Billeder på siden
PDF
ePub

nessed. Within its walls, during the past six months, several thousands of sailors have heard the word of life, and some, we know, have heard it to their spiritual profit.

It is confidently hoped, that, as the agencies of the Society will, in the ensuing year, be increased, our pages, in which their results will be reported, will possess growing interest. The directors, therefore, earnestly request their constituents to use their best exertions to increase the sale both of the Sailors' Magazine, and the Childs' Bethel Flag Magazine:-the one intended to record the labors of the missionaries and agents of the Society, and the progress of the cause generally; the other, designed to interest the young in the claims of seamen, and in the efforts made for their improvement.

To their kind and generous friends they offer their congratulations, and thus record their thanks. They ask for renewed confidence, and still more liberal support; and, in the prospect of the coming year, they again address themselves, in faith and hope, to a work whose success is identified with the highest interests of our brave, but guilty

seamen.

We close the labors of the year with a devout sense of the grace bestowed, and the favors vouchsafed, during its progress, and breathe the fervent prayer, inspired by a sense of insufficiency and helplessnes, that the ensuing year may find us prepared for its deep responsibilities, and its inevitable trials.

2, Jeffries' Square, St. Mary Axe,

December 1st., 1845.

[merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][subsumed][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small]
[blocks in formation]
[blocks in formation]

To review the past, and, under the influence of the sentiments which that review awakens in the mind, to form our plans for the future, is a duty appropriate to the commencement of the year. Such a retrospect, brief and faithful, we now propose to take of the labours of the Sailor's Society during the by-gone year. In making this record of labour our object is, to inform our friends of the actual operations of the Society, and whilst showing what has been accomplished, encourage them to continued and persevering effort in the Sailors' cause. We shall state facts which no one can gainsay, and present those facts in simple, unadorned language, that no artificial covering thrown over the subject may impose upon the careless reader, or divert the mind from the naked truth. In looking over the records of our Society during the year now closed, we mark the following results :

In the port of London we have two missionaries, whose whole time is devoted to the service of the Society, and five agents, four of whom hold three services on ship board weekly, the remaining one is engaged only on the Friday. By these, 713 Bethel meetings have been conducted afloat, and 211 religious services have been held on shore. At the former of these 10777 sailors have been present, whilst, chiefly at these meetings and on shipboard, 29148 religious tracts have been distributed. At our Bethel meetings, with but very few exceptions, several pious seamen have engaged in prayer, and of the ten thousand who have been present a large number have been converted men, and most of them the fruit of labours conducted afloat. Besides these services, our missionaries have visited 6358 vessels during the day, conversing with the men, distributing tracts, and circulating copies of the sacred scriptures. On shore very many sailors have been induced to attend public worship, a great proportion of whom have been vicious

A

and ungodly characters; our day schools have been crowded; lodging houses, from Blackwall to Tower-hill, have been visited, and a Total Abstinence Society has been formed.

In provincial ports, our agents at Greenhithe, Ramsgate, Shoreham, and Torquay, have laboured with efficiency and zeal; whilst at Newcastle, whose committee we have assisted with a grant of money, the work has advanced with encouraging tokens of the Divine favour. With regard to foreign operations, we have aided the committee at Amsterdam; have adopted the Cape of Good Hope as a station; have forwarded a Bethel flag, with bibles, books, and tracts, to New Zealand ; have sent tracts and books to the Mauritius, and other parts; have supplied a large number of vessels with libraries, and have placed our Bethel flag in the hands of many captains, who are pledged to hoist it wherever Providence may direct their course.

Such is a sketch of our labours during the year. What their results will be who can tell? That many have been converted to God we know. That the general character of seamen is improving universal testimony confirms. The encouraging truth, therefore, that the gospel can reach the heart, and reform the life of the most abandoned, cheers us to renewed exertion and prayerful diligence in the work of God. On the promised aids of his Spirit we rely in our future labours, and to the glory of his grace we record our past success.

[ocr errors]

THE SEA SHALL GIVE UP ITS DEAD.

* Revelations, xx. 13.

And the sea gave up the dead which were in it!" In contemplating the vision thus presented to the mind, how many reflections are suggested! The SEA shall give up its dead.

Conceive of the multitudes which lie beneath its waves. The dead of countless generations which rest beneath the clods of the valley; the dead of China, whose teeming millions have been so often replaced by their successors, and who, through revolving periods, have mouldered back to dust; the dead of India, whose ancient cities have been peopled for ages with the generations that have sprung up and trodden on the ashes of their fathers; the dead of Europe, whose hordes, in former times, rushed forth from the dark recesses of its everlasting forests, and swarmed in untold numbers over its plains;—the dead, in fact, of every city, and every village, upon the face of the earth; the dead that

* The substance of a Sermon preached at Ebenezer Chapel, on the occasion of the loss of the Capt. of the "Grace," who was a member of the church, and who, with three of the crew, was recently washed overboard off Cape St. Vincent.

« ForrigeFortsæt »