OGYBWA INDIANS. 26 sun was up I was at their encamp-| bow and arrows, and an Indian warment, at the bottom of a sheltered club, and began to address the combay at the foot of a high ridge of pany, telling them that when he was mountains; and, to my surprise, I a boy he had, according to the Indian found no one in the bark lodges which practice, blackened his face and fasted they inhabit, but some very little till he had a dream sent him by the children, who pointed to another 'Master of Life,' in which he saw lodge or wigwam in the distance, ten birds, who told him that they where they said the grown people had would be his guardians through life, all gone to a feast. At this place I and his preservers from all harm, and found upwards of thirty people as the givers to him of success in huntsembled around the wigwam fire, and ing: that so it had been, and now, one of the old women, wife of the out of gratitude to his guardian birds, master of the lodge, very busy filling he would dedicate this his grandchild a number of tin dishes with venison to them, giving him the name Ten and Indian corn soup. I went in Birds (Me-tah-soo-be-na-se). After and took my seat opposite the old this harangue, during which he dwelt woman, and when I saw they were much on the fact of its being the about to distribute the food to the custom of their ancestors, he gave guests, I addressed a few words to the infant, bound as it was in its them, telling of Him whose the food Indian cradle, to the person who sat was, and who had given them all that next to him, who kissed it and handed they had of that and everything else it to his next neighbour, till it went which they possessed, and asked leave round the whole circle of men and of the owner of the wigwam to return women. After this, the old man took thanks in their names to this 'Master his Indian tom-tom, or shallow drum, of Life,' and to ask a blessing on on which he kept time to himself as what they were about to make use he sang a kind of chant to his guarof. This, however, I did not obtain dian birds, while the other Indians leave to do, as it would in their were eating the portion of food set opinion have quite spoiled what was before them. to follow. "An infant, dressed up in all kinds of Indian finery, was handed to the old man, who took in his other hand a medicine (or conjuring) bag, a small "When the noise of this performance was over, I began to speak, first showing the folly of what I had heard. The birds not being able to save themselves when the Indians want a break fast or a dinner, how could they afford is to come, if they are not taught protection to those from whom they to know and love the LORD JESUS cannot protect themselves? I then CHRIST? I could tell you something told them of the SAVIOUR who alone about Indian children that would could protect and deliver them, and make you very glad; but perhaps I take them to heaven when they die. may be permitted at another time to "Now, would you not like to assist address you on this subject; till then, in saving this little one, and very I am, dear children, many more, too, who are in the same Yours very truly, state, from the misery that must come on them in this world and that which FREDERIC A. O'MEARA. Missionary to the Ogybwa Indians." WESTERN POLYNESIA. THOSE of our young friends who read the interesting stories about these islands in last year's Missionary Newspaper will rejoice to see the following extract from the journal of Messrs Geddie and Inglis, who not long since visited the Western Islands, in the children's missionary ship, the John Williams: “You are already aware that we are about to obtain a small schooner for this mission, to be called the John Knox. This will enable us to maintain safe and regular intercourse with our teachers on the adjoining islands, and with any missionaries that may join us in this group. Native agency is indispensable in opening up new islands or new stations; and if native teachers are regularly visited, and carefully superintended, they are capable of doing a great amount of preparatory work. When, however, they have brought the work forward a certain stage, unless it is taken up by resident missionaries at that point, it not only stands still, but it goes back, and the preparatory work itself is in danger of being lost. The great want felt in this group is the want of missionaries. Native agency to any amount can soon be raised; but unless there are missionaries to direct that agency, it is of little or no value. This is a large and important group of islands. It contains a larger surface, and a much larger population, than is to be found in all the islands to the eastward, occupied by the London Missionary Society. The climate is not SO healthy as the eastern groups; fever and ague prevail on most of the THE HINDU MOTHER'S TEACHING. 28 very encouraging accounts respecting the mild and docile disposition of the natives in the large islands to the north of this group." THE HINDU MOTHER'S TEACHING. IT is not the Brahmins or the Shasters that are the great teachers of idolatry and superstition in India. No; the great pillars of ido atrous superstition are the mothers: they cannot read themselves that is contrary to Hindu law and practice—but they have their family priests, who worm themselves round them. They are eaten up with superstition: they have nothing else in their minds. Accordingly, you will find, in Bengal in particular, mothers, with their children in their arms, teaching them idolatry. You will see a mother pressing the family idol, with a little child that cannot yet lisp a word, holding it up, and making it look at it, and then bow down its head to it, then taking up its hands, and making a salaam to it. The little child does not actually know what it is doing; but it is not very astonishing that, by dint of practice and habit, when pressing the idol, it should, by a sort of mechanical agency, go through the process without the mother helping it. Thus, before the child can speak, it is trained up in idolatry. fire. The mother is the great teacher of the child in India, and she has a catechetical way of setting about it. The child, perhaps, is hungry in the morning, waiting for its breakfast. An earthen vessel is on the The rice is there, and the child is wondering why its breakfast is so long coming, until at last the mother, looking at the child, and pointing to the fire, will say, "What is it?" "Why, it is the fire, mother." "Yes; but what do you know about it? What does the fire do?" "It makes the rice boil, mother." "What, nothing else?" "It makes me warm. "But is that all you know about it? Oh, you stupid little thing! Stop; and I will tell you." Then she will put on a grave face, and say that it is a god, giving it a name. Then she will begin to tell stories about the fire-god, and how it is to be propitiated, and what mischief it will do if it is not; and then she will bring some little offering and throw it into the fire, and show the child how it is to be done; and she does this so often, that, at last, the child is able to do it. THE HINDU MOTHER'S TEACHING. Then, the wind is blowing outside. "What is that, my child?" "The wind, mother." "What is the wind?" "Just the wind, mother." "What else? What does it do?" “I see it rolling about the dust and the leaves, mother." "Oh, you stupid thing! I'll teach you." Then the mother will give the wind the name of the wind-god, and teach the child how that god is to be propitiated. So the mother will teach the child how the water is god, how the sun, moon, and stars, are gods, and tell stories about them. For instance, the sun-god is personified in an endless number of legends. The mother tells the child, "You see, when we worship the sun-god we don't give the whole rice to him. We must have it ground very small." She tells him the whole story; how there was an assembly of gods, and the sungod was there: how he offended the other gods; and how one of them knocked out his front teeth with a blow therefore, he cannot eat the whole rice, but must have it beaten small. Then she may draw a moral, and say, "Don't you quarrel with other boys, lest you should be like the sun-god." Then, perhaps, the cow is lying outside the door, and the child thinks the cow rather impudent in coming 29 so near, and takes up a stick and tries to drive it away. If the mother sees the child doing this, she runs up to him in great alarm, and says, “Oh, child, what are you doing?" "Driving away the cow, mother; that's all." "Do you know what the cow does?" "Gives milk, mother; that's all." "But don't you know what the cow is?" And the mother is in a perfect towering indignation and misery. She does not know what to do, and she tells the child the name of the cow. It is an incarnation of one of their chief goddesses, and she says, "The goddess will be angry. We must go and propitiate her;" and she goes through ceremonies to show how the cow is to be propitiated, and makes the child ask pardon of the cow. Now, these are the ways in which heathen mothers set about teaching their children idolatry, and those superstitions which they have themselves learned, and which are the root of all the abominations of India. Therefore it is that the mothers are the great teachers in India. And when one beholds these heathen mothers thus assiduous and earnest, oh, how one is led to look back to Christian, Protestant Britain, and to say, Would to God that Christian mothers were but one half as earnest, and one half as assiduous, in imbuing 30 thers are in imbuing the minds of their infants with idolatry and superstition!-Dr Duff. CHRISTIAN MARTYRS IN INDIA. No less than fifteen missionaries and | and no one puts the least confidence ministers, with their families, have in them. perished in the Indian massacres, many of them by the savage hands of that monster of cruelty, Nana Sahib. One of the ladies, Mrs Freeman, of the American Mission at Futtehpoor, wrote a touching letter to her sister a few days before her death, in which she expresses a calm trust in God, and her readiness for whatever may be before them. She describes the burning of houses and murdering of the English at Mynpoory, a neighbouring town, and tells how all the European families at Futtehpoor were living together in the fort, and every moment expecting the arrival of the rebels to attack them. She says "We all concluded to remain here; found all the ladies in tears, and their husbands pale and trembling. We all consulted what was best to be done; but what could one do?-every place seemed as unsafe as this, and to remain here seemed almost certain death, unless our (native) regiment stood firm, Tuesday.—All safe this morning, though we spent a very anxious day yesterday; it was the last day of the great Mohammedan feast. They are always at that time in a very excited state. Some of our catechists were once Mussulmans, and whenever they have gone to the city for the last two or three weeks, they have been treated with taunting and insolence. They say, 'Where is your Jesus now? We will shortly show you what will become of the infidel dogs!' The native Christians think that if the rebels come here, and our regiment joins them, our little church and ourselves will be the first attacked; but we are in God's hands, and we know that He reigns. We have no place to flee for shelter, but under the covert of His wings, and there we are safe; not but that He may suffer our bodies to be slain, and if He does, we know He has wise reasons for it. I sometimes think our death would do more good than we would do all |