submitted to as a teacher. This fact is full of significance and instruction to us all. In addition to his mental conflicts and outward tribulations, there were yet deeper sources of disquietude. The sluices of agony were opened in his heart. He saw himself to be a sinner; and the sorrow springing up from the fountains of repentance thus unsealed, drowned every other grief. Thus he struggled on for about three years; at the expiration of which period, early in March, 1848, he decided on making a public profession of his faith. The long probation through which he had passed was by no means lost time. He had been taking root in Christian doctrine and practice against the fiercer storms that awaited him. Such was his own feeling. He was not impatient. His own expression was a striking one: "If I become a Christian, I desire to become pakkah (ripe, thoroughly baked), and able to give a reason why I have become one." When, however, he had determined to take the momentous step that was to sunder all his early ties and seal his exclusion from his kindred, he was anxious that there should be no unnecessary delay. It was "work to be done at once." He was accordingly baptized on the 14th of March. This act on the part of the son was immediately succeeded by a painfully significant one on the part of the afflicted father, who, penetrated by the sense of his loss and disgrace, was well nigh destroying himself. Dead to him by this deed of apostasy, the father made an effigy of wood and straw to represent the child whom he had thus lost, and proclaiming his death, had it publicly burned! Such is the terrible anathema which idolatry teaches a parent to pronounce and enact against his offspring.

This double transaction over, our heroic friend was subjected to the fierce assaults of a Benares native newspaper; the writer, with an error which he shared in common with a royal personage of 1800 years ago, attributing the extraordinary step which he had taken to madness. His reply was in the spirit of that uttered by the' noble-minded Paul: "If to worship the only God in spirit and humility-to obtain holiness of heart through the influence of the Holy Spirit, and forgiveness of sins by becoming a refugee of Jesus Christto forsake false ways-if this be the work of an insane mind, then blessed be such insanity!"

The energy and enterprise which the Pundit had previously displayed in defence of heathenism, were now employed on behalf of his newly-adopted faith. The condition of his countrymen affected him deeply, absorbing all his thoughts, and inducing in him a determination to consecrate his life and labours to their evangelization. Meanwhile, one of the

first objects of his solicitude was his dear wife, from whom he had now been for several years unnaturally severed, by the inexorable laws of Hindooism. Oh, how he sighed and prayed for her salvation! But, as a preliminary to a consummation so devoutly to be wished," it was necessary that she should be recovered from the surveillance of her Hindoo relatives. An attempt was made to accomplish this first step. She was confronted with her husband in the presence of a magistrate, and asked whether it was her wish to rejoin him and share his fortunes. Being under the influence of intimidation, her reply was hesitatingly given in the negative. Shortly after this her father died, and temporal distress succeeded. Moreover, the Pundit learned that she still regarded him with affection, and would second him in any effort which he might make to release her from the disHe concerted his graceful captivity of a nominal widow. measures accordingly. In company with a few of his friends, he walked unexpectedly into the house of his mother-in-law, took possession of his gladly consenting spouse, lifted her into a palanquin, which was in readiness to receive her, and took her home. The mother, incensed at this bold proceeding, appealed to the magistrate, and at his house the parties all met, to ascertain the wife's deliberate choice, and settle the dispute. On this occasion, so far had her conjugal affection triumphed, that even the presence and mute agonies of her mother were unavailing to shake her decision to cleave to her husband, to whose care she was accordingly henceforth legally consigned. This interesting event took place towards the close of the year 1852.

Here, then, was an object upon whom his most fervid zeal and loving labours might well be immediately bestowed. Till she was a sincere Christian, his conjugal happiness would lack its most essential ingredient. How was it possible for a disciple of Jesus and a worshipper of idols to continue to have fellowship with one another? What concord could there be between the respective followers of Christ and Brahma? The necessity for religious sympathy between two persons so nearly allied as husband and wife, especially when the former is resolved to devote his life to the diffusion of Christianity, was felt increasingly from day to day to be a matter of paramount importance. And diligently and devoutly did he strive to realize this blessed change. Nor did he toil in vain. He found the soil submitted to his spiritual culture at once genial and fruitful. His loving appeals met with a corresponding response. The blessing from above, with all its dewy influences, descended; and she became, to her husband's

inexpressible joy, a "new creature in Christ Jesus." Her growth in grace was rapid and striking; and it was well that it was so, for she was destined to be speedily removed from this scene of trial and sorrow. Having given birth to a daughter, the mother sickened, and, after lingering on in great weakness for some few months, she passed away, in penitence and peace, to the newly-found home of the Christian.

Thus was snatched away from the sorrow-stricken Pundit the precious first-fruit of his Christian labours, to be waved before the throne of his Great Master on high. The blow fell heavily. His hearth and heart were made desolate. His soul bled with anguish. He now, more than ever, felt the need of some more active employment. To profitably Occupy his thoughts, therefore, and brace his spirit, the Pundit started with a Christian missionary on a four months' tour. During this excursion, he visited several of his relations, and among them his father, then residing at Allahabad. Though he comported himself more kindly than formerly towards his apostate son, his hostility towards Christianity was more inveterate than ever. They parted, to pursue separate paths-alas! how divergent.

Shortly after the completion of this evangelic tour, circumstances led to the Pundit's becoming an attaché in the suite of the Rajah Dhuleep Singh, the son of the late Runjeet Singh, with whom he came to England. This young prince, who is about nineteen years of age, is understood to have recently professed Christianity, to which his serious attention had been called by a youth who had received his education in one of the mission-schools of India; and it is gratifying to know that he has in attendance upon him one so qualified as our friend the Pundit to teach him "the way of the Lord more perfectly." We have only to add to this rapid sketch, that Nehemiah Goreh is prolonging his stay in this country for the purpose of cultivating an acquaintance with the sacred literature of our language, and of perfecting his knowledge of the Scriptures in their original tongues, that, on his return to his native land, he may be the better fitted to do the "work of an evangelist." May the Great Head of the church, who has called him out of the midst of heathendom, and trained him by sanctified sorrow and suffering for His service, vouchsafe to him long life, eminent gifts, and distinguished usefulness.

AUTOGRAPHS AND AUTOGRAPH
COLLECTORS.

THE earliest evidence of the existence of a practice of forming collections of autographs is to be found, probably, in the "Albums" or "Alba Amicorum," as they were called, which in the sixteenth century the savans of Germany fell into the practice of keeping, to receive contributions from their literary friends, and to which more than one autograph collector of the present day is indebted for his specimen of the handwriting of Bucer or Melancthon, Bullinger or Luther. From an evidence of the esprit du corps of the wise, the practice of keeping Albums became the amusement of the great, and finally the fashion of the foolish-when satire took it in hand—and in its then shape it would seem to have ceased. Izaak Walton, in his "Life of Sir Henry Wotton," mentions an amusing scrape in which that courtier was unlucky enough to involve himself, arising out of this practice, and which we note as a warning to unwary contributors of Album aphorisms. On his first going as Ambassador into Italy, says honest Izaak, he stayed some days at Augusta, where, having been well known by many of the best note for "learning and ingeniousness," he was requested by one Christopher Flecamore to write some sentence in his Albo, a book of white paper, which for that purpose "many of the German gentry usually carry about them;" and, consenting to the motion, he took occasion to write a pleasant definition of an Ambassador:-"An Ambassador is an honest man sent to lie abroad for the good of his country." This apophthegm, against which little exception can be taken on the score of truth, slept quietly in Mr. Flecamore's Albo for eight years, when it was disinterred by Scoppius, a Romanist writer, who, in a book attacking James the First, quoted it as an evidence of the religious principles of the king

and his ambassador, and compelled poor Sir Henry to expiate his pleasantry by two Latin apologies in rejoinder—a rather severe punishment for so venial an indiscretion.

The above Albums, various specimens of which are now in the British Museum, seldom exceeded six inches in length. The habit of keeping Albums had, by this time, long outgrown the taste in which it had originated; and autograph - collecting formed, and continued to form for many years, merely a branch of the pursuits of the antiquary. The names, therefore, with which it is associated in the seventeenth and earlier part of the eighteenth century, will be familiar to us from other circumstances; and Harley and Cotton, D'Ewes and Evelyn, Thoresby and Le Neve, owe their places in the order of literature to worthier labours. As, however, knowledge became more widely diffused, and intellectual tastes ceased to be the pecu

liar appanage of the learned, an interest in the autographs of eminent persons would be likely to increase also; and this we find gradually to have been the

case.

As the last century wore on, the practice of collecting autographs began to be more general, and to set up for itself as a separate and distinct intellectual hobby, though even then it scarcely penetrated much below antiquaries in their nonage and dilettanti men of" parts. About this time Dr. Macro accumulated an extensive and fine collection; and Sir William Musgrove grubbed together two volumes of signatures, which he bequeathed to his country. The sale of the well-known library of Mr. Bindley unlocked some good things of the same kind, collected during the later years of the century; and so did the more recent dispersion of the collections of Strawberry Hill. Mr. John Thane, about this time, gave proof of increasing taste on the part of the ignorant, by the publication, for their use, of the well-known 'British

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