CHAPTER VII. THE BISHOPRIC OF CALCUTTA: THOMAS MIDDLETON, REGINALD

HEBER, DANIEL WILSON.

Perhaps dying in a cause is the surest way of leading to its success.

Henry Martyn was sinking on his homeward journey, while in England the

renewal of the Charter of the East India Company was leading to the

renewal of those discussions on the promotion of religion in Hindostan

which had been so entirely quashed twenty years before, in 1793. Claudius

Buchanan had published his "Christian Researches," the Life of Schwartz

had become known, the labours of Marshman and Carey were reported, and

the Legislature at length attended to the representations, made through

Archbishop Manners Sutton, by the Society for Promoting Christian

Knowledge, and consented to sanction the establishment of a branch of the

Church, with a Bishop to govern it at Calcutta, and an Archdeacon there

and also at Madras and Bombay; the Bishop to have 5,000_l._ a year but no

house, and each Archdeacon 2,000_l._ Such was all that the efforts of

Wilberforce could wring from the East India Company for a diocese, in

length twenty degrees, in breadth ten, and where the inconvenience of

distances was infinitely increased by the difficulties and dangers of

travelling.

One excuse for the insufficiency of this provision had more weight with

the supporters of the Church than we can understand. England had for

more than a thousand years been accustomed to connect temporal grandeur

with the Episcopacy; a Bishop not in the House of Lords seemed an

anomaly, and it was imagined that to create chief pastors without a

considerable endowment would serve to bring them into contempt; whereas

to many minds, that very wealth and station was an absolute stumbling-

block. However, a beginning was made, and a year after Henry Martyn's

death, in 1814, the first of the Colonial Bishops of England was

appointed, namely, Thomas Fanshaw Middleton, the son of a Derbyshire

clergyman, who had been educated at Christ's Hospital, and Pembroke

College, Cambridge, and had since been known as an excellent Greek

scholar, and an active clergyman in the diocese of Lincoln. Thence he

removed to the rectory of St. Pancras, London, where he strove hard to

accomplish the building of a new church, but could not succeed, such was

the dead indifference of the period. He was also Archdeacon of

Huntingdon, and one of a firmly compacted body of friends who were doing

much in a resolute though quiet way for the awakening of the nation from

its apathy towards religion. Joshua Watson, a merchant, might be

regarded as the lay-manager and leader, as having more leisure, and more

habit of business than the clergy, with and for whom he worked. This is

no place for detailing their home labours, but it may be well to mention

that to their exertions we owe the National Society for the education of

the poor, and likewise that edition of the Holy Scriptures, with notes,

which is commonly known as Mant's Bible. They were the chief managers at

that time of the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge; and when, in

1813, a Danish missionary was sent out by that Society to take charge of

the congregations left by Schwartz and his colleagues, it was Archdeacon

Middleton who was selected to deliver a charge to him. It was a very

powerful and impressive speech, and perhaps occasioned Dr. Tomline,

Bishop of Lincoln, to recommend the speaker to the Earl of

Buckinghamshire for the bishopric created the next year.

The office would be, humanly speaking, most trying, laborious and

perplexing, and neither Archdeacon Middleton's age (forty-five) nor his

habits inclined to enthusiasm. He shrank from it at first, then

"suspected," as he says, "that I had yielded to some unmanly

considerations," and decided that it was his duty to accept the charge as

a call from his Master. He was consecrated in the chapel at Lambeth, by

Archbishop Manners Sutton, with the Bishops of London, Lincoln, and

Salisbury assisting. The sermon was preached by Dr. Rennell, Dean of

Winchester, but was withheld from publication for the strange reason that

there was so strong an aversion to the establishment of episcopacy in

India, that it was thought better not to attract attention to the fact

that had just been accomplished.

Bishop Middleton, his wife, and two of his Archdeacons (the third was

already in India) sailed on the 8th of June, 1814, and they landed at

Calcutta on the 28th of November. There was no public reception, for

fear of alarming the natives, though, on the other hand, they were found

to entertain a better opinion of the English on finding they respected

their own religion. The difficulties of the Bishop's arrival were

increased by the absence of Lord Moira, the Governor-General, who was

engaged in the Nepaulese war; and as no house had been provided for the

Bishop, he had to be the guest of Mr. Seton, a member of the Council,

till a house could be procured, at a high rent.

One of the first visitors was a Hindoo gentleman, who told him, "Sir

William Jones was a great man and understood our books, but he attended

only to our law. Your lordship will study our religion; your people

mistake our religion; it is not in our books. The Brahminee religion and

your lordship's are the same; we mean the same thing."

The man seems to have been one of those of whom there are now only too

many in India, who have thrown off their old superstitions only to

believe in nothing, save the existence of a Supreme Being, and who fancy

that all other religions can be simplified into the like. This is the

class that has, for the seventy years during which Christianity has been

preached in earnest, been the alternate hope and anxiety of the

missionary; intellectually renouncing their own paganism, but withheld by

the prejudices of their families from giving up the heathenish customs of

caste; admiring divine morality, but not perceiving the inability of man

to attain the standard; and refusing to accept the mysteries in the

supernatural portion of Revelation. Such was probably Serfojee; such was

the celebrated Brahmin Ram Mohun Roy, with whom Bishop Middleton had much

discussion, and of whom he had at one time many hopes, a man of very

remarkable powers of mind and clear practical intelligence. Roy's

endeavour at first was to purify the native forms of religion, and,

recurring to the Vedas, to find a high philosophy in them; but he and the

friends he gathered round him soon became convinced that these contained

no system of reasonable theology, still less of morality, and they then

constructed for themselves a theory culled from Christianity, but

rejecting whatever did not approve itself to their intellect, in especial

the holy mysteries regarding the nature of the Godhead and the

Incarnation of our Lord. This teaching, called Brahmoism, from Brahma,

the purest and highest of Hindoo divinities, is, under another form, the

Neo-Platonism of the Greeks, or the Soofeeism of the Persians. There was

even the germ of it in the grotesque medicine-man encountered by David

Brainerd. It is the form of opposition which the spirit of evil always

stirs up, wherever the natural character is elevated enough to appreciate

the beauty of Christian morality. It only prevails where there are

refined and cultivated men, afraid of all belief in the supernatural, as

a humbling of their intellect to superstition; and just at present a form

of it is very prevalent in India, owing to the amount of education which

the natives receive, which uproots the old belief, but does not always

implant the new. Whether it will become a stepping-stone to

Christianity, or whether it has substance to become a separate sect,

remains to be proved.

To return to Bishop Middleton. He knew when he left home that his work

would be heavy, and that to set in order the things that were wanting

must be his first undertaking; but no words could have conveyed the dead

weight of care and toil that lay on him. The huge diocese was shamefully

deficient in all that was needful for the keeping up of religious

ordinances; the Company's chaplains, few in number, were stationed at

immense distances apart, and for the most part had no attempt at a proper

church for their congregations. Verandahs or dining-rooms were used on

Sundays; and at Meerut, an edifice was actually built for the purpose of

a riding-school in the week, and a place of worship on Sunday. Moreover,

these chaplains were accustomed to look to the Governor-General as their

only superior, and, living so far apart, each followed his own

independent line of action, as if entirely unaccountable. Some, such as

Mr. Corrie at Cawnpore, were admirable and earnest men; but Henry

Martyn's successor at Dinapore had let the place sink into a lamentable

state, and there were several chaplains who greatly resented the being

brought under authority. The brunt of the battle fell of course upon the

first Bishop, and being a man as sensitive as he was firm, it tried him

severely. His entreaty was constantly for more men; and in order to

obtain a ministry beyond that which the East India Company would provide

for, he occupied himself in procuring the foundation of Bishop's College,

close to Calcutta, a seminary where young men, both European and native,

could receive a good theological and classical education, and be prepared

for Holy Orders. The Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge granted

5,000_l._ for the purpose, and private subscriptions came in, until on

the 15th of December, 1820, the Bishop was enabled to lay the foundation-

stone of an institution that has, now for half a century, admirably

answered its purpose.

It has long been found that Christianity cannot take root without a

native ministry, and Bishop Middleton was most anxious to ordain such

catechists of Schwartz's training as were ready; but he found great

technical difficulties in the way, since the ordination form in the

Prayer Book left no opening for persons who, not being British subjects,

could not be expected to take the oaths of allegiance and supremacy; and,

moreover, it was not certain what language ought to be used with men not

speaking English. The arrangement of these difficulties hindered him

from ordaining Christian David, the godson and pupil of Schwartz, and a

subject of Tanjore, on his visitation to the Presidency. This good man

met him, together with the minister of Palamcotta, bringing a deputation

about thirty in number. The minister was an exceedingly dark man, with a

very interesting countenance. Addresses, interpreted by Christian, were

made on either side, and the thirty sang a psalm of thanksgiving in

Tamul. They were only a small deputation, for there were several

Christian villages in Tinnevelly, with churches built of unburnt brick,

and roofed with palmyra leaves, where the English Liturgy was used,

having been translated into Tamul by David.

At Tanjore, the Bishop was received in the most friendly manner by

Serfojee, who came down from his throne to welcome him, and caused Mrs.

Middleton to be conducted to visit the ladies of his zenana. He

conducted the Bishop into his library, which contained books in various

European languages; also on medicine and anatomy, this being his

favourite study, to assist him in which he had an ivory skeleton. He

returned the visit in great state, with six elephants, two of enormous

size, going before him, and accompanied by his troops, with a wild,

horrid dissonance of cannon and native music. Two thousand persons

escorted the Rajah to the Bishop's tent, where he conversed very sensibly

on various subjects, especially English history, or as he called it, "the

Generations of English Kings." He was keeping up the good works he had

established, under the encouragement of the British resident, Colonel

Blackburne, and in this district the native Christians numbered about

500, who were under the direction of Schwartz's companion, Pohle.

On the Malabar coast Bishop Middleton had much intercourse with the

Christians of St. Thomas, visited their churches, and held much

conversation with their Bishop, convincing himself that the distinctive

tenets of Nestorianism had died out among them, and arranging for their

receiving assistance in books and teachers.

His visit to Ceylon followed, and was always regarded by him as a time of

much gratification; the good Governor, Sir Robert Brownrigg, had done so

much for the improvement of the people, and the missions were flourishing

so well. Here Christian David became a catechist, and on the Bishop's

second visitation, in 1821, he ordained as deacon a man named Armour,

whose history one longs to know more fully. He had come out to Ceylon

originally as a private soldier, and finding a number of natives,

probably the remnant of the Dutch Mission, whose profession of

Christianity was only nominal, he had taken upon himself "almost the work

of an evangelist," never varying from the teaching and services of the

English Church. He had taught himself to speak and preach fluently in

Cingalese, and could use the Dutch and Portuguese languages freely. He

had even some knowledge of Latin and Greek, and was so staunch Churchman

that he had resisted all invitations from the Baptists to join them. He

had gone through frightful difficulties and dangers in the swamp and the

jungle, and travelled thousands of miles; and when he came to the Bishop

it was with deep humility, and the hope that he had not been presumptuous

in taking on himself the charge of souls without sanction. It was his

great desire to obtain this commission, and the Bishop, finding how sound

in faith, pious, and excellent he was, admitted him to deacon's orders

before leaving Colombo.

Ceylon was erected into an archdeaconry and attached to the Bishopric of

Calcutta, and shortly after the same arrangement was made respecting

Australia--an archdeaconry a great deal larger than the continent of

Europe! Thence Bishop Middleton received and attended to the petition of

the Rev. Samuel Marsden, a devoted worker in the vineyard, of whom our

next chapter will speak.

Distinct missionary labour was scarcely possible to a man overtasked like

Bishop Middleton. The district that kept St. Paul in continual

"journeyings often" would have been but a quarter of that which depended

on him for "the care of all the churches," and the long journeys by sea

and land were by far the least harassing part of his life; for he had to

fight the battles, sometimes of his Church, sometimes of the whole

Christian cause, with unfair and prejudiced officials, and a malignant

newspaper press, by which the bitterest attacks were circulated against

him and his doings. And, "besides those things that were without," there

were the troubles of dealing with men used to do "that which was right in

their own eyes," and determined to oppose or neglect one whose powers

could only thoroughly be defined by actual practice. To go into these

conflicts would be wearisome and vain. They have lost their interest

now; but it must be remembered that it is by manfully and firmly enduring

vexations such as these, that systems are established which form the

framework and foundation of more visible labours, which gain more praise

for those who are allowed to carry them out.

The constant wearing effort, the daily vexation, the inability to gain

support, the binding of his hands from free action by the machinery of

State regulations only applicable to home ecclesiastics, the continual

making beginnings that never were allowed to progress--or, as he himself

called it, the continual rolling of the stone of Sisyphus--could not but

exhaust his powers, above all in such a climate; and that same sickly

summer of 1822 which proved fatal to Felix Carey was his last. In July,

one of his clergy, on whom he had been obliged to pass censure,

instituted proceedings against him in the Supreme Court--a most improper

and disloyal act, which much grieved and agitated him. He had to spend

eight hours in writing in preparation for this painful matter, and

afterwards went out in the carriage with his wife, but too early in the

evening, for the slanting rays of the sun, not yet down, fell full on

him, and their force is always especially dreaded at that damp and sickly

season. He immediately said that the sun had struck him, and returned

home; a most distressing fever, chiefly on the nerves, and accompanied by

grievous restlessness and afterwards delirium, set in, and he died on the

8th of July, 1822, in his fifty-fourth year, absolutely worn out by toil

and worry. But his career had established both the needfulness and the

position of a Bishop, and his successor was appointed without the same

opposition, still to a path perhaps only less thorny because briefer.

Of a Yorkshire family, where the eldest son was always bred up as the

country gentleman, the younger ones usually prepared to hold the family

livings, Reginald Heber was born on the 21st of April, 1783, at Malpas,

in Cheshire, a rectory held by his father, who was the clerical second

son, but soon after became head of the house by the death of his squire-

brother. He was twice married, and had a son by his first wife, so that

Reginald was born, as it were, to the prospect of taking Holy Orders; and

this fact seems to have in a certain degree coloured his whole boyhood,

and acted as a consecration, not saddening, but brightening his life.

A happy, eager, docile childhood seems to have been his; so obedient,

that when an attack on the lungs necessitated the use of very painful

remedies, the physician said that the chances of his recovery turned upon

his being the most tractable of children; and with such a love and

knowledge of the Bible that, when only five years old, his father could

consult him like a little Concordance, and withal full of boyish mirth

and daring. When sent to school at Neasdon, he was so excited by the

story of an African traveller overawing a wild bull by the calm defiance

of the eye, as to attempt the like process upon one that he found grazing

in a field, but without the like success; for he provoked so furious a

charge that he was forced to escape ignominiously over a high paling,

whence he descended into a muddy pond.

Neasdon was the place of education of his whole boyhood, among twelve

other pupils. Mr. John Thornton, the schoolfellow friend and

correspondent of his life, describes him as having been much beloved

there. He had no scruple as to fighting rather than submitting to

tyranny from a bigger boy, but his unfailing good nature and

unselfishness generally prevented such collisions; he was full of fun,

and excellent at games of all sorts; and though at one time evil talk was

prevalent among the boys, his perfect purity of mind and power of

creating innocent amusement destroyed the habit, without estranging the

other lads from him. He took many of his stories from books not read by

them, for he was an omnivorous reader, taking special delight in poetry,

loving nothing better than a solitary walk with Spenser's "Faerie Queen"

in his hand, and often himself composing verses above the average for so

young a boy.

He was always thoughtful, and there is a letter of his to his friend

Thornton, written when only seventeen, which shows that he had begun to

think over Church questions, was deeply sensible of the sacredness of the

apostolical commission to the ministry, and of the evils of State

interference. That same year, 1800, began his University education, at

Brasenose College, Oxford. His course there was alike blameless in life

and brilliant in scholarship; his talents and industry could not fail to

secure him honours in the schools.

Another young man was at the very same time at Oxford, whose course had

been steered thither with more difficulties than Reginald Heber's. Daniel

Wilson's father was a wealthy silk manufacturer, at Spitalfields, where

he was born in the year 1778. He was educated at a private school at

Hackney, kept by a clergyman named Eyre, who must have had a good deal of

discernment of character, for he said, "There is no milk and water in

that boy. He will be either something very bad or very good." One day,

when he was in an obstinate and impracticable state of idleness, Mr. Eyre

said, "Daniel, you are not worth flogging, or I would flog you," which so

stung him that he never fell into similar disgrace again; nay, one

morning when he had failed in his appointed task, he refused food saying,

"No! If my head will not work, my body shall not eat." He had

considerable powers, and when his own theme on a given subject was

finished, would find "sense" for all the dull boys--varying the matter

but keeping to the point in all: but his education ceased at fourteen,

when he was bound apprentice to his uncle, who followed the same trade as

his father, and lived in Cheapside. He was a widower with seven

children, one of whom in after years became Daniel's wife. It was a

strictly religious household, and whereas Daniel's parents had been wont

to attend church or meeting as suited them best, his uncle was a regular

churchman, and took his whole family constantly with him, as decidedly as

he kept up discipline in his warehouse, where the young men had so little

liberty, that for weeks together they never had occasion to put on their

hats except on Sunday.

Daniel was a thoughtless, irreverent lad, full of schoolboy restlessness

when first he came; but though he was at first remarkable for his ill-

behaviour in church, his attendance insensibly took effect upon him, as

it brought his mind under the influence of the two chief powers for good

then in London, John Newton and Richard Cecil. The vehement struggle for

conversion and sense of individual salvation that their teaching deemed

the beginning of grace took place, and he turned for aid to them and to

his old schoolmaster, Mr. Eyre. It was from his hands in 1797, at the

age of nineteen, that he received his first Communion, with so much

emotion and such trembling, that he writes to his mother, "I have no

doubt I appeared very foolish to those about me," but he adds in another

letter to a friend that it had been the happiest day of his life. "And

to you I confess it," he says, "(though it ought perhaps to be a cause

for shame,) that I have felt great desire to go or do anything for the

love of JESUS, and that I have even wished, if it were the Lord's will,

to go as a missionary to foreign lands."

It is very remarkable that this thought should have occurred at such a

moment to one who only became a missionary thirty-five years later, at a

summons from without, not from within. The distinct mission impulse

passed away, but a strong desire remained to devote himself to the

ministry of the Church. He tried to stifle it at first, lest it should

be a form of conceit or pride; but it only grew upon him, and at last he

spoke to Mr. Eyre, who promised to broach the subject to his parents.

His father was strongly averse to it, as an overthrow to all his plans,

and Mr. Eyre, after hearing both sides, said that he should give no

opinion for a year; it would not hurt Daniel to remain another year in

the warehouse, to fulfil the term of his apprenticeship, and it would

then be proper time to decide whether to press his father to change his

mind. It was a very sore trial to the young man, who had many reasons

for deeming this sheer waste of time, though he owned he had not lost

much of his school learning, having always loved it so much as to read as

much Latin as he could in his leisure hours. He submitted at first, but

was uneasy under his submission, and asked counsel from all the clergymen

he revered, who seem all to have advised _him_ to be patient, but to have

urged his father to yield, which he finally did before the year was out;

so that Daniel Wilson was entered at St. Edmund's Hall, Oxford, on the

1st of May, 1798. He struggled with the eagerness of one whose desire

had grown by meeting with obstacles. In order to acquire a good Latin

style, he translated all Cicero's letters into English, and then back

into Latin; and when he went up for his degree, he took, besides his

Latin and Greek books, the whole Hebrew Bible, but was only examined in

the Psalms. He gained a triumphant first-class, and the next year, 1803,

he carried off the English prose essay prize. The theme was "Common

Sense." He had not in the least expected to gain the prize, and had not

even mentioned the competition to his friends, so that their delight and

surprise were equal. That same year, Reginald Heber was happy in the

subject for Sir Roger Newdegate's prize for English verse, namely,

"Palestine," which in this case had fallen to a poet too real to be

crushed by the greatness of his subject.

Reginald Heber was used to society of high talent and cultivation. His

elder brother, Richard, was an elegant scholar and antiquary, and was

intimate with Mr. Marriott, of Rokeby; with Mr. Surtees, the beauty of

whose forged ballads almost makes us forgive him for having palmed them

off as genuine; and with Walter Scott, then chiefly known as "the

compiler of the 'Border Minstrelsy,'" but who a few years later

immortalized his friendship for Richard Heber by the sixth of his

introductions to "Marmion,"--the best known, as it contains the

description of the Christmas of the olden time. It concludes with the

wish--

"Adieu, dear Heber, life and health!

And store of literary wealth."

Just as Reginald was finishing his prize poem, Scott was on a tour

through England, and breakfasted at Richard Heber's rooms at Oxford, when

on the way to lionize Blenheim. The young brother's poem was brought

forward and read aloud, and Scott's opinion was anxiously looked for. It

was thoroughly favourable, "but," said Scott, "you have missed one

striking circumstance in your account of the building of the Temple, that

no tools were used in its erection."

Before the party broke up the lines had been added:

"No workman's steel, no ponderous axes rung;

Like some tall palm the noiseless fabric sprung;

Majestic silence--"

The prose essay on "Common Sense" was first recited from the rostrum in

the Sheldonian theatre, and Wilson always remembered the hearty applause

of the young man who sat waiting his turn. But the effect of the

recitation of "Palestine" was entirely unrivalled on that as on any other

occasion. Reginald Heber,--a graceful, fine-looking, rather pale young

man of twenty,--with his younger brother Thomas beside him as prompter,

stood in the rostrum, and commenced in a clear, beautiful, melancholy

voice, with perfect declamation, which overcame all the stir and

tumultuous restlessness of the audience by the power and sweetness of

words and action:

"Reft of thy sons, amid thy foes forlorn,

Mourn, widow'd queen; forgotten Zion, mourn.

Is this thy place, sad city, this thy throne,

Where the wild desert rears its craggy stone;

While suns unblest their angry lustre fling,

And wayworn pilgrims seek the scanty spring?"

On flowed the harmonious lines, looking back to the call of the Chosen,

the victory of Joshua, the glory of Solomon, the hidden glory of the

Greater than Solomon, the crime of crimes, the destruction, the renewal

by the Empress Helena, the Crusades, and after a tribute (excusable at

the time of excitement) to Sir Sidney Smith's defence of Acre, gradually

rising to a magnificent description of the heavenly Jerusalem.

"Ten thousand harps attune the mystic throng,

Ten thousand thousand saints the strain prolong.

'Worthy the Lamb, omnipotent to save!

Who died, Who lives triumphant o'er the grave."

The enthusiasm, the hush, the feeling, the acclamations have ever since

been remembered at Oxford as unequalled. Heber's parents were both

present, and his mother, repairing at once in her joy to his rooms, found

him kneeling by his bedside, laying the burthen of honour and success

upon his God. His father, recently recovered from illness, was so

overcome and shaken by the pressure of the throng and the thunder of

applause as never entirely to recover the fatigue, and he died eight

months later, early in 1804.

The two youths who were in juxtaposition at the rostrum were not to meet

again. Daniel Wilson was ordained to the curacy of Chobham, under Mr.

Cecil, an excellent master for impressing hard study on his curates. He

writes: "What should a young minister do? His office says, 'Go to your

books, go to retirement, go to prayer.' 'No,' says the enthusiast, 'go

to preach, go and be a witness.'"

"'A witness of what?'

"'He don't know!'"

While Wilson worked under Cecil, Heber, who was still too young for the

family living of Hodnet, in Shropshire, after taking his bachelor's

degree, obtaining a fellowship at All Souls College, and gaining the

prize for the prose essay, accompanied John Thornton on a tour through

northern and eastern Europe, the only portions then accessible to the

traveller; and, returning in 1806, was welcomed at home by his brother's

tenants with a banquet, for which three sheep were slaughtered, and at

which he appeared in the red coat of the volunteer regiment in which he

had taken an eager share during former years.

It was his last appearance in a military character, for in 1807 he was

ordained, and entered on his duties as Rector of Hodnet. Two years later

he married Amelia Shipley, the daughter of the Dean of St. Asaph.

Floating thus easily into preferment, without a shoal or rock in his

course, fairly wealthy, and belonging to a well-esteemed county family,

connected through his brother with the very _elite_ of literary society,

it seemed as though, in the laxity of the early part of the century,

Reginald Heber could hardly have helped falling into the indolence of

learned ease, the peril of the well-beneficed clergy of his day,

especially among those who had not accepted the peculiarities of the

awakening school of the period.

But such was not the case. He was at once an earnest parish priest,

working hard to win his people, not only to attend at church, but to

become regular communicants, and to give up their prevalent evil courses.

We find him in one letter mentioning the writing of an article on Pindar

in the _Quarterly Review_, planning for a village-school on the

Lancastrian principle, and endeavouring to improve the psalmody. "At

least," he says, "I have a better reason to plead for silence than the

Cambridge man who, on being asked in what pursuit he was then engaged,

replied that he was diligently employed in suffering his hair to grow."

These "endeavours to improve the psalmody" were a forestalling of the

victory over the version of Tate and Brady. The Olney Hymns, produced by

Cowper, under the guidance of John Newton, had been introduced by Heber

on his first arrival in the parish, but he felt the lack of something

more thoroughly in accordance with the course of the Christian year, less

personal and meditative, and more congregational. Therefore he produced

by degrees a series of hymns, which he described as designed to be sung

between the Nicene Creed and the Sermon, and to be connected in some

degree with the Collects and Gospels for the day. Thus he was the real

originator in England of the great system of appropriate hymnology, which

has become almost universal, and many of his own are among the most

beautiful voices of praise our Church possesses. We would instance Nos.

135 and 263 in "Hymns Ancient and Modern,"--that for the 21st Sunday

after Trinity, a magnificent Christian battle-song; and that for

Innocents' Day, an imitation of the old Latin hymn "_Salvete flores

Martyrum_." They were put together, with others by Dean Milman and a few

more, into a little volume, which Heber requested Dr. Howley, then Bishop

of London, to lay before the Archbishop, that it might be recommended for

use in churches, but the timidity of the time prevented this from being

carried into effect.

A deep student of church history, his letters show him trying every

practical question by the tests of ancient authority as well as

instructive piety, and, on these principles, already deploring the undue

elevation of the pulpit and debasement of the Altar to which exclusive

preference of preaching had led. Missions had, since the days of Carey's

first opening of the subject become so predominant a thought with the

Nonconformist bodies, and were often conducted so irregularly, that there

was certain dread and distrust of them among the sober-minded and

orthodox; but Heber was one of the first English churchmen who perceived

that to enlarge her borders and strengthen her stakes was the bounden

duty of the living Church. He was a fervent admirer of Henry Martyn,

whose biography was published soon after the news of his death reached

England, and his feeling found vent in that hymn so familiar to us

all--"From Greenland's icy mountains."

He was meantime rising in influence and station,--Canon of St. Asaph,

Preacher at Lincoln's Inn, Select Preacher before the University. He was

beloved by all ranks: by the poor for his boundless charity and sympathy;

and by his equals, not only for these qualities, but for his sunny

temper, bright wit, and playfulness, which showed in his conversation,

his letters, and in many a droll, elegant, and scholarly _jeu d'esprit_,

thrown off by a mind that could do nothing without gracefulness. All

this prosperity was alloyed only by such domestic sorrow as might be

fitly termed gentle chastening. The death of his next brother, Thomas,

who had acted as his curate, was a severe loss to him; and in the desire

to make every affliction a stepping-stone in Christian progress, he

began, from that date, a custom of composing a short collect-like prayer,

veiled in Latin, on every marked occurrence in his life. The next

occasion was, after several years of marriage, the birth of a little

daughter, whom (in his own words) "he had the pleasure of seeing and

caressing for six months," ere she faded away, and died just before the

Christmas of 1817. He never could speak of her without tears, and (his

wife tells us) ever after added to his private prayers a petition to be

worthy to rejoin his "sinless child." His grief and his faith further

found voice in the hymn, each verse of which begins with "Thou art gone

to the grave, but we will not deplore thee," and which finishes--

"Thou art gone to the grave, but we will not deplore thee,

Whose God was thy ransom, thy Guardian and Guide.

He gave thee, He took thee, and He will restore thee,

And death has no sting, for the Saviour has died."

Such had been the training of Reginald Heber, through the pleasant paths

of successful scholarship and literature, and of well-beneficed country

pastorship; a life perilous to spirituality and earnestness, but which he

kept full of the salt of piety, charity and unwearied activity as parish

priest, and as one of the voices of the Church. Such had been his life

up to 1822, when, on the tidings of the death of Dr. Middleton, Bishop of

Calcutta, his friend Charles Williams Wynn, President of the Board of

Commissioners for the affairs of India, offered him the appointment.

To a man of his present position, talents, and prospects at home, the

preferment was not advantageous: the income, with the heavy attendant

expenses, would very little increase his means; the promotion threw him

out of the chances of the like at home; and the labour and toil of the

half-constituted and enormous diocese, the needful struggles with English

irreligion and native heathenism, and the perils of climate, offered a

trying exchange for all that had made life delightful at Hodnet Rectory.

A second little daughter too, whom he could not of course look to

educating in India, rendered the decision more trying. But in his own

peculiarly calm and simple way, he wrote: "I really should not think

myself justified in declining a situation of so great usefulness, and for

which, without vanity, I think myself not ill adapted, either from a love

for the society and friendship of England, or from a hope, which may

never be realized, of being some time or other in a situation of more

importance at home." At first, however, the fear for the child's health

induced him to decline, but only if anyone else equally suitable could be

found; and finally he accepted it, with apparent coolness, veiling the

deep spirit of zeal and enthusiasm that glowed within. It was not the

ardent vehemence that enables some to follow their inward call,

overcoming all obstacles, but it was calm obedience to a call from

without. "After all," he wrote, "I hope I am not enthusiastic in

thinking that a clergyman is, like a soldier or a sailor, bound to go on

any service, however remote or undesirable, where the course of his duty

leads him, and my destiny (though there are some circumstances attending

it which make my heart ache) has many, very many, advantages in an

extended sphere of professional activity, in the indulgence of literary

curiosity, and, what to me has many charms, the opportunity of seeing

nature in some of its wildest and most majestic features."

In the spring of 1823, he took leave of Hodnet, amid the tears of his

parishioners; and on the 18th of May preached his last sermon in

Lincoln's Inn chapel, on the Atonement. On coming out, one of the most

leading men among the Wesleyan Methodists could only express his feelings

by exclaiming, "Thank God for that man! Thank God for that man!"

It is striking to find him in the full pressure of business, while

preparing in London for his consecration and his voyage, making time for

a letter to one of the Hodnet farmers, to warn him against habits of

drunkenness, hoping that it would dwell with him "as a voice from the

dead." On the 1st of June, 1823, Reginald Heber was consecrated at

Lambeth, and on the 10th sailed for India! He made several sketches

along the southern coast, under one of which he wrote:--

"And we must have danger, and fever, and pain,

Ere we look on the white rocks of Albion again."

A few days later, when passing the western coast of France on a Sunday,

the sound of the bells suggested the following meditative verses:--

"Bounding along the obedient surges,

Cheerly on her onward way,

Her course the gallant vessel urges

Across thy stormy gulf, Biscay.

In the sun the bright waves glisten;

Rising slow with solemn swell,

Hark, hark, what sound unwonted? Listen--

Listen--'tis the Sabbath bell.

It tells of ties which duties sever,

Of hearts so fondly knit to thee,

Kind hands, kind looks, which, wanderer, never

Thy hand shall grasp, thine eye shall see.

It tells of home and all its pleasures,

Of scenes where memory loves to dwell,

And bids thee count thy heart's best treasures

Far, far away, that Sabbath bell.

Listen again! Thy wounded spirit

Shall soar from earth and seek above

That kingdom which the blest inherit,

The mansions of eternal love.

Earth and her lowly cares forsaking,

Bemoaned too keenly, loved too well,

To faith and hope thy soul awaking,

Thou hear'st with joy that Sabbath bell."

By the 28th of September, the vessel was in sight of the Temple of

Jaghernauth, and on the 3rd of October was anchored close to the island

of Saugor.

All through his voyage and residence in India, the Bishop kept a journal

of the doings and scenes of each day, full of interesting sketches, both

in pen and pencil. The beauty of the villages on the Hooghly, "the

greenhouse-like smell and temperature of the atmosphere," and the gentle

countenances and manners of the natives, struck him greatly, as he says,

"with a very solemn and earnest wish that I might in some degree, however

small, be enabled to conduce to the spiritual advantage of creatures so

goodly, so gentle, and now so misled and blinded. '_Angili forent si

essent Christiani_.'"

On the 10th of October the Heber family entered their temporary abode in

the Fort at Calcutta, and were received by two Sepoy sentries and a long

train of servants in cotton dresses and turbans, one of them with a long

silver stick, another with a mace. There, too, were assembled the

neighbouring clergy--alas! far too few--and the next day the Bishop was

installed in his cathedral.

Then began a life of very severe labour, for not only had the arrears of

episcopal business after the interregnum to be made up, but the

deficiency of clergy rendered the Sunday duties very heavy; and the

Bishop took as full a share of them as any working parish priest; and

even though he authorized the Church Missionary Society's teachers to

read prayers and to preach, the lack of sufficient ministrations was

great. Bishop's College had, however, been completed, and what Middleton

had founded was opened by Heber, with the happiest effect, which has

lasted to the present time.

The difficulties as to the form of ordination of such as were not British

subjects had also been overcome, and Christian David was to be sent up

from Ceylon in company with Mr. Armour, who was to receive Priest's

orders. The latter excellent man died just before he was to set off, and

this delayed David until the next spring, when he came to Calcutta, was

lodged in Bishop's College, passed an excellent examination, and was

ordained deacon on Holy Thursday, 1824, and priest on the ensuing Trinity

Sunday. He is memorable as the first man of the dark-skinned races

admitted by the Church of England to her ministry. An excellent and well-

expressed letter from him, on the difficulties respecting the

distinctions of caste, is given in Bishop Heber's Life. This, indeed,

was one of the greatest troubles in dealing with converts. The Serampore

missionaries had striven to destroy it, but Ziegenbalg, Schwartz, and

their elder companions, regarded it as a distinction of society--not

religious--and, though discouraging it, had not so opposed it as to

insist on high and low castes mingling indiscriminately in church or at

meals. The younger men who had since come out had been scandalized, and

tried to make a change, which had led to much heartburning.

Next to his hymns, Bishop Heber is best known by the journal he kept of

his visitation tour, not intended for publication but containing so much

of vivid description of scenery and manners, that it forms a valuable

picture of the condition of Hindostan as it then was.

His first stage, in barges along the Ganges, brought him to Dacca, where

he was delayed by the illness and death of his much esteemed and beloved

chaplain. He then went on to Bhaugulpore, where he was much interested

in a wild tribe called the Puharries, who inhabit the Rajmahal hills,

remnants of the aborigines of India. They carried bows and arrows, lived

by the chase, and were viewed as great marauders; but they had a

primitive faith, free from idolatry, hated falsehood, and, having no

observance of caste and a great respect for Europeans, seemed promising

objects for a mission; but unfortunately the climate of their mountains

was so injurious to European life, that the clergyman, Mr. Thomas

Christian, a scholar of Bishop's College, whom the Bishop appointed to

this mission, was only able to spend three months in the hills in the

course of the year, while for the other nine he took the children under

his instruction back with him to Bhaugulpore.

At Bankipore, the Bishop met Padre Giulio Cesare, still a remarkably

handsome and intelligent-looking little man, and speaking warmly of Henry

Martyn. Dinapore, that first station of Martyn's, had since his time

fallen into a very unsatisfactory state, owing to the carelessness of his

successor, though it was newly come into better hands.

On the contrary, at Buxar, the Fort-adjutant, Captain Field, had so

influenced all around, though without a chaplain, that, though the Bishop

could not give the place a Sunday, his Saturday evening service in the

verandah was thronged, the English soldiers coming with Prayer-books and

making the responses, besides numerous Hindoos, many of them the

Christian wives and children of the soldiers. There was a boys' school

kept by a converted Mahometan, and one for girls by "Mrs. Simpson," a

native of Agra, converted by Mr. Corrie, and the widow of a sergeant.

She, however, got no scholars but the half-caste daughters of the

soldiers. A little boy of four years old, son to an English sergeant

with a native wife, was baptized, and the Bishop was delighted with the

reverent devotion of the spectators. Cureem Musseh, once a Sepoy

havildar, had his sword and sash hung over the desk, where, in a clean

white cotton dress and turban, he presided over his scholars, whom he had

taught to read Hindostanee, and to say the Creed, Lord's Prayer, and

Commandments, with a short exposition of each. The school served them

likewise to hold prayer-meetings in, and, on rare occasions, a clergyman

visited them.

The Bishop's entrance into the sacred city of Benares he describes to his

wife thus: "I will endeavour to give you an account of the concert, vocal

and instrumental, which saluted us as we entered the town:--

"_First beggar_.--Agha Sahib! Judge Sahib, Burra Sahib, give me some

pice; I am a fakir; I am a priest; I am dying of hunger!

"_Bearers trotting under the tonjon_.--Ugh! ugh!--Ugh! ugh!

"_Musicians_.--Tingle, tangle; tingle, tangle; bray, bray, bray.

"_Chuprassee_, _clearing the way with his sheathed sabre_.--Silence! Room

for the Lord Judge, the Lord Priest. Get out of the way! Quick! (_Then

gently patting and stroking the broad back of a Brahmin bull_.) Oh, good

man, move.

"_Bull_, _scarcely moving_.--Bu-u-uh.

"_Second beggar_, _counting his beads_, _rolling his eyes_, _and moving

his body backwards and forwards_.--Ram, ram; ram, ram!"

Benares, said to be founded on the point of Siva's trident, as the most

sacred city of all Hindostan, swarmed with beggars, fakirs, sacred

animals, and idols of every description; but close beside it was a church

for consecration and thirty candidates for confirmation, of whom fourteen

were natives. The next day the Bishop was taken to see a school founded

by a rich Bengalee baboo, whom Mr. Corrie had almost persuaded to be a

Christian, but who had settled down into a sort of general admiration for

the beauty of the Gospel, and a wish to improve his countrymen. He had

made over the house where the school was kept to the Church Missionary

Society, and the staff consisted of an English schoolmaster, a Persian

moonshee, and two Hindostanee writing masters, the whole presided over by

an English catechist, a candidate for Holy Orders. There were several

class rooms, and a large, lofty hall, supported by pillars, where the

Bishop examined the 140, who read Persian and English, answered questions

in Hindostanee and English, and showed great proficiency in writing,

arithmetic, and geography. No objection was made to their reading the

New Testament.

Afterwards, when the Bishop looked into a little pagoda, richly carved,

and containing an image of Siva, crowned with scarlet flowers, with lamps

burning before him, and a painted bull in front, a little boy, one of the

brightest scholars in the school, came forward, and showing his

Brahminical string, told, in tolerable English, the histories of the

deities with which the walls were painted. "This," says the Bishop,

"opened my eyes more fully to a danger which had before struck me as

possible, that some of the boys brought up in our schools might grow up

accomplished hypocrites, playing the part of Christian with us, and with

their own people of zealous followers of Brahma, or else that they would

settle down in a sort of compromise between the two creeds, allowing that

Christianity was the best for us, but that idolatry was necessary and

commendable in persons of their own nation." This in fact seems to have

been ever since the state of a large proportion of the educated Hindoos.

May it be only a transition state!

The street preaching employed by the Serampore community had not been

resorted to by the Church Missionary Society, and Bishop Heber decided

that in the fanatic population, amid the crowds of bulls, beggars, and

sacred apes, it was far wiser not to attempt it; but the missionaries

were often sent for to private houses to converse with natives of rank,

on their doctrine. One notable Hindoo, Amrut Row, who had at one time

been Peishwa of the Mahrattas, who had retired to Benares, used on the

feast of his patron god to give a portion of rice and a rupee to every

Brahmin and blind or lame person who applied between sunrise and sunset.

He had a large garden with four gates, three of which were set open for

the three classes of applicants; the fourth served himself and his

servants. As each person received his dole, he was shown into the

garden, and detained there to prevent his applying twice, but there he

enjoyed plenty of shade, water, company, and idols! This day's

distribution often amounted to above 50,000 rupees, and his charities

altogether were three times as great in the course of every year. He was

a good kind man, religious to the best of his knowledge; and just before

the Bishop's visit, he had sent a message to Mr. Morris, the clergyman at

Sealcote, to call on him in the middle of the next week as he wished to

inquire further into Christianity. Alas! before the appointed day Amrut

Row was dead, and his ashes were still smoking when the Bishop quitted

Benares.

What had become of Henry Martyn's church does not appear, for at Cawnpore

he found none, but service was alternately performed in a bungalow and in

the riding-school. He went as far north as Oude, and found at Chinear a

much larger native congregation than he expected, though the women still

retained so much of Eastern customs that they would not even raise their

veils when receiving the Holy Communion. Almost all were the converts of

the excellent Mr. Corrie, Henry Martyn's friend.

Arriving at Surat, after a journey of ten months, he there embarked for

Bombay, where his wife and eldest child came from Calcutta, by sea, to

meet him, and thence, after a stay in Ceylon for some weeks, returned to

Calcutta, where, in December, he ordained Abdul Messeh, the man who had

been won by Henry Martyn's garden preachings. It was a very remarkable

ordination, for Father Abraham, the Armenian Suffragan from the Patriarch

of Jerusalem, was present, in the black robes of his convent, and laid

his hand on the heads of the candidates, and the service was in

Hindostanee, whenever Abdul Messeh was individually concerned. Abdul

Messeh was a most valuable worker among his countrymen, but he only

survived about eighteen months.

In his last letter to the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, the

Bishop records the reception into Bishop's College of Mesrop David, the

kinsman of the Armenian Bishop and already a deacon; also of two native

youths from Ceylon, one Tamul and one Cingalese. This college, though a

work which had none of the romance of adventure about it, afforded the

surest and most important means of thoroughly implanting the Gospel, and

forming a native priesthood fit for the varying needs of the various

people. Nor could such a task be committed to any but superior men. Only

such as have abilities that would win them distinction in England, are

fit to cope with the difficulties of dealing with intellects quite as

argumentative as, and even more subtle than, those of the ordinary level

of Englishmen.

Soon after writing this letter, Bishop Heber set forth on what was to

prove his last visitation. On the voyage to Madras, he spent much time

upon some invalid soldiers who were being sent home, and confirmed one of

them on board. Also he devoted himself to comforting a poor lady whose

baby died on the voyage, not only when with her in her cabin, but

Archdeacon Robinson, his chaplain, could hear him weeping and praying for

her when alone in his own.

At Madras, he was lodged in the house of Sir Thomas Munro, the governor,

who had done much by the help of his excellent wife to promote all that

was good. At Vepery, close at hand, the Bishop found, nearly finished,

the first church built in the Gothic style in India. He was greatly

delighted with it, and especially that the desk and pulpit had not been

allowed to obstruct the view of the altar, which had more dignity than

was usual in the churches of 1826. A monstrous pulpit in another little

church at Poonamalee, a depot for recruits, and an asylum for pensioners

and soldiers' children, he caused to be removed. He had a confirmation

at this place, or rather two, for some unexpected candidates presented

themselves, and he desired Archdeacon Robinson to examine them, so that

they might be confirmed later in the day. Among them was an old

pensioner, and a sickly-looking young woman with a little boy, whom the

Archdeacon thought too young, and recommended her to keep back for

another opportunity. She wept much, and the Bishop said, "Bring them

both to me; who knows whether they may live to wish for it again?" The

native Christians, poor people employed on the beach, remnants of the old

Portuguese Missions, had built a church at their own expense, and, being

unable to obtain regular ministrations from their own clergy, begged the

Bishop to consecrate their building, and give them a clergyman, and this

he hoped to do on his return.

Meantime, he went in his robes to present Lady Munro with a vote of

thanks from the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, for the good

works in the schools of her husband's government. "I have seldom

witnessed a more interesting or affecting picture," writes Archdeacon

Robinson: "the beauty and gracefulness of Lady Munro, the grave and

commanding figure of the Governor, the youthful appearance and simple

dignity of the dear Bishop, the beloved of all beholders, presented a

scene such as few can ever hope to witness." "My lord," said Sir Thomas,

with the tears rolling down his cheeks, "it will be vain for me after

this to preach humility to Lady Munro; she will be proud of this day to

the latest hour she lives."

"God bless you, Sir Thomas!" was all the Bishop could utter.

"And God bless _you_, my lord!" was the fervent answer.

Before eighteen months had passed the two good men who exchanged this

blessing, had met in Paradise!

The Bishop went on from Madras, travelling by dak, and encamping during

the heat of the day. He soon came into the field of labour of the Danish

Missions, and was disappointed to find how poor and forlorn the Christian

converts about Cuddalore were, and the great want of employment for them.

Things were better in the Tanjore territory, where the Bishop was much

interested by a visit from the native pastor of one of the villages, a

fine, venerable old man. When about to take leave, he lingered, and the

Bishop was told that the Tamul Christians never quitted a minister

without receiving his blessing. He was greatly touched. "I will bless

them all, the good people," he said, after blessing the pastor.

Arriving at Tanjore, the Bishop thus describes Serfojee:--"I have been

passing the last four days in the society of a Hindoo Prince, the Rajah

of Tanjore, who quotes Fourcroy, Lavoilier, Linnaeus, and Buffon

fluently; has formed a more accurate judgment of the poetical merits of

Shakespeare than that so felicitously expressed by Lord Byron; and has

actually emitted English poetry, very superior indeed to Rousseau's

epitaph on Shenstone; at the same time that he is much respected by the

English officers in his neighbourhood, as a real good judge of a horse,

and a cool, bold, and deadly shot at a tiger. The truth is, that he is

an extraordinary man, who, having in early youth received such an

education as old Schwartz, the celebrated missionary, could give him, has

ever since continued, in the midst of many disadvantages, to preserve his

taste for, and extend his knowledge of, European literature: while he has

never neglected the active exercises and frank, soldierly bearing which

become the descendant of the old Mahratta conquerors; and by which only,

in the present state of things, he has it in his power to gratify the

prejudices of his people, and prolong his popularity among them. Had he

lived in the days of Hyder, he would have been a formidable ally or

enemy; for he is, by the testimony of all in his neighbourhood, frugal,

bold, popular, and insinuating. At present, with less power than an

English nobleman, he holds his head high, and appears contented; and the

print of Buonaparte, which hangs in his library, is so neutralized by

that of Lord Hastings in full costume, that it can do no harm to anybody.

. . . To finish the portrait of Maha Raja Sarbojee, I should tell you

that he is a strong-built and very handsome middle-aged man, with eyes

and nose like a fine hawk, and very bushy grey mustachios, generally

splendidly dressed, but with no effeminacy of ornament, and looking and

talking more like a favourable specimen of a French general officer than

any other object of comparison which occurs to me. His son, Raja

Seroojee (so named after their great ancestor), is a pale, sickly-looking

lad of seventeen, who also speaks English, but imperfectly, and on whose

account his father lamented, with much apparent concern, the

impossibility which he found of obtaining any tolerable instruction in

Tanjore. I was moved at this, and offered to take him on my tour, and

afterwards to Calcutta, where he might have apartments in my house, and

be introduced into good English society; at the same time that I would

superintend his studies, and procure for him the best masters which India

affords. The father and son, in different ways,--the one catching at the

idea with great eagerness, the other as if he were afraid to say all he

wished,--seemed both well pleased with the proposal. Both, however, on

consulting together, expressed a doubt of the mother's concurrence; and,

accordingly, next day I had a very civil message, through the Resident,

that the Rannee had already lost two sons; that this survivor was a

sickly boy; that she was sure he would not come back alive, and it would

kill her to part with him; but that all the family joined in gratitude,

&c. So poor Seroojee must chew betel and sit in the zenana, and pursue

the other amusements of the common race of Hindoo princes, till he is

gathered to those heroic forms who, girded with long swords with hawks on

their wrists, and garments like those of the king of spades (whose

portrait-painter, as I guess, has been retained by this family), adorn

the principal room in the palace."

To the Bishop's great indignation, he found that whereas while the Rajah

had retained his dominions, Christians had been eligible to all the

different offices of State, there was now an order from the Company's

Government against their admission to any employment. "Surely," he says,

"we are, in matters of religion, the most lukewarm and cowardly people on

the face of the earth. I mean to make this and some other things I have

seen a matter of formal representation to all the three Governments of

India, and to the Board of Control."

It is highly probable that this systematic dread of encouraging God's

service on the part of the Company assisted in keeping Serfojee a

heathen, in spite of the many prayers offered up for him. Almost the

last in Heber's book of private devotions was for the Rajah; and he drew

up one, to be translated into Tamul, for use in all the churches in his

territory; this last not directly for his conversion, but for his

temporal and spiritual welfare.

It is pleasant to know that the last Easter of Heber's life was made

joyful by ministering to Schwartz's spiritual children. He preached in

that church which Schwartz had raised, and where his monument stood. His

text was, "I am He that liveth and was dead, and behold I am alive for

evermore." Many English-speaking natives went there, and others besides;

and at the Holy Eucharist that followed there were thirty English and

fifty-seven native communicants. The delight and admiration of the

Bishop were speedily apparent. In the evening he attended a Tamul

service, where the prayers were said by a Hindoo, the sermon preached by

a Dane, and the blessing delivered by the Bishop in Tamul, to the

surprise and pleasure of the congregation, which numbered no less than

1,300, all reverent, all making the responses, joining in the Easter

hymn, and in the 100th Psalm. Never had the Bishop been happier! As he

was taking off his robes, he exclaimed, "Gladly would I exchange years of

common life for _one_ such day as this!" Even at night he could not help

coming back to Archdeacon Robinson's room to rejoice, discuss, and

finally pray over this blessed fruit of the toils of a holy man, who had

been at rest thirty-eight years, yet whose work still increased. The

next day he confirmed a large number; and Kohloff, a contemporary

missionary of Schwartz, preached in Tamul.

After this happy Easter, the Bishop continued his route to Trichinopoly,

where he preached and confirmed on the Sunday, but complained of a slight

headache, and allowed himself to be persuaded not to go to the native

service in the evening, though he spent a good deal of time conversing

with Mr. Robinson, who was unwell enough to be lying in bed.

On Monday, the 3rd of April, he went at daybreak to hold a Tamul

confirmation at the poor little neglected native church; then looked at

the schools, but found that the want of ventilation rendered them too

oppressive for him to remain; and afterwards received and graciously

answered an address from the poor Christians, praying him to send them a

pastor, for they had been without one for two years. He came back, still

in his robes, to Mr. Robinson's bedroom, and, with great eagerness,

talked over what he had seen and heard; speaking of the destitution of

this poor church, and of the needfulness that a Bishop should receive

regular reports of every station; also mentioning a Danish missionary

whom he intended to appoint. He then went to his own room, and,

according to Indian habit after exertion, went out in order to bathe. The

bath was in a separate building. It was fifteen feet long, eight broad,

and with stone steps descending into it to a depth of seven feet, and it

was perfectly full of water. The servant sitting outside wondered at the

length of time and unbroken silence, and at last looked in; but Reginald

Heber had, by that time, long been lifeless in the cold bath!

He was only in his forty-fourth year; but medical opinion declared that

there had been, unsuspected, the seeds of fatal disease, accelerated by

climate, exertion, and excitement, and such as would probably have caused

long helplessness and inaction, unless thus suddenly developed.

He was buried the next day at Trichinopoly church, where the mural

tablet, with most touching and appropriate simplicity, bears no

inscription in laudation, but merely the holy words, "Be ye also ready."

Thus ended a life of inward and outward brightness, which comes like a

stream of sunshine among the shadows through which most of the labourers

had to struggle, either for want of means of education, or from poverty

or melancholy, and yet as true and as exhilarating a course as was ever

one of theirs. May we not read his description in the verse:--

"And there are souls that seem to dwell

Above this earth--so rich a spell

Floats round their steps where'er they move,

Of hopes fulfilled, and mutual love:

Such, if on high their hopes are set,

Nor in the stream the source forget;

If, prompt to quit the bliss they know,

Following the Lamb where'er He go,

By purest pleasures unbeguiled

To idolize or wife or child,

Such wedded souls our God shall own

For faultless virgins round His throne."

Mrs. Heber published soon after her return her husband's journals, and

these, bearing the impress of his graceful, scholarly hand, attracted

many readers who care merely for information and amusement; and thus, by

their mere mundane qualities, his writings did much to spread knowledge

of, and therefore interest in, the field of labour in which he died.

Large subscriptions came into the societies, and in a few years a church

and three schools for the natives, with the pastor he had indicated,

served as the best monument of that Low Sunday at Trichinopoly.

His successor was John Thomas James: the most memorable event in whose

life was a halt at the Cape of Good Hope. This was the first time that

colony had ever been visited by a Bishop, and there was no church, though

a piece of land had been newly granted for one, which he consecrated

before proceeding on his voyage. He arrived in 1828, but the climate of

Calcutta struck him for death almost immediately. He was only able to

perform one ordination, one confirmation, and one charge to the Calcutta

clergy, then was forced to embark, and died at sea within a few months of

his arrival.

During this time Daniel Wilson had been working under Mr. Cecil at

Chobham, where he remained for three years, when a tutorship at St.

Edmund's Hall was offered to him, which enabled him to marry his cousin

Ann, combining the small living of Warton with his tutorship. On the

death of the Rev. Richard Cecil he took, by his especial wish, his

proprietary chapel in Bloomsbury, and there continued till 1824 as one of

the most marked London clergy, keeping up the earnestness that Newton and

Cecil had been noted for, with quite as much energy; and though without

the same originality, there was a _telling_ force about his sermons which

made a young man exclaim the first time he heard him, "I will never hear

Daniel Wilson again," but something led him happily to infringe the

resolution, and then it became, "I will always, if possible, hear Daniel

Wilson." Sentences of his were very memorable; for instance, "Nineteen-

twentieths of sanctification consist in holy tempers," and, besides

exhibiting a pithy force of language, his sermons were prepared with

infinite care and labour. When at St. John's, where he had no parochial

charge, he selected his text on Monday and carried it about with him, so

to speak, all the week, chewing the cud of it as it were, looking it up

in every authority, ancient or modern, within his reach, and conversing

on the subject with any one whom he thought likely to give him a hint.

The sermons were written in a large legible shorthand, only on one side

of the paper, and on the opposite page were copied out extracts of

translations from illustrative authors, often as many as eight to a

single sermon, so that he had in fact a huge secretion of stores, which

he could adapt according to the needs of his congregation, and he made

notes of what he found fall flat and incomprehensible, or what he felt

was stirring the souls of his audience; and this time was most profitably

spent, not only for his immediate congregation, but in laying up a

provision for the busier days of after-life, when the same amount of

study was out of his power. And the benefit of such painstaking may be

estimated by the words of a gentleman when introduced to a relative of

his in after-years, "I am only one of very many who do not know and never

spoke to Mr. Wilson, but to whom he has been a father in CHRIST. He

never will know, and he never ought to know, the good that he has been

the means of doing, for no man could bear it."

Proprietary chapels have now nearly become extinct. They were an effect

of the neglect of the heathenish eighteenth century, and one of the means

of providing church room by private speculation; and thus they almost

necessarily were liable to the abuses of popularity-hunting and of lack

of care for individuals, especially the poor: but a man in thorough

earnestness is sure to draw good even out of a defective system; and

Daniel Wilson, sitting in his study which was connected with the chapel,

became the counsellor of hundreds who sought spiritual advice and

assistance, chiefly of the upper and well-to-do classes, but he took care

to avoid wasting time over these conferences, and when it came to mere

talk would put people's hats and umbrellas into their hands. There were

also large Sunday-schools connected with his chapel, and taught by the

members of his congregation, and these led to the first organization of a

district visitors' society, one of the earliest attempts of the slowly

reviving English Church to show her laity how to minister to the poor

under pastoral direction.

His father-in-law, Mr. William Wilson, had purchased the advowson of the

living of Islington, and, when it became vacant in 1824, presented it to

him, when he carried thither all his vigour and thoroughness. Church

building was his first necessity, and he absolutely prevailed on his

parish to rate themselves for the purpose, so that three churches were

begun almost at once, and by the time his Life was written in 1860 the

great suburb had multiplied its single church in thirty-six years into

fifteen. At Islington the chief sorrows of his life befel him. He had

had six children, of whom one died an infant and two more in early

childhood. The second son, John, after a boyhood of great promise, fell

into temptation at the University and led a wild and degrading course;

ending by his retirement to the Continent, where he died in 1833, after a

very painful illness, in which he had evinced great agony of mind, which

softened at length into repentance and hope. The eldest son, Daniel, who

attended him on his death-bed, had taken holy orders and succeeded to his

father's former living of Warton; and one daughter, Eliza, born in 1814,

survived to cheer his home when his wife, after some years of invalidism,

died in 1827. Zealous, resolute, and hardworking, he never allowed

sorrow to interfere with his work, and was soon in the midst of his

confirmation classes, and of a scheme for educating young tradespeople on

a more thorough and religious system.

In the meantime he had always loved and urged the missionary cause, and

had consulted with Bishop Turner before he went out. When the news of

his decease was received (the fourth Bishop to die at his post within

nine years), the appointment began to be looked on as a sentence of

death, and it was declined in succession by several eminent clergymen.

Daniel Wilson had anxiously watched for the answer in each case, and was

suggesting several persons to Mr. Charles Grant, when the thought struck

him, "Here I am, send me." A widower of fifty-four years old, of much

strength, and with no young children, seemed to him the fit person to

volunteer to fill the breach; and he wrote stating, that if no one else

could be found for the post, he was willing to offer himself. The

appointment was accordingly given to him, after an interval of nine

months since the see had become vacant, and an infinity of toil and

arrangements crowded on him. Islington was resigned to his son Daniel,

and he was consecrated by Archbishop Howley on the 29th of April, 1832,

"the day of my espousals to CHRIST my Saviour," as he wrote in his

journal; and on the ensuing 18th of June he sailed with his daughter for

Calcutta. The ship touched at the Cape, which under the government of

Sir Lowry Cole was by no means in the same hopeless state of neglect as

when Martyn had visited it. Bishop Wilson there held an ordination and a

confirmation, the first for himself as well as for South Africa, whose

Episcopate was not founded till twenty-three years later.

He landed at Calcutta on the 5th of November, 1832, and took possession

of the large unfurnished house that had at last been wrung out of

Government. He found only just enough chairs and tables, placed there by

the Archdeacon, to suffice for immediate use; and was answered, when he

asked why his orders that the place should be completely fitted up had

not been attended to, "I thought this would be enough to last for six

months,"--this being the term for which a Bishop of Calcutta was thought

likely to need earthly furniture. But Bishop Wilson was resolved to take

reasonable precaution, and not to be daunted, or to act as if he were

afraid. He furnished the place, and rented a pleasant country-house,

called the Hive, at Tittaghur, where he spent a few days of every week;

and, having been told that much danger was incurred by the exertion of

visitation tours before the constitution had become accustomed to the

climate, he resolved to wait for two years before making any long

journey; and, in the meantime, he was able to collect a great amount of

information, as well as attending to the regulation of matters at head-

quarters. He kept up more formality and state than Bishop Heber had

done; and, of course, as the one had been censured for his simplicity, so

the other was found fault with for pomp and stiffness. But these were

minor points, chiefly belonging to the character of the two men, whose

whole natures were in curious accordance with their prize performances at

Oxford,--the one with all the warmth, fire, and animation of the poet of

Palestine, sensitive to every impression, and making all serve to light

his altar-flame; the other all common-sense, sincere, deep, and

laborious, but with a narrower range of sympathies, and afraid of all

that might distract attention from the one great subject. General

literature had no charms for Wilson. He is believed never to have read

one of Scott's poems or novels; and the playful mirth that enlivened all

Heber's paths was not with him, though he had the equable cheerfulness of

a faithful servant doing his Lord's work. His daughter, soon after his

arrival, married her cousin, Josiah Bateman, his chaplain (and

biographer), and thus continued to be the mistress of her father's house.

On the Whitsunday of 1833 the Bishop baptized one of those Hindoo

gentlemen who are among the most satisfactory of Christian converts; they

are free from the suspicion of interested motives which has always

attached to the pariahs and low-caste people who hung about Serampore and

its dependent stations, and, justly or unjustly, were accused of turning

Christians when they had exhausted other resources of idleness and

knavery. A curious instance of a thorough conversion happened the same

year. A lad, educated like most other well-to-do Hindoos in the schools

of the Church Missionary at Mirzampore, when about fifteen, became

persuaded of the saving grace of Christianity, and determined to be

baptized and openly forsake his idols. His parents persecuted him, and

he fled to a friend, a Hindoo convert; but he was seized by his

relations, and the case was referred to the Supreme Court, who decided

that the father's power over the son must not be interfered with; and the

poor boy was dragged away, clinging to the barrister's table, amid the

shouts of the heathen and the tears of the Christians. The boy remained

staunch, and three years later came again and received baptism; but his

sufferings had injured his health, both of mind and body, and his promise

of superior intelligence was blighted.

In 1834, the Bishop set off on his first long journey, which included

Penang and Moulmein, where the Judsons had taken refuge after the Burmese

war, and where he found, in the midst of half-cleared jungle and Buddhist

temples full of enormous idols, a school kept by an American master, so

full of notions of equality, that, at the examination, he expected the

Bishop to go to each class, not the class to the Bishop.

The Commissioner had built a church, the walls of teak slabs, and the

pillars each a single teak-tree, and it was ready for consecration. After

this and a confirmation, the Bishop went on his way to Ceylon, and then

to the Madras Presidency, where he had already had a long correspondence

with the pastors of the Christian congregations on the question of caste.

Things had not prospered of late; and, to the dismay of the Bishop, he

found that, in the course of the last year, 168 Christians had fallen

back to heathenism, where, not having broken their caste, they could

still be received and find a place. The truth was that, though caste

might appear only a distinction of mere social rank, it was derived from

a pagan superstition, and was a stronghold of heathenism. Schwartz was

all his life trying to make it wear and die out, lest the violent

renunciation should be too much for his converts' faith. But his

successors had allowed the feeling to retrograde; and Bishop Wilson found

separate services, sides of the church allotted to the high and low

castes, and the most unchristian distinctions made between them. He

decided that toleration of the prejudice was only doing harm, and issued

orders that henceforth catechumens preparing for baptism, confirmation,

or communion, should be called on to renounce caste as a condition of

admittance; and that, though the adult communicants should be gently

dealt with, there should be no recognition of the distinction in the

places in church, in the order of administering the Holy Communion, in

marriages or processions, and that differences of food or dress, or marks

on the forehead, should be discontinued. The clergy were in

consternation, and made an appeal before they published the Bishop's

letter to their flocks; but they found his mind made up, and yielded. The

lesser stations complied without much difficulty; but at Trichinopoly,

Vepery, and Tanjore, there were many Soodras, the soldier-caste,

professing to have come from Brahma's shoulders, and second only to the

Brahmins. They were desperately offended. At Trichinopoly, only seven

Soodra families continued to attend the services, although the seceders

behaved quietly, and offered no insults either to the clergy or the

pariahs. At Vepery, on the reading of the Bishop's letter, the whole

Soodra population walked out _en masse_, except one catechist, who joined

them afterwards. They then drew up a paper, declaring that they would

not yield, and would neither come to church nor send their children to

school, unless they continued to be distinguished; and they set up a

service of their own in a chapel lent them by a missionary belonging to

the London Society. He was, however, reprimanded for this by the

committee which employed him at Madras, and the chapel was withdrawn;

upon which the Soodras remained without any public worship whatever for

five months, when the catechists and schoolmasters came forward and

acknowledged their pride and contumacy, the children dropped into the

schools, and the grown-up people, one by one, returned to church, but in

their own way.

At Tanjore, the contest was a much harder one. Serfojee had died in

1834, and the son whom Bishop Heber had vainly tried to obtain for

education was one of the ordinary specimens of indolent, useless rajahs,

enjoying ease and display under British protection; but the Mission had

gone on thriving as to numbers, though scarcely as to earnestness or

energy; and the Christians numbered 7,000, with 107 catechists and four

native clergy, under the management of Mr. Kohloff, almost the last of

Schwartz's fellow-workers. The Bishop's letter was read aloud by him,

after the sermon, on the 10th of November, 1833. There was an immediate

clamour of all the Soodras, who would not be hushed by being reminded

that they were in church, and, while Mr. Kohloff was being assisted from

the pulpit, gathered round his wife and insulted her.

Letters passed between the Soodras and the missionaries. There was no

denial that the Bishop's command was right in itself; but an immense

variety of excuses were offered for not complying with it, and only one

of the four priests consented,--Nyanapracasem, an old man of eighty, who

may be remembered as one of Schwartz's earliest converts, and of the four

priests ordained by the Lutherans,--with three catechists, and ten of the

general body; all the others remained in a state of secession. When the

first death took place among them, Nyanapracasem, the one conforming

priest, was appointed to read the funeral service; but he fell sick, and

the only substitute available on the spot was a low-caste catechist, a

very respectable man, but whom the Soodras silenced with threats,

employing one of their own people in his stead. Next time, they borrowed

the Roman Catholic burial-ground, and services were carried on, on

Sunday, by one of the dissentient priests, but marriages were celebrated

in the heathen fashion, and there was evidently a strong disposition to

form a schism, which the reckless, easy, self-willed conduct of the

Soodras showed would be Christianity only in name. There had even been

an appeal to the Governor-General, and the Bishop felt the whole tone of

Christianity in India to be at stake.

It was in the height of this crisis that his journey to Madras was made

in the track of Bishop Heber. Twice he preached at Vepery, and the

Soodras attended; but he asked no questions, and let them place

themselves as they chose, and take precedence, intending to fight out the

question at Tanjore.

There, at seven o'clock in the morning of January 10, 1835, on the bank

of the Cavery River, he was received by all the faithful Christians and

school-children, headed by Kohloff and Nyanapracasem, These were the two

remaining fellow-workers of Schwartz. Kohloff, now becoming aged, had

his hair long and loose round his florid German face; he was still a true

German, full of simple kindness, and his English had a good deal of

accent. His Hindoo companion was a beautiful old man, with long snowy

hair flowing over his long white robes, who took the Bishop's hand

between both of his, and blessed God for his coming, hoping that as

Elijah brought back the stiff-necked Israelites, so the Bishop might turn

the hearts of the Soodras.

Late that afternoon, a great party of these assembled to lay their

complaints before the Bishop, bringing their two dissentient priests. One

was of doubtful character, and was unnoticed; but to the other, John

Pillay, the Bishop addressed himself, telling him to assure the other

Christians that his heart was full of love, and that he would hear their

grievances, and answer them another time, when less weary with his

journey.

Several spoke, and the Bishop listened to their individual cases. They

were anxious to come and hear his sermon, but would only do so if allowed

to sit apart; and to this, as one great object was to obtain their

attention, the Bishop consented, with a reservation that it was only for

that once. The church was thronged, and after a Tamul service, the

Bishop preached, pausing after every sentence that a catechist might

render his words into Tamul. The text was, "Walk in love, as Christ also

loved us," and the latter part of his discourse was on the lesson from

the Good Samaritan, as to "who is my neighbour." There was at the end a

long pause of breathless silence, and then he called on everyone present

to offer up the following prayer: "Lord, give me a broken heart to

receive the love of Christ, and obey His commands." The whole

congregation repeated the words aloud in Tamul, and then he gave the

blessing and dismissed them.

After this there were a great number of private conferences. People came

and owned that they had been very unhappy; religion had died in their

hearts, and they had had no peace; but their wives were the great

objectors--they feared whether they should marry their daughters, &c. &c.

The two priests especially saw the badness of their standing-ground, but

they should lose respect, they said. No Pariah seems to have been in

holy orders, but if a Pariah catechist visited a sick person, he was not

allowed to come under the roof, and the patient was carried out into the

verandah. And then came a rather stormy conference with about 150

Soodras, which occupied two days, since every sentence had to pass

through an interpreter. The objections were various, but as a body the

resistance continued, and it was only individuals that came over; some of

these, however, did, and it was so clear from all that had passed that to

permit the distinctions was but a truckling to heathenism, that the

Bishop was more than ever resolved on firmness. Two of the priests had

conformed, and the Christianity of those who would not do so was plainly

not worth having.

There was some polite intercourse with Serfojee's son, whose taste was

visible in the alteration of a fine statue of his father by Flaxman, from

which the white marble turban had been removed to substitute a coloured

one, with black feathers and tassels. In him the family has become

extinct, since he only left a daughter, and the adoption of a son, after

the old Hindoo fashion, has not been permitted by Government.

Thence, Bishop Wilson proceeded towards Trichinopoly. He encamped, by

the way, at a place called Muttooputty, a large station on the Coleroon

river, where the way had been so prepared for him that there was a grand

throng of native Christians, untroubled about caste, and he was obliged

literally to lengthen the cords and strengthen the stakes of the large

tent used as a chapel. It was one of the memorable days of joy that come

now and then to support the laborious spirit of the faithful servant.

"One such day as we have just passed is worth years of common service."

At Trichinopoly, with the deepest sense of reverence, he visited the

scene of Heber's death, ministered at the same altar, and preached from

the same pulpit, after an interval of nine years.

Here, his mode of dealing with the caste-question was thus: When he came

robed into the church, he saw groups of natives standing about, instead

of placing themselves like the others of the congregation. He went up to

two, led them to seats, and his chaplain following, did the same; the

rest were seated in like manner without resistance.

When the Celebration took place, the Bishop had given directions as to

the order of things. First, a Soodra catechist communicated, then two

Pariah catechists, then an English gentleman, next a Pariah, then two

Eurasians; and thus without distinction, 147 communicated. The barrier

was broken down, and the nucleus of a church without caste was formed.

This presidency of Madras was immediately after formed into a separate

see, and given to Daniel Corrie, the friend of Martyn, while Dr. Thomas

Carr became Bishop of Bombay.

On Wilson's return to Tanjore he found an increasing though still small

number had conformed, and before he left the place there were hopes of

larger numbers. On his way back to Calcutta, he visited the horrible

pagoda of Juggernaut (properly Jaghanatha, Lord of the World), which was

still the centre of worship and pilgrimage; and though the

self-immolation of the pilgrims beneath the car had been prohibited, yet

the Company's Government still fancied themselves justified in receiving

a toll from the visitors to this shrine of cruelty and all uncleanness,

up to 1839, when the disgrace was done away by Lord Auckland.

In the year 1836 another journey was made, first to Bombay and then

further into the interior, to many places, never visited by a bishop

before, and with no chaplain or anything to keep up the sense of

religion. At Aurungabad, the utter ignorance of the English officers was

appalling. The old Colonel-commandant had not heard a sermon for twenty

years, and thought every sentence on the text, "Walk in love," was a

personal attack on himself. He refused to attend another service, or to

bid the Bishop farewell! And when the Holy Communion was celebrated,

nobody knew what the offertory meant, and scarcely any one was prepared

to respond.

Yet in contrast to these English, a small band of Hindoos, four men, six

women, and five children, presented themselves, asking permission to join

in the service, and to have their children baptized. They had been once

Roman Catholics, but an old Dutchwoman from Ceylon had taught them most

of what they knew; and they had a Hindostanee prayer-book, whence they

held a service every Sunday, but leaving out the Absolution and

Benediction, which they rightly perceived to be priestly functions. Two

of them were servants to an English officer, and they were all nearly

related. They were perfectly respectable and trustworthy, and looked

well dressed and intelligent. The Bishop tried to bring about an

application from the Company to the Nizam, to defray the expenses of an

occasional visit from a chaplain to the Christian officers and residents

in his employ, but he was answered that "it would form a dangerous

precedent."

The next step was into the Bengal presidency, always with the same kind

of adventures; quaint civilities of the presentation of flowery garlands

bedecking the neck and arms, given by the native princes, with a

sprinkling of rose-water, and sometimes an anointing with oil; and then

an endeavour to stir into Christian life the neglected English military

and civil officers stationed in their dominions.

One of these, a gentleman of good birth and repute, actually went on

smoking and gurgling his hookah when the Bishop was beginning family

prayers, apparently with no more perception that it was anything that

concerned him than if he had seen a Mahometan turning to Mecca, or a

Parsee saluting the rising sun. Indeed many of these Company's servants

had been sent out when fourteen or fifteen years old; and, if in a remote

station, had been left without anything external whatever to remind them

of Christianity.

This journey extended to the Himalayas, where the Bishop had four months'

repose at Simlah, then in its infancy as a resort for wearied East

Indians; and on his descent from thence, his first halting-place was

Kurnaul, where he found the church in a state of efficiency, owing, in

great part, to an officer whose conversion to a religious life had been

very remarkable. Once, when in a large party, where gambling was going

on to a reckless extent, he saw one of the players take out a hideous

little black figure, supposed to represent the devil, to which he

addressed himself with a mixture of entreaties and threats, involving

such blasphemy that this officer, utterly horrified, withdrew from the

company, spent the night in tears and prayers, and from that time became

a religious man. There was also an active chaplain, a large church, and

a bungalow, built by the soldiers of an English regiment, the centre part

arranged for service, and the surrounding verandah partitioned into

little cells, where the soldiers could retire for private prayer or

reading. It was called St. John's Chapel, and was in the hands of the

chaplain. Here the Bishop remained for two Sundays, and ordained Anund

Musseeh, who had been fifteen years a Christian, and had been known to

Bishop Heber. The difficulty in his case was the rule not to ordain a

person who had a heathen family, since he had not been able to convert

his wife. His excellence outweighed the objection, and he was the first

Brahmin who received holy orders from an English bishop; but in after-

times the heathen influence at home told upon him; and this failure

perhaps rendered Bishop Daniel Wilson somewhat over-cautious and backward

in ordaining a native ministry.

The next stage was Delhi, where a very interesting interview awaited him.

An officer of Anglo-Indian birth, James Skinner by name, who had raised

and commanded a capital body of light horse, had twenty years before

entered Delhi with a conquering army, and, gazing on the countless domes

and minarets, vowed that if ever he should be able, he would build an

English church to raise its cross among them. He had persevered, though

the cost far exceeded the estimate, and though the failure of houses of

business had greatly lessened his means; and now he came, a tall, stout,

dark man of fifty-six, in a uniform of blue, silver, and steel, a helmet

on his head and a red ribbon on his breast, to beg for consecration for

his church. His sons were Christians, but his wife was a Mahometan,

though, he said with tears, that "for thirty years a better wife no man

ever had."

The church was of Greek architecture, shaped as a Greek cross, with

porticoes with flights of steps at each extremity except the east, which

formed the chancel, and at the intersection was a dome and cupola. It

was paved with marble, and the whole effect was beautiful. After the

consecration a confirmation followed, and the first to receive the

apostolic rite were the noble old Colonel himself and his three sons.

Twenty years later this fine building was filled with dying men, and

shared in the horrors of the siege of Delhi; but it has now returned to

its rightful use, and as a church of martyrs.

Indeed, all the places that the Bishop visited in this excursion have

since been associated with the Mutiny. Cawnpore was not much more

satisfactory than when Heber had visited it; an irreligious commandant

and a dissipated regiment had done much harm; and an imprudent letter of

one of the chaplains had led to a quarrel, in which the clergyman

unfortunately put himself in the wrong. Happily, a new commanding

officer and better conducted regiment had replaced the first, and the ill-

feeling was so entirely removed that the Bishop wrote, "Never did I enter

a station with such despondency, nor leave one with so much joy." And

thus he prepared Cawnpore for that which was in store for it!

His visit to Allahabad was chiefly memorable for his horror at the large

resort of pilgrims to bathe in the Ganges, and at the tax by which a

Christian government profited by their pagan superstition, with all its

grossness and cruelty. He brought home a little ticket, with the number

76902 stamped on it, such as was issued to the pilgrims, and made a

strong appeal to the Governor-General, as well as to persons in England.

The next year both this tax and that on the pilgrims to Jaghernauth were

suppressed. Here he heard of the death of Bishop Corrie, after having

held the see of Madras only a year and a quarter, but having spent many

years in India, and worked there for a whole lifetime, in which he had

seen the very dawn of missionary efforts, and had watched the English

Church spread from a few scattered chaplains to three bishoprics.

Lord Auckland and his sisters were more sincere friends of Christian

efforts than any Governor-General had yet been, but these were trying

times. Mr. Bateman, his daughter's husband, fell ill, and his wife was

obliged to return to England with him; the Bishop's other chaplain died,

and also some of his best friends. On going, a few years later, to

consecrate a church at Singapore, he visited Moulmein, and was introduced

to Dr. Judson, with whom he was very much struck.

The great work connected with Daniel Wilson's name, as that of Bishop's

College is with Middleton's, is the building of the Cathedral of

Calcutta. "What do you say, my four children," he writes, "to your

father's attempting to build a cathedral to the name of the Lord his God

in this heathen land?" It had been the desire of Bishop Middleton, but

there had been too much to do during his nine years, and it was only now

that at last the times were ripe. Subscriptions were opened, and the

Bishop devoted a large amount of his income to the fund; plans were drawn

up, land granted freely, and on the 9th of October, 1839, the first stone

of St. Paul's Cathedral was laid by the Bishop.

Just at this time there was a most remarkable move made towards

Christianity. Krishnaghur, 130 miles from Calcutta, was the great centre

of the worship of Krishna, one of the manifestations of Vishnu. Here two

missionaries of the Church Missionary Society had been at work; and when

the Bishop was there in 1837, he described them as having made "a little

beginning," by keeping schools and holding conferences with the people,

but they had then no adult convert. A year after a message was brought

by a native, entreating for further help. There were 1,200 seriously

inquiring into the doctrine, with many candidates for baptism, and at

many places around it was the same. In the year 1840, the Bishop set

forth to visit the spot and the adjacent districts, where almost all the

villages seemed to be actuated by the same impulse. The missionaries did

their utmost to distinguish between mere fashion and hope of gain and a

true faith; but after all their siftings, large numbers were ready for

baptism, and the hope was so great that the Bishop was full of thankful

ecstasy, and could hardly sleep from agitation, joy, and anxiety. One

hundred and fifty converts were baptized at once, at a place called

Anunda Bass. The examination was thus, the Bishop standing in the

midst:--

"Are you sinners?"

"Yes, we are."

"How do you hope to obtain forgiveness?"

"By the sacrifice of Christ."

"What was that sacrifice?"

"We were sinners, and Christ died in our stead."

"How is your heart to be changed?"

"By the Holy Ghost."

"Will you renounce all idolatry, feasts, poojahs, and caste?"

"Yes, we renounce them all."

"Will you renounce the world, the flesh, and the devil?"

"Yes."

"Will you suffer for Christ's sake?"

"Yes."

"Will you forgive injuries?"

"Yes."

These converts had been under preparation for more than a year, and

seemed thoroughly convinced and fairly instructed. Therefore the

baptismal service was read by Mr. Deerr; and when the vows were reached,

the Bishop turned to the Christians around and asked if they would be

witnesses and godparents to these candidates; and, with one voice, they

shouted that they would. Each candidate was singly baptized, and then

came up to the Bishop, by whom the words receiving him into the Ark of

Christ's Church were spoken. At Ranobunda there was another baptism of

250, and, in the whole district, full a thousand were admitted. It was

not in over-confident joy. "Time will show," said the Bishop, "who are

wheat and who are tares." It was impossible among so many that all

should be perfect Christians, but it was a real foundation; the flame

then lighted burns on steadily, and the Christian faith has a firm and

strong hold in the district of Krishnaghur.

Anxieties of course crossed his work. The Church Missionary Society,

after being used to control its clergy, was not properly ready to allow

their canonical obedience to a Bishop; and the troubles that thus arose

made him once speak of Heber as happy in being shielded by his early

death from the class of vexations connected with societies. To his great

grief, too, a lady who had worked for years at the education of girls and

orphans at Calcutta seceded to the Plymouth Brethren, and was necessarily

obliged to give up the charge. It was to him "as if a standard-bearer

fainteth." The Oxford controversy also vexed him a good deal. The

school of Newton and Cecil, in which he had been brought up, was at the

most distant point that the Church permitted from the doctrines of the

Tracts for the Times; and few men are able or willing candidly to judge

or appreciate opinions that have grown up since their own budget was

completed, especially after they have been for some time in the exercise

of authority. Thus he set his mind very strongly against all the clergy

holding those views who came to work in the diocese; and thereby impeded

a good deal that might have worked heartily with him if he had only been

able to believe it, and to understand that the maintenance of the voice

of the Church is truly the maintenance of the voice of Christ.

In November 1844, when on a visitation at Umballah, he had his first

serious illness, a fever, he being then in his sixty-sixth year and in

the thirteenth of his residence in India. For about a week he was in

great danger, but rallied, and was able to be removed by slow stages,

though not without an attack of inflammation on the lungs before reaching

Calcutta; and his constitution was altogether so much shaken that he was

ordered home, without loss of time, to recruit his health.

He returned to England by the Overland route, and after a short respite

recovered much of his strength, so as to be able to preach in many

churches and appear at numerous meetings; and in a year's time the

vigorous old man was on his way back to his diocese, where he arrived in

time to keep the Christmas of 1846, just two years after he had been

stricken down by fever. In the October of the next year he consecrated

his cathedral, towards which 20,000_l._ had been his own donation, half

towards the building, half towards the endowment. His strength was not

quite what it had been before, but he still had abundant energy, and new

branches of the Church were springing up around him; not only the three

dioceses that had branched from his own in India, but Ceylon had a Bishop

of its own, Australia had five, and the Cape and New Zealand and the Isle

of Hong Kong had each received a Bishop. The principle had come to be

recognized that to send out isolated workers without a head to organize

was a plan that could hardly be reasonably expected to succeed; and in

the long run prosperity has certainly attended the contrary arrangement.

Not to speak of the Divine authority, the action of a body under a

recognized head and superior on the spot must be far readier of

adaptation to circumstances than that of a number of equals, accountable

only to some necessarily half-informed Society at home.

In his 73rd year, just after a visitation tour, it somewhat dismayed

Bishop Wilson to find a letter from the Bishop of London sending him to

consecrate the new church erected by Sir James Brooke, at Sarawak. Few

careers have been more remarkable than that of the truly great man who

subdued Malay piracy, and gained the confidence of the natives of Borneo;

and when the effort of the fourteen weeks' voyage had been made, the

Bishop returned full of joy and hope, and not long after, together with

the Bishops of Madras and Victoria, joined in consecrating the missionary

Bishop of Labuan to the new field of work there opening. On the last

journey of his life he also visited Rangoon, and there consecrated the

church, finding the clergy hard at work and numerous converts.

During the year 1856 he had many attacks of illness, more or less severe;

and in December, in going across the room in haste, he struck himself

against a wooden screen, and was thrown down. His thigh was broken, and

his age was such that great fears for his life were entertained, but he

recovered, and was able to pray with, cheer, and comfort the many anxious

hearts at Calcutta during the dreadful days of the Indian mutiny of 1857,

when the churches he had consecrated were stained with the blood of the

worshippers.

But there was no cause for despondency in the attitude of the converts.

The districts where Christianity had been so widely diffused remained

tranquil, and the Christians in the cities where the mutineers were

raging did not apostatize; but, unless they could conceal themselves,

suffered with the whites. There was a great day of fasting and

humiliation appointed by him for the 24th of July, 1857.

That day Bishop Wilson preached his last sermon. The text was from

Habakkuk i. 12. "Art Thou not from everlasting, O Lord my God, mine Holy

One? we shall not die. O Lord, Thou hast ordained them for judgment;

and, O mighty God, Thou hast established them for correction." Calcutta

was then trembling under the tidings of the horrors of Cawnpore, the

death of Sir Henry Lawrence, and the siege of Lucknow; and no one knew

what peril might be the next. Slaughter seemed at the very gates, when

the old man stood forth to console and encourage, but yet to give warning

strong and clear that these frightful catastrophes were in great measure

the effect of our sins, our fostering of heathenism, our recognition of

caste, and were especially a judgment on the viciousness and irreligion

that had been the curse of English life in India. It was in open

Christianity alone that he beheld hope.

The day was observed by all the clergy, but the Governor-General for some

reason declined to make it official, and, only when the worst of the

danger was over, appointed the 4th of October as a fast-day. The Bishop

arranged the services, but was too unwell to attend them. This was the

beginning of his last illness; and though he held an ordination some

weeks later, these latter weeks were all sinking, and increasing

feebleness. A sea-voyage was twice attempted, but without success; and

on the 1st of January, 1858, his trembling hand wrote, "All going on

well, but I am dead almost.--D. C. Firm in hope."

Daniel Calcutta, whom these initials indicated, wrote these words at half-

past seven at night. By the same hour in the morning he had peacefully

passed to his rest.

One more Bishop of Calcutta we have since mourned; though the shortness

of his career was owing to accident, not disease or climate. But with

Daniel Wilson the see of Calcutta became established as a metropolitan

bishopric, and ceased to possess that character of gradual extension

which rendered its first holders necessarily missionaries. True, it

needs many subdivisions. Four Bishops are a scanty allowance for our

vast Indian Empire, and the see of Calcutta has a boundary scarce limited

to the north; but these are better days than when it included the Cape,

Australia, and New Zealand. The Bishop has now more to do with the

development of old missions than with the working of new ones; and there

can be no doubt that though there has been much of disappointment, and

the progress is very slow, yet progress there is. The older converts

form more and more of a nucleus, and although there is a large class who

hang about missions from interested motives, there are also multitudes of

quiet and contented villagers whose simplicity and remoteness shield them

from the notice of the travellers who sneer at Christianity and call

mission reports _couleur de rose_, because they have been taken in by

some cunning scamp against whom any missionary would have warned them.

The towns and the neighbourhood of troops are not favourable places for

observing the effects of Christianity. The work of the schools in the

great cities tells but very slowly. At present, out of a hundred boys

who go thither and receive the facts of Christianity intellectually, only

the minority are practically affected by it; and of these, some lose all

faith in their own system, but retain it outwardly in deference to their

families, while others try to take Christian morality without Christian

doctrine; and only one or two perhaps may be sincere and open believers.

But even if only one is gained, is not that an exceeding gain? It took

three hundred years of apostolic teaching to make the Roman Empire

Christian. Why should we "faint, and say 'tis vain," after one hundred

in India?