A tabular view will now be given of the free schools as they were before the operations of the mission were reduced.

The whole number of free schools, then, was 187, containing 6996 pupils, and 34 of the schoolmasters were professedly pious. In the Female Boarding School at Oodooville, were 98 scholars. This is an exceedingly interesting seminary, whether regarded as a place for preparing suitable wives for the native assistants of the mission, or as a source of moral power whose influence is already apparent and salutary wherever it spreads itself. During the year, several children have been taken from families and connections, who, some years ago, would not have consented to their daughters' being taught even in their own houses; much less on mission premises. Two little girls, daughters of a catechist on the continent, have also been added to the school.

The Seminary contained 151 scholars, and was already a fountain of blessings, not only to the district of Jaffna, but to the island and to the neighboring continent. Eight of its students came from Madura, Dindegal, Negapatam, and other places on the continent An extract from one of the later communications of the mission, will shew how much the young members of the institution need the prayers of the church for continual divine interposition in their behalf.

"Within the past year there has been an uncommon degree of temptation brought to bear upon the members of our Church. Marriages with heathen have been for years a snare to our young men. Though many of them have risen from poverty, still the fact that they have thus risen, and are now qualified by their education, to hold something of

a rank among their countrymen, and to hold important offices under government, enables them to form alliances with higher and more wealthy families, who have hitherto refused to allow their daughters to come to our female central school, or even to be taught in our village schools. Of course the young men are raised above the girls in the female school, whose education is of no value in the sight of the people, and who are from poor families. Friends seize hold of this advantage, and all their influence by promises, threats, ridicule and bribes, is made to unite with a splendid dowry with a heathen wife, for the purpose of overcoming the good resolutions of a young man, to prefer, in his choice of a companion, Christianity and education to wealth and rank. In this way, the heathen, like the ungodly in other lands, have too often captivated our Nazarites, chained them to the pillars of their temples, and put out their eyes. Many of our young men, however, have been able to resist these difficulties, and we trust that persevering diligence on our part, and the blessing of God on his own word, will in time correct this evil."

The number of native youth of both sexes, who have enjoyed the benefit of the boarding-schools from their commencement, is 605; or 440 males, and 165 females. Of these, 177, or 136 males, and 41 females, are known to have been members of the christian church; but our list of church members is believed to be incomplete; and so, probably, is our list of boarding scholars. A large proportion of the lads were, for a longer or a shorter period of time, connected with the seminary.

It is now the duty of the Committee to report the very painful reverses to which allusion has already been made. This will be done in the language of a general letter from the mission, dated on the 1st of last March. The facts in detail are worthy of permanent record, for the future admonition of the churches engaged in missions to the heathen.

"The Circular (of June 23d, 1837,) calling us to make immediate reduction in our mission expenditures, reached us in December last. In obedience to the injunctions of the Committee, at our annual meeting held on the 2d, 3d, and 4th of January, we decided on the following reductions: viz. That the seminary be reduced to one hundred students by turning away forty-five: also that we can make no appropriation for a new class the coming October. As you will remember, we were unable for want of funds to receive a class at the last commencement. From Oodooville school we have removed eight girls. We could not cut very deeply into that institution, without striking a destructive blow at the cause of female education and female piety in the land, and thus marring our highest hopes. We have turned away some of our helpers, whom we would have been glad to retain. Some of these are now without employment. Some have gone to government service, and some have gone into the service of other missions.

"We have diminished the amount paid by the mission toward the support of the printing press to such a degree, that, if foreign aid, to an important amount, do not come from other missions, through the channel of local Bible and Tract societies, we must, before the year closes, suspend our very important operations in that department.

"We have appropriated nothing for building; and for ordinary repairs nothing, except what is absolutely necessary to keep what we have from going to ruin.

"We have made only a very small provision for traveling for health,-a provision, which, in view of the very precarious health of some of our number, prudence would make liberal. If one of our number should be compelled by alarming symptoms to seek a change of climate, it would exhaust the provision we have made. Should it become necessary for others to do the same, it could be done only by distressing those who remain behind. We have made no appropriation which will authorise any members of the mission to make tours to places distant from their residences, for the purpose of distributing tracts and Bibles and preaching of the word.

"And lastly, our village schools, which at great loss were temporarily suspended in July last, on account of the pressure we then began to feel, we are now compelled al

most wholly to relinquish, and to leave more than 5,000 children wholly and permanently under the control of heathenism. We retain only sixteen schools, giving one to a population of 6.500 souls. Our own salaries we have left to be used at the discretion of each individual, with the understanding that each will strive, by acts of rigid economy and self-denial, and postponement of expenditures ultimately necessary, to leave as much as possible in the treasury on loan to the mission; not even allowing any one to expend any part of his own salary in furtherance of his own mission operations. To this we are compelled by the fact, that after all our reductions, we find about £100 of expense for the coming year, which our appropriations will not cover. We have cut off the arms and limbs of our system close to the trunk. If we must cut to the amount of

£100 more, it must be "next the heart" So says the Board. "We deeply sympathise with the Committee in the distressing circumstances into which the Board have been thrown, in consequence of the commercial embarrassments of our land. You are compelled to feel with all the missions, so far as it is possible for any in America to appreciate the evils connected with such a reduction as we have made. We know you have hearts to feel with us and others, whose hopes, and labors, and plans, have been crossed, as ours have been. As you, so we, also, would look upon the whole as from the Lord, who loves the cause of missions far more than we do. But it is painful to feel that such a blow must come from his hand, in consequence of our sins, or the sins of his people in America. Our heart's desire and prayer to him is, that we and our brethren at home inay see his hand and what he designs, and how we are to conduct in reference to that design. Then, his chastening stroke, though heavy, will not be for destruction, but salvation.

"The results of this reduction of our mission operations is not one of unmingled evil. There is no unmingled evil under the providence of God. No doubt the effect upon the minds of the better portion of our helpers will be, to drive them to depend more on God, and less on the missionaries; and on our own minds, to draw us away, somewhat, from human confidences. And these are blessed results. Still, looking at the results as a whole, we see evils too great for human computation. In the work of changing the religion of a whole people like this, which involves an entire change of education, manners, and customs, and modes of thought and feeling, nothing is more important, than a fixed impression on the minds of the community, of the permanence of those causes which are to bring about the change.

"After many years of toil, our labors were resulting in a strong impression, throughout the land, that the christian religion would certainly prevail. And this impression was, to a very great extent, based on the conviction that the missionaries would never give over; that their means of influencing the community, and especially the rising generation, would never fail. And this impression was fast preparing the way for breaking over those bonds of caste, and clanship, and family, which, with a strength that cannot be appreciated in America, bind the people to the religion of the land. The prophecies that the missionaries would by and by give up in discouragement, had been proved vain. Every year their cords were seen to be lengthening, and their stakes strengthening. But the blow which has been struck has weakened, every where, the strength of this impression. It has staggered the weak in faith in our churches, and taken away their confidence in the presence of opposers: it has quieted uneasy consciences among the people: it has caused the whole community to feel that what has been, may be only the precursor of greater reductions to come. This impression we meet with constantly. We feel its influence in almost every department of effort. In many cases it takes away the edge of our words. It often closes the mouths of our helpers. It is an evil which cannot be written, so as to be appreciated abroad; but, it is an evil, disastrous, not only to the progress of our cause generally, but also to the increase of true piety in the land. This, time and steady toil only, can remove.

"The breaking up of our schools has been a grievous blow. On account of the pressure which we then began heavily to feel, we were driven to a temporary suspension of our schools, in July last. We then made our retrenchment in that department, because there was no other department of our labors which could so easily be resumed after a temporary suspension. But it was with aching hearts, that we turned 5,000 children out into the wilderness of heathenism, to be exposed to the roaring lion, even for the short period of three or four mouths. It was painful to miss them at the house of God on the Sabbath, and on Tuesdays, when they were accustomed to come together to study and hear the word of God. Through the strong confidence that the schools would be resumed in January, some of them were kept together, and a few children and masters, at each station assembled on the Sabbath as before. Yet in a few schools which were thus kept up, the christian lessons were dropped, as the parents would not pay for

the instruction of the children in christianity. So deeply had we come to feel the evils of this suspension, that, when we came together at our annual meeting, it was a general feeling, that, at almost any sacrifice, we must resume the schools to an important extent. But we could not. We have left the children to wander. They hear not the word of God: they come not to his house: they study not the way of life: their education is strictly heathen: their minds are being filled with prejudice: they are trained only in sin.

"By the breaking up of the schools, the Sabbath congregation is almost broken up, at a number of our stations. The children and masters formed the nucleus of the congregation. By the breaking up of our schools, one of the rods of our power is broken. No man who has not tried it can tell how difficult it is to bring the simplest truths of the gospel into contact with the mind of an adult, trained from his earliest youth in Hindooism. The rising generation, by a course of instruction, to a very important extent, liberal, were getting christian ideas in connection with language, and were being shut out from those heathenish associations with every important word, which prevent the adult from feeling the force of the preached truth. But we have no heart to dwell upon this point. Our children are no longer ours. They are almost certainly shut out from the way and hope of heaven.

The result to the seminary, and the important christian interests which cluster around that institution, are very painful. For want of funds, we took no class at the regular time in October last. And our funds will not authorize the reception of a class the coming October. By this the whole arrangement of the institution is necessarily thrown into disorder, and it will take years to bring it to the previous state of regularity. There will now, necessarily, be a chasm of two or three years, between the present fourth class and that which will succeed it. A year ago, in a printed card, we told the whole community that we should take a class of forty the then coming October, according to the terms of admission therein stated. In October we were compelled to say, 'For want of money we cannot fulfil our promise, but we shall be able to do it the year following.' But we cannot do it, and a failure to do it will add new strength to the impression, that the missionary efforts and means are declining, and may by and by cease. But this is not all. At the commencement of our annual meeting, we carefully ran over the list of students, with a view of selecting all who were so deficient in promise, either on account of scholarship, conduct, or ability, that they might be dismissed without serious injury to the institution, or the general cause. Feeling our pressure, we numbered in that class some whom we would willingly have retained. We marked the names of fourteen. To these we have been compelled to add thirty more, making in all, fortyfour, viz. five from the first class, five from the second, six from the third, which is now broken up, the few remaining being connected with the fourth class, sixteen from the fourth, and twelve from the fifth. Among these are some lads of fine promise as to scholarship, and from the most influential families in the land. If they had continued with us, doubtless, many of them, would, by the grace of God, have been truly converted, and thus been prepared to build up the Redeemer's kingdom in the land. But they are now thrown back, with minds soured by disappointment, to grow up its strongest opposers. We could have wished the christians in America could have turned aside for a day, from buying, and selling, and getting gain, to see these forty-five boys, as they left the seminary, to go back to their heathen homes. But the loss of these is not the only loss. Through the strong desire, waking up in the land, for a knowledge of English, the seminary was fast coming to have the virtual control of the whole education of the district. By requiring a knowledge of our christian books, as the terms of admission, we were securing the careful study of these, even by many not connected with mission schools. But our inability to take new classes for two successive years, together with the excision of so large a number already, has, to a great extent, cut off the hope of future admission. The consequence is that scholars are leaving our English day schools at the stations, some of which will probably be broken up. These schools, bringing boys daily under the eye and christian instruction of the missionaries, are, in a peculiar degree, the nurseries of the church.

"We might go into the detail of many other painful particulars, but we will not. They have come upon us suddenly, and we must bear them. We caunot write them so that they will be felt in America. If we could have foreseen the coming blow, though grievous, it would not have been so destructive. It has come like a thunderbolt, and compelled us, with but little time for deliberation, to break up, or render inefficient, plans, and operations, whose success, under God, depended mainly on their permanence."

If only sixteen schools were retained, one hundred and seventy one, and as many school-masters, with at least eighteen of those who

were church members, were dismissed. The class which was to have been received in October, 1837, was one of forty, and if the class which the mission supposed it should not have been able to receive the present year were to have been as numerous, these, added to the forty-five dismissed students, make one hundred and twenty-five scholars-the loss in the seminary. To these add eight from the female seminary. The native assistants dismissed were of course members of the church, and doubtless were all graduates from the seminary. The pupils dismissed from the native free schools exceed five thousand. How affecting the remarks of one of the older missionaries on occasion of dismissing the schools at his station, from which he had been fondly hoping to gather a harvest for the Saviour of sinners!

"After my usual lessons," says he, "with the readers in the schools yesterday, I gave each a portion of the Bible as a present. I told them the reason-exhorted them to read it, and not to enter into temptation, etc., to keep the Sabbath holy-prayed with them, commending them to the friend of little children, and then sent them away-from me, from the Bible class, from the Sabbath school, from the house of prayer-to feed on the mountains of heathenism, with the idols under the green trees; a prey to the roaring lion, to evil demons, and to a people more ignorant than they, even to their blind, deluded and deluding guides-and when I looked after them as they went out, my heart failed me. O what an offering to Swamy!-five thousand children!"

The Committee on receiving the letter from which they have quoted so largely, could do violence to their own feelings and those of the beloved missionaries no longer, but, by a letter forwarded on the shortest and most expeditious route, have withdrawn the restrictions imposed by the circular. Was the act displeasing to the Lord of missions and King of Zion? Will it not be sustained by the patrons of the missionary cause?

The committee would gratefully acknowledge a donation for the schools, of £200 sterling from the government of Ceylon, which prevented the two seminaries from suffering greater reductions.

Mr. Perry was the writer of the letter above mentioned, and it is affecting to think that it came from the lips of a dying man. On the 10th of March, only ten days after the date of the letter, the Rev. John M. S. Perry was removed by cholera, in a very sudden and painful manner, from his labors on earth to the rest and peace of heaven. Three days afterwards he was followed by Mrs. Perry, a victim of the same disease. She was sister to the first Mrs. Winslow, and to Mrs. Hutchings and Mrs. Cherry. Mrs. Hutchings still survives to rejoice over the useful lives and joyful deaths of three sisters, whose mortal bodies rest in hope among the native churches of Jaffna. On the 29th of June of last year, the mission suffered another bereavement, by the death of Mrs. Minor, the disease, under which she had long suffered, was pulmonary consumption. Her end also was peace.