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URGENT APPEALS FOR AID.

under the Divine Blessing, the attention of our Church shall be thoroughly awakened to the immense importance of the occasion. I leave Krishnaghur, and its Christian youthful population, in your hands. Again, the Committee reluctantly withheld the aid so feelingly solicited.

ور

The

"It is

In South India, the need of an increased number of Missionaries in Tinnevelly has been already explained. Bishop of Madras thus earnestly pleads the cause :constant excitement, and overwork, which break us down, sending many of us home, and some to an early grave. We want, therefore, more Clergymen, to share with us the burden and heat of the day. We have already far more Native Christians than it is possible for our present limited number of Missionaries to instruct and superintend; and their rapidly-increasing families will soon want instruction and superintendence also. India wants many more English Clergymen, and will want a large body of them for many years to come. British charity must send them out, and British liberality must maintain them, or the progress of Christianity in India will be greatly hindered;-stopped it cannot be." There are three Missionary Students in the Islington Institution already in Holy Orders, and assigned to South India; and the Committee could at once respond to the appeal of the Bishop, by sending them out; but the state of the Society's funds calls upon them to pause.*

Such earnest, such inviting appeals must not be suffered to drop into oblivion. They must not, they cannot, be set aside by the reply, that we have no funds. They must be brought before those who have the means, and may be willing to make us the almoners of their bounty. These cases therefore a few only out of many-the Committee earnestly and solemnly commend to the consciences of their Christian friends; entreating them to consider whether they might not either contribute more liberally themselves, or stir up others to a more liberal contribution :-and they thus speak, not reproachfully or in despair, but in grateful recollection of the success of former appeals, and in the blessed assurance that God is able to make all grace abound toward His people, that they, having all sufficiency in all things, may abound to every good work.

* In consequence of the degree of encouragement afforded by the contributions received at and after the Anniversary, the Committee have since ventured to make preparations for the departure of these three Missionaries to their Stations.

CHURCH MISSIONARY

GLEANER.

No. 6.

JUNE, 1842.

VOL. II.

THE

CONCLUSION OF THE FORTY-SECOND REPORT.

HE principles upon which the operations of the Church Missionary Society have ever been conducted, and upon the faithful maintenance of which alone success can be expected to attend its labours, are thus referred to in the conclusion of the Report delivered at the Annual Meeting held on the 3d of May.

But let not this appeal of the Committee be mistaken.. Let it not be supposed that it is on gold, or silver, or patronage, that they found their hopes of success. God forbid! It is the faithful, plain, and full maintenance of those great principles of the truth as it is in Jesus, by all the Agents and Missionaries of this Society, without compromise and without reserve-it is the sustentation of that Scriptural, Protestant, and Evangelical tone throughout all their ministrations-it is the upholding of the Bible, and the Bible alone, as the foundation and rule of faith-upon which the blessing of God has rested, does rest, and ever will rest.

If there be one living witness entitled to speak on this subject with more weight than another, it is he who was one of the early fathers of the Church Missionary Society; who laboured from its infancy to establish its great principles; who, by the signal providence of God, has been raised to the chief post both of observation and authority in the Missions of the Church; and whose life, by a no less signal providence, has been preserved, while thousands have VOL. II.

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CONCLUSION OF THE FORTY-SECOND REPORT.

fallen at his side, that he might speak with the additional authority of long experience, and at the very crisis when his voice was most needed. That voice has given no uncertain sound. "If," says the Bishop of Calcutta in his last Ordination Sermon," the spirituality of our Missions be gone; if a scheme which substitutes self, and form, and authority of office, for weight of doctrine and activity of love, be imbibed, Ichabod—the glory is departed! may be inscribed upon our Church in India; all real advances in the conversion of the Heathen will stop; our scattered Christian flocks will miss the sound and wholesome nourishment for their souls; our converts will quickly dwindle away to a nominal profession; our Native Catechists and Missionaries will be bewildered; and nothing in the whole world is so graceless, as the eminent Gerické once observed, as a Mission without the spirit of Christ." Nor less are all hopes of success dependent upon the constant fervent prayers of Christian friends at home, that the Lord may be pleased to pour out His spirit upon our works, which alone can arouse the Christian Church to a sense of the greatness of the occasion-which alone can prosper the labours of our Missionaries abroad-which alone can embolden the persecuted and timid inquirers after Christian Truth to profess the Faith of Christ-which alone can support the feeble graces of those infant Churches, which need to be cherished as a nurse cherisheth her children. May He who hath the residue of the Spirit inspire the hearts of His people with these prayers, and "speedily accomplish the number of His elect, and hasten His kingdom!"

AN ACCOUNT OF THE CASTE OF THE HINDOOS.

We take the following Article from an interesting little volume entitled "South-Indian Sketches."

The principal castes in South India are the Brahmins and the Soodras; both of which are almost endlessly subdivided. There are, however, a large number of MIXED classes and Pariars, who, though they have in reality no caste at all, have as many distinctions among themselves as the others, and are even more tenacious of them: these are sometimes called LOW-CASTE people.

Difference of caste is not affected by the possession or the

AN ACCOUNT OF THE CASTE OF THE HINDOOS.

63

want of property: a Pariar may be very rich, and a Brahmin in the most abject poverty; and there have even been instances of princes whose cooks would have degraded themselves had they sat down to table with their sovereign! Generally speaking, however, all the influential situations under Government are filled by Brahmins, while the merchants and artisans are Soodras; but there are occasionally exceptions to this rule; and under certain circumstances, a Brahmin may enter into trade.

The barrier between the castes is impassable; and you may therefore suppose how much this system must interfere with any improvement in their social condition. No talents, industry, or success can ever raise a man above the station in which he was born: a Pariar can never become a Soodra, nor a Soodra be raised to a Brahmin; and this extends even to all the sub-divisions, so that, whether agréeable or disagreeable, the young men must, with a very few exceptions, follow the occupation of their fathers: the sons of a merchant must be merchants; those of a carpenter must still be carpenters; and even the children of a washerman must continue their father's employment, or must

starve.

There is also no gradual descending in native society: if a man loses caste, he does not descend into the next below him, but is excluded from every caste, and must forego all the intercourse of domestic life, as well as all the privileges of a citizen: no longer can he be admitted to his father's house, and his nearest relations must have no communication with him.

The different castes never intermarry, nor would those far removed from each other even think of entering the other's dwelling. In Tinnevelly, if any of the Shanars, who are the next below the Soodras, have a complaint to bring before the Tahsildar (or native magistrate), they either stand on the outside of the verandah while he receives their evidence from the window, or he adjourns to a neighbouring shed, which they may all enter without contamination.

The different castes will not eat in the sight of each other, nor touch each other's persons or clothes; nor will they take food, or touch a plate or drinking vessel that has passed through the hands of an inferior; and yet-with what would to us seem a strange inconsistency-they have no scruple in preparing food for any one, even for "defiled

64 AN ACCOUNT OF THE CASTE OF THE HINDOOS.

Christians;" so that a Brahmin may be cook to a Pariar, though the Pariar cannot be so to the Brahmin. It is on this account often necessary to have a high-caste cook in those schools where boys are boarded: though sometimes even this is not sufficient; and the Rev. C. T. E. Rhenius, soon after he went to Palamcottah, was obliged to break up a Seminary which he had just formed, because some of the boys would not eat in the same room with the rest.

This adherence to caste will remain unshaken by the prospect of private or public danger: for not long ago, when a fire broke out in Black Town, Madras, which threatened the safety of a large part of the town, the Brahmins obstinately persisted in refusing to open the only well that was near the spot, and which happened to belong to them.

Nor is the power of caste subdued by personal suffering, even by those dreadful visitations of famine well known in India, but which, thank God! are without a parallel in Europe; when the heart is sickened at the sight of the dying and dead by the side of some public road, and which the utmost efforts of Europeans can only avail to mitigate, but not remove.

It was during one of these fearful scourges, which had swept away half the population of Guntoor, that a lady, travelling through that province, was appealed to for food by a poor miserable creature, almost perishing from hunger. The only food the lady had in her palanquin was a small piece of bread, which she handed to her, thankful to be able to supply her with even this trifling relief. The sufferings of the poor woman induced her to take the bread; but before she would put it to her mouth, she carefully broke off and threw away every part that had been touched by the fingers of her who was thus rescuing her from starvation!

The Water Pandals are a remarkable instance of contending feelings-compassion for the wants of others, mixed with strict adherence to caste. They may often be seen in cross-roads, or in the less-frequented streets of a town; and are simply bamboo sheds which have been erected by some wealthy Native, as a meritorious act, or to fulfil some vow, or expiate some sin. Here the thirsty traveller, be he who he may, can be refreshed with water or with butter-milk; but the person who serves it out must be a Brahmin, as he alone is privileged to give to all. If a fellow Brahmin applies for refreshment, the vessel is given to him, and he