new topics, and clothes old ones in fresh interest. Some of the missions of the society are established in regions teeming with ancient cherished associations, or with present absorbing political revolutions. It has reporters at Athens, at the seat of the Ottoman power, in the heart of the new Egyptian dynasty, and on the confines of the mighty empires of Eastern Asia. The anniversary of the Board presents one single object before the community. The interest in its proceedings is not lost, or diminished, by the claims of other kindred objects, as would be the case, if its annual festival were holden in May. In consequence, the public press circulates a much more extended account of its proceedings and report. We give the following synopsis of the results of the past year.

"The Board has at present under its care 22 missions, viz. to Greece, Constantinople, Syria, the Jews, Bombay, Ceylon, Siam, China, the Indian Archipelago, the Sandwich islands, Patagonia, the Cherokees west of the Mississippi, the Choctaws, the Creeks, the Osages, the Stockbridges, Mackinaw, the Ojibe ways, Maumee, and Indians in New York. These missions include 60 stations, 83 ordained missionaries, 6 physicians not ordained, 6 printers, 26 other assistant missionaries, 126 females, 4 native preachers, 46 native assistants; making 247 laborers in the gospel sent from this country, and 50 native preachers and assistants; which make a total of 297.

"Of these, 48 persons have been sent out the last year; viz. 19 ordained missionaries, 2 physicians, 2 printers, and 25 other assistants. The churches connected with, and formed by these missions, are in number 37, and contain 1,704 communicants gathered from the heathen. The scholars connected with schools belonging to these missions, are about 50,000. The presses belonging to the Board, last year issued nearly 7,500,000 pages of the word of God, and other religious matter. Since the first establishment of these presses, they have printed for missionary purposes 68,000,000 of pages. The Board is about to commence immediately new missions in western and eastern Africa, in the islands of Crete and Cyprus in the Mediteranean, at Broosa in Asia Minor, and in Persia. Several others are in contemplation on the eastern continent, and among the American Indians.

"The receipts of the Board during the past year, have exceeded those of the preceding year by $15,270 65; and have amounted to $145,844 77; which added to the balance in the treasury at the commencement of the year, gave $152,522 41 of funds at the disposal of the Committee during the year. Of this sum there have been expended in prosecuting the various objects of the Board, $149,906 27; leaving in the treasury of disposal funds, at the close of the past

financial year, on the first of August last, $2,616 14. In addition to the disbursements just stated, there have passed through the treasury of the Board, from the American Bible Society, $5,000, to aid the Bombay mission in printing the Scriptures in the Mahratta language; $500, to aid the Sandwich islands mission in printing the Scriptures in the Hawaiian language; and $300, to aid in printing the Scriptures in Cherokee ;-from the Philadelphia Bible Society, $1,500, to aid in printing the Hawaiian Scriptures ;-from the American Tract Society, $6,000, to aid in printing tracts at Bombay, Ceylon, China, the Sandwich islands, and in the Mediterranean;-and from other sources, for Bibles and Tracts, $120: making the sum total of $17,920; and the total disbursements of the Society $167,826 27.”

On the Sabbath evening following the meeting of the Board, the instructions of the prudential committee were given to the Rev. John L. Wilson, who is about to embark on an exploring tour into Western Africa. The document was read by Mr. Anderson, one of the secretaries of the Board, and contains some striking remarks. The value of life is to be measured not in years and days, but by the amount of enlarged thought and effective labor expended in behalf of an unenlightened world.

"That life is long, which answers life's great end.' Time-what is it? In respect to matter, it measures the revolutions of worlds round their axes and through their orbs. But in respect to man, time is the indicator of the number of his thoughts, and feelings, and actions. Time seems long or short to every man, in proportion to the number of these; and so it is. That man lives longest, whose intellect and heart are most instinct with being, and who puts forth the greatest number of actions. And he lives to the best purpose, whose thoughts, feelings, and actions, all tend most to render the gospel effectual to the salvation of men. Whose life is longer, when meas

ured by such a standard, and whose is more desirable, than was that of Brainerd, or Martyn, or Mills; though neither of them saw half the number of days allotted to human existence on earth? How short, too, were the life and ministry of Jesus Christ; and yet, in another, and juster view, how long! Not to prolong life to the utmost did He aim; but to accomplish by sufferings and by death, the object for which he came into the world; and such an object accomplished, swells his short life into a kind of infinitude. And the value of an existence on earth is to be enhanced in the same manner as was his. Let the soul be filled with the same grand designs, which occupied the attention of the Son of God on earth; and then will thought and feeling of a kindred nature be awakened, and crowd the mind-time will be filled with thought and feeling; and

every moment, fraught with spiritual life, will dilate itself along the scale of immortality; so that we shall have accomplished much for God, and attained to a ripe old age, and be in readiness to die, when the sluggish man, of the same number of years, is, as it were, in the very infancy of his being."

The force of the following paragraph will be appreciated by those who have read the narratives of Humboldt, Bonpland, or Franklin.

"Whatever be the result of this mission in respect to yourself, let it be remembered, that the sacrifices made by you and your friends, the privations and hardships to which you will be subjected, and the dangers you will have to encounter, and which appear so formidable to many, are extraordinary only in the history of missions. In the history of commerce and of science, they are common and familiar scenes. Almost a century since, de la Condamine and Bouguer spent six months in a desert of South America, near the equator, contending day and night with incessant rains, that they might measure an arc of the meridian; while Maupertuis, in pursuit of the same object, thought nothing of the bleak and snowy precipices of Norway. What contempt of sufferings and danger has been evinced by the explorers of a north-western passage! How many privations, and sufferings unto death, have been cheerfully endured in Africa itself, to solve the problems of the Nile, and of the Niger! From what part of the world, and by what amount of privation and peril, is commerce deterred from sending her missionaries for exploration and for traffic? From none. All along the coast of Guinea you will find them, and plying to and fro in steam vessels upon the Niger. Commerce has no difficulty in procuring her missionaries for any portion of the earth; and even now they are going forth into all the world. Let the missionary of the cross go where he will, he will find that they have preceded him. Let him experience any amount of bodily sufferings; and it may probably be found that they have already experienced the same or greater sufferings, among the same people. It is lamentable that the church should make so much of personal sacrifices, endured for the glory of Christ and the salvation of men, when the world accounts them so little, endured for the sake of wealth or fame."

The Colonization Society of the State of Maryland, is about to establish a new colony on the coast of Africa, at cape Palmas. This cape is on the western coast, in north latitude 4° 30', being four degrees south of Sierra Leone, and nearly two degrees south of Liberia. The cape is included in the windward coast. This coast the English seamen have divided into three coasts, the Grain, Ivory,

and Kakoo. The Grain coast comprehends all the region between cape Mount, near Liberia, and cape Palmas. This coast produces abundance of rice, yams, and manioc. The cotton and indigo of the country are of the first quality. The articles for which Europeans have hitherto visited it, are malaguette, pepper, redwood, and ivory. The inhabitants are said to be excellent boatmen. Dr. Hall, who is to take charge of the emigrants, has visited the cape for the recovery of his health, and speaks in high terms of its salubriousness and other advantages. The first emigrants will be from twenty to thirty in number, all pledged to total abstinence in respect to the use or traffic in ardent spirits. They will devote themselves almost exclusively to agriculture. It is intended to use the utmost precaution in respect to the admission of improper emigrants. It is obvious that the colony will be established under very favorable auspices, having for its use, all the experience of the Liberian colony. If the latter should accomplish no other purpose than to show the practicability of the scheme, its title to our gratitude would be very great. We are happy to say that the board of managers of the Maryland society seem to be animated by an excellent spirit. Some of them, particularly Messrs. Harper, Latrobe, and Sheppard, have long been interested in the subject. It will be, recollected that the ultimate abolition of slavery in Maryland is the design of these efforts.

A convention of the friends of temperance has been lately held in Worcester, Mass. Every part of the State was fully represented, about 500 delegates being present. The governor of the State, Levi Lincoln, presided. The same course in general was taken which was adopted by the late national convention, and which has been attended by such salutary consequences. One of the most prominent difficulties in the way of the temperance reformation in Massachusetts, is the license-system. A board of county commissioners, formed principally for the regulation of roads and highways, have a supervisory power over the selectmen or government of a town; and if the latter body refuse to grant licenses, or do not license so many persons as "the public good" seems to require, the commissioners kindly set the matter right by granting the required indulgence. The law evidently needs a reform in this particular. If we must yet be cursed with a system, which is the cause of three fourths of our pauper-taxes, lawsuits, strifes, and horrid crimes, let every town have full power to keep its own borders pure; let no county commissioners nullify the acts of a town. We are cheered with the hope that the day is not far distant, when the statute laws of Massachusetts shall have nothing to do with 'regulating murder,' as Burke

said of the slave-trade. A masterly examination of this subject will be found in the sixth report of the American Temperance Society. We learn that petitions will be presented to the next congress for the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia. The number of slaves in this territory in 1830 was 6,060, and of free colored persons, 6,163. The number of free white persons was 27,635. The number of slaves in 1820, was 6,377; so it seems that there has been a diminution of more than 200 in ten years. It was stated two or three years since, we do not know on what authority, that a majority of the white inhabitants of the District, including some of the judges of the courts, were in favor of the passage of a law, fixing a time when slavery should cease. It is a notorious fact, that the jails of the District have been burdened with slaves, brought there as into safe receptacles, till they could be satisfactorily disposed of in the market. We are not aware than any impediments to abolition exist in the conditions on which the cession of the district was made by the States of Maryland and Virginia to the United States. The principal objection, which arises in our minds to the measure, is the aspect which it may assume in respect to the abolition of slavery in the States over which neither congress nor the free States have any control. Notwithstanding, we think the measure is eminently desirable. That District, of all other places on earth, should be pure from the contamination of slavery. The whole country have an interest in its prosperity, and through congress, have the entire business of its legislation intrusted to their keeping.

We are sorry to say that the ravages of the cholera have been very melancholy in the western States. Some of the most valuable members of society have been swept into eternity. We are happy to add that the pestilence has now nearly ceased. We have seen no attempt to account for its reappearance, and its indiscriminating virulence. New Orleans, in addition to the cholera, has been laid waste with the yellow fever. That is truly a city of death. Cannot some decided measures be taken to investigate thoroughly the causes of the maladies, which are constantly sending a thrill of sorrow into every portion of the Union. It seems to us that some determined effort ought to be adopted by the authorities more especially interested, to give the city and surrounding country a general lustration, physical and moral. The climate must operate as a serious embarrassment to the commercial prosperity of the city.

West Indies.

In connection with these islands, we may appropriately introduce the following condensed statement of the labors of the United