In the history of F. Baker's missionary career, I have endeavored to select from the materials on hand such portions of the details of particular missions as would make the nature of the work in which he was engaged intelligible to all classes of readers, without making the narrative too tedious and monotonous. I have wished to present all the diverse aspects and all the salient points of his missionary life, and to give as varied and miscellaneous a collection of specimens from its records as possible. From the necessity of the case, only a small number of missions could be particularly noticed. Those which have been passed by have not been slighted, however, as less worthy of notice than the others, but omitted from the necessity of selecting those most convenient for illustration of the theme in hand. The statistics given, in regard to numbers, etc., in the history of our missions, have all been taken from records carefully made at the time, and based on an exact enumeration of the communions given. I trust this volume will renew and keep alive in the minds of those who took part in these holy scenes, and who hung on the lips of the eloquent preacher of God's word whose life and doctrine are contained in it, the memory of the holy lessons of teaching and example by which he sought to lead them to heaven. Of the sermons contained in this volume, seventeen have been reprinted from the four volumes of "Sermons by the Paulists, 1861-64;" and twelve published from MSS. Four of these are mission sermons, selected from the complete series, as the most suitable specimens of this species of discourse. The others are parochial sermons, preached in the parish church of St. Paul the Apostle, New York. {8} There still remain a considerable number of sermons, more or less complete; but the confused and illegible state in which F. Baker left his MSS. has made the task of reading and copying them very laborious, and prevented any larger number from being prepared for publication at the present time. I leave these Sermons, with the Memoir of their author, to find their own way to those minds and hearts which are prepared to receive them, and to do the good for which they are destined by the providence of God. May we all have the grace to imitate that high standard of Christian virtue which they set before us, as true disciples of Jesus Christ our Lord! A. F. H. St. Paul's Church, Fifty-ninth Street, Advent, 1865. {9} CONTENTS PAGE Memoir. 13