of the earth, with the fond hope of "striking a lead," and making themselves independent. Some of them are children of pious parents, deacons, elders, ministers of the Gospel, who are ignorant of their fate, and not unfrequently remain in ignorance until they are successful in mining, or die in the fruitless search. Church formed in a Bowling Alley. 66 Early in the spring, we removed from our inconvenient log cabin to an unfinished frame house in "the Diggings," and there commenced a protracted meeting. Soon the room was too small for us, and we removed to the Bowling Alley," which was fitted up for the occasion with rough boards for seats. Here standing on the spot devoted to the "nine pins," and with a gaming table for a pulpit, we preached the Gospel for seven evenings in succession. The Holy Spirit was evidently present, and good was accomplished. In this same bowling alley our church was formed, containing 14 members. Since then 4 more have united, making in all 18, our present number. A church edifice, 26 by 36, has been erected, which is now completed, though not quite paid for. The moral aspect of the community has so much changed, as to be a frequent subject of remark among impenitent men. The Sabbath is much more regarded, the stores are nominally closed, though we fear some back doors are still kept open. A temperance society has been organized, which now contains more than one hundred members. This, indeed, is only a small portion of our population, but it is a good beginning, and the reform is going forward. Fighting is much more rare. A physician told me a few days since that it was now a rare thing for him to be called to bind up a broken head. In short, we are becoming quite a moral, respectable community, and wiping off the stain which has long attached itself to our town. I have received a request to preach here every Sabbath, and a subscription of $200 towards my support has been raised. The way is now open for doing great good. Let us ask in addition to your benefactions, your most earnest prayers that the cause of Christ may advance, and that where iniquity has abounded, grace may much more abound. A strange thing. Is it not humiliating to the Church of Christ, that such a case as the following should be spoken of as peculiar! Let me say something concerning our deacon, whose conduct has been unlike that of any other professor of our denomination here, or that of most professors at the West. On his removal to this place, and his first attendance on my preaching, he an nounced to me the fact of his being a member of an eastern Congregational church, and desired me to visit his family, two of which, besides himself, I found to be members also. It is a deeply painful fact, that many former professed disciples of Christ now withhold their co-operation, and that too without any justifiable grounds. Instead of coming spontaneously to the work of their Master, attracted by spiritual affinity to his people, they need his compulsory arm, with a whip of cords to scourge them on to duty. From Rev. R. R. Snow, Troy, Wis. First efforts. Since receiving my commission, by the favor of a kind Providence, I have enjoyed a prosperous journey and introduction to my field of labor. I arrived in the territory about the middle of October, and by the invitation of the church in this place, and the approbation of your agent here, commenced my labors among this people on the second Sabbath in November. My efforts have consisted principally in preaching, attending prayer-meetings in different parts of the town, visiting from house to house, especially among the sick and dying, of whom there have been many since my residence here-looking up professors of religion who had not joined any body of Christians since coming west-visiting schools, lecturing on temperance, &c., all which have been attended with some obvious, and in some cases encouraging success. The state of religion, on coming here, I found low and feeble, and there still remains much to be done, both by minister and church, before we may feel like rejoicing in our spiritual prosperity; yet there has been some advancement in the spirit and action of Christians, and in the general interests of religion; meetings on the Sabbath are well attended, the Gospel is listened to with attention and candor, and many are praying for a special outpouring of the Spirit's influences. The society here took early meaBures, on my coming among them, to secure my continuance in the place. They have raised by subscription the sum of two hundred and fifty dollars, and express the hope that in another year they shall be able to increase the amount, and the church and society have unanimously concurred in extending to me recently a call to settle with them as their pastor. This kind of action I regard as indicating favorably on the part of the people, and it affords me great encouragement to persevere in my labors among them. The monthly concert is regularly attended, and a growing interest in its object is mani fested. A successor of the apostles! tesies of a man, much more of those that ought to pertain to a Christian, and a christian minister. I have not preached on the subject of ministerial support. This is a heteregeneous community, and I thought it might do more hurt than good. The people have been preached almost to death by Universalists, Mormons, Baptists, Episcopal and Wesleyan Methodists, and nameless exhorters. All these, except the Baptist, have sought to leave the impression that it was not money, "like other denominations,' (meaning ours,) but the "love of God and truth," that caused them to preach. I do not know what is best to do in reference to these things. When I preach I have a good audience and attentive hearers. Pilgrim's day. On the 22d of December I preached on the subject of "our Puritan ancestors" to large and deeply attentive audiences. I endeavored to trace their character; the influence which they exerted (especially in this land) on religion, education, and civil government, and the causes which combined to make them what they were. Among these I endeavored to make it appear that the exile of so many English Puritans, the residence of some of them at Geneva, and their acquaintance with Calvin, and his principles of religious and civil freedom, were prominent means in the them to be the founders of a purer ordering of Providence, in preparing church, and a republican government in this new world. Missionary colportage. The community is in a ferment, occasioned by the measures and efforts of a pretended "successor of the apostles." He endeavors to monopolize the whole ground, utterly disregarding the privileges and rights of all others. He has crowded himself into, and claims the right of occupying, our district school- During the last quarter I have also house (just finished) to his heart's con- performed some colporteur labors. One tent, thus excluding our church, some excursion in particular I will relate. of whom have paid a heavy amount to- Having procured a quantity of Testawards building it, unless we contend for ments, tracts, and volumes of the Ameour rights and have another commotion rican Tract Society's publications, I in the community. At he has proceeded to a newly settled knowingly taken the place and time, and town in the south-west corner of this preached to the congregation assembled county. I devoted Saturday to visiting to hear brother P., by getting into the and religious conversation, selling and desk a few minutes before he arrived. giving away Testaments and books, and I hesitate not to say that I regard this distributing tracts. I found a few proman as destitute of the common cour-fessors of the Seventh Day Baptist, Lutheran, Methodist and Presbyterian denominations, with errors and spiritual desolations over which the heart could not but weep. According to appointment I preached to them the next morning, and then, through a storm of rain and snow, over a rough and muddy road, I travelled twelve miles in two hours, and met one of my regular appointments for preaching, I was then six miles from home, to which I returned the same evening. It is exceedingly desirable that every missionary should have all the facilities to be derived from books, tracts and Bibles; since the frequency with which he traverses his field, and his knowledge of individual cases, give him great advantages for usefulness over the mere transitory colporteur. Assistance of this kind has been generously furnished by the American Tract Society, to the amount of $600 or $700 during the first half of the current year, principally in tracts, and in the eastern part of the great field; but the missionaries in the West alone, ought to have three times this amount. would do for him to put in. "O," he said, "that wont buy a Bible, and I want the heathen should have it quick." After returning from church he said: "I wish there were a contribution every day, so I could give all my money-I like it." Dear boy! at the rate he had given he would soon exhaust his funds, for he had already given more than half his money. But his mother had taught him, that the Lord loveth a cheerful giver, and that he would lose nothing by lending liberally to the Lord. And he was realizing something of that truth, for he received, as a New-Year's present, a Prussian Thaler, (62 cents,) from a friend who knew nothing of his contribution to the missionary cause. When the church at large shall give as liberally, believing that God will most richly repay those that lend to him, your treasury, dear brethren, will not be so exhausted as it has recently been, and the desolate places will not call in vain for help as they too often now do. The liberal giver. We had a very interesting meeting of our Juvenile Missionary Society on Christmas day. About sixty happy young faces were assembled at my house to contemplate the condition of the heathen world, to engage in prayer for the benighted, and to look at their own obligations to the perishing and to themselves. The meeting was rendered solemn by alluding to the fact that one bright lad, who had enjoyed the meeting a year since, was now sleeping in the cold grave, having been very mysteriously drowned a few weeks since. After the devotional exercises a collection was taken of $4,77, for the foreign distribution of the Bible. One lad, under seven years of age, who contributed that day from his own little funds, of his own accord, 75 cents, and who never paid a shilling for toys or sweetmeats in his life, on the fast day that soon followed, threw into the missionary box two dimes and two half dimes. His father told him, before going to church, that one small piece A lamentable Fact. One great obstacle to the spread of the Gospel here, arises from the fact, that so large a proportion of the community are, or have been, professors of religion. They have heard all, seen all, and as they imagine, felt all of Christianity-they are thoroughly Gospel hardened. They are of every grade, from the Judas and Simon Magus apostate, to the Demas outside and inside of the church, and the barren fig-tree genus of Christians, who while they live on the fat of the land, are naught but "cumberers of the ground." It takes a Christian, and one of Bunyan's "Great Heart" kind, to stem a tide of worldliness, like that which here sets perdition-wise from January to January, by day and by night. Thank God, therefore, that if the West is not the place to multiply converts, it may still be of vast service to the church as a refiner's furnace. From the fires in which she tests the moral integrity of the immigrant, there will eventually come forth, I trust, a chosen generation of Christians, men who will be willing to follow their Master through evil or through good report. God grant, at come forth as gold seven times purified, least, to cast all the sons of Levi into thoroughly furnished for every good the fire, and keep them there till their work. dross is wholly consumed, that they may Appointments by the Executive Committee of the A. H. M. S., from February 1st to March 1st, 1845. Re-appointed. Rev. E. A. Carson, Savannah, Mo. Rev. W. A. Thompson, Bloomfield and Fox, Iowa. Rev. C. E. Rosenkrans, East Troy, Wis. Rev. Alvah Lilly, Lisbon and Pewaukie, Wis. Rev. Romulus Barnes, Newark, Ill. Rev. Chas. R. French, vicinity of Chicago, Ill. Rev. E. W. Champliu, Naperville and Plainfield, Rev. Hiram Wason, Vevay, Ind. Rev. Samuel D. Smith, Covington, Ind. Rev. George Eastman, Nankin and Canton, Mich. Rev. Charles Kellogg, Richmond, Mich. Not in commission last year. The Treasurer of the American Home Missionary Society acknowledges the receipt of the following sums, from February 1st to March 1st 1845. 10.00 New-Haven, Officers of Yale College and 20 00 3.00 11 25 50 00 15.00 Andover, South Parish, by N. Swift, 1000 00 145 00 Cummington, Miss Clarissa Briggs, 10 00 90 00 Reading, legacy of the late John Damon, Caleb Wakefield, Ex'r., by B. Perkins, 1027 82 South Weymouth, Mrs. Eliza T. Loud, $5; Mrs. Ruth White, $1, Stockbridge, in part of legacy of the late Cyrus Williams, by E. Burrell and D. R. Williams, Ex'rs., 6 00 Miss L. Page, Treas., 23 00 Norwich, Mrs. Giles Buckingham a L. M., in part, 10 00 289 30 Camden, A. Mix, 30 00 Hamilton, 2d Cong. Ch., 7.02 33 00 100 Lamb, $10; L. Atterbury, $10; 48 Wall-st. No. 8, $2, 42.00 Mercer-st. Ch., Mon. Con. Coll., by R. Lockwood, Pearl-st. Ch., Mrs. Leonard Corning, to const. Rev. Charles H. Read a L. D., Sixth-st. Ch., J. McComb, $25; W.T. Cutter, $5; Mrs. Barclay, 50 cts.; G. Kinney, $5; Y. E. Benton, $2; H. Griffin, $5; M. Laylord, $1; Mr. and Mrs. Spaulding, $10; Coll. $29 64; in full to const. Rev. Horace Eaton a L. M., 21 54 100 00 Kingsborough, Uriah Morris Place, L. D. in full, $50; Alanson Judson, in part to const. Mrs. Jane Judson, a L. D., $50; Col. Horace Jones, in part to const. Mrs. Sally D. Jones a L. D., $50; Charles Jones, L. D., in full, $25; S. G. Hildreth, $10; Mrs. Amelia Potter, 10; Rev. E. Yale, D. D.. $5; Alanson Hosmer, $5; Dr. A. Ward, $5; D. C. Mills, $5; Dr. J. Smith, $5; Darius Case, $1; L. Potter, $3; P. Brower, $3; P. Mead, $2; H. J. Parsons, $2; H. A. Parsons, $2; W. J. Heacock, $2; A. Jones, $2; C. L. Burton, $2; others, $20 40; to be appropri ated in Iowa by Rev. E. Yale, D. D., Leyden, Coll., $8; Rev. R. Kimball, $5, Lysander, Coll., 50 9.00 6. 00 32 75 8 50 262 40 13.00 30.00 Mc Grawville, 20 00 Madison, Coll., 11 43 83 14 Martinsburgh, by Rev. E. S. Barnes, 750 L. B. Ward, $50; Philos, $5, Nineveh, Coll., by Rev. W. M. Hoyt, Peru, Cong. Ch., Rev. S. Cook, 55.00 Meredith, by Rev. S. Ellis, 20.00 10 00 10 00 New-Hartford, $1 25; Rev. D. Clark, $5, Oneonta, by Rev. F. Harrington, 625 12.50 Ripley, Cong., $7; Fem. Benev. Soc., Oriskany Falls, 16 09 Mrs. Clarissa Adams, Treas., $6; by Rev. T. M. Hopkins, Paris Hill, Fem. H. M. S., by Rev. J. G. 13 00 Cordell, 18 00 Western Agency, by Rev. J. A. Murray, NEW-JERSEY 700 Poolville, by S. W. Edson, 25 00 Richfield Springs, Coll., 20 00 Mendham, Young Ladies' Sew. Soc., by Miss Sarah Babbitt, 30 00 OHIO Etna, by Rev. T. W. Howe, 3.72 Mesopotamia, legacy of the late H. T. Rupert, Vt., bequest of Miss Louisa Sheldon, deceased, by Rev. David Wilson, Sacketts Harbor, in full of legacy of the late Deac. J. W. Brewster, by Jason Phelps, Ex'r. 20 00 3833 69 Loonis, by P. Hitchcock, 259 17 Waterville, by Rev. B. Woodbury, 3 07 Sauquoit, Coll., $14 63; Fem. H. M. S., $8, Smyrna, Deac. I. Foote, 22 63 10 00 INDIANA Steuben, a friend, 1 00 Stoney Creek, by Rev. W. N. Stimson, ILLINOIS 2 19 Syracuse, German Cong., 5. 00 Utica, First Ch. Coll., in part, 72 65 Big Rock, English Cong. Ch., $2 20; Welch Cong. Ch., $3 83, by Rev. G. Lewis, Bloomington, Coll., by Rev. D. J. Perry, Chicago, 2d Presb. Ch., Mon. Con. Coll., by Rev. M. Hicks, Elgin, Mon. Con. Coll., by do. 7.00 Hampshire Settlement, by do. 5.00 Juliet, 1st Cong. Ch., by Rev. B. W. Dwight, 12.50 Naperville, Cong. Ch., by Rev. E. W. Champlin, Mrs. James Kirkland $10; Mrs. John Holmes, $2, Westmoreland, by Rev. F. A. Spencer, The Treasurer of the Home Missionary Society of Connecticut, auxiliary to the A. H. M. S. acknowledges the receipt of the following sums from Jan. Ist to March 1st, 1845. 12.00 49 00 24 83 $4582 96 8 94 Petersburgh, Mrs. Allen, by Rev. A. Hale, Pomfret, Gent. and Ladies 2 00 Rockford Cong.Ch., to const. Rev. Lan- M. S. $118 36; Ladies' Char. Soc., $36 64, New-London, M., a donation, 155 00 35 00 15 00 MICHIGAN 30 00 Woodbury, by Rev. I. Churchill, $77 15; a class of Sab. Sch. Scholars by Mrs. M. Hunt, 1 35; West Suffield, by J. W. Loomis, 78 50 23.00 Bruce, Cong. Ch., by Rev. S. A. Benton, Troy, by Rev. N. Tucker, 26 00 5 63 Plymouth Hollow, Benev. Soc., by Rev. H. D. Kitchell, 6.00 WISCONSIN Chester, James M. Mitchell, 2.00 Green Bay, Daniel Butler, by Rev. J. Porter, 25 00 A friend in S. to const. Miss Jane K. Welch, Northampton Mass., a L. M., Enfield, Ladies' H. M. S., by Miss C. R. Pierce, 30.00 27 68 1 00 $4479 08 Suffield, Ladies' Sew. Soc., by Miss Lucy King, $10; Deac. N. C. Warren and Lady, $2, 12.00 Windsor, Mrs. Sarah Filley, 25.00 Vernon, Rockville Society, by G. Kellogg, 369 34 North-Haven Ch. and Soc., by Rev. L. Griggs Middletown, Westfield Soc., by I. B. Saw 60.00 36 35 57 12 50 00 64.50 3 JW |