who are a mongrel race, nor will the "white Jews" intermarry with them.

The existence of this singular people in this remote corner of India is a highly interesting fact. It is supposed that they were once both numerous and wealthy, and dwelt at Cranganore, from whence they were expelled, on account of some sedition, by the sovereign of the country.

Cottayam, December 2.

A tedious row of twelve hours brought us to this lovely place, this Christian oasis, in the vast heathen desert of Travancore. We left Balghauty at nine on Monday evening: the night was unusually hot, and the boat, from the necessity of closing the windows, stifling. At day-light I opened my eyes upon a beautiful country. We had quitted the Backwater, and had entered the Cottayam river, its banks clothed with splendid forest trees, the staple wealth of this timber-mart of India; and the horizon hemmed in by a mountain-range on either side. It was a tranquil and a happy scene, such as I love to look upon; but that

terrible enemy to Europeans in India, the sun, soon found us, and put an end to all enjoyment until we could seek shelter from his fierce beams, under some more effectual protection than the flat low wooden roof of a boat-cabin; and by the time we reached Cottayam, I felt very much exhausted. The reception, however, which I met with here did me good like a medicine: Mr. and Mrs. Bailey received me at once as their bishop and their brother. In the evening I walked out to look about me, and the first place I visited was Mr. Bailey's new Church, which he is building with admirable taste, after a design of his own. The style is pure Gothic, and when finished it will be one of the finest Churches in India. The work proceeds slowly for want of funds, which are entirely dependent on private subscriptions. We sadly want a good Church-building fund in this country, and I fear we shall always want it, until it shall please God to kindle a true catholic spirit among us. The temporary Church for Mr. Bailey's congregation is a large and very neat building, though, like almost all our places of worship in this part of the country,

totally devoid of any external ecclesiastical character. I frequently see a meeting-house which looks like a chapel, but I very seldom meet with a Church which does not strongly resemble a conventicle: I am delighted therefore at this determination of Mr. Bailey's, that Cottayam shall possess a Church worthy of the name. I went also to the college; but as I shall probably have much to say on this subject hereafter, I will wait until my information is more matured. I believe it to be in excellent hands; and if Mr. Chapman is properly supported, we may hope great things from it. A visit to the reverend H. Baker, whom I found most patriarchally encompassed by his children, concluded my ramble; and I returned home highly gratified by all that I had seen, and blessing God that it hath pleased Him to put it into the hearts of his servants to raise up in the midst of a heathen land this little stronghold of the everlasting Gospel.

I fear the Syrian church is in a very degenerate state; every enquiry brings me to the same sad conclusion. I have neither heard from the Metran nor seen any of their Catanars,

and I think they have determined not to come near me. I am very far from quarrelling with them on this account, as I see no good likely to result from our meeting, beyond the gratification of an idle though natural curiosity. We could not even conscientiously wish each other good speed in the name of the Lord; our object being to bring the people to the light, while it is too evidently theirs to keep them in darkness. I am come most reluctantly to the persuasion, that the cause of Christianity will never be promoted in India by the Syrian church. To put a piece of new cloth into this old tattered garment would only make the I write thus of a sister church with most sincere sorrow. But if the Syrian church be thus fallen, that of the Syro-Roman is if possible lower still. Nothing apparently can be more degraded than that unhappy Church in southern India; it is a body without a soul, and therefore hastening rapidly to corruption. As are the Priests, so are the people. How far we may be permitted to benefit them is a very interesting speculation: but in all that we attempt to do for them we

rent worse;

must bear in mind the proverb, "Physician, heal thyself!" And I much fear that until we are able to present to them a Church not only Catholic in its doctrine and Apostolic in its discipline, but strictly bound together by the bonds of the Gospel, they will reply to our charitable efforts for their improvement, by warning us of the prior necessity of our

own.

Cottayam, December 3.

I visited, yesterday, one of the Syrian churches, of which there are several in this immediate neighbourhood. Like all their ecclesiastical buildings, it looks much handsomer without than I found it to be within. The chancel, which is considerably raised, and railed off from the body of the church, is daubed in fresco with representations of different passages in the life of our Saviour; I have however seen as bad in Italy. There is no pulpit; but a Syriac Bible, printed in England, is placed on a little desk before the altar, and portions of Scripture, appointed by the Church, are read daily to the people. The altar is decorated

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