schools, and the public; and the whole is excellently conducted under the superintendence of Principal Mill. To this establishment are attached, the schools at Hourah, Russapugly, and Cossipore, which exhibit one of the most pleasing specimens of native education to be found in India; and which are superintended by missionaries recently arrived in India, and pursuing their studies at the college. The opportunity thus afforded for systematic instruction under excellent teachers, coupled with the means of acquiring an intimate acquaintance with the natives, is superior to any thing of a similar description hitherto enjoy. ed in India. Four missionaries are already attached to the establishment; and it is understood that the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts is preparing to send European Missionaries to Madras, and likewise to Bombay, as soon as persons properly qualified can be procured.

The Report next states what has been effected in the department which will occupy for the future the Society's principal attention in the East, the establishment of Native Schools. The special fund formed for that purpose amounts to about eight thousand pounds. Liberal contributions have been received; but the circumstances of the times have retarded the progress of the subscription. The society has gladly authorised the Calcutta Committee to make grants, with the consent of the Bishop, to such schools as may appear most in need and most deserving of their assistance. Similar grants have likewise been made to the Madras committee, who have transmitted by their late secretary, Mr. Clarke, a very full and gratifying account of their proceedings. The completion of the new church at Vepery, and the excellent condition of the native schools at that station, are describ ed in the most satisfactory terms. The Bishop of Calcutta has informed

the society that the Church of England, from its adherence to the apostolic institution of Episcopacy, is gradually acquiring great influence with the Christians of different oriental stocks, the Greek, the Syrian, and the Armenian. His lordship has endeavoured to further this desirable intercourse by corresponding with the Syrian Bishop, and by disposing of small proportions of the society's vote of credit in presents to Armenian and Syrian clergymen; and a youth of the latter race is now under education in Bishop's College. The society trusts that an effectual opening may be obtained for the conveyance of its aid to the schools in Travancore; and it has promised to confirm the grants for that purpose which may be recommended by the Bishop of Calcutta and the Madras committee.

The native schools in Ceylon are supported, for the most part, by the local government; and the Bishop of Calcutta has suggested a plan by which they may be placed upon the most efficient footing, and prove a beneficial example to the rest of India. The society has testified its readiness to assist in the good work, by granting five hundred pounds to its committee at Ceylon. An institution for the specific purpose of educating teachers, who might afterwards become catechists, and in some cases be admitted into Holy Orders, having been strongly recommended by the Bishop of Calcutta, the society assured his lordship of its readiness to act according to his advice to the full extent of its means.

The society has appropriated nearly three thousand pounds out of the Native School Fund, to the various purposes which have been enumerated; and has made itself responsible to a much larger amount towards promoting the education of the people of Hindostan. Every fresh arrival from the East, it is stated, furnishes accumulated evidence to prove that education, and education

alone, can overcome the prejudices of the heathen, and prepare the way for the reception of Christianity. In the diocese of Jamaica a new committee has been established at Honduras; and the Society has the happiness of being assured, both by the Bishop of Jamaica, and the Secretaries of the Jamaica Committee, that religious education and instruction are decidedly gaining ground. In a letter recently received, the Bishop acquaints the society, that he has consecrated the first chapel which has been erected since his appointment; and that he is happy in the expectation of being frequently called upon to exercise this pleasing part of his office. The entire sum of five hundred pounds, placed by the society at his lordship's disposal, has been appropriated to the purposes of education.

The presence of the Bishop of Barbados in this country enabled the society to procure much information respecting his lordship's plans and proceedings. At the Bishop's suggestion, the society undertook to print editions of the National School Books, and of the Catechism, in French and Spanish, for the use of the islands in which those languages are spoken by the Negroes; and an ample supply of these and other works has been forwarded to the West Indies. The Society learned with satisfaction, that in addition to the schools previously existing in Bridge Town, of which several were in a good condition, his lordship had established four charity schools in that place for the free Blacks and the Slave population. The national system was adopted, and the children were taught to read the Bible and say the catechism. Parents and proprietors, it is stated, have willingly sent their children to these institutions; and when the last accounts came away, a hundred girls were to be seen in one of the schools, neat and orderly, and employed during the morning in reading and receiving religious instruction; and

during the afternoon in needle-work. Besides the model schools at Bridge Town, the Bishop of Barbados has adopted a plan for the general instruction of the Black population throughout his diocese. He proposes to appoint catechists in every parish, whose especial duty it will be to instruct the slaves, under the direction of the clergy, and with the permission of their respective masters. The society considers that the great work of promoting Christian Knowledge in the West Indies has been auspiciously commenced, and trusts that its future progress will be accelerated rather than retarded.

In conclusion, the society, with gratitude to Almighty God, for the support which has been vouchsafed to its humble efforts in promoting the knowledge of his truth, prays for a continuance of the Divine blessing, which can alone crown its labours with success.

Prefixed to the Report is a truly excellent and impressive discourse, delivered before the society, by the Bishop of Llandaff, Dr.C.R.Sumner. His lordship alludes as follows to the auspicious extension of Christian Missions, and the success with which it has pleased God to prosper them:

"It is one of the most encouraging features of the present times, considered relatively to religion, that the eternal interests of that great portion of the human race on whom the Sun of Righteousness has not yet risen, are no longer wantonly disregarded by the professors of revelation. To provide a remedy for their lack of knowledge,' so far as human zeal or mortal agents can provide it, begins to be recognized as a national duty; and those holy associations which are engaged in the dissemination of the word of God, in the encouragement of missionary exertion, in the diffusion of religious truth, whether by oral or written means, are all actively combating the indolence and indifference of worldly feelings, and creating a care for the souls of others by

teaching men first to know the value of their own. May He whose promise it is to prosper the increase, give an abundant harvest to the labourers in his spiritual vineyard. May His 'knowledge cover the earth as the waters cover the sea.' May He hasten the number of his elect,' so that his glorious kingdom may be established in power, and that happy time arrive, in expectation of which the whole creation groaneth and travaileth together,' when all the kingdoms of the earth shall become the kingdoms of God, and of his Christ.

"That the blessing of God has already rested in a great degree on those who are thus doing the work of Evangelists, may be asserted without fear of contradiction. It may be urged, indeed, that the numerical proportion of those who have heard and believed their report is small. But let their success be estimated, as in fairness it ought, not by the number of those who remain deaf to the ministry of reconciliation, and who refuse to hear the voice of the charmer, charm he never so wisely, but by the faithfulness of those few whose hearts the Lord has opened. The object is to convert, not to a nominal, but to a real faith. Profession is not religion. The Apostle asks How shall they call on him in whom they have not believed?' Faith in the Object of adoration must precede the act of adoration. It is as the root, supporting the whole tree; or as the reasoning soul, informing and dignifying the whole body."

His lordship shews the difficulty of missionary labours, according to this only true estimate-the low standard of religion among professed Christians.

"When, however, we try by this test the real character of that religious worship which is paid to God, even in a Christian land, there is much that will grieve, much that will alarm, and much that will render watchful the serious observer of CHRIST. OBSERV. APP.

these things. If profession be not religion, how few are they that shall be saved! How little is Christ's flock, even upon the most charitable allowance that we can make, and after the fairest interpretation which can be put on the opinions and practices of Christians, so called! If profession be not religion, how few of those who swell the number of worshippers in the courts of the Lord's house here below, and join with their lips in the accents of prayer and praise,-undistinguished from the humble and penitent believer in Jesus, save by the same God who rejected the offering of Cain and accepted that of Abel, or who turned from the formal Pharisce in the temple, to listen to the prayer of the poor publican,-will stand hereafter, when every veil shall be torn away, and every inmost thought discovered, with the company of saints who are before the throne of God for ever, and serve him day and night, and sing the new song, in the presence of the Lamb, to his glory and honour!

"This, in truth, is a fearful mode of calculating the reality of our religion. But when Christianity has become, as it were, a geographical distinction, and the world is divided into the Christian world, and the heathen world, it becomes us to ask ourselves on which side we stand, not according to that nominal line of demarcation, which has been adopted in the common language of mankind as a convenient and sufficiently significant distinction, but according to that plain and marked character which separates the man of God from the man of the world; the follower of Christ from the follower of the idols of pleasure, or power, or riches, or passion, whether outwardly a member of a Christian or a heathen community. It was far otherwise when men were called Christians first in Antioch, The name of Christian then was distinctive of religion, not of country. It marked the bearer to be one of

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those that called upon the name of the Lord in the true sense intended by the Apostle. It indicated not his profession, but his principle. It separated him at once, as one of a peculiar people, from those that knew not God and the power of his salvation. But now that the state of things is different, it behoves us to examine ourselves, whether we be in the faith, by a surer test than that of a name. When decency, or formality, or policy, or expediency, or custom, are all in turn often mistaken for religion by those who are indiscriminately comprehended under the generic title of Christian,

we must enter into secret communion with ourselves and with the Father of spirits; and in the posture of prayer, and with a hearty desire to know what manner of men we really are, we must ask of God whether he will acknowledge us for his own, and whether we are indeed one with Christ, and Christ with us. "If then such watchfulness be necessary even for the dwellers in a Christian land, and they are not all Israel which are of Israel,' we shall be little justified in questioning the wisdom or the will of God respect ing the promulgation of the Gospel elsewhere, because it seems to make slow advances, as men count slowness. Rather shall we thankfully adore the goodness of God, in that he has raised up some monuments of mercy among those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death; and has not left himself without witness even among the moral deserts of a superstitious or a heathen land."

His lordship states as follows the manner in which the Gospel must be preached, whether to the heathen or the merely nominal Christian at home, and of its effects upon those who rightly receive it.

"We are verily guilty,' in a moral sense, of the blood of our brother,' if we decline fulfilling our relative duties as members of a Christian community, and see him in danger

of perishing for lack of knowledge, without stretching out a hand to save him.

"To save him is to make him know and feel effectually the leading doctrines of the Gospel. Let his moral inability to please God, without the assistance of Divine grace, be placed before his eyes, and the truth of the statements of Scripture on this point corroborated to his understanding by a practical appeal to his own internal consciousness of sin. Let it be farther enforced by an honest exposure of that prevalence of evil by which, even from the very cradle of infancy, 'the carnal mind shews itself to be at enmity with God.' His judgment having been thus convinced of his fallen state, and his conscience awakened to a sense of his danger, let him hear those comforting words which have so often allayed the fears of sinners, and converted their despair into gratitude and joy. Being justified by faith, we have peace with God, through our Lord Jesus Christ. God hath not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ,' who died for us.

And, when his heart is melted and softened by this knowledge of the Father's love, and of his Saviour's condescension, let the favourable moment be improved; let him be reminded that the new nature which has been infused into him is a gift bestowed by God for a special purpose,-'for we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works.' Let him be besought by the mercies of God,'—an argument to which a sense of his late helpless condition will give a peculiar force

to present his body a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is his reasonable service." Finally, let his newly acquired powers be contrasted with his former weakness; his present knowledge with his recent ignorance. Whereas before he could do no good thing, now he can do all things through Christ that strengtheneth