The utility of missionary organizations engaged, at a very early period, the attention of the General Conference. At this time it was the practice of the individual churches to depute their ministers to make short journeys, of which they generally defrayed the expense. The inefficiency of this course had become painfully manifest, and it remained for the Conference to devise some plan by which the missionary efforts of the denomination could be concentrated. The subject was under consideration for two or three years, and finally resulted in the organization of the Seventh-day Baptist Missionary Society. By reference to the constitution of this society, which bears the date of 1819, it appears that its object was to consolidate the funds and concentrate the efforts of the denomination, in order to promote the interests of religion by employing missionaries and sending them to the destitute and scattered brethren in our fellowship. This society, notwithstanding its laudable object, was destined to meet with many difficulties and embarrassments. The poverty of some of the churches, and the unwillingness of others to contribute, were serious obstacles in the way of its accomplishment of the good it had purposed to perform. Yet under its auspices, several missionaries were annually appointed, for three, six, or nine months, to occupy such fields of labour as appeared most eligible, and generally embracing visitations to Sabbath-keepers who were removed to distant localities. These journeys, though attended in the sequel with the happiest results, often required no small share of personal sacrifice and inconvenience on the part of the performer. Difficulties were always to be encountered; many times dangers. These were greatly enhanced, from the fact that the missionary field generally lay in some new region, where the forests were as destitute of roads as the rivers of bridges, and where the uniformity of the one might prove quite as perplexing to the wanderer, as the swollen tides of the other might render dangerous the unaccustomed ford. Not unfrequently circumstances required the performance of these journeys in the winter season, when every discomfort was proportionately increased.