million of Bibles are necessary for the supply of the destitute in the United States. It is a foul blot on our national character. Christian America must arise and wipe it away. The existing Societies are not able to do it. They want union;-they want co-operation ;- they If a National Institution cannot be formed, application ought to be made to the British and Foreign Bible Society for aid."

want resources.

The beneficial results of these two Missionary tours can never be duly appreciated. By these means, the whole extent of our western and southern territory was explored, and an accurate disclosure of its moral and spiritual desolation made to the churches ;- -a new and mighty impulse was given to the whole system of domestic benevolence ;-Bible Societies were immediately established in the different western and southern States, and the good work still goes on-thousands of religious tracts have gone, and are now going, the winged messengers of salvation, into every section of the country;the gospel of the grace of God was preached to a vast multitude of the dwellers in the wilder-no less than ten or twelve Missionaries were sent among them, the very first year after the information of their wants was circulated, and more the second, and still more the third, and so forth, until, in May, 1826, the American Home Missionary Society arose, which has already "extended aid to between six and seven hundred different congregations and Missionary

ness;

districts, in twenty two States and territories." And thus, in defiance of its obstinate and longcontinued barrenness, our own wilderness begins to blossom like the rose.

CHAPTER VI.

His instrumentality in bringing forward the American Bible Society, and the United Foreign Missionary Society.

SOON after his return from his last tour through the western and southern country, Mr. Mills received ordination, as minister of the gospel, in company with several Missionary brethren, at Newburyport, Massachusetts, on the twenty first day of June, 1815. He then left New England, and took up his residence in the middle States, and within the bounds of the Presbyterian church. Here he spent two of the most profitable years of his life, unobserved, and almost unknown, yet silently exercising an influence, and setting in motion. several illustrious plans of mercy to mankind. He resided alternately in Albany, New York, Newark, Philadelphia, and Washington; and his attention was here principally occupied in consulting with men of influence among the clergy and laity, as to the wisdom and practicability of several of his unaccomplished purposes.

Among these was the establishment of a National Bible Society. We have no warrant to

say, that the idea of a National Bible Society first originated with Mr. Mills. As early as the year 1810, a proposition for a national institution was submitted to the New York Bible Society, by the Rev. Secretary of the British and Foreign Bible Society, accompanied by some very flattering overtures, in the event of carrying the proposition into effect. Essentially the same proposition was also made to the Philadelphia Bible Society. To this proposition the Directors of both these Societies returned a full and decided negative. And it is but justice to say, that long after this intimation was laid to rest, the plan of the existing American Bible Society originated in the bosom of Mr. Mills.

At the close of the report of the southern and western tour, we find the sentiment :-" If a national institution cannot be formed, application in behalf of these destitute ought to be made to the British and Foreign Bible Society for aid." The formation of this national institution Mr. Mills thought of, and suggested, and pressed the suggestion, long before it probably entered into the mind of any other individual. With the gentlemen who were interested in the early stages of this measure, he had frequent interviews; and though he concealed the hand that moved it forward, was himself the principal mover of the design, and a principal agent in inducing others of greater weight of character to become its abettors. The writer well recollects the efforts of this persevering man to at

tain this important object. With some hope that the measure might be brought forward by the General Assembly of the Presbyterian church, in 1814 he procured a consultation of his fathers and brethren in the ministry as to the expediency of setting the plan on foot at that meeting. Though the writer was not himself interested in the consultation, he had the honor to be a member of the Assembly that year, and is personally acquainted with the individuals with whom his friend did consult, as well as with the result of the consultation. It was then thought to be the best advised course, that, for the sake of avoiding every thing like a sectarian influence and form, and embodying the mass of Christian effort of all denominations, the measure should originate with no one ecclesiastical body, but with some one of the State Bible Societies, who could give it currency with the least suspicion of local or party views. It was on the rising of the Assembly that year, that a respectable member of that body, to whom Mr. Mills had intimated the design, on his return from Philadelphia to Boston, had an interview with the venerable man by whose industry and vigilance the proposition was at length submitted to the different Bible Societies, and by whose intelligent piety and princely munificence, so early and powerful an impulse was given to this magnificent institu

tion. It was at this interview the foundation of this lofty edifice was laid; and if it has inscri