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had been more than once unpleasant to me during my recent experiences.
Indeed, on one occasion I had even gone so far as to baptize him (as well as I could), having ascertained that he had certainly not been both christened and baptized, and gathering (from his telling me that he had received the name William from the missionary) that it was probably the first-mentioned rite to which he had been subjected. It appeared to me to be a most disgraceful piece of carelessness on the part of the missionary, that he should have omitted the second, and certainly more important ceremony, which I have always understood precedes christening, both in the case of infants and of adult converts; and when I thought of the risks we were both incurring, I determined that there should be no further delay. Fortunately it was not yet twelve o’clock, so I baptized him at once from one of the pannikins (the only vessels I had) reverently, and, I trust, efficiently. I then set myself to work to instruct him in the deeper mysteries of our belief, and to make him, not only in name, but in heart, a Christian.
It is true that I might not have succeeded, for Chowbok was very hard to teach. Indeed, on the same night that I baptized him, he tried for the twentieth time to steal the brandy, which made me rather unhappy as to whether I could have baptized him rightly. He had a prayer-book—more than twenty years old—which had been given him by the missionaries, but the only thing in it which had taken any living hold upon him was the title of Adelaide, the Queen Dowager, which he would repeat whenever strongly moved or touched, and which did really seem