EARNEST DESIRE FOR INSTRUCTION. they could get a teacher. meet and sing a hymn. 45 We now a great deal of difficulty in learning; I try to say but what cannot perseverance do? something to explain it, and then we Even in his sleep, he was heard retry to pray to God; but,' he added, with peating the letters and spelling the great simplicity, 'Oh, sir, it is poor words. At last he told me that he and hard work to teach when you could not live any longer at such a know nothing yourself. And so we distance from the good things he was agreed to come here together, to see hearing here, and that whenever he if we cannot get some one to teach us.' returned to his village he felt unhappy "These individuals had come 250 as he saw the dances and the amusemiles to seek religious instruction, ments in which the pagans indulged; being induced to do so by the feeble he lamented, too, that his wife could efforts of a poor ignorant man. So, not hear God's Word. So he told his then, neither is he that planteth any- chief that he intended to dwell at our thing, nor he that watereth, but God station. The chief opposed his plan, that giveth the increase."" and declared that he would not allow him to remove his property from the village; and the parents of his wife took their daughter back to their own house, not being willing that she should go and live amongst Christians. Mokilanyane (this was the young man's name) was grieved, but not discouraged, by these difficulties. But, however, he came and settled near our house of prayer; and it was not many months before he was allowed to take first his furniture and other moveables, then his wife, and lastly the few cattle he possessed." A French missionary, in South Africa, M. Maitin, of Berea, informs us that, among the people of his station, the desire of being able to read is growing more and more; and he gives the following story to show this: "A young married man," he writes, "had received a spelling-book. As he could not find any one in the village where he lived who could teach him to read, and as he was too far off to pay many visits to our station, he resolved to come over to us every Saturday, and to stay until We have reason to hope that this the following Wednesday. In this young man was taught God's Word way his desire to learn to read led him not only by his kind teachers but by to attend our services on Sunday. the Holy Spirit, and truly to trust in For some months he thus spent three our Lord Jesus Christ as his only days of every week near us. He had Saviour. 46 A DEATH-SCENE IN INDIA. A DEATH-SCENE IN INDIA. YESTERDAY was the Sabbath. I had been in the afternoon to a place, not long since a school, near the bazaar, where about thirty persons, mostly heathen and Mohammedans, had listened to Christian songs, and to an account of the crucifixion of the Son of God. As I was returning home a little before dark, by the road-side, under the shade of a tree, and right opposite to a number of bazaars, where men were busy buying and selling in the hours of holy time, I saw the dead body of a man. The face of the corpse had been covered, but the feet were exposed. I uncovered the face, and put my hand upon the forehead. It was cold, and gave me assurance that the spirit had fled. As I stood looking and thinking, a few of the villagers gathered at a little distance; two or three of the native police came, and a lowcaste man or two, such as may touch dead bodies. A Brahmin also came; but how far away he stood, lest he should contract defilement! A poor outcast was directed to search the clothes of the dead, to see if there were any papers or money. A small bag was found, in which there was money to the value of between two and three dollars; but there was nothing to identify the stranger, who was apparently forty-five or fifty years old. He was a traveller, was taken ill of cholera, and had no one to minister to him or to care for him; or if he had, they had left him there to die. No one had closed his dying eyes, or composed his limbs. He had stiffened in death, with his feet drawn up, and one arm partly erected. The poor menial, having counted the money, examined the clothes of the dead, and the Brahmin (who acted as a kind of coroner) having asked a few questions of the bystanders-who were all very careful to keep at quite a distancedirections were given to carry the corpse to its burial. After some chaffering as to the price to be paid to the two outcasts, thy took away the remains of this man, just at twilight, to be buried much as a brute is ordinarily buried. Thus died of cholera this poor and unknown Hindu, and thus was he buried, Sabbath, December 5, 1858. To-day, in the bazaar, I saw the principal one of the two low-caste men reeling with intoxication. Probably he had made himself drunk by means of the money obtained for burying the stranger. Reader, if when you "languish, and lay you down to die," there ture to the order before the punishment could be inflicted. As the paper passed through the hands of an officer, he remembered that there was a law of Peter the Great, on the AN old man in Russia purchased a Bible, but being himself unable to read, he requested his grandson to read a portion to him after he returned from school. "What part shall I read ?" asked subject of destroying images, so he the boy. "Well," replied the old man, "I have heard that there are some fine passages in the book of Isaiah, let us have one of them." The boy opened the book and began to read, in a clear distinct voice, the forty-fourth chapter, which so eloquently describes the vanity of idols, and the folly of their worshippers. The old man was struck with wonder, and saw at once the absurdity of bowing down to dumb idols which cannot help themselves. Rising from his seat, he tore down from the walls the images and pictures before which he had been accustomed to bow. The neighbours heard of what he had done, and soon the old man was called before the judges to give account of his daring conduct, when he was condemned to a heavy punishment. It was necessary however, to get the Emperor's signa searched for it, and slipped it among the papers which the Emperor would have to examine. The Emperor Alexander fortunately observed the paper, and there read that the Great Peter ordered that, for the first offence of the kind, the offender should be sent to a monastery for eight days; for the second offence, he should be sent there a fortnight, and taught his catechism by a priest; but for a third offence, he was to be given up as incorrigible, and must be left alone! Alexander, instead of signing his name to the order the priests had sent to him, wrote at the bottom, "Let it be done according to the law of our illustrious ancestor, Peter the Great. So be it-Alexander." And so the priests were disappointed, and the old man went on reading his Bible, and never bowed to images any more. 48 POETRY-THE BURIED BIBLES. HORRORS IN YORUBA, AFRICA. ILESA is one of the larger towns of, the country; but at least half the houses lie in ruins, owing to war without, and oppression within. I bave never seen in this country a place so well fortified. The wall is at least fifteen feet high, and no less than six thick, with a trench around it about twenty feet deep. Hundreds of human skulls are tempered into this wall. At the north gate I counted upwards of a hundred, all of which are those of war captives. It is awful to think the walls were originally built with the sacrifice of two human beings, who were walled up alive. These were none other than the firstborn son and daughter of the then reigning king! The most awful thing is the wholesale slaughter of men, women, and children, on the occasion of the death of a king. My host, his first servant (or slave), with several of his household, will have to die with the present king, if they live till his death. I saw also twelve little boys with brass rings on their ankles; they, together with the same number of girls, will have to die with him too, and many others.-Rev. M.Henderson-Church Missionary Record. Poetry. THE BURIED BIBLES. WHEN the Queen of Madagascar ordered the people to deliver up their Bibles, those who did not care about them immediately obeyed, but the Christians hid theirs in their houses, or buried them in the earth. When those who loved God's holy name, Safe in the bosom of the earth : Was it their glittering gold or gem? The greatest treasure they possess. One pearl of value they conceal'd A precious pearl of price unknown- And made His love and mercy known. Price 6d. per doz. or 3s. 6d. per 100; 20 copies sent free by post for 10d., paid in advance. Published by GALL & INGLIS, 6 George Street, Edinburgh. HOULSTON & WRIGHT, London. |