Now the press, as one of them writes, is pouring out its thousands of missionaries. And these messengers of heaven possess many advantages. They easily find their way into the bosom of every family. They preach in silence. They deliver their message with divine authority. They repeat the same instruction again and again, according to the ability or inclination of the disciple. But, although not a little has been done to put this excellent mean of evangelising the heathen into operation, much more remains to be accomplished. The Scriptures are rendered as yet only into one or two dialects*, and dispersed through a small portion of the country. Translate them into the other languages of Hindostan, disperse them throughout the empire. The work is laborious, but the country itself will afford every facility for executing it, and many of our own countrymen can assist in the translation. Large funds will be required; but Providence, in the recent formation of a society for translating the Bible into foreign languages, seems to have been providing these by anticipation. And who can doubt that an association, of which Lord Teignmouth is the president, will extend a liberal aid to promote Christianity in that country, which he formerly illuminated by his professional

*Vide Note EE.

and scientific labours, and to whose interests he is still powerfully attached?

To facilitate the distribution of the Scriptures thus translated into the languages of the country, and enable the Hindoos to understand them, it will be expedient to have schools erected, in convenient situations throughout the empire, similar to the parish schools in Scotland. How much of the illumination of the public mind in the northern part of the island, is owing to this simple but most important institution, every one is aware, and we have lately heard from high authority. Slenderly endowed as they are, at an expence scarcely deserving of consideration, they have raised high the national character, and contributed more than all other means put together, (if you except one) to the diffusion of religious knowledge. An attempt, exactly similar to that which we are recommending, has been made by a society instituted for promoting the knowledge of Christianity in the Highlands and Isles of Scotland, and with great sucSchools have been erected: teachers and catechists have been appointed: ambulatory preachers have been allotted to certain remote districts. What has been the consequence? Civilisation and Christianity have been diffused together. They have reached places formerly inaccessible

cess.

to either, or into which the last alone, and in a very imperfect form, had penetrated. Barbarism and ignorance have

fled apace before their benign influence. Law, order, religion, now preside where their opposites once reigned. The remote Highlander, once "wild as the wind which wanders over his mountains," now submits to the restraints of social life and he whose mind and heart were once strangers to the auspicious efficacy of the light of revelation, now feels the sacred, the reviving influence, and rejoices in the sublime and interesting discoveries of Christianity. Similar effects will, in all probability, arise from the adoption of the same expedient in Hindostan. In a country where the means of subsistence are so cheap, and the wages so low; where the natives are so numerous, so complacent in their manners, not destitute of an inquisitive spirit, and desirous of being fitted for entering into the service of the Company, it cannot be doubted, that, as these institutions would be supported at a trifling expence, so they would be resorted to by the Hindoos, and become the means of rapidly promoting their improvement, civil and religious. With a special view to the latter, the instructions therein given, might be adapted, in part at least, to convey a knowledge of the elementary principles of Christi

anity. Let the Bible, or some evangelical treatise, or formula of catechetical instruction, be the manual of education, in the native tongue or in English; and let pupils be encouraged to attend, not only by the high views suggested by religion, and the ordinary gratifications attendant upon the acquisition of knowledge, but by the prospect of promotion, civil or literary. Accordingly, let those who excel be advanced to be teachers themselves, and secured, during their good behaviour, in a salary, which, while it cannot operate as a temptation to hypocrisy in assuming a religious profession, may yet be competent to their decent support.

To these preparatory arrangements another may be add- Number and ed. Besides stationary teachers, itinerant catechists and missionaries will be required. What number of the latter might be necessary cannot be easily determined; but it may be suspected, that, when it is presumed twelve or twenty would be sufficient to perambulate all Hindostan once or twice every year*, the computation is too low, especially considering the great extension of British territory by the late conquests. At present, the full complement of chaplains for the establishment of the East India Company is

* Bapt. Mag. vol. i. p. 329.

only nine: the actual number usually five or six. Three are stationed at the respective presidencies: the rest, scattered over a vast tract of country, enervated by the climate, discouraged by the forbidding aspect of an unyielding superstition, are seldom seen, scarcely ever deliver a sermon to the natives, and are not easily obtained to officiate at the usual solemnities of religion *. If the suggestion be true, that they are not always men of the most exemplary conduct, and too often tainted with sinful conformity to the spirit and manners of gay life, it will easily be perceived how inadequate and inefficient, not to say adverse, to the promotion of Christianity in India, such a system must prove. In general it may be remarked, that there will be no necessity for circumscribing the number of itinerant missionaries, as the sphere of their ministry can easily be contracted according to their increase, and the application of their labours more and more concentrated, until they become stationary in a particular charge. Of far more importance it must be to secure a conformity of principles, of spirit, of views, and of character, to their high trust, and sacred function. It is presumed, from the design itself, that none

* Tenn. Ind. Rec. vol. i. pp. 96, 97.