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cieties be established on a limited scale. We can educate only the few, and they must educate the many. Our pupils, as far as possible, should be select, and selected with some regard to the ulterior employment of the most promising of them as helpers in the mission. Our schools should be model schools. They should be nurseries of teachers. They should be introductory to the higher seminary, and preparatory to it. The preached gospel must at all events be sustained, and the number of schools should be regulated by the means placed at the disposal of the society, and the balance remaining of what is appropriated to the mission, after providing for the support of its preaching members. Still I must doubt,-if missionaries are not to be mere itinerants, if they are to have a fixed residence and operate within the bounds of some one district,-whether the church has any right to insist upon their laboring wholly without schools; or, in other words, without a system of means in operation around them for rearing up native helpers and successors in their work. Do the Scriptures confer any such right on the churches? Do they impose any such obligation on the missionary? Had missionaries the power of conferring supernatural gifts by the laying on of their hands, as the apostles and some of their associates had, the case would be very different.

5. While I assert the legitimate use of schools as one of the means of propagating the gospel in foreign missions, and while I maintain the right of missionaries to be furnished with them to a certain extent, I would suggest a general rule in relation to their establishment; having respect in this rule to the average amount of funds which experience has shown may be relied on by missionary societies, and the proportionate demand which will be made on these for sending forth and supporting preachers of the gospel. The rule is this ;- That the system of education, in all its parts, so far as it is supported by the funds of the mission, should have a direct reference to the training up of native teachers and preachers. To this, in the smaller missions, and also in the less concentrated missions, there must be exceptions. A liberal construction should always be given to it. In some missions, as among the Tamul people of Ceylon and South India, the rule itself may require a considerable number of schools ;- to awaken attention, give tone to the public mind with respect to education, furnish a better selection, give importance to the subject in the view of the select pupils, open a field for the occasional trial of their powers while pursuing their studies, and strengthen their motives to arrive at

high attainments. Still, whatever scope is allowed for the exercise of discretion in arranging and managing the details of the system, there will be a great practical advantage in having the one definite object proposed by this rule. And it is a question, whether missions themselves ought not to be established, organized, and prosecuted with more reference to the same end. Are not many of our missions modelled as they should be, if our object and expectation were to furnish a full supply of preachers from Christendom for all the nations of the heathen world, now and for ages to come; and as they should not be, if our object be to imitate the apostles by throwing the great amount of permanent labor upon converted natives, and introducing what the Holy Spirit may be expected to make a selfsustaining, self-propagating Christianity?

The plan suggested would involve a seminary of a higher order in each considerable mission, which would receive pupils from the preparatory schools, and conduct them through a course of liberal education more or less protracted. These seminaries should be commenced on a small scale, and enlarged no faster than shall be necessary. They should combine the college and the school of theology. The notion that instruction in the principles of human science must precede the study of theology, is derived from the schools of philosophy, and is not countenanced by the word of God. The plain, simple theology of the Scriptures can be taught to youth, and even to heathen youth, in every stage of their education. The institutions should be eminently missionary institutions. The whole course of education, from beginning to end, should be christian. It should be no part of the object of these seminaries to educate natives for the law, nor for medicine, nor for civil affairs, nor for trade, except so far as this will directly promote the legiti mate objects of the missions with which they are connected. The course of instruction should be planned with a view to raising up, through the blessing of God, an efficient body of native helpers in the several departments of missionary labor-to be teachers of schools, catechists, tutors and professors in the seminaries, and, above all, preachers of the gospel, pastors of the native churches, and missionaries to the neighboring heathen districts and countries. For this purpose the seminaries should be furnished with competent teachers, and with all necessary books and apparatus, and a press should generally be in their neighborhood.*

* See a Statement of Principles, on which missionary Seminaries

These missionary seminaries will be as really subordinate to the preaching of the gospel, as are the theological seminaries of our own country. If we teach in them, and in so doing turn aside in any degree from the formal ministry of the word, it will be that we may multiply teachers and ministers of the word. Our object will be the more effectually to plant those instrumentalities, which, with God's blessing, will secure for the gospel a permanent footing and constant increase in heathen countries.

Our protracted discussion now draws to its conclusion. We should not forget, however, to glance at the claims of education among the oriental churches. The oriental churches are the Coptic, Syriac, Greek and Armenian, and they number about six millions of souls. The Copts are found in Egypt; the Syrians, in Syria, Mesopotamia, the mountains of Koordistan, and on the western shore of Hindoostan; the Greeks, in Greece, European Turkey and Asia Minor. Many of the Arabs in Syria are of the Greek church; and so is the Georgian nation, living at the northern base of Mount Caucasus, between the Black and Caspian Seas. The country of the Armenians lies between Asia Minor and Persia, but the Armenians are a commercial people widely scattered. About a hundred thousand Maronites on Mount Lebanon, and nine thousand for each of the sects above mentioned, are converts to papacy. These are relics of the churches planted by the apostles. To them were first given the oracles of God, and from them emanated the light of the glorious gospel which shines upon us. "But in treading over again the tracks of the apostles," says the Rev. Mr. Smith, "I have sought in vain for an individual that now breathes the spirit of Jesus, unless he had borrowed it from a foreign source."* I shall content myself with affirming, that the state of education and intelligence is much lower now, in the countries where the oriental churches are found, than it was in the apostolical times. Even if it were not, regarding education as taking the place of miraculous gifts, and as our only means of raising up teachers and preachers, it is to be numbered among the legitimate objects of modern missions to these churches. The necessity for schools sustained by missionary should be reared, in the Appendix to the 28th (last) Annual Report of the A. B. C. F. Missions, p. 151–155.

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• Missionary Sermons and Addresses, p. 223.

societies, is, however, less urgent among the oriental Christians, than in heathen nations; and recent indications encourage the belief, that we may pretty easily and without great expense "provoke" those churches to do far more than they are now doing in the way of self-instruction.

Thus the case stands. Apostolical usage has been urged upon us to exclude the use of education from our missions, only because the immense difference in our circumstances has been overlooked. It has been forgotten that their missions were to the most civilized nations of the world, and that ours (I speak not only of those to pagans) are to the least civilized; that theirs were to a people comparatively educated and refined, and ours are to a people uneducated, and to a great extent barbarian, and even savage; that miraculous gifts were conferred by the Holy Ghost upon their gentile converts, so that the churches might be promptly and effectually supplied with pastors and teachers, while notwithstanding the present intellectual degradation of heathen nations, Infinite Wisdom no longer sees it best to bestow such gifts. Thus far the comparison is against us; but now the tables turn. We have a knowledge of the world such as they had not; facilities for travelling far exceeding theirs; paper, printing-presses, printed books, where they had only the papyrus, parchment, the written page, and the voluminous and costly manuscript. In these circumstances, so diverse from those of the apostles, why demand of us that we use no means for publishing the gospel except what they used? Are not means and opportunities talents to be employed-providential gifts bestowed upon us with special reference to the advancement of God's kingdom of grace on earth? Why, when the Head of the church bids us go into all the world, and has provided for us rail-roads, and steam-boats, and the thousand improvements in modern navigation, should we go on foot, or venture out to sea, without compass, or quadrant, in some "ship of Alexandria ?" Why, when he bids us make known the gospel to every creature, should we depend only on the living voice and the manuscript? Why should we not avail ourselves of the progress of mind, of art, of science? Is it said, that means are nothing in themselves, that the power which must accomplish the work is of God, and that an extended array of instrumentalities has a tendency to make us rely on them and forget his power? This is all true. But did Paul do less because his planting was rather by itself, and God must give

the increase? Did he not exert all his strength, and plant and water, and become all things to all men, and put into requisition every possible means to save them? Unquestionably he did; and so should we. Creation, education, grace, and providence go to make up the degree of our accountability. Still it is a precious truth, that we are no less dependent on the influences of the Holy Spirit, than the apostles were. None of our plans will succeed, none of our efforts prosper, without his influences. Go where we will, if the Holy Spirit go not with us, our missions, however vigorously prosecuted, will fail. Missionaries and their directors and patrons have not felt this dependence enough. There is no danger of feeling it too much. When weak in ourselves, we are strong in God. But faith is not the only grace we are to exercise. We must practise obedience. We must act, as well as believe. Looking unto Jesus, we must do with our might whatsoever our hand findeth to do, for the honor of his name and the advancement of his cause on earth.

ARTICLE VI.

REASONS FOR THE STUDY OF THE HEBREW LANGUAGE.*

By B. B. Edwards, Professor of Hebrew, Theological Seminary, Andover.

THE Sixth Article of the Constitution of this Seminary prescribes, that under the head of Sacred Literature shall be included "Lectures on the formation, preservation and transmission of the sacred volume; on the languages in which the Bible was originally written; on the Septuagint version of the Old Testament, and on the peculiarities of the language and style of the New Testament, resulting from this version and other causes; on the history, character, use, and authority of the versions and manuscripts of the Old and New Testaments; on the canons of biblical criticism; on the authority of the several books of the sacred code; on the apocryphal books of both Testaments, on modern translations of the Bible, more par

* This Article was delivered by the writer as an Inaugural Address, January 18, 1838, in the Chapel of the Theological Seminary. It is now published in compliance with the wishes of some persons who heard it.

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