and according to the nature of the field which is to be cultivated, we must prepare the instruments with which we are to work, and we must exercise the principles and dispositions which will be most required.

I may be permitted to express my regret and sorrow at the discouraging views which the Wesleyan Committee have taken of their affairs in the East, because I know well that there is little occasion for them; many of their missionaries I number among my dearest friends, and I can testify to the zeal and diligence and industry with which they labour in the vineyard of their Lord; and I know how much these views prevailing at home, are calculated to discourage and enervate their agents abroad. If I am correctly informed, it became, a few years ago, a serious question with the Committee whether they ought not to abandon their mission to India. I congratulate them, and the Christian and heathen world, that better counsels have prevailed, and that instead of announcing a surrender, they have sent and are determined to send more reinforcements to the field, and that India is henceforth to receive from the Committee that attention, those resources, and that encouragement which its urgent necessities demand. In the Mysore especially-that province which is so dear to my own heart, I rejoice that so many missionaries are to be planted, and so many stations established. Among three millions of inhabitants, there is abundance of room for us all. There is no occasion that

Ephraim should envy Judah, or that Judah should vex Ephraim. So that the land is possessed, it matters little what are the lots which fall to the different tribes. Most gladly do we welcome you to the field and to the conflict. Like the tribes of Reuben and of Gad and the half-tribe of Manasseh; our inheritance may be on this side of the river ; here, may be our towns and our villages, our vineyards and orchards, our fields and flocks, our wives and families, our congregations and our sanctuaries; and it may be yours to cross the Jordan and take possession of the land promised to our fathers. But there is not a time that your troops will surround a Jericho, and when at the sound of the rams' horns, its high and imperious walls will tumble to the ground, but we too will send forth our notes of rejoicing; there is not a time when, in consequence of an Achan being in the camp, your armies will suffer a defeat from the men of Ai, and will be driven back, in discomfiture, to their tents, but we will mourn with you in the hour of trial; and there is not a time when, at the command of our Joshua, the sun will stand still upon Gibeon, and the moon in the valley of Ajalon, till you have trampled upon the necks of your enemies, and have obtained possession of the land, but we will join you in songs of praise and gratitude to the God of Israel. In the name of the Lord, let us set up our banners, and let us go up boldly and courageously, for the Lord hath delivered our enemies into our hands.

CHAPTER XIV.

ON THE TAMUL MISSIONS.

THE FIELD OF OPERATION-OCCUPIED BY VARIOUS PARTIES-THE TAMUL CHRISTIANS-APPEARANCE OF MADRAS-ITS CLIMATEMR. LOVELESS-MR. KNILL-MR. TRAVELLER-MR. NICHOLSON -DUTIES OF THE MISSIONARIES-MR. BILDERBECK-PURSEWAUKUM-TRIPASORE-MR. SMITH-A REVIVAL-COMBACONUM

-THE COUNTRY-ESTABLISHMENT OF THE MISSION-NATIVE CRISP-DIFFICULTIES-PROGRESS-SEATS

TEACHER-MR.

IDOLATRY.

OF

In the largest division of Southern India, the Tamul language almost universally prevails. Draw a line across the peninsula from Madras on the Coromandel coast, to Cananore on the coast of Malabar; descend on the one side, or on the other, to Cape Comorin; and you have an immense tract of country in which this tongue is spoken by almost every tribe, in various provinces, on the hills and in the plains, on the coast and in the interior. Religion seems to have followed in the steps of commerce, since the ports that were earliest opened to the latter, admitted most freely the ambassadors of the former. As Tranquebar, Madras, and Nega

TAMUL FIELD OF LABOURS.

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patam on the coast of Coromandel; and as Telicherry, Cochin, and Quilon on that of Malabar were stations of great importance to Europeans in trade, the missionaries of the cross began their career under the protection of their governments; advanced from thence into the interior as opportunities were offered, rendered the large towns in their march so many posts of attack on the surrounding districts, and spread the influence of Christianity over numbers of the people. For spiritual privileges, for missionary zeal and enterprise, for the light and liberty which prevail, this spacious territory may well be styled the Goshen of India. As the Tamul was the first language which the missionaries learned-the first in which they preached the gospel to the peoplethe first in which the Scriptures were translated, exertions were made and success was obtained among the heathen; so it was the first which afforded greater facilities to successors; Grammars and Dictionaries, and Christian books were already prepared; the difficulties to be encountered in the prosecution of the work were less numerous and more easily overcome; and the provinces just beyond the existing missionary stations, presented an inviting field for Christian settlements. All these were most auspicious circumstances in favour of the south, while the aspect of the north was still bleak, cold, and forbidding.

The Danes had laboured long and successfully, and had established their missions, on permanent

ground, before an English monopoly could venture to dispute their claim to the vineyard; and no sooner was that barrier removed, than one society seemed to vie with another in occupying stations which were more in the neighbourhood of cultivated grounds, and where there were greater facilities in learning and in using the language. Instead of seeking for new and untried fields in the northfields that are equally good and accessible to the spiritual husbandman-fields that are teeming with finer, nobler, and superior races of men-fields where no sower has yet been to cast in the seed, where no reaper has been to gather the fruits, and where the enemy maintains his dominion undisputed and undisturbed; the societies have agreed to cultivate the south and lavish their strength and their efforts upon its inhabitants. It is a delightful sight to behold Danish missionaries and Americans; Churchmen and Dissenters; Lutheran Germans and Wesleyan Methodists; Presbyterians and American Baptists all labouring to promote the welfare of this people. The field is large enough; long may they toil and strive without envy, and jealousy, and contend earnestly for the faith which was once delivered to the saints. It was, perhaps, the intention of Providence that the south should become the field of experiment-that the objections and the scandals of the enemy should there be exposed— and that it should there be made manifest to every one that India so long insulted and contemned, was