ADDRESS OF THE REV. W. JOWETT.

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ness, not severity, is the rule of parental authority. And here it seems to me as if the affections of the two parents, in blending, almost interchange their natures. The mother must have her fondness strengthened into firmness: the father must unbend the masculine rigour of his hand, too heavy and too hard for little children, and condescend to gentleness.

Yet further, the relative duties of Masters and Servants (ver. 22 -iv. 1) claim your attention: dwell on them for a moment. Christian servants are here reminded of their obligation to serve the Lord Christ: while masters are kept in awe by the admonition that they also have & Master in heaven: "and there is no respect of persons." Were I asked to sum up in one word this and all other relative duties, I should refer my inquirer to that word with which the Fifth Commandment opens, "Honour." We are commanded to honour all men. Let, then, the servants of this house honour both the parents and the children: and let these honour the servants. This one word is the basis of all duty in every circle of society, from the smallest to the widest.-It will not be deemed, I trust, any deviation from the respect due to servants, if I just advert to the necessity of keeping a strict eye on their intercourse with children and young persons. This I may do the more freely, because, in our well-ordered country, Christian servants better know their place, than those living in most foreign lands. Many years did I spend as a familyman in a foreign country; and on no point have I more reason to remember the vigilant maternal character of the late Mrs. Jowett than this. Among her papers I found one Letter-addressed to a Missionary sister who had been residing in Mount Lebanon, but was retiring for a season to Malta-so exactly to this purpose, that an extract from it will not be inappropriate to the present occasion. "Such a country," she writes, “as you have been residing in, affords very few advantages for the training up of children, and very many hindrances or disadvantages: the example of the people around them, their religion, manners, and morals so exceedingly depraved! Malta, perhaps, is somewhat better; but even there you will find much to lament. Especially there is a necessity to guard against the many evils they may learn from servants, whose language children will learn sooner than that of their parents. I hope your dear little ones may be mercifully preserved from those many snares and temptations, which the most vigilant parent cannot prevent; yea, of which she may be utterly ignorant. After all our care and attention to them, our only security will be in committing them continually in prayer to our Heavenly Father, who alone can restrain the evil passions of mankind, and give our dear children grace to choose the right way." This Letter, dated London, March 25, 1829, exactly three months before her removal to a happier world, may be regarded as her dying testimony on a subject of the tenderest solicitude to parents.

But returning to the passage before us, our thoughts are directed, finally, to the need of persevering prayer, watchfulness, and thanks giving all which imply a deep sense of our dependence on God, our manifold dangers and temptations, our helplessness, and our unworthiness; together with a lively enjoyment of His perpetual presence in the midst of us, and of His good will toward those who, as dear children, walk before Him in love. Humility, although not expressly named in all this passage, yet is implied in every part of it; and it is

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ADDRESS OF THE REV. W. JOWETT.

the fundamental grace of the Gospel. It is that feeling which sends us continually to the throne of grace, and keeps us there, low in our own eyes, patiently waiting on the Lord, until He have mercy upon us.-But there is one subject for prayer here specified by the Apostle, which it is peculiarly important to notice in its bearing on the present occasion. He says, (ver. 3, 4) "Withal praying also for us, that God would open unto us a door of utterance, to speak the mystery of Christ, for which I am also in bonds: that I may make it manifest, as I ought to speak." The exhortation suggests to my mind, that in this house prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks, will be made continually on behalf of our beloved Missionaries labouring in distant lands. They will be severally named from time to time according to their various circumstances; their joys and their sorrows, their labours, sufferings, successes, trials, sicknesses, and occasionally their lamented deaths-all these will be personally noted by those who lead the devotions of this mingled family and to keep alive the interest felt for Africa, for the Indies, for China, for New Zealand, for America, and other regions of the earth, there will be present in this very spot young Representatives of those various countries, in the children collected under the shadow of this roof; some of them the children of Missionaries who are yet bearing the burden and heat of the day; others, the orphans of those who have spent their lives in the Lord's service. Happy family! In many a Christian household the worship is limited, or nearly so, to the personal and domestic wants of those assembled, with allusions only occasional and brief to the state of our country and of the world. But from this house there will be a continual out-breathing of prayer on behalf of Missions; which will prove a source of rich blessing to the great human family, and of choicest consolations to those who are privileged, to join in these devotions.

Suffer me, dear brother and sister in Christ, to quote, in conclusion, a saying, which I have heard attributed to that eminently wise and holy man, Jonathan Edwards. It has been told me-for I have never seen the statement in print-that he was wont to express himself in some such terms as the following-"When it is well between me and my God, then it is well between me and my wife: and when it is well between me and my wife, then it is well between us and our children: and when it is well between us and our children, then it is well between our family and the servants: and when it is well with the house, then it is well between me and my people." Here, as reported to me, the saying ended. But in your case, the circle must be enlarged far beyond this. When it is well between this Home and those two other Establishments of our Society, the Church Missionary House and the Church Missionary Institutiona threefold cord, we humbly trust, not quickly to be broken-then shall it be well with our Church, with our Missions, and the cause of the Gospel throughout all the world. Therefore, brother and sister in Christ, let us return to the first principle. Let it be your prayer for yourselves, and ours also on your behalf, that, now and evermore, it may be well between you and your God!

MANIS, OR PRAYING-MACHINES, OF THE PEOPLE OF THIBET.

THIBET is the highest part of the great continent of Asia. It is separated from India by the great mountains called the Himalaya. The plains of Thibet, on the north of the mountains, are much higher than the plains of India on the south. Thibet, of which we know little, is supposed to consist of stony and sandy plains, with mountains of moderate height occasionally rising. For three months of the year, between October and March, the cold is very severe, especially in the parts to the south, which lie nearest to the snowy mountains. Near these mountains fish and meat are frozen in autumn, and thus preserved through the winter.

Thibet is unfavourable to vegetable life-rice is not grown, and wheat is very scarce: barley and coarse peas are the principal crops -but it abounds in animal life. The quantities of fowl, wildbeasts, flocks and herds, are astonishing. It is remarkable how God has graciously suited the clothing of the different animals to the coldness of the climate. The sheep in the district near the mountains have very thick and heavy fleeces. The goat has a very fine fur at the root of his long and shaggy hair: these goats are called the shawl goats. They are smaller than the smallest sheep in England, and are of different colours, black, white, faint blue, and light fawn colour. Shawls are made of the soft, light, firm material which grows next the skin, and which is covered over, and protected from the weather, by the long coarse hair. This goat cannot be reared in any other country.

The religion of the people of Thibet is Buddhism, the same which prevails in Ceylon and Birmah, and which is professed by many of the Chinese. It is the most widely-spread of all false religions. Buddh is a general term for Divinity, and not the name of any particular god. There have been, as they say, four Buddhs, and there is to be a fifth. Each of these Buddhs lasts only for a time, and then comes to nothing. Until the next Buddh appears, the image of the last Buddh, called Goudama, is worshipped, and temples, called pagodas, are built to his memory. The Buddhist Priests in Thibet are called Lamas, and the ruler of the country is called the Grand Lama. Each Grand Lama is considered as an incarnation of the divinity, which, when one Lama dies, is supposed to enter into another. The Grand Lama is nominally the temporal as well as the spiritual ruler of the country. He lives, however, in his palace, shut out from the world, only appearing in public once a year. As Thibet is subject to China, the real power of the state rests with the Chinese officer, called Tazin, who resides at Lassa, the capital.

There are many orders of Priests. Some are dressed in yellow, others in red. They live in monasteries, where they lead a lazy life, mumbling over their prayers, counting beads, and performing useless ceremonies. Vain repetitions of mindless prayers, both by

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THIBETIAN MANIS, OR PRAYING-MACHINES.

Priests and people, seem to form one leading feature in their religion. The merit of the individual is according to the number of prayers which he repeats; and our Missionaries at Kotghur, in the Hill country, and who sometimes in their journeys meet with the people of Thibet, describe the following strange mode they have of multiplying their prayers. When our readers have perused it, they will be disposed to think that a human being muttering over a number of prayers in which his heart is not engaged, is no better than a Mani, or Praying-Machine.

I met a company of Tartars and Lamas with their cattle, in the Sutledge valley some had Manis, but would not sell them. Some time ago I met one here turning his Mani most quickly whilst he walked, his small bundle of property being on his back. I stopped him, and asked him if he would sell it to me, as I have been asked frequently by friends to procure some of these Manis (Prayer-wheels), for forwarding to Europe. He refused it; but entering into conversation with him, and telling him he should fix his own price, he asked three rupees for it: it was, however, a very inferior one, made of leather, whilst the valuable ones are made of copper, inlaid with silver letters, &c. I paid him the money, and he gave me the Mani; when all at once, after a little while, he asked me to give it back to him. As soon as he had it in his hands again he put it three times to his forehead, made his salaam to it, and returned it to me, poor fellow, and off he went. It is difficult to get these Manis here, as very few like to part with them. Once, at the Rampur fair, I asked a Ladak man to sell me his; but he refused to do so, on the ground that I might turn it round the wrong way-from the right to the left, as it must always be turned to the right-in consequence of which he would have to suffer if he sold it to me.

These little Manis are a remarkable invention. They are wooden, or iron, or copper cylinders-filled with a long, but narrow roll of paper or cloth, on which their idols and symbols are painted, and, below, prayers, either printed or written in the Thibetian character-about two inches in diameter and three inches long. It moves on points like a horizontal wheel, and in a small string is a kind of iron or brass frame attached to the wheel to make it swing nicely. Not only the Buddhist clergy, but also any of the laity who feel inclined to do so, use this wheel. Those who are too poor, buy at least the prayers without the wheel, and carry the roll of paper on which they are written, or printed from a wood block, on their chest, sewn in a rag. A part of the Lamas procure their subsistence from writing or printing these prayers or sacred sentences. In Upper Kanawr they have very big Manis in their temples, which one man turns round by a handle. In 1845 I saw a very fine one at Sabrung: one turned it, and a number of people sat near it, so that the wind caused by turning it might touch their face, which is considered not only fortunate, but also blessed. The people have such Manis or Prayer-wheels built even in small streams close to their houses, so that the water, by turning the wheel, performs the necessary prayers for them!

AN AFRICAN IDOL.

OUR Engraving represents Igbeji, the god of twins, one of the many gods the poor benighted Africans worship. It is worshipped as a substitute for twins, or a twin child, that may have died; or else with a view to obtain such. The people think it an honour to have many children.

The idol from which the drawing was made was obtained by the Rev. C. A. Gollmer, our Missionary at Badagry, from a man who came to look at his house. It was suspended from his wrist by the loops below the figure. The idol itself is rudely carved in wood, the ears, neck, body, arms, and legs, being adorned with coloured beads. The round leathern pad or cushion, on which the idol stands, has several strings of beads suspended from the edge-with the loops in the centre, made of plaited leather, similar to the cushion.

Mr. Gollmer spoke to the man about the vanity and sinfulness of worshipping such things, and pointed out to him the nature of the one only true God, and the worship due to Him alone; and then desired him to give him his idol, to which request the man reluctantly consented.

Painful as it is to the true Christian's mind to hear of such sinful practices, we know that the day is coming, and is probably nearer at hand than many imagine, when "the idols He shall utterly abolish;" and when there shall be but one Lord known and loved and served throughout the earth.