usefulness of every hour of my future life. It is with great pleasure I submit this matter to the determination of yourself, and Mr. Thornton and Mr. Grant.

All I wish to as

certain, is the will of God. I hope that the result of your deliberations will prove to be his will."

After speaking with great modesty and humility, of his own inabilities for the office in question, he adds,-"On the contrary, if the Lord does with me as with Jeremiah, and bids a child go and teach a great nation, it would be vain to plead my incapacity, since if he sends me, he will certainly touch my mouth.' Only I would observe, that, in the present state of Christianity, it would appear, that as strict attention ought to be paid to human means in our endeavours to promote the success of the gospel, as if it were merely a human dispensation."

In a subsequent letter upon the same topic, Mr. Buchanan expresses himself thus:"Being unable to judge for myself, I submit it to the divine direction with perfect resignation. So gracious is He who careth for

me, in this respect, that your determination, whether for, or against my going, will be alike agreeable to me. I am equally ready to preach the gospel in the next village, or at the end of the earth.”

Mr. Buchanan having gone through his course of academical studies at Cambridge, taken his degree of B. A. and been ordained a deacon on the 20th of September, 1795, by the bishop of London, immediately entered upon his engagement as curate to Mr. Newton, where he continued to discharge the humble duties of his office till March following, when he was appointed one of the chaplains to the East India Company. Soon after this appointment he received priest's orders from the same bishop; and, in May, went down to Scotland to take leave of his family, prior to his departure for India. And then, doubtless, his dear mother would not only rejoice in having "found that which was lost," but would call on her "friends and neighbours to rejoice with her also."

Mr. Buchanan, recommended and accre dited by some of the first characters in Lon

don to persons of the first respectability in Calcutta, particularly to the Rev. David Brown, afterwards his dear and inestimable friend, left London for Portsmouth on the 30th of July, 1796; on the 11th of August embarked on board the Busbridge, East Indiaman, commanded by Captain Dobree, and sailed for Bengal: and-we are sorry our limits do not admit any relation of the voyage on the 10th of March, 1797, Mr. Buchanan landed at Calcutta, two days before he completed the 31st year of his age.

* On his arrival in India, he took up his residence for a short time in the house of Mr. Brown, where he was hospitably received, and after two months, proceeded to the military station of Barackpore, to which he had been appointed chaplain. But here he found few opportunities for the exercise of his sacred functions, as the staff to which he was attached never required his services, and Barackpore was destitute of a place for public worship. In this state of seclusion and of comparative uselessness, at least total inactivity, the spirits of Buchanan were

greatly depressed.-"I often compare myself," he says, in a letter to Mr. Brown-“in my present exile, to John in the island of Patmos. Would that, like him, I had finished my course, and had only to contemplate 'the new heavens!' But I am a stranger to suffering for the word of God, and the testimony of Christ Jesus.-I sigh much for that singleness of mind and purity of heart, and love to God, which distinguish the disciple of Christ. And I often wonder whether it is to be effected by keen affliction in body and spirit, or by the power of the word of God, dividing asunder like a two-edged sword,' or by long fighting and sorrowful experience slowly teaching, and ending with a doubt whether I am taught."

But though Mr. Buchanan's situation at Barackpore did not admit of his active exertions as a pastor, it gave much leisure for his own improvement in those languages, which he was necessarily called to study in India. The following letter to Mr. Thornton, shows that his pursuits were not without deep interest:

"As the friend of my early studies, you will be desirous to know in what way, they have been occupied since my arrival in India. I am now proceeding in a work which I began when I last enjoyed retirement, viz. a serious, and I may say, labourious examination of the Scriptures in the original tongues. The meaning of the Holy Spirit in Scripture is the 'one thing needful' for the student. This severity of investigation reminds me of my mathematical vigils. Some have considered that interval at college as the most useful era in the history of mind. It shows what powers of application the soul possesses in a subject it loves; even such application as Paul recommends to Timothy, who was engaged in my present studies-Exist or live in them.'

"This, Sir, is a climate which tries the mind like a furnace. Were God to grant me a peculiar blessing, it would be the habit of industry whilst I remain in this country.

"I have a moonshee in the house to instruct me in the Hindoostanee and Persian languages. Not knowing what may be the