Vermont Telegraph

CLAIMS OF SIX HUNDRED MILLIONS.

It is now about twenty years since the American churches heard of the Claims of Six Hundred Millions of heathens and Mohammedans, and since that time this Board has sent forth in answer to these claims more than two hundred missionaries and assistant missionaries.

The reports of these Missionaries have told of the Bible translated and printed and distributed in many languages; of religious tracts, school-books, &c., scattered abroad through many districts and tribes; of thousands of pupils collected and taught in christian schools; of the gospel proclaimed in the chapel, by the way side and on itineracies through extensive territories; of churches established and numerous converts gathered into them. They have told too that many of the heathen were ashamed of their superstition and credulity; that idolatry was on the wane; and that light was spreading around from every station. If these statements are true, and their truth cannot be doubted, how is it, it may be asked, that we hear of the "Claims of Six Hundred Millions." still? After all this has been accomplished, does the work yet to be accomplished remain the same?

But do those to whom it seems as if great progress has been made towards converting the world, reflect on the vastness of the work? Think for one moment of the great geographical surface to which christian labor must be applied. To say nothing of Europe, half of which is as destitute of a religion adapted to sanctify and save, as Hindoostan or China, there is the entire continent of Asia, the entire continent of Africa, three-fourths of the continent of America, and every island of the Pacific and Indian oceans. What self-multiplying or expanding power has the instrumentality employed possessed, to bear efficiently on any considerable portion of this almost immeasurable surface?

Think again of the myriads of human beings spread out, densely or sparsely, over these regions, the mind of every one of whom must be approached and affected by the truth. Count up the five hundred millions of Asia, the fifty millions of Africa, the thirty millions of America, and the unknown millions on the islands, and say to how many of them the gospel has come with demonstration and power.

It is said that the nations of protestant Christendom have now, in various parts of the heathen world, about seven hundred preachers of the gospel. This is a less number than is deemed necessary for the two million inhabitants of Christian New-England; and what can they be supposed to have done to diminish the number of the unevangelized, spread over three quarters of the earth's surface, and embracing two-thirds of its population? They are in fact enough only to be torch-bearers, to show how dark and extended are the regions of night. Every missionary who goes abroad, by the light which he sheds on the field of his labor, makes the call for coadjutors in the work more loud and urgent than that which drew him forth. By all the missionaries now laboring abroad, a tolerably correct knowledge of the doctrines and precepts of the Scriptures may have been communicated to ten millions of heathens. How little does this detract from the six hundred millions who were heathens twenty years ago!

We tell of the hundred thousand converts from heathenism, now members of Christian churches, but this number is less than the number of church members in the single state of New-York. We tell also of the four hundred thousand pupils enrolled in christian schools established by missionaries; but this is less than are enrolled in the free schools of the same state.

We tell of the great number of books which have been printed and distributed in heathen nations; but if a copy of each book of an enlightening and truly christian tendency, which has been published in any heathen language during the last thirty years, could be obtained, and all were collected into a library, it would be found to be less in the amount of reading matter furnished, and far less in variety than is found on the shelves of almost every intelligent man in our country. There are single cities in our own land where ten-fold more printing is executed every year than can be executed at all the printing establishments in the employ of all existing missionary societies, in all parts of the heathen world.

The disciples of Christ then, it must be admitted, have only begun the work of converting the world to God. They entered on the duty late; they have prosecuted it tardily; and their advance in it is small. Compared, however, with the inherent difficulty of the work, with the obstacles to be removed out of the way, and with the limited means employed, the beginning has been most auspicious, and the progress such as could not have been anticipated, except by faith in the promised aid and co-operation of Him who assigned the task. Still it is only a beginning; and after the American churches have been sending missionaries to the heathen twenty-five years, and the churches of Great Britain forty years, there is no kingdom, or even district of the heathen world, if perhaps a few small islands of the Pacific Ocean, and the remnants of a few tribes of the North American aborigines, less than one million in all, be excepted, where Christianity has the ascendancy, or where even a knowledge of its doctrines and duties has reached any considerable portion of the population.

But what is the church actually doing, to raise up the thousands of missionaries who ought to be sent into the field during the next ten years? Is she not permitting things to take pretty much their own course, without great effort, or anxiety, or thought directed to this vital point? Every one who honestly pleads this cause is authorised by the Lord Jesus to enjoin it upon the church to bring forth the young men as workmen in this vineyard, and to enjoin it upon the young men to come forth and consecrate themselves to this work. Why should there not be a day of solemn fasting and prayer appointed by each church, in view of the guilty and perishing condition of the world? Why should not each church take into sober consideration what is its proportion of the men requisite to evangelize the world? Why should not the minister, the elders and deacons, or other approved and judicious persons, meet by appointment and look over the church catalogue, and select the specific number from those young members who possess the fundamental gifts and graces?

It will fatally retard the progress of the gospel over the world, to leave the work of obtaining missionaries to the slow action of education societies and agents, or to the influence which can be exerted over young men by general appeals. The individual branches of the church must feel a responsibility, and themselves perform an important duty; the whole must be taken up more in detail, and the appeal must be carried to the consciences of individual young men, and they be made to feel that the questions, in what manner and to what extent they will obey the last command of Christ, are questions which they must personally, and in the fear of God, decide. Christians must look forward further, even than this; and parents must begin early to instruct their children on all the parts of the missionary work, and train them up for bearing a part in it. Teach them to regard the conversion of the world to Christianity as the noblest work in which they can engage, and to turn with zeal to be qualified for and engage in an enterprise so benevolent and honorable. Parents can, in their hearts and in their prayers, consecrate their children to this cause, and make them feel how little the endearments of blood, and friendship, and home, are to be regarded, in view of the command of Christ, and the rescue of the pagans from death in sin and woe.