MISSIONARY SOCIETY. 337 operations of the Society, which table we have compiled prin- There are connected with the above missions, besides the 9. Besides the Parent Society at New York, there are auxil- missionary societies, taking up collections, having sermons addresses delivered, and establishing missionary prayer-meetings. 10. Thus we see that Methodism is emphatically missionary in its character, not only in its foreign operations, but in its domestic, or home work. Indeed, in an important sense, every minister of the Methodist Episcopal Church—and indeed of all other branches of the Methodist family, where the itinerancy is preserved-is, in an important sense, a missionary, for instead of being called by a church or congregation, under a stipulated salary, to preach to them, they are annually sent forth without purse or scrip, into the highways and hedges, the fields and the forests, the city and the country, to invite men to Christ. We may further remark, that in proportion as a church is missionary in its character, does it give evidence of being a true church of Jesus Christ; evidence at once so clear, so convincing, that the chimera of apostolical succession sinks into utter insignificancy when compared with it. "Ye are the light of the world;""the salt of the earth," said Christ to his disciples; and when he said to his ministers, "Go ye into all the world, and preach the Gospel to every creature," he stamped his church on earth as a missionary church. For a farther view of Methodist missions in different parts of the world, the reader is referred to the statistical tables in this work, pages 348, et seq. SECTION IV. SUNDAY-SCHOOL UNION OF THE METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH. 1. THE honor of having originated Sunday-schools is generally-and we believe justly-ascribed to Robert Raikes, Esq., of Gloucester, Eng., who in the year 1781, at the place of his residence, engaged four persons for a stipulated sum each Sabbath, to teach such children as he might send to them. SUNDAY SCHOOL UNION. 339 2. The honor of having originated the system of gratuitous instruction in Sunday-schools, belongs, we think, with equal justice, to Mr. John Wesley, who, in 1785, urged his Societies to follow the laudable example of Mr. Raikes. The Societies took Mr. Wesley's advice, and shortly after, Sunday-schools, on the plan of gratuitous and religious instruction, were commenced in all parts of the Methodist connection in England. 3. As early as 1786, Sunday-schools were established in the Methodist Episcopal Church in the United States, through the agency of Bishop Asbury, who, being in constant communication with Mr. Wesley by correspondence, learned from the latter the fact of their establishment in England. But prior to this period (in 1784), the Methodist ministers and preachers. were required by the discipline, wherever there were ten children, whose parents were members, to meet them at least an hour every week, for purposes of religious instruction; and in 1790, they were required to establish Sunday-schools in or near the places of worship, for the benefit of white and black children, and to appoint suitable persons to teach gratis all who would attend, and had a capacity to learn. As there is no authentic account of Sunday-schools in America prior to 1786, we may justly claim for Bishop Asbury and his co-laborers in the church, the honor of having established Sunday-schools on the gratuitous plan, in America. 4. In 1828, the Methodist Sunday-school, Bible, and Tract Union was organized, but the complexity of this organization rendered it expedient, in 1836, to discontinue the Bible department of the Union; and in 1840, the Tract department was also discontinued, and the Sunday School Union of the Methodist Episcopal Church was established on a new, and we trust a firm and permanent foundation. 5. Since the organization of the Sunday School Union in its present form, the cause of Sunday-schools in our church has received a fresh impulse, and has acquired a degree of importance secondary to no other cause in which the church is en gaged. Not only have its annual receipts increased, but its books have continued to multiply almost beyond conception. Its facilities for obtaining correct statistical reports have also been increased, and it is perhaps not too much to say, that no other Sunday-school Society in the land, is in a more flourishing and prosperous condition, at the present time, than the Methodist Sunday School Union, under the management of its very efficient corresponding secretary, the Rev. D. P. Kidder, D. D. 6. The receipts of the Union for the supply of destitute schools with books, fall very far short of what they ought to be. While the members generally evince a becoming degree of zeal in behalf of Sunday-schools in their own localities, they should not forget that there are thousands of poor children in the new and sparse settlements of our common country, who need to be aided in their thirst for religious knowledge, by the contributions of the more highly favored portion of our members and youth. Only about $5000 the past year was contributed for this purpose. 7. The actual condition of our Sunday-schools in the United States may be inferred from the following table, taken from the annual report of the Sunday School Union of the Methodist Episcopal Church for 1851. We give only the aggregate of the numbers in the various conferences. 8,021 84,840 429,589 1,117,083/5,486 32,826 $54,587|74,363 11,398 Increase past year. 687|10,966| 37,356| 149.497 891 4,927 $6,508| 8,648 2,384 1. THE American Bible Society, although not a denominational nor Methodist institution, yet as it is largely supported by the Methodist Church, and the preachers are required to take up an annual collection in aid of its funds, it seems proper to give it a place among the benevolent institutions of the Methodist Episcopal Church. This Society was formed in New York, in the year 1816, and its declared object from the beginning has been to circulate copies of the Holy Scriptures without note or comment, which object it has faithfully carried out. 2. After the formation of the American Bible Society, up to the year 1828, the Methodist Church co-operated more or less with the same, but in the latter year a distinct Methodist Bible Society was formed in connection with the Sunday School and Tract Union of the Methodist Episcopal Church. This separate organization existed for about eight years, when in 1836 it was formally discontinued; and since that time the Methodist Episcopal Church has labored in this department of her work, in connection with the American Bible Society, and her various auxiliaries in different States, counties, and towns of the Union. 3. The gross receipts of the Society for 1850-51, amounted to the sum of $276,882, and the expenditures, to $276,899. Over half a million of copies of the Scriptures were issued during the same period, and since its organization no less than 7,572,967 copies of the Old and New Testaments have been circulated by the Society. 4. The precise amount contributed to the Society by the Methodist Church cannot be ascertained during the past year. Some of the largest conferences in the church, who have co-operated very efficiently in this good work, have failed to make |