past finding out." Although, we were not permitted to receive his dying testimony to the trust, we have the fullest assurance that our loss is his unspeakable and eternal gain.
At the sixth triennial meeting of the General Missionary Convention, 1829, the committee on the African Mission made this report[1] which in some particulars was paradoxical:
This excellent man (it began) went to Africa, under the patronage of the American Colonization Society, as well as of this convention. . . . Could he have devoted his whole time to our service much good might have been expected to have resulted from his labors. But he was under necessity to assist in its government and defense, as well as to act as its physician.
It is a source of consolation to the friends of Mr. Cary that though his life was terminated in an unexpected moment and in a most distressing manner, the unwearied diligence and fidelity with which he discharged the important trust confided to his care his zeal for the honor of religion, and the purity and piety of his general conduct have gained him a reputation which must live in grateful remembrance, as long as the interesting colony exists, in whose service he lived and died.
Your committee cannot help expressing their regret that so small a portion of benevolent feeling has been exercised towards this mission, and that so little has been accomplished during the eight years of its existence.
The next item of this report is an appeal for "some "brethren of competent talents" to go and labor there.
There surely was ground for regret that so small a portion of benevolent feeling was exercised towards this mission. Some individuals did contribute now and then; "A Georgia Planter" sent a part of $10;[2] a "poor woman" of the Rev. H. Malcom's congregation sent $3 for the African mission;[3] "a friend to Africa avails of jewelry for mission to Liberia, per Mr. E. Lincoln, $6";[4] the
- ↑ The American Baptist Magazine, Vol. IX, pp. 212, 215, cf. also p. 195.
- ↑ Cf. a letter to the treasurer of the Massachusetts Baptist Education Society in The American Baptist Magazine, Vol. VI, p. 181.
- ↑ The American Baptist Magazine, Vol. IX, p. 255.
- ↑ Ibid., p. 214.
