Alexandria Gazette

EXTENSIVE RENUNCIATION OF IDOLATRY.—We give the following cheering intelligence recently received from an Episcopal Missionary in the Tinnevelly District of Southern India:-

"I have been unwilling to communicate the joyful news until I could report the hopeful change as real and permanent; but after a trial of a few months the facts would better speak for themselves. It is now my privilege to report that nearly the whole of the Shanar population, scattered about from my station as far as four miles distant, have embraced the gospel. Since October last, residing in two hundred and seventy villages, and twenty have been baptized. The number of converts is eight hundred and thirty, and of them have been famous. I have no doubt that many more will soon be added. In other villages also, there have been considerable accessions; their number is between five and six hundred. So far as I can judge, all appear sincere and promise well; although several have been reproached and deserted by their heathen relatives, and in a few instances have even been persecuted, all have continued firm and unmoved. Some families, at that time in connection with me were expelled the village; and their prayer house was demolished by the very people of the place who are now desirous to join me, and request to receive that instruction which they before despised.

On the ninth of October the principle men of the whole village of Mavadepuram having signed their intention to embrace Christianity, and having requested me to visit them, I rode over on the eleventh accompanied by my brother. On my arrival there I was conducted to the riverside where there were five temples in the village. Here I found the people and a great crowd beside of heathen, of all classes, assembled under a large pupul tree, adjoining one of the larger temples. I entered into conversation with those who had invited me, and I soon discovered that the subject of their joining me in a body had been canvassed in the village, and that all were unanimous in begging me for a Christian teacher and a schoolmaster. They promised, from that day forth, "to renounce idolatry, to serve God only and to learn the way of salvation." They promised, also, one hundred rupees in money, and materials toward the house, for their congregation, which amounts to five hundred and twenty. I asked them what further test they were prepared to give of their sincerity. Their reply was, "Take our temples and dumb idols, we have ruined us."

Inquiry having been made for the keys, they were immediately brought and delivered into my hands. The temples were opened, and although it was then midday, the interior was so dark that the idols could not be distinguished. With the help, however, of a torch, thirty-six idols, large and small, were brought out and thrown against each other with great violence, by which several were broken; and, but for my checking them, not one would have been left whole. I took occasion to speak of the helplessness of idols, and the folly of such as put their trust in them. Some of the heathen were heard to say, "We are to blame. Our forefathers left us as a legacy such a religion, and the time will come when not only such temples, but even the Trichendur pagoda, will come into the possession of the missionaries. What is it to us? Where shall we then be?"