CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. 
103 
very muddy, and very sore upon tlie animal, as well as 
trying to the horsemanship and patience of the rider. 
INIr. Cowen laboured hard in this Fourth Company 
Village, hut during his life no great success attended 
his efforts. Soon, however, after his death, a revival 
of religion was experienced by the people, a spirit of 
earnest prayer was poured out upon the people, and 
many repented of their sins, believed in the Lord Jesus 
Christ, were baptized and added to the church. And it 
is only just to the memory of Mr. Cowen, to believe 
that this good work was the blessing of God vouchsafed 
to his prayers and labours. This church has gone on 
prospering from that time till the present, under the 
pastoral oversight of a native brother, Charles Webb, 
who is the teacher of the children, as well as the 
spiritual instructor of the people. The village is small 
and thinly inhabited ; the church consists of about sixty 
mendoers, and the congregation averages about a hundred. 
Here too, we have a large Sabbath school, and our only 
day school ; there are about fifty children in the Sabbath 
school, and about an average of twenty in the day 
school. This number may ajDpear small, but to those 
who know the circumstances, it appears a fair number 
of attendants. Education, unhappily, is at a low ebb 
among the people of these villages, and so little do they 
feel the need of it for themselves, that they are indif- 
ferent to its advantages for their children. In justice, 
however, to the people of the Fourth Company Village, 
it must be said, that they seem more alive to the bless- 
ings and advantages to be obtained by their children, 
both from Sabbath and day-schools, than do the villagers 
of the other companies. It must also be said, in extenu- 
ation of this general indifference to the advantages of 
education, that the ]oeople are poor, and that as soon as 
a boy or girl is old enough to be of use in the field to 
gather in maize, or to pick rice, or to go out to Avork 
upon the neighbouring estates, their parents do not 
hesitate to take the children from school, and employ 
