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It was no small thing for the episcopate of Bishop Heber, it was no small thing for the cause of Christianity in India, that at that time Corrie and Thomason were at hand, to aid the Bishop alike with their wise counsel and their active ministrations. Thomason, who for some time had been the very life of all the religious and educational associations in the metropolis of British India-who was, indeed, a kind of secretary-general, unstinting of labour, and unsparing of self-betook himself to England, a few months before the close of Heber's career, to return thence only to die. There was much in his character that resembled the good Bishop's, and therefore, that endeared him to his chief.* His departure was a heavy loss to the Christian cause; but Corrie remained behind to carry on the good work. He preached Heber's funeral sermon; and, as next in ecclesiastical rank, discharged the duties of the episcopate. About the permanent succession to the office he was naturally very anxious, although he never expected, and, indeed, never desired to see the mitre on his own brows. Deeply deploring Heber's death, he had written to his friend Sherer," Our late beloved Bishop was so entirely a missionary, that we can

*The "gentleness" both of his personal character, and of the system which he had prescribed to himself as that best calculated to give effect to his efforts for the conversion of the heathen, was one of the features in which he most resembled the Bishop. Speaking of the early educational measures, consequent upon the passing of the Charter of 1813, in which he was so deeply interested, he wrote to Sir Charles (then Mr.)

Metcalfe: "In the Chinsurah schools the Scripture has not been introduced. They are schools for knowledge, not for religion. I apprehend these gentle expedients are the best. But time will show how and when effectual good is to be accomplished. The field is vast, and the mind is bewildered in looking around it. It seems, however, time to fix on some definite spot, and say, Here we begin.'"— MS. Correspondence.

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scarcely hope to see one like him;"-and as, ever and anon, reports came from England, of this or that expected nomination, he was disquieted by the apprehension that the choice of the Government at home would fall upon a mere Churchman. "Rumours," he wrote, "have reached us about a new bishop, and men unknown to missionary fame have been named. This seems sad: let us in patience wait the event." He waited, and he found that the bishopric had been conferred, not on a missionary priest, but on a pictorial critic.

CHAPTER X.

Government connexion with Idolatry-Juggernauth-The British Government and the Religious Endowments of the People—The Pilgrim-TaxGradual extension of State-Patronage-Results of our interference.

WHAT I have written hitherto, has been chiefly of the efforts and the endeavours-the failures and the successes of individual men, either wholly unconnected with the British Government, and suffering contumely, perhaps, at its hands; or only bound to it as the ministers of a State Church, and the recipients of certain sums of State money. It is time now, however, that I should speak of the Government itself; of the position which it occupied-of the attitude which it assumed, at this time; of the manner in which by its tolerance it fostered, or by its intole rance it depressed the false religions of the country. It has been incidentally shown that up to this time, it was the almost universal opinion, even of those who were most diligent in their endeavours for the promotion of Christianity in India, that the Government, as such, should stand entirely aloof from all missionary proceedings; that any direct interference of the State for the conversion of Mahomedans or

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Hindoos to the religion of the Saviour would, by exciting alarm and causing irritation, rather retard than accelerate the progress of Christianity in India. What was held to be the duty of the Government was the practice of general toleration towards all the religions professed by the people under their rule, permitting every man, without restraint and without interference, to worship his God, true or false, in his own way. Christian men sought for liberty to diffuse, without hindrance from the strong hand of authority, the religion in which they gloried; but, if at any time they had thought of seeking the direct aid of that strong hand, the idea had been abandoned, and passive rather than active encouragement was the support they looked for from the State.*

But, it was alleged that the State had not remained neutral-that whilst at one time it had suppressed, and, at a later period, had surlily permitted the diffusion of Christianity, it had actively encouraged the worst forms of idolatry. Little by little, this grave charge gathered strength and consistency. Little had been heard of it until the early part of the present century, when Claudius Buchanan set it a-going. The feeling out of which it arose may have existed before his time; but in an inert and undemonstrative shape. A conviction, indeed, of the heinousness of the idolatry, of the grossness of the

* Towards the close of the last century, before the passing of the Act of 1793, the idea of despatching a number of missionaries and schoolmasters to India, to be under the control of Government, had been con

ceived in England, and embodied into the resolutions submitted to Parliament. Mainly on this account, the resolutions (which are given in the Appendix) met, as already stated, with a disastrous fate.

superstitions, by which they were surrounded, seems to have dawned but slowly upon the intelligence of the English in India. Not very keenly alive to the beauty and the holiness of their own blessed religion, and considerably ignorant of the real character of Hindooism, they had been rather attracted by the "excellent moralities of the Hindoos," than repulsed by their abominations, and had seen in many of the barbarities, which we now most deplore and condemn, only the courage of the hero and the patience of the martyr. Old Zephaniah Holwell, who must have had a rare taste of the excellent moralities of the Moors in the Black Hole of Calcutta, wrote, perhaps in revenge, some treatises on the tenets of the Gentoos, in which he commended, in the highest strain of eulogy, the simple, the rational, the sublime religion of Brahma; declared that the detestable rite of Suttee was based " upon heroic, as well as rational and pious principles;" and concluded his panegyric with the assertion that a true Brahman is "the purest model of genuine piety that now exists or can be found on the face of the earth." He was by no means singular in these opinions. The excellent moralities, both of the Gentoos and the Moors, and the simple, rational sublimity of the religions they professed, had their admirers, and, I may add, their followers, at a much later period of our history.

The European mind was first awakened to a sense of the enormities of Hindooism by the revelations of Claudius Buchanan, who visited Orissa in 1806, and

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