influence and increased personal respectability. But female education is now acquiring its proper place and its deserved importance. It makes a part of the government system of education, and the higher classes of natives have established schools for the education of their wives, their sisters, and their daughters. Such a change could not be expected in any purely native community, nor under any native government. It could only take place under European example, influence, and encouragement. In this course the missionaries led the way. They began the work and carried it forward for years against strong native prejudice and much opposition. But patience, perseverance, and prayer sustained them, until they have seen their work appreciated, and the cause taken up and supported by the very classes who had most opposed it. The English government in India has lately passed through a severe ordeal. Many supposed, when the late mutiny or insurrection was at its hight, that the British power would soon pass away and become matter for history. But we had no fears or hopes of this kind. We had seen something of the native character, and also of the English power, in India, and in other parts of Southern Asia, and we had no more doubt what the result of the insurrection would be, than we have when we hear of negro insurrections in our Southern States, or of Indian forays on our Western borders. The insurrection has been suppressed, and the British power is more firmly established than it was ever before. The government of India has been transferred from the East India Company to the Crown, so that it is now under the immediate control of Parliament. This change in the governing power of the country is expected to produce important changes in its administration. The internal improvements, as roads, canals, and railways, which were interrupted, and some of them suspended for a while, by the insurrections, are now carried forward with vigor. More than two hundred millions of dollars have been already appropriated to these works, and they will soon effect greater changes than were ever yet produced by similar works in any other country. No nation had ever a more noble prospect before them

than England now has in the state and prospects of India. It is in her power to raise India to a state of civilization which no country in Southern Asia has ever yet reached-a work which will be a greater honor to the English nation than anything they have yet achieved.

People in America have generally but a very imperfect idea of the vast power of England in the Southern countries of Asia. A leading journal in Calcutta has expressed the general opinion of the English in India, thus:

"Every one out of England is now ready to acknowledge that the whole of Asia from the Indus to the Sea of Ochotsk, is destined to become the patrimony of that race, which the Normans thought, six centuries ago, they had finally crushed, but which now stands at the head of European civilization. We are placed, it is said, by the mysterious design of Providence, in command of Asia, and the people of England must not lay the flattering unction to their souls, that they can escape the responsibility of this lofty and important position by simply denouncing the means by which England has acquired it.”

Whether England is thus to include among her foreign possessions "the whole of Asia from the Indus to the sea of Ochotsk," comprehending India, China, and all the intermediate countries, containing more than half of the human race, remains to be seen. The wealth and intelligence of England, her achievements in India, and the great army under her control in that country, show that she has the pecuniary and physical means thus to extend her possessions, and that she has also the moral and intellectual power to retain and govern them. And it does not now appear so unlikely that before the close of this century her power will extend over all these countries and nations, as it appeared at the beginning of this century that her power would by this time have reached its present state and limits.

It is an important question,-With what feelings should we, as philanthropists and Christians, view the state and progress of British power in the southern countries of Asia? We shall say nothing here of the means by which this power has been, or may yet be extended, but we shall contemplate these changes simply as occurring in the course of Providence, and

shall view them merely in their probable results on those

countries.

India and the countries east of it early acquired a high state of civilization for that age of the world, but for two thousand or more years past, though they have gone through many revolutions and other changes, they have yet made but little progress. While numerous discoveries and inventions and applications of science and art to the practical purposes of life, have been changing the state of Europe and the character of her inhabitants, and carrying them to a higher state of civilization than was ever before known in the history of the world, the southern countries of Asia have continued in nearly the same state in which they were several centuries ago. Their history during this long period contains many changes of dynasties and frequent revolutions. Sometimes there were indications. of an improved state of manners, and morals, and general civilization, and for a while there would be some progress in that direction. But other changes would soon take place, and all things would return back again, or to a yet worse state.

A careful examination of the history of the southern nations of Asia, as the Hindus, the Burmese, the Siamese and the Chinese, shows that there is no reason to hope that while their despotic and intolerant systems of government, their absurd polytheism and pantheism, their debasing idolatry, their cruel and barbarous superstitions, their mystical and unintelligible philosophy, their degrading social institutions, and their polluting and inhuman domestic usages, such as polygamy and infanticide-while these things continue (and these things are often a part of their religion, and are all tolerated and some of them enforced by their governments) there is no reason to hope that any essential and permanent improvement in their state and character can be realized. Indeed, the long experience of these nations and a careful inspection of their present state, show that they do not possess within themselves any elements or causes, political or intellectual, moral or social, literary or religious, which can in any way raise them to a higher state of civilization than they have reached at different times in centuries past. To effect any considerable and last

ing improvement in their state and character, some new and powerful cause must be introduced. And in the Providence of God such a cause-the British power-has been introduced, and already has produced astonishing results.

Supposing now this power should increase as much as its friends and some of its enemies-expect; supposing that the British power in southern Asia should increase until it shall have under its control India and China and all the intermediate countries, which contain more than half the human race, what would be its effect on those nations?

In view of the history and state of India we believe that such an extension of British power would promote peace. It would prevent wars between these different countries, and it would prevent insurrections, civil wars, and revolutions within them. Insurrections have seldom, and revolutions have never, occurred in the English territories; while under the native governments they have been of frequent occurrence, and have generally been very desolating and destructive.

The English would abolish slavery in all the countries that came under their government; they would also abolish the slave trade between these countries and all other nations.

They would put a stop, as far as practicable, to many barbarous and cruel practices and customs, which have been hitherto perpetuated under the form and sanction of religion, and been tolerated more or less by the native governments, such as human sacrifices, suttees, infanticide, self-torture, superstitous suicide, and the like.

They would introduce a government of fixed, intelligible, and published laws, and of established and well regulated order.

They would promote education among all classes of the inhabitants, and the diffusion of general knowledge, science, and true philosophy.

They would introduce great internal improvements, as mails, telegraphs, roads, railways, canals, &c., and so would promote international intercourse, commerce, manufactures, and all the advantages and facilities of modern civilization.

They would introduce and establish civil and religious

liberty, and would extend to all classes the equal protection of the laws. They would permit all religious denominations, whether Christians, or Mohammedans, or Jews, or Hindus, or Buddhists, or Confucians, to propagate their sentiments by all proper means, and they would protect all classes alike in professing any form or system of religion they please.

They would thus prepare the way for the free and safe propagation and spread of Christianity-the only adequate remedy for the political, the social, the domestic, and the moral evils, which the inhabitants of these countries have been suffering for so many generations-we may say, for centuries. When the late insurrection commenced, and in the early part of its history, it was supposed that the means used to introduce and propagate Christianity was one of the principal causes of it. But further acquaintance with its origin and history has shown that such opinions were wrong. Eleven missionaries,* nine ladies, and their children, it is true, were put to death. But they did not suffer because they were missionaries, but only in common with other Europeans and their families, as it was then the determination and practice of the rebels to kill all white persons, whether men, women, or children. Had the insurrection resulted in the expulsion of the English from India and the establishment of native governments, there can be no doubt that any Mohammedan prince or power would have enforced the laws of the Koran over their own people, and that any Hindu prince or power would have rëestablished the laws of caste, and tolerated, if not encouraged, the barbarous customs and cruel rites which the English have abolished. But such was not the purpose of God concerning India.

We believe that in permitting England to acquire her empire in southern Asia, God had higher purposes than to promote the civilization of these nations. We believe that this great extension of British power is designed to prepare the way for the spread of the Gospel in those countries.

* Of these the following were of the American Presbyterian Board―viz, Rev. Messrs. Freeman, Campbell, Johnson and MacMullin, and their wives.