the ways of God, and strangers to blessing may attend all your faithhis grace! May this thought ful labours; and that you may find stimulate to activity and diligence the truth of his word, assuring us, in the cause of immortal souls! that wherever we assemble toThey are precious in God's sight gether in his name, there he is in -they ought to be so in ours." the midst to bless every waiting Some pointed and affecting ob- soul. servations, to that effect, recurred "How precious are all his to my mind as having been made promises! We ought never to by the young person with whom doubt the truth of his word. For I had been just conversing. Her he will never deceive us if we go mind appeared to be much im- on in faith, always expecting to pressed with the duty of speaking receive what his goodness waits and acting for God," while it is to give. Dear Sir, I have felt it day;" conscious, that "the night very consoling to read your kind cometh, when no man can work." letter to-day. I feel thankful to Her laudable anxiety on this head God for Ministers in our Church was often testified to me after-who love and fear his name: ward, both by letter and conver- there it is, where the people in sation. What she felt herself in general look for salvation; and respect to endeavours to do good, there they may ever find it, for she happily communicated to Jesus's sake! May his word, others, with whom she corres- spoken by you, his chosen vessel ponded or conversed. of grace, be made spirit and life

Time would not permit my to their dead souls! May it come continuing so long in the enjoy- from you, as an instrument in the ment of these meditations on this hand of God, as sharp arrows lovely mount of observation, as from a strong archer, and strike my heart desired. On my return a deathblow to all their sins! home, I wrote a few lines to the How I long to see the arrows of Dairyman's daughter, chiefly dic-conviction fastened on the minds tated by the train of thought of those that are hearers of the which had occupied my mind, while I sat on the hill.

On the next Sunday evening I received her reply, of which the following is a transcript.

"REV. SIR,

Sunday.

word and not doers! O Sir! be ambitious for the glory of God and the salvation of souls. It will add to the lustre of your crown in glory, as well as to your present joy and peace. We should be willing to spend and be spent "I am this day deprived of an in his service, saying, Lord, opportunity of attending the house may thy will be done by me in of God, to worship him. But, earth, even as it is by thy angels glory be to his name! he is not in heaven.' So you may expect confined to time or place. I feel to see his face with joy, and say, him present with me where I am, Here am I, Lord, and all the and his presence makes my Para-souls thou hast given me.' dise; for where he is, is heaven. "It seems wonderful that we I pray God that a double portion of his grace and Holy Spirit may rest upon you this day; that his

should neglect any opportunity of doing good, when there is, if it be done from love to God and his

creatures, a present reward of whole eternity in that delightful grace, in reflecting that we are employment! to tell to listening using the talents committed to our ages his love, immense, uncare, according to the power and searchable!' ability which we receive from "Dear Sir, I thank you for him. God requires not what he your kindness and condescension, has not promised to give. But in leaving those that are of high when we look back, and reflect, rank and birth in the world, to that there have been opportuni- converse with me, who am but a ties in which we have neglected servant here below. But when I to take up our cross and speak consider what a high calling, what and act for God, what a dejection honour and dignity God has conof mind we feel! We are then ferred upon me, to be called his justly filled with shame. Con- child, to be born of his Spirit, scious of being ashamed of Christ, made an heir of glory, and joint we cannot come with that holy heir with Christ; how humble boldness to a throne of grace, nor and circumspect should I be in feel that free access, when we all my ways, as a dutiful and lovmake our supplications. ing child to an affectionate and

"We are commanded to pro-loving Father! When I seriously voke one another to love and consider these things, it fills me good works; and where two are with love and gratitude to God, agreed together in the things of and I do not wish for any higher God, they may say,

⚫ And if our fellowship below
In Jesus be so sweet,

What heights of rapture shall we know,
When round the throne we meet!'

and

station, nor envy the rich. I rather pity them, if they are not good as well as great. My blessed Lord was pleased to appear in the form of a servant; and I long to be like him.

"Sir, I hope Mrs. "I did not feel in so happy a you are both of one heart and one frame for conversation that day, mind. Then you will sweetly nor yet that liberty to explain my agree in all things that make for thoughts, which I sometimes do. your present and eternal happi- The fault must have been all in ness. Christ sent his disciples myself; for there was nothing in out, not singly, but two and two; you but what seemed to evidence that they might comfort and help a Christian spirit, temper, and each other, in those ways and disposition. I very much wished works which their Lord com- for an opportunity to converse manded them to pursue. with you. I feel very thankful

"It has been my lot to have to God that you do take up the been alone the greatest part of cross, and despise the shame: if the time that I have known the you are found faithful, you will ways of God. I therefore find it soon sit down with him in glory. such a treat to my soul, when I "I have written to the Rev. can meet with any who love to Mr. - to thank him for pertalk of the goodness and love of mitting you to perform the Burial God, and all his gracious deal-Service, at over my dear ings. What a comfortable re- departed sister, and to tell him of flection, to think of spending a the kind way in which you con

sented to do it. I should mention cember, 1805, and who died March 28th, 1808.

that your manner of reading the service on that day had a considerable effect on the hearers.

This convert was born at a village in Bengal, near Chundu"Pray excuse all faults, and nu-nugura, called Huldidanga; correct my errors. I expect in his father was a weaver, and, as a few days to return home to my is usual among the Hindoos, he parents' house. We shall rejoice was of his father's trade.

Rughoo was a poor illiterate

to see you there. "From your humble servant idolater, unable to read or write; and, in his case, as in that of all the heathen, his natural conscience had been exceedingly

in Christ,

E

He

It was impossible to view such darkened and seared by their a correspondent with indiffer-" abominable idolatries." ence. I had just returned from was an enthusiast in idolatory; a little cottage assembly, where his back was filled with scars, on Sunday evenings I sometimes from the hooks by which he had went to instruct a few poor fami- been so frequently suspended in lies, in one of the hamlets be-swinging on the infamous churulonging to my parish. I read the ka.* Added to all this, he lived letter, and closed the day with in adultery many years, and walthanksgiving to God, for thus lowed in the filthiest vices. enabling those who fear his name to build up each other in faith and love.

Rughoo once lived at Seram

"The man who is to swing (says Mr. Ward) prostrates himself before the tree; and a person, with his dirty fingers makes a other person gives him a smart slap on his mark where the hooks are to be put. An

Of old time, "they that feared the Lord, spake often one to another; and the Lord hearkened and heard it, and a book of re-back, and pinches up the skin hard with membrance was written before him, for them that feared the Lord, and that thought upon his name."

That book of remembrance is not yet closed.

MEMOIR OF RUGHOONAT H,

A Bengalee Christian, who died at Serampore, Lord's evening, the 28th March,

on

Day 1808.

his thumb and fingers; while another presses the hook through, taking hold of

about an inch of the skin; the other hook

is then in like manner put through the other
side of the back, and the man gets up on
his feet.
thrown in his face. He then mounts on a
As he is rising, some water is
man's back, or is elevated in some other
way, and the strings which are attached to
the hooks in his back are tied to the rope at
one end of the horizontal bamboo, and the
rope at the other end is held by several men,
who, drawing it down, raise up the end on
which the man swings, and by their running
round with that rope the machine is turned.
In swinging, the man describes a circle of
about thirty feet diameter. Some swing

only a few minutes, others half an hour or more. I have heard of some who have continued swinging four hours. About the ON the 29th of March, the year 1800, five women swung in this manner, with hooks through their backs and Christian Church at Serampore thighs at Kidderpoor, near Calcutta. It is had to carry to the silent tomb not very uncommon for the flesh to tear, the remains of their brother Ru- and the person to fall. Instances are related of such persons perishing on the spot." ghoo, who was baptized in De-History of Hindoos, Vol. II. p. 582.

pore about twelve months; he last illness, his wife nursed him, then went to Calcutta, where he day and night, with the greatest staid two or three years. From tenderness. hence he returned to Serampore, With respect to the general where, hearing some people talk state of our deceased brother's about the gospel, he called at the mind, he appeared to be, as far house of a native Christian, and as his knowledge went, a happy heard from him the words of our Christian. Talk to him whenever Lord Jesus Christ. He had been you would of the love of Christ, connected with a female for a exclamations of astonishment number of years without mar-escaped his lips, while the tears riage, but had quarrelled, and filled his eyes, and ran down his separated from her, and at the cheeks. During the singing of above period this woman was not hymns; or while listening to the with him, but lived at another story of redeeming love, and, not house in Serampore.

unfrequently, at the celebration of the Lord's Supper, his tears testified his sense of the deep stake he was conscious he possessed in the Gospel.

After Rughoo had been some time under instruction, the word evidently appeared to have entered his mind; he seemed to possess a deep sense of his sinWhen visited by the missionfulness, and of the love of Christ aries he would come to the door in becoming his Saviour. He of his hut, and fetch the best seat was therefore baptized, and add- he had, or could borrow, his ed to the Church. countenance beaming with joy After his baptism he worked in at their presence; and on all ocan inferior situation in the Bre-casions he gave proofs, by his thren's printing-office at Seram- love to the brethren, that he had pore, and though he had no ta- passed from death unto life. lents to preach, yet on all occa- In his last illness Brother Ward sions he recommended the gos-frequently visited him, and almost pel, by an humble behaviour, and always found him happy, pleased a grateful sense of kindnesses. and affected with the glad tidings A short time after Rughoo's of the gospel. This brother found baptism, the before-mentioned fe- his own mind refreshed by these male was brought under the sound visits in beholding the love of of the gospel, and gave proofs of this afflicted convert to the Sathe Lord's having opened her viour of sinners.

heart. In due time she was bap- Rughoo would sometimes call tized, and was afterward mar- a native member of the Church ried to Rughoo, and they con- to come and read, and pray with tinued, to the end of Rughoo's him, and one day he requested life, an affectionate and happy all the brethren might be called couple, whose domestic happiness (thinking his end near) that he had been greatly heightened by might see them before he died. their reception of the gospel. The native brethren who lived During the two years of their near were called; a hymn was marriage, the missionaries never sung, a portion of Scripture read, heard of a single difference be- and prayer offered up for our twixt them, and during Rughoo's apparently dying brother.

For some time before his death, and all its attendant abominations! Rughoo, so far from being afraid How great the contrast betwixt of death, appeared too impatient the idolater, dancing in indecent to die; and seemed ready to attitudes, or with a piece of iron question the love of Christ to run through his tongue, before him, because he did not hasten to the idol, and the same man take him to himself. He prayed" turned from dumb idols to serve day after day, that the Saviour the living and true God," and rewould prepare him, and take him ceiving with melting heart the to heaven. Brother Ward was at memorials of Christ's death and some pains once or twice to con- sufferings ! What a contrast bevince him, that Christ's time was twixt this poor deluded creature, the best, and that these short af- suspended by hooks in his back, flictions were working for him and swinging for a considerable an exceeding and eternal weight time in this shocking manner, in of glory." honour of devils, and the same

"

As long as he was able to speak man praying to the God and Faplain, he expressed his firm hope ther of our Lord Jesus Christ, in Christ's death; and when he and worshipping the true God in could speak only with great diffi- spirit and in truth! What a difculty, he indicated, partly in ference betwixt this couple, quarbroken language, and partly by relling with each other while signs, that Christ was there, (lay-living in a state of adultery, and ing his hand on his heart.) One their living happily together as a day, when Brother Ward was Christian family! How blessed there, he whispered (laying his a death, desiring to depart and to hand on his heart) "He is here.be with Christ, as far better than

He is here."

On the Lord's day that he died, Brother Ward held the morning

all the riches of the East!

"Is not this a brand plucked

"Is any thing too hard for the Lord ?"

meeting with the native brethren from the burning?" in the yard just before Rughoo's door; but our afflicted brother was able to attend very imperfectly to what was going forward, and in the evening of that day, "Many shall come from the about ten o'clock, he died. The east, and the west, and shall sit next evening he was buried with down with Abraham, and Isaac, singing on the way, and exhort- and Jacob, in the kingdom of heaation and prayer at the grave by ven: but the children of the kingBrother Carey. All the members dom shall be cast into outer darkof the Church present assisted in ness!!"-Beware, nominal Chrisearrying the body to, and filling tian, lest this should be true of up, the grave.-Rughoo's age is THEE! Lest these despised Hinsupposed to have been about sixty doos should be admitted into heayears. ven, whilst thou, boasting in a How rich is that grace dis-superior degree of civilization played in the conversion of this and Christian instruction, shouldst person, once living in idolatry, be thrust down to hell!