This picture was suggested by the fatal storm of last summer, when so many fishingboats were lost near the Shetland Islands. Some hundreds of children were made fatherless, and not a few were left orphans.

ANNALS OF PRISON LIFE IN INDIA.

BY A SENIOR CHAPLAIN.

HE general behaviour of the majority of the

THE

prisoners was good. The men under my

charge, however-some of whom I had every reason to hope were not only true penitents, but Christians likewise when, through impatience of prison discipline, they were led to commit acts either wrong in themselves or contrary to the rules, often suffered more from the thought that they had thereby offended God than from the punishment of severer discipline which was for the time imposed upon them.

Not a few prisoners, thanks be to God, gave me much encouragement and comfort in my labours. Their term of punishment, I firmly believe, proved the means, in God's hands, of the saving of their souls. There were other cases, again, of a negative character, in which it was difficult to determine whether the harm their imprisonment kept them from, by checking them in a probable course of crime, was not outweighed by its hardening influence in smothering the little latent good they might once have possessed.

Much moral injury was sometimes done to the prisoners by the warders themselves, most of whom were ill-suited to their position. Two were of intemperate habits, whilst neither possessed tact or discretion. They were apt to have their favourites, and be lenient or severe as their fancy dictated, now conniving at the smuggling of tobacco and spirits into the gaol, at other times exasperating the prisoners by their harsh conduct. The superintendent did his utmost to maintain strict discipline and overcome these abuses, but it was a difficult task.

Of the various cases, there was one I can never forget. It was that of an old man aged seventyfive, whom I knew in the first gaol over which I had charge, and who had been condemned to seven years' hard labour for forgery.

When first. I knew him he was sullen and reserved, and seemed utterly lost in overwhelming despair, constantly saying that nothing could save him. So reticent was he at first, that I could ascertain nothing as to his former life or who he had belonging to him, but by slow degrees I gained his confidence, and he then told me all about his family.

Although he had been baptised, he had never to his recollection entered a place of worship, and the Bible, even at his age, was a perfectly unknown book to him. One day as I passed by the ward in which he was confined, I noticed that he looked more than usually dejected. I was, however, about to pass on to some other part of the gaol, when something prompted me to turn back and speak to him. He was ailing in body as well as mind, and begged me to ask the doctor to come and see him.

I was hastening away for this purpose, when in a trembling, hesitating voice he called me back. "Won't you say 'Our Father,' sir?"

But too glad to accede to his request, I knelt down, and asked him to join me in the divinelytaught prayer. He refused to do this, but leaned his head on his hands as if to hide the workings of his countenance; he was deeply moved at something, I could see.

III.

After talking with him for some time, I was about to take my leave when he again stayed me. "Please read again that story in the Bible, sir, that you once read to me, about the father who had the bad son."

Knowing intuitively to what in his simple language he referred, I opened my pocket Testament, and read the parable of the Prodigal's return. As I did so, and came to that part where he is represented as arising and going to his father, I assured him that God was as willing now, as was the father of the prodigal, to receive sinners who arise and go to Him. The tears rolled down his withered cheeks, and with clasped hands he exclaimed, "Oh! that I knew where I might find Him.”

Then as if forgetting, in his great eagerness, that he was a prisoner, and not free to go where he listed, he suddenly rose to his feet, crying:

"Tell me, sir, only tell me where I must go to find Him." And for the first time I prevailed upon him to fall upon his knees beside me, whilst I supplicated God to teach him by his Holy Spirit what the true seeking of Him meant, and to pardon, and accept him as his long-wandering son.

From this time a great change came over him. His countenance no longer wore the sullen, dogged expression of yore; he looked bright and cheerful, and instead of walking with his head bent low, he now held it erect; nor were his eyes any longer fixed abjectly on the ground as heretofore. From which welcome signs, without his actually telling me so, I trusted earnestly that he had realised the forgiveness of his sins.

One day, soon after this, as I was going my rounds, he greeted me with a joyous smile.

I am

"Oh, sir, I do not mind these bonds now; a free man, for I feel that Jesus died for me, even me. Oh, may I never live to finish my sentence, and go out into the world to be tempted, for old as I am, who knows but that I might fall again. Do pray that I may die here, within these walls."

How little I then thought that his wish would be gratified; for by this time he had quite regained his former health, and seemed more than likely to complete his term of imprisonment. Some few weeks after this occurrence-during which I never failed to see him every few days-I was met on entering the precincts of the gaol by one of the warders, who knew the deep interest I took in the old man, and who informed me that he was gone. On going to his cell the night before, he had complained of feeling unwell, but had arisen in the morning and taken his breakfast as usual. Being exempted from work by the doctor on account of

his

he

age and indisposition, he had lain down on his cot again, his hands clasped, and his head thrown slightly back as if in prayer, and in this way fell calmly asleep, to wake no more on this earth of sin and temptation.

In process of time-after I had ministered to them about three years-I had to request the Bishop to come up and confirm twelve prisoners. He readily responded, and came for the purpose during the cold

ANNALS OF PRISON LIFE IN INDIA.

WE come, then, now to that part of the Buriat then raised the question about the English mission

people who are Christian. Perhaps it was an inquiry into the false religion of Buddha under which so many millions of the human race are deluded, or perchance only a timid belief in the power of their own creed, that led many of the early travellers in Siberia to look so coldly and unbelievingly on the efforts of the English missions to the Buriats. As Christian people look now upon their recorded utterances it will be manifest how little these gentlemen knew of the power of Christianity, and the thought naturally arises, for how little the heathen world would have to thank the Christianity of England, if there were not some at home who took a more believing view than travellers who go abroad, looking in a superficial way at what is being done, or sometimes not looking at all, and then coming home, and pronouncing missions a failure or an imposture. Captain Cochrane, for instance, speaking of the missionaries at Selenginsk whom he visited, went so far as to say, "For my own part so small are my hopes of their success, that I do not expect any one Buriat will be really and truly converted." He does, indeed, then allow that what is impossible with man is possible with God but goes on afterwards to insinuate that the missionaries knew of the uselessness of their work, but that they had "too comfortable a berth to be given up," and then he thinks forsooth that justice is not done to the people of England in so squandering money etc., etc., etc. Mr. Atkinson, another author on Siberia, contented himself with a passing compliment to the character of the missionaries, and said that they were unable to make converts among the Buriats; whilst Mr. Hill, who visited Selenginsk, records that, notwithstanding all their labours, not a single Buriat had been converted by them; and then he quotes the testimony of a lady living on the spot and who said: "The missions only failed because the undertaking was beyond the power of man to accomplish unaided by more than his own genius. The missionaries had all the zeal and perseverance of the apostles, but they wanted their power of working miracles, or the aid of some such startling circumstances as the history of religious revolutions has often presented to us, and without which all efforts at all times to convert the Buriats

will be fruitless."

But has this proved true? To answer this I must invite the reader to accompany us on a visit to the small town of Selenginsk, midway between the Baikal Lake and the Chinese frontier at Maimatchin. At this place, after driving all the previous night, we arrived on Sunday July 13th, and there we spent the rest of the day. We called upon the Ispravnik, or principal civil authority, who with his wife received us politely; and the latter, finding that we had good books to dispose of, wished to purchase some, which I allowed her to do to the value of six shillings. We also asked the Ispravnik's acceptance of some portions of Scripture in Mongolian for distribution among the surrounding Buriats. We

years the headquarters, but which had ceased to be so some half century before.

The Ispravnik had nothing to say of the missionaries but what was good and kind, which was only a repetition of what I had heard elsewhere. The Russian priests, he said, were carrying on missionary work among the Buriats, though for want of funds they cannot do it so effectively as the English did. A house, he said, was still standing on the spot where the missionaries lived, and he furnished us with the names of persons who could give us further information. We went, therefore, direct to the site of the mission-station, where we found some outbuildings very much like those of an English farnyard and strongly suggestive of home. The e was also a good house which had been built near the spot on which formerly stood the one inhabited by the Englishmen. The garden still remained, and in it we were taken to a walled enclosure, a little graveyard in which were five graves, those of Mrs. Yule, Mrs. Stallybrass and three children. The place had been recently put in order at the expense of a missionary in China, and we were pleased to see the restingplace of our compatriots looking so neat and orderly. The garden commanded a pretty view of the valley of the Selenga, and there was pointed out across the river the spot on which the town stood in the early part of the century, and which having been destroyed by fire was rebuilt on the opposite side. The lady who occupied the house told us that now and then a traveller turns aside to see the spot, and that the ignorant people say that the English come out of their graves at night, which report she is at no pains to contradict, thinking that as the house is in a lonely position, the idea may conduce to protect her from thieves.

After being shown what there was of interest about the place, we called on an old man, a Russian, named Ivlampi Melnikoff, who in his boyhood had attended the mission-school. When he heard that one of the missionaries, Mr. Stally brass, was still living, and that I had seen him just before leaving England, he seemed much pleased, and spoke with affection of his teachers. He had not opened a book for forty years, and so had forgotten how to read, but he remembered and inquired for, particularly, some of the missionaries' sons, and he sent to them his respects. The old man had lost sight of his Buriat schoolfellows, and thought that not one of them became a Christian, though he afterwards remembered that one was baptized into the Russian church.

Besides this Russian, we saw the nephew of one who had been a pupil in the school, and we heard besides of an old man, living some five-and-thirty versts distant, still a Buriat, but who as a boy had been a scholar. We had the same testimony, however, from both witnesses, which has been repeated by several travellers, that the missionaries did not baptize a single convert. None of them, however,

said what I did not know until I returned to England | the synod was jealous of foreign interference, and an and spoke to Mr. Stally brass upon the subject, namely, that the missionaries were under agreement with the Russian government not to baptize any converts.

The story of the mission seemed to be this. At the beginning of the present century there were four parties of foreign Protestant missionaries in the Russian dominions, namely: (1) the Presbyterians, working in the south of European Russia; (2) the Moravians on the Volga; (3) some Swiss missionaries from Basle, who took the place of the Presbyterians, and worked upon their ground; and (4) the London Missionary Society, which was allowed to send men. to the Buriats in Siberia. Among the last company were Messrs. Stally brass and Yule, who saw at once that the first thing to be done was to learn the Mongolian language, and in it to translate the Scriptures. Mr. Stallybrass left England in the year 1817, and lived in Irkutsk for a year and a half to learn the language. In due time the translation was commenced from the original Hebrew and Greek, and with such success did the work go on that they actually printed the Old Testament in the Siberian wilderness at Werchne Udinsk, to which place the missionaries removed from Selenginsk, and where they remained till they were sent home in 1840. The New Testament was printed in London. Their work was therefore of a preparatory and fundamental rather than an aggressive character. Nevertheless they had a school numbering sometimes from fifteen to twenty scholars, but there was found a peculiar difficulty, as I have already observed, in inducing children to attend, for not only were their parents utterly ignorant of the value of education, but they wanted their children to help them tend their flocks, which they grazed not on settled pasturage but as they wandered about over the vast extent of the Trans-Baikalian and the Mongolian steppes. Hence the children were at school to-day and gone tomorrow; and even when parents could be induced to leave their children with the missionaries, when these parents went off with their flocks, these children had to be kept and fed as boarders, and, even so, the parents begrudged the loss of their services. The object, however, of the Englishmen began to be appreciated, and tokens of success appeared. Then became apparent the difficulty which all along had loomed in the distance. The Russian synod in their jealousy for their own church had expressly stipulated that the missionaries should receive no convert by baptism, and this had been agreed to; and their agreement was not broken. But when certain of the Buriats showed signs of having received the truth in the love of it, the missionaries found themselves in a fix. The Russians wished the converts to be handed over for baptism to the Russian Church, and on these terms were willing that the English should stay and work as hard as they pleased, but this pleased not the men nor the Committee of the London Missionary Society, and neither party was disposed to give way. About this time, however, great political changes had taken place. Alexander the First, who favoured Christian missions, had died and was succeeded by the iron Nicholas, who does not seem to have been particularly opposed to the missions; but

occasion was found for dismissing all foreign missionaries from the Russian dominions under the pretext that the synod wished to do all its own mission work to its own heathen. The Imperial ukase to this effect was issued in 1840, and thus was stopped an English mission of which the foundations were laid; as the outcome of which the whole Bible had been translated and printed into Buriat Mongolian, which had taught some few scholars of great promise, and one of whom at least that was known, named Shagder, and probably many more that are unknown, who for want of a better method of professing Christianity have been baptized into the Russian

Church.

How far the Russian missionaries, among this people people owe any portion of their success to the foundation thus laid by the English, I cannot say, but certain it is that they are using English weapons, and it cannot be alleged of the Russian missionaries that they have no converts, for they count them by thousands. It may very well be that those converts are not educated and influenced before baptism according to our English standard; but it is interesting to see that Christianity has made a breach in the wall of Buddhism, and that the Russians have an organised mission to the Buriats.

The Ispravnik at Selenginsk told me there were about forty men engaged in nine distric's in the Russian mission, though I am not aware whether some of them may not be also parish priests to the Russian population. We called upon a priest at Werchne Udinsk to ask about the matter and to whom we sold some New Testaments and Gospels. He informed me that there were fifteen mission stations among them and that on the eastern side of Lake Baikal there were baptized annually about three hundred Buriats, and on the Western side more than a thousand. This was confirmed by a missionary upon whom we called farther on the road, and it agrees tolerably with the general almanack of 1878, in which it is stated that in the Irkutsk diocese there were baptized in the previous year 1505 of both sexes, including four Buriat lamas, though the number of converts given for the TransBaikal diocese for that year amounted to only fiftytwo, there being in that district one lama to every twenty persons. We had brought with us a number of copies of the Buriat Scriptures. Some of these we left at Irkutsk, some with the Ispravniks of Selenginsk and Troitzkosavsk, and some for the lamasery of Cheelantoui. Others we left at Chita, and so endeavoured that they might be spread over the district as well as placed in the prisons. I asked the Ispravnik at Selenginsk what he thought the lamas would do with the books. He said he thought they would first read them and then destroy them, but Mr. Stally brass on my return was of opinion that they were likely to be deterred from destroying them by a feeling that they were "holy books." In any case, we gave the copies we had brought, and thus endeavoured to do what little we could, though it was not much, for this interesting people, who, I doubt not, will gradually be absorbed into the Russian Church.