world," and not the doctrine of Christ. But they try to justify themselves in listening to it, and in "conforming to the world." It is, say they, the sin of the Priest, not ours.—It will, we apprehend, appear to be an awful thing at the hour of death, to have entered into the Priest's office.

A Jarejah chief, by name HUTAGEE, who had preserved his young daughters, contrary to custom, brought them to the British camp to be vaccinated. They were six or eight years of age, but they wore turbans, and were dressed and habited like boys, to avoid the taunts and re. proaches of the people! "As if ashamed or afraid "of acknowledging their sex (even to the English) they assured Col. Walker that they were "not girls; and with infantile simplicity appealed to their father to corroborate their "assertion.". Par. 137.

How shall we be able rightly to comprehend the mental debasement of this people? No sooner does God create an immortal soul in a female form, than the parent destroys it! And if by any means, the infant escape for a few years, she is contemplated as a reproach to their Cast!

And yet, abhorrent to nature as this may appear, we must consider it as being only the extreme degree of a principle which is common to all nations of the earth, where Christianity

is not known; namely, a disposition " To de"grade the female character." For, unless a man can consider a woman as a partaker of the immortality of the Gospel, and, "as being an "heir together with him of the grace of life;" 1 Pet. iii. 7. he will not account her his equal. He will estimate her being in the scale merely of intellectual power, or of brute strength; that is, he will consider her as his inferior, and as formed to be the slave of his pleasures. And, we may add, the Infidelity of Europeans tends directly to the same result. It is on record in the annals of nations, that Philosophy, as well as Idolatry, debased thus the female sex. Christianity alone ever did, Christianity alone ever can, give due honour to the character of WOMAN, and exalt her to her just place in the creation of God.

It will give pleasure to the mothers in Great Britain to learn, that a Translation of the Holy Scriptures is preparing for the inhabitants of Guzerat. t

*See, on this subject, Appendix to the "Eras of Light," preached by the Author before the University of Cambridge,

The Guzerattee language has been cultivated by Mr Drummond, Surgeon on the Bombay Establishment, who composed a Dictionary and Grammar in the same; and it appears from a late Report of the Missionaries at Serampore, that they had commenced a version of the Scriptures in that language. The Jarejahs are described by Governor Duncan

TANJORE.

The letters of KING GEORGE the FIRST to the Missionaries in India, will form a proper introduction to the account which it is now intended to give of the Christian Hindoos of Tanjore. The first Protestant Mission in India was founded by Bartholomew Ziegenbalg, a man of erudition and piety, educated at the University of Halle, in Germany. He was ordained by the learned Burmannus, bishop of Zealand, in his twenty-third year, and sailed for India in 1705. In the second year of his ministry he founded a Christian Church among the Hindoos, which has been extending its limits to the present time. In 1714, he returned to Europe for a short time, and on that occasion was honoured with an audience by his Majesty George the First, who took much interest in the success of the Mission. He was also patronized by "the "Society for promoting Christian Knowledge," which was superintended by men of distin guished learning and piety. The King and the Society, encouraged the Oriental Mission

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of Bombay as "possessing a very slight sense of religion; professing indeed but little more than nominally the Hindu Faith, and living almost indifferent to the doctrines of any "of the Sastras." Moor's Hindu Infanticide, p. 39.

Ir

ary to proceed in his translation of the Scriptures into the Tamul tongue, which they designated "the grand work." This was indeed THE GRAND WORK; for wherever the Scriptures are translated into the vernacular tongue, and are open and common to all, inviting inquiry and causing discussion, they cannot remain "a dead letter." When the Scriptures speak to a heathen in his own tongue, his conscience responds, "This is the word of God." How little is the importance of a version of the Bible in a new language understood by some. The man who produces a translation of the Bible into a new language, (like Wickliffe, and Luther, and Ziegenbalg, and Carey) is a greater benefactor to mankind than the Prince who founds an Empire. For the "incorruptible "seed of the word of God" can never die. After ages have revolved, it is still producing new accessions to truth and human happiness.

In the year 1719, Ziegenbalg finished the Bible in the Tamul tongue, having devoted fourteen years to the work. The peculiar interest taken by the King in this primary endeavour to evangelize the Hindoos, will appear from the following letters, addressed to the Missionaries by his Majesty,

"GEORGE, by the Grace of God, King of Great Britain, "France and Ireland, Defender of the Faith, &c. "to the Reverend and Learned Bartholomew Ziegenbalgius and John Ernest Grundlerus, Mission"aries at Tranquebar, in the East Indies.

"Reverend and Beloved,

"Your letters, dated the 20th of January of the pre"sent year, were most welcome to us; not only because the work undertaken by you of converting the "heathen to the Christian faith, doth, by the grace of "God, prosper, but also because that, in this our king"dom, such a laudable zeal for the promotion of the "gospel prevails.

"We pray you may be endued with health and "strength of body, that you may long continue to ful"fil your ministry with good success; of which, as we "shall be rejoiced to hear, so you will always find us "ready to succour you in whatever may tend to pro"mote your work, and to excite your zeal. We assure you of the continuance of our royal favour.

"GEORGE R.

"Given at our Palace of Hampton

Court, the 23d of August,

64

A. D. 1717, in the 4th year

" of our Reign."

The King continued to cherish, with much solicitude, the interests of the mission, after the death of Ziegenbalgius; and in ten years from the date of the foregoing letter, a second was addressed to the members of the mission, by his Majesty.