lasting reward. Of an after-cargo of missionaries, six have long ago been taken to their heavenly home, and only two remain. Another great impediment to our progress, was, the languages of India. The slaves in the West-Indies are taught the English, or the European languages; along the Western coast of Africa too, many are taught the English language, and your access to them is, of course, easy; but, in India, there were no fewer than fifty dialects, derived from the Shanscrit alone. In America, the great objection had been, that the language of a single tribe was difficult; but, in India, we had twice the number of languages to acquire, that prevailed in the whole of America. This, too, was to be done by plain men, many of whom had not been, in the least, accustomed to the study of languages. But, blessed be God! no man can mix with that population, without acquiring their languages. In addition to all these, were the prejudices of the natives themselves. To convey to you an idea of this, is exceedingly difficult; but you may form some opinion of it from this circumstance: that if our gracious king, George the Fourth, should go to that country, and the lappet of his robe should happen to touch the food of an Indian, he would throw it away, if he were dying with hunger, and would consider it as defiled by the touch of the greatest man in the empire. How, then, is it possible, that such men can be brought to sit with Europeans at the same table? This difficulty existed in full force in India, and no where else. Another difficulty, and a great one too, was the ignorance of the natives. When we address other persons, we have a conscience to appeal to, and you know the effect of it well,-but they have not a word for conscience, in their language. In no Hindoo book, or Hindoo custom, have I found any thing like it. Besides this, there are a number of expressions, of which they are equally ignorant. Talk to a Hindoo about God, and he thinks you are talking about Vishnoo or Ram, or some of his other deities. Talk about heaven, and he thinks you mean one of the heavens of his gods. Talk about a future state, and he thinks you are talking about transmigration. But in the superstitions of the Hindoos, we have a still more formidable obstacle.

"Hindooism can boast of her martys every day-of women, who sacrifice themselves, every day, on the funeral pyres of their husbands. Now, if even women will go to these lengths, this must be

a people, to all human appearance, invulnerable, and to whom no access can be gained. This has struck Europeans as justly formidable. They have said, "What! will persons who suffer themselves to be drawn up into the air, by means of hooks in the integuments of their backs-will women, who thus sacrifice themselves on the funeral pyres of their husbands, or destroy themselves in the Ganges, be brought to renounce this superstition, and to embrace christianity?" Such was the feeling of our countrymen on the subject, and our object was treated with derision and contempt.

"But the caste exceeds all that I have mentioned. By this, they are divided into different societies, with distinct observances; and there is no possibility of these intermixing with one another, without breaking caste. Every person marrying, or even eating, with one of another caste, falls from it, and can never be restored to it again. The christian missionary feels this difficulty in its full force. These people are as susceptible of the endearments of civilized life, as any people upon earth; and for one of them to make up his mind to see his friends and his beloved parents no more; to renounce all human society, and to incur the frowns of his relatives, is such a sacrifice, that we need not wonder at our countrymen there saying, "You have indeed undertaken a hopeless task." I remember one young man, who, after he had been baptized, seemed at first to have forgotten his connexions; he came at length, and said to me, "I do not want to return to caste; I do not want to return to Hindooism; but cannot I go and see my mother again? Cannot I see my father once more?" impossible, and he well knew, and deeply felt, that his parents would have shut the door against him, if he had attempted to enter the house in which he was born.

This was

"With all this accumulation of difficulties, we had to attempt the conversion of this country. Our own government, the European residents in India, and all the superstition, prejudices, and pecul· iar feelings of the people, being against us, we do not wonder that it was said, "India is invulnerable."

"There were, indeed, a few good men in Calcutta, who were laboring there for the conversion of souls; but they thought it was impossible to do any good elsewhere, even if they could make any progress in that city.

"Such were the appearances of India; and I have mentioned these circumstances to shew, that, if in that part of the world (of all others the most hopeless,) the Gospel has obtained any success, then you need not despair of Africa, or of any part whatever of the world. But I have now to tell you, that all these difficulties, great as they appeared, have vanished into air.

Of

"The government of India acts, as far as is prudent, entirely with us; and, in a variety of ways, they are assisting us, and assisting us in the most powerful manner. They have established government-schools, for the instruction of the natives; and the name of the present governor-general of India, will live in their recollection to the latest posterity. It would be unjust in me not to mention the name of the marchioness of Hastings, who is doing every thing in her power for the benefit of the female natives of that country. In our own country, every facility has been kindly afforded to us, and the missionaries can go without opposition to every corner of India. Such a door is open there, as never was before; every voice cheers the missionaries as they enter. our own countrymen, I scarcely know one individual who opposes us; on the contrary, they now have a Calcutta bible-society, chiefly supported by the Anglo-Indians, which has circulated extensive editions of the scriptures, in the various languages of India. There is a Calcutta school-book society, and there is a Hindoo college. Natives themselves, are taught and educated, for the very purpose of becoming preachers of the everlasting gospel; and thus the distance of fifteen thousand miles is subdued and superseded, by God's raising up natives themselves, to become missionaries to their countrymen, who are inured to the climate, and familiar with its manners. The languages of India are now subdued; and the holy scriptures, or part of them at least, with a number of tracts, have already been translated and circulated, in twenty-five languages of the country. The prejudices of the natives have been overcome. As one proof of this, I can state, that, when I left Serampore, a deputation had come from a village at some distance, in which they were attempting to establish a school, to request one of our school-masters to visit them, and afford them some instruction as to the manner of conducting their school. There cannot be a stronger proof of their prejudices being subdued, than for the natives to solicit a visit from a man, whose appear

ance in their school would have once been thought a crime; these schools are now so common in India, that there is scarcely a town, or even a village, that has not one. The ignorance of the natives has been overcome; we have found a conscience at last; and several thousand Hindoos have turned from the worship of idols, to serve the living and the true God; have renounced their superstition, and embraced the faith of christianity. Public opinion, which had been almost universally against us, is now almost universally for us. The foundation is laid, and we have only to go forward in the work which has been so successfully begun.

"I have been thus minute in the statements of the situation of the work of God in that extensive empire, in order that I, as an eyewitness, might excite the thankfulness of this society for what God has done there; and that, when I am gone into those distant regions again, to aid by my feeble efforts this great cause, your prayers may be excited and encouraged by the prospect of ulti

mate success.

"The missionaries of this society depend especially on DIVINE INFLUENCE. On that influence their eyes are always fixed; and, feeling that they are but weak instruments in the hand of God, they go forward in their simple career, looking to Him."*

More directly to our purpose is a late communication of Rev. Wm. Goodell, to the United Foreign Missionary Society in NewYork, containing a very interesting account of the present state of improvements among the Choctaws and Cherokees.

"The American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions have three schools among the Choctaws, and three also among the Cherokees, and are now making preparations for a fourth school in each of those tribes. The children connected with those schools, not only receive the ordinary instructions of a school, but they are taught all the arts of civilized life. Indeed, to instruct them in all the arts of civilized life is deemed a very important part of their education. In both these tribes, much more good has been already accomplished by the Missionaries, and much greater advances have been made by the natives towards civilization, than we should naturally suppose from reading the public journals. The Missionaries have been exceedingly careful not

Miss. Her. Sep. 1821, p. 297.

to state things too favorably. Many of the Cherokees and some of the Choctaws cultivate their lands with much regularity and industry; and, in regard to their dress, their manner of cooking food, their style of building, the furniture of their houses, &c. &c. they have adopted our customs throughout. Twenty Cherokees have united with the churches under the direction of the American Board, and about twenty have united with the Moravian and Baptist churches; making forty in the whole, besides some white men, who have Cherokee families, and besides, also, some people of color, who live in the nation. I was told that, among these forty Cherokee converts, there had not been a single instance of intemperance, immorality, or any thing which required discipline or reproof. A large proportion of them are adults. Some of them are supposed to be more than seventy years of age. Two of them are Cherokee chiefs, one of whom signalized himself at the battle of the Horse Shoe, and for his bravery received from Congress a rifle with a very handsome inscription on it; and the other is a man of great authority in his tribe. I spent a night with him. In the evening he called his family together, brought forward his family bible, read a chapter himself in English, sang a hymn, in which we all joined, and offered the prayer himself; and in the morning called upon one of the brethren present to lead in the devotions of the family. Those of the professors of religion who can read, and many who are not professors, take some religious publication, and appear to know more about the religious state of our world—about our Sabbath Schools, our revivals of religion, our Bible, Missionary, Education and Tract Societies, than multitudes in our land, who have been connected with our churches for twenty years.

"I spent several nights with a Choctaw chief. He has learnt to read. He takes the Boston Recorder, the Missionary Herald, the Religious Intelligencer, and several political papers. He inquired, with a lively interest, how I had succeeded in my agency, what states I had visited, how the people of K. felt towards civilizing the Indians; and when I had told him, he said he was glad the people of K. were becoming more civilized; and, indeed, the Choctaws and Cherokees generally appear to rejoice as much that we are coming to a better mind towards them, as we rejoice that they are coming to a better mind. The joy is mutual. This