that were nearly extinct, increased the demand for Missionary labours in a much greater degree than, from the want of clergymen and of funds, could be supplied.

It should be mentioned, however, to the credit of some of the young Clergy, that they have performed the important and difficult duties of Missionaries with all the ardour of youth, and with the sober piety, judgment, and perseverance of maturer years. The Rev. William A. Clark, the Rev. Orin Clark, in 1811, the Rev. Alanson W. Welton, in 1814, and the Rev. Ezekiel G. Gear, in 1815, immediately on their receiving Deacons' orders, engaged as Missionaries in the western counties of the state, where they have had the happiness to see their labours remarkably blessed in the establishment of new congregations, and in the advancement of the members of their flocks in spiritual knowledge and holiness.

The Rev. Daniel M'Donald has for some time very faithfully officiated as a Missionary at Auburn and the parts adjacent, and more recently, the Rev. Henry U. Onderdonk, at Canandaigua, has had the gratification of seeing a flourishing congregation grow up under his ministrations, who have evidenced unusual liberality and taste. in the erection of a place of worship.

During the last summer, the Rev. Samuel Johnson received Deacons' orders, and went as a Missionary to the frontier counties of Genessee and Niagara; where, particularly at Batavia, Sheldon, and Buffalo, his assiduous labours, exerted with much personal fatigue, are exceedingly useful. A church is building at Batavia, and a new congregation organized at Buffalo. In thus enumerating the younger Missionaries in the more western counties of the state, I have been led to depart from chronological order.

The Rev. James Thompson, and the Rev. William B. Lacey, who received Orders in 1813, at a more advanced age than the Missionaries last enumerated, entered immediately on Missionary duties, the former in the counties of Greene and Delaware, and the latter in Chenango county; and

their labours, exerted with great zeal and diligence, have been eminently blessed.

The Rev. Russel Wheeler, also, in the south-west part of Otsego county and the parts adjacent, is indefatigable in the discharge of Missionary duties; as also are the Rev. Stephen Jewett, and the Rev. Charles W. Hamilton, in Washington and Essex counties, where some new congregations are collecting; and the Rev. George Weller in the northern part of Westchester county.

The Rev. Professor Brownell, of Union College, Schenectady, performs service occasionally in that Institution, and sometimes extends his services as a Missionary to the destitute congregations in that vicinity.

The Rev. Charles Seabury is usefully employed as a Missionary in the congregations of Setauket, Huntington, and Islip.

The Rev. Joshua M. Rogers, recently ordained Deacon, engages with much zeal as a Missionary in Lewis county and the parts adjacent; and Mr. Eleazar Williams acts as a Catechist, Schoolmaster, and Lay Reader among the Oneida Indians. Being of Indian extraction, he possesses considerable influence among his countrymen, and there is a prospect that his labours will be attended with more success than those of other Missionaries among them.

I have called your attention to this succinct Missionary detail, in order to afford you an opportunity of judg ing of the extent and importance of Missionary labours. The recital, I trust, will speak powerfully both to your understandings and your hearts. But for the blessing of God on Missionary services, there would scarcely have been a congregation of our Church in the new settlements of the state, where now thirty or forty congregations, some of them in commodious and even elegant buildings, offer their confessions, supplications, and praises in the affecting Liturgy of our Church, and partake of the blessings of the word and ordinances from her apostolic ministry. And but for that warmth enkindled by the timely aid

of Missionary services, some old and once respectable congregations that were gradually diminishing in numbers and zeal, would have become entirely extinct.

It is sometimes objected to Missionary contributions, that they relax the zeal of the people who are benefitted by these contributions, in the support of the Clergy who officiate among them. But I aver as a fact, for I speak from personal observation made in my visitations through the Diocess, that there are no members of our Church, I will not say more zealous, but I will say, so zealous in their pecuniary exertions for the support of religion, as those particularly in the new settlements, where our Missionaries principally officiate. I could recite instances of pious liberality in the highest degree honourable to them. Let it be remembered, Episcopalians throughout the country, when compared with some other denominations of Christians, are few in number, and not generally of proportionable wealth.

I can now bring my observations to a point. The Missionaries are at present eighteen in number, and all of them usefully employed. Each one receives, with one or two exceptions, 250 dollars, deriving the rest of his support from the contributions of the people. Some years back, there was a surplus in the Missionary Fund, owing to the want of Clergymen for Missionaries. This surplus enabled the Missionary Committee to increase recently the number of Missionaries; but that surplus is now exhausted. The collections in the congregations, for the present year, will not equal those of the last; and the whole of the Missionary Fund will fall short of 2500 dollars, while the salaries of the Missionaries will be about 4500.Even admitting the salaries of some few could be discontinued or diminished without serious injury, still there would be a great deficiency; and the prospect of increasing the number, and of sending them to parts of the state where new congregations could be raised with great facility, is entirely hopeless.

In this painful crisis, to whom shall the Church look but to those on whom Providence in his benignity pours temporal abundance, and to whom he opens the full treasures of grace. The hearts of the young turn from those pursuits and pleasures to which youthful feelings impel them, and glow with pious ardour to aid in the apostolic work of extending with the cross of Christ, the great salvation which it purchased. To this holy work, worthy of apostolic times, their elder brethren, who should be examples to them of pious zeal, will not surely advance with hesitating step and reluctant hand. Would that I commanded the heart and the hands of every Episcopalian! Could I open them to a more exalted object of benevolence, than the extension of that kingdom of the Redeemer, which bestows peace on the guilty, and salvation on the lost children of men?

Let me then, with unfeigned deference, but with the deepest solicitude, call on them to consider whether, when the Church to which they belong, pure in her doctrine, apostolic in her ministry, most affecting and edifying in her worship, needs all the bounty that they can appropriate for the purposes of religion, that bounty should be diverted into other channels? This Church is worthy of the undivided support, beneficence, and zeal of those whom she nurtures in her fold. By promoting her prosperity, they advance, in its apostolic and primitive purity, the Church of the Redeemer, and contribute to hasten the time when that Church shall appear as when first she rose under the hand of her divine Founder, "all glorious within-her clothing of wrought gold-God in her palaces for a refuge."

Those whom I address will not, I trust, refuse to come forward and take their parts in the exalted office of diffusing the blessings of grace and salvation among their fellow-men. An impetus is given to the Christian world, that is urging it forward to great results. We should go, not reluctant, not backward, but foremost in the march, with the ark intrusted

A number of members of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the city of NewYork, desirous of co-operating with the ecclesiastical authority of this Diocess in the support of Missionaries, and of enabling their dispersed brethren to participate in the inestimable blessings conveyed by the ordinances and worship of a pure branch of the primitive and apostolic Church-have, at a general meeting convened in Trinity Church, on the 20th January, 1817, formed themselves into a Society for that purpose, under the name of" The New-York Protestant Episcopal Missionary Society of Young Men and others," and adopted the following

CONSTITUTION.

Article 1. This Society shall be known by the name of "The New-York Protestant Episcopal Missionary Society of Young Men and others."

Art. 2. The object of this Society is to assist, but not in any degree to interfere with the established authority of the Church in the support of Missionaries: it is therefore declared, that in whatever shall be done, that authority shall be recognized and conformed to. Accordingly, the monies raised by this Society shall be paid to such body as, by the Constitu tion and Canons of the Protestant Episco. pal Church in this State, may have the appointment and direction of Missionaries; provided that the Missionaries who may derive their salaries from the funds of this Institution, shall be desig. nated as "Missionaries aided by the New-York Protestant Episcopal Missionary Society of Young Men and others:" and the President, ex officio, shall be requested to lay before the Board of Managers of this Society, from time to time, the names of the Missionaries aided by its funds, and such information with regard to them as he may deem proper, together with the Reports of these Mis. sionaries, as presented by him to the Convention of the Church.

Art. 3. Every person who shall pay into the treasury a sum of not less than

two dollars annually, shall be a member of this Society. The Clergy of the ProNew-York, shall be considered as honortestant Episcopal Church in the city of ary members of this Society.

Art. 4. Ladies disposed to aid the funds of this Society, shall be constituted subscribers by an annual payment into the treasury of a sum of not less than one dollar.

Art. 5. The Bishop of this Diocess shall be, ex officio, President of this Society; there shall also be elected by ballot, at each anniversary meeting, three VicePresidents, a Treasurer, a Corresponding thirteen Directors, who shall form a Secretary, a Recording Secretary, and Board of Managers; and a majority of the votes of the members present shall constitute a choice.

Art. 6. It shall be the duty of the Managers to fill their own vacancies, to form their Bye Laws, and to take such measures conformably with the principles of the second article of this Constitution, as they may judge best calculated to promote the objects of this Society.

Art. 7. There shall be a stated meeting on the first Tuesday in December of every year, when an annual Report of the Managers shall be laid before the Society, at which time the subscriptions shall fall due. The first Tuesday of December, 1817, shall be considered the first anniversary. Special meetings shall be called as the Board of Managers may direct, of which they shall give public notice.

Art. 8. Five Managers shall constitute a quorum of the Board, and ten members a quorum of the Society, for the transac tion of business; provided that any less number may adjourn from time to time, until a quorum be formed.

Art. 9. No alteration shall be made in this Constitution, unless it be proposed at a meeting of the Society regularly convened, and be acceded to by a vote of two thirds of the members present.

No. 7.]

THE LIFE OF

THOMAS CRANMER, Sometime Archbishop of Canterbury, THOMAS CRANMER was born about the year 1489. He is one of the many instances of great abilities and goodness meeting a suitable reward in large preferments; for although he was born of a respectable family, which could trace up its origin to the Conquest, yet his father appears to have been unable to provide him with a better schoolmaster than the parish clerk of his native village, Arselacton, in Nottinghamshire. That we may see the wisdom and goodness of Him who has all power committed to him in heaven and earth," in placing such a man as Cranmer in the important situation of the first Protestant Archbishop of Canterbury, it will be proper to take a short view of his life, and to mark the many singular events which smoothed his way to so high and unexpected a dignity. From the school of the parish clerk, Cranmer was sent at a very early age to Jesus College, in Cambridge: of this Society in due time he was chosen Fellow, but soon forfeited this preferment by marriage. His wife did not live long, and the Fellows remembering the sweetness of his temper and the greatness of his learning, became desirous of again having their old companion, and a second time elected him Fellow of the College-a_circumstance which perhaps never happened before or since Cranmer's time. Nor was he of less estimation in the University at large, than in his own private college; for he was chosen one of three examiners who were

to admit or reject all candidates for degrees in Divinity. VOL. I.

[VOL. Ļ

By giving Cranmer such favour în the eyes of his fellow scholars, God was silently but surely carrying on the great work of the Reformation, For although Cranmer was, in many important points of doctrine, as ignorant as the darkest Papist in Cambridge, yet in one great point he was enlightened. He saw the great importance of the Bible, he sincerely loved it, and therefore would countenance none in their examinations who had not diligently studied it and many of the most excellent divines and preachers the Church afterwards had, referred all their knowledge of true religion to Cranmer's compelling them, when students at Cambridge, to study the Scriptures. Thus, like the ark of God, this good man brought a blessing with him wherever he came. ' 1 Chron. xiii. 14.

But the time approached in which the providence of God should bring Cranmer still nearer to his important charge. King Henry the Eighth had long sued for a divorce from his Queen, because she had formerly been married to his brother; and he thought it contrary to the law of God, that two brothers should marry the same woman. The Pope wishing neither to offend the King of England, or the Queen's brother, who was the Emperor of Germany, put off the decision of the divorce so long that the patience of the King was quite exhausted. The business of this divorce was like any other news talked off in the kingdom at large. The hand of God had led Cranmer up to London about this time; and as the plague was raging in Cambridge, he dwelt there for some time. He happened in a mixed company where the King's divorce

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