to help it forward. The situation is well chosen, except that it is rather too near the Roman Catholic church, which will tower above it, proudly eminent, and to a people so strongly influenced by outward show, may suggest a comparison not very favourable to the Protestants. It is decidedly my wish that all our churches should be built as much like churches as possible, but as our poverty must content itself for the present with humbler and meeting-house looking edifices, I would not needlessly place them in juxta-position with the really ecclesiastical buildings of the Romanists, who have here a church such as is usually found in a small town in Italy. Mr. Kitson, a very pleasing young officer, and who brought with him the to me additional recommendation of being well acquainted with Erlestoke, dined with me, as did Mr. Kohlhoff, and we had a gallop together over Salisbury Plain. The Roman Catholics are very strong at Trichoor, numbering three hundred out of about a thousand families, and at another village we passed this morning, where there is also a handsome church, I was told that they are reckoned at two thousand souls. A ride of about two hours brought us, partly across paddy-fields and marshes literally covered with a greater variety of water-fowl than I had ever seen gathered together, (comprehending, I should think, the whole family of the long-bills,) and partly under the shade of melancholy boughs under one of the delightful and most welcome avenues so common in this part of the country, to our haltingplace for the morning, near a little village, the name of which we could not ascertain. About two miles from the place, we were met by the rural authorities, represented by the cutwal, half a dozen peons, and as many drummers, the noisiest and most indefatigable of their kind, who harbingered us with all honour into our quarters. The village people had decorated the approach to our little encampment very prettily with flower-garlands and palmyrabranches. My tent, though hot, was not so oppressive as I had expected to find it, as during part of the day we enjoyed the blessing of a sea-breeze, and I spent the morning much to my comfort, and I trust a little to my improvement, with Bishop Burnet and Mr. W. Gladstone. Of the ride to the place of embarkation I can say but little, except that, thanks to my imprudence in setting off at least an hour too early, I have suffered much from it. Balghauty, near Cochin, By five this morning we were in the residency boats, and hurrying as fast as two sets of sixteen oars could drive us, over the Backwater, a narrow lake, its banks covered with palms and cocoa-nut trees, from the midst of which an occasional village peeps out very prettily. A two hours' row brought us to Karupadana, where we landed and walked through a neat and apparently well supplied bazaar to the Roman Catholic church, the interior of which did not keep the promise of its fair outside, being only half furnished, and slovenly, with a very shabby altar surmounted by a miserable picture of our blessed Redeemer. The priest was celebrating matins in the private oratory attached to his house, as we were distinctly informed by the somewhat monotonous sound-half prayer, half chaunt-which proceeded from it, accompanied by the inseparable assistant of a Romanist service, the jingling of the little silver bell. As we sat for a few minutes in the shade of some large mangoes near the church, I discovered a movement which I thought indicated that the priest was meditating a visit, a compliment which, on account of my travelling dress, I felt it right to decline, and we accordingly hurried on board again. Under other circumstances I should have made a point of receiving this gentleman, to whom I would not willingly have appeared wanting in courtesy, more especially as it might be interpreted as the result of bigotry and intolerance. Seen from the water, the church has a very good effect; and I repeat my thankfulness at the sight even of this imperfect exaltation of the Cross over the gods of the heathen, as an earnest of better things to come. While we freely acknowledge that the Church of Rome has erred, and erred most grievously, we are bound equally to acknowledge that she has D enshrined within her bosom those precious jewels of the faith, the ineffable Trinity, and the passion and death of Him as very man whom she fully recognizes as very God. Instead of trying, then, to lay her honour in the dust, let us remember rather, while we smite her friendly and reprove her, what she was, before she went astray after her own inventions, and pray that she may be graciously brought back to the simplicity of the truth as it is in Christ Jesus. The Spirit has in a great measure deserted the temple, let us not therefore desecrate the sacred edifice, but rather look upon it with sorrow and with hope: sorrow, that its glory, though not utterly departed, is so sadly dimmed for a season, and hope, that it may soon return. Depend upon it we shall never win our Romanist brethren to love and seek a more spiritual and evangelical faith by outraging that which, faulty as it is, they have received as a precious trust from their fathers. No convert was ever made by violence, thousands by truth clothed in humility and adorned by charity. The Roman Catholic population is large in |