INFLUENCE OF INDIA.

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indefinitely multiplied. There is scarcely a missionary in India who, while he is working for his own mission, is not benefiting those at a very great distance from it at the same time.

Add to this, the remarkable facilities to the transmission of truth afforded by the wandering habits of the people. There are few Hindu families of whom some members do not go on pilgrimage. As our mission stations are much scattered, they exercise an influence over these pilgrims. A missionary often meets with Hindus who had received tracts, and heard the gospel, hundreds of miles distant. The news of Christianity are transmitted from country to country by the natives themselves.

We proceed to remark, fourthly, on the influential character of India as a sphere of missionary labour. India has always possessed a religious influence on Asia. It has been emphatically a proselyting country. It is impossible fully to estimate the indisputable fact, that it is the fatherland of systems which are at the present moment professed, in some form or other, by four or five hundred millions of the human family. It is well known that Buddhism, which originated in India, effected mighty conquests in Tartary, Thibet, Siam, Burmah, and China. This fact bespeaks very significantly the influence of India. In the year 73 B. C., Java-one of the largest islands-was civilized by a colony of Telinga Hindus, and converted to their faith. Remains of Indian architecture are found there at the present day. In the fourth century, the

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GEOGRAPHICAL ADVANTAGES.

island was found by a Chinese traveller populated by Hindus, or those professing the Hindu religion. This fact shows some degree of enterprise. In Borneo likewise are found remains of Indian architecture.

India's peculiar geographical position gives it a mighty influence over Asia. Passing over its northern frontier, we at once enter into Tartary, or Thibet, or even China itself. The ports of India are open to more vessels than any other Asiatic port whatever. On the east, they are open to China, and the islands of the Archipelago; and on the west, to Africa, and Arabia, and Persia. At the present day, the merchants of India, spite of the restrictions of caste and prejudices, are to be found on the east coast of Africa, the shores of Arabia, along the Red Sea; and of Persia, along the Persian Gulf, and even as far as the Straits, and China itself. There is every reason to suppose that the progress of civilization, and the development of its resources, under the encouragement and stimulus of British Government, will yet elevate India above all other nations, and immeasurably add to her influence. Arguing on the general principles which have hitherto held good in the history of civilization and evangelization, we may say that the conversion of India will be to the other nations as life from the dead."

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Lastly: the sphere to which we invite your missionary operations is an enduring one. Some spheres occupied by the Christian Church have been evanescent; and the results of the labours employed in them have been evanescent likewise. Eliot, called the

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AN ENDURING" SPHERE.

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apostle of the American Indians, preached, and translated the Scriptures, in a language no longer the vehicle of thought for living men. The tribes whom he evangelized have passed away. Brainerd also pursued unwearied labours among a people now extinct. The direct influence of the labours of such men has terminated. No successive generations have sprung up to transmit their effects to the end of time. The tribes are extinct, and the labours are extinct, as far as regards this earth. Who shall contemplate the effects of labours in India? When shall they become extinct? The mighty nations that have survived thousands of years, when will they cease to be? When will their generations pass away, and be no more the denizens of this earth? Compact and organized masses of society as are the Hindu people,—with all their established social and domestic relationshipsconsolidated through ages, and remaining firm notwithstanding every possible political convulsion, when shall they be numbered with the people that are no more?

If Hindus manifest the phenomenon of a people preserved from national destruction, notwithstanding that, in moral character and religious institutes, they have had all the elements of dissolution,-how much more shall their generations survive, when they have received the preserving elements of a life-giving faith? When shall their refined and copious languages cease to convey sentiment from man to man? When shall stereotyped forms of thought cease to dwell in the

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BLESSED ANTICIPATION.

bosoms of the multitudinous Indians? When shall the Holy Scriptures in their tongues cease to be the expressive oracles to millions? The impression on one Hindu mind, in any given place, is diffused through the mass of mind throughout India; and, in like manner, the impression on one generation will extend itself, with increasing force and depth, to the several succeeding ones, until the end of the world shall come, and the tribes and nations of India shall cease to have this earth as a sphere wherein to range.

Blessed anticipation! The law of transmission of impulses, which has operated for evil with such extraordinary force in India, as that it now presents the results of impressions which originated thousands of years ago, shall be wrested out of the hands of Satan, and converted into a source of unlimited good; and as sin has hitherto abounded in successive generations throughout the dark history of India, so shall grace much more abound, until-with respect to the whole world-"time shall be no longer." Amen, and Amen.

LECTURE III.

THE INWARD AND OUTWARD FORMS OF HINDUISM REVEALED.

AT the base of the Himaleh mountains is a belt of land called Terray: it has been designated "the Valley of Death." At periodical seasons the heavy rains from the mountains convert it into a swamp, and the tropical heat covers it with the rankest vegetation. Dense vapours are exhaled from the corrupting mass. The atmosphere thus created is charged with every element of death. Instinctively, the very animals depart from the deathly scene. The few human inhabitants fly to other districts. It is said, that in the season subsequent to the rain, not a sound is to be heard in the dreary regions. The forests utter no echo of a living creature. All is awful silence-the stillness of death. Were we called to represent the spiritual state of India by a physical emblem, we should choose this scene. The parts entirely correspond. Moist soil, humid atmosphere, and tropical heat, are not more