paper only attempt to give a sketch of what has been done during the past twenty years, by one of the six Societies which have for some years been labouring there.

Mr. Forsyth was the first person connected with the London Missionary Society who went to Northern India. He was not permitted to settle in British territory, and therefore took up his residence in the Dutch settlement at Chinsurah, thirty miles above Calcutta, in the year 1799. His connection with the Society was subsequently dissolved, although he laboured in the two remote towns with more disinterestedness than wisdom, until his death in 1816. It was in that year that two missionaries of the Society first settled in the capital itself. One of them, Henry Townley, will be lovingly remembered by many who read these lines. He did not remain in India seven years, but he did a great work, and won the lasting esteem and admiration of many by his singular kindness and generosity. The work thus well begun was prosecuted by others, when at the beginning of 1849 it had attained the following dimensions :

There were two English Chapels; one of them was strong and selfsupporting, the other was small, and had but one service on the Sabbath; no Church had been formed, and the entire amount contributed to religious purposes did not average £25 a year. There was a native Church at Bhowanipore, a suburb close to the city, having ten members, and presided over by a European missionary. The people were poor, and gave nothing to the support of their minister, and the whole of their contributions to religious objects did not reach £5 in the year. In the villages to the south and east of the city, four native congregations existed, having a Christian population of 550, of whom about 125 were Church members. These congregations, with the schools belonging to them, in which there were fewer than 200 boys, cost the Mission more than £200 a year, and toward this amount the people themselves contributed nothing. Within or near the city five day-schools existed, having about 520 scholars, whilst in the Institution at Bhowanipore there were 450 boys. The education given to these was entirely free. There were no day or zenana schools for Hindoo girls, but about twenty-five orphans and daughters of native Christians were educated in a boarding-school. The Mission buildings were, with the exception of Union Chapel and the pastor's house belonging to it, all frail and poor, being for the most part composed of mud or wattle, with thatched roofs. Seven European missionaries and five native catechists formed the clerical staff of the Mission. The time of the former was about equally divided between teaching, preaching to the heathen, and ministering to the native Christian congregations, whilst the two English congregations occupied a considerable portion-perhaps half the time of two of them. The catechists could do little if left to themselves, for neither intellectually nor spiritually were they strong; their time was occupied in preaching to the heathen, looking after the native Christians, and teaching in schools. Such was the Mission just twenty years ago;

since then it has greatly changed, and the following statements will show that in almost all directions decided progress has been made.

The BUILDINGS now belonging to the Mission are very different to what they then were. The advisability of having more convenient premises in which to prosecute the educational work of the Mission, led Dr. Boaz to visit England in 1847, to collect funds for this purpose. Through his exertions chiefly, a very suitable piece of land was purchased at a cost of £1,500, and on it a very convenient and handsome institution, capable of accommodating 1,100 scholars and students, was erected, together with a good house for one of the tutors, and a suite of eleven rooms for converts from the Institution, and students for the Ministry. These cost, with the land, nearly £7,000. Subsequently one of the upper wings of the Institution was converted into a dwelling-house, thus making the third belonging to the Mission, instead of the one it alone had at the beginning of the period under review. Shortly after these were completed, the Government needed the land on which the English Chapel at Cooly Bazaar stood, and as it was then usually full on the Sabbath evening, Mr. Storrow resolved to build one much larger and more beautiful. This was done at a cost of nearly £1,000, and like the Institution buildings it was soon freed from debt. Preparations were also made for the erection of a minister's kouse, and £200 secured for this purpose, which has since been increased to £400.

For many years the native congregation at Bhowanipore met in a room; but when the new Institution was erected, the old building was fitted up as a chapel by its pastor, Dr. Mullens. This has recently given place to a new and substantial structure, which has cost, with the land on which it is built, £1,160. One-half this amount was contributed by Europeans; but probably no native Christian community in India ever undertook such a work or contributed themselves as much toward it. A house for a native minister, at a cost of £200, has also been built in one of the villages; Union Chapel improved at a cost of £1,100; and some inexpensive schools and chapels erected.

A very gratifying change has taken place in the AGENTS of the Mission. In 1851, six students of the Institution, one after the other, renounced Hinduism under circumstances which greatly encouraged the missionaries, and deeply stirred the native community of the entire city. Of these six converts, three are now most efficient ordained ministers, two are the leading members and deacons of a Church, and the sixth is usefully employed as a teacher. Conversions of a similar kind, though fewer in number, have taken place almost every year since then. These have brought an entirely new element into the Mission. All these converts are of good caste, and several of them from the highest. They belong to families that are socially respectable, and in some instances influential. Nearly all of them are well educated, and some of them highly so. They have thus been able to take a social position much higher than that usually held by native

Christians. Genuine religious principle, operating on natures somewhat superior, has formed them to give, to govern, to work, and to originate, not after the manner of Hindus, or native Christians of the past generation, but after the ideal type of English Nonconformist Christianity. Several of these are now usefully occupied as teachers in Mission schools, and a yet greater proportion as preachers and ministers. Two of them, after being ordained, have been sent to render valuable aid in the missions at Berhampore and Benares. Three others who are ordained, and two preachers of a similar class, continue to labour in the Mission itself, and one devoted catechist has gone to his rest and reward in heaven.

The accession of these highly-trained native brethren has had a marked effect on the Mission in several ways :

The native preachers of fifteen or twenty years ago were none of them well-educated or ordained; this rendered it necessary that the European missionaries should amount to seven or eight; but the number now needed is less, and in several years has been four and five, thus saving a large amount annually for the Home Society. A truer adjustment of labour has also been secured. Formerly all the native Churches had European pastors, no catechist being considered fit for such responsibility. Now, however, they are all under native ministers; nor is there any cause to regret the change. Various advantages, indeed, have sprung out of it, some of which may be traced in our subsequent remarks.

The important work of native female education has not so much been developed as created in the Mission. The original difficulty of getting any girls to attend school, even when paid for doing so, has often been stated; now, schools can be formed, and even fees, in many instances, can be charged. The work so energetically commenced by the late Mrs. Mullens has grown, so that now, beside the solitary school we have mentioned, there are five day-schools, and seventeen zenanas are visited.

The FINANCIAL POSITION of the Mission is much improved. This has arisen, to a great extent, from the cultivation of liberality and conscientiousness among its adherents. We have stated how little was formerly contributed at Cooly Bazaar, now called Hastings Chapel. Quarterly collections were, however, established in acknowledgment of the services of the London Missionary Society's agents, and these the year before last amounted to £65, whilst the annual contributions to missionary objects are about £85.

This six-fold growth has been surpassed by the native Churches. At Bhowanipore the people contributed, in 1867, toward their native pastor's income, £60, and to other Congregational purposes, irrespective of the new chapel, £30. If it be considered how little they formerly gave, that Hindu human nature is most reluctant to give, but has enormous powers of receptivity, and that these amounts are, all things considered, far in excess of what the same sums contributed in England would represent, it will be seen that a marked and gratifying change has taken place. Still more

pleasing are the spiritual results, for the ten Church members of 1849 have now increased to seventy-one.

In the four village congregations a marked improvement has been initiated. Formerly they not only gave nothing, but received much, both directly and indirectly from missionary funds, and every charge arising out of religious worship, schools, and the erection and repair of buildings, was paid from the same source. Now, however, the expense to the Missionary Society is not half what it formerly was, and to schools, missions, repairs, and the poor, the people are beginning to give.

The funds of the Mission have been greatly relieved by the introduction of school fees. Formerly education was not appreciated as it is now, and the people then who were rich were unwilling to pay for it, especially if given along with Christian instruction. It was deemed advisable, however, in 1856, to introduce a charge of sixpence a month for each scholar attending the Institution, and the amount has been repeatedly increased until it has reached £551 in the year. Charges are also made in the inferior schools. Few things so forcibly exhibit the change in Hindu opinions and feeling as the amount they will now pay for a good education.

As this exhibits the change produced outside Christianity, so the creation and success of a Family Pension Fund for the Widows and Orphans of Native Christians generally, and largely supported by the converts of the Mission, is a gratifying and conclusive proof of the growth of selfreliance and benevolence in the community. It is managed with great judgment; the number of subscribers and the amounts they pay are large, and the accumulated capital is now £4,000. The Fatalism accepted by all Hindus and Mahommedans, leading to the utmost improvidence, and their want of truthfulness and confidence in one another, renders it impossible for such a fund to exist among them, and hence the significance of the existence of this one.

Certain sums have also been collected, and others bequeathed to the service of the Mission, which are of considerable service, though the interest they yield is alone available. A member of Union Chapel

bequeathed £200 to the Bhowanipore Institution; another member, £1,000 for the support of a native preacher; another, a moiety of a house worth £60 a year to Union Chapel. The Rev. W. H. Hill raised a fund of £150 for a village station; the Rev. E. Storrow, one of £500, for the widows and orphans of missionaries, and a Pastor's Retiring Fund of £300; and the late Rev. A. F. Lacroix, one for students and itinerating, amounting to, we believe, £400. Thus funds and property have been acquired, originally worth £12,000, and now almost double that sum; and irrespective of congregational collections and subscriptions, now largely in excess of what they formerly were, the Mission has an annual income of nearly £1,000 from the sources thus created, no part of which formerly existed.

We have exhibited the external and more appreciable aspects of a

Mission's progress, but it has advanced in other directions. The number, intelligence, conscientiousness, piety, self-reliance, and zeal of the native Christian community are greatly in advance of what they were, and its social position and weight is very much higher.

Growth of this kind, exhibited in such various forms, and illustrative of what is, more or less, taking place in numerous instances, should convince those who question the success of Missions, that there are very marked results, and a perceptible advance toward independence and self-support, and stimulate and encourage those who give and labour at home.

IS ANY GOOD BEING DONE AMONG THE JEWS? To answer this question fully would be to write a large volume; for hundreds of pages might be filled with instances in which the Gospel has proved "the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek" (Rom. i. 16); though the Christian Church has for many centuries reversed the apostolic order and preached to the Jew last. A few facts, however, of recent occurrence may be noted, especially from the diaries of the missionaries maintained by the British Society for the Propagation of the Gospel among the Jews.

It is observable that in many parts of the Continent, where Rabbinism, Popery, and lifeless Protestantism, had united to keep the people in utter ignorance of the Gospel, Jewish converts have proved most powerful agents in quickening the Christian communities and promoting pure and vital godliness. A striking instance of this is seen in Bromberg, a town in the north-east of Prussia, with a population of between thirty and forty thousand, to which place the British Society sent Dr. Koppel as their Missionary five years ago. At that time a rationalist clergyman occupied the pulpit of the Protestant Church, and there was scarcely a true Christian among all the inhabitants. Since then, thirty-five Jews and Jewesses have declared their faith in Christ, through Dr. Koppel's ministry, and he now has a little Church in his own house, consisting of more than twenty believers, eleven of whom are converts from Judaism; and besides these about sixty orphan children, Jewish and Gentile, who are sheltered, fed, clad, and carefully trained up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. All this is the creation of a single Missionary, himself a Christian Jew; and his work is gradually extending its influence throughout the district around him.

In a large city in Turkey, where the same Society, five years ago, began its labours, not only have several of the adult Jews and Jewesses given evidence of true conversion to God, by facing persecution and enduring heavy loss on account of their principles, but classes of young men meet at the Missionary's house in succession through the various parts of the day-arranged according to their degrees of knowledge and of religious