M CEYLON BRANCH' — ROYAL ASIATIC SOCIETY 



thenism ; and the classes held out little p ospect of procuring" 

 men of sufficient suitability for colonial Churches, especially as 

 the political state of Holland operated unfavourably on the num- 

 ber of theological students at the universities. 



At Jaffna in 1691 fresh schemes were contemplated for the 

 better propagation of the christian religion. H. A, Van Rhede 

 of Drakenstein Lord of Meydreght, Commissary General, when 

 on his visit through the Jaffna provinces, finding by observa- 

 tion that among the natives " many were imbued with the blind 

 " superstition of popery through the emissaries of Portuguese 

 " priests from the coast of Coromandel ; while others* had little 

 " true conception of the reformed religion notwithstanding that 

 *' its fundamental truths had for a series of years been iucul- 

 " cated at the native churches and in their own tongue, " pro- 

 jected the establishing of a seminary at Jaffna, to prepare 

 natives by means of the Dutch language, for the work of 

 teaching their countrymen. It was observed that this was the 

 practice pursued by the Roman Catholics, Native agency was 

 found the more necessary as few Europeans were sufficiently 

 familiar with the language effectually to communicate with the 

 people. With the exception of Mr. De Mey, who was born 

 and had spent his childhood in India, and for that reason supposed 

 to have been gifted with facilities above his brethren in the 

 ministry, for acquiring a thorough intimacy with the Tamil lan- 

 guage and who was made Rector of the Tamil seminary at 

 Jaffna, none had as yet been able freely to preach m that lan- 

 guage. Mr. J. D. Voogt who had arrived in 1669 could read 

 and write it well, and was busy composing a Tamil Grammar. 

 The frequent changes in the location of the clergy from settle- 

 ment to settlement, and unexpected deaths had been a great 

 draw-back. They were however busily preparing the way -for 

 their successors, by compiling dictionaries and grammars. They 

 had succeeded in making a Tamil and Dutch, a Portuguese and 

 Singhalese, and a Singhalese and Dutch dictionary ; and also 

 translated into. Tamil the X Epistle of Peter. 



