would not have us give up all hope; that he was particularly acquainted with Moung Zah, and would accompany us to his house, a little before sunset, at an hour when he was accessible. This precisely accorded with our intentions. For Arrived at the boat, we threw a result, which if we could see the own Al our ascent. We went to the house of Moung Zah, some way beyond the palace. He received us with great cold--the wisest and best possible— ness and reserve. Mr.G. urged every argument that we suggested, and some others. He finally stated, that if we obtained the royal favour, other foreigners would come and settle in the empire, and trade would be greatly benefited. This argument alone seemed to have any effect on the mind of the minister, and looking out from the cloud which covered his face, he vouchsafed to say, that if we would wait some time, he would endeavour to speak to his majesty about us. From this remark it was impossible to derive any encouragement, and having nothing further to urge, we left Mr. G. and bowing down to the ground, took leave of this great minister of state, who, under the emperor, guides the movements of the whole empire. It was now evening. We had four miles to walk by moonlight. Two of our disciples only followed as. They had pressed as near as they ventured to the door of the hall of audience, and listened to words which sealed the extinction of their hopes and ours. For some time we spoke not. "Some natural tears we dropt, but wiped them soon. And, as our first parents took FEB. 12th.-Reached Pyee, 230 miles from Ava; our descent on the river being, of course, much more rapid than Here, to our great surprise, we met with the Shwa Gnong. teacher Moung I hinted our intention of leaving Rangoon, since the emperor had virtually prohibited the propagation of the Christian religion, and no Burman, under such circumstances, would dare to investigate, much less to embrace it. This intelligence evidently roused him, and showed us that we had more interest in his heart than thought. "Say not so," said he, "there are some who will investigate notwithstanding; and rather than have you quit Rangoon, I will go myself to the Mangen teacher, and have a public dispute. I know I can silence him. I know the truth is on my side." Ah, said I, you may have a tongue to silence him, but he has a pair of fetters and an iron mall to tame you. Remember that. This was the substance of our conversation, though much more prolix; and he left us about nine o'clock at night. we This interview furnished matter for conversation till past midnight, and kept us awake much of the remainder of the night. l'erhaps on arriving in Rangoon, we shall find the disciples firm, and some others seriously inquiring. Perhaps we shall discover some appearances of a movement of the divine Spirit. Perhaps the Lord Jesus bas a few chosen ones whom he intends to call in, under the most unpropitious and forbidding circumstances. Perhaps he intends to show, that it is not by might, nor by power, but by his Spirit. In a word, perhaps in the last extremity, God will help us. Ought we, then, hastily to forsake the place? Ought we to desert those of the disciples that we cannot take with us, and some others, for whom perhaps Christ died, in such an interesting crisis of their fate? Would it be rashness to endeavour to trust in God, and maintain the post, though disallowed by governinent, and exposed to persecution? But again, can we bear to see our dear disciples in prison, in fetters, under torture? Can we stand by them, and encourage them to bear patiently the rage of their persecutors? Are we willing to participate with them? Though the spirit may be sometimes almost willing, is not the flesh too weak? Pondering on such topics as these, a little ray of hope seemed to shine out of the darkness of our despair. But it was not like the soft beam of the moon, which kindly shines on the path of the benighted pilgrim, and guides him to a place of shelter. It was rather like the angry gleam of lightning, which, while for a moment it illumines the landscape around, discloses the black magazines of heaven's artillery, and threatens death to the unwary gazer. FEB. 18th.-Arrived in Rangoon. FEB. 24th.-We have spent three or four days in inquiring about Chittagong, and the pros pect of getting a passage directly thither, or by the way of Bengal. This evening, Moung Bya came up with his brother-in-law, Moung Myat-yah, who has lived in our yard several months, and formerly attended worship in the zayat. I have come, said Moung Bya, to petition that you will not leave Rangoon at present. I think, replied I, that it is useless to remain under present circumstances. We cannot open the zayat; we cannot have public worship; Burman will dare to examine this religion; and if none examine, none can be expected to embrace it. no "Teacher," said he, "my mind is distressed; I can neither eat nor sleep, since I find you are going away. I have been around among those who live near us, and I find some who are even now examining the new religion. Brother Myat-yah is one of them, and he unites with me in my petitions. (Here Myat-yah assented that it was so.) Do stay with us a few months. Do stay till there are eight or ten disciples. Then appoint one to be the teacher of the rest; I shall not be concerned about the event; though you should leave the country, the religion will spread of itself. The emperor himself cannot stop it. But if you go now, and take the two disciples that can follow, I shall be left alone. I cannot baptize those who may wish to embrace this religion. What can I do ?" Moung Nau came in, and expressed himself in a similar way. He thought, that several would yet become disciples, in spite of all opposition, and that it was best for us to stay awhile. We could not restrain our tears at hearing all this; and we told them, that as we lived only for the promotion of the cause of Christ among the Burmans, if there was any prospect of success in Rangoon, we had no desire to go to another place, and would, therefore, reconsider the matter. [To be continued.] ENGLISH BAPTIST MISSION. [The public have been apprised, through various mediums, that the Rev. Wm. Ward, one of the Baptist Missionaries from Serampore, has visited England and Scotland, to obtain pecuniary aid for the College established on the Mission premises. He is now in this country soliciting assistance for the same benevolent design. We cordially wish him success, and cheerfully insert the following Circular, which in a lucid manner exhibits the importance of the object. Ed.] NECESSITY OF CHRISTIANITY TO INDIA. Population, 150,000,000. THE institutions of the Hindoos are unquestionably among the most ancient now in existence. The véda was written, no doubt, before the time of David; and it is probable that the Hindoo superstition, in one form or another, is now professed by 500,000,000 of the human family; the deities worshipped throughout China, Japan, Tartary, the Burman empire, Siam, Ceylon, and in dia, being all of Hindoo origin. The philosophical theory most prevalent among the Hindoos at present, in reference to the Divine Being, the duties of time, and final beatitude, is, that God is pure spirit, destitute of attributes; that he remains in his own eternal solitude and blessedness, like the unruffled ocean, unconnected with the creatures; that he is not an object of worship; that there are but two principles in the universe, spirit and matter; that all life is spirit or God; that matter is inert; that all actions, good or evil, are to be attributed to spirit or God; that connection with matter is a state of punishment; that the great business of life is to obtain freedom from this union to matter; that this is only to be procured through the ceremonies or austerities called jogue; that by these ceremonies perfect abstraction, or the complete annihilation in the mind of its connexion with matter, is obtained, and that this abstraction being realized, at death the soul of the jogee mixes with the all pervading Spirit, that is, returns to the soul of the world.There are now in India, no jogees like those described in the Hindoo writings, though many assume appearances which shew that they wish to be considered jogees. It will be seen, that this system of philosophy carries us to the Athenian inscription, "the unknown God;" that it makes spirit, or God, the author of sin; that it annihilates all the social feelings; consigns to infamy all the relations and occupations of life; and destroys all separate existence after death. The popular superstition proposes no higher benefit to the most devout, than that they shall, after innumerable transmigrations, become jogees. In the Hindoo writings, the work of creation is attributed to Brumha, the work of providence to Vishnoo, and the work of deftruction to Seeb; all created beings. These deities, according to the Hindoo accounts, are continual ly oppofing and thwarting each other in the adminiftration of human affairs. What a triad ! The objects of worship are the gods; these are said to amount to 336,000,000. Among thofe very commonly worshipped are the cow; Hunooman, a monkey; Aununta, the serpent, and Krishnoo, an infamous lecher, and Radha, his concubine. The car of Jugunnat'h is covered with paintings descriptive of actions the most indecent and infamous; and the worship at the festivals is connected with the open exhibition of indecencies, which can never be described to a Christian people. Gopal, a learned bramhun, acknowledged to Mr. Marshman, of Serampore, that he never went to the temple on these occasions without hiding himself behind one of the pillars. This is the worship of the Hindoos; that which should fit them for the duties of time, and the blessedness of eternity! Infanticide has been practised in India from time immemorial: the rajpoots, a considerable tribe of Hindoos, put all their female children to death as soon as born;—not one survives! They marry in other tribes. Many Hindoo females, after marriage, make a vow to of fer to the deity their first child, and thefe children of the vow are drowned in the Burumpootra, and other sacred rivers. The Hindoo writings encourage persons afflicted with an incurable distemper to drown themselves in some sacred river, or to throw themselves under the wheels of the car of Jugunnat'h, or to caft themselves into a fire prepared by their relatives. Multitudes annually; perish by these means; as they are pro 1 mised by the shaster, a healthful body in the next transmigration; and they believe, that if they die a natural death, the same disease will cleave to them in the following and perhaps in successive births. At an annual festival in honour of the god Seeb, multitudes inflict on their bodies the most shocking cruelties: some have large hooks thrust through the flesh of their backs, by which they are drawn up into the air, and swung round, for fifteen or twenty minutes, the whole weight of the body suspended on the flesh resting on these hooks; others have a large slit cut through the centre of their tongue; others cast their naked bodies on open knives fastened a woolsack, from a height of ten feet from the ground; others have cords drawn between the skin and the ribs in each side, while they dance in honour of this deity; and these devotees close this festival by dancing, with their feet uncovered, on burning coals. Such is the superstitious faith of the Hindoos in the supposed efficacy of the waters of the sacred rivers in India, that multitudes, in a state of perfect health, put an end to life by drowning themselves in these rivers. At a junction of two sacred rivers at Allahabad, crowds thus perish every year. Capt. Pudner saw sixteen females drown themselves in one morning, as he sat at his own window at Allahabad; and while Dr. Robinson resided there, twelve men at once, with pans fastened to their necks, plunged into the river, and sunk to rise no more. The Missionary residing there often writes in the utmoft diftrefs at beholding the number of victims who are immolated in this awful manner. More than a thousand perfons are fupposed to perifh annually in the pilgrimages to the temples and rivers of India. All the dying, refiding near enough to the Ganges and other facred rivers, are hurried, in the agonies of death, and expofed, in the open air, to the fcorching sun by day, and to the dews of night, that they may, as they hope, be purified in their laft moments by these waters. The deaths of multitudes who might survive are thus haftened, and indefcribable miferies are hereby inflicted on the dying. Mr. Ward has brought with him from India an official document, signed by the British magiftrates, from which it appears, that, in one of the three Prefidencies of British India only, the Prefidency of Bengal, in the year 1817, Seven Hundred and Six widows were BURNT ALIVE, OF BURIED ALIVE, leaving behind them thousands of orphans, thus deprived of father and mother in one day! Mr. Ward bas himself witnessed the burning live of three widows; and might have witnessed many more if he could have endured the horrid fight. In what other part of the world have fires like thefe ever been kindled, and murders like these, at non day, ever been perpetrated? The ravage monfters of the foreft, who live on blood, protect their offspring; but the superstition of the Hindoos transforms the mother into a monster more savage than the tyger, and compels the son to set fire to the pile which is to devour the living mother, who fed him from her breafts and dandled him on her knees. And these infernal deeds are perpetrated amidst the exultations of "the mild and amiable bramhuns," whose shouts rend the air, while the poor victim, the heart broken widow, utters her frantic screams, and while her flesh palpitates amidst the flames. Mr. Ward is firmly persuaded that the number of widows who thus annually perish in that part of India alone, is far, far greater than the numbers announced in this official statement. Such are a few of the positive miseries brought on India, in this world, by the religion of these "mild bramhuns." To remove these miseries only, by diffufing the light of Christianity, at whatever expense, is surely worthy the efforts of those who call themselves Christian philanthropists. But this is not the end of this tale of woe:-For all the millions of children ir. India, there is not provided the smallest moral instruction whatever; there is not a single school for girls throughout that vast continent; and amongst 75,000,000 of females, not twenty individuals are able either to read or write! What wives-what mothers these! No wonder that they destroy their offspring, and that their offspring destroy them! Some persons have contended that the Hindoos are a moral people; but how should a people be moral, whose gods are personifications of sin, whose priests are notorious for impurity and rapacity, whose temples are houses of ill fame, and whose religious ceremonies, instead of purifying the mind, excite nothing but impure associations? There is not a people on earth so thoroughly given up to lasciviousness, to deception, to falsehood, and to fraud, as the Hindoos, and so completely destitute of principle. Surely they need Christianity, who have no better God than Jugunnat'h, i.e. the stump of a tree, no better Saviour than the Ganges, no other expectation in death than that of transmigrating into the body of some reptile. But Christianity has doubtless a most important reference to a future state. The apostle tells us, "There is no other name given under heaven whereby we can be saved, but the name of Christ." Here, in India, 150,000,000 of immortal beings have, every thirty years, been passing into eternity, like the worshippers of the goddess Diana, "without God, without Christ, and without hope in the world." Where is our regard to the authority of Christ, whose command is still un repealed, "Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature," if such a loud call for christian help is disregarded? Where "the mind that was in Christ Jesus?" What kind of estimate do we form of the value of the interposition of Christ, the value of Christianity, if in such circumstances as those of the Hindoos, we think they may do well enough without Christianity? If the gospel was necessary to the generation living in the time of Paul, it must be equally necessary to all men now; if necessary to one nation, it must be necessary to all, for the spiritual state of man is every where substantially the same. If necessary to Athens, it must be so to India. But it is said, foreigners can do nothing for India ;-they cannot obtain access to the Hindoos; the natives will not hear them; they will not read what they publish. As a complete answer to these mistakes, Mr. Ward, who has been engaged as a Missionary on the spot, that is, at Serampore, during the laft twenty years, offers the following rapid sketch of THE PROGRESS OF CHRISTIANITY IN INDIA. Dr. Carey and his brethren have translated and published the whole Bible in the Shanscrit, the learned language of India, and the parent of fifty dialects; also in the Bengalee, spoken by twelve millions of people; and in the Hindee, the Marhatta, and the Orissa. They have also translated and pub lished the New Testament in the Chinese, the Punjabee, the Telinga, the Assam, the Gujuratee, the Pushtoo, the Kunkun, and the Kurnata languages; and when Mr. Ward was leaving Serampore, there were twelve more new versions in the press. The Divine word has been thus published already, in whole or in part, in Twenty-Five of the languages of India; and these translations have been the entire means of some of the most interesting conversions in India, of comforting many a dying Hindoo, and of spreading a great light in those dark regions. More than a thousand individuals have been received by these Missionaries into the Christian church by baptifm; and more than six hundred of these were Hindoos or Mahometans who bad not previously lost cast; and a few were persons of the highest cast, bramhuns. In the schools established by these Missionaries, there were, when Mr. Ward left Serampore, Eight Thousand heathen children under instruction; and he supposes there could not be less than 12,000 more in the schools established by the Bengal government, by other Missionaries, and by private gentlemen. The change in the views of the British government in India, in the minds of natives,in favour of the labours of Missionthe white population, and in those of the aries, during the last twenty years, has been most astonishing. Many rich natives in Bengal are subscribers to native schools, and are united with the whites in various Christian institutions, as in the Hindoo College, the School Society, the School Book Society, &c. Before Mr. Ward left Serampore, deputations of Hindoos from the towns around Serampore, were daily coming, entreating that the Missionaries would erect schools in their villages. The Calcutta Auxiliary Bible Society have printed the Rev. Henry Martyn's translations of the Persian & Hindoost'hanee New Testaments, the Malay and the Armenian Bibles, the Tamul and Cingalese New Testaments, &c. and Bible Societies have 1 en established at Madras, Bombay, the Isle of France, Malacca, Batavia, Columbo, |