“There should be the previous working of a Home Missionary among the families of the locality for which it is destined. . . . We set a parish missionary amongst them, who can give his whole time to the work, and who, by his unwearied ministrations among the sick, and the dying, and the ignorant, and the young, has created such a demand for Sabbath attendance, that his preaching-hall, which holds 300, is filled to an overflow; and we feel encouraged to build a church (to be set about immediately,) in the confident hope that many hundreds, who till now have been living in heathenism, will be reclaimed to the good old habits of their forefathers.”
“But wherever a new parochial economy is meant to be set up, it is in all cases most desirable that a moral preparation should go before the erection of the material apparatus. I do not know a more useful set of labourers than our local missionaries, who ply the families through the week, and congregate them at preaching stations, either on week-nights or on the Sabbath” (Chalmers, Works 18:228-29, 270).
West Port Experiment 
Leave a comment