with little deliberation or thought of its sacredness, and is brought to a close with a haste, and in a way, injurious to all concerned. In looking over my extensive field, I find that, with three exceptions, the missionaries have not been in their present position longer, on the average, than sixteen months; and some of them have moved from place to place so often that they are accustomed to feel that there is no home for them this side of heaven. Yet they are good men and true, practicing self-denial, and enduring hardness-sustaining themselves less by counting on visible results, than by looking forward to the recompense of reward." The evil here described is one of great magnitude in the new and heterogeneous communities of the West. The cure is not within the reach of this Society; but the Committee, in coöperation with the ecclesiastical bodies, encourage the formation of the pas toral relation, and endeavor, as far as practicable, to secure the permanence, as well as the adequate support of the gospel ministry.

MICHIGAN.

Rev. HERBERT A. READ, Marshall, Agent.

Seventy one missionaries have held commissions from this Society in Michigan, since the last Report, and the contributions to the cause, from churches and individuals in the State, have amounted to 1,945.60. Eight houses of public worship have been built, and at least three more are now in course of erection. More than thirty churches in the State are still unsupplied with the regular ministrations of the Gospel. Some of these are too feeble to employ the services of a minister more than a small portion of the time. During the past year, four of the missionaries on this field have been summoned to leave their earthly labors, and have entered into rest.

The year has, on the whole, been one of considerable progress with the missionary churches of Michigan. At its commencement, they were suffering the consequences of a failure of crops, for one, and in some places for two years previous. But the abundant harvests of 1860 materially relieved the pecuniary embarrassment, awakened fresh hope, and gave new elasticity to all enterprise. The finances of religious societies have improved, the attendance upon divine service has generally increased, and Sunday schools have added to their numbers and their interest. vivals have not been as general or as remarkable as in some past years, yet the churches have not been left without manifest tokens of the Holy Spirit's presence; and several have enjoyed, and are now enjoying, seasons of divine refreshing.

Re

"Should the question be asked," observes the Agent, "in view of the Society's expenditures for many years in this State, what has been accomplished? More than two hundred and twenty churches, we might reply, have been planted, or been nourished

during their infancy. For the growth of these churches, the Society's missionaries have labored and prayed, watching over them in their feebleness, and ministering unto them the bread of life, until many have attained the strength of an independent maturity. In all human probability, not one in ten of these churches could have come into existence, without some such aid as the Society renders." Experience in western life furnishes sorrowful demonstration of the fact, that churches must be planted early in the settlement of communities, or they can not be expected to be prosperous or efficient. Waiting for society to mature, is but waiting for the enemy to multiply and to entrench himself." "There is a perfect adaptation," adds the Agent, "in the American Home Missionary Society to the exigencies of the new settlements." It awakens the hope and calls out the energy of weak and discouraged congregations, and gathers them into churches. "At every step, as the moving frontier has pressed northward, its missionaries have followed, with the salt and the light of the Gospel. And now nearly all the important villages and settlements of the State are supplied with the preached Word, either for the whole or for a part of the time. In most instances, however, these young churches are still dependent on the Society; and were its aid to fail, nearly one hundred and fifty congregations would sadly feel the loss."

But numerous localities are still destitute of the regular preaching of the Gospel, and new settlements are continually forming. New "state roads" and railroads are fast opening regions hitherto solitary, to the flow of immigration; and it seems probable that, ere long, every acre of land in the lower peninsula will be accessible and in the market. The northern portion of the State is also populating fast, and the demand for missionaries is rapidly in. creasing. The Society's labors in Michigan must be considerably enlarged, before they can safely be permitted to diminish.

WISCONSIN.

Rev. DEXTER CLARY, Beloit, Agent for Eastern Wisconsin.

Rev. JOHN C. SHERWIN, La Crosse, Agent for Western Wisconsin.

One hundred missionaries have been sustained by this Society in Wisconsin, during the whole or a part of the past year. The amount of contributions, during this period, is $2,274.46.

There has been so little immigration into Wisconsin, of late, and so much emigration from it, to Pike's Peak and elsewhere, and the lumbering business in the North has suffered such stagnation, that very few new settlements have been made. Owing to a business depression, protracted through three or four years, and the incubus of railroad debts, followed, now, by embarrassing political complications, the churches move forward but slowly and with difficulty toward self-support. Yet there is progress, and an evident revival of hope and increase of strength. Four churches have been organized. More houses of worship, it is believed,

have been built, or are now building, than in any previous year. Laymen are awaking to a sense of their responsibilities, both temporal and spiritual, as members in Christ's Body. There seems to have been an encouraging growth of intelligent conviction relative to this matter. The subject of Popular Christianization has been largely brought before ministers and the delegates of churches, and is engaging much attention. The experiment has been tried of instituting a system of "Lay Conferences." Fields occupied by local churches have been districted, and within each district "conferences" have been held, usually continuing two or three days, and followed generally by good results, and in some cases by revivals. Efforts are made, in this and in other ways, to meet the wants of neighborhoods lying remote from any religious center and beyond the reach of the ordinary gospel ministration. How far these endeavors will prosper, and whether the plans hitherto followed can be permanently maintained, remains to be seen. But the endeavor itself is a fact full of encouragement; and it is our duty and privilege to believe, that whatever failures may occur in the commencement of so great and difficult an enterprise, some plan will at last succeed. It is to be hoped, that those who have taken this work in hand will suffer nothing to dishearten them.

As a whole, the condition of the missionary churches in Eastern Wisconsin is encouraging. In many of them, revivals of religion are reported as in progress. The missionaries are pursuing their work with fidelity and zeal; the churches are increasing in strength and stability, and their power for good is being more and more developed; a sense of responsibility to God and of obligation to do good to men, is evidently deepening; Christian young men in greater numbers are consecrating themselves to the ministry; a spirit of prayer, for this land and for all lands, is drawing the hearts of Christians upward with new earnestness, and not a few appear to see and feel that, although the night of sin is dark, yet "the morning cometh."

In the Western section of this State, the number of churches connected with denominations that have been wont to coöperate in Home Missions, is thirty seven; and the number of ministers, twenty three-two of whom are unable to endure the active labors of the pastorate. Only four churches, however, are reported as destitute of stated preaching; and one new and important point, Menomonee, has been gained during the year. The whole number of church members amounts to only about one thousand; the number of scholars in Sunday schools and Bible classes, to eighteen hundred; the regular congregations on the Sabbath are estimated at two thousand and six hundred. Within this portion of the missionary field, there are now sixteen neat and comfortable houses of worship finished, and one commenced, with a prospect of speedy completion.

The progress indicated by these facts may seem small to those

who have spent their days in large and wealthy communities at the East, but it is a source of great encouragement to those who have been called to struggle against the peculiar difficulties attending the establishment of religious institutions in that new country, so recently a wilderness. These beginnings are religious centers, distributed over a wide expanse, which, there is reason to hope, will yet make it all a garden of the Lord. But faithful ministers are still needed to supply important positions. Several entire counties are without a single missionary connected with the Society. Earnest applications have been received from these waiting_communities, but it has been impossible to supply their need. In such places, the larger proportion of the missionary's support must, for a season, be furnished from abroad; and this, under the embarrassments of the past year, the Society has found it impossible, in all cases, to supply. It is to be hoped, that the return of business prosperity may soon so increase the strength of these young communities and of the Society to which they look for help, that they need be no longer deprived of the blessings of the Gospel.

IOWA.

Rev. JESSE GUERNSEY, Dubuque, Agent.

The number of missionaries holding the Society's commission in Iowa, during the past year, is one hundred and twenty seven; who have performed an amount of service equal to about one hundred years. The contributions to the Treasury of the Society have. amounted, during the same period, to $1,275.32.

The number of congregations that have enjoyed the stated ministrations of the Gospel, is not less than two hundred and eighty. A few missionaries have confined their labors to a single station; but most have preached regularly at two or three points, and some to as many as six or seven. Few of these fields of labor could be wisely increased, while the majority could be divided to good advantage, were the requisite supply of men and means at the Committee's disposal. Notwithstanding all the embarrassments of the year, as many as nine new churches have been organized. The number might have been largely increased; but had this been done, many of these young organizations must have been left without ministers; and even if the ministers had made their appearance, an adequate support could not have been furnished them. A considerable number of the missionary churches have enjoyed the visitations of the Holy Spirit. No less than eleven houses of worship have been built; one that had been left unfinished has been completed; one repaired and enlarged; three have been freed from debt, and six are now in process of erection. When we consider that, with the completion of its sanctuary, a missionary church ceases, ordinarily, to be an experiment, and gains an assured position and influence, we shall not fail to place a high estimate upon these tokens of prosperity. A large portion

of the congregations, however, have increased their subscriptions for ministerial support, diminishing to a like amount their demands upon the Society's Treasury. In addition to these, and to other regular contributions toward religious objects, the people of Iowa have responded nobly to the appeals which have come to them from Kansas. Contributions have been taken up in many of the churches, and the amount of money thus collected has been by no means inconsiderable. The granaries of the farmers, moreover, have been opened with a generosity that does credit to their warmth and largeness of heart; and steamers, loaded to the water's edge with the products of their toil, have hastened to the relief of their famishing neighbors beyond the Missouri.

During the year, two missionaries have been installed as pastors, two have died, three have been compelled, by ill health, to give up, for a time at least, the burthen of regular pastoral labor, and four have left the State. At least six missionaries are at this moment needed to supply churches already organized; and causes are in operation that must soon open new regions with ever multiplying fields, full of promise. Over one hundred miles of railroad have been built during the year, and a hundred and twenty miles more will undoubtedly be added within the twelve months to come. Along the lines of these roads new communities are already gathering, which will very soon need assistance in supplying themselves with the means of grace. It seems highly probable, that the coming year will demand a very considerable addition to the missionary force in Iowa. But the painful necessity, which has been laid upon the Executive Committee, the past year, of cutting down appropriations, has reduced the salaries of many of the missionaries to the lowest living point, compelling them in many instances to carry a burthen of care and anxiety, inconsistent with their comfort and efficiency. It were better, that the number of laborers should even be diminished-much as reinforcements are needed--than that this burthen should be increased, or even continued. We have great confidence, however, that the patrons of the Society will not only provide a livelihood for the missionaries who have already entered the field, but also furnish means for the support of such additional laborers, as its ever growing wants demand.

The census now gives the State of Iowa seven hundred thousand inhabitants, an increase within ten years of nearly four hundred and fifty thousand. When the census of 1850 was taken, no railroad had approached within two hundred miles of its borders, and a railroad within them was scarcely dreamed of; now, five roads strike the Mississippi at points opposite its eastern boundary, and seven roads, varying in length from seventy five to one hundred miles, are in operation on its own soil. Then, there was scarcely a single town with more than two or three thousand inhabitants; now, there are half a score of "cities," containing from nine to fourteen thousand. The number of missionaries, during the year