"'There,' said my brother, 'is a fine good-for-nothing stream for you, forsooth, winding and dawdling about, dancing in the sunshine, and revelling in the grass instead of working and paying for the place it takes up, as an honest stream should. Could it not be made to grind coffee or pepper?'
"'Or tools?' added Savage.
"'Or to saw boards?' said my brother.
"I trembled for the stream, and broke off the conversation, complaining loudly that its detractors (its would-be tyrants) were treading down my forget-me-nots. Alas! it was but against them alone I could protect it. Before long there came into our neighborhood a man whom I noticed more than once hanging about the spot where the stream empties itself into the sea. The fellow I plainly saw was neither seeking for rhymes, nor indulging in dreams and memories upon its banks,—he was not lulling thought to rest with the gentle murmur of its waters. 'My good friend,' he was saying to the stream, 'there you are, idling and meandering about, singing to your heart's content, while I am working and wearing myself out. I don't see why you should not help me a bit; you know nothing of the work to be done, but I'll soon show you. You'll soon know how to set about it. You must find it dull to stay in this way, doing nothing,—it would be a change for you to make files or grind knives.' Very soon wheels of all kinds were brought to the poor stream. From that day forward it has worked and turned a great wheel, which turns a little wheel, which turns a grindstone; it still sings, but no longer the same gently-monotonous song in its peaceful melancholy. Its song is loud and angry now,—it leaps and froths and works now,—it grinds knives! It still crosses the meadow, and my garden, and the next meadow; but there, the man is on the watch for it, to make it work. I have done the only thing I could do for it. I have dug a new bed for it in my garden, so that it may idle longer there, and leave me a little later; but for all that, it must go at last and grind knives. Poor stream! thou didst not sufficiently conceal thy happiness in obscurity,—thou hast murmured too audibly thy gentle music."
SIR EMERSON TENNANT ON AMERICAN MISSIONS IN CEYLON.
One of the most respectable persons employed in the English colonial service, is Sir Emerson Tennant, LL. D., K. C. B. &c., who was for many years connected with the administration in Ceylon, and is now, we believe, Governor of St. Helena. He has recently published a volume entitled Christianity in Ceylon, in which there are some passages of especial interest to American readers, displaying in a favorable light, the services rendered to civilization by the missionaries of this country. These parts of his work have attracted much consideration. The Dublin University Magazine remarks:
"We describe the American Mission, which acts under the direction of one of the oldest and most remarkable of the existing associations for the dissemination of Christianity, "The American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions," whose head-quarters are at Boston, in Massachusetts. The first settlers in Massachusetts, like those of New England generally, were missionary colonists. Their charter, given by Charles I., states that one of the objects of the king and of the planters was the conversion of the natives to the true faith; and the seal of the company thus incorporated bore the device of a North American Indian, with the motto "Come over and help us." It may be interesting to add, that the "pilgrim fathers" of the New England States were, indirectly, the cause of the Protestant missions of the Dutch. They were, as our author states, 'the first pioneers of the Protestant world, and the first heralds of the Reformed religion to the heathen of foreign lands. Their mission is more ancient than the Propaganda of Rome, and it preceded by nearly a century any other missionary association in Europe. It was encouraged by Cromwell, and incorporated by Charles II.; and Cotton Mather records that it was the example of the New England fathers, and their success amongst the Indians, that first aroused the energy of the Dutch for the conversion of the natives of Ceylon.'
"We cannot doubt that amongst the main causes of the prosperity of North America are, the permanence of religious feeling, and the blessing attendant on the fact, that the missionary spirit has never perished. The labors of this great people on their own vast continent have been conducted with the greatest judgment, and marked by a success which encouraged their extension in other lands. In the year 1812, they turned their attention to the East, and, under an act of incorporation from the state of Massachusetts, commenced their missionary efforts in the Old World. Their first missionaries to India appeared there in 1812, but were ordered by the Governor-General to leave Calcutta by the same vessel in which they had arrived. One of them landing in Ceylon, on his voyage home, was so struck with the openings which it presented for missionary enterprise, and so much encouraged by the Governor, Sir Robert Brownrigg, to engage in it, that, on his representations, the American Board, in 1816, sent out three clergymen and their wives, who fixed their residence at Jaffina, which has been ever since the scene of their remarkable labors. These were reinforced in 1829, and for many years their establishment has consisted of from seven to eleven ordained ministers, with a physician, conductors of the press, and other lay assistants; these are selected from Congregationalists and Presbyterians. It is gratifying to be enabled to add, that a most cordial good-will and desire to co-operate has from the beginning prevailed between them and the other Protestant missionaries in their neighborhood. For thirty years they have assembled periodically in a "missionary union," to decide on measures and compare results. "With all of them education is," as our author says, "a diurnal occupation; whilst in their purely clerical capacity they have felt the necessity of proceeding with more cautious circumspection, improving rather than creating opportunities, relying less upon formal preaching than on familiar discourses, and trusting more to the intimate exhortation of a few than to the effect of popular addresses to indiscriminate assemblies.'
"'The first embryo instruction is communicated by them in free village schools, scattered everywhere throughout the district, in which the children of the Tamils are taught in their own tongue the simplest elements of knowledge, and the earliest processes of education—to read from translations of the Christian Scriptures, and to write their own language, first by tracing the letters on the sand, and eventually by inscribing them with an iron style upon the prepared leaves of the Palmyra palm. It will afford an idea of the extent and perseverance with which education has been pursued in these primitive institutions, that, in the free schools of the Americans alone, 4,000 pupils, of whom one-fourth are females, are daily receiving instruction, and upwards of 90,000 children have been taught in them since their commencement, a proportion equal to one-half the present population of the peninsula.'"