government then became apparent, and you proceeded to Ava, to plead the cause of toleration before the Emperor. Your second attempt was successful, and permission was granted to preach the gospel in the capital itself. But how inscrutable are the ways of Providence! Your labors had just commenced, when a British army took possession of Rangoon, and you and your fellow-laborer, the late Dr. Price, were cast into a loathsome dungeon and loaded with chains. For nearly two years, you suffered all that barbarian cruelty could inflict; and to the special interposition of God alone, is it to be ascribed that your imprisonment was not terminated by a violent death. On you, more than any other missionary of modern times, has been conferred the distinction of suffering for Christ. Your limbs have been galled with fetters, and you have tracked with bleeding feet the burning sands between Ava and Amarapoora. With the apostle of the Gentiles you may say, "Henceforth let no man trouble me; I bear in my body the scars of the Lord Jesus." Yet even here God did not leave you comfortless. He had provided an angel to minister to your wants; and when her errand was accomplished, took her to Himself and the Hopia-tree marks the spot whence her spirit ascended. From prison and

from chains, God, in his own time, delivered you, and made your assistance of special importance in negotiating a treaty of peace between these two nations, one of whom had driven you from her shores, and the other had inflicted upon you every cruelty but death.

Since this period, the prime of your life has been spent in laboring to bless the people who had so barbarously persecuted you. Almost all the Christian literature in their language has proceeded from your pen; your own hand has given to the nation the oracles of God, and opened to the millions now living, and to those that shall come after them to the end of time, the door of everlasting life. That mysterious providence which shut you out from Burmah proper, has introduced you to the Karens — a people who seem to have preserved, from remote antiquity, the knowledge of the true God, and who were waiting to receive the message of his Son. To them you, and those who have followed in your footsteps, have made known the Saviour of the world, and they by thousands have flocked to the standard of the cross.

After years spent in unremitted toil, the providence of God has brought you to be present with us at this important crisis. We sympathize with you in all the sorrows of your painful

voyage. May God sustain you in your sore bereavement, and cause even this mysterious dispensation to work out for you a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory.

of

How changed is the moral aspect of the world since you first entered upon your labors. Then, no Pagan nation had heard the name of Christ from American lips; at present, churches of Christ, planted by American benevolence, are springing up in almost every heathen nation. The shores of the Mediterranean, the Islands of the sea, the thronged cities and the wild jungles of India, are resounding with the high praises of God, in strains first taught by American missionaries. The nation that drove you from her shores has learned to foster the messenger the cross, with parental solicitude. You return to your native land, whence you were suffered to depart almost without her blessing, and you find that the missionary enterprise has kindled a flame that can never be quenched, in the heart of the universal church, and that every Christian and every philanthropist comes forward to tender to you the homage due to the man through whose sufferings, labors and example, these changes have, to so great a degree, been effected. In behalf of our brethren, in behalf of the whole church of Christ, we welcome you back to the

land of your fathers. God grant that your life may long be preserved, and that what you have seen may prove to be but the beginning of blessing to our churches at home, and to the heathen abroad.

ABANDON ARRACAN!

A Scene at the Convention.

In a report, presented to the Convention on the third day, the possibility had been suggested of abandoning Arracan as a missionary station, when the following touching scene occurred, never to be forgotten by those who witnessed it. Dr. Judson, though charged by his departed wife, and forbidden by his physician to speak in public, arose, and exclaimed aloud: "Though forbidden to speak by my medical adviser, I must say a few words. I MUST PROTEST AGAINST THE ABANDONMENT OF THE ARRACAN MISSION!"

Here his voice failed him, and Dr. Cone repeated his words, now fallen to a feeble whisper :— After alluding to different reasons for not abandoning Arracan, he added: "And lastly, if the Convention think my services can

be dispensed with in finishing my dictionary, I will go immediately to Arracan; or if God should spare my life

Here Dr. Cone was overpowered by emotion,

and wept. There was scarcely a member of the Convention, who was not completely unmanned. Many could not help sobbing aloud; and in the midst of the scene, the voice of Dr. Cone was heard, exclaiming in tones of impassioned "If his life be spared!

prayer bless him!

AND SPARE HIM!

Oh, God!

After a pause, amidst the deep emotion of the whole audience, Dr. Cone continued

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or if my life shall be spared to finish my dictionary, I will go there afterward, and die, and BE BURIED THERE!"

and labor there,

The relation of this affecting incident may serve as an appropriate introduction to the poem which follows, from a gifted son of Dr. Cone, and which was suggested by the scene above described.