the warm interest which he took in it, but from the circumstance that he knew that these devoted men were all deeply attached to the Free Church. In proof of this, he need not remind them of the public meeting that was held by them shortly after the Disruption, to hail the Free Church; and at which many of the natives subscribed their cattle, and other property, in sympathy towards the Free Church. (Applause.) Having now been carrying on their labours in Caffreland for twentyseven years, and having, immediately before the war, no fewer than seventy adult communicants, with ten native teachers, they were in a much more favourable condition than they had ever been for carrying on this mission; and as the whole of the country where the missionaries laboured now formed part of the district distinctly under the authority of Great Britain, so that grants of land were now to be obtained, not from the native chiefs, but from the British Government, they were likewise, from this circumstance, in a much more favourable situation than before. Were they now, therefore, with such prospects before them, to relinquish this mission? Surely it would seem strange to other nations if, after labouring so long and so successfully in this field of missionary labour, the mission should be given up after it had been carried on only for four years in connection with the Free Church of Scotland. He trusted, however, that the Assembly would not permit such a result to take place, and that means would be devised for making up the deficiency in the income of the Foreign Mission Committee, and for placing the fund at their disposal in a more permanent and satisfactory footing than it had yet been. (Applause.)

Mr WILSON of Dundee, in moving the adoption of the Report, said it contained matter of very deep interest, suggested to their minds many important considerations, and supplied to them many large encouragements for entering upon and occupying the field of the world, and of carrying out, in their day and generation, the apostolic injunction, to preach the gospel in every country. The fruits of their India Missions were now beginning to appear. They were appearing more and more largely every year; and the testimony of those most conversant with the subject went to show, that these fruits, in the shape of conversions reported to them from time to time, did not by any means indicate the progress and the influence which the missionaries were making in that extensive land. (Cheers.) But while, as indicated in their Reports, greater success had attended the efforts of their missionaries in all their stations, he was sorry to see that their annual subscriptions in support of the Foreign Mission Scheme did not nearly come up to their annual expenditure. Highly as he valued the noble effort which had been made by the ladies of Scotland to relieve the Committee from their difficulties in the course of last year, he hoped that the Church would not contemplate a recurrence of such a plan to make up the deficiency in their revenue. He was convinced that, if the question was laid properly before the members of their congregations, they would respond most liberally to the call made upon them to support these important missions of the Church. (Applause.) He was sure that by this time the Church generally had been made sensible, that it was not by shutting themselves up at home, but by carrying out the divine mission to evangelize the world, that they were to succeed in any of their efforts, either in the Sustentation Fund or any other fund. more God gave them grace and glory to carry out and to fulfil the great mission of the Church of Christ, the more would all their funds prosper. (Applause.)

The

Mr BARCLAY, of Kilpatrick, in seconding the motion, drew attention to the fact, that they had Disruption-missionaries as well as Disruption-ministers,—that while they had a Chalmers and a Welsh, as distinguished Disruption-ministers, they had a Duff and a M'Donald, as distinguished Disruption-missionaries; and he argued from this fact, together with the great importance of evangelizing the heathen, that it was their duty, as a Church of Christ, liberally to support their missionaries in the onerous work in which they were engaged.

Mr DUNLOP of Craigton asked whether, in supporting the motion for approving of the Report, they were to be held as consenting to abandon the Caffre Mission? Mr TWEEDIE said, the matter was put alternatively in the Report,-namely, either to employ the Caffre missionaries in some other field, or to adopt some means to increase the income so that it should meet the expenditure.

Mr DUNLOP said, he did not think Mr Tweedie's explanation was at all satisfac

tory in this matter. He would rather that that part of the Report was withdrawn altogether, than he would leave the alternative with the Committee of relinquishing this mission, if the funds could not be raised. (Hear.)

Dr CANDLISH took leave to say, that, to a considerable extent, he agreed with Mr Dunlop that the matter should not be left in the way that it was put in the Report. It would be better, he conceived, in the first instance, to take an approval of the Report without this alternative, and then consider that point afterwards. The matter might be put in this way, that they must either abandon some of their missions, or increase the funds for supporting their Foreign Mission Scheme. The Church, he maintained, must be brought to face this question, for into debt the Committee ought not to be permitted to run.

Mr TWEEDIE said he was not sure that he would personally object to take a general, instead of a special case, were that special case not forced on the Committee by the circumstances in which they were placed.

Mr KESSEN of Lethendy said, he was sorry to hear that it was for one moment contemplated to abandon the Caffre Mission, and he trusted that such a thing would never be attempted. (Hear.)

Mr MACNAUGHTAN said,-There were now two proposals before the house; first, that they should contemplate the idea of relinquishing one part of the missionary field; and secondly, that they should not immediately forsake that part of the field, but that they should go down to their congregations, and say to them, that, unless they supplied the necessary funds forthwith, they would be obliged to take that step, however reluctantly. He did not see his way, in present circumstances, to the adoption of either of these alternatives. He could not contemplate the proposal of abandoning the Caffre Mission; because, first of all, that proposal would not get them out of their difficulty. Their difficulty was a difficulty arising from the want of funds; and, therefore suppose they issued an order to-morrow to give up this Mission, this would not relieve them from their difficulty, or diminish their expenses in the least degree, inasmuch as the Committee intended to employ the missionaries in some other field, where their expenses would just be as great as they were at present. (Hear.) And then, how strangely would the proposal sound in the ears of men, to take their missionaries from Caffreland and send them to India, after having spent ten, fifteen, and twenty years in acquiring Caffre habits, and the different tongues in which the Caffre tribes spoke. Was it come to this, that the Free Church, having just one mission in Africa, and that one not large, was to abandon that field, without being able to effect the object in view? (Applause.) Why, even if they could blot the Caffre Mission out of existence to-morrow, they could not accomplish their end, for their deficiency was a deficiency of £2000 a-year, and the expense of the Caffre Mission amounted only to a little more than £700. Therefore, while they did not at all meet the difficulty, were they to incur the guilt of deserting Africa, which had so many claims upon them? (Hear, and applause.) Then, as to the other alternative proposed by Dr Candlish, namely, of saying to their congregations, that if they did not provide the means they must abandon some part of the Missionary field,—he must say that he did not like that mode at all. He thought it would go far to defeat the end they had in view, if they went down to their people with any such alternative. He thought, if they must go to them, that they should go to them telling them the exact position in which they were placed, -they must tell them that, having this mission in hand, they were bound to maintain it, and they would maintain it. (Hear, hear.) Were they to go down to their congregations in this way, they might expect that such a response would be made to their appeal as would extricate the Committee from all their difficulties and enable them to maintain all their missionaries. What was the fact? Had not Mr Tweedie shown, in the Report, that the Fund for Foreign Missions had never increased beyond £7000 per annum since it was instituted; and as he (Mr Macnaughtan) observed from the financial statement that some congregations only subscribed such paltry sums as 16s. or 18s. to this Fund, he thought that the Church could easily be made to raise a vast deal more for this purpose. He would therefore say that they should contemplate a given sum for this Scheme; and as Mr Tweedie had told them that £9000 per annum would be required, he (Mr M.) would suggest that

they should fix upon that sum, and go down to their people, and ask them to provide it, and he did not despair of their being successful. (Hear.) Even if it was found that, when the wants and necessities of the Foreign Mission Scheme were fairly brought before the Christian people of the land, and they did not respond to the appeal, he trusted that there would yet be found another alternative than that of abandoning this important mission field. He trusted that there would still be found ministers within these walls who would know of something yet more to sacrifice rather than that any part of the missionary field should be relinquished. (Applause.) He did not wish to propose any motion, as he had no doubt that Dr Candlish would be so able to frame the one which he had suggested, as to meet what seemed to be the general wish of the house. (Hear, hear.)

Mr WILLIS of Kirkpatrick-Durham, said,-There were a number of the congregations of the Church who were in the habit of giving to the Foreign Mission Scheme entirely on account of the Caffre Mission; consequently, if they were to relinquish that field of labour, and alienate the funds to another object, they might just as well blot out the subscriptions of these congregations altogether from the Foreign Mission Scheme. He could assure them that this would be the case, more especially in the neighbourhood of Glasgow, where some of the missionaries at present labouring in Caffreland had many attached friends. It would do no good, therefore, as regarded the state of their finances, to give up this mission, while it would be relinquishing a field of missionary enterprise that was every day becoming more important. (Hear, hear.)

Dr SMYTTAN, Edinburgh, said, he was glad to find that the latter part of the Report was objected to by the Assembly, as he considered that it would be a shameful, as well as a cruel act to take those zealous and devoted missionaries from a sphere in which they were doing so much good. He had no fear as to the ability and the willingness of the Church to support the Foreign Mission Scheme, if the ministers and office-bearers did their duty; and he was convinced that a great deal more might be done than had yet been accomplished in the different congregations of the Church through the instrumentality of that most valuable publication the Missionary Record. Dr CANDLISH said, he agreed most cordially in every sentiment that had been expressed by Mr Macnanghtan. What he (Dr Candlish) had said before, was simply to the effect of indicating that, if they contemplated an alternative at all, it should be in general terms. He held that they were come precisely to this point, that they must broadly and distinctly present to the Church this alternative, that either on the one hand, the missionary operations of the Church must be contracted somewhere, or, on the other hand, that the means must be supplied by the people in much larger abundance. (Cheers.) That was the alternative which the Church must face. He believed, however, with Mr Macnaughtan, that, sooner than contract the missionary operations of the Church, the ministers of the Church would be willing to make great sacrifices, as they had made sacrifices before. (Applause.) But still, however, the fact remained, that whether the ministers were to make greater sacrifices, or whether the people, without making sacrifices, were to put forth greater efforts, in one way or another the means at the disposal of the Foreign Mission Committee must be greatly increased, or the missionary operations of the Church curtailed. Were they, however, to talk of curtailing their operations in the Lord's cause? He trusted that, with respect to the sphere and department of the Foreign Mission, there would be no curtailing of their operations. His respected friend Mr Tweedie, who had recently come into connection with the department of Foreign Missions, seemed to think that all expedients for increasing the fund had been tried, and tried in vain. With all deference to Mr Tweedie, he (Dr Candlish) begged to say that he thought he was mistaken. He was of opinion that, since the Disruption, the great scheme for Foreign Missions had not got fair play. (Hear, hear.) It had not been fairly treated by the General Assembly and by the people at large. For one thing, the Scheme had materially suffered, and more than any of the other, Schemes, in the office of Convener. They had one Convener giving place to another and that second Convener again giving place to a third; and so it had happened that this great Scheme for Foreign Missions had scarcely obtained the undivided attention of any one of the master-minds of the Church. He now humbly trusted that

they had obtained the services of a Convener who might be fairly classed among the master-minds of the Church, and who would, he (Dr Candlish) hoped, for years to come, devote his great energies to this cause. (Applause.) The Foreign Mission Scheme must not in future depend upon shifts and expedients,-even such expedients as that adopted by the ladies last year,-to get the Committee out of their difficulties. (Hear, and a laugh.) The people must be made thoroughly to understand this. Let them understand in the second place, that the Foreign Mission Committee must no longer incur any debt; for binding upon them as was the command to go into all nations and preach the gospel, equally and still more binding upon them was the injunction, owe no man anything." (Applause.) These two great principles must be broadly stated in the face of the Church and of the country. Let them rob, if need be, for a time the High Church of Paisley of its talented minister, whom the Assembly had given back to them in preference to the claims of Ireland-(laughter and applause) and let him undertake to rouse the country in behalf of the Foreign Mission Scheme. Let the people be told simply and unequivocally that the annual income for the Foreign Missions has fallen short of the expenditure by between £2000 and £3000, and that it was for them to determine whether they were to curtail their Schemes, or whether the income was to be raised to such a sum as would be equal to the expenditure. Let this be done; and if the matter was fairly stated in that way, he did not fear the result. (Applause.) He would say, generally, without anticipating what it might be necessary to state at a subsequent period of the Assembly, when the Report from the Committee upon the Schemes of the Church came up, that there were two things which occurred to his mind at the first blush of the matter, namely, that the sum which this Church annually expended in the great field of Foreign Missions, was not only as to its amount in detail trifling and unworthy, but as to its gross amount altogether out of proportion either to the importance of the field which they had to cultivate, or to the command which they had to cultivate it. He considered, in a word, that the amount contributed for the Foreign Mission Scheme was not creditable to the Free Church of Scotland. With such a pitiful sum as £7000 a-year, who could shut his eyes to the fact that they were in danger of incurring a withering blight from the neglect of the Lord's command, and that, too, at a time when they were especially called to expect the fulfilment of the Lord's promise to open the windows of heaven, and pour out His spirit on all flesh. (Hear, and applause.) The difficulty they had experienced, he was convinced, arose in part from the circumstance that their people had been in the habit of viewing the Foreign Mission Scheme in the same light as they viewed the other five or six Schemes of the Church. This was all very well so long as the Foreign Mission Scheme was in its infancy, and so long as the field was limited and the labourers few. The case, however, was altered now; and therefore he held that of the five or six Schemes of the Church, the Foreign Mission should stand preeminent, that it should stand out isolated and alone, not only because it was a means of the Church's success, but because it was a fulfilment of the Lord's command to preach the gospel unto all nations. (Applause.) It had been too much the case for the different Schemes of the Church to run a tilt with each other, and for the people to divide their contributions first into five or six parts, and then divide these equally among the various Schemes. Now, while he did not wish the gifts cast into the treasury for any of these Schemes to be diminished, he would desire the people of Scotland to exercise more discretion, that was to say, to look more to the relative importance of the objects, and still more to the relative necessities of these objects. With this view he conceived that something might be done to elevate the Foreign Mission Scheme to a higher platform than the other Schemes; but how this was to be accomplished would in all likelihood be decided when the Report of the Committee on the different Schemes of the Church, came before the Assembly. (Applause.)

Mr A. DUNLOP (the Procurator) agreed cordially with everything that had been said as to the importance of this mission; but he thought that a proper distinction should be made between the duty of furnishing the means of carrying on the mission, and the question of the value of the mission itself. While he would yield to no man in appreciating the duty of carrying out the object in view, still he would not blink the question as to the duty of the Committee only to distribute what was given them. Now,

they all saw that for three years consecutively the expenditure of the Committee had been greater than the income; and he would therefore say, appeal again to the people, tell them the truth, implore them, put every motive before them to aid this mission work, but at the same time inform them as decidedly, that if they do not furnish the means, you will not again go beyond what they give you. The Committees of the Assembly had for years been obliged to put things on this erroneous footing; they were in debt; they had contracted certain obligations; and that annoyed and irritated men; and when they put that motive against the other, still the people would find, that although they might be very sparing in proportion to their means, still, if they tried to urge them too far, the cord might snap, and the supplies would fail. On this point he could not but recollect the sentiment of Professor La Harpe of Geneva, of which he cordially approved, namely, that when they found they had not the means of supporting missionaries, they ceased to employ them. It was the fair and honest course, only to expend what they got to expend, and then to come to the people and say, here is an account of what we have done with what you gave us; and then, again, here is a large field open for us,-will you enable us to enter and possess it?

Mr MONTEITH of Ascog deprecated the idea that the people had not done wonders in the Free Church, so far as supporting missions was concerned. So far from speaking about the people, it was his feeling that, if there was a shortcoming of support for the maintenance of their spiritual machinery, it was for the want of the influence of the Holy Spirit bearing upon individual souls, and giving them enlarged views of spiritual things. For his own part, he thought that instead of using any extraneous means, such as sending men about the Church to agitate the matter, they ought to humble themselves before God, and pray for his assistance.

Mr MAKGILL CRICHTON Concurred with Mr Dunlop, that they had hitherto been too much carried away in these matters by their Christian zeal, which had outrun their Christian prudence. He could not help thinking that probably the African Mission had not been set sufficiently before the country at the time it was undertaken by the Committee; and the effect had been, that they had contracted a large amount of debt from year to year, which was a very improper state of things; and if they were to continue the expenditure as they had hitherto been doing, they would require to set their faces to the result; for unless the means were provided to meet the expenditure, they would be pursuing a dishonest course. He desired that the wisdom of the great Chalmers would fill the Church, and that, following his example, the Convener of the Mission would so administer the funds placed at his disposal as to make their measures co-extensive with their means. While they recollected that the field before them which they ought to occupy was the world, still the extent to which they were able to occupy it would depend upon the means which God put into their hands, and he should be very happy to find that all those who applauded to the very echo the denunciations of Mr Macnaughtan as to giving up the Caffre Mission, would, by their self-sacrifices, as well as by their plaudits in that Assembly, show their sincerity in sympathizing with the object. The fund at present was very inadequate to the object, and he did not wish to see the cart put before the horse, in the way of carrying out schemes without the means of supporting them. He denounced such a measure of operations as not honest in itself, and as destructive of those fields of usefulness which were first before them, and which deserved their first attention.

Mr TWEEDIE said, he had stated in the Report, on the authority of the Treasurers, that they were getting into debt just now at the rate of £600 per quarter of a year, and they were at this moment, since the accounts had been made up, £400 in debt; and without taking to himself a compliment which Mr Makgill Crichton had thought proper to pay him, he would say, that he would like to occupy a better position than that of administering funds which they did not possess,—(hear, hear,)— for assuredly they were not in a position now to meet the demands which were made upon them. He was willing to put the Scheme upon a year's probation, but, as an honest man, he considered he did not think that, under the circumstances, he could give it more.

Mr CAMPBELL of Monzie considered that Mr Tweedie was perfectly right not to go beyond his means, and in so doing, was just acting the part of a Presbyterian