“My absence from the Irish regiment has been most felt; as in the English regiment, one of the officers, a nephew of the late Dr. Elliston of Sidney College, has supplied my lack of service, by reading &c., having ‘first given himself unto the Lord.’ We have every Wednesday evening a party of friends, who take sweet counsel together. It consists, when altogether, of a Lieutenant of Dragoons and his wife, the Paymaster of the 53rd and his wife, an Assistant Surgeon, the above Lieutenant, my sister, and a young lady who is living with her; we sometimes have beside, another Surgeon and his lady, who have been brought up among religious people; an officer on the staff here, and, now and then, a friend from the country; and there are others, who approve and are hopeful, though they do not yet care to come out from the world. When we thus happily meet, we are encouraged to think, the whole world must speedily bow before the word of the Lord; but, alas, we return again with the complaint of Melancthon. The multitude, alas, tread heedlessly the broad way! “You will know of the formation of an Auxiliary Bible society in Calcutta. It has raised ‘no small stir about that way.’ Here we have had good success, but the enemy also has been at work. My application to the Commander of one of the corps here, was yesterday returned, with many concessions as to the purity of our motives, but representing this new association as the most dangerous thing imaginable, and praying me, and others, to desist from promoting the objects of it. In two entire regiments, out of the five, we have been thus hindered, but blessed be God, we have a majority, even in point of numbers. One undeniable benefit has arisen from it, even to the English; for after a sermon I preached on the subject, April 28th, we had a greater number of applications for English Bibles, than for many months together before.