About the year 1860, no less than 70 missionaries had assembled in Shanghai from different parts of the West, many of them waiting in expectation of the further opening of the country, and the opportunity to take advantage of it. At that time we had the pleasure of an interview with Lord Elgin, who asked many questions about our missionary work and showed a deep interest in it, While we pleaded that greater facilities should be secured in connection with the second treaty about to be made. We are satisfied that the statements we were able to make as to the freedom of travel enjoyed by us for hundreds of miles, notwithstandingtheConsularlimits imposed upon foreigners for the sake of peace and quiet among the natives, had a happy effect on the mind of the Ambassador, and was to some extent the means of his insertion in the treaty of the privileges now at our com-nnd. Contemporancons with the course of things just alluded to, there was a like work jing on at the Southern ports. Each place Well occupied by earnest and devoted men and women who were seeking to advance the cause in their immediate neighbourhood and in the country round about. Varied success attended their efforts, but allowing for the trials and difficulties involved in the work in China as elsewhere, there was reason for encouragement on all sides; rapid progress has been made to the present time, furnishing occasion for thankfulness on every hand.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.