CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. GENERAL. 1611. First English mercantile settlement in India, at Surat. 1696. Calcutta purchased by the East India Company. 1706. Zieganbalg, first Protestant missionary to India, sent out by Frederick IV. of Denmark. 1728. S.P.C.K. adopted the Danish Missions in South India. 1750. Swartz began his work at Madras. (Died 1798.) 1757. Battle of Plassey laid the foundation of British supremacy. 1758. Kiernander began his work at Calcutta. (Died 1799.) 1770. Kiernander built first church at Calcutta (now C.M.S. "Old Church "). 1771. Swartz established Tinnevelly Mission. 1793. Missions in India forbidden by the East India Company. Carey reached India. (Died 1834.) 1798. London Missionary Society's first Mission in India, at Chinsurah. 1799. Baptist Mission established at Serampore, in Danish territory. 1806. Henry Martyn reached India. (Died 1812.) 1807. Church Missionary Society's first grant for India. 1813. American missionaries attempted in vain to enter India. 1814. New Charter of East India Company gave freedom to Missions in India. 1816. First Wesleyan Mission, at Madras. Rev. J Hough, Chaplain, Palamcotta, planned C.M.S. Tinnevelly Mission. 1818. S.P.G.'s first grant to India. 1823. First Scotch Mission, at Bombay. 1828. S.P.G. took over S.P.C.K.'s Missions. 1830. Dr. Duff began his educational work at Calcutta. 1854. Sir C. Wood's famous despatch on Government system of education. 1857. The Sepoy Mutiny. 1858. India transferred from the East India Company to the Crown. 1877. The Queen took the title of Empress of India. Bishops of Calcutta:-1814, Middleton; 1823, Heber; 1827, James; Bishops of Madras:-1835, Corrie; 1838, Spencer; 1819, Dealtry; 1861, Bishops of Bombay :-1837, Carr; 1851, Harding; 1869, Douglas; 1876, 1807. First grant for India, for translations. 1812. Corresponding Committee formed at Calcutta. 1813. Agra Mission begun by Abdul Masih, under Corrie's direction. 1814. First C.M.S. missionaries, Rhenius and Scharre, sent to Madras. 1815. First English ordained missionary in India, W. Greenwood, to Calcutta. 1816. Travancore Mission begun by Norton and Bailey. (Norton died 1840; Bailey, 1871.) 1817. Benares Mission begun, under Corrie's auspices. 1818. H. Baker, sen., to Travancore. (Died 1866.) 1820. Bombay Mission begun. Tinnevelly Mission begun by Rhenius. 1825. C. T. Hoernle to Persia, under Basle Mission. (To India under C.M.S., 1838. Still labouring.) Abdul Masih ordained by Bishop Heber-first Native clergyman in India. 1830. John Devasagayam ordained-first Native clergyman in Tinnevelly. T. Sandys to Calcutta. (Died 1871.) 1831. J. J. Weitbrecht to Burdwan. (Died 1852.) 1832. W. Smith and C. B. Leupolt to Benares. 1833. J. Peet to Travancore. (Died 1865.) (Smith died 1875.) John Tucker C.M.S. Secretary at Madras, 1833-1847. 1835. E. Sargent, a catechist in Tinnevelly. (Ordained 1842.) 1836. John Thomas to Tinnevelly. (Died 1870.) 1838. J. S. S. Robertson to Bombay. (Returned home 1877.) Religious awakening in Krishnaghur. 1840. Dr. Pfander to Agra. (To Turkey 1858; died 1865.) 1841. Telugu Mission begun by Fox and Noble. (Fox died 1848; Noble 1865.) 1846. T. G. Ragland to South India. (Died 1858.) 1849. W. S. Price to Nasik, Western India. (To East Africa 1874.) 1850. Sindh Mission begun. T. V. French and E. C. Stuart to Agra. 1851. Punjab Mission begun by R. Clark and T. H. Fitzpatrick. 1852. D. Fenn and R. R. Meadows to Tinnevelly. First converts at R. Noble's School (M. Ratnam and A. Bhushanam). 1854. Itinerating Mission begun by Ragland in Tinnevelly. First Sikh clergyman ordained (Daoud Singh). 1855. S. Dyson and J. Vaughan to Calcutta. Afghan Mission at Peshawar begun by R. Clark and Pfander. 1858. R. Bruce to the Punjab. (To Persia 1869.) Lucknow Mission begun, under the auspices of Sir R. Montgomery. 1860. Sarah Tucker Female Institution established at Palamcotta. Koi Mission begun, under the auspices of Col. Haig. 1862. Derajat Mission begun by French under the auspices of Col. Taylor. 1870. Lahore Divinity College established by French and Knott. I was very tired by ten o'clock and glad to get to my room, and there, after writing some letters and reading a chapter or two of the Bible, I put out the lamp, and rested half undressed on the sofa, by a large open window looking out on the river, which lay before me like a sheet of silver in the beautiful moonlight, and watched the strange, almost lifelike shadows of the trees and creepers on the well-kept grassy lawn that stretched along the river side. Suddenly the profound silence was broken by a long, deep wail, followed up by a chorus of yells, barks, and howls; and presently a pack of jackals, still continuing their vocal performances, scampered across the lawn, adding not a little to the weird effect of the scene. Then again all was silent for a while, and again the silence was broken, but this time by a human voice; a faint moaning sound seemed to come from some spot a little lower down the stream and out of my view; very soon it was drowned in the noise of tom-toms (Indian drums) and the shouts of several voices, but presently it could be heard again. Listening till I could not bear to remain inactive any longer, I slipped into the verandaht to rouse the ayah, who lay asleep there wrapped up in her chudder (veil). "Come, hear what is going on," I whispered, not wishing to disturb the other inmates of the house. She followed me to my room, and we listened together. The moans, each time the shouting and drumming ceased, sounded fainter, as though life were fast failing the poor creature from whom they proceeded. What could be done? Seeing my uneasiness, the ayah proposed to go down-stairs and endeavour to find out. Barefooted she glided noiselessly down the wooden staircase and across the lawn, and I awaited her return in almost breathless anxiety. The moaning had now ceased and all was silent. "Mem Sahib," she said quite cheerfully, when she came back, "it is a good thing; you need not distress yourself, they have been giving Gunga waters to the dying mother of Babu naming a native official who held a high post under Government. It was surprising that a man of his enlightenment and education should have sanctioned such a barbarous custom, and shortly afterwards a friend, almost doubting the fact, questioned him about it. The Babu pleaded the pressure of friends and relatives, and especially female relatives. "To me, sir," he said, "it was simply an expensive business. I had to pay Rs. 100 (£10) to the Brahmins (priests) for their offices; and besides, my mother was a religious Hindu, and she could not have died happily under any other circumstances." Such then is the highest consolation which Hinduism offers to its dying votaries! A. R. * During these holidays, which are in honour of the goddess Durga, the great earth mother, business is suspended. † A sort of corridor that runs along the side of an Indian house-the roof supported by pillars-between which are venetian blinds, reaching partially, or sometimes entirely, down to the floor. The ayah is a nurse or lady's maid, sometimes a little of both. § It is considered a sure passport to heaven if the dying Hindu be taken down to the river side and crammed with mud and water from the holy stream of the Ganges, or one of its tributaries, sacred to the god Gunga, FAITH NANDO: A TRUE STORY OF SECUNDRA. I. VERY little English girl into whose hands this story is likely to fall knows that the word Faith means belief or trust. Could any one have a more beautiful name? The little gentle obliging child of whom I write was so called, but her heathen name was Nando. Her father, who was a noted dyer in Janghirabad, a city in Northern India, had, according to the custom of the country, called the heathen priest to give his little daughter a name, six days after her birth, and Nando was the name he chose. The word simply means girl. There are many soft sounding Indian names with pretty meanings, but perhaps the priest chose this one as he saw the parents were discontented because their child was a girl, and he thought this name sufficient. They would certainly have given him a much larger present than they did if their first-born had been a boy. I cannot tell whether the priest's book on the nameday of the little Nando foretold good or evil for the child, but well I know that God had purposes of love for her. Before I speak of this let me give you a glimpse of Nando's home and her early childhood. Picture to yourself a large square court-yard planted with fine trees, underneath which were stone seats, affording rest in the shade. This court was surrounded on all sides by houses which were shut in like a fortress. The children who lived there made the court-yard their playground. In reality all these children belonged to a single family, the head of which was Malu-Chandari, the grand ather of Nando. Like the patriarch of the Old Testament, he lived and ruled in the midst of his descendants. He bought materials from the weavers, which he dyed and imprinted with flowers and dazzling patterns, and then sold them wholesale to Native merchants in the bazaars. Malu-Chandari was of good descent, and was respected by all who knew him. He made rich profits by his business, and he showed his gratitude to his gods in the following strange manner. He hung up in the centre of the room in which he lived a large round earthen vessel, called by the Hindus a "ghara," and filled it with silver ofnaments-chains, bracelets, and rings for the ears, nose, fingers, feet, and ankles and these he presented to his god to express his thanks, and to give it pleasure! The natives of India admire nothing more than a profusion of ornaments, and they like to carry all their wealth upon their persons. Those who are not rich enough to adorn themselves with silver,fare contented with ornaments of brass. I know poor water-women whose arms from the wrist to the elbow are covered with coloured glass rings, and the upper part with heavy brass or lead ones, whilst their bodies are clothed with rags. But to return to our story. The pride and delight of the old man were his four grown-up sons and their children, all living in the same court with their father, submitting to his authority, and sharing his work. The second son, Nando's father, was his best beloved. When the grandfather had been particularly successful in business, he gave Nando and her brothers each a rupee, a silver coin answering to our florin. Nando remembered seeing her mother place daily a vessel of milk for four or five venomous serpents that concealed themselves in the walls of the room where the family lived. As soon as they had emptied the dish they would disappear without injuring any one. This is not an uncommon practice in India. The poor heathen imagine that either their gods or deceased relatives take the form of serpents, and their religion forbids them to do these creatures any harm. They even believe that if a person kills a serpent the death of one of his family will soon follow, as compensation for the life he has taken. Thousands of natives are killed by serpents in the course of a year. A neighbour of Nando's parents placed himself on a bed, at the entrance of the court, when it was dusk, and did not perceive that a serpent was lying there. The creature thus roused from its sleep bit the man, and in two hours he died. Yet no one ventured to touch the serpent. Nando herself had a suake on her bed one night, and did not feel at all uneasy. Another time she was lying outside the house, in the sun, when a cobra, a deadly snake, passed over her back without injuring her, and her mother who saw it fully believed that her son, who had died shortly before, had come to pay his sister a visit! Malu-Chandari was taken very ill and died. Scarcely had the usual days of mourning ended, when the peace which had hitherto bound the members of the family together gave place to quarrels and strife concerning the division of the property. The eldest brother seized everything, and destroyed an important paper of his father's, which was perhaps a kind of will. Nando was then scarcely six years old, and she understood nothing further. Her father was constantly under the influence of opium, and this has the same dreadful effect in India that brandy has in other countries. He squandered all he had, and the children had no longer the good clothes and nice food of earlier days. At length he went away, saying that he was going to Delhi for work. He never returned, as far as Nando knew. The mother became blind from continual weeping, and the children were dependent on their grandmother and aunt for their scanty subsistence. All these things followed one another rapidly, and perhaps this helped to impress them more deeply on Nando's memory. One day it happened that the mother wanted one of her children to fetch something from the bazaar. Nando was ready at once. So rarely did she meet strangers, or see what was passing outside, that she was glad to have this errand, and two of the younger brothers followed her. She had never been in the bazaar before; the crowd and the noise frightened her, and her timid and bewildered look excited the notice of a policeman, who thought she must be a lost child. He seized her, heeding not her struggles and screams; and the little brothers, on seeing the policeman, ran away, and Nando never heard more of any of her family. II. Nando was taken to the police-station as a “found child,” and was kept there for two days, during which time inquiries were most likely being made. But no one claimed the poor little girl. The mother had no means of doing so; and the male relatives were doubtless glad to be saved the expense of her wedding, for which they would have been obliged to arrange within the next two or three years. So no one came forward, and Nando was sent, for some reason or other, to a distant city called Bulandshahr. From this place, together with a number of girls, some her own age, others older, all of whom had been rescued from the sad life of dancing girls, she was sent on to the Orphanage at Secundra. At first she felt very unhappy among her new companions, who were in Mohammedan costume; she would have nothing to do with them, being herself a Hindu, and even refused to touch any food. The second day hunger forced her to eat, but she cried a great deal. The nearer they came to Secundra the more frightened the children became, for the policemen who were in charge of them told them dreadful things of what should happen to them there. "The first thing," they said, "when you arrive will be that all your limbs on which you have ornaments will be cut off; therefore you had better give them to us first." Nando and her companions had silver ornaments, and they immediately took off and gave up every one. Still they were kept in great fear till they reached Secundra, when the love and kindness they received from everybody in the school soon showed them that they had been deceived by the policemen. Secundra is five miles from Agra, and here Akbar the Great, a powerful prince who lived more than 300 years ago, built a beautiful tomb. It lies in the midst of a large garden, surrounded by a high wall, with small round towers at the corners. Three highly arched doorways of red freestone, ornamented with marble and mosaic, and closed with brazen gates, form the entrance. Above the middle archway rise slender white marble minarets, ascended by winding stairs. The subterranean room, in which the marble coffin lies, is lighted by a brazen lamp, suspended over the coffin, and approached by a marble staircase. The garden had formerly many fountains; these are now in ruins, but the canals and ponds from which they were supplied still exist, and cause the flowers to spring up and bloom in great beauty. Lofty tamarind, pipal, acacia, mango, and orange trees spread out their branches, and afford refreshing shade. Close to this garden lies an extensive piece of ground, which also contains a tomb, not so magnificent as Akbar's, but erected by him in honour of his wife Miriam, who, according to tradition, was a Portuguese Christian, whilst he was a Mohammedan. Perhaps this Christian princess often prayed that her beloved Saviour would send the glad tidings of His redeeming love to her dark subjects in India, and would call into His own happy fold the many children who were growing up wild and ignorant, but whom she earnestly desired should be saved and taken to heaven. Here the dear Saviour has caused a much more beautiful remembrance of this princess to arise than the grand monument erected by her husband. It came to pass in this way. About forty years ago a great famine prevailed in India. Many people died from want of food; numbers of children lost their parents, and wandered about, begging, as long as their feeble little feet would carry them. Many laid themselves down, too weary to go further, and died without any one to care for them. This was a great grief to the English Christians who then lived in India. They sought out the poor starving orphans, and gathered them into quarters at Agra; but so much sickness prevailed among the children that it became necessary to remove them, and many thought that the ruinous tomb of Miriam could not be used for a better or more honourable purpose than by making it into a Christian Orphanage. An application was made to Government for the tomb and the ground belonging to it, and they were granted to the Church Missionary Society for an Orphan Asylum. An Indian tomb is very different from our ideas of a grave. Some are centuries old, and are most beautiful large buildings, with different rooms, some of which are being used as places of worship by the Mohammedans up to the present day. The wonderful marble tomb of King Shah Jehan at Agra employed, we are told, 40,000 workmen for eighteen years. As soon as Miriam's tomb had been made somewhat habitable the orphan boys were moved into it. A curious old native building situated in a small garden, further off, was made ready for the girls till proper buildings had been erected. From this time, 1839, dates the history of the Secundra Orphanage. In the Mutiny year, 1857, Secundra was completely destroyed, except the tomb, by the mutineers, but the children and natives of the adjoining Christian village were saved in time and found refuge in the fort at Agra. In 1860 the buildings for the boys and girls were rebuilt at Secundra, and the C.M.S. again appointed a clergyman and his wife to take charge of the Orphanage.* Since that time many of the little wild heathen children, who knew nothing when they entered the Orphanage, have learned diligently, and become orderly and useful members of society. The children are taught to read and write, &c., to make their clothes, and prepare food; and above all, they learn that they have a loving Father in heaven, who not only gives them their daily bread, but in His Holy Word makes known *A picture of the building, and a history of the Orphanage, appeared in the GLEANER of July, 1876. and learnt with great eagerness. Her longing desire was to be baptized without delay, and her teacher and godfather, who is now a preacher among his heathen fellow countrymen, gave her the name of Faith, because of the child-like earnest belief she expressed. Faith went through all the school classes, and very often took prizes. She at last passed the examination for teachers in the normal class, and at Easter, 1871, took charge of the fourth class. Although exceedingly little, and hardly fifteen years old, she knew how to secure the obedience, respect, and love of her scholars, and their half-yearly examination was always successful. Faith was tenderly attached to their Saviour among the hillmen, who are very poor and ignorant, and live in small miserable straw huts. Their chief employment is in the summer, when they hire themselves to carry the conveyances in which ladies go about, as there the roads are too narrow and steep for carriages. While Miss H. was carried, she often had pleasant conversations with her bearers, and she noticed that one of them, called Shitab, was glad to hear the Word of God, and s0 was his young GROUP OF KOIS, DRAVIDIAN HILL-TRIBE, UPPER GODAVARY. (See p. 110.) wife, Belmati, who daily paid Miss H. a visit. As neither of them could read, and they wished to know more of the Holy Book, Faith was entrusted with their reading lessons, and at the same time she taught a Hindu boy, nine years old, who was anxious to learn. She devoted some hours daily to her pupils, whilst Miss H. undertook their religious instruction; and their progress was delightful. They also learnt to sing some hymns. After Miss H. left Landour, in the autumn, |