commanding it. The first converts were the direct fruit of mission
labour; their number increased, inspired by zeal they told their
countrymen the treasure they had found, and called on them to share it
with them. Many listened to their words and accepted their message. The
work thus spread from village to village, and from hamlet to hamlet,
till it extended to parts of the country never visited by a missionary,
and included many who had never seen a missionary's face, in some cases
who had never seen a white face. A very dear friend and enterprising
missionary, the late Rev. William Jones of Singrowlee, made his way
through a wild roadless country to the border of the Kol region, and
came to a hamlet where the people were startled by the appearance of a
European, as they had never been visited by one before. Though from
difference in language their intercourse was limited, they understood
each other sufficiently to discover, to their mutual delight, that they
had a common faith. The general character of a community formed of a
rude people, emerging from fetish and demon worship, can be readily
supposed. I suspect the converts made by the monk Augustine and his
companions had not a little in their character and conduct to show the
pit from which they had been taken; and yet that was the dawning of a
day for the Anglian and Saxon race in our country for which we have
abundant reason to be thankful. There is no doubt much imperfection in
Kol and Santhal converts, but we may well anticipate for them a far less
clouded day than that which dawned on our forefathers when Augustine
went to them.

In Bengal there are two large native Christian communities, one in
Krishnagurh in connexion with the Church Missionary Society, and the
other in Backergunje connected with the Baptists. In both cases the
conversion of individuals has led to numbers avowing themselves the
followers of Christ. Where conversion is thus what may be called
collective rather than individual, there may be in some a high degree of
spiritual life, but the majority simply go with the stream. It will be
observed that in the statistics of some missions so many are represented
as baptized, so many members of the church, so many adherents, the last
class often outnumbering the other two. These adherents openly declare
their abandonment of idolatry, attend public worship with more or less
regularity, call themselves Christians, and are called Christians by
others.