"While we lay before you this prayer, and the earnest desire of the powerless but zealous Christians of the Eastern Church, in accordance with the originally spontaneous promise of your highly favoured Society, we, at the same time, bless God that we have been enabled to supply some instruments, however weak, towards the accomplishment of this sacred work. We are humble servants of Christ, and earnest petitioners of your Grace, and of the honourable members of your philanthropic Society."

MISSIONARY ANECDOTE FROM GUIANA.

(Received in a letter from the Rev. J. W. Garland, dated Spanish Town, Jamaica, April 6th, 1850.)

"I RECEIVED the Bath paper giving an account of the meeting at which Bishop Austin was present, and notice what you say about him. He is all that you describe. I knew him well when, as co-presbyters, we laboured together in the same colony, afterwards constituted an Episcopal See, and over which he now presides. On one occasion when I travelled with our then Chief Pastor, the late lamented Bishop Coleridge, in my capacity as his Chaplain, and the present Bishop Austin was then an Archdeacon and also with us, I think I never shall forget an incident which occurred. It was in the river Conatyne. We had landed and proceeded some distance through the wood, under the guidance of an aged and experienced Indian, in search of a spot which had years before been the site of a Moravian Missionary Establishment; each of us armed with a cutlass to clear our way if need be, or to protect ourselves from any noxious animal which might suddenly arise. We reached the spot, but found little to remind us of what it had been, except some tombs beneath which had been deposited the mortal remains of several of the Missionaries; for the tradition is that the spot, although beautiful in scenery, had been found to be very unhealthy, and for that reason had been abandoned. Not far off, however, we found several Indian huts, and in one of them occurred the incident to which I allude. The inhabitant was an old blind man ; he had been a chieftain and had been instructed by the Moravian Missionaries in the truths of the everlasting Gospel. These impressions of his early youth seem not to have been forgotten. He answered all our questions most pointedly, listened with the peculiar instinct of the blind to all we said, and before we left sang one of the hymns of holy praise, which those devoted men had taught him years and years before, concluding each stanza with the Hallelujah.' His soft and plaintive tone I shall never forget it seems yet to sound on my ear. We were far removed from the busy haunts of the world, yet even in this wilderness there was the Churchone tongue at least found to tell of the wonderful works of GOD. We all joined with him, and doubtless from each heart went up the secret prayer that the benign influence of the Gospel of peace and love might extend more

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and more. This very old man was noticed in one of the reports of the clergyman who subsequently visited the river Conatyne, and near to the very spot is now, I believe, a mission station of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, and under the supervision of Bishop Austin. You may imagine with what a feeling of delight I look back to those earlier scenes of my ministerial labour. The life of a Missionary, although full of danger and difficulty, is not without its joys. If by such instrumentality even one strayed sheep is gathered into the fold of the true shepherd Christ Jesus the Lord, this will abundantly compensate for years of toil and difficulty and trial.”

THE ARAWAK INDIANS.

THE Arawak, writes Mr. Brett, is the most numerous of the tribes near the coast of British Guiana; and it is also the most civilized. The number located within the British territory has been variously estimated, but cannot fall far short of two thousand. There are, however, many of this tribe who live beyond our boundaries, both in the Dutch colony of Surinam, and in the province of Venezuela.

It is from this tribe that the greatest number of our Indian converts has been gathered. I should think, from an estimate of the numbers attending the Missions of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, at Pomeroon, Waramuri, and Mahaiconi, together with those attending the Church Missionary Station at Bartica, and those on the Aruabisi coast of Essequibo, attending the ministry of the Rev. W. Austin and others, that considerably more than half their number are now receiving Christian instruction. Some hundreds have been already baptized, and it would not be difficult to induce the whole number to receive baptism; but great circumspection has been used at every station (as far as I am aware), and no catechumen admitted to that holy sacrament who has not been a considerable time, in some instances two years, under instruction. They are a very gentle people, and kind to those who have acquired their confidence. They are docile, and the children learn to read with great facility.

They have no regular laws, nor administration of justice among themselves; and there is probably no people on earth who stand in less need of them, offences on each other's property being very rare indeed, and quarrels unknown among them, unless when under the influence of intoxicating liquors. Their wants being very few, and the climate enervating, many of them, especially the young, give way to indolence; and the habit of drinking ardent spirits to excess, having been carried on for several generations, has greatly reduced their numbers, and weakened the constitutions of the existing race. So deeply rooted is this evil habit, that there is probably no instance of an Indian breaking it off, unless from the influence of the Gospel.

The religious belief derived from their ancestors is of a simple nature. They believe that a supreme being, whom they call Our Father,' and ' Our Maker,' inhabits the sky: that he is immortal and invisible. They acknowledge his omnipotence, but seem to consider him as too high to listen to the prayers of his creatures; consequently they address their petitions to inferior spirits, whom they consider to be the agents of every mischief or calamity, such as sickness, or death, which may happen to themselves or their friends. There are a number of persons who pretend to have power over these spirits, and who are employed to exorcise them by certain magical incantations, accompanied by the shaking of a gourd which contains some small stones, and through which a handle, adorned with parrots' feathers, is passed. The possessors of these instruments of superstition are held in great respect and fear by the others, and find the exercise of their art very profitable; hence they are great opponents in general to the spread of the Gospel, by which the hope of their gains is lost. There have not, however, been wanting those who have turned from their evil ways, and confessed their deceits, giving up also the 'marakka,' or gourd, as a pledge of their sincerity. In this manner I have, at different times, obtained possession of five of them. These magical arts are practised by most of the tribes in Guiana. The Arawaks call the system' semici,' or 'zemici;' and an aged convert of this class told me that it was first practised in the islands, and that Arawanili,' its founder, was held in religious veneration among them. The whole nation is divided into about thirty tribes or families, each having a different name. Marriage is not allowed between persons of the same tribe; and all children are considered to belong to the same family or tribe as their mother. For instance, if the mother were of the Siwidi' family, her children would bear the same name, and might not marry any member of it, however distant; but they might marry with any member of their father's family, or any other persons whom they chose.

Polygamy is much practised among them, and is the source of much domestic misery. Indeed the manner in which the female sex is kept under is the most painful feature in the social life of these people: it is, however, rapidly ameliorating under the Divine influence of our holy religion, to which the females are, in consequence, often the most ready converts, and the most firmly attached.

The past history of this tribe is involved in the obscurity which must ever attend a people possessing no method of recording past events. There are, however, several circumstances which would lead us to conclude that they were originally very differently situated; as a tradition or two in which the islands are spoken of as the place of their former residence, the manner in which they are located in a narrow line near the coast and on the banks of the rivers, and the want of affinity between the words of their language and

those of the other tribes, all point them out as refugees from some other quarter. It is most likely that they are of the same race as those first discovered by Columbus, and exterminated by his successors, in Hayti and the other larger islands of the West Indian seas. There is a great resemblance between the few words of their language which have been preserved, and those spoken by the Arawaks at the present day some of the words, indeed, are identical. This probability is strengthened by the strong aversion with which they regard the Spaniards, as a people who hunted their forefathers with dogs,' and by their remarkably mild and gentle disposition, which affords a striking contrast to the ancient ferocity of the Caribs, of whom they have ever stood in the highest dread, and who are now, like themselves, the inhabitants of the main land, reduced to a few hundreds in number, though once the terror of the islands and the masters of the coast.

Our illustrious countryman, Sir Walter Raleigh, mentions that he met with the 'Arawacas' in the Amana, at the mouth of the Orinoco, and was guided by them to the main river, in his first expedition to Guiana, 1595.

MISSIONARY COLLEGE OF ST. AUGUSTINE, CANTERBURY. THE following account of a visit to this Institution by a Missionary returned from Australia will be read with interest :

"I arrived at St. Augustine's on Saturday morning, accompanied by a former Cambridge friend, Rev. A. P. Moor, senior Fellow of the College. On our entering the gateway, we met the Warden, Bishop Coleridge, and the Sub-Warden, Mr. Pearson (a nephew of the Dean of Canterbury), who gave me a hearty welcome, and begged me to consider myself a guest of the College as long as I liked to remain in Canterbury. The entrance is through the ancient gate-tower which formed the northern gateway of the old Monastery. The quadrangle in which we immediately found ourselves is the most Collegiate looking one I have ever seen (those of Christ Church, Oxford, and Trinity, Cambridge, excepted), and is decidedly the most ecclesiastical in plan. The buildings are not too lofty, which is the defect of some of the courts at the two universities. The fronts are faced with flints, with stone finiihing at the angles. The ground is tastefully laid out in grass plats, on one of which stands a very well designed fountain, which is quite in keeping with the ecclesiastical character of the surrounding buildings. Only three sides of the quadrangle are completed. On the northern side is a range of buildings, where the students' rooms are; on the ground floor of this range are cloisters of the Early Decorated style, which forms a place for exercise in wet or inclement weather. Above them is a long gallery, on either side of which are the young men's apartments. These are rather

small, but are lofty and well ventilated, and are heated by means of pipes of hot water. These apartments, from the simplicity of the furniture, put one much in mind of the Prophet's room. Though no superfluity is allowed, yet every regard is paid to necessary comfort, and the students are taught habits of frugality which they might never learn at either of the universities. There is an absence of everything like austerity, and there is no privation at all likely to affect the health or spirits of the students, who, in preparation for the missionary work, are taught to endure hardness' and to resist selfindulgence. On the southern side is a garden, and on the eastern, where stood the old Refectory, and corresponding with it in size, is the Library; its windows are decorated, and are very beautiful. The entrance is at the southern end, by a handsome vestibule and steps. Bishop Horne's library has been presented to the College, and the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, as well as individuals, has presented several benefactions. Beneath the library is a singularly beautiful crypt, which is to be a museum, but which at present is used for a carpenter's shop, where the students are regularly taught carpentering under the direction of an experienced workman: I saw some of their handicraft, which reflected much credit on their skill. A new Church is about to be built in a poor district of which the sub-warden has parochial charge, and the students had it in contemplation to make and present the seats and poppy-heads. On the west are rooms for the subwarden and the fellows. Then comes the Warden's residence, and then the Chapel, which crosses the line of building, projecting eastwards into the quadrangle. Then comes the hall, with kitchen and butlery below; and this brings us round to the entrance gateway again.

Having taken a rapid survey of the whole range of buildings, and having spent some time at the Cathedral, I remained in the Fellows' rooms whilst the College lectures were going on in the hall. From the windows I had a full view of the whole quadrangle, and the more I gazed upon it the more pleased I was, and I could not but indulge the hope that many Australians would be trained for the Christian ministry in a place so favourable to study and meditation, and where they would be influenced by associations almost as soul-stirring as those of either of our Universities-associations connected with the history of the Church for more than twelve hundred years.

"At two we dined in the hall, which is plainly, though handsomely, fitted with oak, and the external walls of which are part of the original building. The dimensions are 60 feet by 24 feet. There is a high table, and another for the students. The viands consist of plain joints, vegetables, and cheese, the College authorities partaking of the same fare with the students. Of these there are at present but nine or ten, but ere long it is hoped that the number will be increased to fifty. The Warden thought it best to commence with a few, and then gradually to increase the number as he saw his way more