Memoir of Capt. Jas. Forsyth, by the Rev. Jas. Forsyth. 67 



tree, and supplied by traders who find their way among them 

 during the harvest season. Under all their immorality of life, 

 however, there lies the substratum of a mild and gentle nature, 

 a tractable and docile disposition, a spirit of affectionate attach- 

 ment to their benefactors, and of fidelity to their masters ; and in 

 like manner under all their superstitious beliefs, there lie like en- 

 crusted rays of a purer light, and throughout their traditionary 

 legends there pervade like a golden thread, the tenets of a more 

 ancient and higher belief, derived possibly from a primeval 

 revelation ; the tenet, namely, of one Supreme Being, the Creator 

 of all things, invisible, possessed of power and dominion over all, 

 not to be represented by any idol, nor approached by man, ex- 

 cepting through another and higher ; and the belief in a future 

 life indicated in the worship of ancestors and of departed kindred. 

 One cannot but recognise here an admirable groundwork for the 

 operations of the judicious Christian missionary, in his dealings 

 with the native mind with a view to its enlightenment. Let him 

 but invest the Supreme One with moral attributes demanding 

 holiness as He is holy ; let him impart to the native conception 

 of mediation, the sacred import of the Christian doctrine in re- 

 gard to it ; let him connect with the native idea of a future life, 

 the ideas of accountability and retribution ; let him sanctify and 

 Christianize these deeper beliefs in the native mind, and he will 

 be furnished with a lever, powerful under Cod's grace, to elevate 

 it above all debasing superstitions to the region of eternal truth, 

 to inspire it with a nobler and purer faith, and to awaken in it a 

 sense of moral obligation. 



One such missionary my son met with, in the Rev. Stephen 

 Hislop, stationed at Nagpore, the field of whose mission em- 

 braced the Gonds, in the district where my son's forest dwelling 

 was situated. He formed a close friendship with Mr Hislop, 

 and co-operated with him, so far as consistent and practicable, in 

 his efforts for the enlightenment and improvement of the natives. 

 Mr Hislop was not only faithful and earnest in his work, — yet 

 judicious, cautious, and tentative in approaching the native mind 

 as a minister of religion — but he was a man of high scientific and 

 literary culture, eminent as a geologist and botanist, learned in 

 the history of the Indian races and their religions and languages. 

 He was held in the highest esteem by Sir Richard Temple, who, 

 on his untimely death, paid a high compliment to his character 



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