special blessing to many of those who sit in darkness. During the year that has intervened since last Assembly, several have been admitted into the visible Church by baptism at Bombay; and now that the missionary staff of that station is nearly full, it is hoped that, by the ever-needed blessing, the work of winning souls may advance as heretofore. The Committee may here observe, that since the last Assembly the ordination of native missionaries has occupied much of their attention. They find it one of the most difficult of all the questions that have yet arisen connected with missionary operations, and have been constrained to proceed with the utmost caution in the matter. They have, however, sanctioned the ordination, by

the Presbytery of Bombay, of Hormazdji Pestonji, already a preacher, and the fellow-convert of Dhanjibhai Nauroji, in terms of the act of the General Assembly for guiding the Committee in such cases. They have done so, however, in such a way as to make this case a special one, reserving various considerations for future adjustment. In regard to the progress of truth in Bombay, the Committee cannot but lay before the Assembly the following extract from a letter from Rev. Dhanjibhai Nauroji, describing his impressions on his return to India. He says: "India, in many respects, is still the old India-a country far from the living God, and whose inhabitants are mad upon their idols. Still, I think, I should be robbing God of his due glory, were I to leave you to suppose that no change of any consequence has taken place in it. In many places the foundations of Satan's empire here are shakenterribly shaken, and are well-nigh rooted up. In others, the work is going on secretly, but with such power, that one day there will be a grand explosion of all the ungodly and unrighteous systems which, hard as rocks, now face against and oppose the truth as it is in Jesus. The natives themselves are beginning to be afraid of this —and hence are all the weapons they are busily gathering, with a view to put a stop to the march of the truth." The total number attending all the schools at Bombay at present amounts to 1145. At the examination which took place in the month of March last, the condition of the seminaries was such as to elicit high approbation, and the hope may be sanguinely cherished, that in these institutions the power is at work which will ultimately destroy and upheave the gigantic impostures of the East. Even though the progress of education at Bombay has been impeded by the state of the building occupied by your mission, and other causes, the effect must eventually be the undermining of systems which cannot exist with the truth. -Pleasing intelligence has reached your Committee regarding the progress of the Free Church at Bombay, under the ministry of the Rev. Mr Fraser.

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"3. Madras.-The work of winning souls to Christ has been prosecuted at this station with the characteristic energy of the brethren there, and with no small measure of success. Besides others whom it would be interesting to notice, on one occasion no fewer than five Hindu girls were baptized; and though this measure occasioned not a little anxiety to the friends of truth in India, and provoked not a little hostility and alarm, Mr Anderson wrote, in March last, that he and the brethren had no reason as yet to repent of the step, but much to rejoice, that they were privileged to baptize them.' On the 9th of January last, the grandmother of one of these caste girls was also baptized; and the ordinance, as described by your missionary, was dispensed in circumstances which rank among the most touching of all that has yet taken place in connection with your missions to India. if, however, to keep our devoted brethren humble, and dependent on the Father of Lights, trials have been mingled with their success. In a letter dated 15th March, Mr Anderson says, 'With the beacon of three apostates out of twenty-six baptized since the 20th of June 1841, it doubtless behoves us to join trembling with our mirth, and to walk in faith, and circumspectly.'-In other respects the work makes progress at that station. The three licensed preachers are prosecuting their studies with a view to their eventual ordination. For nearly seven years these three young men have been fellow-workers with the missionaries; and of them Mr Anderson says, 'They are our joy and crown.' The native congregation, including children, consists of 34 Christians, of whom 24 are communicants. The seven schools at Madras, Triplicane, Conjeveram, Chingleput, and Nellore, are in active operation; the average attendance is 900, and more than 250 of them are girls of caste. his last communication, Mr Anderson made an urgent appeal for aid to support the native preachers. He offered to raise one-half of their salary in India, if three congregations could be found in Scotland to raise the other half; and, in connection with this appeal, the Committee have to perform the pleasant duty of reporting, that the Glasgow Ladies' Society for supporting a Native Missionary in India, have agreed to remit £35, the sum named by Mr Anderson for the purpose which he specified. This is to be continued by the ladies for five years, in terms of a communication from the Rev. Mr Somerville of Glasgow. When the Assembly are reminded that this is done by the ladies of Glasgow, in addition to the sum of £90 raised and remitted by them as the salary of Prasunna Kumar Chatterji, at Culna, near Calcutta, the Committee feel assured that, after giving thanks to Him who

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hath put this liberality into the hearts of these Christian ladies, thanks will be awarded to themselves for thus seeking to aid in rescuing souls from going down to death. May not the hope be cherished that others will thereby be provoked to love and to good works?-When Mr Anderson made the appeal now referred to, he wrote urgently beseeching the Committee to enable him to enlarge that part of the mission premises in which his family and some of the converts reside. His health is suffering (like that of some of the brethren at Bombay) from defective accommodation. It is well known that the Committee have such limited funds for building at their disposal, that they can with difficulty comply with his request, and they urgently invite the Assembly's attention to this matter, in order that means may now be devised for rescuing our brethren and friends from their danger.

"4. Nagpur and Kampti.-From this station Mr Hislop writes in such a way as indicates that the cross of Christ, as the power and the wisdom of God, is blessed to produce its appointed effects also there. Though he, Mr Hunter, and their fellow-labourers, have had difficulties to encounter, and hostilities to meet, yet the word of God is not bound. By preaching tours, during the season of vacation, added to the more stated means which they employ, the errors which had so long reigned over men's souls have been more or less successfully assailed. As yet it is only the seed-time there; but there is a promise of harvest; and when the Churches shall awake to their full responsibility, Mr Hislop's letter gives abundant evidence that the heathen will be ready to rejoice in the glad tidings of great joy. His call is for preachers, and his prayer for the sending of the Spirit to give efficacy to means. At Kampti a native has applied for baptism; while Yadoji, referred to in several letters, is busily employed preaching, catechising, and exhorting, under the guidance of the missionaries. With them, as with the others, the past year has been chequered with good and ill; but all things are working together for good. By the latest accounts, the schools are better attended than ever-the bread is thus thrown upon the waters, and will be found though it be after many days. In one point of view, these comparative outposts are more trying to our missionaries than the Presidencies are; and it would be a token for good were they habitually remembered by the children of God at the family altar, as well as in the sanctuary, because of their manifold trials.

"5. Puna.-The Committee are happy to be able to report that Mr Aitken, who was for some time in Scotland, on account of his health, has now returned to his sphere, recruited and zealous. A letter, dated at Bombay, 15th March, intimates his safe arrival. The annual Report of the missionary proceedings at this station have not yet come to hand; and the Committee cannot therefore submit such exact details on the subject as might otherwise have been given. The Committee have learned, however, that, owing to a deficiency in funds, Mr Mitchell has been obliged to discontinue the services of several of the Marathi schoolmasters; and the number of the pupils has been in proportion diminished. For various reasons the necessity of taking this step is to be regretted; at the same time it appeared inevitable, and forms another reason why prompt and energetic measures should be adopted to put the missions on a proper footing, both as to expansive power to meet the increasing demand for instruction in India, and as to permanency, that the good done may not be lost by the necessity of abdicating posts, and leaving them to be again overrun with all that is morally noxious. Mr Wizier Beg, mentioned in former Reports, continues to labour in some of your schools with great zeal; and as Christian truth is communicated along with secular knowledge, the hope is entertained that eventually the efforts of their labours may be visible. Mr Cassidy, another of the labourers at that station, who is prosecuting his labours for ordination, has been engaged in missionary tours; and the seed thus sown may be expected to produce its fruit, even though the present husbandmen may not live to reap. No recent baptisms have been announced; but in his last communication (1st March) Mr Mitchell speaks of a Brahman, who is anxious to be received into the Church at Puna. His case is one of interest, and your Committee wait with some anxiety to know how he may in providence and grace be guided. It is interesting to be able to state, that the services for the spiritual benefit of European soldiers and others are well attended. The congregation there has lately been organized; elders have been

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