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towards the beautiful stars. Then presently there was a cessation of the frantic beating of the tom-toms, and a chant was again raised by the priests, which sounded like a verse from the De Profundis, while for a short time they halted. Then again in the front of the procession there sprang up another brilliant light, this time an exquisite fountain of fire, something similar to what, when I was a schoolboy, we used to call a 'flowerpot.' In India they are great adepts in the manufacture of fireworks. Then the procession moved slowly on again to the music of Shiva's bands, and then again halts. Another rocket hisses from the front, and soon explodes in beautifully coloured balls. Then there is another pause for chanting, and then another rocket, and then another tremendous clash of tom-toms and cymbals, and all kinds of music;' a few yards of progress for the procession, more fireworks, and so on, with an alternation of music, fireworks, and chanting; till in about an hour the circle of the church had been completed, and the ceremony was ended. I left before the conclusion, having witnessed all that I needed to enable me to say that I have seen Syrianism now under, I think, every aspect.

The Syrian system itself is as bad as bad can be. It is, however, more the result of ignorance than bigotry. The Syrian priests are certainly, as a rule,

Syrian Ignorance, not Bigotry.

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not bigoted; they are in no way afraid of or prejudiced against the Protestant labours of our missionaries. The best of them send their sons to us for their education. There is, so far as I can perceive, no feeling of distrust towards the efforts of Englishmen, as there was when the missionaries were associated with their bishops in the government of their college. They have no 'Index Expurgatorius.' They accept, for the most part, everything we do. And, above all, they are not afraid of the influence of the Bible. Notwithstanding, therefore, their superstitions, they are not separated from us by the exclusive fanaticism of the Roman Catholics. They are open to the influence of kindness, education, and the Word of God. But the ignorance of the masses, and even of the great majority of the priests, as regards scriptural knowledge, is still dense. This is because their system leaves them ignorant. Their religious services, even were they ever so pure and scriptural, could never send one ray of light into the darkness of the human heart; for they are in Syriac, a language that comparatively few even of the priests understand. Our duty, then, is to try to expel the ignorance, while we take advantage of their friendly feeling towards us. Education and it cannot be too good for a decidedly intellectual people like these-and with it the Word of God in the vernacular, are manifestly the two great instrumentalities for us to wield.

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Such were my thoughts as I traced my way homewards. And as the clamour of drum and cymbals, and the shrill tone of the hautboys, and the rush of the rockets, grew fainter in the distance, I could not help wondering whether I should ever see the day when such follies should become the exception, instead of the rule, amongst the Syrian churches, and should likewise die away in the distance of time, a mere echo of an ignorant and superstitious past.

How far are we using the proper instrumentalities aright? The answer is to be found in the present state and working of the missions; in the college, the printing press, the mission churches and schools, and last, but not least, the status of our native agency.

Let us begin by a review of the college. I have often wished that the friends and authorities of missionary societies could visit missions; that is, not give us merely 'pop'visits to examine our schools, and look at our churches, and assemble conferences-which are often, after all, more or less a sham-but stay with us a month or two, or even a year or two, and, by taking themselves for a while an active share in our work, obtain an insight otherwise impossible. But as this is for the many impossible, I must try to describe our work as well as I can. How far does the education in the college act evangelistically on the country, and particularly on the Syrian body?

It is evident that it ought to exert a very powerful in

Mission College: its Aspect.

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fluence, for the college endowment allows of its accommodating (at the present time) about eighty boarders, each one of whom must be of Syrian parentage, besides about fifty day boys, who are drawn from both Christians and the higher-caste heathen. The education given is such as to fit the young men for almost any position in life; and, at least so long as I was connected with it, considerable attention was given to divinity. The first class, consisting of young men of from 18 to 21 years of age, read each half-year a gospel or an epistle in Greek, as well as Church history (of which I made a great point), and Evidences of Christianity. Great pains was also taken, as you would suppose, in the explanation of Christian doctrine, and in exposing the errors and superstitions both of the Syrians and the Roman Catholics-of whom, as I have told you, there are great numbers on the coast. The secular part of the education is exactly such as is required for matriculation in the Madras University, to which the Cottayam College is affiliated. The Syrians are intellectually a superior class of people. I have had a boy under nineteen years of age reading as high in mathematics as the elements of geometrical conic sections and statics; and, judging from themes and essays I have had, they are in vigour of imagination, I think, above the average of Anglo-Saxons.

Religiously too, the college bears gratifying fruits.

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And to God alone the praise is due. Of several of our number who have died in youth, I have had most satisfactory, and in one or two instances most affecting evidence of real simple-hearted piety. One dear lad, who had reached the head of the second class at an unusually early age, and was from his striking skill in mathematics and vivid imagination almost another Kirke White, when dying at the early age of sixteen wrote with his dying hand on a card, and sent it to me as a last memento, To me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.' His father gave it to me with many tears, and said with choking voice, Sir, I used to fear death; it was one of my weaknesses, of my burdens; but now that I have seen how my John died, I can fear it no longer.' Another, who died at seventeen or eighteen, after a lingering dysentery, was, I was told, a true evangelist on his sick bed, both through the consistency of his patience and his words to those about him. A third, who died suddenly of cholera in the midst of an examination in one of the large towns of the Carnatic, at a distance from his home, left his friends, who urged him to delay attending the examination on account of the prevalence of that fell disease, with these words, 'I go in the strength of God, because I believe it to be my duty.' His brother, who is now in a prominent position as an inspector of schools, under the Madras

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