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The Pamphlet Collection of Sir Robert Stout: Volume 9

VI

VI.

Monday Evening, 15th Jan.

This meeting was held as the annual missionary meeting of Synod. page 45 From the change of weather which had taken place, the attendance of the public was, we regret to say, not what it should have been.

The annual report of missionary operations of the Church reviewed briefly the several spheres of work. In the New Hebrides Mission, discouragement had been felt from the effects of the labor traffic which is carried on in the islands. The missionary, the Rev. Mr. Milne, was laboring in Nguna without any assistant native teacher, holding service with the natives in the open air. During Mr. Milne's absence at the Conference of New Hebrides Missionaries at Aniwa in July, news had reached this country that the mission premises on Nguna had been ransacked by a party of slavers who had come to revenge injuries which the natives had inflicted on a slave vessel which had come to the island. The Committee, however, had received no reliable intelligence regarding this. The report expressed sympathy with the Melanesian Mission under their severe losses in the cruel deaths of Bishop Patteson and the Rev. Mr. Aitken—the effects of the prevalent slave trade.

The gift of £50 for a second missionary could not be applied to that purpose. The amount of money contributed for the Dayspring was £251.

The Maori Mission had been systematically carried on in the various Maori settlements of the Province, and in the gaols and hospitals of Dunedin and Invercargill. In consequence of the health of Mrs. Blake being found unsuited for the climate at the Heads, the Synod agreed to Mr. Blake's transferring his services to the general work of the Church.

The Chinese Mission has achieved a fair measure of success. Paul Ah Chin, the missionary, has preached every Sabbath to a small congregation of Chinese in Lawrence, numbering about twenty. Three have renounced their heathen ideas and practices, and been received by baptism into the Christian Church. A fourth had applied for baptism, and good hopes were entertained of others now under instruction. Tracts and books in Chinese had been received for circulation. The report expressed the regret of the Committee at the death of the Rev. George Mackie, Convener of the Chinese Mission Committee of the Presbyterian Church, Victoria, who had rendered great service to this Church in all our arrangements regarding the Chinese Mission.

The contributions to the General Mission Fund amounted to £475 8s. 11d. Maori Mission £4 10s.; New Hebrides, £14 10s.; Chinese £20 10s.; Native teachers, New Hebrides, £5—in all, £519 18s. 11d., in addition to the donation of £50 reported at last Synod for a second missionary to the New Hebrides. The disbursements are—Maori Mission, £281 18s.; Chinese, £201 6s. 9d.; New Hebrides, £16414s.; sundry expenses, £9 13s.; balance of debt to R. P. Church, £76 4s. page 46 6d.—in all, £732 16s. 3d. The balance in Treasurer's hands to meet liabilities for 1872 is (besides £50 donation) £94 13s. 5d.

This is by no means satisfactory, inasmuch as—although all liabilities up to 31st Dec., 1871, are cleared off—the income for 1872 is not likely to be received until near the end of the year, while the expenditure for 1872 must begin immediately. The salary of Mr. Milne, along with payment for new dwelling-house, amounting in all to £165, must be remitted immediately; also £10 due to the Chinese Mission Committee of the Victorian Church for a consignment of books and tracts. The quarterly salaries of the other two missionaries will fall due on the 31st March. We trust these facts will be borne in mind by the missionary associations of the Church, and that the first quarter's collection will be sent in to the Treasurer as soon as possible.

The income for 1871 amounted to £519 18s. 11d.; expenditure, £732 16s. 3d. For 1870—income, £538 1s. 9d.; expenditure, £585 6s. 4d. For 1869—income, £470 4s. 4d.; expenditure, £554 7s. For 1868—income, £329 15s. 3d.; expenditure, £209 4s. 6d. For 1867—income, £327 7s. 3d; expenditure, nil.

In the deliverance given on the report, the Synod "urge upon the members of this Church more earnest prayer to [God, and increased liberality, that all the branches of the mission may be prosecuted with increasing vigor and success, and more especially that a second missionary may be provided for the increasing number of Chinese within our borders."

Addresses were delivered by the Rev. Messrs. A. Blake, D. Ross, D. M. Stuart, and A. B. Todd; Messrs. Geisow, E. B. Cargill, and J. E. Brown, elders, and by Paul Ah Chin, Chinese Missionary.