APPENDIX. ANCONA. Extracts from the Rev. T. Meyer's Report. 1. ENGLISH FIELD.-Owing to the decrease of the English-speaking Protestant population of Ancona, the public English service formerly held has dwindled down to a service in my house, to which the four or five British Protestants that are still at Ancona are invited, and to which they sometimes do come. The year before last I kept up the public English service only in the hope that some Jews or Italians might come there to improve their knowledge of the English language. As I was disappointed in this hope; as, on the other hand, the British shipping has greatly decreased, and few travellers stop at Ancona, as it does not hold out any attractions; and as, farther, there were urgent claims upon me from other quarters, I had no alternative left but to give up the public English service. 2. GERMAN FIELD.—There are at Ancona about thirty or forty German or Swiss Protestants, for whose benefit I opened a German service about three years ago. That service was regularly held during the last year. Left for so many years without any pastoral superintendence, and exposed to all the deteriorating and demoralizing influences of Italian society, we need not wonder that the religious life of these Germans should have been at a very low ebb, especially when we keep in mind the fact that many of them brought to Italy but a very slender stock of religious knowledge or life. But a marked improvement has taken place. The services are regularly attended, and the prospect of my removal from Ancona has spread general consternation among them. 3. ITALIAN FIELD.-Four evening services were held every week, and on the third Sunday of each month, in the forenoon, the Communion was dispensed. The public services were better frequented than the preceding year; all the seats were almost always occupied, and often were not sufficient. As almost one-half of those present were always new faces, the importance of these Italian services is sufficiently demonstrated. People coming from the country to pay a visit to Ancona, rarely return home without having paid a visit to the Radunanza Evangelica; and in my travels I frequently had the joy of being recognised as the Maestro Evangelico of Ancona, and of finding that the word heard had been quick B ened. While the old members of the church have been visibly growing in grace and knowledge, five new names were added to the communionroll (the number of communicants is about thirty), and there are, at present, three persons under catechetical instruction with a view to their being admitted to the Lord's Supper. But it would not be just to judge of the influence of the Mission by these numbers only. When I came to Ancona to begin the missionary operations there, all the usual prejudices were abroad, and all the usual calumnies were spread. We now have lived down all that. No one any more ventures to assert that we pay our converts, that we teach immorality, or that we are infidels; the purity of our motives and the excellency of our doctrines are generally admitted, and have secured public esteem ; and by far greater than the number of those who come to our meetings, and publicly confess Christ, is the number of those that sympathize with us, and sincerely, although secretly, are inquiring for the way of salvation. There are many Nicodemus-like followers of Jesus at Ancona; of that I receive often pleasing proofs. They are persons not far from the kingdom of God, but not strong enough to break the many family and social ties which bind them to the dominant Church. A powerful influence from without is required to induce them to declare publicly that they are Evangelical Christians. That impulse will no doubt, in due time, be given; in the meanwhile we have to prepare everything for it. Besides my Italian congregation at Ancona, I have a smaller one, consisting of ten or twelve communicants, at Pesaro, which I regularly visited the second Sunday of each month, holding two meetings, and dispensing the Lord's Supper. Of my efforts in behalf of the Barletta brethren I need not speak here, as that is generally known. Although the station at Barletta is under the care of the Nice Committee, still by my interference during the eventful days of March 1866, and especially by the personal relation existing between the Evangelist at Barletta, Sigr. Gianaia, and myself, I have exercised a great influence over the evangelistic operations in the Puglia. A great help to me in my evangelistic labours in the district around Ancona, in the Marches, Abruzzi, Basilicata, and Puglia, was,— 4. THE DEPOT.-Although, owing to the circumstances already described, and to the fact of not having had the usual complement of colporteurs, the past year was not very favourable to the operations of the depot, still, during the twelve months there were sold 2902 copies of Scriptures and portions of Scriptures, and 5584 tracts, while the gratuitous distribution was: 2 Bibles, 61 Testaments, 1830 Gospels or Epistles, and 6520 tracts. At the present moment there are six colporteurs connected with the depot, five of them being paid by the British and Foreign Bible Society, one by the Scotch National Bible Society; the latter pays also the salary of the depot-keepers. By means of these colporteurs I receive regular accounts of the spirit prevailing in the various places and districts, and am put in connexion with the persons well disposed; and in summer I always spent part of my time in travelling, following up the labours of the colporteurs, deepening impressions made, strengthening and encouraging the brethren. Although, owing to the prevailing political circumstances and to domestic obstacles, I could in that way do less last summer than usual, still I visited and held meetings at Teramo, Pescara, Chieti, Ortona, S. Sevaro, Barletta, Trani, Bari, and Campobasso. While on arriving at Ancona, about five years ago, colporteurs had never got south of Ancona, there is at present, in the whole track of country from Ancona to Bari, scarcely one place in which there is not a smaller or larger number of people who meet together for reading the Scriptures and for prayer, who are not ashamed of calling themselves fratelli evangelici, and are beseeching me to send to them evangelists to preach to them the gospel. But the painful feature in the present stage of evangelistic work in Italy is just the want of labourers; and to meet that want I opened, the year before last, a class for the education of evangelists or Scripture-readers, being specially encouraged to do so by the fact of having two hopeful youths among my converts. For several months that class was continued during the year that has now come to a close, and I was already thinking of sending those youths out on a trial trip, when they made themselves guilty of such inconsistencies as obliged me to give up that idea, at least in the meanwhile. And in the meanwhile it has pleased the Lord to call me away from Ancona. Painful though it be for me to leave a sphere of labour in which by the Lord's goodness I was permitted to scatter abundantly the good seed for five years, and in which, by His blessing accompanying my labours, I have been privileged to see even some fruit springing up; I acknowledge in this removal His hand and will. And although His dealing be mysterious, yet I am full of the confidence that this my removal will be for the good of all concerned in it, and I feel comforted by the assurance received from the Committee, that they will not withdraw their sympathy and support from Ancona, but that it will continue to receive their prayers and countenance. EDINBURGH, April 1867. THEOD. J. MEYER. |