have a most seasonable opportunity, in God's providence, this year, for more emphatically discharging this duty. We have already resolved, at a former diet of the Assembly, to have on the second Sabbath of July a collection in aid of our suffering brethren in the Canton de Vaud; and it humbly appears to me that this is a seasonable day on which it may be suitable for ministers of this Church to call the attention of their people to the principles for which we contended. Substantially we are in the same position in regard to our testimony, in so far at least as the encroachments of the State on the liberties of the Church are concerned, with our brethren of the Canton de Vaud; and one great benefit to be expected, among subordinate benefits, from the appointment of this collection is, the recalling of the attention of our people to the importance of these principles, and especially to their importance beyond the limits of our own Church and our own times. We are sometimes apt to consider that we have been engaged in a merely Scottish Controversy, -a merely local and limited controversy;-and the expression of sympathy which we call upon the people to show for the inhabitants of the Canton de Vaud is a distinct manifestation of the catholic character and universal applicability of those sacred principles for which we contended and suffered. On all these grounds I think it would be exceedingly seasonable to pass an act now, supplementary to that act, in regard to the collection for the Canton de Vaud,-an act enjoining the ministers of this Church to call the attention of the people to the principles for which we contended, and the testimony we are called upon to maintain, on the second Sabbath of July, the day on which they also solicit the contributions of the people for the Church's fellow-sufferers,-for those who are fellow-sufferers with us in the very same cause. Now, if that be the mind of the Assembly, I would suggest that it should be remitted to the very same Committee as that to which was remitted the duty of preparing the act in regard to the Canton de Vaud, of which my friend Mr Gray is Convener, to prepare a supplementary act, formally enjoining ministers on that Sabbath to call the attention of their people to this subject, and so prepared as to be read along with the act in regard to the Canton de Vaud. That is the only practical suggestion which it occurs to me to make on this subject.

The suggestion of Dr Candlish was unanimously approved of.

The following was the deliverance of the Assembly,-" The Overtures from the Synods of Stirling and Perth being read, and the Assembly having considered the important subject brought under their notice in these Overtures, resolve to appoint, as they hereby do appoint, all the ministers of this Church to preach on the subject of this Church's peculiar testimony, at one or other of the ordinary diets of public worship, on the second Sabbath of July next, the day already appointed for a collection on behalf of their suffering brethren of the Canton de Vaud; and they remit to a Committee to prepare an Act to this effect, which may be read from all the pulpits of the Church, along with the Act appointing said collection."

REPORT OF COLONIAL COMMITTEE.

Mr BONAR of Glasgow then submitted the following Report:-" In submitting a Report of their proceedings during the past year, the Colonial Committee feel that they have much cause for gratitude to God for the means put at their disposal, and the opportunities of usefulness given to them, in the extensive and important field of labour which the Church has committed to their peculiar charge. The principles of true Christianity are essentially diffusive. From the rock which the finger of God has touched, wherever it may be, rivers of waters will flow, not only in proof of God's power, but in communication of God's goodness to others. It was, therefore, one of the hopeful symptoms of this Church, which made the hearts of God's people rejoice, that in the day of her own spiritual revival she enlarged her exertions for others; and that when trouble overtook her, and she was stripped of her earthly possessions, she still desired to abound in riches of liberality towards those Schemes of Christian benevolence on which she had entered.

"Especially did the Church feel that she could not, and should not, hide her face from her own flesh; that fellow-countrymen and fellow-Christians scattered abroad throughout the world have claims on her, in her new condition, even stronger than they had before; and that as they had suffered much, both by what she had some

times given, and by what she had refused in former times, it became her to seek to make them sharers in the spiritual blessings in which she now rejoiced.

“And never, perhaps, was there a more glorious opportunity given to any Church in this respect. The children of this island of the sea have found a home, either more temporary or more permanent, in every region of the earth. The sun never sets on the British dominions; and co-extensive with the foreign empire of Britain is our field of labour. In every part of it the door is fully open to us. From the most distant places a cry for help has reached us, and in every place a cordial welcome is ready to greet our ministers and our missionaries. Never had a Church such opportunities; never was a Church laid under such responsibilities. By the position God has given us--by the acceptance he has procured for us -by the desires he has awakened for our aid-by the blessing he has already vouchsafed on our labours by the prayer and supplications which are everywhere raised to God in our behalf-we are made, more than perhaps any Church in the earth ever was, since the first disciples waited at Jerusalem, debtors to the whole world.

"British America, from Nova Scotia to the Pacific, from the fertile plains of St Lawrence to the snows of Hudson's Bay, Bermuda, Antigua, St Vincent's, Jamaica, Madeira, Africa, Ceylon, New Zealand, Australia, China, India, Northern Europe, many places of Asia, and the shores of the Mediterranean, present to us Scottish residents willing to receive us, and needing, more than words can tell, our help. In this wide field little has been done, and yet an entrance has been made. Many destitute lands have been visited--many parts of God's heritage lying waste have been refreshed-many thousands, long deprived of ordinances, have heard the glad tidings of salvation preached, and an impulse communicated to secure the benefits of a stated and faithful ministry, full of the happiest promises for the future.

NEW ZEALAND." But we must hasten to give a brief detail of the labours which have chiefly occupied your Committee during the year which has now closed. And now comparatively a new field of labour comes prominently before us. This is found in the rising and rapidly advancing settlements in New Zealand; and of these, Otago claims a peculiar interest from us, as being the first of the class of settlements which is so great an improvement on the ordinary mode of settling a new country, and as being a Free Church colony. The situation of this colony seems peculiarly desirable in many respects. The climate is salubrious; the soil fertile. In, and for about one hundred and fifty miles beyond, the Otago Block, there are alternately hills and valleys. About that distance from Otago there is a high range of hills, whence flow innumerable streams, which, expanding into lakes and rivers, at once beautify and fertilize the country, and fit it for the abodes of a vast population. For this district £36,000 for religious and educational uses have been assigned, and five years have been allowed for effecting the settlement of this district. If within that period this be accomplished, then another, with an equally liberal donation for the like purposes, will probably be conferred upon them; and thus the principles of our Church will be widely diffused over a vast country-yet another Britain; for such is likely to be the high destiny of New Zealand, from the great extent of its coasts, its numerous harbours, and its relation to the continents and islands washed by the great Southern Ocean. One body of settlers has already left, and we trust that they are now, by the good hand of our God upon them, nearing these distant shores, accompanied by our beloved brother, the Rev. Mr Burns of Portobello, who, with his whole family, sailed with them. They will come to a land wholly uninhabited at present; they will raise their dwellings in the midst of its solitudes; but they will take possession of it in the name of our God, and there they will build an altar to the Lord; and let the whole Church pray that this settlement, though but as an handful of corn on the tops of the mountains, may yet shake like Lebanon, and form a new Edinburgh, not only in form and prosperity, but in religious principles and spiritual blessings.

"The other and earlier settlements of New Zealand have also bestirred themselves in religious matters; and, happily, your Committee have been able to respond to their calls in a way which fills them with gratitude to God, and hope that there may be good in store for that land. The Rev. Mr Nicolson, late of Lowick, has been appointed to Nelson, and sailed last autumn for that place, where, we hope, he has long since arrived, and is now actively engaged. More lately still, a large

and influential meeting to organize a Presbyterian Church in Auckland, the largest town in New Zealand, the seat of government, and the residence of the most influential people in that country, many of whom take a deep and personal interest in the proceedings. This meeting was held accordingly, and took instant measures to accomplish the objects of it. A Committee was appointed, and a subscription was begun, which already amounts to above £1000 for a church, and another equally liberal for maintaining the ministry of the gospel in it.

"This vigorous congregation have forwarded the most respectful and earnest application to your Committee for a suitable minister, and have secured for him a stipend, which, both by the amount of it, and by the security given that it will be continued, shows how much they are in earnest in the great work they have undertaken. It is very gratifying to have to report to the Assembly, that a minister peculiarly suitable for the charge, in the full and unanimous judgment of the Committee, has been found in the Rev. George A. Panton, who has accepted the appointThere ment, and expects to proceed to Auckland in the latter end of July next. will then be three ministers of our Church in that distant land; and though the distances which separates them from each other are very great, nevertheless, the whole economy of the Presbyterian Church, and also its government, will be set up, and foundations laid for its gradual extension as the settlements increase, and the colony prospers.

AUSTRALIA." In Australia, too, the prospects of our brethren are brighter. They have had to contend with great difficulties, and a peculiar state of society. They are fewer in number, and vastly distant from each other; and yet their proceedings during last year have been marked with a very great amount of vigour and devo

tedness.

"In the Synod of Australia Felix, we have the important places of Melbourne, and Geelong, and Boniyong-each of them with a wide-spread territory around, and an increasing and still spreading population. At Melbourne we have Mr Forbes, continuing, with greater devotedness and more cheering prespects than ever before, his valuable labours; at Beniyong we have Mr Hastie; and Mr Huie, sent out by your Committee last year, has gone to the district of Geelong. Before settling there, however, he has largely engaged already in missionary work, and has preached in various distant and destitute stations-a kind of work peculiarly required for that country at present, when so many are necessarily for years together "in the bush." The spiritual state of such is fitted to awaken the deepest sympathy. They are at nearest fifty or sixty miles from a church. They are sometimes years without seeing any except those who may be associated with them in work; and their toil, and labours, and journeys, are in regions where the voice of a gospel preacher has never yet been heard. Even the prodigious industry of Popery,' says Mr Huie, has failed to penetrate into the Australian bush. No minister of the gospel ever goes to them with the word of life. Those located in the towns have too much to do with those in their immediate neighbourhood, or feel their situations too easy, think of going into the wilderness and seeking these poor souls. I have visited some families in the course of my journey, who had not seen a minister of the gospel for the space of six years; and when I preached at Pyrenees on the last Sabbath of my stay in that quarter, I had some hearing me who had not heard a sermon for the last ten years. How, then, could I wonder that this people had forgotten the God of their fathers? Painfully did I feel the loneliness of my situation as I stood there like one crying in the wilderness. Never before, in the memory of these settlers, had their plains or mountains been trodden by one who brought the good tidings; yet that one who had brought them must soon depart and leave them as they were— as sheep without a shepherd.'

to

"In the Synod of East Australia, the brethren have had equal difficulties to meet, and are labouring with the utmost devotedness in the midst of them. Sydney, the second or third city in the British Colonies, is in that Synod; and it is of course the anxious desire of the brethren to have the Free Church there confirmed and well supplied. They have taken a place of worship in the mean time, and have kept up regular sermons in it ever since they formed themselves into a Synod. They look with earnest hope to this country for help; and the importance of the city, and the influential position which it holds, the exertions made by our brethren, and the zeal

manifested by the friends of religion there, all unite to enforce their claim. And your Committee are truly happy to say, that they have the comfortable prospects of meeting these claims in a far more efficient way than they at one time ventured to expect. Mr James Melville, an accomplished and devoted student, has already left for Sydney, which is his native place. Mr George Mackie, highly esteemed as a suitable person by all who know him, and soon to be licensed and ordained, will, we hope, sail the next June for Sydney also; and next year we have the prospect of sending out a preacher, whom, the Committee feel fully warranted to say, the Church will rejoice to see in that city, either for a time, or more permanently, and only regret that his departure is necessarily delayed for so many months.

"We hope therefore, that matters are in a fair way for something being done for Sydney; and meanwhile it is most interesting to remark, that here, as elsewhere, the movement in connection with the Free Church is not a movement among ministers only, but a movement among the members also of the Church; and that the hearts which for many years had been sad and downcast by reason of hope deferred, rapidly gather round the Church, with renewed hope and quickened zeal. "It is," says one merchant, writing from Sydney last October-" it is very refreshing for us in this land to read of the great interest manifested by the Free Church in her colonies so long neglected; and may the Lord make her to be more and more useful in extending the blessings of a pure and faithful dispensation of His word and ordinances to those who are still destitute of them. Another merchant says, in a more recent letter, 'If the Church at home only knew the thousands, and tens of thousands, that are perishing in this land for lack of knowledge, they would be more willing to hear and obey the cry, Come over and help us. May the Lord in his own time and way, even he who is Lord of the harvest, raise up, fit, and prepare, and send forth into the land men of God-men full of faith, and of the Holy Ghost, whose ministrations will be blessed for the awakening and conversion of souls, and for building up and edifying his own people. Then would the hearts of the Lord's people be revived, strengthened, and encouraged in the land of ungodliness.'

"And while thus they turn with so earnest a call to us, it is very delightful to mark how fully they feel that help cometh only from the Lord. "It is," says this same writer, in a still more recent communication, addressed, not to your Committee, but to another merchant in this country-" it is a breathing of the Spirit that we need most to quicken and renew the careless among us--to revive and refresh the Lord's people, who are bowed down under a sense of the low state of personal, family, and public religion amongst us. May the Lord in his own time make his faithful servants to build up the walls of Jerusalem, even in these troublous times. When such sentiments as these come to be the views and expressions of those who are engaged in the pressure of worldly business, it is indeed a token for good, and a great encouragement to the Church at home to do what in her lies, that their prayers may be heard, and their spiritual wants, so deeply felt, may be supplied.

VAN DIEMEN'S LAND. "In Van Diemen's Land the prospects of evangelical religion were not bright last year. That part of the Australian world seemed smitten with a very peculiar coldness and deadness; but a great and happy change has begun to manifest itself. In Launceston a meeting of those friendly to Free Church principles was lately held. A deputation was sent to the Synod of Australia Felix for direction and for help; and that body, deeply sympathizing, prevailed on Mr Huie to visit Van Diemen's Land before taking up his more permanent abode at Geelong. That visit has proved most seasonable. New life and energy have been put into the proceedings of the brethren there. They eagerly request the countenance and the help of this Church; and a much-respected friend belonging to another denomination is deputed to be here during the sittings of this Assembly, and personally to request leave to urge the claims of Launceston, and Van Diemen's Land generally.

"Such is the state of matters in Australia generally. Destitution, the most dreadful in degree and most direful in its effects, prevails; and this destitution is constantly and rapidly growing with the increasing population. That population increases with great rapidity, and is every year added to by large numbers of emigrants. In these circumstances, the idea of supplying labourers permanently from this country is

quite hopeless. A full supply can only be expected when the means of producing it are to be found on the spot; and hence it is the anxious wish of your Committee to see steps taken immediately to institute, in the most convenient and accessible place in the colony, at least a preparatory school and a theological hall. There can be no doubt as to the latter; and the Committee think that, for some time, the first might serve the purpose of a more regular college of arts. In this they are supported by the opinion of our late reverend father Dr Chalmers, who, in the year 1846, said, speaking of gymnasia "Such is my conception of their usefulness, that I think they might prepare for an immediate entrance on all the studies of the learned professions, whether theological, or legal, or medical." Your Committee see no reason to doubt that a vigorous institution of this kind, and a sound and vigorous theological hall, might soon be opened in Sydney; and with such aid, and by the blessing of God, they would not despair of soon seeing a goodly supply of thoroughly educated ministers reared in that distant land, and going forth throughout the length and breadth of it. To this object, therefore, the Committee have appropriated a definite sum, and they only wait further communication and definite instructions to set about an actual commencement both of the gymnasium and the theological institution.

HONG KONG. "The mind turns from Australia with a peculiar interest to the great continent of India, and with still deepening interest to China, with its dense masses of heathen darkness. But it is an interest, in our case, mingled with very peculiar feelings of regret, if not of self-condemnation. It is now more than three years since the Presbyterian inhabitants of Victoria, Hong Kong, sent a call in general to the Colonial Committee, and with it an offer of a suitable stipend to any minister who might be appointed to that place. After long waiting, our respected brother, Mr Stevenson of Tullibody, was found willing to go, if the Church would consent to loose him from his present sphere. Difficulties, however, occurred as to this. Mr Stevenson's congregation could not see it their duty to part with him, his presbytery declined to take the responsibility of loosing him, and, in the circumstances of the case, it appeared to your Committee best to allow the proposal to drop. Within these two months, however, it has been revived by a direct call, sent from Victoria to Mr Stevenson, through your Committee. That call we of course submitted to him, with a request that he would again consider the whole matter. Mr Stevenson has done so; but he sees no reason to change his mind. If the Church call him to the work, and send him forth, he is willing to go; but he does not feel at liberty to take the responsibility of such a movement upon himself. In these circumstances, the Committee felt constrained to look elsewhere for the supply of this most important station, and they have communicated with several persons who seemed to them suitable and desirable, but have not as yet been able to make any arrangement which they could venture to propose in this Assembly, or recommend to the Presbyterian body in Hong Kong, whose zeal and patience particularly call for the admiration and sympathy of this Church. The Committee trust that if none of our ministers can be spared, some one of our ablest young men may be found willing to go to this distant sphere, where there is such a wide field of usefulness, not only among our countrymen, but also among the resident Chinese.

INDIA." The two colonial churches in India-that of Mr M'Kail in Calcutta, and Mr Frazer's in Bombay-are both prospering; and no other station or church has been opened in that region this year. But the Committee feel that they may soon be called upon to take up a more definite position in the Cape of Good Hope, where there are many holding the principles of this Church, and anxious to be more directly recognised as within the limits of her colonial operations.

"In Ceylon, also, there is at present a most important opening for the labours of a zealous missionary-spirited minister among our countrymen there. These are scattered in great numbers over the island, in the various coffee plantations, as well as resident in the towns; and to any young man who would visit them, and preach wherever he could get a congregation, we can scarcely conceive a more important or more interesting field of labour.

MADEIRA. "In Madeira the Committee have, during this year, had the labours of Mr Burns of Dunblane, who is strongly recommended by his medical advisers to prolong his stay for a short time. The Presbyterian Church there has prospered during the last year; and the work of conversion among the Roman Catholic popu