Memoirs of the Rev. Samuel J. Mills, late missionary to the south western section of the United States, and agent of the American colonization society, deputed to explore the coast of Africa

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MEMOIRS

OP TEE

Chapter I. His Youth And Conversion

Next to the devotions of the closet, and the perusal of the Holy Scriptures, there are few means of advancement in the divine life better adapted to their end, than a familiar acquaintance with the lives of godly men. If Religion appears lovely when portrayed merely in the simplicity and amiableness of her principles, how much more lovely when exhibited in the purity and benevolence of her conduct When we see something more than right views and holy dispositions ; when we behold not the portrait, but the living features of her excellence ; her image sinks into the soul. Few can rise from the Biography of such men as Xavier, Beveridge, Baxter, Brainerd, Edwards, and Fuller, without deep and vivid impressions of the worth of piety, and of the importance and feasibility of eminent attainments. Who that has traced the footsteps of some favoured child of mercy through all the toil and discouragement of the Christian life — that has seen his heavenly spirit — that has witnessed his piety toward God and his beneficence toward men — that, with delighted admiration, has pursued his path to the threshold of B

10 MEMOIRS OF THE LATfi

heaven; has not been eager to catch his falling mantle, and bless the Father of mercies for raising up men to shine as lights in the world, and to shed a lustre through a long line of succeeding generations.

No inconsiderable portion of this hallowed feeling will, it is believed, be excited by contemplating the character of the late Samuel J. Mills. If any man has a claim that his real character should be exhibited, and the extent of his usefulness impartially developed, this claim belongs to the subject of these Memoirs. While few men have more merited public applause and gratitude, few of such eminent usefulness have received less than he. These we know were not the rewards he sought ; but it is not the less delightful, nor the less dutiful, that they should be the tribute we pay.

It was the privilege of this beloved man to be the child of piousparents. He was the son of a venerable clergyman, " whose praise is in the churches," and who is now the Pastor of a respectable congregation in the town of Torringford, in the county of Litchfield, State of Connecticut. His mother was the daughter of Samuel Robbins, of a respectable family originally from Weathersfield, in Hartford county, in the same State. She was a woman of very exemplary character and pre-eminent piety, and one whose memory is embalmed in the hearts of all who knew her. Samuel was their third child, and was born the 21st of April, 1783.

Could we without sacrilege enter the sanctuary of a mother's bosom, we might whisper a tale that would account for the distinguished usefulness with

REV. SAMUEL 3. MILLS. II

which God has condescended to favour some of the best of men. Many a godly mother can say, — " I have had peculiar solicitudes respecting this child. Even before its birth, I dedicated it to the Lord ; and then engaged that it should be unreservedly devoted to his glory. And when the little immortal was committed to my arms, with many prayers and tears did I renew my engagements, till it was strongly impressed on my mind, that God had heard my cry and accepted my offering." This is something more than fiction in relation to Mr. Mills. A plant so early watered might be expected to enjoy the most patient care and unremitting tenderness in its progressive maturity. " Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it," is a maxim too full of obligation and encouragement, to have been so long lost sight of by too many of the Christian Church. It is a precious thought, that God has engaged to preserve a church in the world from the children of believing parents. What pious parent will not be inspirited in his duty, when he surveys the children of his care, and remembers that it was once said, " Of such is the kingdom of heaven !"

The childhood and youth of Mr. Mills were chiefly spent under his father's roof, in the possession of the most faithful instructions, and of the best kind. When quite a child, his mind exhibited no common sensibility to the concerns of religion, and was easily and sometimes deeply affected with his neglect of his religious opportunities, and his ruined condition as a sinner. These impressions gradually wore away, until the year 1798, when they were revived, and his attention powerfully arrested, during a season of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit upon his native town*. This revival of religion took place about the time of a very general " outpouring" upon the churches of New-England. A minister of eminence, and who was once settled in Connecticut, informed the writer that he distinctly recollects of standing one day at his own door, and enumerating upward of seventy congregations, that lay under his eye, and that were contiguous with each other, who, that same year, were visited with seasons of refreshing from the divine presence. Not far from one hundred and fifty congregations in New-England enjoyed at that time the like blessing.

Young Mills was then fifteen years of age. Naturally very retired and incommunicative, he was least of all disposed to say much concerning the exercises of his own mind. But such were his views of his own sinfulness, so severe his distress, and so bitter his opposition to God, that he would sometimes " break out in expressions of unyielding rebellion." With nothing was his dissatisfaction more painful, than the discriminations of the divine favour in showing mercy to those who were around him, while he himself was apparently left to obduracy and ruin. He had beheld many of his companions in years and in sin, together with an elder brother, a sister and a

* For a narrative of this work of grace, from the pen of the father of Mr. Mills, reference may be had to the Conn. Evang. Mag. vol. 1.

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niece, all residing under the same roof, and all that remained of his father's descendants, rejoicing in hope, and united to the visible Church; while he himself obtained no relief from his agony, but remained in " the gall of bitterness and the bonds of iniquity." Such was his state of mind for many months, and such it continued, when the revival began to decline, and when it was gone by ! Two full years he remained in this dismal frame of mind, still refusing to bow at the footstool of mercy; and, to adopt his own sentiment, " at heart still cursing the day in which he was born." But he had seen too much of his own vileness to relapse into a state of unconcern. With some apparent mitigation of his distress he left his father's house for a neighbouring town, to take charge of a farm that had been bequeathed him by his maternal grandmother. His letters during this period, convince us that there was much in this absence from the bosom and prayers of his endeared family, to increase his apprehensions, that he should at last be an exile from God's presence, and an outcast from the community of his people. In November, 1801, he returned home with the view of spending the winter at an Academy in the town of Litchfield, about twelve miles off, but with no repose to his depressed and troubled mind. On the morning of his departure for Litchfield, ever anxious for her son, and never more than now, his mother took an opportunity of inquiringinto the state of his mind, and begged him to make an ingenuous disclosure of his feelings.

For a moment he was silent and wept; but his heart was too full, long to suppress the emotions produced by so affecting a request. He raised his head, and with eyes streaming with tears, exclaimed, " O that I had never been born ! O that I had never been born ! For two years I have been sorry God ever made me." What reply could such a mother make to such a disclosure ? It was given her in that same hour what she should speak : — " My son," said she, " you are born, and you can never throw offyour existence, nor your everlasting accountability for all your conduct." This heavy thought was like a dagger to his soul. His mother expressed her fears that he had never thoroughly seen the evil of his own heart, and that he had much to learn before he was acquainted with himself; — to which he ventured to say, " I have seen to the very bottom of hell !" With this frame of mind, he took a melancholy leave of his parents for the winter; and it was a day never to be forgotten in the life of Mr. Mills, nor in our recollection of those splendid schemes of benevolence which characterized his subsequent history, and to which the events of this day bore so intimate a relation. What took place under his father's roof, may be easily conjectured; — a scene, apparently of very little moment, and never unveiled 'till now — a scene, the world would scarcely deign to look at, but one on which the Sacred Three look down with smiles — a scene, in which no prince or princess is the actor, but one which princes might come down from their thrones to emulate : — a devout and humble woman, wrestling with the Angel of the Covenant, and as a prince obtaining power to prevail !

The farewell to his mother drove her to her knees.

There is such a thing as special faith in prayer. It was such to this dear saint, when she went to plead for her poor son. She felt his sorrows and her own ; and God was pleased not only to show her that all her help was in him, but to enable her to feel that to him could her heart turn as her only God in covenant, and from him could it find unutterable relief. She did not leave her closet, till she found the full relief she sought, and till her mind was confidently assured that God would remember mercy for her child ! It ought to be recorded, that on that very morning, it pleased the Holy Ghost, as she afterwards ascertained, to knock off the chains from this unhappy prisoner, and introduce him into the liberty of the sons of God. He had not gone far before he had such a view of the perfections of God, that he wondered he had never seen their beauty and glory before. There was nothing in God now which distressed him. He had lost all his opposition to the divine sovereignty; and, such were his views of this adorable perfection, that he could not refrain from exclaiming, " O glorious sovereignty ! O glorious sovereignty !" He retired a small distance into the woods, that he might be the more at liberty to contemplate the character of God, and adore and extol his holy and amiable sovereignty ; but he here saw so much of God, that his mind was almost lost in the overwhelming manifestation. The scene was altogether new. There was a wonderful change either in God or in him. Every thing was gilded with light and glory ; and now and then, as he gazed at the splendour and majesty of the divine character, he would still ex* claim, " O glorious sovereignty !" It does not appear that in all this he was bribed into acquiescence. " His mind was so constantly occupied in viewing the perfections of God, and in meditating on his word and works, and so continued for several weeks, that he did not think of himself with any degree of concern." Such is the nature of genuine religion. It is far from being indispensable to our cordial acquiescence in God's character and government, to be persuaded that we are interested in his mercy. Though from Mr. Mills' letters, his friends were induced to hope that some change had taken place in his views ; he himself was conscious of no hope, till about three months after this period. " Surely, it shall be said of Jacob and of Israel, What hath God wrought!"

REV. SAMUEL J. MILLS.

Chapter II. His Education And Early Devotion To The Missionary Cause

We can scarcely fail to have observed, that the Divine Spirit often gives a particular impulse in conversion, which prepares its subject for some particular service. There are those who are impressed with enlarged views of divine truth ; and not unfrequently of the importance, consistency, and beauty of some particular truths, which in the developements of Divine Providence, it is seen they are destined to defend and maintain. And there are those who are almost instantaneously roused to purposes of active benevolence; and the first discernible tendencies of whose affections are toward the wants and woes of their perishing fellow-men. To one who is conversant with the peculiarities of their exercises on spiritual subjects,it is not more certain, that Jonathan Edwards and Andrew Fuller were prepared, in the early stages of their Christian experience, for the distinguished part they have acted in illustrating and de- C monstrating the grand trufhs of revealed religion, than were David Brainerd and Samuel J. Mills, for distinguished efforts as Missionaries of the cross.

The direction of young Mills' thoughts may be gathered from a single suggestion, soon after his return from Litchfield. The first idea his father had of his change of mind, arose from an observation he made, " that he could not conceive of any course of life in which to pass the rest of his days, that would prove so pleasant, as to go and communicate the Gospel salvation to the poor Heathen.''' Thus early did a sovereign God, who has pity on the Heathen, set apart Samuel J. Mills for a Missionary. It is somewhat remarkable that from this same hour, he never once lost sight of his darling object. Though but a youth of sixteen, he discovered a zeal in the Missionary cause, an eagerness in the pursuit of Missionary intelligence, and an enlargement of thought* in his plans, to become acquainted with the true state of the unevangelized world, which left little doubt that he was chained to his purpose by a superior power.

It was a heart yearning over the miseries of perishing millions, that first led him to think of acquiring an education with a view to the gospel ministry. Having consulted his parents, and unfolded all his purpose, which, should God permit, was no less than to devote his life to the cause of Missions in foreign lands; and having received their approbation and their blessing, he resolved on measures for changing his course of life. The Spirit of God came over him like Elisha in the field. While toiling at the plough, was his heart touched with compassion for the heathen world, and he bid adieu to his farm, to obtain an education on purpose to carry the Gospel to millions who perish for lack of knowledge. Thus in a retired field in Litchfield county, was the King of Zion beginning that grand course of operations which have produced such a mighty revolution in the American Churches, and which bear so intimate a relation to the progressive glories of his kingdom. Having put his secular concerns into other hands, and having previously connected himself with the Church, under the pastoral care of his father, Mills became a member of Williams' College, in Massachusetts, in the autumn of 1806. As a scholar, he was of respectable standing; but as a youth who " walked with God," and whose uniform deportment evinced that he was devoted to interests superior to his own, he shone as a light in the earth. Ardent and matured as his piety was at more advanced periods, it may be said of Mr. Mills, that he began his career very much as he ended it. At this early period, his piety was of that strong, yet fervent, that unostentatious, yet practical and efficient kind, that gave the highest evidence that he was a child of God. Engaged in pursuits, in which many a godly youth is allured from duty, by the glare of science and the love of fame, he not merely retained his integrity, and made sensible progression in holiness, but by a deportment so circumspect and kind, that even the enemies of religion could not but respect him ; and by a consistency and sweetness of character, which gave so much lustre to vital piety, that his friends felt the reproach of his example; did he become the means of conversion, steadfastness, and zeal, and will be long remembered as a distinguished blessing to the Seminary of which he was a member.

To many a pious youth, the weight of moral obligation seems to be too much suspended during a four years' residence within the walls of a college. Too many appear to feel that they have discharged their obligations, while irrespective of the present, they only prepare for the future ; and it does not come within the perview of their plans to do good, but only to obtain it. It may possibly deserve reflection, whether the indifference of the pious young men who are members of our colleges, to the obligations of active usefulness, may not be one reason why the light of science so often dazzles only to attract and consume the insect that carelessly flutters around it, and why our seminaries of learning, with all their eminent usefulness, so frequently prove a snare. Every where Mills' object was but one. To him, nothing had charms so powerful, as the glory of his Redeemer and the salvation of men. The conversion of a sinner from the error of his ways, the deliverance of one immortal being from everlasting burnings, was to his benevolent mind enough to compensate a thousand fold for all the laurels of a Caesar. While he was a member of College, there was a revival of religion in that Institution, of which he was the chief instrument. There are not a few of his fellow-students now in the ministry, who owe their hopes of heaven, and their usefulness on earth, to his instrumentality. Nor would we fail to remark, that some of those beloved men, whom the American

Church has been permitted to send into the seclusions of our own wildernesses, and to plant on the banks of the Ganges and the Indus, will long remember his instrumentality in their conversion and Missionary zeal. His contemporaries at the College will delight to linger on the recollection of his excellence; and can never forget how the salvation of the dear youth with whom he was associated, the revival of pure and undefiled religion, and the desolations of the heathen world, were themes that often drew tears from his eyes and persuasion from his tongue, as he visited from room to room, and walked from grove to grove.

The following extracts from his own Diary will better evince the state of his mind at this period, and be more gratifying to our readers, than any narrative of our own,

44 June 25, 1806. I hope I shall have an opportunity to retire and address the Throne of Grace to-day without molestation. O that God would be with me, and assist me in the performance of duty ! It will be a stupid time indeed, if the Lord does not pour down his spirit and convince me of my unworthiness and dependence. O how unworthy we are at this institution to partake of the crumbs that fall from our Master's table ! Blessed be God, he has, as I trust, wrought a good work upon the hearts of some, and is forcing conviction and light upon the minds of others. I hope nothing may retard the progress of this most glorious work.

44 Thursday, 26. Attended conference this evening, composed principally of the Freshman Class.

A very good meeting. Many very solemn ; K

much cast down. It was very evident God was striving with some of his disobedient creatures. The work is the Lord's, and he is abundantly able to carry it on. — Arise, O Lord, thou and the ark of thy strength ! It seems to me I never longed so much for the Sabbath as I do now. I am afraid the impressions of my classmates will wear off. But all things are possible with God.

« Saturday* 28. Think I feel something of a praying frame this morning. — O for more fervour, more engagedness, more activity, in the cause of the blessed God ! I hope this may be a sweet day to my soul. Think I see something of my unworthiness.

"Sabbath Morning, 29. Have some view of my dependence upon God and of my awful stupidity. I pray God to be with me to-day, and keep me from injuring his cause, and preserve me in a praying frame! — At Noon. — Just returned from meeting — an uncommon time with me — think I have never been so carried above this world before; never found myself so nigh the foot of the cross. Come, Holy Spirit, heavenly Dove, give me, unworthy me, a spirit of prayer! O humble me — keep me at the foot of the cross. Grant that 1 may always feel uneasy when I wander from that delightful place ! Grant that I may make it my home there, and never wound my Redeemer in the house of his friends !

" Nov. 10. [After vacation] I have been in town two weeks. Professing Christians not so much alive as they generally were last term. O that God would revive us again ! — that his saints might rejoice, and that immortal souls might be ransomed from eternal death! O that He would make his children feel their dependence, and bring them to cast themselves at his footstool ! All our strength is from the Lord ; I hope he will not cast us off' for ever, but carry on his own work as best pleases him. We are brought very low ; and if the Lord look not upon us, where is our hope? Where can we look but to thy Holy Hill?"

The outpouring of God's Spirit, here alluded to, though not very extensive, was among the most signal expressions of favour to the Church. The instrumentality the subject of these Memoirs had in this work of grace, we shall lay before the reader in the language of one of his most valued classmates, who is now successfully engaged in the Christian ministry. " During the last term of his first year, there was a revival of religion in College, which commenced in his class. It was then my opinion, and I believe the general opinion, that Mr. Mills was principally instrumental in the hands of God, in producing the blessed work. Certain it is, that no one was so much resorted to as he by those under serious impressions. He was singularly devoted and engaged, a little before the revival commenced, and while it lasted. Nor did he, after it had ceased, relapse into that state of apathy and indifference so common with many, and to which there are so many temptations in College. It may well be said of him.

that he c walked with God,' and I trust his footsteps were seen long after he left the College."

It is in itself grateful, and of some importance to the subsequent parts of his history, to observe the invariable tendencies of his mind toward the grand objects of benevolence to which his life was so sacredly devoted. The following extract is from his Diary, while a member of College, though under an obliterated date.

" O that I might be aroused from this careless and stupid state, and be enabled to fill up life well ! I think I can trust myself in the hands of God, and all that is dear to me ; but I long to have the time arrive, when the Gospel shall be preached to the poor jlfricans, and likewise to all nations.''''

Ejaculations like these were the true index of his soul. It is his zeal and exertions as a Christian philanthropist, that will attract the deepest and most profitable attention. In this respect, it is no exaggeration to say, he stands almost without a parallel among men not actuated by the miraculous agency of the Holy Ghost. What the memorable Howard was in some few branches of temporal charity, was Samuel J. Mills, in a vast variety of simple yet magnificent plans of Christian beneficence. Few who knew him will question the justice of the observation, that he possessed feelings which suffered him to say very little of himself. Though one of the most modest men I ever saw, he once said to a coniidential friend, and a brother in the ministry of a

kindred spirit, " Brother C s, though you and I

are very little beings, we must not rest satisfied till we have made our influence extend to the remotest

corner of this ruined world." This was his real

spirit. Simply to become a Missionary himself, and live and die in Pagan lands, surrounded with all the evidences of successful labour, was with him a very small matter. His charities were the most exalted, and his plans most sublime. He knew how to labour for an interest, distant enough to bring nothing to himself, and " form a purpose to feel and act efficiently for more than two-thirds of the human race, never baptised by the Christian name."

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Chapter III. His Interest And Agency In The Promotion Of Foreign Missions

Among the projects in which Mr. Mills took a deep interest, and which was the first in his own estimation at the time it was conceived, was the design of propagating the Gospel among the Heathen in foreign lands, by means of Missionaries from this country. It is interesting to trace the connexion between the plans and measures devised by this single youth in Williams' College, and many of the great movements which have since taken place in the American Church. Though very little is to be found among his own papers, which would disclose his instrumentality, the almost universal acknowledgment of men interested in Missionary concerns, attributes to Mr. Mills a distinguished agency in bringing forward a new era in the history of Missions in this Western World.

The dawn of a Missionary spirit had begun to appear in some of the American churches before. To those who have observed the signs of the times, it cannot be doubtful that a new

BEV. SAMUEL J. MILLS, and splendid era on the other side of the Atlantic was introduced about eight-and-twenty years ago. In the year J 792, the first Missionary Society was established by Carey, Fuller, Pearce, and Ryland, at Kettering, in England. In 1795, the London Missionary Society was instituted ; and from th* period Missionary Institutions have been increasing in number throughout the four quarters of the globe. America began gradually to participate in the sacred spirit. Aside from an establishment formed by the Moravians in 1734, and a branch of the Society in Scotland for Propagating Christian Knowledge among the Indians in North America, which was instituted at Boston, in 1787, the honour of commencing the first Missionary exertions in the United States belongs to the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church. At their first Session, as early as the year 1789, that body passed an order requiring the Churches under their care to take up collections for a Missionary Fund ; and in 1802, they established a Standing Committee of Missions, which has been in successful operation from that time to the present. The New- York Missionary Society was instituted in 1796; the Connecticut Missionary Society in 1798; the Massachusetts Missionary Society in 1799 ; and the New-Jersey Missionary Society in 1801.

Hitherto, however, the attention of the Western World had been exclusively turned to domestic Missions, among the new settlements, and Indians. To the eye of the few who watched its growth^ it was obvious that the germ of this tree of

2j3 MEMOIRS OF THE LATE

life had been gaining strength and activity ; but it was not destined to shoot out its branches to the river, and its boughs to the ends of the earth, till the period at which we have now arrived. That she had a distinguished part to act in the conversion of six hundred millions of our guilty creation abroad, beyond her destitute at home, was a thought that had never till now sunk into the bosom of the American Church. Why was it so ? Surely no nation possesses greater advantages for disseminating religious truth, whether we regard resources or men ; and no nation is under greater obligations to make many and great exertions for this exalted object. Why should the nations of Europe, in the midst of all their conflict and blood, have been sending their sons through different continents and to the islands of the sea, while America, this land of freedom, peace, wealth, and privilege, circumscribes her exertions to si handful of men within her own territory ? If there are any who at this late hour are backward to engage in this glorious enterprise, let them know, that the deliverance of the Pagan nations is sure ; — let them know that as God has given the Heathen to his Son for an inheritance, so he has given the sanction of his own Spirit to measures for their conversion, — and that the most stupid and barbarous of men have been brought within the fold of the Great Shepherd. If we do not choose to engage in this work, other nations, more faithful, will go forward and be crowned with success ; but, " we and our father's house shall be destroyed/'