immersion, were not ignorant of the great doctrines of regeneration and justification, and possessed authentic manuscript copies of the Holy Scriptures, which were publicly read in the churches every ensuing Sabbath. They were not degenerated into that softness, effeminacy, and licentiousness of manners, which generally distinguish the natives of Southern India. They were chaste, and observant of their conjugal relations; adultery was a crime unknown. Their priests were permitted to enter into wedlock once, with a pure virgin; they were scandalized and disgraced by a second marriage, and a third could only be consummated at the expense of excommunication. The Portuguese were no less surprised at their profession than offended by their simplicity; but, what appeared most unaccountable, they were unacquainted with the spiritual and temporal majesty of Rome, and were ignorant that, to St. Peter's successor, all the kings and prelates of the earth owed subjection and allegiance. They adhered, like their ancestors, to the communion of the Nestorian Patriarch; their bishops had for ages been ordained by him at Mosul, and thence had traversed the dangers of sea and land to their dioceses on the coast of Malabar. Their liturgy and sacred books were in the Syriac idiom. They were acquainted with the names of Theodore and Nestorius, were strenuous advocates of the doctrine of the two persons of Christ, but they manifested a pious horror, when they heard the appellation "Mother of God" applied to the Virgin Mary. When her image was first presented to receive their adoration, they indignantly refused, exclaiming, "We are Christians, not idolaters; we worship God." It was the first care of the Romish emissaries to intercept all correspondence with the Nestorian Patriarch, to forbid their observance of the Sabbath, and to compel them to admit the baptism of infants. Their bishops and leaders were thrown into the dungeons of the Holy Office, which, under the auspices of Alexis de Menezes, had been established, and was in full operation. Their towns were filled with Portuguese soldiers, their churches with images, and their pulpits by shaven monks. All the mighty engines of ecclesiastical authority were brought to bear upon these defenceless people; all the passions of the human heart were alternately assailed, in order to consummate their conversion to the faith of Rome. Is it a wonder that the shepherdless flock succumbed, at least, for a time? that where, for ages, the Sabbath had been observed, strange sounds of secular employment should be heard upon that holy day? and that the communion, hitherto regarded as a symbolic memorial of the Saviour's passion, was accepted as a vicarious sacrifice? "We confess our sins in prayer to God," they exclaimed, when commanded to appear, for auricular confession, before the priesthood. "We keep the Sabbath," they replied, when told to observe the Dominical day. But ecclesiastical tyranny prevailed.