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Messrs. Lord and Goldberg from the London Jews' Society, who anticipated our settlement, and laboured faithfully for some time, but were subsequently removed to the capital."

INDIAN MISSIONS.

CALCUTTA.

IN the month of September last, an interesting and important meeting was held in the city of Calcutta, consisting of Christian missionaries connected with the Church Missionary Society, the Baptist Missionary Society, the Church of Scotland, the Free Church, and the London Missionary Society. Their number, including seven gentlemen identified with the several Institutions, though not missionaries, amounted to fifty-five, and their successive meetings occupied four days. Such an assemblage was a novelty in the history of modern missions, and afforded a delightful evidence of that brotherly love and Christian catholicity which best illustrate, and most powerfully commend, the faith of our Redeemer. During these happy meetings no sectarian prepossession was obtruded, no jarring note was heard; but the associated brethren maintained, not only unbroken, but undisturbed, the unity of the Spirit in the bonds of peace. During the successive sittings of the Conference, ten valuable papers on missionary subjects of the highest interest were read and discussed, and suitable resolutions were adopted. The last of these documents is, "An Appeal from the PROTESTANT MISSIONARIES OF BENGAL, then assembled, to the Committees and Boards of Management of the various MISSIONARY SOCIETIES IN EUROPE AND AMERICA." This appeal sets forth, in such thoughts and language as missionaries only can employ, the commanding and yet unanswered claims of India on the Church of Christ; and it is sustained by facts which, as they cannot be gainsaid, ought to be irresistible. From the Table of Statistics given in illustration, it appears that, in the Four Presidencies, containing a population exceeding one hundred and twelve millions, the number of missionaries is less than four to every million. But this is the most

favourable aspect of the mournful case. In the several States not included in the Presidencies, yet all under British rule, with a population of more than sixty-four millions, the entire number of missionaries is only eight. With facts so appalling, and all but overwhelming, the

members of the Conference, addressing the several Societies they represent, thus plead :

"What, then, dear brethren, is to be done for these perishing souls? We ask for nothing unreasonable, nothing impossible. We well know that it is far beyond your power to supply even India alone with an adequate number of qualified missionaries. We know your sympathy for the heathen world; the numerous claims presented to you from your many missions; and the difficulty, in the present position of the Churches, of raising sufficient funds. But we do press upon you the greatness of the claims of India, and urge that, because of its vast population, and of its entire accessibility to the Gospel, those claims surpass those of all others. If, out of the

twenty Societies engaged in Indian missions, the larger send ten men, and others less, so as to secure an average addition of five men each during the next five years, there will be found no less than five hundred missionaries in India, of whom a hundred will have been entirely added during that brief period. We pray you to regard our appeal for the land in which we labour. We plead for the multitudes we see, whose ignorance we know, whose passage into another world in such vast numbers unsaved, fills us with mourning and sadness. We ask your efforts. We ask your prayers. May the Lord of the Church himself prepare the harvest, and send forth more labourers to reap it for His praise !"

The meetings of the Conference closed with a public meeting of Christians of all denominations interested in the cause of missions, which was held in the Calcutta Town Hall, on the 7th September. The venerable Bishop of Calcutta presided, and it was one of the largest meetings ever held in that city.-London Missionary Magazine.

MADRAS.

The Rev. J. M. Lechler, of Salem, who has laboured in the Presidency of Madras for two-and-twenty years, in a brief review of a recent visit to the capital, thus gives expression to his devout pleasure :—

"Formerly in Madras, on a Sunday, you could see but a few stragglers going to a place of worship, or a private house, to hear the Word of God: now we see families, with boys' and girls' schools walking in crowds to hear the preaching of the Gospel in various places of worship and in

all parts of the city. In Purse waukum, where I had the privilege of addressing the Tamil congregation of my friend and brother, Mr. Drew, on several successive Lord's days, and where twenty years ago there was no Tamil preaching at all, I found 300, at one time more than 400, individuals assembled to hear the Word of God in their own language, and with more than eighty out of this number I had the unspeakable pleasure of sitting down at the Lord's table.

"What surprised and cheered me particularly was an assembly of more than 170 heathen in a Zayat, or preaching place, near Mr Drew's house in Vepery. When we went into the place, I expected to hear, as I did on former occasions at Madras, much of arguing, disputing, and objecting on the part of our heathen audience. But there was nothing of this kind. Some thirty or forty men, who had come from a distant village, and who, I was told, are stated hearers, seated themselves in front, and as many as could find seats followed them; the rest stood listening with deepest attention to a regular discourse from Mr. Drew; and, after hearing him for nearly an hour, they remained as quiet and orderly to hear a few words from the white stranger that had come down from Salem. Not a sign of impatience or disagreement was observed throughout; and, if I had not been told before that I was in an assembly of heathen, and had seen some of the marks in their foreheads, I might have imagined that I was in a congregation of Christians. These wonderful changes are observed not only at Madras, but all over the country. Are we really aware of what God is doing in India?

"I was also not a little astonished to find that in Madras there are now five native girls' schools set on foot, and entirely conducted by natives. At the examination of one of these I was present. If such an event as this had been foretold fifteen or twenty years ago, I do not think that even a missionary would have believed it; but here is the fact before our eyes. The very people who used to tell us 80 gravely that they could not think of having their girls educated-such practices being contrary to the Shasters, the custom, and the well-being of their families-send now their girls to school to have them taught reading, writing, ciphering, needlework, geography, history, and Christian morals. At the examination, the fathers and relations of these girls were present, crowding the place, and watching most intensely the progress their daughters had made."

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AGGED JOHNNY, an orphan of about nine years of age, finding himself within a few miles of the capital, thought that once in the grand city of which he had heard so much, he should have no difficulty in getting an honest livelihood. He soon found out his mistake; a novice in eluding the policeman's vigilant eye, he was soon arrested for giving expression to the cravings of hunger, and imploring "one ha'penny, for God's sake, to get a ha'porth of bread," and was lodged in jail for twenty-four hours, when he did get as much bread as satisfied his hunger for that day, as well as having his hair closely clipped, which had got rather disordered since last his poor mother's kindly hand had lopped off the few locks she thought interfered with his usual tidy appearance.

But external were not the only changes in poor Johnny; he made some acquaintances in jail, to whom he was glad to tell his forlorn condition; they were not, like him, in for a first offence; they were old hands, and felt quite repaid for the slight inconvenience they experienced by having made an addition to their gang, and promised he should

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lead a gay and merry life if he became their pupil. At first he felt this was not exactly the line of life he had planned for himself, but none other having offered, he consented to cast in his lot with the young thieves, most of them as homeless and friendless as himself. He did not prove so apt a scholar as they anticipated, and in a few days was again lodged in jail for some trifling theft. On being discharged the second time, he resolved not to join his former associates, but whither should he bend his steps? The clipped head too plainly told from whence he came, and was sufficient to prevent any feeling of tenderness or compassion for his forlorn condition. A few tattered garments were all that remained to screen him from the chill blasts of December. He wandered about some hours, when, in an obscure street, a gentleman looked round for some one to hold his horse as he alighted to make an inquiry. Johnny was now at hand, and for this slight office the stranger handed him twopence, saying at the same time to the shivering child, "Why do you not go to the Ragged School, my boy? This awakened a new inquiry in the lad; he had never heard of such a place, though at home he had been accustomed to attend school regularly, and he knew that if he could but find such another he might get on; he accordingly ventured to inquire where was the Ragged School? and a kind hand pointed it out in an adjoining street. What was the poor boy's amazement to see nearly two hundred as miserable creatures as himself seated at their tasks! The teacher welcomed the wanderer, heard his sad tale, placed him in a class, and when a good lady who daily visits the school came in, he repeated it to her; she felt there was so much honesty in the recital of his sorrows, and no concealment of his crime, that she requested the master to procure him a lodging for a week where he might be protected from falling in with his former companions, and still be able to attend the school, where one meal a-day would at least be secured to him. He soon gave so much satisfaction, that, as he was able to read his Testament, he was promoted to be a Broomer, in which capacity he would have the opportunity of earning his bread. These boys are lodged in a dormitory under the charge of a resident master. They are not allowed to receive pay, but carry a book in which their services are regularly entered, and according to a fixed scale of charges, the collector goes round to the different houses where they are employed, and collects the various amounts, which are placed to the credit of the boys.

By strict diligence and attention to his business, Johnny

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