For the Christian Observer. SOME ACCOUNT OF THE REV. DAVID BROWN, LATE SENIOR CHAPLAIN OF THE EAST INDIA COMPANY, AND PROVOST OF THE COLLEGE OF FORT

WILLIAM.

(Concluded from p. 6.) FROM the year 1788, to the year 1800, a period of twelve years, Mr. Brown was indefatigably occupied in the various duties of his ministry in Calcutta. In the latter year, he was appointed Provost of the College of FortWilliam-a situation he continued to hold till the college was reduced. The following extract from a letter written in the latter year, to his early and revered friend the Rev. William Jesse, will afford a brief but pleasing view of his employments, and of his success, during that period.

"About three years ago, I renewed my acquaintance with you in a most unexpected manner. Among some old books, sold by a native, I found your Parochialia. I was delighted with the doctrines which I had heard drop from your lips, more than twenty-five years ago, and which then distilled as the dew into my ears. The foundation, under God, which you laid in me, and upon which the beloved man of God, Joseph Milner, of blessed memory, built, has never been shaken. 'Jesus Christ, and him crucified,' has been my almost only theme since I entered the ministry; and I have witnessed the power of the name of Jesus on the hearts of several in this counCHRIST. OBSERV. No. 182.

try, some of whom sleep in him. The doctrine of the atonement has ever been the great object of my zeal; and, through the grace of God, I still go on to teach and preach Jesus Christ."

"It has pleased God to show me great troubles and great mercies; to carry me through evil report and through good report; and it is because his mercies fail not, that I am not consumed. Since I arrived in this country (more than fourteen years ago) I have been constantly employed in preaching three or four times every week. I have for some years been first chaplain at this presidency,* and for above ten years have had a Sunday-evening and weekly lecture at the old mission church, at which I commenced my labours in Calcutta soon after my arrival in the country. I have a full church, and several of the first rank in this settlement attend. Some of them know the truth as it is in Jesus, and feel the power of his resurrection on their hearts. God has given me to find favour in the of our Governor Generals, Marquis Cornwallis, Lord Teignmouth, and Marquis Wellesley: the last has lately founded a college at Fort William, of which he has been pleased to appoint me the Provost: and my friend, Mr. Buchanan, (a man of eminent learning, and an able minister of the New Testament,) the Vice-provost. It is to be my peculiar office to teach the Christian religion to the junior servants of the Company who are to

eyes

He was appointed to the Presidency Church, by Lord Teignmouth, in 1794. K

enter the college. I rejoice at this wonderful call, and pray that I may have grace and wisdom to declare the whole counsel of God; and I entreat your prayers, my dear reverend sir, that I may be found faithful-faithful unto death."

Mr. Brown's first wife died in July, 1794, leaving only one daughter behind her. Three sons had died in their infancy under inoculation for the small pox. After two years of widowhood, in July, 1798, he married Miss Cowley, who survives, with nine children, to lament his loss, and to cherish a grateful remembrance of his piety and affection.

In the year 1805, Mr. Brown prepared a Memorial on the progress and state of religion in Calcutta, for the Society for promoting Christian Knowledge, which gives a modest, but comprehensive, view of the good effects produced by his labours during the preceding years of his residence at Calcutta, aided as they had been, in the earlier years, by the Rev. John Owen, (now chaplain-general,) and afterwards by the Rev. Claudius Buchanan, who, "since his settlement in Calcutta, had regularly shared with him all the duties of the mission congregation."

"It will be satisfactory," he adds, "to the Society to be informed, that our united efforts have not been without success. We have seen the congregation continually increasing in numbers, respectability, and seriousness.

"Through the pious zeal and liberality of individuals, the church has been now again considerably enlarged, entirely new furnished, and the premises extended, at the cost of about four thousand pounds: and the public utility of the church has obtained for it the favourable notice of Government, which has now extended to it the same protection and aid it affords to the settlement church, and has granted an annual amount to defray the current expense of organist, servants, lights, &c. besides the sum

of rather more than eighteen hundred pounds to pay off all arrears incurred by needful repairs, &c.

"The zeal of the mission congregation has been further manifested by raising a fund for the maintenance of a minister whenever he shall arrive. The fund goes on increasing by monthly contributions, and affords a reasonable prospect of support and comfort to future missionaries; a circumstance which cannot fail to engage the Society to renew their efforts on behalf of their Calcutta mission.

"The above brief view of past and present circumstances will be acceptable to the Society for promoting Christian Knowledge, by whose countenance I have been encouraged to proceed bitherto. I think also I owe it to the Society to add a few words respecting the state of religion in Bengal, having witnessed its progress from the first arrival of Lord Cornwallis in India, in 1786, to the present period; during which term of years there has been a growing attention to religious principles, and an observable improvement in religious practice; and a remarkable change has been effected on the public mind and morals of this community.

The awful history of the French Revolution prepared the minds of our countrymen to support the principles of religion and loyalty, which our late Governor General" (Lord Teignmouth)" considered it his most sacred duty to uphold with the weight of his authority. He resolved, to use his own words to me, to make it be seen that the Christian religion was the religion of the state;' and therefore at different times he appeared in his place as chief representative of the British Nation, attended to church by all the officers of Government, to give the Christian religion the most public marked respect of the governor of the country. These solemn acts, and the public thanksgivings which took place for the first time under

Marquis Wellesley's government, awakened a religious sense of things in many; and led to an open and general acknowledgment of the Divine Providence, which has been highly beneficial to the interests of true religion and virtue.

"Nor ought I to neglect to mention the services which religion and morality have derived from the institution of the College of FortWilliam for the civil servants of the Company; who, under this means, have been delivered from the bondage of sloth and sensuality, and from the still worse yoke of the natives' influence. This large and respectable part of the community have imbibed a spirit of virtuous emulation and literary research, which bids fair to extend religion and science throughout the Company's vast dominions.

"The natives themselves, it is to be presumed, will derive invaluable benefits from this institution, if duly supported; and I think we are authorized to hope that the knowledge of the Gospel among the heathen will, by the Divine blessing, be promoted by the suc cess of this institution."

It is observed, by the writer of the Memorial Sketches, the widow of this excellent minister, that, "to speak in the mildest manner, Mr. Brown found on his arrival at Calcutta, in 1786, that a deep ignorance on religious subjects, and a careless indifference to Christian duties, were but too generally prevalent there. Living witnesses can testify, that the Lord's day, that distinguishing badge of a Christian people, was nearly as little regarded by the British as by the natives: the most noted distinction being hardly more than the waving of the flag at head-quarters; excepting as it was the well-known signal for fresh accessions of dissipation. In short, it would hardly be believed in Calcutta now, how the Sunday was openly neglected then."

"It was frequently urged, that

there could be no use in keeping holy the Seventh day, in a heathen country; since the common people not being, as in England, Christians, the example was not needed." "In truth, no business, (any more than pleasure,) whether public or private, was discontinued on the Lord's day."

In ten years, the change was so remarkable, that the churchyard, and even streets adjoining the church where Mr. Brown officiated, were regularly thronged with palanquins and other equipages, where, but a few years before, scarcely half a dozen had usually appeared; and the number of communicants was greatly multiplied.

Strangers from Europe, and the sister presidencies of India, have expressed themselves struck at the superior tone of the religious advantages of Calcutta; and have freely admitted that they had not witnessed, elsewhere, more eager attendance, and devout observance of the ordinances of religion. That a church has been built up of living stones; that a godly people, loving holiness, have risen up in India; is then a fact, that may be safely credited. And assuredly, in having accomplished this, he may well be considered as having been made eminently useful. Whatever moral or political changes our Asiatic states have in the course of this period undergone, his warning and encouraging voice was uninterruptedly heard in the churches of Calcutta for twenty-five years."

The secret of his success will be found in the following extracts.

Though Mr. Brown had not the slightest pretension to be what is called a popular preacher, “yet he was remarkable for a deeply serious and impressive manner in preaching, which had perhaps a greater force than his words: of this a sensible hearer once observed, soon after he was appointed to the Presidency Church; • Whoever may not believe as Mr. Brown preaches, he makes it impossible

to suspect he does not believe so himself: for which reason alone, we could not but be attentive hearers, when we see him evidently so much in earnest.'

"He has acknowledged he felt the habitual persuasion on his mind, that in the congregation he had to address, there might be one, who for the first time would hear Christ preached; or perhaps one, who for the last time might listen to the Gospel sound. Such feelings kept alive in him a solemn earnestness both in composition and delivery." "He at all times alike felt, in common with many pious ministers of the Church of England, that the urgent importance of religion will scarcely produce its due effect, unless it is combined with comprehensive views of the general scheme of Revelation. The foundations of the Christian character can be laid only in a deep sense of the ruined condition of mankind; in a present impression of the unspeakable perfections of the Supreme Being; in awful views of the extent and obligation of the law and commandment of God; in painfully strong convictions of the exceeding sinfulness of sin; in a living recollection of the great love wherewith our Master and only Saviour, Jesus Christ, hath loved us, an intimate persuasion of the value of his atonement and intercession; and an entire renunciation of all dependence on our own merits, as entitling us to the Divine favour; in a profound and humiliating sense of the corruption and deceitfulness of our own hearts, and a filial reliance on the aid of the Holy Spirit to quicken our moral perception and purify our carnal affections, to infuse into us all holy desires, succour us in all holy exercises, and fortify us in all Christian virtue.”

"On his appointment, in 1800, to the Provostship of the College of Fort William, he saw a new sphere of religious usefulness open to him; and superintended, with renewed

alacrity, the heavy duties necessarily attendant on the first formation and arrangement of a collegiate establishment. He looked forward to the recompense of reward which he desired to obtain, in winning souls to the paths of serious piety, from among the youth brought, by this institution, under his especial observation: and it is undeniably true, that a striking improvement took place in the moral deportment of the students of the college. Among other means for attaining this advantage, they were induced by its rules to become regular in attendance on the ordinances of religion; which, in some of them, laid the groundwork of a serious and consistent profession of the Christian faith."

When, in consequence of the reduction of the scale of the College of Fort William, in 1806, the offices of provost and vice-provost were ordered to be discontinued, Mr. Brown, in the absence of Dr. Buchanan, who was then on the coast of Malabar, proposed, with his characteristic disinterestedness, to continue his services without any salary, "from a conviction that he could not devote his time and attention more usefully in the service of the Company than by promoting the success of the college." The Governor General, Sir George Barlow, professed himself deeply struck with Mr. Brown's conduct on this occasion, but his offer was not accepted.

Soon after this period a new sphere of active usefulness was opened to him by the operations of the Bible and Church Missionary Societies in Asia.

"He was the first whom they invited to be their secretary in those regions. And he exerted for them the same ardour of spirit which had ever characterized him in the cause of the Christian faith: and his labour for them was alike indefatigable and gratuitous."

"He considered the rising of the Bible Society in Britain as

forming a grand era in the history of Christianity. The Bible he entitled, The Great Missionary, which should speak in all tongues the wonderful works of God.' All his hopes of the extension of Christianity centered in this one point, that God would magnify his Word above all his Name, and that by the gift of the Scriptures of Truth to all people, a second, more widely extended, pentecostal influence would be produced, and a remedy be fully provided for the judicial sentence inflicted on mankind at Babel."

And when be was relieved of his charge of the mission church, by the appointment of the Rev. Mr. Thomason, and it might be supposed he would have availed himself of such a moment to secede from the field of his labours, as Secretary to the Bible Society, he found himself linked anew to that country. In the service of that Society, from the moment that he became connected with it, he lent himself, with all the zeal of his ardent youth, to assist in the great work of effecting the diffusion of the Christian Scriptures over the whole East. He made it, he said, "the dream of his night and the thought of his day," to devise every kind of plan for prosecuting this important, and, as it proved, this closing purpose of his life.

He even applied with his sons to the pursuit of the Hebrew, Syriac, Arabic, and Armenian languages, with a view to the translation and circulation of the Scriptures, and the promotion of the objects of the Bible and Church Mission Societies. In such efforts was Mr. Brown engaged to the closing period of his life, and even during his last illness. The following are extracts from his latest letters on these subjects, written only a few months before his death. "You have planted," he says, in a letter to the Rev. Mr. Owen, one of the Secretaries of the British and Foreign Bible Society: "You

have planted a root in India, which will flourish to eternity. Who can appreciate the gift of the Bible in all languages! Its price is above rubies: it is life from the dead.

"This year, the most important in my whole life, has given birth to a Bible Society at Calcuttathe scene of my sorrows and my labours, (whatever they may be.) We began with zeal, moderated by prudence and circumspection, and have proceeded with caution, knowing what tender ground we had to tread upon in India. The Lord, to him be the glory, hath prospered us in all things. The respectable phalanx of our Committee has protected us from scoffers, and terrorists, who are yet more dangerous. All stand firm to the original purpose, of giving the Bible, and the Bible alone: thus forming no party, and interfering with no prejudices which are not directly anti-Christian. We have much to do. Java has opened an almost boundless scene of usefulness. Hundreds of thousands of nominal Christians need the Bible; and it will be wanted through the whole extent of the Indian Archipelago. Ceylon alone presents a most extensive field. It is a thirsty land, and demands of us living water.'

"The books for your library at Calcutta are arrived in most perfect condition. They are well chosen, highly useful, and most necessary to our present operations. You have heard of the self-propagating Banyan tree, letting down its roots from its highest branches, and multiplying itself far and wide; but perhaps you have not heard that two trees go by that name, and that both are generally planted by the natives of India close together and grow up entwined. They are called the Butt and the Peepel. You have planted the butt- the Bible; and you have placed

learning,' by this gift of a library, beside it, which will grow up together with it. Thus, united, may