members of the native Protestant Christian community. In 1862 there were 519 missionaries, 1,190 churches, 1,505 native pastors and preachers, 31,249 Church members, and the nominal Christian community amounted to 153,816. If the converts of British Burmah, including the Karens, be taken into account, the number of Church members amounted in all to 49,688, and the nominal Christian community to 213,812. But confining our attention exclusively to India proper and Ceylon, and making all allowance for the imperfection of the statistics in 1852, we see that very real progress was made in the decade ending in 1862. Another religious census is now being made, and the rapidity of change and activity of thought that have prevailed in India during the last ten years, make it very probable that the increase since 1862 has been at least as great as in the decade preceding, so that we shall probably not be above the mark if we put the Christian membership in India at present as fully 40,000, representing a Christian community of 200,000.

very

What shall we say to these numbers? Do they represent great or small success? When compared with the teeming population of India, this little flock of 40,000 amidst 200,000,000 seems small indeed. When compared with the expectations of our fathers, the founders of our Missionary Societies, who in the ardour of their zeal sometimes thought nothing of difficulties, and forgot that God's measure of time different from ours-these results may appear very meagre. But when we compare these numbers with the special difficulties of the work in India, and remember that the first steps are always the most difficult, we have no reason to be discouraged. Forty thousand immortal souls redeemed from heathenism and Mohammedanism, and rejoicing in Christ Jesus, walking in His fear, and having a good hope of the glory to come,-is not this a great and blessed result, and well worth all the labour devoted by God's servants to the evangelisation of that dark land? To these must be added the thousands who have died in the faith, and are now among the blood-bought throng on high. And all these souls gathered from the very stronghold of Satan, the land where he has put forth his utmost power to enslave men and bind them as with a tenfold chain. Moreover, these converts are representatives of all classes of the community. Though, as in all lands, the great majority of the converts belong to those "weak and foolish" things of the world, which God hath called—yet rich and poor, educated and illiterate, the Brahmin, the Sudra, and the outcast Pariah, Hindoos, Mohammedans, the aboriginal hill-tribes, and the devil-worshippers of Travancore, men of all beliefs, of all ranks and ages and positions in life, have felt the power of the one Gospel, and yielded their hearts and lives to the one Lord, Christ Jesus.

But it may be asked, whether we are sure that these are all true disciples, walking in the fear of God? Are there not hypocrites among them? No doubt there are, as there must always be in the professing Church; but on the other hand, where, as in India, the profession of Christianity involves for the most part such a terrible

ordeal of persecution, there are sure to be found, outside of the professing Church, many timid but true disciples who have not yet had grace openly to enrol themselves among the Lord's people.

But what about the general character of these professing Christians? Do they manifest the spirit of Christ, and walk in the ways of the Lord? It is necessary to answer this question, because we occasionally hear from people who have been in India, that there are hardly any converts at all, or that the native Christians are as bad as, or worse than, the heathen; and people imagine that because these gentlemen have been many years in India they must know the truth; and therefore, on their testimony, it is evident that Christian missionaries are doing more harm than good. The fact is, that a person may spend many years in India, and yet know very little of missionary work there. He may be living in a part of the country where there are no missionaries and no Christians at all; or if there are any, in most places the converts will be very few in number and low in social position, and it is likely that the merchant or civilian will never come in contact with them. Hence a person who is not sufficiently inter ested in the evangelisation of India to carefully investigate the subject, and become personally acquainted with the work that is being done, will very readily and naturally come to the conclusion that nothing has resulted from missionary labour. Or, on the other hand, he may have been brought into contact somewhat with native Christians, and yet, perhaps, he says they are as bad as the heathen. How can this be? Partly because, from their religion, he expects them to be very much better than others, and when he finds that they are imperfect, he is disappointed and magnifies their small faults. But the chief reason why a bad character is sometimes given to the native Christians is, that no distinction is made between those who are accredited mem bers of the Church and mere nominal Christians. The laws of caste which preclude any intimate relationship between the heathen and Christians, necessarily produce the impression upon outsiders that the latter form a separate Christian caste, every member of which, good or bad, man, woman, or child, is a Christian." And of course many members of the Christian community are thoroughly worthless men, freed from the slight moral restraint which even caste in some respects (as, for instance, in the matter of intoxicating drinks) imposes upon its members. A merchant or civilian, who does not take the trouble to inquire into the distinction between the nominal and the real Christian, whether in India or in England, may thus come across many "native Christians," in this wider sense of the word, who are as bad as, or worse than, the heathen; and he judges that all of them are, as a class, like those who have been brought before his notice. In short, he makes the same mistake as the heathen do who may form their estimate of Christianity from the worthless European loafers and vagabonds with whom the natives are beginning to become too much acquainted. We have, however, this satisfaction, that while many who have spent a considerable time in India, and are content to take a

superficial view, say that Christian missions have accomplished nothing, yet against their testimony we may place that of some of the greatest men in India. We have had the cordial sympathy, and active help, of men like Sir Herbert Edwards, Sir Robert Montgomery, Sir Donald Macleod, Sir Arthur Cotton, and a large number of gentlemen in the highest civil and military positions in the country. Sir Bartle Frere, in his paper on missionary work in India, speaks in the highest terms of the success achieved, saying that missionaries often have no idea of the greatness of the results that they are accomplishing; and recently Lord Lawrence publicly stated that "much as England had done for India, the missionaries had done more for her than all other agencies combined." With such testimony we may well rest content. We have no desire, however, to deny that there are many imperfections in the native Church. It is sometimes thought that in a heathen land the Christians must see such an enormous difference between false religions and the true one, that they must be more decided Christians than Church-members at home. The truth lies really in the opposite direction; those who have been brought up in heathen ideas and practices, and are surrounded on all sides by an utterly corrupt heathen atmosphere, are not likely all at once to attain the knowledge and character of English Christians. And if at home we so frequently have to mourn over the ignorance and imperfections of so many members of our Churches, brought up, though they be, under Christian influences, shall we be surprised if there is much to deplore among converts, who but a short time ago were sunk in the foul mire of heathenism? It could not be otherwise. But we believe that those who know most of the standard of Christian character in a land like ours, where religious privileges are so great, will be most forbearing in judging the character of our brethren in heathendom, and will rather marvel that the Christians there are so good, than that they are so imperfect.

But whilst thus fully acknowledging that there is much in the native Church to mourn over, yet there is no need to dwell here upon their imperfections. Let us rather earnestly and lovingly pray to their Lord and ours that they may be kept pure in heart and life, that be preserved from the manifold temptations to which they exposed, that they may be blessed with increased spirituality of mind and decision of character, and may more earnestly strive for the diffusion of the Gospel around them. For those who thus "have not seen our face in the flesh," let us offer up the prayers which the Apostle Paul has taught us in his Epistles.

they may

are

But while the native Christians have their special faults, they have also their special excellences. They are more patient than it is likely that English Christians would be, were they called upon to suffer the vexatious and continuous persecution to which our Hindoo brethren are exposed. At the annual meeting of our Society last year, a missionary from Southern India speaks of teachableness and simplicity of faith as characterising the Christians there. The native Church is

beginning to manifest more self-reliance, especially where the Chris tians are more numerous, and at the present time there is a somewhat hopeful appearance of an increased desire on the part of the native Christians to manage their own Church affairs, and to strive for the spread of the Gospel. Dr. Caldwell, one of the most experienced missionaries of Southern India, writes thus of the Christians of that part of the Empire:

"I maintain that the real earnest Christians of our Indian missions have no need to shrink from comparison with the real earnest Christians in a similar station in life, and similarly circumstanced, in England, or in any other part of the world. I do not for a moment pretend that they are free from imperfections; on the contrary, living amongst them as I do from day to day, I see their imperfections daily, and daily do I reprove, rebuke, exhort, as I see need; but I am bound to say that when I have gone away anywhere, and look back upon the Christians of this country from a distance, or compare them with what I have seen and known of Christians in other countries, I have found that their good qualities have left a deeper impression on my mind than their imperfections."-Good Words, June 1869.

In relation to the Christians, i.e., the Church-members, of Bengal, one of our missionaries, Rev. J. H. Anderson, writes thus:-' "They bear a character differing widely from that of the heathen. They take a deep interest in the worship of God, and evidently rejoice in the spread of His kingdom. Their moral sense has been quickened, and as the result of this, those immoral deeds, which are exceedingly prevalent among the heathen, are very rare among them. Their treat ment of their wives contrasts with the harsh treatment which many Hindoo women are subjected to. They treat them with far more consideration and kindness, and make them to a much greater extent, I be lieve, their companions. I regard them as being fairer in their dealings with one another, and more honest than the heathen. In respect to the use of bad language, the difference between them and the heathen is very noticeable. The heathen think little of giving false witness in courts of justice; our genuine converts shrink from doing what they have learned from God's word to be so wrong. I know a good many who have made such progress in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour, that I confide in them almost if not quite as much as I do in our fellow-Christians in England.”

It is a pleasing fact that there is no heterodoxy among our Indian Churches. An open Bible, and intercourse with English Christianity have, by God's blessing, thus far kept the Churches pure in doctrine. Whatever imperfections there may be among them, there are none of the Churches who can be charged with the sins and excesses that existed in Corinth, or the false doctrine that disturbed the Churches of Galatia, even under the very eye of the apostles.

So much for the direct results of Christian missions in India. Be fore we proceed to notice the indirect results of our work, one remark must be made. Let us remember that the first steps are

generally the

most difficult. Certainly this is true of a country like India, where the power of custom has such sway over the people, and where almost all their customs and beliefs are opposed to the Gospel. Hence, we ought not to have been surprised if our success in the first seventy or eighty years (a period which counts but as a day in the history of a nation) had been much less than it has been. We hope that in every succeeding year our progress will be proportionally greater; and, as we shall presently see, the indirect work which Christianity is accomplishing, is gradually, though slowly, raising a large population to the level of Christian faith, and when they reach that level the accessions to the Christian community will, we believe, be numbered, not by units or tens, but by hundreds and thousands, perhaps millions.

AN OLD MAN'S STORY.

BY THE REV. R. MOFFAT.

THIS story, which we have extracted from the Bible Society's "Gleanings," will, no doubt, be very interesting to many of our readers who have heard much of the devoted African missionary, who has, after fifty years of untiring labour for the cause of the Redeemer, returned to his native land to spend the evening of life. May it be the means of encouraging young men to come forward and devote themselves to the service of God and His Church. "The harvest truly is plenteous, but the labourers are few.'

I was scarcely sixteen when, after working in a nursery-garden near my parents for about a twelvemonth,

I was

engaged to fill a responsible situation in Cheshire. The day arrived when I had to bid farewell to my father, mother, brothers, and sisters. My mother proposed to accompany me to the boat which was to convey me across the Firth of Forth. My heart, though glad at the inviting prospect of removing to a better situation, could not help feeling some emotion natural to one of my age. When we came within

sight of the spot where we were to part, perhaps never again to meet in this world, she said, "Now, my Robert, let us stand here a few

minutes, for I wish to ask one favour of you before we part, and I know you will not refuse doing what your mother asks."

"What is it, mother ?" I inquired.

"Do promise me, first, that you will do what I am now going to ask and I shall tell you."

"No, mother, I cannot till you tell me what your wish is.”

"O Robert, can you think for a moment that I shall ask you, my son, to do anything that is not right? Do not I love you ?"

"Yes, mother, I know you do; but I do not like to make promises which I may not be able to fufil."

I kept my eyes fixed on the ground. I was silent, trying to resist the rising emotion. She sighed deeply. I lifted my eyes, and saw the big tears rolling down the cheeks which were wont to press mine. I was conquered; and as soon as I could recover speech, I said, "O mother, ask what you will, and I shall do it!"

"I only ask you whether you will read a chapter in the Bible every morning, and another every evening."

I interrupted by saying, "Mother, you know I read my Bible."