northerly of all, and is in the Cochin native territory, about 15 miles from Trichoor. It was commenced many years ago, as an out-station, by Mr. Ridsdale, when he was at Cochin. It was subsequently an out-station of the Trichoor mission, and was then formed into a head station by the Rev. J. G. Benttler, who there built a bungalow in 1853, and finally a church, for which I had the honour and privilege of furnishing plans. There are several out-stations connected with it, but none of the congregations have hitherto been very large. The mission house and church are built near to a large and important Syrian bazaar. Fewer, however, of the Syrians have here joined our communion than has been the case in most of the Travancore missions. Most of the converts are from the Chogan and other heathen castes: but the majority of the people in the neighbourhood, as at Trichoor, being high-caste Aryans, the gospel seed appears to have fallen often upon barren ground.

But I must now draw my remarks on the native Church in India to a close. And, unless I am greatly mistaken, my readers will come to the same conclusions, as to general principles, as myself.

1. There is a striking discrepancy between the visible and tangible results of missionary operations, when we regard the un-Âryan classes on the one hand, and the Aryans on the other. The European missionary succeeds

apparently beyond the legitimate results of the gospel message on the one side; and, on the other, as it appears to me, less than the gospel would warrant us to expect.

2. A European missionary is really at a disadvantage, by reason of his being a member of a dominant race; for the results of his protective influence, which tells greatly on certain classes, should not be reckoned as the legitimate results of evangelism.

3. The fact that he is a foreigner prejudices the higher classes especially against his teaching (and here there is no desired protection to counterbalance the feeling). The early history of our connection with the Syrian Church alone abundantly illustrates this. Indeed, it stands to reason that a foreigner is the last man in the world likely to revolutionise a people. And history tells of no revolution so thorough as that proposed by the gospel.

4. The absence of the gift of tongues is a matter that ought to claim our most anxious consideration.

5. A pressing want in India is an indigenous Christian literature. This is only possible in native hands.

6. Everything points to the necessity for able and learned native evangelists to carry on the work Europeans have begun.

7. The funds of European Protestant Missionary

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Societies would be better expended in preparing a powerful native aggressive agency than in sending out a multitudinous European one.

One more topic, and my desultory notes shall close. We are now reaching a most important crisis in the missionary history of South India: a crisis that to my mind points in exactly the same direction as the rest of my missionary experience the need for a highly educated native agency. And here need I say how cordially I endorse the Church Missionary Society's motto, 'Spiritual men for spiritual work!' But let us not forget to add to that, able men for difficult work. The crisis to which I refer is the growing desire to separate every congregation. where it is possible, from the funds and immediate control of the home committees. It is a new idea, and we know how men revel in a new idea. Theoretically it is correct, grand. But what does it involve? The necessity more than ever for leaders in the native Church.

The system that is fast coming upon us, as I too much fear, of leaving the infant congregations to choose the best men as pastors that they are at present able themselves to afford, will have an undoubted tendency, if it be not counteracted, to lower the tone of education among mission agents. I see strong symptoms of it already. What we shall still want in the native Church will be men of mark

and power and these will not develop themselves among the branches of the wild vine; they must be cultivated. The State education is fast giving us a number of learned infidels: the Church must rise in emulation, and, using the same weapon, education, give us learned divines. May the great Head of the Church, who alone can give us success in His own work, dispose the hearts of Englishmen to well weigh these most momentous matters.

Finally, there is one idea, that I cannot pass by, that has tended greatly to cripple our mission efforts, but that appears to lurk in almost every European mind as to the Hindus; and that is, that there are certain things of which they are not yet capable. The missionary who is an infidel as to the theory of progressive development, and firmly believes in the unity of the human race, still tells you that the Hindu is not yet sufficiently developed (that is, in himself, quite irrespective of education); that he is not yet capable of great responsibilities. What! Does he then believe in physical race development? No; he says. But his acts belie him. Depend upon it Augustine had much the same ideas as to the Saxons, whom he found in England. There is a bias in human nature which tends to encourage the belief in a man, that all who are beneath him by force of circumstances, are beneath him in intelligence and capacity. But it has no

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foundation in truth. Least of all people are the Hindus beneath us in intelligence. On this false assumption it is, for instance, that the railway officials have not yet allowed a Hindu to drive an engine on their metals. But let the falsehood die out at least in our missions. Who cannot see that it reacts upon the natives, who in too many cases seem to think that Europeans alone are responsible for spreading the gospel among the nations?