Such considerations as the foregoing caused the writer in 1865, so to feel the overwhelming necessity for an increase in the number of labourers in China, that, as stated in the first edition of this appeal, he did not hesitate to ask the great Lord of the harvest to call forth, to thrust forth, twenty-four European, and twenty-four native evangelists, to plant the standard of the cross in all the unevangelized districts of China Proper and of Chinese Tartary.
The same considerations lead us to-day to cry to God for many more. Those who have never been called to prove the faithfulness of the covenant-keeping God, in supplying, in answer to prayer, the pecuniary need of His servants, might deem it a hazardous experiment to send evangelists to a distant heathen land, with "only God to look to." But in one whose privilege it has been for many years past to prove the faithfulness of God, in various circumstances—at home and abroad, by land and by sea, in sickness and in health, in necessities, in dangers, and at the gates of death,—such apprehensions would be wholly inexcusable. The writer has seen God, in answer to prayer, quell the raging of the storm, alter the direction of the wind, and give rain In the midst of prolonged drought. He has seen Him, in answer to prayer, stay the angry passions and murderous intentions of violent men, and bring the machinations of His people's foes to nought. He has seen Him, in answer to prayer, raise the dying from the bed of death, when human aid was vain; has seen Him preserve from the pestilence that walketh in darkness, and from the destruction that wasteth at noonday. For more than twenty-seven years he has proved the faithfulness of God in supplying the pecuniary means for his own temporal wants, and for the need of the work he has been engaged in. He has seen God, in answer to prayer, raising up labourers not a few for this vast mission-field; supplying the means requisite for their outfit, passage, and support; and vouchsafing blessing on the efforts of many of them, both among the native Christians and the heathen Chinese in fourteen out of the eighteen provinces referred to.
For the glory of God and the refreshment of His people, he would mention more particularly some of the answers to prayer which encouraged him to form the China Inland Mission nineteen years ago.
About the latter part of 1857, the dispute between the British and Chinese authorities about the notorious lorcha Arrow, ended in the bombardment of Canton. This act greatly intensified the long-cherished hatred of the Cantonese towards the foreign residents in China. In Ningpo they plotted the destruction of all the foreigners; and knowing that many of them met for worship on Sunday evenings at the house of one of the missionaries,
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