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eyen a narrow-minded man might well doubt, whether the Hebrews, who knew the existence of Hindostan, (Esther, i. 1.) under the name of Hodu, and of Scythia under the name of Magog, could be entirely ignorant of the largest and oldest of empires. Sinim is the Hebrew plural of Sin. Ör should we think that whilst petty nations come into remembrance before the Lord, the millions of China should never be mentioned? All are numbered before him, they are the creatures which his hand has made, and for whom the Savior bled and died.

Whatever may be the impenetrable designs of Providence, that up to these latter days, this great nation remains destitute of the gospel, we cannot fathom them. It is not for us to know the times or the seasons which the Father hath put in his own power, but we ought to believe that his unalterable word will be fulfilled. If nevertheless, sullen despair occupies our hearts and we begin to exclaim; "the Lord has forsaken this country; the Lord has forgotten this empire ;"-O let us remember the divine assurance; "Can a woman forget her sucking child that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? Yea, she may forget, yet will I not forget thee. Behold I have graven thee upon the palms of my hands; thy walls are continually before me." Though this was primarily addressed to Zion, yet it is applicable to all nations, who are made of one blood, and who have one Father; and it follows immediately after the promise uttered in behalf of China. Therefore we ought to go forth in the strength of this gracious promise, and plead with the Lord, and wrestle for a blessing upon this nation. Has he not said; "It is a light thing, that thou shouldest be my servant, to raise up the tribes of Jacob, and to restore the preserved of Israel. I will also give thee for a light to the gentiles, that thou mayest be my salvation to the end of the earth?"-Or do we think, that our Savior is not the King of the whole earth, and that China is not given to him for a possession? He does intercede for this numerous, though long neglected people, while seated at the right hand of the Father, as a true high priest, who compassionates all the nations of the earth.

At the present crisis, which is big with great events, and when the march of intellect is rapid as the eagle's flight, we may look for great things. The wall of national separation is pulled down by a more powerful hand than human.-If the decree is passed in heaven, that China shall be saved,-what will the imperial edicts and prohibitions avail? There may be a hard struggle, for it is to be the last; but the bulwarks of Satan will not withstand the shock, nor his armies prove victorious. God will reign and subject China to his sceptre. If we then could ascend on high, we would join in the anthem; “sing O heavens; and be joyful, O earth; and break forth into singing, O mountains; for the Lord has comforted his people, and will have mercy on his afflicted." But whilst we are living here below,

let us "lift up our eyes round about and behold all these gather themselves together, and come to thee. As I live, saith the Lord, thou shalt surely clothe thee with them all, as with an ornament, and bind them on thee as a bride doeth.

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Whilst we remember these promises, and believe and labor to the last, with wisdom granted from above, we shall be successful. Has not the Lord said, "I will make all my mountains a way, and my high-ways shall be exalted?" Only be strong in our God, and he will remove the appalling obstacles.

Let us therefore strain every nerve to accomplish the object. We have to do with a nation half-civilized, which has schools and a national literature. The press can be made a mighty engine to batter dawn the wall of national separation. Our productions, if well written, will take the attention of the Chinese public at large, which is not prejudiced either against strangers or christianity. Let us at the same time not be prejudiced against them; but give arts and sciences as wide a range as it is in cur power to do; for these are the hand-maids of the gospel. Above all, let us show, that we are truly interested in the spiritual welfare of those whom we consider our parishioners, though they do not acknowledge us as their pastors. There is much misery in China, and we may alleviate a great deal by proper measures. Whilst we neglect nor the wise and the learned of this world among them, and who invariably stand high in their own esteem, let us condescend to the poor, the illiterate, and the wretched, who constitute the majority of the nation. This advice is now very easily given, but not so easily followed. But so long as we set before us a crucified Savior, who expired on the cross to save us wretched sinners, we may follow his footsteps who went about doing good. This will be a powerful way of preaching the gospel to the heathen, and of silencing all gainsayers. This way of exhibiting, together with the propagation of the glorious doctrines of the Redeemer, a correspondent practice, is humbly submitted to the fellow-laborers of the writer, who at the same time acknowledges his own deficiencies in word and deed.

It is to be expected that the Missionary, Tract, and Bible societies will second the efforts of uninfluential individuals, though already burdened with their own multifarious operations. And is there no literary society, either in Europe or America, which has any thing to spare for the Chinese? We hope not to plead in vain.-Let us conclude with the prayer; "Awake, awake, put on strength, O arm of the Lord. Awake, as in the ancient days, as in the generations of old. Art thou not it, that hast cut Rahab, and wounded the dragon?" Yea, may it be so. Amen and Amen.

MILITARY REWARDS.-It is the custom in China, as in many other countries, to reward those who have distinguished themselves in battle, with promotion. And those who fall in battle

under peculiar circumstances, are rewarded by honors decreed to their posterity. Late Peking gazettes furnish a detailed account both of those who behaved well and ill, on the occasion of the Formosan insurgents taking the town of Kea-e. One imperial officer headed a party of his soldiers in running away and seeking shelter among the mountains, where he still continues not captured. Another having associated with himself a few fai.hful adherents, in order to prevent the powder magazine from falling into the enemies' hand, blew it up about themselves. But the explosion not destroying their lives, they rushed sword in hand upon the rebels and slew several of them before they were overpowered. The wives, children, and servants of these warriors also continued faithful to death, though some of them were most cruelly treated by the rebels. Two of the women continued to rail at the insurgents till their noses were cut off, and their tongues cut out. The sons of the leader of this little band are to receive a nominal office, to be hereditary to all generations without end!

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CHINESE EMIGRANTS.- -We have seen several statements from Chinese, who have been in the straits of Malacca, respecting the situation of emigrants at some of those settlements. They complain most bitterly of the oppressive old Dutch system of farming" the revenue to any vagabond who will bid highest. The authority thus conferred on gamesters and opium-smokers, they consider detestable; and the cupidity of government, mean and degrading. But the farmers of provisions, such as pork and the like, are also great oppressors. They league with native police-men and enter people's houses, insulting their women, and sometimes robbing the inhabitants under the pretext of searching them. They have been known to take a small quantity of a prohibited article into a house, and pretending to have found it there, then prosecute the inmates in order to obtain the penalty. The industrious and well disposed Chinese are thus oppressed by governmental people, and also by secret associations of the idle and vicious among their fellow countrymen. Those who get rich also commit great atrocities, which through the influence of money never come to light. Such a man has lately returned to China. He first hired Chinese assassins to murder his partner in trade, and then hired Malays to murder the assassins.

It is painful to read the story of such cruelties suffered by the Chinese emigrants. Often, no doubt, this class of persons is such as "leave their country for their country's good, "" but often it is otherwise. Compelled by oppression or pinching poverty to emigrate, they find too few friends in their wanderings. Cast off also entirely from any protection by their government, they are left at the mercy of any foreign oppressors where they may reside; with the prospect of being plundered again, on their return home, by their countrymen..

LITERARY NOTICES.

Researches of the Rev. E. SMITH and the Rev. H. G. O. DWIGHT in Armenia: including a journey through Asia Minor, into Georgia and Persia, with a visit to the Nestorian and Chaldean christians of Oormiah and Salmas. 2 Vols. Boston: 1833.

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DURING the last fifteen years, a large extent of territory around the Mediterranean, including Greece, Asia Minor, Syria, Egypt, and the African coast, has been surveyed by protestant missionaries. The religious and moral condition of the Coptic, Maronite and Greek communities have been, by these investigations, brought before the benevolent societies in Europe and America; and, while many spontaneous efforts have been made to revive the "oriental churches, a desire has been excited to learn more accurately the condition of other sects residing farther eastsuch as the Armenians, the Georgians, Nestorians, and Chaldeans. With the special view of ascertaining by personal observation the present state and character of these classes of people, especially of the Armenians, Messrs. Smith and Dwight were instructed by the "American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, to undertake the journey described in the volumes before us.

These gentleinen left Malta on the 17th March 1830; touched at Smyrna, and reached the capital of the Turkish empire on the 19th of April. On the 21st of May, after having gained some knowledge of the Armenians residing in Constantinople, they set their faces eastward. At Tokat they visited the tomb of Martyn; then took a view of Erzroom, which was once a thoroughfare for the commerce between Europe and the East; thence turning northward they entered the Russian possessions, and passed up to Tiflis, which occupies the right bank of the Koor. Tiflis has the appearance of a busy and populous city, and its streets present a crowded and lively scene—in which the Russian soldier and the stately Turk, the Armenian with turbaned head and the Georgian priest, the dark Lesgy with his short sword, the Persian known by his flowing robes, the half-clad Mingrelian, and the Circassian driving his spirited horses, all act their parts. Lying at nearly equal distances from the Black and Caspian seas, Tiflis may erelong become again, as it was in the days of Justinian, the thoroughfare for the over-land commerce of Asia.

A sad harbinger from christian America had gone before the missionary travellers. "In the first caravanserai we

entered, the day after reaching Tiflis," say they, "we stumbled upon a hogshead of New England rum!"

On the 5th of August they seated themselves in a large covered baggage-wagon drawn by four horses abreast after the Russian fashion, and left Tiflis. As they went down the valley of the Koor, they met that dreadful scourge the cholera on its march to Europe. One week's journey from Tiflis brought them in sight of Shoosha, but not until they had passed through scenes of personal sufferings, which they "would rather forget than describe." A crooked route from Shoosha to Tebriz, led them along the banks of the Aras; where, as they travelled from Nakhchevan up to Erivan and back again, they gazed upon Mount Ararat, which is known to the natives by the name of Masis in Armenian, and Aghur-dagh (heavy mountain) in Turkish. "At all seasons of the year, it is covered far below its summit with snow and ice, which occasionally form avalanches, that are precipitated down its sides with the sound of an earthquake, and which, with the steepness of its declivities, have allowed none of the posterity of Noah to ascend it." From several points of view the appearance of that Mount, "the stepping stone between the old world and the new," was very majestic. At Ziveh-dudengeh, one fine`autumnal morning in November, when they arose at the earliest dawn "the summit of Ararat was whitened with the broad light of day, while the obscurity of night still dark

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ened its base; the first rays of the sun soon crowned it with gold; and then gradually descending, spread over it to its base a robe of similar brilliancy."

They reached Tebriz on the 18th of December. Abbas Mirza, the prince royal of Persia, into whose hands the Shah has resigned the management of his foreign relations, has his seat at Tebriz. His religious views are liberal, and his practice tolerant; but with his liberality he is also immoral, indulging in drinking and other dissipation. Abbas has been nominated by the Shah to be his successor on the throne of Persia.

Tebriz, now the capital of one of the most populous and productive of all the provinces of Persia, has a population of about 60,000, and also an extensive trade, the whole of which is in the hands of the natives. "The costly goods of Kashmeer and the East are brought by its merchants from the region of the Indus, and exchanged in the bazars of Constantinople for the manufactures of Europe. While some of the productions sent to India by the British East India Company for the Persian market, find their way hither from the ports of the Persian gulf; and the productions of Arabia are brought from Bagdad."

The first trait in the character of a Persian, that strikes a traveller coming from Turkey, is his civility. "The Turkish gentleman receives you standing, coolly puts his hand upon his breast for a salutation, asks you to sit as if the invitation in any form was an act of condescension, and a few common

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