arrows, or other weapons of assault, employed by their lowland adversaries: while the chambers themselves were constructed of stones so heavy that mere human strength was not enough to overthrow them. The natives here think that the king of Delhi, called Pandoo, had five sons, who had been driven into exile, and that this was the place of their retreat, while banished. -Coil, or covil, however, signifies place of worship, and is applied by the Hindoos to christian places of worship, or heathen temples indiscriminately; they may have been the dwelling-places of Hindoo ascetics, who, hermit-like, sought the mountain wilderness, and by their practice of austerities hoped to gain the rewards of piety from a deluded and ignorant people. They are now deserted: and the obstructions to christian missions are few and inconsiderable in this vicinity. Ignorance and superstition are the chief antagonists, added to a corrupt heart.

THE story of the Cross was rendered memorable by the benignity of Him who suffered on Calvary, and the glorious salvation which followed. It is a tale of aggravated, of deeply affecting sorrow; no pictured tragedy ever presented, no heart could conceive, no pen could describe with half the actual intensity of feeling, what He endured who hung upon that accursed tree, the depth of the humiliating scene through which he passed, the efficacy and extent of that work which he then finished, or the transcendent glory which he then secured. Pity that such glory should ever be sullied by the mummeries of superstition, or prostituted to the purposes of priestcraft and corruption! The adventures of the crusades have been often recounted in history and in song, because of their influence on society, and the mad and ruinous enthusiasm of their leaders. The Cross has been ever the badge of the Christian. Is it not, then, because corruption has hung a dark cloud over its early progress in the Asiatic world, that so little is known of the past career, or present position of that sacred emblem? Comparatively, it is but recently that Protestant churches have begun to put forth their energies for diffusing the truths of the Gospel in the eastern parts of Asia. Not so with the church of Rome and her emissaries. So early as the fourteenth century, agents were commissioned, who should go forth as the propagators of that nominal Christianity. They went into China and Japan. They overran India and her contiguous islands. One of the most ambitious and most active was Robert de Nobili. He took singular, yet characteristic methods of rendering his ministry successful. He was an Italian Jesuit. He assumed the appearance and name of a Brahmin, come from a far country. He besmeared his countenance, and imitated the austerities of Brahminical penitents, and succeeded in persuading the most credulous of the people that he was truly of the divine stock of their priesthood. To silence those who treated his character of Brahmin as an imposture, he produced an old dirty parchment, in which he had forged in the Deva Nagree, a deed showing that the Brahmins of Rome were of much older date than those in India, and the Jesuits of Rome descended in a direct line from Brahma himself. It is even narrated, by one of his own order, Father Jouvenci, that when the smoky parchment was questioned by some of the Hindoos, Nobili declared upon oath, before an assembly of the Brahmins of Madura, that he derived, really and truly, his origin from the god Brahma himself. By such means, we are informed, he gained over to his system twelve eminent Brahmins; and multitudes, by their instrumentality, were influenced to adhere to his instructions. In letters written from the scene of action, they boast of having baptized thousands in each year, while they assure their correspondents that they were not precipitate in the admission of candidates to this initiatory rite, and assert, that the noviciates, after their reception, lived like angels, rather than like men.

Such, then, was the apparatus employed for setting up the Romish cross among the myriads of India, while the same course was pursued in other eastern countries: but this was not all; secular power was added to fraud, and the fires of persecution were lighted up, when the alliance of temporal power gave security to the incendiaries themselves. Hence, we read, the former glory and sad reverses of Udiamper. This was formerly the residence of Baliarte, king of the Christians; and here is the

Syrian church at which archbishop Menezes, from Goa, convened the synod of the Syrian clergy in 1559, when he burned the Syriac and Chaldaic books. The Syrians report, that while the flames ascended, he went round the church in procession, chanting a song of triumph. Ruthless Goth! A fit instrument to usher in the reign of superstition, and to extend the kingdom of darkness! The ultimate consummation of their plans has been, that, in the year 1810, the members of the Roman Catholic communion amounted in India to about seven hundred thousand; in China, Tunquin, Cochin China, and Siam, according to their own reports, to five hundred and eighty-five thousand. In the latter countries, their ecclesiastical corps numbered two hundred and thirty-one native priests, forty-three European missionaries, seven apostolic vicars, and fourteen bishops; while in India, these emissaries of Rome might be estimated at three thousand priests, and twelve or fourteen bishops, who divided the lordship of the poor, misguided, and ignorant people; besides various orders of monks, and other regular ecclesiastics, Carmelites, Capuchins, Augustinians, and Jesuits, who, as locusts, which go forth to eat up and destroy, are in India, as in every country over which they wander, opposers of that which is good.

I was inclined to put many interrogatories to my Indian friend, concerning the character and influence which this people maintain; and his benevolent disposition, true Protestant feeling, and frequent