HARVEST is a busy time! Could one of you boys or girls who live in large towns, get into a railway carriage and ride through the country for 100 miles on one of our fine harvest days, what busy scenes you would behold! Six or eight men in about every field, all hard at work in the heat of the sun, cutting down the golden grain; and when they have tied them in sheaves, and filed them in shocks, troops of women and children gleaning up the scattered ears. Boys and girls in the villages know all about harvest, for all the men, women, and children, are busy then.

No sooner is the corn carried home from the fields, than the thrashing begins. That man you see in the picture in the barn is an old hand at the work. How much he can thrash in a day from light to dark I dont know, but he boasts that he can beat any man in the village, or five miles round. He may for ought I know, but I know one that can beat himit is that new thrashing machine, which goes by steam. But it is a dangerous thing to use among so much straw, for the cinders may set them on fire.

What a great blessing is a good barvest! It is perhaps the greatest earthly blessing next to good health. How good is God to make the corn grow, and give fine weather when it may be gathered good. All His ways are good who filleth our mouths with food and with gladness!

BRITISH INDIA-THE SEPOY MUTINY.

No sooner had the great Russian War ended, than we were engaged in a broil at Canton, in China, and that was not brought to a close before we had a brief contest with Persia. (How odd it seems to be writing in 1857 of the English fighting with one of the old nations of the bible!) But peace with Persia had scarcely been concluded, before the native soldiers in our pay in India, usually called Sepoys, rose in mutiny. One regiment after another, to the number of 30,000, rebelled, shot their officers, murdered with dreadful cruelty all the English they could lay their hands on, robbed the treasuries, and spread ruin and desolation over all Northern India. Our readers have no doubt heard these dreadful tidings; but perhaps as many of them may not have read the history of British rule in India, we give the following brief sketch.

Before we do so, we wish just to say, that Divine Providence must have permitted this awful calamity for some wise purpose, which we cannot see as yet. He alone can bring good out of evil. If in the end the result should be the entire destruction of the accursed system of caste in India, it will be a blessing to the people for generations to come; for nothing hinders the spread of the gospel there, and the progress of civilization, like that monstrous system of pride and tyranny.

India is perhaps more properly called Hindustan (the land of the Hindus), but seafaring people usually speak of the country as the East Indies. It is a vast country of Asia, forming a large, triangular shaped territory. It is no less than 1,900 miles long, and about 1,500 broad. The northern boundary of this country is formed by the Himalaya mountains, some of them being 25,000 feet above the sea level, and being of course covered with perpetual snow. Not to enter into its geography too minutely, we merely mention that the great divisions of the country are Northern Hindustan, Hindustan Proper, the Deccan, and India south of the Krishna. Besides these great divisions, however, the large territories of Ava and the Burmese empire, are now attached to India.

The three great divisions of British India are Bengal, Madras, and Bombay, each of these being a Presidency, and the capital being Calcutta.

The history of the rise and progress of British power in this great country would occupy volumes, but we give an outline

BRITISH INDIA-THE SEPOY MUTINY.

of the facts, which are of especial importance at the present moment, now that British rule is being defied by the native army. Our energetic Anglo-Saxon forefathers, as early as the reign of Edward the Sixth, showed great anxiety to hold commercial intercourse with India, whose wealth had already become proverbial; but attempts to trade thither became, from a want of maritime knowledge, unsuccessful, till in 1600, Queen Elizabeth granted a charter to a company of merchants enabling them to trade to the East Indies. This was the origin of the East India Company. The first expedition of these merchants consisted of five ships, taking out bullion, iron, tin, cloth, cutlery, and glass, which were exchanged for sumptuous clothing, gems, and gold. Annual expeditions of a similar kind ensued; and a few years afterwards the Company were allowed to plant factories on the coast of India. These factories at first were mere warehouses for the safe custody of im- · ports and exports, but by degrees, for protection against robbery, they were strengthened, till at last they became armed garrisons. By stealthy steps the Company obtained a further and further foothold in the country, siding with this prince against that, and in the end taking advantage of both.

Only forty years after the original charter was granted to a few merchants in London to enable them to trade with the East Indies, these enterprising men had secured factories at Java, Sumatra, Borneo, Malacca, Siam, the Banda Islands, &c., and in five years more they had obtained permission from the natives to build Fort St. George, at Madras, thus recognizing the trading company as a military power. From this time British influence and power were gradually extended, till in 1702 an act of parliament was passed establishing the Company, giving permission to raise stock by the sale of shares, and giving to shareholders the power to elect directors.

At the time when England was engaged with the rebel army under the Pretender, in 1745, troublous times had fallen upon the British in India. France had been gradually obtaining power in India, and in 1746, a French battalion destroyed the army of the Nabob of the Carnatic, and soon after, the French officers succeeded in disciplining Indian troops according to the European method. These Indian soldiers were known by the name of Sepoys, and the East India Company organized these Sepoys to keep in check the natives themselves, while the Company were every day extending their possessions. The power

BRITISH INDIA-THE SEPOY MUTINY.

of the East India Company, in fact, gradually increased, and successive encroachments on native territory were continually being made. Warren Hastings was at that time at the head of the Company's affairs in the East; and our readers will at once associate this name with a more celebrated one-that of Burke, who, in denouncing Warren Hastings, in the House of Commons, accused the East India Company of "having sold every monarch, prince, and state in India, broken every contract, and ruined every state who trusted them." Hard words these; but at all events the history of the Company up to that time, and for many years subsequently, has been a history of aggression and aggrandisement. Tanjore, a fine province in the Carnatic; Bengal, the Mogul empire, Cabul, Assam, the Mahrattas, Seringapatam, Nepaul, Oude,such are the names of the successive triumphs of British skill in diplomacy, backed by British arms; and thus we have acquired a rule over some 150 millions of souls in India.

Now it is rather painful to admit but facts force us to admit it-that as British rule in this country has been gradually acquired by superior diplomatic skill, by taking advantage of the jealousies and quarrels of native princes, and by superior force of arms, this acquired power has not only not been exerted for the benefit of the native tribes, but has really been turned against them, for the aggrandisement of British interests. We are fully persuaded that India is on the whole a very much mismanaged country-that its revenues are forced from the natives unjustly, collected tyrannously, and spent lavishly; and that meanwhile the legitimate resources of the country are undeveloped mainly because the native population-the ryots -have so little share in the fruits of the soil, that all incentive to exertion. is wanting.

Two or three years since there was a royal commission appointed to inquire into the position of affairs at Madras, and this commission established incontrovertibly that there existed a system of tyranny and torture practised by the servants of the East India Company, which, if it had been discovered in Russia, Poland, or Naples, would have caused a thrill of horror and an outburst of virtuous indignation throughout our country. We will quote an extract from the report of this commission. The Commissioners say, "The police establishment is the bane and pest of society, the terror of the community, and the origin of half the misery and discontent that exists

BRITISH INDIA-THE SEPOY MUTINY.

among the subjects of the government. Corruption and bribery reign paramount throughout the whole establishment. Violence, torture, and cruelty, are the chief instruments for detecting crime, implicating innocence, or extorting money. Robberies are daily and nightly committed, and not unfrequently with their connivance. The so called police is little better than a delusion; it is a terror to well-disposed and peaceable people, none whatever to thieves and rogues."

Hard words these, again say we, but we must remember that they emanate from a commission who were sent to inquire into the truth. What is the state of affairs in another of the presidencies, Bengal, may be shrewdly guessed from a speech made by Mr. Kinnaird lately in the House of Commons. That gentleman informed us that, "in Bengal an amount of suffering and debasement existed which probably was not equalled, and certainly not exceeded, in the slave states of America."

We have all heard much of the evils of underletting in Ireland; there was, a few years ago, a great outcry about the middleman system; but the same evils exist in India to a far greater extent. In 1855 a conference of protestant missionaries was held at Calcutta, and this conference issued a report which gives a "horrible and heart-rending" account of the condition of the ryots, or peasantry, of Bengal. The system under which the land is let is a kind of complicated system of screws, all pressing downwards the poor ryot. "In many cases," we are told, "the land passes through several hands before the ryot obtains it; and each subholder taking his profit, the poor ryot has almost invariably to pay several times the amount of the assessment. Rents being thus exorbitantly high, and profits (from the cause we have mentioned) very low, recourse is often had to force, and sometimes even to torture, to collect it. But more than this; the ryot has a host of indirect taxes levied upon him, apparently at the mere will of the Zemindar, or assessor; and if the ryot dares to oppose himself to these extortions and to seek redress in a magistrate's court, he is sure to be way laid by the agents of the oppressor, and, perhaps, on returning to his village, he will often find his goods and cattle confiscated, his former house a heap of ashes, and the site of it actually ploughed over.

We may well conceive that where there is so much tyranny allowed-of course, it is not directly and intentionally exerted -by the East India Company, there are many other evils ex