SAU QUALA. THE SECOND KAREN CONVERT. (Continued from p. 5.) Quala was cradled to the ceaseless music of a dashing cascade; and when he sought "freedom to worship God," he found it at the foot of a thundering cataract, a miniature Niagara, where a small river leaps over a greenstone dyke, between fifty and a hundred feet perpendicular at a single plunge. It is the centre of one of the wildest scenes in nature. "Deep calleth unto deep," above and below the main cataract, crying, as fancy interprets the language of the Naiad, "Hide, hide from human view." The fall can be seen only by creeping on the hands and knees to the margin of a precipice on one side, and there the spectator must pay for the sight by prostrating himself on the bare rock, and stretching his head over the dizzy margin, where, at the base, the fallen river rises, like an insulted monarch, in foaming fury, threatening to pitch the precipice a thousand feet, at one lift, into the plain below. The path down the mountain is very like a mathematical line - has length without breadth — and is nearly as steep as Bunker-hill monument. Here is a glen where the Karens have often hid den themselves from their Burmese and Siamese oppressors. Ben Lomond never gave Rob Roy so secure a hiding place, and it would at any period have been a perfect paradise to the MacGregors, more invincible than Sebastopol, more inaccessible than the rock of Aornon, which resisted Hercules, though it was taken by Alexander. The mountains, from three to four thousand feet high, are here so difficult to cross, that I am not aware that any white man has made the attempt, except on one occasion. Yet they are worth the labor of crossing, were it for nothing but the wild flowers. Here, in every shady nook, in every grot and dell seldom seen by the sun, is found the nodding Clerodendron, one of the most elegant flowering shrubs that ever grew out of Eden. The flowers are tinged with roscate hues, but nearly all white, growing in long panicles at the extremities of the branches, from which they make a graceful curve, and hang down perpendicularly from ten to fifteen inches, like inverted chandeliers. The flowerets are few, the divisions of the panicles being remote, and each bearing only three or five flowerets. The divisions and subdivisions being all rectangular, and each blossom hanging from its pedicel like an ear-drop, order, delicacy, and beauty are the inseparable in the forks, forms a dry ridge which constitutes the remainder of the road to the summit of the mountain. The stream on the right comes down leaping jungles can produce. Here, in habits of daily prayer, Quala assisted his brother in the cultivation of the land. associations of this rare plant. When I pointed out to an English lady of fine taste, a young specimen that I had transplanted to my garden, she exclaimed, "The most elegant plant I ever saw!" from rock to rock till it reaches a preciIt deserves a place in every conserva-pice, so high that the falling water forms tory; yet from Wright and Eaton's a white streak half way up the mounBotany, it does not appear to have yet tain, as seen on Tavoy river thirty or been introduced into this country. forty miles distant. When I followed Human nature is the same in the sol- Sau Quala in the same path a few years itary wilderness, as in the crowded city; afterwards, I was so weary that, soon in the most uncultivated, as in the most after rounding the summit of the mouncultivated nations; now, as when Christ tain, I spread down my mat for the told his disciples the preaching of the night, under the thick foliage of a species gospel would "set a man at variance of Gordonia, a tree of the same genus against his father." Quala's father was as the Loblolly bay and Franklinia, to so much opposed to the truth when he which its flowers bear a striking resemheard it, that his son did not dare to ex-blance, excepting that the petals are yelpress to him his feelings; and so greatly low instead of white. Quala's brother did he fear him, that when Mr. Board-lived at the foot of the mountain in one man subsequently came to the village, of the most hidden dells the Karen he did not venture to go and hear him preach. His father's opposition became so strong, that he feared to come forward for baptism while in his house; but he had an older half-brother living on the eastern side of the mountains, and he persuaded his father to allow him to go and reside with his brother a few months. So one foggy morning he threw over his shoulder his wallet, containing all his personal property, a lacquered betel box, with a few Burmese tracts, took his large pruning knife in his hand to defend himself from wild beasts, and turned his steps through the wild sugar-cane grass to the foot of the mountains, passing over the same ground which his elder brother in essaying to cross fifteen years afterwards, on a similar morning, was seized by a tiger and devoured. I was at the place shortly after the accident, and saw the remains of the tiger, that had been caught in a trap; and found it more than twelve feet long. Were the human mind an acorn, Christianity would be the soil that developes the oak. It is astonishing to see how rapidly the intellectual faculties expand in the newly converted Karen. The knowledge of God is no sooner acquired, than a burning thirst for other knowledge is evolved. So soon as Quala became a praying Christian, he wished to learn to read. At that time there were no Karen books, and the Burmese books he was not only unable to read, but, beyond a few colloquial phrases, he did not even understand the language in which they were written. What he proposed to himself was precisely the same as if a poor farmer's boy in this country, without knowing a letter of the alphabet, should commence his acquisitions of knowledge by the study of Latin, before he had learned to read English; a task sufficiently discouraging, most young men would think, even in this enlightened land. Then he had no father to further his plans, no learned friend to give him encouragement, no Education Society to afford him patronage not even a school which he could Unaided, alone, and without After passing through a thick growth of tufted reeds, identical with the cane brakes of the Mississippi valley, the path is lost in a stream, the bed of which is the Karen highway, till it reaches a point where a tributary comes in from the north, and a precipitous spur, rising attend. encouragement, this youth, just emerg- a large melon at his head, beating him severely; so he did not dare to go, though several of his companions went, and were baptized. ing from the mists of heathenism, breasted all these difficulties. His elder brother knew a little Burman, and he commenced study with him. After laboring in the burning sun or pouring rain all day, he returned weary at eve, to spend several hours by the light of a wood-oil torch, studying Burman under the teaching of his brother till he knew more than his teacher. Where in the annals of European scholars shall we find a more remarkable instance, considering all the circumstances, of a powerful mind overcoming what ordinary intellects would regard as insuperable difficulties in the acquirement of knowledge? In my acquaintance with Karen converts, I have often observed with admiration the manner in which the mind, when brought into a right moral state, not only craves knowledge, but knowledge of truth; for which it seems to possess an intuitive attraction. Dip a magnet in the blotting sand, and it comes out studded with the grains of iron ore, while all the sand is left behind. With equal certainty the mind of a Karen, when the moral powers are in a proper condition, selects and draws to itself the grains of truth from the mass of error. Right moral affections do more to lead to truth, than all the works on reasoning that have been written, from the aphorisms of Gaudama to the logic of Whately. Quala had seen Burman books from his infancy, but he had had no desire to read them, because the Buddhist errors had no attractions.The passion for the ability to read was not aroused, till he saw Christian books; the books of truth. After remaining several months with his brother, he felt strong enough, he thought, to endure his father's wrath, and to go forward to make a public profession of religion. So he returned home, and soon told his father that he thought of going to Tavoy, to visit the teacher; whereupon his father's rage burst forth, and he replied by throwing Then Quala's faith failed, and he complained of God's providences, a very common sin with Karens; and he said within himself, "I will never go to the teacher again, as long as I live; and I will pray no more. When the Righteous One appears, my father will suffer himself, and I will say, 'I did not dare to become a Christian on account of my father.' I felt very unhappy. I wept all day, and thought I would starve myself to death." He repented of these feelings next day; but after remaining at home a brief period, he went back to live with his elder brother again. In a few months several inquirers in the neighborhood went to the city, and Quala accompanied them; where he was baptized by Ko Ing, the Burmese native preacher, with eighteen others, in December, 1830. Recording this baptism, it was said, "Nineteen were baptized, eighteen of them Karens, and one of them an interesting youth who has been in the school about a year. He is the second son of Mohammed Safet, or Moung Thar-apee, the highest native officer in the province. He is unusually amiable and modest, but religion has made him meek and lowly, like our Saviour. It was indeed an interesting sight to behold the noble little boy going to be baptized with a company of ignorant Karens, who would be spurned from his father's door." Such was the and the future. Look at it in the past. That "interesting youth" received perhaps the best English education that has been given by the mission to any one. When he left school, he went into mercantile business, became absorbed in the world, was excluded from the church for adultery, confessed his sin, was ultimately restored, and now holds a profitable appointment in the office of an English official. His father, who would have spurned the Karens from his door, prospect in the present has since served seven years in jail for forgery; while one of those unnoted "ignorant Karens" has refused to receive at the hands of government an office of more importance than the one then held by this Burman magistrate, and has earned, by his unblemished Christian life for a quarter of a century, with his success as a preacher, the title of "The new Karen Apostle." Before Quala's baptism, fifteen Karens only had been baptized, and none at any station except Tavoy, where they were all baptized by Mr. Boardman. Of these fifteen, one apostatized, four became efficient preachers to their countrymen, and most of them, after lives of usefulness, have died in the faith, and rest from their labors. MAULMAIN BURMAN MISSION. JOURNAL OF MR. BIXBY. (Continued from p. 477, last vol.) Visit to Krung Paing-Boat travelling. January 29, 1855, Monday evening. Left Maulmain early this morning en route for Krung Paing, to attend the thirteenth annual meeting of the Maulmain Association. Six messengers from the Maulmain Burmese church, and a few Karens, compose our company. About 2 o'clock we called at a small Peguan village, and spent several hours preaching to the people. The delegates all took part in carrying the gospel to every house. The people are very ignorant and stupid. Our message was to them a strange tale. We have scattered the good seed with fidelity and hope. Doubtless some fell by the way side. perhaps some fell on stony ground and among thorns; God grant that some fall on good ground, which shall bring forth thirty, sixty, and an hundred fold. But how dependent we are on the early and the latter rain for a harvest in this dry and barren land! Our waiting eyes are unto the Lord of the harvest, and our expectation is from Him. We shall reap if we faint not. | river, and now we are snugly housed in our boat for the night. The boatmen are at the oars, and we are making rapid progress up stream. Hope to reach another large village before morning, where we shall, the Lord willing, spend most of the day to-morrow, preaching the unsearchable riches of Christ. 30.- On waking this morning, we found ourselves far above the village which we intended to visit. It appears that our Karen boatmen are expecting to meet some of their friends at Krung Paing, and, being anxious to get through, they rowed hard all night, and passed the village in silence just before daybreak. We were disappointed; but as the meeting commences to-morrow morning at half past ten, we thought best to go on. We arrived at 2 o'clock, and received a most cordial greeting and welcome from the little Pwo church. Krung Paing is a small Pwo Karen village, bearing a Talaing name, which was evidently taken from the creek leading to it. To us it was Krung Paing (Bushy Creek) indeed. The sun was very hot the tide was low, and our progress very slow. The banks of the creek were covered with dense dark jungle-scarcely penetrable by man or beast. Bamboo thickets on either side, as if dissatisfied with nature's limits, and covetous of the narrow space between, are crowding up their ever increasing progeny towards the bed of the stream, and weaving their thorny branches into an arch above.This would be a grateful covering from the scorching sun, but they frequently send down their long limbs to thrash us, and tear a more needed shelter from above our heads. Our boat was well nigh stripped of its covering when we got through. Besides this, we were frequently running against snags and into the tops of trees imbedded in the stream, and our boatmen were forced to cut their way through. Our good brethren Whitaker and Hibbard expect to come through in the At five we dined on the bank of the night. I am quite certain that by going before, we have saved them some sudden | Comforter condescends to dwell in the percussions, which produce no very midst of us, permeating the whole with his blessed influences and making us one in Christ Jesus. Here we are, from the north, the south, the east and the west agreeable sensations, especially when "Nature's sweet restorer, balmy sleep," wooes the weary wanderer to rest. But the journey of to-day has been very suggestive, and to my own mind, at least, is an illustration of the life of a pioneer missionary. Maulmain Association - Brotherly greetings. some from the remotest parts of the earth and from six different nations or tribes-sitting together in this holy convocation. How sweet and heavenly is our communion! What a striking practical exposition of the words of our Saviour, "Ye are one in Christ Jesus." May the Great Head of the Church dwell richly in all our hearts, and enable each disciple and pastor and missionary to carry back new light, invigorated faith, and increased zeal to the several 31.—Our annual meeting opened this morning under very favorable auspices, and there is every indication of an enlightened and growing interest in these annual religious festivals. There are forty members present from the Dongyahn church; and nearly all the church-churches and communities where they es are largely represented. Some of the reside and labor. messengers have come a great distance, at great expense, exposure and hardship. Their course has been on rivers Proceedings of the Association —Ordination of a Karen preacher. February 3.-The past three days have been fully occupied with the meetings of the Association. Six sermons were preached, in three languages, with one exception by natives. They were all well spoken of by those who understood them. Resolutions were unanimously adopted on various important subjects, such as supporting pastors, building chapels, sustaining jungle schools, and selecting suitable young men to enter the theological seminary at Maulmain. All the exercises were conducted with strict propriety, and throughout all the deliberations the sweetest harmony prevailed. over mountains and through jungles-in boats-on elephants and on foot-exposed to dangers by water and by land. It was peculiarly interesting and comforting to witness their warm greetings. Old friends long separated met and embraced each other in the most affectionate manner. No one could witness their salutations without at least the mental ejaculation, "How these brethren love one another!" The Karens have warm hearts, capable of and trained to love, and I have already seen unmistakable indications of supreme love to Christ and his cause, among them. The little Pwo church in this place have At the close of the session we had the done nobly to prepare for this anniver-pleasure of ordaining a Karen assistant, sary. They have enlarged their chapel a man of energy and promise. Sermon to nearly double its original size, and by Rev. S. Pahpoo, pastor at Newton have built large and commodious tene- and teacher in the theological school. ments for the accommodation of the mes- Pahpoo is an excellent preacher, and is sengers besides furnishing at consid- quite at home in three languages. He erable expense various utensils for cook- is a remarkable young man; a natural ing, and an abundance of food. I have orator, a profound thinker, and a denever attended an anniversary in Amer- vout Christian, distinguished alike for ica, on any occasion, where there was industry and perseverance. He is desmore universal interest, whole-hearted- tined to exert a powerful and salutary ness, and exquisite pleasure in the ob- influence over the Karen churches and jects of the meeting, than is manifested the rising ministry. May the Great here; and what is best of all, the Holy Head of the Church keep him from fall |