"Congratulating you, therefore, on the possession of a temper which, if actually possessed, is of more value to you than all which this country or this world can furnish, we proceed to offer the following directions and remarks:-- "The vessel in which your passage is taken will, with the favor of Providence, convey you to Calcutta, where you will probably have the opportunity of conferring with some of those venerable men who led the way in the missionary enterprises of the last forty years. They are known and honored throughout the world; and honors will thicken and brighten around their memory long after the mere politician, statesman, and warrior shall have passed into oblivion. "Without unnecessary loss of time, you will proceed to Bombay. Here a large and most interesting field invites your labor--interesting, not so much from any harvest which has been already gathered, nor because the precise period of ingathering can now be foreseen by human vision, as from the consideration that here the first mission of the Board was established; that here a noble and successful effort was made by our missionaries in pleading before governors the claims of the gospel; that here the first messengers of our churches cheerfully labored, till most of them have fallen asleep, their lives having been worn out by incessant exposure and toil; and, finally, that here preparations have been made for future labor, with a view to the wants of many millions, in whose language the message of salvation is delivered and the Scriptures are printed and circulated, while multitudes of children are trained up to read, reflect, and reason. "The Christian community sends you forth, dear brethren, as messengers from our churches to the heathen. In the name of our churches we bid you _God speed_. The very act of our sending you forth in the name of the church implies that we hold ourselves bound to the same cause. By these public services we are solemnly pledged to regard you as a part of ourselves, not the less dear certainly because distant, your very distance being occasioned by your attachment to the common interests of the church. You have a just claim upon your Christian brethren in America for their prayers, their sympathies, and such a supply of your temporal necessities as will enable you to prosecute your great work. We are confident that, if all the members of our churches were convened in one place, they would unanimously sustain us in expressing these reciprocal obligations.