Instructions.—June 16, 1865

1. It is not often that the Committee have to take leave of brethren so variously circumstanced, and destined to fields of labour of such opposite characteristics, as in the present instance.

2. We have now before us those who have laboured and suffered for many years in the missions abroad; we have those who are going out for the first time; we have those who leave behind them parents and dear relations, and one who will be united to his family circle, after a long separation, only when he reaches his distant mission. We have the representatives of Islington College, and the representative of an ancient University. One of you is going back to that peculiar centre of civilisation, Calcutta, where the flower of British statesmen and officers mingle with most advanced men of the Oriental races, and mingle in political, administrative, intellectual, and social life, while the world awaits the issue of this great coalition. One is going back to Pekin, still the centre of a vast empire which has till now resisted the intrusion of Western civilisation, and exhibits, in its grandeur and in its decay, the glory and the vanity of human power. Another brother is about to return to the very verge of civilisation and of the habitable globe, in North West America, with a special view to the benefit of the Esquimaux who rove along the shores of the Arctic seas.