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prospects as connected with the Colonial Episcopate and Church of England Missions. The list might be greatly enlarged, but it may suffice to refer our readers to the more copious ones furnished by our two great Societies, and to the official Reports recently published, or in the course of publication, as bringing up the statistical and other statements to the present time-a class of documents, by the way, of which none ought to be ignorant who would form an intelligent view of our religious prospects. The above brief selection has lately attracted our notice, and may serve as a text for a few additional remarks on the subject to which we have just referred. We regret that circumstances have prevented our resuming it, and that we must now content ourselves with a very few general observations. We are anxious, however, to keep the subject before us, and it will not be difficult, we hope, from time to time, to fill up our outline, and present our readers with so much of detail as may enable them to form their own judgment respecting our colonial and missionary prospects.

There is an interesting remark in the first of the documents on our list, which, it strikes us, would be equally true, and all the more forcible, if a little extended. It is to the effect, that "the stupendous amount of British power and British influence in India designate Great Britain as the privileged nation from whence the streams of life should flow." And, again,-that "the complete organization of the United Church of England and Ireland throughout the Indian Empire: the wealth of her members: the number of her ministers; and her vast superiority over every other Protestant Church, in all which constitutes the power of expansion : now place her in the forefront of the glorious work to which she is called, and which has been so auspiciously commenced." We are fully impressed with the importance of this statement: and though no more than we expected, it is gratifying to observe that the great Society from whose office it issues continues true to the principles on which it was founded, and which, as far as circumstances have admitted, have ever guided its course. We intend, in this allusion, principles of sound ecclesiastical "organization," combined with a genuine Christian catholicity. From these principles we hope she will never swerve, and while we entirely concur in the opinion "that at no period since the Reformation have these (and other principles of the Society) been so widely recognized, or so powerful in operation, in the Church of England, as at the present day," we trust the parent committee and all its affiliated committees, together with the Society's members at large, will be very careful to watch against the insidious pretensions of another style of churchmanship, which, we are sorry to observe, seems to revive with fresh

vigour, and to threaten more than ever the integrity of our Church, and the healthy extension of her influence through the medium of foreign missions. Let the friends of the Church Missionary Society remember, that its "principles" principles". . . have ever been its "real strength" let them "trust" to their scriptural expansive "power, "to as the Fathers of the Society trusted; and not doubt that success will crown their endeavours, according to the new openings and calls of the present day." We cordially respond to this and other sentiments expressed in the clear and valuable document explanatory of the Society's " present position and prospects." But this by the way.

To return to the remark just quoted. We must inform our readers that it is made with a particular application, and for a special purpose. It is connected with the following remark—

"It is often found to be a stimulus and encouragement to exertion to place before the view some definite object which may be proved to be within our reach. If the conversion of the whole world be too large an enterprise, let the Protestant Missionary Societies of England keep in view, as the grand object proposed to this Christian country, THE CONVERSION OF BRITISH INDIA TO THE FAITH OF CHRIST DURING THE PRESENT GENERATION."-(p. 19.)

Hence the allusion to our stupendous power in India, and the complete ecclesiastical " organization" which seems to place our Church" in the forefront of the glorious work to which she is called, and which has been so auspiciously commenced." There is much to warrant these aspirations and hopes as regards British India. "The expectation that the whole of the East will eventually succumb to England, seems," as a cotemporary observes, " to have pervaded central Asia." "They," (i. e. certain Mohammedans from Cashmeer) says Dr. Wolff, "told me that the people of Thibet have a prophecy, that the whole country will fall under the English sway." Subsequent events will hardly weaken the force of this prophecy, or much abate the prestige of our military prowess and skill in affairs. But what is more important, there is a growing and deep impression that India and the East are to be vanquished by the cross. Take the following as a single specimen from the remarkably interesting volume which closes our list "Protestant Missions in Bengal," by that valuable missionary, Mr. Weitbrecht. Among many other most encouraging facts noticed in his chapter on "The Success and Prospects of Missionary Labours in India," he has mentioned the following:

"The Bengalee New Testament, which has of late been printed in a nice compendious volume, is gladly accepted by respectable Hindoos: I presented one to a baboo, who touched his forehead with it in a reverential manner, and

'Narrative of a Mission to Bokhara in the years 1843-15, &c., by Dr. Wolff,

said, "It shall be as dear to me as life itself." Some years ago a native officer under Government met me in a village and invited me to his cottage: he showed me his little library, and to my surprise I saw, among other books, Scott's Commentary on the Bible; he assured me that he read in it every day. Young Hindoos who have received an English education are establishing English schools in their own villages: and thus render themselves useful to their countrymen. Rich zemindars pay them a small salary, and the parents of the scholars contribute their share for their support. Such a teacher, whom I met on a mission tour, requested me to examine his scholars and seeing that books were wanted for the reading classes, I offered to supply a number of New Testaments: the offer was gladly accepted, and the books were immediately distributed among the boys of the first and second classes." -(p. 309.)

He then adds

"As you may see from a feather where the wind is blowing, so are facts of this kind sure and pleasing signs of a thorough and wide-spreading change in the character and mind of the Hindoos.

"Though those worldly men who never took the trouble to enter the premises of a mission establishment, have returned from India, and said there was little or nothing doing by missionaries, yet the Hindoos themselves know better how to appreciate our labours.

"The following letter inserted by a young man in a Bengalee newspaper, is a remarkable proof of it. it was addressed to an association called the Dhurma Subha, formed in Calcutta for the protection of Hindooism. He writes, 'Oh, holy men, boast no more that you are Hindoos! Do you think that your children will remain faithful to the religion of their fathers? Give up all such vain hopes; the padres (or missionaries) who have come from Europe, are wandering in whole bands through every street and lane of Calcutta, in order to destroy the Hindoo religion; and greedy boys, like hungry fishes, are allured and caught by the hook of their sorcery. Many boys have given up their family, caste, and religion, have entered the family of Jesus, and have been initiated into the mysteries of the Bible. Last week another silly boy lifted up his wing and flew to the tree of the love of Jesus Christ. We are more afraid of the padres, than of either cholera, fever, or snakebites; for these may be healed by charms and by medicines; but for the disease which the missionaries inflict, neither charm or medicine will avail anything. We cannot find great fault with these men, for it is the glory of their religion, that they have crossed seven oceans and thirteen rivers, (a saying common among the Hindoos) to come into this country, and they are now spending immense sums in order to convert the Hindoos. Our religion, having no means of defending itself, is dying, and is going to its home; that is to say, to the house of Yama, (the infernal regions, a very proper place for their religion to go to,) and the holy men of the Dhuma Subha will not even once apply the medicine of their own endeavours, for the restoration of their dying religion.”—(pp. 310, 311.)

The fact is, as Mr. W. observes, the Brahmins see the impending storm approaching, and use every effort to turn its course.

"The missionaries,' say they, have baptized but a small number, yet they turn the heads of the people, and poison the minds of our youth by their teaching.' You missionaries must succeed,' said a tradesman to me in the Bazaar of Burdwan, one day, because you are so indefatigable in preaching. We,' said another, are too old to change our religion: but our children will all become Christians.' Many Brahmins say, ' Whenever Christianity obtains a paramount influence, we shall join your ranks likewise.' This sort of conversion is certainly not the one we desire and aim at:

nevertheless, expressions like these clearly show the deep impression which the labours of missionaries have produced among the bulk of the people. I one day asked a respectable Hindoo at Burdwan, why he withdrew his son from our English school? 'Because,' he replied, as soon as the boys know how to read and write, they are Christians in heart.' I rejoined, "What a poor thing must your religion be, which cannot stand the least examination: and what a powerful principle of truth must Christianity contain, laying hold as it does of the affections, and approving itself to the intellect of people as soon as they are made acquainted with it.' 'For this very reason,' replied the father, I will take good care to keep my boy away from Christian influence.'"-(pp. 312, 313.)

It is stated in a note,

"We have just heard the gratifying news that a wealthy Brahmin, in the city of Benares, has lately given up his son into the hands of one of our missionaries, with these remarkable words: I feel convinced, sir, after reading your holy Shasters, that they contain the true religion. I have not the power to come up to the purity of its precepts, but here is my son, take him as your child, feed him at your table, and bring him up a Christian.' At the same time he made over the sum of ten thousand rupees (£1000) into the hands of the missionary, to defray the expense of his son's education. This event is a new era in the history of our North Indian missions: the effect of it will be incalculable upon the minds of the Hindoos at Benares; a greater blow has never been inflicted upon that stronghold of idolatry."-(pp. 315, 316.)

If to facts of this kind we add-the crumbling of idol-temples -colleges of Hindoo learning deserted—the general abatement of prejudice against Christianity-the gradual influence of our missions, &c., upon the Hindoo mind-the growing hunger after knowledge-the increasing number of pious Europeans in Indiathe rapidly-increasing congregations of Hindoo Christians (6,800 converts, as the bishop of Oxford observed at the recent anniversary, brought to the light by means of the Church Missionary Society alone, in one district, during the past year): if facts like these are carefully considered in connexion with our recent victories and extension of territory, together with the wise, statesmanlike, and Christian measures of the Governor-General touching education and the standing of Hindoo converts,-it is not surprising that there should be " a strong impression very prevalent" in India, as the Rev. J. Sargeant observes, " that Christianity will eventually be the religion of the country." "I have very little doubt," writes another eye-witness, "that in a short time the whole population of Tinnevelly will renounce heathenism, and come over to Christianity. In this district alone the number of persons brought out of heathenism and placed under Christian instruction, was 23,868, in January, 1845; while, in January, 1846, it was 30,698. The Bishop of Madras has lately visited the Tinnevelly mission, and confirmed between three and four thousand native Christians. His Lordship writes-" In four years and a-half the Christian community in Tinnevelly has doubled

itself. Our want of missionaries is greater than ever and there appears no reason to doubt, that any missionary would collect around him a congregation of 1000 or 1500 souls in a few months, in every part of the yet unoccupied field of Tinnevelly." "My friends," writes Mr. Weitbrecht-(we cannot omit, though somewhat long, this important passage)—

My friends, if my fellow-labourers in Bengal are agreed on any important point respecting mission-work generally, it is in THIS,-that there is no heathen land on the whole earth, in the present day, more interesting and so well prepared for the reception of Christianity as India. It is true, the Chinese empire has nearly three times the number of inhabitants: but China is comparatively a terra incognita, a new field, hardly yet trodden by the feet of the missionary. In New Zealand, it is true, half of the inhabitants are Christianized but New Zealand counts not as many thousands, as India numbers millions.

"Hear what an experienced and most zealous missionary, who has been labouring twenty years in Bengal, says on this subject, in a public speech made two years since :

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The Israelites travelled only when they saw the cloud and the pillar. In the same manner, Christians who are anxious for the conversion of the world, should consult the will of God in the particular spheres which they should first occupy. The apostles paid very great attention to the leading of the Lord in this respect. Now it is a fact that many events which prepared the Western nations for the first reception of the gospel, have, in our days, occurred in India, evidently with the gracious design that the gospel should be introduced there.

"At the time of our Lord's coming, the whole of the habitable globe had been conquered by the Romans, a circumstance which greatly facilitated the intercourse of the nations who composed the empire. We see the same has been done by the conquest of the British, who have united under one sovereignty innumerable tribes of nations who were formerly at war with each other, a rule so far professedly a Christian one, that it affords full and entire liberty to the missionaries to go wherever they wish in the land, and prosecute their labours with perfect security. Then take the general expectation which had been raised about the time when the Messiah appeared, that a great King would appear in Judea, whose sway would be universal, which expectation was accompanied with the idea of great moral revolutions, and the overthrow of the existing religious systems,-well, the same is to be found in India at the present time. The Hindoos, one and all, owing especially to an ancient prophecy in their holy books, are fully expecting the entire overthrow of their religion, and that a totally new order of things will prevail. All the efforts of the missionaries have tended to convey to the_natives the impression that this new order of things is at hand. As the Jews settled down in all parts of the Roman empire, exhibited to the surrounding nations a purer worship, so Europeans, instead of Jews, have settled everywhere in India; there are churches and chapels where the natives see a purer worship; there are copies of the Holy Scriptures, books and tracts widely disseminated, which are favourably operating upon the people, and probably far more favourably than the same causes did upon the Roman empire. Again, when heathenism was about to fall in that empire, you are aware that the remaining adherents of it sought the aid of the Platonic philosophy to strengthen it, to render heathenism more palatable to the refined taste of the age. And, would you believe it?-the very same system is now being resorted to in India. There are many Brahmins, and among them the followers of Rammohun Roy, who, despairing of keeping up the Hindoo system of religion in its ancient form, are now endeavouring to engraft a more refined