But it is not merely in the translation and distribution of these books, that the missionaries have rendered so much service. In this labor it is true they have contributed greatly towards disseminating Christian truth and useful knowledge among a large class of people, and have improved their religious, their moral and their social condition. But to Europe and to the learned world they have also furnished a vast deal of philological knowledge, elucidating and developing languages scarcely known beyond the precincts of the several countries in which they were spoken. Many of these languages, too, were previously unwritten; and from this rude state the missionaries have trained and moulded them into forms adapted to written speech. While speaking of the labors of the missionaries in the East, I should do great injustice to Catholics not to speak of their efforts to improve the moral and religious condition of the people in these distant countries. In the most barbarous and secluded portions of the earth do we find these devoted men diligently laboring to elevate the condition of the natives. In many do we see a zeal and devotedness, an endurance of hardships, of the most severe privations, and often martyrdom itself, which has never been surpassed in the annals of missionary enterprise. Neither François Xavier, nor Ignatius Loyola, so famous among the pioneers of the Eastern missions, ever exhibited a greater zeal or devotedness than we now witness among the Catholic missionaries in Thibet, China, Corea, the islands of the Eastern Archipelago and Oceanica. They too have added much to our stock of knowledge of the inhabitants, their manners and customs, and their languages. Their narratives give us particular accounts of the productions of the countries in which they reside, their trade, commerce, and all that interests us. SIAM. An interesting fact connected with the progress of European civilization, and the extension of Christianity in the kingdom of Siam, seems deserving of notice in this place. It was communicated by the American Mission in that country.