CELEBRATION OF THE FIFTIETH YEAR OF THE CHURCH MISSIONARY SOCIETY.

New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume V, Issue 385, 11 April 1849, Page 4

CELEBRATION OF THE FIFTIETH YEAR OF THE CHURCH MISSIONARY SOCIETY.

Yesterday, a commemoration sermon was preached in London, by the Archbishop of Canterbuty ; and another in York, by the Arcl.bishop of York. The Bishop of London preached in Bloomsbury Church. — The Bishops of Winchester, Salisbury, Oxford, Norwich, St. Asaph, &c, in the cathedrals of the respective cities. In Manchester, last evening, twenty-one churches were open, and twenty-one sermons preached by as many different clergymen. The number preached in London, yesterday, we cannot arrive at ; in the parish of Pancras alone there were nine. In Cambridge, and many other towns, every pulpit was occupied with the subject last Sunday. Mr. Dale preached on the subject at St. Paul's Cathedral, last Sunday afternoon, to nearly 3,000 people. And what was the occasion for this religious celebration ? It was the commemoration of the fiftieth year of the Church Missionary Society. It was in the year 1799 that a little band of clergy and laity met together, to form a society for this purpose, and, in 1804, the

first missionaries went foith to Sierra Leone. In a few years, others were seni^to New Zealand, then to India, and to other fields. At the present hour, the Church Missionary Society not only is actively engaged on the rocky and wooded peninsula of Sierra Leone, among the liberated Africans, but has travelled a thousand miles to the eastward, to Badagry and Abbeokouta. It has been driven from Abyssinia; but its missionaries have clung to the east coast of Africa, near Mombas, and have made good their footing there. In Cairo, that ancient seat of bigotry, the society is at work both among the Coptic population — the descendants of the ancient Egyptians — and among the Mabomedans. India has many missions of the society. The sand plains of palm-girt Tinnevelly ; the rich woods of Travancore, clothed with all the splendour of tropical luxuriance ; the great cities of Madras and Bombay ; the long neglected nation of the Toloogoos ; the domes and minarets of Agra ; the rolling stream of the Ganges ; and the highlands of the snowy Himalayas ; have all witnessed the love of God in sending his servants to preach the Gospel and the converting power of the Holy Ghost. The opened door of China has been entered by the society. In British Guiana, in South America, amid the swamps and tangled jungles of the banks of the Essequibo, tribes before unknown to Europeans, and living like the wild beasts of the forest, have been evangelised, and are now "sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed and in their right mind." In New Zealand, the leafy glens and mountains, the lovely lakes and their rocky isles, have resounded with the prayers and praises of believers in Christ, who in their childhood were wholly ignorant of God, but who have heard of the living Saviour from the missionaries of the society. The negroes of the West Indies have also been the subject of our exertions. And far back in the prairies and woods of North-west America, amid the burning heats of summer, and the piercing frosts of winter, do our missionaries continue to win souls to Christ, and to gather large congregations of the Red Indian tribes to bear of bis love, and to join in prayer to him.' The general results of its operations are thus summarily given :—: — Missionary Stations 1 02 European Clergymen 125 Native and East Indian Clergymen 14 European Lay Teachers 43 Native and East Indian Lay Teachers 1,299 Communicants 13,010 Besides tens of thousands of children, in its many different stations, under regular Christian instruction. The object of the celebration of this week, as one part of which a general meeting will be held in Exeter Hall this day, is, "to thank God, and take courage." To look with gratitude at the past, and with new resolve at the future. It is proposed by one simultaneous effort, to raise a special fund of £100,000 in the present year, to be employed in effecting several great objects. Two donations of £1,000 each, from individuals in the middle walk of life, were announced last week. Such is the principal feature visible in English society, in the first week of this month of November, 1848. And, certainly, no one will deny, that it presents a singular contrast to the occupations of most of the continental nations and cities, at the same moment of time.