Greece, Italy, 21, 120, 208, 275, 371 [Last Words of Amer. Pres. Divines, - 303 Letter from Rev. W. G. Moorehead, South America--Chili, 53, 118 Mexico and our Country, - - 335 . 113 New Orleans-Miss Rankin, 210, 244, 274 Officers of the Society, The Italian Committee at Geneva, The Home Field: - 339 Proposed Week of Special Prayer-- 21 22, 23, 55, 86, 121, 150, 212, 245, 276, 307, 340, 373 News of the Churches: THE CHRISTIAN WORLD. VOL. XIV. JANUARY, 1863. No. 1. A GENERAL SURVEY OF THE WORLD:-Jan. 1, 1863. STANDING as we do on the threshold of a new year, we propose to take a survey of the world, in some of its civil and religious aspects, especially those which have a bearing on the work of THE AMERICAN AND FOREIGN CHRISTIAN UNION" The moment is convenient and propitious for such a task. We are entering upon the eighteen hundred and sixty-third year of the Christian era. The year that has just departed was a most eventful one; that which opens upon us to-day will probably be not less eventful-possibly it may be far more so. We are well advanced in the second half of the nineteenth century. Astonishing events are occurring every year, within Christendom and beyond it. Since this century opened upon the world, even since the present half of it commenced, what mighty changes have taken place in the political, social, and moral condition of Mankind! How many thrones have been overturned! How many dynasties have ceased to exist! How many systems of false religion have felt the earnest assaults of the glorious Gospel, which is the light of the world! How much progress has constitutional government-the only guarantee of the rights and liberties of the people-made among the civilized nations! What progress has been made in popular education in nearly all Christian countries! What progress in the art of Printing! What progress in all the Arts and Sciences! What development has been given to Manufactures, Agriculture, and Commerce! Who can estimate the advantages to human society of the Steamboat, the Railway, the Electric Telegraph? And how much better known is the earth with all its many millions of inhabitants than it was at the beginning of this century, and this greatly through Christian Missions! These are great topics on which we should delight to dwell, if it were proper. We hasten to the consideration of the subject of this introductory article of the XIVth volume of our CHRISTIAN WORLD, namely, a General Survey of the World, in some of its civil and religious aspects, especially those which have a bearing on the work of THE AMERICAN & FOREign CHRISTIAN UNION. We begin with OUR OWN COUNTRY. During another year CIVIL WAR has been raging in our midst. At the commencement of the year 1862 it had been going on nine months, and although the battles of Big Bethel, Bull Run, Ball's Bluff, Hilton Head, and some others had occurred during those months, they had been months of preparation rather than of fighting. But, during the year that has just closed, what movements have been made, and what battles have been fought! Somerset, Lexington, Pea Ridge, Shiloh, Madrid, Williamsburg, Fair Oaks and Seven Pines, Gaines' Mills and Malvern Hills, Cedar Mountain, the second Bull Run, South Mountain, Antietam, Corinth, Perryville, and many others of less extent, will make that year memorable in the annals of our country. So, too, will the capture of Roanoke Island, Newbern, Bowling Green, Forts Henry and Donelson, Columbus, New Madrid and Island Number Ten, Nashville, Huntsville, Memphis, New Orleans, Pensacola, and Forts Pulaski and Macon, and many other places of greater or less importance. From first to last, not much less than nine hundred thousand men have been under arms in the service of the United States; whilst the entire number has not been much less, if at all, than seven hundred thousand in the Confederate States. Alas, of these great hosts, how many now sleep in death, a prey to the devouring sword, or the more devouring fever of the camp, the barracks, the prison! And how many are suffering from wounds and diseases in hospitals, or at their homes, with little prospect of ever enjoying good health again! This war has carried sorrow and mourning into every city, and village, and neighborhood throughout our land. Nearly every family has lost a member, or an intimate friend. Who could have believed that in two short years the people of this country should be plunged from the heights of prosperity and happiness into the abyss of suffering and misery! and yet so it has been. Nor is the end yet come. Well may we exclaim, How long, O Lord! how long? But if this war has brought desolation and woe into many of the fairest parts of our country, and sadness and sorrow to many a hearthstone, it has been the occasion of wonderful displays of liberality and kindness. If our volunteer-soldiers have given their blood in torrents to save their country, their fellow-citizens have given abundantly of their means to supply their wants, to alleviate their sufferings, and to cheer them in the hour of death. Never has money been so liberally poured forth; never have comfortable hospitals been so readily improvised; never have the ingenuity and the love of woman been more ex◄ tensively laid under cheerful contribution; and never has Christian zeal been more beautifully illustrated than during this war. Our Bible and Tract Societies, our Boards of Publication, our Home Missionary Societies, our "Christian Commissions," our "Allotment Commissions," our "Sanitary Commissions," have all been active in ministering to the spiritual and temporal well-being of our soldiers and seamen.We doubt whether the world has ever seen any thing like all this in any war that has ever occurred. And whilst there has been much evil propagated in our armies during this war, it is certain that a vast deal of Truth has been read and heard. There have been many inefficient and incompetent chaplains employed in our regiments, but there also have been many faithful ones from whose lips our officers and soldiers, whether natives or foreigners, Protestants or Catholics, have heard the Gospel. Surely the Saviour must have some great and good end in view in allowing this fratricidal war to take place. How great must be the disease that has rendered such a dreadful operation necessary at the hand of our Heavenly Father! Oh, that it may be sanctified to us, and the great purpose which He has had in view be accomplished, and we made a wiser and better, a holier and humbler people, by having been made to pass through the furnace of affliction! We think that we can already perceive some good results from this great conflict. If it shall be the means of securing the overthrow and removal of that great evil which has grown with our growth, by direct or indirect, by immediate or gradual process, what a blessing it will eventually turn to be God grant that it may be so. And may we be permitted to see, at the close of the year on which we are now entering, still greater and better results than we see to-day, and above all, a happy termination of this dreadful struggle. Oh, when shall that day come, "When Peace on earth shall hold her universal sway, And man shall cease his fellow-man to slay !" BRITISH POSSESSIONS IN NORTH AMERICA. It is cheering to see that the kingdom of our Lord is making steady progress in all the Possessions of the British Crown north of us. The various branches of the Protestant Church in CANADA-WEST and CANADA-EAST, as well as in the Lower Provinces of NEW BRUNSWICK,. NOVA SCOTIA, CAPE BRETON, and PRINCE EDWARD'S ISLAND, are growing in numbers and strength, and live by the side of each other in a good degree of amity. Even in the more distant NEWFOUNDLAND, with its inhospitable climate, the Truth is gaining ground, chiefly through the zeal and labors of the Episcopal and Wesleyan Bodies. We are pleased to see that, whilst the help of the Churches in England is still invoked, and justly so, the Churches in all these countries are making most laudable efforts to build up the waste places, and for this purpose have their educational Societies and institutions as well as their Missionary organizations. They do even more; they have undertaken to send Missionaries to the heathen world. The Rev. Mr. Gordon and his excellent wife, who were murdered by the savages of the Island of Erromanga, were sent forth and supported by the Foreign Mission Board of the Presbyterian Church of the Lower Provinces, which has its seat at Halifax, Nova Scotia. By the same Board are the Rev. Messrs. Geddie and Mattheson also supported in the New Hebrides Group. They labor chiefly on the Island of Aneiteum, visiting we believe, occasionally, the Islands of Tana and Erromanga. In the work of Home Missions, the Presbyterians, and Wesleyans, and Baptists, in both the Upper and Lower Provinces are active and successful. The Grande Ligne Mission prospers; so does the French Canadian Missionary Society, whose head-quarters are at Montreal. God has wonderfully blest the labors of both these organizations, whose object is to impart the Gospel to the French population (originally altogether Roman Catholic) of the country. We have occasionally spoken in this Magazine of the Missionary efforts of the Church Missionary Society and Wesleyan Missionary Society of England, among the aborigines whom trade brings to the "stations" and "forts" of the Hudson's Bay Fur Company, in the region round Hudson's Bay and that extending westward to the Rocky Mountains and the Russian Possessions. It is interesting to read the accounts published in the Church Record of the labors of these selfdenying men in this vast hyperborean portion of Christ's kingdom.May their toil and self-denial be rewarded by seeing the good work of the Lord advancing under their labors! We have also occasionally referred, in our Missionary Intelligence, to the labors of the Wesleyan and other Missionaries in British Columbia, which lies West of the Rocky Mountains and between Oregon and the Russian Possessions in America. The Saviour has a goodly staff of laborers there, and delights to bless the labors of His servants in that far-off field. We have nothing new to say of the Moravian and Danish Missions in GREENLAND and LABRADOR. We regret to say that we know almost nothing about the moral condition of the six or eight thousand Russians, and the we-know-not how many thousands of Indians in Russian America. The little we do know is far from being encouraging. But up into that distant and benighted region the Gospel will one day penetrate. Let us thank God for hope, when we cannot thank Him for sight in these matters. MEXICO AND CENTRAL AMERICA. We ought to pray that the designs of the Emperor of France upon Mexico may be defeated. It is for no good purpose that he is aiding the Priest-party to overthrow the liberal government of Juarez, which |