tender us their support; the past triumphs of the gospel assure us of victory; all the wise and holy and good upon the earth animate us onward in this struggle; angels bending from their thrones rejoice over every sinner and every heathen that repenteth; and God the Father the Son and the Holy Ghost have pledged us their assistance in the hour of need, and their blessing to every effort that is made in their name.

In a special manner will it devolve upon our mothers and our sisters, upon our wives and our daughters, and upon our female friends to labour in this sacred cause, with a zeal, a diligence and perseverance commensurate with the great undertaking. No laurels, may indeed, in this struggle, decorate their brow; the honours and awards of fame may not wait upon their achievements; their names and their labours may very speedily be forgotten; and neglect and disappointment and similar evils may even be their present reward. But if it be true that the righteous shall shine as the brightness of the firmament, and they who turn many to righteousness as the stars for ever and ever; if it be true that the faithful servant to whose care five or ten talents have been entrusted and who has put them out to usury, will in the end be made ruler over as many cities; if it be true that the names of Clarkson and Wilberforce-men who stood forth, in the midst of scorn and contumely, as the advocates of the slaves, and toiled and fought for the de

struction of slavery, will go down to posterity covered with honour and renown; will be held in everlasting remembrance, while the memory of the wicked shall rot; then, what will be the joys, what the awards of grace, what the exalted honours which await those pious and excellent females who will rise up like a host to extricate the daughters of India from their misery and their degradation?

I rejoice to find that a society has existed for some years, to send out ladies to superintend female schools in India, China, and the East. From the facts which are stated in this chapter, and from the utter neglect that is shown to female education in these heathen lands, no object can be of greater importance, and every one who desires the welfare of his race, must wish that great success may crown the undertaking. Difficulties will, no doubt, arise in the prosecution of the scheme, and such a society will, in its infancy, have to struggle with adversities similar to those which every benevolent institution has been obliged to submit to. Great wisdom, prudence, and devotedness will be required on the part of its directors and its friends to overcome prejudices, to surmount the scorn and contempt of the world, and to remove the fears and apprehensions which many of the best friends of Zion entertain respecting it. But should it outlive, as I trust it will do, all the anxieties of its friends, and all the scandals of its foes, what a heavenly spectacle will it present to

our view of pious and devoted females-not only overcoming the weakness and timidity natural to their sex-not only leaving their homes, their friends and their country to which their warm affections render them so attached, and casting themselves almost without protection, and without guardians, apon the care of their Heavenly Father to pursue a career of mercy-but exposing themselves to the storm and the tempest for the sake of their Lord, braving the dangers of the ocean, and the toils and difficulties of a foreign clime to bring back the wanderers to the fold, and venturing to contend, on a dangerous strand, with the powers of evil, to rescue their sex from infamy and shame. My heart warms to this sister band. May they never want the protection, the friendship, the care, and the superintendence of their Almighty friend; and since theirs is a cause beset with greater trials, privations and sorrows, than ours, may grace and strength and power continually rest upon them from above. I hail them, with delight, on their career of benevolence. What though there should be no earthly reward! the Lord will be their inheritance. What though no honour nor favour, nor applause of men should animate their minds in the day of exertion and trial the light of heaven, the approbation of their Master and a harvest of precious souls will be a higher recompense. What though peculiar temptations, and disasters and sufferings should threaten sometimes to overwhelm their spirits!

yet goodness and mercy will follow them all the days of their life; their dwelling-place will be in the house of our God for ever; and an entrance will be administered to them abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Saviour.

THE PAST AND THE FUTURE-A BRAMIN AT BELLARY-THE BANEFUL INFLUENCE OF CASTE ON TRADE AND COMMERCE HAS KEPT SOCIETY STATIONARY-THE GOOD EFFECTS OF IMPROVEMENT-THE GOVERNMENT MIGHT DO MUCH TO ABOLISH CASTE-PERNICIOUS EFFECTS UPON THE PRINCIPLES OF THE PEOPLE-A GREAT OBSTACLE TO THE PROGRESS OF THE GOSPEL-EXPOSES THE CONVERTS TO GREAT WORLDLY LOSSHOW SUCH CONVERTS SHOULD BE REGARDED BY MIS

SIONARIES.

WHAT is caste? is a question which is often put to a missionary, in his visits to the churches, at home; and it is one which is really difficult to answer, since its ramifications, in the Hindoo system, are so deep, and its evils so numerous and appalling. Some have considered it a civil rite, while others have maintained that it is a religious one. But the truth is, it is so incorporated with the whole superstition, that it is both civil and religious, as far as Hindoo society can be said to partake of the one and the other. It is the adamantine chain which binds the distinct masses of the community to