CH. XVI.]

GOVERNMENT OF BISHOP'S COLLEGE.

427

as students, and this must always be a difficulty in extending the circle from which Bishop's College is to draw its supplies. It is true that the lower provinces ought to supply plenty of students, but then, unfortunately, the College is practically almost limited to the missions of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel. Now, the missions of the Society in Bengal, except Mr. Driberg's, are not very flourishing nor numerous, so that the students cannot be numerous either. This is one of the main reasons why I have advocated the separation of the College from the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel-its independent endowment, and the formation of a separate trust, with the Bishop as visitor. It strikes me, that by making the College really diocesan, instead of keeping it attached to one particular Society, a large constituency would arise, from which its students might be drawn; more persons would be interested in it, its influence extended, and its usefulness increased. And I believe the only complete and satisfactory way of doing this, would be to raise a large sum by way of endowment, to hand this and the College itself over to a Board of Trustees (of whom the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel should nominate a portion), to give to this Board or to the Bishop the nomination of the Principal, and to leave the College to work out its destinies in India without any interference from England. Should this be considered too sweeping a measure, a less satisfactory but tolerably hopeful form of the same general plan would be that the Society should be trustees of the College and its property, but that there should be a separate endowment, large enough to pay all College expenses, including salaries of Principal and tutors, administered, together with the whole discipline of the place, by the College Council, under the Bishop as visitor, the Society merely receiving an annual report of the state of the College and the use made of the money. To leave the men sent out to teach and rule the College as much as possible to their own unfettered judgment, controlled by that of the Bishop as their natural head, seems to me the best way of securing their undivided energies, and throwing them on their own resources for success. The committee of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in London is too distant, and generally too little acquainted with facts, to be an efficient governing body.

But, before all things, the great thing now to be desired is the appointment of a Principal.* The vacancy has now continued for a long time, and its longer continuance is hardly fair to Mr., and must be injurious to the College. Send out a good active man with some ideas' in his head, and his judgment and opinions, formed on the spot, will be worth many reports of sub-committees. Let him come out with the report and the proposal for endowing the College before him, and then, with his help, plans can be formed on the spot and carried out with the necessary assistance from home.

I hope that you will not think that my desire to make the College more or less independent of the Society rises from any distrust of the latter, or from insensibility to the great services rendered by it to the College and the diocese. With the Society I always have heartily co-operated, and always hope to do so; but I think freedom and local government essential to a place of education, and that rules and regulations framed without local knowledge must be theoretical and are often mistaken.

* Dr. Kay resigned his post at Bishop's College early in 1866, but he had left India, from ill-health, eighteen months before. Hence the discharge of the work of the office by an acting Principal had been, as stated in the text, of long duration.

CB. XVII.]

LIFE IN CALCUTTA.

429

CHAPTER XVII.

RESIDENCE IN CALCUTTA OF 1864--AFFAIRS AT SIMLA-MEMORIAL SCHOOL AT JUTOG-PRESBYTERIAN MOVEMENT-THE BISHOP VISITS SIMLARESUMES VISITATIONS AS FAR AS LAHORE-RETURNS TO CALCUTTALETTERS.

ALTHOUGH the vigorous and varied work which an earlier chapter has related went far to dispel the monotony of the hot months of 1864, many clouds hung over the residence in Calcutta during that year. There were deaths, some very sudden, others very mournful (especially amongst the latter, that of Mr. Burn at Nainee Tal, in the Himalayas), which cast dark shadows round the Bishop's path. One trouble, too, which touched him very closely, was my departure for England, necessitated by broken health, and with me, of the child also, who could not be left behind. The Bishop called the nine months of our absence his year of desolation;' and I never saw him so cast down as at the parting on board the steamer, when we were homeward-bound to see friends, and, above all, the boys, after five years of separation, while his only prospect was a return to the deserted house, to many weeks of most trying heat, and to daily cares and labours, uncheered by any remnant of family life, prized by him as the well-spring of his truest earthly joys. He was provided with the best security for his comfort that was possible, in the presence of Mr. Cowie (now Bishop of Auckland), as his chaplain, who to bright cheerfulness and untiring energy added a real attachment to the Bishop. In truth, the Bishop stood in need of much watchful care. As work grew under his hands he

withdrew more and more from any share in domestic or personal arrangements; and, except that he retained a careful supervision over his library, and exercised a close scrutiny over his banker's book and private finances, he renounced all concerns with the lesser, more practical details of life's business. It was not that he was lazy or luxurious; but a sense of dependence upon others increased gradually, almost unconsciously, upon him, and he was like a child in his reliance upon those about him for the arrangements, or comforts, or even the safeguards of his life. His even and unselfish temper, and the grace of character, in which affectionate ease was blended with much quiet dignity, made such ministrations a labour of love on the part of those who stood to him in the close and confidential relations of domestic chaplains, although, as he said, 'he knew they often sacrificed their comfort and convenience for his.'

In August he prepared to go forth again on visitation. The sharp illness of the preceding year was a warning that the season of extreme damp after the first rains had better be avoided, and matters of business had arisen to sound a distinct call for his presence at Simla. One point under consideration was a fresh local habitation for the Memorial School, carried on at that time at Jutog, where it had first been placed, and the Bishop's personal help was much desired to decide the question of a fresh site. Letters further on will help to explain the circumstances of this matter, and also of another which was producing much local excitement. The latter referred to a request he received while still in Calcutta, that the Church at Simla might be used for a Presbyterian service. The movement was got up by subordinate officials closely connected with the Government, and being supported by a certain number of members of the Church of England, was not wholly devoid of a sectarian character. The Bishop was thoroughly vexed and troubled by the

CH. XVII.] NEED OF HIS PRESENCE AT SIMLA.

431

request. It was a clear encroachment upon the limits within which the loan of the churches had received his own sanction and that of the Government; it placed him in the ungracious position of being compelled to refuse a favour for which there was so far a plea that the church accommodation and ordinary services were insufficient for the needs of a station which was crowded with the season residents; and it revived, under a new and annoying aspect, the vexed question of 1860, which had then included the whole subject of indiscriminate intercommunion in church worship. The Bishop entirely upheld in theory the principle that in India, of all countries, the Christian Church should exhibit her unity rather than her divisions, and he carried out the theory in practice so far as he was able; but beyond a certain point he was always met by the fact that the Church intrusted to his keeping was, in India as in England, established' in law and order, prescribing limits to her comprehensiveness which he could not pass. On the present occasion he could not have granted the request without running counter to the policy of four years before. But that policy had been deliberately formed on arguments forcible and satisfactory to his own mind; and a somewhat general laxity of ecclesiastical feeling in the country during intervening years had tended to confirm him in it. He was fully aware how easily a liberality capable of conciliating other communions might be interpreted as undue laxity, and alienate Churchmen; he maintained that to administer the Church of England in behalf at once of her own adherents and of Dissenters was an impossible task, and this conviction had been forced upon him as years went on, quite as much by the obligations and responsibility of his office, as by any personal feeling engendered by doctrinal differences. To a correspondent he wrote about this time: I am quite willing not only to co-operate with Dissenters on common grounds, and to surrender all exclusive