In the commencement of the year, things wore a distressing appearance, and we went forward with our work under many discouragements. But in the progress of the year I do not know of any part of the time since I have been here, in which a greater degree of the Divine blessing appears to have rested on my labours, as far as the native population is concerned. Twenty-three Singalese, and one Tamil man, after subjecting them to a considerable trial, and private as well as public instruction, have been baptized and added to the church, and they appear to continue to walk according to the vows they have made. Sixteen of these live contiguous to the village called Byamvillee, which I either supply myself or some of our friends, every Sabbath-day; so that we have now a little church in that village of twenty-eight members, to whom the word of God is regularly preached, and the ordinances of His house duly administered. By the aid, too, of some of the members of our Singalese church, we have been enabled, on a Sabbath-day, to carry on a village itinerancy to a greater extent than before. So that, in addition to the Singalese, Portuguese, and English services, which are conducted in our regular places of worship in the Grand Pass, Pettah, in the Fort, and Hanwella, we have seven places around Colombo, or in the environs of it, where there is Singalese preaching, either every Sabbath or every other Sabbath-day. These are independent of many places to which, on week days, we go to make known the name of the Saviour. In consequence of the recent removals of the 61st and 97th regiments from Colombo to other parts of the island, our English church has been almost entirely scattered; but a small number are now again collected, who have been regularly organized into a Christian society. Our schools, which at the commencement of the year were much diminished by the alarming prevalence of the small-pox, have again recovered to in general their former size; especially the female school in our own yard, conducted by my own family, which now numbers more than fifty scholars, who have made very rapid progress in reading and in needlework. I fear unless we can obtain further assistance in this school, it must for a time be renounced, as my eldest daughter appears, by a continued pain in her side, to labour under a liver complaint, which renders a relaxation of her labours indispensably necessary, even if a removal to a colder clime be not requisite to save her life. Our schools, with the exception of one, which, on account of local circumstances, has for a time been lately discontinued, are the same in number as at the conclusion of the last year--and the number of attendants nearly the same.