blishment at Serampore; or of the College at Calcutta, founded more recently by the late Bishop of that Diocese? I cannot think that the man who appears to have been so industrious in collecting information to the prejudice of Protestant Missionaries, needs to be informed, that they also have always "selected the best-disposed and most intelligent among the Native Converts, and established Schools for the forming of Catechists or Native Religious Teachers"—or, that they have "superintended and directed those Schools of Catechists, and made it their principal study to give them an education suited to their intended profession." Neither can he be ignorant, that the composition and translation of Religious Tracts, and other Elementary Works, has formed a prominent part of the Protestant Missionary's labours. Has he never seen the valuable Dialogues of Swartz, in Tamul; or any of the numerous Catechisms, and other Works of various sizes, published by the Danish Missionaries, and the Agents of the Christian Knowledge Society in South India, for many years past? Is he ignorant of the thousands of Elementary and other Publications that issue annually from the various Presses in Bengal and Madras? No several parts of his Letters shew, that he is well aware of what is going forward in this and other departments of Missionary Labour. I will therefore relate but two cases in point. Last year, the Press of the Church Missionary Society at Madras, alone, sent forth Thirty Thousand Copies of Religious Publications! During my residence in Tinnevelly, the Madras District Committee of the Christian Knowledge Society, and the Corresponding Committee of the Church Missionary Society, sent me annually, upon an average, TwoThousand Religious Publications, for the use of their respective Missions in that distant province!-I will only add, that every* Protestant Mission in India is as well, and many are much better, supplied with Works of the same description: and that they are not published for the Catechists only (as the Jesuits' Tracts, &c. appear to have been), but are distributed among all ranks of Christians and Heathens, that are found capable of understanding, and desirous of possessing them. There is another, and that a most promising department of Missionary Labour; to which, as far as I can learn, from the "Let * Of course, I except newly-formed Stations. ters" now before me, and other sources of information, the Roman-Catholic Missionaries have paid no attention-I mean the establishment of Schools for all classes of Children. I know not of a single Protestant Missionary Station in South India, where there is not an English School for the benefit of those Children whose parents wish them to learn our language, and one or more Schools in which the Children of Christians and Heathens are taught the Elements of useful and Religious Knowledge in their vernacular tongues. To expatiate on the expediency or utility of such Institutions is, happily, quite unnecessary for it is now acknowledged, by all who have given the subject a candid consideration, that it is of primary importance "to rear the tender thought; If this be the case in Christian Countries, how much more so must it be in Pagan Lands, while the mind is yet supple, and ere it is benighted by Superstition, or distorted by Vice! Such are the instruments which Protestants employ, for the enlightening, the meliorating, the evangelizing of Hindoostan, Whether or no these, and the other means here enumerated, are well adapted to the end in view, will be best ascertained by the successes that have hitherto attended them; and which I shall briefly enumerate in the next Section. SECTION IV. THE SUCCESS WHICH HAS ALREADY ATTENDED THE MEANS USED BY PROTESTANTS, FOR THE CONVERSION OF THE HINDOOS. THE Abbé Dubois, to shew that the “brilliant success" of the Serampore Missionaries, in "translating the Scriptures, within the short period of nine or ten years, into no less than Twenty-four Asiatic Languages," "has not in the least dazzled him, nor altered his opinion, nor diminished his scepticism on the entire inadequacy of such means to enlighten the Pagans and gain them over to Christianity," adds, "I would not certainly dare to warrant, that these twenty spurious Versions, with some of which I am acquainted, will, after the lapse of the same number of years, have operated the conversion of twentyfour Pagans:" (p. 37.) This, we are to conclude, is the lowest estimate of good which he supposes likely to result from them. He thinks it is possible, then, that they may produce this number of conversions. I will venture to affirm, that if, at the expiration of twenty-four years, it shall appear that the same number of immortal souls have been actually converted through the perusal of those "spurious Versions," there are few Members of the Bible Society, who contributed towards their publication, but will feel grateful to Almighty God for this apparently small quantity of success. When the value of one soul is maturely considered, and it is remembered that such corruptible things as silver and gold were not of sufficient value to redeem it-that its ransom from sin and death cost "the precious blood of Christ!"— what labour, what expense, that men can bestow upon its conversion, can be more than equivalent? His objection, then, arising from the imperfect manner in which those Translations are executed, will be lighter than a feather, in the judgment of those who alone |