sick and the dying, the widow and the decrepid with age, no one knowing what became of the spirit.

Suppose that this was strictly our condition, that along the whole coast of our country, there was not the slightest knowledge of the Gospel, and that through all the interior, nothing but gross darkness brooded over the land. Here and there, perhaps, at some of the great commercial outlets to the ocean, Boston, New York, or Philadelphia, a solitary missionary is stationed, like a single star glimmering in a whole hemisphere of darkness. By his efforts, however, some knowledge of the Saviour is spread around. Light catches the eye of dwellers upon our hills and in our valleys. Now and then a single Testament or a tract finds its way up the waters of a river; and along the banks of the Delaware, the Hudson, or the Mohawk, a little cluster of villagers assemble, to listen to some one, who reads the strange story of Christ, for the first time, translated into our native tongue. What might we expect or hope for, from other Christian nations with thousands of ministers, scattered throughout almost every city and village in their land, and with millions of Bibles, laying by dozens in every church and school-house, and adorning with the richest profusion and most tasteful variety, every library in every family?

What we might hope for from others, let us render to them.

You are a mother. You live in a town in the western part of Massachusetts. Your husband is sick, your daughter is dying. You feel that you and your household are sinners, and you shrink back at the thought of exchanging this world for the unknown scenes of another. Not a ray of hope, that reaches beyond the grave, cheers the heart of a single inmate of your dwelling. You have heard, that there is at Boston a man who has come from a far country with glad tidings; even the words of eternal life from the Father of all.

But you cannot go to him. You have heard that he has good books, which will teach your beloved ones how they may be happy when their spirits leave you. But you cannot get them. You look at your sick and your dying, and your heart sinks. Christian mother, think of the mother in Burmah. Reader, are you a father? Do you feel that you have committed to your charge a household of immortal beings, whom you hope to introduce at the great day, among the redeemed, and with heart overflowing with happiness to say; "Here, Lord, are we!" Have sympathy for a father on the banks of the Ganges. When the business of the day closes, your belov

ed family surround you: you fondle your children on your knee, and their caresses seem to repay you for the toil and labor of the day. Not so the poor Hindoo parent. He thinks at night, the crocodile sups upon my son; and my little daughter -the fishes of the Ganges are at work upon her cheek. Her mother, ah! natural affection!—"can a woman forget?"

Christian father, can you do anything for such a family in a heathen land? Millions upon millions are in this condition. Think of the guilt and wretchedness of these families--without God.

My sister -you are at home. Your brother's affection you share, and all the happiness of the domestic fireside in the Christian family is yours, from day to day. Yours, too, is the hope full of immortality. In your bosom is that "peace which passeth all understanding." Think of our heathen sisters. What happiness is yours! - what degradation and misery are theirs! Think of them, sister, when you pray. Compare their situation with your own, and do as you would be done by. Young man, you and I are beginning life, as it were. We have not reached the meridian of our day. We have before us a wide world of sin and misery. It is to be redeemed; God says so. Christ came, and what did he do? Did he deny himself? Did he make any sacrifices? What did he live for; and what did he die for? Shall we follow his example? Let us live to save souls.

There is a story of a young physician in an eastern city, commencing his professional career with the brightest prospects of eminent success. A plague broke out. Multitudes were swept almost instantly to the grave. So sudden was the attack and so certain and immediate its fatal termination, that scarcely anything was known of the nature of the disease, or the mode of treatment. The dead and the dying were in every house, Every heart was filled with consternation and grief. Nothing could stay the progress of the pestilence. Whoso touched the dead was sure to sicken and die. What was to be done? How were they to learn the nature of the disorder, and ascertain the probable remedies to be applied? Death was raging, and, to all human appearance, the crowded emporium must soon become a depopulated, desolate scene.

But this young physician volunteered himself a sacrifice for the public good. He gave himself up to be the constant nurse and attendant of a dying man. He received from his lips the description of his symptoms and sufferings, as long as reason remained; he examined his lifeless body; and receiving himself

by such offices, the deadly infection, he wrote an accurate description of the hourly progress of the disease in his own person. His last act was to plunge the manuscript in boiling vinegar, that it might be with safety used. Others might thus securely obtain such a knowledge of the plague as to enable them to arrest the sweeping desolation. Magnanimous philanthropy! Who does not love the heart of such a martyr?

But, think of the cause of Christ. Think of the ruin, temporal, eternal and inevitable, that has fallen upon the face of the whole earth, where men are living and dying in sin, with no knowledge of a Saviour. Up; let us be up and doing. Let the young men unite in a hallowed league, to live, not exactly like the devoted martyrs of Poland, for their country, but, like Jesus Christ, for the world. We want four thousand ministers to supply our own country. FIVE HUNDRED MILLIONS of heathen need TWENTY THOUSAND MISSIONARIES.

Members of a Christian family, father, mother, child, domestic, do something for all the world. What can you do? Think.

CHINESE WRITTEN LANGUAGE.

We promised our readers, in closing some brief remarks on the subject of Chinese printing in our last, to take up the subject of the written language of that extraordinary nation, more at length, in our present number. In doing this it may not be improper first to mention the circumstances which have occasioned the great increase of interest in that country, which has recently been awakened in the Christian community.

The only legally authorized communication which Christian nations can have with China is, according to the present regulations of the empire, through Canton. Twelve Chinese merchants appointed by the government, called Hong merchants, are almost the only channels through which foreigners can legally purchase and sell their goods. The seat of the traffic, too, is a small district in the suburbs of Canton, to which foreigners are almost entirely confined. Here the English, American and Portuguese residents are hemmed in, by the dense surrounding population, and scarcely permitted to go out of their narrow bounds. And even here, though it is the only spot in the celestial empire where they are permitted by

the laws to land, they can remain only a portion of the year, and are on no account permitted to bring their families. A few miles down the river and harbor, from Canton, there is a small island called Macao, under the Portuguese jurisdiction, where foreigners and their families may reside. Here, there is a considerable Frank population. The families of most of the foreign merchants reside here, and in fact it is the chief residence of all persons connected with the European and American trade. At the proper season of the year, they go up to Canton, and there, in the little suburb assigned to them, on the shore of the river, purchase their cargoes of teas, silks, and nankeens, which have been produced in remote provinces, and brought to this depot by the rivers and canals, with which the interior of the country is intersected. We must add that the Chinese Empire is under the most absolute and unconditional control of one single mind; and the population comprises about one third of the inhabitants of the globe. The whole expressed in a single statement, amounts to this, that one man presumes to shut out a third of the human race from all intercourse with the rest of the civilized world, except to allow a few merchants to land during certain seasons of the year, on a little spot, closely circumscribed, for the purpose of purchasing of twelve appointed individuals, silks, nankeen and tea.

Extraordinary as this state of things is, it is very difficult to tell, whether it is dictated, on the part of the Chinese, by wisdom or folly. The restrictions are aimed mainly against what are regarded in Asia, as two of the greatest evils which can afflict mankind, republicanism and Christianity; and so far as those nations have had any opportunity to become acquainted with these principles, we see not how they can be very justly_condemned for desiring to have nothing to do with them. They have no idea of republicanism, but through rumors of Parisian insurrections, and Christianity appears everywhere in the east covered with a red coat, and armed with artillery; or if in its intercourse with pagan nations, it assumes a peaceful garb, it goes everywhere to scatter among half civilized or barbarous natives, muskets, gunpowder and rum. In almost all pagan lands, where any communication with Christendom has existed, the natives have few means of forming any other idea of a Christian, than as a man who wears a coat and hat, instead of a blanket or a turban, who takes his principal indulgences in dissipation every seventh day, whose business is gain, and whose pleasure is drink, swearing by Jesus Christ, instead of by Mahomet, carrying a cross instead of a little

wooden god as a spell, and bowing in the ceremonies of his worship, before a picture of a mother and an infant child, or of a man suspended in crucifixion, instead of one of a double headed monster, with a dozen hands and a hundred eyes. It is not surprising that they do not see much to choose. The idea of a spiritual religion, addressing itself to the conscience and to the heart, and aiming at simple moral renewal, has probably been very seldom brought before a pagan, in consequence of any commercial intercourse with the nations of Christendom. Considering, then, what notions such a government as that of China, must necessarily have of Christianity, it is difficult to condemn the policy which has so studiously excluded it.

Under these circumstances it is plainly the duty of the real friends of Christianity, to see that the religion of Christ, is more correctly represented and understood in pagan nations. Our aim is to bring up Christianity in its true light, before these nations, to show them that it is not a religion of ceremonies, but of feeling; to bring out clearly before them the distinction between those who have in heart embraced it, and those unprincipled and vicious men, who, merely because they wear its dress, are called by its name, and then having thus brought before them its spiritual claims, to press these claims upon their consciences, urging them to repent of their sins, and to seek forgiveness and reconciliation to God.

A great and unexpected door has recently been opened for doing this in China. It is now indeed many years since protestant missionaries, at various places as near to the Chinese territories as they have been permitted to occupy, have been employed in studying the language and translating the Scriptures into it. The history of these efforts cannot now be given. It is sufficient for our present purpose to say, that the means of preparing books and tracts on the Christian religion in the Chinese language, are now in readiness to be employed with considerable facility, and to an extent limited only by the interest of Christians in their Master's service; and it has recently been found that the empire is in point of fact open to the distribution of these works. Gutzlaff, whose recent communications have excited so strong an interest, reports that on an extended voyage along the coast, he found the people everywhere eagerly desirous of receiving Christian books. He has distributed them in great numbers, and is still distributing them, and he calls loudly upon the Christian world to supply