"I cannot give you the exact number of those who have gone forth to proclaim the Saviour's love, but they are perhaps not under 120. A small number, you will say; and, moreover, much circumscribed in their knowledge, faith, and Christian character. Yet if the Lord Most High operates and glorifies himself through such contemptible instruments, his name will be exalted. Many conversions have taken place in sundry districts where we least expected them and whatever may be the private opinion, still there is the evidence of an outstretched arm to save China from perdition.

"Pray much for us, that the Saviour may be glorified in and by us.'

وو

Several officers in the Royal Navy bear their testimony to the importance of the Chinese Union.

Extract of a letter from Lieutenant F. W. Davis, R. M. A., Fowey, Cornwall, April 28th, 1848:

"As, doubtless, you will be pleased to hear later news of the Chinese Association' than that you have published, I will take the liberty of giving you some particulars, which I collected on the 28th September last, when I joined the members of that association in their morning worship. I would premise, that I left Hong Kong the following day, invalided. More than fifty Chinese were present, myself and Mr. Gutzlaff being the only Europeans in the room. Several essays, composed on passages of Scripture by some of the native members, were publicly read; and such as were thought worthy of publication were put by for that purpose. Prayer was then offered up by one of them, in the Chinese language, to the Lord Jesus,' and a petition that I might be granted a safe passage to my native land, and speedy restoration to health. Whether these were truly converted men, born again' into the family of God, the great searcher of hearts alone can know; but it is for us to pray that he will pour down his Spirit upon them, and so teach and strengthen them, that they may be made the instruments of preaching the everlasting Gospel of a Saviour's love to their benighted countrymen,

"The number of enrolled members was upwards of five hundred; more than one hundred being sent into the interior of the country, as preachers of the word.

"The expenses of the Association had increased to more than five hundred dollars, or £104 3s. 4d. per month, with very little to meet them. May the Lord graciously be pleased to put it into the hearts of such Christians as have the means, to come forward in aid of these their poor brethren in a distant land."

Extract of a letter from Colonel Philpotts, R. E., dated Hong Kong, January 28th, 1848:

"You will, perhaps, be surprised to learn, that a Chinese Native Union Society exists now, composed of natives exclusively, who meet every evening for the purpose of reading the Scriptures together, and prayer, and also reading essays on Christianity, which the most clever among them write for the purpose. I saw from sixty to seventy of them a few days ago, of whom one had just come from Pekin, another from Tartary, another from the Great Wall. Most

of them (as I was told by Dr. Gutzlaff, the interpreter here,) are sincere and confirmed Christians. They are in connexion with all parts of the Chinese empire, and constantly going and coming, so that in a week afterwards, at their meeting, though one would see about the same number, one half would be new arrivals. There is another society, equally numerous, who assemble at a different hour, because they speak a different dialect. You see that the seed is sowing, but there is a sad want of labourers in the vineyard, and, above all, of a good and active bishop, to guide and direct the efforts which must now be made by the Church to secure these people, who at present belong to no church, but merely profess to be Christians trying to spread the Gospel among their countrymen. There is a most valuable institution here, the Morrison Education Society, of which I must tell you more in my next. But if we had a good bishop immediately, much might be done. If you can circulate the information I now give, and interest

persons in behalf of this widelyextended and interesting field, you will do much good."

Extract of a letter from Captain Robert Coote, R. N., dated May 30, 1848:

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"At my brother's house I have just found a statement of a proposition to assist the Chinese Christian

Union,' commenced, I suppose, by some of your family. I write to assure you my heart is with your undertaking. Since your leaving, I have watched its proceedings as far as I was able, and have every reason to believe the Lord is blessing the word preached and disseminated by the native agents. Several-many more had been baptized, and many had come from distant parts for instruction in Christian doctrines. When I left, I think I counted between sixty and eighty on one morning. Shortly after you left, it was deemed necessary, advisable, and likely, with God's blessing, to be beneficial, to publish selections from our Prayer-Book, to guide and give a right direction in worship to the newly-formed churches, some in a very distant part of the empire. It was not all finished when I left, but I have brought what was, hoping to get assistance in finishing it, it costing more than was expected. I have likewise brought copies of their tracts for the Religious Tract Society, hoping to get assistance from them."

Most heartily do we commend to our readers the concluding appeal of Miss Chesney's most interesting statement. A native instrumentality for such a stupendous work as China presents cannot fail to be regarded as most auspicious, if not indicative of the Lord's designs of mercy toward that vast empire; and we trust that there will not be wanting amongst Christians in England such a ready and liberal co-operation as shall be commensurate with the wants of this most interesting call.

"It is hoped that the preceding extracts will be read with interest, as proving that, however small the progress made by the native preachers, in proportion to the three hundred and thirty-three millions, the popula

tion of China, still they are advancing, and that God's blessing is with them. When their very inadequate means are taken into consideration, it is, perhaps, surprising that so much has been done. So vast a field has never before been opened, in which Great Britain has been called upon to be the means of bringing to myriads of our fellowcreatures the glad tidings of salvation. With this conviction upon our minds, can it be that means will be wanting? Can it be that Christians will hesitate to deny themselves some luxury, some gratification, that they may be enabled to assist in spreading the greatest of all blessings amongst a people ready and willing to receive it?

"The Chinese Christian Union' is considerably in debt. This Institution is based upon the Gospel, and to extend the Gospel is its end and aim. We appeal, then, to all who know and love that Gospel, whether rich or poor, whether with or without influence, to come forward and aid it: and we appeal in the name of Him who has said, that a cup of cold water given in His name shall not go unrewarded.

"Would that He who alone giveth the increase would put it into the hearts of those whose wealth and position peculiarly afford them the means of doing good, to embrace this His cause, and to lend their names and their assistance to the work.

"It is a work in which none are too great or too humble to join, if they unite in the strength of the Lord, and in his strength alone.”

Donations and subscriptions will be thankfully received by Miss Chesney, Ballincollig, Cork; Captain H. Downes, R. N., Ladbrooke Terrace, Kensington, London; and the Rev. Wm. Carus Wilson, Casterton Hall, Kirkby Lonsdale.

SYRIA. We have referred to the simultaneous movement throughout the world. Along with China, there is a remarkable awakening just now in various parts of Syria, chiefly occasioned by the labours of the colporteurs, who are going through the country circulating the Scriptures,

and explaining and enforcing their contents wherever they have opportunity. The result is becoming very extensive and important, especially amongst the Arabs, who belong to the Greek Church. Lately, above 400 Arabs, in the village of Naplous, the ancient Sychar, made known to the Bishop of Jerusalem their conviction of the errors of the Greek Church, their resolution to abandon it, and their wish to join the Protestant Church at Jerusalem. The Bishop has had several similar applications from other Samaritan villages; and altogether the state of enquiry and awakening throughout that interesting country is very encouraging.

CAIRO. THE CHOLERA.-ExTRACT FROM A LETTER FROM MRS. LEIDER, DATED Nov. 3, 1848."I will now enter upon our own case of suffering and anxiety when the cholera broke out in this city; nor was it to us alone, but to the whole inhabitants of Cairo, a subject of justifiable fear. Its appearance, you may well conceive, caused a general panic and excitement amongst us Europeans, not only because of its unexpectedness, but that it came at a season of the year so unfavourable as the last month of the swellings of the Nile. The most astonishing part of it is, that the cholera seems to have entered Egypt by no visible doorway, but from the very beginning to have passed over the commercial entrances of the country, and with a capriciousness most extraordinary, poured the whole weight of its malignancy upon Tauba, a small city in the centre of the Delta, the well-known site of that far-celebrated fair of the Mahometans, which is usually held in honour of the Seyyid Ahmud el Bedaure. So sudden and mysterious was its first appearance, and so peculiarly painful the period of its visitation-being the season of the fair, when the Mahometans throughout the country, as well as pilgrims from all parts of the world, congregate there for the united purposes of religion, commerce, and superstition. More than 70,000 strangers had thus assembled to honour the remains of the saint: for all the "true believers"

expect that such an act will of course be followed by some suitable blessing. This festival ranks in dignity and sanctity next to that of the Mool'del-Habz, or anniversary of the Prophet, and always lasts a week. In a commercial point of view it is of great importance, as it attracts all kinds and sorts of goods as well as men, whether they be Europeans, Natives, or Orientals. Here may be found the slaves of Soudan, of every shade in ebony, as well as the silks of China, the gems of India, the spices of Arabia, the horses and mules of Syria, with all manner of the choicest fabrics from Europe, and especially the cottons of England. It was from this crowded mass that the cholera spread with the affrighted pilgrims to Cairo, where its presence was first publicly known about the 14th of July, only a few days after it had destroyed its tens of thousands at Tauba. On the 16th, the cases in Boulach were four. On the 17th, they had amounted to eighteen, and on the day following to forty-nine; at this rapid ratio it progressed till it carried off its hundreds daily. So destructive have been its results, that it seemed to have assumed almost a distinct character from that disease which appeared in Egypt in 1832-people in the fulness of health were seized, and in less than three hours, or even two, laid still in death. It gave no warning; innumerable are the instances where individuals have dropped down and died in the streets, without any one knowing from whence they came, or to whom belonging. The character of the disease was so novel and so appalling, that it set at defiance our ablest physicians. In cases where the sufferers had the promptest and best medical aid, few were saved during the first fifteen days, all had died within a very few hours, although men of gigantic strength. In August the cholera had assumed a very violent form in every part of Egypt, and the cases, melancholy to relate, were almost always fatal! One would have supposed, that a city, under such circumstances, would have established a sufficient Board of Health, and that every care would have been taken to protect the people, which medical skill could

suggest; but was this the case? No! A sort of infatuation seemed to fall upon the over-paid European physicians, owing, no doubt, to the peculiar jealousy of the present ruler against them, that no notice was issued save a printed circular upon the subject, and which none of the poor Arabs could read. At the very beginning it was said that an order had been proclaimed, forbidding the use of unsound fruit and vegetables, as also their sale; some few loads of which were destroyed by the police, but in such a way that the poor eagerly devoured them. After this act not the slightest notice was taken by the Grand Council of the Sanataria, and which has been paid for many years to guard the public health. Consequently free access was given to all kinds of food, whether fish, flesh, or fruits, wholesome or unwholesome, suitable or unsuitable, to impede or promote the malady. I have never seen Cairo more full of injurious articles of diet. No attempt was publicly made or given, at the gates or tolls of the city, to prevent the introduction of any kind of vegetables or unripe fruits. The heat of the season, also, and the high state of the Nile, added to the state of this calamity, the thermometer in the shade being never less than 95° of Fahrenheit, and varying from that to 105° of the same. We had anxiously hoped that this great scourge would disappear before the cutting of the Great Canal, believing that it would not spread through the country without the agency of the winds and the water; but with an infatuation and blindness that can only be explained on the principle of ignorance and fatalism, the Nile was cut this year sooner than usual, and the natural consequences followed, that the low, marshy lands of the Egyptian valley were filled with the awful pestilence. It raged from village to village, and from place to place, with an unprecedented fury, striking its root into every part of Egypt, and sweeping before it whole hecatombs at once, of the poor, ignorant, and helpless natives.

"I can never forget our dreadful experience of the terrific mortality as village after village were depopulated,

and house after house made desolate. Dr. Rouner, the chief physician to his highness, Abbass Pascha, and the well-known author of many medical works on the climate of Egypt, has told us that it is now ascertained with certainty that the cholera has carried off the appalling number of 170,000, who have perished from cholera alone, and that, for Egypt, as you well know, is a fearful sum total for the space of sixty days, the time of its visitation. We have seen thousands fall in every direction round us, whilst the terrific and almost general cry for the first month throughout the whole city was heart-rendinga continued "death-cry "-and you well know how distracting it is. It has resounded from all parts of Cairo, and even from the suburbs, and become so loud and universal as to make our hearts often quail before it. Every grave-yard is full of the dead, from the Babel-Nasser to the very edge of the wilderness, on the north side. On the other sides of the city, both south, east, and west, not a cemetery is to be found which has not received its over-charged numbers. It has carried off a vast number of Europeans, and out of the few English in Cairo, eight have died. All the royal palaces are closed; and, after the death of Balkee Bey, the brother of Sama Pascha, and the governor of Cairo, all the courts of justice, as well as the divans of government, were shut for an indefinite period. Not a person of distinction was left even in the citadel. Most of the Paschas and Beys, unlike the Mahometans, when their fears were once roused, had fled, or were dead, or had taken leave to seek a continuance of life in some less poisonous atmosphere.

"I will now close this long and irregular account of this visitation on Egypt by another equally melancholy detail in the wilds of Arabia.

"On the 3rd of October, authentic news reached Cairo that the cholera had broken out with the pilgrims who had just started with the annual caravan to Mecca, thirty of whom died the first night, when only one day's march from Suez: if so, what may be the result, when hundreds

and thousands of miserable fatalists, ill-fed, ill-clad, and way-worn, are its ready subjects of attack, rendered still more wretched and helpless by the very situation they are in. Only think, and you, too, will know their position, that they are surrounded on all sides by deserts so dry, barren, and waterless, that no one dare stop to help even his brother; and yet, by his very religion, the Mahometan is compelled to push forward, whilst, blinded by predestination, and the Sovereign Will Fate, he despises precaution-fears to turn back-believing, if he dies on the sacred way, he will have the grave, and the rank of a martyr. I can not imagine a man more left to himself, than a believer in the prophet thus overtaken by pestilence, in the midst of the terrible wilderness. I have since heard that a frightful scene has followed them, day after day, and that the Emer-el-Haigh, or chief of the caravan, is also numbered amongst the dead. Cairo has been in a very excited state in consequence, as many of its citizens are with it. All are anxious for the latest news; but there is no post in the desert. Our danger, and the dreaded prospects now anticipated for all the inhabitants of Egypt, has a different character, and proceeds from the almost certain breaking-up of the plague, as well as the expected famine, which, humanlyspeaking, must follow the present fearful inundation, an inundation which has arisen beyond parallel, in memory of the oldest man, and which may indeed, in many places about Cairo, amount to a minor deluge. The isles of Rhoda and Boulack are quite submerged. The palace of Ibrahim Pascha, on the banks of the Nile, as well as the royal palace of Shubred, and the Casser-el-Nill, are laid under or overflowed with water, with the frightful destruction of all sorts of grain, and especially Indian corn-the food of the poor: whole villages have been swept away. The cause of this vast overflowing of the river is said to proceed from the cupidity of great men, or landed proprietors, who have planted on the high grounds their cotton-seed, which brings in more money than grain,

and which lands must be kept dry to produce the desired high prices, and thus fill the pockets of the Beys, Paschas, and Effendies. Hence the redundant water is prevented, by drains, from overflowing the lands, as in former years, when no kind of impediment was used to prevent the fertilizing river running with freedom and abundance into all lands. Mammon is therefore at the bottom of this second woe, over Egypt, whilst misery, famine, death, and pestilence, will of necessity follow this short-sighted seeking after wealth. The Burrage has also added its share to the national affliction, till in its turn the indignant Nile has almost swept it from the face of the earth in its Typhonian violence. The whole of the Delta is under water, with its fields and crops, herds and pastures, all are at this time submerged and drowned, and the mud-walled mansions of the people literally dissolved. Between Damietta and Rosetta the land is almost a continuous sea, except where some ancient site of an habitation raises its artificial and lofty head above the waters, to shew that it belonged to a wiser generation of men than those who govern Egypt at this day, new unto the Pharaohs.

The Pope has been badly treated in Cairo: his most religious sons, after having almost, if not entirely idolized him as a god, have ultimately done themselves the honour of destroying his holiness in a public place by fire, as no better than a demon. The Italians have put off his colours, burnt his pictures, placed asses heads on his images, and, in fact, done every despite against him.

As regards the French inhabitants of Cairo, of the better class, they all seem ashamed at present of the reckless fickleness of their nation, nor do they like to speak on the subject.

I am sorry to add, that the Bedouins, of the Beir and Tor, and also those of the Eastern desert, have broken out in rebellion, and are at the old feuds of blood-revenge. I regard the desert, about Suisi, as very unsafe at present, or until such time as Ibrahim Pascha shall make them feel that his power is equal to that of Mehemet Ali