they have suffered, and the disadvantages of their situation, they still retain, however, some of the virtues by which they were formerly distinguished. They are remarkable for mildness and simplicity of character, honesty, and industry; their pursuits are confined to agriculture and trade; and, although they have lost the high station and elevated sentiments which they once possessed, yet they are still respected, on account of their integrity and rectitude of conduct."

Then, after explaining the improved state of their Ecclesiastical affairs, this enlightened Statesman proceeds

"The temporal situation of the Syrians has also been materially improved. I have frequently taken occasion to bring them to the notice of her Highness the Rannee of Travancore; and her intelligent, liberal, and ingenuous mind has always appeared to feel a deep interest in their history, misfortunes, and character. She is aware of the attention excited to their situation in Europe; and her anxiety to manifest the sincerity of her attachment to the British Nation has formed, I believe, an additional motive for the kindness and generosity she has uniformly displayed towards the Syrians. She has appointed a considerable number of them to

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public offices; and lately presented the sum of 20,000 rupees to the College of Cotym, as an endowment for its support. The Syrians are most grateful for her goodness; and cherish, in no ordinary degree, the sentiments of affection and respect toward her person that are entertained by every class of her subjects."

3 Such were the respectability and improving circumstances of these people, when M. Dubois published his representation of them, as more contemptible in the eyes of the Pagans than even the Roman-Catholic Christians!

He says "Their Clergy lived till lately in celibacy:" (p. 60.) La Croze informs us, that the Priests are not engaged to celibacy; nor was it universal among them, prior to their persecution by the Jesuits. Menezes found several of them married, whom he commanded to put away their wives; and those who refused obedience to his unauthorised mandate, he excommunicated.

With respect to his insinuation, "that all the success which the Protestant Missionaries stationed among them had to boast of was, the having prevailed upon many of the Catanars to marry," I beg to state, that Colonel Munro, and Mr. Norton (the first Protestant Missionary who devoted attention to the Sy

rians), seeing the immoralities which the celibacy of the Priests occasioned, represented to them the duty and necessity of marriage. "The Bishop saw the evil of the practice, and wished to remedy it. One reason, among many that was urged in its favour, was their poverty: they were too poor to maintain a wife and family. To obviate this difficulty, the Resident (Colonel Munro) offered to give 400 rupees to the first Priest that should marry; and promised so to arrange matters, that the Clergy, in general, might marry, and support their families."

"The Metropolitan, a short time after, issued a Circular Letter to all the Churches; in which he stated the prohibition of Sacerdotal Matrimony to be, not of the Church of Antioch, but of the Church of Rome; and desired that the Clergy would take the matter into consideration, and comply with the ordinance of marriage, when convenient. Two of the Clergy were, in consequence, soon after married; and forty more entered into bonds that they would marry as soon as some provision should be made for the support of their families, should they have any*.

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The other Missionaries promoted the practice, as far as they thought it compatible with

* Missionary Register, March 1818, p. 99.

their situation to interfere. When I was at Cotym, thirty-five of the Catanars had married, and the number has since increased. Whatever the Abbé Dubois' feelings upon this success may be, Protestants, at least, may return thanks to God, for having so far prospered the efforts made to do "away with that which has been, among the Syrians, as well as in the Church of Rome, a prolific source of immorality."

But his principal objection against the Syrians appears to be, that they, above all, deny the Blessed Virgin the title of Theotocus, or Mother of God, asserting that the Son of God did not assume a soul and a body in her womb." (p. 59.)

This title, Osóroxos, was first given to the Virgin Mary by the Greek Church; andOrigen, I believe, was the person who proposed it. It was applied to her by several of the Greek Fathers after him; and was at last confirmed by the Council of Ephesus, which was called to adjust the dispute which arose upon Nestorius, and his Presbyter Anastasius, denying her that title-τğ Νεσορίε τὴν ἁγιὰν Μαρίαν εἶναι Θεοτόκον ἀρνουμένε.

The literal signification of the title is, "She who brought forth Him that is God;" and it may originally have been intended to mean

no more, than that she was the Mother of the Human-nature of Him who was God as well as Man. In this sense Nestorius himself would allow her the title: and what renders it probable that this was the meaning at first attached to the name, is, that the Greeks did not call her Mariga rou sou, until Leo the Great, and other Latin authors after him, translating "Theotocus," Dei genitrix, and Dei-para, those Latin names were rendered back into Greek, Oso Márng: and thus, at last, they both called her, plainly, Mother of God.

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But it is not correct to say of the faithful Syrians, that they deny that the Son of God assumed a soul and a body in the Virgin's womb. M. Dubois M. Dubois may think this the inevitable consequence of their refusing to call her Mother of God:" if so, he must assume that the Soul of Christ was His Divinity, which every Protestant agrees with the Syrians in denying. They receive the Athanasian Creed, without its damnatory clauses; and, accordingly, hold, with us, that Christ was both "perfect God, and perfect Man;" God, of the Substance of the Father, begotten before the world: and Man, of the Substance of His Mother, born in the world." The Virgin was the parent of His Manhood only, which consisted of "a reasonable soul, and human

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