AMERICAN FOREIGN MISSIONS. TABULAR VIEW OF THE FOREIGN MISSIONS OF AMERICAN CHURCHES: Prepared for the Foreign Missionary Chronicle. Ministers of the Gospel are classed as Missionaries; physicians, teachers, catechists, printers, &c., as Assistant Missionaries. Feinale missionaries, being mostly the wives of the missionaries and assistant missionaries, are not classed separately. t Returns imperfect. Conference returns. BOARD OF FOREIGN MISSIONS. COMMUNICATIONS FROM MISSIONARIES. LODIANA MISSION. titude of the people of Hindustan, and were I to enter fully on this topic, I might write for hours. Perhaps nothing is more distressing to the heart of every missionary in India, than that most unlovely of all traits of character, called ingratitude, Labour.which he is constantly called to witness; DATED SAHARUNPUR: LETTER FROM THE and, I apprehend, that in no other part of As I have lately written at length to the heathen world is this so strikingly deseveral of our mutual friends in Philadel- veloped as among the Hindus. Never phia, respecting our missionary opera- having felt in their own bosoms, and never tions, it will not be necessary in this letter having witnessed in the conduct of their to refer to them further than to say, that race, the emotions of the principle of true they are going on in the usual way. The philanthropy, they know not what it means English school under Mr. Craig is in--they have no term by which to express creasing in numbers, and considering that it in their language-and they cannot unthe boys of the Orphan School spend half derstand it when exhibited by those who their time with him now in the study of seek their welfare. They are confident English, that department is becoming there are selfish motives at the bottom of more interesting. The Boarding Institu- any benevolent effort made on their betion continues to afford encouragement, half. Hence, from the heathen around us and for its interesting pupils we would we meet with no encouragement, and no ask the prayers of all the friends of mis- response of affection and gratitude for our sions. A circumstance has lately occurred self-denying labours. All our encouragewhich will, I trust, be useful to all the ment is from God alone. Without a full boys under our care. The boy named assurance that we are in the path of John Black, who left us in December last, duty, we would have no heart to labour has returned in a naked and hungry con- here a single day. It is this assurance dition, and begged to be received again that supports us in many an hour of anxinto the institution. The account which iety and discouragement; and it is the he has given of his wanderings for hun- promises of God alone to which we must dreds of miles, begging by day and sleep- look for success among such a people. ing out of doors by night, is most dis- Ours, therefore, is peculiarly a work of tressing, and will, I trust, deter others faith and hope, and whatever success may from casting themselves out of our pro- attend our efforts must be ascribed to the tection. He has been received and cloth- divine blessing alone. ed, and has again commenced his studies, But the missionary's trials are not all apparently much delighted at the happy from this quarter. They spring from a change that has again taken place in his thousand sources. They have their oricircumstances. Doubtless the Society in gin in the awful depravity of the hearts Pittsburgh that had engaged for his sup- of the heathen-in their ignorance, their port, will continue their engagement; but bigotry, superstition, slavery to publie should they not, probably you would take opinion, constitution of society, immoralihim as your beneficiary, as the boy you ty, caste, and in the foolish and abominaspoke of left us last autumn, and has not ble system of idolatry taught in their shassince been heard of. This whole subject ters. Add to all this, the fact that the leads me to speak of the proverbial ingra-doctrine of fate has taken the most firm stowment of the divine power and efficacy, which can easily convert and sanctify even Hindus, and give them courage and decision to face every danger, and bear every loss for his name's sake. We, who have seen these heathen, and have spent several years labouring among them, do not think it strange that so few have taken up the yoke of Christ, and are willing to bear his cross. We rather feel disposed to rejoice that the first fruits of so inauspicious a field have been so abundant and mature. When we look at the formidable array of opposition, the multitudes who have never heard the gospel, and the myriads more who may have heard, but who will probably never hear it again, the fewness of the labourers, the multiplicity of duties that claim their attention, and their imperfection in the languages of the people, we are rather inclined to thank God and take courage. Though often cast down, we are not in despair. We know that pagan India will yet cast away her idols, renounce all her errors and superstitions, and become a pure and enlightened Christian nation. Let us try to do what we can to help forward this happy era. Let Christendom awake from her slumbers, and arise to her duty and her privileges, and the God of Zion will hear, and answer, and help, and his cause will go forward in the face of all opposition, and his promises be fulfilled in the spread of pure and undefiled religion in every dark corner of our ruined world. hold of their minds. Every action they keeping God, and to wrestle for the beperform, even the most wicked and cruel imaginable, is the result of what the Creator had written on their forehead, and therefore its performance was their fate more than their fault! They tell us that God created them to be Hindus-that for them he has given a revelation and laws distinct from other portions of the human race and that therefore Hindus they must be, and according to the shasters they must worship; that in the religion of their fathers, they are bound by God to live and die, and to participate in their reward in the next world, or in the next birth, whatever that may be! To them the future is all darkness and doubt. No ray of hope cheers their footsteps to the tomb. Should the mind of a solitary individual be enlightened to see the gross errors of Hinduism, and should he for a moment think of embracing the truth and joining himself to the Christian Church, innumerable difficulties and dangers are immediately arrayed against him. He sees his nearest and dearest friends-those of his own house, and probably the wife of his own bosom, becoming his bitterest enemies. He must be willing to bear reproach and scorn, persecution and the loss of every thing the world calls dear. If he has any earthly patrimony, it is alienated the moment he embraces the Christian faith, and even his life itself is not secure, as his relatives would glory in his death rather than he should thus bring a stigma on the family from which he has descended. The indulgence in any or every species of crime, and even those things which effectually and for ever destroy caste, will be winked at, but not so any approaches towards the light and ad-in the hot winds they have constantly to vantages of the gospel. I am thankful to say we are all in pretty good health at this hot and trying season of the year. Some of our children, however, are very thin and sickly-looking, as be shut up in the house. Brother CaldNow, my dear brother, these are only a well has been living at Delhi for several few hints at the difficulties which on every months with his father-in-law, but he and hand stare us in the face. I might fill his wife and child, as well as Mr. and Mrs. sheets in describing difficulties, were it Craig, are all well. Old J. Coleman, our not that we do not wish to discourage you catechist, has lately been very ill with and all the friends of missions by so dark fever, and at one time his life was dea picture. We tell you so much, in order spaired of, but he is now convalescent. to moderate the expectations of the san- He is a very valuable assistant to us, and guine, and to stir up every man of faith his life precious. I wish very particuand prayer to take hold of a promise-larly to be remembered to all the teach shrub, and we had, therefore, an excellent opportunity of observing the people worshipping it. It was not a much-frequented shrine. A few persons came in the morning, accompanied with their priest, made their prayers and salutations to it with joined hands, and then dispersed. I did not see any direct worship of it through the day. The story respecting this wonderful little tree is quite worthy of a place in Ovid's Metamorphoses. It is this. There was a certain Rickshi, or giant, who committed great violence upon the earth, and before whom neither men nor the inferior gods could stand. To destroy him, Vishnu became incarnate. After waging war against him for a long time without success, he ascertained that the We found a Devotee sitting on the bank of the Ganges, at the foot of a large banyan tree. The temple was but a few paces from him; at his side was a brahman, who appeared to count it an honour to be his servant, and attend upon the temple; while about two hundred yards distant was a large building containing a hive of religious mendicants. The holy man, as they consider him, was seated in front of a little shelter, about four feet high, made in the manner of basket-secret of the giant's power lay in the work. At his knees, almost touching great religious merit of his wife. It was, him, was a fire, which he kept burning therefore, Vishnu's first object to deprive just sufficient to emit a large volume of her of this merit. To accomplish it, he smoke, in which he was from time to time assumed the form of the giant, went to enveloped. When we arrived, he did her abode, and was received as if he had been her own husband. not lift up his eyes, or take the least noWhen he had tice of us. He was moving his lips, effected his purpose, he threw off the dis(probably repeating the mystical word guise, and she in her rage and despair, A'm,) and, with the exception of that mo-cursed him, saying. "be thou a stone." tion, seemed to be more dead than alive. Whereupon he was changed into the Afterwards, however, when he spoke, saligram, a celebrated stone much worhis countenance brightened up, and he shipped by the Hindus, and she into the seemed to be a man of some intelligence. The people say he eats nothing every other day, and but very little at any time, which I have no doubt is true. We sat down and talked to the people around him; and when we had done, I went up and asked him what he was doing. Nothing. What was his object in all this? Nothing. Did he not wish to be happy in another world? He had no desire. He was not doing this tapsiya: God was doing it. You know these Vairagees profess to subjugate the passions, and their expectation is, that when this has been done, they will lose all identity, and become a part of the substance of God. Worship of the Tulsi shrub. Our tent was pitched on the bank of the Ganges, immediately above a Tulsi Tulsi. This is the story as given by our pundit. I asked him if he believed it. Certainly. It is written." There are many stories among the people which are not written. In these he did not believe. "Be inquired how he thought it possible that God could do such a base action. cause," said he, "it was done with a good design. It was to free the world of a monster." But why could not God destroy the giant at once without resorting to such means?" He admitted he could, but it was not according to his will to do so. He then said that Jesus Christ came to destroy the works of the Devil, and asked me why God could not destroy the devil at once, or why it was necessary that Christ should do so much in order to effect that object. Even for these mon strous stories, and abominable actions, || turned word to us that he was at his praythey have the semblance of reason. ers, and would not be through within an hour. ALLAHABAD MISSION. REV. J. OWEN'S JOURNAL ON GANGES. THE A native young man's study. While waiting and conversing with the young man who was with us, I found The failure of the overland mail has prevent- and he asked me to go into his lodgings, that he had quite a thirst for knowledge, ed our receiving the continuation of Mr. Owen's Journal of his tour to Delhi. We have been fa- which were near. I went with him into voured, however, with the perusal of a Journal a small room where he had a bed, a small which he kept for the gratification of his fami-book-case, a portable writing-desk, and ly in this country, while on the voyage up the something that looked a little like a table. Ganges to Allahabad; from which we insert the Here he was engaged in painting his own Hoogley, near Moorshedabad, about one hun-likeness. Being destitute of canvass and extracts which follow. The first date is on the dred miles above Calcutta. Jan. 26-After tea brothers Rankin and McAuley and myself, together with Gopenauth, went ashore to see what we could of the city. We passed through narrow, winding streets, in some parts of which the stillness of death seemed to prevail, and observed most of the buildings having a very ancient appearance, overgrown with grass and weeds, and built chiefly in Mohammedan style. When we had advanced a considerable distance within the city, a young native, who had studied English a little, and was ambitious of showing his knowledge of the language, approached us in the dark with a polite Good morning, sir," and fell in with our company. The common people whom we met were afraid of us, and readily yielded to us a clear through the streets. The city is entirely native, not more than two or three Europeans residing in it. It is also very large. passage We had a desire to visit the nabob's palace, and the young man who had joined our company, directed us to it. It is an immense building, in European style, and was nine years in building. I saw a model of it in the Asiatic Museum at Calcutta. We had been hoping that the nabob was there, that we might possibly have an opportunity of seeing him, but heard that he was absent at Calcutta. We sent to the man who has the keeping of the palace, expressing a desire to enter it, but he, being a strict Mussulman, re paints, he had taken a piece of cloth, rubbed it over with chalk, and made it white, and was drawing his portrait with charcoal. Almost any one would have been surprised to see the accuracy and taste with which his work was done. He was also drawing a map of the river, from Calcutta upwards, and printing the names of the places quite beautifully. He had some mathematical instruments, and several English books, which he seemed to be proud of showing me. I was glad to see a copy of the New Testament, in which he could read very well. An excellent opportunity was now offered to me for speaking some of the truths of the Gospel, and I did not let it pass without attempting to improve it. But although he received what I said with attention, I perceived he cared more about studying English, and accordingly, I wrote him a letter of introduction to the missionary at Berhampore, desiring him to help him in English, hoping, also, that he will teach him what is infinitely more important. After waiting patiently a long time, the Mohammedan sent us word that he could not accompany us into the palace in the evening, but that he could go with us next morning. We then returned to the budgerows in company with the young man, to whom we gave some tracts in English, which he appeared very glad to receive. Nabob's Palace. I arose early this morning, and started in company with Gopee, to the city, leav |