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New Providence, N. J. Fem. juv. so. for ed. hea. youth, 3d pay. for Elias Riggs in Ceylon, 20: fem, char, so. 5; la. av. of jewelry, 6,25; J. L. 5; J. M. M. 2; M. L. 1,50; Mrs. S. B. 1; Miss M. R. 3; 8. M. 1, J.B. 1; Mrs. A. P. 1; T. D. P.' 1; Mrs. C. M. 1; A. L. 1; 8 indiv. 50c. each; 3 indiv. 25c. each; Mrs. M. B. 37c. New Windsor, N. Y., P. Roe,

North Bridgewater, Ms. A fem. friend, North Chelmsford, Ms. Mon, con. North East, N. Y. Mr. Holbrook,

Orleans, Ms. S. S. for suffering convert

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Bloomfield, A box, fr. fem. Dorcas so. for Rev. S. Ruggles, Sandw. Islands, Brookfield, Ct A bundle, fr. Dorcas asso. Brownington, Vt. A box, fr. fem. char. so. Camden, N. Y., A box, fr. fem. miss. so. Columbus, N. Y., A box, fr. fein. benev, su. Essex, Vt. Clothing &c. fr. Ja, asso, Exeter, N. Y., A box, for Mackinaw, Farmington, O. A box, fr. fem. niiss. asso. for do.

Franklin, N. Y. Clothing, fr. ladies for do. Hamp. Chris. Depos. Ms. Cummington, a bundle, fr. fem. asso 20; a bundle, fr. do.; Granby, W. par. fulled cloth and shoes, fr. gent. asso.; Middlefield, socks, fr. la. asso.; Norwich, quilts and yarn; sundries, fr. gent. asso. and la. asso.; Plainfield, sattinet, fr. gent. asso. sundries, fr fem. benev. so. 16; do. fr. Ja. asso. 1,68; West Hampton, cloth, flannel, &c. fr. la. asso.; Granby, 1st pai. a barrel, for Mackinaw miss.; Northampton, a box, fr. Dorcas so. for do.

Halifax, Vt. Bedquilts, fr. young ladies. Harpersville, N. Y. A box, fr fein. sew.so. Holland Patent, N. Y., A box, fr. ladies, for Mackinaw,

25.00

10 66

18.50

42 90

23 55

22 98

56 00

30 75 10. 00

40.00

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Sing Sing, N. Y. Misses W. and K. South Salem, N. Y. Fem. char. so.

50

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St. Johnsbury Plain, Vt. Fem. cent so. Swanville, Me. Orphan miss. so. to constitute the Rev. DAVID THURSTON of Winthrop, an Honorary Member of the Board,

Trurton, N. Y. Mon. con. in presb. chh. Union, N. Y. Mon. con. in Rev. Mr. Gould's chh.

Utica, N. Y. ASAHEL SEWARD, which constitutes him an Honorary Member of the Board,

Vandalia, Illi. Cell. (of which fr. Union chh. 2;) 25,50; W. G. for test. for

hen. 25c.

Walden, Vt. La asso.

Waldoboru', Me. Juv. so. 17; juv. work.

circle, av. of industry, 13; for Waldoboro' sch. in Ceylon, Wallingford, Ct. La. cent. so. 17,84; young la. do. 12;

Waterford, Me. Contrib. in cong. so, to constitute the Rev. JoHN A. DOUGLASS an Honorary Member of the Board, Waterford, N. Y. Mon. con. in presb. chh. West Chester, Ct. Coll.

18 81

New Braintree, Ms. A box, fr. young ladies,

30 00

Newburyport, Ms. A box. fr. fem. Sandw. Isl. so. for Sandw. isl. miss.

50 00

12 00

New Hartford, N. Y., A box, fr. ladies, for Mackinaw niss.

€6 58

741

New Haven, Ct. A box, for Rev. J. Goodrich, Sandw. Islands.

North Bridgewater, Ms. A bundle, fr.

circle of industry.

100 00

Oneida Lake, N. Y., A box, fr. fem. miss. so.

30 18

25.75

Paris, N. Y., A bundle, fr. fem. benev. so. for Seneca,

10 34

14 50

Reading, Ms. A bundle, for Rev. B. W.

Parker, Sandw. Islands.

30 00

Smithfield and vic. N. Y., A box, fr. ladies, for Green Bay miss.

65 50

South Scotchtown and Middletown,

N. Y.,

29 84

A box, for Rev. P. J. Gulick, Sandw. Islands,

102 00

42 76

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Suffield, Ut. A box, fr. la. asso. 1st so. Trenton and Deerfield, N. Y. Flannel,

socks, and yarn, fr. ladies, for Macki

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Winchester, W. Ten. Indiv. for exp. of

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Trumbull, Ct. A bundle, fr. la. miss, so. Turin, N. Y., A box, for Sault Ste Marie, Underhill, Vt. A box,

12 82

2510

31.00

Woodstock, Vt. C. Dana,

5.00

Wythe and Montgomery co. Va. Fem. tract so. for Catharine R. Brown at Brainerd,

Union, Osage na. Medicines, fr. A. Woodruff,

13.00

30 00

Unknown, N. Jewett, 8,50; S. B. H. 3;

11 50

Union Furunce, Pa. 30 reams foolscap paper, fr. M. Wallace, for Bombay and Sandwich Islands.

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Utica, N. Y. Clothing, fr. ladies, for Mackinaw, 101,35; a box, for do. Vergennes. Vt. A box, fr. la miss, so. Vernon Centre, N. Y., A box, fr. ladies, for Mackinaw,

Westminster, W. par. Vt. A box, fr. fem. asso.

50 00

40.00

Ware, Ms. A box of shoes, fr. L. Gould,

30.00

50 00

30 83

Newton, Ms. Rev William Greenough,

50 00

dec'd, for support of Indian schools, by William Greenough, Ex'r,

50 00

Williamstown, Ms. A hox, fr. la. in Rev. Mr Gridley's so. for Sandw. Isl. miss. Winfield, N. Y. Socks, fr. benev.so.

Whitesboro', N. Y. Clothing, fr. ladies, for Mackinaw,

50 00

58.00 4.88

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THE engraving above represents a method of self-torture which is very common among the Hindoos. It is called Churuku, or hook-swinging; and is performed in honor of the god Siva, or the Destroyer, the second of the three principal gods of the Hindoos. An abominable festival is celebrated in honor of this god, when ridiculous and indecent ceremonies are performed, and many Hindoos, assuming the name of sunyasees, inflict on themselves the most awful cruelties; such as casting themselves from stagings fifteen or twenty feet high upon sharp spikes or knives set in bags of straw; walking barefoot over heaps of fire; running spits, canes, or rods through their tongues and sides, and swinging on hooks thrust into the fleshy parts of the back, as exhibited in the

engraving. The following account of the manner of performing this torture is taken principally from Ward's account of the manners and customs of the Hindoos. The writer was for many years a missionary among that people and had seen what he describes.

When this shocking scene is to be exhibited, a high post is erected in some open place, as you see in the engraving. A strong lever, of bamboo, is made to play or turn round on the top of this post, with cords at both ends. The man who is to swing falls down on his face. A person makes a mark on his back with dust. Another immediately gives him a smart slap on the place, or rubs the flesh very roughly to deaden the feeling a little, and pinches up the skin hard with his thumb and fingers; and a third thrusts an iron hook through the place marked, so as to take hold of about an inch of the flesh. This is on one side of the back; and then the same is done on the other, and the man gets up on his feet. He then mounts on a man's back, or is raised up from the ground in some other way; and the cords which are fastened to the hooks in his back are tied to one end of the bamboo. A rope at the other end is then pulled down by several men, until that end on which the man swings is raised up from the ground; and then one or more men running round with the rope, the poor victim is swung in the air.

Some swing only for a few minutes: others, for half an hour, or more. Some have been known to swing for hours. One man swung, it is said, three times in one day, on different posts; and once, four men swung on one post, which was carried round the field, while they were swinging, by the admiring crowd.

Some of these persons smoke while swinging, as though insensible of the least pain. Others will take up fruit in their hands; and either eat it, or throw it among the crowd. One man caused a monkey's collar to be run into his own flesh, in which state the man and the monkey whirled round together!

On some occasions, these devotees have hooks run through their thighs as well as backs. Five women swung in this manner, not many years since, near Calcutta.

In some parts of India, the man who swings has a sabre and shield; and makes motions, while swinging, like a man fighting.

It is not uncommon for the flesh to tear, and the person to fall. Instances are related of such persons perishing on the spot. A few years ago a man fell from the post at Kidurpooru, while whirling round with great rapidity, and falling on a poor woman who was selling rice, killed her on the spot; and the man died the next day. At a village near Bujbuj, some years since, the swing fell and broke a man's leg. The man who was upon it, as soon as he was loosed, ran to another tree, was drawn up, and

whirled round again as though nothing had happened.

Now all this time, suffer whatever he may, he must not shew it. If a tear escape him, he will be utterly disgraced. This, however, very seldom happens. The man is generally made to drink some intoxicating liquor, to help him to bear the pain.

The thousands of spectators who attend these scenes seem to care little for the poor wretch who is swinging. Nay, they make a kind of fair on the occasion; sounding their tom-toms or drums, and pitching tents for the sale of sweetmeats: and, as the drawing from which the plate was engraved was taken from a real scene of this kind, it is very likely that those better sort of people at the front of the picture are bargaining about the pay of the wretch who is swinging over their heads; for these tortures are sometimes suffered for richer persons, who pay the man for it, and think to get all the good by hiring another to swing for them.

Mr. Stone, missionary of the Board at Bombay, a little more than two years ago, saw a woman suffer this self-torture at that place, of which he has given an account.

For the first time witnessed the swinging of natives on hooks thrust through their backs. This practice is not common in Bombay, and is confined to the Kumaty To-day three have propitiated the favor of people, who live in the suburbs of the city. their bloody gods, as they imagine, by performing this cruel rite. I saw only the last, a female. She was about eighteen years of age, and strong and masculine in her appearance. Two hooks were thrust through the flesh in the back, these hooks were fixed to a rope fastened to the end of a beam, which when elevated, raised her about 30 feet into the air, and this beam was fixed to a car which was drawn with great velocity by forty or fifty natives in the circumfer ence of a hundred rods. She with one hand held by a rope that was fastened to the beam as far forward as she could reach, down, but afforded her no other support; which prevented her head from hanging and with the other she brandished a flag and a large knife over the heads of the crowd as she sailed round. A large bag of yellow ochre, such as the natives paint their foreheads with, was tied about her waist. This she occasionally scattered round upon the people beneath her, which the ignorant natives received as a boon from their god. Having been drawn round in the course five times, the car stopped; but she made signs to have them go round again, as the

sixth time is regarded as meritorious as all the preceding five. Her countenance exhibited great agony: her face became pale as death; and on being taken down she was unable to support herself. The whole scene was attended by their horrid music, and infernal shouts of joy. I expostulated with hundreds of people on the absurdity and wickedness of such sacrifices. I told them that instead of propitiating the favor of God they greatly excited his anger. They seemed to regard me as one who had no fear of the gods. I preached to them the true God, and the only way in which they could secure his favor. Several appeared satisfied that what I said was true. I distributed about fifty books, and returned home at dark, realising more sensibly than ever, that the dark places of the earth are filled with the habitations of cruelty.

These horrid spectacles of self-torture are attended by musicians with their tom-toms and other rude instruments, on which they make a deafening noise, while immense crowds look on with perfect indifference, talking, laughing, buying and selling articles, as if nothing of importance was going

on.

While the heart of the reader bleeds to think of the sufferings of these poor deluded creatures, he will naturally ask what they endure all this for.

Some endure it in performance of a vow which they made in sickness, that, if they

should be restored to health, they would swing in honor of the god; or of some other vow which they made on condition of obtaining some favor or escaping some evil: some swing merely to honor the god, and to obtain power with him to secure blessings for themselves or their friends: some do it to be admired by the gazing crowd, and get a name for uncommon holiness.

The reader should not think that the suf ferings of the Hindoos, demanded by their religious books, and endured in one form or another, is limited to only a few. All their principal gods have festivals annually celebrated in their honor, some of which last several days, and at nearly all of which self-torture of some kind or other is inflicted; so that the sufferings occasioned by these inflictions, with what is endured by various classes of devotee beggars, and by worshippers who go long pilgrimages to celebrate temples, extend to a considerable portion of the whole population. These festivals, or seasons of Hindoo worship, include more than one third of the whole year.

It should be remembered that these festivals, attended with all this uproar, confusion, indecency, self-torture, and often selfimmolation, are the Hindoos' religious worship! How unlike the worship of the Christian Sabbath! This is not a state of things that existed formerly and has long since passed away. It exists now.

PRESENT MORAL CONDITION OF THE WORLD.

IN the commission given by our Lord to his disciples, what an immense field did he open for the exercise of Christian philanthropy and heroic enterprise! "Go ye into all the world; preach the gospel to every creature.”

But what is now the spiritual condition of our race?-Five hundred millions, it is notorious, remain to this hour pagan idolaters, and one hundred millions more are the followers of the imposter Mohammed. Two hundred millions only are left wearing the Christian name; and in order to make the calculation respecting the real state of this remnant as favorable as possible, we will suppose the place of your residence to be a fair epitome of the whole Christian world. Is there one person in four there who appears to be brought decidedly under the influence of Christian principles? I fear not. We have then less than

50,000,000 of real Christians on earth at any given time, and all the rest (750,000,000) are living and dying without God in the world! And this is not the picture of the worst, but of the best period of time, next to the days of the apostles. Perhaps there never existed more good men on earth at one time than there are at present; and yet this leaves more than fifteen out of sixteen of the human race unacquainted with the salvation which is in Christ Jesus; and this havoc made by sin and death has continued without interruption, day by day, and hour by hour, through all the ages since the fall.

There is something so fearful, so tremendous in this retrospect, that I do not wonder that men who have never known "the terrors of the Lord," and "the exceeding sinfulness of sin," should reject the theory altogether. While looking down into this abyss, I am seized with a shivering horror. I tremble exceedingly. And yet the truth which is here so deeply impressed on my mind is the same as that which I learn from the history of the fallen angels, left without a Savior; from the flood; as that which I receive in Gethsemane and

at Calvary; and which is irresistibly confirmed while I look at the civil, and mental, and moral condition of these seven hundred and fifty millions of pagans &c. Áll proclaims the fearful truth, that there is a criminality, a turpitude, a desert in sin, which we cannot comprehend. And if it were the will of God, that the law should take its course, without mercy, to the end of time, what could we say?--"Is God unjust that taketh vengeance? God forbid."

But if in this fearful condition the world is not to remain-if a brighter destiny, a most glorious transformation awaits it--and if the command "to teach all nations," has never been repealed nor suspended, then there must have been a most shocking neglect of duty somewhere.

Seeing so many prophets had painted this brighter period in the most glowing colors, and had raised their loftiest, their sweetest strains to usher in the reign and universal conquests of the Messiah; and seeing our Lord himself repeatedly referred to these halcyon days, and directed his disciples to a universal dissemination of his gospel, and to the work of universal teaching, how,--these records being read by the Christian church every Sabbath-day,-how shall we account for Christians having left, for seventeen hundred years, in a state of perfect brutality and crime, seven hundred and fifty millions of deathless minds committed to their especial care by the Great Head of the church?

What makes this neglect the more strange and unaccountable is, that the command comes from the highest possible authority--that this command is most express, and its meaning most palpable-that the Being who issued it said, at the very time it proceeded from his lips, "Mark! I am with you, even unto the end of the world,"-that this Being has "all power in heaven and upon earth," that this command is closely connected with the eternal condition of all these successive swarms of men, eight hundred millions composing each generation--and that every one of those to whom the execution of this commission is confided, is supposed to possess the mind that was in Christ Jesus, who came "to seek and to save that which was lost," and to have, as the distinguishing feature of his character, an overwhelming sense of the value of the human soul.

How, with a provision perfectly commensurate with the extent of the commission-with a command, from the Being who was himself the atonement, that every creature should hear the gospel--with such proofs before us that this gospel is the power of God to salvation-how, with all these facts staring us in the face--how is it, that we have never attempted to carry these glad tidings beyond the walls of our own churches?

The cause of this total abandonment of effort, under such a leader, under such an inspiration, and with such prospects, is one of the most singular, and yet one of the most important inquiries, which Christians at this day can possibly institute.

It will be said, that for many centuries those who felt the genuine force of Christian principles, were in too depressed a state to make efforts for the spread of the gospel: their whole strength was required to preserve any portion of united existence. They were in the situation of men in a besieged fortress; attacks upon the territories of the enemy were out of the question. This defence, to a certain extent, must be admitted. But will He "whose eyes are as a flame of fire, and his voice as the sound of many waters,” accept this as an apology for the indifference and inactivity of the last two hundred yearsfor the apathy of the present hour? Ward's Letters.

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