When the Punjaub, paralysed and withered under the military authority of Runjeet Singh, first became ours, it never entered into the imagination of the most sanguine, to conceive the change which a few short years of wise and enlightened rule would produce in the outward face of the country. Whole tracts of forest and jungle have been cleared and brought under cultivation; canals, hundreds of miles in extent, and at an outlay of millions of rupees, are in course of excavation; commerce and agriculture are encouraged, and every possible facility is afforded to the native mind to develop the resources which nature has placed within the reach of its inhabitants. We cannot but feel that it is only a Christian power, which could have exercised this happy influence; for Christianity has been in all ages, and under all circumstances, the pioneer of enlightenment and civilization. Circumstanced as the British government were, they could not well make any direct efforts to establish Christianity among the Sikhs, and indeed their usual caution and feeling rather lean to the reverse. And yet without any such efforts or encouragement on their part, and no one can tell exactly how, the first fruit of the Gospel among the native sovereigns of India, is the young Maharajah, Dhuleep Singh, the son and successor of the mighty Runjeet Singh. As this event, so important and significant under any circumstances, but doubly so under the present shaking and waning attachment of the Sikh population to their own religious rites, is deeply interesting to the British public, I will here give an extract from a speech delivered by Archdeacon Pratt, in Calcutta: "The baptism of Dhuleep Singh is an encouraging event, and although perhaps the less said about it the better, for the young convert's own mind, yet as so many false accounts have gone abroad regarding him, it is well briefly to state the circumstances which led him to seek baptism. His desire to become a Christian has generally been attributed to the influence of Dr. Login, who has charge of the young prince. But this is altogether a mistake. Dr. Login has acted the part of a wise and consistent Christian, in the delicate and responsible charge committed to him, but no overtures were made by him to induce the youth to become a Christian. It is believed that an early disgust of his own countrymen, was created in his mind by the horrible assassinations which he witnessed as a child at the Court of Lahore; and the personal kindness which he afterwards met with from Lord Dalhousie and the officials, up to the time of his quitting the Punjaub, gave him a favourable impression of the English. "But the first impulse in his mind in favour of Christianity, was occasioned by his Brahmin attendant reading the Scriptures to him, during Dr. Login's absence in Calcutta.