s should prove surmountable, the
"financial circumstances of the Society are not such as to afford any
ground of hope that it would be, within any definite period, in a
position to enter upon untried, remote, and difficult fields of labor."

If I am not mistaken, these statements imply a resolution on the part of
the gentlemen now in the Direction, to devote the decreasing income of
the Society committed to their charge to parts of the world of easy
access, and in which the missionaries may devote their entire time and
energies to the dissemination of the truths of the gospel with
reasonable hopes of speedy success. This, there can be no doubt, evinces
a sincere desire to perform their duty faithfully to their constituents,
to the heathen, and to our Lord and Master, yet while still retaining
that full conviction of the purity of their motives, which no measure
adopted during the sixteen years of my connection with the Society has
for a moment disturbed, I feel constrained to view "the untried, remote,
and difficult fields," to which I humbly yet firmly believe God has
directed my steps, with a resolution widely different from that which
their words imply. As our aims and purposes will now appear in some
degree divergent--on their part from a sort of paralysis caused by
financial decay, and on mine from the simple continuance of an old
determination to devote my life and my all to the service of Christ, in
whatever way He may lead me in inter-tropical Africa--it seems natural,
while yet without the remotest idea of support from another source, to
give some of the reasons for differing with those with whom I have
hitherto been so happily connected.

It remains vividly on my memory that some twenty years ago, while musing
how I might spend my life so as best to promote the glory of the Lord
Jesus, I came to the conclusion that from the cumulative nature of
gospel influence the outskirts even of the Empire of China presented the
most inviting field for evangelical effort in the world. I was also much
averse to being connected with any Society, having a strong desire to
serve Christ in circumstances which would free my services from all
professional aspect. But the solicitations of friends in whose judgment
I had confidence led to my offers of service to the London Missionary
Society. The "Opium War" was then adduced as a reason why that remote,
difficult, and untried field of labor should stand in abeyance before
the inte