modation of the converts, the local board have purchased a suitable building on the Esplanade. The friends of the cause there furnished the means of paying a great part of the expense, and Mr Anderson and his colleagues removed to the new premises on the 15th of December; but without attempting to complete the necessary additions and repairs until they should hear from your Committee that the Church at home was ready to advance the money required. Mr Anderson, Mr Johnston, and ten converts, are accommodated there; while the three preachers, who are married, and Mr Braidwood, with his family, must wait until your Committee enable them to make the addition required. Your Committee are at a loss whether more to admire the prompt liberality of the friends in Madras, or the prudence, delicacy, and selfdenial of the missionaries in refraining from pressing their claims on the Church at home, when they must have been subjected to no inconsiderable inconvenience. "BOMBAY.-Your Committee have felt no little anxiety, during the past year, respecting the state of the mission at Bombay. They were apprehensive that the amount of labour, which necessarily devolved on Mr Nesbit and his coadjutors, in the absence of their colleagues, Dr Wilson and Mr M. Mitchell, might have been injurious to their health, or that their operations must have been so circumscribed as to impair materially the efficiency of the institutions. They are happy, however, to be able to report, that the beloved missionaries at Bombay have not suffered from their arduous labours; that their operations have been conducted with great prudence, assiduity, and zeal; that the aid of Mr Henderson has proved of invaluable service; and that now, in the good providence of God, they have been reinforced by the return of Mr Murray Mitchell, who arrived in Bombay early in February. Dr Wilson has also left Scotland, on his way to the scene of his labours, and expects to arrive by the end of July. Dhanjibhaí Nauroji, who was ordained by the Presbytery of Edinburgh, in Canonmills Hall, on January 7. 1847-an occasion which few who had the privilege of being present will ever forget, has also arrived at Bombay; and will remain at least for a time, till his destination has been decided. Another Pársí, Hormazdjí, the beloved friend of Dhanjibhaí, has been licensed to preach the gospel by the Presbytery of Bombay; and your missionaries report that his first sermon in the Free Church, after licence, more than vindicated the Presbytery's decision;that, although well known to the Christian Europeans of Bombay, his method of preaching the gospel excited their wonder and admiration: all were delighted and moved-some wept; while the members of his own nation, and the natives generally, who came to hear him, were astonished to see one of themselves teaching, reproving, correcting, and instructing in righteousness, with becoming fear, and yet with all authority, military officers, civilians, merchants, ministers, and other Europeans, and could hardly fail to entertain the question, What is the cause of this great change? It is deeply gratifying to learn, that while the Lord is thus raising up native labourers from among the wealthy and influential Pársís, the barrier which seemed for a time to have been raised against the introduction of Christianity among them is gradually crumbling down, and that symptoms have appeared of an incipient tendency to avail themselves of the benefits of your institution. Since the baptism of Dhanjibhaí and Hormazdjí, the Pársís had been wholly withdrawn from your influence; but during the past year, first one and then another Pársí have applied for admission into your institution: and your Committee are thus encouraged to cherish the hope that their beloved young brethren may yet find access to labour among their own people, and to evangelize their kindred according to the flesh.

"Besides these interesting native labourers, Narayan, a Brahman, has been taken on trials, and has delivered two of his discourses to the presbytery, which displayed a wonderful power over the English language, while thought, sentiment, and feeling were equally satisfactory. These events appear to have quickened the progress of the work at Bombay; and Mr Nesbit writes, that a great many of our pupils are in a most promising state. The seed appears to have germinated, and to be growing to maturity, and we cannot help expecting, as we do not cease to pray for, an early

and abundant harvest.'

"An interesting example of the impressions thus produced, occurs in the case of Balu Joshi, a Brahman, who was educated in part at Bombay, under the special care of Mr Murray Mitchell, and afterwards of Mr Henderson, and had long been doubtful of Hinduism, but remained without any decided conviction, until he was power

fully quickened by the reported conversion of his old master, Wizer Beg, at Puna, and resolved at once to cast in his lot with the people of God.

"The number attending your institution and schools at Bombay, is stated by Mr Nesbit as follows:

“CALCUTTA.—It gives your Committee the greatest pleasure to report that their beloved missionary, Mr Mackay, whose address at the last meeting of Assembly was so eminently seasonable and refreshing, has arrived in Calcutta in renovated health, and resumed his labours in connection with his colleagues. The institution there has thus its full staff of European labourers, and never at any former period was it in a more efficient and hopeful state. It is true, that during the past year there has not been such a rapid succession of conversions and baptisms as took place during the remarkable work of grace in Calcutta, referred to in our former reports, when no fewer than seven were added to the little flock. It has been rather a sowing time with the brethren; but they have enjoyed many opportunities of scattering the precious seed, and have been enabled to prosecute their labours in comparative peace. They were visited, indeed, with a very sharp and unexpected trial, when, through the insidious agency of Puseyism and Popery, several of their converts were tempted, and two of them finally fell into apostasy; but the full and frank statement which Dr Duff immediately published on this sad occasion, is sufficient to show with what prayerful solicitude the brethren watch over the lambs of the flock, and will serve, your Committee fondly trust, to guard the youthful converts against danger from the same quarter in time to come. Your Committee cannot but hope that the seeds of divine truth which had been deposited in the minds of the two who have forsaken the mission, will yet be quickened; and they commend those unhappy wanderers to the special prayer of the Church. In the mean time, your Committee trust that the mere occurrence of such a lamentable apostasy, occasioned, as in the judgment of your missionaries it was, at least in part, by the exposure of the young men to adverse influences during the want of suitable premises for the accommodation of native converts, will operate as a constraining motive to renewed exertion, until the sum necessary for the erection of such premises shall have been raised.

"The number of converts has been increased during the year by the admission of two native females into the Church by baptism-the wives of the converts, Prasunna and Gobindo. They were publicly baptized on the 2d of June-the service being conducted in Bengali and subsequently the infant children of two of the native converts were presented for baptism; so that, step by step, Christian families are beginning to rise up around your missionaries-the first-fruits, as your Committee fondly hope, of a coming harvest.

"But a great event in the history of the mission occurred when, on the 28th of May 1846, no fewer than four native converts were, after due examination, formally licensed as catechists by the Presbytery of Calcutta. Their names are Prasunna Kumar Chatterji, Behari Lal Singh, Jagadiswhar Bhatta Chargia, and Lal Behari De; and those who have traced the history of these interesting young men, from the era of their conversion onwards to the time when they obtained licences from the Presbytery to act as catechists among their countrymen, will be best qualified to enter into the feelings of your missionaries, and to appreciate the value of the gift which God has thus bestowed on his Church, On the solemn occasion referred to, they were asked each to state their reasons for desiring the office of the Christian ministry; and their papers, which were handed in to the Presbytery, were transmitted to your Committee, in the original handwriting of the young men, and afterwards published, for the information of the Church, in the pages of the Record. They have since entered on their labours; and the reports of their proceedings which have from time to time reached your Committee, exhibit the most satisfactory proofs of their qualification for the work, and of the mingled prudence and zeal with which they have

been enabled to prosecute it in the midst of no ordinary difficulty. Having been deprived of the Bungalow chapel, in which sermons to the natives were wont to be delivered, and not having succeeded in obtaining another, your young licentiates were obliged to take their stand in some great thoroughfare, at the corner of an open street or crowded bazaar, there to proclaim the message of salvation to as many as would listen to their words. They were often interrupted, interrogated, and opposed by educated natives; but with admirable patience and meekness, and with a readiness in reply which could scarcely have been expected from their comparative inexperience, they were enabled to silence their adversaries; and the extracts which have been furnished from their journals exhibit a most interesting picture of the labours of a native missionary among the heathen. Part of the journal of Prasunna and the other licentiates has already appeared in the Record for November 1846, and May 1847.

"The annual examination of the central institution was held on the 30th December. The number of pupils reported from the revised register was 1044; being 937 in the school, and 107 in the college department. There was a large attendance both of Europeans and natives; and some idea may be formed of the extensive range, and truly liberal character of the education which is afforded in that noble seminary, from the detailed account which has been furnished of the subjects of examination and prize essays, and which was inserted in the Record for April 1847. Your Committee are happy to be able to add, that the institution was re-opened, after having been closed as usual for a month, on the 1st February, when by far the greater number of the pupils, alike in the school and college departments, re-appeared in their proper places, while there were upwards of sixty new candidates for admission-several of them from the senior classes of Sil's College, which was established especially for the annihilation of your institution.

"The Station at Culnah is going on prosperously under the effective superintendence of Mr Fyfe.

"Your Committee cannot close this brief statement of the progress of the work at Calcutta, without adverting to the auspicious reception of Mr Mackail, as minister of the Free Church there, and recording their deep sense of the munificent liberality of the friends of your cause in that city. In a letter recently received from Mr M'Leod Wylie, who has long taken a lively interest in your affairs, he says: 'This year we have raised for the Mission 10,000 rupees; and for the Sustentation and Building Fund, about 15,000 rupees. We have a good balance in hand for the Sustentation, and are very thankful for our godly, humble, devout, and prudent minister."

II. CENTRAL FUND AT HOME.

"Having thus reviewed the progress of the work at all the stations abroad, your Committee would earnestly call the attention of the Church to the state of the Central fund at home. Your Committee feel it to be due to the Venerable Assembly, and to the Church at large, to announce, in the most explicit and emphatic terms, that they have now arrived at a critical period in the history of their foreign missions, and that they are placed in circumstances which imperatively demand at once greatly enlarged resources for its efficient maintenance and extension, and also a more effective organization for raising the necessary supplies. They are anxious to convey the impression, which their whole experience during the past year has tended to deepen and confirm, that the great enterprise in which they have been engaged can no longer be carried on with their present limited means; and that it will require the combined wisdom and energy of the Assembly to devise an effective plan for maintaining and extending their operations both in India and Africa. They trust, therefore, that their present report will be regarded not so much as one of a series of annual statements, narrating the progress of the mission during the year which has just closed, but as an extraordinary appeal to the wisdom and zeal of the Church; an appeal which is at once occasioned and justified by the very peculiar circumstances of their mission, at a time when it is in a state of transition from the preparatory course of training which was so wisely adopted at the commencement of their enterprise, to the direct work of evangelizing the heathen by means of a native ministry-which was, from the beginning, the grand object of the Church's hope and prayer, and which now, in the good providence of God, has been so graciously vouchsafed to them.

"There are four distinct considerations which your Committee would respectfully urge on the attention of all who take an interest in their operations, and which they feel persuaded cannot be thoroughly understood and duly weighed without producing the conviction that more vigorous efforts must be made, and enlarged resources supplied if the Foreign Missions of the Free Church are to be carried on with efficiency and success.

"Before adverting, however, to these considerations in detail, it may be right to premise, in a single sentence, that the pressure which your Committee have felt, and which has sometimes awakened no slight anxiety during the past year, has arisen in no degree from any deficiency in the usual amount of contributions, whether from the congregations or private friends of the Free Church; for so far from having any reason to complain of a deficiency, they are thankful to be able to report a certain amount of increase on their current revenue for the ordinary expenses of the mission; and that, too, in addition to the sums which have been contributed toward the erection of mission premises. But the pressure has arisen, in a great measure, just as in the kindred case of the Sustentation Fund--from the very success with which God has been graciously pleased to crown their labours. And so far from being either an indication of present weakness or an omen of future evil, it is, in the deliberate judgment of your Committee, a symptom of growing prosperity and a pledge of still greater and more extended usefulness, provided only it be recognised and felt by the Church as a providential call to renewed efforts and increased liberality, bearing some proportion to the blessing which God has vouchsafed.

"The first consideration which your Committee would urge on the serious attention of the Venerable Assembly and of the Church at large, is the fact that now, in the good providence of God, and by the grace and power of his Spirit, they have been furnished with a small, but select and devoted, band of native agents, who have been found qualified, after long training under the most vigilant and effective supervision, some for the office of catechists, others for the office of preachers or evangelists, and one for the full work of the ministry. This is the consideration which serves more than any other, in the judgment of your Committee, to mark out the present year as a critical one in the history of your mission, and to show that we have now arrived at the point of transition from one stage to another in the course of our operations. Your Committee need scarcely remind the venerable Assembly, that the scheme of their mission contemplated the rearing of an effective native agency as one of its grand objects from the beginning; that for this end their educational institutions were erected in all the presidencies, in the hope that while, through the medium of a thorough English education, the truths of the Gospel might be widely disseminated among the multitudes of young persons who attended them, a few at least might be found whose hearts the Lord himself would touch, and who might be constrained, by the faith which worketh by love, to devote themselves to the work of evangelizing their fellow-countrymen. It was justly thought that, in a climate like that of India, so trying to the constitution of European missionaries, the Church should not depend solely on their agency, but seek to enlist well-educated natives in the service of Christ -natives who, both from being habituated to the climate and from their vernacular acquaintance with the various dialects of the East, as well as from their familiar knowledge of the sentiments, customs, and prejudices of the people, might be said to possess greater facilities than Europeans could ever hope to acquire, for reaching the hearts of their countrymen. In this hope your beloved missionaries prosecuted their arduous labours, with untiring energy and unremitted zeal; and although for a season they seemed to labour in vain, and were often called to water their prayers with tears, yet soon one after another of their most hopeful scholars were impressed with divine truth, and slowly, but resolutely, made up their minds to count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus, their Lord. And now at all the presidences we have a well trained and thoroughly educated band of native agents, ready to go forth everywhere, preaching the gospel.

"In the inscrutable providence of God, two of the earliest and most hopeful of these converts the beloved Koilas and Mahendra-were removed from the scene of conflict and labour by what might seem to us a premature death; but the hearts of our missionaries were cheered under this sad and mysterious dispensation, by the belief that they had assuredly entered on the rest which remaineth for the people of

L

God, and by the hope that the same gracious hand which had withdrawn them from the Church militant on earth, to the Church triumphant in heaven, would, sooner or later, supply their places here by other " brands plucked from the burning." And the hope has been abundantly fulfilled. Already, four native Christian converts have been licensed as catechists at Calcutta-26th May 1846; at Madras three, and at Bombay two, including Dhanjibhai Nauroji, who was ordained to the ministry by the Presbytery of Edinburgh; making, in all, nine native agents, who have received a thorough European education, and have afforded the most unequivocal evidence of personal piety. A tenth is now on trials at Bombay. The papers which have appeared in the Record, containing a statement of the reasons which prompted these young men to devote themselves to the work of evangelists, and a report of the operations in which they have already engaged in that capacity, must have impressed the mind of every attentive reader with a deep sense of their qualifications for the office which they now hold, and a feeling of intense interest in their future progress. And your Committee trust that, while the Church regards the possession of such a band of native agents as an inestimable privilege bestowed by Him who alone can bestow such gifts, she will also remember, that, like every other talent committed to her trust, it imposes a very serious responsibility-that as it must be an occasion of increased expenditure, it will also be felt as a reason for enlarged liberality; and that the Free Church will never allow it to be said of her that she prayed and laboured for a native ministry in India, and when God vouchsafed the precious boon, she shrunk from the duty of maintaining them.

In a

"Your Committee have received many urgent communications on this subject from all the presidencies. It is the unanimous opinion of your missionaries, that the native catechists, preachers, and ministers, should from the first stand in a close relation to the parent Church at home, and that their salaries should be defrayed, in whole or in part, either from the General Fund, or by one or more of the congregations of the Free Church agreeing to provide the sum necessary for the support of one. recent communication from Mr Anderson, at Madras, he says, in reply to a letter from your Convener,- With reference to our three young licentiates, our board bade me say to you, at their meeting on Thurday last, that we would undertake to raise half of their support here, provided the Free Church, either from the Central Fund, or by particular congregations, raised the other half. This appears to be the best practical way of meeting the support of native preachers, whether they are licentiates or ordained ministers. It will divide the responsibility, and connect them in a close and profitable way, both with our Free Church at home, and with the people of God in India.' In offering this valuable suggestion from their esteemed brother, your Committee would earnestly recommend it to the favourable consideration of the Assembly, as containing the germ of a scheme which might be safely adopted; but as the General Fund, in its present state, and with its existing liabilities, is unable to meet the additional expenditure, they trust that effective measures will be devised and adopted by the Assembly for increasing their annual revenue, and for securing the support of one or more of these interesting fellow-labourers, by individual congregations or Presbyteries of the Church. Your Committee have already attempted to do something in this way; and they have the gratification of reporting that the High Church congregation in Edinburgh have spontaneously agreed to furnish the salary of Dhanjibhai Nauroji, as an ordinary minister at Bombay; that St George's congregation in Edinburgh have also agreed to furnish the salary of Hormazdji Pestonji, preacher, at Bombay-that the Sabbath schools connected with the Presbyterian Church at Manchester have agreed, through George Barbour, Esq., to support one native licentiate at Madras; and that several other congregations have taken the subject into serious consideration, with the view of ascertaining whether, either singly, or by association with a contiguous Church, they might be able to undertake the burden, or rather to share in the privilege, of maintaining one of these native preachers. Several congregations in Glasgow, and elsewhere, have also agreed to provide bursaries for native converts while they are prosecuting their studies with a view to the ministry; and a very interesting letter from Rev. Mr M'Lure, Nassau, New Providence, intimates that the teacher and children of his Sabbath schools have agreed to raise 100 dollars a-year to support one of the pupils at your institution at Calcutta.