BATTICOTTA SEMINARY, JAFFNA, CEYLON.

BY MRS. N. L. HOISINGTON.

THIS Seminary was established in 1823, nearly seven years after the first missionaries commenced their labors in Jaffna Province. It was about three years after their arrival before parents would allow their boys to come to the mission premises for gratuitous instruction, such was their fear that they would be defiled by coming in contact with foreigners. At length they began to come, three or four at one station, half a dozen at another, and so on, till each missionary found himself a teacher of a class of boys, to which accessions were gradually made. The children were very wary at first, and took the precaution, on their way home from the mission-house, to stop at some tank by the wayside, and wash away any defilement they might have acquired by intercourse with their teachers. Kindness soon found way to their hearts; they forgot, in a measure, their prejudices, and it was not long before the hours spent under the eye and instruction of the missionary were accounted their happiest. In the course of two or three years some of these pupils had made such proficiency, and gave such signs of promise, that it seemed desirable they should be carried upward, with the hope of their being prepared, at some future day, to become coädjutors in the missionary work. It was, therefore, decided, that the most promising from the several schools should be selected and placed under the care of one man, who should give his time chiefly to their instruction. Thus originated Batticotta Seminary.

New difficulties were now to be overcome. The pupils must be placed in circumstances where it would be more difficult to preserve caste uncontaminated. Their prejudices were humored for a little at first, by allowing them to have their own cook, draw their water from the well of a heathen, &c.; but as their minds expanded, and they became more enlightened, these indulgences were no longer allowed. As each new step in trampling caste was taken, heathen parents remonstrated and threatened, and sometimes took away their sons for a season. But the cause of truth and education steadily advanced.

Twenty-four years have elapsed since the first class of sixteen graduated, and now, more than four hundred, who have been privileged with a full course of education in the seminary, may be found dispersed through the island and on the adjacent continent. have wandered farther, and we hear of them in Singapore, Burmah, and Mauritius, as lights in dark places. There are others who have enjoyed one, two, or more years' instruction, but did not complete their course. Here the Bible is the great text-book, and is studied daily; also works on the evidences of Christianity, and the sciences, which are admirably calculated to overthrow and expose the absurdity of their own systems, for which the Hindoos claim a divine original.

Many, after all, go out unconverted, and, greedy of gain, plunge into business, as, alas! many sons of Christian parents do in favored America; but they cannot be heathens. Wherever they are, and whatever they be, they still look back upon the happy days spent within the precincts of the mission-seminary, as the most favored of their existence.

Never did this attachment appear more evident than at a meeting of the graduates just before the departure of the Rev. H. R. Hoisington to his native land, after a connection of about fifteen years with that institution. A large collection of intelligent natives, greeting each other as brothers, after a long separation, and acknowledging with gratitude their obligations to their benefactors, and ascribing to Christianity alone the power to renovate and save their nation, was a sight cheering, indeed, to the hearts of the toil-worn laborers.

Among them were many, who had for years been proclaiming the blessed gospel to their countrymen in the villages and the highways, and from house to house. Others in the service of government, one of whom was a judge, returned to their Alma Mater, with great warmth of feeling and expression, to pay their tribute of gratitude. Said one, in his address on that occasion, "I need not tell you, brethren, that our seminary is one of the results of missionary operations. The everlasting gospel, preached by the angel flying in the midst of the heavens, lies at the foundation. It is the corner-stone of this institution. It is a little spring opened in the midst of a burning and arid desert. It is not like the splendid universities and colleges of Europe and America, a river, flowing down from crowned heads and summits of abundance. Its waters do not issue from the

ample revenues of the British government, nor from the lustres of rubies and pearls, and the fragrance of the cinnamon groves of our island. Its waters are the sweat of those Christians whose feet are opposite to ours."

Who that looks at this picture, this fountain opened in the desert, will grudge one drop he has contributed to make up the stream which is causing the wilderness to "bud and blossom as the rose?"

THE ANGEL OF PATIENCE.

A FREE PARAPHRASE OF THE GERMAN.

To weary hearts, to mourning homes,
God's meekest angel gently comes;
No power has he to banish pain,
Or give us back our lost again;
And yet, in tenderest love, our dear
And heavenly Father sends him here.

There's quiet in that angel's glance,
There's rest in his still countenance;
He mocks no grief with idle cheer,
Nor wounds with words the mourner's ear;
But ills and woes he may not cure,
He kindly teaches to endure.

Angel of Patience! sent to calm
Our feverish brow with cooling palm;
To lay the storms of hope and fear,
And reconcile life's smile and tear;
The throbs of wounded pride to still,
And make our own our Father's will.

O! thou who mournest on thy way,
With longings for the close of day,
He walks with thee, that angel kind,
And gently whispers, "Be resigned!
Bear up, bear on, the end shall tell
The dear Lord ordereth all things well!"