pel, as a thing decreed. Many persons are heard to declare, that though they are themselves too old to change their religion, their children will all become Christians. Not long ago, a wealthy Brahmin in the city of Benares brought his son to one of the Missionaries, and placed him under his care, with these remarkable words; "I feel convinced, Sir, after reading your holy Shasters, that they contain the true religion. I have not the power to come up to the purity of its precepts; but here is my son, take him as your child, feed him at your table, and bring him up a Christian." At the same time, he made over to the Missionary the sum of 10,000 rupees, (£1,000.) to pay the expenses of the education of his son. This event, it is expected, will have a great effect on the minds of the Hindoos at Benares. The formation of orphan schools in connection with the various Mission Stations, is another encouraging circumstance as regards the future prospects of India. In these establishments throughout the country, upwards of 1100 orphan children of both sexes are maintained and brought up as Christians; and it is not too much to expect, that by the blessing of God, many of them will become faithful labourers in the vineyard of the Lord. Great efforts are being made for the improvement of female education, and this must enter largely into the calculation, if we would rightly estimate our hopes of success. A native ministry is gradually rising, and, in short, we may trust that a great preparatory work is going on. Last year the excellent Bishop of Calcutta wrote thus: "Preparatory work has been going on in this diocese for forty or fifty years, and from the time of Bishops Middleton and Heber, rapidly. Thousands of converts-the term is not too strong-have been added to the Church' of such as, we humbly trust, shall be saved.' Bishop's College has been for fifteen years sending out its catechists and candidates for the mission work; and after an interval of trouble and difficulty, to which I need not more particularly advert, is rising up again, with more efficacy than ever, to its high task. The British power has been diffusing all the elements of civilization with a bounteous hand among its prostrate subjects. Education in our missions, both of the Propagation and Church Missionary Societies, has been pouring out its waters of life; even the imperfect education of our government schools and colleges has been loosening the bands of ignorance and superstition. Christian villages are being formed in our several missions, as our younger converts rise into life; and asylums for both sexes have turned the miseries of famine into opportunities for christian instruction, independent of Brahmin and heathen domestic ties." When such is the preparation for the harvest, surely we are entitled to believe, that in due time we shall reap if we faint not. Moreover, it is a great encouragement to us to know, that the weapons with which we carry on this warfare against idolatry and sin, have already been successful against the same adversaries. Our weapons are not carnal, but spiritual, and mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds. Long ago, in the hands of the Apostles of Christ, they put to flight the gods of Italy and Greece, and every false deity who had usurped the honours and the worship due only to the Lord Jehovah. The gods of India are the same under other names as those which Italy and Greece adored; and shall the sword of the Spirit be less powerful now than it was of old? Already the powers of darkness are shaken on their thrones, and their overthrow has commenced. "Bel boweth down, Nebo stoopeth." The solitary missionary, standing before the proudest temple idolatry can boast, has a right to take up a burden against it, and to say "thy days are numbered, thine end draweth nigh." Yes! if there be any faithfulness in the promises of God or stability in the divine decrees, if any power in the mediation of Christ, or truth in the doctrine of his reign, the cause of the Redeemer must at length prevail. The soldiers of the cross will be once more triumphant, the light of salvation will be poured on the nations that lie in darkness and the shadow of death, and India's millions of inhabitants will rejoice in God their Saviour. If we want any additional motive to stimulate us to prosecute with ardour the missionary work on behalf of India, let us remember the worse than indifference, the wrongs and injustice of the past, when the gospel was prohibited in that vast continent, and christian statesmen expelled from her shores those who would have communicated to her people the blessings of divine truth. The first Missionaries who reached India, were not so much as permitted to land, but were sent back in the same vessel that brought them thither. Even till so lately as the year 1807, when the late Lord Teignmouth and other gentlemen who co-operated with him, happily succeeded in obtaining the removal of existing restrictions, the translation and printing of the Scriptures being forbidden within the limits of the British sway, were obliged to be delegated to the Baptist Missionaries at the Danish settlement of Serampore. It was thought in those days, that the attempt to introduce Christianity would be the means of overthrowing our eastern Empire, and so long as our dominion was secure and ourselves enriched, men were content not only to forget the obligations of the divine command, but to do all in their power to perpetuate the reign of vice and misery, which it was their sacred duty to expel. These restrictions are now happily removed; the whole continent of India is open to the footstep of the missionary, and all her villages, and the streets of all her cities, may echo with his voice inviting men to Christ. The prescription of British superiority and British influence is on our side, and we shall be guilty of our forefathers' sins if we refuse to take advantage of these openings, and to make up by earnestness, zeal, and love for our former indifference and neglect. Neither let us forget the inestimable value of the blessings we are now invited to bestow; if we give India the gospel, we shall confer the greatest of all benefits and ensure her perpetual gratitude; and when, as in course of time, she assuredly will do, and ought to do, she rises up emancipated and free in her own majestic and natural independence, she will bless the memory of our conquests, and cast into oblivion the memory of her wrongs. Who can speak aright of the real good that is effected now by the conversion of even one of her many villages to the faith of Christ? How great and wonderful is the change there! Instead of men bowing themselves in abject superstition before the filthy Sunyasee, or lying devotee, they detect his impostures and abhor his vice. Instead of submitting to a willing slavery to the dark terrors of Brahminism, or revelling in its licentious delights, they are made free by the truth, and admire that which is lovely and of good report. There, in the place of the idol temple, with its gross and abominable sculptures, polluting the mind, and hardening the conscience by early familiarity with images of impurity and lust, rises the Christian church with its spire pointing up to heaven, and all the pure and elevating rites of divinely appointed worship. There, instead of the wild shouts of the frantic multitude at some festival celebrated in honour of the polluted history of a polluted god, are heard the voice of supplication and the song of praise. And there, woman, instead of offering that spectacle of miserable degradation which, in other parts of India, she uniformly presents, is raised to her appropriate position, and receives the respect and affection which is her due, and becomes a helpmate to her husband, an instructress and example to her children, and a blessing to her home; while instead of an ignorant, vicious, and suffering population, we behold them enlightened, virtuous and contented. Such are the happy changes which it is the privilege of the christian Missionary to effect. Such his peaceful victories, victories beside which all other triumphs must veil their glories. Oh! how various are the motives which combine together to induce us to send him forth into the field of his glorious enterprise. The need of evidencing our own faithfulness by our faithful acts; the obligation laid upon the Church to preach the Gospel to every creature; the love of Christ towards us constraining us, and our love towards Christ compelling us to serve Him in return; the command of God which we dare not disobey; the example of good men; the reparation of past wrongs; the blessings promised to him who converts a sinner from the error of his ways; the voice of the multitudinous heathen asking for pardon, for peace, for eternal life, and withal the prospect of success. Cold must be the heart that is insensible to obligations such as these, they are such as no disciple of Christ can refuse to recognise, such as no man, under the influence of His Spirit, will desire to avoid. Let it be ours to feel them in all their holy force; it will be not only to the advantage of other men, but to the solid peace and satisfaction of our own hearts. "Salvation, oh Salvation, The joyful sound proclaim, A LECTURE, BY THE HON. AND REV. BAPTIST W. NOEL. I COULD heartily wish, my dear young friends, that I was far better prepared than I am to address you on the subject which calls us together this evening, namely, the Spiritual Destitution of this Country, and the Duty incumbent on you to endeavor to mitigate if not remove it. But although I shall offer you only very obvious remarks, which require little research, and which might present themselves to any of your own understandings, yet, as they will be chiefly of a practical character, I trust that if you have that seriousness of mind which has, I believe, called you together this evening, they may be of some service to you. However we justly glory in our country, as holding a very distinguished place among the nations of the earth, yet there is no question that there exists within it a phenomenon somewhat mysterious and exceedingly painful-an ever-increasing capital, together with a deepening pauperism. It is lamentable to think of the condition to which a large portion of the working classes is reduced. The agricultural class, (the largest of all,) is in many of the counties of England exceedingly ill paid, ill lodged, and ill fed ; and numbers among them are still more anxious for the future, and know not how they shall obtain the employment by which they are to secure their livelihood. The natural vent to the redundant agricultural population is their employment in our great towns and cities; but here we find new spectacles of want and sorrow. those employments which maintain the greatest number of persons in this country among its manufactures—that is, in In |