COMMISSION.
VOLUME 2, NUMBER 2. “Go yc into all the world and prcacli the gospel to every creature.4 RICHMOND, FEBRUARY 15, 1850.
Soutljern jDaptist Qlommition.
Corrcsiiomlcncc of the Foreign Board.
Communications relating to tho general busi¬
ness of tho Foreign Mission Board, may be ad¬
dressed, postpaid, to
James B. Taylor, Cor. See.
Richmond, Va.
Communications enclosing donations, or relat¬
ing to tho financial department, may be address¬
ed to Archibald Thomas, Trcas.
Richmond, Va.
ORIGINAL COMMUNICATIONS.
For tho Commission.
To tho Friends of Foreign Mis¬
sions in Georgia.
Respected friends,— For more than six months
past, I have been laboring among you to estab¬
lish a plan for an annual contribution to tho causo
of foreign .missions. Tho plan has been re¬
commended by a largo number of ministers, and
by more than half of iho Associations that belong
to tho Georgia Convention; The plan is simple,
easy and equitable. It is liko tho gospel, de¬
signed for all.
This is tho plan ; — That each church appoint a
committee of not las than two, icko shall solicit
every member of the church, (and of tho congre¬
gation loo, if they please,) to contribute at hast
ten cents annually, and as much more as God in
his providence may enable him to do, for the for¬
eign mission.
This plan, if generally adopted, would bring
into tho treasury annually, from Georgia alone,
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than $5,000, if no one were to givo mote
than It) cents. If all tho Baptists in the South¬
ern States were to adopt this plan, more than
$30,000 would go annually to tho Board for
Foreign Missions !
I ask every missionary church to adopt this
simple, this easy, this equitable plan.
1 ask every preachei of the gospel in Baptist
churches, to bring this plan to tho notice of his
people, and aid in its adoption. Will my dear
brethren do this much for tho glory of God, for
the honor of tho Redeemer, for tho salvation of
perishing heathens?
Will the delegates of
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than half of the
Associations in Georgia, who voted for this plan,
bring it to tho notice of tho churches immediate¬
ly, if they have not dono so?
Friends of Jesus, anil friends of a perishing
world, permit mo to plead with you for an offer¬
ing to God, for a perishing world, this year.
You profess to bo Christians ; to be missionary
Baptists ; to have
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hope in heaven. You havo
a Bible, meetings convenient, means of religious
improvement and comfort. You arc entrusted
with tho Lord's money. Do you give to the mis¬
sion causo annnally ! Do you givo as God pros¬
pers you? Do you pray for tho spiead of tho
gospel among tho destitute? I trust you do, or
will, if you havo not dono so ! Many churches
arc at work on this plan— will all go to work !
I havo throe requests to make of the friends of
missions : —
1. That the pastors, tho delegates to the last
Associations, and tho wealthy of all the churches,
will bring forward tho above plan to tho notice of
tho churches to which they belong, encourage
the adoption of it by the church, and sustain it
by the contribution of at least 10 cents.
2. That every church that adopts the plan in¬
form me by letter, addressed to mo at Macon, the
names of tho committee appointed to solicit tho
annual contribution from tho members.
3. That tho funds raised be sent up to tho Con¬
vention to meet next May.
1 am, dear friends,
Yours truly, &c.,
Eli Ball, Agent of the
B. of the S. I). C.for For. Miss.
A Hint for Parents.
“ My children won’t read,” said a man in my
hearing, a few days ago, when asked to subscribe
for the Missionary Journal, for the benefit of the
family. And why, said 1 to him, do your chil¬
dren not iove to read? Have you over taken a
religious periodical for them? “ No!" was the
answer, “ thoy won't read good books," he con¬
tinued, “ they read light and foolish books some¬
times.”
Hero tho secret eamo out, why children in a
professedly pious family would not read a reli¬
gious periodical. There was no religious paper
for than.
If parents would gather their children around
them after the toils of the day were over ; would
put a religious periodical into their hands, and
let ono of them read for an hour, and explain the
subject to them, they would not complain, “ my
children won’t read.”
Tho Commission costs but 25 cents, and it
would afford reading for children, that would not
fail to interest them. Will tho parents try it ?
Observer.
Kentucky Bible Society.
This society has made fine progress during tho
past year in collecting funds, and I hope the
funds collected will do much good. The so¬
ciety passed a resolution sustaining their auxilia-
ly relation to the American and Foreign Bible
Society at New York. Now, it should bo clearly
understood, that while the Foreign Mission
Board at Richmond, Virginia, do not look to that
Society for Bible funds, cur missionaries in China
arc disappointed in tho «so of any such as are
paid into tho troasuiy of that Bible society. Is
it not truly desirable, that the whole south and
west should bo united on this subject— not as
now, somo paying their Bible funds to the Amer¬
ican and Foreign Bible Society ; some paying to
the Foreign Mission Board j and some paying
none at all. Would it not bo best to organize a
Southern Bible Society, in which all could unito ;
or else heartily co-operate with the American and
Foreign Bible Society, and apply to that society
for tho Bible funds wo need ! I doubt not but it
would grant them.
Would it not be well for this important ques¬
tion to be maturely considered, and decided ac¬
tion taken upon it at the next Southern Baptist
Convention, when it meets at Nashville, in 1651?
Wo shall soon need a considerable amount of
Bible funds in China, and wo sincerely hope,
that wo shall not bo deprived of them fur want of
united and suitable arrangements at home. In
China we care little whence the requisite funds
come, so that they bo forthcoming at the right
time, and in sufficient proportions. But
О
breth¬
ren, let us bo united in this great work. At home
and abroad, 11 Union is strength.” Wherotbero
is a variety of sentiment, let tho majority rule on
truo republican principles ; and let us,
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do Jet
us bo united in tho Bible cause, throughout the
south and 'west! I. J. R.
For the
СоттЫоп.
Short Sermons.-- No. III.
Anil
But he, «tlllnj to Justify himself, sold unto
who is my neighbor.— Lcsr. x: i).
Tho lawyer who proposed this question, had
just before asked Christ, what he should do lo
inherit eternal life ! The question being return¬
ed, ho anstveted it himself. But when he re¬
flected upon hfi own answer, he felt condemned,
and to justify himself, sought to limit its mean-
ing.
I. Tho lawyer’s motive in asking the question,
was that he might justify himself. Ho did not
wish to extend kind and liberal feelings tn any
except his friends ; certainly not to any of a Gen¬
tile nation. And he sought to shape duty ac¬
cording to his selfish prejudices Perhaps many
Christians now inquire doubtingly, with regard to
tho extent of their obligations of benevolence,
from a willingness to justify themselves in the
neglect' of duty. Somo say, “ Charity begins
at home.” Now if we say it begins at home,
we imply that it ends away from home. But
does their charity begin even tlieie, or do they
say this, from a willingness to justify them-
t
II. The question is answered. Whoever is
capable of being benefitted by your charity, is
your neighbor. Not merely your kindred, ac¬
quaintance, or countrymen. The Samaritan and
Jew were strangers, foreigners, and by nation,
cnemiej to each other. Yet they were neigh¬
bors. The widow and the fatherless, are your
neighbors. Tho poor and tho needy have claims
upon you. Thousands of widows are every year
sacrificed on the funeral pile; and children worse
than parentless, arc destroyed by theii parents in
the most cruel manner.
Millions of the poor are famishing for want of
the bread of life. More than 700,000,000 of
people are standing on ihe very brink of hell, and
have nolhing to shield them from the wrath of
God. .Th^e are your neighbors, whom you are
required by the second commandment, to love as
you love yourself. Would you be willing liko
the heathen, to live a stranger to God, with no
Christian friend to take you in, and instruct you
in righteousness ? — sick unto death with sin, with
no friend to visit and apply as a healing balm, the
hlnod of Christ, and die fettered in sin, unla-
mented, unsaved ? Then as you love your own
soul, love theirs,— haste to give the gospel,
the glorious gospel of the blessed God, lo the
poor in all the world. II. G.
—r
A _ Forth«
“ Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be
done in Earth as it is in Hea¬
ven.”
Christian! do you ever repeat the above in
your supplications to God ? If so, do you fully
realize its import! It expresses nothing less
than a desire that the heathen may be given to
Christ for an inheiitance, and the uttermost pans
of the earlh fur a possession ; yea, that through
out the world, every knee may bow, and every
tongue confess him Lord of all. Now wo wish
to ask further, if you are proving by your acts,
that you really desire what you express, when
you repeat this part of the Lord's prayer! If
you are a minister, are you doing what you can
to inform your people wilh regard to tlsa moral
desolaiion of tho world, and of their obligation
to assist in sending the gospel lo the heathen !
If you are not my brother, how can you pray
“Thy kingdom come?'1 If von are a deacon,
are you proving to the church by your effurts in
the cause of missions, that your prayer is, “Thy
kingdom come?” If you arc a private
are you contributing according as God
pored you, of your substance, for the
of tho Redeemer’s kingdom ! — or aro you ex
peeling God to convert the world in answer to
your prayers, without llic use of other means!
For aught wo know, God could havo adopted
this plan ; hut it is sufficient for us to know, that
lie has adoplcd another. Ho has chosen lo use
tho gospel in the conversion nf the wotld, and
his people as the instruments in disseminating it.
Since, then, the heathen cannot believe in him of
whom they have not heard, and they cannot heai
without a preacher, in vain may we pray “ Thy
kingdom come,” unless wo ate at the same time
using the means that God has put into our hands,
to biing about this result. A.
For tho Commission.
“Not One Dollar.”
A few years ago, a rich man at tho scutli, (I
could give his name and State if lcquhed,) was
asked by a missionary for a contribution for Chi¬
na, and he replied, “ that he would not give one
dolly in save the entire population of China
itom being overwhelmed in the Pacific Ocean.
This was a hard saying to fall from the lips of
any one calling himself a man. Where is there
a Christian who docs not think it strange that
such misanthropy should exist in the hcartof any
civilized human being 1 The Chinese, however, -
aro in no danger of being overwhelmed in the Pa¬
cific Ocean, nor aro their temporal necessities
very pressing. Rut they are exposed to the more
terrible catastrophe of being engulfed in the
burning lake of eternal despair and misery. How
can their fearful plunge into tho angry waves of
the wrath to come, be averted? Only by their
believing tho gospel. How can they believe, un¬
less they hear ! How shall they hear without a
preacher? How shall preachers preach, except
they be sent! How can they be sent without
expense? Who among ail the Southern Bap¬
tists will refuse to give one dollar lo save tho
souls of the Chinese from being overwhelmed in
the awful gulf of endless peidition? Alas ! is it
not a fact, that there are many in the chuiches
who do not care enough for the everlasting wel¬
fare of the heathen, to give one cent to aid in
sending them the gospel. Is this a hard saying?
How long shall it remain a true saying ?
Shanghai, July 1819. J. L. S.
For the Commlulon.
Facts,
Witten SHOULD MEET THE CHRISTIAN'S EVE, AND
Tovcu the Christian’s heart.
1. The command of Jesus Christ, that the
gospel should be. preached 'throughout the. wfroje.
world, and to everv creature.
2. That though nearly two thousand years
have passed away since the command was given,
yet it lias never been obeyed by the church.
3. Thirty millions of the human family t
year are passing into eternity, without a I
ledge of the only name under heaven given ;
men, whereby they can bo saved.
4. The superfluities of the Baptist church,
would create a fund for missionary purposes,
which would send into the field more raissior.a-
ties than the whole professing Christian world
employs at this moment.
5. The time will soon come, when from a new
point of observation, Christians of Ihe present
day will view the fields of heathenism, and re¬
ceive such impressions from tho sight, as eternity
itself will scarcely efface.
6. The eye of the Great Founder of Missions
is upon these facts.
For the Co or
Cost of a
Bible.
English Wesleyan Missions.— An exten
sive awakening among the natives in South Af¬
rica has been realized during the last year,
through the labors of the English Wesleyans.
In tho year 1272, tho wages of a laboring, man
were just three half-pence per day, and at the
same period, the price of a Bible well written
out, was £30 steiling. Of course a common
laborer in those days could not have procured a
Bible with less than the entire earnings of thir¬
teen years ! Now a beautifully printed copy of
the same book can bo purchased with the fourth
part of the earnings of a day, besides enabling
the working man to aid in the distribution of the
Word of Life, in those finds where its healing
leaves have never yet been seen. What hath
God wrought since then ! K.
Sandwich Islands. — The French nation, at
the mouth of the cannon, have demanded, con¬
trary lo tho law, that French brandies shall be
introduced among tho people, and that the appro¬
priation for fiee schools shall be equally divided
between the Catholic and Protestant schools, al¬
though only nine or ten Frenchmen reside on the
island.