Then he sought every opportunity to bring the matter into prominence, and gain for it support and sympathy. At Nottingham he preached his celebrated sermon from Isaiah liv. 2, 3, in which he enforced these two well-known exhortations: (1) Expect great things from God; (2) Attempt great things for God. At the close of that sermon it was resolved that at the next meeting of the Association the matter should be fully discussed, and accordingly at Kettering, in 1792, the subject was gone into; £13 2s. 6d. was subscribed, the now famous Baptist Missionary Society was formed, and William Carey was accepted as the first missionary.

What he suffered, what difficulties he overcame, how he was beset with domestic troubles, how in a foreign land he found himself friendless and penniless, how he endured all things and dared all things in the cause of Christ and of perishing men on Indian soil, and relaxed neither his industry nor his zeal till he had laboured in that cause for forty years, cannot be told in length here; but the man that could do and be all that William Carey was must rank as a hero among heroes.

A strange and wonderful career was that of the Highland boy of Balnakilty, Alexander Duff. Little did his father, as he told him missionary stories on Sunday evenings, think that all the civilised world would ring with the praises of his son as the greatest Christian Reformer of his age in India.

Alexander Duff won for himself high distinctions in his student career, and would have occupied a distinguished position had he remained in his own country, but early there had been aroused in him a missionary enthusiasm. A staunch friend of his, John Urquhart, had dedicated himself to missionary work, and had inspired Duff with a kindred sentiment. When he visited his parents he would tell them from time to time of his friend and his projects, but had never mentioned the thought that lay half formed into purpose in his own heart. In 1827, when visiting his Grampian home, his parents observed that he was silent as to his friend. "What has become of your friend Urquhart?" at length the father asked. "Urquhart is no more!" answered Duff sorrowfully. "But what if your son has taken up his cloak? You approved the motive that directed the choice of Urquhart-you commended his high purpose; the cloak is taken up." Such was the first breaking to father and mother of the vow he had made to God, and of which he had told no one until that day. The parents at first sorrowfully, but at length calmly acquiesced, and they lived to rejoice in the surrender of themselves and their son. Urquhart had determined to be a missionary to the Hindoos; so to India the thoughts of Alexander Duff were turned, and events conspired to fix that land as the scene of his labours.

When the time came for him to offer his services to the Church of Scotland as their missionary, he would not bind himself to any conditions as to the method in which he should meet the natives, or what form the instruction he should give them should take; nor would he bind himself to be the slave of the chaplains and kirk-session of Calcutta. The only injunction laid upon him was not to commence his ministrations in Calcutta; but this injunction, as soon as he saw the country and the people, he felt it his duty to violate. He was no ordinary man, and was not to be shackled with hard

and-fast rules; he was accredited with "such talents and acquirements, literary, scientific, and theological, as would do honour to any station in the Church," and was wisely left to use those talents according to the bent of his genius.

Prior to his ordination by Dr. Chalmers, who had been his friend and counsellor throughout, he was married to Miss Anne Scott Drysdale, of Edinburgh, and never had a missionary a better help-meet.

On the 19th of September, 1829, Duff and his wife sailed in the Lady Holland, and the journey was fraught with a terrible series of disasters. Windbound for a week off Spithead; then battling with a succession of storms; detained through misadventure three weeks beyond the allotted time at Madeira; escaping the onslaught of a pirate ship, the Lady Holland at length approached the coast of South Africa, the captain intending to call at the Cape of Good Hope. Boisterous weather and contrary winds harassed them for some time, and then one night the vessel bumped with alarming violence on the rocks. The concussion was tremendous, and from the first moment her case seemed hopeless; the waves dashed over her furiously, so that at once her back was broken and she sank down between the reefs. The passengers, suddenly startled from sleep, rushed on deck in their night-clothes, to hear the captain cry in agony, "She's gone! She's gone!" The scene that ensued was terrible during the awful moments that followed, but the brave missionary never for an instant seems to have lost his presence of mind. In the terrible pause which followed, while the captain and crew were doing their best to provide means for the escape of the passengers, he stilled the convulsive agonies of feeling by calling upon all to join with him in prayer for their deliverance, if such might be the case, and if not that they might be prepared to meet their God. Every one in the cuddy responded to the appeal, and clustered round him while he lifted up his firm voice in prayer.

Hours passed in dreadful suspense, while the billows dashed over the wreck and threatened destruction to all on board. At length the long-boat was successfully launched, the shallow sandy beach was reached, and the passengers and crew were saved. It was on an island tenanted only by myriads of penguins that the hapless people found themselves; but they managed to light a fire of sea-weed and cook the eggs of the penguins while they waited for deliverance.

A curious incident occurred while they were here. A sailor, walking along the beach, noticed an object cast ashore. It was Dr. Duff's Bible, a quarto Bagster, which had been given him by a friend prior to his departure. Taking this treasure-trove in his hand, Duff opened it on the white, bleached sand, and read aloud the 107th Psalm to the band of shipwrecked but rescued men and women. The incident-curious and interesting, but not miraculous—made a deep impression on the missionary; he received it as a message from God. He had taken with him 800 volumes, representing every department of knowledge. All of these were swallowed up save forty, and of these forty the only books not reduced to pulp were editions of the Bible; and he determined that "henceforth human learning must be to him a means only, not in itself an end."

From the barren island the shipwrecked people were rescued by a brig of war, and safely landed at Cape Town. Here Mr. and Mrs. Duff obtained a passage in the Moira,

the last ship of the season, and proceeded on their way to India. Again they fell in with contrary winds, which beat them out of their course, until, when near the Mauritius, they encountered a hurricane which seriously threatened the foundering of the ship. Their troubles culminated, however, as they reached the estuary of the Hooghly. The clouds gathered, darkening the sun, and a fearful storm arose, which soon changed into the dreaded cyclone. Three anchors were thrown out, but the Moira was dragged, drifted, and finally tossed by the storm-wave on to the muddy shore of the Saugar. Here, in the most perilous position, the vessel was the toy of the storm's fury, and here, amid lightning and tempest, with the huge billows rolling around them, the passengers were landed up to their waists in water. Caste forbade the natives giving them shelter, and

the shipwrecked party took refuge from the storm in a village temple. "Thus it was that the first missionary of the Church of Scotland was, with his wife and fellows, literally thrown on the mud-formed strand of Bengal, where the last land of the holy goddess Ganga receives her embrace, and many a mother was there wont to commit her living child to the pitiless waters."

After twenty-four hours the storm subsided, and obtaining a boat of the covered "dingy" class, Mr. and Mrs Duff, drenched with mud and thoroughly exhausted, arrived in the city of palaces. When the Calcutta papers told the strange story of his voyage, the natives who read it said, "Surely this man is a favourite of the gods, who must have some notable work for him to do in India."

Dr. Duff at once commenced his labours, and with an exhaustless energy spent the hottest and wettest months of the Bengal year in visiting every mission and missionstation in and around Calcutta, and in studying the vernacular. He soon decided to

the last ship of the season, and proceeded on their way to India. Again they fell in with contrary winds, which beat them out of their course, until, when near the Mauritius, they encountered a hurricane which seriously threatened the foundering of the ship. Their troubles culminated, however, as they reached the estuary of the Hooghly. The clouds gathered, darkening the sun, and a fearful storm arose, which soon changed into the dreaded cyclone. Three anchors were thrown out, but the Moira was dragged, drifted, and finally tossed by the storm-wave on to the muddy shore of the Saugar. Here, in the most perilous position, the vessel was the toy of the storm's fury, and here, amid lightning and tempest, with the huge billows rolling around them, the passengers were landed up to their waists in water. Caste forbade the natives giving them shelter, and

the shipwrecked party took refuge from the storm in a village temple. "Thus it was that the first missionary of the Church of Scotland was, with his wife and fellows, literally thrown on the mud-formed strand of Bengal, where the last land of the holy goddess Ganga receives her embrace, and many a mother was there wont to commit her living child to the pitiless waters."

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After twenty-four hours the storm subsided, and obtaining a boat of the covered dingy" class, Mr. and Mrs Duff, drenched with mud and thoroughly exhausted, arrived in the city of palaces. When the Calcutta papers told the strange story of his voyage, the natives who read it said, "Surely this man is a favourite of the gods, who must have some notable work for him to do in India."

Dr. Duff at once commenced his labours, and with an exhaustless energy spent the hottest and wettest months of the Bengal year in visiting every mission and missionstation in and around Calcutta, and in studying the vernacular. He soon decide