tablished at Benares: it will be like the ark brought into the house of Dagon. But do not be in a hurry: let your character become known, and you may do any thing. If nothing else comes of our schools, one thing I feel assured of, that the children will grow up ashamed of the idolatry and other customs of their country. But surely the general conversion of the natives is not far off:-the poverty of the Brahmins makes them less anxious for the continuance of the present system, from which they gain but little. But the translation of the Scriptures is the grand epoch. I trust we shall have the heavenly pleasure of dispersing the Scriptures together through the interior. Oh, the happiness and honour of being the children of God, the ministers of Christ!"

Mr. Martyn's own health, as well as that of his, friend, was reduced at this time to a weak and languid state. To the debilitating effects of the heated atmosphere, this was, in part, perhaps, to be attributed; but it was certainly increased, if not induced, by his too severe abstinence. Most strictly did he ever observe the holy seasons set apart by the Church for fasting and prayer-but the illness under which he now laboured was so evidently aggravated, if not occasioned, by abstinence, that he became convinced, that the exercise of fasting was so injurious to his health, as to be improper in the degree and frequency in which he had been accustomed to perform it.

In this sickness, however, though an extreme languor accompanied it, he was not only patient but active. On the Sabbath he would by no means desist from his work;"I was assisted," he says, "to go through the usual ministrations without pain. In the morning I preached on Psalm xvi. 8, 10, and administered the Lord's Supper with rather more solemnity and feeling than I usually have. The rest of the morning I could do little but lie down. In the afternoon I found, I suppose, two hundred women, and I expounded again at considerable length. Read Pilgrim's Progress at the

hospital. In exposition with the soldiers I found great enlargement."

As a proof of that wretchedness and ignorance in the natives, which so excited Mr. Martyn's compassion for them, we may adduce two instances with which he himself has furnished us, in a Brahmin and a Ranee (a native princess ;) though perhaps the Brahmin may be considered as only avowing sentiments too common among many who are called Christians, and have the Book of God in their hands. "A Brahmin," he says, "visiting my Pundit, copied out the Parable in which the Ten Commandments were written, with a determination to put them all accurately into practice, in order to be united with God.--He had, however, an observation to make, and a question to ask. There was nothing,' he said, 'commanded to be done, only things to be abstained from; and if he should be taken ill in the bazaar, or while laughing, and die; and through fear of transgressing the third commandment, should not mention the name of God, should he go to heaven?'--The Ranee of Daoudnagur, to whom I had sent a copy of the Gospels by the Pundit, returned her compliments, and desired to know what must be done for obtaining benefit from the book; whether prayer, or making a salam (a bow) to it? I sent her word she must seek divine instruction in secret prayer, and I' also added some other advice."

Little as there was that was promising in either of these characters, there was yet more appearance of what might be thought hopeful in them, than in Mr. Martyn's Moonshee and Pundit, whom he still continued to labour incessantly, though unsuccessfully, to convince of their awful errors.

"My faith," he complains again, "tried by many things; especially by disputes with the Moonshee and the Pundit. The Moonshee shows remarkable contempt for the doctrine of the Trinity. It shows God to be weak (he says,) if he is obliged to have a fellow. God was not obliged to become man, for, if we had all perished, he would have suffered no loss. And as

to pardon, and the difficulty of it, I pardon my servant very easily, and there is an end. As to the Jewish Scriptures, how do I know but they were altered by themselves? They were wicked enough to do it, just as they made a calf.'-In all these things I answered so fully that he had nothing to reply."-" In the afternoon I had a long argument again with the Pundit. He too wanted to degrade the person of Jesus, and said, neither Brahma, Vishnu, nor Seib were so low as to be born of a woman; and that every sect wished to exalt its teacher, and so the Christians did Jesus."

March 14. "The quotations which I collected from Scripture this day, in treating on the Parable of the inconsiderate King, in order to illustrate the idea of the sufferings to which Christians are exposed, seemed to offend both the Moonshee and Pundit very much. In considering the text-- the time cometh when he that killeth you shall think he doth God service,' he defended the practice of putting infidels to death, and the certainty of salvation to Moslems dying in battle with the infidels, and said, it was no more strange than for a magistrate to have power to put an offender to death. He took occasion also to say, that the New Testament as we gave it, and the church service also, was stuffed with blasphemies.-With the benighted Pundit I had a long conversation, as he seemed to be more in earnest than I had yet seen him. He asked, whether by receiving the Gospel he should see God in a visible shape, because, he said, that he had seen Sargoon, the deity, made visible: this he affirmed with great gravity and earnestness. At night I lost time and temper in disputing with the Moonshee, respecting the lawfulness of putting men to death for blasphemy. He began by cavilling at the Lord's Prayer, and ridiculing it, particularly the expression 'hallowed be thy name,' -as if the name of the Deity was not already holy. He said 'that prayer was not a duty among the Mahometans, that reading the Numaz was merely the praise of God, and that as when a servant after doing his master's duty well, thought it a favourable

opportunity for asking a favour, so the Moslem, after doing his duty, might ask of God riches, or a son, or, if he pleased, patience in affliction.' This then is Mahometanism, to murder as infidels the children of God, and to live without prayer."

"The conversation with the Pundit more serious than it has yet been: and I find that seriousness in the declaration of the truths of the Gospel, is likely to have more power, than the clearest arguments conveyed in a trifling spirit.-I told him, that now he had heard the word of Christ, he would not be tried at the last day by the same law as the other Brahmins and Hindoos who had never heard it, but in the same manner as myself, and other Christians, and that I feared, therefore, he was in great danger. He said. as usual, that there were many ways to God, but I replied, there was no other Saviour but Christ, because no other Lord bought men with his blood, and suffered their punishment for them. This effectually silenced him on that head: he then said, 'he had a house and children, and that to preserve them he must retain the favour of the world, that he and his friends despised idol worship, but that the world would call him wicked if he forsook the service of the gods."

"Pundit grieved me, by showing that he knew no more of the way of salvation than before. Alas! how poor and contemptible are all my efforts for God, if efforts they can be called. He observed, that there was nothing express in the book about the way of salvation, as to what one must do to be saved'-the legalist's question in every land.”

"Pundit observed, that I had said, forgiveness would not be given for repentance only; whereas in the third Parable, in chap. xv. of St. Luke, the repentant sinner was received at once. How could this be?--for his part, he would rest his hopes on the Parables, in preference to the other statements. How strange is the reluctance which men have to depend on the righteousness of another! The Pundit affirmed, that he was keeping all the commandments of God.

But when I charged him with worshipping the sun at his morning devotions, he confessed it; and said it was not forbidden in the Ten Commandments. I then read him the passages relating to the worship of the host of heaven, but he could see no harm in this species of worship, more than making his salam to any other superior. With respect to the Sabbath, he said, he had always kept that day by fasting, and that all Hindoos did the same: but he said no reason was given in the Shaster why it was holy.

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Talking with Moonshee on the old subjects--the Divinity of Christ, Mahomet's challenge, &c. he did not know of the method of Mahometan doctors teaching, that one passage abrogates another: but said, if I could produce two commandments undeniably opposite, he would throw away the book, and seek a new religion. Respecting the promise of Mahomet, that they who die fighting for Islam should certainly go to heaven, I said, my objection was that the person thus dying might be full of envy, &c. and could such a person go to God? In answer to this, he denied that the sins of the heart were sins at all: and I could say nothing to convince him they were.-To refute what he had said at some former times about Mussulmen not remaining in hell for ever, I applied our Saviour's Parable about the servant beaten with many stripes; and asked him, if I had two servants, one of whom knew my will, and the other not, and both committed the same fault, which was the more culpable? He answered I suppose he who knew his master's will.'-I replied, yet according to you, the enlightened Mussulmen are to come out of hell, and Jews and Christians, for the same sin, are to remain there for ever. He had not a word to reply: but said he could give no answer 'uglee,' but only 'nuglee,'-contradicting it on the authority of the Koran. He spoke of the ineffectual endeavour of men to root out Islamism as a proof of its being from God; and objected to Christianity because there were no difficulties in itdevotion only once a week-prayer or no prayer, just