Texas in 1850. By Melinda Rankin. Page: 162 of 196

TEXAS IN 1850.

165

vantages would certainly be doing an important work.
Many places might be found which would give able
and devoted ministers a sufficient support where
the people ought to be sought out and gathered
into churches. Such pioneers are evidently required
to lay the foundation of future institutions of religion
and learning throughout the land. No class of missionaries
are more worthy of respect for their disinterestedness
and self-denial, than those ministers who
throw themselves into the difficulties of such a field,
encouraged only by the prospect of so glorious a result
as the diffusion of evangelical principles and institutions
among the people of this growing State.
The prospects of the Presbyterian denomination have
been greatly brightened during the last year by the
arrival of several ministers, having been sent out by
the Missionary Board. This accession has partially
supplied existing wants, but is not yet adequate to the
demand. The Macedonian cry must still be repeated,
" Come over and help us."
While we would enlist the sympathy and co-operation
of those who are divinely commissioned to "preach
the gospel," we would present the fact, that a great
field is open in Texas for the influence and labors of
private Christians; and we would cast an imploring look
to those large and extensive churches abroad, which luxuriate
in their extensive privileges beneath the fullorbed
splendor of gospel ordinances. In no way could
newly settled countries be so speedily evangelized as by
the emigration of portions of churches into destitute