Of the christian missionary then, so lately proscribed in the east and west, excluded from the deserts of Africa and the cities of China, it may now be said “the world is all before him where to choose, and providence his guide.” Can we not trace the hand of GOD in all this, and say “what hath GOD wrought.” To form a just estimate of the benefits that have directly resulted from the missionary labors of this and other kindred societies, during the brief period of their varied efforts, it is necessary that we should attentively consider the magnitude of our design—the conversion of 600 millions of idolators to christianity—a multitude diversified in habits, language, and character—the limited amount of agency that has yet been employed—the antiquity of the various systems of idolatry which prevail, in contrast with the novelty and strangeness of the gospel claims; and above all, the perfect congeniality of heathenism, to the depraved principles and passions of the human nature, in opposition to the humbling and sanctifying influence of Christianity. These considerations are suggested, not for the purpose of alleviating disappointment and bespeaking forbearance to a narrative of failures; but rather to heighten our pleasure and enlarge our gratitude, that amidst obstacles so gigantic and with means so limited, we have in the short space of fifty years been favored through the divine blessing, with success so varied and abundant—success, both in character and amount, it may be confidently affirmed, greatly exceeding the largest expectations of the fathers of the cause. This society has laboured to bless suffering man amidst the different forms of his guilt and misery, in Asia, Africa, Polynesia, and the West Indies. And in which of these wide fields of its mercy has it failed? It has laboured for his happiness in relation to the life that now is, as well as that which is to come, and in which of its designs of mercy has it not succeeded? Behold the triumphs of christian missions in the peaceful villages and cultivated plains of Africa—in the contentment and prosperity of the West Indian freed-man—in the Polynesian savage, transformed into the kind husband, the tender parent, and the happy man!