Letters On The Nicobar Islands, Their Natural Productions, And The Manners, Customs, And Superstitions Of The Natives Part 3

You must, by this time, be quite tired of reading these fragments. I hope I have succeeded in giving you some idea of our situation in the Nicobar islands, and of the circ.u.mstances, by which our attempts to convert the natives to Christianity were frustrated. I bless the Lord my Saviour, for preserving me in the midst of all trouble and danger, and if I appear to you to have endured some sufferings in body and mind, in the East Indies, more especially by the total failure of our endeavours to gain souls for Christ from among the heathen, in the place to which we were sent, I call upon you now to praise the Lord with me, for the great mercies I have since experienced, in the West Indies, where I have beheld, with joy, the power of the word of His cross, in the conversion of hundreds and thousands of negroes, among whom I have had the favour to proclaim it. I still think of, and pray for, the poor ignorant inhabitants of the East, and particularly of the Nicobar islands, and trust, that now the time will soon come, when, though some of Christ's servants have sowed in tears, others shall reap with joy. May the glory of His saving name be made manifest in all the earth, and the gospel be proclaimed in its most dark and distant parts, by the present extended circulation of the bible, and the exertions of His people of every denomination. With sincerest affection, I remain ever, &c. &c.

JOHN GOTTFRIED HAENSEL.

_To the REV. C. I. LATROBE, London._

_W. McDowall, Printer, Pemberton Row,_ _London._