lish the gospel, of which the traces have become nearly obliterated from the, minds of the people. But how shall the gospel be republished? How shall we bring the glorious system of revealed truth into contact with the understandings of the people, and thus gain access, through the Spirit of truth, to their hearts? It is a lamentable fact, that not one in a thousand possesses, or ever saw, a copy of the Scriptures in a language which he understands; or ever heard a sermon exhibiting the way of salvation through faith in Christ. With the exception of the Arabic branch of the Greek church in Syria, the service in all the oriental churches is conducted in an unknown tongue. Moreover, few are able to read; and the few schools which exist, with the exception of some recent improvements among the Greeks, are taught as if the children who frequent them had only organs of speech, and not minds capable of thought and reflection;-the school-books being in a dead language, and words, not ideas, occupying the attention both of masters and pupils.

You perceive, brethren, that although we may now rest from our explorations, our preliminary labors are by no means completed. An improved system of education must be given to the people of the east. The missionary must permanently occupy some advantageous position, and, while he seizes every opportunity for preaching the gospel, must surround himself by a constellation of Lancasterian schools, as numerous as he can effectually superintend. These he must furnish with competent and trust-worthy teachers, and with the best kind of school-books in the vernacular tongue. He must beware, however, lest his schools be too numerous or remote for superintendence, or be commenced without suitable books, or continued under unfaithful masters. In this manner you, dear brethren, may commence your labors soon after entering your respective fields. But while you take care not needlessly to offend the prejudices of the people, you will give no countenance whatever to their superstitions. While you withhold your school-books from none who are disposed to receive them, you will grant pecuniary aid only to schools under the superintendence of yourselves, or persons having your fullest confidence.

A beginning has been made at Malta, by our own press and that of the London Missionary Society, in providing purely Christian school-books in the language of the modern Greeks; and by the press of the Church Missionary Society, in furnishing Arabic school-books. Books of this kind will need to be greatly increased in variety and excellence, and to be multiplied a thousand fold by the wonder-working power of the press. Indeed we cannot doubtconsidering that God has given us the Scriptures and the press, and denied us the gift of tongues-that he designs the reading of his truth to have a far greater proportionate influence and importance, as a means of propagating the gospel, than it had in the age of the apostles.

Having made these general remarks, the Committee will now address themselves to you individually;—referring you for important topics not here introduced, to the Instructions given to your predecessors in the mission.

You, Mr. RIGGS, have been designated to liberated Greece-a country rendered deeply interesting by its ancient history, its position in respect to sur

rounding nations, and the character of its inhabitants. It is a country that always will be interesting, and never less so than it is at present. Anciently it exerted a commanding influence throughout the Mediterranean; and such are its commercial facilities-such the abundance and cheapness of its waterpower-so admirable is its position-so remarkable are its inhabitants for quickness of conception, aptness for learning, and a passion for knowledge, unlike all other nations near them; that they must rise into comparative importance. They may be long in settling their government, but it will ultimately become settled; they may be long in rearing seminaries of learning, but they will ultimately possess them; and again will Athens be resorted to by scholars from all parts of the civilized world.

In view of the unquestionable destiny of the Greek people, the Christian philanthropist contemplates them with the deepest interest. In this view we regard your mission as highly important. In deliberating, however, what the Board, as a missionary society, should attempt to do for the benefit of liberated Greece, the Committee feel bound to make the exerting of a religious influence their grand object. Whatever tends not directly to this result, falls without our proper sphere. We cannot found a college for literary and scientific purposes; though we might give religious books to its library, and support a course of religious instruction within its walls. We cannot sustain a grainmar school for teaching the ancient Greek, unless such a school be essential to a system of schools exerting, on the whole, a decidedly religious influence. We cannot publish an arithmetic, or a grammar, or a geography, unless so composed as to exert a religious influence, or unless such books belong necessarily to a system of school-books framed expressly with reference to the advancement of religion. This is our criterion. We have but one simple object, and that is sublime enough to awaken the admiration of angels -the propagation of the "glorious gospel of the blessed God" in Greece, in Palestine, and throughout the world.

We hear that the government of the country, to which you are destined, is now in the hands of Greeks some of whom are known to be friendly to an enlightened system of education. Yet it will not be strange should you find the government and country unsettled, and travelling unsafe. After conferring very fully with Mr. Temple, at Malta, respecting the use of the press, you will repair to Athens, where Mr. King will receive you with a joyful welcome. There you will of course remain for a season; but whether you shall ultimately remove to some other place in the peninsula, or make your residence at Athens, the Committee leave to be determined by Mr. King and yourself.

As soon as travelling is safe, and you can make arrangements with Mr. King for the purpose, the Committee wish you to visit the principal towns of the Peloponnesus, with a view to supplying the schools you may find in them with school-books from our Malta press. Nauplia, Argos, Tripolitsa, Calabryta, Patras, Demetsana, Modone, Corone, Calamata, Mistras, Marathonisi, and Monembasia, are especially commended to your attention, and may perhaps be most conveniently visited in the order in which they are named. There are other towns in the peninsula as important as some of these, and the small village schools on your route you will by no means overlook. Unless

the people have greatly changed within three years past, you will everywhere be received with respect and gratitude; and while you are scattering the seeds of a future harvest, you will collect facts which will the better enable you and Mr. King to form an opinion, whether the centre of your future operations shall be Athens, or Argos-in Attica, or in the Peloponnesus. In favor of the latter, will be the number of missionaries already in Attica; and of the former, the system of measures commenced by Mr. King in Athens, which may require the associated labors of you both. Wherever you are, you will abstain most sedulously from all participation in the conflicting politics of the country.

The Committee do not expect either you or Mr. King to engage personally in the ordinary instruction of schools. The schools which are supported from the funds of the Board, you will of course superintend; and you will satisfy yourselves that the books given to particular schools are actually used by those schools. Your appropriate employment, as missionaries of the Board, is preaching the gospel, and distributing the productions of the press; but you will generally find the school-room to be the best place for performing both of these duties.

Your present acquaintance with the language of the Greeks will enable you to enter almost at once upon missionary labors. May you be richly endowed with wisdom and grace from on high.

Mr. THOMSON and Doct. DODGE, you look to the birth place of our religion as the field of your missionary labors. Syria, including the ancient Palestine, has far more interesting associations for the Christian, than the Peloponnesus, or Attica; nor is there a mountain in all Greece to be compared, in this respect, with Tabor, or Carmel, or Lebanon. These associations, however, will soon cease in a great measure to affect you; and your minds will be sustained in cheerful and vigorous operation, in your distant remove from the pleasant places of our Zion, only by a genuine, deep-toned love for your work as missionaries.

On arriving at Beyroot you will naturally confer with Mr. Bird and Mr. Whiting, your senior brethren in the mission, as to the places for your residence and the best manner of occupying yourselves during the first year. It is supposed by the Committee, that Doct. Dodge will employ his time as a physician most usefully to the missionary cause associated with Mr. Bird, whose long familiarity with the language, manners, and character of the people, will give him pre-eminent advantages in religious intercourse with such as may come to be healed of their bodily diseases. Mr. Thomson will commence a new station, perhaps in connection with Mr. Whiting, at Sidon, or else in Tripoli or its neighborhood. The Committee hope the time is near, when the number of missionaries in Syria shall be such as to occupy not only both of these places, but others farther south, and among the villages scattered over the ridges of Lebanon and in Cœlo-Syria, and in the cities of Damascus and Aleppo. Indeed, should a part of the printing establishment now at Malta be removed to Syria, which is probable, and should a Syriac department be added to the Arabic, it will be expedient to extend our line of outposts much farther eastward, among the churches using the Syriac language in their church service.

Hereafter the press will be employed in this branch of the Mediterranean mission more than it has been heretofore. Circumstances now favor it. The answer to Mr. King's Farewell Letter to the Maronite Roman Catholic bishop, printed at Rome, and circulated among the Maronites of Syria, shews the opinion entertained by the Arabs themselves of the value of the press in their theological discussions; and the Committee are happy to hear that Mr. Bird is about publishing a reply to the prelate.

Doct. DODGE will sustain a two-fold relationship to the mission;-that of a preacher of the gospel, and that of a physician. Your relation, Dear Sir, to the Board, will be the same with that of all other missionaries. Your responsibilities to the Prudential Committee, will be the same. The principles appertaining to the employment of your time, to the support of yourself and family, and to the pecuniary rewards you may chance to receive for services rendered to the people of Syria, will be the same. The Committee regard your medical skill, and all your future practice, only as a means of furthering the spiritual objects of the mission. Skill in the healing art acquired by study and practice, is the only substitute, in modern times, for the miraculous "gifts of healing" conferred upon the first Christian missionaries. As such a substitute, it is important in every part of the eastern world. As a physician, you may be expected to gain access and confidence where the mere preacher of the gospel could not; and when you do gain access to such places, the Committee enjoin upon you to remember that you sustain a higher character than that of a physician, and more solemn responsibilities than those which concern the body. As a physician, however, your first duty will be to your brethren and sisters of the mission, and you will take care not unnecessarily to place yourself in circumstances where they cannot rely upon securing your services in the hour of dangerous sickness. You will also make it your steady aim, as a physician, to multiply and extend their opportunities for exerting a religious influence, as well as your own. tering offers, no earnest entreaties, no authoritative commands, from emirs and pasha, however high in rank or power, draw you from the path of your duty as a missionary of the cross, and a member of the mission. As to a support, you will be entitled to one that is economical from the Treasury of the Board; like your brethren; and will in no case pursue your medical profession for the sake of personal gain. You will practice the healing art in Syria, that you may diminish the amount of temporal wo, and more especially that you may advance the far higher spiritual objects of the mission, of which you are to be a member. Your own support, and that of your family, and all necessary aid to such of them as may survive you, are guaranteed by the standing rules of the Board. This is for the purpose of securing the whole time and talents of missionaries to their great work. Of course whatever you receive as pecuniary rewards for your services, will be placed to the credit of the mission, and will go to diminish the amount of your necessary drafts for family expenses upon the sacred Treasury This principle applies to all the missions under the superintendence of the Board.

Let no flat

From the peculiarity of your circumstances, you will be subjected to some peculiar temptations and dangers; but, by never losing sight of the paramount obligations upon you as a missionary of the cross, and by looking with un

wearied eye and fervent prayer to Him who has promised to be with his missionaries to the end of time, you will be preserved faithful.

Finally, Dear Brethren, the Committee affectionately enjoin upon you all, and upon your partners in life, to be as discreet in using opportunities for exerting influence upon the people of the east, as you will be watchful to secure them. Above all, feel your weakness and ignorance, and the utter imbecility of all your endeavors to do good, without the presence and aid of the blessed Spirit. After years of indefatigable labor, you may have brought but a few rays of light in contact with the minds of the people at large; very few correct ideas of the gospel may they have acquired: but these few the Holy Spirit can make effectual to the producing of a general reformation. One single fundamental truth of the gospel, fully introduced into the mind, may become, in the hands of the Spirit, a life-giving principle; and that single truth, made known through a country, may prove of incalculable benefit to that country: it may revolutionize its moral sentiments.

Clad in this heavenly armor, the gospel of the blessed God, go, then, to Greece and to Syria. The weapons of your warfare are mighty through God. What wonders did they effect in those very countries, in ancient times! Similar triumphs, when God shall vouchsafe his blessing, we may expect to witness again. The people are no more bigotted in error, no more averse to the truth, no more depraved, than they were in the days of the apostles. God can as easily subdue them; and the past experience of our mission warrants the hope that he will yet make glorious displays of his grace among the hardy and independent mountaineers of Lebanon.

"Now unto Him that is able to keep you from falling, and to present you faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy, to the only wise God our Savior, be glory and majesty, dominion and power, both now and ever.

Amen."

By order of the Prudential Committee.

R. ANDERSON, Secretaries.
DAVID GREENE,

Missionary Rooms, Boston, Oct. 24, 1832.

Extracts from INSTRUCTIONS of the PRUDENTIAL COMMITTEE to the Rev. BENJAMIN W. PARKER and the Rev. LOWELL SMITH, Missionaries, and Mr. LEMUEL FULLER, Printer, destined to the Sandwich Islands.

DEAR BRETHren,

The thought must encourage you, on the eve of your departure, that the mission to the Sandwich Islands has ever enjoyed, to human appearance, preeminently, the care of divine Providence. Future events cannot, indeed, be inferred with certainty from the past. A bright morning may be followed by a day of clouds and a night of storms. Enterprises, auspicious in their commencement, may be disastrous in their issue. Yet some enterprises are so marked from the beginning with evident interpositions of Providence in