unchristian. Few had, at that time of life, acquired a taste for worthy pursuits; and if they had, they would probably have been selected for another destiny than that of a soldier's life. But, at any rate, they were far from being formed characters; and the probability is, that if they had been removed from the teaching of books and living examples, they would have fallen into those incurable habits of idleness which cause half the vices of the Indian laity.

The position of civilians is somewhat different. They frequently are compelled to lead more retired lives than the military, but they have the advantage of coming out a few years later in life; and if the duties of their profession are faithfully discharged, they have little room for idleness. Still they are often withdrawn from the Church service, and from that salutary check, the frown of offended society.

Now the disadvantages here enumerated, operated with much greater force in former times than now; and the consequence was that AngloIndians were unchristianized. And as they are still at work, although with diminished power, it is marvellous that there is so much decorum as there is in India. At the Presidencies the Churches are tolerably well attended; and the subscriptions for charitable purposes are creditable. But, with very few exceptions indeed, religion is confined to people who have arrived at a certain age. It is, indeed, a rare spectacle to behold anything like active, spiritual devotion in a young person. They wait for that until they are older, and can marry; and when they have no longer to resist the temptations of single life, or the opinion of the mess, they become really very decent religionists.

We should, indeed, be grateful that matters are no worse than this; but it is obvious that this is not a sort of faith which is calculated to have much effect upon the surrounding heathen. There is here little of the power of the Spirit exhibited. Resistance is given up when temptations are fiercest; and, instead of the Gospel entering into any severe struggle with corrupt nature, it keeps at a respectful distance whilst there are passions to be opposed; when, in the course of things, fleshly affections leave the heart, God's Spirit is with a bad grace permitted to occupy the deserted tenement.

The

The clergy have been increased in a remarkable manner. salaries of one hundred and three are paid by Government, and there are three bishops. These have all the means of mingling with all ranks of society, and of more or less benefiting the natives by their pecuniary resources. But here again there is little which is calculated to have any great moral effect. The clergy are decorous, but it would be quite out of place for them to show any of that enthusiasm which the Apostles manifested, and which awoke corresponding feelings in the people, and convinced them, far more than evidence and argument, of their sincerity; and, what is far worse, religion is rendered unsightly by schism. Romanists, Presbyterians, Free Church, Baptists, American and London Missions, afford a delightful treat for the Brahmun who dares to sneer at the dominant faith. The Bishop of Madras, indeed, gives most encouraging accounts of the progress of the Church in Southern India; no less than 90 villages having declared their

willingness to receive Christian instruction, But where Christianity first took root, and where, as Bishop Heber declared, the strength of the Christian cause in India is, here Dissent rears its many heads. In Bengal and the Upper Provinces, after many years of labour, an unsatisfactory list is shown: 6156 converts in the Church, 3200 Baptists, 1200 London Missionary, and 1000 Presbyterian and other converts. In Bombay the numbers are very insignificant, and decidedly preponderate in favour of Dissent. It is startling and impressive to compare with this the account of the Roman Church. In Bengal it has 20,000 members; in Madras the numbers are variously stated between 20,000 and 100,000; in Bombay, 20,000; in Pondicherry, which may be said to be in the Diocese of Madras, 230,000; and in Ceylon, which has been so neglected by the English, 200,000. After, then, allowing for a very large number of converts to the English Church in Madras, she must fall far short of the Roman. It is said that in the Tinnevelly districts alone there are 50,000 converts under the missionaries of the Propagation of the Gospel Society, the Church Mission and London Mission; but there is no doubt of the vast preponderance of the Roman Communion.

It is indisputable, then, that in one hundred and forty years (the Tranquebar Mission was established in 1705) little has been done; and that at Bengal and Bombay, at least, little is doing. We trust we may now, without presumption, suggest the causes of this slow and doubtful growth; but first let us notice those which are commonly assigned without sufficient reason.

In the first place, it is argued with some truth, that we have to contend with a system which has all the force of prescription and the venerableness of antiquity. This is the case if we compare the natives of India with the red men of America, with Sandwich Islanders and New Zealanders. Hindúism has not only its traditions, but its regular Scriptures, which it asserts are Divine Revelations. If certain portions of these are taken they are attractive and calculated to attach the affections of a people. These speculative notions of the Supreme Being are sublime, although their practical ones are contemptible. They have a history, which, although inextricably entangled in falsehood, records, as they believe, transactions which took place thousands, and hundreds of thousands of years ago, and their superstition is associated with the charms of poetry and philosophy. All this is true, but precisely the same may be said of the Zoroastrian and of the ancient Egyptian

• Take the following passages in illustration of this. In the Adhyatina Ramy. ana, a favourite Purana of the Hindùs, Shewa informs his wife Parbuttee, thus, "Rama is a Spirit separate from nature, there is none greater, He is happy, One, Greatest of Beings. When He had created all these things by Maya, He remained like the air within and without; He is the hidden Spirit, who, being in every thing, creates and destroys. Worlds are constantly revolving in his presence, as the steel round the loadstone." Again, Seeta addresses Hunooman thus," Know Rama the Highest, the Brahm, the True, the Intellectual, the Happy; having no second, altogether free from pain, invisible, pure existence, the blessed, the spotless, the quiescent; without form, without passion; who dwells everywhere, who is spirit, who is his own light, who is without sin!"

religions, both of which are now defunct.* Greece and Rome indeed were singularly deficient in pretended Scriptural Revelations, but the want of these was made up by their philosophy and poetry, and by an elegance and taste which the Hindùs do not possess. But in reality the Hindu writings do not exercise that influence which might be supposed, not one person in a hundred thousand is able to read them: and the only portions which they hear are such as are connected with their debased system of idolatry. Their legendary lore, then, their monstrous fables, are what the Christian Missionary has to contend with; and the obstacle presented by their written theology is little more than imaginary. Moreover, it has been overcome and may be overcome again.

Again, it is also truly argued that there is such a darkness of the moral sense in Hindus as to render them incapable of appreciating truth. And it does seem a work of peculiar difficulty to awaken them to a consciousness of their demoralized condition, and to a desire for purity of belief. If they can be said to believe anything sincerely, it is that which their Shastres teach, that a man should never change the religion in which he was born, however bad it may be. A Brahmun, then, will hear the beautiful morality of the New Testament stated, and declare at first that such is the teaching of his own books: and when this is disproved he will remain listless-silenced but not convinced. And the same man will at another time defend the degrading tenets of his own religion with the most paltry arguments and an utter recklessness of principle. But there is no reason for supposing that in this respect Hindus are worse than other idolaters. They have, at least, as much morality as the savage who feeds upon human flesh, and glories in the scalp which he has taken from his unsuspecting foe. They can scarcely outrun in crime those who formerly lived under the wide-spread reign of horror which the Book of Wisdom so vividly depicts ;† or surpass in sin what those Corinthians had been who were subsequently "washed, sanctified, justified in the Name of the LORD JESUS and by the SPIRIT of our God." The depravity of idolaters is now what it was; "for the worshipping of idols not to be named is the beginning, the cause, the end of all evil." Christianity has for an object the ennobling of the human mind, and to say that Hindùs are depraved is merely to say they are not Christians.

and

Heathens who have been in all points situated similarly to the Hindus have acknowledged the power of the Gospel; how is it that in these modern days they have stoutly resisted it? This is a question which we presume not to think ourselves capable of answering completely, but we believe the following suggestions will in part afford a solution. At the commencement, we remarked, that the Indian Church has certain supposed advantages. One of these is, that the Hindùs are under our government and influence. This is not a real advantage, it

If the Parsees of India are descendants of the ancient disciples of Zoroaster, they are so few in number and have so lost all claims to importance, that they do not invalidate what is said above.

+ Wisdom xiv. 22-31.

1 Cor. vi. 9, 10.

I

is merely supposititious. There is nothing intrinsic in Christianity which makes it acceptable when presented by the great to the small, by the conqueror to the conquered. On the contrary, the Scripture promises are especially vouchsafed to human weakness, and experience points to the fact that this, and not human might, has propagated the truth. The Crusaders did not spread the truth with their armies; and in America, Christian colonists did not convert, they only exterminated. But now view the other side of the question. When the infant Church seemed reduced to the lowest state by the persecution of Herod, when S. Paul was sent bound to Rome and probable martyrdom, the Gospel light dawned brighter than ever. In the one case the Apostles fulfilled the injunction to go to all lands; and in the other, S. Paul's "bonds in CHRIST were made manifest in all the palace, and in all other places.” The three hundred and eighteen Bishops assembled at the First General Council were evidences that weakness had been victorious in its contest with worldly mightiness. And even when the imperial fiat had declared Christianity the religion of the civilized world, power was not the means of subsequent conversions. The Germans, after they had established independent kingdoms in the Roman Empire, received their religion from the conquered. When the power of Clovis, the Frankish king, was growing, he derived instruction and baptism from a subject who might rather have expected persecution. England received its religion from a missionary who had almost given up the attempt in despair; Palladius and Saccuthus, or Patrick, having previously, almost against hope, converted the barbarous tribes of Ireland. Under the same law the Slavonic tribes, embracing the religion of the weak, acknowledged its unseen mysterious power, and Abyssinia* submitted to a shipwrecked boy. But the instance most to the point of any, is that of the Malabar Church, which was established by a few refugees from Antioch. Here Brahmuns were converted, and they formed a Christian community which was respected by the heathen princes, and which was celebrated for the purity and catholicity of its faith. So here is the best possible proof that a Church may rise in India without the concomitants of wealth and power.

It is more than questionable, then, whether the British Empire assists the British Church. At the same time, since our position is that of sovereignty, we must patiently endeavour to turn it to account. This we can never do until Anglo-Indian society is remodelled. A great change, indeed, has come over it; but much more must be done, before our religion can be presented to the natives as a living principle. In other cases they would have heard the Word from a few devoted preachers, who exhibited it in their lives-they now see its effect upon a community; and when they hear of the voμos πvevμatikós, but see the European σαρκικός, πεπραμένος ὑπὸ τὴν ἁμαρτίαν, they are apt to regard the entire doctrine as a paradox.

Missionaries even are rich as compared with the great body of the people. They appear as a favoured few, blest with all those comforts

See the account of Frumentius, in the first book of the "Ecclesiastical History of Socrates." According to Captain Harris's statements, the "Indi" here mentioned must have been Abyssinians.

and enjoyments which the poor ryot so vainly longs after. And it may raise a smile sometimes when they try to console him with the words, "Blessed be ye poor, for yours is the kingdom of GOD"; and if, when a bad year has deprived him even of the means of subsistence, the swarthy grumbler is assured by a fair sleek gentleman that they that hunger are blessed now, for they shall be filled; perhaps, if he dared to be satirical, he might hold out his hands for buksheesh, and say, "One thing thou lackest; sell all that thou hast and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven."

The natives are ignorant, they are not reasoners; and they will not sit down and satisfy themselves that these passages are perfectly in keeping with the lives of a comfortable evangelical clergy. And then, again, if they do embrace the new religion, they have no persons to whom they may look up, and, at the same time, find in them a community of sentiment. They have teachers, but not sympathizers. The gentleman may patronize them and make them his coachman or his kurnal, and keep them constantly in a supply of tracts and good advice; but he can scarcely rejoice in the joy and sorrow with the sorrow of his low-caste converts. And, indeed, it would not be always desirable that he should; for if an individual from the poorest classes is admitted at once to the friendship of one so much higher in rank as a missionary would be, the trial of his humility would be probably too great. He might become above his condition in life, show a dislike and disgust for his countrymen, and thus be an additional obstruction to the progress of the Gospel.

What is now really wanted is a body of men whose lives shall be a treatise on the Gospel-who will speak by actions. Hindúism is dying a natural death. Every day the people's attachment to their superstitions is shaken, and the more intellectual portion of them have relinquished them. Yet these oftener become Atheists than Christians. Superstition cannot retain them, and Truth cannot recover them. They have escaped from the entanglements of idolatry, but we cannot take them in the net of the kingdom of heaven. Is it not mournful to see the old strongholds falling to ruin, and we are not permitted to plant the Cross upon them in triumph? Does God reject us? Does He refuse to acknowlege us as His servants? Is it so, that He will do the work Himself in the course of His Providence, and will not accept of the intervention of such a Christian ministry? If our Heavenly Master is to recognize our labour, and reward it with success, we must have a self-denying zeal not shown, as too often at present, in schismatic and independent efforts, but in our humble submission to Apostolic authority. And we require able men, who would devote high talents, quick perceptions, and shrewdness, to the task. But have we such? Let every reader cast his eye over a few old University Calendars, and see how many men who have distinguished themselves at the seats of learning, have employed their talents for the expansion of the Church? Plenty of clever men may have written essays and treatises; with these we are inundated; but have we twenty, ten or five, who have themselves taken an active part in the matter, without any pecuniary profit? Is it true that all in whom the fire of genius burns, find it so honourable