REPORT OF THE TREASURERS OF THE COLLEGE FUND.

THE ordinary income of the past year has amounted to the sum of £659. 16s. 4d. ; and on account of £500, which last Synod recommended should be raised by special applications, donations have been received to the extent of £413. 128., making the aggregate income £1,073. 88. 4d.

A comparison of the ordinary income of 1854 with that of the two preceding years exhibits the following results :

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104 3 6

129 10 0

37 10 0

195 4 0

47 5 0

25 4

£659 16 4

£703 14 7

£742 0 10

It was shown in last Report that the ordinary average revenue for the last six years had been £742. 78. 2d., and it was stated that to equalize the income and expenditure an addition of about £150 was required. To obtain this the Synod urged "increased liberality on the members and friends of the church."

It is to be regretted, that so far from this object having been realized, the income has not only fallen £232. 10s. 10d. short of the amount aimed at, but is actually £43. 188. 3d. less than that of 1853; there having been a diminution in the Contributions of all the Presbyteries except that of London.

The expenditure of the year has amounted to £870. 38., and the balance remaining is £259. 48. 5d.; whereas, had the Special Fund and ordinary income produced what was hoped for at last Meeting of Synod, there would have been now in hand £578. 38. 3d., which would have been adequate to meet all demands upon the Fund until the Annual Collection in November.

London, 10th April, 1855.-Examined, compared with Vouchers, and found correct.

REPORT OF THE TREASURER OF THE SYNOD FUND.

THE balance handed over to me by your late Treasurer, to the 31st December, 1853, was £134. 118. 11d. The income for the past year has been £233. 188. 3d., and the expenditure £194. 108. 8d., leaving a balance in hand of £173. 198. 6d., but there are accounts for Printing of £13. 88., making the actual balance only £160. 118. 6d.

This fund is now in a satisfactory position, enabling it to meet all ordinary expenses and to have a balance on hand for any extraordinary expenses that may arise, but the ordinary expenditure for the present year will most probably be more than last year.

The Collections have been made very generally, only a few Congregations have not made any, though some are of small amount.

SWEDEN.

SWEDEN is at present the scene of very important religious movements. For many a generation spiritual death has reigned throughout the country under the solemn forms and stately ceremonies of its Protestant worship. Within these few years life has been entering into the dead bones. Many among the clergy of the National Church have been awakened to take a more solemn view of their position and responsibilities, and to know the meaning and value of the Evangelical doctrines which they had professed without understanding or believing them. Among the students and younger clergy especially this revival is displaying itself. The same revival has been taking place among other classes in all districts of the country; so that it is said that in some parishes there are hundreds, yea, even as many as a thousand, crying out, "What shall I do to be saved?" In a letter from a Swede, which we recently saw published in a cotemporary, it was said, “Awakenings occur even in districts where formerly there was not the slightest spark of spiritual life. And this is the case in almost all parts of our country. Some years since our fatherland was a desert, in whose sandy waste only a few green oases here and there were found. Now, new oases appear, like the stars in a winter evening." These awakenings have led to spiritual activity. In parishes, of which there are yet too many, which are burdened with a dead ministry, awakened laymen have endeavoured, by holding Prayer-meetings, by reading and expounding the Bible, &c., to do good to their fellow-men, and so to edify one another, and in very many cases with remarkable success; so that in some districts it is said that humble artizans have been the principal instruments in those awakenings. In other instances the Christian-minded peasantry dissatisfied, on the one hand, with the Church's Liturgy and Hymn-book, over which some thirty years ago the pestilential breath of Neology passed, and, on the other, debarred by the clergy of their respective parishes from access to the communion, except on condition of discontinuing their Prayer-meetings, have separated from the Establishment; and, on the principle of extreme producing extreme, many of them have gone over to Anabaptist views. The civil law has been exercised to suppress both the Prayer-meetings or conventicles, and the separation. For according to law, dissent from the National Church is a crime, of which fines, confiscation of goods, and banishment are the punishments. And even within the communion of the Establishment laymen are prohibited, under the penalty of severe fines, from meeting together by themselves for worship. Strange though it may seem that at this day in any civilized and Protestant land such statutes should have an existence, instances are constantly occurring in which "conventicles" are disturbed by the officers of the law, and the parties implicated in holding them are fined or imprisoned. In Stockholm and some other towns, the authorities seem fain to wink at these religious meetings, but in other places the statutes are enforced; and last Parliament, in the beginning of this very year, passed a law, which the King has subsequently confirmed, imposing a heavy fine on any one who, not being a regularly ordained "priest" of the Lutheran Church (that is, on any minister of those separatist congregations), should dispense the communion, and this for each instance of his so dispensing it. Unable to face the difficulty of banishing at once some hundreds of their most industrious subjects, the No. 90.-New Series. VOL. VII.

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Government tries to wear them down or wear them out by such exactions and incessant oppressions. A series of trials and conflicts are thus evidently before true Christians in that country similar to those which in this country preceded the Toleration Law. We trust, we cannot doubt, that our brethren in Christ in Sweden will receive grace to be faithful, to be "stedfast and immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord," that they will walk with all prayerfulness, humility, and wisdom, such as their adversaries will not be able to gainsay or to resist.

In the meantime their struggles and oppressions ought to call forth the prayers and sympathy of their brethren in Christ of every land and name. Under this feeling, the Synod of our Church at its last Meeting agreed to transmit a petition to the King of Sweden imploring the establishment of religious liberty in that country, and the cessation of the persecutions to which so many of the best of his Majesty's subjects had been exposed.

CHINA AND THE MISSIONS AT AMOY.*

WE have sometimes pleaded for an extended circulation of the "Messenger " partly for its own and the Church's sake, but for many months past we have been equally desirous of this for the sake of others. So gratifying has been the intelligence received from our missionary stations in China, so clearly has the Lord been aiding our feeble efforts in that interesting field, that we have often longed for the means of placing in the hands of every member of the Church a record of the "good news from afar." Certainly we have placed it within the reach of almost everyone, but only a portion have availed themselves of the means afforded.

One of those friends who have so generously aided us in Scotland, by adding a missionary to our small company at Amoy, has done valuable service to the Mission by publishing a work which, perhaps, we ought to have published ourselves. On a former occasion we directed attention to Mr. Barbour's excellent pamphlet, and now it is with pleasure we hail the appearance of a second and enlarged edition. It is enlarged-for, short though the time is, God has been doing great things for us since it first appeared, and now we have an interesting account of the commencement of our Mission to China, and its progress up to the present time. Much of the information about China, contained in the present edition is of great value, and ought to be in the possession of every intelligent member of our Church. We regret to learn that the sale of the first issue has been almost entirely confined to Scotland, and that it should have found its way into so very few families of our own communion.

Speaking of the opium trade and its effects upon the Chinese, Mr. Barbour says:

"The Chinese Government, though finding itself quite unable to prevent the trade, has nevertheless persisted in resolutely refusing to legalize When urged to take this step in a document drawn up by the Governor of Hong-Kong, and to derive a revenue from its importation, the late Emperor gave this noble and memorable reply: :

it.

"It is true I cannot prevent the introduction of the flowing poison; gainseeking and corrupt men will, for profit and sensuality, defeat my wishes; *"China and the Missions at Amoy, with Notice of the Opium Trade;" by G. F. Barbour. Edinburgh: Kennedy. London: Hamilton and Co., and Nisbet and Co.

but nothing will induce me to derive a revenue from the vice and misery of my people.'

"The British Government pursued an opposite course. Finding the extent to which the trade was clandestinely carried on, Sir J. Davis licensed the public sale of opium by retail in Hong-Kong in 1845; on the passing of which measure, one of the Executive Council made use of the following strong language :

"Twenty opium shops have been licensed in Hong-Kong, within gunshot of the Chinese empire, where such an offence is death! Hong-Kong has now, therefore, been made the lawful opium smoking shop, where the most sensual, dissolute, degraded, and depraved of the Chinese may securely perpetrate crimes which degrade men far below the level of the brute, and revel in a vice which destroys body and soul; which has no parallel in its fascinating seduction, in its inexpressible misery, or in its appalling ruin. When the Governor proposed the conversion of HongKong into a legalized opium shop, under the assumed license of our most gracious and religious Sovereign, I felt bound, as a sworn member of Her Majesty's Council in China, to endeavour to dissuade him from this great crime.' "The nature and extent of the opium trade is not generally understood in this country. China expends a larger sum upon it than Great Britain does on any article of import, except cotton. The trade is comparatively of recent origin. Thirty years ago it averaged about 12,000 chests, valued at a million and a half sterling; but in 1853, it exceeded 60,000 chests, value seven millions. The revenue derived by the East India Company exceeds three millions per annum. There cannot be less than fifty opium clippers' engaged in the trade, built expressly for it. Williams states that, prior to the opium war, the native boats used in it were called by the Chinese fast crabs and scrambling dragons, and were manned by desperadoes of the worst class.

"Dr. Smith, now Bishop of Hong-Kong, in describing the traffic at Amoy, where he spent the winter of 1846, says,- The large native wholesale dealers were in the habit of strongly manning and arming a boat, in which they proceeded outside the boundaries of the port to the Six Islands. There the foreign opium vessels, lying at anchor, were similarly armed and prepared for resistance, in event of the Chinese authorities attempting to capture them. The native boats returned with the chests of opium to Amoy, and might be seen, with some European flag flying aloft, passing swiftly through the harbour, with sails set, and all the crew plying their oars. They always formed too strong a force to encourage the hope of successful pursuit, either by the pirates or mandarins. The wholesale native smugglers then retail the opium balls separately to the retail dealers and proprietors of opium shops. No secrecy is observed respecting this article of universal traffic. I have seen three consecutive houses kept by opium vendors. The people say that there are nearly a thousand such establishments in Amoy.'

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Language has been exhausted in all its force by Chinese writers, when depicting the fatal fascination of this vice. It is described as a 'flowing poison which spreads like flames;' exhausting the animal spirits-wasting the flesh and blood-rendering unfit for business and social intercoursedissipating property-violating laws-attacking the vitals and destroying life. It is estimated that its victims do not live on an average more than ten years after being given to the habit. It is not the man that eats