raging circumstances, Mr. Carey was easily persuaded to join them. It was agreed that, to save expense, they should all live together under one roof, and that the labours of each should contribute to a common fund for the support of the mission. A house was accordingly purchased for the accommodation of the three families. As soon as the printing press was set up in a side building, the work of printing the New Testament in Bengalee was at once begun. To this end Mr. Carey had long been engaged in preparing translations. The first sheet was struck off on the 18th March, 1800. The sight of it awakened lively visions of success in the hearts of all.

A boarding-school was opened by Mr. Marshman, and proved more remunerative than the most sanguine hopes could have anticipated. Before the close of the year it yielded three hundred rupees a month. Mr. Marshman and Mr. Ward at the same time applied themselves sedulously to the study of the native languages; whilst a portion of their time was set apart for preaching to and instructing the natives, at the doors of their heathen temples, in the streets, and indeed wherever an audience could be found. In order to prepare the minds of the natives for the reception of the doctrines of Christianity, tracts were printed exposing the absur dities of idolatry, and circulated in large numbers.

The mission may now be said to have been fairly set on foot. Yet for seven years had the gospel been already preached without making a single convert.

For the Serampore mission was reserved the privilege of receiving the first open profession of Christianity from a native. The convert was received into the christian community with joyful satisfaction; but his sincerity was of short duration. He obtained permission to take leave of his friends, promising to return in three days he was never heard of afterwards. But this discouragement was soon effaced. A native carpenter, with his wife and daughter, renounced their caste, and were publicly baptized in the Ganges. The missionaries, however, thought it undesirable to impose christian names upon the converts. As soon as it became known that this man had renounced his caste and become a

Feringee, a great uproar arose amongst the Hindoos. He was illtreated by the mob, which assembled before his house, and dragged him before the magistrate. The fruits of so much labour began to show themselves before the mission at Serampore had been established above a year. A female Hindoo and a Portuguese gentleman were soon afterwards added to the list of converts. The latter was Mr. Fernandez, who became a zealous friend and assistant of the mission.

After nine months of unremitting labour, the first copy of the New Testament was completed. Meanwhile a new governorgeneral had arrived in the person of Lord Wellesley-a man of a very different stamp. A more enlightened and decided rule suc

ceeded. The learning rather than the zeal of the missionaries commended them to his favour. Toleration, and some respect, now took the place of ill-disguised dislike. Moreover, their labours received indirect encouragement from some of the leading officials. The wisdom of Lord Wellesley perceived the necessity of a state religion. He rigidly enforced a decent observance of the sabbath; and by his example did much to remove the contempt into which Christian worship had fallen. Mr. Carey's acquirements in Oriental literature brought him under the notice of the governorgeneral, who appointed him teacher of Bengalee at the college of Fort William, which Lord Wellesley had established at Calcutta in the previous year. This institution was intended in some measure to remedy the defective education of the younger civilians, and to prepare them for the discharge of the important duties which would devolve upon them. It was ranked among the most important departments in the state; and here, for the first time, the study of the Bengalee language was enforced upon the members of the civil service. But it was viewed with jealousy by the directors of the East India Company, and soon suppressed. Mr. Carey entered upon the duties of his new office with the greater cheerfulness, inasmuch as the post was conferred upon him in the face of his open avowal that he had been engaged in missionary labours for upwards of seven years. This appointment, with other employment from the government, raised his income to £1600 a-year, the whole of which was thrown into the missionary fund. The relaxation of the hostility recently displayed by the government towards missionary enterprise happened most opportunely; as, through the sequestration of the Danish settlements by the English, the mission was deprived of the protection under which it had hitherto, been sheltered at Serampore. The English commissioner, however, now assured them that they were at perfect liberty to pursue their usual avocations there. By regulating their expenditure with the strictest frugality, they were shortly afterwards enabled to enlarge their establishment, and to provide better accommodation for the printing-office and schools.

After a residence of two years at Serampore, they ventured upon preaching excursions in the neighbourhood. Their tracts fell into the hands of a Hindoo of high caste. He walked a distance of more than thirty miles to hear more upon the subject. In the course of a few days, he threw up his caste by eating with the missionaries, and received at their hands the rites of christian baptism. This conversion was speedily followed by that of another Brahmin of high caste, who had long since ceased to place any confidence in Hinduism. Several others followed his example.

The efforts of these devoted men were well nigh thwarted by the jealousy of the government. The extensive circulation of their tracts had aroused the indignation of not a few influential Hindoos, who lost no time in bringing the subject before the supreme

court at Calcutta. The judges affected to be shocked at such attacks upon the institutions of the country; and after the question had been officially referred to the vice-president of the Council, Mr. Carey was directed to translate these tracts for the information of the government. The result was, that the subject was eventually permitted to drop without further notice. At the same time, to conciliate native prejudices, the government felt no hesitation in heading a solemn procession to present a thankoffering of five thousand rupees, in the name of the company, at the shrine of one of the most popular Hindoo goddesses, in commemoration of a recent victory.

The first interference with the idolatrous rites of the natives is due to the boldness of Lord Wellesley.

The revolting practice of sacrificing children at the confluence of the Ganges, in conformity with religious vows, was brought under his notice. The great annual festival at Gunga Saugor was the scene of these inhuman rites. It was referred to Mr. Carey to investigate the subject, and to make a report to the government. In conformity with his suggestions, the drowning of children was interdicted under the severest penalties, upon the ground that, although connected with superstitious vows, this custom was not sanctioned by the Hindoo shasters. Although the prohibition was rigidly enforced at the next recurrence of the festival, far from raising a rebellion, it hardly excited a murmur; and when, some years afterwards, this step was followed by the suppression of female immolation, it had so far passed out of remembrance, that some of the most strenuous advocates of the Suttee, or burning of widows, asserted that the practice of sacrificing children at Saugor had never obtained.

Besides his many translations, Mr. Carey had now compiled a grammar of the Bengalee language, as well as a series of colloquies for the use of students. Upon being appointed teacher of Sanscrit at the college of Fort William, he immediately undertook the compilation of a grammar in that language also. In 1802, as the number of converts began to increase, the missionaries drew up a plan for educating the children of native converts, and youths who might renounce their caste, in hope that the pupils might hereafter become the means of introducing the principles of Christianity to their benighted countrymen.

The policy of the missionaries was to interfere as little as possible with the national habits and customs of their converts, with the exception that they allowed no distinctions of caste to prevail. On this point they insisted with perfect success; but, in other respects, personal distinctions were observed. Converted Brahmins were permitted to wear the sacred thread until they chose voluntarily to abandon it; but in most cases they were found anxious to manifest, in every way, the contempt in which they held the creed to which they formerly belonged,

The first Christian marriage of a convert was celebrated in 1803, between a Brahmin and the daughter of a Hindoo, and was regarded as another step towards the obliteration of caste distinctions which the missionaries were so anxious to effect. It was, however, only in the year 1852, nearly half a century afterwards, that such marriages by a dissenting missionary were legalized by statute, and the offspring relieved from the reproach of bastardy. Within a week, however, of the first christian marriage, three widows were burnt on the funeral pile of their husbands, within sight of the missionary residence.

One great object to which their efforts were directed, was to send forth a body of well-instructed native preachers. It was upon this agency they began mainly to rely.

The advantages of this project were evident; the difficulties connected with it are even now but partially overcome. Yet some able ministers of Christ are now to be found in India who once "served dumb idols," and to a native ministry we must look as the consummation of missionary enterprise. Either from incapacity to learn the native languages, want of health, or want of resolution, many of the earlier missionaries failed; and thus the necessities of the case urged the founders of the various missions to the very same conclusion which scripture precedents had pointed out. Ten years had now gone by since the mission at Serampore was established; and the result of so much persevering zeal began to show itself. By training native artists to cut the founts, the scriptures had been circulated in no less than seven native languages, at an expense provided for almost entirely by the exertions of the missionaries themselves. With their own hands they had printed, and their own labour had supplied the funds necessary for so great an undertaking. Thwarted and opposed by the government, they had nevertheless succeeded in establishing four missions in Bengal. They had planted stations in Patna, on the borders of Orissa and Boolan, and in Burmah. They had built a chapel at Calcutta, at a cost of £3,000. The native members of their church had reached the number of two hundred. Nor did their benevolence stop here. These devoted men had now undertaken to open a school for the instruction of needy European children, with which the streets of Calcutta were infested. These were for the most part the offspring of Roman Catholic Portuguese parents, and were growing up in squalid misery, in vice and ignorance. In these schools the scriptures were read daily, but no particular creed was enforced. But withal, it was chiefly to their oriental scholarship, and usefulness to the government, that the missionaries of Serampore owed the toleration they were permitted to enjoy. The servants of the company, with a few honourable exceptions, still retained violent prejudices against religious interference. Eight missionaries had recently been banished from the shores of India, when, in 1813,

on the renewal of the company's charter, the future administration of our eastern possessions again came under the consideration of the British government. A long and able debate occupied the House of Commons for many nights. Every possible objection to the introduction of Christianity into India was urged with great asperity, until, at length, the eloquence of Mr. Wilberforce, backed with the weight of nine hundred petitions, prevailed. A tardy recognition of the claims of Christianity was forced from the government; toleration for christian missionaries in India was secured; and a protestant bishopric was established. These volumes present us with an interesting narrative of this great debate. The bitterness and virulence with which such an innovation upon Indian traditions was attacked, may arouse less surprise than indignation. Some of the speakers assailed the personal characters of Carey and his brethren with the coarsest abuse, heaping upon them the most contemptuous calumnies; others devoted their eloquence to the praise of Hindooism, to whose disciples a mild benignity was ascribed, such as Christianity could never surpass. The warmth of one orator carried him so far as to assert that the religion of the Hundoo was, if anything, superior to Christianity. The evidence adduced before the committee against the measure was of much the same character. The manliness of Lord Wellesley, however, in the House of Lords, rescued the Serampore missionaries from these aspersions. He paid a due tribute to their excellence and usefulness in India whilst he was governor-general. The fears that had been constantly insisted on, that revolt must be the necessary consequence of missionary labours, he treated as altogether groundless. He stated he had never known of any danger arising from their proceedings; he never had reason to suppose that their efforts produced either insurrection or alarm. He had employed them to translate the scriptures, and considered them a "quiet, orderly, discreet, and learned body," Such was Lord Wellesley's testimony in favour of christian missions in India; and the result of this exciting discussion ended in the triumph of the missionary

cause.

After all that has been said of late as to the jealousy with which the natives regard their idolatrous customs, it deserves to be remarked how little disturbance was raised by the abolition of the Suttee. It was determined that the burning of live widows upon the funeral-piles of their dead husbands should no longer be permitted. Former governments had waited in vain for a favourable opportunity; hoping that, with the advancement of civilization, such practices would be gradually abandoned, but meanwhile the custom had gathered strength under the sanction of British authority. The question had first been officially brought under the notice of the supreme council by Mr. George Udny, in 1805, on the eve of Lord Wellesley's departure. His successors, Lord