to send Jesuits again to their former sphere. The offer was accepted, and at once the whole of South India was parcelled out into different Vicariates, as were other parts of Asia. In 1837 four Jesuit priests arrived at Pondicherry: and five more in the next two years in ten years, sixty-four arrived, and were spread throughout the missions, so as to render their services as efficient as possible. One of the first matters which attracted their notice was, that the Goa clergy had, during the days of neglect, quietly taken possession of many of the Jesuit churches and assumed the pastorship of their congregations. The Portuguese crown entirely opposed the right of the Pope to appoint Vicars apostolic to these dioceses in India; the right of patronage having been conferred on it in former days by Pope Leo. To this claim the Jesuits reply that Portugal is unable to maintain the ancient bishoprics, and that having an archbishop at Goa is a mere farce. A deadly feud exists between the parties: and in numerous instances expensive lawsuits have been carried on by the new comers in order to oust the Goa "schismatics" from their territories. In many cases they have succeeded; in others they have been foiled. All the catholics of South India are in the Jesuit almanac divided into Orthodox and Schismatic.

A peculiar circumstance which for many years distinguished the modern mission was the repeated deaths of young and promising missionaries. Totally inexperienced in the influences of an Indian climate and having no elder associates to give them advice, these zealous men from the time they arrived gave themselves up to a life of hardship, starvation and toil. They spent a large portion of the year in travelling through their districts; walking long distances and putting up in mud huts, eight feet square, totally unfurnished; they generally slept upon the damp ground, and contented themselves with little food. They were accustomed to eat nothing but rice and fish curry. Meat or wine never passed their lips, and the taste of bread was almost unknown. As a natural consequence of this severe and entire change from that diet to which they had been accustomed in Europe, they began to fall with fearful rapidity: cholera became quite common among them; and several were seized with it at the very altar, while performing mass, after a night spent almost entirely in listening to the confessions of their people. In ten years twenty-one priests died out of sixty-four; the majority of whom had not reached thirty-five years of age. These facts are mentioned in a little work, entitled the Jesuit Mission in India, published in 1852 by the Rev. W. Strickland, a Jesuit priest at Trichinopoly. It contains numerous facts most condemnatory

of the system it describes. In 1841, Father Clifford, an English Jesuit, brother of Lord Clifford, joined the mission. His plain English common sense discerned at once the folly of the system which they were pursuing, and from the time of his arrival, he remonstrated again and again with the Superiors of the mission in France, assuring them that it was far more expensive to send out new and inexperienced missionaries, than to take proper care of the experienced men already in the country. The repeated deaths of his brethren, especially in 1843, convinced the Superiors that he was right; and permission was given for the missionaries to take a small quantity of wine daily, of bread a moderate portion, and meat every day except Fridays, Saturdays and the fast-days of the church. From the time when the new rule began to tell upon their constitutions, the mortality was greatly reduced, and for several years has not been much greater than in healthier spheres of labour. Father Clifford did much to build up the modern Jesuit Mission, during his short career. He seems to have been a man of great zeal, and to have acted from very high motives. His spirit was full of affection, and he was a powerful preacher. He was stationed at Trichinopoly for the double reason, that it is a large Civil station; and in addition to the officers of two Native Regiments, has a European Regiment and Artillery. His work therefore was, as an Englishman of rank, to influence the English: he was greatly beloved by the Catholic soldiers and much respected by Protestants as an upright and consistent priest of his church. In 1844 after a short career of three years India he was drowned in the Coleroon. His successor at Trichinopoly, also an Englishman, was a great hunter, and used up all the hacks of the town in his enthusiastic sports: he soon dissipated the good feeling which Father Clifford had excited towards their church. One of the chief objects which the latter earnestly aimed to accomplish, was the establishment of a College at Negapatam, which should serve both as a boarding school for young catholic boys and as a training school for native priests. The college was founded in 1845: and its present large building was opened two years ago. I went over it in the course of my journey, with one of the priests, and also over the Jesuit Church and Seminary in Pondicherry. Two other institutions of the kind have long existed in the pleasant and well cultivated island of Verapoli, the head-quarters of the Romo-Syrian mission in North Travancore: another has been established at Quilon; and there is a sixth seminary at Mangalore.

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At the present time, the Jesuit and Roman Catholic missions are spread very widely throughout the Madras Presidency. We have nothing like them in North India, except in the neighbourhood of Dacca, at Hussingabad, Furreedpore and Pubna, where there is a Catholic population of 13,000 souls. It will be useful to sum up the Roman Catholic population as given in the Madras Catholic Directory for 1853, a work published on authority, permissu superiorum. A similar statement, taken apparently from the same authority, was handed in to the recent India Committee in the House of Commons.

This table compiled from the Directory, gives the very large number of 650,000 persons as followers of the Roman Catholic Church, either as schismatics or genuine catholics. Such may indeed be the fact: yet it is acknowledged that the Jesuit missionaries still make converts, or as they call it, still "save souls," by the plan, "adopted so largely in all our missions," of baptizing dying children. But what sort of christians are these so-called converts? The missionaries do not preach; they have never once given a copy of the Bible to their people; they have few schools, or none; they only administer the various "sacraments" according to rule; their time is spent chiefly in hearing thousands of confessions; the converts observe the distinctions of caste which are very strong throughout the Tamil country: many heathen customs are still retained by them, in weddings and feasts: in great festivals the priests accompany the catholics at night as they draw their car through the public streets with tomtoms, shouts, torches and fireworks :--what can they have learned under such circumstances; what can they, under such a system, know, of all the high requirements of the law of God?

Uninstructed, without the Bible, what can they understand of the minuteness with which the holy law of Christ enters as a guiding principle into every thought and act and purpose of a christian's life. If those who are constantly instructed from our pulpits, and who, educated in good schools, read for themselves intelligently the word of God, still feel that for warning, exhortation and comfort such study and such instruction are daily required to counteract the heart's evil,—what must be the degraded condition of the poor Paravers and Mukuas and Romo-Syrians and Parias, who are called christians indeed, but are full of heathen notions, are never taught to read or write, never preached to, and are encouraged in their heathenish practices by their teacher himself. Is it not a mere matter of course, that we find them as they once were, with only the names of their deities changed, while their thoughts, belief and conduct remain as degraded as ever. That this is really the case, has been declared by Protestant missionaries over and over again; when they have met these native catholics in retired villages of the country: perfect heathen in every thing but name.

I think that in India, Protestant missionaries have nothing to fear from Roman Catholics; even with the skill and policy for which the Jesuits are celebrated. Their converts help to draw away fallen and outcast christians, and are a great scandal in the way of the heathen; but otherwise it seems to me there is little cause to fear their injuring us among the natives. The Hindus have gods of their own and need not the Catholic Saints as intercessors. They have a ritual of their own and need not the Papist beads. They have their own cars and ceremonies and processions; why should they join a people who have borrowed them from them. More than that, if there is one thing which has distinguished Protestant Missions in India more than another, it is that they have fearlessly spread the Word of God, and have widely established schools to illustrate that word with all the reasons that an enlightened mind can grasp. The Roman Catholics flourish in ignorance. The Protestant missionaries have gained their 100,000 converts by hard battles with the sword of wisdom. The one has invoked darkness to its aid; the other light. The one has trusted to human policy; the other appeals to the converting grace of God.

Nor do I think that the Jesuit missionaries deserve above Protestants praise for their self-denial. I allow that they dress simply, eat plainly, and have few luxuries at home. I allow that they travel much, are greatly exposed, live poorly and toil hard. I have heard of a bishop, living

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in a cave on fifty rupees a month, and devotedly attending the sick when friends and relatives had fled from fear. But all this is much easier on the Jesuit's principles, than it is to be a faithful minister on the principles of the New Testament. The Jesuit missionary's chief care is to administer baptism and the mass rightly to hear confessions and prepare for the communion. He studies not the Bible to find lessons of instruction suitable to the condition of his people: if he finds among them gross sin, the next absolution wipes it all away. He does not mourn over the heathen practices of his converts; he upholds and encourages them. Their blind ignorance of God's truth is no burden to his mind; firm faith in the church is amply sufficient to secure their salvation. Nor is his own condition simply one of discomfort. The church teaches him that selfdenial for its service is a ground of religious merit; which the saints will not forget; and for which he will be amply rewarded in another world. To such a motive, human nature is peculiarly sensitive. History proves that to obtain merit there is no depth of suffering and misery to which a human being will not submit. Hindu sannyásis suffer enough; but the anchorets of Mesopotamia in the early church suffered immensely more. Far different is the belief of the christian and the christian minister. He fights against his very nature from the first: he cuts away the root of human pride and of self-righteousness by acknowledging salvation only by another. And when he labours, he labours with this conviction, that when all has been done that was appointed, he is only an unprofitable servant. A Protestant minister too is not contented with the mere performance of a line of ceremonies. He looks not to baptism, to the Lord's Supper, and to extreme unction, for his people's salvation: he is not contented to leave them in ignorance, relying on these things and knowing nothing of their Saviour. He makes it is his first duty to warn and teach, to exhort and invite, to comfort and cheer his flock. If he finds gross sins, he mourns over the signs of an unconverted heart and feels that those who call themselves christians are in the gall of iniquity still. These things constitute the grand difference between the two parties. The one throughout his course acts with human nature; the other fights ever against it. The one submits himself to the smooth doctrines of the religion of man; the other, to the humbling precepts of the revelation of God. Which of these is the easier: which of them is the greater burden. The physical privations of a Jesuit, (and he has no other), supported by his motives of self-righteousness, are not to be compared to the mental anxieties and griefs of a faithful Protestant pastor. They are as much