Of the whole number who have voted, 412 answer Yes and 419 No;showing a majority of seven against the proposed amendment. Of those voting in the affirmative, forty-one qualify their vote by declaring themselves satisfied with the Constitution as it is, but consent to the change for the sake of peace; and seven by expressing a preference for a lower sum than fifty dollars for annual membership.

Accompanying this statement is a list of the members of the Union, with the answers of such as have given their vote, and a communication addressed to the Board by members in Albany, N. Y.

All of which is respectfully submitted.

EDW. BRIGHT, Jr., Cor. Sec. Home Dep.

The Committee to whom was referred the examination of the votes on altering the Constitution, would respectfully present the following report :— It is the opinion of this Committee that the facts ascertained by the protracted and repeated correspondence and discussion on this subject, sufficiently indicate that the Board would be less justifiable in assuming the serious and critical responsibility of recommending a change in the Third Article of the Constitution, than at any former period since its adoption. The votes obtained as the result of the correspondence of the Home Secretary during the past year, show an actual majority of seven, who without any qualification are opposed to any change. Of those who returned an answer in favor of the proposed alteration, forty-one signified their personal preference for the Constitution as it is, and only consented to render their votes in favor of a change, on the supposition that it might possibly indulge the preferences of those who were known to be strenuously in favor of a change. Besides those who returned an answer in favor of establishing annual memberships for fifty dollars each, there have been seventeen members of the Union who expressed their desire to make an alteration in favor of annual memberships for ten dollars each.

These are all the facts submitted to the attention of this Committee by the correspondence referred to; and it now only remains for this Committee to present their own opinion to this Board on the subject, as it is now brought before their attention.

Your Committee do not deem it in any manner incumbent upon them to examine the merits of the main subject itself; inasmuch as, in their opinion, the reasons on both sides of the matter were fully detailed in the able report adopted and published by the Board at their last annual meeting. They would also remind the Board that the question has been repeatedly discussed for three successive years, ever since the Constitution was adopted; and in various ways all the considerations seem to have been advanced, on both sides of the subject, which properly belong to it. Only 831 members of the Union, out of the 1,700 who were addressed according to the resolution adopted at the last annual meeting, have returned any definite answer to the questions proposed to them; leaving of this number 869, who by their silence are presumed to signify their acquiescence in whatever course of action the Board may recommend to them to adopt. In the judgment of this Committee, nearly all who would feel any anxiety in favor of a change, have improved the opportunity which has been given them during the past year to express their wishes on this subject. Your Committee are, therefore, fully of the opinion, that a majority of those who have responded to the inquiries addressed to them, would prefer to leave

the Constitution unaltered; and as the subject has now been discussed in a manner so thorough and prolonged, they can conceive of no other method by which the preferences of the members of the Union can be more fully ascertained. And as the Union can make no alteration in the Constitution except by a vote of two-thirds of the members present at an annual meeting, and only upon the recommendation of the Board of Managers, your Committee do not believe that the Union is now prepared to proceed to any change in view of the facts before them; while the large expense of time and money involved in such a correspondence as was conducted during the past year by the Home Secretary with the members of the Union, would seem to render it improper to resort to such a similar expensive experiment for another year. In view of these facts, your Committee would now recommend that the subject referred to, on the proposed alteration of the Third Article of the Constitution, be indefinitely postponed.

All which is respectfully submitted.

ANTHONY COLBY,
ISAAC DAVIS,

ALFRED BENNETT, Committee.
GEO. I. MILES,

J. P. TUSTIN,

The recommendation submitted by the Committee, for the indefinite postponement of the proposed alteration of the Constitution, was adopted; and it was directed that the report be presented to the Union as expressive of the decision of the Board on this subject.

The Committee on the Due Gradation of Missionary Labor, reported through Rev. S. F. Smith. The report was adopted and ordered to be printed.

FOR WHAT DEPARTMENTS OF LABOR ARE MISSIONARIES AT THE PRESENT

TIME MOST NEEDED? OR, THE DUE GRADATION OF MISSIONARY LAbor.

At the last annual meeting a paper was submitted on the "Foreign Expenditures of the Union, and the policy to be pursued therein the ensuing five years." The expenditures were classed in five departments; -of missionaries, native laborers, schools, publications and contingencies;— and the several sums were specified, which were supposed to be requisite in each for the then current year. With regard to the policy to be pursued in subsequent years, the Committee attempted little more than to indicate, in brief terms, what in their judgment ought to be mainly sought; and then the proper condition to its attainment.

It was stated that a "prominent and indispensable feature of our policy must be the sending out of new missionaries," rather than to expand operations in the publication or school department;-maintaining, however, a due proportion of native laborers;-and that the appropriate condition to this increase of the number of missionaries would be a correspondent increase of our annual income.

To provide the means for adding to the number of missionaries by reducing expenditures in other departments, it was argued, would be exceedingly disastrous to the missions; and, unless reduction were pushed to a virtual abandonment of those departments, not more disastrous than vain. The amount to be gathered up from such a process would be inconsiderable, compared with the aggregate cost of sending new missionaries, even were no account made of injury sustained by the departments subjected to reduction.

Assuming the justness of the positions maintained in the paper alluded to, both as to the object to be prosecuted and the condition, we proceed to exhibit more fully than was then practicable, what is the service or department of labor for which additional missionaries were and are needed. And

the Committee are the more inclined to do this, inasmuch as, from the brevity with which the subject was treated last year, their views were liable to misconstruction as to the due gradation of missionary labor.

The object of the Missionary Union is "to diffuse the knowledge of the religion of Jesus Christ by means of missions ;" and whatever instrument or method of operation comports with and subserves these means and object, comes within its scope. The head and chief of the instrumentalities employed, is preaching,-the oral dispensation of the gospel. The commission was, 66 Go, preach the gospel to every creature" by the foolishness of preaching it hath pleased God to save them that believe." The action of the Board and its Executives has uniformly recognized this preëminence of the preacher's office in the missionary enterprise. Of the seventy-nine missionary brethren sent beyond sea, all but seven were at the time of departure ordained ministers, whose calling of God, according to their professed convictions and in the judgment of the churches and their brethren, was to preach the gospel; and of the seven,-one a physican, five printers, and one a machinist,—two have subsequently been inducted into the gospel ministry. Of the fifty-four missionaries now connected with the Board, including the Indian Missions, all but five are preachers of the gospel. This uniformity, approaching so near to invariableness, in appointing preachers to the missionary work, and based as it is on the commission given by Christ, denotes preëininently two things. It imports what is the interpretation given by the Board and their Committee to the great commission, and next with what simplicity of purpose they have endeavored to carry it into effect. It indicates with no less directness the proper province or calling of the missionary. The terms missionary and preacher are, with us, all but synonymous. Discrepancy is the exception. And hence if the missionary is not a preacher, and if he does not moreover" wait on his ministering," preaching the gospel with all diligence and making thus full proof of his ministry, there must be an imperative cause; a cause that can and ought to be distinctly stated; or his mission fails. Hence, too, unless a cause to the contrary can be alleged, the department of labor for which new missionaries are needed, must of right and course be that of preaching. This work is first and last, the Alpha and the Omega of the missionary enterprise; the first to be attempted, the last to be set aside. But while preeminence is duly given to the preacher's office, there are subordinate services which must be rendered by the missionary, or the object of his enterprise cannot be fully gained. Subsidiary to the preaching of the gospel and next to claim the mind and heart of the missionary, is, by general consent, the translating, printing and circulating the writ ten word. The written word, translated, must be given to all lands; and who shall give it but the missionary? To this work, so difficult, so necessary, so fraught with blessings to present and future generations, the missionary, left to his own perception of duty or set apart to the service by his brethren, has, in numerous cases, appropriated some portion of time and toil; in several instances, where duty and necessity constrained to it, he has expended years of unremitted labor; and translations of the scriptures, in whole or in part, by missionaries of the Union, have been made and printed in Burman, Karen Sgau and Pwo, Peguan, Siamese, Chinese, Assamese, Bassa, Cherokee, Ottawa, Shawanoe and Ojibwa. In the two dialects of Karen, in the Bassa, and in the Kemmee and the Salong, they have executed also the preliminary task of reducing the spoken language to writing; and in others have laboriously toiled in compiling vocabularies, dictionaries, grammars, reading books, &c. With the translating of the scriptures has been connected the preparation and publishing of religious tracts. On these and other valuable works a large proportion of the missionaries have incidentally bestowed some time and labor; for many of the more appropriate and idiomatic tracts and books, we are indebted to female assistant missionaries. Two only of the missionaries, however, Messrs. Judson and Wade, are set apart to preliminary service; and they but temporarily,

and not to the abandonment of preaching. To the work of translating the scriptures the missionaries especially designated, are four,-Messrs. Mason, Brown, Jones and Goddard; and there are several who render important occasional aid.

The third department of labor devolved on missionaries, is teaching, restricting the term to schools. The form and extent of school organization proper to be attempted in the process of evangelizing a heathen tribe or people, vary with time and circumstance. The first and simplest form, growing out of the necessities of missions, is the gathering together of adult converts, undisciplined, uninformed, and encumbered with duties and cares incident to adult age, but more intelligent than their fellows; and the imparting to them, at intervals and as they have capacity to receive, the fundamental and elementary truths and principles pertaining to the gospel ministry. Instances of this character are to be found in the so called schools for native assistants, as at Tavoy and Sandoway. A second stage is when candidates for the ministry can be brought together at an earlier age, and may thereby, or from whatever cause, receive instruction uninterruptedly and for a longer period, as in the Karen Theological Seminary at Maulmain. These two classes of schools are alike designed for the training of a native ministry, and differ solely in the particulars indicated,—the character and circumstances of the pupils, and the completeness and effectiveness of their course of training. A further advance is the instituting of preparatory or normal schools, the design of which is to fit a younger class of pious students, by thorough training, for the various departments of native labor; and especially such as are evidently called of God to the ministerial work, for a fuller realization of the benefits of the theological seminary, and thereby, ultimately, for an abler discharge of the duties of the Christian ministry. The propriety and importance of maintaining these several classes of schools, so far as pupils of suitable qualifications can be gathered, may be estimated by the value of a well-trained native ministry. Their claims may be secondary to preaching and translating, in the order of time, being less immediately available; but are not secondary in directness and force. Missionaries may introduce the gospel to pagan nations; but its universal diffusion and its transmission to future generations must be devolved on laborers raised from among themselves. This necessity of employing native labor is recognized by the Lord of missions; who distributes among heathen converts his ascension gifts,-“ some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers;"—and in the provisions which we make for their suitable training, so that they shall be "workmen that need not to be ashamed," we do but follow the consentaneous teachings of His Spirit, His providence and His word.

To the department of teaching belongs a second order of schools, such as boarding or high schools or orphan institutions; whose claims to a free and generous support are less obvious to determine. Of their general utility, if well conducted, there can be no just question. The difficulty is to ascertain their relative importance as touching the grand design of missions, in connection also with their comparative expensiveness.

Their expensiveness may be regarded in two aspects; 1st, the labor which they impose upon the missionary, and which, of course, is so much withdrawn from other fields of usefulness,-and 2d, the pecuniary cost of their support. With respect to the labor devolved on the missionary, careful investigation, it is believed, will shew, at least in the few cases which exist in our connection,-that in comparison with labor elsewhere bestowed in the missions, it has been well remunerated. Taking into account simply the conversions which have occurred in schools, the superintendents and teachers have had signal and numerous occasions for gratulation and devout praise. Witness the Karen Boarding Schools, the Maulmain Burmese High School, the Nowgong Orphan Institution and the Bassa Boarding School. It is hardly too much to say, that in this single respect alone,—the multiplication of converts,-the missionary could not have

been employed more effectively. The school room has, in truth, been the house of God, the teacher God's minister, the pupils hearers and worshippers, the Holy Spirit the renewer and sanctifier. And thus, if we take into consideration the character of these youthful converts;-the boarding school, high school, or orphan institution has become to some extent a normal or preparatory school for the training of native assistants, and to the same extent has won an additional title to support. Nor are we to overlook another element in the usefulness of schools of this character, that they tend to gather for the missionary adult hearers of the truth, and to conciliate their attention and trustful regard. As to pecuniary expensiveness, where the number of pupils is large, the aggregate outlay for instruction and support, including buildings, may be rated, in general, as equal to that for the missionary in charge. It should be noted, however, that much of the cost of boarding schools has been defrayed by local residents, at whose suggestion they have sometimes been originated, and who are in favorable circumstances to appreciate their benefits. On the other hand, the aid thus' given has been, from incidental causes, injuriously variable; at one time' covering almost the entire cost of the establishment, and at another verging toward the opposite extreme of abandonment.

It would be an exceedingly painful question, and in a practical view might be as perplexing as painful were it forced upon us;-Shall the boarding schools now in charge of the missions be broken up? Conceding the inexpediency of originating such establishments in a time of pecuniary' embarrassment, and while different departments of labor rest their claims upon their own intrinsic merits simply, regard must be had to various other considerations in the question of the continuance or abandonment of those which, in various ways, have coine already into existence. A valuable outlay of capital in buildings and other preparations, to be sacrificed in case of abandonment, would be the least powerful dissuasive. A weightier consideration would be the influence of such a withdrawal on the surrounding heathen, on the missionary himself, and on his supporters. A retrograde step in the missionary work, at whatever point, can hardly fail to be injurious. God has made no provision for it. It forms no part of the plan. Measures should be carefully taken, advances warily made, but the foot once planted is not to be hurriedly withdrawn. It might also be matter of grave reflection whether and how far an obligation had been incurred with respect to the individuals or bodies by whose generous coöperation the institutions have thus far been sustained. This could not be construed into a necessity to perpetuate these institutions at whatever sacrifice, but would' authorize at least a measurable expectation that they would not be lightly cast off. As an alternative to the extreme measure of abandonment and in case of urgency, it might be found on advisement to be a wiser course, to restrict the expenditures in this department within narrower bounds; yet so as not to compromise its successful prosecution.

There is a third order of schools,-common or day schools; which are designed for the more general diffusion of elementary knowledge, secular or religious, among a people; and for their gradual elevation to the level of civilized and Christian communities. Not native preachers' only,—the masses must be educated, taught to read, to reflect, to reason, to search for themselves the sacred scriptures, and for themselves to devise and execute ways and measures of social, moral and spiritual advancement. But not the uneducated masses, not even the partially enlightened few can appre ciate the benefits of mental culture, can clearly apprehend what culture means; much less can they divine the appropriate process, or put themselves self-moved to its accomplishment. The missionary must plan, the missionary must arouse and enlighten. The people must be taught the value of letters and inclined to seek after knowledge. Aud this is, confessedly, a part of the missionary's office; not first, not second to command his thought, but nevertheless holding place with other forms of missionary labor, to be accomplished in its own due time. The problem here is, not

VOL. XXIX.

27