Lordship. We have delightful accommodations: he has half the roundhouse, and my cabin adjoins his. He is recovering rapidly under his doctor's hands, and, though I feel very nervous at having such a charge, he says he has no inclination to change his attendant.

February 3d. Our progress is very slow down the river, but it enables us to get acquainted with the passengers, and arrange every thing with greater comfort before the voyage begins. The Bishop came into my cabin after breakfast, and said he found, that, besides the European crew, there was a detachment of invalid soldiers on board, returning to England, probably in a very ignorant and demoralized state, after their long residence in this country; and that he thought we might be exceedingly useful to them in the course of the voyage. He proposed, therefore, that we should go down alternately every morning to instruct them and pray with them. I begged him not to interrupt his own more important avocations for these lower duties, which I would gladly undertake alone, if he would commission me to do so; but he would by no means consent to relinquish his share in them. "I have too little," said he, "in my situation, of these pastoral duties, which are so useful to the minister as well as to his people; and I am delighted at the opportunity thus unexpectedly afforded me it will remind me of dear Hodnet. Besides, it is very possible that the mere circumstance of my going down may impress them more strongly, and incline them more to listen to us both." He had his Prayer-book in his hand, and, after speaking to the commanding officer, went below immediately. Is not this worthy of a bishop? What inexpressible dignity do such simple labours add to his high and sacred office! We had family prayers in the cuddy after tea, which will be continued during the voyage. I need not tell you that all the pas

sengers gladly assented to the proposal. What is there that he could ask them that they would not assent to? for all are delighted, even on this short acquaintance, with the life and variety of his conversation, and the gentleness of his manners.

February 4th.-On going down to the poor soldiers this morning, I found the effect of the Bishop's visit yesterday to be just what might have been expected. His kindness and condescension have prepared them to receive with thankfulness all that is said to them: and, before I began to read, they could not help saying, as they collected round me, "Only think of such a great man as the Bishop coming between decks to pray with such poor fellows as we are! Who can tell what good may result from these humble efforts? greater, perhaps, than from his more public and splendid labours, which are followed by the admiration of the world. These are unseen and unknown; for who would expect to find the Bishop of India, the accomplished Heber, praying by the cots of a few disabled soldiers, between the decks of a merchant-vessel?-but "his Father, which seeth in secret, himself shall reward him openly."

February 5th, Sunday-The pilot left us at mid-day, and the ship was in too much confusion to have service on deck in the morning: the Bishop preached to the men below. This evening we had prayers in the cuddy, the whole crew standing on the outside, and the Bishop preached an excellent plain sermon on "the parable of the sower."

February 6th.-The Bishop is busily employed re-writing his Charge for Madras. It will be printed; but not till he has gone through the south, and is able to speak of the success of missionary labours from his own knowledge. He says the report given of it in the Calcutta papers was so accurately and well done, that his friends concluded at home he had already published it, and quarrelled with him

for not sending them copies; and that he had been much affected by the last letter which he had received from his aged mother, who, on reading the extracts in the newspapers, writes to him that she understands the tenderness of his motive in not sending her a copy, lest he should alarm her fears by his mention of the climate as one "where labour is often death."

February 11th.-This has been a day of great sorrow on board to a poor mother who is mourning over her infant child, and a scene of instruction to us all. The lady in the opposite cabin to mine, in very weak health herself, is going to England, taking with her a sickly infant of two months old, and leaving her husband in Calcutta. It was seized with convulsions this morning, and after lingering through the day has just breathed its last sigh. The Bishop has been repeatedly in the cabin, comforting and praying with her; and in the intervals I hear him weeping and praying for her in his own. I have never seen such tenderness, never such humble exercise of Christian love. Alas! how his spirit shames us all! I thank God that I have seen his tears, that I have heard his prayers, his conversation with the afflicted mother, and his own private reflections on it. It has made me love him more, and has given me a lesson of tenderness in visiting the afflicted that I trust will not be in vain. I did not do him justice. I did not think he was more fitted (as he really is) for the sick room and the dying bed, than the crowded audience and the theatre of the world.

February 12th.-We committed the poor baby's body to the deep at sun-rise, and the Bishop read the service himself. The afflicted mother is very ill, and seems very grateful for his kind attentions. It is a solemn service; but how full of peace is the death of a little innocent, and what unspeakable consolation to a parent's heart, that there is no shade of doubt as to its eternal

state, that "of such is the kingdom of heaven!" We had prayers on deck as usual, and the Bishop preached on "the good Shepherd." I spent two hours in his cabin, after the service, in very interesting conversation on the subject of angels, and the several emblematic visions of St. John, Ezekiel, and Isaiah. This evening he has spent chiefly in the cabin of the poor bereaved mother.

February 25th.-We anchored in Madras Roads this morning, and left the ship in an accommodation-boat which the beach master had sent to convey the Bishop on shore. The manner in which all persons on board, the crew as well as the passengers and invalids, took their leave of the Bishop, shewed how much he had endeared himself to them in the course of the voyage; and, as the ship will probably be detained here a week, he has invited the lady who has already been so much indebted to his kindness in her afflic tion to spend that time with us, promising to send a carriage for her in the evening, when he had ascertained what apartments he had it in his power to offer her. He was much amused with the uncouth and primitive structure of the boat, which, he said, might well pass for the gig of Noah's ark.

The season is so far advanced for travelling, that the Bishop can only afford to spend a few weeks at the presidency, dispatching the business of more immediate importance, and deferring other matters of general regulation till his return from the south. This will just afford time for the necessary arrangements for our journey; but so many things will be crowded into this brief space that I fear his strength will be exhausted. A large packet of letters was waiting for him; and, among others of great and pressing interest from different quarters of his diocese, there is one from the Syrian metropolitan, entreating his aid and assistance in the difficulties that had unexpectedly arisen from the cabals

of his authority. This state of things is sufficiently alarming, and makes his immediate presence among them, as a counsellor and mediator between the two parties, most desirable. His heart is full of this overwhelming interest, and, while conversing about it to a late hour this evening, "May God give us wisdom!" has been his often-repeated ejaculation.

February 26th, Sunday.—The Bishop preached in the morning at St. George's, the presidency church, to an overflowing congregation. His text was Phil. i. 21, "To die is gain," and his sermon one of his most impressive and masterly compositions.

We should gladly follow Archdeacon Robinson through the interesting detail of the Bishop's laborious occupations (for he preached and visited, and confirmed and advised, without intermission) during the three weeks he was at Madras. The following is a specimen :

February 27th.-After breakfast ing with the Governor, and calling on Sir Ralph Palmer, the Bishop was engaged with visitors till three o'clock. At five, after an early dinner, I attended his Lordship to the Female Asylum, an admirable institution containing about three hundred girls, and supported partly by government, partly by private contributions, and partly by their own skill and industry in embroidery and other work. Dr. Rottler, the senior missionary of the Society for promoting Christian Knowledge, has been the chaplain for more than twenty years, and the venerable man was catechizing them when we

The remembrance of this his first sermon at Madras will never be effaced from the minds of those who heard it, not only from its many striking beauties, but as being almost a prophetic intimation that he was then hastening to the last scene of his earthly labours. How little did they imagine, while hanging on his lips, that the triumph of the text was so soon to be fulfilled in him!

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March 3d. Both yesterday and to-day have been chiefly occupied by the visits of some of the clergy who had not before seen the Bishop, and conferences on a subject of great importance, which is referred for his decision. The churches of the native Christians have lately been much agitated on the question of the observance or abolition of caste. It seems that Swartz, and the elder missionaries who followed him, allowed these distinctions to remain to a considerable degree among their converts, but the younger missionaries have uniformly opposed them. The Bishop is anxious to hear all the opinions he can collect, and declines pronouncing his own till he has seen the churches of the south.

March 8th.--The Bishop held a confirmation at St. George's, when there were four hundred and seventynine candidates and it is hardly possible to conceive a more interesting sight than so large a number of young persons presented by their respective ministers for the prayers and blessing of their chief pastor. There was a considerable congregation of others also; and his Lordship therefore delivered his address from the pulpit, as he had done occasionally in other places. Immediately after the service, he held a meeting of the District Committee of the Society for promoting Christian Knowledge, when he announced his intention of proposing, on his return from the south, the establishment of a similar committee for the Society for the Propagation

of the Gospel. He proposed, also, a new edition of Dr. Rottler's translation of the Tamil Common Prayerbook in a smaller and more convenient size; and, in order to lessen the expense, and thus facilitate its more general circulation, he opened a separate fund for the purpose, to which he contributed largely himself. This was in consequence of a representation made to him a few days ago, by the missionaries of the Church Missionary and Wesleyan, as well as other societies, of the difficulty and expense they found in procuring copies of the quarto edition.

March 9th.-The Bishop visited the military station of Poonamalee, about ten miles distant from Madras, where there is a dêpot for recruits on their first arrival from England, a considerable number of pensioners, and an asylum for the children of soldiers. All these circumstances conspire to make it a most important sphere of clerical labour. We mounted our horses at day-break, and overtook the carriage at seven, but the road was so bad that we were obliged to get out several times, and literally put our shoulders to the wheel. After sundry adventures, and envying the riders in bullock hackeries, which cantered merrily along while we hardly moved, we arrived at last at the chaplain's door, where the officers of the cantonment and several of the clergy from Madras were assembled to receive the Bishop. There is a small church here, which was consecrated by Bishop Middleton in 1816. Divine service commenced at ten o'clock, when the Bishop administered confirmation to one hundred and five candidates. While I was arranging them, and receiving their tickets, it appeared that several others, who had not previously been examined, were very desirous of being admitted if possible. His Lordship, when I mentioned this to him, desired me to examine them, and promised, if I found them properly instructed,

to hold a second service for that purpose in the afternoon, being very unwilling to reject any whom he could conscientiously admit, from the great uncertainty whether a similar opportunity might ever again be afforded them. His address after the morning service had particular reference to these new candidates. Fourteen of these, among whom was an old pensioner, I thought sufficiently prepared; but there was one young woman who came with her little boy, and, thinking him too young, I advised her to keep him back till the Bishop's return to Madras. She had stood behind the rest while I was speaking to them; and when I had finished came forward with much feeling, and begged that she might herself be admitted. She wept much, was evidently in declining health, and there was a sincerity and earnestness in her whole manner that affected the Bishop most powerfully. "Bring them both to me," he said; "who knows whether they may live to wish for it again?" The evening service and the second confirmation was at three o'clock. The Bishop addressed them also, in his usual impressive manner, and at five o'clock we set out on our return home. We had scarcely, however, left the door when we found another congregation anxiously expecting him. Mr. Sawyer, one of the Church missionaries at Madras, has built a small chapel here, with a school-room and catechist's house. He has a similar establishment at Tripassore, and some other neighbouring places, which are branches of his mission, and to each of which he makes an occasional visit. We found here seventy or eighty persons assembled, and the Bishop repeated several of the collects and the Lord's Prayer, and dismissed them with the Benediction.

While I was engaged with the candidates between the morning and evening services, the Bishop was writing an answer to an important communication he received yesterday, and in the result of which he

is much interested. It appears that a considerable number of poor native Christians, employed about the beach, have built by subscription a good church for their own use; and though nominally Roman Catholics, yet, being dissatisfied with the neglect they have experienced from their own pastors, they are just balancing, whether they shall not seize the opportunity of our Bishop's presence at Madras to make the building, which is nearly finished, a Protestant church, and request the services of a clergyman of the Church of England. This proposition no doubt originates chiefly in the extraordinary feeling of personal respect and affection with which all classes, native as well as European, through all the gradations of society, regard the Bishop; for it is altogether their own act, uninfluenced by any persuasion of their superior. His Lordship has written to say, that, if this should be their determination, he will with great pleasure consecrate the church when he returns, will preach to them himself in Portuguese during his residence at Madras, and fix among them a regularly ordained minister. It is well for the Bishop that the journey will give him some respite: many such days of labour, together with that characteristic earnestness with which he enters into every new plan of usefulness, would soon exhaust a stronger frame than his. How little idea have our friends in England what the labours of an Indian bishop really are!

March 10th.-The Bishop held his visitation at St. George's, attended by fourteen of the clergy. His charge was much improved by the introduction of a good deal of matter connected with subjects of local interest, and especially some additional remarks on the Abbé Dubois. Mr. Lawrie, the junior minister of the Scotch church, called on the Bishop after the service, and introduced the missionaries of the London Society; for here, as elsewhere, admiration and respect for

him seem to form a point of union for members of every church. A request has been made to him, by some of the leading members of society, that he would print the sermons preached during his residence at Madras, and he has consented to do so on his return.

March 12th. The Bishop preached to an overflowing congregation at the chapel in the Black Town in the morning; and, great expedition having been used in completing the preparations for lighting St. George's, he preached the first evening lecture there, which he has established instead of the former afternoon service. The church was crowded to excess, and the Bishop's farewell address, from the words, "He sent them away," was a forcible and touching appeal to the hearts of his audience, especially begging them to continue their attendance at this new service, which he had suggested for their greater comfort, and charging them to remember him in their prayers. I do not know when he can possibly have found time for the composition of this sermon; for every hour since his arrival here has been most fully and entirely occupied.

This was our beloved prelate's last address at Madras; and little did the auditors, who listened with the most affectionate interest to his parting accents, expecting soon to see him on his return from the south, anticipate that, when he thus "sent them away," they should see his face no more.

We had intended to conclude our notice in the present Number; but so much remains to be told, that we are unwilling to part from the Bishop, or his affectionate biographer, without another interview. Little more than two years elapsed from the time of his arrival in India to his death; but in that short period he had visited almost every station where a Christian church could be assembled, and, while engaged in the longest and most difficult journey