PICTURES FROM TINNEVELLY.

E are indebted to Mrs. Hobbs for the sketches from which the five pictures on these pages have been engraved. Her husband, Archdeacon Stephen Hobbs, late of Mauritius, was a missionary of the C.M.S. in Tinnevelly, from 1839 to 1856; and these sketches were taken in 1844. That was before the days of photography; but few photographs could surpass the delicacy of the drawings.

1. In the first picture we have a most life-like representation of the face of a Tamil Christian, an Inspecting Catechist in the Sattankulam district, named Jacob. Mrs. Hobbs writes that he was 66 superior and excellent man."

2. The small landscape takes us to the southernmost point of India. Elanjenny is resorted to by the missionaries, for its refreshing and health-restoring sea-breezes, during the height of the hot season. The bungalows they occupy, shown in the picture, are, writes Mrs. Hobbs, "very rough, but very snug, with mud walls and olei (palmyra leaf) roofs; and sometimes a partition of coarse calico or matting divides the interior into two rooms." In this view we see the tall, straight, stiff, palmyra-trees, which fill such an important place in Tinnevelly life. It is the only vegetation the sandy plains will support. While all around is parched and arid, this tree strikes its root forty feet below the surface, gathers up the moisture, and daily gives forth

was one of the most promising girls in our Sattankulam School. Her father was a palmyra climber, and, during six months of the year, had to climb many trees, from forty to seventy feet high, twice a day, in order to take the juice which oozes out of the stalks from which the fruit has been cut off. This juice is sweet and nutritious, and, together with rice, Jesuadyal and her parents subsisted almost entirely upon it, either in its natural state, or made into jaggery-in Tamil karapoo-cutdi (black lump). The women boil down large quantities of the puthaneer (juice) into jaggery and sugar candy for sale. You see, Jesuadyal's parents worked hard. I

quantities of sap, which, collected in small vessels and manufactured into sugar, forms the chief subsistence of the rural population, besides being largely used by builders to mix with their chunam (mortar). The olei, or leaf of the palmyra, roofs the houses, or, cut into strips, serves as paper for writing on with iron pens; its fibres provide the people with string; its trunk with timber for laths and rafters; while its root, scooped out, and with a dried sheep-skin stretched over it, becomes the drum in universal use at festivals, &c. The larger portion of the Native Christians of Tinnevelly belong to the palmyra-climbing, or Shanar caste.

3. The larger view shows us one of the most interesting of the Tinnevelly stations. Paneivilei was

for twenty years the scene of the faithful labours of the late Rev. J. T. Tucker, during which time he baptized no less than two thousand men, women, and children, with his own hands. No English missionary now lives at Paneivilei. The district belongs to the Native Church, under Bishop Sargent's general supervision.

4. Of the little girl who is so plainly pointing out Tinnevelly on the Map of India, Mrs. Hobbs writes:

Jesudayal (servant of Jesus)

do not think they knew how to read, but they were Christians, and, unlike their heathen neighbours, who thought that "learning was not for girls," they were very glad when I told them that Jesuadyal, being nearly six years old, might come to our infant school. I think the dear child was very glad too, for she always had a bright, happy face. She was one of the merriest on the playground, and always near the top of her class in the schoolroom. I believe there are few little English children who have a better knowledge of Scripture than she had, and her memory was well stored with beautiful texts and hymns. She soon learnt to read, and to write, first on the sand and then on oleis (palmyra leaves), which were in those days the general substitute for paper. These leaves are about three feet long, fan-shaped, thick and tough. The Indians write on them with an iron style called a "yellutäm" (writing-nail). Oleis are also used for thatching, making boxes, mats, and other purposes.

Jesuadyal made such good progress that she was soon promoted to the upper school, and, at the time the portrait was taken, was in the first class, which is shown by her being allowed to learn geography. She is pointing to her Tinnevelly home. We were very hopeful that this dear girl would have grown up to be a useful Christian woman, a true "servant of Jesus," but, "His thoughts are not our thoughts." Soon after we left India, in 1852, it pleased Him to call away His little one' after a short illness of cholera. This was sad news for us, but those who were with her told us that "she died trusting in Jesus," so we can rejoice to know that she is happy with Him.

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5. Mrs. Hobbs also sends an account of the little girl writing on the sand:

Pakkiam (Pearl) is a favourite name with Tamil Christians, and an appropriate one to the gentle little girl in the portrait. Perhaps you will be puzzled to know what she is doing. She is learning to read; yes, and

to write at the same time. Those queer-looking characters to which her finger is pointing, are her morning lesson-" Ahdoo" (sheep), "Mahdoo" (cow), &c.-and then comes her name, "Pakkiam." Tamil children want neither books nor slates, only a little sand, for their first writing lessons. And "where," you may ask, as some of my little friends have done, "do they get the sand, and how can they use it for writing?" I suppose it was seeing it all around them, that made Tamil people think of turning it to account in this way. The soil of Tinnevelly is sandy; there are large plains with, here and

there, hills of sand which rolls along like ripples on the sea, with every gentle breeze. Sometimes clouds of sand, raised by a high wind, will cast a reddish hue over the sky, and the atmosphere will soon become dense as in a London fog. Our children have only to go outside the schoolroom door and bring in their hands full of sand, which they put in heaps, in a row on the mud floor, and, seating themselves cross-legged behind it, spread it out with their hands. Then one child well up with the lesson spells each word, intoning in the Tamil fashion, while she writes it with her forefinger on the sand: the rest imitate her, all the little voices and fingers keeping time and time together until the lesson is learnt.

You will be glad to know that little Pakkiam was not only diligent in her lessons, but was early taught to know and love her Saviour. I have not seen her since she was the tiny child in the portrait a great many years ago, but her kind teacher afterwards told me that "she was one of four little girls who often went by themselves to pray." If still living, I hope she is in some way useful to her fellow-countrywomen.

In my box of Indian treasures there is a small sampler, on which is marked in red the words, which I now give you as her request on behalf of herself and those she loves, "Pray for us.-Pakkiam."

The Tinnevelly Mission has wonderfully grown since Mrs. Hobbs took these sketches in 1844. There were then ten European missionaries; there are now only five. Is that progress ? asks some reader. Certainly; for as the Native Church advances, fewer Englishmen are needed. There was then one Native clergyman; there are now fifty-eight. There were then 338 Native lay teachers; there are now 630, besides a large number of voluntary helpers. There were then about 16,000 Christian adherents, of whom 1,800 were communicants; they now number over 50,000, and 8,000 are communicants. These figures refer only to the C.M.S. districts. The S.P.G. has nearly as many adherents, and 31 pastors.

TINNEVELLY SKETCHES: PAKKIAM'S WRITING LESSON.

TINNEVELLY SKETCHES: JESUADYAL'S GEOGRAPHY LESSON.

FRANCES RIDLEY HAVERGAL MEMORIAL
CHURCH MISSIONARY FUND.

HE Church Missionary Society had no more truehearted friend than the devoted and accomplished lady whose stirring words have this year occupied the first column in our monthly numbers, and who has so lately been taken from our midst. The missionary cause lay very near to her heart. Most appropriately, therefore, are her sorrowing yet rejoicing friends inviting contributions to a Fund in her memory, to be employed in missionary work. The money is to be handed to the Church Missionary Society "to expend in the training and employment of Native Bible Women, and in the translation and circulation in India (and, should the Fund allow, other Mission fields) of suitable and selected portions of Miss Havergal's works."

Among the chief promoters of this Fund is the Rev. Charles Bullock, through the medium of his admirable periodicals, Home Words, Hand and Heart, the Fireside, and the Day of Days, and it is a happy coincidence that publications holding so honourable a position in what we may term home mission literature, should thus be engaged in aiding to provide foreign mission literature. It will indeed be a happy day when books such as Frances Havergal's, translated into the various languages of India by Natives able to stamp an Oriental style on the translations, are read and valued in the zenanas by Indian Christian women.

In the meanwhile we have to make the readers; and to effect this, there can be no more effective plan, under God, than vigorously to ply the other oar of the Fund, so to speak, and send forth Native Christian Bible-women throughout the length and breadth of India. Mrs. Elmslie has told us in the GLEANER how valuable these agents are. Mrs. Weitbrecht writes:

"I could tell how after passing through most harrowing ordeals, even seas of sorrow, at the time of their own conversion, when all had to be forsaken for Jesus' sake, they were carrying rays of sunshine into dark dwellings by reading that Word whose entrance gives light, and shedding radiance around them by their own bright lives. At Madras, Calcutta, Lahore, Bombay, to say nothing of intermediate places, it was my happy privilege to hold converse with them, hear their stories from their own lips, and listen to their earnest words. One very young woman I can never forget, for she kept more than a dozen village women entranced as she spoke lovingly to them of their deep need of Jesus."

And Mr. Lash, of Tinnevelly, in a report which has come to hand while we write, gives a deeply interesting account of one Bible-woman, which we must extract at once:

Bible-women are becoming of increasing importance as an agency for influencing the women of this country. The desire for information and education has grown to such an extent that in most of the large towns and villages they would be eagerly welcomed by the inlrabitants. . . .

Mis not a widow, but the wife of one of our native clergymen. Her husband had to spend some mouths in Palmacottah last year while preparing for Holy Orders, and M came to me and asked permission to attend the Sarah Tucker Institution as a day scholar and be trained to be a schoolmistress or Bible-woman. I gladly granted her request, though as she would be obliged to bring her little son with her, and walk nearly a mile daily from her house to the Institution, I feared her attendance would not be very regular. In this respect, however, I was agreeably disappointed. Day alter day I found her punctual in her attendance at class, with her bright baby boy, as good as gold, sitting by her side, playing at her feet, or falling asleep on her knees. When the latter happened, she would carry him gently out and lay him to rest in one of the adjacent dormitories. I was much pleased with her strict attention to all the lessons, and the quick intelligence shown in many of her answers to questions. She made rapid progress, and when it came to her turn to practise as a teacher, we all observed that she had a natural talent for teaching. She was always present at my Bible-classes, and filled her journal with notes of lessons, In December last, after the ordination of her husband, she appeared for the Government Certificate Examination, and passed in the first class.

She has now been working as a Bible-woman in Ambasamudram, where her husband is stationed, for the last three months, and is in such request that she finds it impossible to visit all the houses to which she is invited.

I find that in the three first months of the year M- paid 160 visits

"21st. Read Luke 21st to four women and spoke to them about the poor widow who cast two mites into the treasury. Showed how that Christ was her true treasure and only hope.

Matthew, about the Ten Virgins, and told them that Christ was the Heavenly Bridegroom, and spoke of the necessity for us to be ready when the Lord should come. Showed them that Christ had revealed the true religion to us, xiv. 6, and showed them that Jesus is the Way. They listened attentively. To this they replied, Who knows the way to heaven?' So I turned to John

"27th.-Eleven women assembled in T.'s house. I read the 25th chapter

"28th-Read the 15th chapter Luke to seven women and two children, and showed them that as the prodigal reflected on his sins and returned to his father and found mercy, so if we feeling our sins seek our Heavenly Father through Jesus Christ, He will remember our sins no more, but will forgive them. They all listened eagerly.

"Feb. 1st.-Read to seven women, Mark v. 1-20, and spoke to them of the wickedness and malice of Satan. I told them that Satan was always trying to ruin man, and therefore we should give our hearts to Christ, for He alone can deliver us from the devil and the power of sin. Showed them that Christ is more powerful than Satan, and spoke to them of His power and mercy. They said to one another, 'He had great power, had He not? to heal such a man.' "27th.-In order to show what good women should be like, I read to five women in V.'s house the account of a wise woman in Prov. xxxi. Showed them that her fear of the Lord was the motive power of all her good works. And then I passed on to show that our God is the true God. They were very much pleased, and said, 'This is the book to teach us good knowledge.'”

To provide such agents as these will be a boon to India indeed. We may here mention, and heartily recommend, a pretty little book just issued by Mr. Bullock in memoriam of Miss Havergal, entitled, Within the Palace Gates. From it we take the following:

"Frances Ridley Havergal from her earliest years took the deepest interest in the God-commanded work of Missions. At one time she had very real thoughts of becoming a missionary herself; but her health forbade it.' So lately as April last, she said on one occasion, If I were strong I must and would go, even now, to India. Last July she sent almost all her jewels to the Church Missionary Society. When reminded of the pleasure of leaving them to others, she replied, 'No, my King wants them, and they must go; delightful to have anything to give Him. I can't go to India, but I can help to send some one."

"It may be the offering of jewellery' is not the sacrifice required from many for the King; but it is felt that some offering of a grateful heart will be prompted in the case of thousands who will feel it a high privilege to be thus far associated in spirit with one of the noblest and truesthearted and most loyal of His servants."

EPITOME OF MISSIONARY NEWS.

The early date of printing the GLEANER prevented our giving last month the welcome news that a telegram had been received at Alexandria from Colonel Gordon stating that he had received letters from the C.M.S. Nile party dated February, from Mruli, seven days' march from Mtesa's capital, all well. They had met Wilson and Mackay; and the king was ready to receive them.

The Rev. A. E. Moule, of Hang-chow, arrived in England last month. A second edition of his interesting book, The Story of the Che-kiang Mission, is now ready.

Interesting letters have been received from Mpwapwa. Mr. Last sends a detailed account of the various tribes between that place and the Zanzibar coast, and Dr. Baxter, a journal of a recent tour in Ugogo. They are everywhere kindly received, and regard the whole country as a field white unto the harvest. The Rev. J. C. Price and Mr. H. Cole sailed July 31st, vid the Cape, to join them.

The Rev. A. Menzies, who arrived at Frere Town on June 1st, writes:"On the 6th I met the communicants' class. It was like meeting old friends on the West Coast. I felt as though I had been suddenly dropped down in the midst of my old class at Christ Church, Sierra Leone. We had a delightful time together, and again on Sunday, when I administered the Lord's Supper to thirty-three persons. I was greatly pleased with the day-school. It presents very much that is full of promise. There is a prospect of a good harvest of rice and other fruits, for which Mr. Streeter is very thankful. The air is delightfully cool and pleasant." In April last the Rev. H. Maundrell, of Nagasaki, Japan, visited Kagoshima, an important city 150 miles off, where Stephen Koba, one of his native Christians, had been preaching the Gospel. He found a little company of converts already gathered in, and baptized twenty persous.

All the pictures in this number of the GLEANER, and the greater part of the letterpress, are illustrative of the new Missionary Diocese of Travancore and Cochin, for which our missionary brother the Rev. J. M. Speechly was consecrated the first Bishop on July 25th.

TRAVANCORE: THE LAND, THE PEOPLE, AND

THE MISSION.

HE kingdoms of Travancore and Cochin, at the southern end of the Malabar or western coast of India, are separated from Tinnevelly by the Western Ghauts. No two contiguous regions present greater contrasts than may be seen from those mountains in the two opposite directions. While Tinnevelly is a flat and uninteresting plain, with a sandy soil and dry climate, Travancore boasts of some of the most beautiful and diversified scenery in the world, and is emphatically "a good land, a land of brooks of water, of fountains and depths that spring out of valleys and hills," "and that drinketh water of the rain of heaven." The line of coast is generally flat, and fringed with multitudes of cocoa-nut trees, which may be regarded as the characteristic tree of Travancore, like the palmyra of Tinnevelly. A remarkable series of backwaters or lagoons extends for nearly 200 miles parallel to the sea, separated from it only by a strip of land varying from à few yards to some miles in width; and almost the whole traffic of the country is carried on by means of boats on this convenient water-way. Bordering on these lagoons stretch vast paddyfields, which are overflowed in the rainy season. Behind these rise the lower spurs and slopes of the hills, intersected by picturesque valleys filled with tropical vegetation; and beyond them come the mountains themselves, clothed with magnificent forests, and rising here and there to a height of 7,000 feet. The average breadth of the country is but forty miles from the sea to the watershed, nearly half consisting of broken mountain

country.

The kingdom of Travancore itself extends about 170 miles northward from Cape Comorin, and comprises an area of 6,730 square miles, with a population of 2,308,891. The smaller kingdom of Cochin, immediately to the north, embraces an area of 1,130 square miles, with a population of 601,114.

Travancore and Cochin are two of the semi-independent protected states of India. The Rajahs of both kingdoms took the side of the English in the wars with Hyder Ali and Tippoo Sahib at the close of last century, and were accordingly confirmed in their thrones. Indeed, the war of 1790 originated in an attack by Tippoo upon Travancore. The present Maharajah of Travancore and his family have shown an enlightened spirit in many ways, and a desire to improve the condition of the people and promote Western refinement. A census of the kingdom taken three or four years ago was the first ever made by an Indian Native Government; and a report of the results-a volume of 330 pages-which has been published in English, gives much valuable information respecting the country and people.

This census has brought to light a fact which makes Travancore unlike every other part of India, viz., that the "Native Christians" (i.e., as statistically reckoned) are one-fifth of the whole population. This is mainly owing to the existence on this coast of the ancient "Syrian Church of Malabar," as it is commonly called. The exact figures are-Hindus, 1,700,317; Mohammedans, 139,905; Jews, 151; Native Christians, 466,874; European and Eurasian Christians, 1,644. The Native Chris

tians comprise 299,770 Syrians, 109,820 Romanists, and 61,284 Protestants. In Cochin the proportion is still larger, the number of "Christians" being returned as 140,262. These are not subdivided, but it is believed that 40,000 are Syrians, 1,000 Protestants, and the rest Romanists. Both in Travancore and Cochin at least one-half of the Romanists are probably descendants of the Syrian Church.

In another respect Travancore has a pre-eminence in India. Nowhere else is the caste system so elaborate. In a Hindu population less than that of the West Riding of Yorkshire the census enumerates 420 distinct castes. And although it is stated that the differences between some of these are minute, a list is given of seventy-five, "which," says the compiler of the Census Report, "can be broadly distinguished from each other, and which serve to show the different strata in the formation of Hindu society." And nowhere else is the tyrannical power of caste more manifest. It is, indeed, now gradually yielding to the potent influences at work against it, but it has still immense power.

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The Nairs, a branch of the Sudras, form the most important section of the population. They comprise the landed gentry and almost the whole class of Government officials, civil and military. None of them engage in trade. The Chogans are the most numerous of the castes. Most of them are toddyclimbers," climbing the cocoa-nut tree as the Shanar of Tinnevelly does the palmyra. They are an industrious people, and some of them are influential. While low in the social scale as compared with Brahmins and Nairs, they in their turn are reckoned far above the out-caste slave population. These distinctions are enforced by a rigorous system of distances to be observed by lower castes in approaching higher. Thus, a Nair may approach but not touch a Brahmin; a Chogan must keep thirty-six steps from a Brahmin, and twelve from a Nair; a Pulayan, one of the slave communities, must keep ninety-six steps from a Brahmin or Nair, and must not even approach a Chogan. Even a Pulayan is defiled if he is touched by a Pariah. And besides all these there are the wild jungle and hill-tribes.

The most interesting section of the population, however, and that which led to the establishment of the Travancore Mission, is the SYRIAN CHURCH OF MALABAR, or, as its members call themselves, Christians of St. Thomas. The origin of this Church is not certainly known. It claims to have sprung from the preaching of the Apostle Thomas himself; and some of the best authorities are of opinion that this tradition may be accepted, though others doubt it. Colonel Yule, the translator of Marco Polo, thinks it is "so old that it probably is in its simple form true." Certainly the Church is very ancient. Pantænus of Alexandria undertook a journey to visit it in the second century. At the Council of Nice, A.D. 325, a bishop named John signed the decrees as Metropolitan of Persia and "Great India." Alfred the Great sent an embassy to the shrine of St. Thomas in India. A Syriac MS. of the Bible, brought from Cochin, and now in the University Library at Cambridge, which Canon Westcott says is the only complete ancient MS. of the Syriac Bible in Europe (except one at Milan), probably dates from the eight century. It has been generally believed that the Malabar Church in the Middle Ages was Nestorian; but some now think it was always, as it has been for the last 200 years, connected with the Jacobite Patriarch of Antioch.

When Vasco de Gama, the great Portuguese navigator, reached India by sea round the Cape in 1498, he was received with open arms by the Christians of Malabar; but the connection with

Portugal brought sad trouble upon them. Just a century later the Church, which had successfully resisted the persuasions of the Jesuits, became subject to the jurisdiction of the Pope; the work of subjugation being effected, partly by force and partly by fraud, by Alexius Menezes, Archbishop of Goa. All the married priests were deposed; the doctrine of transubstantiation and the worship of the Virgin were enforced; the Inquisition was established; and in 1654 a Metropolitan sent from Antioch was burnt alive at Goa as a heretic. In 1661, however, the ports of Quilon and Cochin were captured by the Dutch, who expelled all the Romish priests, and thus made way for another Syrian Metropolitan, who arrived from Antioch in 1665, and was welcomed as a liberator by the majority of the Christians. The Malabar Church has from that time been free from Papal domination, but has acknowledged the supremacy of the Jacobite Patriarch. Many, however, remained in connection with the Church of Rome, and became the progenitors of the numerous body of Romanists now in the country.

When Travancore and Cochin came under British protection in 1795, the Syrian Church began to attract attention, and in 1806 Dr. Claudius Buchanan was sent by Lord Wellesley to visit it. It was he who discovered the MS. already mentioned. His speeches and sermons in England-particularly his speech at the C.M.S. anniversary in 1809-and his published Christian Researches, awakened among Christian people a strong desire to enter into friendly relations with ancient Church which seemed to offer a promising base for the extension of Christianity in India; and a few years afterwards, an invitation from the British Resident in Travancore, Colonel Munro, who took a great interest in the Syrians, and had befriended them in many ways, led to the establishment of the C.M.S. Travancore Mission in 1816.

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on prosperously, and there seemed good hope of a gradual reform. But after the death of the second in 1830, his successor headed a reactionary movement; in 1835, notwithstanding the friendly efforts of Bishop Wilson, it had become clear that the effort to resuscitate the decayed Church, and raise her up as a witness for Christ on the Malabar coast, had failed; and in 1837, when not a single Syrian catanar (priest) had abandoned superstitious practices, although half of them had passed through the College, the Society determined to change its policy, and to sever its connection with the Syrian Church.

From that time the Mission has prospered. The separation, so far from causing ill-feeling, resulted ultimately in more friendly intercourse. Some thousands of Syrians have joined the C.M.S. Protestant congregations, without forfeiting the regard of their fellows. Eighteen Syrians have received Anglican orders, but are still frequently invited to preach in the Syrian churches,as also are the English missionaries. In the Society's Cottayam

The object of the Mission was expressly to benefit the Syrian Church-not to interfere with its liberty to" ordain rites and ceremonies," but to encourage and aid it to reform itself -"not to pull down the ancient Church and build another, but to remove the rubbish and repair the decaying places." For though free from some of the grosser errors of Rome, it was overlaid with most of the corruptions of doctrine and practice common to the Oriental Churches; and its lack of spiritual life was evidenced by the total absence of any effort to evangelise the surrounding heathen. It was proposed to undertake the training of youths for holy orders in a college which Colonel Munro had induced the Native Government to endow; to translate the Bible-which the Church only possessed in Syriac-into Malayalam, the vernacular of the country; and generally to influence clergy and people in favour of purer doetrine and simpler worship. The missionaries entrusted with this noble task were Benjamin Bailey, Joseph Fenn, and Henry Baker.

At first all went well. The missionaries were cordially received by the Syrians, and during the life-time of two successive Metrans (bishops), their educational and translational work went

College, founded after the separation, Syrian youths study for the Madras University. In the Mission Schools the children of Syrians, boys and girls, are educated in large numbers. Meanwhile, an important reforming movement sprang up a few years ago in the Syrian Church itself. In a few churches a revised Liturgy, translated into Malayâlam, is now issued; the Lord's Day is better observed in many places; Sunday-schools, Bible-classes, and prayer-meetings have been introduced, C.M.S. catechists being sometimes asked to conduct them; and there is a large and increasing sale of Bibles and Testaments. The reform party, however, are but a minority; and they lost a good friend by the death of the Metran, Mar Athanasius, in 1877. There are now several rival Metrans, and discord prevails in the Syrian Church.

But the efforts of the Society in Travancore have by no means been confined to the Syrians. Of the 20,000 Christians now composing its congregations, two-thirds are converts from heathenism. The greater number have been drawn from the Chogans and the Pulayan slaves; but Brahmins and Nairs have furnished their quota, and some 2,000 belong to the Arrians, a Kolarian hill-tribe found in the recesses of the Ghauts. Few episodes in missionary history are more interesting than those of Mr. H. Baker junior's work among the Arrians [see GLEANER of June last] and Mr. Hawksworth's among the slaves. Nor must we omit to mention the name of Joseph Peet, who was for many years a very prominent figure in the Travancore Mission, and to whom in particular it pleased God to give some remarkable Brahmin converts.

Considerable advance has been made in Native Church organisation, the District Councils and the Provincial Council being in full operation. In progress by accessions from without, Travancore for some time held the first place in all the Society's Missions, though it was distanced last year by Tinnevelly. The adult baptisms in the three years 1875, 1876, 1877, were 702, 429, 641. They would probably have been considerably more but for the unhappy schism which has troubled