Forty Years in South China: The Life of Rev. John Van Nest Talmage, D.D.Fagg, John Gerardus
Religion
Forty Years in South China: The Life of Rev. John Van Nest Talmage, D.D.
Fagg, John Gerardus
Missions -- China; Talmage, John Van Nest, 1819-1892
"Resolved, That the Synod hear with gratitude to God of the great progress
of the work of the Lord at Amoy, and in the region around, so that already
we hear of six organized churches with their Consistories, and others
growing up not yet organized, two native pastors who were to have been
ordained on the 29th of March last, and the whole under the care of a
Classis composed of the missionaries of our Church and of the English
Presbyterian Church, the native pastors, and representative elders of the
several churches. It calls for our hearty gratitude to the great Head of
the Church that the missionaries of different Churches and different
countries have been enabled, through Divine grace, to work together in such
harmony. It is also gratifying to us that these churches and this Classis
have been organized according to the polity of our Church, inasmuch as the
Synod of the English Presbyterian Church has approved of the course of
their missionaries in uniting for the organizing of a church after our
order; therefore, this Synod would direct its Board of Foreign Missions to
allow our missionaries to continue their present relations with the
missionaries of the English Presbyterian Church, so long as the present
harmony shall continue, and no departure shall be made from the doctrines
and essential policy of our Church, or until the Synod shall otherwise
direct."
There were speeches for and against, by distinguished men in the Church.
Dr. T. W. Chambers, President of the Synod, made the concluding address, as
follows:
"If there be any one here who has a deep and tender sympathy with our
brother Talmage and his senior missionary colleague (Mr. Doty), I claim to
be the man.
"Mr. Doty was my first room-mate at college thirty-one years ago, and ever
since we have been fast friends. As to the other, his parents-themselves
among the most eminent and devoted Christians ever known-were long members
of the church in New Jersey, of which I was formerly in charge. For
several years I was his pastor. I signed the testimonials of character
required by the American Board before they commissioned him. I pronounced
the farewell address when he left this country in 1850. I have watched
with intense interest his entire career since, and no one welcomed him more
warmly when he returned last year, bearing in his face and form the scars
which time and toil had wrought upon his constitution. It is needless to
say, then, that I love him dearly for his own sake, for his parents' sake,
for his numerous friends' sake, but, more than all, for that Master's sake
whom he has so successfully served. Nor is there anything within reason
which I would not have the Church do for him. He shall have our money, our
sympathy, our prayers, our confidence-the largest liberty in shaping the
operations of the Mission he belongs to.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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