resorts of ferocious animals only. That when the bridge on the western branch of the Cúverí shall have been completed, I shall have been the instrument of opening communications which had long ceased to exist, to the trader and the traveller; that e lives of man and beast will no longer be endangered in the passage of the rapid and deep Cáverí; and although I might enumerate many other public advantages which have been, and will be derived from my exertions, I shall only further allude to the facility which now attends the visits of the curious to the celebrated falls of the Caveri on each of the branches, by which the sacred island of Sivasamudram is formed.

Finally, I may claim the merit of disinterestedness. I have shewn at how great pecuniary sacrifices and personal vexations and trouble the works have been perfomed; and I have no prospect of future recompense, nor do I ask any. The island of Sivasamudram, and the tract of jungle granted to me on the original agreement, were rated in the books of the Collector at 4,840 rupees per annum ; whereas, when I took charge of these grants, they did not yield to government a revenue of a hundred rupees a year; even now, when a great part of the jungle has been cleared, both on the island and the tract above-mentioned, I do not receive from them more than eight hundred rupees per annum, which may be increased, when the jungle is entirely removed, to one thousand eight hundred rupees. My monthly disbursements for charitable purposes, the expenses of the pagodas, and on various other accounts, are not less than six hundred rupees, and the expenditure can never be less, while the several establishments of the island are kept up.

(Signed) T. RAMASWAMI,

Sivasamudram, Oct. 26, 1830.

Jághírdár.

III.-An Historical account of the Christians on the Malabar Coast, by the Venerable Archdeacon Robinson, a. M.

PART 2D.

(Continued from the 13th page of our last Number.) Before we proceed to the narrative of events which followed the arrival of the Portuguese among the chsistians of St. Thomas, it will be useful to say a few words of their ecclesiastical dependence at that period. I follow with slight variations the narrative of

La Croze and Geddes.

Gouvea, the Portuguese historian, relates in accordance with the tradition of the country, that on the destruction of Meliapoor, the

Indian churches had no other ecclesiastic than a single deacon, whom they compelled to administer the Sacraments, as well as the other offices of religion, until they were supplied with a regularly ordained clergy. They sent accordingly to the church of Babylon, then famous for its learning and piety, and obtained from the Patriarch three bishops, one for themselves, one for Socotra, and the third for southern China. Two of these prelates, on their arrival at Cranganore, were disgusted with the country and returned. Whether Seleucia, or Bagdad, is intended by Babylon in this passage, is doubtful and therefore the time of this event is left uncertain. But t appears that the christians of Malabar, always gave their primate the title of Patriarch of Babylon,* which is founded on the antiquity of the city of Seleucia, which according to the testimony of Sozomen, was from the 4th century, the residence of the bishops of Persia, the primates of India, and which was antiently called Babylon, according to the testimony of Stephen of Byzantium.

"Under the reign of the Caliphs (says Gibbon,) the Nestorian church was diffused from China to Jerusalem and Cyprus. Twentyfive metropolitans, or archbishops, composed their hierarchy, but several of these were dispensed, by the distance and danger of the way, from the duty of personal attendance, on the easy condition that every six years they should testify their faith and obedience to the Catholicos or Patriarch of Babylon, a vague appellation which has been successively applied to the royal seats of Seleucia, Ctesiphon and Bagdad. These remote branches are long since withered, and the old Patriarchal trunk is now divided by the Elijahs of Mosul, the representatives almost in lineal descent of the genuine and primitive succession, the Josephs of Amida who are reconciled to the church of Rome, and the Simeons of Van or Ormia, whose revolt at the head of 40,000 families, was promoted in the sixteenth century by the Sophis of Persia." Gibbon viii. 345.

At what time these churches received the Nestorian heresy,† it is impossible to determine; probably in the early part of the sixth century, when the Nestorian clergy were sole masters of the Persian church, and would of course diffuse their doctrine throughout their dependencies in the East. Certain it is that when the Portu

(*) It is plain from the 33d of the Arabic canons of the Council of Nice (which tho' not genuine are very antient and of great authority) that the church of Seleucia, or Babylon, was antiently subject to the Patriarch of Antioch, who of all the Patriarchs, was their nearest neighbour. See Geddes page 16, and Gibbon viii. 339 note.

(+) For a full account of the doctrines of Nestorians, condemned by the 3d general Council (of Ephesus. A. D. 431.) See Mosheim's Eccles. Hist. 1. Gibbon viii. 341.

40. &c.

guese arrived amongst them, there was not a vestige of any other faith.

The first notice which Europe received of the christians of St. Thomas, after the revival of learning, was from Pedro Alvares Cabral or Cabrera, who commanded the fleet of Emanuel, king of Portugal, in the year 1500. In his war with the Samorin, he met with several of these christians, and two of them, brothers, accompanied him to Portugal. The eldest, Matthias, died at Lisbon; the younger, Joseph, went from thence to Rome, and afterwards to Venice, where an account was published, from the information he furnished, of the church of Malabar, which is found at the end of Fasciculus temporum.

On the arrival of Vasco de Gama at Cochin in the year 1502, the christians of St. Thomas, hearing that he was sent by a christian sovereign, solicited by their deputies the protection of the king of Portugal against the oppressions of the heathen Princes, and received from the admiral the assurances of his friendship. From that time till the year 1545 no mention is made of them in the transactions of the Portuguese, who were too much occupied with securing and enlarging their conquests, to attend to the wants of a poor and defenceless church. "But (as Geddes well remarks), the Portuguese's negligence in this matter was nothing so scandalous as the violences they afterwards made use of in the reducing of them.*"

The first Missionaries, who laboured among them were Franciscans; one of whom, called Fre Vincent, had accompanied Don John D'Albuquerque, the† first bishop of Goa, who was also of that order. He established himself at Cranganore, where he built churches in the European style ‡

This Missionary however, not being supported by the secular arm of the authorities of the place, made little progress, and therefore begged the Viceroy of Goa to found a college at Cranganore, where the Indian youth might be educated in the learning and discipline of the church of Rome; in order that, in process of time being admitted to the priesthood, they might bring their nation under the authority of the Pope. The Indians, sent their children for education to the college; but when they were ordained, they would not admit them into their churches, altho' they had previously admit

La Croze says that the antient churches of Malabar scarcely differed in form from the heathen temples. I know not on what authority this assertion is made. There seems no ground for it.

ted the Portuguese clergy. In this they followed their antient canons, regarding the Potuguese with the courtesy due to strangers, but their children, who had embraced the ritual of the Latin church, as apostates from their own.

The Jesuits seeing the failure of the Franciscans, formed a wiser expedient for the attainment of the same object. They obtained funds from the king of Portugal* for a college, which they founded at Vaipicotta at the distance of one league from Cranganore, where there was an antient christian population. There under the auspices of the viceroy of Goa, and with the permission of the king of Cochin, they instructed the children of the christians in the Syriac language. This Institution, though in some measure it promoted their views, did not produce all the effects they anticipated; for the Indian youth whom they educated, when ordained, did not presume to preach against their own prelates, and the Jesuits had the mortification of hearing them, even within the walls of their college, support their old opinions, and retain the name of the Patriarch of Babylon in their liturgy.

The Portuguese, seeing the little effect of the measures hitherto pursued, determined to sieze the Syrian bishop, and send him to Rome for the double purpose of effecting his conversion from the errors of Nestorius and leaving the churches of Malabar more open to the instruction of their missionaries during his absence. This bishop was called Mar Joseph, and had been consecrated by Mar Ebed Jeshu, the patriarch of Babylon, who had assisted at the council of Trent in the year 1562. He was arrested at Cochin, and carried to Goa to give account of his heretical opinions, from whence he was sent to Portugal. At that court however, he was received with great kindness by the Queen, (Catherine) who sent him back to India with letters of recommendation to the authorities of Goa, desiring that he might be left in peaceable possession of his diocese.

In the mean time, the christians of Malabar, seeing themselves thus deprived of their bishop, and uncertain what might be the issue of his voyage, wrote to their patriarch Mar Simeon, and entreated him to send them another. He complied with their request, and Mar Abraham, whom he ordained and sent on this service, arrived on the coast in disguise, to the great joy of the whole church. While he was administering holy orders, and exercising the functions of his office, Mar Joseph returned from Portugal, and though regarded with suspicion by the archbishop of Goa, was by virtue of

Geddes says that it was built at the sole charge of Antonio Guedes Morales. History of the Church of Malabar, page 11.

The church was

the Queen's letters, suffered to resume his office. divided into parties by the two rival bishops, and Mar Joseph appealed for protection to the archbishop of Goa. Mar Abraham was accordingly siezed by his order and sent to Goa, where he was put on board a vessel bound for Portugal. The ship however touching at Madagascar, he there made his escape, and went to Mosul with a view of obtaining fresh orders from the Patriarch and returning to India. Fearing however that the influence of the Portuguese would never leave him in repose, he took the hardy resolution of going at once to Rome, where he arrived under the pontificate of Pius IV. The Pope compelled him to make a new confession of faith, and to promise the entire reduction of this church to the Roman See; and the Eastern forms of ordination being different from the Romish ritual, he decided that Mar Abraham had never been properly ordained. He obliged him therefore to receive the several orders, from the tonsure to the priesthood inclusive; and then having enjoined the Patriarch of Venice to consecrate him bishop, he sent him back to India, with a brief addressed to the viceroy and the bishops directing them to acknowledge him as bishop of Angamale. The records of all these transactions, were in the time of Gouvea in the church of Angamale, then the cathedral church of Malabar.

Mar Joseph, during the absence of Mar Abraham, enjoyed all the prerogatives of his office, and continued to preach the doctrines of Nestorius, in violation of his engagements both at Goa and Lisbon. The archbishop of Goa and the bishop of Cochin wrote to the Cardinal Don Henny, who obtained from the Pope, (Pius V.) an order to the archbishop of Goa, to make strict enquiry into the charge of heresy and if he were found guilty, to send him immediately to Rome. He was accordingly siezed and sent to Portugal, and from thence to Rome," where (says Gouvea) he ended his days.”

Mar Abraham arrived at Goa a short time after the departure of Mar Joseph, but was received with great suspicion by the Portuguese, and confined in the Dominican convent. He contrived however to make his escape, and went to his own church, where he was received with transports of joy. He re-ordained those whom he had formerly ordained, apparently in obedience to the decision of the Pope regarding the invalidity of his own consecration, but he still continued to preach the errors of Nestorius and suppressed the name of the Pope in the public prayers, inserting only that of the Patriarch of Babylon. Gregory the XIII, at the instance of the archbishop of Goa, addressed a brief to him dated November 28, 1576, enjoining him