The Rajpootana missionaries seem to have organized an extensive system of itinerating. In the Todgarh station there is no large town, and the work is therefore entirely in the villages. During the last cold season, in a district containing 43,000 inhabitants, every village and almost every hamlet was visited. The nearer villages are reached by a morning's ride. For a more distant one they start in the afternoon so as to reach the village about sunset. By this time the people have returned from their fields and they willingly assemble in the chattram, which serves also as a resting place for the night. All that is necessary is brought on the back of a camel. way to their hearts. As leading to this result medical missions are invaluable. The mission is trying the experiment of employing European catechists. Two men who were formerly soldiers in the army and who had acquired a ready knowledge of the vernacular have been engaged to assist the missionaries. They are said to give full satisfaction and appear to labour with zeal and success. Into such a harvest field as India we are glad to welcome all kinds of workers. Many more of the same class might be employed with advantage, were it not for their ignorance of the language of the people. A mission press is established at Beawr and has been kept constantly at work producing tracts and school-books. Two colporteurs have been employed, supported in part by Mr. Robert Arthington of Leeds, at whose desire they were sent out. The educational operations, however, have been far the most important. At Nya Nuggur there is an orphanage with twenty children. Anglo-vernacular schools have been established at the three principal stations. For village schools, of which there are nearly forty, an elaborate set of rules has been framed. The teachers are to be examined every year at the central school and arranged into three classes. The sub Journeys of considerable length have been made into the native states where the people were generally found willing to listen to the gospel. Large congregations were gathered both by day and night. Sometimes the magic lantern was first exhibited in the meetings after dark to arrest and excite the people. As to the wisdom of this however there may be two opinions. The only opposition met with was in the state of Jeypore. The young rajah of Khetbri showed the missionaries much kindness and entertained them as his guests. It is interesting to find from a recent number of the Friend of India that the government has spoken very highly of the conduct of this en-jects last time were the Acts of the Apostles, lightened young chief. His Excellency in Council says that he does not recollect having read the account of any native administration which reflects greater credit and honour on its head. He is specially recommended to the Maha Rajah of Jeypore and the other chiefs of Rajpootana as worthy of imitation. The medical mission forms a very important part of the agency employed. Two out of the eight European missionaries are medical men. A dispensary has been opened at Nya Nuggur and has worked well. The medical missionaries have also itinerated through the country, have performed surgical operations and distributed medicines, and have vaccinated thousands. Of all aids to the direct preaching of the gospel there are not any that commend themselves so much to our approval as medical missions. Not any have so high a sanction from the example of Christ. Not any are more likely to remove prejudices against Christianity. A dispensary is very much more than a mere bait for procuring a congregation. In that we have very little faith. We want the people to feel that we care for them and that the gospel seeks their best interests. We want to arouse sympathy and gratitude and thus find a III.-3. natural history, history of India, geography and arithmetic. There was also a voluntary examination in Dr. Wilson's exposure of Hinduism. Those who pass in the first class are to receive as the fixed part of their salary six rupees per month, those in the second class five rupees, and those in the third four. In addition to this they are paid according to results. The boys in each school are to be arranged into five classes according to their attainments, the subjects for each class being the same in all schools. For every scholar in the lowest class the teacher is to receive one anna, for every one in the fourth two annas, each class increasing one anna, so that if he can raise any to the first class he will receive five annas for each boy. Nothing can be more perfect in theory than these rules, although owing to the variety of circumstances by which schools are influenced they may not be so easy to put into practice. Still any system, although it may be rather complex and some of its results not perfectly fair, is yet much preferable to no system at all. At present in most vernacular schools we have worthless teachers, poor school books, and no plan. Till a regular system can be organized for training teachers, improving the books, and managing the schools, we shall not see much fruit very large number of youths now scattered over of our labour. the Presidency, and engaged in many departments of the public service. We can have no task more grateful than to record the commencement of a new mission and to wish it success in the name of the Lord. There are now few countries on the missionary map of India which are unrelieved by the bright spot which marks a mission station. And as fresh centres increase, the circles of Christian influence continue to enlarge around the older ones. Here and there the outer circle from one centre merges into the outer circle from another, and in due time the whole face of India will be troubled. The church seems now alive to the importance of securing all the great centres in the land and of concentrating in them all their available agency. In these centres we must labour on in faith and hope till a church is established and faithful men are raised up to spread the gospel through the surrounding country. DEATH OF THE REV. H. P. CASSIDY, OF POONA. The following sketch of Mr. Cassidy's life and character is by a friend who knew him well. It has appeared in the Bombay Guardian :-- The cause of Christ in Western India has sustained a great loss in the death of the Rev. Henry P. Cassidy at Poona, on the night of the 30th of November. Mr. Cassidy was for a number of years under the charge of the Free Church Mission, at a period when he was looking forward to the ministry; but a change of views on the subject of baptism in the year 1850 led to an alteration in his plans. He pursued the work of a missionary in Bombay in the years 1850-52, living at the time with the writer of this in Oomerkhady. He was remarkably well fitted for such labours by his acquaintance with the languages, in several of which he had an oral facility almost unrivalled. In May, 1852, he proceeded to England, and was there ordained as a missionary, in connection with the Baptist Missionary Society, in the church of the Hon. and Rev. Baptist Noel. He returned to India in May, 1853. The views which he had adopted led him to decline receiving any salary from the Baptist Missionary Society, and to seek to maintain himself by his own endeavours. By the aid of friends in this country and in England he was enabled to build a chapel in Poona, where he established himself in 1854. He opened a boarding-school for European and Indo-Briton boys, which has been of the highest advantage to a China. RECENT ADDITIONS TO THE CHURCHES IN WE have ten native teachers at present, and ten mission stations: two in Shanghai and eight in different parts of the province. Beside these. there is the Hospital Church, presided over by a native pastor. The present number of members is 416, 189 of whom were received last year. You may perhaps feel surprised that the total number is so small compared with the large number received last year; but the apparent anomaly has an easy though melancholy explanation. During the late Tai-ping rebellion, which raged with fearful havoc through this province, thousands on thousands, I may say millions, died either by the sword, of hunger, or disease. Hamlets, villages, and towns were swept away like chaff before the storm. In the general destruction, several places in which our Society had flourishing churches were entirely swept away. In two places not one was left to tell the doom of the others; in another village only the pastor escaped to make known the tragic fate of his flock, all of whom perished. This, of course greatly diminished the number of church-members, though we hope it increased the number of those before the throne who are from the land of Sinim.' From this account you will see something of the trials and encouragements the missionaries have had in this part of the Master's vineyard. It seems to me the success, both here and in the other parts of China, is greater than we could have expected. If we consider the tenaciousness with which the Chinese cling to the past, the indifference with which they regard the eternal future, their hatred of everything foreign, and their conceit in their own ways, and then look at the success with which the preaching of the gospel has been attended, we shall have a fresh proof of the Divinity of that Bible in which we believe, and shall be led to exclaim, 'This is God's doing, and it is marvellous in our eyes!' I may add, that each Communion Sunday since I have been here there have been two, three, or four additions to our Shanghai Church, and the same, I think, may be said of nearly all our out-stations.-From a letter of the Rev. G. S. Owen, of the London Missionary Society. Japan. "THE Gospel is preached here now," writes an American missionary, "to small gatherings in the Dutch Reformed Church on the Sabbath, and on other days in our own houses. Bro. Ballagh commenced a meeting on his return from San Francisco, on the Lord's day, at the same time as our usual English public service. His own servants, and two or three or four pupils from our former schools attended, he tells me. One of them expounds the Bible, and he conducts the worship himself. "Every other day three private pupils, who come to my house, either read the Bible with me or write some portion of it from my dictation." We (Christian Intelligencer) have intelligence of the most cheering character from Japan, which we withhold for the present, mentioning the fact now only for the sake of urging the brethren to pray for this singular and interesting country. There is striking proof that God will bless his ||| truth among the Japanese. New South Wales. (Special Correspondence.) THE Episcopal Church is endeavouring to get synodical action in the three dioceses into which this land is at present divided. A bill has been agreed on by a general synod, composed of representatives from the three dioceses. It will be introduced into Parliament during the next session. New churches are being erected in various places, of which two are in the city of Sydney. The bishop has been confirming young persons in the city recently. The Presbyterian Church has been making rapid progress since the auspicious union of last September. There are more openings ready for ministers than there are young men to occupy. A thousand pounds have been raised for the passage and outfit of ten additional ministers from the mother country. Efforts are also being made to secure a native ministry, and a college for their education. A Presbyterian Sabbath School Teachers' Association was lately formed for the city and suburbs of Sydney, and promises to be of great service to teachers and to the Church. Professor Smith of the university is the president. The New Hebrides Mission is about to receive a great accession of labourers. Three who have been absent the Rev. Messrs. Geddie, Paton, and Copeland-are about to return. Three new missionaries, the Rev. Messrs. M'Nair, Cosh, and Neilson, are to enter on their work. There was much need, as both at Erromanga and Fate Messrs. Gordon and Morrison were single-handed. The mission ship Day-Spring is in port after having gone among the Loyalty Islands and the New Hebrides. She now goes to Melbourne to meet the band of missionaries. The new John Williams is daily expected with a band of missionaries for the Samoan Islands and Eastern Polynesia. Sandwich Islands. MR. GULLICK gives this interesting sketch of a native pastor in Honolulu : I improved an opportunity of going with Pastor Kaouohimaka (The Pupil of the Eye) to his field in the north part of North Kona. This man was once a common and abandoned sailor, and sailed somewhat extensively through this ocean. He finally lost his right hand as a result of dissipation, and with that commenced religious: impressions. From step to step he has been led,. till at last, a year ago, without any special course of education, secular or religious, he was ordained over this rocky and sparsely settled region, of some thirty miles in extent. Within two years he has stimulated the people to build two small framed meeting-houses, and one of stone, only just finished and not yet dedicated. Though fully five miles from the shore, they transported lime with which to lay the walls, over most horribly rocky roads, on horses and males; and the water for making the mortar was brought in gourds from a cave an eighth of a mile in depth, so dark and devious that it can only be entered with torches. In addition to this, they have paid their pastor the salary of 100 dols. a year, which they promised him, besides constantly making him presents of food, and have purchased sixty-two acres of land, and a grass house costing over 100 dols. as a parsonage. . . . As he and I jogged along together on our mules, he opened his heart to me respecting the providences by which he had been rescued from the lowest sin and raised to his present post, in a way which drew my heart to him as a true fellow-labourer. His unprepossessing, brown-coloured but faithful mule, is, he says, an indispensable assistant in his pastoral labours; and when he is sometimes belated (Special Correspondence.) THE ST. CHRISCHONA MISSION. THE following letter is forwarded to us by Mr. Blessings, a German Missionary, and retains somewhat of the foreign idiom : Knowing that you like communications from such a far country, I send you these few lines for insertion in Christian Work. Since I wrote you before my place has been changed; I had to go to Kartoom. Before leaving Cairo the opportunity was given to me to spend three months in Jerusalem for ordination and marriage. The 13th of December I left that city with my beloved wife, and arrived at Cairo some days before Christmas-day. The kind and well-known Mrs. Lieder invited us to use her hospitality. As my wife, as Sister Mathilde, from the Prussian hospital in Alexandria, was ever a welcome guest there, and I myself proving the kindness of the good lady for a number of years, we accepted and enjoyed our visit very much. During our sojourn in Cairo for preparation, I preached in my beloved little German Chapel, and once (invited by the Rev. Mr. Wright) in the English Church. centre and capital of the Sudan, where merchants of all nations are to be found. Certainly, many became very rich; but to inquire as to the ways and means by which they acquired riches, is wounding to the heart. It is not enough that by all kinds of lies and tricks they cheat the poor natives, even their professed friends. They go or they send their hirelings in ships to the southern parts to get ivory and durra (a kind of maize), and let me say plainly, slaves. How dreadfully they deal with the black and poor inhabitants, I can tell from the mouths of those who have seen it with their own eyes, corroborated by what we read and hear everywhere. As soon as the merchants hear that the natives have received ivory or durra, they go and ask if the owners are willing to sell it. If so, all is well; they receive for their property Americani (or American sheeting), or beads, as much as these men wish; if they are not then quiet, these hunters of elephants, as they call themselves, use their guns and kill the men, women, and children, and whatever may be of use to them is brought to the ships. When no ivory and durra is to be had, these slaveholders surround a village and murder and rob as much as possible. If there are only a few, and a great number of natives, they are afraid, because the inhabitants make immediately their position understood by telling them; either you kill us, or we you. Recently I heard that some of the tribe, called the "Nyam-Nyams," are very glad when these kidnappers arrive, "saying, one to another, we will enjoy much flesh," meaning the flesh of the hunters. When the hunters have brought together as much as they can carry, they bring back their booty to Kartoom. The 17th of April, I, my good wife, and two fellow-labourers arrived at Kartoom, and were heartily received by Mr. Duisberg and Mr. Wettler, employed by our mission. Being asked What is then the lot of the poor slaves? Either for a service the next Sunday, and to re-open to procure money, by exposing the poor females the school, I begun with boys of the house to to the voluptuousness of vile wretches, or to serve cleanse the school-room, where the masons had re--and often in a very miserable state. cently been at work. As the shovel, broom, &c., at Cairo were still familiar to me, after a short time the room was prepared for divine service, and the day following the school was opened. Since that day the Lord has given me strength to carry on his work in this dark place without interruption, except for a few days at the time when my beloved wife died. Kartoom, a centre of the mission-field of St. Chrischona, is not enough known as the last spot of civilisation without evangelization, and as the To these despised creatures our Sunday evening was dedicated; and as long as my dear wife was with me, we brought together males and females, even the mistress and her daughters, to read and explain the Holy Scripture, and after that we concluded with a short prayer. But now what shall I say?-they are beyond my reach ; and even when they came to say "Good evening," they run off, and it would not be advisable to try to keep them back. Knowing what a great impediment depraved females are, we intended to open a girls' school, but we did not in the beginning succeed. Only a short time before my beloved wife died, a Turk of high rank gave us a little girl for education. Another one also asked us to take his girls into our house. But, alas! all these encouraging prospects vanished by the going home of my dear Mathilde. The boys' school, thanks be to God, goes on blessed with success. We have thirty-four boys, of all colours and denominations, even heathen. On this field of labour, notwithstanding it is a hard one, our hopes most depend. It is the truth, as recently a respectable native said, "On the children you must fix your eyes; the old are too bad; there is but little hope for them." Notwithstanding, we disseminate the word of God, and have regular service and conversations wherever we can obtain them. And as it seems, the little leaven among the inhabitants of Kartoom begins to work. Already they fight against us, calling us "ravening wolves," and try to keep back, especially, the boys of three Koptic priests. These kidnappers do not esteem these black creatures as reasonable men, and therefore they deal so cruelly with them. I am sorry to say that Europeans give the worst examples of all baseness. Here in Kartoom is the centre of all wickedness; here is the source whence spreads a bane over millions of immortal souls; here is the seat of Satan and his castle, and it seems that even by the unhealthiness of the place he manages to fortify it. The key to the countries near the White and the Blue Nile is in the hand of the enemies of truth. How many labourers will lose health and life before this place can be put at the feet of our Saviour. Every one can feel how encouraging it is that the British and Foreign Bible Society sent five cases of books to the kind care of the Consul-General of Prussia at Alexandria, as Mr. Kirby, in Malta, wrote to me. Therefore let every one who loves the coming of the kingdom of God, and especially to the oppressed children of Ham, as often as he bows his knees, not forget with a sigh his brethren in this unhealthy and dark climate, trusting that the Lord will accomplish his promises. West Africa. THE NIGER CHURCH MISSION. extract the following. The charge itself is well worthy of perusal throughout.* Our first station was commenced at Onitsha in 1857, where our dear brother, the Rev. J. C. Taylor, was landed, assisted by the late Simon Jonas, a Scripture reader. Their lodging was an oblong verandah-hovel, some three feet wide, just enough to spread mats on, without any other comforts. In this place they remained for months, and went out to preach as well as to work, building their own mission-house on the spot which we now occupy. The next place attempted to be secured for a mission-station was Gbebe, at the confluence of the Kwara and Tshadda rivers, which unitedly form the River Niger. While arrangements were being made to effect this, to be completed at my return from the exploring voyage of the Kwara branch, the "Dayspring," the exploring steamer, was wrecked at Jeba, twenty miles above Rabba, where we were obliged to encamp for twelve months. In the meantime, another calamity took place; the trading establishment was accidentally burnt down at Gbebe, and all the property destroyed. It seemed at the time as if another great doom was impending on the working of the Niger, from the wreck of the "Dayspring,” and the destruction of the trading establishment at Gbebe; but the God of missions had something in store for the future of the Niger. In 1858, the "Sunbeam" was sent for our relief, and some native teachers also to strengthen our hands; thus I was enabled to place three readers, Messrs. James Thomas, Edward Klein, and Jacob Newland, to begin at Gbebe; and on the return of Mr. Taylor and Simon Jonas to the coast, to remove their families to the mission, Mr. John Smart, associated with Mr. W. Romaine, a Christian trader, whose services were secured as a teacher, were left to work the station in Mr. Taylor's absence. It pleased God to remove Simon Jonas and Edward Klein from our number by death, just at the very time their valuable services seemed to us indispensable. Here again is another mysterious dispensation, too deep for us to fathom. Akassa station was subsequently taken up, at the mouth of the Nun, with a double view of having a halting place at the mouth of the river in going up and down from the upper stations, as BISHOP CROWTHER, the native Bishop of the Niger, in West Africa, 1866, by the Right Rev. Samuel Niger, recently delivered a charge, from which we "A Charge delivered on the Banks of the River Crowther, D.D., Oxon, Native Missionary Bishop."London: Seeley, Jackson, & Halliday, 1867. |