has since gone as a missionary to India. Here that amiable young man became intimately acquainted with Mr. Pearce, and conceived a most affectionate esteem for him."

Mr. Pearce had also formed a strong attachment to Mr. Ward. This will appear from the following extracts of a letter addressed to him just before his departure for India:

"Most affectionately do I thank you for your letter, so full of information and of friendship. To our common Friend, who is gone into heaven, where he ever sitteth at the right-hand of God for us, I commend you. Whether I die or live, God will take care of you till he has ripened you for the common salvation. shall I meet my dear brother Ward again; and who can tell how much more interesting our intercourse in heaven will be made by the scenes that most distress our poor spirits here.

Then

I can

"Alas! I shall see you no more. not be at Olney on the 7th of May. The journey would be my death. But the Lord whom you serve will be with you then, and for ever. My love to all the dear assembled saints, who will give you their benedictions at that solemn season."

The following account of his being accepted by the Baptist Missionary Society, will be read with interest.

"The first person whose qualifications appeared to be unexceptionable was Mr. William Ward. Mr. Carey, before his departure, had some small acquaintance with him, and being at that time a printer, he addressed him to this effect: If the Lord bless us, we shall want a person of your business to enable us to print the Scriptures: I hope you will come after us.' This hint seems to have remain

ed on Mr. Ward's mind. He had invitations to settle in England; but his mind appears to have leaned towards India. The committee, hearing of his in

cations.

clination, applied to his tutor for a particular account of his character and qualifiThe answer was perfectly satisfactory. They then invited him to a ministers' meeting at Kettering in Oct. 1798, where he engaged as one of the preachers."

On the 7th of May, 1799, he was solemnly designated with Mr.Brunsden, to the work of a Missionary in India, at Olney. The work of the

day was accompanied with tasting and prayer. Mr. Fuller proposed some questions to the missionaries respecting the motives of their undertaking, and the religious sentiments they meant to propagate. The answer of Mr. Ward was to this effect:

"I have received no new revelation on the subject: I did not expect any. Our Redeemer hath said, 'Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature and lo, I am with you always to the end of the world.' This command I consider as still binding, since the promise of Christ's presence reaches to the utmost corner of the earth, and to the utmost boundaries of time. While I was at Ewood Hall, I received an invitation to carry the gospel and a printing-press to India, where Brother Carey and others have erected the standard of the Cross. I prayed to God, and advised with my friends. In complying with this invitation, I gave up all other prospects, and devoted myself to that of attempting to bless a nation of heathens. Since that time my peace and joy in God have more and more abounded. Duty and pleasure have in my employment gone hand in hand. Sometimes I have been enabled to say,

'No joy can be compared to this,

'To serve and please the Lord.'

"In his strength, therefore, I would go forth, borne up by your prayers, hoping that two or three stones at least may be laid of the foundation of Christ's kingdom in India, nothing doubting but that the fair fabric will rise from age to age, till time shall be no more.'

A passage had been provided in the Criterion, an American ship, Captain Wickes ; they left the River May 24, 1799. While the ship was off Margate, Mr. Ward wrote the following lines, which he supposed might be sung at the monthly meetings for prayer in England, during their voyage.

Smile, Lord, on each divine attempt
To spread the gospel's rays,
And build on Sin's demolish'd throne
The temple of thy grace.

Oh, charge the waves to bear our friends
In safety o'er the deep;

"Oct. 14.-Yesterday, we arrived at Serampore, a Danish town, fifteen miles above Calcutta. Thus have we finished this memorable voyage: memorable not for the storms we have weathered, or the hardships we have borne, for we have seen nothing worthy of the name; but because goodness and mercy have continually followed us."

From Serampore they wrote to Mr. Carey, and in a few days after, Mr. Ward and Mr. Fountain went to

visit him at Mudnabatty; and found

that all the interest he could make was not sufficient to induce the Supreme Government at Bengal to suffer the newly-arrived Missionaries to settle in the British territories. Mr. Carey at length resolved, notwithstanding it would prove a loss to the Society of 500l. to listen to Mr. Ward's entreaties to join them; and thus the seat of the Mission was removed to Serampore. Here the Missionaries knew they would receive protection from the Danish Government; whilst the great ends of the mission, particularly the printing of the Scriptures, were likely to be answered at Serampore, better than they would have been at Mudnabatty.

In August, 1801, Mr. Ward, accompanied by Khristna-Pal, the first converted Hindoo, who had begun

to

converse with his idolatrous neighbours respecting the gospel, made a missionary tour to certain parts of the country from whence

persons had come for religious instruction, preaching and distributing papers as they proceeded. Mr. Ward in this excursion was detained by a police officer, on much the same grounds as have been since alleged, that the Company had given no orders for the natives to lose cast. Mr. Ward assured him that the papers were entirely religious; and on his offering to sign them with his own name the officer released him. The papers were sent to Calcutta and examined. Some alleged, that it was improper to attack the religion of the natives; but others answered, that there was nothing more in the papers than had been always tolerated in the Roman Catholics in the Company's territories. Nothing, therefore, came of it; and, during the administration of Marquis Wellesley, nothing more was heard on the subject.

Mr. Ward entered upon his labours at Serampore with great ardour, and during the year 1800 had the pleasure of printing the New Testament in Bengalee. On December 22 of that year, he thus describes an event which excited the greatest astonishment, and called forth the warmest emotions of the heart in gratitude to God; this was what he calls the breaking of "the infernal chain of CAST :".

"This day, Gokool and Khristno came to eat tiffin, (what in England is called luncheon) with us, and thus publicly threw away their cast. Messrs. Carey and Thomas prayed with the two natives before they proceeded to this act. All our servants were astonished; so many had said that nobody would ever mind Christ, or lose cast. Mr. Thomas had waited fifteen years, and had thrown away much upon deceitful characters: Mr. Carey had waited till hope of his own success had almost expired; and, after all, God has done it with perfect ease! Thus the door of faith is opened to the Gentiles, who shall shut it? The chain of the cast is broken, who shall mend it?

Mr. Ward had been now for some time engaged in compiling a work. of considerable magnitude. The

first account of it was given in a letter to Mr. Fuller, Jan. 12, 1809, in which he says,―

"I have been for the last five or six years employed on a work 'On the Religion and Manners of the Hindoos.' It has been my desire to make it the most authentic and complete account that has been given on the subject. I have had the assistance of brother Carey in every proof sheet; and his opinion and mine is in almost every particular the same. You

are aware that very pernicious impressions have been made on the public mind by the manner in which many writers on the Hindoo system have treated it. My desire is to counteract these impressions, and to represent things as they are."

This work was printed at Serampore, by permission of the India Government, in 1811, in four quarto volumes. A second edition, carefully abridged and greatly improved," was printed in one large quarto volume in 1815; and a third edition, in two octavo volumes was published in England in 1817.*

In the year 1811, March 10, a calamitous fire happened at Serampore, by which the printing-office, types, &c. &c. were wholly consumed and destroyed. In attempting to extinguish this, Mr. Ward was in imminent danger of his life, but was mercifully preserved from personal harm.

In June, 1819, Mr. Ward arrived in England, and attended the Anniversary of the Baptist Missionary Society at Great Queen-street Chapel. His address after the sermon produced a powerful impression. He preached in the evening at Zion Chapel to a crowded auditory, from Eph. ii. 11. "Without God in the world.' The awful description which he gave in this sermon of the "abominable idolatries" of the pagans in India excited deep commiseration. He afterward visited many parts of England, Scotland, and Wales, preaching and collecting for the College at Serampore. He also

Two other volumes have been since added.

visited Holland and America, collecting for the Missionary branch of the College for educating pious Hindoo youth members of churches for the ministry.

Whilst in England, he printed a sermon on 2 Cor. v. 14, 15, which contains the substance of all his pulpit addresses, and from which a very good idea may be gathered of his talents, sentiments, and spirit. He also published, just on his leaving England in 1821 to return to Bengal, a volume of "Farewell Letters," which has now reached the third edition, and has been translated into the Welsh language. A quotation will show the progress in the work of evangelizing Asia, before his leaving Serampore. It has since that time very much advanced.

"Did ever any cause appear to be more

hopeless?--I well recollect that this was the exact feeling on this subject when I arrived in Bengal. Every where we were advised to go back. Even one or two good men thought the attempt utterly impracticable. India, in short, has been long considered an impregnable fortress, defended by the gods. Many a Christian soldier, it has been said, may be sacrificed

in the intrenchments; but the fort never will be taken. The Mahometans, it is added, tried long to change the Hindoos,to destroy their idols, and to bring them to profess the Mahometan faith, but in vain-they put multitudes to the sword, and converted the stone idols into steps, that every Mahometan, on ascending to the mosque, might set his foot on a Hindoo god. Yet none of these terrors made them give up their idols, or change their customs.

"But, my dear brother, it was predicted of the Messiah, that he should 'divide the spoil with the strong, because he poured out his soul unto death.' All these difficulties have been overcome.

"Six hundred Hindoos have renounced their gods, the Ganges, and their priests, and have shaken from their limbs the chain of the cast.

"The distance between Britain and India has been annihilated, for fifty converted natives have become, in some sense, Missionaries.

"Twenty-five of these fifty languages have been conquered.

"The Hindoos all over Bengal are so

liciting Schools for their children at the hands of the Missionaries.

"And, the Government and our countrymen are affording the most important aid in the introduction of light and knowledge into India. He must increase.'

"In the above detail of difficulties, we observed that a most formidable one arose out of the fears of the Hon. Company, and of the local Governments, so that they appeared to be utterly averse to missionary efforts. Now, in all that concerns the mental and moral cultivation of India, the Governor-general and the Government of Bengal are become powerful auxiliaries. Native schools have, for years back, been under their absolute patronage; several Christian Institutions at Calcutta, which have the good of the natives as their direct object, receive a marked countenance; and missionaries receive the most friendly attentions. The School-book Society, which is supplying the natives with translations of interesting English books, was formed at the suggestion, and in fact under the directions of the Marchioness of Hastings, who has manifested a most benevolent, and undeviating solicitude to improve the intellectual and moral condition of this people.

"Did distance and climate present serious impediments to the evangelization of India?-Providence has raised up fifty preachers on the spot: the languages and the climate are their own; and with the imanners and opinions of the people to whom they preach they are perfectly familiar. Not an error among them which they cannot detect and refute. If the Holy Spirit pour upon these agents plentifully of his sacred influences, then each one of them will become, as an itinerant and a preacher, equal to ten English missionaries. Khrishna, Rammohun, Sébukram, Ramprusad, and other Hindoo ministers, possess very respectable talents; and the effects of the ministry of these and other natives have been far more powerful than those attending the labours of foreigners. Large societies, or churches, exist at Chittagong, Sahébgunj, Dinagepore, Calcutta, and Serampore; and almost all these converts have been gathered by the Hindoo preachers. The same may be said of at least three out of four of the six or seven hundred heathen converts connected with our mission: they owe their conversion to their own countrymen. And these by the Great Shepherd have been provided on the spot; and the climate is as friendly to their health as England is to its natives. Add to all this, the existence of a Missionary Hindoo College, where these Hindoo candidates

for the Christian ministry may receive for the sacred office all the human preparation possible; and then will be seen how wonderfully, how providentially distance and climate have been surmounted. In the funds recently contributed in England and America, will be found a sufficient provision for the annual support of nearly twenty Hindoo missionary students.

"The opposition of our own countrymen in India to missionary efforts formed another serious obstacle to the formation and progress of missions. But in this respect a mighty change has been wrought in India. A happy number of the Hon. Company's servants have become truly devoted Christians. Chaplains of evangelical sentiments and feelings have wonderfully increased, and are very useful in diffusing the light of the gospel. Five or six Christian societies of devout British soldiers have recently been formed in the Indian army. The Benevolent Institution at Calcutta, with its different auxiliaries, is wholly supported by our countrymen, who contribute about 13,000 rupees annually for this purpose. The funds for our native schools, containing 8,000 heathen children, are also principally derived from their liberality. And the same is true of the large funds raised by the Calcutta Auxiliary Bible Society, of the funds of the Hindoo College, of those of the School-book Society, the School Society, the two Missionary Societies, the Orphan and Free Schools, and one or two other Christian Institutions at Calcutta of great importance. Some of our countrymen have also been liberal in donations to the Serampore College; and, though a Missionary College, the Most Noble the Governor-general of India is its distinguished patron. Nor in this reference to the great moral changes which have recently taken place in the East, must we forget the Calcutta Episcopal College, which will, we hope, have an important share in the illumination of the Eastern world.”

Mr. Ward, on his return to India, sailed from the Thames in the Abberton, on the 28th of May, 1821, in company with Mrs. Marshman and her daughter, and several missionaries belonging to different Societies in England; and arrived in Madras, after an expeditious passage, on Sept. 24; and a letter dated Calcutta, Oct. 25, communicated the gratifying intelligence of their safe arrival at that place.