course with European ladies. They lived in pitiable ignorance, their intellectual powers becoming contracted from the want of exercise, and the whole character being thus dwarfed and stunted.

But the Hindu Baboo has discovered the disadvantage of all this He has himself received an English education, and he finds an ignorant wife a wearisome companion. He learns, too, that if she be ill-tempered, one reason is because she is left without any improving employment, and that, if he is afraid to trust her with freedom, it is because she has been left destitute of the principles which would dispose her to make a right use of it.

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It has become, therefore, in the eyes of the Hindu gentry, an urgent necessity to improve the tone of the female character, and accordingly the doors of the zenanas are rapidly opening, and European ladies are invited to enter in and impart instruction. We learn that at Calcutta alone there are not less than 360 Hindu ladies and children under instruction, scattered through more than 100 zenanas; and our Missionary, the Rev. J. Barton, has declared his conviction that the number might be tripled, quadrupled, if there were only the means and the agents, both European and native, to carry on the work, Inda letter to a friend the ob

serves

Scarcely a week passes now without some reference to the work on the part of the native newspapers, showing that if they do not yet value the religious instruction which we wish to give, they are at least sufficiently alive to the advantages of having educated wives, and this is a wonderful! advance, on the past. I cannot better illustrate these remarks than by quoting an extract from one of the last numbers of the "Indian Mirror,'{ one of these native newspapers, After urging at considerable length the peculiar advantage of zenana education, as contrasted with mere schools for little girls, the writer concludes thus.- We would also solicit the assistance of the numerous respectable European ladies residing in this

countryve a mission to fulfil here, and for the ought to remember

in the great zenana reform.

that use of their opportunities they are accountable to God. They are placed in placed in the midst of millions. of unhappy and degraded sisters, whose interests they are bound to fur ther to the best of their ability. Following in the footsteps of that noble and devoted band of their countrywomen, who went about doing all manner of good to suffering humanity, and impelled by that charity which is the glory of Christian men and women, let them, with selfsacrificing devotion, strive to deliver their Hindu sisters from ignorance, and its concomitant evils. The influence which they are likely to exercise on their own sex, both by their natural tenderness and their superior acquirements, it is impossible to exaggerate. We sincerely hope, therefore, they will spend at least their leisure hours in visiting native families, and imparting gratuitous instruction as far as possible. Such visitation) will be productive of the best results, as many a Bengali home which has been benefited by the same will testify. Disinterested philanthropy

always does immense good, and is thankfully appreciated..... Those who have Christian hearts within, and feel a moral Governor above, must fling off apathy and selfishness, and devote their energies to the amelioration of the condition of native women." Such an appeal, coming from one still outside, the pale of Christianity, is, I think, one of the most remarkable testimonies I have ever read to the exalted character of ever! Christian philanthropy.

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-Means and agents are needed. Let, then, ladies at home take up this special work, and exert themselves to find both one and other. It belongs to them: surely they will not shrink from or evade it: it is not only the poor Hindu lady that would be benefited, but the English lady who engages in it would be benefited also. She would find it to be an ennobling employment. There would be no time for frivolous pursuits. A Christian enterprise would occupy the thoughts, and time that used to move so heavily would be employed usefully, and pass delightfully. How much might be done by a few zealous ladies prayerfully resolving to take up this work; first, reading about the Zenana Mission, and furnishing their minds with information on the subject, and in conversation bringing it forward in an attractive way, and so interesting others; then forming little parties to work the Zenana Mission, to converse about the zenanas and their inmates, until some perhaps among them, whose circumstances are such as to leave them free to do so, offer themselves for this peculiar service.

A valuable Missionary left us some few months, back on his return to India in recovered health, and with every prospect of much usefulness. But it was ordered otherwise. The cholera broke out on board the ship. His own ayah was taken ill with others. There were several young Missionaries on board, but he would not let them be endangered. He tended the sick himself, caught the disease, and died, and, three weeks after leaving England, his body was committed to the grave of the deep sea.

A widow on the shores of India, his bereaved partner has consecrated herself to the zenana work, and remains there to carry it on.

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A MISSIONARY PICNIC IN AMERICA.

As the children's Missionary meeting held near Wilmington, Delaware, on the 25th of May, differed somewhat from those in other places, our readers may be interested in a short account of it. 57

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The spot selected was a wooded hill near the Brandywine, in the midst of lovely scenery. The schools present were those of St. Andrew's Church and Calvary Chapel, Wilmington, and Christ Church, Christiana Hundred. The number of children was about five hundred, and that of the grown people not far below it.

The first exercise was the opening of the dinner-baskets, which were filled only with plain, good fare, because we thought the luxuries so often lavished upon "Sunday-school picnics" quite inconsistent with an earnest Missionary spirit. The spare intervals were filled up with lively games, and rambles after violets and buttercups.

Then came the great business of the day. The speakers occupied an ample platform of square basaltic rock, the front of which was draped with the American flag, and wreathed with flowers. The ground sloped gently down on every side, and the rocks afforded many seats for the audience.

The anthem, "Suffer Little Children," was sung, and the meeting opened with a few words from Bishop Lee, and prayer by Dr. Newton. A hymn, written for the occasion, was then sung

Gather, gather, children,
In the leafy wood;
Heaven is smiling o'er us,
God is kind and good.
Flowerets of the spring-time
Carpet all the sward,
And the Rose of Sharon
Opens in His word,
Hear the mission trumpet
Calling from afar,
Range you in the battle→
Gather for the war;
We're a band of brothers,
Fighting for the right,
Missionaries are we,

Bearing forth the light.

Many heathen children
Clustering we see
Round a darksome idol,
Bending low the knee;
Bear, oh! bear the Bible

To their homes of gloom;
Open ranks, ye soldiers,

Tell them there is room.
Soon, so soon, the victory
Shall be won and o'er,
Then we all shall gather
On the heavenly shore;
Weaving brightest garlands
By salvation's tide,
Singing songs of triumph
With the glorified.

The children were then addressed by Mr. Parvin, on "the little steamengine" inside of every child, which so often impels the pouting lip, the doubled fist, and the wicked word, and which ought rather to move the head and hands and tongue and feet in willing labours for the Lord Jesus Christ.

"Saviour, like a shepherd lead us," followed, and Mr. Rising had a pleasant talk with us about the Children's Church Missionary Society. He showed a number of letters from children, enclosing money to make them members; and at this point the bishop lifted on his shoulder a curly-headed three-year old, a new-made annual member.

Next in order was a hymn, written by an old friend of the Wilmington children, "Hark, a Voice across the Ages;" and then came one of Dr. Newton's happiest speeches. After which Mr. Latimer made a short address on the three words-“Give, Get, Gain.”

The last hymn, "Whither, Pilgrims, are you going?" was now sweetly sung by the boys and girls alternately and in chorus, and the meeting closed with doxology and benediction. A. B. (American).

THE NEWLY-DISCOVERED OF EAST AFRICA.

THE discovery of the great lakes which are the sources from whence come the waters of the Nile, has opened out new fields for Missionary labour. Captains Speke and Grant and Sir S. Baker, in their enter

prising researches, carried out amidst great difficulties and dangers, have discovered not only the lakes Tanganyika, the Victoria Nyanza, from whence the Nile has its birth, the Albert Nyanza, into which, after its descent at the Murchison Falls, it enters, and there receives new supplies to fit it for its long journey to the distant Mediterranean, but they have opened up new tribes and populations, lying in a condition of pitiable degradation, all debased and sunk, in some cases so brutalized, that we could not venture to introduce a picture of them. To these, evangelists must go. They are not beyond the wide circumference of the Lord's command, "Go ye into all the world, and preach the Gospel to every creature." That is the church's responsibility. There is a responsibility laid upon her to preach the Gospel; it is one that may not be neglected.

In our engraving we have selected the most presentable of those natives through whose countries Sir S. Baker passed. To his volumes we must refer such of our readers as desire to know more of these new countries; in our little periodical we can only refer to them.

We stated that the countries to the north of the Somerset Nile, as the river is called in its descent from the Victoria to the Albert lake, are much more degraded than those to the south, owing to the raids of the Turkish slave-dealers, and the confusion and misery that follow in their train. Unyoro, to which country the people in our engraving belong, are on the south side of the river, and therefore are in a superior condition as to clothing and other necessaries of life. The women are neatly dressed in short petticoats with a double skirt, many of them wearing a piece of bark cloth, arranged as a plaid across the chest and shoulders. This cloth is the produce of a species of fig-tree, the bark of which is stripped off in large pieces, and then soaked in water and beaten with a mallet: in appearance it much resembles corduroy, and is the colour of tanned leather; the finer qualities are peculiarly soft to the touch, as though of woven cotton. Every garden is full of this species of tree, as their cultivation is necessary for the supply of clothing. When a man takes a wife, he plants a certain number of trees, which are to be the tailors of the expected family.

"The huts are very large, about twenty feet in diameter, made entirely of reeds and straw, and very lofty, looking, in the interior, like huge inverted baskets, bee-hive shaped, very different to the dog-kennels of the more northern tribes. Of the cleanliness of these dwellings, not much can be said. Goats and fowls share the hut with their owner, which, being littered with straw, is redolent of man and beast. The natives sleep upon a mass of straw, upon a raised platform, this at night being covered with a dressed skin."

The natives use milk, but not until it has been curdled. This is soon done if the milk be placed in a vessel that had previously contained curdled milk. As it is esteemed a beauty in native ladies to be extremely fat, the king's young wives are "compelled to drink daily about a gallon of curdled milk, the swallowing of which is frequently enforced by the whip." Plantains grow in abundance, but a ripe plantain is rarely to be had, the natives using the fruit while unripe, and preparing it for food by boiling. The ripe fruit is used for brewing plantain cider.