Missionary Observer. LETTER FROM REV. J. BUCKLEY. Cuttack, Jan. 14, 1870. SINCE I wrote, another year that no doubt will be pregnant with important events has opened on us. May we all be prepared for the dispensations of Providence affecting us and ours that may mark its course. May it be to all of us a holy and useful season, entirely consecrated to Him whose dying love and living care lay us under obligations that can only be repaid in eternity, nor even then fully, "For Oh! eternity's too short To utter all His praise." New Year's day was a time of great interest to us at Cuttack, as the Native Auxiliary Mission celebrated its third anniversary. Mr. Miller, by the appointment of the Committee of the Auxiliary, preached at eleven from Haggai ii. part of verse 7, "The desire of all nations." The pertinency of this name as applied to Christ was clearly stated and illustrated, and the obligation resting on those who had received the knowledge of Christ to communicate it to others was impressively and earnestly enforced. A collection was made at the close amounting to 62 rupees (£6 4s.). In this sum was included ten shillings (or five rupees) sent by a christian sister at Nottingham, as an expression of her good will, and entrusted to Mr. Brooks to give to this object in such way as seemed best to him. It was very interesting and encouraging to our native friends. A special prayer meeting for the success of the Native Mission was held on the following Monday evening, and I am happy to say that the chapel was full. Jagoo presided, and after prayer had been offered he made some brief and pertinent remarks, adverting to the beginning of the Mission, regretting that one and another had become " weary in well doing," but rejoicing that others were even more impressed with the interest and importance of the work than When the Mission commenced. He then called on Shem, their native evangelist, to address the meeting. His speech was a very excellent one; the sentiments to which he gave utterance were noble and important, and were very impressively urged. It was delightful to me to hear such remarks from a young native minister. Prayer was offered by Ghanushyam and myself. It was a very gratifying service, and was not too long. It left us longing for more, and not wishfully looking at the clock (for we have now a nice clock in our Cuttack chapel,) and speculating when it would end. On the 4th Mr. Miller and myself left to accompany our widowed sister, Mrs. Goadby, and her four fatherless children to the steamer that has conveyed them to Calcutta. But here let me say that the evening before I went with her to the graveyard, that she might see, probably for the last time, the sacred spot where reposes till the Lord shall come the precious dust of her beloved husband. The sorrowful emotions of a visit in such circumstances to such a spot are too sacred for description. The reader, if a widow, can better understand than İ can describe how at such a time the heart is overwhelmed with anguish and sorrow; but it can only be fully understood by widows, who, leaving the land of their exile, go to take a last sad and sorrowful look on the spot that contains the decaying tabernacle of their dearest earthly friend. Thanks be unto God for the precious revelation through Christ of eternal life, and for the blessed hope inspired by the verse on the tombstone of our departed brother. "I shall be satisfied when I awake with thy likeness. Here is solid, lasting comfort. That flesh rests, as ours soon shall do, in hope of that day when the trumpet of the archangel shall sound, and the dead in Christ shall rise first. Our trip to the lighthouse, or rather the anchorage near, was for the first forty miles on the canal, and then we entered the river. This part of the journey was to me very interesting. Dense jungle, monstrous alligators, numbers of wild fowl, with here and there, though very rarely, a village diversified the scene. I had never before seen this part of Orissa's noble river-a river worthy of its somewhat pretentious name, Mahanuddee (from Maha, great, and nuddee, river). We came to anchor near the shore on Friday afternoon, and towards evening the children were delighted to go on shore, gather shells, and play. The reader will understand our position if he gets his map, and notices False Point lighthouse in lat. 20° 19' 30". We were six or eight miles north of the lighthouse. We expected the steamer on Saturday, but were disappointed. On Sabbath morning, between eight and nine o'clock, she was in sight, and without waiting for breakfast we had to hasten off. The passage was rough, at least for a small boat like ours, the distance more than a mile, and to the great discomfort of some of us, we were more than an hour in accomplishing it. At length our small craft reached the great steamer Ethiopia, one of the steamers of the British India Steam Navigation Company; and when ready to depart we bowed our knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, and having solemnly and affectionately committed our widowed sister and ber fatherless children to His loving care, bade them farewell, rejoicing in the blessed hope, that whether permitted again to meet on earth or not, we should, when days and years were past, meet in the kingdom which it is our Father's good pleasure to give us. I should add that Charles B. Lacey, a grandson of our late beloved brother, was with us, and is going to England under Mrs. Goadby's care. We have to-day heard of their safe arrival in Calcutta, but are sorry to learn that Mrs. Goadby suffered considerably on the way, and that Frank, her youngest boy, requires medical advice. Mr. Miller and myself had a quick passage back, and safely reached our homes late on Monday night. TEMPORARY ARRANGEMENTS FOR PIPLEE. WRITING from Cuttack under date of January 13th, Mr. Brooks incidentally mentions the interesting fact that they had come the whole distance from Gravesend to within a few hundred yards of their own house at Cuttack by water, and then announces his decision to go to Piplee for a time. He writes :- "Before you receive this, you will most likely have heard that we have agreed to go to Piplee for twelve months. Doing this has been no small sacrifice to our own comfort and feelings. But as the proposition came from the Committee, and is fully approved by the brethren here; and taking into consideration all the circumstances of the case, we felt that we could not say, No. Yet, notwithstanding all, I have grave doubts as to the wisdom of the step; and in some aspects, neither my feelings nor my judgment approve. Before coming to a decision I went over to Piplee, and saw all that I could in a couple of days. I returned with the full conviction that if Miss Packer were left alone, she would soon sink; and there was, in the whole matter, an amount of responsibility that would seem to fall upon us if we declined to go. Mrs. Brooks has been at Piplee more than a week, and I am preparing to leave to-morrow night." Referring to this decision, Mrs. Goadby writes from Calcutta : "You may be sure how thankful I was that the Brooks's saw their way clear to go to Piplee for a time. They only contemplate a year; but I do hope in that time some one suitable may have come forward. Mr. Brooks seemed much interested in the place and work, and felt it was a most responsible position. Dear Miss Packer thoroughly understanding everything makes it very much easier for new comers, and I believe they will be very happy and useful there.” "COME OVER AND HELP US." "Immediately we endeavoured to go." As in vision, o'er the waters We can see the out-stretched hands, If we did His love's commanding, Shared His Bread of Life so sweet, We shall bear His truth's demanding At the awful judgment seat. Brothers, love is on her trial, Now her crown is missed or won; Just a moment's self-denial, Then the endless sweet-" Well done." But the faithless servant never Hears the music of that tone; He will go with shame for ever Deeply wailing from the throne. A TRIO OF WORTHIES. (Continued from page 63.) IN 1796, Mr. Fountain joined the mission at Mudnabatty. He went out professedly as a servant in one of the Company's ships, and was, as it were, smuggled into the country. The factory proved a losing concern to Mr. Carey's employer. Upon relinquishing it in 1799, Mr. Carey purchased a small factory at Kidderpore, ten miles from Mudnabatty, and removed thither. Hearing that two additional missionaries might be shortly expected, he began to erect straw houses for them, intending to make it a kind of Moravian settlement, where they should have all things in common. Instead of two missionaries, however, there were four sent out, with wives and children, in the spring of this year, 1799. Two of the number, Messrs. Grant and Brunsden, were men of much promise, but were cut down by disease soon after reaching India. The other two were Messrs. Marshman and Ward.. WILLIAM WARD was born at Derby, Oct. 20, 1769, and was the son of John Ward, carpenter and builder. His father died when he was a child. His mother attended the Methodist chapel, and was a woman of superior parts and exemplary piety. To her affectionate solici tude and instructions he was indebted for his early religious impressions, which preserved him from many of the snares of youth, and served to mould his character for future eminence. On leaving school he was apprenticed to Mr. Drury, at the shop now occupied by Messrs Bemrose & Sons, in the Irongate, the printers of the Midland Railway Time Tables, &c. He soon rose to the grade of corrector of the press, and by incessant reading and practice at composition acquired great fluency and command of language. At the close of his apprenticeship his master employed him to edit the Derby Mercury. His indus try and talent soon raised the circulation of the paper, and made it one of the most influential in the county. After he had thus written up the Derby Mercury, he removed to Stafford, and started another journal in connection with some member of Mr. Drury's family. Subsequently he went to Hull, and became editor of the Hull Advertiser. Six years of the most important period of his life were thus passed in the exciting and animating duties of an editor. His knowledge of men and things was enlarged. He acquired great facility of composition, and habits of business that were most valuable to him in his subsequent residence at Serampore. He was baptized at Hull in 1796, and began to devote his leisure to the instruction of the poor in the neighbouring hamlets. He thus became known to a gentleman of property at Newcastle, who was so delighted with his warm-hearted and eloquent addresses-often delivered in a cottage, and his only pulpit a three legged stool-that he placed Mr. Ward, at his own expense, under the tuition of the Rev. Dr. Fawcett-afterward the tutor of the celebrated John Foster. He removed to Ewood Hall, Mr. Fawcett's residence in 1797. So complete is Isaid to have been his severance from all political associations, that he who had edited three newspapers in succession, and spent six years in the keenest editorial excitement, did not so much as take in a newspaper until he had been ten years resident at Serampore. When Mr. Ward had been about a year under the tuition of Mr. Fawcett, a member of the Baptist Missionary Committee visited the Hall in search of missionary labourers. He conversed frequently with Mr. Ward on the subject, and found him disposed to entertain it. About five years before this time, on the eve of his departure to India, Mr. Carey had been introduced to young Ward, and had said to him, "If the Lord bless us, we shall want a person of your business to enable us to print the Scriptures. I hope you will come after us.' "The remark, though forgotten at the time, was vividly recalled to Mr. Ward's mind, as he listened to the narrative of Mr. Carey's labours, and the completion of the New Testament in the Bengallee language. He offered himself to the Society and was accepted. Shortly after he wrote to Mr. Carey "I know not whether you will be able to remember a young man, a printer, walking with you from Rippon's chape! one Lord's-day, and conversing with you on your journey to India. But that person is coming to see you, and that person is the writer of this letter. His services were accepted by the Society on the 16th inst. It was a happy meeting. The missionary spirit was all alive. Brother Pearce set the whole chapel in a flame, and had missionaries been wanted, I should suppose we might have had a cargo immediately. Some time in the spring I hope to embark, with others. It is in my heart to live and die with you, to spend and be spent with you." JOSHUA MARSHMAN was born at Westbury Leigh, in Wiltshire, April 20, 1768. His mother was a descendant of the French refugees who obtained shelter in England on the revocation of the Edict of Nantes. She and her husband, who was a deacon of the Baptist church, lived together most happily for more than half a century. At the age of seven, Joshua their son was sent to the little village school. He soon exhausted all the resources of Mr. Coggleshall, his teacher, although he left it with a bare knowledge of reading. There was no school in the neighbourhood where writing or even the elements of arithmetic were taught, so this was all the schooling the little fellow ever received; for the rest he was dependent on his own insatiable thirst for knowledge. By the time he was twelve he had read through more than a hundred volumes, and thought little of walking a dozen miles for the loan of a book. When he was fifteen, Mr. Cator, a bookseller in Holborn, visited his native village, and hearing of the youth who had read everything, conversed with him, and proposed to take him into his shop. The offer was at once accepted. The idea of revelling amongst stores of knowledge filled his mind with delight. He started for London in a waggon, and was three days on the journey. He did not find so much time for reading as he had expected, although he had access to books without end. When others were gone to bed, he applied himself to reading, and once nearly set the house on fire by falling asleep with a book in his hand. He used also to read along the street when going on errands for his master, and often had the book tossed into his face by some rude passenger. At the end of five months his father, thinking that his son was un happy in London, or being himself unhappy in his absence, sent for him home again to Westbury Leigh. He resumed his labours at the loom, and for the next ten years the history of his life is monotonous. When Joshua applied for admission into the church, farmer Bachelor and the other deacons remarked that he had too much head knowledge of christianity to have much heart knowledge of its truths; and as they believed that a work of grace once begun in the heart could never become extinct, they thought it better to delay the admission to the church even of those who might be sincere, than to admit one unconverted person into the fold. They therefore kept young Marshman in a state of probation, or as a candidate, for seven years, and he eventually left Westbury Leigh without having been baptized. In the year 1791 he was married to Hannah Shepherd, granddaughter of the Rev. John Clark, for sixty years pastor of the Baptist church at Crockerton, in the same county. This union, says his son, was the source of unalloyed happiness to both during the long period of forty-six years, which it subsisted. Early in 1794 Mr. Marshman was asked to become the master of a school supported by the church at Broadmead, Bristol, with permission to take as many private pupils as he desired. This was so manifestly an opening of Providence, that even the cautious old deacons at Westbury Leigh could not gainsay it, and his friends advised him to accept the office. He removed to Bristol shortly after, being at the time a little under twenty-six years of age. Upon his arrival he was introduced to Dr. Kyland, the president of the college, who, hearing of the rigidity of the Westbury Leigh people, advised him at once to join the church at Broadmead, which he did in the course of the year. He was also allowed to join the classes at the college, and for five years, while diligently attending to his school, was able to keep up in classics, as also in Hebrew and Syriac, with his fellow students in the academy. A Mr. Grant was a friend of Marshman's, for by his instrumentality he had been reclaimed from infidelity. When Mr. Grant offered his services to the Mission, Mr. Marshman felt his heart inclined to accompany his friend. Within three weeks after his determination had been formed, he was sailing down the Channel for India. Messrs. Ward and Brunsden had been already accepted. Thus the Committee had accepted the offers of the four missionary candidates in quick succession. It was the most exciting event that had occurred since the formation of the Society and the departure of Mr. Carey. Besides these, a Miss Tidd, a member of the Baptist church at Oakham, accompanied them, being engaged to be married to Mr. Fountain. Mr. It was not with the idea of gaining this world's wealth that these devoted young friends embarked for India. Fuller wrote to Mr. Carey-"Now we apprehend you will find it necessary to form what you have proposed, a kind of Moravian settlement, as otherwise we do not see how the missionaries can be supported. We shall be able, through the good hand of God upon us, to support you, if you form a settlement according to brother Carey's proposal." He then authorizes him to draw on the London bankers £360 a year for their whole number. At that time the rupee cost 2s. 6d. English money, so that this £360 would only purchase 2880 rupees in India, or £288; and this was all the provision the Society thought itself able to make for the support of its whole missionary establishment, consisting of six men, five females, and eight children. In the memorandum which Mr. Fuller gave to the missionary party as they were leaving England, and which is dated May 20, 1799, he remarked "When the missionaries arrive, though they will form a company and keep one table, yet there will be something wherein they must be distinct, and will want, according to their families, some distinct allowance. Each must have what we term something for pocket money. This must be adjusted by brother Carey and themselves.' It would have been little short of madness to have sought a passage for the missionaries in any of the East India Company's vessels. Not only would they have been refused, but instructions would probably have been sent to India to prevent their entering the country by any foreign vessel. The Danish ships for the season had all sailed; there happened, however, to be an American ship on the point of sailing. In this they engaged passages (The Criterion), and received every kindness and attention from Captain Wickes, who commanded it. Sunday morning, Oct. 13, found them opposite the neat little hotel at Serampore. Mr. Marshman immediately went on shore, and falling on his knees, blessed God for having brought them in safety across the ocean, and landed them on the soil of India. They waited next day on the Governor of the Danish settlement, Colonel Bie, with the letter from the Danish consul in London, and were received most cordially. He offered them all the assistance in his power, but was afraid the British Government would not allow them to proceed up the country. His fear was not without good foundation. As soon as it became known that four missionaries had landed in the country without the permission of the Court of Directors, the Governor General in council resolved that they should be required to leave forthwith. An explanatory memorial was presented to Lord Wellesley, and he, on becoming assured of their protestant character and their pacific designs, allowed them to remain. Still their situation was one of great perplexity. They were shut up in the little town of Serampore, and dare not move into the interior of the country, for the leading members of Government were determined that there should be no missionaries in their Presidency. Living at the hotel was very expensive. They therefore hired a small house in the back part of the town, to which they removed on the fourth day after their arrival. A fortnight after, one of their number, Mr. Grant, died of fever. He was a corpse on Oct. 31-before his brethren, new to the climate, were aware of his danger. Mr. Carey was unwilling to give up the idea of making Kidderpore, in the district of Malda, the seat of their labours. After some delay, to save further loss of time, Mr. Ward was deputed to discuss the question in person with Mr. Carey, and proceeded to Malda under the protection of a Danish passport. He writes Dec. 1st-"This morning we left the boat, and walked a mile and a half to brother Carey's. I felt very unusual sensations as I drew near the house. So near to brother Carey's, after a voyage of 15,000 miles, and a tedious passage up the river, and in our present circumstances what an interesting situation! The sight of the house increased my perturbation. At length I saw Carey. He is less altered than I expected, has rather more flesh than when in England, |