“You will have heard of the establishment of an Auxiliary Bible Society in Calcutta. Doubtless the night has passed away, and the true light is now arising upon India. Mr. Martyn is gone for change of air, hoping to recover health, and, perhaps, avoid the threatened beginning of a consumption: he was at Shiraz, in Persia, on the 26th of June; and is at work on a Persian translation of the New Testament. His translation of the New Testament into Hindoostanee, is just put to the press; we greatly long for this work to appear. You know, he was assisted by a learned native,[78] who passed six years in England, and is well acquainted with the English language also. The translation of the Baptist missionaries into Hindoostanee, is really too defective to be useful to any extent. You will not accuse me of depreciating their labours: ‘I speak the truth in Christ.’ I have the greater part of their work. The Christians about me lay it aside, and prefer the parts of scripture they have of Martyn’s translation. “The above [mentioned] learned native is living on our premises, and goes on translating the Old Testament; in any difficult passage he consults me about the meaning. He has translated to Isaiah, and is now engaged on that book. This work, please God to spare Martyn to come back to correct it by the Hebrew, will be a glorious work for Hindoostan Proper. This part of India is still without a translation, except that of the Baptist missionaries. Two of these missionaries have gone to Agra: I was there lately and saw them; they had not then got quite settled. The natives of that quarter are very independent and fierce in their manners, the Mahomedans especially. You have heard of the population of India, but can have no idea of its immensity unless you saw it; so that a man may visit I cannot tell how many villages of three hundred, four hundred people and upwards, in a circle of six or eight miles: there seems, therefore, little need of itinerating according to your idea of the word; but you may think to how little an extent all that the whole of the missionaries now in India can do is likely to be felt. Yet the day, I am certain, has dawned that will never set till all India shall see the glory of the Lord.