intention at least is good. We desire, as far as we know, to do you good; though you, also look upon us as the greatest enemies you have. What motive could we possibly have for seeking your harm? You have never harmed us, and you are not only our fellow-creatures, but our fellow-subjects. Depend upon it, the cause of our troubling you in this way is this: we believe we have got a panacea for all your sorrows and woes. We have found it so ourselves, and we offer it, as we are commanded, to you and all men for acceptance. We have tried, as well as you, what the worship of the sun and others, called gods, can do, and have found it all vain, and so have you too, but you won't acknowledge it. You know very well that so far from being delivered from your sins by your pujas, &c., you have not conquered one little member, your tongue, and ten to one but you are in downright enmity even with your own brother; which things alone, if there was nothing else, make it evident that however you may talk and boast, you are as far from God as you can well conceive. Come, then, let us seriously, and as friends talk the matter over. What if Christ was not of our country or of yours, what of that? If it should turn out that he can bestow upon us what, as proved by experience, no other can, present peace, and everlasting happiness, let us not like ignorant, prejudiced, and narrow-minded men, reject him, because he did not take birth in our country."*

The Orissa Missionaries, it has been mentioned above, often sing a portion of a poetical tract to collect the people. Schultze took out some of his scholars to sing.

"When he had taught the Native children to sing, he used to take them with him when he went to preach in the country, and would stop in the road when he reached a village, and begin a hymn with the children in the European style. The sound of 40 voices can be heard to a considerable distance; young and old, men and women, hastened to see what was going on, and in this way he often collected between two and three hundred people. When the song was finished he prayed, and then addressed the assemblage. After

* Calcutta Missionary Conference, pp. 171,2.

this he talked with individuals to see whether his speech had been understood, and though he could not himself talk with all, his catechists mingled with the crowd and talked to the people of what they had heard."*

The Rev. J. Duthie, Nagercoil, has tried the same plan with much success; but using, as greatly preferable, favourite native tunes. The Ahmednuggur Missionaries have carried out the principle still further by their Kirttnas, in which instrumental music is used. They will be described hereafter.

Singing is the greatest attraction; but when neither the Missionary nor his Native Assistant possesses the ability, reading may be employed.

The compiler once consulted the late Rev. A. F. Lacroix and Dr. Mullens about the best mode of introducing the subject of religion. The main point insisted upon was, first to gain the attention of the people. The comparison employed was the spinning of a rope. It must be fastened at the beginning, and then the process may go on. If the attention be secured, the hearers can be carried along; if not, all is in vain. As has been stated, the plan which will, in most cases, answer best, is to begin with something in which the people are specially interested at the time.

Style of Address.-The Missionary might almost as well preach to the winds as deliver such discourses as would be suitable to an audience at home. It is evident that the addresses must be adapted to the condition of the people. The following extract may throw some light upon the subject:

"The life of a nation bears an obvious analogy to that of the individual. In a very early and infantile state of Society, the human faculties are not urged forward to their maturity. Humanity itself, as it exist there, is living the life of an infant;-it is guided almost entirely by sense and instinct, having no public

* Tranquebar Mission, p. 132.

principles of truth as yet either unfolded or recognised by the common understanding of the nation.

"The next period of national life brings us into a world of poetry and mythology. Then the aesthetic feelings become more sensitive; the spontaneous intuitions of nature remarkably energetic; and the imagination begins to rule the whole man, nay the whole national life;-pouring itself forth, with the utmost productivity, into the various creations of art, poetry, religion, and symbolical institutions.

"Thus, then, humanity is seen to pass through the age of poetry and mythology nationally as well as individually. Where is the child on the one hand, where the infant nation on the other, that has not its cherished myths and fables? Before the power of seeing truth in the abstract arrives, mankind can have no choice but to give concrete and living forms to his ideas. The ferment of mind which goes on within ;--that perpetual stimulus which the sense would apply; that combined play of intelligence, and emotion, of aesthetic feeling and religious reverence, which every child, as well as every nascent state of civilization presents, must find somewhere its field of effort and enjoyment. And in no other way, as yet, can it attain satisfaction, except by laying hold of imagery, in which that inward struggle of the faculties is, as it were, objectified, and where its own self is seen reflected in its own productions. To the child of imagination, and to the childhood of early nations, the mythical element is equally natural, and equally indispensable.

"The age to which we have now alluded is chiefly marked by an entire fusion of all the elements of our mutual nature, into one motley result. The separation of those elements-the distinction of intelligence from feeling-the severing of imagination on the one hand from abstract principles on the other, all this marks the rise of another era, in a nation's development; that, namely which corresponds with the sphere of THOUGHT, properly so called. This separation is effected by the understanding (the critical and analytic faculty), and is marked by a decided tendency to metaphysical speculations. When these periods have run their rounds, then the age of positive science commences,-that in which the reason gathers up all the results of the other faculties, and employs them for the direct investigation of truth.

"In Greece, to take a single example, the age of Homer and the Cyclic poets represents the intuitional era, that in which nature was gazed on with all the freshness of early childhood, and its influence on the heart and feelings embodied in immortal verse. The period, from Pythagoras to Plato, represents the development of a metaphysical age; while the labours of Aristotle and his school, down to the disintegration of Greek nationality, represents the scientific. Although other nations will undoubtedly show many variations, and numerous disturbing causes will have to be taken into account, yet the main current of civilization, in every distinct nationality, nay, in the entire progress of humanity itself, will be found to flow, intellectually speaking, in the same main course.'

The rude tribes of India may be said to be in the infantile stage. The bulk of the people may be compared to children in whom the imaginative powers are largely developed. A proportion of the Hindus have advanced to the third stage, when there is a fondness for metaphysical speculation. Only a few individuals, most of whom have received an English education, have arrived at the fourth stage.

The general principle, therefore, is to address the massest somewhat like children at home, but with oriental imagery and illustrations. Abstract reasoning is thrown away. Dr. Winslow has the following remarks on the subject —

"As to the manner of preaching to the Hindus, that of our Saviour to the Jews is the best model as dealing largely in Scripture, and being often historical and parabolic. The Hindus reverence the authority of Scripture, as they do that of any ancient writings, though they do not believe the Bible as the only inspired revelation of God; and they are quick to understand a comparison, or historical illustration, or a parable in any shape. A single text of Scripture, or line of poetry from their own books, will often go further than a long discourse,

* Morell's Elements of Psychology, pp. 262-4.

+ The following remarks refer exclusively to the bulk of the people. Different treatment is necessary in the case of men with cultivated minds.

especially if the logic of the discourse be at all abstract; and a proverb or parable is with them better than an argument.

Dr. Duff thus shows the course which should be pursued :-

"In attempting to convey spiritual ideas to the mind of such a people, the abstract, the formal, the didactic, or intellective style of address, must be wholly abandoned. The model, both as to substance and manner, must be taken from the Bible itself. Acting the part of a skilful physician, the Missionary must first try to mark the varying phases which the radical disease of sin assumes in the varying characters of those before him. Not having the supernatural gift of discerning spirits, he must bring his experience of the deceitfulness and desperate wickedness of his own heart, as reflected in the mirror of revelation, to bear upon the study of what may be termed the pathology of the souls of others. Having succeeded in detecting the peculiar phases of the malady, he will find in the Bible an inexhaustible 'materia medica,' whence to supply the appropriate remedy. In order most effectually to apply it, he must drink in the very spirit of the symbolic and parabolic mode of instruction, so often employed by the prophets, and our blessed Saviour. And he who shall present the faithful imitations of it, he, who shall embody Divine truth, in the most striking sensible emblems or pictorial images, will assuredly be the most successful in reaching the understanding, and lastingly impressing the hearts of the great, masses of the people." †

The following is an example of the figurative style which the natives often adopt. An old disciple in North India thus described the death of his pastor :

We

"Mr. Wilkinson was called away, but the Lord sent us another shepherd in Mr. Wybrow. He was young; but we loved him. One day, as we poor sheep were feeding around him in the wilderness, he stopped. This was not his custom. looked at him, and he at us; he shook us by the hand, stooped, tied his sandals on his feet, and took his staff in his hand, and went across the Jordan into Canaan, and left us poor sheep in the wilderness. We could not blame him, for his Lord stood on

* Hints on Indian Missions, pp. 107-8,

Missions, the Chief End, pp. 111,2.