His friend in the ministry had now to present another class of truths to his mind, and direct to another course of reading. The experimental writings of Dr. Owen were especially recommended, as giving a sound scriptural view of the work of God in the soul-such as his works on justification by faith-on spiritual mindedness-on communion with God-on the nature of the forgiveness of sin, and the case of a soul distressed with the guilt of sin, and relieved by a discovery of forgiveness with God, explained in his Exposition of the 150th Psalm-on indwelling sin-and, on the nature, grounds, and evidences of the faith of God's elect.

After a few months more, his mind was recovered from its perplexities; he had clearer views of the warrant of faith, and, better understood the nature of Christian experience. Though he perceived that the sanctification of the Spirit, forms the evidence of our meetness for heaven, and is as essentially necessary to salvation, as an interest in the justifying righteousness of Christ, yet that the atonement of the Redeemer and the promises of God, constitute the foundation of our hope of acceptance with him. On this basis he was enabled to build the superstructure of faith, hope and practice, and when the evidences of grace became weak and indistinct, he had recourse to these first principles to revive and strengthen them.

Early in the year 1796, he was admitted a member of the church of Christ in Orange Street, Portsea, with great pleasure to the minister and to the people. His residence being ten miles from the place of worship, prevented his frequently associating with the pious, aged and established members of the church. This was a considerable disadvantage to him, for as iron sharpeneth iron, so doth the countenance of a man his friend." Habits of activity and benevolence are seldom formed from merely reading

they generally arise from example and association. It is much to be lamented that many Christians have resided in country villages, surrounded with the poor and the ignorant, perishing for lack of knowledge, without using any means to instruct and save them, while those who live at a distance from such scenes, frequently converse on the most necessary and suitable objects of benevolence, and devise the means of sending the Gospel into the unenlightened villages around them. The Captain had not been sufficiently long in the church to have learnt the principles, and to form the habits of an active and extensive Christian zeal. He had previous to his conversion, given proofs of considerable generosity to some of his relations, and which he increased after he had experienced the power of divine grace. But he had not been particularly excited to the exercise of liberality for the cause of God, till his minister, preaching regularly on a Sabbath morning through the eleventh chapter of the Hebrews, shewed that faith not only induces the negative parts of a Christian's conduct in his abstaining from that which is wrong, but that it excites and impels to the active and benevolent virtues of the Christian life.

This course of subjects excited in the Captain's mind, a considerable degree of painful anxiety, respecting his state as a Christian. He now fully perceived that the design of God in imparting divine grace to the heart, was not only to save the individual, but to make him the means of saving others. "Ye are the salt of the earth" and "the light of the world" began to revibrate in his conscience, as though spoken from heaven by the lips of his Savior. He had reason to hope that his faith bad done something for him, but it now became a solicitous inquiry, "what has my faith induced me to do for others?" To this train of reflections is to be attributed the

reason for his offering himself to the Missionary Society, to convey their first missionaries to the islands of the Pacific Ocean.

PART III.

From the Captain's commencing the Missionary Voyage to the South Sea Islands, till his return and settling in London.

WHETHER the Islands in the South Seas were the most elegible situation in which to commence the efforts of the Missionary Society, is now, after almost twenty years, a question of little importance to decide, as several other missions have since been established with various success, and time only can fully determine that point; yet it may be useful to observe, that many advantages arose out of that mission. It was of great importance to the missionary cause, that the Society should cominence its operations by some Mission that was most calculated to excite the attention of the religious world to this interesting subject, to diffuse the missionary spirit and impart its impulsive energies to the Christian churches abroad and at home, without exciting jealousies and opposition injurious to its progress.

Had the Society been more slow and private in its operations at its first commencement, it is hardly probable that such a Missionary flame would have been lighted up in the world, as was seen to blaze in England and to spread to many of the churches

on the continents of Europe and America. Their plans gave publicity to the subject, and excited a lively interest in their design. It was a new event in the Protestant church, for a ship to be wholly employed to convey Missionaries to the most distant part of the globe. By this means the public attention and benevolence were excited in a good degree corresponding with the magnitude of their object. If it should be admitted that the sanguine expectation of many attributed more importance to the Society's having a ship employed for the purpose, than properly belonged to it, and that the description of the South Sea Islands was too highly wrought, little short of the descriptions of the Elysian fields, or the primeval paradise; yet it must be admitted also, that all this increased the popularity of the subject, and gave a glowing tinge to the Missionary hemisphere, which made it appear highly propitious to this glorious design.

It was also a station, which could give no possible offence to our own or to any other government or national church upon earth. Perhaps there was no other place to which the attention and energetic operations of the Missionary Society could have been directed, at that perturbed period of the world, without exciting the jealous opposition of our own or some other government. The South Sea and South African Missions, gave time for the character of the Missionary Society to be established in the estimation of government, and showing by its sermons, public meetings, and conduct, that its objects were purely religious, to obtain its confidence and even its patronage. Such has been the character of the Society, through the wisdom and prudence of its official conductors in London, that successive administrations have lent an attentive ear to their various representations, and have afforded them their protection and countenance. The influence of

this Society, in union with other societies formed for the purpose of accomplishing the same benevolent object, has excited such a missionary spirit in the nation, that Parliament has been induced to open a more effectual door for the entrance of the Gospel into Indostan, and to hold a shield of protection over the Missionaries already there. The character of the first South Sea Mission, contributed in no small degree to produce this effect, and Captain Wilson was no insignificant agent in the work. I would not put the influence of this event in comparison with the repute the Society has since obtained by Mr. Morrison, one of its Missionaries, being the first European who has translated, printed, and circulated the whole of the New Testament in the Chinese language. Yet at the commencement of the Society, the benevolence of an independent gentleman, in not only offering his services to the Society without reward, but in spending more than five hundred pounds in the Mission-his skill as a navigator-his prudence in presiding among the Missionaries—and his success in the voyage, stamped a respectability on the Society, which proved beneficial in its influence in many, both of the British and foreign churches.

Captain Wilson's friend, Dr. Haweis, shall here relate, with a few alterations, the manner in which he was led to engage in that noble and benevolent design.

One day, after returning from Portsea, as the Captain was walking in his garden, he meditated on the faith of Abraham, in leaving his country and friends at the call of God, not knowing whither he went. This was the subject of the sermon he had heard that day. On reviewing the circumstances of the Patriarch, he was much affected by the wonders wrought by faith, and admired the devotedness and self denial of the worthies recorded in the eleventh