The Chairman then called on the Rev. Dr. BRODHEAD, Officers. A. P. M., Allahabad, Secretary of the Committee of Arrangements, for the report of the Committee as to Presiding Officers and Secretaries.

Dr. Brodhead stated that the Committee recommended Chairmen. that one of the senior Missionaries connected with the Societies represented should preside each day, and had proposed the following:

Rev. J. H. MORRISON, D.D., A. P. M., Umballa.*

Rev J. S. S. ROBERTSON, C. M. S., Bombay.

Rev. J. WILSON, D D., F. C. M., Bombay.

Rev. R. C. MATHER, LL.D., L. M. S., Mirzapore.

Rev. J. TRAFFORD, B. M. S., Serampore.

Rev. J. L. HUMPHREY, M.D., A. M. E. M., Nynee Tal.

Rev. C. HARDING, A. B. C. F. M., Bombay.

The following members were then appointed Secretaries Secretaries. to the Conference and Editors of the Proceedings:

Rev. J. M. MITCHELL, LL.D., F. C. M., Calcutta.

Rev. J. BARTON, C. M. S., Madras.

J. MURDOCH, Esq., LL.D., C. V. E. S., Madras.

Rev. A. BRODHEAD, D. D., A. P. M., Allahabad.

The time allotted to the reading of each paper was limit- Length of ed to half an hour. Remarks were not to exceed ten papers, &c. minutes. A bell was to be rung to show when the time had expired.

The Chairman stated that the Programme of Proceed- Programme, ings must necessarily be, in a great measure, what had previously been arranged and printed. The Committee of Arrangements in the selection of subjects and writers had carefully considered the suggestions received from some of the Provincial Committees. They had committed their way to God, and had done the best they could under the circumstances.

The first subject in the Programme was then taken up.

The Committee of Arrangements invited the Bishop of Calcutta to preside on the first day, and if his Lordship could not attend, the chair was to be taken by the Rev. J. S. S. Robertson, C. M. S., Bombay. The Bishop having declined, it was subsequently agreed, at the suggestion of the Rev. J. Barton, C. M. S., that the Rev. Dr. Morrison should preside on the first day, as the invitation to the Conference had been given by the American Presbyteriau Mission.

Greatness of the enterprize.

The

compara.

ON PREACHING TO THE HINDUS.

PAPER BY THE REV. J. WILSON, D.D., F. R. S., Free Church of Scotland's Mission, Bombay.

THE EVANGELIZATION OF INDIA is in some respects the greatest distinctive enterprize yet attempted by the Church of Christ. I make this remark in the view of the great multitudes of the devotees of Hinduism in this country, and of Buddhism (which is a mere offshoot or secession from Hinduism) to be found in all the neighbouring and remote countries of the East, comprehending about half the population of the world. I make it in the view of the formidable obstacles to success in the enterprize which have manifestly so long existed. I make it in the view of the certain success in that enterprize which the outstanding promises and prophecies of the word of God, viewed in connexion with remarkable arrangements and indications of divine providence, lead us to anticipate. The warrant of the enterprize is found in the assurance and command of Jesus himself, "All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth. Go ye therefore, [in the strength of this power] and disciple all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost; teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded; and lo [or behold], I am with you always [or for all days, or times], even unto the end of the world."

The peculiar and comparative difficulty of the work of tive difficulty. the Evangelization of India must be apparent to every considerate mind. The Apostles commenced their labours, and that with miraculous endowments and powers, in the land of Israel, where divine preparation had been made for the Gospel, by the providential dispensations which constituted the "fulness of time," from the first settlement there of the members of the Abrahamic family. The Israelitish nation, from its institution, had been divinely instructed and trained by inspired seers and prophets; by sacrificial services and rites, foreshadowing the person, offices, and work and redemptive atonement of the Saviour himself; by the possession of the Oracles of God, received, conserved, and corroborated by evidence full and satisfactory; by the preparatory ministry of John the Baptist, reaching, by attraction, from the depths of the desert, where he ministered, to the summits of Lebanon and the shores of the Great

Sea, from which his disciples were drawn; and by the events of more than Epic grandeur which preceded and accompanied the Incarnation of the Eternal Word, when He became flesh and dwelt among and taught his own, by the glories of his person and the wonders of his word and work. Though opposing Pharisaic pride and Sadducean sensuality were powerful and destructive, they prevailed not over those who were "waiting for the consolation of Israel," and those who formed the "remnant according to the election of grace.' Wherever the Apostles went in the countries exterior to state of the an Judea, whether in Syria, Western Asia, Eastern Europe, or cient world. Northern Africa, they found as nuclei of initial congregations, synagogues of Jewish settlers, which had been established there probably from the times of the successors of Alexander the Great, if not, in some instances, from the Babylonish captivity. When they encountered the Greek faith, they found a religion of fancy, imagination, and feeling without the support of any written standards of reputed revelation or authority; and when they had to deal with the Grecian Philosophy, they generally found that when its prejudices against the doctrine of the cross as "foolishness" were mitigated, its highest appeals were to the sphere of rea son and to deference to great personages of the past who had confessedly outwearied themselves by their own speculations, and some of whom, like the great Plato, had expressed their longings for a divine instructor. When they encountered the Roman faith, they found it at the period of their labours, only, very much an accommodation to Grecian influence, and also with a religious literature in its support, if ever such existed, reduced to a few Sybilline leaves. In Egypt, the land of ancient kings and ancient things, they found even its "wisdom" and its symbolic representations fast passing into obscurity and neglect under the Ptolemies and the Cæsars. Their successors in labour as they journeyed to, and in, the West, found far less culture than in the Eastern parts of the Roman Empire, but, notwithstanding exposure to persecutions, they had there to deal with peoples of more simplicity and humility and practical good sense than those of the Gentile world who were first privileged to hear the Gospel sound. In India, the messengers of the Gospel encounter religious systems and institutions of vast antiquity, though not of unvarying form, professing to rest on a large body of literature believed to be founded on inspiration or direct divine communication, or, as in the case of Buddhism, in a development of intellectual power akin to omniscience ;

Hinduism.

and supported by a powerful system of Caste, attempting, too successfully in the main, to keep in bondage the whole of the inner and outer life of the people by a social and antisocial tyranny originating to a great extent in the pride of race, the dominancy of a crafty and tyrannical priesthood, and the degradation and oppression of the inferior grades of the human family. In India, we have to deal with elaborated systems of faith and practice which are allied, and intimately allied, with every principle congenial to the natural depravity of man, and suited to every variety of temperament and condition of life. Hinduism, though it has gone through many changes, is still the grandest embodiment of Gentile error. It is at once physiolatrous in its main aspects, and fetish in its individual recognitions of particular objects of power for good or evil; polytheistic and pantheistic; idolatrous and ceremonious, yet spiritual; authoritative and traditional, yet inventive and accommodative. The lower classes of society it leaves in the depths of ignorance and darkness, without making any attempt to promote their elevation. The indolent and inane succumbing to its trying climate, it leaves in undisturbed repose. To the curious and inquisitive, it furnishes, in its remarkable Schools of Philosophy, systems of combined physics and metaphysics, at once empirical and deductive; and which exercise and yet weaken and pervert the intellectual faculties, and that without any clear recognition of moral obligation and duty to God or man. To the lovers of excitement and amusement, it furnishes a boundless store of myths, fables, and fictions. To the active and superstitious, it affords a never-ending round of foolish and frivolous ceremonies, which engross most of their time and energies. To the rich, wealthy, and powerful, it literally promises and sells pleasure in this world, with the expectancy of its continuance in those which are hoped will come. Those who love to rove, it sends away on distant journeys and pilgrimages. Those who are morbid and melancholy, it settles on the hill of ashes. Those who are disgusted with the world, it points to the wilderness. Those who are tired of life, it directs to the funeral pile, the idol car, or the lofty precipice. To those who are afraid of sin, it prescribes easy and frivolous penances, or directs to the sacred lake or river, in which they may be cleansed from all pollution. Those who need a Mediator, it commends to the Guru, who will supply all deficiencies and answer all demands. To those who are afraid of death, it gives the hope of future births, which

may either be in a rising or in a descending scale. Those who shrink from the view of these repeated births in human and infrahuman forms, it directs to the absorption of the Védántist, or the Nirvana, the totally unconscious existence or absolute extinction of the soul of the Buddhist or the Jaina. Need we wonder that Hinduism has had its millions of votaries, and that, with some conspicuous losses, it has retained them for thousands of years, up to the present day?

pated.

But though we contemplate the facts now alluded to with Success anticideep concern and anxiety, we do not despair of the triumph of Christianity in this great country, and that at no very distant day. The prophecies and promises of the Bible, ample and precise; providential dispensations of a marked character; and success unequivocally begun give us courage and resolution for the great enterprize to which we feel wo have been called by God himself. We believe that where Satan's throne has been so long established and upheld, and where God has been so sigually dishonoured as in India, the authority of the Lord of Glory and Prince of Peace will be conspicuously established. Changes symptomatic of a religious and social revolution are already beginning to appear throughout the length and breadth of India. Mountains have been brought low and valleys exalted that a highway may be prepared for the Lord. The palmy days of Hinduism are past, never more to return. Weakened it has been by internal speculations and external dissensions; and by sectarian organizations acting in opposite directions. It has never altogether recovered from the effects of the great Buddhist secession and revolution. Its spirit has been humbled by the advent aud continued assaults of Muhammadanism. The British Government, so marvellously established throughout the borders of India, has instructed it by the peace it has maintained, the toleration it has practised, the justice which it has dispensed, the knowledge which it has disseminated, and the protection which it has afforded to the messenger of the truth. The priesthood of India has modified its pretensions and curtailed its demands. Its votaries have in multitudes of instances begun to think and act for themselves. A stream of the Indian people, gathering, as we believe, strength and depth as it goes, is seen entering the portals of the temple of truth. preaching or public proclamation of the Gospel (the grand antidote to the woes of this country), and that in many

The