their masters, servants here are as free as the air,) they would never leave their own family hut and garden, for the sake of living in a town to serve Europeans. Of their obtaining in their master's service food proper to impart the highest bodily health and vigour to the human frame, there can be no doubt, as the health of their European master or mistress seldom bears any proportion to theirs, if not destroyed by their excess in eating or their other vices. It is indeed a fact, that they themselves often retain servants, which they in their turn support in such a manner as to make their service desirable; and the lowest among them retains his barber for himself, and his washerman for his family. Thus then, in the common course of life, a man who lives solely by his labour and professional skill, retains and supports, without making any kind of show, from twenty to fifty families,-not to raise his corn, to tend his herds, to supply his table with animal food,-not even to bake the bread, to churn the butter, or to brew the beverage which daily comes on his table; but to do those offices for himself and his family which millions of families in Britain perform for themselves with unspeakably greater comfort, in addition to the labours of the axe, the loom, the shop, or the field.

"That this is not a natural state of things, will we think be readily allowed. That those who from possessing no hereditary property must live by the sweat of their brow, should suspend their happi

ness on their obtaining such remuneration for their labour as shall enable them to support fifty-or twenty-or ten-or even five families beside their own, solely to minister to their personal comfort, seems acting contrary to the actual experience of mankind in every age and country. In a state of society then, which renders this indispensable to happiness, there must be something fundamentally wrong. In Britain, where the various families of citizens, and even of tradesmen, who live so happily on their labour, to employ and support only two families for the sole purpose of ministering to their personal comfort, it would not only be esteemed sufficient, but others around them would deem it almost monstrous, and be ready to say, 'Why does not that family by a little personal activity render the services of one family sufficient, and lay up the sum expended in maintaining the other, against a time of misfortune or old age?'

Yet were almost the poorest family in Calcutta to content themselves with supporting only two families to perform for them those personal services, which these families must do for themselves in addition to serving them, it would almost invariably make them rich.”

The Indo-Britons, I consider, will be the effective means of evangelizing India at a future, yet not remote period. The success which has attended the efforts of our Missionaries, although not so great as many sanguine minds have expected, yet has been much greater than those persons who are

D

intimately acquainted with the Hindoo and Mussulman inhabitants of India could have ventured some thirty years ago to have anticipated, and I think fully equivalent (humanly speaking) to the means used, when we consider the handful of men who have gone forth as the champions of the cross against the hosts of the mighty in that land of caste and prejudice. When I first visited Calcutta, native female schools had not fully been established, and those for boys were very few and badly conducted; when I say native female schools were not fully established, I must not fail to mention that a society of ladies was then formed for the establishment of such schools, and I believe more than one did exist; and as I have very frequently heard the meed of praise bestowed on parties who certainly are not entitled to the smallest share as it regards the originating of female native schools, I shall avail myself of this medium for correcting those mistatements which have gone abroad, and at the same time can but express my astonishment at the want of candour in several recent publications on that point, and others connected with the exertions of Missionaries out of the pale of the establishment; neither is this want of candour a recent fault only. The memoirs of that excellent man, Henry Martyn, whose memory will ever be dear to the friends of the cause of Missions, lamentably manifest the same total want of candour and catholicity. We are told of the Pagan temple on the premises of

the Rev. D. Brown, at Serampore, in which the pious Martyn spent so many hallowed hours, but his companions in those devotional exercises within its walls are studiously kept out of sight-and who were they? Chaplains of the Honourable Company? No; but Baptist Missionaries; with them he communed in spirit and truth: nor was he ashamed to own they were amongst his dearest friends, or to call them brethren. In the journal of Bishop Heber, the mention of every thing "sectarian" is studiously avoided, except a slight notice of the Serampore Missionaries, and Mr. Leslie, of Monghyr, the latter evidently introduced to make way for a false accusation against John Chamberlain, which had been retailed to the worthy Bishop by some enemy to the cause of evangelical truth, of whom hundreds are to be found amongst the dependents on the Company's treasury. What end this concealment of facts, or contempt of fellow labourers in the vineyard of the great Lord, is designed to answer, I cannot conceive. No person can deny, (who is conversant with India,) that the Missionaries have, by the blessing of Almighty God, done great things towards the establishment of Christianity, inasmuch as hundreds of the natives, comprising many rich and influential Brahmins amongst the Hindoos, and Moonshees amongst the Mussulmans, have voluntarily renounced their religions and embraced Christianity. These men could not have been influenced by interested motives, as their families and prospects have alike

been sacrificed, and consequently the Christian religion has obtained a signal triumph; their conduct also having operated as a powerful stimulus on the minds of the people generally to follow their example; and I believe I speak correctly, when I say, that by the unremitting labours of Missionaries, more has been done towards the progress of the Gospel in India than by the efforts of any other persons from the first establishment of the Honourable Company to the present moment. Still, at the same time, I would not detract from the merit due to a Brown, Buchanan, Martyn, Corrie, Thomason, and many others—men of God, who have been, and still are, an honour to the establishment; only let others be considered as aiding in the great work, although not clothed in exactly the same garb. But to return: Mrs. Wilson has often received the credit of establishing female schools for natives: this she is not entitled to, as they were in full operation when she arrived. The state of the case is this: the idea originated with some young ladies, under the tuition of the Baptist Missionaries' wives, in the Circular Road, and what was designated the "Calcutta Female Juvenile Society, for the Education of Native Females," was instituted there; I was present at their second anniversary, which was holden in the school-room, at Mrs. Lawson's, on the 14th Dec. 1821. This meeting was a very interesting one, as it was the first time the practicability of establishing female native schools could be spoken of