st, will be bestowed.

With respect to our own immediate connections, we have within these
few years been favoured with some tokens for good, granted in answer
to prayer, which should encourage us to persist, and increase in that
important duty. I trust our _monthly prayer-meetings_ for the success
of the gospel have not been in vain. It is true a want of importunity
too generally attends our prayers; yet unimportunate, and feeble as
they have been, it is to be believed that God has heard, and in a
measure answered them. The churches that have engaged in the practice
have in general since that time been evidently on the increase; some
controversies which have long perplexed and divided the church, are
more clearly stated than ever; there are calls to preach the gospel in
many places where it has not been usually published; yea, a glorious
door is opened, and is likely to be opened wider and wider, by the
spread of civil and religious liberty, accompanied also by a
diminution of the spirit of popery; a noble effort has been made to
abolish the inhuman Slave-Trade, and though at present it has not been
so successful as might be wished, yet it is to be hoped it will be
persevered in, till it is accomplished. In the mean time it is a
satisfaction to consider that the late defeat of the abolition of the
Slave-Trade has proved the occasion of a praise worthy effort to
introduce a free settlement, at _Sierra Leona_, on the coast of
Africa; an effort which, if succeeded with a divine blessing, not only
promises to open a way for honourable commerce with that extensive
country, and for the civilization of its inhabitants, but may prove
the happy mean of introducing amongst them the gospel of our Lord
Jesus Christ.

These are events that ought not to be over-looked; they are not to be
reckoned small things; and yet perhaps they _are_ small compared with
what might have been expected, if all had cordially entered into the
spirit of the proposal, so as to have made the cause of Christ their
own, or in other words to have been so solicitous about it, as if
their own advantage depended upon its success. If an holy solicitude
had prevailed in all the assemblies of Christians in behalf of their
Redeemer's kingdom, we might probably have seen before now, not only
an _open door_ for the gospel, but _many running to and fro, and
knowledge increased_; or a diligent use of those means which
providence has put in our power, accompanied