inclusive, first No. 2 is to be read from the central horizontally to the right, I; then perpendicularly downwards, ; next to the left, ; then perpendicularly upwards; and thence commences the circular reading सरेराज, &c. The entire stanza reads thus करङ्कुक!ककुररकलहंसकरम्बितः 1 सरोजकोमलोद्गारनीरसंसक्तमारुतः ॥ (A pond) adorned with deer, geese, quails, and teals, and having its winds impregnated with the moist odours of the tender lotuses. No. 2, or The Pond. Ask you what curious meaning lies Pleased with the thoughtful sage's choice. No. 3, contains two stanzas formed in Sanskrit on the Bangálí words state a afai, Forget me not.' They were addressed, by the Pandit Param Ananda, to a Missionary in this city. They must be read right across, according to the order of the figures attached 1, 2, 3, 4. The syllables beginning at 1, and going round to 8, form the motto ¤¦â ¤â afcâ, ' Remember me.' The in the centre serves only to connect all the pádas with each other. The stanzas, with their literal meaning, are as follows:— च्यायातस्तवकीर्त्तिका वरतमाः श्रुत्वात्वहं कर्णने । मायाचे गजवाजिनो न रजतं न स्वर्णकं रक्षक ॥ केषाञ्चिन्नहि वेदनं नरवरखस्त्यस्तु पद्येोपरि | मत्प्रार्थ्यञ्च बिबुध्यतां चरणतश्चाद्यन्त लोकैः कवे ।। I, having heard of your great fame By the hearing of the ear, have come (to see you); But, Sir, your lasting prosperity. You will understand, O Poet! the sum of all my desires, No. 3, or The Lotus-Flower. Hither, wise Sir, in simplest truth I came, No selfish aims, believe, my soul defile ; And, oh! abhorrent from my inmost thought, For you, blest sage, my warmest hopes ascend, And God and nature prove your constant friend! One modest wish if for myself I dare, A poet's eye like thine shall scan the prayer, That on this pictured lotus flow'r I trace, O take my verse, nor deem that thought too bold! HAVARENSIS. VI." Something has been done." The advocates of missions are often met with the serious objection, that after all the expenditure of money, talents, and life of the last half century, nothing has been done; or, if this is not asserted, it is implied by the unbelieving inquisitiveness which suggests the question, What has been done in the last 40 or 50 years? In answer alike to the objection and query, that learned and eloquent advocate of missions, Dr. Beecher of America, has penned a tract, entitled, "Something has been done in the last 40 years." The following is an extract from its pages, which I thought worthy a place in the CHRISTIAN OBSERVER, conceiving that the eloquence, genius, and piety, which it combines, might refresh the minds of missionaries, and stimulate their friends to greater exertion in the noble enterprize of subjugating the world to Jesus. But is it quite certain that nothing has been done? φιλος That you may appreciate what has been effected in the last forty years, suppose the whole to be blotted out;-that a moral earthquake has entombed it, and the wave of oblivion rolled over it: while a mighty hand has turned back the wheels of time to 1790. Let the heralds of disaster, in quick succession, burst open the doors of this sanctuary, and come in ;-one to announce, that the Serampore mission is gone:-the mission college, the presses, the missionaries, the churches, the schools, the thirty transla tions of the Scriptures, and the numerous copies of them, all swept away, and not a trace left behind. And while he is yet speaking, another proclaims, that the London Missionary Society is no more. Her establishments in Asia, in Africa, and the Pacific, her printing presses, her schools, and missionaries, are, as if they had never been. Tahiti has gone back to her idols, and the Hottentot and Caffre and Bushman have fallen back upon their stupidity and filth. And while he is yet speaking, another announces, The British and Foreign Bible Society is fallen, is fallen! sunk, like a millstone, in the sea; and in its mighty vortex, has swallowed up every Bible Society on earth; and all the millions of bibles, which had begun to pour day-light on the darkness, are forever gone! And while he is yet speaking, another waits to tell, that the American Board of Missions has ceased to be: the wave of oblivion has rolled over its labors, and the Prudential Committee have closed their accounts. Every station is abandoned: every press annihilated; all the thirteen hundred schools, and all the sixty thousand youths contained in them, are dispersed; all its auxiliaries and associations are disbanded, and all the eighteen hundred converts in the mission churches have gone back to heathenism. At Bombay, and Ceylon, and Palestine, and Hawaii, and among the Cherokees and Choctaws, no light breaks on them that sit in darkness; no voice of mercy is addressed them. And while he is yet speaking, another messenger of bad tidings proclaims, that our Theological Seminaries are rased to the ground, and that the American Education Society is gone, forever gone-her funds, her friends, her benefactors, all dispersed; and all the hundreds, whom her charity has helped into the ministry, have gone back to the workshop, or the plough, with all the fifteen hundred beneficiaries she was rearing up for the sacred office. Time cuts down the ministry, and the tide of population rolls on darkness gains on the light: the famine of the word rages: and hell keeps a jubilee that the danger of day-light is past, and that her dark empire is safe. Another proclaims, that the National Tract Society is disbanded ;-her twenty presses broken, and her millions of pages of tracts recalled and burnt and that the Home Missionary Society, disheartened by unavailing effort, has ceased from her labors in despair ;-all the churches supplied by her aid are made desolate; while all her auxiliaries sigh, and sit in sackcloth around her. The Seaman's Friend Society is abandoned: the Bethel flag is struck; every floating chapel has foundered; and on the globe there is not a temple, nor a prayer-meeting, for the tempest-tossed sailor. Harpies plunder, but no one protects him; no one cares for his soul; no one puts into his hand the word of life; and no one calls after him in his descent to ruin. And ere he has ceased, another, treading hard on his footsteps, announces the downfall of the Sabbath School Union: her seventy thousand teachers, her five hundred thousand pupils, and her thousands of libraries, are all scattered. And while he is yet speaking, another rushes in to tell, that the Slave Trade, with new fury, has burst out again, and England and America, who had washed their hands, have dipped them deep again in their brother's blood; and that Africa burns again, and bleeds on all her coasts, and in all her deep interior. And while he is yet speaking, another, with wilder look and more hurried step, announces that the Spirit of Prayer, before so signally prevalent, is suspended, and Revivals of Religion, so frequent, extensive, and long-continued, have come to an end. The churches, few and feeble and lukewarm, sigh and go backward; while infidelity and immorality break in upon the land like a flood. And while these appalling tidings fill us with dismay and sinking of heart, behold a white-robed seraph descends from heaven, covering with both his wings his weeping eyes, and crying, Wo! wo! wo! another insurrection has broken out in heaven! The thousands who, the last forty years, from east and west, and north and south, had come from heathen lands, to sit down with Abraham in the kingdom of glory, have revolted, and are cast down again to earth. Africaner* now kindles again the fires of war, and washes his hands in blood; Keopuolanit bows down again to impurity and idols; and Catharine Brown‡ has thrown aside her harp in heaven, to listen to the war-song. Thousands of harps, which sent out notes of ecstacy, are left unstrung; and thousands of voices, which swelled the song of praise, will never be heard again in heaven. What Vandal What shall you say to tidings like these? You would say, spirit has been let loose to war upon Christianity? What smoke from the bottomless pit has come up to darken the earth? No Vandal spirit has been let loose. No smoke from the bottomless pit has ascended. It is only the blotting out of the "NOTHING" which has been achieved by Christian enterprise during the last forty years.-But that NOTHING, when removed from the space which it filled in our vision, seems to leave only a frightful void. The celebrated South African convert. The queen of the Sandwich Islands. A remarkable convert from the Indian tribes. VII.-Interesting Letter from a Private Soldier. To the Editor of the Calcutta Christian Observer. As I have a letter in my "ossession, written by one of the soldiers who recently left us for Europe, I have thought that it might be interesting to some of the readers of the OBSERVER, who belong to the army, and therefore send you a copy of it. It was written to one of his comrades now residing at Maulmein, and it shews what the religion of our blessed Lord has done for him. May many, such as he was, be brought under its sacred influence, and have to bless God for his mercy towards them in India. You will perceive, that the writer contemplates preaching the Gospel. He obtained his discharge by the assistance of his friends. He designs going to England, and thence to the United States of America, where he hopes to meet with friends to assist him in getting an education, and afterwards, to preach the Gospel in some parts of the great valley of the Mississippi. He promises to be a very useful man. He was baptized by brother Kincaid, and was deacon of the church, until his departure from us. Maulmein, June 10, 1835. f Yours, &c. J. SIMONS. Bomb-proof Barracks, Fort St. George, Nov. 22, 1834. "My dear Brother, 66 now sit down to send you a scrawl. I am in a few hours more to cross the surf, to bid a long farewell to India, and the dear objects of my sincere affections, that are scattered over its burning wastes. I have to work my passage, and, I suppose, am about to encounter all that opposition to Christian feelings which can arise from insult, ridicule, and domineering authority. Peril and hardship, restlessness and fatigue, in wet, heat, and cold, will no doubt be my portion. But what do I care about this? I who have heretofore been a poor orphan boy, tossed out on the world's wide stage, and obliged to tread the frosty bogs and quagmires of Connaught with my bare feet!-I who have been the slave of servants, the servant of cattle, the pitiable nightly watchman of beasts, in cold, fatigue, and hardship !— I who have been compelled to carry their fodder on my back, until the ropes, which fastened it there, cut their way through the frieze, and the linen inside of that, and the skin inside of that again!-I who have carried the hod in the degraded capacity of a bricklayer's labourer in England, and the firelock and knapsack as a soldier in India! I have, since I left the cradle, travelled through the lowest grades of human life to my present standing. But I am not ashamed of this, for in it I was accomplishing the irrevocable purpose of Him, who told the first labourer that ever lived, In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life.' My dear brother, I am ashamed of nothing but sin. God has ever been too good to me. He has been my almighty Preserver, my bountiful Benefactor, and my gracious Deliverer. As sure as I am alive, He will continue so to the end. He is |