Rev. W. B. Wright were duly appointed missionaries, and departed to the distant scene of their labours, arriving at Sarawak on the 30th of June, 1848.

A site for the church and future residence of the missionaries had been fixed upon by Sir James Brooke, and steps were immediately taken to prepare the ground for building. A school was soon opened, at which not only many children but also adults attended. Mr. McDougall's medical skill was immediately brought into operation, a dispensary was opened afterwards, enlarged into a hospital, and immense influence was thus acquired over the natives. On Advent Sunday, 1848, the first baptism took place in Sarawak, five semi-Dyak orphan children, whose fathers were English, being then admitted into the Church of their Redeemer. These children were placed entirely under Mrs. McDougall's charge, and, with others who were afterwards added, to the number of 28, constitute what is called the Home School, in part supported by the Rajah.

On the 22d of January, 1851, St. Thomas's Church was consecrated by the Bishop of Calcutta.

In March, 1851, a second clergyman (Mr. Wright having retired in 1849) arrived from England—the Rev. Walter Chambers, who was sent to open a mission among the Sakarran Dyaks in connexion with whom are the Dyaks of the Batang, Lupar and Lingga, who as well as those of the Rejang, numbering in all about 300,000 souls, had opened their rivers freely to commerce, placed themselves under the Rajah's protection, and requested that Europeans might be sent among them to govern and teach

them.

In June, 1852, the Rev W. Gomez, from Ceylon, joined the mission and went to the Lundu river to the Rajah's favourite tribe of Sebujow Dyaks, where there is also a thriving DyakoChinese colony.

In July, 1852, the Rev. W. Horsburgh was added to the number of missionaries, and remained in charge of the central station at Sarawak during Mr. McDougall's absence in England the following year.

In 1853 the Society undertook the entire charge of the English mission to Borneo.

In September, 1854, Dr. and Mrs. McDougall returned to Sarawak, where they arrived the following April. The kindness of private friends enabled Dr. McDougall to collect and take out with him a quantity of educational and other apparatus to assist the missionaries. The Society found means to strengthen his hands with two additional coadjutors-the Rev. J. Grayling, of Wheldrake, York, and Mr. D. Owen, a young industrial schoolmaster of Cambridge. In answer to a private appeal from Mrs. McDougall, a Borneo Female Mission Fund was raised for the purpose of supporting teachers of their own sex for the Malay and Dyak women. The passage and partial maintenance of two ladies who accompanied the missionary party from England, were thus provided.

On St. Luke's Day (October 18th), 1855, the long delayed consecration of Dr. McDougall as Bishop of Labuan, with jurisdiction over the clergy and congregations of the Church of England in Borneo, took place in Calcutta Cathedral. The Bishop of Calcutta as presiding metropolitan, and the Bishops of Madras and Victoria, took part in the ceremony, which was rendered more than usually impressive and interesting from the fact that it was the first occasion on which a Bishop of our Church had ever been consecrated out of England. The main part of the endowment, 5,000l. is provided by the Society out of its Jubilee Fund, and the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge has followed its own generous precedent by making a grant of 2,000l., while to the private friends at Oxford and elsewhere, who in the

early days of the Borneo Mission raised a fund for the endowment of the see, much of the credit of the new Bishopric is due.

In 1857 there was a desperate outbreak at Sarawak of the Chinese gold-miners directed against Sir James Brooke and the civil rulers, when the missionaries of the Society were subjected to extreme peril. Providentially they were permitted to escape with their lives, but the property, furniture, and clothes of the whole mission party, the furniture of the church, and the books and other apparatus of the school, were entirely destroyed. As soon as it heard of this sad disaster, the Society opened a special fund for the relief of the sufferers, and headed the subscription list by a grant of 5007

In 1858 the Bishop completed his translation of the Liturgy into Malay. Through the exertions chiefly of private friends in England and Calcutta, a Mission Ship was provided, which would enable the Bishop to pioneer the way of missionaries in new places, and also to visit the established missions with less personal danger and loss of time than heretofore.

The disturbed state of the country continued more or less for two or three years, and proved a serious hindrance to the success of the missionaries. In 1859 a conspiracy was formed among the Malays to massacre the Christians, but owing to the faithfulness of the Dyaks to their Christian friends, the plot was discovered. After the return of Sir James Brooke to Borneo, in 1861, tranquillity was once more restored, and the work of the missions was renewed with increased vigour, the number of clergy and catechists receiving a considerable reinforcement that

year.

Borneo, the largest known island in the world, with the exception of the island-continent of Australia, contains an area of 260,000 square miles and a population of 6,000,000. Occupying a central situation in the Eastern Archipelago in the direct track

of an extensive and valuable commerce, intersected on all sides by navigable rivers, possessing one of the richest soils of the globe, with a healthy climate, which, though hot, is tempered by refreshing sea-breezes-and abounding in mineral treasures-it is a country eminently blessed with the choicest gifts of Providence, and well adapted for the support of a numerous and happy population. The province of Sarawak, which constitutes the new diocese of Labuan, lies towards the N.W. corner of the island: it has a coast line of about sixty miles and an average breadth of fifty miles. The city of Sarawak, which, when first visited by Sir James Brooke in 1832, was merely a collection of huts erected on piles containing about 1,500 persons, has now become a wellbuilt town with 20,000 inhabitants. It would have added to the gratification of many friends of the mission if Dr. McDougall's title had been derived from this city which has been, and must continue to be, the principal field of his labours, but legal objections made it necessary to have recourse to the nearest part of the Queen's dominions-the small and remote island of Labuan -for this purpose. This island contains 25,000 acres of surface which undulates with low hills, and at the time of its cession to the English government in 1846, was completely covered with jungle. It possesses, however, several valuable products, and in particular, inexhaustible supplies of coal.

The population over whom Rajah Brooke's influence has been so providentially established consists chiefly of Dyaks, Malays, and Chinese, while the whole interior of the island is filled with a totally different race, the Kyans, in many points, a superior and interesting people. The heathen Dyaks, numbering 25,000 souls in the province of Sarawak alone, are almost entirely subject to the Malays, who are Mahomedans. The Chinese immigrants who are very numerous are Buddhists.

Borneo was pronounced by the late Bishop Wilson, of Calcutta,