covered, it appeared, on deliberation, that Constantinople combined most advantages, with reference both to the health of Mr. Connor and his usefulness, of any other station in these seas. Therefore, committing their plans and labors to the blessing of their Heavenly Master, Mr. Connor left Malta for Constantinople, about a fortnight before Mr. Jowett sailed for Alexandria.

NORTHERN ASIA.

In passing from the Black Sea to the almost boundless steppes of Northern Asia, the language spoken in the newly acquired provinces of Russia, through which the traveller will take his course, may remind him of that great kingdom which he will leave to the southward. Though not yet prepared to receive Christians in the capacity of teachers of religion, Persia gives many encouraging indications, that the delusions of the False Prophet are losing their hold on the minds of the acute and intelligent, who have had the evidences and the character of Christianity brought into their view by the able discussions among them of the late Henry Martyn, and by the copies of the New Testament, to which the labors of that distinguished man have given them easy access. It has also been said, that a Divan, assembled by direction of the Prince Royal, at Tebriz, had decided that Christ was a true Prophet; that the laws contained in the Gospel are just; and that it is unlawful to blaspheme these laws;-it is added, that these decisions have received a legal form, and that the prince, in consequence, punished one of his domestics for insulting a Christian. If these statements should prove correct, we may anticipate at no remote period, a free entrance for Christianity into that kingdom. In the mean while, the Russian Bible Society, and the Edinburgh Missionary Society, are availing themselves of the various means of sending New Testaments and tracts into Persia; and the Church Missionary Society is supplying tracts, and has in view the translation of the Old Testament into Persian, and the establishment of a mission with ultimate reference to that kingdom.

In addition to the exertions in behalf of the heathens and Mahomedans of the Russian Empire, which are made by Russian Christians themselves, the United Brethren have long made some attempts among the Calmuc Tartars; and have been followed, in other places, by the Edinburgh and London Missionary Societies.

The Edinburgh Missionary Society has three stations, which lie on or near the Caspian Sea. Its sphere of labor has lately been much enlarged; and its prospects of success have brightened.

[1812.] Karass, in Russian Tartary, in the government of Caucasus, between the Black and Caspian Seas.

Missionaries; Alexander Patterson, James Galloway.

The reports are increasingly encouraging. The natives visit the missionaries, and the missionaries visit the villages, and travel into the surrounding steppes. Education is successfully carried on. There is much of a spirit of inquiry among the Mahomedans, and some of them are convinced of the value of Christianity; but they are kept back by dread of their bigoted brethren. The New Testament and tracts are, however, introduced even into the schools of the priests; and much may be expected by the blessing of God upon them.

"

The languages spoken in the mountains of Caucasus are very numerous. The Sacred Volume is yet unknown among them, while Mahomedans successfully exert themselves to bring over these tribes to their false religion.

[1814.] Astrachan, a city of Russian Tartary, at the mouth of the Wolga, near the N. W. shores of the Caspian.

Missionary; Mr. Glen. Assistants; John Mitchell, John Dickson.

Mr. Glen left Leith with his family on the 20th May, 1817, and reached Astrachan by water, down the Wolga, on the 6th of October. Mr. Mitchell and Mr. Dickson, who had labored several years at this station, not being in the ministry, the chapel was opened, to their great joy, by Mr. Glen on the 12th of Oct. with the regular dispensation of Christian ordinances.

In the course of 1817, there had been printed 4,000 tracts, 2,000 sheets of St. Matthew's Gospel in the Orenburg dialect, and 5,000 copies of a second edition of the Tartar New Testament as far as Galatians; 4,310 books or tracts had been

*See in our number for March, the article “Persian Toleration.”

VOL. XV.

bound and prepared for distribution, and 5,348 books or tracts had been issued from the depository. Entire New Testaments, or portions of the Scriptures, formed a considerable part of these publications. These books find their way by Mahomedan merchants and pilgrims, to Bagdat, Persia, Bucharia, and even China. Bramhuns and Jews also visit Astrachan, and become bearers of these

treasures.

Every thing shows the importance of Astrachan, as a station for diffusing Christian truth, by means of the press, throughout many parts of Asia. [1814] Orenburg, in Russian Tartary,-the capital of the government of Orenburg, to the N. E. of the Caspian-the great thoroughfare from Siberia to European Russia.

Missionaries; C. Fraser, G. Mc'Alpine. Walter Buchanan, a Cabardian.

Walter Buchanan continues faithfully to assist the missionaries. A young Kirghisian, named Mollonazar, is become a convert from Mahomedanism, and labors constantly among his countrymen. Achmet, another Mahomedan, is promising, and has often been heard crying out, “O God, never separate me from the New Testament."

The Kirghisians seem about to receive the Gospel. A chief of one of the hordes, which roam in the vic nity, earnestly wishes for a missionary.

Mr. Fraser had revised the New Testament in the Orenburg dialect, as far as the second epistle to Timothy.

The Rev. Dr. Ross, as a missionary, Mr. Gray, as a catechist, and Mr. Selby, as a settler, have been appointed to this station.

[1817] The London Missionary Society, established a mission at Irkutsk in Siberia-capital of the province, west of Lake Baikal-upward of 4,000 miles east of St. Petersburg-about 2,000 inhabitants-the chief mart of the commerce between Russia and China-the see of an Archbishop, and the seat of supreme jurisdiction over eastern Siberia.

Missionaries; Edward Stallybrass, Cornelius Rahmn.

Mr. Stallybrass, from London, and Mr. Rahmn, from Gottenburg, having met at St. Petersburg, and obtained, through the friendship of Dr. Paterson, and by the aid of the Russian government, every thing necessary for their purpose, left that city Jan. 5, 1818, O. S., and arrived at Moscow on the 15th. On the 17th, they had the honor of an interview with his Imperial Majesty, who conversed with them freely on the object of their mission, and assured them that every possible facility should be afforded them, both on their long journey, and after their arrival at Irkutsk; and expressed the most cordial wishes for their welfare and success, for which, he condescended to assure them, his prayers should ascend to God. They reached their destination in good health on the 30th of March; having been treated every where on the road with great kindness and attention. (To be continued.)

SOCIETY FOR PROMOTING CHRISTIAN KNOWLEDGE, (LONDON.) We publish from the Christian Observer the following extracts of a charge to a missionary, delivered by the Arch-deacon of London. These extracts are given, not only for the weighty matters which they contain, but as a specimen of the noble style of writing, which some of the English clergy are accustomed to use.

WE are grieved to report the death of those two excellent missionaries, Mr. Pazold, of Vepery, and the venerable Mr. Pohle, of Trichinopoly. We learn, however, with much pleasure, that another pious Lutheran clergyman, the Rev. J. G. P. Sperschneider, from the University of Hale, has been allotted for India, by the venerable Society. On the 9th of July, a special general meeting of the Society was held in Bartlett's Buildings, for the purpose of dismissing him to his labors. On this occasion the Archdeacon of London delivered an excellent Charge to Mr. Sperschneider; a few passages from which we shall gladly lay before our readers.

After referring to several topics of congratulation, such as the past exertions in India, under the Society, of members of the Lutheran church-the settled state of the British power in the East-the counsel and support of the Bishop of Cal

cutta-the progress of education-and the happy dispositions, with respect to the diffusion of Christianity, which now prevail in Britain; the Archdeacon gives a just representation of the difficulties of propagating Christianity among the inhabitants of India.

"When we regard the boundless population to which those good endeavors were directed, we cannot but indulge a sigh, and look with heaviness of spirit upon the small increase which has been added, even by their pains, to the Christian flock. Alas! the obstacles are many, and as full of difficulty as they are abundant.

"In a land where superstition and idolatry are linked with insuperable prejudice, and bound by chains of adamant upon the hearts of men-a land where all things are tied to the strict and never-changing rule of rigorous castes, and determined by fantastic notions both of honor and disgrace-notions which are stronger in the minds of those who harbor them than the love of life itself—it is hard to win a passage to the understanding, and still more hard to wean the heart from its attachments. Where none are very busy, and where the wants of life are easily supplied, you may have many hearers for a little moment; but, though you gain the leisure and attention of a listening ear, yet the choice is sealed; and pleas, which cannot be resisted on the ground of argument or reason, may receive a ready answer on the score of fixed and unalterable usage. The stern laws of the Bramhun and the Prince, alike despotic, and alike inflexibly devoted to one form of things, and that the worst that can be, will be opposed to every just persuasion. If you urge them with their gross and unworthy misconceptions of the nature and the will of God, or the monstrous follies of their fabulous theology, they will turn it off with a sly civility perhaps, or with a popular and careless proverb. You may be told that 'heaven is a wide place, and has a thousand gates;' and that their religion is one by which they hope to enter. Thus, together with their fixed persuasions, they have their sceptical conceits. By such evasions they can dismiss the merits of the case from all consideration; and encourage men to think that the vilest superstition may serve to every salutary purpose, and be accepted in the sight of God as well as truth and righteousness. To this detestable opinion, too shallow for the name of sophistry, there are not wanting some consenting voices among those possessing better privileges; among those who must add ingratitude to folly, when they venture to maintain such sentiments. If such opinions, however, do find abettors among men who enjoy the light of truth, and who should prize it at its real worth, can we wonder that the faith which they profess should make but little progress beyond the limits of their own land?"

In promoting the welfare of our Indian Empire, the Archdeacon allows full weight to the influence of a wise and impartial government; but very forcibly urges both the duty of propagating Christian truth, and its superior influence on the community.

"An equal, uncorrupt administration of the course of law and justice, which forms the peculiar glory of our own realm, is transferred already to the courts of its dependencies. Is it asked then, how benefits so precious, which guard the rights of personal security, of property, and conscience, can be further amplified, augmented, and enlarged? Can they put this question, who know what the life of man is at the best in this world, and who should know what his hope may be in a better scene? The enlargement, then, of the benefits of civil freedom, must consist in the cultivation and encouragement of moral and religious principles, without which there can be no adequate improvement in the human character, and therefore no successful operation of external laws; without which, the sum of every reasonable satisfaction in the heart of man must be wanting; and, without which, there can be no intelligible apprehension of a future state, no just presumptions, and no hopeful earnest of that happiness to which the soul of man aspires, as the fountain leaps up to its springs, and points in its utmost elevation to the level of its native current.

"Without doubt, the work of moral culture will advance, in no light measure, where the salutary end of civil government shall be maintained. But indeed there is a debt to truth; a debt which they who love the truth can never overlook. There is a public service to be rendered, which truth only, that truth which has God for its author and its object, can supply. The best improvement and the noblest exaltation of the moral character of man, can only be made good

by just conceptions of the moral attributes of God. Behold, then, the perpetual ground of every truth by which the choice of man can be directed! It is here, that the work of sound instruction must begin. His own name, his own excellence, his own perfections, form the ground of every treaty which God opens with the reasonable creature; the ground of every argument and evidence which he proposes for their notice, and of every truth which he reveals for their acceptance. Where this first principle of truth and knowledge shall be vindicated and established, the monstrous errors of idolatry and superstition (the two-fold bane of all improvement in the life of man) must be supplanted. The field will then be opened to communicate the knowledge of God's gracious will; and to teach men what his counsels and provisions have been for the succor and salvation of a fallen race, for reconciliation after trespass, for the restitution and recovery of a lost integrity, and for the glad inheritance of future and eternal glory."

"In order to the increase and enlargement of the benefits which should be derived upon a heathen population, by their intercourse with a happier and a more enlightened people, there will, on your part, be the care to couple the best rules of practical improvement with the principles of faith. You will have to testify that this is the will of God, even the cleansing of the heart from evil purposes and faulty habits; and the care to cherish in it, through this term of trial, every good and profitable disposition, every generous quality, every noble elevation. The votaries of a wild degrading superstition must be taught that such is the will of God, and not the rigors or the phrensies of fantastic methods of religion. How plain is it, that uncouth and horrid schemes of discipline produce one uniform effect, in full contradiction to the great end of revealed truth as it is designed for all! Thus they never fail to sever the professors of such narrow rules from those who may perhaps admire their zeal, and gaze at their strange performances; but who have no heart, and no rational or fit inducement, to incline them to adopt the pattern."

In displaying before the heathen "the noble image of God's everlasting attri butes," the Archdeacon shews the importance of appealing to the common feelings of mankind.

"When God calls himself a Father-who knows not what a father's love is? When he calls himself a Ruler and a Judge-who knows not that integrity and justice must be the measure of his sway? When he speaks of mercy-who, that consults his own needs, can want to be informed what that is also? Thus we are not beckoned to the clouds, nor sent into the deep; for God is ever near us, if we will consult our own hearts, aud consider what notions can be formed by us of what is good from all that we see, from all that we know, and feel, and understand. Establish well these leading principles, and you will scatter the first obstacles which would obstruct the knowledge of that saving word which God hath spoken."

After an able summary of the evidences of Revelation, particularly as those evidences apply to the reasonings which prevail in the East, the Archdeacon goes on to shew the manner in which the truths of Revelation are to be vindicated and applied.

"Having laid these grounds of truth and evidence, by which the word of God is measured and attested, how readily will you bring the means of reconciliation which you have to offer, and the precepts and the lessons which you have to teach, to a test as certain and convincing! Are they such as answer to the sov ereign excellence of the Moral Ruler? Are they such as are adapted most expressly to the needs of man? Are they such as conduce most to his best improvement: not romantic bitter trials for the self-devoted; not beds of spikes or antic feats of penance; not portentous pilgrimages, measured by a man's own length, in painful revolutions of the body; not fixed stations between earth and skies, which convert men into living statues, exposed to all the tortures of the mid-day sun, and all the chill of nightly dews;-a living death, compared with which, the peace and silence of the grave are objects of the highest envy and supreme desire. Are the precepts which you would lead men to accept, such as offer remedies to every faulty passion and disordered appetite; not by destructive means and idle scruples, but by correcting what is faulty and inordinate, and by planting better inclinations in the heart? Above all, are these things coupled with the great treaty of Redemption; that work of God's consummate counsels, which supplies a certain ground of access to a state of favor and acceptance be

fore him? Are they coupled with advantages which are established in the person and prerogative of One, who had the power to lay down and the power to take up life for others; power to ransom and redeem; power to reign and rule in a new kingdom, which is not limited to time, place, or nation; power to be an Universal Head and Source of Reparation and Renewal to those who stand united to him, those whose nature he assumed, and on whose part he appears before the Throne of Grace, a righteous and effectual Intercessor? Do the same testimonies lead us also to the needful succors which are furnished for those, who must fulfil their own appointed service before they can receive the recompence which is won for them, the great prize of another's victory? Do they lead the weak and humble to God's Holy Spirit, to the promised Comforter and perpetual Guide? "With these grounds of redemption, and these rules of faith and duty laid for our return to God, shall we, my Reverend Brother, take their counsel to be good, who would persuade us to leave man to himself, to be the slave of vicious appetites, or the dupe of manifold delusions; without authority to lead, or the sanction of authority in others to incline him to be led; most ignorant when he has most need to be instructed, and wise only to perceive his own defects, which was the sum of real wisdom in the heathen world?”

Again:

"The counsel that I would give is this: Let not the disputable tenets which divide the hearts of man in the Christian world, things which stand apart from the sure foundations of our common faith, let not these things be carried with you: leave them where, perhaps, they have done the most harm that they can do, It is surely no unreasonable word of counsel, that they who have wrangled so long for disputed things with no good success, would keep them from the ears of others, whose interest it is to learn only what is necessary to be known and needful to be practised."

"And now, my Reverend Brother, I have but to commend you to the blessing of Him, who can turn aside the arrow that flieth by day, and avert the pestilence that walketh in darkness, May His gracious favor keep you! May the happy sense of that reward which is laid up with him, support you in the sharpest day of trial! May His mercies give a good result to every hopeful expectation, which we share with you with no common measure of solicitude, and to which your own best wishes have been raised!

"You have made a noble choice; with the sacrifice, no doubt, of many an interest which has its value. But the things which you will leave are passing daily from the tenants of the day; and the things which you seek will abide with your when you shall be called from these sublunary scenes.

"Although it may be yours to sow, and another's joy to see the stalk rise and the ear swell; yet, when the days of harvest shall arise, your portion shall not be wanting in the plentiful division."

"If the heart droop or the spirits fail in any moment, call to mind what God spake in past ages: and what are ages in His sight, but the ripening seasons of his counsels? Let this be the ground of consolation and of trust: 'My word shall not return unto me void; but it shall accomplish that which I please: and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it.''

LETTERS FROM MR. RICHARDS.

The following letters have recently come to hand, from a devoted and beloved missionary They will excite Christians to fervent prayer, that laborers may go forth to supply the places of those, who have been removed; and will prompt many expressions of gratitude to God for his kindness to his servants, in the day of their sickness, and gradual approach to the tomb.

Letter from the Rev. James Richards to the Corresponding Secretary.

Cape Town, (Cape of Good Hope,) Nov. 24, 1818.

REY. AND VERY DEAR SIR.

I WRITE you a few lines in great haste, to inform you, that I am about to leave this place to return to the east. Yesterday I engaged a passage on board