making the necessary collections. We have had great difficuties to encounter, but these are to a great extent surmounted; and we have now got machinery in order, which will make the future working comparatively easy. The Board of Missions has also to a considerable extent conducted the correspondence with other Churches; and for the purpose of effecting this efficiently, I feel persuaded, and the Committee bave concurred with me, that it is in better accordance with the character of the office, that it should be held not by an elder, but by one of the fathers of the Church; and I therefore respectfully ask leave of the Assembly to resign the situation which I have held as Chairman of this Board, and to propose that the office shall in future be held by one of the fathers of the Church. I cannot doubt that the Assembly will accede to this, because they must see its advantage to the object to be attained; but I must also claim an indulgence for myself, not because I will cease to take the interest which I have ever done in this, and all other matters connected with the prosperity of the Church, for I think the Assembly will bear me witness that I have not, so far as my humble means went, grudged my time or energy; but the contest in which we were so long engaged has now been brought to an issue-not the issue which I and others at one time looked forward to, but an issue, I will venture to say, more glorious far than we could have anticipated, inasmuch as though a victory might have been gained over the civil government, it would not have been half so solid and glorious as the victory we have now achieved, for it has enabled us to show to the world the power and strength of gospel truth and gospel principle, in making men sacrifice their worldly means to the reality and vitality of the Christian religion. (Loud applause.) I therefore hope I may now be allowed to retire from the office of Chairman of the Board, and devote more time to my professional pursuits than I have lately been enabled to do. I rejoice to think that the course which I am about to propose is so far in accordance with the recommendation which we received from the Moderator of the last Assembly-that each person should devote his energies to that particular charge which has been intrusted to him. To my own particular department, therefore, as the legal adviser of the Free Church, I shall continue to devote myself as before. And now I shall submit to the House the individual whom I propose to them as the Chairman of the Board of Missions; and I rejoice to think that I have it in my power to name one of the most eminent individuals amongst us for that situation; he at one time filled the Chair of the Assembly, and from his piety, his amenity of disposition, his high principle, and his possession of every qualification which exemplifies and adorns the Christian character, it will be readily conceded that no one is better fitted to discharge the duties of Chairman of the Board of Missions-I mean Dr Makellar. (Loud applause.) He will be enabled to make arrangements by which he will withdraw from his present parish and congregation, in which he has so long ministered, and by removing to Edinburgh he will have it in his power to devote his time and talents to the office to which I propose he should be named. I cannot doubt that with one accord you will allow me to resign the office of Chairman of the Board of Missions, and appoint Dr Makellar to that office. (Loud applause.)

The Marquis of BREADALBANE rose, and was received with the most cordial plaudits. He said,-Moderator, we have just heard the able report drawn up and submitted to us by the excellent elder who has presided for such a length of time as Chairman of the Board of Missions. During that period, the unwearied exertions, the great devotion, and the zealous efforts which he has made in behalf of this important cause, are known to all the members of the Church. He has now offered his resignation to this Assembly, not because he shrinks from farther exertion, but because he considers it would be more advantageous and useful to the Board of Missions that a father of the Church should preside in that chair which he has so long and so ably filled; and I think the Assembly will agree with me, that we cannot allow this opportunity to pass without expressing to him our cordial thanks and gratitude for his devoted and successful exertions while he filled that situation. (Hear, hear, and applause.) I therefore move that the thanks of the Assembly be given to Mr Dunlop. (Loud applause.)

Dr MAKELLAR, after paying a compliment to Mr Dunlop, for the manner in which

he had discharged the duties of his office, expressed his willingness to undertake the duties proposed.

The MODERATOR, then addressing Mr Dunlop, said,-The task which devolves upon me is alike difficult and pleasing-pleasing, when I am called upon to address an individual whom I personally respect so highly, and difficult, when I know this individual has deserved so highly of the whole Church. The report, Sir, which you have this day brought before us, is peculiarly pleasing to our minds, for it bears out the hope which we all anticipated, that the cause of missions would not suffer on account of the disruption which has taken place. It shows that when once the charity of the Christian is awakened and cherished, and fanned by the Spirit of God, it is hard to say how far it will go. We rejoice, therefore, at the communication you have brought before us this day; at the same time, we regret deeply that we are to be deprived of your valuable services. In these services we know that you must have sacrificed much for the cause of the Church. You have been zealous, and wise, and active in the discharge of the duties to which you have been called, and through your instrumentality much good has been done in promoting those great objects for which the Church has laboured. You have, therefore, Sir, the sincerest thanks, and the best wishes of the Assembly for your past efforts; and, go where you will, their good wishes and their prayers will follow you into every situation of life in which you may be placed. We pray that the Lord may bless and keep you, vouchsafe to you the light of his countenance, and give you peace and rest. This is my prayer, and it is the prayer, I am sure, of every individual who composes this vast Assembly, that for all your efforts, and all your personal sacrifices, you may be abundantly blessed by Him who is able to bless and protect you. [The Moderator having thus communicated the thanks of the Assembly, Mr Dunlop resumed his seat amidst great applause.]

INDIA MISSIONS.

Dr GORDON, on rising, was received with great cheering. He then read the following report:

"It will not be expected that your Committee, in presenting their first report at the distance of scarcely five months from their appointment, should have any lengthened statement to make of the measures which they have adopted for carrying on the great enterprise with which you have intrusted them. Fondly hoping, as they did, that the missionaries sent out to India by the Church of Scotland, previously to the disruption, might see it to be their duty to unite themselves to the protesting and seceding portion of that Church, your Committee could take no steps in regard to foreign operations till they received official intelligence of the determination of their brethren on this point. In the mean time, while the actual disruption of the Church was not yet known in India, the monthly reports of the state and progress of the Mission at the different stations were transmitted, as usual, to the Convener of the former Committee of the General Assembly. With regard to home operations, which consist mainly in raising the necessary funds for carrying on the mission, your Committee did not think it expedient to make any direct appeal to the church at large, till the approach of the day fixed by the Assembly for the first general collection in aid of the scheme. The determination of the Assembly to make a vigorous effort for carrying on the missionary work in which the Church of Scotland had embarked, was so promptly and energetically given forth at their meeting in May, that the Christian public must have been well aware of the necessity which was soon to arise of extraordinary exertions on its behalf; and a sufficiently plain intimation was given to the friends of the cause, that their contributions in the mean time would be most acceptable. But your Committee were of opinion that their appeal to the congregations of the Free Church would be more effectual if made a short time before the general collection, especially as previous days had been fixed by the Assembly for collections in aid of other two of the schemes of the Church. Accordingly, it was only a few weeks ago, when the day fixed for the collection drew near, that they prepared and circulated an address, to be read from the pulpit on the preceding Sabbath. That address has since appeared in the Missionary Record.

"Your Committee have thus very little to report in regard to their own proceedings. But in the absence of the usual missionary intelligence, it is their privilege to record an event which not only gives a peculiar interest to the first report of your Committee, far beyond what any efforts of theirs could have given it, but which will, they believe, be long memorable in the history of your great enterprise. With unspeakable satisfaction, and, they trust, with a feeling of deep and devout gratitude to God, they have now officially to announce what they ventured in their late address to express their hope of, that ten of the thirteen missionaries in India have declared their adherence to the Free Protesting Church of Scotland. Your Committee feel that they would be doing injustice to these devoted men, were they to attempt expressing their sentiments on the great question which has terminated in their separation from the Established Church of Scotland, in any other language than their own, and would refer, therefore, to the communications which have been received from them, for a full exposition of their views on the momentous subject.

"In regard to the brethren at Bombay, their declaration of adherence to the Free Church has already been for some time before the public. It is unnecessary, therefore, to occupy the time of the Assembly in reading it, and the more so, that it is hoped the Assembly will have the gratification of hearing from the lips of Dr Wilson himself, in his own name and in that of his colleagues, an expression of their unhesitating and cordial resolution to cast in their lot with their protesting and seceding brethren at home. Your Committee cannot help regarding Dr Wilson's presence at this Assembly as one of the many providential occurrences whereby God has been graciously pleased to strengthen the hands and encourage the hearts of the Free Protesting Church of Scotland, especially in her missionary undertaking.

"Of the determination of Dr Duff and his fellow-labourers at Calcutta, the members of Assembly also have been made aware, by the publication of resolutions unanimously adopted by the five missionaries, and which your Committee lost no time in communicating to the friends of the cause through the newspapers. But your Committee cannot deny themselves the gratification of embodying in their report a letter from Dr Duff, which accompanied those resolutions, and to which they would humbly request the special attention of the Assembly, as a document alike worthy of the quarter from which it emanates, and fitted to animate and encourage those to whom it is addressed."

Dr Gordon here read a letter from the Rev. Alexander Duff, D.D., to the Convener, which we do not insert, as it will be published elsewhere.

I had entertained hopes up to this morning (continued Dr Gordon) of being able to lay before you a similar communication from Madras. But I can state that that document, come when it will, will not be behind that which I have now read. (Great cheering.) The Rev. Doctor then resumed the reading of the Report:"The business of your Committee is to report facts, not to offer comments on them. Yet they cannot help remarking that the intelligence they communicate is fitted to arrest the attention of all classes. To the Free Church, the intelligence is fraught with encouragement. But it is fitted also to suggest some very serious reflections to those friends of the missionary cause who have been opposed to us, on the ground that this question is not a religious question, and that but for the excitement produced by a long-continued controversy, the disruption might have been prevented without the sacrifice of principle on the part of any. Such persons must surely be led to reconsider the subject, by the striking fact that the missionaries of the Church of Scotland, quietly pursuing their pious labours far from the scene of controversy, have unanimously and without hesitation united themselves to their protesting brethren. The subject of the controversy has appeared in the same light to others; for your Committee are enabled to state the opinion of one of the most distinguished Christian men in Western India, D. T. Webb, Esq., Chairman of the corresponding Committee of the Bombay Mission, who, in a letter to Dr Wilson, says:"The crisis of the Church has arrived, and certainly no course but secession is open, I sincerely believe.' Your Committee cannot help believing that the determination of their brethren in India, and the expressed opinion of one

of the most enlightened, pious, and active friends of the missionary cause there, must have the effect of not only rousing into greater activity the zeal of the friends of your cause, but of impressing many who may hitherto have thought but little on the subject.

"Your Committee have only a single word to say in regard to finances. It has already been stated that no direct appeal has yet been made to the liberality of the Church; but some zealous friends of the cause have already commenced their contributions. Your Treasurer reports that, up till yesterday, he had received L.327. "And this, Moderator, is the amount of the funds with which you enter on the mighty enterprise to which you have been called. Looking to your position merely with the eye of sense, and calculating as human wisdom is wont to calculate, your Committee might be ready to sit down in despondency. But they feel assured that He who has so honoured the infant Free Church of Scotland, as to place her in the unprecedented situation of having thirteen heralds of the Cross carrying the message of salvation to the Gentiles, and half that number labouring among his ancient people the Jews, while she is almost entirely destitute of the means of maintaining such agency, will give her grace to honour Him, by confiding in his assurance that He sendeth no man a warfare on his own charges-and to her people the grace of liberality, whereby means shall be provided in abundance for meeting the present, and providing for all future, emergencies."

Dr WILSON, from Bombay, addressed the house in a long and able speech, of which our limits will only permit us to give the following brief summary.

After a few introductory sentences, the Rev. Doctor proceeded to sketch the progress of error from the time when the knowledge of God was possessed by the whole human race, that is, during the early periods of the patriarchal dispensation, until that knowledge was almost universally lost. The false faith of the Parsees, the Chaldeans, the Egyptians, Lesser Asia, and the States of Greece, and also of the Western Nations, were severally described, after which the speaker proceeded to consider the idolatrous religion of India, which he viewed chiefly as a corruption of the true faith. He also pointed out that these idolatrous systems were allied with every principle congenial with the depravity of man, and suited to every variety of temperament and circumstances of life. When we see that man has so fearfully forgotten and departed from God, how could we of ourselves anticipate that all the "ends of the world shall remember and turn to the Lord." And yet this is a truth which is directly announced in the sacred page. In virtue of its declarations, he called upon every believer in divine revelation, confidently to expect the conversion of the world, and in particular to believe that India, where Satan's throne has been so long set, where God has been so signally dishonoured, and where the human race has been so long left to the endurance of woe, should remember and turn unto the Lord. But we had not only the testimony of the word of God to assure our faith. Primitive Hindooism had been weakened by the predominance of Buddhism for many centuries, and its ancient alliances disturbed by the conquest and rule of the false prophet of Mecca: and now the occupation of India by our own nation had placed it nearer the heart of Britain, and it was comparatively an easy matter to hope for its regeneration. Dr Wilson then combated the false notion that we are to look for the evangelization of the world, without specific evangelistic endeavours, showing that the whole train of prophecy spoke of it as resulting from an extension of the means of grace. He then directed the attention of the Assembly to the example of our Lord and his apostles, and pointed out some of the facilities existing for the introduction of the gospel into India.

I. The principal means of propagating the gospel, which were used by our Lord and his apostles, were conversation, discussion, and public preaching, among all classes of men to whom they could find access, and in all situations in which they could be advantageously practised. These should occupy a prominent place in all our endeavours to advance the Redeemer's cause, and in India they should be particularly resorted to; because, owing to its subjection to a Christian nation, and the attainments and habits of the people, peculiar facilities are enjoyed for bringing them into beneficial operation. From the mountains of Himalaya on the north, to

the Cape of Comorin on the south, and from the coral cliffs on the west, to "Ganges" golden wave" on the east, the missionary may lift up his voice and plead the cause of Jehovah, and proclaim his infinite love in the gift of his Son, and the offer of the blessings of redemption, while none dare to make him afraid. Hundreds and thousands, both of the learned and unlearned, both of the rich and the poor, both of the mean and the mighty, will be found ready to listen to his instructions, and to make them the subject of curious and friendly conference, or of ardent discussion; and be will find the population in general by no means unqualified to understand, and in some degree to feel, the solemn truths which he may be called to announce. Many of the circumstances which have so long preserved Hindooism, and given to it a dignity in the eyes of the people, will, under a Christian agency, serve to destroy it. The people of India have more copious elements of religious thought and speech, though in a sadly disordered state, than those of most infidel nations; and the Sanskrit, from which almost all their religious terms are derived, is the most powerful in its vocables and grammatical forms of all the languages ever current on the face of the globe. They can learn more from a single discourse than can be imagined by those who have not witnessed them eagerly pressing around, or breathlessly hanging on the lips of the Christian preacher. The very opposition of the tenets of our true and holy faith to their monstrous and polluting superstitions, secures the remembrance of them, when they are propounded, to a degree seldom exhibited among partially educated Christians, who give little attention to doctrines to which they have been long accustomed to give only an indolent assent. The polytheist understands the proposition that there is only one God; his reason is compelled to assent to the arguments by which this essential truth is so clearly established; and his conscience, feeble though it be in its utterance, declares his own condemnation. The pantheist understands the declaration that God is distinct from his works; and the appeals which are made to his ignorance, sin, and suffering, compel him to doubt the identity of his own soul with the Supreme Mind, and arouse the fears of the coming day, when his soul will be exposed before his Maker, in all its nakedness, and with all its responsibilities, its guilt, and its impurity. The idolater can be made to understand the vanity of the stocks and stones, and seldom after bearing it proclaimed can he kneel before them with his former confidence and veneration. The legends of the Hindoos respecting various incarnations, though surpassing in every particular the boundaries of sober belief, nay, of ordinary excited fancy, enable them to comprehend the terms which are employed, when the "great mystery of godliness, God manifest in the flesh," is the subject of discourse. Their penances, while they suppose the existence of guilt, can be shown to be unsuited to the end which they profess to have in view. Their ablutions, indicating the existence of moral impurity, can easily be demonstrated to be inefficacious for the removal of the defilement of the soul. Their belief in births and transmigrations prepares the way for the doctrine of regeneration by the Divine Spirit. No laborious processes are required to make them understand the letter of the law or the gospel, though nothing short of Divine influence, I allow, can make them feel either the condemning power of the one, or the peace and comfort which the other speaks. Great effects, I am more and more persuaded, would follow a general announcement of the fundamental truths of Christianity, either by native converts, or by European missionaries, through the length and breadth of that great country. Continued, animated discourse in the vernacular languages of the people will never fail to awaken their attention and sympathy. I myself can most unhesitatingly give you the strongest personal testimony on this subject. My esteemed and honoured fellow-labourers, Mr Mitchell of Puna, and Messrs Nesbit and Murray Mitchell of Bombay, and myself, have traversed nearly the whole extent of the Maharashtra, or Great Country-for this is its meaning-preaching the glad news of salvation; and everywhere we have met with attentive and interested auditors. I myself, in the providence of God, have been led to extend my ministry much beyond this locality-which, I may observe in passing, comprises a population of seven millions of souls. I have declared the doctrine of the Cross in three languages, the Máráthí, Hindustani, and Gujaráthí, from the Shiravati in Canara to Sirowi in Rajputana, and from Bombay to Berar, and every