79 XIX. LIST OF STATIONS OCCUPIED BY MISSIONS IN CHINA. (ARRANGED IN GEOGRAPHICAL ORDER.) * Including the Members in Wuchang and Hanyang. [See over. VI. MISSIONS IN INDO-CHINA, "The kings of Tarshish and of the isles shall bring presents.”— Psalm lxxii. 10. "The ends of the earth were afraid, drew near, and came."- SECOND only in interest to India and China are the Burmese and Indo-Chinese nations which occupy the territory between these two great centres of Asiatic population and civilization. Burmah, Pegu, Siam, Laos, Anam, comprising Cambodia, Tonquin, and Cochin-China, the peninsula of Malacca, with the islands of the Indian Archipelago, though greatly differing in their outward aspects, and in their political relations and social conditions, are yet in some measure linked together by their geographical position, their past history, and their commercial relations. Thibet, which bounds India to the north, and Japan, which is on the extreme east of China, stand alone. The latter, after centuries of isolation, has recently entered into the great family of civilized nations; while Thibet remains a semiecclesiastical State, carefully guarded by Chinese jealousy from friendly intercourse with its neighbours. The various populations of Burmah and the Indo-Chinese states are evidently akin to the races which first peopled India; but India, some fifteen hundred or two thousand years before Christ, was invaded by the Aryan Brahminical races, who gave to it institutions and a religion which have made the Hindoos a peculiar people. Burmah and its neighbours (with the exception of the islands of the Archipelago) have escaped the Brahminical yoke ; but they have been greatly influenced by Budhism. Most of the islands of the Archipelago have been first partially Brahminized, and then brought under Mohammedan influence, and again partially brought in contact with Christianity. When we look into the past history of these supposed immovable, unchangeable nations, we find that India was converted to Brahminism; that Budhism dominated over Brahminism for two or three M centuries, and, though expelled from India, maintains to this day its position in China, Burmah, &c., and, until lately, in Japan; that Mohammedanism has, in many of the islands, supplanted Hinduism; and that Romish and Protestant Christianity has also obtained a footing and a following in these regions. At present the changes which were not unknown in the past history of these people are likely to be more rapid and yet more important. The Burmans, with their congeners, the people of Borneo, Sumatra, and the other islands, seem likely to vie with the Japanese in the decidedness and rapidity of their progress in the arts and habits of the West. Had it been their good fortune to possess a just, and steady, and powerful Government, their position would have been very different from what we now witness. The Malays proper inhabit the peninsula of Malacca and all the coast regions of Borneo and Sumatra ; they speak the Malay language, which they write in Arabic characters, and are all Mohammedans. The Javanese inhabit Java, part of Sumatra, Madura, Bali, and part of Lombock; they speak the Javanese and Kawi languages, which they write in a native character; they are Mohammedans in Java, Brahmins in Bali and Lombock. The Bugis are found in Celebes, and their congeners in Sumbawa, and speak the Bugis and Macassar tongues, which they write in two distinct characters; all of these are Mohammedans. The Molucca Malays are another division of the semi-civilized Malays. The savage Malays are the Dyaks of Borneo, the Battaks of Sumatra, the Jakuns of Malacca, and the aborigines of Celebes, sometimes called Alfouras, and of other islands. (Wallace on the Malay Archipelago.) The success of the Baptist Missionaries in British Burmah, and the extent to which Christianity has spread in some of the islands of the Archipelago through the Missions of certain Dutch Societies and the fostering care of the Government, are proofs that there are no obstacles to the progress of the Gospel in these regions which will not yield to zeal and perseverance. Much is it to be regretted that we possess so little information about the Dutch and German Missions in Sumatra, Borneo, Java, and the islands of the Archipelago generally; but the fact is, that we know comparatively nothing of this most interesting part of the world. This ignorance is exposed in the remarks of a recent traveller already quoted, A. R. Wallace, in his "Malay Archipelago," 2 vols., fcap. 8vo, 1869. "If we look at a globe, or a map of the Eastern hemisphere, we shall perceive between Asia and Australia a number of large and small islands, forming a connected group, distinct from those great masses of land, and having little connexion with either of them. Situated upon the Equator, and bathed by the tepid water of the great tropical oceans, this region enjoys a climate more uniformly hot and moist than almost any other part of the globe, and teems with natural productions which are elsewhere unknown. The richest of fruits and the most precious of spices are here indigenous. It produces the giant flowers of the Rafflesia, the great green-winged Ornithoptera, (princes among the butterfly tribes,) the man-like Orang Utan, and the gorgeous Birds of Paradise. It is inhabited by a peculiar and interesting race of mankind,-the Malay, found nowhere beyond the limits of the insular tract, which has hence been named the Malay Archipelago. "To the ordinary Englishman this is perhaps the least known part of the globe. Our possessions in it are few and scanty; scarcely any of our travellers go to explore it; and in many collections of maps it is almost ignored, being divided between Asia and the Pacific Islands. It thus happens that few persons realize that, as a whole, it is comparable with the primary divisions of the globe, and that some of its separate islands are larger than France or the Austrian Empire. The traveller, however, soon acquires different ideas. He sails for days, or even for weeks, along the shores of one of these great islands, often so great that its inhabitants are often as little known to each other as are the native races of the northern to those of the southern continent of America. He soon comes to look upon this region as one apart from the rest of the world, with its own ideas, feelings, customs, aspects, and modes of speech, and with a climate, vegetation, and animated life altogether peculiar to itself." Scattered references to the Missions in the Islands may be found in Wallace's "Malay Archipelago," and Bickmore's "Indian Archipelago." In speaking of Celebes, Wallace remarks: "The Missionaries have much to be proud of in this country; they have assisted the Government in changing a |