Page:Narrative of a Visit to the Australian Colonies.djvu/617



At a Monthly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends, commonly called Quakers, held in York, in Great Britain, on the Fifteenth day of the Twelfth Month, One thousand, eight hundred and thirty. Our friend James Backhouse, of this City, having, at a former meeting, communicated unto us a belief which has long deeply impressed his mind, that he was called to visit, in the love of the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Inhabitants of the British Colonies and Settlements, in New Holland, Van Diemens Land, and South Africa, and to attend to such other religious duties as, in the course of his journeying, he may be required to perform; the subject has, at this time, as well as when first submitted to us, obtained our serious deliberation; and much sympathy having been felt with our beloved friend, in the prospect of this arduous undertaking, and lie being of circumspect life and conversation, and a minister in good esteem among us, and this meeting feeling unity with him in the proposed engagement, liberates him for the work unto which he is called.

Commending him to the care of the Great Head of the Church, to the guidance of the Holy Spirit, and to the kind notice of those amongst whom his lot may be cast; and earnestly desiring that his labours may be blessed to their spiritual benefit, and to the extension of the Kingdom of our Holy Redeemer, and that he may