any want of economy in the management of the pecuniary affairs of our benevolent societies; but we believe that the complaints made on this ground have been in many cases unreasonable, and that while a wholesome vigilance should undoubtedly be exercised over those who are entrusted with the administration of the funds of such societies, the seeming occasion for the complaint might as often and as suitably be removed by a more generous liberality on the part of the contributors, as by a severer economy on the part of the Boards or Committees who are responsible for the use of the moneys contributed. If the annual receipts of our Missionary Union were increased by one hundred thousand dollars, little, if any, additional agency would be required, and consequently the relative cost of agencies would be reduced nearly one-half.

Among the difficult practical questions to which our modern missionary enterprise has given rise, that of providing for superannuated and disabled missionaries, and for missionaries' children, has occupied a large share of attention, and has elicited a diversity of opinion. After two years' deliberate consideration of the subject, the following conclusions were reached at the annual meeting of the Board in Providence, in 1857 :

"1. That it is highly desirable to cherish and to strengthen a warmer Christian sympathy in behalf of those who have been disabled in their work as missionaries, and toward their widows and children; and that it is desirable to open all suitable channels for the practical expression of such sympathies.

2. That the Prudential Committee will receive and cheerfully appropriate, according to the same principles which have hitherto governed them in the premises, whatever legacies or contributions may be made from year to year, and desig nated by their donors for this specific object.

These two resolutions were adopted as substitutes for those proposed by the committee, which had been appointed two years before to report upon this subject. The majority of the committee reported in favor of establishing a separate fund; but the minority presented an able report against this measure. The allowance to the children of missionaries is fixed

by the Board at sixty dollars per year for a boy, and fifty dollars for a girl, until eighteen years of age, if applied for by the parent or guardian. This sum was "not designed to be so large as to interfere with outgoings from the natural fountains which exist in blood relationships, early friendships for the parents, &c., but rather to stimulate their flow." The views developed, and the principles fixed, as the result of the discussion of this subject at several annual meetings of the Board, seem to us eminently just and judicious. "The somewhat peculiar circumstances of this country have of course been considered the assimilating, absorbing power of soci ety; the constant intermingling of the great social currents; the ease of obtaining employment and self-support; and the almost unhealthful stimulus to activity in all departments of life, often rendering it difficult to retain children long enough under parental guardianship and control; the whole inseparable from the rapidly developing resources of a vast, new country. The leading object is to bring returned missionary children into the great social currents; and this is best secured by giving free scope for the operation of blood relationships and friendships, and for the freest intermixture with native born children in the schools and employments of the parental home and country.

Every human system has its hardships, but the results to the returned children of missions, now a considerable number, have been at least as favorable as with the children of pastors.

Schools and asylums for missionary children have sometimes been urged upon the Board. It is believed that the missionaries would now generally object to them. Some of the best friends of the cause have also been in favor of instituting a permanent fund for superannuated and disabled missionaries, and for the children of missionaries. But it is the opinion of the Board that the existing mode of providing for disabled missionaries and the children of missionaries, is preferable to one which should have a permanent fund for its basis, more simple, more humane, more effective, more in accord

ance with the social condition and institutions of our country; no more a charity; much less a pension; less liable to perversion; with better effect on missionaries and their children; more accordant with the natural laws under which God places his children; and less likely to interfere with the ordinary receipts of the Board." (Page 279-80.)

Missionaries of the Gospel and their children, wherever born, are not aliens by our law, but stand on the same footing as to citizenship and title to national protection, with families who have never left their native land. It is not likely that christian charity will be less just and merciful than the civil statute, or that the children of faithful missionaries of the cross will ever be regarded or treated by Christian people as aliens from sympathy and charity.

Missionary Societies have now been so long in existence, and the number of missionaries sent out has become so great, that tables of the average duration of missionary life may be made out, having almost the accuracy of those on which our Life Assurance Companies found their calculations. Of one hundred and thirty-four missionaries who had gone from the Andover Theological Seminary up to 1858, the average term of missionary service was about fourteen years. Of the sixtysix who were living at the expiration of this period, the average duration of missionary service was already seventeen years and a half, and was of course growing larger. Fifteen of the entire number were in the missionary field more than thirty years, and two saw forty-two years of service. The average duration of the missionary labor of two hundred and fifty missionaries in India was found to be nearly seventeen years. Many of these returned, and lived many years in their native lands after they left the missionary field. These statistics show that the average probability of life is not greatly reduced by engaging in missionary service. Those who go forth to preach the gospel to the heathen do not by any means devote themselves surely to an early grave, they may even secure a considerable extension of life by the change of climate.

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The loss of life by violence, or by sudden casualty, is ex

ceedingly rare. Of nearly fifteen hundred persons belonging to the families of missionaries and of the officers and agents of the Board, who have travelled not far from a million of miles, over all continents and seas, and in all climates (one of the Secretaries has travelled considerably over fifty thousand miles), only two have suffered the loss of life by shipwreck-one a missionary in China and one a Secretary of the Board;-three have died by the hands of savages, while on tours of exploration; one has been drowned while crossing a river near his own dwelling, and several were massacred in their own homes by the Oregon Indians in 1848.

Among the subjects on which wisdom has been dearly bought, in conducting the missionary work, is that of schools for the children of heathen parents, taught in part by heathen teachers. In the Mahratta Mission, where the number of children taught up to 1860 was twelve thousand, the missionaries say, in their report for the year 1854, "we cannot point to a single instance of conversion from among all this number." In the Ceylon Mission, where more than thirty thousand children had been under instruction, about thirty cases of hopeful conversion were all that could be reported in 1855. In both these instances there had been some apparent conversions among the teachers; but in the latter mission, out of eighty who had joined the church, twenty-five had since shown themselves unworthy members. The results are very different in some of the higher schools, where the scholars are under the exclusive care of Christian teachers. Out of six hundred and seventy, who had been connected with the Batticotta Seminary up to 1855, three hundred and fifty-two were church members. In the Oodooville Female Boarding School, out of rather more than two hundred who had left the institution in 1855, one hundred and seventy-five were members of the church. It was thought in the beginning of these missionary operations, that the common schools with heathen teachers would answer a valuable purpose as nuclei for congregations; but experience afterwards showed, that wherever congregations could readily be gathered in connection with these schools, they could with almost equal facility be gathered without them.

We find repeated mention, in this Memorial Volume, of the catholic and unsectarian basis of the American Board, as a special excellence and recommendation of this particular organization. Dr. Hopkins, in his Historical Discourse, enlarges upon this as one of the fundamental principles of the Board, and one of its brightest glories. "Of the two great elements from which this movement originated, and which have pervaded and moulded the whole policy of the Board, the first is a transcendant estimate of what belongs to Christianity in its relation to a future life; that is, of essential and spiritual Christianity, as compared with modes and forms, and all that in which evangelical Christians have agreed to differ.... In virtue of this, our aim has been simple, spiritual, grand; and we have been guarded, as fully, perhaps, as such an enterprise can be, from sectarianism and ecclesiasticism. . . What we have done here we have done simply as Christians, and we thank God for the privilege. It has been good for us thus to do it. And what we have thus done, may God give us grace always to do." He confidently predicts, though obliged to confess that present indications. are not auspicious, that this principle of the co-operation of different sects in joint missionary labors will be more and more honored. And he aims no ambiguous censure at those whose missionary operations are conducted on stricter and more ecclesiastical principles. If, indeed, there be any denomination that so claims to be exclusively the true church, that they think others are not competent to administer, or fitted to receive, all the ordinances of the church, that denomination must, so far as they thus think, work by itself." We might easily cite other similar claims, from different parts of the volume. The Boston reviewer is very bold on this point, and says of the American Board: "Nearer to the common Master in spirit and in policy, it was born of no particular church, but of the church. Like Him it has always been above sects and denominations." We wish to examine this claim, so confidently asserted, first as to its historical truth, and then as to its principle.

From the fourth chapter of the Memorial Volume on