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on us, where is our hope? Where can we look but to thy holy hill?"

The outpouring of God's Spirit, here alluded to, though not very extensive, was among the most signal expressions of favor to the Church. The instrumentality the subject of these Memoirs had in this work of grace, we shall lay before the reader, in the language of one of his most valued classmates, who is now succesfully engaged in the Christian ministry. "During the last term of his first year, there was a revival of religion in college, which commenced in his class. It was then my opinion, and I believe the general opinion, that Mr. Mills was principally instrumental, in the hands of God, in producing the blessed work. Certain it is, that no one was so much resorted to as he, by those under serious impressions. He was singularly devoted and engaged, a little before the revival commenced, and while it lasted. Nor did he, after it had ceased, relapse into that state of apathy and indifference so common with many, and to which there are so many temptations in college. It may well be said of him, that he 'walked with God,' and I trust his footsteps were seen long after he left the college."

It is in itself grateful, and of some importance to the subsequent parts of his history, to observe the invariable tendency of his mind toward the grand objects of benevolence to which his life was so sacredly devoted. The following extract

is from his Diary, while a member of college, though under an obliterated date.

"O that I might be aroused from this careless and stupid state, and be enabled to fill up life well! I think I can trust myself in the hands of God, and all that is dear to me; but I long to have the time arrive, when the gospel shall be preached to the poor Africans, and likewise to all nations."

Ejaculations like these were the true index of his soul. It is his zeal and exertions as a Christian philanthropist, that will attract the deepest and most profitable attention. In this respect, it is no exaggeration to say, he stands almost without a parallel among men not actuated by the miraculous agency of the Iloly Ghost. What the memorable Howard was in some few branches of temporal charity, was Samuel J. Mills, in a vast variety of simple yet magnificent plans of Christian beneficence. Few who knew him will question the justice of the observation, that he possessed feelings which suffered him to say very little of himself. Though one of the most modest men I ever saw, he once said to a confidential friend, and a brother in the ministry, of a kindred spirit, "Brother C—s, though you and I are very little beings, we must not rest satisfied till we have made our influence extend to the remotest corner of this ruined world."This was his real spirit.

Simply to become a Missionary himself, and live and die in Pagan lands, surrounded with all the evidences of successful labor, was with him a very small matter. His charities were the most exalted, and his plans most sublime. He knew how to labor for an interest, distant enough to bring nothing to himself, and "form a purpose to feel and act efficiently for more than two-thirds of the human race, never baptized by the Christian name."

CHAP. III.

His interest and agency in the promotion of Foreign Missions.

AMONG the projects in which Mr. Mills took a deep interest, and which was the first in his own estimation at the time it was conceived, was the design of propagating the gospel among the heathen in foreign lands, by means of Missionaries from this country. It is interesting to trace the connexion between the plans and measures devised by this single youth, in Williams College, and many of the great movements which have since taken place in the American Church. Though very little is to be found among his own papers, which would disclose his instrumentality, the almost universal acknowledgment of men interested in Missionary concerns, attributes to Mr. Mills a distinguished agency in bringing forward a new era in the history of Missions in this Western World.

The dawn of a Missionary spirit had begun to appear in some of the American Churches before. To those who have observed the signs of the times, it cannot be doubtful that a new and splendid era on the other side of the Atlan

tic was introduced about seven-and-thirty years ago. In the year 1792, the first modern Missionary Society was established by Carey, Fuller, Pearce, and Ryland, at Kettering, in England. In 1795, the London Missionary Society was instituted; and from this period Missionary institutions have been increasing in number throughout the four quarters of the globe. America began gradually to participate in the sacred spirit. Aside from an establishment formed by the Moravians in 1734, and a branch of the Society in Scotland for Propagating Christian Knowledge among the Indians in North America, which was instituted at Boston, in 1787, the honor of commencing the first Missionary exertions in the United States belongs to the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church. At their first session, as early as the year 1789, that body passed an order requiring the Churches under their care to take up collections for a Missionary Fund; and in 1802, they established a Standing Committee of Missions, which has been in successful operation from that time to the present. The New York Missionary Society was instituted in 1796; the Connecticut Missionary Society in 1798; the Massachusetts Missionary Society in 1799; and the New-Jersey Missionary Society in 1801.

Hitherto, however, the attention of the Western World had been exclusively turned to Domestic Missions, among the new settlements,

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