the cause of missions and schools; and I have no doubt, did not distance prevent, many amongst them would be found to be most zealous co-operators in all the laudable, charitable, and religious institutions with which Calcutta abounds.

CHAPTER XXIV.

"What is the world?—A wildering maze,
Where sin hath track'd ten thousand ways,
Her victims to ensnare;

All broad, and winding, and aslope,
All tempting with perfidious hope,
All ending in despair.

Millions of pilgrims throng those roads,
Bearing their baubles, or their loads,
Down to eternal night:

-One humble path, that never bends,
Narrow, and rough, and steep, ascends
From darkness into light.

Is there a Guide to show that path?
The Bible:-He alone, who hath
The Bible, need not stray:
Yet he who hath, and will not give
That heavenly guide to all that live,

Himself shall lose the way."-MONTGOMERY.

CALCUTTA BIBLE SOCIETY-NATIVE ROMAN CATHOLICS -UNION OF ROMISH CEREMONIES AND PAGAN SUPERSTITIONS- APPLICATIONS FROM NATIVES FOR BIBLES BIBLE ASSOCIATION-NUMBER OF COPIES DISTRIBUTED-LETTER OF REV. HENRY MARTYN

REV. D. SCHMID-EUROPEAN FEMALE ORPHAN ASYSICKNESS IN INDIA

LUM-OTAHEITAN YOUTHS

AND RETURN.

THE distribution of the Sacred Scriptures has been carried on in India by means of the Calcutta Bible Society, to an extent little apprehended by

the friends of the Bible cause in England. That society was established on the 21st of February, 1811, John Herbert Harington, Esq. being president, and the Rev. David Brown, secretary: since which period it has been constantly increasing in its operations; and tens of thousands of Bibles and select portions thereof have been circulated throughout the various kingdoms of the East. One principal cause of the establishment of a Bible Society in Calcutta was, that vast numbers of the natives on the coasts of Coromandel and Malabar, as well as of other parts of the continent of India and Ceylon, were found to be nominal professors of Christianity, but entirely destitute of the Scriptures, or very inadequately supplied with them. It was also found, as might be expected under such circumstances, that among nearly a million persons bearing the Christian name, the greater part dishonoured it by their ignorance and vice. At the same time, there were, in the very heart of Calcutta, thousands of Portuguese Roman Catholics totally destitute of the Holy Scriptures in their vernacular tongue. The Rev. Henry Martyn, in a sermon which he preached at Calcutta, on the 1st of January, 1811, with a view to the formation of the society, observed, "That there were at least 7000 of Portuguese Roman Catholics in Calcutta, and not less than 36,000 on the Malabar coast, and 5000 in Ceylon, besides those which were resident in the different settlements all along the coast, from Madras to Cape Comorin, and all

the principal towns on the Ganges and Jumna. Besides these, it was computed that not less than 150,000 native Roman Catholics, speaking the Malayalim language, as also 50,000 Syrian Christians, were entirely destitute of the lively oracles of truth. The consequence was, that when the Rev. D. Brown visited them, he observed, in one of his letters from the coast,

"At Aughoor, near Trichinopoly, there is a union of Romish ceremonies and pagan superstitions. They have their rutt, or car. I examined the rutt. It is built in the usual manner, with their cables to pull it, only that instead of the Hindoo devices, it has got hell and the devils on the lower part, heaven and the blessed in the higher, and above all, the pope and cardinals. The priest so ignorant, that he did not seem conscious of any impropriety in having the rutt. I asked him how many thousands of Christians attended the festival. He said, generally about 10,000, which number corresponds with the report of the collector of the district.

"At Manaar, I embarked in an open boat for Ramisseram. A storm arose, and I went on shore at a fishing village, situated near the north-west extremity of the island Manaar. They were all Romish Christians, and I slept in their church.The priest was absent, and his catechist had never heard that there was such a book as the Bible. My own boatmen were Christians, but had never heard of the Bible.

is

"The rutt is attached to the church of Tutycorin, as at Aughoor. The priest told me he walked before it in procession. In the Hindoo temples it is usual to ring bells and strike gongs, the moment the idol is unveiled. In analogy to this, bells are rung and drums beat at Tutycorin when the Virgin Mary is unveiled.”

To supply these destitute Christians was therefore the first great object which the Calcutta Society had in view; and no time was lost in printing or procuring the necessary store; and great indeed was the avidity with which the Scriptures were received by them, as the following extracts from letters will testify:

66

Dewopirayer Njonamutter says, the divine word is more precious than riches, gold, silver, or gems; but he has never had the book which shows the good way; asks for a New Testament, which he will hold as a lamp to his feet and a light to his path all the days of his life, and will read and study it, and walk according to the manner which it directs.

Sandapper states, that his spiritual guide being "a Roman Catholic, he cannot get from his own Romish minister a New Testament, which was appointed by the Saviour Jesus Christ for his salvation. He therefore petitions for a New Testament for to save his soul, and he promises to use it for that purpose, and will take the utmost care of it. Rayapen Sandapen, assistant catechist, says, through the paternal compassion of Mr. Hohlhoff,