Mr. Marsden appointed to the Magistracy--Objections to this
considered--Cultivates Land--Charge of Secularity considered--His
connexion with the London Missionary Society, and care of its
Polynesian Mission--Revisits England in 1807.
The retirement of the senior chaplain left Mr. Marsden in sole charge of
the spiritual concerns of the infant colony. He had now to officiate at
the three settlements of Sydney, Paramatta, and Hawkesbury without
assistance. The nature of the population, consisting as it did of a mass
of criminals, rendered his ministerial labours peculiarly distressing.
The state of morals was utterly depraved; oaths and ribaldry, and
audacious lying were universal; marriage, and the sacred ties of
domestic life, were almost unknown, and those who, from their station,
should have set an example to the convicts and settlers, encouraged sin
in others by the effrontery of their own transgressions. Under
discouragement such as would have subdued the spirit of most men, did
he, for the long period of fourteen years, continue at his post; cheered
it is true with occasional gleams of success, but upon the whole rather
a witness against abounding vice, than, at present, a successful
evangelist. Nor were domestic trials wanting to complete that process of
salutary discipline by which "the great Shepherd of the sheep" was
preparing his servant for other and wider scenes of labour, and for
triumphs greater than the church in these later days had known. His
firstborn son, a lovely and promising child scarcely two years old,
was thrown from its mother's arms by a sudden jerk of the gig in which
they were seated, and killed upon the spot. It would be impossible to
describe the agonized feelings of the mother under such a bereavement,
nor were the sorrows of the father less profound. He received the
tidings, together with the body of his lifeless boy, we are told, with
"calm, and even dignified submission," for "he was a man who said little
though he felt much." A second stroke, still more painful, was to
follow. Mrs. Marsden, determined not to hazard the safety of another
child, left her babe at home in charge of a domestic while she drove
out. But her very precaution was the occasion of his death: the little
creature strayed into the kitchen unobserved, fell backwards into a pan
of boiling water, and its death followed soon after. Thus early in his
ministerial career the iron entered his own soul, and taught him that
sympathy for the wounded spirit which marked his character through life.
[Illustration: DISTANT VIEW OF SYDNEY.]
But from these scenes of private suffering we must turn aside. The
public life and ministerial labours of Mr. Marsden require our
attention; and as we enter upon the review of them we must notice two
circumstances which from the very outset of his career exposed him to
frequent suspicion and obloquy, both in the colony and at home, and
formed in fact the chief materials, so to speak, out of which his
opponents wove the calumnies with which they harassed the greater
portion of his life.
He had scarcely arrived at his post when he was appointed a colonial
magistrate. Under ordinary circumstances, we should condemn in the
strongest manner the union of functions so obviously incompatible as
those of the Christian minister and the civil judge. To use the words of
a great living authority on judicial questions, a late lord
chancellor,[C] "it is the union of two noble offices to the detriment of
both." Yet it seems in the case before us, that the office was forced
upon Mr. Marsden, not as a complimentary distinction, but as one of the
stern duties of his position as a colonial chaplain, who was bound to
maintain the authority of the law amidst a population of lawless and
dangerous men. Port Jackson, or Botany Bay as it was generally called,
was then and long afterwards merely a penal settlement. The governor was
absolute, and the discipline he enforced was, perhaps of necessity,
harsh and rigid. Resistance to the law and its administrators was of
daily occurrence; life and property were always insecure, and even armed
rebellion sometimes broke out. If the government thought it necessary,
for the safety of this extraordinary community, to select a minister of
the gospel to fill the office of a magistrate, he had no alternative but
to submit, or else to resign his chaplaincy and return home. Mr. Marsden
chose to remain; moved by the hope of being able to infuse something of
the spirit of the gospel into the administration of justice, and to
introduce far higher principles than those which he saw prevailing
amongst the magistrates themselves. In both of these objects he
succeeded to an eminent extent, though not till after the lapse of
years, and a remonstrance carried by himself in person to the government
at home. Justice was dealt even to the greatest criminals more fairly,
and the bench of magistrates grew at length ashamed, in the presence of
the chaplain of Paramatta, of its own hitherto unabashed licentiousness.
But the cost was great. He was involved in secular business from day to
day, and that often of the most painful kind. His equal-handed justice
made him a host of personal enemies in those whose vices he punished;
and, still more, in those whose corrupt and partial administration of
the law was rebuked by the example of his integrity. In the share he was
obliged to take in the civil affairs of the colony differences of
opinion would naturally arise, and angry feelings would, as usual
follow. Of course he was not free from human infirmity, his own temper
was sometimes disturbed. Thus for years, especially during his early
residence in New South Wales, he was in frequent collision with the
magistrates, and occasionally even with the governor. Again and again he
would have resigned his commission, but was not allowed to do so;
meanwhile his mind was often distracted and his character maligned. To
these trials we shall be obliged to refer as we trace his steps through
life; but we mean to do so as seldom as we can, for the subject is
painful, and, since few men can ever be placed in his circumstances, to
most of us unprofitable.
[C] Lord Brougham.
Another point on which Mr. Marsden's conduct has been severely, and yet
most unjustly blamed, is that he was engaged in the cultivation of a
considerable tract of land. Avarice and secularity were roundly charged
upon him in consequence; for it was his painful lot through life to be
incessantly accused not only of failings of which he was quite
guiltless, but of those which were the most opposite to his real
character. A more purely disinterested and unselfish man perhaps never
lived. One who under the constant disturbance of every kind of business
and employment, still "walked" more "humbly with his God," is not often
to be found. Yet the cry once raised against him was never hushed; until
at length, having rung in his ears through life, as a warning to him, no
doubt, even in his brightest moments of success, that he should "cease
from man," it was suddenly put to shame at last and buried with him in
his grave.
The circumstances were these: When he arrived in the colony, in the
beginning of 1794, it was yet but six years old. The cultivation of land
had scarcely begun; it was therefore dependent on supplies of food from
home, and was often reduced to the brink of famine. One cask of meat was
all that the king's stores contained when Mr. Marsden first landed on
those shores from which the produce of the most magnificent flocks and
herds the world has ever pastured was afterwards to be shipped. Governor
Phillip, as we have seen, had laid the foundation of the colony amid
scenes of difficulty and trial which it is fearful to contemplate. In
September, 1795, Captain Hunter arrived, and following in the steps of
his predecessor, exerted himself in clearing land and bringing it under
cultivation. To effect this he made a grant to every officer, civil and
military, of one hundred acres, and allowed each thirteen convicts as
servants to assist in bringing it into order. Mr. Marsden availed
himself of the grant, and his farm soon exhibited those marks of
superior management which might have been looked for by all who were
acquainted with the energy of his character and his love of rural
pursuits. Where land was to be had on such easy terms, it was not to be
desired or expected that he should be limited to the original grant. He
soon possessed an estate of several hundred acres--the model farm of
New South Wales;--and, let it not be forgotten, the source from whence
those supplies were drawn which fed the infant missions of the Southern
Seas, while at the same time they helped their generous owner to support
many a benevolent institution in his own parish and neighbourhood. Years
afterwards he was induced to print a pamphlet in justification of his
conduct in this as well as other particulars on which it was assailed;
and as we copy an extract from it, our feeling is one of shame and
sorrow that it should ever have been required. He says, "I did not
consider myself in the same situation, in a temporal point of view, in
this colony as a clergyman in England. My situation at that period would
bear no such comparison. A clergyman in England lives in the very bosom
of his friends; his comforts and conveniences are all within his reach,
and he has nothing to do but to feed his flock. On the contrary, I
entered a country which was in a state of nature, and was obliged to
plant and sow or starve. It was not from inclination that my colleague
and I took the axe, the spade, and the hoe: we could not, from our
situation, help ourselves by any other means, and we thought it no
disgrace to labour. St. Paul's own hands ministered to his necessities
in a cultivated nation, and our hands ministered to our wants in an
uncultivated one. If this be cast upon me as a shame and a reproach, I
cheerfully bear it, for the remembrance never gives me any cause of
reproach or remorse." Monsieur Perron, a commander sent out by the
French government to search for the unfortunate La Perouse (who had
recently perished in an exploratory voyage to the islands of the South
Pacific), visited Mr. Marsden's farm in 1802, and records, with the
generous admiration his countrymen have never withheld from English
enterprise and industry, his astonishment and delight. "No longer," he
exclaims, "than eight years ago, the whole of this spot was covered with
immense and useless forests; what pains, what exertions must have been
employed! These roads, these pastures, these fields, these harvests,
these orchards, these flocks, the work of eight years!" And his
admiration of the scene was not greater than his reverence for its
owner, "who," he adds, "while he thus laboured in his various important
avocations was not unmindful of the interests of others. He generously
interfered in behalf of the poorer settlers in their distresses,
established schools for their children, and often relieved their
necessities; and to the unhappy culprits, whom the justice of their
offended country had banished from their native soil, he administered
alternately exhortation and comfort."
Indeed, it would be no easy task to enumerate all the schemes of social,
moral, and spiritual enterprise upon which Mr. Marsden was now employed,
and into all of which he appears to have thrown a force and energy which
is generally reserved, even by the zealous philanthropist, for some one
favoured project. Thus the state of the female convicts, at a very early
period, especially attracted his attention. Their forlorn condition,
their frightful immoralities--the almost necessary consequence of the
gross neglect which exposed them to temptation, or rather thrust them
into sin--pressed heavily upon him, and formed the subject of many
solemn remonstrances, first to the authorities abroad, and when these
were unheeded, to the government at home. The wrongs of the aborigines,
their heathenism, and their savage state, with all its attendant
miseries and hopeless prospects in eternity, sank into his heart; and
under his care a school arose at Paramatta for their children. The
scheme, as we shall explain hereafter, was not successful; but at least
it will be admitted "he did well that it was in" his "heart." He was
often consulted by the successive governors on questions of difficulty
and importance, and gave his advice with respect, but at the same time
with honest courage. Amusing anecdotes are told of some of their
interviews. A misunderstanding had occurred between Governor King and
himself, which did not, however, prevent the governor from asking his
advice. Mr. Marsden was allowed to make his own terms, which were that
he should consider Governor King as a private individual, and as such
address him. Much to his credit, the governor consented. Mr. Marsden
then locked the door, and in plain and forcible terms explained to
_Captain_ King the faults, as he conceived, of _Governor_ King's
administration. They separated on the most friendly terms; and if we
admire the courage of the chaplain, we must not overlook the
self-command and forbearance of the governor. With a dash of
eccentricity the affair was honourable to both parties.
Another instance of Mr. Marsden's ready tact and self-possession may be
mentioned. Governor King, who possessed, by virtue of his office, the
most absolute power, was not only eccentric but somewhat choleric. On
one occasion, when Mr. Marsden was present, a violent dispute arose
between the governor and the commissary-general. Mr. Marsden not being
at liberty to leave the room, retired to a window, determined not to be
a witness of the coming storm. The governor, in his heat, pushed or
collared the commissary, who in return, pushed or struck the governor.
His excellency, indignant at the insult, called to the chaplain, "Do you
see that, sir!" "Indeed, sir," replied Mr. M., "_I see_ nothing,"
--dwelling with jocular emphasis on the word see. Thus good
humour was immediately restored, and the grave and even treasonable
offence of striking the representative of the sovereign was forgotten.
These trifling circumstances are worth relating, not only in
illustration of Mr. Marsden's character, but of the history of the
earlier days of the colony.
But graver duties had already devolved upon him. Amongst the unpublished
manuscripts of the London Missionary Society, there is one document of
singular interest, in connexion with the name of Samuel Marsden. It is a
memorandum of seventeen folio pages on the state and prospects of their
missions to Tahiti and the islands in the South Seas, dated "Paramatta,
30th January, 1801," and "read before the committee" in London--such was
the slow, uncertain communication fifty years ago with a colony now
brought within sixty days' sail of England--"on the 19th of April,
1802." Foremost in the literature of another generation will stand those
treasures which slumber, for the most part unvalued and undisturbed, on
the shelves of our missionary houses. For men will surely one day
inquire, with an interest similar to that with which we read of the
conversion of Britain in the dim light of Ingulphus and the Saxon
Chronicle, or the venerable Bede, how distant islands were first
evangelized, and through what sorrows, errors, and reverses, the first
missionary fought his way to victory in continents and islands of the
southern hemisphere. And of these, the document which now lies before
us will be esteemed as inferior to none in calm and practical wisdom, in
piety, or in ardent zeal tempered with discretion.
The circumstances which called it forth were these. The Tahitian
mission, the first great effort of the London Missionary Society, and
indeed the first Protestant mission, with perhaps one exception,[D] to
savage tribes, had hitherto disappointed the sanguine expectations of
its promoters. We trust we shall not be thought to make a display of
that cheap wisdom which consists in blaming the failures of which the
causes were not seen until the catastrophe had occurred, if we say that,
great and truly magnificent as the project was, it carried within itself
the elements of its own humiliation. The faith and zeal of its founders
were beyond all human praise; but in the wisdom which results from
experience, they were of course deficient. "To attempt great things, and
to expect great things," was their motto; but they did not appreciate
the difficulties of the enterprise; nor did they duly estimate the depth
of the depravity of the savage heart and mind. Dr. Haweis, a London
clergyman of great piety and note in those days, preached before the
Society when the first missionary ship, the Duff, was about to sail. He
described to his delighted audience the romantic beauty and grandeur of
the islands which lie like emeralds upon the calm bosom of the Southern
Ocean, and anticipated their immediate conversion as soon as they should
hear the first glad tidings of the gospel. The ship sailed from the
Tower wharf, with flags flying and banners streaming, as if returning
from a triumph, amidst the cheers of the spectators. Amongst the crowd
there stood a venerable minister of Christ, leaning upon the arm of one
who still survives--himself a veteran in the service of his Lord. As
they turned slowly away from the exciting scene, the aged minister
mournfully exclaimed, "I am afraid it will not succeed: there is too
much of man in it." His words were prophetic; for nearly twenty years no
success followed, but one sweeping tide of disappointment and
disaster;[E] till, at length, when, humbled and dejected, about the year
1814, the missionaries, as well as the Society at home, in despair had
almost resolved to abandon the station, the work of God appeared in the
conversion of the king of Tahiti; and with a rapidity to be compared
only to the long, cheerless, period in which they had "laboured in vain,
and spent their strength for nought," the missionaries beheld not only
Tahiti, but the adjacent islands transformed into Christian lands.
[D] That of the Moravians to Labrador. The Wesleyans had a mission
in the West Indies, and the Society for the Propagation of the
Gospel had long had the care of the Danish missions at Malabar. But
none of these were missions, in the strict sense, among savages.
[E] This anecdote we relate on the authority of the younger
minister, from whom we received it. The elder one was the Rev.
Samuel Bradburn, the friend and associate of Wesley.--EDITOR.
It was in the midst of these disasters that Mr. Marsden was consulted,
and wrote the memorandum to which we have referred. If in some places he
seems to lay too great stress upon what may appear to the reader
prudential considerations of inferior importance, let us remind him that
on these very points the missionaries had betrayed their weakness. Their
own quarrels and even the gross misconduct of some few amongst them,
were not less painful to the church at home than their want of success.
We make a few extracts:
"... The first and principal object for the consideration of the
directors is to select men properly qualified for the mission;
unless persons equal to the task are sent out nothing can be done.
It may be asked, who are proper persons, and what are the
requisite qualifications? To the question I would reply in general
terms. A missionary should be a man of real sound piety, and well
acquainted with the depravity of the human heart, as well as
experimental religion; he should not be a novice; he should not
only be a good man in the strictest sense of the word, but also
well informed, not taken from the dregs of the common people, but
possessed of some education, and liberal sentiments. He should
rather be of a lively active turn of mind than gloomy and heavy. A
gloomy ignorant clown will be disgusting even to savages, and
excite their contempt. The more easy and affable a missionary is
in his address, the more easily will he obtain the confidence and
good opinion of the heathen.
"In my opinion a man of a melancholy habit is altogether
unqualified for a missionary; he will never be able to sustain the
hardships attending his situation, nay, he will magnify his
dangers and difficulties and make them greater than what in
reality they may be. A missionary, were I to define his character,
should be a pious good man, should be well acquainted with
mankind, should possess some education, should be easy in address,
and of an active turn. Some of the missionaries who have come to
this colony, are the opposite character to the above. They are
totally ignorant of mankind, they possess no education, they are
clowns in their manners. If the directors are determined to
establish a mission in these Islands there is another object to be
attended to; they must send out a sufficient body and furnish
them with the means of self-defence. Unless the missionaries are
able to protect themselves from the violence of the natives, they
will be in constant danger of being cut off by them. Their lives,
if unprotected by their own strength, will hang sometimes perhaps
upon the fate of a single battle between two contending chiefs.
Can any idea be more distressing than for the lives of a few
defenceless missionaries to depend upon the sudden whim or turn of
an enraged savage, without the means of self-defence? See them
driven, in order to escape the savage fury of the natives, into
holes and caverns of the rocks, suffering every hardship that
nature can bear from hunger, toil, and anxiety, without so much as
the prospect of relief in time of danger from Europe, or
accomplishing in the smallest degree the object of the mission.
Yet this must and will be the case, unless the missionaries are
furnished with the means of self-defence, and are able to convince
the natives of their superiority in point of skill and
protection."
Many will condemn this counsel. Nor do we feel bound to justify it to
the letter. A reasonable degree of caution in avoiding danger, and under
great emergency in preparing measures for self-defence, may be allowed
even to the missionary. Yet experience shows that his safety chiefly
lies in cultivating and exhibiting the spirit of Him who "suffered the
just for the unjust," and "when led as a lamb to the slaughter, yet
opened not his mouth."
Various prudential hints follow, on marriage and other delicate
subjects. The reader will smile to learn that fifty years ago it was a
question at missionary boards whether married men were not disqualified
for missionary work. It was argued that their wives would be exposed to
ill-usage from the natives, and that they themselves would be diverted
by the anxieties or the comforts of home from their proper calling. Mr.
Marsden combats both of these objections. "It appears to me that a
married woman, coming along with her husband in the mission, would have
no extraordinary dangers to apprehend from the natives, and would, if a
prudent woman, prove the greatest comfort and protection to her husband,
sweeten his toils and sustain his burdens." Beyond this even Mr.
Marsden's views did not yet extend. The time had not yet come when
experience should drive the friends of missions, in the failure of many
a plausible theory, to fall back simply on the New Testament, not merely
for their principles, for this they did, but for the best and safest
precedents in missionary work. They forgot how large a share of the
honours of the primitive church in its labours for Christ belong to the
weaker sex. That a missionary's wife might be no less, nay in some
instances far more, successful than her husband was a thought not yet
entertained in missionary counsels. They did not foresee that the
instruction of the native woman, and the Christian education of the
heathen child, would soon become the special province of the
missionary's wife. Mrs. Wilson had not yet arisen "a mother in Israel,"
nor Mrs. Judson, nor others whose fame is only less in missionary
annals, because their work has been carried on in places less
interesting, or at least less open to the world's gaze, than Calcutta
and Burmah. Nor can we give more than a hesitating and partial consent
to some of the following observations:
"Civilization must pave the way for the conversion of the
heathen. As the natives in these islands are totally unconnected
with the commercial world, however friendly disposed they may be
towards strangers, they are, nevertheless, in a state of gross
ignorance and barbarity. They must, from their social situation,
their great distance from the civilized part of the world, be less
prepared to receive the gospel than the Esquimaux on the coast of
Labrador or the negroes in the West Indian Islands, and other
parts of the heathen world where the Moravians in general send
their missionaries. The heathens in these islands are, in the
strictest sense, in a state of nature. Hence it becomes the
indispensable duty of the missionaries to use every means for
their civilization, and not to imagine they are already prepared
to receive the blessings of Divine revelation."
True, they were not prepared. But here we are at variance alike with Dr.
Haweis on the one hand, and Mr. Marsden on the other. "The preparation
of the heart," the wise man tells us, "is from the Lord;" and this is a
kind of preparation which civilization will not supply. It is easy, as
we have said, to find fault with men who, whatever their mistakes,
deserve the veneration of the church. Let it be borne in mind that of
savage life, its horrors, its ferocity, its cannibalism, England then
knew but little. Had they been favoured with the experience we now
possess, they would have felt more deeply how impotent a weapon is
civilization to hew down the strongholds of Satan in a heathen land;
their failures perhaps would have been fewer, and their successes more
speedy if not more complete. A true Christian missionary, amongst
savages, must be of necessity a civilizer. His own pure and quiet
homestead, adorned with the arts of life, his cultivated garden, his
neatly fenced paddock, the corn-field which soon follows, and then the
mill--all these, and, we may say, all the habits and circumstances of
his life, directly tend to civilize; and thus the process of outward
reformation goes on amongst the surrounding tribes, while the spiritual
seed is being sown in the native heart. And it will sometimes happen
that native tribes are civilized before they are converted, simply
because the carnal mind rejects the spiritual lesson, while selfishness,
or the mere love of imitation, (equally powerful in the breast of
children and of savages) induces them readily to adopt European habits.
But after all we question whether the native heathen thus outwardly
changed is one whit more likely to embrace the gospel than before.
There is, however, much truth in the following remarks; they show a
thoughtful mind, and they prove too, if we are not mistaken, that the
gospel of Jesus Christ has lost nothing of its pristine force after the
lapse of eighteen centuries; for the Christian missions of our own day
have triumphed amidst some difficulties against which even the apostles
had not to contend. "The conduct of the apostles cannot exactly apply as
a guide to the missionaries in these islands; St. Paul was sent to
preach a crucified Jesus, not to savage, but to civilized heathens; to
Greece and Rome, to nations noted for their politeness of manners and
human learning, the inhabitants both of Greece and Rome had obtained the
highest degree of civilization, they were"--intellectually, of course,
Mr. Marsden must be understood to mean--"prepared for the reception of
the gospel; their philosophers had for ages been making diligent
inquiries after the true God; they had erected altars and the most
magnificent temples for the worship of some superior being whom they
knew not. This is not the case with the natives of these islands.... It
is unnecessary for me to contrast the situations of the primitive
apostles and the present missionaries, and to point out their vast
difference. Sacred and profane history will furnish the missionaries
with this information, provided they will study their records."
Mr. Marsden continued to be through life the confidential adviser of the
London Missionary Society, and the warm friend and, as they passed to
and fro upon their voyages, the kind host of their missionaries.
His character was now established. The colony was rapidly increasing in
importance; and yet no change had been made in its government, which was
still committed to the absolute direction of a single mind, that of the
colonial governor. He too was a military officer, and not always one of
high position and large capacity, or even of the purest morals; for by
such men the governorship of his Majesty's territory in New South Wales
would have then been disdained. Mr. Marsden had done much, but much more
remained to be accomplished. There were mischiefs that lay far beyond
his reach, and spurned control. On the first establishment of the colony
all the military officers were forbidden to take their wives with
them--the governor and chaplains were the only exceptions--and there is
one instance of a lady whose love to her husband led her to steal across
the ocean in the disguise of a sailor, who was actually sent home again
by Governor Phillip without being permitted to land. Our readers may
anticipate the consequences which followed in an almost universal
licentiousness. The most abandoned females often appeared fearlessly
before the magistrates, well knowing that they would have impunity even
for the greatest crimes; and male offenders used their influence to
obtain a judgment in their favour. Expostulation, remonstrance, and
entreaty Mr. Marsden had tried in vain. "Of all existing spots in New
South Wales the court of judicature at Sydney," it was publicly
affirmed, "was the most iniquitous and abandoned;" and at length a
rebellious spirit broke out, and the authority of the governor, even in
his military capacity, was at an end. The efforts of the faithful
chaplain were now thwarted at the fountain head, and his life was not
unfrequently in danger. Mr. Marsden's sagacity fastened the conviction
on his mind that a crisis was at hand, which could only be averted by
the interference of the government at home. He therefore asked for, and
obtained, permission to revisit England. His fears were just; he had
already assisted in quelling one rebellion, and another of a more
serious nature broke out soon after he embarked, which drove the
governor from the colony, and ended in his recall, and the establishment
of a new order of things. The spiritual fruit of Mr. Marsden's labours
had not yet been great, but already the foundations had been laid for
extensive usefulness. On the eve of his departure, he was presented with
a gratifying address, bearing the signatures of three hundred and two
persons, "the holders of landed estates, public offices, and other
principal inhabitants of the large and extensive settlements of
Hawkesbury, Nepean, and Portland-Head, and adjacent parts of New South
Wales," conveying "their grateful thanks for his pious, humane, and
exemplary conduct throughout this whole colony, in the various and
arduous situations held by him as a minister of the gospel,
superintendent magistrate, inspector of public, orphan, and charity
schools, and in other offices." They thank him too for "his attention
and cares in the improvement of stock, agriculture, and in all other
beneficial and useful arts, for the general good of the colony, and for
his unremitting exertions for its prosperity," and conclude thus:--"Your
sanctity, philanthropy, and disinterestedness of character, will ever
remain an example to future ministers; and that God, whom we serve, may
pour down his blessings upon you and yours to the latest posterity, is
the sincere prayer of those who sign this address."