now in our ears, spoke with smiles and tears of human gladness and heart-break so long, so very long ago. The history of India is filled with the alarms of war, state arrayed against state, plunder, devastation, and remorseless shedding of blood. Her soil has indeed been made sacred by the slaughter of her sons. But beyond this story of strife we are looking for something else and asking another question. Where and how amid these hoary creeds and worship did a knowledge of the true God as we know Him, and the Name of the Saviour of the World first come to the people of this land? The quest of this is not easy where so much is legend and pious, but perhaps not quite honest, story telling. In the age of the Old Testament history when Solomon was building the temple at Jerusalem it is very probable that the ships of Hiram, laden with gold and ivory, apes and peacocks, were bringing their treasures from that land beyond the Red Sea, which is the India of our to-day. And it is also likely that upon those shores the trading instinct of the Hebrews had established stations for the ingathering of these costly freights, and in this strange land the praises of Jehovah were heard in some simple synagogue with its window open towards the sacred city of the Hebrews across the wide sea. The centuries pass, and in the fulness of time wise men from the East, following the guidance of the Star, came to Bethlehem to worship the Christ child. The Light of the world had dawned. And it is not inconceivable that the tidings of One so mighty in word and work would be spread abroad through the talk of travellers and traders to the regions eastward of the Holy Land. For what it is worth, a reference may be made to the letters still preserved in the British Museum, supposed to have been written during the life of our Lord by Agbgbar from Edessa. These record that he, like the Queen of Sheba, was anxious to know more of what was taking place at Jerusalem and sent messages to Jesus Christ asking Him to visit him and offering his protection. When the reply is given that Jesus Christ is too much occupied, but that after He had been received up He would send one of His Apostles, we feel we are in the midst of a legend, especially when Thomas is named as the writer of the answer, who afterwards sent Thaddeus, from whom the succession of the bishops of Edessa was traced. Before considering the claims of the St. Thomas theory, which has given his name to the Christians of the Malabar coast, we must realise the fact that after Pentecost the inspiration of the early Christian Church began to show itself in sending forth its witnesses for the conquest of the world under the Divine mandate received on the mount at His Ascension. Persecution also drove them hence; the hate of the Pharisees, the stern discipline of Roman repression, the prison walls and the sword of martyrdom--these only spread the embers which elsewhere broke out in fresh flames of testimony.