Every day at ten o’clock the south wind came hotter and stronger up from
the sea. The sissoo trees on the Maidan trembled into delicate flower,
and their faint, fresh fragrance stood like a spell about them. The teak
pushed out its awkward rags, tawdry and foolish, but divinely green; and
here and there a tamarind by the roadside lifted its gracious head, like
a dream-tree in a billow of misty leaf. The days grew long and lovely;
the coolies going home at sunset across the burnt grass of the Maidan
joined hands and sang, with marigolds round their necks. The white-faced
aliens of Calcutta walked there too, but silently, for “exercise.” The
crows grew noisier than ever, for it was young crow time; the fever-bird
came and told people to put up their punkahs. The Viceroy and all that
were officially his departed to Simla, and great houses in Chowringhee
were to let. It was announced rather earlier than usual that His Honour
the Lieutenant-Governor would go “on tour,” which had no reference to
Southern Europe, but meant inspection duty in remote parts of the
province. Mrs. Church would accompany the Lieutenant-Governor. The local
papers, in making this known, said it was hoped that the change of air
would completely restore “one of Calcutta’s most brilliant and popular
hostesses,” whose health for the past fortnight had been regrettably
unsatisfactory.
The Dayes went to Darjiling, and Dr. MacInnes to England. Dr. MacInnes’
expenses to England, and those of Shib Chunder Bhose, who accompanied
him, were met out of a fund which had swelled astonishingly considering
that it was fed by Bengali sentiment—the fund established to defeat the
College Grants Notification. Dr. MacInnes went home, as one of the noble
band of Indian missionaries, to speak to the people of England, and to
explain to them how curiously the administrative mind in India became
perverted in its conceptions of the mother country’s duty to the heathen
masses who look to her for light and guidance. Dr. MacInnes was prepared
to say that the cause of Christian missions in India had been put back
fifty years by the ill-judged act, so fearful in its ultimate
consequences, of the Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal. Since that high
official could not be brought to consider his responsibility to his
Maker, he should be brought to consider his responsibility to the people
of England. Dr. MacInnes doubtless did not intend to imply that the
latter tribunal was the higher of the two, but he certainly produced the
impression that it was the more effective.
Shib Chunder Bhose, in fluent and deferential language, heightened this
impression, which did no harm to the cause. Shib Chunder Bhose had been
found willing, in consideration of a second-class passage, to accompany
Dr. MacInnes in the character of a University graduate who was also a
Christian convert. Shib Chunder’s father had married a Mohamedan woman,
and so lost his caste, whereafter he embraced Christianity because
Father Ambrose’s predecessor had given him four annas every time he came
to catechism. Shib Chunder inherited the paternal religion, with
contumely added on the score of his mother, and, since he could make no
other pretension, figured in the College register as Christian. A young
man anxious to keep pace with the times, he had been a Buddhist since,
and afterwards professed his faith in the tenets of Theosophy; but
whenever he fell ill or lost money he returned irresistibly to the
procedure of his youth, and offered rice and marigolds to the Virgin
Mary. Dr. MacInnes therefore certainly had the facts on his side when he
affectionately referred to his young friend as living testimony to the
work of educational missions in India, living proof of the falsity of
the charge that the majority of mission colleges were mere secular
institutions. As his young friend wore a frock-coat and a humble smile,
and was able on occasion to weep like anything, the effect in the
provinces was tremendous.
Dr. MacInnes gave himself to the work with a zeal which entirely merited
the commendation he received from his conscience. Sometimes he lectured
twice a day. He was always freely accessible to interviewers from the
religious press. He refrained, in talking to these gentlemen, from all
personal malediction of the Lieutenant-Governor—it was the sin he had to
do with, not the distinguished sinner—and thereby gained a widespread
reputation for unprejudiced views. Portraits of the reverend crusader
and Shib Chunder Bhose appeared on the posters which announced Dr.
MacInnes’ subject in large letters—“MISSIONS AND MAMMON. SHALL A
LIEUTENANT-GOVERNOR ROB GOD?”—and in all the illustrated papers. The
matter arrived regularly with the joint at Hammersmith Sunday
dinner-tables. Finally the _Times_ gave it almost a parochial
importance, and solemnly, in two columns, with due respect for
constituted authority, came to no conclusion at all from every point of
view.
The inevitable question was early asked in Parliament, and the
Under-Secretary of State said he would “inquire.” Further questions were
asked on different and increasingly urgent grounds, with the object of
reminding and hastening the Secretary of State. A popular Nonconformist
preacher told two thousand people in Exeter Hall that they and he could
no longer conscientiously vote to keep a Government in office that would
hesitate to demand the instant resignation of an official who had
brought such shame upon the name of England. Shortly afterwards one hon.
member made a departure in his attack upon Mr. John Church, which
completely held the attention of the House while it lasted. The effect
was unusual, to be achieved by this particular hon. member, and he did
it by reading aloud the whole of an extremely graphic and able article
criticising His Honour’s policy from the _Bengal Free Press_.
“I put it to hon. members,” said he, weightily, in conclusion, “whether
any one of us, in our boasted superiority of intellect, has the right to
say that people who can thus express themselves do not know what they
want!”
That evening, before he went to bed, Lord Strathell, Secretary of State
for India, in Eaton Square, London, wrote a note to Lord Scansleigh,
Viceroy and Governor-General of India, in Viceregal Lodge, Simla. The
note was written on Lady Strathell’s letter-paper, which was delicately
scented and bore a monogram and coronet. It was a very private and
friendly note, and it ran:—
“DEAR SCANSLEIGH: I needn’t tell you how much I regret the necessity of
my accompanying official letter asking you to arrange Church’s
retirement. I can quite understand that it will be most distasteful to
you, as I know you have a high opinion of him, both personally and as an
administrator. But the Missionary Societies, etc., have got us into the
tightest possible place over his educational policy. Already several
Nonconformist altars—if there are such things—are crying out for the
libation of our blood. Somebody must be offered up. I had a Commission
suggested, and it was received with rage and scorn. Nothing will do but
Church’s removal from his present office—and the sooner the better. I
suppose we must find something else for him.
“Again assuring you of my personal regret, believe me, dear Scansleigh,
yours cordially,
”STRATHELL.
“P.S.—Thus Party doth make Pilates of us all.”