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A VOICE

DIRECTED TO CHRISTIAN CHURCHES

FOR

MILLIONS IN THE EAST.

BY THE REVDS. S. LAIDLER, AND. J. W. MASSIE.

RECENTLY FROM INDIA.

LONDON:

JOHN CHURCHILL, LEICESTER SQUARE.

1827.

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IBOTSON AND PALMER, PRINTERS, SAVOY STREET, STRAND.

PREFACE.

THE writers respectfully submit the following pages to the candid and Christian public. The work was sent from India, in manuscript, July 20, 1826; and from a letter which accompanied it the following prefatory remarks are extracted, subject only to a few alterations. At first we thought of embodying in an address, proposed to be delivered, the outlines of the Plan of the College, and transmitting them to the Society as a part of the regular communications from the Mission. Thoughts crowded upon us as our minds agitated the subject, and at last we resolved on making an appeal to the religious public. We also thought that we might connect with the Plan of the Institution some hints, proposing a subject which

appears to us of great importance to the serious consideration of the churches.

The first is a translation from the Tamul. We requested Samuel Flavel to write a summary of the truth he preached to his countrymen, and to close it with an address to the British churches. We feel much pleasure in forwarding it as a part of the intended volume. This discourse is a faithful translation of the original.

The Victim of Delusion was not at first designed to form a part of this volume; yet a copy of it was furnished to the directors. It is now inserted from a desire that it may keep alive the compassion excited in the breasts of many towards the deluded Hindoos.

The Plan of the College embraces a range of considerable extent. What is proposed to be taught will we trust be found to be both practicable and highly beneficial. We decidedly approve of much solid learning as the ground-work of extensive usefulness in the Gospel ministry, and feel persuaded that all religious institutions commenced in India, and in all hea

then countries, should be founded on broad and liberal principles. Minds of stinted growth are the production of defective education; and narrow-minded principles greatly retard the usefulness of even pious men. Superior minds, overleaping the barriers of a limited and superficial system, soon learn to despise it as a whole; and their creative genius, instead of being properly directed, runs wild, and may (as they often have done) prove highly injurious to the best interests of man. A system therefore which will insure ample scope to superior minds-which is calculated to chasten and not disgust the enterprising-we think should as much as possible be adopted, and acted upon from the

commencement.

We have studied, in connecting the whole plan, to make the different branches so far distinct, that ministerial students may profitably attend to parts where circumstances may render the whole course impracticable.

Part of the service which was delivered at the Ordination of Isaac David to the work of an evangelist, is considered as calculated to interest the religious pub

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