[Illustration:  The god beater.]

But, whether easily or hardly won, we rejoice in the fact that at this hour the three hundred Churches gathered through the ministry of this Society contain thirty-five thousand members; and that round them, looking to them for instruction, and influenced by their example, lives a population of not less than one hundred and ninety thousand souls, who have given up all idolatry, and call Christianity their religion.

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The general character of these church members, their attainments in knowledge, the amount of their moral strength, the enlightenment of conscience, their peculiar deficiencies, are topics frequently dwelt upon in missionaries’ letters, and find a conspicuous place in the annual reports.  Who can doubt that, should occasion arise, the converts of Madagascar would still emulate the fidelity of the brethren who gave themselves to clanging fetters and the fiery flame rather than deny Christ?  When bitterly persecuted by bigoted priests, the Christians of UEA still possess their souls in patience, and with their chapels burnt, their plantations desolated, and their companions beaten, they hold on to the truth as it is in Jesus, and refuse to bow the knee to the Baal of Rome.  In the Calcutta Mission last year, as heretofore, converts have been found to bear reproach and shame for Christ rather than be numbered among idolaters.  Still do the tried Christians of POKLO show how grace reigns in China.

The great Christian virtues, the fruits of the Spirit, are developed in these churches as in the older realms of Christendom.  In them enlightened conscience makes war with sin; Christian love casts out fear; the eye of faith sees heaven in a dying hour.  Scarcely a report is written that does not illustrate these excellencies.  We must not undervalue what here we have gained.  It is not only that so many individual souls have been saved.  We have rescued them from heathenism, from false religion, from the advocacy of error, from the practice of error, from open, unchecked vice and crime.  We have drawn them from the world’s disorders and cruelty, from wrong and misery.  In the great warfare with vice, they have changed sides, and are now valiant for the truth.  We have drawn not only them but their children; we have drawn them, not as isolated individuals, but as families, as neighbours, as fellow citizens, as nations.  We have drawn into the church, for man’s happiness, and the Lord’s glory, all the influences of their private, social, and public life.  We have won their intelligence, their moral life, their literature, their material resources, their public law.  Henceforth heathenism has lost them, and Christ has placed His sanctifying hand on all they have and all they are.  These Christians are all His; their children His, and generations as they succeed each other shall be more completely His, to give Him all the glory of their growing love, and add their contribution of immortal souls to His Millennial reign.