THE EVANGELIZATION OF INDIA: CONSIDERED WITH REFERENCE TO THE DUTIES OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH AT HOME AND OF ITS MISSIONARY AGENTS ABROAD. In a Brief Series of Discourses, Addresses, &c. BY JOHN WILSON, D.D., F. R. S. HONORARY PRESIDENT OF THE BOMBAY BRANCH OF THE ROYAL ASIATIC SOCIETY, EDINBURGH: WILLIAM WHYTE & CO. BOOKSELLERS TO THE QUEEN DOWAGER. LONDON: LONGMAN, BROWN & CO. DUBLIN: W. CURRY & 00. MDCCCXLIX. "LARGE, ENGLAND, IS THE Debt THOU OWEST TO HEATHENDOM; TO INDIA MOST OF ALL, WHERE PROVIDENCE, GIVING THEE THY DOMINION THERE IN TRUST, UPHOLDS ITS BASELESS STRENGTH." EDINBURGH: PRINTED LY JOHN GREIG, SOUTHEY. PREFA CЕ. THROUGH this little work, the author appears before the public both as a witness and an advocate. It is intended principally to set forth the peculiar claims of India as a field of evangelistic enterprise, and to give such explanations of the nature of mis sionary work within its borders, as an experience and observation of twenty years in all its departments have suggested. Some of the documents of which it is composed, appear at the request of the parties to whom they were originally addressed; while, combinedly, they form a response,-necessarily imperfect on account of the engagements of the writer,-to a call made to him by some of his fellow-labourers of different denominations, to publish, in connection with his visit to Europe, a small work on the economy of Christian Missions in India, with particular reference to the illustration of the harmony and suitableness of the different agencies which may be brought to bear on its enlightenment and conversion. The substance of one or two of its articles, it is proper to add, has already appeared in British or Indian periodicals; while, of the "Sermon on the British Sovereignty in India," of which its relation to subjects briefly treated in other parts of the volume has led to its introduction,three editions have been published in a separate form. Some repetitions of thought and language may be here and there observed in the addresses;" but as they are necessary for the completeness of the articles in which they occur, and are not numerous, they will be excused. 66 Though the greater part of the addresses and discourses of which the volume is composed were delivered in connection with certain missionary services of the Free Church of Scotland and the Presbyterian Church of Ireland, they contain nothing of a sectarian character; and though many of the facts set forth in them were observed in connexion with the missions of these churches, the principles on which they bear, and which it is a special object of the author to illustrate, are of universal application in Indian Missions. The notices of the different systems of faith prevalent in India which are introduced into the work, are designedly of a general character. They are intended to illustrate the plausible and formidable nature of the eastern apostasy in its various developments, to enforce the call for most extensive and energetic efforts for the diffusion of a knowledge of divine truth throughout the country, and to inculcate the necessity of an humble reliance on the working of the Holy Spirit to give a practical and spiritual effect to these |