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confessed, that he never could altogether forget Brown's prayer." Pp. 516

-519.

Let these examples suffice. They are pictures of the twin-sisters Popery and Prelacy. They tell us, moreover, that it is not imagination that has drawn the picture, nor enmity that has coloured it, but that it is from the sober tale of faithful history that we and our fathers have learned the features of these persecuting agencies, misnamed Churches of Christ.

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True, these tales belong to the seventeenth century, yet they are full of instruction and warning for the nineteenth. What has been, may be. Nay, what has been is likely to be again; we know not how soon, if God's preventing mercy spare us not. It is well to be timeously warned. Before wierd there's word,' says an old proverb. The wierd may be coming, and God is sending us the word. He is forewarning, and thereby forearming us. He is telling us to try the spirits,-to put no confidence in a dotard hierarchy, pluming itself on apostolic succession as the substitute for holiness, and morality, and all Christian virtues, and as an excuse for the exhibition of the opposite of all these. It may be that the keeping of these scenes of other days before the public eye, and comparing them with the germs of similar ones beginning to shoot forth among ourselves, may open some eyes. It may be that the comparison of the scenes and principles of the seventeenth with the scenes and principles of the nineteenth, may serve the cause of truth and righteousness, as well as aid in calling forth public abhorrence and indignation against rising error and superstition, the precursors of a bloody persecution. By bringing forward the events of a former age in connection with the various ecclesiastical movements in our day, we may do something towards smothering a little and retarding for a while the rising spirit of the antichristian confederacy which is already beginning to muster, and will, as the shadows of the world's dull evening close over us, draw together into still more overpowering strength and numbers, till all that has been written aforetime concerning the mighty adversary of the last days has come to pass, and this wasted world hear the song of victorious battle over the last enemy of the saints, the song of final deliverance from the oppression of the serpent's seed, Rejoice over her thou heaven, and ye holy apostles and prophets, for God hath avenged you on her for in her was found the blood of prophets, and of saints, and of all that were slain upon the earth.'

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ART. VII.-1. Thoughts on the Importance of Raising up a
New Order of Missionaries. New York, 1838.

2. Statements respecting Hospitals in China. By Rev. PETER
PARKER, M.D., Medical Missionary of the American Board of
Foreign Missions in China. Glasgow, 1842.

3. The Nestorians: or, the Lost Tribes. By ASAHEL GRANT, M.D. London, 1841.

4. Transactions and Reports of the Syrian Medical-Aid Association. London, 1843.

5. Address to Students of Medicine at the Scottish Universities. By the Edinburgh Association for sending Medical Aid to Foreign Countries. Edinburgh, 1842.

In the latest communication from Dr Duncan, the devoted missionary to the Jews, in which he mentions the very hopeful case of a young Jewish inquirer, a student of medicine at Pesth, it is remarked,—' few have such opportunities of doing good as medical men who are true and decided Christians.' This is the expression of an opinion which is current amongst all classes of intelligent Christian men; and yet, it requires but a small amount of knowledge of the existing state of society to be assured that the opportunities referred to are but rarely appreciated, more rarely still taken advantage of; while the responsibility imposed by them upon all professors of the healing art, who have been privileged to attain to the saving knowledge of Christ and him crucified, is but little regarded. Surely it ought not so to be. Talents so precious as those of the moral influence of the physician, and intercourse with perishing souls in the very crisis of their being, are certainly amongst those of which a special account will be required hereafter. But, although only a small proportion of medical men appear to aim at the consecration of their acquirements and opportunities of usefulness to the service of their Divine Master, it is obvious that the numbers of such is on the increase; and the Church is now presented with the animating spectacle of men of great acquirements devoting all their energies, under the constraining influence of the love of Christ, to the dispensing, in very various regions of the globe, of the benefits of modern medical and surgical science amongst people ignorant of these, and literally perishing for lack of knowledge, for the very purpose of conveying to their souls the better blessings of the gospel. Happy are they who, having been stirred up to consider the good gifts of God which are in them, endeavour in this way to use them to His glory.

If any other motive than simple obedience to our Lord's com

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mand to do good as we have opportunity, be required to induce us to regard it as a duty to combine the healing of the sick with the preaching of the gospel, it may be found in the obvious fact, that in his intercourse with the sick of heathen countries, the Christian physician has the same opportunities for doing good in every way, but especially by commending God's message of mercy to the attention and acceptance of his patients, that he has at home; and that, by winning their hearts through the successful exercise of his professional skill, he speedily acquires a great moral influence over their minds, most favourable to the sowing of the seeds of divine truth. This has been recognised and acted upon to a certain extent, in all ages of the Christian dispensation. Ever since the days of the apostles, there have been some who were led by the Holy Spirit of love to follow the example of their blessed Lord, in doing good to the bodies, while they aimed at saving the souls, of their fellow men. In the early ages of the Church, the clergy were the chief physicians; but, as society advanced in civilization, its wants called into being a distinct order, whose attention was wholly given to the treatment of bodily disease. Doubtless, most of these practitioners of medicine and surgery were unfriendly to vital godliness; and, indeed, to such an extent did they oppose the cause of truth by their sneers and scoffings, that their infidelity became quite proverbial. Nevertheless there were always some amongst them who gloried only in the cross of Christ, and boldly witnessed for the good cause in the course of their professional labours. The Jesuit missionaries, so wise in their generation,' largely availed themselves of the influence of medical skill in their extensive operations for the diffusion of their principles, both in the west and in the east; and it is commonly believed that they owed much of their success in Asia to the use they made of this agency.

When the missionary spirit was awakened in the Protestant Church in the course of the last century, it might have been expected that some of the missionaries would have felt themselves constrained to follow the example of the apostles; and, to the best of their ability, to have endeavoured to heal the sick, while they testified of the things concerning the kingdom of heaven. But it does not appear that this was the case, except to a very limited extent. Few, if any, fully educated physicians entered the missionary field; only the evangelists attempted to make the best use they could of such ordinary acquaintance with medicine as they happened to possess. Latterly, some of the great missionary institutions of this and other countries enjoined upon all their agents in the course of their preparatory studies, to endeavour to obtain some acquaintance with medicine and surgery; and this with a view both to their becoming mutually serviceable, while co-operating in bar

barous countries, and to their doing good as opportunity offered, to the poor objects of their beneficent spiritual labour.

In 1822, Mr Douglas strongly urged the importance of a more efficient trial being made of the services of thoroughly educated medical men as auxiliaries to missionaries. In his valuable treatise— 'Hints on Missions,' he says:- If, with scientific attainments, missionaries combined the profession of physic, it would be attended with many advantages; for there is something suspicious in a foreigner remaining long in a country without an openly-defined object. The character of a physician has always been highly honoured in the east, and would give an easy and unsuspected admission to a familiar intercourse with all classes and creeds.'

He who is a physician is pardoned for being a Christian; religious and national prejudices disappear before him; all hearts and harems are opened; and he is welcomed as if he were carrying to the dying the elixir of immortality. He, more than any one else, possesses the mollia tempora fandi.'

Acting on such views, the American Board of Foreign Missions began, about twelve years ago, to employ Christian medical men as fellow-labourers with their missionaries in Asia; and the general impression on the minds of those who have witnessed the effects of such agency, has been so favourable, that a gradual extension of the system has taken place; and now, it would appear, no missionestablishment is regarded as being supplied with its proper complement, if there be not attached to it, at least, one physician. But, even before this movement on the part of our American brethren, the way for such missionary operations was opened up in China by the benevolent labours of Dr Livingston and Mr Colledge, two British surgeons, who established small hospitals for the benefit of the poor Chinese at Macao; the one in 1820, the other in 1827. To these institutions, the sick, the maimed, and the blind, resorted in crowds, and thus the best opportunities were obtained for declaring unto them the words of eternal life. The ground, thus broken, was subsequently, in 1835, entered by Dr Parker from America, by whom it was most zealously, and, apparently, successfully cultivated. A great sensation was quickly produced, not only in Canton, where Dr Parker's first ophthalmic hospital was established, but throughout the whole empire; so that patients, of all ranks, flocked to it from all quarters. A medical missionary society was now instituted at Canton for the purpose of supplying hospitals, in which missionary physicians might ply their labours; a large hospital was forthwith opened at Macao, and placed under the charge of Mr Lockhart, surgeon, sent out by the London Missionary Society. He was soon joined by Dr B. Hobson, also from this country. These gentlemen were obliged to abandon their spheres of labour for a

time during the war; but they found sufficient occupation at Chusan, and returned whenever peace was restored. They have since been joined by Mr Cumming, surgeon, from the United States, who is likely to be stationed at Amoy. The latest accounts intimate the opening of an hospital at Hong Kong, and the continued success of the missionary physicians at Macao.

It was with the view of his joining this band of devoted men, that Dr Kalley was engaged, in 1839, by the London Missionary Society. The providence of God, however, so ordered it, that he did not reach China, but was detained (in consequence of the state of his wife's health) at Madeira; where, as a medical missionary, his labours have been so very abundant, and so signally blessed, that the most bitter hostility has been excited against him amongst the enemies of the truth; and very lately he has been cast into prison, charged only with blasphemy, and abetting heresy and apostacy. These violent proceedings supply the best possible proof of the efficiency with which Dr Kalley has been enabled to hold forth the light of truth in the midst of the darkness of papal superstition by which he is surrounded. There is every reason to believe that his successful medical practice amongst the poor of the island was mainly instrumental in preparing the way for the remarkable effects produced by his preaching; and of his own assurance that this was the case, he has given strong evidence by continuing the former, even after the latter had appeared; so that it was while in the very act of prescribing for his patients in the hospital, that he was laid hold of by the emissaries of the civil power, and conveyed to jail.

It is obvious that Dr Kalley's usefulness as a missionary, and the persecution by which this has been so honourably proved and proclaimed to the world, must together attract the attention of the church at large, in a particular manner, to the subject of medical missions. We are therefore strongly urged to take it up, and propose now to examine it in a few of its most prominent features, to commend it to the attention of our readers, and to suggest the adoption of this valuable agency as an addition to the means of Christian usefulness employed (through the divine blessing so successfully) by that section of the church with which we are con

nected.

We are certainly indebted to the American missionaries for the best illustrations which have hitherto been given of the advantages of combining medical, with evangelical, missions; and amongst these, we must refer particularly to the labours of Dr Asahel Grant amongst the Nestorians. The admirable and deeply interesting work, published two years ago by Dr Grant, in which he attempted to prove that the Nestorian Christians are descendants of the lost tribes of Israel, contains many proofs

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