Marquis Wellesley's government, awakened a religious sense of things in many; and led to an open and general acknowledgment of the Divine Providence, which has been highly beneficial to the interests of true religion and virtue.

"Nor ought I to neglect to mention the services which religion and morality have derived from the institution of the College of FortWilliam for the civil servants of the Company; who under this means have been delivered from the bondage of sloth and sensuality, and from the still worse yoke of the natives' influence. This large and respectable part of the community have imbibed a spirit of virtuous, emulation and literary research, which bids fair to extend religion, and science throughout the Company's vast dominions.

The natives themselves, it is to be presumed, will derive invaluable benefits from this institution, if duly supported; and I think we are authorized to hope that the knowledge of the Gospel among the heathen, will, by the Divine blessing, be promoted by the success of this institution."

It is observed, by the writer of the Memorial Sketches, the widow of this excellent minister, that, "to speak in the mildest manner, Mr. Brown found on his arrival at Cal, cutta, in 1786, that a deep ignorance on religious subjects, and a eareless indifference to Christian duties, were but too generally prevalent there. Living witnesses can testify, that the Lord's day, that distinguishing badge of a Christian, people, was nearly as little regarded by the British as by the natives; the most noted distinction being hardly more than the waving of the flag at head-quarters; excepting as it was the well-known signal for fresh accessions of dissipation. la short, it would hardly be believed in Calcutta now, how the Sunday was openly neglected

then.'

"It was frequently urged, that

there could be no use in keeping holy the Seventh day, in a heathen country; since the common people not being, as in England, Christians, the example was not needed." "In truth, no business (any more than pleasure) whether public or private, was discontinued on the Lord's day."

In ten years, the change was so remarkable, that the church-yard, and even streets adjoining the church where Mr. Brown offi ciated, were regularly thronged with palanquins and other equipages, where, but a few years before, scarcely half a dozen had usually appeared; and the number of communicants was greatly multiplied.

"Strangers from Europe, and the sister presidencies of India, have expressed themselves struck at the superior tone of the religious advantages of Calcutta; and have freely admitted that they had not witnessed, elsewhere, more eager attendance, and devout observance of the ordinances of religion. That a church has been built up of living stones; that a godly people, loving, holiness, have risen up in India; is, then a fact, that may be safely credited. And assuredly, in having accomplished this, he may well be considered as having been made, eminently useful. Whatever moral or political changes our Asiatic states have in the course of this period undergone, his warning and encouraging voice was uninterruptedly heard in the churches of Calcutta for twenty-five years."

The secret of his success will be found in the following extracts.

Though Mr. Brown had not the slightest pretension to be what is called a popular preacher, "yet he was remarkable for a deeply serious and impressive manner in preaching, which had perhaps a greater force than his words; of this a sensible hearer once observed, soon after he was appointed to the Presidency Church; . Whoever may not believe as Mr. Brown, preaches, he makes it impossible:

to suspect he does not believe so himself: for which reason alone, we could not but be attentive hear ers, when we see him evidently so much in earnest."

"He has acknowledged he felt the habitual persuasion on his mind, that in the congregation he had to address, there might be one, who for the first time would hear Christ preached; or perhaps one, who for the last time might listen to the Gospel sound. Such feel ings kept alive in him a solemn earnestness both in composition and delivery." "He at all times alike felt, in common with many pious ministers of the Church of England, that the urgent impor tance of religion will scarcely pro duce its due effect, unless it is combined with comprehensive views of the general scheme of Revelation. The foundations of the Christian character can be laid only in a deep sense of the ruined condition of mankind; in a present impression of the unspeakable perfections of the Supreme Being; in awful views of the extent and obligation of the law and commandment of God; in painfully strong convictions of the exceeding sinfulness of sin; in a living recollection of the great love wherewith our Master and only Saviour, Jesus Christ, hath loved us; an intimate persuasion of the value of his atonement and intercession; and an entire renunciation of all dependence on our own merits, as entitling us to the Divine favour; in a profound and humiliating sense of the corruption and deceitfulness of our own hearts, and a filial reliance on the aid of the Holy Spirit to quicken our moral perception and purify our carnal affections, to infuse into us all holy desires, succour us in all holy exercises, and fortify us in all Christian virtue."

"On his appointment in 1800 to the Provostship of the College of Fort William, he saw a new sphere of religious usefulness open to him; and superintended with renewed

alacrity, the heavy duties necessarily attendant on the first formation and arrangement of a collegiate establishment. He looked forward to the recompence of re ward which he desired to obtain, in winning souls to the paths of serious piety, from among the youth brought, by this institution, under his especial observation: and it is undeniably true, that a striking improvement took place in the moral deportment of the students of the college. Among other means for attaining this advantage, they were induced by its rules to become regular in attendance on the ordinances of religion; which in some of them laid the groundwork of a serious and consistent profession of the Christian faith."

When, in consequence of the reduction of the scale of the Col lege of Fort-William in 1806, the offices of provost and vice-provost were ordered to be discontinued, Mr. Brown, in the absence of Dr. Buchanan, who was then on the coast of Malabar, proposed, with his characteristic disinterestedness, to continue his services without any salary, "from a conviction that he could not devote his time and attention more usefully in the service of the Company than by promoting the success of the college." The Governor-General, Sir George Barlow, professed himself deeply struck with Mr. Brown's conduct on this occasion, but his offer was not accepted.

Soon after this period a new sphere of active usefulness was opened to him, by the operations of the Bible and Church Missionary' Societies in Asia.

"He was the first whom they invited to be their secretary in those regions. And he exerted for them the same ardour of spirit which had ever characterized him in the cause of the Christian faith; and his labour for them was alike indefatigable and gratuitous."

"He considered the rising of the Bible Society in Britain as

forming a grand era in the history of Christianity. The Bible he en titled, The Great Missionary, which should speak in all tongues the wonderful works of God.' All his hopes of the extension of Christianity centered in this one point, that God would magnify his Word above all his Name, and that by the gift of the Scriptures of Truth to all people a second, more widely Extended, pentecostal influence would be produced, and a remedy be fully provided for the judicial sentence inflicted on mankind at Babel,"

And when he was relieved of his charge of the mission church, by the appointment of the Rev. Mr. Thomason, and it might be supposed he would have availed him self of such a moment to secede from the field of his labours, as Secretary to the Bible Society, he found himself linked anew to that country. In the service of that Society from the moment that he became connected with it, he lent himself, with all the zeal of his ardent youth, to assist in the great work of effecting the diffusion of the Christian Scriptures over the whole East. He made it, he said, "the dream of his night and the thought of his day," to devise every kind of plan for prosecuting this important, and, as it proved, this elosing purpose of his life.

He even applied with his sons to the pursuit of the Hebrew, Syrjac, Arabic, and Armenian lan guages, with a view to the translation and circulation of the Scriptures, and the promotion of the objects of the Bible and Church Mission Societies. In such efforts was Mr. Brown engaged to the elosing period of his life, and even during his last illness. The following are extracts from his latest letters on these subjects written only a few months before his death. "You have planted," he says, in a letter to the Rev. Mr. Owen, one of the Secretary's of the British and Foreign Bible Society; "You

have planted a root in India, which will flourish to eternity. Who can appreciate the gift of the Bible in all languages! Its price is above rubies: it is life from the dead.

"This year, the most important in my whole life, has given birth to a Bible Society at Calcutta→ the scene of my sorrows and my labours, (whatever they may be). We began with zeal, moderated by prudence and circumspection, and have proceeded with caution, knowing what tender ground we had to tread upon in India. The Lord, to him be the glory, hath prospered us in all things. The respectable phalanx of our Com, mittee has protected us from scoffers, and terrorists, who are yet more dangerous. All stand firm to the original purpose, of giving the Bible, and the Bible alone: thus forming no party, and inter fering with no prejudices which are not directly anti-Christian. We have much to do. Java has opened an almost boundless scene of usefulness. Hundreds of thousands of nominal Christians need the Bible; and it will be wanted through the whole extent of the Indian Archipelago. Ceylon alone presents a most extensive field. It is a thirsty land, and demands of us living water.'

"The books for your library at Calcutta are arrived in most perfect condition. They are well chosen, highly useful, and most necessary to our present operations. You have heard of the self-propagating Banyan tree, letting down its roots from its highest branches, and multiplying itself far and wide; but perhaps you have not heard. that two trees go by that name, and that both are generally planted by the natives of India close together and grow up entwined. They are called the Butt and the Peepel. You have planted the butt- the Bible; and you have placed

learning,' by this gift of a library, beside it, which will grow up together with it. Thus, united, may

the Banyan flourish-while we sleep in dust, waiting for Him who is the resurrection and the life.

"I am now digesting a plan for reading publicly the Scriptures. The Church Mision Society will aid this object. Next to the silent operation of the Bible Society, I expect the greatest good (if it please God to prosper the work of our hands) from this undertaking.

"The time is short,' at least my time, and I wish to see the word of God, and the word of God alone, sent forth and circulated, and even heard, under, as it were, every green tree."

He observes in another letter, addressed to a member of the Committee of the Church Missionary Society-" Next to the reading of the Scriptures, the hearing of them read must be the greatest benefit and blessing to mankind. The Bible Society has provided for the one, and yours has begun to provide for the other. They send forth the Scriptures, and you make them vocal, in all lands. Both will accomplish a glorious work, and contribute above all other means (except the conversion of the Jews) towards filling the earth with the knowledge of the Lord. May the Lord of heaven and earth prosper your Society, and give his blessing to the operations of both in the East!" Early in 1812, he was attacked by the severe illness which terminated his eminently useful life on the 14th of June in that year, and in the 49th year of his age. "To increasing bodily weakness he gave no other heed, than to make it a spur to him to labour the more exceedingly." It pleased God "that the crowning labour of his life in the Christian ministry should be the publication of the First Report of the Calcutta Auxiliary Bible Society." During the whole course of his illness, "his holy habit of unreserved submission to the will of God, as marked by his providences, shone forth. He never

uttered a repining sound, that his reluctant and painful effort" an attempted voyage to sea, "had been made in vain; but sincerely thought and declared that all was well as much as if the plan bad succeeded, according to the wishes and expectations of his anxious friends, for the restoration of his health and usefulness.

"His last morning was particularly calm, collected, and resigned; and his last breath spoke thankfulness for the merciful consolations showered down upon him, and the great kindnesses that had been shewn him on every hand, and his confidence in the gracious purposes of his God.

"While in the act of thus expressing his humble gratitude to God and man, he closed his eyes, and raised his feeble hands and still moved his lips in inward worship-but his voice was heard no more!

"A funeral sermon was preached at each of the churches; and the mission church was hung in black on the mournful occasion, in honour of his revered memory, and in respectful deference to the deep feeling of sorrow in the congregation on their lamented bereavement.

"The reverence in which the character and memory of Mr Brown were held, in the community among which he had so long ministered, was testified in some touching and uncommon instances, which ought to be recorded to their mutual honour."

These the limits I have assigned to myself will not permit me to transcribe, although they are singularly gratifying, and reflect credit in a high degree not only on the character of Mr. Brown, but on that of the community among whom he had so long laboured. I must refer the reader for them to. the work itself, which is replete with interesting details and most important instruction. My object, indeed, in extracting from a work.

of 500 pages so brief and imperfect a sketch of the life and labours of this distinguished minister of Christ, is to draw the public attention to a volume which deserves and will abundantly reward their attention, and which his surviving fellowlabourers in the vineyard of Christ will find well calculated to kindle their zeal and animate their exertions.

The twelve Sermons which close this volume, are valuable specimens of that plain, practical, unassuming and yet influencial style of preaching, which, in the case of Mr. Brown, God was pleased to honour by making it the means of gradually and silently producing such remarkable effects on his congregation.

I cannot better conclude this sketch, than by quoting a part of the closing passage of Mrs. Brown's excellent Memoir. "It will probably surprise the attentive reader in England, to have placed before him sketches of a pious and conscientious ministry at Calcutta, which has been in lively exercise throughout a period of twenty-six years."

"The silence of Mr. Brown and his associates, on the diligence and success of their ministerial labours, was accordant to their own humble views of themselves; which in elined them to lay their hand on their mouth, and their mouth in the dust, rather than speak with boastful lips. It would have been doing violence to themselves to atter more than, We are unprofitable servants.'"

"But as there is a time to keep silence, so is there a time to speak; and that which is secret shall be made known. The long-glimmering light seems spreading high and wide on the Indian horizon; the grain has sprung up, and even here and there a spot is found white already to harvest. It may therefore be acknowledged unto the Church of England, now these labourers have been called to their rest, that her ministers, Brown,

To the Editor of the Christian Observer, "THE Appendix to Mr. Jebb's Sermons," though quite uncontroversial in its purpose, has already provoked the animadversions of two writers in the Christian Ob server. To the former of those writers, your pages contain a reply, bearing the signature of AMICUS, which, in my judgment, completely frees me from the necessity of making a single observation upon the strictures of N-2. In remarking on the letter of my second opponent, I am well aware how much ought to be done. ALBIUS is indeed no ordinary writer: but that very circumstance renders it the more imperious duty to discard all selfish timidity, in defending a cause thus powerfully opposed; and indeed, in these days of fierce polemical contention, (plus quam civilia bella), there is something refreshing in the very attitude of friendly discussion with a writer who almost wins us to forget, what he eminently possesses, the skill and power of a subtle disputant, in the courtesy of gentleman, and the charity of a Christian.

ALBIUS divides the subject of discussion into two parts: the one, referring to the great body of Protestant churches; the other, to the Church of England. In his letter, he confines himself to the former topic: in his postscript, he gives some faint hopes that he may here