all the native clergy of the town, as also from many of the principal laymen. Among these was Gregorius Isa, the Papal Syrian Bishop of Mosul, with whom I had travelled in Syria six years before, and Mutran Matta, who had within the last few weeks returned from Deir Zaaferân, where he had been consecrated bishop over the Syrians on the Malabar coast. He had been educated in the college at Cottyam, and spoke English fluently. On the death of the only Jacobite bishop in India he was sent to be consecrated as his successor, and had arrived at Mosul on his way to the patriarch at the beginning of the year. Here he candidly told his co-religionists that he was not validly ordained priest, as the bishop was a corpse when his hands were laid upon his head. So great, however, was the desire of the Jacobites to see him officiate that they induced him to offer the oblation and to preach in their churches, which he did through the assistance of a deacon, who interpreted his Syriac into Arabic. It appears that in his discourses he frequently inveighed against the errors of the Papacy, which so irritated the Romanists that they used all their influence to have him sent out of the town. His claim to British protection saved him from this indignity, and he afterwards repaired to Deir Zaaferân, where the patriarch ordained him priest and bishop, and gave him the oversight of all the Jacobites on the Malabar coast. He was a man of much intelligence, but from the drift of his remarks, as well as from his after conduct, he seems to have entertained a design of introducing many sectarian doctrines and practices among the Syrians in India. He was on the most intimate terms with the three American Independent missionaries resident at Mosul, and constantly joined in their religious services. On reaching India he attempted to carry out his latitudinarian principles of reform into practice, and so many complaints were made against his proceedings, that the patriarch finally deposed him, not however before he had succeeded in creating a schism in the diocese. To this gentleman I believe myself indebted for a libel which was published in the London "Record" newspaper, attributing to me the error of holding the Apocrypha to be canonical and inspired Scripture. This unintentional or wilful perversion of the truth must have arisen from my having expressed regret that the Apocrypha was not published with the Syrian Bible,
