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the Dutch government, but where Paganism and Mahometanism have again occupied much of the ground, which in that day was wrested from them, is in itself sufficient to stir up the zeal of those who love the name of the Lord Jesus, to efforts far more vigorous than any which have yet been made. And the Committee, moved by the representations of SIR ALEXANDER JOHNSTON respecting the condition of the lower castes in that province, have endeavoured to meet that gentleman's benevolent wishes as far as they were able, by directing as large a proportion of the labours of the Missionaries to be devoted to that province, as could be spared from other stations. By the conquest of the kingdom of Candy, an opportunity is now afforded for the introduction of Christianity into the interior, and though of the fourteen Missionaries at present employed in Ceylon, none can at present be spared for that enterprize; yet, indirectly, the effects of their labours on the coast, are beginning to be felt among the Candians in the interior. "There are," says Mr. Clough in a recent letter, "a number of young men, country born, acting as Government clerks; who previous to their going up received good under our ministry, and took with them Cingalese Testaments, Tracts, &c. They speak to the natives when they can, and we receive pleasing letters from them occasionally. Some of the natives in the capital have expressed a strong desire to have an English school established there, that their children may be instructed. There are also several soldiers, who met in class with us before they went away, and they are speaking to the natives as well as they can, when they can get a few words of advice interpreted."

The Wesleyan Mission House and Printing Office, at Columbo, are nearly completed. The Chapel is opened for Divine worship; and the presses are already employed in giving the Scriptures and useful tracts to the inhabitants in the Ciugalese tongue, and other languages spoken in the island. The first converted priest, Petrus, is usefully employed in revising the translations, and occasionally, in preaching; whilst other priests are under the instruction of the Missionaries; two of whom have been baptized, and occasionally go out with them in their preaching excursions into the country, and exhort their idolatrous countrymen to turn from dumb idols to serve the living God. Among the fruits of the Mission is a young man of Dutch descent, master of several of the languages spoken in the island, and who burns with zeal for the cause of Christ. He was received as an assistant at the Ceylon Conference, and his case warrants the expectation that a supply of Missionaries may, under God, be raised up from the descendants of Europeans in the island, many of whom are well educated, for the diffusion of Christianity among the natives.

Nothing in the experience of Missionaries has been found so useful an auxiliary to the preaching of the Gospel among the heathen as schools, and their efficiency has no where been more fully experienced than in Ceylon. By them, the Dutch greatly promoted Christianity in that island; and when they were neglected, its influence declined. The Wesleyan Missionaries have been so convinced of the importance of these institutions, as not only to inercase their labour by undertaking the superintendence or reformation of some of the Government schools, but to press upon the Committee in the most earnest manner for the means of establishing others in various places to which they have access, and where a large and constant supply of scholars can be obtained. Among the nominal and half pagan Christians of Ceylon, the education of children will be the means of reviving the knowledge and influence of true Christianity, both of which, among those natives who still profess the Christian name, are almost entirely lost; and great advantages will be obtained for communicating the knowledge of true religion to the children of the pagan part of the population, from the readiness with which many of their

parents suffer them to be instructed by the Missionaries, and the school-masters they appoint. All the Missionaries agree in their opinion on this subject. "I have been," says Mr. Carver, "reforming the school at Galle. It contains about forty fine boys, many of them the sons of Modeliers, or Head-men. We have a good day school here attached to the Mission, which promises much. Many of the Head-men's children come to learn English. We preach to them every Saturday." Mr. Erskine speaking of the same school, observes, "There are more than seventy children under our care, to whom we preach every Saturday. Some of them on their coming to our school, although sixteen or seventeen years of age, I have found so ignorant as not to know the difference between good and evil. Nothing of God! nothing of eternity, or of the soul!" "I believe," says Mr. M'Kenny, "that all the brethren are deeply impressed with the great importance of schools. If we can get schools established through the island, the greatest good will arise from it. But to England we must look for the means of establishing and supplying them."

The Managing Committee have fully entered into these views, and voted the sum of 300% per annum, for the support of schools exclusively; and the Committee for the London District Society beg leave to recommend this object to the special liberality of the friends of religion, and the active zeal of the collectors, whose applications for such a charity they are persuaded cannot be made in vain.

By the last Annual Report of the Executive Committee, it will appear, that at the close of the accounts in June last, the sum of 12,5651. had been contributed by the friends of the Methodist Missions in the preceding eleven months, including the balance of the former year; and it will also appear that the balance in favour of the General Treasurers was 2,705l. 18s. Od.; but it is now necessary to state, that the outfits of so great a number of Missionaries sent out since that period, and the current expenses of the Missions in general, including considerable grants towards the expenses of the Wesleyan Mission House, Printing Office, and Chapel, in Columbo, and a House and School in Jaffna, in the island of Ceylon, have not only exhausted this balance, but left the funds in very considerable arrears.

The Committee having made these statements, now beg leave, with an earuestness for which the importance and pressing nature of the cause of Missions will be a sufficient apology, to urge upon the society, and its friends, the necessity not only of constancy, but of increased activity in a work so eminently and immediately "the work of the Lord." They acknowledge, with joy and gratitude, the sums above stated, as highly creditable to the pious zeal and benevolence of many places in the London District, and to the activity of the local Committees, their Secretaries, and Collectors. They acknowledge with the liveliest feelings, the subscriptions and donations of many persons of other religious denominations, whose love to the common cause of Christianity is the only motive which could influence their co-operation and assistance. They wish to pay a just tribute to the unwearied exertions of the Ladies, who in London and other places have so successfully pleaded the cause of the heathen, and so largely aided the Mission Fund; and they hail with joy the Juvenile Society for the London East Circuit, as their coadjutors in the work of Christ, and see in the spirit with which the Missionary cause has animated them, an encouraging pledge of the permanency of those plans which have been devised for providing those resources without which Missionaries to the heathen cannot be sent. The Missionary spirit thus excited, bound up with early associations, and connected with the ardent feelings of yuth, will give its character to the man, and animate and cheer the winter of age. But, with all these causes of

gratulation, the Committee conceive that there are places in the District where the plans of the Society might be carried into further operation, and the subscriptions greatly enlarged; and to such places, and to those persons residing in them, by whose influence and activity only the measure can be promoted, the Committee would commend the subject to serious attention. Every con-sideration which can excite a mind which loves Christ, which burns with

"A jealous just concern

For his immortal praise,"

is furnished both by the state of the world, and by the state of Missions in general, and of Methodist Missions in particular, to induce those who have actively engaged in the cause already, to perseverance; and fully to win over to their help, those whose aid has hitherto been but partial and occasional. The prosperous or hopeful state of almost every Mission we have attempted; the abundant opportunities of extending the work in various directions; the premature deaths of Missionaries, martyrs in the cause of benevolence and piety; the new stations in the West India islands, which cannot be filled up until the fund receives new supplies, and where many of the children of Eꞌhiopia are stretching out their hands to God and to British Christians, imploring the light and comforts of the gospel; the important call to minister to the wants of four millions of pagans in the island of Madagascar; the necessity of sending another Missionary to cheer the solitude, and aid the labours, of Mr. Shaw, now alone among the savages of South Africa; and finally, the important Mission in Ceylon, where fourteen Missionaries, by preaching, catechizing, conducting native, schools, and printing the scriptures and useful books, are laying the foundations of a work, which if zealously supported, promises, under the blessing of the God of Missions, to re-erect the temples of Christ, now in ruins through the neglect of Christians, to arrest the devastating progress of Paganism and Mahometanism, now almost triumphant over the feeble remains of Christianity, to re-assert the honour and victories of the cross, and convey the knowledge of God and salvation through an island, the essential principle of whose religion is to deny God. and the almost universal practice to worship devils; these are the subjects which the Committee wish to leave on the minds of the Society; and they pray, that their love to the work of Christ "may abound yet more and more in knowledge and in all wisdom, that they may approve the things which are excellent, that they may be sincere and without offence to the day of Christ," when it will appear that they "have not run in vain, neither laboured in vain."

OBITUARY,

ANTHONY SENTER.

ANTHONY SENTER was born i Lincoln county, North-Carolina, January 28, 1785. Died at Georgetown, SouthCarolina, December 23, 1817.

Until eighteen years old he lived with his parents, whose circumstanses in life necessarily occupied that fime in manual labour, which it is to

be regretted they were not able to improve in the education of such a son.

At eighteen years old, he was apprenticed in the blacksmith's business; and as with his parents he had been remarked for industry and filial duty, so with his master: indefatigable in his business, sober and moral in

his general conduct, he merited and bad the praise of those who knew him. In our happy country, such a young man must succeed-So did Anthony Senter: his trade acquired, and he set up in business, he soon surmounted the early difficulties of life, and saw his way direct to ease and affluence.But what was gain to him, he gladly counted loss for Christ.

We have no information of his early convictions; nor can we say any thing of his religious feelings until after his establishment in life. The pious walk and godly conversation of one of his neighbours, first led him to examine with restless concern into the nature of vital religion, and he became grådually convinced that he yet lacked that "One needful thing."

A strong mind, and a benevolent heart; a single eye, and a steady purpose to glorify God; an unwavering faith, fervent love, and burning zeal— these were the exalted attributes of this good man.

While able to labour in the word and doctrine, he was abundant and indefatigable in the work; and even when so impaired by the fatal consumption as scarcely to be able to preach at all, still did he travel from circuit to circuit; and as though unwilling that any thing but death should separate him from his work, when his strength was so exhausted as to render him unable to preach, he would at least assemble the official members of his charge, and instruct them in their duty, and encourage them to their work.

At last even this was denied him.As the veteran soldier retiring from the field, faint and exhausted by wounds and fatigue, yet only now retiring because he can do no more, so with our beloved brother: unable even for the smallest labour, and almost dead, he reluctantly gave up the toil, and retired to his house in Georgetown, whence, after a few weeks, he was taken to the "house not made with hands, eternal, in the heavens."

It was sometime in the year 1806, at a meeting in the Enoree Circuit, that it pleased the Lord to give him an overwhelming conviction of sin. He went away from that meeting weeping and praying. On his way home (so overwhelmed was he with the sense of his lost state) he either alighted or fell from his horse, and was found late in the evening, lying by the road side in the utmost agony, pleading with God for mercy. From this time he gave himself wholly to the great concerns of salvation; nor was it long before he found the "pearl of great price" the forgiveness of intimately, and most affectionately sins. He joined the church-became a class leader, and soon after entered upon the all-important work of the ministry.

His first appointment was to the Great Pee-Dee circuit, A. D. 1809. In 1810, Bladen circuit. In 1811, Little Peo Dee circuit. 1812, Buncombe circuit. 1813, Sparta circuit. In 1814 he was stationed in Georgetown. 1815, stationed in Charleston. 1816 and 1817, Presiding Elder of the Broad-river district.

Of our dear brother Senter we may confidently say, that as a man he deserved the respect of all; as a christian, he was without offence; and as a minister, he was blameless.

The writer of these remarks lived his nearest neighbour, and was daily,

conversant with him until death separated them. In his beloved brother he witnessed the faith of the gospel, unshaken in the wreck of nature.Reduced to a living skeleton-feeble as a child, and just falling into the grave, his heart could not be separated from the work of God: He still charged himself with its interests, and felt cares. Indeed, with death before him, and the awful glories of the invisible world just ready to be unfolded, like Jacob, gathering up his feet, composed, collected, and without dis may or dread, he fell asleep.

W. C.

THE

METHODIST MAGAZINE.

FOR JUNE, 1818.

DIVINITY.

EVIDENCES OF THE TRUTH OF THE CHRISTIAN REVELATION,

Extracted from the new Edinburgh Encyclopædia.

(Continued from page 169.)

57. THESE, and a few more particulars of the same kind, occur within the compass of a single page of the evangelical history. The circumstantial manner of the history affords a presumption in its favour, antecedent to all examination into the truth of the circumstances themselves. But it makes a strong addition to the evidence, when we find, that in all the subordinate parts of the main story, the evangelists maintain so great a consistency, with the testimony of other authors, and with all that we can collect from other sources of information, as to the manners and institutions of that period. It is difficult to conceive, in the first instance, how the inventor of a fabricated story would hazard such a number of circumstances, each of them supplying a point of comparison with other authors, and giving to the inquirer an additional chance of detecting the imposition. And it is still more difficult to believe, that truth should have been so artfully blended with falsehood in the composition of this narrative, particularly as we perceive nothing like a forced introduction of any one circumstance. There appears to be nothing out of place, nothing thrust in with the view of imparting an air of probability to the history. The circumstance upon which we bring the evangelists into comparison with profane authors, is often not intimated in a direct form, but in the form of a slight or distant allusion. There is not the most remote VOL. I.

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