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year we are reviewing has witnessed much outward adversity and trial, it has been, to many a feeble flock, a year of the right hand of the Most High.

In reference to the recent history and present aspect of this missionary field, the Agent says: "For several years it has been increasingly difficult for a portion of our feeble churches to sustain the Gospel. The failure of the crops for several years in succession, the steady stream of emigration to other parts of the country, and the late wide-spread financial revulsion, have seriously affected this region, and made the struggle more earnest and desperate for the continued life of our missionary churches. Western New York has hardly begun to recover from these disasters. They are even now occasioning an unprecedented emigration. Thousands of families are forced by pecuniary reverses to seek a change of residence. The churches know not how to spare them, and their standing lamentation is, that their members are leaving them for the regions beyond.' Some of the missionaries, with wise forethought of their coming trial, and animated with the Spirit of their Master, are making special effort to reach with the Gospel the multitudes who are habitual neglecters of the sanctuary. In some towns where an exploration has been made, it has been ascertained that full one half of the families belong to this class. They are literally heathen in the midst of us. If all our Home Missionaries will regard them as under their own charge, and accept the responsibility involved, a wide and effectual door of usefulness will be opened to them, and, with the blessing of God, a glorious harvest may be gathered to the praise of his great name.'

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The whole amount of contributions to the Society from the State of New York, during the past year, is $40,110.77, exceeding those of the previous year by $762.81; and the number of missionaries who have labored in this State, is one hundred and thirty five, or two more than were reported at the last Anniversary.

WESTERN RESERVE AGENCY, OHIO.

Rev. JAMES H. NEWTON, Secretary; T. P. HANDY, Esq., Treasurer. Office at Cleve

land.

The receipts of this Agency, during the year ending March 1st, were $2,431.46, falling short of the amount received during the preceding year by $305.54. Contributions amounting to $537.54 were sent from this field to the Treasury of the Society at NewYork, making the whole amount raised for Home Missions on this field, during the year, $2,769.00, or $265.84 less than during the previous year, The amount expended by the Agency since the last Report, is $2,506.96, which exceeds the disbursements of the preceding year by $54.17.

The number of missionaries sustained within the bounds of this Agency, is thirty four, or five more than were reported the year

previous. They have supplied statedly thirty nine congregations. Considerable accessions have been made to several of the missionary churches, and nearly all the missionaries have had cheering proof that their labor has not been in vain in the Lord. Nine churches are reported as having assumed the support of their ministry within the year. In several cases, however, this has been accomplished by the union of two churches for this purpose. This policy is enforced, not only by considerations of economy, but by the scarcity of laborers; and must be adopted to a much greater extent than hitherto, until the time when the Lord of the harvest shall send forth more laborers into his harvest.

A large number of churches on this field still remain destitute of the ministrations of the Word, and are in a feeble and languishing state. Others, from the effect of emigration, and other causes, sustain the means of grace with great difficulty, and may be compelled to resume their dependence upon this Society."On the whole," says the Secretary," the year has been one of spiritual progress on the Reserve; and in many respects the moral and religious aspect of the churches is encouraging and hopeful. Yet there must be a vast amount of faithful and self-denying labor performed, before this portion of the Lord's vineyard will yield the appropriate fruits of righteousness in such measure as it ought. We still have much ground unoccupied. There is needed more permanency in the pastoral relation, and less fastidiousness, not to say fickleness, on the part of the people, if not, indeed, on the part of the ministry itself."

In this region, as in the Eastern States, the missionary work has reached that stage when its principal office is, to strengthen the things that remain that are ready to die. The currents of emigration have borne away the pillars of once vigorous churches, that they may be wrought into the foundations of other similar structures in the more distant West; while immigration supplies their place with materials which furnish an increased demand for missionary labor, but no assistance in sustaining it. The population has thus become heterogeneous, and more minutely subdivided, than in most other places, into religious sects. A few years ago it was ascertained that not less than forty three sects, all professing to derive their creeds from the Word of God, were found within the bounds of this Agency. From such a variety and conflict of beliefs, has naturally sprung a plentiful harvest of unbeliefs and disbeliefs, presenting a formidable opposition to the progress of evangelical truth. In some instances the sanctuary of God, surrendered into the hands of the enemy, has become a synagogue of Satan; the incense of prayer and praise has ceased to ascend from the public altar; and the faithful few, in their exile, have wept as they have remembered Zion. To encourage and aid them in rebuilding their decaying altars, in recovering the ground that has been lost, and in making an aggressive war upon the forces of error, is no unimportant office of this Society. Each year wit

nesses old fortresses retaken, and advanced positions gained. These achievements are less striking, perhaps, than those which are witnessed in the newly settled portions of the country; but as conquests of truth over organized and established error, they are even more difficult, if not more important. If this whole continent is to be subdued to Christ, we must fortify and defend the posts already won, and reclaim those already lost, as well as push our conquests into new and distant fields. In this view we can hardly estimate too highly, the importance of the work which this Society is performing on the field of this Agency; and he in whose name, and for whose glory it is undertaken, will not fail to crown it in the future, as he has crowned it in the past, with his signal favor and blessing.

MARIETTA AGENCY, OHIO.

Rev. THOMAS WICKES, Secretary. A. T. NYE, Esq., Treasurer. Office at Marietta. The receipts into the Treasury of this Agency, during the year ending March 1st, were $263.04. This is less by $16.18 than the amount received the preceding year. The amount sent from this field directly to the Treasury of the Society, is $257.89, making the total contributions to Home Missions, $520.93, or $46.93 less than the contributions of the previous year. The disbursements of the Agency have been $285.00.

Seven missionaries have labored on this field during the past year. Two of them have been sustained by the funds of the Agency, and the others by direct appropriations from the Treasury of the Society. One missionary, in consequence of domestic affliction, has been compelled to abandon the field where God was crowning his ministry with much success, and it still remains vacant. The other laborers have been permitted to prosecute their work without interruption, and with unusual tokens of the divine favor. To some of them, after a long night of toil, the day-spring has appeared, bringing a rich reward of their labors. The feeble churches have been much strengthened, and visible inroads have been made upon the domain of error and sin. One point is particularly noted, where a missionary has been accustomed, on alternate Sabbaths, to preach an evening discourse, his fourth for that day. "There was no church there," says the Secretary, "and very little religious influence. The people, however, became interested in his preaching and personal labors, which were abund ant. A prayer-meeting was established, and ere long there were inclinations of the workings of God's Spirit. There have been thirty or more hopeful conversions, and the whole aspect of the community has been changed. Steps have been taken to organize a church of thirty or forty members, and to erect a house of wor ship, which work will be accomplished with very little help. This church will occupy a central and commanding position in reference to the population of this region.”

But while, in this portion of the State, the harvest is great, and the whitening fields invite the sickle, the laborers are few. The husbandmen in the moral, as in the natural field, are attracted to the broad and fertile prairies of the remoter West. Yet this hill country of Ohio has resources and attractions which will insure to it a vigorous and intelligent population, and which will constitute. it an important field of ministerial labor. It is, indeed, "a good land, a land of brooks of water, of fountains and depths that spring out of valleys and hills, a land of wheat and barley," "a land whose stones are iron, and out of whose hills thou mayest dig"coal and salt. The present rapid development of its material resources, and its multiplying facilities of communication with other parts of the country, invite increased attention to its claims, both as a field of secular enterprise and of religious culture. The children of this world, in their generation, will be wise and prompt to gather its material harvests, and exhume its buried treasures. Shall the children of light keep pace with them in the work of converting its moral deserts into fruitful fields?

WESTERN OHIO.

Rev. LYSANDER KELSEY, Columbus, Agent.

The amount contributed to the Society, the past year, from this portion of Ohio, is $2,520.12, being an advance of $778.26 upon the contributions of the preceding year.

The number of missionaries who have labored in this portion of the State, during the year, is thirty six, or five less than the number reported a year ago. This fact does not imply any delinquency on the part of this Society, nor does it arise from the abandonment by missionaries of their fields of labor; for the feeble churches of this region are more generally supplied than at any former time. It is an indication of the success of the missionary work. Two churches, within the year, have undertaken the entire support of their ministers, and five others, by uniting with neighboring churches, have been enabled to relinquish foreign aid. The missionaries under commission have preached the Gospel, statedly, at seventy five stations, and have carried the heavenly message into many long neglected neighborhoods, bringing under the influence of the truth multitudes whose faces are never seen in the house of God. More than twenty of the missionary churches on this field, have enjoyed a season of revival within the year, in connection with which not less than two hundred and fifty souls have passed from death unto life.

"The pecuniary affairs of this part of the State," says the Agent, "are in a very depressed condition. Business has not recovered from the shock of the last year, and an extensive failure of crops has occasioned much embarrassment to missionary congregations. Yet both they, and the missionaries laboring with them, have

toiled on in hope, practicing severe self-denial, sowing the good seed, and, in many cases, reaping a plentiful harvest. I am happy to bear my testimony to the faithfulness and diligence with which they have labored, under their many discouragements, and to magnify the grace which has crowned these endeavors with such a measure of success. But much missionary labor will be required in this part of our State for many years to come. There are many destitute regions where devoted and self-denying men might plant churches, and lay, broad and deep, the foundations of many generations." We are happy to add that the stronger churches of this region are feeling, more and more, their responsibility for the spiritual culture of the desolations around them, and we confidently expect a large annual increase in their pecuniary contributions for this object. We doubt not the Agent expresses the general sentiment and purpose of the churches, when he says: "The progress of the past year encourages us to look forward to the time, as not far distant, when this part of the State will become self-sustaining in its Home Missionary operations. At this we are steadily aiming; and though new fields among us will be constantly opening, and demanding missionary culture, and others, now occupied, may continue to require our aid, we believe the time is not distant when Ohio will not only supply her own spiritual destitutions, but will also contribute largely to send the blessings she enjoys to the regions beyond."

The whole number of missionaries employed in Ohio, during the year, is seventy seven, and the entire contributions from the State to the funds of the Society, amount to $5,214.62. This sum is less than that contributed during the previous year, by $129.94.

INDIANA.

Rev. JOHN W. CUNNINGHAM, La Porte, Agent.

The number of missionaries in commission in Indiana, since the last Report, is twenty nine, which is less by nine than the number reported a year ago. The contributions of churches and indivi duals in this State, to this Society, have amounted to $1,586.76, or $515.91 less than those of the previous year.

The missionary churches in this State have not escaped the pecuniary difficulties which have embarrassed all religious enterprises at the West, during the past year. Some of them have suffered severely, and the missionaries have suffered with them. Yet no previous year, it is believed, has witnessed greater progress in the missionary work. Several fields have enjoyed special seasons of revival, and all give evidence that the missionaries have not labored in vain, nor spent their strength for naught. They have extended their labors into many regions long neglected, and on some deserted public altars the fire has been rekindled. Three or four churches have been gathered; as many pastoral relations

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