1860.] FUTTEHGURH AND ITS NATIVE CHRISTIANS.

33

as remained had shut themselves up for safety. The next day the Mission premises were destroyed.

The little flock was scattered. Most of them escaped; but some suffered unto death. There was a bitter enemy at Furruckabad as well as another at Cawnpore. This was Tufuzzal Husain Khan, the Nawab Rais of Furruckabad. This man, on his accession, had given, a large sum to the Mission, and was a regular contributor to the schools, but he was a man of bad character. He had been at one time anxious to learn English, and one of the Missionaries had attended him for this purpose; but his habits were so depraved and his mind so weak, that the attempt was given up. He had acquired just enough of English to enable him to converse in a broken manner with Europeans, in whose society he professed to have much gratification. With the hope of doing him. good, the Missionaries were wont to visit him, and he professed to regard them as his chief friends. Yet this very Nawab, when the crisis came, was the first to raise his hand for the destruction of the native Christians, to set a price on their heads, and order them to be blown from the guns.

One of the sufferers may be mentioned. Dhoukal Pershad was a pupil and teacher in the Missionary High School. "He was meek and docile as a child, with the force and vigour of a man of God. The influence wrought by his daily consistent walk and conversation, and the still greater power of an inner life, was constantly felt and made apparent to all the scholars. A student of the word of God, and living by prayer, he was a savour of life to the pupils he loved and wrestled for." His death, as to the form of it, was terrific. He, with his wife and four sweet little children, were blown from the guns at Futtehgurh by the order of the Nawab.

The Christians who fled took the direction of Cawnpore. Great were their sufferings, and several perished on the way. The wife of one of the catechists became separated from the little company. When at length found, she and her baby were lying side by side in a poor hovel at the edge of a village. Both were dead. There was no one to give her a drop of water in her need. The proud Mohammedan would not touch them; the bigoted Hindu would not approach them; and so they died of want.

Six blind orphan girls, a blind man, and a leper, were driven forth on the wide world. Even from the blind of their own caste the Hindus turn away, regarding them as suffering for sins committed in a previous birth. What, then, could these poor Christians expect? Days and nights they were without shelter; yet they survived the trouble, and came again to the Mission premises when things had settled down. The poor blind man was asked if he had found Christ precious to him. "Oh yes," was his reply, in dukh (pain), and in sakh (joy), He is ever the

same.

CONVERSION AND DEATH OF A BUSHMAN-HOTTENTOT. THE following very interesting communication comes from a Missionary of the London Missionary Society at Cradock, in South Africa, dated August 1859

Cradock is situated on the high road to Colesberg and the districts north of the Orange River, and is about midway between Graham's Town and the former village. The European inhabitants are almost entirely British, but those with whom the Mission has to do are Hottentots, and those natives formerly slaves under the Dutch farmers. Of these the number is not so great as formerly, for the difficulty of procuring means of subsistence in consequence of the great advance in the price of all the necessaries of life, without a correspondent advance in wages, has occasioned several families to remove and locate themselves on farms. You are aware, probably, that all the stations of our Society within the colony are required to be self-sustained. We have not yet been able to attain to the point; but our people are striving after it; and when I consider their circumstances and the terrible rate of all necessaries, their efforts hitherto I regard as highly creditable. the members of the church are subscribers, save two very poor aged women, and several individuals of the congregation. The subscriptions are collected weekly, and vary in amount from 2s. to 3d. each person. Besides these, there are weekly collections for incidental expenses, and about 181., per annum are received in seat rents.

All

The church members, with a very few exceptions, were a few years since noted drunkards. Our native deacon, an excellent worthy man now, when speaking of his former state, usually styles himself a "brandy barrel." "At that time," he is accustomed to say, "I was not a human being, I was just a cask, a brandy-cask!" This reminds me of a very valuable member of the church who has recently been removed from us by death. He was at one time both a drunkard and a manufacturer

of brandy. But when he became a partaker of divine grace, he both gave up the drinking and the making, notwithstanding much solicitation and many tempting offers from his former employers. His name was David Brardman, by nation a Bushman-Hottentot. I first met with him some ten years ago, on paying my usual visits from house to house. At that time he was the slave of sin, and so ignorant that he knew not, I believe, even the letters of the alphabet. Some remark then made arrested his attention, and led to salutary reflection. He became an attendant at the adult school and at the prayer-meeting. He learned to read and write, joined the church, and subsequently became our schoolmaster, and one of our most active and persevering Missionary collectors. The learning to read was a hard labour, but the learning to write still harder. But he plodded on, and many times, when my own patience was almost exhausted, I have felt reproved by his perseverance. But having mastered the great difficulties, he soon outstripped all competitors. From the time, too, that he was able to read his growth in grace and the knowledge of divine things was very marked. Almost every time he was called upon to engage in prayer in public I could trace some new advance. His prayers were always criptural and edifying, and at times a peculiar unction seemed to rest upon his spirit. Many times I have felt ready to exclaim aloud, "This

1860.]

POETRY-THOUGHTS ON THE SEA-SHORE.

35

is the Lord's doing, and it is wonderful in our eyes." There was a time when the Bible was regarded by this young man with a secret terror, and the lifting up of the hands in prayer as a kind of witchery. "When I was under my master, the Dutch farmer," he has said, "the Bible seemed to me a book full of black spots, and as he said that that spoke of his God, but that the green montis was my god, I used to believe it must be so, and that his God must be something terrible to me, and I was glad to get out of the room when I saw him with that book. But, blessed be God, I know better now."

This interesting, useful man died a few weeks ago, after a protracted illness of several months. His disease was pulmonary consumption. He was favoured with the full use of his mental faculties till within a few hours of his death, and he failed not to employ them, as far as strength would permit, in seeking the spiritual benefit of those who visited him. He remarked to me on one occasion, while the tears trickled down his sunken cheeks, "Oh, Sir, I can never be thankful enough that I was ever enabled to read the Bible," and the earnestness with which he pressed attention to the Scriptures upon those who visited him showed how sincere he was in this profession of gratitude. Shortly before his death I inquired as to his prospects. "I have no fear of death." "But why? on what ground does your confidence rest?" His answer struck me forcibly. It was simply the language of Scripture-"There is now no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus.

[Evangelical Christendom.

THOUGHTS ON THE SEA-SHORE.

I STOOD upon the shore, and gazed alone
Upon the restless wave, and heard it mo an
It was an emblem of this turbid life -
This passage to eternity through strife;
And much I thought upon the ceaseless cares
That chequer life, and compass it with snares.
Mem'ry and fancy both were busy then,
And told me of the heartlessness of men;
How rarely love prevails-how few have trod
The path directed by the Son of God.
Nature inanimate, incessant groans
O'er man's sad ruins; e'en the very stones
On this lone sea-shore show the stamp of pain,
And bear the mark of sin and Satan's reign.
But man goes forward, nor will deign to pause,
Nor think one moment of himself, the cause
Of all this misery-this fallen world,
In one vast universal ruin hurled.

Spirit! that erst upon the deep didst brood,
And curb the chaos of the primal flood,
Oh shine once more, thy vital beams impart,
And drive the gloom from man's benighted heurt.
O'er the sad ruin shed Thy heavenly love;
Pour fire celestial from Thy throne above.
Where Hell once reigned let Heaven still arise;
Save the lost soul, and bid him scale the skies!

REV. J. S.

( 36 )

INDIAN RAILWAYS.

[MARCH,

ONE of the effects produced by railways in India is that of increasing British prestige. It is true that there was no want of this before their introduction, but as the iron horses snort, pant, and struggle on with their heavy loads, wondering and delighted crowds become more and more convinced that the nation which rules them is a great and skilful one.

Another practical lesson which they are learning from the same source is punctuality. Time, with the Hindu is such an abundant commodity, that, besides sleeping away a considerable portion of it, and spending another large part in gossip, he inflicts no slight amount of annoyance upon Europeans by not keeping to hours, and by tedious approaches to matters of business when in conference with them. Nothing strikes at this so thoroughly as the railway. Once and again and again convinced that the inexorable trains, like time and tide, will wait for no man, the Hindu begins slowly to apprehend that he must change his ways, and does so.

Carefully keeping aloof from the rest, we see a Brahmin, come to the station with his fine-looking family of boys and girls, all elegantly dressed. They are bound for the great shrine, which lies near one of the stations. Soodras, of various subdivisions, portly, comfortable men, form a large irregular group; and conversing, perhaps, with one or more of them, are a few Mohammedans. Coolies, pariahs, servants, and others of low castes, form the humbler portion of the travellers. Officers, civilians, and other Europeans, moving about, are the chief objects of attention; while the Missionary and converts are carefully eyed by numbers around. We enter a third-class carriage, which is soon filled. Two or three respectable Soodra women in it are surrounded by their fellow-countrymen. But see, there comes a pariah. What turning and moving takes place to avoid his touch or neighbourhood. Should a poor Brahmin be among us, he will make any exertion necessary to avoid him. By and by the train starts, under the admiring gaze of a swarthy crowd, which has clustered on the bridge and along the banks. As I read one of the vernacular tracts which are with me, my Hindu fellow-travellers cast their eyes on the lines, and, perhaps, read them. This curiosity is taken advantage of. One is given away-another-and another. All in the carriage are soon aware that literature is afloat, and men sometimes rise, several yards off, asking for a little book. The men of the south ask for one language, the men of the north for another; while the Mussulman, if he condescends to ask or accept one at all, cares only for what is in his own Hindustani. Mean time the converts have been engaged in the same work. .

It is curious to notice how the Hindu female regards this. Tracts find their way near her. Not improbably her husband is reading one, while she dandles the sweet little child that accompanies them. He may perhaps, after the native fashion, begin to read aloud. She is pleased to see him interested; pleased, too, at the idea of the little book having come from the white man; but from any legitimate curiosity about its contents, or any idea that they may concern her, her poor mind seems far enough removed. Entertaining the hope that the little boy will one day read like his father, she has no such desire either for herself or her daughters.

1860.]

( 37 )

THE INTERIOR OF CHINA.

THE following graphic sketch of a journey by a Missionary from Ningpo to Hangchow, the capital of the province of Chekeang, and one of the leading cities of China, will be read with interest.

curred previously to the late collision between the Chinese and British at the mouth of the Peiho; and we fear that for the pre