needs them more, far more than the most advanced has yet understood, to train us Godward. Here we give, not expecting any thing in return; we give for Christ's sake, that others who will never repay us may have the Gospel, and we expect to wait for all recompense till the resurrection of the just. And the more these things are so presented to our people as to induce them to take hold of them, the more will abound the spirit of love to God and faith in his truth, and the more of their means will be invested in that which moth and rust and thieves cannot reach, and so become a means of grace, blessing the giver more than the receiver.

A protest is often heard in behalf of the poor and struggling churches generally uttered with the assumption that what is given to the collections is just so much damage to home interests. But Christ comes to all churches, through these benevolences, as the hungry, (for the bread of life,) thirsty, (for the water of life,) a stranger, (far from the bliss of a spiritual home,) naked, (without the robe of righteousness,) sick, (a billion of his human brethren are diseased with sin unto death,) in prison, (of superstition, and befouled in the dungeon of depravity.) Blessed is that people, rich or poor, to whom Christ comes in any form; and his form is the most profitable for them to meet him in, to whom he comes. Christ is not a thief or a robber come to lessen the prosperity at home, though the manner of his coming may be a paradox to the natural man and to them that "walk as men." Christ has given us an object lesson on this subject, if we be able to learn. A poor and struggling widow, two mites her all, cast in her gift; her money went to the object of her love, as ours always will, and she went her way; the Lord of glory standing by—perhaps she never knew. She is the subject of his most forcible words to the men that were to turn the world upside down. Why did he thus commend her, if not to give to the Church in all time an emphasized example?

Christ's coming to the poor and struggling Church is like the coming of Elijah to the starving widow of Zarephath, craving a morsel of bread. One handful of meal, a little oil, starvation beyond. What a contribution did he ask her and her son to make! What an inroad on the single meal that stood between them and death! But he said he came in the name of the

Lord, and bade her not fear to obey. She believed him, and the meal and oil failed not; and while others were starving around. -and she would have starved but for that little cake, first taken from her store-herself and her son were kept alive, and she entertained a boarder more illustrious than kings, and her works and words now stand blended with the works and words of God. How often did Jesus say, "He that hath an ear to hear, let him hear." Alas! many have no ear for his voice as it comes to us from the necessities of his cause. The mistake is of the kind made by those who at the judgment will say in astonishment, "When saw we thee an hungered, or athirst, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not minister unto thee?" Now and here we meet him in these characters. Let us not fear. Though it be done unto the least (promising) on the most barren field, as well as the case admits of, the doing soul will have all the blessedness of doing it unto Him.

SUMMARY.

I. The deplorably low rate of contribution, per member, to the benevolences is explained by the fact :

1. That 879,329 members give nothing at all, and 674,008 others give an average of ten cents per member to all the seven collections put together, being what they would have put into the ordinary trustees' basket collection, displaced in each case by the benevolent collection-making together 1,553,337— more than ths of the whole membership, utterly unmoved, by such presentation of the claims as they have received, to give any thing; and only 31,189 members, or less than one in fifty, give in a manner worthy of the cause.

2. That the preachers have given so little attention to the subject, that most of them seem to have no conception of the measure of each claim, or that there is a difference in the relative claims of the several benevolences; and that only a small minority of them are contributors to any extent themselves.

3. That by the minimum standard adopted by the Newark Conference, namely, Missions, 40, Church Extension, 8, Freedmen's Aid, 7, Tract, 2, Sunday-school, 2, Education, 2, and Bible, 4 cents; total, 65 cents per member, every one of the 9,858 charges in the United States, except 71, slighted one or more of the collections. This standard is too low by half for an

average standard in most of the churches, and a fair average standard of double this amount would show less than thirty charges in the United States that have not slighted any of the collections.

II. The whole trouble lies with the lower ths, or, to use decimal numbers of proximate accuracy, with the lower ninetenths of the members. Yet these might easily be brought up to an average of $1 per member, without asking any one to do any thing unreasonable. This is shown

1. By what is being done by other denominations.

2. By other branches of Methodism.

3. By our conferences of foreign-born brethren, even with our present methods.

4. By the success of the Woman's Foreign Missionary Society. In four cases out of five, where they have made a fair degree of effort, they have raised from nearly as much as six of the General Conference collections combined, to large multiples of these six collections combined.

III. 1. We can make no considerable improvement by more vigorously working our present methods.

2. The adoption of the Calendar plan, it has been clearly shown, could be of very little advantage.

3. A method is needed that will allay the apprehension of excessive and innumerable demands, and by which the different claims will cease to be in any degree dissipating and counteracting forces, and all become cumulative and conspiring to produce the proper convictions in the minds of the people.

4. The best plan that now seems practicable is to adopt standards, and especially a minimum standard, and to devise means on every charge, by collectors or otherwise, for reaching every member. If it is deemed wise to take all together, let them be divided by scale, except where contributors direct otherwise, and let them be paid in periodicallymonthly or quarterly-and let the occasion be celebrated by a public and special meeting, devoted to these interests; and then let each preacher answer the question at Conference, as now concerning missions, "How much has been raised?" and "How many of the members are contributors up to the standard?"

IV. Nearly all of our people-and who shall say how many of our preachers?-have almost every thing to learn about these benevolences as a means of grace; and yet this is their most important function in the Church. Immeasurable as is their power for good to the receiver, when rightly worked they are more blessed to the giver.

ART. V.-GEORGE BOURNE, THE PIONEER OF AMERICAN ANTISLAVERY.

SEVERAL ably written accounts of the rise, progress, and history of the Antislavery conflict in America have been published, but for lack of data covering the earlier presentations of that form of Antislavery known as "abolition without compensation," or "immediate abolition," they have failed to account for its origin. They have not explained why there was so great a change from the spirit and method of the advocates of emancipation of the era following the Revolution. It is fully time, therefore, that the persistent advocate of the doctrine of "immediate abolition without compensation," the originator of the American Antislavery Society and conflict, should be duly noticed, more especially as it will relieve the Churches from the apprehension that the contest originated with opponents of Christianity.

As it has been so long taken for granted that Mr. Garrison was the originator and prime leader of the Antislavery conflict, I will, before giving a sketch of

THE PIONEER OF "ANTISLAVERY" IN AMERICA,

present to the public the copy of a letter addressed to the writer by Mr. Garrison in 1858. It was written currente calamo, in answer to one addressed to him giving an account of the formation by the writer of the African Civilization Society, "to promote the Christian civilization of Africa," and "the cultivation of cotton there by free labor." In this beautiful panegyric Mr. Garrison renders ample testimony to the friend and preceptor from whom he derived his doctrines, his enthu

siasm, and who animated his courage for his life-long work of abolition:

BOSTON, Nov. 18, 1858.

MY DEAR FRIEND-It gave me the greatest gratification to receive and read your letter of the 8th instant. It seemed next to receiving an epistle from your venerated father, whose memory will ever be dear to me, and whose labors, sacrifices, and perils in the cause of the millions in our land who are "appointed to destruction" ought to be biographically chronicled and perpetuated. I confess my early and large indebtedness to him for enabling me to apprehend, with irresistible clearness, the inherent sinfulness of slavery under all circumstances, and its utter incompatibility with the spirit and precepts of Christianity. I felt and was inspired by the magnetism of his lion-hearted soul, which knew nothing of fear, and trampled upon all compromises with oppression, yet was full of womanly gentleness and susceptibility; and mightily did he aid the Antislavery cause in its earliest stages by his advocacy of the doctrine of immediate and unconditional emancipation, his exposure of the hypocrisy of the Colonization Scheme,* and his reprobation of a "negro-hating, slaveholding religion." He was both a son of thunder," and " a son of consolation." Never has slavery had a more indomitable foe

or freedom a truer friend.

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You inquire whether your father was not the author of the work entitled, "Slavery Illustrated in its Effects upon Woman," published in this city, in 1837, by Isaac Knapp. He was, as every line of it bears witness. I wish it could be republished and a million copies of it be distributed broadcast. . . I thank you for sending me a copy of the Constitution of the African Civilization Society, and the pamphlet by Benjamin Coates, which I have briefly noticed in the "Liberator" of this week. I am not prepared to state my views of this new movement at length, but I heartily wish prosperity to every benevolent effort to increase the growth of free cotton, whether in Africa, India, or elsewhere, and thus to strike a heavy blow at slavery pecuniarily. I am in hopes, however, that we are nearer the jubilee than such a move

* Mr. Garrison's phrase, "hypocrisy of the Colonization scheme," would have been more accurate had he written "hypocrisy of some of the advocates of Colonization;" for while George Bourne had many conflicts with those Colonizationists who presented that scheme as a cure for slavery, his boundless love for the cause of Christian missions permitted him to look upon the work of Christian civilization in Africa with great favor. Had the published objects of the Anierican Colonization Society been identical with those of the colored men now enlisting in the work of the Christian civilization of Africa, he could have had no controversy with its advocates. When Mr. Garrison penned the foregoing letter, recommending that the "life, labor, and sacrifices" of George Bourne in behalf of the enslaved "should be biographically chronicled and perpetuated," he did not know that his own life and labors would have been several times chronicled before even this brief sketch should be made public.

FOURTH SERIES, VOL. XXXIV.-5