CH. XIII.] A MISSIONARY SERMON. 347 We had a pleasant voyage back to Bombay, landed at Mazagon, and reached the episcopal abode at about 8 P. M. Friday, December 11. . . . This evening I went to a meeting of nearly 300 educated natives, Hindus and Parsis, including Jugganath Sunkusett, the Hindu member of Council, Manockjee Cursetjee, and others, collected by Mr. James Wilson of the Church Missionary Society, who seems to be gaining as much influence among this class as his older and more famous namesake of the Free Kirk. To these I was requested to give a sketch of progress' in Bengal, and accordingly I proceeded to deliver a missionary sermon, and was so moved by the occasion that I extemporized with very tolerable fluency for an hour. I protested against the confusion between progress' and mere go-a-headism; said that, unless intellectual progress was accompanied by moral and spiritual progress, it involved a good deal of retrogression-a statement which I illustrated by a sketch of young Bengal, and by some of the facts already produced in my charge. From the need of a moral and spiritual element in all true progress, I went on to inquire how it should be supplied; said that if we believed in God at all, we must believe that He would reveal His will to man; examined the claims of Buddhism, Brahmanism, and Mahometanism to be the vehicles of such a revelation, and ended by trying to show that in Christianity alone is the moral and spiritual element contained, the answer given to the cry of conscience, and the true voice of God heard. Speeches were made in reply by four persons, all in the style of mingled flattery and liberalism to which one is accustomed in Bengal; but none, I fear, showing any depth of conviction, or intention of practical application; all probably illustrating the three first kinds of ground in the Parable of the Sower. The most real and most hopeful was by a Parsi bearing the truly Sassanian name of Ardeshir Framji. A large dinner-party at the Bishop's terminated the day. Saturday, December 12.-I breakfasted with Dr. Wilson, and saw many interesting curiosities, picked up in Egypt, Syria, and India. I happened to repeat a statement I had heard, that the Roman Catholics are far more trustworthy in business than the Parsis or Hindus, whereupon he remarked that the Mahometans were also superior to either of these two latter sects; and that he considered that Divine truth, in proportion as it is apprehended, though it is mixed up with a very defective system of religion, and even with much positive falsehood, influences the heart for good and raises the moral standard. In the evening we all went to the house of Jugganath Sunkusett, where was a grand exhibition of the schools of the 'Students' Literary and Scientific Society,' which is managed entirely by Hindus, and, in spite of its ridiculous title, does a really good work, for it educates about 450 girls. All these were assembled, and the first classes in Mahrathi and Guzerathi examined in grammar, geography, and singing. The girls looked simple and modest, and except for their vile nose-rings, were very prettily dressed; they seemed to answer well, and the institution is highly creditable to its promoters, and very hopeful. The secretary's report was good and sensible, and insisted on the importance of teaching the girls their own language as well as English, though it appeared that some of the committee are so unpatriotic as to wish the vernacular altogether abandoned. Sir Bartle Frere made a good speech, in which he showed the folly of such an opinion; and I followed with a harangue chiefly addressed to the clergy, of whom many were present, and intended to convince them that, in spite of the necessary absence of the Christian element from this movement, it ought to be encouraged, as a real sign of native vigour and energy, as removing from India the sin and scandal of deliberately leaving one whole sex in utter ignorance and degradation, and therefore as preparing the way of the Lord, and making rough places plain. Indeed, I think that if we abolish female infanticide and Suttee, and rejoice when the natives denounce them, without inquiring whether they do so on precisely Christian motives, so we ought to support any war which may be made on female abasement, even though it is not waged in the only way of which we can thoroughly approve. Sunday, December 13.-I preached twice, in the morning at Colaba, and in the evening at Byculla. This was the last day of a most interesting, exciting, enjoyable, and I think not profitless fortnight, in which every one, from the Governor downwards, has done his utmost to show us attention and make us happy, and during which the warm and hearty hospitality of our kind host and hostess has never flagged. Bombay is decidedly inferior to Calcutta in the article of CH. XIII.] CONFERENCE OF THE BISHOPS. 349 houses, and in its general effect as a city, but is beyond all comparison superior in natural beauty. In female education it is before it; I am told that women in the West of India never were so secluded as in Bengal, and that therefore their emancipation is an easier matter. In some points heathenism is more rampant here than with us: one sign is, that here almost every Hindu, including even Jugganath Sunkusett, has a dab of paint on his forehead to show his devotion to some particular god-a practice which young Bengal has altogether abandoned. Thus ended the visit to the second city of British India, and the foregoing extracts may seem inadequate representations of all that filled up the hours from early to late of many hot and trying days. Speaking generally, the inspection of schools entered largely into the programme of occupation, for they are in Bombay numerous and flourishing, and interesting from being supported and encouraged as much by the natives as by Christian societies, and directed to a great extent to the education of both sexes. Time was economised during the shorter sojourn of the Bishop of Madras to bring the three prelates into frequent conference, a practical result of which was the issue of pastorals to clergy and laity on the oft-repeated tale of India's wants, and England's duties towards her. In all ways it was a fortnight full of enjoyment to the Bishop, whose energies seemed to rise with each new demand upon them. A notice of this visit to Bombay would be incomplete without allusion to Dr. Wilson, the Free Kirk missionary, who, leading native education there as Dr. Duff has done in Calcutta, is also well versed in Oriental learning, and is a fountain of information on subjects connected with surrounding races and religions. Greatly to the Bishop's satisfaction, Dr. Wilson accompanied the expedition to the caves of Karli (to be noticed in a subsequent letter), and, by his extensive knowledge on a difficult subject, turned the sculpture of the grand rock-cut temple into a legible page of remote Indian history. Of these two, whose paths in life thus for a moment crossed, one has entered into his rest; to the other it has been accorded to reach the fortieth anniversary of his arrival in India, and to receive a public recognition of his sustained and enlightened labours for the spread of knowledge and of truth. The editor of an Indian periodical closes with the following true and kind words a notice of the event: The present writer well remembers the keen delight with which our late Bishop on his visit to Bombay explored the stores of information that Dr. Wilson had at his command. The sympathy between these two remarkable men was of no ordinary kind. They seemed to coalesce at once as kindred spirits, distinguished alike by intellectual vigour and by high moral purpose and philanthropic aims.' CH. XIV.] VISIT TO COLOMBO. 351 CHAPTER XIV. VOYAGE TO CEYLON-COLOMBO-TINNEVELLY-THE SYRIAN CHURCH LETTERS. THE Peninsular and Oriental mail steamer landed the Bishop's party in Ceylon late in December. Christmas was spent at Colombo with the Bishop and Mrs. Claughton; New Year's Day at Kandy, in the spacious country-house of the Governor, surrounded by its beautiful tropical garden. Eighteen days were devoted to the usual business, to the sight of much good work prospering in the hands of the Bishop of Colombo, and to visiting various places and objects of interest in a country widely differing from India in races, customs, and natural features. India was regained by a most unpleasing passage on board a most unpleasing steamer, in which the voyagers were tossed for double the necessary number of hours on the chopping waters of the Gulf of Manaar. This wretched vessel, misnamed the 'Pearl,' had brought out Dr. Livingstone to the mouth of the Zambesi, and it was suggested that the voyage might stand on record as among the hardships of his life. It may be a yet further conjecture whether experience of the ship's peculiarities did not facilitate on his part its ready sale to a former Governor of Ceylon for service as the official yacht of the island. The party landed at Tuticorin, in a southern corner of the great continent of India, and commenced at once the tour through the Christian districts of Tinnevelly, to which the Bishop had long looked forward as a valued privilege of his metropolitanship. Dr. Cald |