in King's Road, Reading.-The Rev. J. E. Cozens Cooke, late of Regent's Park College, has been recognised as the pastor of the church in Burlington Chapel, Ipswich.-The Rev. J. Roberts, late of Mumbles, has been recognised as the pastor of the church in Upton Chapel, Lambeth. -The Rev. M. H. Jones, late of Haverfordwest College, has been recognised as the pastor of the church at Cossey, Norfolk.-The Rev. G. R. Tanswell has been recognised as the pastor of the church at Woodchester.-The Rev. E. C. Pike, B.A., late of Coventry, has been recognised as the pastor of the church in Lombard Street, Birmingham. The following reports of MINISTERIAL CHANGES have reached us since our last issue:-The Rev. E. S. Ladbrook, B.A., late of Andover, to Edenbridge, Kent; the Rev. T. Nicholson, of Ryeford (formerly of Lydney and Gloucester), to Parkend and Yorkley, in the Forest of Dean; the Rev. W. Page, B.A., of Chard, to Kent Street, Portsea; the Rev. T. Thomas, late of Pontypool College, to Norton, Skenfrith, Monmouthshire; the Rev. J. Wolfenden, of Daybrook, Nottingham, to Morley, near Leeds: the Rev. W. Scriver, of Lodge-road, Birmingham, to Stalham, near Norwich. The Rev. G. T. Ennals has resigned his pastorate at Harvey Lane, Leicester. The Rev. T. Howard has, after fifteen years' labour, resigned his pastorate at Frank's Bridge, Radnorshire. The Rev. G. Sandwell has resigned his pastorate at Eastbourne, Susser The Rev. W. Tulloch has resigned his pastorate at Duncan-street, Edinburgh, having been appointed by the Home Missionary Society and the Baptist Union of Scotland, superintendent of the evangelistic and missionary operations of the denomination in that part of the island. He will also continue to act as secretary of the Union, and will still reside in Edinburgh. The Rev. W. C. Bunning has, on account of ill health, resigned his pastorate at Rose Street, Edinburgh, to pro ceed to Australia. The Rev. R Colman has, for the same reason, resigned his pastorate at Richmond, Surrey. We regret to announce the death, at Swavesey, Cambs., after severe and protracted suffering, of the Rev. J. C. Wooster, pastor successively at Swavesey, Landbeach, and Stevanton, aged seventy; also, at Old Buckenham, Norfolk, of the Rev. J. Baldwin, late pastor of the church in that village, in his seventy-first year. THE CHURCH. "Built upon the foundation of the Apostles and Prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief corner-stone." JULY, 1872. MISSIONS IN INDIA. BY THE REV. G. H. ROUSE, M.A. 1. OBSTACLES TO SUCCESS. We purpose briefly to review the work of our Indian mission in some of its features; and our remarks will naturally fall into three main divisions:-the obstacles we have to encounter, the agencies at work, and, if space permit, the results achieved our enemies, our armies, our triumphs. We begin with the difficulties which we have to meet, and in speaking of them we shall, to some extent, describe the field of labour. 1. We have to encounter obstacles arising from the immensity of the country and its population, and the extreme paucity of labourers. In England we have a very inadequate idea of the vastness of India. We think of it as a country when we ought to regard it as a continent, peopled by different races, speaking many different languages. India is nearly equal in size to the whole of Europe, with the exception of Russia, and its population is about 200,000,000,-nearly double the estimated population of the whole Roman Empire at the time of our Lord. For the evangelization of this vast population, the whole of Protestant Christendom has sent out only about 500 missionaries, many of whom necessarily devote part or the whole of their time to other work than the direct preaching of the Gospel to the natives,-in conjunction with whom there are about 2000 native preachers. In order to form an idea of the religious condition of India, let us suppose that England is lying in the densest heathen darkness, its inhabitants worshipping gods who are monsters of cruelty and lust, themselves debased and sensualised, without Christ, having no hope, and without God in the world. For the evangelisation of the land there are 50 foreign missionaries, assisted by 200 Englishmen, who are regarded by their fellow-countrymen as polluted and accursed apostates from the religion of their fathers. Two missionaries at Canterbury have the whole of Kent under their charge, there are no preachers of the Gospel residing in any other town or village of the county. One at Winchester is responsible for the evangelisation of the whole of Hampshire. VOL. XIV. NO. VII. Two at Bristol have a population of a million under their care. The people of Devonshire and Cornwall have not a single preacher of the Gospel in their midst; if they wish to learn the truth they must travel, in some cases, 100 miles before they will find those who can teach them. Once or twice in a life-time, or, if they are specially favoured, somewhat oftener, a couple of strangers may perhaps come to their town, and stay a day or two, preaching about a strange religion totally different from their own, and so spiritual that they can hardly understand its phraseology. These strangers leave, it is true, some books about it, but, alas, very few of the population can read them, and still fewer have any inclination to do so. One missionary has under his charge the whole of Wales, and three divide among themselves the responsibility of preaching the Gospel to the entire popula tion of Yorkshire. This ideal picture represents the literal fact with regard to India. be Should we be surprised if, under these circumstances, but few forsook the religion of their fathers, especially when the adoption of this new faith involved the bitterest hatred of one's most loved relatives, and, in many cases, the loss of everything short of life itself? Shall we not rather marvel that, in spite of all this, thousands have braved all consequences, and have confessed Jesus as their Lord? We sometimes wonder why the successes of the Gospel appear to be so much greater in the South Seas than in India. Apart from other reasons, are we aware of the disproportion in this matter of population? In the South Seas, in a small island of 4000 inhabitants, there may one or two European missionaries; in India these labourers would have under their charge a population of 1,000,000, scattered overs large tract of territory. Tahiti, to the evangelisation of which so much effort has been directed, and in which so many missionaries have laboured, has only about 10,000 inhabitants; in India one or two missionaries may have charge of a district in size and population equal to a hundred Tahitis. Hence it is likely that correspondingly little im pression will be made when so feeble missionary influence has to operate in so wide a field. Throw a stone into a small pond, and the ripples will be reflected from the sides, and then reflected back again and again, and the whole surface will be in commotion; but throw it into the middle of a lake, and but little effect will be produced. So, in a small sphere of labour, like a little island, religious influence acts and re-acts, and the whole community will ere long be affected; but in a large and populous district missionary labour must be long continued before much appreciable result will be realized. One grea difficulty in our work in India is, then, that the harvest-field is so yash and the labourers so very few. 2. We have to encounter obstacles arising from the religious beliefs of the natives. Some people think that the conversion of the heathen must be a comparatively easy matter. Christianity is so infinitely superior to all heathen systems of religion, that it would seem as if missionary has but to point out its excellence, and the heathen must at once embrace it. But, if we reason upon the matter, or bring it to the test of experience, we shall find it to be very far otherwise. At home there are many influences working in our favour; in heathen lands almost everything is against us. In Christian lands we preach, for the most part, to those who believe the facts and doctrines of Christianity, and yet how many reject our message. We exhort them to repentance and faith; they know that unless they do repent and believe they will be eternally lost; and yet they go on in their unbelief, and they die in their sins. If we ask why the heathen do not in larger numbers believe, we reply that it is for the same reason that men do not believe at home,-they "have not received the love of the truth that they might be saved." We have to encounter in heathen lands the same love of sin as at home, and feel, even more deeply than in Christian countries, that without the power of the Spirit of God we can do absolutely nothing. But there are other hindrances in heathen lands that we have not to encounter at home. Whilst it is true that the Christian religion is incomparably more excellent than the religions of heathendom, yet these religions have so debased, sensualised, brutalised the minds of their votaries, that they cannot perceive the excellency of Christianity. The Apostle tells us of the effects of heathenism in Rom. i. 18-32, a passage which represents to us the literal truth as to the condition of heathen countries at the present day : "As they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind; their foolish heart was darkened." Their blinded, hardened, besotted hearts see no beauty in Christ that they should desire Him. Whilst this is true of all heathen nations, the religious beliefs of the people of India present special obstacles to the reception of the truth. There are about 30,000,000 Mohammedans in India, and in all parts of the world the followers of the false prophet are of all men the most bigoted, the most attached to their own religion and intolerant of any other. In all lands Mohammedan converts have been but few; and in India their unwillingness to receive the Gospel is aggravated by the fact that this Gospel is brought to them by the accursed infidels who have conquered them, and wield the authority which a century or two ago belonged to themselves. The Hindoos, who number about 150,000,000, are not a barbarous nation, nor is their religion a barbarous religion, as in the case of the South Sea Islanders. These latter are naturally more ready to receive the religion of the Europeans, who are so manifestly superior to them in every respect. But the natives of India, while they acknowledge that the English can build bridges, and make railroads, and wage wars better than themselves, yet look down upon us as their inferiors in respect to philosophy and religion. Hindooism is not the mere traditional belief of barbarians. It is a religion venerable by its antiquity, embalmed in sacred books, which are written in Sanscrit, the holy language of the gods, and which date back to a period long interior to the time when our ancestors ceased to be painted savages. And this religion, moreover, is guarded by the watchful eye of the Brahminical priesthood, the power of which is equal to that of i Roman Catholic priesthood in the most superstitious papal countri In all the religious, social, and domestic concerns of the Hindo nothing of any importance can be done without the Brahmins. It they who determine the lucky day to transact any business or ma any journey. None but they may officiate at the worship of the go at marriages, funerals, and the dedication of houses. Their curse sure to bring on the greatest calamities. The dust of their feet, a the water in which they have washed them, is considered sacred. T religion of the Hindoos is interwoven with all their social life, and th power which it has upon the native mind it is hard to over-estimate And who are they that bring this new religion which the natives a asked to embrace? From one point of view they are foreigners, m from the other end of the world, alien in race, in colour, in language, customs, in habit of thought, in almost everything-belonging to race which has conquered them, and is now filling all the highest po in the land to the exclusion of the native inhabitants. From anoth point of view, every Christian, be he a native or a foreigner, so from being fit to fill the high office of a religious teacher, is a me Mlechha, that is, so degraded that he is of no caste at all, and the poo est peasant of the lowest caste would rather starve than touch ti polluted food over which even the shadow of a Christian has on‹ passed. lik If now, labouring under these disadvantages, we preach the Gosp to the natives, we shall be surprised at the number and magnitude the difficulties we have to overcome before we lead them to trust in a serve the Saviour. The very phraseology we employ will very be misunderstood. Talk to a Hindoo of "God," he thinks of of his impure deities; speak of" holiness," he thinks of mere ceremo purity; "sin" will be to him eating beef, or not worshipping a Br min; "heaven" will be the polluted residence of the gods. The fo of custom and habit, of doing as our fathers did, and as neighbours do, is strong in any people, but nowhere is it stronger th among the Hindoos, and it is very hard to lead them to forsake t religion of their ancestors. To many of the Hindoos, the professic of Christianity implies denationalisation, and the force of patriotis combines with that of religion to oppose the truth. The benumbin influence of fatalism, and the abstruse speculations of pantheism, ha to be met with on every hand. We shall be told in one place that religions are equally good, and that every one will be saved who adhem to his ancestral faith; and in another that Hindooism is the only tr religion, and that salvation can be obtained only in it. Although Hi doo science is so unutterably absurd, and the deeds of their gods revolting, and idol-worship so irrational, we should be astonished at t subtlety of the arguments with which a Hindoo will defend his fait And even where Christian teaching and preaching, and the spread education, have produced a conviction that Hindooism is false, along with English science, there comes the baneful influence of E |