CHAPTER I.

THE PARAMOUNT INFLUENCE WHICH INDIA HAS SUCCESSIVELY EXERTED ON THE PROSPERITY OF THE LEADING CITIES AND NATIONS OF THE WEST-THE REMARKABLE SERIES OF PROVIDENTIAL EVENTS BY WHICH INDIA HAS BEEN OPENED UP AS THE LARGEST AND MOST PROMISING FIELD FOR CHRISTIAN MISSIONS NOW IN THE WORLD AND THE CONSEQUENT OBLIGATION THAT DEVOLVES ON BRITISH CHRISTIANS IN PARTICULAR, TO AVAIL THEMSELVES OF THE PRECIOUS OPPORTUNITY FOR SPREADING THE KNOWLEDGE OF THE GOSPEL AMONG THE MILLIONS OF FELLOW-SUBJECTS IN THAT BENIGHTED LAND.

Announcement of the grand historic fact or law of the paramount influence of India on the Western Nations-Proofs and illustrations of this fact-The Peninsula of Arabia-PalmyraTyre-Alexandria-Bagdad-Ghizni-The Crusades open up Eastern Asia to Western Europe-Venice-Attempts to discover a new passage to India-Henry of Portugal-Columbus-Vasco de Gama doubles the Cape-Effect of this discovery-LisbonAmsterdam-Splendid series of English voyages, with the view of reaching India-The final supremacy of Britain-Three distinct eras or epochs of peculiar interest in behalf of India-The era of romantic imaginative interest-The era of romantic literary interest-The era of vivid religious interest-Designs of Providence in subjecting India to Britain-Glance at the remarkable series of events which have thrown all India open as a field for Missionary enterprise-Analogy between the condition of the Roman empire at the commencement of the Christian era, and the present position of India-Argument and appeal founded on this, in behalf of the spread of the Gospel.

FOR the last three thousand years has India, unexhausted and inexhaustible, been pouring an uninterrupted stream of opulence upon the Western World.

A

During that long period, measuring half the duration of the globe, the intermediate points of communication between the East and the West, have changed with the rise and fall of mighty cities and empires. Connected, however, with all such changes, there is one fact that stands out in singular prominence, challenging the attention of the patriot, the statesman, and the Christian philanthropist. It is a fact, too, so uniform and characteristic, that it may well be entitled to rank as an historic law. The fact is this: that whatever city or nation has, in the lapse of past ages, held in its hands the keys of Indian commerce and Indian influence, that city or nation has, for the time being, stood forth in the van of the civilized world as the richest and most flourishing. Indeed, the temporary monopoly of Indian trade has rescued even petty states from obscurity; and raised them to a height of greatness, and wealth, and power, vastly incommensurate with their natural resources. Some of the most famous cities of antiquity it may be said to have literally created. With the first possession of it, they suddenly sprang to their meridian of glory; and with its departure, they as rapidly sunk into the dark night of oblivion.

The southern peninsula of Arabia, projecting as it does like an isthmus between the East and the West, seems, from the earliest times, to have enjoyed, on a great scale, the full benefit of Indian commerce. And is it not matter of historic record, that the most important advantages were thereby conferred on the inhabitants? Did it not stimulate their industry at home,-multiplying the necessaries, enhancing the comforts, and superadding the most coveted luxuries of life? Engaging the services of art as the ally of nature, did it not lead to such improvements of an originally happy soil, as doubly to justify the poetic designation of "Araby the blest?" Did it not arouse the great mass of the people to correspondent activities abroad-earning for them a distinguished reputation for nautical enterprise, and enabling them to plant and maintain flourishing colonies on the most distant African shores?

Or, casting our eyes northward, over the sandy skirts of ancient Syria, do we not find the barren waste doing homage to the prolific bounty of the East? Do we not find the mere transit depot of Indian produce suddenly rise into surpassing grandeur? Indian commerce found Palmyra composed, as it were, of brick, but left it more precious than marble. And, to this day, those ruins that fill the traveller with amazement, if animated and vocal, would cease not to proclaim,-Behold, these are but the time-worn fragments of that wealth and magnificence which dropped in the desert from the wings of Orient riches, on their passage to the West!

Or, if we look westward, along the shores of the Mediterranean, do we not find the various tribes of Phenicia, though only the secondary conveyers of the merchandise of the East, thereby raised into temporary prosperity and renown? And with the disappearance of that aggrandizing traffic, do we not find all their glory vanish like a dream? What enabled Tyre, single-handed and unaided, to resist so successfully, and so long, the mightiest assaults of the Macedonian conqueror? Chiefly the resources which it had accumulated from its monopoly of the Indian trade. This could not escape the eagle-eye of Alexander. Accordingly, on having achieved the conquest of Egypt, he at once resolved, through that country, to open a direct communication with India; and replace Tyre by a nobler emporium for Eastern trade. Hence the origin and design of that celebrated city, which still retains the name of its royal founder. And when the conqueror, in his swift career, reached the Indus with its tributaries, and had concluded, in those days of geographical ignorance, that these were none other than the feeding streams of the Nile, his biographer, Arrian, expressly assures us, that the vast fleet placed under the command of Nearchus, "was equipped for the specific purpose of opening the direct intercourse between India and Alexandria." So bent was the hero on this favourite project, and such importance did he attach to its success, that when, after weeks of intense anxiety, he

was at length suddenly relieved from all fear as to the safety of his fleet, he burst into tears, and exclaimed,"By the Lybian Ammon and the Grecian Jove, I swear to thee, that I am made happier by this intelligence than in being conqueror of Asia; for I should have considered the loss of my fleet, and the failure of the enterprise it has undertaken, as almost outweighing, in my mind, all the glory I have acquired." The execution of his magnificent design he lived not to witness. But under his immediate successors, Alexandria soon became the channel of communication between Europe and Eastern Asia. And recent though it was, and but of yesterday, compared with the "hundred-gated Thebes," and other ancient cities, direct trade with India and the East speedily raised it into such pre-eminence, that it appeared to eclipse all else besides, even in a land so prodigal of architectural wonders. Yea, when it ceased to exercise sovereign power, and became politically dependent on all-conquering Rome, it still maintained its proud position as the commercial capital of the Empire;—while, in opulence, splendour, and population, it bade fair to rival, if not outrival, the Eternal City itself.

After the proud mistress of the world sunk into decrepitude and inanition, Arabia once more sprung up into more than its original greatness. Its tribes, headed by a warriorprophet, and inflamed with fanatical fury, speedily overran many of the fairest provinces of Europe, Asia, and Africa, gathering up the spoils and fragments of the shattered Empire of the Cesars,-planting the Mahammadan crescent in distant realms, which the Roman eagle never knew. With the extension of their conquests were re-developed those mercantile energies which distinguished their forefathers. On almost every shore from the Straits of Gibraltar to the extremity of the ultra-Gangetic Peninsula were strongholds established, as posts for military aggression, or depots for commercial enterprise.

The Moslem conquerors having usurped the dominion of the Eastern and Western seas, and for several centuries maintained an uncontrolled supremacy over them, the trade