A little previous to the first awakening, the progress of the lads in their English studies, and the desirableness, on many accounts, of bringing them forward in some branches of European science, induced the Missionaries to form a High School, or Seminary; which was indeed at first designed to be a college, and would have been made so, but for obstacles thrown in the way by the Government of the island. This institution was commenced at Batticotta, the lads of the school there who did not enter it being removed to the other stations. At first 48 were received, and subsequently additions were made from year to year; the other boarding schools being nurseries to the Seminary. The first class, who left in 1828, after having gone through a regular course of study, consisted of 15; and two classes of about the same number have since left, a large proportion of all being pious. The number in the Seminary, at the commencement of the present year, was 142, of whom 53 were in church communion. Of these 15 belonged to the Theological class, with which 10 others, not in the Seminary, but most of them formerly members of it, were connected

About the same time the Seminary was formed, it was thought advisable to have the girls, who had been at the different stations, collected into a central boarding school, which was accordingly established at Oodooville, and the boys at that place removed. To this school there have been additions, from time to time, and dismissions from it; the latter generally by the girls' being suitably married. Of those who have been under instruction for several years, and given pleasing evidence of being truly pious, 16 have been married to Christian husbands, with a fair prospect of happiness and usefulness in life. While in the school, the girls are not only instructed in their own language, and some of them in English, in reading, writing, arithmetic, and geography, besides Scripture lessons, but also in plain sewing, and household labor. The number now in the school is 50, of whom eight are members of the church, and several are candidates for baptism, though the greater part of the girls are still very young.

As the moral state of the schools and their influence as Missionary institutions are the points designed to be principally illustrated, it is unnecessary to speak particularly of the progress which the lads in the Seminary have made, in the different branches of their education. Those who have been kept under instruction through a regular course, which occupies six years after they have obtained some knowledge of English, or about nine in all, have become in a good degree acquainted with English grammar, geography, arithmetic, algebra, the elements of mathematics and of geometry and trigonometry, with the more practical parts of natural philosophy and astronomy: they have some of them calculated and projected eclipses, and been able to compare the claims of the Puranic system of geography and astronomy with the European, and by some acquaintance with general history to see more or less clearly the absurdity of Hindoo chronology. They have at the same time read the most approved authors, in their own language, usually in the poetic dialect; and where they have not read the originals, they have obtained a knowledge of their contents by abstracts in the common dialect. The Bible is, throughout their course, made a text-book, and the Evidences of Christianity are systematically examined.

evidence of a change of heart; but without making a public profession of their faith From these facts, it will we think appear evident, that though the principal fruits of our Mission have been gathered from the boarding schools, and though the greater part of those received into the church are young, yet a sufficient number of adults have been received, to show that God, in the dispensations of his grace, is not confined to the rising generation; and that the opinion too commonly expressed, of the hopeless state of adult heathen, is not warranted by experience."

The Theological class attend to logic and rhetoric, Biblical literature, and exegesis of Scripture. They write essays on a course of questions in systematic divinity, attend theological lectures, and prepare sermons. Two from the class have been licensed as native preachers and candidates for ordination, and several others as catechists and readers.

Several lads, who have left the Seminary, after finishing their scientific course, are employed as teachers and assistants in the Church, Wesleyan, and American Missions-as tutors in private families to teach English-as interpreters in the cutcheries and magistrates' courts, or as assistants in the medical and surveyors' departments under Government. An important influence is, of course, excited by the Seminary, not only on the students directly, but through them indirectly, on the heathen population around. The standard of education is raised, a desire for information is excited, and means for improvement more and more extended.

The boarding school establishments have exerted an important influence on the Native Free Schools of the Mission, which are formed in most of the villages sufficiently near a Mission station to allow of their being efficiently superintended. The number of these has for several years been about 90, taught by the same number of masters and mistresses; all at first heathen, but now many of them Christians. They are visited regularly, often daily, by efficient superintendents. In these schools there have been usually 3,000 boys, and more than 500 girls. The principal object is, not to teach them to read and write, though to raise up a reading population, able and accustomed to read printed books, especially the Scriptures, is considered to be of great importance; but to teach them Christianity. For this purpose, one-half of each day is regularly occupied in Christian studies; and the children are all, from time to time, addressed publicly and privately on religious subjects. Every Sabbath morning, and generally also one other day of the week, they are assembled in Bible classes, after the manner of a Sunday school, to recite their Scripture lessons, and receive suitable advice. They also attend public worship on the Sabbath. There is occasional preaching in each school, and sometimes general meetings are held, when large numbers of the children and youth, from different schools and different stations, are collected, and addressed by Missionaries and native assistants in succession. A good effect from these united labours has often been manifest. The masters themselves are formed into Bible classes, and are required as such to meet the Missionary under whose care and direction they are, at least once a week, besides attending Church on the Sabbath. Once in three months, all are brought together to a general meeting, and a day is spent with them in exhortation from different Missionaries, and others, accompanied with prayer and singing. The means used with them have, by the blessing of God, resulted in the apparent conversion of nearly one-half the number. These open and close their schools with prayer, speak to the children on the concerns of their souls, read tracts and portions of the Scripture to the people around them, and in various other ways make known and recommend the religion they have embraced. Where the masters remain heathen, they are not allowed to practise heathen ceremonies; and their deficiency, as teachers of Christianity, is in part made up by the constant inspection of Christian superintendents, and the personal examination of a Missionary.

There is a monthly examination of each school, when the progress of every child is noted down, and the master is paid according to his pro. gress, the number of scholars, and their attendance at church. The wages of the teachers not being at a fixed salary, but according to the progress and state of the school, a degree of diligence on the part of the master

F

In this manner, by

is secured, which could not otherwise be depended on. the help of native assistants, a Missionary may superintend fifteen or twenty schools, with little loss of time; and secure in them a pervading Christian influence. It has never been intended by the members of this Mission to sink the Missionary in the school-master, or to forsake the preaching of the Gospel for teaching any language, or science. The principal of the Seminary certainly devotes a great part of his time to giving instruction, but it is the instruction of those who are preparing to make known the Gospel to their countrymen; and it is conducted in such a way as not to prevent him from preaching in the chapel of the Seminary once or twice on the Lord's day, and in other places two or three times in the course of the week, and performing other Missionary labor.

The schools, instead of interfering with preaching the Gospel, form places for it. They are little chapels, while the pupils with their parents and neighbours help to form an audience. Visits to them are short Missionary excursions; in course of which the Gospel may often be made known to many in their neighbourhood, while each school is a depository of tracts and portions of the Scripture for distribution. In this manner, native free-schools have been made a very important auxiliary to the propagation of the Gospel. It is not necessary to bring them in competition with preaching, or the distribution of tracts, or of the sacred Scriptures; for all these various forms of labour may be carried on together; and one or the other made advantageously more or less prominent, as circumstances require.

In India Christian schools are perhaps more important than in those parts of the heathen world where the Missionary finds men more in a state of nature; and for this reason, that if Christian schools are not found, heathen schools will be. The ground will be occupied. If it be asked, Do men need any preparation to receive the Gospel?—and if the answer is given by refer ence to the Jews on the day of Pentecost, or the Indians of North America, when Brainerd preached to them; or the inhabitants of the South Sea Islands, there is some danger of deception. The Jews were prepared, by a previous knowledge of their own Scripture prophecies, to understand and receive the truth as preached to them by Peter; and the North American Indians, the inhabitants of Taheite, and other islands, and generally all savages, who are more simple children of nature than the Hindoos, are in a better negative state of preparation to receive the Gospel, than the inhabitants of India. As there are places on the globe, where uncultivated ground is so far clear of forest and shrubbery, that seed may be cast in with little labour, so in that moral cultivation, whose "field is the world," there are doubtless portions where there is comparatively little to be done in clearing and breaking up the fallow ground-the sower may go forth at once and sow the precious seed with a "broad-cast," in confidence that some, at least, will spring up and ripen for the harvest.

But in India the ground is not clear. There is here a system of idolatry, so venerable for its antiquity-so captivating from its shows and processions and indulgences-so sacred from its associations with earliest childhood, and its pervading influence on all the concerns of life-so deadening to all right moral feeling, from its doctrines of fate, of transmigration, of atonement for sin, and the obtaining of bliss hereafter, on terms so easy as to prevent all real anxiety for the salvation of the soul, that some education seems almost necessary before the first principles of Christianity will be listened to, or if listened to can be understood. So perverted is their moral sense, and so nearly destitute are they of a conscience, that the Hindoos, whether young or old, must be taught, much as children are, before they can understand even the terms in which Christianity is proposed to them. They otherwise attach different ideas to

the words used, from those intended to be conveyed. If God is spoken of, they suppose one of their own gods is meant ; if sin, they think only of evil, as connected with a fatality which they could not resist, and for which they are not to blame; of heaven, they think of some sensual paradise; and of hell, it is a place of bodily torment for a time, or perhaps an unhappy state in the next birth.

Now, if men are to be sanctified through the truth, it is necessary to have that truth communicated to them, by some means, in an intelligible manner; and whether this should be done in part by schools, or entirely by other forms of instruction, must depend on circumstances. It is however in all cases desirable that much attention should be given to the young, as the most hopeful subjects for instruction, and in a country like India great efforts should be made to prevent or counteract a heathen education. The Christian education of females is particularly necessary, that they may be able to train up their children as Christians, and thus prevent a new crop of heathenism from rising up, with every new generation. When intelligent Christian mothers are multiplied, a foundation will be laid for the establishment and continuance of Christianity.

Still, in the use of any means for the propagation of the Gospel, great care is necessary, that those who employ, do not rest in them. The world is not to be converted by the natural operation of any moral machinery-"not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, saith the Lord of Hosts." There is danger in getting up a great system of schools, and seminaries, and colleges, for teaching not only the native languages and the sacred Scriptures, but English literature and European science--that too much dependence may be placed on the influence of mere light in the understanding, instead of entire dependence on the Holy Spirit to renew the heart. Efforts for teaching English and the elements of science, when thorough, and made in a right spirit, and in reference to the great object of introducing Christianity, will usually be accompanied with a blessing, and do great good, in a religious, as well as in a moral and political point of view. When not thorough, and not accompanied with Christian instruction, the result will be at best doubtful. The experiment is now making on a large scale in this city, and perhaps the most favorable thing that can be said of it is, that Braminism is giving place to scepticism. There is undoubtedly an opening made for the truth to enter, and if the friends of Christianity are sufficiently awake, to the importance of the crisis, and in all proper methods urge the claims of their Holy Religion, on that large class of intelligent native youth who are unsettled from the faith of their forefathers, and left almost without any religion, it may please the Great Head of the Church to grant the convincing and converting influences of His Spirit, to those, who otherwise may turn their acquirements in literature and science to evil, and not to good; and be exposed, on account of having broken away from the restraints of Braminism, to greater immoralities than they before practised. That infidelity, in a Christian land, appears more fair than idolatry in heathen countries, may readily be granted, because infidels there are under the restraints, and enjoy the blessings of a Christian community; but whether in this country, the prevalence of infidel principles will be found more favorable to the well-being of society than even the dark reign of idolatry, may perhaps yet be fearfully seen. Every friend of India will, however, earnestly pray, that the experiment may never be tried, but that education and Christianity may go forth hand in hand, throughout the length and breadth of this great empire, darkness flying before them, and the brightest civil and social and religious blessings following in their train.

VIII-A Brief Memoir of Mrs. Ann Thomas, late of Sulkea, near Calcutta, who died June 11, 1833.

Mrs. ANN THOMAS, the subject of the following brief memoir, was born in Market Drayton, Shropshire, in June, 1802. Her parents, Mr. and Mrs. EDWARD and ESTHER POOLE, were both truly and eminently pious. Like their amiable daughter, they were brought, while young in years, to the knowledge of the truth as it is in Jesus, and through a protracted life, were enabled to adorn their Christian profession, by a conversation becoming the Gospel, exemplifying the power of religion, and enjoying a large portion of its consolations.

Being themselves the subjects of true religion, and deeply impressed with a sense of its paramount importance to the welfare of those committed to their charge, they were anxious to train up their numerous family of eight sons and three daughters, "in the nurture and admonition of the Lord;" and though their endeavours have not hitherto been succeeded nor their prayers answered to the extent they ardently desired, neither the one for the other has been altogether in vain. Beside some hopeful appearances in one or two of the other branches of the family, their deceased daughter profited by them on earth, and is now, in answer to those prayers, and in some measure, as the result of those endeavours for her spiritual and eternal good, bowing before the throne of God, and adoring the riches of that grace which made her "meet for the inheritance of the saints in light."

Mrs. THOMAS was at a very early period of her life the subject of serious impressions, and, as is often the case under similar circumstances, her conversion was a gradual work, so that it would be difficult, if not impossible, to say when it took place. Indeed she herself could not tell, as she more than once affirmed when conversing on the subject. Still there was a time when she was conscious to herself of not having experienced that change without which, the highest authority has assured us, no man shall see the Lord;" there was a period too, when she desired and sought after this change, with the earnestness and importunity of one who feels something of its unutterable importance; as there subsequently was, when she indulg ed the hope that she had "passed from death unto life," and felt that she lov ed the Redeemer and could trust her all in his hands. When the divine spark, the regenerating principle, was first communicated, is known only to Him from whom it came; but, though at a much earlier period many serious impressions were made, and holy desires were excited in her mind, which led her to read and hear the Word with much attention and earnestness, and even to address the Throne of Mercy for converting grace, it was not until the latter end of 1817, or the beginning of 1818, when she was little more than fifteen years of age, that the work assumed a fixed character, and she became decided for God. Among the means sanctified to the bringing about of this pleasing change, family trials, personal affliction, the written word, and attendance on the ordinances of the Gospel, may be mentioned as the chief.

Having obtained mercy and a good hope through grace, she was anxious to evince her love to the Saviour by a public profession of his name, and a practical regard to the ordinances of the Gospel. She was accordingly baptized on a profession of faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, on Lord's day, the 11th October following, and the same day was received into the Church From that period to the moment of her death she was enabled to maintain an unsullied profession, and to adorn it with a holy life and conversation. On several occasions she was called to pass through the waters of affliction, and to undergo sufferings of no ordinary character: she however found the

The first Baptist church in Broseley, Shropshire.