was thus brought upon the Christian name, that the missionaries consented to form a German congregation and to minister to their countrymen, who, not understanding the Danish language, were unable to profit by the services of the Danish frequently been forced upon missionaries, and need not be a distraction to them, or lead to a diminution of their labours among those to whom they are specially sent, but may rather be made a healthful relaxation, and a means of keeping up in their hearts those home feelings and home sympathies, which are amongst the best counteractives of the evils of constant intercourse with heathens, and incessant contemplation of heathenism.

At the end of eight months Ziegenbalg was able to speak intelligibly to the natives, and in due time his knowledge of the language, both in its spoken and written forms, was a subject of wonder to all who came into contact with him. Plutschou made less rapid, but not less effective pro-church. Such ministrations as these have very gress. However, they seem at this time to have exchanged their parts, as previously assigned them by lot. At all events, Ziegenbalg appears henceforth to have confined himself to Tamul. Thus the missionaries were fairly at work. The love to God and to man with which their hearts had long been ready to overflow, now found a channel through which it could pour itself out on every side. But now their difficulties commenced. The Brahmins saw that they were in earnest, and began to be in earnest too. Their first step was to deprive them of the aid of their pundit, from whom they were receiving valuable instructions respect ing the language and literature of the country. By false assertions, that ever-ready weapon in the hand of Hindus, they procured his banishment from Tranquebar. Having thus got him from ander the protection of the Danish flag, they accused him to the Rajah of Tanjore of having disclosed the sacred mysteries of the Hindu religion to the missionaries. He was loaded with irons, and thrown into prison, where he remained for some months. Shortly after his liberation he died, in one sense a martyr in the cause of Christianity, although to the last not a Christian.

The history of the mission at this time may be stated in the words which form a compend of the history of the faithful Church all through:-"A wide door, and effectual, was opened to them, but there were many adversaries." The gospel was in evil repute among the heathen, by reason of the ungodly lives of many of its professors. Perhaps Christianity is the only system of religion that has inconsistent professors; because it alone has respect to the heart and the affections. Hinduism, at all events, requires nothing of the heart. Its whole demands may be complied with by a man without any influence being produced upon his moral character. A man may be a most exemplary Hindu, and a most consummate scoundrel. This being the case, it is not worth any man's while to throw off the profession of Hinduism, which does not interfere with his living as he lists. Generally speaking, therefore, every man born in Hinduism is a Hindu, and of course the idea is very natural that in like manner every man born in Christendom is a Christian; and we have often heard missionaries say that it is a great point gained when the idea is apprehended by a native of India that there is a difference between nominal and real Christians. It is only when they have apprehended this idea that they can understand that the tendency of the system is towards holiness, and that its sure effect is holiness in the case of all those who are really under its influence. "I had hitherto supposed," said a native to Ziegenbalg, "that the ministers of the Christians exhorted them to drunkenness and debauchery, for they go direct from church to places for drunkenness and sensual indulgence." It was probably on account of the great scandal that

In the early period of the mission, a considerable portion of their attention seems to have been devoted to the slaves of the Europeans; and amongst them they had a considerable amount of success. At their request, the governor ordered all the Protestant inhabitants of Tranquebar to send their slaves, for two hours every day, to be instructed in sound principles of religion, with a view to their being admitted, when ready for baptism, into the Church of Christ. There may be some amongst us now-a-days that will stigmatise this order as savouring strongly of "Erastianism;" and we care not to dispute with them. To us it seems that the evil was in permitting them to have slaves, not in requiring them to have their slaves instructed. Nor was there any violence done to the consciences of the slaves. They had been all bought in their childhood, and brought up in their masters' houses. They had, therefore, no religion, nor any religious prejudices against the instructions that they were compelled to receive. Within ten months of their arrival in the country, the missionaries baptized five adult slaves of this class; and there is every reason to believe that the ordinance was not administered merely as a matter of course, after a certain amount of knowledge was attained by the catechumens, but that they were received into the Church on sound scriptural grounds.

As soon as the missionaries were familiar with the languages, they devoted a large portion of their time to educational work. They had two schools, a Portuguese and a Tamul; and in these they seem to have spent ordinarily a portion of each day. And then they were continually preaching; not perhaps always with the external formalities that are technically connected with that term, but reasoning and exhorting, in the house and by the wayside; with twos or threes or with hundreds; preaching the word, instant in season, out of season. More formal services they had on Sundays and Fridays, the Sunday services being in Portuguese in the morning, and in Tamul in the evening; and on Fridays, vice versa. A series of doctrinal lectures by Ziegenbalg, on the principles of the Christian faith, were afterwards published in the Tamul language, and are still read with interest and profit by missionaries, and recommended by them to the notice of the people. On the 5th of September 1707, they had the happiness of baptizing nine adult converts from Hinduism, and several more on the 15th. But these last were probably slaves.

In these varied labours, ministering to the young and the old, the bond and the free, the fair Euro

pean and the swarthy native, the rich and the poor, the learned and the ignorant, these devoted men spent, and were spent, becoming all things to all men, if by any means they might save some. And some they did save, through God's grace blessing their labours.

Perhaps the department of labour to which Ziegenbalg devoted the greatest portion of time and study, and with the least apparent return, was discussion with the pundits or learned natives. And yet we doubt not that these produced beneficial results indirectly, by exalting the respectability of the mission and the missionaries, and so attracting the attention of many who would otherwise have turned away from them. Some of these discussions lasted four or five hours, and were conducted with great propriety on either side. Ziegenbalg, with all his zeal, was essentially a gentleman, and there is something gentlemanly in the Indian pundit when he has to deal with a man of learning.

you always."

not a mere gentle restraint, but an actual imprisonment of the most rigid kind; for we learn incidentally that his translation was suspended, which would not have been the case, we may be sure, if he had been allowed access to his books and papers. Meantime, the Word of God was not bound. The steady, persevering labours of the missionaries were beginning to tell, not only in Tranquebar, but in the neighbouring country, and when additional labourers (Messrs Grundler, Bæving, and Jordan) arrived in the middle of 1709, they found the field white unto the harvest. These new missionaries brought out with them a very seasonable supply of money, a number of valuable books for the mission library, and a complete medicine-chest. At the same time arrived imperative orders from the King of Denmark to the governor of Tranquebar to render the missionaries whatever aid or protection they might require. And thus, with gradually improving prospects, yet in the midst of immense difficulties, Towards the end of 1708, Ziegenbalg entered perils from their own countrymen, and perils from upon a new and most important work, the trans- the heathen, these apostolic men carried on their lation of the Bible into the Tamul language. This good work; in their greatest perils and their is the grand turning-point of every Protestant deepest poverty, staying themselves upon their mission, or we should rather say, of Protestant God and Saviour, and experiencing the faithfulmissions in every country. It may seem strangeness of His most gracious promise," Lo, I am with that a man should have set about the translating of the Scriptures into a language of which he knew It seems to have been Prince George of Dennot a word but twenty-seven months before. But mark, husband of our Queen Anne, and his chaplain, Ziegenbalg was an extraordinary man. In that Dr Boehm, that brought the Tranquebar mission short period he had made extraordinary progress under the notice of the English, and procured for in the language. Simultaneously with this work it the valuable assistance of the Society for the he carried on another, the composition of a Tamul Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts. In dictionary; or rather two; for although Mr 1709, this society voted a grant of £20 and a Hough does not mention it, he composed not only case of books to the Tranquebar mission, and the ordinary dictionary, but also one of all the larger sums in subsequent years. They afterpoetical words and phrases in the language, a work wards sent a printing-press, which reached just in of great value to those who have occasion to com- time to enable the missionaries to proceed with pose works suited to the pundits and the literati of the printing of the New Testament. It gives us a the country. "These numerous works," says Mr striking view of the state of feeling, and the state Hough, "which required that their minds should of communication in India, a century and a half be free from extraneous care, were actually con- ago, that when the first remittance of money and ducted under sufferings from want and oppression. books arrived in Madras, the missionaries sent The monthly expenditure upon their schools was two natives to receive them. But the British now increased to between forty and fifty dollars- authorities, to whom, as having come in a Coma large sum to pay out of their own scanty sti-pany's ship, they were consigned, did not deem it pends; and while struggling with pecuniary dif- expedient to intrust them to natives, and Ziegenficulties, their enemies, whose rage against them balg was obliged to go for them himself! Comwas fomented instead of appeased by their meek-paring the state of things indicated by this fact ness and perseverance, proceeded so far as to procure with the present state of matters in India, we the incarceration of Ziegenbalg for four months, come to a conclusion directly opposite to the preon some frivolous charge, which proved unfounded." | For this last enormity the Danish authorities must be held responsible. It is vain to say that they could only act upon the information laid before them, and were bound to treat a charge brought against Ziegenbalg by his enemies as they would have treated a charge that might have been brought by Ziegenbalg against the most reprobate of his enemies. If this be law, the worse for law! Without doubt, it is at all events the very opposite of justice. Of course, the authorities were bound to inquire into the charge; but they ought to have accepted such bail as Ziegenbalg could offer. His word of honour would have been quite sufficient to secure his attendance when called upon. It would appear that his detention was

valent idea, that everything has been stationary in that country. For ourselves, we believe that there is no country in the world in which so much progress has been made as in India during the last century.

Before the missionaries received aid from England, they had resolved that one of them must go to Europe, to represent to the King of Denmark the persecutions to which they were subjected at the hands of his subordinates, and to obtain increased pecuniary support. Both these objects were happily anticipated, as has just been told; and the missionaries were thus enabled to labour in concert till the autumn of 1711, when declining health constrained Plutschou to return to Europe. It need not be said that his colleague had from the

NUREMBERG STORIES.

1. THE VETERAN OF SALZBURG.

peace in his soul; for Christ did not, as yet, dwell in his heart. He noticed the old Salzburg stranger, whom he met often in the meetings of Christian brethren, and was forcibly struck with his manner of praying. It seemed to him that old Matthias prayed differently from other people. The one seemed to him like a conversation between two living friends, who, hand in hand, earnestly and affectionately look into each other's face; the other, like words addressed to a portrait of a beloved and revered monarch, who is, however, not personally known or present to the speaker.

He sought the acquaintance of this Nathanael

poor and infirm, and the young disciple shewed him much kindness, and ministered liberally and tenderly to his wants. The old man did not exhort and rebuke severely or urgently. He said little; but what he said came out of a Christ-loving heart. And, when his last hour came, Kiessling stood weeping by his side, and heard the last words of the veteran-"Lord, I will not let thee go except thou bless me!"

The good seed, however, did not spring up in Kiessling's heart till some time afterwards. One Sabbath afternoon he heard his pastor explain to the children of the congregation the way of life, not by works, but grace. He tells us himself, in his diary, what he then felt. "What!' I said, all my praying, reading, visiting of the sick, almsgiving, to go for nothing, and I am no better than any other poor sinner, who has led a wicked life!' I shed tears, but not of sorrow-tears of anger and mortified pride; and I could not but feel angry with the pastor, whom I had hitherto loved tenderly." But immediately afterwards the darkness was dispersed. He had led an ascetic life after Matthias' death; but felt that "he lacked one thing," and that he did not possess the mysterious, clear, heavenly peace of his sainted friend. now he awoke, and the Sun had risen unto him, bringing life, and light, and warmth; and the darkness, and gloom, and fear of night were gone, and all was peace and safety, confidence and love.

IF you have ever seen Nuremberg, with its quaint houses and beautiful churches, or if you have even only read Longfellow's vivid description of it, you cannot but feel a great and affectionate interest in this ancient city. And when you remember what Nuremberg was in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, -the centre of German commerce, art, and Christian culture—the place where the doctrines of the Reformation were most cordially welcomed-where Hans Sachs, the cobbler--true Israelite, without guile. Old Matthias was poet, whose greatness and simplicity were concealed for a long time from an artificial and God-estranged generation, till Göthe explained his depth and genius, and Albrecht Dürer, the greatest German painter of his age, dedicated their heaven-bestowed powers to the service of God,-you cannot but regard it with veneration, as a place endeared to your heart by many elevating and hallowed associations. But, to descend from great things to small, were I a Nuremberg citizen I should feel proud of the Nuremberg toys!-of all the Noah's arks, and all the ingenious, instructive, grotesque, tasteful little works of art, which have gone forth into the nurseries of many countries, and given so much delight to dear little children! How much latent poetry, ye honest, good-hearted toymakers, have you packed in these tiny wooden boxes! The peaceful occupation of toymaking belonged, to a large extent, to a very remarkable class of people viz., the Salzburg evangelical emigrants. In the beautiful mountain-valleys of the Salzburg district there were many God-fearing people, who had embraced the pure doctrine as preached by Luther; and for a long time they escaped persecution, led a quiet, blessed, and holy life, and thus spread the knowledge of the gospel. In the year 1685, a whole congregation of these worthy men was exiled; and, forty years after, the evangelical Salzburgers were cruelly persecuted by the Archbishop Leopold, who is described by historians as a man who was haughty as Haman, hard-hearted as Caiaphas, and relentless as Philip II. About 30,000 of these inoffensive people-the very salt of the earth-were compelled to leave their much-loved homes, and to seek a country where they could worship, serve, and confess their Saviour. It is well known that they were most cordially welcomed in Prussia, where the king shewed a deep and truly Christian interest in these faithful witnesses of Christ. But many of them had remained in Nuremberg, and settled there; and among them not a few were toymakers. It was one of these strangers, "unknown, yet well known," Matthias Klaumbauer, a poor, simple man, whom God sent as a messenger of peace and light to a youth, who afterwards became a blessing to hundreds, especially among the Protestants of the Austrian provinces, where his name is still held in affectionate and grateful remembrance by many who are his children in the faith. Young Kiessling, (born in 1742,) the son of pious parents, was an earnest and God-fearing youth, and, doubtless, held up as a model young man; for he kept himself unspotted from the pollutions of the world, and led a pure and noble life. But he had no

But

It is a simple story; but one over which angels and saints rejoice.

II. THE CONVERSION OF AN ELOQUENT PREACHER.

Many years after Kiessling's conversion, a young and very amiable preacher of the gospel came to Nuremberg, as tutor in the family of a nobleman. He was so distinguished by erudition, attractive kindness, and thrilling eloquence, that the unusual honour of the offer of a pastorate to a stranger was shewn to him by the old city. He accepted the call, and at once became the most popular preacher of Nuremberg. The church in which he preached was crowded, the refined and cultivated families of the town rallied round him. He was eloquent, no doubt; but, as he afterwards described it, "My sermons were Christian, according to the outward appearance and sound; but, in reality, I preached myself, and not Christ; for I did not look simply for the approbation of God, but thought the applause of the world very desirable and sweet.'