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at more than ever. He is, however, a favourite of mine, the gentlest, kindest creature, with such earnest eyes. He dined here last night and tried to persuade me that only statesmen should study history; he thinks that the Bible is the only book worth reading, and looked coldly at me when I said the book of God's providence revealed to us by history was also a worthy study for every Christian man. 'I have no leisure for it," said he. What strange people there are in the world!'

Mr. McDougall speaks of the climate of Hong Kong—where, as well as at Canton, he was very kindly and hospitably received at that time of the year as cool, clear, and dry; and in a letter dated February 23, 1851, written on shipboard halfway to Singapore, he describes the good ship as bowling along before a fine and fair monsoon, no doubt very invigorating. But, notwithstanding the voyage and the use of a hot spring at Malacca recommended as a specific against rheumatism, when he rejoined his wife there and they were ready to leave that place he was himself very far from well, while she was still ailing. He therefore thankfully accepted the proposal of the committee that they should return home for a season for their joint benefit.

Want of health must have brought them home very shortly, for he felt that nothing except a complete change of climate would get the rheumatism out of him. But there was another motive which induced his friends to urge his return. In the preceding year the proposal for a bishopric in Borneo had first taken form, and it was felt that his presence would greatly assist in carrying it into effect. A step had been taken to forward this object by the Rajah, for when, shortly before starting for England, the expected arrival of three new missionaries was announced, he was struck by the necessity of a more complete organisation to control the subordinates, whose zeal, he feared, might run ahead of discretion. On January 28, 1851, he therefore addressed a letter in the following terms to Mr. McDougall: The Dyak population must be moved in the

mass, and as a rule the jealousy of the Mohammedan population must not be roused. We have now toleration, charity, and peace, and these blessings must not be risked by the indiscreet zeal of Christian men striving to introduce their faith among others.' 'You are aware of this danger and know that I speak the words of sober reason, when I say that, let the bigotry of Islam once be roused, the mission will not succeed, and wars and bloodshed may attend an attempt to introduce Christianity.' 'The Government is of course the ultimate judge of what concerns the public peace, but there ought to be some power in the Church itself to give unity of design and execution, and to prevent and to check the slightest tendency towards the evil I have mentioned. How is this to be done? Have you ecclesiastical authority to control the other clergymen? If you have not, and I do not perceive how you can have, what objection could there be to making you Bishop of Sarawak? There would be no objection on my part, and I consider certainly that some authority within the Church itself is necessary to control the clergy, and to offer the Government a responsible person, with whom it could treat and in whom it could confide.'

At the same time, indeed by the same mail, a letter was received from Dr. Jacobson, the Regius Professor of Divinity at Oxford and in later years the venerable Bishop of Chester, in which he said: 'I have been much struck by the language of a letter addressed to you by Sir James Brooke from Penang Hill on April 27 last, which has been subjoined to an address of the committee. He calls on you to urge efficient organisation and a supply of labourers to till the field, for you can do no more than regulate and superintend those under you;' and adds afterwards: 'In the event of this increase being made, there should be powers vested in you of controlling and arranging their functions. Was the foundation of a bishopric in the Rajah's mind when he wrote this? The language certainly scems to point to that, though the word does not happen to be

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used. You are aware, I doubt not, that when he was at Oxford a commencement was made towards the raising of a fund for the endowment of a bishopric in Borneo. No effort was made, but a sum of 530/., if my memory serves me correctly, was raised and funded. If once it were understood that the time was considered to have arrived, there would be, I believe, very little difficulty or delay in raising that sum to the amount which might be deemed necessary for the purpose. Clergy have invariably, as far as I am aware, clustered round a bishop, and, if you are consecrated to fill the see, you would soon have help in some sort adequate to the wants of your position, whereas thus far a great part of your labour has been singlehanded, and you have at no time had more than one coadjutor. I shall be very glad to know how this matter strikes you on the spot.'

These letters were at once sent by Mrs. McDougall, in a joint letter from herself and her husband, to her brother, mentioning that by the very same mail they had received the most depressing despatches from the managers of the Borneo Church Mission, calling upon them to curtail all expenses and even disband the Chinese school. They urged their brother, therefore, to take the initiative by calling a meeting of the subscribers and throwing the undertaking into the hands of the S.P.G. They paid a tribute to the efforts and goodwill of the old committee, but pointed out the necessity of placing the mission upon an enlarged footing. There was, in fact, no difference of opinion on the subject, and, with the consent of all parties interested, the Borneo Church Mission became a branch of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel. The erection of the bishopric was a less easy matter.

It

But before returning to England both Mr. and Mrs. McDougall felt it imperative upon them to revisit Sarawak. was necessary to make arrangements there before they left, and to decide on the location of the clergy after their departure. They had also pledged themselves to be present at the mar

riage, which was to take place from their house, of Mr. (afterwards Sir John) Scott, the Governor of Labuan, with Miss Cooke, a lady friend who had come out from England for that purpose and was to sail with them for Sarawak. They reached Kuchin in May 1851, after a tedious and unpleasant voyage in a native trader swarming with scorpions, centipedes, and minor vermin, and so crammed with Chinese coolies as passengers that it was hardly possible to move without treading on a sleeping or sea-sick fellow-creature. They suffered a good deal in this voyage of fourteen days, which they would scarcely have undertaken in such a vessel had better means of locomotion offered, for four days appears to have been the usual time of passage in a steamer or Government vessel between Singapore and Sarawak. Most glad, therefore,' Mrs McDougall says, 'were we to land and thank God for His mercies in our dear little church again.' And in a letter of May 9, observing on her own sufferings from sea-sickness, and their escape from being stung by poisonous reptiles in the ship, which they killed every day, she says: 'It was, however, almost worth a fortnight's discomfort on board the "Sultan" or "Scorpion," as we called it, to get home and see how lovely, fresh, and clean everything looked.' She describes the wedding, with many kind remarks about the persons concerned, their anxiety for the appearance of the bridegroom, as the gunboat in which he was expected was late: 'Every gun we hear,' she said, 'makes us jump, and every tide we look with wistful eyes down the river.' She mentions the wedding cake, which had cost them two days' work to make, and which when ready iced they had put into a box nailed down to keep it from the air, but which was so large that they feared it would break asunder before it was cut; that she was to give the breakfast, and that after the wedding the newly married pair were to be Captain Brooke's guests or live at Mr. Crookshank's new house, or picnic at Santubong. All went off satisfactorily, and such details of past events would be out

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of place were it not to mark the lively interest which after all her troubles she took in all persons around her. She sends messages to her boy, who had parted with a tooth, and says: 'I did not set Charley's little peg in a ring, but gave it a kiss and threw it away. It has a good substitute, I hope, and by

the time I see him all his first teeth will have vanished.'

In all the letters received from Sarawak at that time, there are constant accounts of baptisms of school and other children, as well as of adult Chinese catechumens. They are not all repeated here, as they do not usually greatly differ, and it is not desired to measure the success of the work by the number of the converts and the relative cost of converting them, but rather to describe the life and views of the founders of the mission. Nevertheless, it must be observed that the progress among the Chinese was remarkable when contrasted with that of other similar undertakings elsewhere. On the visit of Mr. McDougall to Hong Kong he was applied to for employment by the Rev. A. Horsburg, who, having received deacon's orders in Scotland, had been ordained priest by the Bishop of Victoria, and was then doing duty, residing at St. Paul's College there. His offer was accepted, and he proceeded at once to Borneo, after the departure of Mr. M⭑Dougall for Europe, to take the charge at Sarawak, and he then made a report to the society at home, in which he spoke with astonishment at the progress made among the Chinese. The efforts of the mission among them he declared to have been crowned with a success which to him who had just come from China, and had witnessed the little apparent fruit which had attended the labours of the Protestant missionaries in that country, was no less surprising than gratifying. This he attributed to the mode in which Christianity had been presented to the people as a system.

It is more than thirty-six years since that report was written, and during that period much has been done by the Protestant missionaries in China. Injuring each other by