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" Thy tears all issue from a source divine, 



" And every drop bespeaks a Saviour thine ! 



" 'Twas thus in Gideon's fleece the dews were found, 



" And drought on all the drooping herbs around." 



In the southern parts of India, as I have frequently observed* 

 are abundance of churches, and thousands of Roman-catholic 

 Christians, who are generally converts from the lowest castes of 

 Hindoos. In Guzerat there are very few of that persuasion, 

 and none in this part of the province: among their priests and 

 missionaries are liberal and intelligent men, but these are not 

 numerous. Far be it from me to cast a reflection upon any 

 religious profession, particularly on missionaries from a Christian 

 society; but certainly those of the Romish church do not ap- 

 pear to have sown the seeds of that gospel which Paul planted 

 and Apollos watered, and to which so great an increase was 

 given in the days of the apostles. I would not pass an un- 

 charitable censure, but we well know there may be zeal without 

 knowledge; the excellent, the liberal Bernier, who was a member 

 of their own church, thus writes of the missionaries during his 

 residence in India in the seventeenth century. 



" Je ne scaurois certainement que je n'approuve extremement 

 " les missions et lest bons missionaires, et entant qu'ils sont le re- 

 " fuge et la consolation des pauvres etrangers et voyageurs, et que 

 " par leur science, vie retenue et exemplaire, ils confondent l'igno- 

 " ranee et la vie libertine des infidelles; ce que ne font pas tou- 

 " jours quelques autres qui seroient bien mieux dans leurs couvens 

 " bien resserrez, au lieu de nous venir faire dans ces pais une 

 " momerie de notre religion, et qui par leur ignorance, jalousie, 



