THE

MISSIONARY OBSERVER.

DECEMBER, 1879.

New Year's Sacramental Collections.

DEAR BRETHREN,-We beg to remind you that the first Sabbath of the New Year is the usual time for making simultaneous SACRAMENTAL COLLECTIONS for the Widows and Orphans of our Missionaries. We hope it will be convenient for you to continue your usual contribution, and, if possible by a little extra effort to increase the amount.

The sum required to pay the several Insurance Premiums, together with the allowance to orphan children and an invalid missionary, is about Two Hundred and Fifty Pounds, and it is most desirable that this should be raised apart from the ordinary funds of the Society. We regret to say, however, that the total amount received on this account last year amounted only to a little over one hundred and twelve pounds. A little more than a penny each from every member of the denomination would furnish the requisite sum. May we express the hope that this amount at least will be supplied during the coming year.

Should the first Sabbath of the year be found an inconvenient time to you, we would suggest that the collection might be made on the first Sabbath of February or March.

It will prevent confusion in the accounts, and ensure the correct appropriation of the Sacramental Collections, if they are sent direct, and separate from the ordinary contributions of your church to the Society. We remain, yours faithfully,

W. B. BEMBRIDGE, Ripley, near Derby, Treasurer.
WM. HILL, Crompton Street, Derby, Secretary.

Post Office Orders to the Secretary should be made payable at the General Post Office, Derby.

A Response and an Example.

IN response to our statement of last month on the Finances of the Mission, we have received a cheque for £5 from a friend in Staffordshire, accompanied by the following note:

"I was grieved to see from the Magazine that the Mission is in debt; and, praying that others may be led to do the same, I have pleasure in enclosing a small cheque as a special donation. I was hoping, and still hope, that the Com

mittee would see the way open to commence a Mission to Sumbulpore, and if it is attempted this year, should like my £5 to go towards it."

For general information it may be stated that at their last meeting the Committee strongly urged that if possible Sumbulpore should be entered upon during the coming cold season. They also recommended that brethren Pike and Heberlet should go there, and that they be accompanied by one or two efficient native preachers. The whole question will be considered at the Orissa Conference (which will have been held, D.V., before this is in the hands of our readers,) when it is hoped that the brethren will be able to carry out the wishes of the Committee, as well as their own, as regards the occupancy of Sumbulpore as a mission station. Let our friends make this new and important enterprise a matter of earnest prayer. Nor let them forget that for the erection of mission houses, a chapel, and school premises, the means will be required. More men and women are also urgently needed, as the above arrangements, if carried out, will leave Mr. and Mrs. Wood alone at Berhampore, and necessitate Mr. and Mrs. Vaughan being alone at Pipleedistricts as large as two or three English counties. Let ministers at home, who are complaining that they have "no scope," and that "there are not sufficient people to fill all the chapels in their neighbourhood," think of the tens of thousands, aye, millions, in Orissa, who have no chapels to enter, and no ministers whatever to direct them to Jesus.

The Oriyas as they Appear.

BY REV. J. VAUGHAN.

THE following sketch of the Oriyas as they appear, was sent by Mr. Vaughan to his friends in Birmingham, and will be read with interest. A further acquaintance with the language, the literature, and the lives of the Hindoos and Mahomedans will probably lead our young brother to see that "things are not what they seem," and that the dark and deplorable descriptions of idolatrous nations contained in the word of God, are still true with respect to the benighted millions of India.

As Dr. Mullens justly says "Hindoo idolatry has been a growing thing, and it has always been sinking lower and lower. It has grown more debased in the character of its gods, in the characters ascribed to them, in the legends of their doings, and in the forms they are said to have assumed. The older images of gods and godesses have something of manly beauty, but what can be more ugly than Juggernath, or more ridiculously contemptible than Dakin Roy. The ancient hymns had poetry in them and fire; the later legends of Siva and Krishna are indescribably wicked; and in this respect the Hindoo books have furnished missionaries with a perfect armory of offensive weapons, which they have not been slow to use.

"Certain publications which were laid before the Supreme Council with a view to legislation, were ten times worse, in the intensity of their wickedness, than the worst publications of Holywell Street. No buildings in Europe were ever ornamented with the figures which

THE ORIYAS AS THEY APPEAR.

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covered the temples in Orissa. No songs were ever sung in London casino to be compared with the outrageous verses recited by the orator to the pilgrims drawing the Car of Juggernath.

"But these facts do not exhaust the subject. There are slums in London, known only to city missionaries and the men who work in them, in which violence and vice abound to a degree which cannot be told. But the slums of heathenism go a long way lower. They reach the very horrors of immorality. Rome knew them well. Delhi, Lucknow, Constantinople, know them yet; and the former cities had them worse still, before the puppet courts, with their myriads of profligate retainers, were swept away.

The immorality of the people has invented wicked stories about their gods, and the stories have made the people more wicked still. A sadder picture was never presented to human eye. 'Tears, such as

angels weep,' may well fall when we look at the inner meaning."

With due modesty our brother writes :

I wish to write a little about the Oriyas of Cuttack as I have found them, and also about a few other things connected with our work in its relation to the people. I cannot say that the opinions which I hope to express are strictly true. I can only speak as I have seen and heard. After being in a country for nine and a half months one finds himself forming some sort of conceptions of the people among whom his lot has fallen; and if what I now write is read merely as the impression which my hitherto short stay makes upon my mind, it ought not to do any harm. Perhaps those whose years number about the same as my own, and those also who in riper years have not forgotten the time when they were younger, and everything wore the aspect of novelty and impressed their mind as it does not now, will read with interest what I hope to write. Only, please remember that I do not write as can brethren who have made this country their home for nearly forty years; I write as one who must remain here two and a half months before his first year of life in Orissa is completed.

I do not think the OUTWARD condition of the people is so bad as perhaps some of our friends at home would expect it to be. Before reaching Cuttack one becomes accustomed to seeing people with scanty clothes on their bodies (I was going to say "backs," but the very poor people, and some not so very poor, scarcely ever have any clothes on their backs at all). Indeed with the exception of the cold season there is but little need of clothes. Then, too, the houses in which the people live, whilst of course very different from English homes, are, suppose as well adapted for them as are those at home

for the same classes respectively. The number of poor is undoubtedly great; though certainly you do not see many asking alms in the streets. In Cuttack there are no workhouses, and, I believe, there are no such institutions throughout India. There undoubtedly are great hardships connected with the family life of India; but relatives are cared for in some fashion, though some members of the family receive but little. I hear also from one who has been in the country for years that it is very unusnal for a Hindoo to utterly disregard the plea of a beggar, even though a small quantity of rice is all that can be given. Then, too, from what I hear some of the baboos would be willing for their wives to ride out were they themselves desirous of so doing. But many, probably most of them, are not willing. Certainly what I have heard is destructive of the idea that they are treated unkindly by their husbandson the other hand some of the baboos are most indulgent to their wives. In the streets we see men singing and boys playing pretty much as they are seen at home. It makes one sad to confess that there is a tendency towards drunkenness amongst the people-a tendency which I fear is increasing. You do sometimes see men "the worse for drink,” as it is said in England; but they are few compared with what are seen at home. The natives, however, are very much given to the use of stupefying or exciting drugs. And what shall I say about the learned and polite Bengalees? Certainly there is something attractive about them, nor indeed, are the poor and ignorant devoid of politeness. So then, looking at that which first presents itself to the mind of the ordinary looker on, I do not think,