CEYLON BRANCH — ROYAL ASIATIC SOCIETY* 85 



They state that they laboured under the difficulty of finding 

 suitable words in the native languages to convey just ideas of 

 gospel truths. Instructions were sent from Holland •* that a few 

 ** native children in their tender years should be taken under 

 " the care and tuition of the clergy, to be brought up from 

 H their childhood in the knowledge of Christianity and afterwards 

 " to be fitted for the work of preachers." This year two new 

 clergymen arrived from Holland, but one of them, Livius, a 

 young man met with a watery grave in the Colombo roads, 

 4 days after his landing, while fetching his luggage from the 

 ship. His death was deeply regretted as he was reported very 

 promising, full of zeal and application. 



In 1692 the East India Company replied favourable on the 

 Calany question ; that they would not allow heathen practices in 

 the neighbourhood of their chief town, upon which the clergy 

 opened an establishment there and ordered the priests to remove. 

 The classis of Walcheren writing generally on the influence of 

 heachenism, asked the clergy to communicate in their next letter 

 a few prudent rules or measures that might be applied to pre= 

 vent the evil, as suggestions to the XVII Representatives. It 

 appears all along that the clergy had a great idea of the in- 

 terposition of the civil arm to put down both buddhism and 

 popery. 



In connection with the Calany question the following para* 

 graph occurs in the annual Ecclesiastical report, which though 

 containing perhaps nothing new will shew the amount of know- 

 ledge of buddhism then in possession. "At the hill there are 

 still a few insignificant remains of one of the most renowned 

 and frequented dagobas in the Island, to the honor of buddah, 

 named Goutama, the God of this world, whom they call Cal- 

 lijoegoe and reckon, the fourth. Of his doctrine and religion, 

 though much pains have been taken, we cannot obtain certain 

 and satisfactory information. The possessors of their religious 

 works have refused them to us, fearing that we shall ridicule 



