terests of the human race. Yes, it is the Gospel, and the Gospel only, that will meet the wants of the millions of India. I have seen its effect, and hence I speak from experience. In India Heathenism rises up before you like a vast and immense citadel, with all its outworks and ramifications, and sustained by caste in a manner in which it has never existed before. I wish it were possible for you to understand caste in all its degrading effects. And yet we have only employed high-caste men; we have only educated the children of high-caste men. Caste destroys individuality: you preach to the people, but there is nothing like responsibility realized by them individually; and thus caste makes them hang together in crowds. They ever take refuge one behind another. They say, "We are like a flock of sheep: if one jumps into a well, the whole flock, one by one, is sure to follow it." This is the case. What a dreadful example we have had of the peculiar effect of this! A few evil-minded men have been brought into a state of rebellion, and a hundred thousand Sepoys of the Bengal army have followed them to destruction. This is the effect of caste. It destroys individual responsibility. It stereotypes the population.

It stops advance in the path you wish to tread. There may be as much education or civilization as you like; and yet every individual in India must travel in the rut in which his fathers before him have travelled. If his father was a shoemaker, he must stick to the last and nothing else; if his father was a hangman, he must be a hangman; if his father was a carpenter, he must be a carpenter; if his father was a washerman, he must be a washerman; if his father was a sweeper, he must be a sweeper. Here you have a stereotyped state of society, the members having no sort of connexion with each other. The tailor's son may love a shoemaker's daughter with all his heart; but he cannot marry her. They must marry in their tribe or caste. The rut has become so deep that they must travel in it as their fathers before them have done; and this is the great outwork of Hinduism. Here we meet Satan in the high places of the field; but is that any reason why we should shirk the task and evade the work? Certainly not. And I trust the time will soon come, when the Society that is represented here to-day will have its Missions to the Bengal provinces. It is true that at present there are none; but there are WesleyanMethodist communities even in the

Bengal provinces. I remember in one of my journeys I came to a town, and when I got there, I asked, "Are there any good people here ?" "Yes," they said, "the hospital Sergeant is a very good man, Sergeant Crowes; and if you go to his house, he will be very glad to see you." I went, and he said to me, "We are going to have a class-meeting to-night, Sir: will you stay?" I said, "I shall be very thankful to have the privilege of doing so." My Lord, I stayed that night, and presided at a classmeeting: and I can assure you and this assembly, that I had no reason to be sorry for the delay that had thus occurred; for I learned many lessons that night, and was prepared, with renewed earnestness, to go on my way in the great work of preaching the Gospel to the millions of India. Thus, although you have not a Mission in the Bengal provinces, yet you have men of whom you have no need to be ashamed; men who, when the canteen is opened, where men go to drink that liquid fire which destroys more than the climate of India, there you have men who open their houses, and who say, "Come with us, and we will do you good." Even in the British army you have men doing what they can in order to prevent the terrible inroads of disease produced by the liquor-traffic in India. It has been stated that the probability is you will not be able very largely to increase your funds. I should be very sorry to come to any such conclusion, my Lord. I have seen some instances in England and in Scotland of liberality since I have been here-instances which, I believe, if my life be spared, will cheer me during many a lonely hour on the plains of British India. I will just mention one or two, in order to stimulate you to greater efforts. I went to a town the other day for the Mission with which I am connected, and the Minister of the church said, "I want you to go and see a woman." He took me to an upper chamber, and there was a female, emaciated and pale, but with a face sweet as a morning in spring. Joyful she appeared to be, although I soon learned that for twelve years she had been confined to her narrow bed. The first thing I saw was a Missionary bill just within the curtains. She could not go to the Missionary Meeting, or mix with the people on their festal day; but she said she should look at the bill, and think of them, and pray for them. In another moment or two the gentlemen who took me said, “This is one of our best collectors." I said, "A

come in with its power of prayer and its power of money. Let the church do its duty, and I hesitate not to say, that the time is not far distant when the millions of that land shall stretch forth their hands unto God. I believe the effect of the revolt will be the furtherance of the Gospel. They have told the masses that the gods were going to destroy Christianity and drive out the British. They have chosen that test. Their gods have failed; their promises have proved to be lies, and now the re-action has commenced. We have letters from all parts of India, stating that the people never listened to the Gospel as they do now. Caste and Hinduism have received a blow from which they will never recover. I will describe to you something of the effects of preaching the Gospel, as I witnessed them in Northern India. It is about twelve years since I went to a district and commenced there to preach the Gospel : it was close to Agra. When we first began our labours, the people would not listen to us; they used to pelt us away with stones and with mud. I have seen an old Native Preacher even in danger of losing his life from the people. They were afraid that some division in their families would be introduced. However, I knew something of medicine; and hence, when I went out to preach, I always took a little bundle of medicines. The people would bring out the sick men and women; and then I used to feel the pulse, and give a dose of medicine. I also took the opportunity of preaching to the little crowd that might be assembled together. By and by the people invited me inside the village; and gradually an immense amount of confidence sprang up between us, so that, instead of pelting us away, they were ready to seize us, and bring us into the village by force. Nothing could be done without the Missionary. If the police oppressed the people, the Missionary was applied to; if the Zemindars oppressed the people, the Missionary was sought after; and it is really wonderful to know the amount of good that was done. I used to go sometimes in the morning to a village to preach for half an hour, and the mothers came together with their children, so that I have vaccinated thirty or forty at a time; and these labours had the natural result, one and another was brought to a knowledge of the truth. Then we aided the people in getting up houses; and this was the commencement of a little Christian village. Indeed, these huts so grew, that when I came away there were about two hundred people gathered together.

collector confined to her bed twelve years! He said, "Her friends come and see her, and she presents the claims of the Missionary Society; she writes notes to her friends, and she thus gets money for the Society; and this year, although she has been confined to her bed, she has collected £2." Here was an example. O that the masses collected together to-day would follow that example! One more, and I shall sit down. In Scotland I was attending a Missionary Meeting; and you know in Scotland it is the fashion to give money at the door, coming in or going out. Going away from the Meeting, a poor servant came and dropped in a sovereign. The Deacon standing there said, "I am sure you cannot afford to give that." "O yes, I can." "You will have to go without clothes." "O no, I shan't." "Do take it back," he said. She replied, "I must give it." The Deacon then said," Take it home tonight; and if, after thinking of it during the night, you still choose to give it, you can send it." The next morning, as we sat at breakfast, there came a little note, and it contained two sovereigns. The good Deacon said, "You won't take it." I said, "Of course I shall; for if I send it back, she will send four next time." I cannot think that when once the Christian public of Great Britain is aroused to a sense of the importance of India, and of the great trust-yes, my Lord, the greatest trust ever committed to a nation-I cannot, I say, for one moment believe that when once the people appreciate the value of that vast country, and the immense interests that are bound up with the spread of the Gospel there, but that their donations and subscriptions will be doubled, and trebled, and quadrupled; and, instead of sending our tens and twenties, we shall be able to send our Missionaries there by hundreds. I know that Paul may plant, and Apollos may water, but God alone can give the increase; but we want a Paul and an Apollos to sow and to water, and hence it is necessary that we should give the Gospel to India. I thoroughly agree with what was said, that, if we do not more effectually perform our duty to India, it will be wrested from our hands. There has just been a death-struggle between Christianity and Hinduism; and either Hinduism will destroy you, or you must destroy Hinduism. Let it not be doubted for a moment as to where the conquest shall be. Send the Gospel. Let us have a strong Government, which shall give equal rights, and equal laws, and equal privileges to India; and let the church VOL. IV. -FIFTI SERIES.

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We have now a little church of fifty members, and day-schools and Sabbathschools. Give the Gospel, and all other things will come in their proper places. We have annual collections, prayer-meetings, and all the little institutions you value so much in England; and it was pleasing to behold the change that gradually took place among the people. India the men and women never ate together the men are indeed "the lords of creation." The man will eat his own dinner, and the wife and daughters pick up whatever he happens to leave. I remember one of the women came to the Mission-house, and found myself and my wife having dinner together: she went to her husband, and said, "I am not going to eat your leavings any more. I have been to the Mission-house, and there I saw the Missionary and his wife eating together." The woman was not a convert; but she said, "If you will bring me among these Christians, I will have all the benefits, at any rate." It was very pleasant to go down the streets of the village, and to see, in house after house, the whole family gathering around their one great dish: knives, forks, and spoons being superfluities there, you would see them eating away with their hands, as happy almost as it is possible for families to be. Another great change gradually took place. The men in the Mohammedan and Heathen villages used their wives in the most terrible way, beating them in a dreadful manner. Sometimes a man would forget himself, and give his wife a tap on the side of the head, and then she would come running up to the Mission-house, and say, "My husband has been striking me: that is not what a Christian ought to do." I used to go to the man, and tell him to rule his wife by other means than physical force. But then we had another difficulty; for very soon the men began to complain. I have sometimes seen a man in a great passion, and he has said, "Sir, we cannot get on any longer." I have said, "What is the matter?" He would reply, "You know in our Heathen villages we used to beat our wives-and they did whatever we wanted; but now they have become Christians, and we cannot beat them, hence they are perfect masters." I used to send my wife among them; and gradually a change has taken place, so that striking to a very considerable extent has been done away with. Then we wanted to improve their temporal circumstances. You must know that in the north-western provinces agricultural labourers can earn no more than four

shillings a month. I could get any amount of labour at from four shillings to five shillings a month; and among the Heathen population they do not average four shillings a month. As I have said, we were anxious to improve their circumstances. I got an English hand-loom from England, and a man from one of the regiments to teach them, to set the matter going; and, for fear that he should go away, I sat down myself, and learned to weave, and became a very good weaver, to add to the rest of my accomplishments. These looms went on to increase, so that, at the time I left, we had nearly sixty of them working. It was really pleasing music to go down the street and hear the shuttles, and see the wives busy winding bobbins; and, what was more pleasing still was, to see the delightful change that had taken place in their condition. From four shillings they had got up to ten shillings, twelve shillings, and sixteen shillings, per month, so that they had better clothes, better houses, and better food, and they could send their children to school. The whole appearance of the village was changed, and "the wilderness blossomed as the rose." It is Christianity alone that will change the nature of the natives of India. You cannot change Hinduism. We did try to change it: we pampered and petted the snake; but snakes, you know, will be snakes still, although you may feed them with milk or sugar. So it was with Hinduism. Christianity alone will make the alteration; old things will pass away, and all things will become new. I recollect one day some of the young men belonging to my Bible-class had been going to a neighbouring village, and as they passed through they found a great heap of idols. One of them said, "Here is a good opportunity for us: let us carry away all these stone gods;" and they brought them all away to the Christian village. The next time I went to the village, I was rather astonished at the position the gods had attained. You know that the hand-loom has a beam, and then there is a pace-rope with a weight at the end: they had unfastened these weights, and introduced the gods, which were hanging by the leg or the neck; and I thought I had never seen the gods so well employed. The effect was not only visible in the village, but in the surrounding district. Village after village had cast away their idols; and, although they had not professed faith in Jesus, the result of it was,--that when we went to their villages, they would listen with attention to a sermon, and

join in praising God, and the whole district was largely affected by this Christian village. Now, my Lord, I trust that the Wesleyan Missionary Society will soon aid us. The whole land invites you There is Rajpootana without a Missionary. Oude, with its three and a half millions, is inviting you. On all hands I could point out stations where there is no Missionary. I could point stations, if there where a hundred men ready to go out with me to-morrow, where there is no prospect of the field being taken up. O, do give the full weight and importance that it ought to have to British India! Let your energies, your prayers, and your labours be engaged, in order that we may have no more such scenes as we have lately had there.

The REV. SAMUEL COLEY, after gracefully alluding to the circumstances which transpired when Lord Panmure last presided, said,-My Lord, my own firm belief is that when this Wesleyan church determined to support this Missionary cause, come what would of it, God spake good concerning us. If we had neglected this, as some persons hoped we might do, if we had permitted this cause to go down,-it would have been a dark day with us, it would have been a bad thing for us. It never yet was found that duty was a burden to sink anybody : it is rather a buoy to sustain. We have found that this cause has not been a weight to crush us, but a wing to bear us up; and the influence of this great cause on the history of Methodism, in the last seven years, has undoubtedly been greatly beneficial. Now, the great question of this day, and the great question for the church to look at just now, is, What is to be done in India? China itself, with its 360,000,000, is not so committed to us as India is. God's providence has committed India to us; and we are bound to look to India, because of that relation in which it stands to our own country. When we look at the history of the country, we cannot but see that God's providence has been mercifully on our side. God has permitted us, during the past year, to tremble for our empire in India. I do not think He ever meant to take it from us. But He has chosen thus to call our attention to it, to call our best thoughts and our solicitudes towards it, that good may come of it. A little while ago you could scarcely begin to talk about India, but people were wearied, unless you happened to have the eloquence of one of your Rev. Secretaries, William Arthur. Unless you could come and put the subject

before a congregation as he used to put this subject before them, you found there were not many who either knew or were anxious to know much about India. So it was in other circles; but you cannot now find a man of thought throughout this empire who has not been thinking about India. You cannot find a man of prayer who has not been praying about India. You cannot find a man who has any intention of doing good in this world who has not been turning his attention, more or less, to this subject of India. Surely some good will come out of all this. The whole mind of England will not have been turned to that subject without some good results. I am much pleased, my Lord, to find that there is a feeling, that whatever change may take place in the government of India, at all events the Christian people of this land will never be satisfied unless there shall be such changes wrought as shall for ever set England free from any sort of collusion with idolatry. We must never again forget that there is the Cross on the banner of Britain. I am very thankful to find, from a pamphlet which I hold in my hand, that there is a Provisional Committee formed for the dissemination of Christian education in India. It will not do for India to be left in darkness for the future, as it has been in the past. For, if so, you will have a repetition of mischiefs over and over again. It cannot be that they are to be left in their blindness. Now, in what way are we at this time to do something which shall at once memorialize the valour of our countrymen, the majesty with which they have stood up for their land, and the good deeds that they have performed? In what way shall we set out to do some united good to that vast continent? You know there are many things in which the different sects cannot very well unite. Some say memorial churches should be erected at various points. There is a denominational difficulty in that: the glorious name of Havelock is the name of a Nonconformist. Any befitting memorial must not be Episcopalian or sectarian, but catholic and national. Are there not things in which all Christian people could combine? Surely this is one,--a godly and religious education for India.

....... Now, I do hold that if any scheme, wisely put forward, well considered, (and it is not for me to lay down any basis for such a scheme, or even state what others may have done,) but if any wisely and well-considered scheme can be brought before the whole of the churches of this country, making feasible the es

tablishment of Nominal Seminaries in the various Presidencies of India, and the establishment of great central schools where native masters may be trained for Christian teaching, a great national good will be effected. I do hope that some wise results will come out of the Meetings that are being held, and that the churches of England will be willing to help in such a good work. Now, every man, when he becomes a Christian, is tacitly pledged to Christ that he will never be satisfied as long as there is one sinner unsaved, one Heathen temple standing, one false god receiving that honour which belongs only to the Lord. In the spirit of that tacit pledge, you are bound, every one of you, but especially the youth of this audience, to give yourselves to this great work. It is the cause of God! We have been told this morning that we must not look to any power that is merely natural. Surely we should be in despair if we did. We do not look to a merely natural power. A person once desired to see the sword of Scanderbeg, the hero who, fighting against the Turks, with his own hand had slain not less than 2,000 in battle. When it was exhibited to him, he said, "Do you really mean to say that that common scimitar ever cut down 2,000 men ? " "O," said the old soldier, you have only seen the sword: you have not seen the arm that wielded it." Now, there are many who oft, when they look at our Missionary Societies, when they look at the feebleness of the churches, for we are feeble when we look at the work which we have to do, say, "How can it be done?" Why, they only look at the sword: they do not know the arm that wields it. We do not believe in the applicability of that old saying, "Truth is great, and will prevail," in matters of theology, and in the teaching of the Gospel. I say truth will not prevail if unaccompanied by the power of the Holy Ghost. It is all very well, in common things, to say that: but you know, if you were preaching truth that was utterly unpopular; if you were found preaching a truth that was right, in the teeth of all the prejudices and prepossessions of the people, you would not find that because it was true they had any very great inclination to give way to it. "Light has come into the world, but men love darkness rather than light." Our hope is in the God of truth, and not

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in the mere power of truth. Our hope is in that Divine influence of the blessed Spirit which we believe God will pour out in a larger and greater measure on our world than He has ever done before. Not one drop of sacred blood has now to be shed for our world. The Lord Jesus finished His work; and as He died, He cried, "It is finished!" That voice rose and swelled to heaven; that voice rolled, and sank, and thundered down to the deep vaults of hell; the universe heard the cry, "It is finished!" Not one more drop of blood is there to be shed; not another Son of God to be given, not another page to be added to the Bible. Well, what do we look for? What means are there in reserve? Why, We look the power of the Holy Ghost. for the energy of the Spirit; and when that Spirit is poured forth in plenteous effusion, then, as the result of it, we shall find "the wilderness will blossom as the rose," and the world will be filled with the light of the Gospel of God. It has been commanded unto us to "preach. Then if the Gospel to every creature." the church does up to her ability, if she set about the work cordially, God will We are not help her to do the work. bound, of course, to do what we cannot do; but we are bound to do up to that point; and which of us can put his hand on his heart and say, "I have done what I could?" O, it is right for us all to ask this question, "Have I done what I can ?" Have I done what God enables me to do? Undoubtedly, if you have, no more can be required of you. have you done this? Let every one of us put this question to-day; and do not let the answer to that question be a thing that shall impress us only for a short time. Some people are devoid of heart: approach them, they are cold; touch them, they are hard. They carry their charity like fire in a flintstone: to get a spark, you must fairly knock it out. Once in a year, in the excitement of a public Meeting, or under the dint of eloquence, their sympathy flashes out, but almost instantly expires. It must not be thus with us. We want a constant, everburning zeal. Let us ask the question to day, What owe I to my Lord?" And when we have fairly put the question, let the answer abide with us, and let us act on the results of the answer to that question.

But