(A Bhugut is one who has devoted himself to a religious life, and is bound to refrain from the use of spirituous liquor, flesh, &c.) The man replied, "What is it to you? If I were dancing or singing, you would not disturb me: why then do so when I am hearing the Word of God." He continued hearing; and made some objections, which were answered to his satisfaction. On going away, he took

with him two Tracts.

April 2, 1829-A Young Man, whom I mentioned a few days back, as not far from the Kingdom of God, confesses that he disbelieves in the Hindoo, and believes in the Christian Religion; but that the fear of man prevails, and keeps him back. May the Lord put His fear in his heart, and enable him to confess Christ before men! Surely none but God can enable a man to face all that must in general be faced, if he would become a Christian; for Christians in this Country, like the Apostles of old, are considered as the filth of the earth, and the offscouring of all things. The lowest and most disgusting classes of the community would consider themselves DISGRACED by the profession of Chrisianity.

April 11-I should like to get a Hindee Girls' School: but it seems that all former attempts have failed, the prejudices of the Natives here being so strong. I shall see what can be done; but I have no encouragement given me. The wife of one of my servants can act as a Schoolmistress she has been taught to read and to work at Gorruckpore: she has two girls to begin with, the sister of her husband and another girl.

April 16-After an early breakfast this morning, I went to a place called the Durgah, near this town, where a Mela is held. Durgah is a word used, among other things, for a mosque, shrine, &c.: in the present instance, it is applied to a large space of ground, containing one or more places of worship, numerous tombs and ruins, and two very large tombs with domes over them, where two Fakeers, a father and son, are buried. Opposite one of the places of worship, under a large tree, we took our station: we spread a sithingee on the stones: I sat on my travelling chair, with the Native Brethren near me, and we soon had a crowd of Mussulmans around us. Charles Doss commenced operations, by reading to them a Discourse. Our attention was next engaged by a man who sat next to me, a respectable-looking well-behaved [RECORD, March, 1830.]

Mussulman, who requested books: this man knew, at least by name, both Mr. Adlington and Archdeacon Corrie. I gave him two Persian Gospels, and afterward the History of Saj Rhan; which, as he offered, I allowed him to read out, for the benefit of others. As he proceeded, numerous inquiries were made on the different subjects mentioned; such as, the Birth of Christ of a Virgin; of His being the Son of God; the necessity of á New Birth, &c.: which, of course, afforded matter of much conversation. He read part of Abdool Messeeh's Versified Translation of the Conversation with Nicodemus. Other Mahomedans joined in the discussions; but this man was the chief speaker. He said that he wished that he lived nearer, (he resides at Benares,) that he might inquire more. Trusting that there was something good in the man, I gave him a complete Testament; which he promised to read; and to mark the places which he did not understand, for further discussion. From what I have already seen, however, it would not surprise me to hear no more of the man.

This is the first Mela I have had the opportunity of attending. Though not so numerous as many, the scene was very lively. There were some stalls equal in appearance to those in English Fairs; and numerous sights, shows, and recitations of various kinds. Crowds of Mahomedans hastened to the old Fakeer's Tomb, the ascent to which is up a flight of steps, and offered, at his shrine, flowers, sweetmeats, &c. On descending the steps again, they gave cowries (small shells which pass current, about 128 of which are equal to an English Halfpenny) to a number of beggars who sat on the steps. I saw a party of three Fakeer Beggars going round to the poor creatures who were endeavouring to sell a few wares, and demanding money of them. One man resisted the demand; upon which they became very violent, and two of them pretended to do themselves much injury: this was meant to frighten him, since he would then be guilty of sheding a holy Fakeer's blood. One of these wretches stooped down and pretended to drive a sharp instrument into his throat: the other, apparently, thrust an instrument of steel into his head, close to his eye this was accompanied with violent gestures; but I have no doubt that they took very good care not to hurt themselves. Another man I saw with the skin of his head and face slightly K

scratched, so that a small quantity of blood flowed this fellow was attended by a man with a tolerably good-sized wallet, into which the Fakeer cast whatever he took a fancy to on the neighbouring stalls. -Behold the degrading and slavish effects of Idolatry!

April 26, 1829: Sunday Services as usual. Runjeet agreeably surprised me to-day, with the intelligence, that his wife had succeeded in getting a Girls' School, in which are at present 7 girls.

April 28-Hearing that a Fakeer had been sitting near the river for the last two or three days, I went this afternoon, when the sun permitted, to see him: the Readers of course accompanied me. The river is now very low, and we had to pass an immense deal of sand before we came to the deluded object of our visit. We found him sitting on a tiger's-skin, spread on a mound of sand, dressed in the usual way, with only a piece of rope round his loins, which suspended a narrow piece of cloth, and some cotton on his head. At his right hand was a small enclosure, made with grass and bamboos, which was the temple of an Idol, placed in the centre of the enclosure. The Idol was a small image, meant, I believe, for Ram; before which was placed a stool, on which was a bell and some offerings. In front of this rude building, and nearer the river, we saw a small square, denoted by four fire-places; in the middle of which, at noon, the Fakeer sits, with fire burning in each of the fire-places, and is then exposed, at one time, to what is called five firesthe four which have been kindled, and the sun, which is then exceedingly powerful. I took my seat near the man, and asked him for what purpose he thus acted. At first, he would not give me a direct answer: some of the people around, I am told, said, that there were very strong arguments used by the Christians for their

66

66

Religion: this may have intimidated him. In answer to the inquiry, he stated, that he did it for no particular purpose, but that it was an ancient custom. This we could not believe, that he could thus act without an object. I told him that he did it for show; at which, some others laughed. I asked what that thing was which I saw in the enclosure? "God," replied a Brahmin, who sat on a brazen vessel turned upside down. God!" I rejoined: why, it is brass.-Is this also God?" pointing to the utensil on which he was sitting. "Yes," he said: all things are Par Bruhm." Bakhtower proceeded to shew the absurdity of this; when much conversation ensued, in which the Fakeer and some Brahmins took part. Tryloke calmly reasoned with the man; who said, that he did not know the Christian Religion; but that he would make it a subject of inquiry. After some further conversation, as it was getting dark, we left him and the crowd which had gathered round. Scarcely had I turned my back, when I heard the sounds of idolatrous worship: what sounds can be more painful to the Christian ear! Before this, I had been much pained at seeing two individuals prostrate themselves before the Idol, and repeatedly kiss the sand. I felt almost inclined, at first, to trespass on the sacred precincts, and to snatch them from their prostrations, with, Sirs, why do ye these things? We preach unto you that ye should turn from these vanities, unto the Living God.

April 29-The Fakeer, mentioned yesterday, has decamped. He intended, we understand, to stay here some time; but, finding that we visited him, and exposed the folly of his conduct and the absurdities of Hindooism, he thought it better to save his credit by going to another place.

THIS field of the Society's Labours may be considered as connected with that in Western Africa, the object in both being the same-reparation, by the blessings of the Gospel, to Africa and her Children, for those enormous wrongs which they have suffered at our hands.

The attention of the Society having been called, in 1815, to the state of

a Sunday and other Schools at English Harbour, in the Island of Antigua, the Society, in connection with a Local Institution, lent considerable aid in the Religious Instruction of the Young Slaves and Children; and subsequently undertook the exclusive charge and direction of several Sunday and Daily Schools, in which there were, at one period, Two Thou

sand Scholars receiving the benefits of Christian Education. Circumstances, adverted to in the Society's 28th Report, led to a gradual declension in the number of Scholars: till the average attendance not appearing to justify the continuance of the expense without an adequate return, the Schools were, in 1829, relinquished.

The Society, for several years, maintained a School for the Negro and Coloured Population of both sexes in the Island of Barbadoes: the Bishop, shortly after his arrival, took the School under his own charge.

Attempts were made to extend the benefit of instruction to the Slave Children in St. Vincent's and Dominica: the Society, however, did not succeed in the permanent establishment of Schools in those Islands.

Among other objects which engaged its attention, the Society endeavoured to promote the religious welfare of His Majesty's Settlement at Honduras, with especial reference to the Slaves and Disbanded Soldiers of the 4th West-India Regiment in the Colony, and to the Native Indians in the interior and on the Mosquito Shore; but circumstances prevented the accomplishment of its designs.

In 1825, two Catechists and their Wives were, on the invitation of the Proprietor, sent out to Jamaica, to reside on his Estates, for the purpose of imparting religious instruction to the Negroes. Every facility has been afforded for the attainment of this object, by providing suitable Buildings for the purposes of Worship and Instruction, and by the appropriation of a week-day to the Slaves for obtaining their support, and thus leaving the Sunday at their disposal, not as a day of marketing or labour, but of rest and spiritual improvement. Similar measures, with the concurrence and co-operation of the Proprietors, have been adopted on Estates in Jamaica and Essequibo; and, recently, other openings having presented themselves in Jamaica, the Society has

availed itself of them, according to its means.

It is not to be concealed, that the withholding the Lord's Day from the Slave, to which he is equally entitled with his Master, is one of the most formidable barriers which West-Indian Slavery presents to the entrance of Divine Truth among its unhappy victims. So long as the Negro is compelled to go to a distance to the Sunday Market, or to toil on that day for his subsistence, he cannot avail himself of the advantages held out to him by a Missionary Society, of Sunday Instruction and Sunday Worship; and it is absolutely necessary, that his right, in this respect, should be restored to him, before the labours of those who desire his spiritual welfare can be expected to succeed.

On the establishment of Episcopacy in the West-Indian Coloniesa measure from which permanent benefits to the population may be anticipated-the Society's Catechists were placed under the authority of the Bishop in whose Diocese they reside, and from whom they receive a licence to prosecute their labours. A grant, from the Society's funds, of 2001. was made to the Bishop of Jamaica, to be employed for the spiritual benefit of the Negroes, according to his Lordship's discretion.

Jamaica.

COLEY, ST. THOMAS'S IN THE EAST.

Mr. Joshua Wood gives, in December, the following account of his Station:

From the 1st of October till now, the average attendance at our Chapel has been as follows. On Sunday,45; Tuesday and Thursday, 40; but the infants, for those days, are included. On five days in the week, we have Infant School; about 20 attend: we have teaching morning and evening. On Sunday, we have the two Services, Catechism, and a School for any

one who will learn to read.

The crop

continues from December till part of May: while this lasts, the people will probably not attend so well. Several of the infants can

repeat many parts of the Church Catechism.

Demerara.

ST. MATTHEW'S PARISH.

The Rev. L. Strong having left St. Mary's Parish, and been appointed to that of St. Matthew, Mr. Charles Carter, who has been for some time employed under his superintendence, removed with him to his new sphere of labour. Of this, Mr. Strong, in a Letter written soon after his entrance on it, gives the following account:

Every encouragement is given by the Planters and Managers to the Sunday School and attendance of the Negroes. There is a great manifestation of eagerness to learn, and, I trust, to follow the Truth. The first day we arrived in our new residence, the Negroes came in numbers to our Family Prayers: the second night, they came in such crowds, that they filled my house, sitting on the floor: I have, in consequence, adjourned our Evening Prayers to a large outhouse, or shed, 60 feet by 40, where we have an attentive Congregation, every evening, of about 100 people, or more.

Of Mr. Carter and his occupations, he writes:

I have built Mr. Carter a room, 20 feet by 15, an upper story, very airy, in which he sleeps as before, he boards with us: his room is not more than thirty feet from the house. On the ground-floor of this building is our Sunday - School Room, which is fast gathering, and promises great things. We had together yesterday about 160 Girls and Boys. It was the fourth Sunday I have preached to the Negroes here and taught the Children, but the first on which we have opened our temporary Church; and I have preached to Free and Slaves together. Mr. Carter has an Adult School of Negroes, almost every evening, as well as Sunday Night. He is also opening a School weekly, as in St. Mary's; in which I hope to have many Slave-children, under age for work,

Mr. Carter, after speaking of the employment which is opening before him in the Sunday and Weekday Schools, adds

Things look so favourably at present, that we have every hope of establishing some Infants' Schools on the Estates.

Mr. Strong thus notices the

Hopeful Death of a Female Scholar. We have just heard a most pleasing account of one of our School Girls at Beehive Sunday-School, in St. Mary's Parish,

A girl, who had been ill some time previous to our departure, has since died. She was, when at school, very careless and inattentive, and was one of the last from whom we should have expected any fruit. But in this we were mistaken: though she

appeared to rank with the way-side hearer,

yet, it appears, the wicked one did not catch away the seed. The Almighty Husbandman broke up the fallow-ground, by His Spirit, in due season: the seed fell in, and produced fruit, to His glory. Some time before her death, she unexpectedly began to recal the instruction which she had received in the school, bewailing her sins, and fixing her eyes on Jesus. But she was not contented with thus earnestly seeking Christ for herself, and turning to Him with all her heart: she sent for her relations, and for some of her school-fellows: she told them to take warning by her narrow escape-to fly to Christ Now: she spoke to them, in a very feeling manner, on the fleeting vanity of this life; shewing them that she was dying, and that they must die-that all that the world could do for them, was to bury them at last. She was continually calling on her Saviour, and exhorting those who attended: she died happy, calling upon Jesus: her last word was, 'Christ.' On this Mr. Strong remarks—

This is a rich cordial just sent us, an earnest that God is with us of a truth, to stimulate and encourage us to work, and at the same time to call forth our praises to His glorious Name,

Many of the Negroes are old Africans, and decrease very fast: except I had an opportunity of having them in the week, I cannot do much with them. I walk through the Negro-yard once a-week, chiefly on a Sunday Morning. I go into their houses, talk with them, and the old tell me that they will come on a Sunday; but very few keep their promise. Some of the young people attend regularly; but all my persuasion will not prevail on them to come twice on Sunday.

My manner of instruction to them is varied. On a Sunday Morning, when they come, it is generally between 11 and 12 o'clock. I begin with singing a Hymn, and Prayer: afterward, I read a Chapter in the Old or New Testament, but chiefly from the New, it being the most plain on

the great truths of the Gospel. Some of them seem to be full of pity, when I tell them of what Christ suffered for us to bring us to God; but they are wedded to dancing and their former habits.

In December, he writes:

The people, in general, are indifferent in the affairs of the soul: they almost turn a deaf ear to all entreaties. On the Estate to which I am sent to labour, I have not more than 12 who have attended regularly the first year. I have had, it is true, in general 30, and sometimes 40, from the Union Estate; some coming at one time, and some another. From other Estates I have sometimes 5 or 6, or more, but none that attend regularly.

Mr. Armstrong's attention has been turned toward the Native Indians and the Coloured Population,

and he is anxious that an effort should be made for their spiritual benefit. On this head he writes:

I have inquired up the river Essequibo, among the Coloured People of Indian and Negro origin, how they would like a person going among them, to give them instruction, and to teach them to read the Bible? They said that they should be very glad of that, and would do what they could toward building him a house: they would catch him fish, give him vegetables, wash his clothes, and do what he wanted about his house. I might have sat down among them at once, had I been authorised. I was really pleased to see the eagerness with which they listened to my inquiries. A person stationed there would have nearly a hundred children under daily instruction:

on Sundays, he would have a Congregation of 200 and upward. These people have great influence with the Indians, to whom access might be gained by means of them. They are an intelligent race, but surrounded with vice, and nothing to counteract it; subject to the fraudulent disposition of the Whites, without knowing whether they are cheated or not. But this is very little, comparatively nothing, to their awful condition, as accountable beings to God. It would cost very little to maintain a Missionary in that place, clothing excepted.

The place which I would fix on for a house, is on an elevated piece of land at the junction, where the Essequibo is divided into two parts: the other is called Massaroony, about seventy miles up the Essequibo. The Coloured People extend from this junction, about twenty miles up the river. The people speak the Creole Dutch, like the Negroes.

Mr. Armstrong, thus expresses his Mr. Carter, after paying a visit to

sentiments in reference to this subject:

I accompanied Mr. Armstrong several times in his visits, and was greatly delighted in finding that the Indians manifested such a willingness and desire for learning. They are a degraded people, who call for the compassion, prayers, and exertions of Christians: the obstacles in the way, comparatively speaking, are very few. May He, who has all hearts in His hands, lead you, not only to consider their state, but enable you to do something in their behalf!

THIRTIETH ANNIVERSARY OF THE CHURCH MISSIONARY SOCIETY.

THE Anniversary Sermon will be preached on Monday Evening, the 3d of May, at the Parish Church of St. Bride, Fleet Street, by the Very Rev. the Dean of Salisbury. Divine Service to commence at Half-past-Six o'clock.

The Annual Meeting will be held at Freemasons' Hall, Great Queen Street, on Tuesday, the 4th of May. The Chair to be taken at Eleven o'Clock precisely.

The Arrangements for Admission to the Meeting will be the same as in former years.

PROCEEDINGS OF ASSOCIATIONS.

Ireland The Rev. George Hazlewood, the Assistant Secretary of the Hibernian Auxiliary, has visited Associations, or preached on behalf of the Society, at the following places :-Feb. 19: Meeting at Athboy, in the Morning, for the formation of an Association; Rev. Mr. Chambers in the Chair: Col. 17. Also a Meeting in the Evening at Rathmolion, for a similar purpose; Rev. S. Magee in the Chair-Feb. 21, Sunday: Sermon by Mr. Hazlewood at Edenderry: Col. 21.— Feb. 22: Meeting at Portarlington in the Morning; Rev. Mr. Jelly, Chairman: Col. 51. 12s. 74d. The Rev. J. Gregg had preached at this place on the 18th, when