Many thanks for your letter, which I answer now, in order to express my regret and annoyance at the manner in which

was treated about St. Paul's School. I am very sorry that my desire for your intervention has turned out such a signal failure, and only gave you trouble without any corresponding fruit. I have taken an opportunity of expressing my objection to the selection of a treatise on regeneration as a textbook of Church doctrine, and my desire that persons of -'s sentiments should not be excluded from the diocese. I have written to Mr.- in much the same strain as my minute to the Governors. Enough of this, which has vexed me a good deal, and, I fear, troubled you. We had our Thanksgiving-day on July 28. It went off, I hope, well. The Governor-General and Council came to the Cathedral in state, and took part in the service drawn up by me, and listened with decorous attention to my discourse. The Thanksgiving-day ended by a great banquet at Government House, where I was struck by the genuine, heart-felt gratitude which Lady Canning expressed. I thought it at one time hardly possible,' she said, 'that I should see this day; that the war must have gone on far beyond the time when we should have quitted India.' With this exception nothing has been stirring: the hot weather and rains are always the dead time of the year. We want a Gladstone to restore our finances, and generally a little more vigour and speed of action might be infused into the councils of the State.

CH. V.]

HIS FIRST CHARGE.

95

CHAPTER V.

PRIMARY CHARGE-DEPARTURE

FROM CALCUTTA FOR THE PRIMARY VISITATIONS BENARES-CAWNPORE- LUCKNOW-AGRA-DELHI-AMBALA—

LAHORE-PESHAWUR-THE KYBER PASS-SEALKOTE-AMERICAN MISSIONARIES AND THE MAHARAJAH OF CASHMERE-AMRITSIR-KANGRA-VIEW OF THE SNOWY RANGE-SUNDAY MARCHING AND TRAVELLING-LAWRENCE ASYLUM AT SAUWAR-ARRIVAL AT SIMLA.

IN SEPTEMBER 1859, the Bishop gave his primary Charge. The weather was very hot and trying, and the visitation in Calcutta was spread over two days. On the first the service consisted of the Litany and a sermon from Dr. Kay, the principal of Bishop's College, and the Holy Communion; on the second day, after morning prayers, the Charge was delivered. It fell into three divisions, and treated of the relations of Government with native education, of the condition of missionary progress, of the state of the European population, and the demands upon its special ministers. The first of these topics was at that time invested with the highest interest. The connexion of Government with any Christian element in Native education was still a subject for controversy. The mutiny had revived the question with an agitation and excitement which had not subsided in India in 1859, and many earnest men, besides professed missionaries, were awaiting with anxiety the legislation which was to follow the Queen's proclamation, guaranteeing religious toleration towards all. The state of the native mind could not be a source of satisfactory contemplation to thoughtful observers. While some of the older educated Hindus were intrenching themselves in ancestral orthodoxy, a younger generation was breaking loose from all faith, and scepticism and atheism seemed

the only fruits reaped from the seed of Western culture cast upon India. On Christians who desired to read aright the signs of the times, the duty pressed more heavily than ever of claiming that a free course should be granted to the Bible; that, at least, it should be rendered not less accessible to Hindu students than the secular knowledge so freely offered. The Bishop, in surveying this great question, took his stand upon the recent language of the Government. He pointed out that far from being retrogressive the Secretary of State's Educational despatch of 1859, which was so severely criticised, confirmed that of 1854; that both permitted the presence of the Scriptures in the libraries of Government schools, and that neither placed any restrictions on giving instruction, if voluntarily sought in other hours than those devoted to regular school studies. He was satisfied that, this point once conceded and again ratified, there remained no barrier raised by the rulers of India between the 'seeker after God' and the teacher to whom he might care to turn. To his mind it afforded the one fair and practical escape out of that dilemma, one horn of which was an official ban upon the Bible in Government schools, the other being its compulsory introduction, regardless of the consideration that the teachers must be, for the most part, heathens. On this latter point the Bishop never changed his ground.

"When I consider' (so runs a passage in the Charge, written with all the acute personal feeling which this aspect of the question invariably excited in him) how great, whether for good or evil, is the influence of the living voice and the contact of mind with mind, and how disastrous in religious teaching is the effect of the suppressed sneer, the vacant air of indifference, the doubting or hostile comment, I must maintain that it were almost better for a Bengali not to know that the Word of God exists than to hear it explained by one who regards it as an

CH. V.]

GOVERNMENT ORDERS.

97

imposture and a delusion.' Such concession or compromise, great as it was, could at best be only partially satisfactory to one who viewed the divorce of religious from secular instruction as unnatural and calamitous at all times and for all races. He acquiesced in it as representing a period of transition, preparatory to that time, only then dimly foreshadowed, when Government, withdrawing from the direct work of education, would limit itself to aiding the efforts of voluntary associations. He accepted it for India as the one onward step then practicable, and he knew that it was capable of indefinite expansion at the hands of secular teachers who were able and really religious men.

As a matter of fact, the principles proclaimed by Government were more liberal than its practice. Orders issued by the late Court of Directors, strangely and needlessly timid, were still unrepealed, and in India official caution evinced such distrust of the voluntary Bible classes in Government buildings, that the Bishop had to make yet again a strenuous and successful appeal in their behalf to the Governor-General. On the whole, however, the educational policy at that time was one to which he could give in his adhesion, and with which he could co-operate hopefully. To make others share this feeling was one aim of the Charge. He brought argument and calm reasoning to bear upon a topic which had often been discussed with prejudice and impatience, and in doing so he occupied that position of a peacemaker which was equally in accordance with his office and his own personal character. The language in which he pleaded for fairness and moderation was too temperate to satisfy some ardent minds; but it won for him, in the early months of his Indian life, much confidence from Government and from many others also, who accepted it at the time and were content to be guided by it in after years. The necessity for such arbitration has now almost if not wholly disappeared, but ten years ago it was not so. An incident

H

hereafter to be noticed will show that the embers of distrust were still smouldering. While irritation remained, the Bishop found his task in seeking to allay it and in mediating between parties severed far more by mutual misunderstanding than by any antagonism of principles. In the endeavour to raise men's minds to a wider and more impartial contemplation of a much debated subject, he thus summed up a long analysis of it :

I cannot but express a wish that the word neutrality could be dropped in describing the relations of the British Government to religion. It may be said that a word is not of much consequence; and no doubt some word is necessary to express the facts that the state stands aloof from missionary enterprises, and that, in the language of the Queen's proclamation, 'none shall be in anywise favoured, none molested or disquieted by reason of their religious faith or observances, but that all shall alike enjoy the equal and impartial protection of the law." But the word neutrality (which is avoided in the proclamation) is liable to perpetual misconstruction, and has received it from certain Madras petitioners. Nor can I ever hear it without thinking of our Lord's warning, 'He that is not with me is against me.' It is impossible for any thoughtful man to be really indifferent to the contest between two such principles as Christianity and Heathenism. Nor, in truth, can we claim to have been so when we have taken upon ourselves to decide that certain parts of the Hindu system are immoral, and to prohibit them by law. Passing from the word to the principle intended to be expressed by it, there must arise, from the anomaly of a Christian Government ruling over a non-Christian population, a thousand delicate questions as to the distinction between the private and public capacity of state officers, and as to the acts which are lawful in one character and unlawful in the other. On these multifarious difficulties I cannot enter further than to remind you that we must not be hasty in censuring individual decisions; for the task which our rulers have before them in this matter is one demanding judgment, firmness, and candour in an unusual degree. We must all acknowledge the principle of official non-intervention; coercion and favouritism are alike unchristian; our heathen fellow-subjects have an undeniable