When this society commenced its benevolent career, there were many formidable obstacles with which the originators of such institutions had to contend. Great ignorance and gross mis-conception prevailed as to the real condition, social and moral, of Pagan nations. The visitors of heathen countries had contented themselves with merely glancing at the surface of society, even often purposely refraining from a detail of evils and enormities they could not have failed to have observed, whilst others denied the vices they had no care to suppress, and the existence of miseries which their own interest or influence had served but to aggravate. It was indeed maintained that the negro race in general, the Hottentot in particular, was the connecting link between the animal and human species, though partaking far more largely of the attributes of the brute, than the similitude of the man. But on the other hand, the inhabitants of the east were glowingly described as blest with civilization, and enlightened by science; and although the objects and forms of their worship were diversified, yet as their eulogists affirmed, their veneration for their gods was sincere and unbounded; while in social life, they were patterns of excellence—kind in their tempers, and lovely in their manners—living to make each other happy, and dying in the assurance of paradise hereafter. Such were the popular falsehoods to be combated and refuted, at the very outset of the missionary enterprize. But where are now the advocates of Paganism, and the apologists for Idolatry? The moral condition of the heathen is better understood to-day, by the children in our schools, than it was by the enlightened classes of society fifty years ago; and the necessity of the gospel to meet the wants, and heal the sufferings of mankind, has become a familiar and undisputed truth. And by whom have these idle tales and gross fabrications been exposed? By the men of GOD, sent forth from our midst, who have lived _with_ the heathen, and _for_ the heathen; from whose concurrent testimony the church has learned, and the world has been constrained to admit, that idolatry in all its varied forms, is an abominable thing; that its principles are founded on falsehood and absurdity, and that its requirements are cruel and obscene. In the early days of missionary efforts, the fields of labour were necessarily few and contracted. The wide and effectual doors opened to us were then closed, and for admission our revered forerunners entreated and pleaded in vain. Their ardent zeal panted for access to the teeming and degraded multitudes of India. But by the merchant, the soldier, and the statesman, the christian missionary was alike denounced and resisted. The robber and the spoiler were found in the train of the British conqueror; but the minister of heavenly mercy might not set his foot upon those distant shores.